A rebel without a clue.

Friday morning. A good night's sleep. A fairly good Thursday. Not too hungover after a very random Wednesday, where I literally went north to come south (went left to come right)! Via Knaresborough (on the train - gratis), Spen Lane, Kirkstall Road, Otley Road, Leeds University, etc, before a bowl of baked beans - gratis - and an unbroken night's sleep. But yesterday was tough, as is usual for me (and on Ascension Day too), however it's the morning of the second Occupational Health appointment in the Light Surgery and I am not hungover as I was at the initial screening a few weeks prior. Also an appointment to have the cataract surgery done a week on Thursday (25th May at 7:30am) has been registered in my diary/calendar. Tomorrow I have Ruby overnight so I do believe, against my usual pattern, I will manage two days straight without reaching for another half pint of some real ale as I stretch out to oblivion like some desperate fool... Yesterday I spend from 9am until I ret...

Lovely morning on Monday down in the various parklands between 42 the river and the return. And at lunch time too. Decided to buy a little meat to share with Lola that fine afternoon: lamb steaks, asparagus and a medley of vegetables: Lola got around one third with her dinner. Then, stupidly, I popped out to get bread, etc, but didn't get further than the vape shop or Snug and Chatter... Oh well. Lola had a bit of a fight with me before we turned in. I awoke at 1 feeling the effects and took two painkillers. Just fed Lola - biscuits only - later something special. And am about to get ready to face this Tuesday. Unlikely to go to the allotment today, but mum's back Wednesday morning/lunchtime so I will spend the afternoon there weeding again?

Mum's away in Scarborough. It's the first time I've been @ 42 alone since before Lockdown in 2020. Mum hasn't been away in so long it's untrue! Yesterday I took Lola out in the morning for a brief walk and then we climbed aboard the X70 around 12:30pm to be dropped off on Wetherby Road, near the junction with Rudding Lane, Harrogate, to walk into The Great Yorkshire Show ground passed Fodder along the Crimple Beck by the disused viaduct, prior to meeting Nick in North Bar just after 3pm. Now all three vizslas I caterer for have visited Rooster's Taproom on Hornbeam Park Industrial Estate. She was a bit excited and barked frenetically as I let her settle in and ordered a vegan burger and a half of a Rooster's ale after having a half of a keg beer(both below 4% abv) then we walked into Town via the Stray and The Tap on Tower Street, The Little Ale House and Cold Bath Brewery before heading to North Bar where Lola had a tin of sardines and we sat outside waitin...

The promise of dog sitting in Bramham vanished into the ether: Emma's friend Lou asked another person. C'est la vie. And I don't know her dog anyway so I'd have to get to know him soon if I am to dog sit for her ever? One door shuts: now I have Ruby for an additional two days overnight on the 20th a little before I get her during July and August for a couple of weeks. We get on so well and she's super happy to be with me, and Lola gets on well with her too, so it is more ideal; it'll be nice to see her again? Just now I was looking back over the photos I took in June 2015 walking from Arles to Lodéve and recall it was when I was 'learning' about Le Chemin and really didn't know what I was doing down there in Gard and Hérault: the highlight was the Camargue and Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert abs climbing up the escapement/gorge to overlook the whole of the Hérault area: quite beautiful. After I 'quit' the Chemin I returned to the UK walking back from...

Well you never know what is around the corner? Here we are Friday morning and pretty skint for the next quarter and then a week's dog/house sitting comes along. Emma's friend Lou, in Bramham, needs me from the 27th May. Now it looks possible I am going to Montpellier with Glenn after all (as a replacement for Mark, who is, sadly, dead). Glenn wants to rock up during their solstice summer festival: which I've tried to sleep through when walking from Arles in 2015, and perhaps 2013 when I met him there (briefly). There is the route north from Nîmes/Arles to Le-Puy-en-Vellay ... Must start thinking of another pilgrimage just when I may need one as Wales wasn't a pilgrimage with too many glasses of wine! But perhaps a couple of glasses on the Strand south of Montpellier, by the large Etang de Mauguio - Carnon and Carnon-Plage ... About to catch the 7:30am X98, the one littered with chav school kids enroute to Wetherby Sty School and having a coffee and pain aux raisin in Pr...

I am currently reading a Bill Bryson travel journal and, although laughing out loud loads, wondering why he's so 'conventional' in his approach to the places he visits? Staying in nice hotels, doing all the museums and galleries, getting fatter and falling down drunk, forgetting to undress, and struggling to collect himself the following morning? The final part I understand well, but the ordinary way he goes about his vocation: travelling by train, booking into exorbitant hotels, flying across a continent (Sweden to Italy for instance)? The time he spends in Hammerfest is intriguing - just to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights - but what is he really telling me about the 'adventure' he is one? When I originally read his writings years ago I didn't see the obvious way he goes about his journeys where nothing seems at random or leftfield at all. Perhaps it was a different time? As I get older I prefer a comfortable night's sleep, a nice firm mattress, the ...

So a full day back in England and I slept so well at the flat in a freshly made bed. I'd washed the entirety of my bed linen, including the undersheet protector, prior to going down to the Dee Valley. The sun was shining as I got off the number 7 on Vicar Lane and went and bought some 'essentials' for the flat: banal toilet paper and bland toilet cleaner: both whiter than white. And a nice selection of veg to whip up a nice dinner, which was a halloumi based biriyani - but without the sauce. And I had the official letter about a PIP assessment which neither I nor Glenn can make so I will be postponing and hoping the one postponement doesn't clash with the expected cataract surgery? Why is there only one postponement ... Oh well, I will go along with one eye covered and affect a pirate accent - sounding like I am from Bristol - and hobble on the left foot and stumble on my right knee. Oh the joy of getting passed 'it' if I was ever capable of 'it...