Ghost.

Well, it’s been nearly a month since I’ve heard from my dear friend. I sent one last text yesterday, but I’m not going to keep on flogging a dead horse. I just think it sucks not being told to get lost. I had a better day yesterday. I’ve stopped listening to the songs we shared and the depressing songs too. I had a song by Tool on repeat all day. You could call them a progressive hard rock band I guess. Crazy time signatures that light up the musician part of my brain rather than the emotional side. It really helped. Noted for the coming weeks.

Machine Head did a Happy Hour last night which was well attended. It was nice to have a laugh with the band and the gang. A couple of hours on zoom afterwards and I was exhausted.

I find myself in the garden at my local McDonald’s this morning. How new. At least it’s payday in a couple of days. It has been quite cold this week but today it is relatively warm and sunny. As you probably know, I often need it, especially when I’m not in a good place mentally.

My father, daughter and granddaughter are coming to visiting tomorrow. My granddaughter started school this month. How the last four and a half years have flown. I can’t wait to see them. When I have a car again, I intend on visiting them regularly. In fact I intent on visiting a lot of people. The thought occurred to me last year that it’s only a couple of hours drive all the way to Birmingham, so there’s no reason not to make the effort to visit these lovely souls that I love so much and have been there for me without fail for years now. I’d drive the four hour round trip just to spend an hour with them if they needed me.

So I’m sat here bashing out this drivel, sipping my free coffee and wondering what comes next in this crazy life of mine. I can’t actually visualise the next year or so other than the odd event I have planned. After everything at work, I feel increasingly jaded about it. I hope that goes away. Despite a few concerns, I still feel more secure than I have in most of the jobs I’ve had in my life. I know full well my skills are needed enough that I wouldn’t be laid off even if the company got in trouble. Or at least I wouldn’t be the first to go. I’ve worked incredibly hard to get to the level I am now for this precise reason. I don’t want to be a drone for rest of my working life but by the same token, I don’t want to be worrying about security either. Rocking the boat at this point would be stupid in the extreme.

I pause writing there to roll a cigarette and I cast my eyes across the car park My Lady and I parked in thousands of times to come here for shopping. This place is so ingrained in my mind, it never fails to bring a flood of memories of happier times. The usual Saturday morning bustle of people going about their lives like the pandemic never happened.

I remember well, the traffic lights on the entrance to Tesco, nearly everyone in masks. It’s surreal looking back to my previous life. My Lady never even knew about any of what we went through in the pandemic. She died in February and lockdown didn’t come until a few months later. Looking at the scene, you wouldn’t even guess anything had happened.

Much as I could sit here bashing this drivel out for ages, I guess I should get going soon. I need to get a load of laundry done and make the house acceptable enough to receive guests. They wouldn’t care but to this day I try hard to keep a modicum of pride when it comes to guests. Especially seeing at I virtually never have any. It was amazing having my brother and sister in law stay for the weekend recently. I had planned to have a BBQ social with my colleagues this summer but never got around to it. There is still time I guess.

I keep looking across the car park and for some reason a part of me still expects to see My Lady walking across it to meet me, over four and half years on. I don’t know if that will ever change. I’m on the fence as to whether I even want that to stop. It doesn’t feel good though obviously. Oh well, on that note I’ll call time on this post.

Have a good day friends. X