Where does the time go?

 

THE OTHER NIGHT I WENT FOR A MASSAGE

Not the whale music kind, and definitely not the happy ending type. This was more your "two steps removed from sadistic torture" kind of massage. Something I've been having every few weeks in the hope that they, and my sudden conversion to pilates, will help ease the back pains I have been having for several months. My regular manipulator being away for a few weeks, I had a new guy giving my back the treatment, and finding his own ways to make me experience pains I didn't know I had. Lovely man, from Dundalk, and we chatted as he rubbed and pummelled away at me. He asked that question that so many people do when you're retired - "What do you do with yourself?"

To which my first response is usually "What the hell do I do with myself?". Because I never seem to do much, and yet the days are full and I'm never bored. So I thought I'd look back at the month just ending to see if it offered up any clues.

September's always a month with a bit going on anyway. The Fringe has just ended, and live entertainment switches to sport, and the theatre. Hockey and Rugby begin, and it's time for another season of A Play, a Pie and a Pint. There's our wedding anniversary, and Barbara's birthday. Oh, and I've got into the habit of helping out a bit on the Advocard stall on the day of the Edinburgh Volunteer Fair.

This specific September added in a march in support of Scottish Indy, a short city break, a brief period alone at home, and a music gig. That's a fair bit of time accounted for already. But there's still a lot left...

So what do I do with the rest of the time? I wish I knew.  I sit at my PC and write things.  I look at smaller screens and get annoyed with the idiots of the world (definitely trying to cut back on that one).  I read.  Play with the cat.  Usually a bit of voluntary work.  A weekly pilates class, immediately offset by cake in a nearby cafe.  TV in the evenings.

And... exist in my own head.  It's a place where I've always been able to spend a lot tiome.  Maybe from being an only child, more likely from being naturally unsociable.  I didn't tell him that bit.