Grateful: Day 89 - Softest Ever

I wanted to remember, today, the things that had made me laugh or smile. Despite blogging, I feel I've been forgetting to stay with the little things that really make me smile.

The first one I noted was this. I got caught cackling. Coming down the hill from Muswell Hill, just before going up it again to Highgate tube station, there's a speed bump. It's a big, gnarly old speed bump full of holes. There are smoother and rougher parts of

it, but it's always a bone-shaker.

I have no disc left between L4 and L5 in my lower spine, and very little in the one above (or below - I can never quite remember) so sitting over bumps like that is not a good idea. So, on the way down that hill, I get myself ready and I stand on my pedals. Whenever I stand on my pedals all equal, I feel like a small boy on his new bike at the beginning of the summer hoildays. I see the world of possibility stretching out in front of me: trees to climb, rules to break, woods to be explored, dens to build. That kind of adventures.

So in that mode, I sweep down the hill and chug over that potholed bump. I tend to (it seems) also make monster noises at that point. A kind of chewy, grumply roar. And then the cackle.

So today I was caught, mid-guffaw, by a man standing in the entrance to a yard, just after that bump. He looked up. He seemed to smile, but seem confused. I realise I have no idea what I look like to other people.

When I did an MSc in Brighton in 1998, there was a woman on the course who used to cycle in all the way from Littlehampton (or somewhere equally as far). It seemed like worlds away. She was in her forties, always wore a bum-bag, over whatever else she had on, and in the mornings, she usually had her yellow cycling anorak on too. She wasn't cool.

Nevertheless, I had a bout of envy, in a way. She didn't give a shit, quite honestly, what she looked like. She was intelligent, capable, interested. She was a bit awkward, and pretty's not a word you'd use. But she had a husband, if I remember rightly, and she had a life, and she had the things she loved (like cycling). And no bunch of insecure whippersnappers (or intermediate snappers, like me) were going to affect for a single second how she felt about herself, or whether or not the bum-bag would be worn.

In some ways, I wanted to be like her. In some ways, I have got my wish. Whizzing about with a tailored tweed coat on and a thin fluorescent anorak over the top. Boots, a little bit too bit. No qualms about trousers in socks, if the combination calls for it (flares are shite, on a bike, truly shite, and I do love a good flare).

Conversely, one of the reasons for my little fling in Berlin this autumn was that I looked so smart and proper and yet behaved like a bit of a hippy. It was that clash - me smiling broadly in the street and being open, and looking like I was all uptight and proper - that interested the man.

At the moment, I'm wearing jeans that need a belt, without a belt. Well, see, I don't HAVE a suitable belt, and I don't want to pay loads of money for one if I don't even like it. I tried a shoelace. It didn't really work and was terribly impractical. Ah well. It will work out, I know it will.

Ha ha.. .writing such irrelevant gubbins reminds me (oh, gubbins, you under-used peach of a word, you) of a question I answered recently. Or a statement that I graded: when I'm writing, time seems to fly. Well, yes, for me, time seems to fly when I write this blog. I apologise sincerely to anyone reading who things 'what the... why do I need to know about your beltless pants? I don't.'

So, I'm grateful for my swim. It was delightful. I'm grateful for my bike. I do love it (see above) and I am full of honour and admiration at the simplicity of the pleasure it can give me.

I read a book today that I shall pass on. It was about doing what you love and nothing else. Oh, god, I so agree. It was about stopping looking at how you're supposed to do things and just doing what you love. It was about learning things and trying things and playing instead of working. It was about finding what makes you happy, whether it's the accepted norm or not, and doing that.

I do wonder. Many times in the last few days, the lack of need for material wealth (as in 'stuff') keeps coming up. Do you need 'stuff' to make you happy. No, I don't think really that you do. That I do. I think a proper purge might be in order. I have a box of stuff from my teenage years, and photos from my childhood that I will not give away, even if it means lugging it around. I have lots of useful things, and things that I appreciate, but with a few exceptions, not having them wouldn't be an enormous shame. I'd miss my books, but most of them stay unread, and I bet I could find appreciative homes for most of them (and return the ones that don't belong to me).

I love my dictionaries. I do miss them, even though I don't use them that much. It's not about finding translations or definitions. I can do that online. It's about those big, heavy books, their smell, their serendipites. All the words that offer themselves as you just look for one. All the possibilities. The stories, even.

I am grateful for Ruth's very pleasing blanket, which kept me warm all day. I am grateful for good food, and fantastic company. Pudding, I am very grateful to be your friend. I am grateful for whatever force it was that helped me do yoga, even just a bit, this morning once I'd managed to get out of bed. That's every day since Monday. Might not seem much, but it is, and it's still fun.

I'm grateful for two batches of unexpected work - proofing from Spain and the offer of some more French-speaking work with Steps. I would LOVE to do that, and I'm reassured. I was a little bit concerned after my forum day that I might have let the regal Rebaldi down. I wanted to 'get it right' and be good, for him, as he had faith in me when we did the last job. I worried that I hadn't made the grade. But today, he called. It may be that I can't do the dates, because of other work (another thing to make me swell with thanks) but I am SO happy to be asked, and hopeful of a possible solution.

I haven't heard from my Crouch End ladies. I am fearful, but I know, I KNOW that whatever they decide, it will work out fine. If that's not where I'll stay, I'll be disappointed for a bit, but something else will be there. And perhaps it will have a tail, a soft underbelly* and a face. Here's hoping.

Staffordshire Bull Terriers have the softest, softest bit, under the armpits. Soft as babies and peaches and velvet. Softer. Mmmmmmm.