Clockwork Motorboats

I have many a strange urge. One is to camp out in the house. I don't mean with a tent. The plan is just to sleep in different parts of the house, bed down for the night in the so-called garden room , perhaps, making up a bed close to the French doors so that I'm separated from the garden by some double-glazed glass. The bed would consist of cushions and pillows and, of course, a sleeping bag.  The routine would be the same as always. I'm not planning on cooking meals on a camping stove or anything stupid like that; I'll eat en famille as always but instead of 'going upstairs' to bed as I normally do, I'll simply bed down in the space I've allotted for myself and just lie there, staring at the ceiling, thinking about whatever I think about and occasionally taking a peak outside at the dark garden. It would be good if there was a lightning storm, although we don't get many in the UK , it would more than likely be rain, but that would be good, lying ...

I’ve started watching YouTube videos of huge waves and roller coasters. Whether I choose waves or roller coasters depends upon my mood. Never trust the sea, or so they say, and watching huge swells rising up out of nowhere brings that phrase to the foreground of my thoughts. Not even on the biggest ships are you safe from massive waves, but despite my fears I would love to cross the Atlantic by ship.  In fact, to circumnavigate the world without flying is another ambition of mine, another fantasy that will be dashed on the rocks of reality. As always, time, practicalities and money will stand in the way. It’s all worked out in my head and I love the fact that such a huge journey would start on a suburban train service carrying people to their mundane jobs. I was going to add ‘in the city’ but I wouldn’t need to travel that far north, in fact, the idea would be to travel south initially and take a train from, of all places, East Croydon . I wonder how conspicuous I’d look, standi...

When Made in Chelsea comes on, it's time to vacate the room and find something else to do. So I move to the conservatory , if that's what it is, and look out at the wintry conditions. It's been raining all day and the weather people on the television and radio are saying that two months of rain will fall in just one day, possibly two. I can't remember. Either way it's been coming down all day; it was raining cats and dogs , as they say, for over 12 hours. It was raining as I made my way to the office, as I left the Pop Inn and headed back to the office, when I walked to the station this evening. We were allowed to leave the office early because of the rain and as a result I was home early, at 6pm instead of my usual 7pm, sometimes a little later. Right this minute the rain is hammering down. The annoying thing, of course, is that it's not the winter, it's June. June 10th to be precise, it's the summer time. It goes without saying that I was planning to...

I had planned to write 1,000 words last night, part of a plan (perhaps a stupid one) to write daily. It all came about because of Monday night’s writing. But I was distracted. Rory Stewart , a Conservative Party leadership candidate , was putting forward his plans should he become the next Prime Minister. I’m following his Twitter feed and he uploaded the whole performance. It lasted for one hour and 17 minutes. There was nothing worth watching on television. In fact, last night was pretty boring. I didn’t start watching TV until 10 o’clock and hit the sack around an hour later. I slept well until the early hours, waking around 0330hrs and then trying to get back to sleep. I managed it because I remember a dream, that a couple of dissident republicans in a pick-up truck, the sort of truck capable of towing away automobiles, turned up at my doorstep and stole my car. They then drove past, my car in tow, and I had the opportunity to respond in some way. I think I said ‘thanks, guys’ in ...

The problem with the summer months is light. There’s so much of it. From around 0400hrs the light burns through the curtains and when I awake, I’m awake, and there’s no getting back to sleep. I remember being in Alaska in the late 90s during the summer months when there’s hardly any darkness and it’s light all day long. After a long flight from London via Minneapolis I remember sitting somewhere in the Anchorage Hilton , it might have been my room or a rooftop bar, or both, but it was gone 11pm and it was broad daylight. The hotel had black-out blinds and once they’re pulled down it might as well be December, that’s how dark it gets. They had black-out blinds when we reached Seattle too and I’m thinking back to that trip and how amazing it was. I remember whale watching and flying in a light aircraft to reach a more remote part of Alaska, the state the Alaskans call the 49th as they’re always referring to the ‘lower 48’. Because parts of Alaska are land-locked, light aircraft is t...

My weekends invariably start with exercise: a ride on the bike, heading out into Northern Kent through Surrey . I write extensively online about my cycling, but I don’t consider myself to be anything special. I ride twice a week, Saturday and Sunday, and while there are various destinations, these days we’ve honed it down to what we call ‘the slow way to the bus stop’. Our recent lack of imagination in terms of final destination has its reasons, the main one being time. While my cycling pal, Andy, and I could happily ride off for miles and miles and return later in the day, we both have responsibilities back home and they limit the amount of time we can devote to our sport.  I leave the house around 0700hrs on most Saturdays and Sundays, I meet Andy at 0730hrs and off we go; we tend to get home before 1000hrs, which is normally acceptable. Sometimes, if we head for Godstone or Flower’s Farm or even Westerham , we might be out until 1030hrs or 1100hrs, but that’s about it.  ...

Grooming. It’s a word that always reminds me of pets - and for good reason: there are pet grooming shops springing up everywhere, places where dogs can go for a haircut and a shampoo and set. I think dogs are the most popular customers of these establishments, cats wouldn’t tolerate such nonsense and besides, they groom themselves and cover up their mess after they’ve taken a dump. Unlike dogs. Although, that said, I once looked after somebody else’s cat, going by the name of Biscuit (it was the colour of a ginger nut ). It managed to dump all over my bedroom, leaving little piles of unmentionable things dotted across the floor. After that he was banned, no longer wanted, and we returned him to his rightful owner double quick. But enough about animals. I’ve never kept a pet, apart from that disastrous week with Biscuit. I mean, it’s not as if he was grateful. When we went to see him a few weeks later, he ignored us. They say cats go where the milk is, and we were no longer providing i...