Drink red wine from a tumbler.
Add three spoonfuls of sugar to black coffee.
Write a sentence longer than most people’s paragraphs.
Talk to a railway man.
Quote some dreadful Victorian slush.
Try to persuade the nearest soprano to sing some dreadful Victorian slush.
Photograph some buses.
Tell everyone you prefer trains.
Look at three different maps of the same place, none current.
Take the baby to look at trains.
Take a beermat home with you. Take six beermats home with you. (Or: be pleased that the beermat collection has gone to someone who appreciates it.)
Join the Friends of King Alfred Buses. (I have been meaning to do this for ages and have at least/at last managed to print off the application form.)
Yell ‘Trolloper!’ at the cat. (I didn’t, because it was five in the morning and the rest of the household was more or less asleep, despite the noise of the cat/waste paper battle.)
Read the lesson at Mattins. (I get one opportunity per year. I am on the rota.)
Remember the date. Tell people why it’s meaningful on a personal level. Although probably not in those terms.
(Two years without Pa, six months, nearly, with the little one.)
(Thanks to Havi for the concept of SMOPL.)
Kathleen Jowitt 