Tag Archives: place d’armes

Thursday 4th January 2018 – I DIDN’T …

… end up with my ealy night last night either.

You know how it is – just before you go to bed you start a little job that will only take 5 minutes but one thing leads to another and you end up being surprised at just how many other things there are. And so it was more like 02:00 when I finally retired.

During the night I’d been on my travels. I was driving a coach, an empty one, out in the countryside and came round a bend and hit a steep hill. I needed to change down two or three gears but somehow I couldn’t make the vehicle change gear, or I wasn’t quick enough or something, and the coach wouldn’t climb the hill. I felt rather silly about that.
And then later I was out running – something that I used to do quite often during my nocturnal rambles when I would run miles across South Cheshire in my bed. THis time I was running along the pavement down a long road, stepping into the roadway to pass pedestrians. I was pacing myself, planning to speed up near the end and that meant predicting the movement of the pedestrians and much to my surprise I was perfectly correct. I arrived at work – a concrete office/car park clad in red and light brown brick, on the corner of the street. I was in time to go into work but I wanted to run home again and that wouldn’t leave enough time for me to return, so I would have to take the day off.

Once more, the alarm went off at 07:30 and I was out of bed … errr … rather quicker than I was yesterday.

Not only that, I managed three meals again today. Breakfast of course, a soup with pasta and bulghour, and for tea I tried a pizza, seeing as I had a pizza base that was running out of time. It took me about an hour to eat it but I did manage it eventually. It wasn’t nice as the previous ones – I don’t like this sauce very much and I’ll be glad when it’s all used up.

One thing that I was planning to do was to go into town. There’s a list of things that need attention and the sooner the better, but one look out of the window this morning dissuaded me. Persisting down in fact.

Instead, I did some more stuff around here including a little tidying up, and spent half an ohour with the guitar. Apaprt from a brief flurry a couple of years ago, I’ve not really played the bass for almost 40 years. And so what I’ve decided to do this year is to try to pick up where I left off all of those years ago.

I do have to admit that the little gadget that I bought three years ago so that I could play the bass in the apartment is worth itw weight in gold, now that I have some decent headphones and I figured out how to work it.

And I mustn’t forget a little snooze, or the mince pie with spray-on vegan cream.

So if I have the chance, I’ll be in bed early tonight and if the weather is on my side I’ll give serious thought to going into town. I’m feeling better in myself but I still can’t shake off this cough.

Wednesday 3rd January 2018 – I WAS THINKING …

… about going to bed last night round about 01:20 when all of a sudden this ferocious wind suddenly sprung up.

I knew that it was coming of course – it’s been well-forecasted – but it hit with a violence that I haven’t encountered for quite a long time. Instead of going to bed, I stayed on the sofa and listened to it for quite a while.

Some time later I went off to bed and was off on my travels again. Playing football on a pitch down in front of the Mairie here in Granville, and the opposition was replacing thir players with young girls as the match advanced. It became a very uneven contest and I couldn’t understand what was going on.
A short while later, I was elsewhere in another football match on a very rough unkempt pitch where the grass hadn’t been mown for a year. I was up front, basically to make up the numbers (which sounds more like it), For some reason the opposing goalkeeper was caught out of position and the ball was played to me completely unmarked about 30 yards out. Of course I couldn’t run, and with half of the opposition bearing down on me I decided to trust my luck and kick it towards the goal and hope for the best, but with all of my best effort, I kicked it all of about 18 inches. And then I was caught up by the others.

Tha alarm went off at 07:30 but it was about 08:00 that I finally left the bed. And today I’ve managed three meals too – porridge for breakfast, soup for lunch and a plate of mashed potato and peas for tea.

I’ve not set foot out of the apartment today. The wind this morning was enough to keep anyone in and it kept on going until about 14:00. But after that, I was busy doing other things, including reading a pile of stuff on Roman Architecture and doing some more stuff on my little 3D animation project which I have rather neglected of late.

And also crasging out for half an hour too. I’m not sure as to whether this is a sign of tiredness, ill-health or that I’m feeling better.

But the toothache has come back so I’ve had a paracetomol and now I’m off to bed. Let’s hope that I can sleep.

Tuesday 2nd January 2018 – I FELL ASLEEP …

… on the sofa last night at about 22:30.

And so when I awoke at about 23:00 or something, I dragged myself off to bed.

And there, I had a bad attack of cramp getting into bed and that, dear reader, was that. I didn’t have a wink of sleep at all.

I’d set the alarm for 07:30 but by the time that it went of, I was up and about and doing things. I was expecting visitors.

Working for 10 minutes on and half an hour sitting down I whizzed through the apartment and while it would be wrong to pretend that it was neat and tidy, all of the rubbish had been taken out and the important bits were all properly presentable. And I was able to have a shower too.

At about 11:15 Liz and Terry turned up. back from the UK, they popped by to see how I was getting on and I was able to reassure them. As you know, for a while I was at death’s door but this doctor pulled me through.

We had a really good chat, caught up with all of out news and made a couple of plans for the Spring. A trip to IKEA might be on the cards in the near future.

This afternoon I recovered from my exertions and, much to my surprise, even though it’s now almost 23:00 I’m not in the least bit tired. And that’s a surprise after my nuit nlanche. I wonder if I’ll get to bed tonight as well.

As for food, I had my usual bowl of porridge at breakfast, but I didn’t feel like anything for lunch. Later in the evening I made another pot of soup, tomato this time, and heaved in a couple of handfuls of macaroni in it, as well as a tablespoon or two of olive oil. I need the fats and proteins right now.

Tow mugs of that went down nicely and I could even manage the sp.

One idea for the next time that I’m out is to buy some of this very fine, small pasta and I can keep on adding that into soups as I make them. That will be easy to eat and it will give the soups some body.

But here’s a surprise. Several weeks ago I bought from NOZ a couple of tins of cinnamon biscuits. It was the tins that caught my eye, never mind the content. Not large enough for my cake unfortunately but big enough for all kinds of things, and just €1:99 each. And when I saw that the biscuits therein were vegan, I snapped up the last two.

With Liz and Terry being here, I cracked open a tin. And I was totally surprised as to how nice they were. THis will have to go down as one of the deals of the year.

Monday 1st January 2018 – HAPPY NEW YEAR

Having had a couple of bad nights just recently as you know, I decided that seeing as it was New Year’s Eve last night I’d simply stay awake until I felt really tired, and then go to bed regardless of the time.

I’m not sure how much of a good idea that was, because by 05:30 this morning I was pretty much fed up. I crawled off to bed regardless.

And I was off on my travels too. Jammed in on the rear bench seat of an aeroplane – the one that goes right across the back like in a coach or bus. I was sprawled all over everyone else which must have been uncomfortable for them, but no-one was complaining. But a man a couple of rows further forward made some kind of comment, to which the woman sitting next to me – an elderly timid spinster-type – said that she wasn’t inconvenienced in the least and that it was no concern of his. This led to some kind of animated discussion during which I happened to glance down and notice that I seemed to have forgotten to put on my lower clothing. How no-one else had noticed I really don’t know, and so I had to try to keep discreetly hidden.
As an aside – these nudity dreams are quite common but I couldn’t remember the last time that I had had one. There’s certainly no record on anything since at least 2013, and probably a long time earlier too.
A little later I was going down Flag Lane bridge towards the traffic lights at Wistaston Road, and ended up in a pub down there. It was a filthy, grimy place full of cobwebs and the like and the food was dreadful but for some reason everyone was having a good time and several people came up to me to thank me – including the guy with whom I went for a few coffees when I stayed in Leuven.

Lunchtime is usually about 13:00 as you know, but by that time I hadn’t even had breakfast. Yes, I missed the morning completely what with my late night and it’s been a long time since I’ve done that.

The porridge for breakfast was good, and the soup for an early tea was delicious too. The plate of pasta in tomato sauce that I tried later in the evening reawakened my toothache and as a result half of it ebded up in the bin. I don’t want to puch the boat out too far.

Apart from that, what else have I been up to?

Bangor City were playing Llandudno in the Welsh Premier League this evening and it was broadcast on the internet. Bangor City had 75% of the possession, spent most of the match camped in the Llandudno half with their keeper Dave Roberts making some stunning saves to keep them in the game, and then breaking away upfield from a wild slash out out of defence and scoring with the luckiest deflection you have ever seen.

And I’ve also downloaded Java onto my laptop.

I used it years ago when I was building databases but it hasn’t been a feature of any computing that I have done for 15 years and more. I want to build a couple of databases for different projects and there’s no point in totally forgetting my hard-earned qualifications from all of those years ago.

I must admit that I’m much more at home with *.sql-based databases but a Java-based runtime environment is an option with the Office Suite that I use and so that’s my project for the New Year.

So while we’re on the subject of the New Year, let me wish you all the best. I’ve appreciated your support during the last year which has been a quite difficult year for me, and knowing that you are there behind me has made a great deal of difference.

I hope that the New Year brings you everything that you wished for everyone else last year.

Sunday 31st December 2017 – THAT WAS ANOTHER …

… miserable night last night.

Still awake at 01:45, and back awake again at 04:00, drenched in sweat yet again, with a dry throat and a little nauseous. I can’t shake it off, can I?

My travels didn’t seem to be so extensive, just for a change. Back in the family pile and my mother and father and younger borther were fishing out of the bedroom window into the river. They had me tying flies for them. Suddenly my borhter shouted up that he almost had a bite, and had I been quicker and doing my job he would surely have landed it. But the bath in the bedroom had no fish in it, no-one had caught anything and even the family cat was looking disappointed. MY mother then made one of her famous decisions that we were going to carry on fishing until we caught a bathful, even if it would take until next year and we were living in tents through the winter snows. “Fat chance of that” I thought to myself. I have a comfortable bed in a nice warm house and I fully intend to stay in it regardless of whatever plans anyone else had. I couldn’t imagine anything more boring than spending time fishing.

09:00 it was when I left the bed for my medication. And at 10:00 I had an attempt at a bowl of porridge. Much to my surprise, I managed to eat it without any problems.

Even more surprisingly I managed a mug of soup at about 14:30, followed by a tangerine and a couple of biscuits.

And if that’s not enough to be going on with, later in the evening I tried a small plate of mashed potatoes in butter and soya milk, with peas and cheese.

If all of that stays in, it will be the first for quite a while. First time since the night I came home from Belgium 2 weeks ago that I’ve had a hot evening meal, and first time since then that I’ve had three meals in a day.

But the hot meal has brought back the toothache. It seems that I just can’t win.

Saturday 30th December 2017 – AND IT WAS ALL …

… going so well towards the end of the evening too.

I’d had some soup and, much to my surprise, it managed to stay down. That °C to save a couple of Euros. cheered me up somewhat and I was starting to feel a little better. And I eventually crawled off to bed and to sleep.

By 01:30 that was that. I was wide-awake again and that’s how I stayed right the way through until the alarm went off. And the nausea was back as well and I was feeling dreadful.

Mind you, I’ve no idea what they must be putting in this medication that they are giving me because in that short time I’d travelled miles. Startig off by chasing a young girl aound a ski slope (and not the usual ski-slope of our nocturnal rambles either) and how upset was I when she took to her skis? There was I at a ski resort with no skis to hand. That’s the story of my life. So I watched her in her bright blue jacket disappear into the distance with her mother and I trudged back with my friends to our hotel. There were 6 of us sharing a room in this hotel and I’ve stayed in some desperate hotels in my youth, but nothing quite like this. Just an old pot-bellied stove in the middle of the room to keep us warm in 6 feet of snow. The girlfriend of one of my mates told me that she had overheard this girl’s mother say that she wasn’t going to wash during the whole time that they were there and how that would save them some money. I didn’t understand the significance of this so when I enquired, the aforementioned girlfriend just gave me a conspiratorial wink. And I was still none the wiser.
From there I moved on into central Germany or Austria to a city that might not have been Vienna. I was staying there somewhere and I’d gone out for a meal but someone stuck a very old greasy guidebook into my hand suggesting a place to go so I made my way there. It was like an amphitheatre where you entered at the top and walked halfway down, where you were met by some girls in a brown body-wrap, with stained brown skin and hair (although they were West-European). Apparently you were supposed to take hold of one and she would take you to your preferred stall where you could order your meal and sit on a bench. But me being me, I was too busy trying to identify the cutest and in the meantime everyone else was pushing past me, leaving me stranded. these girls were coming and going quicker than I could find a nice one and after about 10 or 15 minutes I gave up and went home.
Next morning I fancied visiting Dornbirn and that involved taking a train at 09:00. So there I was at 07:00 and I’d actually called a taxi to take me to the station. What actually turned up was a man leading a donkey and this was my taxi. So he led me off and I hadn’t gone more than 200 yards before I realised that it was -9°C out here and I was just in a tee-shirt and jumper. We could go back for my coat – time was no problem at all – but that would cost more money so I pushed on regardless. All day out in -9°C and the snow to save a couple of Euros. So we arrived at a kind of saloon door arrangement thing and my guide led the donkey through, almost knocking me off in the process, and then asked for €15:00. But I couldn’t see the railway station. This was the bus station, full of all of these German coaches from the late 40s and early 50s. But he pointed me back over my left shoulder to a pink stucco building and that was the station. And then I realised that I’d been here the previous evening on my way for this chaotic food arrangement, and why I hadn’t noticed all of the cafés and restaurants around here I really didn’t understand

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … if only my real life were even a quarter as exciting as what I get up to in the evenings.

I crawled out of bed with the alarm, had my medication and collapsed onto the sofa. And eventually I went off to see the doctor. I was the only one there and he took some time with me. He too didn’t think much of what had happened at the hospital but he gave me a good going-over.

And here’s an object lesson for you. Never eat hot soup after taking a painkiller. It seems that I’ve burnt my tongue. But he’s identified what he thinks is an infection in my mouth that’s causing all kinds of problems. So I now have some more antiseptic mouthwash and nausea tablets.

My weight loss isn’t significant as yet so he doesn’t think that an intravenous drip is the answer at the moment. He’s confident that if I take all of this medication as and when I’m supposed to, I’ll be able to be back on real food in four or five days. If it’s still not working, go back and we’ll watch my weight loss.

But we’ve heard all of this before. And I remember a couple of people who existed for a while on a diet of grape juice, so round to the Casino and the apartment is now flooded out with the aforementioned, as well as a few more supplies.

Back here, I hung on for a while but I was soon under the covers again. After all, no sleep last night (well, almost).

Ingrid rang for a chat, and so did Rosemary, and one or two friends on the internet too. And much to my surprise, I managed to finish off yesterday’s soup. Without burning my tongue.

So now I’m feeling a little better, just like I did last night. Let’s just hope that we’ll see a sustained improvement tomorrow because this is really depressing me now.

Friday 29th December 2017 – AND SO …

… late last night, I crawled off into bed. Feeling like death but I thought that I’d be better in there seeing as there’s more room and it’s more comfortable than the sofa.

It took an age to go off to sleep, having had enough of that to pass the time in the hospital. But when I did, I was really away with the fairies.

We started off back in the family pile in Shavington and I had to leave my bed as a matter of urgence. But in the bathroom, the end of the bath had been smashed off, the toilet was broken and the sink was in pieces. There was water flooding everywhere. I was totally amazed as to all of this. My brother said “didn’t you see the end sheets?”. I didn’t have the first idea of what he meant for a while until it suddenly struck me that he was referring to the work sheets at the end of the day. “We’ll all have a whip-round and fix this” he suggested, but I wasn’t having any of this. I didn’t know what had happened except that it wasn’t anything to do with me.
From there I moved on to my house in Gainsborough Road where I was with my mother. I opened the curtains in the front window and noticed just how untidy everything was (we’re back on this tidiness thing yet again). My mother told me that it would be an idea to take some of the stuff outside so I gathered up a pile of rubbish, put it in some black plastic boxes and took it outside. There I bumped into the big ginger cat – a huge thing, mostly legs like one of the drawings of a Celtic horse in art form. I picked it up and took it inside and showed it to my little sister. She ran off saying that she hated it so I put it down – when immediately one of the other cats leapt on top of it to play with it.
A litle later I was driving along the Calveley Straight on the A51 (although this was actually the North Wales Coast Road) when I saw a low-flying passenger aeroplane fire off a distress rocket. My former friend from Stoke on Trent was driving but before I could draw his attention to it, the aeroplane did a “U-turn”, turned black, and then bright-red bits like lumps of molten metal were falling off it. And then it disappeared from view. By ow he had seen it so we turned off the road to go to where it might have crashed – but just then two cars coming extremely rapidly in opposite directions took off into the air over the brow of a hill and collided head-on in mid air. The crunch was sickening and flying debris knocked over a bride, complete with dress, standing on the street corner. She was covered in blood. The accident had also knocked over a couple of small motorbikes and their drivers were sprawled out in the road. We dashed for the steps (me hopelesssly in the rear) that took us up a hill to where we reckoned the plane had crashed but I was blocked by hordes of people coming down. “We know that you are trying to help” said a man, “but you’re just cluttering up the place”. And then I realised just how stupid this all was. I hate the sight of blood and operations as you know, so what good would i be at an air crash? I couldn’t even go to tend to this bride or the people crawling about all over the place after the road accident.

So having dealt with that marathon, I took my place in the vague direction of the Land of the Living. I was still feeling dreadful and as the Doctor wanted to see me, I phoned for an appointment. It’s not urgent so I took one tomorrow morning.

And as a treat, I managed a bowl of porridge. It took me an hour to eat it and it was disgusting but at least it stayed in. That, I suppose, is progress.

I had to go round to the hospital aterwards. To take the details of my Health Insurance. And surprisingly enough, I felt a little better being out in the cold windy air. But then again, it’s hard to feel worse.

At the hospital I was pushed from pilar to post but eventually found the correct people who, much to my surprise, were quite helpful. Certainly the best financiers tht I’ve met so far on my perambulations around the various French hospitals. I suppose that being a seaside resort they are more used to foreign visitors with strange Insurance details.

What was even more helpful was that they opened a file for me “for future use”. I imagine that I might need it.

On the way back, I called at the Casino for a few more bits and pieces and then came home. Despite it being warm in here, by 15:30 I was tucked up under the quilt asleep.

Later in the evening I was feeling a little better – to such an extent that I made some tomato soup from a packet. Despite spilling a good proportion of it on the hob, I managed a couple of mugs of it – which even stayed down. And I even finished off with a soya dessert.

So tomorrow is another day. I feel better with some food (such as it is) and I hope that I can keep up tomorrow. Meantime we’ll see what the doctor has to say.

Thursday 28th December 2017 – JUST FOR A COUPLE …

… of hours this afternoon I was in hospital.

I’d had something of a reasonable night given the circumstances. I was in Brussels back on my theme of untidy places and there was a street that needed cleaning up as it was full of littler. But when I arrived, it had all been cleared and there was some Arab woman sitting in an old black bus looking very pleased with herself as if she had done it. So I moved on round the corner and there was another coach there advertising tour. I climbed aboard and someone already on board closed off half of the coach to stop me going farther down. I made a few enquiries and he eventually condescended to tell me about the trip. It wasn’t going to be doing anything that I didn’t know about so I declined and stepped out.
Shortly later I was back again with a coach, an old Ford R1114 that I had bought for a project which had never really seen much of the light of day and we were all camping in the compound around it. Someone asked me if I had any gravy browning so I went on board the coach to see and grubbing around, found Christmas lights still plugged in and illuminated, a couple of dolls. All of this got me thinking that I’d never tidy out all of this and my investment such as it was, was going completely to waste.

I waited until 09:00 and then phoned up the doctor’s. They offered me an appointment for 12:00 which gave me some time to clean up, have a shower and to collect a few things together.

It was a struggle to the doctor’s but I was seen bang-on midday. And by 13:00 I was in the hospital at Granville. And by 13:30 I was being attended to. Imagine that in the UK!

Eventually they decided against keeping me in. The doctor who saw me hopes that a change in the antibiotic will stop the nausea and make me feel more like eating, but that’s not really the point. I’d stopped eating before I had the nausea.

On the way back I went to LIDL for more water and things like like that. And I was lucky enough to find a pharmacy still open just around the corner.

So now I’m back here, still on the sofa, still not eating but at least I have some of this multivitamin drink – if only I can keep it down.

They gave me a letter to give to the doctor so I’ll have a go at delivering it tomorrow. See what he has to say about it all.

Wednesday 27th December 2017 – I WAS RIGHT …

… last night about having a relapse last night, that’s for sure.

But first, having had a really early night I was well away with the fairies.

I was on an Arctic expedition last night – but not one that was doing anyone any credit. There were two camps – the advanced camp and the upport camp and they were both beset in the ice. The advancced camp was having a great deal of difficulty, being ice-bound as it was and was badly in need of support and supplies. However these were unlikely to come from the support camp which was organised in a totally chaotic manner and nothing was moving forward. I spend most of my time shuttling between the two, trying to see if I could hustle things along. But without any effect. And when sponsors started to reclaim their equipment I knew that the writing was on the wall for everyone.
After a little break involving a trip down the corridor and something to drink, I was back again. Living i extremely straightebed circumstances in a derelict shed full of waste and rubbish, rather like my barn in France. There was an old van in there and there was another couple – someone I knew from University in fact – living in it with his girlfriend. She needed to go to the bathroom, and so did I, so I offered to take her but the guy who was rather possessive refused to let her. So I asked if I could come through his van to leave the building rather than fighting my way all around. After I’d set foot out of the building she came – he’d agreed to let her go. She was carrying a ironing board and something else that needed to be delivered, both of which were to somewhere up in the Middlewich Street area of Crewe, one of which was an Indian takeaway. But I couldn’t remember where these places were which was rather bizarre.

I was awake fairly early but in no real hurry to leave the bed. I didn’t manage any breakfast though but nevertheless drifted along with the morning doing a little of this and a little of that.

The big mistake was making myself a bowl of soup in the early afternoon. I didn’t manage to drink much of it – and about an hour later back it came. And that was that.

It wasn’t much later that I went to fetch the quilt and the pillow – and there I spent the rest of the day – and the night too – flat out on the sofa hardly moving.

But the cough is back in spades again, and so is the nausea and vomiting. I’m just going to drift into graceful oblivion and if I’m feeling up to it, I’ll be back at the doctor’s tomorrow.

I just can’t go on like this.

Tuesday 26th December 2017 – PHEW!

What a night!

It’s been a long time since anything like this has happened. Years, in fact. I was still sitting up wide-awake at 04:00 and I’ve no idea why.

But I was eventually in bed and started off at the leaving ceremony and prize-giving of my old school. And how we trashed it! Not in any serious, major way of course but we did rather run riot, altering the script into a series of double-entendres, puns, spoonerisms all kinds of things. Having fun changing round the prizes and all of that. Nothing too extreme but exactly as I had planned it back in 1972 and which was vetoed by everyone else as being rather over the top (well, it WAS a rather conservative school).
But from there I moved on into the rather exalted realms of royalty. And it really was one of those absurd dreams where we were all living in stables, tipping oats into cars to feed horses and the like yet wining and dining in luxury. Everyone was wearing coffee carafes around their necks and I actually overfilled the carafe of one of the princes, almost drowing him much to the amusement of his partner but not to him of course. And in the middle of all of this I was using the telephone to send some faxes, spread out all across a road and blocking some young girl in a car. While I was clearing a path she ended up talking to one of these royal people and was impressed that home decoration articles could be ordered in this way so she came over to make further enquiries. Once I’d finished, I found out that I had to go round to the NWF offices in Nantwich to pick up the copy of my faxes – but then the idea entered my head was that I needed to be there first before a representative from the Royal family arrived to take away all of the faxes, and even if I were there first, would I be allowed to search through the Royal Family faxes to find those that I had sent?

All of the foregoing took me up until, would you beieve, 11:45 in the morning. And when was the last time that I’d had a lie-in quite like that?

Of course, all of this makes me running late, but then again it’s not as if I have too many other things to bother me, do I? I ended up for a while having a nice relaxing afternoon on the sofa, not doing much at all.

This afternoon’s walk was exciting. The wind has sprung up and it was rather absurd out there. I had to keep well away from the cliff edge and there were times when I wasn’t sure if it was prefereable to turn back and seek shelter. But the promise of a hot chocolate at the end of the journey dove me along.

But a weird thing later.

The wind dropped somewhat so I went out for my evening walk, but at a certain moment I was overwhenlmed with fatigue. To such an extent that I really struggled to make it back home.

Straight to bed – without even my second hot chocolate – and I promptly crashed out.

Am I heading for a relapse?

Monday 25th December 2017 – MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

If you’ve made it this far then you are all doing very well and I’m impressed. I’m also grateful that you’ve kept on reading. It’s something to help your turkey slide down the digestive tract.

As for me, last night I almost fell asleep in the middle of watching a film. So I crawled myself off to bed. And aftr an hour or so I awoke and started to have another one of these nuit blanches. Strangely enough I didn’t feel at al bad about it – and that’s a change.

Somewhere during the night I did drop off, and went off on one of my rambles. And we had a couple of strange people either making their acting debuts or first appearances for a considerable length of time.

I was back running my taxis again. And on Saturday mornings when I was having a lie-in the telephone was manned by Wendy (wherever did she spring from?) and Simon came in for a couple of hours to deal with breakdowns and do a little mechanical work. I’d been assembling a kind of breakdown kit and even cobbled together an old Jeep Patriot kitted out with emergency stuff for him. BUt when I came downstairs he hadn’t come in to work. So I rang him to ask where he was, and he gave me a list of things that he’d been doing instead. Clearly he had no intention of coming in to work again. So I explained that he was free to go if he liked, but I would have appreciated a little notice so that I could have made other arrangement.
I was also in Canada during the night. I’d booked a room in a motel and they knew that I didn’t intend to arive until the small hours. And so I turned up at about 03:00, was given the key to the room looking forward to crashing out in it straight away – and it was filthy; Hadn’t been cleaned for a month and someone had even tried to light a fire in it, leaving cinders and charred wood all over the place. Even worse than that Motel 6 in North Virginia.

Although I woke up on several occasions during the night, it was at about 09:30 when I arose from my bed. And after my medication I sent out a whole stream of cheery greetings to people on the internet.

One or two of the sites on my social networking were running a couple of quizzes so I passed a very entertaining morning, punctuated only by a pause for breakfast.

The paté that I had bought for Christmas lunch – it wasn’t mushroom paté at all. I’d made a mistake. I remembered that they had none, so I had bought garlic and fine herb paté instead. Nevertheless, it was equally delicious on hot buttered toast, and I ate rather a large amount of it.

I’m glad that I had bought that toaster when I first moved in here.

Apart from that, I’ve nibbled some biscuits, some clementines, some swets and a bar of chocolate-covered marzipan.

Pride of place goes, though, without saying, to the Christmas cake.

I don’t have many friends, but those that I have are the best in the wld – quality before quantity of course – and Liz has done me proud once again this year.

Her Christmas cake is absolutely delicious. Each year it gets better and better. So good health to you, Liz.

I’ve braved the hurricanes and been out for my two walks this afternoon – and merited my two mugs of home-made hot chocolate. More than you will ever know in fact because at one point in the proceedings I was actually running down the street chasing after my hat that had Gone With The Wind. That was totally unexpected – I haven’t really run for anything for over two years and didn’t know that I still could.

Mind you, the way that I’m out of breath, I’m not sure that I can.

Final word tonight must go on the perfidy of the internet.

You’ll remember that my web browser did a real mega-upgrade at the start of the month and dumped a pile of developers and their add-ons, including my much-loved *.ftp add-on.

And how I was left high and dry without a *.ftp program for a whole three and a half weeks.

And how I spent all afternoon in a relentless (and untimately successful) attempt to program my web server?

So today, a group of developers has launched an ultra-slimmed-down web browser using the Open Source code of the browser that dropped them, and many of the dropped code modules seamed straight in. I gave it a try and my *.ftp module was picked up immediately.

It’s called Waterfox and from what I’ve seen so far, it’s the fastest browser that I’ve ever seen. No bells, no whistles, just what I want.

There will probably be a few problems to overcome but as long as it handles my file uploads seamlessly like it seems to be doing, it will be fine by me.

Sunday 24th December 2017 – BY THE TIME …

… that you read this, you are probably all grouped around the Christmas tree grappling with the wrapping on your Christmas presents.

For those of you in North America and places west, you’re probably sitting down with a glass of something after having helped Santa spread all of the kids’ presents around under the branches.

Whatever your situation right now, I hope that you are making the most of it and that Santa has been kind to you.

For me, it’s a slightly different situation in that withut my bank cards I haven’t been able to purchase the things that I wanted for myself – or for anyone else either. I hope that I can organise all of this at some time in the near future otherwise it’s likely to become embarrassing.

Luckily, there were the twelve cans of alcohol-free beer at €0:25 each, and the peach-flavoured variety (the one that I’ve tackled to date) is extremely delicious.

It was a late night last night and a decent sleep, without sweating noticeably. And, I’m rather surprised to say it, a nice lie-in until almost 10:00 too.

So a late start meant that everything else was late too. Breakfast wasn’t until almosst 11:00, and lunch (I finished off yesterday’s delicious soup with some more bread) at 14:30.

A walk around the headland in the slight drizzle amongst the other couple of dozen people braving the weather – that cleared a few cobwebs.

And I walked round to the church to see if there was a carol service this evening. Something is going on at 22:30 his evening, so I made a mental note.

This evening, I managed to nibble a few things down – biscuits, clementines and that kind of thing. And I’ve put the time to profitable use too. With having no *.ftp program since my web browser streamlined its services, I’ve been configuring the control panel on my domain server for each of my websites to do the job.

It’s nothing like as user-friendly or as intuitive as the old web browser add-on and I soon saw why I abandoned it. But with no other course open to me right now I couldn’t think of an alternative plan. So pressing on and persevering, I’ve eventually managed to make it work and that must be something of a triumph.

At 22:15 I went for a lap around the walls and ended up at the church for 22:30. Not going in, I loitered outside to hear the music and singing but it wasn’t a carol service – an ordinary church mass and so I came home instead.

Two mugs of my home-made chocolate drink – one after each walk. And I remembered that I had a little coconut cream left fo I added that into the mixture. It made it quite richer too.

And I had a little relapse too. Asleep for half an hour round by 18:00.

So with not much going on in tha way of Christmas tomorrow, I’ll have an early night and another lie-in. I’m eyeing up some mushroom paté on toast for a breakfast treat tomorrow and that will be nice if I can swallow it down.

Saturday 23rd December 2017 – IF YOU’LL TAKE MY ADVICE …

… there’s nothing so nice
as sitting down on the sofa after a nice healthy walk, with a nice hot mug of hot chocolate, home-made with real patisserie chocolate.

Take a small saucepan
add an egg-cup of water and heat very slowly
add four squares of patisserie chocolate
stir the chocolate rapidly as the water slowly heats, so that the chocolate melts into a nice runny liquid (add a little more water if necessary).
just as the chocolate mix is on the point of boiling (whatever you do, DON’T let it boil) very slowly add two mugs full of milk, of whatever flavour of milk you like. I had soya milk, but coconut or almond milk is equally delicious, and even cow’s milk is good too.
Keep stirring rapidly and just as the mixture comes to the boil, pour half of it into a mug and sit down and enjoy it.
Save the rest for when you come back from your walk later in the evening.
Just remember to keep on stirring it while you slowly reheat it

I had a late night last night. And even so, I wasn’t in the least bit tired. 02:30 and I was still awake. It just goes to show about this infection- I must have had it for weeks. And how quickly it has seemed to improve.

By 08:30 I was wide awake though, and I found the bed to be saturated. No, Rhys! Not what you are thinking! All down my back. I must have sweated like a horse during the night in some kind of fever.

But having said that, I managed a proper breakfast for once – without the coffee though. I’m still not up to trying for that right now. And the breakfast made me feel much better too.

And the clementines! I’ve had a good attack on those today. And quite right too. it’s what Christmas is all about – free rein on a tray of the aforementioned.

During my illness I’ve let a few things go and so I’ve spent the morning doing some catching up. One or two important issues have arisen due to the loss of my bank cards the other week and they needed some attention. And someone else wanted a photo of mine.

My photos seem to be in some demand right now. In fact, one of mine of the Mohne Dam will be exhibited in a display in Reculver next Spring in celebration of the “bouncing bomb” of Barnes Wallis.

For lunch, I prepared a litre of this minestrone and olive oil soup that I had bought from Casino yesterday. Half of that went down very nicely too, and I even managed some bread with it. I’m definitely feeling a little better.

Having relaxed, I walked into town to the Carrefour. I wanted some soya milk for my hot chocolate, and I also picked up some falafel and – shame as it is to admit it, a Christmas tree. Well, a lump of log in a pot with a little bushy Christmas tree thing growing out of it.

And once more I bumped into the bank manager, and we had another lengthy chat. My account must be well in credit, that’s all that I can say.

But down in town there was a most unusual … errr … animal roaming the streets.

A giant rabbit was a-wandering around the street, carrying a man in its arms. Stopping to chat to almost everyone who had the time of day to pass, it was an immense attraction with the young kiddies of the area.

It seems that Strawberry Moose
and I aren’t the only ones with esoteric tastes

Back here I set up my little Christmas Tree thing, found the fairy lights that I had bought the other week and I now have Chrsitmas dcorations of some kind here in the apartment. And isn’t this decadence?

Whatever next?

No tea again though. My appetite might be improving, but not to that extent. Instead, later on, I went for another walk. The first evening walk since Sunday. And that made me feel much better too. What was even nicer was the hot chocolate when I returned.

So nw I’ll do the washing up and then go to bed. I’ve decided not to have an alarm until after New Year. Give me a chance to regroup, build up my strength and take it easy for a while.

And I can’t say that I don’t deserve it.

Friday 22nd December 2017 – WHAT A DIFFERENCE …

… a day makes.

24 hours ago I was at death’s door. I don’t think that I’d ever felt so ill.

I’d crawled off to bed early, consoled myself with one of my favourite films of all times, Casino Royale, the version starring David Niven and one with a whole raft of jokes running through it that would never ever be tolerated in the politically-correct environment of today’s United Kingdom.

And if that couldn’t cheer me up, then nothing could. And so I lay there desperately hoping that I could drop off to sleep, or that I would be struck by a thunderbolt, or the earth would swallow me up.

This clearly wasn’t going very well, so at about 03:00 I set the alarm for 08:30. Now that I had finally decided to go to the doctor’s, it would be rather a shame if I were to fall asleep and miss it.

And fall asleep I must have done, because I was off on my travels. Somewhere in mainland Europe in World War II dealing with escaping Prisoners of War. The Germans were actively looking for them and so we had hidden them in some small bulkhead rooms in this Navy destroyer. They started to have a good search of the ship and I realised that I hadn’t chosen a good place because there was no escape route from these rooms. Trying to think of a solution, one of my assistants came up with the idea that if we were to say nothing and the Germans might not notice them. And even if they did, they might not make the connection.

The alarm awoke me (so it was just as well that I had set it) and I struggled into the living room for my medication. No breakfast again, but I did manage to stagger into the shower.

I could stagger down to Caliburn and we had an exciting time driving to the doctor’s. I definitely wasn’t really up to doing that. But it’s a good choice, this doctor’s, because it’s on the bus route and there’s a chemist’s within a short walk.

By the time that I arrived I was in agony, but the doctor gave me a good going-over. Apparently I have one of the worst cases of bronchitis that he has ever seen. He gave me two options – a course of medication or 8 daily injections in my rear end. No prizes for guessing which I chose!

Having to obtain some more money from the Bank (thanks to this temporary bank card from Fortis Bank) I went for the medication from the pharmacie. And this is going to work out to be expensive, this health issue.

Just round the corner is the Casino supermarket so I called in for a tray of Clementines (Christmas isn’t complete without a tray of Celemntines to attack) and a loaf of bread to freeze. After all, I’ll be starting to eat again someday soon, maybe.

Back here, I had the first helping of the medication. And much to my astonishment, it wasn’t all that long before I could feel an improvement. To such an extent that I polished off the rest of the soup from yesterday. And that made me feel even better.

As a result, seeing that I don’t have any leeks, I went out again to the Casine and picked some up, along with a bag of mixed nuts, a pile of water (I’m almost out) and a couple of other things too. And, for the first time for almost a week, I almost felt a spring in my step.

This evening I’ve nibbled on a few things. I’m still not up to a cooked meal but who knows what I’ll be feeling like tomorrow.

But the problem is that I’m not much of a one for doctors. I’ve always been a believer in building up my own immune system to fight off illnesses and ben prepared to suffer for a few days in the process. I’m finding it difficult to come to terms with the idea that since my splenectomy in January 2016 I no longer have an immune system.

I’ll just have to get over it.

And I’ve not crashed out once today, or retreated under the quilt, and it’s 23:00. I must be feeling better?

Thursday 21st December 2017 – I’VE FINALLY BITTEN …

… the bullet and I’ve arranged a doctor’s appointment for tomorrow morning.

After last night, I was feeling rather better this morning. But to tell you how bad things really are, it took almost 2.5 hours of film on the laptop before I managed to fall asleep. I’m clearly not well, am I?

I’d been on my travels too – down Coleridge Way in Crewe. And when I say “down”, I mean about 30 feet down because it was all under water. A couple of trips down there at various epochs, comparing the cars that were parked there – like “N” reg Marinas, that kind of thing.

No alarm, but I was still awake quite early. Not that this meant that I left the bed early of course. More like 08:30 in fact.

It took me ages to summon up the force to leave the sofa for my medication, and it goes without saying that I declined breakfast. I was back on the sofa again.

For lunch, I made a litre of packet soup and managed to drink a couple of mugs. But that’s left a horrible, metallic taste in my mouth that I can’t shift.

There was still the question of picking up my medication so round about 15:00 I crawled into town. A baguette from the bouangerie (to go in the freezer with the other one) and some little bits and pieces from the Coccinelle. And then the medication.

The walk back up here was a nightmare. I fet weak and dizzy and had to sop every couple of hundred yards. Definitely the worst trip that I’ve ever made back here. That was what made up my mind to see the doctor.
“Is it an emergency?” asked the receptionist
I explained the circumstances.
“I can’t fit you in before 10:15 tomorrow” she said.
Imagine that in the UK?

And then I crashed out on the sofa.

Rosemary rang later and we had a little chat. Only a little one, because I’m not feeling so well right now. But by 18:00 I had succumbed, and went to fect the pillow and quilt.

I managed to force down some dry biscuits later, but without any real enjoyment. And now I’m going back to bed.

I wonder what the doctor will have to say tomorrow.

EPIC HALL

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