2010 — 17 March: Wednesday
Well, the bit about "early to bed, early to rise" is true (it's 08:05 and the thirst cuppa is already a distant memory) if none of the rest is. And my innocent aside about artifact / artefactual has set two of my readers1 pondering, too.
The walk for today should now be off to an even earlier start as Mike is having some flat roof work done, and needs to return in time to oversee what's going on. It's 09:14 and the sun has just started to shine out there. Bodes well. Better get dressed, I guess.
Regardless of the pleasure I miss out on, I avoid drugs...
It may strike some as insensitive to insist that addiction is a disorder of choice. "I have never come across a single drug-addicted person who told me [he or she] wanted to be addicted," Nora Volkow, the current director of NIDA says. Exactly so. How many of us have ever come across a person who wanted to be fat? So many undesirable outcomes in life are achieved incrementally. In a choice model, full-blown addiction is the triumph of feel-good local decisions ("I'll use today") over punishing global anxieties ("I don't want to be an addict tomorrow").
I am already addicted to tea, of course. Dear mama being the pusher. I weaned myself off her sugar habit to an extent...
Later
Lunch, and an afternoon ice-cream treat at Carlo's, now both being merely a memory, it's time to do some supplies shopping and swing by Mr Postie's outfit for an item that either wouldn't fit, or needed a signature. Mustn't forget a pair of birthday cards, either, though I've left it pretty late (as usual). Still, one of the recipients is not in the UK at the moment (Junior did tell me he was off on a ski trip but neglected to specify the country). Or I neglected to listen while admiring the lemon sponge cake baked by his lady friend. Delicious, by the way.
It's now 18:28 and, as I vaguely ponder the solution to the daily problem of what I fancy for an evening meal, I can note that I'm now in possession of two £10 vouchers for M&S. Thank you, Mr Toyota. How did they know this was Christa's favourite shop, to which she would drag me from time to time (this was our final trip there together, though I've been a couple of times since then) when it was time to refresh my wardrobe contents? A thankless task, in my opinion. Come to think of it, I still have an unspent M&S gift card from my favourite cousin, too, thanks to the simple process of incrementing my year total2 last October. I foresee another trip to Hedge End in my near future, Christa.
At 19:49 I've still not eaten. But I have just finished putting in place a not very sophisticated temporary drip catcher for the latest radiator to decide to start leaking. The one up here in my study, as it happens. Thank goodness I should now be able to do without the central heating system for the next few months. This is very tedious but, after 28 years on one boiler and one set of radiators, I guess it's only to be expected. I shall wait and see what my friendly plumber Brian can do to, as it were, bale me out.
R.I.P. Charlie Gillett
And thanks for introducing me to a whole lot of "world" music over many years. (More.)