On passing time

In a laboratory in a secret location where animal experiments are permitted a venerable old rat was given daily tasks for twenty-five years. It had to perform these tasks in order to recieve food and permission to sleep. Like all mammals, the rat made adaptations to its routine and environment to justify the mononous task-oriented existence which appeared not to have an ultimate goal. It performed its tasks efficiently for periods of around six weeks and was then allowed to rest for a while. Usually, the rat was so fatigued and flaccid, if not downright ill, at these rest times that it fought with the other rats and generally had a misertable time. So the daily tasks, if mindless, where at least a blessing. The tasks themselves are no longer important to recount, safe to say that they involved a lot of corridors and blind alleys.

Having thus proved that all behaviour is learned, the laboratory technicians (for I doubt they were scientists) stopped the tasks one day and left the rat to its own devices. Whether the rat could comprehend an explanation is debatable, but it was never offered one anyway.

So after a short period of time mulling over the situation (this is presumed from observations of the rat's behaviour), it built itself a large wheel, like a water wheel, climbed in, amd made it turn as fast as possible for nine hours each day in six week blocks, or until it became fatigued and drained of all energy.

In the first two months I decorated the entire house. I started at the top, in that tricky part to reach over the attic stairs, and worked my way down to the kitchen. The ceilings, coving, walls, doors, frames, skirting and some of the furniture ended up with smart new coats. When there was nothing left to paint I sanded the floors and built new kitchen cupboards. Then I went outside and filled and painted gaps and bits of masonary and gate posts.

When that avanue of pleasure expired I got to know some builders and roofers and I collected all their spare building materials and constructed several log stores. Then I filled them with logs collected from tree prunings at the University.

It wasn't long before we had too many log stores. So I helped my son - who was struggling to attend any sort of education - start a business building bespoke log stores in various gardens around Sheffield.

Then I cycled all around the Peak District until my legs got burnt and a pedestrian stepped out in front of me and cracked a rib. By now I had lost a stone in weight. So I sat down to write. Because all behaviour is learned.