Luck and being lucky

Today I nearly inhaled a peacock butterfly. For several seconds afterwards I tousled with images of me lying on the road, chocking, thinking "I'm going to die only yards from the cottage my paternal great-grandmother was born in. Oh, the synchronicity. Still, nice scenery." That's the trouble with getting closer to nature when cycling in Suffolk – it has a harsh way of reminding you that society is just a veneer and that survival, for all the efforts of evolution, can often be down to luck. And it's not reassuring to realise that over the long term, adaptations will iron over these accidently vagaries; that your own unfortunate demise is part of the chaos; and that luck can all be about not being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And so neatly on to my cataract. The one I used to have. No, I haven't had surgery and had a plastic insert to replace the original, my eye has healed itself. Miracles do come in a number of ways. The consultant who examined me last week was extremely dubious about my claims to having had one, until I mentioned the fact that his colleague had advised cataract surgery on various previous occasions and was minded to do the operation himself. However, because of various possible problems he said he'd leave the final decision to me. Besides, he added, though extremely rare, it was just possible my eye might repair itself. I said "Let's roll the dice." It would appear that they landed in a most fortuitous way.

Apart from a skip and punch in the air as I left the hospital, I decided to celebrate by buying a lottery ticket.

I didn't win.

 

I am currently writing a number of erotic sections to a novel. It's a book which just failed to get picked by the mainstream publishers and I'm revising it to include far more chapters of this nature – as I'd originally intended, but didn't include because I suspected it might lead to arguments with the publishers. Well, thank you technology for the e-book. It opens the door wider to allow art for art's sake, rather than financial considerations dictating direction and presentation. It's a fine balancing act, I know, one that every author should approach with a degree of pragmatism, but it's invigorating to write what I want to write, rather than bothering about mass appeal. You'll either like it or you won't. Oh, and I think I get the juices flowing in more ways than one. And from the excited way the woman is gasping in today's effort, she'd better make sure the air is clear of any kind of Lepidoptera sunning themselves in the near vicinity ...

Try not to do the stupid things stupid people do.