Labyrinth

Taking down the birthday cards, except Lucy's lovely flying bird, still hanging from a hook on the dresser. The mantelpiece looks a little bare, but I don't feel much about it. Intermittent conversations about how best to celebrate the 50 next year. Not at all sure, except for one thing - do not want big party! Friend S suggests taking the Turkish baths in Harrogate for a day. I have a hankering to be by the sea with friends. We shall see. I guess this is a sign of hope, to be thinking about it at all, in one whose predominant impulse at the moment is to crawl into a cave and hide. I'd say under a duvet, but I spend so many wakeful hours under one each night at the moment that the appeal has lessened. S has given me some Passiflora (homeopathic remedy) and it may have helped a little last night, not sure. I woke at 2am after three hours' sleep, and was predictably awake for some time, perhaps an hour and a half, but then did fall into the sleep-wake-sleep-wake pattern that is another familiar part of my recent experience. Maybe half an hour's sleep at a time, maybe less, waking with a vivid dream fragment, wide awake again for a time, then back for another vivid dream. It's not terribly restful but it sure beats lying awake for three or four hours at a stretch.

Need to start sorting out the information for the tax return. Need to get a haircut. Need to sort out the over-stuffed filing cabinet, thus enabling the sorting of my drawer and my basket, my two day-to-day in-trays, whose organisation is never complete because there's no room in the filing cabinet to put anything away.

The forecast is for glorious sunshine but we are currently shrouded in mist. Last night a bright autumn moon, just past full.

Currently life makes no sense and I can find no joy, except in lighting the wood burner, and food. One foot in front of the other in the labyrinth, hoping eventually to find the way out.