The Little Guy is doing well, he’s got into a good routine and has already formed habits that are likely to hang around for a while. I’ll be posting more about him later. My topic today is a bit late in the season, but it was something that came to mind and I knew I wanted to put my thoughts to digital paper.

It’s just turned August. You’ve been on summer holidays for a week or two and walking into the clothes store your eyes fall on the massive board advertising sweaters, shirts, and trousers.

Even now, having finished school some years ago, it still irks me to see those posters around proclaiming “back to school”. In England they tend to go up a few weeks after the holidays start and it’s so horrible when you’re a child to be reminded of how short your free time is. As soon as it turns August you’re already counting the days anyway, as the sun sets sooner in the evenings and the days aren’t as hot. I know shops are all about advertising and making money but surely they could spare a thought for the little ones who aren’t looking forward to putting on a choking tie and parading around in dull pinafores.

It’s just always seemed so heartless to me, why can’t they wait just that bit longer? Or perhaps just leave off the sign.

Is this protocol the same where you are? And how long do children get for their holidays?

My family has welcomed a little guy into the world (hereon known as The Little Guy), and as you can imagine I haven’t been on the internet much. My sister was brilliant, I was sat outside the ward, and she was so calm! The Little Guy is so serene and cries so few times and my sister’s partner has been a brick.

I’m so proud of them all. As you can guess I may not be blogging as much in the next couple of weeks. I will definitely be blogging, there will be no hiatus, it may just be less frequently until things have settled down into a routine.

Last week I was ill. I had just completed a week (a fortnight ago from now) of work experience that involved a lot of hard manual labour (expect a blog post on that sometime soon) and was completely wiped out from it. Going straight into such work from a more relaxed situation proved a little too much and my body responded with a cold.

But my cold isn’t what I want to talk about today, rather I want to talk about something that occurred because of it. From Monday to Wednesday I didn’t feel so good but was able to keep myself employed by something: typing, reading, the like. I think I was feeling worse then than I realised because I ended up finding both the two books I read average and nothing to talk about; and my reviews of those books were unlike all the others I’ve written and incredibly lacking in detail.

Then came Thursday and Friday, I was feeling horrendous and ended up doing absolutely nothing with my time. I was frustrated by this more than by the cold itself, no matter that it was the cold’s fault. And I realised more than I do when well that there is a big difference between doing nothing out of choice and doing nothing because you’re forced to do nothing. It’s been a long time since I was happy to watch television for hours and being able to do nothing simply reminded me what a waste of time sitting infront of one is when you’re just flicking channels. Needless to say I understand even less now how my sister can do it.

I’ve always known that I like to be learning continuously but never quite realised that I subscribe to the boyfriend’s phrase “doing something constructive”. Constructive, I see now, doesn’t necessarily have to mean computer coding, writing, or composing music - it can be filling my head with information on ancient Egyptian queens.

I spent Friday evening, when I was finally feeling better and the boyfriend was over, being hyperactive. My lack of employment that week had made be a little crazy, and when the boyfriend said he’d like to sleep for a bit and would I stay with him I didn’t know what to do.

It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing I had in mind but at least I did learn one thing from last week: having strived in recent years to keep myself busy I can no longer relax completely and feel happy. But that’s no bad thing.

Exercise. We need it.

Using “we” in the general, all-encompassing form, of course we do, because if we don’t exercise we end up languishing in a state where walking is a burden in itself (excluding disabilities) and where our food is no longer good for us. The opinion of doctors that some junk food has it’s merits would be turned back to the negative. While being something we all inherently believe (that it’s bad) despite being told that a slice of that heavenly strawberry-topped pavlova is an alright thing to eat, we’d be having to leave the pavlova behind the glass counter for sure. And I don’t know about you but I want that pavlova. And I want to be healthy. I want to have my cake and eat it.

So because I want to do that I’ve decided to start swimming again, or rather the boyfriend decided, but we’ll forget that little soundbite. If there are any cats about who happen to be able to read English (I wouldn’t say it’s impossible) you might want to direct them to the spider in the garden while you read this.

The first day of swimming was a nightmare. Walking along the side of the pool I felt vaguely unbalanced, the anticipation of what I was about to do rolling over me like a bad swimming blog post metaphor of tides of water. It had already hit me a few days beforehand that pools are deep and full of water. This is the nature of pools; if I was to go swimming I had to deal with this fact - so I’d decided that staying by the edge of the pool would probably be a good idea because although I was a strong enough swimmer before it had been a while since I’d last swum and to put myself more at ease than might be necessary would make the experience run more smoothly. I swum a few lengths, I stayed at the edge. All was good.

The next time there were more people in the pool, families with children. Families with children are rarely in the pool to swim and this does annoy me when they choose to play in the section of the pool where the people who want to swim are. I had to content myself with swimming back and forth about a third of the pool, no more because the edge was unavailable. It may not have been my fault but I felt I’d failed. The prognosis for the third time was not good.

The third time: no families! There were people mucking around but there were some serious lane swimmers about before I’d got there so the right of way was on them. I did a few lengths and not surprisingly it was easier. I knew I could go without the edge so in the final few minutes I let myself swim at arms length from it. It felt great.

Swimming is strange. It’s taxing in a different way to sports that require running, you’re hindered by the weight of the water as you swim. There are limits to all sports but the ones in water are more imposing as it’s less about you and more about the environment. For that I find there’s a bigger reward in it.

I’ve made good progress and quickly found out what works for me in terms of speed and stroke. I hope I can continue to reap the rewards.

While still indulging in that chocolate cake that’s just taken the spot where the pavlova was.

I’m back. Well ok, I was never gone exactly, but I had no ideas on what to write about. In the last week I’ve come up with a few so here goes, I’ll try to get into a routine of every three or so days.

Something I’ve started to experience regularly is a burst of inspiration at night. It’s a peculiar occurrence because usually when I’m trying to think of what to write about I have absolutely no success, but if I do the same at night I will often unearth a basic idea: a general blog topic, the premise for a story - which tends to come as an image I can delve into - or the perfectly-formed sentence I’ve been attempting to create.

Inspiration came a week or so ago. I wanted to write a short story, I knew that, but I’ve written so many beginnings in the last couple of years that I dread more ideas coming to mind. As I lay there an image started to sketch itself. A coffee shop. I decided it was Starbucks because I’ve come to realise that being in Starbucks aids my imagination. A woman waiting in line. I couldn’t really see her because she was at that point just an initial thought, so I eased my focus away from the shop and gave her my full attention. She surprised me, I’d been expecting an average Brit like myself, but what I found was an Indian girl in traditional dress. She surprised me because I’ve never written about a different culture before.

It was perfect. Suddenly I was filling in her clothes, wondering why she was there, examining her face for anything I could take from her expression to help me realise her back-story. I know quite a bit about Indian culture - I watch Indian films, listen to the country’s music, know some Hindi, and have learned about dress, religion, food and the like. After having been surprised to find this woman I was now surprised that I’d never thought of it before.

The opening sentence came instantly, even as I tried to suppress it (because I knew that to start writing the story in my head would mean I would have to get up and start jotting it down) and the first two paragraphs were completed quickly.

Now I’m at the tricky stage, the point where the story has to move beyond that initial picture in my head. The character suggests I take her outside, it’s too crowded in the coffee shop, but I’m wondering what would happen if she stayed in there as there are so many people waiting around that she could interact with.

The character’s case was too strong. I let her go outside. And of course now she’s turned round to face me, awaiting my commands; she didn’t tell me she hadn’t thought about what she wanted to do once she was outside. So we’re both wondering, me with my fingers poised over the keyboard and her leaning casually against a bollard on the pavement, looking bored.

They often say listen to your characters and they will guide you. Perhaps my character is more rebellious than I thought she was and I should give her the reins… or does there come a time when the writer should take control, perhaps when their character isn’t who they intimated they were?…

A dedicated coming-of-age story more detailed than most and set against the backdrop of a boarding school.

Read more?

Winchester. Once the capital city of England and a place full of history and tributes. The cathedral itself holds a great many of them, all on it’s own. Mary I was married to Philip of Spain here but perhaps more importantly to us in our modern day Jane Austen is buried here.

I see you’ve noticed the tone of my voice - I am indeed writing this in the building itself. When I heard about the Jane Austen Exhibition my newly-made admiration for the author was nudged and this, along with the fact that it’s historic overall, lead me to drive all the way to Winchester.

I’ve taken photographs, how could I not? But the quality of them leaves much to be desired. I know that I felt a bit anxious over the fact that I was taking photographs in a church, but the blurring suggests I was in a rush, which I wasn’t. And I’m afraid I don’t know what happened when I took the photo of the grave itself, I thought I’d got all the text in. There’s no photo of the cathedral’s exterior. All in all a very bad day for me and pictures.

I have seen Austen’s handwriting - very neat and with good spacing between lines. The grave is small, one of those on the floor, easily miss-able but for the gold plaque on the wall near it. But for the gold you would likely walk straight past the grave stone and be none the wiser unless you were scanning the floor as you went.

I wove my way about the gravestones. Do you ever find yourself doing that? It’s a bit like the superstitious idea of missing the cracks in tiled floor; perhaps it’s respect gone crazy as after all in some places it’s practically impossible to walk past without stepping on one, but I had this strange thought that I would look better if I was seen to be making an effort. And not to the patrons mind you, the dead themselves.

In addition to the gravestones there are a couple of tiny “chapels” which are basically tiny (really tiny) rooms holding large tombs. They are surrounded by pillars, a kind of mini cloister, and house statues above the tombstone, I guess to represent an altar. The men buried within are clergymen.

This is a very poor post, I’m all too aware of that fact, so I hope to put it right in part two.

On this day, two years ago, I kissed my best friend. We had become really close; there was a big similarity between us, and in the few ways we weren’t similar there was him instilling more confidence in me and me helping him become the person he wanted to be.

Going round to sleep over on the first night he would be in his new house was a bad idea, everything considered. I knew it was. He had a girlfriend, long distance, but the tension between us was incredible and I knew that I couldn’t not have gone. I would have just kept on wondering “what if…”

We laid on the bed, speaking sporadically, discussing our situation. He wanted to kiss me - the desire to was in his eyes whenever we were messing around and found ourselves close, and he’d confirmed it to me each time after we’d parted ways for the day. He wanted to kiss me, but I wouldn’t let him. His then current relationship was coming to it’s end and had been pretty much over for months but still it didn’t seem right. But I wanted to kiss him, wanted it so badly, and felt regret for the time previous when he’d come so close and I’d pushed him away. I’d never been kissed before, and the idea that in honouring this - broken - relationship of his I would lose this chance, ate away at me.

We carried on discussing. It was far more formal than any of our previous sticky situations; we were laid beside each other but the desperation to touch was kept in control.

Can he kiss me?
No.
Why?
I already said.
He had to make the decision between her and me, and I just knew he’d choose her, even then, so there was no point in taking our situation further.

Silence. He sat up on his elbows. Silence. “Do you trust me?” he asked. “Yes,” I muttered, “I’ve never said I didn’t”.

Everything was in slow motion. He moved down towards me and my head was reeling. Oh my god he’s going to kiss me, oh my god he’s going to kiss me and I can’t stop it this time, I can’t. An age seemed to pass while I realised the enormity of this moment, how this friendship was about to change, how I was about to change.

His lips brushed against mine twice. I made no move in reply, staying, as I had done, laid on my side. He laid back down and asked if he could have a response to the peck on the cheek he’d given me a few weeks ago now - it had been in friendship, he’d said, it didn’t mean anything, but I knew him well. I lent over and kissed him quickly, I felt like a child, I could do no more.

He gave me the most incredible smile, one I’ve seen only twice to this day, and I read his eyes - happy, ecstatic even, cheeky, and no doubt fully aware that really, this was wrong, we should have waited a little longer. He sat up and hovered above me. This was it.

Things got a bit awry after that. There were cuddles, no sex, but afterwards came upset. Yet even through that and still now I look back on that most perfect of moments and remember my first kiss and that evening with affection. In the ways it truly mattered it was perfect and I only wish I could repeat it again and again.

Two years now, on our unofficial anniversary, and I understand you more than I thought possible, though there’s still some way to go yet.

I love you silly.