GANTOB has made rules for this blog, in the name of Kreative Tyranny. Let’s see if it works.
Even as I enter my 84th year, I still feel excited about my own birthday. I have a very busy day ahead. I mentally tick off the planned activities. I open my cards after a leisurely breakfast and walk up the hill to meet The Ornithologist and The Philatelist. I promise to return tweezers and magnifying glass to the latter later in the day.
Lately we have been meeting up each Monday to attend the lunch time concert given by university students at ____ Hall. Today’s concert, appropriately after the amber weather warning for the weekend past, is titled Concerto for A Rainy Day. The students pull off most of the pieces with aplomb.
Our lunch is taken after the concert, on Forrest Road. A vegetarian chilli hits the spot. We are meeting up again later, so do not linger on formalities.
Popping into the museum on the way home, partly for a pee, but also to have a look at the stuffed animals for old times’ sake. I have made this walk for decades, sharing the experience with successive generations. I remember past generations as well as experiences with my children and grandchildren, and wonder what we have done to deserve them.
Suitably philosophical about what will no doubt be much of the usual chat from family and friends, I plot a rather circuitous route, via the West End, and across the New Town to the East End and then down towards Leith.
Bottles already purchased, and speech rehearsed, I am ready for the planned jamboree.
Keeping the volume low, to listen out for guests, I pop on The Beatles 1 album, and skip to where I left off earlier in the day: All You Need is Love. I need my fix, then I’ll be ready. I think of John Lennon, born on the same day as me.
Later, after the guests have left, and we’re doing the dishes, my wife and I have some time to reflect. The cat is in the dishwasher, licking the plates, ignoring our recollections, thinking instead of the snatched strokes and snacks.
For hours after we go to bed I am restless, conversations turning over in my head, feeling the effects of one port too many. I’m counting sheep. “Go to sleep” my wife groans.
THE BENEFAKTOR
9 October 2023
GANTOB blog 