Category Archives: France

Tuesday 9th July 2024 – ANOTHER LATE NIGHT …

… but for once, I’m not bothered at all because it was for a good cause and in the end it was worth every minute of it.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I will support any team in the Welsh Pyramid, regardless of where they are from, if they are playing against TNS in any competition you might care to name.

But when it comes to European club competition however and TNS is flying the Welsh flag against an other team in Europe, then we are all ardent TNS supporters to a man (or woman), or we ought to be.

So tonight it was a mad scramble to make it to the computer in time to watch TNS take on FC Decic, champions of Montenegro, in a Champions League match, the first of a two-legged affair to see who wins the right to play Ferencvaros of Hungary in a couple of weeks time.

It’s all that I seem to be doing right now – sleeping and writing out my notes. There doesn’t seem to be much time for anything else at all.

It was another late night too last night by the time that I’d finished doing everything, and it was something of a desperate stagger these final few inches that takes me from my chair to my bed. You can’t imagine how much effort it takes me.

But anyway once STRAWBERRY MOOSE had tucked me up in bed there wasn’t all that much time for him to read me a story because I seem to have managed to fall asleep quite quickly.

Surprisingly, I was awake again at 06:00 – I’m sure that there’s something happening that’s awakening me then – and by 06:30 I was up and about having a wash, a good (or not-so-good) half-hour before the alarm went off.

Back in here a little later I had a listen to the dictaphone notes to find out where I’d been during the night. The situation at work was getting out of hand. I owed a lot of money for no reason other than the fact that for some reason there had been an estimate made of my income and it was totally wrong so I’d tried to have the estimate revised. Instead, it was revised upwards and that was totally incorrect but I had no way of supporting my claim and no way of defending myself against them. Things were just getting more intense and the demands were becoming more and more intense. I was totally overwhelmed by everything and tried to make people stop and listen to what I had to say but no-one seemed to be interested and it seemed to be going from bad to worse. People were doing all kinds of crazy things such as coming out with food recipes for kids of foods that were horrible and disgusting, calling them the types of foods that I would be eating because of all of this. What was so concerning about this was not so much the fact that this was happening but the fact that I couldn’t find the way to get out of it and bring it back into some kind of normality and some kind of realistic situation. But instead it was simply going worse and worse. Absolutely everything was adding to it. Each year it was becoming worse and with each place that I was living and there was nothing that I could do to stop it or slow it down or divert people’s attention to somewhere else.

I can’t remember whether I’ve had a panic attack in a dream for a while. I was having them quite frequently at one time, and that was certainly one last night. But it’s really crazy. It’s bad enough being stressed out during the normal run of events during the day but the idea of sleep is to calm down and recharge your batteries, not to be wound up even more than you are during daylight hours

This is another one of these science fiction things about appliances and things that stopped working etc and then suddenly there was a huge devastation in the area. All kinds of things had been blamed for it. The Saint was brought in and he managed to catalogue a few events. Eventually of course there’s the big house on the hill where the scientists are working away. In the end what he found was that they had developed some kind of matter gun that when it’s switched on it sucks the power and electricity from the immediate area and paralyses everything, then a couple of seconds later that electricity is released in an enormous discharge that electrocutes everything, flattens buildings and trees etc within quite a radius. Of course its potential for war was immense because it would disable an army before destroying it. The Saint of course catches up with it and managed to destroy the machine or snake or monster or whatever it is that you want to call it that’s doing all of this sucking electricity and blowing it back out again.

As it happens, at teatime I’m watching an episode of The Saint where there is a group of mad scientists dealing with mutated creatures and giant insects. But nevertheless, I’m completely impressed that I can think of a powerful weapon like that in my sleep. It’s a shame that I can’t invent stuff like this when I’m awake. But I don’t have the self-discipline to be a scientist, as I have proved so often in the past

And finally I was selling some stuff on Ebay – it should have been three car tyres. Instead, it turned out to be the contents of my warehouse and garage after I’d swept up, including things like dead animal bodies, things like that in it all. I’ve no idea what happened – whether someone who turned up took away the wrong lot instead of the lot that he bought but they were inspecting it on a train when they came across this dead body. Of course, a huge panic, everything like that. In the end the person came back to complain as you might expect. I refunded him all of his money except for the value of three tyres which was £30:00. All I could think of was that I’d swept out my garage and warehouse ready to leave and put everything in one pile. The stuff to be taken away was in another pile next to it and whoever turned up took away the wrong one.

It was really most embarrassing. I bet that the people on the train had a shock too. And God knows what people are going to find when they sweep out my barn at Virlet and the warehouse at Montaigut. There will be more than a few ghosts unearthed and spirits uplifted, I should think

When the nurse came round he had a moan about the state of my fridge. I told him where the injection was kept but apparently when he opened the fridge door, something inside reached out and closed it again. I had to go to look for it.

But I wish that he’d stop complaining. It’s all that he ever seems to do. I know that there’s a lot wrong with what’s going on in here but all of the criticism is not helping matters

So I’ve had the first of the two Injections of the Last Resort, and I’ve organised him about his parking in Brussels for next weekend.

After he left I had breakfast, including toast with my nice fresh bread baked yesterday evening, and then checked over the radio programme for this weekend before sending it off for feeding into the stream for broadcast.

As an aside, next weekend it’s my Hawkfest, my Spacerock Festival to mark the anniversary of the first of the Hawkfests – an event not to be missed. You can hear it at THIS LINK every Friday and Saturday evening at 21:00 CET (20:00 UK, 15:00 Toronto time)

It was the Welsh Summer School next and once again I found myself drifting away again in the middle of it when I was supposed to be listening. I really must pull myself together.

But luckily I just about managed to cling on until the end of the lesson today. But when I finally let go, I let go and was gone away with the fairies for a couple of hours. I even managed to miss out on my afternoon hot chocolate

And as I sad earlier, it was a mad scramble to make myself tea and be back in time for kick-off.

In fact, I was two minutes late and much to my surprise, TNS were already 1-0 up

And for a team that seems to be able to wipe the floor with any domestic opposition but blow up spectacularly once they step out onto a bigger stage, not only did they manage to hold on to the lead they increased it and the final score, which they’ll take to Montenegro for the second leg, was 3-0.

Mind you, they rode their luck and judging by what I saw of the Monetenegrins, it won’t be so easy over there next week. Leaving aside the well-knows propensity for TNS to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, this match is not over by any means.

So on that note I’m going to go to bed and think of ways in which I can improve my self-discipline. I really must learn to discipline myself, especially since Miss Whiplash put up her prices.

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Monday 8th July 2024 – IT’S GOING TO …

… be another horrible, miserable, depressing late night going to bed tonight.

But at least it’s not been a waste of time and something good has come of it because I whizzed through this evening and not only edited the remaining sound file from those that I dictated on Saturday night, I’ve assembled the programme.

All that remains to do is to choose the final track and write the notes for it, and that’s a job that I can do tomorrow morning.

It’s quite strange really, because the sound file was one of the longest that I’ve ever dictated yet when I’ve edited out all of the umms and ahhs and the bits that were rubbish, it edited down to be one of the shortest. There are some things that are quite difficult to explain.

It was a late night last night too. I wasn’t in bed much before midnight and that’s not much good at all. I awoke at about 05:15 too and valiantly resisted the temptation to raise myself from the dead at that time.

When it came round to about 06:00 I thought “give it another five minutes ….” and the next thing that I knew, the 07:00 alarm was going off. And that was a mystery too. What happened there?

After I’d had a good wash and complete change of clothes I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone notes to find out where I’d been during the night and, more importantly, if any of my favourite young ladies had come with me.

But no such luck last night. “Swansong” in the Sports pages refers to the goalkeeper who was selected for the national team – the women’s national team, with selection issues about form etc, loss of form, new brooms sweeping clean and all this kind of thing it was necessary to find another keeper to join the National squad as first choice and she was it. At 38 years of age it was only a temporary solution while other players sort themselves out. But it was the best available at the time. It might have been unpopular but sometimes popularity is the wrong thing to do. You don’t do things for popularity you do things for success. Sometimes, for success, you have to do things like this but we’ll see where she is in two seasons and see who’s taken her place amongst this crowd of people who are almost there but not quite at the moment.

And what do I know about women’s football? My first encounter with it was AT BURLINGTON IN VERMONT IN 2015 and I might have seen the odd match since then, but I’m hardly an expert. However, Jocelyne Montoya of one of these Mexican women’s teams can come and take a throw-in with one of my footballs any time she likes.

And then later we were all at work discussing the working arrangements for the next week or so. I’d been driving a snooker player around for a week. He was someone who had been very famous but had fallen on hard times and had been extremely wayward but had slowly been dragged back onto track again. I’d been driving him around but I’d not had any instructions for the coming week so we were all in the office waiting for things to happen and for someone to come along with a work schedule. A couple of my colleagues came in and asked me why I wasn’t at the top end of the town. I asked why so they replied “your snooker player is up there looking for someone or other”. They had a huge discussion about this snooker player. I mentioned that I’d driven him last week and tried to keep him on track for all his appointments, matches etc. One or two people said “yes it’s a shame that he didn’t think about engaging you earlier because you’d been sure to have made him at least conscious of these things” which I thought was probably one of the nicest compliments anyone in that place had ever paid me. So even though no work schedule was down I had to quickly discuss where this snooker player was and then decide to nip in the car to catch him to see what his plans were for the week and maybe fit in with his anyway and do the work that he wants doing, especially as he seems to be so keen to see me around according to my colleagues, which again I thought was a pretty nice comment from someone like that.

Yes, compliments were rather thin on the ground in that place. Everything was done on the basis of “dead man’s shoes” gallantly resisting all attempts to bring things kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. Trying to reorganise things there to be more efficient, I was met with "and what do you know about it?"
So saying nothing, next time that I was out I stopped at a stationer’s and bought some picture frames. That night I framed all of my taxi operators’ licences and my Certificates of Professional Competence (issued, would you believe, by my Employer) to operate a Road Passenger Transport business in the UK and in Europe, and next morning, hung them on the wall over my desk.
No-one in that office spoke to me again after that and a few months later when my boss’s office was moved to a different building it was "wouldn’t it be a good idea if you went to be based in ‘Kortenberg’ with him instead of down here?"
"Suits me fine, thanks."

But what I don’t understand is why there is a snooker player in the middle of all of this.

When the nurse came round he sorted me out and bandaged me up and then asked for my advice. He’s off to Brussels to see a concert t the Stadion Roi Baudoin and wanted to know where to park. Where I lived was about 20 minutes from there and there’s plenty of parking. And if he plays his cards right, there’s a bus that runs between the hospital at Jette and the Metro Station at the Stadion Roi Baudouin that goes along the road where he’ll be parked. Where I lived in Jette was really good. 200 yards from an exit on the Brussels by-pass and surrounded by public transport going just about everywhere, bus, tram, train, you name it.

After he left I had breakfast and then began to prepare for my Welsh Summer School that starts today. We are 10 students and a tutor, a tutor whom I’ve had before on some summer school or other. He’s sent us a little booklet of his plans but I bet that we’ll be a long way from there by the time that we finish.

It’s actually a level below the one that I was studying in the year just finished but it doesn’t hurt to go over stuff that I’m supposed to have learned and to know. And I’m not the only one doing a “revision course”.

The way I see it, if you throw a lot of whatsit at a wherever, some of it might stick at some point.

No prizes by the way for guessing who fell asleep at one point and sat there staring into space when he should have been in a break-out room. D’ohhh!

After the end of the lessons today I cracked on with the radio programme. I wanted to at least finish the editing. I could have done more too but I ran out of bread and had to make another loaf. I took full advantage of the oven being on by baking tonight’s stuffed pepper and making a pasta-bake, although that wasn’t very successful

That took me back a while. A friend of mine and his wife in the USA were so hung over one New Year’s Morning that they stayed in bed all day and their two kids were starving. I was there giving instructions over the internet on a messenger program to Tina, the 11 year old, on how to make a pasta and tuna bake in the oven

Anyway, that’ll have to do for now. I’ve been another busy boy today, following on from being rushed off my feet yesterday. Can I go for the hat trick tomorrow or will I be spending most of the day flaked out and recovering? It remains to be seen.

But thinking of Tina trying to awaken her parents reminds me of the girl who once asked me "do you wake up grumpy in the morning?"
And I replied "actually, she’s usually awake before me"

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Sunday 7th July 2024 – I DON’T KNOW …

… what happened today, but in a change of tack and a change of lifestyle, not only have I been working but I’ve actually been hard at it.

And when was the last time that I was able to say that about a Sunday, my traditional Day of Rest?

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, in the olden days Sunday was always a day where I’d lie in, sometimes until long after midday, and not lift a finger to do do any work at all.

But all of that went out of the window with having the nurse come round so there’s even an alarm call, although as a concession it’s set for 08:00 instead of 07:00 as for the other six days of the week.

Anyway, all of this work started last night because after I’d finished my notes I waded through a pile of radio notes. I dictated the notes for the final tracks for two of the programmes that were in the pipeline and then dictated the notes for the next two full programmes (minus the final track of course.

On that note I staggered off to bed but it didn’t do me all that much good because at 06:00 I was wide awake, and by .06:30 I was up and about. and on a Sunday too!

Having had a good wash, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night and, more importantly, who had come with me, hoping that one of my favourite young ladies might have put in an appearance at last.

But it was not to be. Nerina was there though, but I don’t mind that. After all, I did invite her to share my life all those years ago. so she’s every right to be present. She was studying some kind of vocational course like Accountancy or something, studying it from her work during her employment. One night I’d gone round on my way home to see how she was doing. She was telling me about the class – she was in the kitchen making herself some food and I was in the living room so we were shouting between the rooms at each other. She was saying that there were not many in the class. I asked “how many? About ten?” she replied “no, twenty-seven”. I said “that’s a lot for this kind of class”. We carried on chatting for quite a while. I thought “she’s clearly in no hurry for me to go home” so I found a comfortable spot on the floor and curled up like a cat or dog would and made myself at home. We just carried on talking. I was ending up here making myself really nice and the discussion kept on going. I thought “at any moment she’s going to come in here with her food and that’ll be it – she’ll kick me out, I’ll go home OK but I intend to make the most of this while I can because it’s a really nice, comfortable situation, “comfortable” in its many senses instead of just the one particular customary one . There was definitely something that I felt was rather strange here with all of this.

And I’ve no idea what provoked this train of thought during the night. It’s pretty pointless arguing the “ifs” and “buts” of our relationship. The fact is that I was only ever safe outside the reach of the long arm of the Cheshire Constabulary and one or two other similar bodies and Nerina was still tied up with her mother, so one way or another a separation was called for sooner or later and, as Macbeth said, "If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly"

As for the next instalment, I’ve even less idea about this. I can’t even make head nor tail of it. But I was dictating while I was half-asleep and the microphone was in the living room and I was in the dining room. Exactly how that arrangement was going to be practical while I were at Cologne but I’d be beaten to death for it and today it’s the right thing to do. I didn’t care much for the new wave communications finding and the new talk about the Soviet bomber. I welcomed that least of all. It looks like a whole new system of wives and girlfriends are going to have to train in order that it doesn’t end in a total disaster between the three of us.

It makes no sense at all.

And finally, over the years I’d learned not to fight my brother back when he’s in one of his moods so eventually my toys became his and my belongings became his. My things gradually began to shape to fit his little ashtray type thing where he’d have human sacrifices of toys. Of course sometimes it didn’t work and he’d be in a complete rage and everyone’s life would be difficult so he’d carry on and carry on. In the end I began to carry a weapon to protect myself. That was when the idea of BABA O’RILEY came to me, to have someone who is so miserable and so unhappy that not even his home is a safe refuge any more so I set about trying to write this music

Not that we had many belongings over which to fight but we had some right royal squabbles like most siblings. The competition kept on going for much longer than it ought too but sometimes it’s harder to learn to stop than it is to learn to start I can understand where the weapon might have come in but I’m totally bewildered about the reference to Baba O’Riley, except that I was talking recently about Dave Arbus, the violinist of “East of Eden” who played the violin on the track

It must be Holy Week or some such event in the calendar right now because the nurse wanted to wash my feet today. So who was I to refuse to let him, even if he did make something of a dog’s breakfast of it all. I know that I’m not particularly organised and tidy, but there’s no need to add to my discomfort.

After breakfast I watched a football match – yesterday’s Stranraer v Portadown in another Seasick Derby. It was another lethargic pre-season friendly won by Stranraer 1-0 but once again no-one actually broke into any sweat. However I bet that the woodwork at either end will have had a headache this morning

There were several highlights videos doing the rounds too so I had something of a footfest. I’m glad that things are slowly starting up again.

Before lunch though I completed two radio programmes by editing the notes for the “additional tracks” for each and merging them in at the correct place. On one I was 15 seconds too long and the other was a mere handful of seconds and that’s the kind of stuff that I can edit out quite easily.

This afternoon I edited the notes for one of the two complete programmes that I dictated last night. That’s now all done and assembled, the final track has been chosen and the notes written ready for dictation one of these days. And sometime during the week I’ll do the other programme.

If I’d pushed myself I could have done it today but firstly i fell asleep on several occasions and secondly I had pizza dough to make as I’d run out. I made a big batch of that, and two lumps are freezing nicely and the third was tonight’s delicious pizza.

So tomorrow my Welsh Summer School starts so I need to be properly refreshed for that. Time for bed, I reckon.

But no recipe for the vegan pizza, Hans. It’s onion, mushroom, olives and cheese with tiny tomatoes cut in half and stuck all over the top.

But I ought to explain. Hans says that he’ll be going through my blog, pulling my recipes and writing the “Epic Hall Vegan Cookbook”. God help you all!
People have the totally wrong idea about vegans. One butcher in a supermarket told me that he was going to frighten me to death by making a sausage.
"That won’t scare me!" I shouted. "Do your wurst!"

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Saturday 6th July 2024 – JUST WHEN I WAS …

… thinking that it was nice and quiet, and I could catch up on some of the outstanding dictation, some fool stood up on that stage that they erected on the steps of the Public Rooms and began to belt out some nonsense or other at full-volume.

He had quite a crowd gathered around him too so there were obviously plenty of people enjoying whatever it was that he was doing, but it didn’t ‘arf disrupt my plans for the early evening

And that’s a shame because, having had a good hour or two’s sleep just beforehand, I was fighting fit and raring to go. And as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, that’s not something that happens every day.

It wasn’t as if I’d had a good sleep during the night either. Once more, I was late going to bed – much closer to midnight than 23:00 – and then we had a calamity.

Whatever happened, I had no idea but I have never ever in my life seen so much blood in one place. My whole tee-shirt was absolutely wringing wet with blood and there were huge lumps of the semi-congealed stuff hanging from the inside.

“Discretion is the better part of valour” I thought here. Firstly I couldn’t see where the blood was coming from and secondly, I didn’t really want to find out. So I took the obvious course.

Five minutes later she was down here cleaning me up.

There was a small puncture on my shoulder and for a tiny, tiny wound like that it was pumping blood like there was no tomorrow. What had happened to cause it I don’t know, and I didn’t want to either.

However, my cleaner tells me that at least one of the medicaments that I’m taking is an anti-coagulant and she’s seen this kind of thing before with others of her clientele who take it.

She succeeded in patching me up, at least for the night, and warned me to be careful, not to get up to much in the way of indoor athletics in bed tonight. Chance would be a fine thing.

So after she left I had another go at trying to go to bed. Horribly late yet again. No matter how much I try, I’m never going to have an early night.

It was quite a restless night again and I was wide awake at about 06:00 and planning on making another early stary but I must have gone back to sleep because the next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 07:00.

When I stood up, a blood-sodden mass of bandages and plasters fell to the ground. At least it had protected the would and wearing a tee-shirt had protected the bed.

It was still bleeding so I had a good wash and waited for the nurse to come.

In the meantime I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And interesting it was as well. My mother and my aunt’s four aunts were all present in the same room – Auntie Gertie, Auntie Dollie, Auntie Mabel and Auntie Dorothy. They’d been collected from where they lived out and about and had been all brought together to stay at a particular place but something had come up which meant that the person whose relative they were who had invited them had to go away so these for aunts were busy finding a way around on their own. In the end they found a row of chairs but there was only three of them. They found another chair that was not belonging to this group of three but was somehow obliquely fastened across the end of the row so they imagined that that was where they were going to be sitting. They tried to work out who was the one who was meant to be on their own. There was a volunteer for this seat who went to sit in in. They said “it’s very near the kitchen” but she replied “yes but I like my kitchen very much and I’m pretty good at making all of the Sunday roasts” she said. I thought to myself “there’s certainly the stuff here to make the roast because there’s tons of food. There are definitely two main meals with meat that have been thought about and bought for which are lying around waiting to be cooked. Anyone could bung them into the oven”. I thought that at least those four aunts would be able to manage that. But they looked like the cheery thought of people anyway, at least, the ones who were doing the talking so I thought that maybe the fact that they were going to be here and no-one was looking after them for a while at least was not going to be a particular problem and they’d manage quite well on their own

My mother and her sister (my aunt) did indeed have four aunts although I’m not sure exactly how they were or became aunts. They were four very close relatives who may have been sisters, Dollie, Gertle, Mabel and Alice in fact. Some were Beavises and some were Ashness-Wellses. The Beavises were very well-known Quakers whose eldest son Stuart was a very famous Conscientious Objector in World War I and was sentenced to Death, something that must have upset my mother’s grandfather who, well over age, had dyed his hair and joined the Canadian Infantry. “Aunt Alice” lived in Birchington in Kent right at the end of the runway for Manston Airfield and at the Fall of France and bombs beginning to drop on British airfields and Aunt Alice’s house and garden, all of the kids in the village including my mother and her sister, were rounded up at a moment’s notice and armed with just a suitcase, evacuated out of the War Zone to live in safe areas with strangers whom they didn’t know. My mother and her sister ended up in Frome in Somerset.

Years ago I went on an expedition. I had remembered the addresses to which my mother had written letters and I remembered visiting some of the properties in Kent (Mabel and Dollie had shared a house in Ham Street near Ashford) as a tiny child so I went on a big trip of discovery and remembrance around southern England. And would you believe – the house in Birchington at the end of Manston Airport’s runway was still there, complete with modern roof – and it was for sale! Get thee behind me, Satan!

Later on I was with a former friend last night on the Brine Baths Estate in Nantwich. An old yellow Ford Transit drove past. My friend made a gesture as if he knew the driver and the driver made a gesture back so I asked about him. Eventually my friend explained that the driver was just some old guy who lived on the estate and did landscape gardening. He was never in any proper order. His books were always a mess, his finances were always up the creek. Everything about him was late. He had the old Transit which wasn’t taxed, wasn’t insured, wasn’t MoT’d and hadn’t been for years but he just used it for pottering around the Estate and going from one of his clients to another with his tools. He went around quite happily without any problems at all, although I must admit that I could envisage quite a few problems that he could be having if he were me and things were running as usual according to plan in that respect.

It was a shame that this dream never developed because I do actually know of this kind of activity going on in certain places so this isn’t news by any means. And for one reason or another I was half-expecting Zero to put in an appearance at some point.

Finally, what apparently upset everyone so much about my shoulder was that no-one seemed to be doing anything and I was losing blood at a really rapid rate and people were just standing around there as if it wasn’t an emergency. For the cleaner this was a serious problem. It could well have been a shrapnel wound or something like that from high explosive that could have killed me. Then they would have had some real problems with the crew of the ‘plane trying to get it back home to base.

It wouldn’t upset all that many people if I were bleeding to death. I’d just be dismissed as a bleeding nuisance and left to my own devices. And it’s a fact that any good psychiatrist will tell you that there are occasions where people won’t mind how much they are suffering as long as the object of their hatred is suffering more.

When the nurse came he cleaned up the wound and patched me up again and then organised my puttees and the wounds on my legs. He’s going to give me a pedicure tomorrow, he says. That should be interesting.

After he left I had breakfast and then had a very slow start to the day while I slowly warmed up. Once I was ready, I blitzed through the remainder of the radio notes that I’d started earlier in the week, so they are all complete and in the chain for dictation.

Lunch was a salad sandwich which made a very nice change, and then I tidied up in the kitchen. Stuff like crockery had been piling up in there needlessly and there were far too many odds and sods that didn’t have a home, but do now.

Things look so much better in there now, there’s room to move about and there’s more room to put things, Heaven help me.

Back in here I was going tp start work again but I fell asleep and had another one of those psychedelic experiences thanks to this anti-potassium stuff.

When I recovered I was going to dictate some stuff as I said, but not while that berk was performing so I began to choose the music for the next radio programme instead.

Tea was salad, baked potato and breadcrumbed quorn fillet, and my neighbour turned up in the nick of time with some tomatoes for me which was just as well.

So now that I’ve finished and it’s relatively quiet outside I’ll do some dictation before going to bed.

But I was thiking about that dream and the row of chairs for the aunts and how they must have come to be there.
Just picture the scene – someone crying "Could we have three chairs for the aunts?"
And there would inevitably be someone at the back who would shout "Hip Hip Hooray!"

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Friday 5th July 2024 – YOU HAVE TO …

… laugh.

It’s the start of the holiday season here tomorrow and for the next eight weeks we’ll be under siege by thousands of tourists coming to admire the crabs and the seabirds, blockading the town, wandering in the High Street obstructing the traffic etc.

And don’t let me start on the squadrons of motor homes that will be roaming the streets.

Of course, as a seaside town, we have to entertain them and they are erecting a sound stage on the steps of the Public Rooms at the back of our building outside the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs – the Hostel for Young People coming to work in the town.

My cleaner will tell you what this means. She’s a lovely woman and has a beautiful, rhythmic way of speaking with a lilt in her voice as she goes on about all the noise and “when I want to watch tv …” and “when I want to open my windows to air …” and “when I want to have a siesta …”

And on (and on, and on) she went until she finished off with a resounding j’espère que les goélands y vont chier dessus .. "I hope that the seagulls go and s**t all over them".

By that time I was bent double with laughter. That was probably the most fitting, most suitable comment that I could possibly imagine, and I’ll certainly save that for another occasion.

There’s nothing wrong with a good laugh, and a bit of vulgarity never hurt anyone.

Meanwhile, in other news, it was yet another late night crawling into bed and how fed up I am of that, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …

Nevertheless I was soon asleep which was at least something, I suppose. But not for long.

At about 06:15 I awoke yet again and just couldn’t go back to sleep. As a result, when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was in the bathroom having a wash.

While I was waiting for the nurse to show up I transcribed the dictaphone notes to find out where I’d been during the night. They were running a study down by the lives of the men in the trenches, between those who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths and those born poor. It turns out that the people who were born poor had much less expectation of everything but were not prepared to suffer as much because presumably they were used to things being worked out for them and were not so used to having to work out their own solutions to many problems.

What astonishes me is the depth of thought that I can plumb when I’m away on my travels. I wish that I could think as clearly and as profoundly as this during the day when I’m awake. I would have many fewer problems than I do, that’s for sure.111

One interesting thing that came out of another experiment that we were all doing was that the guy who was conducting it turned round and told me that between 1983 and 1987 “you didn’t do anything at all very much”. I thought “well that’s certainly not true. Why on earth would I ever make anyone think that? There’s obviously something wrong with this experiment if it’s come up with these kinds of figures and information”. But halfway through the debate one of the people said mais, le monsieur, il est fort anglais, oui? – “the guy is very English, isn’t he?”. I asked “does that make a difference?”. They replied “yes because a lot of information on the British national Government’s database was never copied over to Europol so the European Governments won’t know about what happened to you in the UK at that particular time. That was a revelation to me that Europol didn’t have access to the records to British people. That would explain everything because during that period I was extremely busy and didn’t really have the time for any trips over to the Continent and back again whereas in the periods both before and afterwards I was a frequent visitor.

Most people when they are asleep usually dream of green meadows and fluffy clouds and the like. I bet that I’m the only the only person who can have sweet (or not-so-sweet) dreams about the European Police Agency.
"But it wasn’t the bullet that laid him to rest, was
The low spark of high-heeled boys"

What a moment for that to come round on my playlist!

The nurse didn’t have much to say for himself. Except that he’s noticed that I’m putting on the weight again. That’s true, as I said a few days ago. But I really don’t know what to do about it. I have this surgery planned for the 16th – so then they will take me in charge to do the necessary but also give me a good going-over yet again.

With that date arranged there’s no point in rushing anything because whatever solution they reach will only be a temporary one anyway until the dialysis can begin. And then we’ll have to see where we’ll be.

Now regular readers of this rubbish will will recall that I always invite messages and requests. In fact, I receive many requests, most of them physically impossible it has to be said, but one of them was for the recipe for my vegan lasagne.

That’s difficult, because there’s not really a recipe, just an ad hoc collection of stuff hanging around in the kitchen all thrown together, but here goes, Hans –

  • Cook a cup full of red lentils in plenty of water until thoroughly soft, and then when cooked rinse thoroughly.
  • Fry a couple of large onions in olive oi
  • Chop up some garlic and add in when the onions are soft.
  • Add herbs and spices – I used sage, basil, tarragon, oregano
  • Add a big pile of chopped mushrooms
  • Chop up a block of tofu and add in.
  • After it’s all been frying nicely, add in the lentils that you cooked in step one.
  • Add in a jar of tomato sauce (I found a jar of tomato and mushroom sauce that had been loitering around in the kitchen for longer than it ought)
  • Stir it all in and leave it to simmer for a while.
  • When it’s ready, nicely cooked, take your pie dish and line it with lasagne sheets
  • put a covering of your filling on top
  • add more lasagne sheets
  • add more filling
  • add more sheets ….
  • And build up until your dish is full
  • Make a simple bechamel sauce with grated vegan cheese. Pour over the top of the lasagne.
  • Add a couple of slices of vegan cheese to the top
  • When your bread has about half an hour left to cook, slide yous lasagne into the oven alongside the bread.

There was football on the internet this morning – a game from a while ago between East Stirling and Cowdenbeath, two former Scottish League clubs now fallen on hard times and down in the non-league pyramid.

Played at the Falkirk stadium, the home of East Stirling since the tragic loss of their beloved Firs Park ground, it was the visitors who took away the laurels with a 3-2 victory.

But the Blue Brazil have keeper Craig Hepburn to thank for single-handedly defying a rampant East Stirling attack who should by rights have scored a hatful of goals

Apart from the football it was a rather slow start to the day but once I got going I chose another pile of music for a forthcoming radio programme, paired it off and segued the pairs, and while the cleaner was here, wrote half of the notes.

Yes, don’t ask me what happened. I must have been in a good mood to have done all that.

Unfortunately I couldn’t keep it going. I crashed out for an hour after my afternoon hot chocolate. And I actually managed to go off for a wander while I was asleep. There were five of us who used to hang around together, two boys, two girls and me. The boys and girls gradually paired off, leaving me on my own. That was a big disappointment to me because I was very keen on one of the girls and I genuinely thought that I would be able to pair up with her but no such luck. Her boyfriend had lent her a car and I’d even offered to buy her one but to no avail. Anyway we met in Flag Lane and my car was parked in Delamere Street. She had several items like a couple of saucepans and she also had a huge pile of grapes. She gave me a large bunch of grapes as she knew that I liked them and as I was making my way back to my car she blew her horn and called me back. I hoped that it was for some kind of friendly purpose but instead she gave me two saucepans in which to carry away the grapes. I was so disappointed.

What’s even more disappointing is that I know exactly who she is but I can’t think of her name and can’t think of how I know her either. I’m having some really serious brain-fade these days and I wish that I didn’t.

Tea tonight was as usual a lovely vegan salad with chips and the last of these vegan nugget things. I need to order some more of them, I suppose

I’ve run out of the salad dressing unfortunately so I mixed up some vegan mayonnaise with dijon mustard, lemon juice and olive oil. That made a very acceptable substitute.

So now I’m going to crawl into bed ready to renew the attack tomorrow morning. I’ll finish off these radio notes, dictate a few more during the night, edit them on Sunday and then be ready for my Welsh Summer School that begins on Monday for a week. It’s all “get up and go” here.

This time next week I’ll be flat on my back with my arms and legs in the air. They’ll ask me "what happened to your ‘get up and go’?"
And the answer is "It got up and went a long time ago"

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Thursday 4th July 2024 – THE DIE IS …

… cast

And in a most unusual turn of speed that can only be described as “indecent haste”, I’ve had a communication this afternoon from the letting agent for the apartment downstairs –

"Dear Sir
Please find attached a copy of the formal notice that we have today sent to your tenant … in accordance with your instructions of … "

So in other words, proceedings have begun to recover occupancy of the apartment on or before the end of this current tenancy lease on 3rd June 2025.

As it happens, I feel quite awful about putting someone out on the street. I wouldn’t like it at all and I didn’t when it was done to me.

However I shouldn’t feel bad because the tenant had two opportunities to buy the apartment herself. It’s the law in France that if a let property is put up for sale, the tenant has first dibs and it’s been sold twice since she’s been there.

Secondly, I’ve offered to exchange my rights in this apartment (which I rent, of course). It’s configured differently but it’s basically the same apartment from a point of view of size and accommodation. However, she turned down my proposal, turned it down flat.

All we need to know now is what I have forgotten or overlooked.

If I were doing all of this myself there would almost inevitably be something or other that I have failed to consider, but having a letting agent means that there’s someone else to blame when it all goes pear-shaped

So with half the new kitchen packed on the landing outside the door here and the other half in the back of Caliburn, and a cat awaiting in a shelter or refuge somewhere close by, it’s “all systems go”. It looks as if I shall have to do some serious packing.

But one thing is for certain is that when I finally sit down in that apartment I’ll breathe a huge sigh of relief. I shan’t miss the 25 Steps one little bit.

When I went to bed last night I breathed a huge sigh of relief too. It was actually quite late when I finally fell into my stinking pit but after my exertions during the day I was good and ready for it

During the night I don’t recall moving a single muscle. When the alarm went off I was flat-out in exactly the same position in which I’d hit the hay earlier

And it was a very confused me who responded to the alarm this morning by trying to answer the ‘phone, something that would have brought a smile to BILLY COTTON‘s face if only he had seen it.

Eventually I managed to tear myself away from my nice warm bed and went for a wash and brush up etc before coming back in here to find out where I’d been during the night. There was something going on with my ill-health again. There had been demonstrations in Montlucon. I’d been sent a form to fill in for me to say whether or not I’d been at this demonstration for just the one day or the two days. If I’d been there for the two days I was entitled to go along there and help clean it up, and I’d receive a daily subsistence allowance for the two days. I thought to myself that this is the first time that someone had really made an effort to bring the sufferers of this disease together and actually make it worth their while to come out of the shadows and announce who they are to the World and then be paid for this clearing-up of these sites in Montlucon. I thought that this was a definite amount of progress for this illness and I was wondering where it was going to take us next with this idea of opening up everything.

Transcribing that little lot, I was thinking to myself that anyone reading this article would imagine that I was suffering from the Bubonic Plague or something equally contagious and nasty but of course as far as I am aware, what I have isn’t contagious so you’re all quite safe.

That is, apart from this ‘flu bug that I don’t seem to be able to shake off at the moment. And that’s not frightened the nurse away because he’s still coming round.

He didn’t have a great deal to say for himself this morning. He was clearly in an introspective mood. He changed the dressing on my right foot, organised my puttees and then left in a hurry.

What I’ve been doing today is to finish off the radio programme that I started yesterday. I have had to perform a lot of judicious (and not so judicious) editing, cutting and chopping about and in the end I’ve finished with 56:39 minutes of music and musicians” banter

That is leaving me just 3 minutes and 21 seconds, or 201 seconds in fact, for an introduction and at 300 characters of text per 17 seconds, I need about 3500 characters of text. So far, I’ve written 3672 so there’s a little room for manoeuvre.

But as usual when I write stuff for programmes like that, I’ll review it a few times before I go with a definitive version. The usual programmes where I have 11 songs and about three quarters of a minute to introduce each one, you can’t do all that much. But I like to think that the text for any concert that I broadcast says all that it needs to in the time available to it.

Seeing as we are talking about concerts … "well, one of us is" – ed … I came across the soundtrack for an interesting concert.

There was a group quite active on the British Rhythm and Blues scene in the early 1960s, Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, and their claim to fame is that their guitarist at the time, Mick Green, is credited with having invented the concept of the “power trio” of guitar, bass and drums, by being able to play lead and rhythm guitar alternately and inspired whole generations of some of the most important musicians and groups in rock music. I’ve played bass in many a power trio and to me, that is rock music at its best

Johnny KIdd was killed in a car accident in the mid-1960s but is group reformed later and produced three or four LPs that I would love to find. Instead though, I came across a concert that was recorded in 2006 in a pub in Northern France with the Pirates, including Mick Green

The quality is rubbish unfortunately, but nevertheless …

Later on this afternoon I’ve been busy. Firstly, the cleaner stuck her head in. She brought my next batch of injections that had now arrived at the pharmacy. But poor girl – if it carries on like this, she’s going to need a lorry. I’m sure that I have more medication here than the chemist has in his stock.

And then, having used up the last of the bread this morning I need another loaf for starting tomorrow so I’ve been baking.

And what can I do with half an oven while there’s bread in the other half? The answer is to make a big vegan lasagne – tofu, mushroom and red lentils with tomato sauce all covered in a bechamel sauce.

That was a lovely surprise for tea too, lasagne with steamed veg. One slice to go and two slices for the freezer for another time. Like I say, the food in this place is simple but it’s really first-class.

So I’m going to bed and hopefully to have a good night’s sleep and to make all kinds of plans about the apartment downstairs.

But thinking about my dream earlier, it reminds me of a story that I heard from a schoolteacher friend of mine on the Wirral in a particularly rough primary school.
She set the children an exercise in their English language lesson – to write a sentence with the word “contagious” in it
After two minutes little Johnny put his hand up to say that he was finished, so my friend asked him to come out and read his sentence to the class
So little Johnny coughs to clear his throat and begins "Next door’s garden fence blew down in the gales and it will take the contagious to pick up all of the bits"

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Wednesday 3rd July 2024 – "A GENERAL ANAESTHETIC …"

"… for just a few cuts in a couple of veins? Certainly not! You’ll have a local anaesthetic for a half-hour operation like this!" (… and like it!) and there was no arguing with the Beast of the Hôpital de la Baie

Here was a woman who means business – at least, I think that’s what she was meaning. If you think that my accent is bad you want to hear hers. She comes from a Spanish/Portuguese environment I reckon and I could hardly understand a word that she said at times.

A few other times I understood clearly enough. "They have you down for an overnight stay too. Why is that?"
"PLease miss" I felt like saying, "I live on my own". I replied "There’s no-one looking after me."
"Well, don’t you have a friend where you can go? Isn’t there a neighbour who will take you in?"

Well, as it happens, there is a neighbour who will take me in but I’ll be lucky to come out alive. Do you remember the case of Kirk Anderson, the Manacled Mormon who claimed that Joyce McKinney had chained him to her bed and then had her wicked way with him? We’ll be back reliving those events again.

At least, not all of them. And it won’t be a doctor that I’ll need to see. His job is to heal the sick. I’d need the assistance of a medium or a spiritualist to help me raise the dead.

But seriously just for a moment, I was lucky to leave the Beast of the Hôpital de la Baie’s lair alive and I’m having a horrible feeling about this business on the 16th. I’ve mentioned before … "and on several occasions too" – ed … the rather brusque business-like attitude and manner that seems to exist in the hospitals around here.

Never was it more in evidence than today.

Nothing else very much business-like about today unfortunately.

Last night was another late night which was a shame followed once again by being wide awake at 03:15, lying there with streaming nose and eyes and feeling absolutely lousy.

It was at about 06:00 when I gave up the fight and arose from my stinking pit. And when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was already washed, dried and sitting at my desk working.

The nurse was late today. Apparently my neighbour had had a bad fall and when the nurse arrived there she was sprawled al over the floor. He had to pick her up, dust her off and start her all over again.

He’s trying to encourage her to go into a Home for the elderly and infirm and it’s not a bad idea, except for the fact that robbing a person of their autonomy is often sentencing them to death. I know people mean well when they go to, say, take the tops off your yoghurt for you or cut up your meal for you, but it really is humiliating.

On that note, he did what he could to put my neighbour back on her feet and then came down here to see what damage he could do to me.

And as it happens, I didn’t need much from anyone else. I could create enough damage on my own. He sorted out my legs with my puttees and then pointed out the shortage of supplies. Not that it did much good because he was gone before I could take it all in.

After breakfast I had a listen to the dictaphone but there was nothing there from the night which was a surprise because there was a lot of stuff that I can’t remember now about the confusing aspects of going to hospital – is it better to take one form of recovery or take another form, what was wrong with each one? How would I return home? How things would be complicated and how things would be managed. That drifted on through some kind of wartime scenario but it was all to do with my ill-health. Unfortunately I can’t really remember all that much of it now which is a shame but I definitely recall being torn desperately in two directions with no clear path to guide me – and there’s a lot of truth in a feeling like that right at the moment. I’m currently being pulled in every direction save that in which I think that I ought to be going.

Today I’ve been working on a new project. One of the greatest live albums ever celebrates its birthday soon and although the album is actually quite short, the whole concert lasted for just over two hours, the event was recorded (well, obviously) in its entirety and I have found, tucked away in a few various recesses here and there, a copy of the recording!

It contains the songs that are well-known from the published work of course, but also plenty of others and loads of interesting and illuminating dialogue between the musicians that has never seen the light of day.

We shall be having a great deal of fun with this broadcast when it hits the air.

There’s also been a cookery master-class going on too. I’ve been teaching everyone in my little travel group to make naan bread, seeing as almost everyone seemed to be planning on making a curry.

My cleaner came and went early today as I had to be ready by 16:00 for the taxi to take me to see the Beast of the Hôpital de la Baie.

We were late arriving, due to problems on the road with all the traffic, however that meant that I didn’t have to wait long.

With the kind of glance that would curdle milk at 100 paces she enticed me into her lair and then the interrogation began. I felt like at any moment the bright light and thumbscrews would be out but eventually she threw me out, satisfied that another helpless victim has been ensnared.

The taxi brought me back here where my loyal cleaner helped me up the stairs, God bless her! Ho nice it was to see a friendly face.

And her help was welcomed too because I’d have never managed the 25 Steps on my own.

On that subject, I might not have to face them for much longer. Although there’s 11 months left on the lease of the tenant in my apartment downstairs, I’ve issued instructions to the letting agents to start proceedings to make sure that the lease isn’t automatically renewed, as most leases are.

Here in France, tenants have a great many rights and things have to be done “by the book” So it’s worth paying someone to do it correctly. But I bet that there’s yet another banana skin somewhere lurking around.

Up here i made tea – a leftover curry with naan bread and it really was delicious. I could eat that all over again. But not right now as I’m off to bed. Next Wednesday will come round soon enough

Talking about anaesthetics however reminds me of the time that Idi Amin went to the dentist’s. The dentist worked out what he needed, laid out all the tools and drills and went to his fridge from which he pulled a hypodermic needle
"What are you doing?" asked a panic-stricken Amin
"There’s no need to worry" said the dentist. "I’m going to give you a local anaesthetic."
So Amin left his chair, picked up the dentist and began to beat him to a pulp.
When he’d finished, he turned to the dentist’s assistant and said "NOT local! American! OK?"

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Tuesday 2nd July 2024 – I CAN’T BELIEVE …

… (well, I can actually, because regular readers of this rubbish will recall that it’s always going like this with me) that as well as everything else through which I’m currently suffering and all of the aches and pains that go with it, I’ve now gone down with a severe bout of the ‘flu.

No wonder that I’ve not been feeling too well (relatively speaking) this last couple of days with all of this brewing away inside me, but it erupted last night. I’m now shivering, freezing, I’ve lost my voice, my nose and eyes are streaming and I have aches in places that I didn’t even know that I had places.

That’s a shame because last night even though it was quite late when I went to bed I was feeling something like normal and a lot more optimistic than I had been feeling for a while. So that didn’t last long, did it?

Round about 03:00 I awoke with my streaming nose and eyes. Even a liberal dose of Vick’s Vapour Rub didn’t seem to help all that much so I just lay there vegetating as best as I could, trying to doze off to sleep.

At about 06:00 I abandoned the struggle and took to my feet. I went into the bathroom for a wash and a change of clothes and by the time that the alarm went off at 07:00 I was at the computer working.

Much to my surprise, and yours too, I bet, there was plenty of stuff on the dictaphone. It must have been a very mobile night, that’s all I can say. We were discussing our school days, talking about the game of “tick and it” and how it differed between the way that it was played in France and the UK. It all came down in the end to whether one had had actually earned the confidence of your playmates or not. The discussion carried on for quite a while. There was one guy there who didn’t really have too much to say. One of the people asked him if he was married. He replied “oh I was taken once” and made tat beautiful Gallic gesture of throwing something over his shoulder like “well it’s all in the past – it’s all behind me”. I thought “yes, I can identify with all of that”. The conversation carried on but it was obvious that I could see that I was going to be the one who was “out” in this case. I didn’t seem to fit into the clique that everyone else had been creating.

And that doesn’t surprise me very much. I never learned how to socialise and wouldn’t know how to do it today. I’m much happier in my own company than in a room full of random strangers. Even in childhood, if there was an odd number of us and we had to be paired, I’d always be the one on his own. And it didn’t bother me in the slightest once I became used to the idea. But as for marriages not working, it’s rather too late in the day now to say that I should have worked harder in the right direction. But then again, had I stayed in The Land That Time Forgot, I’d probably still be driving a bus or a taxi, and I would have seen the inside of Shrewsbury Gaol and not as a tourist either. The storm clouds were definitely gathering and they chased me all the way down to Dover.

The computer came up with an error when I was downloading a file. It was a book that I was downloading from ARCHIVE.ORG. The message said that basically a certain extension was required to read it so I had to download that. I downloaded it and it seemed to take for ever. It was an enormous file so I wondered whether or not it was correct – whether I’d been the victim of some kind of phishing attack. I downloaded the program and tried to install it on my computer but while setting it up I came across another kind of discussion where this extension was being discussed so I stopped what I was doing, sat down and began to read the notes on this particular extension. This was where I awoke.

Yes, waking up in the middle of a phishing attack, and actually reading the notes too – that’s a new one for a computer program. Normally, most people just click on the “I Agree” box, mainly because they don’t understand the agreement and don’t have the motivation to read on down to the end. As for instructions, computer programs don’t actually work like that. You think of a function that it would be a good idea to have, you think “surely the program designer has already thought of this” and then you go by trial and error through the menu until you find the function or something that resembles it?

Later on we’d just been repairing and revictualling a Royal Navy battleship. Even though I wasn’t in the Navy I was quite used to giving commands to the crew now that the ship was prepared. I was ordering my assistants around making sure this was right, making sure that was right, going on about how things are going to be changing in the Navy soon. You wouldn’t be able to give orders like this – it would all have to be polite requests. We went on like this for some time, then in the end I said “we might as well have the men lined up” to my assistants so we dashed to the front of the ship and chalked the assembly points on the deck and shouted the ship’s company to assemble and come to attention

Civilians giving orders to matelots would be an interesting concept and I can’t see how that would work, except along the Dock Road in Liverpool during the hours of darkness in the good old days of the “Dockers’ Umbrella”, but that’s another story entirely. However many warships did set out to battle with their civilian repair and maintenance crews on board and a great many lost their lives.

And although I didn’t dictate this, I have a vague feeling of being out at Slochd Summit in charge of a breakdown crew in a heavy snowstorm clearing a track for the trains through the snowdrifts

In the middle of this the nurse turned up. I’d rung him to tell him that I didn’t think that he should come. After all, I don’t want to pass over to his other patients whatever it is that I’ve caught but he didn’t seem too bothered so why should I worry?

He sorted out my legs, gave me today’s Injection of the Last Resort and then cleared off. He had recommended a medication to deal with the ‘flu so I sent a message to my faithful cleaner and then had a slow, leisurely breakfast.

Today has been a very slow day, slower than usual and although I didn’t actually crash out at all, which is surprising, I may as well have done for all the good that I was doing at times. But at least I have achieved my target for today, which was to edit the last lot of notes that I’d dictated and prepare the relevant programme.

The final song has been selected, the text has been written, and all that I need is a nice quite moment to dictate everything. But when that is likely to be, I really have no idea.

The cleaner turned up in mid -afternoon. The pharmacist had warned her off the product that the nurse recommended and anted to know my exact symptoms so I duly obliged. Half an hour later she was back with something that the pharmacist thinks is more suitable.

And who am I to argue?

Tea was a delicious taco roll with rice and veg, and plenty of stuffing left over for a leftover curry tomorrow. That should be delicious.

And in a mad fit of enthusiasm, before going to bed I washed my puttees and rolled up the ones that I’d washed last week so that we can use them from tomorrow;

But going back to life along the Dock Road in the days of the “Dockers Umbrella” I knew a girl who married a sailor. And everyone told her that if he suggested "the other way" she was to flatly refuse.
So for the first few months of wedded bliss things were going fine but this thing about “the other way” was playing on her mind and on her curiosity. And it eventually got the better of her.
"Why don’t we … errrr … try it the other way?" she suggested meekly.
"What?" exclaimed the sailor in astonishment "and fill the house up with screaming kids?"

0

Monday 1st July 2024 – I’M LATE AGAIN!

At this rate people will be calling me “the late Epic Hall” long before I’ve properly earned the sobriquet by beginning to push up the daisies and manger les pissenlits par les racines as one does around here

Not that that will be all that long in occurring at this rate because we’ve had another awful day when much of it has been spent asleep on my chair.

That’s actually part of the reason why I’m so late tonight. I drifted off into yet another lapse of bewildered unconsciousness round about 19:00 and didn’t snap out of it until almost 20:00 so that made me half an hour late starting tea

And then dropping a full bowl of washing-up water on the floor and having to mop it up accounts for most of the rest.

As you can see, it’s not been a very good day.

It all went wrong a long time before this though;

For a change, I was actually in bed early-ish and wasn’t I looking forward to a really decent sleep, preferably in the company of my three favourite ladies?

And so at about 03:00 I awoke with a thirst that you could photograph and nothing that I did would make the sensation go away.

At about 05:00 I abandoned the fight and went to the kitchen for a long, cool drink of strawberry-flavoured water. No need to tell you what happened half an hour later.

Surprisingly, I did manage to go back to sleep after all of that, until the strident tones of BILLY COTTON shattered my sommeil.

It was a desperate struggle to make it to my feet before the second alarm went off but I staggered off into the bathroom and smartened myself up as best as I could. I even had a shave, although I’m not sure why.

With some time to spare before the nurse came round I made a start on the dictaphone notes. And there were quite a few of them too and I hadn’t finished by the time that he turned up.

It’s the boss again, and he was in a chatty mood too. His son had won that race over the weekend, so I’d been told, so I congratulated him. Anyway, he sorted out my legs and put on my puttees.

After he left I had a nice, leisurely breakfast, taking my time and drinking a raft of coffee. But as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I am living proof that coffee does NOT keep you awake.

Once breakfast was out of the way I had to ring up the taxi company. So far (and I stress the “so far” because it’s liable to change at any moment) I need five and maybe six trips to various hospital and medical appointments

It took a while to make sure that everything was arranged properly and I asked, jokingly, if I ought to buy them another car. The girl replied that they could manage at the moment, but maybe they should think about issuing loyalty cards.

Just wait until one or two of these Paris trips that are simmering on the back burner come to fruition.

It’s not just the nurse’s son for whom congratulations are in order. A little 13 year-old girl whom I know is dancing for the UK at the Dance World Cup in Portugal. She came 11th out of 59 in the individual competition and is part of the UK team that is leading the medals table

So well done Robyn! STRAWBERRY MOOSE sends his congratulations too.

So now I could finish off the dictaphone notes. I went to se the school doctor because I was clearly feeling unwell. The doctor told me to go and lie down for a while, somewhere calm. My group had taken possession of the Spanish galleon thing there I suppose so I’d go and lie down somewhere below the deck level there and it would be a novel way of having my rest but boats from outside were waiting for me afterwards and I couldn’t work out what was going on. It seemed that people were asking me if I were OK but all that I could mutter were yes, things were fine but it didn’t really go out. There were these two girls underneath a kind of bubble In between the ship and their ship with the rest of their crew on it, obviously having created an advance listening post. Suddenly one of them sprung up and came to me to ask me “is there anything the matter?” Is there anything they could do. I had to admit that if that girl standing there and me standing there like that carried on standing there much longer, there would be plenty that she could do, without the shadow of a doubt. I think that she senses that things were not as they seemed and she departed quite rapidly. Meanwhile they were trying to start an aeroplane, presumably to go after this boat. With nothing better to do I went along to help, to see what use I’d be, although I doubted if I’d be of very much use at all. But this aeroplane engine would simply not fire up. We couldn’t understand why that would be the case because everything you need for a possible flight was there. There wasn’t a reason why it suddenly wouldn’t start at all

And I’ll recognise those girls in the bubble again if ever I come across them. They aren’t anyone whom I know but their springing up was so dramatic that they are imprinted on my mind like a photograph

There were all kinds of people hovering around me last night trying to get their hands on my Estate, such as it is, and help themselves to stuff. It became so bad that in the end I employed a minder or bouncer or someone to keep an eye on me and keep an eye on everything to make sure that nothing went missing and everything was accounted for at the appropriate time. Of course it wasn’t very popular at all, this idea, but nevertheless I had to do something to protect my own interests in these cases

And having seen the amount of looting and pillaging of the dead and dying by the nearest and dearest, it’s probably not a bad idea. Marianne told me that when her father died, one of her brothers hadn’t gone to the interment. Instead, he’d gone round to the family shop and removed everything worth removing. Not that it did him much good. I became picked up in this when I met Marianne and early on in our relationship I took her to his house for a confrontation. He wasn’t in but it was a mean terraced house in the roughest part of Seraing, the industrial suburb of Liège, in the immediate shadow of the huge Cockerill steelworks.

When Marianne died in 2013 and I had to take her to her interment, I put all of her valuables such as they were into an envelope and posted them “registered post” back to me. Of course I wasn’t in, so the Post Office hung onto them for a few days while I was dashing about hither and thither. That way, they were safe until I went to collect the package.

There was a pre-season friendly football match taking place somewhere. One of the teams had already replaced its goalkeeper with a trialist and the match was proceeding quite normally. I was asleep and it was the alarm that awoke me but I had the feeling that there was some crisis about to develop in this dream at this particular time.

It’s a shame that I awoke here because this had all the air of being something exciting but, as usual, Billy Cotton came along to interrupt it.

There was some football on the internet too. Gala Fairydean from Galashiels in the Scottish Borders and who play in the Lowland League – effectively the Scottish 5th Division – were playing a game against a “team” of scratch, unattached players from Glasgow putting themselves in the shop window trying to attract some kind of contract with some kind of club.

To my surprise, to Gala Fairydean’s and doubtless to their own surprise, the scratch side ran out 3-1 winners, and I’d sign their n°10 and n°16 in a heartbeat.

The rest of the day, when I’ve not been asleep, has been spend on radio stuff. I’ve edited another lot of notes that I dictated on Saturday night and assembled most of a programme. I’ve chosen the final track and written the notes for dictation when I have a quiet moment that isn’t too late, whenever that might be.

That was my target for today so I was pleased that I’d done it, but I could have done so much more had I not been so tired.

Tea tonight was stuffed pepper which was delicious, and there’s plenty of stuffing left. That will doubtless please those people who tell me that I want stuffing

But that’s something on which to muse while I’m in bed, which is where I’ll be in a very short space of time

It’s a long time since the days when I could sit up for 24 hours and more. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the time I had to drive in Caliburn to the suburbs of Birmingham to pick up a trailer, then up to North Lancashire to pick up a digger and then drive the whole lot down to Central France.

34 hours I was on the road and the only break that I had was the 90 minutes on the ferry. I can’t do that now.

Not so long ago I sat up and watched the earth spin round on its axis for 24 hours, and then I called it a day.

0

Sunday 30th June 2024 – I’M NOT SURE …

… how long I can keep this all going. Throughout the last few months I’ve had plenty of moments when I wished that I could just close the book, lie down and go to sleep. And believe me, I had one or two of those during the day today

It’s not anything physical – well, it is, my physical condition is deteriorating rapidly, but what I mean is that there’s no pain or suffering or anything like that, at least, not yet. It’s the effect that it’s all having on my mental well-being that’s dragging me down

Doing almost anything is a complicated affair, trying to work out how I’m going to do whatever it is that I have to do while manipulating … "PERSONipulating" – ed … a pair of crutches. My whole life has become one of simple logistics.

“Simple” was the word, nothing complicated last night about going to bed. I was in bed by 23:30 so with the alarm set for 08:00 for a Sunday, for once I was set to have something of a decent lie-in.

And so it goes without saying that I was wide awake at 07:00, up and about at 07:30 and when the alarm did go off at 08:00 I was already washed, dressed and at the computer.

The nurse came round at about 08:30 to sort out my legs. She showed me her photos from last weekend at Lyon and some of them were really good.

While she was here and in a receptive mood I told her (in polite, sensitive terms of course) that I felt that the two nurses ought to be keeping a closer watch on how my condition deteriorates, and how disappointed I was that they let me get into such an awful state a couple of weeks ago.

She explained that all of that should have shown up in the various blood tests that I’d had and had the hospital or my GP looked at them closely they would have seen for themselves without the need to look at me, just how badly things were going.

There is naturally some truth in this, but nevertheless I suspect that there’s also a certain amount of buck-passing there too.

After she left I had breakfast, and then I had letters to write.

Two of the letters were painful. One was to tell my tenant in the apartment downstairs that I won’t be renewing the lease when it expires next Spring – or, at least, instruct the letting agent to do so.

Then I can move in. On the ground floor too so I can move around outside easier. I’ll smash out the bath and have a walk-in shower, and there will be a “kitty corner” for a new sub-tenant who will no doubt pay her rent in dead seagulls.

What could possibly go wrong?

As for the second, I’d rather not talk about that but someone who follows these pages will know about it.

What completed the morning was going away with the fairies for an hour or two. In fact Rosemary awoke me because she wanted a chat.

She’s still gallivanting around Italy and wanted to tell me what a good time she’s been having. As a result, we had another one of our mega-chats that goes on for ever.

She was also telling me that she had, in a moment of reckless abandon, volunteered for midwife duties despite knowing nothing whatsoever about babies, children, giving birth and all of that.

We joked about that famous line in THE WILD BUNCH when William Holden says "What I don’t know about, I sure as hell am gonna learn".

A baby however is more complicated than a machine gun, that’s for sure.

While we’re on the subject of babies … "well, one of us is" – ed … for the last couple of days I’ve had an overwhelming desire for baked beans on toast. I’m certain that I’m not pregnant; nevertheless the feeling has been growing stronger and stronger.

Having travelled the World, qt least, the Northern hemisphere part of it, I can say without fear of contradiction that no-one, no-one at all anywhere in the World that I have visited, makes baked beans like the Brits. Not even the “British recipe” ones in Maritime Canada.

When Liz and Terry were here last year or whenever it was they brought a tray of beans and I baked a loaf on Friday so at lunchtime I satiated my desire. Mind you, nice though as it was, I could sit down and eat it all over again.

This afternoon I transcribed the notes on the dictaphone. I was working for a hardware place last night. It was one of these places that had a really structured format – people entered at the bottom of their grades and slowly worked their way up their grades, all the way through and out to the top. There were several young guys who had started a while back who were near the bottom but I’d been watching their progress a little and was quite pleased that they seemed to be very apt and very capable, very willing to push hard and progress so I encouraged them. Then a girl joined. She seemed to think that she was entitled to everything because she had a superior education. She made a few comments to these people which I thought was poor but I let them pass. One day there was a question of someone having to stay overnight so we agreed that we’d all do it. Someone said that they’d have to bring their child in. They brought in their child and tucked it up. And when their part of the night finished we tucked them up in the bed with the child and carried on working. Towards the morning the child awoke – awoke with a start – and was so worried about where it was, it had school and it was panicking around so we tried our best to reassure it but it was panicking. Suddenly its portable alarm went off, which added to the confusion. But the girl whom I mentioned who was having a few things to say about the situation so I reminded her that we were all trying to do a very difficult job etc. I happened to mention these boys and said that she needn’t think that she was the only game in town because they were pushing on. They were quite capable too so she shouldn’t be surprised if one day she found herself cornered out by these guys. She replied “oh, you’ve noticed too, have you?” and mentioned one of them, how good he was when he’d had his medication, which was something of a dig but again I let it pass. I could see that this girl was going to need some extremely careful handling. If she’s not careful she’ll end up running this department, running my job, I’ll be nowhere. I wasn’t convinced that her personality was the correct personality to make any progress in this company, being so pushy and aggressive when these other people are being so smooth and calm.

And we’ve all worked with people like that, who come into a business and think that they can run it from Day One by upsetting everyone and everything

This female officer arrived at our unit – tall and thin, dark hair and with something to prove, so she thought, and was determined to make her mark on us but we were old sweats at this. We knew full well that it didn’t work like that but we were prepared to give her a little rope. It concerned some kind of little battle that was noisy and violent but didn’t last long. She was wondering why she hadn’t been invited to take part. We explained that it was all over so quickly that there wasn’t really time to go in for an organised formation. We just had to defend our position ad lib which we did. By the time that she arrived the firefight was over. So she carried on talking but let it go, but made it quite clear that she wanted to go on our next operation no matter what it was and where it was to so we made a note. The next night we were asked to go on an armed reconnaissance in force into the trenches as far as a small village a mile or so away where we had to pin everyone down, including the chief of the defending army while our Army somewhere else did something different. We worked out all of our plans and arranged that this woman would be called at the very last minute and be expected to travel in the state in which she appeared because she didn’t look the type. She looked the type who needed an hour’s preparation for a photograph. We were all preparing and were on the point of calling her when she suddenly appeared and wanted to know why she hadn’t been called. I replied that we hadn’t been mustered to set off yet, it was our sole preparation time and we were preparing. She wondered why she hadn’t been asked to prepare. I explained that at the last meeting that we’d had, she explained to us that she was always ready so we assumed that if she said that she was always ready then she was always ready and needed no preparation. She could step into the car at the very last minute and come with us. She was not satisfied with any of this explanation but we made sure that it was our version that was written on the combat reports so that Head Office could actually see it

And here we go again with a similar situation, people coming in and not having the patience to look around and see how the system works and how everything functions. After all, it was functioning quite well before they arrived.

Later on we had to go to Disney to meet those people from yesterday By the time everyone had finished walking on the beach and preparing, we were about an hour late at the meeting point. But we turned up all the same and had to fight our way down the queues. There was a sign that read “entry today 60p” so we prepared 60p but when we reached the machine it was 89p. We all thought that that was highly illegal so we fumed and moaned but sorted out some cash instead, paid and went in, picking up our free tickets and vouchers. The coffee came in huge, enormous mugs but it was freezing cold . I don’t know where they’d had this coffee stored. The food was typical “Tricatel” stuff slopped on your plates. It seemed that no-one in my group was worried about meeting these two other people from yesterday. It seemed that there was no sense of time or sense of urgency. All one guy was doing was busy changing the label he’d put round his baby daughter’s face mark so he wouldn’t hit him in the face. No-one seemed to care. I thought that this was a very strange way to be running any kind of business – someone should have found these people’s phone numbers and phoned them but it was nothing to do with me. I let the other people make the arrangements and it was easy to be totally fouled up and what was worse was that no-one seemed to be bothered about it.

And which “people from yesterday”? This journey sounds like a typical cock-up organised in just the way that anything would be organised within our family. The importance of rendez-vous is “who, when and where” expressed briefly and succinctly , not this total anarchic chaos that seems to pervade just about everything and hoping for the best, something that never ever happens.

There was the question of the publication of a children’s book which had been done to a certain type of formula prepared by another Society. Halfway through the proceedings the other society had withdrawn its permission. Now it was taking on a whole new meaning as there had to be a whole new redesign of the work that had been done. Somehow was involved in this but I had a feeling that things were not going correctly, that one of our employees for reasons best known to himself was dragging his heels with this and making life difficult so we tried to chivvy him along but it didn’t seem to work. It was causing all kinds of problems. The document checks weren’t working out very well, standard phrases had to be re-written etc. In the end I finished a pile of work, put it in a container and posted it in one of these aerial vacuum systems somewhere. It fed into the circuit just as someone went into there to reach for a document. The whole thing of my work fell onto his shoulder. I thought to myself “he won’t do that again in a hurry, will he? He’ll know what to expect the next time that he’ll try to fetch something from the vacuum system”.

And there’s always one of those in every organisation too, someone who slows down other people’s creative spirit because he never thought of the idea first so he doesn’t want it to work at any price.

But having complained the other day about the poor quality of recent dreams, last night made up for a lot of it. All I need now is Castor, Zero and TOTGA to come and cheer me up.

It might have been possible for them to come this afternoon because I was away with the fairies yet again for a couple of hours, but no such luck.

But that’s what’s depressing me – this continual crashing out during the day. Rosemary thinks that I’ll feel much better once the dialysis begins. Quite frankly, I couldn’t feel much worse.

There was time to complete another radio programme before tea tonight. I edited some text that I’d dictated last night before going to bed, and then assembled a programme completely.

Grahame says that he’s surprised that I’m still bashing out the radio programmes, and so am I. There’s bound to be a point where my eyesight will fail completely or else I’ll be spending too much time asleep, but we’re not quite there yet.

Tea was of course a vegan pizza. I’d taken a lump of dough out of the freezer after lunch and when it had thawed I rolled it out and assembled it.

On that note I’ll clear off and go for an early night. But before I go I’ll leave you with another one of my heroes.

Not the Irish politician Sir Boyle Roche this time, but the baseball coach Laurence Peter “Yogi” Berra
When asked how he wanted his pizza sliced, whether in 6 slices or 8 slices, he replied
"You better slice it in six. I don’t think that I could manage eight slices."

0

Saturday 29th June 2024 – SO FAR TODAY …

… I’ve managed to avoid falling over. However, the night is young and there’s still plenty of time yet to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

And defeat? They are the things inside de slippers of course!

There has been plenty of the day to go at too. More than usual, in fact, because once more I was up and about at an ungodly hour long before the alarm went off. I’ve no idea why that would be because, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s not like me at all.

It was a late night too. The other night when I was in bed before 23:00 must have been a fluke, that’s all I can cay because much as I would like that to be my target time, it’s pretty much unattainable right now and that’s something else that I can’t understand. Where does all the time go?

So last night after my misadventures on the kitchen floor I crawled off to bed late as usual as I mentioned and for a change it took a while for me to go off to sleep. After my fall you could probably say that I was shaken and not stirred.

Round about 05:00 – 05:30 I sat up, bolt upright, wide awake, and try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep. Just like yesterday morning too.

After lying awake for a while trying to drop off, I abandoned the struggle and took to my feet, a little more steady than last night, it has to be said. I sorted out some clean clothes and then went for a good wash and scrub up

Back in here afterwards I transcribed the dictaphone notes. I was newly-retired, so I was back at home. There were all kinds of medical upheavals going on. Even I’d been interviewed for a medical and failed it completely so was going to have some kind of further treatment. A whole week had been set aside for us to receive the kind of treatment that we needed. This was to take place at home, or at least, some kind of clinic but we’d all be at home during the day, during the night. It had been arranged that I’d look after my niece’s daughter while all of this was going on. We were making plans and making appointments. Someone said something about the daughter staying with me. It turned out in the end that she was only going to stay with me for two days because Friday the had something sorted out but there were so many things arranged that this stay was gradually being whittled down until in the end it probably wouldn’t be anything. That was a big disappointment to me because I had lots of plans and lots of ideas about what I was going to do and where I was going to take her. I’d been quite looking forward to going off for a few days with her to show her around, so I was starting to be even more disappointed and fed up than I am.

Later on there was something else that cropped up which would have been a really great idea had she been staying with me. I happened to mention this idea thing that had come up but it turns out now that whatever time she had left was going to be reduced yet again as something else was found for her to do. I began to wonder whether I was completely wasting my time with all of this and trying to be nice and helpful

So here we go again. I’m planning on having a good and interesting time and various members of my family come along and spike my guns, shoving "le baton dans la rue" as they would say around here. That’s one thing on which you could count – if I were going to be having a good time they would want to spoil it. I tell you, leaving The Land That Time Forgot and coming into the 21st Century was the best thing that ever happened to me and it’s a real shame as far as I’m concerned that I couldn’t ever persuade Nerina to take a leap into the future instead of being back there in the past

The nurse told me about the fun run taking place tonight. The town is closed off this weekend and it’s a car-free “pedestrians only” to celebrate the start of the summer season. There’s a 9km trail laid out around the town and the fun run starts this evening with everyone joining in for a lap – or two, or three, or four if you want the full marathon – to celebrate the summer, the Olympics, or anything else that you like.

She’ll be taking part and she’ll give me a wave as she runs past my apartment. I said that I’d keep an eye open for her;

After she left I had breakfast and then came in here – where I promptly fell asleep again. So much for this early start, I have to say.

While I was away with the fairies I was over the hills and far away. While I was asleep during the morning I had a very clingy girlfriend, a younger girl with large thick-lensed glasses and I know who she is but I can’t think of her name now. We we were out one afternoon and evening and she was just clingy. At first I thought “how lucky I was to have someone who wanted to be so near to me so much” but after a while I began to realise that someone so clingy can also be se needy and so much closeness can be oppressive.

It’s amazing how deep your inner consciousness and realisation goes when you are asleep. I’ve come up with some profound thinking in my dreams and I quite often wish that I could think so clearly and profoundly in real life. Things would be quite different. But what the heck is the name of this girl? I can see her even now but can’t think of her name.

When I awoke I finished off all of the notes for the radio programme on which I was working and then went for a very late lunch, not that I was too bothered about the time.

This afternoon, apart from sleeping, I’ve been carrying out a few amendments to my Homepage (and there will be some more in the fullness of time too), finishing off the updates to my “Canada 2022” pages from October 2022 and once I’d finished those, making a start on updating the pages that I wrote during my recent stay in hospital. So all in all, a very busy boy today even if a tired one.

Having had my breaded quornburger last night, tonight I had air-fried chips with a vegan salad and a burger on a bap – one of those burgers that I made with this dried compound stuff from Germany;

The taste is cerainly different, but not disagreeable, especially when there’s plenty of vegan mayonnaise, dijon mustard and onion plastered all over the place.

So now, early though it is, I’m going to dictate some radio notes for editing during the week and then off to bed. An 08:00 start so if I’m lucky I might have a little lie-in.

But going back to yesterday and needing help too raise myself from the floor reminds me of a story that Bishop Bell of Chichester used to tell me, about the time that he had difficulty rising from his seat in the park
A small girl dashed over and asked if she could help him
"Are you sure you can, dear?" asked the Bishop. "It’s not going to be easy"
"It’s all right really, sir" said the girl, brightly. "I’ve often helped my daddy when he’s been much drunker than you"

0

Friday 28th June 2024 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about the card reader solution being too easy.

Sure enough, the girl turned up at 12:30 with the delivery and so I went to pay for it using her portable card reader. “PIN correct” but “Card Declined”

And that was how it went on for about 15 minutes until in the end I gave up and used my Belgian card. I thought that that solution was too good to be true and, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s par for the course.

Meanwhile, in other news, I’ve had another bad fall this evening. Only this time it wasn’t “sideways keeling over when the knee folds up” which, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is also par for the course, but tonight it was “backwards into the kitchen shelving unit while washing up” – a totally new experience.

Another new experience was actually being in bed before 23:00 last night.

Not by very much, I have to admit. Just by a wafer-thin margin but never mind, it was an accomplishment.

However, regular readers of this rubbish will recall what usually happens at times like this. At 05:00 I had to go to walk the parapet. Try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep and when the alarm finally went off at 07:00 I was already up, washed, dressed and sitting at the computer.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone too so I transcribed that while I was waiting for the nurse to come. A newspaper headline in one of the broadsheet dailies had made some kind of inflammatory remarks supposedly said by a member of the Government about the situation in Ireland that the Minister, if he had his way, would “exterminate the lot of them”. This apparently was the final straw and the next day in Parliament there were severe probing questions asked about “what exactly is the Government’s agenda in this respect?”. Of course they were all extremely vague. Nevertheless the Police launched a raid and took away thousands of papers. Then a senior Policeman was arrested and charged with “misconduct in public office”. It turned out that he had been leaking details of all the Police operations to fellow Party members so they were all well aware of what was happening. Now of course Society had had enough. There were all these arrests and all these charges. I remember saying to someone “it’s high time that all this inflammatory language was addressed and people were dealt with for stirring it all up”. Someone said “yes but that means that there would be an independent Ireland in five years” to which I replied “does it really matter?”. The fellow shook his head and said “not really, I suppose”

And if they ever do introduce a law to outlaw the kind of outlandish and incendiary rhetoric that comes from the mouths of some of these politicians, mainly of one particular shade of opinion, I for one what be most impressed. How I yearn for the dignity of politicians like Gaitskell and MacMillan rather than the rabble that seem to have been in power in several countries of the World

The nurse and I had a good chat this morning and on leaving gave me a list of supplies that she thinks we might need in the near future. She also gave me the Injection of the Last Resort, which I’m now to have twice per week instead of once. This is becoming serious too.

After she left, I went and had breakfast, having sent the shopping list to my faithful cleaner “for action” while she’s in town this morning.

Much of the day has been spent on radio stuff. I’ve now finished editing all of the stuff that I dictated the other night, all programmes are assembled and as for the last one, the final music has been chosen and the text written ready for dictating.

And then I’ve been writing out some notes for the next one. I’m still boldly going forwards, but to what end I haven’t really a clue.

We had the food delivery, as I mentioned. And that was a dismal failure that didn’t fulfil the purpose of activating my bank card. But at least I now know that the “tap” function of my Belgian card works, after today’s efforts.

But thinking about the different bank cards reminded me of that time at that Motel in Maine (or was it New Hampshire?) in 2017 when they wanted to check my identity, and so we had –

  • British passport
  • French driving licence
  • Belgian bank card
  • My vehicle, Strider with his New Brunswick licence plates
  • Québec mobile ‘phone

Yes, that would confuse the badgers.

Those were the days when I was an International Man of Mystery. Look how far the mighty have fallen now.

While my cleaner was here doing her stuff I was doing the radio stuff and going through the Post. And to add to the confusion, I have been “summoned to attend” the Centre de Re-education at 10:30 in the forenoon on 3rd September. “Do not pass ‘Go’ and do not collect £200”.

What do they want, I wonder. We shall find out, I suppose, if I remember to go. but I need to ‘phone them for a taxi voucher as I need one to take me there (and bring me back).

But whichever way you look at it, things are hotting up here and at this rate I’ll be out somewhere every day if I’m not careful. Those of you who think that I need to go out more often won’t be disappointed.

After the cleaner left I baked a loaf as I was running out of bread. And this one rose like a lift as well and looks really good. I was really impressed with how it came out.

While it was baking I baked some potatoes and so I had my Saturday Quorn fillet tonight instead. I know that it’s only a small oven and it doesn’t take much to fill it, but nevertheless I should still be filling it as often as I can.

And then washing up, next think I remember is being on the floor on my back surrounded by bottles, cans and jars. Backwards into the storage shelves, I reckon. Don’t ask me how.

Like that on the floor, I could just about make it to “on my knees” and that’s the limit of my muscular strength. I can’t raise myself any higher than that.

And so I waddled on my knees across the apartment and on the count of “three”, “three being the number of the counting and the number of the counting being three. Five is right out”, I threw my upper body onto the sofa.

One by one, I pulled my legs up behind me and then with a bit of manoeuvring I could sit on the sofa. Lifting myself up I could slide a box underneath so I was sitting higher, and then onto the arm of the sofa, and then I could stand up with a bit of effort.

20 minutes it took me. What a state to be in. A year ago I could stand upright from a kneeling position but there’s no chance of that these days.

It reminds me of the time that Neil Kinnock, Leader of the Opposition, was walking through the Public Gallery on his way out of the House of Commons.
There was obviously something important going on and the Lord Tipstaff of the House of Commons, resplendent in robe and wig, was chasing after him.
Catching sight of him down the far end of the corridor the Lord Tipstaff shouted "Neil!" at the top of his voice.
And all the American tourists present knelt.

0

Thursday 27th June 2024 – JUST FOR A …

… change, especially given how things have been just recently, I’ve actually had a day at home.

The word “quiet” was going to figure in there somewhere but Hurricane Cleaner has blown through here on a couple of occasions leaving a wake of desolation in her trail, and that has blown away any cobwebs that were hanging around anywhere.

But at least I now have some brazil nuts. She actually managed to find them in the loose “weigh it yourself” products in LeClerc. But what a price! Cheaper than ordering them on-line when the postage is taken into account, but nevertheless …

And nevertheless, last night was yet another in a long, long line of late nights. Robinson Crusoe may well have been the inventor of the five-day week, with all of his work being finished by Friday, but I wish that I could invent something that would finish all of my work by 22:30. Wouldn’t that be nice?

But once again, once in bed I didn’t need much rocking and ended up with another one of these really deep sleeps. One where I don’t move a muscle for the entire night, and how rare is that?

In fact, looking at the miserable collection of dreams that I’ve been having and all of these really deep sleeps, has someone slipped a sleeping pill in amongst all of this medication?

There better hadn’t be. The only fun that I have these days takes place during the hours of darkness when I’m off on a nocturnal ramble and I’d hate all of that to be suppressed.

Just imagine not ever getting into mischief, being up to no good, and not having close encounters of the third kind with Zero, TOTGA and Castor. Things are bad enough as they are without losing all of that.

When the alarm went off I staggered out of bed and wandered off to the bathroom for a wash and brush up. Then back in here I transcribed the dictaphone notes from the night, such wretched affairs that they were. There was a girl in the sick bay reading something like “Pride and Prejudice” with a portable lamp to light up what she was doing and a hair dryer working to keep her warm. She was tucked up in bed like that. The Inspecting Officer who happened to come by the hospital at one particular moment caught her at it. There was going to be absolutely a fearful row. He confiscated the hurricane lamp but it didn’t make any difference and she continued to read.

That was the best that I could do, and it doesn’t have any significance as far as I’m concerned. Living as we did in the wilds of rural Flintshire, Shropshire and Cheshire in the 1950s before the widespread introduction of electricity, we had a hurricane lamp, an old pump-action Tilley lamp that was real fun to work when you were a small child. I wouldn’t have liked to have taken it to bed though as it fizzled and popped away. However, the Tilley lamp and the “Aladdin” paraffin stove for heat on which you could boil a kettle or even some food in a saucepan if you were desperate were our friends when there was one of the frequent power cuts when we were small.

When the nurse came I asked her if she’s enjoyed her swim. She’d been to see “Coldplay” in Lyon at the weekend but the Saturday performance was devastated by a flood. However, her tickets were for Sunday so she was safe.

She told me how much she enjoyed it as she sorted out my legs. For a change we had quite a chat. She mustn’t be busy today.

After she left I made myself breakfast and by the time that I’d finished I was surprised to see that it was 10:00. That chat must have gone on longer than I thought.

Most of the day has been spent editing the radio notes that I dictated the other day. Two more radio programmes have now been completed and I would have finished the last one of the backlog that I dictated had I not wandered off a couple of times with the fairies.

You’ve no idea – or maybe you have, I dunno – how fed up I am of all of this crashing out all over the place. I would give all that I own, and much more besides, to be able to keep on going for 16 hours every day without falling asleep. It’s really going beyond a joke

However, it’s not all doom and gloom, during one of my spells of being away with the aforementioned, I actually went off on a little voyage. While I was asleep in the afternoon there was all kinds of stuff about flowers, the beautiful snapdragon types and that kind of thing. And then I was walking through someone’s garden but it was all fenced in and I couldn’t find my way out. I eventually came across a sign that said “we operate an ‘open door policy’ and by the sign I eventually find a well-disguised type of door that I could open and this took me to a little path that led to the road. The owners of this garden, two women, were in the neighbouring one doing some weeding and I was worried in case they saw me, but they seemed to take no notice of me;

Now that’s more like the kind of dream that I used to have. It was much more picturesque and I actually felt involved deeply in it rather than just having some kind of passing interest. I really need a few more dreams like this.

As I mentioned earlier, the cleaner came by a couple of times.

Firstly, she brought some stuff that the nurse wanted. Later she came past with some stuff that had been ordered earlier from the Chemist’s which had now been delivered.

Finally she came in waving a brown paper bag. “Peace In Our Time” I immediately thought, remembering a famous photograph, but it was actually a bag of brazil nuts.

They are an essential ingredient in some of my baking. Their selenium content is very important so I grind them up in my whizzer and add them to my fruit buns and flapjacks, that kind of thing. I’d run out of my stock and couldn’t find any more so I asked my cleaner to keep an eye open for some.

And now, we’re back in business, and that’s good news. I shall just have to go and lie down in a darkened room when she gives me the bill for the month.

She also came up with an idea about my bank card. One of the smaller supermarkets which she uses has a “home delivery” service where you pay for your goods when they are delivered. The guy brings his card reader to your door.

With it being the end of the month, she needs a lot of stuff delivering so she’s going to arrange to have it delivered to me, I’ll pay with my card which should then activate it and she’ll knock the total off her bill.

That seems like a very eminently suitable solution, but it’s too simple to actually work. We’re bound to encounter a pitfall somewhere along the way "The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley an’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain for promis’d joy" as Robbie Burns was apt to say at moments like this.

Tea tonight was one of the best of a long line of good meals. Steamed vegetables and falafel balls smothered in a nice vegan cheese sauce. Just one of the many meals that I could eat time and time again, with the broccoli and sprouts cooked to perfection.

But now for once I’m going to try to go to bed early.

But this story about the home delivery reminds me of one of my many visits to one of the hundreds of hospitals that I’ve visited over the past few years.
As I was wheeled past one bed I heard a patient mutter "The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley an’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain for promis’d joy"
At the next bed, that patient was muttering "O, wad some Power the giftie gie us to see oursels as others see us"
At a third bed a patient was muttering "Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie, O, what a panic’s in thy breastie! "
"What is this place?" I asked. "The lunatic asylum?"
"No" replied the attendant. "It’s the Burns Unit"

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Wednesday 26th June 2024 – WE HAVEN’T FINISHED …

.. yet – not by a long way.

Two more appointments to add to the list of liaisons, two more pills to add to the mountain of medication. My poor cleaner is running her socks off to help me up the stairs here and going to the chemist’s on my behalf. As she put it so succinctly – "I spend more time here than I do in my apartment. I may as well move in here."

Nothing is guaranteed to make me recover quicker than a threat like that. I value my independence and, strangely, my solitude. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I just wasn’t cut out to live with anyone else.

Poor Nerina, Laurence (and Roxanne), Marianne and Cécile. They all tried, bless them …

It seems to be the thing that I can’t even live with myself these days either. Once again it was late when I crawled into my lovely bed, and that was that.

Totally and definitively too. I don’t think that I moved a muscle and depressingly, there was nothing on the dictaphone to break the monotony.

When the alarm rang I was confused again but managed to work it out in enough time to beat the second alarm five minutes later. In the meantime I had hauled myself off into the bathroom to sort myself out and find some clean clothes.

The nurse doesn’t come for an hour or thereabouts so I had to loiter around doing a few bits and pieces until he put his sooty foot through the door.

For a change just recently he was quite chatty and told me several stories about life in the town, including the story of the “Aryan” posters being posted by the Fascists in the area.

After he left I made myself breakfast.

Much of the rest of the day has been spent organising the paperwork. There were several bills to pay, and thank heaven that much (but not all) of French administration has gone onto “payment on line”.

But how they have set it up is crazy. They have indexed everything under the file number of the bill, which means that if you have three bills to pay, you need to log in and go through the procedure from start to finish for each bill.

What they should have done is to register the bills under a person’s identity, like his social security number. Just log in once, “how much do I owe in total?” and one payment would clear the bill.

Next step was mail and letter writing, trying to catch up with where I left off with piles of outstanding correspondence.

Halfway through I came across my Tax Return which is now several weeks late. And so I’ve been collecting information for that too. Not that I’ll owe very much at all but one has to go through the motions

The cleaner came round as usual this afternoon and whisked her way through the premises. It now looks as if someone lives here, which is probably not a good idea. I’d have to fight off callers.

The taxi turned up early for me and I was dropped off at the medical centre in plenty of time. However, the driver insisted on accompanying me upstairs to the waiting room.

That was a shame because I wanted to go to the supermarket on the corner. I don’t know if I’ve explained the issue about my new bank card – how it has to be authenticated by making a shop purchase with the PIN. That should have been my chance just then

The vehicles that we use are chartered to take you from “X” to “Y” and so if it says “third floor, Pole Santé du Port then “third floor, Pole Santé du Port” it is, direct and in a straight line, with no turning, no deviation, no passing “Go” and no collecting £200.

It’s a question of Insurance, so I’m told. And having worked for an Insurance Company straight from leaving school, I can believe it.

Emilie the cute consultant’s sidekick was not pleased with my lack of progress and neither am I. Of the weight that I lost while I was in hospital, half of it has gone back – in a week!

Consequently he’s upped the dose of the diuretic that I take. I’m not convinced that it’s doing me much good but we shall have to see.

While I was there he gave me two appointments for August. How many is this now? And August already? Would you believe it. Time is melting away.

While I was there I asked him if he had a card machine so that I could pay for this consultation with my card and unlock it that way. But “No”. All of his clients are Social Security cases like me So “bang” goes that idea too.

The third idea was a “no-no” too because the driver came up to the waiting room for me so I couldn’t nip out to the shop on the corner even now.

And then the battery in the ‘phone was flat so that I couldn’t ring my cleaner to say that I was coming back. We had to ring her doorbell to attract her.

She seemed to think that my ascent as a little easier than yesterday. All that I can say is that it must have been bad.

But in here the two of us sorted out the medication (resurrecting a long-suppressed medication! What a surprise!) and sorting out the appointments.

Then teatime – a leftover curry lengthened with potato and peanuts and accompanied by rice and naan bread. As usual, absolutely delicious yet again

But right now, I’m off to bed for what’s left of the night, and to wonder how I’m going to fit all of these appointments in.

It was so much easier when I was with Nerina. I was once called in as a result of a blood test and the doctor gave me a thorough going over.
He telephoned Nerina the following day to ask to speak to her so she went in to see him.
"How is Eric?" Asked Nerina. "Is he going to be OK?"
"Eric is suffering from severe nervous strain and overwork." said the doctor. "He’ll be fine but only if you follow these rules very carefully. Let him put his feet up at home, feed him breakfast in bed every morning and cook him light meals three times per day. Gently tuck him up in bed and pander to his every whim"
So Nerina went back home and I asked her "what did the doctor say?"
She looked at me and said "I’m terribly sorry but I’m afraid you’re going to die."

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Tuesday 25th June 2024 – SO IT’S OFFICIAL.

The anaesthetist “wants to see me” and has set aside 16:45 on Wednesday 3rd July for the purpose.

And then the operation will take place on 16th July. I shall be there overnight because given my opinions of hospital, operations, blood and gore as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have elected for the “General anaesthetic” rather than the local anaesthetic.

There’s no way in this World that I’ll be lying there watching a local anaesthetic slowly wear off and catching sight of what is going on.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall my adventures in Castle Anthrax a few years ago where they turned up unannounced in my room, whisked me and my bed off to the cellar clamped a gas mask over my face, said “smell this” and the next thing that I knew, it was four hours later and I’d had a surgical operation.

Even today, I still don’t know what they did, and that suits me fine. If all operations went like that, I’d have more of them. But this modern 21st-Century society where I have to be informed of each step and each procedure in graphic detail and formally agree to them.
"But it’s your right!" they wail.
But what about MY right not to want to know? No-one cares about my rights.

As long as the operation is in the morning. TNS are playing in the Champions’ League that evening. That time in Castle Anthrax I missed Newtown v Caernarfon

Meanwhile, abandoning another good rant for the moment, last night was again horribly late by the time that I went to bed. I just don’t seem to be able to make the time go any slower

Yes, when we were kids, our six weeks of summer holiday used to last for ever. Now six weeks goes in the blinking of an eye.

And once in bed, I didn’t need much rocking yet again. It’s lovely and warm and comfortable in there, just me and STRAWBERRY MOOSE tucked up tight.

Not so comfortable that I didn’t awaken before the alarm went off. When I awoke at about 06:00 I made some kind of comment and I’m certain that I had some kind of reply from someone sleeping in the next bed about life in the RAF. Of course, then then kind of thing evaporated and I realised that it really was 06:30 and I really was awake in my own bed with my own things

And that was weird too. It really did sound as if there was someone else in the room. And it wasn’t His Nibs either. If only he could talk, he would have a few tales that he could tell that would be worth a good few bob to anyone who might be interested.

He could tell me a few tales too of when he’s been let loose on his own in the company of ladies of the opposite sex.

But returning to the dream, I’ve no idea what was happening there.

I also have a vague impression of walking through Shavington en route for somewhere else, just using one crutch and feeling quite confident about it too

If only I could walk with one crutch. I used to be able to do that up until about 9 months ago but how my mobility has reduced over that period of time. There are times when I’m hard-pushed to walk with two these days.

Just to prove that I can do it when I really try, I pushed myself out of bed before the alarm went off. Only by five minutes, it has to be said, but five minutes is five minutes and they all count.

After a good wash and scrub up I loitered around for a while transcribing the dictaphone (such as they were) until the nurse came round.

When he arrived I told him about the prescription to which he readily agreed, and then he cleared off without writing one out. I hope that he does it back at the office and drops it off in the morning.

Once he’d finally gone I made breakfast – porridge and toast with orange juice and strong coffee. And believe me, I needed it.

There wasn’t much time to revise or review my Welsh before the lesson started, and having missed a week, Bane of Britain revised the wrong module. But it makes no difference because I’m rubbish whether I revise or not.

And having given the matter serious thought, as well as studying next year as normal, I’m definitely going to retake this year in an evening class with another provider because I’ve missed so much of it with hospital and all of that, and I don’t want to embarrass Coleg Cambria by doing it with them.

The difficulty is finding a provider who offers “North Welsh”.

For the southern dialect there are more courses than you can shake a stick at. It’s not too much of a problem because my grandmother came from down south even though she lived most of her life up in the north-east so I’m used to hearing both dialects. But I’m definitely a “North-id”. Bangor University is affiliated to the “LearnWelsh” programme so they might have something.

After the end of the lesson, when we all went our separate ways for the summer holidays, I changed the habits of a lifetime and had a sandwich seeing as I won’t be having my mid-afternoon snack.

And then I made myself ready for my trip to Avranches.

The trip down there was the first time that I’d felt tired? but I soon livened up when I couldn’t get out of my chair and everyone in the building had to rally round and help. Fancy a hospital waiting room with no arms on their chairs!

Anyway, the surgeon played ball, which was nice. He understood my fears, mumbled his way through what he was supposed to say, didn’t say anything else and asked if I agreed with what he’d just said.

How could I do anything else?

Next step will be the anaesthetist. He wants to “see me” – I suppose, in the same way that the executioner looks over the condemned man. I’m already feeling rather uncomfortable and we haven’t started yet.

We had a full car going home – it seems as if we went to every medical establishment in Avranches on some sort of Cook’s Tour to pick up everyone heading to this neck of the woods.

Back here I was first out, and my faithful cleaner helped me up the steps, standing behind me lifting up my foot with hers.

This can’t go on much longer. I don’t have the force to keep on dragging myself up the handrail, and neither does she, I suspect. I can only see an unpleasant future of doom and gloom if this carries on. And if I have dialysis, I’ll be doing it three times per week at least.

Once I was home I sat down – and crashed out. I was dead to the World.

Only 20 minutes late starting tea. At least it was taco roll with rice so it didn’t need much preparation.

As for me, neither do I. I’ll be in bed before you know it and there I intend to stay until my name changes to Rip van Epic. I am totally wasted after this afternoon – and I have to do it tomorrow too. That’s when I go to see Emilie the cute consultant’s sidekick.

But as I said, I’m off to bed to reflect on the events of the day and mull over the words of the surgeon – at least, the words that I understood.
"I’ve listened to you for fifteen minutes" I told him "but I’m still none-the-wiser"
"Maybe not" he replied "but you’re certainly better-informed."

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