Joe’s Blog – You have to start somewhere
All my life, at least since I was 9, I have wanted to be a writer. Now that I am aged and ancient the experiment is long overdue. I have made several previous attempts but each has ended in tears, all my own.
The reason for my frustration is simple and better described by Keats, who said, “…that there is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object”. And my object was great indeed: I wanted to write a book. And my failure has created a furnace hotter even than hell.
But all that is about to change. Icy cold water, especially imported from the coldest regions of the Arctic and Antarctic, has been delivered to our door here in Spain. To douse my failure as a writer, it should be understood. (At this point, The Dear One (TDO) objected that there are no deliveries of ice-water from those regions. I grimace and give her an indulgent pat on the head. She doesn’t understand that we writers use what is called Poetic Licence. This means I may say what I like and call it PL.)
During the heat of an Andalucian summer (40 degrees in the shade), I sit covered with a large gown wrapped tightly to my throat. The icy water from the Arctic and Antarctic, that Vicky promptly poured over me the minute it arrived, has given me a sore throat and the inevitable symptoms of influenza.
“You cood ‘ab waited till the water wiz a bit warber,” I complained. “Now yoov given be a code.”
“You men! You don’t know what a cold is! Have you ever had a baby? NO! You don’t know what pain is!”
I refused to be drawn into any argument with TDO because bitter experience has taught me that it would always end in tears, all my own. Neither was I to be drawn in, as I knew was her intention, about the difference between having a cold and pain. Oh no. Skilfully, I sidestep that land mine. Instead, I try changing the subject.
“By dear,” I begin, “please bake be a cup of coffee.”
“Are you ill? No. Are you lame? No. Get up and make it yourself you lazy, no-good, etc, etc of a half-man.”
“But, dear, I ‘ab a code.”
“You men! You don’t know what a cold is! Have you ever had a baby? NO! You don’t know what pain is!”
(Shakespearean aside) Aha! Another trap! TDO wants me to state that I just heard her say that! I disappoint her and mention, casually, that the weather isn’t bad for this time of the year. In Spain at least.
“Weather? Who’s talking about the weather? Why don’t you do something useful, like write a blog?”
“Yes, dear, here it is.”
Joe Twead