Tag Archives: vegan pizza

Sunday 28th July 2024 – I HAVE MADE …

… some excellent pizzas in my time but tonight’s pizza has beaten everything that I have ever made.

At first I thought that it was going to be a total disaster. I’d forgotten to add the oil to the mix and didn’t realise until far too late. As a result, the dough for tonight’s pizza was sticking to my silicon baking mat when I was rolling it out and we had something of a struggle.

But when it came out of the oven the base had fluffed up really well and was extremely light. Consequently it cooked even better than usual and if I could make pizzas like this all the time I’d be more than satisfied

Something else that I want to mention is to go back to something that I said a week or so ago about part-time teams playing full-time teams

This morning I was watching Aberdeen, full-time professionals of the Scottish Premier Division v Dumbarton, a part-time team promoted to the third from the fourth tier at the close season.

The first half was pretty even, finishing 0-0 at the break. Immediately from the restart (and I do mean “immediately”) before Dumbarton had come up to speed, they conceded 2 goals.

The score was 3-0 to Aberdeen with just 6 minutes to go, but it finished 6-0, as Dumbarton ran completely out of steam at the end and Aberdeen put them to the sword. It was a perfect example of what I had been saying, and I’m convinced that I’m correct.

Last night I ran out of steam quite late as it happened. Not that I’m complaining though because I dictated a pile of stuff for the radio and I’m catching up rapidly with the backlog, which suits me fine. I now have a pile of stuff ready for editing, which is good news as it will keep me out of mischief for a while.

Once I was in bed I didn’t need much rocking. I was soon asleep and stayed that way for quite a while.

It was about 06:45 when I awoke but there was no danger of my leaving the bed at that time of day. It’s Sunday and a lie-in, although the days when I could lie in until midday and later are long-gone thanks to the visit of the nurse.

At 08:00 when the alarm went off I fell out of bed and began to organise myself.

And I seem to have lost another clip for my puttees. I’m convinced beyond all doubt that I picked up two in here but when I arrived in the living room I only had one and I’ve no idea where the other one has gone, despite a thorough search. In the end I had to raid the stores for another.

But it beats me how stuff can go missing in here. There’s quite simply nowhere for it to go where it can be missed or lost.

And of course the nurse was early today. I was only half-washed and half-dressed and I had something of panic-stricken five minutes to prepare myself while he was round at my neighbour’s

He seems to think that the wound in my arm has healed so well that in a week or so I won’t need the plaster. But he can have another think about that. I’ve no idea what they did, I don’t want to know and I don’t want to see it.

Yes – when they finally come to try to plug me in we’re going to have a panic attack like we’ve never had before, but that’s a bridge that we’ll cross when we come to it.

After he left I had a very leisurely breakfast and then came in here to transcribe the dictaphone notes. There was a girl being interviewed on the radio about relationships with her boyfriend. She was regretting that her boyfriend was not the romantic type and recounted an episode where they had once come to some kind of big puddle in their path. While they were debating what to do, a passer-by came past, picked her up and carried her across the puddle and put her on the other side. She said that it was a shame that her boyfriend had never done anything like that. A few weeks later they found a big puddle in their path. He promptly agreed to pick her up to carry her. He stepped into the puddle but it was an extremely deep one that went up to his waist and he was stranded in there with his girlfriend. It just never worked out romantically as it ought to.

That’s a situation with which I can relate. Nothing seems ever to work out the way that I want it to either and it all inevitably ends up pear-shaped. I reached a stage a long time ago where I’d just let nature take its course and so much the better because then there’s far less to worry about. Some people seem to have a natural flair for this sort of thing, but someone somewhere has been given my share as well, I think.

And then I had the football. Stranraer weren’t playing this weekend so I had to look somewhere else for a game, and came across Aberdeen v Dumbarton, as I mentioned.

With a Premier Division team playing at home against a third-tier side there was only ever going to be one winner, but Dumbarton gave their hosts a fright, having the ball in the net after just a couple of minutes, only for it to be ruled out for offside

It took Aberdeen a while but once they were up to speed the inevitable rampage began.

After the game had finished I began to edit the notes that I’d dictated. The notes for the three additional tracks to make three complete programmes were completed first. They are all dealt with and assembled

At this point I broke off and made myself a salad sandwich for lunch, completely forgetting that I have this mushroom soup to make. Ahh well ….

For the first part of the afternoon I had one of the longer radio programmes to edit. That’s all done and the programme has been assembled as far as I can. The final track has been chosen and the notes written awaiting dictation which will happen on Saturday night if nothing else happens to disrupt my plans.

Round about 16:00 I couldn’t decide whether to go to sleep or go for my hot chocolate. I chose the latter which was a good decision.

And then I had pizza dough to make as I’ve run out. As I mentioned earlier I forgot the oil but not to worry – the pizza dough rose like a lift.

Two balls are in the freezer and the third was used for tea tonight and as I said, it was the best pizza that I have ever made.

And so on that note I’m going to bed ready to Fight the Good Fight this week. Considering that Sunday is a Day f Rest when I don’t ever work, I have put my back into it today and accomplished a great deal. I ought to have a Day of Rest more often
It makes a change from when I rang up my boss and told him that I wasn’t coming into work today
"What’s the matter?" he asked
"I”m having a vision issue right now" I replied
"What’s wrong with your vision?" he asked
"I just can’t see myself working today" I replied.

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Sunday 21st July 2024 – AFTER YESTERDAY’S LITTLE …

… commotion, it’s been a much better day today.

To my surprise, and probably yours as well, I didn’t actually fall asleep once. Not even for a minute.

And not only that, firstly it was a late night again last night and I was actually up and about early this morning before the alarm went off.

So don’t ask me what’s going on because I don’t have a clue.

Last night after I’d finished writing up my notes I set about dictating some radio notes. For two programmes there were just the notes for the additional tracks but then in a mad fit of enthusiasm I dictated no fewer than three lots of completed notes.

One of them was complicated by the fact that there was a track in there that shouldn’t have been. It seems that I copied and pasted it into the wrong place several weeks ago and had been looking for it ever since.

Well, I’m glad that I found it.

When I finished dictating I slowly unwound and then eventually headed off to my nice warm bed. And I can’t say that I was sorry to hit the hay because regardless of how comfortable my chair here might be, there is absolutely no substitute for being underneath the quilt on my lovely mattress.

As you might expect, it took an age to drop off to sleep but I wasn’t too concerned as long as I was in the warm. But sleep I must have done eventually because I awoke with a start at about 07:30.

With an 08:00 alarm on Sundays I had half an hour to wait but instead I raised myself from the dead and set about sorting myself out. There was even time to check the dictaphone before the nurse came. Joining the list of unlikely heroes is Richard Jones. When he came onto the field his only contribution was touching the ball once and saying “it’s OK” but the fact is that that touch of the ball has been crucial and he’s just won the game for his club – coming on as substitute, touching the ball once and that was it. We could do with a few more subs like that I should say throughout the year to be going on with.

This dream about this footballer went on and on. I must have dreamed it about three or four times because it was still circulating around later on when I awoke, so I’ve no idea why it would be such a thing of significance at all. It seems pretty strange to me.

There was something too about me having an idea for a Gothic horror novel and trying to contact an established female author who wrote that kind of thing so that I could tell her my ideas and she could help me prepare something. I eventually tracked her down and we arranged to meet. Unfortunately when we met she was on her way somewhere else and didn’t have very much time. I could only give her the briefest outline of what was in my mind and she could only give me the briefest reply. I felt in all honesty that it had been something of a waste of time, this meeting, which was a shame because I would have liked to have discussed my idea at great length with her in order to give her an opportunity to consider it and then come back to me to prepare a plan but by the sound of things, after this brief meeting nothing at all like this will ever happen. I felt really disappointed

And quite honestly if I had a good idea about a story I wouldn’t be hawking it around anywhere. I’d be writing it myself. In fact at the moment I have several ideas for good stories but regrettably they won’t ever be written. I only have so much time and all of that is dedicated to other things.

The nurse was late this morning. She was pleased to see clean puttees but not so pleased to see the tangled mess that the bandage on my arm had become. Of course I blamed it on STRAWBERRY MOOSE which will have to do. IN the olden days I’d blame things like that on the cat.

After she left I had breakfast and then watched Stranraer lose gracefully 3-0 against Hamilton Academicals in the Scottish League Cup

In fact, we had something of a footfest throughout the day as other clubs posted online the highlights of their cup games. No exciting or unexpected results though which was a shame.

The rest of the day has been spent editing the radio notes that I dictated. The notes for the two “additional tracks” have been edited and those programmes have now been prepared. That takes me up to 27th December incidentally.

And then I edited the first of the three longer notes and prepared the programme as far as I could. I’ve worked out how long the 11th track needs to be, chosen it and remixed it, and written the notes for it. I’ll do the other two during the course of the week.

Yes, I’m cracking on with this. I need to leave behind me a nice big batch ready for broadcasting after I’ve gone.

After my salad sandwich for lunch I took some pizza dough out of the freezer and it had been defrosting during the afternoon. I kneaded it and rolled it out this evening and made myself a delicious pizza. The dough rose beautifully to help me make one of the best pizzas that I have ever made.

So now I’m off to bed. It’s the male nurse again starting tomorrow. Isabelle is on her week off. So what is he going to find that’s wrong, I wonder.

There is of course some kind of upset going on here with the nurses. My neighbour asked the nurse "what do you think I should do about this mole that’s suddenly appeared on my cheek?"
"Don’t worry about it" replied the nurse. "Next time you go outside it’ll find its way back to its burrow."

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Sunday 14th JUly 2024 – I’M UP TO …

… my neck in paperwork again. Ahhh! The good old days!

And not only am I up to my neck, I’m miles behind where I ought to be thanks to a
recalcitrant printer than only works when it feels like it and a Credit Agricole website ditto.

As well as that, I’m supposed to be completing my on-line registration for the hospital on Tuesday but the hospital website doesn’t recognise my “Withdrawal Agreement” carte de séjour and when I’ve finally managed to make their mobile app work on my ‘phone, it tells me that I don’t have an appointment.

So in the end I’m not much further forward than I was before I started. It all has rather a familiar ring about it.

Last night had a pretty familiar ring about it too, with not going to bed until long after I ought to have done. Nevertheless, I didn’t mind too much because I’d been dictating and that’s another pile of stuff all saved ready for editing. It was nice and quiet for an hour or so outside so I could crack on.

One thing that I did though was to change the microphone, and that seems to have made a difference to the quality of the recording. Two identical mikes, yet the quality is so different. It’s quite surprising.

The one big advantage of going to bed at that kind of “late” is that I don’t need much rocking

And so there I was, dead to the World until all of about … errr … 06:15.

But I didn’t make “that” mistake again. I curled back up under the bedclothes and there I remained until 08:00 when the alarm went off and I fell out of bed

There’s not much time to hang about on a Sunday morning as the nurse will be here at 08:30 (or thereabouts) so a quick scrub up in the bathroom was all that I had time to do.

Isabelle brought the sunshine with her when she came. She soon had the plasters on my legs sorted out and my puttees on my legs. But these wounds are still weeping and I despair. When are they likely to stop?

We had time to talk about my general condition. She seems to have noticed an improvement, although it doesn’t seem like it.

She thinks that this fatigue might be due to the fact that my kidneys are struggling so much to work that they are exhausting my metabolism, or words to that effect.

Basically, despite what I might think, it’s a physical tiredness due to te effort that is going into my kidneys. And she’s a nurse, so I suppose that she knows more about these things than I do.

After she left I had breakfast of cornflakes, toast, coffee and grapefruit juice and sat and relaxed for a while, reading my book on the siting and location of early Medieval churches

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. We were doing something with a music studio at work. I was actually some kind of huissier or “messenger” on the top floor. I went down to the canteen to fetch a coffee. It was crowded in there and you couldn’t hear a word that someone was saying. I had to fight my way into the queue to pick up a coffee. Eventually after t’d battered him a couple of times I said to the guy behind me “I’m not hurting you, am I? I’m really sorry”. He mouthed something back at me but I didn’t have a clue what it was because I couldn’t hear him so I just smiled, thanked him and walked away but I thought “I wonder what it was that he said. Whether it was polite or whether it was difficult or whether he wanted me to sit down and talk”. I’d no idea. But I took my coffee and began to climb all the steps back to the office. One or two of my workmates kept on coming downstairs going for their coffee. They kept asking me “who is this coffee for?”. I replied that it was for me. They looked with some kind of astonishment as if “what would I be doing with a coffee at this time of morning?”. But I checked the time and it was only 09:05 so it would be correct. We were waiting for something important to happen in the office but I can’t remember now whether it was a group or a piece of music but we were all waiting there for this but it all seemed to be tremendously important and was going to change all of our lives and all of our routines

Nothing like that ever happens to me these days. Wouldn’t it be nice if something were to come along and change my life and my routine. It’s pretty monotonous right now. When I was working, it was quite lively, but then in a building of 2,000 people and each one waiting for something earth-shattering to happen, a simple event could trigger a chain reaction that would reverberate around the building in no time flat. It would be like a snowball of excitement, gathering its own momentum. And I was convinced that there were people who would spend the whole day walking around with a tray of coffee and not doing any work whatsoever

I was driving some kind of bus or motorhome in the Midwest USA. We were going through these small towns. There was one where we had to climb a hill in this town. This hill was tree-lined with all the old Nineteenth-Century saloons and so on to the side of it. I thought to myself “this is really mid-west America here. This is typical USA. We kept on climbing up this hill and I thought that we’d never have enough steam to make it but eventually whatever I was driving managed to climb to the top. I found that we were on some kind of dirt track instead of the main road. I followed the dirt track for a while and it came to a castle where there was a notice from someone asking for partners for table-tennis so it was quite obvious to me that I was in the wrong street somehow. I had to stop and try to think how I was going to return to the main road because continuing to drive down this track was clearly out of the question

On my travels around States like Wyoming and South Dakota I came across plenty of towns like this. I remember in 2018 being in a town that proudly advertised “Population – 9”, and every one of those 9 people came out onto their porch to watch me drive through the place.

Some of the day has been spent editing some of the radio notes that I dictated last night. There are now two full programs completed and third is just missing the final track. I would have finished it and even done the fourth program except that the fatigue caught up with me and I was out like a light for an hour or two this afternoon.

And then I’ve been trying to print off a sheaf of paperwork but when the printer doesn’t work the website does and vice versa. And then there’s trying to make sense of this mobile app that tells me that I have no appointment lined up

There was however time to make tonight’s pizza. And a good one it was too. I’ve no idea what happened but for the first time ever the oven cooked it correctly. That’s a first.

What’s also going to be a first, at least for a long time, is an early night. I seem to have finished earlier than usual and I don’t know why.

But all of this technology and its accompanying issues makes me hanker for the old days. I didn’t have this trouble in Crewe.

But then again, whilst in Crewe they may actually have tablets for their own personal use, they also have the hammers and chisels that they use to carve their hieroglyphics on them

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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!"

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Sunday 30th June 2024 – I’M NOT SURE …

… how long I can keep this all going. Throughout the last few months I’ve had plenty of moments when I wished that I could just close the book, lie down and go to sleep. And believe me, I had one or two of those during the day today

It’s not anything physical – well, it is, my physical condition is deteriorating rapidly, but what I mean is that there’s no pain or suffering or anything like that, at least, not yet. It’s the effect that it’s all having on my mental well-being that’s dragging me down

Doing almost anything is a complicated affair, trying to work out how I’m going to do whatever it is that I have to do while manipulating … "PERSONipulating" – ed … a pair of crutches. My whole life has become one of simple logistics.

“Simple” was the word, nothing complicated last night about going to bed. I was in bed by 23:30 so with the alarm set for 08:00 for a Sunday, for once I was set to have something of a decent lie-in.

And so it goes without saying that I was wide awake at 07:00, up and about at 07:30 and when the alarm did go off at 08:00 I was already washed, dressed and at the computer.

The nurse came round at about 08:30 to sort out my legs. She showed me her photos from last weekend at Lyon and some of them were really good.

While she was here and in a receptive mood I told her (in polite, sensitive terms of course) that I felt that the two nurses ought to be keeping a closer watch on how my condition deteriorates, and how disappointed I was that they let me get into such an awful state a couple of weeks ago.

She explained that all of that should have shown up in the various blood tests that I’d had and had the hospital or my GP looked at them closely they would have seen for themselves without the need to look at me, just how badly things were going.

There is naturally some truth in this, but nevertheless I suspect that there’s also a certain amount of buck-passing there too.

After she left I had breakfast, and then I had letters to write.

Two of the letters were painful. One was to tell my tenant in the apartment downstairs that I won’t be renewing the lease when it expires next Spring – or, at least, instruct the letting agent to do so.

Then I can move in. On the ground floor too so I can move around outside easier. I’ll smash out the bath and have a walk-in shower, and there will be a “kitty corner” for a new sub-tenant who will no doubt pay her rent in dead seagulls.

What could possibly go wrong?

As for the second, I’d rather not talk about that but someone who follows these pages will know about it.

What completed the morning was going away with the fairies for an hour or two. In fact Rosemary awoke me because she wanted a chat.

She’s still gallivanting around Italy and wanted to tell me what a good time she’s been having. As a result, we had another one of our mega-chats that goes on for ever.

She was also telling me that she had, in a moment of reckless abandon, volunteered for midwife duties despite knowing nothing whatsoever about babies, children, giving birth and all of that.

We joked about that famous line in THE WILD BUNCH when William Holden says "What I don’t know about, I sure as hell am gonna learn".

A baby however is more complicated than a machine gun, that’s for sure.

While we’re on the subject of babies … "well, one of us is" – ed … for the last couple of days I’ve had an overwhelming desire for baked beans on toast. I’m certain that I’m not pregnant; nevertheless the feeling has been growing stronger and stronger.

Having travelled the World, qt least, the Northern hemisphere part of it, I can say without fear of contradiction that no-one, no-one at all anywhere in the World that I have visited, makes baked beans like the Brits. Not even the “British recipe” ones in Maritime Canada.

When Liz and Terry were here last year or whenever it was they brought a tray of beans and I baked a loaf on Friday so at lunchtime I satiated my desire. Mind you, nice though as it was, I could sit down and eat it all over again.

This afternoon I transcribed the notes on the dictaphone. I was working for a hardware place last night. It was one of these places that had a really structured format – people entered at the bottom of their grades and slowly worked their way up their grades, all the way through and out to the top. There were several young guys who had started a while back who were near the bottom but I’d been watching their progress a little and was quite pleased that they seemed to be very apt and very capable, very willing to push hard and progress so I encouraged them. Then a girl joined. She seemed to think that she was entitled to everything because she had a superior education. She made a few comments to these people which I thought was poor but I let them pass. One day there was a question of someone having to stay overnight so we agreed that we’d all do it. Someone said that they’d have to bring their child in. They brought in their child and tucked it up. And when their part of the night finished we tucked them up in the bed with the child and carried on working. Towards the morning the child awoke – awoke with a start – and was so worried about where it was, it had school and it was panicking around so we tried our best to reassure it but it was panicking. Suddenly its portable alarm went off, which added to the confusion. But the girl whom I mentioned who was having a few things to say about the situation so I reminded her that we were all trying to do a very difficult job etc. I happened to mention these boys and said that she needn’t think that she was the only game in town because they were pushing on. They were quite capable too so she shouldn’t be surprised if one day she found herself cornered out by these guys. She replied “oh, you’ve noticed too, have you?” and mentioned one of them, how good he was when he’d had his medication, which was something of a dig but again I let it pass. I could see that this girl was going to need some extremely careful handling. If she’s not careful she’ll end up running this department, running my job, I’ll be nowhere. I wasn’t convinced that her personality was the correct personality to make any progress in this company, being so pushy and aggressive when these other people are being so smooth and calm.

And we’ve all worked with people like that, who come into a business and think that they can run it from Day One by upsetting everyone and everything

This female officer arrived at our unit – tall and thin, dark hair and with something to prove, so she thought, and was determined to make her mark on us but we were old sweats at this. We knew full well that it didn’t work like that but we were prepared to give her a little rope. It concerned some kind of little battle that was noisy and violent but didn’t last long. She was wondering why she hadn’t been invited to take part. We explained that it was all over so quickly that there wasn’t really time to go in for an organised formation. We just had to defend our position ad lib which we did. By the time that she arrived the firefight was over. So she carried on talking but let it go, but made it quite clear that she wanted to go on our next operation no matter what it was and where it was to so we made a note. The next night we were asked to go on an armed reconnaissance in force into the trenches as far as a small village a mile or so away where we had to pin everyone down, including the chief of the defending army while our Army somewhere else did something different. We worked out all of our plans and arranged that this woman would be called at the very last minute and be expected to travel in the state in which she appeared because she didn’t look the type. She looked the type who needed an hour’s preparation for a photograph. We were all preparing and were on the point of calling her when she suddenly appeared and wanted to know why she hadn’t been called. I replied that we hadn’t been mustered to set off yet, it was our sole preparation time and we were preparing. She wondered why she hadn’t been asked to prepare. I explained that at the last meeting that we’d had, she explained to us that she was always ready so we assumed that if she said that she was always ready then she was always ready and needed no preparation. She could step into the car at the very last minute and come with us. She was not satisfied with any of this explanation but we made sure that it was our version that was written on the combat reports so that Head Office could actually see it

And here we go again with a similar situation, people coming in and not having the patience to look around and see how the system works and how everything functions. After all, it was functioning quite well before they arrived.

Later on we had to go to Disney to meet those people from yesterday By the time everyone had finished walking on the beach and preparing, we were about an hour late at the meeting point. But we turned up all the same and had to fight our way down the queues. There was a sign that read “entry today 60p” so we prepared 60p but when we reached the machine it was 89p. We all thought that that was highly illegal so we fumed and moaned but sorted out some cash instead, paid and went in, picking up our free tickets and vouchers. The coffee came in huge, enormous mugs but it was freezing cold . I don’t know where they’d had this coffee stored. The food was typical “Tricatel” stuff slopped on your plates. It seemed that no-one in my group was worried about meeting these two other people from yesterday. It seemed that there was no sense of time or sense of urgency. All one guy was doing was busy changing the label he’d put round his baby daughter’s face mark so he wouldn’t hit him in the face. No-one seemed to care. I thought that this was a very strange way to be running any kind of business – someone should have found these people’s phone numbers and phoned them but it was nothing to do with me. I let the other people make the arrangements and it was easy to be totally fouled up and what was worse was that no-one seemed to be bothered about it.

And which “people from yesterday”? This journey sounds like a typical cock-up organised in just the way that anything would be organised within our family. The importance of rendez-vous is “who, when and where” expressed briefly and succinctly , not this total anarchic chaos that seems to pervade just about everything and hoping for the best, something that never ever happens.

There was the question of the publication of a children’s book which had been done to a certain type of formula prepared by another Society. Halfway through the proceedings the other society had withdrawn its permission. Now it was taking on a whole new meaning as there had to be a whole new redesign of the work that had been done. Somehow was involved in this but I had a feeling that things were not going correctly, that one of our employees for reasons best known to himself was dragging his heels with this and making life difficult so we tried to chivvy him along but it didn’t seem to work. It was causing all kinds of problems. The document checks weren’t working out very well, standard phrases had to be re-written etc. In the end I finished a pile of work, put it in a container and posted it in one of these aerial vacuum systems somewhere. It fed into the circuit just as someone went into there to reach for a document. The whole thing of my work fell onto his shoulder. I thought to myself “he won’t do that again in a hurry, will he? He’ll know what to expect the next time that he’ll try to fetch something from the vacuum system”.

And there’s always one of those in every organisation too, someone who slows down other people’s creative spirit because he never thought of the idea first so he doesn’t want it to work at any price.

But having complained the other day about the poor quality of recent dreams, last night made up for a lot of it. All I need now is Castor, Zero and TOTGA to come and cheer me up.

It might have been possible for them to come this afternoon because I was away with the fairies yet again for a couple of hours, but no such luck.

But that’s what’s depressing me – this continual crashing out during the day. Rosemary thinks that I’ll feel much better once the dialysis begins. Quite frankly, I couldn’t feel much worse.

There was time to complete another radio programme before tea tonight. I edited some text that I’d dictated last night before going to bed, and then assembled a programme completely.

Grahame says that he’s surprised that I’m still bashing out the radio programmes, and so am I. There’s bound to be a point where my eyesight will fail completely or else I’ll be spending too much time asleep, but we’re not quite there yet.

Tea was of course a vegan pizza. I’d taken a lump of dough out of the freezer after lunch and when it had thawed I rolled it out and assembled it.

On that note I’ll clear off and go for an early night. But before I go I’ll leave you with another one of my heroes.

Not the Irish politician Sir Boyle Roche this time, but the baseball coach Laurence Peter “Yogi” Berra
When asked how he wanted his pizza sliced, whether in 6 slices or 8 slices, he replied
"You better slice it in six. I don’t think that I could manage eight slices."

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

Yes, again!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sunday 26th May 2024 – I CAN’T GO …

… on like this much longer. I really can’t.

You cannot imagine the amount of pain I’m in from the muscle in my right leg and you cannot imagine the amount of effort even the most simple of everyday tasks is taking me.

Crawling into bed at night is a nightmare and one I’m in I’m stuck in that position and can’t move at all. And then there’s this stabbing pain every so often that starts in the sole of my right foot.

One thing that’s certain is that I’ve had enough of all of this.

Last night I was actually in bed quite early – well before 23:00. And how happy I was about that too. If only I knew what was coming.

It was 04:15 when I awoke in agony and couldn’t find a comfortable position, couldn’t move, couldn’t turn over, couldn’t do anything

Nevertheless I decided to stick it out until the 08:00 alarm but I gave up round about 06:00 and crawled out of bed. So much for the early night and possible lie-in.

After a good wash and clean-up I found another early-bird so Liz and I had a good chat on the internet for quite a while. Liz is also planning on joining the Air Fryer Assembly and was picking my brains, such as I have these days.

Once the nurse had been and gone (and been persuaded to do my blood test on Monday) and I’d had breakfast Liz and I carried on out chat for a while and then I came in here.

At first I didn’t do much except transcribe the dictaphone notes from the night. People who were believed to be British spies or spies for, the UK were being denounced by another spy organisation from the Midlands as unfaithful. The authorities were taking every step within their powers to find these members who were … fell asleep here

That’s no surprise given what I was reading last night. There was something about The Disappeared – the missing victims of the IRA terror squads – and then about a police sting that went wrong in the USA when a County Police Undercover Unit “busted” the Undercover Unit of a neighbouring County

Later on I was rolling through all the history of Billy the Kid during the night. All about the different women with whom he was consorting, about the different stories about his end, the different stories about his grave and so on. I was churning it over in my mind ready to dictate when I would remember something else so I’d start again – and again, and again. And this went on for several hours while I was asleep in the very early morning and I never actually managed to dictate anything about it.

Then I couldn’t do much because I crashed out again, and for a couple of hours too. That’s no surprise given the early start that I’d had.

Lunch was late today as you might expect after all of that. It had taken me a good while to come round into the Land of the Living today – longer than usual in fact, and that’s long enough.

Once lunch had finished I spend the whole afternoon , yes the whole afternoon baking

Right now I have a pile of pizza dough, a whole pile of naan bread dough and I also baked myself a flapjack.

A flapjack with a difference too because while I was hacking some figs about with the food processor I had a few squares of chocolate in there too.

It’ll be intriguing to see what that tastes like, all mixed up with the honey

There would have been biscuits too but I ran out of time, of patience, of energy, of enthusiasm etc.

The pizza dough was delicious and the pizza excellent but I had other preoccupations so that I couldn’t really enjoy it

So now that I’ve finished my notes I’m going to crawl into bed, pains and all, ready for tomorrow and my blood test. And this must be the very first time that I hope that they’ll have found a serious anomaly so that they can do something about it

But it all reminds me of my namesake the Arctic Explorer Charles F Hall in the second half of the 19th Century who lived up to the family tradition by being murdered by his expedition crew.

He was once treated for frostbite “in an embarrassing place” and when he asked why, told his interviewers "the USA’s Admiralty Board told me to stick it out as long as I could, but I must have misunderstood"

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Sunday 12th May 2024 – I’LL BE GLAD …

… when today ends and I can crawl off into the warmth and comfort of my nice little bed.

It’s been a horrible day so far. Just now I couldn’t even find the strength to rise up from my comfy chair to go to take my pizza from the oven. Just how bad is that?

And to think that I was so looking forward to it too. Being for once early in bed I was looking forward to a nice long uninterrupted sleep last night.

But that didn’t happen either. We had two false or phantom alarms during the night and as I said the other day, I’ve no idea what’s happening there.

The second time, after having almost persuaded myself that it was time to leave the bed, was at 06:20. And then I couldn’t go back to sleep. I lay there vegetating until 08:00.

When I did finally stir my stumps as the alarm rang out, I headed for the bathroom where I had a really good wash and a change of clothes. The previous set of clothing walked into the wash basket on its own

The nurse came round later than usual. She sorted out my dressing and puttees but she couldn’t hang around and was soon gone. I had some corn flakes and coffee and then came back in here.

It’s not as if I did much either. I was flat out on my chair for a couple of hours completely involuntarily, and the hallucinations that I had were just like that time in hospital a few months ago.

Once I came back into the Land of the Living I watched Stranraer grub out a 2-2 draw against East Kilbride in the promotion – relegation play-off. It’s a good job that the second leg is in Stranraer because I think that they’ll need rather more than home advantage.

After lunch I transcribed the dictaphone notes, of which there were more than just a few. I was at a football match but a match where every player had to lie on a bed and perform some kind of ritual movement and then would be joining the team but the team was not so good in the goals and there were certain rhythms and routines that the players had to follow based on different lines in a series of books. every now and again someone would reposition these things so you’d change direction and go off again. I was busy trying to kill someone off the game. This was an extremely complicated manoeuvre too because I had to follow certain rules and they were complicated too in doing different things. In the meantime of course the person was trying to kill me. Then we were going to have a small game and I was going to take part in the main game so I was being briefed ready to take my position at the next interchange of players. It was all about playing up and down these steps as they changed function . It looked extremely complicated and on many times I had to confirm it with my notes that I’d taken a while ago which were still with the person with whom I was originally paired. Eventually they told me to stop that and just follow these instructions which completely confused me because I can’t remember all kinds of things like that that they wanted me to do. Then there were all kinds of different rules, regulations and other things. Then there was this guy trying to kill me from this subsidiary game. It was just so complicated.

And isn’t “I can’t remember all kinds of things” the story of my life? I can remember the lyrics of all kinds of obscure rock songs of the 196s but ask me why I’ve just come into the kitchen.

Then I was back in that game again. One of the guys who had started off the game was very seriously hurt, I suppose, and lost all the power in his spear or javelin or something so we were going to have to find someone else who would take over the position and maybe play from there. There was lots more to it too but I’ve forgotten all of that now.

Didn’t I say so? And it’s not my spear or javelin in which I’ve lost power these days

Then yet again I was back in this dream fighting a war. I went to sit down but missed my aim and fell onto the floor but I wasn’t on the floor so I thought that maybe I’d managed to sit up and extricate myself without a great deal of difficulty. Then I suddenly realised that I was actually lying on the bed. That’s not complicated at all to stand up from so I might be able to be lucky and get back into the game quite quickly.

Another phantom alarm tonight at 03:05

The voting formula has changed. It’s where people who were franchised members of a particular party all still voted and their vote was taken into account somehow but now they’ve decided that this can rise up to a million as more and more people stay at home with OCVID rampant. In 2017 the chief of the college came in with a car equipped with its winter tyres. There were already three cars there having their summer tyres fitted but as usual he fought his way to the front of the queue and tried to break in there to be dealt with earlier. The woman at that position was not having any of it despite how much of a period of voting she’s going to learn to lose because of the confrontation

And if you are wondering why my dreams don’t make sense, they are dreams. They don’t have to. In fact you’ll be lucky if anything that I write does.

Did I mention another false alarm at about 06:20 this morning?… "yes you did" – ed …

In between all of this I’d taken some pizza dough from the freezer and it had been defrosting. I rolled it out ready to assemble but I was interrupted. One of my neighbours came to see me for a chat which was nice of her

And so, running late yet again, I assembled my pizza and baked it. It was delicious as usual.

So now, at long last, I’m ready for bed, if I can get out of my chair.

But it’s not all doom and gloom, despite how it might seem. The good news is that the new Crewe Bus Station has opened – something that I should have reported a couple of days ago except that my “moles on various committees” have not been getting about as aften as they should and they’ll receive a kick in the nether regions in due course.

The even better news is that the new bus station has public toilets. That means that in due course all the residents of The Land That Time Forgot will have the same opportunity that I did of passing Biology ‘O’ level thanks to the helpful drawings that will doubtless appear on the walls before long.

They had guided tours of the public conveniences on the open day. It cost 2/6d for a visit – or 2/7d if you wanted to see all of it.

But going back to this story about not remembering anything. Two things happen to you when you reach my age. One is that you forget absolutely everything.
… "And what’s the second thing?" – ed …
I don’t know. I can’t remember.

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Sunday 5th May 2024 – IM FED UP ….

… of these miserable days that I seem to be having right now,, like the one that I’ve had today when I’ve spent most of it asleep.

It totally beats me, whatever it is that’s switching me on and, more importantly, off like a lightbulb. I’m going through periods where I can’t stay awake no matter how hard I try. I can only think that it’s one of the pills that I’m taking and I wish I knew which one it was because I’d stop it without a moment’s hesitation.

It seems to be the same at night too though. What I’ve been doing for the last few nights is that once I actually get into bed, to run through a little scenario in my mind, and I’ve never reached the end of it, having fallen asleep somewhere along the way.

And last night was the same. I was in bed shortly after 23:00 and looking forward to a lie-in until all of 08:00 and running through my little scenario, didn’t reach the end before I must have fallen asleep.

There was something going on last night about a group of girls, maybe in a school or something. They had to dress themselves in the appropriate gear to fight off whatever it was that was coming to attack them. Some of them had just seen groups of humans coming their was. Others had seen supernatural figures. One had seen a dragon. The dispute roared on. If they wore clothes to defend themselves against the dragon they’ll be fine against any less powerful force but some of them just wanted to wear the clothes that were appropriate to fight the foe that they’d seen. They were in the middle of this huge argument when the alarm went off. Mt immediate feeling when the alarm went off was that it was too late now to change any decision that had been actually made because the moment had arrived.

It’s quite strange what goes on in my head just before the alarm goes off. There have been some really interesting things just recently that have been on the dictaphone from just before the alarm goes off and in some cases it’s a pity that the alarm disrupts them.

So when the alarm went off I fell out of bed and staggered off to the bathroom but the nurse was early today and gave me his three-minute warning before I’d finished dressing so I had to get a wiggle on and hurry up, which is quite difficult these days.

Anyway I just about managed to beat him this morning. Only just

When he came he told me that my neighbour had had another fall yesterday and that he’s worried about her. I think that all of us in the building are actually. She’s putting up a heroic fight against her illness but she really needs more help than we can give her.

After he left I had some breakfast and came back in here where I crashed out again. And for a couple of hours too. That’s really annoying as I said earlier.

Then I watched yesterday’s match between Stranraer and Stenhousemuir. Stranraer are bottom of the Scottish League 2 and Stenhousemuir are top so I imagine that everyone was surprised when Stranraer won the game 2-0.

Not that it did them any good because Clyde won too so Stranraer finished the season in bottom place and go into the relegation play-offs against East Kilbride of the Scottish Lowland League

After lunch I began to make my biscuits. I have some fresh – well, it’s not so fresh now after a couple of months in the kitchen – ginger and some coconut oil and desiccated coconut so for the next couple of weeks we’ll be having ginger and coconut biscuits.

While they were going through their preparation and standing phases I transcribed the dictaphone notes. Some of them you won’t wish to know about, especially if you’re eating your meal right now, but we had also gone to a Workingman’s Club in Crewe. We were only kinds and we weren’t sure whether we were going at first. It was all a very last-minute thing before my mother decided to take us. We had a wonderful time with all kinds of kids’ entertainments etc going on. At the end of the night I thanked my mother for taking us but wished that she’d spent more time with us because she was off with all of her friends but she insisted that she’d spent a lot of time with us although that’s not at all how it appeared to any of us at all. She was much more interested in her friends than she was in her children – that was the impression that we received and we were pretty much left alone for the entire night.

And there’s more truth in that dream than you can imagine too.

And weren’t Workingmen’s Clubs a strange phenomenon? Run by committees of elderly men who actively refused to consider anything at all except things that only they would enjoy, they drove away the youngsters in droves. When they died out, there was no-one to take their place and all of the clubs closed down

It doesn’t matter how well something is working at the moment, you have to move with the times and take on board modern ideas or else your pet project will die out with you too.

There’s a similar dispute going on in Welsh football right now. Ground improvement regulations have come into force at tier three clubs. They all now have to have covered seating accommodation, concrete walkways and so on.

Many people are upset by these regulations but the days of standing on a cinder bank in the open air in the rain are long-gone.

If I have the choice of a couple of football games to watch and it’s raining, and one ground has covered accommodation and the other doesn’t, which one will I choose? And if it’s not raining, but one ground has a pie hut and the other one doesn’t, where will I go?

The modern world is changing rapidly and we have to do the best we can to keep up with it.

There was also time to choose the music for another radio programme for which I’ll write the notes in the forthcoming week. When I’ll dictate them though is anyone’s guess. I need a quiet, late night for that but there’s no chance while the nurse is coming round every morning.

There was a vegan pizza to make too. I’d taken some of the dough out of the freezer and that was busy defrosting during the afternoon. At some point I rolled it out and assembled my pizza.

After the biscuits had been baked (and delicious they are too because I cooked the odds and ends of pastry in the air fryer and then sampled them) I baked the pizza and that was delicious too.

As a special treat for pudding, I finished off the strawberries with some more soya cream. They were really nice too.

So that’s everything for tonight, I reckon. I’ll do what I need to do to finish off and then go to bed where I’ll run through my little scenario and see how far I reach.

But the story of plays and scenarios reminds me of a story I heard about two rival actors, one of whom was appearing in a tragedy and the other in a comedy.
The one said to the other, who was appearing in the comedy "I saw your comedy last night and I’m afraid that I didn’t laugh once"
To which the other replied "well isn’t that funny? I saw that tragedy that you are in and I simply roared with laughter"

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Sunday 14th April 2024 – AND IF YOU …

… think that the last few days have been bad, you should have been here today.

Today, it was just like being back in the olden days when I was living in Leuven. All my energy and enthusiasm, which has been giving signs for a quite a while of wanting to go, finally departed today and there was a washed-out hulk of me sitting on a chair in my bedroom totally unable to move

Back in the days of Leuven I’d have crawled off to bed and stayed there until I don’t know when and hoped that everything would slowly improve. And for two pins I would have done that today too except that I’m not convinced that there will ever be any improvement.

What’s so sad about all of this is that I made a special effort to be in bed early last night and with an extra hour’s sleep before the alarm at 08:00 instead of 07:00 I was really looking forward to some improvement.

Last night before going to bed I’d had a good run around and done everything early which meant that for once I was ahead of myself and could crawl into bed quite content. But ohhhh! Cruel fate!

When the alarm went off I fell out of bed as usual and went to check the blood pressure. 15.7/9.8 this morning, compared to 15.5/10.1 last night. So roughly about the same.

Next task was to set out the room for the nurse so that she’d be happy. I have to look after people like that if I want a comfortable life. It’s not a good idea to upset a nurse who has to tear a plaster every morning off an open wound on your foot.

After she’d left I had some corn flakes and coffee and then came to check the dictaphone notes. of which there are more than just a few. There was a girl – I’m sure that I’ve not dreamed her before. She was about 14 and used to belong to this group of runners. We’d go running at lunchtime at school. Something had happened to her computer and they had to go right back to the days of old DOS 5.0 and DOS 6.0 and ancient computers and files to restart things. This was becoming really complicated but she was sticking it out, which impressed me more than anything. In the end there were only the two of us. As time advanced it became clear that the two of us had become a couple for once which is a rare occasion during a dream, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

She had very short hair and a nice little shape, a little on the muscular side, her thighs and so on. All in all I considered her to be quite a catch and thought myself extremely lucky.

It’s a shame that there was no such girl in our group of runners at school. Every lunchtime a few of us would assemble and run all the way down to Acton, perform a few exercises to warm and loosen us up, and then run back to school.

Those of us in the Sixth Form, whose common room was the old cookery lab, would then tuck in like animals to a catering-size tin of baked beans and sliced loaf of bread.

That went on for a while like that until we found that one of our “runners” was the nephew of the landlord of the Double-Necked Swan down the road. Then our lunchtime habits changed.

And then I had a small force of men including a couple of tanks and had to attack an enemy stronghold with it. What I did was to surround the stronghold with my troops. Then I sent in the tanks and used them to roll up the flanks. As the tanks passed the waiting infantry, the infantry closed in behind the tanks to keep the pressure on the bubble of enemy and to stop them trying to break out to join up with other units so that we could consequently crush them

So in this expedition from school which I’d mentioned earlier … "when?" – ed … we’d begun to build up the tanks but they pushed in to hold the unit together and the tanks did well to roll up the outposts that they had. We were pretty well-impressed. The only difficulty was wondering what they were going to do for our next trick because this wasn’t a trick that you could repeat more than once on the battle field. You need good weather, good legs and good transport to take yourself to the next point of attack and we didn’t actually have anything like that at all at the moment. It was all a very ad-hoc structure.

And I’m not sure about you but I’m impressed that I can plan a military campaign in my sleep. Like the other day when I was planning an advertising campaign, I clearly have some hidden talents, hidden so well that not even I am sure of where to go to find them.

And I wish that I did because I could do with something to liven up my life.

“The cameras say that I’m beautiful” said Julie. “Well, you’re far too young to be beautiful” said Amy. “You have to be pretty, you have to be sweet, you have to be charming and you have to be delightful first, and then someone might find you beautiful, but not when you’re 12 years old. The cameras are lying to you and are obviously seducing you into their magic without you being aware of what is happening. You need to think about this because soon it will be too late for you to resist the magic that they are pulling on you. You need to learn to resist”.

As it happens, I vaguely remember something about this dream. It was similar to a scenario in “The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe” about children who suddenly become the decisive instruments in a power-struggle that is beyond their comprehension

Of course that’s the kind of thing to make anyone question their surroundings and what is going on.

But I definitely can’t remember anything of the following dream. This was when all the objects were arranged neatly in the rear window of the car that was taking them away. It was all in a position of just inviting a burglary if they were going to be left overnight like this

It was round about this point that I fell asleep for the first time; so dramatically and deeply that I was off on another travel. I was working for Shearings and had been called in to do a feeder. It was running to some hotel and venue in the south of England. But when I reached the depot there ere all kinds of a strange green coloured service double decker with pointed roofs like the old Beverley Arch buses. One or two of our coaches arrived and parked down at the bottom end of the yard so I went to see. There were some old World War I type of lorries there and someone was negotiating with their drivers to take our passengers in their old stinky canvas-topped lorries that had a strange kind of crash-reverse gear fitted

There was no danger of missing my food. I awoke in time for lunch but not even two cups of coffee could save me as I crashed out at the kitchen table.

Later on I recovered enough to take myself off to my comfy chair in the bedroom and that’s where I stayed, feeling, tired, exhausted and sorry for myself. I really was in quite a state.

Later on I managed to summon up enough energy, from I don’t know where, to go to make a flapjack and my Sunday evening pizza. But I really didn’t want to. I was in no mood to do anything

What I’m hoping for is enough courage and energy to hang on for a week and my trip to hospital, when I can tell all to people who might be able to do something about it.

But right now that’s my lot. I’ve had about four mouthfuls of pizza and that’s all that I can manage. And anyone who knows anything a tall about me will know that if I’m off my food I really am ill.

Those bad attacks of wind are back again but I’m not going to say anything about them to the hospital because, knowing them, they’ll just prescribe a kite.

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Sunday 7th April 2024 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER …

… horrible, gruesome, miserable day today again.

And if you thought that the one the other day was bad, this beats is easily. In fact it beats any day that I have ever had and I wish that I were dead.

It was at about 05:30 when I awoke this morning which, considering that once more I didn’t go to bed until long after midnight, is simply not enough.

Whatever it was that awoke me I really have no idea but I do know why I couldn’t go back to sleep, and that is this nerve ending in the sole of my right foot that is absolutely killing me.

It was doing its best to unsettle me last night, not without success. I’m getting to the stage where I’m simply afraid to move or to do anything in case it flares up again. And then after a while it flares up again all of its own accord anyway.

What would be nice would be in I knew what was causing it so that I didn’t do it again, but that’s far too easy a solution.

So when the alarm went off first thing that I did was to check the blood pressure. Maybe because of the stabbing pain in the sole of my foot it was 17.1/10.1 whereas last night, despite the stabbing pain then, it was 16.2/10.1

The nurse was early again today and I hadn’t finished my toilet so it was a very dishevelled me who went to meet him. And he’s given me instructions to wash the puttees for next time, but not to worry as I have the spare set which are already clean.

After he left I made myself some coffee and corn flakes, and went to carry on reading THE DAWN OF ASTRONOMY for a while.

Considering that the book is over 100 years old, it’s absolutely fascinating. It’s interesting to read his speculation about a lot of the ancient Egyptian temples, and then read subsequent modern research into the sites that proves his theories

The amount of old, interesting out-of-copyright books that I’ve found on these archiving sites is phenomenal and I’ve enjoyed every one.

Back in here I transcribed the dictaphone notes from the night last night. There was a group of girls being used as entertainers. I had a woman who wasn’t all that much older than me supervising them and making sure that they were well-behaved. While they were eating the supervisor was hanging around the girls so I wondered what was going on. I went over to find out. I found out that she had a series of plates, cups and saucers etc that were made in bright green plastic. She was trying to have her whole network to buy these products and use them so that she could identify them whenever she went away or was on some foreign soil etc but one or two of her members I suppose were quite keen on the idea but the rest weren’t so she was having a really difficult job trying to explain this to them.

When we were up in the High Arctic we were all given bright blue jackets. Firstly, they stood out really well against the snow and ice so that we could be seen quite easily in case we lost the way
Secondly many of our landings were dependent upon winds, currents, tides, polar bears and ice flow. All that could change in an instant and if we had to be called back to a zodiac or to THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR we could be distinguished quite easily from a local.

Not for nothing was our party always known as “The Smurfs”.

My jacket from 2018 is hanging up in my cupboard here, but the one from 2019 was last seen hanging from a coat hook in a hotel in Calgary with my notebook and a few other bits and pieces in its pockets.

The whole of my progress around the Northern Hemisphere is marked by the objects that I’ve left behind, scattered to the four winds like that

By now I’d crashed out, for the first (but not the last) time today and was gone on this occasion until 12:00.

But even though I was feeling so bad, worse than you will ever know, I pressed on as well as I could with my radio notes to try to make some kind of progress.

After lunch I crashed out again but managed to awaken in time to make a start on the biscuits. And nice as they are, they would have been even nicer had I remembered the desiccated coconut to go with the coconut oil that I put in there.

It’s just a basic 10/8/4 mix of flour, butter/oil and sugar with nutmeg, cinnamon, ground ginger and cocoa powder.

While the mixture was firming up in the fridge I was crashing out again and then while it was baking I was dealing with tonight’s pizza. Not that I wanted to because I wasn’t hungry but I forced myself. And you can tell that I’m ill when I’m off my food

To everyone’s surprise, especially my own, I’ve brushed up in here and washed the floor. I’m likely to have a visit tomorrow afternoon. A party of Auvergnats has now arrived in the immediate vicinity and I’m likely to be called forward for inspection.

So I’ll need to pretty myself up too – an impossible task these days, I know. But if I have a better night’s sleep that will be a start.

But talking about polar bears just now reminds me of the time that they decided to have some cycles available for the more intrepid tourist on THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR
Two polar bears were admiring the advert and one of them said to the other one "high time someone started a ‘meals on wheels’ service around the Arctic"

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Sunday 24th March 2024 – WE’RE RUNNING LATE …

… yet again this evening. Once more, the late Mr Hall seems to be doing the business (or not, as the case may be).

The problem with a football match kick-off at an inconvenient time combining with a series of complicated manoeuvres … "PERSONOEUVRES" – ed … in the kitchen and things has conspired against me yet again.

For example, it’s currently 21:20 and I’ve still not eaten tonight’s pizza. It’s still cooking away in the oven.

Most of the cleaning-up in there has been done though so I’m not as tardy as all that but nevertheless things are still not going as they might or as I would like them yet again.

There is one bright spot – a very bright spot – on the horizon and I’ll tell you all about that in due course if you read on down the page.

And as for last night, I was late going to bed then too. Despite setting the alarm for 08:00 it was still well after midnight when I finally let it all hang out and went to bed. Not even 8 hours sleep, and on a Sunday morning too!

At least it was a really deep sleep and I remember very little about anything that went on. However, once more I awoke just before the alarm went off. So twice in succession now I’ve awoken just before 08:00 without any artificial aids. There’s obviously something going on somewhere.

But when the alarm went off I fell out of bed and sat down to recover and to compose myself. Not like Beethoven, who spent 57 years composing and then the next 197 years decomposing.

Once I was ready I checked the blood pressure to see how it was doing. 15.7/10.4, compared to 160/10.1 from the previous evening. It’ll be interesting to see what the reading will be on a real, accurate machine though because this one seems to produce results that bear no resemblance whatever to what figures they obtain at the hospital.

Anyway, so now that I’ve eaten my delicious pizza we can continue.

Once the nurse had been and gone, without complaining too much today, I made myself a coffee and had some cornflakes. There have to be some benefits if I’m going to be up and about so early.

And I gave Rosemary a terrible shock too. She’s apparently tried to contact me which I was baking and watching football yesterday so I sent her a message “any time this morning”. She was shocked because usually it’s “anyone who tries to disturb me before midday on a Sunday will be exterminated”.

While I was waiting for her to call back I took the stuff out of the freezer that I had put in yesterday, took it off the metal trays that I use so that everything freezes individually, and then stacked it all in the freezer, the burgers between layers of baking paper so that they don’t stick together.

Rosemary and I had another one of our marathon chats that go on for ever, putting the World to rights as usual, not that we can do very much about it. We’re both glad, though, that we don’t have to go through the chaos that is the UK and that we live over here.

And it looks as if this bunch of Auvergnats that has been threatening to come up to Normandy at some point really is happening. Not only have they booked a house up the road at Breville for their stay, every one of them has paid her share of the rental.

There’s some talk that they might even come and take me out for a day while they are here, which will be nice. It’ll be good to stretch my legs outside for once.

After we’d finished speaking I transcribed the dictaphone notes from last night. This was part of my flying patrol thing where one aeroplane has to stay out for a very long time so it has to take all of its equipment with it but it was seen by one lot of people flying over on its way out to pick up its stuff and they were looking out for it flying back again but without any success. The aeroplane in question has collected a lot of the smaller stuff that it needed and was going to stay out for a long time

Or so I said into the dictaphone. But my plan would have worked, with a few first-generation four-engined bombers like Stirlings and Halifaxes stripped of absolutely everything except the bare essentials and with a galley and bed in them, and based in Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland they could have had enough range to patrol the North Atlantic to provide defence against submarines operating in areas where more conventional aerial forces couldn’t reach.

It would have made an exciting novel anyway.

Later on I was out in the countryside following the trail of a film. Someone had written in asking what was the significance of the name of a pub “The Flying Anvil” and a few other things about a particular road during which a vehicle was filmed advancing in a film so I went down on my motorbike to have a look. I could filld The Flying Anvil easily enough but I was looking around for everything else that they’d asked about when I came to a “stop” sign in the road. There were all these people on motorbikes congregated around it blocking the road. I asked if I could advance. They said “yes” but sat with this meeting and I had to pass right through the crowd effectively but they didn’t move at all. I just had to sit there. One girl pulled up on a motorbike later and someone asked her if she’d dropped it. She replied “yes” – it had slipped from underneath her. They were just having this big discussion amongst them selves all across the road not caring whatever about anyone else who might have wanted to go through there and continue on their way.

Finally I was on my way around the town and went past a petrol station. The girls were filling up the petrol tanks of the two mopeds that we had but they had the windscreen washer bucket things underneath the frames of the mopeds. I asked them what was going on. I said that it looked awful, that. The girls said that the petrol station is sick and tired of us making a big mess when we come here. I asked what was the problem. They replied that the fuel tanks are leaking so much. Every time we fill up half of the stuff leaks all over the petrol station. I was furious because no-one ever told me anything about this. I asked why it was leaking. They replied “basically it’s George. He went to a camping exhibition with the two mopeds the other day and drove all the way with the choke fully open. That’s how he drives them. Every time he takes one of them somewhere he has the choke fully open so the petrol all leaks out everywhere. Now it does it all the time”. I was furious that no-one had ever mentioned it to me because obviously I can’t repair something or fix something if no-one ever tells me anything and no-one ever lets me know whether there’ a problem with anything.

And that’s the story of what I was doing 30-odd years ago. It seemed that common sense was in very short supply back in those days and by the looks of things, nothing much has changed. Everyone talks about “Artificial Intelligence” as being the thing of the moment. But in my opinion what we need is less Artificial Intelligence and more Natural Intelligence.

And if we had enough of the latter, we wouldn’t need any of the former.

So abandoning another good rant for the moment, I went and began to prepare the Hot Cross buns. Easter just isn’t Easter without Hot Cross Buns toasted and with piles of butter sinking in.

Having checked the other day, I found that I did have almost everything that I needed and what I didn’t have I couldn’t get anyway, so it was a simple matter of collecting everything together.

Liz had given me some advice about making the liquid wetter than the recipe suggests so instead of 150 ml of milk I used 160, and 30 mg of butter instead of 25.

Learning from my past mistakes, I took my time and prepared everything carefully. And then slowly and gently, but for a considerable time, kneaded the dough together just as if I was massaging Zero’s clavicles.

While it was proofing I went off to watch the first half of the football, Airdrie United v TNS in the final of this Scottish FA Challenge competition.

Connah’s Quay Nomads had lost to Ross County in the 2019 Final by 2-1 after going a goal up, so when TNS scored early in the game to go in front, I was reminded of Terry Venables and his quote "if history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again".

And I wasn’t disappointed because Airdrie scored after 25 minutes to sent the players in at half-time equal at 1-1

What I did was to go into the kitchen to give the dough a second kneading, add in the dried fruit and some fleur d’orange flavouring.

The second half of the game was a foregone conclusion. TNS failed to penetrate the Airdrie defence for the remainder of the game and after about an hour, conceded a very soft penalty. And that was that.

But once again, I really don’t understand TNS’s tactics. 2-1 down and with the game slipping away, and they are passing the ball around on the edge of the opponents’ penalty area retaining possession but making no attempt to put the ball into the penalty area.

You don’t win games if you don’t score goals, and you don’t score goals if you don’t make any attempts. The more shots you have, the more likely you are to score.

This “it’s all about retaining possession” which seems to be the modern way of thinking is all pretty pointless really. It doesn’t produce any results. If you look closely, this “playing the ball out of defence” from a goal kick or a keeper’s clearance has led to more mistakes and more goals conceded by the team’s defence than it’s led to goals being scored by the team’s attackers.

Once the game was over I went into the kitchen, split the dough into 6 equal parts, kneaded each part again and put it on the baking tray. And then, using the little icing bag that I’d bought ages ago, made the crosses on my buns, not very artistically it has to be said.

While they were proofing I kneaded the pizza dough that I’d taken out of the freezer earlier and which had been defrosting. Then I rolled it out and put it on the tray, leaving it all to fester.

Back in the kitchen later when the pizza base had risen, I switched on the oven and shoved in the buns, and then assembled my pizza.

And when my buns had cooked, I couldn’t believe it. They had risen like a lift and looked exactly like shop-bought buns ought to look. This was the first time that I have ever had such stupendous, satisfactory results when I’ve been bread-making and I’m almost as impressed as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin.

If I can make buns like this some other time I’ll be more than happy

The pizza was delicious too although it could have done with another 5 minutes in the oven.

So my Welsh Easter course starts tomorrow. That should keep me out of mischief for four days or so. I’ll have to prepare for it of course, so that will be the task after the nurse has gone. It’s not like the time that they told me at the hospital that I was going to have a blood test the following morning so I sat up all night studying.

At least, with the course being run by the college in Caerfyrddin there’s not likely to be anyone on the course who knows me, like last time. The World is far too small for my liking. A teacher at my old school on my current course and a student from Nantwich on a previous holiday course.

It’s becoming rather like 2000 again when Marianne and I went to Rome for Holy Week and she was invited to see the Pope. I was determined not to miss out so when he appeared on the balcony to bless the crowds I shinned up the ivy to meet him and say hello.
All of the newspapers all over the World had it in their headlines next day "MYSTERY MAN ON HOLY BALCONY IN VATICAN"
And in small print underneath "Who was the man up there with Eric Hall?"

0

Sunday 17th March 2024 – WHOSE SILLY IDEA …

… was this for me to make a start at 08:00 this morning?

It wouldn’t have been so bad if the alarm had actually gone off but somehow for some unknown reason it didn’t fire up and that was that.

Strangely enough, five minutes later, at 08:05 exactly, I sat bolt upright, wide-awake and that was something really quite extraordinary, especially as first of all it’s a Sunday and secondly, I didn’t go to bed until 00:20 this morning. I’ve really no idea why I should awaken like that just five minutes after the alarm should have gone off, but didn’t.

It’s actually quite surprising how long it takes to do everything that needs to be done before I go to bed. There’s the list of what I needed to do that I posted the other day, and even then I forgot about taking the blood pressure. Seriously, I’d forget my head if it wasn’t so firmly screwed on

And that’s why a baby never falls out of a pregnant woman – because it’s screwed in. But I digress … "again" – ed …

Last night after I’d finished the notes I wandered around doing everything that I need to do before retiring, apart from washing these puttee-things. They aren’t soiling so there’s no need to wash them until we have the second pair.

And then, thinking that I’d set the alarm, I fell into bed.

As I mentioned earlier I fell out of bed at 08:05 and then checked the blood pressure. 16.0/9.9, compared to last night’s figure of 16.1/11.1. We shouldn’t go round taking these figures as gospel because there’s quite a discrepancy between what they show at the hospital and what is being shown at home. I have grave suspicions about my little machine.

Having taken my medicine I arranged a few things in order ready for the immediate arrival of the nurse.

When she turned up she tore into me because the stuff wasn’t here from the pharmacy. As I said, “what can I do about it? I’m firmly and completely in the hands of other people”. However, that’s no excuse apparently, and she carried on with her endless verbal assault.

She also had a good moan about me not taking painkillers. The whole of France is awash with Doliprane and I have no wish to join them. We’ve seen far too many cases in the past where people, pumped up to the gills with painkillers, fail to notice the damage that they are doing by continuing to use whatever member of the body is being numbed and the damage becomes permanent.

You suffer pain for a very good reason.

After she left I didn’t do too much. I had some food and then simply drifted around in cyberspace, that is – when I wasn’t asleep. I’ve fallen asleep a couple of times, once at the table in the dining room after two large mugs of black coffee. Something’s clearly not right there either.

But I did manage to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I had another dream … "when was the first?" – ed … where all the passengers were soaked inside a coach. This time I’d been to a local bar and seen on the counter top a couple of trips advertised to different places, one of which was a trip around the nuclear power station up the coast. so when the landlord had a moment free, for he was the type who was friends with everyone I asked him about it. He had a moan about him hoping that I wasn’t someone who had just come in to waste his time but he let me see the itinerary, the brochure etc and I thought “yes, I’ll sign up for this” and put my name down. He was at the point of asking me for a payment and a deposit but we ended up playing football. I was substituted quite early on pretty much the same as that dream at the start of the evening … "which dream?" – ed … where all the passengers were given a soaking by the coach driver who pulled the choke mechanism and that released a water tower into the air vents

That was another dream about which I recall absolutely nothing at all and I’ve no idea at all to what it refers.

But later on I was back singing in a rock group again … "presumably in English tonight" – ed … One of the things that I had to do was to speak to someone there about singing some of the songs in a mixed-up kind of fashion like singing a song by the Moody Blues, giving a false title and having people guess who it was and who wrote it. I had to communicate with someone about it, another group’s arranger. He was speaking to someone else so I had to interrupt him. A policeman there tried to take hold of me and usher me away. I had to be really insistent to the point of actually almost being arrested before the policeman would let me speak.

That’s something similar to a quiz that we had a few months ago on the radio. There, we were snipping out sound-bytes from popular songs and having people identify them. Being ushered away by a policeman is however quite a new experience. Usually, from what I’ve seen, it would be “out with the handcuffs” or, these days, more like “out with the truncheon”.

When you look back to the 1960s and early 70s and the Monty Python sketches of violent policemen going berserk with their truncheons and how we all laughed at the satire because it was such an unreal situation, and yet here we are today where policemen going berserk with truncheons is par for the course.

We’ve come a long way since those days, and all of it completely in the wrong direction. It’s like Théoden said in LORD OF THE RINGS – "The world changes, and all that once was strong now proves unsure"

And as Erma Brombeck wrote, "When humour goes, there goes civilization", and humour has long-since departed from this wretched world.

I’s easy to understand the sentiments of Bhuwan Thapaliya who said "The older I get, the more I cherish the company of children and the flowers. The children have no prejudices. They are what they are. And so are the flowers". That’s a position with which I sympathise.

What work I’ve done today has been to make a start on editing some radio programme notes. Not much of them because, being so tired as I am, I’ve not really felt in the mood for work.

In fact, I almost forgot about making my pizza tonight. Luckily I remembered just in time, and it was another delicious one.

So here’s hoping for a better day tomorrow. A good sleep might put me right, and then I have plenty to do. It’s never-ending. Who said anything about retiring making life easy?

It’s the one thing about old age, and that is that you have so much to do but you keep on forgetting to do it. That’s where I am now. It’s like the character in The Navy Lark who said "All of which reminds me of a funny story I once heard and which now completely escapes me"

As for me though, I’m like the character in “Gunsmoke” of which it was said "A lot of things can happen to people who get too lonely" – but as long as it only happens to me when I’m asleep, that’s OK.

Rather like the police who raided that woman’s apartment and found a knife under her pillow
"What’s this for?" they asked
"That’s in case someone breaks into my room while I’m asleep" she said "and brings me a cake".

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Sunday 10th March 2024 – TODAY IS THE …

… first day of the new regime, in which I have an alarm call on a Sunday morning.

It was set for 11:00, which makes for a nice lie-in after working until 02:00 dictating radio notes that I’d written, but it will be a different time next Sunday and for every Sunday onwards for the next few months as the nurse comes to visit me.

Yes, a much different time on Sunday mornings in the future, so make the most of it today.

Sure enough, when the alarm went off I was deep in the arms of Morpheus but I still managed to stagger to my feet.

Last night had been quite calm after I’d finished my notes. I went back to reading THE DAWN OF ASTRONOMY and the baffling phenomenon of Sothic time periods and the calculation of epacts until the street outside had quietened down and then went to dictate the notes for three radio programmes

In fact though, there were only two. I hadn’t finished the third, what with being in hospital and all of that. It had completely slipped my mind, thanks to my teflon brain, to which nothing whatever seems to stick. Still, it will give me something to do on Monday.

So just two to dictate, and that was enough. The usual nonsense and garbage because first of all I’m all up to my eyes in a state of confusion and secondly, with the cancer now beginning to affect my eyes I can’t see what I’ve written anyway.

In fact, it reminds me very much of the student at art school when his teacher checks his art folder
"What on earth is this?" asks his teacher, waving a piece of the student’s work around
"I assure you sir" said the student "I paint what I see"
"Well the shock will come" said the tutor "when you see what you paint"

Having done that I cleared off to bed where I had a rather bizarre night, as you will find out in due course.

When the alarm went off I fell out of bed and the first thing that I did was to check the blood pressure. 16.9/10.7. Last night was 18.0/10.6, but that was after dictating the radio notes so it’s no surprise.

After the medication I went into the bathroom and gave me feet a really in-depth wash. At the hospital they had put some kind of vaseline cream on my legs to hydrate them and it seemed to work. Somehow the tube was left behind in my room and it found its way into my rucksack.

Now that it’s here in my apartment I may as well make use of it before they work out that it’s missing.

Having done that I came in here to transcribe the dictaphone notes from the night. We’d been to a restaurant, a group of us. We’d been having a meal. We’d ordered dessert but dessert was served in a strange way. There was a big bowl and everyone’s dessert was in the bowl. We would pass the bowl and had to help ourselves to our dessert from it. People were dipping in and taking their bits and pieces. I’d ordered some kind of pastry which was served as round balls covered in cream … "profiteroles" – ed … I was having a look for them but couldn’t work out which was mine or not. I lifted one up and said to the assembled multitudes “is this one of my balls?” which of course stopped the conversation and brought forth a whole gulf of eruption of laughter from the table, so much so that it actually awoke me.

That was what I mean by a bizarre night. The sound of the laughter did actually awaken me and I did actually sit upright with my eyes wide open

And then we’d been fighting a war against the Germans in World War I. We were in our front line somewhere and I vaguely remember walking in the air over the front line looking at all of the people still in the trenches as I passed by over their heads. It was a weird sensation. Then there was an attack, apparently the French attacking the Germans because the Germans had massacred all of their French prisoners in a certain town as some kind of reprisal for this particular raid.

It really was a strange feeling, that. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall several years ago I had a strange dream where I was running down some marble steps when I took off near the bottom and actually flew for some distance. It was a similar sensation to that, floating over the trenches looking at the heads of the soldiers in there.

It’s the kind of thing that makes me wonder if that’s what happened to the soldiers when then died. Was it just as case of the light going out, like a switch being switched off, or did something live on afterwards?

There are lots of stories about people in a high emotion doing all kinds of things that they could never normally do, and there can’t be a much more heightened state of emotion than being psyched up to charge an enemy trench.

Later still I was with a friend and another guy. We were up in the hills looking down over a beach waiting for the D-Day landings to begin. The guy had one of the latest cameras that was capable of taking photos in the dark. He was playing with it and taking some really good images with the camera stopped quite low down. So I had a play with the little NIKON 1 J5 and that was producing some pretty good pictures too so I decided to go as low as it was possible to go and take a photo to see how it would come out. I pressed the shutter and knew that I would have to wait for several seconds but then my friend went and stood right in front of the camera to block the light. Every time I moved the camera he moved again with it to block the light so I was really quite annoyed about that because I was sure that regardless of the money that the guy had spent on his new camera my Nikon would take photos even better than the ones that he’d managed to squeeze out of his new camera.

Having my friends step in to confound my progress is not a new experience either. There was one of my friends who seemed to enjoy doing that as a matter of course but it wasn’t this particular one. Having said that though, I can think of a couple of occasions when I put my mind to it …

Finally the eldest daughter of my niece came to see me last night. She asked if I’d heard of a certain beach, (and she mentioned the name of it, but I’ve forgotten). I said “no”. She said that her friend suggested that they take me there. It’s very quiet and there are hardly any cars there. It would be nice. They handed me a card and after a little while I noticed that it said “credit cards accepted” so I wondered what on earth type of place it was.

Most beaches in North America are private. It’s not like Europe.

In the UK, for example, when lands began to be allocated shortly after the Norman Conquest, there was already an established road system and lands were allocated “back from the road”.

In North America however, there was no road network at the time of the allocation of lands and access was by the river, so lands were allocated “back from the river” and that included the beaches of course.

Québec is really interesting in this respect because much of the traditional medieval French system of allocation of lands is still reflected in the current system. For example, if you go around the St Lawrence valley you’ll see première rang or “first row” back from the river, and then deuxième rang or “second row” back from the river and so on that still exist today when you look at a map of current land allocations.

Anyway, I digress … "again" – ed …

After lunch, or breakfast, or whatever, I made a start on the next radio programme but I didn’t go far. I had pizza dough to make as I had now run out. And having used the same flour and the same yeast as yesterday I’m totally bewildered as to why it went up like a lift as I watched it.

There’s really something not quite right here with this dough and I don’t know what it is.

“Watching it” because I was making biscuits while it was proofing.

On the internet last night I found a recipe for oat and syrup biscuits, and I had all of the ingredients if I were to use honey instead of the syrup. That was what I did for the flapjack and it seemed to work perfectly, so why not?

It was quite an interesting way of making biscuits, more in the American line than the European but once I figured out what was going on (which took a while and wasn’t easy) they were absolutely fine.

The pizza was delicious too. The base had risen just as it ought to have done and it was well cooked too. I really seem to have found the knack of making these now, but I wish that I could pass on the skill to the bread-making activities.

The radio programme is almost finished now – just the notes for the final song to write and dictate. So I’ll do that tomorrow too along with everything else.

It looks as if I’ll be extremely busy this coming week with all that I have to do. Still, it keeps me out of mischief and I’d only be bored.

But right now I’m tired so I’m going to bed. But before I go let me just mention that it’s not just Rosemary who has joined the Air Fryer revolution. Grahame tells me that so has he, and he doesn’t know what he’d do without it now.

In the future I can see huge “hint-swapping” and “recipe-swapping” sessions on the agenda

The best recipe-swapping session took place in the mid-west USA in the 1940s when two farmers were having a discussion
"I hear that your old cow had the colic" asked one. "How did you treat it?"
"I made up a mixture of three parts turpentine, two parts paraffin and one part molasses" said the other.
"Very good" said the first.
Two weeks later they were talking again
"You know that recipe that you gave me for the cow with colic?" asked the first
"What about it?" asked the second
"I made it up and gave it to my cow and it died"
"That’s strange" said the second. "So did mine"

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Sunday 3rd March 2024 – I’M NOT TELLING …

… you what time I awoke today. It’s rather … errr … embarrassing.

And I’ve no idea either why it should have been what it was. I was in bed at 02:15 – a pretty reasonable time for a Saturday night/Sunday morning and I’d had plenty of sleep during the day too so I can’t have been all that tired.

There wasn’t much tossing and turning about during the night either. In fact I can’t remember moving at all while I was asleep.

The only thing that I can think is that I’ve had another one of those fits that I’ve been having just recently. But even then, I’ve been aware of my surroundings. This morning I was completely and utterly out of everything.

But we have to learn from lessons like this. You CAN teach an old dog new tricks and as of right now this minute, I shall be setting an alarm call for a Sunday. 11:00 might not sound particularly alarming for an alarm call for me, but it’s certainly a novel situation in which I find myself these days.

When I hauled myself out of bed I checked the blood pressure – 15.8/8.4, which is no surprise considering that my ears were steaming. Last night’s figure of 16.2/11.2 was due entirely to the frustration in having to track down some new batteries.

Why they can’t fit rechargeable batteries into machines like this is beyond me. My fitbit is rechargeable and even my kitchen scales will recharge off an USB port. How my life has changed since I’ve had my RECHARGEABLE KITCHEN SCALES and don’t have to scrabble around any more for batteries.

Once I’d done that I cleared off into the kitchen for my medication, and then I suppose that I’d better have breakfast, seeing what time it was – porridge, cheese on toast and hot black coffee – whilst I carried on reading some more of Sir Norman Lockyer’s THE DAWN OF ASTRONOMY.

He’s the guy who came up with the idea that the ancient Egyptians were star-worshippers and that their temples and pyramids were located and orientated so as to catch the light of certain stars as they rose and set. And I suppose that Lockyer was over the moon when he worked that out.

But several thousand years further on from the Ancient Egyptians there’s still plenty of star worship that goes on these days. But they aren’t the kind of stars of which Lockyer was thinking.

Back in here I transcribed the dictaphone notes, such as they were. A propos l’acteur Davy Buell il a continué vers le Texas où il a travaillé pour un petit moment, entré dans une Ordre réligieuse et puis était acteur à la télévision et acté dans les filmes qui sont biens connus par la publique américaine.

Yes, that’s what I said – In French, which surprised me completely. “About the actor Davy Buell – he continued on towards Texas where he worked for a short while, entered a religious Order and then had been an actor on television and in films that were well-known to the American public”.

It’s not the first time that we’ve had dreams in French. There have been several in the past. We’ve also had dreams in Flemish, Welsh and in Spanish too.

Yes, Spanish. Apart from having several Spanish colleagues at work from whom I was able to pick up the kind of language that you’d never learn in class, while I was having my “year out” after work in 2004/05 I went on a Spanish class at the University down the road from where I was living in Jette

That was quite an enjoyable year and an enjoyable class. I met that nice Asian girl with whom I had something of a fling but I can’t believe it (well, I can, actually) – even as recently as those days I still encountered parents warning their girls about me, and the girls taking notice.

It seems that I am fated to go wandering through the universe encountering this kind of opposition until I myself turn into a star – but no Egyptian will ever erect a pyramid of temple to worship me.

But do you know why there are pyramids in Egypt?
It’s because they were too heavy to move to the British Museum.

That reminds me of the time that I was in Egypt visiting the Great Tomb of Seti, I was told by a tourist guide that it was 3,200 years 3 months and 16 days old
And so I asked him how come they could date the tomb so accurately.
He replied "when I started work here they told me that it was 3200 years old, and I’ve been working here 3 months and 16 days."

There was more on the dictaphone too. Did I dictate the dream that I had twice … "no you didn’t" – ed … about being in that house and there being some kind of machine that had to fit on me like a blood pressure sleeve that would hopefully make me feel better but was one that I found very difficult to actually fasten on with one hand. It took a great deal of doing yet in the end I managed to fasten it on. It seemed to support me enough for whatever it was that needed doing. I had this dream not once but twice, once after the other.

That’s obviously related to this meeting that I have on Tuesday when they are going to be talking to me about some “mechanical aids” or whatever to help me with my problems. I wonder what they are likely to be.

Having done that I made a start on the radio notes – editing some in order to prepare the next programme.

The stuff that I dictated last night is going into the bin by the way. Whatever I wrote last week was total rubbish and makes no sense at all. Not that much of my stuff ever does, but we have to pretend about it.

There is however some stuff in a kind-of backlog so I made a start on some of that.

Not for long though because I had some hummus and some fruit buns to make.

Fruit buns first, and no banana today so I had to use more water. But piles of dried fruit, crushed nuts, sunflower seeds, desiccated coconut and the like. It’s all good stuff, took an age to knead but it went together quite well and rose nicely too.

While it was rising I made my hummus. One batch with chilis and a second batch with olives – and the missing ingredient was almost blood as I had cut myself quite badly on the blade of the food processor.

There was pizza dough to roll out too for tonight’s tea. And being plain flour it did really well too.

So the pizza was delicious, the hummus looks (and tastes) excellent and the bread rolls look great. I had a really good afternoon in the kitchen.

Shame about the morning though, but I hope that an alarm call in the future will help in that situation.

Nevertheless, what a state to be in? I ought to be ashamed of myself. As I’ve said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I can’t go on like this. It’s ridiculous

If I go on like this people will be calling me Rip van Eric and that’s not the reputation I want. Geoff Goddin called the volunteers behind the resurrection of the Talyllyn Railway as having a "Boy’s Own comic spirit of adventure, involving enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility" and that’s much more like my style of doing things.

As Tennyson put it, "my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the Western stars until I die" – which won’t be long a-coming but I’ll do what I can until then

Hence the alarm on a Sunday as of now. And about time too.

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