Category Archives: France

Friday 17th January 2025 – YET ANOTHER DAY …

… when I haven’t advanced anywhere near as far as I would have liked. Whatever happened to that spurt of energy and enthusiasm that I had when the dialysis first started?

After I’d finished my notes I’d tried to be ready for bed quickly but, as usual, a concert on the playlist came round to disrupt me. It was another Lindisfarne concert and, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I can’t ignore a Lindisfarne concert.

Consequently it was quite late yet again when I crawled into my nice fresh bed, still clean from Wednesday night when it was so delicious.

Being left alone with my thoughts is not a good idea for my long-term wellbeing but in the short-term I’ll just have to clutch the memories as they go flying past, and live out in my imagination how I would have liked things to have been – carpe diem and all of that – instead of how things did – and didn’t – turn out. That’s the big advantage of having a shocking memory but a vivid imagination. I can do this kind of thing with ease.

Eventually I managed to fall asleep and while it wasn’t as static as the previous night, I didn’t move around very much. But once more, we had a phantom alarm call at 06:25 this morning. I wish that I knew what was going on.

After that though I did manage to go back to sleep and was well away when the alarm went off at 07:00.

It was another struggle to haul myself to my feet, but it has to be done and I staggered off into the bathroom to sort myself out for the day.

Into the kitchen for the medication and then back in here to sort out the stuff on the dictaphone. And here we go. What’s been on my mind finally penetrated the subconscious last night. I wondered when it would. We were all at some kind of dance and I ended up dancing with Moonchild (who made her first appearance in my dreams). While we were dancing the music suddenly changed to a very slow dance so I took her in my arms and held her. We had this slow dance and there I was, with Moonchild in my hands. There was also something about going into the kitchen because the pots needed filling with raisins and we weren’t sure how to do it. A girl and I had done it at the start. We figured out that 100 pots at just under 500 grammes would be sufficient but for some reason everyone seemed to be doubting that.

Yes, so there was Moonchild, DANCING IN THE SHALLOWS OF A RIVER … PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK WITH THE GHOSTS OF DAWN, WAITING FOR A SMILE FROM A SUN CHILD and making her debut in my nocturnal rambles as I held her tightly in a dance.

Except that she has been here before, but a long time ago and I’d almost forgotten all about it. But whether or not she should appear at this moment, it’s difficult to say. You might say that I have “mixed emotions”, and that’s certainly true, but not in the sense that they usually mean.

But what the hell is happening here? Why has all of this suddenly appeared these last few days?

Isabelle the nurse came to sort out my legs. Once more she was in something of a rush and didn’t stay long. I could press on, make my breakfast and read MY BOOK.

Shame as it is to say it, I’ve become depressed with the author’s continual insults and vitriol that he’s heaping onto his colleagues. I really don’t know how his book ended up in print without the publisher having to take on some hefty legal insurance. Today he writes that a contemporary "again shows himself a most troublesome witness. Unfortunately this meritorious geologist, who laboured hard to elucidate the geographical questions connected with the ancient history of East Kent, was a bad writer"

He’s also criticising a couple of his contemporaries for their remarks. One author, he says, "quotes no authority and gives no reasons" for his conjectures and another author "also without giving either authority or reason" posts a certain position with which he disagrees.

And then a couple of pages later he devotes several thousand words to a section of the Kent coast without himself quoting one single reference to back up his comments.

So I despair.

Back in here I had a few things to do and all of that took me much longer than I was anticipating. It’s one of those things that the more you do, the more you have to do and the more you end up doing.

As a result, I was late going for my lunch today and had hardly made it back to my desk when my cleaner came to do her stuff.

Eventually I could press on and finish selecting the music for the next radio programme. That’s all remixed, edited, paired off and segued, and I’ve even written some of the notes. But I wanted to be much farther down the line than this.

What finally held me up was that Rosemary called for a chat. Not that I’ve any objection to speaking to friends – quite the reverse in fact; but there we were. And it was only a small chat today – one hour and eighteen minutes. We’re losing our touch.

Tonight’s tea was different than usual. We had salad and chips of course but I’d found some strange things in the freezer that I’d bought in NOZ ages ago and needed to be eaten. So I had half a packet of those tonight and they weren’t bad at all. I wished now that I’d bought a few more packets.

But this leads me on to the next thing – that there is stuff in the freezer that I don’t know that I have and was probably brought down from Mount Ararat when Moses docked his Ark there. One day I’ll have to make an inventory.

But not right now though because I’m off to bed. My two left-over pies are freezing in the icebox in the fridge and they’ll go into the freezer tomorrow, and then there’s all the washing to do. I’ll be glad to get to dialysis for the rest.

But while we’re on the subject of mixed emotions … "well, one of us is" – ed … I was talking to someone whoe mother-in-law had recently died.
"What happened?" I asked
"She was driving along the A259 near Folkestone" he said "when the cliff collapsed and the road, the car and the mother-in-law crashed down into the sea. She was buried under hundreds of tonnes of rubble"
"How do you feel about that?" I asked
"I have mixed emotions" he replied
"Why is that?"
"She was driving my Vintage Bentley at the time"

0

Thursday 16th January 2025 – MY VEGAN PIES …

… are delicious. At least, the one that I had for tea tonight was. I had to leave them to cook for a lot longer than recommended because of the inconsistency of my little table-top oven, but the end result was well-worth it.

And for some reason, being in bed last night was quite interesting too. It was yet another very late night, but I think that we are all becoming used to this. Tea seemed to take ages to make and then when it was finished I wasn’t in much of a mood to do anything, and whatever there was to do took an age to be done. That seems to be becoming something of a habit too.

It was long after 00:30 when I finally crawled into bed and going to sleep was also something that took an age to be done, and it’s dangerous for me to be left alone in the small hours with nothing but my dark thoughts to keep me company. I have a lot on my mind right now, and it’s nothing about which I can do anything at all.

And seeing that it relates to something that happened (or, more to the point, didn’t happen) over 45 years ago, there’s not much point brooding on it. I’d chase it out of my mind if I possibly could but then, deep down, I don’t really want to. I’m in a bit of a mess at the moment and have been for several days.

Eventually though I did go off to sleep and there I lay, dead to the World until the alarm went off.

It really was “dead to the World” too. In bed I wear a tubigrip bandage over the plasters on my arm to keep them in place, and inevitably, when I roll around in bed, the bandage rides up my arm. But this morning, when I awoke, not only was I in exactly the last place and position that I remember before going to sleep, the bandage was exactly where it had been put the previous night. I can’t have moved an inch.

When the alarm went off I found it difficult once more to raise myself from the Dead but eventually I staggered off into the bathroom for a good wash, scrub and shave. After all, you never know. Emilie the Cute Consultant might be there.

In the kitchen I sorted out the morning’s medication and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. And to my dismay, there was nothing on it from the night. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only excitement that I have these days is what goes on at night.

At least though, it really WAS “dead to the World”.

Isabelle the nurse was in a rush yet again and didn’t even have time to listen to my change of programme. She was in and out like a flash today.

And then I made breakfast and read MY BOOK.

We talked about the critic who said, and with which I am in complete agreement, that "a flurry of argument and counter-argument". Seriously, there is no place in any Academic publication for remarks that he uses to say that someone’s "argument rests upon a doubtful ‘perhaps’, an obscure ‘apparently ‘, a desperate ‘ must have been ’, and the baseless assumption that the Belgae had established dominion in Britain in the time of Pytheas".

Had I been his editor or publisher, I’d have long-since excised his remarks.

But turning to some more of his arguments, he’s puzzled as to why there is no evidence of tin production from Cornwall in the first two hundred years after the Roman conquest. Plenty before and plenty subsequently. "Yet if the tin trade had then been flourishing they would hardly have stopped"

In the period leading up to the Roman invasion, the inhabitants of Cornwall and the Roman Empire were at peace with each other. Then it took two hundred years of fighting for the Romans to establish themselves that far West and gain control of all of the mines for themselves. It’s hardly likely that during the period of the war and fighting, the Cornish tin merchants would be trading with the enemy.

Another issue that he’s having today is why, if Cornwall was where Cassiterides was and the shipping point led to an overland voyage all the way across Gaul rather than by sea direct to the trading port of Massilla, "The argument based upon the fact that the overland journey lasted thirty days implies that the merchants would have deliberately preferred a longer to a shorter route"

The answer to that is the “Voyage of Himilco”, that we mentioned a couple of days ago. He was the Carthaginian sailor who found his trip to the tin mines by boat so frightening that he wrote a book talking about attacks by sea-monsters and generally scaring his contemporaries to death.

Back in here I finished off my radio notes at long last and began to choose the music for the next radio programme. However, I hadn’t finished when I was once more take by surprise by the cleaner who came to fit my patches.

Once more it was a long wait for the taxi but it was the girl who brought me home last time so I didn’t mind at all. There were just the two of us and we had a nice, chatty time down to Avranches.

Plugging me in was painful as usual but nothing as painful whatever as last Saturday. I don’t think that anything could ever be. However, when the anaesthetic wore off I began to know about it.

During the last couple of days I’ve accumulated a lot of water, so much so that the machine doesn’t have the means to remove it all. I’ve no idea what they will do about that. But there was quite a crowd around me giving me an examination. Unfortunately, not including Emilie the Cute Consultant. She can come and examine me any time she likes.

There was something of a wait for a taxi home, and when it turned up it already had a passenger. But the driver was a history buff who knew, would you believe, all about the stuff that I’ve been reading, menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed …, Cartier and Champlain, the exploration of North America, and so we had a lively chat on the way home.

My cleaner was waiting for me and she watched once more as I strode up the stairs to the lift. The handrail still isn’t fixed up to here and it probably never will be. They don’t seem to be in too much of a rush

Back in here I made myself tea. I baked the three pies in the oven and steamed a lot of veg in the electric steamer. I’ve not used that for ages.

Everything was really nice, especially the gravy, which I made with the steamed veg water.

So now it’s bedtime and tomorrow I have a Day of Rest when I’ll be doing some more of this radio stuff so that I have another programme ready if I can.

But in this gaggle of people around my bed this afternoon someone was talking about life in the Nephrology Clinic, when a sailor had been admitted and they had examined him
Apparently the Ward Matron had gone into the Nurses’ rest room, saying "there’s a sailor just been admitted to the Nephrology Ward and he has the word ‘Ludo’ tattooed on his private parts"
Of course, all of the nurses dashed out to have a look for themselves
A few minutes later the pretty young student nurse came back. "It’s not ‘Ludo’" she announced. "It’s ‘Llandudno’"

0

Wednesday 15th January 2025 – MARGARET THATCHER …

… once said something like “anyone can do a good day’s work when they want to. The secret of success is doing a good day’s work when you don’t want to”.

That’s not exactly what she said but I reckon that it’s near enough and if that’s the case, then I have failed miserably today.

Don’t ask me why, but I’m thinking that today in Sunday and it’s not just once but several times that I’ve been thinking that it’s Sunday. I’ve certainly been lethargic and sloth-like today as maybe I would have been on a Sunday back in the olden days. These days I don’t have the time to waste like this and it’s really depressing to see by how much I’ve fallen short of my aims.

As you might expect, after the chaos at Cae y Castell on Deeside last night, it was horribly late when I finally finished everything that I needed to do and crawled off to bed.

Not that there was much time to sleep because once again we had a phantom alarm call. I’m so convinced that these are real because they sound just like an alarm but it’s clearly not anything in my bedroom. I’d try to identify it if I could but as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m usually flat-out asleep when it sounds and even though I do sit bolt-upright, by that time whatever noise it is has long-since stopped.

So resisting the impulse to climb out of bed I curled up back under the covers and went off to sleep again.

When the alarm did finally go off I was no-where near ready to leave my stinking pit. And that’s another mystery – why is it that I feel so much more energetic and more ready to leave the bed and spring into action when it’s a phantom alarm call?

So anyway, I eventually found the willpower to crawl off into the bathroom and clean myself up ready for the day, and then go into the kitchen to sort out the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There’s something stuck in my mind about someone talking about apartment-sharing, saying that he was ready to share an apartment with someone. This was after something had happened concerning a roundabout in the middle of the countryside in the ancient times. I can’t really remember any more about this but I have all this stuck firmly in my mind

Well, that’s what I dictated any as for what it means I’ve no idea. Ancient times probably refers to the book that I’m reading right now but I can’t place the rest. However it does strike a chord about something about which I’ve been thinking this last few days and which I briefly mentioned in passing a few days ago, dating back to my brief stay in Elm Drive. However some things are best left behind, dead and buried, even if I am brooding on some of them somewhat right now.

Isabelle the nurse came round rather later than usual today. She was quite busy, as you might expect and didn’t stay long. Nevertheless she was quite chatty and talked about the chaos in the town with all of these roadworks.

After she left, I made breakfast and read MY BOOK.

Our hero is busy lashing out left and right at all of his contemporaries. He’s demolishing all kinds of theories about Stonehenge and proposing one of his own which is just as incorrect (and maybe more so), and then arguing about the location of the mythical tin mines of the Phoenicians at Cassiterides.

To be honest, his flailing about is becoming rather difficult and off-putting to read, with the increase in personal attacks and the abuse that he is heaping on his colleagues. He makes a lot of interesting points, but they are swamped by the invective. But don’t worry – only another 300 or so pages to go.

What’s interesting though is that he’s quoting a lot of sources for his criticism, and I am busy tracking them down and downloading them. My virtual library is expanding rapidly.

Back in here I had things to do.

First off was to telephone Paris to argue with them about a convocation to attend next Wednesday. "We don’t do that here" they said, although their colleagues in Neurology do.

It’s important to have one because I need to book a taxi and it’s no good my saying “we’ll pick up the paperwork when we arrive” because if the hospital cancels the appointment mid-trip, there won’t be any paperwork and I’ll have to pay the taxi myself – €1600 – rather than the Securité Sociale picking up the bill.

And in case you are thinking that it’s far-fetched, regular readers of this rubbish will recall back in 2020 or 2021 in the middle of a train strike and so I drove overnight all the way to Leuven for an appointment, only for them to cancel it just as I pulled into the city after a 700km overnight drive.

The best that could do was to confirm it by voice over the ‘phone so I could ring up the taxi company. They knew about the change of day for my dialysis from Thursday to Wednesday, but they had me down for the afternoon, not morning. So I had to change all of that and book a car to Paris, hoping that it will all go to plan.

Having done that I was well on my way when the ‘phone rang. It was the taxi arriving to take me to dialysis."It’s tomorrow". I said. "but it’s on Wednesday next week, but in the morning".

So I had to ring up the Dialysis Centre to make sure, and then ring back the taxi company for them to put their records straight. At least, being early and wrong is better than being wrong and late

Next interruption for my plan to finish my radio notes was for lunch – flapjack and fruit. And then the cleaner came round to do her stuff.

That included the shower of course, so there’s a nice clean me with nice clean clothes ready to climb into a nice clean bed because the bedding has been changed too which I was showering.

We had Christmas cake break later with another one of these horrible drinks, and then I have been making pies. I could make three nice-sized pies from a roll of this flaky pastry, and my filling really is excellent.

It’s

  • lentils
  • split peas
  • potatoes

soaked for an hour in the slow cooker on “high”, rinsed, and soaked again for 18 hours in the slow cooker on “low” with herbs, spices and flavouring

And then I fried in the big wok the following –

  • onions
  • shallots
  • garlic
  • a tofu block
  • a tin of sweetcorn

When they were all nice and cooked, the contents of the slow cooker were tipped into the wok with the fried stuff, simmered to boil off the excess liquid, and then a handful or two of oats to bind it all together.

So three pies in the fridge ready to bake tomorrow, and a pile of filling in individual sized containers freezing for next time, and a ladleful of it added to my leftover curry to try it out.

And with naan bread, rice and veg it was excellent and I had no room for pudding. And in any case, believe it or not (because I find it hard to believe) I crashed out at the table.

So tomorrow it’s dialysis, but for tea I’m going to eat one of my pies with potatoes, veg and gravy. They should be delicious and make me feel better after what will be a very painful session. And I’ll finish the radio notes tomorrow too if I am lucky.

But while we ‘re on the subject of curries… "well, one of us is" – ed … regular readers of this rubbish will recall when we were on THOSE FERRIES ON THE OUTER BANKS off the coast of the USA and encountered all of those pelicans.
One person on the ferry went to a restaurant on Okracoke Island and asked to try the Pelican Curry that was on the menu.
When I met him later I asked him how it was.
"I won’t be going in that place again" he said.
"Why not?" I asked. "Wasn’t it any good?"
"The meal was great" he replied "but the bill was enormous."

0

Tuesday 14th January 2025 – I AM TYPING …

… these notes during a pause in the football.

It’s hardly surprising that there’s a pause either because, as the score is proving, trying to play a game of football as banks of fog come rolling from the Dee estuary across the stadium at Cae Castell is producing some extremely unpredictable, and for Y Bala who are defending the river end, some extremely unfortunate moments.

After an hour of playing hide and seek the players have gone off the field in the hope that the fog will roll away. But even if it does, there is no guarantee that it won’t roll back.

It’s ironic that it’s happening to Y Bala. The final round of the first half of the season should have been played weeks ago but their pitch has been alternately under snow, ice and water on so many occasions that after several postponements that led to the postponement of the final round of matches, the game against Caernarfon that we watched on Saturday, was played at a neutral venue, Llandudno’s all-weather stadium

All the final round games were postponed until tonight, but now Y Bala’s vital match against Cei Connah is swathed in fog and all the players are in the dressing room waiting. There’s no guarantee that they will be back out either.

So while I’m waiting for things to happen, after finishing my notes last night I stayed up to listen to yet another concert (I’ve forgotten who it was) and then at about 00:30 I gave it up as a bad job and crawled into my bed. I can’t keep going as I used to.

Once in bed it took a while to go to sleep and there I stayed until about 06:35 when I awoke, once more drenched in sweat. There’s definitely something going on with this dialysis that I don’t understand.

It goes without saying, I suppose, that I went back to sleep again. I was certainly asleep when BILLY COTTON awoke me from the Dead.

Being awake was one thing. Leaving the bed was quite another thing completely. Mind you, I did (just about) beat the second alarm. And then I staggered off to the bedroom

After the bathroom it was the kitchen for the medication. And while I remembered the stuff that I can only take on a non-dialysis day, I forgot my blood-thinning medication. I’m definitely losing my touch, and probably my mind as well.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Last night I was stacking things inside the van. It was already quite loaded. There was me and there was another person, a girl, helping me. We had some long, thin wooden boxes probably about two metres long, to put in the back. We were carrying them one by one. Someone suggested that we’d advance much quicker if we were to take two or three at a time between the two of us. We tried it with a couple but it was much wore awkward. Positioning them in the van was a problem because the girl with me always wanted to carry them on her left-hand side which meant that she was having to fight with the back door to put them in when she arrived. That was becoming rather difficult. We stacked them inside quite high. There was already a lot of things in there so we thought that we’d better find some way of strapping these in against the side of the wall or the other things that are already in there, strapping them up against them against the side of the wall that way so that they didn’t fall over because if they were to fall they would be quite something of a problem inside and the whole inside was something of a mess.

Whoever the girl was, I have no idea. She was small and lively, but not anyone whom I recognised immediately. However, stacking stuff into vans was the occupation of a lifetime once upon a time and regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing a few photos of how I used to travel around Europe in the past.

Isabelle the Nurse is on duty for the next seven days. She is much more cheerful and was telling me about the float that she and her friends are building for Carnaval. She’s not telling me what it is though – it’s to be a surprise and won’t be unveiled until the day of the parade.

It’s now been announced that the football match has been postponed, which has now completely upset the timetable for the rest of the season. And I can press on, hours later than I was hoping.

So after Isabelle left I made my breakfast and then read some more of MY BOOK

His polemic by now is raging out of control and he condemns one of his colleagues in a manner that is quite unfitting in a published work, saying that "he blunders in a way which makes me hesitate to accept his statements about archaeological details that I have not myself studied" – a pretty outrageous remark for any academic to make, especially about a colleague.

He goes on to ask "How then would the professor and the doctor explain the fact that in the round barrows of the Yorkshire Wolds there was a reaction in favour of inhumation, seeing that Canon Greenwell 8 found in them 301 interments of unburnt and only 78 of burnt bones ?"

Christianity has been around for 2,000 years, but there are still plenty of Jews about. Protestantism has been around for almost 600 years, but there are still plenty of Catholics about. And going back to the “Dark Ages” of early Medieval times, there are many recorded instances of Christian Princesses being married to heathen Kings.

History shows us that several religions can live perfectly well side-by-side, and there’s no reason to suppose that things were different in Neolithic times. It’s quite possible to have two religions and two forms of dealing with dead bodies living in co-existence.

Back in here I revised for my Welsh lesson and hen went to class. We had, for the first time since I don’t know when, a full house of students and the class moved along smartly. I was once more quite satisfied with my progress, although my lack of memory is greatly hindering my vocabulary.

After the lesson it was lunch and a slice of flapjack with fruit, and then a very long and involved video chat with a friend in the UK who is carrying out a special project for me. We ended up discussing his holiday to Canada and, to my surprise, he liked everything that I didn’t and vice versa.

It was a Rosemaryesque conversation that lasted over an hour and it was very pleasant. It’s the only way that I get to see my friends these days and I do miss them all. Anyone else who wants a video chat some time, let me know.

Christmas cake break, very late, was next along with that disgusting protein drink, and then I started to work on the next radio programme. All of the songs are chosen, re-mixed, paired and segued and I’ve even begun to write the notes. That’s a job to be finished tomorrow I hope, in and around the shower I suppose, because it’s shower day tomorrow.

Tea tonight was a very rushed taco roll with rice followed by chocolate cake and chocolate soya dessert. Rushed because there was football on the internet. But I did remember to organise the lentils as well as some split peas that I found.

It’s the last match of the first half of the season as I mentioned earlier, the round having been postponed because of the issues with the pitch and the weather at Y Bala which has seen the Caernarfon game postponed three, or is it four times?

That match was played at Llandudno on Saturday, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, and so the final round, having been postponed while that game was still unplayed, took place tonight.

Both Cei Connah and Y Bala needed to win in order to qualify for the European playoff section of the league, and it was the Nomads who took advantage of the conditions. The first goal was an audacious lob from near the halfway line when a gust of wind lifted the fog briefly and enabled a Nomad to see the Bala keeper off his line.

They scored two more goals while Bala offered nothing whatever at all. It was all one-way traffic. But the match being called off saved Y Bala’s bacon. Some of tonight’s results mean that Cei Connah can’t possibly qualify, but Bala could if they have a good win. So if the match is replayed on Thursday, it might favour Bala.

cat in commentary box cae castell fflint cymru 15 January 2025But before I leave the story of the football match, there was a new recruit to the commentary team this evening.

Please excuse the poor quality but it’s a screenshot taken in the fog and so nothing will ever come out correctly. However it goes to show that gate-crashers can get in anywhere.

That is, except my bed (unless it’s Castor, TOTGA or Zero of course, and maybe Jenny Agutter and Kate Bush) because I’m going to climb into it in a moment, alongside STRAWBERRY MOOSE who keeps me company as much as he possibly can.

Tomorrow I’m radioing again and showering and pie-baking too. Maybe even bread-making. I’m certainly keeping myself busy.

Today, our Welsh class was discussing war. We were being asked about our family in wartime so I told them the story of my great grandfather who, after having long-since retired after his service in India and South Africa, dyed his white hair black, lied about his age and joined the Canadian Army in 1914, and also of my mother who served in the Royal Air Force in World War II.

I didn’t mention my distant great-great-cousin or whatever relation he was who was SENTENCED TO DEATH because, being a devout Quaker, he refusing to fight

One woman, the teacher from Nantwich, told the story of her father who was an Army dentist in Syria and the Western Desert in World War II.
One day he had to examine a group of volunteers to see if they were fit to join the Army and fight. One of them he was obliged to reject because his teeth were rotten.
"Blimey!" exclaimed the unlucky volunteer. "I know that we were expected to kill the enemy, but I didn’t know that we had to eat them afterwards."

0

Monday 13th January 2025 – I AM HORRIFIED …

… by how much *.html coding that I have forgotten.

It was almost 30 years ago that I wrote my first web page and after a couple of years of practice I was even teaching *.html 4.0 until new technology evolved faster than I could absorb it.

Nevertheless I soldiered on, upgrading to *.html 5.0, and both of my websites and the thousands of pages therein are entirely written by hand, with the only templates in there being those that I designed and wrote myself.

The design of the sites was last changed in 2007 and not since, because there isn’t much point. *.html 5.0 has long-since reached the peak of its development and still works fine. All that I have done is to introduce elements of Javascript as I have gone along, once I’ve mastered parts of it.

But today, I was on the point of adding in a couple of new features and do you know, I couldn’t even remember how I’d actually designed my site. Despite making the coding abundantly clear, with plenty of notes, I still had to pick the coding of a page apart to give me some idea of what I did.

And then I ran aground over a simple piece of Javascript.

But it’s slowly coming together and here on my blog, on the right-hand side, you’ll notice a “buy me a coffee” button. Something that has also happened today is that I’ve had the bill for my web-hosting and domain name registration so I’ll be passing around the begging-bowl. Renting my own piece of cyberspace is not cheap.

Something that didn’t happen last night was going to bed early. It was, as usual these days, much later than usual. It might, and indeed ought, to have been a little earlier but just as I was on the point of going to bed, a “Curved Air” concert came onto the playlist.

The first piece of music that I ever played in public was the piano riff to BACK STREET LOVE and Sonia Shaw can come and sing to me any time she likes, so the song, and the group, have a special place in my memory.

It didn’t take long to go to sleep and although it was something of a mobile night, I don’t really remember anything much at all, and I was certainly asleep when the alarm went off.

Once I’d hauled myself to my feet I staggered off into the bathroom and sorted myself out, including having a shave just in case Emilie the Cute Consultant is there this afternoon at the Dialysis Centre, and then I went into the kitchen to take my medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was taxiing last night on a motorbike. I picked up someone at the station in some town or other to take to the University. He sat on the back and we set off. When we came to the first bend, which was a turning on the right at some traffic lights, the lights were against us so we had to stop. When they changed to green I’d forgotten how to turn corners on a motorbike and I had a panic attack. In the end I managed basically to manoeuvre us around which was all an inconvenience but all my knowledge of riding a motorbike had been shot to pieces. I was on the wrong side of the road, the bike wasn’t sounding very nice. In the end the guy tapped me on the shoulder and said “if you just pull up here and drop me off, I’ll walk the rest of the way”. The Fare was £1:40 but he gave me £2:00, asked for the change from £1:60 and wanted a receipt that said “Fare £1:40, damages £0:15” and I’ve no idea why. I felt really embarrassed that the motorbike was showing me up today. It really really was a shame.

In Paris and many big cities there are motorcycle taxis that are available to hire. It’s much quicker for them to filter in and out of the traffic. In North America it’s illegal for a motorcycle to filter down through the traffic, which rather defeats the point of any motorcycle taxi, or any commuter motorcycle if it comes to that. And bearing that in mind, it’s amazing just how many quite common and normal things you aren’t allowed to do in “The Land Of The Free”.

But suddenly realising that you’ve forgotten how to ride a motor bike is not an ideal situation in which to be when one is halfway down the road. But at least it wasn’t a road in Crewe. I can still see the image of the road and it was down a hill at some traffic lights and a right turning underneath a railway bridge, something similar (but not identical) to coming down Wood Street towards King Street in Longton.

Thinking about it all though, long afterwards, this sudden panic attack about forgetting how to ride a motor bike is something similar to forgetting all about how I built my website, isn’t it? Bizarre, hey?

The nurse came round for his last day for a week. He was soon in and gone which was fine because I could push on and make my breakfast.

So armed with porridge, toast and coffee, I attacked MY BOOK.

We’re having a splendid argument about the name of the Isle of Man … "Isle of PERSON" – ed … today. Our author notes that Pliny called it Monapia and Caesar called it Mona and so the argument that is currently raging is whether it was the Brythons or the Goidels or the Belgae who so named it.

However, the “local” Welsh name for the Isle of Anglesey is Mona, and what both places have in common is that they are islands. Could it be, maybe, that Mona is simply an old word in an extinct language for “Island”?

He doesn’t seem to consider that possibility at all. But as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the word afon pronounced “avon” is Welsh for “river” so one could easily imagine a Roman or a Saxon or a Norseman asking a local “what’s the name of that place?” and the person replying in his own language “it’s the River”. And so we have the “River Avon” in several places in England.

Could the same thing not have happened when Caesar asked a local “what’s the name of that island?”. “Ohh, it’s just the island” he might have replied in his own language. Maybe I’m barking up a gum tree too, but I’m surprised that in all the 805 pages of his work, our author never even considers the possibility for a single moment despite everything else that he considers.

Back in here I attacked this website amendment that I wanted to do – a task that shouldn’t have taken me more than ten minutes. But when my cleaner came along two hours later to fit my patches, I was still far from finished. I have something that works in principle, but it’s not how I want it.

The taxi was late again, and once more it had these other two women in it. There’s no doubt that these new Social Security regulations are making everyone tighten their grip. No more squadrons of taxis streaming along the road between Avranches and Granville, and I can’t say that I’m surprised. In any case, we didn’t have a taxi today but the little Ford wheelchair carrier. And if I were back taxiing again, that’s what I would have now.

Being late at the clinic meant that everyone else was plugged in so I didn’t have to wait. The first pin was quite painless but the second, although not painless, was much easier and much less painless than Saturday. Mind you, as the anaesthetic wore off, then I knew all about it.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me today. She asked if I needed anything, and I thought that it was a shame that I was in a public ward and not in a private room. She did bring me a prescription from the dietician for more of this awful drink. I suppose that I’ll just have to keep on going and learn to like it.

But a strange thing today – I was off having more of those hallucinations that I used to have all those months ago. And during one of them I felt as if I was stroking a cat. The “fur” felt so realistic too. I’ve no idea what that was about.

Once I was unplugged I had to wait for a few minutes for my car. But that was OK because it was the chatty blonde girl – the one with the long straight hair – who brought me home and I like travelling with her.

But it was freezing when we arrived back here and my poor cleaner was frozen to the marrow waiting for me. She watched as I climbed up the stairs, and now another part of the handrail is coming loose. It won’t be long before I’ll be stuck in this apartment for good.

Tea tonight was a delicious stuffed pepper with pasta, followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. Plenty of stuffing from the pepper left over for a couple more meals. And then I’ll hopefully have my vegan pies ready by then, if I remember tomorrow to soak the lentils overnight.

So Welsh lesson tomorrow. And I’m not in the mood. However I suppose that I’ll have to do my best.

But while we’re on the subject of motor bikes and hospitals … "well, one of us is" – ed … one of the nurses today told me about a woman who had been rushed to hospital as an emergency.
Her husband had been riding a motor cycle and the police stopped him a few miles down the road.
"Excuse me, m’sieur" said the Gendarme. "Your wife fell of the pillion a couple of miles back"
"Thank heavens for that" said the man
"Thank heavens?" asked the Gendarme with a puzzled air
"Yes" replied the man. "I thought that for the last few minutes I’d suddenly gone deaf"

0

Sunday 12th January 2025 – GUESS WHO …

… forgot to put his lentils in the slow cooker overnight ready to make his vegan pies today?

That’s right, folks. Brain of Britain strikes again!

What I’ll have to do, if I remember, is to put them in the slow cooker overnight on Tuesday so that they are ready for baking on Wednesday. I can’t leave things another whole week or the pastry will walk out of the fridge on its own.

The thing about the lentils is that you put them in the slow cooker on high heat, and after about an hour when they begin to boil, you drain them off and rinse them. Then put them back in with fresh clean water and a variety of herbs and spices, and leave them on a slow setting for twelve hours by which time they should be cooked and taste nice.

Then fry some onions, shallots, garlic and a block of tofu (chopped finely) in a wok with herbs and spices and anything else you like (I used a tin of sweet corn last time),.

When it’s cooked, tip the lentils in and then simmer it right down with a stock cube, and then add a few handfuls of oats to stiffen the mix, and there you have your filling for a vegan pie. Mine will of course be different because I’ll probably be adding other stuff too, but I never know what, until the final moment.

That’s the thing about vegan cooking – you can experiment with all different kinds of things to see how it all ends up.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, after I’d finished my notes I had some dictating to do – the eleventh or “missing” track from the programme that I recorded before Christmas, and then the one for this famous concert that I’ve been pasting together from a collection of off-cuts.

After that I should have gone to bed, but onto the playlist came Neil Young and a mammoth 16-minute version of DOWN BY THE RIVER and how is it possible for anyone to go to bed when Neil Young is singing “Down By The River”?

There once was a girl who "could drag me over the rainbow and send me away" but that ship sailed a long time ago.

So last night we ended up with a “Neil Young Live” playlist and it was horribly late once more when I went to bed.

Once in bed though, I stayed in bed fast asleep with just the odd awakening here and there. But I was definitely asleep when BILLY COTTON’S RAUCOUS RATTLE aroused me from my slumber. It’s not just “Peel’s view-halloo” that “could awaken the dead” or “the sound of his horn” that “brought me from my bed”.

Bearing in mind it’s Sunday and I’ve had a small lie-in, I can’t hang about and I was straight into the bathroom to sort myself out ready for today.

Back in here there was time to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was doing some 3D modelling during the night, making figures and shapes. I wanted to make the shape of a girl but when I looked on my workspace I already had made a shape that I wanted so I had to rework it into a different shape. While I was doing that the first girl disappeared so that meant that I could make this figure back into the shape that I wanted at the start. When it was finished there was no enemy or anything in sight so I just had to make any kind of poses on a hillside. Then this other girl came to join her and this was when it began to be complicated. I decided that I’d better rework the new arrival and make some other figure that wouldn’t be similar to the one that I had.

It’s been a while since I’ve done any serious 3-D modelling. But now that my adventure down in the Auvergne is over, there’s no real need for it – certainly not in this apartment. It might come in handy if ever I decide to join a Virtual World community but I don’t even have the time to cope with all of the problems that arise in this World, never mind another one.

And then I was staying in some boarding house somewhere. I’d only not long arrived. It had been concerned with a road accident in which a vehicle pulling out onto a main road had sent a small child hurtling through the air so everything had come to a standstill. I found myself at the front of the queue where I could see a car parked in the middle of the road, a person on his ‘phone and a small child lying in the roadway so I imagined that everyone would be ‘phoning the police and ambulance. There was also something quite interesting. At another road junction was a guy digging a hole in the road from underneath. To protect his head when he came out he had a wooden box that he put over the hole and he put his head in it to work. One car came over and flattened it. He raised his head again and another car stopped. This was a side-lift fork lift truck and it began to lift up this box. It lifted up this guy and his girlfriend with it and pulled them out of the hole. This began a huge argument and dispute with a lot of name-calling. When I arrived back at my little hostel place whatever there was another couple there being interviewed for signing in. They were two young people, quite tall, quite well-built and speaking in a North American accent. After they had signed in, they came into the room where the rest of us were sitting and asked if there were any other Canadians in here. I was on the point of working out whether I should speak to them in English or French to see whether they were Québecois or Anglophone.

That was a totally strange dream too, tunnelling up to the road surface and putting a box over your head and then being pulled out by a side-life forklift truck. There’s no doubt that my dreams are usually quite interesting, even if I have no idea of what has brought them to the forefront.

The nurse was late today. He’d probably had a lie-in too . He didn’t hag around long, so I could make my breakfast and read MY BOOK.

Apart from the usual scything and scathing remarks directed at his contemporaries, he notes that two of his colleagues consider that "a tall, broad-headed, dark-haired, light-eyed people ’, whom they regard as the descendants of the men of the Bronze Age ’, formerly inhabited Aberdeenshire, but were driven inland by later blond immigrants, who were shorter and had narrower heads ….. But is it the fact?" and then devotes a couple of pages in rubbishing their theories.

However, remember a week or so when we were discussing the presence of stone circles, menhirs … "PERSONhirs" – ed … and “nothing”? It looks to me as if his two colleagues do have some kind of case worth arguing.

On page 428 of his book, he attacks the arguments of a colleague by saying that "Very likely the round-headed race which he has in mind did not make its way across Europe unmixed ; but the mixture did not greatly diminish the roundness"

However, on page 445, he attacks another one of his colleagues because "his arguments, which I have examined fully elsewhere, do not prove that the dominant Celts among the Belgae were dark, but simply that, before they invaded Britain, they had become largely intermixed with an older dark population, and that, since they reached this country, they and their descendants have intermarried with people darker than themselves"

Leaving aside the question about “intermarriage” and that any cross-breeding of invader and native inhabitant is more likely to be by violence than by a priest turning up to bless the union, I’m trying now to work out how “crossbreeding” can cause one characteristic to be inherited to some great extent but not another to at least the same extent.

Back in here afterwards, there was football to watch. Clyde peppering the East Fife goal with shots and East Fife just having three shots on goal. Anyone care to guess the score?

And why was I watching that game? Because, once more, Stranraer’s game was postponed. And that’s just as well because Stranraer seems to have lost half its team in this transfer window so far.

Once the football was finished, I had the soundtrack of two radio programme notes to edit.

The first one was quite straightforward and hardly needed anything at all editing out – just the odd second or two which is no big deal.

The second one was this complicated concert and its notes. That overran by well over a minute and it’s really ironic that part of the vocal introduction that had given me some of the most difficulty was one of the parts that ended in the bin. It’s always like that, isn’t it?

The joins however where I’ve had to fade songs in and out and edit in a few rounds of applause seem to be done perfectly. I’m listening to it right now and I’m really impressed with those. But strange as it is, I’ve been using this sound-editing program for ten years and I’m still finding out tips and hints about it and making it work better for me.

There were several breaks – for making soup and a bread roll for a start. It was a beautiful leek and potato soup today with a pot of soya yoghurt and plenty of black pepper stirred in. The fresh bread roll, hot out of the air-fryer, made all the difference.

Later on, there was pizza dough to make. That went well too, and there are now two balls in the freezer and the third I rolled out, assembled and baked. And that was perfect.

So what’s going to happen at the Dialysis Centre tomorrow? Will it be another three and a half hours of excruciating agony? I don’t see what else it could be. In any respect I’m not looking forward to it.

But going back to these stone circles … "well, one of us is" – ed … archaeologists were puzzled by a strange, fossilised spiky animal that they had unearthed when they were excavating a stone circle somewhere
The took it to the Natural History Museum and found the curator. They asked him if he could identify it
"We found it when we were excavating that stone circle" said an archaeologist. "Do you know what it is?"
"Now that you told me where you found it, of course I do" said the curator. "It can only be a hengehog!"

0

Saturday 11th January 2025 – WHAT A CALAMITY …

… this whole day has been. Everything that could possibly go wrong has gone wrong today, but these days it’s becoming par for the course. I’m beginning to think that I must have kicked a black cat or walked under a ladder somewhere on my travels, and it all seems to be coming home to roost.

Even going to bed last night. It was well after midnight and I was still letting it all hang out before I staggered off into my stinking pit. But at least I was asleep quite quickly, and there I stayed, snug as a bug in a rug, until 07:00.

When the alarm went off, it took me quite a good few minutes to gather my wits which is a surprise seeing how few I actually have left these days, but even so I managed to beat the second alarm to my feet and headed off to the bathroom

Clothes-washing this morning. My night attire and undies went into the sink after I’d finished washing myself, and the clothes had a good wash through. And there they went, onto the octopus that hangs from the shower rail.

In the kitchen I had my medication, remembering not to take the anti-potassium stuff, and then I tidied up all of the shopping bags that were lying around all over the place. The place has to look tidy at least occasionally, even if I can’t manage that all the time.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Once more back on Middle Earth with a bunch of men and women and in this theme I dreamed that women were people and apologists being shown around. One question that came up was about some visitor to here from a while ago who was sitting on top of a plank that was on top of a paint tin that was stuck on the top of some kind of column. He was doing this in the 13th Century. They were pointing out to him that he had people listening on the news and watching on the television watching what he was doing and he had to hold his foot in his mouth in a certain position when the cameras were filming him so that it would provide an illusion with the camera. They asked him why he was there and whether he followed TNS. He replied “no, it was the other European teams that interested him like Y Fflint and Connah’s Quay” where he could follow them and experience the real atmosphere. But even in the other clubs the opportunity to speak Welsh was presented to him by having to carry out the PA reports in Welsh. The aim of this plank on this pot of paint was so that he could balance it in the one direction so that it wouldn’t actually fall off the plank. He could sit there and watch it or rugby if he so desired, sitting on his plank and have been sat there, really … indecipherable … that was a free seat or something. He was sitting on a big expensive paid type of free seat that didn’t give the right results.

Whatever that was all about, I really have no idea. None of it makes sense, especially the bit about Y Fflint qualifying for Europe. But quite honestly, this was one of the strangest dreams that I have ever had, and I’ve had a few of those.

The nurse was early today and he had a few things to say for himself. But he didn’t stay long and I could press on and make my breakfast

Armed with my porridge, toast, purée and coffee, I had another read of MY BOOK. Our hero is certainly letting his polemic run away with him now and is making no effort whatever to hide his contempt of his contemporaries.

He’s also tying himself up in knots with the different strands of the Celtic language.

There are two principal strands, the “P” strand which is Welsh, Cornish, Breton and maybe Galician; and the “Q” strand, which is the Irish, the Manx and the Gael. There are certainly similarities between the two, for example, there are surnames. In Wales, “son of” is “Mab” (mutated to “Map”) and in Scotland it’s Maq (modernised into “Mac”) which is why in Wales a surname might be “Map Hywell” which over time has become “Powell”, or “Map Reece” – now “Preece” whereas in Scotland it’s “MacAdam” or “MacArthur”.

The Welsh name for the British Isles is “Prydain” (from where “Britain” comes) and our hero is trying to tie the name in with the name “Pict” for the Pictish inhabitants of Northern Scotland, with the argument that they were “Q Strand Celts’ who were formerly the settlers of the whole island before the “P Strand Celts” arrived. But what I don’t understand is that if they were the “Q strand Celts”, why do they have a name that begins with a P?

It’s perfectly true that some of the very early Mediterraneans like Pytheas reported their name, but surely he would have found it out by speaking to them and asking them, especially if the name of the islands had been taken from their tribal or generic name and later mutated into Britannia.

Sometimes I find it very difficult and confusing to follow our author’s arguments.

Back in here I carried on with my radio programme editing and by the time that I’d finished I had something that might actually pass muster. And if it works, it really will be impressive.

It wasn’t that I actually finished but that my cleaner came along and surprised me again. She soon had my patches on me and after a little chat she left me to await the taxi.

And wait. And wait.

Eventually there was a ‘phone call. It was my driver. "I’m sorry I’m late, Mr Hall. I’m in Avranches. I’ll be another half-hour".

So where does that leave me with my anaesthetic?

After about 25 minutes another driver turned up. He’d come from St Hilaire du Harcoet to drop someone off at St Pair so they sent him here to pick me up on his return journey. At least that’s the one big advantage of being a client of one of Normandy’s biggest taxi companies. They have drivers everywhere.

We had to pick up our other passenger too, and then we had a really rapid drive down to Avranches.

Horribly late at Avranches, everyone else was already plugged in so I was seen straight away. The first pin went in totally and absolutely painlessly. I didn’t feel a thing. As for the second, that really hurt. However, it wasn’t working so they had to take it out and insert it again.

And if, dear reader, you ever want to know what pain is all about, I recommend that you go to your local Dialysis Clinic and ask them to try that out on you.

So swathed in ice to deaden the arm and the pain, I could relax.

There was football on the internet and with the lightning-fast connection there, I could watch the game in comfort. Y Bala v Caernarfon, with the winner taking a gigantic leap towards the European Qualification playoffs.

This was actually one of the best games that I have ever seen. Y Bala were the much more technical team but the Cofis are one of the fastest teams in Europe and while their style is more “agricultural” they can tear a more static team to shreds.

And this was precisely how the game went. It was one of non-stop action and excitement and the Cofis caught out Y Bala several tims with their lightning pace. And they made two of those attacks count. You can see the highlights of the game HERE

So now, Y Bala must win their final match this half season against Connah’s Quay (which the Quay must do too) on Tuesday night, and hope that Caernarfon lose at home to Y Fflint.

Eventually I was unplugged and, hours later than usual, the taxi was already waiting for me. It was one of my favourite drivers too and we almost always (except last weekend) have a good chat.

We were halfway home, on the by-pass around Sartilly, when her data head pinged. “Pick up Mr … for Granville”.

That’s the guy who is dialysed with me and he must be ready. This is going to be a very long night for the driver so "it’s OK. Let’s do a U-turn at the next roundabout" I suggested. No sense leaving him waiting and making the driver’s day any longer than it has to be.

As a result, it was after my usual tea-time when I arrived back. And as a result, everything is running really late, yet again.

There’s stuff to dictate of course, and then I’ll go to bed. But I’m never going to have this early night that I need so badly.

But this thing about asking other people to tell you what is someone’s name can lead to all kinds of confusion.
Once upon a time I had to write down a woman’s particulars.
When I finished she asked me "do you want my husband’s name too?"
"That’s right" I replied. "I need to have his name. What’s he called?"
"Well" she replied "There are a lot of names that I call him. But if I told you what they were, I bet that you wouldn’t write them down on your form."

0

Friday 10th January 2025 – THIS IS SOMETHING …

… like pretty hard work.

The piece of music, all 65 minutes of it, is not the original. It’s been hacked around quite a lot and the joins in between the pieces are awful. Consequently today, I’ve been tracking down the original sound recording.

And now that I have it, I can see exactly why it’s been hacked about as it has. It’s for a very good reason. Consequently I’ve decided to run with the hacked-about version and see if I can improve the joints, but it’s not easy. Not at all.

Actually, it was easier that that to go to bed before 23:00 last night. And how long is it since that has happened? I’d finished quite early everything that I needed to do and once I’d backed up the computer I went and sorted myself out ready for an early night.

Once in bed, it was totally painless. I was out like a light and remember nothing whatever until just about a couple of minutes before the alarm went off, and I’m not sure why.

Nevertheless I didn’t move until Billy Cotton ROARED HIS RAUCOUS RATTLE and then I staggered off into the bathroom for a good piece of scrubbing.

After that it was into the kitchen to take my medicine, including the powder that I’m supposed to take when it’s not Dialysis Day. Honestly, I’m so confused with all of this medication, when I’m supposed to take it and why.

After that I came back to listen to the dictaphone to find out what was on it. And to my dismay, there was nothing at all thereupon. However there was a lot of this medieval, early medieval, Roman kind of stuff going on last night all through my head. There was so much of it that it wasn’t possible to collate any of it. I just kept on going from one thing to another without a pause.

There was also something about another civilisation, a rabbit and a cat flap. And whatever all of that meant I really have no idea.

The nurse was early today. He clearly had no blood tests or injections to carry out. We had something of a chat this morning and then he cleared off, leaving me to it. I could then go to rescue my bread that I had kept away from his evil cutches and then prepare breakfast.

There was MY BOOK. to read too. And our hero is stuck, trying to read the enigma of the extinct Iberian People. They had a language all of their own that is yet to be deciphered. He’s trying to link it to the Basque language and while there are similarities, there aren’t enough to draw the conclusion that one is linked to the other.

He’s busy trying to probe the theory that the Basque people came from the Middle East via North Africa and the Straits of Gibraltar rather than the established route via Turkey. There’s some mileage in this but he has then to explain why the Celtic people were pushed West into Galicia rather than North, back into France from whence they came.

Nothing that he has found – the barrow culture, the burial customs, the size of the skulls and so on add up, but it’s not stopped him carrying on his aggressive criticism down into a level of personal attack and ad hominem.

Back in here later, I had a few things to do and then attacked the radio editing. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s not an easy programme to edit. Huge lumps have been cut out – and for good reason too, as I discovered when I finally found the master tape

Consequently it’s been a very, very slow process of trying to reassemble it into some kind of spontaneous, simultaneous concert without the missing bits (that are missing for a reason). Some of it went together really well, but other parts are not so good.

There is one thing though, and that is that I’ve managed to write the notes for it. However, I have a feeling that I’m going to have to make them longer so as to fit some of the large gaps that I’m sure that I’ll be having to make in the music before long

There were the usual interruptions today. Lunch of course, with my slice of nice flapjack, and then my cleaner came by to do her stuff, so for a few hours I had a nice, clean apartment.

There was Christmas cake break too with some of that disgusting protein drink, but the final interruption was the LeClerc delivery. I’d reviewed my order this morning, added a few things, taken away a couple, and then sent it off. So there I was, at 17:00, with a room full of food.

Some of it needed to go into the freezer straight away, some needed preparing before I could freeze it, some needed going in the fridge and then there was a head of broccoli and 2kg of carrots to wash, prepare, blanch and freeze.

There’s now a broccoli stalk and about a litre and a half of carrot and broccoli water ready to make some soup, but I’d forgotten about the leeks that I have left over. So it’s leek soup this coming Sunday followed by broccoli stalk soup the following weekend.

Tea tonight was a vegan salad with chips and falafel followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. And we’ll keep on eating that until it’s all gone and then we’ll make some more, seeing as LeClerc delivered some more cocoa powder.

But I really need to be more adventurous in my baking. That apple cake that I made a few months ago, for example, that worked quite well. But what else can I make that’s simple but different?

On Sunday I’m going to make some Vegan pies wit that flaky pastry that’s left. I’ll make a base of lentils, tofu and oats, maybe some potato and I’ll have to think of what else I can put in there

However, I’ll worry about that tomorrow. Right now I’m off to bed because I’m exhausted. It seems that the more sleep that I have, the more I want.

In the meantime, seeing as we’ve been talking about ancient, dead languages … "well, one of us has" – ed … the Earl of Carnarvon discovered some writing that he didn’t understand on the wall of the inside of the Great Pyramid.
So after he died, he fund the ghost of Jean-François Champollion, the French hieroglyphics expert, who told him to tell him precisely what he saw.
"Certainly" said Carnarvon. "It’s ‘sacred maiden’ ‘hippopotamus’ ‘triangle’ ‘crocodile’ ‘rising sun’ ‘sacred maiden’"
So Champollion goes away to work out his translation, by reference to the Rosetta Stone.
Twenty years later Champollion contacted the Earl of Carnarvon to say that he had succeeded in translating it.
"What does it say?" asked Carnarvon eagerly
"It’s Tutankhamun leaving a note to his architect" he explains. "The first part asks if the architect can explain to him the difference between the door to the lavatory and the flap on the letter box"
"What did he say?" asked Carnarvon
"He said that he couldn’t right at this moment"
"So what did Tutankhamun reply?" asked Carnarvon
"He told him that he’d better find someone else to post his Pools coupon"

0

Thursday 9th January 2025 – IN A STARTLING …

… new development, putting the pins for the dialysis machine into my arm was totally painless. I’ve no idea what went wrong or went right, but here we are.

Mind you, that was at first. When the anaesthetic began to ease off I knew all about it. And so if it proves anything at all, it proves that this anaesthetic does actually work. And that’s good news too because I was beginning to have my doubts.

As for going to bed before 23:00, it’s not a question of having my doubts but more one of an absolute certainty that I’m never going to make it into bed by then.

A concert from the Marshall Tucker Band stopped me dead in my tracks last night, and it’s not just the Southern Rock music, but Southern Rock played sometimes on a flute, and in that, the Marshall Tucker Band is unique. But of course, what helps are the songs. Good old country-rock songs played with an energy that you don’t find in many places, and with Toy Caldwell on guitar.

If you’ve never heard them live, have a listen to BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAIN SKIES. "CAROLINA’S WHERE I’M AT, AND I’LL ALWAYS LAY MY HAT …". And I wish that I was at Carolina right now, for not the least of reasons that I can catch up with Rhys. It’s years since we last saw each other.

Anyway, have a listen to SEARCHIN’ FOR A RAINBOW. I can listen to Southern Rock music all night.

After the Marshall Tucker Band I went to bed, and there I stayed until about 06:55. I say “about” because I didn’t know the time. I’d just awoken and was musing on the idea of showing a leg but instead the alarm beat me to it.

After a trip to the bathroom for a wash and shave I went into the kitchen to take my medication, remembering to forget the anti-potassium powder that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. This was another one of these dreams that goes on for ever. It concerned a group of people, probably in their 30s. There was one woman quite in love with one of these guys but somehow or other they never quite hit it off. They had some kind of business together, this entire group did, and it involved cars. One Monday morning they went to check the cars and they found that her car had travelled 7,300km that weekend. They checked the tacograph and found that the tachograph had been removed. They checked the time, and it had been removed at something like 04:00 so they were trying to figure out exactly where the car had gone. They worked out that Vietnam was halfway of the distance so the car could have gone to Vietnam and back. There was certainly someone whom this woman knew in Vietnam so they were busily trying to work out how to approach this when they had another incident that required them to send another car to Vietnam. They thought that they would send this girl to see if she could repeat this journey. This Vietnam journey was more complicated because the woman to be picked up might not want to come. A couple of hours later they saw the woman and without saying anything about the tachograph they explained this new job to her. She understood it and seemed to be happy to go. They said that this woman must get into the car at all costs. “You should be prepared for difficulties but you shouldn’t hit her too hard”. This woman’s eyes opened and exclaimed “too hard?!?”. They explained again that “it’s because she has to climb into the car at all costs and you shouldn’t feel squeamish about having to persuade her. You have to do exactly what’s necessary to make her get into the car no matter how unpleasant it might possibly be to you”.

If someone can drive from Europe to Vietnam and back in a weekend they deserve a medal. And in any case, Vietnam is a darn sight more than half of 7,300kms away. However, that dream really was a vivid one and for some reason or other it’s stuck in my mind. I can’t see what relevance it has to anything that’s been going on around here.

The nurse was late coming today. He was armed with his blood-testing kit so that means that not all of his patients have given up on him and are waiting for Isabelle the Nurse. Apart from that though, he didn’t stay long and was soon gone. I could get on and make my breakfast.

MY BOOK is grinding along slowly. The author has spent this morning pooh-poohing the theories of several other writers on this theme, who probably at the same time were expending their energies pooh-poohing his theories.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall a reviewer who said that his book was "a flurry of argument and counter-argument" and I can certainly see what he meant.

Back in here afterwards I spent some time tracking down some music for the next radio programme. That’s all remixed and re-edited now but it needs to be cropped down as it’s likely to overflow my one-hour slot. Once I’ve done that tomorrow morning I can write the text, and then dictate everything on Saturday night.

Once again, I was caught unawares by the cleaner who came without my realising what time it was. She fitted my patches and then I had to wait for the taxi to arrive.

It was a new driver today so he was late, and wasn’t sure where I lived. Then I had to show him where our other passenger lived. Once we were all together we had a good drive down to Avranches.

With late starting, I was late arriving but as everyone else was early they were already plugged in so I didn’t have long to wait.

The dietician came to see me this afternoon, and someone brought me the details of an appointment that they have made for me with the heart specialist – in June. They believe in keeping up to date with everything. But that date is after I will have regained possession of my apartment downstairs. Look how quickly time is approaching.

But apart from that, they left me pretty much alone and I spent the time preparing an order for LeClerc which I’ll send off in the morning.

The girl who compressed my arm after the dialysis was over had volunteered because she wanted to talk to me about air fryers. And we had quite an animated and lively chat.

Being late starting meant that I was late finishing, but that was good news in a way because the driver who brought me home was a lovely young girl, complete with long brown hair, whom I hadn’t seen before. She was a very lively character and insisted that we speak English so that she could practise.

She has a love of travelling but hasn’t been far yet and is afraid of flying. However she has a burning desire to visit Canada, and I resisted the temptation to say that I’d carry her in my arms all the way there. Had I been 40 years younger and in good health, I wouldn’t have needed asking twice.

Back here my faithful cleaner watched as I made my way upstairs. And once I’d settled down I made some dough for bread

For tea tonight, I was doing my “Mr Carmichael” impressions and SUPPER WAITS ON THE TABLE INSIDE A TIN. I couldn’t think of anything else to do tonight – I wasn’t in the mood

So right now I have things to do and then I’ll go to bed. The bread has finished baking so that’s one less thing about which to worry I suppose.

But this talk about carrying the girl across the Atlantic in my arms reminds me of when I stumbled upon that woman at that lighthouse in Labrador.
She looked at me, looked at the car, a Chrysler PT Cruiser, looked at me and asked "have you driven from Baie Comeau in THAT?!?" – bearing in mind that the road from Baie Comeau to the Labrador coast was 1800kms of the worst-ever roads in the World.
"Ohh yes" I replied. "It’s not the car on roads like this, it’s the driver who makes the difference. And for my next visit to Canada, I’ll be crossing the Atlantic on a motor bike."

0

Wednesday 8th January 2025 – I HAVE DONE …

… something today that I haven’t done several months – namely, I have crashed out this afternoon.

And crashed out royally too. It was one of those really deep ones where it was as if time and space all stood still as I plunged into the abyss. And there I stayed for a good 40 minutes. I’ve no idea what’s going on but there have also been one or two other signs that the dramatic effects of the first few sessions of dialysis are now tailing off and I’m regressing.

That’s pretty bad news, as far as I am concerned. I really had hoped that this dialysis would have solved many of my problems, but apparently not. What wouldn’t I give to be back fully fit and healthy again? Even the really sad me who had to live at Liz and Terry’s for four months when I was totally unable to fend for myself would be an improvement.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment I had another long, late night as This two-hour Lindisfarne concert went on. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … Lindisfarne holds a special place in my heart – and for many reasons too, and I’ll always listen to one of their concerts

That’s another thing. I’ve noticed that over this last couple of days I’ve become very nostalgic for a period that lasted between 1978 and 1979 and for something that I let slip through my fingers. I’ve no idea why that might be either because apart from a fleeting moment in 1994, neither this period nor this opportunity has never entered my head on any kind of scale before.

Looking back, there were several opportunities, nailed-on positive opportunities, that I didn’t see or recognise until it was far too late. It all just goes to prove the old saying that "nostalgia ain’t what it used to be".

Once Lindisfarne finished, round about 00:45, I took myself off reluctantly to bed for a good sleep over what was left of the night.

During the night though, I awoke once, in some kind of panic in case I’d missed the alarm. But reassuring myself that it was 05:20, I managed to go back to sleep.

When the alarm went off at 07:00, I struggled out of bed and had to wait a good few minutes before I could drag myself to my feet and stagger into the bathroom.

After a good scrub, it was into the kitchen for the medication and I’m becoming fed up of this too. I can never remember the days when I don’t take something and I’m becoming so confused by it all. Basically, today I take everything except the Vitamin D supplement – I think.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was back in the Dark Ages. We were travelling on foot through some kind of woodland at the edge of a forest when a tribe of dark-skinned Neanderthal men sprang up in front of us. They were extremely threatening so we had to defend ourselves. It ended up in some kind of fight as a Wold West film might have done where we managed to repel the attackers and restore peace for the moment. That was the key for us to move quite rapidly off elsewhere but we had someone who was wounded and someone who had died so we had to think about what we were going to do with them. We couldn’t just leave them behind while we made good our escape. That wouldn’t be right at all.

This reminds me of the topics that I’ve been reading over the last few days and that’s probably the source of this dream. There’s also a considerable amount of the LORD OF THE RINGS in here too, with everything going on at the edge of the woodland, like the battle between the Riders of Rohan and the Orcs of the White Hand.

And then I was with VBH, my very first Cortina … "actually it wasn’t, but it was my first MkIII" – ed …. I’d been driving around in it for a while and suddenly realised that there was no MoT on it. I came home, parked up and crawled underneath it to look at the underside. The front and the centre section underneath were in really good condition but the rear passenger side quarter was eroded away and needed to be welded before it went. I thought “that’s another job that’s going to add to the list. While I was underneath it some people game and knocked at the door. They were talking about me and talking about my taxi business so I wondered who they are. They rattled the door really hard so I stood up, shouted at them and told them not to make so much noise. They announced themselves that they were people from the local council and local Tax Office and they wanted to talk to me. So I said “yes” seeing as they wee there, I was there and I couldn’t escape. One or two of the people disappeared and I wondered where they went but the others stayed. A girl who seemed to be in charge took out a large sheaf of paper and began to write a couple of notes that I couldn’t read from where I was, and began to ask me one or two basic questions so I answered them. Then she asked “you don’t have to go anywhere, do you?”. I replied “no. I’m staying here. I’m going to enjoy this” which gave some kind of bewildered look on her face.

No MoT? Crawling under a car? Needing welding? We’ve been there a thousand times, in dreams as well as in real life. At one stage that was the sum total of my life. Not to mention the local Council, the Tax Office, the Police and everyone else after my hide back in those days. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m a different person today than I was back then

But strangely enough, I have a little skill that not many people know – I can read upside-down just as well as I can read right-side up. And that has confused so many people who have had their written notes in front of them when they have wanted to interview me for something or other.

The nurse was early today and he talked about the town’s triathlon. He’s not entering it but the heart specialist who saw me a few months ago – he’s going to turn out. That should be interesting.

After he left, I made breakfast and then carried on with my DNA study.

We’ve been side-tracked now and I’m crawling over a collection of skeletons exhumed from early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries. Almost all the males in there are of Anglo-Saxon descent and 82% of them are buried with weapons, indicating warriors. The females are almost all native British people.

The reviewer tells us, rather naively, that the Anglo-Saxons must have married local native women. But the complete absence of local native male British skeletons tells us a rather different, more depressing and sad story. The DNA of early Anglo-Saxon but indigenous people, born and bred in Britain, contains mostly male Anglo-Saxon DNA and mostly female British DNA. However the available evidence (or lack thereof) that I’ve quoted is suggestive and I bet that “marriage” had absolutely nothing whatever to do with the interbreeding between the two nations.

When we were in Iceland, we were told that Icelandic DNA is made up of 80% of the male DNA coming from The Scandinavian coast, and 80% of the female DNA coming from Ireland, meaning that boatloads of Norse voyagers on their way to populate Iceland in the 10th Century stopped at Ireland to pick up some females. I hardly think that “marriage” would apply to those circumstances either.

Back in here I’ve had a very slow start back to work and have spent most of the rest of the day editing the radio notes that I dictated before Christmas and assembling the programme. I’ve chosen the 11th track and written the notes ready to dictate on Saturday night. But in the meantime, I have another programme to write and dictate for Saturday night too and I mustn’t start slacking.

There were several interruptions this afternoon too. There was lunch of course with a slice of flapjack and there was Christmas cake break

Of course there was the shower. My cleaner came in to do her stuff this afternoon and that includes helping me in and out of the shower. It might only be once a week, but it’s beautiful to be under the hot water like that. Just wait until I have that walk-in shower downstairs.

Rosemary rang me today too. Just a brief ‘phone call this afternoon – only one hour and twenty-five minutes. We’re definitely losing our touch. She had plenty of news to tell me, which is nice. They were inches deep in frost in the Auvergne last weekend and heavy snow is forecast any day soon.

To be honest, I miss the weeks of all of that hard winter weather, half a metre of snow that would fall overnight and a couple of weeks of temperature round about minus 18°C

Tea tonight was a leftover curry with naan bread, rice and veg followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. Totally delicious as it usually is.

Ordinarily right now it would be bedtime but just this minute onto the playlist has come another one of my favourite concerts.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m a really big fan of Southern Rock with its lead guitar solos that can sometimes last several weeks. One of the more underrated Southern Rock bands, apart from Widespread Panic whom I saw in South Carolina with my little Mexican friend in 2005, is the Marshall Tucker Band and their concert from Boston in 1976 has just come round.

So that’s me lost to the World for 75 minutes while I lose myself in the music. And it’s a good job that I have the music because otherwise I would have been lost a long time ago. And I bet that many of you wish that I would get lost now.

But going back to the story of the people knocking on our door, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I come from a big family. My mother told me once "one day, someone came knocking unexpectedly on our door"
"Who was it?" I asked
"It was someone collecting for the local kids’ orphanage" she said
"So what did you do?" I asked
"I gave them two of mine" she replied.

0

Tuesday 7th January 2025. DO YOU KNOW …

… what I discovered today? And that is the carafe for my coffee machine is not big enough to take all of the water that can be put in the reservoir of the machine. So ask me how I know this.

That’s right – it’s been one of those days where things seem to be going in every direction except the direction that I want. Not that that’s unusual because, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, that’s the kind of thing that is the normal method of procedure around here.

Anyway, retournons à nos moutons as they say around here. Last night after I finished writing my notes I was going to go to bed as I said, but as usual, something came up to disrupt me. Round onto the playlist came a concert from Colosseum.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall this concert only too well. It’s a rather complicated concert with a lot of holes and involuntary fadings but it’s one of the top five live concerts that I’ve ever attended so it won’t ever disappear off the playlist.

It needs editing, rebuilding and remixing and that has been my project on both my trips to the High Arctic. The plan was that when everyone has gone to bed late at night and I’m on my own, up in the observation lounge on the top deck of THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR looking at the snow and ice, I could be editing the concert without having to worry about being distracted. It’s not as if there’s much traffic out there amongst the ice late at night.

However, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it didn’t happen like that. On both trips, in exactly the same place on the ship and exactly the same place in the ocean and at the same point in the concert, something (well, someone, actually) came along to disrupt me and I’ve been swept off my feet and carried along on a tidal wave of unstoppable events, and that was that.

Still, it’s a good concert so I stayed up to listen to it, and it was rather late when I went to bed.

During the night I awoke just once, at 05:40, But I was soon back asleep again and there I stayed until the alarm went off.

Hearing the alarm was one thing – lifting myself out of my warm, comfortable bed was something else completely. However I managed to beat the second alarm to my feet and staggered off to the bathroom for a good scrub up.

Into the kitchen next for the medication and then back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And there was something on there, but you really don’t want to hear about it, especially if you are eating your tea right now.

However, whatever it was that went on, there was something about all of this taking place at the seaside. It was this place that I used to visit with Liz (not “this Liz” but “that Liz”) on the north-eastern coast between Sunderland and Newcastle. I can’t remember the name of the town now … "it’s Seaburn" – ed ….

The nurse was early – probably because no-one wanted a blood test from him today. But he was telling me that he took part in the bain des manchots on New Year’s Day where everyone dresses up as a penguin and runs into the sea.

bain des manchot or penguin or some such donville les bains granville manche normandy franceAnd if you think that I’m joking, in 2019 a couple of us interviewed the penguins for the radio, and here’s a photo of one of them from back then to prove it.

However, it just goes to prove my point that there are some people who simply don’t have both paddles in the water.

After he left, I made breakfast and carried on reading MY BOOK.

We’re having a big discussion about heads. And the author reckons that he can identify someone’s origin – whether they are Palaeolithic, Neolithic, Saxon etc, by the shape of their heads. Or, more accurately, the measurement of the diagonals on the interior of the skull.

That got me thinking. His idea is all well and good for 1907 but I wondered how it stood now that we have DNA to guide us along.

So hunched over a bowl of porridge I tracked down a site that talked about genetics in the UK.

Now, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we talked several days ago about stone circles and menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … and I was of the opinion that new waves of immigrants pushed the established population westwards and northwards, and that subsequent waves continued the process.

And there, right in front of my face in this document that I read was "British Neolithic individuals had a small amount (about 10%) of Western Hunter-Gatherer excess ancestry when compared with Iberian Early Neolithic farmers, suggesting that there was an additional gene flow from British Mesolithic hunter-gatherers into the newly arrived farmer population: while Neolithic individuals from Wales have no detectable admixture of local Western hunter-gatherer genes, those from South East England and Scotland show the highest additional admixture of local WHG genes, and those from South-West and Central England are intermediate"

So compare that with what we were discussing, the presence of stone circles, menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … and “none at all” and there you are!

Back in here I revised for my Welsh and then, armed with an overflowing coffee pot, I went for the lesson.

Once more, the lesson went quite well, especially as Brain of Britain revised the wrong module AGAIN! How many times have I done that before? And we have a new recruit joining the pack today. She used to live just up the road from where I lived as a tiny baby.

What with another member who was a teacher in the town where I went to Grammar School, someone on a summer school from there too and someone else from a summer school who lived in Wistaston, a suburb of Crewe, this World is becoming far too small for my liking.

After the lesson was over I went for lunch – another slice of this really good flapjack that I made, followed by some fruit. There’s no doubt that this flapjack is the best that I have made to date.

However, I’ve been looking at the dates that I bought to treat myself over Christmas and never got round to eating. There must be a recipe for a date loaf on the internet somewhere, and I wonder how it would work. With my oven, whatever it is, it’s bound to be difficult.

After lunch I had things to do, but I was interrupted by my cleaner bringing me some shopping, and then by my Christmas cake break. For a change, I didn’t have my hot chocolate. I had one of these disgusting protein drinks that I’ve been prescribed. That’s a different type of disgusting to the disgusting anti- potassium powder that I have to take several times a non-dialysis day

Tea tonight was a taco roll with some of the stuffing, with rice and veg followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. And it was lovely too. Tomorrow is a vegan curry with the rest of the leftover stuffing.

So ordinarily I would think about going to bed right now, but a Lindisfarne concert has come round on the playlist so it’ll be a while yet before I retire.

But seeing as we’ve been talking about DNA … "well, one of us has" – ed … I had a relative (by marriage, not by birth, I hasten to add) who sent off his DNA to be analysed.
I asked him "what did the results say?"
"Actually" he said "they came back marked ‘rejected’. "
"When was that?" I asked
"Three days ago" he said. "The day that all the newspaper headlines were something like ‘Missing Link Between Humans and Apes finally discovered’"

0

Monday 6th January 2025 – BACK AT WORK …

… as of today, and more of the same old stuff that characterised last year – namely that I wasn’t able to do anything because the medical issues interfered with my progress.

What interfered with my progress last night though was that a good concert appeared on the playlist just as I was thinking of going to bed. Shame as it is to admit it, I can’t remember which one it was now, but last night I enjoyed it to such an extent that I stayed up to listen to it, consequently it was quite late when I went to bed last night – again!

We somehow managed to survive the night without any phantom alarm calls upsetting our rhythm, although I do recall being awake once or twice at some point. However, when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was deep in the Arms of Morpheus

It was quite an effort to haul myself out of bed in order to beat the second alarm but I went nevertheless fairly rapidly (for me, anyway) into the bathroom to sort myself out.

As well as Yours Truly, there were some clothes to wash and a shave to have just in case Emilie the Cute Consultant comes to see me. I even applied some deodorant after the events of Saturday in the taxi when no-one spoke to me. You can’t ever be sure.

Into the kitchen next to take my medication, and it’s nice to do that – in fact it’s nice to re-adopt my old habits – without having to rush around at all. I’m fed up of always being in some kind of panic.

Back in here, I transcribed the dictaphone notes to see where I’d been during the night. It was something like the end of the month and there was an inventory of surgical interventions so everyone had to meet at the centre of the place where they had been hospitalised in the past and declare their reason for going. I was there waiting to be called when I heard a couple of girls say “there he is. Let’s take him and we can deal with him”. They came straight for me. I wondered whether they were the two twins whom we’d met on that island a few months back. These girls certainly meant business so I had to try to hide. After a while they worked out where I was and they stood outside saying things like “if you really are serious about waiting for the things that come you should go to Route Départementale n°9” – something like that, but itemising these lists, capitalising them and deals with them accordingly to make them all work as much as possible.

Returning to your place of business or place of origin sounds rather Biblical to me. But what twins did I meet on which island a few months ago? I have no recollection of any of that. But I hope that those twins bore a very close resemblance to THE FAMOUS TWINS OF AUSTIN POWERS. And if they did, I’m sorry, really sorry that I can’t remember them. And as for Route Départemental n°9, if there is one, it’s nowhere near anywhere where i have ever lived or travelled, but the RD 2009 is the road from Riom to Vichy which I have driven on many occasions.

I wondered why I awoke again quite dramatically and had this horrible feeling that no alarm had been set for Monday and I was going to miss my taxi that was going to take me to Dun Laoghaire and then Dundalk. I have no idea what I was going to do now. I just went to make sure that the lettuce was OK. I put some lettuce in the icebox so that it will keep and will be crisp when it comes round to deal with it and I should be able to place them on a map with no particular problem

If I did awaken dramatically, I have no recollection at all of it, and I’ve no idea why I might be going from Dun Laoghaire to Dundalk. However, it was a project of mine, long-abandoned, to profit from the collapse of the ferry network to the UK after Brexit and the positive flooding of the seas from Cherbourg, Caen and St Malo direct to the Republic of Ireland by catching a ferry direct to the Republic and, armed with a rucksack, a bus pass and a train ticket, to go to explore the island.

It was interesting nevertheless to see in the newspapers the whole raft of different redundant ferries being given berthing trials on those three French ports and in the Irish ports in the run-up to Brexit. This was to see which ones would be suitable for the Irish companies to buy so that they could run them direct without having to pass through a British port. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we even had one given a try-out in the port down here.

However – “icebox”? I’m dreaming in American – or maybe Canadian – now. Probably a reminder of happy times staying with my relatives, either with my niece in New Brunswick or my cousin in Ottawa. And that reminds me – I have a Fender bass and combo amp over there somewhere that I must repatriate.

Then there was a dream about orcs moving all around the countryside causing all kinds of chaos so I had a look at my arm to check on what the nurse had done and stayed done but I found that my little kitchen place and rest room had been wiped out by the rest room and checking, or the moist of the checking that what they had now was a really big car park (…fell asleep here …)

It’s no surprise that this dream, based on LORD OF THE RINGS that I’m currently watching disintegrated into a pile of nonsense. But for the benefit of new readers, of which there are more than just a few these days, I don’t actually fall asleep because I’m already asleep when I’m dictating. What happens is that my dictation tails off into silence and then you’ll hear a snore. And I’m sorry for doubting you, Percy Penguin.

Did I dictate that dream … "no you didn’t" – ed … about me being in Gresty on my way back home and going to bed and there was some kind of discussion somewhere about someone’s homework? In the end I decided that I was going to help that person, whoever it was, to do that homework because there was something in there that interested me. So next morning I was in bed and someone came up to see me and asked about something. I replied “the reason why I’m still here was because I’m hoping to give you a hand with the homework” so whoever it was who came to see me asked “would you like a cup of tea?” to which I replied “yes” so they wandered off presumably to make the tea

Helping someone with their homework? What help would I be? And tea would be no use for me either. However, note once more that I’m “back in the family”. I wish that they would leave me alone.

There was no-one here to fit my anaesthetic patches so, regrettably, I had to do it myself. And that was the most disagreeable task that I have done for a while. I couldn’t look at my arm at all. I had to close my eyes, tear off the plasters that they had fitted on Saturday and put these patches on with my eyes closed and hope that I had found the correct place.

The taxi was on time for me. It was the young chatty guy and he already had a lady in the back, so the three of us had a lovely, lively ride down to Avranches. And it would have been even livelier had the driver of a car at a roundabout not switched his indicator off at the very last minute just as we were about to pull out.

So they took me to the clinic and dropped me off where I discovered that I’d forgotten to bring all my paperwork with me. It didn’t take them long to call me in but the process lasted for an age. We had an interesting chat though while it was all going on.

Back outside, I had to wait and wait for the taxi to come. he had another person with him and we had to pick up a third too. They were going to Granville but I was being hurled out at the Dialysis Clinic as they drove past.

It was 13:00 when I was finally plugged in and that’s long after the anaesthetic patches have ceased to have any effect. You don’t need me to tell you how the plugging in went.

The good news is that Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me and we had a chat for a while. I even gave her a demonstration of how to access a password-protected file on a website – not that I would ever do such a thing in real life, perish the thought and all that. But what a wonderful course T223 was.

She asked me if there was anything else I wanted. I could of course think of a few things, but that wasn’t the moment to mention them, I reckon. Not when one is plugged into a medical machine.

Some other good news was that I struck gold again today. I was looking for something on the internet concerning the Norse voyagers and came across a whole pile of literature that I had missed. Most of it is available on MY FAVOURITE SITE but some is only available to Academic researchers and my Academic connections have long-since lapsed.

As I said yesterday, this pile of stuff that I have to read is growing longer.

The taxi that was to bring me home kept me waiting for a while before it turned up, with the result that I was only about 45 minutes ahead of where I would usually be. And that’s after spending almost a whole day out. It hardly seemed worth it.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper with pasta, followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. There is plenty of stuffing left over which is good because many regular readers of this rubbish will recall that they have suggested that I want stuffing, and now I have plenty.

So bedtime ready for my Welsh course that restarts tomorrow, not that I’m looking forward to it at all. But I have to keep up.

A few weeks ago I mentioned the story of the Fertility Clinic. Emilie the Cute Consultant mentioned the story about a woman who went to the Clinic because her husband had lost interest in her.
"Here" said the doctor. "Take these pills. Slip one in his coffee and he’ll soon be back to his teenage years "
A week or two later he saw the woman walking down the street. "How did you get on?" he asked
"I slipped one into his coffee" she said "and it was wonderful. The sparkle came back into his eyes, he threw me across the table, tore off my clothes, tore off his, and gave me a really good seeing-to just like he did years ago"
"That’s wonderful" said the doctor. "But are there any side-effects?"
"I don’t know if it’s a side-effect" she replied "but they won’t let us go back into that café."

0

Sunday 5th January 2025 – DID YOU ALL ..

… enjoy my radio programme this weekend? I hope that you all listened to it over the weekend. But if you missed it, shame on you, and you can hear it HERE and even dpwnload it it you like.

But meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, today is the last day of my two weeks off work. Tomorrow the alarm goes on at 07:00 again and I start work, whenever the dialysis centre and my Welsh course (which restarts on Tuesday) let me.

So to celebrate, I intended to have a late night last night but I gave up the struggle round about midnight and crawled off to bed instead.

It was another hot, sweaty night after the Saturday dialysis session, as I have observed on several occasions. But I must have been asleep at some point because at 06:55 I was awoken by a phantom alarm call.

It was definitely a phantom call because I don’t have an alarm recorded at that time. Nevertheless, it certainly sounded like an alarm and I ended up sitting on the edge of the bed before realising that it was a false alarm, and once I’d realised that it was in fact a false alarm I went back to bed.

It goes without saying though that I couldn’t go back to sleep so at about 07:30 I gave up the struggle and arose from the Dead.

When the alarm went off I was at my desk working. I’d already had a really good wash and been into the kitchen to take my medicine so that I could have a good start to the day.

With time to spend, I had a listen to the dicaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was actually with a girl last night and I don’t know why because it was someone about whom I wouldn’t have thought anything in a million years. We were a couple. There had been something going on that had left everyone very dirty. It was an extremely messy day, something like that. At the end of it, I had to go somewhere so off I went. When I came back she was waiting. We ended up talking about our children although we didn’t have any at that particular moment. The plan was that we’d have two. She asked which one was going to be mine. I replied that it’s inevitable that it’s going to be a daddy’s girl, isn’t it? The assumption then is that she’s going to be a mummy’s boy. For some reason she quite liked the sound of all of that

“I was with a girl last night and I don’t know why”. … "Of course you do. Be your age!" – ed … But even though I might have known her in my dream, I don’t have a clue who she was now that I’m awake – if I really am awake right now. I keep on thinking that one day I’m going to awaken and it’s all, this last few years, been a rather unpleasant dream. But if I were to have had a daughter, my little princess would have been a daddy’s girl alright and been spoiled rotten.

And everyone very dirty? It sounds just like real life used to be, and I’m not talking about mud either. It just seems that a lot of smut has been wiped out of everyone’s mind these days compared to the good times that we had in the 60s and 70s

Did I dictate the dream about the children who used to go swimming with the whales in a swimming pool? … "no you didn’t" – ed … They launched some kind of fund-raising activity to raise funds and support the whales. It proved to be extremely successful so someone else organised a fund-raising activity. His aim was to provide food for the whales, to put something in their mouths, with the implication that they’d been doing this with these kids previously. For some reason that didn’t seem to be quite so popular as the previous one

That must relate to some news that we heard on the radio in the car about a big Marine holiday park closing down, and thousands of animals there are in danger. It’s all very well having these places closed down and I’m all in favour, but what becomes of the animals there? They can’t usually be released into the wild as they have no idea of how to fend for themselves.

And then finally Liz and I were back in the good old days of running “Radio Anglais”. It suddenly occurred to me one day that we hadn’t prepared a magazine for Radio Anglais for years. That was something that we used to do every couple of weeks religiously, to have something prepared and something organised. I wondered why it had suddenly fallen off the radar somehow. I had to have a sit and think about this – about how I was going to revitalise it and how I was going to restore it. We used to receive contributions from all of the other people working on the radio. What had happened that had stopped it? Should we go back and maybe restart it? Or is it a case of letting sleeping dogs lie? I remember being extremely perplexed and bewildered about this.

This dream was actually so real that I still can’t make up my mind even now that I’m awake whether it was ever something that we really did. It was actually quite disturbing that I found myself in such a state. It’s a long time since I’ve had such a vivid, realistic dream.

Isabelle the Nurse had a few more minutes to spare today and wasn’t in such a rush as usual. I suppose that with it being a Sunday the Laboratory is closed so there ae no blood tests. She spent her last week off working on her Carnaval float. It’ll be Carnaval Weekend sometime soon. She’s not telling me anything about the design of her float – it needs to be a big surprise for everyone.

After she left, I made my breakfast and carried on reading MY BOOK Caesar is now back in Gaul suppressing rebellions and fading from our picture as other Roman Emperors discuss the problem of what to do with the Britons. The story is that now that Caesar has regulated things with them, they can import and export to Gaul and the port taxes for unloading and loading far exceed any tribute that might be demanded, so it’s best to leave things be for a while.

Our author has made several references to Strabo’s “Geographia”. Strabo was a Roman scholar who travelled extensively and over a period of about 30 years from 7BC to AD24 wrote a whole series of books about the places that he visited and also the places about which he had extracted information from other traveller. It goes without saying that a copy of all 17 of his books IS AVAILABLE ON-LINE so I downloaded them for future reference. The list of books to read is growing enormously right now.

After breakfast I made some bread – a loaf for the week to come and a bread roll for this lunchtime because there is plenty of soup in the fridge and it needs using.

So at lunchtime I had a bowl of leftover butternut squash and potato soup with a fresh bread roll straight out of the air fryer. Lunch doesn’t get much better than this. There are some leeks that need using so I imagine that I’ll be having soup next weekend too.

Once lunch was out of the way I had a relaxing afternoon, not doing very much at all. In fact, I was trying to design a 3D head from a couple of photograph. The head itself didn’t take too long but I still can’t produce an accurate nose and the more I try, the worse it becomes. I’ve already restarted three times because I’ve got myself into such a mess

At one point I switched it all off and went for a slice of Christmas Cake to raise my morale so that I could start again.

Tea tonight was a vegan pizza, and another good job that was. At lunchtime I’d taken the last helping of dough out of the freezer and once it had defrosted I gave it a good kneading and then rolled it out onto the pizza tray. This evening I almost forgot the olives on the pizza but luckily I remembered them on time

There’s no doubt though – I’m going to have to do something about my oven. This table-top oven is really not up to the job. When I finally do move downstairs I’ll certainly be having an enlarged kitchen complete with built-in oven and built-in microwave.

Right now though, I’m off to bed ready to Fight The Good Fight tomorrow.

But that story about the Marine Park reminds me of the two rather large girls talking and having a drink in a bar in Bar Harbor, Maine. A local comes over to them and says "what a beautiful accent you have. I’ve not heard that before."
"Thank you" replied the girls
"Tell me" he continued. "are you two ladies from Ireland?"
"It’s ‘Wales’ actually" said one of them
"I’m terribly sorry" replied the man. "Are you two whales from Ireland then?"

0

Saturday 4th January 2025 – ANOTHER THREE AND A …

… half painful hours of agony today in the Dialysis Centre. There’s definitely something wrong somewhere with it being as painful as it is. That’s just not normal.

Still, I’ll find out on Monday for sure when I go for an X-ray. At least the taxi is confirmed for Monday morning, which is good news

So, hoping not to fall asleep in mid-notes as I did last night, I suppose that I had better make a start on writing about my day. Or, rather, my night, because once more I wasn’t in bed at anything like a reasonable hour.

Once I’d finished my notes I loitered around for a while, having found a few interesting websites to read in order to keep myself out of any mischief, and it was once more about 01:30 when I finally crept into bed. Sound asleep quite quickly, there I stayed until the alarm went off at 08:00.

But not asleep. This blasted stabbing pain in the foot has started up again and won’t leave me alone.

It was a struggle to rise up from the bed this morning, and even more of a struggle to make it to the bathroom. I had a good wash and then washed my clothes and hung them up to dry.

Next task was to write out the Mince Pie recipe for Isabelle the Nurse.

I’m not sure why because it’s one of the easiest recipes around here – cut out some circles of flaky pastry dough to fit in your tart mould, half-fill them with bottled mincemeat, and then cut out more smaller circles of pastry to go on top of the pastry and mincemeat in the mould. Prick a hole in them to let the steam out, and bake at 180°C until brown on top.

Nothing can be easier.

Of course, you can tidy them up as you like by brushing the tops with milk to brown them, sprinkling icing sugar over them etc, but all of that is up to you. I grease my mould with margarine so the pies come out easier too.

When she came she was late again and once more, in quite a rush. The bad news is that she can’t come here at 10:00 on Monday to fix my patches. My cleaner is at work so that rules her out so I’ve no idea what I’m going to do now.

After Isabelle the Nurse left, I made breakfast and then carried on reading MY BOOK

Caesar has come ashore, been involved in another pitched battle or two, reached the Thames and forded it to the other side, having given battle to the native British yet again, and then mysteriously returned to the coast.

It’s true that a storm has devastated his fleet and according to HIS MEMOIRS he returned to attend to the affair.

It’s important that it’s all repaired of course, but he doesn’t need to be there to do it. It’s far more important that he subdues the Britons before the winter storms come roaring down the Channel.

One thing that has struck me about this is that he seems to be really concerned about the winds and seems to be able to forecast their arrival with some ease. Was the climate so different and the storms so much more regular 2,000 years ago? Storms can be predicted and planned for in many regions of the World, but was the English Channel like that back in Caesar’s day?

Back in here, I transcribed the dictaphone notes. I was with my youngest sister and one or two other people. We’d been doing something like fighting dragons. On our way back we came to some kind of takeaway food place. The other girl who was with me, she said that she had bought something for another person because instead of it being €2:85 it was only €2:10 but now she was short of money. I said “I suppose that you want me to buy you the food in here, do you?”. She replied, “no, my order is for me and my sister” so I went in and ordered for me and said that my sister will want the soup, the magnificent soup. She said that she wanted something else too. When they worked out the bill it came to €15:30. My sister actually had that money in her hand because she knew exactly how much it would cost. She handed it over to them – 2 notes of €5:00 and 3 notes of €1:00

How I wish that I could buy something at €15:30 with just €13:00. Maybe I ought to bury my differences with that part of the family, seeing that they insist on disturbing my sleep like this, and send her to do my shopping for me if she can produce this kind of results. However, fighting dragons is a strange thing to be doing during the night.

My cleaner showed up to fit my patches and then once she’d finished we had a good chat until my taxi came – a chat mainly about cats.

It was the guy who seems to be involved somehow in the running of the business who came to pick me up. It was just me in the car so I expected to have a good chat all the way down but for some reason he was quite quiet. I tried on a couple of occasions to entice him into talking, but to no avail.

At the Dialysis Centre there were only five of us, but with two nurses we were seen quite quickly. And painfully, as I have said.

The worst thing about it is that they wanted to run an electrical test to see how much water was in my body. They have to plug some electrodes into patches that they stick on my hands and feet.

“But I have elastic compression socks on” I said

“Ohh” replied the nurse. “If we had realised, we would have told you not to wear them today” So I could have had a good lie-in without the nurse.

With a pain from the dialysis in my arm and this intermittent pain in my foot, I was left pretty much alone. The doctor (not Emilie the Cute Consultant) was on the prowl around the ward but he kept well-clear of my bed. Too afraid of receiving an earful, I shouldn’t wonder.

To pass the time I was reading – firstly a pile of reports about the latest archaeological investigations of Norse sites in North America and First-Nation sites where Norse artefacts have been discovered.

It’s no wonder that there have been so many different claims for the site of “Vinland”, given the widespread discovery of artefacts. One or two have even been unearthed on the western side of Hudson’s Bay.

In fact the more that I read, the more mileage there is in James Enterline’s claim that the original sighting of land in North America was in Ungava Bay but the subsequent voyages recorded in the sagas missed Ungava Bay and sailed into Hudson’s Bay.

Most people though are sticking to L’ANSE AUX MEADOWS on the grounds that “only one settlement is noted in the Sagas, and one settlement has been found”.

However, “absence of evidence” and “evidence of absence” are not the same thing at all, and in any case, the Sagas note a few other camps that the Norse created.

The final thing that I read was a report into salmon-fishing in Newfoundland and Labrador, commissioned in 1909, talking about the history of salmon-fishing in each river from the earliest recorded date. It’s interesting, like all of these books, to see how prolific these rivers used to be, and just how the netting and over-fishing destroyed a whole breeding environment.

To return, I had to wait a few minutes for the taxi to turn up. It was the same driver who brought me and once more, he was very quiet. He certainly seemed totally distracted today, as if he had a lot on his mind and that’s not normal.

We’d come home in a rainstorm and it was even worse back here. But I made it up the stairs to the lift with my cleaner in attendance. The broken handrail has fallen off completely now and it’s dangerous so I’m having to by-pass it.

Back in the warmth I made my tea – baked potato with vegan salad and breaded quorn fillet followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. Thoroughly delicious

So I’ll loiter around for a while and then go to bed. Tomorrow I have bread to make and soup to drink for lunch but that’s about it. Nothing really in the way of culinary activity. But it’s my last day of my holidays because I’m starting work again on Monday as much as I can with all of these hospital appointments.

On the way back in the taxi we were listening to the news, and there was a report of a girl who had been arrested for trying to open the door of an aeroplane.
My driver was listening intently so I told him "on the PA announcement on the ‘plane, they tell you that if you are sitting next to an emergency door you should make sure that you are able to open it, so when I was sitting next to one once in Canada, I went to make sure"
"And what happened?" he asked
"The flight crew went berserk" I replied. "We were at 37,000 feet at the time."

0

Friday 3rd January 2025 – MY CHOCOLATE CAKE …

… is exquisite. What makes it, in my opinion, is the coconut oil. It’s based on a simple oilcake recipe but I substituted some of the oil for some coconut oil and that gives it a certain something that you can’t describe, but it’s there all the same. It’s one of the best cakes that I have ever made.

And while we’re on the subject of things being there … "well, one of us is" – ed … I was still there at 01:00 this morning.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I mentioned something about going to bed, and that was true at the time, but just as I was planning on switching off the computer, a concert from a folk festival in 2017 came onto the playlist and, strange as it may seem, I had never heard it before.

It was one from that batch that I’d had sent to me a year ago and it had never previously come up on the playlist but now that it was finally there, I stayed up and had a good listen to it.

It was about 01:20 when I finally made it into bed, and once there, I fell asleep quite quickly. And that was all that I remember of the night. The next thing that entered my mind was the alarm call this morning.

When that went off, it took a minute or two to gather my wits – they seem to travel about much more than I do – and then I wandered off into the bathroom for a good wash.

Isabelle the Nurse was late this morning so I had a listen to the dictaphone but to mu surprise and disappointment, there was nothing at all on there. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … wandering around in the subconscious late at night is the only fun that I seem to have these days.

When Isabelle the Nurse arrived, she told me that she couldn’t hang around. Her oppo had arranged several blood tests for her back at the ran … errr … office for 08:45 and it was now already 08:42.

She did have time to tell me that it was minus 3°C outside this morning and although snow had been forecast, none had (as yet) arrived.

After she left, I made breakfast and had a read of MY BOOK.

Our author is now discussing Caesar’s second invasion and at the moment we are still in mid-Channel awaiting the turn of the wind and tide so he can bring himself and his army to the shore.

As yet, there is nothing controversial about what he has been saying. He’s been discussing the beam and draught of Caesar’s ships, how they have been built by the sailors with a beach landing in mind rather than their sailing characteristics.

That’s a fact that it’s impossible to prove or disprove, and in any case, as he’s said on several occasions that Cicero’s younger brother was sailing with the invasion, it’s very likely that he’s quoting from the letters that the younger Cicero sent to his elder brother as well as the usual source, Book IV of THE GALLIC WARS by Caesar himself

And that reminds me – I must brush up my Latin. I’m really dismayed about how much I have forgotten since my school days. Puer amat mensam and all that

Back in here afterwards, I began to turn the place upside down to find this missing letter with the notice that I had to pay. I looked absolutely everywhere and, after about three hours, I finally found it.

It was exactly where it should be and ought to have been, and where I’d looked at least three times yesterday and three times this morning. I have no idea at all as to why I couldn’t see it before.

That’s another one of these mysteries – why I can’t see something that must be there, no matter how many times I look. Sometimes I really do wonder what on earth is going on inside my head.

By now my cleaner had arrived to do her stuff so I had missed my lunch, which serves me right. She brought the cold weather with her into the apartment and froze me to death. It really is wicked outside today, apparently.

Later on in the afternoon Rosemary rang me. It was just a short chat, one hour and forty minutes, and it would have lasted longer had someone not rung the doorbell. It was one of those calls where no-one responded to the interphone, and that was a shame because Rosemary and I could have gone on much longer than that.

And I must admit, that I had something of a laugh to myself. When I was round there three or four years ago she was “don’t leave the door open – that stray white cat might come in and I don’t want that”.

Eighteen months ago it was “that stray white cat is actually quite friendly and sweet”

On the ‘phone six months ago it was “this cute white cat is lovely, curled up in front of my fire”

Today it was “I was thinking of going away for a couple of weeks but I changed my mind because Myrtille would be cold and lonely”.

That’s right – I never met anyone who won a fight with a cat.

Tea tonight was falafel and chips with a vegan salad, followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. My cleaner had bought some mushrooms and tomatoes for me, but I ought to have asked her to buy a lettuce too. I would usually send off an order to LeClerc today for delivery but I have enough frozen food to last another week and I can survive on what else I have.

The chips were cooked to perfection in the air fryer which is certainly doing its stuff. Rosemary told me that in her air fryer last weekend she cooked a chicken quite successfully and she’s quite pleased with hers too.

In other news, Seàn sent me a report yesterday about new DNA techniques that can probe deeper into ancient bones to establish a much greater DNA profile.

That’s of great interest to me because of what happened in Greenland. The last written record from the Norse colony in Greenland was of a marriage that took place in 1408 at the old church at Hvalsey which regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we VISITED IN 2019 on our way across the Atlantic on THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR when we sailed the North-West Passage.

After that, there is silence and when the Bishop of Norway’s envoy went there in the 16th Century he found no trace of any survivors.

What happened to the people is a complete mystery and there have been several theories. James Enterline wrote A BOOK in which he suggested that the Norse went west onto the mainland of North America, and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we went to THE UNIVERSITY OF LAVAL in Québec to check on some of his sources.

For what it’s worth, I’m waiting to see if any bones of any Inuit in Greenland will turn up some Nordic DNA. I find it hard to believe that there was no “interaction” between the Inuit and the Norse as the ice drove the Inuit south into the path of the Nordic colonists. If the Inuit, who were much better-adapted to the climate than the Norse, overwhelmed the latter, they must have taken a few female prisoners. We saw what Samuel Hearne had to say about the Northern people’s handling of female captives. The editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine would also have had something to say on the matter.

So now it’s bedtime. Tomorrow it’s Dialysis Day and I’m not looking forward to that at all. But we’ll see what happens on Monday. That’s going to be complicated.

However, with all of this stuff written in Latin that I seem to be finding, I wish that I had paid more attention to my Latin lessons at school .I mentioned to a friend that I was going to look for a Latin teacher.
She asked "Will you be looking for a native speaker?"
And so, smiling, I replied "if I do, you can learn with me. Then we can both go together on holiday somewhere in Latin America"

0