Tag Archives: late night

Wednesday 6th July 2016 – THAT WASN’T SO GOOD.

We’ve been having a couple of late nights just recently – and also quite a few early mornings. But it all goes wrong when you have a late night – like 01:40 and you are still sitting up – and someone comes along to use the kitchen at 05:40.

I think that I was up and about once, and I don’t remember being on any travels either. But at least, by 07:30 I’d already breakfasted and was working away on the laptop.

Most of the morning was spent doing updates to the blog, and I’d done quite a few by the time lunchtime came round. I’d been to the boulangerie just down the road for my baguette which saved me a good half-hour.

This afternoon I meant to carry on with the blog but Liz came on line and we had quite a lengthy chat. And then, I crashed out here on the sofa for a couple of hours. I must have needed it.

Anderlecht stadion den dreef oud heverlee OH Leuven BelgiumThis evening in the beautiful sunnyweather I went for a stroll to the edge of the town by the inner ring. This is where the Stadion den Dreef, the home football ground of Oud Heverlee Leuven might be found.

Anderlecht from Brussels are in training ready for their European football matches and tonight they had arranged a friendly against OH Leuven and so I went for a wander down to see what was going on.

Anderlecht stadion den dreef oud heverlee OH Leuven BelgiumIt’s only a small ground and it seems to be undergoing a process of renovation. On the north side of the ground there’s a new stand that looks as if it’s just been built and in the process of being kitted out.

Because I didn’t have a membership card I had to go and sit in the “away” end with the Anderlecht fans which annoyed me because they are far from being my favourite club, but at €15:00 for a ticket I can’t complain too much.

Anderlecht stadion den dreef oud heverlee OH Leuven BelgiumIt was a pretty miserable game, the first half anyway. Anderlecht were poor but OH Leuven were thoroughly clueless.

The first 10 minutes of the game were spent in the OH Leuven penalty area laying siege to the goal. Anderlecht had one decent break through on goal, saved by the keeper’s foot, but apart from that, Anderlecht never looked as if they were seriously going to threaten the OH Leuven keeper.

Anderlecht stadion den dreef oud heverlee OH Leuven penalty BelgiumWe were treated at half time to the astonishing event of OH Leuven going in for the half-time cuppa in front one-nil. They had had just one shot at goal during the first half, which was well-saved onto the post by the Anderlecht keeper, but they won a rather soft penalty a couple of minutes before half-time.

The keeper nearly got to it too and had he done so, no-one could have complained. It would have been justice.

Anderlecht stadion den dreef oud heverlee OH Leuven BelgiumI’m not sure what the Anderlecht trainer put in the half-time cuppa but I could do with having some of it, that’s for sure. Within 10 minutes of the restart Anderlecht had scored three goals, and they went on to score a fourth near the end of the game.

It was still very much a huffing, puffing performance and they didn’t look all that impressive. Playing like this, they aren’t going to make too much of a mark in Europe. But it’s going to be a long, hard season for OH Leuven in the Second tier of the Belgian Football League.

I had a nice walk back here and picked up some chips on the way. I have clean bedding tonight and I’m going to make the most of it. I hope that I don’t have the 05:45 starters tomorrow morning.

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Tuesday 14th June 2016 – SO HOW WAS MY FIRST NIGHT IN MY NEW DIGS THEN?

The answer was “not very comfortable”.

What with one thing and another, it was long after midnight before I ended up going to bed. And once I was in, I had a little listen to the radio but it wasn’t long before I switched everything off and settled down for the night.

But the mattress, which I have put on the floor, as I have no intention of climbing up to the eaves of the room, is really uncomfortable. It’s a very cheap mattress to start with and it sags just about everywhere. But it wasn’t long before I’d dropped off to sleep, and that was how things stood until all of … errr … 05:30. I’m not used to the big city and all of the traffic and the like.

It goes without saying that I didn’t actually leave the stinking pit at that time, and when I finally did, I had plenty to do up here. Breakfast was therefore at 09:00 where I made the acquaintance of one of my co-cottiers. I had to run up and down the stairs twice as well – the first time wasn’t too bad but I was on my knees for the second. This is clearly not going to be sustainable.

The walk up to the hospital was quite pleasant even though it was all uphill. I called at the boulangerie that I had discovered yesterday. and of course, it’s closed on Tuesdays. But there’s an Asian supermarket across the road and they sold baguettes, so that’s that problem resolved.

The parking problem for Caliburn is semi-resolved too. I picked up a document from the hospital yesterday setting out my visits to date, and with this I was able to apply for a parking card for a free car park in the vicinity. This was duly granted.

But having the pass is one thing – finding a free space there is quite something else. I ended up making an ad-hoc space for myself at first, and then going back out at lunchtime to pounce on a liberated space. And that took quite a wait. By the end of the afternoon though, there were a few free spaces so if I do decide to go anywhere in Caliburn it will have to be in the late afternoon that I come back.

I made use of the hospital’s internet to check up on things and to send off another pile of e-mails. I’ve already had two replies from this load of messages, but they were both refusals.

Walking back here was pleasant too in the early evening sun and I encountered the landlord in the building, changing a few light-bulbs including the one that doesn’t work in my room. I also had an encounter with a couple of the girls here, sorting out a place for me in the fridge.

Tea tonight was pasta, kidney beans, veg and tomato sauce followed by slices of spicy cake and soya dessert. Loads of proteins in all of that. And now, having almost fallen asleep a couple of times at the hospital, I’m off for an early night.

I hope that I can have a good night’s sleep tonight.

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Friday 22nd April 2016 – AND SO DESPITE EVERYTHING …

… that I said on Wednesday about late nights, it was 01:00 in the morning this morning and I was still up and about. I could have stayed up longer too, but it was getting a little bit ridiculous to be up and about just for the sake of it, so I settled down in my bed and waited for sleep to come.

And come it did too, sooner or later. And I remember absolutely nothing about the night. I didn’t even have to leave my bed. I slept right through until the alarm went off and how I wish that I could sleep like that every day.

I’d run out of fruit juice, so I remembered this morning, and so I had to make do without any for breakfast. And talking of breakfast, we were just three in the dining room this morning (although some new people have arrived today too).

After breakfast, I had some bad news. A phone call in fact. “This is reception here. Just to remind you that your stay here ends on Monday morning. Thank you for being with us”.

That’s bad news as I was banking on something rather more long-term than this as you know. Anyway, I’ve managed to negotiate a stay until I go into hospital and then I really shall be on my own when I come out.

And my luck didn’t change much either when I was out. Just round the corner is an old building that looks as if it’s just been renovated. And there in the window was a sign “Rooms to let – €385 per month plus €65 charges”. That kind of place is well within my budget and so I made further enquiries and to my dismay, viewing is on 30th April – when I’m in hospital. That kind of place would have been ideal for me to stay.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve had a quiet day today and not done much at all. But tonight I found a new eatery. I had a huge lump of bread filled with salad and falafel, together with a bag of chips and it all came to €7:50. There was enough there to keep me going for a week and it was delicious too. I’ve added it on to my list of places.

And now I really am going to go to bed. I need a good sleep because I need to have a good clean-up tomorrow morning. Alison is coming shopping in the town and so we’ve arranged to meet up for a coffee. I need to look my best, if I can, as well as to be on my best behaviour if I’m being seen in the company of others.

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Monday 4th April 2016 – I WAS UP …

… quite early this morning and on the road almost straight away. I wanted to be at the hospital early and it’s a good job that I was because there were traffic queues and road works all over the place.

Once I’d found a good spec for Caliburn (there’s an outside car park that I needed to locate as the main car park has a 2-metre height limit), I went off on a route march to sign myself in. And that reminded me of the queue for registering a vehicle at Riom – I was ticket 259 and they were dealing with n°208.

But with 10 registration desks open (not like at Riom where there is just one) I was all done and dusted within 10 minutes and even had time to go to the café for breakfast. That worked out to be somewhat expensive for some bread and jam, but it would have been a lot cheaper had I realised that what I took to be orange juice was actually freshly-pressed mango.

I found the day hospital, and it’s nothing like Montlucon in that there were probably 100 people there. But I was pretty quickly whisked into a side ward and had a drain fitted. From there, I was shunted off into another room to wait for my blood.

But it’s not like Montlucon in another respect either. I hadn’t been in there long before someone from the Welfare Department came to see me. And never mind the interminable wrangle that we had at Montlucon (and is still going on) about payment – she was brandishing photocopies of my Insurers’ registration form and we filled it in on the spot. They are of course much more used to my situation here and are fully prepared.

We also discussed the situation about my accommodation for when I’m released. She went off and came back 20 minutes later with the news that I have been booked for two weeks into the “family guest-rooms” at the old hospital in the city centre. That’s pretty quick, I have to say. And it’s pretty good news too. All of which is compounded by the fact that the parking here at the hospital (€4:00 per day for inmates) is capped at €12 per week for long-term visitors, and they expect me to be undergoing treatment for … gulp … six months. And so this two-week “stay of execution” gives me time to think of a “Plan B”.

But treatment here wasn’t as straightforward as it might have been. They needed to do all kinds of tests and so on that hadn’t been carried out at Montlucon apparently, and by the time that they had finished everything and the blood had finally arrived, it was 15:30. For food, it was jam butties because, having caught them à la depourvu, there was nothing arranged for me, but at least there was a free coffee machine just around the corner.

By the time that my transfusions were over, it was 19:30 – far too late for chemotherapy and far too late for me to go anywhere else, and so they have found a bed here for me until Wednesday, and chemotherapy will start tomorrow morning. But I’ve missed the evening meal tonight because of all of this, and so I had … errr … jam butties for tea. However, I went down to Caliburn for my things, and profited by stuffing the suitcase full of goodies.

But damn and blast my neighbour. I’m having to share a room and of course, he snores. It’s been a long time since I’ve been still awake at 01:00. This is going to be a very long night.

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Tuesday 26th January 2016 – I WAS RIGHT!

I had an absolutely dreadful night last night. They finally connected up the blood at 00:45 and then I tried my best to go to sleep. I know that I had dropped off but it felt as if I was awakened almost immediately. They said about an hour – but I was unconvinced – but anyway, they needed to connect up the second pochette.

So off to sleep again. And an hour later, we went through the pantomime yet again.

And then we had the blood pressure test

And then the blood sample

And so it went on throughout the night. Just as I was settling down, I was awoken yet again.

I came round when the breakfast was served and I even managed to scrounge a second cup of coffee, such as it is, for which I am always grateful. They even brought me some things to have a shower, and I found a razor and some clean undies at the bottom of my bag. But the shower was interesting – with the drain and the tube in my arm, I couldn’t take my nightgown off so I was involved in some interesting contortions, but at least I’m all clean.

We had a moment’s excitement too. Two young student nurses came to change my bedding. And when they had finished, they asked “do you need us for anything else?” Being in hospital clearly has its compensations – but I’ll be expelled yet again before much longer. I’ve never seen girls go as red as they did when I replied that that was the best offer that I’ve had in 35 years.

A short while later, someone brought round something for me to drink. It was absolutely disgusting. Upon making enquiries I was told that my potassium count was too high and this drink was to bring it down. Personally, I think that it was a punishment for teasing the students.

The chief nurse came around later. Apparently my blood count is now 7.6 and that’s not high enough. They plan to keep me in and give me some more pochettes. I’m totally opposed to that idea as you know. I have things to do and I can’t do them while I’m still in hospital. I explained that I would be coming in tomorrow morning for good and a blood transfusion is already planned anyway. It’s pointless. And in any case, the blood sample was taken ar about 06:00 and it’s now 11:20. Had they decided at 06:00 that they would be giving me a third pochette, I could have had it already and been long-gone from here.

And so she went off to talk to the surgeon.

20 minutes later, she was back. And we had another delightful conversation.
Chief Nurse – “the surgeon says that you can go home now and come back in tomorrow as planned”
Our Hero – “good. I’ll get dressed then”
CN – “but we are rather concerned”
OH – “what is that?”
CN – “your blood count has only gone up to 7.6”
OH – “and what’s the problem with that?”
CN – “I understand that you came in your car. We don’t think that you are capable of driving home safely”
OH – “but it was 6.4 last night”
CN – “so I’ve been told – but I don’t see how that’s relevant”
OH – “well, it’s like this. If you don’t think that I’m safe enough to drive home with a blood count of 7.6, how come you thought that I was safe enough to drive here with a blood count of 6.4?”
At that, I was allowed to drive home by myself.

They took the drain out, spilling onto the floor most of the blood that they had given me, and I was off. Just as far as the café by the crossroads on the edge of town where I stopped for a good strong coffee and baguette and to gather my wits.

I spent the afternoon round at my place doing a few major tasks and sorting out a few objects that I needed, as well as generally relaxing. Then Terry came to pick me up – Caliburn is staying at my house while my future is being sorted out.

We finished off the vegan curry and then I finished off the vegan ice cream. No point in wasting it, so they better hadn’t ring up now to cancel my appointment. Final job was to write the two letters that needed doing and now that’s it. Whatever else isn’t done will now have to stay undone until I come back.

If I ever do.

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Wednesday 20th January 2016 – I HAD YET ANOTHER BAD NIGHT …

… last night. I was still awake at 01:00 and nowhere near going to sleep, although I must have done at some point because at 02:45 I was awake again and off down the corridor.

Between falling asleep the first time and going off down the corridor, nothing much happened. Or, at least, if it did, I know nothing about it. But between then and the next time that I woke up – round about 06:30, an enormous amount had been going on – to such an extent that I dictated almost 7 minutes of notes.

And this, dear reader, is what you have to sit through for the next few minutes or so.

We started off driving through a town somewhere – turning right at a set of traffic lights just before the centre. Once we’d turned, we noticed a big sports field on the left where there was a huge bowling competition taking place. All around the town and on the bus (because I was upstairs in a double-decker) there were people who all had little white lions (like the old Egg Marketing Board stamps) stamped on their body. The jacks had been stamped with the white lions and the marks on the bodies were where the people had been holding the jacks against themselves. A little farther on was a left turning where we swung around into the town centre and where were all of the shops. Just along this street was a branch of Woolworth’s (shows you just how old this all was) where we were heading but today it happened to be closed. Nevertheless, I found my way in and went for a wander around, particularly on the upper floors, having for some reason been separated from the others with whom I’d been travelling. But I was captured, and held as a kind of prisoner (during this part, I was actually a spectator, watching myself being restrained and tied up). The person who had imprisoned me had a heavy pole, something like a foot-length piece of sawn-off scaffolding tube and his intention was to use it to beat my head into a pulp. But thinking quickly, I said “hang on – isn’t that someone pulling up outside the building?”. He wandered over to the window to see and as he passed, even though I was still tied up, I managed to grab hold of the metal pole, wrestle it from his grasp with one quick movement and slosh him on the back of the head with it. I could then make good my escape.
We then descended into things that resembled even more like James Bond activities and I was partnered in these activities by a young girl who has featured a couple of times on my voyages. She was wearing a heavy dark blue hooded cloak something similar to Little Red Riding Hood’s cloak but with a much more pointed hood and which put her face well into the shadows, but I knew that it was she. I’d been searching through this house and ended up being accosted, and was being interrogated. I had to think quickly of a way to escape from this predicament. There was a an old vintage car in this room so I was thinking that if I could bolt some bolts though the holes in the sills so that the threads were protruding, and coat the exposed threads with a deadly poison, I could somehow contrive to have these people back up against the car, bang their legs on the exposed threads which would then inject the deadly poison into their bloodstream and that would be curtains for them (how I was going to do all of this whilst under constant surveillance didn’t appear to worry me, apparently). But while I was trying to work out all of this at the same time as answering all of these questions, I looked up into a dark corner of the room on top of the car but just underneath the ceiling, and there was the pointy blue hood and the dark shadowy face. I said out loud to the person interrogating me that it’s a shame that the girl (mentioning her name) wasn’t here with me because she would soon make short work of him – once he had backed up against the car, she would give him a real headache. His response was “don’t be silly – of course she isn’t here”. Of course, my little speech was to give the girl a clue as to what to do. It goes without saying that sooner or later, the guy in charge was leaning against the car, his elbow resting on the car bonnet while he was talking, and of course the inevitable happened. This girl wielded the scaffolding pipe (we still had that) to great effect. It was the matter of seconds to overwhelm the others and the girl and I made good our getaway.
I was back home after that and I had emptied out my van. There were all kinds of papers that needed to be sorted out, which I was doing. I’d left in the van a few books on submarines to read while I was on my travels but when I was going through all of these papers there was yet more stuff on submarines that should have stayed behind. One thing that I found was a rare postage stamp, a fidelity card for something, and a copy of a message – a parody of the “England expects” message issued by Karl Dönitz to his submariners on the eve of the surrender in 1945. I tucked this message into the plastic cover on the inside of my dairy thinking that I’d deal with this later. But with this rare postage stamp and fidelity card, I took them round to the girl who had accompanied me on my James Bond adventures. I knocked on the door and her mother (but it wasn’t her mother) answered the door, so I explained why I had called and asked if daughter was in. Daughter came bounding down the stairs with a huge smile on her face to collect these items. In exchange, her mother and granny (who was also there) gave me the post that they had been collecting for me in my absence and also a pile of used stamps. I was looking for Indian stamps as Bill had been looking for 50 rupees-worth to send off an application for something or other – and it didn’t matter if the stamps were used and franked or not.

From here I went down to breakfast and my injection, and afterwards carried on with some work on the laptop. But Terry said after awhile that “none of this is getting the work done” and proposed to go out and cut the rest of the wood that we hadn’t finished yesterday.

Working yesterday had worn me out but I can’t be an ungrateful guest, so I went out to help. I was there for another hour and a half or so and then we came in for coffee, having picked up some bread from the boulanger who came round today.

After coffee, Terry went out to carry on, but I was done for and that was my lot. I carried on with what I had been doing beforehand and then prepared everything for lunch.

Terry went out after lunch to price up a job and I stayed behind – I’m not up to all of this yet. I had a doze and then played around with my 3D program, had a doze and then did a pile more of my animation course. I’ve now finished week three (minus the practical work) and I’ve now started week four. I go into hospital next Wednesday and I want it finished by then.

Liz made a quiche for tea and I had an individual one, made with a kind of cheesy garlic and herb paste, together with baked potato and a kind of coleslaw salad. Really beautiful it was too. I do have to say that the food here is thoroughly excellent and I shall be very sorry to leave.

Now I’m relaxing, and then I’m off for an early night. I need one after yesterday’s and today’s efforts and the bad night that I had had last night.

And no 3D characters and no family members and no taxis in my voyage last night? I wonder where they all went.

And I wonder who will turn up tonight to accompany me on my travels.

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Tuesday 19th January 2016 – TERRY’S HAD ME …

… hard at it today.

Sitting there finishing off our post-prandial coffee, when he announced “let’s go and cut some wood!”.

Terry’s wood is free. The commune of Sauret-Besserve has a huge communal forest and part of the privileges of the commune is that you can have a couple of trees. Each year, you lodge your demand with the mayor and he sends round a forester to inspect the forest. Trees that are condemned are then allocated amongst the villagers who have lodged demands, but they have to cut them down themselves.

Terry works with the neighbour across the road to cut down their wood together, and it’s all stacked in 2-metre lengths in a big pile. So we coupled up Terry’s big trailer to the Jeep and went to fetch a trailer-load.

We then had to unload it, cut it into 40cm lengths, then split it into manageable chunks and stack it in the barn. All in the pouring rain, because it really was wet. I managed an hour or an hour and a half and then I had to come in and sit down. I’m definitely not up to it yet, although it is an improvement from when I last tried to do some work. It really was heavy work lifting all of that wood into the trailer.

Apart from that though, I didn’t do a great deal. I didn’t even do anything on my animation course. I’d had a bad night, en early start and so I was pretty much out of it for quite a while in the morning.

Last night, I didn’t end up going to sleep until late – my guilty conscience must be catching me up. And when I finally did go to sleep, it was a fitful night of restlessness and awakening, punctuated by some more impressive nocturnal rambles.

We started off by featuring once more some of my 3D characters. There was some kind of sports tournament involving them and there are loads and loads of people and other 3D characters watching from the sidelines and most people are dressed in fancy dress. I remember a kind of medieval knight in chain mail and someone else wrapped in what looked like an Argentinian flag.
From here, we moved on to a pub somewhere. It was one of these 1950s type of housing estate pubs, the Greenall Whitley type that you used to see everywhere. At this pub, something had happened and the landlady had to be evicted from the premises. However she’d been to the court and obtained a stay of execution of the eviction. One day, though, she had to leave the pub for some reason or other, and on returning, she found that the brewery had taken possession and locked her out. We had all gathered outside the pub to show our support for the landlady and to try somehow to get her back into her property. This involved my brother, my youngest sister’s husband (them again?) a set of steps and a short ladder. We had to use the steps and the ladder to climb up over the verandah and up into a window on the first floor. It was all down to me of course because they certainly weren’t interested in climbing up, and they were making life extremely difficult for me because they didn’t have the ladder in the right place for me, not being able to find the steps, not putting the steps in the right place. They couldn’t do anything correctly. Anyway,to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … we couldn’t find a way in there and so had to try another route, up and over the porch over the front door and in through the window above. It wasn’t long before the owners of the pub, the brewery, the clients and the new temporary landlord realised what was going on and they all came surging out. This led to a pile of gratuitous insults being hurled and it all became quite offensive and unnecessary. One person in particular was particularly uncooperative and unpleasant and wanted to know who was in charge of our party. I replied that I supposed that I was. He mentioned something about music so I pointed him in the direction of the manager of the rock group in which I played. He asked the manager if our group could quickly learn 12 songs to play for his audience. In principle, that wouldn’t be too much of a problem but there was a big discussion, if not argument, about how safe would the young girl who sang with us be, walking up to these premises on her own by the main road at night with all of the traffic around, would she be able to cross over the street into the pub?
I ended up back on the taxis again after that. We were on a weekend, a Saturday night in fact. Things were starting to wind down a little and another taxi driver came to see me, rather annoyed, wanting to know what one of his regular passengers had been doing in one of my taxis. It was a really good fare to Wigan too. I had a look in our day book and it seemed that it was a fare from a pub called the Farmer’s Arms (there’s one of those at Ravensmoor, near Nantwich). he was annoyed, saying that none of his regular passengers would ever willingly get into a taxi driven by anyone else, however our records showed that it was a call from one of the employees of the pub that had summoned our taxi and we knew no more about it than that. The driver concerned happened to be on duty and we asked him about it, and he confirmed exactly what I had said, without being prompted. The fare had actually come to £37:00, and that was in early-1980s prices too, so I could understand him being quite upset about losing the fare. We smoothed this over anyway and eventually ended up talking about Air Products at Elton and British Salt at Cledford (two places where my father had worked in the past). It seemed that the landlord of this pub had had something to do with Air Products and that was the connection between me and the Farmer’s Arms. It seemed that this taxi driver had given my telephone operator a hard time over this affair and just at this moment she was there in the street (which bore a passing resemblance to Vine Tree Avenue) so he asked me to go over and present his compliments to her and explain that the matter had been resolved. Most unlike taxi-driving in Crewe, this was.
As an aside, I’d said to my taxi driver that I’d see him back here at work tomorrow morning, but he replied that I wouldn’t – he was going to have a day off. So I had had a look at the job sheets for next morning and saw that we had jobs booked in from 06:00 on that morning, meaning that I would be finishing here at 04:00 as we had jobs booked right up until then, and then back out at 06:00 (not that this kind of thing had ever bothered me too much when I really was doing it back then) but I said nothing, and put on a cheerful face about it.
But on the subject of taxis and British Salt, where’s our Leyland Princess? As a matter of fact, I did have one of those at one time. It was near Christmas 1988 and Nerina and I just happened to be at a car auction and a beautiful 1800 Princess, W reg, went through, with a long MoT and 5 months tax for just £270. But it had the wrong driveshaft in it and it kept stripping the hubs (as I was to find out later). In the end, I went down to the scrapyard and dismantled the entire front end of another one and spent a whole day swapping it over. And then it ran fine until the clutch went. But I digress. But last night, the car was in the hands of one of the mechanics at British Salt (and not George either) having some work done on it, and it was now Friday and we still hadn’t had the car back. I went over to the garage there to talk to the guy to see what had happened to it (strangely enough, the garage was almost a reverse image of how it really used to be). I met up with the guy who told me that it was having to have the servo changed and it will be ready some time next week. But it was now Friday and we were always really busy over the weekend and I couldn’t afford to have the car not on the road. I told him that we really needed it – we were rushed off our feet. I couldn’t afford to wait until Monday for it. So this ended up in some kind of dispute.
But from here, another person entered into the story. A Greek girl called Maria with whom I worked when I was in Brussels. Right now, I can’t remember how or why she fitted in to some part of these adventures last night, but she was certainly there.

3D models, taxis and taxi drivers, British Salt, Maria, my brother and brother in law? We’ll be having Godzilla putting in an appearance next.

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Tuesday 1st December 2015 – YOU WON’T BELIEVE ANY OF THIS …

… but never mind. Do your best, because it really DID happen like this.

First of all, last night’s nocturnal ramble is far from complete. And for a couple of very good reasons too.But the good news is that I had the best night’s sleep that I have ever had in a hospital (despite being woken up two or three times). That, I reckon, is due to the cold poultice or whatever it was that they put on my arm just before I went to sleep. That seemed to do the trick.

So, in as far as I could remember it, I was still in hospital but I’d been allowed out to go to a theatre in Deansgate, Manchester to watch a Chris de Burgh concert with my family (what are they doing intruding into my nocturnal rambles?) and also a very new girlfriend of mine, so naturally I was pleased about this. We went into the auditorium and the first thing that I noticed was that everyone – including us – was dressed in black. But as the concert got under way, I was called back to the hospital for a blood test. Once that had been completed I made my way back to the theatre and ended up going in through the stage door and there was Chris de Burgh, not actually performing, but using a record player to play his records to the audience. He asked me what I was doing there and so I explained that I’d been called away. He apologised that I’d missed half his concert and gave me a free ticket for another one (I noticed that I didn’t ask for two – one for my girlfriend) and so I went into the auditorium and … it was deserted. everyone had gone. I dashed outside and started to scour the streets around Deansgate and Whitworth Street for my friends and this girl but I couldn’t find them at all.

From here we went on, via various removes which I have now forgotten unfortunately what with all of the interruptions and so on, to Stoke on Trent and a housing estate built of 1960s bungalows rather like the top half of Coleridge Way in Crewe. In one of these bungalows lived someone whom I once knew, his wife and his daughter, Zero (who occasionally accompanies me on my nocturnal rambles). The bungalow where we were rather resembled the ground floor of my house in Gainsborough Road, but to get into the sitting room (where the aforementioned were gathered) meant passing under a rather low brick wall, which necessitated crawling, but each time I went to do so I was interrupted by someone who wanted something doing. So by the time I had done that and went back, I was convinced that the arch had become smaller. But before I could pass under the arch it was the turn of someone else to interrupt me with a request. And so it went on, and on, and on, but eventually everyone had been satisfied. So I went to the arch to crawl under into the sitting room, to find that it was now far too small for me to pass under, and I was stranded.

It’s a shame that I’ve forgotten everything else that happened, for I really was riveted to my bed by all of this that was going on, despite all the interruptions. But then someone awoke me quite insistently to say that the Day Ward was to open in half an hour and I needed to leave. And so I said OK and went back to sleep. 15 minutes later they woke me again and I really did have to go. And with that, most of the details of my nocturnal ramble left too.

Back in my real room, I was on my own. I don’t know what had happened to my room-mate of yesterday and I didn’t think it politic to ask. But it was round about here that all of the fun began.

First visit of the morning was the dietician. We had an extremely lengthy chat about my diet yet again, when I set out quite clearly exactly what my dietary requirements were

And the result? For dessert at lunchtime I was served a “Lactel” crème caramel “containing fresh eggs”.

I can see quite clearly that I’m wasting my time here.

But what surprised me even more about the dietician is that she knew nothing whatever about vegans and potential vitamin B12 deficiency and potential iron deficiency. What kind of dietician is this?

Next stop was the echography, where they examined my arm with an ultrasound scan. And not that I know all that much about echographs, but even I could see some kind of foreign body showing up in the scan. It might be a blood clot, or it might be a foreign object, and so I’m destined to have an X-ray all about it.

And so off to the X-ray department where we have one of these 20-somethings in charge. I went to take off my dressing gown but she replied “we can photograph through that, you know”.
I explained that the doctor had drawn on my arm the area of interest, to which her response was “I’ve been doing this job for longer than just yesterday”, and so I left her to it.

When she’d finished (11:50, this was) she wheeled me outside, presumably to wait for a porter to take me back to my ward, and she put on her coat and went off for lunch.

By 12:50, no porter had appeared and I was still sitting in this draughty corridor and I’d had enough. Spoiling for a fight with someone and in a totally foul mood, I set off on foot to find my way back to my ward. It wasn’t easy because the hospital here at Montlucon is quite a labyrinth, but it didn’t really take me too much time and the walk, and the change of scenery, did me good.

Back here, I sent out for my food – seeing as I was an hour late for my lunch – but before I could receive it, the doctor stuck his head around the door “you have to go back to be X-rayed- they’ve X-rayed the wrong place”. So much for our self-confident 20-something, hey?

Back in the basement, I had to wait 20 minutes before I could be seen, but as soon as our 20-something came out and saw me in fighting form, she cleared off and someone else came to X-ray me. Once this had been done, I didn’t even bother waiting. I walked straight back to my ward, and finally had my lunch (with “Lactel” crème caramel “with fresh eggs” as part of a vegan diet).

Liz came round later with a supply of snapping for me to keep in store. Biscuits, crisps, fruit juice, and a big bag of grapes. This is how to be organised for a hospital when the dietician doesn’t seem to have a clue what is involved in a vegan diet. And we did a trade too. I swapped my “Lactel” crème caramel “with fresh eggs” for Liz’s banana.

And the librarian came round with a trolley-load of books from which I could choose. And I joked to Liz that both previous times when the librarian had been round with books and I’d chosen some, I’d moved rooms straight away afterwards.

And so after Liz left, they came round to tell me that I was moving across the corridor. You would have bet your mortgage on this. But at least I’m in a single room again, nice, clean and modern.

Here I seem to have settled in quite nicely and if I have to stay anywhere, this will do me fine. But 5 changes of room in 24 hours must be something of a record in any kind of residential establishment. You couldn’t make that up.

And you couldn’t make up anything else that had happened to me during the course of the day either. It’s astonishing as far as I’m concerned.

But anyway, as the night drew on, I settled down to watch Bulldog Drummond in Africa and managed to see it right through to the end for once. I had another one of these cold poultices and then tried to settle down to sleep but for some reason I found it difficult to drop off.

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Tuesday 17th November 2015 – I’M FEELING A LITTLE …

… bit better today.

With having crashed out yesterday afternoon, it was gone 02:00 (more like 03:00, I reckon) when I went to bed. As for the alarm at 07:30, well, the least said about that the better. 09:30 it was when I crawled up here, and then I had to make some muesli as I’d run out yesterday

I had a good day on my course and astounded my tutor with an observation that I made about an Iron Age encampment in the vicinity of Hadrian’s Wall. But with the late start, it was after midday when I finished.

I crashed out again for an hour or so, but then found from somewhere the energy to go outside.

First thing that I did was to fit Caliburn with new windscreen wipers. The ones that were on it were the originals since 2007, so eight-and-a-half years is some going. They weren’t much good, in fact. but when I was at the Auchan the other day, they were having a sale of windscreen wipers and so I took advantage of it, ready for the winter which isn’t surely far away.

Apart from that, I’ve started to empty Caliburn. There was food in there (tins and stuff), some of which dates from before I went to Canada in August, as well as a pile of washing that Liz did for me. It can’t stay in there for ever so I made some space in the downhill lean-to and most of it is stacked in there. Some other stuff, including the washing, I dragged up here (and I do mean “dragged”).

Tomorrow, I’m going to be brave and carry on with the emptying, including the tiles and the tile cement. I may not be up to much at the moment, but tiling doesn’t take too much effort and with the old electric tile-cutter that I have, that doesn’t take too much electrical energy

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Sunday 8th November 2015 – THAT WAS NICE!

It certainly was. Fast asleep in my nice new and clean bed. And I was so comfortable in there that when I awoke at 09:30 I lay in bed until … errrr …. 12:30 doing some work on the laptop.

I could do that because I had the laptop with me at the side of the bed. I should never have drank those two cups of coffee at the football last night because despite going to bed at 12:00, I was still wide awake at 01:30 so I went and fetched the laptop and did an hour’s work.

I didn’t even have time for “breakfast” this morning because I’d planned an afternoon out with friends from FC Pionsat St Hilaire. Pionsat 2nd XI’s match had been cancelled this afternoon but just down the road from here, Le Quartier were playing two matches. The 2nd XI kicking off at 13:00 against St Maurice and the 1st XI playing Lapeyrouse at 15:00, and we had arranged to go. And such a beautiful afternoon it was too that I didn’t regret it for a moment.

Le Quartier won both matches, and deservedly so. Their 2nd XI wasn’t up to much but St Maurice were pretty dire and didn’t offer very much. As for the 1st XI match, Lapeyrouse were definitely better-organised and more skilful on the ball but were simply too slow. They couldn’t break out of defence quick enough to capitalise on attacks and on many occasions there was just one of them isolated up front on his own. They didn’t move around enough give the ball-player a choice of alternatives, and they were too slow to get back into position once the game had spread out – and that was fatal because Le Quartier had a couple of speedy players up front. They played the ball around nicely on one or two occasions and made the most of it.

And it seems that I’ve upset the military lobby again. My feelings on the Armed Farces are well-known to anyone who has been a regular reader of this rubbish, and I make no apologies whatsoever for my stance. But what was quite surprising (although it isn’t really) was that one of the contributors, a quiet and erstwhile well-mannered and polite woman, replied to my posting in language that would have been considered rather extreme had it been uttered in the fo’c’s’le of a whaler. It seems that the Military Lobby considers itself to be untouchable and above criticism, and if this is the kind of response that you have from “a quiet and erstwhile well-mannered and polite woman” then it’s no surprise that the military members behave as they do, burning down mosques, acquiring arms and murdering innocent civilians. They are all pretty much of a muchness and if I had my way, they would all be stuck on an isolated island and left to fight it out amongst themselves.

As I’ve said before, next time anyone proposes a war, there should be a vote on it. And everyone who votes in favour should be gived a rifle and a tin hat and sent off to fight it. These bumper stickers “We support our troops” are totally laughable. Anyone can be brave and belligerent when they are 5000 miles away from the conflict. If they really did “support our troops”, they should be out there in the front line with them, and we’ll see how brave and belligerent they are then.

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Sunday 1st November 2015 – I WAS IN CANADA …

… last night, getting ready to leave Rachel and Darren’s in order to fly back home.But time was dragging on and on and I wasn’t making too much progress about packing. With 10 minutes to go before take-off I was still in the spare bedroom with all of my electrical equipment all over the floor still charging up. And somewhere along the line I’d been given some ready-mixed cake dough in exchange for some that I had. And I needed to keep it for a few months after I’d returned to France, something that I knew would be impossible.

And by 09:35 I was wide-awake and out of bed which is something of a surprise considering that it’s Sunday. And even more so considering that I hadn’t gone to bed until 03:30. Just as I was getting ready to fo upstairs to bed, I came across a website that was broadcasting some matches from the Football Conference so I sat back down to watch Gateshead v Altrincham, Telford United v Stalybridge Celtic and Havant and Waterlooville V Wealdstone.

Today is a Bank Holiday here in France and I celebrated by doing exactly badger all, as is normal for a Bank Holiday. In fact, I didn’t even go outside except to take the stats. I did however read a book, Man Who Mapped the Arctic, the story of one of the more famous of the Arctic explorers of the first half of the 19th Century.

Not only that, I mad enormous strides yet again with my 3D program and I’m advancing rapidly – much more rapidly than my lamentable internet connection.

So tomorrow I’m back studying again. It’s nice to be back in Education. Tomorrow night, I’ll let you all know how it went.

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Wednesday 12th August 2015 – AT LAST!

This Hyundai has finally gone.

But it’s not gone far – about 400 metres to the wide grass verge.

Terry turned up tonight with his Jeep Cherokee 4×4 and that made short work of moving it. Unfortunately, Terry’s trailer is just too small for the Hyundai so there’s no possibility of putting it on there. And with me closed down for my holidays, I’m going nowhere tonight with my Brian James car transporter.

Consequently the Hyundai sits on the grass verge and there it will stay until the owner has come up with a Plan B. What this will be will be a depanneuse – a breakdown truck. And had a breakdown truck been summoned on Friday, this Hyundai would have been gone long ago with no stress and no bad feeling and no nothing.

And of course, the question of the degreaser for this oil slick. The car’s owner “didn’t have time” to pick any up. Why am I not surprised? But at least, Caliburn is back home where he belongs.

All of this is an object lesson in how doing things “on the cheap” rebounds with a vengeance because I’m never ever going to be doing anything coming from over there ever again. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!”

But last night, I had a bad night. I was still awake at 05:00 and I woke up again at 06:30. Clearly the stress was getting to me and I really didn’t need that with what I had to do today.Nevertheless in between the bouts of sleep this afternoon I’ve managed to do such a lot of what I had to do and I’ll be finishing the rest in a moment when I’ve eaten my pasta.

And I had a stroke of luck too. I’ve been hunting high and low for my Vox Bass amPlug – the one that you plug into the jack socket of the guitar and plug earphones into it so that you can hear what you are playing. It’s never come to light.

And then there I was, I suddenly had a brainwave, remembering what bag I had taken with me to Belgium and Germany a few months ago. And sure enough, there scrunched up in the bottom of the bag, was my amplug. That cheered me up. On the downside, with sorting out this Hyundai, I missed my shower window. I was looking forward to that, with new bedding and new clothes waiting for me. I’ll have to wait now for Lyon tomorrow night. I hope that no-one on the train complains.

So now I have something like a tidy attic, some bags all packed (and I bet that I have forgotten hordes of stuff) and just a few more jobs to do before I go. I’ll try to have an early night – I need it after last night to be sure, and I’ll be fighting-fit for tomorrow.

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Friday 31st July 2015 – I’M LOSING MY GRIP!

I’ve done something really silly today and I’m still bewildered as to how I managed it.

I was busy doing some electrical wiring when I glanced at the clock.

18:15! Blimey! The shops will be shut in 75 minutes!

So I quickly changed my clothes, leapt into Caliburn and head for the hi … errr … St Eloy.

The road down the hill from Montaigut was packed with traffic and I did wonder what it was all doing at that time of evening. But on the other hand, LIDL and Carrefour were comparatively empty. LIDL did have some 12-volt LED bulbs (it doesn’t now, of course) and Carrefour had some soya deluxe desserts reduced on special offer.

I picked up some cash ready for my voyage in 2 weeks time, and then drove home.

While I was organising a few things the stop-work alarm went off. 19:00.

What?

Yes, 19:00. It appears that it wasn’t 18:15 when I shot of to St Eloy but actually … errr … 17:15. D’ohhh!

I blame last night, though. I couldn’t sleep and I was still wide-awake and working on the laptop at 03:30. And with an alarm at 07:30, no wonder I’ve been feeling rather feeble today.

I had the usual sessions on the laptop and then after lunch, stripped off all of the masking from the door, fitted the air vents and wired in the socket at the head of the stairs on the landing so that I can plug the livebox in there. And that was where I was at.

But the air vents looks good in the door. The idea is that warm air heading up the stairs (once I finally have the fire going downstairs, whenever that might be) will go in through the vent at the bottom of the door, rise up through the shower room and out through the air vent that you might remember me drilling out all that time a couple of years ago. And that will stop condensation building up too.

So tomorrow, if the parts for this Hyundai haven’t come, I’m sure I’ll find some other things to do around the house. But do you realise – in 2 weeks time, I won’t be here?

But then again, I’m not all here now judging by my performance this evening, am I?

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Thursday 23rd July 2015 – I DIDN’T GET …

… anything like done what I was hoping to do today.

For a start, I failed to beat the alarm clock this morning. I was all set to go to bed nice and early when someone with whom I needed to speak came on line. So I went for a little chat. And I would probably still be there chatting now had the battery not gone flat at 02:05.

So it was rather a bemused and befuddled Yours Truly who struggled out of his stinking pit this morning.

Of the computing jobs that I’ve been trying to catch up, I’ve finished one of them, which is a big sigh of relief. But another – tidying up the blog entries for my 2010 journey to Canada, I’ve hit the part where I was writing in shorthand with no photos, due to being out in the depths of Newfoundland somewhere. So with all of that, it’s taking much longer than anticipated. But to see where I’ve reached, just go to this link and work backwards. If you want to comment on any of the posts, do so on here.

And that reminds me – when I started editing this blog to correct the errors from when it was transferred here, I was having 10 and 12 comments a day regularly. Today, even though readership has tripled, the comments are now at about 10 or 12 per year.

Don’t be shy – if you have something to ask or something to say, then make a comment. If you are new, it won’t appear immediately until I’ve approved it, but that’s no reason to stop you.

After lunch I started to mask off in the shower room, and I’m nowhere near finishing that – that’s the problem with buying doors with small glass panels. And in any case, Rosemary rang up for a natter for a good half an hour.

And I had to fill in a few gaps in the woodwork – I did that by filling the gaps with wood glue and forcing clean sawdust in with a stiff spatula.

One thing that I had forgotten was to drill the holes in the bottom of the door so that cold air will enter the bathroom and prevent condensation when I’m taking a shower (whenever that might be) – anyway I did that today and that took me up to 19:25 when I knocked off.

And this shower room is never going to be finished – I have a car to dismantle on Monday now.

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Thursday 11th June 2015 – I DUNNO …

… what’s happened this last day or two, but today I’ve had another roaring day with the Radio programmes. In the space of two and a half hours, I sat down and dashed off 2000 words on taxation. And that includes having to read a taxation document written in official French and to translate it in my head as I’ve been going along.

So that’s not like me at all just recently given my lengthy spell of lethargy.

I had a very late night as well and struggled to leave my bed this morning. For the first half hour or so I was all ready to go back to bed, and that’s what makes this morning’s efforts all that more remarkable.

composting toilet beichstuhl fitted installed shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceI’m glad that I chose light oak for the preparation of the surfaces of the oak worktops that I bought in Eching. I shudder to think how it might have turned out had I bought mid-oak or dark oak.

For the kitchen, I’m going to try to find a transparent surface treatment if I can. The stuff that I have is nothing like as good as this stuff that I bought.

But it has turned out rather well – you can’t deny the quality of the stuff. And here’s the worktop for the beichstuhl all in position with the fitted hinge on the lid covering the sawdust container and also with the bracket and peg to hold the lunette in position.

It’s all worked out rather well.

This afternoon I’ve been plasterboarding, spending much of the time trying to extract the plasterboard sheets from the back of the pile. But anyway, they are out and I’ve now plasterboarded the back wall and half of the wall to the left on the stud wall.

I’ve also fitted the shelf for the “bathroom books”

Tomorrow I’ll hopefully finish the plasterboarding in that corner and then I can start to empty more of the rubbish out of the shower room.

That will give me much more room to work.

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