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I really wanted to eat lunch out today.

But lack o’ fundage means that’s an extravagance I cannae afford. So I went to Sainsburys, and spent more than I would’ve in the local café (to be pronounced, Caff!).

Sounds daft on first gloss. But of course I’ll get at least two such meals out of that, in terms of certain ingredients – eggs, chips – and much more cheese n’ peas wise.

The mushrooms we had already. Oh, and I got some porridge n’ all. Ah, me, the rock n’ roll lifestyle, eh?

The chips were McCain microwaveable ones. Never tried them before. They were ok. The peas were alright, but not the best I’ve had, by a very long margin.

I bought a nice white roll. Much better than ordinary bread. And then slathered the whole (to be pronounced wole, a la Fred Dibnah) lot wi’ salt, pepper, n’ mayo.

As I prepared this modest yet tasty repast, I thought to myself, ‘maybe I should do a recipe book?’ And call it something like Cooking For Proles, or maybe Serfs Up?

Gaaahh!

Poverty and ill health – mental as well as physical, alas – conspire to prevent me making this gig. Which sho’ nuff snuck up on me! It’s tonight, at The Barbican, in the Big Bad Ol’ Smoke.

Tickets are over £40. And I’m scraping bottom (eugh!) fiscally at present. And have been for ages. So it’s a no go. What a bummer.

The Man is 78, as well (five years older than my ailing Pa!). So who knows if or when he’ll be back? I really should’ve planned my life better. For a billion reasons. Missing this is just another one.

But, hey-ho. You gotta roll with the punches. And I just need to be mellow – as Lee Hutson (as he likes to be known these days Stateside) himself exhorts us to be – and accept my current reality.

Mayhap I’ll have a listen to him, this evening, in honour of his visit to our benighted shores?

Love ya, LeRoy… wish I could join you tonight! Have a great gig…

Until the release of this video I’ve always far preferred Louis Cole’s solo stuff to anything by Knower. The one exception to that being (?), which is real corker.

Partly that’s been because, at least in my limited experience, both Cole’s mellower and funkier moments have been on his solo side. This, however, ticks both those boxes wonderfully.

Mellow, with a super-funky groove, and Cole’s signature haunting harmonies, and a beautiful cast of lovely musical brethren and sistren, old and new.

This is the kind of thing that helps an ageing duffer like me maintain a faith that there are parts of humanity not being crushed into zombie serfdom by ‘the machine’.

* Image from Sheldrake’s Twitter account.

Well, we went to see Merlin talk about his book, Entangled Life, and it was good. We met Cath Coombs there, but not – at least not until after – her ‘plus one’, Janey, who arrived late.

Cath jokingly (I’m assuming?) said I might be bored, having just read the book. And either because of the ‘orrible ‘ead cold I’ve got – I was sneezing like a mofo all day, but (both amazingly and mercifully!), during the talk – that very nearly was the case.

The talk itself was structured as an interview, with questions from a Topping staff member, to which Merlin responded. This was then continued afterwards, with questions from the audience.

It was, like the book itself, fascinating. Although there was very little that was new or fresh, to me, in the talk, that I hadn’t already encountered in the book. Nevertheless, it was still fascinating. Sheldrake is a charming speaker, and his enthusiasm for his subject is contagious.

Tim Oliver was also there, with son Sam. I said a brief hello to them, both afore and after. Teresa wanted us to go straight home, so we didn’t really get to meet/know Janey, Cath’s friend. I’d have liked to have hung out with Cath, etc, at least briefly.

Hey-ho! Maybe it was my cold/sneezing, and thus being generally tired. Maybe it was Teresa’s slightly anti-social tendencies? All in all I left feeling a bit glum. But maybe that’s just me, at this difficult time in my life?

The picture above accompanies an article that I haven’t read (beyond a quick glance), as yet, which looks intriguing; I might well read it in full, at a later date.

I headed out to work too early by mistake today. So I’ve wound up eating a salad-bar take out salad, from the Stanground Morrisons, in Peterborough, sat in my car.

I’m feeling an awful amount of anxiety at present. For numerous reasons: drank too much last night; didn’t sleep properly; omnipresent financial struggles, etc.

I have a few tools and strategies, and whatnot, for such times. for starters I might call Samaritans, and get a load off my chest by telling the hapless sod on the other end o’ the line all my troubles.

I try and make sure that there’s positivity in the mix, as if I just vent and focus on the bad stuff, it only makes things worse. Today I had a mediocre chat with a lady Samaritan, followed by a longer and better one with a Scots guy on another helpline.

But I’m posting this now because I’m parked up in Peterborough in the cold, the dark, and the rain, all of which seem ‘orrible apt to my baseline mood.

But I’m determined not to let my dad chemistry… er, wow, there’s a Freudian slip… bad chemistry, that should’ve been, overwhelm me! I’ve decided that today, after many, many, many false starts, re trying to control my drinking, I simply have to face the ugly truth, and concede that I’ve lost control.

To re-assert it, I must simply stop drinking any booze whatsoever. Possibly for the rest of my life. But certainly till I’m happier, healthier, and back in control (or at least more control). That pledge, to myself and to Teresa, begins today.

I’m really posting, however, as a note to myself, re these positive affirmation cue-cards I made, and keep in my wallet. I recently printed a new set, as I’d given half of my old set to dad, after one of his booze-fuelled meltdowns.

He and I have discussed getting a set each properly printed, for arse-elves…

On my call to the lady Samaritan, I told her about how I use these – I was looking at them at the time – and the first one I read off to her was ‘Take Time’. Then I read a bunch more.

She suggested, why didn’t I just focus on one card, and really meditate on it. Which is a suggestion I like. And, lo’, on taking the cards out of my wallet ‘Take Time’ is not just the top card, but the top two!

I have duplicates within each set, plus I have a set and a half, due to the reprinting and giving dad some of them. So most are duplicated at least twice, and some of the same cues are yet more plentiful.

So here I am, early for my work shift. Sat in the car, taking time. Hoping that doing so might allay my anxieties! And you know what, I think it’s working. Only mildly perhaps. But that’s still something.

Another thing I do, to finish on a footnote, so to speak, is the Joe Wicks seniors workout I’ve occasionally referred to before. And again, that can help lift my spirits a little. These tools, ‘umble as they may be, are important!

I just finished the mammoth fifth chapter; Stars In Their Courses, 154 pages – the size of a small paperback novel – on the battle of Gettysburg.

Marking, more or less, the middle of the trilogy, and, more or less, the middle of the war, it’s a kind of midway hinge of the whole story, and marks the beginning of the end for Lee and Johnny Reb.

I often write about how much I love many short chapters. It’s nice to chomp steadily and quickly through bite-sized morsels. Mammoth chapters can feel like a real slog, sometimes.

Not so here, however. Within the chapters there are little mini-breaks. And I treated these like mini-chapter-ettes. I have the Gettysburg movie on DVD, and that’s a two-disc affair. That left me thinking it was a two day battle (it’s a while since I watched that!).

But it was three days, and there were also peripheral actions. And all of this is covered admirably here. Indeed, to all intents and porpoises, this chapter really is a mini-novel. Highly enjoyable!

The battle itself, with Lee missing his eyes (Jeb Stuart’s cavalry), and Meade forced to fight on ground other than that he’d chosen and preferred, was therefore an instance of two generals having to deal with fighting under less than ideal ad hoc conditions.

Lee’s formerly successful hands off m.o. seems clumsily mistaken here, and comes undone. Whereas Meade’s typical and predictable Union caution, so often their undoing, in this instance seems both correct, and pays off.

This very bloody battle becomes the first significant clear cut Union victory in a long while, and a turning point – albeit a predictable enough one (re the overall arc of the war, that is, rather than the individual battle) – in the war.

Shelby Foote’s enthusiasm is contagious. And his writing style, informed no doubt (in a Stateside echo of British novelist R. F. Delderfield’s Napoleonic passions) by his authorial skills.

Fabulous! Very highly recommended.

PS – The title sounds Shakespearean, but is, according to my brief look online, Biblical, coming from the King James’ Judges, 5:20, and, very aptly, referring to the fortunes of war:

They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.

Wow! What a load of weird shit I just awoke from. I was dreaming about orgies, and elephants and lions, and all sorts. Bonkers!

There was stuff tethered, albeit only loosely, in reality – Teresa and I cuddling Chester – but he was super-ripped, a kind of cartoon Arnold Schwarze-pussy!?

There was a whole segment of the dream in which I was staying with a crazy rich family, who were a kind of ever-shifting mix of toothless hillbillies, and suave rich folk. They seemed to live semi/feral, in either Africa or a game park. There were elephants. And shortly after that, lions.

At one point I’m in a shack, facing off several lions, who are trying to get in. I’m shouting/roaring at them, to scare them off, and they’re on their hind-legs, roaring back, trying to get in, via those two-part farm style doors.

And, as is the way with dreams, suddenly things shift. And we’re rounded up and herded off; are we now prisoners, or were we rescued? It isn’t at all clear.

There was also a bit where a big character says he doesn’t like rabbits, and proceeds to drop-kick one over a house, only for it to survive, and, after a pause to recover, hop/limp off. What’s that all about?

But the bit I enjoyed the most was a full on sex orgy, in which I got to eat plenty of sopping wet… er, well… least said soonest mended. But that was a seriously bonkers night of dreams.

I kind of wish it were possible to record them. There’s so much more in them than one can get down or convey afterwards. It remains my view that, to at least some degree, they’re a bit of a random kaleidoscope, a smorgasbord (or in this instance a ‘smorgasmbord’), maybe even a ‘flushing out’, of the mind.

Essentially random, our brains respond by seeking to make order and narrative out of it all. Which is what they do anyway, in waking life as well, with the raw material of ‘real life’. Properly weird, but very enjoyable!

I just finished reading this terrific little book. One of the many joys of reading are the ways in which, as one reads, what one reads seems to relate to one’s own life.

In many ways, whatever we’re into, from our passions to the chores life may force upon us, all this stuff becomes part of the medium of living, such that we then filter our lives through it all.

This seems peculiarly apt for a book such as Entangled Life.

One of the chief takeaways for me, on having just finished reading the book, is neatly summed up by the author in his final chapter:

Ambiguity isn’t as itchy as it was; it’s easier for me to resist the temptation to remedy uncertainty with certainty.

P. 251, Epilogue.

That seems like a good lesson to learn.

But aside from that, this is a plain ol’ rip-snorting good read, in the tradition of the best of popular science. Educating and entertaining, simultaneously. Wonderful!

And I’m chuffed that – after a mild panick, where I thought I’d lost my copy – I’ve finished the book in advance of the authors’ forthcoming talk, in Ely, this Tuesday coming. I’m very much looking forward to that.

Will the shelves, at left in the above pic, fit in the drawers, at right? I emptied and moved the drawers into the left corner. But, it turns out the answer is… NO!

First of all the chesty o’drawers is too narrow, width-wise. By only two or three centimetres. But it’s also too tall. By a similar minuscule margin. Drawers plus shelves equals more height than we can accommodate.

I measured Teresa’s other chest o’drawers. And lo, ‘twas both wider, and not so tall. Possibly poifeck? So, I emptied that set of drawers, moved it into the corner, and, ‘wallah’, as TV chefs like to say…

I want to give the shelves another day, to dry out and cure a bit more, before putting a lorra expensive/precious books back on them.

All of this shifting stuff around has left us needing to find new places for the former bedside drawers – seen in their new homes, above – which are, I’m assuming, what would’ve been the base of an old desk. My dad had a roll-mop desk with exactly these sorts o’drawers.

This also means that the blue drawers can move left, and the office/studio door can, if we want, be re-hung. Let’s think about that, eh… hmmm!?

There’s still a fair acreage of wall and skirting board to be painted. And a few dabs of flooring to be neatened up. But this revamp is nearing overall completion. And I think, all in all, I’m pretty pleased.

Alas, another of the many churches not open to the public. I’ll pop back another time, perhaps?

I love the name of this village… Friday Bridge! I wonder how it got that name? A quick look online yields this:

Friday Bridge is Fridayesbrugg ‘1298Ass , Frydaybrigge 1340 Imb.fridai is the name of a fishery of the monks of Ely in 1086 (InqEl), later Frideiwere (1251ElyCouch ). There was also a Fryday lake 1570 Imb in Elm. In Haddenham also we have Frydaye weyr 1549Ct , Frydayeware1608AddCh , and near Whittlesey we have Fridaylake , Fridaylone 1244, 1286 Rams. These should probably be associated with fishing by the monks for Friday fare and not be associated with other Fridaynames discussed in PN Sr 410–11.

Talking of names, my fascination with churches has me wondering why, after the split wi’ Rome, all those years ago, are so many churches still styled ‘St [insert patron Saint here]’?

Whilst delivering for Amazon/Morrisons, I saw this knackered old diesel loco’. Two guys were nearby, so I stopped briefly and chatted with them. Turns out this might be the future ‘gate guard’ for the putative Bramley Line heritage railway, a local project aiming to reopen an old disused line ‘twixt March and Wisbech.

I told the chaps, Clive and Dave, I/we might like to pitch in, and get involved. They gave me several leaflets. It’d be good to have a heritage line on our doorstep. And March really should have one, being as the ol’ marshalling yards were once a major hub.