… a really nice, leisurely day today, where I have done hardly anything at all, not even all of the things that I was supposed to do. And it feels quite good for a change to be able to say that.
Things began to quieten down last night, in fact. I could (and should) have finished everything quite early and had an early night but, as seems to be the case these days, I fell asleep on my chair while trying to sort out everything.
Altogether, I was away with the fairies … "although not in any fashion that would incite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine" – ed … for a good half an hour all told, and that had me running considerably behind.
Once in bed though, there I stayed until 06:29 when the alarm went off. It was a very quiet night, although I remember turning over in bed once or twice. However, it was nothing of any importance.
As usual, it took a while to sort myself out and head for the bathroom. But once I’d finished in there and had a good scrub up, I put the previous bedding and a few of the clothes in the washing machine and set it off while I went and had my hot drink and medication.
Back here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been last night.
As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … there would be no chance whatever of me serving in the army. If ever I were called up to the Services, I would be in the Merchant Navy or some other similar occupation.
But this thing about “are we supposed to wear uniform” – it does have a parallel somewhere going back six or so years ago, and the idea of fitting a recording device to a soldier is certainly new.
The nurse didn’t stay long this morning. he was in and out quite quickly, leaving me on my own to make breakfast and finish off reading A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE.
The final part was the coin examinations, and it’s thanks to this that we are able to date at least part of the timeline of the fort. He puts the initial evacuation of the fort at some time round about 90 AD or maybe a few years after, due to the fact that in the first layer of debris, there are two coins dated 85 AD and 86 AD and their condition is “as mint”, implying that they haven’t been in circulation for long.
The next book is Mortimer Wheeler’s report on the excavations of MAIDEN CASTLE in Dorset in the 1930s.
Wheeler was the leader of the next generation of archaeologists who came after James Curle, and although he’s highly thought of, many of his conclusions are said to not withstand the passage of time. However, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, we’ve already, not so long ago, questioned some of these revisionist opinions that seem to be doing the rounds right now.
The washing machine had finished by now so I sorted everything out and hung it up. And you’ve no idea how much energy it took out of me just to do that, even when I was sitting down.
After that, I came back in here and carried on writing the notes for the next radio programme. I should have finished them too, but I took my time and had a good wander around cyberspace, with the result that there’s still a little left to do tomorrow.
While I was at it, I had a little chat with Alison on the internet. It’s a nice day in Tervuren, so she’d gone for a walk in the park.
Later on, there was football. The Welsh Cup quarter finals and we were treated to Caernarfon v Colwyn Bay. This was another excellent match, a credit to the league, and roared from end to end with no side seeming to have the advantage of play.
However, the final scoreline was flattering and certainly didn’t reflect the balance of play by any means. I shan’t spoil the party and tell you the score because tomorrow, I’ll post the link to the highlights and you can see for yourself.
The crowd was another huge crowd of almost thirteen hundred people, but if you think that that’s a lot, the game between third-division Bangor City and second-division Caerau Ely attracted almost TWO THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED people, and that’s up there with the biggest crowds that I can remember. It’s bigger than several crowds in League One and League Two in England and is higher than the average gates of several clubs in League Two.
When the game was over, I went into the kitchen and had a few crackers with vegan cheese, and then I prepared the croissants ready for tomorrow.
Right now though, I’m going to bed in the hope of having a good lie-in tomorrow. But we shall see whether it happens or not. There’s usually something that comes along to confound me.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the crowds at Bangor City … "well, one of us has" – ed … it’s true to say that firstly, there’s not much else to do in Bangor, and secondly, the fans there are so partisan that they turn up in their hundreds at Bangor City Stadium just to watch the grass grow, and they’ll have a thousand watching a training session.
That’s not like the training sessions at Crewe Alexandra, where the team was once so down on its luck that the manager at the time, Jimmy Melia, announced that they would have a training session on the car park where the players would practise dribbling the ball around some traffic cones.
Later that evening, the editor of the “Crewe Chronicle” rang up the club to ask how the new training session went.
"Terrible" said the spokesman. "The traffic cones beat us 2-0."
