annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary
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Saturday night
This is my new plan. Go to bed by midnight, read till one, sleep till nine. Sounds plausible, doesn't it? Doable. That word always looks wrong. Do-able looks better but doable doesn't get the red line so it must be OK and what else can it mean? Fuck knows. Maybe it's just not UK English. I heard an interesting thing on the radio today by a Brit engaged to someone from the US who said there are far fewer variations and common figures of speech in US English compared to UK English. That made me feel determined to fill my blog with as many as possible, but they've all fucked right off out of my head, so that'll have to wait.
I made some jam today, in my bread-maker, which has to be the most counter-intuitive thing ever. The leaflet had a recipe for frozen berry jam so I went for it - piece of piss. Layer up jam and sugar, sprinkle on some powdered pectin, turn it onto the right setting, come back an hour and a half later and there you go, soft set berry jam, bloody delicious. I used a mix of blackcurrants, redcurrants, blackberries and raspberries.
Today would have been Bowie's 75th birthday. I've loved him since Space Oddity, saw him as Ziggy Stardust, but am left loving his two last albums most, The Next Day and Blackstar. And will always be grateful for that chunk of 'Rock and Roll Suicide' seeing me through my second winter of grief, when the first care home Sam lived in made a huge deal out of giving her a feeding tube, or 'letting nature take its course' and all hope of her living any kind of life came to an end. Her end was in sight and all I had was Bowie. The lines rattled around in my head as I tramped along the stony beaches in the bitter winter winds:
I've had my share, I'll help you with the pain
You're not alone
Just turn on with me and you're not alone
Let's turn on with me and you're not alone
Let's turn on and be not alone
Gimme your hands cause you're wonderful
Gimme your hands cause you're wonderful
Oh gimme your hands.
I've written about this before, I'm sure, more than once, but there you go. I feel close to him in a mad, fan's delusional way, as it really feels like he saved my life then, calling to me 'You're not alone, I'll take your hand, I've had my share, I'll help you with the pain', his voice going round and round in my head, tears falling down my face as I walked and walked and walked, day after day, collecting firewood, dragging huge bits of driftwood for miles, soothed in some way by how it made my body hurt. He'd already died then, just. Winter 2016. I didn't know where the words came from for ages - I looked them up in the end - the Ziggy Stardust album, of course. Which I'd played several times a day through most of the 70s but probably hadn't listened to for a couple of decades and certainly hadn't heard that track for many many years, so it isn't entirely mad to feel grateful to him for coming to me in my hour of need and walking by my side along those dreary beaches. The last two albums seem to be imbued with an acceptance of death as well, that helped me come to terms to some extent with what the near future would hold for our little family. Thanks, Dave. Thank you for the music.
It's been a walking in the rain day today as well. In the dark. The bloody dog wouldn't come with me - got about 20 yards and dug her heels right in so I took her back and carried on alone. I don't mind it at all, walking in the rain, as I have a brilliant waterproof mac and a cap with a brim that keeps the rain off my glasses so I can still see where I'm going. Got my wellies, so my feet are dry. I forgot to put the waterproof trousers on so I had a six inch strip of lower leg that was soaking but not enough to care about. Trousers drying on the radiator, all good.
Tomorrow I start my new writing group, exciting.
And today I am grateful for: feeling able to choose to only do what I wanted to do. Make jam, go for a walk, chat shite with some mates on the phone.
Night night. Keep safe, masks, jabs, all that. Let's all make it through to the other side. xx
11:21 p.m. - 08.01.22
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