… timestamps on the dictaphone, the time of the first recording was at 07:05 this morning.
And having been in bed at 01:00 this morning, it looks as if I might have actually had 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep. And it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to say that.
Of course, it all depends on whether I was asleep quite quickly. And I can’t remember lying awake very long.
What actually made a change was that I actually felt better when I awoke too. I might have actually left my bed at 10:30 this morning but I was awake long before that so I made the most of a nice relax.
Having dictated the radio notes last night before going to bed, I edited them today and assembled the radio programme, found a final track, dictated the notes for that, edited them, and in the end finished with the usual hour-long programme.
It won’t be broadcast for several months yet because I’m a considerable way ahead of where I am right now, but when it’s broadcast it will be more of a folk-rock type of programme. We have all sorts of rock in our broadcasts.
And not just Anglo-Saxon either. Many people believe that rock music is merely an Anglo-Saxon phenomenon but we’ve had rock music from all around the world. The programme that I prepared last week had some African rock musicians, the one this week has a Greek rock group and in the past we’ve had amongst our many trans-continental musicians Maoris from New Zealand, Japanese from Yokohama, Danes from Aarhus and, probably the most surprising, Inuit from Greenland singing rock music in Inuktitut.
You can’t have it more cosmopolitan than that.
A little earlier, I mentioned the dictaphone. I’d been to see my doctor, the nerve specialist. After that i’d gone back to work. My boss was a new boss and didn’t know Brussels very well. he asked me where I’d been so I told him that I’d been to the doctor’s. He asked me which one I’d used. I explained, and he asked me how he could contact him. I gave him a form with the contact details on it. My boss was confused and was going to ring the wrong number so I had to point out to him the correct one. He telephoned. At first it was the case that someone said something about Lisieux on the telephone. He replied “no, it’s not there” so someone connected him and he talked. The subject of his eyes came up. The conversation finished by saying “I’ll send a cheque round for my glasses”. I wondered what that was about. His wife came over and began to talk to me. She said “you know it’s Ramadan, don’t you?”. I replied “it would be, wouldn’t it?”. Then she began to talk about things that people had given up for Lent. This conversation was becoming terribly confusing. I was half-expecting to have to go to take the cheque round to the doctor for these spectacles or whatever it was but by now he’d gone back to his work and he didn’t mention anything about the doctor or the spectacles so I’d no idea about what was happening or what would happen.
And then a whole group of us had been somewhere and were coming back on a ship. The ship got into distress and they had to send a Royal Navy destroyer to rescue us. It turned up and we all clambered aboard. I ended up sitting next to a girl and we began to talk. We found that we had a fair amount in common so the conversation went on for quite some time. When we docked we boarded a bus that took us as far as Gresty and we had to alight and walk from there to Shavington. I began to walk next to this girl. For some reason I held her hand. She didn’t take it away. We carried on walking. Each time we crossed the road I put her on the inside and held her other hand. She didn’t say a thing. We just carried on talking as if it was normal. We ended up walking through a narrow deserted street like a run-down area of a French village. There was some rock music pounding out from someone’s back garden. I said that that’s one thing that I like about areas like this. With all different alternative people who have moved in you’d walk down a place like this and find rock music. You’d never ever find anything like this in the UK. I ended up back at this girl’s house and found out that she had a boyfriend which really upset me. The group conversation went on. We ended up talking about English humour and Carry On films. By now I had one of my cards in my hand. I was going to give it to this girl and make some excuse that she could call me back to continue this chat sometime. But I never came round to that because there wasn’t a break in the conversation. We were all chatting away. It was a really lively evening, but once again I can’t even get the girl when I get the girl.
But it was true what I said about France. The flight to the towns in the 50s and 60s as France industrialised left a deserted and abandoned rural interior where abandoned houses and land could be bought for next to nothing. Consequently loads of people seeking a change of lifestyle, whether early-retired Brits and Dutch or young marginalised people dropping out, could buy a house and land and go back to their roots.
That period in the early years of the 21st Century when I was out there was one of the most exciting times that I’ve ever had and how I miss it. But with the nearest shop being 16kms away, no neighbours around for when I was ill, all of that, it was impossible once my health gave way.
But back to the dictaphone, I was off on another dream that had a connection with the previous one, about Christmas presents and wrapping packages but the church bells began to ring and it awoke me. Everything immediately evaporated from my head.
With having no pizza dough left I made another batch. 2 balls went into the freezer and the third went in the oven and as usual, it ended up being a really nice pizza. That grated vegan cheese is really nice.
So tomorrow, having finished the radio programme I’ll make a start on the next one. I might even have an early night and hope that I can have another good sleep like today. That will do me the world of good.
But I’ll have to have a shower in the morning quite early. The nurse is coming to give me my injection so I need to smell my best.
