Isolato

I haven’t been paid this week.

I don’t mean that I haven’t received any cash for my writing, though that’s also true: I have no idea when payments will come for any of that. I mean that this is the first month in over twenty years that I haven’t had a payment from my (now ex-)employer hit my account. The world of regular incomes is rapidly becoming a speck in my life’s rear view mirror. It’s a strange feeling but, apart from having no cash, I love it.

I love being able to choose the work that I do.
I love the freedom to work or not on any given day as I please.
I love the ability to work at 4am (as it is while I’m typing this) and finish at lunchtime, or any other working hours that I wish.
I love being able to just grab any clothes that are to hand and be writing within just a few moments of waking.

I love writing on my own at home, away from the buzz of a busy office but, as everyone always says when they leave a job that they’ve been at for a number of years, I certainly miss the people. I made some good friends in that office. Writing is a solitary profession and if I’m not careful I can go for days – weeks even! – without leaving the house or speaking to anyone apart from my Beloved. She becomes my one sounding board and single inspiration for every idea that I have, good or bad. That’s not a healthy state of affairs for either of us. I have to get out of the house.

One of the things that I was really looking forwards to when I left work was being able to step away from the keyboard at the drop of a hat and go for long walks in the snow. I love winter wonderlands; a deep, crisp, even blanket of white with no tracks apart from mine and the local animals’ and birds’. For example, at around this time last year we followed the early morning tracks of a fox, reading how a little event in his life had unfolded as clearly as if it were written on a page. Here he walked briskly, heavy little steps as he bounced along. Then slower, more precise step upon step. His tail scraped the snow as it brushed the ground until he must have stopped a moment. Then there was a clear gap between paces where he had pounced and a small scuffed area where he had grasped his prey. A mouse perhaps? Whatever it was it had left behind a final tiny dark smudge of blood before the fox’s happy bouncing stride began again, carrying its meal away.

This was the kind of thing that I was looking forwards to this winter. This and long, exhausting walks that give you a perfect excuse for a hot chocolate or maybe even something more medicinal but just as warming when you return home. You’ve deserved it: it’s bitter out there.

So what do we get? Despite the best efforts of the weather forecasters telling us to wrap up well and prepare for several inches? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip. A few white fluffy flakes tried to get me excited but never even made it to the ground. I’ve heard tell of other parts of the country where they actually had a little snow and no doubt some readers will tell me that it was up to their windowsills, but here in my wild bit of South Yorkshire we haven’t had a single flake stick to the ground all winter and, quite frankly, I want my money back. When I was young I used to watch a programme called ‘Tomorrow’s World’ which showed inventions that they thought would have real practical uses in the future. According to them we should all be flying in personal jet-packs by now. The non-appearance of snow this winter has the same feeling of broken promise about it.

And now the lambs are starting to appear.

Did I mention how much I love springtime?

© Shaun Finnie 2012