… “hello” to a certain young lady from my past who has featured in these pages, mainly during my nocturnal voyages, on about a dozen occasions over the previous ever so many years.
It’s pretty certain that she won’t want her name blasted all over these pages – after all, who would really want to be associated with me to that extent? – but she’s found her way here, recognised herself from a few of the remarks that I’ve made in passing, and sent me her best wishes.
So best wishes back to you too!
Also a big “hello” to Grahame who did indeed listen to the wrong track the other morning and wrote and told me about it. I hope that you enjoy the correct version while you’re stuffing your Christmas bird.
And not to forget a big “hello” to Robert from the Orkney Islands who sent me a few photos from 45 or so years ago. And when I’ve recovered from the shock, I’ll post them on here and give you all a laugh.
The reason why I’m mentioning the correspondence here is because all three people wrote to me using a Gmail account, to which I can’t reply. Google has blocked access to its e-mail system from all small independent webservers who won’t put Google’s own code into their sites.
So if anyone receives an e-mail in the future from STRAWBERRY MOOSE, you’ll know that he’s writing on my behalf. As far as I’m aware, his account can still access Gmail.
Anyone else who has written to me recently from a different account will have received a reply.
However, I’m not sure how I managed to do that because even though I was up and about at 09:45 this morning, I didn’t go to bed last night … "this morning" – ed … until after 04:00. I wasn’t at all tired and just couldn’t go off to sleep.
But when I finally awoke, first task was to take my blood pressure.
The dratted box was flaming well sealed shut and took some rather aggressive action to open it. And then I had to wrestle the blasted batteries out of the sodding plastic wrapping and that was a real work of art to do that.
Then I couldn’t open the perishing battery flap in the wretched machine for ages.
And how the hell do you wrap the flaming strap around your perishing arm with only one bleeding hand?
At that point I noticed the instructions – "blood pressure should be taken in a calm, relaxed and stress-free situation" and I thought “maybe I ought to start this tomorrow rather than today”.
Instead, I went to deal with the broccoli.
Firstly, I trimmed off the florets and put them in cold water which I slowly brought to the boil.
While it was heating up, I diced the stalk into tiny pieces, diced a small potato ditto, chopped some garlic and a small onion.
When the broccoli reached boiling point I fished out the florets and put them to drain. Then I put the water on one side for reuse.
Into the saucepan went a knob of butter and when it reached cooking temperature, in went the onion with some coriander, chives and marjoram and fried until it started to go brown.
Then I added the diced broccoli stalk, the diced potato and the garlic and spent five minutes or so stirring it all round before adding enough of the broccoli water to cover the veg – not forgetting the stock cube this week as I had the last time.
When I judged that it was ready, I added a pot of soya yoghurt and whizzed it up ready to eat.
While it was cooking I was topping, tailing, scrubbing and slicing 2 kg of carrots into the giant saucepan.
When the soup was ready the carrots went on to blanch while I ate my soup with the nice crusty bread that I’d bought.
Once I’d had my food I came back in here to transcribe the dictaphone entries from the night. Once again I was dictating into my hand and when I awoke most of this dream evaporated. What I do remember is that I was walking down a street and I came across a group of children whom I knew from somewhere else. They were all having a play around with a couple of other kids. It seemed to me as if there was some tension in the air and I couldn’t understand why. One of them, probably the one whom I knew best had on a swimming costume but had a tailored winter coat over the top of it. That looked quite strange. There was some discussion about milk and so on. Because they were busy having their issues they didn’t actually hear it. Later on when the woman was dictating the report, she said “and there was milkshake too, strawberry, but no-one seemed to want any”.
I think that I dictated that dream about me and all of those kids … "yes you did" – ed … At the place where we were, there were a couple of adults too. One of the adults there was a particularly obnoxious character who seemed to detest everyone and didn’t have a good word to say about anything. He had an accident one day and slipped. He had to be somewhere so one of the girls went to fetch some kind of toy-type of thing like a small horse on four wheels with a handle on which a parent would put a child and pull it round the room for fun. She went to fetch this and somehow the old guy managed to mount it, broken arm and all. She set off quite happily pulling him to his meeting like that. It was one of the sweetest things I’d ever seen.
Later on I was on my way to a folk music concert in Abingdon and had the computer open on my lap for how to arrive there. I was flagged down by a policeman who saw me with the computer open. He wondered if I was watching a film. I satisfied him that it was a map. When he turned it round he could see that in the camera was actually me being shown on the screen. He accepted that that was OK and waved me on again. I drove as far as Basingstoke. As I came into the town there were these 3 great big buildings at the side of the road, one after the other, all completely derelict and abandoned. I thought “what a sight to greet visitors this is”. I parked up and went for a walk around. I ended up in the shopping precinct, a miserable place. But then I couldn’t find the exit. I was wandering around that shopping centre for ages. Then I bumped into Zero’s parents (but unfortunately not Zero). We went for a coffee. They were discussing things that they needed to do. I told them that I’d be quite happy to help so they asked me if I’d make a phone call to Penzance on their behalf. I didn’t know where the phone boxes were. She said “there’s one just outside the centre”. I replied “I’ve been wandering around here for ages trying to leave. Where’s the exit?”. She pointed out some kind of tiny spiral staircase thing. Before I left, we began to talk about other plans. A while ago I’d referred them to a guy who built computers. I asked if they’d had much luck with him. They suddenly realised that he’d never contacted them al all. They were all for contacting him on the spot. In the end we worked out some kind of plan about I’d ring them every morning before they left for work at 07:30 to receive my orders for the day. Then I was wondering whether it might be better if they were to ring me before they left for work. That was where I was busy debating with myself
My cleaner turned up round about now and awoke me from a little siesta that I was having. She had brought with her some more medication that had had to be ordered. Now I really am overflowing with medication and I’ve no idea where to begin. I can see that I’ll have to rejig my entire schedule and it’s going to become really complicated.
And this, dear reader, is my vegan wellington.
It doesn’t look particularly attractive but then again, it’s not the culinary disaster that I was half-expecting. It actually tastes quite nice too, if the bits that bubbled out of the side are anything to go by.
That was this afternoon’s task – to make the vegan wellington. It took quite a long time too all told and I was hard at it for several hours all told.
Despite only making half a quantity, there’s still a considerable amount here and there will be plenty left over. It’ll probably freeze for another time, if only I were to have some room in the freezer. No matter how much I use out of there, the quantity never seems to go down.
All that remains now, as far as food for Christmas goes, are the hash browns.
And it’s quite appropriate to talk about them seeing as I mentioned culinary disasters just now. No matter how I try to make them, they never go right. My family in Canada can belt these out by the thousand, perfect every time, but somehow the technique always escapes me
Tomorrow I’ll have another go and see where that takes me. I have plenty of potatoes here.
And I had a smile to myself today. Rosemary has taken the first photograph of her cat.
When I was down there in the summer three years ago there were several feral cats roaming around.
When I was down there in the summer last year it was “don’t let that white cat into the house! It keeps on trying to come in”.
A few weeks ago I was talking on the phone to Rosemary and I asked her to read something that she’d received. “Just hang on a minute. I’ll have to stand up to fetch it. Let me take Myrtille off my lap”.
And today we had the first photo.
No-one I ever knew ever won a fight with a cat.
Tomorrow, for one of the very rare occasions on a Sunday, there will be an alarm call – and at 08:20 too.
The injections start up again on Wednesday and the nurse wants to see the prescriptions beforehand so he knows what tubes to bring for the blood samples – blood tubes are colour-coded depending on what they are testing.
He’s in the building administering to my ill neighbour so he says that he’ll pass by – between 08:30 and 08:45
Then there’s just the hash browns to make and I’ll be as ready as I ever will be for Christmas. I’m really not feeling festive one little bit which is a shame but that’s no surprise. It’s been another year when I’ve been through the mill
But I’ll go through the motions all the same. I don’t know what else to do.
"Me, my thoughts are flower strewn
With ocean storm, bayberry moon
I have got to leave to find my way
Watch the road and memorise
This life that passed before my eyes
Nothing is going my way"
