Adult supervision required

It's been a while

My wife went to Lapland and left me for three nights which was planned months in advance but still came as a shock when it happened. Thank god, she came back tonight.

Not that I didn’t approve of her well planned and executed trip of a lifetime to visit Santa and his elves in deepest Finland with friends and small children; more that it led me to realise the truth that as a hapless older male, I need supervision when left on my own for more than 48 hours.

That may sound quite a alarmist as a perfectly functioning 61 year-old male you would’ve thought I was capable of looking after myself and making the most of a relatively short period of solo flight, however the truth is far from that.

Even with my daughter and partner driving up to North Yorkshire to stay with me and supervise my behaviour for 24 hours in the midst of this oasis, I was still able once they had been dispatched, to make up for lost time and administer some serious damage to my own health, property and possessions (at least all the animals seemed to survive intact).

The reality is that I’m not very good on my own and I guess this probably applies to many people of any age who are so used to being in a long-standing relationship with a significant other; once we are left to fend for ourselves, serious adjustments are required but seldom made.

Needing supervision is an interesting phrase. The truth is that I cannot be trusted to look after myself; both Chris Broadbent 1.0 and 2.0 seem to be locked at self destruction when left in an isolated situation, is that something anyone can identify with; I wonder why?

Nobody died, the cats got fed, the dogs got walked, the house remained in-tact, even the Christmas tree got put up. The damage was all in my head; the slimmer of the week descended into slob like behavior, the careful shopper was throwing money around, the timetable of activity descended into endless lists who’s actions and reminders were never executed; meaningful creative time reading, writing and sketching, turned into totally unproductive time binge watching six episodes of Senna on Netflix and writing precisely nothing; hence this belated rather feeble outpouring now.

Non of it will matter in a month or a year, so perhaps I’ve been too hard on myself because I love to note everything down and continue to set myself up to fail.

Anyhow, its done; I have three pages of Apple notes with green ticks for all of the activities I seemingly needed to catalogue; to get the approving pat on the head; the pat on the head I don’t need to seek out or receive, the pat on the head I still can’t stop looking for after all these years.

Rather like Nick putting up the Christmas lights outside the house on Saturday afternoon, I need adult supervision, and that’s not such a bad thing, is it?

Supervised or not, you can do anything.

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