It must be five, six, possibly more years since Bob Mortimer taught me a lesson which has more than once been important in the business of getting through the days.
In an episode of Gone Fishing, Bob Mortimer reflected on the ways of his mother, on the importance of routines, on how daily habits played a part in sustaining good emotional health. He talked about how his mother might go to the shop each day to buy three tomatoes.
Three tomatoes seemed an appropriate symbol of the vital place of ordinariness in daily life. Bob Mortimer’s mum has become someone remembered each day as, each evening, I make my lunch box for the next day at school. Two slices of brown bread with butter, a tin of sardines or mackerel, two apples a pear, and three tomatoes.
Were the tomatoes sold in threes, I might buy them in threes. In recent years, I have developed a liking for the Sunstream variety, which are probably more like cherries than the large tomatoes that would need to be sliced. The tomatoes are a daily reminder of the goodness of the routine things of life, of how precious can be the dull and the mundane. This morning, I opened my lunchbox and was filled with disappointment, I had forgotten the tomatoes.
An aunt, now eighty-five years of age, would endorse the wisdom of Bob Mortimer’s mum. There are others on the farm who might easily pick up a newspaper for her on their daily journeys, but each morning she gets into her car and drives into our little home town to buy her copy of the Daily Mirror. To be out, to go with a purpose, to do the same thing at the same time each day, to fulfil her objective, these are things important to my aunt, these are things that are sustaining.
As someone who sets the alarm for 6.00 on weekdays and who gets stressed if the ignition key in the car is turned after 6.45. As someone whose work is regulated by bells, by the coming and going of groups of students, my routine is both structure and reassurance. The three tomatoes at lunchtime are a declaration that all is well with the world.
Returning to school last week was a moment of relief, the greatest challenge presented by school holidays is that they disrups routine. There is no need for a lunchbox and no counting of tomatoes.
An American General once said that a soldier should start his day by making his bed!
It’s a task of the most modest kind, but it actually does make sense, and somehow, when I begin the trip downsatairs, there is a small sense of achievement!