A rebel without a clue.

Didn't sleep well with the church bell cacophony every 15 minutes all through the night. Now I wait by the ancient monument in Westbury sub Mendips for the bus into Wells to find a large breakfast. From there I'll find another way to Glastonbury and, perhaps, Street? While waiting for the bus from Weston-super-Mare I'm finally conquered by hay fever. I felt it a little during the night but walking through those 3 miles of fields between Cheddar and Westbury has done me in... ... Full English up by the Bishop's Eye from TWENTYONE. I'm passing through Wells. That's twice in my lifetime. Suddenly I'm retracing my footsteps back the way I came in 2010 at the end of my summer in Padstow: not literally as I didn't walk that time. Leaving Wells behind after a great breakfast via the Bishop's Palace and Moated complex - there isn't a single thing Godly amongst all these heavy stones and fetid waters. How did a simple message get so distorted into a palat...

Two fully loaded breakfast baps from Greggs(yuck!!!) later and I'm heading out of Bristol towards the Clifton Suspension Bridge. What a view looking up at it and looking outwards towards the Bristol Channel: I never knew that Portishead was on the coast. After I'd been on my feet for 2 hours from Clifton, and leaving behind the heavy Monday morning traffic, I passed through a 'random little village' (Dundry) on this Samaritan's Way around 10:30am and there in the Pub/Shop I bump into a guy who used to sleep below me when I worked in Padstow at Pucelli's in 2010! Small world full of serendipity! He was a great lad, but got moved into another house as soon as possible - I do snore my head off. Looking back I can make out the suspension bridge 5 miles away as I'm about to hit rolling countryside with Chew Valley Lake in the distance. The fecundity of England in June where everything is verdant and nodding in the slightest breeze. A touch of hay fever caught me ...

All is as I like to leave it at number 69: washing done and left tidy, fridge on setting half and all other electricity off. Almost set off without a coat! So hastily headed back to the eleventh floor. Also took a meter reading, but it seems only to show one figure - not a day/night reading - so need to speak to someone at Eon on Monday morning. Ate a very 'soured' porridge, which I left out on the windowsill for two nights. I love soured/fermented oats and it's better for digesting. There is a gentle rain falling on Leeds which might help to refresh my allotment or encourage more thistles to pop out. The coach is going to be full by Nottingham and there is no social distancing in place. Sit back, relax and fear naught: it's 8:05am and I'm finally on my way out of 'war torn' Leeds; Covid has gone on and on and on since December 2020.

5 hours in a cramped Coach, with an hour hovering in Birmingham - a town I've always felt foreign to my charms - and here I am in Colham. Perched above Bristol it is definitely Portobello or Brighton. My gate dragged me to my hostess, Airbnb, far too early so I suggested she doesn't rush back from an afternoon tea on account of me. Now here I am in 'Bravas' pretending in in Iberia and not the South West. It's going to cost a pretty packet so it's neither Malaga or Alicante - another Camino setting off with a slight hangover. How did I do the first day from Alicante up to Cueva de San Pascual with a hangover... I will probably find out tomorrow on my way to Cheddar? I register nothing here though. I'm watching chefs in dirty/discoloured attire... This happens. But there is definitely a surfit of cleanliness in their nether regions. I dislike dirty chef pants and filthy shoes.

Woke up. Went back to bed. It's Ash Wednesday. And the time is a quarter to six. Almost a year after this Covid thing took away our freedoms. In little more than 11 months and it might be finally vanishing from view as the television news and newspapers have other headlines to throw at helpless captives who face the back of the cave looking at remote shadows and partake in remote learning. Social, hunter gather animals, forced to withhold nature for a handful of probable deaths: those with underlying health issues mainly. In a nation rife with unhealth, extended old age, pharmaceutical products preventing the withering of natural limbs, etc, how many of the deaths were "overdue". No one wants to die, but, surely, that isn't something we really have a say in: mortal as we really are (although there are actors out there who seem to think they're immortal). It's been several months since I've sat down and entertained Blogger with my seldom art: writing what p...

Lola makes me happy, epecially at 5:30 am as she crawls into the single bed, stretches out by my side and we snooze on until around 6, keeping each other warm. It's a memory which keeps me afloat wherein I would've gone under many times during the darkest days of this black dog. As I stretch awake I give her a smile, cuddle and place a kiss upon her beautiful head while I dress to launch myself at another day and another way. *** Whenever and wherever I go there are particular objects which I require to make me feel I'm setting off in a satisfactory manner. Whether or not I use every item packed orderly and specifically, for various occasions, in the vintage Karrimor (Jaguar S65 KS-100e SA L) I bought off of eBay, they're all stored safely. All these items go into it so that I feel safe switching off all unnecessary power at the mains, leaving and locking flat number 69, taking a meter reading and descending from the eleventh floor out onto Lovell Park Hill . At the top...

Tracing a line backwards, from the knowledge of Julia's passing away and my initial memories of her in my life, I can recall her being a caring diligent sibling. The 12 years between us made her seem all-knowingly bright, and someone I could really look up to, as my big sister. She was someone who responded to me and I reciprocated enthusiastically. My first memory is of being in a booth in Harrogate train station having a photo taken with Emma, in a duffel coat, sat on Julia's lap pulling faces at the awaited flash. I was probably 7 or 8 then. The photos are still around somewhere (in a box filled with memories) capturing a frozen instant of joy formed fresh from a novel experience. Julia gave me many memories like that until something inside broke and I saw a girl become a woman in pain - which was a burden too hard for her, or anyone, to carry. Mostly I will remember her sharing experiences truthfully and without malice, not absentmindedly or distracted from my need to know....