Tag Archives: air fryer

Wednesday 31st July 2024 – JOHN MAYALL HAS …

… died

Born in Macclesfield 90 years ago, down the road from where I used to live it’s doubtful if anyone has contributed more to the British blues scene than him.

Not that I’m a big blues fan, but ever since his first “proper” band in Manchester with long-time associate Hughie Flint (later of McGuinness Flint) on the drums, and his first incarnation of the Bluesbreakers on his arrival in London, with trainee Tax Inspector John McVie (later of Fleetwood Mac) on bass, just about anyone who is anyone on the blues circuit has played in one of his bands.

Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Harvey Mandel, Jack Bruce, Keef Hartley, a 15 year-old Andy Fraser, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Jon Hiseman, etc, etc, it’s a veritable Who’s Who of names who made it in the music World who have at one time passed through The Bluesbreakers

Even though he was 90 years old, and probably thinking about slowing down, he’s someone who will be sorely missed.

Something else that was sorely missed was my 23:00 curfew. I was miles away from it in fact, and on the wrong side as well. Probably much closer to midnight when I crawled into my sack.

And although I was asleep quite quickly, I was awake quite early too – at, would you believe, 02:15.

So there I was, for hours, tossing and turning and trying to go back to sleep, without any success at all. All in all, it was quite a miserable night

When the alarm went off, it was a very weary me who raised one eye up from under the quilt. But despite everything I did manage to make it out of bed before the second alarm went off.

Feeling depressingly weary, I made it into the bathroom where a good rub down with a cold flannel did little to revive my flagging spirits

Eventually I managed to make it back in here where I had a listen to the dictaphone. And to my surprise there was something on it from the night. I’d been appointed as one of two sporting ambassadors for Caernarfon Town. It was my job to welcome TNS to the ground after TNS had beaten them in a heavy defeat the previous week. Of course there was a lot of change and a lot of issues about it but we still had to do an extremely professional job

Presumably this has something to do with the fact that both Caernarfon Town and TNS are entertaining foreign opposition this week. TNS had Ferencvaros of Hungary down there in Oswestry last night, and Caernarfon will be entertaining Legia Warzawa of Poland tomorrow (Thursday) evening.

The nurse caught me by surprise this morning. She rings on my doorbell from downstairs as she arrives in the building but then goes to see my neighbour first, giving me about ten minutes. But today, she was here in seconds.

When she came in she caught me watching a football match. "You were quick at whatsit’s" I said
"She’s not here" she replied.

It seems that my neighbour has been taken into hospital. They aren’t convinced that she has what it takes to live an autonomous life in view of all of the falls that she’s had and the fact that she’s lost confidence in herself.

She’s gone to be assessed for a place in a Home, so she told me when I texted her later to find out how she was. And that is probably as good a solution as you can expect for her.

The nurse changed the covering on my arm and then dealt with my legs. She wasn’t here long and left quite quickly, running rather later than usual. But we did make arrangements for Friday because I won’t be here that morning.

While I was eating breakfast I was reading a book about lost trails in Montana. Once again I was so engrossed, especially when I reached the chapter on a band of vigilantes that roamed the Territory righting wrongs and hanging outlaws that I was there for a long time poring over the pages.

Once again, very little of this stuff has made it onto Wikipedia and so its all likely to fall out of the pages of recorded history as the three-minute truncated attention span of the MTV Generation takes more and more control.

The rest of the day, when I’ve not been asleep, has been spent tracking down musicians who played with John Mayall and samples of their music. Mayall is the kind of person who deserves a radio programme in his honour and I’m sure that there will be enough material for me to assemble some sort of something to commemorate his services to music.

The cleaner came by for an hour or so too in a vain attempt to make the place look pretty. We had the accounts to settle too and I had to go to lie down in a darkened room afterwards.

Tea tonight was another slice of pie with potatoes, mixed veg and gravy. And the secret to warming up the pie is to put it in the air fryer. It’s simple really.

So now, nice and early, I’m going to go back to do some more on my John Mayall project

But John Mayall’s passing reminds me of that hellfire-and-damnation vicar who was preaching a sermon at the local church
"One day, everyone from this parish will die, and will be called to answer for their sins before the merciless God"
To which a man on the back rown burst out laughing.
"I don’t think that you heard me" thundered the vicar. "I said – ‘one day, everyone from this parish will die, and will be called to answer for their sins before the merciless God’"
"Oh I heard you, right enough" said the man, laughing even more
"So why are you laughing?" asked the vicar
"Well, I don’t come from this parish"

Saturday 27th July 2024 – HAVING HAD A COUPLE …

… of days where I haven’t crashed out at all, or nearly so, during the day, I made up for it today.

It wasn’t quite as bad as last Saturday where I spent all afternoon crashed out until teatime, but it wasn’t far off.

That’s quite a disappointment, as I’m sure that you can imagine. I thought that I was getting over this spell of dramatic tiredness, but apparently not. I’ll just have to keep on plugging away and hoping that somewhere, somehow, I’ll find a solution.

It’s not as if I was particularly late in bed.

It wasn’t 23:00, that’s for sure, but it was near enough to make no difference, and I slept right through until … errr … 04:15.

No danger of my leaving the bed at that time though. I curled up under the quilt and went back to sleep until the alarm went off at 07:00.

The ‘phone was plugged into the computer, charging up, so it was a scramble across the bedroom to switch it off when it rang. And then it was an ungainly stagger into the bathroom.

After I’d washed I had to sort out the puttees. Moaning Minnie had wanted them washing so they had been soaking overnight. This morning I gave them a good hand-washing and hung them in the bathroom to dry.

There already was a pair that I’d washed a few days ago so I took those down and rolled them up ready for use today.

Next job was to tidy up the LeClerc shopping bags that are all over the place and put them one inside another. There’s a consigne or “deposit” of €0:20 per bag that I receive back when I turn the bags in to the deliverer on his next trip so I don’t want to lose or damage them.

There was time then to come in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. My father was working for a company in transport again. In the garage they had an old, disreputable type of van-thing that they used to go out to breakdowns on. It was always my father and his friend who went. I noticed that my father was becoming rather sullen and sulky so I asked him why. It turns out that he’d had a row with his partner at work. The guy was being difficult about putting on his seatbelt. Anyway the next day the two of us were out in this old van. I was trying to make the seatbelt fasten but it didn’t work and it left an oily stain on my clothes. My father said that now his friend had stated quite flatly and frankly that he’s no longer putting on his seatbelt under any circumstances and that had rather soured their relationship. We were talking about it and trying to find other things for my father to do in his spare time. He did some taxi driving at one point but said that with his friend being difficult now and he drives for another company and has friends here and there, my father is going to have to stop driving as my father doesn’t want any unpleasantness if he confronts any of these people while they are out doing the evening taxi driving so we were having to think of other things that my father could do to pass the time.

At my father’s place they had a series of big Mercedes vans and he and his colleagues were off all over the UK sorting out breakdowns on the lorries, all mostly old Foden and ERF glass-fibre cab stuff. Anything else would fall apart in weeks due to the effects of the salt, but they and their contractors had Fodens that were 20-odd years old and still doing a heavy day’s work. Nothing luxurious about them at all but they would go for ever

But it looks as if my family’s intervention in my night-time travels will go on for ever. It beats me why this would be the case. During the day I don’t think about them at all yet here they are. On the other hand, I can think about Zero, Castor and TOTGA all I like but do they put in an appearance in my dreams? I should be so lucky.

Later on, I was called out for my bad singing by a group of readers of a Scottish rock magazine so I thought that I’d better do something to defend myself. I began to debate whether to announce to the world the fact that I’m suffering from this illness, whether it would be a good idea and what would be the consequences if I did, going on a circuit of concerts to reassure the fans was hardly the correct thing to do if I’m going to claim to be too ill to sing properly so I’ll have to think very carefully about what to do to restore my popularity with my rock fans in Scotland.

This dream is actually an allegory. It relates to an incident involving Scotland that took place in 2007-2008 and from which certain issues are still reverberating around even today, with one or two unfortunate and unwilling victims swept up in the chaos. Still, that’s a pretty good description of real life. There are innocent victims swept up in the chaos of everyone’s story. And as for my singing, well, the less said about that the better.

The nurse was going to wash my feet today so I had to have everything ready, including a clean towel and flannel. He had a moan about the towel not being clean enough, but that’s as clean as it gets with my washing machine.

He has a point of course, and I can see it. If I catch an infection, he’ll be blamed regardless of what he has done, so he needs to cover himself. But it’s still quite depressing all the same.

The puttees weren’t particularly clean either, despite the good wash that this set had had at the beginning of the week, but he bit his tongue about them.

After he left I made myself some breakfast and read for a while my book on the siting of churches in Medieval times. We’re onto an interesting chapter about burials where a chariot and horse, and presumably a charioteer or two, were interred with the deceased. It’s all good stuff.

Later on, after a very slow start to the day, I began to think about this radio programme.

It’ll take place early – very early – in the New Year and it has a certain theme, but that’s as far as I’d gone with it. Today, I set about choosing the music.

As usual, after my efforts yesterday, I have far too much. It would be much easier if I only had a dozen, but today I had to pick 10 – or 8 longer ones – from a selection of at least 21. Anyway, eventually, after being away with the fairies for a couple of hours I have 8 sorted out plus a reserve supply of a couple in case I need them.

Once I’d organised this much I set down to think about what I’m going to write. And I made a little stat when Rosemary rang me up for a chat, which was nice. I can’t go working all the time.

This was just a short chat this time – a mere hour and eleven minutes.

But I teased her by saying that she’s becoming a crazy cat lady. Not only is she regaling me with tales of Myrtille’s latest activities, she’s also told me that Myrtille is bringing a friend round, a scrawny, half-starved black and white cat.

Anyone who knows anything at all about cats will know that there is nothing surprising about any of this. It won’t be long before Rosemary has half a dozen cats winding their bodies around her legs.

Tea tonight was one of my lovely breaded quorn fillets with salad and baked potato. My air fryer is doing a great job but I’m sure that it can do much, much more than I’m doing with it.

That’s something that I’ll be doing when I move downstairs – having a decent oven, a decent microwave and plenty of space to work. And I can’t wait. This 10 months will seem like 10 years.

In a mad fit of enthusiasm I even found the time to dictate a huge pile of arrears for the radio notes. I’ll start editing those tomorrow after I’ve watched the highlights of today’s football matches. I’m now up to February next year which is where I want to be

It’s the Olympics here in France now, and nothing can be further from my mind than that. But we’ve had a team of Olympic athletes being shown around the old walled town today and they came by here. My cleaner told me to go to the window to look.

Whoever they were, they were dressed all in blue track suit stuff but I didn’t recognise anything. I don’t have a clue who they were.

But it did remind me of an incident at the 1986 European Championships at Stuttgart where Fatima Whitbread won the Gold for Britain in the Pentathlon with an absolutely magnificent throw of the javelin that broke all records and even cleared the safety fence at the far end of the stadium
Ten minutes later, the news was announced, followed by "and the gold medal in javelin-catching has been awarded to Herr Heinz Schmidt, who was walking his dog in the park in the background".
Ten minutes later there was another announcement. "Please cancel that last message. Unfortunately, there is no provision in the rules of the European Championships for medals to be awarded posthumously."

Friday 26th July 2024 – SO THAT’S ANOTHER …

… 2 kilos of carrots washed, cleaned, peeled diced blanched and draining ready to go in the freezer.

It’s a good job that I made some room in there. But when 2ks of carrots are cheaper than 1kg it makes sense to buy the bulk offering.

The freezer will be full of carrots and I’ll have them coming out of my ears but I’m not going to turn down an offer like this.

It’s possible to buy frozen carrots of course but I find that they are pumped too full of water, go soggy and taste like damp cardboard when they are cooked. It’s much nicer to freeze my own.

They aren’t the only vegetables that I freeze. Brussels sprouts and broccoli are regular candidates. And I’d freeze a lot more if I had the capacity.

It’s not just the vegetables that are freezing. I’m freezing too. In fact, I’ve put on a jacket as I’m typing because it’s perishing. What the hell happened to summer?

It was cold last night, but not as cold as thins. Cold enough though for me to be in a hurry to go to bed and although it was after 23:00, it wasn’t after 23:00 by much

And once again I was soon asleep, and slept right the way through to all of … errr … 04:15. After that it was a night, or rather, a morning of tossing and turning until the alarm went off.

At some point I must have gone back to sleep because when the alarm went off I was doing something around Leicester – I’m not exactly sure what. I was in a bedroom with a load of bunk beds in it like in the military or something like that but I can’t remember now exactly what I was doing. Of course when the alarm went off I forgot absolutely everything except these little pictures and images that I’d managed to keep.

That was what I dictated anyway and it probably means something to someone, but not to me. The only time I ever made it to Leicester was with Shearings on a feeder.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and brush up, but cut myself shaving (or, rather, reopened the cut from the previous time). Consequently I was bleeding everywhere for most of the morning, making more of a mess.

Back in here I listened to the dictaphone to find out where else I’d been during the night. There was something to do with a football match. A player had to be brought onto the field after about 67 minutes. He needed taking to the stadium and the only person there was someone’s father who could do it. However he was a pretty bad driver so the footballer wasn’t interested in going with him at all. They had to use all kinds of persuasive powers to have him step into that car at the appropriate time as well as using all kinds of threats and violence against the other player in the defence to make sure that he did the job correctly without any obstructions or hindrance. But it was a nerve-wracking time to have these substitutes organised when they weren’t even in the stadium and the match was well under way.

That’s all pretty meaningless nonsense too. But it all underlines the fact that Zero never ever came back after that night a week or so ago and that TOTGA and Castor seem to have gone for ever. They haven’t been around for ages.

And that’s sad – my three favourite young ladies deserting me like this. It seems that everyone these days is voting with his feet.

So bleeding profusely from the upper lip and the nurse gave me the injection of Binocrit to thin my blood. That makes a lot of sense. And he had a good moan again this morning about the state of my puttees. They were washed only two or three days ago but he thinks that they should be washed every day.

But he’s had that. As if I have the time to be doing stuff like that. I have more than enough other things to do.

Like eat breakfast of course, which I did immediately after he left, with fresh toast cut from the loaf that I made yesterday. And my medication, including the Kardegic to thin my blood out even more, so as to keep up the bleeding from my upper lip.

After breakfast I had a play around with my shopping order, completing that and sending it off. They had the olive oil in again so I ordered another bottle. That’s three bottles that I have in stock now, but sometimes it’s hard to find and I have to buy the full-price stuff. There’s a ton of difference in price between a proprietary brand and LeClerc’s own..

All they were short of was mushrooms. No 250 gramme punnets but they had 500 grammes ones so I bought one of those and I’ll have a mushroom soup with the extra mushrooms tomorrow for lunch

While we’re on the subject of lunch … "well, one of us is" – ed … after I’d sent off my order I went for lunch, and had one of these chocolate bread things that I made yesterday.

The taste and texture is certainly different, but it’s not disagreeable.

So –
Boil up 400 ml of water
Keep it bubbling on a low heat and add 35 grammes of cocoa powder and mix well in.
When it’s mixed well in, take off the heat
add
1 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of sugar
25ml oil
150 grammes flour
mix it all up very well, put in a large bowl to cool.

While it’s cooling –
in an smaller bowl start with 80ml warm water
5 grammes yeast
20 grammes sugar
Dissolve it all together

when it’s dissolved properly, add it all to the larger bowl
add 200 grammes flour

Mix it all up together as if you were making bread.
Cover and leave for 40 minutes

then divide into 10 and make into balls
leave another 15 minutes
Then bake 180°C for 30 minutes
dust with icing sugar.

They you’ll have the strangest bread rolls you’re ever likely to have, but you won’t be disappointed.

This afternoon I’ve been radioing. Having put my Hawkfest out of the way and preparing for a live album concert, there’s a special programme that I want to do in between all of this.

At the start of the year next year it will be the birthday of someone who is not at first glance associated with rock music but has inspired a whole generation of kids, and many musicians took their inspiration from him.

There are a great many rock and folk tracks that contain either outright or otherwise more subtle tributes to him and his creations so this afternoon I’ve been tracking them down.

Not just the songs either but the details and the quotes from the musicians.

So I’m going to be working on this special radio programme next, fitting it around the preparation of the normal run of programmes. I have to keep cracking on regardless with those.

My cleaner was here this afternoon cleaning up and we had a really good chat. And then the LeClerc delivery guy came with my order so I had to knuckle down and do some work for a change. I’ve still not put everything away yet.

Tea was a vegan salad with chips from the air fryer with some of these vegan nugget things, now that I’ve bought some more.

And having written my notes, I’m now off to bed.

But talking of the radio, earlier in the year we had a snowstorm here so we made a public service announcement "Because of the snow, snowploughs will be out. Please park your car on the even-numbered side of the street to clear the road for the snowplough" so everyone went and moved their car.
The next day we announced "Because of the snow, snowploughs will be out. Please park your car on the odd-numbered side of the street to clear the road for the snowplough" so everyone went and moved their car.
On the third day we announced "Because of the snow, snowploughs will be out. Please park your car ….. " and there was a power cut
"Drat" said one guy. "I don’t know where to leave the car today."
After thinking for a while his wife replied "I suppose we’d better leave it in the garage then"

Saturday 6th July 2024 – JUST WHEN I WAS …

… thinking that it was nice and quiet, and I could catch up on some of the outstanding dictation, some fool stood up on that stage that they erected on the steps of the Public Rooms and began to belt out some nonsense or other at full-volume.

He had quite a crowd gathered around him too so there were obviously plenty of people enjoying whatever it was that he was doing, but it didn’t ‘arf disrupt my plans for the early evening

And that’s a shame because, having had a good hour or two’s sleep just beforehand, I was fighting fit and raring to go. And as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, that’s not something that happens every day.

It wasn’t as if I’d had a good sleep during the night either. Once more, I was late going to bed – much closer to midnight than 23:00 – and then we had a calamity.

Whatever happened, I had no idea but I have never ever in my life seen so much blood in one place. My whole tee-shirt was absolutely wringing wet with blood and there were huge lumps of the semi-congealed stuff hanging from the inside.

“Discretion is the better part of valour” I thought here. Firstly I couldn’t see where the blood was coming from and secondly, I didn’t really want to find out. So I took the obvious course.

Five minutes later she was down here cleaning me up.

There was a small puncture on my shoulder and for a tiny, tiny wound like that it was pumping blood like there was no tomorrow. What had happened to cause it I don’t know, and I didn’t want to either.

However, my cleaner tells me that at least one of the medicaments that I’m taking is an anti-coagulant and she’s seen this kind of thing before with others of her clientele who take it.

She succeeded in patching me up, at least for the night, and warned me to be careful, not to get up to much in the way of indoor athletics in bed tonight. Chance would be a fine thing.

So after she left I had another go at trying to go to bed. Horribly late yet again. No matter how much I try, I’m never going to have an early night.

It was quite a restless night again and I was wide awake at about 06:00 and planning on making another early stary but I must have gone back to sleep because the next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 07:00.

When I stood up, a blood-sodden mass of bandages and plasters fell to the ground. At least it had protected the would and wearing a tee-shirt had protected the bed.

It was still bleeding so I had a good wash and waited for the nurse to come.

In the meantime I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And interesting it was as well. My mother and my aunt’s four aunts were all present in the same room – Auntie Gertie, Auntie Dollie, Auntie Mabel and Auntie Dorothy. They’d been collected from where they lived out and about and had been all brought together to stay at a particular place but something had come up which meant that the person whose relative they were who had invited them had to go away so these for aunts were busy finding a way around on their own. In the end they found a row of chairs but there was only three of them. They found another chair that was not belonging to this group of three but was somehow obliquely fastened across the end of the row so they imagined that that was where they were going to be sitting. They tried to work out who was the one who was meant to be on their own. There was a volunteer for this seat who went to sit in in. They said “it’s very near the kitchen” but she replied “yes but I like my kitchen very much and I’m pretty good at making all of the Sunday roasts” she said. I thought to myself “there’s certainly the stuff here to make the roast because there’s tons of food. There are definitely two main meals with meat that have been thought about and bought for which are lying around waiting to be cooked. Anyone could bung them into the oven”. I thought that at least those four aunts would be able to manage that. But they looked like the cheery thought of people anyway, at least, the ones who were doing the talking so I thought that maybe the fact that they were going to be here and no-one was looking after them for a while at least was not going to be a particular problem and they’d manage quite well on their own

My mother and her sister (my aunt) did indeed have four aunts although I’m not sure exactly how they were or became aunts. They were four very close relatives who may have been sisters, Dollie, Gertle, Mabel and Alice in fact. Some were Beavises and some were Ashness-Wellses. The Beavises were very well-known Quakers whose eldest son Stuart was a very famous Conscientious Objector in World War I and was sentenced to Death, something that must have upset my mother’s grandfather who, well over age, had dyed his hair and joined the Canadian Infantry. “Aunt Alice” lived in Birchington in Kent right at the end of the runway for Manston Airfield and at the Fall of France and bombs beginning to drop on British airfields and Aunt Alice’s house and garden, all of the kids in the village including my mother and her sister, were rounded up at a moment’s notice and armed with just a suitcase, evacuated out of the War Zone to live in safe areas with strangers whom they didn’t know. My mother and her sister ended up in Frome in Somerset.

Years ago I went on an expedition. I had remembered the addresses to which my mother had written letters and I remembered visiting some of the properties in Kent (Mabel and Dollie had shared a house in Ham Street near Ashford) as a tiny child so I went on a big trip of discovery and remembrance around southern England. And would you believe – the house in Birchington at the end of Manston Airport’s runway was still there, complete with modern roof – and it was for sale! Get thee behind me, Satan!

Later on I was with a former friend last night on the Brine Baths Estate in Nantwich. An old yellow Ford Transit drove past. My friend made a gesture as if he knew the driver and the driver made a gesture back so I asked about him. Eventually my friend explained that the driver was just some old guy who lived on the estate and did landscape gardening. He was never in any proper order. His books were always a mess, his finances were always up the creek. Everything about him was late. He had the old Transit which wasn’t taxed, wasn’t insured, wasn’t MoT’d and hadn’t been for years but he just used it for pottering around the Estate and going from one of his clients to another with his tools. He went around quite happily without any problems at all, although I must admit that I could envisage quite a few problems that he could be having if he were me and things were running as usual according to plan in that respect.

It was a shame that this dream never developed because I do actually know of this kind of activity going on in certain places so this isn’t news by any means. And for one reason or another I was half-expecting Zero to put in an appearance at some point.

Finally, what apparently upset everyone so much about my shoulder was that no-one seemed to be doing anything and I was losing blood at a really rapid rate and people were just standing around there as if it wasn’t an emergency. For the cleaner this was a serious problem. It could well have been a shrapnel wound or something like that from high explosive that could have killed me. Then they would have had some real problems with the crew of the ‘plane trying to get it back home to base.

It wouldn’t upset all that many people if I were bleeding to death. I’d just be dismissed as a bleeding nuisance and left to my own devices. And it’s a fact that any good psychiatrist will tell you that there are occasions where people won’t mind how much they are suffering as long as the object of their hatred is suffering more.

When the nurse came he cleaned up the wound and patched me up again and then organised my puttees and the wounds on my legs. He’s going to give me a pedicure tomorrow, he says. That should be interesting.

After he left I had breakfast and then had a very slow start to the day while I slowly warmed up. Once I was ready, I blitzed through the remainder of the radio notes that I’d started earlier in the week, so they are all complete and in the chain for dictation.

Lunch was a salad sandwich which made a very nice change, and then I tidied up in the kitchen. Stuff like crockery had been piling up in there needlessly and there were far too many odds and sods that didn’t have a home, but do now.

Things look so much better in there now, there’s room to move about and there’s more room to put things, Heaven help me.

Back in here I was going tp start work again but I fell asleep and had another one of those psychedelic experiences thanks to this anti-potassium stuff.

When I recovered I was going to dictate some stuff as I said, but not while that berk was performing so I began to choose the music for the next radio programme instead.

Tea was salad, baked potato and breadcrumbed quorn fillet, and my neighbour turned up in the nick of time with some tomatoes for me which was just as well.

So now that I’ve finished and it’s relatively quiet outside I’ll do some dictation before going to bed.

But I was thiking about that dream and the row of chairs for the aunts and how they must have come to be there.
Just picture the scene – someone crying "Could we have three chairs for the aunts?"
And there would inevitably be someone at the back who would shout "Hip Hip Hooray!"

Friday 5th July 2024 – YOU HAVE TO …

… laugh.

It’s the start of the holiday season here tomorrow and for the next eight weeks we’ll be under siege by thousands of tourists coming to admire the crabs and the seabirds, blockading the town, wandering in the High Street obstructing the traffic etc.

And don’t let me start on the squadrons of motor homes that will be roaming the streets.

Of course, as a seaside town, we have to entertain them and they are erecting a sound stage on the steps of the Public Rooms at the back of our building outside the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs – the Hostel for Young People coming to work in the town.

My cleaner will tell you what this means. She’s a lovely woman and has a beautiful, rhythmic way of speaking with a lilt in her voice as she goes on about all the noise and “when I want to watch tv …” and “when I want to open my windows to air …” and “when I want to have a siesta …”

And on (and on, and on) she went until she finished off with a resounding j’espère que les goélands y vont chier dessus .. "I hope that the seagulls go and s**t all over them".

By that time I was bent double with laughter. That was probably the most fitting, most suitable comment that I could possibly imagine, and I’ll certainly save that for another occasion.

There’s nothing wrong with a good laugh, and a bit of vulgarity never hurt anyone.

Meanwhile, in other news, it was yet another late night crawling into bed and how fed up I am of that, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …

Nevertheless I was soon asleep which was at least something, I suppose. But not for long.

At about 06:15 I awoke yet again and just couldn’t go back to sleep. As a result, when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was in the bathroom having a wash.

While I was waiting for the nurse to show up I transcribed the dictaphone notes to find out where I’d been during the night. They were running a study down by the lives of the men in the trenches, between those who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths and those born poor. It turns out that the people who were born poor had much less expectation of everything but were not prepared to suffer as much because presumably they were used to things being worked out for them and were not so used to having to work out their own solutions to many problems.

What astonishes me is the depth of thought that I can plumb when I’m away on my travels. I wish that I could think as clearly and as profoundly as this during the day when I’m awake. I would have many fewer problems than I do, that’s for sure.111

One interesting thing that came out of another experiment that we were all doing was that the guy who was conducting it turned round and told me that between 1983 and 1987 “you didn’t do anything at all very much”. I thought “well that’s certainly not true. Why on earth would I ever make anyone think that? There’s obviously something wrong with this experiment if it’s come up with these kinds of figures and information”. But halfway through the debate one of the people said mais, le monsieur, il est fort anglais, oui? – “the guy is very English, isn’t he?”. I asked “does that make a difference?”. They replied “yes because a lot of information on the British national Government’s database was never copied over to Europol so the European Governments won’t know about what happened to you in the UK at that particular time. That was a revelation to me that Europol didn’t have access to the records to British people. That would explain everything because during that period I was extremely busy and didn’t really have the time for any trips over to the Continent and back again whereas in the periods both before and afterwards I was a frequent visitor.

Most people when they are asleep usually dream of green meadows and fluffy clouds and the like. I bet that I’m the only the only person who can have sweet (or not-so-sweet) dreams about the European Police Agency.
"But it wasn’t the bullet that laid him to rest, was
The low spark of high-heeled boys"

What a moment for that to come round on my playlist!

The nurse didn’t have much to say for himself. Except that he’s noticed that I’m putting on the weight again. That’s true, as I said a few days ago. But I really don’t know what to do about it. I have this surgery planned for the 16th – so then they will take me in charge to do the necessary but also give me a good going-over yet again.

With that date arranged there’s no point in rushing anything because whatever solution they reach will only be a temporary one anyway until the dialysis can begin. And then we’ll have to see where we’ll be.

Now regular readers of this rubbish will will recall that I always invite messages and requests. In fact, I receive many requests, most of them physically impossible it has to be said, but one of them was for the recipe for my vegan lasagne.

That’s difficult, because there’s not really a recipe, just an ad hoc collection of stuff hanging around in the kitchen all thrown together, but here goes, Hans –

Cook a cup full of red lentils in plenty of water until thoroughly soft, and then when cooked rinse thoroughly.
Fry a couple of large onions in olive oi
Chop up some garlic and add in when the onions are soft.
Add herbs and spices – I used sage, basil, tarragon, oregano
Add a big pile of chopped mushrooms
Chop up a block of tofu and add in.
After it’s all been frying nicely, add in the lentils that you cooked in step one.
Add in a jar of tomato sauce (I found a jar of tomato and mushroom sauce that had been loitering around in the kitchen for longer than it ought)
Stir it all in and leave it to simmer for a while.
When it’s ready, nicely cooked, take your pie dish and line it with lasagne sheets
put a covering of your filling on top
add more lasagne sheets
add more filling
add more sheets ….
And build up until your dish is full
Make a simple bechamel sauce with grated vegan cheese. Pour over the top of the lasagne.
Add a couple of slices of vegan cheese to the top
When your bread has about half an hour left to cook, slide yous lasagne into the oven alongside the bread.

There was football on the internet this morning – a game from a while ago between East Stirling and Cowdenbeath, two former Scottish League clubs now fallen on hard times and down in the non-league pyramid.

Played at the Falkirk stadium, the home of East Stirling since the tragic loss of their beloved Firs Park ground, it was the visitors who took away the laurels with a 3-2 victory.

But the Blue Brazil have keeper Craig Hepburn to thank for single-handedly defying a rampant East Stirling attack who should by rights have scored a hatful of goals

Apart from the football it was a rather slow start to the day but once I got going I chose another pile of music for a forthcoming radio programme, paired it off and segued the pairs, and while the cleaner was here, wrote half of the notes.

Yes, don’t ask me what happened. I must have been in a good mood to have done all that.

Unfortunately I couldn’t keep it going. I crashed out for an hour after my afternoon hot chocolate. And I actually managed to go off for a wander while I was asleep. There were five of us who used to hang around together, two boys, two girls and me. The boys and girls gradually paired off, leaving me on my own. That was a big disappointment to me because I was very keen on one of the girls and I genuinely thought that I would be able to pair up with her but no such luck. Her boyfriend had lent her a car and I’d even offered to buy her one but to no avail. Anyway we met in Flag Lane and my car was parked in Delamere Street. She had several items like a couple of saucepans and she also had a huge pile of grapes. She gave me a large bunch of grapes as she knew that I liked them and as I was making my way back to my car she blew her horn and called me back. I hoped that it was for some kind of friendly purpose but instead she gave me two saucepans in which to carry away the grapes. I was so disappointed.

What’s even more disappointing is that I know exactly who she is but I can’t think of her name and can’t think of how I know her either. I’m having some really serious brain-fade these days and I wish that I didn’t.

Tea tonight was as usual a lovely vegan salad with chips and the last of these vegan nugget things. I need to order some more of them, I suppose

I’ve run out of the salad dressing unfortunately so I mixed up some vegan mayonnaise with dijon mustard, lemon juice and olive oil. That made a very acceptable substitute.

So now I’m going to crawl into bed ready to renew the attack tomorrow morning. I’ll finish off these radio notes, dictate a few more during the night, edit them on Sunday and then be ready for my Welsh Summer School that begins on Monday for a week. It’s all “get up and go” here.

This time next week I’ll be flat on my back with my arms and legs in the air. They’ll ask me "what happened to your ‘get up and go’?"
And the answer is "It got up and went a long time ago"

Saturday 29th June 2024 – SO FAR TODAY …

… I’ve managed to avoid falling over. However, the night is young and there’s still plenty of time yet to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

And defeat? They are the things inside de slippers of course!

There has been plenty of the day to go at too. More than usual, in fact, because once more I was up and about at an ungodly hour long before the alarm went off. I’ve no idea why that would be because, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s not like me at all.

It was a late night too. The other night when I was in bed before 23:00 must have been a fluke, that’s all I can cay because much as I would like that to be my target time, it’s pretty much unattainable right now and that’s something else that I can’t understand. Where does all the time go?

So last night after my misadventures on the kitchen floor I crawled off to bed late as usual as I mentioned and for a change it took a while for me to go off to sleep. After my fall you could probably say that I was shaken and not stirred.

Round about 05:00 – 05:30 I sat up, bolt upright, wide awake, and try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep. Just like yesterday morning too.

After lying awake for a while trying to drop off, I abandoned the struggle and took to my feet, a little more steady than last night, it has to be said. I sorted out some clean clothes and then went for a good wash and scrub up

Back in here afterwards I transcribed the dictaphone notes. I was newly-retired, so I was back at home. There were all kinds of medical upheavals going on. Even I’d been interviewed for a medical and failed it completely so was going to have some kind of further treatment. A whole week had been set aside for us to receive the kind of treatment that we needed. This was to take place at home, or at least, some kind of clinic but we’d all be at home during the day, during the night. It had been arranged that I’d look after my niece’s daughter while all of this was going on. We were making plans and making appointments. Someone said something about the daughter staying with me. It turned out in the end that she was only going to stay with me for two days because Friday the had something sorted out but there were so many things arranged that this stay was gradually being whittled down until in the end it probably wouldn’t be anything. That was a big disappointment to me because I had lots of plans and lots of ideas about what I was going to do and where I was going to take her. I’d been quite looking forward to going off for a few days with her to show her around, so I was starting to be even more disappointed and fed up than I am.

Later on there was something else that cropped up which would have been a really great idea had she been staying with me. I happened to mention this idea thing that had come up but it turns out now that whatever time she had left was going to be reduced yet again as something else was found for her to do. I began to wonder whether I was completely wasting my time with all of this and trying to be nice and helpful

So here we go again. I’m planning on having a good and interesting time and various members of my family come along and spike my guns, shoving "le baton dans la rue" as they would say around here. That’s one thing on which you could count – if I were going to be having a good time they would want to spoil it. I tell you, leaving The Land That Time Forgot and coming into the 21st Century was the best thing that ever happened to me and it’s a real shame as far as I’m concerned that I couldn’t ever persuade Nerina to take a leap into the future instead of being back there in the past

The nurse told me about the fun run taking place tonight. The town is closed off this weekend and it’s a car-free “pedestrians only” to celebrate the start of the summer season. There’s a 9km trail laid out around the town and the fun run starts this evening with everyone joining in for a lap – or two, or three, or four if you want the full marathon – to celebrate the summer, the Olympics, or anything else that you like.

She’ll be taking part and she’ll give me a wave as she runs past my apartment. I said that I’d keep an eye open for her;

After she left I had breakfast and then came in here – where I promptly fell asleep again. So much for this early start, I have to say.

While I was away with the fairies I was over the hills and far away. While I was asleep during the morning I had a very clingy girlfriend, a younger girl with large thick-lensed glasses and I know who she is but I can’t think of her name now. We we were out one afternoon and evening and she was just clingy. At first I thought “how lucky I was to have someone who wanted to be so near to me so much” but after a while I began to realise that someone so clingy can also be se needy and so much closeness can be oppressive.

It’s amazing how deep your inner consciousness and realisation goes when you are asleep. I’ve come up with some profound thinking in my dreams and I quite often wish that I could think so clearly and profoundly in real life. Things would be quite different. But what the heck is the name of this girl? I can see her even now but can’t think of her name.

When I awoke I finished off all of the notes for the radio programme on which I was working and then went for a very late lunch, not that I was too bothered about the time.

This afternoon, apart from sleeping, I’ve been carrying out a few amendments to my Homepage (and there will be some more in the fullness of time too), finishing off the updates to my “Canada 2022” pages from October 2022 and once I’d finished those, making a start on updating the pages that I wrote during my recent stay in hospital. So all in all, a very busy boy today even if a tired one.

Having had my breaded quornburger last night, tonight I had air-fried chips with a vegan salad and a burger on a bap – one of those burgers that I made with this dried compound stuff from Germany;

The taste is cerainly different, but not disagreeable, especially when there’s plenty of vegan mayonnaise, dijon mustard and onion plastered all over the place.

So now, early though it is, I’m going to dictate some radio notes for editing during the week and then off to bed. An 08:00 start so if I’m lucky I might have a little lie-in.

But going back to yesterday and needing help too raise myself from the floor reminds me of a story that Bishop Bell of Chichester used to tell me, about the time that he had difficulty rising from his seat in the park
A small girl dashed over and asked if she could help him
"Are you sure you can, dear?" asked the Bishop. "It’s not going to be easy"
"It’s all right really, sir" said the girl, brightly. "I’ve often helped my daddy when he’s been much drunker than you"

Monday 24th June 2024 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

…long, hard, miserable, depressing afternoon when I’ve been more asleep than awake, more dead than alive

And that’s exactly how I’m feeling too – more dead than alive. This afternoon has been horrible and I can safely say that there was a certain moment when I felt worse than I’ve ever felt with this illness.

What’s depressing me about it is that it’s not actually anything physical. Having bitten off my tongue and having it sewn back after a car accident in 1987 I know what pain is, believe me, and while the physical feeling is nothing like the same of course, it’s something about when I awaken from one of these coma-type things

It’s as if there’s some kind of chemical being released into my body which immediately makes me think of one of these pills, powders and potions.

When we we were at school and the teacher left the Chemistry class for a few minutes, we’d experiment by dropping different chemicals into a test-tube in order to see what happened.

Sometimes something would go “boom” so we’d make a note of what it was that we’d mixed together so that it would come in useful in our adult life and boy, did we sometimes have some impressive “booms”. I wonder if somehow somewhere a couple of these chemicals are having the same effect inside me once their protective coating wears off in my stomach.

The medical professionals have assured me that that’s not the case and, after all, they ought to know, so I could go to bed without having to worry about anything.

Except going to bed of course. It was another really late night again last night by the time that I finished everything and I wished that I’d finished everything an hour or two earlier.

But exhausted as I was after my efforts I crawled into bed, I didn’t need much rocking. I was asleep quite quickly and didn’t feel a thing until the alarm went off. IN fact, judging by the position in which I was lying, I don’t think that I’d moved at all during the night – not one inch.

It was a very groggy me that lifted a shoulder from the bed when BILLY COTTON finally called and you’ve no idea the struggle that I had to leave the bed before the second alarm five minutes later.

In the bathroom I had a really good wash and brush up, and then went for breakfast. Grape juice and strong coffee with porridge and a couple of slices of my lovely, perfect fresh loaf toasted and smothered in vegan butter. Totally forgetting that I was supposed to have nothing whatever this morning as there was a blood test.

Ahh well. They’ll just have some very peculiar results but so what? Many of my results are already quite peculiar and so a few more won’t make any difference. It’ll give them something to think about at the hospital and stop them being bored.

The nurse did in fact ask me "you haven’t eaten, have you?"
"Who? Me?" I asked innocently, brushing the toast crumbs under the table quickly.

One thing I forget though is how many times he told me to write my name and date of birth on … errr … another little sample pot. But let’s be honest – no-one could ever mix up anyone else’s … errr … “sample” with mine.

He spent quite a lot of time today worrying about nothing at all but also gave me a shopping list of the supplies that he uses that are running low. So after he left I sent a mail to my loyal cleaner in order to set her a task while she was in town.

Next thing was to put away everything that I’d used yesterday and washed up. It had been draining overnight and needed tidying up. And there was a lot of it too. I didn’t realise that I had so much stuff. No wonder that I was struggling for room on the worktop.

But it’s a shame about the oven too. When I was on my final fling around Europe two years ago I picked up a fully-fitted full-size oven from Jean-Marc, the guy with whose family in Macon I stayed on a school exchange in 1970. He was modernising his kitchen and the oven that he’d just taken out found its way into Caliburn.

Hans lives in Munich about half a mile from one of the biggest IKEAs in Europe and so about a week later when I was there, I bought a kitchen unit in which to fit the oven.

That’s in the back of Caliburn downstairs too, but I don’t have the physical ability to bring it all up here. So all of that stuff will have to stay there and I’ll soldier on with my little desktop oven.

In here I didn’t do much at first. It takes me a while to warm up, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from last night, which was a surprise. Mind you, I’ve no idea what to make of it. “There was the boys stuff and then more stuff about bombers … indistinct … and I can’t remember any of it which is a shame” and that was all that it said.

Whatever it’s supposed to mean, I haven’t a clue. When I say that I was “away with the fairies” I think that I was over the hills and far away when I dictated that.

There was a ‘phone call too – could I go earlier to see the surgeon tomorrow? I declined the invitation because quite simply firstly I mess the taxi company around often enough with some of my trips. I don’t want to exhaust their goodwill by unnecessary changes.

Secondly, I have my Welsh lesson tomorrow and I’ve already missed far too many sessions what with hospital and all of that. I can’t really afford to miss any more.

The cleaner came round a couple of times to drop off different things. Apparently the nurse’s prescription has run out but the chemist obliged. The nurse must write out a prescription tomorrow for today’s supplies and I mustn’t forget to tell him.

While she was here I gave her a list of supplies to be bought from LeClerc when she goes to do her shopping. Things like my sunflower seeds and vegan cheese aren’t available on home delivery

After lunch, back in here I began to carry on with the editing of the notes that I’d recorded on Saturday night (thanks, Grahame) but this was where my troubles began.

No matter how I tried, I just couldn’t keep going. At one point I thought that if I just let myself go, have a good sleep and awaken, I’ll feel fresh enough to accomplish more than I would be fighting it off all afternoon.

Some hopes. It made me feel worse.

Finally at about 19:15 I began to pull myself together and by 19:30 I could go to make tea. A plie of stuffing, some of which went into a stuffed pepper and the rest into a container in the fridge for the next few days.

But with pasta and veg cooked in a tomato sauce, my stuffed pepper cooked in the air fryer was delicious, as it usually is. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I eat quite simply here but I don’t ‘arf eat well.

But right now I’m off to bed. I need to be at my best tomorrow as I have my Welsh lesson, this appointment with the surgeon and who knows what?

However I am going to make a rule, and that is “no breakfast until after the nurse has been and gone”. That way we can avoid any more unfortunate lapses of memory.

After all, we don’t want him in such a bad mood that he makes a mess of my blood test. It’s painful enough as it is without asking to be hurt.

But the way that he snatched up my other … errr … little sample pot before leaving. I thought to myself "now that is REALLY taking the p*ss"

Saturday 25th May 2024 – IT SEEMS AS IF …

…this crashing out during the day has become the new norm.

It seems that rather than feeling bad about the days when I do crash out, I’m now celebrating the days when I don’t. And what kind of state is that to be in?

And, more to the point, wouldn’t it be nice to have something to celebrate today instead of having yet another miserable day where I’ve spent either asleep or semi-comatose?

For a change I was in bed early last night despite all the aches and pains. I found it much easier to get into bed even if it was more painful and once under the covers I was soon asleep. For a while it was quite comfortable.

And then a strange thing happened.

It began by me awakening (so I thought) and looking at my watch, to find that it was 06:15 so I curled back up under the quilt.

The next time I awoke it was 06:10. And then 06:30. And then 06:15.

It really was thoroughly confusing.

To make it worse, I couldn’t remember what time the alarm was supposed to ring. So frightened in case it as 06:15 and I’d missed it I raised myself from the dead.

When it did finally go off, I was in mid-wash

The nurse came as usual. She said that she’d rung but I can’t have heard her so she came in here to find me.

We talked about my blood test, she dealt with my feet and legs, and then she cleared off.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone which was a surprise. There was some kind of stately home and the young girl who lived there had an Austin Metropolitan. She nearly ran me down on the way home one night so I thought that I’d call into the hall to see. There was a discussion going on about a woman who liked nude bathing. Someone was desperately trying to divert the discussion saying that she was a member of the British National Outdoor Swimming Federation or whatever it was called and went to these swimming events with her two children every year as part of her membership of this association (which we all knew was nonsense). I couldn’t find the girl so I set out to walk across the road when I was almost run down again by the car. I found it with its rear end sticking out into the street. They were about to work on it so I had a few words with them about it. A local policeman turned up and began to defend them which I thought was completely wrong. He was giving me all kinds of reasons and excuses why and I wasn’t having any of it. It was all turning into a very awkward situation

Beautiful cars, Austin Metropolitans. When I was young there were two dumped on waste land in Wistaston for years. The last time I actually saw one though was IN MAINE IN 2015. They were exported to North America in droves, where they were called Nash Metropolitans

After doing this I was keeping a close eye on the clock thinking “in 10 minutes I can go for my breakfast at 10:00” but all of a sudden it was 11:55 and I’ve no idea regrettably to where that 2 hours disappeared. Ahh well …

This afternoon was pretty much the same – trying to write radio notes in the middle of disappearing half-hours and so on. It doesn’t work, I promise you.

At least tea was nice – baked potato with salad and breaded quorn fillets as usual. Monotonous but tasty.

But something else that is monotonous is bedtime. However I’m thoroughly wasted and a good early night might help. I certainly hope so. And the problem with going to bed early is that it makes the wife put on weight.
Single women come home, see what’s in the fridge and go to bed.
Married women come home, see what’s in the bed and go to the fridge.

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!

Saturday 18th May 2024 – THEY’VE DONE IT!

After all of this bad news and negativity that’s been going around and about just recently, it’s nice to have some good news to report for a change

But anyway it’s a pleasure to report that in the close season this year it will be the turn of the Cofi Army to hit the road out Europe way as Caernarfon Town swept aside Penybont for that discretional place in European club competition in front of a massive crowd that must in modern times at least be a club record

Last night I’d gone to bed, later than I would have liked of course, full of eager anticipation for this game.

Wales has traditionally three spots in European competition, one spot in the Champions League and two spots in the Europa League.

These spots are traditionally won by TNS, COnnah’s Quay Nomads and Bala Town but every so often there’s a fourth discretionary place awarded and then there’s a play-off between clubs between 4th and 7th

This is the “real” cup final because it gives the lesser clubs something to play for and an opportunity to sample the delights of European football

But for me, for some reason last night was quite turbulent. I went to bed in the “old” way which caused me no pain at all which was nice, but I kept tossing and turning, and couldn’t really settle down to sleep.

Nevertheless I must have gone to sleep at some point because I was dead to the world when the alarm went off. I fell out of bed, switched off the alarm and headed for the bathroom

One good wash and change of clothes later I was in the dining area taking my medication and then setting out the room as the nurse likes it.

He didn’t have much to say when he came and was soon gone. But then I had a problem – I couldn’t rise out of the chair on which I was sitting. I knew that it was going to be a bad day today.

Once I managed to rise to my feet, after a great battle, I began to make my broccoli stalk soup. I put a great deal of effort, not to mention a pot of soya yoghurt, into it and it was really delicious today with freshly ground black pepper and fresh home-made bread.

Nevertheless, I still fell asleep drinking a mug of strong coffee. It must be one of the pills that I’m taking that’s doing this.

Eventually I pulled myself around and went into the bedroom to check my messages and mails. And it seems that I have to go to the hospital in Paris on June 12 for a check-up and hopefully receive he results of my stay there the other week. They’ll have loads of news for me, and I bet that it’ll all be bad

Judging by the amount of stuff on the dictaphone the night must have been disturbed. In my version of “The Horror of War” or whatever it was called, when the Americans tried to make good their getaway in World War I from the prison camp they would actually succeed. Some would go to ground amongst the native population and some would head west looking for a front line to dodge behind. I don’t think that they would be still there sitting there in bed and waiting for something to happen to them if they had already broken out and made arrangements for where to go. It would be most unlikely that they would be just sitting there. They would be up there somewhere doing something and trying to be involved in the action and get away from their captivity.

And then I’d been doing something in Brussels. That involved staying in someone’s house while all this was done. It was some kind of work in the street but on the last day I decided that this would be it and I’d go home on the last train so I had to do what I was doing then come back to where I was living, change and then go back in the rain to give the final orders and then go straight to the station to catch the train home. As I was washing and putting on my clean clothes there were all kinds of disturbances. The girl who lived there came in to me to ask me if I’d show the owner of the house how to make an apple pie. I thought that this was the last thing that I needed at this time of night. I wanted to be off but the quicker that I did it, the quicker I’d be finished so I went over to see what he’d done. He’d done the pastry in a strange way. He’s cut it into eighths but in the circular way round do there wasn’t a bottom or top, just like eight slices of pie crust. Of course they had all to be joined together and the filling had to go in, the top had to go on. I thought to myself that the people were making this thing much more complicated than it ought to be but that was just how things used to go. No-one seemed to know just how to do anything ordinary and straightforward. It all had to be so complicated.

And that’s another story of my life, isn’t it? If there’s a simple way of doing something and a complicated way of doing it, you can bet your life which one anyone would choose when I’m involved. Even I’m not immune from this myself

I was in this big German prisoner-of-war camp in Russia weeding the garden and the band suddenly began to play the national anthem. It took me a few minutes to cotton on to what was happening nut suddenly I realised that it was the German national anthem and that meant that they were planning an escape. I wasn’t sure who was escaping but I learnt later on that 20 guys from hut two had escaped. For some reason I was held responsible for it. Whilst no real punitive action was taken against me I was treated like a prisoner, being shackled, by being … indistinct … I felt in the end it probably wouldn’t have ended up better for me had I tried to escape with the others rather than stay behind. I certainly couldn’t have been worse-treated once they left. And then one of the members playing the second time, I was supposed to either sing some songs or write some songs, the songs that shouldn’t have music and they turned out to be tracks off the album that were played to basically accompany the escape. Most of them were not good at all

Back in this dream again, the composer was well-known but he was not in the camp, he was dead so I took it that this was the signal for an escape. I was puzzled why I hadn’t been told about it seeing that I was one of the leaders of the camp from the prisoners’ point of view. Anyway everyone was immediately confined to bed. I saw my moment and escaped. Schopenhauser or whoever wrote it originally had chosen a different moment to escape but I chose that one. In the end I ended up down in the south of Germany where this girl tried to persuade me to help her paint her toenails red but I was unable to do so … fell asleep here …

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I don’t actually “fall asleep” because I’m already asleep when I’m dictating. What happens is that the disctaphone goes silent and eventually you hear deep rhythmic breahinf and occasional snoring.

But what’s going on with this obsession with prison camps tonight then?

Our nurse went to the local council tip during the night to throw away all of her incriminating paperwork. On the way her little brown Clio was involved in an accident with a couple of guys. It wasn’t particularly badly damaged or anything like that but it made her reflect for a couple of minutes and led to something of an argument before she agreed to invite the guys to her house one day when she wouldn’t be there. So she went there and threw away all of her paperwork. Then she was talking about this and that as if she’d already spoken to the female guards about it. They’d had some kind of friendly interaction but it didn’t sound right by the way that this dream was going. I think that she was trying to avoid all kinds of interaction while she disposed of this incriminating … fell asleep here …

“Si” is the French way of contradicting someone so this dentist woman or whatever she was started to use it to correct members of her team and then their team had been exposed to the Germans and they should make ready for a rather rapid flight before the Germans came along to arrest them.

Some of the stuff about which I dream really is bizarre for sure and quite often there’s no logical explanation for it. I often wonder what goes on in the depths of my subconscious.

Rosemary had left a message for me to call her so I gave her a “quick” ring – “quick’ being 56 minutes this afternoon while we put the World to rights as usual

And then it was the football.

For a town with a population of less than 10,000, a crowd of over 2,000 is immense but they were there singing away and cheering on their team

And their team rewarded them by roaring into a three-goal lead in the first 35 minutes with some beautiful play down the wings that tore the Penybont defence to shreds

Penybont pulled one back right at the death and quite right too as they played the more classy football. We had the usual chaos in the Caernarfon defence that we have had for several seasons too but they rode their luck

At the end of the game the fans flooded onto the pitch and the party began. For a club that was on the verge of extinction and in the third tier of football 15 years ago, the devotion of the fans, the most passionate in Europe, saved the club and they now have their reward

If you want to see the highlights of the game THEY ARE HERE

But as I said earlier, it’s this discretionary fourth place that has permitted all kinds of Welsh Clubs to sample European football, even Cefn Druids from the second tier one year.

After this I fell asleep for a while until tea time, and then baked potatoes, salad and one of my favourite quorn fillets.

But I broke another plate when I dropped a jar of pickled onions onto it. Luckily not one of my dinner service plates, but it’s still very bad news. I don’t know what’s the matter with me right now.

Right now though I’m off to bed. Tomorrow is another day and, I hope, a better one

And just be glad that Penybont didn’t play Their new signing. That guy who is half man, half horse
… "and who is he" – ed …
Why, their new centaur-forward of course.

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

11th May 2024 – I’VE HAD A …

… footfest this afternoon. It’s the semi-finals of the play-offs to decide which Welsh team will take the fourth place allotted to Wales in European Club competition in the forthcoming season.

TNS will go into the Champions League, hoping to qualify for the group stages at long last

Connah’s Quay and Y Bala will go into the Europa League by virtue of finishing second and third, and another place in the Europa League due to Wales will be awarded to the winner of the playoffs

And so we started off with Y Drenewydd v Penybont followed by Caernarfon v Cardiff Metro.

As you might expect, I was quite looking forward to it all. And for the first time since I can’t remember, I was actually in bed before 23:00. And that’s not something that happens all that often these days. I could have been in bed much earlier than I was too but with all of the aches and pains that I was carrying, it was really difficult to actually get into bed.

With having this early night, I was looking forward to a long, undisturbed sleep but it wasn’t to be. It was a really disturbed, turbulent night.

There was another phantom alarm call and I forget how many of these we’ve had just recently. I’ve no idea what’s going on with them – where they are coming from and what they are doing – but it’s certainly confusing.

When the real alarm went off I found that it was easier to move out of bed. Many of the aches and pains had gone and the pain in my hip had reduced a little and I could lift my leg more.

So now that I was out of bed I went to the bathroom and then into the dining area for my medication.

Having done that I set out the room for the nurse and came in here to see what’s happening in the big wide world. But as any student of history will tell you, the news today is just the same things happening to different people in different places at different times.

After the nurse had gone, having given me a shopping list of items needed, I came in here for a relax. And then I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I had another niece last night. It was a non-existent niece, someone small and petite. She sat and we chatted for ages about her course and the future. When she was ready to go I asked her where she was staying. She hadn’t booked anywhere so I told her that my settee was really comfortable and she was welcome to stay on it. She wondered how any other person was going to stay there because there were two nieces wandering around and how I was going to distinguish which was which too. That was easy because one had a tie with a small emblem on it. The other one had a tie with a big emblem on it so I could distinguish them by that. I could see that this was going to be complicated but it didn’t seem to bother me on the ground that it’s all going to work out normally anyway. Then we had someone coming, brandishing a gun and being obnoxious. I don’t know what he wanted or anything like that but he totally disrupted everything that we were trying to do.

That’s nothing new. Whenever I was trying to do something back in the old days, there would always be someone coming along being obnoxious and trying to disrupt whatever it was that I was doing. And if there was a young girl involved anywhere, you could bet your life that they’d be down in droves to put le baton dans la roue as they say around here.

Then at one point a girl was pouring some new information into my travelling laptop. I was very concerned so I awoke to try to stop her but just at the point where it became liquid memory she began to pour the liquid memory I had to shout at her to make her stop and I really did shout as well. I washed hem and got ready and ended up back in bed until the alarm

Yes, I really did shout in the middle of my sleep. It’s a good job that these walls are 1m20 of solid granite or whatever would the neighbours have said?

Then we finished off with this complicated story about addition and subtraction over the numbers. I had quite a batch to do which I did mainly right and managed to ensure my team’s presence in the Scottish League 2 next season

And that reminds me – we have the first leg of the playoffs between Stranraer of Scottish League 2 and East Kilbride of the Scottish Lowland League at some point this weekend.

And then I had a message. There’s an “issue” simmering in the UK that’s been simmering away for almost 30 years. I think that I’ve mentioned this before. It’s now erupted and like Pandora’s Box, once the lid is off then that’s it.

There’s a considerable amount of work that needs to be done that should really have been done 40 years ago but it wasn’t, and the events of the last 28 years haven’t helped. So if you see me loitering on Boots Corner any time, you’ll know why I’m there.

After this I crashed out – from 10:00 until 11:50. Dead to the World as well. But not that I’m complaining this time because I saw Zero. While I was asleep this morning I was with a former friend. I’d finally managed to persuade him to come to see me with the intentions of thrashing out some programme about repairing all these cars that I have. I’d walked down this track through this forest and encountered Zero playing in a school playground so we’d chatted but that was all. I pushed on and came across my former friend and we began to chat. I was going to tell him that I had £90:000 for the programme but we never reached that far in the discussion. We had several bikes ad had to move them by moving two, dropping them down, running back for two more and advancing lie this. At one point I had to run back miles because the exhaust had dropped off a motor bike we were moving. While I was up on top of this grassy bank my former friend came back to see what I was doing so I showed him. He was furious. “this is jus attention to detail” he raged and urged me to hurry up. By now this grassy bank had changed into a roof with a chimney and some dormer windows and I couldn’t work out how to descend. I thought that manoeuvring by holding on to the chimney and pivoting round by hanging on to the edge of the dormer window would be my best bet but the window opened and I was left dangling in thin air with no prospect whatever of improving my position.

It was really nice to see Zero of course but this “no prospect of improving my position” sounds like how my finances will be in a few months after the news that I received earlier.

By now, breakfast had become lunch so I fuelled up with food and then settled down to watch the football.

Y Drenewydd finished 4th in the league and Penybont 7th so the game was held at Drenewydd. But home advantage counted for nothing as they were swept aside by what can only be described as a Penybont masterclass.

The game finished 5-0 for Penybont and believe me – Y Drenewydd were lucky to get nil. They were awful. It wasn’t just that Penybont were so good but that Y Drenewydd offered nothing at all

The other game between 5th and 6th and played at Caernarfon in front of a massive crowd was much more exciting.

Caernarfon roared down the left flank with a combination of Louis LLoyd and Morgan Owen more times than you can mention but the final ball was always either too short of too long.

On the other hand the Met soaked up the pressure and tried to hit on the breakaway and had three excellent chances to score but couldn’t find the target.

The game was drifting to a 0-0 draw and penalties when Marc Williams drilled a powerful shot through a crowd of players into the net

And as Cardiff Metro were throwing everything forward to try to equalise in the closing stages a breakaway involving Sion Bradley and Adam Davies saw Davies score a second for the Cofis

So the final next weekend will be between Caernarfon and Penybont and played at Caernarfon.

And then, dear reader, I crashed out again. And for an hour or so too.

Tea tonight was one of my breaded quorn fillets with baked potato and salad. I know that it’s monotonous, but it’s also delicious.

So that’s all that I’m doing tonight. I’m going to try to be in bed early and see if Zero will come back into my dreams.

And I’ll tell her "I dreamed about you this morning"
"Did you?" she’ll reply.
"No" I’ll answer. "You wouldn’t let me".

Friday 10th May 2024 – ON TOP OF SPAGHETTI …

… all covered in cheese
I lost my poor meatball
when somebody sneezed
It rolled onto the table
then onto the floor
and then my poor meatball
went out of the door

Well, I didn’t have spaghetti and cheese, and no-one sneezed but one of my vegan meatballs did make a break for freedom this evening and I intercepted it as it was heading for the door.

But what kind of state am I in that I can throw half of my dinner onto the floor like that? Things are not looking so good.

And indeed they aren’t. I was late going to bed last night and because of all my aches and pains it took me an absolute age to find a comfortable position to go to sleep

It was rather a turbulent night too and I really didn’t like the idea of hauling myself out of bed when the alarm went off.

Still, nevertheless I did and having switched it off I headed for the bathroom and then the dining area to take my medication and to sort out everything ready for the nurse.

As I can’t seem to move my hip right now she had to grovel on the floor at my feet in order to change my dressing and put on my puttees. I’m sure that she’s not too happy about the idea but then again neither am I.

After she left I came in here to vegetate for a while and then went for breakfast – cheese on toast and hot strong coffee

Back in here after my delicious food I crashed out for an hour or so – well away with the fairies I was – before having a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I was during the night.

I was with a group of people last night. We were driving around the town visiting all kinds of different places. There was a girl in this group who I really liked but most of the time some other guy insisted on sitting in the front passenger seat. I was beginning to become annoyed by this because it was obvious what I was doing and what I was after. I was after this girl but he wouldn’t understand and this carried on and on and on. One day we were in the centre of Nantwich. We parked up on the Swine Market and all swarmed out of the car. Just then a group of motorcycles turned up. This girl crossed over the road and went straight to one of these motorcyclists. She said to me in passing “isn’t it wonderful ; (… so and so…) is back. He’s been away in the Isle of Man doing 23 teenagers. I replied sarcastically “so he says”. She was insistent that it was true. Then she began to describe her relationship with him in the most intimate of details but of course I had no interest in hearing it at all but she did carry on and on. I wondered whether her aim was to make me aware of the fact that she wasn’t as interested in me as I was in her.

Thinking on, it’s been a while since we’ve been to Nantwich on a nocturnal ramble. At one time we would be there all the time. But this story about me being more interested in some girls than they are of me – that’s the story of my life too.

Later on we were playing a game of football against a team wearing dark blue shirts with numbers on them. The font was a short, fat one and knew immediately who the team was because of the colour of the shirt and the font that they used but I just couldn’t think of it as the game went on. It was really annoying me that my memory had gone.

And I di know who wears navy blue shorts with numbers done in a font like that but can I think of it while I’m awake, up and about?

There were all kinds of things going through my head later on. I dreamed that I was asleep, up and about, and there was the possibility to swap this illness for a different type of illness that I needed to think and consider. They were talking about making a drink but I thought that I’d have it instead of my morning hot chocolate at 10:00 or maybe I’d have it at some other time. I couldn’t believe that I was actually in bed and hadn’t arisen yet. There were lots more things like that in the dream but they must just have evaporated just as soon as I awoke.

It’s quite true that I dreamed that I was awake, up and about and had a shock (in my sleep) to find out (in my sleep) that I was still in bed.

There was something else about a girl who was going to have a visit. They wondered what language the visit was going to be in but in the end they decided that it would be in French. The girl set to to clean out her room but when she moved the chest of drawers that was in the corner she found a cockroach nest. She was horrified and ran off, searching for some boiling water to pour on them

Then I was going for an exam level 3 to decide whether I was capable of living on my own or whether I’d still need a chaperone. It included a romantic assignment with a girl or woman which was worrying me because I’m not the sort of person who would do that anyway. I wouldn’t know where to begin but that was how it is. I found when I opened the zip file that all the names of the files in there were all confused. It wasn’t easy to work out which file I wanted. I began to make some kind of list myself. I thought that it would be much better if I could write to the organisers, tell them what a mess they’d made of this and explain a better way of doing it to them, where all the files for each exam were all in a different folder and all clearly labelled with the correct name on it instead of being some haphazard jungle like it was.

Of course I’m not fit to live on my own and ought to have a chaperone. I’d certainly never pass this romantic assignment test, that’s for sure. But it would be just like me to spend my time sorting out their filing system rather than doing anything positive for this test.

This afternoon I had a leisurely saunter through the remaining radio notes for this latest programme. Fighting off (not always successfully) wave after wave of sleep I managed to complete them all, so that’s another good job done. I really must find some quiet time to dictate them one of these days, if only all the tourists would go home

Tea tonight was a vegan salad with chips done in the air fryer with a few vegan meatballs – not as many as I planned. And now I’m off to bed. Every bone in my body is aching right now and I’m feeling awful. A good night’s sleep flat-out in bed might do me good.

At least all of these aches and pains aren’t like the guy who came into my office with a stiff neck once
"How did you get that?" I enquired
"It’s my own fault" he replied. "I didn’t swallow the viagra quickly enough last night"

4th May 2024 – HAPPY STAR WARS DAY …

.. to all of my readers. May the fourth be with you!

What I hope is that you have had a good day today. As for me, I’ve had a better day, but then again that’s not saying all that much.

After I’d finished my notes last night I had a rush around and was actually in bed by 23:03. That’s quite early for recent times but still later than I would like it to be, with an alarm call at 07:00.

Once in bed I didn’t remember anything at all – I certainly can’t remember any phantom alarm calls going off that would awaken me

When the real alarm did actually go off I was a little boy in bed with a little girl. My mother came in and said that she was glad to see me awake and glad to see me and that the two of us had got on so well together and she was going to sing a song to awaken both of us. Just at that moment BILLY COTTON roared his “wakey waaaa….key” and I didn’t find it funny in the least.

It’s very strange but the number of times something in real life has synchronised with something in a dream, such as my mother about to sing to wake me up and we have the alarm going off just at that moment. It’s not every time, of course, but it’s an unusual percentage of times that’s higher than you might think.

Anyway I wandered off for a wash and for my medication.

Having set out the room as the nurse likes it to be, he came down after seeing to my neighbour upstairs, changed the dressing on my foot and put on my puttees. And the wound on my foot is certainly looking much better than it did several weeks ago. That’s good news.

After he left I came back in here where I crashed out – the first of several times today. I’m not doing too well from that point of view.

As for my breakfast, I did manage to stay awake long enough to make and eat my cheese on toast and coffee. And the bread that I made yesterday is really good too. I was quite impressed with that lot of baking – almost as impressed as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin all those years ago.

Once I’d finally awoken I went for a wash and a shave and sure enough, at 14:00 I had a visitor. One of my fellow students on my Welsh course is retired and spends months driving around Europe in his caravanette. He’s turned up in Granville this morning so he came for a coffee and a chat.

And wasn’t it lovely to see him? I don’t have enough visits, which is a shame

After he left I transcribed the dictaphone notes. I was with Nerina last night. She’d come back home and we were together, but it wasn’t at all what she was expecting. She realised that my routine had changed so what she decided was that some time during the following day we’d both sit down and thrash out some rules for some kind of co-existence. I was willing to listen but obviously I wasn’t going to agree to any of the rules that might change my life drastically from how it is. Nevertheless I was interested to see exactly what her proposals might be. Of course they might affect other people like the district nurse coming round but that was something that we’d have to see about and have to negotiate anyway so that we could have some kind of life in common rather than living as two individuals in the same house

The biggest change would be that I can’t walk anywhere these days. I’m stuck inside this building and not able to go out. I’m not sure what other changes there would be after 30-odd years but there would bound to be some. The fact that I don’t have to go to work and so can have a more regulated lifestyle would be a big change for a start

There was also something else going on too about living together. A young mother named Maggie had moved in with a guy called Bill in the suburbs of Glasgow because it seemed like the best opportunity she was going to find to escape the kind of squalor in which she’d been living. His lifestyle didn’t conform to what she was expecting either so it was necessary to get together and thrash out rules between him and her but she was far less optimistic that some kind of arrangement suiting both parties would be found and considered it a great challenge to try to persuade him to conform to certain ideals of communal life in the middle of all of this Glasgow gang warfare that was going on around these tenements

There are several people whom I know who can’t bear to be on their own and have to be with someone else regardless of how it turns out. For one or two of them, it’s turned out really well but for the most part it’s been something of a disaster and they just move on to the next, with predictable results.

The res of the day, when I’ve not been asleep, has been dealing with the blog entries from when I was in Canada in 2022. The photos and the corresponding text needs to be added in so I’ve been working on that.

There’s only a handful of photos left to do but they won’t be done tomorrow as I’ll be baking biscuits. I’m running right out of those at the moment. I’m just trying to think about what kind of biscuits I should make. The last lot were chocolate biscuits and the ones before that were honey biscuits.

Tea tonight was one of my breaded quorn fillets with a salad and a baked potato. Quite delicious as usual, especially the potato cooked for 5 minutes in the microwave and then 15 minutes in the air fryer.

Pudding was delicious too. Some of the strawberries that I bought the other day soaked in a vegan cream. And there are more strawberries and cream for tomorrow after the pizza.

But right now, that’s it. My eyesight has deteriorated rapidly since yesterday and I can’t really see what I’m doing.

And that’s a problem. Not like when I lived down on the farm. It was such a small village that even though I might not have had a clue what I was doing, all the neighbours knew

Friday 3rd May 2024 – I’VE HAD A …

… bad day today.

Actually, it was a bad afternoon, to be honest. In the morning I was extremely busy, as you’ll find out in a moment or two.

But it’s no surprise that the afternoon wasn’t very good. It was yet another night where I ended up in bed much later than I would have liked, and the night was somewhat turbulent too. There was a huge pile of stuff on the dictaphone.

When the alarm went off though I was fast asleep so I fell out of bed and switched it off before staggering off to the bathroom

After I’d had the medication I made a start and began to prepare the dough for the weekend’s bread

While the bread was busy proofing the nurse came round to see me, to change the dressing on the foot and to put on my puttees. He was actually born in Flanders and so we spent some time talking about Belgium and in particular the linguistic war between the Flemish and the French

After he left I gave the bread its second kneading and then baked it. And for once I have some perfect bread rolls, exactly as they ought to be and I’m well-impressed. They are without doubt the best bread rolls I have ever made.

While the bread was baking I was busy making some broccoli stalk soup with the aid of a couple of small potatoes, a large onion, some garlic, herbs and, when it was almost finished cooking, a tub of soya yoghurt.

The soup with some nice fresh bread was absolutely delicious. There’s nothing quite like it, except of course my carrot and ginger soup. I’ve not made one of those for ages though, and maybe perhaps I ought to have another go at that in due course

That was when my problems began because I fell asleep at the table while drinking my coffee. Yes, don’t let anyone tell you that coffee keeps you awake. There have been many times when I’ve fallen asleep with a mug of coffee in my hand, half drunk.

And that, regrettably, is how it’s been for most of the afternoon, fighting off wave after wave of sleep, sometimes not successfully. And I’m really fed up of it. I can’t do anything at all when this kind of thing happens and there’s so much to do

My cleaner came down for a whizz through the apartment and while she was doing her stuff I transcribed the dictaphone notes -all of them. There was something going on with our Welsh group. We’d formed a band of some description and were being led by someone. We ended up somewhere in the countryside and had to go somewhere so everyone set off. They were going at a much more rapid pace than I could keep up but that didn’t seem to matter. I was just falling behind all the time carrying these two huge cymbals. They went down a hill at one point and then climbed up the side of a bank. I thought that I’m never ever going to climb that bank at all but in the end I worked out that if I began to climb the bank at a much earlier point I could traverse my way across and make it to the top and even save a little time that way. I managed to get very close to them but they went off down this farm track at a really rapid rate of knots. I was staggering on behind, tangled in barbed wire and other kinds of wire etc. The we eventually arrived at a stadium-type of place. I had no idea what was happening or what we were supposed to be doing, how we were going to be doing it, but they’d come here in such a determined fashion that they obviously knew about it but I didn’t. I was having a feeling that I was being somehow squeezed out

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have in fact fallen way behind the rest of my group and that’s how it’s been for a while – since I went to Canada in 2022 in fact. One month there and then two months in hospital knocked a big hole in my learning and not being able to concentrate afterwards hasn’t helped in the slightest. I wish I knew what I was doing but at the moment I’m just stumbling along

Later on we were doing some kind of disco. We were all there and the music was playing. One or two people were dancing on the stage but not many people were there at all really. They asked me why I wasn’t dancing but I didn’t really have a reply. In the end I climbed up on the stage and began to dance about which seemed to satisfy them. There were still not very many people there. Just as another girl began to climb onto the stage the record ended and they switched to a waltz. I grabbed hold of the girl and waltzed with her. At first it was complicated as I tried to remember the steps and I tripped on her feet but eventually it all came back. I began to waltz with her and it was really quite a good dance. But then the record ended and I thought “what’s going to happen now? How are things going to pan out? Who’s going to do what, when and where?” It seemed that the evening wss just being left hanging in the air like that

That reminds me of a night on board THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR. Someone struck up a waltz so I picked one of the females (it wasn’t Castor) and waltzed off with her down the deck. I don’t know who was more surprised – she who didn’t think that I would be the type of person to waltz or me that I could actually remember how to do it without stepping on her toes.

Then it was necessary to change my clothes. I’m not sure why even though I was dressed in a convicts uniform type of thig I was still quite comfortable but gradually people were changing out of their uniforms into civilian clothes, plain clothes so I thought that I would too but there was really no possibility of escape. All I wanted to do was to sit down and have a great big relaxation somehow but it wasn’t going to happen with all of this going on. I was still going to be quite wound up going in towards breakfast

Then the alarm went off and I was about to haul myself out of bed when it suddenly cut out. We had the “ladies and …” bit it stopped before it said “… gentlemen”. Then I realised that everyone was helping the children in the nursery which was probably why they didn’t want any men about the premises so I went outside. I couldn’t see anything happening. It didn’t look to me as if the children were leaving the school but it was all about the statistics so I’ve no idea what had gone off and awoken us if it wasn’t this alarm

As you can imagine, it wasn’t my alarm at all. For a start, mine doesn’t go “Ladies and gentlemen …” but it’s the good old Billy Cotton WAKEY WAAAA…. KEY that wakes up not just me but the rest of the building and half the street.

Then a voice was crying “a third! A third!”. I’ve no idea what was going on but there were a couple of empty banana-flavoured Alpro cartons lying around. For some reason I wasn’t allowed to drink anything so I started to look for a pair of scissors to cut into them so that the patients who were in the ward that I was controlling could drink them themselves.

At 05:20 I had to work out which woman had lost her bloomers in one of the dances because the bloomers fell to the floor and you could see them in the middle of the dance floor but no-one seemed to own up and accept responsibility for it so I thought that I’d go to have a look to see if I could work out whose they were. They’d obviously want them back and of course if they could actually find them.

It beats me why I noted the time here, but it’s certainly interesting that someone should lose her bloomers and then ignore the fact. It brings insouciance to a whole new level.

The whole thing dissolved into a St Trinians-type of farce with the buses pulling up in Gresty Road and all the kids streaming out and going off down Claughton Avenue towards the school. There were several new teachers there, one of whom was clearly disorientated so he’d have to sort himself out but another one seemed to be at least vaguely interested, a big, heavy guy so in a group we all swarmed down with the children. At the corner of the street where there was a turn-off for the hall there was some person who was a kind-of teacher, a male organiser who was taking everyone’s name and finding out which alternative subjects they wanted to do, being friendly and cheerful, chatting to everyone. The big, heavy new guy turned up and the light-hearted teacher-type of person said “I can see that you have a great big frame. You’re obviously right for the rugby team”. The fellow admitted that he played rugby so he was immediately signed up. On the way down the avenue these new teachers were extremely perplexed because they couldn’t work out why we were going down there and couldn’t work out why the school would be down there. Of course they clearly had no idea what kind of school it was and why it should be situated in such a very poor area and that so they were going to be in for a dreadful shock when they finally arrived there and met the other teachers and the children.

My opinion is that if they were to have a girls’ school in Claughton Avenue in Crewe it would make St Trinians look like a kindergarten. And it wouldn’t need teachers either but wardens. It’s not exactly the calmest and most peaceful street in Crewe.

Later on, after another wave of sleep, I went for tea. Some of those delicious vegan nuggets with salad and chips thanks to my cleaner who brought me some potatoes today. It really did go down well and I was good and ready for it too. At least I have my appetite back.

So now I’m going to make a really big effort to go to bed early. I might have visitors tomorrow so I need to be on form.

But talking to the nurse about the linguistic wars reminds me of an incident that took place on the linguistic border between Waterloo and St Genesius-Rode.
As you drive into Waterloo there’s a sign that says the town name. Underneath it they fixed a plaque "You are now in Wallonie. Here we speak French"
On the other side of the sign it said “Sint Genesius-Rode” and following the posting of the Wallonie plaque the citizens of Sint Genesius Rode put up a plaque that said "You are now in Flanders. Here we work"

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: air fryer

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