PASSING THE TIME
It’s not that I’ve had TIME on my hands – it is just that at the moment I am confined to barracks until my ankle operation – and this has caused me to look at my ‘time’ in a different way. Inevitably my life has become one of inaction, rather than action, so I am spending the days in unusual pursuits – for me. For instance, I was given the box set of the first six series of “Game of Thrones” and this has taken many hours of viewing, sixty to be precise. At first I was sceptical – after all it is fantasy and I like my viewing world to be real. But it is a clever programme, quite apart from the dazzling settings, photography, staged battles et all. It is both well acted and well written – and the subject of the writing is timeless, dealing with seven warring families fighting for dominance. Family life doesn’t change. There has always been the obsession with jealousy, power and need for supremacy – not to mention sexual intrigue. The violence and pornography were at first shocking, but in an unnerving sort of way by the end of the first series I found I was quite used to it. It made me realise how used I was getting to similar, but real, scenes on our news every night.
Apart from this television orgy, I started to re-read Anthony Powell’s wonderful series of novels, appropriately named “A Dance to the Music of Time”. These are quite brilliantly written and I haven’t found them dated at all. Quite simply – they are classics and as there are 12 books in the series, this is also taking up a good deal of time.
I should be spending more of my time on my next novel – which requires a large amount of research but I’m afraid to say I have been lazy over this and thereby hangs the problem. I have suddenly found myself with more than usual ‘idle’ time, on my hands and have taken to filling this time with unusual, ‘idle’ activities. One of these is that I have at last acquired a Kindle – and this will now take up many leisure hours. This purchase had been resisted for years because I was sceptical of yet another screen to look at and I liked the tactile feel of a book in my hands. A circumstance change this. Having received a wonderful review from Breakaway Reviewers on Amazon, for my last book “The Brini Boy”
I was asked if I would like to be one of Breakaway’s reviewers. This sounded interesting and I agreed – but in order to do the reviews I needed a Kindle! So now I have one.
I was always told that as I grew older time would hang heavy on my hands. I have found completely the opposite. When I was young I remember feeling despair on the first day of the term when the next holiday seemed such an age away. Now tempis really does fugit and I find it difficult to fit everything in. This year has flown by. We are already in August and the garden is already looking autumnal. I dread the moment when Christmas advertising starts.
Meanwhile, the world seems in a mess. I hope when I write my next blog I will be able to say “happy times are here again” or at least, better times.