miscellany

I was talking to a close friend this evening. He told me he's been following my blog-of-sorts.

Now there's a thing. I never expected it to be read. Even my wife doesn't read it.

You don't do you, dear? Do you?

So that's one then.

Ruddy nora.

Now that I have a reader I suppose I should start writing some sense.

I spent an interesting Saturday night with fellow writers Steve Finbow, Melissa Mann, David Oprava and Joe Ridgwell. There was much drinking and discussion of the literary urge, although because of the former I recall little of the latter. I think some of it has perhaps sunk in, subconsciously.

What carpenters call the 'snick factor' – the satisfying engagement of the lock as a well-hung door is pulled shut.

I can relate to this on quite an intimate level. Yesterday I fitted a new door frame and hung a door for my son's room, carefully balancing it to cut in for the hinges, chiselling the hole for the latch and accurately fitting the latch plate - then pulling it shut for the first time. A perfect rattle-free click shut. I had my snick factor.

However...

Another session of trawling through the barely-half-remembered on Friends Reunited, an annual event. I see the names of those I shared desks with at primary school but I don't recall their faces, they were never part of my life, but I have some sense of them. I recall their smell. It's always with a sense of melancholy that I enter that site - never any real thought that I might recapture a former life. And I am usually a little choked with sadness when I leave.