Woke naturally just after 6.

I’ve been sitting consistently each morning, just haven’t been writing about it. It’s not easy to do, this waking up, feeling however you’re feeling, and instead of getting busy doing the day, just… ceasing. On the cushion. You and your stuff and your relation to it. The relation is the key. Or maybe the ‘you’. And the return of ‘yesterday’. There’s yesterday to remind you of things that perhaps you don’t want to be reminded of. Residues. Fifteen thousand yesterdays, maybe. There it is. And yesterday isn’t only in the mind, but riddled throughout the body. The past, held. And here you are, with the day ahead, the past inside, the breath happening right now yet affected by ‘later’ and ‘earlier’, the breath a link between mind and body. There’s still some shaking taking place, particularly the right arm, the over-busy right arm. And the neck. And sometimes the shaking overtakes everything until the whole upper body is a wobble. This is when the slight nausea comes and when all control ceases.

I’ve been redoing the Hittleman 28 day course to reboot my yoga practice. Straight after sitting, I’m focused and calmer, able to dive into the various stretches, pleasant to move after the stillness. It’s a very good, progressive course, varied in its asanas, without the obsession with standing poses of Iyengar, and absolutely no trace of yoga flow or vinyasasa styles. This is 1960s yoga. It ties in well with the book I’m reading: Yoga, Youth and Reincarnation, again from the 60s, before yoga became a big thing. The same results are mentioned and experienced from so many unrelated sources of so many eras. Unrelated practitioners and teachers, but common health-giving properties. I’m feeling fit and well and strong on it.

Much later on the local news: “Tomorrow, we’ll be looking at how yoga is helping former servicemen.”

When walking to the school, skirting around the podgy pigeons so they don’t have to fly away. Two meters is the limit. No sudden moves. Two young ones, looking slim like doves.

A young bunny having a good scratch behind the ears. My last day of looking after the chickens. Yesterday a hen died. Old age. Only three left now after the original 20. The cocky cock tried to sneak up on me from under the coop. But I had my stick and I saw his tactic. I held the stick out in front of me and he’s so charged that he’ll jump at it, trying to attack with his sharp spurs. When that failed, he started making some strange clucky sounds and then he took it out a bit on the mother duck. She shouted at him and then he went off looking for the other cockerel, the punky one, to pick on at the other end of the orchard. Any time a chicken feeds, the ducklings scurry over to pick up any pellets spilled from the chickens pecking at the feeder. It’s the mother’s second brood this year.

On a break, feeding the fish in the courtyard pond. The orange fish’s colour is fading on the head and underside. It happened while I was away a week and the weather got very hot. I read that changes in water quality can do it, or just old age. They feed more tamely now but still do the sudden darting away to avoid being eaten, I guess, swirling the food flakes behind them. No sign of the newts. How do newts get in a pond surrounded on all sides by a building?

Read online: “For every one human killed by a shark, there are approximately 25 million sharks killed by humans.”

An hour’s walk late afternoon,  over to Bramdean and back – along the ridge then dropping down to The Fox, armed with my bramble beating spear of a walking stick. Sunny, low 20s.

Steve Tyler on Top Gear. Hard to take my eyes of his face. What is it with this rock & roll long hair, shaman, things-in-hair look? Much of a cliche. Clarkson generally looking old and ill especially when pulling his daft faces. Last feature, James & Jeremy ‘reviewing’ caravan cars, those jacked up versions of regular cars. May called one “The Nisan Kumquat”. They joke that they are all the same. Clarkson: “James is in the wrong car.” He was. James: “Cock!” The Mazda perfectly happy to crash into a VW but not a hedge or legs, apparently a selective crash detector. Caravan racing: The Stig towing a suddenly one-wheeled caravan, sparks flying. Then some off road caravanning. May: “I’ve run over your left wall and your portable lavatory.” Then: “I was laughing so much I crashed into myself.”