Category Archives: Amber

Monday 10th November 2025 – MY CANADIAN VISITORS …

… have now departed. As I am writing these notes, they are probably hitting the high spots around Paris as a final fling before flying back out tomorrow morning.

This means that I can now do my best to return to normality, such as normality is around here.

It actually started last night. They left to go to have an early night ready for the voyage, so I could write up my notes, take the stats, do the backing-up and then sort myself out for bed.

It wasn’t as early as I would have liked, though. Probably more like 23:30 which, although not as late as some have been, is still after my ideal curfew time of 23:00.

Once in bed, I was asleep quite quickly and despite the odd brief awakening during the night, I was still asleep when the alarm went off at 06:29. How many times is this just recently that I’ve slept until the alarm? I reckon that it’s been more times this last ten days than in the previous ten months.

When the alarm went off, there was some kind of incident going on in the street. It concerns a prisoner. The prisoner managed to escape and climbed onto the back of someone’s motorbike in order to escape. However, the police set up a roadblock somewhere and the motorbike collided with this road block, and the prisoner on the back was catapulted over the cars that were blocking the road and into the street beyond, where the authorities managed to arrest him again.

This reminds me of a real incident that actually did take place in London years ago, but in that case the prisoner made good his escape.

Once more, it was an enormous effort to haul myself out of bed. I really didn’t feel like it at all. Nevertheless, I went … "eventually" – ed … into the bathroom to tidy myself up for dialysis, and then went for my medication.

That involved another glass of this honey, lemon and ginger mix, and remembering not to put the calcium in it.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was with a girl last night who resembled one of the nurses. I was disabled and hobbling along with difficulty on my crutches and she was with me. We ended up at the shops and were in a queue at the till, ready to leave. The people in front of us, their bill came to so many Pounds and so many pence. They had the Pounds but they didn’t have any pence, so the girl with me rooted through her purse and gave them the correct amount of pence for the sale. Then she prepared her purse for ours at the check-out and I noticed that her number for the Co-operative Society was 24287. I explained that that was very, very close to the number that we had as a family and kids when we lived in Shavington. We passed through the till, and the cashier put two things on top of the belt. One of them fell off so I had to bend down and pick it up. The other one was a pair of very used Levi jeans. I looked, and the girl with me was now wearing her new pair instead of the old pair in which she’d set out. I rolled the old pair up, busy making sure that nothing fell out of the pockets, and put them in the bag. I asked her how much the Levis were. She replied “£9:99”. I said that that was an excellent price for a pair of Levi jeans. I told her that I really liked Levi jeans and they were the only jeans that I bought that actually fit me comfortably and the cut was correct.

It’s quite bizarre that, after all these years, I can still remember our “divvy” number

It’s also true about Levi jeans. They were the only ones that really fit me correctly. And wasn’t it nice to have a certain nurse accompanying me last night? She can accompany me any time she likes.

And I can’t remember very much about the next dream but I was trying to go through the duplicate files on my computer and remove them. But for some reason, it was taking hours instead of the usual ten minutes. I’d even gone for some food and then come back and it was still performing its search. While I was doing this, there was someone doing a pile of washing-up from all of the cooking and baking and everything that everyone was here for last week. She suddenly announced “there’s no hot water any more”. She added “now, there’s someone on this site who is touching a commission from the Electricity Board for this and we’ll have to find out who it is” although I knew how to switch on the hot water anyway, I was interested in finding the culprit

It’s true that with this temporary hard drive in the computer, searches are taking much longer. But the electricity issue doesn’t seem to relate to anything.

The nurse came around a little later, still in a good mood. He sorted out my legs and then left. This is his last day for a week so I wished him a happy break.

After he had left, I ate the two remaining croissants and then made another batch for my guests. I then came back in here to work on a radio programme while I awaited their arrival.

They turned up in the middle of a rainstorm so while they were eating croissants, I organised a taxi to take them to the station.

The car arrived at the same time as my faithful cleaner, so I gave my visitors a good hug and they left for their train. They are going to Rennes and then on a TGV to Paris. That will make a change from the decrepit, derelict excuses for Canadian trains that have been THE SUBJECT OF CONSIDERABLE DISCUSSION on here.

The taxi turned up for me just a couple of minutes late, and we had to go to the Centre de Ré-education for another passenger. However, after a good search and a long wait, she didn’t put in an appearance. As a result, we were late arriving at dialysis.

There was no peace for the wicked. My blood pressure was in free fall throughout the session and every half-hour, the alarm sounded, which brought the nurses running.

The doctor came to see me, and she decided to reduce the quantity of one of the medicines that I take, to see if that will make a difference.

My taxi was waiting for me when I finished, and it was a good drive home where my faithful cleaner was waiting to help me into the apartment.

After a rest, I portioned out all of the unused food into containers and then heated up some of the broccoli stalk soup. However, I couldn’t eat much and a large amount ended up in the bin. Nevertheless, I managed to eat the chocolate cake and strawberry dessert.

Having finished what I could, I washed up and then put the packed food away in the freezer in the bathroom. That involved a little sorting-out, and I really need to have a good tidying-up session in there.

That’s a task that will have to be done another time because I’m off to bed right now. I’m in absolute agony, aching from every joint, and I wish that I could snap out of this.

But seeing as we have been talking about trains … "well, one of us has" – ed … three men from Crewe were on a train where they met three other men.
They began to talk about their tickets, and the men from Crewe showed the other men their three tickets
"But we only have one" replied the other men.
"How do you manage for a control? "
"Watch" said the other men. And as the controller walked down the corridor, the three other men went to the bathroom and locked themselves in.
When the controller knocked on the door to ask for their ticket, they slid it under the door. The controller punched it and pushed it back.
On the return journey, they met again and the men from Crewe showed that they just had the one ticket.
"We don’t have any" replied the other men.
"How do you manage for a control? "
"Watch" said the other men.
As the controller approached, the three men from Crewe went to hide in the bathroom.
The three other men walked behind them at a discreet distance to go to a bathroom further down the train.
As they passed the bathroom where the men from Crewe were hiding, one of them knocked on the door and said "tickets, please" so the men from Crewe slid their ticket under the door.

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Sunday 9th November 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone this morning.

Not that it’s any surprise, because if you don’t go to bed until after 02:00, what do you expect?

And for the first time in I don’t know how many months, I slept right through to the alarm, which, on a Sunday and it being a Day of Rest, doesn’t go off until 07:59.

Last night, after we’d finished eating, we stayed around talking about old times for what seemed like hours, and it was almost 01:00 when my visitors decided to toddle off to their digs. Hardly surprising, because they had had a very long day, with jet-lag and all of that.

Once they had left, I came back in here to write my notes and then, totally exhausted, I hit the sack and that was that.

When the alarm awoke me, it was a real struggle to force myself out of the bed? And it would have to be a day on which the nurse came early. He caught me in flagrante delicto in the bathroom and I had to come out without having a wash.

After he left, I tidied up in the kitchen and put away some of the crockery that I’d washed, and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone.

As I had said just now, there was nothing there, so instead I had a mini-footfest. We had the highlights of the other JD Cymru League matches from yesterday, and then a much-improved Stranraer grinding out a well-deserved point against league leaders Clyde.

Stranraer are now up to fourth from bottom – something that was looking extremely unlikely this time last month when they were rooted to the bottom of the table.

My visitors turned up some time later, having had the benefit of a lie-in. We ate breakfast together and chatted for a while. Then they decided that, because it was such a lovely day, they would go for a walk around the headland. And why not?

While they were away, I made a broccoli stalk soup ready for lunch and baked some fresh bread rolls. Then I came back in here and finished off editing the radio notes.

However, while I was editing them, I suddenly had a flash of inspiration about how I could finish the programme. This means re-writing the notes for a couple of songs, adding in a new song and shuffling the order around. It shan’t take me long to do that, the next time that I have an early start … "famous last words" – ed …

At some point, I also crashed out. And for about twenty minutes too.

My visitors turned up again at about 15:30. They had been for a walk around the headland and then gone down via the port into the town for a look around. There, they found a tea shop selling some gorgeous cakes, and the rest is history. I put the broccoli stalk soup into the fridge for my tea tomorrow night.

While we chatted, I prepared a pizza for tea. It was a mega-pizza, that’s for sure, and everyone liked it so much that not a single crumb remained. That was a really good pizza.

And one thing that it proved was that the new aluminium biscuit tray that fits onto the racks in the oven works a treat, although it’s really hot when you take it out.

Everyone decided to have an early night tonight so after they left, I washed up and put all of the uneaten food into the fridge. Tomorrow, I’ll be transferring it into containers to freeze. It’s a good job that I have two freezers around here otherwise I’d never have the room.

So now that everything is finished, I’m off to bed ready for an early start. My visitors have intimated that they intend to have a lie-in and if I didn’t have the nurse coming round, so would I.

But seeing as we have been talking about pizzas … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once had a girl from Crewe round at my house one Sunday night, and I baked a pizza.
"How would you like your pizza sliced?" I asked her. "Six slices or eight?"
"You’d better cut it in six slices" she replied. "I don’t think that I could manage eight."

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Saturday 8th November 2025 – MY CANADIAN VISITORS …

… finally struggled into Granville at about 21:30 this evening, bringing tale after tale of woe about their disastrous journey from Toronto.

They are here until Monday afternoon when they will be returning to Paris ready to fly out again, hoping for much better luck this time.

So all of that journey just to spend less than forty-eight hours with me. If you want an example of a real “flying visit”, you need look no further than this.

And I was ready to see them too. I’d made a determined effort to go to bed early, however, once more, I failed miserably. It was 23:20 when I finally crawled into bed. And there I stayed, fast asleep, until all of … errr … 04:20.

By about 05:20, I’d given up all hope of going back to sleep and so I raised myself from the Dead and began work.

Well, not exactly work. There were the highlights of last night’s matches in the JD Cymru League. Llansawel, third from bottom, beat Y Bala 2-0.

However, I’m still laughing about the result at Park Hall. Adam Roscrow, unwanted at TNS for over two years, scored a goal with just seconds to go on the clock, a goal for his new club, mid-table Cardiff Metropolitan that beat runaway leader TNS 3-2, their first defeat in I don’t know how many games.

Enjoy THE HIGHLIGHTS

After the football, I began to edit the radio notes that I’d dictated a couple of days ago. However, I abandoned the project for the moment when the alarm went off, and went to organise myself in the bathroom.

To accompany the medication today, I made another one of those fiery ginger, lemon and honey drinks. I’m not sure whether it’s doing any good because I can’t feel my throat for a couple of hours.

After the meds, I began to put away the shopping from yesterday. I was certainly feeling so much better than I did yesterday. That’s just as well because I had to totally reorganise the fridge to make enough room for everything.

The nurse caught me unawares, in the middle of reorganising things, so I had to stop what I was doing and let him attend to me. It didn’t take him long, and then I could push on and make breakfast.

The croissants are a little overbaked but the apple turnover things are perfection. They have really turned out well and I’m so impressed with them. Almost as impressed as I was with my stainless steel dustbin, something that regular readers of this rubbish will recall from a previous version.

After breakfast, I carried on with sorting out the shopping, and putting a pile of stuff in the freezer for another time. The place looks a lot tidier now than it did before, that’s for sure. There was some broccoli to blanch for freezing, and I saved the water because tomorrow, I shall be making a broccoli stalk soup.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was with a girl last night, but I don’t know who it was. We were going to find some kind of hotel place where to stay for the night. Something went wrong with the coffee but I’m not sure what it was. They had one of these things where you made coffee by putting the grounds in and pushing down a plunger. Something went wrong with the organisation of this, and we had a coffee that was made with one of these, but it seems to have been made by accident. If anyone had pushed the plunger down, it must have been one of the members of staff, so we had no idea how come this coffee had been made and why it had been made, but it was probably the nicest coffee that I’ve had for ages.

This is something that seems to be happening quite often these days – being with a girl but I don’t know who she is. That’s something of a disaster. Can you imagine not being able to recall who she is? These days, I don’t have enough contact with the female sex so being able to recall who they are is quite important. I ought to be extracting as much amusement and pleasure from my dreams because it’s the best that I can do.

The two navies met each other on a couple of occasions during the American Civil War when they had some kind of naval battle. On one occasion, the Confederate Navy ship was sailing when it was accosted by a Union ship. They had a battle, which the Confederate ship won. The story goes that the German gun shelled the Colwyn Bay bench with ammunition and injured almost everyone on there, although Colwyn Bay deny this. They say that what they did was in turning their weapon and employing it against the Russians in poor South Africa as a way of equalising the staff and maker and shaking the tip and changing money … fell asleep here ….

It seems that there are two threads running through here. One concerning the American Civil War, about which I have been reading so much just recently, and the second being the football, which is a constant theme these days.

Did I tell you that in the last dream, the cannon that scored the fight that smashed the deck of the Federal ship was as straight as anything used in the battle? … "No you didn’t" – ed … They had to have one man organising the gun, two men organising it and shooting it and another team of rangefinders. They had to spot where the shell landed. But the situation diverted towards Mons where they were all used in the English campaign, although only one of them became famous and was in danger of being captured by the Turks so its own sailors blew it up

What the Turks would be doing at Mons is anyone’s guess, but here I am merging two threads again – the Civil War and World War I.

After a disgusting drink break, I began to make everything ready in the kitchen and living room ready for my visitors, and to make sure that we had everything that we needed. It’s becoming quite complicated, all of this entertaining, but I’ll keep on doing it. It’s nice to have company.

Later on, I carried on with the radio programme but I stopped before I finished because we had football on the internet, Connah’s Quay Nomads (fourth in the table) versus Penybont (second).

This was another match that is best forgotten. Two teams with undoubted quality and several internationals on the field should have produced a match of real skill and entertainment but unfortunately, it was nothing like.

Penybont, who had a man sent off close to half-time, were dreadful. They played with no intent or ambition and were swept aside, 4-0, by the Nomads.

In their last three games, they have conceded a total of thirteen goals. That includes conceding three against a side that’s third from bottom. That is just totally unacceptable from a team lying second in the table. There’s something dreadfully wrong here.

Knowing that my visitors were now on their way, I made tea – more couscous and Moroccan bean tajine, but they had nibbled at things on the train and weren’t all that hungry. The chocolate cake and mango sorbet went down well, though.

It’s lovely to see them, even if it’s only for a very short while, and we spent hours chatting about the past. It was long after midnight when they went and as soon as I’ve pressed “send”, I shall be going to bed, long after 01:00.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my visitors being stranded in Paris … "well, one of us has" – ed … they told me that, in order to pass the time, they had been to an art exhibition featuring the works of a French painter who stayed for a while in French Polynesia.
"Gauguin? " I asked
"We don’t think so" they replied. "Once was enough."

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Wednesday 8th May 2024 – IT’S GOING TO BE …

… another late night tonight, if last night wasn’t late enough.

My great little niece (or is it “my little great niece) sat around the dining room table for hours this evening discussing all kinds of things. It’s good to know that it’s not just her sister and I who see things in the same way.

But then that’s what going to University is all about – making you see different things from a real-world perspective rather than a small-minded rural perspective that’s stuck inside a time-warp. For example, those of us who sharpened our claws in some of some of the more confrontational conferences on our University’s debating forum certainly met several new ideas.

The two of us were having a good chat last night too and it wasn’t until quite late that she left. As a result it was about 01:00 when I finally crawled into bed and I’ve a feeling that it’s going to be pretty much the same today.

Once in bed though, I slept the Sleep of the Dead and didn’t show a leg until the alarm went off at 07:00 when I fell out of bed to switch it off.

Having done that I crawled off into the bathroom to prepare myself for the day, and then went for my half-litre of flavoured water and pills.

Once they were out of the way I arranged the dining room for the nurse. When she came round she was able to change the plaster on my wound and fit my puttees. We had the usual apocalyptical warning about what I can and cannot do, to which I took absolutely no notice whatsoever. No-one’s going to chain me up – at least, not without the changing hands of a considerable amount of folding stuff.

After she left I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I was during the night. There was some kind of strange war being fought last night between two groups of people. They were fighting each other quite heavily but there were umpires and judges, everything like that who supervised it. After one game, the fight broke out again. Everyone was fighting, I was busy fighting someone or other and I came across the fact that 30 or 40 of their members had actually come as prisoners on a barge and all of a sudden were now fighting. I thought that that was cheating so I made the point but no-one else took it seriously and began to laugh. I didn’t know at all what to do in this situation

And that’s the kind of chaos with which I’m usually associated. Apart from that, I don’t understand the significance

There was also something about a football team changing its goalkeeper at half-time without notifying anyone but I’ve no idea where that fitted in. I suspect that it might be to do with one of the football matches that I watched at the weekend. Having followed one particular team throughout the season I noticed that they had a goalkeeper of a different ethnic origin between the sticks for the first time at the weekend and that confused everyone, including me.

There was a live football match on the Internet afterwards – the USA women’s team against an Asian side – so for a change I settled down to watch it. Yet, not surprisingly, I fell asleep after 25 minutes. And a real, proper deep sleep too.

As a result I was late for breakfast – A couple of slices of hot, buttered toast with fresh bread and that made me want to eat it again

There were two mugs of hot, strong black coffee too and it’s a total lie about coffee keeping you awake because it didn’t work for me. In fact when my visitor texted me to say she’ll be here shortly I was flat-out away with the fairies.

However I awoke in time and when she arrived we began our little discussion, which went on for a couple of hours. She’d researched the area and the area where I used to live and was able to have a really good conversation.

One thing about her is that she’s definitely her father’s daughter. Strong, determined, self-reliant and confident, and "This new learning" that SO AMAZED KING ARTHUR and which seems to have gripped most of her generation hasn’t reached her yet which is very good news.

After a while she left to go to visit the Dior museum and I came in here to carry on working, selecting the music for the next radio programme.

Not that I got very far. Rosemary rang me and we had a very lengthy chat, putting the World to rights as we usually do, not that the World ever listens to us

We’re both convinced though that there’s a major breakdown in social order in the UK these days and, funnily enough, my little great niece who is wandering around the country on her own for the first time and seeing things from a totally different perspective, happened to mention that very same thing in out discussions.

After Rosemary’s phone call I did a little more work but my visitor returned. We carried on our discussion and I also made a chick pea curry with rice and veg. The soya yoghurt gave the curry a creamy taste and it all went down very well

Our chat continued for ages but after a while with her falling almost asleep on the table she set off back to our hotel and I did the washing up.

She’s on an early train in the morning so won’t have time to come here to say goodbye which is a great pity. I’ve enjoyed seeing her and having her come to visit me. I still can’t get over how quickly she’s grown since she was a tiny dot in my arms 20 years ago in 2003 when I was there in Canada that winter.

So tomorrow I’ll carry on with what I’ve been doing and hope to make some progress. Tomorrow is another day of course but as Kris Kristofferson sang, I’D GIVE ALL MY TOMORROWS FOR A SINGLE YESTERDAY

Yes, especially the days (and nights) when Castor, Zero and TOTGA would come to see me. I can’t remember now who I was with when, the next day someone asked me "who was that lady I seen you with last night?"
"I saw!" I replied. "It’s ‘I saw’!"
"Well OK. Have it your way" he answered. "Who was that eyesore I seen you with last night?"

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Tuesday 7th May 2024 – I’VE HAD A LOVELY …

… evening with a visitor who has come all this way to see me.

The youngest daughter of my niece from Canada stuck her head in to say “hello” this evening as she passed by on her peripatetic perambulations.

One thing that I’ve always tried to instil into youngsters is the importance of doing something different, as every student’s CV is identical these days, with the same courses, the same pastimes, the same interests and so on.

Foreign travel is one of the ways to go and some universities offer foreign exchange student programmes. After Liz (“that” Liz, not “this” Liz) died I made sure that her daughter was accepted onto a foreign exchange programme in 2010 and I actually took her to her University in Ontario from London.

St Francis-Xavier University in Antigonish has one too and my niece’s middle daughter ended up in Madrid but the youngest one was accepted onto an exchange in Edinburgh and she’s been there since Christmas.

She’s off to visit Mont St Michel and the Christian Dior museum tomorrow so she thought that she’d catch an earlier ‘plane and come to see me

Even though it’s only – quite literally – a flying visit, there was a lot of preparation to do and as a result I was in bed quite late last night

It was another peaceful night where I completely lost track of time, and no-one was more surprised than me when the alarm went off. Anyway I hauled myself out of bed and headed for the bathroom, and then into the dining area for the medication.

Having done that I arranged the dining area for the nurse but for some reason she was late coming today and I had to hang around for a while. None of this “not quite dressed” lark of Sunday when he came early.

After she’d finally arrived, changed my dressing, fitted my puttees and cleared off I could come in here and revise for my Welsh lesson. And then armed with my coffee and flapjack I joined in the lesson.

The lesson was like the curate’s egg – good and bad in parts. I was quite happy with some of the stuff that I did but disappointed with other parts. I put it all down to my failing memory but I forgot to mention that.

At the end of the lesson the first thing that I did was to make the dough for a loaf. I wasn’t sure whether my great little niece (or is she my little great niece?) would want to take advantage of my comfortable sofa and if so, we’d need something for breakfast

Then I came in here while the dough was proofing so that I could transcribe the dictaphone notes. I’d been arrested for something that I’d said but managed to talk my way out of it. Then I was arrested a second time that happened to be during a period when I was having a dance with another girl. She thought that me being arrested was funny. I had a key in my hand but lost it. It fell down and became mixed up in the bed. The soldiers who arrested me wanted the key and access to one of the store cupboards and were surprised that I was playing difficult, although I wasn’t – it was simply because they didn’t believe that I’d dropped things. Anyway they wanted to carry me off to the castle where presumably I’d be tortured, although they didn’t say what or why it was that I was going. I was simply arrested and bullied out of any kind of sympathetic position.

Then I was with a former work colleague. Again, it was a similar kind of situation. There was some kind of rack of calculations in the formula on it that these people wanted but I had. I wasn’t going to hand it over so someone came down to interrogate me and maybe arrest me but they didn’t cart me off. They had a full search of everywhere and then they left. Id been standing in a very peculiar position, sort-of propped up with a support behind me. My ex-colleague made some kind of remark such as “had I ever been an italic cursor?” or something so we laughed. I explained that there were all kinds of photos of me and maybe we ought to have a look. I noticed when we were talking that he actually had that paper in his hand. I wondered why he’d never admitted having it and never shown it to whoever it was who was interrogating me.

That’s not how things usually work, is it? Normally people will take every conceivable step to drop me into the soup at every possible moment.

Later on I stepped back into that dream, and in it the girl had taken away the bottle … "which bottle?" – ed … to wash it. She then brought it back, saw me being man-handled, threw away the bottle and hid the formula

And that’s most unlike people I know too.

By now the dough had risen and so after a second working-over I put it into the oven to bake while I made my hot chocolate.

The bread baked deliciously. It rose up like a lift and it is quite soft and fluffy. We’ll call this one a success.

While I was waiting for my visitor I finished off the radio notes for the programme that I started the other day and then began to select the music for the next one.

And then having fought her way through the underground system in Paris she turned up.

It’s hard to believe that when I held her in my arms back in that winter of 2003 when I was in Canada she was such a tiny little new-born thing. She’ll be 21 soon and it’s hard to believe that the time has gone by so fast.

She’s not stopping though. She didn’t know how ill I was and didn’t want to put any strain on any facilities that I might be having, which was very nice and thoughtful

We had lots to talk about – after all I haven’t seen her since I drifted by her house after my return from the High Arctic in 2019 – and it was nice to catch up with the latest news from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia

She’s quite confident that she’ll pass her current year and will go back to St F-X for her final year and receive “the Ring”. Alumni of St Francis Xavier receive a special ring to wear and it’s apparently the equivalent of a Canadian Freemasonry handshake.

Of course, over the last 20-odd years there have been loads of jokes about people going “My preccccccc – ious” whenever the subject of the St F-X ring has been mentioned and that’s not really any surprise.

It was quite late when she left but nevertheless I made my taco roll with rice and veg for tea and it was just as nice for being late.

So now I’m going off to bed and make some investigations about that huge bloodstain that appeared on my pillow overnight. It looks as if someone has butchered a pig on there, there’s so much blood.

But it’s nice to see a member of my family here where I live. One of my nieces from Crewe came over in 1994 and then two of my three little great-nieces from Canada have been to see me. And would you believe – that’s the only contact that I’ve had with any member of my family since I left to live on the mainland of Europe

They were much more loyal than that when we all lived together. One of my sisters once told me "some boy at my school told me that you weren’t fit to live with pigs"
"Ohhh really?" I asked. "What did you say?"
"Oh I stood up for you" she replied. "I said that you were"

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Wednesday 9th October 2019 – WE’VE HAD …

… another tremendously busy day down at the tyre depot.

This morning, with nothing much to do although everyone else was rushing around, I filed away all of the bills, invoices and charging sheets. And that wasn’t the work of five minutes either. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, we’ve been very busy just recently and done a lot of work.

This afternoon involved even more of an effort on my part. I had to go off down to Bristol and the auto spares shop for parts for not one but two jobs that were ongoing in the garage.

And then we had an extremely complicated enquiry about tyres.

Someone has a pick-up with tyres on it that have long-been obsolete and reliable heavy-duty ones can no longer be obtained – except at some kind of silly astronomical price for “specials”. We managed to source a set of wheels of a different diameter and then we had to hunt down a set of tyres for those wheels that would have exactly the same circumference as the original tyres on the original wheels.

It was a good thing that I made the old laptop work yesterday because I could sit down and hunt for a tyre conversion program on the internet – and in the end I found one – and having downloaded and installed it, I could get it to work it gave me a choice of half a dozen different tyre sizes.

And this will please the guy intensely because one of the sizes of tyre is a much-more mainstream size of truck tyre, and even with the cost of new wheels for his truck, he’s going to come out ell on the right side.

I ought to be on a commission.

But that wasn’t all the excitement. yesterday as we were closing a guy came in for a new wheel that he had ordered and to have a tyre fitted on it. All in all, there wasn’t much change out of $1000. When it had been done, he just threw it into the back of his truck.

“Aren’t you going to strap it down?” asked Darren
“no” replied the guy. “It’ll be fine in there. Its own weight will hold it in”.
So Darren shook his head and came back in.

This afternoon the guy came back for some other things.
“You know that wheel and tyre that you sold me yesterday afternoon?”
“I do” replied Darren.
“Well, it’s in the river”.

Luckily he managed to rescue it otherwise that would have been very expensive.

Last night, with having not felt so good, I was in bed something-like and even though I heard the alarms go off, it was still 07:15 when I finally surfaced.

The girls had a ride in to school and so I had another leisurely breakfast followed by a nice stinking hot shower which made me feel so much better.

Plenty of time to make my lunch and then head off to the tyre depot. And I’d noticed that we were low on bread so I stopped to buy some another couple of loaves. Only to find up at the office that Rachel had also noticed that we were low on bread this morning and had already bought two on her way in to work.

Later this afternoon I fetched Amber from her cheerleading practice after school and brought her home. Rachel had gone to Fredericton so there were just us at home. Our little visitor had told us a while ago that she had a really good recipe for a vegan chili so we set her to work in the kitchen this evening.

And I’ll tell you all something for nothing – and that is that it really was excellent too. So much so that Darren, who isn’t usually a fan of exotic vegan cooking, helped himself to a second full helping.

I made a second visit to the pan too and decided that she can cook again for us!

So it’s bedtime now, and I’m looking forward to another decent sleep. I certainly need it. So goodnight to everyone, including my readers in Celbridge, Ottawa and Montreal. One day you really will have to introduce yourselves and say “hello”.

Meanwhile, I’m saying “goodbye”. Until the morning.

‘.

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Tuesday 8th October 2019 – I’VE BEEN …

… Mr Computer Repair Man again today.

having revelled in my triumphs a few days ago about getting my old Acer Laptop up and running after it crashed out on me in the USA and being able to salvage all of the data, down at the office today Rachel bunged another old laptop at me to see if I could raise that one from the dead too.

I spent a couple of hours working on it and, as much to my own surprise as anyone else’s, it’s now up and running again with not only all of the data still intact but all of the programs too.

It’s an old 2009 Lenovo with a 1.3ghz processor running Windows 7, but now that it’s working again it’s quite sprightly for its age as long as you don’t try to do anything too ambitious with it, but for taking down to the storeroom to do an inventory (which is why it was here in the first place) it’s just the job.

And talking of the storeroom, I’ve checked again and we do have indeed a large supply of 165/80 x 13 and 185/70 x 13 tyres for Ford Cortinas, as well as several other obsolete sizes too for other makes, so I’ve been posting the info on various North American classic car groups to try to drum up the sales.

All in all, I’ve had quite a busy morning.

A relaxing morning too. Although I heard all of the alarms go off, it was about 07:00 when I finally managed to raise myself from the dead. And with no school run this morning I was able to have a leisurely start to the day.

Not to transcribe the dictaphone notes though. There’s a couple on there from during the night and I’ll have to copy those over as soon as I can.

For once, Cujo the Killer Cat co-operated with me so I was able to leave the house pretty much when I wanted to without having to hunt her down.

This afternoon was more running around. Taking the cheques to be posted (it’s that time of the year) mainly.

But I had another task assigned to me which I managed to accomplish. In the garage is a 2004 Dodge Ram 1500 pick-up with a major electrical problem. With my little home-made testing apparatus I can tell that there’s a live feed reaching the relays at contacts where no live feed should be. This points to a short circuit in the fuse box somewhere and these are impossible to repair.

The easy answer is to replace the fuse box but, to my amazement (or maybe not, because I’ve long-since ceased to be amazed at the antics of modern motor manufacturers) the part is “no longer available” from the manufacturers.

Consequently, with the repaired laptop (and I’m glad now that I repaired it), I’ve been scouring the scrapyards of North America and I’ve eventually tracked down a rear-ended Dodge of the correct year and model in a scrapyard in Colorado.

A photo of the part on that truck looks identical to the one here, and so that’s now winging its way northwards in our direction. And who knows? We might even be able to make this Dodge start properly without having to hot-wire it all the time.

Fighting off waves of fatigue yet again (and I’ve no idea why) I went to pick up Amber from cheerleading practice after school, only to find that our little visitor had stayed behind too. Never mind the crowded cab when we have half-a-million strong therein by the time we get to Woodstock, it was pretty cramped in there with three, but we managed all the same.

Everyone was out this evening so I made myself some potato thins with onions, carrots garlic and assorted herbs with some vegan sausages, and it was delicious. Especially when followed down by one of the vegan muffins from the weekend.

Later this evening after tea I retreated to my room. I’m not feeling myself at the moment … “and quite right too” – ed … so some peace and quiet will do me good. I’m beginning to feel the strain and I really need a couple of days in bed to haul myself up again, but I doubt whether that will happen any time soon.

Looking at my schedule over the past three and a half months, it would have been pretty hectic for a younger person in good health. For an older person who is slowly dying, it’s been taxing to the limit and beyond.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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Monday 7th October 2019 – JUST LIKE OLD TIMES!

Just pulling into the yard this evening with Amber after picking her up after cheerleading practice when Rachel stuck her head out of the door
“Could you go down to the tyre depot and pick up Darren?”

So I dropped off my passenger and headed off to my next job, musing that I ought to fit a meter under Strider’s dashboard and a taxi sign on the roof. When I sold my taxi business in 1989 I thought that I had put this kind of thing well-and-truly to bed.

But no. It was just like old times.

However, if anyone thinks that I’m complaining or that I’m unhappy about it, then that’s far from the truth. I was actually enjoying myself being out and about, especially with some decent music churning away on Strider’s hi-fi.

Actually, one of my old Mancunian acquaintances had made an appearance on my playlist. And as I listened to the words, I realised that they are really quite appropriate to the situation in which I have found myself these days as I struggle with my illness and events associated with it all.

The killer lives inside me: yes, I can feel him move
Sometimes he’s lightly sleeping in the quiet of his room
But then his eyes will rise and stare through mine;
He’ll speak my words and slice my mind inside
Yes the killer lives

Angels live inside me: I can feel them smile…
Their presence strokes and soothes the tempest in my mind
And their love can heal the wounds that I have wrought
They watch me as I go to fall – well, I know I shall be caught
While the angels live

And I too, live inside me and very often don’t know who I am
I know I’m not a hero, but I hope that I’m not damned:
I’m just a man, and killers, angels, all are me:
Dictators, saviours, refugees in war and peace
As long as Man lives…

Because, make no mistake, I am starting to struggle now. I had a really miserable afternoon yesterday and even though I was in bed early and had (for once) a really decent night’s sleep, I wasn’t feeling much better.

Luckily the girls had a lift into school so that I could take things easy this morning. I was in no hurry to surface. I had some food for breakfast, and a coffee, and then a play around on the laptop doing some stuff.

Zoe had told me when she left that she hadn’t been able to find Cujo the Killer Cat, so before I left I tried to hunt her down so that I could put her in one of the rooms where there’s no alarm sensor.

45 minutes I spent trying to find that blasted cat and when I went to the front door to accept a huge parcel delivery, there she was sitting on the bonnet of Strider. Outside all the time!

For most of the day I’ve been running around western New Brunswick fetching parts. It’s been really busy at work today. What added to the confusion was that just as everyone had something important to do, we had a delivery of 72 winter tyres and they all needed sorting and stacking.

Not only that, I’ve been doing my salemanship efforts today. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m something of an expert in Ford Cortina Mk III, Mk IV and Mk V, having made my fortune with them when I ran my taxi company. There are one or two in North America and someone posted on a forum that he couldn’t find any tyres anywhere to fit them

This place where I’m working right now is like an Aladdin’s Cave of treasures dating back years so I had a good look around. And sure enough, there are a handful just the correct size stuck down the back of the depot. And so I put an advert on the appropriate forum.

Back here, still in the driving rainstorm, i went to the Post Office on the way home to post the letters and then came back for tea. Plenty of pasta left over from the weekend, and rice pudding left over from last week. A meal fit for a king.

And then out taxiing until late. Just like old times.

But that’s enough for tonight, I reckon. I’m going to bed and I’m hoping to sleep. I need to pull myself round if I can but then again it’s been almost four months since my last blood transfusion, which I’m supposed to have every four weeks.

But do I care? Of course not. I’ve had a good time. And who wants to lie in bed at home to sit and stare at the bedroom ceiling anyway?

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Saturday 5th October 2019 – I’VE BEEN …

… a very busy boy today.

And that’s hardly a surprise because I had, for the first time since I don’t know when, had a really good sleep last night and I’ve not yet set foot outside the house.

A few items on the dictaphone, although what there is I really don’t know. And I was up and about by 06:40 too.

Rachel and Amber went to work this morning so I decided on a day off. A leisurely breakfast and a long chat with Hannah and our visitor and then I cracked on to work, with just a brief interruption for lunch.

During the course of the day, people were coming and going but I paid no attention whatever and by the time supper was served, I’d finished all of the blog entries for July (including the missing one when I was ill) and most of them for August too. There are only three or four that need to be added, I reckon.

And those that are there make interesting reading. As Kenneth Williams once famously said, “I’m often taken aback by my own brilliance”.

Or, as the Duke of Wellington once remarked about the Battle of Waterloo and which sums up my voyage completely – “By God! I don’t think it would have been done if I had not been there”.

But now Amber is down with the dreaded lurgy. It’s doing the rounds here so I’ll probably catch it the evening that I’m due to catch my bus back to Montreal.

A brief interruption though. US Granville’s match against C Chartres Football was televised this evening and I managed to catch the second half.

Hannah and her friend Journee made tea tonight. For we vegans, she made a stir-fry tofu in a creamy vegan sauce with pasta, and it was absolutely delicious. She followed that up with some vegan muffins that she had found in the Atlantic Superstore and which I will be visiting again.

So it’s bedtime now. No alarm and a day of rest. I’m going to be attacking the rear of Strider and empty out some of the stuff that I fetched back from Montreal. Some is for Darren, some is for Zoe and the rest is for filing under CS.

See you in the morning.

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Thursday 3rd October 2019 – I HAVE HAD …

… one of the best Indian meals that I have had for quite a while in North America. Outside Montreal, of course, because nothing can improve upon the Indian cafe that I discovered at Cote Vertu in Montreal.

It seems that a family of Indians – “those” Indians, not “those Indians” = have recently taken over a motel in Woodstock (a phenomenon that I first observed about 15 years or so ago) and converted the restaurant into an Indian restaurant.

I had a vegetable biryani and it was excellent, as indeed was everyone else’s meal. The service unfortunately did not match the food, but I’m sure that it will improve.

And I felt like a good meal tonight too because I’ve had a harrowing day. It all went wrong during the night where I reckoned that I had hardly slept at all. Three dictated files on the dictaphone told a different story but nevertheless that was how I felt.

There was no school run either so I hitched a lift up to the office with Rachel so that I could pick up Strider. But then we had an urgent phone call. The boy who was taking Amber to school failed to turn up so I had to dash home. Amber isn’t a fan of Strider but she had no choice in the matter this morning.

Quite a few stresses and strains at the tyre depot today. It seems that everyone is having weekend blues a few days early. But at least the cashing up was no problem tonight – we were $0:90 over so we decided to Spend Spend Spend!

At lunchtime though I’d come home for a shower and a change of clothes, and also to salvage the Note-Tab clipboard libraries from the old computer – a task that I had forgotten. But that’s now accomplished. And I do have to say that the old computer now that it’s “fixed” seems to be working better than it ever did.

We all went down for an Indian meal tonight, all seven of us. And on the way back Rachel, Zoe and I went to visit one of Rachel’s friends who is on the point of leaving for the winter.

But now I’m set up in my room on my way to bed. Let’s hope that tomorrow will bring us some happiness. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

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Wednesday 2nd October 2019 – REGULAR READERS …

… of this rubbish will recall that my writings ground out round about the 16th July for a short while after my elderly Acer laptop expired before I could upload to it the entries that I had made on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour.

However, the more astute, cunning reader will have noticed that there is now an entry for 17th July 2019.

And if you aren’t careful, or aren’t quick, you might even find some subsequent ones.

Last night I had a very late, disturbed night because I was working. And working quite hard too. Not only have I finally succeeded in firing up the old Acer, I’ve even managed to salvage all of the data that was on it.

Those two years that I spent studying for my Diploma in Computing back in 1998/99 have proved their worth and I’m surprised that I could remember as much as I did. But then again, having one’s back to the wall is a very good way of concentrating the mind.

So the result of all of this is that we might be completely back in business sometime soon.

So with having had a very disturbed night, with one or two nocturnal voyages thrown in for good measure, I wasn’t in very much of a mood this morning.

There was also the school run too, but only for Amber because our little visitor is feeling under the weather. I think that the strain of life in New Brunswick is proving too much for her.

After dropping off Amber, I headed on down to Woodstock for my gearchange arm, and by the time we got … “you said that yesterday” – ed …

They hadn’t unpacked the deliveries when I arrived so I had to loiter around for a while. There’s a huge Amish community in the region so I spent some time watching their horse grazing on the grass verge while they went to the shops. I went to the shops too – for a few bits and pieces here and there

Eventually I returned to the garage and compared the old arm with the new one. The old arm had rusted and worn away to just a fraction of the thickness to I reckon that it was about time that it was replaced.

Mind you, it’s not made the gearchange any more precise, so there must be plenty of wear elsewhere. But I’m not going to strip down the column change mechanism. I’ll go with what I have.

Having said that though, regular readers of this rubbish will recall a few years ago the overdrive unit was taken out and repaired. I’m disappointed that the people who did it didn’t replace the mechanism – it must have been pretty bad even then.

Back at the tyre depot I’ve been labouring in the workshop, answering the phone, dealing with customers, all this kind of thing, and then I went to pick up Amber from school. She’s been staying late because they have a cheerleading competition coming up and they are rehearsing.

Later this evening I went out with Zoe. She’s recently bought a little house in Woodstock so I bought her a housewarming present – a water cooler for her kitchen. And then we spent an hour or so doing some tidying up in her house to make some room.

On the way back we had a moment or two of excitement as I screeched to a halt to let a family of raccoons stranded in the middle of the road escape to the verge out of my way.

So now I’m off to bed. I had a rough night last night and I need to catch up with my beauty sleep. And looking at myself in the mirror, I need quite a lot of that.

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Tuesday 1st October 2019 – A PECULIAR THING …

… happened during the night.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that occasionally (but far more frequently these days) I have sometimes awoken during the middle of the night and then gone back to sleep and re-entered a dream at exactly the same point where I left off.

But last night we had something completely different. I awoke in the middle of the night and went back to sleep again, stepping back into a dream not at the end where I left off, but right back at the beginning where I had started.

And furthermore, as far as I could tell, it went on more-or-less (as near as I can tell) exactly as it had the first time round.

That has never happened before, and it was certainly an interesting experience.

For a change, I was relieved of duty on the school run today so I was in no rush to start the day off. Instead, I had a lounge around and when Rachel sent me a text message to say that my gearchange cable was in, I went off down to Woodstock in her car.

By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong so it was pretty crowded in the Golf, but I found room for the cable and some shopping from the Atlantic Superstore, including more of the vegan sorbet that we like and some fruit bread for me for lunch today and tomorrow – on special offer today.

Having stopped off at home to put the sorbet in the freezer, I continued on to the tire depot and had a look at Strider.

After much effort and difficulty, we managed to fit the cable. But now we have found another problem. The operating arm has a piece broken off it (which is probably what caused the fault in the first place) and the new cable isn’t holding on as well as it might. No point in spoiling the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar, so I’ve ordered a new operating arm and that will (hopefully) be there at Ford’s tomorrow.

But while we were underneath it, we did manage to find an aperture through which we can pass a cable or two. That means that I may at last be able to run a live cable or two through into the cab of Strider.

Apart from that, I’ve been going for parts, carrying sacks of grain about and answering the telephone as well as entertaining the customers. It’s all go here.

Later on, I went to pick up Amber from school (so I wasn’t totally relieved of duty) and had to fight the torrential rainstorm back home.

Tea was pasta tonight, and then I had a play with the failed laptop. Much to my surprise I managed to make it fire up and I can access part of the Windows directory now. Not the part that I want, but it does show me that the thing is not as totally dead as I was imagining.

That means that back home, I may be able to salvage some of the missing data, and that will be good news.

So now it’s bedtime. No idea what I’m doing tomorrow – I shall make it up as I go along. But an early night never goes amiss.

But remember the old Ford 1-tonne that mysteriously moved the other week? The old 20-tonne Ford that was next to it has also mysteriously moved today. But not as far.

After 20 years of standing it fired up first time with some accelerant and a new battery but the accelerator cable is stuck. It’s a long time since I’ve used a hand throttle.

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Friday 13th September 2019 – WHAT A NIGHT …

… that turned out to be!

It’s one thing to be accompanied on a nocturnal ramble by people such as Castor and Pollux, but it’s quite something else when a dramatic appearance is made therein by my father and my brother.

And when all of the action (including five children all riding on the same push-bike at the same time) takes place in Edleston Road in Crewe, then that is the stuff from which nightmares are made.

And so it should be no surprise to anyone that I sat up bolt-upright at about 01:30 in the morning in a state of shock, anger and emotion and drenched in a feverish sweat.

I’m not going to go into the gory details of all of this, which I remember totally vividly without having consulted the lengthy notes on the dictaphone, because you are probably eating your lunch right now. But let’s just say that I’m a different person today than I was 30 or so years ago and the rage and anger that was consuming me at the time and for which there is no Statute of Limitations was, I thought, long-since dead and buried like a couple of people I could mention and that I’d moved a long way further on from there.

Consequently the emotion, the violence and the anger that was going around in my head when I awoke was something that took me completely by surprise and knocked me right off balance. It’s a good job that I don’t have too many wits these days because it took me quite a while to gather those that I still have.

Going back to sleep for a while was quite out of the question so I vegetated in bed for ages, musing over the events that had led up to my rather rude awakening. And it ended up as being one of those really uncertain events – did my family connections YET AGAIN contrive to put a spanner into the works and do their best to spoil any kind of enjoyment that I might be trying to have, or did my family all club together once more to save me from a fate worse than a fate worse than death?

Bearing in mind the vicarious pleasure that they once enjoyed from watching me skid towards the precipice a long time ago, I suspect the former. But things have a strange way of working themselves out for the best if you are able to stand back and review them from a detached point of view, and you are quite often able to find a totally different perspective.

Eventually I was off on yet another ramble at some point, to such an extent that I distinctly remember dreaming that I was dictating into a dictaphone some notes of a dream.

I didn’t quite manage to beat the alarms this morning, but I was good and ready for the girls when it was time to go to school (in nice weather too).

And I was right about the garage being empty this morning. There was a queue of vehicles, including a potato lorry, right across and down the yard awaiting attention this morning. We were rushed off our feet.

At lunchtime I came back home for a shower, a change of clothes, some butties and to do some work, such as converting to *.mp3 format a live concert that I tracked down on the internet last night.

The afternoon was spent running to Florenceville for parts and shunting cars around the yard as the pressure slowly eased off. And, of course, fighting off an enormous wave of fatigue.

This evening we had burgers for tea. The carnivores had bison burgers and we two vegans (and Amber) had vegan burgers, followed by lemon whirl vegan mousse.

With it being Friday night, everyone is relaxing. But I have too much to do right now so I’m working.

And I might be some time.

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Wednesday 11th September 2019 – EVEN THOUGH …

… I promised myself an early night last night, it didn’t quite work out like that. Just after I had finished writing up my notes, the heavens opened and we were soaked in a torrential downpour.

There are many advantages of tin roofs over the old-fashioned shingle roofs, but soundproofing qualities is not one of them, especially when there is a metal trailer roof parked right underneath my window.

As a result it was long after 23:00 when I finally nodded off.

we had what seemed to be the usual wake-up round about 04:00 and we must have been on a voyage at one point or another because there are some files registered on the dictaphone. No idea what’s in them yet but, as usual, I’m keen to find out.

The alarms went off as usual but I hid down the bed until Amber banged on the door. It seems that I’m doing the school run again today. Not that I mind of course – I have to make myself useful here and earn my corn.

The last time that I took the girls to school we had a thick fog and mist. Today we were having a torrential rainstorm. The next time I take them it will probably be a plague of locusts.

At the shop there were errands to run. I ended up having to go back to the house, rescuing a couple of pushbikes, bringing them back to the garage and overhauling them. It’s a long time since I’ve had to do that – I’ve not had any real involvement with pushbikes for almost half a century I reckon.

Once they were done I had to wait until lunchtime and then go back to Amber’s school to take her some money for the cinema tonight and to deliver the bikes (good job that I have a truck).

While I was at Amber’s school we had a delightful conversation –
Amber – “some boy called me a dumbass in class this morning”
Our Hero – “really? When’s his funeral?”

This afternoon we were having printer issues. The accounting program wouldn’t permit any printing so Yours Truly was required to look into the situation.

Eventually, after much binding in the marsh, I worked out that it seems that the program had performed an automatic upgrade at midday and for some reason that I have yet to understand it had created a clone of the accounts printer and was sending instructions to the clone, not the veritable one.

When I tried to transfer printers over, it still refused to accept the change – it simply stopped sending out any printfile instructions.

Finally, after about an hour, by going way back in my mind as far as 1998 and what I could remember about BIOS settings, I managed to make the program recognise the letter printer on another port and it’s now printing really satisfactorily from there.

But there have been so many printers connected up to that setup over the years that if it were me, I’d go through and delete every printer and device that is no longer active and go for a leaner, fitter machine. But it’s not my business, not my company, not my set-up etc.

This afternoon I was hit with another wave of fatigue. I’d been on the ropes once or twice during the morning but this was serious.

But what I couldn’t understand is that I had been swinging myself in and out of the back of Strider like I might have done before 2014 with no pain or effort whatsoever. Past experience tells me though that whenever I feel really well and really energetic, it usually means that I’ve had a substantial drop in blood count and that there has been a release of adrenalin ( as if there hasn’t been enough adrenalin released just recently). And still at least 30 days (and maybe more) until my next blood transfusion.

We were away from here fairly early tonight and back here Darren and I fixed the door (it has become unhinged since I’ve been here and who can blame it?) while Rachel fixed tea. Another one of her delicious herb-laden vegetable stir-fries in olive oil. Hannah lent a big hand to the mixture so there was plenty of garlic.

And I’m well-impressed (as always) with Hannah. She’s just had her annual appraisal at work – the end of her first year’s employment. “Above and beyond expectations” was the result.

Now I’m in my room with the bass guitar, hoping for another early night. Rachel is cooking chicken soup so the whole house smells of food, Zoe is doing Hannah’s fingernails (she’s off to Wisconsin in the morning) and the other two are out at the cinema.

But searching around on the internet I came across one of the albums of the days of my youth, featuring a bassist who I admired greatly.

Long out of print now, my album is scratched and damaged beyond all recognition these days (two years of living in vans and various squats in my youth didn’t help matters) so I hunted down a file ripper and downloaded the tracks.

That took an age but converting them to *.mp3 was quite quick. Now I’m up and running, over an hour later than I had intended.

So I’m off to bed. I’m not sure what the plan is tomorrow but I’ll work it out as I go along.

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Monday 9th September 2019 – WITH HAVING TO …

… go to bed early last night in order to be on form for today, it goes without saying that I had another bad night last night.

Still awake at 01:30, and when I finally did drop off, it was just in 20 minute segments where I was off on various travels. When I unwind the dictaphone at some point in the future I can tell you all about them, but what I can say is that at one point Castor and I were joined just for a change by Pollux.

Is it the first time that the aforementioned has accompanied me on a nocturnal voyage? I shall have to check

And it was one of those nights where I kept stepping back into the voyage at exactly the same place that I had stepped out. That’s something that I’m noticing is happening more and more frequently these days and when I was having similar situations back 15 or so years ago, I found myself able eventually to move onto a third plane, and that’s when it all became exciting.

That was during the period that we were researching dreams (that lasted from about 1998 to 2006 or so) for someone’s PhD at University and so our individual research was never individually published. But I still have the notes somewhere and I’ll have to look them out when I’m back home.

The spell was however unfortunately broken round about 04:00. The batteries in the dictaphone went flat at an inopportune moment and, determined not to miss a moment, I left the bed for a spare set.

They were flat too so I had to find some more and in the meantime find the charger to charge up the flat ones.

Unfortunately this meant that by the time that I was organised and went back to bed, I’d missed my spot and ended up going off somewhere else instead and isn’t that a shame?

When Amber banged on my door, I’d been up for quite a while. Before the third alarm in fact and that’s a rare deal right now. So we went outside ready for school.

Amber doesn’t like the idea of travelling cramped up in Strider so she had negotiated use of her mother’s car for me. It was cold, damp, misty and foggy outside and I had to clean off the car before we could go anywhere.

We negotiated out way through the queues at the covered bridge (the highway is down) and much to my (and everyone else’s) surprise, the St John River valley was clear of fog and mist. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, that’s usually the place that GETS it first.

The girls clambered out at school and I drove back to the Co-op for apples (seems that we have a little fruit-eater amongst us) and to Tim Horton’s for bagels for me for breakfast.

At the tyre depot the morning passed quickly. There were lots of people around there and we were quite busy. I sorted out some paperwork and then, grasping the nettle, I telephoned the hospital back in Leuven.

They offered me a blood transfusion on 11th October on a “take it or leave it” basis. And so I took it. After all, chemotherapy and mapthera didn’t work as we know and the product that they are trying out on me is still in the trial stage so it’s not licensed as yet in North America.

And with having missed already three of my four-weekly transfusions, heaven alone knows what my blood count might be like. It was knocking on the “critical level” back in June.

Nevertheless, I’m going to try to see if I can push it back a week or so. I have may things to do that are as yet undone and there are many opportunities waiting to come my way and that won’t be accomplished if I’m not here.

After that I went to see Ellen. She’s quite ill too and doesn’t look anything like the woman that I remember. It’s a shame but I reckon that we will both be stoking the fires of eternity together, and quite soon too. But I kept her company for an hour or so and we had a good chat.

At lunchtime I took Rachel’s car back home and picked up Strider. Then went to the Irving for lunch. Afterwards I hopped off to pick up my mail from my mail box but SHOCK! HORROR! the whole battery or mailboxes out on the River du Chute road has been flattened.

A brief drive enabled me to find another battery of mailboxes but my key didn’t work. Off to the Post Office then, where she explained that the boxes have been moved and I needed a new key. She confirmed my Canada address and gave me a new key to a different box

But even more SHOCK! HORROR! It seems that my new licence tags for Strider haven’t come through. They expire at the end of the month so I need to chase them up before I go off to Montreal and Ottawa.

And I forgot to add that with the road up there being as it is and with Strider being as he is, it was an exceedingly lively drive. Next time that I go to Labrador I shall need to take with me a change of underwear

This afternoon there was yet more work to be done. Darren needed to take some heavy springs down to the welders in Woodstock so I went along to help. By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong but in the big Chevrolet lorry there was plenty of room.

Having brought the petrol back on Saturday it was the turn of the diesel. But this time, now that the lorry is mobile again, we had a proper licensed fuel tank to move the stuff about.

I have deliberately refrained from mention the world’s worst customer service that I have ever received – service that would knock Belgium’s legendary incivility to its customers into a cocked hat.

I rang Walmart in Fargo about the splash screen on my laptop and after repeating my story 7 times to 7 different people the best advice that I was given was to “reformat your hard drive and tough s**t for your data”.

That’s advice and assistance that I can well do without.

There was a major issue trying to reconcile the cash account this evening on closing so we had to stay behind to resolve the problem. Eventually, at about 18:30 we suddenly twigged – payments received after closing on Saturday lunchtime, credited though on Saturday, had been put into the till on Monday instead of being added to Saturday’s pouch.

Of course, neither I nor Rachel had been there at close on Saturday or opening on Monday, had we?

It meant that we weren’t back home until 19:00 and, much to our surprise, the girls had cooked tea. I went for a shower afterwards and then tried some of Rachel’s home-brew ice coffee, which was delicious.

Now even though it’s early, I’m off to bed. It seems that the school run is required for tomorrow (the school bus arrives too late, what with the issues on the bridge and Amber has already been cautioned once by an unreasonable Principal, and she can’t take a passenger on her scooter) and once more, Yours Truly has drawn the short straw.

And a big hello to my new readers from Montreal and Mississauga.

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