Oliver has started writing a computer game.
This began as an exercise for school. The boys had to write a computer program to make a car move in a circle around a pretend racing track.
Now that he is at home, Oliver thought that this could be made far more interesting.
His virtual-car now has a large and detailed track, a point scoring system and a mild reproof if you accidentally crash. There are two levels already and he is engaged in composing the third as I write.
I am very impressed. I can barely get my own web page to do the things that I would like it to do, still less create a purple racing car and propel it at speed around a cyber-racing track.
I find it difficult when I have got to download a widget, and incomprehensible when the little tag thing asks me about meta-data. My education was rather less comprehensive than Oliver’s in the computing sphere, indeed, I recall that nobody especially thought that computers were likely to be of much importance to anybody, and we paid little attention to them.
Obviously in adult life we all know entirely differently. However I have been far too idle to remedy the omission, and am still as thoroughly and shamefully ignorant as ever I was. On the infrequent occasions when this website requests any technical input from me, on the whole I resort to switching it all off and then on again, in the hope that the website will just forget all about it during its oblivious moments in the middle.
I have been using the computer today.
It has become clear to me that no matter what might happen with the Prison Service, when they decide what my occupational fate is to be, I am not really wedded to the idea of being a prison officer.
The thing that I like to do is to write. If I have got to stop doing that in order to be employed by Her Majesty to guard imprisoned miscreants, then Her Majesty will have to find somebody else.
I am going to have another go at writing things.
Today was the perfect opportunity for this.
The house is tidy and clean, everybody is well fed, the children were entirely occupied with their own projects, and Mark was out at the farm.
He had gone to remedy our diminishing firewood situation, partly because we will need it very soon, and partly because he has got himself into a tizz about being fat and lazy, and wanted to do some exercise.
I considered the idea of some exercise as well, and rang the BeautifulMe Loveliness Holistic NewYou Luxury Pampering Leisure Club And Spa to enquire about renewing my membership. I like this venue very much, it manages to arrange its expensive facilities so that even the hideous sweaty business of exercise can be carried out with dignity and a feeling of self-indulgence.
Also it is right next to the taxi rank and attendance there can be carried out in quiet moments at work.
I thought after the telephone call that I might not be rejoining yet. You have got to commit yourself for twelve months, and since technically at the moment I am employed in the north of Cumbria, and might at any moment be required to drop everything and dash off to Staffordshire for a ten week training programme, it did not seem worth the investment.
I negotiated quite hard, and managed to wring the concession that I could postpone membership for four month periods at a time, but really there did not seem to be much point until I have been properly sacked from my job.
I will have to stay fat until I hear from them.
I filled the teapot with spicy red chai, and lit my new Christmas candle. These things are part of my writing ritual. I love the blended smells of the peppery tea and the heavy maple. I have missed the candles very much indeed whilst we have been too impoverished to afford them, and dropped heavy hints to Mark that if he had truly loved me then he would have been more than happy to invest the odd fifty quid on scented wax for me to set on fire whilst I sit at my desk and gaze absently into space.
Obviously I can write perfectly well without maple candles and chai, but I have pretended to Mark that I can’t in order to be able to justify some expensive self-indulgence.
I did this today. I breathed in splendid writing-smells, and stared at the computer, and drank about a gallon of chai, necessitating several visits to the bathroom in between thoughts.
It was the happiest day. I am going to give it all another try tomorrow.
The picture is of Mark’s day’s efforts.
Mine do not have quite the same visual impact.
