Tag Archives: lie in

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.

Thursday 12th September 2019 – IT’S NOT BEEN …

… a particularly good day for me today.

And that’s hardly a surprise bearing in mind the events of last night.

It’s totally pointless going to bed early and trying to sleep because right now we are in the grip of forces much stronger than ourselves and as I have been told by various members of the medical profession, I need to conserve my strength and energy for the battle that lies ahead.

And so the last thing you would think that I was needing was yet another extremely mobile night. Once more it seemed that every 20 minutes I was waking up to add something to the dictaphone. And then going back to sleep again and dropping right back in to where we left off when we awoke.

The proof of the pudding is in the dictaphone with a file from the night as long as your arm. And looking back through the pages of this blog (one of the reasons why I keep it) it corresponds with the period round about the turn of the year 2016 when I had been first diagnosed and they were fighting to keep me alive. Pages and pages of rambling notes about where I had been and what I had done during the night and when we had all kinds of weird and wonderful people making guest appearances.

Not quite how it’s working out though right now because (until I listen to the entries and transcribe the notes) it’s basically the same two or three people accompanying me around. So after having had a night off on Tuesday night, welcome back Castor!

But as to whether I’m rueing all of these nightly interruptions, then the answer is “far from it”. Oscar Wilde’s friend Frank Harris once said that “man takes his pleasure whenever and wherever he can find it” and as I have said before, and on numerous occasions, what I get up to during the night is far more exciting and interesting than whatever goes on during my waking hours – one or two recent events being the exceptions of course.

The alarms went off at the usual time but I didn’t pay much attention. The morning stampede at 07:22 quickly brought me to my senses and a bang on the door shortly afterwards told me that my services were required.

Just for a change, it was a nice morning when I drove the girls to school. Not like the last couple of days when I’ve had thick fog and heavy rainstorms to contend with.

The morning passed completely uneventfully and I went home at lunchtime – to make some sandwiches and to deal with the download that I had done yesterday. That’s all up and running correctly.

So 20 minutes for lunch, 40 minutes for the music, and a blasted hour and a half trying to catch Cujo the Killer Cat and put her in the place in the house where she won’t disturb the alarm. Difficult at first, but once I found the cat treats the rest was easy.

I leapt into Strider to go back to the depot and the first thing that I heard on the *.mp3 player was –
“We need new dreams tonight
“Desert rose
“Dreamed I saw a desert rose
“Dress torn in ribbons and in bows
“Like a siren she calls to me
“She stands with a naked flame
“I stand with the sons of Cain
“Sleep comes like a drug… In God’s Country” and I couldn’t agree more. The events of recent nights (and one or two days too) are clearly getting to me

This afternoon we finished the pickup that had had all of the work done on the springs and that was driven away. I thought that it would never be finished and end up like a Canadian 21st-century version of Crawshay Bailey’s steam engine. Going “to Cardiff College for to get a bit of Knowledge” wouldn’t have solved this problem

The garage is now finally empty so we can tidy up, but the rush starts at 08:00 tomorrow.

But I was totally wasted afterwards. I was right out of it, sitting on a chair, for an hour or so. The stress and the strain (and my illness) are getting on top of me now.

The cash balanced first time round to just a $0.01 difference, and seeing that one cents are no longer valid in Canada, someone has forgotten to do the rounding.

We were in a rush back here so I made the vegan meal for the two vegans amongst us. So well did it go down that the remainder was purloined for a young person’s lunch tomorrow, and I’ve been invited to cook again. So Rachel and I spent well over an hour planning vegan recipes.

But you’ll be amazed at just how complicated a simple task like wrapping a parcel can be when you aren’t in the mood. But once it was done, I found a couple of live tracks (over 37 minutes each) of a Welsh rock group called Lone Star from the 1970s who featured on my radio programmes ages ago so I’ve been editing and engineering them ready for further use.

Not only that, I had a play around with the bass to work out the bass line to the song that I quoted just now. If I’m going to have random music roaming around my head, I may as well work out how to play it.

But I’ll finish that off tomorrow.

Friday 6th September 2019 – HATS OFF …

… to whoever has had the patience (or maybe it’s the motivation LOL) to sit and read their way through 29 pages of my website followed by no less than 55 pages of my blog.

I know that what I write is right riveting stuff but with 15 blog entries on a page, that’s 825 days’ worth of entries – not far short of 2.5 years and that calls for a lot of persistence and determination.

Either someone has nothing better to do with his or her time, or it’s someone else collecting evidence for my incarceration LOL. But just remember the Hispano-Roman rhetorican Quintilian who once famously said (with paraphrased lines much-later quoted by people such as Richelieu and Laubardemont) something along the lines of “If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him”.

But no matter what – I admire your persistence. Hats off to you.

Last night was another excellent sleep and I was off on a voyage or two during the night. High time I started attacking the dictaphone notes so that I can see where I’ve been.

Slept right through the alarms yet again and finally managed to crawl out of my stinking pit at about 10:30.

It took a while to come round but when I did, I made a start on going through the suitcase.

But, as usual, I was sidetracked. Since I had awoken, I had had a couple of lines of a poem going around in my head – something that I must have had going on during the night on a voyage somewhere.

These things usually escape me but for some reason or other, seeing as it was something rather emotional that related to something intense that happened on one of my voyages, I determined to write it down before I forgot.

By the time that I had finished, I’d ended up with a poem of seven verses and I’m working on an eighth) and a chorus, and by the time I’d read through it a few times I had a beat and a rhythm going on in my head.

There are a couple of 6-string guitars around here but could I find them? Could I ‘eck as, so I turned to the piano. The piano is not my forte so I dashed outside to Strider and rescued the perishing bass.

Two years since it’s been out and about and much to my surprise it was still in tune (these mobile phone apps are quite good) so I picked out a bass line, a rhythm and a lead break.

It needs more work of course, but I’m impressed about how it worked out.

By now Amber was back from school so we had a chat. And it looks as if I’m going to resume my duties as a driving monitor at some point. She’s spent her summer shop wages on a car – a VW Jetta diesel – and now she needs to put the hours in. She shouldn’t have any trouble though – she’s been throwing around a 3,500hp tractor for the last two years so a Jetta should be child’s play.

And I’m still wondering who it was who took Strider down to the garage that day just over two years ago when it needed the gearbox linkage adjusting. Amber was the only one here but she was only days past her 14th birthday. She wouldn’t have done it.

Rachel came in and went out again, then Hannah came in later. We exchanged a few words and then she and Amber went off to do girly things down in Woodstock.

I waited for Zoe but she never turned up, so I went to make myself some beans on toast – only for the tin opener to hold onto the lid and drop the can and all of the beans all over the floor. Last tin of beans too.

It’s not my day, is it?

Darren and I had a chat about trucks and his plan for the new tractor-pulling season and then I went off to my room.

There’s a lot to do tomorrow. I’ve made a conscious decision that I’m not ever going out roughing it in Strider (or anything else) again so I’m going to throw away all of my gear – stuff that I won’t need any longer.

There’s a skip at the mill right now so I’m going to take full advantage of it.

So I need to gird up my loins and gather my strength.

And if my phantom follower is still out there, then good night to you, sir! Identify yourself and I’ll buy you a beer.

Thursday 5th September 2019 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about the bed in here.

It took me a while to settle myself down but once I’d gone, I’d gone for good and I had the best sleep that I have had for at least two weeks.

Off on a few voyages too, for the first time for a week, and I’ll tell you all about them once I’ve organised the dictaphone.

During one of my voyages, I heard one of the participants call my name, so I sat up bolt-upright. I’ve not had a moment like that for several years and when I did it was usually a plea for help or for me to get in touch.

For a fact, I know that Castor was in one of my voyages, and so, when I heard the call, I wondered if it was she. But who knows, and this is not the moment for me to find out, I reckon, even if, to paraphrase the words of Adolphus Greely whose expedition came to grief on Cape Sabine, “I know of no law, human or divine, that was broken …”.

If Castor wants to get in touch with me then she can. She has the means or if not, she can find them. But it’s not the moment for me to be taking any initiative.

For once I slept right through the alarms and it was 10:30, when the telephone rang, that I awoke. I wasn’t quick enough to answer the telephone though.

Instead I carried on with a few tasks that needed attention – I still wasn’t in work mode – then round about 14:30 went for a shower and a clean-up.

Back in bed afterwards until Hannah came home and we had one of our lengthy chats. I’m glad to see her doing so well after her spell at University.

She’s been offered a chance to study for her CPA but she’s not sure. I was explaining to her the benefits, particularly if someone else is paying for the course.

Darren came back later and we had a chat while Amber made tea. And even though it’s only 21:45 I’m off to bed.

I have a lot of sleep to catch up on.

Tuesday 20th August 2019 – YET ANOTHER …

… bad night.

Not at all helped by the fact that I had to get up and go hopping around the cabin for 10 minutes to try to overcome a really bad attack of cramp in both ankles. No idea why that might be. maybe it’s because I don’t have enough salt, and watching one of the staff sprinkle salt all over his chocolate ice cream this evening and tell us all just how wonderful it is, then maybe I ought to try it too – except that I don’t eat ice cream of course..

With no rush for the morning, I was in no rush either and I was comfortably beaten by the three alarms. But it’s been weeks since I’ve had a proper Sunday lie-in and a real day of rest so I reckoned that I deserved it.

We’re now in the fjord at Ilulissat, famous for its icebergs. And there are plenty in here too. They are all ground out on the terminal moraine that’s at the entrance to the fjord and it’s only when they melt a little, when there’s a really high tide or when there’s enough force in the congestion behind them that they can pass over into the sea.

They move something like a maximum of 35 metres per day but that’s not a daily total. It’s a daily average over a period of several weeks. Sometimes they won’t move at all for days.

We went out in the zodiacs to look at the icebergs but ended up whale-watching instead as a pod of fin whales and then a pod of hump-backs decided to strut their stuff right by where we were sailing. It all gave quite a surprise to the fishermen who were hauling in their long lines with halibut.

After lunch we went to town – literally. I’ve been here before but I still like the place so Strawberry Moose and I had a nice long walk out down the boardwalk to look at the ice congestion in the fjord. It really is so spectacular.

And much to my surprise I could remember the short-cut back home again.

There’s a museum in town – the birthplace of Knud Rasmussen, who probably just about beats Vilhjalmur Stefansson to the title of “Last of the Famous Polar Explorers”, so I went in there to have a look around. It was extremely interesting to me, and His Nibs found a couple of photo opportunities there.

There is an old church in the town too so on the way back to the ship I took myself over there to see it. It looked quite interesting too but it was locked up so it wasn’t possible for me to go in to inspect it.

While we’d been down at the boardwalk another cruise ship had come in. It was the MSC Orchestra with a capacity of 3200 passengers.

Watching them try to unload with a series of lighters and tenders was amusing – the weight of 240 passengers at a time on the jetty was causing it to sink below the waterline and they were wetting their shoes. They had gazebos to protect the poor dears from the sun (in the High Arctic!), all of that, and an endless procession of guides.

But 3200 visitors in a town of about 4500 is impossible, and the situation at the boardwalk must have been ridiculous.

On arriving back on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour I had a good shower and clothes wash, and then carried on the photos while we had the debriefing. And I fell asleep too.

After tea I went up to the top deck lounge and carried on with the photos until fatigue brought me back down again. I’ve now reached 19080553 from the late afternoon of 8th August. Still tons to get through but I’ll just have to keep on trucking, won’t I.

But not tonight. I’m off to bed.

Thursday 13th June 2019 – THIS PHOTO …

… is quite symbolic.

It’s one of the first that I have taken with the new Nikon D500 camera.

It’s one of the Joly France, one of the ferries from the Ile de Chausey, heading off to the island with another load of visitors, passing one of the local trawlers heading into the harbour with the day’s catch.

So there I have been over the last couple of days crowing about how despite how late I might (or might not) have been to bed and how disturbed the night was, I had still managed to rouse myself from Ye Olde Stinkinge Pitte at something like a reasonable hour.

And so here I was this morning, in bed early, sleeping all the way through the night in comparative comfort without having to prop up my leg on a box, and sleeping right the way through all of the alarms until about 09:30.

What a way to start the day!

So with having set out all horribly late, I eventually sat down and started to edit the photos that I didn’t do yesterday, and added them into yesterday’s blog entry.

This afternoon I had a read of the camera manual and then went out for a little walk to see how it all would turn out.

And I have quite a lot to learn about this machine – not the least of which being the fact that the controls work backwards from any other Nikon that I have had.

You can probably gather that from some of these iaages

Setting up the camera is quite complicated because being an up-market camera, it’s more of a machine than a camera.

It has buttons and controls everywhere for all kinds of different things, and that’s an advance on the earlier Nikons where you had to program “function” buttons to carry out some of the tasks.

And the manual exposure is so much easier too.

With the older cameras, you needed to set the aperture or the speed by using the “Aperture” or Speed” function, set the camera to Manual, and then adjust the function that you didn’t previously set.

With the Nikon D500 it has separate buttons for “Aperture” and Speed”, and also a separate button for the ISO settings.

So from that point of view it’s much more straightforward.

But as you admire St Helier and the Channel Islands, I’ll mention the problem that I noticed with the controls.

And that is that the “Aperture” and Speed” dials work back-to-front. To widen the aperture on the older cameras you rotate the button clockwise.

But with this one, you have to rotate the button anti-clockwise.

And that caught me out well and truly with the first couple of photos.

Trying to add a little extra light to my images, I ended up adding a little extra dark instead. And that was rather depressing.

I shall just have to work a lot harder in this respect, won’t I?

The camera is also quite heavy compared to the others that I have used.

And so I’m glad that I bought the monopod the other week. I’m certainly going to need that as I work my way around, until I can get to grips with the machine.

And that might take me a few weeks, so I shall have to start to get out and about more often with it.

But I can’t wait to try out its low-light capability.

Feeling now a little better in the leg, with much more bendability, I eschewed the salt bath this afternoon, to give things a chance to settle down.

If I have another good night’s sleep, I’m hoping that I’ll feel even better tomorrow.

We can but hope.

Tea was some more taco rolls with the last of the stuffing that I made. Followed by pears and coconut soya cream.

And now it’s bed time. And I’m ready for it too, even though I had a good lie-in. Another good sleep will do me good and get me ready for Monday.

brittany coast baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

vilde la marine brittany france

pointe de carolles granville manche normandy france

Thursday 6th June 2019 – HAVING DONE SOMETHING …

… yesterday that I haven’t done in more than 25 years, I went out this afternoon and did it again.

Having managed almost a completely normal day yesterday apart from an hour or so in the late afternoon, I was asleep at a reasonable time. And Although there was a lengthy period round about 01:35 when I was wide awake, I slept right through to the alarm – and then some too.

Considering my lack of mobility, I’ve had a rather busy day. All of the photos going back to when I broke my hand are now edited, cropped, enhanced and saved, and entered in the database.

And there were more of them than I was expecting too.

When I can sit comfortably, whenever that might be, I’ll bring up-to-date the blog entries. But at the moment, sitting with one leg up in the air is not the easiest way to deal with things like a large batch of typing.

Having had lunch I then went back into the bath for another hour or so. and while it didn’t have the same dramatic effect as yesterday (and most of that wore off as the evening drew on) it still made things much easier for moving about.

The bedroom has been tidied up somewhat too, with some of the stuff that was lying around now arranged on shelves. But it’s only scratching the surface and I need to push on when I can.

Round about 17:30 I had a crash-out on the bed for about 45 minutes, and I’ve also done another month’s indexing of photos (1805) and I’ve made a start on 1804 – that is to say April 2018.

Tea was a small stuffed pepper with spicy rice and I’m glad that I am back to eating a little. I seem to have lost 5kgs and that’s good news.

Tomorrow, more of the same including the bath, because Brigitte is taking me to the doctor’s, which is very nice of her.

I don’t have many friends, as everyone knows, but those I have are the best in the world and quantity is never a substitute for quality.

EPIC HALL

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