Seb Palmer

Phew! I was worried I might not sleep. Ha!

Last night I went to bed early, at about 8pm, and fell asleep straight away, and – although I’ve woken up a few times – I’ve slept almost solidly, through till midday!

After my first bout of sleep last night – 8.30-10 pm – I was worried I wouldn’t go back to sleep. So I started reading The Broken Ear. About halfway through I stopped and went back to sleep.

I just finished this quaint ol’ Tintin adventure, a few moments ago. Followed up by a dose of quality time with Chester. Outside it’s cold, grey, and rainy. Rather like what Donald Fagen aptly describes as ‘the weather in my head’!

Having a bit of a wobble at present. And looking for ways to restore equilibrium.

How often do I hear folk on Gardener’s Wold extolling the therapeutic virtues of gardening and green spaces!? All the time, of course.

Earlier in the day I cancelled the second delivery shift I’d booked. Just too tired! So, ‘pon returning from my first, and now only delivery shift, I go out into the garden. Despite the lowering glowering darkening clouds, heavy with the threat/promise of rain.

I’ve chosen to trim the Laurel bush right back. I might even take it out completely. So’s I can enlarge the pond. Hmmm!?

Teresa’s on the warpath about it! Uh-oh…

The thing is, it’s going to be a heck of a lot easier to work on the pond without that poking me all time. The temptation to enlarge the pond is also growing in strength.

One of the great things about getting out of the house, whether it’s work or pleasure, gardening, or whatever, is the unexpected.

Our little Robin buddy was a major tonic for me today. As I worked and cleared, he busied himself finding insects for his babes. And he was bold as brass, coming up very close.

I was charmed and beguiled by what he was doing. I wonder what – beside a feeding opportunity – he made of me?

Some time later… I’m trying to hack out the stump of the Laurel bush. Much, much, much easier said than done! Robin is popping by regularly, to feed and socialise. What a little dude!

One of the things making this job sooo much harder is the spoil of rubble, broken glass, and bricks… even whole bricks, that’s all around the roots.

I had a little blip, or relapse, recently. And it’s costing me dear, mentally, psychologically, spiritually, even, perhaps? Four days have passed, and still I feel like shit! I have to find resources to combat this.

One such resource is exercise. Another is work. A third is getting into healthy routines. And a fourth, amongst others, is my cue-cards. Sometimes – and today is such a time – I’ll randomly pick a card, and that’ll be my affirmation for the day.

Todays could not be more apt!

Driving home from my shift today, I spotted this, in some (rich/lucky?) person’s driveway.

I think the traction engine belongs to the more modern house, just out of view above, and behind in the shot below.

Does he/she fiddle, while Rome burns?

This sighting kind of made my delivery day. Which in other respects – although the weather was mostly amicable – was a little dull.

Intriguingly it’s a ‘Combination! on one side, and an ‘Enterprise’ on t’other. Wonder why that is?

My delivery shift today was in Cambridge. So I took the opportunity, once finished, to park in town, and visit The Fitz, for another look at their current William Blake show.

Our previous visit was great. But not sufficient to properly take it all in. On the walk from the car park to The Fitz, there’s loads of triffick architecture. Here are a few snaps:

The above door is opposite Pembroke. I’m not sure which College it belongs to. I’m assuming it’s part of the all powerful University? Could it be part of the Whipple Museum of the History of Science? I don’t think it’s part of the Museum of Zoology…

We love the chimney stack along this road. So grand, and yet so much a thing of their times.

And so, to the Fitzwilliam Museum itself. First port of call, the subterranean toilet block. Just as I enter the latter, a stream of young foreign students exit, one of whom says ‘hello!’, in a rather impish manner. Young scamps!

The above sculpture is placed just outside the loos. Wonder what the subject would make of his situation now?

I love the (?) ceramics. And I’ve had numerous postcards of his work over the years. I may even have a wee book (poss’ from the Shire series?) or summat like it, on him? I hadn’t realised that this particular design was slightly 3-D!

The above is a wooden Bodhisattva. Looking very relaxed, despite missing his right hand and poss also his right foot.

And finally, to the show itself… William Blake…

I took another snap o’ this ‘cause I am one of the Lustful. And I was intrigued by my Dantean Doom.

This pair of prints is interesting. Separated by many years, and based on the work of another artist, what I particularly like is how Blake develops the detail of the setting. Which is entirely his own contribution. The original source is the figure alone.

The exhibition as a whole is great for setting Blake in the context of his times, amongst his peers. And showing such things as the veneration of classicism in art education, at that period. How Blake reacts to it all over time is fascinating.

There are some very intriguing prints in the show which illustrate Blake’s, erm… commercial illustration work. The above is one such. And it’s doubly fascinating, because it’s one of several he contributed to a work about slavery in British Guiana.

My wife’s family are from Guyana. A legacy of the slave trade, returned to British shores.

Blake was very much anti-slavery. Although the book for which this and other illustrations by him were commissioned wasn’t published as an anti-slavery work – the author (a former soldier) had been complicit in putting down slave results – it was adopted by the movement on account of its unvarnished accounts of the brutality of slavery.

On leaving The Fitz, the eye is once again constantly arrested by architectural splendour and beauty.

In addition to the several Colleges along Trumpington St, there are many churches. Further into town it becomes Kings Parade, then Senate House Hill. All of which feel, to the pedestrian, like a single street.

If you take Great St. Mary’s, on Senate House Hill, as a start or end point, and work backwards towards the Fitz, there’s an ecclesiastical embarrassment of riches, including such jewels as King’s College Chapel, St Botolph’s, and the above pictured Emmanuel, which is right beside Little St. Mary’s, this last of which has an enchanting graveyard/garden.

I then met Teresa, at Heffers bookshop. Whilst waiting for her I had a brief look over this:

I bought a set of 10 Bill Blake postcards, from The Fitz. I’m massively tempted by two Blake books: the exhibition catalogue, and a Complete Illuminated Manuscripts.

And, as a final money-saving thought. Next time, Park & Ride and buses! Parking in The Grand Arcade cost me just under £10! Street parking opposite The Fitz is insanely expensive, at £7.20 per hour!

Whilst tidying up I came across these scraps of paper. I’m going to archive anything worth keeping digitally, and bin ‘em! All part of the de-cluttering process.

Today I had a blip. Or a relapse. In fact I’ve had two, as I had one yesterday, as well. Yesterday, I had a bottle of this:

I posted about enjoying this tipple back in August of ‘23. But, for better or worse, I’ve become someone for whom, it would seem, any alcohol is a bad idea.

And I’ve been practicing this realisation pretty well. Being tee-total for about four months solid now. And that span of time would be quite a bit longer, except for a previous relapse.

The thing is, booze disinhibits, and leads me to other foolishness. But I’m not going to dwell on any of that. Because I don’t want to empower it with the oxygen of attention.

Instead, I want to take this post as an opportunity to meditate more broadly on addictive behaviour across the board. I think I’m prone to addictive habits. And modern consumer culture exploits us all mercilessly, in this respect.

I have, or have had, addictions to books, T-shirts, trainers, drums, guitars, books, tools, wood, art materials, toy soldiers, books, models, records, CDs, books and more. We sanitise and legitimise this behaviour as ‘collecting’.

I think it’s high time I began a series of purges. I’ve been flirting with decluttering for a good long while now. But my most harmful addictions are telling me I need to address two themes very much addressed in strands of Buddhism:

Craving

Attachment

So, I’m going to take today’s disturbing alarums as a call to purgative action. Indeed, one of the ways I got through this difficult day was tidying up around our home. Nowhere near enough. But each little step in the right direction eventually adds up.

Sometimes I hold on to stuff thinking ‘I can sell that’. And I really ought to try harder, and actually sell a shitload of stuff. But I fear the time is long overdue to just give or throw stuff away. The clutter has to be defeated!

I think the freedom gained by shedding stuff will far outweigh the loss of the stuff itself. This said, there have been times when I’ve regretted getting rid of stuff. But there are two things about that:

First, I should dial back my attachment to material things. Easy come, easy go. Second, most of the stuff I’ve got rid of, I either don’t miss, or I really oughtn’t.

Today, April 23rd, is St George’s Day. Here in March it was celebrated early, over the last weekend. We had intended to go down to the event. But in the end we didn’t bother! Both too tired, alas.

The ‘facts’ of the supposed martyrdom of Felix and Audactus are, according to Wikipedia, ‘a legendary embellishment of a misunderstood inscription’. The Chinese whispers that underpin religious tradition, eh!?

Why do I jump from George to Felix and co? Because the latter are thought to perhaps have some grounding in historical fact. Oh, and also because I like the Carlone painting.

To my mind all religion is the legendary embellishment of the misunderstood. It’s best hope of any connection with reality is as poetic metaphor.

Today was a bit of a struggle. I tried to book more work. But shifts there were none! Watched a bit of afternoon snooker. Fell asleep for about an hour.

As on a few other recent occasions, I felt steamroller flat. Like a dirigible that’s just been sat on by Mt Everest. Such levels of fatigue get to be depressing. I had a doc’ appointment (well, ‘nurse practitioner!). But nothing has been diagnosed.

Getting out for work is always something of a tonic, for cabin fever. But in addition to exhaustion, poverty is grindingly depressing. Bills went out today that took me over my overdraft limit. I spent a lot of this morning trying to sort money shit out.

Oh dear, this is the kind of trivia that I sometimes loathe the interweb for! But… what can I say? Other than… a White Twix?

My delivery rounds finished in Gamlingay. So I took the opportunity to have a walk around St Mary The Virgin. Very impressive, externally. But shut, sadly.

I’ve even applied for a ‘cost of living’ grant, online. I’ll be applying for Council Tax reduction as well. Grimly enervating soul destroying stuff!

The first thing to really lift my spirits, as I drove around delivering today, was passing through the picturesque village of Waresley.

Then a bit later, I had a nice chat with a lady I delivered to in Gamlingay, about MX5s. She had a more modern one, with an electric collapsible hardtop. She also had a very stylish old home.

And just down the street from this nice lady’s home, the enormous weighty pile that is St Mary The Virgin.

I had a saunter around the perimeter of this imposing edifice. And whilst doing so fell in with a very nice tweedy gentleman, who was walking what I assume was either his daughter or granddaughter.

He made some interestingly jocular remarks about my interest in the church, inc. an allusion to lead thievery. To which I riposted with something about it being the only affordable source of lead for my toy soldiers, which he liked.

These delivery rounds interactions can, as they were today, be quite pleasant. All of which helped pull me out of a mire of exhausted poverty-stricken maudlin ruminating.

We agreed what a shame church vandalism and theft are. And I lamented that this church has always been closed when I’ve tried to view it. The little girl – a blond pig-tailed sweetie – then piped up about it only being open on Sundays.

I told her I’d had something of a falling out with God, and generally avoided calling at his house when he might be in. I wonder what she made of that? I really liked them, and they seemed pleased with me!

All of which reminds me of a quote I recently read, that was attributed to Kurt Vonnegut, about the pleasures of puttering about. Indeed, Kurt! You are spot on. Who know what little gems of experience life has in store for us?

I ought also to mention that I briefly dropped in on Dad and co, in Hardwick, before starting work. They very kindly took receipt of some Freecycle wood/glass doors I’d been given, for me to collect. Which I did.

I’d love to get inside St Mary The Virgin (snigger, chortle, etc), and see this window from t’other side. Another time, perhaps?

Wow! How utterly fabulous