A CONTEMPLATION ON LAST WEEK'S APOLOGY

Sad, isn't it? The only post I could I could manage to put together last week was an apology for the errors in the previous one! I'm studying my diary (life's book of original entry!) carefully this time, so that such factual inaccuracies can be avoided for this post. Some of these entries are quite amusing. Here's one for the afternoon of Monday 18th October:-

Clutching my urine sample, I took a taxi (heavy rain falling!) to the Lerwick Doctor's Practice for my routine periodical check-up appointment at 3pm. The practice nurse was running late with her appointments, so I waited for 40 minutes before my name came up on the screen, by which time I'd practically fallen asleep. My blood pressure is as it should be, she took a blood sample (to test for cholesterol levels, it emerged), and she accepted my urine sample (which had miraculously survived the afternoon's proceedings thus far) with what seemed to be an unnecessary degree of gratitude. She dipped cotton buds in it, and did little tests on it (for what I didn't inquire, nor was this information forthcoming, so I presumed the tests were negative). I took the opportunity to weigh myself, and I tipped the scales at 12st 7lbs (I still think in old money, and fortunately the device was able to translate for me!), which is 7lbs too much, although the nurse didn't seem to be too concerned about it. A weight-loss programme is called for - ugh!

Some of my diary entries are unpublishable, and it's just as well they are practically unreadable too (my handwriting has gone downhill over the years). I could be sued for something, in these days where unnecessary litigation is the only growth industry in Britain. Most of the scrawled jottings are just plain boring - the minutiae of a professional artist's daily routine are as repetitive and dull as those of a filing clerk (probably more so!). What I cooked for lunch, what was in the post, who visited, which places I visited during a trip out to the shops, and what I did to whichever painting, the process of the creation of which is much the same for every work. And, of course, the weather - it was blowing a hooligan yesterday! I see I've lost one of my few blog followers, which is rather disppointing, but not surprising!

I enjoy my life as a self-employed oil painter. It will never make me rich, but it just about pays the bills for a single 62-year-old chap with needs to match his modest income. I wake each morning with a feeling of pleasurable anticipation over what the day ahead might hold. When my brother was up here on holiday recently, he told me about a colleague (in a previous job) who used to throw up his Sunday lunch when he thought of the working week ahead of him. What an existence! To work long hours at a job, just to put food on the table for you and your family, while hating the work so much that you couldn't digest the food anyway - there's something seriously wrong there. And how many other people are doing the same thing?

I no longer spend a fortune on wine (or rather lager!), women and song, so I live comparatively frugally. Probably my biggest outlay is on stuff for the business itself. And since I've saved virtually nothing, my work is going to be my old age pension, for as long as I'm able to do it. I have considered taking out one of those over-50 insurance plans just to provide for my burial, but I'm a conscientious objector to that most cynical of form of business, so I guess I won't bother. A pauper's grave will fit me just as well, I'm sure. They could put me in a black bag and chuck me over a cliff somewhere, but I expect that will upset the environmentalists, bless them!

All of which jolly stuff seems to have taken me a long way from the subject on which this post began, namely the factual inaccuracies (and apologies therefor) of previous posts. I hope there won't be too many of these bloopers in future, but you never know, do you? Have a good week.