Diary: October, 22

Continued 3/4

15th

Today I went on a morning walk around Gala hill.

The walk ended a circular walk, from my flat, and back to my flat.

14th

Slept on the settle within this “crash pad”; next to me was a radiator, the heat was nice but space limited, twisting my neck. Could not bring me to sleep on the bed, been seven months since I slept on a bed, and such is the situation of diabolical estrangement.

After purchasing breakfast at my favourite Galashiels bakery I walked around town and took some photographs.

13th

The temperature dropped to 3c during the night, uncomfortable night’s sleep touched by the lingering cold. I require warmer clothes and a thicker sleeping bag if I am going to get through the approaching winter. The snow is on its way, in a fortnight a Galashiels local told. On a positive thought, I managed to purchase a warm wool cardigan from a charity shop. I am a hardy soul but I am almost 49 years old and in hindsight of what I endured during my life, I should be thinking about rehousing myself, admit these process crippling anxieties that ilude ingenuity. The wind chill is definitely minus but my body tempreture seems to be coping with the icey nip. Woken at 5 am by dog walkers but if I pack away now, I”ll be walking, shivering through the coldest hours of the dawn.

I’ve found it hard to remember to take. my pills to prevent Lyme disease, missing doses, mostly. during the evening, my mental health has been deteriorating, guess this is why I have been drinking to tame the hypervigilance before my mind breaks when I should be prioritising anticipation of the coming cold. I have warming memories of the folk of Galashiels, my heart will be sore to leave this town. I am planning on traveling again today.

I have been feeling things crawling around in my ears, but I suspect this is psychosomatic after throwing numerous earwigs out of my tent during the last few early mornings and late evenings. I am looking forward and being motivated to rise from my tent by anticipation of a warm roll and hot coffee I could purchase in town. It’s most strange to perceive kindness from inanimate objects, I guess from a dilapidated state of soullessness.

In a way writing this blog about myself feels selfish and self-centered, but usually, emerged in the deep depths of this isolated and objectified disparity I have little else if nothing else to write about. Packing up my tent, notably pulling out the tent poles burned my hesitant hands with sticky cold, my tent was frozen, and the material folded as if it were cardboard. The walk down the Brae was warming, and I found the bakery friendly, although the younger member of the bakery could not empathise with the predicament; I watched closely to find a sign of autism but only found Neoliberal conditioning. Coffee and rolls are of good quality here and save my stiff fingers from precariously tumbling around a hot gas stove.

The volunteers maintaining a strip of the park alongside an affluent street of shops were unfriendly, as if I were, with torn, frayed edges from the fringes of wilderness were unsightly to their prim, edgy, nit-combed garden, part of the gentrification facade that fronts, from the south, a dysfunctional and underfunded civic administration of Galashiels.

I prefer wild indigenous flowers. This purple toadflax is bonnie among the crumbling brickwork of a redundant factory.

A walk down the road revealed a recharge cafe, curiosity curtailed inside to see the recycling of food waste. A posh squat cafe I thought.

Inside the cafe, I got to wash all the minging soiled clothes at the bottom of my rucksack which means now I have a clean pair of warmer socks. Happy to say I am leaving this cafe stuffed, food was delicious and the people volunteering are helpful.

I choose to walk mountains, to hitchhike locations of outstanding natural beauty rather than curl up inebriated inside pissy shop doorways; yet these predicaments are visible to only a fraction of society. Today I phoned the Borders council homeless team, I am not very optimistic about a positive outcome, and having given them my details to await a callback, I read the list of discriminative criteria displayed on their website.

To be eligible for a homeless service, you must be able to show that you:

• are homeless
• are not intentionally homeless
• are unable to remain in your home due to domestic abuse, medical, financial, overcrowding or any other significant reason
• have a local connection

There is an option of private rented accommodation, I will explore those possibilities.

I also booked myself in for an eye test but this isn’t happening till next week, as I am having to pull objects back at length to focus on them. I have set my phone alarm to go off three days earlier to remind me every day that I need to be back in Galashiels for the eyesight OTC test. A man named Andrew Stewart returned a call from the borders council, how weird that my previous council officer was named Alan Stewart. They seem to be in the mind of assisting me in returning to Cornwall, and liaising reconnection with the council there. Am not keen on returning to Cornwall, after spending 18 months there driven out of my distraught mind with disturbing unease of outright loneliness.

I returned to the Borders council at 2 pm and found they have temporarily housed me in emergency accommodation in Galashiels. This must be so insulting to my ancestry, who held Scotland’s longest occupied residential house, for over nine hundred years; how times have changed. The guy who was interviewing me about an emergency loan was expressing his doubts to me that I would be rehoused. He admitted that the decision was not up to him as he quizzed me about what I had and how I spent my money since Monday. I’ve figured out the central heating and changed a bulb around so I have got some lighting in the lounge.

I got the loan, which was £40 then he rang back and said he’d made a mistake and in fact, it was £80; felt as if he was playing head games, they know I have been diagnosed with BPD. The money came through via a text message which could be cashed at any PayPoint. I purchased a pint with my last £5 and sat with some locals until 8 pm, then. got to take away, and fell asleep after eating.

12th

Was a cold and uncomfortable night, in the early hours of the morning I woke to a downpour of rain upon my tent.

Last night I was violently sick from a pizza purchased at Domino’s, shall not be going there again.

To add to the discomfort I had pitched next to sheep poo, the smell lingered throughout my tent during the night. I joked with the bakery this morning stating “I am everywhere and nowhere”; and added with my thought “forsaken and deprived of a somewhere”. I found a quaint wee cafe named T-4-2 and enjoyed soup and a roll.

Later I popped back into the Salmon Inn and met a guy who had been disinherited from his family legacy. He finished his coffee and not wanting to drink alcohol left the pub. I parted his company and went next door, returning to the auld mill inn. I remained here until the evening, I watched Rangers get crushed 7-0 at home to a visiting Liverpool. A local man, whom I have met on a few occasions was kind to me today, purchasing me an evening meal from Tony’s takeaway.

I walked sound Galashiels after 10 pm, up Gala hill but was too anxious and disturbed to settle and pitch for the coming night. I ventured over to the North of Galashiels and trying not to overwalk myself, pitched near a golf course. My tent is not pitched properly, missing side tent pegs have made my tent vulnerable to winds. I fell asleep thirsty.

11th

Woke up disturbed at 5 am and immediately packed away my tent before sunrise. I wandered around Galashiels during the morning, all toilets were locked, bursting for a no2. I walked the empty streets of Galashiels, found a bakery, and purchased a warm cup of coffee. Later I spoke to a seated man with a wee dog, he had “Self Made” tattooed on his hands, a saying (you are what you do) he recalled from his father. He told how the streets here disturbed him late at night, his flat directly above where he sat. He spoke about a broken town, a botched civic administration which my wanderings this morning discovered to be true.

I cleaned broken eggs that had been cracked over a statue of a wee girl’s head with spring water I’d purchased, decimation is rife, everywhere I go. The newsagent I got the water from gave me a free cup of tea, they told of a person who found no respondent, thinking they were dead but turned out to be a heroin abuse victim.

I feel ajar this morning as to where to go; feeling a yearning to return to Europe, where I know it is harder for to side-swipe inherent worth from my life away from me. Found some quiet at the Salmon Inn, and beer to steady my jumping perceptions triggered despondent by anxieties.

10th

Awoken inside the bothy, the wood I’d sawed kept out the damp air. I walked out of the bothy and faced the cold mountain air.

I hitched a lift from a male socialist, he took me to Hawick. They are some of the most detached and deluded people I’ve ever met, totally ignorant of the mass murder orchestrated by Marxism that has happened and still is happening on a global scale.

After visiting a cafe for a hot roll, where I was observant, with some sadness at the sight of a tearful praying woman, I settled in a bar named the Waverly, I got on well with the barmaid and the clientele, we were all bemused by the Banana Republican crank that arrived early afternoon.

I stayed in the bar for around four hours, first chatting at the bar and then playing pool with two brothers who shared the same surname as myself, one of them owned a bar up the road, incidentally, I beat him at a game of pool. Snagged the bus into Galashiels after some walk along the A9. Managed to get my tent up on the rocky ground, have to invest in new tent pegs in the morrow, but for now, it’s bye-bye unto zzz’s.

9th

Had a very deep sleep last night, and my legs and arms had a burning feeling this morning.

I visited the cooperative supermarket and pushed some breakfast. On the way in I met the deceptive woman who faked being ill yesterday, this time I chose not to befriend her.

To burn off anxiety I walked around the town of Melrose, passing the rugby ground. At 10 am I paid entrance to see Melrose Abbey, I’d heard my ancestor’s (Robert debris) heart was buried there but wanted to know if this was true.

I don't believe Robert deBruis heart was burried in the location they claim (this is disputed also by historians). Nor do I believe deBruis would have his heart seperated from his body. Seperating a heart from a body was a punishment which leaves me to concluded he was stabbed in his back or set up to be murdered during the crusadesm, as a disused, useful idiot.

I walked uphill and south of the town, through a disused railway station on walked east along the A6091… I was glad to rise above and leave Melrose.

After an hour I got a lift from Melrose from a narcissistic farmer’s wife, despite this infliction she was empathic and showed me kindness. After a stop at a general store in Jedburgh (pick up some bothy supplies) she dropped me at Bryness, I walked up through the Kielder Forest a mile or two.

Until arriving at a wee bothy named Spithope.

Suffering from exposure from two weeks of chilling cold wind.

Settled down and attempted to silent noisy thoughts, just one reminded of vulnerability, a False Widow spider. Pitched about one hundred yards away from the River Dart, my friends on the other side of the road in their caravan, came over early to check if I was OK.