Cricketing Endings.

As I write on the final Saturday of my annual late summer holiday the cricket is coming to an end once again. What an interesting series England and West Indies has been. It looks as if England will win inside three days on a pitch of low scores. Another outcome is possible. As autumn beckons we prepare for an Ashes winter.

So where am I at the end of my break? I have had some marvellous days and some pretty ordinary ones. Yesterday was mixed. Lovely lunch with Miriam at The Waggoners. The last time I ate fish soup was in Fecamp in Normandy in the summer of 1990. That first summer of my secret madness before all came out into the open. The soup yesterday was very good followed by some excellent lamb cutlets and the wonders of French cheeses. The evening was less good, plans not working, frustration and at times outright anger.

A day later after poor sleep I guess I'm okay. The stomach problems are hanging on but I feel okay. A lovely lunch of Moroccan style eggs set me up, onions, tomatoes and garlic sweated off with pimenton and cumin, a couple of eggs poached in it topped with a little chopped coriander. Beautiful sweetness to the tomatoes. My efforts at finishing watching the first NFL game of the season foundered as for some reason the recording cut it short. But never mind.

Sunday lunch will be Sunday lunch tomorrow. Rarely eat at that time but will roast a chicken and invite friends to partake around 2 pm to clear myself for a night of NFL action.

Thoughts of next week have never really left me during the break. It has not been overwhelming but has entered my dreams and sometimes led to obsessive and anxious thinking. I have to get better at letting things go and not building things up to what they probably won't be.

Mentally I am better than yesterday, hardly flying but not drowning. The long haul awaits so I must gird up my mental resources and proverbial loins to take on the world in a way in which I can thrive not dive. I do not wish to sink to the depths of two years ago. Yes I graduated on that equivalent yesterday what happened next was most inglorious. I do not seek glory but safety and a taming of the anxiety will do me for now. Until then.

I Heard a Voice.