I started doing this diary in June, it's quite new. If you haven't been following have a look at the Cast of Characters which gives a quick low down on the essential day to day characters who are mentioned here...it will make more sense if you do.

After I had posted my diary last night something happened which is worth writing about so I'm posting it today. I was actually just on the point of saying goodnight and turning off the computer when Irene came and asked me for a chat. So I turned everything off and went through to the sitting room in the main house where the woodburner was on and the puppy was flopped out on the sofa and a cup of tea was waiting. Anyway we talked about various things, including the events of the coming weekend (more on that subject at another time) and one thing led to another and we got onto the subject of cash boxes. It just so happened that I had a cash box, and there's a story involved. I'm going to tell the story as breif as I can, but brief is not my strong point so skip it if you want.

Ok...I used a lot of prescription medication in the last few years, mainly opiates and other painkillers and various sedatives/ tranquilisers/ anti-depressants, I used them because I needed them, not for fun. Inevitably there were times when I was very addicted/ dependant on these drugs and it was a struggle to come off every one of them. I ammassed quite a stash of these things and somehow was always unable to get rid of them, I always had the fear of needing something and it not being there. The truth is I had enough drugs there to kill myself and (everyone I know) several times over. At the beggining of this year my mental health wasn't in a good state, the drugs were a huge temptation and I had to struggle not to use them, once or twice I had failed in that struggle and the results were always fairly unpleasant in one way or another. Anyway, I locked everything up in this cash box and I gave it to Clare to take away. I couldn't quite let go enough to throw them away, but I knew they had to be out of my easy grasp. At the time I was still on medication but since April I have been free of all of that stuff, I haven't had anything except a few local anaesthetics since then. One day last week when I was at Clare's caravan she had asked me whether I wanted to take the box away now and I had done so. It had been sitting under my stairs for a week or so while I debated the manner in which I would destroy them. I had always said that I wanted to burn them, but was never sure where, how etc.

So when Irene brought up the subject of the cash box I told her this story and she said why didn't I just burn them there and then. There was a CD playing at the time and when a song called Letting Go came on, somehow it just had to be done. Irene was quite amazed at the amount of stuff I had in that box. A lot of it was in plastic popout packaging so she helped me to pop it all out because we didn't want to burn the plastic. It must have taken at least twenty minutes to burn that lot. It's all gone now, and the temazepam syrup has gone down the sink....that was the last thing and maybe the hardest, I had such trouble getting off that stuff, it took months and months. I had a whole boxfull of stuff that takes the pain away and I burnt it and it was very hard to do. But I know its not good stuff except when you really really need it. I could have made a small fortune selling it, but that was never an option, I'd just be taking people's money and giving them a miserable time. It had crossed my mind that maybe a warzone somewhere could use some of it, but a lot was so old it could either be ineffective or unpredicatable. It just had to be burnt and it was. I had been wanting (and not wanting) to do that for a very long time.

So what with one thing and another it was rather late even for me by the time I reached bed and at least 7.00am by the time I fell asleep. It was a real struggle to get up by midday, but I knew Clare would be arriving and ready to drag me out to the mine again. She arrived mid-coffee as usual though I was nowhere near awake by then. Even after I'd got into costume, loaded the car, rounded up Loey and done all that sort of stuff I wasn't really awake and I struggled to concentrate on the driving on the way there. Typically, because this was to be the last shoot, the sun was shining brightly. We only had three scenes to do and it was quite a pleasure to be working in the sun, I could have easily done more. I don't think Clare wanted to stop filming either, she even filmed us eating our picnic. We said goodbye to the mine and drove back. It was my turn to cook and I hadn't organised anything about food and all I knew was that there was a sack of potatoes and a sack of carrots so I dropped Clare and Loey off with instructions to cook some potatoes and carrots and drove into town for a couple of quorn pies. It was getting way past target dinner time by then and I couldn't be bothered with elaborate stuff in the kitchen. Bought some chocolate muffins and cream because I thought we desrved a pudding for finishing the filming. When I got back the vegetables were cooking so the pies went in the oven and I joined Clare up in the field where she was lunging Nellyand sat up on her for a while, she goes a bit better if there's someone urging her on from on top as well as behind. Irene and Lorna arrived back from their wood run just as everything was cooked and we sat down to a rather late dinner. There followed one of those after dinner conversations which you wish had never started, a common rural problem, infestations....we covered nits, worms (tape and thread) and fleas (human, cat and dog). I think it all started because my head is itching again. It's probably time to get the nit comb out again.

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