Busy Making Other Plans

I have nothing but admiration for people who manage to knock out 250 words on this, that or anything every single day. Of course many of them have a specific subject matter to work with, or a project to relate the progress of, or a round-the-world-adventure to irritate their less intrepid friends with the details of.

I am not haggling with a Nepalese craftsman in the foothills of the Himalayas this week. Nor am I getting married, nor converting a Vauxhall Chevette into a tank.

I don't have a muse. Maybe that's the problem. I have a lawn I'm trying to regrow, but the progress of this undertaking wouldn't make for ripping reading, I suspect.

Reseeded (again). Noticed lady blackbird consuming seed.

Reseeded (again). Scattered fine layer of compost over seeds.

Green shoots appearing! Green shoots! Walt Whitman can kiss my plump English arse - green shoots are visible!

I'll be thirty-six next week, meaning that adulthood has caught up with childhood in terms of temporal extent. And you'd have thought that in the second half of my life thus far, having got all that growing out of the way, the sloshing of hormones having calmed to a mere ripple, I'd be well-set to consider what to do next. To have a plan of action. Goals, dreams, realistic or unachievable. To regard the future with a clear eye. But always, instead, when the question pops up, unasked-for, yet fully-formed - "What next?" - I find that I still have no answer.

Good Friday

It's my father's sixty-eighth birthday. He was a beautiful, generous man, who believed in relativity and the fundamental decency of humankind. He's been dead a while now, and I try not to think about him too often, so great is the gap that he left. I am still the luckiest boy alive to have been loved and raised by such an ordinary, warm-hearted fellow. Snot and tears prevent me writing more, but there's not much more to say. Imagine your ideal best friend and then recast him as your father. That's how privileged I was.

Summoner's Tale

Lauren Laverne came in to the shop today, with her mum and dad. She's surprisingly tall. The last time I saw her in the flesh she was still fronting Kenickie who were supporting Ash at the Astoria and I don't remember her being particularly Amazonian. That was ten years ago, I'd guess, and she doesn't look any older. My daughter likes her because Auntie LaLa bought her a Christmas present - an electronic toy which my wife won on her radio show - and because she's a familiar voice, every morning. I mention all of this only because she is "the lady on the radio" mentioned in the previous post on this blog.

I'm starting to believe that the shop is built on a paranormal hot-spot, an intersection of lay lines perhaps, because this is not the first time this kind of thing has happened.

One morning my colleague Paul and I were reflecting on the inevitably of a son turning into his father. That afternoon a TV producer, scouting locations, came in and asked if he could film in the shop. The programme was called "Oh My God, I'm My Dad".

Then there was the Nick Bradshaw incident. I really should get in touch with him, incidentally.

I'm not by nature superstitious, but if I were I'd be blogging furiously about Scarlett Johansson.