Usually, at the beginning of a new year, I am full of plans for things to do.
This year, significantly, there are no tickets for forthcoming events pinned to the noticeboard in the kitchen. Ross and I have noted a few things that we should like to go and see but we haven't yet committed to anything. And there are already a number of events which we thought we might make an effort to attend which we have now decided to miss.
Nor do I have a current diary for 2004. When I think back to my days in London, I would normally be buying my next year's diary in the previous September or October so that I could plan ahead. This year, it hasn't felt necessary.
Partially, of course, that is the depression speaking. But it is also just a feeling that I want to approach this year in a different way.
And that's why I'm not going to have any New Year's resolutions this year. I have some priorities however. In essence, they are all to do with regaining my physical and mental health.
Currently, I am just chilling. The doctor (the wonderfully named Dr Dye) has signed me off work. On the sick note, she has abandoned technical descriptions of seratonin imbalances and has simply written depression. I was initially taken aback by this bald description. I don't know that I feel depressed or have felt depressed. I'm not suicidal. I feel quite happy. I have a sense of humour and perspective. I just feel exhausted and trapped and at the end of my tether. But maybe that is simply another way of describing depression.
I'm aware that I baulk at using the word to describe myself since Richard once told me that he thought I was depressed. As Gill pointed out to me, we both told each other the truth about each other (I told him he was an alcoholic) and we both refused to listen to each other.
I'm also aware that I do carry a residual shame about admitting that I have a mental illness rather than a physical illness even if the cause is partially physical. However, I am not giving in.
A lot of the healing so far has revolved around gentle things. I have played with Nutkin quite a lot. I have cuddled and rested with Ross. We have listened to Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - a bit of a marathon that, it takes some 20 CDs or so.
I've also listened to George Elliot's Adam Bede - a heart-warming tale of ordinary people leading ordinary lives and trying their best and getting some things wrong and some things right - and to Mrs Gaskell's North and South - the usual Victorian formula of male and female overcoming differences in order to marry but in this case giving a passing view on mill town politics and the genesis of Trades Unionism.
Ross and I have also been cooking together. We made a lovely meal for Colin on New Year's Day comprising plaice rolled around a paste of anchovies, black olives and basil on a bed of a sharp tomato sauce with wilted baby spinach with accompanying new potatoes - it was a Jamie Oliver recipe. And we made a lovely meal for my parents on Sunday comprising savoury meatballs and pasta - it was a Delia Smith recipe. We've also done vegetarian dishes, risottos and a version of eggs Florentine.
So, despite having little energy, things ain't too bad.