Thursday, 10th. September 2026

I feel refreshed, but then today is a shower day. Before retirement a morning shower was the norm, post retirement it is twice a week – a weekend day and a midweek day. Saves water, saves energy – saves money. Despite being mostly cloudy, including some pretty dark rainclouds, it is also sunny, at least for the time being. I can see from here that it is raining on Dartmoor and clouds are below the peaks of Haytor, Hound Tor and Saddle Tor. Will it rain here at just above sea level? Maybe, but for the time being it is very calm, with almost no breeze.

I have a busy day ahead, with a gardener arriving at 0930 for two hours, a grocery delivery that seems to take forever to pack away in all the right places, and a visit from a good friend at lunchtime – a good friend who is not well at the moment with an unpleasant and as yet undiagnosed mystery illness. We will no doubt find a nearby quiet country pub for the afternoon. He has personal stories to tell and I most certainly have personal stories to tell following our last encounter. Mystery illnesses, black sheep in the family and my realisation after 22 years that I left something important behind in London that I never talk about.

I am rather looking forward to the day ahead. Meeting and talking with people who live in the real world – my friend and the gardener – is always refreshing, especially after a few days of listening to people on the wireless who exist in an alternative reality.

Being a fan of science fiction I rather enjoy stories about alternative realities and dystopian futures, but I’ve learned that I really do not like living in one. I remember thinking in 1984 that it felt very much like 1984, but how could I possibly have known that I would be living in Orwell’s very real and very hellish nightmare in 2026. The only difference I can see is that the real world and the Orwellian world coexist in the same space and, in glass half-full mode, I have hope that the real world will prevail. Somehow.