Category Archives: June_W

Friday 18th July 2025 – AT LONG LAST …

… I can see some light at the end of the tunnel.

This afternoon, just before tea-time, I finally finished editing the notes for the “Sunday Woodstock” radio programme, and I’ve actually made a start on assembling it too.

It’s probably been the most difficult series of all of the radio programmes that I’ve ever made, from a technical point of view and also from a research point of view, and so I hope that it lives up to the hype that surrounds it. I’d be disappointed if it doesn’t.

And that is despite all of the interruptions that I’ve had today.

And as if there weren’t enough interruptions last night too. For some reason (probably, mainly bone-idleness) I just couldn’t make a start on writing my notes and it seemed to take an age to do anything at all. It was after midnight last night and I was still letting it all hang out.

Once in bed though, I remembered nothing at all until … errr … 05:50 when I had another one of these dramatic awakenings that I seem to have quite often these days.

And as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … being awake is one thing, being out of bed is something else completely. It was about 06:10 when I finally found the strength and courage to haul myself out of my stinking pit.

After a good wash and scrub up I went to have my medication, and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I had been during the night. This is another one of those dreams that faded away the moment that I went to reach for the teenage mortar board … fell asleep here …

First of all, I have absolutely no recollection of anything at all. I certainly can’t remember this dream and no-one was more surprised than me to find something (such as it was) on the dictaphone.

Secondly, the significance of the second part of the dream totally escapes me. I’ve no idea where this “teenage mortar board” comes from.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up early for once. She’d had a good start and was keen to press on. Consequently, she didn’t hang around for long – just enough time for the heat treatment and to deal with my legs.

After she’d gone, I could make breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

We’re still wandering around the various churches of London and our author, John Stow, is still sticking in his thumb and pulling out some really interesting plums of knowledge.

We’re at St Swithin’s Church where, "on the back side … Sir Richard Empson … and Edward Dudley … had a door of intercourse into this garden wherein they met and consulted of matters of their pleasures." I shall make no comment whatsoever, except to enquire as to whether the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine knew all about this.

A little further on, we have a very lengthy and detailed description of the very colourful annual parade of the Fraternity of Skinners, finishing with "thus much to stop the tongues of unthankful men such as used to ask ‘why have ye not noted this or that?’ and give no thanks for what is done.".

But there’s so much of interest in this book that has been missed by temporary historians. There’s a very lengthy and complicated account of a series of land transactions in which several houses changed hands several times, and the price, according to our author, was "one rose at Midsummer, to him and to his heirs for all services, if the same were demanded.".

After breakfast, I made a start on editing the radio notes but I didn’t have much time because my friends from Ulm came round to say goodbye as they were heading to Bayeux to see the Tapestry and then driving home.

We had quite a lot to discuss and we took a long time to discuss it too. I may be busy and have a lot to do, but I’ll always stop to have a chat to friends. I don’t see people anything like often enough, and it’s nice that they take the trouble to come to see me.

My faithful cleaner was next to arrive, and she spent a happy hour going through the apartment with her brush and cloth making it look nice. We discussed the possibility of beginning to take things downstairs. I shall begin, I reckon, to sort out the kitchen and see where that takes me.

There’s a lot of stuff that I don’t need at the moment, and that will make some kind of room. If I box it up, my cleaner will take it down and when I return from dialysis, I can spend half an hour sorting it out each time that I pass by.

At some point in the day I was interrupted by a phone call. "Mr Hall – your next chemotherapy session is arranged for Tuesday and Wednesday next week, but we’d like you to come here on Monday evening straight after dialysis so that we can fit you with a catheter port.".

So here we go, then. I rang up the taxi company and gave them the bad news, but it’s also bad news for me. What I don’t understand is that if they know that this chemotherapy had such a bad effect on me nine years ago, why are they insisting on giving it to me again?.

Eventually, I could carry on with my editing, and that’s now all done. I can start to assemble the programme tomorrow morning and see where I finish. If I’ve not finished it (which will probably be the case) I can do the rest on Sunday.

But now, later than I would have liked, it’s bedtime again. I hope that I can have a good night’s sleep and plenty of exciting voyages because I could do with going out more often, as I’m sure you will agree. I’ll go out as often as I can, but I wish that there could be somewhere else to go instead of dialysis and chemotherapy. My little nocturnal voyages are the only possibility these days.

But seeing as we have been talking about going out and about … "well, one of us has" – ed … regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I used to spend a lot of my time walking around, and I sometimes had some very interesting walks.
Graveyards were some of my favourite places in which to walk and sometimes I would talk to the people whom I would meet.
On one occasion, I saw a man standing thoughtfully by a grave so I wished him a "good morning."
"Of course not" he replied. "It’s a very sad thing to do."

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Wednesday 16th July 2025 – WHAT A LOVELY …

… afternoon I have had, catching up with old friends.

My friend June was a fellow student of mine and activist at University. Her daughter Catherine was a lecturer there. They live in the wilds of Southern Germany near Ulm and whenever I was on my travels around Europe, she was one of the people on whom I would always pay a visit.

She and her daughter were part of the musical community there and her son was Sound Engineer for the Pink Fairies, thanks to whom I have some of the huge pile of live concert recordings from when the Fairies were a support band or when he took the equipment out as a freelance Sound Engineer.

June and Catherine have been in the UK visiting family and as June has been wanting to see the Bayeux Tapestry, they are o their way back via Normandy, so they popped in to say hello this afternoon and that was a really pleasant interlude. It’s lovely to meet up again.

But anyway, I digress … "again" – ed …

Last night was another late night, and it felt like it too. I had a real struggle to keep going and finish my notes. And then there were the stats and the back-up, which I really didn’t feel like doing but I forced myself. Nevertheless, when it came to the heat treatment and the ice pack on my knee, I had already run out of steam.

It was midnight or so when I finally crawled into bed, and it didn’t take me very long to fall asleep. But I didn’t stay asleep for very long. By 04:30 I was wide awake again.

While I was trying to make up my mind whether or not to leave my bed, I must have fallen asleep again because the next thing that I knew, the alarm at 06:29 was sounding.

At that moment, I really was exhausted and it was all that I could do to throw off the quilt and put my feet on the floor so that I could at least say that I had beaten the second alarm.

It was a very slow start to the morning too. I didn’t feel like doing anything at all. However I went through the motions of having a wash and taking my medication, and then I came back in here to find out where I’d been during the night.

There was some kind of advert going around about some kind of computer program. It concerned a video that was circulating around on the internet and how if you were to treat it with a certain computer program, it seemed as if the bird that was in the video was flying backwards into its nest right at the very start. It certainly sounded something very interesting to do, but reading the announcement, it just really seems to be some kind of free publicity towards the certain computer program that was mentioned and not really some kind of news item or interesting observation at all.

This is something that I’ve noticed with a depressing regularity these days. Sites that tell you to “click here to find out more” or “click here to speed up your computer” or “click here to access your details”, and when you do, you are confronted by a screen that tells you “this costs $7:99 per month” or some such nonsense.

There’s an Academia site that regularly sends me notices asking me something like “are you the Eric Hall mentioned in a paper about Labrador? Click here to find out”, and they expect me to buy a membership so that I can see my own name and my own research, if it is indeed true that it is a reference to something that I have written.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in again, and breezed out just as quickly, having applied the heat treatment to my knee and dealt with my lower legs.

After she left, I could make breakfast and read MY BOOK.

We’ve been visiting churches today and discussing the memorials in there. There’s a delightful entry in his book about "John Master, gentleman, was by his children buried there 1444." I do hope that he was dead at the time.

He also mentions "the Writhsleys to be buried there, I have since found them and other to be buried at St Giles Without Cripplegate, where I mind to leave them." I then pictured him having a change of mind and setting out with his spade under cover of darkness.

Most of the day has been spent radioing. I read through the notes for Sunday and revised them several times, after which, seeing as it was deathly quiet outside, I dictated them. And that took a while because I was continually rewriting them as I was going along.

This is another one that is going to overrun by miles and will need some serious editing to bring it down to one hour in length. But I want to finish it before I go to Paris next week (if it is next week) so that’s presumably a job for Friday and Sunday.

There were the usual interruptions – a couple of disgusting drinks breaks and my cleaner turned up in mid-afternoon so I had a wonderful shower again. And how I am looking forward to having a shower unit fitted downstairs where I can shower much more often than once a week, and do everything on my own too.

June and Catherine turned up later just as I was finishing my notes, and we sat around to chat and catch up with old times for a while, which was very nice. But I wonder why I’m becoming so popular these days. What do all these people know that I don’t?

After they left, I made tea – bangers and mash with vegetables and gravy. Again, it tasted much nicer in my imagination than on my plate but that can’t be helped. Even if my taste buds are distorted right now, I still have to eat something sometime.

Tomorrow afternoon is dialysis, to which I’m not looking forward at all. I hope though that if I have to go, I will have one of my favourite nurses to look after me. I’m in need of some cheering up.

But seeing as we have been talking about funeral monuments … "well, one of us has" – ed … in one of these London churches, our author, John Stow, heard a mysterious tapping noise late at night.
He walked over gently, and saw a man chiselling something on the tomb of a deceased person.
John Stow breathed a sigh of relief. "For a moment" he said "I thought that it might have been a ghost."
"There’s no need to worry about that" said the man.
"So what are you actually doing?" asked Stow.
"I’m just making a little correction" said the man. "They put the wrong date of death on my memorial."

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Sunday 1st July 2018 – I FORGOT …

… that I had set an alarm for Sunday morning while I’m on my travels.

And so at 08:45 we had Billy Cotton bellowing out “Wakey Waaaaaa – KAYYYYYYY” all through the house.

It wasn’t as if we had needed it either because I’d been up and about for an hour or so and had had a shower by this time.

Dave was up a little later (he said that he hadn’t heard the alarm) and we had breakfast together. And I reflected upon my night’s sleep in one of the most comfortable beds in which I have ever slept.

The plan was that I would be away fairly early but Dave and June are very nice people and we were chatting for quite some considerable time, putting the world to rights, and it was gone 13:00 when I left.

My route from there took me down to Lindau, one of my most favourite towns in Germany. I’d wanted to go for a walk around but with running so late it was impossible.

And it was just as well because with it being the first Sunday in July in glorious, boiling hot weather, the whole place was crowded and there were queues everywhere.

I drove straight through (insofar as the traffic would let me), found a bakery for my lunchtime bread, and then found the only vacant car-parking spot in the whole of Baden-Wurttemburg to have lunch. My final tomato hadn’t survived the journey and so that was consigned into the deep.

My route then took me through Friedrichshafen where I had a row with a German taxi driver who wanted to block the dock entrance while he waited for passengers off the Swiss ferry, and then along the Bodensee, dodging from one traffic queue to the next, including one caused by a grockle who had a collapsed wheel bearing on his caravan.

Eventually, after many trials and tribulations, I could hit the foothills of the Scwartzwald and started to climb into the mountains.

It’s been years since I’ve been here too and I made it as far as Donaueschingen, the town that is said to be the source of the River Danube.

The mobile phone once again came up trumps, finding me a little apartment in the “Jagerhaus” – a big wooden chalet on the outskirts of the town.

€57:00 for a night in a large studio apartment, and this place is so good that I could quite happily live here. I have my own fully-fitted kitchen with everything that I need, including a fridge with freezer compartment to deal with my ice blocks.

There’s also a large portable desktop fan, and so I washed all of my clothes and set the fan up to dry them during the night.

But having used so much hot water with the washing, there wasn’t enough left to give me a good wash and I ended up with a cold shower.

But at least I would cook a nice tea of pasta, vegetables and chick peas, which was delicious.

And the bed looks comfy too. I hope that it is because I need my beauty sleep.

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Saturday 30th June 2018 – WE HAD ANOTHER …

… early start today.

But this one meant business. Ulli was taking Hans off on a raft ride for his birthday and they had a long way to go. So we barely had time to exchange pleasantries before we all went our separate ways.

But I’d already been on my travels. Back on a job where I should have been retired but was still there. And instead of dealing with the post that was coming in, I was just filing it away un-dealt-with. And regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve had several very similar travels to this one over the years.

For my part, I went off to the big shopping centre down the road. The big DiY place opens early so I went there to look for a German plug for the slow cooker.

A German plug will fit into e French socket but not the other way round, so to solve my cooking issues I’ll fit a German plug for mow. What I’ll do in the long term is to get a three-hole French extension and fit a German plug to that

I was in luck too. They had just the plug that I wanted, and for all of €1:89 too. So I changed the plug in the car park and now we are back in business.

There’s an IKEA just around the corner too so I went in there for breakfast.

But not breakfast in bed, like some lucky people.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the other day Liz and I went to the IKEA at Caen. But they didn’t have enough of some stuff and they had sold out of some others. And so I went round and stocked up with what I had missed.

And it was cheaper than in Caen too.

I had to try a couple of supermarkets before I found a baguette, and then I headed off for the motorway. And we had an element of confusion yet again as The Lady Who Lives In The Satnav failed to recognise a grade-separated route.

having stopped for half an hour to eat my butties, I arrived at June and Dave’s at about 14:30. They live at Memmingen and June has just had a very major operation, so I was looking forward to seeing her and seeing how she was.

Catherine, her daughter, lives nearby so I went to pick her up and the four of us had a vegan pasta and a really good chat for hours.

June’s son had been a sound engineer for several rock bands, including Hawkwind and had played bass in several bands. All of his equipment was at June’s house and she had never heard his bass, a Fender Jaguar, played. And so I duly obliged.

Later that evening I took Catherine home and came back to June’s where I bedded down for the night in their guest room.

And the bed here is beautifully comfortable. I’m looking forward to this.

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Wednesday 22nd June 2016 – I WAS OUT GALLIVANTING …

… at lunchtime. June and her husband were travelling back to Germany today and as we know, the motorway passes just a couple of miles from here. In fact, I’ve had more visitors here than I’ve ever had when I’ve been living in France, haven’t i?

But we started off as we meant to go on this morning. I was awake by 05:45, downstairs breakfasting by 07:15 and working on the laptop updating the blog by 08:30. That kept me out of mischief for a couple of hours.

I had a shower, a shave and a change of clothes (such are the highlights of my life these days that I record rubbish like this) so that I could look pretty, and then I hit the streets.

June and her husband appeared bang on time and we wandered off to the fritkot in the centre of town for lunch. The food was, as you might expect, very good there and there were no complaints from anyone, not that there ought to have been. And then we moved down into the main square for coffee and a really good chat. It was a beautiful morning for once, but soon clouded over as the afternoon wore on.

They left the town at about 14:30 and I wandered back to my little room, where a strange thing happened. Yes – I crashed out completely and not just for ten minutes or half an hour but for over 3 hours, which is quite astonishing. I was well-gone.

There’s been something of an upheaval here too. We had two people who left at the weekend, as you know, but someone who had been away came back this afternoon. There had been some confusion in the fridge when I arrived and when I went down to make my evening meal everything in there had been turned around. But now it’s all properly organised and as it should be, which makes a nice change.

For tea, I had boulghour, kidney beans and vegetables with rice and tomato sauce and very nice it was too. Loads of protein in all of that and as you know, I need to be on a high protein diet these days. I followed up with more of the spicy cake and soya custard substitute.

Liz was on the internet tonight so we had a long chat, and now I’m off for an early night. Despite the three hours or so of crashing out, I’m still exhausted and a good sleep will do me good.

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