The Importance of eating Porridge.
As my little purple friend continues his odyssey over my BROWN bed sheets, I will shift my deliberation to my very own journey in the Everyday around me. I may not have met an Elleyfaant, but I know that I do sometimes run into a Pig or two!
Yesterday it struck me while I was eating my customary bowl of porridge at my desk, that my life had very quickly spun into a wheel of process-sual predictability. Then all of a sudden I realised a pretty frightening thing : Could it be that I was already getting BORED!!???
After all, the initial excitement at coming back to London had already watered down into a sort of tepid equanimity. Nowadays I find that everything I am doing on a daily basis suddenly seems to take on a terrifying clockwork quality... and to prove this to you Reader, I will list out everything I do on each working day of the week.
(1) Wake up into a cold bedroom and scowl at the alarm clock…not that the damn clock cares… 
(2) Put on my slippers, flinch at the cold leather soles and rush to the kitchen to switch the boiler on…mutter for the ka-zillionth time that I should read the manual and find out how to time-programme the bleedin’ thing…
(3) Wake up under the power shower and put on good-old-fashioned BBC Breakfast and shrug into my clothes.
(4) Switch off the bleedin’ boiler, manically check if all the doors are really locked and then dive into the outside air… Brrr.rrrr…
(5) Walk to the train station, jostle with half the population of Lewisham for 8.30 train to Cannon Street with two alternative outcomes: Outcome 1: Miss the train and spend the next 15 minutes with freezing fingers while cursing half the population of Lewisham. Outcome 2: Get on the train and spend the next 15 minutes huddled up to half the population of Lewisham... still cursing. (Note: Have found Outcome 2 preferable, as am typically relieved of 15 minutes worth of cursing and freezing fingers.)
(6) Get off at Cannon Street and walk to the office armed with hot porridge and a smoking ciggy.
(7) Enter my room, curl into my chair and face the inbox firing squad…
(8) Smog my lungs with my second ciggy at 12.30 pm…
(9) Have lunch in the cafeteria-that-tries-to-be-a-restaurant.
(10) Post-lunch-smog
(11) Go back to the room to send tormenting e-mails out to torment potential tormentors.
(13) Evening smog at 4 pm
(14) Back in room receiving more torment from previously tormented tormentors.
(15) Pre-gym smog (com'on...why begrudge me!?)
(16) Arrive at gym. Spin or Swim or Run or Box? Ah… the agony of choice, and bloody hell! Did my shoulder just get dislocated?! Oww oww oww!!!
(17) Jump into the shower and emerge for the post-gym-smog (come on, you knew that was coming!)
(20) Time to go home. Too tired to cheer … and too tired for my last smog on the street...
(21) Get into the train...get off the train... get back home. F-f-f-r-oz-z-zen-n-n!!!!
So these are my days… and these are my "Hours" in the true Mrs Dalloway-nian sense of the word.
…the Thames… an ancient Leviathan, courses its way through the city - a wise and great storyteller, if I choose to listen…
… the endless quest to make friends with the tom-cat next door…
Yesterday it struck me while I was eating my customary bowl of porridge at my desk, that my life had very quickly spun into a wheel of process-sual predictability. Then all of a sudden I realised a pretty frightening thing : Could it be that I was already getting BORED!!???
After all, the initial excitement at coming back to London had already watered down into a sort of tepid equanimity. Nowadays I find that everything I am doing on a daily basis suddenly seems to take on a terrifying clockwork quality... and to prove this to you Reader, I will list out everything I do on each working day of the week.
(1) Wake up into a cold bedroom and scowl at the alarm clock…not that the damn clock cares… 
(2) Put on my slippers, flinch at the cold leather soles and rush to the kitchen to switch the boiler on…mutter for the ka-zillionth time that I should read the manual and find out how to time-programme the bleedin’ thing…
(3) Wake up under the power shower and put on good-old-fashioned BBC Breakfast and shrug into my clothes.
(4) Switch off the bleedin’ boiler, manically check if all the doors are really locked and then dive into the outside air… Brrr.rrrr…
(5) Walk to the train station, jostle with half the population of Lewisham for 8.30 train to Cannon Street with two alternative outcomes: Outcome 1: Miss the train and spend the next 15 minutes with freezing fingers while cursing half the population of Lewisham. Outcome 2: Get on the train and spend the next 15 minutes huddled up to half the population of Lewisham... still cursing. (Note: Have found Outcome 2 preferable, as am typically relieved of 15 minutes worth of cursing and freezing fingers.)
(6) Get off at Cannon Street and walk to the office armed with hot porridge and a smoking ciggy.
(7) Enter my room, curl into my chair and face the inbox firing squad…
(8) Smog my lungs with my second ciggy at 12.30 pm…
(9) Have lunch in the cafeteria-that-tries-to-be-a-restaurant.
(10) Post-lunch-smog
(11) Go back to the room to send tormenting e-mails out to torment potential tormentors.
(13) Evening smog at 4 pm
(14) Back in room receiving more torment from previously tormented tormentors.
(15) Pre-gym smog (com'on...why begrudge me!?)
(16) Arrive at gym. Spin or Swim or Run or Box? Ah… the agony of choice, and bloody hell! Did my shoulder just get dislocated?! Oww oww oww!!!
(17) Jump into the shower and emerge for the post-gym-smog (come on, you knew that was coming!)
(20) Time to go home. Too tired to cheer … and too tired for my last smog on the street...
(21) Get into the train...get off the train... get back home. F-f-f-r-oz-z-zen-n-n!!!! (22) Turn on the bleedin’ boiler for 15 minutes to warm the igloo, jump into my jammys, shiver under my duvet, switch on the TV for my nightcap… ...what the…
...BLOODY HELL! It’s the next morning???!!!!
So these are my days… and these are my "Hours" in the true Mrs Dalloway-nian sense of the word.
You know what? Perhaps we need banality in our day in order to appreciate the scattered fireworks. After all, Christmas is only Christmas because it comes but once a year.
Boredom is imprisoning... but it is probably the bored individual who finally decides to DO something, and in so doing, takes a risk which usually flies in the face of convention. Regimentation provokes rebellion. Restrictions are the best catalyst for the imagination... for doesn't Art struggle to escape conscription into category?
So I go through the day-to-day, and although the routine is innocuous and restrictive and insipid... I have found that in my eagerness to escape it, I grab at the flashes of gold in the dead-pan, and sometimes I stumble upon a little bit of treasure! For instance...
…the Thames… an ancient Leviathan, courses its way through the city - a wise and great storyteller, if I choose to listen…
…the smell of freshly brewed coffee wafting through the cafeteria when I get in at mornings…
…the little old gentleman who walks his three Great Danes past our doors at around 11 am…
…the evening sunlight draping an air of poetry over Southwark Bridge…
…the smile on the face of the newsvendor when you pick up your Evening Standard…
...snow falling outside my window...
… the endless quest to make friends with the tom-cat next door…
...the wild charm of my overgrown garden...
…the little chattering-clattering-singing-blowing-bubble-handyman-in-a-van doing a song and dance routine up and down Cannon Street midweek and every week…
… and most importantly - this little blog! It is my private Treasure Island... a tantalising oasis… an open canvas on which I can liberally stretch-my-sketch. Within it, I am the chief architect of a self-commissioned project…the Gandalf of my Middle Earth!
The funny thing that I can conclude is that I probably would not notice (or do) any of these wonderful and precious things if I had not been totally and utterly bored!
… the grin on everyone's face when it hits 5 pm on a Friday and you know the weekend is just waiting outside the door…
…the little chattering-clattering-singing-blowing-bubble-handyman-in-a-van doing a song and dance routine up and down Cannon Street midweek and every week……the friendly night cabbie's incredible tales of wonder and woe that make you forget how far away your bed is…
...the little moments of tenderness on the late train home...
… and most importantly - this little blog! It is my private Treasure Island... a tantalising oasis… an open canvas on which I can liberally stretch-my-sketch. Within it, I am the chief architect of a self-commissioned project…the Gandalf of my Middle Earth! The funny thing that I can conclude is that I probably would not notice (or do) any of these wonderful and precious things if I had not been totally and utterly bored!
So what say we raise a glass to the drudgery in a day and the ho-hum of the Hours?! For isn't there virtue in being so bloody bored out of your head if it prompts you to engage more fully with your soul?!
And although I wake up each morning scowling at my alarm clock, perhaps I need to remember that I need my daily bowl of Predictability in order to notice the Out-of-the-Ordinary, to laugh at the Outrageous and to recognise Beauty if and when she makes an appearance. And maybe if I keep that mindset, I can will myself to transform the plain-drain of 24 Hours in a day into 24 Hours of anticipation of What's-Next!
What-Ho! Suddenly, I don't feel so bored anymore! And that should be enough reason for me to keep eating my Porridge everyday!
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