journal entries 4th to 10th November.

Just returned from a meander with Lola up to Ashdale Lane and The Copse, back along Quarry Hill Lane and Crossley Street. On York Road Lola found half an uneaten pizza. And on Quarry Hill Lane I collected a couple of cooking apples from a plastic bag outside someone's house...

Then I made lunch: pork sausages, apple sauce, mash potato, onion gravy and broad beans. Mum actually liked my food.

Then I went for a lay down, but Lola was having none of it so we walked up St James's Street to the Ginnel, up Prospect View and the Quarry, along Raby, and onto The Ings for a bit of 'find the fish' in amongst the fallen leaves.

Then Lola demanded I spend the rest of the afternoon by her side, which I was compelled to, until Finley took my place and I started to read Ithaca by Claire North on my bed while struggling to keep warm! The burn on my right hand was also distracting me, but I asked my sister, once she'd arrived, if she had any Savlon...  Which did help reduce the inflammation! Perhaps the burn was quite bad?

Tuesday - day three of DO NOT DRINK!!! Which is back on my schedule... Stupidly I removed it on Thursday and so I drank Thursday, Friday and Saturday... Atomic Habits. Day 8 of iron supplements. Which I now take alongside vitamin D and Venlafaxine... I don't want my life to be the same as it has been for 10 years, now!

Second Nero coffee. A first for me: Oatmilk Latte on the corner of the Head-Row and Park Row as I await a date with fate: Nuffield Health behind the Crown Court and LGI and a possible route out of continuous pain in the left foot.

Nuffield Hospital visit was positive and I have to return for an MRI then we can progress to an operation to remove the neuroma.

I had some beers, but I didn't 'drink' and was back at the flat after a bowl of dumplings in Mr Su's. Came back and ate the remaining sour dough with sauerkraut and peanut butter.

Two days off now... It's better than ever other day. Lola this morning/afternoon. Around five pints between 1 and 6, when I sat down for dumplings...

It's the ever present unease I feel when isolated in Leeds, outside of the flat, wandering the side streets looking for my fortune between the cracks. It's a futile occupation. And it's so in my past that I am lost in that present as I walk bewildered amongst the towering structures and between the continual vagabond scutter. I am a ghost. A hungry ghost.

It really was bonfire night last night. Fireworks everywhere across Leeds. It's meaningless...

Thursday. Payday. All gone again... Well debts paid. Start at the bottom alongside Sisyphus. Another day away from alcohol? and a morning on the allotment. Although the burn on my right hand is healing there are a couple of tender bits still.

A good morning grafting on the allotment. An interesting afternoon reading some chapters of Ithaca until I stepped over the threshold of NB, BrewDog and The Brunswick. I reached home by 5:30, which was earlier than on Tuesday, when I was definitely drunk, and ate a noodle soup. Which didn't sit well on me in the early morning. Gurgling it's way towards the toilet basin. I was able to grab two short periods of sleep after I was woken by my body. Now at 5:30am I am consuming yogurt, drinking coffee and listening to In Our Time. Chilli peppers  they don't agree with me. So stop buying them?!?

I can do one clear day, occasionally two, but never three - although I did a few weeks back. What is it I resist. Why is it so bad to return to an empty flat? It's warm. It's comfortable. It's safe. But it's lonely...

Quick bath. Collected my stuff and headed to Wetherby. Slightly tearful as I fail again and squirm against another load of form filling for another blasted ADHD referral. It will be the death of me. These last 10 years. No progress and hardly treating water? I have the forms to complete as part of Right To Choose as there is a mega wait on the main service in Leeds... And the form asks very poor questions which don't get to the matter of my problem. The problem as I discussed with Glenn this morning...

***

Saturday morning. Awake at 5am. It's so quiet around the house on Braine Road. I guess it will continue cloudy, but dry? A little sunshine and frost would be a welcome treat, but it's dry. Very dry and not at all stormy for this autumn? One storm I can recall when I returned from Reus.

Yesterday I gave mum back her Sainsbury's card. I have to try to live on my money... Get ahead and stop borrowing. When I drink my budget feels the brunt! But I forgot I've yet to pay my EE contract...

It's done... 6am. A new leaf. A new way. A new day. But first coffee and a podcast... Free Thinking with Matthew Sweet...

For some bizarre reason I have no knowledge of John Milton and the era of the Civil War. Or the Reformation. At university I decided it was a boring era... But perhaps that was a result of trying to read Alexander Pope who I found impenetrable.

Which side would I have been on during the English Civil War, and is this why I am continually in Purgatory, because I cannot ever decide my side in life. I always walked the thin line down the centre - as I always try to play the Devil's advocate. Is Purgatory the worst place to be as Dante suggested?

***

Remembrance Sunday.

This could be one hell of a failure after Thursday and Tuesday. So I managed two days sober. Sunday and Monday, but now I have slipped back to where I was last year - every other day. It's been creeping on me since I returned from Reus, in that storm.

I read three final chapters and enjoyed one bottle of Sam Smith's Pale Ale, then I popped in to Brownhills for a half. I could only afford another half afterwards so Richard helped my addiction along - I had put some money on the Revolut card to pay for a couple of things due next week - but after I couldn't unfreeze the card in Whitelocks (and a kind Vicar bought the half I was finishing on) I departed for home. But I crossed the same three thresholds as I did on Thursday... Two bottles in NB, where I met up with Jason. Then a third with him in BrewDog. I stepped into The Brunswick just to say high to Mollie, but she wasn't there(again) so I went home. Four halves, one Sam's, one Orval, one St Feuillen, a third of a can with Jason and a third a impy with Jason. Then home. It's less than on Thursday, but not by much ... I can't escape ... I was born on Groundhog Day! But it's Sunday and I like Sunday's.

Just gone 6. I ate the noodle soup yesterday. 

Nearly 10am. Waiting for the bus to leave Wetherby bus station for York Road. Had three eggs and stewed veggies for breakfast - no carbohydrates. Walked down to Boar Lane and asked for a freebie in Caffé Nero. I have run out of funds. It seems strange, but kind of good!?!

Walked Lola to the roundabout on the old A1 and around The Ings around the time of remembrance day - as everyone was gathering at the town hall. I attended in 2018 the last time. But I feel my remembrance has been through my visits to Ypres, Albert, Tyne Cot, Dieppe, Caen, along the Atlantic Wall and Ouistreham. I've read the many names of our fallen - whether French, German, Canadian, Australian, etc etc.

Lola is looking a little fitter because she's running to find the hidden fish in the leaf litter. She seems to enjoy it too as she snuffles everything... She's a great girl with a fantastic sense of smell...,