Friday 17th February 2023 – CALIBURN AND I …

… went to LIDL this afternoon to do our shopping for the forthcoming week.

And I only had to show Caliburn the ignition key and he fired up. having a new started fitted was obviously a good move.

Having said that, I wish that I was as lively as Caliburn was this morning. I had another bad, restless night tossing and turning with a real struggle once more to haul myself out of the bed before the second alarm went off. I’d have been quite happy to stay in bed for the rest of the day.

Neverthless, despite the bad night, there was plenty of time somewhere or other to go off on a few perambulations. I started off at a girls’ boarding school, something that would have been a wonderful opportunity 50 years ago, and there was something going on in Shavington in respect of the girls who attended. A little later on I was doing something at the school and had to make a report on the girls. One particular girl hadn’t made a very good start. She wasn’t really serious, rather light-headed, wouldn’t concentrate, rather silly. In the end I had to talk to her about it. I read out the report that I’d made on her. I asked her if she was happy about me sending off this report with the consequences that would lead from it. It was possible that the school wouldn’t keep her on. She would have to go back to a State school or was she going to show me how hard she worked and knuckle down to earn a better report based on the trust that I was going to place in her to do it? Interestingly, when I was reading out these reports to the girls concerned it was done in public, not in private. That was strange.

Later on I was back at school again. There was something happening this time about the headmaster. It involved climbing up the stairs all the way to the top. There were 32 floors up which you had to climb by stairs and then probably another 100 or so stairs that led to a pinnacle. I’d climbed up there once but didn’t really want to ever have to do it again. Something happened that led to these girls starting to climb up the stairs. This led to a race. Some of the older boys were racing up the stairs trying to go past me. I was trying to do everything that I could to prevent them going past and at the same time catching up with these girls. We reached the top on the 32nd floor where there was a huge marble block which everyone thought was the headmaster’s tomb, I suppose. Someone said that they’d moved this from the gym, but no, the one in the gym was smaller etc. Then it came to climbing up these 100 stairs right to the very top of the pinnacle-thing. I didn’t feel at all like doing it for one reason or another, almost as if I was scared of heights but I was here and there was only that much to do. Surely I wasn’t going to let this thing fall to the ground for the sake of just 100 steps whether I was having this fear of heights or not.

But then I’m not sure what this next one was all about but it was something to do with animals. I used to give all the animals free meals for some reason or other that I don’t know now.

Everything then descended into complete and utter chaos. I had to go round to this family, a strange family. All kinds of stuff was going on there. Basically the kids were out of control and up to all kinds of mischief creating all kinds of problems for visitors including me. When their parents came home they were absolutely furious and gave a whole list of tasks that the kids to do in order to tidy up the mess that they had made while their parents were out. A lot of that included my stuff that they had somehow managed to mess up. The thing that disappointed me most though was that I’d said a few things that hadn’t happened, simply to underline the issues and they were ordered immediately to deal with those things. How they were going to do that I really didn’t know. They’d had my car in a real dirty state. It turned out that the parents had only ordered them to clean the driver’s window and the front windscreen. I made a silly remark that “that’s a shame because I was hoping to have my car valeted here today” which didn’t go down well. It was the wrong thing to say in the wrong circumstances.

Finally, we’d been to a hotel in Canada somewhere. My cousin from Ottawa was there, a third person and I, but I can’t remember who. My cousin had been asking all kinds of strange questions that I didn’t quite understand. Then we had to go home as my cousin had something urgent to do. We set off to walk and it was raining. The subject of diplomas came up. I told her that if ever I had my life to live over again I’d be a plumber or an electrician etc because of all the difficulties that people were having, having things done like that. You’ll always find work if you’re a plumber or an electrician. You’ll never really want for anything.

After I’d had the medication and checked my mails and messages the first thing that I did was to send off the third instalment of my payment for the apartment downstairs. This stupid system of having miserable daily limits is an awful lot of effort but that’s what comes with having to bank with a bank that has in my opinion on several occasions sunk into the deepest depths of incompetency.

But at least it’s a way of transferring the money and I have the receipts to prove it. I have to grin and bear it. There are other ways to transfer the money as I have found out,, but the delay in creating accounts, sending off documentation and all of that would mean that I would run an awful risk of being too late with the payments and I don’t want that to happen under any circumstances. I’m determined to complete this purchase as quickly as possible.

For the rest of the day i’ve been chatting on the internet to a neighbour and writing out the notes for the next series of radio programmes. Not that i’ve put a great deal of effort into that, drifting in and out from other things of not very much importance. There aren’t too many notes to finish now so I’ll do them tomorrow and then dictate them. Try to get ahead of where I’m supposed to be.

At LIDL this afternoon I had a very interesting chat about genetics with some woman on the car park. It’s quite rare to find someone interesting these days, especially on the car park at LIDL.

In the shop itself I bought what I need for the next week and then headed for home. I bumped into my cleaner on the car park here and she helped me carry my stuff upstairs. It saves me a couple of journeys anyway.

But in the town, it’s already heaving with people. The funfair is up and running and there are caravanettes just about everywhere. Almost all of the temporary camping pitches are taken already. I suppose that after several years of absence, people are determined to make up for lost time at Carnaval.

Rumour on the grapevine is that they are expecting 100,000 people here for the next few days and in a town of 13,000 people that’s an awful lot.

Tea tonight was veggie balls and chips with a delicious salad. My air fryer is working wonders with the chips and veggie balls and I’m glad that I bought it. But I really ought to try to do more with it. Baking the bread the other day seemed to do some good and I’ll have another go at that.

Tomorrow there’s football on the internet. A bottom-of-the-table clash between Pontypridd United and Aberystwyth Town. It’s a real 6-pointer with the winners clawing themselves out of the relegation places.

Airbus UK Broughton are already down, I suppose, hopelessly adrift at the foot of the table and on target for the lowest points total ever recorded in the Welsh Premier League but there’s all to play for in the other relegation place as three or four clubs fight to avoid the drop. I reckon that Y Fflint and Caernarfon have too much in the tank to be sucked in but the others will have to slug it out.

So in between that I’ll deal with the radio notes and a few other bits and pieces so that I really can have a day off on Sunday and not do very much. There isn’t even any baking that needs doing. Perhaps I might go out for a walk but I don’t want to be swept away by the hordes of Carnavalers while I’m trying to balance on my crutches.

That won’t be very pleasant.

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