So, today is Monday. It’s cold and rainy. I’m ironing. I’m bleeding the radiators. I’m replying to a flurry of overnight comments on the blog. I’m pondering the next chapter of “A Lone Tree Falls”. Retirement is bliss, even on rainy days. Then the phone rings.
It’s a very well-spoken young man who’s concerned I’m missing out on loft insulation deals. I don’t quite get the angle, but anyway, he says my house has come up on his database as having a certain type of insulation. It doesn’t conform to the current regulations – tut tut – but not to worry. It means I can claim for,… well,… something,…
“If we could confirm your details, sir? Name, address, postcode?…“
Now, I know very well what type of insulation I have, because I’m the one who put it in. So what I want to know from him is how come he knows so much about it. I’m a little more assertive than I usually am, but there are issues of privacy at stake here:
“If I could stop you there and ask: exactly – and I do emphasise the word ‘exactly’ – how you came by that information?”
I surprise myself. I seem to be settling in for a crossing of wits here, when I could as easily hang up. That’s what I normally do, though with a polite “sorry, not interested”, thereby extending courtesy even to ne-er-do-wells whose aim is to raid my life savings. Did I get out of the wrong side of bed or something? Where is your patience, Michael? Where is your joy of living?
Anyway, the line goes dead before the young man can explain himself – a fault at his end, I presume. But never mind, all is in its place again. God is in his heaven, and the scammers are sweating the phones.
And I have more important things to be thinking about, such as November 3rd 2019. Why? Well, that’s the day I took this picture:

It was a Sunday, the first dry day, after weeks of heavy rain. The gentle undulations of the meadows had become lakes, and in the early light of that morning, they were as beautiful as they were unexpected. I don’t know why the picture strikes me now, as it has languished on the memory card for years. Perhaps it’s more the date, marking a time just before the time everything changed.
My diary fills in the details:
I had bought a new lens for the camera, and was trying it out with this shot. I had also bought “the Ministry of Utmost Happiness” by Arhundhati Roy, from my local thrift shop. I was lamenting how I’d probably never get around to reading it, that it would languish on my TBR pile, which turns out, thus far, to be true. My hall table was also full of leaflets extolling the virtues of the Labour-party. I was delivering them in batches, around my patch, for the local party office. It seems I too was caught up in the heady Corbynism of those distant times.
Then, the day after I took the picture, I sat down with my boss and took pleasure in giving him a year’s notice. Of a sudden, I tasted freedom. I was as excited by that as the thought of an imminent, and long needed, change of political direction. Yes, politics featured large in my thoughts in those days, which I find embarrasses me, now, because it doesn’t feature at all these days. In fact, quite the opposite, I find I view such matters with a very cold eye, or perhaps that too could be called political thinking? But let’s not go there.
Covid was not even a rumour in November. The first cases would appear in China in the coming weeks. But it would be March before Britain, after believing itself immune, would be on its knees. Suddenly, I could not travel even to the next village without fear of curtain twitchers dobbing me in. As for our health service, it proved to be so ill prepared, hobbyists were in their bedrooms, churning out face-masks for doctors and nurses on their 3D Printers.
But back to the photograph. I wasn’t overwhelmed by it at the time. Perhaps it was because events overtook us, and everything that came “before” seemed no longer relevant in the world. Then I tried a different crop, and it seemed to speak to me a little more.
I remember the season came on with a record-breaking wet. The year after was the same. The water table rose, filling the hollows, spoiling crops of winter wheat and oilseed. Migrant birds enjoyed their new-found wetlands. But then each spring, came a drought that baked the land, first to iron, and then to dust.
The photograph tells me the world was beautiful then, as of course it still is. But I detect also now a more deeply entrenched fatalism among its people. There is a growing acceptance of the ruin, and all the casual corruption, and that there’s nothing we can do about it. It just is. And, as if by metaphor, while once upon a time we could avoid those of low character by avoiding a particular part of town at night, now they come at us in our homes, down our telephone wires, wherever we are, and there’s no protection, other than our wits. But such a wit as that risks also tarnishing the spirit and rendering it blind to the beauty of the world. It will make us cynical, it will tempt us over the threshold into the hell of a collective nihilism. And then we are lost.
We need a powerful formula to keep the shine on things, and to keep believing it all means something. For myself, I trust it is sufficient never take our eye off the beauty of the world, never to let it be diminished in our souls, that therein lies the path to truly better days.
Now, please excuse me, the phone is ringing again. Perhaps it’s that young man with his explanation.
I’m afraid I succumb to that nihilism too often, but so far I’ve managed to pull myself out of that depression in the current landscape. However, being in my senior years and aware of the slippery slope that faces us all, I’m finding it more difficult to gain a foothold in the muddy earth. Perhaps I need to offer my ironing services locally (yes, men do do ironing) or maybe a new camera!
Hi Ashley,
We do seem to be assailed on all sides by so many potential Apocalypses, it’s hard to know what to make of things. Although prone to the occasional stumble into depressive thinking, I do try to maintain a possibly delusional attitude that things will work out all right in the end. Failing that, a new camera never fails to buck me up. I’ve also discovered I enjoy ironing and have taken it over as one of my new-found household duties. My wife finds that odd, but doesn’t grumble about it.
Michael,
Are you publishing the “A Lone Tree Falls” as you finish the chapters? I have checked and don’t see it on WattPad and I miss reading your weekly chapters on works in progress. You seem to be tolerating retirement better than I have. When I retired from the Army it took about nine months to “get it together”. Retired again in July from nursing. It was earlier than I planned, but a back injury at work pretty much made the decision for me. In reality, 71 is too old to be working in the hospital. All is working out as it should be. Thanks for sharing your stories with us.
Cheers,
Elton
Hi Elton,
Good to hear from you. Yes, I do plan to start trying the chapters out on Wattpad, as I get a little deeper into the story, and more certain of its direction, not sure when yet, exactly. A Lone Tree Falls is an interesting one to write, and I’m enjoying it, but we’re up to fifty thousand words, and I’m still not sure where it’s going, or if it’ll leave me high and dry without explanation.
I’m finding I enjoy retirement. Writing and landscape photography were the things I wanted to do for a living when I was in my twenties, but had the good sense not to, or I would have starved to death before I was thirty. Now I can indulge them without impoverishing my family. Hospital work strikes me as a tough job even for a youngster, I certainly couldn’t imagine doing it in my seventies.
Regards
Michael
It took me a while but when Google reminded me what my garden looked like this time last year, I think I understood this post.
Today our great leader gave his views on ecology and recycling and despite his lack of understanding, and his opportunistic recklessness, he may have hit on something. The two are completely different issues, but despite not shitting on our doorstep not being the secret of eternal life, doesn’t mean that its a good idea to shit there each and every morning. After hearing the prime minister ‘s wise words on this subject, I found this, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0010wy7
And it seemed quite a good contrast. Surprisingly for someone with a name as odd as Larch Maxey, he is a very sensible guy, comes from several generations of railwaymen, and is supported by his family in his protest against the new trainset that we call HS2. He was interviewed shortly after having been turfed out from his tunnel under Euston Square Gardens, and walks a tight rope between doing his best for his cause and prison. Definitely worth a listen.
I listened to that. Yes, those guys are very driven, and take the action most of us would be too scared to contemplate. I was reading about our leader’s ad-libbed views on recycling, also feeding the endangered creatures with the surplus people who are overcrowding the planet. I suppose he was just playing it for laughs with the little ones. At least, I hope he was.
I hope he wasn’t in the 2nd point.
All I can do is dream, dream, dream of retirement. I can’t wait. I need to be able to see if I have any writing left inside and if I can pull it free.
Until then, though, small, pleasant moments, a glimpse of beauty here and there, like you said. It’s sad, but good, to know that I’m not alone feeling helpless during what seems like a never-ending downward spiral of the world.
I love how you phrased it: “All the casual corruption.” Uggghh.
Interesting what you say about seeing if you have any writing left in you when you have all the time in the world to pursue it. I’ve been out nearly a year now, and I’m realising the frustrations and limitations of the working life did provide some of the energy that propelled the writing. I still have things I want to say, but there’s a feeling of “what does it matter, now? I’m free of it.” The fiction in particular has slowed down. It’s almost like the ability to create needs something vexatious and time limited to drive it. It’s probably just a transition to a new way of living.
I’m sure you’ll be okay.
You know, Michael, I’ve thought about that too, the whole “grass is greener on the other side” thing, and basically, the grass is NEVER greener on the other side, is it? I need to retire. But I’m also pretty scared that if I did ever get oodles of free time and only empty pages faced me, not the outpouring I want….yikes.
So, yeah. Be careful what you wish for, right?
I hope the muse doubles back and finds you again, in the meantime. I hope it is just a transition…………