Plans are put in motion

As holidays go, this one could be better. Nearly two days before Friday the 13^th, my last day at work for a fortnight, I came down with a ‘flu-like illness’ and spent those two days as high as a kite on over-the-counter flu remedies and painkillers. By the time I got on the coach to London on the Friday night, I looked and felt like death (barely) warmed up, so you can imagine how the weekend went.

I arrived home just after 8am on the Monday. I had some breakfast followed by a soothing bath, then headed for bed. Apart from a rude awakening caused by the Radio 3 repeat of Prom 1, I had slept from 9am until just after 3pm. When I got out of bed, my head and feet aching from the weekends’ exertions, I staggered around for a while, gathering items for the washing machine. My recollection of the rest of the day is hazy, to say the least. I know I watched Coronation Street and tidied away some items from my case, but that is all.

I surprised myself on Tuesday morning by doing some of the ironing and some more of the tidying and by making a decision. I threw my camera in a bag and headed for the Falkirk Wheel. 

It’s some 25 minutes from home, and was opened in 2002, but this was my first visit. I wasn’t disappointed.

A boat trip on the last few metres of the Forth and Clyde Canal to where it joins the Union Canal, made possible by the world’s only rotating boat lift, was just the tonic for my ailing body, and gave me the impetus to head a few miles along the road to Bo’ness, for a trip on a steam train.

As promised, Wednesday brought rain, so it was just as well that I had not planned to do anything beyond shopping, banking and eating ice-cream in Nardini’s in Byres Road. With all tasks accomplished, I headed home to do absolutely nothing. I was feeling tired again, the bug having not left my system. I found it difficult to stay up, so I went to bed around 10.

Thursday was the most frustrating day of the week. The rain had stopped, and none was forecast for the rest of the day, but I was too tired to leave the house early. My head and limbs were sore and my nose had started to run. I went into town for a mad, two-hour dash round the shops, but came home immediately afterwards. I didn’t have the energy to do anything, so sat in my chair for few hours until common sense kicked in and I started to pack for my trip to Wales. When I went to bed, the job was only half done.

As if I didn’t have a list of jobs the length of my arm for Friday, I got out of bed for breakfast only to discover that everything in the (mercifully small) freezer had defrosted because the door wasn’t shutting properly. It took over two hours to clear up the mess and get myself ready to go out. That is, out to the shops to buy what I’d planned to buy and everything needed to replace what had been ruined. When I came back, I emptied the car somewhat frantically, before heading for the local driving range to take out my frustration on a hundred golf balls. I hadn’t swung a club for almost a year, so I was worse than normal. I seemed to get into the swing of things (every pun intended) near the end, so I may reactivate that particular hobby after the holidays.

My last port of call for the first half of the holiday was Clydebank, and the Titan Crane in the former John Brown’s shipyard. 

The crane has been a summer visitor attraction for five years but, yet again, this was only my first visit. The waterfront at Clydebank is undergoing a regeneration, with the College having moved to that part of town a few years back and new flats nearby, but there is still a lot of vacant ground, enough to suggest that the recession has halted, hopefully temporarily, plans to bring the area back to life. I had another thought, one much less positive: we seem to have given up. We’ve given up on ever being able to make anything ever again.

 

Tomorrow, I head for Llandudno for the tenth successive summer. I, too, have given up: given up on originality; given up on a sense of adventure; given up on hope for the future; given up on being able to live ever again.

2012: Plans are put in motion to redevelop this life.