New World Order Update

Return to Castle Cary please.

Back in Wells after the week away in London and its environs. It was nice being so chilled.

By contrast the train journey was horrible. I had my headphones on but there were people, kids, young people everywhere.

Ghastly.

It was loud and overcrowded and the train was running late. I had a bloke's arse in my face as he fumbled about with his luggage, phone charger and his dog for what seemed like ages.

Having had a good week where I felt almost normal again, this put the cat amongst the pigeons. I took gulps of air and fidgeted, rocking back and forth like Arthur Fowler.

It was great to finally get out of the train with Dad waiting for me on the platform.

Pandas

Looks like I'll be here in Somerset for the next few months, all the while travelling back to London on the weekends to take part in Larry's Dungeons and Dragons campaign. We had a 6 hour session last Sunday - it was great. We are kicking ass, as our gods intended. All the while the atmosphere ramps up as the intrigue increases. 

Can't wait for Sunday.

I also can't wait for Thursdays (which are the new Tuesdays...) where my Wells D&D team will undertake their second instalment of The Sunless Citadel. What a nice bunch of people they are too. Great to get a friendly team together so quickly. It's not always easy getting such a group together...

The online 'community'

...and we have 2 parts women to 4 parts men. Which is great. Mixed is always best.

Dogs

Everywhere I go there are dogs. Bisto the brown lab, Tomos the cocker spaniel, Sealyham Stan, 'My Main Man' Chippy the dachshund,  and Greedy Wilbur the walking gob and stomach.

I love dogs. In fact I love animals. Which is why I feel such a hypocrite when it comes to food. We must be the only animals who feel guilt about our natural omnivorousness. 

Apart from Pandas maybe. They're apparently omnivorous but have chosen to eat only bamboo, which they have to eat non-stop to get their required nutrition.

Maybe they're just dumb. Which would account for why they're dying out.

Anyway, having a dog means you always meet people, especially when he's a friendly, cute 5 month old spaniel. So I'm making lots of new acquaintances in Wells through Tomos. 

Which is nice as most of the old acquaintances aren't up to much. Luckily I've grown a sporran on my face to disguise me.

Tomos et moi

Do I still have dementia?

I feel really good. I'm doing a word puzzle on my phone which is crazy-addictive, and I'm pretty fast at it too. I'm reading the news, reading D&D books, listening to podcasts, music - fusion and prog (which aren't easy listens), my typing is getting better, my speech is more fluent with strangers, although I guess only because the subject matter is restricted to dogs or the weather. 

Could I be recovering from FTD? Did I have another ailment over the top of it that I have recovered from?

To put things in perspective, it would be interesting to see what my behaviour is like without 100mgs of Sertraline every day. Also I still stare out of the window when the subject matter isn't something I'm interested in. And the subject matter I am interested in is world politics, D&D and other TTRPGs (tabletop role-playing games), rugby, US politics, animals, er...I'm struggling now. 

Music, as long as it's difficult as all hell and had its heyday in the early 70s.

I guess I'm really chilled at the moment. The train ride was nearly problematic for me, but I've learned to deal with stressful situations by taking deep breaths, closing my eyes and telling myself it won't last forever.

The long and the short of it is my initial pessimism was misplaced: I think I'm going to be around a lot longer than I thought.

Well, I may get hit by a bus tomorrow but you get the idea.

Disclaimer

There's stuff I can't tell you on here which is a major factor on my current situation, but this is out of my control. Sorry to be cryptic; I'm as honest as I can be but I have to be economical with the truth for the sake of others.

The New Age

Back to London

So on Sunday Dad drove me to the bus station with my suitcase and backpack to get the coach to Hammersmith. Just like being a teenager again. 

It should have been in Wells by 8.55 but it didn’t get in until 9.20, which meant we hit the traffic on the A303 (past Stonehenge) and arrived in Hammersmith at 13.00. I then missed my connection to Norbiton and was late for D&D at The Willoughby. 

(I get quite flustered and stressed by the thought of travel these days, but I never used to when I was , er, normal. Still, I still have the wherewithal to travel on my own, get tickets and plan an itinerary.)

It was great to see the pub so full. Rick, the landlord, has been brilliant to us gamers and allowed us to play on Sundays and Tuesdays as well as storing bulky terrain. Covid was like a nuclear winter to the hospitality industry so it’s great to see a renaissance in customer numbers. We’re regularly numbering 20-30 on Sundays upstairs, and now the Premiership has restarted customers were abundant.

It was great to be back in Greyhawk again (I’m talking about the D&D session now) where we encountered more cultists, but don’t worry: we killed them :)

Did I tell you I now have a group of D&Ders back in Wells? They are fantastic and we started a session last week. They are super nice and super enthusiastic. I can’t wait for the next session, but more to come on that.

Woken by scuttlin’

I stayed at Adrian’s house on Sunday night. I stayed in the room where he keeps all his exotic pets - you know the types, Amazonian tree frogs, hermit crabs, spiders, poisonous toads. 

My new bestie.

I put in my earplugs, put on my eye mask and went to sleep. I slept for ages only to be woken up at 3.30 by very loud scuttling of the hermit crabs in a tank. Little buggers.

The older I get the more I love nature. The yellow and black dart frogs are fascinating and beautiful - and barely 40mm long. The toad (about 50-60mm) has a bright yellow belly which I didn’t get to see which it bares to predators to say “ I die - we both die!” 

The hermit crabs so alien and weird  - scuttlin’ bastards. Fascinating nonetheless - picking up discarded shells as their new homes. Isn’t nature ceaselessly amazing? 

The Light Newspaper

Whilst in Wells, my friend Mark was visiting his Mother there. We were in The Crown, which - as anyone who enters there will be aware as it’s rather shouty about it - featured in the Edgar Wright film, Hot Fuzz.

We were enjoying a pint and Mark found a copy of The Light, secreted somewhere as though hidden with the intention it be found like a dirty magazine!

If you’re not aware of it The Light newspaper is a conspiratorial rag were QAnon theories meet the New Age. All MSM (Mainstream Media) is part of the deep state, scientists are too, 5G masts are there to activate the Covid vaccinations within us, and the usual stuff about Jews. 

This piece of toilet paper is sold on Glastonbury High Street, and I’m told the vendors are quite aggressive if you don’t buy a copy - which reminds me of Scientologists when you question their ‘religion’.

I left this particular copy with Adrian, and while we may laugh at its contents, there are enough lunatics who believe the wildfires on Maui were government made in order to clear the whole island so they can build a new ‘Smart City’ and control us all.

Despite the fact there is ZERO evidence to back any of this SHIT up.

Slumming it in Hertfordshire

I’m spending this week with my friends in Herts. They have a beautiful house, the sun is streaming down, and dragonflies, butterflies and buzzing insects are abundant.  In the distance past the swing hanging from a branch, Canadian Geese munch the grass. A lone swan and coot swim in the river by the weir, periodically a kite and a buzzard vie for airspace.

I’m sat at the magnificent dining table made by family friend Jim Distortion of Metal Machine UK. To my right is the beautiful designer kitchen. Bisto the enormous brown Labrador is somewhere around…

I made this promotional video earlier. Take a look: 

Another 3 days of this. Ghastly.

Then a few days in Kingston where I will see Jacqui and the dogs. Apparently Tomos is already missing me. 

I love dogs, but I’m also blessed with very kind human friends.

New Life/Old Life

There and back again...

So here I am in Wells. I'll be here for the foreseeable few months - possibly for the rest of the year. I'm in the process of acclimatising. I haven't really spoken to the locals yet. There's a kind of passive/aggressiveness you get in some of the shops here - as though you're in their house, their rules, and you'd better watch out - that you don't get so much of in cities. 

Big fish in small ponds and all that. 

You also get boy racers whose exhaust pipes are considerably more expensive than the cars they're attached to.

I guess I'm prejudiced about my old home town. Most of us who went to the cities are. That's part of the reason we left in the first place.

Gaming

I will be going back to London frequently, in fact from Sunday 13th August I'll be overnighting it weekly for gaming purposes. I'll also be visiting friends around the South East and other far-off places too.

I've also got D&G on Mondays (D&D for dyslexics) which we play on Zoom.

However, I am going to be spending the midweek in Wells so I need to do some gaming. My sister put me onto the local community Facebook group and already we have a very enthusiastic posse of people who wish to play D&D, and a venue too.

That's a pretty good start I'd say.

Threads

Anyone joined this? It's like Facebook with strangers. It's for the most part rather anodyne in comparison to the highly toxic 'X', formerly known as Twitter. 

I searched for 'Dementia' on there to see what was going on. Some Americans calling themselves 'The Dementia Guru' and such like. I'm sure they'd give Professor Warren a run for his money. (Joke.)

I get very annoyed at people setting themselves up like this - as though they're experts without any qualifications or true expertise, and give out advice like:

"Tomorrow is another day."

"Overthinking will lead to sadness."

"Your thoughts affect your moods."

Sadly, people lap this tripe up.

I was going to give up on Threads but I saw a famous person on there who was undergoing brain-mapping as she'd suffered brain fog and tinnitus for years. 

'Hey! Join the gang.' I thought. I told her about my situation and wished her well and said I was interested to see the results. She got back to me with a lovely reply wishing me well too. 

She has a reputation as an absolutely lovely person and I saw no reason to disbelieve it. 

Needless to say certain family members are rather 'jel' at my new friendship! Lol.

I am that shallow, as it turns out.

Dogs

My sister has a lovely cocker spaniel puppy. He let me walk him up through Wells - no one other than my sister has managed to get him further than the end of the drive.

We got on really well.

One of my dog friends.

I need dogs in my life. I'm missing the 3 at home - lazy Wilbur, sweet, barky Chip and stubborn Stan. It's lovely every time you come downstairs in the morning or back from whatever and they're so pleased to see you.

They give you love and exercise. And that's great.

I also need to sort out swimming although I'm a bit hesitant as I haven't been for years. 

More to come, hopefully more regularly.