Mitchell's Musings

Apparently, a good tale grows with the telling; this is especially true of me with my memories.  After all I do love a good story. One of my favourites is the tale I tell, when I explain to people how I met my oldest friend.  It is a good story and it contains the kind of elements that would illicit the response I tend to be looking for.   The first walk to the new school, the nervousness of being the new kid in class, the discomfort of new school clothes, meeting my new teacher, an argument with the annoying kid in class, who quickly became my best friend.    It is a nice whimsical story, but these days, if I am honest I have no idea if its true or not. This is because I was seven at the time & I have altered it many times since over the years.   I suspect Chris does not know either, but I know that his version of events will differ from mine.   It is well known that our memories are not particularly good.   The truth is, we all do this kind ...

  I have struggled to write recently. There's nothing unusual in this. But I suppose in the circumstances that we're in it's happening more to us all in many ways.  It was helpful then that I have my friend Donna to bully me. She will no doubt claim that I was merely being "encouraged" to get my rear end in gear and produce something. I'm not fooled, but the point was well taken.  To ease my way back into things I thought I would revert back to the familiar.  This is my grandfather's Blowtorch, and it was one of the gifts that was passed on to me by my Aunt and my Mother. Most of the time it sits on a shelf in my living room and it has become another one of those curios that evoke fond memories. This struck me as odd when I thought about it properly, because I never actually saw my grandfather use it. So I have no real memory of it. It was just one of the items in the tool chest when it was given to me. In real terms it looks like what it is. An old tool t...

This is my favourite mug. It’s the one that I always choose in preference to the other mugs in the cupboard.  The message on the side of it, now long gone used to read “Best Mum in the World” How I managed to attain this title remains shrouded in mystery, I don’t know whose idea it was, but there are a number of candidates upon whom suspicion naturally falls.  But to me the fact that I can be considered to be the best Mum in the world shows the kind of inclusiveness that really appeals to me. It was bought for me as a Mother’s Day gift several years ago now by some of my Son’s friends.  I smile at it every time I see it, which is several times per day. It’s the one I look for, I’m convinced that coffee & tea both taste better in this mug.   Maybe I am imagining this, but I am going with it.  This is the power of a simple thing to bring such joy, even if it’s only in coffee sized doses. The point is I drink a lot of  coffee and the kids that “adopte...

“Fugit Inreparabile Tempus” - It Escapes, Irretrievable Time" - Virgil, The Georgics. Time truly is one of the only really finite resources. We all lose & gain so much during our life in so many ways.  For example I can’t easily count how many jobs I have had or how many I have lost.  By the last count though I'm already on my fifth career change having switched paths on so many occasions before.  You can’t delay it, slow it, stop it, pause it, start again or buy it back. Ok, so far so obvious, get to the point. A lot of the time the idiom “Tempus Fugit” seems to be employed to exhort us not to waste our time, but to use it productively.  The internet and the written press is full of “influencers” and self-appointed gurus. They all seem to have a good idea about the best ways for us to spend our time, how we can use it better or how lazy we're being by not using it as they say we should be. They are also usually selling something. We all appear to have our consum...

Every now and again people notice that I frequently wear odd socks.  Most of the time people who comment on it put it down to it being one of Mitchell's whimsical ways. An eccentricity that proves how ‘off the wall’ I can be at times. And this is not wrong, but as with many things there are deeper reasons behind why I wear odd socks. And today I will discuss them. In one of my earlier posts (Stuff 6 - Empty Cardboard Tube) I discussed how over the years I have made peace with my struggles with Dyspraxia and Dyslexia. I didn't expect my thoughts on this to raise any particular reaction, because I have been discussing this at length with my family and friends for many years now. So for me at times it can seem like an old issue. I'm lucky in that I am surrounded by people who understand it and accept me as I am.  If I'm honest I suppose I'm tending to take the view that the things that I'm writing are actually a form of narcissism, because essentially it's just...

One of the results of writing this kind of self-absorbed nonsense on a regular basis is that you do start to remember things from the past. And if you're anything like me you then start to reconsider them. That's me all over you see I overthink things. It's probably a feature of everyone's life that we gnaw at the past even though we were different people then, can change none of it & wouldn't be the people we are without it. The occasion I remember is one of those schoolyard conversations between 7 year olds. It was the “What are you going to do when you grow up?” conversation. Amongst the group that were there were the typical answers "I'm going to be a footballer, policeman, soldier, doctor & train driver". I don't know why I said what I said it was probably the first thing that came into my head but I said "I'm going to build robots" Bearing in mind that this was probably around 1978 and the ZX81 didn't come out for a...

I don’t know whose idea it was, but it was definitely one of my kids. The finger of suspicion with this type of idea usually tends to point at my younger Son.  This is not to say that the elder son is free of potential blame, he just tends to escape suspicion by keeping schtum & flying under the radar. If you have been to our house, it is highly likely that you will have been invited to make your own unique contribution to “The Welcome Wall”.  The Idea is simple, we draw a circle, you paint something in it that you feel represents you best. Over the 16+ years we have been doing this it has grown from a novelty thing we did for  a bit of fun, into something that we cherish .  For the 3 of us here at the Eastern Divisional HQ of the Mitchell Tribe it is an important thing to invite our family & friends to make their mark. It’s always an interesting process to watch.  We have identified 4 stages that most, but not all people go through during the process of...