May 7th: Final Saturday of the English Premier League. Finishes off, along with a number of careers, a week tomorrow. Nail-biting time for some teams. Chelsea Premiership winners for the first time since 1955. Apart from that, life goes on. Certain people that I know that have mental disease have come and gone. Some have taken umbrage at self-inflicted slights, and some have simply vanished. My attitudes to life have become adulterated by the effects of time. I see wrinkled skin and lack of fitness in myself. The injury I have has not fully healed. I can carry, but not pick up from the floor.

At the least my temper is as faulty: I have distanced myself from my estranged wife and Katharine, our daughter. (I cannot bear credulous people most of the time, and religious intolerance makes belief a hypocrisy). Unfortunately, my distaste is expanded with my daughter having poor manners, a sign that she is being raised improperly. Of course, that's purely my opinion.

Furthermore, Michelle having run off to Montréal with our child is typical of her. It has always been run away, don't talk. My finances, in particular the perpetual lack of money, frankly, is the prime root of my disaffection. As a close friend has remarked about Michelle's email address, 'That's an insult', regarding rejectrepair@yahoo.ca, after I had forwarded some information to him.

In my defence, I have as many female friends as male. I read as many female authors as male (and, especially in England) which puts me in the minority.

This particularly nasty attitude towards marriage and its effects has been with me for some time. It is allied to the history of the relationship I have, had, or whatever, with my first daughter, Sarah. Too much time and distance. Although her recent decision to rename herself after having to take her in-laws name when she was fifteen, is enormously significant.