Friday 4th November.

Friday morning. I was thinking of walking to Leeds, but mum asked me to walk Lola today and as it looks like a nice day, and I am utterly sober (and it's blue skies all the way) and I can head to the allotment if the weather keeps nice this afternoon... I've onions to implant!

Fifth day of Venlafaxine and I've got passed the wobbliness and stomach churning and perhaps it's made me calm down enough to be able to lay meditatively several times a day: around three times yesterday I put the matter swamping my consciousness away free a deep peace; it is possible I was overly long off antidepressants after the summer of Wetherby and the damage it was doing to my psyche.

***

Harrogate and a lot of Zoomies in the leaf litter down by the Crimple Beck below the Harrogate Show Ground. Sunshine all the way, and I was ready to go far until my left foot began badgering me once more. Four days of heavy slogging in Catalonia and nothing then one hour in England and bang - gone. So merry legs and I went for a couple of halves in the usual haunts: I had wanted to go to Valley Gardens...

No allotment. Back on the 3:30 X99 minus the bunch of unruly school kids who were throwing Bakewell tarts at the wall opposite the bus station - as if there is a lack of anything tangible in the UK? Tell that to the Somalians suffering drought and famine...