I have never been very good with shapes. As a child, faced with the ‘Eleven Plus’ examination, which sifted children according to ability and intelligence in order to decide on the school they should attend, I floundered. I wrote an admirable story in the literacy component of the exam. I submitted pages of neat, mostly correct arithmetic. However, the third part, the so-called ‘intelligence test’, was a foreign language to me, especially the parts which required visual abilities, shape sorting and sequences. I did not have that kind of mind – and still don’t.
My daughter’s toys left me bemused. Posting a variety of shapes into similarly shaped posting holes was a real trial, but my small daughter seemed to manage OK. Banging wooden pegs into round holes was easier – only brute force was required.
In life, I have often felt like one of those pegs – but a square one heading for a round hole – an uncomfortable experience when someone with a hammer is going to work on you, trying to make you fit. Filling in forms has been a nightmare. I never fit the boxes. Even trying to answer those multiple choice quiz questions in magazines is a puzzle, because when faced with a choice of a), b) or c), I always want to invent d).
I am often out of step, it seems. I currently live in the city. Although I was born in London, at heart I am a country girl, for some reason and, whenever possible, escape to the country. At weekends we drive an hour plus up the crowded motorway to escape our busy home town and ‘chill out’ in rural north Holland. In the holidays we head for green hills and country lanes, deserted beaches or rocky headlands, back in Britain where we come from.
Often, it seems, I appear to have been born in the wrong century. Technology leaves me cold. Over the years I have acquired a modest amount of technical know-how. I send and receive emails. I send files as attachments. I answer job adverts on-line. But I hate mobile phones. I like too much the feeling of freedom that I get when I go out without one and I value those empty spaces in the day when I know that I am out of range and at nobody’s beck and call. Better than emails I like letters, written on crisp, white notepaper, preferably in elegant italics, or on old-fashioned flowery paper. I like face-to-face contact. I like to spend leisurely amounts of time with people, with tasks, with everything. I am the tortoise, not the hare, but I get there in the end and I like to enjoy the scenery as I go.
As for those wooden pegs, my one comfort is that, try as you may, a square peg will never fit in a round hole. My head may pound from the effects of the constant hammering but I am invincible. I will never fit, but am destined to be one of those awkward, mind-of-their-own quirky shapes that defy all attempts to make them conform. I am content and proud to be so! Be warned, those who know me!
My daughter’s toys left me bemused. Posting a variety of shapes into similarly shaped posting holes was a real trial, but my small daughter seemed to manage OK. Banging wooden pegs into round holes was easier – only brute force was required.
In life, I have often felt like one of those pegs – but a square one heading for a round hole – an uncomfortable experience when someone with a hammer is going to work on you, trying to make you fit. Filling in forms has been a nightmare. I never fit the boxes. Even trying to answer those multiple choice quiz questions in magazines is a puzzle, because when faced with a choice of a), b) or c), I always want to invent d).
I am often out of step, it seems. I currently live in the city. Although I was born in London, at heart I am a country girl, for some reason and, whenever possible, escape to the country. At weekends we drive an hour plus up the crowded motorway to escape our busy home town and ‘chill out’ in rural north Holland. In the holidays we head for green hills and country lanes, deserted beaches or rocky headlands, back in Britain where we come from.
Often, it seems, I appear to have been born in the wrong century. Technology leaves me cold. Over the years I have acquired a modest amount of technical know-how. I send and receive emails. I send files as attachments. I answer job adverts on-line. But I hate mobile phones. I like too much the feeling of freedom that I get when I go out without one and I value those empty spaces in the day when I know that I am out of range and at nobody’s beck and call. Better than emails I like letters, written on crisp, white notepaper, preferably in elegant italics, or on old-fashioned flowery paper. I like face-to-face contact. I like to spend leisurely amounts of time with people, with tasks, with everything. I am the tortoise, not the hare, but I get there in the end and I like to enjoy the scenery as I go.
As for those wooden pegs, my one comfort is that, try as you may, a square peg will never fit in a round hole. My head may pound from the effects of the constant hammering but I am invincible. I will never fit, but am destined to be one of those awkward, mind-of-their-own quirky shapes that defy all attempts to make them conform. I am content and proud to be so! Be warned, those who know me!
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