Despite not having anything specific to do at the moment, I’m still somewhat struggling to accept that I can truly relax. I am getting better at it, but it continues to be an uphill battle for me. I’m doing my best to cast aside the ever-present feelings of guilt and unease I’ve been carrying for some months now. I still can’t shake off the feeling I should be working; I should be productive; I should be achieving something. Why do I still feel this way? What’s holding me back from letting go of all that weighty baggage? What purpose is being served by me holding on to the notion I need to keep busy?
Due to the heatwave, I found myself lounging around the garden, lazily idling on my phone. I remain addicted to the damned thing. I played some chess, scrolled a fair bit—ever the perfect dupe of the addictive algorithms, being fed a constant stream of rage bait and other nonsense to keep me scrolling. I lay myself down on the garden furniture, finding myself dozing off several times. Each time I slipped into unconsciousness, my sleep apnoea kicked in, jolting me back awake with a snort. The cycle repeated numerous times. If I were in bed and wearing my CPAP mask, I would have drifted peacefully off to sleep for a good chunk of the morning. Over ten years in, I still see no end in sight to my sleep apnoea. Something tells me that’ll be with me now for the rest of my days.
There was a light haze in the air—more than seemed normal. Lisa and I felt something was not quite right. Our instincts were correct. Several forest fires had been raging just north of Cardiff and around the Brecon Beacons region. The combination of drought conditions and excessive heat was conspiring to create the conditions for the fires to take hold and spread. Smoke had been drifting north, passing over us. There were reports of people as far north as Anglesey calling the emergency services because there was so much smoke in the air. Lisa’s coughing revealed a susceptibility to the resulting poor air quality. Heatwaves and forest fires are not the norm for damp Wales. I fear this change to the climate is going to become the norm in the coming decades.
My restlessness got the better of me. I got into the car and drove into Newtown, about 10 minutes away. I had no real reason to go. If anything, it was a slip back into familiar behaviour patterns. I felt the need to go and buy something. When I left, I didn’t really have anything in mind that I needed to buy. I was already halfway there before the thought struck me to pop into Greggs for another sausage roll and soft drink. What the hell. I see no reason why I can’t treat myself.
Despite being a sleepy small Welsh country town, Newtown turned out to provide a sliver of excitement. I parked the car in the middle of town and set off on foot to find me a sausage roll. Ahead of me was a younger dishevelled man—perhaps in his early twenties. I wondered whether he was homeless, living rough. He had a thick coat hanging off his shoulders. It was well over thirty degrees, so this seemed odd. He walked with purpose, outpacing me considerably. He turned the corner before me. Around that corner was my Greggs. The man was already twenty metres beyond Greggs, but he then turned and walked back, turning into it just ahead of me. When I reached the doorway, I saw him there inside at one of the chiller cabinets, rummaging through the various sandwiches and things. He was looking shiftily back and forth at the staff serving people at the counter. My read was that he was getting ready to grab a few things and steal them. I didn’t come to that conclusion alone. A customer seated at a nearby table spotted what was going on and was mouthing silently to a staff member, motioning to the would-be thief and trying to draw their attention. I didn’t enter the shop fully. I decided I would hover at the entrance and watch the man. I figured he would see me as an obstacle for a quick getaway. Maybe catching my eye would be encouragement enough for him to second-guess his next move. Whether he saw me or not isn’t clear, but he eventually put the food back and then made his exit.
I bought my sausage roll and sat myself down at the table, pondering the situation that just played out before me. Did I do the right thing? I wondered whether I could have tapped the man on the shoulder and offered to buy him some food. For a few moments, I wrestled with my conscience. One option was to extend some help to someone who might genuinely be having a hard time feeding himself. But then I also didn’t think that his brazen stealing from this business in broad daylight was right either. I had to pay for my food. Shouldn’t everyone else do the same? Did I just possibly foil a crime, or did I prolong someone’s suffering?
I made my way back to the car, via a brief meander through town to explore what was there. A pharmacy caught my attention. I was running low on my allergy tablets, so I popped in to replenish my stock. It was the one thing that genuinely legitimised my trip into town, after all. Somehow that made me feel less guilty about the trip. I might not have felt guilty at all had I not already picked up a tube of Pringles, ice cream and a packet of Minstrels as well. Yes, I know, I’m incurable.
By the time I was back home, the haze had thickened. It rendered some of the distant fields opaque. I wondered out loud whether John and Lisa had given any consideration to what they might do if the forested hill immediately behind their house went up in flames. Would they evacuate and leave their idyllic home at the mercy of the flames, or would they stay and attempt to protect the home from burning? There are a few hundred metres between the forest on the hill and their property, but it wouldn’t take many burning embers in the air to land somewhere and ignite the house.
By late morning, I had another therapy session that was due to start, so I parked myself at my laptop in the crafts room and joined the call. It was a heavy session. I broke down in tears several times, as we explored further some of my hopes and fears for my future. Once again, we dived into themes of loss of control and uncertainty around the road ahead for me. It’s hard to articulate where the emotion came from. I’m not given to casual displays of emotion. That always feels like a shameful loss of control for me. I explained it’s starting to feel like these emotions are like a ball I’ve been trying to keep submerged, but the ever-increasing effort needed to do this has been slowly taking its toll on my body. The ball wants to come to the surface. The therapist liked that analogy. She tried to get me to recognise it’s okay to allow it to happen. Truthfully, despite my fear of doing so, I do feel incredibly relieved immediately thereafter each time I let those emotions escape. This remains something I need to continue to work on.
After the somewhat emotionally draining therapy session, my loosely-defined homework assignment was to write a letter to my body. This is evidently an exercise in getting in touch with my emotions. I have some free rein regarding how I interpret this challenge, so I need to think this through some more. As a writer, I’m sure some inspiration will eventually strike me.
John needed to drop off a couple of small parcels in Caersws, the nearest place with human civilisation to Llanwnog, about two kilometres away. You have to drive through it to get to Newtown. I tagged along for the ride, having nothing else to do. It was another opportunity to spend time with my oldest brother.
John popped a meat pie into the oven for our dinner. Being a vegetarian, Lisa tends to prepare her own meals. Sometimes we all sit to dinner together, but Lisa often eats alone. That has more to do with the logistics of cooking individual meals than it does anything else.
Tomorrow, the plan is for me to drive back towards Essex for a few days before coming back to Wales again for another week. The idea is for me to stop off briefly at little Jacky’s in Stevenage first. I still owe her a new website for one of her clients, so we’re going to finally tackle that together. Then I will visit Richard in his rehabilitation centre before heading back to my home turf of South Ockendon. I’ll spend a night or two with Dad and Paul, but I will also see Carol and her clan for the family get-together on Friday. All of this required some liaising with everyone involved, so I spent some time doing that.
As a happy bonus, I was able to finally connect with some of my nephews and nieces. Alas, the prospects of seeing them all remain remote due to holidays and other obstacles.
John had been tinkering in his garage. He eventually emerged with a nice shoebox-sized makeshift camera obscura for the solar eclipse due this evening. The celestial event was all over the news, and we were all keen to experience it but still keep our vision intact. The haze had since lifted, and high-altitude stratus clouds that had threatened to obscure the event had finally evaporated. We were treated to unobstructed views. John’s impromptu device worked as intended, which was great.
After some more fun and games, the stifling evening heat finally started to relent, but not by much. I confirmed my travel plans with John and Lisa for the coming 10 days, and they were perfectly happy for me to come and go as I needed. Sandy and I lived with them for about a year during our world backpacking tour back in 2003. We’re all very comfortable in each other’s company. In fact, we lived with my eldest sister Jacqueline for a few months back then also. I’ve had less luck with reconnecting with her, but that’s a story for another time.
With a long day on the road awaiting me in the morning, and given it’s closing in on midnight here now, I need to finish up and get my things ready for an early departure.