et in arcadia ego

Madness and Death

I was called up last week by C's psychiatrist to say that, although his memory is not deteriorating, his mood is. She did not disagree with my suggestion that he is actively suicidal and we talked about the problem with C rejecting - angrily - offers of help. Since he has rejected the idea of drugs, the only help that is available is sectioning him in the case of a crisis. We agreed that a CPN should visit him in the hope that, if he gets offered care from a variety of people, eventually he may come round to the idea. We talked about how C's increasing mania with regard to his wind turbine (ignoring and often rejecting all other activities) has left him vulnerable to crushing and dangerous depression when he is forced to give it up (because he doesn't have the spare £30,000 per annum that it swallows up). I found myself getting angrier and angrier as I walked home at C's new friends who - with no idea of the context - have encouraged what they see as an endearing enthusiasm in wind energy. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing - in this case it's my father's sanity and life that's in danger.

This weekend was a quick dash down to Glasgow to say goodbye to the lovely Frankie (lodger from Bristol who is heading off to Paris for Erasmus) and hello to the (probably lovely but let's just wait) Radostina who is moving into my room. In the brief gap between them I got one, glorious night in my own bed. Otherwise I managed to ignore Glasgow's cultural life (I know it's stretching it to call my bed cultural, what with it having clean sheets and all) limiting myself to Byres Rd's poncey cafes. I took C and Marc out for dinner at Gandolfi Fish on the Friday night after a magical flight down (only marred by the cost-cutting removal of a free drink - would it look greedy if I started a campaign to get it reintroduced?). C started off very weepy and went downhill getting very drunk after about an hour (and 3 drinks - not sure how much he'd had before we arrived) and got gently poured into a taxi. I called him up the next day when I got back from coffee with Peter and Norma (excellent french cakes from Cranston's and gossip from the Citizens') and he was much more coherent but didn't want to see me again and still regards his visits to the psychiatrist as a challenge that has been imposed on him.

Another lovely flight back to Benbecula and I found myself almost crying as we descended on a curve across the water-speckled land. A mixture of relief and comfort at coming back to these broad lands.