A problem

My bike - taken late evening in 'Ale Close'.
A strange name for a modern development but it was built on the site of the old 'Gin Alley', a notorious thoroughfare inhabited by loose women, pickpockets, drug addicts, footpads and highwaymen.
All this was long ago of course, and you don't get any of that now - except for the loose women.




Freddie says I should get rid of my bike. He says my idea of a trip to South America is a symptom of my illness. He showed me in the DSM IV (is this the latest edition, I wonder?) where one of the 9 symptoms of BPD is “identity disturbance: markedly and persistent unstable self-image or sense of self”.

He said my self-image is very unstable. I swing wildly from believing I can do anything (for example the South America trip) to thinking I am a total failure – this latter leading to my suicide attempt (where I failed again).

Anyway, he says that his son, Rupert, (I never knew he had a son!) is looking for a motorbike and he (Freddie) will, as he puts it, take it off my hands for £1375 as birthday present for the aforementioned Rupert. I told him that it was worth much more than this; the bike has only done 2600 miles - and most of those with a following wind. He merely shrugged and reminded me that my medical insurance did not cover all my bills. In fact I owed them exactly the aforesaid amount, so selling him the bike would wipe the slate clean – for the time being.

I don’t know what to do. If I sell the bike, bang goes my dream of South America – or even the south coast of England.
I wonder what Che Guevara would have done?

Oh, and as I was leaving I asked how Amanda was.
‘She’s all right’ was the terse answer.
‘Well give her my love’ I said.
‘I think you’ve already done that’ he replied, bleakly.
What can he mean?