A rebel without a clue.

At 7am I left the flat with the intention of walking for two hours and coinciding with the X99 on the A58, but by the time I had reached the gates entrance to Roundhay Park, and in the glorious late spring sunshine, I felt inspired to continue until at least East Keswick and then catch the bus three hours after leaving the flat, but as I sat in the same sunshine, by the war memorial on Whitegate, I drank some tea and decided I could perhaps reach Woodhall and then I'd be in the direct environment of Wetherby and finish up at Raby Park, and an earned libation, at the Cinema before perhaps meeting Mother, Finley and Lola. But I hesitated in Wetherby, in the sunshine, a few hours before returning to Braine Road where I briefly saw Lola. Now I've realised I've been neglecting her and will, after breakfast with Robert, make it up to her - down to the river and a bit of fun.. Yesterday I covered 15 miles in 5 hours. And I wasn't sore ...

Monday morning, final few days of May. Quiet Sunday. Not exhausted or sleep deprived, but needed not to open Pandora's box ... Washing linen, making porridge and thinking of walking a little distance this morning - no buses to Wetherby until after nine - a Sunday service this Spring Bank Holiday. Meeting Robert on Tuesday for our monthly get together and yesterday I didn't look at the Course once... Reading Graham Greene but finding the novel a little flat or haphazard in its narrative structure... Perhaps it is me as I wasn't dedicated to the duty of getting into the story unfolding? It's been a while since I read anything with the cataract.

Five days since the eye operation and I feel fine: I might be overdoing the CBD though... Need to stop that! I am almost sure I am stoned from it. Everything is a bit foggy. Running a bath before getting it together for Lola and Allotment, then walking Monday ... But I forgot that Lola's at Emma's, so I am surplus to requirements: a quiet day around Leeds, some nice lunch, etc, chill out and go to Wetherby Monday morning. Yesterday I did water the allotment comprehensively.

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...