A rebel without a clue.

This morning I didn't write much before mother, and her crippled body, descended the stairway and put a stop to the journal I keep. On the X99, which is running a little late, we are passing The Windmill pub on a glorious Thursday afternoon. It might be filled to the rafters with school kids upstairs, but that is OK as downstairs is fairly civilised and quiet (except for the Kurdish (???) lady who sells the Big Issue in the Market Place in Wetherby and a couple of octogenarians - with masks still in place - who whitter constantly). We're heading up Langwith Hill, Collingham, where I once delivered mail and once asked, in utter desperation, to go for a poo-poo in a residence I delivered to off Hillcrest. That was such a long time ago: during Foot and Mouth. The Rapeseed in the field by the turning onto Crabtree Lane is the brightest yellow. It's a wonderful day. This morning was still too cold for tomatoes, and there was a slight frost in Yorkshire... I hope it wasn't on...

Crawling into bed at 18:20 because there is nothing else I feel like doing in the flat, after I ate dinner, put my dry clothes and drying rack away, washed and dried the pots, utensils and cutlery. Picked up two bags of Main Crop potatoes to get into the ground shortly - Desirée and Maris Pipers - from Wilko's around four and negotiated the meaninglessness on the streets between Albion Street and Lovell Park. Sirens outside the flat, tailbacks along Lincoln Green Road, etc, a sullen grey sky and noise from the inhabitants around me and from the dicky lift. It's possible to get used to anything? At 18:30 I am going to meditate... ... I don't feel lonely lied on my own listening to the noises around the flat, and I never feel alone when I am walking in the countryside. Yesterday the singing of birds (and now they start to permeate and interject with the motor vehicle drone) and the bright roadside blooms made me joyous. *** To live too long makes us forget the mea...

Self control. Positive freedom. So often am I out of control of what is best for me, but, as if looking through a fog, I see it not. Something inside takes control of my best self-interest and de-rails it. Some days I clearly see that I have lost control and start again from a zero point: a line in the sand. Then I step forward again trying to resist the pitfalls I put on the road I am on. Just over one week ago I returned from Limoges and the brilliant self-control required to walk and walk and walk, regardless of my wishes just to sit and give up, crying 'am I mad?' But then I return and, as though I have earned a little self destruction, fall into a banal meaningless cycle of badness. The part of my brain which I have released from the badness sees it's opportunity to become wreckless. Since that Sunday I have returned to wrecklessness, and I just can't live a life this way! It effects all my relationships, poisoning them at the root and the leaf. Yesterday I walked ...

To be sat surrounded by people who are not like you: people who seem so badly composed, where their atoms seem misplaced in a meaningless repetition: this was Easter Sunday. After a couple of draining hours up on the allotment I returned to 42 to rest and then joined Jason, Dan and Westy (people from the distant past who I still briefly interact with) for a couple of hours. Then I returned to eat and sleep until I go walkabout this morning. Something woke me around 1:30, as usual, but it can't have been cheese in the pasta meal I had for supper? Perhaps the small amount in the pesto and the few gratings I put in the dish are enough to stop my slumber. But the last voice in my head, after I'd finally found the longed for Lalaland, said don't forget Pastoral centres for accommodation on the Pilgrims Way. There are ways of being in the spirit of the Camino in the UK if only I remember the things I've learnt down the years? In Southwark there is a small Poor Clare's hou...

Back in the disappointing town. Shuttlecocking between a dirty metropolis and crisp mediocrity. It's four in the afternoon and I'm not for it! Resurrection to the same existence is pithy and false: the very first lie is the return. His death meant nothing: no death does; none would return, even if the entire cosmology changed it's structure of unchanging laws for one man, as there is no death because there is no universe; being but dream, a mental distortion, a misperception. Smoke and mirrors. Wetherby Velo cutting up the ride into a tripe filling and I hate the way some people dissect what they do. They speak as though they physically see the ride they have been on or are going on. On my wandering I never wonder what is ahead, or behind, all I want is now. The present. The fine line between something, anything and nothing: infinity. Holy Saturday passed too near to another alcohol binge as I caught up with Nick, and Co., at Wetherby Brew Co - it was always going to happen...

It's Saturday, but feels a bit like a Sunday - quite quiet on the roads around 7. For me it's probably a Monday as I am back to dog, garden and allotment duties. Back to normal. Last week doesn't count as I had the additional responsibilities of Finley after his day with Leeds Rhinos at WHS. Yesterday was definitely a Saturday judging by the numbers of idiots in fancy dress and being wankers walking down Otley Road as I headed in the opposite direction. I had too much to drink on Thursday (Friday) spent Good Friday (Saturday) recovering. It really was the first such day for quite some time. The ten miles I covered up through Woodhouse, Hyde Park, Headingley and Weetwood were never easy, but I returned back to the flat, through Meanwood, Buslingthorpe and Little London, with Mutti Pulpa and a lemon to put my body back together again. Meditating, reading and listening to the goings on around the Grange. Around 6 it felt a little chilly so I closed the window. Later on some dr...

Trying to get Lola to wait an extra hour, after we came downstairs at 6, for breakfast... She's crawling the walls and me. Now at 06:55 she's just licked her bowl clean! I am getting her nearer to 7. She can tell you exactly when she is to be fed: she's showing some unusual body language: sitting up and almost pondering my change of behaviour. Now she's back by my side on the sofa, after I'd listened to the In Our Time podcast - which I feel has just gone a little stale, or scraping the bottom of a barrel for subject matter - with still a quizzical expression on her face: such a beautiful face. It's kind of triangular and very symmetrical. It's one which has become fixed in my mind in a manner akin to mother and child (but I don't know who is the child between us). She's just sighed, as the food hits her empty belly, and returned to Snoozeland for an hour until we go on another traipse.  This weekend is meant to be a heatwave - 22°C - so I am going t...