Monday 10th September 2018 - Alien State of Mind or Stephen Fry Saved My Life

[Retrospectively written - copied from handwritten diary]

I've woken today in the strangest, most alien state that I've known for years, and I do not exaggerate. I'm not prone to hyperbole, it's another of my pet hates as when TV talking heads refer to 'everyone' talking about or watching something or another when it's bleeding obvious they're not.

I am awake, alert, 'alive' and feeling 'normal'. I've just been in the garden, sitting beneath the crabapple tree, smoking and feeling calm and relaxed. I know this can't last and may only afflict me in the nicest sense of the word for an hour or two but it gives me such an immense sense of relief that I feel I must sit here and retrace my recent steps, in a probably vain attempt to uncover the reason for it. What has happened and what might I have done differently to bring about this strange state of affairs. I have my suspicions but mujst examine and consider each possibility in turn to draw any firm conclusions.

1. Medication - Lifting myself from the sofa I can tell by a glance at the weekly pill folder that Sunday night's doses were duly imbibed. I did skip Friday's allocation when I couldn't gather the enthusiasm to raise a tired body and mind from the reclined to reach for them but we'll probably discount this as a causal link.

2. Social Interaction - Della and Stephen visited us yesterday, as usual and nothing out of the ordinary in terms of discussion or revelation transpired. So, we'll park this one, too.

3. Diet - As normal coffee and cigarettes only this morning and it's now 10:00am. Yesterday, I prepared the traditional Sunday bacon butty brunch and ate nothing further until dinner later in the day; breaded pollock, chips and peas. Normal. A bar of chocolate in the evening, a fake snickers from Aldi or Lidl. Normal. Around 21:30 I had an abnormal bowl of corn flakes laced with raisins, demerara sugar and semi-skimmed. Unlikely but worth trying again is it not?

4. Exercise & Fresh Air - no significant amount of either. Discounted.

5. Personal Achievement - nothing to write home about. A disgruntled customer found fault with a locomotive sold on Ebay. A bit of ping-pong correspondence and a partial refund led to a satisfactory conclusion for both parties and preserved my cherished 100% positive feedback rating.

6. Mental Stimulation - now, here I have made a noteworthy change. Over the past 3 days I have been devouring Stephen Fry, not literary (sic literally) but metaphorically speaking. Over 300 pages of The Liar avidly consumed at every opportunity, even reading by LED light jafter dark when the others have retired to bed for the night. Is it too fanciful to start believing that exercising the old grey matter and a bit of escapism can effect such a change in energy and disposition? Healthy mind, healthy body to reverse an overused phrase. Since it is mental health that is the bane of my life and my consumption of literature has been minimal for so many years, the argument for this has some logic and is indeed persuasive. Or, it could just be wishful thinking. Either way, I still think it's the best 50 pence ever spent in a charity shop. Guess it's time to get back to the Trefusis and Adrian road trip.

10:45

Rude awakening time. The palpitations have been reignited. The clank of the letterbox and the fluttering thud of mail on the doormat is the portent of more doom and gloom. Dianne retrieves the deliveryand dishes out a whole pile of love-letter circulars from the bank. I'm encouraged to open them but have neither the mental fortitude  nor financial means to deal with them. I promise to open them later as I don't wish to lose the good mood. I'm lying, of course. The fragile mood has already taken a knock and I have no intention of darkening it further.

[Writing this retrospectively allows me to confirm that corn flakes are not a wonder cure for depression]