Decided to try a bit harder today. Not managing to connect with any real people in my real life, but the internet helped me a bit.

This morning Frank Cottrell-Boyce tweeted an extract from his (fabulous, recommended), YA novel 'Millions' referring to today being epiphany or 12th night. I'd been reminded of this experience recently, so decided to tweet him about it as follows (in 140 character segments): "1) when I worked for 'Out of School Learning' I taught poorly kids in their homes. One kid, we did some maths, then read 2) and discussed a ch of Millions. First one sister joined us, then the other came home from work early on 'my' days, to 3) listen to the book, then the mum. Soon the whole family sat round, cold wet afternoons, drinking tea, eating biscuits 4) listening to me read Millions. Bloody brilliant it was. Thank you." And he only tweeted back: "Hearing that's the best start to a year I can remember" so that was fucking fab, really cheered me up. Singers and people get rounds of applause, so it's cool to tell authors true stories about the effect of their words. At some point I want to tell Louis Sachar about going into the stock cupboard of the English dept during a free period looking for some paper, seeing a stack of a new novel I'd never heard of, 'Holes', picking one up to have a look at the first page and suddenly the bell was ringing and I'd lost forty minutes standing up reading his fantastic novel.

Then I went out with my camera and took forty-two pictures of blue things for today's photo a day challenge



I then posted it on FMS's page, with this note: "#6 Something blue - bait-digger's hoodie. Hey, FMS, I would like to thank you for this project. I suffer from chronic, awful depression that comes and grabs me every now and then. I've been right in the pit of doom since before Christmas, unable to do anything much at all. I copied this month's prompts and was having a bit of a go, but today was just brilliant. I spent hours out and about, looking at blue things, totally forgetting all the miserable stuff, just being present, in the moment, looking at blue. I thank you and send you a big fat hug xxxx"

So there you go, being nice to two strangers, better than being a rage-filled bastard all day, even if I didn't manage to be nice to Bloke. I did take the Christmas tree down (what with it being 12th night and all) and shoved it in the boot of my car, which is the nearest I've come to doing housework since fuck knows when.

I am grateful for: being a bit active; having a great camera; low tide; drugs (still); friends

Laters xxxx