On the buses again

Another fine day. I met up with some former members of a Buddhist meditation group, and we went for coffee. Afterwards one of the group, B, and I did a bit of charity shopping. Decided to do it again some time, along the Golden Valley, and maybe have lunch at the Stroud Brewery. Must put in my diary for ‘ after India’.

I also spent time looking for a case/bag and charging lead for my so-called Snoozeband 2, a device that helps me sleep sometimes when I’m surrounded by the sound of both a human and a cat snoring. Only when I decides to stop looking for it did I realise where it had got to! I’ve put it in a grey bag now, because grey is slightly more noticeable than black.

After my coffee outing, I snuggled up under my heated throw and watched Jojo Rabbit on Disney. I was a bit dubious about the idea of a comedy version of Hitler, but enjoyed the film, as it turned out.

Then I returned to reading ‘Chase the Rainbow’ by journalist Poorna Bell, about the death of her husband Tom by suicide caused by depression and addiction. Not a happy read, but the writing is powerful, and I’ve been affected by the death of the young man I knew last year, who did not die by suicide, though there may be some overlaps. Reading the book made me realise how my mother was depressed for many years while I was a teenager, at a time when depression was not much spoken about. Oddly, perhaps, I have a memory of her telling someone else, when I had just turned thirteen, that she’d been diagnosed with depression, and her weight had dropped to eight stone (112 pounds). She took up smoking around that time. Her depression took the form of withdrawing from us kids by hiding behind a newspaper or a book. Newspapers constituted a physical barrier at that time: they were vast! Anyway, I won’t go on about this: I shall save it for the book.

It’s been a very restful day. I think I have now got all the small medical supplies I need for India, including my homeopathy kit of ‘36 remedies for the traveller’. This turned out to be quite helpful at a group level last year.