Tag Archives: Nerina Hall

Thursday 3rd October 2024 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER …

… early start this morning.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I was actually in the bathroom having a good wash.

It wasn’t as if it was a particularly early night either. It wasn’t very far off 23:00 but still rather the wrong side of it by the time that I’d finished everything that I needed to do and found the energy to haul myself up out of my comfortable chair.

One thing though – and that I didn’t need much rocking. I’d barely started my little mantra before I was off away with the fairies.

It was something of a turbulent night too with a fair amount of tossing and turning as I struggled to make myself comfortable. And at least I wasn’t being wracked with pain from my foot like the previous night.

But wide-awake at 06:00 and I couldn’t go back to sleep no matter how I tried and by 06:45 I gave it up as a bad job and hauled myself out of my stinking pit.

Apart from a good wash, I had a shave and a change of clothes. After all, it’s dialysis later and I might even get to see Emilie the Cute Consultant if I’m lucky. I can but hope.

Back here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out if I’d been anywhere. And I was astonished by the distance that I must have travelled during the night.

Oui – j’étais hospitalisé I was kept in hospital. I was taken away to a bed, installed there and then left. Some time later I had to race to the bathroom. I managed that and when I came back there were quite a few people standing around who seemed quite concerned about what I was doing. I managed to make my way through the crowd and back to bed which this five circles was some kind of burnt wrestling ground. Then going off along the coast I was being put away I passed the postal town of Sandwich so I explained to my aunt (…fell asleep here …) I’ve fallen asleep dictating again, haven’t I? So where was I? Yes, I was in a hospital. People were interested in me etc. I left the bed to go to the bathroom and when I came back there was a crowd of people around my bed. One of them was a doctor. She came over and began to chat to me, quite friendly and quite socially so I wondered what I’d done to her to make her behave like that.

What’s impressive about this is that I was “asleep” for 53 minutes and could still remember some of the dream well enough to repeat it. As for the town of Sandwich, we were there just now with Thomas Wright and that’s why maybe I remember it. It’s the old stamping ground of my mother who was raised just along the coast at Birchington so naturally her sister would be there too.

I had a girlfriend who had started work delivering pizzas at a new pizza place on Nantwich Road in Crewe near the Royal Hotel so I went along to see how she was doing. While we were chatting she had a job to do so she went out and left me behind. I noticed that the pizzas there were really cheap, starting at £3:50. I asked the girl who was serving if they were busy. She replied that they had only just opened. They had noticed that Nantwich Road was the main centre of nightlife in Crewe so they thought that they’d tap into it, people going all along Nantwich Road rather than down to the town centre. They’d had a branch in Nantwich at one time but they had closed it after a few weeks because they wanted to concentrate their efforts on Crewe, which probably meant that they weren’t doing anything in Nantwich at all. She was quite sociable too and had a good long chat with me while I waited for my girlfriend to come back

There was in fact an Italian restaurant that opened just along there and we went to it a few times. It wasn’t too bad, I suppose. For Crewe it was quite exotic but by Italian standards it was rather sad. The location, on the main road across South Cheshire to the M6, didn’t help matters much

A short while later we were in a blue Ford Cortina like PMB, a Cortina Mk I. We turned up at a car park and pulled up. I still had the lights on so a couple of people began to sit down and eating something. I told them that I was – my girlfriend told them that we were going to turn off the lights as we had to protect the battery and did they mind?. While we were talking their car rolled out of the parking space and rolled across the road and hit a van that was embedded in the wall, a Bedford CA. We then had to sort this out. We found the owner of the Bedford CA – he was someone living nearby. They arranged that they’d move their car back into the car parking space and push this van back across the road into this person’s drive. There was some scrap in their drive so they said that they would put the scrap in the back of the van and have it weighed in. Of course I went to have a look at the van to see if it was of any use to me. My girlfriend told me off. She said that I had enough vehicles as it was already. I thought that that was a shame because this CA seemed to be in a reasonably tidy condition.

It’s difficult to believe that I’m surrounded by girlfriends tonight after everything that I’ve been through – and girlfriends with their heads screwed on too. But the girl who was most associated with my blue Cortina was the one who, after she left school, went to Bangor University. She had her head well and truly screwed on correctly and she would have made my life hell. I would have been on a very short leash, I bet, if she had had her way.

There was a City of London University class, although it was supposed to be the University of Kent and they were building their models out of wire mesh and papier maché which I thought was interesting.

I met a lovely girl. She was young with long blond hair. I know who she is and I’ve met her before. We hit it off really well. We were chatting away and she was telling me about her car going for its MoT – Contrôle Technique – in Belgium etc. She announced, after we had been talking for about an hour that she had a boyfriend, which disappointed me but she was still extremely friendly and I liked her very much. She happened to mention that he was coming round to pick her up the following lunchtime. So I caught the bus to the town centre and walked all the way out to her house. I loitered around there for a while and sure enough this boy turned up and went there. She came out and climbed into her car, drove away and came back again. Then the two of them walked off somewhere. They walked back into the city centre so I followed them at a really discreet distance and watched them for a while. They were both in a café and when he left to go to the bathroom I just sent her a message saying coucou . I didn’t know how this would work but I had a nice, chatty message back. They walked off back into the town centre and were sitting in a café so I was quite some distance away watching them. He finally stood up and left so I walked over to her. There was a big, beaming smile on her face. She looked ever so pleased to see me. I sat down by her and we carried on talking. She was telling me that she’d been discussing babies with her boyfriend. I said “you’re not planning on having a baby yet, are you?”. She said “no, but loneliness catches up with us in the end. It’ll catch up with you, Mr Hall one day” so I laughed. We carried on having this really wonderful chat. It was ever such a nice dream and I was really sorry when it ended

It took place along Hoole Road in Chester which was where she lived and I know the café where we met the second time – a modern brick and glass place and she was sitting in a window seat. It’s a café in a shopping centre and I can’t think where. The girl, I recognised her. I know her from Hanley and she had cancer too at a young age. But following her about – perfectly normal behaviour in the perfectly normal 60s and 70s but in the paranoid World in which everyone lives today and is scared to death of just about everything, I’d probably end up with 10 years in prison.

As for babies, I have no objection whatever to taking part in the fabrication thereof but there would never be any possibility of me going into a delivery room to witness the final output. How glad I was that Nerina didn’t want a child because of that. Being the youngest in her family, she told me that she was fed up of babysitting and that was enough for her. She did though ask me once “what would you say if I said that I was pregnant?”. I remember it well because we were walking up Mill Street at the time and a comment like that took the wind right out of my sails. I replied that I’d be scared to death. I didn’t refuse outright – I would have been prepared to negotiate on one condition – that she went into the delivery room on her own and I didn’t want any recriminations afterwards about it. This phobia that I have about hospitals would never have dragged me into the delivery room but I’d be waiting when she came out. I had to go to see her once in hospital and I had a panic attack after 15 minutes and had to leave. It’s hard to explain this phobia and what I’ve been going through since November 2015. I’ve had eight years of nightmare and no-one can understand it.

And then there was another dream. We were in a car going into Crewe. It was a white Ford Cortina. When we reached Gresty we took the road that goes down through the Mucky Bridge and as we came out the other side we took the little grass road that runs into the back of Crewe. Some woman was there and for some reason she’d tied a barbed wire strand across the road but I drove right underneath it. That road brought us into Crewe by way of the old castle so I pointed out the old castle to everyone and I pointed out the view. I said that the view is so much nicer from the top of the old castle. I used to come here for lunch in the old days. We reminisced a little about those days when I lived at that end of the town, then we carried on driving into the town.

You can’t take a car down the track into Crewe from the Mucky Bridge, and there certainly isn’t a castle there. These days there’s a council estate but in my day it was open fields. In the dream though the road went along a crest with a beautiful view away down both sides across a wide valley far below. And at a certain rocky outcrop to the right there were the remains of a Norman keep. It really was stunning.

The nurse was in a much better humour this morning. I’ve not seen him like this for quite a while. He’s probably just been paid, I reckon. That’s what may well have made a difference.

After he left I made breakfast and read, not my book, but the REPORT OF THE EXCAVATION of the Anglo-Saxon Cemetery on which they were walking.

And if at any time you want to follow a course about identifying Anglo-Saxon artefacts, you can do no better than make a start by reading this publication. The author doesn’t just go into identifying an item that the team uncovered, he explains the physical characteristics of why it is what it is, and the absence of physical characteristics that makes it not something else.

It’s certainly a fascinating book from that point of view, and also from many other points of view too. It’s hard to believe that Thomas Wright and his friends, keen amateur archaeologists that they were, were walking on this cemetery without realising. And how many other Anglo-Saxon cemeteries there are that we are all walking on without realising it.

Back in here I spent the morning choosing the music for another radio programme, reformatting it, remixing it and pairing it off. That’s all done now and I’ll write the notes for it tomorrow. And I had a play on the acoustic guitar too.

My cleaner put in an appearance and put my anaesthetic patches on my arm and sorted me out, The taxi came quite early. It was one from Avranches who had dropped off a patient at the Centre de Re-education and was going to run me down the road on his way back. Not that I minded – after all, it’s free to me and I wouldn’t have this service in any other country.

We picked up a passenger on the outskirts of Avranches and our driver dropped both of us off at the Dialysis Clinic. And I must be in their bad books because I was put in one of the separate rooms today.

Emilie the Cute Consultant saw me and gave me a wave – all four fingers too, not just two. Mind you, she kept well away from my lair. She must be a regular reader of this rubbish.

There wasn’t much of a wait before I was coupled up, a lot less painlessly than some times, and I passed the afternoon reading the manual of a computer program that I’ve recently downloaded.

At one point I did doze off for about 20 minutes but after the night that I had, it’s not anything worrying.

Once they let me out there was a taxi waiting to take me home. The driver and the other passenger were in full chat mode and talked incessantly all the way home and I was exhausted just listening. After the other passenger left the car, it was my turn to be on the receiving end.

My cleaner was here waiting when I arrived and she watched me up the stairs. She thinks that there’s a great improvement in how I cope with the stairs now. Once more, I could climb the fist stair without lifting up my leg with me hand.

This is indeed progress of some sort, but we shall have to see how long it lasts. Maybe this physiotherapy and these 28 sessions at the Centre de Re-education might help me in some way. But it does seem that Paris has forgotten all about me.

Tea tonight was out of the European Burger Mountain, with pasta and veg in tomato sauce, followed by spotted dick and caramel-flavoured soya cream. I’m running out of spotted dick now and I have a fancy for an apple cake. Does anyone have a good vegan recipe, or shall I just adapt my oil cake? I seem to have some success with that.

So right now I’m off to bed. I’m baking bread tomorrow as I now have run out. I might even have ago at baking some baps, seeing as I have now run out. That will be an interesting project.

But seeing as we are talking about cemeteries … "well, one of us is" – ed …I’m reminded of the American who visited the Scottish cemetery in search of his ancestors.
He saw a grave with a headstone that read "Here lies Angus McTavish, a devoted father and loyal husband"
"Isn’t that just like the Scots" exclaimed the American "burying three men in one grave."

Tuesday 10th September 2024 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since we’ve featured an old car on these pages?

Or, more to the point, how long is it since we’ve featured a photo?

So here you are – a photo of an old Panhard C24 Coupé

One of the very last models made by Panhard, this vehicle would have been built some time between 1963-1967, but this vehicle may well be manufactured later in the range rather than earlier judging by the restyled tail lights.

Not exactly my favourite old car, the styling of these 850cc flat twins was supposed to be aerodynamic and while well in advance of its period, I didn’t find it to be an attractive design at all

Another problem was that, unlike Fords, they required a lot of care and attention to keep them on the road, and the bodywork contained some notorious rust-traps

It’s a shame that the photo hasn’t come out too well, but it was taken on the camera on the phone in the miserable grey afternoon from a moving vehicle and through the car windscreen.

No-one can be the best in these circumstances.

And neither can I, seeing as I had a horribly late night again last night.

One of my ground-hopping friends was out and about and was somewhere near Bathgate just outside Glasgow, watching the game between Armadale Thistle Ladies and Bonnyrigg Rose Ladies.

Bonnyrigg were unbeaten this season but my friend thought that Armadale would give them a good run for their money tonight so he went along and streamed the game.

He was right too. Armadale matched Bonnyrigg all the way, and their Khya McGurk scored what surely must be a goal-of-the-season contender to win the game for Armadale.

Although the game was somewhat short on skill, THIS PIECE OF SKILL ought to be enough to win any game any time anywhere in the world. Thanks to NORRIE WORK for the video clip. You can hear him going berserk in the background of the clip!

You’ll notice the copyright logo on the video extract. I’m currently experimenting with a few videos and a couple of editing programs. Until I settle on a good version and pay the unlocking fees, I’m stuck with free versions and their copyright logos.

If anyone can suggest any programs worth trying, drop me a line. There’s a “contact me” button on the bottom right of the page.

So with a horribly late night again, I crawl off to bed and there I stay until the alarm goes off. That might sound as if it’s good but believe me, I’ve slept for much longer than that and called it a bad night.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up, a shave, a complete change of clothes and I hand-washed my trousers and undies. That was rather drastic, and dramatic too, but I’m off out this afternoon, waging war.

First task though was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I can’t believe that I’m standing in a queue at an event somewhere or other and there are four people around me. Every single one of them speaks Welsh. There’s me, there’s that girl who looks like my friend from Trefynnon, there’s a guy called Gareth Owen and he’s speaking Welsh to Nerina who’s replying. I thought that there’s something totally strange happening here. We’re just in queue for a coffee at some kind of festival

That’s what I dictated anyway. And you wouldn’t have caught Nerina speaking a different language. She was a mathematician and computer person and therein lay her talents. But it’s not every day that I’m dreaming in Welsh. It’s really getting to me, isn’t it?

Isabelle the nurse came to see me too. She gave me the injection and fixed my puttees (which fell down shorty afterwards) while she told me about her walking holiday in Brittany. It was of interest to me because one summer in the mid-70s I went hitch-hiking around Finisterre and enjoyed every single minute of it.

Our Welsh course started up again today so I did some revision, of the wrong unit as it happened (which depressed me immensely) and then I had to abandon the lesson because the taxi came early.

We then had to drive around Granville picking up two others, and then the driver made a complete hash of leaving the town and we ended up stuck for ages behind a tractor. Mind you, if we’d gone the way that I would have gone, we’d have been ages earlier but we’d have missed the Panhard

That vehicle crossed our path somewhere near Sartilly and we followed it until it turned off on the outskirts of Avranches.

The hospital where I had all of these problems is installing a pay barrier, and that tells you everything you need to know about the hospital, its financial situation and why it’s trying to do its best to hang onto my money.

Because of our problems, I was late for my appointment and the doctor was waiting. I’d hardly got into my stride before he was full of apology for what had happened and was issuing instructions to his secretary.

The appointment didn’t last long. He looked at the reports, didn’t even look at his work, and gave the all-clear for dialysis to start. Apparently I’ll be “hearing from” the dialysis clinic.

There was then a phone call – from the hospital administration. Full of apologies (and excuses) but they have prepared a cheque and it will be sent to me “in the next couple of days”. We shall see.

The driver to take me home was my favourite Rastaman driver. After we’d dropped off some other passengers around Avranches and he’d given me a sightseeing tour of the town we set off for home.

He’s the most amenable of the drivers and as there were now just the two of us we stopped at the bank in Sartilly where at long last I was able to activate my new bank card, which pleases me no end.

At Granville my faithful cleaner was waiting and she stood and watched, impressed beyond belief, as I took myself up the stairs without help.

How long this will go on I really don’t know, but make the most of it!

She had some good news to tell me too about my ground-floor apartment. We’ll see how that develops too.

After she left I had a very late lunch and came in here where, true to form these days, I crashed out.

Just before I slid off into oblivion the dialysis clinic rang. I will have my dialysis on Thursdays, Saturdays and … errr … Mondays. Putting my foot down about Tuesdays has worked.

Afternoon though, not morning, but you can’t have everything I suppose. At least I have two full days in the week free. Roll on the Physiotherapy classes!

And then they called me back. I’ll have to go earlier than planned because the nurses are refusing to apply this anaesthetic cream stuff. But don’t worry – they’ll organise the taxis.

With some time to go before tea I attacked the paperwork again and sorted out some more stuff. The desktop is positively empty at the moment. How long will that last?

Tea tonight was a delicious taco roll followed by apple crumble. What a good pudding that is. There’s still enough for a couple of days, and then maybe I’ll make a chocolate sponge for pudding next week

But not right now, because I’m off to bed. And maybe another dream in Welsh. Who knows?

Unless it’ll be a dream like the one where someone went to speak to the hotel management where he was staying.
"Last night" he said "I dreamed that I was eating a marshmallow, but it went on for ages this dream."
"It must have been a huge one" said the management. "A veritable giant"
"I suppose it was" said the guy
"But what’s that got to do with me?" asked the manager
"I just wanted to tell you" said the man "that when I awoke this morning, I couldn’t find the pillow"

Wednesday 28th August 2024 – MY GINGER CAKE …

… is really delicious. Not quite fiery enough, I reckon, but that kind of thing comes with practice. The consistency was exactly what it should have been, except that it was cooked more at the top than underneath.

Usually that would mean lowering it in the oven, but that won’t work as it’s already on the lowest possible shelf, so it’s going to be to turn down the oven and prolong the cooking time.

But that won’t work if I’m baking bread at the same time, so it will have to do.

Consequently, given the shortcomings of my table-top oven, it was a resounding success. Just wait until I have a real oven, whenever that might be.

At least the sponge rose up as it was supposed to do.

While we’re on the subject of rising up as it is supposed to do … "well, one of us is" – ed … I rose up as I was supposed to do this morning when the alarm went off at 07:00

That was helped by the fact that for once I was actually in bed before my ideal curfew time of 23:00. Not by very much, I have to say, but even one minute is some kind of progress.

After I’d finished my notes last night I did everything that I had to do and then headed for the hills.

Once in bed I remember very little. I started my little bedtime mantra but didn’t get very far before I fell asleep. And apart from a couple of awakenings at various times, there I stayed quite comfortably until the alarm went off.

In the bathroom I had a really good wash and clean-up, followed by a shave and some clean clothes. I must look my best for my trip out today. Who knows? I might even meet Emilie the Cute Consultant.

While I was at it, I washed my trousers and undies in the sink ready for next time. I try to keep ahead as much as I possibly can.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Nerina and I were going through one of our phases and were walking down Hospital Street in Nantwich or driving down there, but we stopped at a pedestrian crossing to let a pedestrian pass. I recognised him as he walked past. He was a musician and after listening to his album thanks to a recommendation by a friend I’d actually gone out and bought a copy. I just happened to mention that I’d bought a copy of his album and we ended up having a very lengthy discussion about the music business before he left. He noticed a cut on the side of my face so told him that it was nothing to worry about and began to sing a parody of the Dire Straits song I’D PUT A BIT OF PLASTER ON MY FINGER, PUT A BIT OF PLASTER ON YOUR THUMB. He came running back wondering where he’d cut himself. I had to explain to him that that’s the lyrics of a song. Once he’d worked it out he went on his way quite happily.

But I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that if I can write parodies of modern (well, for me anyway) songs while I’m asleep I’m doing really well here. And walking through Nantwich and encountering rock musicians would have been quite a usual occurrence in the mid-70s with a host of garage bands in the area and recording artists like Strife. They were some really good times with the pubs in Nantwich like The Wickstead, The Rifleman and The Bowling Green. There was a time when my friends and I were thrown out of most of the pubs in the town at one time or another.

There was a boxing match out in Aston, a girl from our class, whatever her name might have been. We set out in the car to go to see it. It was taking place outside the church. We knew that we had to rush. Nevertheless we arrived late and the fight was under way. It looked as if she had been hurt because she wasn’t her usual lively self for boxing. Her opponent, an older man, was there and they were standing toe to toe trading blows. She was fending off more of his but then she caught him with a beautiful overarm right just as he was trying an overarm right. It was a very painful, tired overarm right as well as if it was her very last effort that she put into it but it made a perfect connection on the point of his jaw and that was him out for the count. She won the competition again but this time it was much closer than it had been in previous attempts so we were going to have to work on why this was the case and do something about it for the next time

What beats me about this is that I actually mentioned the girl’s name. She would have been one of the most unlikely candidates for a competitor in a boxing match (having said that, had any of the girls in my year or thereabouts come up against a male boxer, my sympathy and commiserations would have been entirely with the boxer) but not only that, I don’t think that I’ve ever spent even a minute thinking about this particular girl since I left school. So what’s brought her suddenly to the forefront of my mind?

Later on we’d been sorting out some music concerts. There had been a complaint from one of the washrooms that all of the towels had been used by a certain group wiping the lipstick off their faces after being kissed by thousands of girls so there were no clean towels in the washrooms. A certain guitarist was also there on tour. He was a nightmare to handle as everything had to be absolute perfection but perfection according to his standards. He had no spatial awareness and no awareness of anyone else around him and their feelings and so on. Everything was all about him. It was a very complicated issue to deal with him. He was sacking everyone after the first show, replacing his staff and then firing them again after the second and we just couldn’t keep up with all of the changes. Neither could he. It was beginning to deflect from his show but he wouldn’t have it at all and wouldn’t listen to explanations from anyone that maybe he ought to moderate his unnecessarily high standards in order for a compromise to be made that would mean that everything would go ahead. The more people he upset and the more people he fired, the fewer people he would find who would be willing to work with him

Anyone in the music business would be able to name this guitarist – I did in my dream but I edited it out – whose constant search for perfection has had exactly the opposite effect to that intended. Anyone of any great competence will look at the speed at which our guitarist has been hiring and firing and decide that he’s better off where he is. It’s not at all like Neil Young who has often been criticised because of what is perceived to be the lack of ability of his backing group, Crazy Horse. But as he has said on many occasions, he’s here to have fun and a good time with his mates and make everyone happy, not to launch himself into an eternal quest for the unattainable goal of perfection.

The taxi was late coming for me but it was a lovely drive down to Avranches even if the driver kept the windows closed.

The letter that I had notifying me of my appointment showed a different time from the time that they had noted so I’ve no idea what was happening there.

Anyway, I was eventually seen and the first thing that the doctor did was to rip off the plaster and give me a lecture about having it covered. I felt like a small child up before the headmaster (although where I would find a small child up before the headmaster in that hospital I really don’t know).

So I have to keep it uncovered and let the air get to it, and like it. So far, I’ve managed to avoid not seeing it. How long I can keep that up I really don’t know.

The doctor ran her echograph machine all over my arm right up as far as my armpit, and passed it fit for service. So on the 4th September I’ll know when dialysis will begin.

While I was waiting for my taxi back I bumped into Emilie the Cute Consultant’s sidekick and we exchanged a few words. And then the taxi came for me

All the way back (with the windows closed again) and the taxi driver had to help me up the stairs – something that she found extremely difficult and so did I. Seriously, if my cleaner’s not available to help me it’s going to be a real struggle

First thing that I did back here was to have a very late breakfast. I’d had nothing to eat or drink all day as yet so I was ready for some food.

It was interrupted by the arrival of the nurse. "I was here at 08:20 but must have just missed you"

"Yes" I thought. "And the taxi was late so it was well after 08:30 when we left" but I didn’t say anything.

After breakfast I had a lengthy chat with a friend in the UK. We have a project on the go and that involved some lengthy discussion.

It should also have involved a transfer of money but the battery has gone flat in my card reader so I had to order another and the money will have to wait.

There’s some bad news about this project, but it’s not unexpected so it’s no skin off my nose really. But with having a professional on the job, there are already some considerable savings that have been made so it’s “swings and roundabouts” really.

Liz was on line too so we had a lengthy chat. She was keen to see how today went and what the plans are for the immediate future so I filled her in.

The cleaner was here too and she whizzed through the apartment.

Once everyone had gone and things had calmed down I went for a very late hot chocolate and a slice of ginger cake. And it really was delicious as I said.

But now I know that I can substitute things in my basic recipe, how about a coffee cake? What about strawberry cordial instead of water to make a strawberry cake, with real strawberries in there somewhere?

But this is how most recipes work – trial and error. Sometimes some of these experiments work in spades and other times they are absolute disasters.

After that I made some naan dough and put most of it to freeze but kept one ball for tonight’s leftover curry, which was delicious as usual and the naan was perfection.

But now I’m off to bed. I have no plans for the next two days so I might even do some work. But right now I’m listening to a live concert by a Canadian group called “Black Mountain” so I’ll be going nowhere for a while

But on the subject of Liz and “filling in” I’m reminded of the guy who went for an interview for a job at the Ritz Hotel in London
"You should fill in our questionnaire" said the receptionist
"Very good" he replied, and went outside and beat up the doorman.

Friday 16th August 2024 – AND THAT’S THE …

… end of the first week of three of my Welsh summer school

And one of the first things that I did after the end of the lesson was to crash out. And for about an hour too. It’s been really tough trying to keep on going through all of this without falling asleep.

Going to bed early would have helped of course but for some reason that seems to be impossible these days. And even when I do, I just awaken earlier than normal so that doesn’t work either.

My target time for going to bed in the evening is 23:00 but I usually miss it. By the time that I’d finished everything last night I was a good half-hour later than I wanted to be, and I’d not done some things that I had in mind, like wash my clothes.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m in the habit of hand-washing my trousers and undies in the sink every so often and hanging them up to dry. That’s a relic of my life on the road when it was the only way of keeping my clothes clean.

Yes, back in the day when I was living out of a van, the lorry drivers’ showers at the motorway service stations were useful places and when I could grab a shower I always took my clothes in with me

But anyway, I digress … "again" – ed …

So after I’d finished writing my notes and so on I sorted myself out, wrapped up my puttees and eventually crawled into bed.

As usual these days, I was asleep quite quickly, long before the end of my little bedtime mantra. And there I slept until some crazy time in the morning, not that I recall what it was but it was still dark so I crawled back under the covers and that was that.

When the alarm went off I staggered into the bathroom for a god wash and scrub up, a change of clothes and a clothes-washing session for my trousers and undies that I should have done last night.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Then there was something about a rather attractive young girl in Africa who was leading a band of guerrillas in some kind of series of military operations. When I came across her they were raiding a shipyard trying to take away some pieces of heavy metal to make some armour-plating for something. She was there wrestling with this sheet-metalwork and at the same time had somehow managed to hold a machine-gun in both hands so that if she was surprised or attacked while doing it she could fight them off. But it was something to do with a brand-new film that had come out . There had been a well-known prequel to this and the actual film itself was the sequel. It had come out for distribution at a certain specific moment or anniversary like the tenth anniversary of these events. For that reason it was extremely special.

That sounds as if there should have been something before it but if there was, I didn’t dictate it. So fancy me missing something that might have related to a rather attractive young girl. It’s not as if there are too many rather attractive young girls in my life at the moment seeing as I seem to have been deserted by Castor, Zero and TOTGA. The more attractive young girls that I can find, the better.

Following the election of Corbyn as Prime Minister there was a huge destabilisation campaign that was being run in the bully trades-union magazines, the letters columns, to do their best to destanilise the situation. Just about everyone, his right-wing opponents, pro-European Union people, everyone was in there piling heaps and heaps of vitriol on top of him. He was replying quite calmly and enthusiastically but nevertheless the sheer volume of post and the amount of hatred that was contained therein was frightening and had him on the back foot at every conceivable moment. I could see that despite all of his promises the whole of the political spectrum was doing its best to make sure that his policies never came to happen, then they could all turn round and point the finger at him and blame him, regardless of the fact that it was they who had been instrumental in making sure that his policies never happened anyway. But the amount of vitriol was appalling in these communications and I’d hand-written my fair share of the correspondence and sent it off for publication. I wasn’t letting any grass grow under my feet.

That’s someone who was a big disappointment. I try not to be political on this blog but nevertheless what a good Prime Minister he would have made if we had just been talking about Social issues, equality and the like. And then he went and threw it all away and sold out all of his supporters with his ideological support for the Exodus from Europe. With the amount of hatred and vitriol that the Blue Tories and the Red Tories in his party heaped upon him, they must have been scared stiff of him, his position and power. But then, as I say, he thres it all away.

And finally I was doing a folk-dance through the town with a friend of mine. We didn’t actually rehearse it – we just sat down and began it at the appropriate time. With a series of improvised stations it seemed to go OK but at the end when we came into the public view in the big square in the city centre the whole thing went haywire. No-one had told me how the end was going to be . The Master of Ceremonies was dictating the end but it was nothing like what we were doing and nothing like what I was doing and I felt really disappointed that there had been no time whatever to rehearse because we could have done this a million times better even with just one brief rehearsal. It would have looked so good. Instead it ended up looking a complete and utter shambles at the end.

That’s interesting, me doing a folk dance through the town centre. I’ve not really done any folk dancing since 2008 when I was stewarding the camp site at that folk festival in Scotland and there wasn’t anything of a town there to folk-dance through. But as usual, an ounce of preparation is worth a ton of anything else and I really ought to carry out more preparation in my life.

The nurse was in a hurry again this morning so he didn’t hang around very much. He saw to my legs and was soon on his way out of the building.

At breakfast I carried on reading my book for a while. We’ve finally reached the pages where they talk about the earliest administration of justice in Montana and the trials that took place in the old saloon at Hell’s Gate.

What’s interesting is that when the book was written, the judge, prosecuting counsel and several jurymen were still alive so we could have a first-hand account of much of what went on. And none of it is on-line anywhere else.

Back in here I did my homework from yesterday and then went for my lesson.

To my surprise it passed really well and I quite enjoyed it. However I did fall asleep twice in mid-lesson but managed to awaken almost instantly before anyone else realised

We’ve been given some homework to do for the weekend and it looks a right stinker so I suppose that I better hadn’t leave it until the very last moment.

My cleaner came to have a lap around the apartment. She noticed that the plaster on my arm where I’d had the operation hadn’t been changed for several days.

That’s no surprise. The nurse doesn’t think that I need it so I can deal with it myself, except that I won’t, for reasons that regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

And so my lovely cleaner said that she would change it – and she did too. I have some lovely people around me.

After the lesson I made my hot chocolate and then came in here, where I crashed out for a good hour after all of my effort over the last few days.

There was the radio programme that needed finishing. I’d done some of the work during the lunch break but needed to join everything together, find a final track and write the notes therefore

That made me late for tea, which was chips, a vegan salad and some of those breaded quorn nuggets

So now I’m going to sort myself out and go to bed ready for tomorrow. I have bread to bake and probably a few other things too seeing as there will be some room in the oven that I mustn’t waste
Not like back in the olden days when someone once asked Nerina where I was
"He’s at home, baking" she replied
"Will he be okay?" asked her friend
"He’ll be Ok" she replied "That is as long as he doesn’t try to get out of the oven. Then I’ll kill him"

Thursday 8th August 2024 – I’VE NO IDEA …

… why but I’m absolutely whacked this afternoon. Anyone would think that I haven’t slept for a month

At least, that’s what it feels like. It’s not true of course because I managed a couple of hours last night where I was away with the fairies

Just a couple of hours mind you. I had another late night. Before going to bed I stumbled across the report with a difference of a football match in Scotland.

There’s a guy who goes around all the Scottish and Irish football grounds and broadcasts commentaries from within the huddled masses on the terraces, giving marks out of ten for the quality of the meat pies and the public conveniences as well. A proper football report.

For a while now I’ve been following his exploits because he’s doing exactly what I would have done, and have done too in better times, and I can enjoy vicariously the excitement of being swept up in a passionate crowd.

Last night I caught him at Palmerston Park, Dumfries for Queen of the South v Arbroath so I stayed up to watch the kippers be well and truly smoked by the home team.

It’s years since I’ve stood on the terraces there at Palmerston Park. 1977 or 1978 if I remember correctly. The height of the “troubles” and I was the only one who would take a British-registered van to Northern Ireland (where I was once arrested by an Army patrol, but that’s another story).

And on the way back once, seeing the crowds swarming across the river, I followed them.

It was on one of those trips that I had that classic encounter that I’m sure that I’ve mentioned before – the young girl from school who was serving in that pub at Galgate where I stopped for a pint on the way home.

One thing led to another and a few weeks later I’d lured her back to my lair and my old black cat Tuppence, the most anti-social cat you can imagine (like her owner), went and sat on her knee.

"Even my cat likes her!" I thought to myself, and invited her back to my lair for another encounter

"Yes, but you’ll have to get rid of that cat! I hate cats!" she said.

Of course it goes without saying that I kept my cat for another twelve or so years. She knew what she was doing – driving away all the competition for my affection.

Of course, with Nerina she didn’t stand a chance. Nerina loved cats and as soon as she came into my house it was "ohhh! A cat!" and she had Tuppence in her arms before Tuppence had time to think.

Yes, I had so much affection from my cats that the first thing that I’ll do when I’m downstairs is to have a female cat come to live with me.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment I went to bed late last night after the football and was awoken again at some silly hour of the morning and I’ve no idea why.

Nevertheless I stayed in bed until the alarm went off and then I had a very unsteady lurch into the bathroom to sort myself out.

Given the rather difficult night, I wasn’t surprised – just disappointed – to find that there was nothing from the night on the dictaphone. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only excitement that I seem to have these days is whatever goes on during the night.

The nurse was in chat mode this morning and we had a good discussion about my neighbour, who apparently is destined for a Home near Bayeux. It did make me wonder where they would send me if I had to go into a Home. Presumably one where the jackets do up at the back.

After she left I had breakfast and carried on reading my book about Montana at the turn of the Twentieth Century. We’re reading about the trip “Judge Woody” made to arrive in the Territory and I suppose that tomorrow we’ll find out more about the early days of Law Enforcement and Justice.

It was another slow start to the morning, and then once I started work I was busy.

First task is to go through another batch of concerts and try to date them. There’s a wiki on line called SETLIST where people who have been to concerts publish the setlist that was played. By comparing that with the setlist performed in the concert that I have, I can match them up.

However, not every setlist is published and of those that are, I’m convinced that one or two are wrong.

Having dealt with a batch of those, I then attacked the special project on which I’m working for the radio. I gave that a couple of hours of my time.

There was more that I could have done but regrettably, I was away with the fairies for a couple of hours late this afternoon.

Well-away too. I felt dreadful when I awoke and I have to do better than this

My cleaner came round to drop off more medication and we had an interesting chat for half an hour about kitchens and buying and selling apartments. But no news about she downstairs in my apartment.

Tea tonight was the last slice of lasagne with veg and vegan cheese sauce – only really to make more room in the freezer because tomorrow I have an order that I want to sent to LeClerc and I need the space.

So having done that I’ll unwind a little before going to bed and hope that nothing comes along to deflect me from an early night

But on-line shopping. There’s an interesting phenomenon. I was once talking to my friend Josée in Montréal. I told her that shipping in North American was really borjing
"Why is that?" she asked
"Well" I replied. "In North America, when you’ve seen one bunch of shops you’ve seen a mall"

Monday 5th August 2024 – A WEEK ON WEDNESDAY ..

… that is, the 14th August, I’m being assessed for “assisted living”.

This is the long-awaited follow-up to my visit at the start of the year to the Centre de Re-education and the discussions I had with the various ergotherapists.

This is when then decide whether I need to go into a Home or whether I can continue to live here. And if the latter, what level of support will I need to assure my autonomy.

As it happens, although I have a tendency to moan a lot about my situation … "perish the thought" – ed … and things are slowly becoming more and more difficult, I’m confident that I’ll still be here for the foreseeable future.

Of course, a nice young aide menagère, or “domestic help” wouldn’t go amiss and I wouldn’t say “no” if one were offered to sooth my fevered brow, but knowing my luck, it wouldn’t be a nice nubile nymphet but a retired Bulgarian weightlifter

So we shall see how the future unfolds. But it’s nice to see that things are beginning to move rapidly. At this rate, there won’t be any time left at all in the month of August with all of these appointments and visits.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, despite everything that I said last night, I ended up going to bed quite late yet again. I was waylaid by, would you believe, the West Asian Football Federation’s final in the women’s tournament between those two powerhouses of the female football world, errr … Jordan v Nepal

It actually went down to penalties, which was why it finished so late. And it was Jordan that took the honours.

Surprisingly, the game was much better than it ought to have been. Nepal had the better of the play, as it happened, but they struggled to match the speed of the Jordanians on a counter-attack.

So late to bed once more, I slept right through until the alarm went off, and then had a very shaky start to the morning as I struggled to come to terms with the speed at which the room and bed were spinning round.

Once in the bathroom I scrubbed myself up but left the spare set of puttees soaking until tonight. That will do them a world of good.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. This was one of these chaotic dreams about being in laboratory but there were bits and pieces everywhere that were either attached to me or falling to the ground or getting in my way. I couldn’t clear them out from in front of me at all. Everything that I touched seemed to be connected to me in some way or other, either physically or spiritually or something like that. I couldn’t have some kind of clear way walking around this laboratory. It was just like being in one of these fairgrounds where everything is attached to everything else and you have to somehow find your way to the end but there was no possibility of doing that last night, it was just so chaotic, all this stuff.

These chaotic dreams occur every now and again and I suppose that it’s really all a symptom of my chaotic life. And it’s nothing like as chaotic as it used to be either. I used to live in total chaos.

In fact, someone once asked me my day (a Wednesday) and time (03:00) of birth, and they produced from somewhere for my birthday one of these in-depth horoscopes.

It’s absolutely frightening as to how accurate it is. It talks about how I live in my own little world totally oblivious of the rest of the World and concludes with "your life and living arrangements seem to be total chaos but that bothers people around you far more than it ever bothers you"

And never were truer words ever spoken. Poor Nerina. She had a really difficult job on her hands and she deserves a medal for having stuck to it for almost nine years.

When the nurse came, we had an interesting chat about seagulls. There are several types of course but here in France we have two common species, mouettes and goëlands. She was using the words interchangeably so I asked her the difference.

She replied that she didn’t know, and set me a task, to prove that I am worthy. Namely, to find out the difference for tomorrow.

After she left I had a nice leisurely breakfast reading about the forced removal of the Flathead tribe of native Americans from their reservation to another reservation that they will share with the existing occupants so that their land could be sold – to the benefit of the American Government.

That kind of thing was pretty much commonplace in the USA in the 1880s and 1890s. If the native Americans refused to move, they were simply massacred, and I’ve walked across the site of the most outrageous massacre of native American civilians, at Wounded Knee in South Dakota in 1894, when I was there in 2019

Much of the day has been spent today working on the final lot of notes that I dictated on Saturday night. They are all done now, the two halves of the programme are assembled and the joining track has been chosen with its notes written ready for dictation.

And considering that the other day we were discussing Dave Arbus, it seems appropriate that the track that I chose was one by East of Eden.

First though, I had a listen to my programme about John Mayall. It’s actually quite good and I’m quite pleased with it. So I sent it off to Headquarters for inclusion in the stream for this weekend.

The rest of the day was spent tidying up the paperwork. I’m sure that it all grows when my back is turned. It doesn’t matter how many pieces I file away, I always find one piece somewhere that I’ve overlooked.

My cleaner stuck her head in the door to bring the post – including the letter about my visit. We had a chat about my neighbour too. We’re all wondering what is going on with her as we’ve had no news

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper with pasta and veg. And delicious it was too. Plenty of stuffing left, so its taco roll tomorrow and a leftover curry on Wednesday. I’ll leave off the pie foe a while

So having washed my puttees now and hung them up to dry I’ve written my notes and I’m off to bed. Late again but it can’t be helped. It seems to be the current state of affairs.

But going back to the story of my apartment, Friedrich Nietzsche once famously wrote "You must carry a chaos inside you to give birth to a dancing star. Out of chaos comes order."
However, he died in 1900 – a long time before I was born. Had he been alivr during my lifetime he would have written something completely different.

Tuesday 30th July 2024 – I’VE HAD A …

… lovely tea tonight.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday 7th July 2024 – I DON’T KNOW …

… what happened today, but in a change of tack and a change of lifestyle, not only have I been working but I’ve actually been hard at it.

And when was the last time that I was able to say that about a Sunday, my traditional Day of Rest?

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, in the olden days Sunday was always a day where I’d lie in, sometimes until long after midday, and not lift a finger to do do any work at all.

But all of that went out of the window with having the nurse come round so there’s even an alarm call, although as a concession it’s set for 08:00 instead of 07:00 as for the other six days of the week.

Anyway, all of this work started last night because after I’d finished my notes I waded through a pile of radio notes. I dictated the notes for the final tracks for two of the programmes that were in the pipeline and then dictated the notes for the next two full programmes (minus the final track of course.

On that note I staggered off to bed but it didn’t do me all that much good because at 06:00 I was wide awake, and by .06:30 I was up and about. and on a Sunday too!

Having had a good wash, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night and, more importantly, who had come with me, hoping that one of my favourite young ladies might have put in an appearance at last.

But it was not to be. Nerina was there though, but I don’t mind that. After all, I did invite her to share my life all those years ago. so she’s every right to be present. She was studying some kind of vocational course like Accountancy or something, studying it from her work during her employment. One night I’d gone round on my way home to see how she was doing. She was telling me about the class – she was in the kitchen making herself some food and I was in the living room so we were shouting between the rooms at each other. She was saying that there were not many in the class. I asked “how many? About ten?” she replied “no, twenty-seven”. I said “that’s a lot for this kind of class”. We carried on chatting for quite a while. I thought “she’s clearly in no hurry for me to go home” so I found a comfortable spot on the floor and curled up like a cat or dog would and made myself at home. We just carried on talking. I was ending up here making myself really nice and the discussion kept on going. I thought “at any moment she’s going to come in here with her food and that’ll be it – she’ll kick me out, I’ll go home OK but I intend to make the most of this while I can because it’s a really nice, comfortable situation, “comfortable” in its many senses instead of just the one particular customary one . There was definitely something that I felt was rather strange here with all of this.

And I’ve no idea what provoked this train of thought during the night. It’s pretty pointless arguing the “ifs” and “buts” of our relationship. The fact is that I was only ever safe outside the reach of the long arm of the Cheshire Constabulary and one or two other similar bodies and Nerina was still tied up with her mother, so one way or another a separation was called for sooner or later and, as Macbeth said, "If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly"

As for the next instalment, I’ve even less idea about this. I can’t even make head nor tail of it. But I was dictating while I was half-asleep and the microphone was in the living room and I was in the dining room. Exactly how that arrangement was going to be practical while I were at Cologne but I’d be beaten to death for it and today it’s the right thing to do. I didn’t care much for the new wave communications finding and the new talk about the Soviet bomber. I welcomed that least of all. It looks like a whole new system of wives and girlfriends are going to have to train in order that it doesn’t end in a total disaster between the three of us.

It makes no sense at all.

And finally, over the years I’d learned not to fight my brother back when he’s in one of his moods so eventually my toys became his and my belongings became his. My things gradually began to shape to fit his little ashtray type thing where he’d have human sacrifices of toys. Of course sometimes it didn’t work and he’d be in a complete rage and everyone’s life would be difficult so he’d carry on and carry on. In the end I began to carry a weapon to protect myself. That was when the idea of BABA O’RILEY came to me, to have someone who is so miserable and so unhappy that not even his home is a safe refuge any more so I set about trying to write this music

Not that we had many belongings over which to fight but we had some right royal squabbles like most siblings. The competition kept on going for much longer than it ought too but sometimes it’s harder to learn to stop than it is to learn to start I can understand where the weapon might have come in but I’m totally bewildered about the reference to Baba O’Riley, except that I was talking recently about Dave Arbus, the violinist of “East of Eden” who played the violin on the track

It must be Holy Week or some such event in the calendar right now because the nurse wanted to wash my feet today. So who was I to refuse to let him, even if he did make something of a dog’s breakfast of it all. I know that I’m not particularly organised and tidy, but there’s no need to add to my discomfort.

After breakfast I watched a football match – yesterday’s Stranraer v Portadown in another Seasick Derby. It was another lethargic pre-season friendly won by Stranraer 1-0 but once again no-one actually broke into any sweat. However I bet that the woodwork at either end will have had a headache this morning

There were several highlights videos doing the rounds too so I had something of a footfest. I’m glad that things are slowly starting up again.

Before lunch though I completed two radio programmes by editing the notes for the “additional tracks” for each and merging them in at the correct place. On one I was 15 seconds too long and the other was a mere handful of seconds and that’s the kind of stuff that I can edit out quite easily.

This afternoon I edited the notes for one of the two complete programmes that I dictated last night. That’s now all done and assembled, the final track has been chosen and the notes written ready for dictation one of these days. And sometime during the week I’ll do the other programme.

If I’d pushed myself I could have done it today but firstly i fell asleep on several occasions and secondly I had pizza dough to make as I’d run out. I made a big batch of that, and two lumps are freezing nicely and the third was tonight’s delicious pizza.

So tomorrow my Welsh Summer School starts so I need to be properly refreshed for that. Time for bed, I reckon.

But no recipe for the vegan pizza, Hans. It’s onion, mushroom, olives and cheese with tiny tomatoes cut in half and stuck all over the top.

But I ought to explain. Hans says that he’ll be going through my blog, pulling my recipes and writing the “Epic Hall Vegan Cookbook”. God help you all!
People have the totally wrong idea about vegans. One butcher in a supermarket told me that he was going to frighten me to death by making a sausage.
"That won’t scare me!" I shouted. "Do your wurst!"

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!

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

Thursday 25th April 2024 – I HAVE ACHES …

… and pains in places that I didn’t even know that I had places. I’m not as young as I used to be and this travelling is really taking its toll of me. I wish it didn’t.

After I’d finished my notes last night I didn’t have what it takes to go to bed. It took an age to find the energy and morale to raise myself from my chair and stagger off on this marathon trek of several inches that seems as if it’s several hundred miles.

As I’ve said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it wouldn’t be so bad if I could find the energy to do something productive while I’m waiting but I can’t seem to do that either.

But eventually I fell into bed and that was that. It took an age to go off to sleep, being wound up as I was, but once I’d gone off I don’t recall moving again until just a few minutes before the alarm went off

It goes without saying that I took full advantage of every minute under the covers that I could because right now it’s freezing around here. You’d never believe that it’s the end of April with temperatures like we’re having. I know many people who have relit their heating and if this cold spell carries on much longer I shan’t be far behind.

So off I staggered into the dining area to sort out the medication and then to prepare everything for Isabelle the nurse so that she has everything that she needs and it’s set out how she likes.

So she came and organised me and told me that tomorrow I have a blood test to undergo. I’m not looking forward to that one bit. My arms look and feel as if I’ve been wrestling with a hedgehog as it is.

After she left, I came in here, sat down on my chair and that’s how I stayed for several hours. I couldn’t even be bothered to go to make breakfast – that’s the kind of state in which I was this morning.

The cleaner came round later and snapped me out of my reverie, bringing me all of the medication from my new prescription.

And there are piles of it too. It’s starting to become ridiculous, all of this and I really don’t know where it’s going to end. There are two more now added to the pile of nonsense after these latest visits and next time I go, there will doubtless be a couple of others to counter the side-effects that those two have caused.

Once she’d gone I managed to transcribe the dictaphone notes from yesterday at the hospital and add them into the notes, all of them and it really was “all” of them because it must have been a very mobile night that night with a lot going on.

In the middle of all of that I was out like a light for an hour or so. I really can’t keep on going these days and it’s driving me to distraction.

Rosemary rang up for a chat this afternoon, just a short one today. Only 1 hour and 10 minutes today – we’re losing our touch. She was telling me about her forthcoming trip to Italy which should make a nice trip out for her. She has all of the luck. It was Vietnam last year.

After we finished our chat I transcribed last night’s dictaphone notes. The Government was talking about some big, bold plans for railway modernisation to bring the railways right into the 21st Century. All of the particular regions were asked to submit their plans. We were working on a series of cross-country lines from east to west. Everywhere where we went where we saw the proposals from other areas, it was all about going north-south from London into the different regions. It seemed that the whole of the cross-country system would be squeezed out. Of course there was very little that we could do because we didn’t have the weight or influence. It was very frustrating to everyone concerned. All of the people were so concerned and frustrated that we couldn’t seem to make any headway at all with our plans. Naturally we were doing everything we could but we were being squeezed at every turn by everyone else. It was impossible to put forward any coherent plans because nothing that we were doing would conform to whatever it was that the Government really wanted. There was a grave danger that the whole of our east-west railway would be squeezed out. I had girls from the office coming to see me in tears about the prospects of failure that all of our lobbying and arguments were bringing but we we were doing everything we could. There was nothing more that we could do but we didn’t seem to be making any kind of progress. Everyone was just so frustrated.

Anyone who knows anything about the British railway network will know just how true that is too. Going cross-country in the UK by rail is really difficult and time-consuming. Government policies haven’t helped either. A cross-country railway line closed in the 1960s was approved for reopening as far back as 1992 and we’re still waiting. Brunel would have had it up and running in 6 months.

They run all kinds of feasibility studies and passenger surveys, file the results and then go back to re-run the exercise 5 years later by which time costs have doubled.

And after Zero a few nights ago and Castor the other night, TOTGA came round too during the night. I’d been in France with Nerina and we’d just come back. Early on Sunday morning she came round. She had an apple. I made a remark something like “that’ll be the last apple that I’ll see for several weeks” so she left it for me which I thought was really nice of her. Then I had a ‘phone call from where she was working. Could I go to see her? She was working in some kind of merchant banking office. I arrived and it was one of these self-service receptionist places where you had to root around to try to find your contact’s ‘phone n°. I couldn’t find hers at all. In the end she happened to turn up at the counter by pure chance. I asked her for her telephone n° in her office but she made some kind of cryptic remark so I asked her whether she wasn’t allowed to leave her ‘phone n° or not. She said no, she wasn’t. I said “that’s strange. Anyone can have mine any time of the day even at 04:00 and get me out of bed as long as they say the magic words”. She asked “what are those?”. I replied “do you want to earn some money, Eric?”. She asked “was that really the last apple that you’re likely to see for several weeks?” I explained that we weren’t exactly that broke but we’d just come back from the Continent and we didn’t have any in the house. Nevertheless some kind of additional income would come in handy and I was intrigued to hear what kind of proposition she was going to make to me from her work that would be of interest to me in a financial sense

So that was a very special treat for me last night to follow my vegan pesto.

Tonight, I finished off the vegan pesto with more pasta, veg and a vegan burger. I need to order some more of those as the European Burger Mountain in the fridge has shrunk dramatically just recently. But not right now as despite it being really early, I really am going to try to go to bed and sleep the Sleep of a Thousand Dreams and see who comes with me.

After all, I’ve had all three of my favourite females over the past week or so coming to see me. And wouldn’t it be nice if they came more often, or, at least, more regularly? Life is much more interesting when they are around. It’s the only interesting company that I seem to have these days.

My life at the moment is, after all, hardly interesting. It reminds me of a story I heard when one person asked another one sitting next to him at a dinner "do you ever think that life is really boring?"
To which the other one replied "Quite often. Especially when one is sitting next to you"

Thursday 11th April 2024 – I’VE NO IDEA …

… what happened to this morning.

There I was, sitting down at my desk typing out a few notes and the next thing that I knew was that I was flat out asleep the ‘phone was ringing and it was midday already.

A whole morning had passed and I’d been totally out of it. It was just as if someone had flicked a switch at some point earlier in the morning and I’d just switched off completely with no warning.

You’ve no idea whatever just how strange it feels to be in a circumstance like that. All that I can say is that it’s a good job that I can no longer drive.

This morning I knew that things were going to be difficult. I’d been awake since about 06:00 and was actually up early before the alarm went off. It was actually quite a struggle to leave the bed, no matter how it sounds, because I didn’t feel in the least like it.

It had been a late night too. This idea about trying my best to finish everything early isn’t really working and despite the best intentions, and the road to Hell is paved with those, I’m not doing aby good with the plan.

It was probably about 23:30 when I slipped under the covers and so awakening at 06:00 is simply not enough sleep. Heaven alone knows how I managed 30-odd years ago when if I thought I was having half that time in bed I was doing well.

So first thing was to check the blood pressure this morning. It was showing 16.9/11.2, which compares quite miserably with last night’s figure of 14.9/9.3. Something had gone on during the night to upset me, by the looks of things, but we’ll have to wait to find out what.

Instead of worrying about that I went to take my medication, the typical European Medicine Mountain of stuff, and then to rearrange the living room ready for her and also to have a good wash

While she was here she gave me a list of stuff that she needed and then wandered off, and I began to sort myself out. However it was at some point round about here that I disappeared off the face of the earth.

awakening was the thing, because I was totally out of it and it took me a good couple of hours (seriously) to come back onto this planet. It was certainly well after 14:00 when I restarted work.

First thing was to transcribe the dictaphone notes from the night – and from the morning too because there were some of them. But during the night I was back in Outer Space again assembling a rock programme. What I was actually doing was cutting an audio track from an obscure German rock group called Dreadnought, copying out the segments. There were dozens of them, all extremely long so it was a complicated business to do it. I was chatting to one or two people while I was doing it. They were apparently quite impressed and spent some time watching. I found that one of the women there, she knew exactly how to do it. She had a Welsh programme there and she was going through telling me how she did it, in Welsh, which I understood, saying “it wasn’t done in this way – it wasn’t done in this way and it wasn’t done in this way and it wasn’t done in this way but it was done in a way like this”, said in Welsh all the time and I could follow the conversation, I could follow exactly what she’d done. She made it sound really, really interesting. I thought to myself “maybe I ought to investigate things from that point of view and see how they fit with what I’m doing”

Funnily enough, just recently I have been editing a concert sound track by a German space-rock group called Dreadnought, another one of my contacts from one of the various Hawkfests, and it’s really quite interesting. But I wish that I knew in real life which method this woman was using. I’m completely self-taught in respect of my use of a sound-editing programme and can conjure up some surprisingly good results. But there are tons of facilities that I have never used, and some expert advice would really not go amiss

Later on I was back in a dream in Welsh. Our Welsh class had to translate an ancient song. There were two ways to do it, one was a translation after the fashion of Morgannwg … "presumably the poet Lewys Morgannwg" – ed … and the other after the fashion on Cadwaladwr … "presumably Cadwaladr ap Rhys Trefnant" – ed …. The problem was that both translations are rather inflammatory and as a result its use has fallen out of favour but nevertheless that was our task. One girl was already receiving some grief because her translation had come to the notice of the authorities and we were wondering all the way through the rest of this dream how long it will be before our version of the translation comes to the attention of the authorities, and what action they’ll take against us

And that’s the problem with much of Welsh literature of that period. It’s a tale of lament about the oppression of the native people by the wicked English and like many other things, it’s not very appetising to the English palette today.

While many countries have tried hard to come to terms with their past, in England there has never been any kind of attempt at reconciliation. There are a great many scars that have never ever healed.

While I was asleep during the morning there was also a complicated discussion going on about the use of personal pronouns, something else that seems to be quite a touchy subject these days.

As we said the other day, there are a lot of people with nothing better to do so they trawl the internet and places like that trying to find ways in which they might be offended. If you’re born with a certain gender and you don’t like it, then that’s your problem, not everyone else’s

Whoever it was on the phone who awoke me, I have no idea I was in no fit state to answer.

Instead I lowly (as in the next couple of hours) came back round into the Land of the Living and then made a start on the notes for the next radio programme.

Not that I went far because firstly the cleaner descended upon me with some supplies for the nurse, and then the Auvergnats came round to fill me in on their exciting day. Tomorrow they are off down the road to Mont St Michel so I’m being allowed a day of freedom myself. I’ll see them on Saturday for the last time.

But it was nice to chat about all of our old stamping grounds down in the Combrailles and to discuss all of our former partners in crime, most of whom have moved on to pastures new.

And that’s a shame because I really loved my life in the Auvergne. It was just how I imagined rural France to be and I’m glad that I managed to grab hold of one of the last vestiges of it before it disappeared completely

There was definitely something to be said for life down there, but it’s no life for anyone who is not 100% fit.

After they left there wasn’t much time left until teatime – some pasta and veg in a vegan cheese sauce with a couple of the falafel balls that I made the other day. Totally delicious.

So when I’ve finished everything again, my throbbing leg and I are going to bed and if the pain subsides I might even sleep. But it would be nice to have a regular sleep.

And by that I mean one with lots of dreams. Lee Jackson sang "YOU WOULD GIVE A SMALL FORTUNE
TO BE BACK IN YOUR DREAMS"
and he’s not at all wrong, not on my account anyway

It does remind me of the time that Nerina and I chatted about our dreams
Nerina said "I dreamed last night that I’d gone shopping in Asda"
"Really?" I asked. "I dreamed that I was making love to three beautiful, naked women in the park under a glorious warm sun"
"Was I there?" she asked
"Actually no" I replied. "You’d gone shopping in Asda"

Saturday 6th April 2024 – TODAY WAS ONE …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday 2nd April 2024 – TODAY WAS A …

… better day than yesterday, which is an improvement. There were several waves of sleep that had to be fought off round about midday and I managed to do that successfully and apart from that, I’ve managed not to fall asleep at all.

And that’s a surprise because it was another late night last night. It takes an age to finish everything off these days ready for a round of whatever it is that goes on here during the night.

As it happens, I can’t remember much about the night because I was of course asleep. But I do recall a visit from Nerina at some point, about the two if us going to the countryside near Chester.

And while we’re on the subject of Chester … "well, one of us is" – ed … we did end up there at some point of the day but I can’t remember when now. This is always the problem when you are teetering on the edge of dozing off two or three times on the same day – you lose track of “when” and “where”.

No problem about the alarm though. It went off as usual at 07:00 and I promptly fell out of bed while reaching for the equipment. But soon I found it and could take my pressure, 15.9/9.4. That’s lower than before I went to bed, whixh was 17.3/10.8.

Judging from that, you would be excused for thinking that it was a quiet night, but far from it as you will see if you read on.

The medication was next on the list. That just seems to be more and more, as time goes on. I’m sure that someone is slipping extra piles into everything when I’m not looking.

A good wash was on the agenda today too. I was sure that I could smell myself coming, and my clothes walked into the laundry basket on their own. I’m not doing too well about my personal hygiene as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … and need to make much more of an effort

With that in mind, I washed the shorts that I wear in bed. They need to be kept clean.

Having arranged things for the nurse he came by and changed the bandage on my foot. They seem to think that it’s healing but if it is, it’s doing an excellent job of disguising itself.

The ones on my legs are showing an improvement which is a good news. I managed to walk four steps without my crutches, and if that’s nor success I don’t know what is these days.

Today I’ve been radioing. I’ve checked off the programme that needs to be sent off today for broadcasting at the weekend, and I’ve sorted out the music for another one.

Apart from that, I’ve sent off my Amazon order, played on the guitar and even … shock! Horror! … done some Welsh homework. I don’t know what’s come over me today.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone too from the night. Quite a lot of it in fact. Once more I was dreaming in Welsh again about a door in a hospital being closed but it needs to be opened. Eventually someone opens it and inside are several bodies. It seemed that all kinds of indignities had been heaped upon these corpses at one time, both when they were alive and when they were dead as well, and opening the door had revealed it all to the public like this

They found A MORTUARY LIKE THIS IN THE USA a short while ago. The owners had been taking the money for the burial and so on but never burying the cadavers, just leaving them to rot. It created quite a scandal in the USA.

But not as big a scandal as what was going on IN THAT HOSPITAL MORTUARY IN THE UK a short while earlier

This … "presumably dreaming in Welsh" – ed … all came about because the girlfriend came over from Caerfyrddin and couldn’t remember the word for “right” … "”gwyir” or “dde”" – ed … and it was all to do with Caerfyrddin having a corner kick and someone putting the ball into the penalty area and the teams taking up the correct position but everyone was out of position and the captains had to shout at them to tell them where they should be. One of the players from Caerfyrddin was in the wrong position and didn’t say the correct word for “right”.

In which case it’s dde. Gwyir is “right” in the sense of “correct”.

But it’s interesting that I’m dreaming – and talking to myself – in Welsh. That basically means that I’ve moved one step higher up the literacy ladder. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve noticed that I’m understanding more and more of the football commentary so I suppose everything is all coming together.

That’s how I began to teach myself Flemish – when I moved to Brussels, if there was a football match in TV I’d watch it on a Flemish channel. It’s easy to guess what’s happening in a football match when you see it, and you can tie the commentary up with the action on the screen.

While I was chatting to a friend of mine, a schoolteacher in the UK, I told her of my tactic for watching football and now she makes her daughter, age 11, watch the football in a foreign language only and the kid has to take her mother a list of 10 words that she heard in each game

It’s one of those things that you aren’t sure will work for someone else but it costs nothing to try.

Learning Welsh was something that I always wanted to do but in the UK I never had time and over here I never had the opportunity. But, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, at the start of lockdown Coleg Cambria put its Welsh language courses on-line instead of in face-to-face classes.

And instead of the usual 100 or so people signing up for a beginners class, they had 1036. There’s someone in my class from the UAE and I’ve met several people from the USA on other courses, all trying to connect with their roots.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … bed there was a group of girls who had to go along and do something gruesome to one of the guys. One of the girls was tall and slender, called Hilary This was the girl Our Hero falls for so the two of them establish a relationship but he in the meantime is carrying on with more kinds of wicked things against a few more of his hermits who are trying to usurp his powers etc. Of course this girl is quite a willing accomplice in his actions as well. She’s willing to do all kinds of things to establish her position by the side of the King.

And you really don’t want to know what gruesome thing they had to do, especially if you’re eating your tea right now.

Finally, a partner of mine and I were going through one of our usual rocky patches again. She had a friend whom I suspected was a partner. One day I came home and found them in my shed going through my selection of spare parts and she was giving him this and giving him that. I thought “what the hell was going on? He’s not having any of my spare parts. He can clear off” so we had a huge row. In the end this boy turned round and walked off, but not before hurling a few insults etc for good measure. He said “do you know what? Some of the stories she has told me, I haven’t half told some good ones around the town”. I replied “do you really think that I’m all that bothered with that kind of thing?”. It was a steering wheel and steering column and rack that she was handing out. That infuriated me beyond belief.

There are plenty of spare parts to hand out, that’s for sure. We had a huge pile of new stuff for the cars, much of which was never used. It’s all in my barn at Virlet and in the warehouse at Montaigut, and much of it is stuff that’s no longer available. It’s probably worth a small fortune sold off on the internet by someone who knows what they are doing.

Tea tonight was a taco roll, delicious as usual with rice and veg. Tomorrow there will be a leftover curry but I’ll have to make some more dough for the naan breads as I’ve now run out. I hope that the new batch will be as good as the last one. Plenty of garlic in it anyway, to keep the werewolves and vampires away

But now I have some printing to do – the prescription for the blood tests has arrived, as has the bon de transport for the trip to Paris and the hospital. I had a good chat with them, which included a discussion about tying in all of my hospital visits into a time when I am actually there. I can’t do with these last-minute things – it’s far too reminiscent of the bad old days and “… you are summoned to appear at 10:30 in the forenoon to answer to the aforementioned…”

It’s like the time when I was still at school and told my father that I was going to leave
"Why’s that?" he asked
"I’m going to be a policeman" I replied
"You’ll never be a policeman" he scoffed. "You don’t have the intelligence"
"Well they obviously think a lot about me" I retorted. "That’s four times this week already that they’ve asked me to go down to the station to help them with their enquiries"

Saturday 30th March 2024 – MY BROCCOLI STALK …

… soup was absolutely delicious at lunchtime.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EPIC HALL

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