As indeed it was too. I crawled downstairs at about 08:00 this morning and opened the door into the kitchen where I met a whole host of shafts of bright sunlight streaming into the room.
You’ve no idea how much that cheered me up today seeing that. It’s just like the first day of Spring and it did remind me very much of that early morning in Labrador in late September – that freezing cold night when I had been sleeping out in the Wilderness in Strider and the sun bursting out over the horizon. That made me feel so much better too!
And I needed cheering up too because I’d had a rather difficult night. Not as far as sleep went – that was just as normal – but the voyage that I was on was one that was very uncomfortable, almost to the point of being distressing. I was working with a group of other people in a laboratory doing some tests on radio-active material. We broke off work to have the office party and I ended up dancing with a young girl, the daughter of one of my female colleagues. Afterwards, we went back to work, carrying on checking these samples for radio-activity. Suddenly, we found one that hadn’t been accounted for. It had been dropped in its watch-glass on the steps of the enclosed booth where we did the tests. This of course was a monumental error as the radio-activity could spread like wildfire, worse than the bubonic plague. As I had instituted this activity and was responsible for the tests, the woman actually carrying out the tasks asked me whether I intended to report the matter and accept the serious consequences. I immediately reported it and there was immediately a plant lock-down. Two women who were in one particular area of the factory were left behind and locked in and we could see, through the glass door, them dying an agonising death as the radio-activity spread across their bodies. The factory and its personnel dispersed but the personnel started to die off. The woman who had been carrying out the tasks went home and her mother who lived there, who was old and feeble, developed the radio-activity. She became seriously ill and her daughter, my colleague, was trying to reassure her and her own daughter (the one with whom I’d been dancing earlier) but kept fainting and collapsing, obviously gravely ill but doing her very best not to let anyone notice. The young girl was really frightened by all of this, hiding behind a door. She had two sons too and they didn’t know what was happening either. As everyone was dying out rapidly and my brother had put in an appearance by this time (what on earth was he doing here?) I asked him if he would go and check on this family to make sure that they were okay. He reckoned that they hadn’t been up to anything so they shouldn’t have any problems, not being aware of the woman’s involvement with the missing sample. I ended up back at home, in bed, and Nerina came round to visit. She had a bed at my house when she stayed the night and tonight, she needed a couple of extra pillows so I told her that she knew where they were. At this moment I noticed that I was starting to become ill. I had a touch of dysentery and thought that this isn’t like me and suddenly the revelation hit me that the radio-activity was now affecting me. I started to panic and wondered just who was going to be left over if even I was starting to succumb. We were all going to die and there would just be this young girl left. What a nightmare she would have, being surrounded by nothing but dead bodies of her family and friends.
No wonder I had an uneasy night with all of this going on. I really was happy to see the sun this morning.
i’ve spent most of the day watching the English cricket team totally humiliated by the South Africans (“just a blip” says the England captain but he’s clearly been watching – and playing in – a different series of matches than everyone else has been watching) and Manchester City bring the FA Cup and the game into disrepute by fielding a weakened team in a 5th Round competition. How I hate foreign footballers and foreign football managers who have no sense of pride and achievement and want to change the game to suit their own requirements.
Apart from that, I’ve finally finished the dictaphone notes for the 2015 trip to Canada. I’ve made a start on the notes of a voyage I made to Central France just before I left and I’m hoping to finish those tomorrow. Then, there will be the Germany trip and before that, the 2014 voyage to Canada.
But it won’t be done tonight as I’m going to have another early night in a bit. And I hope tomorrow will be just as lovely as today was. 16°C outside this afternoon, apparently.
