Hi readers, are you looking forward to the clocks going forward on Sunday? I am, because it means I can attempt after-work walks... I'm not afraid of the dark or anything, I'm just programmed for lounging on the sofa when the sun goes down.
I subscribe to the idea that on average life is 90% 'normal' and 10% 'weird'. The everyday routines, timetables, plans, queues, clocks, the things that are essential to make up the structure of normality of our world and society. Bricks, lines, forms, recipes, rules, traffic lights, gravity and the royal mint. We all need normal.
But it's the odd abnormal weird bits that make it really alive. Complimentary to the the normal. You may not think you need this stuff. But you do. Curly chips, Autism, comic relief, mould, northern lights, comfortably numb, gunpowder, evolution, pooh sticks, brightly coloured stick-on (computer monitors) fluff monsters and Will I Am . Have you ever noticed how a bridge looks so much nicer with a little corrosion? The hundreds of pigeons that come to bread-throwers but it's the pigeon with the one gammy leg that catches our eye. All the silver, blue and white cars but the van at the end of the street painted in red and orange flames that sticks out and cheers us up.
Recently, at an Indian restaurant, Alison and I saw a little old lady wheel in a shopping trolley. (Let's call her Mary for now). Mary is obviously known by the restauranteur as she is seated a a table in the corner. Mary asks for a cup of tea. Then she proceeds to get several bags out of the trolley which contain packs of cards, paper, pens and envelopes etc. She spreads stuff over the entire table. It becomes clear to us that Mary has lost some of the plot. A few waiters ask is she ok. I think they just felt sorry for her. Mary told everyone who asked that she had lost a letter and now had to rewrite it. She then writes a letter, drinks her tea, and then gathers her stuff, pays and goes. The sad thing is she loses and rewrites a letter every week at the same table. There was a funny bit when Mary spoke to one of the Indian waiters and said "I know you can't understand everything I'm saying but...." Proper old school ignorance-racism. Hehe and the waiter was probably at some university doing an English degree. There were other "normal" diners but I don't remember much about them. We enjoyed the meal more because of the weird.
We don't realise it but all need weird as well as normal to get 100% out of life.
Another weird thing... Snow. No two flakes the same. And this month the coldest and snowiest March on record for the UK. Freak weather... These bitter bone-chiller winds certainly let you know that you are alive!
