Category Archives: France

Sunday 23rd July 2023 – I WAS HOPING …

… to have had a really good night’s sleep last night.

Just by way of a change, I was in bed shortly after midnight and although it took me an age to go to sleep it was about 10:00 or so when I finally awoke.

And I didn’t leave the bed straight away either. It was more like 11:00 when my feet finally saw the light of day.

What was really, really depressing though was that despite all of that, I still couldn’t go beyond 14:00 without crashing out. Not just for 5 minutes either but for quite a considerable while. I could understand it if I’d had a bad night or if I’d actually done something to merit it.

What I have done during the day, when I’ve been awake, is to prepare another radio programme. I’d dictated the text last night before going to bed so this afternoon I edited it and assembled everything. That’s really just about everything.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone as well. Not much, so it must have been a good night from a sleep point of view. I was with a group of people. We were all in a bedroom somewhere in a big country house. We were having a good look round to see what was happening and found that we were actually in bed in a row of cots like small babies would be. Of course we couldn’t work out what was happening. Someone suggested that we wait until everything became clear and people begin to come down to see us and tell us what is happening.

There was also some kind of building project going on. I’d been asked to address people about the history of the area. They found me a place to stand and talk but it was from a window or demolished part of a house on the first floor on the corner with all the workmen working a little further down the street. I had to climb up a scaffolding to stand on the corner to address the crowd but when I stood there the floor gave way underneath me. I fell down to the ground level. I wasn’t hurt so I pretended that it was a joke or something and climbed back up the scaffolding. I began to address them but no-one could hear me over the noise. I had to look around to see if there was another place where I could stand that might possibly be a little better. There was a place on the opposite corner where I’d actually be on the street. We were thinking about maybe I could go to stand there but that wasn’t idea either.

Tea was another vegan pizza – just as good as usual.

So after yet another in a long line of dismal days, I’m going to bed. There are no plans at all for next week so I’m hoping that I can have a good crack at Canada 2017.

That is, if I can manage to stay awake long enough.

Saturday 22nd July 2023 – AS YOU MIGHT …

… expect, I’ve spent much of the afternoon asleep. Going to the shops this morning was, once again, far too much for me.

It might have helped if I’d had a decent night’s sleep but apart from going to bed later than I would have liked, I had to get up in the middle of the night for a reason that anyone of my age would tell you.

A few years ago that was quite a normal thing, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but I thought that I’d put it all behind me a long time ago.

When the alarm went off I was deep in the Arms of Morpheus and I had a struggle to leave my stinking pit before the second alarm.

But once I’d organised myself (which takes much longer these days than it ought) Caliburn and I headed out to the shops.

There was a parking space at the front of Noz so I could go there without a struggle. Mind you, I needn’t have bothered because there wasn’t anything interesting. I bought a couple more of those breadcrumbed quorn fillets and a couple more packets of digestives. I think that I have all of those now.

LeClerc didn’t come up with anything out of the ordinary. There was some falafel on offer, 350 grammes for €3:09 so I bought a box of those for the freezer seeing as the stocks are running down.

Back here I had my cheese on toast for brunch and then ended up yet again with another mug of very cold coffee after several hours flat out on the chair in the office.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from the night. There were some people outside a courtroom who had some kind of tube with a candle in it. The idea was that as they took a brick out of the wall of this building and pushed this tube with a candle through the home they could somehow hear the proceedings of what was going on on the inside. They managed to remove the brick by putting 2 screws in it, twisting it round and pulling and then inserted the tube. It went into the room and was disguised by a window shutter on the inside that was folded back. There was me and someone else in there being tried for something or other. In all probability we were going to be found guilty. The penalty for this was death, which we knew very well Many people thought that we might just be transported but we were convinced that we were going to die. The one guy with me had some plans of his own and I also had some plans. I was going to have a way to sneak out of this prison one night before we would be moved away. I ended up at my friend’s in the Bourgogne on New Years Eve. He, his wife and I had a little party. He brought me a few items of food that he’d made himself and we were settling down to have a really nice evening. After everyone went to bed I took the opportunity to take his car and drive off and disappear, hopefully making good my escape.

Later on I had to go into work. As my brother was around I brought him with me. There was a group of us who were going. We reached the Place Madou. I explained to him that it was extremely complicated to manoeuvre around here and it’ll be even worse on the way back because of the one-way system against us. We crossed over the road and I had to look for the side street. Some of the people with me went off down the side street without any problem. For some reason I had a mental blank and couldn’t think where the side street was. I tried 3 or 4 back entries to shops etc. Suddenly I remembered where it was. I shouted at my brother to come but he was too busy looking himself. He wouldn’t come for a minute. In the end I started to go and he began to follow me. We bumped into our friends again who were waiting for us around the corner wondering what on earth had been the matter and what had been going on with us.

I was also on the radio last night. We’d been doing a series of programmes. One of them was about different pet foods. It turned out that the pet food we recommended was being run down. You couldn’t find it any more in the shops. I went to a grocer’s to try to find it. There was also something to do with someone asking why were we advertising events so far away when we don’t tell anyone anything about things in the area. I answered that that’s because people in the area don’t tell us about their events. Someone asked about a special offer for soup that was available at the local supermarket. I was in the supermarket at the time so we had a look around and found the offer but it had expired 2 years ago. There was a woman working in the supermarket who worked for the radio who I asked to do something. I gave her the information to collate but she was just sitting there at her desk not doing anything. She told me that she was waiting for bits and pieces but I couldn’t understand that because she didn’t actually need anything. I’d given her everything that she needed and I was beginning to become extremely frustrated by all of this

Rosemary rang me up too and we had another one of our mega-chats. It’s been a while since we have had a good chat. It’s quite funny really. We can talk for hours on the telephone but we don’t actually say all that much.

There wasn’t much time to spend on my trip to Canada. I managed to write some stuff but once more I was side-tracked. In 1848 Bishop Feild (and that’s not a spelling mistake) of St John’s in Newfoundland decided to go to visit the coasts of Labrador.

There’s no record that I can find of a priest having visited there before and it was really only about 20 years or so after the first settlers had made their home there. He kept a diary of his visit, which is really probably the earliest erudite account of “liveyer” or settler life out on the Labrador coast, and I managed to track down a copy of it.

Consequently I’ve been immersed in its pages. It’s full of all kinds of interesting anecdotes, including reports of the first marriage ceremonies carried out on the Labrador coast.

“Nine couples were married, and one couple rejected, because the man, as it appeared, had lived with another woman, whom he had deserted, or turned off… He is an Englishman from Devonshire—no credit, I fear, to his country or Church.”.

Tea was one of the breaded quorn fillets with chips and salad, delicious as ever and properly cooked too.

So seeing as I’m exhausted I’m going to dictate the radio notes now that it’s quiet, and I’ll sleep until I awaken. There’s nothing to do tomorrow so if necessary I can even catch up with my beauty sleep. And having looked in the mirror just recently, I certainly need it.

Firday 21st July 2023 – I MADE IT …

… back from town this morning.

Actually, going down into town was the easy bit because I went on the bus.

Mind you, I nearly didn’t because just as I was stepping out of the front door I realised that I’d forgotten half of the paperwork that I needed so I had to come back.

These days I can’t move very quickly at all so I was afraid that I’d miss the bus. But luckily I managed to stagger aboard just before she pulled away.

Something else that might have made me miss it was another miserable night. What with the football and everything it was long after midnight when I went to bed and it took me an absolute age to go off to sleep.

Once again, I was up and on my feet before the alarm went off, and after I’d had my medication and checked my mails and messages, I went and had a shower to make myself smell nice.

Before leaving for the bus I put the washing machine on the go so that at least I’d have some clean clothes for when I came back. I’m running out of clothes at the moment.

At the Carrefour I forgot the cherry tomatoes but I remembered everything else, and then wandered off to the Post Office to post a couple of letters, one of which was the demand for a disabled parking badge, and to pick up a registered letter.

At the chemist’s the staff were fighting over serving me and I ended up with the girl who lost the bout. She gave me the Aranesp, which cost an arm and a leg as usual, and then I set off for home.

The walk back was agony. It really was. It took me an age and I was exhausted by the time I returned. I had my cheese on toast but regrettably fell asleep almost immediately.

It’s no fun waking up to a cold mug of coffee. I’ve no idea how long I was asleep but it wasn’t five minutes – I’ll tell you that for nothing. It felt like an eternity and at one point I really was contemplating the idea of going to bed.

Anyway, instead I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I was during the night. I was with a friend of mine. We’d gone to some kind of sports hall place to do a job. As we left Crewe to join the motorway there was a policewoman at the top of the motorway exit watching the drivers join the motorway. She shouted “drive safely, watch your speed limits and don’t speed”, something like that. Of course my friend immediately shouted back some kind of comment as he would about “what do you mean? I’m not going fast. What are you saying? What are you implying?”. Of course I could see exactly where this is going so I said “come on mate, let’s get to work” but he still wanted to pick a fight with this policewoman. In the end I managed to organise him and I apologised to the policewoman. The last thing I wanted was for her to chase us down the motorway. So we did what we were doing and it worked quite well. There was a roulette table and a few one-armed bandit things there. He looked at his watch and said “we can spend an hour here and have a play on that”. I’d put all the money safe so I didn’t want to go bringing it out again. I should have put my possessions into some kind of safe but I didn’t fancy the idea of it because there was no lock. Everyone could go in and take the stuff so I kept them on me. I really wanted to go home but he was dead set on staying here wasting his money so I suppose we’ll have to. But I hope that he really is only going to be here for a short while and not spin it out for the rest of the night. I could see that happening quite easily.

Later on there was another group of us who had been out for a walk. I’d ended up with a man and a woman who might have been some friends of mine, I dunno. We met an American couple. The woman-friend of mine had gone off to do something so we were just wandering around when the American couple appeared. They asked if we knew where a certain café was. My friend thought that it was the one around the corner from where we were standing although I thought that it was the one where we had been earlier in the day. We went round the corner to this one and could see that it was a really expensive place. There was nothing special about it. The guy said “let’s walk up to some place or other at the end of the track”. I asked “what about your wife?”. There didn’t seem to be much of a reply. Off we set. It was slowly going dark. We reached the end which was by the water. There was a girl there. For some reason I was asked to take a photo of her so that she could be put on a poster. I had the little Nikon and went to take a photo but for some reason the camera wouldn’t take the photo. It might possibly have been too dark. I took the big Nikon which doesn’t need the light so much and I positioned this girl in the street light at a table in the café so that the light would fall on her to give the best possible view, went to take the camera but found that the battery was flat. This American couple had a bit of a moan to me about all my things etc.

Later on I spent some time back in Canada. I’ve left Cartwright and I’m heading down the Métis Trail back towards the Trans Labrador Highway.

The area around Cartwright and Sandwich Bay in particular is populated by the Métis.

When the early European traders came out here in the 18th and early 19th Century, those employees who opted to stay usually took a native wife, sometimes an Innu but mainly an Inuit. Their descendants are known as Métis

Almost everyone out on the coast is descended from probably about 20 distinct families and it’s interesting to read the Censuses of 100 or so years ago. Each cove or sheltered bay would have its own “family” who would work the salmon fishing, the cod fishing and then go off into the interior trapping during the winter.

Even more strangely, suddenly you’ll find that in a certain location there might be a different family than in the previous Census. Almost inevitably, one family might just have daughters. When she married, she would stay at home and bring her husband to her, and he would inherit his father-in-law’s cove and trap lines

Every now and again you’ll come across a French name – Michelin being one of the most common. For a while there was a trading firm from Montreal – Revillon Frères – out here on the Labrador coast trying to establish a foothold against the Hudson’s Bay Company.

There were also a few merchants from the Channel Islands who tried to establish themselves here but a big bank crash in Jersey in 1873 wiped them out.

The Métis did not have any rights at all until the 1980s. Being the children of native women they were never recognised as Europeans by Law according to the European settlers, and because they were the children of European men, they never acquired the rights of native indigenous people. It wasn’t until Section 35 of the Constitution Act was amended in 1982 that the Métis became recognized as one of Canada’s three Aboriginal peoples and began to receive their rights.

Tea tonight was falafel, chips and salad. Quite delicious but it’s given me stomach ache and I don’t know why.

But now I’m off to bed for a good night’s sleep ready to fight the good fight around the shops tomorrow. But before I go, I’ll leave you with the HIGHLIGHTS OF LAST NIGHT’S FOOTBALL. I hope that you enjoy them as much as everyone else seems to have done.

Thursday 20th July 2023 – ZAK JONES DOES IT AGAIN

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few weeks ago at the end of the football season New Zealand International goalkeeper performed heroics in the Hwlffordd goal to drag his team from 7th place in the league all the way through the playoffs and into European competition.

Last week away in North Macedonia his young, unfancied part-time side lost narrowly, 1-0 to a team, KF Shkendija that contained no fewer than 5 international players

Tonight we had the return leg in Wales and with just a couple of minutes to go and Hwlffordd on the verge of going out, centre-half Lee Jenkins, pushed up into attack got his foot onto the end of a cross and poked the ball into the net.

So we had 22 very tired players playing 30 minutes of inconclusive extra time which led to a penalty shootout to decide who will go through to the second round and a trip to the Faroe islands.

So up stepped Zak Jones.

I forget now how many penalties he saved in the play-off matches during the penalty shootouts (and the one in open play) but however many it was, he can add two more to his list from tonight, one with his hands and another with his feet.

Consequently, the team managed by former Hull City coach Tony Pennock and led on the field by Welsh International Jazz Richards and who were written off by almost everyone before the European matches started now progress to Round Two

Every single one of them played like lions tonight.

As for me, I was more like a lamb this morning. I’ve no idea what it was that awoke me but once again I was up and about (well, sort-of) before the alarm went off.

Once more, I took quite a while to bring myself into the Land of the Living but my reverie was interrupted by a ‘phone call.

And the good news about this is that I have an appointment at this mega-hospital in Paris on 30th August at 14:30 where they are goign to try to sort out the nerves in my leg.

It’s only going to be a consultation – I won’t be staying over or anything like that, but it shows that things are moving rapidly. Much more rapidly than I can ever move, that’s for sure.

What with this Re-education place yesterday, I’m not sure whether they are going to do me any good but I’m certainly going to let them have a try.

How I’m actually going to get to the hospital is another question entirely and I spent a while “making enquiries”. These are rather inconclusive right now but something might happen sometime, I suppose.

For the rest of the day I was in Canada and right now I’m back from my sail out to sea and the abandoned settlements and I’m packing up ready to leave Cartwright in a few hours time for my trip down to North West River and another little boat trip.

There was a pause while I transcribed the dictaphone notes. There was something going on in a house last night. About moving or reorganising this property. We had a couple of security cameras filming everything frame by frame on a time-lapse photography thing. We were sitting there watching it and the changes in the season and changes in the weather during the day and how clear the images were at times and how unclear they were at other times.

Then there was some kind of ceremony taking place in a village hall or something like that. A priest was going to be there to bless us. Because I’m a foreigner I was going to be treated specially so I decided that I was going to wear some kind of Bishop’s robes so that I could bless him back. I mentioned it to one of the organisers who was one of my bosses. I knew that they didn’t take it seriously so I didn’t say anything. On the day when the crowds were beginning to assemble I asked someone official who I knew was nothing to do with our part of the event whether he had brought the Bishop’s cloak with him. He looked bewildered and pointed me in the direction of one of my bosses. I wandered over there and asked him. I could see the vacant look on his face as if he hadn’t realised exactly what I was wanting or what I was expecting of him. He took me over to a coat rail with loads of different sorts of clothes on it, wedding dresses etc but there was nothing on it suitable to be turned into a Bishop’s cloak. I knew that full well. My aim was just at that moment to embarrass him. It didn’t really make much difference whether I wore a Bishop’s robe or not – it was just something that I fancied doing.

Finally, we awoke in this car park on our coach next to this ancient, horrible, disreputable saloon of the 1930s or 40s like a Morris E or something. We were going to say something about it but decided that it probably wasn’t a good idea to brag about our own achievements and draw attention to ourselves like this. We tended to ignore it. As more and more people came to join us for breakfast we didn’t mention this vehicle at all which was quite a surprise really. It’s not the kind of vehicle that you see every day these days.

Tea tonight was a rather rushed chili sin carné with the leftovers lengthened with a small tin of kidney beans. And quite delicious too. I’ve really got the hang of making these.

So now that the football is over I’m off to bed, later – much later – than usual. I haven’t crashed out today but I bet that I will tomorrow, especially as I have to go down into town to pick up the Aranesp that I ordered.

That’ll be me done for the rest of the week, I reckon.

Wednesday 19th July 2023 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

… day today that’s best forgotten. In fact, I’m actually so surprised that I’ve accomplished as much as I have.

But start as you mean to go on. I was actually up and about (well, sort-of) before the alarm went off. I’d had such a disturbing dream that it actually awoke me and I ended up sitting bolt-upright.

After the medication and checking my mails and messages it took me a while to come to my senses – after all, I have so few left these days that it takes a while to find them, I suppose.

Anyway, once I was there or thereabouts I pushed on with the medical receipts. It was quite a struggle because there were so many, but eventually they were all done and dusted. Just one more lot to send off but I’ll wait until Friday when I’ll have bought this next month’s batch of Aranesp.

The next thing that needed doing was to fill in this form about my disability. That was a whole rainforest of paperwork that I needed to complete, and as well as that, I had to print off some stuff from the computer, like copies of Identity cards and electricity bills and the like.

But going through these forms, I’m surprised at what I’m entitled to claim. There’s no doubt that the elderly and infirm are much better off here than in the UK.

However, it goes without saying that I’m not claiming for much because I don’t really need it. If I can have a parking pass and a public transport ticket that will suit me fine. My medical expenses are taken care of because I’m classed as long-term permanently seriously ill

Ending up with a pile of paperwork like this, that led to some tidying up in here. And that’s not like me at all, is it? I suppose that I ought to be more focused on things like this but it isn’t easy.

A little later I had a shower, and then while the cleaner was here I organised the music for the next radio programme, paired it all off and then actually wrote out all of the notes. And that took me an age because I fell asleep in the middle of doing it. And fell asleep definitively too.

At some point or other I managed to transcribe the dictaphone notes. There were a couple of people who were being besieged, rather like Murdoch and Lamb (I actually mean Murdoch and Guyler) of the Men From The Ministry. When they began to run away from their hiding place they found that their enemy’s ship was anchored no more than a couple of feet away. They tried to dodge into a building just as the ship opened fire. It practically obliterated the building in which they were trying to hide but they managed to go inside what was left of it. another point-blank broadside brought them back out of the building again and they were obliged to surrender.

There was also a film about 2 guys who were playing cricket. Their team wasn’t particularly good but they were doing really well. There was a break and these 2 guys disappeared and no-one knew where they had gone. The people who ran the club were devastated because they were the only 2 who were doing any good. Then it turned out that someone checked the contents of a dustbin lorry. There had been a film that had taken place there about some dwarf warning the population about the dangers of eating when there were seagulls about. One of the guys missing from this group was a dwarf as well. There were 2 people talking about the perils of being in a boat who resembled 2 of the persons from this group who were missing so speculation was that they’d all been caught out doing something that they shouldn’t be doing and were arrested. They were now having part of their punishment which was to talk out loud on the radio about these things that they shouldn’t do

I was in bed last night really hot and felt the urge to spread myself right out to make the greatest surface possible so that I could transpire better but for some unknown reason I was really worried about disturbing whoever it was who was asleep on the other half of the bed. Eventually after quite a while I realised that there wasn’t anyone asleep there and that I’d just imagined there being someone else there in bed with me at the time

Finally, I’d been staying in an Air B&B somewhere and was due to leave. The final account had been e-mailed to me to pay. Someone looked at it and told me “do you know that you have to pay 11,000 (whatever the local currency is) for your stay in that place? That works out at £2,000 per week”. It was only a single room in a small house. I was astonished by that, so much so that I actually awoke

And after last night’s escapades I managed to have some food tonight. Plenty of stuffing left so I had a taco roll, the one that I should have had last night. I know that my meals are all very samey but they are all very nice regardless.

Tomorrow, with all of my work done, I can finally have a day working on Canada 2017. But as usual, something will be bound to crop up to disturb me. I mustn’t forget to order the Aranesp either. When I go into town on Friday to pick it up I can post all of my letters.

There’s enough there to keep me out of mischief for a while.

Tuesday 18th July 2023 – TONIGHT’S FOOTBALL …

… was a little better than last week’s.

TNS were at home to BK Hacken from Sweden with a two-goal deficit that they needed to overcome.

However, the first half of the game was played just like the match last week with TNS defending on the edge of their own penalty area and letting the Swedes bring the ball to them and the half-time score of 1-0 to Hacken was probably fair enough.

Nevertheless, Craig Harrison must have put something in his team’s half-time cuppa and I wish I knew what it was because I wouldn’t mind some of it myself.

TNS came out for the second half and actually took the game to the Swedes and we had a couple of really long periods where the Swedes were under the cosh.

There was even some panic in the Swedish defence and TNS had a couple of really good chances that they could well have converted.

However, like most Welsh clubs, they ran out of steam and fitness and Hacken scored a second, rather flattering goal in injury time.

If only TNS had played like that for the rest of the two games, and if only they would work on their fitness. Just have a look at any team playing against another team several levels higher. They can usually give a good account for themselves but it’s always the start of each half and the final 15 minutes where it all goes to pieces.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few years ago I interviewed US Granville’s manager for the radio just before their match against Olympique Marseille. I asked him about the phenomenon but he didn’t think much of my thoughts.

And Granville were still 0-0 with 15 minutes to go and conceded 3 goals right at the end of the game to prove my point.

And to prove another point, I still managed to fall asleep at my desk this morning despite having done nothing at all during the day that involved any effort.

And for a change I had a decent night’s sleep, once I’d actually finally managed to drop off.

During the night I didn’t go far either. I was in the office and there was something like a party on but they were all visiting dignitaries, important people being invited. I’d mentioned it to a couple of my friends who said that they’d turn up. By 18:30 when this event was in full swing I was in there waiting for them but they didn’t arrive. I began to become dispirited about this. I went over to the window to look out to see what was going on. There was one of these great big American motorhomes parked up in the street at the side. Someone saw me looking out of the window and made some kind of remark. I said “I was miles away” at the time. They said “we thought that you were admiring that machine”. I said “my brother-in-law from Canada, he was here a few days ago. I showed it to him and told him that that’s what he wants to get for me next time I’m over in Canada”.

I was working for a local coach company driving school buses, that kind of thing. One set of school buses was continuing to run through the Summer for children who were at some kind of camp. I had to take a coach out early one morning to go to the camp. There was no-one on the road when I set out so I was driving much quicker than I would ordinarily have done. There was a car behind me so I just kept on driving at quite a quick speed in this old Ford. I almost came a cropper at a T-junction but luckily one of the roads that fed into it was closed so nothing was coming out of it. But I was really enjoying myself driving this coach quite quickly so early in the morning with nothing about on the roads at all. I was really disappointed when the alarm went off just as I was driving through a deserted village. I must have been flat out at the wheel.

It’s been almost 30 years since I last drove a coach and I must be missing it. My little drive around in an old Ford R114 was quite a happy, cheerful trip out and I was really sorry when the alarm awoke me.

After the mails and medication it took a while for me to sort myself out, especially as I fell asleep at one point, but the ‘phone awoke me.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the nerve specialist in the town seems to have taken me under his wing right now.

In the town in an old hotel is a “Re-education Centre” where people go after they have had a long period of incapacity. Here they re-learn life skills such as walking, talking, all that kind of stuff in order to be let back to live independently in normal life.

They rang me this morning. “Doctor Gervais has sent us a note about you. We need some personal information from you in order to open a file for you”.

So it looks as if they are going to become involved too, and that will be quite useful if they take me in as an outpatient.

And then my neighbour contacted me. Her friends from Québec are over. Would I like to come round to meet them this evening?

The rest of the day has been spent finishing off the scanning of all of these medical receipts and then I started to make the claims out. So far, I’ve just finished my 6th page and I’m not even half-way through. I hope that my insurance will actually pay me back. I could even afford to buy myself a new microwave instead of the death-trap that I have right now.

There was no tea tonight. I’d been up to see my neighbour’s visitors and say “hello” and then I came back down here to watch the football.

Now all of that is done, I’m off to bed. Later than I would have liked but never mind. It can’t be helped. Tomorrow I’ll finish off the receipts and then do some work on the radio. I really need to organise myself so much better than I am right now.

Monday 17th July 2023 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER …

… miserable day today. I’ve spent most of the afternoon flat out fast asleep on the chair in the office.

What’s even worse about this today is that I haven’t actually done anything or been anywhere. I have difficulty understanding why it would be when I’ve been out for a walk, but crashing out definitively like this when nothing at all is going on is even more of a mystery.

The night was rather turbulent though and I spent a lot of time tossing and turning around. When the alarm went off though I was flat out in the Land of Nod, away on a really interesting voyage but as soon as the alarm went off it evaporated completely and I can remember nothing at all about it.

Staggering out of bed I had my medication and then checked my mails and messages until the nurse arrived.

She gave me my injection and after she left I came in here to see what had been going on during the night. I was on some kind of school expedition to the South Pole. I had to tell everyone about it. When I began to talk the first thing that I noticed was that the chair on which I’d been putting my legs had disappeared so I had nowhere for them to be. I had to have a look and someone had moved them across my cabin to somewhere else

Some children had then gone into a maze and had somehow come between a mother bear and her babies. The Mother bear was naturally upset and was advancing towards the children who were retreating but of course coming closer to the bear cubs. In the end someone lifted up the children and put them on top of the maze so that the bear could go past to its baby. When the bear reached its cub it took the cub in its mouth and jumped up on top of the maze to where the children were. Everyone was fearing the worst but the bear was actually quite polite and pleased and made it known that it was really just thanking people for their consideration in getting out of the way.

When I awoke I found that I’d been doing something with an empty house that we’d taken over on behalf of the University. We’d been brushing out the stuff and cleaning it getting ready for an exhibition of the planets. My colleague went and had STRAWBERRY MOOSE involved, his handling was such as to stop him becoming dirty in case he soiled the seats or something. We had to put everyone into hand pumps to have this job finished because the quarry and doesn’t, or things like that. You never knew what was going to happen next.

And if you can make any sense at all out of that final note then please let me know because I can’t understand it at all.

Much of the day has been spent dealing with paperwork.

With having lost my physiotherapist I need to recruit another one so I have to find the prescription. I gave it to the previous guy but wondered if I’d kept a copy.

Despite having a good search around on the computer I couldn’t find one so I started to go through the paperwork in the Medical folder.

There were tons of stuff in there that I really ought to send off in order to claim my expenses, so I started to sort it all out into date order. Once I’d done that (and that took longer than it ought to have done too) I began to scan it in to the computer.

That’s a project that is going to take a while too. There were the usual breaks for my morning coffee and fruit bun (which is delicious by the way) and lunchtime fruit, and then of course I crashed out definitively for several hours

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper – the last one from out of the freezer. And it cooked really well too, 20 minutes at 160°C in the air fryer.

There’s plenty of stuffing left so it may well be another chili sin carné on Wednesday.

With the bedroom looking like a total tip wit al of these papers floating around, I’m going to bed and leaving everything in a mess.

Tomorrow, if I wake up, I’ll be finishing off my scanning and then maybe submitting my claim for reimbursement. I’ve run out of Aranesp too so I mustn’t forgt on Thursday to phone up the chemist and order some more. That’ll mean that I’ll have to go into town on friday and that will probably do me good.

But I’ll worry about that tomorrow. I have enough to worry about right now.

Sunday 16th July 2023 – IF I EVER LAY …

… my hands on whoever rang my doorbell at 07:09 this morning they won’t ever do it again. I can’t even imagine why anyone would want to do that.

There I was, in the middle of an interesting dream too. That’s what was so disappointing about it all.

Even worse, I hadn’t gone to bed until late. After I’d finished my notes I dictated the dictaphone notes for the next radio programme and then loitered around for a while trying to tire myself out. It’s not easy to be tired when you’ve spent most of the afternoon fast asleep.

Regardless of the rude awakening I managed to go back to sleep again and it was a much more realistic and reasonable 10:30 when I finally saw the light of day.

After the medication and checking the mails and messages I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And to my surprise we were going through talking about people and describing people -in Welsh. I was describing someone and somehow I made them to be 500 years old. Someone asked me if that was what I really meant. Then someone rang the doorbell of the apartment so I awoke at that point.

Later on I was with my friend from Holywell in North Wales. We were in a city somewhere. She had a list of places to visit to do various thinks like pay her taxes etc. I took her to a place where she could see every building. I pointed them out to her one by one but she must have been confused. When she saw that the Rates Office was a ruin she had a panic attack. In the end I took hold of her and brought her down to the rates Office. I helped her through the rubble and steps. There was a young guy there who made a few light-hearted comments about his building. My friend began to thaw. I told him that I thought that the building was magnificent but that my wife didn’t like it one bit. I didn’t realise that I’d said it until I said it. I expected her to throw a fit on hearing that but she didn’t. In the end we organised her rate payments for her then I set out to take her to the next building on the list. I thought that if I go with her to all of them it’ll be dome much quicker than her standing on a street corner panicking.

Actually, a similar thing happened to me when I went with Marianne to Rome. She didn’t speak Italian so it made no difference when I referred to her as mia moglia to whoever we met, but I was talking to an Indian guy and forgot myself so much as to mention “My Wife” to him.

And then there was the time that I took my Greek friend to the airport in Brussels. Standing by the gate seeing her off and she was telling me “make sure you eat decent meals” and stuff like that, and a woman standing behind her said to her “that’s right – we have to make sure that our husbands look after themselves when we aren’t there”

She was another lovely girl whom I liked very much and I even went to learn some Greek so that I could speak to her family, but she was another one who had far too much sense to be involved with me

Meanwhile, back at the ran …errr … bed I went back to a ship carrying my duffle bag and a pile of other stuff. I met a girl who was going in the same direction so we walked together for a while. We came to the traffic lights to cross the road into the port. She said that she was just going to run across regardless of traffic. I explained that that was rather a strange thing to do because for a start I was heavily laden down and I wouldn’t be able to cross. We waited for the lights. I told her that they change quickly so we couldn’t dawdle but we crossed with plenty of time to spare and walked down to the docks. We ended up on a cliff top quite high up looking at the sea. There was a large group of us there waiting for the ship. We could see all the way up and down the coast. The tide was well in and the promenade was under water but there was no sign of the ship. She began to organise the passengers. Someone asked “how come you’re doing that,” She said “I’m going to see the Captain about having this job”. They laughed and said that that would be most unlikely. She reminded them that someone had been taken on to do a job simply because he’d enjoyed doing it before he’d been appointed. I said “it seems to be the only qualification around here”. That made everyone laugh. But we were up there on this cliff in the dark. We couldn’t see our ship at all the entire way up and down the coast. We began to wonder what on earth had happened to it

Much of the rest of the day has been spent in a desultory kind of fashion making a radio programme and that’s all now finished, up and running and ready to go sometime at the start of next year.

There was some time off to make some fruit buns. And they actually came out really well which is a nice surprise. I’ve not tasted them yet but I’ll tell you all about them tomorrow.

On the subject of baking, tonight’s pizza was as good as usual. They seem to be doing OK now. The dough in the base didn’t rise quite as high as it has done in the past and that was surprising but it didn’t change the taste at all.

So in a few minutes I’m off to bed. An early night will do me good and tomorrow I can crack on with Canada. I have a whole two weeks to back something out before my next Welsh course and I have to make the most of it.

Saturday 15th July 2023 – I REALLY AM …

… fed up of all this.

By the looks of things, I can’t go anywhere or do anything without suffering for it afterwards. I went to the shops this morning as usual, and then spent most of the afternoon flat out asleep in my chair.

In fact I probably would still be asleep even now had I not had an attack of cramp again in one of my legs. And that was rather a shame because I was having a really good and interesting dream and the moment I awoke it all immediately evaporated and I can’t remember a thing about it.

Plenty of dreams during the night though. By the sound of what was on the dictaphone I was quite busy. I’d been cooking and made a big lentil curry. Afterwards I’d put the mixing bowl in the sink and filled it full of water but there was more waste stuff in there than I anticipated. When I tipped it all out into the sink it blocked the sink. The water level in the sink began to overflow so I had to start to scoop out all the stuff with my hands. There was tons of it. Even then although eventually it began to drain away there was still plenty of it left. I tipped the bowl out to empty it and tipped it into the bin, water waste and all but there was still that much stuff still in the sink that it blocked the sink again. I didn’t notice when I put the bowl back in again. It ended up being on top of what was in the sink. It was all an absolute awful mess. I was even contemplating taking the sink out and fitting a different sink at one time because I was certain that the waste trap would be blocked solid and it was such a difficulty to try to move it.

There was also the story of the English cricket team that played a match in Northern Labrador against some team or other. The Inuit were there watching. After the game the English cricketers moved away. A girl who had been watching found a cap left behind by one of the cricketers. She remembered whose cap it was so she walked all the way to their next destination, found out where they were playing and walked there. In the middle of the innings when there was a pause she walked on the field and gave him back his cap by putting it on his head for him. That excited a great deal of comment from all kinds of different people

I also had a really long rambling dream about going on holiday with a friend of mine. We reached the hotel so I alighted – I was on my crutches. Everyone swarmed off into the building. I had to hobble on behind. They were all sidetracked by all kinds of things going on when they arrived. I lost sight of my friend for the moment so I thought that I’d go to find my room. It was room M something. I had a look and the corridor M was miles away on the ground floor. I set off on my crutches. Some woman said where she was going. She said that she was hoping that someone young and fit would come with me to carry my bag. I apologised and pushed on. I somehow ended up in Canada on the border with the USA chatting to a young girl who was living there working in tourism. It seemed that she came from the USA living in a one-roomed shack on her parents’ property and drove a bus. As it happened I’d just won a bus on eBay, a double-decker. That had been the subject of quite some discussion amongst a lot of people. “Who’d Bought it?” “What were they going to do?” etc. We began to talk and ended up talking about all kinds of things. She found out that I was famous so she was pleased and said that she would tell all her friends. We chatted about life in Canada, life in the USA, about my friend in the USA etc. This was a conversation that went on for hours, another one of these conversations that made me feel really good in a dream. It all ended when I had an attack of cramp in my left leg and awoke.

It seems that most of my really interesting dreams are going to be interrupted by attacks of cramp these days. But at least I managed to remember that one.

To my surprise, I was up before the alarm too. Not by much, but by enough to make it a success. And after the medication, mails and messages I went and had a shower to make myself smell nice.

One of the parking spaces in front of Noz was vacant so I called in there. They had some more of those Chinese things so I bought another bag of them. They aren’t all that exciting but they are different.

There were a few other things in there too, together with some vegan Pesto. They had some a while back so I tried it and it was quite nice. I hope that this batch is as good.

Leclerc didn’t have anything exciting and I was wandering around with the impression that I’d forgotten something important. But I couldn’t think of what it might be so whatever it was, I came home without it.

It only turned out to be a small shopping excursion so I profited by topping up the supplies a little. Plenty of flour and stuff like that now, which is just as well as I have no fruit buns left so I need to make a batch tomorrow.

Back in here with my coffee and cheese on toast, and what ended up being a very, very cold second mug of coffee. Like I said, all this is becoming very depressing and I’m totally fed up of it.

Tea was a breadcrumbed quorn fillet and chips with some very sad salad. I should have checked how it was before going to the shops because it was all well past its sell-by date.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I put the new hard drive in I had issues with the Graphics Card and needed to hunt down some new drivers. At some point during the proceedings my operating system (well, the computer’s – my operating system hasn’t been upgraded for years) must have performed an upgrade because when I went to fire up one of my graphics programs, it wouldn’t run.

Consequently whatever I was planning on doing after tea had to wait while I messed around configuring the Graphics Card and its drivers yet again. I hope that this isn’t going to become a regular feature.

Now that I’ve finished my notes I’ll dictate the stuff for the next radio program. That’s something that I can edit tomorrow.

Not tonight though, Josephine. Today has been one of those days that are better forgotten and the sooner I forget this one the better. I can start again tomorrow by making my fruit buns and see where that takes me. A lie-in will probably do me good but as usual, something will happen to disturb me.

Right now another album that sends me into a fit of depression has come round on the playlist. Arguably one of the greates ever live concerts along with COLOSSEUM LIVE, LIVE DATES by Wishbone Ash, Santana’s “Sight and Sound” (which surprisingly was never made into an album) and ALCHEMY LIVE by Dire Straits has to be LIVE IN THE CITY OF LIGHT.

It always brings me out into a terrible fit of nostalgia and I don’t know why because it doesn’t play any significant part in my life, as many other albums do. Maybe that’s why, I dunno. But sitting here listening to tracks like SOMEONE SOMEWHERE IN SUMMERTIME

“Somewhere there is some place, that one million eyes can’t see
And somewhere there is someone, who can see what I can see”

There certainly is, but they can’t get her arms out of the straightjacket.

Friday 14th July 2023 – MY SAUSAGE BEANS AND CHIPS …

… tonight were absolutely excellent, and cheered me up after another miserable night.

And something rather unusual happened last night. I was in the middle of dictating a dream when suddenly there was silence and I then heard myself snoring. But strangely I was only asleep for about 8 minutes according to the timestamp and in that time I went off on another little ramble

That’s something that has never happened before, as far as I’m aware. I’ve gone back to sleep in the middle of dictating something but usually that has been that for quite a while.

All it all it was rather a mobile night and I was flat out when the alarm went off.

After the medication and checking my mails and messages I had a chat with Liz – the first for a while – and then a listen to the dictaphone to unravel my voyages of the night. It was school holidays so we’d all gone down to Kent. We were in the sea just a little way offshore and there was a girl there but I can’t remember any more about it.

We were then discussing the football. In one of these second legs one team had changed its entire back line and gone with a completely different set of defenders and midfielders. While we were discussing it we learned that one of the football managers who’d been on the park a couple of days earlier had died during the night but we didn’t get round to working out which one it was

There was a group of us who had been to Shrewsbury for something, a concert or whatever. We’d met some Ukrainian refugees. At the end we said goodbye to everyone and set out to walk back to London. I was in charge, showing the way. At one point I took the wrong turning at a roundabout and found that we were going back towards the town centre. We had to turn round and walk back the way we’d just come, re-join our tracks and carry on out of the city into the countryside. As we were doing that a couple of people from our party disappeared. We found them in a restaurant on the side of the street where one of these refugee people was with his family. We had a lengthy chat with them. Just as we were leaving the woman took us aside to ask how many there were of us. She counted and there were 7. She said that it’s because her husband and her friend wanted to buy us all a present. We thought that was strange because we hardly knew them but she was completely adamant about it.

At some point in the proceedings my brother was involved. I had to take something to a town in Scotland in the car. The guy told me where to go but when I arrived there was no-one around. A couple of minutes later he rang me again to ask where I was. I told him that I’d been there but didn’t see anyone. I was sitting in the side of this street for quite a while. In the end he agreed to come to find me where I was. he said something about a red engine but what I had in the back of my van was certainly not a red engine. I wondered if I had the correct thing. There was something in this town that I had to take away. I said to my brother “if I end up not dropping off this engine I’ll need someone else to take away this other thing”. He said that he’d do it for the petrol money. I told him to mark down his mileage. Then I had to sit and wait for this person to turn up.

I’d kidnapped a girl and was going to take her back to my camp. We set out to walk back to my camp. She was complaining that her feet were hurting. With my conjuring trick I summoned up some shoes and socks … fell asleep here … we were walking up the side of this motorway but she said that her feet were hurting so I magicked up a pair of suitable shoes and socks that she put on and said that it was so much better

While I was asleep in the middle of that dream I was kitting out an ambulance. There was an attendant who was rather miserable like Goldstein in The Navy Lark who was always moaning. We were kitting out this second ambulance to replace Caliburn. The idea was to take it for an MoT without saying that it’s mine to see whether it makes any difference and then start to arrange all the stuff. We’d be able to put away the stuff but it was all in some kind of haphazard order. I wanted it tidying out but the orderly guy was rather upset. I told him just to get on with it, we’ll do some and he can do the rest. He didn’t like the order in which I was putting stuff in the van but that was a shame, too bad. He made a few comments but I didn’t really take all that much notice about them

There was more to it than that too but you really don’t want to know about it right now, especially if you are eating your meal.

It was just as well that I’d done that homework last night and some revision this morning because in our Welsh lesson we were thrown straight in. We were hard at it all day but even so we didn’t finish the course. We missed out quite a bit.

Still, I don’t suppose that you can have everything.

It’s over now so I have a couple of weeks to forget everything before my month of full-time education begins. That should be fun on Zoom too and I’ll probably be worn to a frazzle by the end of it.

When it was all over I had my hot chocolate and home-made biscuits and then I relaxed somewhat.

In an on-line library I found the diary of Dr Eliot Curwen so I borrowed it for a read.

There was no Government medical service on the Labrador coast until, would you believe, 1982. In 1892 Wilfred Grenfell had come out from the UK as part of the Mission to Deep-Sea Fishermen and he was so appalled by the poverty that he saw that he left the Mission, set up the International Grenfell Association to provide medical care.

Rather than having a hospital to which the people could travel (although there were eventually a couple created) the hospital travelled to the people. It was actually a small steam-boat in which he and his “WOPs” – volunteers who came “with-out pay” – worked up and down the coast

Grenfell was really something of a showman and entertainer and so his published accounts should be interpreted carefully, but Curwen, who came out as a WOP on Grenfell’s second voyage was a naïve, innocent college graduate from a well-heeled background and the distaste and horror of what he saw oozed from every page.

He recounts one occasion where he tried to photograph a family but the father wouldn’t let the children come out of their sod hut. He eventually found the reason – and that was that the children didn’t have one single item of clothing between them.

There’s a story of a father who tramped the countryside for miles trying to find food for his starving family. Returning unsuccessfully, he chased his wife and eldest children away from the house as they could manage independently, killed his three youngest children with an axe and then shot himself.

At roughly the same time as this, Captain William Kennedy, captain of HMS Druid out on Fisheries patrol off the Labrador coast wrote in his autobiography “these poor trampled-down folk, who never see a coin of the realm, are told they are British subjects. It’s an idle mockery. Under the truck system they are ground down and half starved, having often nothing but corn-cake and molasses to eat in the winter, and not sufficient clothing to enable them to withstand the rigorous climate at that season … On our visits round the island, we met with sights enough to sicken us, and make us ashamed to think that these poor creatures were British subjects like ourselves.”

Labrador didn’t become part of Canada until 1949. Prior to that it was a British colony

As I said earlier, tea was delicious. I’m not sure what I’m going to do when I run out of British baked beans because those elsewhere taste totally different. In Canada for example the tins are packed full of corn syrup and taste awful. They aren’t all that much better over here.

Tomorrow I’m shopping, if the weather has improved. It was horrible today with storms, high winds, gusts of rain, just about everything that you don’t really want in mid-July. If necessary I can stay in because I have sufficient to keep me going but I’ll go stir-crazy if I don’t go out.

It reminds me of four years ago when we were on THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR on our Arctic Expedition for 3 months and everyone was developing Cabin Fever by the end of it.

It has to be said that it would have been a much better voyage if a couple of people I could think of hadn’t been on it. But there again, they would probably say the same thing about me.

Thursday 13th July 2023 – NOW THAT’S WHAT I …

… call a much better football match.

In the Europa League Penybont who finished 3rd in the Welsh Premier League last season were playing Santa Coloma from Andorra.

Santa Coloma were the obvious favourites with 4 Andorran internationals in their side and their football was quite attractive but Penybont were full of grit and determination. What Santa Coloma had in skill, Penybont matched them toe to toe with a more physical style and never ever looked second-best even for a moment.

The match was played in a fiercely competitive but totally fair manner, which makes a big change, and the final score of 1-1 was about right.

Considering that these two teams are quite low down the club rankings in the overall scheme of things, it was an excellent advert for European football and it’s a shame that one of these clubs will be eliminated after the second leg in Andorra next week.

At least the football makes up for my rather depressing night. For practically the whole of the night I was wracked with attacks of cramp, and in both my legs too. That was what I call miserable.

However I must have gone to sleep at some point because there’s some stuff on the dictaphone and also because when the alarm went off I was miles away in the next world somewhere and it was quite a shock to be awoken.

After the medication and checking the mails and messages, first thing that I did was to transcribe the dictaphone notes from the night. I was reading a story in a newspaper or magazine about a Welsh pirate. While I was doing so I dropped a toilet roll. It fell down towards the deck of the boat but I couldn’t catch it. I began to look for it but couldn’t see it. Every time that I seemed to be within touching distance of it, it moved position and went further away again. I thought to myself that this is stupid. Here I am reading something complicated like this from the 16th Century without any problems at all but I can’t manage to control an errant toilet roll on board the ship on which I’m travelling.

I’d been round to the home of a friend from school but I’m sure it was actually the home of someone else. We were going to be doing something but it turned out that there was a football match on the TV. He had it on so I settled down to watch it. I could see that he was frustrated but I wasn’t sure what were his actual plans. he hadn’t really suggested anything. Everything was really going wrong apart from feeling a kind of atmosphere coming from him. He’d asked me to go down to the shops to buy some stamps which I had but while he was sulking he’d gone out for a while and come back. Then he started to stick some stamps on these envelopes. I said that I didn’t realise that he’d been out to buy them himself because he didn’t think that I’d bought them so I produced them. I had the feeling that this whole evening was going totally wrong from start to finish. It was one of those evenings that I wanted to be over as quickly as possible and we can start again some other time.

Then there was something about having some complimentary tickets on the railway. There was a special series of Bank Holidays and I had these complimentary tickets. The railways were working anyway so I thought that I’d go down to the ticket barrier to see one of their clerks there to see whether he knew anyone going through who might want to buy them from me. When I arrived there all of the barriers these days were automated. There was no-one to whom I could talk about my complimentary tickets for these four days of special Bank Holiday.

Next thing was to finish off the notes for the radio programme. I forgot yesterday to do the ones that I’d planned to do then so I ended up doing two lots this morning and that’s that, all ready for dictating. I might even do that tomorrow.

The rest of the time was spent revising for my lesson today. That actually went quite well too so I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting better or whether it’s because I haven’t had time to forget anything yet. Tomorrow is the last day and then there’s a couple of weeks off before I undertake this mega-course.

And if I don’t know it by the end of that, then I never will.

Yesterday, I mentioned that we have fallen behind with what we were supposed to be doing, and I’ve found out how we’re going to be catching up. He asked us to do a mountain of work after the lesson ended. That took up the remainder of the afternoon.

With the football being on, I ended up with an early tea. Fried rice with some of those Chinses thingies that I bought from Noz a few weeks ago. They were quite nice, although nothing particular to write home about. It makes a different meal, and it was done quite quickly too which was just as well.

And there was a change in my habits for tea. I vowed when I moved here that I would only eat my meal sitting at the table in the dining room. Try to be a little civilised for a change. But today it was on a tray on my knee at the computer watching the football. Maybe I should have had pie and chips.

Tomorrow I was going to nip out early and go for a quick run into town for a little shopping. But it’s a Bank Holiday here, the shops are closed and there are no buses. That’s upset my plans.

So sausage, beans and chips, I reckon. That should make a nice change. But I’m beginning to run low on proper, real baked beans. I shall have to organise some supplies from somewhere. Anyone fancy a little run out?

Wednesday 12th July 2023 – I’VE JUST SEEN …

… one of the worst games of football that I’ve ever seen in my life. And I’ve seen some bad ones too.

It’s the Preliminary Round of the European Cup this evening and TNS have been playing away in Gothenberg against the Swedish Champions BK Hacken.

TNS lost 3-1 and really and honestly it could – and should – have been 13-1 and TNS would have had no cause to complain because they really were awful.

But it wasn’t the score or the difference in technical ability that upset me so much. What had me going was the fact that TNS sat back – not in their own half and let the opposition come onto them – but in their own penalty area. They simply camped on their own 18-yard line and tried to soak up the pressure.

If you’re going to play like that, you have someone always in the centre circle. It ties down a couple of defenders and you know where you can clear the ball. Whoever is up front can hold onto the ball while the wingers break free and you can start an attack.

But no. Everyone was in the TNS penalty area.

If TNS don’t have a dramatic change of plan for the home leg next week it’s going to be all over for them yet again. I don’t know what it is but they just can’t do it on the European stage. They seem to make a business of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

One thing that I could do today was to be up before the alarm went off. A good 5 minutes too this morning.

After the medication and checking my mails and messages I went for a shower so that at least i’d be nice and clean. And then I revised my Welsh.

The lesson seemed to go much better today and I actually understood what was going on. That makes a nice change too. But when we finished we were way behind where we are supposed to be and I don’t know how they are going to fit in the missing work.

The cleaner was here this afternoon and she was still here when the lesson finished so we had a quick chat before she left.

There was plenty of stuff on the dictaphone from the night. I’m surprised that I had time to wake up early. With the consumption of alcohol falling off some bar owner had decided to go in for live music. He realised that this would cost him more than he might make but he was going to give it something of a go and hope that he could entice in a lot of patrons. His regulars had quite mixed feelings about the idea but he’d see how it would work out. There was more to it than this but I can’t remember now.

There was an important sports match taking place so everywhere was sold out. All the people were making all kinds of strange arrangements to see the game, drones being tethered to balloons, free-flying balloons, loads of people on these hydraulic platforms like skyjacks etc that were being raised up. Everything was having a problem. One guy’s daughter had bought him a kind of small dirigible to which he could attach his drone so that it wouldn’t leave the ground. He reckoned that it was probably 3 feet below the level of the ground. They couldn’t make the drones point in the right direction. All these platforms were breaking up and extremely unsteady. People weren’t falling out but they were having to lower the platforms down because they were so unsafe. It really was an absolute nightmare for people to manage to see this game with all of the tricks that they were trying to ba able to see over the fence into the ground. It looked like some kind of jungle with lots of trees in it all peering up and peering over the fence into the ground.

We were then out doing something around the offshore islands in Labrador last night but I can’t remember what it was. We visited several and checked the heights etc then flew the information back to the central point with a drone but that’s all that I remember

There was a dispute about an inheritance with 2 young boys who were inheriting from their grandfather. It was suspected that one of them was illegitimate so wasn’t able to accept. This led to all kinds of disputes. In the end he was packed off to school anyway but his DNA was sent off to somewhere. Some time later it came back. There was no formal announcement of the results but he was sent the coveted black sweater of his clan. It was sent to his school and I had to pack it along with the belt to hold up his trousers. This obviously meant that he had actually been recognised as a blood descendant and was now no doubt a member of the family clan and could inherit everything.

Actually, there was a real case like this going on in the USA. Some rich guy had died and left his estate to be divided equally between his sons, of whom there were two. Subsequently it turned out following a DNA test that one of his sons isn’t actually his – his wife must have been up to no good at some time – so the real son was suing the other one for the return of his half of the money.

Finally there was a programme on TV last night about taxi drivers saying that about 1 in 4 licences issued were bogus licences to people who aren’t going to be engaged in taxi driving but need them for some other nefarious purpose. There was a lot of talk about that and also some talk about a new differential for a black cab that seemed to improve the gearing and manoeuvrability. They were discussing that. I had to take a sample in to a garage. The asked about the sample and what I was looking for. I said that it’s the quality of the facing joints as far as I’m concerned. A few other people had different ideas but to me as long as the facings were of perfect quality then that would be a very good start for the construction and assembly of these differentials

With the football, tea was quite late tonight. With not much in the way of leftovers I had a half-helping of curry out of the freezer to go with it, and a naan bread. That was all really delicious and I’ll have to do that again. But I’m not sure what I’ll do for tea tomorrow. Probably invent something.

But I’ll worry about that another time. Right now I’m off to bed ready for a revision session in the morning before my lesson. I’m hoping that I can keep up this improvement. But I reckon that it’s only temporary. Nothing whatever is sticking to my brain.

Tuesday 11th July 2023 – TODAY’S LESSON …

… didn’t pass as quickly as yesterday’s.

In fact, we overran our allotted time and there was still some work left to do. It looks as if tomorrow I shall have to do some homework before the lesson begins.

And today was one day where I would have liked to have had a shorter day. I’d had a very bad night again and I wasn’t really in much of a fit state to do my course. To make matters worse, I had as the other half of my break-out pair the only person on the planet who knew less than me.

During the night I hadn’t had a great deal of sleep. What with the pain in my foot – that was something. And the amount of travels on which I’d been engaged was something else completely. I’d chosen 4 songs for some reason. At first I thought that they all came from the same album. It turned out that only 1 of them was from the album that I actually wanted. The other 3, although they fitted into the kind of mood of the piece that I was creating came from an album that had nothing at all to do with whatever it was that I was planning. I was rather bewildered about how this had come about

Having gone back to sleep I was using the cut-and-paste facility to chop the narrative and dialogue around so that it all fits together and runs together in some kind of sense and vague chronological order as much as I could

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson were staying at someone’s house investigating some kind of crime. The guy had a sister. Dr Watson became quite friendly with her. The brother objected strongly and asked Watson to swear on oath that he wasn’t up to no good. Watson was quite happy to do. The girl then went missing from home. Shortly afterwards Watson returned. The guy accosted him, threatening and bullying etc. Watson pulled from his coat pocket the papers that he’d signed saying “I’ve just come back to the house to deposit my oath that I recently swore so that rather negates your argument doesn’t it?”.

Did I dictate the dream about driving through the forest and all these clearings? … “No you didn’t” – ed Some boys on a motorbike based on a Fordson E83W van. I stopped to talk to them but they moved off. I followed them and this took place 2 or 3 different times. Eventually I caught up with them at a clearing in the woods where they were wandering around. I went over to talk to them. I complained about them driving off every time I stopped to talk to them. I asked them about their motor bike. They really knew nothing about it, not even what it was. To them it was just some engine lying around so they’d put it in a frame. It was up for sale they said but they didn’t have a clue what it was worth. My thought was that it was either worth a lot of money because of its rarity value or it’s worth nothing because of its total impracticality. The only worth it has is for someone with some kind of nostalgia like me but I wasn’t going to give them an elevated price if I could afford it. I recommended that they speak to someone else and had some kind of figure from them, then come back to talk to me about it when they had more of an idea of what they wanted.

And I was impressed that I could remember the correct designation of the Ford van. When we were kids, my father had two of them – KLG93 and XVT772. We drove all over the country in those in the late 50s and early 60s before we upgraded to pure unashamed luxury and had a CA Bedford 967NVT

On the subject of my father, at some point he wanted to know if I wanted to go and do another job for a friend of his, taking his artic somewhere and coming back later. There would be a couple of hours break in the middle where I could go and play football if I wanted. It meant trying to find my hammer which was buried somewhere on the bed. I had to hunt for it and found it underneath the bedclothes in a suitcase in a pile of sand. I had to take the hammer from the pile of sand. There was a motor race taking place with small miniature lorries. The idea was that they were attached to fishing lines. People threw the lorries on the end of a hook down a hill. When the whistle sounded they had to reel in the lorries so they would come back up the hill on their 4 wheels. It was the first one past the finishing line that would win.

Just for a change I was up before the alarm went off. Only by about 30 seconds though. I awoke with a start at 06:59 and it was too good an opportunity to miss, with the possibility of beating the alarm for once.

Having transcribed the dictaphone notes I revised for my Welsh course today but it didn’t do much good because with having a teflon brain, nothing whatever would stick.

But then I grabbed a big pot of coffee and a fruit bun and went on the attack.

It wasn’t until about 16:20 that we finished so I went to grab my hot chocolate and the last of my chocolate biscuits. Tomorrow I can start on the honey and oatmeal ones that I made at the weekend.

Having organised that I did some work on my Canada 2017 trip and I’m out in the bay heading towards a fishing station. But I was side-tracked because I found another handy guide to navigation off the Labrador coast with a lot of useful information that isn’t in the other two that I have.

As well as that, I’ve written a couple of notes for the radio programmes and I’ve been rescuing data from the hard drive that I’ve repaired. I’ve been busy.

Tea tonight was another delicious taco roll but there’s not very much stuffing left. I’ll probably end up with a curry and naan bread tomorrow which should be nice

But that’s tomorrow. I’m off to bed right now and tomorrow morning I’ll have to have a shower because the cleaner will be round at some point and I don’t want to frighten her away. Here’s hoping that I can have a good sleep tonight them.

Monday 10th July 2023 – THE FIRST DAY …

… of our Summer School passed so quickly that I didn’t even notice. I can’t even say whether it was a success or a failure because we didn’t even have time to think.

There were 10 of us in our class. One of them I know from a previous weekend school but the others are complete strangers. No-one from my own class. I haven’t even met the tutor before.

We spent a lot of time talking about Llewellyn Morris Humphreys, one of the associates of Al Capone and who was believed to be responsible for the St Valentine’s Day massacre.

The lesson finished at 15:30 today, basically because we ran out of things to do. Our tutor was clearly not expecting us to accomplish so much.

And that was just as well because I was exhausted. As expected, I had had a miserable night and ended up taking another painkiller – which is not at all like me but I didn’t really have much choice and I wanted to go to sleep.

When the alarm went off though, I was flat out in bed and had a struggle to leave the bed. And after the nurse came round to inject me I prepared for the Welsh lesson today. But with having a teflon brain, nothing whatever is sticking.

When the lesson was over I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, because I had been out and about. I was on board a ship going across the Channel. There was a Charity Shop on board but I had to wait until the ship had set sail before I could go to inspect it. It wasn’t particularly much good but I bought a couple of books and 3 or 4 CDs. It came to £31:00. I had a rummage through my pockets but suddenly realised that I had the money in my coat pocket that was on my chair so I went and fetched it. The woman explained that it was expensive. I said “never mind” because there was some stuff in there that I really wanted – a Groundhogs LP and “Dreams” by Klaus Schultze and a few other things. I was quite happy. My real reason for being on board the ship was that I wanted to speak to one of the officers about something that I was trying to do. I was told that he might be on this particular sailing so I’d come on board to see him. It was my plan that as soon as we were in mid-Channel to go along and buttonhole him. Once I’d bought my stuff from the Charity Shop that was where I was heading next but I didn’t know if he would be on board or not. It would be just a case of knocking on the door and finding out.

Later on I had a job to do so I was collecting up all my tools. I’d already been to do the job once but couldn’t find anything of the tools that I needed so I’d collected everything together. before I went to do it again I just made sure that I had what I needed. I could only find the big charger for the heavy duty battery-powered drill. I couldn’t find the drill or any of the batteries or any of the accessories. I was turning everything upside down trying to find them because they ought to be there. They were there half an hour ago. I couldn’t find them at all. I checked but as far as I could see no-one else had borrowed them for anything so I was completely bewildered as to how I’d become separated from them again. Not finding my tools was something that was making this job last 100 times longer than it ought to be.

With plenty of unexpected free time on my hands I ended up repairing the hard drive that failed so spectacularly a couple of weeks ago. After several hours of wandering around in the disk operating software I managed to make it fire up.

And I managed to find the fault too. It’s actually on a part of the drive that was being used to house the operating system so by running the drive as a slave rather than a master, I can make it run after a fashion. There’s a vacant slot in the array drive so I’ve fitted it in there where I can access the data.

It does have a tendency to go to sleep if it’s not being used so I have to start it again but that’s not very important. I can cope with that as long as I can make it work somehow.

While I was at it, I managed to reactivate another old hard drive. This one is a 1TB one that was last used in March 2021 so I’m now trying to think where this one came from. It’s certainly one of mine because I recognise the disk structure and the data but I can’t remember it at all.

With an hour or so to spare I made a start on the next radio programme and I’ll be working on that for half an hour or so every day until it’s complete.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper, a frozen one out of the freezer. I cooked it for 20 minutes at 160°C in the air fryer and it cooked it to perfection.

So now I’m going to bed. And with my leg still suffering from the stabbing pains I don’t know whether I’ll be able to sleep yet again. It’s really rather annoying because these days, the way things are, if it’s not one thing it’s another and I’m rapidly becoming fed up of this.

Sunday 9th July 2023 – I DON’T KNOW …

… what happened during the night but for once in my life I seem to have had a good night’s sleep. I was in bed by about 00:30 too, and slept until 10:30. By about 11:00 I was actually up and about.

For much of the day I’d been working on a radio programme. I’d dictated the text before going to bed and so today I edited it, joined everything up, chose a final track, wrote, dictated and edited the text that went with it and joined it all up.

There’s also been a baking session. I’ve prepared a batch of dough for a few pizzas and also a batch of biscuits too.

The biscuits are delicious, I’ll tell you that because I’ve sampled them. They are a standard biscuit mix with honey oats, ginger and a variety of spices and flavours. They should keep me out of mischief for a while once I finish the chocolate ones. There’s a couple of days’ worth of those still to do.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone too from the night. Not very much but I’m sure there was much more than this. It was about 03:00 or 04:00 and I had Caliburn backed up in the drive at Les Guis. I was busy doing something inside the load compartment. I heard a noise – it was 2 people that might have been Claude and Françoise. I stuck my head out of the van and said “what do you want?”. They were shocked to see me at that time of the day. They pointed to the house and asked “any chance we can get something out of your mate?”. I replied “not at this time of the morning”. I knew that he owed them some money but this was a strange time to call. I didn’t believe that this was the reason. After much discussion we arranged that they’d come back at 10:00. Another group of people turned up. One was an enormous fat woman. She was asking me all kinds of questions “how long did it take to do this? How long did something else take to do that?”. All the time, I watched her. I could see her eyes roaming around. It was obvious that she was sizing up the place. I told her that I didn’t want to answer any questions at the moment. I was too busy and too tired. She could come back later too. I ushered her off the premises. There were 1 or 2 things outside there including a metal chair. She picked it up and said “it’ll be OK if I take this. I told her immediately to put it down and go on her way and don’t touch anything else around here. She became quite belligerent so I became quite belligerent in my turn. It looked as if we were heading towards a dramatic incident but they moved on. a couple of people standing around watching were quite pleased to see the back of them. I thought that all these strange goings-on at 03:00 and 04:00 – is it like this usually when i’m fast asleep?

Tonight’s pizza was delicious as usual. I really have found the method for those now. But the cheese that I used is a different type of cheese and it doesn’t melt quite as well. But it still tastes good though.

So now I’m off to bed ready for my week of Summer School starting tomorrow. But it won’t be as good a night’s sleep as last night because those stabbing pains in the sole of my foot are back, and back with a vengeance too. I’ve even had to take a painkiller, and that’s not like me at all, is it?

That won’t do me much good for tonight so I hope that the pain will go away.

We shall see.

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

Category Archives: France

Sunday 23rd July 2023 – I WAS HOPING …

Saturday 22nd July 2023 – AS YOU MIGHT …

Firday 21st July 2023 – I MADE IT …

Thursday 20th July 2023 – ZAK JONES DOES IT AGAIN

Wednesday 19th July 2023 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

Tuesday 18th July 2023 – TONIGHT’S FOOTBALL …

Monday 17th July 2023 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER …

Sunday 16th July 2023 – IF I EVER LAY …

Saturday 15th July 2023 – I REALLY AM …

Friday 14th July 2023 – MY SAUSAGE BEANS AND CHIPS …

Thursday 13th July 2023 – NOW THAT’S WHAT I …

Wednesday 12th July 2023 – I’VE JUST SEEN …

Tuesday 11th July 2023 – TODAY’S LESSON …

Monday 10th July 2023 – THE FIRST DAY …

Sunday 9th July 2023 – I DON’T KNOW …

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