GANEIDA'S KNOT.

Go mbeannai Dia duit.

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Quaker by conviction, mother by default, Celticst through love, Christ follower because I once was lost but now am found...

Monday, December 29, 2008

How to waste an entire afternoon.


A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought. Lord Peter Wimsey, "Gaudy Night"

No, I'm not going to discuss more obscure literature; at least not directly. If you've read the books you will know that Wimsey was the garrulous sort, likely to quote long passages of poetry & have long, random & rambling conversations about...absolutely nothing. He's great fun to read. The more excited he got the more garrulous & talkative he became. If you don't like that sort of stuff it would drive you batty. I merely find it funny.

He is on my mind because I have this friend whom I see perhaps once every 6 months or so despite the fact that until recently she lived on the same island & only 3 minutes from my house; a homeschooling friend. We are both busy mums & quite terrible at catching up so when we finally do we have 6 months worth of talking to spill on the table & spill we do. Ditz, who gets on particularly well with her younger son, rolls her eyes lots when we arrange to catch up. She knows this is a session that will go for hours. We have taken to meeting at the cafe knowing that eventually they will kick us out & we will have to go home though we can still be standing chatting in the car park even after we've been kicked out.

The downside to our meeting, from Ditz's point of view, is that my friend is a lovely & generous woman who is only too happy to share 20 years worth of resources with me! I love generous friends! Liddy gets on really well with the older boy & walked down to join us for her lunch break. My friend & I, homeschooling books piled on the table between us while we discussed who could lend what when & the best way of shifting the material on now she is moving, were totally oblivious to the strange looks we were getting.

Normally I'm chatting with people I don't know very well [& don't necessarily like] about something Ditz related. I don't often get to have a chat & a cuppa with an actual friend friend. My children would say that this is a good thing because we sure can talk! We talked so long Dearest organized his own dinner & fed the cat! However my friend & I were not totally to blame this time. As we were saying our [prolonged] goodbyes her older boy piped up with some questions on Celtic mythology. I'm sure Ditz's soul quailed within her at this point because that is like lighting tinder in a gunpowder factory to me & I was off & running. Every time I might have wound down he asked another question, obviously as enchanted as I am by Celtic thinking & absolutely delighted to be able to pick the brains of someone who could explain some of the things he didn't understand.

We did eventually find our way home. I might have felt guiltier but everyone I know knows perfectly well not to ask me to do anything or go anywhere all year because I am never available. As a consequence we spend our 6 week summer break socialising like mad. I am not the social sort & find it quite wearing. Ditz would like to ditch school & do nothing but play music & socialize & if she could do both at once she would be perfectly happy.

Besides I had spent my morning productively putting the backlog of washing from the boy's stay through the machine & clearing the leaves out of my gutters. It's been a while. I had an inch or two of soil at the bottom! It all went on the garden before a massive storm broke over the top of us but despite all the thunder & lightening we only got an inch of rain.

Today I must pack. Why do we need nearly as much stuff to go for 3 days as if we were going for 3 weeks?

4 comments:

Mrs. Darling said...

Well I guess Im a little like Ditz. I love socializing and no matter how busy I get I put it all on the back burner when the phone rings and someone asks if I wanna come over. LOL Glad you had fun,

Sandra said...

I am a fan of Lord Peter. And I am probably garrulous! Good for you having a nice time with a friend. I don't know if this saying is known in your corner of the world, but I have been very aware of it in my own life lately. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."

On a different note. MORE rain. You must be soggy.

Ganeida said...

MrsD: I love socializing with *kindred spirits* & everything goes out the window on those rare occasions I get the opportunity to be with them but mostly I don't get to choose & dealing with just people exhausts me.

Sandra: A Lord Peter fan! No wonder we get along. :) And we are very soggy but it is our wet season now & will be into Feburary so the rain is to be expected. I've given up on my mum's. No matter what time of the year we visit it rains! :(

kimba said...

Tried a Lord Peter book once. Bored me stiff. I liked an essay of Sayers though called "Are Women Human".