Tag Archives: diary

A blog can be a very dangerous thing.

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Here I am with the space to write but presently having to overcome an immense inertia to move at all.  There are a multitude of reasons/excuses that I will spill out across this entry:

It is too hot. It is 38 degrees in the shade outside this traditional stone farmhouse in France. It has always been a fine refuge from solar radiation. It has shutters, small windows and a shaded velux window at the top of the stairs – always open – to funnel the heat out.  I keep all the other windows closed during the day. But after two weeks of very high temperatures and no rain apart from one brief thunderstorm a 3.30 last night I have the strong impression that the stone walls are themselves beginning to conduct heat. Nothing spectacular but the first floor is now noticeably warmer than the ground floor and considerably cooler than the top floor.  Escape is becoming more difficult.

I have been ill.  After a few weeks of good health as the stage one arthritis in my hip settled down I flew Ryanair to London crammed into the full plane, breathing in whatever my fellow sufferers passengers were breathing out I picked something up. After a suitable period for incubation my chest exploded with violent but unproductive coughing a few days later. This turned into a bronchitis that I’m only now – three weeks later – fairly confident I’ve overcome. I also began to develop a strange pain in my right eye for which my doctor back here in France has prescribed anti-biotic eye drops. A three day supply and on day two I see just a little sign of improvement. These are petty complaints in comparison to the dreadful diseases I hear about most days on the BBC. At least I am not being starved or bombed or – to my knowledge  – being targeted by death squads. But this is me and I find them constantly, very irritating and debilitating as they intrude in every context, including the night. So…

 I am tired. I am very tired.  Giving into that tiredness brings on guilt at my inactivity and disgust at the hot, coughing, sweating-into-my-bad-eye slug I have become. Coffee and my morning fitness routine provides me with a positive bounce at the beginning of the day but it doesn’t last more than an hour or so. This week I have been racing the sun to get to my dry and dusty garden tasks before the radiation fries me. But I sweat and tire very quickly. I can only do a 90 minute stint before retreating frustrated to the morning bath I postponed to get out there early. The dust is not helping my chest or my eyes.

There are things I want to express that I dare not express. Wisdom has crept up on me late in my complicated determined life. Some mysteries will remain mysteriously mysterious.

I am crippled by outrage. I suffer outrage every day when I turn on the news and see genocide, war cruelty, starvation and a world full of governments unwilling or unable to stop it.  Where the hell do I start? I don’t want my blog to be just a long succession of political revelations and justified anger. You can go anywhere for that. (I recommend Novara Media). But it might be time for some of that.

I am in danger of being disempowered completely; paralysed by the rapidly growing awareness that there is nothing we can do – nothing anyone of good empathetic will can do – except that which ultimately the global oligarchs and techno-feudalists actually allow us keyboard warriors to do.  They know who I am. I’ve been on a file since 1974. They could come for me any time they need to.  It’s just that I am too insignificant as well as a bit careful.  A flea on the back of a flea. Conspiracies they know what to do with but I have lived my life inside out. They allow me to post my outrage on my blog and on social media because information is power and I give them mine – and yours – every time I post. 

As ever I’m more useful than dangerous. When the round-ups begin it will depend on their arrest strategy. Will they take the insignificant first or last? I have a very low pain threshold and may reveal all I know under the threat of sharp sarcasm. They’ll kill me anyway. of course.  Any mass revolutionary party that admits me needs to have a cell structure. I hope Jeremy and Sara are taking this advice into their account.

Resistance IS futile yet we are driven to resist. Revolution is impossible yet we are driven to revolt. What are we going to do? We have no choice.

Clearly – from the extent of the above – not having enough time is not a valid reason/excuse.

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Early Muck Movements

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It’s been a while since I’ve been able to say this but I slept quite well.

I went out at eight to continue moving the compost around before the sun rose very far; before the threatened 39 degree heat started to build. I emptied the compost bin in the secret garden and spread it in what we’ve called The Pit – the vast area from which the rioting bamboo had been removed.

My neighbour Fred the Healer joined me at half past eight (not the eight promised) and we then moved the compost from the bin behind his house to the bin in the Secret Garden. Now that is all roughly in the right place I just have to tidy up the bits of wood and things that we left behind. It will be ready for all the chipped wood that the tree surgeons will deposit there in September.

Tomorrow, Fred is coming back at eight o’clock (allegedly) and we’ll continue to move the compost from the mounds beneath the tall trees at the top of the garden and spread that out in The Pit. There will also be rocks to move. I think Fred understands the mission. It’s looking quite promising.

My mission for the rest of the day is to stay out of the 39 degrees heat and to think.

An intimate excerpt from real life now. Deeper stuff will follow. It’s cooking at present.

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Ten minutes past three in the afternoon on a day that has been pretty unproductive in terms of outdoor work. The temperature just at the moment here in Nouvelle Aquitaine is 37 or 38 degrees C, which is very hot, too hot for me. My first beer seemed in order. There is a breeze blowing which perhaps makes it slightly easier to bear when I actually have to go out. I’m watching the fishpond evaporate. The fish have all gone deep.

This morning I didn’t begin shovelling compost until the sun was over the horizon. I’d stopped to get dressed in yesterday’s filthy working clothes and eat some muesli with berries. I managed two or three wheelbarrow loads before giving up as my sweat began to run. I was listening to “Technofeudalism” by the Greek marxist as I worked. A better book than I expected. I had to replay half a chapter when I eventually got indoors. I might have to do that again…

I also dragged the 50 metre hose around to (illegally) water the plants in the back garden. Just in time for the camellia. Figgy the young fig was also grateful. The pool is very clean and inviting. I wish I could swim.

I have spent most of the day indoors, watching Flog It on BBC, managing my eye drops and painkillers and grumbling about almost everything else to myself.

My wife phoned me from Margate this morning and the phone call made me feel I was the centre of her world for a while in amongst her grandchildren and that’s lovely and then later she texted me to help her to buy the right size bolt for the toilet seat repair I’m going to undertake when she returns. A cheerful and understanding phone call plus attention to my ironmongery needs. What else can a husband ask for?

So really not too bad a day apart from the heat and my eyes which sting and sting and sting and the washes and eyedrops which are going in very, very regularly, six or seven times a day. I was pretty miserable this morning. My ears, my eyes, my chest are all diseased in one way or another. I had a headache that I managed with paracetamol.

I looked at my right eye in the mirror about half an hour ago and I think I might be able to see the beginnings of some improvement which is hopeful because the instructions that came with it say if there is no improvement after 10 days see your doctor. So I suppose I shouldn’t expect it to work too quickly. Aquatic battles need to be fought on the salt seas of my tears.

Now, at 3.45pm another cold beer is calling from behind the fridge door. All I have to do is dodge between patches of intense solar radiation and find the fridge.