Twelve Days in the Year: 27th June 2025

Groggy. So groggy. I don’t know if this is the result of a really heavy week of work, or the weather, or the small glass of beer I had last night. Slept deeply with strange dreams that I don’t remember. Vaguely heard electronic noises that could be washing machine or lorry reversing, not sure whether I’m dreaming them. If I’d set my alarm my brain would have recognised it – actually I’d almost certainly have woken five minutes or so earlier – but it’s Glastonbury weekend so despite it being Friday I didn’t see it as A doesn’t have to set off to work at a quarter past seven.

This turns out to be erroneous; it was her alarm clock, she does have to go in this morning, and by the time I wake up again she’s made tea and is heading into the bathroom. I get up and do dishes; after she leaves, I water the chillis and aubergines in the greenhouse, Hoover downstairs and wash the floor, get washed and woozily work through some emails – I am really not up to continuing with the writing of a research proposal I didn’t expect I would be working on today.

Cannot come round at all. I make fried rice for lunch when A comes home, then just got to bed. We agree that today is not a day for a festival; neither of us is that bothered about Alanis Morissette (and while I would have loved to see Lorde, that was never an option as we wouldn’t have got to the site until mid-afternoon). After an hour or so’s doze, we go into town to buy food for an impromptu barbecue; chat to a few people we meet, and admire the flowers being put out around town in preparation for the ‘Britain in Bloom’ competition (or in my case mutter darkly, as I think it’s all very top-down rather than a genuine community effort). Back home to dig potatoes and pick salad, Pardon peppers and courgettes; make mayonnaise, grill courgettes and dress with my homemade cheese, cook dinner. All goes well, and even according to time. A bit of reading, then bed.

This feels like a stupid, pointless day. A.’s line is that “your body is trying to tell you something”; true enough, but from my perspective it’s telling me that I’m incapable of doing a decent amount of work without a fit of the vapours, and that I’m fooling myself if I imagine that I’m really getting properly better. And I am so horribly behind with everything…