from Biarritz.

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Teachers. Are the best of persons and the worst of persons in this perpetual struggle to counterbalance the two. I am a median. A line betwixt alternatives, but I am weak by being this liberal string vibrating to the frequency of the forgetful fingers. She's kind yet mean... Not kind and then not mean. Gentle then unforgiving.

Teachers. Exist in that tension between shaping minds and being worn down by them. Your median isn’t weakness; it’s the frayed edge of trying to hold both extremes. Kindness and cruelty aren’t phases—they’re simultaneous, like light through a prism. The string vibrates because it’s alive, not because it’s forgotten.

Footprints and rusty tracks mark the limit of l'Adour. Now I turn 180° to venture further southward into Biarritz and thoughts of home.

***

And I am sat on the corner of Albion Street and Boar Lane once more. The wheel keeps on turning. Espresso and pain aux raisin. The Leeds 10k is on too from 9am... My bus is out of here is at 9:05am - I hope. Yesterday the bed race in Knaresborough. Friday those train journeys and buses. The lack of air-con the lner in an appalling and  unappealingly dull liverage. They weren't Pullman's carriages - when did a carriage become a coach? Where are the homeless to ask me for something I don't have? Not ever. Ah the first of the day approached as I spilt coffee on my lapel. This is not my home.

***

Monday arrived. No palaver. It's 5:30am. Lola's eaten. We've shared a little time on the sofa, but she's stretched to let me move to my solo position in the arm chair/sofa seat by the bay window to the left of Lola's sofa. The crows chatter in the sycamores alongside the old engine shed and York Road. It's dry. There were plenty of clouds and a breeze around yesterday, but, apart from a couple of spots, there was no rain. This morning is blue skies with a waning moon to the south of my mum's house. Going to the river with Lola around 7:30am. And allotment after breakfast.

***

Tuesday's here. No fanfare. Just the dawn chorus; simple yet complex and perpetual. The rearranging of the day out of the box of the night.

This morning I woke with a headache. And I think I over did the sun yesterday. At the allotment and with Lola. And collecting Finley's bike. No alcohol since I met Glenn on Saturday.

The past is over. With a slice it's gone. Those long days of shadows behind and ahead of me...

I am like a robot heading up to the allotment with suicidal thoughts running through my head. Mum doesn't appear to appreciate me at all. It's all instructions without any thanks or gratitude... Can I take a summer of being a carer for a woman who doesn't care about me?

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