Loving this post! I think one of the most favorite things that inspires me is seeing all the odd things in life that are unusual or not the usual unfolding or to think about things in a different way. This piece was that for me. The man with a dog, the cat in the boat (my fav), the playground and the images and sounds that are called when I read it in your piece, the idea of play and seeing you do it. Bravo! "As I crossed the footbridge over the canal, I noticed a cat on the prow of a narrow boat. The cat was propped against the edge of the boat, gazing out at the passersby. Gazing out at me. I am, as my friends with cats know, no cat lover. I’ve learnt that it’s true that if you treat ’em mean, or at least with indifference, it keeps ’em keen. But we had a moment of communion. I am almost sure that that cat saw my soul." xx
Thank you so much for this, Amanda. The 99% to 1% ratio is daunting! A daily walk in a park sounds like an excellent prescription for pretty much everything…
This is lovely, Christina! Yes! I have to get outdoors and just look around me to reset, usually on a daily dog walk. Being part of a community choir is immersive and fun. Otherwise: exercise, telly, sharing a meal. Playing Duplo indoors with a grandchild, or seeing what they discover when they're outside. It's a tonic how young children are unselfconsciously enthusiastic about absolutely everything.
What a gorgeous response! Thank you, Wendy. The community choir sounds particularly life-enhancing. I've just come back from an operatic fund-raising event and we all had to sing at the end. Wonderful! I think I also need to find some small children to be around. Unselfconscious enthusiasm sounds like just the tonic we all need.
Play? What do I play at? Very good question and no answer comes immediately to mind.
Younger, I played some football, cricket, basketball. My favourite (and accurate) description of the standard I played at is ‘enthusiastic mediocrity’. On hearing this, a kind soul once reassured me that ‘mediocre isn’t bad’. Bad or not, I loved it at the time.
There is a familiar stereotype regarding my former profession. And that is we all play golf ‘all the time’. It is a cheap and recurring slur used by the understandably disgruntled and the right-wing tabloids in response to there being so few NHS appointments available. The alleged reason being that the doctors are all playing golf all the time. (At which point I’m uncomfortably aware that I might mention the dangers associated with certain personalities that play golf all the time, especially at a whole nation’s expense.)
This stereotype is so intense it can blind people. In the months leading to my first retirement, so many punters (yes that’s what they are in this part of the world at least) asked me the rhetorical ‘what are you going to do when you retire? Play golf all the time?’ So, I made an A4 laminated notice stating in big letters ‘I do not play golf’. I put it on the wall behind my left shoulder so it could not be not seen.
Did it stop the question? Of course not. But it did mean I didn’t need to explain. Right index finger pointed over my left shoulder provided the answer.
Maybe that was play. I did enjoy it.
For the record, so there is no doubt, I hate golf.
I know plenty of people who like to play board games. I don’t. They are all probably fed up of hearing me ‘explain’ that they are called ‘bored’ games for a reason.
And don’t get me started on after dinner charades. What bloody awful wizard fun. Although, if I may say, that after a glass or two, I am quite good at it.
Rather than play I suspect my creativity comes from tinkering. Car oil changes. Brake fluid flushes, alternator replacement type of thing. In the house, replacing radiator valves or even whole radiators. Helping rewire the lad’s very old and rundown house was a major tinker. As was digging down deep, and cutting into and repairing a rain water drain, blocked since build by a brick. Almost losing a finger from the kick back from the jammed angle grinder was not fun. Tip – do not tinker with angle grinders. Certainly, do not play with them.
And the previously mentioned fountain pens. Teaching myself to be a nibsmith. Yes, there is such a thing.
Watches are a thing too. For me at least. We love to travel to the Jura valley and visit the lovely towns like Chaux de Fonds and Le Locle. Quiet unassuming beautiful places. Have lunch in the local cafes listening to the locals chatting in French. Playing with the idea (fantasy) of living there and working as a watch maker in one of the many luxury brand ‘manufactures’ to be found in the area.
If anyone should feel watches are boring, I dare them to do the Zenith factory tour. There they will see and hear the story of how one man’s stubborn defiance saved the company. Zenith (and probably Rolex) have everything to thank the late Charles Vermot for.
Perhaps his tale is allegorical for where we may be heading.
The quartz watch thing happened. Sales of mechanical watches were plummeting. An unrelated USA electronics company by the same name purchased the Swiss Zenith. Some bright sparks at the Chicago based Zenith Radio Company decreed that mechanical watches were to be no more. A command was sent to Le Locle – to destroy all the high precision machinery used to make the components of the watches, not least the award winning, highly accurate El Primero movement. Sheer arrogant Trans-Atlantic madness intended to destroy part of over a century of European watch making history.
Without further detail, Charles Vermot’s courage in defying the order and hiding the equipment enabled Zenith years later to years throw off the shackles, recover, and remain a high-quality luxury mechanical watch brand. Two fingers to the USA paid off.
Ah, I have digressed. And waffled.
And maybe that’s what I play at. Digressing and waffling.
Wow, Glyn, I think this is the longest response I've ever had to a piece! And extremely interesting. I think there's a lot to be said for "enthusiastic mediocrity". That covers a broad range of my interests. Perhaps as soon as you're brilliant at something it's not exactly a hobby. (Such an English concept, a hobby, or at least I assume it is.)
You strike me as someone with an exceptionally broad range of interests. Which pretty much guarantees that life is never boring. I'm sorry to hear about the angle grinder but certainly know first-hand the satisfaction one can get from turning a mess into something beautiful, or at least not a mess. Anthony spends a lot of his time tinkering round the house. I also tinker, though not necessarily in useful or productive ways. And "waffling", which we can also call writing, is, of course, the business. Literally, but also metaphorically.
Loving this post! I think one of the most favorite things that inspires me is seeing all the odd things in life that are unusual or not the usual unfolding or to think about things in a different way. This piece was that for me. The man with a dog, the cat in the boat (my fav), the playground and the images and sounds that are called when I read it in your piece, the idea of play and seeing you do it. Bravo! "As I crossed the footbridge over the canal, I noticed a cat on the prow of a narrow boat. The cat was propped against the edge of the boat, gazing out at the passersby. Gazing out at me. I am, as my friends with cats know, no cat lover. I’ve learnt that it’s true that if you treat ’em mean, or at least with indifference, it keeps ’em keen. But we had a moment of communion. I am almost sure that that cat saw my soul." xx
What a delightful response! Thank you so much, Rhaine. I’m thrilled. Xx
Yes! At its best, writing is just like playing. The other 99% on the other hand...
Lovely piece. I too never know what I think until I write it down, and I need to walk in a park every single day to do this.
Thank you so much for this, Amanda. The 99% to 1% ratio is daunting! A daily walk in a park sounds like an excellent prescription for pretty much everything…
This is lovely, Christina! Yes! I have to get outdoors and just look around me to reset, usually on a daily dog walk. Being part of a community choir is immersive and fun. Otherwise: exercise, telly, sharing a meal. Playing Duplo indoors with a grandchild, or seeing what they discover when they're outside. It's a tonic how young children are unselfconsciously enthusiastic about absolutely everything.
What a gorgeous response! Thank you, Wendy. The community choir sounds particularly life-enhancing. I've just come back from an operatic fund-raising event and we all had to sing at the end. Wonderful! I think I also need to find some small children to be around. Unselfconscious enthusiasm sounds like just the tonic we all need.
Singing is so good for body and soul. Post-fundraising singalong sounds a great idea.
Very good.
Play? What do I play at? Very good question and no answer comes immediately to mind.
Younger, I played some football, cricket, basketball. My favourite (and accurate) description of the standard I played at is ‘enthusiastic mediocrity’. On hearing this, a kind soul once reassured me that ‘mediocre isn’t bad’. Bad or not, I loved it at the time.
There is a familiar stereotype regarding my former profession. And that is we all play golf ‘all the time’. It is a cheap and recurring slur used by the understandably disgruntled and the right-wing tabloids in response to there being so few NHS appointments available. The alleged reason being that the doctors are all playing golf all the time. (At which point I’m uncomfortably aware that I might mention the dangers associated with certain personalities that play golf all the time, especially at a whole nation’s expense.)
This stereotype is so intense it can blind people. In the months leading to my first retirement, so many punters (yes that’s what they are in this part of the world at least) asked me the rhetorical ‘what are you going to do when you retire? Play golf all the time?’ So, I made an A4 laminated notice stating in big letters ‘I do not play golf’. I put it on the wall behind my left shoulder so it could not be not seen.
Did it stop the question? Of course not. But it did mean I didn’t need to explain. Right index finger pointed over my left shoulder provided the answer.
Maybe that was play. I did enjoy it.
For the record, so there is no doubt, I hate golf.
I know plenty of people who like to play board games. I don’t. They are all probably fed up of hearing me ‘explain’ that they are called ‘bored’ games for a reason.
And don’t get me started on after dinner charades. What bloody awful wizard fun. Although, if I may say, that after a glass or two, I am quite good at it.
Rather than play I suspect my creativity comes from tinkering. Car oil changes. Brake fluid flushes, alternator replacement type of thing. In the house, replacing radiator valves or even whole radiators. Helping rewire the lad’s very old and rundown house was a major tinker. As was digging down deep, and cutting into and repairing a rain water drain, blocked since build by a brick. Almost losing a finger from the kick back from the jammed angle grinder was not fun. Tip – do not tinker with angle grinders. Certainly, do not play with them.
And the previously mentioned fountain pens. Teaching myself to be a nibsmith. Yes, there is such a thing.
Watches are a thing too. For me at least. We love to travel to the Jura valley and visit the lovely towns like Chaux de Fonds and Le Locle. Quiet unassuming beautiful places. Have lunch in the local cafes listening to the locals chatting in French. Playing with the idea (fantasy) of living there and working as a watch maker in one of the many luxury brand ‘manufactures’ to be found in the area.
If anyone should feel watches are boring, I dare them to do the Zenith factory tour. There they will see and hear the story of how one man’s stubborn defiance saved the company. Zenith (and probably Rolex) have everything to thank the late Charles Vermot for.
Perhaps his tale is allegorical for where we may be heading.
The quartz watch thing happened. Sales of mechanical watches were plummeting. An unrelated USA electronics company by the same name purchased the Swiss Zenith. Some bright sparks at the Chicago based Zenith Radio Company decreed that mechanical watches were to be no more. A command was sent to Le Locle – to destroy all the high precision machinery used to make the components of the watches, not least the award winning, highly accurate El Primero movement. Sheer arrogant Trans-Atlantic madness intended to destroy part of over a century of European watch making history.
Without further detail, Charles Vermot’s courage in defying the order and hiding the equipment enabled Zenith years later to years throw off the shackles, recover, and remain a high-quality luxury mechanical watch brand. Two fingers to the USA paid off.
Ah, I have digressed. And waffled.
And maybe that’s what I play at. Digressing and waffling.
Wow, Glyn, I think this is the longest response I've ever had to a piece! And extremely interesting. I think there's a lot to be said for "enthusiastic mediocrity". That covers a broad range of my interests. Perhaps as soon as you're brilliant at something it's not exactly a hobby. (Such an English concept, a hobby, or at least I assume it is.)
You strike me as someone with an exceptionally broad range of interests. Which pretty much guarantees that life is never boring. I'm sorry to hear about the angle grinder but certainly know first-hand the satisfaction one can get from turning a mess into something beautiful, or at least not a mess. Anthony spends a lot of his time tinkering round the house. I also tinker, though not necessarily in useful or productive ways. And "waffling", which we can also call writing, is, of course, the business. Literally, but also metaphorically.
I hope you're enjoying the sunshine today.
I try to talk to magpies for fun. Sometimes they sing back to me. Nothing quite like that sort of response.
How wonderful! Anthony sings to blackbirds. It's very sweet.
Loved this. And now want to go to the swings with you!
Thank you so much. I'd love that! We'd probably have to go at dead of night. Failing that, a coffee some time?
😺