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.