Rocket, basil, mint and oregano, whilst perfectly fine names for children these days, are all in actual fact plants that are starting to emerge from the pots I’ve got on the balcony and in the spare room. With any luck I’ll be able to have one nice salad in September. It’s not exactly the self-sufficient commune of my dreams just yet, but you have to start somewhere, and as they say – from tiny seeds grow… regular sized herbs. Still, at least I don’t need any fancy gardening tools at this scale – a dinner fork and dessert spoon have sufficed so far.

Speaking of food and tenuous links, I had my strangest breakfast item-related incident ever today when I returned home from work. I had been to the shop earlier in the day and amongst other items – crisps, coffee bags and wine – I picked up a pack of giant pancakes to have for breakfast tomorrow. I went home with the shopping at lunch and left it all there. Then shortly before the end of the day, Rae text ‘ps’ and ‘giant pancakes for breakfast tomorrow’ which seemed like a muted response but I didn’t think much of it. Then (don’t worry this anecdote will end soon) when I got home and mentioned it to Rae, she appeared puzzled and said that she had bought the giant pancakes from the shop. I thought she was joking, but then I found my receipt and there were no giant pancakes listed on it! I felt actually DIZZY from the revelation.

The coincidence of us both deciding to buy the same thing, from the same shop at different times was one thing – but for me to have somehow lost my own giant pancakes between the shelf and the checkout and yet Rae manage to purchase the same thing, as if to replace the thing I failed to get?! Then the next level is: did I actually even pick up those pancakes at all, or did I – like you do sometimes in a dream – convince myself of a past where I’d purchased those pancakes for tomorrow at some point, possibly when Rae text me to tell me about them? Or is this some sort of evidence of time travel/alternate universes, where I’ve remembered a past version of events, before someone altered the timeline and created a reality where Rae picked up the pancakes instead. Makes you wonder what on earth was changed in order to shift things for my breakfast in a relatively minor but helpful fashion? Checked Google and World War I & II still happened, Nuclear warheads were dropped in Japan and Prince is still dead. Sad! I checked Kanye West’s album he released last week and it still, sadly, isn’t any better and I’m still quite worried for him.

(Oi! Don’t pretend you’re not enchanted by this mystery – yes I said the anecdote would end soon, which actually it did at ‘…DIZZY from the revelation’. This bit is the post-anecdote analysis which was optional. Skip it. Go back in time and don’t bother if you’ve got something better to do.)

It probably wasn’t time travel, but sadly I’m more leaning towards my brain being broken than I am it just being a massive coincidence combined with another coincidence, multiplied by an incomplete, blurry sketch of a memory I have of a visit to the co-op. Ten years ago, I would have taken of this occurrence as yet further confirmation that I was close to tapping into some sort of superpower/cracking the matrix (I was watching a lot of Heroes at the time). Nowadays it fills me with panic that I will one day become a prisoner of my own mind, stuck in an infinite loop of one single moment, unable to progress forward in time and recall anything new after a few minutes. Funny how things change, isn’t it? And by funny, I of course mean dreadful.

Still, at least the herbs are coming along nicely.

Yes, I did just walk out on my balcony and into the spare room to check that.

——-

‘Love Island is fucking shit, I love it’ sounds like Orwellian doublethink but it feels about as close as I can get to describing how I feel about the show so far. It is definitely bad; it has people in it that I would not only hesitate to speak to in real life, but save from a burning building – even if I bumped into them as they were walking towards the front door of the building I knew was on fire.

There are bits of the contestants I like, but it’s mostly just individual patches of smooth, soft looking skin that I focus in on every now and then (Eyal’s cheeks caught my eye tonight). In some way or other, I’ve managed to absorb every episode of this series so far (including one largely in audio from my candlelit bath across the hall) and against my better judgement, I have found myself delivering speeches (to an audience consisting largely, indeed only, of Rae) on the morality and motivations of some of the contestants, whilst she says ‘shhh! Yes, I agree, whatever! I want to listen to this!’

Watching Love Island certainly ‘something to do’, and I do like things to do, so I should be easy on myself for finding room in my life for it. I could sit and think about the hundreds of hours of critically-acclaimed HBO dramas I haven’t watched, the drawings I’m not finishing and the scripts that stubbornly refuse to write themselves, but for this summer, for now, I’m content thinking about those dull, smooth-skinned statues and wondering who they’re going to rub themselves up against next. In less than eight weeks it’ll all be over anyway, and I’ll be able to focus more on my herbs

Yes I’ve checked – they’re still there.