… (well, I can actually, because regular readers of this rubbish will recall that it’s always going like this with me) that as well as everything else through which I’m currently suffering and all of the aches and pains that go with it, I’ve now gone down with a severe bout of the ‘flu.
No wonder that I’ve not been feeling too well (relatively speaking) this last couple of days with all of this brewing away inside me, but it erupted last night. I’m now shivering, freezing, I’ve lost my voice, my nose and eyes are streaming and I have aches in places that I didn’t even know that I had places.
That’s a shame because last night even though it was quite late when I went to bed I was feeling something like normal and a lot more optimistic than I had been feeling for a while. So that didn’t last long, did it?
Round about 03:00 I awoke with my streaming nose and eyes. Even a liberal dose of Vick’s Vapour Rub didn’t seem to help all that much so I just lay there vegetating as best as I could, trying to doze off to sleep.
At about 06:00 I abandoned the struggle and took to my feet. I went into the bathroom for a wash and a change of clothes and by the time that the alarm went off at 07:00 I was at the computer working.
Much to my surprise, and yours too, I bet, there was plenty of stuff on the dictaphone. It must have been a very mobile night, that’s all I can say. We were discussing our school days, talking about the game of “tick and it” and how it differed between the way that it was played in France and the UK. It all came down in the end to whether one had had actually earned the confidence of your playmates or not. The discussion carried on for quite a while. There was one guy there who didn’t really have too much to say. One of the people asked him if he was married. He replied “oh I was taken once” and made tat beautiful Gallic gesture of throwing something over his shoulder like “well it’s all in the past – it’s all behind me”. I thought “yes, I can identify with all of that”. The conversation carried on but it was obvious that I could see that I was going to be the one who was “out” in this case. I didn’t seem to fit into the clique that everyone else had been creating.
And that doesn’t surprise me very much. I never learned how to socialise and wouldn’t know how to do it today. I’m much happier in my own company than in a room full of random strangers. Even in childhood, if there was an odd number of us and we had to be paired, I’d always be the one on his own. And it didn’t bother me in the slightest once I became used to the idea. But as for marriages not working, it’s rather too late in the day now to say that I should have worked harder in the right direction. But then again, had I stayed in The Land That Time Forgot, I’d probably still be driving a bus or a taxi, and I would have seen the inside of Shrewsbury Gaol and not as a tourist either. The storm clouds were definitely gathering and they chased me all the way down to Dover.
The computer came up with an error when I was downloading a file. It was a book that I was downloading from ARCHIVE.ORG. The message said that basically a certain extension was required to read it so I had to download that. I downloaded it and it seemed to take for ever. It was an enormous file so I wondered whether or not it was correct – whether I’d been the victim of some kind of phishing attack. I downloaded the program and tried to install it on my computer but while setting it up I came across another kind of discussion where this extension was being discussed so I stopped what I was doing, sat down and began to read the notes on this particular extension. This was where I awoke.
Yes, waking up in the middle of a phishing attack, and actually reading the notes too – that’s a new one for a computer program. Normally, most people just click on the “I Agree” box, mainly because they don’t understand the agreement and don’t have the motivation to read on down to the end. As for instructions, computer programs don’t actually work like that. You think of a function that it would be a good idea to have, you think “surely the program designer has already thought of this” and then you go by trial and error through the menu until you find the function or something that resembles it?
Later on we’d just been repairing and revictualling a Royal Navy battleship. Even though I wasn’t in the Navy I was quite used to giving commands to the crew now that the ship was prepared. I was ordering my assistants around making sure this was right, making sure that was right, going on about how things are going to be changing in the Navy soon. You wouldn’t be able to give orders like this – it would all have to be polite requests. We went on like this for some time, then in the end I said “we might as well have the men lined up” to my assistants so we dashed to the front of the ship and chalked the assembly points on the deck and shouted the ship’s company to assemble and come to attention
Civilians giving orders to matelots would be an interesting concept and I can’t see how that would work, except along the Dock Road in Liverpool during the hours of darkness in the good old days of the “Dockers’ Umbrella”, but that’s another story entirely. However many warships did set out to battle with their civilian repair and maintenance crews on board and a great many lost their lives.
And although I didn’t dictate this, I have a vague feeling of being out at Slochd Summit in charge of a breakdown crew in a heavy snowstorm clearing a track for the trains through the snowdrifts
In the middle of this the nurse turned up. I’d rung him to tell him that I didn’t think that he should come. After all, I don’t want to pass over to his other patients whatever it is that I’ve caught but he didn’t seem too bothered so why should I worry?
He sorted out my legs, gave me today’s Injection of the Last Resort and then cleared off. He had recommended a medication to deal with the ‘flu so I sent a message to my faithful cleaner and then had a slow, leisurely breakfast.
Today has been a very slow day, slower than usual and although I didn’t actually crash out at all, which is surprising, I may as well have done for all the good that I was doing at times. But at least I have achieved my target for today, which was to edit the last lot of notes that I’d dictated and prepare the relevant programme.
The final song has been selected, the text has been written, and all that I need is a nice quite moment to dictate everything. But when that is likely to be, I really have no idea.
The cleaner turned up in mid -afternoon. The pharmacist had warned her off the product that the nurse recommended and anted to know my exact symptoms so I duly obliged. Half an hour later she was back with something that the pharmacist thinks is more suitable.
And who am I to argue?
Tea was a delicious taco roll with rice and veg, and plenty of stuffing left over for a leftover curry tomorrow. That should be delicious.
And in a mad fit of enthusiasm, before going to bed I washed my puttees and rolled up the ones that I’d washed last week so that we can use them from tomorrow;
But going back to life along the Dock Road in the days of the “Dockers Umbrella” I knew a girl who married a sailor. And everyone told her that if he suggested "the other way" she was to flatly refuse.
So for the first few months of wedded bliss things were going fine but this thing about “the other way” was playing on her mind and on her curiosity. And it eventually got the better of her.
"Why don’t we … errrr … try it the other way?" she suggested meekly.
"What?" exclaimed the sailor in astonishment "and fill the house up with screaming kids?"
