Tag Archives: lie in

Wednesday 24th January 2018 – I HAD AN UNEXPECTED …

… lie-in this morning. It seems that the telephone battery went flat during the night and so it didn’t ring. Instead of a 06:45 awakening, it was something more like 08:45 when I left my stinking pit. It’s a good job that that hadn’t happened yesterday, isn’t it?

And I’d been on my travels too during the night – reliving parts of a nocturnal ramble that I had undertaken a good while ago. I was at one of the railway termini in South London (Victoria? Waterloo?) and needed to travel to Leicester (why, I have no idea). So instead of going on the Tube, I took the bizarre decision of crossing London on the bus, despite the heavy traffic on the streets. So I walked away from the Underground station that we have visited before on a nocturnal ramble and leapt aboard the bus, with the conductor telling me that it might take TWO HOURS. We ended up going down Euston Road on a high ridge looking northwards to some kind of rural view (which we have seen before) quite unlike anything that you might see around Kilburn and Kensal Green. I cant remember who I was with now but she insisted that we stop for a meal, even though time was running out. And there she was, gaily chatting away quite nonchalantly with her food and the sands of time were disappearing. It all fitted in with another nocturna ramble, where I was on a train heading somewhere but ended up at Crewe Station instead.

With no reason to go out early, I could have my medication and eat breakfast. But I didn’t feel like doing very much at all. In the end I made a start on the pile of photos that I mentioed earlier, trying to sort them, but my heart wasn’t in it and I was easily distracted.

When I was at Coutances yesterday I saw some more packets of soup that I could eat – no milk proteins or anything like that. “9 vegetables passed through a sieve” so I bought a few packets. This lunchtime I made one up. And while it isn’t the best soup that I’ve ever tasted, it went down quite nicely with some more bread. Thickening the soups out with this small pasta and bulghour is definitely the way to go.

This afternoon I finally knuckled down to work and scanned all of the paperwork from yesterday. Tomorrow when I come back from the shops I’ll send off for my new licence. I hope that I have all of the paperwork now.

Many people have asked me why I keep a detailed blog like this, and I always answer that there are several reasons.

When I used to work on rebuilding the farm and installing all of the solar panels and wind turbines and the like, it kept people up-to-date with that I was up to. Believe it or not, there were many people who were interested
When I’m on my travels, it lets people know what I’m doing and where I am, so that they have plenty of time to head for the hills if I’m on my way in their direction.
With my health issues, it lets people know that I’m still here and still alive. And if there’s a silence for a couple of days, like there was in Verdun last March, they can come to look for me and mak sure that I’m okay.
I’m the world’s worst at self-motivation. And so if I put down o here that I’m going to do something the next day, then I’m obliged to do it so that I don’t look silly, as well as being some kind of reminder.

But it serves another purpose too which is much more important. It’s an indexed blog and I can save keywords. And then I can search the keywords and see the entries that relate to those words. And that way I can tell, for example, exactly how many times I went to the Bank since 2009, and more importantly, the text of the blog will tell me why I went.

So when I receive a rather aggressive letter from the Bank, as I did yesterday, about something that they think that I have failed to do, I can search through my index (which takes about half a second) and tell them in an even more aggressive reply of the FIFTEEN times that I have been to the Bank since 27th April 2017, whom I saw and the reason for each of the visits. All there, documented in black and white.

And if they don’t like my reply, which I’m sure they won’t, they can close down my accounts and send me back all of my money. And then I’ll go and look for a competent Bank where my custom will be welcomed.

Having written my letter, I went out for a walk.

Today I took the route by the city walls – but on the pavement, not on the footpath below due to the weather conditions.

And we can see that our crane has now moved from the side of the quay down to the entrance to the port area where there are the lock gates. I imagine that it’s those that are going to be replaced.

And I wonder what that might mean for the port.

But there’s a thing over there.

They have been building a new block of flats at the port for as long as I can remember and they are slowly reaching their finish. There’s a radio aerial been erected and today there was a guy climbing up there connecting the wires.

A hard hat, but no safety harness, not colleague to assist, no nothing. Just imagine that in the UK Nanny State with all of the Health and Safety restrictions.

Back here I made myself a coffee – but promptly fell asleep for an hour instead so it was cold. And then I’ve spent the time, apart from the half-hour on the guitar, re-reading my letter and tweaking it a little. When writing something off the cuff like that, it’s always a good idea to go for a walk and a think before sending it.

I had some grated vegan cheese left over from the other day so I made myself a pile of mashed potatoes and assorted vegetables all drowned in a cheese sauce. And delicious it was too. And then the evening walk around the headland.

And I hope that the alarm works tonight.

Wednesday 17th January 2018 – AS PROMISED …

… yesterday, here’s a photo of my repaired saucepan lid.

I’m quite impressed with this – almost as impressed as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin. You can’t tell that it’s a repair at all and the knob actually matches the surround of the saucepan lid.

But ohhh! what an exciting life that I lead that this is the highlight of my week, hey?

As I said yesterday, today was going to be a relaxing day. And I was right too. In fact, when the alarm went off, I was in no hurry whatever to leave my stinking pit and it was more like 08:30 – never mind 07:30 – when I decided to arise.

I’d been on my travels too. In a car where the alternator light was flashing on and off. My father reckoned that the alternator was scrap but I checked it over all the same. The fan belt was fine, so I took the alternator off and started to dismantle it. It was then that I noticed that the rotor and points (on an alternator!) were rusted solid so I gave them a good soaking in penetrating oil and attacked them with a wire brush. That seemed to make the rotor turn and the points open and close so I asked my father if that might make it work. But he gave one of his usual evasive, non-committal remarks and that really was that. No chance of him ever giving any positive advice.

Once the medication and breakfast were out of the way and I had a little relax, I started to work. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, there are several hard drives, either from old computers or external drives, going back to … errr … 1998 with all kinds of photographs on them, all confused and jumbled all over the place. So this morning I spent a couple of hours carrying on with the little project that I have on the go of sorting them out and trying to make one consistent and coherent library.

And it’s not easy either, because it wasn’t until 2007 that I started this current numbering scheme. You’ll see above that the photo of my saucepan lid is numbered 1801025.

18 is the year
01 is the month
025 is the number – in consecutive order. And if it overflows, as it sometimes does, the first digit becomes an “a”, or a “b” and so on.

But prior to 2007 they were numbered in some kind of haphazard order, and sorting by date doesn’t help because on at least one old disk I seem to have saved them as “date modified” rather than “date created”.

So I’ll have to plod on

And that’s by no means all.

A huge pile of paperwork from last year was sorted and weeded through, and then filed away. Three or four of them actually need some kind of action, and rather smart-ish too. So tomorrow I really must organise the printer and find a way to make the cable plug stay in.

I went through my e-mails both on my server and on the EU’s intranet system and discarded well over 100 of them that were serving no useful purpose. And I’ll go back one day sometime soon and create a few directories to tidy them up properly.

The telephone has taken a bit of a bashing too. A few things there needed to be sorted out so I’ve done some of that too. There’s still a lot more that needs doing. And then there was the half-hour on the guitar, which ended with me dramatically remembering how to play the bass lines to “All Right Now”.

As the skunk said when the wind changed – “it all comes back to me now”.

For tea, my third meal of the day, I had mashed potatoes with cheese, vegetables and a veggie burger with gravy. And I think that I made far too much because I feel totally bloated.

Two walks too. It was nice when I went out this afternoon but there was a storm brewing in the distance over by Jersey and it started to rain when I was about 400 metres from home.

It rained for the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening too, but after I’d been out on my evening walk for 5 minutes, the rain stopped and the sky cleared.

So let’s hope that the weather improves because it’s Thursday, and my walk right across town and up the hill to LIDL.

Sunday 14th January 2018 – REGULAR READERS …

… of this rubbish will recall telling me … "on many occasions" – ed … that I ought to get out more.

And so with this in mind I went out this afternoon in the beautiful sunlight to St Pair.

US St Pair were playing AS Gavray so I headed to the stadium in the rue du Croissant.

And I found a really nice stadium, well-maintained with a grandstand and even a social club and pie hut – but of course it goes without saying that both of those were closed.

And furthermore, the match wasn’t played there anyway.

One of the players pointed me in the direction of the second pitch here, which was nothing like as comfortable as the first. And there was a pie hut here too, which was likewise closed.

As for the match itself, for the first 20 minutes or so it was all St Pair and they could have had several chances to take the lead had their finishing been any better.

But gradually Gavray hauled themselves back into the match and started to look dangerous. As a result the St Pair trainer made an early substitution, which had the desired effect as with almost his first touch of the ball, he lobbed the goalkeeper beautifully to open the scoring.

In the second half Gavray came out of the blocks quicker and soon equalised. And after that, the match swung back and fro. Unbelievably, in the middle of their best spel, Gavray conceded a second goal from a breakaway with a swerving shot that totally deceived the keeper and instead of parrying it to the floor, he parried it into his own net.

If that wasn’t bad enough, what happened next was appalling.

St Pair broke upfield again and in the penalty area, a Gavray defender madea brilliant tackle to take the ball away from the attacker. Unbelievably, the referee pointed for a penalty. He was the only one in the ground who thought that it was a penalty – even the St Pair trainer with whom I had been chatting, was astonished. He was as convinced as I was that it was a fair tackle.

So 3-1 down out of nothing.

Gavray were well-inspired by this and soon scored a second goal, a really good header from an excellent cross. And they had the ball in the net a third time, but the goal was disallowed for offside.

But while they were pushing forward for the equaliser they were caught on the break again ans St Pair scored a fourth with an overhead kick that, quite frankly, could have gone absolutely anywhere. I think that the scorer was more surprised than anyone else.

But there ere a few really good moments of skill from several players on the pitch – but they eren’t consistent with it. They would do something really impressive at one moment, and then make a hash of something simple.

However, this was the first match that I have seen where teams played the ball early (but still not early enough for my liking) and also here the teams were very quick on cosing down the opposing attackers. It’s a feature of the modern game that defenders seem to give attackers too much space and too much time on the ball, and it doesn’t suit me at all.

FInal word must go to the referee, who, apparently, seemed to be refereeing a totally different match than the one that everyone else as watching.

And so much for my lie-in. When I awoke it was still dark and I didn’t dare look at the time.

When I finally plucked up the courage, quite a while later, it was just 07:46. No chance of my leaving the bed at that time – I had a little relax and finally crawled out at 08:45. Still not what I wanted though.

Nevertheless, I’d been on my travels during the night. Living in some spurious accommodation on the edge of Nantwich at the Welsh Row end. And having to visit the centre of the town, I set off quite jauntily and confidently. My route took me past the Swine Market and up the High Street into the Square. Of course the Square was nothing like what it really is – just a huge open grassy plain on a couple of different levels with some impressive brick-built buildings across on the other side. I only had my phone camera with me at the time so I couldn’t do much with it so I went over to the buildings for a closer look. The basements told the true story though. The buildings had been thrown together any old how, with rising damp so evident that it was actually dripping back into the basement. Some old couple had followed me down into the basement and there was something not quite right about them. It made me uneasy, especially when the old guy started to brandish around like a weapon a large piece of heavy metal rod. I was trying to take these photos and yet every one that I took seemed to have him brandishing his metal rod around in a very menacing manner.

After breakfast I didn’t do much – after all, it IS Sunday. I finished off the soup for lunch and then went to the football.

Back here afterwards, I made myself a hot chocolate and tried to keep warm.

I’ve had a vegan pizza for tea and been for another walk. And my thirst is back. That’s usually a warning sign.

But I’ll be off to bed in a minute. It’s going to be a tiring morning tomorrow.

Monday 1st January 2018 – HAPPY NEW YEAR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I’ve also downloaded Java onto my laptop.

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

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

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

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

Tuesday 26th December 2017 – PHEW!

What a night!

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

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

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

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

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

But a weird thing later.

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

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

Am I heading for a relapse?

Sunday 24th December 2017 – BY THE TIME …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whatever next?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then I crashed out on the sofa.

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

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

I wonder what the doctor will have to say tomorrow.

Sunday 10th December 2017 – NOW THAT WAS …

… an exciting football match.

A quick review of the Manche District football website this morning revealed that USM Donville, bottom of the District League Division 3 without a single point, were at home this afternoon against ELS Carpiquet, next-to-bottom with just one point.

The match was to be played on Donville’s seaside pitch in a howling gale (yes, the wind is back), and so that sounded like something too good to miss.

So grabbing my thermos flask (because there’s no pie-hut there) I set off.

They were right about the howling gale, although no-one had mentioned the squally showers (luckily there’s a good raincoat in Caliburn).

And as for the game, it was better than I had expected it to be, even though thewind spoiled the action somewhat. Carpiquet were in fact the better side – more organised and more skilful on the ball, and I bet that, just like me, they were surprisd to find themselves 2-0 down at half-time.

One goal was from a breakaway upfield, and the second was a rather unfortunate wind-assisted goal. A high ball forward, the keeper came out with plenty of time to clear it, but the ball hung up in the wind and dropped shrt. With the keeper miles off hi line in no-man’s land (or “no person’s land” for those of you who remember the legendary Turdi de Hatred) an advancing Donville player was lucky enough to reach the ball first.

Carpiquet pulled one back later in the game, which was no susprise, but they couldn’t push on to find an equaliser. So Donville earned their first points this afternoon.

I’d had a good night last night. Off on my travels down some muddy track on an old industrial estate, where there were several ERF B10 lorries in various states of dismantlement. Not an unusual sight for someone brought up in South Cheshire, you might think. But this was in Canada. And later on, some girl was showing me her red Cortina 2000E – the inner sills, outer sills and floor shuts were rotted away and she wanted to repair them. Having repaired dozens of these (and dismantled hundreds) I started to explain it to her, but she seemed completely disinterested. That surprised me, because to do it properly is a rather complicated process.

No chance of my leaving the bed at 06:45 or whatever stupid time it was when I awoke. 0p:00 was much more like it. A late breakfast and a good relax – what more does anyone want on a Sunday?

After lunch I went off to the football, and when I arrived back here my little furry friend Gribuoille, the long-haired ginger cat, waw waiting on his windowsill. He had a good stroke.

Tea was a vegan pizza as usual, and then a walk in the dark around the headland, just for a change.

Tomorrow I have to do some shopping – I forgot the tomatoes at the weekend.

Sunday 3rd December 2017 – THE ONE PROBLEM …

… about going to bed early is that there’s a tendency to wake up early. We all know this and we are all prepared for it, but even so, being wide-awake at 01:30 is rather an extreme example.

And so, after a couple of miserable hours of being awake and not being able to go back to sleep, I was resigned to being still there when dawn broke.

Nevertheless, I did manage to go back to sleep, and even managed to go a-wanderding.

We started off in a very rare coach – a “P” (as in 1975)-registered Duple Viceroy-bodied coach but fitted with a MAN diesel engine (in the days when the only foreign-engined coaches on the UK roads were the very occasional Volvo B58s) and how after about 30 years the company was considering upgrading it to a more modern one, and there was I hoping that I would be chosen to drive it.
From there we passed to much more exciting things. Some young guy was arrested for belong to some kind of secret organisation -and these people were possessed of a certain power in that firstly they could fly, and secondly they could change identity with anyone of a similar grade in their organisation. how they did that was to hold up their hads with a number of fingers visible – the number of fingers visible being the grade to which they belonged. Anyone of a similar grade seeing the sign would hold up a similar number of fingers and they would exchange identities. This young guy escaped from police custody and there was a hue and cry, but he succeeded in exchanging identities with several people, including the policean who was chasing him and taking his girlfriend as part of the deal.

It was 09:20 when I finally crawled out of bed. That was much more like it for a Sunday.

However, that kind of behaviour means that a great deal of the morning has gone – and with it my plans for (thinking about) tidying up the apartment. So why is it that when your living accommodation is spotlessly clean and tidy, no-one ever comes to visit; but when your place is like a disgusting tip because you’ve been too ill to clean it for the last three weeks, half of the building comes to call?

After lunch, I had a shower and then I hit the road. It’s Liz’s birthday very soon so we were having a little party. I’d picked up some chocolates for her from the manufacturer in town.

The road were greasy and muddy, and Caliburn is in a right filthy mess now. But we all had a good chat and Liz had made some vegan meat loaf, with enough left over to make a doggy bag for me.

But I didn’t stay too long, because I’m not up to much just now. I came home, clutching a Christmas present. And I can guess what it is.

Back here, I went straight to bed. No walk tonight and no surfing about on the internet. I’m definitely feeling the strain. Let’s hope I have a better day tomorrow.

Sunday 26th November 2017 – AFTER LAST NIGHT’S …

… early night, I was wide awake at … err … 04:50.

But badger that for a game of soldiers. I stayed in bed and tried my best to go back to sleep. And it must have worked because I was off on my travels, as a black boy living in a white family, that might even have been my own. I know that I’m very different from the rest of my siblings, but this is being ridiculous.

09:42 when I crawled out of bed. That’s much more like it. And a 10:30 breakfast – that’s even better.

But here’s some bad news – Altavista, the company that provides me with my Usenet newsreader service, seems to have gone offline. I’m rather lost without that and I hope that it comes back on line pretty soon.

With a late breakfast, it was a late lunch too. And then I went out for a walk. I should have gone out to find a footy match but I wasn’t really in the mood.

We’re having more of these uusual, clear weather conditions again.

Something out on the skyline caught my eye, and the camera and zoom lens told me that it was the marker lights and buoys on the rocks just offshore from the Iles de Chausey. I’ve never seen them as clear as this before.They were quite impressive.

And it was a quiet walk – not very many people around and no-one wanted to chat.

Having had what is becoming my regular afternoon snooze, I made a pizza again. And I dp like this idea of putting pepper on the topping before the cheese. It gives it a lovely kick.

No chance of going for a walk this evening though. It’s absolutely pouring down. I’m going to stay in and have an early night. Make myself redya for the start of yet another week.

Sunday 19th November 2017 – I KNEW …

… that I would suffer for my exertions yesterday, and today was one of the worst days that I’ve had just recently.

And I had a lie-in too. 7:15 when I awoke but badger that for a game of soldiers. More like 08:30 whe I crawld out of bed. I’d been on my travels too, but don’t ask me where because it disappeared right out of my head.

Having had an early night and a good lie-in, you might have thought that I was fit for anything. But that was far from the truth. It was all that I could muster to get off the sofa and go to eat breakfast. And then I sat around all morning doing very little. I couldn’t even manage the tidying up that I had promised myself that I would do.

Lunch was a struggle and thn in the afternoon I crashed out completely. And when I awoke, I couldn’t even go out for my afternoon walk.

It was a late tea . Another excellent pizza – putting pepper on it doesn’t half improve the flavour. And I managed to crawl out for a walk afterwards. I have to force myself to make an effort.

So now it’s an early night again and I hope that I’ll feel better in the morning. At leasr my head cold seems to be quieting down.

12th November 2017 – I’M DRENCHED.

I was going to say that I’m all wet, and no-one would disagree whatever with that comment.

It’s Sunday today and so I had a good lie-in. I’d been on my travels too. With Nerina in fact, roaming around the streets to the south side of Hungerford Road in Crewe looking for a supermarket calle Macksie’s where we were going for lunch. I had a vague idea where it was – somewhere off to the north of Hungerford Road but I couldn’t think of where it might be and no-one else whom we asked knew either. We ended up in a Court listening to a couple of cases and Nerina was showing her boredom. I could understand that because what we had heard to date wasn’t exactly setting our lives on fire, but there was one case coming up that would be intensely interesting and I was really looking forward to it.

It was about 08:30 when I came to life (such as it is) but more like 09:20 when I crawled out of my stinking pit. A late breakfast which meant that there wasn’t much of the morning left.

Just for a change, I tidied up the shelves a little in the kitchen and made much more space. There’s actually some empty spaces there now and I reckon that I can do even better than that too.

Never mind lunch – at 13:00 I hit the streets. US Granvillaise are playing Vierzon, one division below, in the French FA Cup, kick-off 14:00. Despite the howling gale-force wind I walked up there – and lost half of my biscuits to the gale.

The two teams were quite evenly matched, but the wind made a mockery of the match. Granville scored an early goal, but Vierzon had two corners, two gusts of wind, and consequently two goals scored direct that eluded the entire defence.

Early in the second half Granville had a corner which the defence could only scramble out from under the bar and which was knocked into the net by a lurking Granville forward. And 5 minutes later, a Granville attacker took advantage of a gust of wind to curl a shot in around the keeper.

After that the wind dropped and we had a torrential downpour that soaked all 816 of us in the crowd. We were drenched. And the match petered out into a 3-2 win for Granville.

But Vierzon were panicking and losing their cool, with the result that quite a few of their players found their way into the referee’s notebook. And With a lopsided notebook like that, it’s no surprise that a couple of Granville players found their way in too – and for some quite inocuous offences too.

After the match I dripped my way back home in time to see the second half of the TNS v Queen of the South match on the laptop.

Pizza for tea of course, and the pepper makes it taste even better. That was followed by Apple crumble and ice cream too.

And now it’s an early night again. Back to work tomorrow, if I haven’t caught flu again, that is.

Thursday 9th November 2017 – I DIDN’T …

… go out for a walk today.

For the simple reason that every time that I looked out of the window, it was raining. With my state of health I’m not setting foot outside in that.

And here’s another thing that I didn’t do either – and that is to get out of the bed with the alarm.

Last night was a reasonably-early night and although i took me a while to go to sleep, eventually I dropped off into one of the deepest sleeps that I have had for a while. And it was so comfortable and it had been so long since I have had such a sleep that I ignored the alarm completely.

I’d been on my travels too. Around Delamere Street in Crewe at the back of the Crosville CLub where there was a marquee on the corner – a Starbucks or something selling branded coffee. Only a small place and there weren’t too many people queueing but there seemed to be some delay in serving. Looking around, I could see that the marquee was full anyway and there was nowhere to sit. Working on the laptop would be impossible and as there was another place across town in Victoria Street where I could sit more comfortably, I decided to go there. By this time it was next morning and I was in bed in a kind of large room on the first floor abve the coffee shop. There were dozens of beds in here scattered all over the room and my bed was in the centre of the room. I had slept half-clothed and as I completed my dressing there were other people in various beds watching me,

It was 08:10 when I left my stinking pit, so it was a late breakfast. And apart from lunch, I’ve not done very much at all. Just sorted out thousands of photos going back over 10 years and more – a task that I had started in 2013 and hadn’t done very much since.

Rosemary was on the phone for 90 minutes this evening And one of the many things that Rosemary mentioned was that this morning she awoke to find that they had the first snow of the winter back in the Auvergne.

Our lengthy chat meant I had a late tea. Oven chips, beans and sausages again. And just as delicious they were too.

And now I’m going to have another early night. It’s a Bank Holiday on Saturday so need to go shopping tomorrow. I hope that the weather will have improved.

Tuesday 7th November 2017 – I’M NOT …

… feeling much better today either.

Despite going to bed early I couldn’t get off to sleep. It was 00:30 and I was still awake. I was still awake at 04:30 too, although I must have been asleep at one point. And I was still awake at 06:00 when the alarm went off.

No possibility of me getting out of bed though. I went back to sleep and it was getting on for 08:00 when I finally crawled out.

During the night I’d been on my travels too. To Oostende where I started off taking a female friend. We went to see a huge cruise ship that had arrived, and although it wasn’t easy to see. There was a tower block in the distance and I was explaining that behind it in the past would have been the huge pile of coal that fuelled the steamships that called here.
From there on, I was with a female partner – it might even have been Nerina – and I was skinning a cat in the same way that you would peel a mushroom. But halfway through the proceedings the cat appeared to recover consciousness. I couldn’t continue and had to pass the cat over to my partner to complete.a

I managed breakfast and then spent the rest of the morning vegetating on the sofa. I did manage to crawl off at one point. I have some Vick vapour rub somewhere – I know that I have because I remember buying it in Leuven – and I wish that I could find it.

Lunch was a struggle. I wasn’t hungry but I do have to eat. It took me quite a while to swallow my sandwich. And then I crashed out again for a few hours on the sofa.

I made tea tonight. I had lentils on the boil for quite a while. In the meantime I made the usual onion, garlic and spice base. In went the mushrooms, the lentils, a tin of mixed veg and some soya cream. I didn’t eat much because I wasn’t hungry. And there’s enough left over for another four meals, all of which went into the freezer.

So now I’m sitting with my feet up. I’ll be in bed very soon if I can clear my nose. A good sleep will do me good, I reckon,

EPIC HALL

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