annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary

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Day 174

Hello, peeps. Hope you're as well as can be. I worry about us all, with the shitty fucking bastard governments we have. Here, in the UK, you lot in the US, my pal in Chile, with family in El Salvador. I hope you in Canada are OK and Hvitveis (can't remember how to spell it) in Norway. I assume those places are more civilised, but I'm not sure. Here the figures have been creeping up, back to where they were at the end of May and apparently there are no test kits available in some areas so these figures aren't even true. We have to keep steady and do the routines - keep our distance, wash our hands, wear masks when we have to get close to people outside our little group. Scary though. I feel scared again.

So I've mostly been keeping busy. Friday writing group, which I'm starting to find a bit blokey, but OK still. This was the bit I did that the others seemed to like most today. 8 minutes starting with the sentence 'Out by the grey lake, meet me there, come alone.'

As if I'd bring anyone with me, Jesus, I'm depressed not mental. She always wants to meet somewhere dramatic, somewhere difficult to reach and she makes up romantic names - the grey lake she calls it, but it's Widewater, a big puddle between a busy road and a caravan park where social services bung desperate families into knackered, sagging mobile homes while they wait for somewhere permanent. 'The grey lake' conjures up images of mist and mystery, not tepid instant coffee bought from the kiosk in a plastic cup, drank quickly before it's stone cold.

She wants to tell me what's been going on recently, who's done her wrong this time. It's never her fault, she says, though she knows that's not true. It's why she doesn't want any witnesses, it's only me she trusts with all her confused imaginings. She knows I won't tell anyone - what she doesn't know is I don't really listen that much, I just let her blether on with all the "and then she said... but I told her... It's not like that..." on and on.

I'll watch the waves, the grey sea. I'll let her words drift away with the seagulls' cries and after half an hour or so she'll feel better.

Daughter is better. I can hear it in her voice. Yesterday she was telling me she was, using plausible words that made me think she was better than she had been though not well, but today she's fine but exhausted. It is exhausting, having a mental health crisis.

I made my wall hanging and I'm going to attempt to post a photo of it. It's kind of messy but I like it.

Ooh, we might be OK. I can't remember what went wrong when I tried to post a pic yesterday but it all seems normal tonight. Normal - what kind of shite word is that?

Tomorrow I'm doing a taster day for a writing course, a university level part-time creative writing course on either fiction or creative non-fiction. I signed up for it months ago, completely forgot and suddenly there's a zoom link in my inbox and we're on for tomorrow. Yikes. I would quite like to do a creative non-fiction course but I'm very tired and still have a swollen ankle. The sponsored walk is next Saturday, 12th, and now I'm wondering if I'll be able to do it at all. My ankle is no better - it felt better this morning until I'd walked on it and been up and down the stairs a few times and now it's all fat and horrid again and hurts like fuck..

Ah well. Bed now. Hugs and stuff. Be safe. Thanks for reading.

11:56 p.m. - 04.09.20

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