dickory dock

Time to venture out of doors, though I cannot stand or walk for long periods. Friend-from-the-village came to clean - strange how the atmosphere in a house changes after floors and surfaces have been given attention. Into the village for lunch in the community centre where they dish up a roast lamb dinner. I have it but don't like the sensation of chewing on meat, think of the animal, the flesh, the deadness of it, remember myself as a child when first encountering English school dinners, dead man's leg stew etc. Afterwards, a trip to the Co-op for a few provisions but I begin to feel dizzy, orthostatically unstable, and blood sugar swing sends urgent Get Sugar Now messages. Why are there no cut-price post-Valentine chocolates? The shelves are stacking up, already preparing for Easter, the Lindt reindeer having morphed into bunnies. I buy a box of over-priced Black Magic, get into the car, tear off the cellophane and eat several at once. A man with a bycicle and a woolly hat sees me through the car window, bares his teeth at me and chuckles.
"That bad is it?"
I bare my teeth back at him and nod. Is what that bad? The Black Magic do their work but leave me jittery and the fruit creams hurt my teeth. Worth it, though.

A couple of people have asked me if I don't go stir-crazy from being in the house so much. No, because I have had many years of practice and sometimes there are times like this. Also it is good to look out of the window and see evidence of the forest, the natural world all around me. I remember visiting a woman with severe M.E. who mostly lay on a sofa and looked out of her window at the sky and noticed all the different cloud shapes. Her husband left a plate of sandwiches and a jug of water so that she would have something to eat in the day. To be upright, even to sit, made her dizzy. She asked me to bring some leftover soup, if I ever made it. She missed the taste of fresh vegetables. It was too difficult to read or listen to radio. She had been refused disability allowance because she was seen to be able to take herself to the lavatory and back. She had appealed and was waiting for a response. Meanwhile there was the window and the shape-changing clouds. Whatver the life you have, you live it. Usually that is how it goes.

I am still cancelling - no poetry workshop on Saturday. A few days in Brighton. And then, next week, begin again. That is the hope.