Tag Archives: vegan pizza

Sunday 6th August 2023 – I DON’T KNOW …

… what happened today but despite not having gone to bed until about 01:00 I was wide-awake at 08:45 this morning.

And not being able to go back to sleep, I was up and about by 09:30.

Imagine that happening on a Sunday. It’s not like me at all, is it?

Even more bizarrely, I didn’t crash out at all today. From that point of view, it was a really good day.

There was plenty of stuff on the dictaphone too from during the night, as I found out later on in the morning. I was back living in Shavington. I was in my bedroom when my telephone beeped to say that it had received a message. I didn’t pay any attention for a couple of minutes. Then I went to look. It was from my friend in Munich saying “I’m here”. I looked at the previous message which was something about him coming round. I stuck my head out of the bedroom window. I could see an olive-green W123 Mercedes saloon down on the street. I put my hand out to wave. He put his hand out of his car and waved so I went downstairs to open the door to let him in and make a coffee

Then we had a small kitten biting the arm of a big man. The mother of the kitten came up and took it away and jumped down to the floor with it.

Did I dictate the one that I was somewhere or other? … “no you didn’t” – ed …. There was a pub nearby. One of the guys came out and began to intimidate one of my employees. I went into the pub to find out who it was. He was the bodyguard of some well-known local hood or similar. I went over to him and told him in no uncertain terms to leave my staff alone. His response was to ask me what I was going to do about it. In response I came out with some kind of date like 19th August 2015 – a date that I’d picked randomly from nowhere. I said “I know all about that date and so will the police if you keep on threatening my employees”. It obviously struck a chord with him because he sat down and kept quiet after that. I’d love to know what happened on that particular date that I’d picked at random.

Did I dictate the dream where I had a little corner of a workshop garage somewhere? … “And you didn’t dictate this one either” – ed …I went there one day after work and spend a few minutes in the sink as soon as I arrived cleaning some potatoes and a plate. While they were around there, the people who owned it, their boy came over to talk to me. We chatted about this and that. he wasn’t so young – he was a teenager. I went and found some bread but it was quite rubbish. Some more people came in, sat down next to me and began to eat. I put a slice of bread in the toaster to toast so that I could eat it while I was making cheese on toast with beans and mashed potato. I had to scavenge around for the food and it all looked quite depressing. It had seen much better days. The place was absolutely filthy. I don’t know how I managed to keep it clean. Oil and dust etc everywhere.

Did I dictate the one about the hotel fire? … “not this one either as well” – ed …I was in my hotel room doing something. Something caught alight. I just sat there watching the fire spread and spread until suddenly I realised that everyone else would notice it as well and would wonder why I didn’t call the alarm. I pressed the alarm button and began to dress. At least I wanted to be dressed and have STRAWBERRY MOOSE with me but the fire spread so quickly that I was soon overwhelmed. I could hear everyone in the corridor panicking around after I’d pressed the button but I was still trying my best to dress in the middle of this huge conflagration.

Later on I’d picked up a train somewhere in the Balkans. I’d only booked on for a couple of stops. It was a slow, rambling train that went just about everywhere. I ended up being wedged into a compartment with a bunch of 7 or 8 girls. They were all speaking in a variety of languages so they ended up speaking English together. They seemed to be really interesting people. The train rattled on. In the end I decided that I didn’t want to alight but stay on and listen to all the conversation. Eventually I asked one of the girls where the train went to. She mentioned some small town in some obscure corner of the Balkans up Macedonia, Kosovo or Albania way. I asked where it came from. She told me some other small town way down in the south. She said “you’ll have a lot of trouble finding a place to stay at the destination you choose when the train ends because the authorities there aren’t very well disposed to foreigners. I can’t even take you home to lodge at my house for the night because everyone will ask questions”. Then she mentioned that somehow there is somewhere where I might have a room. I suddenly found myself involved in this deep conversation with this girl. All the other girls there were chatting away quite happily. I began to think that this was probably one of the most enjoyable train journeys that I’ve ever had, wedged in this crowded train with no food, not ticket, nothing. For some reason this trip felt as if it was something that I really ought to do. I was really disappointed when I found out that this was only a dream

My walk took me to another place where there was a 5-star hotel. I went in and managed to book a room very well known for very suspicious foreigners. It was in this room that the fire began. A little spark, and within 30 seconds there was a raging inferno. I had to press the fire button … fell asleep here …

Well, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, when I say that I fell asleep, I’m actually asleep while I’m dictating. I have this thing off to a fine art. But what actually happens is that suddenly everything on the dictaphone goes silent and then a few seconds later you can hear me snoring.

So my apologies to Percy Penguin (who doesn’t appear in these pages half as often as she deserves) for doubting her word.

For the rest of the day I’ve been dealing firstly with a couple of radio programmes.

Having dictated the notes for two radio programmes last night just before going to bed, I worked my way right through them and ended up with two completed programmes. So that’s something else out of the way.

Secondly, I made a big batch of fruit buns for the next couple of weeks. They look quite good too and I’ll tell you tomorrow what they are like.

Tonight’s pizza was another candidate for the best one ever. What helped, I reckon, was that the oven was stinking hot, having just been baking the fruit buns. It really did come out well.

Tomorrow is the start of my three-week Welsh crash course. I need to knuckle down and do some serious work and stop letting things slip away from me like this all the time.

What I need is another day like today, although that’s probably a bit too much to expect. Lightning never strikes twice in the same place.

Sunday 30th July 2023 – LOOKING AT THE …

… timestamps on the dictaphone, the time of the first recording was at 07:05 this morning.

And having been in bed at 01:00 this morning, it looks as if I might have actually had 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep. And it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to say that.

Of course, it all depends on whether I was asleep quite quickly. And I can’t remember lying awake very long.

What actually made a change was that I actually felt better when I awoke too. I might have actually left my bed at 10:30 this morning but I was awake long before that so I made the most of a nice relax.

Having dictated the radio notes last night before going to bed, I edited them today and assembled the radio programme, found a final track, dictated the notes for that, edited them, and in the end finished with the usual hour-long programme.

It won’t be broadcast for several months yet because I’m a considerable way ahead of where I am right now, but when it’s broadcast it will be more of a folk-rock type of programme. We have all sorts of rock in our broadcasts.

And not just Anglo-Saxon either. Many people believe that rock music is merely an Anglo-Saxon phenomenon but we’ve had rock music from all around the world. The programme that I prepared last week had some African rock musicians, the one this week has a Greek rock group and in the past we’ve had amongst our many trans-continental musicians Maoris from New Zealand, Japanese from Yokohama, Danes from Aarhus and, probably the most surprising, Inuit from Greenland singing rock music in Inuktitut.

You can’t have it more cosmopolitan than that.

A little earlier, I mentioned the dictaphone. I’d been to see my doctor, the nerve specialist. After that i’d gone back to work. My boss was a new boss and didn’t know Brussels very well. he asked me where I’d been so I told him that I’d been to the doctor’s. He asked me which one I’d used. I explained, and he asked me how he could contact him. I gave him a form with the contact details on it. My boss was confused and was going to ring the wrong number so I had to point out to him the correct one. He telephoned. At first it was the case that someone said something about Lisieux on the telephone. He replied “no, it’s not there” so someone connected him and he talked. The subject of his eyes came up. The conversation finished by saying “I’ll send a cheque round for my glasses”. I wondered what that was about. His wife came over and began to talk to me. She said “you know it’s Ramadan, don’t you?”. I replied “it would be, wouldn’t it?”. Then she began to talk about things that people had given up for Lent. This conversation was becoming terribly confusing. I was half-expecting to have to go to take the cheque round to the doctor for these spectacles or whatever it was but by now he’d gone back to his work and he didn’t mention anything about the doctor or the spectacles so I’d no idea about what was happening or what would happen.

And then a whole group of us had been somewhere and were coming back on a ship. The ship got into distress and they had to send a Royal Navy destroyer to rescue us. It turned up and we all clambered aboard. I ended up sitting next to a girl and we began to talk. We found that we had a fair amount in common so the conversation went on for quite some time. When we docked we boarded a bus that took us as far as Gresty and we had to alight and walk from there to Shavington. I began to walk next to this girl. For some reason I held her hand. She didn’t take it away. We carried on walking. Each time we crossed the road I put her on the inside and held her other hand. She didn’t say a thing. We just carried on talking as if it was normal. We ended up walking through a narrow deserted street like a run-down area of a French village. There was some rock music pounding out from someone’s back garden. I said that that’s one thing that I like about areas like this. With all different alternative people who have moved in you’d walk down a place like this and find rock music. You’d never ever find anything like this in the UK. I ended up back at this girl’s house and found out that she had a boyfriend which really upset me. The group conversation went on. We ended up talking about English humour and Carry On films. By now I had one of my cards in my hand. I was going to give it to this girl and make some excuse that she could call me back to continue this chat sometime. But I never came round to that because there wasn’t a break in the conversation. We were all chatting away. It was a really lively evening, but once again I can’t even get the girl when I get the girl.

But it was true what I said about France. The flight to the towns in the 50s and 60s as France industrialised left a deserted and abandoned rural interior where abandoned houses and land could be bought for next to nothing. Consequently loads of people seeking a change of lifestyle, whether early-retired Brits and Dutch or young marginalised people dropping out, could buy a house and land and go back to their roots.

That period in the early years of the 21st Century when I was out there was one of the most exciting times that I’ve ever had and how I miss it. But with the nearest shop being 16kms away, no neighbours around for when I was ill, all of that, it was impossible once my health gave way.

But back to the dictaphone, I was off on another dream that had a connection with the previous one, about Christmas presents and wrapping packages but the church bells began to ring and it awoke me. Everything immediately evaporated from my head.

With having no pizza dough left I made another batch. 2 balls went into the freezer and the third went in the oven and as usual, it ended up being a really nice pizza. That grated vegan cheese is really nice.

So tomorrow, having finished the radio programme I’ll make a start on the next one. I might even have an early night and hope that I can have another good sleep like today. That will do me the world of good.

But I’ll have to have a shower in the morning quite early. The nurse is coming to give me my injection so I need to smell my best.

Sunday 23rd July 2023 – I WAS HOPING …

… to have had a really good night’s sleep last night.

Just by way of a change, I was in bed shortly after midnight and although it took me an age to go to sleep it was about 10:00 or so when I finally awoke.

And I didn’t leave the bed straight away either. It was more like 11:00 when my feet finally saw the light of day.

What was really, really depressing though was that despite all of that, I still couldn’t go beyond 14:00 without crashing out. Not just for 5 minutes either but for quite a considerable while. I could understand it if I’d had a bad night or if I’d actually done something to merit it.

What I have done during the day, when I’ve been awake, is to prepare another radio programme. I’d dictated the text last night before going to bed so this afternoon I edited it and assembled everything. That’s really just about everything.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone as well. Not much, so it must have been a good night from a sleep point of view. I was with a group of people. We were all in a bedroom somewhere in a big country house. We were having a good look round to see what was happening and found that we were actually in bed in a row of cots like small babies would be. Of course we couldn’t work out what was happening. Someone suggested that we wait until everything became clear and people begin to come down to see us and tell us what is happening.

There was also some kind of building project going on. I’d been asked to address people about the history of the area. They found me a place to stand and talk but it was from a window or demolished part of a house on the first floor on the corner with all the workmen working a little further down the street. I had to climb up a scaffolding to stand on the corner to address the crowd but when I stood there the floor gave way underneath me. I fell down to the ground level. I wasn’t hurt so I pretended that it was a joke or something and climbed back up the scaffolding. I began to address them but no-one could hear me over the noise. I had to look around to see if there was another place where I could stand that might possibly be a little better. There was a place on the opposite corner where I’d actually be on the street. We were thinking about maybe I could go to stand there but that wasn’t idea either.

Tea was another vegan pizza – just as good as usual.

So after yet another in a long line of dismal days, I’m going to bed. There are no plans at all for next week so I’m hoping that I can have a good crack at Canada 2017.

That is, if I can manage to stay awake long enough.

Sunday 16th July 2023 – IF I EVER LAY …

… my hands on whoever rang my doorbell at 07:09 this morning they won’t ever do it again. I can’t even imagine why anyone would want to do that.

There I was, in the middle of an interesting dream too. That’s what was so disappointing about it all.

Even worse, I hadn’t gone to bed until late. After I’d finished my notes I dictated the dictaphone notes for the next radio programme and then loitered around for a while trying to tire myself out. It’s not easy to be tired when you’ve spent most of the afternoon fast asleep.

Regardless of the rude awakening I managed to go back to sleep again and it was a much more realistic and reasonable 10:30 when I finally saw the light of day.

After the medication and checking the mails and messages I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And to my surprise we were going through talking about people and describing people -in Welsh. I was describing someone and somehow I made them to be 500 years old. Someone asked me if that was what I really meant. Then someone rang the doorbell of the apartment so I awoke at that point.

Later on I was with my friend from Holywell in North Wales. We were in a city somewhere. She had a list of places to visit to do various thinks like pay her taxes etc. I took her to a place where she could see every building. I pointed them out to her one by one but she must have been confused. When she saw that the Rates Office was a ruin she had a panic attack. In the end I took hold of her and brought her down to the rates Office. I helped her through the rubble and steps. There was a young guy there who made a few light-hearted comments about his building. My friend began to thaw. I told him that I thought that the building was magnificent but that my wife didn’t like it one bit. I didn’t realise that I’d said it until I said it. I expected her to throw a fit on hearing that but she didn’t. In the end we organised her rate payments for her then I set out to take her to the next building on the list. I thought that if I go with her to all of them it’ll be dome much quicker than her standing on a street corner panicking.

Actually, a similar thing happened to me when I went with Marianne to Rome. She didn’t speak Italian so it made no difference when I referred to her as mia moglia to whoever we met, but I was talking to an Indian guy and forgot myself so much as to mention “My Wife” to him.

And then there was the time that I took my Greek friend to the airport in Brussels. Standing by the gate seeing her off and she was telling me “make sure you eat decent meals” and stuff like that, and a woman standing behind her said to her “that’s right – we have to make sure that our husbands look after themselves when we aren’t there”

She was another lovely girl whom I liked very much and I even went to learn some Greek so that I could speak to her family, but she was another one who had far too much sense to be involved with me

Meanwhile, back at the ran …errr … bed I went back to a ship carrying my duffle bag and a pile of other stuff. I met a girl who was going in the same direction so we walked together for a while. We came to the traffic lights to cross the road into the port. She said that she was just going to run across regardless of traffic. I explained that that was rather a strange thing to do because for a start I was heavily laden down and I wouldn’t be able to cross. We waited for the lights. I told her that they change quickly so we couldn’t dawdle but we crossed with plenty of time to spare and walked down to the docks. We ended up on a cliff top quite high up looking at the sea. There was a large group of us there waiting for the ship. We could see all the way up and down the coast. The tide was well in and the promenade was under water but there was no sign of the ship. She began to organise the passengers. Someone asked “how come you’re doing that,” She said “I’m going to see the Captain about having this job”. They laughed and said that that would be most unlikely. She reminded them that someone had been taken on to do a job simply because he’d enjoyed doing it before he’d been appointed. I said “it seems to be the only qualification around here”. That made everyone laugh. But we were up there on this cliff in the dark. We couldn’t see our ship at all the entire way up and down the coast. We began to wonder what on earth had happened to it

Much of the rest of the day has been spent in a desultory kind of fashion making a radio programme and that’s all now finished, up and running and ready to go sometime at the start of next year.

There was some time off to make some fruit buns. And they actually came out really well which is a nice surprise. I’ve not tasted them yet but I’ll tell you all about them tomorrow.

On the subject of baking, tonight’s pizza was as good as usual. They seem to be doing OK now. The dough in the base didn’t rise quite as high as it has done in the past and that was surprising but it didn’t change the taste at all.

So in a few minutes I’m off to bed. An early night will do me good and tomorrow I can crack on with Canada. I have a whole two weeks to back something out before my next Welsh course and I have to make the most of it.

Sunday 9th July 2023 – I DON’T KNOW …

… what happened during the night but for once in my life I seem to have had a good night’s sleep. I was in bed by about 00:30 too, and slept until 10:30. By about 11:00 I was actually up and about.

For much of the day I’d been working on a radio programme. I’d dictated the text before going to bed and so today I edited it, joined everything up, chose a final track, wrote, dictated and edited the text that went with it and joined it all up.

There’s also been a baking session. I’ve prepared a batch of dough for a few pizzas and also a batch of biscuits too.

The biscuits are delicious, I’ll tell you that because I’ve sampled them. They are a standard biscuit mix with honey oats, ginger and a variety of spices and flavours. They should keep me out of mischief for a while once I finish the chocolate ones. There’s a couple of days’ worth of those still to do.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone too from the night. Not very much but I’m sure there was much more than this. It was about 03:00 or 04:00 and I had Caliburn backed up in the drive at Les Guis. I was busy doing something inside the load compartment. I heard a noise – it was 2 people that might have been Claude and Françoise. I stuck my head out of the van and said “what do you want?”. They were shocked to see me at that time of the day. They pointed to the house and asked “any chance we can get something out of your mate?”. I replied “not at this time of the morning”. I knew that he owed them some money but this was a strange time to call. I didn’t believe that this was the reason. After much discussion we arranged that they’d come back at 10:00. Another group of people turned up. One was an enormous fat woman. She was asking me all kinds of questions “how long did it take to do this? How long did something else take to do that?”. All the time, I watched her. I could see her eyes roaming around. It was obvious that she was sizing up the place. I told her that I didn’t want to answer any questions at the moment. I was too busy and too tired. She could come back later too. I ushered her off the premises. There were 1 or 2 things outside there including a metal chair. She picked it up and said “it’ll be OK if I take this. I told her immediately to put it down and go on her way and don’t touch anything else around here. She became quite belligerent so I became quite belligerent in my turn. It looked as if we were heading towards a dramatic incident but they moved on. a couple of people standing around watching were quite pleased to see the back of them. I thought that all these strange goings-on at 03:00 and 04:00 – is it like this usually when i’m fast asleep?

Tonight’s pizza was delicious as usual. I really have found the method for those now. But the cheese that I used is a different type of cheese and it doesn’t melt quite as well. But it still tastes good though.

So now I’m off to bed ready for my week of Summer School starting tomorrow. But it won’t be as good a night’s sleep as last night because those stabbing pains in the sole of my foot are back, and back with a vengeance too. I’ve even had to take a painkiller, and that’s not like me at all, is it?

That won’t do me much good for tonight so I hope that the pain will go away.

We shall see.

Sunday 2nd July 2023 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

… miserable day today. One of those days that are best written off and we start again.

In fact I’ve spent most of the afternoon in a cataleptic fit on my chair – not asleep and totally aware of what was going on around me, but totally unable to function.

Things started off quite well too. Despite not going to bed until about 02:30 this morning I was actually up and about by 10:00 and that’s quite unusual for a Sunday.

There wasn’t very much on the dictaphone either so it must have been a fairly decent sleep. I had a group of children with me at one point. I can’t remember exactly the circumstances now but I remember saying to them that whatever happens you have to be like big boys and girls. Secretly I was thinking to myself “that’s extremely ironic because I know that I’ll be running around like a headless chicken in panic if that kind of thing were to happen to me” and I wish that I knew what it was now.

And later we were out last night on a sea wall above a beach. There were loads of people wandering up and down the wall but there was a gate halfway across it with a couple of people patrolling the gate. One of them was a friend from the radio. I was there taking photos of the people who were coming through the gate. Someone was complaining about the gate being there so my friend sent for someone from the local Council. He said “this is Councillor So-and-so. Does anyone have any complaints? If so would they like to speak to the Councillor?”. No-one said anything. Some guy said to me “I don’t understand why your friend is doing this”. I replied “it’s dead easy. No-one will say anything to the Councillor so he’ll go away. My friend will carry on, people will complain but now he’ll tell them ‘well there’s no point complaining. You had your chance to speak to the Councillor but no-one said anything to him so tough luck’ “. At that point someone came round with some sandwiches. There didn’t seem to be anything for me so I was going to take a cheese and tomato one and take off the cheese but I couldn’t find one of those.

Finally, for some unknown reason,we were in a bakery. Someone said something about a recipe for something they’d baked for someone. She opened a drawer and there were all things like wooden tablets in there like small chopping boards. She was rummaging through them. Apparently when someone asked for a special recipe they wrote it down on one of these boards then filed the board away for future reference in case someone wanted it again.

When I’ve not been out of it all, I’ve been having a look at my Canada 2017 voyage. I’ve not been doing very much with it today – in fact I’ve not been doing very much of anything – but I’m just sailing up to the beach that I believe is the Furdustrandir and am on the point of stepping ashore.

And once there I shall be checking a rumour that was started by Vaino Tanner when he was there in the late 1930s and which was subsequently denied by almost everyone else

The pizza tonight was as good as it usually is these days since I started putting the tomatoes on top of the cheese, and now I’ve run out of dough. Next weekend I’ll have to make some more

But that’s all something about which I can worry some other time. I really am feeling quite dreadful at the moment. I’ve had enough of today and I’m going to bed. Here’s hoping that I’ll feel better tomorrow.

Sunday 25th June 2023 – HAVING AWOKEN THIS …

… morning at 11:00, anyone would think that I’d had a decent night’s sleep last night.

However, having not gone to bed until 04:00 and probably later, and not having gone to sleep straight away either once I did go to bed, then leaving my stinking pit at 11:00 is something of a miracle.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone too from the night. There was something going on out at Crewe Hall to do with World War II and the Air Force, whether or not it was a flying station I don’t know. I can’t remember it now but certainly it figured in the concept of World War II aeroplanes.

Then I was off to Labrador in a very confusing dream. It concerned people, a couple who separated because the guy wanted to live with someone else. That upset his children and then someone who found new novel ways of keeping his door closed so that no-one could open it and go into his room etc but I can’t remember it very clearly at all.

By the sound of things I wasn’t having a good night from that point of view.

Later on I’d been to see a house for sale in Middlewich. We had a little chat about it. I liked it very much but I couldn’t afford it even though I possibly could. We kept on having a look every time we went past. On one occasion I was there and met a guy and his young son. We went for a walk in the countryside past the old industrial area. There was a really good view of this house from there and we thought that it would make a really nice photo except that it would look really bleak in the winter from here. The sun was burning down and we were wearing shorts, no tee shirt. We came to a bird’s nest. We’d heard some birds listening to a radio which we couldn’t understand. It seemed that some bird had taken someone’s radio and flown off with it. We reached the nest with all these birds in it who seemed to be quite friendly. There was something at the bottom but I couldn’t see what it was. One of the birds interested me. It was dark green with flecks of bright red in its feathers. I was trying to identify it because I didn’t have a clue what it was.

At another point I’d been round at my niece’s and her husband. They were talking away about all kinds of things. I noticed on the wall a list of towns. One had a really bizarre name that rang a bell with me. I said to her husband “I know all about that town. Isn’t there some kind of huge hospital to which people travel from miles around and they are always on the lookout for people living in the area who would take in boarders who would come to the hospital? I was offered a job there once as a driver for the hospital transport. He wanted to know why I didn’t take it as a way of coming into the country. I explained that it’s only once you’ve had your resettlement interview when you’ve actually arrived that you’re referred to places like this for work. I said that I couldn’t have a resettlement interview because I was too old

Despite it being a Sunday I’ve actually been quite busy today – once I actually dragged myself into the Land of the Living. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, getting out of bed is one thing. Being awake is something else entirely.

So today I’ve had a cookery session.

And by the time that I’d finished I had a huge pile of fruit bread and a big batch of chocolate and ginger biscuits. The biscuits are excellent – I baked some of the offcuts in the air fryer and had a sample and the fruit bread looks really good too but I’ll tell you more about that in due course.

But once again, just at the very moment when I sat down for a little rest, Rosemary rang me for a chat. So another one of our marathon sessions that meant that I ended up with everything backwards. I’d timed the cooking routine and procedure down to the last second but hadn’t anticipated a phone call.

Tonight’s pizza was another excellent one. I’ve really got the hang of that now, which is no surprise after all of the time that I’ve spent developing my technique

So tomorrow I have the nurse coming round to inject me now that I have my new supply of Aranesp. So I’d better have a shower first thing in the morning to make sure that I smell nice. And then I hope that I can finish off sorting out all of the files and directories on the computer now that I’ve upgraded it so that I can crack on with some work.

High time that I got myself into gear.

Sunday 18th June 2023 – TONIGHT’S PIZZA …

… was another excellent one and I seem to have got the hang of it now. The batch of pizza dough that I made was exceptionally good and if it’ll turn out like that every time I shall be more than pleased.

Just like my night last night, in fact. That was a much better night. And although I didn’t go to bed until after midnight I was awake again at 09:30 and I actually did for once feel much better.

Not that i’ve done very much today though. I’ve found it hard to get going today for some reason.

Whatever work that I’ve done has been done on the Canada 2017 voyage. And I’m still stuck in the cemetery at Cartwright.

Apart from having to track down some details for a couple of the original traders on the coast, Like Samuel Fequet and George Bird, the latter who died in 1869 aged 91 years for example

But I also came across the grave of Elizabeth Learning, known as Lizzie to her friends. When the orphanage burnt down in 1928 she had been confined to bed with an illness and was lucky to escape with her life. She wasn’t so lucky when the boarding school caught fire in 1934 though, poor girl

Tomorrow though, if ever I get out of this blasted cemetery, I’ll be going to look at the remains of George Cartwright’s house. He founded the town in the 1770s but once he settled in, he was attacked by American pirates from Boston who stole £14,000 worth of his goods.

And to look for Samuel Fequet’s shop, which was still standing although it had long closed down.

We’ve actually met Fequet before when we were at AT OLD FORT IN QUEBEC a few years ago.

The other day I mentioned that there were people in Sandwich Bay who were dismayed by the arrival of the Hudsons Bay Company. The Fequets were already well-established further south down the coast and could come to Sandwich Bay and withstand the fierce competition with the support of the rebellious locals.

They ended up with stores at Paradise River and Pack’s Harbour as well as at Cartwright.

As well as making the pizza dough I transcribed the notes on the dictaphone too. I was with a group of pseudo-Irish people like the Pogues last night. I was round at their house hoping to leave quite quickly but they were the type of people who weren’t in a hurry. They made me a coffee and a few of us had had something to drink. I went to wash my cup trying to chivvy them along a little but they didn’t really want to go I suppose. One of them said that he had a cough. I told him that he’d better take some cough mixture. they said that they had some. I made a mistake saying that they didn’t want to take it much before midnight. They replied “no? We’d better wait then”. I thought to myself that at this rate we just aren’t going to get away from here. Whatever it is that I have to do won’t be done. That’s the story of my life at the moment isn’t it?

And then there was a young girl. She wasn’t all that young but a very small, petite girl, somewhat on the wild side. i’d been working with her at one time. We’d met up by accident in Crewe and ended up walking around together. She was certainly not my type of girl but we had a lot of things in common when it all came down to it. We started to see each other much more. It was another one of these extremely nice, comfortable dreams roaming around Crewe, the two of us, all through the town centre and down West Street and everywhere. On one occasion we were in a shop and met a girl with whom we’d worked. The way she was behaving and acting she didn’t recognise us which was probably a good thing. She had a few things to say and we had a few things to say. Then we carried on again with our walk. It was one of these very nice warm comfortable satisfying dreams.

There was a restructuring of properties in Edleston Road in Crewe reallocating families. Some families were too big for the houses that they’d been allocated. There were all kinds of problems and the rent commissioners had been involved. They examined the site and found that several houses had hanging basements – the houses were built above ground and there were basements hanging down underneath the floor. They found that in some of them they could install a kind of window to let light into the basements. That way it would be possible for people to use the rooms as living accommodation. They made a ruling that half a dozen families would benefit from this although none of them were very happy at all. It certainly looked to me to be a strange, dark, gloomy situation for anyone but the Commissioners agreed. They authorised the improvements, authorised funds available for the owners to improve their properties. It looked as if it was ready to proceed despite most people’s feeling that it was completely inappropriate.

Finally I was with my old drummer last night. We’d got together after a few months and were in a sauna somewhere. He had his drum kit set up and I had my bass and we were supposed to be practising but he didn’t feel in the mood bearing in mind how things had finished the last time we were together so we just sat and talked for ages about things. I decided that I’d go for a walk around the grounds. He said that he’d join me. I went off first and had a wander around. I saw someone with a cigar enter the property. A security guy grabbed hold of him and took his cigar from him. While I was sitting down in the café taking a rest my friend came up carrying a cigar. I asked him what he was doing with it knowing that he didn’t smoke. He replied that the guy at the reception had given it to him and told him to go and deal with it. He’d brought it into the restaurant to put in an ashtray. We had a little chat about things like that too. He told me that he’d joined Weightwatchers in an attempt to lose some weight. Not that he needed to but he’d lost 2 kilos over the last few weeks since he’s been with them studying whatever it is that you do.

Having finished my notes, I’m going to bed. I’ve had enough of today. It’s not been a very good one. I’ll start again tomorrow when I hope that I’ll have much luck. That burst of energy that I had 10 or so days ago seems to have evaporated again and I’m really dismayed by that.

Sunday 11th June 2023 – I’VE NOT HAD …

… a very good day today.

In fact I’ve spend much of it asleep on my chair.

It was a very late night last night. I was still going on at 03:30 and I was still working last night.

Whatever time it was that I went to bed I really don’t know but I was up and about at 11:00, wide-awake and unable to go back to sleep.

It had been a bad night during the night too, one of those occasions where I kept on waking up in the middle of it all. I had something of a nightmare too during the night, about some kind of secret that was circulating. People became aware of it and used it in a bad way to compromise a few other people. There was some kind of investigation and found the culprit, a girl who was a service clerk at a Volkswagen garage. They caught her, brought her in and began to interrogate her. It was absolutely the most violent interrogation that I’d ever seen. There was one interrogator and a couple of witnesses. It was probably the most violent thing I’ve ever witnessed. In the end the girl admitted that she hadn’t actually told anyone in the general public. She’d simply told a few other people, one of whom was my brother. The team of interrogators and the girl then left to go down the corridor to begin dealing with those three to find out who it was who had spread the rumour around in the outside world. But it really was the most violent thing that I’ve ever witnessed, asleep or awake.

We’ll go back to that dream because it wasn’t quite as I just dictated. It was near enough but there was one main interrogator, a couple of senior interrogators and a few witnesses. They all stormed off down the corridor to these rooms trying to find out from the people there who had spread this report where it shouldn’t have been.

I was also going on a boat trip to Russia, into the centre. I had to pack everything and go to the airport. When I reached the security desk they took my backpack from me and said that they would look after it and put a label on it. This left me with next to nothing about me. There was another couple there as well. They were going, and seemed to be quite friendly so I was talking to them. They were allowed to take their bags through security so they said that they would go and dump their bags and catch up with me later. By now we were on board the ship and set sail down this magnificent river. We turned off into a tributary which meant going through some lock gates, up some rapids and into a big, wide river. It was really beautiful. By now we were on the road on a coach driving through a gorgeous countryside. I thought to myself “wouldn’t I like to come here in Strider on my own for a look around. We estimated to reach our destination by 21:00 that evening. When we pulled in and sorting ourselves out there was a guy we were talking to who was living in either a tent or a mobile home or something on wheels. You couldn’t actually see him but you could see the mobile home. He was us that he was so deep in debt that he didn’t know where to turn. The reason why he was deep in debt was … but he never answered his own question. he said the statement again and left us all on tenterhooks wondering what on earth it was that he meant.

During the day when I’ve not been asleep on my chair I’ve been dealing with my Canada 2017 trip. I’ve been around Forteau looking at Valard’s new port facilities as at the moment I’ve just gone through L’Anse au Loup on my way north up the Labrador Coast towards Red Bay and the shipwrecks on the rocks there.

My pizza tonight was not a success.

I probably overcooked the base when I tried to save it the other day. It had bubbled up and during the freezing and defrosting process one of the bubbles had burst and there was a hole in it.

What I did was to roll out a small piece of dough to patch the hole ready for when I assembled it but then we had the problems about the different cooking times.

The toppings were really good though and they tasted OK. And if I have learnt anything at all from my efforts today, it’s that it was my own fault for not putting the dough back in the freezer the other night and I ought to be more careful.

The way that I’m feeling right now I shall be going to bed very soon and hoping for a good sleep. Tomorrow I have the nurse coming to inject me and then i’ll be carrying on with my notes from Canada 2017.

If I manage to have a good day I should have reached Red Bay and carried on northwards towards Cartwright

Cartwright is one of the most interesting towns in Labrador, and for many reasons too as you will all find out in due course.

But years ago when I was small I saw one of these wildlife programmes on the TV where a film crew in a small town out on the Labrador coast in the middle of winter in the filming of a nature programme came round a corner and ended up nose-to-nose with a polar bear

When I was in Cartwright for the first time I mentioned that to someone with whom I was talking.
“Ohh yes” she replied. “I remember that. It was just here around the corner”.
I had no idea.

It’s still not as interesting as the events that took place a few years ago in St Anthony across on the other side of the Strait of Belle Isle. There were two headlines on the front page of the newspaper, side by side –
“Polar bear seen in town”
and right next to it
“Mr (whatever) missing from home”

It reminds me of the time that they had a few bicycles on board THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR and they announced that anyone could borrow them

And I immediately thought of one polar bear saying to another one “high time there was a meals on wheels service around here”.

Sunday 4th June 2023 – THAT WAS A HORRIBLE …

… night last night. I don’t think that I went off to sleep for a moment.

My left leg was hurting all the way through the night and I just couldn’t make myself comfortable.

So much so that I was wide awake at 08:00 and out of bed by 08:30 and when was the last time that that ever happened on a Sunday?

After the medication and the mails and messages I spent much of the day working on my Canada 2017 journey. I’ve now spent a week at my niece’s house, done some work on Strider and now I’m on my way for the Bay of Fundy to pick up Strider’s insurance.

That’s something that I won’t have to worry about in the future because, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, Strider is up for sale. There’s no point in having him sitting rusting away at the end of my niece’s drive when someone else can make use of him.

Liz came onto the internet too. Her grand-daughter is into ballet and is off shortly to Portugal to perform. She’s appeared in a couple of videos just recently so Liz sent me the links to watch.

Tonight’s pizza was another masterpiece. I seem to have this off to quite a fine art now and that’s really good. I’m not sure how I can improve on how they are turning out at the moment.

What helped today though was that the oven was stinking hot when the pizza went in. I’d run out of fruit buns at the end of the week so I made a batch this afternoon and they look quite good. I’ll tell you tomorrow about how they taste.

There’s a little room in the freezer now to put the spare ones. While I was ferreting about in there I found a plastic container with some soup in it. Carrot and ginger it was, and I remember making that and how good it was.

And notice the use of the past tense. The soup no longer exists and it was just as delicious as I remembered it. It made a nice change from cheese on toast at lunchtime.

Despite what I said just now, I must have gone to sleep at some point during the night because there was some stuff on the dictaphone. I started off in the Air Force in World War I. My aeroplane had been attacked and I’d been killed. I was still somehow going through the lines of a song trying to work out the lyrics and have the tune fitted into them because it wasn’t as straightforward as it might have seemed.

Then I was in the mountains of Central Europe last night with a couple of other people. We’d been climbing these rocks and were having to move this wood about, these very long tree trunks. At times it was extremely difficult and complicated on these rocks. More than once we almost dropped them into the valley down below. When we reached a place where we could relax I was talking about cars. Someone knew where there was a certain type of car for sale but it was in Bulgaria. he translated the advert for me. I mentioned that I’d be interested in paying so much for it. In Bulgaria he said that’s an “anhorse”. I had to be very careful not to confuse it with “anhorst” and a few others that meant different sums. he coached me through it and then wrote it down. I looked at samples of his writing. There was writing of other people there. Some of it was really close together but very tall. He talked about whose that was. We agreed to make an appointment to see the vehicle but now we had to retrace our steps back the way we’d come with these two enormous tree trunks which was really difficult. We almost dropped them again in the same place. One of the other people suggested that he go in front so that he could hold them from the front while I held them at the back and we slid them along. How he was going to go to the front past me and these tree trunks was another big complicated issue. There was also a young girl there too but I can’t remember what she was doing or why she was there.

And then very early on Sunday morning I was heading into Crewe Town Centre to do something about this leg. I’d gone over the bridge in Flag Lane ready to turn into Delamere Street and they both came round the corner, my father eating some chips. I grabbed a chip and said that I hadn’t had any this weekend. I asked how they were and they asked how I was. We had a little chat really about nothing very much in particular

Shortly I’m going to bed – nice and early too. I’m absolutely whacked and I’ve already fallen asleep once or twice today sitting on my chair. I’m hoping to have a really good sleep tonight. I’m certainly tired enough but things never work out quite like that, do they?

Sunday 28th May 2023 – A BIG HAPPY …

… birthday to Caliburn. He’s growing up – sixteen years old today.

And we’ve had plenty of adventures together, usually accompanied by the third member of our team, STRAWBERRY MOOSE. We’ve been to about half the countries in Europe together, battled our way through snowdrifts and mountain passes, towed mini-diggers all the way from North Lancashire down to the south-ish of France non-stop on a 34-hour journey, gone off to photograph a suspension bridge 2 hours down the road and not come back for almost 3 weeks and endless shuttles from Brussels to Virlet overnight in the early days of our relationship

At his last controle technique the examiner told me that he still has a few years left so it’s likely that he’ll outlast me, so here’s to many more years of happy Caliburn motoring.

The only regret was that I never succeeded in taking him over to North America for a run around. We had all of our ducks in a row at one time but then Strider came along and he was a much more appropriate vehicle with which to attack the sub-Arctic byways. Caliburn, good as he has been, would never have got down to that abandoned iron mine at the abandoned town of Gagnon.

It seems that I’m being overwhelmed with nostalgia over the last few days and I’ve no idea why. It’s probably because I have too much time on my hands right now. Perhaps I ought to do something about that – like “go back to bed and sleep it off”.

Last night was one occasion when staying in bed sounded like a good idea because it’s a Sunday and that’s always a lie-in around here. I’ll get up at any time you like for 6 days of the week, but never on Sunday. Everyone’s entitled to a day of rest.

So even if I awaken at something silly like 09:00, 10:30 is much more like a realistic time to show a leg.

It took me a while to gather my wits which, seeing how few wits I have these days, is quite surprising. But once I’d entered the Land of the Living the first thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We started off with something happening about oil filters on vehicles, yellow heavy-duty plastic spin-on ones rather than filter cartridges that you’d have to change but I can’t remember very much about this dream at all.

And then I was working as a lorry driver for someone. We were extremely busy. Someone had gone off sick and I’d had another spell of ill-health so I ended up taking a couple of days off. He had a lorry loaded with waste that needed tipping somewhere so he rang around and ended up speaking to a woman who was a lorry driver and asked her if she would do it. He explained the urgency of it, which I thought was strange because it would give this woman a lot of power over him if she knew how urgent the job was. I could hear the conversation because I was in bed in the next room. She sounded dubious and asked him “what had happened to so-and-so?”. He replied that there was something the matter with him. She asked what was the matter with me. He gave some sort of reply that basically he thought that I was malingering, which I thought was a horrible thing to do because I’d never ever missed a shift as long as I’d worked for him and had volunteered to do all the extra stuff.

After breakfast, or lunch, or whatever you might call it, I sat down and made a start on work.

Yesterday, I mentioned that I was going to go on the attack with my Labrador stuff so I sat down and reviewed the directories that I’ve been keeping.

Up to 2015, everything is all shipshape and Bristol-fashion. But then I had all of my hospital issues and then went to live in Leuven and since then everything went haywire and it’s just a complete mess.

For a start, I can’t find any trace whatsoever of any of my notes from my 2017 trek around Labrador so I’ve decided that I shall have to go back to basics and start from the very beginning.

There are the dictaphone notes – well, some of them – and then the blog notes from the relevant periods and that seems like a very good place to start.

But then you won’t believe this but I had to have a really good hard think because I’d forgotten how I write my websites. Back in the old days I’d be churning them out on a regular basis but since my health issues over the last 8 years I’ve not written more than half a dozen.

That’s the problem with growing older thought. Two things happen to you when you reach my age. The first thing is that you forget absolutely everything.
… “What’s the second thing?” – ed.
“I can’t remember”

Anyway, even just collating the stuff from 2017 is going to take an age, never mind adding it in to the earlier voyages.

What’s worse is that I can’t find the mileage notes.

With travelling several years over the 2100 kms of the Trans Labrador Highway and taking a couple of thousand photos, it’s important to have them all in the correct order and in the correct positions. And although I noted the mileages because I anticipated this problem, I’ve travelled the highway in both directions so the eastbound mileages are not the same as the westbound mileages of course.

Back in the past (or past in the back if you are George Bush) I managed to identify a couple of identical views taken from each direction on different occasions so I used them as reference points and calculated all of the mileages of every photo from every trip to correspond with those marker references. But if I can’t find my notes I’ll have to go back and do it all again, I reckon. That’ll take a while and no mistake.

There was a break while I made s batch of pizza dough, seeing as I’d run out. It rose quite nicely too. Two lumps went into the freezer later on and I made a base with the third. And once more, we had a magnificent pizza. Using these small cherry tomatoes cut in half and putting them on top of the cheese is definitely the way to go.

So before I go to bed I’m going to make a start on editing the radio notes that I dictated last night. I had a go recording them directly onto the computer now that I’ve configured it, however the quality was really poor and it all ended up in the bin and I redictated it using the ZOOM H8.

Had I been of a mind, and had it not been 01:00 when I finished, I suppose that I could have filtered out the interference and enhanced the quality, but I’ll have to work on that for another time.

Tomorrow I’ll finish off the radio programmes and then carry on with the Canada 2017 stuff. Right now I’m on a bus heading through the mountains to pick up Strider. There’s a really long way to go yet.

We haven’t reached the funny part of the whole trip though and I’ll dine out on this for ever, I reckon. That year I went to see my friend in St John’s so that meant the long sea crossing across the Gulf of St Lawrence to Argentia instead of the short (as in 9 hours) crossing to Channel Port aux Basques.

“Roaming” was switched off on my telephone of course because it’s quite expensive in North America but as we were sailing along the southern coast of Newfoundland the phone suddenly went berserk with missed phone calls, messages and all of that kind of thing and at first I was bewildered.

However there’s a French colony – St Pierre et Miquelon – on an island in the Gulf of St Lawrence and obviously my French mobile network supplier provides the service to it. For a brief moment my telephone connected with the network and caught up with everything that I’d been missing.

That explains all of that, but it still doesn’t explain the situation in 2019 when we were in mid-Atlantic, 1000 miles from just about everywhere on board THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR, and I suddenly picked up an internet connection out of nowhere. I’ve never been able to explain that.

Sunday 21st May 2023 – HAVING A LOOK …

… at the timestamps of some of the files on which I was working last night – 03:25, 03:33 etc, it was a very late night. Or more like an early morning. I was still rewriting some radio programme stuff and re-dictating it at some silly hour of the morning.

Consequently, being wide-awake at 10:30 and up and about at 10:45 is really quite astonishing. I can’t even usually do that on a Sunday when I’ve had a GOOD night’s sleep.

Ahh well. Life is full of surprises.

Not that I actually did very much. I have to confess that for at least part of it, I was flat-out on the chair in here instead of working.

Another thing that I did this afternoon as I didn’t feel much like working was to telephone Ingrid and have a good chat. It’s been ages since we last spoke to each other and so we were on the ‘phone for a Rosemaryesque marathon.

She’s not doing so well with her own health problems so we spent quite a long time commiserating with each other.

But the conversation was quite interesting. The subject of “small-town mentality” came up in our discussion.

Due to her father’s work she spent a lot of time as a child in the far-flung corners of the Dutch Empire as a child and encountered all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds.

My own background was exactly the opposite. Small-village, small-town mentality, totally unprepared for what the big wide world had to offer and it was an enormous culture shock when I was 16 and first set foot in the big wild world.

However, how are you going to keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree? I was itching to break away from that kind of mentality and the Big City didn’t work out. I didn’t enjoy my spell living in Manchester in 1974-75, although on reflection I should have stuck it out.

No mistake though about deciding to emigrate. I left all of the negativity behind me and I was glad about that. Life in Crewe was really dragging me down.

It was somehow difficult for Ingrid to understand things like that because she’s never experienced it, but meeting different people from different cultures and background was exciting as a child to her as it was to me when I moved to Brussels.

Thinking about it, there’s still the story about that Burmese girl going round in my head. And on further research, I found that she’d appeared in my nocturnal rambles on a previous occasion, and once again it had been a whole series of recurring dreams on one particular night.

While we’re on the subject of dreams … “well, one of us is” – ed … there was some stuff on the dictaphone from the night. There was something going on at one point but as usual I’ve forgotten most of it. But there was something that made me sit up when I accosted someone and said “this is something that YOU voted for so you can own up and accept the ownership of this sh*tshow. It wasn’t about Brexit either but to do with something personal involving me but, as I said, I can’t remember what it was.

We were talking about Cortinas again last night, all of the Cortinas and bits and pieces in my garages, thinking that it might be the time to start to liquidate everything. People were saying that they didn’t really want anything that’s been lying around rusting in a garage for years. Someone else replied “it’s been lying around abroad and brought back to the UK so that’ll make a big difference”. We went into one of the garages that was heaving with stuff. My mother found a few bags of children’s clothing. She said “here, you can take these to the tip”. She gave me 2 bags, and then gave me a third. I said “I can’t go to the tip if you’re going to give me all of this”. I thought “I suppose I could go in the van”. She said “yes and I’ve seen some more too” and there was another pile by the front door still on hangers so she picked up all of these clothes still on hangers and handed them to me too to take to the tip.

And while we’re on that subject too … “well, on eof us is” – ed … whoever gets the short straw and has to clear out the stuff left down on the farm will have their hands full. But judging by the prices that things are fetching these days, it’ll be worth their while.

In between everything else I’ve been editing the stuff that I dictated before going to bed. I haven’t got very far because I ended up going out socialising. Someone here in the building was having a little soiree so I went for a couple of hours.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m not usually the socialising type but I actually like the people here and we have a nice and friendly little community. As I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … this is the first place where I have ever lived that has felt like home.

Consequently it was a rather late tea and having left the pizza base to fester for quite a while it had risen perfectly and it was another candidate for the title of “best pizza ever”.

Anyway, I’m off to bed in a moment ready for tomorrow. I have a radio programme to finish and the nurse will be round in the morning to give me my fortnightly injection.

And that reminds me – it’s the last injection that I have here so I’ll need to see the doctor some time to order some more. And with having to see the nerve specialist on Thursday I’m going to be having a busy week.

It’ll keep me out of mischief, I suppose.

Sunday 14th May 2023 – AFTER ALL OF …

… the excitement over the last day or two, I was expecting to have a really decent sleep last night and probably not raise my ugly head from the pillow until midday or something like that.

And so you are probably just as surprised as I am that I was actually up and about at 09:30 this morning.

Considering that I didn’t go to bed until after midnight either, it’s something of a surprise.

In actual fact, I was awake quite a good deal earlier than that and if I’d have applied myself I could have heaved myself out of bed quite a while earlier than 09:30. But it IS Sunday after all.

Anyway, once I was up and about I didn’t do very much at all today. I’ve paired off the music for the radio programme I’ll be preparing and I’ve made a start – a slow start – on writing the notes. I’ll finish it off tomorrow but I shan’t be breaking any records. I’m still not wound up sufficiently after my gruelling few days on the move.

And that’s another thing. Rosemary has asked me if I’d like to go down to the Auvergne for a while to recover but 500 kilometres down to Menat and then 500 kilometres back in Caliburn is totally out of my reach, the way things are right now.

There was something on the dictaphone from last night. I’d been to collect Caliburn from the garage after he’d had his starter fixed. There was a young girl there. I knew her from the Auvergne. They were discussing the signing of the certificate for her controle technique. Because her vehicle was registered in the Auvergne it had to be someone from there who signed it. She was wondering whether if the guy here signed it, if it would be valid. He replied “no-one checks up on things like that”. I asked “has it passed now?”. She looked at me and suddenly realised that she’d been with me at the garage in the Auvergne when there had been some kind of issue with her car when Caliburn had passed his controle technique. We began to chat. She was very curious about the electric cable coming down my arm. She asked what it was for. I showed her a clip on my belt and said “that’s where my mobile phone normally goes. It plugs into this wire here at this end and at the other end where you see the cable I can put a solar panel on my back and plug the phone into the solar panel while I’m walking around. When you’re on an expedition that’s how you keep your phone charged”. She thought that that was a wonderful idea.

When I’d finished that I made some hot chocolate and came back in here where I regrettably … errr … relaxed for a while.

After I’d had lunch I’d taken out some pizza dough from the freezer and it had been defrosting during the afternoon. Later on, I kneaded it and rolled it out to put on the pan

However, it didn’t seem to want to spread out correctly and began to shrink. In the end I had to roll it all back up, knead it again and roll it out a second time.

When it was cooked the dough had risen to perfection and it really was a pizza as good as the one that I’d made the other day. Cutting these cherry tomatoes in half and putting them on top of the vegan cheese instead of slicing normal tomatoes and putting them on the bottom underneath the rest of the toppings is really the way to go.

So now, having emulated my namesake the mathematician and done three fifth of five eights of … errr … nothing all day, I’m going to bed. I’ll tackle the radio programme tomorrow but don’t expect it to be done quickly. I’m just not in the mood.

But it’s really nice to be back home. In the words of Steve Marriott, I’M SICK AND TIRED OF HOTELS, HARD BEDS

Sunnday 7th May 2023 – TONIGHT’S PIZZA …

… was by far and away the best that I’ve ever made. For once in my life I had the base at exactly the right thickness and the the cooking time absolutely spot-on. And that produced a masterpiece. I shall really have to remember these settings and try again next weekend.

Another thing that I’ll have to try to remember for next weekend is to have a sleep like the one that I had today. With staying up late to dictate the notes for the radio programme and one or two other things that turned up in between (as they usually do) It was 02:15 when I finally crawled into bed

And that was where I stayed until, would you believe, midday.

There was plenty of tossing and turning during all of this though, and I don’t suppose that I was really settled. Checking the times of recordings on the dictaphone, there wasn’t really a very long period of constant unconsciousness.

While we’re on the subject of the dictaphone … “well, one of us is” – ed … there were tons of stuff on there from the night. I’d really had a busy time. I started off being in the middle of a dream, something to do about a house or something like that, when I awoke and at that point it disappeared completely. I was recovering so instead of being in my normal room I was in a room upstairs at the front. There was much more to it than this but I can’t remember.

Tubes, all kinds of feathers and dice and everything that happened to go with plastic tubing, so when am I going to play rugby? Anyway, I had to clean up my fridge and I hadn’t cleaned up for 50 years. I found some instructions on the internet and began to sit down to read them as I went, to see who would take the final place and private profits. And if you have any idea what that might be all about, I hope you tell me because I don’t have a clue. It’s just another load of gibberish that appeared on the dictaphone from during the night.

Some woman was very inquisitive last night. She wanted to know why we were going to the YWCA. Eventually, when we stopped laughing, we had to explain that we worked for the company that dealt with the HR of the employees of the YWCA in Paris. We were going there on official business like that. She wanted to know what we were doing at the moment and other questions that I forget. We basically told her to mind her own business.

I was with Zero’s father (but, regrettably, not Zero) last night. He’d just bought a new electric drill combo set and was trying it out at home with someone. I just happened to be there and they weren’t talking to me. They were busy trying to make this drill work. After about an hour they decided that there must be some kind of fault with it. He and I took it back to the shop and picked up another. We noticed that by now they were in a clearance sale and just disposing of the remaining stock. Back at his house he unpacked it and tried again. He was there for the rest of the day trying to drill a piece of wood correctly. All the time there were these problems. In the end he decided that the second drill was faulty too. I’d have to take him back to the shop to swap it yet again. That was really the only time that they acknowledged my existence, when it came down to me taking them to the shop. I was rather disappointed with this because they weren’t even engaging me in conversation. While this was going on they were just intent on getting this drill up and working. I may as well not be there except that I was the one with the car running them around.

I also went out on a blind date last night. It turned out to be with Caroline. We ended up back at her house in bed. This was really the last place where I wanted to be. I was thinking about how I would get out of this. While she was distracted with my arm around her back I pressed my watch rhythmically. It buzzed and I pretended that it was a phone call. I had to come out with an excuse that with being a chauffeur I had to go out to pick up my director and bring him home. I’m not sure whether she swallowed it but that was what I did. I felt rather guilty about it but I thought that the last thing that I want to do is to end up in bed with her, or with anyone for that matter.

Finally, some small boy had been killed. An investigation pointed towards the father so he’d been arrested. It was one of his golf clubs that had beaten the boy to death. Ultimately the father was detained in some kind of mental institution because he was a psychiatric case. He was there for years. There were all kinds of people who were doing all kinds of studies on him with regard to the effects of incarceration. I ended up going to see him with someone else. All he had of course was his cell and a red plastic set of golf clubs with a plastic golf ball. he was playing golf around his cell all day. We interviewed him but we had to be very careful what we said because we weren’t sure even after all this time that he knew that his son was dead and whether he grasped the seriousness of what had happened. In the end we came to leave. I remember saying to him “you’ve no idea how sorry I am for you”. We went outside and found his bright red plastic razor on the floor in the washroom. It seemed to sum up everything about his life, the razor just sitting there on the floor doing absolutely nothing while he was moving on in his cell just sitting there playing golf all day

Actually, not really “finally” because there was more stuff than that but you really don’t want to know about it, especially if you are in the middle of a meal.

With not raising myself from the dead until quite late, there wasn’t much time before brunch. More porridge, cheese on toast and strong coffee to fire me up for the day. Then I sat down to transcribe the dictaphone notes and I was glad that the coffee was strong.

There were a few other things that needed doing so I didn’t have all that much time to deal with the radio programme. The notes are a bit of a mess because I can’t have been concentrating last night so they are taking more than the usual editing. But the nurse is coming to give me my fortnightly injection in the morning ready for my trip out to Leuven so I’ll finish things off afterwards.

After lunch I’d taken out a lump of dough from the freezer (I’m glad that I made that earlier in the week and didn’t wait until today) and that had spent the afternoon defrosting.

Later on, I kneaded it and rolled it out, then after it had finished proofing I assembled the pizza. And as I said, it was really delicious.

There’s still some time left before bed so I’ll carry on with the radio editing. And tomorrow I have some forms to download and one or two of those need filling in. I mustn’t forget those because it’s important, especially now that the SNCF application has somehow failed to work.

So when I’ve had my injection, we’ll see how energetic I feel. Not very much, I bet.

Sunday 23rd April 2023 – THAT WAS A …

… horrible day today.

With it being Sunday it’s supposed to be a day of rest during which I can lie in bed for as long as I want.

Certainly much longer than 09:30, but by that time this morning I had given up trying to go back to sleep. I’d awoken about an hour earlier and was just lying there tossing and turning to no good purpose.

So after the medication and checking my mails and messages I didn’t do very much at all for a while. Being up and about is one thing but actually being active is something else completely.

Once I’d finally joined the Land of the Living I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I had a cat, a ginger cat last night. As I was going somewhere I took the cat with me in its carrier. We boarded the ship, I parked the car and took the carrier with me ready to go into the lounge. That meant climbing up a row of steps to the top deck so I threw the carrier up to the top so that I could pull myself up with both hands but the wind caught it and blew it over the side. That was the last that I saw of it, carrier and all. The cat was gone. A couple of minutes later there was a similar situation but this time with the laptop. I was doing almost exactly the same thing and that went over the side too

There were also 2 old women living together. I don’t know why but it was night-time and I was sleeping there. We heard a strange kind of noise so we listened. We couldn’t work out what it was so we ignored it. About half an hour later we heard the noise again. We came to the conclusion that it was one of these old women. We awoke the other one and had her go into her sister’s room to find out what was happening. From there the dream jumped to me at the doctor’s, arguing with him to try to have him come out. He was being extremely unco-operative. In the end we persuaded him to come to this girl’s house. We jumped again and it was in a court. It could have been a coroner’s court. Whoever was presiding asked the doctor the question “if he had reacted 10 minutes earlier would the deceased had still been alive?”. He had to admit “yes, she would have been”.

We were also out on the taxis last night. I was at my little workshop. I had someone with me and we had to leave so I went to get into a MkIII Cortina estate that was there. I put the key in and turned it but there were no lights on the dashboard. I said “God! Don’t tell me that the battery is flat. We’ll be stuck here for ever with everyone being busy”. Just then the ‘phone rang. It was Margaret. She asked “is there no dashboard light on the MkIV a problem?”. Whoever was with me explained to her that if there’s no battery or alternator connected you won’t have a light anyway but there’s no reason why the car won’t start. She tried it and it started so she went off to do her jobs. We hung up the ‘phone, I turned the key and the MkIII estate fired up and we set off.

And then I was with my friends from the Wirral. We were going to look at some houses that were damaged by fire or something and just left. We decided to go to have a look at them. There was another old woman living there who had a rather depressing kitchen and people had offered to help her improve it. She kept on turning them down and wasn’t very nice about it either. We came to these houses. The husband was in his Land Rover. Just then as we were on our way to go around the block to look at the back someone in a taxi that had been dressed up as a Carnival float reversed it out of a side street into the road and he just drove straight into the rear of it. This was his 4th accident in 2 weeks that I knew that he had been involved in but he wasn’t bothered in the slightest. I would have despaired if there had been so many for me. What he needed to have done was to have stopped and he could have avoided it. We managed to see one of the houses that had been fire-damaged. He was going on about how £12,000 to repair it was probably an exaggeration. He thought that it could be done for half. I couldn’t understand why the thought that because it may not have needed £12,000 but it wasn’t going to be far off to put this place right. It was simply not going to be saving thousands.

Later I was working in an office with John Cale, but which John Cale I don’t know. John Cale of Velvet Underground or John Cale the mate of Eric Clapton? We were working for an insurance company. Every now and again when the pressure of work became too much, we’d stop. He’d bring in some coffee and I’d bring in some biscuits and we’d have a little 10-minute coffee break. Anyone passing by at that moment could come in for a coffee and chat. management didn’t like it. They felt that we were wasting time. We explained that a morale-building exercise like this was doing us good. The funny thing about it was that this particular dream I dreamt in Welsh, so seeing as Velvet Underground’s John Cale was born in Garnant, it may well have been him.

I had exactly the same dream about an hour later. This time it was still John Cale but which one again? It was again in Welsh. I remember the ugly call and walked out when my grandfather became ill. I said that we’re invited for coffee and biscuits. They replied some kind of sarcastic comment that I didn’t have the time to mess around while they were paying me

I ended up on a holiday. We were coming back and had to unpack. That was the awkward bit because Caliburn was so full of stuff that in the end I had to reverse him out of the garage into the street and start to unload that way. I was talking to Jimmy Page. The subject of “Stairway To Heaven” came up. We ended up having a jam – me on bass and him on guitar. We had a lead guitar solo right at the very end of “Stairway” that went on for probably 20 minutes. It was the most incredible thing that I’ve ever heard. Strangely enough Jimmy Page said that he didn’t like it all that much but I thought that it was magnificent. When I awoke I wished that I could remember how it went because I really enjoyed playing that. However, it wasn’t “Stairway to Heaven” because when I awoke I was playing another Led Zeppelin song going round in my head but I forgot which one it was straight away.

Some of the rest of the day has been spent completing another radio programme. I’m now well ahead of where I want to be. I try to be about 6 months, or 25 programmes, ahead of where I am at the moment but tomorrow I’ll be sending off programme 176 and today I was completing programme 208.

That’s a good plan because if I end up stuck in hospital again like I did last autumn or if I go off on another long voyage, or if the worst ever comes to the worst then I’ll be covered for quite a while.

It’s all quite surprising really because I didn’t expect to be still going after all this time. I remember the hospital telling me back in 2017 when I talked about leaving Leuven and finding another place to live that I’d be wasting my time and money buying an apartment. That didn’t age well, did it?

The rest of the afternoon was spent flat-out on a chair. There can’t have been too much sleep during the night with all of that travelling around that I did and my early start in the morning so it’s not any surprise. It’s still quite dismal though. I wish that I could have a decent sleep at some point, with a few of my favourite visitors coming to see me.

And that reminds me. The final track that I chose for the radio programme that I prepared today was AIRPORT by my old partner in crime from my days stamping around Manchester in the mid-70s.
“Already it’s too late, you’re through the boarding-gate
And walking on the tarmac.
Already you are free, already you’ve left me
And cannot bear to look back, can you?”
And she didn’t look back either. How long is it now since Castor has put in an appearance during one of my nocturnal voyages?

Tea tonight was another pizza of course, and once again it really was an excellent pizza with putting the tomatoes on last and using that expensive grated vegan Cheshire Cheese.

So now I’m off to bed. With having prepared a couple of radio programmes this last week I don’t need to do any work for the radio tomorrow so I’m leaving the alarm set for 07:00 instead of 06:00 and I’ll have a little extra sleep, if I can.

The nurse is coming tomorrow morning to give me my injection so I’d better have a shower at some point early in the morning before he arrives. And I’ll have to tell him about the blood test that I need to have later in the week so he can come round and do the necessary.

So, see you in the morning.

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

Tag Archives: vegan pizza

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