Living in the today

We're often told that we should live each day as if it were our last, for me though, it's even more simple than that. It's about living in the today, rather than waiting for tomorrow. Don't get me wrong, it's lovely having things to look forward to and goals to work towards. But it's all too easy to spend far too much time waiting for things.

In many ways, I've spent much of my life doing that, even as a child; waiting for Christmas, waiting for birthdays, waiting for holidays. Often with these things though, the anticipation of something is as good as (or sometimes even better) as the thing that you're waiting for. No matter how much you want something for Christmas, the brightly wrapped parcel is always more exciting than the actual thing. (Apart from maybe my kindle, that was just as exciting once I'd opened it.)

These days I find myself thinking things like, 'it will be so nice once the bathroom is refitted' or 'in a year or so we might get the garden sorted and won't that be lovely' and the classic 'I can't wait to go home to the UK and see everyone'. All of that is fine of course, there's no reason why you shouldn't look forward to things, but the problem is, that often when you are looking forward to something, you loose sight of what is happening now.

The problem is that not only do we not know what's around the corner and if these things that we're looking forward to ever happen, but also while we're waiting for something we don't really appreciate what is happening in the hear and now. Blink and you'll miss the break-a-neck speed your children are growing up at.

Stop to enjoy the view; enjoy the journey.

To look at it in a slightly different way, how many times have you read a book that you just can't put down? You have to keep reading, trying to find out what's going to happen and how it's going to end, but of course once you get there, there's that horrible empty feeling because it's all over. Try as I might I can't make those books go slower, and enjoy every word. (I'm a greedy reader, I have to know it all now.) But I don't want life to be the same, yes there are lots of things to look forward to, but I'm going to make a real effort to really enjoy the journey, make sure that I'm living in the today.

Is that what you call music?

I have a very clear memory of being five years old and being asked what I wanted for Christmas. I thought for a minute or two and then announced that as I was getting older now, it was probably about time I had some pop music. That Christmas I got the very first Now album, Now that's what I call music. It was a double LP, a real record. I had my grandparents old stereo as they were updating theirs.  As I got a bit older I got more records, then some tapes and at the weekend I'd listen to the top 40 on radio one and tape my favourite tracks.

I actually had three more Now albums, I was given Now 2 (also on vinyl) and then I had Now 12 (which had such classics as Doctorin' the Tardis by the Timelords, Push it by Salt and Pepper and I think we're alone now by Tiffany) and Now 23 both on double cassette, which was a little annoying as they wouldn't fit into the tape holder thing I had. These days the Now series has moved on quite a bit and in the UK they're up to Now 89 and any number of other Now compilations, (dance, Disney and Christmas to name just a few).

Kai has never really shown much interest in music, other than mentioning if he likes or doesn't like something that I'm listening to. This Christmas though, we got him a CD player for his room. Now that he has his own room, we thought that he might like to have one, especially as he likes to listen to books on CD. I thought that he might like some music to listen to too. The obvious choice seemed to be one of the Now CDs. Here in New Zealand, they haven't got quite so high in numbers, so it was Now 46.

I still have my Now 1, somewhere, back in the UK. I wonder in years to come if Kai will still have his first CD? I suspect that when he has children of his own, they probably won't know what CDs are any more, the same way that my children don't really know what records or even tapes are. Even so, my taste in music may have changed and developed over time, but I still look back fondly on that first taste of pop music

Never a crossword

If someone asks me what I do in my spare time, my stock standard response is that I don't have any spare time. I have four children and run a business; how am I going to have spare time. Of course this isn't really true. I suppose I think that because I remember spare time as being hours spent lounging about, reading books, (usually when I should have been doing something else admittedly) but those days are long gone. These days, 'spare time' activities are stuffed into grabbed seconds between other tasks.

I read, a lot. I shouldn't have time to get through the amount of books I consume, but that doesn't seem to stop me. Having the ability to take a book with me anywhere helps. I can read on my kindle, and then later read a bit of the same book on my phone. I have also been known, (on quite a regular basis if I'm honest) to read a page or two while making breakfast, or packing lunches, or even on a quick loo visit. Sometimes those books you can't put down, really are books you can't put down.

These days my spare time fillers tend to be reading, writing, and watching a bit of TV. I do sew and knit, but not nearly as much as I would like or used to. I suppose that those hobbies may experience a bit of a renaissance if ever I do manage to reclaim some real spare time. A girl can always dream.

Something I do love doing though, is puzzles. I spent most of my labour with both of the boys with a pen and puzzle book in hand. The girls' were a little bit too fast for me to have much chance, but I indulged afterwards, in the hospital. I like logic puzzles, a lot, crosswords are good too. Particularly cryptic ones. Not that I'm as good at them as I'd like to be, but I am getting better. I suppose that it's all part of a love of language and words, the best cryptic clues are those that make you smile when you suddenly get them. Almost like a clever little joke that you really have to think about in order to get.

Even though I don't have a lot of time for these things, I think that it's probably important to take time to actually do something for the sake of it, just for fun and relaxation. Using your brain to solve something, or escape to another place. It's so easy to get bogged down in the day to day trudge of life, and spending some time on something that's just for you can really help, Using crosswords (and my other hobbies) helps to ensure that there are fewer cross words spoken in our house. I sometimes feel guilty if I take a few minutes for something that doesn't really matter, or achieve anything, but of course, that isn't true. It does achieve a lot, it helps me feel good and more relaxed.

Dreaming of Castles

Homesickness is a funny thing, these days, after living here for over six years, it isn't an all consuming need to be at home. Feeling homesick just makes itself known, every now and again, without interrupting my day to day life, without getting in the way of what I'm doing. Every so often, I get a sudden flash that brings up somewhere from home so vividly, just for a second. There's no real reason for it, nothing that seems to have triggered it, but for just a second I'm walking down the street in Uttoxeter, or shopping in Derby, or walking down a street in Swad. It doesn't even have to be somewhere that I know that well, in fact the place I know the best, home home, very rarely makes an appearance in this way. Other times, I find myself missing a thing, rather than a place from home. Admittedly, usually these things are usually edible, which is why the Christmas gift full of Swizzles sweets from my Brother this year, was so fantastic.

Then there's a different kind of homesickness, a non-specific homesickness that makes me just want to be there. I find myself missing something random, that you just don't get over here. Like castles. I really miss castles. That makes it sound a bit like I spent most of my time in one (sadly not), but even so, back home, I did spent a fair amount of time in or near them. Of course there are lots of lovely things to do over here, just the other day the kids and I had a great time on the beach, but right now, I really want to visit a castle.

Part of this castle love comes down to the fact that I am a historian, at least that's what my degree was in, and I still love history in all it's many forms. I've always been a medievalist at heart, and just love the middle ages, which is of course serious castle time. Of course, sadly, most castles now are in ruins, but the chance to wander around them and dream about what was once there, what happened there, and the way life was...... Actually, if I'm honest, I find castle ruins far more interesting than ones that are more complete.

I grew up to a number of different castles, the one a Tutbury being hugely important at one time or another for various reasons, was one that I have visited many many times, and always been a favourite. Then of course, other than the local ones, were the many that we visited when on holidays, all around England, a bit of Scotland and of course Wales, which has heaps of castles. In fact I actually started making a board on pinterest of some of my favourite castles. (As you do.)

I do miss them though, I'd love to go and spend an hour or so with the kids exploring the ruins of a castle, climbing the tower and seeing the view, imagining the people who lived there. Looking for secret tunnels and passage ways, pepping out through the cross-shaped windows that are cut deep in to the walls. It's not going to happen though, at least at the moment, because I live in a country that doesn't have castles (and before anyone says Larnach, it might call itself a castle, but it isn't, at all, although it's a nice place to visit). So in the mean time I'll have to keep dreaming of castles and maybe building my own on the beach out of sand.

Not planning to fail

When it comes to writing, planning has never been my forte. At least formal, write it down before you start planning hasn't. With my writing goals for this year, I'm really going to have to address that, as I'm sure that the chances of writing something even vaguely coherent without a proper plan are next to zero.

It's not that I don't have a plan, what tends to happen when I'm writing here is that I have a detailed plan with interesting little phrases and pieces of information all fully formed. Sadly it's always in my head and usually comes to me when I'm not really in a position to write. For example, the out line for this particular blog post occurred to me the night before last while I was getting ready for bed, more specifically while I was on the loo. I usually work on these plans for a little while, give them a little polish and then as soon as I am able, write it up. Usually a day or so later, by which time of course, my little plan has got all confused and I come up with something slightly garbled and a good deal less cohesive. What I really really need to do, is start making notes and commit the planning process to paper so that I can keep track of it later, when I can write.

At school one of my English teachers was fond of saying "If you fail to plan, plan to fail." We were encouraged to write plans for all of our essays, and even told that if we ran out of time in an exam, but had an essay plan, they might even give us credit for it. My essay plans tended to look like this:

Intro - current plan - school plan - why need to plan - conclusion

I very much doubt that anyone would have given me any kind of credit for that. It served its purpose in the sense that I knew what I wanted to write about in each paragraph, but I doubt anyone else could have gained anything from it. I continued in the same way at University and, to a greater or lesser degree, it worked. Of course, the reason for that, may have simply been that the real plan, the one in my head, was committed to paper, in the form of the essay, before I could loose track of it. I suspect that I used something a little more sophisticated for my dissertation, but I honestly can't remember.

From here on in, if I really am going to give this book writing lark a go, I will have to start planning. A story needs a structure and direction to get it from the start, through the various plot twists and turns to the end. I need to map out my route and try not to wander off too much into random tracks and lanes that lead away from my destination. It might take me some time to get to grips with that.

My plan is to start making myself plan even smaller things, like this blog. I'm not sure that it will make much difference with something small like this, and I may still ramble on for some time, but hopefully it will get me into the habit of planning. After all, I'm not planning to fail.