A rebel without a clue.

A day earlier than I realised is the big op, D-day, freedom from this smudge on the right lens - cataract - I'd put it on the calendar for 7:30am on Thursday, but, after a courtesy call from St James's Hospital, I was made aware it's this morning! So here I am drinking water up until 5:30 and awaiting the sunrise over Jimmy's - blue skies all the way again. Returned to the flat, washed all that was in the cylinder, ate a protein rich dinner and faded out, but then had broken sleep as the room is getting warmer, as it does in summer, so slept mainly on the covers until the temperature receded and crawled back under until I had a feature length dream about working dockside for a luxury yacht company handing out passenger keysets to get onto a rig being blown around by a storm on the Quayside - somewhere like Middlesbrough in my head. Half an hour of drinking left before nothing for 2 hours ... I've muddy feet from watering like a madman up on the allotment in sandals!...

I've taken a larger step in the direction of CBD by buying a kit, rather than a disposable vape pen, and now I want to reduce the dosage of SRNI by half and see if I still feel as chilled out as I do currently... Less anxious with people around me. However I definitely need to reduce smoking the vape pen to more like twice a day or around meal times and not as a 'go to' like some 1940s big screen idol! Two more sleeps until cataract surgery and last alcohol until the other side of it. But how I wish it wasn't a dominant part of my life. It's so destructive. But it's been a part of my life since mother provided me with Woodpecker cider from the bottle shop in Craigie back in 1988...

My problems began the morning of the first day at Wetherby High School in September 1983 and didn't cease, except for those all too brief years in Australia, until 2013 when the big implosion occurred. Thirty years, give or take. But then something true opened up within me from 2013 and I have been readjusting to it for 10 strange years. Now I am 51 so it's 40 years in a kind of wilderness: barren, stoney, parched and unrelenting, where the horizon never changes and all potential is a mirage. In a manner of speaking, I caused this way through life myself, as I twisted and turned to constantly face a perceived threat which, however real, was mainly in my head. What complete fool I have been! At no point was the world a threat to my security at all... And I put myself on the chopping block without any consideration that I could get up and walk on away from it: turning the other cheek, waking up or becoming the Christ?

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...