Tag Archives: vegan pizza

Sunday 11th May 2025 – WHAT A GAME …

… that was. Another fine illustration of the quality and excitement that exists in some of the matches in the JD Cymru League. And for a town of just 9800 people, the 1,568 people who flocked into the stadium to see the game were treated to a pulsating, entertaining match.

But that’s something to savour later. Let’s talk about last night first.

By the time that I finished my notes and whatever else I had to do, I was running miles behind as usual. And, completely exhausted, I made a total cod of the dictating that I had to do and it ended up as being one of the longest that I’ve done. There is going to be a huge pile of editing to do there.

Anyway, it was at about 00:30 that I ended up crawling into bed, and I fell asleep before I’d hardly begun my usual nighttime mantra

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall what happens next. It’s the Sunday after a Saturday dialysis session and so round about 06:50 I was wide-awake. So much for my lie-in until 08:00. I lay there for a while tossing and turning but at about 07:05 I gave it up as a bad job and fell out of bed.

Off I staggered into the bathroom and cleaned myself up. Then I wandered into the kitchen for my medication, remembering to take the Vitamin D and Vitamin B12 that I should have taken yesterday.

Back in here I checked the dictaphone but there was nothing on it. That’s a disappointment because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only fun and excitement that I have these days is what does on during the night. And if it involves my family, it’s not much fun and not what I would call “exciting” either.

Instead, I made a start on the back-up that I should have done yesterday but I didn’t go very far because Isabelle the Nurse arrived.

She changed the plaster and cleaned the wound where I’d had this biopsy, lanced the blister where I’d had my compression sock that I couldn’t pull over the wound on Thursday, dealt with my legs and fitted my compression socks for me. She was grateful for everything that my faithful cleaner had fetched on Saturday but she had forgotten the prescription that she promised.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. We’ve finally left the Tower of London, not before doing some lengthy research into the Earls of Gloucester, and have now moved on to Ludlow Castle where, doubtless, the finer points of civilian architecture will be pointed out, at the expense of anything military.

Back in here, I had work to do.

The free trial period of an expensive antivirus that came when I installed Windows on my new System drive has now expired and so I disabled it. I have a favourite free antivirus – or, that is to say, I did – but just recently, it’s been picking and choosing what sites I can or cannot access.

It keeps telling me that even my own sites, that I wrote with my bare hands, are “unsafe”, not to mention many of the more famous sites on the web, many of which I access on a regular basis.

After a play around with it this morning, it still wouldn’t respond so I reluctantly uninstalled it. I used another one previous to this one, that I had rejected several years ago in favour of the new one, so I went back to install that one again, and it works just fine.

When I’d finished breakfast I had made some dough for a lunchtime bread roll. I baked it and then made some lovely cheese on toast for lunch. You’ve no idea how nice it tasted. And as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m really impressed with my air fryer, almost as much as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin.

This afternoon I made a start on the radio programme notes that I’d begun to edit just before going into hospital. And in a mad fit of energy I’d finished them, assembled the programme as far as I could, chosen the final track and written the notes ready for dictation next Saturday night.

There were of course the notes that I’d dictated last night but I ran out of time, which is probably just as well. I’ll try to catch up with those during the week some time.

There was more baking to do this afternoon. I’ve almost run out of bread so now seemed like a good time to make a loaf. I assembled enough ingredients for an 800-gramme loaf and with the correct amount of water thanks to my new scientific measuring gauge, with which I am also impressed etc etc, the dough rose up like a lift.

Not that I was watching it. I was in here watching Caernarfon play Cardiff Metropolitan for the right to play Hwlffordd next weekend for the coveted final spot in European competition in the summer.

The Caernarfon fans packed the ground and they had the privilege of being entertained to one of the fastest, most competitive games that I’ve seen all season.

The Cofis had the bulk of the attacking play but the Met’s defence stood firm and if their defence were to play like that in every game, they would be a force to be reckoned with. They had recognised long before the game that flying winger Louis Lloyd was the Cofis’ main attacking strength and had three men marking him throughout the game, giving him no room at all to move.

It wasn’t until near the end that the Met began to attack in numbers, and they created a few moments of panic in the Cofis’ defence.

And, would you believe, the match was decided by the very last kick of the game. You can see the game HERE or wait until the TV company has edited the highlights. But the highlights will miss the flavour of the game, that’s for sure.

While all of this was going on, I’d had some pizza dough, the last lot, defrosting in the kitchen. So while the bread was baking after the final whistle, I assembled my pizza.

The bread looks superb, the pizza tasted really good and everything now looks fine for the week to come. So I’ll finish my notes, back up the computer, take the statistics and then go to bed. Later than usual of course, but that’s just how things are these days.

But seeing as we have been talking about Isabelle the Nurse lancing my blister … "well, one of us has" – ed … they had a specialist unit once at Leighton Hospital near Crewe where a man was employed specifically to do just that.
However, I had head that it had closed down so I asked my friend who still lives there.
"It’s quite true" he said. "The unit has closed down"
"Why was that?" I asked, bitterly regretting ten seconds later that I had done so
"It was the man who lanced the boils and blisters" he replied. "He kept on falling off the horse."

Sunday 4th May 2025 – HAPPY STAR WARS DAY

May the fourth be with you.

And regular readers of this rubbish will recall exactly how today began. Probably many of the occasional readers will have some kind of idea too because it seems to happen almost every Sunday following a Saturday dialysis.

However, having said that, 02:55 is carrying it rather to extremes.

It can’t be because I went to bed early either. I know that 22:25 is a rather extreme time for hitting the sack these days, but I was so exhausted after yesterday’s dialysis session, light though it might have been, that I simply dashed through everything that I needed to do and just fell into bed.

At 02:55 I was wide-awake and actually thinking about leaving my bed and making a start but even then I realised that doing that was probably going to unnecessary extremes. I made myself comfortable the best that I could and prepared for a very long morning.

At some point though, I did go back to sleep. But not for long because when the alarm went off at 08:00 (it’s lie-in day today) I was back in here having already washed and had my medication.

Although I’d started to transcribe the dictaphone notes, the nurse beat me to it and I had to go to have my legs seen to. He’s definitely not coming tomorrow morning and wants me to go to bed in my socks. My cleaner is outraged but as it happens, I’ll be going to bed fully-clothed tonight. I have a 05:30 start.

After he left, I made breakfast and began to read MY BOOK.

On page 233 he tells us that someone was employed in 1223 to make balistas corneas. A ballista is an ancient type of heavy-duty crossbow used for launching stones and heavy iron objects at buildings and obstructions and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in one of the ancient hill forts that we visited, a skeleton was found with a ballista bolt, or heavy-duty arrow, embedded in its back.

Consequently, I expected to see the odd page or two about ballistae and their construction, especially in a book about Medieval Military Architecture, but there is not a word. Nevertheless I carried out my own research and I’m now confident that I can build a reasonable ballista, to go with the rest of the Medieval and Roman equipment that I built during my University course in Historical Technology

Back in here, I transcribed the dictaphone notes from last night. I’d been out and about on quite a long walk etc. I’d been out all day and had travelled miles. When I had come back to the hotel in the evening I suddenly remembered or suddenly realised that I only had one of my crutches. I wondered where on Earth I’d left that – the other one – and how far I’d actually walked around my enormous circuit with just one crutch holding me. I asked them at reception and I held up my béquille – my crutch. Someone said “ahhh yes, we have the other one of those”. I thought to myself “have I really gone all day without one of my crutches and done it all with the one in all that distance that I’ve walked?” One guy came back he had a belt with him, a leather belt he handed it to my brother who put it on and was admiring himself I took hold of another waiter and asked him what was happening there The waiter said “that was found at breakfast and we thought that it might have been your brother’s” I said “I didn’t know about that, but what about my béquille that he went to fetch?” The guy replied “I don’t think that there was one. I think that what he was thinking about was that belt”. I had to accept the fact that somewhere I had lost a crutch and I would have to try to organise another one and pretty quickly too because I really couldn’t go anywhere without two crutches. I was surprised that I’d even attempted to go the kind of distance that I did today and only used one of the crutches for at least part of the way

That’s not the first (by any means) dream that I’ve had where I’ve picked up my bed and walked, in a manner of speaking. Wishful thinking, I’m afraid. And once more, someone from my family has put his sooty foot into my dreams.

Back in here there was the football and for the final game of the season, it was another insipid performance from Stranraer as they went down 0-1 against basement club Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic, and it was on their own ground too, not the New Dundas Swamp.

They had only five players on the bench too, mostly youth players, as the injury crisis has ravaged their tiny squad. But that’s a self-inflicted problem.

They need to be thinking about a much improved squad and performance next season, that’s for sure.

There was a ‘phone call after this. A builder whom I had been trying to contact ‘phoned me back. We had a lengthy chat but the big issue with him is that he isn’t an electrician and I can’t find an electrician anywhere right now. There’s no point starting the work if there’s no electrician to do the electrical bits.

After lunch, of leftover pasta and salad, I made a start on editing the radio notes but I knocked off to watch my niece’s youngest daughter graduate from University.

St Francis-Xavier University had begun to stream the Graduation ceremonies during the pandemic and they had kept on going. So I had the pleasant sight of seeing her mount the stage to receive her Degree. I had to wait for ages though, with her name being down at the bottom of the alphabetical list.

Rosemary rang me too and we had a chat – only forty minutes today because it was the Welsh Cup Final between TNS and Connah’s Quay Nomads. There’s no need to ask the score because it’s pretty self-evident, especially when the winners were handed the winning goal on a platter as the opposition defence stood around and watched.

But in an event that can only ever happen in Welsh football, the Nomads took the field with only ten men. They had named the wrong player, an injured defender, in the starting line-up and so were obliged to start the game with (or without) him on the field, and make a substitute for the missing player once the ball had gone out of play.

While all of this was going on, I was making bread and defrosting pizzas. The pizza was excellent as usual and the bread looks wonderful too. I’ll know for sure when I make my sandwiches tomorrow morning.

Right now, though, I’m off to bed ready for my early start tomorrow.

But seeing as we have been talking about Connah’s Quay Nomads just now … "well, one of us has" – ed … regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have spoken before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … about various Welsh football clubs who have been playing with Martin Bormann and Lord Lucan, or a couple of Easter Island Statues in the centre of their defence
Next time that I need to talk about Connah’s Quay Nomads’ defence, instead of talking about our usual defenders, I shall mention that they are playing with the Invisible Man in central defence, and know that this time I shall be perfectly correct.
Rather like the time that the Invisible Man tried to make an appointment at the dentist’s
"I’m sorry" said the dentist. "I’m rather busy. I can’t see you right now."

Sunday 20th April 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone this morning when I awoke. And that was a big disappointment. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I depend upon what happens during the night for any excitement that there might be to brighten up my boring, miserable days.

Things might have been different had I had a decent night’s sleep.

After I’d finished my notes, which wasn’t all that late, I dictated the notes that I had written for the radio programmes that I’d prepared during the week, organised myself properly (and you’ve no idea just how long that takes) and then went off to bed, just before midnight. So with my lie-in until 08:00 it would be a good night’s sleep.

As I said yesterday, I was good and ready for it too. After the dialysis session I was totally exhausted. So once I was in bed I was asleep straight away and didn’t move a muscle for a good while after that.

However, it’s a Sunday after a dialysis Saturday and regular readers of this rubbish will recall what happens on a Sunday after a dialysis Saturday. And so at 08:00 when the alarm went off, I was sitting at my desk working.

What was so bad about that was that it had been another one of these “sitting bolt-upright” dramatic awakenings and at that point I was away on my travels, but the shock of awakening wiped absolutely everything out of my mind and I could remember nothing.

With over an hour to spare, I had a dive into that site that seems to know where all of the best Artificial Intelligence programs are, and after some practice I have now succeeded in being able to swap one face onto another person’s body with a reasonable amount of accuracy.

Add that to the voice generator with which I played the other week, my next trick is to go with a background remover. Then, with my PaintShop Pro (25 years old and still going strong) I can use the image that I created, transform the missing background into “transparent” with the aid of a green screen.

Once I’ve done that, I can superimpose it onto any screenshot from Street View (so I’ll need an Artificial Intelligence image enhancer for the screenshot) that I like, so I can have people doing strange things and saying strange things in any location in the World that takes my fancy…

There’s no doubt about it – amusing as it might be, it has some very dangerous undertones. I reckon that we will be hearing quite a lot more about Artificial Intelligence, and it won’t all be good.

The nurse turned up as usual and had a lot to say for himself. He was soon gone and I could make breakfast and read MY BOOK.

We’ve finally left Kenilworth and we’re now at Cydweli which, for the benefit of our geographically-challenged author, is in South-West Wales. And on page 154, without the slightest hint of irony, he tells us that "The new town, parts of which are of high antiquity … "

Back in here, we have football to entertain us. Stranraer were entertaining Edinburgh City.

Once more, today, I saw some more sad attempts at defending, with defenders standing around waiting for each other to clear the ball and watching as an opposition forward pushes it into the net, another shot fully covered by the goalkeeper until a defender sticks out a leg and diverts it into his own net, open goals by the dozen blasted wide or well over the bar.

For a change though, it wasn’t Stranraer doing all of this but Edinburgh City. How Stranraer managed to win this game 2-0 is one of those big mysteries that will forever remain unresolved.

We also had the highlights of the weekend’s games in the JD Cymru League. While highlights can be very, very deceptive, I do have to say that I have never seen a team look so disinterested as Y Drenewydd.

Relegated last week, I did nevertheless expect that their final game would be one in which they would go out with a bang but Y Fflint, deep in the mire themselves at one stage just recently, strolled through the game and the Drenewydd defence with ease. A 4-0 victory was nothing like representative of the hundreds of chances that they were gifted throughout the game.

Rosemary’s computer is now fixed and working. She reset all of the parameters for the internet connection and on one particular combination of settings, it made a Wi-Fi connection and we now have one very happy Easter Bunny, just as I was today at breakfast when I had two more of my delicious toasted hot cross buns smothered in vegan butter.

The bread roll that I made for lunch was perfection and made some wonderful toasted cheese and tomato bread roll halves washed down with disgusting drink, and then I came back in here.

Most of the rest of the day has been spent editing the radio notes. Programme 260220 is now finished (I just had to lose eight seconds) and 260227 is almost completely edited and assembled, the final track has been chosen and remixed and the notes written ready for dictation next Saturday.

There was a break to make some dough for the pizza. Two lots are in the freezer now and the third made probably the best pizza base that I have ever made. The pizza was delicious too, melted exactly as it should be.

So tomorrow, I have dialysis again. I also have to ring up Paris to find out what’s going on about this visit and also to ring around to find some workmen who want to earn some money. There’s a lot to do and time is getting short.

But seeing as we have been talking about Cydweli Castle … "well, one of us has" – ed … when our author Geo. T Clark went to visit it, he was totally taken aback by the most rude and offensive manner in which the castle welcomed him.
In the village pub afterwards he met the local doctor and talked to him about it.
"It was most offensive" he said. "All the time that I was there, it kept on shouting abuse, insults and rude word at me."
"It’s nothing to worry about" said the doctor
"Really?" asked our author.
"Ohh quite" said the doctor. "A psychiatrist came to see it a couple of years ago. Apparently it has Turrets Syndrome"

Sunday 6th April 2025 – WHEN THE ALARM …

… went off this morning, I was sitting at the table in the dining area having my medication. It’s another Sunday morning after a Saturday dialysis, and how many times now has this happened.

Even though the nursing staff assure me, I still remain convinced that they are adding something into the mix every Saturday. It can’t be a coincidence.

Maybe though, it just might be because I had an early night last night. While 23:30 may not sound as if it’s particularly early, there’s a lie-in in the morning until 08:00 and so it means (in theory, that is) that I can have a much longer sleep than usual.

After tea last night, I cracked on with the notes, the statistics and the backing-up and then I had some dictating to do – the notes for the extra track for broadcast 260130 and the notes for the major part of broadcast 260206 (I really am that far ahead), all of which I had written last week.

The dictation was pretty awful. I couldn’t concentrate and kept on muffing my lines and with all of the errors and going back to re-dictate, the timestamp on broadcast 260206 showed that it was just about the longest that I’d ever dictated. There will be some serious editing to do here when I awaken.

That was the cue to wander off to bed and despite a somewhat turbulent night, there I stayed, fast asleep until about 07:10.

For the last couple of nights I’d awoken early but had gone back to sleep so I lay there for a while hoping that jamais deux sans trois as they say around here. However, after fifteen minutes of waiting I gave it up as a bad job, arose from the Dead and went about my business.

Back in here I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. A man and a woman were up to all kinds of criminal activities. They had a really good racket or two going but the relationship began to sour between the two of them and they both ended up wishing that the other one would clear off. They began to feel that the forces of law and order were beginning to press on them so the guy announced that he was thinking of leaving and going into hiding or emigrating or something like that and how he was rather nervous of being caught. That brought a little smile to the woman’s face and she made him hold that pose that he had while she took a photograph of him for his next passport. In the meantime she was talking about leaving. She’d looked at the photo of him that she had just taken and said that she could really do with a photo like that of herself so that she could have a false passport and move. The guy had noticed that the quality of the photograph was not exactly correct so instead of saying anything he encouraged his wife or partner to have a photograph taken in exactly the same fashion because if that went into a passport presented at the frontier it’s almost inevitable that a border guard would recognise it as false and arrest her, leaving him on his own with all the loot

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we had a similar criminal couple a few days ago … "Monday, in fact" – ed …. I had no idea of the significance then and I’ve even less of an idea about it now. As for false passports though, there’s an interesting story about that but the World is not yet ready to hear it.

The nurse was again in something of a rush this morning and didn’t stop around for long, so I could make my breakfast and read some more of MY NEW BOOK.

We’ve moved on from Dover Castle this morning and are now at Dursley Castle in Somerset. A quick glance at the first couple of paragraphs tells me that we are going to have another guided tour in the fashion of the National Trust, who have owned the property since the 1950s, rather than the engineering masterclass for which I was hoping

Once breakfast was over I made the dough for a bread roll for lunch and came back in here to watch the football.

Stranraer were in Edinburgh for a match against Spartans and once again, they fell apart in defence, standing around paralysed as the opposition ran rings around them. The first rule of defence always has been and always will be “if in doubt, kick it out”, not to stand around waiting for your team-mate to do something

For most of the rest of the day I’ve been editing the radio notes that I dictated, and I was right about them being a complete mess. However, by the time that I’d finished editing they came out quite well. So broadcast 260130 is now completely finished. I assembled 260206 as much as I could, chose the eleventh track and wrote the notes ready for dictation next Saturday night.

In the meantime, the bread roll was excellent and I had a lovely cheese on toast for lunch, thanks to the air fryer. And later on, there was the disgusting drink break.

My friend in the UK who is in charge of my project contacted me today and we had a chat. Apparently Phase One is now complete. He went to check on it at the end of last week and he says that he’s impressed with it. Seeing how much it cost, it should be too, but I’ll have to wait until Tuesday to see the photos that he took.

All we need to do after that is to do Phase Two, and then Phase Three.

Rosemary rang me for a chat too. Just a short one, a mere fifty-nine minutes. We’re obviously losing our touch these days.

There was a third discussion too, with my friends on the Wirral. It’s been ages since we last chatted and it was nice to have their news, even if it was only a short chat.

It was pizza for tea tonight, another candidate for the best pizza ever. At the moment my bread-making seems to be doing OK, and I hope that it can continue like that. I’ve ordered a new calibrated water-measurer for my bread-making and when it arrives, I’ll be able to check to see if it really was the previous gauge that was incorrect that was causing all of my problems.

Something else that I’ve been doing is looking at kitchens. The more I think about it, the more I don’t like the kitchen in this new apartment and I think that maybe I ought to treat myself for once to a kitchen that I like. That would actually be a unique experience for me – I’ve never had a kitchen of my own choosing. Even the kitchen in “Expo” In Brussels, new as it might have been … "actually it was the ex-display kitchen from the Belgian Ideal Homes Exhibition" – ed … was chosen by Marianne. I didn’t like its colour but there was no doubting its quality.

However I shall worry about that tomorrow. Right now I’m off to bed ready to finish my Welsh homework tomorrow and then go to dialysis where I hope that I only stay for three and a half hours.

But while we’re on the subject of passports … "well, one of us is" – ed … it reminds me of the Russian who applied for a passport to visit France.
"Why do you want to go there?" asked the passport clerk. "Aren’t you happy here?"
"Oh, I can’t complain" replied the applicant
"So why do you want to go to France then?"
"Because In France I can complain, and I can go out onto the streets and riot if I like as well."

Sunday 23rd March 2025 – MY ORANGE, GINGER …

… and coconut cake is absolutely delicious, if it tastes anything like the mix that I sampled and the crumbs that broke off when I brought it out of the oven. The proof of the pudding is indeed in the eating and I’ll have to wait a couple of days before I start on it, so I’ll tell you more in a few days time.

So last night, after I’d finished my notes, I dictated the radio notes that I’d written during the week and then went to bed. It was only a few minutes after midnight too so with my Sunday morning lie-in until 08:00, I was looking forward to a decent sleep.

To be on the safe side, I’d found an old fleece jumper in the chest of drawers so in desperation I put that on before going to bed. And while I may well have awoken in the middle of the night for a variety of reasons, cold wasn’t one of them. For once just recently, I was quite comfortable in that respect.

When the alarm went off at 08:00 I was away with the fairies, although not in any fashion that might incite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine. However, wherever I was and whatever I was doing evaporated completely from my mind and that was that.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what I’d been doing during the night.

Not that I advanced very far because the nurse came round to sort me out. He had a lot to say for himself this morning but nothing of any importance, so I could crack on and make my breakfast, including some home-made orange juice and home-made apple and kiwi purée with home-made bread out of the toaster and porridge.

I also read some more of MY NEW BOOK and, unfortunately, Sir Norman Lockyer is tying himself up in knots.

Having criticised the builders of these stone monuments on the grounds of their uncivilised nature, to day he tells us that, according to Caesar "that in the schools of the Druids the subjects taught included the movements of the stars, the size of the earth, and the nature of things … Studies of such a character seem quite consistent with, and to demand, a long antecedent period of civilisation.".

He also talks about the stories that the Greek, Hecataeus, told of the Hyperboreans – "so called because they live beyond the point from which the North wind blows". That’s interesting to me at least because the early Polar explorers were convinced, for some reason, that there was a warm sea beyond the ice belt, a delusion that led so many of them to their deaths. I always wondered why it would be possible to believe such a thing but if the myth of the Hyperboreans really was believed, (and Hecataeus was convinced they and the Greeks had been in contact and that the Hyperboreans were "in general very friendly to the Greeks.’") that would explain everything.

There was a bap to make this morning so that I could have my cheese on toast for lunch. I made the mix rather wetter than in the past to see what happens and it was rather difficult to knead. But once it was made I left it to fester for a while.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night. There was something about my youngest sister last night – I can’t remember exactly what it was but I wanted her to do something or to go somewhere and pick up something where I was. It took her a while to turn up and I can’t really remember any more about it because it’s another one of these dreams that evaporated away.

Just as well really. I don’t want my family loitering around my bedside during the night, that’s for sure

Later on, I started work being an Accompanier … "you mean ‘escort’" – ed … on a school bus in New Brunswick. I had to go to the local small town pick-up point to run a check on all of the pupils there. There were probably fifty children waiting there. Each of them wore a badge with their names, and several of them had changed their names and put “Bigfoot” there instead. After I’d reviewed all of the names I asked “how many Bigfoots have we here?”. Someone replied “well, there are five “. I replied “well, it’s New Brunswick, isn’t it? That will explain it”. Everyone burst out laughing.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … you could put everyone in New Brunswick, and in particular, Carleton County where my place is, into Tennessee and no-one, neither the New Brunswickers or the Tennesseans, would notice the difference. Much as I love that area of North America, western New Brunswick, Maine, Vermont, it is like going back seventy years in time. That’s probably why I like it.

Next, there was football. And I despair of Stranraer FC. Having played like a championship side last week and blown away so convincingly the leaders of their division, and away from home too, this weekend they were at home to the bottom club, played one of the worst games that I have ever seen them play, and lost 1-0.

These Jekyll-and-Hyde performances have to stop if they want to be serious about keeping their place in the league. Last season they had a lucky escape from demotion out of the League, and they haven’t really improved all that much.

And while we’re on the subject of demotion and relegation … "well, one of us is" – ed … the weekend’s results in the JD Cymru League mean that Aberstwyth are relegated, as predicted at the start of the season, and Y Fflint just need one point to be assured of staying up – and with three matches to go.

With Aberystwyth’s relegation, it means that Y Drenewydd are the only club to have been in the league for every year that it has been in existence, and they are looking by no means safe quite yet.

Next task was the radio. Last night I’d dictated the notes for eleventh track of a radio programme and so I edited them and joined everything up together. The whole lot over-ran by seven seconds but I always dictate stuff that can be edited out without disrupting the sense and the rhythm and that was soon accomplished.

Lunch was next and I do have to say that my bap was absolute perfection today, the best that I have ever made. I’m certain that my water measurer is inaccurate and that’s been the root of all of my problems. The air fryer baked it really well and made some lovely cheese on toast, even if it is vegan cheese.

This afternoon I attacked the next programme. Last night I’d dictated the notes for ten tracks and so I edited it all down and assembled it. Later on, I chose the eleventh track and wrote the notes for it ready for dictation next weekend.

After the disgusting drink break I set about making my cake.

It’s a standard oil cake of

one cup of flour
one cup of sugar
half a cup of hot water
half a cup of oil (I use 50% vegetable oil and 50% coconut oil)
half a teaspoon of baking powder
half a teaspoon of salt
one teaspoon of vanilla essence

to that I added

a couple of inches of ginger paste (Heaven only knows where my fresh ginger has gone
a teaspoon of ground ginger
a teaspoon of mixed spice
some desiccated coconut
an extra half-cup of flour
all of the orange pulp from which I had extracted the juice yesterday
some whizzed-up almonds and Brazil nuts

All of the dry stuff was whizzed up in my whizzer, then all of the wet stuff was added in and whizzed into the mix, and it was all then poured out into a lined cake tray and baked for 35 minutes at 180°C

While that was going on, the pizza dough that i’d taken from the freezer was defrosting. I made the pizza while the cake was baking and then popped it into the hot oven when the cake was done.

The pizza was perfection too, especially as I had remembered everything this week, for a change.

Now I’m off to bed ready for dialysis tomorrow, I don’t think

But while we are talking about Bigfoot "well, one of us is" one of my friends in Crewe contacted me the other day and told me that there was a big, hairy monster running around Crewe scaring everyone.
"Crewe’s equivalent of Bigfoot, I suppose?" I asked
"Very probably" he replied "but here, he’s called ‘Big Thirty point Four-Eight Centimetres’"

Sunday 16th March 2025 – I HAVE BEEN …

… a very busy boy today and have hardly stopped at all. I could do with a few more days like that, except that almost none of it was to do with any of the work that has been building up in here.

It actually started last night when, after finishing off my notes and doing the back-ups, I recorded the notes that I wrote for the radio programme that I began last week, and also for the final track for the previous week.

That took me up to just after midnight and it wasn’t many minutes after that that I was in bed, underneath the bedclothes.

When the alarm went off at 08:00 (it’s lie-in day today) I was already sitting on the edge of the bed. I had beaten the alarm, not by many seconds, it’s true, but nevertheless I’m going to claim it as an early start all the same. They all count.

After a good wash I came back in here and began to transcribe the dictaphone notes while I waited for Isabelle the Nurse to turn up.

She was late again – even later than usual, but she brought with her the photos and videos of her Carnaval float and costumes. They did a really good job again and it was quite impressive. The way some of the owners of the floats let themselves go with their designs and lampooning of politicians, local and national, should be an inspiration for other countries to let themselves loose.

After she left I made a late breakfast and read MY BOOK. And it’s now finished, ready for the next one to start tomorrow.

Our author, having explored the effects on Christianity is summing up and tells us that he considers that the folklore that existed in many rural communities until fairly modern times is not Celtic but belongs to the Brythonic people whole the Celts found when they arrived here.

He quotes the mystery and mysticism that surrounded it that the Celts, whom Caesar encountered, told him all of the rumours and fairy-tales that litter Caesar’s writings. That may well be the case because Pytheas, who voyaged around the British Isles in the 4th Century BC, presumably met some of the Brythonic peoples in their coastal outposts before the Celts arrived, and he told similar (but not identical) stories.

Gomme states further that he considers that the Celts and the Brythonic people lived side-by-side, with the Celts in their tribal settlements and the Brythonic people in their rural villages, and there they stayed. But we’ve seen anthropological evidence that there was very little, if any, mixing of the people, and all of the later Brythonic human remains were found in caves, hinting that they may probably have been in hiding out of the way of the marauding Celts.

Furthermore, many of these magnificent hill-forts that we saw earlier date from round about 500-400BC – the time that the Celts were beginning to arrive in Britain. That doesn’t look to me like anything like people living side by side at all, It looks like defenders living in total fear and panic.

And so,even though it was a very interesting and thought-provoking book that made quite a number of good points and taught me quite a lot, as far as the contact between the Brythonic and Celtic people, and indeed the Celtic people and the subsequent Saxon people, I’m still going for defeat and extermination.

There was bread to make after breakfast – a bread roll for lunch. With the air fryer, it’s much easier to dash off a roll like this rather than go for a batch in the big oven. So I ran up 100 grams of flour and made a dough, leaving it to fester.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been. And I’d travelled far during the night. I was in a strange town and fancied going to the swimming baths. I turned up, paid for my entry and went in, changed and went through the double doors. It was the smallest room that you could imagine. There was some clear tiled flooring and there was a shower tray that was probably big enough to fit ten people. That was the bath, just one shower head. I thought “how disappointing this is for having spent this money to come for a swim. Nevertheless, people began to arrive. I thought “they probably enjoy it” and made ready to leave. Just as I was about to step out of the door, the room made a really funny noise and began to move. I looked out and the room was turning round through 90°. At the end of its cycle it coupled up to something. I had a look through another door. There was a huge Olympic-quality swimming pool there with cafés, shops, a swimming costume shop, everything like that. I was obviously in the ante-room where you showered before going into the water. At opening time the room simply spun round and connected up with the main pool. I was ever so impressed. I had a listen to the conversations of some of these people talking about what they had been doing, where they had been, what swimming clothes they had bought. It was really interesting.

When I was driving coaches I’d often go to the swimming baths to relax when I was away on a tour. When I lived in the Auvergne I looked forward to my Saturday afternoon swim at Neris-les-Bains and later at the new pool at Commentry. But my worst-ever encounter with a swimming baths was in Loretteville, a short distance from the city of Québec where I froze to death in water that was, if I remember correctly, 11°C. I must have been out of my mind, but there again I’d been living in a car for two weeks so it was not before time that I washed.

Later on I’d just been uploading a file to my computer, watching it, and it was going up, 20,000 items, 30,000 items and still going on. I was wondering how long it was going to take before it loaded. It was only supposed to be one item that I was adding.

And how many times have I, instead of deleting a single file, deleted a whole directory instead and had to go scurrying off to the recycle bin.

Later on, I’d been in a pub in Audlem. I asked if they had something to eat, but apparently not. I explained that i’d been on the road all day and was desperate to try to find something. In the end she suggested that I could make a sandwich if I had some bread, but I didn’t have any. She took me over to a corner where an old man was asleep. She said “see what he has”. I opened his bag thinking that there were some fish and chips in there but there was a loaf of bread which of course I couldn’t touch – the loaf of bread of someone else. A guy came over and gave me a set of keys. he said “take my tractor, there’s a blue Massey Ferguson, and go down this road. It’s called Cegidfa Road but it goes nowhere near Cegidfa and that should take you to the shop if you do a zig-zag as you go down”. I climbed into the tractor and set off but ended up in a completely different town so I climbed out and walked down a street of old, decaying, crumbling terraced houses with water cascading off the roofs etc. I suddenly found myself standing next to this really big, heavy stone wall. I wondered what it was so I looked round behind it and it was like a forest but with bits of building and bits of equipment and an old, decayed toilet in there. I saw a poster that said that this was the old RASC Stafford military base. Regretting that I didn’t have a camera I set off to go back to the tractor. But there was some discussion going on about how in view of the increased tension in the World and talking about National Service there is just not the infrastructure in the UK for supporting the National Service any more with all of the military depots that have been closed and wound down, some sold off, the rest abandoned. If they were to have a general call-out for one day it would be absolute chaos and totally impossible

This deserted and abandoned camp reminded me very much like Camp B70, the civilian internment camp at Ripples in New Brunswick that WE VISITED IN 2011. And it’s true that, having lived for so long under the shade of the American umbrella, Europe is totally uprepared for war. Regular readers of this rubbish in an earlier guise will remember the endless disputes that I had with the Finnish General in charge of the EU’s military force, trying to steel the force into filling the power vacuum that was developing in the World at the end of the 20th Century.

Later on, down the coast towards St Pair I’d met some British people who had a house right on the seafront. I’d come down from London. I wasn’t quite sure exactly whattheir game was but they were rather shady characters, I suspected. I was out with them one day. We’d been to some kind of do and there had been a buffet there. They told me where I could find something to eat. I went to the table to ask what they had but they didn’t really have anything. I had a coffee in a plastic mug so they poured it into a glass mug and they charged me £0:40, or €0:40. All I had was a £5:00 note so I paid with it and they gave it all back in change. I went and sat down and began to talk.
Shortly later we found ourselves in their house. It’s a big rambling house but so untidy, the garden was full of rubbish and the room in which we were sitting was full of paint tins, people and objects, all DiY stuff etc, paper everywhere. They were talking about all kinds of things, saying that they had a job available for someone who wanted it. I suggested “why don’t we write down on a piece of paper all the skills that we are all good at doing and we can see what we can do”. They thought that that was a funny idea but I thought it an excellent one. In the end they all dispersed and I was sitting there having a think when a girl came in. She asked me if that job had been taken. I replied “as far as I’m aware it’s still going”. She wondered what she could do about it so I told her “why don’t you ask?”. The woman of this house then came in to say that they were all planning to go off to London for a concert or something or other. I said “I’d like to go too”. She replied “you can go in a car with someone and the rest of us will have to go in the buses”. We began to think about preparing to go. I began to have this really uncomfortable feeling about this situation. It’s nice to meet people and it’s nice to be friends and to be involved in things but this was simply far too shady a situation in which I should be involved.

And this reminds me of the “Pink Palace” – that place where I stayed while I was waiting for the previous occupier to move out of “Reyers” when I’d bought it, so that I could move in, back in 1994. That house was a huge house with many single rooms, each one occupied as a kind-of pied-à-terre by single British businessmen when they came to do business in Brussels. That was a very happy three months and I learned a great deal from those people.

Having dealt with the dictaphone I sat back and watched Stranraer totally demolish league-leaders East Fife up in Methil. 3-0 was the final scoreline and it was not undeserved. What I wish though, having seen the dismal displays against Clyde and Forfar, is that they could do this every week.

Next task was to edit the radio notes that I had dictated. But I was nowhere anything like even halfway through when I had to break off for lunch

My bread roll was perfect, my cheese on toasted bread roll exquisite, and I ate it in here, something that I vowed never to do, but today it was because of the other Welsh Cup semi-final.

Cambrian United are seventh in the second tier and have had better seasons than this, and today they have the unenviable task of facing runaway Premier League leaders TNS, fresh from their triumphs in European competition

For the first five or so minutes the team from Tonypandy took the game to TNS but when TNS scored their inevitable first goal, the heads went down and the floodgates opened. At half-time the score was 5-0 and it looked as if we were going to be heading for an embarrassing scoreline.

However, I don’t know what the Cambrian manager put in their half-time cup of tea but I wouldn’t mind a swig of that myself, because it was a different game in the second half. Cambrian were much more relaxed and played some neat football. They kept TNS out for the rest of the game (although I suspect that TNS could have changed up a gear had it been necessary) and had a few chances of their own. Had the referee seen the foul by McGahey on Tim Parker as he was one-on-one with Connor Roberts in the TNS goal, TNS would have finished the game with ten men.

After the final whistle there was bread to make as I have run out (well, I haven’t – there’s some in the freezer but it can stay there for now). It was another sunflower seed loaf, and I set the dough off and left it to rise.

While it was doing its stuff, I had some over-ripe fruit here, apples and kiwis. I’m right of my fruit at the moment so I made a batch of apple and kiwi purée to have at breakfast with half of the stuff. I’ll make some more later on with the rest.

There’s also some oranges that I can’t seem to eat (my taste buds changed dramatically a few weeks ago when I was ill) so when the current breakfast orange juice is finished, I’ll experiment with the liquidiser attachment on my food processor and make some fresh orange juice.

The bread was excellent and my pizza (I’d taken some dough out of the freezer earlier) was perfect too. In fact, all of today’s baking etc seemed to have gone very well. It killed my legs though, standing up, and when I move downstairs I’ll have one of these screwable stools that I can raise the height of the seat.

But now I’m going to bed. I’ll finish the radio notes tomorrow and do half of my Welsh homework too ready for Tuesday’s lesson. We’re cracking on with our Welsh course but we won’t be anywhere near finishing it by the end of the year and it’s going to over-run.

But while we are on the subject of swimming pools … "well, one of us is" – ed … a boy at that swimming pool in Loretteville ws thrown out while I was there, for … errr … relieving himself into the water.
"But everyone does that in a swimming pool" pleaded the boy
"Maybe they do" said the lifeguard "but not from the top of the high diving board"

Sunday 9th March 2025 – THAT WAS MORE …

… like what I call a decent night after the last couple that I have had. I was in bed just after midnight and slept right through until about 07:45 without any interruption at all, taking almost full advantage of my extra hour’s Sunday lie-in. I could certainly have done with it too.

After I finished my notes and everything last night I dictated the radio notes ready for editing and refraining from doing more work on the computer, I crawled off to bed for a good night’s sleep.

At 07:45 I had another one of these dramatic awakenings and although I didn’t look at the time I had a good idea of what time it might have been by the fact that it was light outside. I simply curled up under the quilt until the alarm went off.

Last weekend the nurse caught me in flagrante delicto in the bathroom. Today either I was quicker than that or he was later arriving because I was actually back in here when he turned up.

After he left I made breakfast and carried on reading MY NEW BOOK. His take on religion (which we are discussing today) is that "I venture to think that civilised man shares with the savage of today, and with the primitive ancestors of all mankind, the charge of applying perfectly good logic to an insufficiency of facts."

Interestingly he notes a great similarity in religious beliefs between various bands of Native Americans, natives in Guyana and in Brazil, as well as other beliefs shared by other widely-dispersed groups of natives.

Back in here there were the dictaphone notes that needed transcribing. I was with one of the boys from school last night. We were walking along Alton Street in Crewe. He was telling me that what he was looking for was some kind of place where he could give singing lessons and have a kind of pied-à-terre there too. I asked him “what kind of place? But what? First-floor balcony? Open-air roof garden?”. In the end he came down to the idea of a singing workshop with apartment. I said “what you are actually looking for is what you would used to find on every street corner in Crewe in the pre-1920s Crewe which is the old local shop that would have been a grocer’s or a hairdresser’s or something with a two-roomed apartment above it”. Just at that moment we walked past what was a florist’s so I said “just like this in fact”. He wasn’t very enthusiastic but I couldn’t see exactly what he was hoping to do if that wasn’t the solution. While we were pondering on this I stepped out off the kerb into the side-street and was nearly run down by a car coming the other way. I looked around and we were in Nantwich Road near the Earl of Crewe. I wondered what on earth I’d been doing to have walked this kind of distance from Alton Street up to Nantwich Road without thinking about what I was doing and where I was going.

Whoever this boy was and if I recognised him in the dream, I have no idea. But it was certainly a quick transition up the hill from Alton Street to Nantwich Road.

Later on, we were round at my house in Virlet last night, me and a couple of my siblings. The house was in a total mess with dust and rubbish and papers everywhere and hadn’t been lived in for fifty years. They were having a good look around it. We were wandering into the next room looking at the damage and the decay and the waste, all the rubbish and dust. They came to a door in the side wall and managed to force it open. Next door was the Council Chamber which was all richly furnished with seats and huge tables and chairs with silks and everything. The contrast between that room and the rooms in my house was astonishing. They all noticed it and made some remarks. They they picked up a couple of brushes and began to sweep everything up. I’d left everything as it was because I was intending to go through the rubbish and sort out everything that I needed but they just began to brush things up and stick them in bin bags. They went into the bedroom and found that the bedroom was in total disorder and mess that someone must have left the door open, the Christmas tree had fallen down so I’d better go to have a look at that. Then they came to the door at the end of the house and couldn’t open it so they all pushed against it. Suddenly it opened and they cascaded out, falling down one storey into the yard at the back. They asked “how do we come out of here?”. I told them to go down to the end of the alleyway and turn left. I thought “this is the moment when I suppose that I ought to go too”. I locked up the house and left. When I reached the place where they should have been, there was one of these cryptic signs so in the end I interpreted it as “Eric, forget this and go home” so I thought that I’d better set off for home. It was a sunny day with lots of cloud though. All the rain that we’d had over the last few months was slowly beginning to dry out. I thought that this is going to be a really nice day.

The house I actually recognised. It was one in Gresty Road opposite the football ground, one that I knew quite well at one time. But the idea that the Council Offices were next door is a long way short of the mark. The story about the house and dust everywhere sounds just like the farm in Virlet when I was plastering it and dropped a huge bag of screws all over the floor into the dust. I loved my place down in Virlet but it was no place to be when ill-health strikes. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the old man with whom I was quite friendly who had a fall in his house in the middle of a minus eighteen degree winter and lay on the floor undiscovered for four days and never recovered.

There was a bread roll to make for lunch. Last week the fresh bread roll was an excellent idea so I was keen to give it another try.

After that we had the football, Stranraer v Peterhead. It was a tough gritty match that finished 0-0 and quite rightly too because no-one had any much more play than the other. But the disgraceful scenes at the end when the Peterhead coach came onto the field and attacked a Stranraer player have no place whatever in football. And even worse, the referee took no notice whatever of the incident. Whether he mentions it in his match report remains to be seen.

There were the highlights of the matches in the Cymru Premier League to watch too. And Penybont finally won a match in the second phase as they beat Y Bala. Aberystwyth went down 3-0 though and now look certainties for the drop down to Tier Two. Y Drenewydd live to fight another day after a draw with Y Fflint but Llansawel went down at home against Y Barri by a last-minute goal.

Much of the rest of the day has been spent finishing off the uploading of data onto the new system disk. It’s all there now but it needs unpacking and sorting and that is going to be a mammoth task and will take an age until it’s finished

The cheese on toast on fresh bread roll, all cooked nicely in the air fryer, was excellent again. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I am really impressed with my air fryer, almost as much as I was with my stainless steel dustbin.

Later on I had bread to make and following the success of the loaf last week I put sunflower seeds in this one too. And it rose up just as well as the one last week did

There was pizza dough to make too. This was another really good batch that rose up really well. Two lumps are in the freezer and the third made a lovely tea tonight – a tea that would have been even nicer had I remembered to put the cheese on before the cherry tomatoes. I really don’t know what’s happening to me and my memory these days.

So now that I’ve finished my notes I’ll carry on unzipping *.RAR archives for a while and then go to bed ready for Welsh homework and dialysis tomorrow

A few days ago though, we were talking about the dams in Germany that the Dambusters breached. So while we’re on the subject of religion today … "well, one of us is" – ed … when the Mohne Dam broke, the warden telephoned the church in the valley to tell the vicar to flee
"I’ll be okay" he said. "The Good Lord will provide"
When the water reached the church the vicar climbed into the tower. A few minutes later a boat rowed past. "Quick, vicar, leap aboard"
"I’ll be okay" he said. "The Good Lord will provide"
When the church was flooded the vicar climbed up to the steeple
Another boat came past. "Quick vicar, leap aboard!"
"I’ll be okay" he said. "The Good Lord will provide"
But the Good Lord didn’t and the vicar drowned
At the Pearly Gates he met St Peter and he remonstrated with him. "I always believed in the Lord and he betrayed me. Why did the Good Lord let me down and let me drown?"
"Well" said St Peter. "He did send two boats for you."

Sunday 2nd March 2025 – I NOW HAVE …

… a complete flapjack and also a complete loaf of home-made bread.

And as well as that, I also have a large bowl of leek soup, mainly in the grounds that at lunchtime I wasn’t at all hungry and there’s no point in forcing food down if I don’t feel like eating it. It will do for tea tomorrow night instead, complete with a fresh bread roll that I also made today.

There were in fact lots of things that I didn’t feel like doing, but what accounts for that is the really miserable, wretched night that I had.

It was late when I went to bed, for one reason or another … "mainly the football highlights" – ed … but I was soon asleep. However, not for long. As I said into the dictaphone at the time, “not long after I went to sleep I was talking to a girl about music and one or two popular musical sayings. I didn’t go very far into that dream before someone walked past in the street blowing a saxophone and awoke me, and that was that”.

And that was it too. Not the noise from the disco or the fairground last night, but a whole series of attacks of the most severe cramp that I’d had for ages. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few years ago I was having regular severe attacks of cramp, and last night they were back.

There wasn’t much danger of going back to sleep after that.

Anyway, I stayed in bed until the alarm went off at 08:00 and then had a difficult climb out of bed and into the real World. The nurse came round very early today and caught me in flagrante delicto in the bathroom. He wasn’t happy about being made to be kept waiting but that’s his problem not mine.

After he left I made breakfast, had my meditation and read some more of MY BOOK.

We are still wandering around the South Downs admiring the scenery, something that has very little, if anything at all to do with the “Earthwork of England”.

However, I’m still puzzled over his book, even more so these days. Is it a historical account, a scholarly work of reference, a travel guide for the educated tourist or simply an exercise in prose? When you see flowery phrases such as "your dreams here should be of times and peoples yet earlier than the Roman—of taller warriors clad in skins and armed with stone, and of others harnessed in bronze or helmeted with the horned casque of the iron time, but not of those terrible squat interlopers who made such play with the short sword and the pilum, and carried upon their shields the blazon of the thunderbolt." you begin to wonder what on earth he must have been smoking, and could he maybe pass it round to the rest of us?

Back in here there was the dictaphone. Surprisingly, there was something else on it from last night. I went back into that dream … "presumably the one where the saxophone awoke me" – ed … later on and I was talking to a girl from Crewe, one of the friends of a girl whom I knew. She was actually doing something like being a hairdresser, something like that, and I was waiting to have my hair cut. I recognised her and remembered her name, Jennifer Marie something so I said “hello Jennifer Marie”. She looked at me and said “well I’m going to obviously have to change my name if people start recognising me”. I said “yes, change it to ‘Miss Crewe 1962’ ” which made her smile. Then we began to have a chat about the old days when a group of us used to go to the rock venue in High Street in Crewe. It was a real surprise to see her in a dream.

This is rather interesting because the girl concerned didn’t have a friend of that name, and I knew most of them. They were much younger than we were but used to sneak into the rock music venue to watch the groups on Saturday night – the one where I had that very long and interesting chat with that Dutch rock group “Alquin”. At their age (the girls, not Alquin) they wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a bar, never mind a night club full of rockers, but they used to tell their mothers that they were sleeping over at a friend’s and the friend would tell her mother that they were sleeping over at the first friend’s – you get the picture. Then at 03:00 when we were thrown out of the club they would go and sit on the station drinking coffee until it was time for them to “come home after breakfast”. I’m surprised that they got away with it for as long as they did but the downfall was inevitable. For once, I managed to keep myself well out of trouble and well out of the picture because even then, the young, naïve irresponsible me had no doubts at all about how it was going to finish. It’s strange though that it should all come flooding back last night.

After that, there was football to watch, Edinburgh City v Stranraer. Stranraer seem to be on a roll at the moment and it carried on today with a hard-fought 1-0 away win up at Meadowbank. Once again, luck was on their side as they survived a few desperate scrambles on their goal-line,

They were also lucky to have finished with all eleven players still on the pitch after a foul that would have seen many other players in many other clubs and many similar moments taking the walk of shame to the tunnel for the early bath.

Then I’ve been intermittently working. I’ve been sketching out the bones of how my “Woodstock” programme is going to work and it’s going to take some organising too. I have very little live music for the groups and artists who played on the Friday night and not much more for the blues artists that appeared on the Sunday night. As for the rock groups on Saturday, I could fill half a dozen programmes with what I have and still have plenty left over.

No lunch, as I said, but I did make a bread roll to eat with it. It will still be good tomorrow night. It means that if I have another bad time at dialysis I shan’t need to worry too much about tea.

The flapjack was interesting though. I added some coconut oil in place of some of the vegan margarine and it certainly made it sweeter. A little softer too, which was surprising.

As for the bread, in view of my recent successes I went back to where I was right at the beginning and added several handfuls of sunflower seeds. Once more, it rose up light a lift and was as soft as anything that I have ever made. And because it was a full-sized loaf, that was baked in the big oven too after the flapjack.

Jamais deux sans trois as they say around here, and the third thing that went into the oven was the pizza. I’d taken some dough out of the freezer earlier.

This pizza was another resounding success too and tasted as delicious as any that I have ever made. In fact, my baking seems to have moved up another gear right now. I hope that it keeps going.

But I’m not going to keep going. I’m going to bed, hoping that there are no attacks of cramp or people playing the saxophone.

Yesterday though, we were talking about Carnaval and dressing up … "well, one of us was" – ed …
Today I spent some time thinking about if I were fit, well and able to join in, how would I dress up?
At one time I thought to myself "why shouldn’t I dress up and disguise myself as a suitcase?"
But then of course a touch of realism crept in with ourselves and I thought "now let’s not go getting ourselves carried away here with this idea"

Sunday 23rd February 2025 – I HAVE BEEN …

… a busy boy again today. Not only have I completed everything that I intended, or, as TS McPhee would have it, I’ve DONE EVERYTHING THAT I’VE EVER SET OUT TO DO, I had half an hour to spare too, and that’s not something that happens every day. And how I wish that it did.

That was despite several interruptions too, because I can’t seem to have a day without something happening to knock me right out of my stride.

Things actually set off with a good start because I’d finished my work and all of the dictating quite early. Although it was after 23:00 when I went to bed, it was before midnight which means, with my lie-in, that I could have over eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.

In theory, at least.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m back with my turbulent sleep patterns, and last night was no exception. And following a Dialysis Day, it was a hot, sweaty night too and I really am going to have to find a solution to this

However, for a change on a Sunday morning, I was still in the bed when the alarm went off at 08:00 and although I can remember times when I have felt less like rising from the bed, there aren’t many of them that have been more difficult than today.

After my trip to the bathroom I came back in here because on a Sunday there’s not much time before the nurse arrives. I made a start on the dictaphone notes (of which there were more than just a few) instead.

In midstream I was interrupted by the arrival of the nurse who tended to my legs and then spent a few minutes trying to make his card reader read my health card so that he can invoice the Social Security for his visits. Being someone who is terminally ill, I’m 100% covered for my medical expenses so I don’t have to pay anything.

After he left, I made breakfast, took my medication and carried on reading MY BOOK.

Today we’re discussing dykes and ditches and we’re back on things about which I might know something.

He’s discussing the building of these earth ramparts and ditches that straddle the countryside and I’m not following his logic at all.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the discussion from a few days ago where he stresses that invaders wouldn’t build earthworks and complicated defences. They would be the work of the beleaguered defenders.

Now when you build a wall, the purpose of the wall is twofold – one is to hide behind it and the second is to stop your enemy crossing it. To build a wall, you need to find the earth, so you would have to dig a ditch from which to extract it. That serves two purposes too – it means that you only need to build the wall half as high, because the other half of height is the depth of the ditch, and it also makes the defence stronger.

So if you are going to dig a ditch, you would dig it in front of the earthen bank, firstly to make the defence stronger, and secondly to keep your enemy farther from the wall. If you had the ditch behind the wall, it would allow your enemy to shelter behind the wall and you wouldn’t be able to come close enough to dislodge them. So the ditch will be the direction from where you are expecting the attackers to arrive.

Having said all of that, if the Cambridge ditches are to the south-west of the dykes, why does he propose, on page 511, that "they may very well represent the work of some of the earliest of the Baltic immigrants, who, as is now believed, began to make settlements on the east coast of Britain".

Why would the “earliest of the Baltic immigrants” be building these extravagant earthworks when they are the invaders? Especially when he tells us on page 518 he tells us "none of the finer and more elaborate English dykes contradicts the fact that the civilization of the island has moved always from east to west.", which is, I imagine, what the “earliest of the Baltic immigrants” will be doing.

So although I don’t have a clue exactly what his argument is, I shall refrain from saying “neither does he” because you will all be calling me “T Rice Holmes”.

When I’d finished I began to make a small bread roll for lunch. I’ve enjoyed the ones with my soups and the flexibility of an air fryer means that I can serve up one or two without any effort or heating the big oven

Back in here the first task today was to finish the dictaphone notes. I was preparing myself ready to go to dialysis, explaining to Nerina just how painful it was. She didn’t seem to believe it particularly. She thought that I was being a baby. She told me that I ought to do better with it and think more positively. Then she began to discuss operations with me. That’s the kind of thing that makes me squirm and was causing me all kinds of agony in all different parts of my body so I asked her if she would stop talking about it. Eventually she agreed. Later on that night though I was writing out my notes. She asked if I was writing out the story of what had happened early in the day between the two of us. I replied that I was. She replied “that’s fine as long as you don’t write anything personal about me”. I replied “that’s rather difficult to avoid because the fact that you and I were together is something rather personal”.

Actually, I suspect that the nurses are secretly, under their breath, telling me “not to be a baby” but we all have our phobias. But the situation about people in my dreams, I had a discussion about this with someone just recently. I’m not obviously in control of what goes on during the night and so I don’t usually “name and shame” people who appear. It’s bad enough that they know me at all, poor people, without being outed for it. But some people’s association with me is too well-known to be hidden behind a nickname.

There was a plot of waste land opposite out house in Crewe that actually belonged to us. One day I sat down to clear it all out. I removed most of the weeds, bushes and shrubs, and there was a stream that ran through it. When I was upstairs in the bedroom I could see that it was full of big fish swimming around. I thought that it was wonderful. From a horrible, stony limestone surface it gradually began to turn green as I watched it. I thought that with another couple of hours work we’d have a nice lawn over there with a little featured brook running through. I went outside and sorted out a few things. I had an old Ford Thames van … "a Thames 400E" – ed … parked in the street with no tax and no MoT so I pushed that onto there too. In the end it was really looking quite nice and I was quite impressed with it

There actually was a patch of waste land (almost) opposite the family home in Davenport Avenue when we moved there in 1970. And the story of the fish relates presumably to the fish farming from the other day.

Later on I was working in the despatching of the ambulance company. One of the drivers came in towards the end of his shift and said that he had to go to fuel up his taxi ready for the morning. He asked if he could still keep the same car for tomorrow morning. I said that there’s no reason why he shouldn’t but he’d have to let me know what number it is so that I could mark it down on the sheets. He went outside and I heard his car start so I called him up on the radio and asked him to tell me his number but he didn’t reply and drove out. Then I was in the car with him after that. he said that he still had to go to pick up fuel and his car was number 210. I noted “210” on the sheets and he set off. He drove through Crewe down Badger Avenue and up to Bradfield Road at probably 100 mph. Someone pulled out a little further ahead and he said “look at that person there! No respect for anyone else. I whispered to the other passenger and said “said he, driving at 100mph through the town”. We turned onto Bradfield Road and he said “I hope that the petrol station down here is still open”. When we passed over the railway bridge there was a queue of taxis, the biggest queue you have ever seen. he looked at me and said “all of these will be alright for you, Eric” because of course they were Crewe taxis. He swung round and pulled up onto the station with a big line of vehicles but he weaved his way up the inside and went to an empty pump to fuel the car. There was a van next to us. Our driver had a jerry can and went to fill the car and the jerry can. The woman next to us was pumping diesel and it smelt horrible. he said “that’s a disgusting diesel, isn’t it?”. I replied “it’s the low sugar stuff so it doesn’t smoke and clog up your injectors”. he replied “I can’t think why people use it so I repeated that it doesn’t smoke and doesn’t clog up the injectors.

There is actually a petrol station where this one in the dream was situated. But the whole place being saturated in taxis is most unlikely, particularly as many as there were parked around there last night. But despite all that I have said about Crewe in the past, they do stop and fuel up their cars with diesel. There’s not one single driver left in the town today who stops at the stables to fuel up his cab with a nosebag full of oats

There was also a dream where I was with some friends of my own age. maybe we were at school, I don’t know. Someone turned up with some parcels and I wondered what this was all about because it was nearly Christmas. It turned out that it was a girl who had left. She’d sent some of us some presents and one of them was for me. It looked as if it might have been a cake. I thought “this is nice of her”. When I looked at it, it was the wrapping that resembled the cake. When I undid it, it was a board game all about growing your crops, harvesting them and making all kinds of vegetarian and vegan food, which I thought was really wonderful. One of two of the others then received some strange board games from this girl too. I thought “this is a really nice idea. I shall have to try to find where this shop is and investigate it for myself to see what else they had that I could maybe give as presents to other people”.

That game actually sounds quite interesting and I wonder how it could be made to work. There’s an on-line course doing the rounds on OpenLearn about making a game app for a smartphone and I’ve been debating about using my dialysis spells to catch up with a few more short courses. This game app one might be interesting, with this idea as its theme.

I’d been in Northampton and was heading back out towards the motorway with “that” Liz. We’d gone a different way this time to see what was alongside the motorway the other way. We ended up in this town but didn’t recognise it. It was a very modern town with a huge distribution centre for a supermarket, one of the ones in red, right at the end of the main street. We parked up and walked out to have a look round. We asked these two boys the name of the place. They wanted to know why we were here if we didn’t know where we were. We explained that we’d been to Northampton and wanted to go back a different way. He began to ask passers-by “which is the best way from here to reach the motorway?”. He told us that this place was called TW17. He then went to a travel agent’s to ask her where she could send him on a flight while we decided that we’d go for a look around and maybe have a meal. I set off to find the car to park it somewhere better so that we’d have time to eat.

So here’s “that” Liz back yet again. We had someone who sat on a University Committee on which we served who lived in Northampton and we went there a couple of times. But Liz was more of a friend with her partner and she unfortunately sought her release from her difficulties in an extremely tragic way and we never went again. One thing is certain though. None of this took place in Shepperton.

Next task was to watch the football, Stranraer at home to high-flying Stirling Albion, and against the run of play demolish them 3-0 even though a friend of mine from University days plays in goal for Stirling Albion.

And hats off to Robbie Foster. A big, burly, clumsy but quick and powerful centre-forward, out of his depth at this level of football but due to an injury crisis of epic proportions, forced into the side for the last couple of months.

He knows where to be and what to do – he has all of the strikers’ instincts, but he’s just not able to do it. No-one on any football field ever has ever tried harder than him and today he had his reward when he muscled his way into the path of a loose ball and prodded it home

But one day someone is going to give the “man of the match” award to eighteen year-old Josh Lane, forced into goal for the first team for the last few games. A nervous start a few weeks ago but the last few matches he has pulled off some wonderful saves to give his team a fighting chance.

If you are interested in the highlights, you can SEE THEM HERE

Today’s work was to edit a series of radio programme notes that I’d dictated last night, and prepare or complete the programmes.

The first one was a concert that I stumbled upon in Germany in 1981. I’d written the notes the other day and they were the first that I’d dictated.

By the time that I’d finished the editing I was almost four minutes over, but that was part of the plan because there were several short tracks that I could edit out to fit everything down. So one track then went, a pile of applause and other “irrelevances” followed and it all went together quite nicely

There were two “extra tracks” for the two programmes that I’d prepared last Sunday, and I managed to resolve one of them and complete the programme before lunch.

Lunch was a fresh bread roll cut in half and transformed into “cheese and tomato on toast” in the air fryer. And it really was delicious too. I shall do all of this again too.

This afternoon I attacked the remaining programmes and despite stopping to make a full-sized loaf of bread, I finished bang on the moment as the telephone rang. I’m convinced that Rosemary mounted a camera in this apartment when she was last here.

Our chat today was only a small one, just one hour and three minutes. And the most exciting news is that Myrtille the cat goes to sleep under the bed but when Rosemary awakens, the cat is asleep on the foot of the bed. I’ll give it two weeks before they are both curled up together.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … no-one I ever knew ever won a battle with a cat.

After a half-hour break I went to make my pizza. And it’s another one of the “best ever made” pizzas. My loaf was perfection itself too . it all seems to be working fine these days. What I think has been happening is that firstly my technique is improving and secondly, I think that my water measurer is inaccurate. If I use more water than suggested in the recipe it works so much better.

So having done all of my work, I’m having a Day of Rest tomorrow. Well-earned too, I reckon. If only I could work as hard as this all the time.

If I had worked as hard as this when I was at school I probably would have had a different path. I had this discussion with Nerina once and she asked me "what would you have done?"
"I would have been a criminal lawyer" I replied
"How far did you go in your studies?" she asked me.
"Only half-way, I’m afraid" I said. "I still have to do the ‘lawyer’ part."

Sunday 8th February 2025 – WHEN I DON’T …

… have to go to dialysis, I can have some good days. And today was one of these, in many repsects.

Dictating the notes for the three radio programmes wasn’t so good though. There were loads of errors that I made and I don’t know why. I just couldn’t seem to get it together and once I slipped out of the rhythm I was gone completely. Some of the parts were dictated three times and there will be a lot of editing in the morning.

But one good thing about it was that it wasn’t all that long after midnight that I finished so with the lie-in until 08:00 in the morning I stand a good chance of having a decent sleep.

And I did too. After having sorted myself out ready for bed, once underneath the covers there I stayed, and I didn’t move a muscle until the alarm went off at 08:00.

What a struggle it was to tear myself out of my bed this morning. But I made it and just about finished washing and dressing as Isabelle the Nurse came in.

She told me that there isn’t a real problem about having eaten before the blood test and whether it might be 24 or 72 hours before the hospital visit instead of the prescribed 48. I’ll speak to the dialysis centre people on Monday and see what they have to day.

Seeing as it was Sunday she had plenty of time on her hands so she showed me some photos and videos of her skiing trip, just to make me jealous.

After she left I had my medication, made my breakfast and then went to read MY NEW BOOK.

We’ve now moved out of the hills and onto the plains and circular forts. These are, as their name implies, areas with circular defences down on the lowland and being mainly small, it implies that the area was occupied by some kind of closely-related agricultural period.

The difficulty with these is that, being a universal design, they could date from any era at all, even the modern age. But even if they are modern, they more likely have an ancient history, being erected on the site of a previous version of the camp.

If ever you drive up the A6 or M6 to Carlisle, up in Cumbria you’ll see farmhouses in the middle of fields closely surrounded by barns and other buildings, in a circular formation, and I’ve often wondered as I drove past whether they are modern equivalents of the circular camp. Being in an isolated spot near the border with Scotland, it’s almost inevitable that they were going to be targets for any Scottish raider crossing the border and bent on plunder.

One thing though – I’m not sure who his audience is by the style of his writing. I’m not uneducated (at least, I don’t think so) but even I am having trouble with some of his sentence phrasing and the meaning of some deep, hidden archaeological name.

Back in here we had a footfest. All of the JD Cymru League from Saturday including the Cymru North grudge match between Airbus UK Broughton and Colwyn Bay, a real top-of-the-table clash with probably the biggest crowd that has ever been at the Airfield.

That was followed by Clyde v Stranraer and our regular commentator Lawrence Nelson missed the game. He must have known what was coming because I have never ever in my life seen a team play so badly.

The score finished 2-0 to Clyde, and Stranraer were lucky to get nil. Clyde weren’t much better. They missed so many sitters that I gave up counting after seven. Had Clyde been any good it could have been an embarrassing scoreline.

This is a match that no fan of either team will want to see again but if you are feeling brave, THEN THE HIGHLIGHTS ARE HERE, complete with the Keystone Cops defending.

For lunch I had a lovely cheese salad butty. That bread that I made the other day really is exceptionally good and with vegan cheese, lettuce, tomato and salad dressing, it’s really good.

Back in here this afternoon I’ve been radioing.

The notes for the final track of programme 251024 have been edited and incorporated into the two halves of the rest of the programme. The music for the final track had been edited into the stream and so that programme is now ready to go.

The notes for programme 251107 were then edited and my little “discussion phrase” has been edited in. As it’s a concert these notes go onto the front of the music, which I had assembled during the week.

It ended up over-running by 36 seconds but that’s no problem to edit out. That’s now complete and ready to go to

Finally, the notes for 251114 need editing. That’s a full programme of 10 tracks (and one to come later) and I’d almost finished when Rosemary rang.

“Can you spare a minute?” she asked, and so 46 minutes later …. . Yes, only 46 minutes. We’re losing our touch.

There had been a few other interruptions too. There was my 16:15 mid-afternoon pause and after that I had a few things to do.

First was to make some pizza dough. That was absolutely excellent and it rose up like a train. Once it had proofed I divided it into three balls – two into the freezer and a third ready to use

Next was some date bread. I’d bought a pile of dates for Christmas and hadn’t even opened them so I must use them soon. I found a date bread recipe that is quite similar to an oil cake, so seeing as I can make one of those, then why not?

I then rolled out the lump of dough on the table and put it in the pizza tray ready for later.

After I’d finished with Rosemary I dashed into the kitchen to check the date bread and it was perfect. I’ll tell you all tomorrow how it tastes. And I assembled quickly the pizza and bunged it in the oven.

30 minutes later I had the best pizza that I have ever made. Really and honestly. If I could make them as good as this every time I wouldn’t be bothered by anyone or anything.

But seeing as we have been talking about rhythms … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was once asked "what name is given to people who practise the rhythm method of birth control?"
"I don’t know" I replied. "What name is given to people who practise the rhythm method of birth control?"
"We call them ‘parents’."

Sunday 2nd February 2025 – MY VEGAN PIZZA …

…. tonight was rather like the curate’s egg – good and bad in parts. It was not up to the standard of the previous weeks.

Mind you, there was a very good reason for that, as you will find out as you draw near to the end. And if you do arrive at the end, I’ll admire you for your patience because you certainly have more than I do.

So I’m getting well ahead of myself right now.

Last night after finishing my notes and backing up, I had some things to do and then I dictated the notes that I’d written. There are the notes for the final track from programme 251017, the notes for the ten tracks that make up the bulk of programme 251024 and then the notes for the concert on which I’ve been working for programme 251031.

And it was the latter one where I had all of the headaches. On dictating it, I discovered that for some reason I’d missed out a whole line when I’d copied the notes from the note-tab onto the database. I had to stop in mid-dictate, write the missing line (which ended up being two lines) because God only knows where the electrons went and then re-dictate the rest of the programme to include the missing parts.

It’s no wonder at all that I run so late sometimes

Eventually I made it into bed, much later than I intended. But despite a really deep, sound sleep, how many times is it now that I’ve awoken on a Sunday morning well before the alarm went off and covered in sweat? Because that’s precisely what happened again this morning.

Yes, when the alarm went off at 08:00 I was already in the bathroom having a good scrub up ready for the morning, not that there’s anything likely to be happening here but you never know.

Back in here I’d made a start on the dictaphone notes but I was interrupted by the nurse. He didn’t have too much to say for himself today and was soon gone. However, I wish that he’d taken the empty box of gloves with him or put it in the paper bin instead of just leaving it lying around on the kitchen worktop

Once he’d gone I could make breakfast and carry on reading.

There is, for a change, a bibliograohy, something that T Rice Holmes conveniently omitted from his magnum opus. And so, with a bibliography to hand I followed it up.

Most of the books were far too modern to be on an out-of-copyright site, but some of them were research notes in *.pdf format, freely available on line to download.

Except one, that is, and I had to jump through various hoops in order to arrive at the download portal. And no prizes for guessing who manages this particular download portal. That’s right – it’s Cambridge University and they want €48:00 for me to look at the research notes that they hold.

Most of the research notes, as I have said, are on-line and are freely available to anyone who cares to look at them but Cambridge University is grimly clutching on to theirs like death.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few years ago I went there to look at the papers of William Cory Johnson but I was sharply dismissed with a flea in my ear, being told that "the papers have been bequeathed to us, and so you can’t see them until any researcher from our own University has had first choice of looking at them."

That’s fair enough, but they have been there waiting since 1877 and no-one from the University has bothered to look at them in almost 150 years. How long are we expected to wait?

Cambridge University is really taking the mickey with the academic papers that it holds.

So, abandoning another good rant for the moment I came back in here to carry on listening to the dictaphone. I was watching one of these playful silent comedy films about a playful cat. He had found fun chasing after the leaves etc. He’d somehow ended up with a really bushy tail. There was something in the street like a cylindrical piece of cardboard that was propped upright. He’d dashed into the street and had somehow managed to end up underneath it. The tube was around him and you couldn’t see him but you could see his tail. It looked as if the tail was attached to this centre of cardboard. Every now and again this centre of cardboard would move – it would move backwards and cover the tail so that there was nothing there but it would move forwards and it would uncover the tail, and then rattle back and forth rapidly, and the suddenly would take off down the street. Everyone who was watching must have had a strange idea about what was happening. Eventually the cat lost interest and went into the local pub for a beer. It left its cylinder outside.

It’s not easy to overcome the image of a cat going into a pub for a beer, I’ll tell you that. But the idea of the playful cat with the fluffy tail reminds me of Gilligan, the little … "little?" – ed … Maine Coon kitten that my niece found at the mill as if someone had dumped it there.

Anyway she took it home and it joined the other two cats. But being a kitten, it’s extremely playful and when I was there in the Autumn of 2022 I watched it play for hours with wind-blown leaves.

So does this dream mean that I’m hankering after a trip to Maritime Canada again? It was there and then in Autumn 2022 that I caught that bug that nearly killed me and left me damaged for life.

Once I’d finished the dictaphone notes, I looked for the football and Stranraer’s game against Spartans. For just about the first time for as long as I have been watching Stranraer’s games, they actually did have the rub of the green and all of the lucky breaks went their way today

They certainly rode their luck and at the final whistle they were 2-0 winners. But had the game gone as previous ones had, they would have been well-beaten. It just goes to show what luck will do on a football pitch.

Afterwards I went and made a bread roll and then began the broccoli stalk soup.

And with the pot of soya yoghurt thrown in for good measure, it really was delicious for lunch, especially with the best bread roll that I have ever made. It would have been even better had I remembered the fresh ground pepper.

This afternoon I had to edit all of the notes that I dictated last night.

For programme 251017 I edited them down combined them with the extra track to which they relate and assembled the complete programme. I was 11 seconds over but I can edit that out, no problem. What I dictate is written in a way that paragraphs or sentences can be cut out without losing the meaning, the sense or the rhythm of the commentary.

And doing that in a different language to your own native tongue is not easy.

For programme 251014 there were the notes for the first ten tracks. I always aim for ten tracks and their notes to be about 55 minutes and 30 seconds, and add in the final track and its notes (that I dictate at a later date) once I know how big the gap is.

For example, the ten tracks and their notes ran to 55:12, meaning that I had 4:48 left over, so with 45 seconds of notes, means that the final track has to be 4:03 long. So I choose a track that length, write one minute of notes that I can edit down as necessary, and there we are. A programme exactly one hour long.

There’s a natural break in the programme when I’m having my discussion with Louis de Funès so the extra track and its notes are inserted after there.

However, at teatime I hadn’t arrived anywhere near the end of editing the notes. Rosemary rang me for a chat just as I was getting into my stride, and so we had a little chat.

Just a little chat today. Only one hour and fifty-one minutes. We are definitely losing our touch

That’s the reason why my pizza wasn’t so good tonight. It was very, very rushed and the dough did not have the time to prove. But I enjoyed it nevertheless.

So, running late once again, I’m off to bed. The notes for the programme 251024 are now completed and the two halves are prepared, the final track has been chosen and remixed, and the notes written ready for dictation.

The notes for the concert, which remain unedited, I reckon that I might be able to edit them with one hand so I’m going to have a go at the dialysis centre tomorrow. The portable computer is old and slow so I don’t know how it will do, but it’s worth a try. If I can accomplish that, then it opens up whole new doors for me.

We shall see.

But seeing as we have been talking about Cambridge University … "well, one of us has" – ed … a young girl from Magdalene College was changing in the gymnasium when her tutor noticed a rather large “W” on her stomach.
She sent her to the doctor who looked at it and laughed. "it looks as if you have a boyfriend in Wolfson College. Does he wear his college jumper when he is making love to you?"
"I don’t have a boyfriend at all" she replied nervously. "In fact my only close friend here in Cambridge is my room-mate here in Magdalene, and she’s never without her college jumper."

Sunday 19th January 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… what at first might sound like a really quiet day but it really wasn’t. I might not have seemed to have done much but I haven’t stopped. Not even for a moment.

After I’d finished writing out my notes I had some dictation to do – to dictate the notes that I’d written earlier in the week. That didn’t take too long and after I’d watched a couple of TV interviews on the internet, I crawled off to bed. I’d actually made it (for once) before midnight so with the lie-in until 08:00 I was going to have a decent sleep.

And I didn’t turn over or turn round much either. It did take an age to drop off, but once I’d gone, that was it.

Whatever it was that awoke me, I’ve no idea but at 07:45 I was wide awake, bolt-upright, 15 minutes before the alarm was due to go off.

And so, if I’m awake and there’s a possibility of recording an “early start”, then why not? When the alarm went off at 08:00 I was actually in the bathroom sorting myself out. How many times is this since dialysis began that a Saturday morning has been an “early start”?

After the bathroom I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone, to find out where I’d been during the night. We’d been on a holiday, on a cruise. The cruise had come round ready for people now to start the homeward leg. There was a fair bit of grumbling amongst the passengers about, first of all, parking the cars. There was some strangely-worded statement about people not turning up at the office, which, if interpreted in some way, meant that there was no parking for their vehicles. I somehow felt that it meant that one couldn’t go along and queue inside the office while you were waiting to be signed in. Everyone had his own interpretation on this. We talked about cars parked in a long-term car park for ages, and people with fork-lift trucks lifting them out of the way to put their cars in their place. We came back from this excursion and had to change out of our wet clothes into dry clothes. everyone else had done this and was drifting off on board and I couldn’t get out of my clothes. I couldn’t push my feet through my trouser legs. Everyone was drifting further and further away and I was still struggling. There was one guy and his wife still there. He’d been criticising some of the arrangements because he’d noticed that it was a very early start that morning. He’d posted something on the Group’s chat site that “I bet that it will be a packed lunch and cup of coffee on board the train for our breakfast rather than a sit-down meal in the hotel”. He’d been summoned by the Cruise Director and given a lecture and telling-off, so he reckoned that that was exactly what was going to happen. Eventually I managed to put on some kind of clothing and was able to catch up with the throngs although it was most uncomfortable. Then I heard that the rumour that this guy had started had actually been the truth. We were all to board the train and we’d be given a packed breakfast and cup of coffee once we were on board. The walkway over to this train was a narrow, rickety bridge suspended over a huge gap that was probably over 100 feet down. With all the people on this bridge swarming towards the train I was thinking that this bridge wasn’t going to withstand the pressure and we’d all go crashing down to the ground.

Whatever the story about the car park is, I’ve no idea. When I read this I had an image of a car hire office at the airport in Montreal, but don’t ask me why that vision came into my head because I can’t think of any comparable incident. Changing out of wet gear into our normal clothes was something that we did twice a day (at least) on THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR after we clambered out of the zodiacs that ran us around in the various bays and straits up in the High Arctic. However the struggle was usually when we had to put on our gear and rush for a zodiac that we might otherwise miss and all our friends and fellow-passengers would leave the ship without us. There wasn’t a chat group for the passengers though – sometimes we were in places where not even a satellite wi-fi system would work.

There was however a passerelle or “walkway” that collapsed – AT RAMSGATE IN 1994 but I was nowhere near that at the time. At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in as usual and didn’t stop for long. She didn’t have very much to say today, except that the weather really was freezing this morning, which was what I expected.

After she left I made myself breakfast, and then took my time eating it while I read MY BOOK.

Once more, I wasn’t going to waste neither my time nor yours posting more of the same old same old, except to say that at one point he describes with absolute and utter derision the argument of someone whom he freely admits is described as "at the head of living students of English history"

He spends page after page after page scoffing at the idea that Wissant was the port from which Caesar set sail (as if it matters in a book about Britain) concluding with "the claim of Wissant to be identified with the Portus Itius cannot be admitted.".

That was his position in 1907. Having spent page after page in treating with derision the writers who have changed their position over the years, in May 1909 he submitted a paper to the Classical Review, giving "strong reasons for preferring Wissant".

There was bread to make next. I had soup to make later and so I need a fresh bread roll. And that’s the advantage of the air fryer – I can bash out a bread roll whenever I like.

Today’s soup was broccoli stalk soup, with potato, onion, shallot and various herbs and spices, using up the last of the water from the blanching exercise of last weekend.

Heaping in a pot of soya yoghurt gave it that final touch, even if I did forget the black pepper and the tiny pasta elbows. Nevertheless, it was delicious and I’ll make more of that any time. If you want the recipe it’s HERE but it now has a shallot added to it too.

After lunch I came back in here ready to start work but first there was the football – Stranraer v East Fife. East Fife won 2-0 with the first goal being a foul and a wicked deflection, and the second being a handball. And if you think that I’m making it up, you can see for yourself in the HIGHLIGHTS. And you can hear the best TV football commentators in the entire country while you watch the game.

After that I settled down to edit the notes that I dictated last night but I didn’t get far. Someone came on line to whom I wanted to chat and this desultory chat went on until late in the evening, meaning that I could only edit the notes in the pauses between the chats.

We did however stop for tea. I’d taken a lump of dough out of the freezer earlier and it had been defrosting. Later on I rolled it out and put it onto the pizza tray ready to assemble.

Once it had risen I attacked the base and put on the tomato and pepper sauce, the olives, onions and mushrooms, sprinkled it with herbs, put on the vegan cheese and then a couple of nice rows of cherry tomatoes cut in half.

This one was nothing very much different than any other that I have baked but for some reason it tasted by far the best that I have ever made, and the cheese melted wonderfully. If only I knew the secret I’d make many more of those.

So tonight I’m off to bed, and tomorrow we’ll all wake up in a New World where the people of Canada and Greenland will be looking for the rest of the World to save them. Being threatened by a madman armed to the teeth backed by a crowd of paranoid lunatics is no way to live.

While we’re on that subject … "well, one of us is" – ed … one of Trump’s aides dashed into his office. "I dreamed about you last night" He said.
"Really?" asked Trump. "What was it?"
"Well," replied the aide. "You were being driven down Pennsylvania Avenue. People were cheering, flags were waving, kids were dancing and everyone was partying "
"Wow" Replied Trump. "That must have been wonderful. But tell me – my hair – how was my hair?"
"We couldn’t see" replied the aide. "We couldn’t get the lid off your coffin."

-1

Sunday 12th January 2025 – GUESS WHO …

… forgot to put his lentils in the slow cooker overnight ready to make his vegan pies today?

That’s right, folks. Brain of Britain strikes again!

What I’ll have to do, if I remember, is to put them in the slow cooker overnight on Tuesday so that they are ready for baking on Wednesday. I can’t leave things another whole week or the pastry will walk out of the fridge on its own.

The thing about the lentils is that you put them in the slow cooker on high heat, and after about an hour when they begin to boil, you drain them off and rinse them. Then put them back in with fresh clean water and a variety of herbs and spices, and leave them on a slow setting for twelve hours by which time they should be cooked and taste nice.

Then fry some onions, shallots, garlic and a block of tofu (chopped finely) in a wok with herbs and spices and anything else you like (I used a tin of sweet corn last time),.

When it’s cooked, tip the lentils in and then simmer it right down with a stock cube, and then add a few handfuls of oats to stiffen the mix, and there you have your filling for a vegan pie. Mine will of course be different because I’ll probably be adding other stuff too, but I never know what, until the final moment.

That’s the thing about vegan cooking – you can experiment with all different kinds of things to see how it all ends up.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, after I’d finished my notes I had some dictating to do – the eleventh or “missing” track from the programme that I recorded before Christmas, and then the one for this famous concert that I’ve been pasting together from a collection of off-cuts.

After that I should have gone to bed, but onto the playlist came Neil Young and a mammoth 16-minute version of DOWN BY THE RIVER and how is it possible for anyone to go to bed when Neil Young is singing “Down By The River”?

There once was a girl who "could drag me over the rainbow and send me away" but that ship sailed a long time ago.

So last night we ended up with a “Neil Young Live” playlist and it was horribly late once more when I went to bed.

Once in bed though, I stayed in bed fast asleep with just the odd awakening here and there. But I was definitely asleep when BILLY COTTON’S RAUCOUS RATTLE aroused me from my slumber. It’s not just “Peel’s view-halloo” that “could awaken the dead” or “the sound of his horn” that “brought me from my bed”.

Bearing in mind it’s Sunday and I’ve had a small lie-in, I can’t hang about and I was straight into the bathroom to sort myself out ready for today.

Back in here there was time to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was doing some 3D modelling during the night, making figures and shapes. I wanted to make the shape of a girl but when I looked on my workspace I already had made a shape that I wanted so I had to rework it into a different shape. While I was doing that the first girl disappeared so that meant that I could make this figure back into the shape that I wanted at the start. When it was finished there was no enemy or anything in sight so I just had to make any kind of poses on a hillside. Then this other girl came to join her and this was when it began to be complicated. I decided that I’d better rework the new arrival and make some other figure that wouldn’t be similar to the one that I had.

It’s been a while since I’ve done any serious 3-D modelling. But now that my adventure down in the Auvergne is over, there’s no real need for it – certainly not in this apartment. It might come in handy if ever I decide to join a Virtual World community but I don’t even have the time to cope with all of the problems that arise in this World, never mind another one.

And then I was staying in some boarding house somewhere. I’d only not long arrived. It had been concerned with a road accident in which a vehicle pulling out onto a main road had sent a small child hurtling through the air so everything had come to a standstill. I found myself at the front of the queue where I could see a car parked in the middle of the road, a person on his ‘phone and a small child lying in the roadway so I imagined that everyone would be ‘phoning the police and ambulance. There was also something quite interesting. At another road junction was a guy digging a hole in the road from underneath. To protect his head when he came out he had a wooden box that he put over the hole and he put his head in it to work. One car came over and flattened it. He raised his head again and another car stopped. This was a side-lift fork lift truck and it began to lift up this box. It lifted up this guy and his girlfriend with it and pulled them out of the hole. This began a huge argument and dispute with a lot of name-calling. When I arrived back at my little hostel place whatever there was another couple there being interviewed for signing in. They were two young people, quite tall, quite well-built and speaking in a North American accent. After they had signed in, they came into the room where the rest of us were sitting and asked if there were any other Canadians in here. I was on the point of working out whether I should speak to them in English or French to see whether they were Québecois or Anglophone.

That was a totally strange dream too, tunnelling up to the road surface and putting a box over your head and then being pulled out by a side-life forklift truck. There’s no doubt that my dreams are usually quite interesting, even if I have no idea of what has brought them to the forefront.

The nurse was late today. He’d probably had a lie-in too . He didn’t hag around long, so I could make my breakfast and read MY BOOK.

Apart from the usual scything and scathing remarks directed at his contemporaries, he notes that two of his colleagues consider that "a tall, broad-headed, dark-haired, light-eyed people ’, whom they regard as the descendants of the men of the Bronze Age ’, formerly inhabited Aberdeenshire, but were driven inland by later blond immigrants, who were shorter and had narrower heads ….. But is it the fact?" and then devotes a couple of pages in rubbishing their theories.

However, remember a week or so when we were discussing the presence of stone circles, menhirs … "PERSONhirs" – ed … and “nothing”? It looks to me as if his two colleagues do have some kind of case worth arguing.

On page 428 of his book, he attacks the arguments of a colleague by saying that "Very likely the round-headed race which he has in mind did not make its way across Europe unmixed ; but the mixture did not greatly diminish the roundness"

However, on page 445, he attacks another one of his colleagues because "his arguments, which I have examined fully elsewhere, do not prove that the dominant Celts among the Belgae were dark, but simply that, before they invaded Britain, they had become largely intermixed with an older dark population, and that, since they reached this country, they and their descendants have intermarried with people darker than themselves"

Leaving aside the question about “intermarriage” and that any cross-breeding of invader and native inhabitant is more likely to be by violence than by a priest turning up to bless the union, I’m trying now to work out how “crossbreeding” can cause one characteristic to be inherited to some great extent but not another to at least the same extent.

Back in here afterwards, there was football to watch. Clyde peppering the East Fife goal with shots and East Fife just having three shots on goal. Anyone care to guess the score?

And why was I watching that game? Because, once more, Stranraer’s game was postponed. And that’s just as well because Stranraer seems to have lost half its team in this transfer window so far.

Once the football was finished, I had the soundtrack of two radio programme notes to edit.

The first one was quite straightforward and hardly needed anything at all editing out – just the odd second or two which is no big deal.

The second one was this complicated concert and its notes. That overran by well over a minute and it’s really ironic that part of the vocal introduction that had given me some of the most difficulty was one of the parts that ended in the bin. It’s always like that, isn’t it?

The joins however where I’ve had to fade songs in and out and edit in a few rounds of applause seem to be done perfectly. I’m listening to it right now and I’m really impressed with those. But strange as it is, I’ve been using this sound-editing program for ten years and I’m still finding out tips and hints about it and making it work better for me.

There were several breaks – for making soup and a bread roll for a start. It was a beautiful leek and potato soup today with a pot of soya yoghurt and plenty of black pepper stirred in. The fresh bread roll, hot out of the air-fryer, made all the difference.

Later on, there was pizza dough to make. That went well too, and there are now two balls in the freezer and the third I rolled out, assembled and baked. And that was perfect.

So what’s going to happen at the Dialysis Centre tomorrow? Will it be another three and a half hours of excruciating agony? I don’t see what else it could be. In any respect I’m not looking forward to it.

But going back to these stone circles … "well, one of us is" – ed … archaeologists were puzzled by a strange, fossilised spiky animal that they had unearthed when they were excavating a stone circle somewhere
The took it to the Natural History Museum and found the curator. They asked him if he could identify it
"We found it when we were excavating that stone circle" said an archaeologist. "Do you know what it is?"
"Now that you told me where you found it, of course I do" said the curator. "It can only be a hengehog!"

Sunday 5th January 2025 – DID YOU ALL ..

… enjoy my radio programme this weekend? I hope that you all listened to it over the weekend. But if you missed it, shame on you, and you can hear it HERE and even dpwnload it it you like.

But meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, today is the last day of my two weeks off work. Tomorrow the alarm goes on at 07:00 again and I start work, whenever the dialysis centre and my Welsh course (which restarts on Tuesday) let me.

So to celebrate, I intended to have a late night last night but I gave up the struggle round about midnight and crawled off to bed instead.

It was another hot, sweaty night after the Saturday dialysis session, as I have observed on several occasions. But I must have been asleep at some point because at 06:55 I was awoken by a phantom alarm call.

It was definitely a phantom call because I don’t have an alarm recorded at that time. Nevertheless, it certainly sounded like an alarm and I ended up sitting on the edge of the bed before realising that it was a false alarm, and once I’d realised that it was in fact a false alarm I went back to bed.

It goes without saying though that I couldn’t go back to sleep so at about 07:30 I gave up the struggle and arose from the Dead.

When the alarm went off I was at my desk working. I’d already had a really good wash and been into the kitchen to take my medicine so that I could have a good start to the day.

With time to spend, I had a listen to the dicaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was actually with a girl last night and I don’t know why because it was someone about whom I wouldn’t have thought anything in a million years. We were a couple. There had been something going on that had left everyone very dirty. It was an extremely messy day, something like that. At the end of it, I had to go somewhere so off I went. When I came back she was waiting. We ended up talking about our children although we didn’t have any at that particular moment. The plan was that we’d have two. She asked which one was going to be mine. I replied that it’s inevitable that it’s going to be a daddy’s girl, isn’t it? The assumption then is that she’s going to be a mummy’s boy. For some reason she quite liked the sound of all of that

“I was with a girl last night and I don’t know why”. … "Of course you do. Be your age!" – ed … But even though I might have known her in my dream, I don’t have a clue who she was now that I’m awake – if I really am awake right now. I keep on thinking that one day I’m going to awaken and it’s all, this last few years, been a rather unpleasant dream. But if I were to have had a daughter, my little princess would have been a daddy’s girl alright and been spoiled rotten.

And everyone very dirty? It sounds just like real life used to be, and I’m not talking about mud either. It just seems that a lot of smut has been wiped out of everyone’s mind these days compared to the good times that we had in the 60s and 70s

Did I dictate the dream about the children who used to go swimming with the whales in a swimming pool? … "no you didn’t" – ed … They launched some kind of fund-raising activity to raise funds and support the whales. It proved to be extremely successful so someone else organised a fund-raising activity. His aim was to provide food for the whales, to put something in their mouths, with the implication that they’d been doing this with these kids previously. For some reason that didn’t seem to be quite so popular as the previous one

That must relate to some news that we heard on the radio in the car about a big Marine holiday park closing down, and thousands of animals there are in danger. It’s all very well having these places closed down and I’m all in favour, but what becomes of the animals there? They can’t usually be released into the wild as they have no idea of how to fend for themselves.

And then finally Liz and I were back in the good old days of running “Radio Anglais”. It suddenly occurred to me one day that we hadn’t prepared a magazine for Radio Anglais for years. That was something that we used to do every couple of weeks religiously, to have something prepared and something organised. I wondered why it had suddenly fallen off the radar somehow. I had to have a sit and think about this – about how I was going to revitalise it and how I was going to restore it. We used to receive contributions from all of the other people working on the radio. What had happened that had stopped it? Should we go back and maybe restart it? Or is it a case of letting sleeping dogs lie? I remember being extremely perplexed and bewildered about this.

This dream was actually so real that I still can’t make up my mind even now that I’m awake whether it was ever something that we really did. It was actually quite disturbing that I found myself in such a state. It’s a long time since I’ve had such a vivid, realistic dream.

Isabelle the Nurse had a few more minutes to spare today and wasn’t in such a rush as usual. I suppose that with it being a Sunday the Laboratory is closed so there ae no blood tests. She spent her last week off working on her Carnaval float. It’ll be Carnaval Weekend sometime soon. She’s not telling me anything about the design of her float – it needs to be a big surprise for everyone.

After she left, I made my breakfast and carried on reading MY BOOK Caesar is now back in Gaul suppressing rebellions and fading from our picture as other Roman Emperors discuss the problem of what to do with the Britons. The story is that now that Caesar has regulated things with them, they can import and export to Gaul and the port taxes for unloading and loading far exceed any tribute that might be demanded, so it’s best to leave things be for a while.

Our author has made several references to Strabo’s “Geographia”. Strabo was a Roman scholar who travelled extensively and over a period of about 30 years from 7BC to AD24 wrote a whole series of books about the places that he visited and also the places about which he had extracted information from other traveller. It goes without saying that a copy of all 17 of his books IS AVAILABLE ON-LINE so I downloaded them for future reference. The list of books to read is growing enormously right now.

After breakfast I made some bread – a loaf for the week to come and a bread roll for this lunchtime because there is plenty of soup in the fridge and it needs using.

So at lunchtime I had a bowl of leftover butternut squash and potato soup with a fresh bread roll straight out of the air fryer. Lunch doesn’t get much better than this. There are some leeks that need using so I imagine that I’ll be having soup next weekend too.

Once lunch was out of the way I had a relaxing afternoon, not doing very much at all. In fact, I was trying to design a 3D head from a couple of photograph. The head itself didn’t take too long but I still can’t produce an accurate nose and the more I try, the worse it becomes. I’ve already restarted three times because I’ve got myself into such a mess

At one point I switched it all off and went for a slice of Christmas Cake to raise my morale so that I could start again.

Tea tonight was a vegan pizza, and another good job that was. At lunchtime I’d taken the last helping of dough out of the freezer and once it had defrosted I gave it a good kneading and then rolled it out onto the pizza tray. This evening I almost forgot the olives on the pizza but luckily I remembered them on time

There’s no doubt though – I’m going to have to do something about my oven. This table-top oven is really not up to the job. When I finally do move downstairs I’ll certainly be having an enlarged kitchen complete with built-in oven and built-in microwave.

Right now though, I’m off to bed ready to Fight The Good Fight tomorrow.

But that story about the Marine Park reminds me of the two rather large girls talking and having a drink in a bar in Bar Harbor, Maine. A local comes over to them and says "what a beautiful accent you have. I’ve not heard that before."
"Thank you" replied the girls
"Tell me" he continued. "are you two ladies from Ireland?"
"It’s ‘Wales’ actually" said one of them
"I’m terribly sorry" replied the man. "Are you two whales from Ireland then?"

Sunday 29th December 2024 – I HAVE BEEN …

… a very busy boy yet again today, and in the kitchen is a pile of food, all busy cooling down.

However, it’s not without its downside. I have been on my feet since 10:30 this morning and I’m totally wasted. In both my knees I have a pain that I can’t describe and I’m in agony.

As well as all of that, when the Sunday alarm went off at 08:00 this morning I was already up and about, and that’s despite the very late night … "or early morning" – ed … that I’d had.

It was approaching 02:00 when I crawled into bed last night. After I’d finished writing my notes and doing my backing-up, I stayed up for quite some time looking for stuff on the internet and reading a few various website. I wasn’t in any hurry.

But once in bed I stayed in bed, fast asleep until something dramatic awoke me at 07:05. No idea what it was, but I do recall that I have awoken dramatically before at that time. There’s something in the area happening that’s disturbing me.

So having awoken at that unearthly time I gave up trying to sleep at about 07:40 and headed to the bathroom for a wash and scrub up.

Next port of call was the kitchen to take my medication and then back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been. I’m dictating into my hand again. I was down in Virlet last night at one of the big ruined houses on the land that I own. I was thinking of doing something on one of the plots there with one of the ruins so I went down to look. There were enough ruins there and enough plots of land so if necessary I could submit a planning application for each one and that way, see what happens and how things develop. Virlet in the dream was nothing like my place at all. It was like a place that we have visited before with a much more traditionally-rural area with fewer hedges, more-open fields and a kind-of metal fence with plenty of tracks criss-crossing the area. These ruins were behind my house but raised up slightly so that they overlooked it.

This is a place that we’ve visited before during the night. But a long time ago, I think. But for a fleeting minute it did remind me of the place where we squatted near Audlem that winter 1977/78. Or was it 1976/77? But in any case, going from living in a squat and in the back of a van, within two years I was living in a brand new two-bed semi in Winsford.

Later on, I was with my girlfriend last night. She was a small, dark-haired girl. We were wandering around somewhere near a hotel and we suddenly realised that my brother and his girlfriend were there. We decided to go along and pay them a visit. When we arrived, my brother was on the ‘phone. He’d advertised a couple of his things for sale and was talking to someone as if someone had rung up to enquire about one of them. Whilst he was speaking on the ‘phone I went to tickle him. That interrupted his flow and he was not impressed. His girlfriend was there, a tall willowy girl. My girlfriend went in the meantime to look at his books. She found a book that she didn’t like for various reasons and boohed at it. The two of us were on our way into town for a wander round, go for a meal, look at the shops. We mentioned it to my brother, and he and his girlfriend agreed to come. We left his hotel room and walked down the corridor. My girlfriend suddenly said “I’ve left my pen on your leather chair”. We agreed to come back for it later. When we reached the door (we were on about the fifth floor) we had to wait for the lift, or go down the steps. Of course I had to use the lift because I couldn’t walk very well. My girlfriend looked out of this door and just jumped all the way down to the ground floor. We thought that she was crazy. The other two dashed down the steps after her. What I did was to position myself on the edge of one of the stairs and push myself. After a couple of minutes I had enough momentum and could slide all the way down. There were all these football supporters on the steps and they all cleared off out of the way as I shot past. When I reached the bottom, some of them came over. They expressed their admiration of what I’d done. To me, it was no big deal. It was just a case of finding the correct position, but they were really impressed by me coming down all those flights of stairs by just sitting on the edge of a stair and sliding down. In the end the manager of one of the teams came over and told me that he would like to meet me in the boardroom on one occasion in the near future. I asked myself “what on earth have I started now?”.

This is obviously a dream because I cannot imagine any circumstance in real life that would make me want to visit my brother. And also I can’t imagine any circumstance in real life during which I would have a girlfriend either, but that’s another story.

Girlfriends going berserk wouldn’t be a surprise either – there were a couple of those, and “what on earth have I started now?” – there have been quite a few moments where I have said that to myself.

The nurse was late today – he’d had a lie-in. And we had the usual banal questions before he cleared off and I could bet on with things. I made breakfast and read MY BOOK.

Today we are discussing the Hallstatt community in Austria. This existed for about 800 years, from 1200BC to 400BC and is classed as one of the first of the modern civilisations, with a modern industrialised community.

It centres around an important salt mine and several settlements around there were continuously occupied over this period, and so it’s been possible for archaeologists to observe quite closely the transformation from the end of the Stone Age all the way through to the modern Iron Age.

It’s a fascinating subject, and I was lost for hours amongst the pages of various websites that I’d found where this civilisation was discussed.

Interestingly though, the site ended in disorder. We are told that "there was widespread disruption throughout the western Hallstatt zone" and that "many Hallstatt graves were robbed, probably at this time"

As to what happened round about that time,."the apparently largely peaceful and prosperous life of Hallstatt D culture was disrupted, perhaps even collapsed, right at the end of the period. There has been much speculation as to the causes of this, which remain uncertain. Large settlements such as Heuneburg and the Burgstallkogel were destroyed or abandoned, rich tumulus burials ended, and old ones were looted. There was probably a significant movement of population westwards"

There has also been a discussion about a Carthaginian named Himilco.

The story of the navigation of Pytheas around the British Isles and Iceland in about 325BC is well-known, but 200 years earlier, Himilco set sail from somewhere in modern Portugal to the British Isles to bring back the tin that could be found there, according to rumour.

And there’s no doubt that he succeeded too because his reports were found to be quite accurate. However he didn’t return because the journey completely frightened him. Instead, the tin from Cornwall was shipped across to France and came to the Mediterranean by land and river.

First task this morning was to make a bread roll. And then some soup using most of the butternut that is left. That was lunch, and I do have to say that butternut squash soup is delicious, especially with fresh bread warm from the air fryer. Even better, there’s some left over and that will do for New Year.

This afternoon I’ve been making chocolate, ginger, coconut and orange cake and another large helping of flapjack. It took ages but mixing the stuff in the food processor is definitely the way to go. That was a good purchase, even though it was expensive.

Some pizza dough from the freezer was defrosting through the afternoon too, and I made a really nice pizza for tea. My cooking is definitely improving, but I wish that I had a decent oven.

As for “licking the bowl”, what can I say? It was every kid’s ambition to do that whenever mummy was baking (except in our house of course) and I can understand why. This afternoon I enjoyed cleaning the cooking utensils by using my tongue and it’s surely the best part of the cooking.

So right now there’s plenty of flapjack for lunch and chocolate cake for dessert for the next couple of weeks.

Something interesting that I noticed was that my bit of ginger root has started to grow. I’ll have to find some soil in which to plant it, to see what happens

Right now though I’m going to finish my notes and then I have things to do, so it will be another late night.

But seeing as we’re talking about cooking… "well, one of us is" – ed … I remember one of my siblings ask my mother "mummy, mummy, may I lick the bowl?"
"No you can’t" replied our mother. "You flush it like everyone else"

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: vegan pizza

Sunday 11th May 2025 – WHAT A GAME …

Sunday 4th May 2025 – HAPPY STAR WARS DAY

Sunday 20th April 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

Sunday 6th April 2025 – WHEN THE ALARM …

Sunday 23rd March 2025 – MY ORANGE, GINGER …

Sunday 16th March 2025 – I HAVE BEEN …

Sunday 9th March 2025 – THAT WAS MORE …

Sunday 2nd March 2025 – I NOW HAVE …

Sunday 23rd February 2025 – I HAVE BEEN …

Sunday 8th February 2025 – WHEN I DON’T …

Sunday 2nd February 2025 – MY VEGAN PIZZA …

Sunday 19th January 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

Sunday 12th January 2025 – GUESS WHO …

Sunday 5th January 2025 – DID YOU ALL ..

Sunday 29th December 2024 – I HAVE BEEN …

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