Shoulder pain be dammed, I've progressed the garden patio repairs. Which have further revealed just what a cack handed bodge of a job who ever laid the decking in the first place made of it. To which I have now contributed my own bit of clumsily executed cowboy joinery to make it functional, if not necessarily good. The patio decking in general, if I were being honest, has not many more years of life left in it. I made a major repair intervention last year and then again this year.
This year required removal of seriously spongy or decayed to the point of collapse lengths of decking, and then reusing bits of half decent decking or garden trough wood, to fill in the resulting holes. I expect at some stage its deterioration will eventually move the dial too far away from being repairable. At which point we will have to see what we can afford to do. One benefit of my current repair was I was able to put the water butts overfill pipe under the decking and properly into a drain. A minor victory, that I can tell you has warmed the cockles of my tidy heart.
In the aftermath of the HA! the persistence of shoulder trouble, and the combined effect on quality of sleep, has stalled engaging energetically with whatever it is my semi-retired life might consist of. The unpredictability of physical impediments acting up, has on occasions left me stranded in despondency. As a consequence that mood kills dead anything it encounters. There are days when I haven't a clue what to do, so I end up wandering around in neutral, in an aimless fog. I'm sure this period will eventually pass, because they usually do.
I have noted, that a lot of frustrations and beefs have been poking their heads above the defenses, revealing the soured bitch within. Its usually worth knowing areas where in your psyche the grumpy old man lives. That mumbled voice, with a rougher edged tongue than you'd expect. The views and opinions you find yourself holding don't have to even be reasonable, nor true. They may simply be the sort of negativity that arises when you are generally overwhelmed by life, pissed off with yourself or seriously lacking in sleep, for instance. They seep in from the silenced periphery, where those carefully modulated responses, pausing to consider how best to react, that use linguistically evasive or indefinite language, have all been temporarily suspended.
As a Buddhist it can sometimes be tricky to speak honestly, without over filtering and pre-editing what you are saying. To the point where it can be hard to ascertain exactly what meaning you are trying to express.Sometimes an outburst of clearly expressed views, however wrong headed, can be better than suppressing or continually putting a monitoring guard rail around them, or sitting heavily upon them so hard they can hardly breathe. Sometimes the valley where our discontent resides, can run a lot deeper than we anticipate. Intuition alone is telling me at the present, that something is coming to a head. Something has to break or be broken.
Tomorrow we do our once a fortnight day in Seagulls & Samphire, Blakeney, running the shop that has the largest range of our stock in it. I don't always enjoy this at the moment. Its been a much colder experience this winter than last, due mainly to my being on blood thinners. It takes quite a while for the place to warm up, particularly as a bitingly cold wind has persisted along the North Norfolk coast for weeks and weeks, even when its a sunny clear blue sky day. But that being said, the Blakeney shop is doing rather well for us. Since it reopened after a winter repaint and reorganization in February, our monthly take has been heartening.
Studio Designs, the shop in Wells Next The Sea that also holds some of our stock appears to be the place to sell striped fabric lampshades in. They've never sold for us in Sheringham or Blakeney. Though you might be tempted to think North Norfolk was one homogeneous coastal entity, it has very distinct variations between its major seaside towns. These are largely down to the differing mix of class and income brackets that live or visit them. Though this is a broad generalisation, Cromer is predominantly a trad seaside town that has a strong working class feel to it. The further west you go it tends to get gradually more middle class and posher. Until you reach Hunstanton and then you are back to your traditional working class seaside town.
It doesn't happen everyday, but when I take a walk into Sheringham Park these days, I find a particular bench off the main circular tarmac route. I follow the earth path down into the less manicured woods and reed ponds. I have settled on this one bench in particular out of the many scattered across the walking routes, to sit. I have on occasion also taken a coffee in a travel cup for company. So I plonk myself down on the weather seasoned wood and just sip, and just sit, for as long as feels needful. The length a travel cup of coffee takes to slowly be drunk, or beyond that if it feels appropriate. I simply take in the woodland before me, breath in the smell of it, hear all the randomness of its noises, some natural some human made.
There are the dog walkers. The thunderous noises of RAF planes and the samurai chopping of wind farm helicopters flying over. The gentle undulation and sway of leaves and branches. And now we are well into Spring, there is the general background buzz of numerous insects setting about their daily work. The light bursting through the tree canopy, fading out then fading up, dark green to light bursting green. Nothing truly dramatic happens, but there is a gravitas to nature, it has energy and firmness of purpose. Its hard to stop being the observer and be an equal participator. For I always come with some intent or other. Something I want to gain from my sitting with nature - relief from the discontented nature of feeling separated, being a sentient adjunct to life. Maybe if I practice sitting here for long enough the veil that having a consciousness puts across my perception will pause for one brief moment - in an ease-full revelation.
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