Excitements

This delightfully decorous snowfall made a round trip to Albany unexpectedly pleasant.

Even though overcast skies had deprived us of the opportunity to view the Northern Lights.

Celestial events always seem to coincide with clouds over Cambridge!

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If I could have one last great excitement, that may be what I’d choose.

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Not that I don’t appreciate many small excitements.

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Snowy landscapes for one!

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Life is actually full of pleasures that we don’t appreciate nearly enough.

Some years ago, while I was still in Washington, there was a dreadful storm that brought powerful winds. The neighbourhood where I lived lost electricity for five days.

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It was Winter, so this could have been rather a nuisance, but I had many blessings.

For one thing, I had a gas stove and a gas fireplace, so I could boil water and cook basic meals and at least one room would stay warm.

What I discovered though, was that the fireplace was efficient enough to heat the entire house. I’d expected to camp in the living room for the duration which would have been no great inconvenience, but it wasn’t necessary.

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For five days I was without the convenience of electrical devices, so I put my feet up and read a book, or two. There was no point in fretting about being forced off my computer, so I treated it as a mini-vacation.

Power outages are obviously going to be less annoying to anyone who can remember a time before we were so dependent on electronics.

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It will make me sound as old as Methuselah, but in my first two years at school, it had no electricity. I know that this was so because I remember my teacher climbing onto a desk to put a spill to the gas lights. It am sure it was a spill and not a match.

Believe it or not, this was in London in 1953-4. As far as I know, most of the city had electricity, just not my school in Earl’s Court.

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Later, in Asia, we often had power outages. We had no air-conditioning, so we were used to feeling warm. My father detested fans, so we wouldn’t have missed those either.

Nights were dark however and in particularly warm weather candles melted, by which I don’t mean around the flame but in the middle, so they bent in half.

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Father was annoyed at being unable to use his short-wave radio that he depended on for news via the Overseas Service of the BBC.

He was furious if he missed Letter from America by Alistair Cooke.

Or the cricket scores, although that was a blessing when Surrey lost.

Which seemed to be quite often.

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Father had great faith in Alistair Cooke and listened to his weekly broadcast religiously until it finally ended after 58 years, very shortly before Cooke died in March 2004. I heard many of those letters myself as a child, although I was too young to appreciate them then. I became more familiar with Mr Cooke’s introductions to Masterpiece Theatre.

Later on, I used to see Mr Cooke travelling back and forth to England which he did quite often. He was one of our more charming and approachable celebrities, which emboldened me to make a request, something I never did except that one time.

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In 1992, my father was celebrating his 80th birthday, so I asked our special services (VIP) representative to see how Mr Cooke would feel about sending my dad a card, given that he was such a devoted fan.

As you can see, he did. It was the one time I knew my father was pleased with something I had arranged for him.

Dad was far more pleased with that card than he was with the ride I organised on Concorde.

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Who is to say what constitutes a large or a small excitement?

In my 77 years I’ve been lucky to have my share. I certainly appreciated those that were grand and I treasure those memories, but I really think it’s the more modest excitements that have been the most meaningful.

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Like looking up from my desk in late afternoon to discover that an overcast sky has cleared and the setting Sun is lighting up a distant hill.

Such a sight may seem a very small thing, yet it never ceases to thrill me.

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