Watching most TV and scrolling is non. Productive is reading a book, almost any book that makes you think. Lying awake thinking can be both, it’s non if it’s negative going over stuff but productive if it’s determining to write something or even doing a drawing in your head. I’m sure most artists do that, if not all. They think drawings, at least I do, and I only get around to actually doing a few of those I think about.There’s a huge number of drawings in the head plans chest, but that’s about as far as they get. The journey to the paper is fraught with more diversions than the A46 to Stroud. Speaking of diversions how can it take three weeks, tons of concrete blocks and a portable toilets that burnt down midway through the works ( someone is quoted saying they downed tools when that happened ) to end up with what we had before but with the odd strip of ridged pavement dotted around. Some serious amounts of public money going down the portable toilet here, perhaps that was what started the fire.

Rant over.

A recent attempted break in woke me early and kept me awake with a load of ‘what if’ thoughts, but it was a minor event in some ways and the result is a garage door now works better than it did before some no-goods had a go at it and found nothing in my garage worth nicking. Sadly we were not the only targets of the crime around here so I expect others have been staring at the bedroom ceiling like myself, thinking what they could have done to prevent it. Hence this attempt at ridding myself of non. Has none gone? One will see.

On the positive side our neighbour helped me repair the garage doors with his better than mine DIY skills and shall be henceforth known as Sir Geoffrey Upenover.

All that aside, and it is where it needs to go, I’ve had a run of non here. Days where you clear up a few autumn leaves so that they can be almost instantly replaced. It’s about as non as you can get but one convinces oneself that the exercise will at least be positive, thinking twice later as your shoulder joints seem to be in need of some WD40. A retreat into going through old drawings used to be a method of feeling productive, a recent trawl uncovered the odd drawing where thoughts went like this: “Why did I ever think that was a good idea?” Just that one thought. Non. Others were less non, like the drawing below…bringing happy memories of plumbing accidents like when our then young son asked us very calmly as we were sharing a cup of tea with the plumber who had just completed some works in our attic: “Why is it raining in the sitting room Daddy?”

The plumber did not finish his tea. Moving very quickly to take a look then into his van and zooming off down the road, we thought he’d done a runner but he’d gone to get a powerful vacuum cleaner. The leak had come through 3 floors but a thick rug beneath it had soaked up a huge volume of water. Our lucky day? No, certainly not.

As we British are wont to say “ it could have been worse”. Someone said that yesterday to me as we were fixing the garage doors. If the place had been destroyed and levelled to the ground but no one hurt in any way, then the phrase can be used even then too.

The really definitive phrase and one to avoid, is when the emergency services have been called, someone has been hurt, but not badly. There’s a fair amount of trauma in the immediate area. Then, and only then, can you deploy:

KETTLES ON!

Meaning that hot sweet tea is imminent. As we all know this is the morphine of the critical hour. Just like NHS custard cures or releives almost any condition or injury.

It’s all to do with getting rid of non.

I suppose I should say I hope you have a productive day, but frankly I’m too busy keeping non at bay myself. Deal with it.