So the end of the year is nigh, possibly also the world, but fairly certainly the year, provided we manage to make it through the next week or so, and I think most readers will agree that 2019 has made for fairly grim viewing. The 2018 season was bad enough, but 2019 has basically been a series of increasingly unpleasant plot twists; in fairness, the shark was jumped back in 2017, with that unbelievable call-an-election-from-an-unlosable-position-and-then-nearly-lose-it plotline (though I wouldn't have minded that one getting an airing again), everything since then has been increasingly unrealistic, as the showrunners have leapt for ever more implausible narrative arcs in order to keep the show on the road.
Now, last year I started one of my last blogs of the year in similar vein, only to then turn it into a number of reasons to be cheerful. I started this particular blog a few days ago in a fairly grim mood (trying to get round to doing anything other than work at this time of year is fairly impossible when you'd re in my line of work) and wrote a few hundred words abusing this notion and writing some fairly cynical stuff about tapping into the zeitgeist by trying to monetise my anxiety (hence the title, which, for some reason, I've kept). Coming back to them this morning, with a few minutes peace and quiet to do a little writing before the family wake up, I deleted the lot, it was fairly mean-spirited and not terribly good writing (though there was a good line about my YouTube channel promoting Mindful Relaxation techniques, which generally features me mainlining Cotes du Rhone whilst weeping furiously at a crossword which I'll never solve, I reckon I'd get viewers if it were a thing).
The truth is that I don't see an enormous amount to be cheerful about at the minute. But a few days on from writing what I originally put I don't feel quite as furious as I did then, possibly the season's got to me a little and knocked a few edges off, possibly it's the slight hysteria brought on by relentless hordes of diners and countless hours stood at a stove, maybe it's a sense of relief at having got all shopping and card sending sorted, and all the stuff for the dinner sat safely in the fridge (one plus point of professional cooking - having walk-in fridges to stash stuff in). But for whatever reason I thought sod it, enough hectoring and enough anger for the time being. There'll be time enough for both next year (and it will be necessary next year, because holding this administration to account with the majority they now have is going to take some doing), and there's no time for it now.
And the feeling I got as I deleted the swathes of bitter, angry text was one largely of relief, which is, I suppose, a lesson of some sort or another, a trite little festive homily to ping out into the ether, something about letting anger go, I don't know. Make of it what you will. You can't do much good for others if you're not being good to yourself, maybe. Or something like that. Whatever it is, I felt better afterwards, and I hope that you are, too (you've certainly been spared some fairly atrocious writing, so count that as a win).
So now I'm going to go and get my whites out of the wash and head off back into the din of the kitchen, at a rough calculation there's probably still about 1200 plates of food to send out between now and Christmas day, and I'm not going to get owt done sat round grumbling on the internet. Best crack on, then, I'll see you in a bit.
Oh, and Merry Christmas.
Now, last year I started one of my last blogs of the year in similar vein, only to then turn it into a number of reasons to be cheerful. I started this particular blog a few days ago in a fairly grim mood (trying to get round to doing anything other than work at this time of year is fairly impossible when you'd re in my line of work) and wrote a few hundred words abusing this notion and writing some fairly cynical stuff about tapping into the zeitgeist by trying to monetise my anxiety (hence the title, which, for some reason, I've kept). Coming back to them this morning, with a few minutes peace and quiet to do a little writing before the family wake up, I deleted the lot, it was fairly mean-spirited and not terribly good writing (though there was a good line about my YouTube channel promoting Mindful Relaxation techniques, which generally features me mainlining Cotes du Rhone whilst weeping furiously at a crossword which I'll never solve, I reckon I'd get viewers if it were a thing).
The truth is that I don't see an enormous amount to be cheerful about at the minute. But a few days on from writing what I originally put I don't feel quite as furious as I did then, possibly the season's got to me a little and knocked a few edges off, possibly it's the slight hysteria brought on by relentless hordes of diners and countless hours stood at a stove, maybe it's a sense of relief at having got all shopping and card sending sorted, and all the stuff for the dinner sat safely in the fridge (one plus point of professional cooking - having walk-in fridges to stash stuff in). But for whatever reason I thought sod it, enough hectoring and enough anger for the time being. There'll be time enough for both next year (and it will be necessary next year, because holding this administration to account with the majority they now have is going to take some doing), and there's no time for it now.
And the feeling I got as I deleted the swathes of bitter, angry text was one largely of relief, which is, I suppose, a lesson of some sort or another, a trite little festive homily to ping out into the ether, something about letting anger go, I don't know. Make of it what you will. You can't do much good for others if you're not being good to yourself, maybe. Or something like that. Whatever it is, I felt better afterwards, and I hope that you are, too (you've certainly been spared some fairly atrocious writing, so count that as a win).
So now I'm going to go and get my whites out of the wash and head off back into the din of the kitchen, at a rough calculation there's probably still about 1200 plates of food to send out between now and Christmas day, and I'm not going to get owt done sat round grumbling on the internet. Best crack on, then, I'll see you in a bit.
Oh, and Merry Christmas.
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