A rebel without a clue.

A tearful morning. An image of a Vizsla crawling onto a bed and All I Need Is A Miracle playing alongside and I get the emotion engendered there ... When nothing fits, when nothing makes me smile, and am in the pits of despair, I can only return to Lola to help keep me going along the dark weary road I trudge. A proxy, but that image encapsulates why, without her, I would not be here. One careless whisper and months of positivity melt into the cracks of existence once more. People are cruel and I don't need any of them in my life; give me another moment with Lola and things will, just about, soldier on. ... Bored of war! Another conflict being created to keep us bickering and fighting amongst ourselves. Why can't they say enough is enough. There are more important things than conflict. Harmony and unity, brotherness and togetherness. *** For several months I have managed my mental health without SNRIs because I had been keeping certain things at arms length: COVID-19 does that ...

Sitting back in my morning place: by the bay window looking out into the darkness. Watching the gradual awakening of the street. The birds on the roof opposite, the children dropped off with Diane across the road, the cars which head east up the way to another destination. Monday morning. The weekend was a tough one. I didn't enjoy it one bit, but it's taught me a lesson: don't trust anyone because they are venomous snakes and will bite and devour at the first opportunity. Although it was an opinion of someone who doesn't matter to me it still cut me deep and, because someone I do value added salt to the wound, the soreness festered. No one likes me because I don't work. That word. Work. My mind doesn't work either, but they cannot see that for the reality it is. A man who has severe mental health issues - and has cut his own wrists as a cry for help - thinks he knows what the remedy to my problems are! But his problems are fathomless. They go so deep it's h...

Falling off the waggon coincided with falling foul of Adrian and Jason. It was followed by a crappy Saturday where, although I didn't hit the bottle, I felt hopeless against those who have negative attitudes towards me. People who really don't wish me well. But that was a couple of days. Minor days. Today is Sunday and, like Sisyphus, I must keep trying to get that boulder back to the top of the hill? First the first time in ages I walked via Wothersome, Thorner, Birkby Hill, Red Hall and Elmete Drive towards Leeds, but at no time did I feel peaceful, preoccupied by the voices in my head. It's a stiff lesson to learn that no one I loosely call 'friend' is compassionate about my mental health and wellbeing. There is one or two I feel are true friends who seem to understand more about what it is like to have these voices braying at me keeping me in this bad place? So start again. Pick up the heavy weight and carry it on my back. Carry on with my final year being this ...

Glenn and I are off to Andalusia. The price of a LFT has crashed to around £6! Why were the likes of Randox allowed to charge whatever price they felt like back in 2020 and 2021? Now they've probably got a vast quantity of test kits which will soon be quite literally worthless to everyone, and will get dumped on somewhere third world or unrecyclable: probably Romania, Bulgaria or Ukraine. Oh and the UK government has sent military hardware to the Ukraine. Just as COVID vanishes up pops the other nonsense: war, conflict, aggression; sphere's of influence! Oh I don't know! Isn't the Ukraine really Russia anyway. It's definitely not western Europe as they are mainly Russian Orthodox... Go figure. I would advise those who are being slapped on the back by the US, UK, et al, that they're using you to sell weapons and ideologies!  The US doesn't care about the Ukraine, but they do like to keep the tangle of conflicts carrying on. Life doesn't matter at all in t...

To change my life in someway. At the moment, although I have the enthusiasm for change, things outside my control: my mother's situation, are preventing me from being bolder than I have been during my experience of the Camino. It's in my power to walk away from all this responsibility, and let mother stagnate further, but I do feel a little compelled to stay around her very small circle. My decision to make this year count has a long way to go. What I'd like to do now, as a knee jerk reaction to the last 2 years of various Lockdowns and the machinations of COVID-19, isn't as important as what needs to happen in the next 12 months. If by the next Candlemas, in 2023, I am still buzzing around the honey pot of Wetherby then I have clearly failed. This is a focus I am not going to allow to drift into nothingness. *** The end of another working week. Friday. Lola and I will catch the bus away from Wetherby today. It's been around a month, I guess, since last we climbed o...

A wonderful morning with Lola followed by an average few hours surrounded by folks I have nothing in common with... The hours from 4 until 7 were the dullest I have known for a while. It's not them, they always seem content discussing minutiae, but me. I listened to their conversation about watches quite blank of emotions for so long; I had nothing to add to the monologue - discussion - of the other three. I was more interested in the 12 year old mongrel I'd passed on route to the urinal to pass out the chocolate stout and dark mild I didn't want to quaff. Jason was wearing yet more 'boxfresh' attire. That's all he ever seems to do outside of the world he watches on the large screens on the wall. He seemed genuinely shocked I didn't recall that the aliens on Futurama were from Omnicron Persei 8 because I haven't seen an episode since 2007(I think) and it's simply not on my radar now. 15 years ago! A lot has happened since 2007. I've gone mad for ...

Blood and Bottles Stumbling down Woodhouse Lane, a way I never tread, before ten I almost got wrapped beneath the tires if a Porsche Carrera. The chucked bottle I rolled over nearly took me into the carriageway, but I stayed, picked it up, swore and deposited it in the bin alongside Walkabout. Yes, it's Sunday morning! After a malignant Saturday evening, played out on the Leeds streets, I walk passed litter, shattered glass and blood, (which is trying to find a way out). All I can do is swear and then carry on. *** The bus was late, because they are working on the new bypass up on Red Hall hill and the X99 has to detour through Shadwell, so I didn't get up to the allotment until after noon. Then after two more hours I drifted into Wetherby to continue reading the final section of the memoirs I am reading. Mother hadn't moved all day, by the looks of things, when I returned at six: she hadn't even gone to the Morrison's Petrol station to get some bread. It was a nice...

Lola, what a good girl! She stayed in her bed until at least 5, climbed in besides me until 6:30 and waited quite happily for me to prepare her breakfast at 7, once we decamped and meandered downstairs. That dog doesn't mind her own space for 7 hours as long as I am directly alongside her - within touching distance. Mum needs to purchase a futon bed, a 4 foot one, to put in that room so we can always be alongside each other, but she simply won't. *** Reading a fantastic, and fairly comprehensive, summary of Cornwall - Vanishing Cornwall by Daphne du Maurier - in the Mews last night I realized how busy it was in the bar area. At around four thirty I moved out of that space and continued reading further into the restaurant area. It seems that the same dozen or so faces that frequent here every day. These people are fine, but I need so much more! I really need my mother to get a new knee so soon so I can possibly pick up where I left off in February 2020?

Good morning... What am I thinking about? Being good at just one thing... With Lola, snuggled alongside me on the sofa, I know I've become good with her. A pureness reflects in our relationship. Although I don't know what Lola ever is thinking, if she operates like that, there are ways of knowing I am doing well by her. But I am also good at putting one foot in front of the other, but I am also great at pouring one pint after another down my throat without considering the long-term consequences of the dedication. Dedicating this one year, in its many moments, to not putting that erroneous being into action may help me escape the zombiefacation of my soul. But all I want to do now is go - move onwards (being held back for ten years by mental health issues is so futile). And the last two years of being told what to do, constantly, by everyone and everything has destroyed the momentum which was snowballing prior to Lockdown. Walking for charity has ceased. Walking for sanity has v...

I'm laying in a double bed as the day begins below: the bakery is there. Life is truly 24hrs in this auberge: I could smell the dough leavening. People depend on the auberge for miles around. Their bread is great. One day before Saint Jean Pied-de-Port. Breakfast is at 6:30. I'm away by daybreak: 7:18. Quite lovely Piperade last night: I'd forgotten how lovely that sauce can be. Suddenly English voices can be heard. I felt silent for so long. The merging of the paths. But now I feel alienated. So I stop with my nature. No need to struggle against what my head says no to. Saint Jean is where everyone heads to begin their disappearance into Spain. It's a bottleneck. For me it is a battle against apathy. Had some food in a very ostentatious and underwhelming environment. Only €14.50 though including a local Basque cidre. And now I am in the Refuge Municipal €10. Someone left some odour eaters which I find very useful indeed, the toe section of the sandles snapped yesterd...

The fun has vanished: Any joy has departed, But what is to say? Little mindful occurs! A gap grows between The substance and This dispossession. Feeling a barren drought Where sweet liquor poured Freely, refreshing thought, Which ran fathoms deep

It is really an addiction: Travel liberates me, But without it any Thoughts disintegrate Into a pit of despair Where they surrender Pitifully, falling flailing Losing touch. But now a station recedes A distance wakes Ripples dissolve Out of patterns The route is ridged Dividing infinity  Into suburbia.

It used to be gas masks. Now it's quite unreal, Without bombs asking Are you immaterial? So fat and disfigured You wobble in the breeze This sun melts tallow As you shit your sen! Always make the customer pay.

With only 15 passengers and 4 aircrew the sky was alive as the sun found its way to the borderlands and clouds patrolled north to south in waves breaking reds, oranges, indigos, purples and azure between ridges, in heightened shades of white, grey, charcoal and blue. The aircrew brought our disparate bodies onto the wing section as a motley crew and what could've been so much fun became a paranoid two hours hidden in our own capsule protected behind a face covering... What is time? What is the rush? Am I racing against something which has always dogged my heels? This need not be! The first morning of a different way, again! Heading north east out of Girona along the Camī Sant Jaime I stop for a final café solo before hitting the path I've so sought all summer, but rarely found! 

Feeling a little darkness inside. I'm still wasting my effort on nothing Hoping those without vision finally spring out of the dullness. I'm wasting money, braincells and too many moments on nothings. And I'm still doing it. Such a fool. What is the point. There isn't one. The things I've done are history and are meaningless now. Being current and not seeking the previous experiences or looking forward to what cannot be known, so should be overlooked. Why do I persist at this atrocity? How did I get stuck still looking deep in the hoof print for another truth/reality? It was always a bad dream in which there are waking intervals where all I am looking for is a free glass of water and no more incomprehension. There is another way, but it breaks everything I've ever relied on. And I'm appallingly afraid of the help it offers!  It's almost 8 years since I found the other way, but I spend too often waiting... I'm not sure how to take the next step? How d...

What is my current purpose? To learn patience and discover will power; delay gratification. Stop thinking that this moment is all there ever is. Plan for the future by being different today from what I was yesterday (all the yesterday's). Get it right, every day. Not fail to move forward and beyond the quagmire, which sucks me back, before I drown in repetition of foolishness.

Everyday repeats. Get what repeats correct. To get this day correct. The sun shines and the gulls bask in the late afternoon glow. And I drank beer. *** Mike from Bad Vilbel in Germany, the guy who stayed with me before COVID and who made a film about Jenny the Arabian mare in Fechenheim, sent me a greeting card with two images of Jenny on it and wished me to keep my spirit. He's a good man. A genuine man who I'd really like to visit soon. We have a Camino to walk along. *** I don't want to waste my 50th birthday. Really it doesn't mean anything at all reaching half a century? I guess in centuries gone by it was some real achievement when the life expectancy could be as low as 25 years of age? Achievement? That's silly. Is becoming a Gerontion, with absent teeth, sore bones, arthritis in knuckles and losing eyesight, as well as losing my hair and going grey, an achievement? *** What is my current purpose? This is possibly the most nonsensical question I can ask myse...

This is it! This is the final year. It is not the end only the conclusion of a chapter. A willingness to turn over the page without returning to the first leaf to repeat the tale over read. If I don't take my self out of the mire now I will be only sinking further and deeper into a being I did not ever dream I'd willingly be. It has been such a long wasted waiting, pondering any sudden movement which might be a bad mistake, but staying still is most definitely a greater error as I will flounder with nothing to show for anything. Something really scared me and stopped me dead in my tracks. As I look behind and up ahead, jogging on the spot, all my life drains out and that is such an incredible loss. My hair recedes, my teeth fall out, my right knee creeks, my left foot aches and tinnitus swirls between my ears, but do these body expressions matter at all while my mind is open and alert?

Does our need to communicate kill us? As we are driven to be together are we our own undoing? Are we herd animals who need to be part of the same collective? We are not Jonathan Livingston Seagull. But it kills us. But this is evolution. Now we wear a mask, take a test, have vaccinations and sit in booths;  have more tests and have trouble with facial expressions.

The same story told countless times. Every twenty four hours (including the sleeping/dreaming times) the battles between chaos and order. Lola was unsettled last night. She hopped beds around 4 and I couldn't get her back in her bed. After a broken hour and half she forced me downstairs to breakfast and toilet break. Usually, when she stays with me, 6:30 is her consistent breakfast time, followed by a quick piss and crap, before she gets back in her place, rearranges her bedding and returns to sleepy-bye-byes, but she stayed at my sister's house on Sunday night and Finley had come back from his dad's a day early: chaos and disorder exists inside that fragile home for sure. When I collected Lola yesterday morning from my sister's we had arranged for me to collect Lola at 7:30am, but when I arrived no one was awake in that household. If I had my own rented place, which was dog friendly, then she could always stay with me really - mum and Emma would miss Lola in some purel...

Day four in the Big Mother household. Already we conflicted. Late last night Lola wanted a bit of play time: she ran off with an insole and I went to battle for the retrieval and showered her with all the love I have. Within minutes mother was 'grinding' her teeth. On new years eve I had a couple of glasses of wine with my dinner, yesterday none and today I really feel will manage at least a week of Dry January, even while locked in 42 from sun up to sunset. *** Reading through the current instructions about self isolating, after a positive COVID test, I got to the final paragraph which told me explicitly to do all I can to adhere to the rules as long as they don't play havoc with my carefully balanced mental health. The pandemic has definitely put a few more spanners in the works. During the winter of 2019 I definitely felt I was heading in the right direction mentally and physically to 'get over', or to move on, from the large grey, cliff like, blockage stuck in m...

Dawn walking. Since I got the positive test result, and have been stuck behind the front door of 42, I've walked Lola before sunrise (technically 'civil' sunrise) to keep isolating. She's so versatile. It's not my normal behaviour, neither is putting her bed next to my mattress, directly on the carpet, and sleeping alongside her. But she's done it so well! Each morning she's stayed wrapped up, and snuggly, under her own duvet cover until just prior to 6 am, she's had breakfast at 6:30am and then we've gone out at 7:30am, for around an hour, to be back at official sunrise: it's probably a good job I am taking a vitamin D supplement as I never spend all of daylight inside... Yesterday I dropped her at my sister, so she can have some company, at the same time as I delivered deodorant and 2 lateral flow test kits, and I am collecting her at around civil sunrise for another dawn walk. By Tuesday I should be just about out of this isolation business as...

For a few days - since Christmas Day - I felt I coming down with a cold, but yesterday I tested positive for COVID although I have none of the symptoms. On Wednesday I was speaking to someone I value so on my way back to Wetherby on Thursday morning I picked up a week supply of LFT because I was worried my mother might be asymptomatic - she'd spent all of Christmas Day in my sister's, (and nephew's), company. And she tested positive for COVID on Wednesday. On Thursday morning I took Lola for a long walk, around 3 hours or 8 miles, something we didn't manage on Christmas Day because I was dog sitting Ruby, to allow my mum to get up and about and then take a swab test. She sent me a message saying she was clear midway through the morning walk. When I returned with Lola at noon, and after I'd had a bowl of homemade rooty veg soup, I thought just for peace of mind I'd take a lateral flow test too. It came back with two solid lines! I've got COVID! Reflecting bac...