Wednesday and I wake after a very interrupted nights sleep. I wake tired and as a result laze in bed for a while. I go through my routine of checking bank accounts, messages and cyber litter. To my surprise and pleasure a friend rings me and I have a long chat with her about how she is and how her return to work while recovering from long COVID is progressing. We swapped news and how our respective families are developing and doing. My partner brought me a coffee which sustained me during my conversation. It was really good to be able to chat and to catch up with how we both are. It was late morning by the time I get up and make a toast breakfast. I take my meds and try to settle down to a day, I had no plan and I lacked motivation or energy to do much so drift towards lunchtime watching the COVID enquiry. Having cleared the kitchen during the recess in the COVID enquiry I return to the enquiry, but as it is not very exciting I idly have a chat with Amazons chat bot who tried to convince me they were human about self publication of some collections of poems. I realise that this is purely a vanity project but I was interested to see how easy it would be. Apparently it is very easy if you part with a set amount of money. So by mid afternoon I am in a position to start to put together my manuscripts to send off. At last I have a direction that appears simple. Now I can crack on. I intend to publish three smaller collections, Hotels and Restaurants, Herod’s Children and The Cancer Years. All this decided by the time the enquiry judge decides she needs a break at 3:15.

I find I runout of spoons early this day and end up drifting into the evening and a new series of Shetland before I take my meds and check everything is secure before the coming storm. Some days the energy just disappears suddenly, that has been today. My saving pleasure is the arrival of Carlo Rovelli’s White Holes, which will give me a break from philosophy.