Michael Nobbs

Friday 17th October, 5.25 am

A photograph of an early morning drawing setup on a bed covered with a checked duvet. A tea tray lined with a blue cloth patterned with white hens holds an orange Stanley mug with its lid resting on top, a bright green teapot, two cartons of barista oat milk (Alpro and Oatly), and a collection of pens and coloured drawing materials. In the foreground, an open homemade pocket sketchbook rests on a larger red-and-white patterned sketchbook. Its pages contain a colourful ink drawing of the mug, teapot and oat milk cartons, alongside handwritten reflections on living through an ME crash. The scene is illuminated by warm artificial light in the early morning.

I think it’s been a week since I realised that I was in an ME crash and stopped trying to do much of anything. I’m not sure that I’m feeling any better. Am I worse? Or maybe noticing better how things really are?

A close-up photograph of an open homemade pocket sketchbook resting on a larger sketchbook with a red-and-white patterned cover. Pens and coloured drawing materials are visible on the blue hen-patterned tea tray above it. The two-page drawing, made in black ink with soft peach, blue and grey colouring, shows a Stanley mug, a teapot and two cartons of oat milk, with little hens wandering across the blue tray cloth beneath them. Handwritten across the top of the pages is the date and time, “Friday 17th October, 5.25 am”, followed by the words: “I think it's been a week since I realised that I was in an ME crash and stopped trying to do much of anything. I'm not sure that I'm feeling any better. Am I worse? Or maybe noticing better how things really are?”

Edit: My ME-foggy brain got the date wrong. It was actually *Saturday* 17th October, not Friday 17th.

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