Across the pond

When I opened the curtains on Wednesday morning I was plunged into depression. Not only could I not see the sea and Chesil Beach and Portland Bill, as in my sunset picture on top of this blog, I could not see the cars on the A35 and I could not see anything beyond my front hedge.

It took me right back to the quite horrible depressions of my youth, when fogs as dense as this were frequent in Wolverhampton and around, which was rightly called the Black Country. Which is one reason why I wanted to get away from Wolverhampton.

So I came to London to start my first job. And found the fogs quite as bad. And equally depressing. By the time my daughters were born, those nasty depressing fogs had been banished from London. As far as they were concerned London fogs were history, the history of Dickens and Sherlock Holmes.

But they lasted at least until 1955. I know because I was there.

And I also know, that they affected me more than many of my friends. Because, as I now know, I am a manic depressive.

But a few days ago I read a newspaper report of a properly researched academic study, which suggested that seasonably affective depression, which has been much talked about in my adult years, was a myth. This study proved by statistics, that serious depression happened just as often in the spring and summer.

They may be able to use this blog to support their findings.

But that is not my intention.

My depression vanished when I went downstairs to my study, which the decorator has just finished. Gone forever is the grey carpet and the grey walls. Now I have a restful green carpet and magnolia walls. The view from the windows was still deeply depressing fog. There is no cheer from the pictures which are still stacked in the grand-childrens room. And the book shelves are bare, because I have not yet had time to get them out of the boxes.

But my mood switched to exhuberant happiness, or, as the shrinks might say, dangerous manic feelings.

This blog reflects my feelings as they were at 9.30 AM on Wednesday morning. And I am well aware that it is now Thursday.

But I have been busy on other concerns during this day, and during the last week or two.

So much so that I have not even achieved the objective of this blog, which was to make a daily comment, however short.

I think I probably hoped to show by this blog that manic depressives were not mad, although the way they think and feel gets them into all sorts of trouble. But that for most of the time manic depressives are not dangerous psychopaths.

They are only dangerous to others when they get swept away by the manic side, and to themselves, when they are incapacitated by depression.

But for most of the time their reasoning power is quite as good as that of the majority who are not manic depressives.

And this manic depressive knows that he is more incapacitated by depression in the English winter. But that depression can be lifted by many of the things that human beings have invented.

Like electric light. Like the warmth of central heating. Like green carpets and magnolia walls and inspring pictures.

Outside it may be grey and cold.

But inside does not have to be grey and cold.

The painter is now doing the kitchen/dining area in the warmest of reds. For most of the year, here in Dorset we won’t notice it, because the infinitely more warming sun, is shining in through the windows.

But on grey, foggy days it is a tonic.