… is a nice, clean boy this afternoon?
That’s right. It’s not me. I’m certainly clean, but, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m certainly not nice.
And, what’s more, I have a nice, clean bed to slide into tonight. While I was in the bathroom having my usual shower, my faithful cleaner, who was in here this afternoon doing her stuff, sorted out some new bedding for me from out of the boxes under the bed. So I’m all set up.
It’s rather different than last night when I was running really late again and didn’t actually manage to achieve anything noteworthy before going to bed at a ridiculous time.
But once I was in bed, I was away with the fairies, although not in any manner that would excite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine, quite quickly. There were the vaguest of memories about raising myself from the Dead at some points, despite me being well asleep in the land of Plenty of Others, but they didn’t last long, and I was soon back to sleep.
When the alarm went off, I awoke completely, and sitting on the edge of the bed, it took a month of Sundays for me to head into the living room and unlock the door for Isabelle the Nurse when she comes. I went back into the bathroom to pretty myself up and then came back in here.
I was far too busy to do much this morning. I started off with the rest of today’s notes, wading through them at quite a pace, as there were plenty to add into them this morning. And I hadn’t finished when Isabelle the Nurse breezed into the apartment, much later than usual.
She’s always late the first day after her break. That’s because she has “the touch” when it comes to injections and blood tests, so there’s always a queue of people waiting for her when she starts back after her week’s break.
While she was sorting me out, she talked about her experiences over her week off work, including her trip to St Malo to see the reported disasters, including the losses at the start of the Route du Rhum, which were horrifying, so I’m told
After she left, I went to make my breakfast of hot black coffee, toast, porridge and fruit juice for me, and while I was eating, read some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1867.
A couple of days ago, I read that the Woolhope Naturalists had made a considerable contribution to the subject of mycology, or mushrooms. A paper by Mrs Key, read to the Woolhope Club by her husband, the Reverend H Cooper Key and recorded in the report that I’m reading, is clearly the catalyst for the start of this movement. It’s only after hearing this paper that Dr Bull, who had had a longstanding interest in mycology, was inspired to take the issue to the national stage.
Back in here, rather later than I had hoped, I reviewed my Welsh homework, saved it as a *.pdf and sent it to my tutor. Then I prepared for my lesson.
The lesson itself really seemed to drag today, but the lesson went well and I was satisfied with the work that I had done in preparation. The only problem that I have is making some of it stick to my teflon brain, but that’s an impossible task.
During the break, I had some of my medication and a disgusting drink, and then raided the freezer in the bathroom. The other day, while I was ferreting around in there, I came across a packet of that frozen bean tajine that I’d made a year ago. In fact, there were two packets, but I fancied one for tea tonight, so I pulled it out of the freezer and put it in the kitchen to defrost.
After the Welsh lesson, I sorted out some clean clothes for after the shower and then finished off the notes from yesterday. If you have missed them, they are now on line for your perusal.
There were the dictaphone notes to do after my shower, but I’ll include them in here while I’m at it.
For some reason, whenever I think about this dream, I can see the petrol station at the Intermarché hypermarket on the outskirts of St. Pair-sur-Mer that we go past on our way to Avranches, but I’ve no idea why that vision comes into our head. I can’t think of what’s going on there.
This is much more like a dream involving Nerina and me. We quite often acted like this when we were following someone with the aim of catching them in front of reliable witnesses when we had to serve a summons on them in respect of car accidents and the like. Nerina was quite good at being a decoy.
And if she ever did see me in a strange car (and a Mini-Moke would certainly have been a strange car for me to have), she’d certainly want to know all about it.
My faithful cleaner came in round about 14:00 as usual and prepared the bathroom for me. When it was ready, she shooed me under the shower. And today’s shower was really lovely. I feel so much better afterwards, and with a clean bed to climb into, I shall regale myself tonight, that’s for sure.
After she left, I could make a start on what I had been planning to do – namely, to deal with the outstanding radio notes that I’d recorded in … gulp! … July and assemble a few radio programmes. By the time that I knocked off for tea, I’d almost finished the first one. I’ll see if I can do two more tomorrow.
Tea tonight was, as I said earlier, the bean tajine mix with couscous and vegetables. It was all completely delicious too, I have to say that. The pudding of mixed fruit and home-made chocolate and coconut ice cream was really nice too. It made a fitting end to the meal.
And now my notes are written, I’m off to bed to prepare myself for another hard day at the office … "I don’t think" – ed …
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about home-made ice cream … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends tasted my home-made ice cream and asked me where I learned to make it.
"That’s easy" I replied. "When I was little, my parents sent me to Sundae School."
