The Ups and Downs

Life is full of decisions (in case you hadn’t noticed). In fact, more than that, I think so much of life revolves around the interplay between our own decisions, (our autonomy, our choices) and external influences (coincidence, other peoples decisions etc). Life is like a game of ping pong (my mother used to say), and try as we like, we can’t play both sides of the table.

As I approach the roundabout I see the bus go past. He is indicating to pull into my stop (which is just out of sight), but I won’t get there in time.
Despair.
But, what if, just perhaps, there are four people waiting at the stop to get on, perhaps one of them has a pushchair, perhaps they will all want to buy tickets with notes, perhaps one of them will ask for a week pass that needs to be printed and put in it’s little pouch, perhaps then if I half ran from here I would make it.
Hope.
A shot is played and I choose to go for it and I make it. A good decision. I save myself ten minutes of bus stop waiting.

As I head home I choose to stop for a cheese pasty before I get on the bus. As I leave the bakery I see a 43 disappear into the distance. Had I not stopped I would have been on it. I wait 20 minutes for the next bus, which is only a single decker, and a few stops later we are told to get off and wait for the another bus (no explanation given).

Stopping for a pasty was a bad decision, costing me 25 minutes of bus stop waiting.

These are some of the ups and downs of my life right now.

I hope I do not take it for granted.

Vacation

I apologise for the longest break since this humble blog began its life. I have been on a blog vacation which means that, for an extended period of time, I tried to forget I have a blog. It has been rather (un)like the little boy who, tired of the feeding and the care and the cleaning after the initial novelty has worn away, tries his hardest to shut out the memory of his pet rabbit in the hope that it will be forced to escape in search of food, or perhaps even curl up into a small ball deep in the hay and enter a wakeless sleep. But much to his surprise our young protagonist returns to the hutch after the cold winter to find the rabbit emerging from a deep hibernation and looking as content and healthy as ever. Filled with a renewed sense of respect for his sturdy pet the boy determines not to abandon his rabbit right now (he decides he should at least try and keep it alive for a year).

The interesting thing about not blogging for a month is that my hit counters haven't shown any decline (and no, not all my hits are from stray googlers in search of bus timetables).