Wednesday

I have been nurturing a headache.

This started along with all of the excitement of my first thrilling day in prison on Monday. Tiresomely, by tonight, it has reached such startling proportions that I am including quantities of drugs with every meal. I washed last night’s helpings down with a glass of white wine donated by our next door neighbour from home. This did not help much and also made it difficult to unlace my boots.

It is a migraine, and it is making it difficult to think straight. I hope it goes away very soon. 

It is not being helped along by HMP Slade’s practice of having lots of flickering neon tubes switched on in every room, whether there is daylight available or not. 

It is making it a bit difficult to concentrate.

I discovered today that somebody had put in a report that I was wearing the wrong trousers. This surprised me, since I was wearing the trousers with which I had been issued, but I was dispatched to the stores for some different ones anyway. 

I was reluctant to go off on this errand, having been pleasantly surprised by the trousers. They were comfortable and well fitting and well supplied with pockets.

The stores explained that prison officers were not allowed to have trousers with lots of pockets except under certain important circumstances, which I have forgotten. They issued me with some more trousers, with fewer pockets. These were special issue for male officers, because the women’s trousers don’t fit people.

That is to say, they didn’t fit me, and the store lady said that lots of women had that difficulty, and gave me some men’s ones. I ordered an especially large size, in case I get fat, and so that I can wear leggings underneath on cold days. They are several inches too long, but the enormity of the boots means that this does not matter. 

I like the boots.

Also they let me keep the pockety trousers. I was glad about this, because I was wearing them.

I was pleased to be issued with more uniform, since this suggests that I have not been sacked yet. This means that I have outlasted most of the bets placed on this subject by my family, it seems that two days was favourite.

Take note, Number Two Daughter. I have got more staying power than you think.

I am still not entirely confident that I will last very much longer, because I suspect that the prison authorities are not very keen to employ opinionated anarchists who clutter up their car parks with ridiculous camper vans. I am sorry about this, because I like HMP Slade, and so I am trying hard to be inconspicuous.

I have not been good at this so far. We went into the Intelligence room this afternoon, and the Intelligence officer said: “I suppose you’re the one with the camper van, then,” which shows that they deserve their salaries.

I would like to stay, because I like HMP Slade very much. It is entirely interesting, in every little detail, from the swivelling cameras in the control room, to the astonishingly overweight and immovable chairs in the visiting centre. Every cupboard is filled with intriguing equipment, and one had rows and rows of peculiar red-painted gadgets whose potential function was completely mysterious to me.

They look a bit like curved potato peelers. I am a bit alarmed about these. If somebody tells me to go and get one I will not know what they are talking about. 

Also, I don’t think I have ever been anywhere in my entire life where I have found so many kindly people.

Prison officers, on the whole, seem to be very kindly, in a resigned sort of way. 

I think people who have to spend much of their working lives handcuffed to people who need to scratch their personal bits have got to become kindly and resigned. 

I am going to try and be less opinionated and more kindly and resigned, and then maybe they will let me stay.

I am going to take my headache to bed.