The right tool for the job

It’s not just toys for boys. I may not feel the need to browse hardware stores, but I like equipment just the same. In my case, it’s usually kitchen related.

But every now and then, I find something that does just what I want, in a way that makes it stand apart from regular equipment. It’s not just the right tool for the job. It gains its own must have status – for me, at any rate.

So, here’s to my new tea flask that makes school runs, bus commutes, car trips etc much easier. It’s metal. It’s thin, so it fits in the cupholder in the car, and in the side of my rucksack.

It’s a beautiful blue (‘but it hasn’t a hood’, I hear my mother saying, quoting an AA Milne poem). This is not just so I can find it easily but so I can tell it apart from…my coffee flask! And from Dan’s coffee flask. You can see a certain attachment to drinking vessels going on here.

It also gives me the opportunity to sing the praises of a certain Mr Wilson who, when having to leave a cafe early where he had a half-drunk coffee, whipped out a neat little mug, so he could continue his coffee AND bow to the wishes of Those Who Need To Go To A Park. Immediately.

Such was the impact, I too had to have my flask. The first one was bulky, and it dribbled more when you took the top off. Not a good look for trousers if getting a quick swig of tea at a red light. I tried a cheap plastic flask – that one tended to fall apart if I dropped it, which does happen occasionally.

So, good reader: buy thin metal flasks for hot drinks, and all shall be well. Or at least your beverage needs will be met, which does contribute greatly to all things being well. I draw the line at telling you which make to buy – or it wouldn’t be your perfect tool for the job, if there wasn’t the chance for a little personalisation.

Going my way?

It’s not about asking for a lift. But those days when things go OK – in fact, go to plan, or if we’re lucky, even better – they do lift us. So today’s thing to treasure is life going better than expected. Sudden rays of sunshine when the forecast was for cloud.

What brightens the internal sunlamp? Going shopping with a list, and being able to get bargains for the items on your list. Arriving somewhere early (see yesterday’s post too) and having time to listen to some peaceful music in the car for five minutes. Expecting the November gloom when leaving the swimming pool and, instead, finding it streaked with a raspberry ripple of a sunset.

It says something about adulthood that these examples are moments to rejoice over. We know how hard it is to get things done in the way we want to, without circumstances, others’ agendas, cutting in on us. In fact, we can feel like pinching ourselves when things do go our way, because sometimes, it can be hard to take in.

I was reminded of the song ‘O What a Beautiful Morning’ when thinking about a title for this post. Perhaps it’s the confidence of a sunny morning that allows us to say ‘I’ve got a wonderful feeling // Everything’s going my way’. Because on those occasions when life does go our way, it can feel pretty wonderful. If we let it be so.

Time to start patting ourselves on the back? No. We know the value, and the infrequency, of times like this. Time to stop pinching – and start appreciating, however fleeting these moments may be. They are still real. They are worth delighting over.

Getting ahead

Lots to write about with autumn all around. Beautiful day today. Brights skies, crisp leaves, all right, more slushy leaves than crisp ones, but still. Yes, the nights are drawing in, but on days like this, it’s easier to pretend they’re not.

But what was the thing to treasure today? Being five minutes’ ahead of myself, so that I could actually stop, and appreciate it all.

It can get harder to be on time when they’re digging up sections of the road that leads to school, let alone get ahead of yourself, and be early. So it felt particularly good.

Part of the point of this little series, for me, is that they need to be real moments, day by day, not just a list that I’ve concocted. It’s partly a way of making myself stop, for a moment or more, and take in something that pleases me, that quietens things down a bit; or, conversely, something that makes the day sparkle.

We probably all know the verse ‘What is this life, if full of care? // We have no time to stand and stare’. Many days, staring would be some achievement – merely to look up, and clock what’s around you, would be enough. Heads down, we run through our mental lists, contemplate meal options, try and remember whose birthday card to send next, and so on.

One meaning of ‘getting ahead of yourself’ is where you start putting two and two together to make five. You start from a possible idea or theory, and quickly jump to something else – without it necessarily adding up. But today, I liked the idea of getting ahead of my-self – the me that forgets to look up; the me that forgets to notice what is there all the time.

If I can get ahead of myself, my agendas, my task lists, I might arrive at a time and place without activity. One where I’m able to consider the ‘want to dos’ instead of the shoulds, the need tos. Because I do want to look at the trees. I do want to enjoy the view of dogs having a mid afternoon scamper, with a toddler hurtling after them, hat getting in the way, but not too much.

This space, this writing space, is also a place to get ahead of myself – to nip in, start writing, and perhaps be there, putting up the scenery, when my-self walks in. And if I do it fast enough, perhaps I’ll choose to stop and stand there awhile. To be caught up in the story you are writing – now that is getting ahead.

Solitary walks

Weekend with family, and all of a sudden, people need to be in different places at the same time. Rather uncharacteristically, I drive one person back to cook, drive back, and set out on foot to catch up the others.

I don’t get many solitary walks these days. Not ones where you’re in the country already, and it actually feels like an outing. There I am, stomping along with the his and hers coffee flasks from the car, looking out for the others, but still, slowing a little on the inside.

The sunshine is lighting up any remaining bracken on the big bare hill that frames the view – that is the view, really. Some trees left with leaves on, most warm golds, others down to branches already, black by contrast. There are birds dotting around here and there. Golfers going about their Sunday morning business of hitting small balls from A to B.

Part of me is trying to catch up, and part of me doesn’t care too much. I am off duty. Mist is still rising off the tops of hills more distant. I stop, and have some of my own coffee, and try to soak in the moment – still autumn, not yet in the grip of winter. Crisp, with no need of deep and even.

All too soon, it seems, I hear the voices of the advance party. There are things to show me, including a golf ball sliced clean in half; a mighty boulder (or at least a medium sized rock) to hurl in the river. On the way back, there’s a large stick with a curve to it, and we spot the similarity to a bow, and set up a photo.

We are, as requested, working up an appetite for lunch. I am still peckish for more of my own walk, even as I join it to that of the others, and we head back to the car.

Rain on the windows

Over in Facebookland, a friend of mine is doing a daily update of something she’s thankful for, in the run up to Thanksgiving. I suppose this set of musings is a fairly similar notion.

Some of the idea of the ‘box of delights’ is a reappreciation of little things – with perhaps some encouragement to my gentle readers to remember, and even try, little delights that you’ve not tried for a while. These are mine – some of them may be yours too.

So: rain on the windows. This isn’t something we get to try. In Scotland, we clearly are more in the camp of trying not to have rain on the windows. So why is this something to treasure?

It depends who you are. And it depends whether you like an excuse to stay at home. And above all, it’s the sound of the rain on the windows. Whether the initial spatter that you barely take in, to the more gradual swell of sound for a storm that’s rapidly gaining ground.

I draw the line at hail. It’s a bit more spiky as a sound. Fun for a bit, but less frequent, lasting a shorter time. Hail doesn’t have the same ‘I guess I’ll have to stay in then’ connotations – where actually, you’re quite glad of the chance to stay put. Have another cup of tea. Relocate that book, and dive in.

For families, rain on the windows may be the sound of doom, depending on whether it’s school run time, or small people punching the walls and each other time, or family outing time. Perpetual steady (but not too bright) sunlight would be great, thanks, and why is it so much to ask for?

But there are times when a wet Saturday afternoon heralds the film for everyone. A board game, if everyone’s stress levels can take it. Some music in the background. A large project – rain is the best excuse for crafting and building things – or a little light pottering in the kitchen.

Part of the point of rain, I feel, is re-appreciation of shelter. Home. Being indoors when rain is lashing down outside is a comforting thing, occasionally even a slightly smug thing, if you’ve just got home in time. But perhaps the best rain sound is the light pattering on the windows as evening falls, or at bedtime.

You weren’t going out in it anyway. Ideally, you’d take the swell of the sea, or the warbling of a stream, as a sound to fall asleep to. But rain will work just fine.