Should I or shouldn't I?

I have been thinking about the possibility of taking on a new challenge.  So many people I know or whose blogs I read seem to have done it that I am feeling quite left out.  It's almost as though they are living their lives to the utmost while I am just coasting along; they are testing themselves against the heaving waves while I stay paddling in the shallows.  I suppose it all started with my daughter.  She is the only one in my immediate family - in which I do not include my cousins - to have attended university and gained a degree.  What is more, she extended her studies and last year gained her MA degree.  Someone else has just completed a French course, someone has very nearly finished writing a book and yet another person has started an online course in digital photography.  So I got to thinking, what should I do?

My first thought was that I could study for a degree.  But a degree in what?  My best subject at school - and consequently my favourite - was geography, but I somehow don't see me getting a degree in it.  But I do like reading, and I sometimes try to kid myself that I can write, so how about English?  Not knowing quite what would be involved, I looked up the Open University's web site in the hope of finding out.  I had not actually reached the details before I spotted a link to "prices".  Ah, yes, prices.  I had forgotten all about having to pay.  I clicked on the link - and very quickly decided against studying for a degree.

My next thought was photography.  Yes, I could do an online course.  Then I recalled an earlier occasion when I signed up for a correspondence course in photography.  My tutor was so dismissive of my efforts and so patronising that I quickly became disenchanted and never did finish the course.  Perhaps the same thing would happen.  In any case, I work on the monkeys, typewriters and Shakespeare principle: if I take enough pictures, by the law of averages I should get a reasonable one every now and then.  But I think I'm better than that anyway and I'm happy enough as I am.

Then I remembered: I have already taken up a new challenge.  I will be attending my lookerer's course this coming Saturday, after which I should be qualfied to act as a part-time shepherd.  Besides, I just don't have the time for anything more.  I'll just stay in the shallows and paddle; it's far less stressful - and who needs stress at my age?

~~~~~

These folks seem to have the right idea.  They were watching a game of boules in the small town of Ardes, France.