Small World, Big Blip

Today:
For some reason my mornings are subject to unusual laws of physics and despite my best efforts, by the time I have done my yoga, fed cats, showered, shaved, had tea, eaten breakfast and swallowed pills - well I never get to work quite as early as I want to. Why does getting to work at 8am feel like a fail? There is a workaholic wielding a whip inside me, that's why. I'm struggling to put last year and all those long days behind me.

My colleagues at work tell me - nicely - by 11am - that I am in a bit of a grumpy place. It's the headache and the feeling unwell that's done it. And Adolphus Crosbie on Audible. What a cad. I'm beginning to tire of his inner monologue in Anthony Trollope's Small House at Allington. He really is despicable and I want to give him a good thrashing on Paddington Station, but someone gets there before me.

My day at work feels difficult despite the best efforts of my lovely colleagues and despite me continuously self medicating with decaffe soya latte. I go home early to write minutes without interruption, by which time I am feeling decidedly dodgy. As I am tapping away at my keybard I start to drift, and the next thing I know I am waking up feeling ill with someone banging at the door and two heavy cats on my chest. Mark and Dan, the plumbers, have turned up to have a look at our ailing hot water. So we go upstairs where they can find nothing wrong (of course) despite the older Mark forcing the young and lithe Dan, using his iPhone as a torch, into a tiny loft space, where our coffin tank resides. "there's an old wasp's nest in there" says Dan, brushing off dust from his jeans. "I know" says I. "We usually have them every year but its so cold this year that they've flown south with the swallows". Not far off a joke.

TSM comes home and we prepare to take Scout to the vet to have his dodgy ear looked at, only for Monty to come in with a wound on the side of his head from being in a fight, so we end up taking two cats to the vet. We're just in the surgery when The Girl Racer calls from Melbourne where it is the middle of the night and she is in need of a shoulder to cry on. Hearing her cat Monty crying pathetically only makes her worse, poor thing, and I am having to shout to make myself heard. By now the vet's waiting room is like something out of Eastenders as our little soap opera gathers momentum.

Once home I sit down again but the phone rings and the next thing I know The Dizzle is trading insults with the unknown caller, who turns out to be my big brother. He has rung by mistake (he calls it a pocket call but there are less polite terms for it). We have a good chat about the Aged P's dementia, his rebellious approach to old age, and my withdrawal from steroids. Nothing as interesting as old age and infirmity.

Eating supper, Scout comes in with a mouse in his mouth. TSM shrieks, I grab Scout and throw him out the front door. Scout goes around the house and comes back in through the cat flap. TSM shrieks and runs out, Scout drops the mouse which runs under the rug, I throw Scout in the hall and shut the door. Scout starts wailing because I have shut his tail under the door, TSM starts crying because Scout is in pain, TSM rescues Scout. I extricate the half dead mouse from under the rug, and decide that it is cruel just to leave it and take it out in the garden and kill it with a brick and bury it.

TSM is in tears when Top Gun walks through the door having had a nightmare journey with broken down trains and replacement bus services. The soap opera continues.

Finally,, we get to do the big blip with The Girl Racer on Facetime from Melbourne at 10.30pm - 7.30 (i.e. 730) Australian time. And we nail it in one. Happy families.

So: that's the story of my day (sort of). Mine and my loved ones. And today is day 730, two years of consecutive blipping without gaps. So maybe it was inevitable that the fates would send sick cats, mice, brothers, sons, daughters, wives, plumbers and fictional characters to enrich my life. For my life, 'though small, is truly blessed, and I love it. To quote The Mighty Joe: "However seemingly insignificant, every single day of our lives is a moment we'll never have again. Blipfoto stops these memories being forgotten. And, by bringing millions of individual moments together in one place, new relationships form and amazing things happen. That is why we Blip".

You have to be in love with life to blip. It's a life affirming activity like yoga or picking up the phone to a friend or pouring your heart into making a meal for someone you care for or taking your cat to the vet ....

To everyone here on blipfoto and to family and friends who follow me, thank you for two years of sharing your lives with me; and thank you too for all your support for my daily blips. I'm not a great photographer or a great writer but I am passionate on both counts. And it's no exaggeration to say that blipfoto has helped me get through some very dark days in the last year. But most of all, thank you to my family for loving me and supporting my daily obsession.

You are, quite simply, fantastic, and I love you.