‘Mood swings and roundabouts’ Michael James reflects on being shielded

17.20pm Tuesday 31 March 2020

Yesterday was an amazing day for me. I woke up and decided that I would take everyones advice and go out for a walk. I surprised myself and managed to get as far as the Madeira Lift with a few stops to catch my breath on the way. I sat in the sunshine on the seat which faces directly onto the beach. Propped up with my hands crossed on the handle of my walking stick, I gazed from left to right. I sat for ten minutes enjoying my freedom. I closed my eyes for a few moments before deciding it was time to go home. As I rose I remembered the phone in my pocket so I took it out and photographed the scene around me. Only then did I see NHS scratched into the sand of the volley ball court. That cheered me up no end as I came home.

Once in, I did all my antibac duties as set out by Carol B. After my porridge I decide it was time to tackle another page of The Putti and the Painter. I worked on for a couple of hours and then stopped. I was in a high state of creative excitement. So much so I decided it might be a good time to actually look at the TV news. For the first time in over a week. Bad decision. Even worse was to follow. I watched Newsnight later on. What a downer. Wisps of negative thoughts and anger began to ease their way into my consciousness. I poured my first gin of the evening at 11pm. I sipped it through various bits of trashy TV but the depression had taken hold. I went to bed but could not sleep. My mind was filled with incomprehension and anger. Thoughts, images striding across my mind with blatant disregard for my feelings or well being. Nasty, nasty murderous thoughts.

18.17pm

Waitrose just called delivering 5 bags of shopping. Mainly frozen meals. A couple of years back I bought one of those things the bin men use to pick things off the floor. This was to stop me from bending down and possibly doing my back in. The delivery man left the bags on the floor outside the front door. I lifted them in one by one using my little implement. Then I brought them into the kitchen to decant the contents into the freezer. I wiped every article with the antibac baby wipes. Then I retired to lay on the bed. I was tired out. I do get very tired these days even doing simple tasks.

Back to this morning laying in bed after a poor nights sleep. Not as bad as some nights. I’m getting used now having to rise to use the loo only an hour after I used it previously. The nasty images had still not departed I lay there in a waking dreamlike state amazed at the combinations of violence I planned on doing to Trump and all those so called leaders and their business cohorts who together were busy destroying the planet before our eyes. I wriggled and tossed around trying to bring a semblance of order, of peace and reconciliation into my troubled brain. No luck. I continued torturing myself until the phone rang. It was the lady from the council who came to see me 5 weeks ago.

She wanted then to asses me for a new kitchen. I had been promised a new kitchen 5 years ago. She told me the good news that she was busy designing my units with more working top space better cupboards and drawers with cages that spring out so I do not have to kneel on the floor to reach the back of the cupboard. Well that really cheered me. Gone was the violence and anger of a few moments previously. I sat up in bed and savoured the prospect of a new kitchen.

I barely had time to lick my lips when the mobile cheeped. It was my number one best female friend in the whole world. Matin who gave me a place to live and a job after the break up of the drag commune in 1972. I went off to live in Amsterdam. I emigrated. I was gone with my 15 cardboard boxes containing all my possessions. Matin an author, actress and director was married to Floris a creative IT entertainment mogul. Well he wasn’t a mogul then but he was on the way. She had sent me a lovely video of a bird singing and a little boy about 7 or so mimicking the bird perfectly.

And a photo of my old mooring on the junction of the Prisengracht and the Utrectstraat. Right outside the infamous ITC hotel. The first place in Amsterdam to show male porn. Proper male porn. The nightmarish mind games of the previous night vanished. I was alive well and full of energy. I dressed and went out for my 2nd walk. Home then for breakfast.

I wrote another page of The Putti and the Painter and then lost myself on Facebook and Yahoo news. No more TV news for a while. My sanity does not need to be eroded piecemeal. I have at least another 8 weeks of this. I have to use my time here productively. For myself not for any employer. I want come through this with head held high. Sadly no heels. My balance has gone. Singing along with the fantabulous Dolorous Grey who I first saw close up, aged 9. She had sailed across the pond on one of the Queens to appear on the London stage in Kismet with Alfred Drake. All the transatlantic liners stopped overnight in Plymouth Sound so visiting Americans could come ashore in a tender to see for themselves the mythical, made up, spot from where the Mayflower is alleged to have set sail with the very first shipment of poisonous, right wing Yankee evangelists.

She was then the number one American musical star. I fell in love with that long luscious bond hair. What the fuck did I know about bleach at that age?