Sunday 7th January 2018 - Reading & Desperation

Yesterday, I decided to fire up the Nook while I worked. It had been left forlorn & unloved on the bookshelf for the past couple of years. Found a charger & plugged it into the USB drive on the PC - for a while it appeared to have died but I was pleased when it came back to life.

I immediately found the Virginia Woolf diaries I had been reading & determined to carry on reading them from whence I left off, though I obviously couldn't recall much of what had been written up to that point. What I find remarkable is how normal life seemed back home during the Great War. Cinemas & concert halls remained open, book reviews were written & people concerned themselves with the day-to-day business of living. The war didn't appear to be a daily preoccupation in the minds of everyday folk - at least not to V.W. & her nearest & dearest.

I've been dipping in and out of the 'book' overnight & into this morning. It has become obvious that I have missed reading - TV, for the most part, dulls the senses & inspires no thought in the viewer. Aside from the odd well-made movie or documentary as was the case with Love Actually. Last night's view was The Lives of Cats & Dogs - not much to say about it, really. Quite well done rom-com pulp if you've nothing better to do one evening.

Insomnia & the constant stress of my financial predicament lead me still to the almost inevitable & imminent conclusion of my life. There appears to be no way out. I still work feverishly on my Ebay shop; at least to the extent that my utter exhaustion allows. However, £2 postcard sales are not going to pay the mortgage & all the bills will arrive in the next few weeks. Dreading the daily rattle of the post flap. I shall continue to work, though it seems a rather futile & academic pursuit now. Strange & rather tragic that the last of my days should be spent like this but bucket list pursuits are impossible, so what else is there to do.