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Wednesday: I must carry this stone.

Sun pouring against my bedroom wall, like a flame licking from the centre of a hearth onto the exposed skin... And I was awake. Sleep or hayfever clings to my eyes: another season of itchiness and soreness is here: summer has occurred. Bugger... I so like spring! Summer can get a bit relentless and I just know it's a race for nature to grow, seed/fruit and then nothing... Ashes to ashes. From dust back into dust...and now I long for Pilgrimage. Yesterday I was low. I was considering visiting the doctor's to ask for be prescribed antidepressants again... I've had a good year off them. But I must find my own way out of depression. Killing those negative thoughts before they devour me... Pilgrimage... Portugal? June? Now I am wondering how Michael is since he got back to Frankfurt Hahn(which is not near Frankfurt) and drove back into his usual life with Steffi, Bad Vibel, the court work and memories...

Depressed Tuesday...

Yesterday I felt my life had run out of purpose. A feeling that in the past my existence was going somewhere, but now seems to be going nowhere. It's a pretty bleak feeling and, no matter if it's true or an illusion, I really felt my life wasn't worth the effort anymore. That's it - I was going to end it. Some how, by the time I left the allotment with tomatoes in the ground, that feeling of total worthlessness had receded and on Tuesday morning I am with Lola once more, going up that hill struggling to make the next 24 hours not feel pointless. She's done well so far as I won't feed her until seven. It's the rule! She needed a toilet break at 4am and then she got in alongside me until 6. Six! Well done the two of us! It's usually 5:30... Blue sky all the way and it's going to be hot. We're going out at 8 to beat the heat. Up to the Racecourse the back way through Carr Lane and Swinnow Hill, I think, as it is some time since we went that way. Tim...

Back into the mainstream.

At 1620 I realised I didn't blog today. Too busy with nothing happening. I slept well in the Z-bed in the spare room as we've AirBNB in my room. Apparently I was making noise at 5:30, but I had to stir mother at 8 so she wasn't so disturbed. Back in Leeds now to spend money I don't have in the hope of conviviality, but I've something covering my face: fifty years of dust... How do the crows living in cities feel about their relatives rurally, who live in murders differently, do they have a concept of a city or the countryside?  I don't want to go home. It's not my home. Nothing is. These crows circle in the same manner, but over a different carrion. It's not 6. I've a heap of chard to drown myself in, but I don't want to go home. It's the end of the week and the end of a long 10 days being different with Michael. Suddenly I am missing him, it and them. Those moments. I am rock solid from English Breakfasts, but I turned the corner: if I didn...

Returning to The North

The fifteen thousand English Breakfast. It is not good for me to eat so much the same sort of thing... I must clean myself from the toxins in it... Platform 4 on Cambridge Station and Michael has gone for one night to his digs on the otherside of the tracks. Suddenly, at the end, I didn't want to go! It's Cambridge and it's a great University town/city. Quick half in OTO (old ticket office) then I wait for this long day to carry me further. I wished Michael Bon Voyage and perhaps we'll do this again, but shorter as the Backpacking section has killed me! As I left London on Thursday the 5th May I felt like I was in foreign country until I caught the train just now at Cambridge Station and remembered I am in England heading to The North. It was an interesting feeling... The train is pretty busy and my space was taken, but as I am off in Peterborough, for around an hour, I didn't trouble the person there.. It's OK to sit on the floor for ten minutes? *** The train ...

Friday 13th May...

Still a little frazzled, but had a reasonable night's sleep. We're heading on the number 12 to Beachy Head around nine this morning after breakfast, in the North Laines area. First an Italian coffee and crossiant, with butter and jam, and now a mushroom and egg bun from the Flour Pot. It's a better day so far. Not as windy. Actually it's pretty still here on Sydney Street. Gulls and pigeons wheel about expecting dropped crumbs as Michael eats slowly and I gobble mine. My best friend is definitely Lola. She makes me live. She helps me forgive. The first one and final one. And it's not long now. Gentle and happy. Warm and loving. Yes I am a little tearful today because I don't know what I am doing... *** A brief walk and wait in the Pavilion Gardens for Michael to take a call from the a Judge for a case in July. The Great Escape festival starts in Brighton from Friday. The Strawberry Fields Guesthouse is fully booked, but this is enough of backpacking for me. Noth...

Brighton, etc.

Where do we go from Chichester? Well not the YHA at Eastbourne, which appears to be fully booked, and perhaps not the YHA at Brighton which has a similar issue. Michael is paying for the rooms. I guess if he was here on his own and was looking around, as we did yesterday, he'd be paying for a single room, at least, or a double room if that is all which is available. However I just know it's possible to save a little money in a private room at the YHAs around here. If we reach the goal of Beachy Head after a nice walk along the Cuckmere Haven perhaps our goal could move back through the Big Smoke to Cambridge (or something like that) a day earlier than expected? Really I can just about afford to stay in the South until Sunday as long as I've found a YHA to stop in on my own on Saturday night, after Michael has returned to Frankfurt via Frankfurt Hahn. If I was forced back to London from Cambridge then perhaps Euston Road could be my final base. But I really don't know wh...

Down off the Downs

Tough walk down off the Downs into Clanfield. I was stood at the wrong bus stop for a while so had to walk to Drift Road to connect with the First Bus number 8. As I was by a parade of shops I went into Chandler's , but I just had the worst/most lackluster of all the breakfasts eaten since Thursday morning. It was £10 and small, undercooked and uninspired, but then again the proprietor said Crossant not croissant... ... Funny old day. We did a lot of tourist stuff. Portchester, which was excellent for coffee, church, view and a walk along to the bus stop via Stargate prototypes. But I was always exhausted from the running of a warm tap in the room up on top of the Sustainability Centre. But I am still going just before nine. We're staying at the Nag's Head where I end today with a fantastic pint of Harvey's Best Bitter. Tomorrow we head east to the Cuckmere Haven... Michael and I went back into the happy groove so that the walk from awful Portchester train station to Ro...