Cabbage Patch

Another day to myself which does not worry me because for the next eight days I will be with large groups of people for almost every waking moment. I listened to all the CD’s I bought yesterday (Mazzy Star and Art Pepper currently the most enjoyable) and did some work on the presentations I am giving in Macedonia to UN workers at the end of the week.

My hotel is in a very built up area but somehow an agreeably stubborn small holder has refused to sell his land for development and in the middle of the concrete there he was, in his mini-field, digging the earth and planting what looked like small cabbage plants as I looked out of my hotel window. I took pleasure from the fact he was doing this rather than me and mused that 100 years ago this would have been my life. I am happy that I am living now – I am not one of these people who wants to go back in time. I would prefer to always live in the future. The peacefulness I felt while watching him work was broken a little by the monotonous barking of his rottweiler but this is probably because I cannot connect with dogs at all.

I did spend an hour in the afternoon re-reading my new book (Don’t Worry: How To Beat The Seven Anxieties of Life’). I found myself nodding my head in all the right places until I reminded myself that all of us have a tendency to agree with ourselves. Not a good thing if one wants to retain a degree of free, open thinking. But I like the book. From December I will know if others feel the same.

I notice on the BBC Website that the Euromillions lottery prize is now 103 million. I seem to have an unlimited desire to achieve at the moment – books being published, traveling in post-conflict zones etc, relentless work – but I wonder if that desire would be killed if I suddenly had that wealth. I think it would be. Is not part of the point of living ‘the struggle’? I remember reading about the man who has left all of his money to himself in his will because he believes that one day science will work out how we can all come back to life. As a believer in the unlimited potential of humankind I agree with his views on coming back. But rather selfish not to leave something to those we temporarily leave behind.

My gripe of the day concerns football. I have 45 channels on my hotel television and at any one time about 20 of them show football. Football is a helpful war substitute for the overly aggressive male and for that we should be grateful but do we need Chelsea TV, Manchester United TV, Milan TV and Juventus TV?

Song of the day: So Tonight That I Might See – Mazzy Star.