The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. We're at Cannock Chase, a big forest. It feels peaceful here.

The first thing that strikes me is that every person is white. There are no black or Asian people. The next thing that strikes me is that nearly everyone at Cannock Chase is middle class. The kids have names like Alfred and Wilbur. And everyone seems so happy, content, and smiling. They seem very loving to their children and polite.

There are the occasional working class people. You can tell because they've got tattoos on their arms and they speak in stronger accents. But even these ones are nice to their kids, which is weird. Maybe these ones are working class people who have become rich and now living middle class lifestyles. For me this is a sign of what money can do. When you're poor, you've got a million problems which you can't fix because you need money to fix them. When you're rich, you can solve all your problems and live a carefree life of joy and happiness.

I say to my sister Lisa, "It's all middle class people here, have you noticed?"

Lisa says, "Yeah, it's the parking. The park's free to get in but the parking costs £10. So it keeps the riffraff out."

I've just learned that we never came to Cannock Chase as kids. This is the first time I've ever been here.

My dad says, "Cannock Chase used to have a dirty name. It used to be the place for people to go for dogging. There was an Aston Villa footballer who was caught here dogging."

I'm not sure what dogging is or what it involves. Does it involve dogs?

It's only in the past 20 years that the Forestry Commission or National Trust has invested money in doing the woodland up. Which is why everything looks so new.

***

It's 9:30 PM. My dad's doing a course on his computer for the army. It's about "five ways to mental well-being". The "way" he was currently on was "take notice of the world around you".

"I've got to do this," he tells me. "It's for the army. I've got to watch this video and you can't skip past it."

I don't know what the video was. There was a woman's soothing voice.

Then he had to write down three ways that he could practise mindfulness.

He said, "I'm just going to write a load of bollocks."

He wrote yoga, thinking, and grounding. But he mistyped and wrote "grinding" instead. Like he's going to grind at a disco. I was laughing in hysterics.

Next, he had to write a 300 word response about how he could stay calm. He just wrote "calm" and clicked next. The computer accepted this.

Out of everyone, my dad needs the anger management course, but ironically, he's the one calling it bollocks and skipping through it.