Wasting time

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us".

J.R.R Tolkien

Yesterday I was on the verge of giving all of this up. I'd found that quote above whilst looking for an economics quote the day before and I was feeling low. When you read one of those quotes - there are lots that say almost the same thing - and it's a bit corny - they drag you down a bit and I was down already because I had awoken down, possibly because of that quote, and then had gone for a walk during which, in spite of the gorgeous day and the beauty all around, I had thought miserable thought after miserable thought, along with all the things I thought I should be doing and wasn't and/or was very unlikely to.. Which led to one of the things I said in my few opening remarks - "what could I be doing that is more worthwhile?"

Well obviously lots - even trivial things, like planting some vegetables, working on that cookbook, writing a memoir for my kids when they are eventually interested perhaps, clearing out all the accumulated junk in the house ... Which led me to thinking that perhaps I should give up on this blog which was, after all, sheer, somewhat narcissistic indulgence, devised to simply pass time in the absence of something more meaningful. In the end however, I deleted the blog after just a paragraph or two, worked a little on that cookbook instead, and then went and cooked the dinner, after a game of sudoku on my iPad which I always find oddly soothing.

I think dinner - the ultimate comfort food - shepherd's pie - helped. I always find it slightly weird how something so devastatingly ordinary, indeed verging on the repellent in some people's minds, is so very delicious and so very comforting. It must be something to do with happy childhoods I think.

So today - a much more ordinary day weatherwise, still feeling a little, shall I say unsatisfied with life, but rather more optimistic I went for a walk. Eltham is on a flight path. Planes zoom over all day and even late at night - there are quite a few which fly over between 11.00 and midnight. And every time I consciously recognise that, I wonder where it is going and why can't I go too. No that's on my low days. On my good days I think how strangely beautiful they are, I think of all those people either looking forward to a holiday or to coming home, and the wonder of how they stay up in the sky. Today my thoughts were somewhere in between. The day before I had fantasised about all the places I might like to go. Today I thought more about where could one go within range as the area seems to be beset by disastrous weather events at the moment, and it's so far to Europe and such a bother to get there. Besides it's getting cold and dark over there. So travel is not a cheering up option.

On my return, as I was shelving a book I had found in the street library I found this little notebook. It was dusty, but lovely so I looked inside and found that it was yet another project I had once started that I called 'Just one thing' - meaning that I would write down one thing that I had learnt each day. I didn't get very far with it, but those thoughts were simultaneously sad and happy, enlightening and mundane - e.g.

"Arabesque - from the root Arab. Never made that connection before."

"Sunday - I can't make meringues. Never again."

"Lavender is a member of the mint family."

"Lincoln was a republican"

Oddly cheering, and occasionally informative - did you know the queen is banned from the House of Commons? - so I'll start doing it again although I wonder if I shall manage it for longer than last time. I wonder why I stopped?

A large part of my revived optimism is associated with food. Yesterday I bought yet more asparagus - it was a mere 95c a bunch, so how could I resist - so tonight - a Friday pastry night - I am going to make a chicken and asparagus pie of some kind. I'm not going to follow a recipe, although I have searched the net for ideas, and found that mushrooms, leeks, tarragon and sour cream are common co-ingredients. No tarragon around at the moment although I do have dried. I wonder if that would work? No sour cream either, but there might be some crème fraîche and if not there is always just cream and lemon juice. But whatever I do I'm looking forward to having a play. And a glass of wine with dinner. A glass of wine is a wonderful thing.

The beauty part of the happiness equation is not as apparent. We are in an in-between time with respect to flowers and/or colourful autumn leaves such as these, which are my current computer desktop wallpaper. It's a photograph I took last year, which made me miss the period when I would, each week, take photographs on a subject suggested to me by my family. But I think they got bored with the whole thing, so I don't like to ask again.

Boredom, in fact is perhaps one of the major reasons for depression - at least amongst the privileged of the planet - like me. We have time, we have money, but we tend not to have any real meaning to our existence. We are as ants, just filling in time. Which definitely ought to be filled with doing good things for others much less privileged than ourselves. But here I go entertaining myself with narcissistic wonderings about life, the universe and everything - and food. Does food + beauty = happiness/satisfaction/meaning? Where does love come into the equation? Or is it all just navel gazing? Most of the world's population doesn't have enough food and therefore has a quite different obsession with it.

Alas there is not a lot I can do about such things, except the occasional donation, and hopefully vote for the right people who can do something. If only I was a daisy - so hopeful, so joyful, so beautiful.

POSTSCRIPT ON ECONOMICS AND FOOD

I probably didn't really address the issue of how to get food into a school curriculum. Perhaps what I should have pointed out is that that particular edition of the AFR Weekend edition, was sort of showing us how. Pick an amusing food trend to illustrate a concept - Clinkers, supply and demand. Pick a company or two to illustrate notions of profit/loss, cost/benefit, share price. Choose particular food exports to illustrate everything to do with trade and competition. Pick an issue such as inflation or interest rates and probe its relationship to food. Choose a set of food companies to learn about those stock exchange tables. Pick a section of society and examine how it relates to food and the financial impact of that. Pick a food industry and examine the economic aspects of that from the national to the personal point of view.

Yesterday's NYT recipe might be worth a post - not because it looks amazingly wonderful, but more to find out what it is, where it comes from, why ... Brown food.

And there goes another plane on a flight to somewhere.

YEARS GONE BY

November 7

2024 - Hospital food

2023 - Nothing

2022 - Genteel sandwiches on the lawn 2021 - Nothing

2020 - Missing

2019 - Sauce Béarnaise

2018 - Nothing

2017 - Why pine nuts are so expensive

2016 - Onions of spring