Tag Archives: home made bread

Saturday 17th August 2024 – I’VE HAD A …

… lovely pudding for tea tonight.

There was half an oven left over after I’d prepared a loaf of bread for baking and so in a wild fit of enthusiasm (and where that came from, I have no idea) I made an apple crumble.

It’s been a long time since I’d baked one of those so I had to look up a recipe for how to make a crumble topping, and I’m glad that I found the one that I did because it was the best that I’d ever made.

Where this mad fit of enthusiasm came from I have no idea and I wish that I’d had it last night. For having crashed out at some point during the late afternoon, I wasn’t tired at al later on (exhausted, yes but tired, no) and it ended up being after … errr … 02:00 when I finally crawled into bed.

Yes, for the usual reasons – too exhausted too haul myself out of my comfortable chair etc – I just couldn’t make that couple of inches that lie between my chair and my comfortable bed. I really don’t know what’s happening to me.

Eventually though I could stagger across the gap between my chair and my bed and fall in underneath the covers.

One thing about it though was that I didn’t need much rocking. I was asleep quite quickly, and seeing how quickly I’ve been falling asleep that’s saying something too.

With it only being such a short night I was expecting it to have been an undisturbed sleep but that wasn’t the case. I was awoken by something a couple of times during whatever night there was and in that respect it was something of a miserable night.

Surprisingly, when the alarm went off I was awake quite quickly and made it into the bathroom without much difficulty. With it being Saturday I washed the shorts that I usually ear in bed. I did have a couple of pairs of these but for some reason I can only find one so I have to wash them as I go.

Back here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I wasn’t expecting there to be anything really so I was quite surprised. I was involved in some kind of women’s football match. Of the two teams of women it’s quite fair to say that some them were either drunk or on drugs because they weren’t at all in this world and maybe wishing that they were in the next but their behaviour was extremely bizarre and certainly weren’t taking an active part in the game at all so I began to take all of their names because I had a feeling that someone was trying something on for some reason and if there was going to be some kind of enquiry I wanted to make sure that I’d done everything that I possibly could to have organised this game and have given them the opportunity to play it without it being postponed for any reason whatever. But I suspected that it was going to be postponed simply because if I started to send players off one team would end up with less than the regulation minimum number on the field

That game actually sounds like one of these games involving Mexican girls. If you’ve ever seen a football game in the Mexican Women’s League you’ll understand exactly what I mean. The winners of a game in that League are not the team that scores the most goals, it’s the team with the most players still on the pitch after 90 minutes. Except for Jocelyn Montoya of course. She can come and dribble around my centre-circle any time she likes

There were some concerns about a girl at work so they made a few enquiries. She’d been off sick but when I’d been parked up in the middle of a lane near Shavington fast asleep, in the lane on the highway in the van fast asleep she walked past with a group of other people including some children. Then I saw her again the next day. I had to explain this to everyone and they asked me a lot of searching questions about these sightings. Then we all went to look at her house, a big detached house somewhere in the countryside near Crewe. There was a kind-of terrace of five of these big detached houses, each one completely different in style and joined together in a kind-of haphazard fashion. I didn’t know which one was hers so someone pointed it out to me. It was the biggest and best of these five. I thought that this doesn’t look right, the kind of house that she could have on her salary. How on earth can she afford a place like this?

Parked up fast asleep in a van in the middle of a lane near Shavington sounds about right to me. But I’m sure we’ve all known workmates who live in houses and have a lifestyle that is totally out of the kind of lifestyle you would expect, knowing their salary. Either they’ve had an inheritance, won the football pools or have something else going on about which no-one knows. Definitely not the taxman and probably not the police.

There was also something about a boy who ran off with a girl, her mother’s car and her mother’s credit card and the dream described their adventures.

There was more to it than this too but you really don’t want to know the rest, especially if you’re eating your tea right now.

This morning, the nurse, having ignored the dressing on my arm for the last few days decided to change it today, the day after I’d asked my cleaner to do it. I didn’t say anything but let him get on with it. If at last he’s showing willing, I don’t want to disrupt his flow. It seems that this enthusiasm is catching.

After he left I had breakfast and then set about making my loaf of bread, seeing as I’d had the last of the current loaf for toast this morning.

But talking of current loaf, does anyone have a recipe for currant bread? It’s years since I’ve had some currant bread and I ought to be thinking about making some of that some time.

While the dough was riding I was hunting down some recipes for making a crumble topping and having decided on a likely recipe, then after I’ve given the dough its second kneading I prepared the crumble topping. It’s basically

  • 2 measures oats
  • 2 measures flour
  • 2 measures brown sugar
  • 1 measure butter
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • cinnamon

and then rub it all together.

There were some sweet apples going to waste in the fruit bowl so I used those. You don’t need to add sugar to the diced apples with those, but some cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, raisins and desiccated coconut went down well.

When the bread was baked I had lunch – salad sandwiches and you’ve no idea how delicious they taste with soft, fluffy bread straight out of the oven. They were absolutely delicious.

By now the lack of sleep had caught me up and for the next couple of hours I was out like a light. Far out too with not the slightest chance of coming back.

When I finally came back into the Land of the Living I spent a couple of hours tracking down the dates of a few more live concerts and then we had the football – Caernarfon v Hwlffordd.

Caernarfon surprised everyone by winning their first-round Europa League match in the close season, just as Hwlffordd had done the season before.

With all of the turmoil at Connah’s Quay with half the team leaving and the manager and club “parting company”, second place in the League is very much up for grabs and both clubs “have aspirations”.

The first half was a cagey affair with no real chances for either side but the game came to life midway through the second period when Hwlfford scored, only for Caernarfon to equalise straight from the kick-off.

The game was destined to peter out for draw had it not been for a mistake at the back that let in Hwlffordd’s forwards deep into injury time.

So surprisingly, Hwlffordd sit top of the table. Not that it will last, but it’s an encouraging sign.

Tea was one of my breaded quorn fillets with baked potato and vegan salad as usual. Followed by my delicious apple crumble.

Tomorrow I have pizza dough to make and I hope that it turns out as well as the last batch because that really was epic.

Right now I’ll dictate some radio notes and then go to bed. Some of these will be edited tomorrow too and the rest during the week. We’ll see how we get on with everything else that I have to do

Stuff is piling up again but it can’t be helped. I really ought to be engaging a secretary

A secretary preferably of the type employed by a friend’s husband once a long time ago.
My friend rang up her husband at his work and his secretary answered.
"Mr whatever his name was?" asked the secretary "He’s just slipped out for the moment"
His wife made him change his secretary after that.

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Sunday 11th August 2024 – SO MUCH FOR …

… my idea of going to bed at “a reasonable time” last night.

"The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley an’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain for promis’d joy" as the famous Robbie Burns once said.

However, it wasn’t grief and pain that came my way, but blood. And buckets of it too. In the distance and time that it had taken me to walk from the bathroom to the bedroom, I’d knocked my legs somehow and there was blood pumping just about everywhere

Even as I look, there’s a trail of drops of blood leading from my chair to where the big plasters are. And even one of those wasn’t enough to stop or even slow down the bleeding

However, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, this is what happens when you have all of these blood-thinning products. It’s becoming a rather regular feature, which is regrettable.

So instead of lying down on my nice comfortable bed, there I was, sitting on a chair with a collection of plasters and bandages on an impossible task waiting for the blood to congeal.

For an incident that took place at about 23:45, it was long after 01:00 when I finally went to bed.

Once in bed, I slept all the way through to the alarm going off at 08:00. I don’t think that I moved a single muscle all night.

When the alarm went off I staggered into the bathroom and that’s where the nurse caught me. He’d come early and I hadn’t had time to wash, never mind change my clothes (and I still haven’t)

He talked a little about his holiday but otherwise didn’t have too much to say for himself and was soon gone. I could sit down to breakfast and to read my book. We’re talking about the dismantling of the narrow-gauge railway that ran to Wallace in Montana, a event that took place in 1895. That railway didn’t last all that long.

Back in here afterwards I transcribed the dictaphone notes from the night. I’m not sure what I was doing last night but I was with a group of people. There was something going on about a medical issue. We were all being treated one-by-one for some kind of illness, taking it in turns to go to hospital. One of the girls went in quite carefree and happy and we all seemed to make a note “well she’s going to have a good time there in the hospital. They’ll love her”. There was a little old lady who went in. We had to go to her cottage to collect her things in order to send them to the hospital where she would be staying. I was actually at her house collecting her things together ready to go when the alarm went off.

It reminds me of my neighbour. Someone pretty soon will have to come to her apartment and collect her things if she really is going to live in a Home. I always think that for that to happen is a pretty sad state of affairs. From what I know about these Homes, it’s just a place where the elderly go and just wait to die. There’s no dignity or humanity in any of them.

There was football on the internet afterwards – Clyde v Stranraer in the Scottish Fourth Tier. And it was one of those games where Stranraer had 99% of the play, hit the woodwork and did absolutely everything except score, whereas Clyde just had one attack upfield and a lucky ricochet was enough for a sucker punch and send everyone in the crowd home shaking their heads.

Afterwards I made a start on editing the radio notes that I’d dictated before going to bed.

The first lot I had to do again. Somehow I’d managed to miss the first ten seconds of my dictating and I’ve no idea how on earth I did that.

And then I had to re-edit and remix the eleventh track because for some reason it had become mixed up with a pile of dictated notes. I’ve no idea how I managed to do that, but it really was a mess.

As a result, I’d only finished the two “additional tracks” prior to lunch. And it was a very late lunch at that.

Back in here after lunch I sat down – and the next thing that I remember, it was 16:30. I’d been stark out for over two hours and hadn’t felt a thing. I hadn’t even noticed that I’d gone to sleep. But while I was crashed out I was having a whole series of really exciting dreams but as I awoke the hole lot simply evaporated and I remembered nothing. How sad is that?

For half an hour I bashed away at some more radio notes and then went into the kitchen to make my bread for the week. And in a fit of mad enthusiasm, while the dough was proofing, I made a chocolate cake

While the cake was settling down and the dough was rising I rolled out the pizza dough for tea tonight. I’d taken the last lot out of the freezer just after lunch and it had been defrosting all afternoon.

There was football on the internet. Llansawel’s first game for over 25 years in the Premier League, and against Penybont too.

LLansawel had kept the core of their promotion-winning team and, as we know, there’s an enormous gulf between the Premier League and the second tier. It was quite evident and the score, 2-0 to Penybont, surprised no-one.

However, it was really good to watch a proper footballing duel between Llansawel’s veteran centre-forward Luke Bowen and Penybont’s centre-half, Dan Jefferies. A proper aerial combat of the type that reminded me of watching football back in the 1960s and early 70s

So having seen everyone of importance in the league already after just the first game, it’s going to be a long, hard season for Aberystwyth, Llansawel and FFlint. Those clubs are going to need to find some quality from somewhere, and quickly too.

The dough for tonight’s pizza was perfection itself. It had risen beautifully and was really light. And as usual, the toppings (mushroom, onion and olives with cheese, tomato sauce and cherry tomatoes, was second to none.

The batch of dough that I made where I forgot to add the oil has turned out to be the best that I have ever cooked.

The bread is fine too and my chocolate, orange and coconut cake looks delicious and I can’t wait to try that as of tomorrow afternoon when it’s cooled properly.

So right now I’m off to bed. I have three weeks of Welsh Summer School starting tomorrow at 10:30. Time that I was going to bed.

But before I go, Clayton Green has signed for Penybont from relegated Pontypridd United. He was playing today but his wife wasn’t there to watch the game. She was in church down the road where the vicar noticed her.
He turned to his verger and asked "is that Fanny Green on the front pew over there?"
"No Vicar" replied the verger. "It’s just the way the sunlight comes through the stained-glass window"

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Sunday 4th August 2024 – ♫ PANCAKE TUESDAY …♫

♫ … Eric’s busy baking♫

But leaving aside the question of whether or not it is a Tuesday today, Eric has been a very busy boy in the kitchen this afternoon.

We now have another loaf all ready and baked so that we can start the week tomorrow with fresh bread for our toast, and we have a monster flapjack cut into 12 slices that will keep the blaidd from the drws, as they say in Caernarfon, for the next few weeks

When I made my lunchtime sandwiches yesterday I noticed that I didn’t have much bread left so I made a mental note to myself that some baking wold be involved in the proceedings at some point today.

And I was not wrong. When I looked last night, I reckoned that there might be enough for toast and maybe for a sandwich at lunchtime but that would be it.

So I sorted myself out and put my puttees to soak in a bowl of soapy hot water, where they still are after 24 hours. If that doesn’t clean them to the nurse’s satisfaction then nothing will.

When I’d done that I rolled up the other pair and put them ready for the morning.

Before going to bed I dictated a pile of notes for the radio programmes ready to edit. I didn’t do too many because I could feel myself flagging as I was dictating, and making too many silly mistakes.

Nevertheless, it was still after midnight and I was letting it all hang out. I had hoped to be in bed a long time before this

And it was a miserable night too. I’m glad that I didn’t have to wake up until 08:00 today.

But when the alarm went off I was already awake. I’d been awake for a while. Dog-tired as I was when I went to bed, I’d gone off to sleep quite quickly but I’d woken up far too early.

After having a wash and a clean-up I came in here to listen to the dictaphone. And I was amazed at all the stuff on there. No wonder it had been a miserable night. I was going to make a pizza but I had the horrible realisation that I hadn’t taken the pizza dough out of the freezer at Sunday lunchtime. Then I suddenly realised that it’s still Saturday night and I’m still in bed so I don’t need to quite make the pizza as yet so I turned over and tried to go back to sleep again.

That was one of these “panic attack’ dreams that I have every so often. You have to admit – it’s not everyone who can make a pizza while he’s in bed asleep.

Then there was something about it being someone’s birthday and that seemed to affect a couple of rock groups and their music but I’m not quite sure how and I seemed to have forgotten part of the dream that included that but it generated onwards towards birthdays and cooking, people putting birthday recipes and birthday ideas for meals altogether. I was going to comment on a couple which I’d sorted out because they could be so easily changed to vegan but while writing out the notes I seem to have lost the thread completely. I started writing basically gibberish and in the end pressed “send” and sent it because I couldn’t think of what else I needed to say and sending anything at this stage is better than sending nothing. It was a really confused and miserable night last night with all kinds of activity and things going on with which I didn’t really get to grips.

It seems that I wasn’t just writing gibberish last night. I was speaking it too

I was at school and we had some project to do, to talk about our teachers. I was working away in a corner and another girl came to sit close to me so we ended up chatting while we were working. I’d picked as my subject one of the teachers who was married to another one. His wife was a former accountant and accounts manager. We were fantasising why the male prof didn’t like the idea too much of working on the internet. We came to the conclusion that it was because his wife didn’t let him because she was too busy doing other things with it, and why he was so late handing work back to us was because she would go through it with a fine toothcomb and being a teacher herself and an accountant she would absolutely have to find some fault with it. We were fantasising things about this that went on for ages. None of it was very complimentary and none of it was stuff that I could write down but it was still interesting. One of the teachers then came over to us with a big pile of notes. She said to the girl “I have your results here from the previous project. Would you like me to read them to you?” so the girl said “yes”. The teacher said “some of them are very confidential”, looking at me. The girl said “that’s all OK. I don’t mind Eric knowing anything of things like that”. “Yes, but one or two of them concern Eric”. I replied “don’t worry about making any comments about me. You might have comments to say for the first time but a lot of other people will have said them before this, I promise you”. It went on like this. This was another one of these nice warm comfortable dreams that I have some times and don’t have enough of and that I wish could go on for ever and ever

Yes, this is much more like the kind of dream that I want to have. I’ve had a few dreams, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, that focus on a girl and me at school back in our schooldays. And if only my schooldays had happened like this. All these girls hanging around me and I wish that I knew who they were and why they weren’t there when it mattered.

Later on I’m making my afternoon cocoa and I have it in the pan. I’m stirring away, talking about other things and thinking about loads of other things too while I’m doing it. I seem to be there for ages and ages and notice tat this chocolate now is starting to congeal. That can’t be right so I have a look and the gas has gone out in the little rechaud thing that I used for heating my chocolate and I’ve been standing there for the last I don’t know how long stirring it and it’s not made the slightest bit of difference. It’s just been going colder and colder and colder. Now I’m going to have to heat it up and wait for that to happen and it’s hot enough. I can see me being here with this all night.

And it wouldn’t be the first time that that’s happened, trying to cook a meal and the gas has been out for quite a while

I was in the European Union’s building in Brussels. It was time to go so I prepared to leave and picked up my briefcase, then picked up a long cane and began to push my briefcase along the floor in front of me. Quite a few people gave me some strange looks, some stranger than others including one woman who was extremely suspicious. When I reached the exit door at the interior of the building I picked it up and immediately went to open it. All the people dived for cover so I took out my laptop and packet of sandwiches. Before I had time to do anything again I was overwhelmed by security guards who insisted on demanding to know what I was doing. I told them to mind their own business and we had another stand-off in that … fell asleep here …

Yes, over the years I had a few good stand-offs with the Security guards. They were totally lacking in an understanding of what was happening in the modern World. The period in which we were living was changing rapidly and dramatically, far too quickly for them.

I was back giving a girl advice on buying a computer for her studies. She could have a grant to enable her to buy a computer but she needed to know the specifications and so on. I explained to her the maximum specifications that the Open University would allow under this grant but I also explained to her that firstly they didn’t check and secondly, as long as she didn’t tell them any different they weren’t going to know about what her computer was so we had a little discussion along those lines while she was having a look through the sales pages to see whether she could find anything suitable.

When I was living in Brussels I lost count of the number of computers I built and repaired. That was another field that was changing dramatically and rapidly and I was lucky enough to be there during that little window where we had SX, DX and Pentium architecture and I could cope with that. However I was left behind rather rapidly at that point.

Did I dictate the dream where we were all back in France again and there was something going on and someone had to submit some kind of written document … "no you didn’t" – ed … so one of our group took it upon herself to do it, and then asked if we needed any amendments before she sent it off. The problem was that this document was a complete mess and needed a total rewrite and revision before we could send it. I’m no journeyman so I could have cleared it up but … fell asleep here … which is a shame because this sounds as if it might have been interesting.

We had a new wheelchair for a friend of mine. I assembled it but couldn’t tighten it up because two of the straps that we needed to bring the whole thing into tension once there was a weight on it were not supplied with the kit and we had to fetch those extra. I explained to my friend that she’s going to be a bit flopping around on this. She was concerned about her blood test – if the blood test that she goes to takes for ever, how’s she going to cope? I explained to her that there was nothing wrong with the actual comfort of the machine, it’s just one or two pieces missing but she didn’t seem to understand. In the end I sat her in the machine and had things arranged as they normally would be. We were there for an hour or something then I set them up as they would be when we had the straps in there. Everything seemed to be much better so I asked her if she was comfortable but again she didn’t reply. Once I pressed her, she kept on going on about her blood test. I’ve no idea what was happening with her there but she was being extremely un-cooperative about this new wheelchair.

Phew! After that I’m exhausted. It’s no surprise that I was feeling pretty tired

In the middle of sorting this out the nurse came and dealt with my legs. She had rather more time than usual so we had a little chat which was nice

But as a result it was rather a late breakfast but the coffee was nevertheless really nice.

Back in here I watched Stranraer stroll to a 2-0 lead quite comfortably and then throw it away in the final stages of the game. They should have been out of sight and down the road a long time before the end of the game, and Peterhead only had two shots on goal during the whole match …

Then I’ve been radioing. The notes for two additional tracks have been edited and the radio programmes have been assembled. They are complete and ready to go. And then the first of the two longer ones is all edited and assembled as far as I can. The final track has been chosen and remixed and the notes written ready for dictating.

Doing the final editing for the last one that I dictated is tomorrow’s task, if I choose to accept it

And then we had the baking. That was after my hot chocolate. I have a loaf, a flapjack and I also baked a pizza for tea and that really was delicious. Just as good as last weekend’s.

So now I’m off to bed for a nice early night, I hope.

But did you note the phrase “another stand-off”. It wouldn’t be the first one. I remember a memo that came round saying “Fonctionnaires are reminded that they cannot bring their children into the office” and there I was, wandering around the building with Roxanne.
"Haven’t you read the memo about children in the office?" roared a a Security guard
"Ohh yes, I read it" I replied
"So why have you brought her in? She’s not allowed"
"But the memo talks about … ‘bringing your child …’"
"That’s right" he shouted
"But she’s not my child" I explained.

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Tuesday 30th July 2024 – I’VE HAD A …

… lovely tea tonight.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Thursday 25th July 2024 – I HAVE MADE …

… an executive decision.

And for the benefit of new readers, of whom there are more than just a few these days, an executive decision is one that you make where if it all goes wrong, the person making it is executed.

My decision is that I am not taking off my puttees until I’m sitting on the edge of the bed ready to climb in last thing at night.

Especially after last night where I was sitting in a pool of blood for ages trying to stop the flow that was pouring out of the hole in my leg. My blood is so thin with this Kardegic powder and this Binocrit injection that it pours out non-stop without even an attempt at slowing down.

The idea with thinning out my blood is to make it easier for my heart to lift it but like anything else, solving one problem created a bucket-load of others and we just go round and round in circles. Do I have a heart attack or do I bleed to death?

So there was I trying to slap on plasters and in the end it was one of the big ones that the nurse uses. Not that it stopped it very much, but it stopped it enough that I could crawl into bed.

Glad I was to be in there too, late as it might have been. And I was asleep quite quickly too.

At about 06:15 I awoke but ended up going back to sleep until the alarm went off. I was disorientated at 06:15 but that was nothing to how I felt at 07:00. It took me several minutes to gather my wits which, seeing how few wits I have these days, took longer than it ought to have done.

First thing was to inspect the damage. And the place was in rather a mess after last night, and so were my clothes and slippers. So after washing me, I washed everything else

Eventually I made it back in here and I transcribed the dictaphone notes from the night. I’d been on a shopping trip. On the way there in the car I was listening to a radio programme about mistreated children. They were talking about children who had been abandoned and placed in foster homes, how their parents had made all the wrong decisions, like their whole houses were furnished by IKEA, all this kind of thing. It had been bad money management that had put these families into difficulties. The conversation went on to talk about children who had no possessions and were never allowed to do anything. They thought “what kind of life did these children have to live? How awful it was”. They were busy discussing this. In the meantime I’d turned up at this shop in Crewe at the Market Precinct place. I hadn’t actually bought anything but I’d walked through and was going happily outside. It started to talk about people who had gone to the aid of these children even in adult life. I thought of Percy Penguin of course but I must have been totally distracted because just after leaving the shop I felt a hand on my shoulder. I thought “God what have I done now?”. It was the manager of the shop, very apologetic, saying that I’d been charged £15:00 too much. I wasn’t sure how that was possible because I hadn’t been near a till and I’d not actually bought anything at all. However I was interested to see what his story was so I followed him back into the store and up to one of the cash points where I thought tha we’d be able to sort out any problem.

Once more, I’ve no idea what’s going on here. I’m not likely to be going round the Market Precinct Shopping Centre in Crewe any time soon, that’s for sure. I can’t really tie that in with anything else but as for the story about mistreated children, we all have our own tales to tell. I’m totally convinced that this idea of a happy home with happy parents and 2.4 children and 1.8 cars is nothing but a total myth and exists nowhere except in the minds of people who shoot margarine adverts for television.

The nurse was dismayed that I’d used one of “his” plasters on this bleeding. And he was even more dismayed to find that the leg started to bleed as soon as he ripped off the plaster so he had to use an extra one this morning. It’s not his day, is it?

But he managed to clean off the dried blood on my leg that I couldn’t reach. I really am in a right state, aren’t I?

After he left, I had breakfast with the last of the bread and then a leisurely start to the day. I wasn’t in any great hurry, which seems to be the story of my life right now.

Once I’d wound myself up, I paired off the music for the next radio programme and segued the pairs, and then carried on writing the notes. And by mid-afternoon I’d finished them all. That included stopping for lunch at some point in the proceedings.

With no bread left, I decided that I’d make some more this afternoon. But I’d also seen a strange recipe for making a kind-of chocolate bread, or maybe chocolate muffins with yeast. For want of anything better to do, I thought that I’d give it a try.

The bread was quite easy to make of course but this chocolate stuff was bizarre. It’s rather like an oil cake but with water and only a small amount of oil, and then with added yeast.

My home-made loaf of bread was perfection itself but these chocolate bun things are, well, interesting. It’ll be a few days before I tell you what they are like because they are planned as a replacement for my flapjacks, the supply of which is temporarily exhausted, so I won’t get to them until Monday or Tuesday.

But they certainly look as if they might be nice

Tea tonight was delicious. I need to make space in my freezer so I had some of my lasagne with steamed veg in a cheese sauce. My vegan lasagne definitely worked and I was impressed with that, almost as much as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin.

So that’s everything for today. I’m going to unwind my puttees and then go to bed. Tomorrow morning I must send an order to LeClerc. I don’t need much but it still needs to be sent

But talking about home-made bread, when Liz, Zero and a few others of us went to Chester Zoo all those years ago, we saw a loaf of bread in one of the cages.
And so we asked one of the keepers "why is that loaf there in that cage?"
"It’s quite Ok sir" he replied. "It’s bread in captivity"

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Friday 19th July 2024 – "SMILE!" THEY SAID.

"things could be worse!"

And so I smiled. And sure enough, things were worse.

It’s difficult to believe just how things are unravelling here right at the moment. Getting ready for bed last night after finishing my notes, I fell over.

It was another one of these “falling over backwards” things like I had in the kitchen the other day. This time though it was in the bedroom.

What is hard to believe and it’s true all the same, that despite all of the rubbish, mess, guitars and everything that clutter up this place, I actually hit the ground on my back without hitting anything on the way down. And the chances of that happening must have been extremely remote, to say the least.

It took me about half an hour to make it to my feet. Some kind of weird gyration from a sitting position into being able to crawl onto the bed with the aid of a well-stuffed suitcase as some kind of half-way step

But what a state to get into. I had visions of pulling the quilt down and sleeping on top of the carpet until Isabelle the nurse would rescue me in the morning.

However I struggled back upright, finished what I had to do and then rather happily crawled into bed with a sigh of relief.

After all of the exertions I was totally surprised to be wide awake at about 06:15 and I was actually up and about before the alarm went off

This morning I had a good wash and scrub up as well as a shave and change of clothes if I’m going out. And then waiting for Isabelle the nurse, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was with my taxis last night. We had a town, we had a plot of land so we decided that we’d set up something there and run the taxis from it. I had a nice little garage and a couple of cars but while I was talking about setting up everything I awoke in the middle of it and lost all of the momentum in the dream that I was having which was a shame

Not really a shame. I might have enjoyed running a taxi business 40 years ago but the gloss soon wore off and I wouldn’t go back to doing it again, not even during a dream, thank you very much.

And then I was expecting to slip into the estate of a relative of mine who was dying. What was important about this was that there had been another relative who had died under mysterious circumstances abroad and his body had been in a deep-freeze for years while people argued about where he was to go and what he was to do etc. I suspected that the British Coroner was unwilling to accept the body because he’d have to perform a post-mortem on it. There had been this huge campaign for years to bring this person’s body and that of several other people in similar circumstances, to bring them home and lay them to rest. The first thing that I did when I inherited the estate was to contact some firm of undertakers and make arrangements for this body to be brought back to the UK. I was expecting to be besieged by the Press and by news reporters but no-one actually came to visit me last night about this. The only person who set foot on my premises was my brother and I didn’t really know what he wanted. It was certainly nothing to do with this particular thing but after all the fuss and bother that had been made when the relative who died had refused to repatriate the relative from abroad, the fact that I issued repatriation instructions immediately that I took over the estate and that passed unnoticed, it was totally bizarre.

My greatest wish is that no-one repatriates me to the UK. I own a burial plot in the cemetery at Ixelles in Brussels where Marianne is interred but I don’t want to go there either. I want to be put in a natural cemetery and a tree planted on top of me. That’s how I shall live for ever – being absorbed into the roots of a tree that will grow and grow.

Finally I was living at home and wanted a bath so I stuck my head in the bathroom. My little sister was in the bath and my two younger brothers were drying themselves so I thought “never mind – I’ll have a bath again”. I went off to do something or other. On the way back I heard some noise in the bathroom so I went to see. Now my sister had left the bath so I thought “ahh, here’s a bath full of water free”. My brother said “the shower by the way is totally useless but the bath is wonderful” so I thought “I’m really looking forward to getting into the bath at last and having a good wash. I certainly need one”.

Ahhh the good old days – all in the bath, oldest first while the water is hotter. If we are lucky there might be a bit of hot water left in the baby burco water boiler – careful not to scald yourself when you pour it into the bucket and tip it into the bath.

All the smaller kids in the bath together. “ohh look, a bubble-bath” – yes, it was baked beans on toast for tea

Apart from the fact that I don’t have two brothers, anyone who goes on about “the good old days” will receive a smack in the mouth. There was nothing whatever that was good about them.

Isabelle was late coming. There’s all kinds of chaos going on all over the place this morning apparently. She didn’t wait around long because she was in a hurry so she cleared off quickly and I had a rather late breakfast.

The taxi was late coming too. All of their computing system and radio control has broken down and they are driving around with pencil and notepad with a list of jobs. Just like back in the 1960s before radio control in fact. Nothing seems to be working this morning.

They were all working at the Nephrology Clinic – at least, the people who saw me were. Unfortunately Emilie the Cute Consultant wasn’t there to soothe my fevered brow but her sidekick was and I told him my tale of woe about being held to ransom at the clinic down the road.

He had the decency to be upset and apologetic, but I made it quite clear that I wasn’t going to set even one foot ever again in that maudit établissement

And it turned out that while Emilie the Cute Consultant wasn’t there, she’d been talking about me to the others and some of my little secrets are now in the public domain.

Still, there’s only one thing worse than being talked about, and that’s NOT being talked about. It’s nice to know that Emilie the Cute Consultant thinks that I’m worth talking about.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … Nephrology Clinic, the consultant there admired the work that my cleaner and Isabelle the nurse had done. He considered that I’m lucky in having such good and attentive people around me.

There’s localised swelling but the wound itself is healing, it’s not septic and he’s pleased with the progress.

He can’t explain the panic the other night because there were no obvious signs. If we hadn’t imagined it, which I assured him that we hadn’t, he reckoned that my little team of helpers had resolved everything on the spot in the nick of time.

While I was waiting for my taxi back his secretary went off in search of an orange juice. And just as she came back with apple juice, the taxi arrived.

On getting in I texted my cleaner to say that we were on our way back, only for him to announce that we had other pick-ups.

So eventually with a full car of passengers we headed back to Granville. The driver asked if he could practise his English on the way home so we had a very interesting chat on the way home

Back here I had a salad for lunch and then came in here where I promptly crashed out. And how. I was dead to the World. I hadn’t even noticed that my cleaner had been and gone.

Rosemary rang me for a chat and it must have been a very strange chat at first as I struggled to awaken.

After she’d finished I had my hot chocolate and then made a loaf of bread. While that was proofing i made some naan dough

And then I could finally have the leftover curry that I should have had on Wednesday.

Tomorrow I have lots of work to to, catching up with radio stuff. I should have finished off that radio programme today but what with one thing and another I didn’t.

So don’t forget, Saturday night, my Hawkfest at LE BOUQUET GRANVILLAIS at 21:00 CET, 20:00 UK Time, 15:00 Toronto time.

But thinking of all of the kids in the bath together reminds me of the noble Lord being attended to at his bath by his manservant, Wibble.
Suddenly the noble Lord breaks wind in the water. And the manservant dashes off and comes back with a hot water bottle.
"Why have you brought that?" asked the noble Lord
"You asked for it, My Lord" said Wibble
"I asked for it?"
"Yes, my Lord" replied Wibble. "I heard you clearly. You said ‘what about a water bottle, Wibble’ "

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Saturday 13th July 2024 – IT LOOKS AS …

…. if we’re back on these rally long, difficult afternoons when I’m fast asleep for several hours, totally unaware of what’s going on around me.

And not just for an hour or two but I DO mean several hours. I remember it being 14:30 at one point but the next thing that I knew, it was almost 18:00 and I seem to have wasted almost an entire afternoon.

And that’s a shame because I can waste enough time with all my own efforts without actually needing any help.

Last night I fell asleep quite quickly too once I made it into bed and I can’t remember very much about the night.

Mind you, there wasn’t all that much to remember because once more, it was quite late by the time that I hit the sack. It didn’t take long for STRAWBERRY MOOSE to have me tucked up and comfortable.

When the alarm went off I fell out of bed and went off to the bathroom, grabbing a set of clean clothes on the way and rounding up all the dirty clothes and so on in the apartment

After I was washed and cleaned, it was the turn of the clothes. They all went into the washing machine and I set that off on a cycle. A very clever washing machine, mine.

Back in here I had a listen to find out where I’d been during the night. And, more importantly, if any of my favourite young ladies had come with me. But n such luck. It seems that TOTGA, Castor and Zero have deserted me.

Instead, we started off last night giving someone some driving lessons. We were driving around end ended up with me being admitted to the hospital, not because of an accident but that was probably where the car was on its way to take me. I was admitted to hospital and put into a ward. This was when there was a native uprising. Out outpost was attacked about three or four different times and it degenerated into a conflict like the conflict in ZULU at Isandlwhana … "Rourke’s Drift actually, but never mind" – ed …, half a dozen gallant defenders defending the compound of about 30 people against a horde of marauding savages. What happened in my version was that we had half a dozen or so military people and probably twenty civilians. The civilians weren’t all that keen on defending themselves and thought that we ought to negotiate, which, seeing as the tribes had negotiated with no-one else was a strange decision. They were very reluctant to take any precautions whatsoever and we had to force through. In the end we had the buildings fortified but they were so scattered that they were not much use to anyone really

Yes, I can’t imagine dividing your scanty defences and forces to try to defend every building. It was a maxim of Frederick the Great that "If you try to hold everything, you hold nothing" and we would have been much better off to burn all of the buildings except one and fortify that. And trying to persuade civilians to fight is sometimes extremely difficult, as long as there are other people there to do the fighting for them. Could you imagine how these politicians would fare if they had to pick up a gun and go to the Front.

The team from Llansawel figured again later on. They had started to make one or two signings but there was no signing that really impressed me any, just general run-of-the-mill mainstream Premier players. There was nothing there that they signed that indicated to me that they were hoping for a long and successful life in the JD Cymru League that at the end of their first season would see them relegated back to the regional leagues and someone else would come and take their place which of course would be with the gulf between Tier 2 and Tier 1 it’s only unfortunately to be expected.

And that’s a story that we’ve seen time and time again, of teams being promoted to the Premier Division and relegated straight away. It’s not that they are particularly weak, but that other teams are strengthening. This can be measured by comparing the results of Welsh teams in European competition. When they began to compete in Europe 30 years ago the best Welsh teams were often on the wrong end of some embarrassing scorelines but we saw only this week that even Caernarfon, who finished fifth in the table, can give an experienced European team like Crusaders a little lesson in football.

Liz was on line this morning so we had a long chat that went on for an hour or so while the nurse was taking my blood sample. And for a change, the sample was easy to extract and I don’t know why other people have so many issues about it. It was done in two minutes.

Isabelle sorted out my legs and then left taking away the blood and the “other” sample, and I carried on chatting to Liz over breakfast until she had to go off and do other things.

There were other things that I needed to do to but at 11:00 I had a phone call from my friend Robert who lives in the Orkneys (or Shetlands, I can’t remember now). We have a little project on the go and we shall be working on this for a while, maybe with the help of one or two other people.

But more of this anon

After the ‘phone call I hung up my washing and that should be drying nicely now. For a change, everything is up-to-date in that respect, and that’s not something that happens every day

Lunch was a salad sandwich with the last of the home-made bread so I made a mental note to make another loaf. I’ll need bread for the next few days, but I’ll also be taking some sarnies with me to the hospital. I know that their idea of food and my idea of food are likely to be different and I don’t intend to starve.

It was while I was sitting down refreshing myself ready to make the bread that things all went pear-shaped. And it wasn’t until about 18:00 that I began to make the bread.

While I had the oven on for the baking I baked some potatoes and one of those breaded quorn fillets that I like so much. No point in only having half an oven filled with stuff. I may as well fill as much as I can.

To pass the time while I was waiting for things to happen I wrote out some notes for one of the radio programmes that’s on the go at the moment. Every little time spent on it helps in the long run.

Tea tonight was a salad with my things out of the oven and it was quite a success, although I must admit to looking forward to the day that I will be in the apartment downstairs with a proper oven and not a little table-top one like I have.

So now I have some dictating to do, and then I’m off to bed ready to fight the good fight tomorrow.

But thinking about my dream reminds me of a conversation that I overheard at a football match a while back.
One guy was telling his friend "I was playing cards with some Africans last night"
"Zulus?" asked his friend
"No, I won fifty quid"

0

Monday 8th July 2024 – IT’S GOING TO …

… be another horrible, miserable, depressing late night going to bed tonight.

But at least it’s not been a waste of time and something good has come of it because I whizzed through this evening and not only edited the remaining sound file from those that I dictated on Saturday night, I’ve assembled the programme.

All that remains to do is to choose the final track and write the notes for it, and that’s a job that I can do tomorrow morning.

It’s quite strange really, because the sound file was one of the longest that I’ve ever dictated yet when I’ve edited out all of the umms and ahhs and the bits that were rubbish, it edited down to be one of the shortest. There are some things that are quite difficult to explain.

It was a late night last night too. I wasn’t in bed much before midnight and that’s not much good at all. I awoke at about 05:15 too and valiantly resisted the temptation to raise myself from the dead at that time.

When it came round to about 06:00 I thought “give it another five minutes ….” and the next thing that I knew, the 07:00 alarm was going off. And that was a mystery too. What happened there?

After I’d had a good wash and complete change of clothes I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone notes to find out where I’d been during the night and, more importantly, if any of my favourite young ladies had come with me.

But no such luck last night. “Swansong” in the Sports pages refers to the goalkeeper who was selected for the national team – the women’s national team, with selection issues about form etc, loss of form, new brooms sweeping clean and all this kind of thing it was necessary to find another keeper to join the National squad as first choice and she was it. At 38 years of age it was only a temporary solution while other players sort themselves out. But it was the best available at the time. It might have been unpopular but sometimes popularity is the wrong thing to do. You don’t do things for popularity you do things for success. Sometimes, for success, you have to do things like this but we’ll see where she is in two seasons and see who’s taken her place amongst this crowd of people who are almost there but not quite at the moment.

And what do I know about women’s football? My first encounter with it was AT BURLINGTON IN VERMONT IN 2015 and I might have seen the odd match since then, but I’m hardly an expert. However, Jocelyne Montoya of one of these Mexican women’s teams can come and take a throw-in with one of my footballs any time she likes.

And then later we were all at work discussing the working arrangements for the next week or so. I’d been driving a snooker player around for a week. He was someone who had been very famous but had fallen on hard times and had been extremely wayward but had slowly been dragged back onto track again. I’d been driving him around but I’d not had any instructions for the coming week so we were all in the office waiting for things to happen and for someone to come along with a work schedule. A couple of my colleagues came in and asked me why I wasn’t at the top end of the town. I asked why so they replied “your snooker player is up there looking for someone or other”. They had a huge discussion about this snooker player. I mentioned that I’d driven him last week and tried to keep him on track for all his appointments, matches etc. One or two people said “yes it’s a shame that he didn’t think about engaging you earlier because you’d been sure to have made him at least conscious of these things” which I thought was probably one of the nicest compliments anyone in that place had ever paid me. So even though no work schedule was down I had to quickly discuss where this snooker player was and then decide to nip in the car to catch him to see what his plans were for the week and maybe fit in with his anyway and do the work that he wants doing, especially as he seems to be so keen to see me around according to my colleagues, which again I thought was a pretty nice comment from someone like that.

Yes, compliments were rather thin on the ground in that place. Everything was done on the basis of “dead man’s shoes” gallantly resisting all attempts to bring things kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. Trying to reorganise things there to be more efficient, I was met with "and what do you know about it?"
So saying nothing, next time that I was out I stopped at a stationer’s and bought some picture frames. That night I framed all of my taxi operators’ licences and my Certificates of Professional Competence (issued, would you believe, by my Employer) to operate a Road Passenger Transport business in the UK and in Europe, and next morning, hung them on the wall over my desk.
No-one in that office spoke to me again after that and a few months later when my boss’s office was moved to a different building it was "wouldn’t it be a good idea if you went to be based in ‘Kortenberg’ with him instead of down here?"
"Suits me fine, thanks."

But what I don’t understand is why there is a snooker player in the middle of all of this.

When the nurse came round he sorted me out and bandaged me up and then asked for my advice. He’s off to Brussels to see a concert t the Stadion Roi Baudoin and wanted to know where to park. Where I lived was about 20 minutes from there and there’s plenty of parking. And if he plays his cards right, there’s a bus that runs between the hospital at Jette and the Metro Station at the Stadion Roi Baudouin that goes along the road where he’ll be parked. Where I lived in Jette was really good. 200 yards from an exit on the Brussels by-pass and surrounded by public transport going just about everywhere, bus, tram, train, you name it.

After he left I had breakfast and then began to prepare for my Welsh Summer School that starts today. We are 10 students and a tutor, a tutor whom I’ve had before on some summer school or other. He’s sent us a little booklet of his plans but I bet that we’ll be a long way from there by the time that we finish.

It’s actually a level below the one that I was studying in the year just finished but it doesn’t hurt to go over stuff that I’m supposed to have learned and to know. And I’m not the only one doing a “revision course”.

The way I see it, if you throw a lot of whatsit at a wherever, some of it might stick at some point.

No prizes by the way for guessing who fell asleep at one point and sat there staring into space when he should have been in a break-out room. D’ohhh!

After the end of the lessons today I cracked on with the radio programme. I wanted to at least finish the editing. I could have done more too but I ran out of bread and had to make another loaf. I took full advantage of the oven being on by baking tonight’s stuffed pepper and making a pasta-bake, although that wasn’t very successful

That took me back a while. A friend of mine and his wife in the USA were so hung over one New Year’s Morning that they stayed in bed all day and their two kids were starving. I was there giving instructions over the internet on a messenger program to Tina, the 11 year old, on how to make a pasta and tuna bake in the oven

Anyway, that’ll have to do for now. I’ve been another busy boy today, following on from being rushed off my feet yesterday. Can I go for the hat trick tomorrow or will I be spending most of the day flaked out and recovering? It remains to be seen.

But thinking of Tina trying to awaken her parents reminds me of the girl who once asked me "do you wake up grumpy in the morning?"
And I replied "actually, she’s usually awake before me"

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Thursday 4th July 2024 – THE DIE IS …

… cast

And in a most unusual turn of speed that can only be described as “indecent haste”, I’ve had a communication this afternoon from the letting agent for the apartment downstairs –

"Dear Sir
Please find attached a copy of the formal notice that we have today sent to your tenant … in accordance with your instructions of … "

So in other words, proceedings have begun to recover occupancy of the apartment on or before the end of this current tenancy lease on 3rd June 2025.

As it happens, I feel quite awful about putting someone out on the street. I wouldn’t like it at all and I didn’t when it was done to me.

However I shouldn’t feel bad because the tenant had two opportunities to buy the apartment herself. It’s the law in France that if a let property is put up for sale, the tenant has first dibs and it’s been sold twice since she’s been there.

Secondly, I’ve offered to exchange my rights in this apartment (which I rent, of course). It’s configured differently but it’s basically the same apartment from a point of view of size and accommodation. However, she turned down my proposal, turned it down flat.

All we need to know now is what I have forgotten or overlooked.

If I were doing all of this myself there would almost inevitably be something or other that I have failed to consider, but having a letting agent means that there’s someone else to blame when it all goes pear-shaped

So with half the new kitchen packed on the landing outside the door here and the other half in the back of Caliburn, and a cat awaiting in a shelter or refuge somewhere close by, it’s “all systems go”. It looks as if I shall have to do some serious packing.

But one thing is for certain is that when I finally sit down in that apartment I’ll breathe a huge sigh of relief. I shan’t miss the 25 Steps one little bit.

When I went to bed last night I breathed a huge sigh of relief too. It was actually quite late when I finally fell into my stinking pit but after my exertions during the day I was good and ready for it

During the night I don’t recall moving a single muscle. When the alarm went off I was flat-out in exactly the same position in which I’d hit the hay earlier

And it was a very confused me who responded to the alarm this morning by trying to answer the ‘phone, something that would have brought a smile to BILLY COTTON‘s face if only he had seen it.

Eventually I managed to tear myself away from my nice warm bed and went for a wash and brush up etc before coming back in here to find out where I’d been during the night. There was something going on with my ill-health again. There had been demonstrations in Montlucon. I’d been sent a form to fill in for me to say whether or not I’d been at this demonstration for just the one day or the two days. If I’d been there for the two days I was entitled to go along there and help clean it up, and I’d receive a daily subsistence allowance for the two days. I thought to myself that this is the first time that someone had really made an effort to bring the sufferers of this disease together and actually make it worth their while to come out of the shadows and announce who they are to the World and then be paid for this clearing-up of these sites in Montlucon. I thought that this was a definite amount of progress for this illness and I was wondering where it was going to take us next with this idea of opening up everything.

Transcribing that little lot, I was thinking to myself that anyone reading this article would imagine that I was suffering from the Bubonic Plague or something equally contagious and nasty but of course as far as I am aware, what I have isn’t contagious so you’re all quite safe.

That is, apart from this ‘flu bug that I don’t seem to be able to shake off at the moment. And that’s not frightened the nurse away because he’s still coming round.

He didn’t have a great deal to say for himself this morning. He was clearly in an introspective mood. He changed the dressing on my right foot, organised my puttees and then left in a hurry.

What I’ve been doing today is to finish off the radio programme that I started yesterday. I have had to perform a lot of judicious (and not so judicious) editing, cutting and chopping about and in the end I’ve finished with 56:39 minutes of music and musicians” banter

That is leaving me just 3 minutes and 21 seconds, or 201 seconds in fact, for an introduction and at 300 characters of text per 17 seconds, I need about 3500 characters of text. So far, I’ve written 3672 so there’s a little room for manoeuvre.

But as usual when I write stuff for programmes like that, I’ll review it a few times before I go with a definitive version. The usual programmes where I have 11 songs and about three quarters of a minute to introduce each one, you can’t do all that much. But I like to think that the text for any concert that I broadcast says all that it needs to in the time available to it.

Seeing as we are talking about concerts … "well, one of us is" – ed … I came across the soundtrack for an interesting concert.

There was a group quite active on the British Rhythm and Blues scene in the early 1960s, Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, and their claim to fame is that their guitarist at the time, Mick Green, is credited with having invented the concept of the “power trio” of guitar, bass and drums, by being able to play lead and rhythm guitar alternately and inspired whole generations of some of the most important musicians and groups in rock music. I’ve played bass in many a power trio and to me, that is rock music at its best

Johnny KIdd was killed in a car accident in the mid-1960s but is group reformed later and produced three or four LPs that I would love to find. Instead though, I came across a concert that was recorded in 2006 in a pub in Northern France with the Pirates, including Mick Green

The quality is rubbish unfortunately, but nevertheless …

Later on this afternoon I’ve been busy. Firstly, the cleaner stuck her head in. She brought my next batch of injections that had now arrived at the pharmacy. But poor girl – if it carries on like this, she’s going to need a lorry. I’m sure that I have more medication here than the chemist has in his stock.

And then, having used up the last of the bread this morning I need another loaf for starting tomorrow so I’ve been baking.

And what can I do with half an oven while there’s bread in the other half? The answer is to make a big vegan lasagne – tofu, mushroom and red lentils with tomato sauce all covered in a bechamel sauce.

That was a lovely surprise for tea too, lasagne with steamed veg. One slice to go and two slices for the freezer for another time. Like I say, the food in this place is simple but it’s really first-class.

So I’m going to bed and hopefully to have a good night’s sleep and to make all kinds of plans about the apartment downstairs.

But thinking about my dream earlier, it reminds me of a story that I heard from a schoolteacher friend of mine on the Wirral in a particularly rough primary school.
She set the children an exercise in their English language lesson – to write a sentence with the word “contagious” in it
After two minutes little Johnny put his hand up to say that he was finished, so my friend asked him to come out and read his sentence to the class
So little Johnny coughs to clear his throat and begins "Next door’s garden fence blew down in the gales and it will take the contagious to pick up all of the bits"

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Friday 28th June 2024 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about the card reader solution being too easy.

Sure enough, the girl turned up at 12:30 with the delivery and so I went to pay for it using her portable card reader. “PIN correct” but “Card Declined”

And that was how it went on for about 15 minutes until in the end I gave up and used my Belgian card. I thought that that solution was too good to be true and, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s par for the course.

Meanwhile, in other news, I’ve had another bad fall this evening. Only this time it wasn’t “sideways keeling over when the knee folds up” which, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is also par for the course, but tonight it was “backwards into the kitchen shelving unit while washing up” – a totally new experience.

Another new experience was actually being in bed before 23:00 last night.

Not by very much, I have to admit. Just by a wafer-thin margin but never mind, it was an accomplishment.

However, regular readers of this rubbish will recall what usually happens at times like this. At 05:00 I had to go to walk the parapet. Try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep and when the alarm finally went off at 07:00 I was already up, washed, dressed and sitting at the computer.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone too so I transcribed that while I was waiting for the nurse to come. A newspaper headline in one of the broadsheet dailies had made some kind of inflammatory remarks supposedly said by a member of the Government about the situation in Ireland that the Minister, if he had his way, would “exterminate the lot of them”. This apparently was the final straw and the next day in Parliament there were severe probing questions asked about “what exactly is the Government’s agenda in this respect?”. Of course they were all extremely vague. Nevertheless the Police launched a raid and took away thousands of papers. Then a senior Policeman was arrested and charged with “misconduct in public office”. It turned out that he had been leaking details of all the Police operations to fellow Party members so they were all well aware of what was happening. Now of course Society had had enough. There were all these arrests and all these charges. I remember saying to someone “it’s high time that all this inflammatory language was addressed and people were dealt with for stirring it all up”. Someone said “yes but that means that there would be an independent Ireland in five years” to which I replied “does it really matter?”. The fellow shook his head and said “not really, I suppose”

And if they ever do introduce a law to outlaw the kind of outlandish and incendiary rhetoric that comes from the mouths of some of these politicians, mainly of one particular shade of opinion, I for one what be most impressed. How I yearn for the dignity of politicians like Gaitskell and MacMillan rather than the rabble that seem to have been in power in several countries of the World

The nurse and I had a good chat this morning and on leaving gave me a list of supplies that she thinks we might need in the near future. She also gave me the Injection of the Last Resort, which I’m now to have twice per week instead of once. This is becoming serious too.

After she left, I went and had breakfast, having sent the shopping list to my faithful cleaner “for action” while she’s in town this morning.

Much of the day has been spent on radio stuff. I’ve now finished editing all of the stuff that I dictated the other night, all programmes are assembled and as for the last one, the final music has been chosen and the text written ready for dictating.

And then I’ve been writing out some notes for the next one. I’m still boldly going forwards, but to what end I haven’t really a clue.

We had the food delivery, as I mentioned. And that was a dismal failure that didn’t fulfil the purpose of activating my bank card. But at least I now know that the “tap” function of my Belgian card works, after today’s efforts.

But thinking about the different bank cards reminded me of that time at that Motel in Maine (or was it New Hampshire?) in 2017 when they wanted to check my identity, and so we had –

  • British passport
  • French driving licence
  • Belgian bank card
  • My vehicle, Strider with his New Brunswick licence plates
  • Québec mobile ‘phone

Yes, that would confuse the badgers.

Those were the days when I was an International Man of Mystery. Look how far the mighty have fallen now.

While my cleaner was here doing her stuff I was doing the radio stuff and going through the Post. And to add to the confusion, I have been “summoned to attend” the Centre de Re-education at 10:30 in the forenoon on 3rd September. “Do not pass ‘Go’ and do not collect £200”.

What do they want, I wonder. We shall find out, I suppose, if I remember to go. but I need to ‘phone them for a taxi voucher as I need one to take me there (and bring me back).

But whichever way you look at it, things are hotting up here and at this rate I’ll be out somewhere every day if I’m not careful. Those of you who think that I need to go out more often won’t be disappointed.

After the cleaner left I baked a loaf as I was running out of bread. And this one rose like a lift as well and looks really good. I was really impressed with how it came out.

While it was baking I baked some potatoes and so I had my Saturday Quorn fillet tonight instead. I know that it’s only a small oven and it doesn’t take much to fill it, but nevertheless I should still be filling it as often as I can.

And then washing up, next think I remember is being on the floor on my back surrounded by bottles, cans and jars. Backwards into the storage shelves, I reckon. Don’t ask me how.

Like that on the floor, I could just about make it to “on my knees” and that’s the limit of my muscular strength. I can’t raise myself any higher than that.

And so I waddled on my knees across the apartment and on the count of “three”, “three being the number of the counting and the number of the counting being three. Five is right out”, I threw my upper body onto the sofa.

One by one, I pulled my legs up behind me and then with a bit of manoeuvring I could sit on the sofa. Lifting myself up I could slide a box underneath so I was sitting higher, and then onto the arm of the sofa, and then I could stand up with a bit of effort.

20 minutes it took me. What a state to be in. A year ago I could stand upright from a kneeling position but there’s no chance of that these days.

It reminds me of the time that Neil Kinnock, Leader of the Opposition, was walking through the Public Gallery on his way out of the House of Commons.
There was obviously something important going on and the Lord Tipstaff of the House of Commons, resplendent in robe and wig, was chasing after him.
Catching sight of him down the far end of the corridor the Lord Tipstaff shouted "Neil!" at the top of his voice.
And all the American tourists present knelt.

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Sunday 23rd June 2024 – I’M ABSOLUTELY WHACKED!

Yes, again!

And even worse and more tired than the other day when I was so tired that I really hoped that the World would end.

Once again, it was being in the kitchen that did it and once again it involved food. I’m pleased to say that it was a worthwhile exercise as the table is now groaning with victuals and I won’t ever starve again.

In fact it’s been an extremely busy 24 hours. Before going to bed I dictated a pile of radio stuff. Not all of it because there’s more there than any one man can handle in one sitting, but it’s part of the backlog out of the way.

And as for the new ZOOM H8, I wish that I knew where the tone controls are. When I’m dictating it sounds as if I have my head in a bucket.

What I did took me up until midnight and it was about 00:30 when I crawled under the covers. It didn’t take me long to drop off, that’s for sure.

There was another phantom alarm this morning at about 06:15 and I was halfway out of bed thinking that it was the real alarm before I worked out what it was. Someone had sent me a text message and it was the “alert” on my phone that had awoken me this morning.

What a way to start the day on a Sunday! I climbed back into bed for a couple of hours extra sleep.

When the alarm finally went off I fell out of bed, washed and dressed and proceeded to await the nurse. He didn’t have much to say for himself today but he seems to be more friendly all round so I’ve no idea what’s happening.

Hr sorted me out with my puttees and so on and then cleared off. I sat around for a few minutes to catch my breath and then went to make breakfast – porridge and nice, strong coffee.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from the night. And it’s rather ominous. I was back in Bomber Command but for some reason or other I ended up in hospital. You could tell by the long faces of the nurses that it was pretty serious. One day they announced that they were having to move the hospital. Most of the patients would be evacuated but some patients would have to stay behind as being too ill to move like that. I found to my horror that I was actually one of those being left behind. We were just going to be left in the battle zone and everyone else would clear off out of the way. This was what made me realise now that this was going down the final stretch of my illness and this would be it

And then later on I slipped right back into that dream. It kept on recurring two or three times before the alarm went off

It’s the idea of it being a recurring dream that’s unsettling. I mentioned yesterday that some people seem to think that I’m more ill than I think that I am (if that’s even possible) and this dream seems to underline it. With a visit to the surgeon during the week, it’s not really the correct time to have dreams like this at all.

The rest of the morning was spent relaxing, “saving my strength for the struggle that lies ahead” as Professor Janssens at Castle Anthrax mentioned. I’m sure that she didn’t mean “the kitchen” but that’s where I’ve spent most of the afternoon.

Having been slaving away over a red-hot stove all afternoon, I now have in the kitchen …

  • a loaf of bread, nice, big, soft and fluffy just like bread should be
  • a vegan flapjack, ready in case I have to go back to the hospital
  • 24 raisin and orange biscuits that should have been cranberry and orange but I had no cranberries
  • the pièce de resistance – the usual Sunday pizza

With not having much room to work, with only a small oven and being on crutches, it involved quite a juggling act in order to make it all and then fire it up in the oven. It was so exhausting that at one stage when I sat down I crashed out and it was only Liz texting me that saved a disaster in the oven, awakening me just in time.

But while I was asleep I was away with the fairies again There was something about the turret of an Avro Lancaster but instead of four guns it only had one fitted. This sounded as if it might have been an interesting dream but I’m glad that I awoke anyway.

In between all of this there were other fish to fry.

Firstly, during one pause I listened to and edited the notes that would finish off one of the radio programmes. It ended up over-running by 19 seconds but there was 18.993 seconds of music that could be over-dubbed as it happened

Later, we had football. I mentioned the other day that I was glad that I wasn’t hospitalised during the football season. That would have been a disaster.

Mind you, as the Duke of Wellington said after the Battle of Waterloo, it was "the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life". Pre-season friendlies are now slowly springing into life and this afternoon we had Stranraer v Larne, the old “Seasick Derby”.

It was a quiet game without much excitement but Larne scored a belting goal after 61 minutes, only to concede an even better one 5 minutes later.

1-1 in a game where neither side broke out into a sweat was about right. Larne are playing in the Champions League next month and they are going to have to play much, much better than this if they want to go anywhere and do anything.

When I recovered my form and strength I went back and carried on in the kitchen and then once it was clean, tidy and all washed up, I could sit down to my delicious pizza.

and now that I’ve eaten my pizza I can sit down and finish my notes before going to bed. And won’t I be pleased to finally call it a day today? I mean – I’m surprised to be retired and supposed to be dying. Yet I don’t think that I’ve ever worked so hard in my life as I have these last few days.

The kind of people I used to know (with one or two exceptions) were summed up by the guy who; told me that he really liked work
"Is that so?" I asked him with a trace of bitterness
"Ohh absolutely" he replied keenly. "I can sit and watch it for hours"

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Friday 21st June 2024 – I DON’T THINK …

… that I have worked as hard as I have today for a very long time. I shall be glad to crawl into my nice comfy bed and burrow underneath the covers

However, at least I can say that I have accomplished a lot, which makes a change. What makes no change at all is that I haven’t done all that much of my own “work” though. It’s been all “housekeeping duties”.

What didn’t help was that it was another late night and I really ought to try my best to put a stop to these late hours, said he not finishing work and beginning to wrote his notes at 22:30 instead of about 21:30.

But anyway, once in bed I was soon away with the fairies and remember nothing whatever until about 06:00 when I had another one of these dramatic awakenings.

“Awake” is one thing. “Ready to leave the bed” is something else completely, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. It was quite a struggle to haul myself out of bed when the alarm went off.

Having to be on an empty stomach for my blood test I took my time this morning – that it, until I suddenly realised that I had bread to make. I made a hurried mix of flour, water, yeast and salt but for some reason it seemed to be rather wet so I had to add more flour to stiffen it up.

But I don’t understand that. I used the same proportions that I always do and I’m totally surprised that it gave me some totally different results.

As usual, the nurse was in a rush. She didn’t want to listen to what I had to say which was a shame. I had hoped to have a little chat to her about one or two things that are going on with this illness and the treatment but I dunno. I shall just have to make the best of it.

She injected me and took a blood sample and when headed for the hills. After she left I had some cornflakes and coffee, gave the bread its second working-over and then came in here to read my mails and messages and so on.

By now the bread was ready to go in the oven. And good grief! It had gone up like a lift! Now that was what I called “bread”. This looked wonderful.

While it was baking I checked through my order for LeClerc and sent it off. With my French bank card being blocked for the moment I had to use my Belgian one. Such are the benefits of having several cards.

That’s as a result of a bitter experience in Flagstaff in Arizona in 2002 when I went to buy some wind turbines from South West Wind Power. I told the bank that I was going, paid the money onto my account before setting off, bought the items, then went to fuel up the Mustang -“credit card blocked – unusual spending patterns”

That night I spent in the World’s worst motel paying cash because it’s all that I had available until next morning when I could grab hold of the bank. So these days we have a French card, a Belgian card, a British card and a Canadian card. We won’t be caught out like that again.

But that’s what I like about Canada – there’s no official identity check. A property tax certificate will open almost every door. Buying that place on Mars Hill was the best thing that I ever did even if the natives on my southern boundary are pretty restless.

By now I was ready for lunch so I made a toasted cheese sandwich with my beautiful, perfect bread. And I’d not finished when the guy from LeClerc came with the order.

And it was a huge order too. Supplies were running quite low here and as well as that a couple of things that I use were on sale on one of these “job lot” special offers so I took the opportunity to stock up. The poor delivery guy had to make a couple of trips up the stairs with the load.

Once it was here I had to put it all away, and that was where the fun began. A lot of it was heavy and there was a lot of rearranging to do in order to fit it in. When my cleaner came round to start on her work I was sitting down taking a desperate breather with tons of stuff still to do.

While she was working, so was I. Chopping up soundtracks in order to finish off the work that I’d started yesterday. We actually finished work at the same time, which was a surprise.

The place was much tidier after she had gone, with most of the stuff put away which was lovely.

Now I had 2 kilos of carrots to scrub,, dice and blanch Followed by a broccoli (broccoli stalk soup for lunch tomorrow, folks!) and four peppers to clean and gut ready for freezing and all of that is a long, exhausting task these days.

The freezer took some sorting out too to make room for the peppers. God help me when I have to put the carrots and broccoli in when they have drained.

But that’s later. I was exhausted with all the heavy lifting and came in here where I crashed out. I was totally whacked, it was un believable. All of this lifting and staggering around has completely done me in.

When I recovered there was time to transcribe the dictaphone notes before going for tea. I was back in Bomber Command last night doing a marvellous talk-through of a ‘plane in a rain going through a mission with one or two of the ‘planes all around it all communicating with base as they come in to bomb, talking about conditions in the hospitals to a Russian so presumably I’d been shot down over the Russian Front. What I’d been doing straying that far East I really don’t know. I had a three-man crew so it was a first-generation bomber, I reckon. I’d lost my way, missed my aim and had to bale out in the end into Russian hands

Quite a few bombing missions took place far to the east of Germany and it was occasionally the case where a badly-shot-up bomber would head east to land amongst the Russians rather than try to struggle home. And then there were the shuttle raids where the USA had an airfield at Poltava in the Soviet Union for a while and ran between the UK and the USSR dropping bombs on the Germans on the way

For tea there was a special treat. In the hospital I’d acquired a taste for beetroot and it was on special offer so I ordered what I thought was one beetroot. Instead, it’s one pack and there’s 8 in the pack. What the hell am I going to do with all of this? I haven’t acquired that much of a taste.

The big issue now is storage. How do I keep it? Where do I keep it? There’s no room in the fridge for a start.

Nevertheless it was a lovely salad with beetroot, chips and some of those nuggets. One of the best teas that I’ve had for a long, long time. Probably since just before I went into hospital in fact.

There was a ton of washing up tonight, all kinds of heavy stuff included, and then I had to wrestle yet again with the freezer to fit the carrots and broccoli in. Now, I can say without fear of contradiction that everywhere is totally full and there’s no room to put anything anywhere else.

Final job was to wash my puttees. The nurse told me that they needed a good scrub so I attended to that and then rolled up the clean pair that had been drying from last time so they are ready to use tomorrow.

And then fall into my chair with a huge sigh of relief. I have never felt as tired as I am right now and I’ll be glad to climb into bed.

So any suggestions about what to do with this beetroot will be much appreciated otherwise my leftover curry on Wednesday is going to be rather strange

But it wouldn’t be the strangest meal that was ever served up. Back in the days of the BBC Home Service and Alvar Liddell, the BBC was forced to make an abject apology to its listeners.
"Due to a typing error there was a mistake in our goulash recipe that we broadcast yesterday. It should have read ‘four tins of tomatoes’ and not ‘four tons of tomatoes’"
and the announcer continued "and ‘enough chili powder to cover a tablespoon’, not ‘enough chili powder to cover a table’."

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Thursday 30th May 2024 – SO HERE WE GO.

Yes, by the time that some of you (but not others, of course) will be reading this I’ll have been tucked up all nice and cosy in bed by a bevy of beautiful nurses at the hospital at Avranches.

Some hopes.

Knowing my luck it will be a retired female Bulgarian weightlifter or hammer-thrower and she won’t have tucked me up at all; never mind smoothed my fevered brow. I shall have to do that by myself.

Before I leave here in the morning I’ll have done all that I can and the rest is in the hands of the Gods.

If it’s anything like last night, it’ll be extremely difficult, that’s for sure. The lethargy about which I spoke … "at great length" – ed … carried on and I couldn’t summon up the energy to leave my comfy chair until almost 01:00, well after my usual bedtime.

It’s difficult to explain what’s happening to me right now. I can’t seem to find the effort to do the simplest of things and it’s so dispiriting.

At least, getting into bed was so much easier and apart from the difficulties that I’m having with my legs right now, even turning over and over in bed was much easier too. Things seem to be pretty much back to normal … "for now" – ed … in that respect, and aren’t I grateful?

When the alarm went off I fell out of bed to switch it off and then crawled off into the bathroom.

After that it was the medication. 13 different capsules or potions if we count the anti-potassium stuff. I must be reaching a world-record of some kind at some point. I hear that the French Government is putting up taxes quite soon. It’s all my fault.

For a change, the nurse didn’t have too much to say for himself. But he couldn’t make his card reader connect to the internet to read my health card so after much binding in the marsh he said that he’ll do it next time. I hope that there will be a “next time” anyway.

After he left I had a “rest” for a while and then transcribed the dictaphone notes. Last night there was a group of young girls taking part in a singing competition. While the singing was absolutely excellent they made life extremely difficult for the judges by crowding the backstage and confusing themselves with the other groups so people lost track of who was who because there were so many of them. In the end the judges had to ask several groups to perform again which led to a lot of chaos from some of the groups of parents whose children were feeling excluded by this. All in all, what should have been a simple singing competition turned into absolute chaos coupled with the fact that some jewellery went missing at some point. Of course The Saint was in the audience so everyone suspected him. Some of the parents wanted him involved in helping to find it. It all went on throughout the night in the usual turmoil and complete mess. Nothing was ever decided.

These “Saint” DVDs are a long way from being finished too. I’m about halfway through the black-and-white episodes and then I have all of the colour ones to go at. And all these wonderful British cars of the 1950s and 60s too. Not a single mainstream British car anywhere these days. Hard to believe that at one time the UK led the World

There was another thing about being on the roads of Maine in a snowstorm on I-98 going north. There was a huge pile-up and they were announcing things on the radio “2 women injured” then the total went to “5 women injured” and gradually increased. I heard someone in the background say “what the heck is going on there? Aren’t there any males in that traffic queue?”. I thought to myself “that’s a really nice thing to say, isn’t it, seeing as I’m stranded in this queue but near the front nowhere near where these collisions are taking place?”.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’ve been on Interstate 95 in Maine on numerous occasions, but rarely in the snow. But we’re back to this theme of “token womanism” again where “x people were hurt, of which Y were women and children” Imagine the outcry if they had said “X people were hurt, of which Z were men”.

We once did a study of “minorities” listing all of the people from different classes of minority and subtracting them from the total population. We eventually reached the conclusion that a white middle-class middle-aged man was very much a minority when it came to today’s scale of things. Of course, our report was … errr … mislaid.

After my coffee and flapjack I fell asleep again but this afternoon I’ve been packing and making myself ready for the road tomorrow and the hospital at Avranches as well as doing some stuff for the radio. I’m not sure what they want of me but I know what I want of them and I’m hoping that they can do something to alleviate my suffering.

On that note, I’ve baked a loaf of bread and I shall take half of it with me. My invitees can share out the rest amongst themselves. But with my half a loaf and half a flapjack I’m hoping that at least there will be some food for me to eat somewhere.

That’s the big problem – who do I know who can bring me some food parcels?

But I’ll worry about that in due course. I’ve had a nice tea tonight of baked potato (seeing as I had the oven going) sausage and beans.

It’s been ages since I’ve had baked beans so, listening to my stomach right now, I won’t need a taxi to get me to Avranches in the morning.

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Friday 24th May 2024 – “THERE’S NONE AS THICK …

… as them as wants to be” as my old grandfather used to say in his old Maelor-border accent

And so for the past few days finding it more and more difficult to rise up from my chair in here? I’ve been thinking about buying one of these chairs where there’s some kind of pump-action that raises and lowers the sear.

The last couple of days or so I’ve been discussing it with my cleaner but when she’s been in here this afternoon she asked me “what’s this handle for underneath the seat of your chair?”

You really couldn’t make it up, could you?

It’s a shame that there’s not one on the bed though. It’s all very well “going to bed” but that’s no earthly good if it takes 20 minutes to actually climb on. Honestly, I ache in so many different places it’s simply not true. There’s my groin, and my back, and regular readers will recall the stabbing pain in the sole of my right foot that goes all the way through my body. Well, that’s back too, as if I don’t have enough.

So last night was absolutely wretched. If there hadn’t been stuff on the dictaphone I’d have sworn that I hadn’t slept a wink all night

When the alarm went off I was a little quicker out of the blocks and not needing to dress saved me some time, so after I’d had my medication I began to make the weekend’s bread

After the nurse had been I carried on with my bread and I do have to say that it was perfection itself, which is nice. However it took a lot longer than it ought and so breakfast was quite late today.

Once breakfast was over I set to and made a mountain of hummus. One lot is chili flavoured and the other is olive and dried tomato, and most of it is in the freezer

Having done that I came back in here were I didn’t actually crash out but I was in some kind of vapid daze, not able to function at all but fully conscious of my surroundings.

The cleaner came round and awoke me from my reverie, and we had this chat about my chair. And then I transcribed the dictaphone notes. Someone was following the trail of her father at work. He had died and she had been following in his footsteps to find out more about his life. She went to his factory and found that he was given certain things. They gave her two of them. Then they all went for a meal at the restaurant where he used to go. They proposed soup, which was what he always had but mine was white creamy stuff like cottage cheese yet they insisted that it was soup, the soup that this guy always had though it looked nothing like soup to me. I was just on the point of tasting it when I awoke

It beats me as to why I would be there, but things sound right about the soup. No-one seems to care about my diet here.

A roll of insulation had fallen off a lorry on the M50 and had completely blocked the motorway for several miles so the whole motorway was closed while they thought of what they would do to roll this back up. There was a group of kids camping near there. The police wanted them moved on but when I saw the girl’s rucksack was absolutely full to the point of bulging yet weighed as light as a stone as if there were just bags of air inside it made me wonder what on earth was going on with these kids. What did their choice have to do with anything and why were they being pushed around like this

And young girls being pushed around by the police. Would you believe it?

While we were discussing the closing of the road by this insulation and how they were going to move me the engine on a cabin cruiser than was being towed and had stopped because of the police suddenly burst into flames. There was smoke and fumes everywhere while this happened.

There was also a good old-fashioned knock at the door at 06:00 but there was no chance of my opening it at all. Probably phantom knockers now, I reckon.

Then I paired off the music for the next radio programme but was interrupted by a ‘phone call. It was the hospital giving me appointments for Tuesday 11th. It looks as if I’ll be staying over when I go on the 10th. But apparently they’ve found an issue with my heart

They want a blood test too so I had to print off a pile of stuff including the prescription

Tea tonight was vegan nuggets with chips and vegan salad, and now I’m off to bed, if I can manage to climb onto it. But at least it’s not as bad as when I was married and I swapped our bed for a trampoline. Nerina hit the roof!

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Friday 17th May 2025 – I’VE JUST HAD …

… to defrost the freezer.

The build-up of ice in there was so much that the doors wouldn’t close correctly, which was making the freezer freeze up even more.

So, armed with the electric kettle and a saucepan with a heavy, thick base I went to work. It’s not perfectly defrosted, because the time that it would take, the frozen food wood melt, but at least the drawers fit better and the doors close, which was the aim of the whole exercise.

Mind you, it’s just about the only productive work that I’ve done all day. The other day, I mentioned that the partner of my friend in Munich had gone into palliative care. Unfortunately she didn’t pull through and just after midnight she left us to join the angels.
"Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee"
as John Donne wrote 400 years ago. I remember the delight that she felt when she came out of hospital a few years ago after just having her catheter port removed. For her it signified the end of the cancer treatment that she was having, that she was now fit and rehabilitated.

The removal of the catheter port was a symbol of victory back then. But how rapidly and wickedly fate can turn upon you. Rest in Peace, Ulli. It was a pleasure and a privilege to have known you.

As for myself, I’m not doing much better. My body is swelling up with all of these water retention issues that I’m having. And when I say “all” my body, I do mean “every bit of it”. I shall be looking like Bibendum, the Michelin Man, before too long

But last night anyway I managed to make it to bed and although it was a late night again, it was a decent sleep for a change and I can’t remember being interrupted at all, not even by a phantom alarm call. It was the Sleep of the Dead.

When the real alarm went off I fell out of bed to switch it off and then made my way to the bathroom for a clean-up, not that it did much good, I reckon.

Once I’d had my medication I set out the dining area for the nurse. My right leg is much better now, with the pain having diminished even more. But as I mentioned earlier, I have other issues with which to deal now that are causing me greater problems

While I was waiting I made a start on the bread dough for the weekend, mixing it, giving it a knead and then leaving it to proof for a while.

The nurs didn’t have much to say for himself today and was in and out quite rapidly After he’d gone I gave the bread its second working-over and divided into three lumps, one for each day.

Just for a change it went up like a lift, the best that I have ever made I reckon, and it baked really nicely too. My breakfast cheese-on-toast, which was almost lunchtime cheese-on-toast by the time that I’d finished, was delicious.

Back in here I crashed straight out despite the strong black coffee, and it was 13:00 when I finally rejoined the Land of the … well, perhaps not.

First thing was to check the dictaphone to see if there was anything on it from the night. And to my complete surprise, there was. This was before the Fall of France and we had a bomber aeroplane in Normandy. We’d given it a name. First of all we’d called it “Billy Jones” after the boy who was a dancer … "That was Billy Elliott. Billy Jones was guitarist with the Outlaws who committed suicide" – ed … but then we gave it some other name later but I can’t remember what it was. However the ‘plane was shot down on a flight over to the Channel Islands before the Channel Islands were invaded and unfortunately we lost it and the crew

Just a little reminder for the British people who criticised the French for not resisting the Occupier in World War II, the Channel Islands were occupied in June 1940 and no effort at all was made to free them until after the end of the War, never mind at D-Day or when the battle for Normandy had passed them by.

Of the eight ‘planes two were shot down taking off and the other six were shot down along the route but this dream continued lots of things – there was a young lad who was a store person who was enamoured of this girl who volunteered to sing a requiem but was not very good at at, dozens of things like that all through this dream that seemed to go on for ages

And if you are thinking that the one dream leads straight on to the other there was a three-hour gap between the two, according to the timestamps.

Having had my lunchtime fruit I checked over my order from LeClerc and then sent it off. It’s an expensive one this weekend but there’s stuff like coffee, olive oil and champagne on it.

Champagne, yes. It’s a neighbour’s 80th birthday on Sunday and I’m invited, not that I’ll be drinking any of it of course. Last time I had any alcohol was in Bulgaria in 1994, and that was due to force majeure.

Back in here again I was reading something on the internet when the next thing that I remember were the dulcet tones of my cleaner awakening me. I’d had another one of these crashings-out where the light simply goes off and I can’t remember a thing.

She came round this afternoon to do her stuff again and it was a good job that she was here because the delivery came early.

The frozen food went into the freezer (which was when I noticed the door issues) and the rest I put away after she had left. Well, most of it anyway. There’s still some to do

But after I’d had my hot chocolate I blanched the florets of the broccoli that I’d bought ready for freezing and saved the stalk and the water for a broccoli stalk soup tomorrow

Back in here and the light went off again just as dramatically as earlier, and how I am sick of all of this. It was 18:38 when I awoke, but at least that gave me some more time to work on the next radio programme.

Tea this evening was a vegan salad with chips and some of those vegan nuggets done in the air fryer, and it was delicious as usual. My salads are works of art, and I really do seem to have the knack about these air-fryer chips now

So tonight there’s one more extra star in the sky looking down on us from above. It just goes to show that there’s no escape for any of us. The Grim Reaper will get us all sooner or later. I just hope that those who have gone on ahead have paved the way for the rest of us.

And as I said the other night, this is not the time for levity

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