i drag myself outside yesterday, took the hybrid for a drive down the country roads and backstreets where i could open it up. past the wineries, past the cafes, farms and various niche trades, a few horses and green green grass fields until i hit a main road. now normally i would turn left and head home but i turned right following some weird impulse and ended up pulling over outside a pub. 

i park up and stroll in, somewhat unwashed and looking as if i had rolled out of bed after a three day binge. i grab a big glass of water order a meal and take myself over to the back room out of the way of the crowds towards a small room. 

suddenly a woman sitting at a crowded table sees me and launches herself towards me, giving me a hug. obviously mistaking me for someone else. she asks me to sit with her table which i do and then we work out i am not whom she thought i was, however she wants me to stay and introduces me to all her friends. 

i end up staying for several hours, until dark, lunch was amazing, the company great and when i leave i feel a sensation i have not felt for a while, a satisfaction. a kind of self contentment. maybe this winter i will open up a bit to the idea of being more social. 

the sun, it streams through the windows as mission control wakes up, it's quite spectacular, as i wander down for my coffee. i should hit the beach but i have to do some work around the place first, make a dent in a huge load of book hauling and cleaning, my kitchen is cluttered to the max.  
i spend an hour on the computer, last night i chatted with tez and jean who had just returned from spain where they had spent some time with the infamous von donaldson. they share a few stories but the jet lag kicks in fast and i fade out.
i chat to a geman american girl, she's really cool and i figure she should come visit me but she makes up excuses and abandons me. i open some mail, bills, junk etc.
i do some shopping, i make some calls, i read a few chapters into a new detective story. 

they say it will rain at the weekend, i don't really know if i can deal with more rain, i may just sleep it off. i am supposed to met friends but let's see what happens, i'm enslaved to my lethargy today. 

10 hour flight to los angeles where my connecting flight is in suspended animation waiting for me to get back on board, the united airlines people have decided i need to exit the airport to then check in again, this time my bags are opened and searched, and let me tell you, they are not delicate. my intricate hours of packing efficiently are undone in several moments. fuck la, i always found it an alien place, not my cup of tea. however it was fun while i was there last time. i board the second plane and manage once again to get three seats to myself thanks to a cute air-hostess type whom i fantasise about briefly, how the hell do you get into the mile high club in those tiny restrooms i wonder as my eyes close, so i sprawl out and fall in and out of some weird sleep, intermittent meals and drinks served with a sparkle, before i know it i am in sydney waiting for the train, my face needs an iron but eventually i return home. 

mission control is a mess, i will have to throw myself into cleaning it all up, i left in a hurry and in the middle of a massive restructure at home. oh well, i have all winter i guess.

i force myself to stay awake until 7pm when i take myself off to bed, only to awake at 4am, so i begin cleaning, unpacking, and drink my first decent coffee in over a month. 

it's cold here, not as cold as london or as damp but still there is an edge in the air. 

after about 3 hours sleep, eyes watering non stop, nose dribbling and my body feeling like it needs a huge detox from all the english food i have been eating, i set out to visit my aunt who lives in south london. my mum sits besides me as i drive, she constantly tells me i am going the wrong way. however i am positive i know exactly where we are heading and on what appears to be the first sunny, warm-ish day i connect up to the m25 and race down. despite my physical emotional and physiological frailty i manage to complete the task in record time, even my mother comments on how fast we got there and without making any mistakes. i have been blessed with an excellent sense of direction and intuition, memory served me well as i had driven this way a few times on previous visits.
at my aunts i catch up with my cousin sam, and her daughter. it's lovely sitting in the sunshine eating cucumber sandwiches drinking tea. then before we know it it's time to head back, this time the traffic gets the better of us and we are stuck in a jam on the m25 that seems to last forever, meanwhile the sky blackens with clouds.
when the rain does come it falls heavy, i get drenched carting stuff from the car to the apartment. i begin to sneeze.   

after a shower and a drink, tequila mixed a natural cola from madagascar, i do feel better, drag my weary body towards bed. ah sleep, it comes upon me fast and peacefully. i need it man.

england, i rather be anywhere else in europe.

little bit of sun pierces the clouds, and the day starts to look bright. it don't last long. i must admit it's always cold here even when the sun is out. sometimes i find a patch of square sunshine that comes through a window and just bathe in it for moments. 

im not 100%, some sort of weird cold symptoms, eyes water, nose dribbles and i'm tired but it's not bad enough to stop me doing anything. i'm hanging out with mum, i thought she may have a few things to do but it turns out all she wants to do is sleep and watch tv. 

i catch up on some reading, currently re reading irvine welsh's ' dead men's trousers,'  a fantastic story that has me laughing aloud but also harrowing in parts. these characters if you are a trainspotting fan have come a long way, they have the most incredible arcs as characters and a group. 

i set out looking for his new book, 'long knives,' but it's literally sold out all over london. 'dead mens' is really good second time around. a fantastic writer, i have a lot of admiration for his particular brand of talent.

just driving through the burbs, doing chores, cooking meals, cleaning up. it's one long domestic gig as i help mum prepare for life alone, it will be hard as she is not as mobile as she was, her vision is failing and her mind showing signs of swizz cheese like voids. i can at least give my brother a break from doing primary care, he must be exhausted from it, from her. i dunno how he does it, immune. 

later i pop into the city, pick up a few books and end up on the 5th floor of waterstones. where the barrista recognizes me from previous visits. i always remind him he makes the best coffee in london. i'm somewhat exhausted from all the walking around, outside it's hailstorms, then it's sunny, then its windy as fuck, i dodge the crowds, hordes of people wandering along the streets, vaping, begging, speaking insane languages, all different shades of colour, it's truly a global city. some weird bikes they call penny farthings, pass me by, their riders are all wearing top hats and look determined. smiling english men, advertising some posh restaurant. everything here is super expensive, twice the australian price. friends tell me it's the cost of energy. i make my way to foyles and then to watkins where a japanese woman is ranting about reincarnation at me. i can't quite make out what she is saying as it's a mish mash of garbled japanese and random english, she seems pretty intense. this sort of thing happens to me all the time so i shrug it off, end up buying a rare book austin spare i was looking for.

i wander around soho and head towards carnaby street where i once worked many eons ago, where i first met martin von donaldson strutting around like a cosmic glam peacock. but caraby street is changed, it's clean and no sign of punk rock, no sign of culture, nothing but corporate consumerism and tourists. even the great frog where i bought my silver pentagram ring nearly 40 years ago no longer makes pentagram talismans. 

so catching the peak hour tube back, like a squished sardine in a can. fuck this, i think, nothing could be worse than commuting like this everyday through the bleak landscape of london, an ocean of miserable faces and gloom ridden certainty. 

and just like that, after a vicious and mind blowing attack the very next day it's as if nothing happened. she is so nice to me it's knocking me backwards. i must admit the conversation with my brother late last night was good. it was the first time he actually listened to me, without cutting me off or invalidating my own history. so i was grateful. he listened and gave reasonable feedback, and constructive advice. maybe for the first time he recognized the reality of the situation. it certainly was the most important conversation i ever shared with him. 

the bottom line is he saved the situation, i don't have to go anywhere although i will move around a lot more now the trains are back.  

my sleep was restless and disturbing, nightmares and a plague of anxieties. i had been reading previously about plagues and wondered if within the plagues are compounded plagues, maybe mental health ones go hand in hand with locusts and pestilence.

the morning i drive mum around, do chores, cook her meals. clean etc. i need some space now, i have not fully comprehended my fathers death, i feel alone without him, really alone yet my world is populated with ghosts, and ancestors. maybe there's a way to re-establish a connection, maybe that would ease my mind.

i speak with some family, they are so lovely and sympathetic towards my situation. i am very grateful and  perhaps not so alone after all.

my brain feels like shutting down, deep sleeping. i feel like i am drowning in an ocean of thick molasses, hands clutch me and pull me downwards, not like gravity but like abduction. 

my brother says 'home' is a pressure cooker now, he knows the center cannot hold as mum becomes more irrational and deals with grief in her way. he mentions we are all grieving, and this i suppose is very true. i was very close to dad, it was not something i shared with people in my family but dad was the one person i really felt loved me. and yesterday my mother took that away from me. so i'm grieving something else now. the certainty i had about my father towards me, maybe it was wishful thinking, having been rejected by my mother perhaps i invested in my father. maybe i was just the unloved son. maybe i just have to accept that now. whatever relationship i had with dad is contaminated now, after the things mum said. it's left me feeling very self destructive. at least i am aware of that, next time i get inside the car and drive, next time i pass a dealer, next time i see a bottle. people always wonder why people take drugs, why they implode or why they are driven to suicide or self destruction. pain. that's why. it's a painkiller.

i've been here 13 days, and then out from the blue, i experienced my mothers madness. it was pretty horrific and i find it impossible to restore my equilibrium. tomorrow morning i will leave, early. maybe stay with jake for a few days although it's a huge imposition as he has no room plus jury duty. i will have to change my flight details and return to australia in a few days. i think the uk is done for me, i certainly am done with it. i came for my father.

the fight begun over a lunch arrangement that i had made with my dads best friend, but almost immediately she drove it to some nasty guilt trip where she used some long distance history and even my dad against me. 

i found it hard to breath, my chest felt like it was about to cave in and i retreated. the effects of her diatribe always has the same effect upon me, it makes me self destructive. 

i've attempted to heal this over years and done this successfully but even now at a ripe age of 61 it hurts deeper than words can describe.

i have no defense, after all she is an old lady who has just lost her husband so i call my brother to take her out to the lunch and i stay home. as she leaves she say's something nasty again. 

i breath. it really is all i can do. the trauma of years of this type of stuff tears at me. i can't let myself express anything directly, it would be totally inappropriate, so i write. 

i know my mother hates me, it's been obvious since the age of 13, i've felt that weight upon me almost every day, distance helps but it's always there, the words, the energy and the actions, always.

outside the rain falls, grey clouds overcast the city, silent trains on strike outside the window point towards the city, small electric vehicles whizz past the streets, the occasional truck shudders past the high street. and although it feels like life, it really isn't. i hear the death throes of a fading empire, collapsing in upon itself.  a place where madness dwells as dog eats dog and people eat people, even family. it's not home for me, it's hell. and i know i don't belong here. 

   

 

 

the tradition is a week of people coming over feeding us, spoiling us and generally hanging out chatting about dad and family and whatever conversation surfaces. so far dad dominates as is appropriate, his adventures in india, his early years in the east end of london and his rise from poverty to the middle classes. of course i am interested in his nature which was exemplary, a star i say, forever getting brighter in my skies. one of the very few people i ever looked up to with respect and mystery. he was an enigma, a very lovable one. i tell stories about my own relationship with him, what he was like as a dad, the things that stuck with me. his love for clint eastwood, how we loved to watch horror movies and once when we connected after a long break we spoke about how horror movies no longer scare us both, we had seen it all and the stories were silly, far to gratuitous and no longer interesting to two old veterans who had seen enough and knew enough to be unshockable. and that evening we installed netflix on my parents tv, dad and i stayed up to watch a film that completely freaked us both out. at the end we ran to the drinks cabinet and downed about a third a bottle of whiskey just to calm our nerves. i forget the name but i'll never forget the look upon our faces as we said goodnight and went to our rooms. i lay wrapped in a quilt and could hear my dad pottering around, he began to mumble and he was saying the prayer he always said every night which basically blessed everyone he had ever met, asking the universe to grant them health and long life.

later a second cousin i have not met begins to tell me about the monarch of england, from the first ones to the present. it's a history lesson that takes 2 hours, and encompasses everything that makes history interesting, madness, the conflict between church and state, the divine kings, the birth of parliament and the genesis the prime minister. a few other people join the audience as my cousin answers all questions and guides us along. later i discover she is a history guide through the whole of great britain. 

my other cousins are equally smart and fun, and i enjoy their company immensely, warm and generous. jake and i laugh along at deni my cousins wife who is a star in the making, all she needs is her own you tube channel, not only a gifted chef, but a master story teller and comedienne. 

most of the people that attend are my brothers friends, they bring food, clean and help mum, they meet me and are obviously somewhat curious and cautiousness. i have no idea what they know of me, (i can imagine) only i am not my brother. some recoil in fear and others engage. it's all surreal but i am grateful they have come to assist my family. one hindu couple have brought us some indian food that i can only describe as the best indian food ever, it's mind blowing. they brought so much we have to give our guests gift bags as they leave, i've never seen anything like it. in the morning i go to make a coffee and the fridge and freezer is stuffed full of indian meals left over. 

everyone drinks whiskey of course, toasting my father, although i stick to tequila. i've been here six days now. i feel okay, philosophical but i miss my dad.  i miss our conversations, his compassion for life, his stories and his mysterious life that i got glimpses at before the door closed. i'm glad he lives within my son, that is very cool to see.