A rebel without a clue.

Well I did it. Day One, again. Sobriety. This morning the sun is shining and there is a widespread frost: so good for garlic budding... Day two. Mother still in chains at the Duchy Hospital. Lola had her breakfast, did a hasty toilet and then went back under the covers in mum's room. We kept each other warm throughout the night. Two bodies are much better at the conservation of energy. Makes me wonder: like binary star system. From next-door comes the voice of Adrian. It's 7:10am and it's time for my breakfast

Until I awoke this morning the universe didn't exist. Until I saw the crows wheeling above the distant sycamore and beech they didn't exist. Until the sound of the motorcycle was heard it didn't exist. All night a low level humming came into my awareness, and I am not talking of tinnitus, but what is it behind the double glazing? That humming was much more placeable as the perpetual background sound, which assaults constantly all hope of peace, the A1(M) as it pours forth. There are probably areas of Wetherby, say for instance down by Sicklinghall Road, where the sound has refracted and never reaches - as it sits on the west side of Spofforth Hill? Mother is back. She's back in her lair. The last three days of silence with Lola, the allotment and 42 Braine Road have reduced to a zero. There is no present moment which is all encompassing: within the moment, the riddle, there may be something profoundly still and infinite but I think it is beyond a mere animal, humanity, ...

My soul is dying. The moment I had when I felt I was understanding something real is vanishing and I don't know how to stop it popping off. Yesterday went wrong, again, what should've been a wonderful day of oneness with Lola - 100% - was ensnared by the rottenness at my core. And I am utterly sick of myself. There was some nice moments, true, but I went down that bad path once more. Now I am quite concerned that I'll never really be free of debt because I am a weak man. Full of flaws. The money I needn't have spent on beer. I have a roof, food, bed, allotment and Lola that's surely more than enough? Sitting down to another 2 cups of coffee on another Sunday, full of regrets. Pissed off with what people did, how they reacted to my ways and the feeling I really wasn't wanted in the brewery or in Wetherby. Let's start again. It's Sunday and I've everything I could ever need laid on my knee, under the covers, on the sofa so nice and toasty. It's too...

So far so busy. It's 17:30 and I don't believe I've stopped since I left mum's, with Lola, at 9am. But now I've got to go back to mum's and make the camp bed up: I decided going to Leeds was a push too much as I would've been incapable of anything in the morning; and a few tomato seedlings... Won't dry out in a day? They're Mexican after all. And I am watching, haphazardly, the Sky News feed. It is the last place I would turn for news: we're in Europe but The Ukraine is a million miles away socially and culturally. They keep showing 'tank' rolling by: it's very simple, and if they can film destruction from a drone all they show is destruction. *** Almost feel into the ditch of drunkenness, but ate a hearty dinner - Morrisons' Chicken Madras, rice, onion bharge, naan - and watched the end of one episode and most of another episode of Around the World in 80 Days. Mother wanted a take out, but they only take cash at the Chinese she s...

It's the beginning of Lent. 2nd March 2022. A month of my 50th year has vanished and all the good intentions of January have evaporated during that alternating February. Back on the 1st January I promised that this year would be different or it would be my last. Some things in Ukraine might make this my last for other - out of my control - reasons, but directly I am responsible for one individual who can change to be a better individual? The lady I see about my alcohol issues says I don't actually have a problem with the bottle, but that I have no 'Goal' in my life. She sees I have certain commitments - mother, Lola and the allotment, as well as the to-ing and fro-ing on either the X99 or X98 between Wetherby and Leeds, but that except for those 'must do' occupations I have no guiding light or compass to navigate by. She's correct. Never have I really had any substantial aim to my existence. Even when meditating, walking or becoming 'spiritual' there...

I did a about turn on the threshold of Bar3, as I was about to leave because it's a tedious place, but a bit of skirt, or in this case faux wet leggings hugging a fine set of pins, and returned for a half of Leffe Blonde and to try to complete the current chapter of As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning ; I am easily pleased. The usual cluster of folks at the bar, with the addition of a forgotten dog; and there goes an old face: Richard Broadbent. There is little chance of completing the chapter. *** As the cork is degorged and the pitiful nonsensical mutterings of Andy, proprietor of Bottle & Bean, who complains that Wetherby Brew Co. copied his idea... Andy's establishment isn't original, why I had the same idea some 10 years before he existed in Wetherby, but I didn't have the finances. *** Heading back to Leeds on the blessed X98 after a lovely morning in Knaresborough, with Lola and Stephen, walking a little section of the Round before we had to turn back to ge...

Is this the last year of peace in Europe, ever? God it brings me down! Watching the news with my mother three times a day and then crap nonsense television about doing up crap to sell. It's so trivial that maybe a huge war might reignite passions which seem lacking around here. On Monday after the alcohol counselling I drank two 330ml of Orval and one Bad Seed pale pint. Today nothing. Two hot chocolate: so banal. But war... It's going to get bad with sanctions against Russia! Why is Russia willing to push the west this way? Is it some perceived weakness - but the German Chancellor just backed out of the gas pipeline. *** The sound of a Blackbird singing at dawn is the best sound to awaken to. The worst is the groaning of a cheap tart in the room next to me...  Foreign language syndrome ... From a stroke. To my right a flickering teatree light: quite vague and pretty meaningless, gutters all night long as if it is a prehistoric lamp. Surely the existence of these pseudo-candles...