Seems like I have nearly achieved my aim of learning to say nothing…..
It’s been well over a month since I last posted here and in truth I find that has only bothered me intermittently.
I can’t quite make my mind up whether it is a slump in visitor numbers that has enhanced my indifference or simply that blogging no longer offers me any genuine satisfaction.
It’s not that there has been nothing going on – you will read of the death of another family member if you continue to the next entry – and there’s been other stuff happening as well..
To be honest, the trip I made to Poland – and specifically to Auschwitz – in April still weighs heavily on me. I am in the process of reading more books and watching more documentaries about the Holocaust, but you can only bang on about this stuff for so long before people’s eyes glaze over. I have found that even close friends aren’t really as perturbed by it as I have been – perhaps you just had to be there. I have to say that my first visit to New York City in 1999 was the last trip to have such a profound impact on me.
My mood on that Polish trip was not helped by domestic issues and I now have difficulty in contemplating the idea of another ‘family’ trip – memories of the way I was packed off to Berlin ‘with a flea in my ear’ still rankle and I have already declined the opportunity to join a subsequent ‘family’ expedition to the west of Ireland.
My 60th birthday year was supposed to feature a lot of travelling, but somehow, like this blog, it’s all gone a bit sour.
One of my more bizarre claims to fame is that one of my distant ancestors was Captain Lawrence ‘Titus’ Oates. He was the member of Scott’s ill-fated 1910 Antarctic expedition who announced that he was “going outside and might be some time”, before walking out to certain death in the blizzard that raged around the camp.
This might be an apt way to end this entry. I may be back but I may be some time. The blizzard continues unabated outside.
Learning to say nothing 