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Today I took a few loads of garden waste to the local dump. Three tubs of soil, one of weeds, in the first load. A knackered old wheelbarrow and the dismembered laurel bush, in the second. Plus sundry oddments in both.

I noticed on arrival home, after the second consignment, that the wisteria over the front door is sagging/coming away from the frame. Looking for some string or twine at home was time consuming and fruitless. So I bought some from Boyes.

The wisteria looks much better now. Still not flowering, however. And that’s how many years now? Surely it’ll flower next year!? I think it’s supposed to flower in the third year? I reckon it’s reached four now!

Stepping back for a fuller view. Looks alright to me. I still need to put a little trim/lip around the two wooden planter boxes, so they last longer.

Earlier I’d reheated some pasta Teresa made over the weekend, and added some bacon, in a tomato sauce, grated cheese, salt n’ poppers.

I’ll peruse this, for a bit, and take it with me in my working travels, this art’noon:

I’ve bought editions of this before. And simply ignored it! Doh… I must make use of this one, methinks. Else it’s just wasted money. Plus I really ought to find better ways of earning a crust. This Amazon delivery business is alright. But I don’t want it becoming a ‘job for (what’s left of my) life’!

I’m lying in bed at 9.30 am. Having been in bed since 7.30 last night. That’s 14 hours in bed. And I feel totally exhausted and unmotivated. Or, rather/perhaps (?), motivated to do as little as possible, until I go out delivering.

Now it seems maybe yesterday’s Do It Now cue-card might be more apt of significant than it felt at the time?

In part at least, I’m struggling with the fall-out, no doubt, of the last 14 months saga. Despite that being officially over now, it’s far from over for me psychologically, alas.

A worrying thought has been fusing in my mind. What if my current malaise isn’t caused by these events, but lies much deeper?

I’d wanted to quit teaching before the everything went pear-shaped. But I had no alternative plan. Delivering for Amazon is supposedly just a stop gap. But I’ve been doing it over a year now.

I’ve struggled with depression pretty much all my adult life. Indeed, prob’ since my mid-teens. But I had started feeling better, just prior to this latest and by far the worst episode.

One of the problems is that the deeper down a dark well you tunnel, the harder it is to see things as they really are. Or so it seems to me. So much so that – like so many people in life – you wind up with a very parochial lack of general awareness. You can’t see the bigger picture.

To use a very apt cliché, you can’t see the wood for the trees.

And then there’s what I’m doing now, trying to think my way out of it all. Is it time I realised that that hasn’t really worked for me,? Looked at over the overall span, thus far, of my life? Has the time come (is it way overdue?), when action should replace thought?

Getting out and doing always leads to things developing or happening in a way thinking alone not only doesn’t, but – through overthinking and confusion – actively works against.

Ulrika! That’s it. Despite the dopey (literally) soporific attraction of what I learned today Gen-Z Tik-Tok-ers are calling ‘bedrotting’, I must – in an attitude of (ironically) mind over mood – get up, get out, get on!

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’!

Apart from resting and watching snooker, I’ve done very little today. We played cards, earlier. And I replaced a dead lightbulb on the upstairs landing.

I was going to chat with uncle Terry, this afternoon, but ducked out of that, as I was feeling pretty crappy. The only other noteworthy activity was designing this card, for Teresa:

It was very sweet to see how chuffed Teresa was with it. That’s helped lift my spirits a bit. But sadly I’m still rather like the balloon that Piglet bursts, in the Pooh story… Deflated!

Feeling so down and blue, I decided – once I had enough shifts in place to justify the extravagance – to purchase the above. I love the Dangermouse series, and have that on DVD. In fact I suspect I’ll be watching some of that over the next few daze…

What little Count Duckula I’ve seen, I’ve loved. David Jason’s voicing, and the overall characterisation, are top notch silly fun.

Words of wisdom from the author of Walden and Civil Disobedience.

‘However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you think. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, difficult as it is…

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.’

Accompanying exhaustion and depression… total loss of libido…

The day nears its end. I went to bed about 7.30 pm. Normal for me nowadays! I’ve been watching snooker, on and off. But not really getting into it. I did watch an episode of Dangermouse. Silly but fun.

I also enjoyed watching this:

I tried to sleep, just now (9.30-ish). Sleep mask on. Rain sounds playing. But just didn’t feel right. So back to more snooker. Anti-fungal foot powder* on, for my itchy toes (they don’t help with sleep!).

* Is this just talc’? What, if anything, does it actually do?

Todays randomly picked cue-card, whilst sage advice, didn’t really hit the mark. So now, abed, I picked another (again, blind). This one feels much more apt/pertinent:

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.