Peaks and Valleys

“In life, there’s always peaks and valleys” – so the song goes.  This week has been full of them.

The valleys?  Arguing – full on Monty Python, “I’d like to have an argument please” vitriol, gainsaying, condescension and “LA LA LA LA, I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”  I like to go on the internet to see how much it likes me…not this week.  This week I am the deluded, parrot of ill-informed opinion and I’m not from the right country to have an opinion anyway?  You guessed, I’m embroiled in the latest argument surrounding America’s obsession with and inability to deal with their problem with the latest Star Wars movie.  Ok, with guns.  It may as well have been about Star Wars, both topics bring out the irrational.  That was one valley.

Another has been lack of routine.  I’m angry at myself for becoming so het up around the need for routine but, hey ho, that’s how the inner working of Mr Brain has decided to go.  The arrival of sub-zero temperatures, snow and wind has hijacked my running schedule, destroyed my daily routine and I’m out of kilter.  It’s affecting my mood – to often bad enough as it is. Routine has been crucial in the readjustment to being back on these isles.  Not being able to run has had a greater impact than it should.  That has annoyed me.  Definitely another valley.

The deepest valley has then been trying to maintain some sort of order for the rest of the working day.  It has been a battle.  I find myself becoming flotsam on the sea of social media, losing time flicking through comment after comment, liking, commenting myself, sharing.  I’m at the beck and call of youtube clips, mindlessly searching through endless history documentaries and comedy snippets to find the hidden gems I just know are there!  It is procrastination of a type but it feels more than that…like a subconscious sabotaging of the day by my worse intentions.  I’m swaddling myself in the fluffy blanket the fluff on internet has to offer; it’s a chore to pry myself away.  The lowest valley floor indeed.

Peaks?

Two.

Writing.  One strong aspect of the routine I have built myself is sitting in the comfy chair at the library and editing my arse off.  It has paid dividends, this week.  The magnetic pull of the chair has cut through the malaise.  I have managed to complete the first version of one story; continue the writing of a second and create a presentation for a trip I’ve got coming up.  The burrow of the comfy chair at the library is a boon.  I can furrow myself away.  The high sides of the chair blinker me on the screen: it is a piece of furniture that focuses.  Sitting there allows me to finagle words from my head and put them onto a page.  That has been a peak.

Second?  Black Book Café, in Stroud.  I have brought with me from New Zealand a taste for a flat white. This café not only does a proper flat white, it also provides a place to sit, ruminate over the routine of the morning and prepare for the focus of the afternoon.  As the name suggests, the setting is one of books, I particularly enjoy the way the books, although the line the walls stage left and right are, actually, centre stage.  The hodgepodge tables and chairs give an impression of casual thrown-togetherness that may or may not have some truth behind it.  The use of books as a centrepiece for the café is theatrically managed.  Having ladders to be able to climb to the higher shelves to extract a text is an especially pleasing touch.  I have enjoyed nothing more, in this week of valleys, to be able to sit and read and enjoy a properly made, deliciously bitter, biting, creamy coffee.  Black Book Café is a highest peak.  This week it is a true escape from the mire inside the mind.

Days continue.  The schedule will fall back into place, no doubt.  Being back has not yet sorted itself out…the peaks and valleys will continue to occur.  What have been yours, this most trying of British weeks?