Author: Ellen Bell

Am I alone in not getting excited about the Artemis trip around earth? It leaves me cold. Of course, their achievement and bravery is monumentual, but why, why do it? All that money and those resources used up, and for what? I am a luddite, a stuck-in-the-mud, I know. But surely there is much to put right, to understand and pay attention to here on this planet first. Shouldn’et we try to solve our problems here (most of which are of our making) before trying to discover if we can live elsewhere? I don’t know. I don’t, I know….

The flat smelt of it. We don’t buy or cook bread anymore. It must have been from the flat underneath. I like the smell. It smells of home.

A woman from the health board called yesterday, asking if I’d like an appointment with a private eye hospital to have my cataracts operated on. I accepted the offer but with trepidation. He says its an easy procedure. I will have to yield, for the mist increases. But I am scared.

They come to us as statistics. The people who are killed and the families that are left bereft and impoverished are unknown to us – their names, their faces, their lives never told. And it isn’t OK, even in the name of war. Any life taken is a crime, an abomination. Let us know this, and feel this. And stop.

Will it hold? Who knows? It’s all a madness. ‘Cry havoc, and let loose the dogs of war’, at least I think that was the Shakespeare quote. Havoc has been cried. What now? Why, oh why, can’t we live in peace?

Apparently it is impossible, they say that the part of the brain that reads and writes isn’t active during sleep. And yet the last two nights I have done just that – read and written. The first time it was in Norwegian, last night in English. I’m always writing by hand, with an ink pen and, as with these last two dreams in red. Last night the word was LIKE. There is a kind of brain control being exercised, certainly. And it fascinates me.

We do this sometimes, usually at breakfast, where he looks up deals as I wash up. He’d rather we took a villa, whereas I want a hotel. And to do absolutely nothing. It probably won’t happen. I will talk us of out due to the expense and the effort involved. But the dreaming, nonetheless, is pleasant.

They found him. I prayed that they would. And I am glad. It is something. A life saved in all this mayhem and mindlessness. Let Easter shine its light and hope today. Let there be peace. Please.

It’s only the second time that they’ve been here. They appear to come alone, to be with their father and not their mother. But I don’t know. It’s neighbours’ stories, that’s all. Made up, surmised. I heard them last night running about below me. It was late for them but for me it was. It has to be accepted. This is, after all, the downs and ups of sharing a space with others. I hope that they were having fun.

Last night I was conscious of watching myself write, of trying to form the words and of reading them. It was all in Norwegian. And I was using a red crayon. It was a bad night. Restless and tense. This morning has continued to be so. My body is rigid with anxiety. It could be the full moon playing its tricks. Sitting here, ready to work, is all I can do. I must face and move into the fear in order for it to dissipate. I know this. So be it.

There is something a little humbug about my personality. Today it is the space launch that I can’t get excited about. Or is it that I won’t? It seems such a great waste of resources and time and for what? There is so much down here that needs attending to and there they go bursting into the skies trying to conquer what they don’t understand. Hmmph.