Sketch Friday 30th of July 2021

This week, as with last week, Sketch Friday arrives on Saturday. How many times can a Sketch Friday come on Saturday before it becomes Sketch Saturday? I don’t know. But it’s a question that has rumbled through my head this morning. I’ve had a lot of questions in my head this week that don’t seem to have an easy answer. Or any answer. It’s been one of those weeks. Not that it’s been a bad week. It’s been full of writing, my own writing and the writing of the writers I’m working with right now. Notes and ideas. Digging into the questions. Trusting the answers will arrive. Some have. Some are still to come. This week included a trip to see my sister and her dogs (Lily and Bad Bad Bernard) and my niece. It was lovely to see them and cook and hang out and go for a run. My sister lives in North Yorkshire. I’m always amazed by how flat it is round her’s. You only have to go up a little hill to feel like you can see forever. It’s strange. I love visiting but I never feel at home in North Yorkshire. I’m a Wessie* through and through. Anyway, it was good. And then I blinked and I was home. And then a sudden pain in my neck arrived. By which I mean, a real life pain in my neck. I have spent most of the week moving like a grumbling Thunderbird puppet. I don’t know what I did. Another question I have no idea how to answer. The neck pain arrived for no reason and now, finally, today it’s deciding to go. Thank you. But also, please don’t come back soon. It was a week where I did my fastest 10K to date. I don’t know how that happened. To be honest I was was just focusing on trying to keep going up the horrid hill AKA the hell hill AKA the hill of doom. It didn’t feel like a fast run. I wasn’t aiming to be fast. But my little computer app insists - it’s the fastest I’ve ever done it. Though not fast by anyone else’s 10K standards. It took me 1 hour and 20 mins. With an elevation of 281 Meters. AKA see above. Anyway. I have little interest in running fast, in the great scheme of things. But, also, I can’t lie. I am quite pleased. Don’t know why. I watched Lara Darling sit in the tree before it started raining forever. She was hoping to catch and kill a bird. She didn’t. On this occasion. But sometimes she does. And there is no answer to that conundrum. I can not square the fact, that I love our cat with the knowledge that cats create carnage for wildlife. So Jane and I try to stop her (there is a pigeon with a death wish that we have saved several times) and we play chase-n-catch games with her, to lessen her impact (10 mins of play with cats in the morning and at night brings down their kill rate. Apparently. No citation. Sorry. Just a thing I read somewhere on the web and that’s all I have for you). None of this is perfect. It’s not great. But I’m beginning to accept all of this uncertainty and imperfection. And to take it to heart. And to think about what that means for my life and for my writing. I’m never going to talk to anyone, ever again about “what my play is saying” for example. I’m just never doing that again. That question! It’s a tyranny. A nonsense. Who am I to tell anyone, anything? I have less and less certainty. So what? It isn’t my job to know. It’s my job to ask why and to wonder at the world. It’s my job to entertain and to care. It’s my job to ask good questions. That’s it. And that dear hearts is the late late news. Love to all.

*Wessie = a person who comes from West Yorkshire. A term of abuse. A badge of pride.