September 2018 Diary

September 10th was my friend’s funeral. Ever get the wrong time for something in your head? Despite what the diary says? So I arrived what I though was ten minutes early to find I was twenty minutes late. One of the staff opened the doors for me, and I snuck in and sat at the back, while his partner was reading her tribute to him. We stood, sat, and sung half-heartedly, and his son and daughter read a tribute and geared up at the end of it. Then we trooped outside, I paid my condolences to the kids and his partner, made a vague gesture about having to go, and left.

I had lunch in Richmond, went home and read in the garden, and kept busy tidying up bits ands pieces. That felt a lot better than eating chocolate and tearing up over Rent, which was what I did the last time I went to a friend’s funeral.

When you get to my age, you will understand. The older I get, the more life is about dealing with today, and the greater proportion of my flagging energy it takes to do that. It’s not that older people are harder-hearted, it’s that we just don’t have the energy for demonstrative emotions.

I started the month by buying an Apple TV. Only after I had checked that I could use it to show Curzon Home movies on my TV. And that the MUBI monthly subscription is half the price of a single movie. Come home, pick a movie, stop half-way through to set up the next morning’s breakfast and gym gear, finish some time after 21:00, and just plain going to bed. The simple life.

I saw Spike Lee’s Blackkklansman at the Curzon Soho; The Lovers, The Soft Skin, 360, The Woman in the Fifth, The Nile Hilton Incident, Lourdes, 13 Assassins, A Man Escaped, The Decent One on Curzon Home Cinema; The Sheltering Skies, The Andromeda Strain, Spring Fever, Avalon, The Lady Eve, The Bling Ring, Enter The Void on MUBI; and The Sweet Smell of Success on DVD. Which is exactly what I got the Apple TV for.

I read Cameron McCabe’s The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor; Virginie Despentes’ Baise-Moi; Tim Marshall’s Prisoners of Geography; and Dr Graham Easton’s The Appointment. I’ve also be riding through William Cobbett’s Rural Rides.

I stopped with the evening meal. No, really, just a piece of fruit and some fizzy water. While watching the movie. I don’t get acids reflux an hour after going to sleep and I feel better the next morning. It’s not strictly intermittent fasting because the fruit is in the evening, but it’s as close as I’m going to get.

I got myself a commitment at the meeting I go to. Literature secretary. It feels right, and it will make me turn up every week for a year. It was also the only time I’ve ever known three people put themselves forward on the day for Literature. One withdrew, as they were totally new to the meeting, so me and the other guy had to go outside while about eight people voted. That may be the first time that has ever happened in any meeting anywhere for that commitment.

Then I got The Autumn Cold. Once upon a time colds were all the same. Now every cold is different. This one hit me with a fever for the first two or three days, let me get back to work on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then just could not be assed to get out of bed for the Thursday and Friday. I felt rotten for the first couple of hours, and then picked up, thought I’d be up and running the next morning, and the next morning I’d feel like crap. Despite this, I only missed one training session.

The training you do when you’re feeling like crap is the best training you do. Because when you’re feeling okay again, you don’t have to spend a week or so getting back into shape.