Goodbye Christmas 2023

Christmas Day. A bit of gurgling from young Archie, but it was well passed 6am. As I switched on the smartphone it's already 6:45! Finally I slept in ... The wind has subsided, for today and tomorrow, before the next autumn storm rolls in on from the Atlantic on Wednesday. Where's winter? It's lost in the far north and is keeping away. There is a fallen tree across the footpath which runs passed the allotment, and covering a portion of the space where kale was growing.

Spent yesterday sober. Bad night's sleep on Saturday. Thought that Archie would wake me during the evening to ask me to take him for a crap. Stupidly I didn't get him out in the evening before I went to bed, after watching Wayne's World...

Breakfast television. toast for breakfast. Banal magazine fill on the box. Fat people preparing food for more fat people who haven't eaten this week ... The number of people wedged into the pubs as I walked down to the overflowing river with Lola for her solo walk; pulling she was all the way expecting dropped food at every stage...

***

Christmas is over again. Peace returns to my mind. The dinner wasn't too bad, although it was getting there... Why won't Emma stop talking. It's she afraid to be peaceful on Christmas Day? All her thoughts spill out the instant she has them like she's nothing filtering out the noise? And it's always the same story - this time Simon Irvine was outside her door drunk and asleep, Lola was going mental and Emma didn't know what to do? Why she didn't tell him to go home...

My stomach is gurgling this morning: those sickly Rodney Reindeer desserts that M&S were putting their name on... Plain bad. No substance. No matter! Christmas Day is over, peace can return.

***

The day after the day after. 27th December. Movement on North Street, Deighton Road and York Road. Archie is by my side. Rain falls from the sky: the next 'Autumn' storm gathers in from The Atlantic - when will it end and winter take over? We need the desiccation of cold weather to kill off those remnants of the harvest up on the allotment...

***

Otherwise I'll be fighting a losing battle... Thursday morning. 28th. Mother away from tomorrow afternoon. Archie's owners back on Saturday. Had a very quiet day yesterday, dodging the falling rain. The rain cleared to a full moon, the temperature dropped and I've a cold developing... Need to get to the flat at some point today, probably this morning, first things first - toilet and dressed and Archie's constitutional...

***

No Leeds. It's not going anywhere? Next week, after New Years Day. One to many yesterday and chocolate ice cream. But I was deeply meditating this morning from 3:30am until 7. Archie didn't move from where I left him, but wanted toilet even before I'd had my first cup of coffee. So we came to 42 and took Lola along the A168 towards Wetherby Grange Lodge gate.