Author: minceandskirlie

Writer, poet, musician, and sometime IT professional in the North East of Scotland.
Writing

A Revolutionary Act

minceandskirlie

A piece of flash fiction I wrote on the subject of patriotism and inspired by the current election.

A Revolutionary Act

I love my country, but it has to change. He said to himself. After today everything will be different. He unbuckled his seatbelt, glanced at himself in the mirror and took a deep breath, surprised at his own nervousness. All these weeks of planning. The arguing and the debate, this is what it comes down to; one simple act. He looked around the street, watching the people milling around; paying particular attention to the steady stream entering and exiting the community centre across from his car, like a convoy of ants making their procession to the colony. They’re all so casual, like this is a normal day. People are beaten and executed for what I’m about to do. It can terrify governments and spark riots and war. Yet the people around me don’t care or don’t understand. What I, and others like me, do today will affect everyone I see here.

He opened the door and stepped onto the road, being careful to keep his coat closed, then walked purposefully over to the community centre. His heart started pounding as he crossed the threshold and followed the line of people into the large hall at the heart of the building. I guess this is it. No going back now. Taking one last look around the hall at the housewives, mechanics, retirees, office workers, husbands, wifes and grandparents moving through it; he let his coat fall open, it no longer mattered now he was inside, and stalked over to a booth by the far wall.

Entering the booth he reached down for the tool he’d expected to be left there, the instrument of his revolutionary act and he grasped it in his hand. He paused, just for a beat, a short rest in a frenetic musical score, then the baton is raised again and he looked down and with the pencil he marked a cross in a box on the slip of paper before him. It’s done. He let out a long, easy breath and folded the paper once, pushed it through the slot on the ballot box next to the booth and smiled at the returning officer. Once more he closed his coat against the spring rain and walked out of the centre to discover what new country lay before him in tomorrow’s dawn.

Thoughts

The downside of an always connected lifestyle

minceandskirlie

I’ve just finished reading an article by Jemima Kiss on the Guardian’s website which really resonated with me. Normally I don’t bother with the comment pieces on the site, skipping to interesting news, sport or the tech, food and culture sections as I spend my lunch time idly catching up on the world. However the title of the piece – Turning off technology is about mental wellbeing – not becoming a digital hermit – fell in line with a thought that’s been in my head for a while now. I used to be happier before the internet.

Now, in general I am quite a happy person. I’ve got a lot going for me including a nice house, wife and newborn child, friends and family; plus plenty of hobbies to occupy myself with. But I’ve found the last couple of years to be a struggle mentally in many ways, the independence referendum was a long emotional journey with a crashing comedown on the day of the result, my career has gone through a number of recent changes with added pressures and then there’s the big life changes that moving back to my home town and a new baby bring. That’s a lot of load to put on a person.

So where does the internet come into this? Why does it specifically make me unhappy when I can weather (mostly, I have my moments) those other pressures? I think it’s partly my own fault – having all that information constantly at my fingertips is too tempting. During the referendum I would be constantly checking twitter for the latest comment or news from the campaigns and as a result I spent most of last year feeling angry all the time. It’s not a nice feeling. Now with the general election I find myself doing the same thing. At least if I just check into the teatime news on TV I only shout at lying politicians once a day, that’s if the TV even reports what’s happening! There I go again…

The other big downer the internet inflicts is that it sucks time from you. I have a lot of hobbies, probably too many if I’m honest as it’s hard to keep up with them, but I really enjoy trying to things and learning new skills so I keep wanting to do more. The ones which get me outside (cycling, running, hillwalking) aren’t a problem; I’m outside, away from my laptop, tablet and often even away from a mobile signal. It’s the hobbies inside that suffer. I absolutely love playing music, writing and learning new songs, but I never seem to find the time. Or I sit down with the laptop to write something and find myself staring at reddit two hours later with a blank word document in another window. The same thing happens when I try to work on this blog, or some fiction writing.  I recently developed an interest in electronics and spent some time putting together some project ideas. Every time I think about getting the circuit boards out I run out of time, but I find plenty of time to sit on the sofa refreshing facebook and twitter or browsing Amazon for more hobbies to neglect.

It gets really frustrating. I know that spending an hour or two writing something new or making some progress on the Arduino powered baby toy I thought of would make me a lot happier for the rest of the day.  I’ve been a gamer all my life but my Xbox went untouched for almost two months, despite me making frequent comments about playing a game while the baby slept. I just never seemed to find a gap to fire it up, yet I spend literally hours at home aimlessly surfing the web.  That’s time I could be shooting terrorists! Or getting my arse handed to me by dragons in Skyrim. It stresses me out to know that I’m just wasting time like this and neglecting things that I genuinely enjoy doing.

Lastly there’s my friends and family. Now it’s natural that as you get older you grow apart from your friends. Everyone grows up, moves away, families are started, homes are bought and work pressures build. But I hardly ever see friends anymore or talk to them. We seem to be deluded into thinking we’re keeping in touch these days just because we saw some pictures of each other on our respective holidays or wearing a stupid jumper at Christmas. That’s not keeping in touch, it’s just nodding at each other from across the street if you happen to pass. Funnily enough as I write this I am actually going to meet up with friends this weekend for the first time in a while. In some cases it will have been months since I’ve seen them. They all live within an hour of me.

I lied when I said lastly… but lets not delve into the self-defeating acts of workplace procrastination the internet enables for me.

I think part of the problem is a kind of laziness inertia which happens after I get home and sit on the couch. Inevitably the laptop or tablet come out and I sit checking facebook, browsing reddit or other online forums while I have tea, feed the baby etc. Then I stay there. Before I know it most of the evening’s past and I decide there’s no point starting to do something constructive so I sigh and open up another tab in chrome or maybe I’ll get as far as turning off the laptop and watching an episode of Community on Netflix. By the end of the week I’m fully up to speed on which of my casual acquaintances still plays Candy Crush Saga on Facebook but have made no progress on any musical ambitions or finishing any projects.

What’s the solution for all this?  Before I was always connected to the internet I spent all my spare time doing constructive things like playing guitar, going to the pub with friends, playing video games or being terrible at football. I want to spend more time on the things I enjoy doing, rather than feel depressed because I can’t drag my sorry carcass away from twitter long enough to strum a guitar. Ignorance was bliss as I was unaware of all the underhand shit being perpetrated by politicians and other assorted scumbags the world over. Now I’m overloaded with conspiracies both real and imagined which force me to spend my time in a state of permanent outrage at the endless fuckwittery that’s out there. It’s really fucking tiring.

I could take the nuclear option. Delete the Facebook and Twitter apps from my phone, and most of my bookmarks from Chrome. The problem with that is that I do derive some value from the interactions I have online and the internet is of some use as a tool for organising holidays, buying stuff and for learning about things.

I think the answer, like with so many things, is to impose strict moderation. I need to stop reaching for the tablet every time I sit down and push myself to live a life with more interaction in the real world instead of spending it online. Unless I have a good reason to turn on my laptop it needs to stay off.  Ah, but what about writing? I have to use my laptop for that (even I struggle to read my handwriting).  Damn. Maybe I need to dig out an old laptop and never configure it’s WiFi connection so it remains offline. Apparently George RR Martin does that. A Song Of Ice and Fire is written in Wordstar 4.0 on Dos…

If anyone has any better ideas, let me know.

Writing

Creative Writing

minceandskirlie

I recently flirted with the idea of doing a distance learning or part-time English degree but eventually decided it would be too time consuming and too expensive (especially with a new baby in the house). However I still wanted to explore a bit more creative writing and eventually decided that instead of putting it off I should just give it a try.

Over the last couple of months I’ve been putting together story ideas and writing some wee pieces of flash fiction and short stories. I’ll try and put some of it up on here in the future. It’s been great as a hobby that I can devote time to while still taking a shift looking after the baby. I type away at the table while she sleeps in her bouncy chair or gurgles away on the playmat. Other times I can read some of the community work at Scribophile.com and practice my critical eye by offering critiques for others (the worth of this kind of online community is hard to overstate, it’s brilliant!).

Last week I went along to the local community centre for a meeting of Stonehaven’s creative writing group. Before I turned up I had all kinds of mental images in my head of what the class would be like. To be honest most of them were pretty close to the reality but aside from that the class was also friendly, welcoming, supportive, non-judgemental and full of interesting discussion about literature and various other things.

We spent some time discussing a long poetry piece one of the group members have written. I found the standard was very high and everyone raised good points, both on the technical and emotional components of the work. Then we went through some short exercises to try and generate discussion and possible writing topics. These included a few poems on St George (as it was his day) and a task to list things we hate touching and list reasons why. Finally we finished with a review and discussion of a story written by the group leader based on a bit of his family history from Peterhead where it’s rumoured his ancestors came across a large chest of money washed up from the sea. He’d used this to write an entertaining and humorous piece with dialogue in broad doric telling the tale of the chest and the inevitable double-cross within the group that found it.

The conversation around this piece darted off in various directions in great detail. It was really refreshing just to be able to sit and discuss a piece of writing like this and go into the technical details as well as the broad themes and history which inspired it. I thought it was a great way to spend a couple of hours so think I’ll definitely be going back again.

Health and fitness

Auchenblae and Drumlithie Loop

minceandskirlie

I really miss the scenery around Banchory but days like today remind me that it’s not so bad being back in the Mearns. Taking full advantage of a flex day from work I was up nice and early and left Stonehaven heading out towards Auchenblae.  I had vague the vague intention of going all the way through to Auchenblae but really I wasn’t sure I’d be bothered and my main focus was getting a good ride in and hopefully stumbling across a tearoom or some kind of cake along the way.

I’d been out this way at the weekend for a 17 miler just to get used to being on the bike again and like then I swung off the Auchenblae road at Carmont Station to head towards Drumlithie. The road from Carmont Station features a nice wee hill that’s probably the steepest part of the ride but is over before you know it, so nothing to worry about.  The reward is some stunning views over the Mearns, which today features a large number of wind turbines. I stopped to take a couple of snaps then pressed on to Drumlithie in the gorgeous spring sunshine.

When we were looking at houses last year we almost put an offer on a place in Drumlithie and part of me still wishes we had. The wee village was looking its best today, but I’m happy to be home in Stonehaven. After a quick pitstop at the village shop I pressed on through the hills of Glenbervie, intending now just to meet back up with the Auchenblae road and head for home.  However I hadn’t been checking my location or where the turnoff might have been and a short while later I came over a small hill to see Auchenblae golf course ahead of me with the village itself nestling behind it.

Coasting through the village I came to the Old Post Office tearoom – score! This proved to be a popular cake stop with a plethora of road bikes parked round the back of the restaurant. It seems there was a club ride had popped in past to refuel after tackling the Cairn O’Mount, rather them than me.  After chatting to them for a minute I sat down and tucked into a massive piece of pecan pie. That’s what my whole morning had built up to.  Wonderful.

I didn’t hang around too long though. Wanting to be home for lunch and then make the most of the fine weather with a walk to the harbour in the afternoon, so I left on my bike just as another bunch wheeled into the car park.  I almost made it to Stonehaven when I stopped at Tewel to take another photo and the Cairn O’Mount crew puffed past me with cries of “No Mercy!” and a friendly wave. Damn them. I’d been keeping an eye behind me for any sign of them and thought I’d made it without being caught after I had a small headstart.  Not that I’m competitive in any way…

Just under 27 miles in total as I unclipped back at home. Not a bad morning’s work. That’s a third of the daily total I’ll be doing in August at Ride The North so I’m quite happy that I can build up to that distance over the next few months. Now for a pint.

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https://connect.garmin.com/activity/embed/742311628

Health and fitness

Back in the swing of things

minceandskirlie

Since my daughter was born I’ve not done much running, cycling or anything really. For the most part I’ve just been too tired to care about exercise or when I get home from work I’d rather help with Chloe than go out for an hour, missing what little time I have with her.

However I can see my waistline slowly getting squidgy and my jeans are getting tighter again so needs must. Besides that I’m also committed to doing Ride The North – a 170 mile bike ride from Inverness to Stonehaven over two days in August so I have to get fit again!

Today I made the most of the fine spring weather and went for a wee run up to Dunnottar Castle. I’ve run up to the war memorial a couple of times but not gone the full distance to the castle yet. Well I couldn’t have picked a better night for it. The weather was stunning and the castle, the bay and Stonehaven all looked beautiful in the setting sun (see the photo at the top of this page for proof).

It was pretty tiring though. I can tell I’ve not done much running since last year! The path from the memorial to the castle was a lot hillier than it looks but that’s a good thing, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time. I think I’ll be using this route a lot over the summer.

https://connect.garmin.com/activity/embed/740088711