In Praise Of Bigger, Better Boxes

Day 152, Monday June 1, 10.30am: I spent much of this weekend immersed in bad golf and great conversation.
I'd rather not dwell on the golf. It's still too painful. Suffice to say I rather let down Jolly Adam in our team matchplay event. He hit 280-yard drives and I duffed mine onto the ladies' tee. Again and again and again.
The conversation, though, in blazing evening sun in our garden, was a revelation. One-Lung Mike is always good value. He puts things in ways that surprise me.
He talked about Neuro-linguistic programming and the notion of 're-framing'. I don't know what the official definition is, but I see it as setting your life into a different, more positive context - breaking out of one box and finding a bigger and better one to inhabit.
No one is doing more reframing at the moment than One-Lung Mike and Lubricious Linda. Since the start of this blog, they have rented their house out and set up an alternative home in France. The idea is for One-Lung to continue with occasional English sojourns in bedsits, raking in heady computer-programming cash, while spending most of his year with Linda, dallying among the Wine-And-Baguette-Folk.
Actually, I think I am re-framing too, only less dramatically and, of course, less successfully. I have re-framed my body to an extent (I'm definitely lighter), I have reframed my diet (it's definitely better), I have reframed my golf (it's got a lot worse, but I'm clinging to the hope that it's all to do with the hernia) and I have reframed my musical ability (I can play a couple of arpeggios and scales). The swimming seems to have sunk but I am in the process of framing, rather than re-framing, a website.
Not bad, really, for a fat 50-year-old. Not exactly in One-Lung's league, though.

My Shoulders Have Moved

Day 152, Monday, June 1, 10am: I am walking back from dropping off Eight-Year-Old at school and I notice my shoulders are not where they should be.
Or rather, they're where they should be but not where they used to be.
They're lower, and further back.
This is what a week in Crete does for you. This is what a week of lazing in the
sun by the pool does for you. It reminds you how to relax and just be. It reminds you that there is no such thing as time (apart from lunchtime), only watches and clocks and chimes and alarms.
I wonder how long it will take for my shoulders to revert to their usual, hunched, knotted situation?
School pick-up time this afternoon, I fancy... In fact, I think my shoulders are on the move already.