I'm not posting today...

I wasn't going to post today. Oh, I have plenty to write about, there's a lot going on at the moment, but I think I need to process it carefully before putting it out there in full view. I couldn't manage it though. I tried and then gave up.

To not post on a weekday is very hard for me. I rarely post on a Saturday and sometimes, particularly recently, I allow myself not to post on a Sunday - but a weekday?

It's all part of the ritual you see and increasingly rituals are important to me. Don't worry, I haven't developed OCD or anything, or at least I don't think I have, but routines are, as I've already stated, important. They give me a sense of being. I find comfort in their familiarity, their repetitive sameness.

I guess it's a process thing really. I'm a big fan of process as long as it is open to development and change. I can't abide ritual for the sake of it, those annoying processes that remain set in stone simply because they have always been done that way. Maybe that's why I don't really like organised religion, although I do believe that some things are hard to improve on - like making Stilton, or producing a really good wine. Mind you, even when you follow the process there are usually variances - how much sunshine was available to ripen the grape, the weave of the cloth that the cheese was wrapped in.

Following a recipe is a ritual, not that I do it very well. Sometimes I take it a little beyond the slight variance in the basic ingredients and end up adding something that isn't in the recipe at all. This usually means that any dish I cook always tastes a little different from the last time, particularly if I've added something unusual like anchovies to a bolognese sauce .

Now, I think that this experimentation is a good thing, but Gaynor is constantly telling me that you can't do that if you have a restaurant and that people expect the favourite meal to taste the same each time they order it. I sometimes counter with the repetitive blandness of the McDonald's experience, but in my heart I know she's right.

I've developed a really strict process for cleaning my teeth which involves three different types of electric tooth bush, two different mouthwashes, and those fiddly interdent brushes. I time it all to the second - sixty, fifteen, thirty, sixty, thirty, sixty - you can guess the order yourselves.

I even have a ritualistic approach to logging on to my computer - what I check first, where I go and in what order and I'm particularly attentive as to how I delete my e-mails.

Yes, I know what you are thinking, it does seem a bit odd, perhaps even a little sad. But I don't think that I'm the only one; there are so many rituals in all our lives.

Take the driving process. Where would we be if we didn't look in the mirrors each time we pulled away from the kerb, or didn't bother to check the outside lane before overtaking on the motorway? We'd probably end up in surgery with some surgeon performing an operating ritual on us, if we were lucky that is. Perhaps that's why they call them procedures.

And what about pre-flight checking the aircraft or even the well rehearsed process for putting on and inflating your life jacket that the flight attendant performs before take off? I don't know about you but I find it very reassuring and I'm always pleased that I know exactly how to do it. I still watch though, just in case - and to be polite of course.

Please, thank you, you're welcome, excuse me - a verbal ritual that really makes a person stand out, particularly if they never say them. I still open doors, and let people go first. Sometimes I'm there with the door in my hand for ages, smiling and nodding as one after another people go in and out without a word of thanks. I call that one the the durman ritual, because you have to be a bit of a 'dur' to do it. That's me though, King of the Durs.

Life is all ritual. We are born, we live, we die. It's all part of the process and we have no choice but to follow procedure. The process steps might vary, we may not all follow exactly the same procedure, but there's no getting away from the ritual.

There, I wasn't going to post today, but I did. Perhaps I won't post tomorrow instead.