Tag Archives: crash out

Wednesday 11th September 2024 – I HAD ANOTHER …

… late night last night

One of my groundhoppers was out and about at Linlithgow watching Linlithgow Rose take on East Stirlingshire in the Scottish Lowland (Tier 5) League so I stayed up to watch the action.

Nicely poised after an hour at 1-1, East Stirlingshire threw everything, including the kitchen sink, at Linlithgow in the final 30 minutes in an attempt to snatch the victory.

And so you might expect, in probably their only attack in that period, Linlithgow roared off down the other end of the field and scored an unlikely goal to win the game.

Why this game is important will be revealed in due course

Anyway once it finished I did what I needed to do and crawled off, later than intended, much later in fact, to bed.

At some point during the night I awoke but I can’t remember all that much about it. I must have gone back to sleep quite quickly.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I was at another football match in Central Scotland. It was just getting under way and I don’t think that the teams had been presented yet to the public. I was there ready to watch it and that’s all that I remember. I was interrupted when the alarm went off

And you’ll find out why I said “another” in due course.

But anyway I headed off to the bathroom to sort myself out for the day, not forgetting to make use of one of the little pots that the nurse had left me

Back in here afterwards I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And here we go. We had another one … "another one?" – ed … of these corners that was taken. It was at a football ground in Stirlingshire, the home of an amateur league side, quite well-appointed for what it did. They were apparently – Arbroath were visiting. They tried their luck against Arbroath but the ball went into the cucumber display and stuck here so they went back from Inverness, they’d bought one of the worst flights that they’d had and the one to Malta wasn’t any better. They were all ready for a brand-new challenge after this and see where this would take them.

It seems that I can talk nonsense without really trying, but regular readers of this rubbish will recall that already. Although the ball going into the cucumber display reminds me of a match at St Gervais a good few years ago when a sliced clearance out of defence went straight through the open hatch of the pie hut scattering just about everyone and everything in the immediate vicinity.

I dreamed that I already had the report of a dream laid out i front of me. It went something like “it was a game of pêl-droed yn erbyn …” and I listed two clubs with their names in Welsh and carried on talking about the game. Here I am, doing it in Welsh again. I wish that I could remember what it was all about then.

Yes 05:30 and we’ve had another phantom alarm. I was in the Scottish Highlands watching two games of football. One of them was a female match. There was a goalkeeper whom I know really well but I can’t think of her name. There was a centre-half playing. The two of them had recently formed some kind of couple which had raised a few eyebrows in professional sport but that’s how things have involved in the game of pêl-droed. I can’t remember any more of the stuff like this except that a lot of this dream was actually in Welsh yet again

So there you go – games of football in Central Scotland, dreaming in Welsh – you can tell what’s on my mind these days. But why doesn’t it work when I have Zero, Castor and TOTGA on my mind for as long as this?

The nurse came around to take my blood sample, the other sample and to deal with my puttees. She is getting to be very good at blood samples, doing it these days without a hitch.

But the list of instructions that she gave me to carry out tomorrow, and the list of things that I have to tell my cleaner, it’s unbelievable.

And after making all the necessary arrangements so that I might try my best to remember it, I needn’t have bothered because the two met each other in town and the nurse told the cleaner directly.

But the upshot of this is that it’s “all systems go” for the dialysis tomorrow.

After the nurse left I made breakfast and while I was eating I carried on reading my ROMANS IN BRITAIN book.

Today we were discussing the Roman fort that guarded the crossing of the Conwy River at Caerhun. I did some reading of my own and found the map reference – 53°12’58″N 3°50’02″W

And if I were to tell you that a typical Roman fort of this type would be either square or rectangular with rounded corners, then copy the map reference into “Google Maps”, click on the aerial photography view rather than the map view, and if you’ve zoomed in enough, what do you see?

If you look slightly above and to the right, you’ll see a strip of a different vegetation type going down into the river with some corresponding traces in the water near the opposite bank. What’s the betting that that’s what’s left of the Roman cobbles that made the ford?

Back in here I had a pleasant couple of hours finishing off the paperwork and when the cleaner came I was in the process of emptying the waste paper into the bin. You’d be amazed at how much I’d collected

But once that was gone, I made a start on the next radio programme and in an uncharacteristic burst of speed, finished everything except the dictation and the final piece of music.

At some point too I rather regrettably passed off into the wilderness. While I was asleep I dreamed that my brother was accompanying me as I reflected on a dream that I’d had, and I was waiting there for him to began talking again so that he’d awaken me.

Just recently I seem to have been doing that a lot, dreaming about the dreams that I’ve had.

Tea tonight was one of the best vegan curries and naan breads that I have ever had. And it’s just as well because my appointment with destiny is tomorrow.

As I said to my faithful cleaner, I’m not going to worry about anything. I’m just going to be swept along with the flow and go wherever the currents take me.

So where will it all end? My hero the Irish politician Boyle Roche summed it up when he said "I concluded from the beginning that this would be the end; and I am right, for it is not half over yet"

But the subject of “ends” reminds me of the two guys arguing in the pub.
"Are you the front end of an ass?"
"No I am not"
"So are you the rear end of an ass?"
"No I am not"
"So then you must be no end of an ass"

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Tuesday 10th September 2024 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since we’ve featured an old car on these pages?

Or, more to the point, how long is it since we’ve featured a photo?

old cars Panhard C24 coupe sartilly Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo 10th September 2024So here you are – a photo of an old Panhard C24 Coupé

One of the very last models made by Panhard, this vehicle would have been built some time between 1963-1967, but this vehicle may well be manufactured later in the range rather than earlier judging by the restyled tail lights.

Not exactly my favourite old car, the styling of these 850cc flat twins was supposed to be aerodynamic and while well in advance of its period, I didn’t find it to be an attractive design at all

Another problem was that, unlike Fords, they required a lot of care and attention to keep them on the road, and the bodywork contained some notorious rust-traps

It’s a shame that the photo hasn’t come out too well, but it was taken on the camera on the phone in the miserable grey afternoon from a moving vehicle and through the car windscreen.

No-one can be the best in these circumstances.

And neither can I, seeing as I had a horribly late night again last night.

One of my ground-hopping friends was out and about and was somewhere near Bathgate just outside Glasgow, watching the game between Armadale Thistle Ladies and Bonnyrigg Rose Ladies.

Bonnyrigg were unbeaten this season but my friend thought that Armadale would give them a good run for their money tonight so he went along and streamed the game.

He was right too. Armadale matched Bonnyrigg all the way, and their Khya McGurk scored what surely must be a goal-of-the-season contender to win the game for Armadale.

Although the game was somewhat short on skill, THIS PIECE OF SKILL ought to be enough to win any game any time anywhere in the world. Thanks to NORRIE WORK for the video clip. You can hear him going berserk in the background of the clip!

You’ll notice the copyright logo on the video extract. I’m currently experimenting with a few videos and a couple of editing programs. Until I settle on a good version and pay the unlocking fees, I’m stuck with free versions and their copyright logos.

If anyone can suggest any programs worth trying, drop me a line. There’s a “contact me” button on the bottom right of the page.

So with a horribly late night again, I crawl off to bed and there I stay until the alarm goes off. That might sound as if it’s good but believe me, I’ve slept for much longer than that and called it a bad night.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up, a shave, a complete change of clothes and I hand-washed my trousers and undies. That was rather drastic, and dramatic too, but I’m off out this afternoon, waging war.

First task though was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I can’t believe that I’m standing in a queue at an event somewhere or other and there are four people around me. Every single one of them speaks Welsh. There’s me, there’s that girl who looks like my friend from Trefynnon, there’s a guy called Gareth Owen and he’s speaking Welsh to Nerina who’s replying. I thought that there’s something totally strange happening here. We’re just in queue for a coffee at some kind of festival

That’s what I dictated anyway. And you wouldn’t have caught Nerina speaking a different language. She was a mathematician and computer person and therein lay her talents. But it’s not every day that I’m dreaming in Welsh. It’s really getting to me, isn’t it?

Isabelle the nurse came to see me too. She gave me the injection and fixed my puttees (which fell down shorty afterwards) while she told me about her walking holiday in Brittany. It was of interest to me because one summer in the mid-70s I went hitch-hiking around Finisterre and enjoyed every single minute of it.

Our Welsh course started up again today so I did some revision, of the wrong unit as it happened (which depressed me immensely) and then I had to abandon the lesson because the taxi came early.

We then had to drive around Granville picking up two others, and then the driver made a complete hash of leaving the town and we ended up stuck for ages behind a tractor. Mind you, if we’d gone the way that I would have gone, we’d have been ages earlier but we’d have missed the Panhard

That vehicle crossed our path somewhere near Sartilly and we followed it until it turned off on the outskirts of Avranches.

The hospital where I had all of these problems is installing a pay barrier, and that tells you everything you need to know about the hospital, its financial situation and why it’s trying to do its best to hang onto my money.

Because of our problems, I was late for my appointment and the doctor was waiting. I’d hardly got into my stride before he was full of apology for what had happened and was issuing instructions to his secretary.

The appointment didn’t last long. He looked at the reports, didn’t even look at his work, and gave the all-clear for dialysis to start. Apparently I’ll be “hearing from” the dialysis clinic.

There was then a phone call – from the hospital administration. Full of apologies (and excuses) but they have prepared a cheque and it will be sent to me “in the next couple of days”. We shall see.

The driver to take me home was my favourite Rastaman driver. After we’d dropped off some other passengers around Avranches and he’d given me a sightseeing tour of the town we set off for home.

He’s the most amenable of the drivers and as there were now just the two of us we stopped at the bank in Sartilly where at long last I was able to activate my new bank card, which pleases me no end.

At Granville my faithful cleaner was waiting and she stood and watched, impressed beyond belief, as I took myself up the stairs without help.

How long this will go on I really don’t know, but make the most of it!

She had some good news to tell me too about my ground-floor apartment. We’ll see how that develops too.

After she left I had a very late lunch and came in here where, true to form these days, I crashed out.

Just before I slid off into oblivion the dialysis clinic rang. I will have my dialysis on Thursdays, Saturdays and … errr … Mondays. Putting my foot down about Tuesdays has worked.

Afternoon though, not morning, but you can’t have everything I suppose. At least I have two full days in the week free. Roll on the Physiotherapy classes!

And then they called me back. I’ll have to go earlier than planned because the nurses are refusing to apply this anaesthetic cream stuff. But don’t worry – they’ll organise the taxis.

With some time to go before tea I attacked the paperwork again and sorted out some more stuff. The desktop is positively empty at the moment. How long will that last?

Tea tonight was a delicious taco roll followed by apple crumble. What a good pudding that is. There’s still enough for a couple of days, and then maybe I’ll make a chocolate sponge for pudding next week

But not right now, because I’m off to bed. And maybe another dream in Welsh. Who knows?

Unless it’ll be a dream like the one where someone went to speak to the hotel management where he was staying.
"Last night" he said "I dreamed that I was eating a marshmallow, but it went on for ages this dream."
"It must have been a huge one" said the management. "A veritable giant"
"I suppose it was" said the guy
"But what’s that got to do with me?" asked the manager
"I just wanted to tell you" said the man "that when I awoke this morning, I couldn’t find the pillow"

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Sunday 8th September 2024 – I’M FED UP …

…of trying to make this stupid site work.

This afternoon I’ve been trying to upload my claim for reimbursement of my medical expenses but every time I try to attach an attachment, such as a scanned receipt, the site locks up, and that’s that.

What should have been a half-hour job has so far taken me all afternoon and I’ve not done one batch yet, never mind the whole package

Still, as the bank robber said when he was arraigned before a midget judge, these little things are sent to try us

Everything that I touch at the moment seems to be either breaking or falling off right now. I’m at the stage where I’m afraid to go to the bathroom these days.

It wouldn’t be too bad if I were to have an early night, I suppose. But the nights are becoming later and later these days.

last night was well after midnight before I finally hit the sack, long after I wanted to of course and I was thinking that it’s a good job I don’t have to get up until 08:00.

At least I was asleep quite quickly and although I awoke once or twice during the night, I simply turned over, tucked myself back in and tried to go back to sleep.

When the alarm went off at 08:00 it was quite a shock and I had a desperate scramble around trying to find the ‘phone with the alarm so that I could switch it off.

When the bedroom stopped spinning round I could stand up and go into the bathroom to sort myself out. Even if it is a Sunday when I do nothing at all, I still have the nurses coming round.

Back in here I made a start on transcribing the dictaphone notes but was interrupted by the arrival of the nurse.

He was once more in full chat mode. He tells me that he rang up the clinic in Avranches and it is indeed Tuesday when they want me to start, as I suspected that it probably was.

he says that he told them that I didn’t want to come on Tuesday and they told him to tell me that they’d ‘phone me on Monday

They can ‘phone me as much as they like but it won’t change anything. I told them right at the start of all of this that I am not available on Tuesdays.

After he left I made breakfast and read my book on THE ROMANS IN BRITAIN

Today the author was discussing the Roman marching camp at Caersws in mid-Wales. There were two camps at Caersws, a permanent one that had a vicus attached and which has now been built over. But there was a second, earlier camp just outside the town that the Romans built as a temporary camp when they first explored the area.

The map co-ordinates for this early camp were given as 52°31’13″N 3°25’05″W so I set my on-line map to “aerial view” and copied in the co-ordinates.

Considering that this was a marching camp that was only used for a couple of years at the very most in about 60AD, almost 2,000 years ago, it leaped off the page of the map right at me when I looked for it

And that surprised me. I didn’t expect to see anything. I know that a couple of readers are interested in archaeology so see if you can see it on an aerial view of, say, Google Maps too.

Back in here later there was football and I watched as Stranraer were put to the sword by local rivals Annan Athletic.

Stranraer are a division lower than Annan so we knew that this Cup match was going to be tough, but Stranraer were matching them blow for blow until Annan were awarded a very dubious penalty.

Dubious because firstly I wasn’t convinced that it was a foul and secondly, even if it was, in my opinion whatever took place took place outside the penalty area

Still, I’m not refereeing it, someone else is, and he awarded a penalty, which Annan converted.

After that, Stranraer fell away and the 5-1 score-line was somewhat exaggerated. Stranraer were much better than the score-line suggested.

One of my groundhoppers was out and about too so I was treated to Lanark United v Bonnyton Thistle In the West of Scotland League Division Two

Lanark raced to a 3-0 lead in the first half and in the second half they simply parked the bus and played out the game until the final whistle, to the frustration of Bonnyton.

Lunch was a lovely cheese and tomato sandwich made with fresh bread, followed by some fruit. But there won’t be fresh fruit much longer because it doesn’t seem to want to keep.

Thiis afternoon I finished off the dictaphone notes from the previous night. We were writing match reports for football games in which we’d played or refereed. It became extremely complicated because we didn’t have half the vocabulary that we needed and had to invent all kinds of phrases, some of which were good and some of which were rubbish, in order to describe what we wanted to say. But in the middle of all of this they were talking about another Covid injection so I went round into the main office of my section which my old boss was running. I went in there and gave myself an injection which I thought was extremely brave of me. I found out later that it was the wrong one so after waiting for a while during which nothing happened, I took my injection, went to see my old boss and asked him if he’d inject me. He was busy arguing with a couple of his workforce, a couple of guys, and didn’t really see me at first. I was standing in his office rather self-consciously until he suddenly noticed me and I arranged for my injection. The next week I was signed to play with Singapore so not only did I order that, it was a syringe different to the one to which I was accustomed so I had to change my injection yet again. I thought to myself “this is becoming too much of a good thing, isn’t it? There’s too much going on here for me to take in at the moment, my pepper box, especially if it involves food”.

Whevever the final line came from I really don’t know. It doesn’t fit in with the rest. Neither does asking my old boss to give me a Covid injection before I’m transferred to play for Singapore so I dunno. Nothing seems to make any sense these days

We were next going on a coach tour with the office. We had several coaches lined up for the staff. We had to walk to pick up the buses, which was quite difficult for me on my crutches but I just about made it and hauled myself up, only to find that the buses then drove back to the office to pick up everyone else. Then we set off. Because the seats were so cramped I had to swing round and put my legs in the corridor, to which one girl took a great deal of exception.. We arrived at our destination. There was a woman there swimming around so I borrowed her newspaper. She came along and said something to me to complain so I put down the newspaper. Then we ended up going for a swim, then for a walk around outside then back on the bus to go back to the swimming pool. We then had this issue again about me sitting with my feet in the corridor and the one female passenger not liking it. We returned to the swimming baths and there was the woman again with the newspaper. She was actually running the baths. She was rummaging through a box or something. It was food and there was some diabetic bread in there. I told her “thank you for providing the diabetic bread”. She looked at me and said “no, yours was the sliced loaf” so being somewhat beaten I replied “this is a (name of our employer) coach …fell asleep here …

That was a confusing mess too and ended up with me rhythmically breathing deeply into the dictaphone, totally out of this World and out of my head

There’s no pizza dough, as I found when I went to take some out of the freezer. I’m sure that I made some the other day but wherever it might be, I can’t fond it. And so I had to make a batch of that. Two lumps went into the freezer in the fridge and the other one I rolled out and put on the pizza tray ready to make my pizza.

When the dough had risen again sufficiently I assembled it with all of the ingredients and put it in the oven to bake.

In between times I’d been sorting out my medical expenses into date order insofar as I could find them and then trying to prepare a claim. But as I said, the site just keeps on freezing up every time I try to load an attachment.

At a certain moment I fell asleep too. The strain is obviously far too much. However, while I was asleep I went away with the fairies. I was visiting a town with a couple of people, man and wife, who may well have been Zero’s parents. We’d been looking around a shop and were now standing outside. The guy wandered off somewhere and after a couple of minutes so did the wife. I asked the guy when he returned if he knew where his wife had gone and he said that she had gone to buy some nylons. I asked where and he told me that she was in the shop behind us. He pointed to a modern car showroom and accessory shop and told me that he knew that I couldn’t wait to go inside. Just then a group of guys turned up on motorbikes. One of them was a beautiful bright green Honda CB450. I said to the woman, who had now come back from the shops, that if I were to have another motorbike it would be one of those. Suddenly the road became really busy with cars. We noticed the time and it was shortly before the ferry sailed back to the mainland so we imagined it was all the traffic going to catch the boat. I suddenly realised that we needed to be on it too but we were nothing like ready.

I have some very happy memories about a friend who had a CB450 when we lived in Chester in the early 1970s. Back in the days when its rival was a Triumph Speed Twin it was a real beast of a machine. But today, it would be rather pedestrian compared to modern bikes of an equivalent cc. But if it were Zero’s parents in this dream, I’m disappointed that they didn’t bring Zero with them. Who wouldn’t be?

The pizza maybe needed another 10 minutes of cooking – it seems that this new cheese acts as some kind of thermal insulation. But the cheese itself is delicious, melts perfectly and tastes wonderfully good. My faithful cleaner did well to find this batch.

So now I’m going to have another little go at uploading some of these documents to see if I can do any better, and then I’m off to bed.

But talking about newspaper reports … "well, one of us us" – ed … reminds me that the real heroes of newspaper reporting are the sub-editors who think up the headlines.
Everyone admires the sub-editor who, writing a headline for an article to inform everyone that, during the Korean War, General MacArthur was on his way back to his troops after speaking to his advisers. The headline was "MacArthur Flies Back To Front"
My own personal favourite was the headline in 1953 when Sir Vivian Fuchs set out on a trip to cross the Antarctic continent. A headline that read "Fuchs Off To Pole"

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Friday 6th September 2024 – SO THAT’S THE …

… end of this long series of Welsh-language Summer Schools for another year.

And I can’t say that I’m sorry because my head has turned to porridge or some such like. You’ve no idea just how much it takes out of you having to work like this

When you reach “a certain age” it’s not just your body that slows down. Your brain does too and if you don’t keep exercising your brain it tends to stick, just as your other muscles do if you don’t exercise them

It’s important therefore that you do what you can to keep your brain ticking over somehow or other and this series of Welsh-language courses is my way to go.

Previously I was registered with Oxford University’s series of continuing courses as well as the “OpenLearn” project and I learned some interesting things. But the study wasn’t really a formal study in any sense of the word, even if I did enjoy that course on translating Roman gravestone inscriptions

So formal study it is – and was throughout this Summer but now I’m going to sit with my feet up and relax until … errr … Tuesday, when the 5th Year of my Welsh course begins. Just this year and next year to go and I’ll be ‘O’ Level standard.

That is, in theory. Despite all of the courses on which I’ve enrolled I still feel as if I’m miles off the pace. I can understand just how Homer Simpson was feeling when he said "every time I learn something new, it pushes something old out".

But anyway, be that as it may, I had another late night last night. One of my groundhoppers, about whom I’ve spoken in the past, was out and about. He had been to Heriot-Watt University to watch them take on Arniston Rangers in the East of Scotland League.

He’s not a very good commentator and could benefit from learning a few of the rules regarding refereeing, but he goes to some interesting places and makes a good video. I had to stay up and watch the game

Eventually I managed to take myself off to bed, much later than I should have done, and was asleep quite quickly.

And there I stayed until about 06:20 with hardly moving a muscle. And then it was tossing and turning about until 07:00 when the alarm went off and I could haul myself off into the bathroom.

There wasn’t much that I needed to do or felt like doing at that time of the morning and I was soon back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was playing in a rock group. One of the songs that we were singing was THE RAIN SONG by Led Zeppelin. One day we began to dissect the song phrase by phrase, line by line to examine it to try to find out exactly what it meant. As we delved deeply into the song we found that it began to mean quite a lot that we hadn’t realised and hadn’t understood at all at the time. It was much more of an anthem than quite simply a song. There were a great many phrases in there that could be changed to give a completely different meaning so we experimented with some and swapped some round, put the emphasis on different words to see exactly what would happen to the song

You’ll be surprised just how many songs there are that talk about the rain. One of these days I ought to make a list and maybe even a radio programme. But it’s true that the Led Zeppelin song isn’t really about the rain at all if you look carefully at the lyrics. “The rain” is symbolic of bad luck and sadness.

I was attending University somewhere and had gone for a walk around the campus. There were several building with machines inviting you to play them. One particular building had a big embankment around it that effectively sealed it off from the rest of the University. Instead of going all the way around the path I decided to take a short cut by walking around the back of this building and climbing up the mound over the top and down the other side. The mound was much, much steeper than I thought and full of abandoned cigarette ends. When I reached the top I was spellbound by the view. It was like seeing the Sacré Coeur church for the very first time perched on the horizon. Behind me on the horizon was the spot on the high road where I’d stopped many times to take a photo of it but I’d never ever seen it from down here in the valley from the top of this mound. It looked so impressive that I wondered why I’d never come by this way before and why this view had never been shown to the public because it was really one of the best views that I had ever seen

And while it’s not exactly the Sacré Coeur, which is actually situated on top of a ridge on the edge of Brussels, the church that I saw during the night was L’Oratoire de St Joseph situated on its ridge in Montreal not too far from the Snowdon Metro Station. Where it is, it’s clearly visible for mines around and it so intrigued us as we kept on passing it at a distance that in 2013 WE FINALLY WENT TO VISIT IT. Those were the days when we used to get out and about at the drop of a hat at the slightest excuse. These days, even going to the bathroom has become a major expedition involving native bearers, well-versed local guides and the attendance of a registered nurse. What kind of state am I in?

At one time or another there was Pete Townshend’s son who was wearing scruffy clothes and drifting around from place to place but Pete Townshend suddenly decided to have a word with him to make him wear more respectable clothes and make him adopt a much more professional and personal attitude towards life, which didn’t go down very well at first but slowly the son began to take it all on board.

As if Pete Townshend would ever be interested in people being more respectable? Mind you I can tell you some stories …

The nurse was quite chatty this morning. He seems to have calmed down quite a lot from our eruption and explosion the other day and if he keeps up with the improvement he might become quite human. Apparently the clinic where I’m likely to be dialysed has been in contact with him. Things seem to be moving rapidly these days

After he left I went for the final day of my course. And it didn’t go as well as the other days which is a shame. I think that I’ve become saturated now.

When it was over I breathed a sigh of relief. I went into my nice clean kitchen – clean because the cleaner had been – and found that my course book for the forthcoming year has now arrived. So it’s “all systems go” starting on Tuesday.

Except that I have a hospital appointment on Tuesday afternoon, and so I had to ring up to book myself a taxi to take me there.

Rosemary had rung me and I’d promised to ‘phone her back but after my hot chocolate I came back in here and regrettably fell asleep, totally exhausted. I forgot to ‘phone her so there will be a red face tomorrow when I call her back

Tea was falafel and chips with a very tired salad. My lettuce don’t seem to keep too well, not even in the fridge which is a shame. However, when I move I shall buy a big, decent, proper fridge and start again from Square One with my food storage activities.

And so that’s it for today. I’m off to bed now if there’s nothing else going on. I’m totally exhausted after all of this.

But as Led Zeppelin said, “Upon us all a little rain must fall”. But not upon all of us equally
"The rain falls down upon the just
And also un the unjust fellow
But mostly on the just because
The unjust steals the just’s umbrella"

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Thursday 5th September 2024 – AFTER YESTERDAY’S …

… excitement, things seem to have quietened down today. And having straightened things out with the nurse, he seems to be much more compliant this morning.

However, it remains to be seen whether this new state of calm persists, or whether it is simply the calm before the storm

But after the storm yesterday I tried to find enough calm to go to bed early but once more I was swept up in a tidal wave of things that needed to be done and it was once more quite late by the time that everything was finished and I could go to bed.

And glad I was to find my way under the covers because the effort of everything right now, from climbing up all the stairs to having brain-fade with this course, is driving me berserk and it’s completely wearing me out.

Once in the bed I fell asleep quite quickly yet again and there I stayed, flat out, until all of … errr … 01:55. Luckily, after a few minutes of tossing and turning I was able to go back to sleep again.

But the fact that I’m awakening so easily tells me that it isn’t sleepiness that’s tiring me out, it’s exhaustion. And that’s the kind of thing that’s worrying.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I was helping a young African boy to read but I’ve really no idea why. That’s all that I can remember of that which is a shame because it would be the kind of thing that’s bound to be interesting.

Having made it to the bathroom I had a really good wash and scrub up, changed all my clothes and washed my trousers and undies in the sink. That’s a habit that I picked up during the days in which I was living out of a suitcase and which I try to keep up.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And to my surprise there was something on there. This was where I had a LORD OF THE RINGS dream but you don’t really need to know any more about this dream, especially if you are eating your meal right now.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a dream like this. At one time I was having them quite regularly, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but they seem to have calmed down just recently, in a similar way in which Zero, Castor and TOTGA have slipped off the radar. But if I could have the one type of dream as long as I had the other, then I would. As STEVE MILLER ONCE SANG, "you know you gotta go through hell before you get to heaven".

When the nurse came round, he was much calmer and quieter, almost subdued. He didn’t have much to say although he reckoned that the time that it’s taking my legs to heal, I’d be better off speaking to a skin specialist and the next time I see the doctor I should mention it.

After he left I made breakfast and carried on reading my book while I ate. Today my prose-writing poet has referred us to a series of books written by a local Berkshire author called Eleanor Hayden. Apart from the fact that she’s one of the rare female authors of that epoch, he waxes lyrical over several pages about her books, concluding with "her (books) will last somehow or other as long as an old wall"

With a recommendation like that she has to be worth reading, and to my surprise, ONE OF HER BOOKS IS AVAILABLE. Considering the flowery prose that he is prone to use, then if he’s impressed by hers then it really has to be something.

And then it was class time. Day Four of Five. And once more we bashed through three more units and I’m exhausted. We had a 15-minute chat session at the end of the lesson and by then I had total brain-fade and so, it seemed, did everything else.

But at least if we’re overwhelmed by the course, the people are really nice. As I said the other day, I know a few of them from other courses but one person whom I didn’t know is actually a classically-trained flautist who plays other musical instruments.

At the moment she’s learning to play the harp, so I told her about Roxanne whose Wednesday afternoon activity back in Brussels was learning to play the harp, which was very impressive in a child of eight years old. I wonder if she kept it up.

During the pauses I didn’t do much except to unwind, and once the course had finished and I’d had my hot chocolate, I came in here and crashed out.

The cleaner came in too for a chat. They’ve a couple of additions to the vegan cheese range at LeClerc so she wanted to see if I’d identified a variety that I like. Mmmmm – Cheddar Cheese is on offer …

At some point during the day, and I can’t remember when, I’d had a ‘phone call. The clinic place in Avranches wants to know the name and address of the nurse so that they can send him a prescription.

This may be to put the anaesthetic cream on my arm, and if so it’s a sign that the start of dialysis is approaching rapidly. God help me – an God help the people who are going to have to try to connect me.

For tea tonight I tried an experiment. I put a couple of handfuls of frozen veg into the microwave and a frozen slice of pie into the air fryer with the heat turned right down.

Fifteen minutes I gave them, and when they were finished they were perfect. A knob or two of butter on the veg and I had a lovely tea tonight.

However I was more interested in the experiment of defrosting and reheating in the air fryer. Defrosting in the microwave is all very well but it makes the pastry go all soggy. Using the big oven is a waste of resources for that so it was worth a run in the air fryer to see what happens.

And apart from the fact that it ended up rather dry, which is not really a problem, it worked exactly as it should.

And so right now I’m off to bed ready for my final Summer School tomorrow. And much as I have enjoyed it all, I’m exhausted and I shall be glad of the rest.

But talking about the nurse, the course and everything else driving me berserk, I’m reminded of the story told to me by one of the doctors at the hospital.
Apparently someone had come into the Accident and Emergency with a car steering wheel, the column of which was embedded in his groin
"How on earth did that happen?" asked the doctor
"I’ve no idea" replied the patient "but I’ll tell you something. It’s driving me nuts"

0

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 – I HAD A LOVELY …

… surprise last night. Zero came to visit me.

How long is it since one of my three favourite young ladies came to visit me during the night? I was really worried in case they have dropped out of the picture, as The Vanilla Queen seems to have done, but here we are.

It’s quite surprising really, because as you might expect these days, it was quite late when I finally went to bed last night. But once again, I didn’t need all that much rocking before I was away in the Land of Nod

As for how the night went, I’ll talk about that in a minute but it was a very weary, bleary me who made his way into the bathroom for a good wash and brush up ready to hit the streets

Yes, it’s a good idea to have a really good scrub because I’m being inspected by someone at the Centre de Re-education (or so I thought) later this morning.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been and, more importantly, who had come with me. And wasn’t it exciting? Last night I dreamed that I was dreaming that I’d met Zero. She’d figured in one of the dreams that I’d had while I was dreaming. Ironically, much later on when I “awoke” from that dream but was still asleep, deep in the major dream on the first level, Zero was actually there in the other room while I was asleep. She was talking to one or two other people and I wondered whether I’d actually manage to speak to her. I really hoped that I did of course. Eventually she came in so I told her that I had dreamed about her. She asked me to tell her all about it so I began to talk but I hedged some of the bits. She seemed to know that I was hedging so she asked me outright to tell her everything. I began to tell her about the dream and what had happened in the dream. But then I had a panic attack because I found that I couldn’t remember it. It was that that awoke me. I felt really upset and distressed by this – having Zero on my plate for the first time for ages and once again not being able to get my fork stuck in it.

“Disturbed” isn’t the word. I’ve been lying here awake for hours and I just can’t simply go back to sleep. I’ve no idea what I’m going to be like in the morning.

It was actually two hours and forty-three minutes later that I dictated that line there. I don’t think that I’ve ever been so disturbed about a dream as I was with that one. However it’s interesting that I was dreaming that I was dreaming. There are some people who can layer up a couple of dozen layers but I think that the most I’ve ever managed is three layers. It was interesting that it was about Zero too instead of some banal subject, and it was also very pleasant that she was still there when that “dream within a dream” finished.

However I wonder what bits about my dream with Zero that I was hedging on telling her. Can you imagine it? But that’s just another example of my wretched luck. Nothing seems ever to run as I would like it and the thought of what I’d missed totally disrupted my morning.

So for two hours and forty-three minutes at least, I was tossing and turning according to the timestamps of the sound files. Meanwhile, twenty-seven minutes later I went out for a wander around and came to a town centre where there was a huge queue of pedestrians going all the way down the High Street. I wanted to turn into the High Street but it was impossible. But some of the pedestrians hung about and presented a gap so I pulled out of the side street into it. Then all the pedestrians in front of me who had scrunched up then spread out to give themselves some space. Those in front recoiled backwards and collided with my car so I shouted at them to be careful. However I had my words all mixed up so they had a few things to say. It seems that I’d fallen into the middle of a big group anyway so everyone was all around shouting to each other. It was a queue for a shop, a sewing and seeds shop so I thought that I’d have a look in for my friends. They were selling some seeds for some kind of jasmine plant for £0.89 so I bought a bag. I thought that it would be OK for one of my friends but I couldn’t remember which one. When I went to pay I suddenly realised that I’d picked up a card. I had it in my inside pocket. I made a light-hearted joke about being so forgetful. The woman replied “don’t worry. We’d have frisked you down anyway before you left. So, rather impressed, I paid for the card and seeds and then cleared off

So which friend was it who was going to receive a packet of lavender seeds and a card? I don’t have that many friends I suppose so it’s not a wild, mad choice amongst a large selection of people.

The nurse and I had another row today. Tomorrow I have to leave early and he doesn’t like the idea. Well, that’s rather a shame, isn’t it? He’ll be here at 08:05 by the latest or else I’ll go without him and he can either come back later or send another nurse. But I’m not disrupting the work of the taxi company or the clinic in Avranches just because he can’t be bothered to arrive here early for once.

Isabelle, his replacement, is quite reasonable about it. She can’t/won’t come here early but if I ‘phone her when I return she’ll pop round at a convenient moment with no complaint at all.

Once he’d cleared off I could have breakfast, and read my book.

The author, Edward Thomas, refers us today to a friend of his, another poet called Ralph Hodgson

Hodgson’s claim to fame is that he wrote a poem called “To Deck A Woman” and with a title like that, I just had to hunt it down to read it

So after much searching and tracking down, here you are – “How To Deck A Woman” by Ralph Hodgson
"I know a place of summer doves,
Rapt lizards in its alleys lie,
And mostly there a linnet loves
To mend a wanting melody*

No men talk there ; no pit or gin
Trips Beauty on that sunny hill ;
Its voice is ever gracious din
Of bee and song-bird never still,

And anthem yet from other quires :
The muffled diapason gushed
From lips occult and privy lyres
And pipes of Eden never hushed —

The pipes and lyres and lips that are
In sods and bubbles, stones and trees
And flying seeds from woodlands far
And wandering airs and essences*

Within, about, above, below,
Sprites elemental, Night and Day,
And winds and climbers, frost and snow
And wild things only, know their way"

It’s certainly not what I was expecting, with a title like that, but it’s an example of how much has language evolved over the last hundred-odd years.

The taxi turned up bang on time to whisk me down the hill. It’s a girl whom I know who was the driver so we had a good chat and then she helped me sort myself out at the Centre de Re-education. I saw my favourite doctor but it wasn’t she who was looking after me today which was a shame.

The one who saw me today was also quite cute. I’d seen her before, the last time that I was here, so she wanted to know

  1. why I hadn’t organised the physiotherapy sessions that she had prescribed
  2. why I hadn’t gone for the echograph on my knee

Sometimes it’s very difficult to explain to people that even with the best will in the World, you are often overtaken by events over which you have no control

She’s re-prescribed the physiotherapy and she’ll fit me in for a day at the Centre for a complete reassessment. Unfortunately there’s a terrific backlog and she won’t be able to fit me in for quite a while.

So I enquired when that might be

"Quite a while, I’m afraid" she replied. "October, maybe even November"

It’s a good job that she doesn’t work in the UK where a “normal waiting period” would be about eighteen months, never mind “quite a while”.

Back here there was no-one to help me up the stairs but I managed on my own with some (considerable) effort. That was something to celebrate. But at least the taxi driver didn’t moan, like the last one did.

Having made a pot of coffee I came in here for my Welsh class and if you think that two units of the book was going some, we did three today and I am totally whacked.

So much so that while I didn’t actually crash out (well, maybe for 10 minutes or so) I was in no fit state to do anything.

Tea was a taco roll with rice and veg, delicious as usual, followed by yet more strawberries. I really have some wonderful neighbours.

So right now I’m off to bed. Avranches in the morning to see the nurse and find out what’s going to happen about dialysis. I shudder to think.

But I hope that Zero comes to see me again tonight. I can just picture the scene if ever I’m lucky enough tonight to be all alone with her –
"I dreamed about you last night, Zero" I shall say
"Did you?" She’ll ask
"No" I’ll reply. "You wouldn’t let me."

0

Monday 2nd September 2024 – AND IF YOU THINK …

… that our last Summer School went along at a cracking pace, you ain’t seen nuffink yet!

One unit in a day is some going when a course of twenty is supposed to take a year, but today we have worked our way through two units, with at least two more to come tomorrow.

And there’s homework too. I’ve had a big pile shoved through onto my desktop which I have to complete before the course starts again tomorrow.

But right now I’m whacked. I crashed out earlier on and as a result, once more I’m running horribly late.

And that’s really a disappointment because last night I was actually, for once in my life, in bed before 23:00. Not by very much, it has to be said, but even a minute is worth recording because it makes me feel better when I’m late like this.

So I sorted myself out last night, rescued the strawberries that my neighbour gave me, did what I had to do and then crawled into bed. And once more I fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow

And I slept through until about … errr … 04:25 when something, presumably outside, awoke me. No idea what it was, and I don’t care either. I didn’t stay awake long, but couldn’t go back deeply to sleep. I kept on tossing and turning until the alarm went off.

And at 07:00 I do have to say that I haven’t felt less like raising myself from the dead for a long time. It was quite a struggle to beat the second alarm and I reckoned that this would really be a good start to the day, I don’t think.

I the bathroom I had a good wash and shave and washed my undies too. Have to keep on top of the chores. And then back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was teaching English at a Primary School and in the class that I was teaching, i was teaching them the meaning of the word “Overwhelm”. What we did was to do this visually by having a pig, or a piglet I should say, and the children having to carry it and be overwhelmed while they were doing it and so forth … fell asleep here …. So where were we? Ohh yes, we had this pig and were passing it from one child to another and discussing whether they were overwhelmed or underwhelmed by it. I decided that that was how I was going to teach English in the future – by visual means rather than by sitting there with the kids bored to tears at a desk.

Or frightened to death by a pig. Most kids these days won’t ever have seen a pig in real life and would certainly be overwhelmed if someone were to pass a pig to them. I imagine that it would develop into a game that would be even faster than a game of “Pass The Parcel” in a pub in Belfast.

And then I was on board a spaceship and we had two main electric cables that had been accidentally cut somehow so we were trying to solder them together somehow using a cigarette lighter. While we were doing that, we were watching some kind of strange guy try to leave by one of the doors. We thought “we hadn’t seen him in here before. I wonder what he’s been doing and where he’s been hiding”.

That’s certainly a novel technique but here in France what in the UK would be called “Garden Shed Engineering” is called Système D – the “D” standing for something vulgar. It’s when you do the work that needs to be done with the equipment that you have to hand, so if you need to solder some cables together and all you have is a cigarette lighter, all you can do is to do your best.

The nurse and I had an argument this morning. There he was, in full-chat mode asking me stupid questions and when he asked me the same stupid question that he’d asked me five minutes earlier, I snapped and he cleared off with a flea in his ear. Talk about getting on my wick!

After he left I made breakfast and while I was eating I was reading my book again. The guy is a beautiful writer, as I’m sure that you’d expect when you see prose written by a poet, but much of what he writes, in what is essentially a travel book (albeit a very early one), is quite superfluous and detracts from the information that he gives. He needs to make up his mind what type of book he’s writing.

However it is a bit too late for that now, seeing as he passed on “to another place” in 1917.

Back in here afterwards we started up our Summer School, the first day. We are twelve students and I’ve been on previous Summer Schools with a couple of them before. These classes are, as you would expect, very parochial.

And it’s amazing what you learn. The word for “pumpkin” is pwmpen and for “courgette” it’s corbwmpen. Apparently the prefix cor… when in front of a word means “small”

So it took us much longer than it ought to have done to work out that Corgi, the breed of Welsh dog much loved by the recently-deceased monarch, simply means “small dog”.

During the lunch break I was preparing an on-line order from a well-known on-line retailer and at the end of the lesson went to pay for it, but for reasons that only my bank in Belgium will know, payment was declined

That is of course total nonsense but it was too late to ring up and complain. Consequently that’s a job for first thing in the morning.

There were a few other things to do, like make another flapjack, but I didn’t feel at all like it. Instead I came back in here after a very late hot chocolate and rather regrettably crashed out.

When I finally awoke it was rather late and so since then everything else has been running late. Tea was a stuffed pepper and I think that I’ve missed something out of the stuffing, and the pepper wasn’t cooked enough. It just wasn’t my night I reckon.

So tomorrow I’ll be late for class because I have an appointment down at the Centre de Re-education in the morning. I wonder what they want. I really have no idea.

But it’s good news that they are still interested in me. However just imagine if they offer me a series of courses like last time. Three days per week having dialysis, two days a week down there – I’ll be whacked. And so will the poor drivers who will have to help me upstairs if my loyal cleaner isn’t about

She’s dropped in twice today already for different things. It won’t be long, at this rate, before she moves in here for good.

But the recently-departed Lizzie and her Welsh Corgis – it’s a good job that she doesn’t live in the castle at Y Fflint. Apparently the Y Fflint players offered once to take her dogs for a walk but she told them to clear off
"Why’s that?" asked manager Lee Fowler. "I thought that it was a very noble gesture"
"2-0 up against Y Barri halfway through the second half and you end up losing 3-2?" she roared. "Before your lads take my Corgis for a walk they’ll have to learn to hold on to a lead."

0

Sunday 1st September 2024 – SUNDAY NIGHT IS …

… pizza night. And tonight’s pizza was an absolute classic.

This vegan cheese that my cleaner found for me really is the business and I hope that LeClerc keeps on stocking it. I shall have to give her instructions to find some more of it just in case …

That’s the highlight of the day, it has to be said It wasn’t really a good day today unfortunately.

Last night was pretty good though. With nothing to dictate (I’m keeping off the two projects that I’ve done because I want to review them first) I was in bed before midnight.

Of course, 23:00 is my planned curfew time but as there’s no alarm until 08:00 on a Sunday morning I can stretch a point.

Once in bed even I was surprised at the speed at which I fell asleep and there I stayed until … errr … 07:15 when I awoke.

Awake I may have been but leaving my stinking pit? Not on your Nellie! Even though I couldn’t go back to sleep I didn’t give in and leave the bed. There I stayed until the alarm went off.

Staggering off to the bathroom, I had a good wash and clean-up and then back in here to wait for the nurse to come. There was time to transcribe the dictaphone notes while I was waiting. There was someone who was having some kind of control because people were being examined for what they were carrying. One guy was carrying a kilo of something or other and when they asked what it was, he gave the name in French for it, which of course the people didn’t understand. It sounded pretty banal and ordinary enough but with the name being in French and they not understanding it they were rather concerned. They decided that they would give him a thorough search. In the meantime there were all kinds of explanations and arguments about this particular name and how everyone really ought to know what it was etc

This is the thing though, isn’t it? You ask any schoolgirl of my generation what a bèchamel sauce or a bain-marie are, and they’d know without hesitation. But nowadays the emphasis on schools is to pass the exam and lift your school up the league table, and these subsidiary lessons have gone by the board. Educating kids isn’t just passing exams, except in the UK where it’s the exam that counts and nothing else matters.

The nurse came round to sort me out this morning and also to interrogate me over my pizza. He’s probably looking for cookery tips, I suppose, but I don’t have too many to give him. I just do things and adapt recipes to suit my tastes and diet.

Breakfast was next, a nice, slow leisurely stride into morning with porridge, toast, coffee and juice. And a tonne of medication of course. I took y time, reading more of my book on THE ICKNIELD WAY.

Interestingly, the author tells us of an abandoned railway that he crossed on his walk. Not surprising but this is 1906. It appears that there was a railway into Newmarket that only operated for a handful of years and upon the bankruptcy of the operators it closed down – in 1851. One of the very first railway closures.

Just to make sure, I looked at an aerial photo of the area and there are still a few vestiges of the line remaining today.

Back in here there was football. Stranraer were away at Bonnyrigg so there was no stream this morning. Instead I watched East Fife stick five past Clyde with Nathan Austin, who’s far too good for this division, stick anther two to go with the three that he scored last week

One of my groundhoppers was out and about too so we ended up with a Scottish Cup match between Bo’ness Athletic and Kilwinning Rangers. Bo’ness won with a comfortable 2-0 scoreline.

But there’s something going on with these groundhoppers. There are three patrolling the grounds in Scotland and three or four patrolling them on the Irish mainland.

It’s a major initiative, I know, from the Scottish FA to publicise the game and flood social media and the internet in general with the games, but I’m wondering about these groundhoppers. Their output is all pretty much of a same style with similar editing and the like, so I’m wondering if there’s a School of Journalism somewhere that’s pushing these guys out to practise their art.

Lunch was a taco roll with salad filling, seeing as I’ve run out of bread. And I had to rush because I had Hamilton Academicals v Airdrie United. The Accies 2-0 up with just minutes to go to the final whistle but then two moments of inattention and that, dear reader, was that.

At this point I fell asleep for a while but woke up in time to head to the kitchen.

First task was to make some dough for bread. While it was rising, I took the pizza dough that I’d taken from the freezer after lunch and now that it was defrosted, gave it a good working over and rolled it out onto its tray.

And with half an oven to fill I made another crumble like the one the other day. And it looked delicious.

The bread dough had now risen so I gave that its second kneading and put it in its mould.

While I was waiting I cleared up and washed up everything, and when the bread dough was ready I put it and the crumble in the oven

While they were baking I assembled my pizza and had a chat on-line with a neighbour who had contacted me and very kindly brought me some more strawberries

When the bread and the crumble were cooked the pizza went in. And when it came out, it was absolute perfection.

So right now I’m off to bed ready to Fight the Good Fight tomorrow.

But talking of abandoned railway lines and stations and the like, there’s a railway station in the North of England called “Dent” – which is all very well, but it’s almost five miles from the town whose name it carries, and over some steep hills too.
One day an American tourist staggered into a pub in the town and exclaimed "why did they build the goddam railway station so far from the goddam town?"
"Well" said the landlord "I suppose that they thought it a good idea to build it close to the railway line."

0

Saturday 31st August 2024 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

… typical Saturday when I seem to have rather regrettably spent most of the day asleep.

It beats me why it seems to be that Saturday I grind down to a complete halt without actually making any progress whatsoever with the mountain of work that I need to do.

Mind you, admittedly I was rather late last night going to bed. Never mind midnight – it was long after that when I finally hit the sack and crawled into bed.

Once more, I was asleep quite rapidly and there I stayed until the alarm sounded at 07:00. There might have been the odd bit of tossing and turning during the night but nothing to worry about.

So at 07:00 I staggered off into the bathroom and did what I had to do, including washing my shorts. That’s a regular Saturday task and even though they had been through the machine earlier in the week they still went in through the washbasin.

Next task was to deal with the washing-up from last night which I hadn’t touched. What with the football running so late last night I’d just finished off here and gone straight to bed and left it. I know that it’s my pet peeve but if there’s a choice between washing-up and bed, it’s no contest.

Third task was to put away the frozen carrots. They’d been all prepared and had been draining on the worktop overnight. If they go into the freezer too wet they all cling together in one big clump.

The freezer is jam-packed full and it was something of a struggle to have everything fitted in – even more of a struggle than it normally is. I really need to empty some of the stuff but I’m not sure how to do it as I’m sure that the stuff in there is breeding and multiplying behind my back

Finally I could make it back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a game at Hwlffordd. The team was playing against someone else. It was under enquiry by the Secret Service who believed that the players of one team were communicating with the enemy, presumably by the fashion in which they were playing. They had observers there watching the game very closely. Because the secret escaped that there was at least one observer there that changed a few people’s thoughts about the situation but we pressed on al the same. Although we didn’t find anything when we had criticisms to answer about it we could point to the fact that we waited until all of our enquiries were completed before making a report and if we hadn’t sent the observers to watch the game the report would have been frivolous, unclear and possibly incorrect.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, we were at Hwlffordd for a match last night. But whether the Secret Service was represented there was another thing. There were probably a couple of managers of local teams though, surreptitiously sizing up the opposition for the future.

By the way, I mentioned that I’d try to find a video of Hwlffordd’s sublime third goal last night. To my surprise it’s not been edited by the broadcasting company from the video of the game so I’ve done it myself and you can WATCH IT IN ALL ITS GLORY.

Believe me, it’s well-worth it. You won’t see a finer goal like this anywhere else.

Later on I was at work and the Occupational Guidance came to see me. He was only a young guy. We had a chat about my health. He then asked me if I’d take a little walk, a few steps so that he could see how I managed. I told him that I was totally unable to walk under any circumstances without my crutches so he replied “well, I’ve just seen you walk around the office on your crutches so why don’t you walk a few paces for me so that I can observe you properly?”. I stood up, picked up my crutches and set off on a little walk around the office.

Strangely enough, when I was awake I couldn’t think of the name of the job of the person who comes to check how you are coping with everyday life after an illness or injury. Yet there I am in a dream and I can come out with words like “Occupational Guidance”. I ought to go to sleep more often. But it’s all very well these people coming round to check on me, but they ought to be proposing things to help me out. I’ve had the thing to help me ride the porcelain horse but that’s all.

The nurse came round as usual and went through the process of changing the plasters on my legs and sorting out the puttees. He was quite gossipy but didn’t really say very much and was soon off on his way. I would have thought that after all this time there would have been an improvement by now but that’s not happening and it fills me full of dismay.

After he left I made breakfast and had a very leisurely start to the weekend reading some more of my book on THE ICKNIELD WAY.

What’s interesting with these old books is to see what they have to say and surmise from the evidence that was available 100 or so years ago, and while you’re reading, read a more modern version, say, from Wikipedia, that tells us about these places but with the benefit of another 100 years of research and evolution of archaeological skills.

For example, an earthwork that was described in an ancient book as “probably a Danish camp and certainly not much older” was noted in Wikipedia (which is not always correct I hasten to add) as “archaeological investigations in 1992 revealed it to be an Ancient British camp dating from Before the Romans”

In the book I’m reading there’s talk of a “derelict but magnificent packhorse bridge” whereas the village entry in Wikipedia tells us of “an old bridge which was demolished some time in the 1970s”.

After breakfast I came in here and vegetated for a while. I seem to be taking ages to liven up and start work. Once I was up and running I prepared the video extract that I mentioned earlier so that seems to be working well enough

Then I went to wash the puttees that had been soaking in a bowl for several days. They should be nice and clean now and drying quite nicely in the bathroom.

This afternoon I went to make a start on the next radio programme but regrettably I crashed out and that, I’m afraid, was that for quite a while.

Once I awoke there was more football on the Internet.

Apart from leaving the washing-up overnight, another one of my pet peeves is this modern, totally suicidal habit of playing the ball out from the goal-kicks.

In my day we had big towering centre-forwards matched by big towering defenders. Wingers pumping high crosses into the penalty area led to some famous aerial duels with forwards like Jeff Astle, Joe Jordan and Brendan O’Callaghan battling it out with centre-halves like Ron Yeats, John Wile and Gordon McQueen.

Goalkeepers added to the mix with potent long kicks pumped upfield and it all added to the chaos, panic and confusion in the opposition’s penalty area.

But these days, it’s all of this possession football where the object is to hang on to the ball as long as possible. It’s all very well if you have the skill but if you don’t, it’s a disaster.

Y FFlint, second-bottom of the table, were rather fortuitously 2-0 up against another team down there in the basement, Y Barri, and then they concede two soft goals. So with the game drawing to a conclusion they win a goal kick so they decide to hang on to the ball so that the match would end in a draw.

Anyone care to guess what happened? You can find out HERE. What a shambles. If I were Y Fflint’s manager Lee Fowler I’d be furious.

seriously though, it’s going to be a long hard struggle for Y Fflint. Their only hope is that maybe either Aberystwyth or Y Barri are worse than they are. They can’t go throwing away points like this, especially against the other teams stuck in the basement with them.

Tea tonight was another one of my delicious breaded quorn fillets with a vegan salad and baked potato. A different brand of quorn fillet and not as good unfortunately but we have to try these new vegan products that LeClerc offer if we want to encourage them to keep expanding their range.

So that’s everything for tonight. I’ll go to bed and start again tomorrow I reckon

But that story about the Occupational Therapist reminds me of the story about the guy who hobbled into the Chemist’s and asked to be shown some talcum powder
"Walk this way" said the chemist.
"If I could walk that way" said the man "I wouldn’t be needing the talcum powder."

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Friday 30th August 2024 – I’VE GIVEN UP …

… all thoughts f being in bed at a reasonable time. In fact it’s another late night tonight and by the time that I’ll have finished these notes it will be long after midnight by the time I hit the hay

In fact it’s been a pretty rotten day all round today but as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have days like this every now and again and I just have to pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again.

As you might expect, seeing as I’m complaining about late nights, it was a late night again last night. Everyone was out celebrating after TNS’s triumph in qualifying for a Group Stage and while I wasn’t out and I wasn’t celebrating I was certainly revelling in the enthusiasm.

To be honest, in the six games to come, all against quality opposition TNS are going to be “turned over something shocking” by some teams and we might be back to the 1990s and on the wrong end of some embarrassing score-lines, but at least, as May Boyce would have said, TNS can say "I was there".

And so I was there too in solidarity until far too late when I finally crept off to bed.

And once more, it was totally painless. Asleep in seconds and there I remained, with just the odd fit of awakening here and there which I can’t really remember.

When the alarm went off I hauled myself up out of bed and staggered off to the bathroom to sort myself out and then, by way of change, into the kitchen to do the washing up.

Something that I really hate is waking up to a bowl of dirty dishes. That really is my pet peeve but it couldn’t be helped after last night.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I had another phantom awakening last night by a woman who was waving some kind of death star about. She was saying “those with an arm corps follow the star”. When I asked her what was happening she said that the passengers’ alarms had been forbidden in the airport so she was doing her best to wake everyone up who was due to travel. I asked “what if you had to travel some distance like to Luxembourg?”. Her reply was that they’d still be awoken so I dunno but it was like a proper Welsh border – scream, I suppose, for no intent or purpose whatsoever.

And that’s another pile of confused, garbled, meaningless nonsense as far as I can tell

I had my old blue Cortina estate. There was some really, really thick fog, so much so that it was practically impossible to see so I parked it up in Crewe Town Centre and began to walk home. I realised that I’d left one or two things in the car so I had to run back up the hill towards it. When I arrived back at it I had the idea that maybe I’d take out one or two of the spark plugs to make it very difficult for anyone to try to want to steal it. I took out a couple of the plugs but the screws that held the plugs in, I lost them and had to hunt around. Eventually I found them so that was that. I put the tools back in the tool box but I’d screwed the toolbox to the door outside and padlocked it but it wouldn’t stay closed – it kept on falling over so in the end I thought that I might as well take it home with me and bring it back next morning. For some reason or other I threw it into the back of the blue Cortina estate and then got in the car and went to turn the key to start it but suddenly realised that I’d taken out half of the spark plugs so I couldn’t go home in this vehicle anyway until I’d put them back.

During this dream I had a vague impression in the back of my mind of a Zephyr 6 mark III coming towards me out of the gloom and I don’t know why. Good cars they were, but they rotted away like hell. But there’s only one thing worse than being stuck in the fog, and that’s being stuck in the fog in Crewe. I did once know a woman who was stuck in the fog in Liverpool and wanted to drive home to Manchester, found a lorry from a yard near where she lived driving through the city so she followed it. After a couple of hours the lorry stopped and the driver alighted. “Are we in Manchester now then?” he asked. “Manchester?” asked the driver incredulously. “I’m bringing a load to Preston”.

The nurse came along a little later and sorted out my legs and then gave me today’s injection. He was in quite a chatty mood but didn’t have anything important to say. He was soon gone and I could press on and make breakfast and read some more of my book on THE ICKNIELD WAY

After breakfast I had a look at my order for LeClerc. It’s been three weeks since I’ve done any shopping so supplies are running low. It’s necessary to stock up.

And to my surprise, not only do they have olive oil, it’s on special offer too and so I stocked up. At a certain moment the cheap olive oil was not available on home delivery and I ended up having to buy the expensive stuff. And so with what I ordered today I have a year’s supply.

Soya milk too. At a push I can but that from in town but they have vanilla in theirs and it tastes disgusting. The “Natural” soya milk from LeClerc is much nicer so I have a stock of that now too.

So drastically over-ordering, I sent off my order and arranged for it to be delivered this afternoon.

There was plenty to do this afternoon but instead I was side-tracked. The cleaner came to do her thing and we had quite a chat

And then the hospital in Paris telephoned to see how I was and if I needed anything. There’s talk that they’ll be calling me in for a stay there at some time soon, but I’ve heard all that before

Regrettably, after that, I fell asleep, to be awoken by some frantic ringing at the doorbell. My supplies had arrived.

So having put everything away, I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning, peeling, dicing and blanching 2 kilos of carrots ready for the freezer

Tea was a rushed salad and chips with vegan nuggets because we had yet more football – Hwlffordd v y Drenewydd.

With the collapse of Connah’s Quay Nomads, second place this year is up for grabs and while Y Bala must fancy their chances, Y Drenewydd would be optimistic too and Hwlffordd would be a good outside bet as dark horses.

But this game was all one-way traffic and the score of 3-0 to Hwlffordd was in no way flattering. The central midfield pairing of Greg Walters and Corey Shepherd controlled this game from start to finish and the back three of Lee Jenkins, Kyle McCarthy and Maltese international Luke Tabone looked as solid as a rock. New Zealand international keeper Zak Jones had nothing whatever to do.

But if you want to see a visual definition of the word “sublime”, I’ll try over the next few days to find a video of Hwlffordd’s third goal. It was the most beautiful goal I have ever seen.

So that’s it. The washing-up can wait again. I’m going to bed.

But on the subject of washing up there was the old advert which I’m sure many of my readers will remember, of the kid asking "mummy mummy, why are your hands so nice and soft?"
In the old days it was "because I use Fairy Liquid" but today it would be "because we have an automatic dishwasher, you berk."
However, I always knew it as "because daddy does all the washing up, dear."

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Thursday 29th August 2024 – THEY’LL BE DANCING …

… in the streets of TNS tonight!

For the first time ever, after over 30 years of trying, a Welsh football club has finally qualified for a Group stage of a European competition.

Admittedly, it’s only the Europa Conference, the least of the three competitions, but it’s a Group stage nevertheless. So hats off to manager Craig Harrison and his team. And to Chairman Mike Harris who has supported the team, the League, and Welsh club football in general since the mid-nineties

It’s quite fair to say that his support has somewhat distorted the power dynamics of the League, not always in any way that is favourable to to the other clubs and this minimum of €3,000,000 prize money will distort it even more. But it’s still a magnificent achievement

What would also be a magnificent achievement would be if I were able to go to bed before 23:00 but again last night I fell way short – or, rather, overshot rather badly. I don’t know what I’m doing or where the time is going these days but everything seems to be taking so long.

There was no reason at all to be late last night but nevertheless it was approaching midnight when I finally hit the hay.

The good news was that I didn’t need much rocking. I was asleep quite quickly and despite waking up a couple of times for no good reason, there I stayed until the alarm went off at 07:00.

Then it was a rather undignified stagger into the bathroom to sort myself out and have a good wash. And then a lap or two around the apartment collecting up the dirty clothes and the like, and setting the washing machine off on the go. I’m running low on clothes again.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night and more importantly, to see who went with me. Nerina came the other night, which made a pleasant change from members of my family, but I’m still living in hope that Castor, Zero and TOTGA will come back at some point.

No such luck last night though. I had another one of these phantom awakenings. I awoke being sure that I’d heard the alarm for a big Welsh football team whose name I’ve forgotten up to the place opposite Arbroath where I’d come to buy some things. The two of us came back down to the ground ready to meet the players and to explain our tactic and hope that they’d enjoy it but I would of course be like a fish out of water if I confronted the players because I had the ability to find out what they would do about him and this game of games and nothing at all about the Game of Thrones

And if anyone can make any sense of that little lot, please let me know.

I was at work and I actually had a date with my Greek friend. Of course people in the Diffusion service heard about it and contacted me to chivvy me and tease me about it but I didn’t pay it any attention. It wasn’t until they started talking about what she was going to eat for breakfast that I began to think much more carefully about what was going on. Suddenly I had a mail but couldn’t find out who it was from but it was about the following day and it was headed “breakfast”. Looking down the list was like a breakfast that you could order from the place where we were staying, whether it was a Continental breakfast or Healthy breakfast or Cooked breakfast etc. She’d chosen the Energetic breakfast, or someone had chosen it, and sent it to me. This is where I began to think “is it she who is coming to see me? Am I to expect a new keen energetic Greek friend or the old lethargic one? I’m not too sure. Or is she finally going to forget that she’s a human being and participate in some of the joys of being human? I don’t know. It all sounded too good to be true to me and if they do sound too good to be true then they usually are. We shall see

That was rather a strange dream too. But as for my Greek lady-friend, she was strange too. Whenever I was “with” someone else she was attaching herself to me in a rather bewildering fashion to such an extent that even Roxanne noticed, but when I was on my own she kept a very considerable distance away from me. It was a shame really because she was a lovely girl, so much so that if I had ever had to choose between her and the Irish girl who also kept a very discreet distance from me, I would have had quite a struggle. However, both of them had far more sense than to ever become seriously entangled with me and I can’t say that I blame them. I know that if I ever were given the choice, I’d untangle myself quite rapidly, and hats off to Nerina who lasted almost nine years

That’s the first road sign that we’ve seen for Middle Earth, The Falls of Gondolin, and that’s where we turn off on our adventure and side-track ourselves in that direction to find out what Tolkien wrote when he wrote about the fall of the city, see who was involved and what the story and what the story was all about

Yes, THE FALL OF GONDOLIN is not a place but a book, one of the adventures of Middle-Earth written by Tolkien. But you could immediately imagine it being on a road sign referring to a cascade of water somewhere in the vicinity

The nurse came round and sorted me out, but he didn’t stay long. He couldn’t make his wi-fi card reader connect to the internet to read my health card so he took it with him to return later.

By now the washing was finished so I emptied the machine and hung everything up, then went for breakfast and to carry on READING MY BOOK ON THE ICKNIELD WAY for a while. These ancient books are really quite interesting and absorbing.

While I was at it, I did some research into the author. He was called Edward Thomas and is much better-known as a poet. But despite him being married and of somewhat senior years, he enlisted in the Artists Rifles in World War I and was killed at Arras in 1917

It was another slow start to the day but once I’d managed to wind myself up I attacked the second one of my outstanding projects for the radio.

That’s now finished too, although as usual, I’ll go through the text that I’ve written and there will probably be several rewrites and amendments before it’s ready for recording

Just a couple more holes to fill in in my sequence before I can carry on roaring off into the sunset.

But I still am struggling somewhat with this huge pile of concerts, trying to work out dates and running orders. And as seems to be the case, we have nothing at all for weeks and then half a dozen concerts on the same day. So which one do you choose?

That is definitely what you might call a “First-World Problem”.

There was the break for hot chocolate and home-made ginger cake (and thanks, John, for the helpful suggestion) and also, regrettably, to crash out for a while.

My cleaner brought up the post this afternoon, but no Health Card. Either the nurse forgot or else he still couldn’t make his card reader connect.

But then we had the football – TNS v the Lithuanian champions, FC Panevezys

TNS had, to everyone’s surprise, including their own, won 3-0 away from home in the first leg. But with no fit striker they simply packed the midfield and played possession football for the whole 90 minutes.

It ended up as a 0-0 draw, which also surprised no-one, but that as all that they needed to go through the final stage of the qualifying tournament to reach the Group stages, the first Welsh club to do so since Welsh clubs began to compete in European competition following the creation of the League of Wales in 1992

Strangely enough, TNS DID have a striker on the bench.

A couple of weeks ago, in an effort to avoid a fixture pile-up, they sent out what was effectively a reserve team to play Y Fflint. In the close season they had signed a winger from Caernarfon, Sion Bradley, and in the game at Y FFlint they played Bradley as a makeshift centre-forward.

And badger me if he didn’t score a hat-trick

Had it been me in charge of TNS I’d have put him on the field tonight up front to see if lightning would strike twice

However, my opinion is that why TNS signed Sion Bradley was not that they wanted him or needed him, but it was to stop him going to Connah’s Quay to replace Jordan Davies.

No tea tonight regrettably. The football came in the way of all that. So I’ll go to bed hungry and have a good breakfast in the morning.

At least I’ll be in some kind of shape. There will be some heavy heads at Park Hall in the morning

But that reminds me. Amongst the crowd celebrating at Park Hall Stadium tonight was a Polar Bear
He went up to the bar and said "a double gin and …. lemonade"
"What’s with the pause?" asked the barman
"I was born with them" replied Nanook

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Wednesday 28th August 2024 – MY GINGER CAKE …

… is really delicious. Not quite fiery enough, I reckon, but that kind of thing comes with practice. The consistency was exactly what it should have been, except that it was cooked more at the top than underneath.

Usually that would mean lowering it in the oven, but that won’t work as it’s already on the lowest possible shelf, so it’s going to be to turn down the oven and prolong the cooking time.

But that won’t work if I’m baking bread at the same time, so it will have to do.

Consequently, given the shortcomings of my table-top oven, it was a resounding success. Just wait until I have a real oven, whenever that might be.

At least the sponge rose up as it was supposed to do.

While we’re on the subject of rising up as it is supposed to do … "well, one of us is" – ed … I rose up as I was supposed to do this morning when the alarm went off at 07:00

That was helped by the fact that for once I was actually in bed before my ideal curfew time of 23:00. Not by very much, I have to say, but even one minute is some kind of progress.

After I’d finished my notes last night I did everything that I had to do and then headed for the hills.

Once in bed I remember very little. I started my little bedtime mantra but didn’t get very far before I fell asleep. And apart from a couple of awakenings at various times, there I stayed quite comfortably until the alarm went off.

In the bathroom I had a really good wash and clean-up, followed by a shave and some clean clothes. I must look my best for my trip out today. Who knows? I might even meet Emilie the Cute Consultant.

While I was at it, I washed my trousers and undies in the sink ready for next time. I try to keep ahead as much as I possibly can.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Nerina and I were going through one of our phases and were walking down Hospital Street in Nantwich or driving down there, but we stopped at a pedestrian crossing to let a pedestrian pass. I recognised him as he walked past. He was a musician and after listening to his album thanks to a recommendation by a friend I’d actually gone out and bought a copy. I just happened to mention that I’d bought a copy of his album and we ended up having a very lengthy discussion about the music business before he left. He noticed a cut on the side of my face so told him that it was nothing to worry about and began to sing a parody of the Dire Straits song I’D PUT A BIT OF PLASTER ON MY FINGER, PUT A BIT OF PLASTER ON YOUR THUMB. He came running back wondering where he’d cut himself. I had to explain to him that that’s the lyrics of a song. Once he’d worked it out he went on his way quite happily.

But I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that if I can write parodies of modern (well, for me anyway) songs while I’m asleep I’m doing really well here. And walking through Nantwich and encountering rock musicians would have been quite a usual occurrence in the mid-70s with a host of garage bands in the area and recording artists like Strife. They were some really good times with the pubs in Nantwich like The Wickstead, The Rifleman and The Bowling Green. There was a time when my friends and I were thrown out of most of the pubs in the town at one time or another.

There was a boxing match out in Aston, a girl from our class, whatever her name might have been. We set out in the car to go to see it. It was taking place outside the church. We knew that we had to rush. Nevertheless we arrived late and the fight was under way. It looked as if she had been hurt because she wasn’t her usual lively self for boxing. Her opponent, an older man, was there and they were standing toe to toe trading blows. She was fending off more of his but then she caught him with a beautiful overarm right just as he was trying an overarm right. It was a very painful, tired overarm right as well as if it was her very last effort that she put into it but it made a perfect connection on the point of his jaw and that was him out for the count. She won the competition again but this time it was much closer than it had been in previous attempts so we were going to have to work on why this was the case and do something about it for the next time

What beats me about this is that I actually mentioned the girl’s name. She would have been one of the most unlikely candidates for a competitor in a boxing match (having said that, had any of the girls in my year or thereabouts come up against a male boxer, my sympathy and commiserations would have been entirely with the boxer) but not only that, I don’t think that I’ve ever spent even a minute thinking about this particular girl since I left school. So what’s brought her suddenly to the forefront of my mind?

Later on we’d been sorting out some music concerts. There had been a complaint from one of the washrooms that all of the towels had been used by a certain group wiping the lipstick off their faces after being kissed by thousands of girls so there were no clean towels in the washrooms. A certain guitarist was also there on tour. He was a nightmare to handle as everything had to be absolute perfection but perfection according to his standards. He had no spatial awareness and no awareness of anyone else around him and their feelings and so on. Everything was all about him. It was a very complicated issue to deal with him. He was sacking everyone after the first show, replacing his staff and then firing them again after the second and we just couldn’t keep up with all of the changes. Neither could he. It was beginning to deflect from his show but he wouldn’t have it at all and wouldn’t listen to explanations from anyone that maybe he ought to moderate his unnecessarily high standards in order for a compromise to be made that would mean that everything would go ahead. The more people he upset and the more people he fired, the fewer people he would find who would be willing to work with him

Anyone in the music business would be able to name this guitarist – I did in my dream but I edited it out – whose constant search for perfection has had exactly the opposite effect to that intended. Anyone of any great competence will look at the speed at which our guitarist has been hiring and firing and decide that he’s better off where he is. It’s not at all like Neil Young who has often been criticised because of what is perceived to be the lack of ability of his backing group, Crazy Horse. But as he has said on many occasions, he’s here to have fun and a good time with his mates and make everyone happy, not to launch himself into an eternal quest for the unattainable goal of perfection.

The taxi was late coming for me but it was a lovely drive down to Avranches even if the driver kept the windows closed.

The letter that I had notifying me of my appointment showed a different time from the time that they had noted so I’ve no idea what was happening there.

Anyway, I was eventually seen and the first thing that the doctor did was to rip off the plaster and give me a lecture about having it covered. I felt like a small child up before the headmaster (although where I would find a small child up before the headmaster in that hospital I really don’t know).

So I have to keep it uncovered and let the air get to it, and like it. So far, I’ve managed to avoid not seeing it. How long I can keep that up I really don’t know.

The doctor ran her echograph machine all over my arm right up as far as my armpit, and passed it fit for service. So on the 4th September I’ll know when dialysis will begin.

While I was waiting for my taxi back I bumped into Emilie the Cute Consultant’s sidekick and we exchanged a few words. And then the taxi came for me

All the way back (with the windows closed again) and the taxi driver had to help me up the stairs – something that she found extremely difficult and so did I. Seriously, if my cleaner’s not available to help me it’s going to be a real struggle

First thing that I did back here was to have a very late breakfast. I’d had nothing to eat or drink all day as yet so I was ready for some food.

It was interrupted by the arrival of the nurse. "I was here at 08:20 but must have just missed you"

"Yes" I thought. "And the taxi was late so it was well after 08:30 when we left" but I didn’t say anything.

After breakfast I had a lengthy chat with a friend in the UK. We have a project on the go and that involved some lengthy discussion.

It should also have involved a transfer of money but the battery has gone flat in my card reader so I had to order another and the money will have to wait.

There’s some bad news about this project, but it’s not unexpected so it’s no skin off my nose really. But with having a professional on the job, there are already some considerable savings that have been made so it’s “swings and roundabouts” really.

Liz was on line too so we had a lengthy chat. She was keen to see how today went and what the plans are for the immediate future so I filled her in.

The cleaner was here too and she whizzed through the apartment.

Once everyone had gone and things had calmed down I went for a very late hot chocolate and a slice of ginger cake. And it really was delicious as I said.

But now I know that I can substitute things in my basic recipe, how about a coffee cake? What about strawberry cordial instead of water to make a strawberry cake, with real strawberries in there somewhere?

But this is how most recipes work – trial and error. Sometimes some of these experiments work in spades and other times they are absolute disasters.

After that I made some naan dough and put most of it to freeze but kept one ball for tonight’s leftover curry, which was delicious as usual and the naan was perfection.

But now I’m off to bed. I have no plans for the next two days so I might even do some work. But right now I’m listening to a live concert by a Canadian group called “Black Mountain” so I’ll be going nowhere for a while

But on the subject of Liz and “filling in” I’m reminded of the guy who went for an interview for a job at the Ritz Hotel in London
"You should fill in our questionnaire" said the receptionist
"Very good" he replied, and went outside and beat up the doorman.

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Monday 30th August 2024 – IT’S A BANK …

… holiday in the UK today and so in accordance with my usual prior-established principles, I have emulated my namesake the mathematician and done three-fifths of five-eighths of … errr … nothing.

Usually, that would also mean a lie-in too but these days lie-ins, or lies-in, are a thing of the past. What with the nurse coming round to bother me at 08:30 every morning, unless I want her to get into bed with me, I have to be up and about.

So that means going to bed at a reasonably early time and once more, I failed miserably. It might not have been midnight, but it was a long weary while after my target time of 23:00

With all of the stuff that I have to do before I go to bed, I’m surprised that I actually manage to find the time to go to sleep.

But anyway I did manage to make it into bed and I was asleep quickly enough, ready to join in the (af)fray in the morning.

When the alarm went off, I was flat out fast asleep in bed. And so was the dictaphone. By the looks of things I’d fallen asleep in the middle of dictating a dream and left the machine running. So I apologise once more for doubting you, Percy Pengiun.

After having a good wash I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was some kind of conflict between a football club and a group of “Stop Oil” protestors. The “Stop Oil” protestor was eventually arrested and taken to Court where the Judge told him that while he respected the right of everyone to protest, other people also have rights too, including the right to enjoy a peaceful game of football. His rights were no more important than theirs etc. I didn’t get to where the sentence was

That kind of thing surprises me – that I can string together a logical argument while I’m asleep. I just wish that I could do it while I’m awake. But really, these “Stop Oil” protestors are bringing their own movement into disrepute, travelling to demonstrations by aeroplane or car instead of walking or cycling there. And what about the rights of other people, like the right to travel by car?

I was out with some friends. We’d been working in some area so we decided that we’d go to the pub. I was driving and we ended up in this village. I parked the car in the village centre and walked but there was no pub. We went into the local garage to ask the guy there. He knew of someone who was marrying and having a party but that was about everything. He said that he knew of no pub in the village. He had a nice P100 pick-up in there – a black one based on a Mark V Cortina. Someone remembered that there was a pub in the next village so we decided that we’d go there. They ran off. It was my father who got behind the wheel of the car while the others pushed it so that they’d turn it round but they ended up pushing it probably a couple of hundred yards. I had to hobble after them. When I arrived at the car I told them that I’d parked the car where it was because it was convenient for me. I’m not in the state where I can go running after the car that someone is moving around. This kind of thing is going to kill me. They should have a little more consideration for me and my illness. Their response surprised me. They started to complain saying “you mean you have an illness and you don’t know whether it’s eight years or eighty years” and quite a few other things that made me think that they believed that I was malingering. In the end once I’d finally installed myself behind the wheel and finally recovered my breath I turned to them and told them that I’d had enough and was going home. They were free to either carry on, stay here or go back home to Crewe as they wished but I just wanted to go home. I’d had enough

This is rather a familiar story, isn’t it? Regular readers of this rubbish will recall a considerable number of conflicts between my family and me over all kinds of things, many that have spilled over into my nocturnal ramblings. I mean – it’s over 30 years since I removed myself from the sphere of influence of my family so why does it keep on cropping up these days?

So now you understand why football matches at Stranraer are taken quite seriously by the footballers and they refuse to participate in what I call these “distraction” games. There was always the problem with playing with teams like Caledonian Braves and – what’s the other one – Knights of Columbia or whatever they are called, provided that they are quite sensible about it, that they dress like footballers, play like footballers and act like footballers in place of people who want to play politics … fell asleep here …

Funnily enough, I saw a football match the other day involving Caledonian Braves, a team that plays in the Scottish Lowland League. I can’t say that I remember too much about it so I can’t have been impressed

So did I dictate the dream … "no you didn’t" – ed … about – I have porridge here in my mind I’ve no idea why – about the guy who had an emotional breakdown for some reason or other while he was being questioned. No-one really knew and neither did he. He went off to speak to someone to talk about this emotional crisis that he’d had in the middle of one of these interviews.

People having emotional crises in the middle of interviews is always a recipe for disaster. There are never any winners in that scenario.

Isabelle the Nurse was in chat mode again today and had a lot to say about absolutely nothing at all. So much so that she forgot to swipe my health card for the end of the Month and had to come back later in the day to do the paperwork

After she left I made breakfast and read some more of my book. This week’s book is the story of a walk along the Icknield Way in 1906 or some date like that and it’s very interesting.

The author here talks about ley lines without even saying what they are or understanding what they are supposed, according to some people, to do. But he figured out their purpose well enough to be able to make a few comments that attracted later supporters of that theory

And the derision of a few opponents, I shouldn’t wonder.

There was a ‘phone call today too. The surgeon who performed my operation has heard my story about the bill and is outraged. He (via his secretary) was pleading with me to keep the appointment on the 10th of September and he’ll “see what he can do”.

That’s two groups of people now seeing what they can do, but by the looks of things they don’t seem to be doing enough

So having spent the morning sorting out the hospital bookings, this afternoon I’ve been footballing.

My Scottish ground-hopping expeditions took me to Irvine for the local Marymass derby between Irvine Meadow and Irvine Victoria.

It’s a cup match with a difference – the Meadow are about 50 places higher than the Vics in the league and the game was being played at the Meadow’s ground. And so it was odds-on a Meadow victory

But form counts for nothing in the cup and the Vics surprisingly ran out 2-1 victors. And that upset just about everyone except for a band of about 150 Vics supporters in the “away” end who braved the torrential rain to cheer on their team.

My cleaner stuck her head in to bring back the rest of the medication and to take my order for LeClerc’s cheese. And some fresh ginger too. I fancy making a ginger cake.

She sent me a photo later of her ginger plant. She had some ginger once that sprouted roots so she planted it – and it grew. It smells lovely apparently when you rub the leaves.

There were some bills to pay too today. I don’t want to forget those as they are important.

Apart from that, I’ve been radioing. I’ve been organising the folders and carrying on with one of my projects. It’s slow going but it won’t be done at all if I don’t do it

Tea tonight was a delicious stuffed pepper – one of the frozen batch. And that reminds me – when I send off my order later this week I’ll need four peppers, not two. Stocks are running low.

So that’s that for now. I’m ready for bed. Back to work tomorrow so I need to find some motivation from somewhere

But talking about the football, I was told a story about the match at Penybont this afternoon where Aberystwyth Town are said to have turned in one of the worst performances by any Welsh Premier team.
Tow lads from Aberystwyth were caught climbing over the fence at the ground at half-time but the police caught them.
"It’s no good, lads. Climbing the fence won’t help you" said one of the coppers. "You’ll just have to climb back again"
"What?" asked one of the boys. "And watch another 45 minutes of that rubbish?"

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Sunday 25th August 2024 – TONIGHT’S PIZZA …

… was the best that I’ve ever made.

And having made some good ones just recently, that is certainly saying something.

In fact, all in all, it was rather a good day today, helped by the fact that I had something like a decent sleep last night.

It might have been after 23:00 when I finally crawled into bed but it was before midnight. And with a lie-in until 08:00 promised, that meant that at long last I was in line for a eight-hour sleep. And how I’ve needed one of those after all of the events just recently.

After I’d finished writing my notes last night I had some dictating of the radio notes to do. And after dictating the notes for the additional tracks for the two programmes that were half-prepared, I found that … errr … that was all. As far as dictation goes, I’m bang up-to-date at long last.

There are half a dozen or so programmes that need the notes writing, so that gaps in the sequence are filled in, but that aside, I’ve now prepared programmes up to 25th April next year.

If I can keep ahead like this, or even maybe extend the distance at which I’m in advance, I’ll have a nice head of programmes to keep going after I shuffle off this mortal coil.

And so at 23:45, having managed not to knock myself or cut myself or bleed anywhere, I crawled into bed, wrapped the quilt around me and that was that.

With the alarm set for 08:00 it was a big disappointment to awaken at 07:20. But even though I couldn’t go back to sleep there was no danger of my leaving my stinking pit at that time of morning. as the old song goes,
"REMEMBERING MORNINGS, SHILLING SPENT
IT MADE NO SENSE TO LEAVE THE BED
THE SAD OLD DAYS THEY CAME AND WENT
GIVING WAY TO FRUITFUL YEARS"
and while you’re at it, listen to Glenn Cornick’s magnificent bass line.

So at 08:00 I arose from the Dead and headed off to the bathroom. And at 08:20 I was washed and dressed and back at the computer listening to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We were having an expensive meal at a hotel. There were quite a few of us and we were on several tables. The boss seemed to be micro-managing the meal, telling people what they could eat and what they couldn’t eat, which was extremely annoying, leading to quite a lot of confrontation. When it came to the dessert, one of the desserts was “profiteroles”. There was a plate of eight mixed profiteroles and there were eight people at each table. When the server began to deliver the food he turned round ad said “huit profiteroles” and pointed to one of the tables. I heard someone at the table say “why is he allowed to choose the dessert for us?”. They said “there are eight profiteroles. Can you not choose your dessert. It makes no difference that he said which dessert this table could have. He’s nothing to do with this table”. Basically, we were told “this is what we were going to have, and like it!”. I stood up and told the server to take that away, come back here to interview each one of us and find out what each one of us wants”. He became extremely aggressive so I took two paces towards him, he took two paces towards me so that was it! It was a confrontation that had him in the end running away through the kitchen and outside with me chasing after him. I thought to myself “I’m going to get him organised and then once I’ve sorted him out I’ll be coming back here and getting hold of the boss to tell him what I thought of all of this” because I was now in one of these fighting moods that actually take quite a lot of stopping.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a dream where I’ve really been enraged. At one time they were a regular feature, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but I thought that I’d calmed down since the last time and that it would be permanent. But it’s obviously not to be. However, I’m continuing to be impressed that I can remember big and complicated words, like “profiteroles” for example, when I’m asleep. And not being too afraid to speak my rather colourful mind when it comes to addressing my boss is a regular feature that occurred more than once in the real World too.

Isabelle the Nurse was quite chatty this morning and we had a lengthy chat about nothing whatever while she sorted out my legs. She was telling me that it was the annual Melon market today. I can’t say that I’m too disappointed to miss it.

While I was making breakfast afterwards, my former neighbour who is now in a Home ‘phoned me. I think that she wanted her morale pumping up because she doesn’t seem to be coping too well with her new situation. We chatted for about 15 minutes and I hope that she felt a little better afterwards.

After breakfast we had football – Stranraer v Elgin City. And that was a game of two halves if ever there was one. It finished 1-1 but the first half was all Elgin on the attack and the second half was all Stranraer.

There has never been such a dramatic change in a game. I don’t know what Stranraer’s manager put in their half-time cup of tea but I wouldn’t mind a pint of it.

Later on I tacked the recordings that I’d done before going to bed. They are now edited and the programmes are completed.

While I was at it, I had a look at the back-up. There’s a big USB key permanently in a USB slot in this computer and I back up to it at least once a day. It’s pretty nearly full now but there’s a lot of stuff on there that’s superfluous so I went through and weeded out everything that has since been overtaken by events

Over the past few weeks I’ve been collecting music – soundtracks and the like – that I’ve downloaded to the computer. I’ve been going through it this afternoon, converting it to an acceptable format listening to it and chopping up some of it into sound-bytes.

There are tons to go at that have been collected for quite some time so this is a long-term project but I have a feeling that it’s a losing battle. I seem to be downloading it quicker than I can process it.

Something else that I did was to go one better than Dave Crosby – maybe because I had the ‘flu for Christmas. Although I’m not likely to be looking in my mirror and seeing a police car any time soon.

The pizza was, as I mentioned, totally delicious. The dough was really light and fluffy and this new vegan cheese that my cleaner found the other week seems to melt better than the last stuff.

So let’s hope that she can find some more of it for next time

So running rather late yet again, I’m going to bed ready to Fight the Good Fight on Monday.

But while we’re on the subject of haircuts … "well, one of us is" – ed … there was the story of the one-legged man who went for a haircut at the barber’s.
The barber unfortunately snipped the man’s ear and the man began to complain
To try to ease the tension the barber began some light-hearted chat. "I don’t think that I’ve seen you here before …" he began
"You haven’t" said the man. "I lost this leg in the War"

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Tuesday 20th August 2024 – I WAS GOING …

… to say that Day Seven of my Summer School passed uneventfully.

However, after my hot chocolate I came in here and sat down in my comfy chair ready to start work and the next thing that I knew was that it was 19:07. I’d been out like a light for well over an hour and hadn’t felt a thing.

One thing that can be said though and on which many of us are agreed is that we are cracking on at a hell of a pace.

The conclusion was reached that there are some people attending the regular courses who are maybe not as committed as the rest. Those who give up several weeks of their Summer and pay the money to attend the course are amongst the most committed and most enthusiastic and hence push things along that little bit quicker.

But it’s all at quite a cost. And I’m not talking about money either. I’m totally exhausted and there are another three days to go before I can have a week’s break.

It might possibly help matters if I manage to have an early night one of these days but last night was another one of these interminable evenings where I seem to have so much to do and not enough time to do it.

By the time that I’d finished whatever it was that I have to do, it’s long past my bedtime and I’m eating my way into the next day. This kind of thing is doing me no good at all.

So eventually I managed to stagger into bed once everything had been completed. I was soon under the covers and once more, I was out for the count. No need to even start my little bedtime mantra because I was away with the fairies almost straight away.

At some point in the middle of the night I awoke, but I’ve no idea what time it was. A strange, random fact is that since I’ve stopped wearing that new watch that I bought a couple of months ago I’ve not felt the urge to scratch my arms. That’s really quite strange. I think that I must be allergic to whatever the watch strap is made from.

So for that reason, I didn’t notice the time at all

Instead I turned over, tucked myself down under the quilt and went back to sleep until the alarm went off.

After I switched off the alarm I went into the bathroom to sort myself out, and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. The Police in North Wales were investigating a big drugs ring in North Wales. One of the people whom they actually pulled in in this respect was someone who played for one of the bigger clubs but has recently been transferred. He was caught with a considerable amount of drugs that he was trying to move around the country and was imprisoned practically straight away. From there on the Police were working really hard to dismantle his ring and to catch who else was in it if they could. They were interviewing some man who seems to have been involved in it for three years. Interestingly they had come across a car with three women in it. It turned out that these three women were Russian and worked as interpreters so naturally the Police became interested in them to find out exactly what they were doing and why they were travelling, where they were going. They speculated that these women were officially listed as dead in the Russian people’s work so that they cold move around quietly without being controlled and use their skills to infiltrate organisations or societies, things like that, where they could be expected to extract certain information, submit it to Russia and move on to the next case. The Police felt that they were on the edge of breaking some kind of case in some kind of record numbers. This would be a huge feather in their cap for their Force.

As for the footballer, I could tell you much more about him but this isn’t the kind of event with which too many people would wish to have their identity associated, even if it were in a dream and bore no relation to reality. But it was certainly interesting. As for the three women, that was a well-known ploy back in the olden days for someone to acquire a birth certificate and hence a passport in the name of a person who had died. But after the STONEHOUSE AFFAIR that particular loophole was blocked which was a shame because I had … errr … plans…

Later on I was working in some office. There was an issue with regard to the electricity that we were using. The bills were coming out really complicatedly and expensive. When the Accounts girl complained to the Electricity Company she was accused of being nothing but a lousy American cheapskate. Being British, she was immediately offended. But that gave her the idea then that if she converted all of the temperatures and all of the figures in the office to Centigrade instead of Fahenheit the consumption of electricity would be a lot less and that would spike the guns of this company. As well as that, they had te habit of using one of our car-parking spaces. That privilege was immediately revoked. All the labels on our appliances were changed from Fahrenheit to Centigrade throughout the office. Several Americans didn’t understand it. I had to ring up the File Repository later on about the disposal of a file, the origin was someone called R. McHarrie, a young, tall, slender white girl with long light brown hair dressed in Office Manager-type of clothing.

Can you imagine anything worse than being described as a “lousy American cheapskate”? I know that if anyone were ever to think that I were American I’d be outraged. I’m not sure how changing the labels from Fahrenheit to Centigrade would reduce the electricity bills but the fact that “several Americans” wouldn’t “understand it” is something with which we would all agree. And I’m impressed that I could remember a name like R McHarrie when I’m asleep.

It’s Isabelle doing the nursing duties now for the next seven days, and I don’t mind her cheerful chatter quite so much. We “exchanged pleasantries” and she wants me to wash my puttees tonight. So yet more work to make me late going to bed.

After she left I had breakfast and then I had a few ‘phone calls to make.

The first was to the taxi company. There have been one or two extra trips added to the list just recently and I needed to make sure that they would come to pick me up. And that reminds me – I need to collect a taxi voucher for one of the trips. I mustn’t forget to ring up to request one from the doctor concerned

The second call was to that evil clinic where The Beast of the Hôpital de la Baie hangs out. They want me to go for another appointment on 10th September so I phoned them to say that I wouldn’t be going.
"I’ll find you another date" said the secretary
"It won’t do any good because I wouldn’t come" I replied
"But you have to come" she wailed. "It’s the post-operative review"
"I’m sorry" I said "but I’m not setting one single foot inside your “maudit établissement”" and I told her my tale of woe about the bill

She was totally astonished, as have been everyone else to whom I’ve recounted my little story. And having told it now to the surgeon’s secretary, it’ll spread like wildfire. Yes, the French have a saying – la vengeance, c’est un plât qui se mange mieux froid – “revenge is a dish that’s best eaten cold”. And I have the patience to play this out for as long as I think it necessary

There was no Welsh homework but nevertheless I went over a few things, and then I went to the lesson. We have now acquired a student from that well-known outpost of Welsh culture … errr … The Czech Republic. It’s becoming quite an interesting course.

In fact, the lockdown was the best thing that ever happened to the language. With the College that provides my courses, when the courses were face-to-face they had on average 100 students per year from North-East Wales. With lockdown and on-line courses, the first year they had 1038 students from all over the World.

During the pauses I was chipping away at these radio notes with the intention of finishing them off later but instead, at the end of the course I crashed out. And while I was out I was away on my travels. There was something going on about being in a house with a conservatory and to reach the hilly land behind the house the only way was to climb through the venting window in the roof of the conservatory. I had that down to a fine art, even as far as wearing my shoes inside an oversize pair of wellingtons when it snowed, which t did quite often. But the conservatory soon became too public with other people in there so climbing out of the roof window became more difficult and led to confusion about whose shoes were whose when it came to climbing out of the window

That was a complicated procedure but it did remind me of my family home in Davenport Avenue in Crewe which did in fact have a glass conservatory of the type in this dream. But at the back of our house instead of hills we had the Mornflake Oats factory and then the railway line to Shrewsbury.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg followed by another slice of this delicious apple crumble. That was a lovely recipe that has produced a really good topping and I’ll have to make this again

Back in here I finished off the radio programme. I now have my two halves but tomorrow morning I’ll have to choose the final track and write the notes for it.

So having finished my notes I’m going to wash my puttees – or, at least, put them to soak – and then go to bed ready to fight the good fight tomorrow. In the evening I have a medical appointment which ought to be fun. Would I have a neighbour in the next cubicle as the one that I had last time?
Once I overheard a discussion between the doctor and his patient. The patient was bemoaning his lack of … errr … success.
"What do you expect?" asked the doctor. "You’re eighty-three"
"My friend Joe is eighty-seven" he said "And he tells me that he makes love to his wife twice a day"
"So what?" asked the doctor. "If it bothers you, you could always tell him the same thing"
"Maybe I could" he replied. "but I don’t know his wife as well as all that."

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