Tag Archives: vegan pizza

Sunday 16th April 2023 – MY PIZZA TONIGHT …

… was easily, by a country mile, the best that I have ever made.

A couple of weeks ago I found some grated vegan Cheshire Cheese in LeClerc and even though it was expensive, I bought some to try because being
“Cheshire Born, Cheshire Bred
Strong in th’arm and wick in the yed”
well, almost, anyway, I had to show some loyalty.

And I’m really glad that I did because it was wicked. There was an after-taste there that I’ve never had with some of these more insipid vegan cheeses and I’ll be buying more of that. COPULATUM EXPENSIUM, as we Pompeiians say.

Not only that, I’d bought some cherry tomatoes during the week when I’d been in town, because they were on special offer. So instead of the usual tomatoes I grabbed a big handful of those and cut them in half. I put them cut side upwards on top of the cheese and that worked in spades too.

It seems to me that I’ve finally got the hang of this pizza lark, after all these years.

It also seems that I finally got the hang of sleeping last night because although I wasn’t in bed all that early (or all that late, as it happens) I was wide-awake at 09:00 and up and about at 10:00. That’s much more reasonable for a Sunday.

After the medication I had a very slow start to the day, just listening to music and not doing very much in particular.

There was a nice lunch of cheese on toast, porridge and strong coffee, and then I actually did some work.

First thing that I did was to track down two LPs that will be celebrating their birthday at some point in the future, select a headline track from each one and write some notes about the albums, the musicians and the songs ready for a radio programme.

Next thing was to prepare a new sheet in my music database for birthdays, anniversaries and the like. I’ve been making little notes over the years and I need to bring it all together.

With no pizza bases on hand I made another batch and then came back in here to write out the dictaphone notes from last night. And I must have travelled miles during the night too. I’d met a rock group somewhere playing rock music in a club. The lead musician was someone who used to be famous a few years ago but the others not so much. They were quite good so I decided that if ever I caught up with them again I’d have them do a live concert for my radio programmes. Sure enough, at another club in Manchester I came across them. I went over to talk. The lead musician knew me from somewhere he said so we had quite a chat. They gave me their details and a card so I went to give them one of my business cards. It took me ages to search through my wallet to find one. When I did, it was the wrong card. Although I could find some more cards, they weren’t the right ones either. It took me ages. all the time I was trying to talk to these people and impress them about how serious I was and I couldn’t find a business card in my wallet. In the end I took one of them but of course it was the wrong one. That was a waste of time. With trying to find these cards at the same time as talking everything that I was saying was coming out wrong. It was very disappointing that I couldn’t find this card and couldn’t make the words come out correctly.

That’s really the story of my life, isn’t it? I seem to be exceptionally good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

And then I was with a girl (and I wish that I can remember who she was). She needed to fetch some money so we got into her car to drive to the town centre where there were several banks and building societies. She was so busy concentrating that she drove straight through a red light. I had to shout at her to bring her to her senses. We came to a square where there were several banks and building societies so she parked the car and left me. She went into what looked like an Estate Agent to ask if she could withdraw money. They sent her to go to a building society agency office that was next door on the corner. There were quite a few (do I mean “there was quite a queue”?) there but she went and stood in it all the same. I was thinking to myself that I hope that she can remember her card number etc

Next, I was at a small tourist attraction in the USA. I’d gone for a coffee. It was only a small coffee bar and there was just this old man of about 80 serving. He was running messages as well. He wasn’t very good so the queue was miles long out of the door. When it was finally my turn I asked “coffee black no sugar please”. He looked at me and asked “what?” so I repeated it. He asked “what?” again so I replied a third time. He said “I don’t understand you”. I asked “what’s difficult about ‘coffee black no sugar’?”. He replied “maybe it’s the way that you’re speaking but I don’t understand you at all”. This went on and on and all the people in this queue joined in saying that they couldn’t understand what I was asking for either”. By this time I was extremely annoyed. I was not going to leave the queue until either I had my coffee or the police came to take me away. I decided to dig in my heels and ask for “coffee black no sugar” and let him sort out the problem himself if he couldn’t understand it.

Later on I stepped back into this dream. It was a question now of lunch. I went to help myself to some salad but had a load of dirty looks and snide comments. Later on someone explained to me that the food for the passengers was at the back of the bus and I was helping myself to food from the driver’s buffet. Of course no-one had explained to me beforehand. When I was sitting down I was watching a film. It was in British English subtitled into American English for Americans because there was quite a lot being said in there that was very much English slang which Americans wouldn’t understand at all. It occurred to me that maybe this was the problem. I was speaking in British English when I was ordering my coffee and they were just not understanding the language. I thought to myself that this entire situation was just totally bizarre.

At another moment I needed some space in my drive for the weekend so I had to move a few cars out. One of the vehicles was a little Honda Acty van type of thing with a Luton body. I had to think of a place to put it. It was belonging to the same former friend from the other night but I was looking after it because we were going to sell it. There was a car parts office down the road that was closed over the weekend so I thought that I’d put the Acty on there, do what I had to do and go back on the Sunday night to collect it and bring it back before the place opened. Sunday, I wasn’t in any particular rush and at the end of the day I went down there to pick it up. But it had been jacked up on bricks and someone had stolen the wheels. I was horrified because first of all it wasn’t my van. I was only looking after it for someone else. Where would I find some wheels now to put on it to move it back to my place before the shop opens on Monday? How was I going to explain to the owner what had happened to it? He was relying on the money from it for some purpose or other of his.

He’s the same guy who has some kind of connection with Zero. This time, the dream ran through to its logical (well, logical to anyone who is fast asleep) conclusion but she didn’t manage to put in an appearance. I do however remember an extreme feeling of anxiety at the end of this, but whether this is to do with what happened to the van while it was under my control or because Zero didn’t put in an appearance I really don’t know.

Finally, my friend’s father had a conviction against him for failing to control his temper on one occasion. Part of this was a medical examination where it was found that he had an abnormal Body Mass Index. Not that he was over-weight but there was another problem so they decided that they’d control it. For some unknown reason things didn’t work out and he ended up dying. We’d been to the funeral. On the way back we waited at the side of the road for a lift from someone. That disreputable character Billington from Crewe came past in a taxi with a pile of people. He and that Cooke and Mrs Cooke came over and started to talk to us. They said “we have a taxi waiting over there. Why don’t you come home with us?”. Not that we wanted to but in the end we were persuaded. When we reached the taxi it was full of kids. The driver put his foot down and said “you’ll have far too many people in this taxi. I won’t be able to drive it”. We replied “fair enough. We won’t get on board. That’s no problem” but the Cookes and Billington said that they’s alight and walk with us and send the kids on in the taxi. This caused some confusion amongst the kids because they weren’t the brightest sparks. The last thing I wanted to do was to end up with them and all their kids at a time like this. But they got out of a taxi, made sure that the kids all got back on and sent the driver off on his way.

Those people were customers of mine back in the old days 40 years ago with my taxi bu siness and the stories about them were legendary. However they aren’t really the stories that you will want to hear. Crewe was quite a strange town with a lot of strange people living there and I often felt quite at home. We lived there from 1970 to 1972 when I cleared off to Chester and I moved back from 1981 until 1992 when I cleared off to the real world.

The rest of the day has been spent in some kind of desultory fashion writing some more radio notes. I’ve not done many and I’m not really all that concerned. I’ve already done next week’s radio programme so what I’ve done today has been a bonus.

So after my delicious pizza I’m now off to bed. An early start, a shower and then off to hospital. And who knows what that will bring?

There was a time, and quite recently too, when I was thinking that “it can’t be any worse than this” but I’m pleased with my progress with this physiotherapist even if, as a person, I don’t really like him. He’s good at his job. And so with this improvement, I hope that they don’t mess it up.

On the other hand, they could of course make things better and wouldn’t that be nice? We can but hope. I’d love to get back my mobility.

0

Sunday 9th April 2023 – MY AIR FRYER …

… is pretty good at baking biscuits too.

Searching around on the internet I came across a generic recipe for biscuits – basically sugar, margarine and flour in a ratio of 4/8/10

Consequently I made up some dough with 200 grammes of flour and then added some desiccated coconut, raisins, nutmeg, ground ginger, vanilla essence and orange essence and mixed it all up.

Once it had seet for half an hour in the fridge (it won’t rise of course because there’s no yeast) I rolled it out and with my biscuit cutter there was enough for 20 biscuits.

The shelf in my oven is only large enough to take 16 and that meant that there were four biscuits left over. So no time like the present to try out the air fryer.

And I do have to say that at 160°C for 12 minutes (turning them over halfway through) they were cooked to perfection and tasted delicious. After all, you have to try them out.

There was probably too much margarine in there if the truth is known, but it’s all down to trial and error considering that I’ve never made any before. But rest assured – I shall be making more of them again

And while we’re on the subject of baking … “well, one of us is” – ed … the pizza that I made tonight was far and away the best ever.

It’s taken me several years to realise it but over this last few days I’ve worked out where I’ve been going wrong. So what I did today that made a difference was that I put the sliced tomato on the pizza last of all, on top of the cheese.

So not only were all of the mushrooms and onions cooked properly, the base was nice and firm, not soggy, and the tomatoes were nice and crispy.

And that’s something else that I’ll do again as well.

Another thing that I’ll do again is to have a good night’s sleep. Because at least I wasn’t disturbed last night as much as I have been just recently, and no-one bothered me at all with the ‘phone or anything else.

There was still plenty of tossing and turning but that’s par for the course. nevertheless I stuck it out until 10:30 when I reckoned that it was time to show a leg.

After the medication and checking the mails and messages I didn’t do very much at first. I had a really nice leisurely morning right up until lunchtime and my porridge, cheese on toast and coffee.

This afternoon has been spent on tracking down biscuit recipes and then making and baking the aforementioned. As I said earlier, it’s something of which I’ll be doing much more, and it will be so much better when I have a bigger oven.

While I was at it, I found a recipe for custard creams but I don’t have any custard. However, I have had a great deal of success making chocolate sauce in the past instead of custard so I wonder if a chocolate cream biscuit would follow the same principle.

There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?

While I was waiting for everything to happen, I had a listen to the dictaphone. And I travelled miles during the night. At one point I had to go into work which was in Brussels. I was in a canoe, actually a kayak. This meant going from the north of the city through the poorer areas, underneath a couple of railway bridges and down some back streets to the centre of Brussels. I had to do it in a kayak even though of course there wasn’t any water. That was interesting. There were a couple of other people on their way there who were following me but they soon realised that I knew the way far better than they did through the side streets so they let me carry on. They all followed me.

And then there were several concrete lamp standards that wanted moving from somewhere into Crewe. Seeing as they weren’t very heavy I said that I’d take them. I didn’t have any transport and no-one had sorted out anything at all. I was left with these lamp standards. In the end I just picked one up and put it on my shoulder with the other end trailing along the ground and set off I was pushing one of them towards Crewe. I arrived near Rolls Royce and the stream across the river was flooded. I’d arranged for a vehicle to take me across. It was a case of crossing the bridge, a flat-bottomed affair that was partly submerged. Getting the first one or two over on this vehicle then carrying on wasn’t a problem but by the time I went back for the third one the river was a raging torrent. I tried to time the approach of this vehicle so that it would get on the downstroke of this bridge but it was going to be too complicated and I could see it ending in tears. There was a better, more modern bridge not too far away. In the end I abandoned the idea. I left STRAWBERRY MOOSE (who hasn’t appeared in these pages for quite some considerable time) there to guard the bridge and took my concrete post off with me to go over the other bridge. A girl there was watching the events. She went over and began to talk to Strawberry Moose. I carried on pushing the lamp-post. I ended up on an aeroplane. I was sitting on this aeroplane, about 20 of us on board this thing that could take a couple of hundred passengers. It was due to depart at quarter to. I looked at my watch. It was now 46. We were already running one minute late and there was nothing like as many passengers as you would expect there to be on this aeroplane so what’s happening now?

Later on I went back into that dream. There had been some kind of confrontation taking place at this fraud. A group of people had been arrested and charged with assault. As the trial started and more and more evidence came out, the judge became of the opinion that a more serious charge ought to be preferred against one of the defendants and that person give evidence. he decided that he himself would issue a summons to the person referred to for a charge of violent conduct. Have him arrested and tried on the spot while this court case was going on.

Later still I was at work. We were extremely busy. Everyone was getting in my way trying to do things. I was speaking to a girl whom I knew who was a colleague of Nerina’s. We arranged to meet for a cup of tea in the canteen. Something cropped up – someone came to talk to me and completely distracted me. I didn’t go. In the end I was speaking to another girl whom I knew. The subject of coffee came up so i went down at that moment and met her. We started to talk about all kinds of different things going on in the office etc. Later on that night I ended up at her house in bed, in a separate room etc. She brought me a cup of tea in the morning. I said “this is nice. It brings back many happy memories of lying in bed being brought mugs of tea”. She gave me a computer program that she’d used, called Walt Disney’s Imagination, for enhancing photos and videos that we’d talked about previously.

The funny thing was that after dictating that dream I put the dictaphone down and started to look around for the cup of tea. Of course it wasn’t there and you’ve no idea how disappointed I was

“Life’s too short to read” said Gail who had given me another book. And I really did dictate it too, just like that. Later on I had stepped back into that dream with those girls with whom Nerina worked and so on and of course I was impressed that I remembered that that the name of one of the girls was Gail.

There was much more to the night than that as well, but I’ll spare you the discomfort if you are currently eating anything.

As for tea, I mentioned that just now with my perfect pizza so now I’m off to bed.

Monday is usually an early start at 06:00 but not this week. It’s a Bank Holiday tomorrow and although the nurse will be coming to give me the injection he won’t be here at 06:30 (and that’s Famous Last Words, isn’t it?). The alarm usually rings at 07:40 on a Monday as well and so everything will be switched off until then.

And here’s hoping that I will be too.

0

Sunday 2nd April 2023 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about something coming along to disturb me.

However that’s nothing to shout out about. After all, it’s pretty much odds-on, isn’t it?

But who – just WHO would ring up someone on a Sunday morning at an ungodly hour like 11:05 – that early in the morning?

When I find out, there will be someone drinking soup through a straw, that’s for sure, because if you really ARE going to ring someone up at that time of the morning then at least have the decency to stay on line instead of hanging up after just two rings.

And don’t do it a second time 5 minutes later either because that’s really annoying.

What was worse was that when whoever it was phoned up the first time, I found myself in the middle of dictating a dream. There’s a beautiful ‘phone ring right in the middle of it and of course I forgot where I was and lost half of my voyage, which was disappointing.

Things were going so well too. I wasn’t really all that late going to bed last night and although it was another restless night, I was hoping that quantity would make up for the lack of quality. Ahh well…

So instead I arose from the bed, had my medication, checked my mails and messages and then transcribed the dictaphone notes. My older sister had a bank account with Lloyds Bank and I had an account there too. While we were having a discussion several months later she’d actually transferred all her accounts from one branch to the other so she was no longer at the same branch as me. But when she’d phoned to make an appointment for herself to go she’d made one for me as well. This would be extremely complicated because where she’d arranged it they didn’t have my papers. I drove into town anyway but the car park in town was a pay car park. There was a long queue of traffic snarled up in the centre so I thought that I’d nip out to do what I had to do. I was distracted as usual and it took me very much longer to do something. When I looked up I saw that all the cars had gone. Mine was stuck in the middle of the road blocking all the traffic. I had to run over there to move it, and that wasn’t as straightforward as it might seem.

Later on I was somewhere in a town watching some people. Someone was playing the piano then someone went up there with him and they played a double handed piece that I recognised. This went on for quite a few minutes. It wasn’t until they began to talk mentioning their names that I realised that it was the Grateful Dead. I began to talk to them. One of the girls who was hanging around said something like “would you like to talk to Maureen?”. I began to wonder whether in fact this was Mo Tucker, the drummer of Velvet Underground but in the dream I confused her with the drummer of the Grateful Dead. We began to chat and she offered to show me her drum kit. I said “yes! I’d love to see it!”. She and her friends took me down some steps into a theatre, all the way through the theatre we had to fight our way through the crowds. At the bottom end right by the stage on the other side was her drum kit. It was a 1978 and she did say the name of it. I asked her if I could play it but there was someone else playing it so I couldn’t have a go. That was ever so disappointing. I asked if I could take a photo of her and her drum kit. There was something quite strange happening as well. Someone was talking about their secretary having gone off with a guy. While we were going through the theatre we bumped into a couple of other people who were following us. One of them of the two introduced himself, one of the organisers, and said “I’ve just been making love to your boss’s secretary”. He said it 4 or 5 times as if he wanted a round of applause. I thought to myself “that’s a strange thing to wan tthe whole world to know and want to be a subject of conversation”.

There was something else later about a woman who was locked in the lavatory. They went down to talk to her but for some unknown reason she didn’t want to come out. There was something happening or going on that she wanted to be part of. I can’t remember very much of this dream but in the end they found someone to go down to help her free herself. She was very insistent that she didn’t want to go right at that moment – they all didn’t want to leave. I was wondering how they were going to persuade her to leave once they open the door if she doesn’t want to go. There’s lots more to it than this in this dream but I can’t remember it all now.

Something else about which I’ve forgotten a lot – I’ve gone for a massage session with a physiotherapist, a girl. She massaged my back and legs then gave me a folder with a whole list of treatments etc in it. We arranged another appointment. It was coming up to some kind of festival like Mother’s Day or similar. The way she was talking was as if she was expecting me to do something for her, invite her out or something. It wasn’t very clear and I didn’t want to force any issue. The conversation turned round to what she’d heard at the weekend. She said that she’d been to a party where she’d done some massage and was the only one who had made any money. We talked about the state of the economy. I set off for home. On the way back I stopped by a café to check my money etc. A group of kids were at the tables. As usual with little kids they were very inquisitive. They were asking what I was doing etc. I was intending to talk to them but for some unknown reason I set off again. One of them came running after me with a piece of litter that I’d dropped out of my purse while I was sorting through my money. She saw me and gestured to me. I wondered what she was doing so I didn’t do anything. She just threw it on the pavement. That brought her a telling-off from a passer-by. At that point I realised that I hadn’t brought the paperwork back with me. I thought to myself “this is going to be difficult now”. There was also something about going to a florist and obtaining a blank receipt but I can’t remember why I wanted to do that now.

Finally I was on a bus in Crewe. There was a couple of girls on there as well talking about houses that were being built, these replacement terraced houses. They were being built of course to replace existing terraced houses and keep some kind of affordability. One girl was thinking of buying one and the other girl was trying to tell her that they would just be full of riff-raff and not worth doing anything. They were then talking about stuccoing. They asked my opinion and I said “stuccoing is not something that can be done by anyone. They need to be a specialist”. They said that it would improve the looks. I said “yes but it’s not for a DiY person”. Nantwich Road was blocked off so the bus was having to dodge down a few of these side streets to head off towards Nantwich. I ended up on foot. I was walking northwards from N antwich in what would have been the direction of Church Minshull but God knows where it was going. I seemed to be walking quite well. Someone behind me was listening to Golden Earring’s “Radar Love”. I could hear it so I was singing along to it. Then we came to a door. This road was closed off after hours. We had to pass through the door. There were a set of steps up. I was struggling to climb them so a couple of people had to push me. They pushed me up the steps and I came onto a kind of plateau where there was a big lake and lots of kids playing around.

It’s hardly surprising that I had a disturbed night after all of that. And that isn’t everything either because there’s other stuff that was going on too but you don’t want to know about that if you are eating a meal.

For the rest of the day I haven’t done all that much. I decided that I’d have a day off and that was that.

The pizza was something of a calamity if the truth is known. Not that it wasn’t made well or that it wasn’t cooked properly, but I had issues with the base. I had to have a couple of goes to roll it out onto my pizza tray but it didn’t work for some reason. I ended up with rather a mis-shapen pizza. But at least it tasted nice.

So now after what should have been a really relaxing day I’m off to bed. I have quite a bit of stuff to do tomorrow and a 06:00 start to do it as well. That should keep me out of mischief, but it doesn’t seem to have worked much so far.

0

Sunday 26th March 2023 – I’M NOT GOING …

… to tell you the time that I left the bed today because you’ll be as embarrassed as I am. And losing an hour because of the change of time made things even worse.

By the way, did you all remember to adjust your clocks last night? If you live in the real world your clocks should have gone forward an hour but if you live in the UK under Tory rule your clocks should have gone back to 1770.

So really there wasn’t much left of the day in which I could do all that much. The toasted cheese sandwich in the air fryer was not a particular success but not a particular failure either. However, it might have helped had I turned it over half way through the procedure.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And having had plenty of time last night to go places, I hadn’t hung about. I’d recently bought a house in Crewe, in Bedford Street. I was waiting for completion so I could move in because living with the family was just getting on my nerves completely. I felt that everyone was trying to provoke me into a fight or an argument etc, and what is there that is news about any of this? I happened to overhear by accident a conversation that proved that it was in fact the case so I couldn’t wait to leave the family and move into mine. But for some reason signing the contract was just taking an age, just like the contract here to buy the apartment downstairs.

Later on there was some kind of dream about a couple of girls. One of them was very fond of the alcohol and possibly a few drugs as well. I was talking about the situation with a female friend of mine but I can’t remember who it was. I can’t remember the rest of the dream either now but it was a very long and complicated one that went on for quite a while

And congratulations to one of the girls in that dream for being ready in 20 minutes. Congratulations to another one who might have been Zero who was ready in a tenth of the time. And if it had really been Zero, I’m dismayed that that was all that happened concerning her last night – a very brief cameo appearance like that.

There was also something about 3 people, a boy who was rather arrogant and full of himself. He invited a girl out for an evening and she decided to go with him. He also invited another girl out too at the same time and they all met up. He picked up the girl first and then another boy but as the night went on it was the other boy who was spending most of the night with this other girl, flirting around with her. It looked as if they’d become something of a couple instead. When it was time for going home the other guy had disappeared. It was the first guy who had to take the girl home even though it was quite clear by now that she was no longer interested in him. And if that sounds confusing, then don’t worry because it sounded confusing to me too.

Later still I was in prison in the USA I think. First of all I’d been placed in a holding cell and then taken out and put into a reception area. Someone came to fetch me. He handcuffed the 2 of us together and set off with me to my real cell. He was in such a rush that he was dragging me along. I asked “are we in a race or something?”. He replied “you have to be in your cell by 18:30”. We walked down this corridor with doors opening in front of us and closing behind us as we approached the cell where I was going to be imprisoned.

Tonight’s pizza was the best that I’ve ever made. The dough was made to perfection and it just goes to show what happens when you use a decent batch of flour. It might be expensive but it’s worth it. The base ended up being all light and spongy around the edges but beautifully cooked and tasted even better.

So now, after my exciting day, I’m going to bed. It’s exhausting having a lie-in and then doing almost next-to-nothing all day. But tomorrow it’s a 06:00 start as I have a radio programme to do. I’ve not dictated the text yet, never mind edited it, so I’ll be busy for a bit. And then on Tuesday I have the nerve specialist to tell me the damage about my visit to the hospital.

That should be exciting, I don’t think.

0

Sunday 19th March 2023 – WELL THAT WAS A …

… total waste of time.

It was a beautiful afternoon today, so much so that I had turned off the heating for a while and had the window open, so I reckoned that I’d go out to this Home Exhibition that was taking place this weekend.

It was a long walk – the longest that I’ve done since I’ve been back from Canada – and quite uncomfortable on my crutches, but I made it there all the way without too many problems.

But as I said, I needn’t have bothered. Of all the stalls that were there in this big marquee, there was only one that made any reference to bathrooms. And when I finally managed to speak to the guy in charge, he told me that he had no means of assisting with the installation.

And that’s no good for me.

So anyway, I just came back home. I didn’t even stop for an ice cream.

It was a tough climb back up to here and I had to make more pauses than I otherwise would have done, but I made it back and then collapsed on a chair.

It’s no surprise that I was tired though because apart from the walk into town and back, I’d also had another miserable night, following on the usual pattern just recently.

And despite it being a Sunday I was wide awake at 08:45 and out of bed by 09:30, and it’s not something that happens every Sunday. There have been Sundays when I’ve been lucky to see midday.

After the medication, the first thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone. There were tons of stuff on it from the night. We were having a big argument. I can’t remember very much about it except that it was with some people who were not very well-educated. I had to write out an essay. It was to do with some kind of subject but my life story seemed to fit in there so I was in order of writing my life story. For some reason it had taken me so much time to make a start that I didn’t have much time left so I was doing it as a kind of “cut and paste” but with real paper, a pen and a pair of scissors trying to write it out so I could then cut everything around and fit it into the exam paper in the right kind of order. It was really quite a complicated thing. Then I had to write out the word “seizure” but I couldn’t remember how it was spelt. I asked someone who you spell it. Then I realised that instead I could just say the word “sizes” so I said that there’s no need to bother – I’ll use that instead. Off course “sizes” wasn’t the right word. That was one thing that while I was dictating this I couldn’t think of what words I was supposed to be using in this dream.

And then I was round at someone’s house. They were proudly showing me their anemometer that they had attached to the eaves of the roof of their house. I remembered the one that I used to have at Virlet. I was quite admiring it. They had some kind of set-up in the back, a framework with solar panels etc. I took advantage by fastening a pole to this gantry and putting a wind turbine on it. We went into the house. It was bedtime. I went to bed. All of a sudden this whole framework collapsed. My brother was actually standing next to it outside but he didn’t notice for some reason. I got up to go to see what had happened but immediately fell over because my right knee gave way. Eventually I managed to drag myself off out. They were busy trying to prop it up by driving wooden stakes into the ground with a hammer. I didn’t think that that would do the stakes much good but it was all they had. I had a sledgehammer but it was in the back of Caliburn. Every time this guy had it in the correct kind of place to hold up, my brother would try to adjust it just that little bit more and it would all collapse again. We were fed up of this and shouted at him to leave it alone. There were all kinds of things like bricks there that were separated by little bits of foam to stop the bricks knocking against each other. They had percentages written on them. I worked out that it was some kind of calculator that calculated the percentages for numbers of days in the year. I thought that the only way that this is going to work now is that if they put it back in the right order. But apart from the writing on it there was no way to determine which was the correct order and which wasn’t.

Later on we were on a bus trip in a white Van Hool Alizee taking us all around. I was a passenger. A lot of my family was on it. My mother was there and she was keeping everyone waiting because she always seemed to be the last to turn up. I said to my youngest sister “that will teach you to be born so late in life. If you’d been born before, you wouldn’t have had to wait for so long”. We were all waiting in this park by these iron gates for the bus to appear. While we were waiting there someone who was the guardian of the gates was asleep on the gate. Someone wanted to go out for a minute but they couldn’t awaken him so they just opened the gate anyway and dashed out after their 2 children who’d got out somehow. We all wondered what was going on because no-one had given us any explanation when we saw the woman suddenly dash out of the gates of this park.

Finally, a lot of turmeric had been used in flavouring some green beans that were cooking on the stove in a big pot. So much so that they had gone a greeny-yellow. We were trying to find people who had eaten from here to see whether in fact they’d turned yellow, there was so much turmeric in this cooking pot.

The morning was very quiet. I didn’t really do all that much at all. After all, it is a Sunday and I’m entitled to have a day off once a week.

Lunch was early today and then I nipped out to the Exhibition to make the most of the glorious weather.

Back here, once I’d recovered, I made a pile of dough for the fruit buns. Lots of dried fruit and the like to give it some ooomph. And I made enough dough for a dozen, with the idea that I won’t have to make any for a while. I’ll be just a couple of days short of Easter then when I run out and as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I now have some hot cross buns in the freezer for Easter.

But while we’re on the subject of the freezer … “well, one of us is” – ed … I don’t know where I’m going to put the fruit buns that I won’t be eating this week. The freezer is jam-pack full with the couple of bags of carrots in there and I had a real struggle to open the drawers today.

There’s a bit more space in there now though because after lunch I took out the last ball of frozen dough for the pizza and it had been defrosting all afternoon. While my fruit buns were busy proofing, I kneaded the defrosted dough and rolled it out onto the pizza tray.

Rosemary rang up for a lengthy chat about an issue that is ongoing involving one of her friends in the UK. And while we were chatting I baked my fruit buns and assembled my pizza. And when the buns were baked (to perfection) I put the pizza in to cook.

With the oven being stinking hot the pizza was cooked to perfection too and it was delicious. I’ll make some more like that!

With a spare half-hour I dictated the notes for the radio programme so (in theory) it shouldn’t take too long to do the radio programme. “In Theory” because we all know about “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men” that often “gang aft agley” when you are trying to do something.

We’ll have to see how it all pans out.

0

Sunday 12th March 2023 – SO MUCH FOR …

… my nice long lie-in this morning. I was wide-awake at 08:20 and by 09:50 I’d long-given up any thought of going back to sleep and so in a fit of resignation I raised myself from the dead and went for a ride on the porcelain horse instead.

After the medication I checked my mails and messages and then had a look at the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was at some place where you would mix and match your servers. It would be like 4-piece jigsaws with feet, a head, legs and body. The idea was that game that you play where you have to match them all up together. For some reason, one waiter who had been made like this but wasn’t correct was nevertheless working quite hard. A certain female customer objected and made quite a scene to being served by him

Then later on I was in a hotel on some kind of tour. There was a woman who had a daughter who was about 11. They were both blondes. I wasn’t able really to strike up much of a conversation with them except on one day when we started to talk. I ended up back in her hotel room (for purely innocent purposes). There was another man there as well. He was monoploising the conversation and discussion. In the end the little girl got up and went out. I was stuck here listening to this man going on with this woman. There was another woman in there, a black South African woman. It turned out that this blonde woman and her daughter, they were South African. I said “it must be awful to be a South African, particularly at this moment with all of the issues of prejudice and discrimination etc that’s happening, and feeling guilty about it. Unfortunately it’s your Government and there’s nothing you can do about it”. Somehow I couldn’t assert myself, I suppose. I hadn’t any idea about what I wanted to do or going to do anyway but whatever it was, I was unable to do it. It was extremely disappointing for me

That wasn’t all that went on either but you really don’t want to know about anything else, especially if you are eating your meal right now.

For the rest of the day I’ve been finishing off the music for the radio programme that I need to prepare on Monday. And when I’d done that I wrote out all of the notes for the music that I’d chosen, recorded them and even edited about half of it.

Rosemary rang me up as well for a chat after her little journey to Vietnam but we weren’t on the ‘phone for long.

Tea tonight was a pizza. And if you thought that last week’s was good, tonight’s was even better. I’m not sure why but I reckon that the flour that I used might have something to do with it. It’s an expensive flour but it seems to work quite well.

So now I’m off to bed. I’m starting tomorrow at 06:00 as is usual on a Monday and I want to finish this programme fairly early so I can relax for the rest of the day. It’s going to be the only time that i’ll have to myself until at least Friday so I want to make the most of it.

0

Sunday 5th March 2023 – MY VEGAN PIZZA …

… this evening was probably the best that I have ever made.

Not only was it cooked to perfection, it tasted absolutely delicious as well. And I can’t think what it was that I did differently to make it so nice because it was made exactly the same way as every other one that I’ve made just recently

Mind you, I did have plenty of time to make it because I was up and out of bed astonishingly early for a Sunday.

It was round about midnight when I went to bed and I couldn’t sleep for ages. I’ve been without my medication for several days and with restarting yesterday, I’ve started on the side-effects already as my body becomes accustomed to them again. and so I was itching all over like nobody’s business for ages.

When I awoke, I noticed the time. And it was ony 08:00. That’s just ridiculous for a Sunday. I tried my best to go back to bed but I gave up at about 09:30 and arose from the dead.

For the first part of the morning I didn’t do all that much. There was plenty of time to spare.

A little later I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There were 4 of us sitting at a table in a restaurant – me, the woman with me who might have been Rosemary or even my friend from Montréal, another woman and another guy. We were having a meal. I was having a plate of vegetables. For some reason it was taking me a long time to eat it. Everyone else had finished a while before me. We were talking about various things. It turned out that the other woman at the table was the carer of the father of the woman with me. She was talking about things that everyone would know. The subject of food came up. I mentioned some kind of salmon that we’d had once in New York that swam around in the underwater rivers and had apparently come from somewhere down in the South-West of the USA in this underwater river all the way to New York. As I was eating I asked the woman with me to explain it but she went on a story about water leaks, how no-one ever fixed them because water was a common commodity and they didn’t want to cut off the supply in order to repair the leaks, hence the water leaking everywhere. That wasn’t the story that I wanted to tell. The other woman talked about how she had to pay £6:00 every 3 days to buy a bus pass to take this woman’s father out for whatever he needed doing. I mentioned that in Granville public transport is free (which it is and I’m surprised that I could remember that when I’m asleep) so we had a chat about this. But all the time that we were talking, of course I wasn’t eating. The meal was taking for ever to disappear. In the end it was becoming quite embarrassing, the time that it was taking to finish my meal, too busy talking about everything else.

My curried leek and potato soup was delicious today. I finished the last of it for lunch and it made quite a nice change from porridge. And soaking my bread in soup instead of toasting it and smothering it in vegan butter made a nice change too.

This afternoon I made a batch of fruit buns and they tuned out to be really nice by the look of things. I can’t wait to start sampling them tomorrow – the first one anyway.

And while the dough was rising I made a batch of pizza dough. When I had my food delivered when I was really ill, they sent me a different kind of flour. I made the pizza dough with it and it came out really smooth. I’ll have to keep an eye open for more of this flour in due course.

It rose quite nicely too. I divided it up into three batches, put two in the freezer and rolled out the other one onto the pizza tray to let it prove. So while the fruit buns were cooking later on I assembled the pizza and that followed the buns into the oven once they had baked. Probably the oven being stinking hot might have helped the cooking process but it won’t explain the taste.

For the rest of the day I wrote out the notes for the radio programme that I’ll be preparing tomorrow, and even find time to dictate them. In fact I had to dictate them twice because for some reason I forgot to switch on “RECORD” for the first time. I’ll edit that tomorrow morning after I get up.

But not right now. Although it’s early, I’ve already crashed out once today and with a really early start tomorrow I need to be at my best.

And I have to telephone the bank and the visiting nurse tomorrow. Things are moving rapidly here and I have to make sure that I’m on target to complete what I need to do. Time and tide wait for no man.

0

Sunday 26th Fenruary 2023 – TODAY REALLY SHOULD …

… have been a day off for me but instead, I’ve been working.

In fact I’ve been quite busy, what with one thing or another. Probably even busier than I might be on a normal working day.

It started off quite early too. I was wide awake at 09:00 and try as I might, I coudn’t go back to sleep. By the time it reached 09:30 I had given it up as a bad job and raised myself from the dead.

After the medication and checking my mails and messages I didn’t do too much while I slowly came round into the land of the living. And once I was wide-awake, whenever that might have been, I started work.

First thing that I did was to have a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. I was back at the time when Nerina and I were still together, but you don’t really want to know about what the dream was about because you are probably eating your tea right now and it’s not the moment.

But later on, Deana, my friend from Norway, was in the UK so I’d sent her a message to invite her to come round to see me while she was here. She said that she might do in the afternoon. Another one of my friends, who might have been Sue said that she might call round so I had a shower. before I dressed I fell asleep on the chair. I awoke with a jolt about 13:45, realised that I wasn’t dressed and had to scamper around to find some clothes. The first few that I found didn’t fit me so I thought that I’d fit a few of Nerina’s but I couldn’t find her clothes. Eventually I found one or two that were discarded in the bedroom. There was a cake in the bedroom as well and we had 2 cats that were asleep on the tray next to the cake. Eventually I found my clothes. I picked them up and looked at the time. It was 14:00. I thought that they should have been here by now. Then I noticed that I’d left the phone upstairs while I’d been asleep for all this time. There was a different screen on the phone which was one of the ancient Nokias that I used to have. I picked up the phone and tried to get back to the home screen to see if there were any missed calls but I couldn’t find my way back to the home screen.

A short while later I stepped back into that dream. I was trying to take some clothes from the tumble drier but they were still rather damp. While I was doing it, Nerina turned up. She’d been at work and had come out with some story about how she had to go to Blackpool to help someone recover a car. Of course I didn’t believe it for a minute. Then she tolld me about something that she had to do on Friday lunchtime at work. I knew that she had to go out to buy her chips but she came out with some other story about going somewhere else. Again, I wasn’t too sure about this at all. She came in and Tuppence (the old black cat that I used to have in the 1980s) came running downstairs and looked as if she wanted to go out. As I went to open the door she somehow jumped off the wall and managed to open the door herself and went out. Nerina said that that’s not a surprise if she’s been in here all day asleep

Did I dictate the second part of this dream about Nerina or did I dream it again after I’d fallen asleep yet again because I awoke in the middle of that part of the dream again.

Finally I was with a former friend and someone else, a girl, tramping through the streets of Stoke on Trent. She was talking about some plans she had. I was interested to find out what it was but she was very coy and kept them to herself for a while. Right at the end we were sitting on this hill overlooking Stoke on Trent with all these weeds and everything lying around which had once been a row of terraced houses. Then she told me that she was thinking about having some kind of plan or project for the kids of Stoke on Trent who had been disadvantaged. Would I like to help her? I said yes, i’d quite happily help her If that’s what she wants. I went off with my friend then, walking through these really shabby, rough streets in the place. Some woman then appeared to disrupt us. She came in and started to talk about changing the purple carpet in her house etc

And as I said, there was much more to it than all of this. It was one of those nights that was really turbulent and disturbing. You really don’t want to know any more about it.

For the rest of the day, the primary task has been to deal with the notes of the radio programme that I dictated last night before going to bed. And not only are they now uploaded and edited, I’ve even assembled both the radio programmes. All that’s now required are the final tracks and the speeches to go with them and that shouldn’t take too long.

Ingrid phoned me too and we had a lengthy chat about all kinds of things. She’s still having her health issues so it’s unlikely that I’ll ever see her up here in Granville, but it is nice to have a chat and keep in touch.

Another thing that I’ve done is to bake four bread rolls. As far as the general consistency and baking goes, the air fryer has done a tremendous job and I’m impressed. But the rolls have come out like balls and that will make it difficult for me to toast them or to make some sandwiches.

In the future I’m probably going to be as well making a large loaf rather than small individual rolls but I’ve no complaint about how the air fryer is working.

After I’d had lunch I’d taken some pizza dough – the last one of the batch – out of the freezer and it had been defrosting. Later on I kneaded it and rolled it out onto the pizza tray. At teatime I assembled my pizza and baked it, in the traditional oven. It was one of the best that I’d made as well and I’ll make a few more like that.

So now I’m off to bed. Tomorrow I’ll finish off my radio programmes and then sort out my travel arrangements for later in the week. I configured the apps that I’d downloaded onto my mobile phone the other day so I could do a few things already and it won’t take me long to finish all of that off.

And then we’ll see how we go. Travelling on crutches is going to be quite exciting.

0

Sunday 19th February 2023 – CONSIDERING THAT I …

… was supposed to be having a day off today, I haven’t ‘arf been busy. In fact, it’s been one of the most productive days that I’ve had for quite a while.

Yet you wouldn’t think so after having yet another turbulent night when I didn’t seem to have all that much sleep. The fact that I was actually up and about not long after 10:00 (and on a Sunday too) tells you all that you need to know about that.

After I’d had my medication and checked my mails and messages, the first thing that I did was to transcribe the dictaphone notes from the night, of which there weren’t all that many. We started off with the taxi business last night. We were discussing the people working for us and why they seemed to be sticking to the job instead of going off and doing something more exciting and exhilarating. I mentioned that even 2 more employees were hoping to wangle full-time jobs with us and we couldn’t really understand that because the business didn’t really support it. We had a huge discussion about it. Then we had to go somewhere. We were in a Cortina estate that broke down somewhere. We left it overnight and came back. While Nerina had to go to do something she dropped me off there. It started up straight away so we got into it and set out to drive it back. The roads were very wet and the car didn’t feel at all comfortable on the road. It not long fitted brand-new springs on it so I thought that it would handle much better than it did. That was something of a mystery. There was much more to it than this but I seem to have forgotten a lot of it.

Later on I was driving through rural France somewhere. The roads were extremely difficult. The Cortina estate was going quite well but you would come to these extremely steep hills where the car in front of you would suddenly slow down. You would basically run into the back of it and nudge it along. We’d had 1 or 2 encounters like that. Then I came to a place at the side of the road by an old railway station. It had a couple of motorbike frames outside so I went in. It was a pushbike place and there was a young girl there with a pushbike having her bike serviced by this guy. I apologised for wasting his time but told him that it was the motorbike bits that had caught my eye. He showed me 1 or 2 of the bits and then I went back to the road. I came into a big city somewhere in Alsace. I went to turn up a side street which was extremely steep and the same thing happened again with an Austin A70 saloon that suddenly came to a stop and I pushed it up the hill. I came into a town square where there was this old woman. By now I was on foot. I did the same to her while I was on foot. She had a few things to say so I pretended to ignore her. I was walking up a hill. There was a lorry parked in the road so I had to walk round it. There were crowds of people coming down which stopped me from walking up. I fell down onto my knees and couldn’t pick myself up. When I finally did pick myself up again there were these 2 little boys there. I wanted to go to the toilet but they wanted to follow me. They just wouldn’t leave me alone, pestering me all the time that I was trying to go to the toilet. In the end I abandoned it as a completely bad job and set off on my travels again.

Another thing that I did was to add some new Apps to my telephone.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that recently I changed my phone following the one that I use having a broken charging socket. I resurrected the previous one that I had “lost” and didn’t recover until a few months later. There were some Apps that I had on the old phone that I need to use at some point or other, such as within the next few days for example, so I had to add them on.

This afternoon after food I edited the two dictaphone notes that I’d dictated last night before I went to bed and then in a mad fit of enthusiasm I assembled them into the two radio programmes that I need to make. All that remains to do is to add the final track and the text to bring everything up to one hour each in length.

As well as that, I had another play at baking some bread in the air fryer. And to my surprise, this was the best that I have ever made. My two bread rolls rose up exactly as they should and I’ll be looking forward to eating those, duly toasted and with tons of butter, at some point during the week.

While I was at it, I picked Liz’s brains for a recipe for pancakes. It’s Pancake Tuesday next week and Eric wants to be busy baking. I need to be a little more adventurous with what I cook and try to do a few more things. Certain things, like Hot Cross Buns, are probably a little too complicated and crucial but pancakes are quite simple and straightforward and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t have a go.

And I have plenty of vegan soya cream too. That should be delicious.

After I’d finished my lunch earlier I’d taken some pizza dough out of the freezer and had left it to defrost. Later on I gave it a good kneading and rolled it out onto my pizza tray. When it had finished rising I assembled my pizza and it really was delicious today, one of the best that I’ve made.

A problem that I encountered today was this question of transferring money. apparently the daily limit is only per working day, which means that the money that I transferred yesterday won’t go until Monday and I can’t send off the next lot until Tuesday. That’s going to disrupt my plans but it can’t be helped. They’ll have to give me at least a week’s notice to sign the final purchase so even if they notify me on Monday there will still be plenty of time to finish the transfer.

And no, I didn’t go out today for Carnaval. I saw a few photos of the crowds assembling and that was quite enough for me. Everywhere was absolutely heaving and I had no intention of being swept up with my crutches in a mass of crowd like that. They’ll simply have to do without me.

0

Sunday 12th February 2023 – I HAD A …

… go at making some bread in the air fryer this afternoon. A couple of small bread rolls.

And it wasn’t actually a success. Not because the air fryer didn’t do what it was supposed to do – in fact it seems to have baked them quite nicely – but because the dough didn’t rise very much at all, and I’ve no idea why that would be.

It’s true to say that the bread that I normally bake in a conventional oven doesn’t rise very much either even though I follow the recipes carefully and knead the dough for quite a while. I just think that the air fryer is simply amplifying the defects in whatever it is that I’m doing when I’m trying to make bread.

But I won’t give up. I’ll try again at some other time and see if there’s any improvement.

After all, the batch of pizza dough that I made today was delicious and did everything that it was supposed to. Tonight’s pizza was delicious and there are two more lumps that are now in the freezer that I hope will be just as nice for the next couple of weekends.

So what I might do is instead of using 500 grams of flour, I’ll use 600 grams and see if the extra 100 grams would make some nice bread rolls instead.

But that’s for another time. Right now I’m more concerned with what happened today.

Last night I was in bed at a realistic time but once more I had the stabbing pains in my legs and feet that awoke me on a couple of occasions. In fact, I could have been up and out of bed at 07:00 or thereabouts this morning but on a Sunday? You must be joking! 10:30 is much more like a reasonable time to stagger out of bed into the kitchen on a Sunday.

There was quite a bit of stuff on the dictaphone from during the night. At one point I was supposed to be going on holiday. I hadn’t packed anything and there was about half an hour before my plane so I grabbed hold of my suitcase and began to throw stuff into it. I couldn’t find half of the stuff that I needed so in the end I gave it up as a bad job and went to work instead thinking that when I return home I can pack and be ready for the next morning to go again. Next morning the situation was the same. The house was an absolute tip with stuff everywhere. I hadn’t cleaned it. Again, I couldn’t find half of the things that I needed. I thought that I can’t possibly leave the house in this kind of condition. The cats needed feeding. 2 boys came. They were talking about the pads that cricketers wear and what sizes they are. I tried to explain to them that the more proficient you are the bigger pads you have but for some reason they didn’t seem to quite understand. Then they said that they would feed the cats for me etc. I said that it’s my job and I have to do it anyway so I’ll go to torture the poor devils with this horrible food that I give them. They tried to insist that they could do it but I just wasn’t getting anywhere with this stuff that I needed to pack. Rosemary had long gone. I thought “this is it, really. My journey may as well be cancelled”. At one point I found what I thought was a stash of all the stuff that I needed but when I began to rummage through it, it was all old stuff, single gloves etc none of which would be any good for what I wanted at all.

And then I was still searching for this missing button. It was nearly time for me to go to work so I was hunting around quickly. I came across a load of dried cat’s food that the cats hadn’t eaten. I opened the door and shouted. One of the cats came in but the other was really taking its time about it. I gave them some food anyway. Then a fuel tanker pulled up at the petrol station. The driver was wandering around doing a few things. Then he climbed back into the cab ready to leave. I thought to myself that I ought to be leaving soon too because of all the things that I had to do and I still hadn’t found what I was looking for.

There was also something happening about some kids’ entertainment that was taking place while I was fuelling up a motor scooter with fuel but I awoke in the middle of this and it immediately evaporated. I couldn’t remember anything more.

A short while later I had to create a new department for doing a certain kind of work as a support for someone famous and well-known in political circles. I had to write out a little speech to set everything out and then make some comments about it. Having written out what I thought was important, I went through and wrote in pencil over the top. The pencil wouldn’t show through very well. By now I’d gone to do this work outside and was sitting in a nice, comfortable place by a bit of a lawn where a group of small children was having a party. I decided that what I really needed was a fine-point red felt-tip pen that could write over the top of what I’d written. It wouldn’t obscure what was underneath but you could see my comments over the top quite clearly. I told these 2 girls that I’d left my papers there and that i’d be back in a moment. I ran back to my office to try to find one. Then there was something of a gap in whatever was happening. It merged into something much later where there was my new boss and probably one of his assistants discussing particular American politicians in some not-very-welcome or friendly terms. I suppose that I should have taken part in this discussion but I was far more interested in guarding my tongue so I didn’t say anything out-of-place but in the meantime listening carefully to what they were saying so that I could work out which way the wind was blowing and what was the lie of the land if I was going to be working with them

Once I’d gathered up my wits (which, seeing how few wits I have these days, takes much longer than it ought) and had some food and coffee, I made a start on one of the two radio programmes that I’ll be preparing tomorrow. And I did so well that apart from the final track and the speech that goes with it, one of the programmes is finished already.

It won’t take me long to finish that and then I can start on the second one. That shouldn’t take too long either because the text is already written and dictated. I dictated them before I went to bed last night in a mad fit of enthusiasm.

Apart from that, I did the baking that I mentioned, and my pizza for tea really was delicious. Cooked to perfection, which is a surprise given the inconsistencies of my table-top oven. I can’t wait to have a decent one up and running in due course but that will have to wait until the new apartment, whenever that will be.

So right now I’m off to bed for an early night ready for an early start in the morning. Dreaming of making bread in the air fryer, I suppose, but that’s not going to be anythign sustainable because it’s only a small air fryer and probably three bread rools is about the limit of what can fit in there.

But at least it works, and it opens all kinds of new doors for me, as I suspected that it would. What’s going to be next on the air-frying menu?

0

Sunday 5th February 2023 – I’VE ACTUALLY BEEN …

… out for a walk this afternoon.

Well, after a fashion and as much as I can anyway.

It was such a beautiful afternoon with the sun streaming down as it did so I couldn’t resist it. I grabbed the crutches and set off down the stairs. I did a lap around the car park and then walked down to the viewpoint that overlooked the fish processing plant and then came back.

It was quite windy and cold, but the sun made it look quite beautiful and I was glad that I made it outside.

On the way downstairs, I managed to go left-leg first down some of the stairs. That’s important because it means that I have to bend the right knee, and that’s something that I find to be quite difficult.

Much more difficult than going to sleep last night, as it happened. For once I was in bed at something like a realistic time. I fell asleep quite quickly too and slept all the way through until about 10:50. And I felt so much better for it. Especially as I stayed in bed for another 20 minutes doing my exercises.

There wasn’t a great deal of stuff on the dictaphone either so it must have been quite a quiet, relaxing night. There was a whole group of us, a couple of families, all staying in one house so it meant that we were all crammed up sharing a bed etc among several kids. I was sharing a bed with my brother. On one occasion he left the bed and went off because there was some noise or something going on. I took my teddy bear and another toy and put them down the bed with me and tried to go to sleep. I was distracted by all this noise too. I thought that I heard the voice of one of the young boys who was about 7. eventually my brother came back to bed. He was annoyed about the teddy etc being in his way. We started to chat.

Later on we’d been somewhere, a group of us again. I was coming home with a woman and her daughter – it might have been Laurence and Roxanne, I dunno. While we’d been away she’d told some people that there was a James Bond film that they could watch at their house. When we arrived back it was really late at night. We walked in and there was 1 girl still watching it with her mother. We still had a few things to do so for the moment we left them there. Then she said that she wanted to go to check up on another woman to whom she’d mentioned it about her daughter to see if they were still watching it at their house. We ended up driving up Dodd’s Bank. As we were at the foot of the bank I said to her “on the way back drop me here with my little suitcase and I’ll walk through the alley to home”. She asked me to repeat it so I did. In the end I had to repeat it about 3 or 4 times. My aim was to take the short cut through the alley with the small suitcase, leave the bigger suitcase in the car and return for that another time. That would save her a lot of time without having to drive round the housing estate to drop me off. But it was so difficult to try to make her understand what I was intending. She was short-tempered anyway with us being so late and with everyone still being around. And we had work tomorrow as well, of course.

There was rather more to it than all of this but you don’t really want to read it especially if you are eating your meal right now.

This morning I didn’t really do all that much but things began to liven up after I’d had lunch.

There was football on the internet this afternoon, a match in the quarter-final of the Welsh Cup between Penybont and Treffynnon.

Treffynnon spent a few years in the Welsh Premier League back in the 1990s when they were known as Holywell Town but in recent years they have been bouncing up and down between Division 2 and Division 3. At the moment they are doing well in Division 2 but they weren’t expected to do much playing away against a team riding high in the First Division.

It was pretty obvious to most people how this game was going to end but Treffynon put up quite a fight and even took the lead after 15 minutes with A GOAL OUT OF NOTHING but they couldn’t hang on to the lead.

Penybont equalised after 55 minutes and then scored a second from a penalty deep into injury time as a Treffynnon player who had just that minute come on the field as a substitute brought down an attacker in the penalty area with his first attempt to kick the ball.

It just wasn’t that substitute’s day either. 30 seconds later in a scramble to win the ball he ended up kicking an opponent and was sent off.

After I’d been for a walk I had a play about with the pizza dough that I’d taken out of the freezer earlier. And the pizza that I made with it was delicious too. One of my better ones.

And at some point the owner of the apartment that I’m trying to buy rang me up to ask me if I’d heard anything from the solicitor. It looks as if I’m not the only one who is being disturbed by the lack of action from him.

Tomorrow I’ll be doing the two radio programmes and then chasing up to see what news about Caliburn. I’m itching to get back on the road and do some shopping. Supplies of certain items are starting to run low again and I need to go out and about and do some stocking up.

0

Sunday 29th January 2023 – WITH NOT HAVING …

… gone to bed (for one reason or another) until 03:30 this morning, it was no surprise that I didn’t get up until 11:30 today. And I wasn’t all that bothered either

As a result though, I didn’t have long to wait until I had my breakfast. Toast, porridge and a couple of mugs of nice, strong coffee.

This afternoon, all I did was to finish off all of the notes for the radio programmes that I’ll be doing tomorrow. Hopefully I can get a good run at doing those programmes tomorrow and that’ll be another job finished. Then I can get on with more important things, of which there are quite a few.

There were the dictaphone notes to transcribe too, but they were something of a disappointment. There was something about choosing some music for a radio programme of some description. I’d chosen several songs. A couple of them came up and I wasn’t sure whether they were the ones that I’d chosen or not. The person concerned seemed to be quite happy and basically told everyone that if they didn’t like it, that was rather a shame because that was what was happening. There was a lot more to it than this but I can’t remember it now.

And later on I stepped back with this radio programme again. I had 10 or so songs and 10 or so speeches. I’d paired off the easier songs and speeches and that had just left me with the ones I didn’t know. I was trying to go through to find out how I could possibly put the right speech with the right voice but it was extremely difficult. There were one or two that had me completely and utterly stumped. I had no idea how I was going to manage to sort this out and do it correctly.

Tea tonight was a pizza of course, and another one of the best that I’ve made. I’m not sure why it was so better than a couple of weeks ago, with exactly the same ingredients.

So tomorrow I have the radio programmes, the wages and the financing to sort out. And if I can do all of that I’ll be doing well. I’ll be much better though with a decent sleep and so I may as well make a start on that right now.

0

Sunday 22nd January 2023 – I REMEMBER SAYING …

… yesterday that I was worried about having a good night’s sleep last night.

Well, I needn’t have wasted my time writing any of that because we had another one of those nights where I didn’t have much sleep at all.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few weeks ago I had a night when I spent most of it fighting a stabbing pain in the sole of my right foot. Last night it was a stabbing pain in the heel of my left foot that went on for most of the night and kept me awake.

That’s a susprise because most of the issues that I’m having with my legs are in my right leg so a pain like that in the left leg is rather worrying.

At some point in the night – or rather, the morning because I definitely saw 07:40 on the fitbit – I did manage to fall asleep and so I wasn’t particularly concerned about not leaving the bed at 11:30. And I expected to be totally wasted too but I’ve managed to keep on going throughout the day.

The way that things were this morning, I didn’t do anything before my brunch, but afterwards the first thing that I did was to transcribe the dictaphone notes. Surprisingly, I had actually managed to go on a couple of voyages during the morning. I was trapped in a fire at some point. The people with me couldn’t actually extricate me from this building so they ran to fetch help. Eventually I was rescued and taken away but my gluteus maximus had burned off so I was going to be quite handicapped. Eventually my friends caught up with me and came to see me. One of them asked how I was so I explained what had happened to me. They were surprised by the way that I was telling this story. They thought that it should be much more serious although they didn’t want me to take out the seriousness on them. I couldn’t understand what was the point of the discussion. There was something in this dream to do with money. I’d had a lot of money that had all been paid to me in pennies. It was for music – albums and things like that. I thought that the only way I could dispose of it now was to change it all in taxis for pound notes etc or else take it to the bank. If I took it to the bank the bank would just put the money in my account and wouldn’t give it to me, so again I didn’t know what to do about these huge piles of coins that I had.

And then I found myself dictating this dream into my hand again while I was asleep. I was on board a ship. We’d been there for 2 weeks and were leaving. It was the final day. There was a girl whom I’d been chatting up while I’d been on board the ship with pretty much no success at all. On the last day when I went to sit down for breakfast someone was actually in my place. There was a place next to this girl so I thought “right, I’ll go and sit there and she’ll have to like it seeing as it’s the last meal anyway”. I put down my stuff next to her on the table and asked “does anyone want anything for breakfast?” because I only had a small breakfast and we were entitled to 5 different things. She said that she wanted something else so I said “yes, I can fetch that for you”. Someone else said that they wanted something. In the meantime I started to chat to this girl about breakfast etc. She didn’t seem in the least bit hostile or standoffish as she had done during the rest of this holiday so I wondered what was happening now.

Later on I was with a girl round at the home of my friend near Macon. I don’t know who the girl was, which was a shame. I had the Luton Transit, another van that might have been Caliburn and I had to get them both home. I also had a motorbike so the idea was to find a plank, put the motorbike up the plank into the back of one of the vans, drive the van home, get the motorbike out, come back the next day on the motorbike, pick up the other van, put the motorbike in the back and drive that back. That seems a pretty logical way to go about it but there was that much stuff in the back of the 2 vans that we had to think again. Then I saw that he was busy trying to put the motorbike into a trailer as if he was going to lend me the trailer. The trailer had been parked outside for years and as he put the motorbike in the trailer collapsed. He was sitting there looking at this trailer. I was wondering what was going to happen next and so was he. I still couldn’t get over the idea that simply tidying up the van to put the bike in it was the best way forward but it seemed to me that everyone was trying to complicate this thing rather unnecessarily.

With it being Sunday today it’s pizza day but I’ve no pizza dough left over so I had to make some more. And this batch turned out quite well too. Two lumps of it have gone into the freezer for the next couple of weeks and the third lump was left to proof.

When it was ready, I rolled it out and put it on the pizza tray to proof again so that I could assemble the pizza. And then I could cook it and eat it.

It was actually quite delicious too and I’ll make some more like that if I can work out what I did that worked so well.

While I was waiting around for things to happen I was finishing off the notes for the radio programme that I should have done on Thursday and then half of the notes for the one I’ll be doing tomorrow. I’m going to see if I can do both programmes tomorrow, always assuming that I can tear myself out of bed at 06:00 tomorrow.

So that reminds me – if I’m going to have an early start I need to have an early finish and so I’m off to bed. I’m surprised that I’ve kept on going for as long as I have today bearing in mind my awful night.

0

Sunday 15th January 2023 – WITH IT BEING …

… Sunday today, I’ve had one of my usual Sunday days where I’ve had a good lie-in and done next to nothing all day.

What else I’ve done, rather unfortunately, is to fall asleep at some point in the afternoon. As if 9 hours sleep during the night isn’t enough, especially seeing as I didn’t go to bed until 02:00 and get up at 11:00. I’ve no idea what’s going on with me these days.

There was plenty of time during the night to go on a few voyages too, such as I remember. We were working in an office somewhere. There was cake everywhere – everyone was either baking or bringing cake in and there could have been 8 or 10 different cakes in that office. I’d baked one and someone had given me one for my birthday etc. Someone came in to tidy up the office, a young guy. Before we could say anything he’d cut a slice off each of these cakes, dumped it onto my plate and took my plate away. I bawled him out for doing this, saying that in future when he comes, to leave the cake alone. He’s certainly not to cut or take my cake, the cake that I’d made or been given. If he wants anything for himself he should really ask before he just goes and helps himself like that. A huge pile of cake on a plate like that was just outrageous.

And then the problems between me and my partner reached a head. We’d already separated once then on the bus coming back from Chester to Winsford she suddenly alighted at a bus stop and the bus drove away and left her. When the bus reached Nantwich I alighted and decided that I’d walk back to Winsford, I’m not quite sure why. This involved a walk through a field then down an incredibly steep bank. There was a place to go down and a way in which you did it. I didn’t know this particular way. When I arrived at the top of the bank there was a guy there on a bike. he wondered what on earth I was going to do. I launched myself over the top and went down in a large S-shaped sweep down to the bottom and set off to walk back to Winsford. I’m not sure why or what I was hoping to do etc.

I missed out a lot of this next dream. I can’t remember but later on we were discussing films, about making a horror film. I said that the tension is all in the soundtrack and film score. A lot of the tension if you took away the soundtrack and film score just wasn’t there at all. This was particularly true in comedy films. I explained a couple of examples like one or two of the “Carry On” films, about how the music and so on led people to the comedy moments. If you took those away the comedy moments themselves were very small and unimportant

Another dream about which I have forgotten a lot was that I’d gone to a chip shop to buy some chips. There was a huge queue of people loitering around outside so I passed over my order and waited. I ended up chatting to some people etc. I suddenly realised that I’d been there an hour and there was no sign of my chips. I went in and asked but trying to have some people understand what it was that I was trying to ask was extremely difficult for some reason. I couldn’t seem to make them understand that i’d ordered and paid for my meal a long time ago and not received anything.

My day, such as it was, started off with a good chat with Liz who showed me a video and took me on a guided tour of her new accommodation. It reminded me of the house in which my niece’s eldest daughter lives in Woodstock but is in much better condition and laid out much more sensibly.

After brunch of cornflakes, toast and coffee I made a start on doing some more notes for the radio programme that I’ll be doing tomorrow if I wake up in time. That is rather touch-and-go the way that I feel these days

And not that I did an awful lot because it was in the middle of all of this that I fell asleep.

Just as I was on the point of going out for my afternoon walk as I promised, Ingrid ‘phoned me and we had a long chat about all kinds of things. We both have our health issues right now so we compared notes.

When we finished I noticed that the sky had clouded over and it was on the point of raining. Not much point going out now so I made a batch of fruit buns. And they look wonderful too, probably some of the best that I have ever made. And if they taste as good as they look, they will be delicious. I’ll let you know tomorrow.

Last week I mentioned that there was something not quite right with the pizza that I made. The pizza that I made tonight with the same batch of dough was delicious so it must have been just a one-off last week. But I really want to have a decent oven to do my cooking because this tabletop oven that I have isn’t doing what it should.

So now I’m going off to bed. It’s early but I have a 06:00 start in the morning and if the nurse has picked up my message from Friday he’ll be coming round to give me my fortnightly injection. They are starting up again now that I have a proper prescription and some supplies.

Let’s see if I feel any better after this. After all, I couldn’t feel much worse.

0

Sunday 8th January 2023 – JUST BECAUSE I …

… didn’t leave my bed until about 11:00 this morning doesn’t mean that I had a really good sleep. Even if I was in bed by 22:30.

It didn’t take me long to go to sleep; that’s for sure, but by 01:00 I was wide awake again. I was sill wide-awake at 05:00 too. Four hours of tossing and turning and wishing that I was somewhere else, without any success whatsoever.

However at some point I did manage to go back to sleep again because 10:30 came round rather quickly after that.

Once I’d finally hauled myself out of bed I had a chat on-line with a couple of people and then paired off the music for the radio programme that I’ll be preparing tomorrow. It’s high time that I got back into the habit of working again.

Brunch was cornflakes and toast with the last of the mushroom paté from Christmas, and then for a couple of hours I had a little relax where I did nothing at all. It is Sunday, after all, so I’m entitled to have a Day of Rest, even if I have had more than my fair share of those just recently.

Later on, in the absence of anything better to do, I began to write out the notes for the radio programme and I’ve done about half of them right now. What I should have done was to transcribe the dictaphone notes, but I forgot until much later. During the night I was rooting around in the cupboard and came across a giant cat tree built on the base of a rocking chair. My mother was dismissive of it but I took it out all the same, assembled it and put it in the corner of the room. The young male kitten was straight in there fighting his way through everything ready to climb up and into it. The older female found another way in. There they were, both in this cat tree like kings and queens. By now it was Nerina with me. She made some kind of remark but I thought that the cats were clearly enjoying this. They have as much right to live here as we do. If they can have some pleasure out of this thing that’s been in a cupboard then so much the better.

And then I was on the taxis last night. There was usually a job to take where we had to go to Liverpool to pick up some documents to bring back. But this particular night there had been a fire and the job had been cancelled. Then it turned out that one of my distant relatives had died and the funeral was taking place at about 04:00 at Wardle. I wasn’t going to do anything – I ended up sitting through most of the night chatting to Nerina who was in bed. We were discussing everything but it was time for me to go. I’d taken a previous job to Liverpool and had to drop a guy off at one of the railway stations there. She asked me if I knew where the railway station was, if I’d found it. I replied yes because I knew where most of the railway stations were. I laughed and said that it’s a good job that I didn’t have these documents to pick up, wasn’t it? otherwise I’d have been in Liverpool and back again and then gone straight out to Wardle to the funeral. It seemed a really strange and weird time to have a funeral at 04:00 in the pitch-dark. It was raining outside – it really wasn’t the right kind of weather. I’d asked Nerina on a couple of occasions to see whether it wasn’t really 16:00 but she was quite adamant that it was 04:00 so I went to the bathroom and prepared to leave.

I was also off on a road trip in mid-west USA but it was nothing like the mid-west that I knew. I had the camera with me. I came across a small town where there was a lot of building work and road-widening. I thought “hang on – I’ve been here before. I’m sure I have”. As I drove into the centre I wondered whether or not this was the place where I fuelled up once many years ago. I parked the car, got out and went for a walk round to see if there was any interesting things to photograph. I came across buildings with strange statues on the roofs and abandoned buildings from the 18th and 19th Centuries. Then I realised that I didn’t have my camera with me so I couldn’t take a photo anyway. I wondered whether I should go back to the car, fetch the camera, look for this petrol station to see if it really was here and then start again taking a few photos. Maybe go back outside to where the roadworks were and take a photo of that.

Then later we were kitting out an aeroplane to fly out on a commercial run between the UK and mainland Europe. I was busy trying to peel off some kind of old radio from somewhere and install it into this aeroplane. The pilot was watching me intently as I delicately tried to cut everything and unpeel the track bars etc, asking me quite a few questions, none of which were particularly important. In the end I took it off. He seemed to be so pleased. I gave it to him and told him to refit it.

At one point I was wandering around a square in London. It was all to do with the economy and finance, the history of the coffee houses of London in the 18th Century etc. We talked about how Italian banks would buy security and buy each other to stop themselves being the subject of hostile takeovers etc, how business was flowing out of this square now to businesses that were set up on its periphery and outside in the main streets.
Tea tonight was a pizza and I didn’t really enjoy it which was a surprise. It tasted rather differently than some that I’ve made in the past and I’m wondering if it’s maybe the dough that hasn’t kept so well in the freezer.

So with a 06:00 start in the morning, I’m going to go to bed. Hopefully I’ll fall asleep just as quickly as I did last night but that I’ll sleep through until the alarm goes off. With having done some of the notes for tomorrow I’m hoping that it will be rather a quick programme but there is always something that comes up to disturb me.

0