Campaign for pointless activities

L1002586 What's the point?
Originally uploaded by Lillput

I had the perfect morning, this morning.

I walked a couple of miles in the cold autumn sunshine and attended a meeting for ExtraVerte with TD at council offices in South Bristol.

The meeting was everything we could have asked for - upbeat, helpful, generating more potential contacts and an answer in the affirmative. After the meeting we repaired to a cafe to discuss the outcome of the meeting, next steps and to prepare a strategy for the project.

After that, TD noticed that the water level was low in the river so we strolled around taking pictures in the sunshine and, it has to be said, dropping stones and other small, heavy found objects into the gloopy mud. We both chuckled with childish satisfaction at the activity. We're middle-aged professional people, for goodness sake. What the hell are we playing at?

This has happened a few times recently.

I visited Hitchin a few weeks ago and on my walk into town from the train station I was horrified (yes, horrified is definitely the word) to see that under a horse chestnut tree was a pile of fallen conkers. In my day, a hoard like that was like finding gold. It was all you could do to stop us throwing sticks into trees to get conkers out of the trees so you'd never ever see that many shiny conkers just lying there on the ground.

There was something deep inside me that couldn't pass by...so I guiltily scooped a dozen or so up and popped them in my coat pocket.
I rediscovered them later when I was at S's house. So I gifted them to him. He chuckled and graciously accepted them and we both bemoaned the lack of conker competition today.
We never got around to playing conkers so he's either quietly thrown them away or they're still there in a pile on the side in the kitchen.

Last weekend I went for a walk with M and her kids. She has a son of 7 (pictured) and a daughter of 11. We passed a big pile of dry fallen leaves. Naturally I kicked them (yes, naturally...that's what dry leaves are for).
M eyed me with some horror..."there might be dog poo!". True enough. I hate poo as much as the next person, but the risk of finding it in a pile of leaves can't overcome my innate desire to kick leaves. The risk is worth it.
So her son, also M, and I kick leaves for the next few minutes.

When we get to the old dockside rail tracks M and I play on the tracks for a while. Balancing on the rails, jumping over sleepers, and then trying to move the points.
M's mum and sister leave us to it.

Why the hell do I think that playing on railway lines, kicking leaves, dropping stones into mud and scooping up conkers is a valuable activity for me, and for my friends?

Because for the short time we do them, our focus is entirely on the now. The now of simple pleasures.

There's time later to think about the fridge that seems to have developed a fault, the cooker element that blew at the weekend, the fact that the bathroom radiator no longer gives out any heat at all...and how the hell am I going to pay the bills if no bugger will pay me to pretty up the urban landscape.

For the next 20 minutes I can just concentrate on not falling off the railway track and into the stingers, scraging my knees on the way down.

After that, the other things seem less unmanagable because I've just given my brain a rest.

So go on...let your inner seven-year old out on loose for a bit and to hell with life's dog poo!


.