Author: dng

Excerpts from my diary (February 2025)

Saturday 1st February, 2025

Cold, tired
shivering
unproductively
at my desk

Sunday 2nd February, 2025

Outside
a lingering cold
slowly dissipated
as the day wore on

Monday 3rd February, 2025

All my plans come pre-abandoned

Tuesday 4th February, 2025

In the co-op the man stacking shelves spoke to me as if he knew me and I knew him.
But I didn’t know him
as far as I could tell

This threw me for the rest of the day
is still throwing me
now

Wednesday 5th February, 2025

The wing fell off the dragon my nephew made for me
6 or 7 years ago

I wonder if he remembers it
if he knows that it still sits here on my desk
glaring at me
whenever I look up from the page
and glance in its direction

Thursday 6th February, 2025

I feel anxious
always
It’s tiring
always

Friday 7th February, 2025

In the wet
and the rain
the cold seeps on
through your shoes

Saturday 8th February, 2025

Squirrels
in the rain
seem even more energetic
than usual

Sunday 9th February, 2025

Still raining
which is nice
I suppose

At least today I didn’t have to go out in it
didn’t really have to acknowledge it at all

Monday 10th February, 2025

There’s so little I’m good at
it should be upsetting

But with age comes acceptance
of your own unending incompetence

(if not that of others)

Tuesday 11th February, 2025

Tiny cuts on my fingertips
where the fingernails touch the sides

You don’t notice it really
until you start to write

Then it hurts like hell

Wednesday 12th February, 2025

Forget to write anything last night
so I’m writing this on Thursday morning

I still don’t have anything to say

Thursday 13th February, 2025

I thought maybe by keeping this diary something interesting would come out of it, some sort of insight arising from contemplating each day as a whole to find some tiny facet of it worthy of note that otherwise I’d have missed.

But I’m not sure that’s happened so far. The days still drift away without note
meaning lost or never acquired

I exist
but without reason
without interaction
with the wider world

Friday 14th February, 2025

Preparations made
for coming guests
The only time all year
I tidy my desk

Saturday 15th February, 2025

They have arrived.
Loudness
mess
and bursts of joy

Sunday 16th February, 2025

Bought strawberries in winter
(shouldn’t have bothered)

Monday 17th February, 2025

Urgh
Nits

Even if I haven’t caught them off the children
My heads still going to itch
as if I have

Tuesday 18th February, 2025

The world is a terrible place
and all the people in it
seem intent on making sure of it

(We all have nits now, too, just to make it worse)

Thursday 20th February, 2025

Everybody’s gone
and the house is dead
and quiet
and slightly empty
and sadder than it was
before

Friday 21st February, 2025

We’ve moved my bed into the other room
and it doesn’t feel right
sleeping somewhere else

Saturday 22nd February, 2025

Driving seems designed to be as unenjoyable as can be

Broken roads, broken drivers
and nowhere anywhere to park

Sunday 23rd February, 2025

Felt weirdly sick
from about 3 o’clock
all the way to midnight

Monday 24th February, 2025

Yesterday I felt awful
and today I felt
okay

Tuesday 25th February, 2025

All I can hear at night
is the sound of machinery
grinding on
in the distance

Wednesday 26th February, 2025

All the footage of rotting animals in A Zed And Two Noughts made me feel oddly queasy. Perhaps because it reminded me of when we found a dead hedgehog by the side of the road, when we were children, and as I looked at the maggots writhing away inside it, I felt as if they were writhing in me.

Thursday 27th February, 2025

A thousand crows
unscared
in a field

Friday 28th February, 2025

A film halfwatched
is a terrible thing

More unsatisfying even
than watching it all

__________

Notes:

1. Written in February 2025

__________

Support An Accumulation Of Things

If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi.

Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!

Excerpts from my diary (January 2025)

Wednesday January 8th, 2025

It was so cold the back of my head throbbed and ached for almost an hour after I got home. I wanted to cry (but I did not cry).

Thursday January 9th, 2025

I bought this diary yesterday and already it scares me a little, every page so huge and empty as I sit here before bed at my ever lonely desk.

Friday 10th January, 2025

-8° this morning. Fields white with frost all the way to Colchester. Paving slabs glittering like diamonds. Breath crystallising the air.

The near full moon rose slowly over the church before the film, shone brightly in a sea of stars after.

Saturday 11th January, 2025

A fox runs across the street, over the green, only finally evading the glare of my headlights by hiding under a car.

I feel guilty for the terror I’ve caused it.
I feel happy simply to have seen it.

Sunday 12th January, 2025

Sunday has to be squeezed in tight
so small here on the page
so unimportant
to the world of work
No need to make any note of events
that have transpired
outside of office hours

Monday 13th January, 2025

A heron flying overhead
a mile from the river
and getting further away
with every flap of its prehistoric wings

Tuesday 14th January, 2025

I didn’t feel very well today
but didn’t feel bad enough
to complain

Wednesday 15th January, 2025

NOTE: What tense to use when writing diary entries a day or two late?

I hurt my back at about 7pm. Sat down and watched the football without moving in the hope it’d fix itself.

It didn’t.

So I went to bed and stared at the ceiling in the dark, pain and worry preventing any hope of sleep.

In the morning it was mostly okay. Well enough to sit down and write this entry out, at least.

Thursday 16th January, 2025

Flicked between the snooker and the tennis all afternoon, which meant I ended up feeling like I’d watched neither rather than both.

Had tickets to the cinema but did not go, With bad backs the terror of recurrence lingers on longer than any physical discomfort.

Friday 17th January, 2025

The page is too near to see with my glasses on, too far away to properly write on with them off.

Which is not so bad at my desk, where I can lean in until I’m an inch away. But outside, when I try to write in my notebook, while sitting on a bench, or in the car, or at the pub, all I can do is hope my approximation of letters are legible enough for when I go back to them later and try to find something worthwhile there in whatever I wrote.

Saturday 18th January, 2025

Shivered all afternoon. It wasn’t even that cold.

Sunday 19th January, 2025

Tonight I know I’ll be unable to sleep
Because tomorrow I have to get up early

Monday 20th January, 2025

Went to Cornwall

Tuesday 21st January, 2025

Today I got attacked by seagulls. Lost an entire doughnut to the horde.

Wednesday 22nd January, 2025

The sea’s so huge
(and I’m so small)

Thursday 23rd January, 2025

The wind
the wind
At times today I genuinely thought
we might all be blown away
into the night
into the sea

Friday 24th January, 2025

Waves
hitting rocks
hitting waves
hitting rocks
forever

Monday 27th January, 2025

Long car journeys always instill in me
the deepest melancholy

Or perhaps its not the journey
but coming home

Wednesday 29th January, 2025

I still haven’t found my voice here.
Who am I writing for
or to
Who is going to read this
and when
What purpose is there to it
and why
(although I suppose that last questions applies to everything)

Thursday 30th January, 2025

Charles Bukowski here
writing a poem about terrible computer software
in 1986

The world is on repeat
anguished howls
of unending
frustration

Friday 31st January, 2025

The weeks go by
the month’s gone by
and nothing changes

Yet still I hope that out of the repetition
and the emptiness
some meaning might emerge

__________

Notes:

1. Written in January 2025
2. Unsurprisingly

__________

Support An Accumulation Of Things

If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi.

Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!

Long Dog (and other elongated animals)

Long Dog is an absolutely incredible (or at least kind of okay) card game I made for my nieces and nephews the other day, in which you all compete to make the longest dog (or other animal) you can.

The Rules Of Long Dog

1. Everyone picks the head of their choice.

2. Shuffle all the tails and all the middles together.

3. Take it in turn to pick cards.

4. Once everyone’s turned up a tail card and finished their dog, whoever has the longest dog wins.

5. Return to 1.

You can even play it online if you want, by going here or here (contains a download version).

__________

Notes:

1. Made during December 2025
2. Basically the same as the Tail End game I had when I was a kid, where you assembled Loch Ness monsters.

3. But not utterly terrifying in every possible way

__________

Support An Accumulation Of Things

If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi.

Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!

Tales From The Town #223:

Frost and fog
transform the town
into something
else

Better than summer
better than snow
We could be anywhere
now

And we won’t know where
until it’s gone

__________

Notes:

1. Written on December 6th, 2025

__________

Support An Accumulation Of Things

If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi.

Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!

Tales From The Town #222: Anagrams

“Did you know….” Claire suddenly announced after a brief period of intense silence, her face almost bursting with excitement. “That Claire is an anagram of eclair!”

“Yes,” said Tina, not even looking up from her phone.

“Yeah, it’s pretty obvious,” said Ethel, actually pointedly looking up for a second so she could look back down at her phone simply to show how unimpressed she was. “You just moved the e from the back of your name to the front.”

“I did not!” said Claire.

“Yes you did,” said Tina and Ethel simultaneously together in perfect unison.

“Well okay I did,” Claire admitted. “How else would I have done it? And you’re both just jealous because my name is an anagram and your names aren’t.”

“They are,” said Tina.

“Not any words I’ve ever heard of,” said Claire. “So they don’t count. Especially not Lethe. Or anti.”

“Wait, did you just look all these up on your phone?” asked Tina.

“Well, yeah,” Claire said. “How else would I have known?”

“Do you even know what an eclair is?” Ethel asked.

“Of course I know what an eclair is!” Claire said, without elaborating, verifying, or confirming her claim.

“It’s like an email, but for Claires!” said Daniel, emerging just in time for the punchline.

“Shut up, Daniel,” Claire said, with a finality that sent everyone went back to their phones, until several minutes of intense silence later, Claire looked up, her face almost bursting with excitement, and suddenly said “Did you know…?”

(They did know.)

__________

Notes:

1. Written in October 2025

__________

Support An Accumulation Of Things

If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi.

Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!