Being a Piece of Stale Bread.

I still feel the occasional urge to write a blog post. The problem is that I can’t think of anything to say that I haven’t said before, and repetition is both pointless and irritating. In short, I’ve turned into a piece of stale bread fit only for feeding to the birds or the old shire horse which lived in a field at the top of my road when I was a kid. (I asked Rosy to come and say hello to me today. She’s a young hunter who spends a lot of her time in a field at the top of my road. She took a few steps towards me and then turned and walked away. Well, there you are.)

Please excuse the descent into self-indulgence, but I’m becoming ever more aware that I’ve spent my whole life playing roles. ‘That’s what we all do,’ you might say, and I’m sure you’d be right. But most people seem to pay roles from a position of connectedness to life and the generality of humankind. That’s what I’ve always been lacking. I’ve never really had that connection. I play a role until it reaches a natural conclusion, and then move onto another theatre with a different cast and a different audience and play a different role there. And that’s where the problem lies:

To play the sort of roles I like playing, a person needs good health, strength, energy, the willingness to take risks, and at least a modicum of charisma. I don’t have those any more, and so the stale bread analogy is not really appropriate. Even a piece of stale bread is of some use to birds and shire horses. What I have is a void, which is probably why I’m depressed. Being in a void has that effect on a role player.

But at least there have been a few firsts to take note of over the past week. I’ve seen the first bumblebee of the new season, the first butterfly and the first ant (unfortunately, ants make me uncomfortable.) And then there was the brambling I saw on my bird table. The brambling is a bird native to Scandinavia and northern Russia, but they migrate here for the milder winters. I’ve never seen one on my bird table before.

The best of all, however, was the sight of two red deer stags, complete with noble antlers, in a field half a mile from my house. I’ve never seen a red deer stag up close and in the flesh before. Sightings of red deer stags are relatively uncommon even in the Scottish Highlands where they belong, and so the sight of two of them down here in the English Midlands is more than unusual. One person asked me whether I was sure I wasn’t hallucinating. Well, I’m as sure as anybody can be about anything. And I gather that stags are considered deeply symbolic in Celtic folklore, so maybe my sighting of a brace of the mighty but secretive beasts might have some mystical significance. If ever I find out what it is, I’ll let you know.