Progress

Things are starting to get interesting at last. Finally I can feel a certain amount of satisfaction (albeit just a smidgen), and there is definitely a bit of a glow at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. The tired waves may be breaking but not as vainly as they once were - inches are definitely being gained - and far back, through the creeks and inlets, maybe the tide has definitely turned and is beginning to flood in.

The cry goes up, "What's the nitwit talking about THIS time?"

Progress, my friends, progress. Good old Blodwyn has provided me with what she has termed her "Feedback Document" and in there, amongst the psychobabble that they use to confuse us poor, uneducated laymen, there are gems which glitter and show definite hope and promise. Of course this is not her full and finished report, but I have very real reason to expect that she will furnish me with a decent and fair effort - after all, she actually believes in doing things correctly, a rare and exotic thing in the modern prison service (if you can call a service stuck in the 1850's modern). So, I have great hopes and expectations of Blodwyn's final doc.

But it doesn't stop there, not a bit of it. It is Sunday 12th September 2010 as I write this, and on Tuesday 14th September 2010 (two days' time for the dyslexic), I have been informed that I have got legal visits booked all day with an independent psychologist. These are only legal visits in the loose sense because really he is coming to see me with a view to writing his own psychology report on me. When this idea was first mooted, I think the general idea was to allow us to compare his report with that of the prison service. We thought that the PS would have their report done by some young girl, a trainee who would probably look like she should be at home playing with toys rather than making life-changing and life-­affecting reports based on her own lack of experience.

However, that hasn't turned out to be the case because I got good old Blodwin - an expert - and I am thankful for it. Not only did I meet a decent, conscientious person, but she is also nice - and I like her, she has a sense of humour (something very few of the psychology fraternity seem to possess.) Consequently I have this completely unreasoned feeling that the independent report isn't going to be far removed from Blodwyn's. Of course we will have to wait and see.

Also on the day that the independent psychologist is coming to see me, I have arranged for the prison to take my photograph for me to send out to Boudica and Andrew. Andrew needs an up-to-date picture so that folk can see how much the years, and of course the tender, loving care of the prison service, have changed me. Boudica wants one to throw darts at and to use to keep the pigeons from coming into her kitchen, turning on her telly, eating her out of house and home and annoying the Troll next door.

I also suspect she wants to take the piss. It is everyone's right in this world to indulge in a little light mockery of those we find ridiculous from time to time, but Boudica is taking liberties. I'm going to report her, not to the Council for Civil Liberties (if it still exists), but to the Council for Diabolical Liberties.

Finally, I've got to see the optician again. As we get older and totter inexorably toward the tomb, things start to fall apart. I remember well when I had the eyes of an eagle, the heart of a lion and the limbs of a Greek God. Things have changed a bit since then. I look like Gollum these days, without the eyes. I'm as blind as a bat, as baldy as an orangutan's arse and I am probably very attractive to flies.

Apart from that I'm doing okay - thanks for asking.

The Voice In The Wilderness