Pins out, enjoying coffee, all quiet there?

Well, it’s kind of late. I’m still thinking of it as Friday night, but it’s really Saturday morning, but at least the house is finally quiet and I can get some thoughts down on paper at last, for whatever they’re worth. And what are they worth? I don’t know, let’s see:

September will be turning to October soon, perhaps the most significant point in the year, I think; the autumnal equinox, leaves crisping, Persephone bound for the underworld, Christmas crackers appearing in the shops, and the evenings drawing in. A switch from light to dark – no sense in fighting it. Relax. Let it in. What else? Ah, yes: I’m still battling with a leaking conservatory roof, drip dripping into a strategically placed bucket at the moment, and it’s noticeable how little time there is from arriving home from the day job, midweek, to the sinking of the sun, which leaves precious  little opportunity for outdoor DIY like that. I managed to squirt some gutter sealant into a suspicious joint last night, rather hastily, but this stuff never works, and I’m thinking I need some rubber paint now, to be liberally applied at the interface between the aluminium down-channel and the plastic gutter, where all the original sealant is now flaking away. But that’ll have to wait until tomorrow – I mean later on today. For indoor DIY, there’s always the bathroom lights I could be getting on with, half of which are out, following a wiring fault, a blown transformer and a near fire in the attic back in the spring. Normally I’d’ve tackled that one months ago but it seems to have been an unrelentingly busy year, and also age seems rather surprisingly to bring with it a waning of confidence, rather than the reverse, or is it a decline in my natural energy levels? Perversely I’m reluctant to call out a £50 per hour pontificating electrician to do a job I know I can do perfectly well myself, and all within the stringent requirements of the IET wiring regulations (Part P) thank you very much, because I’m a time served engineer, dammit, and can supposedly tackle anything,  but it doesn’t alter the fact we’ve been managing on three down-lighters instead of six all year.

Anyway, as regards my energy levels, they’re currently very good, at least according to Doc Lin this afternoon and she should know, being an officially certified practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine, as well as being an all round very nice lady, and all right probably a very good business woman to boot. I’d just emerged from an hour of acupuncture and massage at her tender mercies, and I have to admit, as I floated down to the coffee shop on Market Street, I was feeling rather good, but then acupuncture and Chinese massage always does that to me. I’ve been seeing Doc Lin for about six weeks now – hoping she can fix my sense of smell, or rather the lack of it. So far, however, Asnomia still rules.

Try smelling something strong, she says. You mean like coffee, or something? Doc Lin thinks coffee isn’t strong enough to register with my atrophied nasal nerves. How about wife’s perfume, she says. Good thinking, thinks I, to be caught by number two son later on, twisting the tops of all the bottles on my wife’s dressing table, and snorting at them eagerly,.. nothing. Damn! Erm,… hi there, spud. I can explain.

But that was later, after the coffee shop, where I sat a while and enjoyed that delicious post acupuncture feeling. I don’t care if my sense of smell doesn’t come back, so long as I can go on feeling as good as this, if only for an hour a week after Doc Lin’s administrations (except for those pins in the side of my nose which feel like six inch nails when they’re going in) Anyway, apart from that they should make this stuff compulsory. It’s dodgy thinking that causes all the worlds’ problems, says Krishnamurti, and who am I to argue, but an hour of acupuncture and massage makes you think good things, makes you think all is right with the world, makes you content with its untidiness, and your equally untidy, ambiguous position within it. It makes you feel indestructible. And even if you’re not indestructible it makes you feel like you don’t care. And anyway, it’s Friday evening and all is right with the world!

So, I’m sitting in the coffee shop – with an Americano and piece of fruit cake – how urbane I’m becoming? I think not. Beyond the windows there’s the bustle of the town, all umberella’d and hurried under a sudden shower. I love my quiet northern market towns – running always slightly to seed, but somehow managing to hang on. Indestructible we are!

Now, it might be my imagination but I have the impression people look at me strangely when I step out of the acupuncture clinic. Like I said, the coffee shop is usually my first port of call, and the waitress looked at me last week as if George Clooney had just stepped into the joint. I looked around, puzzled. Nope, it’s definitely me she’s looking at, I thought. Has Doc Lin left a pin sticking out of my nose? Is one my acupuncture points still dribbling a little after she took the pins out? Are my flies open? Weird. Or maybe I just look better when I feel better?

Anyway, I’m sitting there with my Americano and my half eaten piece of fruit cake, and I’m looking at my fellow customers out the corner of my eye, and something strikes me. Those who are coupled up are talking. Those who are alone are all of them fiddling with their ‘phones. Except me, I’m thinking, smugly. Why do people have to fiddlew ith their ‘phones all the time. Switch the damned things off, relax, enjoy your coffee. Breathe. But then I notice my ‘phone on the table where I’ve just put it after texting home to number one son. Damn! Pins out, enjoying coffee, all quiet there?

There are changes coming. Number one son is off to university next weekend. I’m secretly dreading his going, dreading my tears when I leave him there. Life is so strange, so fleeting. Five minutes (Eighteen years) ago, he was a small blue baby – sticky, sleepy, glue eyed,.. thrust into my care while the surgeons stitched his mother back together, and I felt the first searing shock of an unconditional love – a grown man of thirty four realising at last there are some things, some people, you would die for without question.

He’s brought me much joy, shall continue to do so, and I shall miss him.

Anyway, that’s enough thinking for now.

I’m off to bed.

Good night all.