Old Beginnings and New Endings

The housework has been a little neglected of late.
The Window-Spider has been able to revamp` her WWW (window-wide-web) in the undisturbed few weeks since I last brushed her and her artwork aside. The carpets ... well actually I just lifted the top layer of mats and chucked them out, leaving the original carpet back on display. And the cans have built themselves into a little castle awaiting the time I get round to washing and squashing them for the recycling.

My writing has been a little neglected of late. I've played Ping-pong with a few for my lovely patient editor at People's Friend, written a whole short story, all of 700 words long as my February Submission for MW ... and that's it.  February has been a WWW (WrittenWordWashout) and it's all because of an accidental discovery I made on my computer.

HKCs 1-3 have also been a little neglected of late. Sure, they've had their grub, had their furballs cleaned from their coats before they needed them cleaning off the carpet along with the contents of their stomachs and they've been stroked - but that's been about it.

Back to that accidental discovery on the computer: the 'watch-on-line' discovery. A few weekends ago I idly keyed in 'To Serve Them All my Days' and came up with the entire television series from the 80's in little 10 minute bites, every one of which I watched over one wet weekend when all outdoor activity was doomed because of the rain and the mud and the loss of a shoe.  Brilliant, perfectly cast, I loved it all.

Then, moving sideways across the computer, I found another set of 'watch-on-lines' - the opening sequences for many, many of the children's television programmes I knew and loved from the 70's (and one or two from the 60's).  Thank you, whoever you are, for uploading the beginnings of 'Stingray', 'Thunderbirds', 'The White Horses', 'The Tomorrow People', 'Black Beauty' and about a dozen more.  It was extraordinary to sit there and watch again long-forgotten openings from much-loved programmes.  I never thought about it at the time, that I'd never see them again when I moved away from a place where a television was part of the furniture. So I didn't miss them, but seeing them now I think I have missed them - why else would I be so delighted to find them again and watch over and over as Marineville sinks underground, the Tracy brothers launch their craft, the Lipizzaners gallop and cavort and so on.  The White Horses was definitely my favourite opening, even though I remember almost nothing else about the series.

And then I came across 'The Tripods' - oh how sad is this, I watched the whole of the first series and then went to bed ... and when I tried to re-enter, to see the second series, I was totally unable to find the sites again.  I don't want to 'register' or 'sign in' anywhere thank you very much, I just want to 'stream' the episodes but I failed, over and over again. And then suddenly last night I was in!  Excellent, come on Will and BeanPole, let's see how you make out in the City of Gold ... erk, oops, summat wrong - I could only find it in German.  And my German is sadly limited to asking for a room for the night, a hot chocolate and wondering from which platform I can catch the Zurich train.

So there you have it: Old beginnings and New Endings.  I've no idea what the hell happened at the end of The Tripods and I cannot find my books to recheck.  So I've had to invent what happened.  I'm not a writer for nothing, you know.

In truth, however, this seduction by the Streamers On Line has blocked out everything else and right now I'm not a writer at all - I've found A J Cronin's 'The Citadel' now, also from the 80s and I'm loving it and can't be bothered to struggle with words and verbs and characters of my own when I can spend a few hours with Andrew Manson and Christine in their Welsh valley instead.

'Er-in-the-WindowWideWeb is encouraging my sloth: she's nabbed some cracking insects in her traps while I've been Otherwise Diverted from the dusting.

But the HKCs, particularly numbers 2 and 3, have taken badly to being neglected and have taken to curling up together on the woolly jumper that lies on my desk between the monitor and the keyboard.  They lie there together now, breathing in unison, noses resting on tails and eight paws tucked under various pounds of fur and fluff.  Whenever I move they chirrup that it's tea time, milk time, tummy-tickle time any time at all but not more bloody streaming time.

It's addictive, this nostalgia trip into television of the past.

It's also somewhat ironic: I don't have a working television these days, haven't had for years but have discovered I'm still paying the television licence every month on a standing order I'd long forgotten about. Time I sorted that out.

I've been idle quite long enough.  I should rephrase
 the title and start again.  New Beginnings should be my aim.  After all, I won't earn any money from not writing, will I?