2024 has been a somewhat challenging year so far. There have been ups and there have been downs, some of which have been potentially life threatening but here we are Mike and I in September still tottering along. The house has been sold, fingers crossed, the move to Somerset is on the horizon and it is just possible that from now until Christmas there will be fewer bumps along the road.

Even if they are, experience has taught me that they will not be the ones I expected. For if there is one thing I have learned this year it is the impossibility of gaging what will happen next and following that the stupidity of trying to pre-empt events.

I have spent hours of my time engaged in the art of Whatifery. It’s one I’m very skilled at. Give me any situation and I can riff on the possibilities, mostly dire, for hours. An ambulance going up the hill towards our house? Mike has had a fatal accident. Not only that but he has fallen by the front door which will make access for the ambulance crews impossible. So how will they get in? Will the police have to be called? The fire service? By the time I get home every scenario, each one worse than the others, will have been played out and finding him sitting in front of the TV calmly watching cricket is somewhat of an anti-climax.

And a total waste of my creative time. Rather than indulging in potential tragedy I could have been thinking about my latest WIP, or concentrating on my surroundings, taking notice of what I can see, hear, smell, touch and taste and so focusing myself on the present rather than churning up my anxiety about future events that will never come to pass.

At the moment my concerns are all centred around our house move. In particular the survey our buyers have commissioned. As far as I know, there is nothing seriously wrong with our house but if I give in to Whatifery…

PS I am fully aware that Whatifery is vital for a writer and more on that in another post maybe.