15 the July 2024

We've had this lad staying. His identity is built upon his on and off life of a new age traveler. I left the scene shortly before he joined and I ve had brief returns over the years. I left just as the green new age thing was coming to a end and the puritans ethnic was breaking open to rave culture and the growth of a nihilistic outlook where tranps and beggars came together with the shift from cannabis, lsd, mushrooms that provided a DIY shamanism. These new travellers, aligned with road protesters and the drugs took on firstly an alcoholism of cheap cider and the now iconic special brew giving its name to a wild sub genre of the movement; the brew crew. Given that the government were implementing their Criminal Justice Bill arguably the new Agee travellers needed some protection or at least a harder edge. The moralistic originals were starting to slip off to Ireland, Portugal and Spain for an easier life. By now most had children and few parents wanted to see their kids grow up like that.

The lad who stayed for a few days has only a rudimentary understanding of his cultural history and has been a heroin addict for the 23 odd years I've known him for. He aspires to a. paganism and so I showed him one of a group of lives I had made for friends during winter solstice. All the wood came from Pilton and the blades were holly, the handles in oak with three black walnut rivets. I explained their sacred mature, their imbued power. He knew golly was white but when I tried to explain where the word Druid came from he looked blank and ignorant. I explained that Dru means oak and Id is Latin for knowledge I further explained that Druid means the knowledge of the oak. Holly is the holy word and that these knives had been made on sacred ground using sacred material. What disgusted me was that surely Druid must be in the first term of hippy school but he didn't even know that. Further he had no yearning to learn.

He's lost. Far more than I am.

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14th July 2024

I have felt more despairing states, deeper depressions but I don't think that I have ever felt this lost, spent so long bereft of any purpose or sense of self worth. Of course this isn't the only measure of happiness. I've enjoyed comical years where together with freinds we've chuckled away in shared absurdity at life. I was a designer maker of furniture and this once gave me purpose. I look after my partner who has a terminal illness. I have a dog. But once they are gone I really don't know what I will do. I'm going to try to attempt a journal to see if it might help. But tonight I am very low indeed.

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The Libertines - Night Of The Hunter

https://youtu.be/3Z5_Hq8uvio?si=8kiPBWQjznBSaghe

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Paintwork (Remastered)

https://youtu.be/3okaBjf9_B4?si=CPHpOaSF3yihbLG6

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New Recording 2 Spain 2 England 1

Bloodvein

Too much to do, too little time

When I'm asked how long me and Claire have been together I can never think of a number of years. Not long enough and it never will be. She has emphysema and if you google how long on average people live following diagnosis the average is five years. Claire was diagnosed ten years ago. A couple of years ago I stopped working to spend what time we had left together. I like my work and am fortunate that I was able to make a living from my vocation, designing and making things in wood. Mainly furniture. I've made a lot. I'm not sure if I can think of anyone else I know who has made as much as me. If only this converted into money we could have enjoyed my early retirement travelling more. But a year of two back I cashed in my pension. Claire wouldn't have been around to enjoy it with me so it made little sense in waiting. So we walked into town one day and we bought a holiday in Greece. The turquoise sea and white sand you dream of. The beautiful food and hospitality were a treat for us who had never been abroad together. In fact Claire had never been abroad at all and one of my pledges to her was to take her while we were both well enough to enjoy it. It truly was a magical time . A reluctant swimmer Claire coaxed me in and tropical fish caressed my legs. It is most often retrospectively that we are able to find awareness of the greatest moments of our lives yet shoulder deep in the Mediterranean I knew that this was one of the finest moments of my life. Claire found an independent bravery that saw her off on her own adventures through we were together for most of our time there. Knowing as I do now that our time together was limited cashing in my small pension was the best decision I could have taken. The following year saw Claire lose over three stone in weight. Despite the enthusiastic positivity of doctors we all know now Claire has perhaps another two years to live. They speak of surgery that may offer hope of a little more time but the brutal cutting away of damaged lung and hugely uncomfortable and long winded recovery time makes one question the wisdom of opting for such action. These are choices only she can make. Of course none of us know exactly how long we have but such philosophical outlooks are easy to mull over when it isn't my body that is breaking down. The bravery and stoicism she shows fills me with admiration and humility. And guilty as I am with the thought I wonder just what I will do when I am left alone. How will I cope in the aftermath I don't know and fills me with a shame when she is facing the immeasurably greater fear that she faces at her own mortality. The scape of the love we hold for another equates to the pain we feel at their loss. But there is no option. The situation will play out, like it or not. So we must live in the now. Make the most of the time we have together just as we all must and perhaps this could prove a gift. Not to waste a moment. Savour every second of life as though it is our last. We must all one day return to the darkness from which we came.

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