Tag Archives: lie in

Sunday 3rd November 2019 – I HAD A …

… rather late day today. In fact my timetable was pushed back quite considerably.

It started quite late too – but then again it IS a Sunday and I’m allowed to lie in bed. No-one was happier than me to notice that the time when I awoke was 09:30. I’ve needed a night like that.

Plenty of time to go on a ramble during the night and when I’ve made any sense (such as it is) of the incoherent ramblings on the dictaphone I’ll tell you all about it.

So it was a slow start to the day and with it being a Sunday, I didn’t do much at all. 7 entries on the dictaphone was the most important part of the day’s work, and there were quite a few lengthy ones in there. That’s why I missed my morning walk and why I didn’t finish until after 16:00 (with an interruption for lunch of course).

As well as the lengthy ones that I mentioned, there was another one where I fell asleep again in mid-dictate so I’ll never know how that one ended.

One thing that I did was to find the time to go outside for my afternoon walk.

This storm, which has a name by the way, was still raging outside with an incredible violence. There were times when any kind of forward progress was impossible, with Tempète Amélie blowing me backwards.

But nevertheless I kept on pushing forwards. As Bob Dylan once famously said, “the only thing I knew how to do was to keep on keepin’ on”

In the absence of the morning walk I went on an extended hike around the headland on the new path and then down and back through the town.

As I rounded the headland, I was out of the worst of the storm but even here in the Baie de Mont St Michel it’s whipping itself up into a frenzy.

And, surprisingly, despite the violence of the wind, there was a fog of sorts out there. And the answer to that clearly isn’t Blowin’ in the wind, is it?

Back home and fuelling up with a nice warm coffee, I cracked on with updating the web pages and that’s another pile of those done. I’m making progress with that.

But I was so carried away that I ran past tea-time and it was 20:00 when I started to prepare the pizza. And then after half an hour and it still hadn’t cooked, I realised that I had had the setting for the heat turned down. No wonder things took so long yesterday.

Still, it was delicious, and so was the rice pudding that followed it down.

Totally alone on my evening walk tonight. But then again it was 22:00.

Not quite alone though. There was a trawler heading off out into the open seas despite the storm. People still have to eat, so fishermen still need to fish.

And my hat goes off to them going out there in weather like this.

At one stage of my walk I broke into a run again, and I managed to do the full length of my little track. Mind you, I bet that I’ll suffer for it tonight.

A busy day tomorrow so I’m off to bed early. I’ll let you know how the Day of Judgement went.

Thursday 31st October 2019 – I DIDN’T …

… manage to get out for my evening walk/run tonight.

Just for a change I’d managed to be ready quite early so that I could make the most of it, when Rosemary rang. One hour and 35 minutes we were on the phone and so that was really that. I can’t go for a walk at 22:00

And so, all in all, it was a good job that I’d had my long walk up to LIDL today.

Not this morning though because I was doing other things this morning. Like sleeping. I didn’t leave the bed until about 09:30 this morning.

And it wasn’t my fault either. There I was planning to go to bed and have a nice early night last night, and just as I was about to switch off the computer, then Hawkwind Live Chronicles came onto the playlist.

The best album I’ve heard for a long time too so I stayed awake to listen to it. All 1 hour and 25 minutes of it.

And as that ended, then Ocean by Eloy came on. The second-best album I’ve heard in a while. So I stayed up and listened to that.

What with one thing and another, it was eventually 03:05 when I switched off the computer and went to bed.

Mind you, it wasn’t completely wasted time because I’d done some work updating the web pages during that time.

A late start meant that everything else, like my shower, was late too. And before I hit the streets I had to organise the rail tickets for Belgium and print them all off so that I had them to hand.

First stop in town was at the bank. I needed to pay for what I purchased yesterday and as the money is going abroad it needed to be done quickly and, more importantly, correctly. Hence the bank.

Second stop was at the railway station. I know that I’m trying to go paperless these days but I would feel a lot better with the tickets actually in my hand, so I printed them off at the machine there.

Finally I made it t LIDL but I didn’t buy all that much. However they did have a range of vegan blackcurrant sorbet so in a gesture of solidarity I bought one. What I didn’t buy though was garlic! Sold out! And that’s a shock for me because a kitchen without any garlic isn’t a kitchen at all.

On the way back to the apartment I took a diversion via the docks to see the new boat. And she’s not a new boat at all but our old friend Aztec Lady back from her summer season at Svalbard I must remember one of these days to find out more about her voyages.

After lunch I tackled a job that I have been putting off for a week or so – and that was to freeze the carrots. Only just in time too because they were on the turn. But they are all peeled, diced, blanched and in the freezer.

And what was left (there were too many for the saucepan) I made a carrot and coconut soup, I was rather too extravagant with the powdered ginger and it’s rather overwhelmed it. Still, it’s in now and you can’t take it out.

While that was going on, I had a go at tidying the freezer. And there is tons of stuff in there. Enough pies to sink a ship for a start, and a second set of four frozen aubergine and kidney bean whatsits that I had forgotten that I had made. So for the next two months it’s pie one night and kidney bean and aubergine whatsit on another before I even start thinking about the rest of the meals.

Last night before going to bed I’d checked Caliburn’s battery. 14.0 volts and the “fully charged” light was on, so I had unplugged it. This morning when I checked it, it was showing 12.9 volts (which is good) and this afternoon, 6 hours later, it was still showing 12.9, so it’s not losing any significant charge. I coupled it up to Caliburn and he fired up immediately into life, so at least I can take him for his controle technique on Tuesday and be back on four wheels by the end of the week.

Having done that, I went for my afternoon walk. And on returning I found that somehow I have contrived to manage to lose my fitbit. And that’s before the new bracelet has arrived too, for which I pad a shed-load of money. No idea where I lost it either. It’s probably fallen out of my pocket while I was walking around, in which case it’s probably gone for good.

These days I seem to be making far too much of a habit of losing all my possessions. I’m not sure what’s going on but I definitely seem to be breaking up.

Back at the apartment I had a little doze for 10 minutes and regular readers of this rubbish will be the first to remark that this is the first time in about a week that I’ve crashed out. That’s definitely progress of some kind.

But once back on my feet I tackled a few of these marathon dictaphone entries. Five of them in fact and that might sound reasonable, but the mega 20-minute one is next on the list and I need to be on form for that. So that’s a job for tomorrow morning, I reckon.

Tea, was as promised, the burger on a bap. delicious it was too, even though it was interrupted by two young girls trick-or-treating. Luckily I have a sweetie-jar here so I was able to hand out some goodies. They aren’t getting their hands on my grapes though. That’s the one good thing that I’ve found about going out for small amounts of shopping several times per week – tha it means that I can buy several loads of grapes.

As I’d used the last of the coconut soya cream in the carrot soup, I went for the blackcurrant sorbet to go on my fruit salad, only to find that I’d forgotten to put it in the freezer. “That was an expensive way to get a storage container” I mused, but it hadn’t actually defrosted too far.

So Rosemary on the phone, and now bed-time. No guitar today, and no web-site amendment either. I’m falling behind again and I need to get on top of things. It’s too late for an early night too.

I really must get myself organised.

Sunday 27th October 2019 – DID YOU REMEMBER …

… to put your clocks back last night?

Back one hour for those of us living in the Real World and back 200 years for those of you living on that insignificant offshore island out there somewhere.

That isn’t anything that would bother me too much because most of what I have is automatic. So when I awoke this morning at … errr … 08:50 to find that it really was 08:50 and the automatic adjusters had done their stuff, I was immensely happy.

For once, I’d had a really good sleep.

It was … errr … somewhat later when I stuck my sooty foot out of bed and had the medication. And later still by the time that I had had my breakfast. But isn’t that what Sunday is all about? The one day each week where you can do nothing and not regret it.

It reminds me of a famous quote from “Gunsmoke” which went something along the lines of “Sunday is the one day of the week a man can get up at noon and sit around with his boots off without anybody hollering at him about it “. Sentiments with which I concur wholeheartedly.

First thing that I did this morning (or what was left of it) was SHOCK! HORROR! some tidying up. The bedroom was looking rather cluttered so i actually put some stuff away for a change.

A friend was on the internet too so we had a little chat for a while seeing as it was Sunday.

Just as I was about to go to lunch, someone else came on line. She’s a techy, savvy person who works as a professional web designer and investigator, and had been referred to me by a friend.

She had a look at my site with various tools and although there might be one or two little issues here and there, the coding that I did the other day works fine and is visible as it is supposed to be all (the odd issue about Adobe Flashplayer here and there) across every browser and operating system, even Safari and MAC.

That is something that has pleased me greatly.

So after lunch I had a couple of things to do and then went for a walk outside. I took the longer route around the headland seeing as I had missed my promised morning walk. It’s somewhat tough clambering up and down the steep path and stairs but I need to push myself onwards and, of course, upwards.

Tea was another pizza – just as delicious as earlier in the week, and followed by the rest of the rice pudding. That was good too and I enjoyed it very much.

And for the evening walk, I pushed myself along into a run again and did a couple of hundred metres before I had to slow down. But that is only positive because, as I said before, there were times with this illness when I could barely walk.

And I’ll keep at it too. I’ll see if I can’t get up something like I did when I was running every night for miles 25 years ago, although there aren’t the facilities here. In any case, I intend to grow old disgracefully.

As for work though, I’ve made a start on transcribing the dictaphone entries. But you can all calm down for I am a long way from anything interesting, controversial or salacious. At a rate of 7 entries per day (which is what I did today although judging by the size of a few of them, the rate will end up at much less than that) it will take me a good few months to catch up with everything. You will all have died of boredom long before then.

So now I’m listening to Hawkwind Live Chronicles, magnificent album that it is, and about to continue the work on updating my website, now that I know that it’s working properly.

Not that I’m going to be here long though. I have a meeting tomorrow so I need my beauty sleep.

Friday 25th October 2019 – I’M ALL …

… alone here tonight. And I will be for the next couple of weeks too.

Strawberry Moose has gone off on his travels again to see some more of his fans.

No-one is quite sure when he’ll be back again but I bet that he will have a few stories to tell me when he returns. It’s all right for some, isn’t it though? Some of us have to stay behind and work for a living.

Not that you would notice, though, around here. Despite the three alarms going off this morning, it was still 07:40 when I finally hauled myself out of bed.

But then I’d had another late night (albeit not as late as the other night) scratching my head over this blasted Javascript menu. I told you last night when I wrote my blog that I was a just a couple of inches away from a breakthrough. And so by the time that I went to bed I must have advanced about half a millimetre.

It wasn’t all work though. TOTGA was on-line so we had a good chat for an hour or so too. It’s been ages since we had a really good chin-wag and it was nice to hear her dulcet tones again.

The purpose of my chat was to try to persuade her to come and join in the fun in Leuven. But without success. “A Prior engagement” she said. Not like Kenneth Williams who once turned down an invitation on the grounds of “a subsequent engagement”, so I suppose that I ought to be thankful for that at least.

So this morning after the medication and breakfast, I had a stinking hot shower and then dashed round to tidy everywhere up. I was expecting visitors and the place was something of a tip with my having unpacked a l’improviste.

By the time that Liz and Terry turned up, the place was looking something like, and they could at least sit down.

We had a coffee and a good chat about this and that – not about the other because that is of course sub judice right now – and I told them of my (mis)adventures on my voyage just now.

I’d mentioned it to TOTGA last night and she told me that she had never heard me talk like I did at that moment (which is not really true because she remembers me when I was someone else, although she was only a kid at the time) so I made an effort to restrain myself (something that doesn’t come easily to me, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall) when talking to Liz.

Nevertheless Liz was rather aghast. Not that this means that she was surprised. She used to be a primary school teacher in a deprived area of the UK so she’s seen human nature at its worst, but I suppose that with the voyage being as expensive as it was, we both expected a better class of person with a better standard of behaviour.

So they wandered off and I sat down to crack on with my Javascript menu. I forgot about my additional walk.

By 16:00 I had made a breakthrough – of sorts. I can now make Javascript tags pick up web pages on my own site but not on an external site. Still, it’s progress of a sort and it means that I can go onwards.

To celebrate, I made lunch. Yes – at 16:00 because I had forgotten earlier, being engrossed. And it was something of a disappointment because the bread that I had left in the ice compartment of the fridge and which I had taken out to defrost – well, it wasn’t very good at all and it all ended up in the bin.

But it’s Saturday tomorrow and I’m going for a walk to LIDL where I can buy some more.

Not wishing to forget another walk, I nipped out straight afterwards for a lap around the headland and then back to carry on with my menu.

And, as is quite often the case, the simplest solutions are usually the correct one. I was struggling away for quite a while trying to work out how to display a vertical line. ASCII codes, ALT codes and all of that didn’t work, so in a moment of despair, I tried
document.write( ‘|’);
and much to my surprise, it actually worked. And I’d wasted an hour or so on it too.

Another thing that I tried to do was to figure out how to make a space in Javascript. Once again, after much binding in the marsh, I tried the simple
document.write( ‘ ‘);
and that worked too.

After that, passing onto a new line was easy. Yes. I tried
document.write(‘br /’);
and that just printed out the br /. So I tried
putting the br / bit in the “greater than” and “less that” brackets, and that worked just fine.

There’s probably a far easier method to do it all, but at least I know that what I’ve programmed seems to work well enough for now. And having it all saved in an external file, I only need to update it once for it to update on every page on my site.

Just two tasks to work out now.

The simplest one is how to access an external page via a Javascript link. I’m hoping that that won’t be too difficult, but knowing me, it probably will.

More difficult will be the task of nesting Javascript files. I want to make a sidebar file with the menu, the hit counter, the stats analyser and the Amazon blocks in it. Then I can just import the main Javascript file into every page on my site with all of the subsidiary blocks in it, and an amendment to the main Javascript file will make the amendment on every page.

Iframes or *.php would ordinarily be the answer, but Secured sites won’t display iframes and I know nothing about *.php, and at my age I’m too old to learn this kind of thing.

Talking of being too old, I went for my evening walk around the city walls and at one stage broke into a run. I kept it up for a couple of hundred metres too.

That surprised me immensely, because regular readers of this rubbish will recall that after my operation in January 2016 when they ripped out half of my insides, I couldn’t even walk and had to have re-education.

It really impressed me, that little bit of running did. Maybe it’s something to do with losing all of this weight. I dunno.

This evening I carried on with the Javascript menu, listening to a couple of really belting albums. Elegy by the Nice was the first one. No relation to Grey’s “Allergy to a Country Churchyard”, it’s one of the all-time classic albums that will always be on my playlist.

The second is much more exciting. One of the ones that I picked up in Ottawa.

After Arthur Brown disappeared from “The Crazy World of …”, Vincent Crane and Carl Palmer recruited a couple of new musicians and carried on as “Atomic Rooster”. Palmer left to join ELP, but Crane struggled on for quite a while, with a revolving door of new members and mental health breakdowns until he committed suicide in 1989.

In 1980, during one of their more active periods, they played at the Marquee Club in London. No bassist – and no vocalist either, so the guitarist John Du Cann sang on the vocal tracks. And while he will be the first to admit that he’s no vocalist, he gave it a really good go and the energy and enthusiasm that roared off the stage on Live at The Marquee 1980 is absolutely phenomenal.

But now it’s bed-time. And I have a lot to do tomorrow. All on foot too!

And I almost forgot to say “hello” to Pollux who put in an appearance during the night. First time for a while too.

Thursday 24th October 2019 – THAT VEGAN PIE …

… that I made just before leaving on my Trans-Atlantic voyage back in June, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, well, it’s absolutely delicious. I had my first slice of it today.

With jacket potatoes peas and carrots too, followed by a real and proper rice pudding, complete with skin. Yes, I had the oven on today so I may as well fill it, hey?

I went to the shops to buy some more stuff like carrots, of which I have run out. But not this morning though. Ohh no!

And for two reasons, the second of which was that this morning it was teeming down with rain and I wouldn’t send a dog out in that kind of weather, never mind myself.

But the first reason was much more realistic. In fact, I slept right through the alarms and didn’t stock my leg out of bed until about 10:30. That didn’t leave me much time.

Mind you, there’s a very good reason for the late awakening. I was wrestling with a rather knotty problem in Javascript and I was determined that I was going to crack on and resolve it regardless.

By the time that I was in a position to shout “Eureka” it was … errr … 03:10 and I didn’t even go to bed them but had one or two other things to do.

Nevertheless I was pleased that I had broken the back of the Javascript issue. That has cheered me up no end and I can move forward.

This morning after a very late breakfast I attended to a few issues on here.

The first issue is that with my dramatically-increased readership, most of whom come from the other side of the Atlantic, I seem to have fallen foul of the Federal Trade Commission in the USA.

Apparently I have to make a formal statement that I receive commissions from Amazon when someone purchases something using the links from my site.

Last year, I earned a total of about $30:00, which doesn’t even pay for two months’ worth of web hosting but nevertheless, there are no exceptions on small amounts.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that every few weeks I make mention of it on these pages to remind everyone to help me out by using my links to order stuff, but apparently that’s not sufficient. A formal statement is required.

So if you look carefully, you’ll notice that there’s an extra link above the title bar and the little yellow box to the right has increased somewhat in size, with extra text

Having dealt with that issue, it was time to stop for lunch.

No tomatoes and no hummus either, but there was some carrot soup in the freezer, left over from about two years ago, and it doesn’t keep for ever. So into the saucepan it went with a little extra water and some small pasta elbows.

And it was just as delicious as it was when I made it.

After that, I walked on up to LIDL. And the new keen, lean me strode out up the hill with no real effort. Losing that 8kgs has made me feel so much better and I’m pleased about that.

With no Caliburn for at least another fortnight I had to do a big shopping and maul it all by hand back home again. Two large bags full and although it was something of a struggle I made it home with no real complications. And as a reward I allowed myself a second coffee.

But I’ll stride out on Saturday to LIDL too for more goodies. I’ll keep on doing that every couple of days for now.

One thing that I should have mentioned is that I’ve had a letter from the hospital. My next appointment is on 15th November. That accords with the four-weekly routine which, while inconvenient and I wish that they would stretch it out, means that they didn’t find anything in all of these extra tests to worry them unduly.

But AT LAST I seem to have been able to arrange my appointments for a Friday. That’s much more interesting for me, not the least reason being that I can go to the shops and buy food for breakfast and the like when I arrive on Thursday which I couldn’t do when my appointments were on Monday so I arrived on a Sunday.

It was killing me, having to pack all of my food in on the train.

I mentioned to a few people that I would be there for the whole of that weekend and it looks as if a few of my friends are going to be coming along to Leuven for that weekend. If you happen to be free for that weekend and can make it to Leuven (an excellent rail service from Brussels National Airport 20 minutes away) let me know.

Now that I have a “contact me” button down in the bottom right corner of the screen you don’t even have to post a comment!

Tea was, as I mentioned, pie and potatoes followed by rice pudding. And then a very lonely late-night walk (because I was very late with tea) around the headland.

So what was I doing that was making me late?

Wrestling with yet another knotty Javascript problem. But I did keep at it until I was able to achieve the breakthrough. Now, I’m just a couple of inches away from being able to make a simple javascript menu that I can transport onto each of my web pages rather than having to make a menu for each individual page.

I’m not sure how it’s going to work, but I’ll tell you tomorrow. That’s because I’m going to crack on and work on it.

Chocks away!

Monday 21st October 2019 – YOU CAN SAY …

… that again!!!!

Certainly glad to be back in my own bed last night. So much so that I was in it for a grand total of FOURTEEN HOURS!

12:10 when my eyes first saw the light of day, but it was more like 13:10 when i crawled out of ye olde stinkinge pitte and looked around the room.

Nothing much seems to have changed except that the language settings on the laptop in the dining room have been changed and some of the clothes in the drawer seem to have been rearranged. I wish that people would leave things as they find them when they look around. I have a hard-enough time trying to find things that I’ve moved, never mind things that others have moved.

And if you don’t know how to disable the logging-on timer on a computer, you shouldn’t be logging on. I tell you – I learnt an awful lot when I studied for my Diploma in Computing.

Mind you, none of the foregoing is to give the impression that I was stark out for all of that time. One glance at the dictaphone is enough to convince anyone. 5 entries there are, and a total of 13 minutes of recording.

That must have been some eventful night and I can’t wait to find out where I was and where I went.

So, the medication and a very late lunch – never mind breakfast. And then to work.

With being away for as long as I had, there was a huge pile of stuff on the back-up drive and all of it needed copying over to the desktop machine. And then with it having been installed on at least three other machines over a short space of time, it all needed verifying to make sure that I had everything in one place – and in the right place too.

There was a short break while I went for a walk. And having missed the morning walk that I promised myself, I went on an extended circuit – the one that goes over the new bit of path that they rebuilt.

And I can safely say that after my four months away from home, I’m leaner and fitter. As well as meaner, but that’s a completely different story.

Flak at the bat, I carried on with the updating of everything, and then started on another little project.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I now have a new web-stats analyser on my blog.

And who could fail to fall in love with it when not only does it give me accurate information for a change, it gives me facilities like this aside?

Yes, it’s all out there and freely available. You won’t get any better (or worse, depending on your point of view) information from anywhere. And so I’m going to add this analyser to all of my other sites. I’ve long-suspected that the stats that I’ve been receiving from them are pretty much rubbish too

And I’ve found out why the stats on another of my sites has plummeted so much just recently. It seems that when there was a server upgrade a while ago, I was given a free secure site upgrade, and that’s running as a mirror site. And while I’ve had 2353 hits so far this month on the “standard” unsecured site, the secured (https) site has received 1669 in October to date.

When I add those two together, it gives a figure much more in line with what I would ordinarily expect to see.

As a result, I’ve started a project that will see a different hit counter added to both these sites. Mind you, just like all of the projects that I have on the go right now, heaven alone knows when this one will be completed.

And that reminds me – for the dozens of users still using Windows version 7 – you do know that Microsoft is discontinuing support for it in the New Year? You need to upgrade your version of Windows or else make sure that you have a good anti-virus.

Another thing that I did today was to install a new internet chat facility on the desktop machine. The old-established ones are dying like flies so I need something more modern. Rhys and I were having a play around with it today to find its strengths and weaknesses.

For tea I had to chisel the drawers out of the freezer to find a curry and vegetables. The door being closed for four months without any air circulation has led to a build-up of ice inside and I had some kind of difficulty opening it all.

But a lovely potato and vegetable curry went down really well and for dessert, I found some chocolate. That will do me just fine until I can get round to organising myself again.

And I need to too. You’ve no idea how long it took me to figure out how to use the microwave oven again.

There’s an acoustic guitar in here so as well as the bass I’ve been plucking away at Kris Kristofferson’s “Bobby McGee”. I’m determined to master that, and master it pretty soon.

And talking of music, for most of the day I’ve had the music going on on the computer – Traffic’s “On The Road” on a continuous loop. One of those albums that I never tire of hearing. And I’ll be listening to it for most of the night because I’m not in the least tired. 14 hours of sleep means a lot of awakening.

Perhaps I should watch a film?

Saturday 19th October 2019 – I SEEM TO HAVE …

… made rather a mess of things just recently.

If coming home from North America to Europe via Africa isn’t bad enough, then the tortuous route that I have to take to complete my journey home really puts the tin hat on things.

of course, there are several reasons for this. The constant changing of my plans didn’t help, my own unwillingness to leave North America and of course my constant vacillation (never put off until tomorrow what you can put off until next week) are all factors that have contributed towards this, although I can quite rightly curse my bad luck on occasion too.

But let’s start with this morning.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I half-jokingly said that I would probably be wide-awake at 04:30 this morning. Well, do you know what? I wasn’t all that far out.

Last night I couldn’t believe how quickly time went by while I was writing up my notes and doing some housekeeping. In no time at all it seemed to be 03:00 in the morning and I was far from tired.

But to be on the safe side I switched off the alarms and went to bed. And resorted to the usual stand-by of watching a film on the laptop. It never seems to fail to work … “it has done once or twice, you know” – ed … and this time was no exception. Flat out after about five minutes.

There is a good reason why I never travel home the day immediately following my medication, and that is that there is sometimes a Counter-coup and this is exactly what happened today.

I was out like a light until 10:00 and didn’t feel a thing all night. And I still managed to go to sleep again until 11:00 when I was awakened by the chambermaid wanting to clean the room. But I chased her away.

It really was time for me to raise myself from the dead I suppose and I set to work. And this is where my troubles really began.

For a start, there are major reconstruction works on the railway line south of Brussels so there are no early morning trains. My favourite, the 08:13, is one of those that has been cancelled so I’m having to go later.

No chance of catching my 11:15 or whatever train to Granville, so it’s just as well that that has been cancelled too. In fact there are no trains going from Paris to Granville tomorrow, for some reason or other. The best that I can do is to take a bus at about 13:00. And that gets into Granville at heaven alone knows what time.

And if that isn’t bad enough, I seem to have forgotten that it’s Sunday tomorrow and there are no buses in Granville. So I’ll have to walk, with about 30kg of luggage about my person.

I’m not doing too well, am I? But at least, the absence of a printer to print my tickets has made me finally go “paperless” by adding some apps on my mobile phone, so at least some good may have come of it all.

Having organised that, the next thing to organise was some food. Off I headed to the Delhaize in the railway station for a baguette, some tomatoes, hummus, bananas and drink. What I ate was delicious and there’s more for tomorrow too.

This afternoon, in the absence of my decent graphics program (Paint Shop Pro) that has gone with the wind following the collapse of the old laptop, I’ve had to learn how to use the add-on facilities of Irfanview in order to carry out a project that needs to be done this evening for tomorrow.

Despite all of the time that it took me to do it, it’s simply not possible to do it as well as Paint Shop Pro might have done it. But it’s a free program and it’s reminiscent of Samuel Johnson’s remark on women’s preaching – “It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”

As if to underline the benefits of prudence when I’m having my medication, I was obliged to take to my bed round about 17:00 and I slept it off until about 18:30 or so. The strain is certainly proving too much for me right now.

But I made it into town this evening to my little cafe for a plate of lentils with bread. No chips though – I’m going to keep on with this “cutting down” of my dietary requirements to see if I can keep the weight off, and I’m also going to try to add another daily walk into my routine when (if) I finally make it home. At first that should be pretty easy because there is no food in the house and without a mobile Caliburn I won’t be able to do a large mega-shop for a while.

And to ease off all of the pain and torment about my problems right now, I had a listen to some more music. Ocean by a German group called Eloy, and it’s probably one of the finest “Krautrock” albums ever. I never tire of listening to it.

The opening track, “Poseidon’s Creation”, includes the line “Son of the Gods, daughter of the earth .. ” and who does that remind you of? It’s quite bizarre how things suddenly appear like that and trigger off a switch in your mind?

So on that note, seeing as we are discussing music, I’ll go to bed and try for a good sleep. It’s going to be another long, hard day tomorrow.

Monday 14th October 2019 – SOMETIMES IT’S VERY HARD …

… to say goodbye to people with whom one has been associated for so long, but today is the day that I hit the road, Jack (or Jacques, seeing that I’ll be heading towards Quebec).

4th September I arrived in New Brunswick and apart from 10 days or so clearing out my storage unit in Montreal and visiting family and friends in Ottawa I’ve been here ever since.

If I’m not careful I’ll be putting down roots next, and that will never do. I was born under a wandering star, as the old song went, and I’m destined to wander for the rest of my life until, making reference to a certain posting 6 or so weeks ago when I was still aboard The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour, Charon ferries me across the River Styx.

With it being Thanksgiving (which reminds me, Happy Thanksgiving to all of my Canadian family and friends and new readers, et Bonne Action de Grace a toute le monde francophone Canadien) we had another lie-in this morning. Nothing like as dramatic as yesterday’s. Not quite so early in bed, a small disturbance during the night, and raising myself from the Dead round about 08:45. But still, I’ll take that over almost any other night that I’ve had for quite some considerable time.

Eventually there was some noise coming from the rest of the house so I went in to join the (af)fray. We had a reasonably heavy brunch, nothing like the legendary Sunday one but a good one nevertheless, and then hung around chatting for ages. Everyone seemed to be in a very sociable mood today.

With me heading for the hills, I managed to make the printer fire up so I could print off all of my travel documents ready for the trip. Another task accomplished.

This afternoon people had tasks to do so I busied myself packing and having another play around on the bass guitar before I put it away in Strider where it will live for the next foreseeable future.

A curry was on the agenda for supper so for a change Hannah and I attacked it. For some reason that I don’t understand, it didn’t taste anything like as good as any previous one that I have made. I hope that I’m not losing my touch!

But as for my carrot soup, well, what more can I say? All of the leftover carrots (because there were tons of them) steamed slowly to warm them up, with bay leaves for added flavour, and then simmered gently for a while in coconut milk with ginger. Finally the bay leaves were removed and the whole lot given a ride around in the whizzer.

Totally delicious.

Finished packing, and leaving a few things behind such as my spare clothes and my deck shoes, because I seem to have acquired a Tupperware microwave fryer and a pile of CDs somewhere on my travels and it won’t all fit in, and then Rachel took me down to Irvings in Florenceville and the Maritime Atlantic bus.

21:15 it was scheduled to arrive, and at 21:15 arrive it did. And remind me never to travel on a Bank Holiday or thereabouts because it was packed and it was a struggle to find a seat. What I did find though was a backpack under the seat, apparently left behind by someone who had alighted earlier, so I took it down to the driver.

We eventually arrived at Riviere du Loup where we all change buses. It was cold, miserable, wet and rainy but nevertheless I had a chat to the driver. He comes up all the way from Moncton, sleeps in the hotel next door, and then drives all the way back the following day. Reminded me of my days with Shearings when I used to do an overnight run every Friday night from Manchester to Glasgow and Edinburgh and return the following day.

And while I was chatting, someone came around “has anyone seen a black backpack?” so I passed him on to the driver.

So now I’m sitting on a seat in a draughty windswept crowded waiting room here waiting for my bus to Montreal to arrive. I’m reaching the end of this phase of my journey and who knows where I’m going to end up next?

As Winston Churchill once said after the British flight from the Germans at Dunkirk, “this is not the beginning of the end. It is merely the end of the beginning”.

Sunday 13th October 2019 – I SAID YESTERDAY …

… that I was hoping to have a really good sleep last night. And to be honest, I said it without too much conviction.

So consequently, having closed my eyes at some time rather like 22:45 or thereabouts last night, no-one was more surprised than me to notice that when I reopened them, it was … errr … 09:45.

Out like a light, totally painless, didn’t feel a thing.

Even more surprisingly, all of my old good humour, positive thought and optimism had reappeared too. That led me to the conclusion that the deep depression in which I have found myself over the last … I dunno … seven or eight weeks and which affected my sea voyage around the High Arctic so much was caused by nothing more than good old plain and simple fatigue and exhaustion.

That’s certainly borne out by the facts, where in the latter stages of that journey I was existing on about three hours of sleep each night and being kept running by nothing more than adrenalin.

So this morning, with it being a Sunday, everyone else was having a lie-in too and no-one surfaced much before 11:00. The breakfast brunch ended up being much later than it usually is but it was delicious all the same.

After lunch I took Zoe down to her house in Woodstock. And by the time we got … “ohhh not again!” – ed. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I used to hire a Dodge Caravan I had a mattress that I used for sleeping. Almost new, it didn’t have much use and so when I emptied my storage locker I brought it back and gave it to Zoe for when she has visitors round at her house.

We went back up to Bob and Ellen’s afterwards to drop her off for a Thanksgiving Dinner. On the way we called at the tyre depot and a mammoth search around the premises turned up my missing notebook for which I shall be eternally grateful.

Ellen made me a coffee and we had a little chat, and then I wished them all goodbye. They wished me a pleasant voyage back to Europe, which was nice of them.

When I returned, everyone was out tidying up the yard. I was put on fire duty, in charge of the rubbish burning. We ended up with fire everywhere except where it was supposed to be, but armed with a big metal snow shovel I was able to deal with the matter before the house burned down.

I ended up smelling like a fire myself, so a shower and change of clothes was called for.

Some more stuff disappeared out of Strider too – into the garage downstairs.

Thanksgiving dinner here tonight. Rachel was cooking lamb for everyone so I made stuffed peppers for our little visitor and me. They were quite delicious. As a special treat I had saved two of the vegan muffins and the two of us ate them to celebrate our own Thanksgiving.

Plenty of carrots left over so the plan for tomorrow is to make a carrot soup using coconut milk, ginger and bay leaves. Meanwhile, I put the lamb bones in some water with some sage, thyme, rosemary and olive oil and I’m boiling them down to make some lamb stock. Not for me, I hasten to add, but for the basis of the weekly work soup for the carnivores.

But it did remind me of the story about when the BBC closed down the children’s programmes on radio and went to sell off all of the assets
“How much did we get for Larry the Lamb?” asked the BBC’s accountant.
“Three and six a pound” was the reply.

Rachel and I are chatting right now as I’m typing, and I’ll be off to bed in a short while. Desperate for another long sleep tonight (without the alarms because it’s a Bank Holiday tomorrow) but who knows?

And I need it too. Tomorrow is going to be a very long and painful night and I won’t be having much sleep at all.

Tuesday 8th October 2019 – I’VE BEEN …

… Mr Computer Repair Man again today.

having revelled in my triumphs a few days ago about getting my old Acer Laptop up and running after it crashed out on me in the USA and being able to salvage all of the data, down at the office today Rachel bunged another old laptop at me to see if I could raise that one from the dead too.

I spent a couple of hours working on it and, as much to my own surprise as anyone else’s, it’s now up and running again with not only all of the data still intact but all of the programs too.

It’s an old 2009 Lenovo with a 1.3ghz processor running Windows 7, but now that it’s working again it’s quite sprightly for its age as long as you don’t try to do anything too ambitious with it, but for taking down to the storeroom to do an inventory (which is why it was here in the first place) it’s just the job.

And talking of the storeroom, I’ve checked again and we do have indeed a large supply of 165/80 x 13 and 185/70 x 13 tyres for Ford Cortinas, as well as several other obsolete sizes too for other makes, so I’ve been posting the info on various North American classic car groups to try to drum up the sales.

All in all, I’ve had quite a busy morning.

A relaxing morning too. Although I heard all of the alarms go off, it was about 07:00 when I finally managed to raise myself from the dead. And with no school run this morning I was able to have a leisurely start to the day.

Not to transcribe the dictaphone notes though. There’s a couple on there from during the night and I’ll have to copy those over as soon as I can.

For once, Cujo the Killer Cat co-operated with me so I was able to leave the house pretty much when I wanted to without having to hunt her down.

This afternoon was more running around. Taking the cheques to be posted (it’s that time of the year) mainly.

But I had another task assigned to me which I managed to accomplish. In the garage is a 2004 Dodge Ram 1500 pick-up with a major electrical problem. With my little home-made testing apparatus I can tell that there’s a live feed reaching the relays at contacts where no live feed should be. This points to a short circuit in the fuse box somewhere and these are impossible to repair.

The easy answer is to replace the fuse box but, to my amazement (or maybe not, because I’ve long-since ceased to be amazed at the antics of modern motor manufacturers) the part is “no longer available” from the manufacturers.

Consequently, with the repaired laptop (and I’m glad now that I repaired it), I’ve been scouring the scrapyards of North America and I’ve eventually tracked down a rear-ended Dodge of the correct year and model in a scrapyard in Colorado.

A photo of the part on that truck looks identical to the one here, and so that’s now winging its way northwards in our direction. And who knows? We might even be able to make this Dodge start properly without having to hot-wire it all the time.

Fighting off waves of fatigue yet again (and I’ve no idea why) I went to pick up Amber from cheerleading practice after school, only to find that our little visitor had stayed behind too. Never mind the crowded cab when we have half-a-million strong therein by the time we get to Woodstock, it was pretty cramped in there with three, but we managed all the same.

Everyone was out this evening so I made myself some potato thins with onions, carrots garlic and assorted herbs with some vegan sausages, and it was delicious. Especially when followed down by one of the vegan muffins from the weekend.

Later this evening after tea I retreated to my room. I’m not feeling myself at the moment … “and quite right too” – ed … so some peace and quiet will do me good. I’m beginning to feel the strain and I really need a couple of days in bed to haul myself up again, but I doubt whether that will happen any time soon.

Looking at my schedule over the past three and a half months, it would have been pretty hectic for a younger person in good health. For an older person who is slowly dying, it’s been taxing to the limit and beyond.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Sunday 6th October 2019 – IT’S BEEN …

… another day that has been somewhat … errr … less-lively than the others.

Sunday is a Day of Rest as we all know, and resting until about 08:30 flat-out with hardly an interruption during the night is as restful as it gets.

I did manage to leave the bed though round about 09:15 for a trip down the corridor and on returning I found that the place in my nice warm bed had been taken by Cujo the Killer Cat, so I had company for a while.

The Taylor Breakfast Brunch was of the usual high standard, although it was rather later than usual because Strider and I had to run to the shops for some milk as we had run out.

I was summoned to the telephone too, and that took about 20 minutes to deal with.

After breakfast we chilled for a while and then I ran Darren back to the tyre depot where he was going to spend the afternoon working on the one-ton truck. He needs to have that running because we are going to take off the dump body from the old one-ton Ford that we brought down here the other week to fit on the new one so that we can haul grain sacks around with it.

Back here, I emptied out Strider and tidied him up some more. I gave a pile of stuff to Zoe and there’s some more for Darren too.

The pace though had rather overwhelmed me and back in my little room I had a doze for an hour or two – despite my lie-in this morning. But I livened myself up with a shower and a change of clothes. I look almost human now!

Rachel made a lovely tea, a kind of hamburger mash with baked potatoes followed by apple crumble. And I loitered around to chat to her and Zoe for ages.

But now I’m off to bed. Worn out too and I don’t understand it because I’ve had a quiet relaxing day. I always seem to be more tired when I’ve not done anything.

Sunday 29th September 2019 – SUNDAY IS A …

… Day of Rest.

And quite right too. No alarm so I could enjoy a nice long lie-in until all of … errr … 07:30. And even so, I didn’t show a leg until about 09:00.

That was when I looked at the dictaphone. And Good Grief!
01:14 worth of notes at 02:10
01:47 worth of notes at 04:20
03:04 worth of notes at 05:29
03:17 worth of notes at 07:21
That’s what I call a lively and turbulent night! I wonder what I’ve been saying.

But I tell you something – and that is that I shall be Living in Interesting Times when I transcribe all of these notes. And what will be even more exciting will be when I add them into the blog and tell you lot all about them.

At 09:00 I went into the kitchen and made myself a cup of coffee and then came back into the bedroom to work.

That took me all the way up to about 10:30 when Rachel came down after her Sunday lie-in. We cooked breakfast together and then laid the table for the Taylor Sunday Breakfast Brunch.

I’ve very likely told you all about the Taylor Sunday Breakfast Brunch. It’s a legendary experience and people travel thousands of miles in order to partake. All kinds of food is on the table, although being a vegan I have to “make do” (if you can call it that) with toast, jam, baked beans, hash browns and fried vegetables. Plenty of coffee too, as you might expect.

We did the washing-up afterwards and then organised a pile of washing. At one stage we ended up with only half a load of dark clothes so I nipped upstairs, had a shower and changed my clothes and then bunged my dirty stuff in with the rest.

Tea was next. Rachel was cooking a joint of meat so I found the flatbread again and made a couple of vegan pizzas, one for me and one for our little vegan visitor.

Rice pudding was next, and I had just enough coconut milk to make a vegan version. It’s a dessert that’s unknown in Montreal so our visitor was somewhat hesitant, but her plate didn’t remain full for long.

Washing up again and then I sat down and carried on with the work that I’ve been doing. And now I’ve completed the blog for July as far as I can until I can dismantle the old laptop and rescue the perishing hard-drive. If you want to see where I reached, then you need to go to THIS LINK and work your way backwards.

It will all be subject to revision in due course when I add in the photos and even more so when I add in the dictaphone notes.

As for the voyage for the second half of August, you’ll have to wait a short while for that to follow on. Other things are occurring.

So that was my Lazy Sunday. I’m off to bed to recuperate my strength a little as the week starts tomorrow. And it looks as if I’ve drawn the short straw tomorrow. School run starts at 07:45.

And in other news, my visitor from Celbridge in Ireland has been back for the last couple of nights, so Hello again! to you. But that’s not bothering me half as much as the question as to how a visitor to my site has managed to find his (or her) way directly here from what seems to be a link on a “certain type” of pornography website.

In fact, there are quite a few rather surprising links to my blog right now, from all kinds of places.

Strange goings-on indeed right now

Tuesday 24th September 2019 – I HAD MY …

… nocturnal voyage last night of course, but don’t ask me where I went because I have no idea.

All I know is that there’s another rambling 10 minutes or so on the dictaphone and it all seemed to have happened over an hour or so starting round about 02:45.

Np prizes for guessing who was accompanying me though. Having had a couple of days of rest, certainly Castor was back on duty during the night. I wouldn’t have not remembered that.

The alarms went off at 06:00 as usual but it was … errrr … some time later that I roused myself. Plenty of time for medication and to do a few things that needed doing before Sandra came down and we had breakfast together.

After breakfast I had a shower and Sandra washed my clothes for me which was very nice of her.

Then I hit the streets. I was aiming for the centre of town and the museums. The most important one here in Ottawa is the Aviation Museum but it’s closed one day a week as regular readers of this rubbish will probably realise, its day of closing is Tuesday.

That left, inter alia the Houses of Parliament. But the notice that I had read on the internet that amongst the items that I’m not allowed to take into Canada’s Parliament building are
“any pointed object (e.g. knitting needles and letter openers), electric stun guns, martial arts weapons or devices, slingshots, replica guns, explosive devices, ammunition, fireworks, knives of any size, razors and box cutters, tools, blunt instruments, flammable or harmful substances”.
So what’s the point of going if I can’t do any of that?

That left the War Museum so I went there. I arrived at 10:00 for what was expected to be a 2.5 hour visit, but I left there at 16:00.

Finding the place was exciting. There are road works all over Ottawa and I couldn’t turn right into the street where the museum is. That led to a frantic 10 minutes trying to find a way in and I passed the same road three times.

In the end, I drove right through Gatineau across the river and out around the back so that I could line myself up correctly.

And the car park has a height limit of 6’6″ so the roof bars on Strider made a mess of one or two of their signs.

Part of the time was spent looking at the military records of my great grandfather Thomas William Cooper. He was 50 when he signed up to fight in World War I but he lied about his age and his medical record shows that he “looked about 34” in 1914.

What they made of him having a son aged 20 who enlisted at more-or-less the same time isn’t recorded. But the Canadian Army was desperate for men and they couldn’t care less, especially as he had prior military service in the British Army in India and South Africa.

However, when he was demobilised due to ill-health in late 1917, they had his date of birth – 1864 – correct and his card is marked “age 53 – looks his age”.

I was then let loose on the exhibits and spent most of my time looking at the vehicles in the basement. They even had an early Fordson E83W van in there, and they bring back many happy memories for me because when we were small, my father had two of them one after the other – KLG93 and XVT772.

We used to travel all the way down to Kent in them in the late 50s and early 60s and it was a nightmare cramped inside there at a maximum 35mph for 250 miles.

We were so delighted when my father traded XVT in and bought a CA Bedford 967NVT. A beautiful van, complete with windows down the sides and proper seats for us kids, but the bodywork rotted off that right before our very eyes.

By 16:00 I was ready to leave and having checked that the car park would be open later, walked into the city.

I went to the Supreme Court to check it out and to work out an escape route for when I’ll be in there. And I managed to find a good way out too. I’l be back tomorrow to stash some civilian clothes and cash there. But one thing though – it took me longer to pass through “security” than it took me to case the joint.

Up to Parliament Hill to check that out too but it wasn’t so successful. Ottawa is a mess right now, everything is under repair and the Parliament buildings are surrounded by fences, piles of gravel and workmen. All disappointing.

Back at the War Museum and found it to be all locked up, including the car park. I did a couple of laps of the building before I found an intercom. A voice at the other end told me to go to the main door and wait – so I did.

After waiting a while someone came for me so I said “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting” – and he looked through me as if I had two heads.

But then he had to answer his radio, and he spoke in French. So when I said “je m’excuse pour le derangement” and he actually replied.

A monolingual Francophone in Ottawa. Who would have thought it?

The payment machines had been switched off so they needed to be switched on again. And then my card didn’t work on either floor so I had to use a new one.

Then I could rescue Strider – and he left his mark on a couple more signs on the way out.

Tea tonight was leftover pasta and then I decided on an early night.

After all of the excitement today, I’m keen to see where my voyages are going to take me. But before I go, seeing as I’m in a little maudlin mod right now,
here’s a certain little relevant something for one of the people who I believe is currently reading this blog.

I hope that it means something to you.

Sunday 22nd September 2019 – STILL IN OTTAWA

Yes, I’ve not quite outstayed my welcome yet. Haven’t disgraced myself at the dining table or trod on the cat or walked around with holes in my socks as yet.

But the week is young. Plenty of time to do that.

Plenty of time to sleep too. With it being Sunday, it was a Day of Rest as you might expect. I’d had a wonderful sleep in this comfortable bed, dead to the world and never felt a thing.

No files on the dictaphone either, which means that I don’t remember in my conscious or even my subconscious mind going anywhere either. So much so that when I awoke at 07:30 I was rather disappointed.

having had my medicine, at about 08:15 I went upstairs to the Land of the Living and had a coffee and some breakfast. That always makes me feel so much better, especially as Sandra had bought in some special breakfast food for me.

Sandra, Brian and I had a chat for most of the morning and then I went off for a shower and a change of clothes. Need to make myself beautiful. Then back for lunch, which was the remains of the curry from last night. And as everyone knows, left-over Indian food allowed to marinade in itself for 15 hours or so tastes even better than it did the night before.

While I’d been at the shower, Sandra had made certain enquiries which led to us being driven out of town to the “Diefenbunker”. That’s the Government of Canada’s underground former nuclear disaster control centre. Disaffected since 1994, it’s now a museum with guided tours.

Sandra had arranged for tickets which was nice of her and we had a guided tour around the premises followed by plenty of time to have a wander around. And the thing that will surprise most people is that the Prime Minister would be expected to come to the bunker but to leave his family outside at the mercy of radiation.

From there we went to the Nepean Sailing Club where Sandra’a sister and husband joined us. He’s an interesting character – owning a second-hand CD and LP shop in the city (and yes, I’ve arranged a visit tomorrow).

We had supper there but nice though the food was, we were back in the Belgian customer service here. No idea why anyone would serve up a vegan burger with mayonnaise, and when I asked for a replacement, I ended up having the plate thrown at me by the chef.

I posted a report on the Nepean Sailing Club’s page but had the message “This post will be reviewed by the site owner” – presumably meaning that they weed out all of the bad reviews and just approve the good ones.

It was a shame because the meal was excellent when I finally received it.

And I learnt something today that quite surprised me. Regular readers of this rubbish in one of its many previous incarnations will recall that as well as me, my cousin Gary Jewell in Montreal also played the bass guitar. But, surprisingly, one of Sandra’s brothers does too.

It seems that bass guitars have quite a connection in our extended family.

Back here, Sandra and I had a really good chat for hours and listened to some music before bedtime.

So I’m hoping for another good sleep. I have a second-hand record shop to visit tomorrow and who knows who else there is to meet?

Sunday 15th September 2019 – I MISSED …

… an exciting day today up in Grand Falls. Apparently they were having a drag racing afternoon.

Nothing more exciting than watching a bunch of men dash round a town while dressed in women’s clothes, but I had other fish to fry unfortunately and I was quite disappointed to have let the opportunity pass me by.

In fact I was out near Meductic moving furniture. Zoe has, as I mentioned earlier, bought herself a little house and she doesn’t have much furniture, but someone was disposing of a clean two-seater bed settee that transforms into a double bed and that will be just the thing.

And so having emptied out Strider, we set off for Zoe’s where she and a friend clambered aboard and then we all shot off southwards towards Fredericton.

Putting the bed in the back of Strider was the work of a moment and it was soon strapped in place. Back at Zoe’s, we unloaded the sofa and then I came home. Totally whacked. I just can’t do things like this any more.

Mind you, I don’t know why, because it’s not as if I had much of a difficult night. In bed comparatively early and apart from a brief foray down the corridor to ride the porcelain horse, disturbing our overnighters on the way, and a few interruptions to record things on the dictaphone (and I wonder what they are?) I had the kind of lie-in about which I have only been able to dream just recently.

09:00 when I finally surfaced, and just loitered around until it was time to go and deal with Zoe.

This afternoon, I’ve had a shower and, would you believe, a haircut, and I look almost human. As well as that, Rachel was having a marathon clothes-washing session and I’m now up to date with all clean clothes ready to leave here Wednesday morning for Montreal to clean out my storage locker and hopefully to go for a meal with Josee.

But having seen the fuel in Strider evaporate before my very eyes, I’ve been searching on the internet with Darren and we have finally found a performance chip which claims inter alia to offer an 8mpg fuel improvement.

And I tell you what – that if I could get an extra 8mpg out of Strider I will really be impressed. So tomorrow I shall be on the case.

For tea tonight we had baked potato – the carnivores with salmon and we vegans with a bean medley. Quite delicious and prepared with my own fair hands. And if I can find the time tomorrow, I’m going to make a curry.

But I’ve been a busy boy this evening. I’ve tracked down the complete digital tracks to two more albums that I own. The first one is Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy by Brian Eno. That was his second solo album after Roxy Music and was such a surprising album that it left me speechless when I first heard it, and that’s not something that happens every day, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

But it’s one of those albums that grow on you quite quickly and it’s always been in my top 100 albums out of the couple of thousand that I own.

The second one though is an album that means a great deal to me and for many reasons too.Warrior On The Edge Of Time features work that probably represents Michael Moorcock’s apogee as a science fiction writer, and several of the lyrics, adapted from works by Shelley and Wordsworth and set to Hawkwind’s space-rock music will penetrate deep into your bones.
“The golden void will speak to me
“Denying my reality
“lose my body, lose my mind
“blow like wind, I flow like wine
“Down a corridor of flame
“Will I fly so high again?”
Yes, what wouldn’t I give to be able to write meaningful lyrics like that after some of the things that I have done?

The album was thoroughly panned by the critics in the same was that A Passion Play was, and for the same reason too – that the critics didn’t understand what the musicians were trying to achieve.

The Melody maker wrote that Moorcroft’s poetry was delivered “with all the emotion of Davros being exterminated by renegade Daleks”, totally overlooking the fact that this was precisely the effect that Moorcroft and Brock wanted.

And when Lemmy wrote that ” ‘Opa-Loka’ was a lot of f***ing rubbish”, what he really meant to say that he didn’t play the bass line on it. It transpired much later that with Lemmy off on one of his little jaunts playing Hell’s Angels, Dave Brock refused to hang around and wait but played the bass line himself.

It’s quite true that Hawkwind has never ever recorded an album on which I have liked every track from start to finish, but “Warrior On The Edge Of Time” will be up there with the best of them.

But it has much more of a personal significance to me too. When the album was released I was dating Jackie Marshall. She worked at the Nantwich Library on Saturdays and used to scan the new rock albums that arrived, secrete them in a drawer, smuggle them out for me to record and then take them back next week. This particular album, she bought me for my birthday and inscribed a beautiful little message on the album cover which meant quite a lot to me – and still does.

But her parents hated me with a passion (like I said, I was a different person in those days) and so our fate was destined to unwind.

Strangely enough, I was driving a coach around North Shropshire a few years later and needed some cash, so on my lunch break I called in at Barclay’s Bank in Whitchurch. Who should be working there behind the counter as cashier but the aforementioned?

I had the briefest of moments to exchange pleasantries like you do, but not enough time to chat, so I determined that at the next opportunity I would go back.

And so I did – and on a couple of occasions too – but I never saw her again. We’ve often talked about TOTGA – The One That Got Away – but that particular girl was from a very different time and a very different era. Jackie was TOTGA from quite another epoch in my life and is probably the original one from which all standards are made.

Sometimes I wonder whatever happened to her.

Having had a play around on the bass, I’m ready for bed. The house is as quiet as the grave with everyone having retired and I suppose that I should really badger off to. But I’ve found the digital track to another album and I’ve made a start to re-record it.

But I’ll tell you all about that in the morning.

EPIC HALL

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