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Tuesday 6 August 2019

A flat day




It’s been a strangely flat day today. Nothing remarkable happened but we somehow filled it up with lots of bits and pieces which is unusual for us – we usually find something more to do even if we merely tootle off into Derbyshire for a coffee.

First we had the new curtains - which we like but curtains are curtains and it isn’t easy to be excited about changing them. Then a few minor shopping jobs, a trip to the bank then a visit to the cemetery to put flowers on our daughter’s grave. She would have been 42 today but apart from the flowers and moments of reflection there isn’t much one can do with such an occasion.

After that it was back home for an afternoon of reading and pottering about. The flatness wasn’t entirely our daughter’s birthday though. The world has become a little too crazy and as Kingsley Amis once noted, madness is a desert. It is essentially uninteresting because it doesn’t make sense and we need things to offer at least the possibility of making sense if they are to keep our interest alive.

In this sense, creeping madness is turning the public arena into a desert. Only crazy people and charlatans live there while the rest of us watch from the sidelines and scratch our heads. Eventually we’ll turn our backs on it as many do already and that will certainly cause problems.

2 comments:

Sam Vega said...

"creeping madness is turning the public arena into a desert. Only crazy people and charlatans live there while the rest of us watch from the sidelines and scratch our heads. Eventually we’ll turn our backs on it as many do already and that will certainly cause problems."

Sometimes it looks like a desert - flat and uninteresting - but at other times it is a jungle. All strange and dangerous animals, and rather too interesting to spend any time in. And a bad smell of decay and overheating.

What we want is a garden. Our own little patch, which is made in our own image. I guess this is the successful domestic or private life. Turning your back on the desert or jungle is dangerous, as they encroach on our boundaries. We have to keep on hacking back and watering.

A K Haart said...

Sam - you are right, we do have to keep hacking back and watering, but they never stop and seem to have limitless resources. Oh well - at least the hacking back is good exercise and really quite enjoyable most of the time.