Sunday 19 June 2011

The Grass is Always Greener, But at Least We Have Cucumbers.

Two occupations have appealed to me for most of my life: railway signalman and lighthouse keeper.

That was when I knew lots of people, most of whom irritated or at least bored me, and I thought I was a loner. I used to think how good it would be to spend my life cocooned in a confined space well away from irritating or boring people, performing just the necessary routines and having the rest of the time to myself. I thought it would be wonderful to have all that time alone to do the things I liked doing: reading, writing, listening to music, musing on the state of life and the elements, being just who I am with no interference.

Well, now I sit in this house with only a computer for company, so I suppose I sort of got my wish. It isn’t quite how I imagined it. (Try reading Charles Dickens’ The Signalman, by the way.) The problem is, even more people irritate or at least bore me now. You really can’t win in this life, can you?

Guess what I just had. A cucumber sandwich. Now, that’s what I call civilised. And irrelevant.

5 comments:

andrea kiss said...

What all do you put on a cucumber sandwich?

Zz... said...

cucumber sandwiches are one of the pleasures in life...without butter or margarine...

lighthouse keeper is the one that inspired me...thanks to le petit prince...

I think we manifested our situations...LOL when I was a teen I worshipped the hermit idea...now I find my circumstances limit me to being one! LOL

p.s if I inspired eitehr of these posts...it's sad...I haven't read a good limerick here for AWHILE! :P

JJ said...

Andrea: Just cucumber, although unlike those barbaric Australians, we do allow ourselves the luxury of butter. And maybe a little pepper if one has leanings towards the exotic. The cucumber sandwich is the doyen of the classic English tea time. The script of The Importance of Being Earnest must have at least a page devoted to them.

Zhen: The only thing you inspire is more madness, you daft bat. I think you have something with the third line, though. No, I'm sure you do. You're lucky. You still have time to re-arrange things. The limericks want to be written, I just need to get certain difficult influences locked safely away so MJ can come out of the corner where he's been hiding for a couple of months.

andrea kiss said...

So just cucumbers on bread? What kind of bread? Doesn't sound very appealing to me. Not at all. I do like cucumbers though. I'm wondering if what i call a cucumber is the same thing you're referring to. Pickles maybe? Although plain pickles on bread doesn't sound very good either.

JJ said...

No pickles, Andrea. Just ordinary cucumber sliced onto bread, any kind of bread. It has a clean, fresh taste.