Depressing news on TV. Pressing business at work I can’t cope with. Still trouble with my back. And that won’t change, not for a long while. Spine deformed, discs worn out. Welcome to old age. As if I ever had to drag heavy loads about or suffered other physical strains. But no, can also be inhertited, I’m told. Now I remember my sister’s spine operation, when she was just a teenager. Or my dad, who after what, three or four disc operations is now left to just suffer as they can’t help him any more. The hot water bottle comes to mind, without which he never retires to bed. How come I never thought this could affect me, too? Maybe just as well. Why worry about things not yet the case. Why worry about things already the case, even? Get up, get on with it. Even though it feels like being knee deep in sh…, no the North Sea.

Knee deep in the North Sea, Portico Quartet