Trying to make the most out of the good weather I've been pushing it (for me). It doesn't amount to a great deal; a bit of paddling, a bit of very mild walking, but I'm exhausted, full of opiates and in even worse pain than usual. Today I drove Catie over to see her mother and while they caught up with each other I sank into deep cushions on a lounger in the garden and just surrendered. I've spent the whole day coming in and out of deep dream soaked sleep, the dreamworld mixing with the awareness of warm sunshine on my limbs, voices chatting in another part of the garden, music sometimes playing on my headphones, sometimes playing in my imagination - at some point I think I remember someone putting sunscreen on my pale legs, at another people moving me into the shade. Occasionally I woke up enough to read a little of my current book - Aeschylus - then sank back again into dreams of pursuing Furies hunting their prey through a Cotswold garden.

Jake has been in a state of puppy-like bliss: his little pack in one place. His cold, wet nose a regular punctuation to the passing day.

After dinner we drove home by the scenic route: twisting single track country lanes passing through an ancient litany of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire villages, down to the narrow bottom of the Vale of the White Horse where the bones of the landscape show through. When we passed the chalk carving of the White Horse itself the low evening sun painted it bright gold with deep black shadows in the curves of its back and limbs, the cone of Dragon Hill below it was perfectly balanced by the blue evening moon above it.....it should have been today's image but we were past it before I could think of finding a place to stop.

Back home and after the essential housekeeping tasks, such as opening doors to let Jake check all the smells are still in the right places, its time to stretch out again. The journey has woken up the neurological demon hiding in the meninges and dorsal roots of my nervous system, my Dark Passenger, he starts to squeeze and pinch with his long fingers, pain spilling off my spine into my arms, legs and neck. Once he has my attention he starts to work the marionette strings to my twitching muscles, setting them fighting against each other. It threatens to ruin an almost blissful day....so I break out my medication, inhale deeply and distract it with tonight's soundtrack
(Any fellowSpotify listeners please do feel free to join me)