write.as/jonbeckett

Rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated (if indeed there were any). I can't remember the last time I let so many days go between blog posts. It's all slightly surreal really. It's not like I even missed writing – I just didn't think about writing at all – which is even more odd really, given that I've been writing pretty consistently for the last twenty-something years.

I've just been busy, I guess. Busy working, busy tinkering with projects, and not chasing my tail as I have for far too long. One good friend reached out to me this past week, to see if I was ok – and I was quite taken aback to think anybody really thinks about me – or my absence.

As I said – I'm fine. I'm doing good.

I stopped running this week, after pulling a muscle in my backside. Stop laughing. I told you I wasn't as fit any more – and pulling a muscle pretty much proved it. It started hurting while I was running the other day, and has taken the best part of a week to get better.

I haven't reached out to distant friends in quite some time, and I feel awful about it. I need to do something about that tomorrow – climb out of my hole, dust myself down, and wave in their direction.

It's 1am while writing this. I should probably go to bed. I'll write again tomorrow, I promise. It's kind of like getting on a horse, this writing business, isn't it?

I'm not entirely sure where the last few days have gone. In-between chores, work, running, writing, more chores, more running, more work, more writing, and endlessly putting things away, two entire days have vanished.

I suppose the biggest news this week is that my other half is changing job. After something like 12 years working as “the lady in the office” at an infant school, she handed her notice in this morning. She starts her new job in about five weeks – working for a movie production company a few miles away. It's all very exciting.

I'm still doing the same job I've been doing forever – magicking bits and pieces of website and intranet out of nowhere for corporate behemoths. It's funny – when the writing comes easily I think “I could do this for a living”, but I only really play at writing. Nobody would want to pay me to empty my head each day – or at least, I don't�think�they would. That said, I joined Medium a year or so ago, and tried out their partner programme – and made bank pretty quickly.

Anyway.

It's getting late.

I thought I should at least write a few words before collapsing onto the sofa in front of some ridiculous movie or TV show. Whenever I miss a day on the blog it starts to eat away at me like a fungus. Actually – that's not a very good analogy, is it – fungus grows on things – it doesn't eat them.

I'm too tired to think any more.

Oh – I went for another run this morning. I'm glad I did it, but still shocked how unfit I have become. I used to be able to run 5 kilometres a couple of times a week. It's going to take a while to get back to that.

Alexa, the curious daemon that lives within an electronic gadget on the bedside table burst into life in her metronomic way once again this morning – filling the room with Ronan and Harriet from Magic FM as they wished everybody a wonderful day before playing the same twenty songs they play every day.

I really need to choose a different radio station, but it's kind of comfortable. The presenters' voices, their banter, and the stream of 80s songs are familiar – like a warm blanket of sound. Which doesn't help much when you're supposed to be getting out of bed.

I did get up though. And in a fit of stupidity, pulled some running shorts and an old t-shirt on. A few minutes later I found myself wandering out into the morning air rather apprehensively. I haven't been running in AGES.

It wasn't actually that bad. For the first kilometre or so I surprised myself – thinking “I can still do this” – but then all the little aches and pains that come with being enormously unfit came back to haunt me. It's going to take some time.

I did it though. I went for a run. Go me.

By the time lunchtime came around I could have eaten the entire contents of the kitchen cupboards. I didn't. I'm not allowed – on account of being “on a diet”. It's not really a diet – it's just “not eating entire bags of cookies from the supermarket”. Not that I do that, of course. Not THAT often. Ok. No more than once a week. Usually.

The second big change I made today was venturing out onto the green outside the house at lunchtime to sit on a bench with a book and my cup of coffee. I texted a few neighbours, and told them of my daring escapade – wondering if any might join me. Their days sounded much like mine – which explained their absence. I sat and read some more of “The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig. I've been meaning to read it for ages, but spent most of today realising “oh, I've already read that bit”. My memory has holes in it like a piece of swiss cheese at the moment.

Anyway.

I'm rather pleased with myself this evening. Small steps (or strides in this case). The route back to fitness is going to take a while, but I know I'll feel better for it – and intervention was probably required before I develop my own gravity.

In other news, the entire day flew past – filled with a never-ending succession of worky-work things that I'm not going to write about here. It's amazing how time flies when you're not having fun.

I won't lie – there was a feeling of dread at 7am this morning when the alarm clock filled the bedroom with an internet radio station. I drifted in and out of sleep for a few more minutes before resigning myself to the day ahead.

I always find the first day back after I've been on holiday a bit of a struggle. There's an apprehension of what I'm going to find on my return. Thankfully today was ok. I didn't stop all day and there's still a hill to climb, but it was ok.

The image accompanying this post makes me smile – I work from home – I don't have a commute, a bag, a train, a bus, a walk, or anything like that. I used to cycle to work – before the pandemic. A three mile ride each way, each day. The office was sold, and we changed over to working from home.

Anyway.

I'm sitting in the junk room at home while the sky grows dark outside, trying to switch off for a while. I walked into town after dinner to buy some milk. There's a store just around the corner, but given I hadn't got any further than the kitchen all day, I thought a walk might be a good idea.

A Wilson Phillips playlist is filling the room with a compilation, courtesy of Spotify. There's a lot of Beach Boys covers involved – I need to find a Beach Boys playlist – and a Monkees playlist. Music is SUCH a rabbit-hole with me.

This morning I have been dipping a toe into the Twitterverse. It's a strange word, isn't it – “Twitterverse”. The Twitter Universe. It really is a universe of sorts though – populated with subject driven worlds, related interests, and with no barriers between them. It's loud, it's cacophonous, it's fast moving, and it somehow seems to embody Norah Ephron's blogging mantra – that whatever you're saying is true for about as long as you're saying it.

Here's the thing about “dipping a toe” – before long I know I'll think “oh sod it”, hold my breath, and jump in – then find myself out of my depth, panic a bit, before realising that everything is fine. I'm fine. We're all fine. Everybody is fine. Deep breaths.

Except everybody isn't fine – certainly not in the twitterverse. Some people are really very angry indeed, and don't need much of an opportunity to tell whoever will listen exactly why they are angry. Thankfully there is a “block” button that switches them off mid-rant, never to be seen again.

I wish a block button existed in the real world.

I've been reading the tweets posted by those in the #writingcommunity – and it's been a revelation of sorts. While sitting on my own, tapping away on a keyboard in the dead of night, I often forget there's an entire world out there of others doing exactly the same. It's nice to have a window you can open to the passing torrent of happiness, sadness, anxiety, hope, laughter, and every other emotion – to find that the world is enormous, and that the invisible surrounding crowd face the same struggles, doubts, and challenges.

Anyway.

Enough pontification for the moment. I have an important mission to complete today – fussing, and feeding a good friend's dog while they are out for the day. My family always had dogs when I was young – I kind of miss it. We have cats, but they're not the same. The old saying about dogs having owners, and cats having staff is more accurate than most will admit.

We got home on Wednesday. It's now Saturday. The washing machine is still going. I think we can see the end of the washing mountain now though (thankfully). It's just a case of getting it all dry, folding it, and putting it away – which we know won't happen, don't we. A family home isn't homely unless there are piles of clean washing stacked everywhere.

I'm listening to Spotify while writing this. We signed up for a family account while we were away – so the kids could listen to music in the car without chewing through data. I need to remember to cancel it soon.

I posted some writing on Medium last night – a few thoughts about the ridiculousness of the whole “productivity” charade. I'm trying really hard to write about “me”, rather than “you”, because “you” looks far too much like mansplaining. I'm not quite sure what happened in my head, but in recent months mansplaining has become a massive trigger for me – as soon as I see it, I have to resist the temptation to reply to the author “thank you for mansplaining that to me”.

It's not just men that mansplain – my middle daughter is a master at it – mostly because she is as literal as Drax in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. On more than one occasion she has laughed (very late) at a joke, turned to us all, and started with “that's funny because...”

Did I mention that I'm on a diet? Our middle daughter needs to lose weight, and we could all do with losing a few pounds, so thought “why not”. There is now a ban on snacks around the house. I guess this is three years of sedentary pandemic behaviours catching up with us. The end goal – for my daughter – is to pass the army fitness test. Yes, you heard that right – she's looking at the army as a possible future. I'm not worried about that at all.

We left my parents house in Cornwall mid-morning. The final hour was a huge game of backwards Jenga, where our belongings (and various acquisitions) were re-assembled into the car.

Seven hours later (after a wander into a nearby fishing village, and a rest-stop mid-afternoon, we arrived home. Our car doesn't seem particularly happy with us – dropping in power somewhat spectacularly during the final 20 kilometres, but it did well for the previous 360.

This evening has been all about unpacking things, setting fire to the washing machine, and wrestling the house back towards normality.

During the journey home I pulled the trigger on a new laptop for myself. A Chromebook from Amazon. It arrives tomorrow. If you're wondering why, you might not know that I've been soldiering on with a rather decrepit, ancient laptop that was once bought for one of my children. It dies within minutes when not connected to a power source, and isn't worth repairing because cost would outweigh it's worth.

This evening I also resurrected my account at Medium. While away I reminded myself how much I enjoy writing. Sure, I might not always have a lot to say, but Medium will give me a platform for the longer-form idiocy that I wouldn't dare post to this journal. I hope that makes at least a little sense.

The task now – or rather once I return to work next week – will be fitting all of this into a chaotic, busy life. I guess we'll see how that goes.

After booking a restaurant table last night, we visited Fowey today (pronounced “Foy”) – across the estuary from the small village we visited so often in my youth. We caught the local ferry, and somewhat remarkably found a parking space in the local car-park.

The route into Fowey takes you through winding back-streets – mostly built a century or more before modern motorcars were dreamed of. Watching occasional cars or delivery vehicles navigating through the town is therefore pretty entertaining – with those on foot scattering into doorways along the route.

Most of my memories of Fowey are from 40 years ago now – from childhood visits. Today I made my way through the town, and climbed a hill to the location of an emporium that used to fill us with wonder when young. While the tiled floor remained, the shop had become a gallery, and was closed. In the middle of the town I spotted the 1930s art deco tiled steps of “W H Smiths” – long since replaced by a succession of cafes and clothes shops.

While walking towards the town I was passed by a flustered looking large lady in a very bright dress, who complained to her husband – “come on – let's go home – they are arriving like rats from all directions”. I smiled.

Lunch was booked at a small restaurant called “Sams” – a bizarre slice of Americana in the middle of a coastal fishing village. It has been chosen by our daughters in one of the endless debates where if they don't get their way, they ruin everybody else's life. The restaurant was lovely – but it would have been nice to sit out on the waterfront in Fowey instead of a dark corner of a diner below a poster of Mohammed Ali.

This afternoon I stayed behind while the children went for a final dip in the sea. They returned a few minutes ago. Given that we all ate enough for several days at lunchtime, we'll be skipping dinner this evening.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think it might be time for a coffee. Or a glass of wine. Or maybe one, then the other. Apparently there are plans to visit the penny arcade in Looe later this evening – a last hoorah of sorts (or rather, an opportunity to exchange quite a quantity of money for some unbelievable tat in response for tipping two pence pieces over a series of steps).

The weather has taken a turn for the worst over the last few days – so we've been rattling around my parents house. This afternoon we're escaping for a few hours to visit the national aquarium in Plymouth. Our younger children visited when they were young – we doubt they will remember much about it. My main memory is of the main tank and coral reef, where sharks and turtles swim above a glass tunnel.

(several hours pass while we corral the children, and set off towards Plymouth in search of said aquarium)

After an hour journey to Plymouth, two laps of a multi-storey car park, and our middle daughter managing to fall down some steps (we re-framed the story as her picking a fight with a car park to make her laugh), we arrived at the National Aquarium, and saw a complete reversal of character in our children. While our middle daughter went into a huge downer about the stairway incident, our eldest – she of multiple anxiety adventures – was living her best life while looking at fish, crabs, sharks, octopi, and whatever else.

It was a very, very good afternoon.

I had hoped to perhaps buy a book about oceanic research, or marine ecology in the shop at the aquarium, but my hopes were dashed. If you were looking for your name on a fake gold necklace, a novelty mug, or a cuddly toy of a shark, you were in luck.

Before heading back we wandered along the waterfront at Plymouth and explored the fortified defences, and the various “historic” locations at the Barbican. In the heart of the harbour there is a set of steps with numerous inscriptions in the pavement detailing the departure of the pilgrim fathers in the 1600s bound for the Americas. As with any “historic” location in England, as soon as you start reading, the story tends to fall to pieces. Nobody is really sure where the original steps were, let alone the layout of the harbour in the early 1600s.

The story reminds me of William Shakespeare's house in Stratford – which has absolutely no connection with him. Nobody knows where he lived, what the house looked like, or even really if he lived in Stratford. The house they built is in a faked style “of the era” on a plot of land that was available. Tourists like a nice story.

Anyway. We're heading towards our last day in Cornwall before heading home on Wednesday. The kids have just set out along the lane near my parents house with bowls in hand – in search of blackberries in the nearby bushes. I imagine blackberry and apple crumble might be on the menu tomorrow night.

After a slow day rattling around my parents house, we escaped to the beach yesterday. A day of sun, sea, sand, and ice creams. We guessed that Saturday may be “change-over” day for many families visiting the coast, so might be the best day to visit the beach – and suspect we were proven right. Not only did we find a parking space in a nearby car-park – we also found space on the beach without difficulty to set-up camp for the day.

No sooner had we arrived, I found myself in the sea with my youngest daughter. I'm convinced she has Frost Giant blood in her veins – while she immediately made her way into the surf, I took a few minutes. While larking around we looked up and down the beach, and realised we were among only a handful of people in the water – a select group of cheerful idiots.

The rest of the day was spent eating ice creams, reading books, and people watching on the beach. I find people endlessly fascinating – especially in places where all manner of different backgrounds are brought together. While quietly sitting on the beach a young lad a few yards away stood up, pointing at a seagull attempting to steal food, and shouted (very politely) “Excuse me Mr Seagull – can you GO AWAY!” – it was all I could do not to burst out laughing.