The wonderful web of thoughts

I woke up this morning feeling a wee bit melancholy. I’ve not been sleeping well, had the prospect of today being a long day out of the office at a time when I’m far too busy to be out of the office, and opening the curtains revealed a damp and dismal day. So, I was coming out of the house bracing myself for the joys of public transport from South London to Paddington and was trying to find something good to think about the day. And there it was, an enormous spider’s web on a hydrangea positively glistening with plumptuous raindrops. I immediately wanted to take a picture of it, but then immediately remembered how rubbish the camera is on the otherwise fabulous Pocket PC. “I should really have proper digital camera to capture stuff like that” I thought, “If I got a dinky one I could carry it around with me for moments such as this”. However, as I clipped my keys to the inside of my handbag I realised that even if I could afford to treat myself (which I can’t!) I would probably lose it anyway; the fact that I haven’t lost my Pocket PC to date is pretty miraculous. Indeed the only reason I’m not constantly searching for my keys is because of the clever clip which I transfer to which ever handbag I’m using!

This then reminded me of other things I always lose: hankies (I never lose tissues strangely, just hankies), earrings and gloves – about two of those a year. My Mum used to guard against my serial mitten loss via the “mittens on elastic threaded through the sleeves of the coat” technique. Other kids’ mothers had a similar approach at the schools I went to, but they had string rather than elastic. As you can imagine the whole elastic thing opened up new possibilities and before long, at which ever new school I went to, the new kid who didn't speak like everyone else became a spinning top. Two local children would be running round me hanging onto a glove each seeing how fast I could spin and how far the elastic would stretch; then the spinning would be stopped and the gloves released, the inherent property of elastic ensuring their rapid snap back at my wrists … Lets just say that you soon learn to speak in the local accent and even if you never really fit in, the spinning gradually stops.

This whole bunch of thoughts took only moments which is amazing in itself; however, it’s not just the rapidity of thought that is amazing, but the whizzing through of the emotions that are all wrapped up with them.

• Joy: the beauty of the spider’s web


• Smugness: I cleverly have a small clip to prevent constant searching for keys


• Love: Mum


• Anger: cruelty of kids


• Sadness: spending much of life not fitting in


• Smiley: the comical image of me as bizarre spinning top.

Phew! All a bit much for the early morning really.

Then almost as quickly I started to feel the flippin' melancholy creeping up on me again – damn it. So I decided to push everything down except for the joy that there are beautiful things like spider webs in the world. (And that's in spite of my feelings about spiders under the bed!)