Stream Of Consciousness

So have we had/do we have Swine Flu? With no underlying health conditions that it might affect, I guess it’s possible. If this is a head cold that myself and Polly have been trying to shake off then it’s a complete and utter doozy. “Ping, motherfucker” as a young fairy might have said. Better to get it out of the way, maybe. I don’t know. I haven’t felt particularly flu-like but I don’t remember ever having such a nasty, persistent cold ever before.

Isn’t it funny how just looking at a coal fire can make one feel warmer? And why have I never owned an electric blanket before?

Should I be worried that my short-term memory is so poor that I forget to even write a shopping list?

31kg is kind of an abstract figure until one tries to carry a box weighing that by a pair of thin plastic straps. Who can blame the Gard for being amused?

What made me happiest today? An outrageously priced snack lunch, an aviary, an unfinished game of Jenga in a summerhouse and the fact that a lad of 9 is so comfortable calling me by name.

I seem to bring out people’s inner hippie. I got called “man” today by one of the guys in the local corner shop.

I did the washing up tonight and promise to iron tomorrow. Maybe.

I’d like another glass of wine but don’t have any. Between you and me it’s been an awful long time since I had a joint. I mean years. In fact I’d like another glass of wine so much that it’s probably a good thing I can’t have one.

I fully understand that I’m never going to make a living as a singer but it won’t stop me singing at the drop of hat, nor dancing for that matter. Boogie chillun!!

I’m going to buy a television in the January sales (if they have such things in Ireland). As much for news and sport as anything else. I’m in no hurry - “I don’t need T.V. when I got T.Rex”!

I’m getting so OCD about formatting of electronic communication I’m now seriously considering going back over this to make it a bulleted list.

Life’s a gas.

I was bought a pretty picture by a pretty girl and must remember to buy a frame for it. See above for details of my memory.

I remember clearly January 16th this year and always will.

It’s later than I realised and I should probably try to sleep. Wide awake now, though. Thoughts cascading through my mind like copper coins in a “coin waterfall” at an arcade when I was young. For some reason, I remember going to the local corner shop when I was about 5 to buy 10 Woodbines for Mum. And that I could read and play chess before I started school and knocked over a jigsaw on my first day and cried. Jesus, nearly 40 years ago.

I heard a church bell today and instantly thought of my brother. That’ll never stop. In the same way the smell of engineering oil and sugar beet will always make me think of Dad. I can almost hear him laughing now, bless ‘im. Silly old fart. “Less of the ‘old’”, he’d say. Or Mum appearing unexpectedly at a gig I was at with my friends in a pub in town at the age of about 20, buying a round for all of us and asking the band to play “Smoke On The Water”. I’m going to have to tell you about my family one day.

Not now, though. Shall I tell you about listening to Radio Luxembourg (the mighty 208) under the bedclothes? Or about the number of times I’ve cried at weddings? Hopeless romantic. If you’ve read here before, you’ll already know that I like the rain and fog. How appropriate is it, then, that I find myself in a land that shows itself best in the mist, more in love than I ever hoped to be or dreamed that I would be?

Currently listening to “Love’s No friend Of Mine” by Rainbow. That ain’t so. Not anymore.

Sweet dreams, everyone.