I’m writing a short post here about a subject for which I can’t think of any other appropriate forum. If I were to bring this up with anybody in the flesh they might think me whiny and self indulgent. And they would be right.
But I have to tell someone and in the absence of my diary, this blog is as good a place as any.
What makes this inconsequentially small subject even less interesting is that it’s a moan in the face of the facts. Frankly life is good at the moment, better than it has been for many, many years. The past 12 months have been trying — a lost job, an enforced house move, a child’s dissapointing GCSE results, to name but three. But now all is well (I hope I don’t come to regret that statement, yet I know nothing lasts for ever).
But my current gripe, no gripe is too strong a word, my current “pang” is an attack of nostalgia. Of course the problem with nostalgia is that it ain’t what it used to be. A hardship viewed in hindsight can be portrayed as the best years of our lives simply because the shortened perspective of history softens the worst woes and makes fuzzy the feelings surrounding them.
Okay. Enough pussyfooting around. It’s all about this: I miss my old job, a bit.
Not for the work itself which was frustrating and difficult and ate into my personal life. Actually, 12 months on I’m doing exactly the same job for different employers.
Not for the great people I worked with for they were great people. After all, they’re not dead and I see a lot of them all the time still. And the people I work with now are equally nice too, they really are.
No, I miss my old job because I miss lunchtimes at wonderful pubs. Now, doesn’t that sound shallow?
You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone, but now I do miss Kentish Town’s pubs and eateries because, as nice as the restaurant is at my latest office, it can’t replace the simple joy of sitting around an open coal fire and drinking a pint of Crompton’s Old Dirigible with work mates.
Okay. I’ve said it. It’s out in the open. I will whinge no more.
However if you’ve made it this far I do have just one thing further to say: Mine’s a pint!