Tag Archives: late night

Monday 7th August 2017 – THESE LATE NIGHTS …

… aren’t doing me much good, you know.

I set the alarm at 07:00 in the morning because when I was going to bed at 21:30 or something I didn’t want to waste the day as well. But just recently I seem to have regained all of my old routine – still awake and fighting fit at 02:00 – working on an animation, would you believe..

Back in those days, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that an 08:30 start was the norm when it was a 02:00 sleep. But no matter what, I’m going to hold out for these 07:00 starts.

All in all, this sea air, this “place of my own” and this new evening walk routine seems to be doing me some good.

So with all if this in mind, it took two goes on the alarm clock (Billy Cotton as well as David Bowie) this morning to get me out of bed and staggering into the bathroom, but there I was all the same.

Baguette on the wall for lunch too in the sunshine. It was a glorious afternoon and I was out there until about 15:00 with my book on The Hundred Years War.

It’s a strange war because most British people know of Agincourt, Crécy, the Black Prince and precious little else. For France though, it was about 115 years of sheer continuous terror with rampaging “Private Armies” devastating the countryside.

I know about it from the English point of view of course, so a year or so ago I bought a huge, thick book of about 1,000 pages going into intimate detail of the war from a French point of view.

Tea was a mega-curry. Should have had lentils in it but I forgot to boil them (they take about 2 hours to boil). However I had tons of stuff left over in the fridge like the rest of the stuffing for the peppers, a few mushrooms and the like.

Add to that the pepper left over from the three from LIDL and a large tin of vegetables, it all went together quite well and was one of the best that I’ve made. And enough for four days too.

Ingrid was on the phone for an hour having a chat. She’s in life-changing mode right now too so we compared notes.

But much of the day was spent doing something quite exciting. With my 3D program I just work with a couple of basic templates for figures and I’ve worked on them myself to develop some characters.

But the easiest one to work with is about 10 years old and is no longer supported so finding accessories is very difficult. Stuff disappears off the markets and the newsgroups and is never replaced. The Usenet discussion groups have a retention time of about 3,000 days so it’s all dropping off the end.

But the stuff that I found the other day included some stuff from a previous generation of templates and in a fit of inspiration I’ve managed to develop a little script to make it fit my template.

It’s far from perfect but I’ll keep working at it.

As well as that, I’ve discovered the secret of adapting morphs from older generations of templates to fit the templates that I use, and these are generally better-crafted than current ones.

Again; it’s far from being perfected bu I have a couple that work and that is indeed progress.

I’ll go for a walk now and see what later this evening brings me.

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Saturday 29th July 2017 – I’VE HAD A BAD …

… day today.

It’s probably something to do with my very late night last night – gone 02:30 when I finally crawled off to bed. And it was difficult to leave it at 07:00, I’ll tell you.

For the first couple of hours I didn’t do too much and then for the rest of the morning I went into town. It’s market day, and seeing as I hadn’t been into town during the week I took the opportunity to go for a prowl around.

Still no bank accounts transferred over, and so we had “words” in the branch office there. And quite right too. They seem to think that a wait of almost three months is “normal” – but I don’t, and I told them so too.

But the good news is that at least my pension is now being paid into the account – which means that I can afford to eat now.

Although whether I can do that soon is another matter. We’ve had an “incident” with the fridge today and I can see me having to replace that if I find a cheap one.

It’s my fault – I’m the first to admit it. But chiselling off the surplus ice with a blunt instrument has always worked in the past on every other fridge that I’ve ever had. Why didn’t it work on this one?

I declined the butties on the wall at lunchtime. There was a howling gale blowing and it was pointless to try to sit in that.

Fighting off the fatigue (and not always winning) I attacked another blog page today but ran aground. My heart wasn’t in it at all. I have days like this occasionally as you know and so I’ll have another go tomorrow.

Tea tonight was exciting. I planned something quite different and ended up with stuffed pepper (not made one of those in years), baked potato and frozen veg (and wrestling with the freezer door in the process).

A mix of tomato, mushroom, onion, garlic, olive oil, spices and tomato sauce into the emptied pepper and cooked in the oven for 40 minutes at 180°C (with the baking tray out, of course). Done to a turn it was.

And the veg smeared in butter and black pepper – it was gorgeous. But I never thought on to cook a rice pudding while I was at it. I’m clearly losing my touch.

So I’ll brave the hurricane and go for a walk in a minute, and then an early night.

I wonder where I’ll end up tonight. Last night I was somewhere that looked very much like this place, but I was looking down on it from a couple of hundred feet. We were (or, rather, whoever down there was) fixing a lighthouse that needed a good clean as it was all oiled up and sooty. And we had it working, and the beam was magnificent. Well-impressed with that.

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Sunday 23rd July 2017 – THAT WAS A LOVELY …

… pizza tonight.

And it would have been even lovelier had Brain of Britain taken out the baking tray from the bottom of the oven. D’ohhhh!

So having had a coffee last night far later than is good for me, it was about 01:20 when I crawled off to bed last night. And despite waking up at 07:45, I thought that there was little chance of that, so I turned over again.

I reckon that 08:50 is as good a time as any to leave my stinking pit on a Sunday. But that meant a hurried scramble down to the magasin de presse for my baguette before the grockles cleared out the supply.

And, sad as it is to say, I have been “observed”.

My usual spec on the wall at lunch was once more occupied by grockles so I had to sit elsewhere next to a mother and young daughter grockle group a little farther down. And some woman walking her dog came over to me “what’s up? Have the tourists pinched your usual place?”

Yes, I’ve been well and truly fingered, haven’t I?

And I wasn’t alone either – and I don’t mean grockles and women with dogs.

Sitting there minding my own business when along came a young tabby-and-white tomcat. He went around the various groups of people scrounging food, and came over to me to see what I had. Of course I had nothing for him, but he let me pick him up and give him a stroke.

Very relaxing, stroking a cat. It’s good for the stress.

So as well as crashing out for half an hour this afternoon, I’ve been on the blog again. A few more pages unravelled, but one that didn’t even merit a placeholder back in December 2011 has now evolved to almost 1700 words.

There have been a few like that too, haven’t there? I wonder what was so important back in 2011 and 2012 when I never found the time to go back and write up pages like this.

And I’ve had another little play with a computer program.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I am a big user of Paint Shop Pro. The first serious computer program that I ever bought in 1996 and it’s served me faithfully for all kinds of image editing ever since – until I … errr … mislaid the disc.

I’ve turned my attic at Les Guis upside down on numerous occasions trying to find it, but to no avail whatever.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … "thank goodness" – ed … on eBay the other week was a copy of PSP 8.1 – a major upgrade with many more useful features than my old PSP 7 that has done me almost 20 years service.

The price was far less that what I paid back in 1996 too and so I mentioned it to Terry and he duly obliged.

So that’s me now with about 4 years of work to catch up. I hope that I can remember how to use it!

I’ll make a start when I come back from my walk. It’s actually stopped raining for once.

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Monday 5th June 2017 – NO CHANCE …

storms granville manche normandy france… English bed-wetting types, of anyone sleeping around here tonight.

Not with this howling gale that’s right now lashing the rock on which I stand, which will slowly sink into the sand, just as Barclay James Harvest predicted, if it keeps on going like this.

In fact, the day started off quite nicely. I was asleep until the alarm went off and, leaping out of bed, I grabbed an early breakfast.

An hour or so later I was down in the town in the glorious sunshine with my huge bag full of dirty washing. The idea was to arrive before the crowds did and before the shops opened, and find a parking place as close as possible to the launderette. In fact, I managed to find a free space right outside the door.

But the launderette isn’t much good. It didn’t clean my clothes too well at all and I had to send them through a second time. I shall have to think long and hard about this and about what I’m going to do in this respect.

While the washing was doing I nipped around the corner for a baguette and some tomatoes, and then headed back to the launderette sort out the clothes.

Next plan was to go to the Bank, the Estate Agent and the Insurance place, but Bane of Britain has struck again. It’s a Bank Holiday here today, so I discovered. So forget all of that.

Back here, I ran into (well, not literally) my neighbour who formerly lived in my apartment. We had a little chat – so little that it went on for over an hour and a half and it was midday before I ended up back in here with a coffee.

By lunchtime the weather had changed and I ate my butties indoors. The storm broke at about 15:00 and it was howling around. I dunno what it was that crashed to the ground up the road from here, but it wasn’t half impressive.

storm at sea granville manche normandy franceI braved the tempest and walked with the camera across to the cliff overlooking the harbour in the hope and eager expectation of seeing the waves lashing over the jetties and crashing on the rocks and all of that. But how disappointed was I?

The bay is quite sheltered from the winds and as a result what was going on down there was nothing like as impressive as I was hoping it might have been. The sea was barely stirring. I’ve had rougher waves in my bath after a plate of baked beans on toast.

storm at sea granville manche normandy franceBack here I had a few things to do to keep me out of mischief, but as the tempo of the wind increased I couldn’t resist the temptation to fit the zoom lens to the camera and stick it out of the window to see if the waves were any more impressive.

The answer was “some, not much”. I can see that living here is going to be a big disappointment. I was really looking forward to watching the waves come crashing up over the headland in the darkest depths of winter.

So having had tea, I’m feeling pretty tired but I suspect that it’s going to be a long night for me with all of this going on.

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Thursday 11th May 2017 – I ENDED UP …

… not going to bed – or to sofa – very early at all. In fact, just as I was about to retire someone came on line and we ended up having a very long chat about all kinds of things – a chat that went on for a couple of hours. It was after 12:00 by the time that I retired, and that’s not something that’s happening too often these days as you know.

Nevertheless, I was awake quite early – long before the alarm – but it took me quite a while to summon up the energy to leave my stinking pit. It wasn’t easy, I promise you. and it took me ages to pluck up the courage to go down to the depot de pain for my baguette.

But once I was awake, I was off. And I’ve had another hard-working day today too. I now have two rather large bookcases, ready to bring some more books back from the Auvergne next time I’m there, whenever that might be, and I also now have another quite posh set of shelves.

And I bet that my LPs never ever thought that they would ever see the light of day again, but there they are on the shelves along with the DVDs and CDs that I brought with me (not all of them by a long way) and the Hi-Fi – first time that the Hi-Fi and the LPs, and the DVD and Video players, have seen the light of day since 2011 and how I have missed them … "you’ll need to improve your aim" – ed.

Although that might not sound like too much, what took the time was filling the shelves and rearranging everything. That was quite a work of art and now it can truly be said that the floor is quite reasonably tidy for me.

But it wasn’t like that at one point, because I was at a certain moment up to my knees in cardboard boxes. And I’m not joking either. But now, all of the cardboard has been gathered up from everywhere and there’s a big pile right by the side of the sofa. When the rest of the stuff is brought out of Caliburn (which might be tomorrow – you never know) I can move the empty cardboard down into Caliburn and head off to the dechetterie.

Rosemary rang me up later this afternoon for a chat – all of … errr … 1 hour and 11 minutes. I like talking to Rosemary and it’s good to talk to her, especially when we are putting the world to rights. And it seems to need it just now, doesn’t it?

So now, I’m going to have a shower. And there’s a good reason for this – namely that tonight I can finally go to sleep on my new bed. All new bedding, quilts and pillows too, and you have no idea just how much I’ve been looking forward to this. That’s why I’m going to pretty myself up and smell properly for a change.

It’s a shame to ruin the new bed, isn’t it?

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Monday 9th January 2017 – I PAID …

… for my exciting, adventurous (and tiring) weekend today.

It was a late night of course, coming back from the football, and so that wasn’t so helpful. And then it was difficult for me to go off to sleep. It only seemed as if I’d been asleep for five minutes when the alarm went off, and it was a real struggle to go for breakfast this morning. And I wasn’t feeling much like it either.

And it went from bad to worse too. When I came downstairs afterwards, if was cold in my room so I snuggled back under the quilt to keep warm. That was at about 07:45, and the next thing that I remembered was that it was 10:10.

Out like a light!

And then it took me a while to heave myself out of my stinking pit too.

A coffee helped to revitalise me and then I continued my research into Labrador.

And I’ve made an exciting discovery too! A group of people went off to the Far North of Labrador in 1927 and they took with them one of the very first snowmobiles – a home-made job converted from a Ford Model T – a Tin Lizzy. It covered about 250 miles before a valve burned out. And the home-made repair lasted half an hour, and so the vehicle was abandoned.

And then, in 2013, a party of archaeologists discovered it and the following year they recovered it, and it’s now undergoing a process of restoration. That’s going to be exciting when it’s finished.

I have two new housemates today. There’s a Polish boy from Krakow who is just here for tonight and, separately, there’s a girl from the Ukraine. She’s here for a week and, believe me, she can come and share my samovar any time she likes.

She has the room above me, and I do wish that we were all on board that millionaire’s yacht that was commandeered by the Navy in World War II. The captain, in his cabin, found a secret button and pressed it. And the dividing wall between the captain’s room and the guest room folded down, the bed in the guest room canted up at an angle, and the captain found the second mate cascaded into bed beside him. That’s what I want for here.

So having had yet another day where I’ve not set foot out of the building, and having had my pizza and garlic bread, I’ll have an early night yet again. Let’s see how I get on tonight with a good night’s sleep.

I hope!

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Friday 6th January 2017 – I HAD ENOUGH …

… pasta left over and so tonight I made myself a big tomato dish for tea, with enough left over for the next two nights too.

Onions and garlic fried together, and then added a tin of kidney beans, a tin of Macedoine vegetables, a big handful of peanuts, assorted spices and herbs and then a big dollop of tomato sauce.

And do you know what?

It was absolutely delicious. And it should be even better over the next couple of days if it follows the usual plan.

You might remember that I was planning on an early night last night. But I couldn’t drop off to sleep early and ended up doing some work on the laptop. When I noticed the time, it was 00:45 and that was the end of my early night.

I slept right through too, and awoke about 5 minutes before the alarm went off. And if I had been anywhere during the night, I don’t remember. It was like that.

Later in the morning I went out for my baguette, just down to the supermarket on the corner, and came back with a couple more plastic crates too. I have quite a collection now – so all that I need is a Plan to inspire me to pack them with stuff. But that’s not going to happen until the Spring now at least and maybe not then either.

Apart from that, I’ve spent most of the day reading up on stuff. More stuff on North-West River. It’s the worst thesis that I’ve ever read, it has to be said, but much of the gossip that’s in it, that you don’t usually find in a thesis, has helped me answer a few questions that I’ve had running around in my mind, and also solved a problem that I’ve tried to resolve in the past about the “old road” between Goose Bay and Churchill Falls.

I’ve had a crash-out too, as you might expect, and then it was tea time. And now it’s bed-time. An early night I hope, and a good sleep I hope even more.

But before I go, I’ve found a beautiful epitaph about Labrador. It was written by Judge William Malone as he took his leave from Dillon Wallace after they had been into the Labrador wilderness in 1913 to find the final camp of Leonidas Hubbard on his disastrous expedition of 1903.

“I’m leaving the country though with a feeling of profound regret. I wish I were just going in with you instead of going home. I never had that feeling before on leaving the wilderness, but this country has exerted a peculiar fascination upon me. I understand what it was now that drew you and Hubbard on and would not let you turn back. I have learned what you meant when you called it “the lure of the Labrador wild.”

And that’s certainly how I feel each time I cross the border into Quebec. And the more that I read about Labrador, the more I realise just how much I miss it and how I want to go back there.

I’m getting all nostalgic, aren’t I?

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Friday 2nd December 2016 – I ACTUALLY MADE IT …

… out this morning.

Last night was yet another late night – 02:00 this time – and I had to leave my bed during the night too which is disappointing. The first time for ages too.

I’d been on my travels during the night too – back to Labrador and exploring a few isolated settlements with a few other people too but I can’t remember who it was now.

When the alarms went off, I ad little trouble leaving my bed. Breakfast was another problem though as there was no orange juice available. I’m not a big fan of apple juice but that’s all there was.

After breakfast I came down here and cracked on with a few other things that I needed to do. And I didn’t forget the Bank either for that was where I went when I went out this morning. At 11.20 I was in the Fortis Bank around the corner and paid the rent for my three-month stay.

On the way back I went via the supermarket for the bread and a bottle of drink – I get through pints of liquid these days with this problem that I have.

after lunch I cracked on with my website until tea time, on-and-offish, and finished off the kidney bean whatsit for tea.

That’s the highlight of my day anyway. At least I didn’t crash out at all.

Tomorrow I’m off gallivanting and then Sunday I’m hitting the road.

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Thursday 1st December 2016 -I HAD A …

… very bad night last night.

Well, sort-of-ish anyway.

Remember yesterday when I told you about that good book that I downloaded yesterday? So there I was last night reading it and I happened to notice the time. 03:30 it was.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been so deeply engrossed in a book like that, I have to say. I was well-away. But anyway, I closed down the laptop, turned off the light, and went to sleep – or, at least, tried to.

I must have dozed off eventually because it was the alarm that awoke me. And surprisingly, I didn’t feel too bad just then. I’d been on my travels too, although I don’t remember anything about it right now.

After breakfast, I lay down here on the bed and closed my eyes for 5 minutes in order to build up my strength ready to face the morning. Next thing that I knew, it was 11:20. i’d been out if it for over three hours. And serve me right too.

I’d missed the bank to pay my lodging, so I mustn’t forget under any circumstances to do that tomorrow. Otherwise I’ll be out on my aspidistra. And coming back from the shower room, I walked into the wrong room. I knew that I would end up doing that sooner or later. Did I say that I’m in a different room here? It’s the cheapest in the house but I have negotiated a good deal so I’m not complaining. It’s just not my usual room and so it’ll take some time to become used to it.

After lunch I cracked on a little with my pages on Happy Valley-Goose Bay. It’s amazing the stuff that has come on line since the last time that I researched into this in early 2011. Tons of stuff and I’m spoilt for choice these days.

Something else that I did this afternoon has shaped my plans for next week. You know that Caliburn was hit in the rear a few weeks ago and needs to be examined. And I’ve also been keen to go home for some time, just for old time’s sake.

And so I rang up the insurance and made an appointment with their expert for Tuesday afternoon. and it’s at Evaux-les-Bains, and so that means that I have to go home. And that’s what I’m going to do. I’m seeing Alison on Saturday afternoon, and so on Sunday morning I shall hit the road and head back.

My plan is to stop on Sunday night at Meaux, and on Monday night at Montlucon – a Première Classe each time. And then go and have Caliburn sorted out on Tuesday and go back home for a few days.

For tea I made a kidney-bean whatsit, with enough for tomorrow night. And then I’ve been searching on the internet. OH Leuven are playing away on Saturday night at Tubize, just south of Brussels. There’s a reliable train service which is quite interesting, as so seeing as I have never really been to Tubize, I’m thinking of it.

Or as William Shakespeare might have said “Tubize or not Tubize? That is the question!”

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Friday 18th November 2016 – I REALLY AM THE KISS OF DEATH

I was in Sedan yesterday evening, with the intention of going for a wander round, and then I saw an advert from the local football club, CS Sedan-Ardennes, talking about matches that the club will be playing in the near future. I noticed that one of the matches would be played tonight.

Sedan had at one time fairly recently played in the French First Division, and had a nice modern stadium on the edge of the city centre. But they have fallen on hard times just recently and are busy propping up all the other clubs in the Third Division. Still, football is football.

The LeClerc supermarket was just around the corner from where I was so I nipped into the LeClerc and stocked up with another pile of tinned food, seeing as it’s so much cheaper there than in Belgium. And not only that, things like the boulghour is half-price compared to Belgium. And so now I have enough stuff to keep me going for the first month when I go back there.

Once I’d finished the shopping and fuelled up Caliburn, I headed off to the football ground and found a fritkot where the owner served me up a big bag of chips and a salad wrap, all for €6:00 which I thought was extremely democratic.

The football ground to which I was heading was just down the road from the fritkot, and when I arrived there, it was in total darkness. But not to worry. It seems that Bird-brain of Britain had confused the address and there’s a street of the same name in a suburb of Sedan and by pure coincidence there’s a football stadium in that street too.

Back into town again and I arrived at the real stadium this time, the Stade Louis Dugauguez. There was some parking in the immediate vicinity which was quite handy and I then had the “hunt the pay-booth”, which was quite exciting.

stade louis dugauguez c s sedan ardennes france october octobre 2016To my surprise, it cost me just €7:00 for admission to the ground. That’s a bargain at any price, and then I had another massive hike around to find the entry gate that I needed.

I took my seat behind the goals just as the match kicked off. The noisy sector was just a couple of sectors away from where I was, and I was in good company. Mind you, I could have had plenty of choice as to where I would sit. A huge modern 28,000 all-seater stadium and there were about 1500 – 1800 of us in total. No more than that, I shoudn’t think.

stade louis degauguez c s sedan ardennes france october octobre 2016As for the match itself, it was rather surprising. Sedan are bottom of the Third Division and US Quevilly-Rouen Métropole, the opponents from Rouen, are third in the table and so I was expecting a walk-over. But Sedan could have won this match at a canter had they tried because they looked quite a good side.

They had by far the most possession and looked quite dangerous going forward. But it’s yet another case of a team that could play all night with no opposition on the field, still be out there right now and still not score. Hand them a stringed musical instrument and they still couldn’t hit the nether regions of a ruminant animal.

We had one occasion where one of their attackers blazed the ball miles over the bar from 5 yards out of an open goal and another occasion where an attacker, in an even better position, forgot to kick the ball.

As for Quevilly, they didn’t look as good but they scored the vital goal – a free kick round the blind side of the defensive wall and the keeper not being able to hang on to the shot with a Quevilly forward the quickest to follow up.

They also hit the woodwork too with the keeper well-beaten, and missed a couple of other good chances too.

What with my late night last night, I was in bed and asleep about 2 minutes after I went to bed. I’d had the radio on and that awoke me at 00:45 with something noisy, so I turned it off, went off down the corridor,and then back to bed.

And there I stayed, flat out until the alarm went off at 07:00.I’d been a-travelling too, but heaven alone now knows where I’d been on my journey.

For most of the morning I was working on my web site for Labrador. I’m making some quite rapid progress too as far as information goes, but not as far as distance goes. It’s going to be longer than I thought before I arrive at Baie Comeau, but it’s going to be an interesting drive, as well as a controversial one, that’s for sure, because the stuff that’s come crawling out of the woodwork is quite … errr …interesting, to say the least.

After lunch, I crashed out, and for longer than I intended too. It had been a nice afternoon and I was sorry that I missed it. But it’s never too late to hit the road and so off I set for Sedan.

Once the football had finished, freezing to death, I walked back to Caliburn and drove back here. No room on the main car park due to the influx of weekenders, and the lounge was crawling with people – including the noisy brat who was still up creating a disturbance at gone midnight. That’s no way to bring up a 4 year-old.

By 00:30 I was too tired to do much so I called it a night and went to bed.

I hope that I have as good a sleep as I did last night.

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Monday 24th October 2016 – DESPITE WHAT I SAID …

… last night, I didn’t go to bed all that early. In fact, I carried on with what I was doing on my website. And by the time that I had finished – which was at 00:15, I’d transformed the page on which Iw as working into two pages – this one and this one.

In fact, I ought really to have divided it up into three pages given the size of the pages that were produced, but there wasn’t a clear join or convenient break-point anywhere so it will have to do.

I went to sleep after that and without any interruption at all, I was stark out until the alarm went off. I’d been on my travels too, although I don’t remember all that much about it now. All that I do remember was that it featured the girl who on these pages has been known in the past as “The One That Got Away” and her daughter, and we were on a cruise or voyage somewhere with a pile of other people.

When the alarm went off, I was awake instantly. Straight into breakfast where I was joined by a couple of other housemates, and then back here long before 08:00.

I’ve spent most of the day attacking the website with further amendments and by late afternoon two more revised pages were on line – this one and this one.

And as if that isn’t enough, I’ve been working on two completely new ones. I spent two days a-wandering around Godbout just after I arrived there. And each one of my daily rambles will have its own page.

However, that won’t be finished tonight as I’m pretty tired, and it won’t be finished tomorrow either because Caliburn is ready and I can go to pick him up tomorrow morning. Assuming that I don’t have any other contretemps on my way out of the city, I’ll go to pay a visit to IKEA. I have been having a long-term plan that has rapidly passed through the mid-term stage and is now a short-term objective, and IKEA plays a part in that.

Apart from that, what else?

We’ve had the odd crash-out as you might expect, and I had to go to the Fortis bank round the corner to pay my web-hosting fees for 2017. They are due at the end of November. And I finished the rest of the curry that I had made last Thursday.

But web-hosting – that reminds me.

It costs me a lot of money to put my web-pages and this blog on line, and I’m sure that you have all benefited at one time or another from what I’ve been saying.

You can help me by making your next purchase from Amazon via the links on the right-hand side of this blog. You pay no extra by doing this, but I receive a small commission from the company, and this helps me pay the web-hosting.

Please help me keep my postings alive.

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Saturday 6th August 2016 – WELL, THAT DIDN’T TURN OUT …

… like it ought to have done, did it?

Despite planning on an early night, it was after 04:00 this morning and I was still awake, despite having had a full day awake yesterday. I really didn’t understand that at all.

The 07:00 cacophony woke me up of course but only for a couple of seconds and I was back in the arms of Morpheus quite quickly. It was 10:30 when I finally crawled out of bed, and just made it into the kitchen before the 11:00 cut-off time for breakfast.

What was interesting about last night was that I hadn’t had to leave the bed at any time either – quite a rare event these days – and I’d been on my travels too. It concerns three stick insects that I owned and which I was keeping in a plastic bag in the fridge. But then I found a plastic jar of some description and was busily enticing them into there. I had no idea how I was going to feed them or keep them sheltered, but that hadn’t bothered me for a minute.

I’ve had a relaxing day again, doing effectively nothing at all. I had a play with the 3D program that I used and I was following a couple of football results on the internet. I’d also (quite late on as it happened) been to the supermarket on the corner but instead of a baguette, I bought a ciabatta just to be different and that made a pleasant change for my butties.

It’s Saturday night too, so I went out at about 20:00 and bought myself a proper chick pea curry from the Asian take-away – and nice it was too. I quite look forward to this as much as I do for my pizza on Sundays.

But my splendid isolation is changing. For the last couple of days, it looked as if I was the only person staying here and it was nice and quiet. But today a few people have moved in and I can hear the television going off next door. That’s annoying but it can’t be helped. I reckon that I’ve just been lucky this last few days or so.

Anyway, in a minute, I’ll go off and do the washing up. Then I’ll see about an early night. I might be able to manage one today.

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Saturday 23rd July 2016 – IT WAS AFTER …

… well after 02:00 in fact before I finally went to bed. And I don’t recall having left my stinking pit for a ride on the porcelain horse at any point during the night either – sleeping right through until about 07:40.

I had even managed to fit a little nocturnal ramble into the night’s agenda. I was driving a coach somewhere but that really is all that I can remember about it.

But in my new “weak and feeble” mode, I was in no rush to leave my stinking pit once I was awake and so I stayed here relaxing and chatting to Liz on the internet until about 10:00. Then it was breakfast time, and I took it easy (in fact it took me an hour to eat it) so as a result I didn’t feel too bad.

All of the foregoing might make you think that I’m feeling a little better and that is indeed the truth. Not very much, I must admit, but better all the same, and I could concentrate on doing some more updating on the blog. That’s been in abeyance for a week or so while I’ve been trying to get my head together.

In fact I was feeling so much better that later in the afternoon I went out to the supermarket on the corner and bought a baguette. Not only that, I managed to eat most of a vegan cheese and tomato butty for tea, and that’s certainly progress.

So now it’s 22:45 and I’m not really tired. Sitting on the edge of the bed ready to sleep I might be, but I can’t see me dropping off any time soon. I still have the runny nose and the heavy cough and the stomach upset and I would be extremely delighted if all of that were to go away, but I suppose that it’s just the start of the long road back, with a few other setbacks to come along the way.

I suppose that I can’t expect too much.

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Monday 18th July 2016 – I WENT TO THE HOSPITAL …

… this morning, and just for a change, seeing as how I’m not too well, I went up on the bus. I definitely can’t be feeling up to it if I’m having to travel by bus and spend €1:40.

Just for a change I’d had the best night’s sleep that I’d had for ages. Apart from one trip down the corridor, I was out like a light until the alarm went off at 07:00, and then promptly went back to sleep until the alarm went off again at 07:15.

I’d been on my travels too. Back driving a coach tour along the North Cornwall coast. The holiday had come to an end and we were ready to go home. The advertised way was down across the county to Exeter and then up the M5, but the prettier way, even if it was a longer way, was along the coast and so I asked the passengers if they would like to go that way. Many of the passengers had been with me last year when we had gone along the coast too. They were having a discussion about that and so I decided to move the coach off to a safer spot. However I had a hell of a time getting the coach to start and when it finally did start there were clouds of white smoke everywhere and the coach wouldn’t accelerate. This was a bad start to the final day’s holiday and I was hoping that the passengers hadn’t noticed.

I had another go at having a decent breakfast ready for my long day, but I ended up leaving half of it. I’m still not up to it, I reckon. And it was scorching outside, even at 08:00. I’m glad that I had decided to take the bus.

At the check-in at the day care centre I was taken by surprise. I was sent straight to a little room instead of having to go through all of the preliminaries downstairs. That didn’t sound too good. And I had a nurse who had exactly the same accent as Goldmember. That was worrying too. She fitted me with a drain and took a blood sample. And I have to give a urine sample too and that’s taking the p155.

My weight has gone down by 3kgs, which is probably normal seeing as how little I’ve been eating just recently.

The Doctor came to see me – not Hermione unfortunately – but the other one and we had a good time discussing everything that has been going on with me just recently. She’ll know more when she has the results of the blood test later today but to her it sounds as if I have caught an infection and it will soon pass through. I hope that she’s right.

She did however send me to have my chest x-rayed. Done on the spot!

Strangely enough, in between the blood test and the visit of the doctor, I’d suddenly started to feel so much better. How is that for an irony? I managed the soup and bread for lunch, as well as a large packet of crisps that Alison had bought me and which I’d taken along for emergencies.

The perfusion was ready quite quickly and didn’t take long. By about 14:45 it was all finished. The doctor came back with a prescription for the medication that I had finished off, and told me some good news. My blood count is 10.0 – exactly the same as it was 2 weeks ago. And given all that I’ve done and all that I’ve been through this last 2 weeks, that’s quite impressive. I’m very pleased with that.

And when was the last time that I have had a blood transfusion?

She told me that I do have an infection too. She’s not too worried about it and it’s one of the things to which I’ll have to become accustomed giving the loss of my spleen, but she wants me back next week (instead of in two weeks time) to see what is happening.

She did offer me the chance to stay at the hospital. Had I been living anywhere else that I had during the last three months, I might well have taken her up on it. But I’m comparatively comfortable here so I decided to come back home. I must be feeling better.

Having paid the odd account or two, I set off home – on foot too – and ended up in town at the supermarket buying a few bits and pieces. I’ve even eaten tonight – nothing special or exotic but proper food. And three good meals too.

And not only that – it’s now 23:45 and I’m still awake and not in the least but tired despite my full, exhausting day.

Things are looking up.

Ans we’ve had more excitement in Parliament today. During the debate on the new Trident replacement, the new Prime Minister, Theresa May, attacked Green MP Caroline Lucas for speaking against the proposals, saying that Lucas was “defending the UK’s enemies”.

Now have a close look at this speech – “Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Did you notice the bit about “denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger” which has clearly influenced Theresa May’s speech? The speech that I quoted just now was one given by none other than Hermann Goering.

Having had the B Liar paraphrasing the Nazi speeches during his period in office, it looks now as if we’ve got yet more Nazi clones in charge in Drowning Street.

That’s a frightening thought now, isn’t it? Or were we all expecting it?

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