A rebel without a clue.

Alongside the bus stop on Boar Lane there are three individuals actually sleeping rough in the doorways. Two by the fire exit for the Crown Plaza and another in the disused entrance to Cosmo Deluxe(closed prior to COVID). Is it a lifestyle choice? I don't know how anyone can manage to sleep surrounded by the detritus of city life: dropped McDonald's containers, the march of feet heading to work, or home from the nightshift, droppings: the grime of falling exhaust fumes. There are too many faux homeless, who are really vermin, but those who are forced to sleep against the wind, rain and tread of feet is on a level of will I cannot comprehend. And why are they in doorways when so many properties in Leeds are vacant? Everyone is entitled to a good night's sleep. It's a human right - it's an 'everything' right: no living being can function without a good night's rest, but to be sleep deprived is insane: I know from late night insomnia just how unsteady I am ...

And today I feel as flat as a fish skillet. Even though I had no hangover, sleeping well on Saturday night, and had a lovely walk alongside Crowcroft Bank, Watersole Lane, Flint Mill Lane, Spring Lane (to drop Lola at my sister's), mowed my mum's lawn(before it rained) and just returned a pair of Meindl Shoes for a (welcome: £134.30) refund because one of the metal lace holes had popped out. It's nothing to do with the weather. This morning Lola was brilliant as we snoozed on until 6:20am and waited until 6:55am for breakfast... And mother didn't descend until 8am. It couldn't be easier. Do I go and see the GP next week? This is a long curve downwards and maybe I need Venlafaxine to pick me up. The Jubilee hullabaloo doesn't help me either: celebrating our majesty who has sat in the web for far too long. I am not a Monarchist, but I am not a Republican... I am nothing: do I dare disturb the universe?

Friday morning: Just reached the porcelain bog for a secondary explosion brought on by a hasty second espresso. One too many: this day has started edgeways and balances on the brink. Maybe it's the weather: back to cold for the last week of Spring (official). Mum has Jean and Milton coming along soon to perpetuate the past as they reminisce of Rawmarsh, Kilnhurst, Parkgate, Rotherham and Sheffield from before the winter of discontent and decimalisation... *** Here I am again. In despair. It's come along in waves, until I am literally drowning in it. I had to get out of bed, I forced myself when I just didn't want to move: motivation is a momentum. Yesterday was a very crap day. From the minute mother and I had the row in the morning, until I went to bed eating a peanut butter and cheese sandwich. Dodging each other without having any more words: nothing felt good!  Well that's not entirely true the three wonderful hours with Lola walking to Collingham via Sweep Farm and...

Got to break out of this existence. Mother and her anger at everything, but mainly directed at me. It's my fault she slept so well, but was up at 6:50 as she could hear me closing doors - I should become incorporeal.  The normal pattern of my Wetherby existence was shattered as conversations about the usual Brexit, Ukraine anti Labour (everyone of them she despises personally) so I grabbed the bag of bottles accreting in the dining area of the extended kitchen. The things she's convinced of like  'self-sufficiency'... England hasn't been in that position since before the Industrial Revolution (if it ever really was as people starved much more often then too). There are too many people. There has always been too many people! One person is actually too many: look at the effect of us on everything we love or hate. So now I am spending £2.80 to listen to awful music in BAE for a few minutes before I run back and take Lola: the espresso was cold. How odd I didn't rea...

This is the first time since I was in Ronda with Glenn for my birthday that I can recall feel utterly exhausted from lack of sleep due to alcohol and bad cuisine. And part of me wanted to go for just one beer - hair of the dog! But I managed not to go anywhere near Bar Three or The Mews and instead had an espresso and a glass of iced water while a father and daughter practiced French. Just been up to Auntie Wendy's, to take her a birthday card, with Lola. It took some encouragement of Lola to go up Spofforth Hill twice in as many days, but we got there and had an hour there an back, via Wharfedale Lawn opposite The New Inn. On the road to recovery now as mum is asleep upstairs: she's tired from a busy day, hospital with Anne and shopping for herself. She's definitely on the way to self-sufficiency. September isn't too far away. Fingers crossed nothing comes along before then... Mum thinks I am getting taller, but I have been feeling fatter recently (beer goggles). Just ...

When I was in the first year of Wetherby High School there was a night when I saw a hopeless and lonely future. Without knowing it I created my reality out of the illusion encapsulated within a dream... In the morning, and for virtually the entire day, I was engulfed, bereft, in floods of tears. To the extent a girl thought something dreadful had happened in my family - a death or other trauma. I just couldn't tell them what emotions I was going through: I had killed myself so vivid was the dream. High School was a very bad place for me, from the moment I arrived, and was left alone in the hall, after everyone else had been summoned to their form group, and had to ask strangers why I hadn't been picked out and sent to a classroom to meet the teacher. There was no one registered at all by the name Daniel Sherburn. There was on the list a 'David Sherburn' but that couldn't be me? That wasn't me. It was a David. Being David destroyed my experience of that place fro...

Just another day when I consider writing about my life. But there are a lot of distractions following me internally and externally... Lots of ideas appear, then they disappear almost as suddenly as I fail to cut out the background noises. I probably shouldn't have come to a small establishment to contemplate my fifty years of experience/existence/exasperation. It's Leeds on Wednesday afternoon and it's very quiet except for the individuals, like me, with a few holes scattered throughout their minds. God, it's just me on repeat. Listen to them, because I appear to have no choice: I was brought here and I am Witness. So I drank that half, table beer, very hastily and now I am out the otherside of Whitelocks and contemplating a dead Wednesday afternoon. *** When I worked at the Farmer Jack's I organised a robbery. *** Which was the most ridiculous epoch of my existence? Probably from sixth form (September 1990) until I got on that jet plane to Perth, WA, in May 1999. T...

Good morning toilet. You've supported me throughout the night: again. Something I ate didn't agree with me, again. Twice this week. Really I shouldn't eat mother's food or eat take away food (no matter that it was vegetarian). Perhaps those last two beers and the plate of Fava beans came through me earlier than expected? Didn't sleep so washed and went to get the X99 at 7 from Cross Stamford Street: my closest stop. Will catch up with sleep at some point today, after an hour with Lola. She'll get two hours today rather than a long one? Unless some energy appears somewhere? There is a bowl of porridge at mums and that might bring me around? What was going on in my head stepping into Brew York tap room when I was meant to head back. I asked for a half, but they poured a pint. That isn't my way anymore: just halves! I should have refused it. Glenn has loaned me a PIP ahead of July/August so I can clear my debts from London, Winchester, Brighton, etc and head of...

Bus to Wetherby: earlier than the one I normally catch - the blessed X98 . Many people, but mostly they head upstairs and slowly filled to the brim by secondary school monsters who are always as noisy as hell - oh how I prayed for flames to spread... *** Please give me back my soul or show where it has been hidden? The one Wetherby has placed out of reach. There was no option but to 'hand it over', but never for 'safe keeping' as there is no safety in Wetherby where trolls wait on the crossing of the Wharfe, beyond Micklethwaites safer shore. My mum has had her knee replaced, but who can really care for Lola yet while she's still repairing? Two weeks until I am a goner to Tarragona and three months until I can leave behind this town to fall in on itself and be hidden for archeologists to uncover and stare in awe and in utter incomprehension... *** Last night I took to bed with a feeling of nausea from the food I had eaten: mum made a crumple pastry meat pie, which I...

Monday morning. I had a quiet afternoon. I listened to the preface, introduction and part one of chapter one of ACIM, again, it was surprisingly fresh to hear it once again. I played complete attention to it for an hour until I sought sleep and it was a good night's sleep. Intentionally I'd left the Course's lessons, which I had followed from the 1st January up to and including the 31st of December. Almost six months gathering dust and my mind was desperate for its rhythms and devices to bring me back out of the doldrums. It definitely works for me so I am beginning it again. The text first, obviously, then the lessons: I am so incomplete spiritually that I still haven't really attempted the Manual for Teachers... I am not in any position to be a teacher of anything spiritual... But one day? I've been away from the Text for more than a year so it's had time to settle in my long term memory. As usual I began seeing the swirling patterns in my mind's eye - lik...

Avoid Leeds like there is a plague in town... There is though. It's the human vermin who litter the streets: those sleeping in doorways and those clinging to shop entrances. What happened to humanity to bring it down to a level below animal? Greggs? Quite possibly. The bus was a little late and I am currently the only soul on it as we turn onto Eastgate... Then everyone got on. I walk to the departure point on Boar Lane as it is a fair distance from my flat. The one on Eastgate is closer and the one on Roseville Road is much closer, but I prefer to go furthest. When the bus departed from Infirmary Street that was ideal as it isn't where the 'lice' of Leeds generally cluster: I didn't see those who are just clinging to life. *** I can see that I am firmly in the midst of another depression. How is it possible to keep going lower? Perhaps it's not another low low, but a return to the normal low I experienced over the past 10 years? Like in the film Awakenings the ...

This morning, after I left the flat around 11, and since noon I have been perambulating around Leeds University Campus. It's the first time I've set foot in the Refectory and the Terrace Bar since Autumn 2001 when I was deciding not to continue with the PGCE. Knottingley High School and The Dixon Academy in Bradford didn't instill me with any confidence and I was having trouble paying any attention to lectures in the monolithic structure known as the Roger Stevens Lecture Halls. I've since grown to quite like Brutalist architecture, but back then it just reminded me of the awful 1970s, and I just didn't understand what the lecturer was rabbiting on about Pastoralism/Pastoral Care I thought pastoralism was sheep going baa baa or something related to the Romantic Poets; wondering lonely as a cloud? It's a poor day weatherwise and I think it's got everyone's mood crumpled. But the Allotment needs rain when I can't tend to the tomatoes. It's still Ma...

A patron. Someone to give me the security to know I can carry on walk, thinking and writing. All good artists struggle, but some are supported enough to reveal themselves in all their glory? When I wander, lonely on the hillside, I live in hope of meeting an immortal or some being outside of my experience to show me the path I am on is not a false one. Do I believe in magic? Well I used to be involved with AD&D quite heavily and read the Time of the Twins cover to cover, year after year, and lived in Middle Earth - Beleriand mostly, after I'd read LotR and and found it lacking - for a hell of a long time; I knew the Shire very well... *** The dawn chorus woke me this morning just before Lola climbed in next to me. She was pretty tired last night and crawled into her duvet after a little time nestled with me, head in the space between upper arm and chest on Wednesday evening *** Something I didn't expect to rear it's ugly face has come over the horizon once more: depress...

Sun pouring against my bedroom wall, like a flame licking from the centre of a hearth onto the exposed skin... And I was awake. Sleep or hayfever clings to my eyes: another season of itchiness and soreness is here: summer has occurred. Bugger... I so like spring! Summer can get a bit relentless and I just know it's a race for nature to grow, seed/fruit and then nothing... Ashes to ashes. From dust back into dust...and now I long for Pilgrimage. Yesterday I was low. I was considering visiting the doctor's to ask for be prescribed antidepressants again... I've had a good year off them. But I must find my own way out of depression. Killing those negative thoughts before they devour me... Pilgrimage... Portugal? June? Now I am wondering how Michael is since he got back to Frankfurt Hahn(which is not near Frankfurt) and drove back into his usual life with Steffi, Bad Vibel, the court work and memories...

Yesterday I felt my life had run out of purpose. A feeling that in the past my existence was going somewhere, but now seems to be going nowhere. It's a pretty bleak feeling and, no matter if it's true or an illusion, I really felt my life wasn't worth the effort anymore. That's it - I was going to end it. Some how, by the time I left the allotment with tomatoes in the ground, that feeling of total worthlessness had receded and on Tuesday morning I am with Lola once more, going up that hill struggling to make the next 24 hours not feel pointless. She's done well so far as I won't feed her until seven. It's the rule! She needed a toilet break at 4am and then she got in alongside me until 6. Six! Well done the two of us! It's usually 5:30... Blue sky all the way and it's going to be hot. We're going out at 8 to beat the heat. Up to the Racecourse the back way through Carr Lane and Swinnow Hill, I think, as it is some time since we went that way. Tim...

At 1620 I realised I didn't blog today. Too busy with nothing happening. I slept well in the Z-bed in the spare room as we've AirBNB in my room. Apparently I was making noise at 5:30, but I had to stir mother at 8 so she wasn't so disturbed. Back in Leeds now to spend money I don't have in the hope of conviviality, but I've something covering my face: fifty years of dust... How do the crows living in cities feel about their relatives rurally, who live in murders differently, do they have a concept of a city or the countryside?  I don't want to go home. It's not my home. Nothing is. These crows circle in the same manner, but over a different carrion. It's not 6. I've a heap of chard to drown myself in, but I don't want to go home. It's the end of the week and the end of a long 10 days being different with Michael. Suddenly I am missing him, it and them. Those moments. I am rock solid from English Breakfasts, but I turned the corner: if I didn...

The fifteen thousand English Breakfast. It is not good for me to eat so much the same sort of thing... I must clean myself from the toxins in it... Platform 4 on Cambridge Station and Michael has gone for one night to his digs on the otherside of the tracks. Suddenly, at the end, I didn't want to go! It's Cambridge and it's a great University town/city. Quick half in OTO (old ticket office) then I wait for this long day to carry me further. I wished Michael Bon Voyage and perhaps we'll do this again, but shorter as the Backpacking section has killed me! As I left London on Thursday the 5th May I felt like I was in foreign country until I caught the train just now at Cambridge Station and remembered I am in England heading to The North. It was an interesting feeling... The train is pretty busy and my space was taken, but as I am off in Peterborough, for around an hour, I didn't trouble the person there.. It's OK to sit on the floor for ten minutes? *** The train ...

Still a little frazzled, but had a reasonable night's sleep. We're heading on the number 12 to Beachy Head around nine this morning after breakfast, in the North Laines area. First an Italian coffee and crossiant, with butter and jam, and now a mushroom and egg bun from the Flour Pot. It's a better day so far. Not as windy. Actually it's pretty still here on Sydney Street. Gulls and pigeons wheel about expecting dropped crumbs as Michael eats slowly and I gobble mine. My best friend is definitely Lola. She makes me live. She helps me forgive. The first one and final one. And it's not long now. Gentle and happy. Warm and loving. Yes I am a little tearful today because I don't know what I am doing... *** A brief walk and wait in the Pavilion Gardens for Michael to take a call from the a Judge for a case in July. The Great Escape festival starts in Brighton from Friday. The Strawberry Fields Guesthouse is fully booked, but this is enough of backpacking for me. Noth...

Where do we go from Chichester? Well not the YHA at Eastbourne, which appears to be fully booked, and perhaps not the YHA at Brighton which has a similar issue. Michael is paying for the rooms. I guess if he was here on his own and was looking around, as we did yesterday, he'd be paying for a single room, at least, or a double room if that is all which is available. However I just know it's possible to save a little money in a private room at the YHAs around here. If we reach the goal of Beachy Head after a nice walk along the Cuckmere Haven perhaps our goal could move back through the Big Smoke to Cambridge (or something like that) a day earlier than expected? Really I can just about afford to stay in the South until Sunday as long as I've found a YHA to stop in on my own on Saturday night, after Michael has returned to Frankfurt via Frankfurt Hahn. If I was forced back to London from Cambridge then perhaps Euston Road could be my final base. But I really don't know wh...

Tough walk down off the Downs into Clanfield. I was stood at the wrong bus stop for a while so had to walk to Drift Road to connect with the First Bus number 8. As I was by a parade of shops I went into Chandler's , but I just had the worst/most lackluster of all the breakfasts eaten since Thursday morning. It was £10 and small, undercooked and uninspired, but then again the proprietor said Crossant not croissant... ... Funny old day. We did a lot of tourist stuff. Portchester, which was excellent for coffee, church, view and a walk along to the bus stop via Stargate prototypes. But I was always exhausted from the running of a warm tap in the room up on top of the Sustainability Centre. But I am still going just before nine. We're staying at the Nag's Head where I end today with a fantastic pint of Harvey's Best Bitter. Tomorrow we head east to the Cuckmere Haven... Michael and I went back into the happy groove so that the walk from awful Portchester train station to Ro...

Please don't ask me to do this again! 35 kilometres up and over, down then return, to find accommodation which is £48 for one person in a hostel. There is a flaw in England and it's the cost of traveling on a shoestring. True I could have carried a tent, but I would've been at least 25% overburdened, not just fifteen percent. And how was I to know the weather would be dry as a bone in May? From tomorrow I am heading to Chichester to meet up with Michael and the garrote he is carrying. Tomorrow I will need to find a route myself, unless I stick to the Monarch's Way until it hits a station heading to Chichester. The weather will change shortly. It'll be wet a while(Wednesday is forecast rainy), but perhaps not the entire summer? It doesn't matter to me as I will be firmly stuck in Leeds, Wetherby, etc, until September as that's when dog sitting begins in earnest: 26th June on and off until 3rd September when I will sod off again. This accommodation is in a dec...

Mike and I walked slowly on the Pilgrim's Way. After the morning onto the South Downs I realise how steady we were. Talking was the main gear of the travel. Here it has been the need to reach respite, repase, rest, relaxation, shoes off, etc. My left foot finally played silly buggers so I reduced to sandals and, in the final few pastures, I took to barefoot and minded where I stepped around cow pats, nettles and over gravelly styles. Expensive but excellent: The Shoe Inn. I've stopped long enough to recharge all batteries. Then I must pick up something for the evening... setting off for the Sustainability Centre up ahead: it has an eco hostel, but no dormitories, just a small private room @ £48. Two other walkers overlook me, but they're carrying a fraction of my weight and only started out from Winchester this morning. One gave me a couple of snack bars and the other slowed me down. It helped me get to Exton. Food in the Shoe Inn £28 with a beer. I had another Wadworth 6X ...

We reached Winchester at around 5 yesterday, but things were clearly not the same. The silly 'argument' about noise levels around the verge, where we waited for the number 64 bus the short 8 miles distance, had grown into a disgruntlement at each other. After a shower in our room I went to find calm, a beer, a dog, or two, and to read a little. Once I'd reached Stables, to meet Mike for dinner, the tension in the air... ... Something fundamental. *** We just ate breakfast together, but there is an unspoken antagonism towards each other. So we went from laughing at the bottom of our ribs to not speaking, beyond auto response, in 24 hours. Having never walked with anyone for more than a day on The Way I've no experience of the conflicts we humans conjurer up. But we did have a bit of fun along the Pilgrim's Way and we did reach Winchester in one piece. That road and them cars were loud, but what can be done about it right there right then? And we all have our own perc...

Phew! Michael is at the other end of this room. However my head is towards those Hampshire tones as Liverpool plays Spurs on the box alongside Church Street. He's gone for a walk... And I am over. £42 on Thai food. Why is it so very expensive? It was very warming, the Duck, and I scoffed the lot, but it's twice as expensive as Chinese food from a takeaway and no more complex?!? *** Just about Lunch time as we reach the Treehouse Café. It was another good morning. The cheese shop sketch, fish licence and Dickkens (two Ks) and a detectorist who was heading up into the landowner's space to discover Roman, Saxon and Bronze age gold - the Golden Triangle is the specific area know by enthusiasts. In another 7ish kilometres we will hit the A31 once more, it's easy to be lulled into pastoralism in Hampshire, but Southampton and London are very heavily tied together. There appears to be a Bishop's Sutton village (just after) ahead which is where we resist following the main ...

Gorgeous breakfast at Gorge on the corner before we head up to the Castle and join the Saint Swithins Way. Bubble and squeak, beans, sausage, bacon, toast, coffee and Zumo de Naranja(£9.90). I am happier! The café on the main road wasn't open and the number 65 was late, (so we caught it)! We were very lucky! I didn't want to hitch without a full belly and to put Michael ill at ease. Now time to be ready to climb out of this road focused Way: the North Downs Way is very near to that perpetual thunder, droning on and on, on the A31. *** It's a rather nice morning on the Way, but I am ready for cake and a pot of liquid gold!   Teacake from the Post Office and a larger pork pie to eat before we reach Alton. We're neither so tired nor so crabby today. In fact the entire morning has been a pythonesque/Fawlty Towers accompanyment of me talking to the horses, us searching for eels in hovercrafts and female riders, in their jodhpurs, which twist and turn (riding high) slippery w...

Beginning of day two. Coffee in the glorious sunshine. We're going to walk about and first we go to Farnham for breakfast. Michael must shave I will not. But later I will wash and change into boxfresh  clothing for the next couple of days heading west to Winchester! *** After Brunch and we have gone our separate ways. Lovely sausage baguette and earl grey Brack and a French press of coffee in the Tea Room in the Craft Centre Seale. Now I am finding an alternative route back onto the North Downs Way, which is the same as the Pilgrim's Way until Farnham and then joins the Saint Swithins way into Winchester. *** Farnham was a long tailback. Is this all The South has to offer? Bumpers... Michael appears to have withdrawn himself so I don't know if it is valuable to continue on this meander without getting serious about walking. There are many more options on the South Downs Way... Or there is Lola, allotment and mum. So far this is not as I foresaw it. The noise on the main roa...

May the 4th be with me?  I think it was. First going to see JC, who now works at the YHA on Euston Road, opposite the British Library, who was very happy to see me - I got a proper happy feeling seeing that warm honest individual! Then a fantastic hours walk to Spitalfields, via Smithfield, Farringdon and the  Barbican Centre to The English Restaurant to wait for Michael - where I got lost a little unable to locate the café I used to frequent (it was the same but had become a restaurant since 2009 absorbing the next door establishment). I drank a couple of halves to keep the pennies... The proprietor - called Kay - was a great warm lady originally from Oxford, with a place on Ramsgate, and living above the premise and it would be nice to return there for some food on the 13th before heading to Cambridge or if we just stay in London? Next down through Tower Hill to Monument and over new London Bridge (which replaces the ones which have fallen down and the one which was taken to...

Yesterday suddenly something happened to Michael. He went very anxious about people and COVID. Also he was absolutely exhausted. But rather than complain he went very silent. We'd walked hard most of the afternoon to Nonsuch and Ewell until we reached Epsom which was busy and abysmal. In Epsom he wanted to stop so we looked for accommodation, but luckily the Travelodge was only available online and the Premier Inn was fully booked. We were forced to catch the train, a packed commuter train, the short distance between Epsom and Guildford and then catch a bus for the short journey to Puttenham. The train was slightly delayed, and I could find no sign of a bus stop alongside Guildford Station, so we were virtually out of time to get the 65 to Alton. After the longest day we stepped onto the bus just as it was leaving the bus station, within the Trinity Centre, and couldn't pay because the ticket machine wasn't functioning. The bus driver said I don't go to Puttenham, which...

Language is inadequate To describe anything real The words don't pour out As they did before in a flood. But now they're few And far between. Reality is much more That a miniature string, strung, Can ever play out.

Down to The Calls, IF... on Call Lane, for a hearty breakfast - it's not too expensive at £11 and you get a good feed here with a lot of attention to detail like home made baked beans, grilled halloumi, a nice veggie sausage and bacon rasher. I don't know anywhere else in Leeds that does such amazing fayre, except Eat Your Greens on Kirkgate: but that's a lunch and dinner venue. It was quite quiet along North Street and Vicar Lane. Passing through Kirkgate Market and alongside the Corn Exchange to a buzzing quarter of Leeds: where all the most lovely/awful happy/angry folks pour out in the early hours of the night before! But on this Wednesday it's tranquility incarnate. There is the dichotomy/dualism of life.  I've not been out at night down here, under the railway bridge, since Everton and Umberto(owners of Hip Menswear) did Ucci night's at the Backroom(it wasn't called that back in 2000/01 and Norman(now no longer called that). Steven and I went to Space...

It's raining, and it's pouring, the old man was snoring. But now I am awake. Morning of Day One - task for today is getting settled in Southwark for the evening before heading out. We must be in Puttenham by Friday, which is a little after Guildford. But I'm not sure whether to get to the Pilgrim's Way directly south, slightly south west or follow the ancient way to Cirencester - Stane Street, which would miss out Dulwich... Google maps suggests Leatherhead is 6 hours walk from Southwark... Dulwich didn't come up with any accommodation and it's just too short a stage for the first day out. If I only walk a couple of hours I'll be so God Damn drunk for walking on Friday we wouldn't get to Puttenham! *** This morning my other head is on my body. Like Wurzel Gumage I have various craniums depending on the particular set of variable I see ahead of myself. Building up to today I was quaking with my worried head, but this morning I am bright and sunny with thi...

Penultimate day. Tomorrow London and ten/eleven days away from The North. Really I've been nowhere at all in the UK since Lockdown... Apart from last year's week walking from Bristol to Exmoor... It's definitely been 3 years plus since London when Glenn and I passed briefly through on our way back from Ghent? *** Actually I was last in London in 2019. I passed through on my way back from Dieppe. Such a long time ago: post-COVID and I don't remember it. *** And fear grips me. The thought of the cost of a pilgrimage in the UK when you know no-one and have a low expectations of being helped along The Way . Michael said he'd help with accommodation, but I feel I shouldn't have to rely on anyone to put one foot in front of the other. All my understandings of The Way  fall away in the UK. I am left high and dry by the blank stares I get. No one would stumble over a foreign language here and expect any form of deeper revelation? It's always a test and I guess that...

The beginning of May and a new emphasis for me as I see London approach. From Wednesday I will leave the north for a while to live through a different experience. First stop JC and Euston Road YHA to say hello to that hard working man. Then to Liverpool Street station to collect Mike before over London Bridge we head to Southwark Cathedral.  It's raining, a light rain was falling as I returned for a good night's rest. And I got it. Finally no canine company shifting me to the edge of the bed. Really I should have put Ruby into her crate on Wednesday night, as she's quite happy there to sleep, but I didn't and it was four nights of dog broken sleep followed by a night on the floor after too many beers at the Brewery. Jason and I were going to go out for a long walk this morning, but I couldn't get to Wetherby to set off at 7am... There are no buses until eight, as usual, on a Sunday. Actually I prefer a quiet day - it's Sunday. I will walk Lola then make somethin...

In the mornings, after a comprehensive night's sleep, I am sure that Now is all there is. Being was before and will be after, but is very much at the heart of existence Now. I like Now very much, but I easily forget it and begin searching the past or seeking a future, after the world prises open the box and starts it's way dissecting the moment into history and future. They don't exist, and they never will; there is only the current moment, but my body absolutely requires input to produce an output otherwise it would fail, breakdown and collapse into dust. Why did being get reduced to such a structure, in some kind of desperation, as it manically seeks answers to questions it can never get because I am looking everywhere other than the current point. The single point is the singularity of existence - it begets everything, but never needed to. Now I had these thoughts please can I drop the delusional world I perceive for the much greater reality of presence?

There is something of the world I just can't get my head around. I stare at it uncomprehending... But expecting to understand the inane, meaningless triviality is impossible... Why do I try? How can anyone know the unfathomable? Last night I returned to my breath to concentrate away from the clutter/cluster of images which make me question my sanity. The never ending line of thoughts about the future or past. Hopes, fears, disappointments and regrets. But I do know these images are not real. They are weighs I carry which close my eyes to the present moment. Lola lays asleep in her usual position, between my legs, we're warm before breakfast. Looking outside I can see breaks in the cloud cover and potentially a moment of sunshine prior to her need for sustenance? She appears to have accepted the run up to seven, with me, as there hasn't been a peep from her in the hour we've dwelt here. Yesterday we walked along the Old Railway to the Thorp Arch Trading Estat...