Nothing in life makes me feel like I have failed miserably on all fronts more than watching Nigella Lawson doing what she does best at Christmas.
I sat here for half an hour drooling on myself as she poured chocolate sauce onto some cake that would never pass my lips, whipped up a dinner better suited to Kings of Bavaria than the other people who live in her street and generally looked like she was in control of anything that might appear in her kitchen - expected or otherwise.
Nigella has been busy, busy, busy and once more, has won the respect of the nation with her culinary expertise. I can’t even butter a slice of bread without putting an apron on.
My own contribution to the nation has been to sit around playing guitar, finishing the book I was reading and walking 4km with Hector - twice. That’s 8km if your math isn’t so good.
Outside, there is rain. Inside, there are dirty, wet towels from drying Hector and clean wet towels from previous dog drying sessions that haven’t dried yet. There is mud strewn across the floor from both me and him. Christmas is not yet figured out and the fridge is emptier than Nigella’s kitchen sink.
Life is good.
I can’t recall if I ever mentioned here that I was taking the whole of December off. Not just from work but from as much of life as I could too. My plan was - and is - to check myself in at The Priory... that would be The Priory Of Sion and not the famous rehab clinic. Well, I find it amusing.
Checking myself in means I have to present myself at the desk of my soul, whereby my soul, will give me a look similar to something my mother would give me, and I will go away shame-faced to make sure I’m doing all the things I think I should be doing to get wherever it is I think I’m going.
And lo... I can see there are things I had promised myself that never materialised already but this is an observational exercise - not a “you must do something about it” exercise. Perhaps the only thing I can learn from such an exercise is not to think I can do quite so much in the future.
Questions are being asked: What am I going to do across the next twelve months or so? Where should I travel to in search of magic? What will I write? Who will I choose to be if I’m really in charge of my own life?
They’re good questions to ask of yourself. Take your eye off the ball you started bouncing years ago and it can bounce anywhere... sometimes it can bounce so far away, you’ll have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever catching it.
And sometimes it’s fine to just head back out into the world and buy a new ball to play with. That option is always open to you. Ain’t no shame in changing your mind about anything.
One Life. One Death.
So, being as I’ve fulfilled my writing promises to myself for the year and these songs I’m working on appear to have a life of their own, I’ll be putting some work into rebooting the Big Bear Rescue project for a couple of weeks - that sounds like a good use of time over Christmas while everybody else is doing Nigella-type things. What I’d really like to do is head out to the sanctuary and make a documentary. Not the most unreachable goal in the world so I’ll press some buttons and see what gives.
Right now though, it’s just me and The Equaliser 2... which is a little worrying as last night it was me and Jason Bourne and the night before, it was me and Jack Reacher. Three films in three nights about men doing the ‘right thing’ in their quest for justice.
Maybe if those guys checked in with Nigella now and again, the world wouldn’t seem like such a bad place.