… Day Six of my Summer School. Just four more to go before I can have a break, and catch up on the mountain of correcpondence that has built up over the last couple of weeks
There’s a week off to cover the August Bank Holiday week, and then there’s the final week of the three before the next year’s course gets under way.
The final week is actually to cover the year that I’ve just had. This two weeks is to catch up on the time that I spent in Canada and then in hospital a couple of years ago. However I seem to have miscalculated in that this is actually the second half of a continuing course and I really needed the first half.
Ahhh well … These little things are sent to try us, I suppose.
So last night it was another late night before I could drag myself out of my comfortable chair and into my stinking pit. This gap of several inches is like a yawning gap with all of the effort it takes for me to haul myself across.
But once I was in bed I didn’t need much rocking. My night-time mantra had scarcely begun before I was drifting away into the Land of Nod.
And there I stayed until the alarm went off – the correct alarm this time too. It was like awakening someone from the Dead when it finally range. Whatever had gone on during the night, I knew nothing whatever about it.
IN the bathroom I sorted myself out, washed and dressed, and then came back in here to have a listen to the dictaphone to find out where ‘d been during the night
And to my dismay, there was nothing on it. That’s a real disappointment because, as I have said before… "and on many occasions too" – ed … what goes on at night is the only excitement that I have these days.
So with no dictaphone to distract me, I uploaded this coming weekend’s radio programme to the office for them to fit into the live stream
When the nurse came he was his usual chatty self but he didn’t have all that much to say for himself. This shopping list though is growing and if we carry on like this we’ll need a lorry to bring it all home
But seriously, that’s the one thing that’s worrying me about moving. How’s it all going to work without a band of willing volunteers?
Like most things these days, it’s something just to ignore and hope that it all goes right on the night.
As I said earlier, the lesson passed quite well. We were doing the Genitive case today, “the bag of Sian” and all that. It’s quite complicated because in Welsh it’s all written in archaic form, there are contractions that don’t follow any rules and some other contractions have rules that just aren’t logical
But this is the problem with a language where its development and evolution was suppressed for over 70 years, from 1894 to 1967, and this was a time when a lot of linguistic evolution was taking place.
The French Community in Québec had similar issues but even so they had “la Hexagone” in Europe on which to fall back. Nevertheless, you’d still be surprised at the difference between Québecois French and thenFrancais de Paris. The Welsh had no similar benchmarks.
There were the usual pauses during the lesson, during which I made a start on editing the radio programme that remained from the batch that I’d dictated on Saturday. And by the tie I’d reached the end of the day I’d done about a third of it. I’m not doing too well with my editing right now. I need to put my foot down.
But I had several pauses, including one for my hot chocolate and slice of chocolate cake that still seems to be doing well in the fridge in its airtight container.
Tea tonight was, as usual, a stuffed pepper. And there’s piles of stuffing left for a taco roll and for a leftover curry on Wednesday.
This batch really is excellent and quite spicy. It’ll probably put hairs in places where I didn’t even realise that I had places.
So now I’m all tidied up, washed up and finished I can do what I need to do and then go to bed
But talking about Québec reminds me of the two guys living in Trois Rivières where there’s that great big sundial on the side of the church tower.
"What time is it?" asked one of the guys
"No idea" replied his friend
"Go and look at the Sundial then"
"Don’t be silly" replied the guy. "It’s dark outside"
"Well" said his friend. "Take a torch with you!"
