Tag Archives: crash out

Saturday 6th April 2024 – TODAY WAS ONE …

… of the worst days that I have had for quite a while.

In fact, it’s a day that harks back to the bad old days of winter 2015-16 when I was struggling to come to terms with this illness, or over the summer of 2015 when I’d moved to live in Leuven

It’s a combination of two factors really.
Firstly those stabbing pains that I have nin the sole of the foot returned yesterday and gradually worsened as the day wore on and accelerated through the night.
Secondly I was wide-awake at about 04:30 and there was no hope whatever of going back to sleep.

It totally beats me as to what would have awaken me, and awoken me to such an extent that I couldn’t go back to sleep, even at that time. It must be something quite considerable and important, so I’m surprised that I don’t know what it is.

What I was going to say was that I didn’t have a clue, but I doubt whether there would be many people who would disagree with that diagnosis.

And as it happens, I do have a clue about what time I went to bed last night, and it was late yet again, which is even more surprising considering how early I awoke.

But doing all this paperwork and making all these notes really does take its time and I’m surprised that I’m ever ready to go to bed.

So having settled down to go to sleep I was soon awake again, drifting into alternate fits of wakefulness and sleepiness, but always being awake nevertheless.

And that didn’t stop my imagination working because even though I was in this semi-wakefulness I was still off on my travels.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I’d already been up and about for 15 minutes and was on the point of finishing dressing and going for a wash.

Not before checking the blood pressure though. 16.1/9.9, which compares with last night’s figure of 16.4/10.1 – pretty much the same by the looks of things.

After shovelling down the piles of medication I arranged the room for the nurse and then tidied up the knives and forks etc from the previous evening. If I’m having house guests, which looks pretty much like it in the near future, I need to learn some new habits.

Rather like the man in church praying to God – "Oh God give me patience! And hurry!"

When the nurse came round he plastered me up again but said that this will be the last of them as the foot has healed so well.

As it happens, I think that the foot has certainly healed but not as well as he thinks. Still, he’s the nurse, I’m not.

After he left I made a start on the dictaphone notes from the night and from the morning when I was half-awake. And apart from what seems to be the usual fact these days of getting up, getting dressed and ready to leave the bed but only in my subconscious mind (as far as I know), also later on there was a phantom doorbell to say that the nurse had arrived. That was at 03:00 and so it was extremely unlikely, but nevertheless I found myself getting out of bed for that as well. I’ve no idea what’s going on with me at the moment. This is crazy.

What this next dream was about was a woman who was visiting the doctor’s for some reason. He gave her an examination . Then someone like Ingrid came along. Because she was more ill he gave her the more profound examination and had to make sure that she was supported by enough orderlies but she could withstand the pressure that he was going to apply. It was all to do with rolling balls Up and down the body to find weak points. Obviously he’d roll them quite hard and then feel the resistance, to see where the body was in need of reinforcement

And before anyone says anything about it, I shall say myself that that particular dream sounds like a right load of balls. It’s an interesting concept though and I bet that there’s plenty of mileage in an idea like that if I were to take it to some of the more obscure clubs in Soho

In fact I could probably make a small fortune from clubs like that for the rights to the unexpurgated version of this blog

And then while I was lying there half-asleep Nerina and I were at a port somewhere on our way to cross the Channel to go to a party at a friend’s house. We didn’t have any preparations at all – we didn’t have a GPS to find out where it was, we didn’t have any accommodation booked for Nerina or anything like that. We were going to simply improvise and make it all up on the spot. So we boarded the ferry and I went to look out of the window but they were all misty and steamy so I asked the purser if he had any car windscreen wipers. He chuntered but had a really good search, chuntering all the time. Eventually he came up with a pair and handed them to me, which I thought was nice. I could sit down then and look out of the window to admire the shipping like I usually do.

And this brings back many happy memories of me being invited to a party and setting out to go there, and suddenly realising that I had no idea of the address or where the person lived. I drove around in circles for quite a while before in the end I gave up and went home.

As Kenneth Williams once so famously said, "I’m often taken aback by my own brilliance". It’s the kind of thing that only I can do.

Meanwhile back at the ran … errr … bed, this thing about Normandy involved the Normandy group on Social Network. In the end we’d sacked all of our advisers and dealt with everything on a question and answer basis amongst ourselves. That even included the vets. Everything there on the group seemed to be going much better since we no longer had advisers and people were resolving their own problems like this

In my case though I’ve simply sacked my Social Network. It’s becoming less and less of a Social Network and more and more a vehicle for adverts and publicity. If I wanted to see “sponsored links” and “suggested for you” articles I’d look for them. I don’t want them thrust into my face at the expense of stuff that I want to see.

So I went for my coffee and cheese on toast for breakfast and despite two really strong mugs full of coffee I crashed out quite completely and absolutely, and for a good couple of hours too.

And Nerina came to visit me again, but it wasn’t a very pleasant meeting so I’m not going to transcribe the notes. With all of these problems I’ve been told to do all that I can to avoid unpleasantness.

In fact, this illness has made a whole new person of me.

What I can say about it though was that the dream was building up to a ‘phone call, and sure enough, I had one too, and a real one. It was the delivery man with the rest of my Amazon order.

This afternoon, I really felt like death. It was the worst that I have felt for quite some considerable time.

Margaret Thatcher once famously said something like "anyone can do a good day’s work when they want to. To be successful, you have to do a good day’s work when you don’t want to" and I’ve ploughed nevertheless through some radio notes and a pile of Welsh homework when all that I wanted to do was to go back to sleep.

There was football on the Internet later, Aberystwyth v Penybont. Penybont are far too good a team to be involved in a relegation scrap where they are right now, but Aberystwyth are down near the bottom for a good reason.

And that was how it went on. Aberystwyth started well and had a couple of chances but faded quite quickly and Penybont took control.

A 3-0 win was probably about right but Aberystwyth will rue the errors that they made. However it’s not easy playing football in a monsoon like they had this afternoon during the game.

Tea was baked potato and salad with one of the delicious breaded quorn fillets that I like, and that’s it for the day. I’m off to bed, with an alarm for tomorrow as the nurse will be round.

And tomorrow afternoon I have biscuits to make as I have now run out of supplies.

But before I go, talking about obscure clubs in Soho and unexpurgated versions of writings reminds me of a former girlfriend who worked at the local library on Saturdays and who has featured on these pages on more than just a few occasions.
She was asked to order a pile of books so she was going through the list, and one title caught her eye
"What’s this book here?" she asked
"It’s called ‘Ferry across the River Kwai’" explained her supervisor
"But is that title right?" she asked. "I’m sure that it should be called something else"
"It’s all right" said the supervisor. "Don’t worry. It’s simply the unabridged version of the story"

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Thursdqy 4th April 2024 – TODAY HAS BEEN …

… just like the other day where I spent half of the morning crashed out over the computer, exactly the same.

And to cap it all I was away with the fairies for quite a while this evening too.

And I’ll tell you all something for nothing and that is that I’m totally fed up of being like this. Just can’t get anything done at all, and there’s piles of work here that needs doing to. I seem to spend my life just recently fighting off wave after wave of sleep, and that’s not normal. Not at all.

Couple that up with the sight problem and all in all, I’m in something of a mess and I need to change my ideas quite dramatically.

The best way to start is to probably try to go to bed earlier but I’m not sure how to do that. There are so many things that need to be done that can’t just fit in around anything else at another time.

Last night though I was in bed late yet again and I can see that I’m never going to catch up with stuff that I leave for another time so for now we’ll just leave things as they are and carry on.

Last night I was … errr … detained as I said and so it was midnight when I finally hit the sack. And it probably took a while to drift off into the Land of Nod too as I wasn’t feeling too much like it.

It was another strange sleep last night, and you’ll read all about it below, and then the alarm went off. That was the cue to go to take the blood pressure. 15.2/9.0. Compared to last night’s 16.0/9.6 it doesn’t represent much of a reduction. But I’ve had no communication from the hospital as yet about the results of my blood test. That can only be good news.

After the medication I had a good wash and then arranged the room how the nurse likes it. One had to humour the staff.

He was rather early today which was nice, and he soon had me sorted out especially as per instructions, not only do I have to take off the puttees I also have to take off the plasters underneath, and that’s quite a gruesome job. Not my cup of tea at all

When he came, he cleaned off everything, applied the cream and then wound me up again nice and tightly, and then he left, leaving me in possession of the field.

There were the dictaphone notes that needed transcribing next, piles of them too. And I’m back dreaming in Welsh again. The question of a wheelchair, cadair olwen came up. Should I be pushed around on a wheelchair while I’m out? I don’t know exactly how this ended. I’ll have to go back to sleep to find out. But there was a dream about a girl called Lucy, Lucy not being the girl but a type of girl. It’s to do with some dream that we’ve had before where there have been a lot of girls in it and there was a type of girl called Lucy but I can’t think of what she was doing but she was certainly in the news last night.

Of course, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have had a run-in with a girl called Lucy in the past, and a strange kind of run-in too. Mind you, she was a strange kind of girl too but that was what made it all the more interesting.

But that’s yet another story for another time when I’m sure that the Statute of Limitations will apply too. And there are quite a few stories like this building up that will have to be written after I’ve shuffled off this mortal coil.

Secondly there was one of these false awakenings. There was a girl who had won some kind of competition as something and the prize was that she could choose some clothes from a shop in Glasgow. After they’d announced that she’d won they sent her a brochure – this was in the days before the Internet – and she began to choose the clothes from it. They had models there to try them on and had people to help her try them on. In the end she selected a few and it was all dealt with. A little later on I awoke but it was one of these false awakenings. I was convinced that I was awake, dressing, leaving the bed etc. I was off to help this girl dress and restart the dream apparently but I was going to help her dress etc but I realised that I was actually asleep so I turned over back in bed and went to sleep

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall, so for the benefit of new readers, of which there are more than just a few just recently, I’m asleep when I dictate these notes. The use of the terms “awake” and “asleep” are merely relative. “Awake” means that even though I’m asleep, I’m able to manipulate my dictaphone. “Asleep” means that there’s silence in the room, occasionally punctuated by my snoring (and I’m sorry for doubting you, Percy Penguin).

But this “false awakening” is something completely different. I’m actually sitting up, stepping out of bed, dressing, going somewhere – at least – I think I am. I’ve no idea at all if I’m physically moving about or whether it’s all part of another dream.

But if you think that neither that dream nor the first make any sense at all, don’t worry because I don’t understand them either – and I dictated them! I’m not responsible for the rubbish that pours out of my mouth when I’m deep in the arms of Morpheus.

When the real alarm went off I was in the middle of a long, complicated discussion with a telephone company about the problem with the line and phantom calls awakening me etc. It seemed that my emergency signal had been deleted somehow – I had one of those emergency beacons that if I fell or something went wrong here in the house I could press a button. It was actually installed in the garage for some reason. I was being passed from pillar to post as usual by different departments of Yorkshire Telephone, don’t ask me why “Yorkshire”, when the alarm went off, the real one.

After this I went for my flapjack and coffee, 2 large mugs of strong coffee, after which I fell asleep. Don’t let anyone tell you that coffee keeps you awake because it’s simply not true as I am a witness. I was gone until about 12:30, miles away with the fairies.

Waking up so dramatically, not having realised that I’ve been asleep, is quite an interesting situation too. I feel like Tommy Cooper and "I knew a man who dreamed that he was awake, and when he woke up, he was!"

It was the telephone, someone asking if they could ring me later. So at 14:00 I had a marathon chat with the guy who runs the radio.

He’s seen nothing on my Social Media account (which is not surprising because I’ve put it to sleep) for months and wanted to know how I was. We had quite a lengthy chat about this and that, but not unfortunately about “the other” which was a shame. Nevertheless, he’s let me know a lot of what’s going on.

He’s one of these people whom it’s good to know because of course he has his connections throughout the Town Council and if I have a problem he can put me in touch quite rapidly with the Social Services.

And I’ve a feeling that maybe not quite now but in the near future I’m going to need all the help in that direction that I can find. I can’t go on like this. It’s simply not realistic. I’ve fallen asleep twice so far typing these notes. Thank God I no longer drive.

As far as work goes, I’ve written some notes for a future radio programme, not many I have to admit, and then I did a whole pile of Welsh homework. I seem to have a bee in my bonnet about that right now so I may as well strike while the iron is hot

But these Summer course should be good. I might even learn something, and wouldn’t that be nice?

Tea was the Chinese meal that I’d promised myself. I’m not a big fan of Chinese food but it made some space in the freezer and I did have some nice, fresh soy sauce to make a stir-fry with it

So that’s all that I’m doing tonight. I’m off to bed now before I fall asleep yet again.

It’s not at all like the shepherd who decided that he would count his sheep, a traditional way of falling asleep in the old days.
So there he was, "One, two, hello dear, four, five …"
"Did you say ‘hello dear’ to sheep number three?" asked a passing stranger
"That’s right" said the shepherd
"Why did you say that to the sheep?"
Up popped the sheep "Well" it replied "He’s my f-a-a-a-a-a–ther"

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Monday 1st April 2024 – THAT WAS A …

… waste of a day.

And I’m not talking about my little April Fools joke either – I hope that no-one was taken in by it and I’m sorry if you were.

But the waste of time to which I’m referring is this morning where I sat down here on my chair at about 10:50 after my breakfast and the next thing that I remember was that it was 13:04 and I had a head full of lead. I was totally, utterly and absolutely out of it.

What makes it worse was that I actually managed to have a reasonable night last night, in bed at some kind of respectable time. It didn’t seem to take me as long as it usually does to make tea and all of that, and it was over quite quickly

That left plenty of time last evening to do what needed doing without having to rush around and for once I could go to bed early.

And sleep! I slept like a log, although I don’t have a fireplace here unfortunately – not even a woodstove. I had to use the bed, and it was really comfortable too.

It was a really strange night, for reasons which I’ll explain later, and I was actually half-awake when the alarm went off. I didn’t want to leave my bed but needs must when the devil drives and I fell out of bed.

Checking my blood pressure this morning it was 15.4/8.8, which is a reduction from 16.0/10.6 from the previous evening. That means that I must have had a calm, respectful night, although you won’t think so later.

Next thing to do was to have a wash and then go to take the medication as usual, piles of it again. and then to lay out the living room so that it’s just how Isabelle the nurse likes it.

She almost caught me incommunicado, and in somewhere else too but luckily I was just able to wash my hands in time. She couldn’t find anything wrong today with what I had done, although most of her effort was directed towards her card reader that somehow refused to function this morning.

And then she left, with her cohort coming for the next seven days while she takes a well-earned rest.

After she left, I came in here to listen to the dictaphone notes to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a group of girls and one of them was interested in me. For some reason she had me confused with someone else and ended up having a little fun with him. It wasn’t until afterwards that she realised that she’d been with the wrong person. Afterwards she actually told me what had happened which I thought was funny. I mentioned it to someone like the teacher or tutor or someone of a group of friends of mine. He told me “don’t worry Eric. I’ll make sure that your friends know about this at an opportune moment” which is exactly what I didn’t want to happen of course.

And there’s more truth to this story than might at first appear too, but this isn’t the place to discuss it.

And then at 04:00 I was told that I might well be recalled into a reunion at 04:30 that morning. What had happened was that a Swiss guy was coming along to talk to the hospital authorities about the best way to store their birth control pills, in a way probably different than most stores at the moment. For this he needed some room in the storeroom so as from 04:30 each morning each storeroom was to have some room set aside for this kind of thing. Of course once he’d finished his demonstration and the product was in there and the fact that there won’t be much of the area left was neither here nor there as long as they had enough for whatever they might expect was coming. They’d speak to me at 04:30 to see whether I’d received my invitation and if not they’d tell me where to go to the reunion and what time it starts etc. It’s absolutely vital that I go there. Having been told about going I must go there without any error at all.

That sounds rather familiar to anyone who might have seen my little April Fools joke. But honestly, I’d written the “joke” entry before I went to bed and didn’t dream this dream until afterwards.

It’s really quite strange that I should dream this more-or-less straight afterwards. If only I could summon up people like TOTGA, Zero and Castor as easily, I really would be one happy little Easter bunny.

There was also something about having to make sure that there were four certain types of ointment prepared for the nurse for tomorrow morning. I wasn’t sure that I’d done it so I thought that I’d better check and I was halfway out of the bed before I realised that I’d have plenty of time to do it in the morning so I got back under the bedclothes. But I’m not sure whether I actually did go to leave the bed in real life or whether the going to leave the bed was actually a dream and I was still under the covers. But anyway after that I lay in a comatose state of being asleep but being conscious of what was going on around me, all the way until the alarm went off.

That was one of the strangest dreams that I’ve ever had too. I’m really not sure if I actually did leave the bed or not, or if it was just a dream, which meant that I was dreaming within a dream, and that doesn’t happen too often. It’s actually quite a rare phenomenon.

There’s a phenomenon called “false awakening” which is a similar (although not the same) process and which has been studied by several psychiatrists. Nevertheless, it’s still interesting.

For breakfast I had the last of my hot cross buns and home-made bread. And it was all really delicious too, a real success that actually looked, tasted, smelled and felt as good as it ought to have done.

And then don’t let anyone say that coffee keeps you awake because I came in here and despite having drunk two full mugs of strong coffee, I crashed out completely and absolutely.

When I awoke, several hours later, I felt absolutely dreadful and it took several hours for me to come round into the real world. As I said, a total waste of a day today

Later on, I managed to find the time to cut up a few sound tracks after I’d converted them to an acceptable format, and then I carried on with a radio programme, finishing off choosing the music, pairing it off and joining the pairs together.

And that’s all that I’ve done, thanks to that mega-crash this morning just after breakfast. I’m never going to make any progress if I can’t organise myself better and stay awake.

It reminds me of the time I was setting of on a coach tour and a passenger sitting behind me said "if I start to snore, driver, you will wake me up, won’t you?"

And I replied "of course I will madam, as long as you promise to do the same to me."

You could joke about things like that 40 years ago, but just you try it now. No-one has any sense of humour these days. As Erma Brombeck said, "when humor goes, there goes civilization" and I for one totally agree with her.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper, right up to the usual high standard especially as it was a fresh rather than a frozen one. But on that subject it took 15 minutes to fight my way into my freezer, it’s so full. It really is ridiculous, the amount of stuff in there.

It seems that every time I manage to make some space, something else comes along and fills it and it’s all completely never-ending.

But when I’ve finished off this stuffing on Wednesday I’ll eat those Chinese whatsits on Thursday now that I have some soy sauce. That’ll make a little space to fill up with something else.

Moving the vegetables along has proved to be a problem, with the amount that I freeze, I suppose. So it’s just as well that I’m not Boris Johnson.

On his last day in power he took his Cabinet Ministers along to the Ritz for a farewell dinner. When the waiter came along, Johnson said "I’ll have a steak, medium rare"
"And they vegetables, sir?" asked the waiter
"They’ll have the steak too"

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Saturday 30th March 2024 – MY BROCCOLI STALK …

… soup was absolutely delicious at lunchtime.

  1. chop up an onion and fry it in a heavy duty saucepan
  2. dice your broccoli stalk and a potato into very small pieces and add them to the fried onion, and fry them
  3. add your herbs – I used coriander, chervil, marjoram and chives – a stock cube and some garlic, and fry them with everything else
  4. when you’re satisfied that all is going well, add enough of the water that you saved yesterday from blanching the carrots and broccoli florets – make sure that the stuff above is covered and remains so throughout the entire process
  5. simmer away on a low heat for about 20 minutes
  6. add a tub of soya yoghurt and whizz it all up with your whizzer
  7. serve with fresh black pepper and fresh-baked bread

That’s what I call a really decent meal for a lunchtime.

When I blanch my broccoli for freezing I only blanch the florets. But one of these 99 cents special offers of broccoli is usually more stalk than florets so you have to be inventive, and broccoli stalk soup is the way forward

However I wish that I knew the way forward out of my current sleep issues because they reared their ugly head today, and in spades too.

Last night was a late night again. Once more I couldn’t seem to have my tasks completed in anything like a reasonable time. They do seem to drag me down these days and like anything else around here, it’s never-ending.

Finally, hours later than intended, I managed to find my way into bed.

Once in though, I slept right the way through until the alarm went off without the slightest interruption, which is quite strange these days. Usually, the slightest noise awakens me, so I wonder if it’s something to do with one of the pills that I take just before going to bed.

When the alarm went off I fell out of bed again and went to check the blood pressure. 15.5/8.9 compared to last evening’s 15.9/10.1. So not a great deal of difference.

After the medication I tidied up in the kitchen and arranged everything for the nurse to come. She was her usual cheerful self today and it didn’t take her long to sort me out. I told her about the issues with the pharmacy and she thinks that I ought to see my GP about the blood tests.

My opinion is that they are called for by the hospital so it’s up to the hospital to decide whether I need them or not, and as for my injections, I’m in the hospital in 3 weeks time and if I don’t have them for 3 weeks, there’s plenty of time for the hospital to catch up

Back in here, there was nothing on the dictaphone yet again from the night, and even though that usually signifies a decent sleep it’s still disappointing because, as I have said before… "and on many occasions too" – ed … going on my travels is the only fun that I have these days.

Back in the old days before my health finally gave out, I’d always be travelling. And not just in vehicles either, but on foot. I’ve roamed miles over places like the Long Mynd in Shropshire, moors in Scotland, Arctic tundra in Greenland and Northern Canada and so on.

Who will ever forget my famous journey when I nipped out for a couple of hours in 2014 and ended up roaming for miles through the Pyrenees in Southern France, Spain and Andorra for several weeks?

But returning to last night, even though there was nothing on the dictaphone I do have a recollection of something else to do with Ford Cortinas scattered all over Crewe and that’s a regular, recurring dream.

Apart from making broccoli stalk soup, most of the day has been dealing with radio stuff, sorting out music for the next few programmes. Time to restart work after being away on a course for a week. and I’m still thinking and talking in Welsh when I talk to myself.

There was a lot of progress made with the radio stuff but I would have done more had I not crashed out.

And I crashed out good and proper for a couple of hours too, the deepest that I have ever been too and it was really uncomfortable too, really, really uncomfortable. I was so far out that I wouldn’t have come back for a week.

Nevertheless I came round and wandered off for my hot chocolate. And there was something on the dictaphone from when I’d crashed out, and that doesn’t happen too often either. I was on my way to see my sister and my brother. They had given me directions but the closer I came to where they were supposed to be, the less sense the directions made. I ended up on an island, a long narrow sandspit that was completely built up with a big apartment building. As I approached the front door there was a man there so I hurried and he held the door for me to enter. Inside I went into the lift and came out on the first floor. I asked on the radio which apartment they were in but their answer was garbled so I asked which floor and they said “top”. I went back into the lift and came out at the top and was now in the open air countryside, still heavily built up. I asked if they were on the water side or the inside but the reply was “down here” so I went down the road. There was still no trace of them so I asked which house they were in. They replied that there was nothing near them but a pub. There was nothing whatever like that where I was but searching around I came across a village name something like Rhydymwyn (but wasn’t) so I asked if that name meant anything to them. There was no reply to that – I’d gone out of range obviously and lost radio contact, so I must have been miles away, so I gave it up zs a bad job.

The likelihood of me ever wanting to meet my brother and sister would be so remote that they wouldn’t have to go to the trouble of giving me false directions to keep me away.

But the island, the long thin sandspit, reminds me very much of Long Beach Island in New Jersey. That was where I went to celebrate the Millennium. I flew from Brussels Airport, where I was interviewed by Flemish TV – in Flemish – to New York and hired a car, then just drifted around until I found somewhere nice.

And LONG BEACH ISLAND REALLY IS NICE TOO. I had a wonderful time out there.

TOTGA had just been abandoned by her husband and was left alone with a small baby. I invited her to join me on the trip
"Where would be staying?" she asked
"We’ll work that out when we arrive. Just drive and find somewhere nice"
"Actually, it’s not really convenient"

A few years later we were talking and she said "I’d have come with you if you’d had a place booked to stay, you know."

It was then that I realised what a lucky escape she’d had. In 2015 I slept out on the trail every night in Northern Labrador and Northern Québec, timber wolves howling in the distance and something or other scratching at Strider’s truck cap, wanting to come in and share the sleeping bag with me.

TOTGA would have had a heart attack a long time before that if she’d had to share a lifetime with me. Nerina was the adventurous type and would have been fine, but I’m sure that I tried her spirit a few times

But just in case you are wondering, these people who figure quite often in my dreams, like TOTGA, Castor and Zero and so on, they are actually real people whom I’ve encountered, or even had a close encounter, at some time or other and who have obviously left a very great impression on me.

There was football on the internet later – TNS v Cardiff Metropolitan in the other Welsh Cup semi-final.

To everyone’s surprise, the Met raced into a 2-0 lead but of course it couldn’t last. TNS changed out of first gear and off they roared.

TNS’s overwhelming dominance of the Welsh domestic game wouldn’t bother me all that much if they could take it further. But they are knocked out of European competition at the first hurdle and they really ought to be doing much better than

It would really be nice if they could make it to a European group stage for once and have a real stab at something worthwhile.

And it would be nice if other clubs could do well too, emulating Hwlffordd who actually made it through to a second round last season.

Tea tonight was baked potato with vegan salad and one of these breaded quorn fillets that I like. But aren’t plates heavy when they fall on your foot? I’m glad that there was just a quorn fillet on it at that moment and nothing else.

But now I’m off to bed. We lose an hour tonight of course with the change of calendar, and I have the nurse coming which is a pain. I need to be up early and have everything ready so I hope that the alarm works.

Not like back in the old days when I was always late for school
"And why are you always late?" asked the exasperated schoolmaster
"Please sir" I explained "there’s eight in our family but the alarm was only set for seven so I had to miss out."

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Friday 29th March 2024 – THIS MORNING AT …

… 04:30 I was up and about making bread, would you believe?

And I’m still up and about now. In fact, this is probably one of the very few times that I’ve actually sat down today.

Not that I’m complaining about the early start though. I made the nicest bread that I have ever made. It actually looked and felt (not to mention smelt) like proper bread, and I do have to say that it was a triumph.

If I could make bread like that all the time I would be more than happy. Especially as, being short of money, I would knead the dough.

Earlier this morning, at 04:11 to be precise because I looked at my watch, I awoke. And I couldn’t go back to sleep no matter how much I tried so in the end I abandoned the idea and went into the kitchen.

It didn’t take too long to knead the dough but what I’d done differently was to use a little more water than usual, and warmer water at that. and then rather fighting it, I folded it over and over, just as gently as if I was massaging Zero’s clavicles.

And not just once either but a couple of times to make sure that it was properly kneaded. And off we went. And up it went too. It rose faster than my blood pressure when I realised later in the day that I had forgotten to take it this morning. Last night’s was 18.1/10.4 by the way.

While it was rising I put it carefully aside. I don’t want any nurses poking and prodding it. But I tidied up the kitchen area a little because it’ll be busy in a couple of hours.

When the nurse arrived she put on my puttees, had a chat and then left, pleased that we’d ordered her supplies for her. And then, as LeClerc’s home delivery was now open, I sent off my order. “Delivery between 10:00 and 12:00”.

Next task was to transcribe the dictaphone notes from last night. There was some kind of art school taking place last night with human models being used in the sculpting and painting classes etc for people to practise drawing or working on human figures. When they began to introduce a second model to work as a pair with the first one there were quite a few people who objected and there were obvious reasons too. It caused a great deal of unrest and unease amongst everyone because many people believed that art was pure and could not be corrupted and other people who believed that corruption was everywhere in the world and this was just another part of it. There were two extremes of people who were busy arguing over what the models were supposed to be doing. Everyone else was really quite bewildered that someone could make such an issue about something that was so ordinary, familiar and so straightforward.

And that’s a common occurrence these days. I’m convinced that there are some people who have nothing better to do except trawl the internet or their immediate neighbourhood to find ways in which they might be offended

And when they do find something that offends them they spend all their time and effort actually aggressively trying to upset everyone else by forcing their viewpoints on the World and expecting the 98% majority to suppress their own interests in favour of those of the 2%

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have every sympathy with minority groups but sometimes consider that some of them go way beyond the bounds of what is reasonable behaviour.

When you see people complaining about what they see as pseudo-eroticism, like girls wearing bikinis and the like, and saying how indecent it is, that tells me far more about what’s going on in their mind than it does about what’s going on in the mind of the pseudo-offender.

And then I went back to sleep and this argument was still continuing. No-one was making any progress at all about either performing the piece of art or about having their points of view agreed. I quite simply didn’t understand the whole issue because there’s no objection to the art being displayed in museums etc and that’s where you’d think that people would be most upset but I dunno. I just didn’t understand it.

Later on I was still in this dream but I was actually dreaming it in Welsh. At one point while I was watching something on the TV there was a big crowd. I took something out of my pockets, some paper and rubbish, and simply threw it on the floor which was greeted by a barrage of heckling from the various people standing nearby. I didn’t just do it once but did it twice as well, I seemed to think, and it may have even been three times but I was having this dream in Welsh at that point.

So there I was, back in the same dream three times all told. And had I stayed in bed there might have been even more. But it was interesting that I was dreaming in Welsh because I’ve been thinking – and talking to myself – mainly in Welsh today which has surprised me. I must really have enjoyed that course.

As for talking to myself, of course I do. I’m reminded of Gandalf in LORD OF THE RINGS when he said "For I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to".

When the LeClerc delivery arrived I put away the frozen food and then had breakfast. And my hot cross buns are superb. They were a definite success too – well worth waiting for.

After putting away most of the food I set about blanching dicing and blanching the carrots, followed by the broccoli, ready for freezing.

And the cleaner caught me in flagrante delicto. She came in to tell me that I can’t have my injections any more.

The situation is that according to the prescription they can only be given if the blood tests show a result of less that a certain figure for something. But seeing as the prescription for the blood tests has run out and the tests aren’t being done, they can’t check the figure.

That sounds quite logical to me, but it meant that I had to sent an e-mail to the hospital to ask for clarification

So tonnes of carrots and broccoli to freeze, and there’s a broccoli stalk to make a soup tomorrow for midday – dipping my fresh bread into it too. It should be delicious.

There was football this afternoon – Colwyn Bay v Aberystwyth Town. Both teams propping up the table and they played like it too. Having seem the beautiful, flowing football of TNS last weekend, ths game was a disappointment.

Mind you, played on a swamp in a monsoon, that was hardly a surprise. Colwyn Bay have a beautiful ground as far as the grandstands and terracing go, but the pitch is awful.

Aberystwyth took the lead early on with a scrappy goal that was really the only exciting moment of the first half. Things improved for Colwyn Bay after the break and they looked more lively but it was the introduction of a couple of substitutes by each team on 75 minutes that livened up the game.

From then on, each team was throwing the kitchen sink at each other with gaps opening up everywhere in the defence as each side went on the attack, only to be caught out by a quick breakaway

Just as the game was going into stoppage time Colwyn Bay scored a dramatic equaliser, but blow me if Aberystwyth didn’t roar up the other end and score immediately.

So Aberystwyth won and move up above Pontypridd United, but things look dark for Colwyn Bay. And they’ll be even darker as they’ll be without manager Steve Evans next game. I don’t know what he said to the ref after the final whistle but it was worth a yellow card.

And then he must have said it again because he received another yellow card. So that’s him out of the dugout and in the stands for the next game.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m fed up of these petulant football players having crises all over the place during a game, and when the managers begin to do it, that really is the end.

The cleaner came not long after kick-off to do her stuff, and she left so quietly that I didn’t hear her go. But I now have a clean kitchen again which is nice.

The rest of the afternoon was either spend working on my Canada 2022 stuff or else, regrettably, asleep in my chair. Not that I’m complaining about that either. I’m surprised that I’ve kept on going as long as I have.

Tea was a burger on a bap, one of those burgers that I made from the stuff that my friend in Munich sent me. With chips and salad too, and it wasn’t disagreeable. It was rather gritty but that’s the ingredients I reckon and you can’t like everything absolutely

But it worked, and that was what counts.

Fighting with the freezer to put away the carrots and broccoli I dropped the carrots all over the floor. But picking them up (I’m glad that the floor is clean) I found the clip for the other puttees that I’d lost. Having found yesterday the other one that I lost a long time ago, I now have all four for each set which is just as well.

But I’ve also been busy booking Welsh courses. I’ve booked a week at the start of July with Coleg Cambria (and I hope that my own tutor isn’t tutoring it because doing a course with her two levels down would be embarrassing for both of us) and a two-week Summer School with Coleg Morgannwg at the end of August. So more “gyda” instead of “efo” for when I go back on my main course in September

It beats me though why Coleg Cambria’s courses are so early in the Summer break. I would have thought that they would have run their Summer courses just before the restart to set people off running when they start their next course.

But that’s enough from me for tonight. I’m off to bed. But doing all of these courses reminds me of the famous poem about Crawshay Bailey and his "engine
which was always wanting mending"
so
"he went to Cardiff College
for to get a bit of knowledge"
With this course at Coleg Morgannwg I’ll have been to most Colleges in the whole of South Wales "for to get a bit of knowledge" and it’s still not working, just like Crawshay Bailey’s engine.

It just reminds me of the small boy at school who had to repeat Year 6 three times. When asked how he felt about it he replied "I’m not bothered"
"Why’s that?" asked his parents
"At least I’m cleverer than my teacher"
"Why’s that?"
"Well" he replied "she was in Year 6 when I started at this school, she’s been in it all the time that I’ve been here and she’ll still be it again next year after I’ve left!"

0

Wednesday 27th March 2024 – A LITTLE EARLIER …

… this evening I was lying slumped over the edge of my desk, forehead leaning on the top, totally out of it altogether. Miles away from what was going on in the real world.

Since all of these problems began I’ve been having some weird sleeping fits to be sure, but this one totally beat anything that I have had to date. “Out like a light” was hardly the word.

Whatever is going on with me and my body right now totally defies all comprehension. There’s no logical reason for it at all, except to say that it must be one of the pills that I take.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that at first I thought that it was that horrible anti-potassium stuff. It certainly seems to be that which was making me have those hallucinations, but this crashing-out is carrying on nevertheless, so it must be one of the others

The hospital knows about it because I’ve mentioned it, but as yet they have taken no action. and I know what their response will be, because we’ve been here before. They’ll just give me another tablet to counter the problem, and then I’ll need yet another tablet to counter the side-effects of that one.

And so we’ll continue on … "and on, and on, and on etc" – ed …

It wouldn’t have done me much good last night either because once more I was hours late going to bed. There’s far too much to be doing here these days. Most of it just seems to be administration too and I’m beginning to think that “never mind a cleaner – I need a secretary”.

Still, I don’t think that I could pay a secretary to take my blood tests for me.

In bed, for what there was of it, was relatively relaxed and I wasn’t disturbed at all as far as I remember. But I would have loved an extra few hours in bed.

When the alarm went off I was in the middle of a really interesting journey but I immediately forgot all of it which was a shame, instead, I fell out of bed (literally) and went off to take the blood pressure. 15.9/9.0, which might sound high but nothing like as high as 19.4/11.2 which it was last night. What on earth was going on to make it so high?

The nurse came round later and I was lucky that I’d finished my wash and brush up by the time that she arrived. I’ve managed to persuade her to give a ring on the doorbell as she arrives so I’ll have a few minutes to prepare everything while she’s attending to my neighbour rather than just bursting in when I am incommunicado – and in somewhere else as well.

She almost forgot my injection this morning too. Apparently this “injection of the last resort” goes on for another three months and I’ve no idea what happens then. Anyway she remembered just in time (it’s no use asking me to remember anything these days) and so I’m like a dartboard again.

Checking my mails and messages I found a mail from an old friend of mine, someone with whom I’ve had no contact for almost 50 years.

He was a friend at school and we hung around together for a few years but then, like the Knights of the Round Table,WE WENT OUR SEPARATE WAYS. We do have a mutual contact and it seems that news about my condition is slowly circulating around.

It’s really nice to speak to people from the past like that. There’s a lot of catching up to do as our time draws slowly on to its conclusion. I say that because he’s not doing too well either.

Then I had to prepare for my Welsh lesson which didn’t take long.

And the lesson passed much better today than it has done over the previous two days and despite the fact that I can’t remember anything, I feel so much better about it. And that’s progress too.

The cleaner came round today too in order to make the place look pretty, and we went through the medication and made another list. She’ll go to the chemist’s tomorrow to order what I need, including some new injections, and pick it all up on Friday.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone too from the night. I’d started up in business again. I had a radio operator and driver for the daytime. And I did things a little on the way, like I made a little snack, something like baked beans on toast or mushrooms on toast or something, not very appetising or anything but at least I made sure that they had something to eat at lunchtime. I was sitting down doing a summary of everything and I asked how things were going. The subject of this food came up. They admitted that the food wasn’t particularly substantial but it was nice that I’d thought of them. They were really pleased about that but one girl had something of a moan about it. I’m not saying that she was wrong but I’m saying that there were limits as to what I could do during the daytime when I was supposed to be sleeping and that way they were lucky that they were receiving something.

And that would be a horror show if I started up in business again. I’ve had my fill of working hard for a living and the only kind of working in which I’m interested in doing is work where I’m sitting here at my desk within easy reach of the bathroom and the coffee machine.

That way, there’s only one person whose interests I have to look out for, and it’s not anyone else’s, that’s for sure. I’ve done enough of that, especially when its usually been the interests of the wrong people and not the interests of those who really matter.

But talking about food not being substantial, the thought of a good plate of beans on toast made my mouth water and had I had a loaf of bread here instead of baking it to order, I would have been really tempted.

While I was rummaging around looking for something or other I came across my collection of EAST OF EDEN albums.

Now that’s a blast from the past. They were a group from Bristol who buzzed around the festivals and concert circuits for years.

Apart from their hit single, JIJ A JIG that is nothing whatsoever like the rest of their music – they are a typical late-60’s rock band – their claim to fame is that violinist Dave Arbus was the musician who played violin on the Who’s BABA O’RILEY, one of the greatest singles of all time.

Once everything had calmed down I made a start on the next radio programme but regrettably I didn’t get very far, for reasons that I explained earlier. I can see this being a continual story.

Tea tonight was a delicious leftover curry, lengthened with some lentils, quinoa and peanuts, and accompanied by rice, veg and naan bread. And there’s no better meal than one of my leftover curries.

However I’ve now run out of dough for my naan breads so I’ll have to make some more for next week. We can’t be doing without that. Luckily I still have some soya yoghurt left.

But that reminds me – my biscuit-making operation (and delicious they are too) has meant that I’m running perilously low on vegan butter. I need to place an order for the food from LeClerc. I can’t be doing without my butter for my hot cross buns either.

It’s a surprise that I’m not putting on any weight with all of this food that I seem to be shifting. It’s rather like the little girl who noticed that her mummy’s stomach seemed to be growing bigger and bigger, so she asked her mummy about it.
"Well dear" said mummy "Daddy’s given me a baby"
"but hat’s that got to do with your tummy?"
"Because the baby’s in there dear" said mummy
So the little girl goes off to her daddy
"You know that baby you gave mummy?" she asked
"Yes dear?" asked her father
"Well" replied the little girl "SHE’S EATEN IT!"

0

Monday 25th March 2024 – THE FIRST DAY …

… of my Welsh course went pretty uneventfully today.

There was no-one in the class from any of my old stamping grounds, which was what I suspected and for which I am extremely grateful.

However there is someone on my course with whom I’ve been on a short holiday course before. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … this World is becoming far too small for my liking.

It’s like The Vanilla Queen, for example. Here’s someone who is from an island in the Canadian High Arctic. We bump into each other in Montreal, find ourselves on the same ‘plane to Edmonton, are staying in the same hotel in Edmonton and meet up next down a dirt track in, of all places, Yellowknife in the North West Territories.

Or like when I go away for a week to a remote Canadian village in the north of Quebec along the “Forgotten Coast”, stay in one bedroom in a two-bedroom house and find that the other bedroom is occupied by the solicitor from the next town down from Pionsat.

Sometimes I wonder what is going on in the ether when there seems to be someone somewhere shuffling the pack and moving the cards around.

Last night I was moving around very late after all of the delays and so on that seemed to be happening yesterday. In the end I was glad to be in bed even if there wasn’t going to be too much time to enjoy it.

It was a strange night too. There seemed to be such a lot going on for such a short time and I ended up having a disturbed sleep pattern

When the alarm went off I wasn’t at all ready and I would have given all that I had, and much more besides, to have stayed in bed for another couple of hours.

Nevertheless I hauled myself out and once the room stopped spinning around I took the blood pressure. 16.8/10.0, in contrast to 16.2/9.8 from the previous evening. Something must have wound me up during the night or else it was the disturbed sleep playing tricks.

In the kitchen I sorted out all of the medication and then tidied up the worktop. My hot cross buns are magnificent and I’m really looking forward to eating them, toasted and soaked in butter, but for now they are crammed into an airtight tin where they will remain until the Easter period.

Having done that I prepared the stuff for the nurse and it was just as well because he was early today and I didn’t even have time for a wash.

He did his stuff and that’s the last of him that I’ll see for a week. It’s his sidekick now for the next 7 days and I hope that she’s in a better humour than when she was here last.

Back in there I transcribed the dictaphone notes from the night. We were in the USA. My family was actually working as prison guards. If I wanted to see them I had to go to the prison and be grilled and generally quizzed over everything before I’d be allowed inside. This went on for ages that I’d come and go and see how they were etc. Then of course I became ill which meant that I couldn’t live on my own. It was coming towards the final situation when they told me that I’d have to move back. I decided to go back to the family for the last while so I was saying goodbye to a friend outside the prison. She watched me prepare and I made a gesture to the guards. One of them came over to find out why and I told her that I needed to be accompanied to go back into the prison because of my state of health. She accompanied me over the road bridge that they had there, through the first of the checkpoints and into the prison itself where everyone waiting. This went on several times and with each step I was becoming weaker and weaker.

So now you know the reason for the raised blood pressure. Firstly, the family put in an appearance and secondly, I was slowly shuffling off this mortal coil.

And that reminds me – I must do something about my end-of-life directive. One of the reason why I was being treated in Belgium for my illness was because I could choose the moment when I have had enough, without having to cling on to the bitter, painful and undignified end.

That’s not possible in France unfortunately but still I need to make everyone aware of my intentions. There must be some way of making sure that I make it to Switzerland or Belgium when the time comes and I need to begin to investigate the options and possibilities

One thing is absolutely certain though, and as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … having sat by the side of someone whom I liked for several months and watched her slowly die, that’s something that I wouldn’t wish on anyone else, from the point of view of the sitter or the sittee.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … bed so having made good my escape I set off cross-country. I’d gone maybe 3 or 4 miles before I was grabbed by the ankle and pulled in towards a person hiding in a hedge. It turned out to be someone to do with the regional hostel. This person had me in a compromising position moving me onto one side, and running their hands all over me. Then being certain of who I was she radioed back to base and told her that there was a witness. The other girl was comfortable about who was in the way so I was marched over to where the other girl was. They held me upright and questioned me in front of this girl. They asked her if she recognised me at all. Of course she did and they told her that they could avenge her together

And I wish that I’d recorded the rest of that because it sounded so interesting. It’s a shame that I’ve missed off the front somehow but what goes on during the night is way beyond my comprehension.

Then we had a dream where a young boy was chasing a mother’s young daughter around. The mother decided to intervene because it was going to be rather too much. However it seemed that her daughter was apparently enjoying the attention that she was receiving from this young boy before the mother intervened.

And that’s usually the case too. Girls complaining about boys chasing them around, and then complaining when their mothers stop the boys from doing it. At least, that’s how it used to be when I was that age. It’s probably all totally different now and I’d be completely politically incorrect

In my day though, we used to play “hide and seek”. But in my case, I’d go off and hide in a cupboard and the others would never come to look for me.

Later on I had the works’ Ford Escort estate and was driving around in it when the exhaust fell off. I was in such a bad situation at work that I didn’t want to tell anyone about it so I pretended that nothing had happened and put it inside the car thinking that I’d do something at the weekend. Then there was an issue with the radio. That was irritating and annoying too. These 2 issues together would combine to make a big problem at work for me with this car. I didn’t say anything to anyone and resolved to put an exhaust on it myself and do it as soon as possible when I could get away from the office. All of a sudden there was a job at 16:30 – one of the officials wanted bringing back so at least I could dispose of the exhaust. I went to Barlow Brothers. They had a scrapyard that was at a traffic island that was about 2.5 miles down a certain lane. As I turned in I saw one of the brothers so I stopped for a chat with him. He said that I could dump it more-or-less where I was. I dropped it off and he made a few remarks. I asked if he had a good one second-hand. He said no, he was selling them all for racing cars. He let me have one anyway which we fitted. It sounded very rich and looked strange on the vehicle …fell asleep here

We did have a Ford Escort estate at work and it was just used in and around Brussels and had never ever been anywhere in its whole life.

One day when my car was being serviced and there were documents to take to Luxembourg I took the Escort. It ran pretty badly for about 150 kilometres when suddenly there was a “bang”, a huge cloud of black smoke for a moment, and then it ran like a dream afterwards. Nothing like a good run to burn out all the carbon coking up the cylinders.

There was also a scrapyard in Crewe called Barlow Brothers. As well as the usual run-of-the-mill stuff they had piles of interesting stuff like several Ford V8 Pilots, a Daimler ambulance and so on. I tried for years to prise a Mark II Zephyr estate, rare as hen’s teeth, out of them with no success.

It was run by two brothers, identical twins, which was very confusing if you were trying to carry on a conversation that you’d had the last time that you were there.

There was a whole lot more of stuff too but you don’t really want to know about it, especially if you’re eating your meal. I told you that it was a disturbed night

Having done that I prepared for the lesson and having made my coffee and grabbed a slice of flapjack we began. There are eight of us students in the class which is rather strange because I don’t think that any of us actually comes from Caerfyrddin. We seem to be scattered all around North-West Europe.

Several people, including Yours Truly, are from the north of Wales and that makes things confusing for everyone. I know that I’ve put my foot in it a couple of times and said “Gyda” and “Rwan” instead of “Efo” and “Nawr”.

The tutor though is really quiet and I have a hard time hearing him. He also has these silent pauses that seem to last for ever and make you think that his screen has frozen.

However, I’m not complaining. At least I’m on a course that will hopefully keep my wheels oiled.

After the course (during which I almost crashed out once or twice) I went for my hot chocolate. And then riding the porcelain horse afterwards I actually DID crash out, and even imagined someone bringing round a pile of meals on a large tray. That was strange.

While we’re on the subject of meals … "well, one of us is" – ed … my stuffed pepper was delicious tonight. I seem to have grasped the hang of cooking it in the air fryer.

So having washed my puttees and written up my notes I’ll do the rest of the chores and then go to bed.

Day Two of my lesson tomorrow and I hope that it’s as interesting as today’s. At least with only 8 students, we have plenty of participation time and that’s a big plus

And there are several reasons why it’s so good to go to live in Switzerland. The flag is a big plus, for a start.

I’ll get my coat.

0

Saturday 23rd March 2023 – A FEW MONTHS AGO …

… I bought a cheap hamburger press, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. It was rather like an old flat iron made of plastic, with all kinds of sizes that fit inside each other like a Russian doll

It was rather cheap, both in price and quality, so I didn’t think that it would be all that much good. However I have to say that despite all that, I really am impressed with it. Almost as impressed as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin, and that will stir a few memories from times long-gone.

Actually my friend in Munich sent me ages ago a packet of dried stuff that he’d found in a vegan shop down there and posted it to me. So today I added water and mixed it, left it alone to do its thing and then out came the hamburger press

It actually made a nice, professional job of the rehydrated stuff and I now have four big, really solid burgers and as I said just now, I’m almost as impressed with them as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin.

“Whatever happened to that?” I asked myself. The last time that I saw it, it was being used as a brazier to burn a pile of weeds down the garden when I used to have my raised beds and vegetable plots. It’s probably now thoroughly and completely overwhelmed with weeds and been pulled into the soil.

It’s 10 years ago since I last planted any veg down on the farm. I had quite a lot of stuff there that year too. The following year I cracked on with the bedroom all the way through the spring and summer ad finished it – and actually moved in.

But we all know what happened in the autumn that year, don’t we?

It was almost 10 years that I lived full-time down on the farm and despite the primitive conditions I really enjoyed it. I keep on thinking – and hoping – that I’ll go back to live down there once more but I doubt that I’ll ever see it again.

For a start, I can no longer drive, and that’s always going to be a serious consideration. And then regular readers of this rubbish will recall the photos of when I was last there and it was overwhelmed by brambles. I no longer have the energy to fight my way to the front door.

Last time it took three of us – Rosemary, Ingrid and Yours Truly – a whole afternoon to reach the front door, and the time before that it was with Terry and he had brought his industrial-scale equipment to clear the path.

Still, as Dan Quayle once famously said, "It’s a question of whether we’re going to go forward into the future, or past to the back"

So I shall go past into the back and say that for a change I was in something of a hurry to go to bed last night. I didn’t hang about at all.

It was another good sleep as well and I was fighting fit (well, sort-of) when the alarm aronsed me from my slumbers.

First thing was, as usual, to check the blood pressure. 15.1/9.0 this morning, up from 14.5/9.3 last night. So something must have annoyed me last night. And if you want to know what it was, you’ll have to read on.

After the medication I came back in here, but not for long. The nurse, having been late yesterday, was early today. Today’s moan was that the plastic bag I’d put out for him wasn’t big enough and that I need to wash my puttees. I wonder what tomorrow’s will be

The bread for my cheese on toast was delicious. I had a really nice breakfast later this morning. And then I had a pleasant relax and watched a film.

Another film that has come out of copyright is HELLZAPOPPIN’ so I spent a very pleasant 85 minutes watching it, and it was nice to relax for a change.

It’s not a film to everyone’s taste because it’s partly a musical and "YOU’RE NOT GOING INTO THE SONG WHILE I’M HERE" but where its interest lies is that if ever you want to know where all of the humourists of the 1960s and early 70s like Monty Python and Marty Feldman obtained their ideas, it’s all here, everything and much more besides, and it was done in 1941.

As far as comedy and humour goes, it was light years ahead of its time and will still run the course today.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from the night. We’d all gone out as a family together. We all had lifts with various different people so we were all spread out amongst the cars etc. A guy in a mobile home, the type that’s a shell that fits onto the back of your vehicle, took a fancy to one of my sisters. He persuaded her to travel with him. They disappeared but the rest of us kept going in a kind of convoy. We ended up stopping for the night somewhere at the side of a river. Just then this guy appeared with his camper. He wound down his window and said that he was terribly sorry but something had happened to our sister – some other people had come along, taken her, kidnapped her and carried her off. My mother said “I bet that she’s in the back of your camper”, just strode over there and wrenched open the door. My sister was in there on the bed lying down. She began to tell her tale of woe about everything that had happened to her, with my mother and brother becoming more and more angry as the story unfolded about this kidnap.

So there you are – that’s the reason that my blood pressure was up. I had the family round last night. I don’t ask them to come to visit me during the night but they always seem to, far too often for my liking. Why can’t I have Zero, TOTGA and Castor round as often as them?

But kidnapping my family members one by one sounds like a good idea. But you can all think of an idea for the ransom note – "pay us £5,000 or we’ll send them back".

That reminds me of the time when I fuelled up in Stoke on Trent only to find that I’d left my wallet behind at home. I had to leave my friend at the petrol station as hostage while I went to his house to fetch some money

When I told his wife what was the problem she told me not to bother going back, and to leave him there for good

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … bed we had a taxi job to do, to drive someone up to Newcastle upon Tyne for a meeting and then take them on to Edinburgh later. There was only one daytime driver and me about. The receptionist left a note for the daytime driver “be in the office 04:40 ready for a long trip”. I thought that long trips and office workers all on account etc don’t pay very much in tips if anything so I’d go to do that and let the driver carry on doing normal jobs. The only car we had was an old two-door Japanese thing from the late 1960s or early 1970s. It made something of a racket but I’d been out a few times in it and it seemed to do the job. A good long run like that would probably do it good. Of course Edinburgh – I had my niece in Edinburgh so I could go to see her. I tried to contact her but there was no luck. I thought “should I just turn up at the University there and speak to her?”. I thought that that’s probably not a good idea. But I was impressed that we had this job, going all that way but I was really disappointed that we didn’t have a better car available other than this old Japanese thing.

And that was an age-old problem too. We’d occasionally have some really high-quality work to do but never seemed to have a decent car available to do it, and when we did have a really decent car we’d never have the work. At times I despaired.

This afternoon I went a food-making.

Firstly, as I said, my friend in Munich had sent me some burger mix so I added the water, stirred it all in and then left it to fester for 20 minutes as according to the instructions

There was a box of do-it-yourself falafel powder on the shelves as I discovered when I did some tidying up a few weeks ago. So I added some water to that and left that to fester as per the instructions.

While that was doing its stuff the first lot was ready so with the hamburger press I made four really good and solid burger-types of things. They are busy freezing even as we speak.

As for the falafel, I divided that up into little balls and they are busy freezing too, along with a couple of balls that I made from the left-over stuff from the first mix.

But I’m pleased with this hamburger press as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … It’s really simple and cheap but it made some really solid burgers and it gives me much more confidence about making more burgers from ad-hoc ingredients.

Finally there was the home-made mayonnaise. And once again, that seemed to work in spades. I made it rather more liquidy than before so we’ll see how that works out. It ended up making quite a lot more than I can use in its shelf-life, so I’ve sealed to top on the jars quite tightly.

Yes, having learned my lesson, I’ve put the mayonnaise in a better container or two.

Then we had the football – Y Bala V Connah’s Quay Nomads in one if the Welsh Cup semi-finals, played at Llandudno’s picturesque ground. And it was actually being broadcast on foreign carriers too after the disappointments of the last few games.

The first 75 minutes of the match were nothing to write home about, but it’s really hard to play creative football in a tornado.

However both sides made a couple of substitutions with 15 minutes to go and that kickstarted the game dramatically. Those last 15 minutes wee much more like the football we’d expect to see and Aron Williams scored a late winner to push the Nomads into the finals.

But spare a thought for Josh Ukek of Y Bala, who will probably go down in the record books as being on the field for the shortest period of time ever.

He came on as a substitute for Bala late in the game but almost immediately Kieran Smith, a central defender, was sent off for two bookings. Now a central defender down, Colin Caton, the Bala manager, now wanted to send on a central defender off the bench to shore up the defence.

And Ukek, who had only just come onto the field, was the man who was withdrawn to make way.

Tea was as usual a salad, baked potato and breaded quorn fillet. I know that it all seems to be the same, but I happen to like it so I don’t care.

And now rather late this evening, I’m off to bed. There’s an alarm in the morning for the nurse is coming (so I’ve washed my puttees already) so I’ll feel like death for the rest of the day. Today, I actually fell asleep for five minutes during the football.

But before I go, that story about tightly closing the lid on the mayonnaise jar did remind me of the guy who rang up his doctor
"You know those pills that you gave me to give me strength?"
"Yes" said the doctor. "How are they going?"
"I don’t know" replied the man. "I can’t get the top off the bottle".

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Friday 22nd March 2024 – I’M NOT HAVING …

… much luck with my footfest this weekend. Cymru’s Under-21 match against Lithuania isn’t being streamed on a foreign carrier either tonight.

It’s just my luck, after last night’s stunning victory of the senior team against Finland following on from Cymru’s “C” team against England on Wednesday night. I was really looking forward to some football tonight. Watching Stranraer slump to a controversial 2-1 defeat to Elgin City on the swamp that is Stair Park was hardly any compensation

It’s been a really long time since I was at Stair Park – almost 50 years in fact. I was coming off the ferry from one of my trips to Northern Ireland when I saw crowds (well, perhaps not “crowds”) of people heading all in one direction, all wearing blue and white scarves. So I had to follow them to see what was going on, as if I didn’t know.

It’s so long ago now that I can’t remember who they were playing. Probably someone like Arbroath or Montrose or something. And as I don’t have my photos here from that period, I can’t even tell you the colours. But one thing that I can tell you is that the ground hasn’t changed one iota in that time. It still looks the same as it did back then.

Mind you, that’s a relief. The Taylor Report swept away many traditional football grounds and with football attendances in Scotland being what they are, we were left with far too many of these modern, soulless one-sided wonders with “room to build the other three sides when attendances improve”.

Yes, quite.

The problem in Scottish football can be summed up in two words, “Celtic” and “Rangers”.

Regular readers of this rubbish in one of its previous versions will recall that I stood outside Albion Rovers’ ground in Coatbridge where the average attendance was about 300 watching busload after busload of people wearing green and white or blue and white scarves all heading into Glasgow.

And then I was at Broadwood in Cumbernauld once watching a game between Glasgow Rangers reserves v Celtic reserves, both teams full of players that would have been a boon and an asset to any other club in Scotland. Rangers and Celtic had signed them not because they needed them but because they didn’t want any other club to have them and become a competitive threat.

And absolutely nothing whatever has changed, except that Albion Rovers have been relegated from the Scottish pyramid into the Lowland League. But as former Spurs manager Terry Venables once famously said, "if history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again"

However, I digress … "again" – ed …

Last night was another one of those nights where I couldn’t tear myself out of my chair and into bed. It was something like 01:30 when I finally moved a muscle and set about doing my nightly chores. I’ve absolutely no idea what’s happening to me right now about this.

Anyway it was another really deep sleep like last night where I can’t remember a single thing until the alarm went off

When it awoke me I really was dead to the world and I had quite a battle to raise myself from the dead. They talk about “the quick and the dead” in Biblical terms but there was nothing whatever quick about it.

First thing was to check the blood pressure. 15.9/100, pretty similar to last night’s 16.0/10.1, taken when I was feeling rather stressed out trying to exert myself to go to bed. So what was winding me up during the night?

Anyway I wandered off into the kitchen to sort out the medication. I’m beginning to run low on certain things again – just supplies of a few of the tablets for a couple of weeks. I need to keep an eye on everything to make sure that I don’t run out.

Next task was to make the bread. And I put a lot of thought and effort into this lot and tried my best to knead it correctly, which is not easy.

After that I went for a good wash, scrub up and shave and all of that kind of thing, as well as washing to shorts that I’ve started to wear in bed. But I didn’t get as far as I would have liked because for once in his life the nurse was here early.

When he came in, he saw the bread buns slowly rising, said “oh look, bread!” and poked one, which promptly sank

He eventually managed to find a vein and extract some blood. And I’ve had the results already. The red blood count is slowly rising, which is no surprise given the amount of stuff they are injecting into me every Wednesday, but so is the carcinogenic protein. It should be between 59 and 104 and it’s increased from 267 to 275.

So if the red blood cells are increasing, what is the protein attacking? The answer is that it’s now attacking the platelets. They should be between 140 and 380 and they have decreased from 108 to 92. That would seem to indicate that the cancer is now moving into my bone marrow.

So what’s the next move going to be? Someone will tell me something in due course, I imagine.

Having switched off the heating in the apartment, I checked the bread again and it had risen really well and for once I was impressed, especially as I’m making hot cross buns on Sunday and I need some confidence and encouragement.

The bread baked perfectly too, lovely and soft. It made some really nice cheese on toast and there is bread for the next couple of days too

Later on today I went to pay the Property Taxes on my place in Canada. I tried for an age unsuccessfully to log into my bank account, only to discover that I was trying to access Scotia Bank Trinidad and Tobago rather than Scotia Bank Canada.

Once I’d found the correct bank, everything went really smoothly. I do like how easy it is to make payments and so on in the Canadian banking system

It’s not so easy making payments on-line in France to the French Government.

The French Government has at long last started a system of on-line payments where you can pay your bills via internet rather than sending a cheque. I went to set it up for me this afternoon, but it’s not easy.

The logical way to organise payments is to index everything by reference to a person’s identity card number, so you can log in, see your account, see what’s owing and pay it off all at once with just one payment.

Instead, everything is indexed by invoice number, so if you have more than one bill to pay, as I did, you have to log in more than once, entering all of your details, including card details, more than once, and it takes an age.

What makes life even more complicated is that it asks you to enter certain details from the invoices into certain boxes on the computer screen, and the names don’t correspond. You have to use some intuitive guesswork to figure it all out.

But what am I going to do about my place in Canada?

it was an inspired decision to buy it because all you need when dealing with Canadian administration is a Property Tax Assessment. I could open bank accounts, buy pick-ups, obtain insurance, have mobile phones, all of that, simply on production of a Property Tax Assessment and it eased my passage (if you’ll pardon the expression) around Canada.

But I’m never going to use it now and it’s just going to sit there with the apples falling off the trees year after year until the cows come home unless my niece goes up there to pick them up.

But while we’re talking about Canada … "well, one of us is" – ed … I wonder how Strider is getting on with his new owners. We travelled miles together, him, me and STRAWBERRY MOOSE. I hope that they are looking afer him.

And that reminds me – I told my niece to dispose of most of the stuff that was in there – tools, camping gear, expedition equipment and so on – but there was a Fender bass and amp in there that I used that I wanted her to keep for me. I need to think of a way of bringing them over here.

The cleaner came round this afternoon for her Friday cleaning spot, bringing my mushrooms and tomatoes with her. I retreated into my bedroom while she was here but I actually had a fall while I was in the bathroom. Luckily the chair was in my way and I fell onto that, otherwise it could have been nasty

There was some stuff on the dictaphone too, surprisingly. I had several Ford Corsairs in my drive last night. One of them was driven away and I can’t remember where it went. Someone else borrowed a set of my number-plates but hadn’t brought them back and I was becoming rather concerned about that. Anyway there was some more car-swapping that needed to be done. I had to bring another Ford Cortina into my drive. That was parked in Gainsborough Road so I had to go down there to it, start it and bring it back. That was a Safari Beige colour but I was thinking that if I were to paint it blue I could put on the number-plates that this guy had borrowed because they belonged to a blue estate. I could make a set of plates but what would be the position if someone saw both vehicles, mine and the one on which presumably the guy had put the plates, and noticed that there were two vehicles with the same set of plates? What would my neighbours say if I were to turn up with yet another car after I’d just had one taken away somewhere? I got into the Cortina Estate. The clutch was right down on the floor and it was difficult to start. I thought that I better hadn’t leave vehicles lying around for so long without actually starting them up otherwise I’m just going to make myself a lot of problems

This is something of a recurring dream, isn’t it, having Cortinas scattered all around the town. It’s just like in real life when I actually did, including a beige Cortina estate and a blue one too.

But swapping over number plates from one car to another? And VIN plates too? I look back on those years with amazement and wonder how on earth I managed to keep clear of some serious trouble. Six months at Her Majesty’s Pleasure would have been nothing. I had to stop and leave the country because those years were catching up on me rather rapidly

My excuse was though that when you are up to your neck in alligators, it’s hard to realise that you are really trying to drain the swamp. Taking drastic and rapid steps to solve short-term issues can lead to some really long-term problems further down the line.

It’s a surprise though having Ford Corsairs around the place for a change. I didn’t think that it would be too long though before a Cortina or two appeared.

So this afternoon I’ve chosen some more music for another radio programme and began to pair it off before tea but I ran out of time, mainly due to going away with the fairies for an hour or so. And miles away too, it has to be said.

But tea was lovely – the last Kale and Quinoa burger from Noz, and I’ll have to find a way of making those because they were nice, especially in breadcrumbs.

Last of the home-made mayonnaise too, although it might not have been had I used a more convenient container. Still, you live and learn.

However, the mayonnaise was an unqualified success. It was too thick and I’d used too much garlic, but those are minor problems. The principle was perfect and tomorrow, I’ll make some more, having learned from my first batch.

So what with that and making hot cross buns on Sunday it looks as if I’m going to be in for a busy weekend. And it’ll do me good right now because I seem to be doing too much of nothing right now.

So what else can I make while I’m at it? I shall have to pick Liz’s brains, and I’ll welcome any suggestions from anyone else too

But before I go, the story of my mayonnaise in the wrong bottle reminds me of that aerosol that came onto the market in the 70s. The publicity for it went something like "enough paint to cover 70 square metres of panelling"
And someone wrote underneath the advert "and enough propellant to get just about a quarter of it out of the can"

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Thursday 21st March 2024 – THE BAD NEWS …

… is that tonight’s part of the footfest i.e. Cymru v Finland isn’t being “streamed to your country” on any service that I can find. And so it looks as if I shall be missing out on that.

Somewhere on my computer is “Tor” – a strange kind of browser and so in theory I could configure an anonymous VPN that would make it look as if my computer is situated in the UK but by the time that I do that the game will be over anyway.

It’s something that I suppose I ought to have considered but never mind. Here’s hoping that tomorrow night’s match is free to air in foreign places like here.

It’s been ages since I last set foot on a Welsh football ground. The last “live” match that I saw in Wales was Bangor v Rhyl in the Welsh Premier League and it was so long ago that Lee Kendall was keeping goal for Rhyl and I was there with Liz (not “this” Liz but “that” Liz) and she shuffled off this mortal coil in 2009.

It’s a far cry since the time I used to have a girlfriend at Bangor University. I’d be up there every weekend and while she was washing her smalls in the University laundry on a Saturday afternoon I’d be on the terraces at Farrar Road.

Those days are long-gone of course, and so in fact has Farrar Road. It’s now a supermarket.

And so, incidentally, have Rhyl and Bangor football clubs. At Rhyl the owner simply threw in the towel at the end of one season and at Bangor, there were the well-documented problems with a couple of characters “known to the forces of Law and Order” who became involved in the club.

However, we do have new clubs in the towns and they had to start afresh from the bottom of the pyramid. Bangor’s new team has fought its way up to the second tier and Rhyl’s new team is just one step behind. However it’ll be a long time before I ever see them again.

Not so long maybe until I see the old girlfriend again though. She’s appeared in these pages a few times – the one who we met in a pub near Oswestry who still looked as if she was 16 or 17 even then – and we still keep in touch occasionally. There’s been some kind of vague and indefinite discussion about her and her partner maybe flexing their muscles on the mainland.

They did once come to see me in Brussels and we all went skiing together once in Eastern Europe, the two of them, me and Percy Penguin.

So anyway, as things go, it took another age to do everything that I needed to do before going to bed last night and as usual it ended up being later than I would have liked, which is the story of my life right now. it brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “the late Mr Hall”.

And if there is a deeper sleep than the one that I had last night I would love to see it. When the alarm went off I was so deep that I needed a ladder to climb out.

It took a while to orientate myself – even more so than usual – and then I wandered off to take my medication, resisting today the temptation to stick my head under the cold tap.

Having done that I prepared everything for the arrival of the nurse who would fit my puttees and take the blood test that he had postponed yesterday and planned to do today.

But I was right about those being “famous last words”. He “didn’t have time” today and will “do it tomorrow”. And we’ll see about that as well. Never put off until tomorrow what you can postpone indefinitely.

Most of the day has been spent having a slow and steady saunter through the radio stuff. I’ve finished writing all the notes for the radio programme that I started yesterday and I’ve been working on two more programmes today.

One of them is rather complicated because a lot has happened on one of those particular days in past years and I need to track down a pile of stuff. And then I have to choose some music from albums that I don’t know too well.

On top of that, there are also a couple of birthdays of some rather obscure artists, like for example Steve Miller’s drummer. Having to trawl through Miller’s albums to find stuff that his drummer wrote and sang took an age.

Another thing in connection with the radio is that I’ve finally made a start (only a very slow one, of course) cataloguing the live concerts that I have, trying to find the dates that they were recorded.

Some are so famous that their dates are well-known, like the Lindisfarne ones or the “Marshall Tucker Christmas Eve” concert. Shrewsbury Folk Festival’s itinerary is on line.

Some are much more obscure but there’s A SITE ON THE INTERNET where people post the setlists of concerts that they have seen and by comparing what’s on the tapes that I have with published playlists, I’m hoping to match the concerts to the dates.

It would of course have been much easier if the dates had been written on the tapes when they were recorded, but we were young, naïve and innocent. And in any case, several of the labels have fallen off with the passage of time anyway

There was some stuff on the dictaphone too. Not much, but with a sleep as deep as the one that I had, it’s no surprise. And by the looks of things I missed some stuff out at the beginning. What I dictated was “I was pushed back by the fog and had to have a native guide or something to help me make my way through the country back to where we were. When that boy asked me what was going on I had to explain it to him how come I was having all these difficulties and why I was so late arriving” – and that’s your lot.

It’s rather like the committee of the Football Association of Wales. They need a few native bearers and guides if they have to go north of the “heads of the valleys”.
"What? To show them the way?"
"No. To carry the drinks cabinet"

But to be fair, the FAW isn’t the only Welsh organisation (and I use that term in its official, not literal, of course, sense) that thinks that there’s nothing much further north of the “heads of the valleys” except sheep and Druids.

Tea tonight was some of those Chinese stuffed pastry things with fried rice. It was lovely of course, but it could have been even nicer. It wasn’t a full bottle of soy sauce that I had on the worktop but an empty dark brown bottle of the aforementioned. Who puts stuff like that in a dark brown bottle where you can’t see how much is left?

So with no football I’m going to bed when I’ve done my tasks. Tomorrow morning I’m bread-making if I remember. I hope that it will rise up like it did last week. That was a much better batch and I can’t think of what I did right.

But thinking about that skiing holiday that I mentioned earlier, that was the time a couple of us ended up being stuck in the mountains in a thick fog when they stopped the ski lifts and everyone went home. We had to pick our way down the mountain, which would have been difficult when you could see where you are going, never mind in a thick fog.
"The first thing that I’m going to do when I get back to the hotel" I said to one of the people with me "is to give Percy Penguin a good seeing-to "
"What’s the second thing that you’ll do?" he asked.
"I dunno" I replied. "Take my skis off, probably."

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Wednesday 20th March 2024 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER …

… night where I ended up not going to bed until after 02:30 or so. And this is becoming ridiculous.

As usual, it’s just that I can’t seem to find the effort to carry out the simplest of tasks, like going to bed. Everything really is churned up at the moment.

Some of the side-effects of some of these pills and tablets that I take are frightening. Eyesight issues is of course one of them, and a state of confusion and disorientation is another. And I can say without a shadow of a doubt that they are correct.

The burning question of the day is not O’Rafferty’s Motor Car but that if they are right about those effects, what about the others? And if so, why haven’t I noticed them? And if I haven’t noticed them, has anyone else?

It reminds me of the story that Dr Keith Simpson, the Home Office Pathologist used to tell after he’d retired
"I’m not going to sit around and become old, decrepit, doddery and senile" he said. "If ever I get like that I’ve told the wife to have an “accident” cleaning the shotgun"
"Blimey!" piped up a voice from the crowd. "She’s leaving it rather late, isn’t she?"

Another one of the side effects of one of the tablets is “impotence”. And by that I don’t mean that you have your own article in Who’s Who, or even like some famous animals who have their own article in Who’s Zoo.

But that side-effect probably explains why TOTGA, Castor and Zero haven’t been around for a while. It tells me everything that I need to know.

Every cloud though has a silver lining. And while I was trying to find the motivation to go to bed I came across a couple of albums from a Hungarian rock group called Karpàtia, about which I’d completely forgotten. There isn’t half a pile of all kinds of obscure stuff around here.

Anyway I eventually found my way into bed, fully-clothed because there was no point undressing for such a short period of time in bed.

When the alarm went off I fell out of bed and you’ve no idea how much effort that was – or maybe you can imagine it. It was all of about 10 minutes before I could manage to open my eyes and find the blood pressure machine. 14.6/8.6 so the night can’t have been all that bad.

And to my surprise, I noticed that I had taken it before hitting the hay earlier. 15.1/8.5, and that’s not all that unreasonable either, compared to how things have been in the past.

Sticking my head under the cold tap didn’t help much but I went off and took my tablets, hoping that one of them had a side-effect of insomnia.

While I was waiting for the nurse I had another go at re-arranging the medical stuff, which he promptly re-re-arranged into a state of disorder just a few seconds after arrival.

He didn’t realise that he had to do these puttees every day, and then there wasn’t enough room in my apartment, and I didn’t have any disposable gloves, and my veins aren’t good enough for home-sampling, etc. etc. etc und so weiter.

In the end he abandoned the attempt at the blood test and he’ll do it tomorrow when he has more time. That’s what I call “famous last words”, isn’t it?

After all of that I was in no state whatever to start any work this morning and it wasn’t until this afternoon that things set off under way. I reviewed and dispatched the radio programme for this weekend and then started on another one. I’ve chosen the music, remixed it for broadcast, paired it off and joined up the pairs, and even written some of the notes. That was quite an effort, the way that I’m feeling.

The cleaner came round as well, so I have a nice, clean apartment. And we had a good moan at each other too, putting the world to rights. Not that it’ll do much good, but there you are.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone too from the night, which was a surprise. There was some kind of convention with a lot of guys from work etc. attending. I had my list of keep fit exercises that I do in bed and I’d brought it with me. For some reason or other I ended up in a real tangle doing one set of exercises and had to call in the stewards or something to help me untangle myself. I can’t remember all that much about it.

That’s actually a real issue. With not having sufficient force to raise my legs when I’m lying down in bed, they do have a tendency to become tangled up in each other on occasions and I have to use my hands to pull on a leg to free it off from the other. What I’m going to do when I no longer have the force in my arms, I haven’t decided yet.

Tea was lovely. A beautiful leftover curry with rice, vegetables and a naan bread. A leftover curry may not sound exciting but the way that I cook it, it really is.

And that reminds me – while we’re on the subject of curries … "well, one of us is" – ed … I shall have to make certain arrangements about acquiring some more spices from the Asian supermarket in Leuven now that I can no longer go. I’m not running out yet, but I don’t want to take any chances and I need to make sure that I have a good stock on hand.

So that’s my notes written up, and I’ve only crashed out twice, I’m off to do what I need to do before going to bed. As Gandalf said in LORD OF THE RINGS, "Go where you must go, and hope".

And as Shakespeare wrote in “Henry VI” – "Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.". But I can’t remember now whether he said that in Henry VI part I, part II or part III.

One thing that I always wondered about when Shakespeare wrote those three parts of the play, did he run adverts in between the parts or was it just the News?

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Sunday 17th March 2024 – WHOSE SILLY IDEA …

… was this for me to make a start at 08:00 this morning?

It wouldn’t have been so bad if the alarm had actually gone off but somehow for some unknown reason it didn’t fire up and that was that.

Strangely enough, five minutes later, at 08:05 exactly, I sat bolt upright, wide-awake and that was something really quite extraordinary, especially as first of all it’s a Sunday and secondly, I didn’t go to bed until 00:20 this morning. I’ve really no idea why I should awaken like that just five minutes after the alarm should have gone off, but didn’t.

It’s actually quite surprising how long it takes to do everything that needs to be done before I go to bed. There’s the list of what I needed to do that I posted the other day, and even then I forgot about taking the blood pressure. Seriously, I’d forget my head if it wasn’t so firmly screwed on

And that’s why a baby never falls out of a pregnant woman – because it’s screwed in. But I digress … "again" – ed …

Last night after I’d finished the notes I wandered around doing everything that I need to do before retiring, apart from washing these puttee-things. They aren’t soiling so there’s no need to wash them until we have the second pair.

And then, thinking that I’d set the alarm, I fell into bed.

As I mentioned earlier I fell out of bed at 08:05 and then checked the blood pressure. 16.0/9.9, compared to last night’s figure of 16.1/11.1. We shouldn’t go round taking these figures as gospel because there’s quite a discrepancy between what they show at the hospital and what is being shown at home. I have grave suspicions about my little machine.

Having taken my medicine I arranged a few things in order ready for the immediate arrival of the nurse.

When she turned up she tore into me because the stuff wasn’t here from the pharmacy. As I said, “what can I do about it? I’m firmly and completely in the hands of other people”. However, that’s no excuse apparently, and she carried on with her endless verbal assault.

She also had a good moan about me not taking painkillers. The whole of France is awash with Doliprane and I have no wish to join them. We’ve seen far too many cases in the past where people, pumped up to the gills with painkillers, fail to notice the damage that they are doing by continuing to use whatever member of the body is being numbed and the damage becomes permanent.

You suffer pain for a very good reason.

After she left I didn’t do too much. I had some food and then simply drifted around in cyberspace, that is – when I wasn’t asleep. I’ve fallen asleep a couple of times, once at the table in the dining room after two large mugs of black coffee. Something’s clearly not right there either.

But I did manage to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I had another dream … "when was the first?" – ed … where all the passengers were soaked inside a coach. This time I’d been to a local bar and seen on the counter top a couple of trips advertised to different places, one of which was a trip around the nuclear power station up the coast. so when the landlord had a moment free, for he was the type who was friends with everyone I asked him about it. He had a moan about him hoping that I wasn’t someone who had just come in to waste his time but he let me see the itinerary, the brochure etc and I thought “yes, I’ll sign up for this” and put my name down. He was at the point of asking me for a payment and a deposit but we ended up playing football. I was substituted quite early on pretty much the same as that dream at the start of the evening … "which dream?" – ed … where all the passengers were given a soaking by the coach driver who pulled the choke mechanism and that released a water tower into the air vents

That was another dream about which I recall absolutely nothing at all and I’ve no idea at all to what it refers.

But later on I was back singing in a rock group again … "presumably in English tonight" – ed … One of the things that I had to do was to speak to someone there about singing some of the songs in a mixed-up kind of fashion like singing a song by the Moody Blues, giving a false title and having people guess who it was and who wrote it. I had to communicate with someone about it, another group’s arranger. He was speaking to someone else so I had to interrupt him. A policeman there tried to take hold of me and usher me away. I had to be really insistent to the point of actually almost being arrested before the policeman would let me speak.

That’s something similar to a quiz that we had a few months ago on the radio. There, we were snipping out sound-bytes from popular songs and having people identify them. Being ushered away by a policeman is however quite a new experience. Usually, from what I’ve seen, it would be “out with the handcuffs” or, these days, more like “out with the truncheon”.

When you look back to the 1960s and early 70s and the Monty Python sketches of violent policemen going berserk with their truncheons and how we all laughed at the satire because it was such an unreal situation, and yet here we are today where policemen going berserk with truncheons is par for the course.

We’ve come a long way since those days, and all of it completely in the wrong direction. It’s like Théoden said in LORD OF THE RINGS – "The world changes, and all that once was strong now proves unsure"

And as Erma Brombeck wrote, "When humour goes, there goes civilization", and humour has long-since departed from this wretched world.

I’s easy to understand the sentiments of Bhuwan Thapaliya who said "The older I get, the more I cherish the company of children and the flowers. The children have no prejudices. They are what they are. And so are the flowers". That’s a position with which I sympathise.

What work I’ve done today has been to make a start on editing some radio programme notes. Not much of them because, being so tired as I am, I’ve not really felt in the mood for work.

In fact, I almost forgot about making my pizza tonight. Luckily I remembered just in time, and it was another delicious one.

So here’s hoping for a better day tomorrow. A good sleep might put me right, and then I have plenty to do. It’s never-ending. Who said anything about retiring making life easy?

It’s the one thing about old age, and that is that you have so much to do but you keep on forgetting to do it. That’s where I am now. It’s like the character in The Navy Lark who said "All of which reminds me of a funny story I once heard and which now completely escapes me"

As for me though, I’m like the character in “Gunsmoke” of which it was said "A lot of things can happen to people who get too lonely" – but as long as it only happens to me when I’m asleep, that’s OK.

Rather like the police who raided that woman’s apartment and found a knife under her pillow
"What’s this for?" they asked
"That’s in case someone breaks into my room while I’m asleep" she said "and brings me a cake".

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Saturday 16th March 2024 – AFTER I’D FINISHED …

… doing what I have to do in the evening I didn’t hang about and was in bed quite shortly thereafter. I don’t seem to be able to last the pace like I used to, especially if I didn’t have any sleep the previous evening.

But of course I have to admit that my bed is extremely comfortable. Seeing as I spend about a third of my life in it it went through some pretty rigorous tests, as in me lying down on every combination of bed and mattress that was on display in the IKEA in Caen.

The sofa too is extremely comfortable. That underwent the same series of tests and has been put to good use on several occasions when I have company, but that’s another story.

So last night I climbed into bed and that was that until the alarm went off at 07:00.

At that point I fell out of bed and went off in search of medication – the usual morning round of things designed to keep me going until we have the night-time’s helpings. 10 different types, and each one presumably treating the side-effects of the one that was prescribed immediately before.

In fact, as I take all of this medicine I’m singing to myself THERE’S A HOLE IN MY BUCKET because that’s exactly how I feel.

Having dealt with the medication I made the bread rolls for today and tomorrow and left them there to fester while I went and took down the puttees and rolled them up ready for the nurse. They are still wet but that can’t be helped.

When she came round she burst the blisters on my feet, put all the cream on everywhere and wrapped the puttees around my feet and legs. She’s told me that there’s no need to wash them tonight as they don’t seem to be soiling any, which is good news.

After she had left I checked the bread rolls. And for once in my life they had actually risen as I hoped that they might. I’m not sure what I did correctly today – I can’t recall doing anything any more different than I usually do and which up to now has proved to be singularly ineffective.

But anyway I had a lovely cheese on toast for breakfast which was really nice.

Back in here I checked the dictaphone and to my surprise there was actually some stuff on there. “Surprise” because for the first two dreams I remember nothing at all, which quite possibly explains why they seem to be a pile of gibberish. Anyway, There was something about being in a rock group in North Wales called Achmarchnad – “Supermarket”. We all spoke to each other in Welsh and I introduced the songs in Welsh too. We climbed up onto the stage and there was applause but when I began to announce what we were about to play plenty of people dashed off as though they were heading for the bathroom. I made some kind of comment about everyone going to the bathroom. They also turned off all of the microphones so I had to wait for someone to restart everything again before I could actually carry on. But I was dreaming in Welsh as I had to wait for these people to go as we all sit around here, phrases like that to the other members of the group.

Yes, there I was, dreaming in Welsh and presenting the music of a rock band. I’d give all that I own, and more besides, to be able to do that in real life. But as I have mentioned before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … dreaming in a foreign language is nothing new. Besides Welsh (which isn’t a foreign language of course) we’ve had dreams in French, Flemish and Spanish in the past.

It’s actually quite ironic really. Here I am, learning a language that I probably won’t ever speak, in practical terms, and yet during the night I’m speaking it quite fluently and can’t even remember a word of what I’ve said and could certainly never repeat what I said when I’m awake.

There was a story once about this – about some guy who had had a knock on the head and came back to consciousness speaking a language fluently that he had never learned or even heard before. I wonder if it’s some kind of similar phenomenon.

It’s a shame though that I’m no longer going to Leuven though. I enjoyed revitalising the Flemish that I learned when I lived in Brussels and was glad that I was able to put it to some use after all these years. I just speak it now sometimes with Ingrid.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … bed – when we had fully loaded our ambulance we were ready to leave and go back to current times but the ambulance hit a stone causing injury to Orly and someone in the back and we haul up and treat our injuries etc before we could head back and try to cross the border. Rooms were booked for us in a hotel a a place on the Welsh side of the river just before you cross the river into the English part …fell asleep here …

The above two dreams I have absolutely no recollection whatever of them. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … although I’m asleep when I’m dictating my notes, when I’m transcribing them I usually have some kind of very vague recollection of them.

But not those two. They mean absolutely nothing to me

Finally, I was doing something about the radio last night, recording all my programmes. I needed a tenth track. After much messing about I actually chose the track but when it came to using it to join up the rest of the music I couldn’t find it. I was searching everywhere but it just wasn’t there. The last time that I remember, it was still attached to a set of stereo headphones with the wires dangling everywhere but I couldn’t find it at all. When I awoke I was actually searching the bed for it.

But can you imagine it – searching for a digitalised audio file in the bed last night. Sometimes I really do shake my head.

This afternoon I’ve been a busy boy. Firstly, Rosemary rang me and we had a chat. Just a short one today – only one hour and three minutes. We’re losing our touch, that’s for sure. Whatever happened to the ones that used to go on for several weeks?

Then I’ve been working on my photos from Canada 2022, writing the notes for another big pile of stuff. I hadn’t yet fallen ill so I was still getting about and doing things, like ordering the sunroof for the only Ford Flex ever imported into Europe, and having fun with STRAWBERRY MOOSE.

The dramatic collapse in health is yet to come, and it will be interesting to see how the events of that period unfolded and led to a two-months stay in hospital and totally wrecked my health.

The stuff for a couple more days was completed and I could have done so much more except for a major crashing-out – another one of these total black-outs that last for several hours where it’s as if I just switch off without any warning.

Finally there was the football – Pontypridd United v Barry Town. Both teams are languishing near the foot of the table – Pontypridd due more to administrative errors than standard of play – but they will basically safe from relegation as heaps more woe and misery pile on Colwyn Bay and Aberystwyth below them in the table.

The league position of the teams was reflected in the play – scrappy and at times rather agricultural – but playing football in a tropical monsoon as they had this afternoon down in Pontypridd can’t have been easy.

The game seemed to go in spells. Firstly, Pontypridd would have a good five minutes and then Barry, and then Pontypridd again and so on. The result, a 1-1 draw, was probably about right.

If you want to see the rather one-sided highlights of the match, they ARE HERE

You don’t need me to tell you what I had for tea tonight.

That’s right – breaded quorn fillet with baked potato and salad. Those fillets really are nice and I’m glad that, at the moment at least, they are available in LeClerc’s on-line shop

“At the moment” because even over the short time that I’ve been using the service, I’ve noticed a few things that I would buy that have been withdrawn from the range and that is more than just a pity. It’s a tragedy

So now I’m off to bed, ready for my … gulp … 08:00 start so that i’m ready for when the nurse comes. Can you imagine that too – me having an alarm call at 08:00 on a Sunday? But I need to show willing

It reminds me of the time when a girl who I knew once said to me "will you awaken me at 08:00?"
To which I replied "What should I do? Knock on your door or give you a nudge?"
There were times when I wasn’t very popular.

But as yet an alarm call might be unnecessary. Where the nurse burst my blisters, every now and again (more “again” than “now”, as it happens) there’s a stabbing pain that goes right through me and if it doesn’t subside I can’t see me sleeping tonight.

However, I’m away to finish off what I need to do before going to bed. The last task for today will be to cover myself in boot polish and eat several packets of yeast. That way I’ll rise and shine in the morning

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Friday 15th March 2024 – THERE’S NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone from last night either.

But that’s not a surprise because I didn’t actually go to sleep. And don’t I know it now!

After I’d finished my notes last night and despite talking about films and falling asleep, I couldn’t even summon up the energy to leave my chair. I just sat there in a kind-of hypnotic trance – not the cataleptic attack that I have sometimes but just a total and utter lethargy as if my battery had run flat.

In fact it was about 02:30 when I finally crawled into bed, more in hope than expectation because by now I had a real killer-pain in my right knee.

As to where that had come from, I didn’t know at first but it gradually seemed to increase as the evening wore on until, as I was lying in bed, it was insupportable.

And while I was lying there I suddenly realised that I’d gone to bed with my elasticated puttees on. I’d better take those off I suppose, but no chance of washing then now. That will upset Isabelle the nurse.

Adjusting the genouillaire – the elasticated knee pad on the right knee, I almost ended up going through the roof. That was where it was hurting.

And then I realised what had happened. The elasticated puttees were doing their job, pushing the fluid in the lower legs upwards, right into the knee where the genouillaire was stopping it going any higher, and the knee area had swollen more than the capacity of the elasticated stretch in the genouillaire.

So in the end I took that off too and the pain slowly began to subside. Not completely because there’s still some kind of pain there as I found out when I went to put the cream on my legs this evening.

And what with one thing and another, and once you make a start you’ll be surprised how many other things there are, I just lay there in agony and watched the clock going round and round until the alarm went off.

That was the signal for me to fall out of bed and take my blood pressure. 15.7/10.1 this morning, which is not bad at all for a nuit blanche – a night with no sleep. I did remember to take it before going to bed last night, and it was 17.2/12.2, which is also not bad for a body wracked with pain.

To give you some idea of that I meant the other day about “not knowing what day of the week it is” I forgot to make my Friday bread. I remembered my medication (which I forgot last night) but was then busy tidying up everything ready for the nurse, like rolling up correctly these puttee things ready to apply.

Incidentally, if you want to know about my night’s routine after I finish my notes and before I go to bed, it’s

  1. check for any last-minute mails and messages
  2. take the statistics
  3. close down all of the files
  4. back up the computer
  5. go for the medication
  6. unwind the puttees
  7. wash, rinse and hang up the aforementioned
  8. apply the cream to my legs
  9. switch off the computer
  10. go to bed

The days when I could finish work and just fall into bed are long-gone.

So fighting off wave after wave of sleep, sometimes unsuccessfully, I made a start on work.

With nothing on the dictaphone to distract me I spent a while reviewing my order for LeClerc and being reasonably satisfied that there was as much on there that I could order of what I needed I sent it off.

It’s a shame that they don’t carry a full stock in the home delivery part of the supermarket. There’s tons of stuff that I would like that isn’t available and I have either to make do, send my faithful cleaner or else do without.

But be that as it may, beggars can’t be choosers. if I’d had this illness a couple of years ago or otherwise stayed in the Auvergne I wouldn’t have had anything.

The Auvergne was beautiful and I loved every minute of the time that I lived there. But it was simply not a practical proposition when I was ill.

For a start, with winters as cold as -20°C and snow for as long as 7 months of the year, if you wanted to heat your house you had to go into the forest with your chainsaw and find a convenient tree

Imagine trying to do that now. It was great fun when I was healthy and fit but had I stayed down there I’d have been pushing up the daisies for a long time.

We had the usual interruptions. Isabelle the nurse came round to put the cream on my feet and wind up my puttees. She wasn’t very happy with me, but neither was I to be honest. The night had been awful and I really must have been on some other planet somewhere

And then my cleaner appeared with what she had managed to prise out of the chemist’s. And that wasn’t everything that I needed either. Some of the stuff has had to be ordered but when it will arrive is anyone’s guess. I told my cleaner not to be in a rush. Things will be done when they’ll be done.

After lunch the order from LeClerc arrived. No carrots to dice up or freeze today but there was a pepper to clean out before I could freeze it. And they had some of my favourite breaded quorn fillets that I like so much. There’s a good supply of those now, which is good news.

There was the question of putting away the stuff but I now have so much that there isn’t anywhere to put it. Yes, the freezer, fridge and shelves are bursting with food and that’s exactly how I want them to be. It’s important that I keep things stocked up because I never know when I might need them and not be able to obtain them.

The rest of the day, when I wasn’t asleep, was spent editing some more of the backlog of notes and preparing a programme. That’s all done now and I’ve even chosen the final track and written the notes. When I find a quiet moment, and I’ve not fallen asleep, I’ll dictate everything that’s outstanding and ten I’ll have another pile to edit and build up.

It’s non-stop, isn’t it?

Tea tonight was vegan nuggets with chips and a vegan salad. All extremely delicious of course. No-one can fault the meals that are served up in this place.

And they better hadn’t, as word on the streets is that there might be a few people round to eat some of it very shortly, and I’m not talking about our usual travel group either, but more visitors. I seem to be quite popular these days.

But not popular enough to be able to delegate these tasks to someone else. I have to do them so I’d better press on.

And then go to bed and hope for some pleasant dreams at the moment, I feel like Barbara Follett, who walked out of her life after writing "My dreams are going through their death flurries. They are dying before the steel javelins and arrows of a world of Time and Money"

It’s not the world of Time and Money though. They are just dying of old age, like me.

Still, as my hero the Irish politician Boyle Roche once said, "The best way to avoid danger is to meet it plump." so I shall ride forth to meet my destiny. "Follow one’s own star, wherever it leads" as Jacqueline de Bellefort said.

So if all of these pains subside, I might even manage some sleep. And then we shall see what we shall see.

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Thursday 14th March 2024 – IT’S BEEN ALL …

… go in here today.

It doesn’t seem like it but it’s been an extremely busy day today. I didn’t even find the time to crash out until 18:00, and that’s quite late.

What was surprising was that for the first time for an absolute age, not only did I sleep right through the night, there was nothing on the dictaphone either.

Last night after I finished my notes I took my blood pressure and then wandered off to take my medicine for the night. There’s enough of that as well to keep me going for a while.

Strangely, I didn’t feel tired and so I watched the start of a Sherlock Holmes film, an old black-and-white one from the 1940s

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that that always does the trick. On the portable computer is a pile of old black-and-white films and when I used to travel I’d switch one on at night to watch – and I’d always fall asleep straight away.

There have been countless times when I have awoken to find the computer still whirring on or, on one or two occasions, with a flat battery, as in times on the road in the wilds of Northern Québec and Labrador when I used to camp out in the Dodges that I used.

So I staggered off to bed and that was the last thing that I remember until the alarm went off this morning.

That was the cue to fall out of bed and the first thing was, as usual, to check the blood pressure. 16.1/10.1. Compared to last night’s 15.0/7.8, you wouldn’t have thought that last night would have been so relaxing.

As I have said before… "and on many occasions too" – ed … I really don’t understand how this blood pressure works. The figures are not at all as I would have expected them to be, from an amateur’s point of view.

Second thing was to give my feet and lower legs a really good wash. I didn’t cover them in vaseline cream though because the nurse is coming round today to do that for me.

Third thing was to have a chat on the internet to Liz. We haven’t chatted for a while, which is a shame. She sent me a recipe that she’ll be using for her hot cross buns, in the hope that it might work for me rather better than the one that I have.

However, it’s not the recipe, as we now. My issue is making the dough rise, and I’d give all that I own, and much more besides, to be able to make it rise properly like it ought.

The nurse came round at 08:45.
"Will you be coming round at this time every day?" I asked
"Yes, if that’s OK for you" she replied
"What choice do I have?"
"Well, none really"

So 08:45 it is every day including Sunday. Bang goes my usual lie-in. Still, I suppose that I ought to be keeping some kind of normal hours somehow – come and live in the civilised World.

When I lived with Laurence I didn’t have much of a Sunday lie in. After a while I’d hear from the kitchen "go and wake up Eric" and then a few seconds later several stone of child would leap on top of me, and that would be that. I loved it really.

So the nurse has rubbed ointment on my feet, put plasters on the worst places, and then wound these elasticated puttee things around my lover legs.

My legs now look like Bibendum, the Michelin Man and I can’t put on my shoes over the top. That means no going out for a while, as long as this prescription lasts.

So instead of sending off my LeClerc order on Monday, I’ll send it off tomorrow and order my mushrooms on line. That was something else that I needed to do – to bring my order up-to-date and make sure that I’ve missed nothing. I probably have, but it’s too late once I’ve sent it off.

After my coffee and flapjack (which was an absolute and total success) I sat down with a radio programme.

There are several where I’ve dictated the text but not edited it so I did one of those today. It’s all finished now and mostly assembled. The last track has been chosen and remixed and the text written I just need a quite hour or so to dictate it and everything else that needs dictating.

However, quiet hours are practically unknown around here anywhere near where I am.

The cleaner came round during the afternoon. The nurse had written out a prescription for stuff that she needs so my cleaner will sally forth tomorrow and arrange everything.

While she was here we went through the medicines, pills and tablets that I have, made a note of where I’m likely to run out in the very near future, and she’ll organise that tomorrow too while she’s down there in town

After my hot chocolate I even found time to carry on with a project that was side-lined a few weeks ago – namely, to review my blog entries for the period when I was in Canada in October 2022.

The details of my mega train trip ARE NOW ON-LINE. It’s not actually the definitive version as it needs poof-reading, spel-checking, the tpying reviewed and the all-round plan
ning verifying.

Had I not had an unexpected … errr … relax, it might have been finished, but as it is, it’ll give you an idea of what I had to suffer.

There’s no doubt at all that Canada’s rail network, such as is still left, is nothing but a shambolic mess. And “shambolic” meaning that half of it is a sham and the rest of it is … errr … everything else.

Tea was a nice lot of steamed veg with these vegan meatballs in a cheese sauce. And it was delicious as usual. This cheese sauce that I make, a simple bechamel with a handful of grated vegan cheese, tarragon, chives and freshly ground black pepper in it, is really nice.

So am I going to watch a film now and crash out, or shall I just go to bed? I’m at the stage where my body is telling me one thing but my mind is telling me something else.

The end result will inevitably be the same – that I’ll fall asleep while I’m doing it.

So here’s hoping that my dreams come back. These days, they are the only excitement that I have. Like the time that I dreamed that I was eating a giant marshmallow, and then next morning had to buy a new pillow.

But thinking about all of these quotes from LORD OF THE RINGS that appear in these notes, I’ll probably end up Tolkein in my sleep.

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