Things and more things

If you haven't already got sick of my moaning, you might gather that Things have been getting on top of me a bit. I'm not keen on Things. I try to keep them to a minimum. Things like financial matters and dealings with bureaucracy and call centres and waiting lists and officialdom and important post and the sort of emails you have to agonise over the wording of. But sometimes they all come flooding in on you. All at once.

At first, I get a bit stressed. Then I get a bit more stressed and start to sigh and swear a lot. Then I resort to list making, cake eating and beer drinking. Then little thoughts start to pop into my mind. Mischievous little daydreams of the things I'd actually like to be doing. Sometimes, the other blogs I read help with the inspiration. It's not that I wish my life was like these people's. But that the blogs I like to read tend to focus on the simple things that provide an enduring source of calm and contentment. I like things. With a small 't'; things like fresh new hawthorn leaves and daffodils, open windows, evening birdsong as the days grow longer, a three-year-old's rendition of Baa Baa Black Sheep (had some ice cream), an old book with beautiful woodcut pictures of rural life, a children's book with beautiful seaside illustrations, an afternoon's digging and raking of allotment soil until it is that elusive, gardening-book phenomenon known as a fine tilth (a great name for a blog if ever I heard one).

I am forming some half-baked plans for things I'd like to be doing this spring. Like going camping in south Wales for a couple of nights so the boy and I can go to the Museum of Welsh Life and explore all the replica Celtic roundhouses and 17th century farmhouses. Like planting primulas in the baskets on the wall opposite my kitchen windows. Like knitting a tea cosy. Like reading some Jane Austen and sitting in the yard doing some Jane Austen-esque needlework. Like eating buttery crumpets. Like taking picnics to the park. Like making a beanbag frog for the little man.

It doesn't matter if I don't do actually do these things. Or if it takes weeks and weeks to get round to them. The potential is enough to cheer me up so I can say a heartfelt 'fuck that' to all the crap.