w/c 29th April.

Monday,

Cold. Blue skies. I had to close the windows and put on an extra layer in my half sleep. Coffee. Ruby is buried beneath the blanket next to me on her sofa. The birds are singing and in the distance the A1 buzzes. Monday morning... Earworms last night: bloody George Michael.

My mood is low today. I feel nothing really matters ... Life is so ephemeral. It vanishes as if it never existed. It's a constant state of nothingness replacing the tiniest mote for the briefest second: Archie is no more...

***

Tuesday,

Ruby's by my side. The birds are in fine voice. Some cloud cover and not as cold as Monday morning. Apparently today is going to be a beautiful day? Coffee brewing 5:15am. Awake around 5am. Peaceful.

Long long long day. 16:35. I am sat by the back entrance to the 'beer garden', on Scott Lane, of Bar Three (The Three Legs) with a 125ml of Rioja Campo Vejho. A lovely sunny day, but I think I have had 'hay' fever all day or concussion or something else. But I've paid my passage from Beauvais to Paris (16.90€ shuttle bus) and then Le Puy-en-Velay (£45 BlaBlaCar). Surely enough. I've had England up to my throat... Ruby was a good, but, eventually, tired Vizsla this afternoon and I feel the knock on effect of three intense days walking both dogs... She's ageing too, but has years to go. She still screams through the fields, like a bullet, chasing birds!

Back to a slightly tetchy mother. Sausage sandwich and then bed. Tired.

***

Wednesday,

Why do I feel so unsure? It's not like me to feel uncertain about the thing which gives me a reason to be: el Camino, but I am.

Dry retching by the back door. I think the tea I made last night (the herbal tea) isn't ideal on an empty stomach ( I find tea does the same - tannins). So drinking it after a toilet break wasn't sensible.

Why am I so unsure of the trip to France next Monday? It's the remedy to the poison. I drank around a bottle of red wine yesterday. With lunch I had two small glasses - around 2pm. Then with Ruby, on the second walk, I had one small and one large around 3pm. Then returning to my mum's I had another small at 4:30pm - 675mls prior to the sausages and another small glass around 6. No beer. And a good night's sleep until 'The Fear' gripped me. The Fear of caring too much about the future and not the present!

I am even worried I haven't packed the tape deck, I sold on eBay on Monday and which I am despatching today, well enough... 

Nothing really matters. Good/bad/indifferent. Meh!

Oh! It's May! That's lovely.

Caffé Nero, Lola, despatch, bus, recycled the run-over tablet. Boar Lane. Pint. Sunshine. And I am sat here attacking everyone and everything; every Being. But I chose to site myself opposite The Griffin, the 229 to Huddersfield, pedestrians. Pint the second. Why move from Tapped? Nothing really matters. Mark doesn't exist. Archie doesn't exist. I won't exist!

Three and a half pints down on Boar Lane. Two at Tapped, in the afternoon sunshine, one in the construction worker surrounded FoH. And a half in Brownhill and Co, where Richard appeared slightly on edge. Another bottle up on Briggate (in the sunshine) and a final bottle in Social watching those people passing by on Merrion Street.

At 6:30pm I want to know what I am doing wrong if I keep waking up feeling meh... So I had a humus and flatbread snack with a slice of apricot paste. I've a flask of water. I am going to chill to the sounds outside my window until another few sections or a chapter of A inCIM.

***

Thursday,

Slept well. 5am. Coffee brewing. Lots of interesting dreams - mainly 'fear' dreams in which Le Chemin Saint Jacques goes wrong. No money, nowhere to sleep...

Fear of the Camino! It's a holiday week in France. Bugger...

Not 100%, but just managed 2 hours on the allotment where I put all the Portuguese corn in the area next to Andy's patch. Lola had a fun day down the river. I was kicking water at her... 

Where am I going?

***

Thursday,

The Fear! Am I going to Le Puy-en-Velay? Yup. There is a bus to Aubrac, which is the place I walked from Le Puy in 2013, after which the weather really got me down and only walked two days before a bus, lots of tears in Conques, two days to Figeac. Did I walk to Cahors? I recall walking into Cahors... But only from the train station?

Not recorded any of my movements this morning... I was listening to In Our Time during coffee. Caught the X98 at 7:30am. Took no notice of it. Nearly got off bus on Lovell Park Grange, but went for a coffee and a pain au raisin in the Caffé Nero on The Headrow. Went back to the flat and started a wash, but stopped it. Had two pittas piled with humus. Sat in another waiting room. The smaller one waiting for Abby; not the universal one considering of the universe...

Tomorrow never arrives. Fears are anxiety about what will never be. What am I lacking right now? Company... But I am never more alone than when I am surrounded by people jostling for attention.

Today I decided leaving the flat to go to for an appointment at 3pm Seacroft, and then Wetherby to arrive at 5pm, was a stupid idea. It would've done me no good and I wouldn't have got closer to anyone jostling for their attention. And I wouldn't have managed since to stay off the pop. Andy was meeting Ian in the Mews and wanted me along... No good could come of it!

... Tap tap tap. Waiting for the call in the waiting room which is also my front room. The world I am waiting in to wake-up out of and then disappear; never to return. And he called. He's a good guy. Time for a bath... 4pm.

Quiet day. Wash day. Organised my larger backpack.

***

Saturday,

Awake at 4am. Slept from around 9pm, but I have a long morning ahead on the allotment so I am awake...

Having looked at my finances from Monday - for 3 weeks (as I get 2 ESA and one PIP) means I've got around 400€ per week for around 3 weeks. I must be back in the UK by the 26th May as I have Ruby from the 27th for five days. But I don't know where I will be in the end. Definitely somewhere in the south of France? Or the North of Spain... These are options to return from: Carcassonne, Perpignan in the south of France or Toulouse, Bordeaux or Limoges in central; Girona or Tarragona in Catalonia. Paris Beauvais is in the north of France... But I am not in France yet.

Two good appointments yesterday. Seeing Abby and speaking to Angelo is keeping me focused... And I am about to have another focal point. I was trying to recall where abouts a guy from The Netherlands decided to sleep outside in his tent because there were no more beds in the Gîtes. His mother had died and he was walking from Haarlem. It was before the relentless and boring day through Les Landes de Gascogne: Capiteux...

On two occasions I've had bruises (or breaks) on my ribs and slept uncomfortably... Once in a tent (all over Croatia) and once in the lowest bunk bed... I've slept in a tent with broken ribs... It's not that difficult! OK this was in September 2010. I was 14 years more(or less) stupid? My boots are not worn out this time and so hopefully I won't be rolling down any gullies? As I did after leaving Vinça, across the causeway and up the ravine, on that atrociously wet morning back on the 10th September 2021 climbing up into the Pyrenees, bold as brass and slightly hungover...

Walking through Leeds, dropping in off my token of recycling to the central hub opposite the Lovell Park Adult Social Hub below my flat. Somewhere I can't access unless I get a referral ... and which I never get around to!

Only five miles since I left my mother's, via the allotment, to Spofforth along Lime Kiln Lane and Crimple Beck and the left foot 'war' wound is inflamed once more... Bugger. Only 8 kilometres. In France it'll be three times as many clicks. There is always my thumb, and a bit of thigh?

***

Sunday,

This is the final day. The longest day. The one where I give my mother and Lola the most. Before I depart for sundry lands for a different centre of being: not to one side as I often feel I am in Leeds/Wetherby/England shuttling everywhere and nowhere.

Caught the X98 on Boar Lane. Free coffee from Caffe Nero - buy nine get the tenth free- and a pain au raisin. The bus was on time. A bit tired this morning.

Lola, breakfast, allotment, lunch and Lola. Then relax. I was asleep by 7.***