Re-shuffled

At the start of this retirement 'game', I thought back to time management techniques and, even earlier, to schooldays, when there was a regular fixed timetable.  If things are going to get done, I felt, it's important to assign a definite time for their execution.  At the turn of the year, I decided to abandon a paper diary and started using Mr Google's very handy electronic substitute.  This made it very easy to assign a regular weekly slot for, e.g. shopping and cooking on Wednesday, my Welsh lesson on Tuesday, and so on.

This week everything got re-shuffled.  For a start, I had decided that it was time that I treated myself to a cooked breakfast once in a while.  It was no good planning this for Monday because I regularly attend a breakfast fellowship-and-Bible-study gathering at church.  So, Tuesday it was.  One way and another, this shunted other things along the week.

Wednesday was a family birthday, which required my travelling some distance and being away from home for twelve hours and more.  This neatly knocked out both shopping and cooking, which I mentally re-scheduled for Thursday.  Now, Thursday is the planned day for washing, which in turn means changing the bedclothes.  By the time this was in hand and the shopping done, it was far too late to think of cooking, so this was further shunted to Friday ...  and so the week resolved itself.  Almost.

One thing that was overlooked, I realised, was the Welsh lesson.  I had spent some while on Monday finishing off the previous week's lesson, and I may get around to the exercises this afternoon.  That's a definite maybe.  No doubt there'll be an important rugby match on the radio!

But why Welsh? I hear you ask.  Several people have expressed surprise at this and although all questions have been accorded an answer, not all my answers have been the same.  The truth is, that there are several reasons and the available time has usually determined which one I've offered.  The easiest one to dispense is simply that, with a surname like mine, Evans, it 'goes with the territory'.  Well, it might seem to be logical but is not, in fact, quite so reasonable as it appears on the surface.  My family history investigations have not as yet unearthed any Welsh ancestors, having ground to a halt in late-eighteenth-century Suffolk.

Many years ago, soon after leaving school, I planned a holiday in north Wales with my girlfriend and began a 'Teach Yourself' course.  Relationships change, of course.  She found another boyfriend, the holiday was cancelled and the course abandoned after only five - confusing! - lessons.  Retirement gives me the chance to have another crack at it.  Last summer I spent a couple of very relaxing days in north Wales and the exposure to hearing the language spoken freely on the street and in shops whetted my appetite again.  After my return, I decided to take up the challenge, sought out that same Teach Yourself book and got stuck in, helped this time by my computer.  In seven months of not quite regular sessions, I've now reached lesson twelve.

Now, who's playing whom in the first Six-Nations match this afternoon?