Durghh!

With everything happening at once, including an offer on the house, I set to sorting, filing  and destroying paper, tons of the stuff.  Anything with personal information I shredded, some I tore up and nearly all my teaching stuff I just threw away.   Paper has to be taken to the  recycling bin, a hundred yards from the house, not a great distance, but paper is heavy.  Have you ever tried to put shredded paper through, what is essentially, a letter box?  It takes on a life of its own, flying off in all directions, clinging to bushes, landing in what looks and feels like oil while some is simply carried away by the wind.  I am very conscious of littering, and besides, there is a sign threatening big fines if found not putting everything in the bin, so I have spent an inordinate amount of time chasing tiny pieces of paper around the countryside.

I made ten trips to the recycling bin before I had finally completed my task of sorting out and destroying paper.  The day after I finished a friend phoned and said that he, too, had been sorting paper and records from years back.  'The fire has been going non-stop,' he said.  Oh yeah, I could have just burnt it all in the fireplace.

Every week my grandson gives me two or three words and I have to write a story for him.  This last week it was Robot and Cabbage.  It stretches my creative talent somewhat and is not getting any easier as the weeks go by.  This week it is a Truck, a Plane and a Strawberry.  Two weeks ago it was an Alien and a Shoe.  It takes 5 days not being able to come up with any ideas, one day for a light bulb moment and 15 minutes to write it.  So why do I bother thinking about it for the first five days?