Tag Archives: welsh

Tuesday 2th September 2023 – THE MEDICAL STAFF …

… has certainly been earning its money today here at Ice Station Zebra. There has been an endless stream of visitors here today to see me.

There was a couple of people who came to see me quite early on but as you can imagine, I didn’t take much notice of them.

However I was wide awake at 07:42 and up and about a few minutes later.

The first job was to transcribe the dictaphone notes from the night. It was a really comfortable bed, which is a surprise for an Institution like this, so I had made the most of it. I was with Nerina. We’d gone to meet someone to find out anout French income tax. The guy with whom we spoke said that he knew someone who was an expert and he’d have us meet him. That turned out to be someone else whom we knew. We all arranged that we’d meet at a table in a café some time and have a big discussion. A shot while later Nerina and I went to a café for a coffee. There was very little room. There was a communal table with a couple of spaces at it and plenty of 2 and 4-person places but they were all filled so we decided that we’d grab these 2 spaces at this communal table As we reached there we saw that of the 2 chairs a girl had pulled one towards her and had her feet on it. Nerina had no choice but to sit on it. I saw the scowl that the girl gave on her face so I picked up the chair with Nerina on it and moved it right up against the table. I sad “you don’t want to sit so far away from the table. You’ll fall through the gap” which made everyone laugh. The girl who had her feet forcibly removed from the chair, they had now fallen to the floor was extremely upset and angry by it. But I didn’t care.

There was also a stroy about some cars for sale. I’d been and had a look at one – a C-registered Sierra but I thought that it was too expensive. A little later on I was driving down a country lane – it might have been Back Lane in Weston or something, and they were assembling a grader to scrape the road surface. I talked to the little girl who was in my car and explained to her what was going to happen; We saw 3 or 4 cars – they were driving away from the place where they’d been for sale. There was a red Chrysler PT Cruiser that someone was just getting into, tearing the price ticket from the window, and then the Sierra which was actually moving. We noticed that the Sierra was misfiring somewhat as it drove away so I was glad that I didn’t buy it. Then someone whom I knew – a girl, bought a car from here. She said that a cottage had been included in the price so she wanted to go to look at it. She wasn’t expecting much for her money, she said. We set out and had to climb into the hills. There was plenty of snow about on the hills. When she left the car she kept on slipping but we eventually found the cottage. It was really difficult and there was no parking or anything. It was in a line of terraced houses and was in a terrible condition. it was being used as a hay store. She said “that’s going to be something to keep Terry busy while he’s here”. We had a good look at it and began to make plan about it.

I was auditing some accounts for some kind of villagers’ association at some point during the night. While I was doing it someone handed me a letter demanding to know the latest minutes of the Parish council meeting and their annual accounts. First thing I did was to fix up some kind of street light in the village square, which everyone liked, a USB (… "he means “LED”" – ed …. light and one or to people could even read by it if they were close enough to it. That met with their approval. I asked them who was the local councillor. Someone eventually found me a list of names and telephone numbers in a local magazine so I began to ring round while everyone went out of the room for something to eat. Eventually I came across a German guy called Ede. I phoned him and we arranged to meet. When we met, he wouldn’t answer any of my questions at first. He wanted to know who I was, what I was doing, why I was here and what my interest was with him. Eventually I persuaded him to give me his name. He was in fact Mr Ede so we went to his house to chat about the letter that I’d received. On the way there I’d had a phone call from a lorry driver who was asking me some kind of question about something. I said that I’d have to answer him in a couple of minutes. Thee I was, trying to have this conversation with this German guy, trying to speak to someone on the phone and walking towards this guy’s house at the same time. It was all extremely confusing

Finally I was out driving and I ended up at some kind of outdoor exhibition. All my family and friends were there. I bumped into someone whom I knew. He was telling me about a place that we’d visited a few times, how there was plenty of stuff going on in there now. I said “ohh well, we’ll have to go to look. I couldn’t remember which night my free night was. I kept on proposing nights to him to go to see it, and suddenly realised that I had something else on. In the end he just smiled and said “go home, sort yourself out and telephone me, then we’ll arrange it like that. It really was confusing too. Later on I was having to go to the local market and needed someone to take me. In the end some foreign refugee guy said that he’d take me so we both went. I left the car on my crutches and put my head in this ten where the market was taking place. You could see the look of bewilderment on his face. As we went in there was a pile of second-hand clothes to sort through to see if you wanted to buy anything. I was much more interested in the second-hand record stall. You could see him sigh as I began to thumb through the albums but there were no albums there that interested me which was a shame because I always used to pick up something really nice from there.

Once I was finished I was going to do some more of the dictaphone notes from my previous hospital stay but to my surprise they aren’t on this computer. I can’t understand why because this is the laptop that I had back in those days and I’m absolutely certain that I had this SSD in here then.

In the middle of all of that there was an interruption as a nurse came by to take a blood sample. She took about 15 tubes from me quite quickly but there wasn’t enough blood to fill the other 5 that she had. She’ll come back tomorrow and take some more.

She also asked me for a urine sample, which I provided. But I thought that that was really taking the p****.

Once she’d gone, an orderly brought me my breakfast, which I ate while I was preparing for my Welsh lesson today.

But I needn’t have bothered. I was only there for 5 minutes before the dietician came to see me, and we spent a good half-hour talking about my diet and so on.

Obviously, the talk that we had worked wonders because the meal tonight included, as you might expect, white fish and a pot of cream cheese.

Once the dietician had left, I tried to reconnect with my Welsh lesson but instead, the pretty nurse came to see me.

"Lie down on the bed" she instructed "I’ll be back very soon"

It’s not every day that someone makes a proposition like that to me so I duly obliged Sure enough, she came back 5 minutes later – but with a technician and an electrocardiogram machine.

That took an age and after they left I tried to reconnect with what was left of my Welsh lesson. Instead, an orderly came in with my lunch so I gave up on the Welsh today.

Once everything had happened and everyone had gone I settled down on my comfy chair and had a little … err … relax. But not for long because the doctor came in and put a patch on my back. She didn’t say anything but having been through this before, I know what will be coming in an hour or so.

And I was correct too. She came back later with a nurse, told me to sit on the edge of the bed and curl up into a little ball. And then I suffered one of the most painful experiences that it was possible to have in a hospital – a lumbar puncture, where they take samples of the interior of your spine to check what they extract to see if there’s an infection.

While I was having the blood test the nurse stroked my arm, which I thought was sweet, and the one here with the doctor comforted me too. That was really nice too, but I don’t want to have to go through a lumbar puncture again, that’s for sure. Mind you, she did bring me a nice strong coffee afterwards. There’s not anything like enough coffee in this place.

After they had cleared off I thought that I could settle down. I’d been told to lie flat on the bed and not move for a couple of hours, so while I was drifting in ant out (mainly in) of sleep, a nurse came round with coffee. And then someone gave me a new water jug.

The final straw was when the doctor came back. She told me that the blood test had thrown up several anomalies and wanted to know if I had any medical reports from Castle Anthrax that she could use to compare.

Strange as it might seem, I’m trying to keep my Leuven details out of all of these tests. The reason is that if they discover them serendipitously, they might suggest another course of treatment or try something different. However, I couldn’t refuse. Leuven is all automated and their reports are available on line. Se we accessed a few and she took away the details.

A little earlier I talked about tea. I made do with pasta, beans, an apple purée and a green salad with vinaigrette. Not the best but I have to do what I can.

So that was today. I’ll be in bed early tonight again and hope for another good sleep. At least no-one disturbs me at 02:00 like they did in Leuven every night. I’m on my own here and that suits me just fine.

They are going to finish off the blood test tomorrow and there will probably be a few other things too. I have the impression that I won’t be here for long , at the speed at which they are working. They can take all of the tests they like and I won’t stop them at all. It’s not the results that interest me, it’s what they intend to propose to make things better for me.

Tuesday 19th September 2023 – A DECISION HAS …

…been made about my state of health. And considering that I only sent in the documentation on 24th July and was told that there’s a 4-month waiting list, that was extremely rapid, to say the least.

But to cut a long story short … “thank heavens” – ed … it has been decided that I have a Class II disability, which means that I am classed as between 50% and 80% disabled, with issues that impact my daily and social life.

As a result, I’m classed as a priority case, and shall (when they have been printed) receive a card to that effect and a disabled person’s parking permit.

Not that the parking permit will do me much good because if my mobility deteriorates any more, I shan’t be driving any more – and I won’t even be going out at all.

So all of this will give me something to think about when I’m in bed tonight.

There wasn’t much time to spend thinking last night because I was extremely late going to bed. I just couldn’t summon up the energy to retire.

As well as that, I was actually awake before the alarm went off and when it finally did start to ring I was sitting on the edge of the bed with some of my clothes already on.

After the medication I checked my mails and messages, dealt with a few bits of correspondence and then revised for my Welsh lesson. That passed off quite well today, much to my surprise.

When the lesson finished I had some fruit and then buckled down to work. I’ve booked my train for Paris on Monday, booked some assistance at the Gare Montparnasse (which I can now do, seeing as I have a certificate of entitlement while I await my card) and then booked a taxi to take me to the station –

As it happens, I’m not looking forward to the trip to Paris. My train is at 05:55 so the taxi is coming for me at 05:15 which means that I need to be up and about at … errr … 04:30. That is just crazy but it can’t be helped. I have to be at the hospital at 11:00 and unless I want to stay the night, there is just no other solution.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone too, despite the short night that I’d had. 2 small boys went to the hospital in Athens – their parents had sent them there because maybe they were British and it was the English School there. Something had happened to one of the parents of one of these children and the children had to come back by bus which was a bit of an alarming trip for someone who had never done it before, especially in those kinds of circumstances.

There was something else about someone being involved in a kind-of internet game. There was a trap set in it that harvested everyone’s details off their computer, where they were etc, but I can’t remember very much about this at all

While I was at it, I transcribed a couple of days’ worth of notes from when I was at Alison’s. There’s still plenty to go at there but I’ll keep on plugging away at it ready for the next lot.

Tea tonight was a taco roll – quite delicious too with the stuffing. And I found something interesting today – which I should have known because I’ve used this technique before.

While the stuffing was still warm I put it in the glass storage container and put it straight into the fridge. And so the container sealed up with a perfect vacuum which was quite impressive.

With a few minutes that was left later on I went through and sorted out some more music, labelling stuff and disposing of duplicates. I’m slowly fighting my way through it all and one day I might actually be finished some day.

But now I’m off to bed. I’m going to be working on the radio stuff tomorrow and prepare a couple of programmes ready for the future. High time I got myself into gear and actually accomplished something. No-one else will do it if I won’t.

Tuesday 12th September 2023 – I HAVE HAD …

… the kind of day today that you can only ever have in Belgium.

In the middle of my Welsh lesson, during which I was speaking Welsh, I had a ‘phone call which I had to answer, and ended up having a conversation in French.

Back to the Welsh lesson, speaking Welsh again, and someone came to the door, so I ended up having a conversation in Flemish.

And then back to speaking Welsh.

It reminded me of the time years ago when I was living here and there were 14 of us sitting round a table talking in French, and French was the mother-tongue of none of us.

Something else that was good and interesting was that I had another excellent night’s sleep again and I wish that I could have a few more of those. I’ve really no idea why that might be because sofas are not actually renowned for their comfort and my bed was the best that I could afford.

Anyway I was up once more before the alarm went off and had a very slow awakening before I was ready to Fight The Good Fight.

Alison was going to work late this morning so she dropped me off at the supermarket in the village where I stocked up on the basics that I need to keep me going until Friday morning.

The walk back here with a heavy rucksack was not easy because it’s much further than you might think and the road is quite uneven. So I was glad to be back and have my cheese and tomato on toast, especially now that I have some tomato to go on it.

There was something on the dictaphone from the night. I was in Canada talking to my niece. Actually, I wasn’t in Canada but somewhere else and she was there. We were chatting and she was talking about the tyres. She had a little Subaru vehicle that she used as a private runabout. She had a certain type of tyre on it which she found to be great in winter when she was in and out. My car over there had Arctic Grip tyres on it but her husband’s vehicle had racing tyres which surprisingly gave him the best grip of all in the snow and ice. They’d already had snow and ice there. There was plenty of snow but it had all levelled out. They also had a guy with a cattle truck, one that my father had found for him. He used to work for people in the area including my niece in transporting the cattle around from one day to the next to different places in the area.

It’s not easy having my Welsh lesson using the mobile phone but the computer isn’t powerful enough to run videos. We have a couple of new students in our class this year so hopefully we’ll keep on going.

The good news is that there’s no exam at the end of the year so I might go to take the exam that I should have taken last summer. Having spent all that time away and then in hospital, I didn’t feel that I’d done enough prepare me for it.

The discussion in Flemish was with the guy who mows Alison’s lawn, but the phone call in French was with the hospital where I went 10 days ago, and that was much more exciting.

"Mr Hall, we’ve arranged a bed for you. We’d like you to set aside a week to come to stay with us, starting 25th September"

So six weeks from seeing the Specialist to seeing the Hospital Consultant, and then three and a half weeks from seeing the Consultant to being called into the hospital. It’s not quite the four days that I had to wait when I first came to Leuven in 2016, but it’s still treatment that you would never have on the NHS.

After the lesson was over I had a slice of toast and a coffee and then crashed out. I’d been fighting off sleep since I came back from my walk but in the end I succumbed.

While I’d been asleep we’d had a rainstorm so the Angel Of The Lord Came Down And Gave Another Rinse to the clothes that I’d had drying outside. They aren’t ever going to dry at this rate.

For the rest of the afternoon I’ve been doing more radio stuff and then I went for tea – burger on a bun with pasta and veg in a tomato and cheese sauce.

When Alison came back we had a chat and then she went off to bed. Now that I’ve written my notes I’m going to bed too and if I sleep as well as I have done this last couple of days I’ll be more than happy.

Friday 25th August 2023 – I MADE AN …

… executive decision today. And in case you don’t know what an executive decision is, it’s a decision that you make that, if it goes wrong, the person making it is executed.

So having a form to be picked up from the chemist’s in town and knowing that my neighbour would be heading that way, and not feeling in the right kind of mood to rush about this morning, I abandoned the idea of going into town this morning and asked my neighbour to go to the chemist’s on my behalf.

It was probably something to do with the fact that I didn’t end up going to bed until really late last night and although I had a slightly better, more quiet night than I’ve had recently, there wasn’t enough of it to make a difference.

When the alarm went off I was flat out in the arms of Morpheus. I was actually in a zoo or a circus, somewhere where there were animals, but the alarm went off just as I was starting under way.

Struggling to my feet I had my medication, checked my mails and messages, spoke to my neighbour and then tried to find someone to pick me up at the station on Wednesday.

You’ve no idea how difficult it is, and I’ve no real confidence that the people who in the end agreed to meet me are really as reliable as I would like them to be.

Today was the final Welsh lesson of the Summer and it went OK, although I wish that it would have been better. There’s a couple of weeks now before the next year’s course begins and I’ll probably have forgotten everything by then.

At lunchtime I had a really beautiful shower and then changed the bedding. I’m going to have a really nice sleep tonight, a nice clean me in a nice clean bed. And I can’t say that I’ll be sorry. Mind you, as usual, I’m sure that it won’t be as really nice as I would like it to be.

With a short while to spare before the lesson restarted, I listened to the dictaphone to see what was on it. I’ve talked about the animals at the zoo or circus. We were going off from school on our Christmas meal somewhere. I was struggling to walk somewhat of course but I did the best that I could. My friends weren’t particularly interested for some reason. We had to board a couple of buses. The one in which I was sitting was an old lightweight thing with no windows, an open-top type of bus. It set out through these icy roads. Something happened up ahead which meant that we had to stop. Our bus had no traction and began to slide. The bus in front then decided that it would reverse to go around the obstacle. At that moment with the force my head was flung outside the edge of the bus and the bus that was reversing hit me with the most almighty bang straight in the right eye. I had never ever felt so much pain in my head than at that particular moment. I really did feel the pain from somewhere. People came running. There was a girl whom I knew and couldn’t believe at first – telling me not to be stupid about all of this kind of thing. Suddenly she screamed and ran off. A couple more people came and began to give me some First Aid to my head. But there was a real pain that I felt at that moment in my head and right eye

That’s probably why I wasn’t feeling like very much this morning. I really did feel the injury that I suffered during the night. I’ve no idea what had happened while I was asleep that might have caused it.

After the lesson I made my hot chocolate and then came back in here where I crashed out for a couple of hours. And it was another really deep sleep that took me out of just about everything.

Tea tonight was a salad, but with no mushrooms (because I didn’t go to the shops today) I had cheese and olives with it. The chips and vegan nuggets were cooked to perfection in the air fryer – the best that I’ve ever made.

Later on, Rosemary phoned me and we had a really lengthy chat as we usually do. Then both Liz and Alison were chatting to me on the internet. It seems that I’m quite popular these days but I’ve no idea why.

Tomorrow I’m shopping and then I’m having a rest. I’ve been working to hard just now and I could do with putting my feet up.

Not that it’s likely to happen but you never know your luck. One of these days nothing will happen that will disturb me. But then I’ll probably be bored to tears.

Thursday 24th August 2023 – REGULAR READERS OF …

… this rubbish will recall that yesterday I had something of a moan about how my Welsh course these days seems to go in cycles – one day good, the next day bad, and vice versa (and if there’s any vice involved, then in the words of the late, great Bob Doney “I’m Your Man”).

And so today we had something of a better day on the course and I was actually quite satisfied for a change.

Mind you, I think that I’ve worked out the reason why this might be.

When I first moved to Belgium 30-odd years ago I would watch the football in Flemish. You don’t need much translation to watch a game of football so you pick up quite quickly a few words and phrases, and gradually you can pick out the individual words even if you don’t understand them.

Since SGORIO won the rights to broadcast the Welsh Premier League on the internet in Welsh, I’ve been watching it quite regularly whenever I can

Throw enough stuff at a blanket and some of it is bound to stick, and I’ve been noticing that after all of this it’s my oral comprehension that seems to be working well enough right now. All I need to do now is to work on everything else.

Like my sleep, for example.

Last night I was in bed at a respectable time and managed (just about) to beat the alarm this morning, which makes a change considering the last couple of weeks.

Once I’d had my medication and checked my mails and messages I spent much of the morning going through and revising. I noticed that on the agenda for today was a quiz about verbs and their conjugations so I made myself a chart to keep handy.

That’s all very well, of course, but having made the chart I’ll probably lose it somewhere now.

As I said just now, the lesson passed well enough today which makes a pleasant change.

During the various pauses I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was in a film, a really, really vivid film last night about Armageddon – about how the end of the World was approaching and how everyone had to flee. Some people wouldn’t leave their possessions behind and were all swept away in the holocaust. They basically ended up being just half a dozen people still living in Los Angeles. Everywhere they went, they encountered chaos, queues of traffic stuck there with bodies all over the place how had died. Even after Armageddon and a few people had been saved, there were still some people performing hold-ups etc, people shooting each other until in the end there was just one family. The narrator was saying that in years to come people will ask him how he spent his years . He’ll say that he was just hanging out having a good time and not doing any work at all. His epitaph, he said, would be that in years to come in a Society where people are valued for their work it will be the cleaners and people like that who will be the richest, most wealthy and highest-praised in the land, except of course in the communities where the little old lady do-gooders will be holding sway. That’s how my film finished.

And even though I was asleep I remember that film very well. It really did go on for a good 90 minutes, or so it seemed and I reckon, would have actually made quite a decent film in the style of Neville Shute’s ON THE BEACH. I should really begin to consider a new career

Drifting back into that dream about Los Angeles or San Francisco or wherever again. There had been some kind of race between teenagers or something. When the winners were lined up in the end the guy who’d won went down the line to kiss a few of the people. When he reached one particular young girl he turned round and walked away. Everyone was totally spellbound that he had been so rude. admittedly it was raining and there was no cover where she was standing but it was still quite awful. I was down there doing something with the organisation so after he turned and left I went over to the girl and kissed her and said “never mind, you can have a kiss from me”. There was some comment like “he’s never going to miss the opportunity to kiss a girl when it arises” that brought a smile from her. Then I turned to the guys standing behind her and said “don’t worry, you’re safe. I’ve absolutely no intention whatever of kissing you lot”, something like that, in a light-hearted humorous way

We were in France next, going through a town. There was a kind of drone going through this town on behalf of an estate agent who had several houses advertised here for sale. We all ended up in a Square. I had my bass with me and an amplifier. Someone else had something else. We were waiting for someone to come to meet us but he didn’t turn up. In the meantime there was a flautist there who was waiting for people but they didn’t turn up either so we began to chat. It turned out that he was doing the music for local concerts at some point and had some musicians lined up but they weren’t very reliable so on the spot, we all agreed that we’d perform with him so we went off to an old pavilion by the lake where we could practise. We set up our equipment as best as we could but the place was old, ramshackle and mouse-ridden. I found that i’d forgotten my guitar lead. I had everything else but the guy who was the flautist said “hang on a minute” and went found one for me.

Later on I went back into that dream and had to take all my equipment back to Caliburn which was parked on the square in the snow. Climbing up the steps onto the car park I slipped and fell. A couple of people had to help me up. I had some kind of accessory for the guitar, a tuner or something, and it fell in the water. When I tried to dry it out I broke it. This German who helped me was very kind and considerate but a typical officious German who insisted that he knew best about what needed to be done. Eventually I put all my stuff into Caliburn and walked back across the Square. By now a friend of mine from Munich who had been in the music party was having a beer. I don’t know where my photographer friend from Vancouver, who had also been in there somewhere, had gone so I asked my Munich friend what needed now to be done because I was all for going home. I’d had nothing to eat. There was a Metzgerei at the side of the bar so I was hoping that I could go to fetch some chips or something from there. However my friend was busy drinking and chatting to all his friends and didn’t seem to be too involved in what I was trying to do at that moment.

After the lesson was over I had a try to contact someone in Paris who, I’m told, has a VSL. A VSL or Voiture Sanitaire Leger is the equivalent of a taxi but is equipped to handle ill or disabled people who need transport to and from medical appointments but who aren’t ill enough to need a proper ambulance.

If your doctor thinks that you need one, he’ll give you a bon de transport, a transport voucher, so that you can travel in one free of charge.

The medical specialist whom I saw the other week gave me one so that I could have a VSL from the station in Paris to the hospital and back next week.

However, to cut a long story short, no-one answered the ‘phone so that was that.

Tea tonight was more steamed veg and cheese sauce with a vegan sausage, and that was quite delicious yet again.

Tomorrow I need to pop into town before my lesson and as it’s late right now I won’t have much sleep. But it’s the last day of my course tomorrow and I’ll breathe a sign of relief.

What I can say is that over this last three weeks I’ve certainly learnt a lot. I just hope that I will be able to remember it.

Wednesday 23rd August 2023 – IT’S QUITE STRANGE …

… how my Welsh course is going. It seems that every time I have a good day, a bad day follows immediately on its heels. I can’t seem to manage to have two good days one after the other.

And so having had a reasonable day yesterday, today wasn’t so good at all. Couple that with the fact that the mike on my webcam is feeding back and I can’t make the remote mike work on the computer, it’s not been a very good day.

That’s a shame because I’d been to bed fairly early (comparatively speaking) and had a reasonable (comparatively speaking) sleep for a change. And at some point during the night, Zero put in an appearance, so “hello” again to Zero.

Then I had awoken at 06:30 ready to leave the bed early but I fell asleep again and had to be aroused by the alarm.

Once I’d had my mails and medication etc I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was going for a ride on something like an elephant. There was a couple of others and we were quite high up on this thing that was moving around. It ended up in some kind of hall or ante-chamber. At that moment a young girl whom I know came out of her room with what looked like her baby brother or something like that. She had a chat with me up on whatever it was that I was on and she down below. She said that she was taking whatever it was to the bathroom. I said “we’d better make sure that we don’t step on him then”. She asked what I meant by that. I replied that i had to go to the bathroom too.

My passport – I’d lost it a while ago and I’d been issued with a temporary Belgian 6-month passport. That was running out so I had to go to renew it. It meant going into this warehouse place, a dingy Government office and queueing. There were quite a few people in there. It was rather disorderly. It was coming to 21:00, 22:00 and we were still there, a few of us waiting. I was worried that a couple of people would push ahead of me in the queue and be seen out of turn, meaning that when the place closed I’d be out on my ear. One person was being attended to and the girl working the machine was having no end of problems. Eventually one or two of the people in the queue had to show her how the thing worked. I was sitting here thinking that this is totally crazy. It’s 22:00 and I suppose that she wants to go home – I know that we do – and what will happen if it turns out that my passport isn’t actually valid and I should have applied for a British one when I lost my original one?

Finally I was back in Virlet. My place was a total mess as usual but there were all locals around there cleaning all the vegetation away from around the house. When I arrived I couldn’t enter the house so I was sleeping outside. The bad-tempered neighbour was there with her brush-cutter cutting away all around me. They were all going in and out of my barn and garage etc. I was becoming annoyed about this but they were taking absolutely no notice at all. Then I decided that I had to think about leaving as I was leaving the following day and had someone to pick up at some town near Chartres at 17:00 and I needed to make arrangements as to where they’d be. I also had some bits and pieces that I had to take back to Caliburn. That was a real hike through the village to where I’d parked the other van and then march back. While I was asleep it had begun to rain. I was asleep out there in the rain but the neighbour who was brush-cutting abandoned her cutting, went and lay down in the grass and pulled a tarpaulin over herself which I thought was the strangest thing I’d seen for quite some time.

That wasn’t everything either but you really don’t want to know about that, especially if you are eating your tea right now.

Once I’d done all of the I spent a while revising my Welsh and then, armed with a coffee and fruit bun, attacked the lesson. We had a new tutor today who has a strange way of teaching, it has to be said, and that took us through to knocking-off time.

At lunch time I went for a shower and then sorted out the dirty clothes, seeing as I’m on the point of running out of clean ones. I also tidied up the place a little so that the cleaner doesn’t die of horror.

At the weekend I’d bought a pile of fruit because it was cheaper to buy in bulk than loose, but I was somewhat overwhelmed with the stuff, so I gave my cleaner a pile of fruit when she left.

And then I set the washing machine off on a cycle and then went to see a neighbour for a chat. Not that I’m all that much in favour of socialisaing, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but I have to make an effort.

Back here I hung out the washing and then made tea. There was some stuffing left so I added a small tin of kidney beans and ate it with rice and veg, another really nice meal tonight, nice and spicy. But I do like those new containers that I’d bought.

So right now, nice and early, I’m off to bed. Two more days of my course to go and then I’m going to relax. Until Wednesday next week, that is, because I’ll be then off to Paris and I’m not looking forward to that at all.

They probably won’t be able to do much for me, but I won’t ever find out if I don’t go.

Tuesday 22nd August 2023 – TO MY COMPLETE …

… surprise, I’ve actually had a good day today. So much so that I even picked up a mistake that our tutor had made in a translation.

That’s not something that happens every day, but it certainly shows that I’m paying attention and something is sinking in somewhere.

It might possibly be due to the fact that last night was a little better than things have been just recently. I was in bed later than I would have liked to be, but I must have gone to sleep quite quickly.

Mind you, when the alarm went off I was flat out asleep and it was the toughest struggle that I’ve had just recently to raise myself from the dead before the second alarm went off.

There were a few things that I wanted to do this morning so I hurried to deal with them but it didn’t leave much time to revise anything. But it didn’t seem to matter all that much because just for once I seemed to remember the important bits.

Even more surprisingly, I actually understood some of the work that we were set to do and even came up with the correct answers, and that’s something that doesn’t happen every day either.

During the various pauses during the day I transcribed the dictaphone notes from the night. I had a thirst that you could photograph so I went to find a glass so that I could have something to drink. The glass slipped out of my hand and landed on the table and broke the stem off. With the cup part of it I thought that that would do for now so I went to find the mint syrup and water. I couldn’t see it at all at first but then I found it all on a tray in the bedroom. I must have been thirsty one night and taken it in because I needed to drink something during the day. Then I had the situation about how I’m going to fill the glass with syrup and then water when I can’t actually put it down because there’s no stem so one of my hands is going to be permanently occupied holding the glass.

Someone then came to see me with a problem in connection with someone whose garage door had jammed closed and wouldn’t open. There had been some building work in the immediate vicinity. It was suspected that this building work had undermined the wall of the garage and tilted it blocking the door. This guy wanted to know if I could do anything to help the old guy whose house it was. I began to ask him questions but it was the most frustrating discussion I’d ever had because he wouldn’t answer the questions that I was asking. He kept on coming out with a lot of superfluous information that didn’t relate to the question. I was totally bewildered in the end by the fact that he just seemed to be so unwilling to co-operate in this discussion so that we could sort out this particular problem. In the end I had to walk away because I was slowly starting to lose my temper. It was an extremely difficult interview with this guy about all of this that was happening. We were getting absolutely nowhere. After I’d walked away someone else came to me to ask me about drawing up some plans for an extension to their house for a laundry room. They sent their little daughter, a teenaged daughter to ask e about becoming involved. She seemed to have only the vaguest idea. I could see that this was another thing that was going to be so complicated because of the fact that the people concerned didn’t want to speak to me directly.

Some people whom I knew were planning on moving so were going to put their house up for sale. They called a surveyor in to inspect it. He found a lot of problems, water was leaking through the roof into the insulation which was all sodden. The more he looked, the more other faults he began to find with the house. I had a feeling that this move is going to be something of a disaster at this rate

Finally, we’re going back into the realms of the 18th Century. There was a guy being sought for debt, an itinerant type of person with a wife and family. They’d been in a tavern and he’d made sure that his wife and children had left. When a couple of soldiers who were in the tavern left, he waited for a moment and then slipped out in the crowd but the debt collector was waiting for him, seized hold of him and put him in his wagon where his wife and children already were. Before they set off for London and the prison he explained to the man that the crowd could become quite noisy when they see the prison carriage approaching so maybe they’d need some means to distract the children etc. The debtor was impressed with the behaviour of the guy who arrested him and commented on his politeness etc. The guy just shrugged his shoulders and they all set off. The woman was trying to explain to her children that none of it was their fault and circumstances conspired against them etc, thinking that it’s better that they know some story than to be actually told the truth.

After the lesson finished, I didn’t do all that much. I’d been flagging somewhat during the lesson and although I didn’t actually wander off into the arms of Morpheus, I wasn’t really up to doing anything special.

What I did for most of the time was to listen to the radio programme that will be broadcast this weekend and then send it off ready for feeding into the stream. And it’s a good programme too this weekend

Tea tonight was, as usual, a taco roll filled with some of the leftover stuffing and with some rive and veg too. And it was quite delicious.

Those containers that I bought at the weekend do the job really well, much better than the ad-hoc plastic arrangement that I was using previously. And it shows you what kind of exciting life I’m living these days when I wax lyrical about a storage container.

So that’s that then. I’ll think about arranging some music for the next radio programme and then go to bed ready to Fight the Good Fight tomorrow morning. We have a new tutor so I need to set a good example. I’m not likely to do that if I fall asleep in the middle of the lesson.

Monday 21st August 2023 – IT MIGHT NOT …

… seem like it, but I’ve been very busy today. It’s taken even me by surprise.

It was another late night last night and once more, when the alarm went off it was a real struggle to leave the bed. And I really wish that I could have stayed in there longer, especially after what happened on Sunday.

It took a while, as usual, for me to bring myself round into the Land of the Living but I did speed things up by going for an early shower. I don’t want to frighten away the nurse.

She was a few minutes late coming round today, but once she gave me her injection and left, I could crack on with revising my Welsh for the lesson today.

The lesson today seemed to pass OK, although I didn’t really get to say very much. I was in a side room with two young girls who know each other from College and so they were chatting away 13 to the dozen about pubs and night clubs, so I left them to it.

But we learnt a lot today and to my surprise, some of it actually stuck. I’m not sure what happened there.

During one of the breaks I had a listen to the dictaphone notes from the night. We’d been for a walk, a group of us, in some countryside area with plenty of mountains. I’d taken a camera with me but because of the weight issues I’d only taken the one. This time I’d taken the NIKON D3000 and telephoto lens. It wasn’t long before I realised that I’d made a mistake trying to take a photo of the sunlight coming out of the valley halfway up the mountains. I wanted to take a photo of the windows inside a storage cupboard in a castle where the lens was just overwhelming the image. I felt really sad that I hadn’t brought my standard lens and the NIKON 1 J5, hadn’t brought absolutely anything with me to make my photos work. It was just going to be too bad. In the end I tried to take a couple of photos with just the camera on the telephone which I don’t like doing anyway. It really was a shock when I realised that I didn’t have the camera bag with me, all the spare lenses etc.

There was also a play being put on about a murder. I was interested in doing something with it so I’d spoken to the producers and was hoping to have an appointment but it never happened. I turned up one day but no-one ever spoke to me or invited me so I decided that well maybe it’s quite simply not going to happen. There had also been some physiotherapy arranged for me by a doctor at the hospital but one of my friends went to this doctor on his own and there was no mention of anything being arranged for me, which disappointed me too.

Later on I went to Ramsgate to find out more about this play. That turned out to be something of a wild goose chase too as nothing seemed to happen about it when I arrived either.

When the lesson was over I had my hot chocolate and then spent the rest of the afternoon finishing off the radio programme. That’s all up and running now and there’s just one more in the pipeline. I shall be making a start on the next one this week too.

Tea tonight was one of the stuffed peppers that I bought on Friday. And seeing that I’d forgotten to put the herbs into it to season it, it tasted quite nice.

But what was good news is that the glass containers that I bought on Saturday to store the leftovers in the fridge instead of some kind of ad-hoc plastic arrangement are exactly the right size. I’m quite pleased about that because I’m trying slowly to move away from plastic if I can and when the opportunity arises.

Anyway, I’m off to bed now. Later than intended but I’ll do the best that I can. See where I end up during the night and then wake up fighting fit ready for tomorrow. God help them.

Friday 18th August 2023 – WHAT SURPRISES ME …

… is that I managed to keep on going for as long as I did today after all of my exertions.

As I predicted (well, it really wasn’t much of a prediction) I lay awake for hours after going to bed last night and just couldn’t settle down. As I’ve said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … there’s no point going to bed early if I’m not able to go to sleep.

But sleep I must have done at some point during the night because when the alarm went off I was flat out miles away, deep in the Arms of Morpheus.

Leaving the bed before the second alarm was something of a struggle but I managed it all the same, and then had something of slow drag around into consciousness.

Despite everything else I managed to fall into the shower and have a good scrub up, and then I hit the town.

The bus was already at the bus stop so I staggered aboard, and then staggered out at the bus stop by the port.

First stop was at the doctor’s to pick up my prescription. I’m running out of medication so I need to stock up.

next stop was at the Carrefour around the corner where I bought a few supplies to keep me going, like peppers, mushrooms, potatoes and the like.

The reason why I buy my peppers here is that they sell two for €0:99 – teacup sized ones that are ideal for making stuffed peppers. The ones that you buy elsewhere are often quite enormous and overwhelm whatever it is that I’m cooking.

Final port of call was at the chemist for my Aranesp and to have the prescription dispensed.

By the time that I’d bought everything that I needed, my backpack was quite heavy and it was a struggle to come back up the hill. It took me an absolute age and I was exhausted. I had to make dozens of pauses

Back here I cleaned out one of the peppers and put it in the freezer and then armed with my coffee and cheese and toast I came in here, rather later then intended, for my Welsh lesson.

During the pause at lunchtime, I wrote up the dictaphone notes. I was waiting at Goodall’s Corner in Shavington for a bus to go to Nantwich for a hospital appointment. It seemed as if I’d been there for hours but no bus came. I’d seen buses coming in the other direction from Nantwich but none going that way. Eventually someone told me that there wzs a change on the route. He offered to take me to his house in Stock Lane because the buses were going past there at the moment. He took me down there. I went into his house. There were a few people in there, all denying that I was ill. In the end I had to show them my scars where the needles had been in my arms, the site of my old catheter etc before they eventually agreed that I was undergoing some medical treatment. Then we heard the bus so I went outside. The bus pulled up and I boarded. There was a driver and a couple of other passengers. The whole lower deck of this bus was covered in dolls etc. The driver, while he was driving, was playing a game of some kind like cards or something with another one of the passengers. I thought that this was the most weird bus trip that i’d ever had.

What was interesting about this dream was that I was waiting for the bus on the “wrong” side of the road, as I would do if I were in Europe. And all the traffic was driving on the right too.

And then, half an hour later we had a suddenly this dream came alive. The person who was being me began to take off after the girl in this particular scene. That caused a lot of embarrassment. First of all, what was happening was that we’d been paired off. There was a doll that was me, a doll that was a girl, there were several of these pairs and we’d been paired off each at someone’s house but at first nothing had ever happened until we suddenly began to come to life” and I have absolutely no recollection of this or no idea at all what it concerns.

Then we had a dream that was quite similar to that again with 2 dolls, a male and a female. It wasn’t until they’d been together for a while that people noticed that these dolls were starting to turn themselves into a couple

Next I was at a supermarket. There were these toy things, dolls or whatever, tied up at a kind of hitching rail outside the store. All of a sudden a few people came along and began to push themselves into the queue in the wrong place. I thought to myself that there’s going to be some kind of severe confrontation with this lot any minute now.

I was then with Mike Harris, the chairman from TNS. We were talking about the European Cup Final between his team and a team that I was representing from Wales. He said that he wanted to approach UEFA to see whether they’d agree to host the game in Budapest. I said that in principle I’d agree but I’d like to play the game in Leichtenstein. Apart from the fact that there’s a lovely stadium there, it’s the crossroads of Europe etc. He asked me how we’d go about it. I told him that I knew Mike Lee, the Press Officer who went on to lead the UK’s bid for the Olympics in London. I imagined that he’d have a replacement and we’d start of by contacting him.

What’s strange about this is that I BO – or did – know Mike Lee, and he was Press Officer for UEFA and he did leave to work as leader of the team what worked on bringing the Olympic Games to London. And the football stadium at Vaduz in Leichtenstein is quite nice, AS REGULAR READERS OF THIS RUBBISH WILL RECALL.

But no Zero last night, and no California either. I must be slipping.

The Welsh lesson went quite well for a change, even though I had to fight off several waves of sleep. But once it was over and I was armed with my hot chocolate I wasn’t so lucky and ended off drifting away for half an hour or so.

That actually makes a change. usually, going into tow and back exhausts me completely and I’m flat out on my chair a long time before this.

There was time to spend an hour or two writing radio programme notes and then I went for tea – chips with salad and some of those quorn nuggets that are really nice.

But now I’m ready for bed, I reckon, not that I’m particularly tired after having crashed out just now. But it’ll catch up with me sooner or later. Shopping tomorrow, and with some room in the freezer, I hope that there’s some good stuff in Noz now that I have room for it

And having been to the shops I’ll probably be flat out in the afternoon. As long as I don’t miss the football tomorrow evening.

Thursday 17th August 2023 – I’VE HAD A REALLY …

… horrible afternoon today.

There were a couple of moment during my Welsh lesson when, for some reason or other, I felt myself drifting away into never-land. Then later on, after I’d had my hot chocolate when the lesson finished, I crashed out completely.

And I DO mean “completely” too. For about 2.5 hours I was totally out like a light in probably the deepest sleep I’ve had for quite some considerable time. Not a thing was moving during that time.

It’s not as if I didn’t need it though. What with one thing and another I didn’t go to bed until after midnight last night. Just as I was on the point of going to bed a Paul Temple mystery came round on the playlist so I stayed up to listen to it.

Despite all of that, I had woken up and was out and about (after a fashion) before the alarm went off, which goes to prove that there’s no pattern to what’s going on inside what’s left of my brain right now.

As usual, it took a good while to wind myself up, and then I had a couple of phone calls to make. Firstly there was to the chemists to order the next month’s supply of Aranesp, and then to the doctor to order another supply of medicine as I’m running out of certain supplies.

There was the dictaphone to listen to, to find out where i’d been during the night. I was with someone like that guy whom I knew when I had my taxis, me and a girl. For some reason we’d gone to California in Caliburn but he was driving. We went all the way to California. The girl and I were talking about settling down there, going to school etc, creating a new life for ourselves. We had to go back to collect our equipment. They drove us back and they said “we’ve been in your bank accounts and paid back all the money that you spent on this trip”. I told them that they didn’t need to because it was for us anyway, but they insisted. I began to collect my things together. I disposed of one scrap car out of my garage but there was a gold Cortina MkIII in there where I had half the axle out but a rear wheel had seized on a bearing so that bearing was still in the axle. He brought a pile of screws and nuts for me. They were mine anyway but he said that he wanted me to have them back. I went into the garage to find a box for them but he followed me in. He was looking at my tools and equipment saying how wonderful they were. he looked at the Cortina. I told him about the wheel. He replied “we can have that off”. I explained that I’d tried just about everything for months but I’ll end up having to cut it off. In the end we were preparing to go. But this thing about him turning up looking around my garage began to fill me with unease. I’d no idea why that would have been

And later I was back in this dream again talking to a friend of mine about my illness. We were talking about Zero. He was saying that if I’d been in good health she would have probably been living with me by now. I was chatting to Zero (so welcome back to her, who has been absent from my voyages for quite a while) and I asked her how she fancied living in California. I explained to her about portable oxygen cylinders, how I could buy one and walk around etc. She was worried that the heat in California would be too much for me. I explained that if we were to live by the sea it would be quite comfortable. We had a long, lengthy chat about moving, living down there by the sea etc. This was another one of these rare dreams where everything seemed to be going so right. It really felt much more than just an ordinary boring dream, a lot more intense feeling that there was in most, which was quite a surprise.

And what’s going on with California? I’ve been going there quite a lot just recently which is bewildering because I’ve never been farther west THAN ARIZONA OR UTAH. So I’ve no idea what’s happening about that.

After spending some time doing my Welsh homework I went for my lesson. The morning didn’t go too badly but gradually as the afternoon went on I found myself fading away, and that kind of thing is doing me no good at all.

During my brief moments of lucidity today I’ve been writing notes for my forthcoming radio programme and then I went for tea.

Tonight’s tea was another really good one – mixed veg and falafel in a vegan cheese sauce. And I’ve got the hang of all of this now.

It makes a world of difference being able to lay my hands on what to date is proving to be a consistent supply of vegan cheese. In the past I’ve only been able to grab it when I can but it looks as if the supply from LeClerc is going to keep on running for the foreseeable future, although nothing in this World is certain.

Having done all of that I’m off to bed, ready for a trip down into town before my lesson. Mind you, I probably won’t sleep, having had a really good session this afternoon.

But it was nice to see Zero again last night and it would be even nicer to see her again tonight. But what on earth is going on about California?

STANDING ON A HILL IN MY MOUNTAIN OF DREAMS,
TELLING MYSELF IT’S NOT AS HARD, HARD, HARD AS IT SEEMS

Well, yes.

Wednesday 16th August 2023 – TODAY’S WELSH LESSON …

… passed off quite a bit better today.

The unit on which we were working was a revision unit which involved discussing several of a selection of about 30 different topics, chosen by lot.

It’s quite true to say that I don’t know much and I can’t remember much but one thing about talking and chatting at large is that basically you just talk about what you know with whatever bits of grammar and vocabulary you can remember.

It doesn’t need to be complicated, and if you can keep it simple, then that’s all you need.

In schools in the UK, languages are taught in a ridiculous way. The emphasis is on grammar and being absolutely 100% correct, with the result that kids are quite timid and rather afraid to speak in case they make a mistake.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I was in Belgium I worked with people of all different nationalities and it didn’t take long for me to get the message that grammar counted for next-to nothing.

Iit didn’t matter what you knew and what mistakes you made. The aim was to make yourself understood to people and to understand their reply.

Knowing 100 words and using them is much more important than knowing 10,000 words and all kinds of obscure rules of grammar but not being able or being unwilling to use them.

But I digress.

Once more, the night that I had was marginally better than things have been quite recently. I didn’t travel far either. It was the annual meeting of our Students Association. I was with my friend who is no longer with us. Instead of flying to Birmingham we caught the train. When we arrived we actually arrived at the airport. It was a long walk through security, check-in etc out into the concourse where we found some people who my friend knew from the Association who were sitting around so she waved at them. I asked who they were and she told me but it didn’t ring any bells with me at all. We walked past a hotel at the airport concourse. The guy with us said “that’s where we should have stayed. It’s a much better place”. We ended up at reception at our hotel and given the keys. We all went into our room. I was busy chopping and dicing an onion ready to make sandwiches but had the onion all over the floor, all over the carpet. I was picking it up. I asked my friend if she had a plastic bag but she said no. I asked if she’d go to fetch one so she did. There were some other people in this room too who were clearly members of the Association, talking to someone on the phone saying “you’ll be here by tonight. Look for the Ealing branch” and a few other things like that. The way they were going on it sounded extremely doubtful about anything really. I was expecting something much more professional.

There was also something about me being in the USA. I was on my way to meet someone. We came to a very steep hill, so steep that you couldn’t actually see over the bonnet of the car as you went down. I had to be very careful as there were lots of cyclists etc about. There were traffic lights at the bottom so I stopped. As the lights changed and the car set off, I fell out of it and the ca, an automatic, went off on its own. It went round and round in a circle at this interchange, not hitting anything. I was trying to catch it to stop it. A passer-by came to help but we couldn’t manage to do anything. All of a sudden it changed direction slightly, came round, rolled up to my stomach and stopped. I was so relieved because this was the kind of thing that could have gone on for hours and could have been disastrous.

That wasn’t everything either but you really don’t want to know about the rest, especially if you are having your tea right now.

It was another slow start to the day before I transcribed the dictaphone notes, and then what time was left was spent revising my Welsh ready for the lesson. and wouldn’t it be nice if some of the stuff would stick in my brain?

At lunchtime I went and had a shower and then did some tidying up ready for when the cleaner would come round.

After the lesson the cleaner and I had a chat. We’ve worked out some kind of plan of action about the place and she also filled me in on a few things about the place that I didn’t know before. It’s always good to know about things like that.

Tea tonight was a curry from the freezer – one of those special ones I made about a year ago. And having matured for as long as that in the freezer it really was quite delicious.

But while we’re on the subject of the freezer, it’s slowly starting to empty itself now. I’ll wait to see what’s on offer in Noz at the weekend and if it’s a disappointing day I might just bake a vegan pie at the weekend to fill up the space.

That’ll be a good idea because there’s stuff in there like vegan minced soya stuff and using some of that in a pie would be a good idea.

While i’m at it, I’ll see about finding a recipe for some vegan sausage stuffing so that I can have a go at making sausage rolls. As I’ve said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’ll have to buy pastry for that because making flaky or puff pastry is a difficult and complicated procedure that’s beyond my capabilities.

That’ll give me something to think about while I try to sleep.

Tuesday 15th August 2023 – NOW THAT THE …

… blog is back on line again, I can carry on.

It runs on a programming language called *.php and that’s a system of coding that I’ve never learnt and so it uses a proprietary coding package that is available from a major supplier.

And it’s mated to an *.sql database, a system of coding that I learnt at University 20-odd years ago.

Anyway, the major supplier updated its *.php coding to version 6.3at the weekend and ever since then the supplier’s helpdesk has been inundated with complaints about all kinds of things that have gone wrong.

And so I (and, presumably many others) received a mail this morning saying that a crucial line of coding was missed out of the upgrade and they hope that it’s now been fixed.

I can’t say that I’m very impressed.

It made up for the night that I had because even though I didn’t travel very far, I had a great deal of difficulty sleeping. Maybe going to bed late might have had something to do with that.

So when the alarm went off I was with a friend of mine waiting for her daughter to come from school. She was probably about 6 or 7. When she turned up she was being rather mischievous so I said that I would buy a fridge, I’d put her in it and take bits out to eat when I was feeling hungry.

So being asleep, it was yet another struggle to leave the bed this morning.

What didn’t help my humour was that I had forgotten to close the fridge door. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen so much ice.

First thing to do this morning was therefore to switch off the fridge and empty it out so that it would defrost during the course of the day. I’m glad that there was no longer any Aranesp in there.

What with all of this going on it took a while to organise myself. First thing to do was to listen to the dictaphone. We’d reached the North Pole somehow and were concerned by a few articles lying around. There was a sanitary object without a handle, whatever that is, and one or two things that I can’t say what they were. We were more interested in how they came to be there.

This was also another one of these really gruesome dreams about a motorcycle gang that raided a restaurant somewhere in the USA. They dealt with the patrons in the most evil kind of way

From there I was rolling pastry into ling tubes like you do when you’re making bread or pizza etc. I had to go shortly but carried on rolling this pizza for ages. In the end I put it in a plastic bag, picked up my things and began to head outside to my Ford Transit van ready to set off on my voyage wherever it was that I was going.

Next thing was that now that the blog was back on line I could update it with the missing entries. And then I had to do the homework for the Welsh lesson today.

The lesson was another one of these bits-and-pieces days where some of it was good and some of it was … errr … less so. I wish that I could remember half of the stuff that I’m supposed to have learnt. It just goes in one ear and right out of the other.

Homer Simpson once famously said “every time I learn something new, it pushes something old out” but I don’t even have that luxury.

When the lesson was over I cleaned the fridge and sorted it out. It’s quite surprising but there always seems to be much more room in there than there was before I started yet I don’t seem to have thrown anything away.

And then, armed with my hot chocolate, I came back in here and … errr … had a little relax – and for quite a while too.

Tea tonight was a taco roll and I don’t really like these new wraps that I bought the other day. I don’t think that I’ll be buying those again.

Having finished for the day, I’m off to bed now. I’ll be busy tomorrow because I need a shower and the cleaner will be here so there’s some tidying up that needs to be done.

There’s the Welsh lesson to organise too and then I have some things to organise about my forthcoming trips. I’ll be on my travels in early course so I have to make the arrangements, or else I’ll be up yet another gum tree.

Monday 14th August 2023 – MY WELSH LESSON …

… wasn’t as good as it might have been today.

It’s possible that it has something to do with the fact that I was absolutely exhausted and had a struggle to keep my eyes open for some of the time.

And I’ve no idea why that might be either because I was in bed at some kind of reasonable time for a change, and the night wasn’t quite so turbulent as some have been just recently.

When the alarm went off this morning I was flat out in bed and it was a struggle for me to haul myself out of bed. And the morning was a struggle to such an extent that I didn’t go for a shower before the nurse came round to give me my injection.

There was however some time enough to transcribe the dictaphone notes from the night. We’d been to the library like the one at Crewe. We’d been in a friend’s taxi so I didn’t take my crutches with me. When it was time to leave, the steps down to the main road were quite long and steep so I was taking my time. I could see the taxi. It wasn’t parked on the street but in the car park backing up onto the steps at the bottom of the steps where we would come down. Of course everyone else was quite quick in getting to the taxi except me. They all piled in and it drove away. When I finally came down to where the taxi had been I couldn’t see it at all. I couldn’t believe that they’d driven off and abandoned me like this with no crutches or anything

Later on I was in the USA at San Francisco thinking about going home from work. I could see the Golden Gate Bridge from my office. There was plenty of traffic on it. It looked really nice in the dark with the lights of the vehicle so I tried to take a photo but it didn’t work out. Later on at some other point I had to go to the top floor of our building. That was impressively high, probably 30,000 feet. The view of San Francisco below and the clouds etc was really impressive. We had once again a view of the bridge and all of the traffic in the dark. I tried again to take a couple of photos. The first one didn’t come out very well so I reset the exposure and adjustment times, took another and that didn’t seem to work out either. I was extremely disappointed at this.

And then there I was in this high building and we went down in the lift. We didn’t know from which floor we had to exit. I guessed “n°10”. I was one of these express lifts that stopped quite rapidly so I couldn’t believe that we were at Floor 10 already. Someone convinced us that we were so we piled out. We found that we had to walk down a couple of flights of stairs to go out of the building. There was a river right outside the building and the end of the runway of a light airfield with a light aircraft going in to land. There was like a Plaza or something there with a few sandstone buttes, only tiny, so I walked over to there. I could see that there was a good view of the building etc so I went to take out my camera. I’d been walking through the desert at one point and the whole of the inside of the camera bag was filled with sand. The camera was covered with sand so I had to clean it off before I could take a photograph that I wanted of the building and surrounding area.

I was back in San Francisco yet again working on a car. A boy went past. There was a dog running around the street. He told me to keep my dog under control. I told him to clear off. The dog wasn’t mine. I carried on. Then some official turned up on a bike, a young guy. He said “I’m going to give you a citation for your dog being off its leash”. I asked “have you seen my dog off its leash?”. He replied “yes”. I said “you must have some extremely good eyes. My dog’s back at home in Europe”. He replied “that doesn’t matter. I’m going to give you a citation”. When he gave it to me I took a piece of paper out of Caliburn. He was looking at all the notes in my notebook so I told him to clear off. My notes were nothing to do with him. I wrote out my address, handed it to him and said “I’m not paying your citation. You summon me. This should be fun”. He took my piece of paper, tore it up and threw it away. I said “fair enough” and carried on doing what I was doing. He disappeared and then I set off back for home.

What’s surprising in all of this is that I’ve never been to San Francisco in my life

The Welsh lesson, as I said, didn’t go too well. Being as tired as I seem to be these days, I just can’t concentrate on anything at all. At least we were one person more than last week as someone new has joined the party so we’re spread out more.

During the lunch break and for a while afterwards I chose the music for the radio programme that I started. I even managed to pair off some of the tracks but I ended up being overwhelmed. I didn’t actually crash out, which is a miracle in itself, but I may as well have done for all the good that I did.

Tea was, as usual, a stuffed pepper with pasta and vegetables, and while I was taking a few things out of the freezer I actually tidied up the vegetable drawer. There’s a little more room in there now.

But right now I’m going to bed. I’ve really had enough for one day and I won’t be doing much else today. There’s some homework that I need to do tomorrow for my course so I need to be on form. But I think that it needs more than I have to offer right now.

Friday 11th August 2023 – I DIDN’T QUITE …

… manage to go for the rest of the week without crashing out. Having done so well over the last few days, I fell at the final fence this afternoon.

But then that’s hardly a surprise because the last few nights have been what one would call “mobile” and last night was no exception. And I was even up before the alarm went off this morning too.

After the medication I had a shower to clean myself up and then nipped out to the shops.

Caliburn and I went to LIDL for a change this morning and seeing as I didn’t want very much at all, it was quite an expensive shop. And I mean that too.

The fact is that there is always some stuff that I need from there to keep in stock, and as I don’t go there all that often these days, I made the most of my trip and stocked right up.

Amongst the things that I bought from LIDL were some carrots so back here, I cleaned, diced and blanched them ready for freezing. And then armed with my coffee and cheese-on-toast, I went for my Welsh lesson.

It was rather a mixed lesson. Some of it was quite good, and other parts of it were … errr … less so. But now it’s over for the weekend and we’ll live to fight again on Monday.

During the lunch break I transcribed the notes from the dictaphone. There was a claim to be made for some medical expenses. Everyone had to fill in some forms and send them off. I had my papers all over the place as usual. They asked me about mine. I replied “you’ll have to give me 5 minutes while I go upstairs and find them in the bedroom”. I went upstairs to loo, for my receipts. Nerina came in and began to harangue me about this so I shouted at her to leave me alone and let me get on with it otherwise I’ll never ever be able to find it. In the end she wandered off. I carried on looking. One of my sisters then came and asked me the same question. I became even more angry and shouted even more at her. But I just couldn’t find any of these papers. I’d no idea where they’d gone. The last I saw of them, they were on my bedroom windowsill but now they could be anywhere. I didn’t have a clue what had become of them.

And then someone had their babycam monitor focused on their child’s playpen area. every now and again it would take an automatic photograph of the child. On one occasion there was no child to be seen in the photograph. What they saw instead was the family cat, a big long-haired black one, climbing up against the play area opening the door. It had obviously opened the door and the child had gone out through it and was somewhere else around the house

Later on I was at work. Everyone else went off for their evening meal. I was left holding the baby for a while while they were away. After about a couple of hours no-one had come back. I walked out down to Hospital Street in Nantwich to see if I could find them. They were all in a restaurant and had only just begun to eat their meal. I asked how long they were going to be. They didn’t know so I suggested another couple of hours. They said “no” but I could see that that was what it was going to be. I asked “what am I going to do? I’m starving and I have to have my meal yet”. They replied “you can hang on a little longer can’t you?”. So I left. On the corner of Hospital Street and the other one and I’ll tell you the name in a minute … “Pratchett’s Row” – ed … there was a chip shop so I went in and ordered a bag of chips and a cheese toastie. That was an interesting thing because you ordered and paid. They gave you strips of what looked like brown parcel tape with the price of £1:00 on each strip. You then queued and when yours was ready they handed it to you and you handed over the strips of tape to show that you’d paid. I had my chips and cheese toastie and set off back to the office eating on the way back.

Meantime, everyone was talking about football grounds from the 1970s. Vale Park came up and also the subject of the railway station at Longport. I was telling people how I’d go to the game and then walk back to the railway station afterwards on a Friday night with a bag of chips.

Incidentally, during the day yesterday I was having exactly this discussion with someone on the internet, re-living old past glories.

After that I was back in the Auvergne last night in my house. Brigitte had a pile of stuff, food in bottles and cans that she didn’t need. She brought them down to me so I was busy stacking them away in my house ready for future use. There wasn’t anything there that was really appetising but it was free so I took it.

My friend from Congleton was starting a hairdressing business and was looking for premises. She came across a room to let on a farm. We went to look at it. It was a tiny room. You had to climb up there on a weird arrangement, a cross between stairs and a ladder. There was a really tiny window in the wall. Nevertheless she rented it. I thought that it was a strange decision. First of all the customers had to find it and then they had to climb up here. There was barely enough room for the 3 of us to stand upright in it once we left the bed that was in there. It was in High Street in Crewe but the view out of the window was looking at the area with a completely different perspective. I’d never seen that part of Crewe looking like that before. It was reminding me of the climb up Edleston Road but it was all wrong, all in reverse. I really couldn’t understand why it was as it was, for example Edleston Road climbed up towards the middle instead of going downhill towards the middle as it does. We went outside for a walk around. We could see some trees that were pretty much dead. They’d been trimmed off so that they were only growing on our side of the field and cut off where they grew over the neighbour’s field. It was all looking really weird. We went back in and climbed back up into our room. We’d seen when we were outside that this tiny window was actually a large window with most of it being blanked off. I was wondering about how I could take off the blanking so that the window would look a lot brighter and make the room look brighter.

That’s not everything aither, but then again you don’t really want to know the rest, especially if you’re eating a meal.

Rosemary had rung me up at some point during my lesson so I phoned her back as soon as it was over. We had another one of our long marathon chats. She has to go for some surgery on her knee very soon. It seems that old age is catching up on all of us.

That, regrettably, was that. I’d been feeling rather flaky for a little while and not long after we hung up, I drifted off into never-land for some time. It took me a while to recover afterwards, and then I began to look for music for the next radio programme, although I didn’t get very far.

Tea tonight was the last of the vegan sausage rolls with salad and chips, delicious as usual. But I’ll have to think about baking my own sausage rolls in future.

This calls for a cunning plan, and I need to find a recipe for vegan sausage stuffing. As for the pastry, I’ll have to buy it ready-name. making flaky pastry from scratch is an extremely complicated process.

Shopping tomorrow, not that I need all that much. But I’ll go out all the same. It won’t be for long but at least I’ll have some fresh air.

But that’s tomorrow. Tonight, I’m off to bed and I’ll hope for a good night. If I don’t have a good sleep, I hope that I’ll go for a good wander around instead.

Thursday 10th August 2023 – I HAD ANOTHER …

… really mobile night last night. And a busy day too. Things seem to be warming up.

When the alarm went off this morning at 07:00 I was with a couple of people who were planning on going on a cycling tour. They were showing me their bikes and how the framework for the pannier fitted on. I could see that there was some recessed bolt holes in the frame and the pannier mounts slid down them and you just pushed a bolt through the frame and the bolt hole in the pannier outfit.

So not having beaten the first alarm I was still able to beat the second. And then after the medication and checking the mails and messages I listened to the rest of the night’s travels on the dictaphone. Nerina and I were going somewhere on a night out to Nantwich or Audlem, somewhere like that. We had to hurry to catch the bus. There was then some talk that we might stay over a couple of days so I had to find some clothes. I couldn’t find any so in the end I had to find an old suitcase of mine with some clothes in it. That was inside the cats’ house. I had to persuade the cats to leave their little house which took a long time. Then I had to take out my suitcase and look through it. I couldn’t find any trousers. I wasn’t sure if I could still fit in my jeans so I had to try on a pair. Then I couldn’t stand up. I needed help for that. In the end I tried them on when I was standing on the floor. I then looked at the time. It was something like 22:10 and the bus was going to leave any minute now. We were clearly going to miss the bus and then next one would make us ridiculously late so I began to think about going in the car and arriving quicker like that

And then I had another long dream that all immediately evaporated the moment I reached for the dictaphone. I can’t remember a thing at all about it. Not a thing. I’m soaked in sweat though so it must have been something interesting.

Later on I’d been somewhere to do something in connection with the group in which I played and we were on our way back. Coming from Congleton towards Crewe there was plenty of traffic. I had my foot down and was going quite quickly, passing the traffic wherever I could. There was a part where you came to a roundabout where the road split into two lanes. I went into the outside lane there and drove all the way down the outside of a line of vehicles, reached the roundabout, spun round the roundabout and came off at my exit, probably cutting in on someone else. The engine of the car cut out. I couldn’t restart it. I had to get out and push the car across the roundabout into a side road. There were vehicles in the way. I rolled into a vehicle. By now this roundabout had transformed itself. It wasn’t the roundabout in Hungerford Road where it was earlier on but now a roundabout back in Sandbach. It was where the guy who played drums lived. There was all sorts of things going on around this area, people using bad language etc. I thought “I wonder how my drummer’s family who were quite respectable people, were coping with what’s going on in the other houses and families around here”.

I was also at a huge factory place last night. 2 huge square glass buildings situated on the far side of a really wide river. The car parking was on one side of the river and you had to walk down a path and across a – not even a bridge but like a concrete path that went across the river and into the factory complex. We’d been there with a couple of people and walked back to the car park. I decided that I wanted to go back to look at some more of it. I said “I’ll be back shortly”, turned round and walked all the way back down the long path, across the concrete path across the river and back to the complex. It took me about 20 minutes to walk there and will take me another 20 minutes to walk back later plus however much time I’d want to spend walking around the factory complex. I’d left them sitting on a car park waiting for me. I’m not going to be very popular by the time I return. I thought to myself that I’d be lucky if they were still there waiting.

Finally my car needed some work doing on it so my father said that he’d help me if I took the car round to him. He lived in Norway north of Narvik so I said that I’d go round after work. While I was at work I was trying a cut-and-paste of a section of an image over an object in an image that I wanted to hide. For some reason I couldn’t make the piece that I’d cut out transfer over via a memory stick or an external hard drive or anything. There was a crowd of people round watching me including TOTGA. I carried on trying but it wouldn’t work. I said that I’d do it after work so a couple of people said that they’d stay behind to watch. Then I remembered that I had to go to see my father. At 16:00 I apologised to everyone who was disappointed that I was going, and set out. Narvik is a long way from Brussels and it was late in the evening. I was in Norway and seen the signs for Narvik. Somehow I’d missed my turning and ended up at a riverside on a gravel road looking at all these boats. I had to rurn round to retrace my steps to find where I’d gone wrong. Then I encountered a load of Volkswagens that had all been in accidents and were heading off somewhere. They had headlights taped into the wing with sellotape so that at least they’d have some light when it went dark. I remembered that my father’s wife had wanted me to sort out some money for her and do a couple of other things. By now it was really late at night. I was thinking that I have all this to do, fix my car, sort out my father’s wife, fix this image that needs doing and be back at work in Brussels in the morning. I’m just never going to fit all this in.

An hour or two were then spent working my way through my notes for my Welsh lesson. But as usual, with having a teflon brain, nothing is sticking.

The lesson itself passed quite quickly again but it was rather patchy. Some of the stuff I could do quite happily but some other stuff was rather … errr … challenging and I don’t know what I’m going to do about that. Nothing, I reckon. You can’t teach an old dog like me new tricks.

When the lesson was over I waded through the radio programme and finished off all of the notes for the second radio programme I’ve done this week. And who knows? I might even start a third tomorrow.

Another exciting task was to write an article for a Welsh newspaper. The new JD Cymru League season starts tomorrow so I’ve written a few hundred words about the teams competing and what I think of their chances

Whether or not it’s published is another thing entirely but it’s one of those things that has to be done by someone at some time.

Tea tonight was one of the vegan burgers out of the European Burger Mountain in the fridge with some pasta and veg in tomato sauce.

Tomorrow morning I have to nip into town early in the morning to do my shopping before the Welsh lesson. It’ll have me running around so I’ll need to have an early night and have some rest.

But if I go off on a few travels during the night in the same way that I have been just recently, I’ll need a rest to recover when I wake up.

EPIC HALL

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