If we had but world enough and time

There has not been much activity at Ideas From the North for the last few weeks. There has, of course, been much activity in my life, and much activity also in my head, but not much - actually, let's be honest, not any - of it has made it onto this site. There's a whole post simply on the topic of why I haven't been blogging. The biggest reason, though, is that, while I manage to think a lot while busy, I don't manage to write very much. Writing takes time, and reflection, and space, and I haven't had any of these.

But I did go into the mountains for two days with two good friends. We listened to classical music and wrote and read poetry. We even read all of Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale", complete with accents, only to find that reading a whole Shakespeare play out loud takes quite a lot of time. But we had time, so that wasn't an issue.

There is no easy answer for being time poor. If I may brave some potentially absurd hyperbole, it is the most pervasive disease of the 21st century. But for now I can thank God for school holidays and for mountains and friends to retreat, read, write and recite with. I can also thank God that, whatever is going wrong with my time schedule, His is completely and utterly on track.