… another day just like yesterday when I ran aground in the afternoon after a really good start to the day. I’ve no idea what’s going on there, but there always seems to be something. Even staying up until late last night, for example, couldn’t seem to make any improvement to how things had been during the afternoon.
Once in bed, though, I was asleep fairly quickly, which made something of a change from the last couple of nights. Mind you, I was awake fairly early – I’ve no idea what time – and couldn’t go back to sleep afterwards. When I eventually looked at the time, it was 05:05, so I reckoned that I’d give it half an hour and then raise myself from the Dead. But when I looked at the time a little later, it was 06:17. What had happened there, I don’t know.
Still, never mind. I put my feet on the floor and sat upright on the bed. At least it will be an early start, even if I won’t have done any work.
Once I’d managed to haul myself to my feet, which wasn’t easy, I staggered off to unlock the front door ready for the nurse when he arrives, and then it was into the bathroom to sort myself out, ready for the day.
Back in here, I attacked the notes from yesterday, and I’d almost finished them when the nurse arrived.
The other day, I’d received the quarterly newsletter from the local regional council, “Granville Terre et Mer”. In it was an article concerning the local bus services that the regional councils run and how they intend to review the infrastructure of the bus service with effect from the start of the new year and try to make it wheelchair-friendly.
Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … that I was astonished that when they’d started on the upgrade three or four years ago, they’d upgraded several bus stops, including the one outside here, but the most important one, right outside the health centre where the doctors’ offices are, that was never upgraded.
Not only is it on a very low kerb where the road has subsided, you have to walk out into the roadway to climb aboard the bus.
For some people like me, that’s impossible, and so if I want to go to the health centre or even into town, I have to take a taxi or not go at all, and it’s the same for hundreds of other people. That bus stop should have been amongst the first to be upgraded.
Now, I’m not supposed to know this, but I do know that my nurse is actually on the council as the health consultant, so while he was here, I took advantage and launched into my usual rant about the bus stop. He certainly listened, so who knows? It might actually be done and I might be able to actually resume my trips into town one of these days. However, knowing the local council, I’m not making any plans.
After he left, I made my breakfast and while I was eating, I was reading some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1867.
Today, we’re visiting the little settlement of Capel y Ffin – “The Chapel at the Border”. Our heroes think that it refers to the border between England and Wales, but more modern research seems to think that it was actually the border between the old ecclesiastic regions of the Bishop of St Davids and the Bishop of Llandaff. And seeing as there is a place in the immediate vicinity called “Tarenn yr Esgob” – “the Bishop’s Ridge” – there are grounds for the modern interpretation, even if nothing else had been found.
The “Capel” is one of the smallest religious buildings in Wales. Although built in 1762, it replaced an earlier one from the fifteenth century, but judging by the immense, elderly yew trees by the church and the fact that it is a “capel” and not a “llan”, it implies that there was a religious building on the site maybe as far back as Roman times, long before the regroupment of settlements around the churches that were built following the reconversion of the population to Christianity in late Saxon times.
Capel y Ffin is also the site of Llanthony Abbey, the home of a weird collection of bizarre, unrecognised monks and nuns led by Joseph Leycester Lyne, who was trying to encourage the return to monastic life but whose organisation collapsed after his death due to a lack of leadership and some scandalous and disgraceful allegations concerning the morals of the inhabitants.
If that wasn’t bad enough, it later became the home of the disgraced sculptor Eric Gill, his family, and not forgetting, of course, the family dog.
Back in here, I finished off the notes and posted them on line. And having made you sit and suffer through almost three thousand two hundred words the other day, I promised that I’d write less last night, and so it was the case. There were only two thousand, eight hundred and ninety-nine words for you to wade through.
The next thing that I remember, it was 11:50. I’d fallen asleep in my chair without even realising it and slept for well over an hour. And I really did feel dreadful when I awoke. It took me a good twenty minutes to bring myself back into the Land of the Living.
The first thing that needed to be done was to finish off choosing the music for the radio programme on which I’m currently working. All of the music had already been reformatted, so the final tracks needed re-editing and remixing. This meant that I ended up having a rather late lunch today – well, not actually lunch but my disgusting drink and midday medication.
It was actually a very productive lunchtime because I spent half an hour sorting out the freezer in the kitchen, and with reorganising things in there, I ended up with much more room than I had before. There’s still plenty left to do, and then I want to start on the freezer in the bathroom, which also needs a good tidying up.
When I’d finished, I came back in here. I had to pair and segue the music that I’d chosen, and that took longer than it ought to have done, but eventually it was all finished and some of the joins are excellent. I try to keep it around the forty-six minutes and thirty seconds limit at this stage, but today I seem to have ended up with almost forty-seven seconds. I hope that that’s not going to cause me too many problems.
And then I had to write the notes. So far, I’ve only done about a quarter of them, mainly for two reasons. Firstly, many of the artists are new to the programme, so I need to search their biographies, and secondly, I seemed to have run out of enthusiasm and motivation, which is a terrible thing to admit.
Eventually it came round to teatime, so I staggered off into the kitchen. Tonight I had pasta and veg in tomato sauce with one of those spicy burgers in breadcrumbs that I had bought years ago from Noz, the “end of range” shop. I tried a new method of cooking them, which was to cover one side with a thin layer of butter and put it in the air fryer, butter side up, and then after five minutes, flip it over and butter the other side. That produced a wonderful burger. I’m really going to have to learn how to breadcrumb some things that I make because it makes a real difference to the taste and enjoyment.
Pudding was another coffee-flavoured soya yoghurt and a plum, and that was nice too. All in all, another really good meal in total.
So now having written my notes bewailing these two lost afternoons, I’m off to bed, later once more than I would like it to be, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think " – ed …
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about bus stops … "well, one of us has" – ed … there were two girls from Crewe standing at a bus stop.
One of them asked the other "which bus are you waiting for? I’m waiting for bus number 1"
The other one replies "that’s funny. So am I"
Just then, bus number 11 comes round the corner.
"Oh look" replies the first girl. "It looks as if we’ll be travelling together."
