Day eleven – Feeling guilty

I should have been at the Cenotaph this morning for the Remembrance Day ceremony. Normally I go with my 95-year-old neighbour Pat, one of the handful of remaining World War Two vets on the island, but this year he was taking his granddaughter, who came over from Vancouver Island. I still planned to go on my own. I set the alarm before I went to sleep last night to ensure I would make it. Except I didn’t set the alarm. Could’ve sworn I did, but no. Instead I woke up at five minutes to eleven. Oh, dear.

As penance for this oversight, I did six blocks of French homework on Duolingo, instead of usual three. (It is bizarre that Duolingo now claims I am 56% fluent in French. Seriously? I certainly do not know more than half the word in the French language and cannot string a sentence together in the past tense – compose or not – so I don’t see how anyone could view me as half fluent.) Then, still in bed with the tablet, I faffed around on Facebook for half an hour. Then I faffed around on the Guardian website for half an hour. (I’m sorry, until they figure out how to offer news on-line that offers you the option of turning the page, this will never be as satisfying as a real paper.) Then I foolishly decided to have a game of Scrabble with an app I downloaded a couple of months ago. Then I had another game. Then I sat there with the tablet on my lap, thinking, “Oh, go, on. Just one game of spider solitaire. Why not? You’ve already wasted two hours in bed. What harm can it do?” Ha! I know exactly what harm it could do.

And so I didn’t. I stopped myself. Got out of bed, put some peanuts in the bird feeder, had a belated breakfast and now here I am. I am going to give myself a pat on the back, but I’m also going to look at how I got there. Guilt + Scrabble = Why not? So Scrabble has to go – unless it’s an actual game on an actual board with an actual person.

Yesterday I posted a bonus black and white photo on Facebook. I couldn’t use it as part of the seven-day challenge, because that precluded comments or captions and this needed a comment.

My home in London for most of the 1980s. Perhaps I will do an entire entry about it some other day. If anyone asks me to do so.