Here’s the thing. I slightly struggle with leisure time. My parents spent their leisure time doing practical things. My Dad relaxed by doing DIY to exacting standards. My mum made clothes and cooked to similar standards and knitted while watching T.V or listening to the Radio. So leisure leisure did not exist in my childhood. My parents were both the epitome of the Silent Generation.

I, of course, am a Boomer. Apart from Competitiveness I am Classic Boomer. I am mildly competitive but not driven by it as many boomers are. Unless someone is a horrible human in which case I am like a sneaky assassin. Covert competitiveness is my super power, but not a leisure pursuit so irrelevant to this blog.

My leisure time activities are not as completely practical as my parents. But not far off. All my leisure time activities are goal orientated except perhaps one. Coffee, cake and people watching, even with that there is a level of disappointment if any of the three components fail to deliver. Maybe I should attempt something utterly futile to increase leisure quota, life may never be the same again.

I moved to the Tamar Valley about 35 years ago. The area is both an AONB, Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and has many SSI’s, Sites of Scientific Interest. For a long while I had a job that required me to travel through the length and breadth of the region. An area stretching from the North Devon and North Cornwall coast down to Plymouth on the South coast.

For this reason I am very familiar with every town and many villages in the area. Some of them are not even that close time-wise because the roads are not the quickest. Exploring an area by working was fascinating because like a television anthropologist I met the people of the region. Although, thank goodness, I didn’t need to creep around in hiking gear followed by a camera operator and a translator. ( Sometimes a translator would have been very useful)

I’ve not been as diligent with attractions but I am fairly confident that I have not missed anything that would have embellished my life indelibly.

As we edge out of January there is an accidental attraction. Roadsides throughout the Valley start to sprout daffodils. A lovely consequence of World War II. The Tamar Valley used to grow millions of daffodils to supply the rest of Britain with early cut flowers. During the war the fields were needed to grow food and the bulbs were tossed into the hedgerows. For the next three months the descendants of these discarded bulbs will brighten our journeys.

Here I am in the afternoon of my life. Harvesting fun is essential. Because I am greedy, the list is way longer than 5 and is actually not a list at all, more an encyclopaedia of pleasures both micro and massive. Yesterday I ate Churros at 4:30 pm. Absolutely would never appear on a list, but was fun as the sun started to dip on a grey day.

Finding fun is the thing, not listing it. I am weirdly attracted to second-hand shops that sell homewares. I am fascinated by the stuff that people have gathered during their lives only to have it gifted to charity when they downsize their homes, or indeed downsize their expectations after death.

I was heartbroken to find someone’s large collection of Wedgewood on a shelf. A lifetime of loving and gathering. Not my thing at all, but to some tourists, from a cruise ship, the excitement hit fever pitch as they scrambled to buy up every piece and take it home. The fun was in being a bystander to the excitement and hearing their mad conversations about import tax on items costing just a few pounds

There is often fun to be had in other people’s pleasure. Happy people exude happiness. Being on a train with victorious sports fans is such a buzz.

Sometimes fun can be found in adversity. I find that moments of microfun are never too far away. Being receptive is the thing. Especially in the afternoon.

Until this moment I had no idea that my name meant Youthful. It is perhaps a little late to discover such a thing. Sky Father is also mentioned which at least has some form of accuracy as my dad was in the Air Force. But like the sell-by date on perishable food the youthful meaning was lost on me some time ago. Never a popular name, I was gifted the name when it was on a tiny peak.

For most of my life it has been a comfortable enough label. Although my adolescent years were unnecessarily awkward as an acne prone face and a so-called ‘romantic’ name was an easy pairing for ridicule and unkindness.

I have never quite understood the letters that come after a word to help pronounciation in dictionaries. I suppose I should have paid more attention. This somehow makes my name feel rather brutal.

But in Urdu, I am loving the look.

There isn’t a part of my life that isn’t cluttered. Isn’t life meant to be cluttered? As the festive season ebbs away and seasonal trinkets are packed away there is a definite sensation of decluttering but beyond that I quite like clutter. I believe I have clutter under control rather than the other way around so that seems fine. Good clutter is like good food. Life affirming and positive. Bad clutter just needs to be gone.

The trick with clutter, in my opinion, is to keep it constantly under review and tidy, with regular trips to Charity shops and the tip. The same can be said for mental clutter.

I find clutter inspirational and creative but it needs to be under control. Stringent control. Declutter to reclutter. Out with the negative, always, to allow more positive in