#129 - #112 (17)

It would seem that there isn't much to write about anymore. I mean everything in life seems to be a little bit on repeat. I remember the first time I saw a tern how excited I was - actually I am still quite excited when I see one...

I was at the RSPB's Belfast Harbour reserve yesterday. The windows were clean for once and we could see out of them without having to slightly throw up in the mouth due to the layers of dead insects and built up matter on the shelves but there weren't a lot of terns on the tern islands. From what I could see they were almost exclusively taken over by black headed gulls. I think I DID see terns on the far shore, but it was difficult to say. The reserve itself needed to be reflooded - the water levels were very low due to the dry weather and the reason the water levels are kept the way they are is because they form a protective barrier which predators like foxes and cats will not cross... I don't know if foxes can swim but they do hate having to if they don't have to.

Anyway, not many terns and not much water. If you attract birds in and d not safeguard the premises then you are are effectively creating a giant fast food take out for predators AND also decimating the population. So I don't know if the RSPB know about this but the vast majority of my visits to the Belfast Habour reserve consists of me going god this used to be so much better.

They do have a shiny new visitor centre though that only members are allowed to go into without paying £5 or something - so much for public engagement. The reserve must still be good for wintering birds I'd like to think. The sight of bar and black tailed godwit in your face literally will never leave me, but of course that only happens if someone is putting out millet for them. So there you have it, my ranty rant.

Yes but where was I? Yeah the meh - the meh. I remember when writing was not meh. I suppose this is why people must travel. We must always do something new.

Well the new thing I am doing is a play with Class 7 - Dr Faustus. I am now rewriting the script so that it can be memorised by children. It is a lot harder than Heaney's Antigone, or Burial at Thebes, but no less fascinating. Human beings have been pondering existential questions since the beginning of time. Well when they were able to. What is our relationship to authority and where does it lie? What is right? The tension between the appetite and moderation.

And speaking of moderation - I have now gone from 13% to 8 to 6.2 and now... I am down to 4%. I have to say that I no longer am interested in feeling pissed. I am now an officially boring person. The last time I had wine was weeks and weeks ago and right now I cannot imagine having wine again.

OK I guess I should stop here. Am I REALLY 51 years old? Well 51.5... it feels so strange to say that. I was looking at old photos while clearing out and it seems odd that people whom I thought were old when I was in my 30s are even older now... my friends from the RSPB are now in their 60s. They were in their 40s when we started this journey together - and they seemed old then. I am now older than they were when I first got to know them. It is truly bizarre. I guess I have been thinking about the RSPB because of the reserve... it is weird, really. To think it has been ten years since I left them. And it seems like no time has passed as well. Time does this really weird thing where the actual living of it is really slow and you pack all kinds of things into it and then the other bit - the bit where you look back - it seems like no time has passed at all.

I was saying to Emma yesterday that really I could not be bothered with another relationship - I have had my fair share and to be honest I said, I spend half my day teaching and there is nothing better than coming home, getting a cider and sitting in front of the TV for an hour or so and then doing WHATEVER THE HELL I WANT after twenty years of full time working and full time mom.  I have crammed several lifetimes into this life already and I will FUCKED if I came back to a relationship in which I will have to glue together a 4D damaged human puzzle. I CANNOT BE BOTHERED. I have done that for too long and anyway, I do that for my day job - which I love and I adore - but also no, no thank you.

I do not feel lonely. I do not feel unfulfilled. If anything I feel more fulfilled because I do not have the deadweight of responsibility and an impending sense of doom hanging over me. If in this lifetime I am not to have the relationship of my dreams then so be it. And at this stage in my life I will not be doing any compromising any more thank you. I am tapped out on that front.

I have tonnes of great memories and that will absolutely do me. I have two beautiful boys. I have a roof over my head - and nice one. I have a job I love. I have people around me I respect and adore. I will no be greedy and ask for more when I already have so much.