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]

Friday 7th September 2018 - Private School

[Retrospectively written - copied from handwritten diary]

As usual, I feel that I've been lax with my writing but I notice it's only been 4 days since my last update, which isn't so bad for me.

It seems to have been a busy week one way or another, despite not much evidence of progress being made. Events of Monday and Tuesday are currently consigned to the mind's recycle bin and can't be readily restored. The passing of time isn't likely to aid their recovery.

Wednesday, however, is memorable though not miraculous. I attended the Men's Shed and made good progress scraping the garden varnish and detritus from the solid pine coffee table I've been rejuvenating. Managed to get a bloody war wound when the glass scraper I was using slipped in my grasp and we took delivery of our shiny new lathe, just prior to my early exit at 13:00 to collect Dianne for our regular D.I.A.L. meeting. I helped with constructing the stand before leaving but missed the christening of the machine later in the afternoon. I look forward to having a play next week.

Just remembered that Monday was a meeting with my 'work coach', a pointless and humiliating chore inflicted by a callous government [Ouch! Did I really write this?]

Thursday was more interesting. I signed up for and attended the first of 8 weekly sessions at Community Roots (Wild Haven) entitled 'Producing [something or other]'. It's all about manufacturing crafts to sell under the chaharity's banner. Yesterday, we spent our time learning to weave dragonflies and corn stalks whikch were more akin to bullrushes in my humble opinion. I guess it was enjoyable to the extent that I met and interacted with people in a relaxed, non-judgemental and friendly environment. I will persevere with this and look forward to the woodworking elements in future weeks.

Totally exhausted when I got home, I still managed to write emails to the utility companies, half promising payment of the outstanding accounts in the next couple of weeks. This being subject, of course, to Dianne's P.I.P. claim being reinstated and a lump sum back payment arriving.

Today, I feel as though I should be in the workshop producing but innstead I've picked up Stephen Fry's debut novel The Liar and read the first chapter. Sourced this from a charity shop for fifty pence a few weeks ago and opening it for the first time this morning lfound what appears to be the remains of the previous owner's breakfast inside the front cover. At least that's what I hope it is!

Unsurprisingly, the setting (or at least the background) for the book is a public school, though a prologue to chapter one describes a murder in Mozart's house in Salzburg, a place I visited on my own one day during a family ski trip in 1990. The first chapter gives no inkling as to the connection and simply introduces a few characters.

Reading it made me realise that I would have thrived in this environment; maybe not academically as there would have been others far more well read than I but as a personalijty. I would have undoubtedly fallen in with the rebellious, subversive crowd more easily than with the swots but the ideas, attitudes and experiences gained could only have shaped me for the better. Notwithstanding, of course, the need to attain a decent level of academic success to satisfy the scholarship requirements. If only I'd have applied myself to the interviewas concertedly as I had the entrance exams and not been so pig-headed about honesty at an early age Imight have achieved so much more.

Still no sales on Etsy but another loco and a couple of poistcards have gone from Ebay.

I've just re-read Monday's entry and note that I'm repeating myself here to some extent. Sigh!!

Tuesday 9th January 2018 - Trains Of Thought & Reading Lists

Continue to thoroughly enjoy the Woolf diaries.

Whilst necessarily dealing with the mundane chores & typical events of daily life  there are numerous insightful physical and emotional characterisations & anecdotes that bring life to some of the great writers and thinkers of the day; Aldous Huxley, Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey to name but 3.

And all set against the Great War backdrop. Mention of the dead & wounded (and their aftercare or not), food & coal shortages, nightly bombing raids on the capital, conscription, pro & anti-war rhetoric. Most days bring reference to the weather - some of the worst for years by all accounts which sparks images of and provides explanation for the horrendous mud in the killing fields a few miles East.

On the political front there is suffrage, the early throes of the Labour party & open debate of socialist principles.

In the round all of these observations accidentally combine to give the reader a great feel for an interesting period of history, when the war to end all wars merely led to a change in tactics, emancipation began but remains unfinished, domestic service to the upper middle classes was waning as better wages & conditions could be found elsewhere and free-thinkers found audiences.

The honest & unedited end of day ramblings, written in a staccato style give the impression of a sense of urgency on the author's part to lay down thoughts whilst they are fresh or are remembered. Indeed, at some point she makes reference herself to this matter & the frustration she feels when guests stay late & trains of thought evaporate. We all suffer this fate and indeed I was just settling off to sleep myself last night when I was compelled to rise & get these musings down. As usual, the intent was to jot down some bullets & return to flesh things out in the morning but I ended up typing by the light of the laptop through the early hours.

A tremendous command of the english language & the now slightly antique sentence structure in Woolf's writing appeal greatly. I say 'antique' because my guess is that even today's 'serious' authors write prose in a more current lilt. Guessing is necessary because, as I remarked in a previous entry, my voracious reading days were in my youth.

Now, if one were to ask 10 different readers for a list of 10 must-read books I daresay there would be few duplicates in those 100 tomes presented for consideration. I would expect a spattering of Shakespeare, Greek Classics, perhaps some 19th century poetry anthologies, Brontes, Austen, Huxley, Orwell, a bit of French, Russian & North American, maybe a Booker winner or two. I will dust the cobwebs of my mind & try to come up with my own list presently.

Then, where should one begin?

Be very happy to hear from anyone with a list or comment.

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.