Second blog for Thursday, which is bleddy good, don’t you think? Word count for the month will be brilliant if I can rabbit on about some bugger-all something-or-other for a while, eh?
I’m on the beach at Axmouth ……… or is it Seaton? If you come in from one end, it’s Seaton, from the other end it’s Axmouth. Confusing for a chap, doncherknow? ……….. Anyway, I finally got my ass on the Harley and trundled down here in the end at about mid-day. Lovely weather, just warm enough, not too hot, and the beach pretty deserted. Perfect. I’ve been sat here reading a bit, thinking a bit, but mostly I started to sift through the pebbles around me. I started to pick the good ones out, and into the side pockets of the haversack.
I know what y’all are asking yourselves here. Why would a grown man, (as I sometimes laughingly call myself, even if no one else seems to deem it a fit and proper description), be taking pebbles home?
Years ago………… more than I like to admit to, I bought all the equipment you needed to tumble pebbles and stones, and so polish them. Why? Same as always… It seemed a real good idea at the time.
In case you don’t know it, you put the stones inside a small drum, along with water and different grades of abrasive grit, starting with coarse grit, and working down to very fine grit for the final polish. The drum is revolved by a very small electric motor, and so the pebbles and stones tumble over each other constantly, the grit grinds them smooth, and eventually they end up polished like jewels. It makes a helluva racket, and takes months, certainly weeks.
They look bleddy fantastic when they’re finished, though, and out of the one single batch I did (Yup, just the one, and never did it again!!), I sent the best up to my young niece as a ‘box of jewels’ for her to play with one Christmas. I guess she’d have been six or seven….. I forget now. She loved them, what little girl wouldn’t? A whole box of your very own jewels. Brilliant!!! :o)
Anyway……. I got to thinking………. That would’ve been when I was doing the Thinking Bit, you understand……… I got to thinking, as I was looking at these pebbles glistening wet just below the surface, that it was about time I got the tumbler going again and did some more. When I did the first batch………. Ok, the ONLY batch, I was going to incorporate them somehow into some arty woodturning I was doing at the time, but never really got around to do. That’ll be the woodturning I haven’t done for bleddy years either then. I did a lot for a few years, gave it all away, and them moved house, and haven’t really kicked it back into life. One day, though………..
(Those who’ve read enough of this blog over the month’s since it started last February, will by now be noticing a distinct pattern here.)
Hell, cut me some slack here will you……. I can’t help it if I get distracted, can I? There’s always something new just around the corner to be tried, and you know what we boys are like don’t you girls? If you’re a bloke, you’ll be well familiar as to how tough it is being a man and having to play with all these toys we gather around us. Must be a real simple life just to do a bit of hoovering and cooking, eh? :o)
Mind you, these days most of you will have been broken into domesticity and servitude by some little honey-trap, and you sure have all my sympathy because I know it’s real easy to let your guard down and get dragged down into it without realising. It’s the power of The Vagina. Why the hell we gave you Chicks the vote is quite beyond me……….. you had a load of power without us shooting ourselves in the foot. It’s no coincidence we’ve lost the bleddy empire since then, but far from me to bleat over spilt milk, and be accused of raking over long cold coals.
Thankfully, the woman hasn’t been born who can tame me, and believe me a good few have tried, bless them all. (that statement really fires up My Girls at work…… never fails!!!) :o) They generally see sense, give up pretty early on, and then we settled down to what comes naturally, each fulfilling our natural roles and so letting life roll along smoothly without all the frictions most couples suffer these days. As God intended, I think you’ll find.
Mind you, some have said that may be a small part of why I’m Chick-less right now, but I hold a different view. I rather think it was more a search for The Large Penis. Shame that. Still, we all have to live and learn, eh?
I myself have every hope for the future. It’s just a bit of a dry spell, that’s all. Won’t be long now. (He said through a fixed grin and clenched teeth)
Where was I? Oh , yes, ……… collecting stones, type:- Various, many, for the polishing of.
It would be good to be able to identify what is what, stone-wise, and have the experience to know which will polish the best, but I just picked the best I could see, and meeting different criteria. Some because they were already nice and rounded, no cracks, and smooth. Some because they were quite translucent, and therefore definitely ‘jewel-like’, some for the shape they already were, and some for the colour. A few had the lot all in one.
I got to thinking, (Now doing both the Thinking Thing, and Selecting Pebbles…… multi-tasking, yes?) as I was sifting through all these stones, about how massive ‘chance’ was playing a big part here in which stones were being picked. It struck me just how much like life what I was doing was.
How the chance of being picked was so very slim if you backed right up to me sitting at home this morning. That I would happen to think of collecting some stones TODAY, and that’s a load of chance before you even start with the slim chance I would choose this beach for a start………… then choose this particular spot, this EXACT spot.
From there, there’s the chance of being spotted as I sweep each layer of stones to expose fresh ones, it only taking a few to cover others out of sight. OK, so you’ve been picked out of the billions on the beach………. The odds are hugely and unimaginably, better now you’re chosen and in the haversack. Once taken home, (some would factor in me actually making it home, seeing I’m seen by many as lucky to be alive every trip!) there’s surviving a further selection of those much better odds before going into the polisher. Only the best of those chosen will make it in there. Then being weeded out as the polishing process goes along….. some being ditched as each grade of grit is changed.
Finally, when all is done and finished, a few are found to be the best of the lot. Out of them, there is very likely to be just one; only ONE that just has the edge on the others, and that one, that single stone, will be The One.
One little stone pebble, chosen today out of billions on that beach today, a stone formed millions of years ago, crushed, compressed, twisted, broken, and ground ever smaller over the years. Shifted around by angry seas, and it’s final destination it rested at today at the mercy of the weather that drove those seas to drop it there.
One polished stone. One lucky stone.
How much like ‘life’ is that?
Kinda makes you think, and although I don’t mean that it bears any more resemblance to all that can potentially happen to any of us and any time on any day, I’m like a pebble on a big beach, and one not as handsome as he once was either, hoping to be picked from the flotsam surrounding me. Or conversely, there’s a pebble washing around in tide somewhere, and waiting for me to pick her up for a polish.
I won’t spoil the philosophical and deep train of thought by following that with the base and cheap laugh from exploring the concept of all that rubbing together we’d have to do. Perish the thought. :o)
Now I’m thinking of how it really is like life………. we all get together, and grind all the sharp edges off each other until some of us make it out the other side polished, perfect and gleaming.
The rest of us end up quite polished, broken, or covered in cracks and pits.
Life……….. one big Polishing Drum of Chance.
Nite, y’all,
K.x :o)
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