Lockdown Diary - Friday 10th July 2020

Another day feeling really drained. Don't know if there was a period of post-operation euphoria (is there such a thing?) or if it's as simple as the drugs wearing off and the body's repair mechanisms kicking in. Whatever has been going on, I feel incredibly low on energy at the moment. I am eating, so it's not lack of food.

The day has been spent indulging my twin pleasures of music and literature.  I listened to last Sunday's 'Freak Zone', which was OK, but had nothing really exciting in it.  I started the 'Lotus Eaters' chapter of 'Ulysses', another of the chapters which I especially like: the focus is still on Bloom as he wanders Dublin doing various errands including collecting a letter from a woman he's writing to.

I also read a lot of 'My Sister, The Serial Killer', which I'm more than half-way through now.  I'm planning to read Ian McEwan's novella, 'The Cockroach', over the weekend (certainly by next Wednesday), prompted by a friend in France who's reading it in translation.

I just spent an hour or so listening to two albums in their entirety:  A.A. Williams with 'Forever Blue' and Wilma Archer's album 'A Western Circular'.  'The Cockroach' was delivered during the second album, ready to start at the weekend.

One discovery I've made is that sitting on my office chair is very uncomfortable, even with cushions, whereas the sofa in the living room is kind to my stitched area. As a consequence these letters from the edge will tend to be brief - I'm typing this in 'taking the knee' position rather than sitting down.

Casting my eye round the office from my knee-bent position, my eye fixed on this album at the bottom of a pile of 'L's. Here's Robert Lloyd with 'Nothing Matters' from the album 'Me and My Mouth!?*'

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