… last day of my summer holidays today.
The other day, I know that I said that I would start work today, but falling asleep at my desk after breakfast and remaining like that until exactly 11:21 rather made up my mind for me.
It’s understandable though. Even though I crashed out last night by about 21:30 and was well-tucked up in bed, going to bed early just means that I wake up early, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …
The thing that startled me most was hearing the “click” from the immersion heater relay. “Surely it can’t be 06:38 already, it’s switching off and I’ve slept through the alarms?” No it wasn’t. It was 01:10 and the immersion heater was just switching on.
From then on, I just tossed and turned all night until I finally checked the time again – 05:52. That made up my mind so I leapt to my feet … "well, sort of" – ed … and went over to the computer to finish off last night’s notes, which are now on line.
There was time to do a few other things, including checking the stats, where I found that once more, an AI chatbot has visited my website and used ONE OF MY WEB PAGES as a reference. I forget how many times this is now.
When the nurse arrived, he was very disappointed to find me all alone. He’d grown quite fond of the Hound of the Baskervilles, and I’m sure that the feeling was mutual. But never mind. He sorted out my legs and feet and then cleared off on his travels.
After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870.
This report, written in 1871 or so, describes the field trips of the members and guests and includes verbatim copies of the “papers” that were read at their lectures. The one that we’ve been discussing today is meteorology, and, bearing in mind that this is 1871, this following quote is bound to be of interest to almost everyone and takes my “earliest mention of global warming” back yet another few years.
"it appears plain from this diagram that our climate has become warmer, the month of January particularly, say from 2 to 3 degrees. There is not so much difference in the summer months, or even of March; but the whole year is somewhat warmer on the average than at the close of the last century."
This is a fascinating quote from a group of committed and determined observers, and it’s a shame that it’s been missed by most modern means of mass communication. And it’s a good indication of the fact that global warming has been around longer than most people realise.
Back in here again, I had a few things to do but found myself fast asleep in my chair yet again, as I said earlier. How I wish that I could avoid it, especially when it takes a good twenty minutes at least to pull myself together afterwards. In fact, I don’t think that it was until I had my disgusting drink and midday medication (and midday plum) at about 12:40 that I was ready to go.
Back at my desk, the first thing was to transcribe the dictaphone notes from last night.
“That Liz” appears quite often in my dreams, but this is the first appearance for many a long year of her daughter. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I TOOK HER TO CANADA IN 2010 after her mother died. And in any case, neither of them was the kind to make a fuss about money.
However, I’m back in London again, aren’t I? This is becoming quite a habit.
This is possibly something to do with the merger nine years ago of Pionsat and Marcillat football clubs in an attempt to make a much stronger first XI. However, it didn’t work out that way, but that’s another story.
It’s interesting to see that they don’t notice me. Was I a ghost at that moment? That’s always an intriguing possibility.
I know this girl right enough, and she certainly didn’t have three children. The situation also related to her too, although I was never lucky enough to hold her hand, much as I would have liked to.
But being lucky in a dream is an unusual situation for me anyway. My family usually comes along and puts the spanner in the works long before we get to this point.
This looks as if it might be connected to the first dream, although Nerina is there instead of “that Liz”. As for my friendly neighbourhood solicitor, I know him too, and he’s certainly not a solicitor, not by any means.
And back in London again, and in the same street as the bakery and the chip shop that I have visited on numerous occasions in recent dreams.
Having finished all of that, I began to write chapter nine of my story. This is an important chapter, the key in fact to the whole book and, if I’m lucky, the whole series. It’s where the heroine suddenly finds her feet in her new world after her tragedies in the earlier chapters, and it took quite a while to write. However, it’s turned out exactly as I would like it to.
All I need now, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … is to find myself a target audience willing to read it to see what she thinks. So if you have a girl in your entourage aged, say, between nine and twelve who might like to read it, let me know.
Chapter ten will be next, but I’ve no idea when I’ll find the time to write it now. It won’t be tonight because there’s football on later – newly promoted Airbus UK Broughton v established Y Fflint, lingering third from bottom without a win.
This is a game that Y Fflint must be targeting if they are to close the gap that’s widening at the foot of the table, cutting off the bottom three.
My cleaner put her sooty foot into the apartment and did some cleaning in the middle of all of this, and, poor girl, she was here for almost three hours this afternoon. She’s still not convinced that she’s collected everything, even though this is the first ever time that I’ve seen her use a vacuum cleaner. At least, I think that the place is spotless now.
When chapter nine was finished, I fed it through the first of my two chatbot proofreaders, and he liked it very much, so I fed it through the second one. There were a couple of typing errors and missed punctuation that it found, but the continuity and the chronology are holding up really well.
Tea tonight was my usual Friday favourite – air-fried chips with vegan sausage and baked beans with cheese and black pepper. It was delicious beforehand, but since my friend advised me to boil the chips first in order to soften them before frying them in the air fryer, they have come out even better, so I really enjoyed my meal tonight.
Especially when it was followed by a mixture of tinned apricots and tinned fruit cocktail with some of that lovely vegan ice cream from Noz. It’s a shame that I don’t know anyone else who shops there, otherwise they would be getting a weekly order.
And having said all of that, I can’t believe that I’ve had a meal and enjoyed it. God knows what it’s done to my water retention issues, but ask me if I care.
Back in here, there was the football – Airbus UK Broughton v Y Fflint. As I said earlier, this was a match that Y Fflint needed to win to kickstart their season, and indeed they played some really nice football – in fact, they showed much more skill than Airbus did. So what I simply do not understand is why they lost the match 4-1. They were the much better team, I reckoned, and they had the Airbus defence under siege for some very long periods, even after they had had a player sent off.
Mind you, their goal was a cracker. A young lad – Levi Morrison, I think – had just come on as a substitute and was playing right-back. He played a magnificent ball right over the top of the Airbus defence into the path of an onrushing striker who had the simplest of jobs to lash it into the net.
And my “man of the match”? Lassana Mendes, Y Fflint’s Spanish midfielder, who ran the game better than anyone I have seen for a long time.
It has to be said, however, that playing football in a monsoon with hurricane-force winds and the distractions of aeroplanes taking off and landing in the background can’t have been easy.
And whatever happened at Caernarfon? Four players (three from Cambrian United) were sent off, eighteen minutes of stoppage time and a 9-1 victory for the home side. That has to be a game worth watching, and I shall be looking forward to it tomorrow at dialysis.
But right now, later than ever, I’m off to bed. I need my beauty sleep if I am going to look my best for whoever knows who comes along.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about winning at tombola … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the time Nerina asked me what I would do if I won the lottery.
"Give you half and throw you out" I said.
"Good!" she said. "Here’s £6:00, half of my win last night. Now clear off!"
