Dry cleaning.

Accommodating dialysis doesn’t get any easier. I called it cleansing, a gentle euphemism for the reality of the drain of it. Then the old git came up with ‘dry-cleaning’……so now I go to the dry cleaners three times a week. I binge on television box sets and meditate to Belle Ruth Napersteck’s CD on dealing with dry-cleaning.
It’s a tricky time of year what with all the adverts for holidays, I ache to go to Greece to smell the dry earth of Portugal or get pissed on the sands of Spain, but I’m not ready to travel yet.
I can slip back into nostalgia to remind myself that I have had a life. A rumbustious concoction of high intensity fun and games. A life of cameras and microphones, and high tension activity, so dealing with my new reality makes me angry and sad.,
When asking my Portugal~dwelling nephew about his poly tunnel and his thrill at growing beetroots and carrots, spinach and tomatoes, and he tells me that they are self sufficient I resist telling him that I can’t eat spinach and tomatoes because they are high in potassium and I can’t eat avocados and figs either, and I hush my mouth so I don’t sound like a 76 year old party pooper.
I’m tired and generally snippy. Trump and Musk dont help with their ridiculous squabbling. Farage and his empty party don’t help either, and as for Israel threatening to blow up Greta Thunberg’s boat with aid for Gaza I would happily watch Netanyahu’s mob be systematically dismantled.
I buy the ‘Observer’ newspaper, read the magazine, look at the tv listings then flick through the main paper, I cant be bothered to read about Kemi Badenoch with her upper crust accent attempting to be a leader – I’ve turned into a curmudgeonly old lady.
I find succour in Ted Lasso and John Hamm, I have been told about Duo Lingo and am considering learning Italian, a spirited way to bide my time at the dry cleaners.
This afternoon we went to Roger Daltrey’s tap room, a couple of villages away. Sunday groupings of ale connoisseurs and their dogs, sitting at wooden garden tables opposite a lake with bullrushes. The surroundings of a rich rock star who has given back to the community with his hops and handmade crisps. I drove back up the 3 mile drive past clapboard houses and climbing roses. Lifted my mood.
You can tell I’m not myself, I’m unimaginative and dull, dreary and gloomy. I am grateful to still be alive. But I am jealous of septuagenarians who are still active and I’m envious of old fuckers who are still hiking.
I am well aware that my mental state is linked to my physical health and I do know what I have to do, but sometimes I just feel crushed like an over worn linen suit.
This too will pass, and I will bounce back, but today I feel weedy and woebegone and I have to pack for the dry cleaner’s tomorrow.
Belleruth says to forgive yourself for past misdemeanours, I’m getting better at it. Having a food show for years meant I ate my way into type 2 diabetes, but oh the fun we had along the way.
I met a witch who told me I would live till I was 96 and pigs in blankets might fly.