My life in 2025

Some days I do so many bitty, little jobs and errands for Rihanna that I find it hard to get anything else done. But in a way, that's an excuse. I feel like my hopes are more neglected than our cheese plant and summoning enthusiasm about any sort of life plan is ever more difficult. If life is this stale and unprofitable at 49 heaven only knows what sort of entropy awaits in my senior days.

Rihanna fell asleep standing up. There was a crash and a thud and I sprang out of bed where I was just dozing off myself and found her on her derriere in the corner. It took a long time and brainstorming to get her up. At no time did an ambulance seem like a very serious option. Against all advice of what one should do after a hip op she heaved herself up with a bit of help from me but she is easily 20 stone and I was only playing an auxiliary role. The fact that she has restless leg syndrome, is practically a narcoleptic and is exhausted from not being able to sleep for long are all a potent combination. The cat just wanted some treats. Our little dramas are no concern of hers.

A very quiet day at home, the definite highlight of which was watching the Traitors, a rare foray into television. I said Yin would go first, even though I didn't see her as much of a threat and so it proved. Watched her later on the podcast and she was a delight - a great loss to the show- and hopefully will find somewhere to shine. The traitors have gotten off to a bad start and it only looks like the Liverpudlian girl has a chance of pulling through based on the first episode. It seemed to me that most of them missed a trick not jumping off the train. Surely those three who got off will be back? The series has somewhat lost the element of surprise by pulling a similar trick in series 1. Unless it is a double bluff? I think they really need to shake it up this year. It is getting a bit samey in some respects. Some of the challenges dragged a bit last year but overall the show turned out to be every bit as good as season 1 and perhaps a bit more so. In other news I was able to tes...

Look Beyond Today arrived by post from Australia. Spent a tenner in Morrisons on some nibbles for tomorrow but Rihanna, having dissed them and made out they weren't for her, made a fairly rapid acquaintance with the packet of fake Mars bars called Apollo after another God. Tomorrow is a new year and on a personal level today seemed scheduled for significance as it was almost the day my new life as someone on ADHD medication began but that is postponed, at least until January 28th.  That being said, I am finally old enough to know one shouldn't look beyond today. At least in the sense that we tend to undervalue the present. So I am going to bed before midnight. 2025 may bring some interesting headlines. China/Taiwan, Russia/Ukraine, UFOs, AI, Trump...Every year since 2020 has been a banger and it feels like these times are not about to stop delivering but one could also say plus ca change.

My passport has expired, so I had to go to the Post Office and pay extra to apply for a driving licence. Then the assistant did it all online, anyway, on a tablet. For my photo, I had to go and stand in a shabby corner of the room partitioned off from the shop floor, and each time the girl took a snap, it was pleasantly awkward as she had to wait a minute or two to receive a response from the website, which kept rejecting the shot. The fourth time, she used the flash. These days there are so many people in receipt of benefit one feels one should say 'thank you for your service' to anyone working, such as the aforementioned girl of about 23 serving me for minimum wage. But it's a far cry from the heyday of the high street in Neath. She was dressed in whatever most people answer the front door in at the weekend, and these days the Post Office is just at the back of WHSmith, which is still cosplaying a newsagent, confectioner, stationer, purveyor of board games, etc., but is a...

Rihanna is perpetually adamant that we are going to give up this lovely house we've spent nearly 5 years making ours and trade it for a tiny council flat. The argument goes round and round. Yet I've all but surrendered internally, even if I go through the motions.   In my view, however, she's right about me having too much stuff. Today I put some books in a bag that are going to charity or on ebay. One of them is Jimmy Savile's autobiography. I can read it on archive.org, should I ever want to get round to it, but who knows how long archive.org will survive for. I tend to have an apocalyptic mentality when it comes to books. I collect them in the event of a scenario in which books would be necessary once more rather than the semi-decorative items they've become in my home. I haven't read a book cover to cover in many years. Afterwards, the book shelf looked so much the better and I felt a little bit less cluttered internally.