… Day One of my three weeks (two weeks, then a pause for Bank Holiday week, and then the final week) Welsh Summer School

And such is the way of the World that this cycle of courses, that has run all through the summer, isn’t a series of repeated courses. It’s one long course that’s been broken up into several segments.

So here I am again, going over the latter part of the course yet again when it was the start of the course that I wanted – the period when I was in Canada and then in hospital.

It seems to me that I’m fated never to do this part of the course.

One thing about it though is that it at least made sure that I was in bed at something like a respectable time last night. Later than 23:00 it has to be said, but not by al that much by the time that I’d finished doing everything that I have to do.

And once in be I was asleep quickly too. I awoke briefly at about 06:15 but went back to sleep until the alarm roused me from my reverie

It was something like a disreputable stagger into the bathroom where I had a good scrub up and sorted myself out for the day to come.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. My cleaner put in an appearance during the night. She was going on about my unkempt appearance, my wild hair, my beard and so on so I resolved to tidy myself up. The first thing that I did was to cut my hair. I was in a hotel room and to get to this room I had to climb up about forty stairs. It was much easier to climb because they were all in a straight line than it was to come into the stairs here so I was in my room in no time. I sat down and took out my hair cutter and began to cut my hair. One thing that I’d noticed was that someone had been in my room. It was supposed to have been tidied but it looked as if a tornado had hit it. There was a half-burnt still-smoking cigar on the floor which I thought was totally strange. I began to shave my head with my hair clippers to try to make myself look more respectable but I thought “I wonder what they are going to say at the reception desk when they’d seen some wild-haired guy go up to claim his room and some neat-looking stranger coming down.

Actually I’d had a shave this morning – the first time for several days – and my hair does need cutting. It’s not quite at the “Wild Man of Borneo” stage but I could certainly put the willies up anyone who comes too close. And fancy my cleaner turning up during the night. This is the first time, I reckon, that she’s put in an appearance on a nocturnal ramble. So what’s going on here?

The nurse and I had a bit of a chat this morning. He wants to wash my feet at some point so I’ll have to wash the puttees from last week. They are currently soaking in the bowl that I use for washing my feet.

With him being early and being quick about it I had plenty of time to revise my Welsh for today, which means that I spent it reading the wrong units.

When the course started we counted heads. There were ten of us pupils, yet a total of fifteen had paid for the course. God alone knows where the others are.

And this tutor is someone whom I know because I’ve had her a few times before in Summer Schools and so on. She’s the archetypal example of South Walians who think that there’s nothing any further north of the Head of the Valleys except sheep and druids

For example, she was telling everyone that LLanelwy is the local name for what the English call Builth Wells, but the Welsh name for Builth Wells is “Llanfair-ym-Muallt”. The town of LLanelwy is what the English would call St Asaph

Not that I would correct her though. I don’t want to lose the goodwill of the teacher on the first day. There’s more than enough time to do that over the next three weeks without going to look for it.

She’s actually set us homework too. I suppose that she’s right. We have to push on with these courses otherwise there’s no point in doing them. I’ll do my homework in the morning and that will refresh me for the lesson tomorrow.

During the breaks I managed to finish off the radio programme whose notes I was editing on Sunday. There’s just the final track to choose and the notes to write for it which I’ll also do in the morning.

When the lesson finished I had my hot chocolate, and a slice of my delicious, soggy, gooey chocolate cake.

There’s enough here for a couple of weeks so I hope that it won’t go off or anything like that. I have it in an airtight tin but I’m going very shortly to move it into a plastic box to store in the fridge

And then I had a chat to Rosemary on the ‘phone. Just a short chat today – only 1 hour and 55 minutes. We seem to be finding our form again which is good news. But I really don’t know what we talk about in these ‘phone calls.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper. With tons of stuffing left over for tomorrow and Wednesday too. The stuffing was different today and I’m not sure why. I don’t think that I’ve forgotten any ingredient. That’s usually why it tastes different.

So having washed my puttees and hung them up to dry I’m going to try to go to bed before there are any more disturbances and without bleeding to death

But talking of Wales reminds me of the Welsh sailor who was admitted to hospital here in Granville the other day
The matron came in and told one of the doctors "that sailor who’s just been admitted. He has the word ‘Ludo’ tattooed on … errr … a certain part of his anatomy"
The doctor was so surprised that he asked the young student nurse to check
She came back a short while later "Matron was wrong, sir" she told the doctor
"Is that so?" asked the doctor
"Yes" she replied. "It’s not ‘Ludo’, it’s ‘Llandudno’"