It’s beautiful weather outside. The sun is shining on the moors as I look out of the window of my spare office bedroom over the green and gold heather of July Exmoor in the West Country, UK.
Lambs are being born in the sunny fields over to the left and the sky is the deepest blue you’ve ever seen.
Tonight I’m off to play some folk music in a smoky pub alongside the Bristol Channel with friends. My flute will ring out the reels and my soprano sax will haunt the oak beams and dance in and out of the minds of the assembled crowd.
Tomorrow morning it’ll be tennis with the wrinklies at the local club, laughter and, after, aching muscles, hot shower, lunch then fighting to stay awake through the long afternoon.
Pause a while … Work is calling …
I wrench my eyes back to the blue grey computer screen in front of me. Years have passed as I have penned stories onto the web, earned a bit, lost a bit, played with advertising, built traffic, lost traffic, got older, never rich – just me and the view outside of the grass and the heather – always anonymous, me, the computer and the view.
My eyes drift back to the seagulls soaring and wheeling in pairs and fours across the valley between the hills. I wonder how it feels to be up there and free. A black crow dares to interrupt their path and they turn to mob him but he escapes. They climb again on the rising thermals, screaming, rejoicing.
My mind pulls me back demanding me to work. My emotions say no – linger a while, close the office door, walk out amid the heather and the gorse, feel the earth springy under my feet, hear the robins and skylarks, watch the agile squirrels leap from bending green bough to sturdy trunk.
But on the web there is no such thing as standing still. Stopping a while means falling back and dark eyed search engines demand feeding lest they cease repaying author’s long hours of effort with meager crumbs. Surfers wheel from site to site like seagulls, elusively dancing to greedy corporate spider’s tune, always eager to be freely fed.
So I must work, continue what I have been doing for years since the Internet was born like the lambs in the fields. Yet as lambs come and go with the seasons so did brief success and now there are ever more electronic hills to climb.
Weary fingers over computer keys, descend, hesitate, return to rest on polished brown desk top.
Work, I tell myself … Work…
Nope, I reply, I’m going to write my blog instead.
Hi folks!
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July, Exmoor, West Country, UK, work, lambs, Bristol Channel, folk music, blog, tennis. home office
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