My mate, Mat

 When the good are taken too soon

You’ve probably heard that quote from Dickens’ ‘Hard Times’. The girl whose entire life is horses is asked to define a horse. She can’t. Then the teacher asks favourite know-it-all Bitzer who gives a dictionary definition: "Bovine quadruped. Graminivorous,. Forty teeth…."

"There you go girl!" snaps the teacher "Now you know what a horse is."

Charles Fort - 'one measures the circumference of a circle beginning anywhere.' 

So here is an impression of my dear old friend, starting....somewhere.

Random memories of my friend and erstwhile enemy, Matthew Hardyman.

Snippets of our lives which will be meaningless to most or maybe all of you.

Mat was going to be my new Power of Attorney. How ironic that he went before me.

I have to admit my guilt: while others would have broken down I slept after having been given the news, having been unable to process it on the day. I couldn't understand why I wasn't breaking down as everyone else would, as society expects? 

Is it even reality? You're hoping you're in some insane lucid dream that will end soon and everything will be back to normal, although you know. 

You know.

The mere incomprehensibility of Mat not being in my life - let alone his family's - anymore was enough. 

Another number to remove from the favourites of my iPhone. 

So that night I ran a game of D&D for my group in Wells. It’s a weekly commitment and I didn’t feel like staying in and beating myself up for not being all emotional. 

I came back in a good mood, then went to sleep.

In the morning the meaning of it all began to drip-drip in to my consciousness.

Matt and I off our heads in a pub in Green Lanes, Haringey in 1993, alternating hysterical laughter with appalling gut ache.

Racing down to Dorset in Mat’s Renault 5 GT Turbo to reach Mark who’d crashed his supremely dodgy mini van with retread tyres on the way to his first day at Bournemouth college.

We shared a flat for a few years. He’d use everything in the kitchen to make a meal, then go out leaving it all everywhere. He either didn’t understand what was wrong with leaving a mess, or didn’t care.

He could be quite arrogant.

Arguing about him not doing the washing up; Mat finally conceding after 2 hours that he didn’t really like doing the washing up.

His confidence at a young age to argue the facts with anyone. So much so that a garage he harangued so much (where his appallingly unreliable GT Turbo often ended up) were pissed off enough to send him an invoice addressed to “Matthew Hardlyaman”.

He was thick-skinned enough to laugh at it though. That was a trait which took me a long time to assimilate. 

He was a rock. More rational and forensic than anyone anyone else I knew, I would come to him with work or relationship dilemmas and he would always - clinically - lay the arguments flat out and analyse them. 

A complete, instant dissection.

In relationships I naturally accepted that everything was my fault, being the man. But Mat had that barrister’s gift of seeing through the guff and grasping the brass tacks of any given situation. And he did it with such a calm dismantling of the arguments. It was wonderful. If he had been a therapist he could have charged twice the going rate.

I always felt so much calmer and in fact, often rearmed for the next sortie in my many disastrous relationships.  

I don't have that cornerman any more. 

Phobias: Mat had a texture problem with wet wood, so wooden spoons and wooden chopsticks were no-gos.

When writing these eulogies they’re only ever the finished article for a few hours, then something else is remembered. I've been trying to write this for days and it will never be the finished article.

Ah yes, Mat’s fashion choices!

The leather waistcoat, white denim jacket, and some designer black t-shirt with red zips all over it. 

T-shirts always tucked in.

(Of course, all my fashion choices were great….)

Early 90s again; I was on a disastrous date complete with (I’m not kidding) a leper doing card tricks at our table (the gods were doing their utmost to keep me and the awful female from coupling up) and as a coup de grace they sent Mat along to ‘give me a hand.’ Despite me looking him squarely in the eye and telling him in no uncertain terms to 'eff off', he thought I was joking and stayed.

Mat’s incredulity that a nice but dim someone at his university had applied at the same time for the diplomatic service and had got in while he hadn’t even had an interview. Mat’s brilliant gift of the gab combined with his natural confidence made him a fortune doing telesales, but also drove him nuts, so he then applied for the Bar. 

I remember him saying that he couldn’t believe you could get paid for arguing.

Mat always wanted a family. After an unsuccessful first marriage, he then met Suzy. He was overjoyed when Freya arrived in their lives, and then Saffron. He now had a loving family and a dream house. 

Unlike me both Mat and Suzy did grown-up jobs, endlessly juggling duties and work with military-standard organisation.

I'm godfather to his youngest daughter who is a total headcase. 

Good. 

In an increasingly homogenised and commodified world, we need characters - people who are bold enough to stand out and be individuals

So much to say. But with the memories I have that play back in my mind, he’s not really gone. Because I’ll always have those to relive time and again.

Top 500 barrister, MJ Hardyman.

Moving On

 Autumn is here with a vengeance

It was absurdly hot for way too long, and all of a sudden I can wear clothes again. For months all I could wear was a baggy t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops. Every day the same things. Anything else and I was a sweaty mess.

Then it just rained and dropped a few degrees, and all of a sudden it was Autumn. I find it to be reassuring in a way, that despite climate change we are at least in receipt of actual seasonal weather. 

We escaped the worst of the Storm Ciaran, as did most of the country...

Anyway, enough of the weather.

Actual Moving

So a couple of weeks ago I finally moved all my shit here. I was in London at J's (no longer 'home' which is peculiar as I spent 9 years calling it that) and hired a van in London as it's £50 a day as opposed to nearly £80 a day in Somerset. I packed my stuff, having worked out the volume (see picture).

Only a cubic metre out!

So I packed everything up , drove to Somerset, and unpacked it and set it all up, with some stuff in storage which I'm gradually forgetting about, which is not good. The thing is I had so much get up and go that week that I couldn't stop, so I achieved lots, DMing in Wells, then driving the van back the next day to off-hire it and play on the Sunday for the last time with Larry, Adrian and the crew. 

That's the end of an era, then.

Gaming 

Still, looking ahead at least we have Zoom and various other platforms to meet up on and play RPGs on. We're looking to move the Sunday session of Temple of Elemental Evil to a Wednesday afternoon/ evening online, which would be great.

I DM'd last weekend in Wells for an unprecedented  Saturday session in addition to the Thursday session. I DM'd for 5 hours. It was great -  it was a kitchen sink session with a dragon, going up a level, meeting a long lost sibling and in doing so fulfilling a personal quest, a trip to the astral plane and then off to the terribly hot land of Chult to battle zombies and dinosaurs in the jungle.

All in a day's work.

I've also lost days (97 hours so far) to Baldur's Gate 3, which is the most ambitious RPG computer game made to date. My iMac is struggling to cope with processing the data when in the setting of the city where there are scores of NPCs walking about talking, arguing and everyone has a name and a story. It is vast. An incredible achievement by Larian Studios.  

I have a girlfriend called Shadowheart who worships an evil god, but we don't talk about that. My other friends are Will who is a Sorlock , and Lae'zel, who is a mighty Githyanki warrior.

2023 Githyanki

1981 Githyanki

I should really be doing something more than gaming but it is so addictive because it's exciting and you are in the middle - at the heart - of the adventure.

At least I'm writing a blogpost at long last. I haven't even been writing diary entries (I have kept them going for over 35 years) as my life is so uneventful right now!

Man Cave

So yes, I have made a man-cave and am still constructing it. I'm taking Dad to Ikea on Thursday to look at options for his music room.  Dad is all about music, and can't visualise things, so I've shown him some options online and done a scale drawing of the room with possible variations for new furniture, but we'll need to see it physically to make the decisions.

I took the net curtains down in the room. Funny looking out of this huge 1960s window onto the road - the all-too familiar but changed houses opposite. My parents are among the last original owners of these houses when they were built in 1963/4. The people who've come and gone, remembering them , the cars, how things were back in the 1970s and 80s. It's kind of nice and sad at the same time.

Last week I made a desk extension. I'd looked into buying keyboard drawers but they were expensive and I didn't like the designs of them, using bulky clamps and things to attach, so I decided all I needed was some MDF which I would cut, paint and then place everything on top of. 

It's sturdy and impossible to tip due to physics. 

© Geraint Davies Desktop Solutions 

Just got to clear the arch of hideous clutter (Dad's) around it and I'm done. 

What now then?

Funny being here. People I haven't been in contact with and new people I need to befriend and make a social life with. I will go back to London more and more I think. Things with J are good and long may that continue. I walk Tomos every weekday morning, I play online with friends on a Monday, I'm in touch still with people. More online gaming with people would be good. And meeting more people in Wells with similar interests/outlook would be great.

I do, however, need to do more round the house and not get sucked into gaming all day.

And not forget about selling all that stuff in the lockup!

What's a demented to do?

Driving me nuts

Last week I drove with Dad to Ystradgynlais for a friend's funeral. It was the daughter of his violin teacher. We shared the driving as Dad is old but still drives well. I was very pleased with my driving although I was very tired by the end of it as it required a lot of concentrating, I'm not used to driving long distances, and I have FTD of course.

It was quite warm, but being in an air-conditioned car was blissful. I didn't go to the cremation itself but did go to the wake. Lots of people. I got stuck with 2 women who talked at length about how well their respective daughters were doing - a musician and a chemist I think. People always like to show off about their kids. Thing is, if you don't know them you don't care, unless they sound really, really interesting. You just nod politely feigning interest, or you might think it's your turn to talk about yours. 

I guess it's a child-off situation.

It was fine though - just an observation. People like to live vicariously through their child's achievements. I guess at best it's pride.

Reminds me of those Oxbridge types who within 10 minutes of meeting them drop "when I was at Balliol...."into the conversation. Quite an achievement to get to Oxbridge, until you meet some of the numbnuts who went there at the BBC in London.

And of course there are those who say Oxford when they mean the polytechnic, and are quite happy for you to think the grander option.

And for the record I don't give a toss where you went.

D.I.V.O.R.C.E.

So J and I are going to do this amicably. I'm obviously not going to go into details but we are still good friends. 

Everyone thinks I must be upset but I'm not. It just brings to an end an unhappy last few years of marriage. We've agreed terms too. 

Of course you start a marriage with the best of intentions - wanting the other person to feel fulfilled and as content as possible. I wanted J to feel fulfilled and when she left teaching and went back to being a management consultant it was like watching a dormant V8 roar into life. It was amazing. 

But we got married too soon.

I guess it's just 'get it done' now. 

I slept really well last night, so I'm thinking it must be the right thing.

So what of the future? I certainly don't want or crave another relationship. It's not fair on the other person to burden them with my illness, plus I don't think I can accommodate anyone with my current neurological issues, particularly my total tack of empathy and emotional numbness, the latter probably exacerbated by the Setraline. 

I've never been very good at relationships because I didn't particularly like myself for large parts of my adulthood, and you of course have to like yourself in order to like someone else. Or even love them.

But for now I'm quite content just being me on my lonesome.

I just had a chat with J. It's funny that the pressure seems to be off and now we seem much more vulnerable with each other. Which is nice.

(Insert daft comment)

'We do for cash'

I always remember that phrase in a heavily Greek accent from my time working in the office of a day spa in Kensington. 

Fact is I need some pocket money. Ideas:

1. Assembling flat-packed furniture for the Eloi
2. Mineral-based construction solutions (handyman who doesn't touch plumbing or electrics).
3. Er...

Any ideas please leave in the comments section.

Must get on with writing

I have to keep this blog going. You see I can waste days looking at YouTube - what has Donald Trump said now, ditto Marjory Taylor-Green (MTG), and the trashy Lauren Boebert getting thrown out of a Denver Theatre. Rugby League, Rugby Union, Mark Chopper Read, boxing, MMA...

Good just to listen to music and write. Perhaps this is the way forward.

Fat bollock

I am a fat bollock. I am. And it's all to do with beer - the only drug that tastes nice. Drinking way too much beer and every night. It's not good and I have the belly to prove it. It doesn't augur well for my 60s (should I get there, less some Soviet satellite fall on my head while gardening one day) so I should, nay MUST, cut down drastically. Just drink at pubs when in the company of others - not buy any and bring it home. 

I have a very indulgent personality...

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.

All Change!

 Communications Hub

Oh dear me. I seem to be the reason everyone is upset. Well I don't seem - I AM the reason. Having wanted to mitigate for any possible confrontation which I would have found unbearable to deal with, I decided to be the conduit of communications between J and my parents and sister while keeping everyone apart. 

Big mistake.

In my efforts to mitigate any potential conflict, I ended up getting rather confused and my worries became truths. 

For reasons I can't at present go into, it's been deemed best that I go to live in Wells for a bit with Mum and Dad. They are good, solid reasons too.

You may have gathered that I'm not very good at planning or thinking of the future in any way. It doesn't compute in my head and I also find when I visualise the future it's not a nice place. How can it be?

So a combination of panic about the future, trying to mitigate potential conflicts, and keeping people who should be talking apart has led to mistrust between people and a lot of hurt.

This was obviously not my intention, but I guess my declining cognitive faculties and general risk avoidance makes me the least appropriate Director of Comms there could be.

For example, when I explained things to my parents about 'the situation' at home, their natural reaction was to become very protective of me and side with me. Things at this point get a little muddy for me. I remember trying to explain the situation and everyone getting really uppity and adversarial. So I joined in too. I was scared and confused. So many things had been said, ideas and various solutions, which was the end one? My brain was scrambled. 

It also appears I am more fickle than I used to be.

Events cascaded until J suggested a Zoom call with everyone. The lead-up was very stressful as I was expecting fireworks, but it has quelled the storm and clear lines of communication have reopened, with me on the touchline cheering on. I still give my thoughts, but it's clear I'm not to be trusted! 

I don't even trust me anymore.

The Future

I am going to be living in Somerset for the next few months at the end of July/early August, to give everyone here a break. However I want to come back to Kingston every weekend to play D&D though, but it will mean staying in a Premier Inn or on someone's floor.

That's okay.

As long as I can get to see my friends  - I've lived in London for most of my life and the densest population of friends is here in and around London - I'll be happy. I have a couple of friends in Wells too, my sister and Mum and Dad, and other friends in Bristol and Cardiff. I shall have to jump on the train and visit them!

You have been warned...

But I will have to make a life in Wells too. There are gamers everywhere so it shouldn't be too difficult. I shall be upfront about my dementia, and I am still a good player and DM. And gamers are an inclusive bunch. 

I also have the games holiday to look forward to in October.

And it would still be nice to go on walking holidays with J and Ben and Dr Becks.

But I shall miss both my human and dog friends very much.

Fly Swatting Update

I have swatted dozens of flies now. I have divided them in 2 groups: alpha flies and rubbish flies. Rubbish flies hang around in the kitchen and are quite small. They are easy to swat. They are slow and congregate together. They are rubbish.

Alpha flies are big and very aggressively buzzy. They are large and black and very fast and agile. I lock myself in to a room with one and with Wilbur we hunt the varmint down. The great advantage of hunting with Wilbur is that once the fly has been swatted Wilbur then eats the fly. 

It does involve standing on chairs and sofas and bashing curtains to activate the flies from their slumber. NEVER GIVE THEM TIME TO REST! 

Homophobic Messiahs and the Sinister Rise of Fences

Jesus “The” Christ

I’m back in Wells. My friend Mark is here visiting his Mum, sorting out her furniture and what to take and get rid of before the move to Portishead. We’ve decided to go to Glastonbury for the day - the town not the festival.

Both of us have a fondness for Glastonbury from our youth. For me it was the legendary shop Gothic Image, which sold Dungeons and Dragons accessories in the eighties, which I would cycle to on a Saturday morning or even after school and buy miniatures and even the odd adventure.

Well Gothic Image is long gone, and every shop now is an identikit of New Age tat.

Today Glastonbury is a rather unpleasant meeting of Middle-Classed New Age hippies (the ones who live on the foot of the Tor in beautiful houses with Buddhist names and electric 4x4s), acid-casualties and surly drug addicts, and the working class townies. A bit like Brighton as a village. Without the sea.

I realise you might find this monstrously reductive, but it’s what I do best.

So after witnessing a stand off between one middle-aged hippy and an OAP tourist, we wandered up the High Street to The Shambala Centre to bleed our chakras.

Ricky Gervais’s less attractive older brother

Anybody who’s ever claimed to be the reincarnation of Christ has almost always been up to no good, and so a friend then alerted me to the window display a few weeks ago that the Messiah was asked to take down by the police. What a very naughty boy! (Python reference.)

It’ll be interesting to see what happens to his shop front when Glastonbury Pride goes past in the coming weeks…

Fences 

When I was a little boy all the houses in the street were relatively new. A garage was an optional add-on to the house build, and was a separate building altogether. The back gardens were separated by 3 horizontal galvanised wires going through uprights every 4-5 feet. You could go in the garden and talk with your neighbours, and just step over the ‘fence’ if you wanted to, to play with the kids next door.

Come the eighties and 2 metre high fences enclosing everything was the norm. Fewer neighbourly chats and no admittance to hedgehogs, while rats, squirrels, cats and foxes were the only ones who could make it through.

I think it’s really sad. The older I get the more I’m aware what an innately social animal human beings are, yet money and delusions of status prohibit us from interacting naturally with each other.

In historical terms, 5 minutes ago we were operating in groups of 30 hunting and gathering, working 3 hours a day and socialising for the rest, telling stories, singing, eating, laughing, reminiscing - all ages. Then we started farming, destroying biodiversity, psychopaths and their hordes created tyrannical systems of government, the vast majority of us were oppressed for centuries, we fought and died for the  rights we now take completely for granted and here we all are, in an age of total misinformation and another terrifying technological revolution we’re now trying to put a lid on with AI, all the while having wiped out more species than any meteor impact in the history of the planet, and in doing so making it more uninhabitable as the climate changes.

No wonder we’ve never been visited by aliens. I think any ‘intelligent’ life-form would have wiped itself out of existence way before it could ever develop the means to escape its planet by its own selfish needs to ‘survive’.

And it all starts with fences.

Ommmmmmmmmm

That being said, I am really chilled at the moment (for me). I’m happy about myself, all my crimes and misdemeanours from my dim and distant past I beat myself up about I just laugh at now. It’s always a way to defeat your enemies - they taunt you and you laugh. When they know they aren’t getting the reaction they wanted they soon tire of it.

I actually like myself. I’m in a good place. I feel like I did when I first met J. I have a ton of friends. I have fun. It’s beautiful weather at last. I’m really chilled.

It’s so verdant everywhere - exacerbated by the blue, blue skies. The verges aren’t mown anymore to encourage wildlife. Great to see wild flowers everywhere. I’m going to Nerys’s for lunch. They have a puppy called Tomos I’m meeting for the first time.

Don’t let the voices get to you. I don’t.

Oom Shanka.

 

Mid-Somerset Ramble

BBC Rare Dementia Podcasts 

Firstly, the Radio 4 series on rare dementias what J and I were interviewed for back in whenever it was, was aired last week. People have been very positive about them. I thought Jo, the novelist with Semantic Dementia was the best programme of the lot.

Really worth listening to as a window into the different dementias. I hope this opens the door or rather plants the seeds for more programmes and education on rarer dementias.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001kww0/episodes/player

Here’s a shortcut to my one with a totally fucking awful photo of yours truly:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001kwvx

Time Stop

I’m in my childhood bedroom typing this. On this desk I did my homework and I wrote some of the most illogical yet super-creative Dungeons and Dragons adventures of all time. Amazing how many teenagers would fit in here back in the day.

(Sounds a bit weird saying that now.)

Teenagers under cultural circumstances

I’m hoping some of the creativity lives on as a morphic field, bound to the desk, and that I will be able to successfully convert a 42 year old first edition Descent into The Depths of The Earth to a 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons adventure for a party of 4 14th level adventurers. 

It’s a big ask, I’m sure you’ll agree. 

It’s taken me days just to read through the bafflingly Joycean prose of the original in the full awfulness of its tiny sans-serif justified type. As a friend said, early D&D was written by computer-programmers: it needs translating to human before digestion.

Is it a cold or hay fever? I’ll take an antihistamine (thank you spell-check) and find out.

Surrounding me are photos, books on golden ages of Welsh rugby, Ben’s Star Wars lego; outside old  neighbours who’ve been here nearly as long as my parents, multiple Ford Foci, and acres of regularly mown lawn. 

TIDY! As they say in Glamorgan. 

Here’s a word in Welsh: Hiraeth. No wonder we have King Arthur. 

I was always nostalgic. MAGA - is that an ugly version of Hiraeth? Something intangible that never was.

Properly rambling now.

Why I’m here

I’ve been asked to bugger off for a couple of weeks from Kingston, very nicely it must be said, and I was also willing. So I’m visiting my parents who are kindly eschewing Cash in The Attic on my my behalf due to my incapacity for noise. I’ve cooked for them a few times the wonderful food J cooks for me. 

‘Interesting’ was Dad’s verdict on the Butter Chicken and Black Dhal I cooked last night. That usually means ‘shite’ as far as I’m aware. He ate it all anyway. Mum’s off her food and found the tender-stem broccoli anything but.

Jesus - I could be a food writer. How difficult is this? Just wasn’t born a Coren or a Gill.

Meeting old friends

Met up with Franca, Tanith and Clare. It was nice to see them all. I have good chats with people but I’m also aware that I shouldn’t bug people like the saddo I really am. So keeping it to once a week while I’m down here, per person. 

Nice to chew the cud and have a laugh at other people’s expense. Visiting certain people is like meeting Huggy Bear in Starsky and Hutch. I’m getting the low-down from the street, baby.

John Hannam opposite asked where my van was. I told him about my dementia and that I’d had to give up. Mum and Dad haven’t told people obviously. I don’t blame them. Gossipy little place this. It’s enough for them to have to live with it without being constantly reminded of it by busy-bodies and the well-meaning.

Nerys has been busy with everything this week so I’ve seen very little of her, and Mark will be down to look after his mother from next Wednesday.

At least being Jonny-no-mates is a good incentive to sit down and write.

I miss the dogs and am starting to miss the female humans.

Atypical Dementia

It’s odd having an atypical of an atypical dementia diagnosis. When you’ve got it you don’t know what will happen next. What will be the next part of my self to go downhill. Being part of various support groups, I can see and hear people’s prose or speech degrade, to the point where they make less and less sense.

Mine is behavioural so I am just increasingly inappropriate. But, I’m not aware a lot of the time how. I have a little rule that I often - in the moment - fail to follow, and that is, if I think of something hilariously funny I should probably best not say it.

Many of the things I post now are quite outrageous I hear. I think they’re funny. 

But then again I’m a bit demented.