Window on the World

I'm having one of those bad days when the window on my world turns two-way. It may be unlucky coincidence that the tragic and haunting Iraq Vet. Story has centre page position on the very day when writing a guide book for pilgrims to Rome seems to be the most futile and self-obsessed activity hell could have devised. Or it may be the work of an omnipotent, all-controlling being who thinks I need a nudge, but in the end the source is irrelevant because the effect is the same either way. I am plunged into yet another mid-life crisis.

What have I done with my life? What about all those dreams? How can I ever make up for all the lost time now? And so on and so on, with only Lucy as my last attempt to do something right and positive for humanity, and my efficiency only evidenced in the consistent mess I have made of that too.

And what's more … the weather is shit. Cold, grey and entirely unacceptable in terms of the ride out on the horses that Paul and I had promised ourselves … which brings me onto our health and fitness, an impossible quest it seems, at least in this part of France, where the gym is always closed and the promised badminton classes never run (this last being particularly frustrating for Lucy who got up this morning to attend class at 8.00) ... which reminds me that my life is funnelled into the single purpose of writing our sodding guide book while Jean Michel Jarre (who was speaking on the radio yesterday) has time to extol the virtues of You Tube (I don't even have the guilt-free time to write my blog, let alone look at other people's efforts) … which only goes to show that navel gazing leads to time wasting and depression, so I shouldn't be doing it.

We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope. - Martin Luther King