This Is Not A
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Date: 21/05/25
Up And Down, In And Out
I'm painfully aware that a general update is long overdue.
There are number of reasons why this has happened, some of them interconnected. So, anyway...
First off, I can't believe how quickly this year is going. I mean, we're in the middle of May, for fuck sake! It's a bit worrying, because I can't help but get the sensation of hurtling with increasing speed towards that final precipice into oblivion. It's now five months since I was discharged from Broad Green with something like a new (or at least a substantially enhanced) life ahead of me. I had two appointments with local cardiology in February (I'm still not clear as to why two), and went back to Broad Green in early March. On the way there, I tackled the long staircase from the Dungeon Dimensions of the Wirral Line at Lime Street up to the street-level concourse with little difficulty. Once at Broad Green, they expressed great satisfaction with how things were progressing; sufficiently pleased that they don't want to see me again until September. A similar encounter with my local cardiologist earlier this week produced the same outcome (without the necessity of stairs).
The recuperation process has taken somewhat longer than I had expected - even taking into account the complications which extended my hospital stay - but, by degrees, I've got there. The substantial uptick in my stamina and, by implication, my self-confidence and sense that I can do things led initially to a degree of frustation because it was still winter and so opportunities for activity were sorely limited. Once the Spring started to edge its way into my life, however, the possibilities expanded exponentially. In short, the garden didn't know what hit it. The unavoidable neglect of two years needed to be addressed, and April saw an intense campaign of remedial weeding, and the grass got its first cut of the year somewhat earlier than usual. The entirety of the hedge got what was coming to it in early May, after which I had to cut the grass again because it grows like a bugger at this time of year.
This has all had a generally positive effect, in that it has got me out of the house for extended periods of time, this helped by a couple of spells of the best weather I can remember us having in Spring for many a long year. And the occasional dull, cold or damp day has been spent in de-cluttering indoors, shredding out-of-date paperwork and wotnot.
None of this has, however, precluded a near-crippling episode of depression, in which the 'prisoner complex' has played a prominent part, just as it did in 2011 and at various times thereafter. It would be presumed that, seeing that I'm in better physical health than for many a long year, and that the weather has been so unusually good, that would be the last thing that would happen. But that is not the way it works; the bastard will never need any pretext or excuse for emerging and stalking me once again.
This has fed into - and fed off - the fact that I have become unable to write anything. I know that 'production' has dropped off markedly in the last couple of years in any case as I have struggled to find anything worth writing about anything, including some of the Big Topics Of The Day, but the last few weeks have ramped this up to Writer's Block Defcon III (*). Even the very thought of writing something - even when I do have something to say - has brought on an almost visceral sense of aversion to the idea, thereby worsening the situation. I know that I promised myself that I would spend as much time out of doors as possible (especially given the weather), but merely shambling up and down the garden path on a near hourly basis seems a pretty meagre activity to displace the anxiety deriving from the mere prospect of sitting down here and composing something meaningful. As a result, even a piece as comparatively brief as this one has taken me nearly a week to piece together, and I'm still not sure that it's worth inflicting on the world.
I suppose the whole wretched thing will right itself in due course; it always has done before. Maybe my plans to have the sort of days out which I have been precluded from enjoying in the years since I got my bus pass will this year have their fruition; in which case, keep an eye out for me in Shrewsbury, Y Bala, Llangollen, Rhuthun, Yr Wyddgrug, Oswestry and Chester over the summer.
A quick round-up of matters arising to end:
- I finally got the Council to re-imburse me for the cost of getting an emergency plumber in after this, albeit after sixteen months of in-out-and-chase-me-round-the-gasworks.
- I got a water meter fitted. The spur for this was the bill for 2025-26 from Hafren Dyfrdwy - or 'Have Run Duffer Doodie' as the pre-recorded voice says when they robo-call you to tell you that the supply is going to be temporarily cut; that's what happens when things get centralised in England - who were going to charge me over £800 for the year, a ridiculous amount in any case, but doubly so for a single occupant. I'm confident that my actual layout for the year will be considerably less as a result.
- And finally: you'll have seen that Volume Two has finally been published. As I said here, I don't think that it's quite as good as the first one, but I have sold about half a dozen already, and that was before I told the family about it. Then again, Douglas Adams said that a second book never works as well as a first because it's an attempt to reproduce an honest failure.
So there we have it.
* One of my favourite literary tales was told to me by my old friend Alex, and concerned Ray Bradbury. Bradbury was at a Convention and - as so often - surrounded by a gaggle of bright-eyed young acolytes. These were regaling one another with the tales of being unable to write. "I had writer's block for two months!", cried one. "That's nothing", chimed in another, "I had it for two years!". And so on it went. Bradbury kept silent until there was a short pause in the lamentations, then said quietly, "I had writer's block once.". The assembly fell back, aghast; the Great Man has had writer's block! "Yes.", said Bradbury, "It was the dullest twenty minutes of my life".
