The Saturday column: Nothing happens, and it happens all at once
Pointless stories about my life
“The animals here are softer than they were in Grimsby,” my wife muses.
“How can they be?” I say, mystified.
“I don’t know, but there were three cats in the garden today, and they just sort of avoided each other.”
“Right…”
“And there was Robin, well, you know what Robins are like…”
“I do know what Robins are like.”
“Well this one wasn’t like a normal Robin.”
“How do you mean?”
“This one just flew out from the hedge, had something to eat and flew back into the hedge. Like a blue tit.”
“How curious.”
“They can’t be softer around here, can they?”
I pause for a moment to think about whether there might be middle class Robins, who are somehow more genteel and polite than their working class cousins.
“I don’t think they can be, no, after all… how would that work? And where would it end?”
We lapse into quietness as I ponder class distinctions in the animal kingdom, and then watch two cats enter the garden, from opposite ends, each on some sort of feline errand. An unspoken gentleman’s agreement seems to be in place as they each take a left hand route through the garden, quietly, and without fuss, maintaining the space between them.
“It does seem a bit weird,” I say, “why aren’t they at least hissing at each other?”
In the distance a siren sounds, a police car on the way to some sort of emergency.
“Someone, somewhere, is blocking a path,” my wife says.
Ever since the police visited us, as we moved in, to let us know a neighbour had complained that our car was sticking out on to the footpath, I’ve been on the look out for other cars doing the same thing. So far I’ve had no results.
“What will you do if you see one?” One of my children asked as I explained what I was up to.
“I dunno - maybe call Scotland yard?”
“You’re obsessed.”
I shrugged. “Everyone needs a hobby,” I said.
“Now that the kids aren’t here any more, I suppose that I could do with a hobby,” my wife says. We think for a moment or two about the various things she’s done before, and the things she might now take up.
The trouble is that having only recently moved in, we’re still some way off having established any kind of meaningful routine. Instead we find ourselves going from one job to another, squeezing meals, walks and the occasional chat in as we go.
“I need to do something,” she says, “otherwise I’m really only working. And how boring is that?”
As my wife’s job is one that I don’t really understand, even when she explains it to me in minute detail, I am not really able to say how boring it is.
“The thing is,” I say, “I really enjoy my work.” As I say this I remember that my children would always roll their eyes, or do finger quote marks, when they talked about my “work”.
“He is “working” apparently,” they would say as I sat in my chair thinking about things.
“I have to have space to think,” I would protest.
“Work,” they’d say.
“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child,” I would mutter.
““Work” they would mutter back.
“Would you like me to suggest some hobbies for you?” I ask my wife, helpfully.
“No,” she says with a sort of firmness that I have learned not to go against, unless I’m really bored. Or just tired of life.
Later while out for a walk I opt for a subtle approach.
“We should look for cars that are sticking out on to the path, and report them to the police,” I say.
She eyes me suspiciously.
“Are you trying to give me your hobby?”
“What do you mean?”
“Spotting cars that are obstructing paths is your hobby, I don’t want to do it.”
“What would you say about that one over there?” I ask, ignoring her protests and pointing. “It must be about a foot into the path.
“More like… oh no you don’t.”
“I think you’ll like it. And I think you’d be good at it too.”
When we get back to the house two cats are in the garden, one at either end, they seem oblivious to one another.
“Why aren’t they fighting?” I ask, perplexed.
“They must have other hobbies,” my wife says.
“Cats don’t have hobbies do they?” I say, but my wife has gone.
A moment later I hear her calling down from upstairs. “That car across the road is quite far out on to the footpath,” she says.
“Where?” I run up the stairs.
“Made you look.”
“This better not be your new hobby,” I say.
‘Saturday columns’ are short, sometimes (relatively) funny, basically true* stories of mundanity and mishaps from my life.
*Some names, locations and other details may have been changed to protect the guilty.