… debâcle this is turning out to be.

My niece and her daughter turned up at Charles de Gaulle Airport this morning at 10:30 as arranged, on Flight AC872 from Canada. However, their luggage didn’t. It’s still in the airport at Toronto, according to the tracking system.

"No problem" said my niece philosophically. "These things happen. Here’s my uncle’s address. Send it on to us when it arrives."
"Oh, we can’t do that " was the reply. "You have to come back tomorrow and pick it up "
"I can’t do that" replied my niece. "We’re only here for four days, we have a train booked and paid for, a hotel booked and paid for … "
"There is no other solution" replied the Air Canada official, and terminated the discussion.

They are now stranded in Paris, no luggage and trying desperately to find a hotel that they can afford.

Outraged, I rang up Air Canada’s helpline. After holding on for no less than seventy-four minutes, my call was finally answered.
"There’s nothing that I can do" replied the assistant
"In that case, put me through to someone who can"
"There’s no-one else here"
"You mean to tell me that, as a worldwide airline flying millions of passengers to thousands of destinations every day, there’s just one person on the helpline? Come off it!"
And I had the telephone slammed down in my face.

Air Canada has not heard the last of this. I have friends in the Canadian press.

My day has not gone as I would have liked it to go either … "but nothing like as bad as theirs" – ed …

Last night, I tried my best to finish at something like a reasonable time, but it was still almost 23:00 when I finally crawled into bed and curled up under the covers.

It didn’t take too long to go off to sleep either but, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, whenever I have to wake up especially early, I have a very mobile night. And last night was no exception.

When I awoke for the final time, it was 05:35. And a couple of minutes later, with a great deal of effort, I left the bed and went into the bathroom.

It was a good job that I was early too, because this 06:45 of the nurse was nothing like. I hadn’t even finished dressing when he arrived.

On the basis of “what doesn’t go in won’t want to come out”, I didn’t take my medication and just had a disgusting drink to keep me going while I awaited my faithful cleaner.

She staggered in, half-asleep, at 06:50 and sorted out the anaesthetic for my arm and then staggered off back to bed, poor thing. The sacrifices she makes for me are unbelievable.

The taxi turned up at 07:05 and we went off to pick up someone else who also goes to dialysis. We arrived quite early but they were having problems with the weighing machine so everything ended up running late.

The first needle went in fine but the second was one of those that really hurt and I suffered throughout the session. So much so that I didn’t do anything like as much as I wanted to.

They still hadn’t disconnected me when the taxi turned up, so the poor driver had to wait fifteen minutes for me, much to the disappointment of two other passengers. And then we came home via a Tour of Normandy so it was really late by the time that I arrived home.

There is one thing to be said, though, and that is that with these new Securité Sociale regulations, I’m seeing parts of Normandy that I never knew existed.

My cleaner helped me into the apartment, and I discovered that they had tried to deliver another parcel (which should be arriving this coming Monday) but as there was no-one in, they have left it at a collection point. And seeing that I can’t go to pick it up, I’m not sure what will happen next.

Back in here, I sent off my order to the supermarket for delivery this afternoon, and then I made breakfast and had my medication. While I was eating, I had my … errr … frank exchange of views with Air Canada.

It was my plan to make a vegan lasagna today so I had some lentils cooking overnight in the slow cooker. This afternoon, I attacked it and after a couple of hours, it was ready. Once more, I’m over-estimating the cooking time of this oven and it’s scorched around the edges.²

However, while I was doing it, I could feel my health slipping away and I began to feel really ill. Doing the pile of washing-up finished me off and when the food delivery arrived, it was all that I could do to put the frozen food in the freezer. The rest can wait to be put away.

But seeing as we have been talking about my cooking … "well, one of us has" – ed … I have had quite a few requests. Most of them are physically impossible, of course, but I have had a request for the recipe for my bean tajine.

Of course, it’s not my recipe, but I have modified it to suit my palette.

1. 240g dried white beans
2. 1 large onion
3. garlic to your taste
4. honey to your taste (seriously)
5. 4 carrots
6. 1 tin of tomato purée
7. concentrate of tomato (I use Harissa, the spicy stuff)
8. olive oil
9. salt
10. turmeric (2 heaped tsps)
11. other herbs if you like (I added basil and oregano)
12. coriander (fresh if possible)

1. soak your beans on “high” in a slow cooker for an hour
2. drain, rinse, then soak again overnight on “low”
3. drain the beans and rinse again.
4. peel, then dice the carrots fairly fine
5. put some oil in the slow cooker, on “high”. Then add the chopped onion and fry until transparent
6. add the honey and stir
7. add the carrots, tomato, turmeric, garlic, other herbs, and stir well
8. add the beans and stir really well
9. add water to cover, and stir really well
10. bring to the boil on “high” then leave for a couple of hours on “low”
11. garnish with coriander
12. serve with couscous, peas and mint.

Back in here, I sat down and although I didn’t crash out, I definitely wasn’t in. And for a good hour or so too. My left shoulder was in total agony. At one point, I went to lie down on the bed but I couldn’t go to sleep. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, sleep is my cure for all ills.

Instead, I transcribed the dictaphone notes. I was playing in a group with two other guys and living in Crewe. There was a home match played by Crewe Alexandra so I asked a friend of mine who worked for the radio whether he could obtain a few complimentary tickets for my friends and me. My girlfriend wanted to come too, but I can’t remember who she is. The two guys from the radio turned up but they didn’t have any complimentary tickets with them, so we chatted. Then someone else turned up with two kids and the conversation continued. I noticed that my girlfriend was taking some food with her to the football match so I went and found a flapjack that I’d made, and put it in my pocket. There was a knock on the door, and I thought that it might be my two friends who were coming with us, but it turned out to be two more people. One of them was in a wheelchair and the other one was on one of these low-down foot-forward bicycles. They came in. by then there was quite a crowd of us. Someone said to me “I hope you’re going to be OK after the game, Eric, with five people staying with you”. This was the first that I’d heard of this. “And those five people include those two children” someone else said. I said to these two kids “I suppose you want to sleep on the double bed in the spare room, do you?”. They replied “no. That double bed has been there for years, hasn’t it?”. So I had a think, and I thought that the double bed was about thirty-five years old so they were probably right.

Now, who was my girlfriend? It’s not like me to miss out on remembering something like that. There are many other things in this dream too that seem to have no significance either.

There was another dream about a man who was a comedian. He’d been invited to appear before a group of evil mafia-type people to entertain them. He wasn’t happy about this because she’d heard that they were pretty vile to people whom they didn’t like. He needed a lot of talking before he agreed to take it on. What he didn’t realise was just before this concert took place, there had been a serious jewel robbery with millions of pounds-worth of jewels stolen. He went along to this concert but as soon as he walked into the room, he took fright. He pulled out his gun, shot a couple of people and then ran. Of course, everyone ran after him, but he was hiding in places inside this theatre to try to shake them off. Then he made a break for it, and ran right across the motorway. Somehow, he’d managed to pick up this case full of these jewels in the meantime so everyone was chasing after him. They weren’t so lucky going across the motorway and a couple of them were knocked down. The rest of them couldn’t pass over to the other side. In the meantime, this guy was wandering up some kind of main road miles away from the scene, still with this briefcase. Stopped at a set of traffic lights was a mobile home, so he climbed in. This upset the owner but in the end the guy convinced the owner that he meant no harm, so the owner agreed to take him somewhere. Then he found the guy shaving inside the motorhome. There was something in the clause of the purchase of this motorhome that it should belong to the first person who shaved inside the vehicle. The owner hadn’t yet had a shave inside it so he had to relinquish control to this guy. The guy decided to drive off. In the winter, he’d be down in the southern tip of Italy or Greece and in the summer, he’d be back in Western Europe again.

This one is just like the first – a confused mass of nothing of any significance either.

Did I dictate the dream about the British guy who somehow managed to take possession of Heligoland in 1914 and succeeded in keeping the Germans off the island so that they couldn’t fortify it throughout the whole of World War I? … "no, you didn’t" – ed … I can’t remember very much about this dream but I wondered whether I’d written it down.

Heligoland, off the coast of Germany, used to be a British possession but the British swapped it for Zanzibar in 1890. It was a naval base in World War II, and the installations were destroyed in 1947 in one of the World’s biggest non-nuclear explosion.

I was with a guy and his two young daughters. As civilians, we were being pushed back from where we were living or where we’d been, rather, by an invading army. We had a few nightmares and confrontations but eventually, we made it back to his house. The fighting swarmed past his house but we stayed indoors while it was all going on. When things had quietened down, these two girls gave a big sigh of relief. One of them then was speaking to someone on the ‘phone and suddenly saying, “oh, I’m stuck in this huge wall of fire at the moment”. She didn’t realise what a wall of fire was until that particular moment when the battle raged past the house. Next morning, I had to prepare to leave. I had to wear all my heaviest clothes and carry as light a load as possible, but I had a lot of difficulty trying to find my boots. Eventually I found them and I could pack. But this guy and his daughters were already up and dressed, so I went for a chat after I’d dressed. I told them that I’ll have to be in touch with them because I needed the signature of the eldest girl for a reference to join the local library. We exchanged names and telephone numbers etc. Then I made big plans to slip out of the house and do my best to head for home. But the chat with those girls was really interesting, the one that I had. And I wish that I could remember it.

Children seem to be playing quite a rôle in my nocturnal adventures right now. I’m not sure why, though. But as for the warfare issues, that’s something that relates to whatever I’ve been reading just now. For example, at dialysis these last few days I’ve been reading Sir Douglas Haig’s reports to Parliament on the activities of his forces on the Western Front in World War I.

Tonight, I haven’t made any tea. I really couldn’t face anything cooked, for some reason. Instead, I finished off that cream cheese with some crackers. Not very healthy but it will keep the lupus from the porte, as they might have said in Ancient Rome while I go to bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my altercation with Air Canada … "well, one of us has" – ed … I can recall part of the discussion that I had with that obnoxious helpline attendant earlier.
After I had explained the situation to him, he replied "I don’t have any words to say to that."
"Well, I have" I replied. "Would you like to hear them? "
It was shortly after that when he hung up, and before I’d really got going too.

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