Wednesday and I wake early for me and listen to music while my partner gets ready to visit her mother. She brings me hot water and then leaves. I reflect for a bit and become aware that the new food swill collection is taking place. Our nice new plastic food waste bin is being emptied and will eventually be fed into a digester to produce something that can be used to make electricity. It prompts memories and a poem.

507
Feet on cold lino
nose against the frost free
little space scrapped 
on the window in my room.
There is a smog
pierced dimly by gas light
and the clip clop of
the Sunlight laundry horse.
Its pig swill day,
the bucket is out
and I want to see
who collects it today.
The trees, still with
see me in the dark
white war rings,
loom indistinctly.
Today some sixty five 
years on in progress
I watch an electric cart
pick up my plastic bin
full of food scraps,
not for swine
but to feed my thirst
for electricity.

			507 11-03-2026

I get up and dressed, down my morning meds and then head for the village pub, picking up a paper on the way. I settle into a table and order coffee and a full English breakfast minus mushrooms and start the crosswords. I am aware that I am anticipating the arrival of the prison poetry books that I have ordered and remember how old clients in prison often found poetry as an outlet for their feelings as they emerged during therapy. Much of it was like adolescent first attempts and was at times painful but often people found very powerful forms of poetry to express their needs. Once found it seemed poetry became part of them. My thoughts prompted me to put down another poem.

506
Prison poetry,
the real stuff
not the personal
trapped inside struggles,
has an edge.
The taste of metal
in the mouth
and the surprise
of a stabbing.
Raw and passionate
held in arms
that ache in the night
for the lack of comfort.
The loss of intimacy
and  being human
suddenly the only 
bedfellow.
In a world of
muscular armour
suddenly words
become important
to hold what cannot
be shown. 
					506 11-03-2026

With breakfast over, crosswords done I slowly walk home and sit on the sofa drafting the blog and catching my breath, while sipping ginger beer. My partner returns and I carry on with my days to do list. I do not think I will make it to the garage to wash my car so focus on the rest of my list. I can afford to dawdle, I’m not n a rush. My partner is dining out for a late lunch so this afternoon is free for me to read and write. On checking my emails I find the new edition of the Visionary has arrived.

I am of course not a proper Minister just an internet one although I was awarded a doctorate of divinity, I have the certificate to prove it and in theory could conduct services in the USA and possibly in the UK. Away way in this edition of the Visionary was an article on the way US soldiers are being told by commanding officers that the Iran war is fulfilling an ancient religious prophecy and that it is causing issues in the armed forces. It also reported on a father who was convicted of murder when his 14 year old sin committed a school shooting. The Visionary is a fascinating insight to American politics and issues. Again in this issue it reports that Florida is about to pass a law that says churches can use armed members of the congregation as security without them needing to be licenced like other security workers, or trained. It means that the churches avoid paying for their security. The comment thread is fascinating. One church notes it uses a congregation member who is an ex serviceman and that his service is counted as his tithe to the church. Anyway included in the Visionary is a link to a video of a famous evangelical preacher from the Cornerstone church giving a sermon on Epic Fury and how it is part of a biblical prophecy. It is truly terrifying watching the performance and the depth of bigotry, intolerance and levels of cognitive distortions that are present. All served up to a huge live audience and a streamed internet audience. The ushers of course passed amongst the audience at the end when the congregation was singing God Bless America collecting for the Cornerstone Church. It is difficult to comprehend that so many buy this kind of message but once over that hurdle its easy to see why America is where it is. It is a nation at ideological war with itself so its no wonder that its court are continually full of litigation about rights, constitution and freedoms. It was an interesting, if disturbing, watch. The basic message was, if you are in the shit, pray.

By late afternoon my body is telling me that my gut is not well and I resort to being quiet and sipping Lucozade and drafting the blog. I sink back to reading and waiting for tonight’s European football and also more Brokenwood Mysteries. I have now invested in season 10 and I know that there is only one more series to go. It could be a crisis but I expect there will be something else, although I will miss the Russian pathologist Gina Kadinsky whose happy place is the morgue. I shall aim for an early night to see how my gut responds and then tomorrow the electrician arrives to put in new kitchen lights above the sink and work surface. I am hoping some of the poetry I have ordered will arrive and I can make a start on the piece for the poetry blog.