Tag Archives: dream

Sunday 12th March 2023 – SO MUCH FOR …

… my nice long lie-in this morning. I was wide-awake at 08:20 and by 09:50 I’d long-given up any thought of going back to sleep and so in a fit of resignation I raised myself from the dead and went for a ride on the porcelain horse instead.

After the medication I checked my mails and messages and then had a look at the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was at some place where you would mix and match your servers. It would be like 4-piece jigsaws with feet, a head, legs and body. The idea was that game that you play where you have to match them all up together. For some reason, one waiter who had been made like this but wasn’t correct was nevertheless working quite hard. A certain female customer objected and made quite a scene to being served by him

Then later on I was in a hotel on some kind of tour. There was a woman who had a daughter who was about 11. They were both blondes. I wasn’t able really to strike up much of a conversation with them except on one day when we started to talk. I ended up back in her hotel room (for purely innocent purposes). There was another man there as well. He was monoploising the conversation and discussion. In the end the little girl got up and went out. I was stuck here listening to this man going on with this woman. There was another woman in there, a black South African woman. It turned out that this blonde woman and her daughter, they were South African. I said “it must be awful to be a South African, particularly at this moment with all of the issues of prejudice and discrimination etc that’s happening, and feeling guilty about it. Unfortunately it’s your Government and there’s nothing you can do about it”. Somehow I couldn’t assert myself, I suppose. I hadn’t any idea about what I wanted to do or going to do anyway but whatever it was, I was unable to do it. It was extremely disappointing for me

That wasn’t all that went on either but you really don’t want to know about anything else, especially if you are eating your meal right now.

For the rest of the day I’ve been finishing off the music for the radio programme that I need to prepare on Monday. And when I’d done that I wrote out all of the notes for the music that I’d chosen, recorded them and even edited about half of it.

Rosemary rang me up as well for a chat after her little journey to Vietnam but we weren’t on the ‘phone for long.

Tea tonight was a pizza. And if you thought that last week’s was good, tonight’s was even better. I’m not sure why but I reckon that the flour that I used might have something to do with it. It’s an expensive flour but it seems to work quite well.

So now I’m off to bed. I’m starting tomorrow at 06:00 as is usual on a Monday and I want to finish this programme fairly early so I can relax for the rest of the day. It’s going to be the only time that i’ll have to myself until at least Friday so I want to make the most of it.

Saturday 11th March 2023 – THIS AFTERNOON I …

… had a go at manipulating the shopping trolley that I bought a few months ago on my return from hospital.

When I was at the shops this morning I bought quite a bit of stuff and although I managed to bring some stuff (the important, cool and frozen stuff) up with me, the rest was left behind for another time.

But feeling the need for a little exercise I went downstairs with the shopping trolley, loaded it up and brought it all back upstairs. It wasn’t as easy as it ought to have been, particularly the final couple of steps up to my front door, but probably a little easier than making two or three trips up and down stairs. It’s something that I’ll have to develop for the next time.

The next time that I go to bed, I’ll be spending much more time in there because it’s Sunday. I would have been happy to have spent much more time in bed this morning because when the alarm went off at 07:30 I was stark out.

Not exactly stark out because I was off on my travels. I was busy coming round to the conclusion that I had to sell off my taxi business and empty my storage lockers of car bits etc and make a start on making an inventory. There was so much stuff that it would take for ever. The idea was that I’d go up to the storage unit every day, bring home some stuff that I’d put on an on-line auction somewhere and move the stuff on like that. I was just getting into it when the alarm went off and awoke me.

After the medication and organising myself I bunged a load of washing into the machine and then headed out for the shops.

And at Noz I had a little bit of luck. The physiotherapist had told me that I need to invent some weights, like plastic bags with sand in, to use as an exercise barbell on my foot to practise raising my legs when I’m sitting down. And there at Noz was a shelf full of proper 2kg weights at €3:50 each. A bit of string and I’m a la maison et sec as they say around here.

There were a couple of extra things in LeClerc that I bought over and above the usual stuff. Sean had suggested (thank you, Sean) that a pyrex bowl would work nicely in my air fryer so I had a rummage around in the kitchenware department and managed to find one that would fit.

It’s a good job that I went over there too because I managed to pick up something else important. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a year or so ago I managed to find a real and proper cake tin for baking. While I was there today they had some half-size ones that would be ideal for making smaller cakes.

Cake tins are, for some reason that I haven’t understood, extremely rare in France. They don’t seem to use them as often as they might do anywhere else, so grabbing one while the grabbing was good was a good plan.

So what with the silicon mould that I bought the other week I’m slowly getting myself organised ready for when I once finally have a decent kitchen and oven to go with it.

Back here I put away the food that i’d brought up, hung up the washing and then made myself some toast and coffee and had a nice relaxing breakfast. And then, rather regrettably, I crashed out. And for an hour too. It really was quite awkward.

First thing this afternoon (after I’d eaten a plate of fruit) was to listen to the dictaphone because there was some stuff on it from the night. There was a group of us studying some subject or other, 8 in total, and we were going to take an exam. We all met up at our tutor’s apartment in the morning to make sure that we had anything. She gave us a quick test and although I was feeling pretty depressed about this particular exam I found to my surprise that in this quick oral test I seemed to do ok at it. We set out and came eventually to the building where we should be, up several flights of steps. 6 of the people disappeared. Whether they went in a lift or something I don’t know but I went with someone else up the stairs. The other guy with me ran out of steam halfway through and had to stop. He told me to go on to say that I was there. I entered the teacher’s apartment and said “hello! We’re the Jackson 5, or Jackson 8 in reality!”. Everyone else turned up at this point. We started to take our place at the table. I could see in the distance some kind of dog. I made a nice friendly gesture to it so it came over to sit by me. I began to talk to it and it began to do little tricks with its paws like if I asked it to do something it would hold up a paw.

And then there was a programme on the radio (which of course there wasn’t). After it finished (which of course it didn’t) I ended up dreaming about it in my dream. It concerned a drug-smuggling ring of quite ordinary people led by some woman who was no-one in particular, an old poor type of working class woman from the East End of London who was in fact a tie salesman and who kept a Public Convenience clean. There was a false panel in this Convenience where drugs were deposited. People would come along and remove drugs for their own use if they knew the secret. There were these 2 people hot on the trail of this. This radio programme went on for hours just like a Paul Temple series until right at the end when all the pieces fell into place and this secret panel with the drugs was found.

All exciting stuff again.

The rest of the day has been spent working on the radio stuff. I was making ready to dictate the stuff that I’d already written but then I had a different idea. I ought to be shuffling the pack and changing things around so that they don’t sound all the same.

Every now and again I do something special depending on whatever falls on a Friday and so far we’ve had a Brexit programme, an Armistice Day programme and a Jeff Beck tribute programme to name but three, and there’s another special day coming up on a Friday quite soon. That’s another cue to do something special so I had to sort out a pile of music.

That meant tracking down the soundtrack archives for a certain album that can’t be any more obscure than it is. One that not only did Jimi Hendrix play on but one that he produced as well, and there aren’t many of those.

It took some tracking down as well but I finally managed to find a decent copy. And then I had to cut it and edit it.

When I went down to Caliburn for the rest of the shopping, as I mentioned earlier, I bumped into one of my neighbours and we had a good chat. It seems that I’m flavour of the month around here right now.

For tea tonight I put Sean’s idea to work and tried the pyrex bowl with some diced potatoes, a sprinkling of olive oil and some mint and rosemary in the air fryer. It worked to perfection and I’m really impressed with that idea so thanks again. They went down really well with a salad and one of those breadcrumbed quorn slices that I like very much.

So right now I’m still waiting for the music to finish off what it’s doing and then I’m going to bed. I’m going to have a lie-in tomorrow as usual but I want to break the back of this special radio programme so that I don’t have it all to do on Monday.

In fact on Monday I should be in Leuven at the hospital for these heart issues but there’s not much point in going and being passed around from pillar to post again. I wrote to them at the end of December, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, to complain about the situation and to ask them to get themselves together but they never replied to me. I’m not going all that way to undergo the same tests that I had a year ago and finish up with the same results.

Friday 10th March 2023 – AFTER ALL OF …

… my exertions yesterday and the day before, discretion was the better part of valour today and I didn’t set foor out of my apartment.

And when you see what THE WEATHER WAS DOING this morning it’s hardly any surprise. Whoever took that video is a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

Last night I was in bed at my usual time and once again I had a great deal of difficulty going off to sleep. However I must have done at some point because when the alarm went off at 07:30 it shattered my eardrums. I’d been dead to the world.

Tons of stuff on the dictaphone too, none of which I could actually remember so it must have been a really deep sleep throughout the night. It started off with my brother and me in a car or bus or something. We reached the destination where we were going to have to drop off my brother. As he left he was saying that he thought that a certain task of renovation or some chore or other should be done on whatever vehicle we were in. I didn’t particularly see the need for that. In any case I wasn’t going to do it. Basically I told him to clear off. At some point my mother said that I wasn’t nicer to my brother but I told her what I thought of the situation as well

And then we had another one of these dreams where I was working long past my retirement date – quite a regular feature these days. I was completely fed up so I decided that when I’d go back into work on Monday I’d hand in 2 weeks notice and finish at the end of the month whether they liked it or not. There was still plenty of holiday time accruing to me so it would probably make it up to the 4 weeks notice but I didn’t really care all that much. I decided that I was going to retire and that was that. Then I awoke – and I must have been dreaming within a dream because I was actually still asleep, if you see what I mean – and it was 03:15. I remembered that the previous evening I’d been fixing the internet. When I went to the bathroom there was a massage on my phone. It was Liz asking me if everything was working fine. I tried to send her a message back but the keypad on my watch was so small that no matter how I tried I ended up sending some kind of garbled message to her.

And that will come as a surprise to many people because, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I can send garbled messages without making use of a small keypad.

And back in this dream later I was walking back up the Rue Paul Poirier back towards home. I heard someone whistle behind me so I turned round. It was one of my colleagues. He beckoned me to cross over the road to him for a chat. I went over the road but I actually awoke at that point and couldn’t remember what went on afterwards. And it’s very rare for me to dream about life in Granville, isn’t it?

Later on I’d had a message from my friend from Munich saying that he was on his way to visit me. It was quite late at night so I texted him to find out where he was. He said that he was just pulling into a fuel station 100 miles away for some fuel. I worked out that he would probably turn up at something like 03:00 or 04:00 and I’d be fast asleep in bed. He said that that’s not a problem. He’d be going to bed too as soon as he arrives

Finally I was bringing a girl back into Crewe from somewhere or other. I was in something of a rush but she said that she wanted to go back into Crewe so I said that I’d bring her. It ended up that she wanted to go up by Coppenhall, that area, which was well out of my way but I had her in the car now so I didn’t have much choice. On the way back we made a detour to go via Shavington because I had a notebook to drop off on someone on Park Estate. When we reached there, instea dof being the 3-bedroomed traditional semis that it is, it was all these horrible appalling dreadful high-rise buildings, the worst slums you’d see. We walked inside and they were dreadful. Everything was filthy and disgusting. We knocked on the apartment. Some woman answered the door. She was covered in cobwebs. There must have been 6 people sleeping in this room with clothes etc heaped up in a mess. The place was filthy. I’d never been in a place as disgusting as this. The person with me gave her the injection that she needed. Then we had to fight our way back out again. It really was the worst place in the world that I have ever visited in all my life and believe me – I’ve been in some places ….

Actually, I found that last episode to be extremely disturbing.

Today, I haven’t actually done all that much. I had a shower, and what was interesting about that was that I didn’t remember getting out of the bath afterwards. It must have been completely uneventful and that can only be good news. It must have been as close to normal as things can be right now.

The physiotherapist came rather later than planned too. We had a lengthy chat and decided that when I come back from the hospital with the report that they will probably give me, we’ll make plans. He’s going to try to get me in at this gym place where they do sports therapy. I had a consultation there last summer, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but I was overtaken by events.

And then I wrote some more text for one of the radio programmes. I have quite a nice collection now that I need to start recording at some point in the near future.

Tea tonight was a burger with pasta and veg. There have been so many special offers on vegan burgers just recently that it seems like I have the European Vegan Burger Mountain in my fridge and a couple of them are starting to go out of date. Consequently some of them need polishing off rather quickly.

There’s stuff in the freezer than needs eating too and I’ll have to deal with some of that at some point. Not the least reason being that there’s other stuff in the fridge that needs using and I could make all kinds of stuff with that if only there was some space in the freezer to freeze it.

There was football on the internet tonight. It should have been TNS against Y Bala but apparently the pitch at Oswestry was under a foot of snow. Instead the cameras went down the road from the studio to Cyncoed to watch Cardiff Metro play Y Drenewydd.

That match finished 0-0 without a great deal of goalmouth action, but it wasn’t a boring match by any means. It was quite interesting with two rather skilful teams trying to jostle their way into position for a shot on goal.

There’s some exciting news on the football front too. Cymru under-17s have won their way through to the next round of the European Junior Championship. There are three games taking place at the end of the month, against Iceland, Montenegro and a third team that I’ve forgotten. And my Welsh newsfeed service has won the right to broadcast them on the internet.

And then the Welsh part-time XI is playing the English part-time XI in a couple of weeks and they are broadcasting that match too.

So it looks as if we are going to be in for a foot-fest at some point. I’d better go to bed for a good sleep in order to prepare myself for all this excitement.

Wednesday 8th March 2023 – MY LITTLE WALK …

… into town this morning was quite a success, all things considered.

In fact, despite walking much farther than I have ever walked in one go, I managed to do it without any complications or difficulties and I was quite impressed.

Much more impressed than I was with my night of trying to go off to sleep. That was something of a disaster because it took me hours to drop off and I was wide awake again at 04:45. That’s the kind of thing that fills me with dismay.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone too so I must have had a deep sleep at some point. I was with Zero’s father (but not Zero unfortunately) last night walking around this industrial estate somewhere. We’d actually been in our office and had seen something on a TV programme from the USA about chaos in an Australian chat room on the internet. The Americans were going on about how there were all these wonderful innovations coming from Australia that had yet to hit the USA such as video conferencing etc. Of course, as we were walking around we were talking about how we’ve been saying that we’ve been having all of this for 20 years in the UK. There were vehicles parked everywhere on this industrial estate on the grass verges and all over the place. We’d heard a story of someone who had been taken seriously ill there. There were some paramedics tending to him. We were wandering vaguely that way to see what we could do. There were some women lorry drivers parked on a car park doing something on the internet and having a blazing row about someone doing something or other. We just kept on walking and talking.

After the medication I checked my mails and messages and then had a few things to do here and there before setting out for town, like doing some photocopying and writing an important letter.

It was cold, windy and threatening rain but all the same it was quite a nice walk. Despite the crutches it took me less time than the time before to make it to the chemists where I picked up the product that I need for my hospital visit next week.

They agreed to dispense the prescription that I’d received at Leuven, but only insofar as they could because the trade names are different for the products and while some are easy to translate, others are not and they don’t want to make a mistake.

Some of the stuff wasn’t in stock so they had to order it. And that means another trip into town tomorrow. That should be exciting.

After that, I staggered on to the bank. When the final Act of Purchase is signed for this apartment that I’m buying, I’ll need to have an insurance policy in force to cover my liability. The bank deals with my insurance policies and the more that I have, the greater a discount I receive so I may as well get them to do it.

All in all I was there for an hour and a half. Actually signing the forms for the insurance took about 10 minutes but the rest of the time was spent having the hard sell worked upon me for more stuff that I don’t need. I couldn’t help but bring to my mind the lyrics of PRETTY BOY FLOYD and
“As through this life you travel
You’ll meet some funny men.
Some rob you with a six-gun
And some with a fountain pen.”

It was too late to do anything much by the time that the interview finished so I posted the letter and then headed for home. There’s a new spices shop opened in town and I wanted to go for a look around but not during lunch break. As Maréchal Foch once said when he was appointed to command a French Army during World War I “I only require two things. A free hand to deal with the Army as I think fit, and two hours for lunch” and nothing in France has changed.

It was 13:00 by the time that I returned here – a three-hour round trip. The first thing that I did was to have lunch. I ‘d been given a coffee down at the Bank but that’s not enough for a growing boy like me. And I do have to say that my fruit buns are delicious.

The second thing that I did was to make the place a little more presentable so that the cleaner wouldn’t have a heart attack. And I’d locked the door to the apartment on coming back through force of habit so she had to phone me up to get me to open the door.

While she was here I wrote out the notes for the radio programme that I’d been preparing and they are mostly complete. I just want to rewrite the final one so that it makes a nice lead-in to the end of the programme.

Another thing that I did today was to make the final payment for the apartment that I’ll be purchasing. That involved sorting out a few things in Belgium. I had hoped to do that over the counter when I was in Belgium last week but what with not being kicked out of the hospital until it was far too late, that was that.

But it’s all paid for now and I’m just waiting for the solicitor to extricate his digit and bring the papers up to date. But I do have to say that I’m glad that I hung on to the balance of the sale price of my old apartment in Belgium and didn’t fritter it away.

Tea tonight was a burger on a bap with a salad. And for a change, seeing as I had some vegan sliced cheese, I made my burger into a cheeseburger and that was delicious with a baked potato done in the air fryer.

So tomorrow I’m heading back into town to pick up the rest of the medication. I have noticed that the muscles on my legs are thickening out again so all of this moving about is doing me good. I shall have to do more of it, if only I could summon up the energy.

So let’s see what the hospital at Avranches can come up with next week. I don’t think that I’ll actually pick up my bed and walk, but almost anything will be an improvement to how things are right now.

Tuesday 7th March 2023 – MY LEFTOVER CURRY …

… tonight was absolutely delicious.

Half a small courgette, a pile of mushrooms, some garlic, some chick peas and an onion and there we go. Lots of nice spices (I still have some left even though I was unable to buy any on my last trip to Leuven) and it was delicious. But I must remember to put the toilet paper in the fridge tonight because I was rather heavy-handed with the chili.

Anyway, last night was rather better from a sleep point of view. Not by much, I have to say, but I did manage to fall asleep comfortably at some point.

We had some travels last night, but I didn’t go all that far. I was in the Army, in World War I. I was in a front-line trench during an artillery bombardment. Suddenly the whistle blew and we charged out of the trench. My regiment was the Cheshire Regiment. For some reason the NCOs and officers wanted us to follow the Hampshire Regiment but once I passed through the barbed wire into No-Man’s Land (and I will never ever forget the University ) I came across a group of North Staffords. I followed them. It was probably lucky that I did because from what I understood the regiment I should have been with was massacred yet we of the North Staffords were able to find some kind of shelter in the lee of a hill where we could build a trench to occupy. That way we were at least spared for the moment from artillery fire.

When the alarm went off at 07:30 I was deep in the arms of Morpheus so I awoke with a start. It all took me by surprise.

But anyway I was up and out of bed straight away and after the medication and checking my mails and messages I started to revise my Welsh ready for the lesson.

However there was an interruption. The bank telephoned me to invite me to bring forward our appointment to tomorrow. One day here and there doesn’t make much difference in the great scheme of things so I agreed. I shall hobble down into town on my crutches and see what happens, passing by the chemist on the way..

We were very few at the lesson today so it’s always hard work in these circumstances. However, once again it passed off fairly well. I don’t know whether it’s my preparation that’s paying dividends or whether things are becoming easier or whether my brain is functioning better, but things might be looking up.

After the lesson I had a shower and a good clean-up. And it was much easier climbing into the bath for my shower. I remember how awful it was when I came back here in December. I’m not going to pretend that things are now back to normal but I don’t have to put any thought into climbing into the bath.

And to your surprise, and certainly to mine, I did some tidying up later. There have been all kinds of papers lying around here but the bin across the road has been full for a while. But my paper bin was now well overflowing so I gathered it all up and took it down there.

Somehow I managed to fit it all into the paper bin and it made the apartment look so much better, and I profited by bringing back the last of the shopping that was hanging around in Caliburn.

The physiotherapist was impressed with my progress. He’s going to design an exercise programme for me to follow to make sure that I work hard at my leg muscles. And he didn’t bat an eyelid when I told him that I intended to walk to the bank tomorrow. He just warned me to use both crutches.

The rest of the day has been spent pairing off all of the music for the next radio programme and making a start on writing the notes. I’m not working very hard, I have to admit, but I’m making slow progress

The curry was, as I said, absolutely delicious and after that I ended up having a lengthy chat with someone who lives in Virlet who has tracked me down via my social network. We had a lot to say to each other and we’ll be working a few things out in due course

Right now though I’m off to bed. I have a lot to do tomorrow apart from my little trek into town. And I’m actually looking forward to that one way or another. It would be nice though if there were a café half-way up the hill where I could stop for a coffee. That would make things much easier but I don’t suppose you can have everything.

Monday 6th March 2023 – JUST FOR A …

… change, I had something different for tea tonight.

With not having gone to either Carrefour or LeClerc this week I didn’t have any of the small cheap peppers that I usually buy. At LIDL they just had the monster-size ones that would do me for a week so I decided to pass on those.

However my friend Esi in Brussels had posted the other day the details of her favourite quick meal – a courgette cut in half, cooked for 3 minutes in the microwave, layered with some cheese and then put back in for another 2 minutes.

The other week I’d found some melting fondant vegan cheese in LeClerc and I’d bought some. So instead of the peppers I bought a courgette at LIDL and went to have a go with that.

It sounded a little bland to me so I coated it in tarragon and black pepper before cooking it and made some pasta and veg in a spicy sauce to accompany it, and it was actually quite delicious.

Furthermore, there’s another half of the courgette waiting for some other time, but I’m thinking along the lines of making a curry with that and the left-over mushrooms.

That is, if I wake up tomorrow because I didn’t have much sleep last night and I’ll need all that I can get. I was in bed quite early ready for my early start today, but I didn’t get much sleep. It took an age to drop off to sleep what with one thing and another and then I kept on waking up.

Mind you, when the alarm went off at 06:00 I was in a deep sleep so somethign must have happened at some time to make me drop off at some point.

Having checked the mails and the messages and the like, and having had my medication, I attacked the radio programme that I’d recorded yesterday. I edited it, joined it up together, added the final track, dictated the final speech, added it in and then edited all down to one hour exactly. It didn’t really take all that long.

And then I had a listen to the one that I’ll be sending off for broadcasting this weekend to make sure that it was complete and had no faults.

It won’t be long before I have to think about what I’m going to do for my 200th broadcast. I’ll need to do something special for that, I reckon. For my 100th I did a rock festival of a dozen live concerts but I won’t be doing that this time, I reckon. I’ll have to think of something else.

Once I’d finished that, I had a few phone calls to make. And as a result I have an appointment at the bank on Thursday morning and the visiting nurse is going to come to see me on Monday and restart the injections.

There’s some other stuff that needs to be done for this visit to the hospital in 10 days time and that involves a trip to the pharmacy. I’m hoping too that they will accept the Belgian prescriptions that I have. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that by the time that I’d finished at the hospital last week, the chemist was closed.

Anyway, I’ll find out the answer to that question on Thursday morning because I’ll drop in there on my way to the bank. Yes, I’m planning, for my sins, to actually walk there. Let’s hope that I can walk back too.

And apparently I’m supposed to have another appointment at Leuven on Monday but it’s out of the question that I’m going. I need to telephone them and ask them to postpone the appointment. I have asked them on many occasions to schedule all of my appointments on the same or adjacent days to save on the travelling and I’ve no idea why they wouldn’t do it, especially when they have plenty of time in advance to arrange it.

With all of that out of the way, I’ve been dealing with more radio stuff. Choosing another pile of music for another radio programme in the near future, and then tidying up a few of the databases that I keep. I’m constantly revising then as experience leads me on to change my way of working, to add new features into the programmes and to revise the basis on which I make them.

In fact, I could have done much more than I did but unfortunately I … errr … had a little repose during the afternoon. Not that that’s any surprise.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone again from last night, so I must have gone off to sleep at some point. There was a dream that I didn’t understand at all. It was something to do with travelling around etc. I ended up somehow talking to a girl who was with us on this trip. I had to go to the doctor’s. We went to the doctor’s surgery. Much of what he was doing was done in the open air in public. he was interviewing these people, giving out remedies and prescriptions. I was hoping that I’d have the chance after everyone had gone to go and have a talk to him, tell him about my symptoms, have an injection in the right leg to ease the muscle pain that I have and take it from there but for some unknown reason closing this meeting seemed to take for ever

Later on I was back home asleep when the alarm went off in my dream. It awoke me so I dived out of bed and dashed over to where the phone was but I couldn’t see it there at all. I wondered what was happening. I had a search but couldn’t find it. In the end I had a look and it was only 01:42 or 42 past the day and at this point I fell asleep and I apologise for doubting the word of Percy Penguin (who doesn’t appear half as often in these pages as she deserves) who used to complain that I snored when we slept together and I always denied it and that was easily what was happening to me. I was fast asleep. Sure enough when I looked at the watch it was 01:42 and I fell asleep in the middle of dictating it.

So if you can make any sense of that, then good luck to you.

Finally there was something going on with our Welsh class at some point during the night where we all had to be on call to do something over the weekend for 4 days, Friday – Monday. We were allocated 3 hours each. Everyone was complaining about the time that they were given. Mine was from 11:00 to 14:00 which would seriously disrupt my plans. We started to have a bit of a discussion about it.

There was something else happening as well but I’ve no idea what that was. I was in the middle of a dream and the alarm went off at 06:00 and awoke me. Everything in this respect simply melted away out of my head immediately.

Tea, as I mentioned, was delicious. I’ll have to remember this meal again. It was quick and simple, and quite tasty too. I hope that LeClerc will continue to stock the cheese because that’s the thing that will improve my diet.

Tomorrow I have a Welsh lesson so I need an early night so that I can be ready, fit and able to actually concentrate on some preparation and organise myself so much better.

The physiotherapist will be here tomorrow too and he’ll want to know how I got on on my travels, so I’ll have to have a shower too. I must be at my best for visitors.

Sunday 5th March 2023 – MY VEGAN PIZZA …

… this evening was probably the best that I have ever made.

Not only was it cooked to perfection, it tasted absolutely delicious as well. And I can’t think what it was that I did differently to make it so nice because it was made exactly the same way as every other one that I’ve made just recently

Mind you, I did have plenty of time to make it because I was up and out of bed astonishingly early for a Sunday.

It was round about midnight when I went to bed and I couldn’t sleep for ages. I’ve been without my medication for several days and with restarting yesterday, I’ve started on the side-effects already as my body becomes accustomed to them again. and so I was itching all over like nobody’s business for ages.

When I awoke, I noticed the time. And it was ony 08:00. That’s just ridiculous for a Sunday. I tried my best to go back to bed but I gave up at about 09:30 and arose from the dead.

For the first part of the morning I didn’t do all that much. There was plenty of time to spare.

A little later I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There were 4 of us sitting at a table in a restaurant – me, the woman with me who might have been Rosemary or even my friend from Montréal, another woman and another guy. We were having a meal. I was having a plate of vegetables. For some reason it was taking me a long time to eat it. Everyone else had finished a while before me. We were talking about various things. It turned out that the other woman at the table was the carer of the father of the woman with me. She was talking about things that everyone would know. The subject of food came up. I mentioned some kind of salmon that we’d had once in New York that swam around in the underwater rivers and had apparently come from somewhere down in the South-West of the USA in this underwater river all the way to New York. As I was eating I asked the woman with me to explain it but she went on a story about water leaks, how no-one ever fixed them because water was a common commodity and they didn’t want to cut off the supply in order to repair the leaks, hence the water leaking everywhere. That wasn’t the story that I wanted to tell. The other woman talked about how she had to pay £6:00 every 3 days to buy a bus pass to take this woman’s father out for whatever he needed doing. I mentioned that in Granville public transport is free (which it is and I’m surprised that I could remember that when I’m asleep) so we had a chat about this. But all the time that we were talking, of course I wasn’t eating. The meal was taking for ever to disappear. In the end it was becoming quite embarrassing, the time that it was taking to finish my meal, too busy talking about everything else.

My curried leek and potato soup was delicious today. I finished the last of it for lunch and it made quite a nice change from porridge. And soaking my bread in soup instead of toasting it and smothering it in vegan butter made a nice change too.

This afternoon I made a batch of fruit buns and they tuned out to be really nice by the look of things. I can’t wait to start sampling them tomorrow – the first one anyway.

And while the dough was rising I made a batch of pizza dough. When I had my food delivered when I was really ill, they sent me a different kind of flour. I made the pizza dough with it and it came out really smooth. I’ll have to keep an eye open for more of this flour in due course.

It rose quite nicely too. I divided it up into three batches, put two in the freezer and rolled out the other one onto the pizza tray to let it prove. So while the fruit buns were cooking later on I assembled the pizza and that followed the buns into the oven once they had baked. Probably the oven being stinking hot might have helped the cooking process but it won’t explain the taste.

For the rest of the day I wrote out the notes for the radio programme that I’ll be preparing tomorrow, and even find time to dictate them. In fact I had to dictate them twice because for some reason I forgot to switch on “RECORD” for the first time. I’ll edit that tomorrow morning after I get up.

But not right now. Although it’s early, I’ve already crashed out once today and with a really early start tomorrow I need to be at my best.

And I have to telephone the bank and the visiting nurse tomorrow. Things are moving rapidly here and I have to make sure that I’m on target to complete what I need to do. Time and tide wait for no man.

Saturday 4th March 2023 – MY CURRIED LEEK …

… and potato soup today was delicious.

In a large saucepan I fried an onion in olive oil until it was almost black, and then tipped in some minced garlic, two chopped small leeks, four small diced potatoes, half a teaspoon of nutmeg, half a teaspoon of cumin and a good dollop of ground black pepper, and fried all of that.

Then I covered it with water, added a vegetable stock cube and left it to simmer for twenty minutes.

Finally, I added some soya cream and whizzed it all up into a purée.

Totally delicious and furthermore, there’s enough left over for tomorrow lunchtime too. I’ll have it with the other half of the crusty baguette that I bought this morning.

While we’re on the subject of this morning … “well, one of us is” – ed … this was another morning when I arose from the dead before the alarm went off. I forget how many consecutive days this is now.

Mind you, it was another miserable night when I had a lot of difficulty going to sleep. My sleeping issues are really causing me a few problems right now.

But anyway, after my medication I went off to the shops – LIDL in fact this morning – and did a rather complete shop. It worked out to be quite expensive too, and for no good reason. There wasn’t much that I bought that wasn’t on the “usual” list.

Back here I made myself a nice strong coffee and then made my soup. Delicious as I said previously.

That gave me time to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was quite a lot of stuff on there going back to when I was in Belgium just now and one of these days I’ll transcribe it. But last night there was something going on about some photos. It led to doing some green-screening overlaps with a girl of about 5 years old

Later on I was watching the football again tonight while I was asleep. The Man of the Match was awarded to a player who didn’t even play in the real game.

Finally, we’d demolished part of an old building and had gone to rebuild it. We suddenly realised that certain key elements were missing. We had to scavenge through the pile of rubbish to try to find these missing bricks and special tiles etc. We found 1 or 2 but a couple were eluding us and this pile was enormous. There was a small girl there jumping up and down insisting that something particular was exactly what we wanted. We couldn’t understand what it was she was meaning. We were actually looking for some roofing tiles that had on them pictures of girls who had been martyrs for some reason or other and been sanctified. This girl insisted so much that in the end someone picked up this tube and unrolled it. Sure enough it was a picture of a girl on a lead tile. It wasn’t the girl we wanted but it was from the right place and the right era so the one that we wanted had to be somewhere in the immediate vicinity unless we’d scattered them much further than we thought. We had to carry on searching. It was strange that she had tried to insist that where we were was what we wanted yet for some reason or other we hadn’t paid any attention at all and she turned out to be although not right, pretty close to it.

That wasn’t all that went on last night either, but whatever else there is, you really don’t want to hear it. Not if you’re eating a meal right now.

And we’re on the subject of football … “well, one of us is” – ed … there was more football on the internet after lunch. The other Welsh Cup semi-final between TNS and Penybont.

This was actually a better game than last nights, with much more skill and not quite as much thunder. TNS were always on top in this game but Penybont kept them at bay for most of the game. However two moments of madness leading to two defensive errors in the Penybont defence just before half-time and that was regrettably that.

It’s hard enough to get a result against TNS as it is, without handing them two goals on a plate.

Later on this afternoon I went back out to Caliburn to bring in some more shopping. I tried an experiment by going out with just one crutch instead of two.

It was easier to carry the shopping but I was quite unsteady on my feet and I can understand now why the physiotherapist insists on me using both crutches. However I had been moving around so much easier this morning after all of the exercise I’ve just had, so it was worthwhile having a try.

Tea tonight was a breaded quorn fillet with a delicious salad and some potatoes baked in the air fryer. And once again the air fryer came up with the goods. I’m now toying with the idea of trying to find some kind of container that I can put into is to that I can roast vegetables in there. I’m really getting the hang of this, I think.

As I said a few days ago, I’m determined to have a try at baking a cake in there too when I can find a cake mould that will fit in there. Exciting times ahead, I reckon.

But that’s for later. Tonight I’m off to bed and hoping for a good lie-in to recover from my exertions. There’s some pizza dough to make tomorrow as well as some fruit buns for the rest of the week. And so it’s not going to be a relaxing day tomorrow. I’ll be busy.

Still, high time I did some work.

Friday 3rd March 2023 – HERE I ALL AM ..

… not sitting in a rainbow but sitting on my comfy seat in my bedroom. I’ve made it back home.

With just the usual problems, such as losing my keys on the train and having to rouse the staff that was asleep in the office at the station. A good job that it was at the terminus and there was still another train to come in otherwise I would have been well and truly snookered.

And that reminds me of the old French joke –
“Frappe! Frappe!”
“Qui est là?”
“Lost”
“Lost qui?”
“Oui”

Anyway, after another miserable night’s sleep, I was awake yet again before the alarm went off. And after the previous night there was nevertheless plenty of stuff on the dictaphone to be going on with

I was out with an American policeman last night driving around California. he was showing me all these mountainous areas where people had moved in and put cabins. These were in some of the routes taken by wolves during their migration and the cabins were blocking the routes. I awoke quickly after that.

Later on I was at one of these competitions on TV about 2 items. There was an explosive shell. For some reason I began to look inside the shell casing. I dropped it and all of the gunpowder went everywhere all over the film set. We tried washing it away with water but of course that didn’t work. It froze immediately. Some girl was about to skate off and go right through it

I took a girl to the airport last night in a taxi. I don’t know who she was but I ought to. We were discussing the airport, saying how handy it was for us. She said that her father ran some kind of taxi service in the airport area. He’d bought a couple of limousines, a black one and a silver one with the idea of trying to get hold of some high-quality airport work. The chat went on for quite a while. We arrived at the vicinity of the airport. I grossly undercharged her for going and I’ve no idea why that would be. I only ended up charging her £6:00 or something like that. Going to the airport cost a lot more than that back in the day. It was an extremely interesting chat about her father and his 2 silver K135 cars

We were in Walsh class last night reading a paper on changing roles in society. It listed probably 10 roles like mending a fence, mending your roof, taking money to the bank etc. The discussion was about how modern people are now changing their way of thinking. The key word here was “remuneration”. We’re all older in our Welsh class. I was saying that I was up on my roof in August. Someone else said that they’d fixed their own fence the other week. It seemed that we were bucking a trend about this question of changing DiY into paid remuneration.

And so I was up and about and ready to go out of the door at 07:00. The train that came in at 07:10 was another push-me-pull-you double decker and I have a hard time climbing on board them. Someone having chained his folding pushbike to the disabled handrail didn’t help matters at all.

At Brussels Gare du Nord I left the train and found my way onto the concourse but the lift downstairs was out of order so I had a very delicate walk down the stairs. I’ll tell you something for nothing and that is that no matter how much better I’m feeling, it’s a totally different kettle of fish with a backpack on my back.

My bus was due to leave at 08:20 but there was no sign of it. All the others were in and gone, and ours finally staggered into the loading bay 40 minutes late. But there’s one thing about being a disabled passenger and that is that even though it’s difficult to climb up the steps into the bus, they let me on first so I can have the pick of the seats.

Between Brussels and Lille I had a very charming young lady sitting next to me and we had a lengthy chat all the way. It’s a long time since I’ve had such an erudite companion so if you read this, Pauline, un grand bonjour.

She alighted at Lille and I had another companion as far as Rouen. He didn’t have much to say for himself but he picked up my phone for me when it fell to the floor.

From Rouen to Caen I was on my own but we did have a moment of excitement when we were stopped in a police barrage and the bus was searched for drugs. Two people were taken off the bus to be interviewed but they were allowed back on afterwards.

It’s no surprise to anyone that I missed the 16:10 train to Granville. But there’s another one at 17:10 so I was able to grab a nice hot coffee. I hadn’t had too much to drink on board the bus, on the basis that what doesn’t go in won’t want to come out. 8 hours on a bus is a long time and the toilets are really inconvenient for people with mobility issues.

As we pulled into the station at Granville I checked my keys and put them into the outside pocket of my coat so that they were handy. When I reached Caliburn on the car park I no longer had them. In the confusion of organising myself to leave they must have fallen out.

It took a while to awaken the people in the station. Presumably they had gone off for a coffee before the next train comes in, but eventually they arrived and we did the necessary so that I could collect my keys. Serves me right for being disorganised.

Back at Ice Station Zebra I made a drink because I had a thirst that you could photograph. And then I watched the football. Connah’s Quay Nomads v Y Bala in the Welsh Cup semi-Final.

The Quay took the lead after just 35 seconds and from them on we had a right full-blooded cup-tie that was played with an extraordinary amount of skill. A really good advert for the Welsh Premier League.

In the second half Bala scored 2 quick goals to take the lead but with 10 minutes left the Quay equalised. We were heading for penalties when Bala popped up with a third and despite Connah’s Quay throwing everything including the kitchen sink at Bala in the dying seconds of the game they couldn’t find an equaliser.

They did actually have the ball in the net right at the end but with Jack Kenny holding down Alex Ramsey in the Bala goal, there was no way that the goal would be allowed.

And how I wish that Jack Kenny, who is one of my favourite players in the WPL, would stop moaning and protesting every time a decision is given against him. He’d be a really good player, one of the best in the league, if only he would stop being so petulant.

On the bus I’d eaten some of my butties so at half-time I fetched the leftovers and demolished them with a pear and a banana. And now I’m off to bed.

Tomorrow I’m shopping, and as I missed my St David’s Day, when I return I’m going to make some leek and potato soup for the weekend to vary my diet a little. I’m quite looking forward to that.

And I’m looking forward to my own bed as well. The hotel bed was comfortable, but it’s not mine.

And just a word before I go. Travelling everywhere on crutches is difficult, yet it would have been much more difficult without all of the help that I received from all kinds of people who showed me some extraordinary kindness as I went around on my travels.

It’s the kind of thing that restores my jaundiced faith in humanity and I am really grateful to everyone who helped me along the way.

Wednesday 1st March 2023 – THAT WAS A …

… loooooooooooooooooooong day today.

14 hours I was on the road in total, give or take a few minutes. I left my home at about 07:10 and arrived in Leuven at just about 21:00.

Yes, I’m in Leuven. I’ve heard nothing from the heart people and nothing from the people who are dealing with my cancer, but regardless, the kidney people contacted me for an appointment.

Not that I’m all that bothered, because as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, after the events of October and November I’m pretty-much resigned to the inevitable, but I was interested in seeing, as well as I could, how I could cope with the travelling.

And so having gone to bed rather early last night, I was up with the lark at 06:00 and made some sandwiches and so on, and did a little organising.

Plenty of stuff on the dictaphone last night. My mother was a policewoman last night. She was interrogating a suspect or witness or something similar but was doing it at home. This was dragging on into the night and we as kids couldn’t go to sleep. In the end there was no real point going to bed so we were just sitting up waiting for her to finish. But it just went on and on. We’d go in regularly to ask how she was doing. She said that she wasn’t ready yet. We’d go in to pick a banana or something to eat. In the end one of my sisters went in. My mother said quite sharply that it wasn’t going to be finished before 05:00. This was the final straw as far as we were concerned. That was a ridiculous time for children to be still up and about waiting for their mother to finish her work.

This dream continued later on. We were crying out for toilet paper or tissues etc. Some guy came into the apartment where we were living with his arms full of rolls of toilet paper and just dumped it on the floor in one of the rooms and then left. We kids had to go in there to sort out what he’s just brought and check what we had then organise the bathroom with it.

Plus tard nous avons eu l’idée de reintégrer le chasson dans la famille qu’on a du faire alors le chef s’est adapté assez rapidement et le chat de la famille est poussé en dehos du groupe alors celà a provoqué une investigation comment on a fait commencer et c’est à ce moment-là qu’on a eu la série de la pied d’entre nous

So, a dream in French yet again. And I haven’t translated it because it’s total nonsense that makes no sense whatsoever.

Just after 07:00 I headed for the hills and Caliburn and we drove to the station where I was lucky enough to find a parking space almost right outside the door.

When the train came in, I headed off in the direction of Rennes, but only as far as Avranches where I alighted. Public transport is so messed up here that you end up going all round the Wrekin to get anywhere.

The bus came in at 08:55 and we drove through the snow (yes, the snow!) and ended up in Caen where we had a half-hour wait for the next bus. This was packed to the gunwhales but I found a seat eventually and we roared off to the big underground bus station at Bercy in Paris.

This time a wait of 45 minutes before the next bus came in. This was likewise packed but the driver made sure that I had a comfortable place by the door. We called at the airport and then all the way to Brussels, making a stop at a service station where I grabbed a coffee.

Stuck in the traffic for ages, we eventually arrived in Brussels rather later than planned so I’d missed the train that I wanted and had to catch a later train. The escalator up to the platform wasn’t working so I had a long walk to find the lift.

The train was a push-me-pull-you double-decker and climbing into these proved to be quite difficult as the steps in are quite high. I had quite a bit of difficulty and it was extremely awkward.

Having eaten my sandwiches on the way to Paris, I tucked into my potatoes and lentils on the train and that was a really good plan because they went down a treat.

Leaving the train at Leuven was difficult too but I managed in the end.

The hotel where I’m staying must have been wonderful 100 years ago. It’s certainly seen better days. It’s not one of my usual haunts but it’s right outside the railway station so I don’t have far to stagger. It’s expensive too, hence I’m only staying for two nights and coming home on Friday.

And the verdict?

It’s quite difficult and I’m glad that I did bring two crutches, not just one. When things are on the level I’m fine and I could in theory go for miles but carrying a backpack up hills and steps is quite complicated and I have real difficulty trying to carry a coffee cup too.

At one point I was thinking that I might be ready for another adventure with backpack and airline ticket but having done all this today, maybe I’ll leave it a while before making more plans.

But I got here, and that’s a miracle in itself

Monday 27th February 2023 – IT DIDN’T TAKE …

… long for me to finish off the two radio programmes this morning. They were all done and finished and up and running before 09:00.

And had I been more determined than I was, I might even have had them finished well before that too but I wasn’t in very much of a hurry today. I could afford to take it easy.

It had been another bizarre night too. In bed nice and early as is my wont on a Sunday evening but once more it took an age to go off to sleep.

When I finally did, it was another quite mobile night, as I discovered later in the morning when I transcribed the dictaphone notes. I was with someone, although I don’t know who it was. It wasn’t anyone significant though. A bow and arrow set belong to one of my siblings had come into our possession. We’d been out one night playing around with it. We were rubbish because it wasn’t as easy as it might sound. We’d spent a whole night trying to improve our performance but to no avail. In the end we gave it up. Next morning the messenger from work was away so they asked me if I’d run the deliveries between the various offices in Crewe. I worked out where I needed to go and set off on foot. For the final one which was quite a distance away from the others I ran all the way. I femt so much better having done that. Having dropped off what I had to drop off I was back at the house of my sister and her husband which was very close to Crewe town centre in Tollitt Street. I went round the back and gave back the bow and arrow. We were discussing this and my brother came in. He asked in a menacing tone if I’d brought everything back. I told him that I had and I told them all that they aren’t going to find this easy. If they are going out looking for good results quite quickly they are going to be very disappointed.

Later on I was round at the house of one of the people for whom I used to drive coaches. We were chatting in general about the employees. I was saying that it was a good job that all the employees whome he had were nice and friendly. He quoted the name of someone and said “he’s not. He’ll have his face pumped in by some passenger or other before much longer” which made me wonder why he kept on employing him. It turned out to be my father. I was reading a pile of old local newspapers. Some of the stories were extremely interesting to say the least. We were chatting about a couple of them. I was then thinking that maybe it’s time for me to go home as I have to be at work at 06:00 but time was drifting on and I was still lounging around there not doing anything thinking that at this rate I could see myself staying sleeping on his sofa and going away from here straight into work so I really ought to make a move to go home but I just couldn’t summon up the energy to be gone

And then I arrived in Brussels. I was changing trains to go on somewhere else. I had to wait the night so I tried to find a hotel. The first 3 or 4 that I tried had no room. I couldn’t go very far because of course I wasn’t very mobile with my suitcase. One hotel receptionist rang round 3 or 4 different hotels for me. She couldn’t find a room. She made it quite clear that that was all that she would do for me. I replied “right, I’d better go and find a railway arch”. Then I couldn’t find my suitcase. I started to search around the foyer of this hotel among all these people who were there but I couldn’t find it at all. I awoke in the middle of having a panic attack and that was quite uncomfortable. It was actually quite realistic

What else I’ve been doing is something that I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while. I don’t use my 3D program anything like as much as I used to and I’ve probably forgotten a lot of things that I knew how to do. But while I was looking for something else I came across a new image-editing program that’s freeware.

It’s used by the 3D programmers for editing objects because of its good transparency add-ons. I use Paint Shop Pro and have done for almost 30 years but it has its shortcomings when green-screening so I’ve been itching to try something that might work better. Consequently I downloaded this program and I’ve been playing around with it today to try to make it work.

It’s actually quite complicated and the layout and instructions aren’t logical. I found a tutorial but it’s for an older version and the interface is different and doesn’t relate to the version that I downloaded. So I’ll have to continue and see if I can figure it out as I go along

As well as that, I’ve made arrangements for my little trip out on Wednesday – booking my travelling arrangements. Coming back on Friday isn’t easy because there’s not very much time at a connection and if we arrive late I’ll miss it. So i’m not booking the second part of my return until I actually arrive.

And then there’s the music for the next couple of radio programmes. I’m starting to run low on opening tracks and ending tracks now, being at Programme 202, so it takes a while to sort them out. And then I have to make a running time of about 48’30” with 10 tracks and that’s not as easy as it sounds either.

It’s quite an art form to do it properly and it certainly keeps my brain ticking over. That’s quite important with advancing age. I’m within touching distance of my three score years and ten and my brain will seize up if I stop using it.

Tea tonight was one of the best stuffed peppers that I’ve ever made. The stuffing was delicious and the pepper was cooked to perfection. There’s not much stuffing left because after all I won’t be here on Wednesday night for my leftover curry. Wednesday night’s tea will be potatoes and lentils with peas and carrots out of a tupperware-type bowl.

So now I’ll hunt down some more music and then I’ll be off to bed. I’ve a Welsh lesson tomorrow so I need to be on form. As well as the usual preparation there are piles of words that I’ve picked up from the football matches over the last couple of weeks that I need to learn There’s no point watching the football if I’m not going to learn anything.

That’s how I started to learn Flemish when I moved to Belgium in 1992, and I’m not alone in this idea. A woman I know has a daughter who is just 11 and a big football fan. These days she’s only allowed to watch football on the TV if she watches it in a foreign language and she has to take a list of new words to show her mother at the end of every game.

It’s catching.

Saturday 25th February 2023 – NOBODY WAS …

… more surprised than me to wake up this morning, bolt-upright, at 07:22. 8 minutes before the alarm went off.

For a change, I’d had a decent night’s sleep. I’d gone to bed at something like a reasonable time and apart from taking a while to go off to sleep, I can’t remember anything at all about the night.

And that’s a big disappointment because one of my favourite visitors came to see me last night. or, more exactly, I went to see her. I went round to Stoke on Trent to see Zero and her parents. They were all there still in bed in their bedrooms so I went up to see them. We had a chat and they all slowly got up out of bed. They talked about going off to a holiday camp sometime in August and asked me if I wanted to go with them. Of course I said “yes”. There was someone else there as well who talked about going somewhere exotic. I said “if you’re thinking of going to North America, go from Casablanca to Montreal because it’s beautiful” remembering the trip that I did a few years ago. A bird flew into the window and later one of the cats was hunting it. I went to grab it but missed. It flew straight past Zero who caught it. She went to put it out of the window. As she opened out her hand it flew back in again so we had to hunt it down again. She stuck her tongue out at me playfully so I scratched the top of her head with my hand like a crane basket. She carried on hunting for this bird.

Fancy missing out on an evening with Zero. You couldn’t make it up.

That flight that I mentioned was quite a good flight. It was when I came back from my encounter with Castor (who has been missing from these pages for far too long in recent times) on board THAT BOEING 787 DREAMLINER. I had no idea of when (if ever) I would be likely to return.

Having gone from Europe to the Far North of High Arctic Canada on board a ship I hadn’t booked a return flight of course, so when I finally decided that maybe I ought to go home, the prices of direct flights were completely out of my pocket so I had to negotiate for a reasonable price. That brought me to Brussels via Casablanca with Air Maroc and I didn’t regret my choice for a minute.

But I shan’t be going back to the High Arctic any time soon. I’ve spent all my mad money on buying this apartment and that will be that for a considerable while.

It wasn’t all that i spent either. I had a rather hectic morning.

After the medication and checking my mails and messages I went out to the shops. First of all, I called at Noz where I was in luck. They had some vegan nuggets, rather like chicken nuggets. 2 different varieties so i stocked up with a couple of boxes of each and they are in the freezer now.

They also had one of these silicone baking moulds that I like. I have a few of them for different things, but this one is cake-sized and I don’t have one of those. When I finally move and have a real oven, I shall put that to use. It will be better than trying to bake in a pyrex casserole dish.

At Leclerc, I struck lucky.

When I’d been there a couple of weeks ago I’d found a lump of vegan cheese and thought that that was lucky. Today though, they had slices of vegan cheese and also some grated vegan cheese. It looks very much as if Leclerc is slowly dragging itself into the 21st Century. I bought some of each because, as I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … I have to encourage these places to stock more vegan food.

Back here as I was struggling up the stairs with some shopping I fell in with a couple of neighbours and we had a good chat about not very much at all. I have to be sociable, I suppose, and keep on good terms with my neighbours, even if I don’t feel much like it. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m not what you would call a sociable person.

Having put away as much as I could, we’re now back to the situation of no room in the freezer and no room in the fridge either. I bought plenty of other stuff and I’m not going to miss out on buying the burgers that I like at €1:99 for two with a second packet of two at just €0:67

Just after lunch we had football on the internet. TNS v Penybont. TNS took an early lead and missed a couple of sitters. And that was something that they came to regret as Penybont equalised laste in the game from a penalty. And we had the unusual situation of a referee being substituted. That was quite a swelling that the had on his left ankle.

This afternoon I finished off the notes for the radio programmes and i’ll be dictating them tonight before I go to bed. With the Carnavalers having mostly all gone home, it’s much quieter outside now so there’s not as much danger of being disturbed and having to redictate everything. It’s pretty depressing when you have to do that.

Cooking the potatoes in the air fryer worked really well and I’ll have to remember that for the future. It’s not a practical proposition if I’m cooking veg but if I’m having a salad or something like that it’s ideal.

But anyway, that’s all that I’ll be doing today. Tomorrow is a day off but I need to bake some bread rolls. I’m hitting the road on Wednesday for a couple of days so I’ll need something for breakfast on Monday and Tuesday and then something to make some sandwiches for my journey

it looks as if I’ll have to have the air fryer out again.

Friday 24th February 2023 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY …

… to me.

Another year older and deeper in debt. But there are many people, myself included, who didn’ think that I would ever reach this point, what with one thing and another, and there are many people who help to ake that happen as well, so I can’t complain.

Still alive, but not kicking, although if the muscles in my legs continue to improve, then who knows? I might be kicking yet!

A further night last night where I don’t remember too much. Plenty of stuff on the dictaphone though so I must have been off some lengthy travels here and there. I started off playing in the Welsh Premier Football League. I was bewildered because a club had suddenly disappeared from the league table right at the start of the season. I’d not heard whether it had closed down or what had happened. We were on the car park playing football when a pushchair that people had been using as a football came rolling across the car park. I ran up the hill to try to intercept it. I realised that it wasn’t coming near me so I had to run faster to try to catch it. I realised that I wasn’t going to catch it but then it came up against the kerb. I thought that it would hit the kerb and bounce back in which case I could catch it quite easily. Instead it hit the kerb, went up over it and carried on round in a big wide arc round almost to where I’d been right at the very start of this. If I’d stayed still I would have been able to catch it with ease.

And then I was with 2 other people last night, 2 women. All 3 of us were broke. We ended up at some kind of factory that was run very much on Victorian lines doing hand sewing. We all went in, found a place and blagged ourselves something to do. It was quite clear that we didn’t have a clue what was happening. We sewed something but didn’t know whether it was right or not. Then there was a break while they had to fix a machine that had broken down. The they told us that we would all have to sew “Article C”. Someone pointed me in the direction of where to go for the lace. Someone pointed me in the direction of where to go for the plans. I had to wander down to the front like being in an old Victorian school and collect everything. I wasn’t sure that I had everything and I wasn’t sure that the plans would tell me what to do anyway. I went back to the bench where I’d been sitting with my 2 friends to start to hand out the stuff. It was all very much like a Victorian sweat shop kind of thing, one of the worst ones. At least everything was quite clear as to what time you worked, how you were paid, when and what you were paid etc.

Later on, it was Christmas. We were all finishing work for the holidays. I’d collected up a pile of stuff and been round wishing everyone a happy Christmas then walked out of the building onto the car park. A few jaws dropped to see me walk to Caliburn and put my stuff on board him. By the time that I waslked round to the other side it was the Opel Omega that I used to have. I found that I’d left the door open when I’d gone into work that morning – unlocked anyway. I got in and started up ready to go. There was another Opel parked next to me with a couple of girls in it. That was all iced up. They saw me about to leave. One of them said “I’ll just make sure that the Opel starts before I go”. She started the car and it fired straight away. I said “yes, they are good cars, these Opels”. We had a little chat about how good Opels were compared to Mercedes. Then I pulled away from the office and had to wait a few minutes to move into the traffic so that I could leave the area

Finally, I went out in Caliburn to go to the ferry terminal. I pulled up on the car park there. There was a van there of someone who was lodging with us. He was doing some work somewhere. I went inside the ferry terminal which was in fact a supermarket. There were piles of fruit and veg everywhere, even growing cucumbers on vines in there. There was someone cutting the cucumbers off to sell them. There was a fountain inside the supermarket with probably about a dozen kids jumping up and down in the water in the fountain.

After the medication, mails and medication, I did nothing at all for much of the rest of the day. I’d decided that I was going to have a day off and relax, and sure enough I did, at least for quite a while.

But I couldn’t keep it up. There were some sound files from the days when I was digitalising my record collection and they needed breaking up.

Most of them had been done a year or two ago but some were pretty obscure and finding a track list that actually corresponded with what I had (because studio recordings are done in recording order, not album order) has been difficult. The fire at Universal Studios that destroyed tons of paperwork didn’t help matters very much.

However, over the passage of time more stuff has become available and I could break down a few more from my list, although one of them, the “lost” Traffic album that I have, took some detective work to unravel.

There’s still one by Joe Walsh’s mate Dan Fogelberg that has defeated just about everyone because what I have corresponds to absolutely nothing at all, and there are still a few that I’ve yet to track down.

When I was in Canada I bought a few bags of those vegan wine gums that they sell at Atlantic Superstores and I treated myself to a bag. But as luck would have it, there were only three of my favourite black ones in the bag. I’m definitely having a few First World problems here.

Tea was veggie balls and chips, all done in the air fryer, and a lovely salad. Another nice meal, jjust to prove to the world that my air fryer really IS doing the business. It should be really interesting tomorrow when I have a go at doing some baked potatoes in there. I have some high hopes about that.

And a couple of people who read my notes have sent me some suggestions about vegan sausage mix, one of which happens to involve the bag of chestnuts that she gave me a while ago. We might actually be onto something here.

Tomorrow morning I’ll have to have a look to see what I need. I’m off to the shops first thing and I’ll call in at Noz on my way round because there’s room in the freezer if I see anything there on offer and I’m running low on my Sunday evening alcohol-free beer.

Time to start thinking about building up the supplies again.

Thursday 23rd February 2023 – MY TEA TONIGHT …

… was absolutely delicious.

When I was making my plans earlier today, I wasn’t sure what I fancied for tea. You might not believe this but the freezer is actually emptying at the moment and I’m going to have to start to think about food much more than I do.

So while I was examining the contents of the freezer I came across that bag of miniature vegan sausage rolls that I opened a couple of weeks ago. That seemed like a good plan

In a fit of mad recklessness I decided to cook them in the air fryer. and to my surprise they worked perfectly. That was really good and they were delicious. I shall have to remember that.

But this got me thinking, and that’s always dangerous.

Firstly, why don’t I try to track down a good recipe for making vegan sausage stuffing? I can make a vegan stuffing right enough – I do that regularly for my stuffed peppers but it’s not the same kind of stuffing. I need to make it more savoury. Making puff or flaky pastry is extremely difficult but I can buy it on rolls from the supermarket.

Secondly, why didn’t I cook the potatoes in the air fryer too? That idea didn’t occur to me until just now so I had a look on the internet and found that it’s straightforward enough. Not as quick as in the microwave but much quicker than in the oven and I bet they will be tasty. And if I can find some grated vegan cheese that would be even nicer.

It’s chips for tea tomorrow with veggie balls and salad, so I might have a go with potatoes in the air fryer for Saturday’s tea and see how that works.

What else might have seemed at first to be good news was that I actually had a really good night’s sleep. It did take me an absolute age to go off to sleep, as seems to be par for the course, but I don’t remember anything else at all until the alarm went off at 07:30. And even then it was quite a struggle to leave the bed before the second alarm went off.

Some stuff on the dictaphone too. It was the last day of school for the year. We were all being dismissed for the summer. We’d all been handed some prize or something like that. The intelligent kids had received their prizes first and they had gone down the order from there. I was one of the first outside with a couple of my friends. We were waiting outside when everyone else came out. Some people in this dream I recognised and some names I knew in real life from school but others I didn’t recognise or didn’t know. The funny thing was that no-one actually spoke to us. They just walked down the steps outside the front door and across the street where everyone was congregating. Then the next people leaving came out. No-one said anything, no-one came up with anything at all.

And that really was it. Nothing like the marathon journeys of just recently. Mind you, although I didn’t take down anything I have a vague feeling of going for a long stagger during the night but by the time that I returned I was walking normally and quite quickly as if the walk had really done me a lot of good. It would be nice if that ever were to come true.

This morning I finished off the notes for the radio programme that I’ll be preparing and then throughout the rest of the day I made a start on the notes for the next one.

This involved quite a bit of research and took some time too because a couple of the groups will be making their debuts in my radio programmes and very little is actually known about one or two of them so I had to hunt down the information. It was as well that I did because I found a couple of strange facts and connections about one or two groups and I also found out something rather bizarre about a hit song of the 70s.

However, you lot will have to wait a good few months before you get to find out about my discoveries.

The physiotherapist came round this afternoon, earlier than planned and he caught me unawares. And it’s a good job that he didn’t come round even earlier because despite my better night’s sleep, I’d crashed out again in the early afternoon and was well away with the fairies for an hour or so.

Anyway, this afternoon the physiotherapist has been helping me walk with a weight on my back. I’m going on my travels, would you believe, at the end of next week for a couple of days and I need to take some stuff with me. It’ll be a novel experience and I’ll need all the help that I can get and after all, that’s why the physiotherapist is here – to help me out in my day-to-day tasks.

As I mentioned earlier, tea was delicious tonight and I’ll do that again with the air fryer. As I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … I’m impressed with that air fryer and I ought to experiment more with it.

Tomorrow I’m going to have a day off. I have something to celebrate so I’m going to have a day of doing nothing at all except what I want to do. I ought to spoil myself more often, I reckon, but it’s difficult to do that when I have so much to do.

One of these days I’ll have to make a start at catching up with my arrears.

Wednesday 22nd February 2023 – MY LEFTOVER CURRY …

… was delicious tonight. And plenty of it too. There was quite a backlog of food building up in the fridge that needed to be eaten and if I were honest, I needn’t really have added in a small potato to lengthen it

In fact, I’ve had plenty to eat today. The other home-made bun from the weekend, just as delicious as the first one on Monday. And then at lunchtime some soup from the container that I’d opened yesterday.

This afternoon I was invited out for a drink by the President of the Residents’ Committee of the building, at which there were a few nibbles, and then my curry tonight.

Being invited out by the President was interesting because even though the final act of purchase of the apartment downstairs hasn’t been signed, it seems that I’ve already been accepted into the inner circle.

Several of the apartments are rented out, several more are second residences so there aren’t too many that are full-time owner occupiers. What cheers up the people here is that the apartment that I’m buying will revert from a tenanted apartment to an owner-occupied apartment and that’s a rare reversal of fortunes for a modern seaside resort.

There are far too many apartments being sold out of private stock and into holiday accommodation and that’s killing so many coastal towns, and that’s mainly due to these casual letting websites that are now being swamped by exploitive casual racketeers.

But that’s a subject for another time. I’m much more interested in what happened last night. And there was quite a lot too because it was yet another night where I didn’t have a great deal of sleep, lying there tossing and turning and hoping that I would drop off at some time.

And I must have done too because there were plenty of travels that must have kept me busy. There was an aeroplane that had a pilot and a small crew on board. For some unknown reason the aeroplane started to dive forward towards the ground. Someone went into the cockpit and found that the pilot was asleep. They awoke him and he carried on flying. The exact same thing happened again. He’d fallen asleep again. The third time when they were trying to shake him awake they found that there was some kind of insect in the cabin. For some reason or other this insect had a power to put people to sleep. They managed to trap this insect and remove it from the cabin. From then on the flight proceeded quite normally just as it should without any problem.

And then there was someone in Jersey who had an agricultural business but had lost it for one reason or another. He had problems with the new purchaser or operator of the business and the business reverted back to him. He was obliged to carry on. I can’t remember any more about this now.

Someone wanted a change of room last night in a hotel or something and insisted on seeing the manager. What had happened was that there were some roadworks on the main road and the traffic had been diverted down a diversion which just happened to go past the front of the hotel which of course would keep everyone awake at night. There was nothing that the proprietor of the hotel could do about it obviously but he received all the blame for what was happening.

Later on I’d been to Shavington, Vine Tree Avenue, to visit my old house where I lived. When I left I was being watched all the way up the street while something was happening. I thought that the easiest way to do this was to nip in via a neighbour’s house and over the fence into the back and disappear that way. In the end I ended up knocking at the door of this neighbour. She was absolutely delighted and invited me in. Of course it was someone whom I didn’t really like and with whom I didn’t really get on but she was there making me welcome. We talked about bees and honey etc. She fetched her husband and phoned her children to say that I’d come round. I could see that rather than having just gone this way for a short cut I’d be here for a week if I wasn’t careful. I just couldn’t find a way of breaking off this meeting and leaving. Interestingly the names of the children weren’t the names of the children in real life. They were different.

Interestingly, when I lived in Shavington there were two families that were rather infamous for their lack of personal hygene and social niceties. And during the night I managed to find the address of one of them that was being occupied by the other.

At another point during the night a girl was presumed hanged herself or being untied by this snake during the song “Delilah”. The snake was slowly reaching its grasp. It looked as if there was going to be miles of arm of this snake left over by the time the snake had finished doing what it was intended to do with her. And if you can make any sense of what that was all about then please let me know because I don’t have a clue.

But when the alarm went off this morning I was having a cup of coffee. Not a real cup of coffee but a virtual one. I was actually back home. My mother had had to go to the shops for something or other. We kids had to get up. I was there with 2 of my siblings. We were looking at some notices that were plastered everywhere about words that we no longer used in everyday conversation. There was something about if Belgium and Italy elect Socialist governments this weekend it will be a first. Things like that. I didn’t have a chance to find out what was going on about it because the alarm went off.

Hardly a surprise that I was totally exhausted after all of that.

After the medication and checking the mails and messages I rounded up the music for another radio programme that I’ll be preparing at some point. I don’t want to get too far ahead with the text of the programme because, as I’m finding out these days, more and more of the artists featured in my programmes are shuffling off this mortal coil and playing in that great gig in the sky which means that I have to keep on amending my programmes.

On the other hand, I need to keep some programmes all written up and ready. They came in handy when I was in hospital last autumn and there’s always the possibility that I’ll be in there again.

There was a pause for my lovely toasted bun, and another pause for the soup at lunchtime. In between, I tidied up a little here and there around the apartment ready for when the cleaner came. I also cut my hair and had a shower. I can climb so much easier into the bath these days so the physiotherapy is obviously working.

This afternoon while the cleaner was here I wrote up a few notes for the programme that I’ll be preparing on Monday and I’ll be doing the rest at some time in the near future. If I’m lucky I might even have the programme done before Monday too and then I can have a day off.

So having been entertained and having eaten my curry I’m off to bed for an early night. I need it too after the events of the last few days. Every now and again I go through these phases of having some really bad nights and by the looks of things I’m in the middle of another one.

Perhaps I ought to go out and about for a walk more often and get some exercise. Then I might be tired enough to go to sleep.

EPIC HALL

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