Capsule of Joy

At the time of writing, I am sat on my sofa, still wearing my work clothes, dressing gown on top, hood up and shivering all the same. I have been complaining for the past 11 plus hours that I have no electricity, and therefore no heating. Whilst bus services are delayed, disbanded or altered due to raging wintry storms, and temperatures reach lows which are oft seen in Scandinavia, I have no means to warm up my flat.

It took me a while to see the funny side of things.

Firstly I don't even own a torch. A pathetic but simple truth. So when the power went off last night I was fumbling around trying to light candles, and brushing my teeth by the soft, romantic glow of phone-light. Oh yes. Once in my bed I convinced myself that things would return to normal soon. The Electric Board had estimated that it would be back to normal by about quarter past ten. As it was half-past I figured they were a little out of synch with their guesstimations.

I had a restless sleep. I was in and out of bed, up and down, testing lights and so on all through the night.

I guessed at 3am, when nothing was working, that it wouldn't be back to normal soon.

So still I huffed and puffed. I ate my breakfast at quarter past six in the darkness. I shoved on my wellies and went out into the pale, moonlit dawn. As expected it was slightly warmer outside. I looked at my watch and was alarmed to see that putting on my hat, scarf, coat and such seemed to have lost my five minutes. Basically, I was going to miss my bus. Again, I huffed, and practically skied to the bus station.

And it wasn't there. The bus wasn't there and there was an hour to go until the next one. My inner monologue might have been Bernard from Black Books at that point in time.

But then came the text that work was cancelled, and I had an idea. I was cold, and I wanted a hot drink, I had some free time....CAFE NERO!

It didn't seem to take me very long to get to Nero once I had made the decision that a strong Americano was in order. I dumped my heavy bags on the chair opposite me and enjoyed my coffee slowly. My handbag was perched precariously on the little wooden table, and it seemed to have given up, like me, and it crashed to the floor, defeated.

A slow and hearty cackle came from somewhere behind me and I turned my head slowly to see a woman in her fifty-somethings throwing her head back and laughing.

“Sorry, but you have to laugh” she said and then she did it again.

She was starting to get on my wick then, but it wasn't long before I had a sort of revelation.

Here was this stranger, a woman who shared nothing but locality with me, with the wisdom, the sense, the right attitude that allowed her to see this little bit of nothing as something to be enjoyed. Whereas my bag attempting a suicide jump off the table was the last straw for me, for her, this was a little capsule of joy on a miserable and cold morning.

I wanted a capsule of joy too. So I shared.

I told her about my lack of power, how work had been cancelled, how I was cold and had come here for at least a hot drink to warm me up. And she listened. She was sympathetic and understanding, conversational and helpful. She gave me some gems of advice, and assured me that I would probably get some sort of compensation for being out of electricity for so long.

Suddenly, I had a capsule of joy too.

A problem shared is a problem halved, and I certainly left the little coffee shop with a weight off my shoulders. It had begun to snow outside, but that was perfect, because my flat certainly didn't seem so cold when I returned, not compared to out in the frozen wind, with the icy flakes sticking to my coat and scarf.

As I shivered on the sofa a little later I thought about how much hardship I had decided I was facing just because I was having to go without electricity. When really I should be grateful that I had somewhere to go when work was called off, that I had a roof over my head and somewhere with clean, running water. That I had the gift of sight – having it restricted by the power cut the night before merely made it seem all the more important now.

So, okay I can't make a cup of tea, and sure my Bird's Eye Chicken Pie is defrosting as I type, but, all the same, at least I have food and drink at all.

For every hour I spend without electricity, I will donate a pound to charity. This money will go to those in emotional, spiritual, psychological or physical darkness. To those imprisoned, to those with no hope, to those with no warmth or love, to those with no clean water, to those with no light to guide them home. I will update with a specific record of money donated and to which charity/charities when I know the total amount of money which is to be donated.

Today, I want to give someone else a capsule of joy.

***UPDATE*** 14:44 The charity will be Save the Children, total amount £16

Spilling beans....

Honesty.

I have a problem with honesty. That's not to say I'm a compulsive liar, rather that I always seem to be on the wrong side of the 'truth/lie' line.

Firstly, I always seem to be getting in trouble for being 'too honest'. You know when your friend says "Do you like my new top?" and you say "the colour makes me feel a bit sick"? Kinda like that.

Then there is the 'accidental lie' that you can't quite seem to correct. When somebody asks me a question such as 'do you enjoy skiing?' I know what the answer is, I know how I need to answer the question, and that the word is 'no' but somehow my brain tells my mouth that the word 'no' sounds like 'yes'. As soon as I've said it, I know that I've got mixed up and need to correct it. However said questioner is soon gibbering away about the alps and log cabins and such like and you can't quite bring yourself to correct the mistake. After all, what kind of person answers 'yes' when they mean 'no'? (Me, apparently)

And the worst one of all, the compromising situation. You have to make a choice, do you tell the truth or do you tell a white lie to save the moment? Sometimes I get that one right, sometimes I get it wrong.

My Mum always used to tell me that honesty was the best policy. Sometimes telling the whole truth doesn't do any good though. But in the face of the truth can you really tell a bare-faced lie?

And of course that one depends on the situation. Telling a lie to save face is pointless, it's better to be out with it - or else it will come out in the wash any case. But when it concerns other people it is even more difficult. Is it your secret to tell? The problem is I've never been a good liar. On top of that, my conscience gets the better of me. I might plan to keep something secret...but then spill the beans because I've been up at night worrying about it.

There isn't much that can be said to resolve the matter. But when in one of these situations, maybe honesty isn't the best policy? Maybe the best policy reads something like 'zip it, lock it, put it in your pocket'?

My conclusion is thus: silence is golden.

Mostly.

Perception and Pennies

Yesterday the curate at my church ripped up a £5 note.

I don't know if you have ever seen anybody rip up money before, but it reminded me of that episode of Friends where they all buy lottery tickets. Squabbling ensues over how many tickets each person should get and in a bid to stop the arguments Phoebe holds the bowl of tickets over the balcony. The look on the gang's faces says it all, but unfortunately before the tickets are returned to a safe place a pigeon swoops down and knocks the bowl to the floor. Tickets everywhere, blowing around in the wind. You can almost feel the horror. The discomfort. The incredulous looks on faces.

Well, it was sort of like that when said curate ripped up the money. Bearing in mind that this is five pounds we are talking about here, the kind of money that one might just as easily leave in a pair of jeans which get thrown in the washer. A noticeable prize when found in the pockets afterwards (a little damp but otherwise no worse for wear) but in all fairness...you didn't realise it was gone in the first place!

You should have heard the gasp that omitted from round the room though, including, I hasten to say, the one which escaped my own lips. She was illustrating a point, and, frankly, it was a point well made.

I never realised before how much emphasis I seem to place on money, but when I realised she was actually going to destroy the currency of this country I somehow felt the need to put a stop to such an atrocity.

But it's five pounds. And what is five pounds? A number on a computer screen? A piece of paper in your hand?

To some people five pounds means an awful lot. And I don't dispute that. But other than basic necessities, it holds no other meaning. It is not love, it is not awe, it is not beauty, it is not truth. It is not God.

So I guess my perception of money has often betrayed this truth, because quite often having that five pounds in my purse becomes a pursuit in itself. It is not what I can do with the money, it is what that money represents.

I suppose for me it is not about status or power, it is more a symbol of a safety net. Money to fall back on. But if you have the arms of God to fall back into, what more do you need? If I were to make a net out of five pound notes, and I fell into it from a height...well the net would probably break, or be in danger of breaking. It is too flimsy. The five pound notes might not be there one day. And then what will catch me? My family will all be there, but that strength to hold me up is founded in, is modelled by, the Ultimate Safety Net.

I suppose what I'm saying is... if we link our arms together, then we make the net ourselves. And isn't that sort of what Jesus was telling us all those years ago?

Something for the bleary-eyed morning people...

I opened my curtains this morning and sort of gushed at the view. Like a wet blanket.

I don't much care though, you should have seen it. The sun was the milky pinky-orange colour of a runny egg yolk that was dripping over the skyline. Some of it had even landed onto the trees, onto the hills, onto the rooftops of the three-floored houses. The sky seemed to have forgotten that yesterday it was the drizzly, misty, eerie reflection of something you might see in the art of Lowry. Today it was pale and bright, and more significantly, blue.

And then there was the best part of all. In the distance, almost clinging to the thick trees on the hills, is the train track. A train was just sailing past, preparing to come to a stop in the station. Ready for its passengers to alight. For more to board. For the trolley-bearing woman to find somewhere awkward to stand while these events ensued.

That's the benefit of having this view on a morning, on an afternoon, on a night. Somehow having this train going past this morning made it perfect, and that's because a train always seems to take me into a moment. A moment that's past, a moment that's yet to come.

Seeing a train transporting others seems to transport me to a time and a place that is other than the present. I'm near York, I'm eating a sandwich, I'm looking out the window thinking of home. I'm in Scotland, I'm debating pedagogy with a stranger with a cheery smile. I'm somewhere between Manchester and Liverpool and I know someone who's bought a double chocolate chip muffin with my name on it.

So I can't help but think, whenever I see these trains go past, who's on board, where have they come from, what are they doing? I try to imagine. We will shortly be arriving in Durham. Durham is our next station stop. If you are alighting at Durham, please do not forget to take your personal belongings with you. Mind the gap between the train and the platform edge.

So, when it's 6.10am on a wet Monday morning, when the view that meets my eye as I pull back the curtain isn't worthy of any note, I'll always be pleased to see a train going past. And it will always get me thinking...

"Who the blimey O'Reilly is on a train at this time of the morning?"

Simple things, simple minds...

I am not going to lie to you; I have spent today watching Drake and Josh. What started as an innocent nostalgia (harping back to simpler times, when Rose and I would watch Nikelodeon on a weekend and laugh ourselves senseless) turned into an actual comedy fest. I say comedy fest because, and again there's little point in lying, I found the whole thing hilarious.

This isn't usual you see. I remember in days of old I would watch Sister Sister or Kenan and Kel with my sisters (other good examples of shows built around a double act of contrasting characters) When we decided to youtube said shows in later years to remind ourselves of our childhood, it amazed me how unamused I was. What was often more funny than the shows themselves was the memories of the amusement I felt at the time that I watched them.

Take for instance the renown and oft quoted old favourite 'I...PUT THE SCREW...IN THE TUNA...!' The way Kel dramatically confesses this to the courtroom continously should have me rolling around the room myself (figuratively!) but instead I merely manage a smile as I remember the moment I first saw this scene.

Today, on the other hand, I didn't seem to find the way Josh repeats words for emphasis (emphasis!) old and beyond me. I didn't find Drake's narcissism tiresome. And most importantly of all, I didn't find the comedy too 'simplistic' (I hasten to use this word, but my sense of humour has being described this way before!)

After some consideration of this it hit me. I mean, I realised why I was so amused, in fact, why I was actualy laughing out loud. It is simply because slapstick is funny. That is the end of that. Let me give you an example...The IT Crowd, season 1, 'Calamity Jen' (is it episode 2?) oh anyway, the one where there is a FIRE (EXCLAMATION MARK) Somehow Roy, Moss and Jen all end up collapsiing on the floor at the end of it. Moss' fall perhaps being the most comical as the firemen burst through the door which he is about to leave, causing him to fall backwards in one clean motion. I laughed my head off when I saw that.

Yes, slapstick is still funny. It's not the fact that Drake puts his head into the aquariam to rid his mouth of the hot chilli sauce that Megan put into his dinner (or whatever it was) it was the way he dunked half of his body in, his legs sprawling around. It wasn't that Josh and Drake were in a physical fight, it was more that the flailing around was clumsy and resembled more of a cat fight than anything else. It wasn't that there was a snake climbing up Josh's trouser leg, more the way he jerked around as though electrocuted.

I don't care what makes me laugh anyway, as long as I am laughing, but, just for the record, you can't beat some all-american twenty-somethings cast as teenagers rolling around on the floor shooting out one liners.

A trapped butterfly

Today has been one of those days which you wish you could start all over again. I woke up late, I had a million phonecalls which I was too busy to deal with, and that's not even mentioning the real tragedy. For instance, there was a butterfly trapped in the greenhouse. And then Bella smacked Jake one for kissing her (she is beyond insane! I would smack Edward if he got his disgusting, freezing hands on me...)

Okay, maybe I have my priorities all mixed up, and fictional love triangles really have nothing to do with why I feel so rubbish, but they certainly don't help. The day is dull, the sun hasn't made an appearance, and of course, it's a Monday.

I don't know why Mondays have to be so lame. Sundays are evidently the worst (and most boring) day of the week, but they are immediately followed by their close competitor. Mondays insist on rain or clouds, or, ideally, both. They like maths and logic and tripping you up. They like missed buses and angry wasps. Even when you're not at work, Mondays are seldom joyful dots on the calendar.

But am I missing something? Did I forget that today I woke up and had food in the fridge? Did I forget that I watched Neighbours at lunchtime? A rare treat these days. And did I forget that Bella's fist wasn't even felt by Mr Jacob Black? And that his chortle at her disgust made me laugh out loud myself?

When the sun comes back out I may smile. Or maybe tomorrow when I know it is no longer a Monday, far away from a Sunday and suddenly I am able to pick up on all the little good things that happen during a day.

Or, alternatively, I could begin right now. Afterall, I think the butterfly escaped :)

Tracing Marks

Today I was sat on a train on a particularly long journey and it was a busy service. I hadn't been able to reserve tickets, and I wound up sat next to a little old lady. Her face was as wrinkled as an old map, the type which has been folded and unfolded, and folded and unfolded over and over again. As I considered this; her face, the lines on her hands...I decided that, in a way, being old is like having your journal tatooed all over your body. Everyone can see traces of your life right there on your skin. Wrinkles which started as laughter, smiles, frowns and facial expressions born from tragedy, fun, comedy and romance. I don't know the back story of every line, but I know they're there. I can only wonder at the back story. That occupied me for some part of the journey actually.

A few seats across from me sat a lady engrossed in a book. It looked like exactly my type of book actually. Chick lit. She turned over the page, eating a KitKat, a smile on her face. Was it a funny book? Or was it some romantic moment which she had been waiting for whilst reading each previous page? The smile she made as she read would be traceable on her face in later years. That book made a mark.

Then, right across the aisle from me were a couple. And here lies something I've talked about before, and something which continues to preoccupy my mind constantly. You see, I suppose nothing would be noticeable about them, apart from this wasn't the first time I'd seen them. On Friday when I'd taken the same train journey in the opposite direction, the same couple had been sat across the aisle from me. And so they are a perfect example of those people you cross paths with, yet you don't know what bearing they will have on your life. If any. Well, I took note then. Mr was reading a scary book, had earphones in. Mrs was also reading a book. She looked happy, you know. They both did. I came to wonder what they had been doing for the weekend. That made a mark.

People watching might be a great way to entertain yourself on a long journey, but you won't realise how much meaning you'll take from it.