… lie-in this morning. It seems that the telephone battery went flat during the night and so it didn’t ring. Instead of a 06:45 awakening, it was something more like 08:45 when I left my stinking pit. It’s a good job that that hadn’t happened yesterday, isn’t it?
And I’d been on my travels too during the night – reliving parts of a nocturnal ramble that I had undertaken a good while ago. I was at one of the railway termini in South London (Victoria? Waterloo?) and needed to travel to Leicester (why, I have no idea). So instead of going on the Tube, I took the bizarre decision of crossing London on the bus, despite the heavy traffic on the streets. So I walked away from the Underground station that we have visited before on a nocturnal ramble and leapt aboard the bus, with the conductor telling me that it might take TWO HOURS. We ended up going down Euston Road on a high ridge looking northwards to some kind of rural view (which we have seen before) quite unlike anything that you might see around Kilburn and Kensal Green. I cant remember who I was with now but she insisted that we stop for a meal, even though time was running out. And there she was, gaily chatting away quite nonchalantly with her food and the sands of time were disappearing. It all fitted in with another nocturna ramble, where I was on a train heading somewhere but ended up at Crewe Station instead.
With no reason to go out early, I could have my medication and eat breakfast. But I didn’t feel like doing very much at all. In the end I made a start on the pile of photos that I mentioed earlier, trying to sort them, but my heart wasn’t in it and I was easily distracted.
When I was at Coutances yesterday I saw some more packets of soup that I could eat – no milk proteins or anything like that. “9 vegetables passed through a sieve” so I bought a few packets. This lunchtime I made one up. And while it isn’t the best soup that I’ve ever tasted, it went down quite nicely with some more bread. Thickening the soups out with this small pasta and bulghour is definitely the way to go.
This afternoon I finally knuckled down to work and scanned all of the paperwork from yesterday. Tomorrow when I come back from the shops I’ll send off for my new licence. I hope that I have all of the paperwork now.
Many people have asked me why I keep a detailed blog like this, and I always answer that there are several reasons.
- When I used to work on rebuilding the farm and installing all of the solar panels and wind turbines and the like, it kept people up-to-date with that I was up to. Believe it or not, there were many people who were interested
- When I’m on my travels, it lets people know what I’m doing and where I am, so that they have plenty of time to head for the hills if I’m on my way in their direction.
- With my health issues, it lets people know that I’m still here and still alive. And if there’s a silence for a couple of days, like there was in Verdun last March, they can come to look for me and mak sure that I’m okay.
- I’m the world’s worst at self-motivation. And so if I put down o here that I’m going to do something the next day, then I’m obliged to do it so that I don’t look silly, as well as being some kind of reminder.
But it serves another purpose too which is much more important. It’s an indexed blog and I can save keywords. And then I can search the keywords and see the entries that relate to those words. And that way I can tell, for example, exactly how many times I went to the Bank since 2009, and more importantly, the text of the blog will tell me why I went.
So when I receive a rather aggressive letter from the Bank, as I did yesterday, about something that they think that I have failed to do, I can search through my index (which takes about half a second) and tell them in an even more aggressive reply of the FIFTEEN times that I have been to the Bank since 27th April 2017, whom I saw and the reason for each of the visits. All there, documented in black and white.
And if they don’t like my reply, which I’m sure they won’t, they can close down my accounts and send me back all of my money. And then I’ll go and look for a competent Bank where my custom will be welcomed.
Having written my letter, I went out for a walk.
Today I took the route by the city walls – but on the pavement, not on the footpath below due to the weather conditions.
And we can see that our crane has now moved from the side of the quay down to the entrance to the port area where there are the lock gates. I imagine that it’s those that are going to be replaced.
And I wonder what that might mean for the port.
But there’s a thing over there.
They have been building a new block of flats at the port for as long as I can remember and they are slowly reaching their finish. There’s a radio aerial been erected and today there was a guy climbing up there connecting the wires.
A hard hat, but no safety harness, not colleague to assist, no nothing. Just imagine that in the UK Nanny State with all of the Health and Safety restrictions.
Back here I made myself a coffee – but promptly fell asleep for an hour instead so it was cold. And then I’ve spent the time, apart from the half-hour on the guitar, re-reading my letter and tweaking it a little. When writing something off the cuff like that, it’s always a good idea to go for a walk and a think before sending it.
I had some grated vegan cheese left over from the other day so I made myself a pile of mashed potatoes and assorted vegetables all drowned in a cheese sauce. And delicious it was too. And then the evening walk around the headland.
And I hope that the alarm works tonight.
