Tag Archives: vegan pie

Wednesday 15th January 2025 – MARGARET THATCHER …

… once said something like “anyone can do a good day’s work when they want to. The secret of success is doing a good day’s work when you don’t want to”.

That’s not exactly what she said but I reckon that it’s near enough and if that’s the case, then I have failed miserably today.

Don’t ask me why, but I’m thinking that today in Sunday and it’s not just once but several times that I’ve been thinking that it’s Sunday. I’ve certainly been lethargic and sloth-like today as maybe I would have been on a Sunday back in the olden days. These days I don’t have the time to waste like this and it’s really depressing to see by how much I’ve fallen short of my aims.

As you might expect, after the chaos at Cae y Castell on Deeside last night, it was horribly late when I finally finished everything that I needed to do and crawled off to bed.

Not that there was much time to sleep because once again we had a phantom alarm call. I’m so convinced that these are real because they sound just like an alarm but it’s clearly not anything in my bedroom. I’d try to identify it if I could but as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m usually flat-out asleep when it sounds and even though I do sit bolt-upright, by that time whatever noise it is has long-since stopped.

So resisting the impulse to climb out of bed I curled up back under the covers and went off to sleep again.

When the alarm did finally go off I was no-where near ready to leave my stinking pit. And that’s another mystery – why is it that I feel so much more energetic and more ready to leave the bed and spring into action when it’s a phantom alarm call?

So anyway, I eventually found the willpower to crawl off into the bathroom and clean myself up ready for the day, and then go into the kitchen to sort out the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There’s something stuck in my mind about someone talking about apartment-sharing, saying that he was ready to share an apartment with someone. This was after something had happened concerning a roundabout in the middle of the countryside in the ancient times. I can’t really remember any more about this but I have all this stuck firmly in my mind

Well, that’s what I dictated any as for what it means I’ve no idea. Ancient times probably refers to the book that I’m reading right now but I can’t place the rest. However it does strike a chord about something about which I’ve been thinking this last few days and which I briefly mentioned in passing a few days ago, dating back to my brief stay in Elm Drive. However some things are best left behind, dead and buried, even if I am brooding on some of them somewhat right now.

Isabelle the nurse came round rather later than usual today. She was quite busy, as you might expect and didn’t stay long. Nevertheless she was quite chatty and talked about the chaos in the town with all of these roadworks.

After she left, I made breakfast and read MY BOOK.

Our hero is busy lashing out left and right at all of his contemporaries. He’s demolishing all kinds of theories about Stonehenge and proposing one of his own which is just as incorrect (and maybe more so), and then arguing about the location of the mythical tin mines of the Phoenicians at Cassiterides.

To be honest, his flailing about is becoming rather difficult and off-putting to read, with the increase in personal attacks and the abuse that he is heaping on his colleagues. He makes a lot of interesting points, but they are swamped by the invective. But don’t worry – only another 300 or so pages to go.

What’s interesting though is that he’s quoting a lot of sources for his criticism, and I am busy tracking them down and downloading them. My virtual library is expanding rapidly.

Back in here I had things to do.

First off was to telephone Paris to argue with them about a convocation to attend next Wednesday. "We don’t do that here" they said, although their colleagues in Neurology do.

It’s important to have one because I need to book a taxi and it’s no good my saying “we’ll pick up the paperwork when we arrive” because if the hospital cancels the appointment mid-trip, there won’t be any paperwork and I’ll have to pay the taxi myself – €1600 – rather than the Securité Sociale picking up the bill.

And in case you are thinking that it’s far-fetched, regular readers of this rubbish will recall back in 2020 or 2021 in the middle of a train strike and so I drove overnight all the way to Leuven for an appointment, only for them to cancel it just as I pulled into the city after a 700km overnight drive.

The best that could do was to confirm it by voice over the ‘phone so I could ring up the taxi company. They knew about the change of day for my dialysis from Thursday to Wednesday, but they had me down for the afternoon, not morning. So I had to change all of that and book a car to Paris, hoping that it will all go to plan.

Having done that I was well on my way when the ‘phone rang. It was the taxi arriving to take me to dialysis."It’s tomorrow". I said. "but it’s on Wednesday next week, but in the morning".

So I had to ring up the Dialysis Centre to make sure, and then ring back the taxi company for them to put their records straight. At least, being early and wrong is better than being wrong and late

Next interruption for my plan to finish my radio notes was for lunch – flapjack and fruit. And then the cleaner came round to do her stuff.

That included the shower of course, so there’s a nice clean me with nice clean clothes ready to climb into a nice clean bed because the bedding has been changed too which I was showering.

We had Christmas cake break later with another one of these horrible drinks, and then I have been making pies. I could make three nice-sized pies from a roll of this flaky pastry, and my filling really is excellent.

It’s

  • lentils
  • split peas
  • potatoes

soaked for an hour in the slow cooker on “high”, rinsed, and soaked again for 18 hours in the slow cooker on “low” with herbs, spices and flavouring

And then I fried in the big wok the following –

  • onions
  • shallots
  • garlic
  • a tofu block
  • a tin of sweetcorn

When they were all nice and cooked, the contents of the slow cooker were tipped into the wok with the fried stuff, simmered to boil off the excess liquid, and then a handful or two of oats to bind it all together.

So three pies in the fridge ready to bake tomorrow, and a pile of filling in individual sized containers freezing for next time, and a ladleful of it added to my leftover curry to try it out.

And with naan bread, rice and veg it was excellent and I had no room for pudding. And in any case, believe it or not (because I find it hard to believe) I crashed out at the table.

So tomorrow it’s dialysis, but for tea I’m going to eat one of my pies with potatoes, veg and gravy. They should be delicious and make me feel better after what will be a very painful session. And I’ll finish the radio notes tomorrow too if I am lucky.

But while we ‘re on the subject of curries… "well, one of us is" – ed … regular readers of this rubbish will recall when we were on THOSE FERRIES ON THE OUTER BANKS off the coast of the USA and encountered all of those pelicans.
One person on the ferry went to a restaurant on Okracoke Island and asked to try the Pelican Curry that was on the menu.
When I met him later I asked him how it was.
"I won’t be going in that place again" he said.
"Why not?" I asked. "Wasn’t it any good?"
"The meal was great" he replied "but the bill was enormous."

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Thursday 31st October 2024 – IT WAS ANOTHER …

… painful session at the Dialysis Clinic today. This time though it wasn’t all the fault of the people who worked there. The taxi company had something to contribute towards the debacle that was today.

And there I was, all proud and happy that last night I’d managed to go to bed before 23:00. Not many minutes before, it has to be said, but it was enough to be noteworthy and cheer me up a little after yesterday. "Oh folly! Folly! And deep joy!" as Stanley Unwin once famously said.

It wasn’t such a bad night as one or two have been just recently. I only awoke once or twice, I didn’t check the times, and I was soon asleep again.

However when the alarm went off I had a struggle to haul myself up out of bed. I would gladly have stayed there for another couple of hours but no such possibility today.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up, applied the deodorant and even had a shave. Not that it would do me much good of course but we have to go through the motions.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night and I was surprised by how much distance I’d covered. Some kids in a primary school were doing a course on awareness of the slavery trade. They had to choose a character and stand up to talk to me about them. The first girl talked to me about the difference between good and evil and the others who were small told a story about what they wanted everyone to hear. One said that the slavery business was dominated by her grandfather who imported tobacco from North America. Each of these children had a little story to tell.

And I bet that they did too. Many famous people of the 17th, 18th and 19th Century were slave-owners and it has to be said that there were many other people whose treatment was not all that much better until the rise of the Trades Union Movement. When I finish my magnum opus about the treatment of the “liveyers” on the Labrador and Québec coasts in the 18th, 19th and first half of the 20th Century (a project that has been on hold since the chaos began last October), you’ll see what I mean. Slavery has many different faces.

Later on I was looking through the file of a German person. At the front of the file was pinned a piece of paper, a typewritten note of some kind of thesis which began “my parents were buried somewhere on the border in the early days of the conflict in 1939” and then went into e lengthy philosophical discussion. It referred me to his thesis which was hidden somewhere in the depths of the file so rather than do the work that I was supposed to do, I sat down and began to read his history, or, at least, looked like the history of his father of the person concerned, because the given name of the person whose file it was and the given name of the person who wrote this document were different so I sat down and had a read of it

Quite often I was side-tracked by what I found hidden away in the archives. There was once a reference to a huge blackmarketeering ring being uncovered in Crewe just after the war with some famous names being implicated. But that aside, Crewe was and probably still is famous for all the Italians, Germans and Poles in the town. Of course, as you might expect, many people blame the European Union but the fact is that there was a prisoner-of-war camp in the vicinity and after the war, many of the prisoners opted to stay. After the war, the camp became a resettlement camp for the Polish Army that had fought alongside the British in North Africa and Italy and when the Russians annexed the eastern part of Poland in 1946, some of the Poles found themselves with no home to which to return so they settled in the town.

Finally I was putting on my brown shoes but the shoelaces were too short and it was annoying me so I asked the mother of the boy where I was staying where I could buy some brown shoelaces. They gave me a list of suggestions so I replied “yes, but I mean ‘now'”. They looked at me and laughed, saying “nowhere is going to be open yet. It’s not 09:00”. I’d forgotten all about restrictions in Belgium on opening hours. It was so frustrating. But the woman came along and had some kind of “Système D” method in mind where she glued a broken piece of shoelace to my shoelaces to help me work because she thought that I was using it to surf the web. But I was using the mouse of course to surf the web. Someone came up to me and asked “why are you on the internet now? Everywhere is going to be closed, all the shops”. I replied “yes but it’s the World-Wide Web. The USA is 16 hours behind so the USA shops are going to be open now”. They had a very hard time getting their head around this idea of different time zones, which I found to be completely strange. So there I was, hoping to find a pair of shoelaces from somewhere.

“Système D” is a lovely French phrase, the “D” being short for something rather vulgar, and it’s a phrase that means making do, adapting what you have and managing to perform tasks with whatever kinds of unorthodox tools and equipment you happen to have to hand. I’ve been doing that for years and so have many of my friends. It’s probably what binds us together.

Belgium, and Brussels in particular is a strange place as far as shop opening hours go. They are regulated quite tightly. There was one guy who ran a normal grocer’s shop and obtained a licence to run a “Night Shop” so he simply stayed open past the regulation hours for a conventional shop. He was found to be in contravention of the law about day-shop hours so he fitted his shelving with wheels and at the appointed closing time of a conventional shop, simply pushed his shelving with all his stock on it across the road into a shop premises that he rented and ran his “Night Shop” from there. And then pushed everything back across the road the following morning.

It was the other nurse today who came to see me. He asked how everything went so I told him that it was awful so that shut him up and he did what he had to do and then left in rather a hurry which suited me fine.

Then it was breakfast followed by more of my book. Alfred Watkins is still drawing his ley lines across the Herefordshire area and makes some very interesting assumptions about some surnames and place-names, some of which more modern research seems to have undermined.

It seems to me that if he had toned down much of his unwarranted speculation his work would have been much better received. The problem with modern vernacular researchers is that if they encounter someone like Watkins who presents 100 assumptions and research shows one of them to be misplaced, the other 99 are also dismissed automatically and that’s certainly not the case.

Back in here I carried on tracking down music for the next radio programme, and that’s proving to be difficult. There’s a list of artists whose work I need to find and for some of them their work is tending to be much more elusive than for which I had bargained

My cleaner turned up bang on midday to fit my anaesthetic patches and after she fitted them she stayed for a few minutes for a chat and then cleared off to attend to her afternoon clients.

The taxi turned up a little later than planned. It was a driver from St Hilaire du Harcoët who had taken a passenger to St Lô, than then travelled light to Villedieu to pick up passengers for Granville and then for me to take to Avranches.

He told me a story that I had heard “elsewhere”, that the Sécurité Sociale is taking more of a keen interest in expenditure and is insisting that much more effort is made to combine trips and cut down on the light mileage

That explained why we had to go to St Planchers to pick up a passenger for the other hospital in Avranches.

We were late picking him up and as his appointment was before mine, it was only right that we went right across town to drop him off and then come back to drop me at the Dialysis Clinic. I mean – they can hardly start without me, can they?

Consequently I was late at the Clinic and the anaesthetic had worn off, as I found out when they stuck the needles in.

There I was, in agony for the whole session of three hours and thirty minutes. No-one came to see me or to interrupt me. I just read my Welsh notes and then started Richard Hakluyt’s PRINCIPALL NAVIGATIONS

Hakluyt was a writer and being acquainted with “the chiefest captaines at sea, the greatest merchants, and the best mariners of our nation” of the late 16th Century he wrote his book to record and report all of the discoveries that British and some other seamen had made during that period, with the aim, so it’s believed, of encouraging colonialisation.

My interest of course lies more in the northern end of the spectrum, around “ye New Founde Lande” and in particular those of Humphrey Gilbert, who was sailing his spectacularly unsuccessful voyages during the period about which Hakluyt writes.

Disconnecting me from the machine was probably as painful as plugging me in, and I was glad to leave.

The driver who took me home was my favourite driver who has taken me to Paris a few times. We had to go across town to pick up yet another passenger, and then we had a running commentary all the way home – so much so and so engrossed was she in what she was saying that she drove right past the turning to drop off the lady we had just picked up, and had to turn round and go back.

Back here my faithful cleaner was at her post awaiting my arrival and I managed the 13 steps of the first flight of stairs, but it was touch and go for the final two or three. I’m not ready for further exertions yet.

And how glad was I to be back in my apartment? I sat down for a while to recover and then made tea – vegan pie and steamed veg followed by rice pudding

Bed-time now and tomorrow I have to Fight the Good Fight and sort out this music ready to write out the notes.

But talking of my favourite taxi driver … "well, one of us is" – ed … reminds me of the story about the difference between a Parisian bus driver and a bus driver from Marseilles that I told a friend of mine
So I asked her if she knew
"No" she replied. "What’s the difference?"
"In Paris" I said "you shouldn’t speak to the bus driver."
"And Marseilles?" she asked
"In Marseilles" I replied "you shouldn’t reply to the bus driver."

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Thursday 17th October 2024 – SOMEONE IS GOING …

.. to have their nether regions given a good kicking in the near future. And I can’t say that I’m sorry.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few months ago I had an ugly confrontation in the private hospital at Avranches with someone on the accounts department that led to me writing to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the company.

Today I’ve finally had a response, full of grovelling apology (I had a cheque sent back to me a week or so ago) and containing the ominous “your letter will be placed before our Committee who will examine your complaint”.

Having received full reimbursement, it’s obvious that my complaint has been upheld, after all, it’s not like a private organisation to hand back money without a fight, so all we need now is a good witch-hunt, complete with a ceremonial burning at the stake

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, after I finished my notes last night I had one or two things that needed doing so yet again I was rather late going to my nice, clean, fresh bed.

But once in it, I was away quite quickly and there I stayed, all curled up, until the alarm went off. There had been one or two minor awakenings during the night but I was soon asleep again.

When the alarm went off I was in the middle of a dream. I was auditing some accounts for some company, going through their office and checking everything. There was a guy and girl there working together. It was quite obvious that the guy had his eye on the girl. After he went out of the room I began to talk to the girl to find out a little more about her to see if I could encourage these two in some way. Then the guy came back and carried on talking. I could see that he was looking nervous and was glancing at me so I just said to him “oh, go ahead. Don’t mind me” and tried to encourage him to ask her for a date. Then I was at home and one of my friends was there. We were talking about diabetics. I was watching TV in French, a TV programme in French while she was working. She was wondering why I was sitting down and not doing things. She found that it was actually a programme about diabetes. They were talking about “if you’re having a crisis, have a fruit” but I replied that quite often when I have a diabetic crisis I don’t have any fruits any more. I’ve run out”. And then I was thinking “maybe it’s a good idea to go out and buy some, then we can have a coffee as well, things like that” but my friend had so much work on her plate that I thought “maybe it’s not such a very good idea to propose that we stop for a moment”

Eating a fruit is a good idea in a diabetic crisis and at the hospital they usually give me a cup of orange juice if I’m having a wobble. Then along came the dietician who tells me that fruit has loads of potassium in it, my potassium is too high and I must cut down on the fruit. But that is just how everything is – one thing going on is affecting something else so I need a pill for the side-effect, but that pill then affects something else so I need another. And so on. I counted once just recently and it was about 32 pills, tablets and medicines per day (it’s increased since then). And I bet it’s all on account of the first one that I started taking. It’s hard to believe that when I went to live in Leuven in early 2016 I was just taking four pills per day.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, a shave and applied plenty of deodorant, even though it probably serves no useful purpose. And then I came in here to listen to the dictaphone. I can only remember a small part of this dream but I had to go to the bank to draw some money out at a cash point. I drew out £80:00 when I went to the shops last Tuesday but I thought that if I was drawing out that sum every week it’s going to be an awful lot of money. I was driving down the hill to where the little bank branch was where there was a machine where I could draw the money but suddenly I found myself maybe half a mile further on at a road junction. “Never mind” I thought. I could turn left here, turn round and go back again. But the left turning was a one-way street. I thought “I’ve been here before and turned down here but it’s all really complicated but I can’t remember seeing the bank branch when I drove down here just now. I mean, it’s dark and usually all its lights are on and you can see it from quite some distance away but tonight there was nothing. I hope that it’s not been closed down while I’ve been going”.

And I’ve been down this road during a previous night too. It’s the road that I drove down once and waited on a corner somewhere in South London when I was on another nocturnal ramble. And although I can’t recognise the first part of it, I now recognise the second part where I tried to turn left last night and the corner where I waited last time. It’s in Saint John in New Brunswick, just around the corner from where my Canadian insurance broker has her office. Well, well, well. But I wonder if the dream is symbolic of the issues that I had recently with my bank card.

It was Isabelle the nurse today, seeing as her partner has had to go to the doctor (and doesn’t that inspire a lot of confidence in a nurse?). She was her usual cheerful self, blitzed through her task and then cleared off, leaving me alone.

And so I made my breakfast and read my book. Right now, I’ve read the introduction and all the members are taking the train in the middle of a blinding rainstorm, to go to look at the rocks at Colwall in the Malvern Hills. We’re having a long, complicated talk on geology and underlying rock strata, which makes me wish that I could remember more of my A-level Geography. All the time that I spent studying rock formation in the Arctic with Mark St Onge on our trips out there on THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR seems not to have done me much good

Back here I cleared up a few bits and pieces and then made a start on writing the notes for the next radio programme. I’ve now done a few but this is turning into something rather more complicated than I had imagined. It’s not easy.

My cleaner came in and helped me with my anaesthetic patches, and then she tried some of the new tubi-grip bandage that we’ve acquired thanks to the prescription from Isabelle the nurse. That seems to work really well and I’m impressed.

The taxi came early and we set off, picking up another passenger on the way, for the Dialysis Clinic.

Being quite early I was soon installed in my bed with my laptop and music and the nurses didn’t hang about either. The first needle went in almost painlessly but the second one wasn’t so easy and they needed the echograph machine to test for the tube in my arm.

And when they finally found it and pushed the needle in, the anaesthetic had worn off.

It looks as if it’s definitely all over between Emilie the Cute Consultant and me.

She was there this afternoon and although she gave me a little wave of her hand, she kept her distance and that was that.

She certainly speaks English because there’s a monolingual English-speaker being dialysed and she was talking to him in English so she’s probably a regular reader of this rubbish and will recall a few of the comments that I have made. That’s enough to drive anyone away, I suppose. Let’s face it, I have enough trouble trying to persuade anyone to come near me in normal times, never mind when we are thrust together cheek by jowl to fester away in a hospital.

The other nurses came by every now and again to check the machine and to ask me to translate stuff for them so that they could speak to the English guy.

However I spent most of the time now that I have an internet connection trying to track down the dates of some of these live concerts that I have. I didn’t check many because it’s really had to do it when you aren’t comfortable, you only have one hand that you can use and that’s interrupted every 20 minutes by a blood pressure reading.

They carried out a diabetes test on me and sure enough it was at a critical level so they gave me a big glass of orange juice. Presumably they don’t think much of the dietician either.

After they unplugged me, disconnected me and compressed me, I went to weigh myself. I’d lost 3.1 kg in this session. All of that would be quite impressive if I wouldn’t put almost all of it straight back on again. It’s no good taking it off and it all going back on.

And a blood test report was sent to me today. After dialysis a few days ago the creatine was down to 283 (the required level in less than 100 and mine was at 450 which is close to fatal just before all of this started). However when I went back to dialysis a few days later it was up at almost 350 again. So not even that is staying put.

But never mind all of that. If I’m feeling better with just that much improvement, what will I be like if ever it goes down to less than 100 and I’m at my target weight?

There were three of us in the taxi and the driver was having an intense discussion with the other passenger so I sat in the back and relaxed.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me and watched as today I made 8 steps without using my hand to lift up my leg. If I keep this up, in a couple of months I’ll be outside through the skylight climbing up the roof to the chimney.

My cleaner says that she’s noticed a major improvement over the last few weeks and thinks that I ought to try going for a drive. But that’s out of the question right now. There’s not enough force in my right leg to apply the brake and that’s that.

Tea was, as I said yesterday, a slice of vegan pie with vegetables in gravy and I forgot the herbs with the gravy. But the pie defrosted and warmed up really well in the air fryer and really was nice. I made the gravy thick and glutinous and stirred the veg in it so that the gravy stuck to all of them. That made it even nicer.

So right now, later than intended, I’m off to bed. But the talk of tying someone to a stake and burning them alive reminds me of a boy at our old school.
He came in one morning saying."I saw this incredible film last night. It was all about this man who changed into a bat and they killed him by hammering a stake into his heart. Can you imagine that? Killing a man with a stake?"
"That’s nothing" I retorted. "My mother can do that with egg and chips"

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Thursday 22nd August 2024 – I AM NOT …

… turning into a politician, or a Conservative.

The heart specialist had a play around with his machine and after much searching and so forth, actually managed to detect a heartbeat.

So something is working where it ought to be working and that can only be good news

The better news is that he seems to think that he can do something for me. And if so, that will take a great weight off my mind. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m being pumped full of blood-thinning products in order to ease the strain on my heart. That has some unpleasant side effects, such as my blood being so thin that I bleed at the slightest excuse.

And that was the reason why my early night last night ended up not being an early night at all. And once more we have a rail of blood all around the apartment from when I had to wander off and look for the sticking plasters.

Yes, in the distance that it took me to go from my chair into the bathroom I managed to knock myself and bleed all over everywhere.

It was quite a while before the blood stopped flowing enough for me to consider going to bed. And once more, it didn’t take any effort at all to go to sleep. That doesn’t seem to be a problem anyway.

What does though is whatever it is that keeps on awakening me in the small hours of the morning. I’ve no idea what time it was this morning but it was still dark. But no chance of my leaving the bed. I PULLED THE BEDCLOTHES HIGHER, DREAMED OF SUMMERTIME INSTEAD until the alarm went off at 07:00

In the bathroom I had a really good wash and shave (for a change) and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a hold-up on the motorway and everyone was detained while the hold-up was fixed. It took several hours through the night and at one stage the Police had organised an impromptu football match between various members of people waiting in the queue. A lot of people weren’t happy and were making complaints but there was nothing that anyone could do. Even so they were coming up with the most incredible excuses about having to see the Queen, things like that. There were several young families there and entertaining the children was a huge priority. Although this was going quite well in one or two places it was quite bad in a lot more. No-one seemed to be able to get to grips with any of the issues that were arising, whether it was the passengers. Of course, the longer the delay went on, the more urgent some of the passengers became and the more targets the Police and Customs had to pick to search, which only aggravated the issue even more. It was all part of some natural disaster and wasn’t a man-made issue that had blocked the motorway

Later on there was a huge thing about illegal immigrants and with the Pole Board blocked the immigration service was going through interviewing anyone and absolutely everyone about their immigration status. It was upsetting to a great many people but nevertheless it was something that was carried out and it was interesting to see different people’s reactions. Some took it quite calmly. Some took it quite emotionally. It was absolutely everything there. In the end it turned out that what it actually was was tickets for a Scottish Cup Game between Rangers and someone else at the other team’s ground. The Police had this barrage there to control the arrival of fans. After Rangers had won the match they contacted the club that was hosting the next round game to ask them about ticket arrangements but Rangers were quite happy for it to be a “pay on the gate” game. They didn’t seem to think that it should be a “ticket only” match so the Scottish FA was giving the matter some consideration about simply making it “first come first served” for a seat

This may not seem to make any sense at all but that’s not surprising. Hardly anything that I do or say in a dream seems to make any sense at all. But then again it’s probably not supposed to.

The nurse was very late coming here today. She’d been across the road to take a blood sample from someone and it had proved to be more difficult than she imagined.

She was pleased that we have some new puttees on the way and that her supplies have been ordered. She saw my prescription for a blood sample and is going to take it on Saturday

After she left it was too late to have breakfast, which was just as well that I didn’t start anything because the taxi was early. The driver helped me down to the car and we had a nice, pleasant drive to the Medical Centre.

But that’s twice now that I’ve been out and about in the sun and it makes me yearn to be in the apartment on the ground floor where, with a folding chair, I could sit outside and enjoy the beautiful weather

Being early at the Medical Centre I had to wait for a while before I was seen. The doctor remembered me from three years ago and asked me what happened to my cure.

And so I recounted to him my story about being passed from pillar to post in Belgium to such an extent that I lost interest. He pleaded with me not to lose interest this time.

So fair enough. Let’s see what he’s got under the hood, as the old saying goes. Can he really conjure up something to help ease all of my issues?

He wasn’t impressed with the fact that I’m covered in bruises and wanted to know if I’d had a fall. I explained about how I bruise really easily while I’m taking all of these blood-thinning products.

While I was waiting for my paperwork I encountered one of my neighbours, just back from holiday. We had a little chat and then my driver came to take me back home.

He helped me up the stairs as far as the lift and I could go the rest of the way on my own. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the lifts are only on the half-landings and don’t go all the way down to the ground floor, which is an inconvenience.

Back here I finally could have breakfast which I took at an extremely leisurely pace, and then joined my Welsh class.

My Welsh Summer School seems to be going very well, which is nice. I can’t think what I’m doing right. I wish that I knew because I’d do it all the time

During the lunchtime pause I made some dough for the next loaf, and in the afternoon break gave it its second kneading.

At the end of the lesson, in a mad fit of enthusiasm I made a pie using a couple of vegan burgers that I diced, along with onions, garlic, sweetcorn and lentils.

All of that went into the oven with the bread and some potatoes, and I ended up with a lovely tea tonight – baked potatoes and pie with vegetables in gravy. There’s enough pie left for three more meals so it’ll go in the freezer when it’s cooled down enough

My faithful cleaner stuck her head in the door too. We went through the medication so that she knows what to order on the next prescription supply from the chemist’s.

She says that she’ll go tomorrow, but I reckon that she’ll need a lorry to bring it all back.

So on that note I’ll go and give my puttees a good wash and go to bed, see if I can have a decent sleep ready for my last day for now in a Welsh Summer School (there’s a third week later). We have piles of homework to do and that will keep me out of mischief.

But not before I tell you the story about the Eye Clinic in the Health Centre.
A patient went in and told the doctor that he was having difficulty seeing and needed his eyes testing.
"Fair enough" said the optician, and turning to his secretary, said "take your clothes off, Miss Smith"
The patient was outraged. "I’m the one who needs his eyes testing" he said. "Why should she take off her clothes?"
The optician turned to the patient and said "if you can’t see why she should take off her clothes you really DO need your eyes testing."

0

Friday 2nd August 2024 – I’VE HAD A COUPLE …

… of lovely chats on the internet this afternoon.

The first was with one of my neighbours, the President of the Residents’ Committee who was so helpful when it came to buying the apartment downstairs

And the second was with a close fried who lives in Newport. He was actually best man at my wedding and we still keep in touch.

However last night, I wasn’t anywhere like in touch with my ideal night-time curfew of 23:00. It was actually after midnight before I finally hit the sack, running as late as I was. The list of things that I have to do before going to bed seems to have grown longer and longer.

But once I was in bed, I didn’t reach all that far into my little mantra before I fell asleep. That’s one good thing – that I’m asleep quite quickly whereas in the olden days I’d be tossing and turning for hours.

There were no stone cutter, no diggers, no nothing going on outside this morning so I slept all the way through until about … errr …. 06:15 when something must have awoken me. And I lay there semi-comatose until the alarm went off at 07:00.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up and sorted out some clean clothes. Who knows? I might get to see Emilie the Cute Consultant at the Clinic so I have to look my best.

With clean clothes, it meant that I could give my undies and trousers a scrub in the sink. These days I wear these shell-suit trousers all the time because they wash and dry in no time, which is good news seeing how filthy I can be.

Next step was to listen to the dictaphone to find out what I was doing during the night. I was in Shavington going to catch the bus to Nantwich and for some reason or other decided to walk up to the bus stop at the Elephant and Castle. I set out to walk and on my way I noticed in the distance the Farmer’s Daughter who has figured on these pages once or twice but she had short hair and that suited her head really well. She walked off somewhere and I was debating whether to go to follow her to see where she was going and to see whether I could summon up some kind of excuse to have a good chat. I walked up to where the Elephant and Castle is and put my hand out to turn right even though I was walking on foot. A couple of kids on the pavement, tiny kids who were presumably going to catch the bus to school saw me and waited on the edge of the pavement until I went past. There on the right hand side was an Austin Cambridge but it was “A” registration as in 1983 or 1984 but they stopped making Cambridges in 1967 and any vehicle that was subsequently registered would have had an age-related plate fitted to it, so why was this one carrying the plate of such a recent date. That was a complete mystery that needed to be resolved.

Yes, well I’ll tell you something for nothing and that I would not have been convinced if she wanted to cut her hair. I’m afraid that I’m quite the male chauvinist when it comes to girls’ hair. I think that long hair on girls is absolutely beautiful and it’s a cardinal sin for a girl to set out to disfigure that which nature has blessed her. But I’m impressed that I can remember banal details about car registration numbers and years of manufacture while I’m asleep.

As for The Farmer’s Daughter, there hangs a long tale that might be one of the many recounted at my funeral.

The taxi came bang on time which was nice and another passenger already in there graciously yielded up the front seat – it’s much easier for me to pop in and out of the front.

We set off for Avranches and first had to drop off the other passenger at the hospital, and then take me to the clinic across the road and up the hill.

This is a brand-new building and it does look impressive, although it beats me why they couldn’t have built it onto the existing hospital.

The nurse is there is one who has seen me before and she remembered me, which is rather sad going, I suppose. Once seen …

She asked me a load of questions about my current symptoms, and either she’s excellent at prognostication, the symptoms from which I’m suffering are well-known, she’s a regular reader of this rubbish or else she’s in league with the Devil.

It was interesting when she asked me things like "when you go to sleep in the afternoon, is it a sudden, dramatic sleep with no warning and no realisation that you’ve been asleep?"

You can say that again.

She weighed me again. And having been down past Target Weight 01 and close to Target Weight 02, my current weight is depressing to say the least.

She took off all of my bandages and dressings and commented about how well the surgery was looking. "Would I like to see?"

And so I told her to clear off and put a dressing on it, and it took her a while to do it. I think that she was hoping that I’d catch sight of it.

She’s formally forbidden me to wrap a dressing around the arm – just leave the plaster on it. And she’s going to ‘phone up the nurse and give her instructions. And so I’m suspicious.

But some good has come out of this meeting. I told her of my woes at the private clinic. She was horrified. Being a terminally ill patient, I’m entitled to 100% of my healthcare covered by the State. She showed me the paper that she has which confirms it.

The Private Clinic had no right to make me pay even a penny. So she’s asked to see a copy of the receipt and she’ll take it up with the Hospital’s Welfare Department

After she’d taken a blood sample she threw me out and the taxi brought me home where my faithful cleaner was waiting. She helped me up the stairs and into my apartment.

She seems to think that I’m moving better than I did previously, and how I wish that it were true

Not having had anything to eat or drink as yet, I sat down to breakfast. And couldn’t move for a while afterwards, so when the nurse came round to deal with me later, the place was a tip with breakfast dishes everywhere.

After she left, I had some ‘phone calls to make.

The President of the Residents’ Committee is returning on Sunday so we had a good that about this and that.

It included the latest news about our neighbour, currently residing in the hospital. Things are not looking to bright for her future and we may have seen the last of her in this building

Once we had hung up I made a drink and then ‘phoned a friend.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few weeks ago I mentioned a project that I might be starting at some point.

It’s had a couple of false starts and deciding that it can’t go on for ever and can’t be delayed much longer, I have decided to go in a different direction.

This actually means calling for help. After all, the key to success has been knowing where to stop and when to seek the advice of experts, and if you have friends who can be depended up to help you in this respect, then so much the better.

And I’ll tell you something else for nothing, and that is at the end of a chat that lasted a Rosemaryesque one hour and 15 minutes, I was a long way further down the road than I was after several months of prevaricating

Tea tonight was pie and veg, the last slice which was a shame because it was so nice. And it was followed by apple turnover and soya cream

Yes, my air fryer is great for warming up slices of pie and apple turnovers.

So now I’m off to bed, hoping for a really good sleep, and I mustn’t forget to wash my shorts in the morning. I forgot last week. Why I wash them on Saturdays is because with not going to bed until later, they have longer to dry.

But before I go to bed, let me tell you about the Clinic at Avranches and the guy in the next cubicle to me.
He works in the quarry down the road and wasn’t quick enough to get out of the way when they detonated some explosive.
"And it’s badly damaged my … errr … ummm …" he said, groping for the polite word.
"Rectum?" asked the nurse, helpfully
"Well" said the man "in all honesty it’s not done ’em much good"

0

Wednesday 31st July 2024 – JOHN MAYALL HAS …

… died

Born in Macclesfield 90 years ago, down the road from where I used to live it’s doubtful if anyone has contributed more to the British blues scene than him.

Not that I’m a big blues fan, but ever since his first “proper” band in Manchester with long-time associate Hughie Flint (later of McGuinness Flint) on the drums, and his first incarnation of the Bluesbreakers on his arrival in London, with trainee Tax Inspector John McVie (later of Fleetwood Mac) on bass, just about anyone who is anyone on the blues circuit has played in one of his bands.

Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Harvey Mandel, Jack Bruce, Keef Hartley, a 15 year-old Andy Fraser, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Jon Hiseman, etc, etc, it’s a veritable Who’s Who of names who made it in the music World who have at one time passed through The Bluesbreakers

Even though he was 90 years old, and probably thinking about slowing down, he’s someone who will be sorely missed.

Something else that was sorely missed was my 23:00 curfew. I was miles away from it in fact, and on the wrong side as well. Probably much closer to midnight when I crawled into my sack.

And although I was asleep quite quickly, I was awake quite early too – at, would you believe, 02:15.

So there I was, for hours, tossing and turning and trying to go back to sleep, without any success at all. All in all, it was quite a miserable night

When the alarm went off, it was a very weary me who raised one eye up from under the quilt. But despite everything I did manage to make it out of bed before the second alarm went off.

Feeling depressingly weary, I made it into the bathroom where a good rub down with a cold flannel did little to revive my flagging spirits

Eventually I managed to make it back in here where I had a listen to the dictaphone. And to my surprise there was something on it from the night. I’d been appointed as one of two sporting ambassadors for Caernarfon Town. It was my job to welcome TNS to the ground after TNS had beaten them in a heavy defeat the previous week. Of course there was a lot of change and a lot of issues about it but we still had to do an extremely professional job

Presumably this has something to do with the fact that both Caernarfon Town and TNS are entertaining foreign opposition this week. TNS had Ferencvaros of Hungary down there in Oswestry last night, and Caernarfon will be entertaining Legia Warzawa of Poland tomorrow (Thursday) evening.

The nurse caught me by surprise this morning. She rings on my doorbell from downstairs as she arrives in the building but then goes to see my neighbour first, giving me about ten minutes. But today, she was here in seconds.

When she came in she caught me watching a football match. "You were quick at whatsit’s" I said
"She’s not here" she replied.

It seems that my neighbour has been taken into hospital. They aren’t convinced that she has what it takes to live an autonomous life in view of all of the falls that she’s had and the fact that she’s lost confidence in herself.

She’s gone to be assessed for a place in a Home, so she told me when I texted her later to find out how she was. And that is probably as good a solution as you can expect for her.

The nurse changed the covering on my arm and then dealt with my legs. She wasn’t here long and left quite quickly, running rather later than usual. But we did make arrangements for Friday because I won’t be here that morning.

While I was eating breakfast I was reading a book about lost trails in Montana. Once again I was so engrossed, especially when I reached the chapter on a band of vigilantes that roamed the Territory righting wrongs and hanging outlaws that I was there for a long time poring over the pages.

Once again, very little of this stuff has made it onto Wikipedia and so its all likely to fall out of the pages of recorded history as the three-minute truncated attention span of the MTV Generation takes more and more control.

The rest of the day, when I’ve not been asleep, has been spent tracking down musicians who played with John Mayall and samples of their music. Mayall is the kind of person who deserves a radio programme in his honour and I’m sure that there will be enough material for me to assemble some sort of something to commemorate his services to music.

The cleaner came by for an hour or so too in a vain attempt to make the place look pretty. We had the accounts to settle too and I had to go to lie down in a darkened room afterwards.

Tea tonight was another slice of pie with potatoes, mixed veg and gravy. And the secret to warming up the pie is to put it in the air fryer. It’s simple really.

So now, nice and early, I’m going to go back to do some more on my John Mayall project

But John Mayall’s passing reminds me of that hellfire-and-damnation vicar who was preaching a sermon at the local church
"One day, everyone from this parish will die, and will be called to answer for their sins before the merciless God"
To which a man on the back rown burst out laughing.
"I don’t think that you heard me" thundered the vicar. "I said – ‘one day, everyone from this parish will die, and will be called to answer for their sins before the merciless God’"
"Oh I heard you, right enough" said the man, laughing even more
"So why are you laughing?" asked the vicar
"Well, I don’t come from this parish"

0

Tuesday 30th July 2024 – I’VE HAD A …

… lovely tea tonight.

With plenty of stuffing in the fridge left over from yesterday, ordinarily I’d be having a taco roll with rice tonight followed by a leftover curry tomorrow and something different on Thursday

However when I was reading back a couple of years in my blog I noticed a reference to pies, and it suddenly occurred to me that I haven’t had a really good pie for ages.

Add into the equation the fact that I need to bake some bread as I have now run out, so the oven will be on, but the bread will only take up half an oven. There’s half an oven going spare.

And so the answer is pretty obvious. I hope that I can remember how to bake a pie because it’s been years

It’s also been years since I’ve had a decent night’s sleep. At least, that’s what it seems like. And last night was no different. It was another late night when I finally crawled into my stinking pit

And once again, I didn’t need much rocking before I was fast asleep, dead to the World.

And there I remained until all of … errr … 04:15. This is becoming a habit.

However, today I managed to go back to sleep, at least for a short while. But since then I’ve had an annoying itch in my right wrist that is driving me to distraction. It’s been going all day.

Add to that the persistent dull throb in the left wrist where I had the operation and all in all, I’m in something of a mess.

When the alarm went off I staggered into the bathroom where I sorted myself out for the day and washed the crepe bandages that had been soaking for the last 24 hours. They are now hung up to dry.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone from the night. Someone rang me up to talk about a friend’s illness and how it was going to affect me. They rang a couple of times and wanted to speak to me about this kind of thing, making sure that I was aware of what was happening and what was going on, which was a surprise when you are asleep like that sometimes. I’ve no idea why

Then Nerina and I were living in Gainsborough Road. We were working on the Industrial Estate there. It was time to go to work but only one of the alarms had worked, which was mine, so I took my pushbike and began to cycle to work. Nerina, realising that I was going to work, dashed out of bed, dashed to wash, dashed to put on her clean clothes then leaped onto her bike and chased after me. She passed me at the corner and cycled off into the distance. There were one or two other guys who were cycling with her. I was hoping that she would find a place where she’d no longer cycle and she’d have to walk. For me, I was quite happy to push on on the bike but Nerina was rather more difficult. She wanted really to lose any confrontation like lhat. She was one of these people who would only do it if if it was all marked out and mapped out etc. But on this particular run she ended up talking to a couple of other guys as she was cycling and it was an effort to keep up with them that she made this distance between the two of us and once again there was nothing that I could do to close this gap.

All of this sounds familiar too, but that’s all water that has long-since flown under the bridge.

My friend from Stoke on Trent joined the Open University and began to study but he lacked the self-discipline and was unable to make much progress. He didn’t have what it took to knuckle down like that on a six-year course. We had a few arguments about his studying but in the end I left him to do what he wanted to do rather than what he ought to be doing and it all went pear-shaped. But it was interesting listening to someone at the University talking about the OU’s Marketing. First of all, they obviously hit the students with all of the renewal business etc but eventually they hit the sleazy Newsgroups and sleazy chatrooms to invite their members along. Some of their members did quite well at studying too when you consider their background. There was certainly plenty of different people and plenty of different classes studying at the University and I was glad to have been there at a very interesting time when we had their own new chat system where we could actually see how things were evolving

So I’m now running marketing campaigns in my sleep. But had this taken place 25 years ago when I was at University there would have been plenty of sleazy Newsgroups to go at. Usenet was at its anarchic, chaotic height and there were all kinds of things going on in its hidden bowels and a Marketing campaign would have had plenty of room to manoeuvre. As for self-discipline, a lot of people totally underestimated the amount of self-discipline you needed to study at the Open University, with no tutors and lecturers sitting over you, and work, colleagues and family getting in the way. I had to revise my study plan considerably after the events of 2001 which meant that we were working practically permanent overtime. But our chat system, “First Class”, was excellent. Hats off to the designers of that. We had hours of endless fun and games

I was teasing one of the kids who belonged to one of the women. I asked her what she wanted for dessert, whether she wanted Christmas cake or Christmas pudding. She couldn’t make up her mind so I told her that seeing as the Christmas cake was mine if she chose pudding I’d give her a slice of Christmas cake too but she was dithering about, umming and ahhing, couldn’t make up her mind so I was quite busy teasing her while all of this was going on but she still hadn’t made up her mind.

Teasing kids is all good fun as long as you know where to draw the line, because there is a point where although the adults think that it’s hilarious, it’s no longer fun for the kids. You need to stop a long time before then. However, I wonder who the kid was. She wasn’t one of my three favourite young ladies, which is a shame.

It’s Isabelle today for the next week or two. She was her usual cheerful self but she couldn’t hang around as she had a blood test to do back at her office. She was in and out in 5 minutes doing my puttees, but she didn’t forget to give me my injection.

After she left, I had breakfast and then for about an hour afterwards I did something that I haven’t done for ages – nice and comfy on my breakfast chair, I read my book, BYWAYS IN BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGY or, rather, finished it off. I had about 100 pages to go but I was so deeply engrossed that after I’d eaten my toast I just carried on until the end.

The book, published in 1912, explains the author’s theory that many churches are built on old pagan religious sites to a plan that is proto-pagan in origin. It’s a fascinating book, as are most of these ancient tomes stored on-line.

It’s amazing how much has been forgotten too, when you read the facts that are disclosed within its pages that never made it onto the internet and into Wikipedia. And with people now just doing their research on Wikipedia and going nowhere else, all these facts will be lost for ever.

When I’d finished my book I phoned up the hospital at Avranches to say that I won’t be going to this appointment at the private hospital. But the surgeon and his assistant are away until 18th August. Could I call back after then?

So tell me – what good is this emergency number that I was given.

And then there were the final radio notes to edit from the batch that I dictated on Saturday night.

These radio notes are important because it’s for a live concert. There’s a World-famous live album recorded 50-odd years ago but the entire recording of the whole concert has somehow found its way into my possession, so on the anniversary of its recording I’ll be doing my own live concert and you’ll hear the album as it was meant to be, not how the producers wanted it.

This was something else that so engrossed me that I forgot my lunch.

After my mid-afternoon hot chocolate I set about making the dough for the loaf for the next few days.

And while the dough was proofing I had to think about the pie. The traditional recipe is 1 part flour to one part margarine, but I seem to remember that vegan margarine is much more oleaginous so I just used 50% of the butter and that worked out really well.

There wasn’t quite enough filling but a small tin of lentils did the job perfectly. And with the pastry that was left over from my mix I made an apfel strudel.

The oven was nice and full so I put everything in to bake while I washed up and cleaned up.

A pan full of potatoes and veg with gravy was next on the agenda and that was all tipped onto a plate with a slice of the pie.

One thing that I vowed never to do, but I did it all the same, was to eat at my desk.

But TNS were playing Ferencvaros of Hungary in the second leg of a Champions League match.

Following a defeat in Budapest they had their backs against the wall but they held out for 43 minutes when a goal that was so far offside that even the player scoring it looked with amazement at the linesman who had kept his flag well down

And when TNS conceded a penalty with 30 minutes to go to fall even further behind, then that was it. But they battled on bravely and deep into stoppage time scored a consolation goal. But to be quite honest, the Ferencvaros players had long-since clocked off for the night.

It’s fair comment to say that having drawn the top seed at this stage in the competition, the draw for this round wasn’t very kind to TNS.

But TNS and its officials have aspirations of competing in the Group stages, and they’ll encounter plenty of teams as good as Ferencvaros and many seeded teams much better who will join the competition at a later stage. So heavy defeats will become the norm if things don’t change.

On that note I’m going to prepare myself for bed. It’s another late night but it can’t be helped.

But going back to the old days of Usenet, it reminded me of that slogan that just about summed up everything about it
"Usenet – where men are men….. and where women are men …..and where children are Law Enforcement Officers"
Who will ever forget that “14 year old girl” trying to entrap a “15 year old boy” and he eventually took the bait and agreed to meet the girl.
It was in fact an elaborate sting operation by one County in California posing as a girl in the hope of catching a man looking for a victim posing as a teenage boy. What they caught instead was the Cybercrime Unit of the neighbouring County posing as a teenage boy hoping to catch a man looking for a victim posing as a teenage girl

0

Friday 15th December 2023 – YOU HAVE PROBABLY …

… already guessed what has happened today.

At roughly about 11:40 when I was comfortably settled deep down in the Arms of Morpheus, the telephone rang.

"This is the hospital here in Paris. We’re doing our planning for next week. Can you come on Monday instead of Tuesday? You’ll still be staying for several days."
Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we started off with Tuesday, and then it was already changed from Tuesday to Monday a few days ago, and then changed back again to Tuesday at a later date.
"I shall have to see what the taxi company has to say about it. I’ve messed them around enough with all of these cancellations and it is rather short notice"

And so I phoned the taxi company to chat to them about the situation. We had an “interesting and illuminating” discussion which eventually led to them agreeing to take me on Monday instead. The appointment isn’t until 13:15 which means leaving at 09:00 instead of 04:30 and hitting the rush-hour head on, so that might have helped to persuade them. And the lie-in will be useful for me too.

Having had the agreement from the taxi company I phoned back to the hospital and confirmed the situation. So that is that.

When the cleaner came round, we had a discussion about the situation, as we do.

With my usual air of optimism I added "well, it’s 16:00. Still plenty of time for a further change of plan"
"Not at this time of the afternoon. Everyone will be ready to go home" she replied.

And I must admit that I really did admire her confidence. Five minutes later the telephone rang.

This time it was the taxi company. "Would you possibly consider doubling up and sharing a taxi with someone else going to Paris on Monday, leaving at 07:00?"

So much for my lie-in then. But considering how they’ve been messed about by all of these changes to the programme, I have to show some bonne volonté I suppose. My cleaner hopes that it will be a belle blonde travelling with me, but my money is on a retired Bulgarian female weightlifter

They probably won’t say anything to the Social Security about the car-sharing and charge for two trips, but in that position I’d probably do the same too.

But anyway, retournons à nos moutons as they say around here, I had a good play around on the guitar before going to bed, something that led me down another road to somewhere deep in the past.
"She moved her hips
And swayed in my direction
I thought we could make it yet
And beat the isolation
But in that gentle dark
We tore ourselves apart
Through fire and rain
Through wilderness and pain
Through the losses, through the gains
On love’s roller coaster train
I call your name"

So hauling myself out of the pit wherein lives the Black Dog, I hauled myself off to bed where I had another turbulent night. And although there was quite a lot going on, I didn’t have any special visitors.

When the alarm went off this morning I already had the bedroom light on and was just about to swing my feet out of bed, so effectively I fell short of an early start by a matter of a handful of seconds. Still, a miss is as good as a mile.

After the meds I came back in here to print off a justificatif de domicile – a certificate issued by the Electricity Board as proof of your occupation of your premises, and then transcribed the mountain of dictaphone notes. It seemed to have been “quantity” last night, not “quality”.

I started off busily organising my bread, dividing it into portion-sized helpings for the future when I awoke this morning. The ambulance had already come for me and there was something going on there too about organising a wholesale supply of food and daily helpings for different people but I wasn’t actually involved in what was going on down there. They’d just come to pick me up and at that moment I awoke.

And then I was doing my English homework at home. I had a list of words and had to find their equivalent in the second column of this list and then insert them in the correct place in the test that I was reading. It was about an American guy from the Mid-West who was finishing work and coming home. Some of the language in this text was extremely dubious so I wouldn’t read it out loud because we had a young girl staying with us. Then my father came home from work. He asked what I was doing so I explained. The girl explained a little too. My father then began to say things like “do they have an equivalent in there for ‘stripper’?” – words like that. As a matter of fact they did but I didn’t want to read them out because of the young girl. My father didn’t seem to care at all. We began to make tea. On the table, there were all kinds of stuff on this table that you wouldn’t believe. There I was with these hot dishes and there was nowhere to put them. I went to move some things out to the side but someone grabbed hold of it and began to use it. Someone else asked me if I wanted a slice of apple pie. That had been put on the floor because it was the only place to put it. This was in my opinion a completely unacceptable way that everything was just scattered about everywhere

Continuing on that dream later on, there was some of my mother’s cooking there and that was something of a mess. No matter how much I actually like hummus I decided that when my mother presented a bowl for the evening meal, I’d rather give it a miss.

My mother’s cooking was legendary, but for all the wrong reasons. When I used to go round to a friend’s house in Nantwich after school his German mother always served me up with piles of food. When I was in Munich with him last year, we talked about it and I asked him why.
"Don’t you remember?" he asked. "I stayed for tea once at your house. Only once."

To be honest, it wasn’t until I met Nerina that I began to eat well

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … bed it was a Monday morning and I was slowly preparing to go to work. Suddenly I looked at the time. It was 08:20. I had to rush around and find everything really as quickly as possible. I hadn’t even had a wash and probably smelt to high heaven but had to do the best that I possibly could. All the time there were the usual interruptions, people in my way, not being able to find anything. There was a discussion going on about why Manchester United hadn’t done as well as everyone had expected over the last couple of seasons so I had my three ha’pence-worth as I was going around. But I was really fighting a hopeless task and was nothing at all like ready when I realised that the bus had gone and that I’d be late for work. In a fit of exasperation etc I stormed into the kitchen, dropped my things onto the floor and said “this is it! I’ve missed the bus again! I’m not going to miss this bus again whatever happens”.

Believe it or not, I actually laughed in the middle of the dream when I dictated that. I’ve heard those promises before.

A short while later I had exactly the same dream again about preparing for work or for school. Exactly the same thought about never being late went through my head again with exactly the same response from my subconscious during the dream. I ended up storming off out of the room, bad-tempered. I spent some time doing some Welsh revision while I was waiting for the alarm to ring

While I was in Munich I’d gone to see something or other on the outskirts. When I was driving back I came to a roundabout where there was some evidence of bomb damage still – burnt-out buildings etc. I stopped and took the camera but I couldn’t find a good spec to photograph it, where I could fit everything in without the sun interrupting me. At one stage I was trying to cross the road when 3 BMC 1100s appeared one after the other and performed some kind of pirouette around me as I tried to reach the other side of the road

Finally I came across some people who had a Bristol Lodekka double-decker bus, a green one, in their barn in the centre of France. The destination blind on it read ROUTE 929 – LEEDS to OPORTO. They told me some of the story of the bus but not everything. We’d recently come to settle down there. Before leaving someone had given me a box of things with fish in it. I made a little pool for these fish but instead it turned out that they were some giant cormorant birds. They looked quite ridiculous sitting on my little pond. They, at least, one of them, could actually talk and I had some very interesting conversations with the cormorant about laying eggs and hatching, etc. But it was the bus in the neighbour’s barn that intrigued me. I’d love to know what it was doing and how it had ended up there when it should have been somewhere in Oporto

When the bus (the local one, not the 929 from Leeds to Porto) came, I clambered aboard, declining a lift from a neighbour because I have to push myself onwards on the bus whenever I can, and we set off for St Nicolas and on the way, the driver forgot to stop at the Ecole d’Hotellerie to let off the High School baking class

At St Nicolas the first stop was at the Post Office where, armed with my justificatif de domicile, I jumped through various complicated hoops in order to open a bank account.

So shortly I’ll have a bank card and actually be able to draw some cash at some point. As I have mentioned before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … there’s not another cash point in the town accessible to me because I can’t climb back onto the bus afterwards.

It took so long that I didn’t have time for my coffee at the Carrefour but at least I have tomatoes and mushrooms and a few other things. I met the guy with whom I’d had a long chat the other day.
"A British guy who likes our bread and our coffee " he said. "That’s a rare sight"
"If I’d only wanted tea at four o’clock" I replied "I’d have stayed over there".

At the bus stop I had a long chat with a local guy also waiting for the bus, and then with a woman on the bus on her way to the doctor’s.

People are starting to notice me. I’m not sure that that’s a good sign.

Back here I had another chat with a neighbour and then climbed up the stairs to my apartment where I made my coffee and cheese on toast

Despite phone calls, the attentions of the cleaner and the occasional drift away into nothingness I finihsed off the radio notes that I’d started yesterday, and they are now ready for dictation, which I’ll do tomorrow night as usual.

Rosemary rang up too and we had another one of our lengthy chats that seem to go on for ever when we talk about almost nothing.

However, I have made an executive decision, and for the benefit of new readers, of which there are more than a few just recently, an executive decision is a decision that you make which, if it goes wrong, the person making it is executed.

And that is that I’ve decided what to have for Christmas dinner.

For a while now I’ve been thinking about making a vegan pie because I haven’t made one for ages. But this one is going to be different – I’ve ordered some puff pastry rolls.

Making pastry like that from scratch is difficult. You have to roll it out thin, coat is with oil, fold it over, roll it again, coat with oil, fold again ad infinitum. I can imagine exactly how mine would turn out.

However the LeClerc poverty-spec pastry rolls are vegan so that’s what I’ll use.

  • Put a cup of lentils in the slow cooker, cover with water and slowly bring to the boil.
  • When they begin to boil, drain them out and rinse them thoroughly, then put them back on the lowest heat with more water, plenty of herbs and spices and leave them overnight on the lowest heat
  • Next morning, cut up your tofu into small squares and fry with onion, garlic, mushrooms, whatever else you like and plenty of herbs and spices.
  • When they are nice and golden brown, tip in your lentils and stir it round, and then add a few spoons of oats to absorb the liquid and make a glutinous mass
  • Empty it into your pie case, add the top, brush with soya milk and bake until golden brown

As usual, any other suggestions and ideas are welcomed.

Tea tonight was salad, chips and some of those nugget things, something that went down really well.

So having finished my notes, I’ll carry on with the guitar for a while. I’ll have another go at trying to sing MOONAGE DAYDREAM while playing the bass.

At least I’m not the only one how finds it difficult. Grahame wrote that he doesn’t find it easy either. Maybe we ought to hold a “Ziggy Stardust” masterclass at some point.

But if anyone else wants to write and say “hello” or exchange ideas, there’s a link on the bottom right of the page. But if you use Gmail, I can’t reply to you.

In Google’s quest to take over the internet the company wants webmasters to embed its code into all minor domains and until I know why and what it does, I’m not putting it in mine. Consequently Google is blocking me from writing to anyone with a Gmail address.

Tomorrow I have no plans, but as usual, something will probably pop up to distract me. And then on Sunday, I’m baking bread and biscuits and a few other things besides, I reckon.

That means that I’d better remember to order some more vegan butter. I’m going through it at an alarming rate.

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Thursday 19th January 2023 – I WAS PLANNING …

… on making a radio programme today but I haven’t. I’m very far from it as it happens not even having written all of the notes, never mind dictated and edited them. There have been planty of other things going on today, all of which have needed my attention.

The first was this thing for the radio that I did yesterday. I should have realised that it was only part of the story and that there was much more to do than that.

Secondly I had a couple of phone calls to make, one of which involves my day out on Tuesday. No-one has told me where I’m supposed to go, what I’m supposed to do, what I need to bring with me, despite a reminder that I sent on Monday.

Consequently I telephoned them this morning and they promised to send me the information today at some point. And so it’s now about 22:00 and the information still hasn’t been received. I can see me turning up on Tuesday morning (I found out by other means where I need to go) without any of the required information, a huge problem developing as a result, and me turning round and saying “hard luck”.

Rosemary rang me as well and we had one of our very lengthy chats about nothing much in particular. She’s currently under a couple of feet of snow down in the Auvergne, as is much of the country today. I saw a photo of the vinyard of my friend in the Saone valley and that’s pretty much in a white-out.

This afternoon I finally managed to contact the garage about the problems that i’m having with Caliburn. There’s no auto-electrician in Granville, as I reckoned, but he’s of my opinion that it’s either a bad earth or a bad starter. As a result he can have a go at fixing it and he’s arranged for me to call in on 31st January. He’ll have a play around to see if he can fix it before I make plans about taking it to Coutances and the auto-electrician.

So what am I going to do on Tuesday? It’s probably the most important meeting that I’ve had for many a year and I need to be there. And so I rang up about hiring a car for a morning. It works out to be about half the price of a taxi and I can even recover the cost by doing a shopping trip around LeClerc instead of having my monthly delivery.

The physiotherapist came round later and had a close look at how I walk. he’s identified another muscle that needs work so he’s given me some exercises for that too. I can see that I’ll be spending most of the rest of my life doing exercises at this rate.

And so that left me with the dictaphone notes to write. Those for yesterday were the first to do and then I updated yesterday’s entry. And then I had a look at today’s stuff. I was working on the radio last night speaking to a woman whom I knew who had a boy who was 6 or 7. They had come from a distant planet to live on the planet where we were. The son spoke the local language and also spoke the language of the planet where they lived before. They had lots of different experiences even down to the kind of pets that they would keep and how they looked after them so I was really keen to interview him. We had quite a long chat for 15 minutes learning all about pets, the way of life, how familes were composed, how they managed on their distant planet somewhere millions of light years away.

Next, I’d gone round to Aunt Mary’s flat to tidy it up. On the way I’d bumped into Nerina and we’d had quite a long chat. For some unknown reason we ended up back together again. I was in the middle of buying a house and was actually filling in a load of documents while she was there. I had to fill in a form with my father’s details. I thought “my father is dead. How do I find out this?”. She said “I didn’t know that he’d died”. Then it came to details of my wife’s parents. I put “not applicable”. She looked rather bizarrely at that. We carried on chatting all the same. We ended up at Aunt Mary’s flat. We thought from what we’d heard that my elder sister and her brother had been to see the place and had it almost ready but when we went in there was nothing whatever that had been done. There were papers all over the place. We made a start on collecting it all together but we couldn’t find any boxess so in the end I thought to myself “there’s no point being here. We may as well go. I’ll leave a note for my elder sister” but trying to find a blank piece of paper with nothing written on the reverse was next to impossible. I already had 2 attempts at pulling a piece of paper out of a notebook only to find that there was something on the back. In the end I thought “we’re wasting our time here. Nothing is going to be done, we aren’t going to find anything, there are no boxes to put anything, there’s no point taking anything away like this. In the end we just left.

Later on I was buying some property and had a pile of forms to sign. I was reading my way through them checking everything, seeing everything that was written down and thinking to myself “this fellow must have had a lot of money when he died to have been able to leave everything like this to all kinds of different people.

Did I dictate this just now or did I dream doing it? Apparently not. Anyway I was with Nerina again and we were chatting. She was saying that she’d given up judo etc. We’d been to some kind of health or other, then we’d gone away. I needed a paper from where we were. It was at this house. The servants were in there so I had to break in ever so quietly to fetch it. I went back there and quietly broke my way in. I was rifling through this paper when 2 people suddenly appeared. They asked if this house had 2 floors. I replied “not if you swam here by the river. It only has 2 floors if you come here by the road”. They disappeared off and I hurried to try to find this paper. They ended up back, and we ended up with quite a few more people. There was some kind of dinner party taking place. It was in the morning as well so we had a cooked breakfast. People were talking to Nerina, asking if it was true that she’d given up judo etc. One of the girls, the one who had come in with this guy while I was finding this paper, she had the tiniest breakfast imaginable, about a quarter of a slice of toast with 2 or 3 baked beans on it. We made a joke about if it was going to be enough. She said that she didn’t eat a lot. We said that she needed to eat to keep up her strength. What will she do if she’s hungry? Luckily she took the teasing in good nature rather than being offended.

Finally, I was still in Slovakia or wherever I was. I’d been in a secondhand transport bookshop. There were tons of stuff in there but there was only one or two things that I wanted, little pamphlets. I picked them up. Someone else wanted something, an American boy who was talking to us about the Warburton Railway and one or two other bits and pieces. When we reached the checkout the guy told us that there was a sale on today. he went throught the stuff we’d bought and it came to 75 cents. he said “that kind of thing deserves a tip” so I gave him €1:00 and told him to keep the change. I gave a book to this American boy and told him “here, have this on me”. We walked off into the town

The vegan pie that I had for tea tonight was delicious, with vegetables and thick gravy. That was, I reckon, the last of the vegan pie so I’ll have to make some plans about making some moreat some point. But I really want to have a good run through the freezer and empty out what it in there first before I decide about making some more stuff. Tomorrow I’ll be taking out a couple of vegan sausages as I fancy some sausage, beans and chips. Those vegan sausages that I bought in Jersey last summer were delicious and I would love to find some more somewhere.

But that’s tomorrow. Right now I’m off to bed though. I have my electrical poking and prodding tomorrow and then I’m going shopping in town for mushrooms and to visit the bank. A little expedition on the bus and on my crutches should certainly be different.

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Thursday 12th January 2023 – I’VE GIVEN UP …

… making a note of the time when I finally heave myself out of my stinking pit because it’s becoming rather embarrassing that all of my energy in this resepct has evaporated. Instead, I’ll try to concentrate on more positive aspects of everything – if I can actually find any.

It wouldn’t have been during the night though. I did my usual awakening at some silly time and then being unable to go back to sleep for hours. I once read someone’s thesis on Medieval sleeping patterns where there was mention of “first sleeps” and “second sleeps” with people getting up and performing tasks in between. I might not be old enough to remember any medieval sleeping patterns – it just feels like it right now.

Plenty of time to go off on a voyage here and there too. Someone was moving house last night and my family from Wardle was going to look after some stuff for a couple of days. Maybe they had some use for it or something. It was a case of bringing some of the stuff out of this house and putting it onto a trailer that would be towed by a van of theirs. First of all they had to go off somewhere so this girl and I stayed behind. We had to start to take the stuff outside but she was taking ages to do the slightest thing. We were going nowhere because she didn’t seem to have any enthusiasm or energy for the task. Eventually they turned up back so we made a better start. The first thing was these 3 enormous plants. She picked up 2 and went outside. I picked up the third but the stem broke quite low down. I thought “I’ve ruined this”. Then it was the case that she was bringing all kinds of stuff out that these people weren’t going to look after. I couldn’t see the point or purpose in doing that. She started to move bit by bit. The place was dirty and dusty, hadn’t been dusted for years by the looks of things. There were spiders everywhere. I thought that this is really not going to be how I would expect a furniture removal of this sort to be taking place. I felt that we were going to be here while she got organised.

Later during the night we were living in one of these families with children from different parentage. My mother was looking after a couple of children for which she was receiving some money per week. One of these children was actually my elder sister. We didn’t get on and we’d had several fights. One of them was really serious so my mother told me that she would send me away. I thought that if this is an issue between the 2 children and my mother has to choose one of them, why is she choosing the one for which she receives money and want to send away her own child. I made quite a big fuss or argument about all of this. I told her flatly that I wasn’t leaving. If they wanted me out of the house they would have to drag me out. Shortly after that my mother announced that she was having to go away. Because my elder sister and I didn’t get on, I would have to stay temporarily with people while she was away and come back later. Again I refused to go because I saw this for what it was, a plan to simply get me out of the house and once I’d gone they would be no way that she would bring me back in it again so once again I refused flatly to go.

And then I was about to be arrested for something or other. I knew that it was inevitable so I decided that I’d go and surrender myself. I was with 2 girls who might have been Alison and Jackie. I was going through all my paperwork with them making sure that they had everything that I needed. I had all my notes there and pointed out that there were other notes as well, the most recent of which were in a carrier bag in Caliburn on A4 paper folded in half. I went down the various phone numbers with them to make sure that they had them all. Suddenly the question of Zero cropped up. I wondered whether I should give them Zero’s phone number. In the end I decided that while one number more or less won’t make any difference so I gave them her number. I told them that if ever they were to ring it up and her father answered, not to speak to her father but to phone back another time because they would only every have one shot at talking to her. I wrote the number down but the pencil was very blunt. The number was very indistinct so I had to repeat it a couple of times. It didn’t really look like how it ended up being written but it was the best that I could do at that moment because I had a feeling that I ought to go straight away and not wait around any longer otherwise things would just become worse.

At some point I was visiting Clause and Francoise. They had some Ukrainian refugees staying with them, including a girl who I thought was quite cute. We were there, a group of us, hanging around until the evening. I had to go. They asked if I would be back tomorrow but seeing as it was 8 hours home then 8 hours back that might have sounded unlikely but I said to myself “yes, why not?”. I arranged to be there for 09:30 which was totally ridiculous. I set off and drove home like the wind, basically turn round and drive straight back again. The idea that I’d spend the night in a cheap hotel in Montlucon never ever occurred to me until I was well on my way back. As I pulled round the corner towards their house it was 09:35. I thought that I’d done really well to arrive like this. As I came to a stop I looked at my watch and saw that it was 08:30. My watch was clearly playing up. I wondered what on earth the time really was and whether they were still going to be there or if they were fed up and gone without me because I was so late.

Finally, I was in Shrewsbury. I had to come home by catching a coach. I boarded this coach and set off. It drove through the back streets at a hell of a pace and out into the countryside. Then it was me on foot escorting 2 people. I was basically having to crawl on my hands and knees with them. I could see that I was becoming slower and slower. It was quite obvious to me that I can’t keep on doing this. I’m going to have to stop. I’ll be lucky if I make it home. I put on a spurt and we climbed up this steep climb. At the top was this most beautiful view of the sea and inland. Everything from this craggy rock. We talked about the view and everything. They asked why the French didn’t advertise this more. I explained “yes, it’s French. It’s ice to visit and French people have the right to see it but they don’t want it to be overwhelmed. There were a few people round as well running around here and there. These 2 people headed off down the hill but I stood there to look around for a moment. There were people who were just letting themselves go, running full-tilt down this slope. I waited for a moment and when it was clear I ran full tilt down the slope too all the way down to the bottom. Then I looked for the 2 people whom I was conducting but couldn’t see them at all. I wondered where they had gone because they were nowhere in my view at all.

But it was interesting that once more Zero was lurking around in the background but something came up to stop her actually making an appearance. It’s been quite a few times now that that has happened and it’s probably a fact of some significance that she has failed to cross the threshold.

It appears to me that what goes on during the night has far more significance than it might appear at face value although I don’t think much of Freud’s ideas. This exercise that we did 20-odd years ago into dreams seemed to indicate that a dream was an episode of maybe half a dozen long-running threads that ran through someone’s subconscious life but what this actually meant, we never found out. The leader of this project graduated with his Master’s Degree as a result of our efforts but we never saw his thesis.

Today was supposed to be a radio day and indeed it was, although we haven’t set any records today – far from it. I hadn’t as much as sat down and warmed up the computer when I had a message “could I do a tribute for Jeff Beck?”.

Of course I can, but I wanted to do something of a difference. Everyone else will be playing his more famous stuff but I know of at least one unofficial recording that took place in a club when he was in an amateur group long before the Yardbirds, another that he did for a more famous rock star long before he was ever famous and also some session work that he did for a group from Bolton that Jimmy Page sent him via his sister.

Consequently most of the day has been spent following all kinds of casual leads from here or there and I’ve ended up with about 15 tracks, including the tracks for which I’d been looking and also a recording of the only track on which he sang when he was with the Yardbirds.

There’s some rare stuff in there, especially the track on which Jimmy Page plays bass and when I’ve finished writing up the notes (I’ve done the notes for 11 of the 15 songs) it will be something special. I shall see if I can finish it tomorrow morning.

In the middle of all of this, I stopped for a shower, seeing as the physiotherapist is going to be coming round later. Getting into the bath was easier today than it has been of late, and also I can get myself back upright from a kneeling position if there’s something on which I can hang on to pull myself up.

Ask me how I know.

While I was in there I set the washing machine going. There was much more than one machine-load to do so I shall have to do a second load in early course. At least the bedding has been washed and once it’s dried it will be ready. I need to change my bedding much more often than I do.

The physiotherapist regulated my crutches for me and then had me walking around the apartment practising for 10 minutes or so. And once I got the hang of how to walk with them it was much better than trying to hobble around. I’ll try to go for a walk tomorrow if the weather is nice – down to the supermarket on the bus and find some mushrooms and peppers. I’m not sure what else I might need – maybe some frozen peas or something. I’ve plenty of carrots, and if I mix up the beans and sprouts, I can keep that lot going for another week or two.

Talking of sprouts, I had some with my slice of vegan pie tonight with potatoes and gravy. It really was delicious and I shall have to make some more of that.

So I’ll go back and dictate the notes for the radio programme as far as I have done them so far. And then see whereabouts I can reach. I have my final track already planned, as well as my final speech, so it’s the bit in the middle that is the issue.

That will take some thought, but not at 23:00 in the evening.

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Thursday 22nd December 2022 – WHAT CAN BE EASIER …

… than buying something, arranging for it to be picked up and shipped to a different address?

Absolutely everything, by the looks of things.

This blasted sunroof that I ordered, paid for and collected (one of my reasons for going to Canada just now) and then arranged to be taken away and delivered to France by a freighting company has now turned up back at the point of collection.

The box has been opened too and all of the special packaging that kept it safe from damage all the way from the manufacturer is “missing”.

It already took 6 weeks for it to be collected by the freighter and then it was away for just about a week or so before it ended up back.

The story (for what it’s worth) is that Customs had to inspect it before it went on board the aeroplane (I’m not quite sure why) and as a result it missed its flight. The freighter will “arrange for it to be picked up again” but we shall see about that.

What is quite upsetting is that it’s no longer in its secure factory packaging, and sending a glass sunroof by air mail without the proper packaging is going to be somewhat problematic.

This shoud have been something sooooooo easy to arrange but that’s not the case. I keep on saying that I ought to stop doing things for other people as I find it so stressful but I always manage to find myself “suckered in” because it’s “so easy”. But for reasons that I don’t understand, it never is.

At least I’d had a decent sleep for a change. I remembered being awake for two or three moments here and there but not for any significant time. Once again I didn’t manage to beat the second alarm but there wasn’t all that much in it. I suppose that that’s optimistic for the way things have been just recently.

Once I’d come round into the Land of the Living I made a start on the radio programme that I wanted to prepare for today. There were several interruptions though so I didn’t set any records today.

Firstly, I have joined the rank of the Old Biddies. My shopping trolley has arrived so I had to go downstairs to collect it, and then assemble it. But although it makes me feel as if I’m about 100, it’s safe to lean on when I’m walking and gives me a little support here and there.

It’s quite large too so doing some shopping in the town may well prove to be a little more easy in the future. We’ll have to see after Christmas when I’ll make another foray down to the Carrefour.

Liz was on line too so we had another long chat, and then I prepared the onions and garlic and mixed up all the filling for my pie. It needs to be cooled before I can put it in the pie shell so I thought that if I were to do it early, it would have time to cool down.

And then, rather regrettably, I dozed off for half an hour at some point too.

This afternoon I’ve had a baking fit, but not, I have to say, with a great deal of success.

My pastry wasn’t up to all that much. I’m out of practice, I reckon, and it wouldn’t roll out properly. It ended up as something of a bit og a bodge but it worked.

Next was to make a chocolate sponge cake. That rose quite nicely in the oven but then it collapsed again in the centre. However it’s better than nothing and I’ll cut it in half, join the two halves together with a layer of jam and then ice it. That’s going to be my Christmas cake for this year. It’s the best that I can do.

Next stop was a pile of fruit buns, and I forgot that I had no bananas. Nevertheless, that lot looked as if it might have worked.

Finally, I had a go at making potato cakes for breakfast over the Christmas period. These aren’t a great success but then I’ve never had very much luck with these. But making them in little silicone muffin cases in the air fryer was a good idea.

It was while all of this was going on that I had to deal with the fall-out from this parcels delivery and it’s all very confusing.

For tea tonight, I had something different. While I was searching through the stores I came across a couple of packets of instant chick-pea curry. I tried one with some rice and veg. It was different and I’ve tasted better, but things like this need to be used. I tried to make myself an ad-hoc naan bread to try with it. And while that wasn’t a success either, it wasn’t disagreeable.

There were a couple of things on the dictaphone too from last night. I was on board a ship serving as a crew and the telephone rang. Someone answered it although it was my job to do so so I took it to interrupt him. In the end he said the name of the ship and he said my name and then passed the ‘phone over to me. It was the Institute of Diabetics inviting me to a meeting. Basically I had no interest whatever going to see the Institute of Diabetics. It turned out that these were taking place on board a submarine and I had absolutely no interest whatever in going on board a submarine either but this other sailor had. He was having to work out his plans etc to see how he could possibly fit it all in etc in order to negotiate an invitation for himself. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than going on board a submarine for something like this.

Later on there was a girl called Dianne, a Ukrainian girl with black hair who wanted a portfolio of photos taking. I’d looked on a website and she’d done plenty of portfolios before but I couldn’t actually see what it was that she needed. I was wondering whether it was a case of her redoing some of the earlier ones. I had a sort-around and tried to get a few things together but we had an appointment at 20:00 that was quite important, a contentious one. I had a few things to finish and round about 19:40 I’d done that so I said to Nerina “we have 20 minutes before this appointment so while I make a few sandwiches, can we talk about our plan”. She was puzzled about the sandwiches so I asked what we were going to eat. It seemed that she hadn’t thought anything about sandwiches at all or any food. She could think vaguely about where she could find a sandwich but not anyone else. I could see that this whole situation was going to turn into a nightmare. I knew that the night before I’d been out somewhere. It was really late when I was coming home, in the small hours of the morning. As I walked past Warner’s shop in Shavington there were some lights on and some people in the shop. I stuck my head in and opened the door to ask if they were open. They replied “not really” but what did I want? I just had a bar of chocolate just to get me home. They sold me a Mars bar. This was when I first started thinking about thse photos, when I was on my way home with my Mars bar after that. The rest took place the following day. But I was amazed that no-one else was prepared or had a plan or had anything organised – all down to me again and I only had 20 minutes. It was plenty of time for what I wanted to do but for what everyone else wanted it was nothing at all and it was going to be chaos.

Later on I got back into that dream about Dianne with the two “n”s. That flared up again from the very beginning and we went through that again.

Strangely enough I once met a girl, many years ago, called Dianne (with two “n”s and long black hair) but she was from South Asia somewhere like the Philippines or Indonesia, somewhere like that. Whatever would she be doing suddenly making an appearance in my travels?

So now I’m going to try to have another early night. I’m pretty much ready for this too and see if I can manage another decent sleep. Tomorrow I’m going to have a shower and change my bedding, and then I have a neighbour to see. I have to pay her for the stuff that she bought for me the other day. I’d better have a really good clean-up.

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Wednesday 21st December 2022 – I’VE HAD A …

… horrible, really horrible day today. In fact I’ve spent most of it fast asleep on my chair with no enthusiasm to do anything and much of the stuff that I planned to do today has remained undone.

It actually started off quite well too. Although I didn’t beat the second alarm to my feet, There wasn’t much in it and I was good and ready if the pharmacist decided to bring me my injections. But, as you might expect, she didn’t come past.

Someone who did come past though was one of my neighbours saying that she was going shopping. I passed an order for potatoes, carrots, sprouts, pears and clementines. It cost a fortune but now I’m set up with everything in the fruit and veg line for the next two or three weeks.

In the time that it took for her to go and come back, I was flat out asleep on the chair in here. I really have never felt so awful as I did this morning and I’ve no idea why. I reckon that the effects of yesterday were just far too much for me.

This afternoon I’ve been asleep for quite a while too but when you look at what I’ve managed to do, it looks impressive nevertheless. Like tidying up, for example. The place looks a little better now that I’ve cleared a few things away.

And a big load of washing too. Surprisingly that’s all up-to-date now and it’s been a while since I’ve been able to say that.

1kg of sprouts and 1.5kg of carrots took some peeling and blanching, but they are all done now too. The sprouts went into the freezer but there was no room for the carrots so for the moment they are in the ice box in the fridge. It’s not ideal but I wasn’t going to miss out on the opportunity to stock up.

For my Christmas meal, seeing as I don’t have anything special, I’ve decided that I will make a nice pie. So I put a cup full of lentils in the slow cooker. When they boiled up, I drained and rinsed them and put them back with some tofu and a pile of herbs and some garlic. They will marinade on a slow heat overnight and should be delicious.

Tomorrow I’ll fry some onions and add the tuff from the slow cooker and then add porridge oats to bind it all together. And when it’s cooled, I’ll make a nice tasty pie. But I can’t find the pie dish that I want to use and I have a feeling that I might have to invent something for that.

Ingrid telephoned me too and we had a chat. Not quite a Rosemaryesque chat but a long and interesting one nevertheless. She’s just as appalled as everyone else about what went on in the hospital in Leuven.

So this afternoon, I’ve been a really busy little beaver despite the fact that I didn’t feel at all like it and didn’t think that I’d done all that much.

Although I didn’t make any progress with the radio programme that I’ll be trying to prepare tomorrow, I managed to find the energy to transcribe the dictaphone notes. I started off taking a coach tour party to Blackpool. We made it as far as a motorway service area where we’d stop for half an hour although I forgot to tell everyone that it would be just half an hour. It was so tight in there that I had to get off the coach, shunt the other coaches around so I could find myself into a place to park. So there I was, heaving and mauling on these coaches. Eventually I put mine into a decent place. There was a guy with me who was looking at it. I said “it’s a good job that I can do this on my own, isn’t it? I used to be married”. We had a little chat. Gradually the passengers started to drift back. We ended up having another talk about monsters and that kind of thing, how gruesome and everything these slimy creatures were, the kind of stuff that I wouldn’t normally print on my blog but I seem to be doing it a lot just recently.

This next one is a story about a group of kids and adults, all extremely wealthy except 2 boys. 2 young girls move into their neighbourhood and the two boys seem to be more interested in the new girls than these women and girls who had been here before in this rich type of scenario. It starts to cause a load of problems.

So tomorrow I’ll be having a go with making my pie. I also have to make some more fruit buns as there are only enough for breakfast tomorrow. What i’m going to do with the ones that I don’t eat quickly I really don’t know as there is now no room in the freezer.

But that’s a problem for tomorrow. Right now I’m going to bed even if it is early. It’s been a horrible day – the kind that you just want to switch off and start again. But I’ve had a quick taste of my simmering pie filling and it is rather special. provided that I can find a pie dish it should work out really well.

Here’s hoping.

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Tuesday 20th September 2022 – MEANWHILE, BACK AT …

fruit buns place d'armes Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022… the apartment, I’ve been a busy boy this afternoon.

At breakfast this morning I ate the last of the fruit buns and so I needed to make some more. Consequently, after I came back from my stagger around the headland I made a start and mixed up a pile of dough.

It just so happened that I had two extremely ripe bananas and they certainly made a difference. And as a result there was rather too much liquid so I had to add more flour and thus instead of the usual 9 or 10 there are in fact 11

And they are of good size too so I shall be regaling myself for quite a while.

And it wasn’t only just this afternoon that I was a busy boy either. I kept myself quite occupied during the night as well. There was a “Help Yourself” song stuck in the Top 20 and the group was trying to come in from one way to reach it but someone else had come from ahead of it to reach backwards for it. This was going to cause quite some conflict in the charts as the group itself really didn’t do anything except sit there. And if you can make sense out of all of that, then well-done because I can’t.

We were all then waiting round the corner from Exchange Street for a bus that was coming past at 23:17 because it had a car on it that we wanted to pick up. The bus appeared but it just drove straight past the bus stop. We all set out in pursuit. We caught up with the bus as it pulled into the bus station. The driver was basically talking a load of nonsense saying that this is in fact the 21:17 running late and what made us think that we’d get a car on board his bus anyway? He said that there would be other buses coming in even though it was almost midnight and although the bus station would be closing at midnight. We said that someone had better fetch some drinks for us as we were exhausted but he took one and drank it which we thought was rather cheeky of him. Generally speaking we had the air that he wasn’t going to co-operate at all and was just messing us around until the bus station closed and that would be that. We didn’t have our car, we didn’t have a way of going home, we didn’t have anything. I could see about 20 people spending the night sleeping on board this bus in the bus station.

There was also a white and light blue Plaxton Premier driving along the Rue du Port heading towards the chantier naval. I’d no idea what one of those would be doing round here but it looked happy enough

And next, I was working for OUSA last night recruiting. I was talking to a new girl who had just begun her studies. She lived in North London. At first getting information from her was like getting blood from a stone but gradually we warmed up and we had a really exciting chat. She’d worked for a roofing company and had actually been on roofs, doing roofing herself at one time. I was beginning to think to myself that by the time the end of this chat warmed up, this was someone whom I ought to know really a lot better than I do. We were having a bit of s struggle though because she was sent over to see ma and I was talking to her but it was someone I knew from school who was in charge of all the paperwork and the brochures. I went over to fetch some paperwork and a brochure but of course he’d gone home and there weren’t any so it was rather difficult to have this subject and this conversation on the go. But this was a girl whom I’d have really liked to have met a lot more than I did.

Finally I was on a project building a Combined Heat and Power generator using an old diesel engine to run a generator and to heat water that would provide hot water for various projects. It’s proven technology of course but there were always the prophets of doom about. Some scientist had published some work on the subject. he was quite a famous scientist. The debate was going on about whether he was right in this instance. Someone made the point that he had been right 3 or 4 times but as I explained, that counts for nothing because each case is individual. In any case this isn’t new technology, it’s stuff that’s been used for hundreds of years and even in cars they do it with generators and hot water heating the interior of the car so it obviously works. It doesn’t need a scientist to tell anyone. This carried on until the alarm went off.

After the medication I sorted out a few things that I needed to do and then revised for my Welsh lesson. And I’m glad that I did because today we were only 6 students. Still several who are missing.

Mind you, I nearly didn’t join the lesson. When I went to refresh the portable computer that I use, it took that moment to perform an upgrade. I was about 15 minutes late in joining by which time everyone else was already in breakout rooms.

It passed off quite well today, much better than it did last week and I’m hoping that I can keep it up. And also to continue with my Welsh studies too.

Incidentally, you won’t ever find any double-entendres in anything that I ever write. If you happen to come across one, let me know and I’ll whip it out immediately.

After the fruit I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been. I must admit that I had a smile about the trip to Crewe bus station. No chance of that these days because it’s all been swept away in an orgy of demolition.

It didn’t quite manage to survive 60 years, which is a shocking indictment of modern construction techniques, about which I HAVE BEEN VERY BITTER IN THE PAST.

Nevertheless, it shall be sorely missed. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I passed my Biology ‘O’ Level exam thanks to the helpful drawings on the walls of the public conveniences on Crewe Bus Station

people on beach rue du nord Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022So by now it was time for me to go walkabout

As usual I wandered over to the wall at the end of the car park to see what was going on down there today. The tide was quite a way in so really there wasn’t all that much down there for anything to be going on.

And there weren’t all that many people down there either. The weather has definitely turned and for the first time since I can’t remember when, I have put on a sweater in order to go out.

That’s not like me, is it?

yacht baie de Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022Even though the tide was quite a way out, there wasn’t all that much going on out at sea this afternoon.

Just really a handful of yachts like this one out in the Baie de Granville, and nothing else. We’re really getting to the end of the season now. It’s the first day of Autumn tomorrow if my calculations are correct.

There weren’t too many people up her eon the path either so I had a quiet walk along the tops of the cliffs. The view was good all the way along the coast and even out to Jersey but there wasn’t anything special to see today so I didn’t take any photographs to add to the record.

cabanon vauban people pointe du roc Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022So despite the lack of action anywhere around, there were still a couple of people down by the cabanon vauban.

It was quite interesting going across the car park to see them because although there weren’t many people up there, I heard some English people and some German people too. Now that the French people have gone home, the foreigners are coming out in force.

But as for the people down below, I don’t know who they were but they certainly didn’t find the bench by the cabanon vauban to be comfortable enough. The ground looks much more comfortable for the person on the left.

fisherman pointe du roc Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022But I suppose that there was someone down there for our people by the cabanon vauban to observe.

The tide is far too far in for the adepts at the peche-à-pied to be out in force, but perched down there like piffy on a rock we have a traditional fisherman with rod and line.

He’s concentrating quite hard on what he’s doing but it doesn’t look as if he’s intending to do anything special because like many other fishermen whom we’ve seen down there, he doesn’t have a box or a bucket in which to put any catch that he might take.

It could be of course that I’m completely missing the point of what the fishing is all about and it isn’t to actually catch anything.

There was quite a lot of traffic down on the road so it took me a minute or two to cross over.

gerlean l'omerta chantier naval port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022And down at the chantier naval this afternoon there’s yet more exciting stuff going on.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have become quite used to seeing L’Omerta and Gerlean playing “musical ships” down by the Fish Processing Plant but by the looks of things they are now planning on playing a game in the chantier naval.

And you can see that it’s becoming quite tight in there with all the other usual suspects still in occupancy. There is some talk somewhere about the possibility of expanding the chantier naval and you can see why the proposition has been put forward.

But it’s unlikely that it’ll take effect. All of the quayside is a Protected Monument.

arc en ciel port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022And while the cats, as in L’Omerta and Gerlean are away, the mice have come out to play.

Moored over there at the Fish Processing Plant this afternoon is the little trawler Arc En Ciel. She’s another one whom we’ve seen on a couple of occasions in the chantier naval in the past.

While she was there I was trying to make out what was going on and what she was doing, but unfortunately she didn’t hang around long enough. Just after I took this photo she pulled away from the wharf and went into the inner harbour and that was that.

F-GORN Robin DR400-120 Dauphin 2+2 baie de mont st michel Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022Anyway, it was at this moment that I was distracted.

Flying by overhead as I watched Arc En Ciel came an aeroplane. On closer examination it turned out to be one of our old favourites. She’s F-GORN, a Robin DR400-120 Dauphin 2+2 that belongs to the local aero club.

She’d been out a few times during the day and picked up on radar but this flight wasn’t picked up. She was recorded at landing at the airfield here at Granville at 14:03 and the next time she was picked up, she wast taking off at Avranches at 16:29.

As my photo was taken at 16:19 (adjusted) she must have been on her way to Avranches but keeping a very low profile.

freight on quayside port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022On the way home I stopped for a look at the inner harbour.

There was a lorry down there unloading a pile of freight ready to be picked up by one of the little Jersey freighters. Although I’m not quite sure how they are going to load it up with Cotes De La Manche moored up in the way.

Back here I made a start on the fruit buns and I do have to say that they looked quite good while they were proofing.

So as I was going to have the oven on to bake the buns, I abandoned my plans to have a taco roll for tea and found some frozen vegan pie in the freezer. That went in to oven with some potatoes and the fruit buns while I cooked some vegetables in thick gravy

The tea was nice and as for the fruit buns, I’ll tell you about that tomorrow.

And that’s tomorrow too. Right now I’m off to bed. I have visitors coming tomorrow so I’ll have to do a little tidying up. Not that anyone will notice the difference in here.

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Thursday 8th September 2022 – THIS WEATHER …

rainstorm baie de mont st michel pointe de carolles Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022… has certainly changed dramatically over the last week or so and I’m glad that I went to Jersey when I did.

While I was out there this afternoon on my post-prandial crawl, there was another rainstorm out in the bay. It was missing us by quite a few miles and battering the Pointe de Carolles and Jullouville.

But not to worry. We had had a considerable numbers of showers throughout the day. One moment we had bright sunlight and the next moment we were knee-deep in the rain.

le loup baie de mont st michel Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022What has happened today, if you haven’t guessed it from watching the rain cloud, is that the wind has turned round.

Instead of blowing from the south-east it’s now back in its usual direction of north-west. That has stirred up all of the waves and as you can see, Le Loup, the marker light on the rocks at the entrance to the harbour, is taking something of a battering.

Not as much as it might have done though because the wind has dropped slightly today. Had we had yesterday’s wind, we wouldn’t have seen it for the spray.

weeds place d'armes Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022but at least the local vegetation is enjoying it.

As we have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … the local vegetation is extremely resilient. As you can see, the weeds that grow around here have sprung dramatically into life already.

You would have thought that after 47 days without a drop of rain they would have been dead and buried but that’s far from the case. You can see now how it is that after a rainstorm in the Sahara, animal life suddenly makes a dramatic reappearance after having lain dormant for so long.

waves on sea wall port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022Unfortunately, last night I didn’t remain dormant long enough.

While you look at a couple of photos of the waves breaking on the harbour wall I was tossing and turning in bed trying my best to sleep.

The number of times that I awoke for no good reason is something that I can’t understand, but there we are. It’s not as if there were masses of notes on the dictaphone.

And once again, leaving my stinking pit was something of a challenge too, just as it has been for the last few weeks or so. I might be feeling a little better these days and not falling asleep during the afternoon but I’m obviously not that much better.

waves on sea wall port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022after the medication I came in here and checked my mails.

And to my surprise there was a message from that garage in British Columbia. But only to say that the VIN that I quoted was wrong.

What I had to do then was to contact Rosemary to ask her to take a photo of her friend’s Carte Grise so that I can forward it on. A photograph can’t lie.

But I seemed to have dropped myself right into the middle of some “events” down there and we’ll have to see how that transpires.

spirit of conrad baie de Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022So while you look at few more photos, this time of boats, which in this one might be Spirit of Conrad I put everything behind me and started work.

The morning was spent on my trip to Jersey last week. And despite all the time that I spent on it, I’m still standing at the ferry terminal waiting to board Victor Hugo in order to set off for the Channel Islands.

That’s about photo number 5, and when you realise that there are 94 altogether that need things doing to them, you’ll understand that it’s going to be a very long job. Especially when you consider that I’m not as young, fit and enthusiastic as I used to be.

yacht cabin cruiser baie de mont st michel Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022This afternoon … well, shock! Horror! I’ve cleaned the bathroom.

It goes without saying that I had a shower first so that I wouldn’t dirty it afterwards, and then I stripped out all that I could. The floor has been brushed, vacuumed and mopped, the carpet has been cleaned, and so has absolutely everything else.

What I haven’t done though is to empty and clean the cupboards. There are limits to what I’m prepared to do when I’m not feeling too well. That’s going to be a job for another time.

But really, I’m swamped in unused medicine and so on and I really don’t know what to do with it. The best plan will be to speak to the chemist next time that I’m down there and check with her.

people on beach rue du nord Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022Eventually I could call a temporary halt to the proceedings in the bathroom because it was time for my afternoon stagger outside.

As usual I wandered over to the wall at the end of the car park to see what was happening down there on the beach.

Just a handful of people down there this afternoon wandering about in the sunshine. No-one sunbathing, which is no surprise, and no-one in the water either. It seems that the summer is now over as far as that is concerned.

Mind you, they wouldn’t have far to run each time the weather broke because they couldn’t be any wetter standing in the water than they would be standing in the rain.
“The boy stood on the burning deck
While all around had fled
But for the rain
I’d examine his brain
a passing psychiatrist said”

ile de chausey baie de Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022The weather further out to sea was quite hazy but closer to home there were some surprising views today.

One of the best was the Ile de Chausey. It’s not every day that we see it looking as nice as this. It was quite clear and we could see the colours of the island quite distinctly

Interestingly, you can see some white vertical lines over there on the island. Many of the houses down there are all painted white and what you are actually seeing is the the sun catching the end walls of the houses and the light reflecting therefrom.

And you can see how rough the sea is as well today. That’s probably one of the reasons why there are no swimmers.

la grande ancre port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022Having seen all that there was to see over on this side of the headland I crawled down to the viewpoint on the other side of the headland where I could overlook the port.

Yesterday we saw Le Coelacanthe and le Tiberiade moored down there, but they have cleared off today. In their place, and obviously compting in a new series of “Musical Ships” is La Grande Ancre

She has one of the harbour lighters on board, as well as a pile of fishing equipment.

There’s another boat behind her – a small inshore shell-fishing boat but at this distance I’m not able to see who she might be. Anyway, she didn’t stay long and was soon on her way.

le soupape, pescadore, peccavi, chant des sirenes le styx le poulbot chantier naval port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022Meanwhile, more excitement in the Chantier Naval.

Trafalgar, the white trawler with blue and pink stripes, has now gone back into the water and her place has been taken by an unidentified shell-fishing boat.

Also back in the water today is Charlevy. She’s been replaced by Le Styx whom we saw moored in the inner harbour for a few days.

There’s another change too. Le Poulbot has moved from her position in front of Le Soupape and she’s now up on blocks in front of Le Styx.

Plenty of people down there working too. It’s quite a hive of activity down there this afternoon.

cabin cruiser baie de mont st michel Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022A little earlier you might have noticed a photo with a yacht and a cabin cruiser in it.

This is a better photo of the cabin cruiser. It looks quite old and I bet that it’s a beast of a thing and just the kind of boat that I would like to own.

It’s quite a shame really but had things been very different, I might have ended up living on a boat in a harbour. But then again, had things really been different, I would still be living in the Auvergne. sigh

Still, this isn’t the time to be all broody

trafalgar les bouchots de chausey port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022Just in case you are wondering where Trafalgar is, she’s over there just about to tie up in front of Les Bouchots de Chausey

There’s a large pile of fishing net just there where she’s about to tie up, so I imagine that’s her net and they’ll be fixing it back on this evening ready to go out fishing tomorrow.

From there I headed back home where I had an “unusual” encounter with a rather inebriated motorist who wanted to engage me in conversation

This afternoon I walked quite far considering everything. But it showed that I’m still far from having recovered from the events of last week. And even if I were to be moving around easier, I’d still be quite wary about trusting this right leg in the future.

Back here I had some more ginger beer and then listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was taking an exam for the Open University. There was one subject with 3 parts to this question, each of which was an essay all done under the heading of one question. It was quite complicated. The first part I did without too many problems whatsoever. The second part was much more difficult but the third part seemed to be straightforward so I simply dictated that answer then went back to do the second part. At one point I stood up to walk around and stretch my legs just as one of the main invigilators came into the room. He was astonished to see people up and about walking around. He ordered us to sit down and carry on. It was 20 past something already and we only had 10 more minutes. I was suddenly in a panic then. Not only had I to dash down the rest of the answers to this second part, I realised that the third part being dictated won’t fetch any marks. I’d have to write that out again. Then my handwriting had disintegrated and became more like a doctor’s handwriting. I thought to myself that really this is going to be an absolute and total fail before I even started anything. I could see that happening here..

Later on I was working for the Resistance. It was being completely shaken up by the French government. Ally my hippie friends were being pursued. I was trying to keep out of the way but at the same time give them what support I could. There was a group of them fleeing down Crewe Road towards Goodall’s Corner in Shavington. I followed them down there at a safe distance. Most of them had been dispersed. There was just a couple there. They’d gone on a flight in a light aircraft. I joined the flight and it went to Paris. We all piled out at Paris in the suburbs and the plane went off to land somewhere for the night. We would make our way on foot to that place so as not to attract attention by arriving by plane. We started to walk. This young girl who was in charge was extremely nervous. An older person was rather more steady so I found myself walking with him or her for much of the time. I noticed that the lens hood of my camera had gone. It must have fallen off either in the plane or when we were running around. We came to near the Gare du Nord to catch our train. There were three statues at the side of the road. The other guy went to take a photo of them so I did too but my camera decided not to work for some reason no matter how much I tried (and that’s a recurring theme during my dreams, isn’t it?). By now this girl was in a real state because there had been €1400 taken from her bank account “to pay crash fees”. There had been another deduction for crash fees that she’d not seen how much it was yet in respect of this light aeroplane. apparently when it landed it was detained for e few minutes and the pilot questioned before he could go on his way again. They linked it to this girl and somehow with having access to her bank account they’d debited her with crash fees, which were the fees for the officials to turn up at the site. I was thinking jamais deux sans trois but I hope that this aeroplane will be OK when we meet it and that it hasn’t really crashed because she’d really have something about which to complain if they take away the money from her account for the real crash of an aeroplane.

vegan curry pasty place d'armes Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo September 2022There was some curry left over after yesterday’s tea and I wanted to do something different with it.

Consequently I made some pastry with the aim of making something like a Cornish pasty with it. But my pastry didn’t turn out too well, there wasn’t enough filling and generally speaking it wasn’t a great success from the making point of view.

But from the eating point if view, it was everything that you would want from an impromptu meal, along with baked potatoes and veg cooked in a really thick gravy.

There were really no words to describe how nice this was. It made quite a pleasant change from the usual diet.

So bedtime now. Not much to clean now and I’ll finish that tomorrow with a bit of luck. And then I can speak to the woman who I’ve lined up to come and clean for me.

It was a step that I thought that I would never take but it’s taken me almost 3 weeks to clean this place and it’s still not very good. But I can’t keep on going like this. Something needs to change, although I’m not quite sure what.

But I’ll worry about that another time. Right now I’m off to bed.

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Thursday 25th August 2022 – I HAVE BEEN …

… out and about this afternoon, just for a change. And the days when my whole existence can be uplifted into headline news because I’ve actually been into the town centre shows you what’s going on in my life right now.

With a cheque to pay in, some magnesium tablets to buy and a load of ships in port, it seemed like a good plan.

Yesterday’s highlight, which I didn’t mention for fear of overwhelming you all with excitement, was going to the bins to take out the rubbish. It needed something really riveting to surpass that, didn’t it?

Only a few minutes late going to bed, and for a change I had a reasonable night. Mind you, once again it was a struggle to my feet this morning.

After the meds I attacked the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. A bill came through for £170 and I wanted to pay it so I took my credit card and rang up the people concerned ready to pay it over the phone. After being shunted around half a dozen departments I was told that there was another procedure to follow. They explained the procedure to me which I didn’t quite understand but I had a go and the payment failed. I rang them back to explain to them. They explained another procedure which again failed. I was there for about three days trying to speak to all kinds of different people. Eventually they said that they had taken the payment with the credit card over the phone. I asked for confirmation so they put me through to the accounts department to make sure. When I spoke to her and told her about this she replied “you have to pay it”. I retorted “I’ve just paid it”. She asked “have you?” in an air of totally disbelieving tone. I replied “yes” so she said that I’d have to speak to someone in Accounts. I said “I just have done. It was they who just passed me through to you”. I had a feeling that with this money we were just going to be going round and round in a circle and end up nowhere at all. This was taking place while I was in the hospital. I had people in the ward with me so it was really extremely uncomfortable as well.

Afterwards I was in bed but awoke to hear some laughing. The ‘phone went and I couldn’t hear one side of the conversation but the other one was something like “yes, we’re all up and preparing to leave but Eric is still in bed”. I stood up quickly, grabbed my clothes, all my money fell out of my jeans, put on my clothes, kept on having my feet stuck in the legs of my trousers, generally trying to organise myself quickly because they’ll be taking down this tent in a minute. It seemed to me that the quicker I tried to do things, the longer it was actually taking me. I thought that I’d never have enough time to do this and collect my things together before they wanted to pull down this tent.

There was an interruption though in mid-transcribe, and an embarrassing interruption at that.

Yesterday with not feeling so bright and being rather tired, I hadn’t tidied anything up and the place was looking like a total tip. And, of course, I’d completely forgotten about the nurse. She turned up to find me in total chaos and not as clean as I would otherwise have liked the place to have been.

She struggled to find a clean and clear place to put the paper while she wrote out her notes and while she’s a cheerful sort, she clearly wasn’t happy.

All in all, it was rather an shameful situation.

It’s not going to improve very much either because the next time that she’ll be coming to inject me is in 10 days time on a Sunday morning and you all know what I’m like early on a Sunday morning.

After she left I carried on transcribing the notes and almost as soon as I’d finished, Rosemary called me. I’m convinced that when she was here she must have concealed a camera somewhere because she seems to know the precise moment to phone me.

When Rosemary and I finished our chat I started on what was left of the dictaphone notes from my trip around Central Europe and in a mad fit of enthusiasm and energy (don’t ask me where that came from)I completed them all. So that’s another good job completed.

In fact, it took me longer than I was expecting the pause for my lunchtime fruit notwithstanding.

fish processing plant festival of working sailing ships fete des voiliers du travail port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo August 2022Because of the position of the tide, I wanted to go out for my walk earlier than usual this afternoon.

As usual when I’m heading into town my point of reference for checking the camera is the viewpoint on the corner of the Boulevard Vaufleury and the Boulevard des 2E et 202E de Ligne.

There wasn’t anyone down there at the Fish Processing Plant this afternoon. Gerlean who sometimes ties up there was in the inner harbour and I couldn’t see L’Omerta, the other boat that loiters around there usually.

Plenty of boxes on the quayside though so they must be expecting a load of traffic.

sailing boats rowing boat festival of working sailing ships fete des voiliers du travail port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo August 2022In fact you can see Gerlean down there right now tied up to a pontoon.

What you can’t see though is Victor Hugo. Gone! And never called me “mother”!

Believe it or not, I can tell you exactly where she ought to be right now without even looking at the radar. She should be back at her berth. She left home at 09:30 for Jersey and left there at 18:30 to return home.

It reminds me of Frankie Howerd when during one of his TV programmes he turned to the audience and asked “how do I know? Well, I have read the script”

While I was over there I picked up a timetable from the ferry terminal so I now know her agenda. It’s all bad news as far as I can see because the season of sailings is so intermittent that there’s no possibility of my going over there for a convenient three-or four-day break as I was hoping.

Going down all of the steps to the Rue du Port was mush more difficult than I imagined. I’m definitely losing my mobility. I then crossed the road and went over along the side of the Fish Processing Plant towards the harbour gates.

la granvillaise marie fernand grain de sail le loup rouge festival of working sailing ships fete des voiliers du travail port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo August 2022The boat that we haven’t seen before on the extreme right is called Le Loup Rouge. She was built in 1962 and has a very interesting history as she was designed by John Illingworth and Angus Primrose as a racing yacht.

She actually won the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s championship that year. Now though, she lives a more sedate life in Cherbourg just going to regattas and exhibitions.

Of course, over there we have on the extreme left La Granvillaise and next to her is Marie Fernand. We are, for the moment anyway, much more interested in the other boat, Grain de Sail

grain de sail festival of working sailing ships fete des voiliers du travailport de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo August 2022Her claim to fame is that she’s a commercial sailing boat that is powered (almost) exclusively by wind. There’s a small diesel engine on board but that’s just for manoeuvring, so we are told.

But while a uniquely wind-powered boat is nothing unusual, what is unusual about her is that she has a carrying capacity of 50 tonnes and twice a year goes over on a triangular voyage from Europe to New York with local French produce for the American market, and then down to the Caribbean and finally back to Europe.

Not that two voyages per year of 50 tonnes is going to contribute much to the environment, but it’s all to prove a point. And as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, when I lived in the Auvergne I did much more than that and for a much longer period to prove a point.

le roc a la mauve 3 festival of working sailing ships fete des voiliers du travail port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo August 2022My was timed to perfection as the harbour gates were closed so I could walk over the top to the other side.

As I did so, the first of the shell-fishing boats came in to unload at the fish processing plant. This one is Le Roc à la Mauve whom we saw for a lengthy period in the chantier naval.

Towing her little lighter behind her, she chugged into port with a respectable load of shellfish on board. The guy back there at the HIAB was repositioning the boxes, presumably for ease of unloading.

That’s not the kind of thing that you would do out in the open sea. There have been maritime disasters too numerous to mention where the load in a boat has suddenly shifted or been shifted and caused the boat to capsize with all hands. There was one like that in North Wales not so long ago.

grain de sail festival of working sailing ships fete des voiliers du travail port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo August 2022Once I was on the other side of the harbour I went down to Grain de Sail.

There was a member of the crew on board so I button-holed him. His ship is only a four-berth and as it needs four hands to sail it, it doesn’t take passengers on its transatlantic jaunts.
“What about if you only have three crew members and are in need of a fourth?”
“Do you have a “Marine Marchand” – a Merchant Navy certificate?”
“Regrettably not”
“Then I’m afraid that you wouldn’t be considered.”

And so that was that. At least I tried

Instead I admired the arrays of solar panels and the two wind turbines. They also have some hydro-generators too but I bet that they slow down the boat.

Next stop was the ferry terminal where I picked up a brochure for Victor Hugo. And my enquiries told me that Ukrainian refugees going for a day out to Jersey need a UK visa all the same.

kiddies pirate ship festival of working sailing ships fete des voiliers du travail port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo August 2022With things to do in the town I headed that way along the side of the quay.

One thing that I like about France is that they are much more child-friendly than the UK and so I was expecting to see much more for the kids than you would see at a festival across the channel.

And I wasn’t wrong either. You can’t have a Festival of sailing ships without having a pirate ship, complete with pirates and buccaneers to chase the kids and press-gang them into service on board.

Even STRAWBERRY MOOSE has experienced life as an active buccaneer, as regular readers of this rubbish WILL RECALL

In fact, looking for that photo made me all nostalgic. That was an excellent road trip, one of the very best, when I started off in the far north of Labrador and three weeks later I was at Rhys’s in South Carolina.

Housman summed it up completely with his
” That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
“

kiddies pirate ship festival of working sailing ships fete des voiliers du travail port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo August 2022Meanwhile, retournons à nos moutons as they say around here.

The buccaneers have now rounded up a crowd of apprentice pirates and one of them is giving them all a lecture on what is expected of them when they serve aboard the Good Ship Glug Glug.

Actually she should have been called The Jolly Roger but the pirate captain’s wife fell off the quayside as she swung the bottle of champers

Anyway, everyone was having a whale of a time (seeing as we are discussing nautical terms) and I left them to it, crossing the ad-hoc bridge over the artificial beach.

film screen festival of working sailing ships fete des voiliers du travail port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo August 2022Yesterday I thought that I saw a puss .. errr … a TV screen down on the harbour so I went for a closer look seeing as I was here.

It was in fact a screen showing a series of cartoons for children explaining in simple terms all about life at sea. It’s nice to see the kids having a fair whack at the festival.

From there I wandered into town to pay my quarterly pension cheque into my bank account. Now where can I go with €142:60? Spend! Spend! Spend! Hey?

At the chemist’s I bought the magnesium tablets. Extra-strong. According to my friend the pharmacist these will give me a donner un coup de fouet – liven me up.

She might actually have a point there. Thinking about it, I started going downhill when I finished the last lot, went without for a week or 10 days and then had that big box of German ones.

marité festival of working sailing ships fete des voiliers du travail port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo August 2022That was it. I could go home now.

The walk back up the hill wasn’t as difficult as I was expecting. I still had to stop a couple of times for breath, at one point where I could overlook the port and see what was happening.

Marité was there of course, one of the centres of attention. But you can see just how busy the Festival is. And it will be like that until Sunday now, I reckon. It’s a good way to finish the summer season I suppose, even if the roads and the car parks will be crowded.

So having gathered my wits, I pushed on further up the hill towards home.

people on beach rue du nord Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo August 2022As usual, I wanted to see what was happening on the beach, although I don’t know why because I checked the camera on the way out.

The weather was much nicer today although maybe a little cooler. But the absence of people on the beach can probably be explained by the crowds of people down in the town and at the Festival.

Back here I had a surprise. There’s an undercurrent of dissent about the way the building is managed and two or three people are trying to stir up a revolution. They had pushed a letter into my letterbox

As I’m a tenant and not an owner, it doesn’t really concern me so I wrote a quick note on the back of the letter and put it in the letter box of the building’s President.

During this argument I’m taking no sides but I’m keeping in with the President. She’s the one who has my best chance of coming up the quickest with news of an apartment here to sell that I could buy.

The idea behind renting this place was because it would give me chance to look around and see what else was available. But there is no place on earth better than here so I’m staying here and renting rather than buying somewhere less good.

One day an apartment will come up here.

The walk was such that an iced chocolate drink went down well and then I began to update one or two of the blog entries with the dictaphone notes and images.

After a chat on the ‘phone with the President about my note

Tea tonight (at the usual, correct time) was pie with potatoes, veg and gravy. It’s one of my favourite meals and this one was just as nice as ever. As I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … my meals are simple but they aren’t half tasty.

It’s been a surprising day today – I’ve walked quite a way, not crashed out, done a lot of work. I wonder if I can keep this up. It’s not like me to have a day like this so I’m glad that I made the most of it.

Ready for the (af)fray tomorrow, I hope.

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