Lockdown Diary - Friday 24th July 2020

What to say, about today?  Things are gradually returning to some sort of normality, though despite sleeping for quite a few hours, I awake again feeling really tired. There's a background feeling that my head is just fuzzy and the brain cells and neurons are not firing normally. Maybe I'll be able to sleep some more later? One thing I am glad of: I made the right decision in not going back to work today as I'd have been less than useless, thinking is a struggle. Probably not going to write that much.

On days like these I wonder where the time goes, but go it does.  Early morning (well, certainly early for him) son #1 went off to Guildford to meet his young lady and spend the day together.  It is really good to see him starting to turn his life around. The last few years have been pretty tough for all of us: damage you can't see is the worst, because it has to be communicated, willingly.

I've done the usual things today: did a 20 minute lying down meditation, but still couldn't fall asleep, even though I had my eyes closed, I was comfortable and was mostly managing to calm the raging mind.

I finished reading 'The Code of the Woosters', which was excellent and the perfect read when you're not fighting fit. At some point in the near future I'll read another. I also read another chapter from 'Hawkwind: Days of the Underground', which is very interesting as well as sending me back to the albums.  I finally managed to start the 'Aeolus' chapter of 'Ulysses', which was a bit more demanding, though the chapter, which begins in the office of a newspaper, and is all about communication, is written as a series of paragraphs, each beginning with a newspaper style headline. It's another fairly easy read - certainly compared to some of the later chapters.

Whilst I've been in hospital and also at home recuperating, I've also been reading an excellent poetry collection by Julia Copus, titled 'Girlhood'. I'm still only half way through it as most of the poems demand to be read and re-read.  She has some great phrases, some of which I must steal. Two of my favourites are 'A Thing Once It Has Happened' and 'The Great Unburned', which has the wonderful epigraph, 'We're The Witches You Forgot To Burn', which apparently was a banner slogan from the Women's March on Washington, following Donald Trump's inauguration.

After the final carer call of the day I decided to listen to some music, inspired by the Hawkwind book, I chose to play the live double album, 'Space Ritual', and managed to get to the start of what would have been side 4 of the double LP. I just lay on the floor and allowed myself to be swallowed up by the experience. It's one of those albums you have to play in full (or as near to as possible) - it really wouldn't work picking out tracks - especially given the continual sounds weaving through the mix from Dik Mik's sound generators and Del Dettmar's VCS3 which wholly set the scene.

For obvious reasons, this was going to be Hawkwind, but at the last minute I veered left and chose a song from John Greaves' album 'Songs'.  From it I've chosen 'The Song' which is sung by one of my favourite singers, and all round hero, Robert Wyatt.

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