I'm really quite jealous of my friend Emily. It's not the fact that she's given up her worldly goods and is off cycling around the world. I mean, as my friend Not-so-big-Dave* says "Sometimes I think I could happily pack it all in, sell everything I own, and make a living as a back-packing snowboard instructor. And then I look around my house and realise that actually, I quite like all my Stuff, and I'd miss it." And yes, whilst I'd love cycling solo around the world (it'd have to be solo - if I went with Tim we'd probably end up getting divorced by the fifth puncture), I'd really miss the ferrets, the cats, my books, my boxed set of Buffy, Doctor Who, I Can Has Cheezburger, shoe-shopping...
No, what I'm most envious of is her ability to write entertainingly about the everyday matters. Her posts on packing and paperwork and punctures are just as interesting as the ones about travelling through foreign parts. I find it really hard to to think of things to say - not least because my life seems to be a never-ending routine of mopping up puddles, vacuuming up gibbley bits (if any of the neighbours are reading this, and are in possession of a pond with an ever-diminishing frog population, I can only apologise), re-typing things that have been deleted because a ferret has just tap-danced across the keyboard, mopping up more puddles (four so far this evening), trying to work out whether mice go in "recycling" or "food waste", and so forth. But that aside, by the time I eventually get to my laptop I'll often just sit at the keyboard and stare blankly (and I'm not just talking about at work), wondering where to look for inspiration. And yet Emily's posts are all readable, whether she's talking about cake or surfing in the centre of Munich.
I don't know how she does it.
*He used to be known as "Big Dave", but lost some weight.
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