Saturday 13th January 2018 – ISN’T IT NICE …

… to be able to watch the football on the big screen?

Unfortunately the laptop with the broken screen didn’t work – it’s quite an old laptop of course and the software in it won’t run the video plug-in for the browser.

But the laptop that I’ve been using as a media centre up until recently did the business, that’s for sure, and I was able to watch the first half of Cefn Druids v Llandudno in perfect comfort.

Unfortunately it wasn’t such a perfectly comfortable night? I was awake in the middle of the night and took a while to go back to sleep again. But I was dead to the world when the alarm went off and it was a struggle to leave the bed. How I’m looking forward to a nice lie-in tomorrow!

After breakfast I had a shower, a good clean-up and change of clothes, and then off to the shops, where I spent another pile of money.

LIDL had some hand towels of the type that I bought the other day so a pack of three disappeared into Caliburn, as did a battery charger. All of mine are back at the farm and in any case are over 30 years old. A little hi-tech modern one will do much better when I might need it.

At Mr Bricolage I bought a knob for my saucepan lid – the one on which I broke the handle the other day, and NOZ came up with the usual stuff.

Centrakor provided a new washing-up bolw of the correct size (so my wok and my pizza platter will fit into it), a few other bits and pieces and a box with a tight-fitting lid – just the thing in which to keep my socks and undies.

At LeClerc I went to look at the HDMI cables because the one-metre cable that I have isn’t really long enough for what I need. And with -metre ones on offer at just €9:99, that’s long enough for just about everything.

LeClerc was also having a sale on suitcases. And a small cabin-sized one on wheels at just €15:99 – just the thing for my trips to Leuven – also ended up in the back of Caliburn.

And I’m glad that I had bought that TV last weel, because there wasn’t a cheap one anywhere to be seen in the shop.

After fuelling up, I came back home, made myself some soup and then … errr … had a little rest for half an hour. And then cracked on with organising the shopping and sorting out another pile of papers. There’s actually some room in the drawers here now, and isn’t that astonishing?

At the end of the football I had to leave.

Caliburn and I went off to Cérences where we were the other week.

It’s the nearest Saturday night match and the home side were playing the Mouettes of Donville.

The first half was all one-way traffic towards the Donville goal. But the Donville keeper put in a performance that neither he nor I will ever forget, including a magnificent “Banks” reverse save. It was the performance of a lifetime and I don’t think that I’ve seen better.

At the start of the second half Donville made two substitutions and the two players that came on, playing down the left, changed the balance of the game and we had a much more even contest.

However it didn’t last. The new left winger had clearly unsettled the defenders and after about 25 minutes he was on the receiving end of a bad challenge and limped off the field. We then went back to the one-sided match that we had in the first half.

The Donville keeper was finally beaten with just 10 minutes to go – a long-range shot that dipped and curled out of his reach and in underneath the angle of the post and crossbar – but he still made a couple more top-class saves to make the result look a lot closer than it deserved.

But there was a lot of naughty stuff going on in this game about which the referee didn’t seem at all concerned. One Cérences player made two tackles in as many minutes, either of which merited a red card in my opinion but nothing was given. And so a minute or two later a Donville player exacted his own retribution by giving him a kick that would have felled an ox. No card for that either.

And that’s just a couple of examples. There were many more.

So, frozen to the marrow, I drove back here and now I’m going to bed.

A nice lie-in, I hope. I deserve it.

Friday 12th January 2018 – IT’S JUST LIKE …

… old times in here. Here I am, sitting cross-legged on the floor (just like sweet Regina who’s gone to China) surrounded by piles of paperwork. Only difference is that there aren’t four cats circling around trying to work out which pile of paper you are actively working so that they could sit on it and stop you.

Yes, I’m having another “missing paper” session and so the easiest way to deal with all of this is to bring out all the papers that I can find, sort them into date order and then file them away now that I have bought a binder. And I reckon that I’ll have to buy some more too because this is going to be a long job.

After crowing for the last few days about how good my sleep hs been just lately, it’s inevitable that sooner or later it would come back to bite me.

And so after being thoroughly worn out by my adventures yesterday and aching all over, there I was, wide awake at 03:30.

Mind you, I did go off on my travels again. On a field, which strangely enough was the office car park of where I used to work between 1992 and 2004. I was in a Mercedes 814 bus watching the people walk by and I made some kind of cheerful comment to a girl going past. She made a petulant remark so I got out to speak to her. She was curious to know what I was doing in a bus – and it was a curious bus. There were the three seats in the fron and then a glass partition, and then the door to the passenger compartment. I was trying to explain to her how it all worked but I didn’t know either. She reckoned that it would have been just as well for me to walk to work, but I told her that I’d just come back from taking some people skiing. And our chat continued along those lines for a while.
Suddenly I realised that I had some work to do about fishing – or, more precisely, angling. The deadline was within the next hour or so and I’d done nothing, not to mention the fact that I knew nothing abiut it. I dashed into the building to see if anyone in the Reception knew anything but as usual they were very distant. And there sitting in the corner was my old colleague Frédéric – long-since retired. He was filling a cupboard there as if he had come back to work. Ordinarily I would have gone over to say “hello” but I was far too preoccupied right now.

I beat the alarm quite comfortably this morning and after breakfast I set about doing some things. And here’s something interesting that you might not believe (or, maybe, knowing me, you might).

For a project that I have on the go, I need a medical certificate. I doubt if I’ll pass it but you never know. And there are ony certain doctors who can do it – just one in Granville.

And so I phoned him – and his secretary told me that “Doctor so-and-so isn’t taking on any new patients”
“But it’s not a question of taking on a new patient” I explained. “It’s for a once-only medical examination and he’s the authorised doctor”
“It doesn’t matter” she replied. “He’s still not seeing anyone else”.
“You mean he’s going to turn down €45:00 for 10 minutes work? That’s the strangest thing that I’ve ever heard, and believe me, I’ve heard some strange things in my time”.
“Goodbye”. CLICK

So I’m going to have to travel all the way to Coutances for a medical. And I have to take all kinds of things with me, including a urine analysis. And I had that done in Leuven just now and I have the report, but can I heck as like find it?

Talking of phones, I also had to ring up Montreal and my storage facility. We’re having credit card issues as you know so my payments are falling behind. But with my new card I can go back up to date which is just as well, because otherwise they will foreclose on my camping gear and whatever else thereis in there.

Lunch was another load of soup with bread again. Took a while for the bread to go down but the soup itself was delicious and I’ll have to look out for some more of that.

And after crowing about how nice the weather has been this last few days, it’s been miserable, misty and overcast all day. And after lunch I had to go out. With this urine sample thing, if I can’t find my paperwork I’ll have to have an analysis and I need to know what to do and where to go.

So my route took me around the walls and down the steps to the pharmacie where they helpfully gave me a little container and told me where to go. I have friends like that of course.

Regular eaders of this rubbish will recall that parking features quite a lot on these pages.

And here’s another miserable example of total and utter laziness and selfishness.

The school is just round the corner from here, and here’s a mother parked on the kerb waiting for her brat to come out. It’s just before chucking-out time and all of the school buses will be coming by here any minute now, as well as all of the usual traffic. And she’s blocking the free movement of traffic.

And if you look closely, there’s a free public car park just 50 metres further on, but her darling little angel is too bone-idle to walk that far.

Makes you sick.

For tea tonight I tried some rice with mixed vegetables and a frozen curry. The rice was difficult to eat but I eventually managed it, so that’s something I suppose. One day I’ll try some pasta again and hope that I’ll have better luck next time.

And my walk this evening too. I need to keep it up no matter how unsteady on my feet I feel.

As for the music, I’m up to Neil Young. There will always be a special place for him as far as I am concerned. When I was in a very bad place 25 years ago it was he who kept me going. He suffers from depression – which must be bi-polar, for if you listen to his music you can tell the songs that he wrote when he was “up” and the songs that he wrote when he was “down”.

I remember playing After the Gold Rush on a cach with Percy Penguin, and she enquired about the album
“Released in 1970” I said
“Bimmin’ ‘Eck” she ejaculated. That’s three years before I was born!”

Thursday 11th January 2018 – REGULAR READERS …

… pf this rubbish will not be at all surprised by today’s news.

I believe that I mentioned that I had tracked down the mobile telephone repairer in Granville – there is only one. And so this morning I set off to pay him a visit. And there on the door was a notice “Gone on Holiday”.

You couldn’t make it up, could you?

I had another excellent night’s sleep, and off on my travels yet again. My mother was having yet another one of her “performances” and so I left home yet again. I found myself in a big house where there was a place for me to stay – but it involved climbing up a rope and leaping across a three-foot gap, hanging on by my fingers and hauling myself up. But somewhere along the line I had acquired a cat, and trying to climb a rope with it in my arms was difficult, and jumping across a three-foot gap would be impossible. And then what made it worse was that another cat decided to come along and join in the fun. He climbed up into my arms too.

After breakfast I had a shower and general clean-up, and then it was tile to hit the streets.

First stop however was the port.

I’d seem them the other day unloading a pile of stuff n the quayside and so I reckoned that it might be Grima coming in. But instead it’s his rival, the Normandy Trader.

She’s a converted landing craft as you can tell, but apart from that I’ve not been able to find out anything about her history. I shouldn’t be surprised if she’s a former Caledonion-MacBraye island hopper, but who knows?

The phone repairer was closed as I said, so I struggled on to LIDL. And it was a struggle up the hill as you can imagine. I’m not really in fit state to go on foot but I do need to push myself onwards.

And seeing that I didn’t want anythinf really, I did well to spend €25:00 in there. But they had unleashed some more towels so I grabbed another set to make two now. And the last set of AAA batteries (but it’s not the batteries that are the issue in the remote control – it must be goosed).

But on the way back, I made an exciting find.

I had to make a sharp deviation to avoid being run down, and found myself face-to-face with the letter boxes of the Associations that use the public rooms.

And there are a couple of things on here that I find quite interesting, as you might expect. I shall have to make further enquiries.

Back in the town, I had a cunning plan.

Being frustrated with this message limit that is blocking my credit card from making on-line payments, I headed to the Post Office. When I was there the other day I’d seen pre-paid credit cards on offer. One of those, with a payment up front, should enable me to complete this driving licence.

But regular readers of this rubbish will not be in the least surprised to learn that the Post Office has sold out, and doesn’t plan on having any more.

You can’t make that up either.

But not to be outdone. I went to the Orange shop and had a bit of a moan at one of the salesmen. And hey! Presto! A quick manipulation with my phone and a raft of messages suddenly appeared.

You might think that I can now go ahead and complete the form, but I have a better idea that might take a couple of days to come to fruition.

All in all, I was out for almost three hours,and I’d done 82% of my daily exercise, so I’d earned a sit-down. And at lunchtime I made myself a thick vegetable soup with pasta and bulghour in it. Delicious it was too, and I even managed some bread.

I was going to say that I had a good relax all afternoon, but that’s not quite true. It was such a beautiful afternoon that later on I tore myself off the sofa and staggered outside for a walk around the headland.

There was a strange-looking yacht out there too. It’s either sailing at a strange angle or else it’s one of these historic yachts of the type that you see around here every now and again.

UNfortunately, without the zoom lens it’s difficult to say.

Yesterday I mentioned the lighthouse here on the Pointe du Roc.

I did say that I’ve yet to take a good photograph of it, and so I resolved to put that right today.

I’ve mentioned … "on many occasions" – ed … that each lighthouse is painted a different colour so that mariners can distinguish them in the daytime, and different sequences of flashes so that ditto in the night.

But I think that they could have been a little more imaginative with the colour scheme here. But at least it blends in with the ruins of the Atlantic Wall.

There’s also a coastguard station here, operated by the French Military.

It’s complete with a radar installation as you can see. A really impressive piece of equipment.

And so I continued on my way around qnd passed the 100% mark so I’m now feeling very virtuous. And quite right too. It’s been a while, although I know that I’m going to suffer for this.

Back here I had a spell on the guitar and listened to the music on the new hi-fi. And we’ve now passed onto Tangerine Dream.

I’m not too keen on some of their more experimental music, but they went through a stage – well, two stages actually – of producing some albums that were unbelievably superb, and bring back many happy memories of when I was living in Hankelow in the mid-70s.

And talking of superb, let me tell you about tea tonight. Not really knowing what I fancied, it was mashed potato with cheese, and a huge plate of mixed vegatbels with bulghour and gravy. Tons of protein in that lot.

That so buoyed me up that I went for another walk (well, more like a stagger) this evening. And I’m now up to 128% of my daily activity.

So I’m off to bed now to easy my aching joints. God knows what I shall be like tomorrow.

Wednesday 10th January 2018 – IT REALLY WAS …

… a beautiful afternoon this afternoon. And I took advantage of it by going out for a walk.

Peering over the wall just along the footpath here I had a really good view of Donville-les-Bains out there, with that big white building the former hotel where I saw that miserable studio back in the Spring.

I’m glad that I didn’t move there, I can tell you.

My walt took me up around the headland and round by the lighthouse.

No photos of there though because the sun was quite low and right in my eyes. But a little further on round the bend there was a nice view across the harbour to the upper town near the Sports Complex.

In the foreground though you cans ee the old dry dock – dating from the Napoleonic era so I am told. NO gates on it now, which is a shame, and there won’t be if the cost that I have heard bandied about is anything like correct.

That’s a shame because I’d love to see the port here have more use.

Returning back here by the road, I noticed that we are having the pavements dug up.

There have been hieroglyphics scrawled on the pavements for about 6 months and they are finally getting round to doing something aboout it.

It’s an EDF project, so I was told, so it came as something of a shock.

What else is nice that this afternoon, Spirit came round on the hi-fi. One of the most underrated bands ever,

they were another one of the “Summer of Love” California jam-bands, led by guitarist Randy California and with the … errr … elderly Ed Cassidy.

I’d had another decent night’s sleep last night. And been on my travels too. My mother was having another one of her “moments” so I cleared off. I had a couple of these big paper carrier bags with some things in, and I was trying to find a place to stay. I came across what might have been a motel but the entrance was miles away so I hopped on a bus. I was sitting on a longitudinal seat and a girl next to me was talking across me to another girl sitting on the first perpendicular seat. I suggested that we swap places so that they could talk more comfortably, as I would be getting off quite soon. But the entrance to the motel wasn’t an entrance at all and it wasn’t a motel either, so I stayed on the bus. But I needed to alight sometime soon for a tour around the shops, but then I noticed that one of my bags was badly split, and how was I to go round the shops with my bags anyway? THat would lead to complications.

All of this took me right through to the alarm and it was something of an effort to leave the bed. But leave it I did, at something like a reasonable time.

I’ve not done too much today though. Sorted the washing, which dries quite quickly in front of the radiator, and I’ve also had a play with the damaged HTC smartphone. It charges up fine, and switches on too. The alarm works and even the laptop recognises it and all of the software seems to be there. But the touch screen doesn’t work.

Nevertheless, the signs are quite optimistic, but we’ll see what the repair place has to say.

Three meals again – tea being mashed potatoes, peas, a vegggie burger and gravy. It took a while to eat but it seems to be staying in which is good news of course.

And a walk again tonight, although that was something of a struggle.

Tomorrow I’m going to try for the LIDL on foot. I don’t know why because I don’t need anything, but I have to go and sort out this telephone anyway.

And Thursday is LIDL day usually so it will do me some good to make an effort. I need to push myself forward because if I don’t I’ll just wither away and that’s not going to be any good at all.

Tuesday 9th January 2018 – THIS IS JUST RIDICULOUS!

Following the exciting events of my trip to Belgium the other week I need to apply for a new driving licence.

This isn’t going to be easy – in fact it’s flaming well complicated because it all has to be done on line these days and I’ve been putting it off for a while. But it needs to be done so I’ve bitten the bullet and made a start.

All kinds of different documents are required so this morning I set to work.

Firstly you need a photograph. And not any old photograph either but a digital photograph loaded onto the ANTS (The Agence Nationale des Titres Sécurisés) database with a serial number. You can’t do this yourself – you need a certified photographer who has access to the database.

Having made the appropriate enquiries the other day at the Driving School, I went off up there and eventually tracked him down. It took 5 minutes and, €20:00 poorer, I left clutching a pile of photographs and more importantly, the serial number of my photograph in the National database.

Back here, rather tired after my walk, I had a look at what else is needed.

Most importantly, I need to open an account with ANTS. And so I set to work on that. Eventually, that was up and running too. It took a while, with everything that I needed to enter.

Once that was done, I needed to make my application for a duplicate licence.

To replace a licence that is lost or stolen, you need a copy of the declaration made to the police. That was what I obtained the other day when I was out on the town. With no scammer handy, I took a photo of it and uploaded it it to the laptop. So I could add that to my file.

Next is a proof of address. This is going to be complicated because I no longer live at the address to which it was issued and any proofs of address that I have for there have long-expired.

Ordinarily I would have edited the date without batting an eyelid – we have the technology – but times have changed over the last 25 years and the French judiciary is not noted for its benevolence. There’s a space to add “additional documents” but only in *.jpg or similar format, so I typed a letter of explanation, took a screen print and saved it as an image. And attached that.

Then I needed a National identity document. Luckily I had scanned my passport when I received it a few years back, so that was no problem.

All that remains now is to pay for it, and to do that you can buy a stamp on-line with a credit card – €25:00 this will cost me. And so I attacked that too – almost done now!

But you wouldn’t believe it. Or, knowing me as you do, maybe you would.

I boked the stamp and went to pay for it. The bank needed to send a confirmatory code for me to enter so I waited.

And waited.

And I tried again.

And waited

And waited.

In the end, Liz sent me a text. Which I didn’t receive. So while I was clutching the phone in my hot sweaty mitt, she sent another one.

And a brief error message flashed up – “your mailbox is full. Please delete unwanted mails”.

There are all of 18 mails in my inbox so I went to delete them. And if that isn’t a complicated procedure I don’t know what is. It took ages, but they’ve all gone.

So Liz sent me yet another – with the same error message. This just can’t be right

There must be a hidden message box xomewhere on the ‘phone and can I like as hell find it. I had a look on the internet to see if that is of any help, but I seem to be one of a thousand people with the same problem. It’s an old Samsung Young S5360 so it’s not too much of a surprise.

But to fall at the final, easiest fence like this after having done al of the hard work is a real tragedy.

Anyway, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger and galvanises us into action.

I’ll be in town on Thursday morning so I’ll go to Orange and see what they have to say about all of this. And I’ve also found a phone repairer in the vicinity. You’ll remember that I had an HTC smartphone that fell into a bucket when I was ill in Verdun. I managed to make it fire up but the keyboard didn’t work, so I’ll take that in on Thursday to see if it can be fixed.

GRRRRRRRR!

I’d had a reasonable sleep too last night, and was up and about shortly after the alarm. After breakfast I had a shower and a general clean-up and cut mu hair too. And a machine-load of washing turning away while I was in town.

But apart from that I didn’t have much time for anything else. Half an hour on the guiter again but struggling to keep awake while I was doing it.

Three meals again – breakfast, soup for lunch and for tea I had mashed potato and a frozen curry that I had made a while ago. Delicious it was too.

And I went for another walk in the rain this evening.

But now it’s bed-time. And I’ve earned it. I’ll have to see what tomorrow brings.

Monday 8th January 2018 – I’M CRACKING …

… on with the arrangements in here, I’ll tell you.

I had a closer look at the TV today. there’s a USB socket that, surprisingly, can be used to record TV programmes (not that this concerns me of course) but it’s also a data input socket.

And so Brain of Britain had a marvellous idea. He found a USB memory stick and copied a pile of black and white films onto it, and then inserted it into the USB socket.

Making the TV read the memory stick wasn’t the work of five minutes though, but eventually I managed to make it function, and there on the menu were all of my films.

The problem is, however, that the format of most of them isn’t supported by the television and that was something of a disappointment.

But not to be outdone. Where there’s a will there are relatives, so the old saying goes.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have an old laptop that runs perfectly well, apart from the smashed screen and keyboard. And it has come in useful at times too in the past.

But it’s having a dramatic lease of life right now. Because regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few weeks ago I bought an HDMI cable in the NOZ for €1:99. And there’s a HDMI socket on the laptop and two on the television.

And so I connected the one to the other via the third, and spent the next considerable while trying to make the TV read the signal from the laptop.

It was easy once I’d figured it out, and then I had the delightful pleasure of not only watching all of my films, but a slideshow of my photographs and also some Youtube videos in full glorious technicolour.

Not only that, I reckon that the streamed football matches that I watch at weekend can be picked up on the old laptop and I’ll be able to watch them on the TV too and maybe even, if I can configure it properly, to record them too.

But I need a much longer HDMI cable. At the moment I’m having to make do with an old cordless mouse to control the laptop – or I would if I had any batteries. I must sort this out.

Yes, it’s all systems go here – even if it did take much of the day to sort it out.

For one reason or another I still had the alarm set at 07:30 this morning. But I did manage to beat it out of bed.

After breakfast and doing some paperwork and watching a couple of miscellaneous itemsfor which I was bidding (and winning) on an on-line auction site, I began my marathon odyssey with the television.

We had an interruption for lunch when I finished off the soup from Saturday, and another one when I went for a walk around the headland – first time for quite a while. And yet another when I stopped for half an hour on the guitar, during which I … errr … fell asleep.

Just for a change I managed a third meal tonight too. Baked potatoes with cheese stuck in the cuts and baked beans. The cheese melted nicely in the microwave and it was all delicious.

When the washing-up was finished I went for a walk around the city walls. And that’s the first for quite a while too. But that proved to be a little too much and it was something of a struggle over the last 400 metres.

So now I’m sitting listening to Led Zeppelin on my new hi-fi, with which I’m even more impressed that I am with my galvanised steel dustbin, and I’ll be off for a well-earned sleep in early course.

I really can’t stand the pace these days.

Sunday 7th January 2018 – HEROES!

The players and officials of US Granville do a lap of honour around the pitch after their match against the Girondins of Bordeaux.

And quite rightly so, because they have just pulled off the Shock of the Century in French football. A part-time team playing Regional football in CFA2 North-West – the equivalent I suppose of the Conference North in the UK, have just knocked Premier League Bordeaux out of the French FA Cup.

And they made it look easy too.

Getting to the ground was quite something because the street was cordoned off and I had to drive miles to meet Terry. But we made it in plenty of time. And I was interviewed on France 3 too! My fame is spreading!

And it’s just as well that we got there early because the Stade Louis Dior was packed.

We ended up standing on the bank on the training ground looking aross at the pitch because it was the only really decent vantage point.

And we were treated to an event that I for one won’t ever forget.

I’d had another less-than-impressive night and despite it being Sunday I was wide-awake at 07:30.

Mind you, I’d been on my travels during the night, and a welcome return to our nocturnal rambles of Nerina and Zero. Formerly regular visitors but have been conspicuous by their absence for a while. Nerina and I were trying to book ourselves into a hotel in West London and having an inordinate amount of difficulty doing so, and I was close to losing my cool. Nerina suggested that we went for a walk to cool down, so we went outside and found ourselves aongst a large numger of Orthodox Jews who were diriving horses and carts laden with goods and produce pretty much as they might have done in the late 19th Century. We ended up walking along the towpath of a canal and Zero went skipping off with her head in the clouds. I was pointing out these tourist signs of historic object and the like and trying to interest her in them but like most kids of that age she was more interested in flowers and butterflies and the like.

I waited until 08:00 to leave the bed and by 09:00 I had breakfasted. And then – SHOCK! HORROR! I went working on a Sunday. I brought up the television and assembled it, and then had to do some rearranging of my living room to find a place to install it. That even involved some more vacuuming!

Configuring it was another thing – not helped by the fact that there were no batteries in the remote control and I had no fully-charged ones lying around. I’m short of good AAA batteries so I need to buy some more.

It took me ages to try to find the “DVD” switch on the remote control and in the end gave up. But I installed the DVD player anyway (and the remote control for that has stopped working) and much to my surprise the TV recognised automatically the signal from the DVD and started to play the disc.

So I sat and watched a film. And it really is nice to watch a DVD on a decent screen after all these years. 80cms is pretty big in my apartment.

And then the football.

Quite frankly, the Girondins of Bordeaux were abysmal. They had a midfielder by the name of Jérémy Toulalan. In his career he’s had 36 caps for France, transfer fees of almost €20,000,000 and when he was in Spain he was on a salary of €4.2 million. And yet if ever there was a player so disinterested in a match I have yet to see it, even in District football. In my own personal opinion he should have been ashamed of himself because it’s players like him who ought to be pulling his team up when they are down, not chickening out of the game.

If there ever was a gulf between the two teams, you would have said that it was Granville who were the Premier League team. They took the match by the throat and went on the rampage from the kick-off. And Bordeaux had no answer.

Had Granville’s finishing been any better they would have been 3-0 up after half an hour. They missed a penalty after 10 minutes and had two other shots at point-blank range either saved or blazed over the bar. And that’s not counting the shot that the keeper completely misjudged and had to hastily scramble over the bar to save a load of omelette sur le visage.

The Girondins of Bordeaux scored with their first attack after 37 minutes, but that was their best effort. US Granville’s keeper didn’t have too much to do.

In the second half, Granville came out as they went in – storming down the field driven on by the n°2 and the n°8 who had the games of their lives. And as the match progressed you could sense that it was not impossible that they might do something here.

And as we drifted into the final 5 minutes with Granville camped in the Bordeaux half the most amazing thing happened. The Girondins began to lose their discipline. We had a rash of yellow cards and then, totally inexplicably, the Girondins right-back put in a dreadful challenge on the Granville winger right out on the touchline. There was no need for it – the winger was going nowhere and it really was a vicious tackle. Result – a RED CARD.

Girondins of Bordeaux down to 10 men.

4 minutes of injury time and with 3:50 played, the Granville n°2 put in a low cross into the area. It took a wicked deflection, right into the path of a Granville attacker who sidefooted it straight into the empty net. He was probably more surprised than anyone else in the Stade Louis Dior.

The crowd was in raptures.

There was just enough time for Bordeaux to kick off before the referee blew for time.

No replays in France – we play on. And Bordeaux for once started to play. They looked quick and keen but by now Granville’s tail was up and they kept them out quite comfortably.

And then a break downfield. No fewer than two Girondin defenders missed the ball and it fell right in front of the Granville centre-forward. Surely he must score with an open goal – but a Bordeaux defender wrestled him to the ground.

Bordeaux now down to 9 men – and the penalty? Well, Stanislaus wasn’t going to miss aanother one. Granville take the lead – and they deserved it.

We haven’t finished yet. Granville, with a two-man advantage, burst forward yet again and a midfielder hauls him back by the shirt. The referee goes over to speak to the midfielder about it, and we will never know what the reply was. But it must have been good because the referee reached into his pocket and pulled out a straight RED CARD.

Bordeaux down to 8 men.

The rest is history. You can’t come back with just 8 men on the pitch and Granville hung on for the most unlikely victory which they richly desrved and did a lap of honour around the pitch.

The manager of the Girondins of Bordeaux said after the match “it was just one long nightmare of a Sunday afternoon”. His side, losing its cool like that and having three players sent off against a bunch of regional part-timers was disgraceful. US Granville came out of the game with credit.

We walked back to the car park and I drove home. Frozen to the marrow and I’m still cold now even though the heating is going full-blast and I cooked a pizza in the oven.

I’ll probably be ill for a week now, but ask me if I care? I’ve had a memorable afternoon and there won’t be another one quite like this.

Saturday 6th January 2018 – I’VE BEEN CHANGING …

… the habits of a lifetime today.

And how!

We started off with another bad night last night. Despite going to bed at something like a reasonable hour I was tossing and turning for ages and spent most of the night watching the clock wind down.

And never mind the alarm going off at 07:30 – at that time of the morning I was up, medicated and thinking about breakfast. And my porridge did go down nicely too.

At about 09:15 I hit the road for the shops and I’ll tell you more about them in due course. But my shopping trip was interrupted by Rosemary phoning for a chat, and we passed a very pleasant half hour or so, with me parked up at the side of the road.

Back here, a late lunch (because I’d been out for ages) was followed by a snooze as you might expect, and then I had plenty of things to do – such as making start on tidying up the paperwork seeing that I bought a binder today.

This was followed by watching Cardiff Met play Aberystwyth in the Welsh Premier League, and then off out I went.

Up to the 3rd floor and Odile’s apartment. She was having a little fête to celebrate Epiphany and I’d been invited, which was very nice of her. Brigitte was there, and Roberte, David, Nicolas and Patrice. We all had a good chat for ages, and I wasn’t the first to leave either.

Not like me to be sociable is it? But then, I was never really invited anywhere before. My reputation hasn’t reached here yet, obviously!

But the shops!

I have resolved to make my life easier and more comfortable, and that includes buying things of a better quality than maybe I might usually do, and also to have one one or two luxuries around the place to bolster my morale.

And didn’t that work in Spades today?

Not that it means abandoning my trips to NOZ of course. IN fact I was there today and another €15 of near-expired food and a few other irrelevancies ended up in Caliburn. And the braderie at LeClerc was hit as well, with a waste bin for the living room and a bucket-waste bin for the bedroom.

But that’s only part of it – and a small part of that.

I seem to only have two towels here and both of them seem to have long-since seen better days. So with LIDL having a sale on and luxury towels reduced to a reasonable price, they had one blue shower towel and one blue hand towel (the bathroom is blue) left, as well as a matching blue bathrobe (my old one is falling to bits).

So they ended up in Caliburn too.

Next stop was NOZ, and then Centrakor for a new wallet to replace the one that was lost.

After that it was to “Happy Cash”, the second-hand shop.

Regular readers of this rubbish will be surprised to hear that I’m looking for a cheap television. I have a DVD player here – the one that I bought in Belgium years ago, complete with hard drive, and I only used it for about 6 months before I moved to France.

It’s been in a cardboard box ever since, and here I am watching DVDs on an old laptop. So I want a cheap TV and the second-hand shop seemed to be the place to go.

No such luck unfortunately, but I did strike gold in a quite unexpected direction.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I moved here I went looking for a stereo hi-fi. It needed to meet several criteria, like AM/FM radio, CD, auxiliary input, USB port (for a memory stick or a USB turntable). And how I had been singularly unsuccessful.

And there sitting on the shelf was an old battered LG stereo hi-fi with absolutely everything that I wanted, and as an added bonus, a cassette player/recorder. All powered by a remote control.

A lengthy chat with the manager saw it disappearing into Caliburn for the grand sum of … errr … €49:00.

One very happy little bunny here. I spent part of the afternoon wiring it up and the rest of the afternoon having a nostalgia trip listening to a pile of cassettes from the 1970s. Ohh Happy Day!

And later, having bought a memory stick, I copied a pile of music onto it and it’s running even now in the hi-fi. It recognises 999 tracks, which is quite acceptable

But that’s not all. Ohh no it isn’t!

Still in search of a television, I went, more out of curiosity to LeClerc. They had some televisions advertised at €99:00 and that could have been a possibility. But a 57cm screen won’t go far and besides, no SCART socket – just a HDMI cable, so my DVD player wouldn’t work. And after all of the money that I paid for it (because it was a top-of-the range machine) I didn’t want to throw it away lightly.

But there in the corner in the sale were three or four cheap Chinese TVs – 80cms – much more like it. With SCART and HDMI cable plugs and a USB port. €149:00.

So >copulatum expensium , as we Pompeiians say.

That’s now in the back of Caliburn too and it will be up in here tomorrow.

And if that’s not enough, I lost my carte de fidelité the other week and with this kind of thing it’s important because if there’s a complaint they can track your article.

The girl at the cash desk sent me to the accueil and I had to queue behind another guy. He asked for two tickets for tomorrow’s Cup Match against Bordeaux. I thought they would be sold out but “we only have six left”. So he bought two and that left four.

So badger that for a game of soldiers. I bought two too. And Terry is going to come with me to watch the game.

But shopping did wear me out – the first time for three weeks that I’ve hit the shops. I’ll be hitting the sack in a minute to gather my forces for tomorrow.

Friday 5th January 2018 – USELESS LOAD OF BANKERS!

I actually managed to struggle into town this morning.

And it’s just as well that I did too.

my early night didn’t work out as well as it ought to have done because I was wide awake at 05:00. Never mind the former times when the alarm used to go off at 06:00 (and it will again, starting next week) – by 06:00 I was sitting on the sofa having had my medication.

After breakfast, I had a shower and a good clean up, and then spent a good hour or two collecting all of the paperwork that I needed. And I’ glad that I did too because I had a nasty surprise.

But never mind that for a moment. First stop was the Police Station to complete the paperwork about my missing wallet. He had a grouch and a growl because, in his opinion, the work that they had done in Paris was bidon. But at least I now have a temporary driving licence so that I can legally use Caliburn.

And then we went to the Bank ready for a battle.

My bank cards are ready so I picked them up. And I paid a bill that need to be paid, and then battle commenced.

I shan’t bore you with all of the details. But a brief recap is that when I moved here, I went into the bank to open an account here, to close down my account in Pionsat, and to transfer all of my payments to the new account.

And then we’ve had the long sorry story of how everything seems to have gone wrong – a relentless stream of failures and incidents that have shaken my faith in the bank.

But today was the final straw. It seems that they haven’t closed the accounts in Pionsat at all, all of my payments have been paid in duplicate and I’ve been paying bank charges on two accounts that I don’t use.

Anyway I left them busily repainting the woodwork where the paint had blistered off in the heat. They are going to sort it out, so they say, but we’ll just wait until the next disaster. The Credit Agricole here in Granville is like lurching from one catastrophe to another, and my finances are catastrophic enough without any help from my useless load of Bankers.

But the most telling part of all of this was the question “who dealt with your affairs? Was it Madame xxxxx?”
Well, as a matter of fact it was. And having heard one or two stories, I’m not surprised that her name cropped up without any prompting.

Next stop was the Post Office to renew the redirection of my mail. That’s important because of my driving licence issues, more of which anon.

And here we had the delightful, typical Post Office scene of a crowd of people waiting in a queue while no less than THREE assistants dealt with one customer.

Everyone was fuming so I turned to the woman behind me
Our hero – “typical Civil Servants. No idea whatever about the Real WOrld. They should be made to take 6 months unpaid leave every five years and come and scratch around for a living like the rest of us and see what it’s like to live in the Real WOrld”
Woman behind me – “I’m a Civil Servant”.

Final port of call was at the Driving School.

To apply for a replacement driving licence on line, I nedd a special kind of certified official photograph and I had no idea where to obtain one. They would know, of course.

And indeed they did. So next time that I’m out on the town I can pay a visit.

When I returned home Liz was on line so we had a chat, and then it was lunchtime.

After lunch I did some tidying up and even had the vacuum cleaner out for a while. And I’ve made a few plans about organising myself better. If that works, I’ll be amazed because it’s never worked before. But all of this time spent hunting down paperwork is totally absurd.

Havng had a little (well, more than a little) snooze and an hour or so on the bass, I made tea. Baked potatoes and beans with cheese. And my vegan cheese slices will melt if I break them up and put them with the beans in the microwave.

And for pudding, some of Liz’s Christmas cake.

To finish off the day, I’ve been for a walk. It was slow and painful but I did it. So I’m hoping that I’ll have a decent night’s sleep tonight.

Final word must go to my former colleague and friend Anne-Marie. She joined the EU the same time that I did and we went round together for a while, even going on a skiing trip together for a week in Bulgaria. I’ve heard on the grapevine that she received her long-service medal from work the other daY.

Sp hats off to her.

Thursday 4th January 2018 – I DIDN’T …

… end up with my ealy night last night either.

You know how it is – just before you go to bed you start a little job that will only take 5 minutes but one thing leads to another and you end up being surprised at just how many other things there are. And so it was more like 02:00 when I finally retired.

During the night I’d been on my travels. I was driving a coach, an empty one, out in the countryside and came round a bend and hit a steep hill. I needed to change down two or three gears but somehow I couldn’t make the vehicle change gear, or I wasn’t quick enough or something, and the coach wouldn’t climb the hill. I felt rather silly about that.
And then later I was out running – something that I used to do quite often during my nocturnal rambles when I would run miles across South Cheshire in my bed. THis time I was running along the pavement down a long road, stepping into the roadway to pass pedestrians. I was pacing myself, planning to speed up near the end and that meant predicting the movement of the pedestrians and much to my surprise I was perfectly correct. I arrived at work – a concrete office/car park clad in red and light brown brick, on the corner of the street. I was in time to go into work but I wanted to run home again and that wouldn’t leave enough time for me to return, so I would have to take the day off.

Once more, the alarm went off at 07:30 and I was out of bed … errr … rather quicker than I was yesterday.

Not only that, I managed three meals again today. Breakfast of course, a soup with pasta and bulghour, and for tea I tried a pizza, seeing as I had a pizza base that was running out of time. It took me about an hour to eat it but I did manage it eventually. It wasn’t nice as the previous ones – I don’t like this sauce very much and I’ll be glad when it’s all used up.

One thing that I was planning to do was to go into town. There’s a list of things that need attention and the sooner the better, but one look out of the window this morning dissuaded me. Persisting down in fact.

Instead, I did some more stuff around here including a little tidying up, and spent half an ohour with the guitar. Apaprt from a brief flurry a couple of years ago, I’ve not really played the bass for almost 40 years. And so what I’ve decided to do this year is to try to pick up where I left off all of those years ago.

I do have to admit that the little gadget that I bought three years ago so that I could play the bass in the apartment is worth itw weight in gold, now that I have some decent headphones and I figured out how to work it.

And I mustn’t forget a little snooze, or the mince pie with spray-on vegan cream.

So if I have the chance, I’ll be in bed early tonight and if the weather is on my side I’ll give serious thought to going into town. I’m feeling better in myself but I still can’t shake off this cough.

Wednesday 3rd January 2018 – I WAS THINKING …

… about going to bed last night round about 01:20 when all of a sudden this ferocious wind suddenly sprung up.

I knew that it was coming of course – it’s been well-forecasted – but it hit with a violence that I haven’t encountered for quite a long time. Instead of going to bed, I stayed on the sofa and listened to it for quite a while.

Some time later I went off to bed and was off on my travels again. Playing football on a pitch down in front of the Mairie here in Granville, and the opposition was replacing thir players with young girls as the match advanced. It became a very uneven contest and I couldn’t understand what was going on.
A short while later, I was elsewhere in another football match on a very rough unkempt pitch where the grass hadn’t been mown for a year. I was up front, basically to make up the numbers (which sounds more like it), For some reason the opposing goalkeeper was caught out of position and the ball was played to me completely unmarked about 30 yards out. Of course I couldn’t run, and with half of the opposition bearing down on me I decided to trust my luck and kick it towards the goal and hope for the best, but with all of my best effort, I kicked it all of about 18 inches. And then I was caught up by the others.

Tha alarm went off at 07:30 but it was about 08:00 that I finally left the bed. And today I’ve managed three meals too – porridge for breakfast, soup for lunch and a plate of mashed potato and peas for tea.

I’ve not set foot out of the apartment today. The wind this morning was enough to keep anyone in and it kept on going until about 14:00. But after that, I was busy doing other things, including reading a pile of stuff on Roman Architecture and doing some more stuff on my little 3D animation project which I have rather neglected of late.

And also crasging out for half an hour too. I’m not sure as to whether this is a sign of tiredness, ill-health or that I’m feeling better.

But the toothache has come back so I’ve had a paracetomol and now I’m off to bed. Let’s hope that I can sleep.

Tuesday 2nd January 2018 – I FELL ASLEEP …

… on the sofa last night at about 22:30.

And so when I awoke at about 23:00 or something, I dragged myself off to bed.

And there, I had a bad attack of cramp getting into bed and that, dear reader, was that. I didn’t have a wink of sleep at all.

I’d set the alarm for 07:30 but by the time that it went of, I was up and about and doing things. I was expecting visitors.

Working for 10 minutes on and half an hour sitting down I whizzed through the apartment and while it would be wrong to pretend that it was neat and tidy, all of the rubbish had been taken out and the important bits were all properly presentable. And I was able to have a shower too.

At about 11:15 Liz and Terry turned up. back from the UK, they popped by to see how I was getting on and I was able to reassure them. As you know, for a while I was at death’s door but this doctor pulled me through.

We had a really good chat, caught up with all of out news and made a couple of plans for the Spring. A trip to IKEA might be on the cards in the near future.

This afternoon I recovered from my exertions and, much to my surprise, even though it’s now almost 23:00 I’m not in the least bit tired. And that’s a surprise after my nuit nlanche. I wonder if I’ll get to bed tonight as well.

As for food, I had my usual bowl of porridge at breakfast, but I didn’t feel like anything for lunch. Later in the evening I made another pot of soup, tomato this time, and heaved in a couple of handfuls of macaroni in it, as well as a tablespoon or two of olive oil. I need the fats and proteins right now.

Tow mugs of that went down nicely and I could even manage the sp.

One idea for the next time that I’m out is to buy some of this very fine, small pasta and I can keep on adding that into soups as I make them. That will be easy to eat and it will give the soups some body.

But here’s a surprise. Several weeks ago I bought from NOZ a couple of tins of cinnamon biscuits. It was the tins that caught my eye, never mind the content. Not large enough for my cake unfortunately but big enough for all kinds of things, and just €1:99 each. And when I saw that the biscuits therein were vegan, I snapped up the last two.

With Liz and Terry being here, I cracked open a tin. And I was totally surprised as to how nice they were. THis will have to go down as one of the deals of the year.

Monday 1st January 2018 – HAPPY NEW YEAR

Having had a couple of bad nights just recently as you know, I decided that seeing as it was New Year’s Eve last night I’d simply stay awake until I felt really tired, and then go to bed regardless of the time.

I’m not sure how much of a good idea that was, because by 05:30 this morning I was pretty much fed up. I crawled off to bed regardless.

And I was off on my travels too. Jammed in on the rear bench seat of an aeroplane – the one that goes right across the back like in a coach or bus. I was sprawled all over everyone else which must have been uncomfortable for them, but no-one was complaining. But a man a couple of rows further forward made some kind of comment, to which the woman sitting next to me – an elderly timid spinster-type – said that she wasn’t inconvenienced in the least and that it was no concern of his. This led to some kind of animated discussion during which I happened to glance down and notice that I seemed to have forgotten to put on my lower clothing. How no-one else had noticed I really don’t know, and so I had to try to keep discreetly hidden.
As an aside – these nudity dreams are quite common but I couldn’t remember the last time that I had had one. There’s certainly no record on anything since at least 2013, and probably a long time earlier too.
A little later I was going down Flag Lane bridge towards the traffic lights at Wistaston Road, and ended up in a pub down there. It was a filthy, grimy place full of cobwebs and the like and the food was dreadful but for some reason everyone was having a good time and several people came up to me to thank me – including the guy with whom I went for a few coffees when I stayed in Leuven.

Lunchtime is usually about 13:00 as you know, but by that time I hadn’t even had breakfast. Yes, I missed the morning completely what with my late night and it’s been a long time since I’ve done that.

The porridge for breakfast was good, and the soup for an early tea was delicious too. The plate of pasta in tomato sauce that I tried later in the evening reawakened my toothache and as a result half of it ebded up in the bin. I don’t want to puch the boat out too far.

Apart from that, what else have I been up to?

Bangor City were playing Llandudno in the Welsh Premier League this evening and it was broadcast on the internet. Bangor City had 75% of the possession, spent most of the match camped in the Llandudno half with their keeper Dave Roberts making some stunning saves to keep them in the game, and then breaking away upfield from a wild slash out out of defence and scoring with the luckiest deflection you have ever seen.

And I’ve also downloaded Java onto my laptop.

I used it years ago when I was building databases but it hasn’t been a feature of any computing that I have done for 15 years and more. I want to build a couple of databases for different projects and there’s no point in totally forgetting my hard-earned qualifications from all of those years ago.

I must admit that I’m much more at home with *.sql-based databases but a Java-based runtime environment is an option with the Office Suite that I use and so that’s my project for the New Year.

So while we’re on the subject of the New Year, let me wish you all the best. I’ve appreciated your support during the last year which has been a quite difficult year for me, and knowing that you are there behind me has made a great deal of difference.

I hope that the New Year brings you everything that you wished for everyone else last year.

Sunday 31st December 2017 – THAT WAS ANOTHER …

… miserable night last night.

Still awake at 01:45, and back awake again at 04:00, drenched in sweat yet again, with a dry throat and a little nauseous. I can’t shake it off, can I?

My travels didn’t seem to be so extensive, just for a change. Back in the family pile and my mother and father and younger borther were fishing out of the bedroom window into the river. They had me tying flies for them. Suddenly my borhter shouted up that he almost had a bite, and had I been quicker and doing my job he would surely have landed it. But the bath in the bedroom had no fish in it, no-one had caught anything and even the family cat was looking disappointed. MY mother then made one of her famous decisions that we were going to carry on fishing until we caught a bathful, even if it would take until next year and we were living in tents through the winter snows. “Fat chance of that” I thought to myself. I have a comfortable bed in a nice warm house and I fully intend to stay in it regardless of whatever plans anyone else had. I couldn’t imagine anything more boring than spending time fishing.

09:00 it was when I left the bed for my medication. And at 10:00 I had an attempt at a bowl of porridge. Much to my surprise, I managed to eat it without any problems.

Even more surprisingly I managed a mug of soup at about 14:30, followed by a tangerine and a couple of biscuits.

And if that’s not enough to be going on with, later in the evening I tried a small plate of mashed potatoes in butter and soya milk, with peas and cheese.

If all of that stays in, it will be the first for quite a while. First time since the night I came home from Belgium 2 weeks ago that I’ve had a hot evening meal, and first time since then that I’ve had three meals in a day.

But the hot meal has brought back the toothache. It seems that I just can’t win.

Saturday 30th December 2017 – AND IT WAS ALL …

… going so well towards the end of the evening too.

I’d had some soup and, much to my surprise, it managed to stay down. That °C to save a couple of Euros. cheered me up somewhat and I was starting to feel a little better. And I eventually crawled off to bed and to sleep.

By 01:30 that was that. I was wide-awake again and that’s how I stayed right the way through until the alarm went off. And the nausea was back as well and I was feeling dreadful.

Mind you, I’ve no idea what they must be putting in this medication that they are giving me because in that short time I’d travelled miles. Startig off by chasing a young girl aound a ski slope (and not the usual ski-slope of our nocturnal rambles either) and how upset was I when she took to her skis? There was I at a ski resort with no skis to hand. That’s the story of my life. So I watched her in her bright blue jacket disappear into the distance with her mother and I trudged back with my friends to our hotel. There were 6 of us sharing a room in this hotel and I’ve stayed in some desperate hotels in my youth, but nothing quite like this. Just an old pot-bellied stove in the middle of the room to keep us warm in 6 feet of snow. The girlfriend of one of my mates told me that she had overheard this girl’s mother say that she wasn’t going to wash during the whole time that they were there and how that would save them some money. I didn’t understand the significance of this so when I enquired, the aforementioned girlfriend just gave me a conspiratorial wink. And I was still none the wiser.
From there I moved on into central Germany or Austria to a city that might not have been Vienna. I was staying there somewhere and I’d gone out for a meal but someone stuck a very old greasy guidebook into my hand suggesting a place to go so I made my way there. It was like an amphitheatre where you entered at the top and walked halfway down, where you were met by some girls in a brown body-wrap, with stained brown skin and hair (although they were West-European). Apparently you were supposed to take hold of one and she would take you to your preferred stall where you could order your meal and sit on a bench. But me being me, I was too busy trying to identify the cutest and in the meantime everyone else was pushing past me, leaving me stranded. these girls were coming and going quicker than I could find a nice one and after about 10 or 15 minutes I gave up and went home.
Next morning I fancied visiting Dornbirn and that involved taking a train at 09:00. So there I was at 07:00 and I’d actually called a taxi to take me to the station. What actually turned up was a man leading a donkey and this was my taxi. So he led me off and I hadn’t gone more than 200 yards before I realised that it was -9°C out here and I was just in a tee-shirt and jumper. We could go back for my coat – time was no problem at all – but that would cost more money so I pushed on regardless. All day out in -9°C and the snow to save a couple of Euros. So we arrived at a kind of saloon door arrangement thing and my guide led the donkey through, almost knocking me off in the process, and then asked for €15:00. But I couldn’t see the railway station. This was the bus station, full of all of these German coaches from the late 40s and early 50s. But he pointed me back over my left shoulder to a pink stucco building and that was the station. And then I realised that I’d been here the previous evening on my way for this chaotic food arrangement, and why I hadn’t noticed all of the cafés and restaurants around here I really didn’t understand

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … if only my real life were even a quarter as exciting as what I get up to in the evenings.

I crawled out of bed with the alarm, had my medication and collapsed onto the sofa. And eventually I went off to see the doctor. I was the only one there and he took some time with me. He too didn’t think much of what had happened at the hospital but he gave me a good going-over.

And here’s an object lesson for you. Never eat hot soup after taking a painkiller. It seems that I’ve burnt my tongue. But he’s identified what he thinks is an infection in my mouth that’s causing all kinds of problems. So I now have some more antiseptic mouthwash and nausea tablets.

My weight loss isn’t significant as yet so he doesn’t think that an intravenous drip is the answer at the moment. He’s confident that if I take all of this medication as and when I’m supposed to, I’ll be able to be back on real food in four or five days. If it’s still not working, go back and we’ll watch my weight loss.

But we’ve heard all of this before. And I remember a couple of people who existed for a while on a diet of grape juice, so round to the Casino and the apartment is now flooded out with the aforementioned, as well as a few more supplies.

Back here, I hung on for a while but I was soon under the covers again. After all, no sleep last night (well, almost).

Ingrid rang for a chat, and so did Rosemary, and one or two friends on the internet too. And much to my surprise, I managed to finish off yesterday’s soup. Without burning my tongue.

So now I’m feeling a little better, just like I did last night. Let’s just hope that we’ll see a sustained improvement tomorrow because this is really depressing me now.

EPIC HALL

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