My chest has not been right since February. Three weeks ago I could feel it getting toxic again: the smell and taste of incipient infection. Then breathing difficulties so bad one evening I almost went to casualty. Fortunately I found some prednisolone lying about.

I’ve written before about childhood asthma. My lungs didn’t mind the piles of ordure in the village, but they took grave exception to hay, corn, grass and pollen. And hens. There was a time when my father kept hens in a black barn up by the Chapel, but we soon found out that I wouldn’t be joining him in that venture. It was awful. Memories were rekindled when I put my head into the bell chamber at S Paul’s, home to lots of birds of the feathered variety, and spores and fungi and other things that exist only to spite me. No bats. They’re in the pews. It’s a fine ring of 10 bells up there; second best in Staffordshire after Lichfield Cathedral, they say. The Bass family spent a helluva lot of money on S Paul’s.

I’ve moaned before about the near impossibility of getting a GP appointment, so I got myself some prednisolone and antibiotics from … well, let’s just say elsewhere. The doxycycline seems to be working, but I stopped the prednisolone since corticosteroids are immunosuppressive and that’s the last thing I want. Eventually it dawned on me that I’ve probably developed COPD, not surprising given my childhood history—and all the milk I was made to drink. This weather doesn’t help either. My chest prefers it colder.

I’ve been exhausted for the last two weeks. Sleep a lot. The bad chest is doubtless a factor, but so is something else that I would never have predicted. Stuff that I used to be able to do like water off a duck’s back now causes major anxiety. I get panicky if there are more than two things out of the ordinary in a week. The Mayor’s Civic Service had me in a tizz. Of course, it went very well—the sign of something meticulously organised—but as soon as it was over I collapsed for three days. It was the last big thing before I retire, unless of course Philip or HMQ dies, or both. I just hope they struggle on till November at least.

What I’m observing is that I simply don’t want any more to be responsible for the wellbeing and experiences of others. As a teacher, pastor and mentor of students and now parishioners since 1976 I’m tired, drained, vampired. What little energy I have I need for myself.

I haven’t yet found a vision for the rest of life—it evaporated in an instant with the nuclear explosion of October 2015. At first this troubled me, but now I think it’s a good thing: I have no expectations. No expectations means openness to experience, living in the moment, or that’s the theory at any rate. But it would be good to be able to sparkle for myself like I do for others. The lot of the prophet / comedian / performer is lonely. I understand why comics kill themselves: they—we—see too clearly. I’ve never been tempted yet. For the last decade happy pills have kept me from becoming too paranoid, and recently I’ve noted a suspicion of hypomania from time to time. I don’t mind that—it can be quite fun actually—so long as I don’t do anything silly like spend money on stuff I don’t need and then feel bad about afterwards.

We’re all on a spectrum. Some of us are on several. Life is interesting.