sunrise farmyard by katharine eastman
Thank the Lady, I found the one non-rainy non-stormy day yesterday and went on a longish walk - picture (again) is Dilton Farm, one of my favourite parts of the world, feeling almost untouched and half-wild, and very very muddy and cow-shitty - up to my ankles. Then, beyond it, walking across the old aerodrome at Beaulieu Heath, right in the middle of unfrequented nowhere, I saw on the ground a debit card exactly like my own - a blue Halifax Visa thingy.
But this one belonged to a Mrs Turner and its expiry date was in 2027. No one around at all. Should I leave it alone and imagine Mrs Turner coming back later, retracing her steps, and finding it ? Or should I pick it up ? Yes I picked it up. Half an hour later, near the model aircraft runway, there was a couple with a dog. I shouted across to them - asking if they'd lost a debit card. Understandably, like everyone else in this timid scared stupid shitty country, they made nervy little noises and ignored me.
Hours later, back in this city, I was covered in mud and shit and my boots were shedding that stuff everywhere I went. It's a weird thing, but it's a look that suits me - I get far more interest from my favourite sex when I'm dirty and smelly and high after hours of walking than I ever get when I'm clean and silent. I walked down the High Street and posted the debit card into the Halifax Bank postbox. It was a waste of time really wasn't it. As soon as Mrs Turner noticed she'd lost her card she'd've cancelled it and another one would be on its way in hours.
One of my friends helps people without any money to live. Sometimes, between appointments, she goes out of her office and walks around her local park. She did this about three weeks ago and noticed a man on a bench and realised that he was dead. Nothing particularly unusual there - we're going back to the Victorian age and earlier when Death was public and commonplace. She didn't have her phone on her. She asked three separate passersby to call the police - one passerby swore at her and abused her, the other two ignored her.
I really do think it's a waste of time trying to be a good person or do the right thing. No one wants help, no one deserves it, no one needs it. Currently millions of us are having minor strokes - in the old days we'd go to the GP and have it investigated - but now, with GP appointments so impossible, we ignore it and hope it goes away - and it often doesn't - the small one is the precursor to the big/fatal one. So although it looks like we're surrounded by scaredy-cat timid people, we're actually all being very brave and stoic. Everyone stay at home, ignore everyone else, be independent, self-sufficient, enough, everyone like they're in an Ayn Rand novel come true.
photo Dilton Farm yesterday
