Blood Pressure

As I write this missive to you, gentle reader, I am drinking a cup of nice hot tea. It is important for you to know this, because the cup of tea is the first oasis for me in what has been a failure of a day so far. Last night I was horribly drunk and made an idiot of myself in front of some friends. I'm sure they are very disappointed in me, but this reminds me of a quote from Marilyn Monroe: "I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."

That could sum me up, I suppose. Not exactly "mad, bad and dangerous to know" , but still a disappointment to my friends and to myself. So, I now need to return to life's more simple pleasures - like a nice hot cup of tea. I'm not about to launch into "Raindrops on roses; whiskers on kittens" but I would, at this point, like to mention another simple pleasure I enjoyed yesterday: I bought a new clothes airer (or clothes-horse as they were called in my day). For years I have been struggling with the pathetic little thing that I inherited when I moved into this apartment - it never had enough space to contain a full load from the washing machine, and so I was always juggling damp items of clothing around in an effort to get them dry. This has been a source of much frustration for me, but for some reason it never quite dawned upon me that the solution would be to buy a bigger, new one - until my daughter, over from Paris for her grandfather's funeral, pointed this out to me. Watching me perform a sort of origami exercise with an assortment of smalls, T-shirts and pillow-cases, she was incredulous that I hadn't simply been down to the shops to get something more appropriate.

Yesterday I was listening to the final spin-cycle of the machine and was befallen with a sinking heart at the renewed prospect of unloading the miscellaneous arrangement of laundry - I knew that I had loaded the machine with far too much to fit onto the miniscule racking that was currently available to me. In a flash of madness I ran down the road to Argos and, for the princely sum of £19.99, was soon hurrying proudly home, carrying before me a package of exceptional delight! I quickly tore off the polythene wrapping and in a jiffy, had unfolded the rods and rails and erected them into a towering scaffold-like structure that stood resplendent in the centre of my kitchen. As the washing-machine clicked its way to a halt, I could hardly contain my excitement whilst waiting for the time-lock on the door to release the contents.

Duvet covers, pillow-cases, towels, denims, underwear and T-shirts all came tumbling out in a kaleidoscope of multifarious colours, and all were swiftly allocated a suitable space on the tower. I felt rather pleased with myself.

And then I realized how sad my life has somehow become. That I could take such pleasure in what is essentially a very mundane development in my existence, does not say too much about the quality of excitement that I normally enjoy. However, I have reflected since on this, and feel that the essential word in my previous sentence is 'quality'. Is any excitement that usually presents itself to me necessarily quality excitement? I don't think much of it can be - often it's nothing more than a session of riotous and debauched partying occasionally accompanied by, if I'm lucky, a bout of abandoned sex. This sort of thing is hardly inspirational, and lends nothing of any value to my health or my peace of mind.

No, I realized that I needed to focus more on pursuits that offer some kind of reward to my life. After safely arranging my airing laundry, I pumped up the tyres on my disused bike and went out for a ride. This was greatly encouraging to my spirit. Since then I have been to the gym, and for a swim, and it is these sorts of pastimes that bring true quality to one's life. And what's more, they also help to reduce one's blood pressure, which is always a sensible and rewarding thing to do. I took my own reading this morning and it was alarmingly high - so high in fact that the stress of this realisation caused me to spark up another fag. Not good.

Life's simple pleasures then - that's the way forward for me. A nice cup of tea whilst sitting beside a new clothes airer should be enough for any man's delight, in my opinion.