Monday 13th February 2023 – THAT AIR FRYER …

… bread that I made yesterday wasn’t actually too bad. I took one of the little rolls that I made and sliced it. And it looked like bread too – much softer than I have made before. and it toasted quite nicely too. Nice and crispy and hot with a pile of vegan butter it was absolutely delicious.

It’s strange that it looked so different on the outside though.

What I’ll have to do is to make some more and see whether I can reproduce the same results with that lot. But at least it goes to show that the air fryer has what it takes to make my bread in the future.

Maybe I should have bought a bigger air fryer to go with the bigger freezer that I also should have bought.

last night though I didn’t have too much time to dream about making bread because although I was in bed quite early, it took an age to go to sleep.

And when I did, I had the pain in my leg and feet again and I awoke much earlier than planned too.

But even though I didn’t have too much sleep, there was still plenty of time to go off on a few travels here and there. I started off by reading a newspaper. There was a photo of something that had happened behind where I parked Caliburn. There was some kind of electrical equipment there in this photo. I went over to have a look. It was still there. What I thought at first were the 2 batteries had spilled out so I picked them up and took them back to Caliburn for a closer look. One may well have been some kind of battery pack but the other one wasn’t. it functioned between 11.7 and 17 volts. While I was about to have a good look at it someone pulled up and started to search through Caliburn. I asked him what was the matter. He replied that he was borrowing some sockets. He went to put one of his daughters in the cab of Caliburn so we had a huge row about that. he asked me a few questions about things that happened in Shavington. I asked him what he had taken of mine. He replied “a couple of sockets” but not to worry because he’d bring them back to me on Friday.

And then I was moving into my new place. There were 3 large metal cabinets that needed taking there. I emptied them and asked the guys from the radio. They carried the 3 of them down and put them on the back of Caliburn. I drove off to the new place. From there I had to go off somewhere so I left them to fetch the 3 cabinets out and take them up to my apartment. When I returned I couldn’t see Caliburn nor these cabinets. I could see that 1 of the cabinets had made it outside the apartment and they were all extremely unhappy about me having left them to deal with all of this which I thought was quite a straightforward easy thing to do but they were really unhappy about it and it left a really bad impression. I still had the other 2 filing cabinets in the back of Caliburn somewhere that I was going to have to bring up on my own.

After that I took a week off work. I’d been walking around the Nantwich Road area of Crewe all morning thinking that this is really nice. Why don’t I just retire and spend the rest of my life just doing nice things like this instead of rushing into a place like work where I don’t have to go anyway because I’m over the retirement age. On the way back I cut through a few side streets and came across an area that had been badly burnt after having caught fire somewhere round by Mill Street. The only camera I had with me was on my phone so I went to take a couple of photos of it. The photos just wouldn’t keep on working out properly. I ended up either photographing something else completely different or else it wasn’t clear enough to catch any of the fire damage.

And I must be dreaming if I’m thinking that wandering around Crewe for a morning is really nice and that I ought to do it more often. Nantwich Road is on the south side of the town and it was to the north to where the Luftwaffe paid a visit, dropped a stick of bombs and caused £14,000,000 worth of improvements.

And dreaming that I ought to be retiring? How many times is that just recently?

Finally I was with TOTGA last night. We were driving around Stoke on Trent trying to go somewhere. There were demolition works and road works everywhere. We turned into a street that was a dead end that we found, all fenced off. I had to reverse all the way back out and onto the main road again which was a rather dangerous thing to do. I was in the Opel Senator. As I was reversing out onto the main road I suddenly realised that this car hasn’t been on the road for over 20 years. There was no tax, no MoT, no insurance or anything on it. This was bound to lead to all kinds of complications if we were to run across a policeman or something like that. I couldn’t understand why I’d chosen this car to come out in to pick her up.

So welcome back TOTGA. It’s been a long time since she’s put in an appearance. It’s nice to see her back. Her front’s quite nice too.

It didn’t take long to finish off the two radio programmes this morning, having done most of the work over the end of last week. I had a listen to them too and I’m quite pleased with how they have worked out. There’s some good music in them.

As well as that I also had a listen to the one that i’ll be sending off for broadcast this coming weekend. On eof the joints between the music in that one isn’t up to much but I couldn’t work out how to make it sound any better.

The rest of the day has been spent working on something else for the radio. Just before Christmas 2021 Laurent and I interviewed the woman who makes the dresses for the Carnival Queens but I didn’t do anything with the interview because Carnaval was cancelled last year.

However, Carnaval is going ahead next week at long last so I edited the radio programme and added in some music. A few years ago I recorded the music from some of the marching bands so I filtered it into the interview to give it some kind of introduction.

Tea tonight was another delicious stuffed pepper. And with plenty of stuffing left I’ll be having a taco roll tomorrow night and a leftover curry (seeing as there are plenty of leftovers here and there) on Wednesday.

My meals might be very much the same from one week to the next but the thing is that they are delicious so why would I want to change. But I’m thinking about having some falafel with my chips on Friday night. All I need to do is to remember to go to the supermarket for a big shop on Friday afternoon because Carnaval starts this weekend and it’ll be pretty pointless trying to go to the shops once things get under way

So right now I’m off to bed, hoping for a better night because I have my Welsh lesson tomorrow and I need to revise for it. As I said a few weeks ago, I’m falling behind and it’s showing. But I can’t seem to find the time and when I do, I can’t find the motivation.

And I don’t know what I am going to do about that.

Sunday 12th February 2023 – I HAD A …

… go at making some bread in the air fryer this afternoon. A couple of small bread rolls.

And it wasn’t actually a success. Not because the air fryer didn’t do what it was supposed to do – in fact it seems to have baked them quite nicely – but because the dough didn’t rise very much at all, and I’ve no idea why that would be.

It’s true to say that the bread that I normally bake in a conventional oven doesn’t rise very much either even though I follow the recipes carefully and knead the dough for quite a while. I just think that the air fryer is simply amplifying the defects in whatever it is that I’m doing when I’m trying to make bread.

But I won’t give up. I’ll try again at some other time and see if there’s any improvement.

After all, the batch of pizza dough that I made today was delicious and did everything that it was supposed to. Tonight’s pizza was delicious and there are two more lumps that are now in the freezer that I hope will be just as nice for the next couple of weekends.

So what I might do is instead of using 500 grams of flour, I’ll use 600 grams and see if the extra 100 grams would make some nice bread rolls instead.

But that’s for another time. Right now I’m more concerned with what happened today.

Last night I was in bed at a realistic time but once more I had the stabbing pains in my legs and feet that awoke me on a couple of occasions. In fact, I could have been up and out of bed at 07:00 or thereabouts this morning but on a Sunday? You must be joking! 10:30 is much more like a reasonable time to stagger out of bed into the kitchen on a Sunday.

There was quite a bit of stuff on the dictaphone from during the night. At one point I was supposed to be going on holiday. I hadn’t packed anything and there was about half an hour before my plane so I grabbed hold of my suitcase and began to throw stuff into it. I couldn’t find half of the stuff that I needed so in the end I gave it up as a bad job and went to work instead thinking that when I return home I can pack and be ready for the next morning to go again. Next morning the situation was the same. The house was an absolute tip with stuff everywhere. I hadn’t cleaned it. Again, I couldn’t find half of the things that I needed. I thought that I can’t possibly leave the house in this kind of condition. The cats needed feeding. 2 boys came. They were talking about the pads that cricketers wear and what sizes they are. I tried to explain to them that the more proficient you are the bigger pads you have but for some reason they didn’t seem to quite understand. Then they said that they would feed the cats for me etc. I said that it’s my job and I have to do it anyway so I’ll go to torture the poor devils with this horrible food that I give them. They tried to insist that they could do it but I just wasn’t getting anywhere with this stuff that I needed to pack. Rosemary had long gone. I thought “this is it, really. My journey may as well be cancelled”. At one point I found what I thought was a stash of all the stuff that I needed but when I began to rummage through it, it was all old stuff, single gloves etc none of which would be any good for what I wanted at all.

And then I was still searching for this missing button. It was nearly time for me to go to work so I was hunting around quickly. I came across a load of dried cat’s food that the cats hadn’t eaten. I opened the door and shouted. One of the cats came in but the other was really taking its time about it. I gave them some food anyway. Then a fuel tanker pulled up at the petrol station. The driver was wandering around doing a few things. Then he climbed back into the cab ready to leave. I thought to myself that I ought to be leaving soon too because of all the things that I had to do and I still hadn’t found what I was looking for.

There was also something happening about some kids’ entertainment that was taking place while I was fuelling up a motor scooter with fuel but I awoke in the middle of this and it immediately evaporated. I couldn’t remember anything more.

A short while later I had to create a new department for doing a certain kind of work as a support for someone famous and well-known in political circles. I had to write out a little speech to set everything out and then make some comments about it. Having written out what I thought was important, I went through and wrote in pencil over the top. The pencil wouldn’t show through very well. By now I’d gone to do this work outside and was sitting in a nice, comfortable place by a bit of a lawn where a group of small children was having a party. I decided that what I really needed was a fine-point red felt-tip pen that could write over the top of what I’d written. It wouldn’t obscure what was underneath but you could see my comments over the top quite clearly. I told these 2 girls that I’d left my papers there and that i’d be back in a moment. I ran back to my office to try to find one. Then there was something of a gap in whatever was happening. It merged into something much later where there was my new boss and probably one of his assistants discussing particular American politicians in some not-very-welcome or friendly terms. I suppose that I should have taken part in this discussion but I was far more interested in guarding my tongue so I didn’t say anything out-of-place but in the meantime listening carefully to what they were saying so that I could work out which way the wind was blowing and what was the lie of the land if I was going to be working with them

Once I’d gathered up my wits (which, seeing how few wits I have these days, takes much longer than it ought) and had some food and coffee, I made a start on one of the two radio programmes that I’ll be preparing tomorrow. And I did so well that apart from the final track and the speech that goes with it, one of the programmes is finished already.

It won’t take me long to finish that and then I can start on the second one. That shouldn’t take too long either because the text is already written and dictated. I dictated them before I went to bed last night in a mad fit of enthusiasm.

Apart from that, I did the baking that I mentioned, and my pizza for tea really was delicious. Cooked to perfection, which is a surprise given the inconsistencies of my table-top oven. I can’t wait to have a decent one up and running in due course but that will have to wait until the new apartment, whenever that will be.

So right now I’m off to bed for an early night ready for an early start in the morning. Dreaming of making bread in the air fryer, I suppose, but that’s not going to be anythign sustainable because it’s only a small air fryer and probably three bread rools is about the limit of what can fit in there.

But at least it works, and it opens all kinds of new doors for me, as I suspected that it would. What’s going to be next on the air-frying menu?

Saturday 11th February 2023 – I’M ABSOLUTELY WHACKED!

Yes – not only did I walk (well, hobble) down into town this morning on my crutches, I walked (well, hobbled) back as well. How about that?

Last night I said that I would give it a try anyway and that was on my mind when I went to bed last night.

And I must have spent a lot of time thinking about it because it took me an age to drop off to sleep, lying there tossing and turning for much of the night. Having that stabbing pain in my foot again didn’t help.

Nevertheless there was time for me to go off for a little voyage here and there during the night. At one point I was having a discussion with my brother. We were 2 small children. We ended up talking about religion and a few things came up. A short while later our father came into the room. He said that he’d heard that we had been talking and come out with some fancy long words. Could we write them down for him? He said something like “covent” which of course immediately reminded us of the Covenanters from the south of Scotland etc. We said that we’d do that.

And then I’d gone on a coach tour around the USA last night, one of these Coach America things. It was our first night and we stopped at this hotel. It was a really expensive hotel but was all included in our price. We registered and I was given a room. Next morning we were being picked up at 09:30 so at 08:30 I left my room and suitcase to go to find where to check out and where to go for breakfast etc. They were talking about the optional extras. They asked me which ones I was doing. I replied that I wasn’t doing any. They looked surprised and asked why. I replied “firstly I’ve seen the USA before and secondly I’m on the economy budget package”. I wandered off to find the checkout. It was miles away but mys suitcase was doing really well rolling and pushing it was no problem. I didn’t have much in my backpack. I found the reception desk and checked out. There were no extras to pay, which pleased me greatly. I started to wander back. I suddenly realised that I didn’t know where to leave my suitcase and didn’t know where the bus was going to pick us up – whether it was here at the main part of the hotel or over in the part where we had our rooms and where I had to go for breakfast etc. I thought to myself that I’m not being very well prepared for this holiday anyway.

When the alarm went off I was out of bed quickly enough, and after I’d had my medication and checked my mails and messages, I prepared myself to set out on my walk.

It wasn’t easy going all that way on crutches but it was downhill all the way. I went carefully and took my time and made it to the chemist’s slowly but surely.

Surprisingly, I didn’t actually feel in much discomfort and with at least half an hour before the next bus was due, I decided that I’d give it a try and walk back up the hill towards home. It was very slow, very agonising and very painful. There were plenty of stops and pauses on the way back up the hill but I made it all the same.

Mind you, I was glad to be back home. I made myself some toast and coffee and checked the time. What would normally be a 20-minute walk had taken me an hour and a quarter . That told me everything that I needed to know about my efforts.

But what I’m going to try to do is to walk down into town carrying a backpack with stuff in it. It’s annoying that the bus that stops outside the door doesn’t go to the railway station. Those buses run from the centre of the town so if I need to go to the station I need to take the bus from down there. if I go to Leuven again I’ll have to take stuff with me so I need to know that I can carry it.

Having had my breakfast I made myself comfortable on my chair and it’s no surprise to anyone to learn that I dozed off to sleep.

Mind you, I awoke in time to watch the football on the Internet, Cardiff Metro against TNS.

And while there’s no denying that the money that has been sunk into TNS by the owner has done a great deal to improve the standards of the club and the chasing pack who are obliged to invest heavily in their teams and facilities in order to keep pace with what goes on down in the Marches, it’s still quite boring to watch an endless procession of TNS victories and Championships.

So when they roared into a 0-2 lead after just 15 minutes everyone could be excused for thinking “here we go again”. But then the unexpected happened. The Met pulled one back just before half-time. And just after half time they scored again.

Even more surprisingly, they scored a third after an hour and despite a lengthy period of injury time and mystery time that would have made Alex Ferguson jealous, TNS couldn’t pull a goal back.

That’s the first time that TNS have been defeated this season in the league and I did have to work hard to conceal my delight.

After the game I finished off the radio notes and then did some more work on preparation for my 200th programme later in the year. I didn’t ever think that I would get that far before I would keel over and peg out, but it is coming closer and closer and I have to crack on and do something about it.

Tea tonight was another delicious meal of baked potato, salad and one of these breadcrumbed soya fillets. And I’m definitely pleased with how the salads are panning out. However at some point I’m going to start to run out of vegan mayonnaise and I need to give some thought about how I’m going to make some more if I don’t go to Leuven to buy it.

So before I go to bed tonight I’ll dictate my radio notes so that I really can have a day off tomorrow. I have some pizza dough to make so I’m thinking that I might have a go at making some bread and baking it in the air fryer to see what happens.

It should be interesting, to say the least.

Friday 10th February 2023 – WHAT A WONDERFUL …

… tea that was tonight. Burger on a bap with salad and a pile of chips cooked to perfection in the air fryer. I’m really pleased with my air fryer, that’s for sure, and I ought to explore a few more of its capabilities if it’s going to cook stuff as well as it did my chips and, when I added it to the pot, my burger.

And the salad was delicious too. That’s an excellent plan and makes my meals much more exciting.

But I wasn’t very pleased though with last night. I went to bed at a reasonable time but didn’t go off to sleep for ages. I’ve no idea how long I spent tossing and turning because I was afraid to tempt fate by looking. But it seemed like an age.

There was plenty of time though nevertheless to go off on my travels. And I clocked up some distance too. A former friend of mine had bought a Hillman Hunter and wanted it delivering to his house so I said that I would go to do it. I went into Stoke on Trent to find this car and started to push it towards his house. It was comparatively easy to do that, much easier than I thought it would be, especially up the hill. I had to push it on the kerb, the pavement, not on the road which was fine in some places but in others the grass was extremely long. There was that much dirt on the pavement that at some times I had to dig out the pavement and the side of the road so I could keep on pushing the car up the hill. This went on for ages and ages. It was dark and going into the small hours of the following morning. There were one or two people around, someone in an old MkI Cortina with no headlights driving down the hill practising his rallying. Eventually I got to where he was living, in a motel. Pushing the car down the corridor became quite easy. There was a girl there whom at first I thought was Zero but it wasn’t – she was a couple of years older than her. I said “hello” to her anyway. Just as I reached his front door which was of course where I might have expected to find Zero, I suddenly awoke bolt-upright.

And then we were living next door to him. We had an electric car. The gap between our houses was fitted up with a charging cable. It was a split charging cable with different wires coming out of it so if you had a car there to charge up you had to connect up these 8 wires separately. We were out there and a young schoolgirl went past, I don’t know why. Back inside we could hear him and his wife arguing about something or other. I thought “here I am, wide awake in various places and this is another occasion where I’m close to getting to see Zero again but I haven’t actually seen her”. It’s strange that I thought that in my dream because there have been a few times (including a little earlier this evening) where I’ve been on the point of meeting her in a dream and I’ve awoken suddenly. My subconscious is clearly trying to tell me something, and I wish that I knew what it was.

Did I dictate the story about the car rally that we organised? … “No you didn’t” – ed. Once everyone from the office had taken off, we headed off back home to pick up a few things. We encountered a couple of cars on the way back just as we were pulling into our drive. They were looking for something or other in the vicinity. We had a chat with them and gave them a little clue about one of the clues which was going to be difficult if they didn’t stop and think clearly. The guy who always seemed to run the office seemed to be the bossy type even went to the police station to try to persuade them to let him speak to a prisoner in there who had been involved in a car accident earlier that day. He was of the opinion that the clue involving this ironing board was something to do with him and his accident.

Finally, we’d gone skiing to this mountain. When we reached the top, instead of skiing down there was like an escalator covered in snow that took you back down to the bottom of the hill again. Although I was not able physically to ski, I was still bewildered by everyone else going down the hill on this escalator and not actually skiing down. There was someone in a wheelchair whom I thought was brave to reach the top of the mountain anyway and come back down again but I still couldn’t understand why there would be this escalator when all you had to do was to ski down to the bottom. And it’s interesting to see that my mobility issues are now featuring in my nocturnal rambles.

Much of the day has been spent in some kind of desultory fashion writing the notes for my next couple of radio shows. I’ve not been in much of a rush to do it and there have been plenty of distractions along the way. Consequently there are still some to write out before I can dictate them.

But I’ve been having a little think about my radio programmes and how I can change them to make them better (or, at any rate, different) and I have a cunning plan about that on which I’m working in my spare time, whenever that might be.

This afternoon I went into town on the bus. I had some medication to collect from the pharmacy and then there was a little bit of shopping to pick up.

Not all of the medication was there so they had to order it for me and I have to go to pick it up tomorrow. That should be interesting with a bus strike so I’ve been thinking that I might actually try to walk down there on my crutches and hope that one of the few buses running tomorrow might bring me back.

It should be an interesting trip, especially if there are no buses back, and one thing is for sure, and that is that I won’t be trying it with just one crutch. I’ll persevere with two for now and see how I feel after a few more weeks.

What made me think about it was that I actually managed to stride out something like rapidly (or what passes for “rapidly” these days) and I covered a lot of ground at a reasonable turn of speed. I need to keep on pushing myself forward.

When I came back I bumped into yet another neighbour and we had yet another chat. I seem to be quite popular for the moment and I don’t know why.

After my delicious tea I came back in here and promptly fell asleep for half an hour. All of this walking is wearing me out and I imagine that if I do go into town tomorrow on foot, I’ll live to regret that as well.

And so I’d better go and try to have a decent sleep. I certainly need it. And who knows? I might even finally get to meet Zero.

Thursday 9th February 2023 – CALIBURN IS BACK AGAIN …

… and with a Controle Technique certificate too, which has cheered me up. And seeing as he now seems to start properly whenever I want him to start, it looks as if I’m back on the road again.

Mind you, climbing into the cab is a real issue If I’m at street level when I need to climb in, it’s extremely difficult. I need to find a kerb against which I can park so that I can climb in easier and at LeClerc the kerbs are quite high and it’s a struggle to climb up that high.

One thing that I do have to remember is to exit with my left leg first. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I tried to exit Caliburn the other day “right leg first”, the leg collapsed underneath me and decanted me onto the floor.

But there’s a strange phenomenon going on with my legs right now. For the last couple of weeks I noticed that when I awaken in the morning parts of my legs and feet are quite numb. I wonder if it’s because I’ve been lying on a trapped nerve.

And so it was this morning. And apart from that it was another night of going to bed early, falling asleep early and then waking up and tossing and turning for a while. I was actually awake before the alarm went off at 07:30 and had I exerted myself I could have left the bed. But that was too much to hope for.

But when I did leave the bed,, I had my medication and then checked my mails and messages before wandering off for a shower. And climbing into the bath for my shower was the easiest that it’s been since I came back. This physiotherapy seems to be working.

Although the Controle Technique was arranged for 11:45 I went out quite a bit earlier than that. With not going far these days I was worried about how Caliburn would get on with the pollution test so I took him for a good run – several laps around the dual-carriageway by-pass to get him nice and hot

Anyway, he sailed through with no issues.

Armed with a valid certificate I went to fuel up and then for a good shop at LeClerc. There wasn’t a great deal that I needed but nevertheless I still ran up quite a bill. I’d bought plenty of frozen veg and some more carrots so after I’d brought up most things from Caliburn and had some food and coffee I peeled, blanched and froze 1.5 kilos of carrots. That will keep me going for a while now.

After all of that I fell asleep and was awoken by the physiotherapist who came round earlier than usual. He had me walking around the apartment with just one crutch and wants me to practice that for the next few days until our session on Tuesday next week. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

It’s been a day of interaction too. Apart from having lengthy chats with customers at the garage, I met a neighbour as I arrived home and she kept me chatting at the door for a while. And then another neighbour had a good talk with me as well. If that wasn’t enough, the people with whom I’ve been trying to arrange this money transfer rang up to tell me that they now have everything that they need. And that’s good news.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from the night and that needed transcribing. I was with 2 girls last night. They had some kind of cupboard and were hanging up something in front of it like a system of chains etc to make it look attractive. It was obviously a project that was doomed because they couldn’t make anything hang horizontally. The wire that they were using wasn’t strong enough. Instead of pulling on the metal tubes that were supporting it, the tubes were pulling the wire and going all out of shape. Nothing was in the vertical. They were having to do all kinds of tricks to try to make these wires go vertically but the more tricks they did on it the worse it became. I had a feeling that this was going to be a project that was doomed to fail from the start. Sooner or later they would realise it but I gave them a hand just the same.

There was also something of which I had a vague recollection was taking place in a Prisoner of War camp where there was some kind of committee that was set up to investigate infractions against the prisoners who broke the camp rules or to investigate possible escape attempts etc. This committee wasn’t very successful. There was a feeling going round that the Germans had infiltrated a couple of people into the camp to serve on the committee and sabotage the work of the prisoners while they were there but I can’t remember very much at all about this.

And then there was me, a young girl and a rather large woman trying to lift an enormous suitcase into the back of an estate car. The young girl was at the front trying to do the lifting and we were at the back trying to push. It was very difficult to make it fit so I suggested that seeing as it was the other lady’s possessions she shoudl go to the front because she would be much better able to lift it. She could decide how in, what articles could be squashed and what couldn’t. For some reason the girl was reluctant to relinquish her position at the front of this line even though she was having an extreme amount of difficulty actually doing anything there.

Tea tonight was a vegan burger with pasta and veg in tomato sauce. Nothing particularly exciting but I am allowed to have a boring meal here and there every now and again.

Having fallen asleep already this evening I finished off typing out my notes for the day and now I’m off to bed. I have to go into town tomorrow on the bus and pick up some medication and my fresh mushrooms and peppers. I didn’t want to buy them today because the later I leave it, the longer they will keep.

But despite what the physiotherapist says, I’m not going down there with just one crutch. I’ll keep on using both when I’m out and about until I’m confident about it all. It’s not going to be something that will happen overnight.

Wednesday 8th February 2023 – CALIBURN IS BACK

But not for long. When I went to pick him up this morning I discovered that they had forgotten to take him for his Controle Technique – the French equivalent of the MoT safety examination. The earliest the testing station can fit him in is tomorrow at 11:45 but I wasn’t going to struggle back home on the bus and come back out tomorrow to pick him up again, so I brought him home and I’ll drive him back tomorrow.

Hopefully I’ll have a better night’s sleep than I did last night. I was in bed at some kind of realistic time and was asleep quite quickly but I didn’t stay asleep for long. I was drifting in and out of semi-consciousness until the alarm went off and it would be wrong to say that I was sleeping.

There must have been times that I was asleep though because there were several little voyages during the night when I went off on my travels. There was me, a couple of girls and a young family with a small daughter. I’d cooked tea for everyone and made a big, sickly ice cream for afterwards. I doled out the ice cream between all of us. As I was handing it out I suddenly found out to my horror that I’d forgotten to make ice-cream for the little girl. I had to dash back into the kitchen and took my ice cream from the fridge and speedily divided it into half. I put her half into a smaller dish so it looked as if it was overflowing the bowl the same as everyone else’s and took it to her. Her eyes lit up and she was absolutely delighted by this. That made me feel much better but then I was going around afraid that I might have forgotten someone else’s ice cream. What would I do if that were the case?

And then I was back at work in another one of these recurring dreams where I was on the point of retiring. I had tons of work stored in my cupboard. Someone made some kind of strange remark about “we don’t know what you do all day”. I thought that they’d be surprised if they found out that I did nothing. I was going through some files and found some information about people whom we knew and one or two people who’d actually worked for us, and prison sentences that they’d received, for one person, defrauding an insurance company and another person for something else. We wondered why they had all gone quiet after leaving. There was some old guy in there who’d been sent to prison. Everyone blamed a friend of mine at work because he’d told a fellow to confess everything rather than keeping silent and making them have to prove it. Again it was a case that I could leave this job tomorrow and leave all this work undone and not have to worry about anything. If they were to talk about me behind my back I wouldn’t care.

Later on I was taking my passengers to the station in the yellow Cortina estate. We were driving through Shavington. There was a vehicle parked on the opposite side on the road. Suddenly 2 vehicles pulled out from behind it and I hit them head-on in the car. When I came to I was wandering around the area of Shavington trying to regain consciousness. I went into a big Department Store to buy some clean clothes. The staff was busy trying on a new uniform. They had T-shirts on etc while they were experimenting with these new clothes and weren’t interested in serving customers. Eventually I managed to track down a server who came to see me. I told her that I needed some clothes and needed to report this accident but she started to take me off in her direction where these clothes were

And finally I was in my new house last night, a house very similar to Gainsborough Road. There was a survey being arranged for it to decide whether or not I could buy it. I was already in there so I hoped that the survey was satisfactory. The house was a lot nicer than I remembered anyway. I was busy organising some things that I’d brought with me. I had my mother and father with me. My mother went into a cupboard and asked me to pass her some cheese and pork etc. She asked what I wanted to eat. I replied that I hadn’t yet decided so she told me to hurry up. Then my father came in. He’d been working outside and his hands were dirty. he had some hand cleaner with him that he’d brought. he went to put it down on the windowsill by the sink while he washed his hands.

After the medication I checked my mails and messages and then did a little tidying up ready for the cleaner. I phoned up the garage to check that Caliburn was ready and then caught the bus out to the garage to pick him up.

he actually started, despite about three feet of frost all over him, so something works, and I headed back to LIDL where I spent a King’s ransom on stuff that I needed for the next few weeks – and forgot the blackcurrant syrup.

Back here I made some coffee and while it was brewing I made a couple of trips down to Caliburn to bring up what I’d bought. And then I … errr … had a relax. I’m clearly not as fit or as well as I think I should be.

The cleaner awoke me when she came, and while she was doing her stuff about the place I paired off the music for the next couple of radio programmes and began to write the notes. And after she left, I fetched the final stuff up here from out of Caliburn, thinking all the time to myself about how much easier it will be when I move to the ground floor.

And that’s taken one step closer to the end today, because I gathered up all of the stuff that I needed to complete these forms about transferring my money for the purchase of the apartment. Hopefully they can now go ahead and create the transfer paperwork so that I can credit the money whenever I receive the final date of completion.

And then the fun will begin.

Tea tonight was another one of my leftover curries. And it was just as delicious as all of the others, although I’m still not sure why the rice and veg is going more soggy that it used to in the past even though I’m not cooking it any differently than I always have.

Tomorrow I have to take Caliburn back and if he passes, I’ll have a little trip to fuel up and go to LeClerc to do some shopping there. Make sure that I have a good supply of stuff on board.

And then probably have a little … errr … relax again when I come home because all of this effort is wearing me out much more than it ought to do. I’m clearly not as well as I should be and I shudder to think how I’m going to manage if they want me to go back to Leuven.

Tuesday 7th February 2023 – MY WELSH LESSON …

… went quite well today and I was really pleased about that. It’s been a while since I’ve felt like that about my course.

What I put it down to is the fact that for once I had a decent night’s sleep last night. I can’t remember if I awoke at any time during the night and there wasn’t a great deal on the dictaphone. In fact I was wide awake at 07:00 and when the first alarm went off at 07:30 I was actually sitting on the side of the bed fully clothed with my feet on the floor.

And that just goes to prove that I can do it when I want to.

After the medication and checking my mails and messages I came in here to revise for my lesson, and then I made some coffee and sorted out a fruit bun ready for my lesson.

Just as I connected to my lesson, the doorbell rang. It was the doctor who was in the building so had taken the opportunity to come to see me. He’s had the report from the nerve specialist and he confirmed that I’ll be going back to hospital some time soon, depending on when there will be a bed and some treatment available.

It’s likely that I’ll be there for about a week while they undergo a series of tests.

He’s also prepared me for some bad news. He’s told me that it’s a possibility that it’s not the virus that has affected my nerve transmissions but it’s my underlying illness that’s eating away deeper into my body. We had a situation where the illness has spread into my kidneys and I had an operation in May 2021. It spread into my heart a little later and so it’s now a possibility that it’s going elsewhere too. I mustn’t be surprised if it’s spreading into my nervous system.

And if that really is the case, it might explain a lot of other things that are going on with me too.

As I mentioned earlier, the lesson passed off quite well and the first thing that I did afterwards was to go for a shower. It was quite embarrassed being examined by the doctor when I was all dishevelled and unkempt.

But while we’re talking about the shower … “well, one of us is” – ed … it was much easier actually climbing into the bath today for my shower. There was nothing like the struggle that I had when I first came back from hospital.

This afternoon I’ve been choosing the music for the next series of radio programmes. And there will be some good stuff in these as well. Tomorrow, if I have time, I’ll pair off the music and start writing out the notes.

The physiotherapist is pleased with my progress too. He’s noticed an improvement, with a little more force in my legs. He’s given me yet more exercises to perform and these are pretty difficult. He wants me to continue them for sessions of 10 minutes but 2 minutes is more than enough before my muscles give out.

After he’d gone I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a group of us from work going somewhere. We had 2 coaches. I was travelling as a passenger on one of them. At a certain point a girl whom I knew from work came in. She was travelling on the other bus but came to sit in ours, sitting right on the back seat talking away. She was trying to explain something but was becoming redder and redder and more embarrassed and more shy as the discussion continued. I was trying my best to put her at ease. In the end I told her to come and sit by me so that we could talk a little easier because I was in a block of 4 seats, 2 facing forward and 2 facing back. She came to sit facing me and said “you have a lot more stuff on your coach than we have on ours”. I said that ours was a better coach. We carried on chatting. We were driving through Brussels although it was no Brussels that I knew, looking for a certain park where we would stop for lunch. Eventually we found it, negotiating our way through these back streets, through these children pouring out of school at lunchtime to go home. I was certain that our bus had clipped the wing mirror of a car at one point. We reached this park. It was a little cold, a little grey and the odd fleck of rain. I said to this girl “would you like to come for a coffee? I’ll buy you a drink”. She didn’t want a coffee but she said that she’d have something. We prepared to leave. She said that she had a seat on the coach that she could bring so that she didn’t have to sit on the grass. I said that she should fetch that and we’d go off and find somewhere where we can have a drink

And then once more there was a group of us in some house somewhere. We had a list of things that needed doing. For a variety of reasons a couple of things weren’t done. The old guy who thought that he was running the place was extremely angry and upset. He accused everyone of doing all kinds of things to deliberately obstruct this particular house move. First of all he complained that we should have done the stuff on Friday yet here we were, still here, so we had to explain to him that Terry’s van broke down on Friday and he had to have it fixed. Then he complained about me taking out my own stuff from the house on Saturday. I explained that we had just taken the stuff out so we could fill it in to some kind of room and photograph it to make it look lived-in so we could let it. Then we brought back the stuff. His other 2 children who were there, he was lecturing them to such a degree that in the end they decided that they could no longer live under the same roof with him and either he’d have to move out or they would. It was all developing into an extremely ugly situation.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with some of the left-over stuffing. And how nice it was too. There’s some left over and so tomorrow I’ll be having another leftover curry with all of the stuff that’s left over in the fridge. They seem to work quite well

So tomorrow morning I’ll ring up to check on Caliburn and if he’s ready I’ll catch the bus out there to fetch him back. I’ll do some shopping on the way back too – probably at LIDL because I haven’t been there for ages and I’m sure that they’ll have plenty of stuff that I need.

And then I really must do all of this paperwork that I need to complete. Time is evaporating before my eyes and I’ll run out of time if I’m not careful.

Monday 6th February 2023 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

… totally bizarre Monday today.

And when I tell you that both the radio programmes that I wanted to prepare were all done and dusted by 08:00 or thereabouts, you’ll understand what I mean.

Last night I managed to go to bed at some kind of realistic time, like 22:00, and it didn’t take long to go to sleep either.

However, by 01:30 I was wide awake again and couldn’t go back to sleep. At about 03:00 I gave it up as a bad job and decided that I’d attack the radio programmes, with the idea that that would probably drive me back to sleep again.

However, I kept on going in something of a desultory fashion and finished it all off.

There were a few other things that needed doing this morning too but by 10:30 I was back in bed on my way to sleep again, and that was where I stayed until about 13:40.

Once I’d had some coffee and one of my delicious fruit buns, I sat down to transcribe the dictaphone notes. At some point during the night I was in some kind of prison somewhere. It wasn’t really a prison but was just like one. It was quite late at night and I had to do something about food, tins and fresh fruit etc. I built myself a pyramid of food, picked it up in my 2 arms and walked off down this corridor. When I reached near where there was an empty cell I decided that I wanted to go to the bathroom. I tried to put this load down quietly but it fell and made a noise right by where some young child was sleeping. It didn’t awaken the child so I thought that I was lucky. I nipped in, did what I had to do and came back out again. There was a big shopping bag and I started to put all of the food etc into it with the idea that I could pick it up and carry it off. It would be easier. In actual fact there was much more food than I realised and it wouldn’t go in the shopping bag. Bits and pieces kept on falling out every time I tried to pick it up

Later on I’d received a letter written in English from the Commune at Virlet about vehicles that I’d left there.

Finally, there’s a whole fleet of buses and lorries and cars going to this stately home type of place for some reason or other. It had been raining heavily and the field where everyone was parking was being churned up terribly. When we finally stopped, the person in charge of our bus asked “right, are we all alighting?” to which I replied “not in this weather”. I received a dirty look. I climbed out of the bus, bumped into a couple of my friends who wanted to know where we would go. I suggested that we walk over towards the old stately home place, wade through it, I thought, with all of this water, and see what’s happening there. It was all very suspicious and very peculiar.

A copy of the signed Commitment to Purchase form arrived at some point today too, together with some information that I need from the bank. And so at some point tomorrow I can finish off these forms that need completing for the transfer of the money to buy the apartment downstairs.

It really does look as if it might be going ahead and that will be really good news if it does. I just wish now that I can find a plumber or someone to come and install the shower. I didn’t have a single response to my advert, which just goes to show, as I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … you can’t even give money away to honest tradesmen these days.

While I was at it, I took the opportunity to telephone the garage about Caliburn. He’s certain that it’s the starter and that should be replaced on Tuesday. So it looks as if I have a nice run out on the bus on Wednesday morning to go and rescue him – and do some shopping.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper. And for reasons that I can’t understand, everything about it was overcooked. I mean – I used the same temperatures and same times but somehow it all went soft and mushy. Ahh well! You can’t win a coconut every time I suppose.

Despite my sleep over lunchtime, I’m still quite tired. And there’s a Welsh lesson tomorrow so I reckon that i’ll go for an early night in the hope that I can have a decent sleep and have a good session at preparation.

At some point in the near future we have to register for an exam but I think that I’m going to opt out. I know that I’m off the pace and struggling somewhat and while I’m going to carry on with the following year’s course, I think that an exam is beyond me right now. I’ll try to catch a couple of summer schools to refresh everything and then have a try at another time.

Sunday 5th February 2023 – I’VE ACTUALLY BEEN …

… out for a walk this afternoon.

Well, after a fashion and as much as I can anyway.

It was such a beautiful afternoon with the sun streaming down as it did so I couldn’t resist it. I grabbed the crutches and set off down the stairs. I did a lap around the car park and then walked down to the viewpoint that overlooked the fish processing plant and then came back.

It was quite windy and cold, but the sun made it look quite beautiful and I was glad that I made it outside.

On the way downstairs, I managed to go left-leg first down some of the stairs. That’s important because it means that I have to bend the right knee, and that’s something that I find to be quite difficult.

Much more difficult than going to sleep last night, as it happened. For once I was in bed at something like a realistic time. I fell asleep quite quickly too and slept all the way through until about 10:50. And I felt so much better for it. Especially as I stayed in bed for another 20 minutes doing my exercises.

There wasn’t a great deal of stuff on the dictaphone either so it must have been quite a quiet, relaxing night. There was a whole group of us, a couple of families, all staying in one house so it meant that we were all crammed up sharing a bed etc among several kids. I was sharing a bed with my brother. On one occasion he left the bed and went off because there was some noise or something going on. I took my teddy bear and another toy and put them down the bed with me and tried to go to sleep. I was distracted by all this noise too. I thought that I heard the voice of one of the young boys who was about 7. eventually my brother came back to bed. He was annoyed about the teddy etc being in his way. We started to chat.

Later on we’d been somewhere, a group of us again. I was coming home with a woman and her daughter – it might have been Laurence and Roxanne, I dunno. While we’d been away she’d told some people that there was a James Bond film that they could watch at their house. When we arrived back it was really late at night. We walked in and there was 1 girl still watching it with her mother. We still had a few things to do so for the moment we left them there. Then she said that she wanted to go to check up on another woman to whom she’d mentioned it about her daughter to see if they were still watching it at their house. We ended up driving up Dodd’s Bank. As we were at the foot of the bank I said to her “on the way back drop me here with my little suitcase and I’ll walk through the alley to home”. She asked me to repeat it so I did. In the end I had to repeat it about 3 or 4 times. My aim was to take the short cut through the alley with the small suitcase, leave the bigger suitcase in the car and return for that another time. That would save her a lot of time without having to drive round the housing estate to drop me off. But it was so difficult to try to make her understand what I was intending. She was short-tempered anyway with us being so late and with everyone still being around. And we had work tomorrow as well, of course.

There was rather more to it than all of this but you don’t really want to read it especially if you are eating your meal right now.

This morning I didn’t really do all that much but things began to liven up after I’d had lunch.

There was football on the internet this afternoon, a match in the quarter-final of the Welsh Cup between Penybont and Treffynnon.

Treffynnon spent a few years in the Welsh Premier League back in the 1990s when they were known as Holywell Town but in recent years they have been bouncing up and down between Division 2 and Division 3. At the moment they are doing well in Division 2 but they weren’t expected to do much playing away against a team riding high in the First Division.

It was pretty obvious to most people how this game was going to end but Treffynon put up quite a fight and even took the lead after 15 minutes with A GOAL OUT OF NOTHING but they couldn’t hang on to the lead.

Penybont equalised after 55 minutes and then scored a second from a penalty deep into injury time as a Treffynnon player who had just that minute come on the field as a substitute brought down an attacker in the penalty area with his first attempt to kick the ball.

It just wasn’t that substitute’s day either. 30 seconds later in a scramble to win the ball he ended up kicking an opponent and was sent off.

After I’d been for a walk I had a play about with the pizza dough that I’d taken out of the freezer earlier. And the pizza that I made with it was delicious too. One of my better ones.

And at some point the owner of the apartment that I’m trying to buy rang me up to ask me if I’d heard anything from the solicitor. It looks as if I’m not the only one who is being disturbed by the lack of action from him.

Tomorrow I’ll be doing the two radio programmes and then chasing up to see what news about Caliburn. I’m itching to get back on the road and do some shopping. Supplies of certain items are starting to run low again and I need to go out and about and do some stocking up.

Saturday 4th February 2023 – AND I WAS DOING …

… so well too.

But once again, this afternoon, I crashed out for half an hour or so and that effectively disrupted me completely. I really did think that I’d gone beyond that.

It was probably something to do with the night that I had had, which was later than usual and coupled with difficulties about going to sleep once I was finally in bed.

And I was off on quite a few voyages during the night too. There was something about a woman who was on Death Row back in the 19th Century for having strangled a teacher. It turned out that it wasn’t her but someone else. He’d arranged the crime so that it looked as if she’d done it. He was being blackmailed by this teacher for something or other and wanted to put an end to it all so he put an end to the teacher. Then he came in to gloat over the woman before she went off to be hanged. There was also something about a sale on eBay of a place infested with rats etc. It turned out to be a Ford garage that had closed down years ago. It was full of old Ford bits and pieces, spare parts etc. While we were all watching the video of this particular place I wrote a note to someone who was there, saying “this is how my place is going to look in 20 years time”.

Following that, I’d been in Canada and the USA. It was a Sunday and I was flying back on the Tuesday so I had to drive to Montreal, hand back my hire car and find a place to stay for the night and then fly back to Europe. When I came back I went to the radio offices and there had been a few changes. They had agreed to let a girl whom I used to know interview a few people. I had one or two projects in mind that she could do so I said that I’d go to see her. Someone else said that they would come along and bring the equipment. I set off up the stairs to her office under the eaves. When I arrived there was one of her daughters and someone else. I said “have you seen your mother?”. They replied “no, she’s gone in the air ambulance”. I asked “what’s happened?”. They replied “someone has been injured over at the nail bar”. I said “but the nail bar is only just there across the car park”. “Oh yes, they have had to go to the person’s home”. Just at that moment the other person came into the office so I said “yes well some people will do absolutely anything for a ride in a helicopter”. It looked as if we weren’t going to make any progress at all on that particular day with that particular plan.

In fact, what happened during that little voyage was exactly as she would have behaved in real life in similar circumstances.

At some point during the night I awoke because of a stabbing pain in my right knee. But then back in this dream with that woman again again after I’d sorted out the pain in my right knee there was something about bringing more animals around to be shared out amongst the different offices. I wondered what animal we’d put in her room – whether we’d put something like a gorilla. It would be quite a handful for her to handle if of course she didn’t get the better of it first

Later on I was back in this dream yet again, at the radio we’d gone out to try to interview a few people about various things. The weather was really poor so in the end we didn’t go out because there wouldn’t be anyone there. I was chatting to a girl who worked at the radio. She said that the bad weather didn’t seem to stop me going outside and started to call me a few uncomplimentary names working her way through the alphabet for a name with each initial. I stopped her when she reached round about “D” or “E” because I couldn’t see the point in her continuing. She had made her point. There was much more to it than this but I can’t remember now.

And finally I was round at my niece’s last night although it was in the UK. We’d gone to discuss a few things. It was in the evening after we’d had a meal and I was feeling rather tired. I had a girl with me. I don’t know who she was but she might have been Percy Penguin, who doesn’t appear in these pages half as often as she deserves. We were all sitting there basically doing our own thing listening to the radio and the adverts. When an advert for a certain delivery company came on the radio I explained to the girl with me that that was where my niece’s’s daughter worked (which she actually does). This girl was confused about which daughter because there’s a choice of three. It went on like this for a while. In the end she suddenly announced that she was tired. We hadn’t actually done anything which was rather disappointing but I could understand how she was feeling because I was far too tired to do anything. I’d just sat there and done nothing. I think that my niece was rather fed up too and had wandered off to do her own thing somewhere else in the room so it was no surprise that this girl was totally bored.

When the alarm went off at 07:30 I was up and out of bed reasonably promptly despite how I was feeling, and how I’m looking forward to a really good lie-in tomorrow. That’s because I’ve had a really busy day today and accomplished quite a lot.

For a start, most of the morning has been spent finishing off the notes for the two radio programmes that I’ll be preparing, and I even went as far as to dictate them and upload them onto the computer for editing. That’s what I call working hard.

Next step was to find what I needed for this money transfer. And that’s not easy too because the paperwork that they want doesn’t exist. This afternoon I spoke to people at both the banks concerned and they agreed to send me some information that they think might do. And I hope that it does too because it’s important.

And then there were the notes of my nocturnal voyages to deal with. Plenty of those, as you have seen already.

It was round about here that I crashed out, which was rather unfortunate. I was quite a long way away with the fairies and even when I finally awoke it took me a good while to gather up my wits, something that is quite surprising considering how few wits I still possess these days.

Once more, another lovely, delicious tea. We had one of those breaded quorn fillets that I like with a baked potato and some salad. I’ve really got the hang of all of this now and my meals are looking much nicer.

So now, not only am I up-to-date, I’m actually ahead of myself at the moment. I really can treat myself to a day off tomorrow and how I’m looking forward to that. But something will come along to disrupt me, I’m sure of that. It usually does.

And next week I’m hoping that Caliburn will be back and I can get on with organising myself properly as I would like to, even doing a lap or two around the shops if I’m lucky. Things are looking up.

Friday 3rd February 2023 – IT REALLY WAS A …

… lovely afternoon today. Sunny and once I was out of the wind, quite warm too. It really was a pleasure to be out and about.

With it being Friday today, I needed to go to the supermarket in the town for my fresh fruit and so on. But I’m not sure whether it was worth the effort from that point of view because although I managed to buy a lettuce and some mushrooms they had no bananas, no cucumber and there were a few other things that I wanted that were missing in the shops.

The reason for that though was clear to see. There was a big notice everywhere saying that the shop will be closed on Monday and Tuesday for stocktaking, so I suppose that they didn’t want too much fresh fruit and veg hanging around that they might not have been able to sell.

Hoad I known, I would have gone to one of the other supermarkets in the town centre. There are three altogether. I had plenty of time. But regardless of anything else, I was glad to be out and about in the nice weather.

Before I went to bed last night I was out and about too. I went for a walk up and down the stairs here, without my crutches too. And going down the steps I led with the left leg, to give me an opportunity to bend the right knee. Unfortunately, I couldn’t lead with the right going back up the steps. I’m a long way from there, so far that I doubt that i’ll ever be back.

It was a bad night too, tossing and turning around for quite a while trying in vain to go to sleep. Another night where I didn’t do much except watch the clock go round and round. I did eventually go off to sleep, but for nothing like as much sleep as I would have liked.

There was however enough time for me to go off on a few travels here and there. I started off going to work. I had a great big Audi saloon. I had to take the director or one of the big directors to somewhere in Germany not too far from Berlin. They explained the name of the hotel and the town, and I said that I knew it although I didn’t. When they asked why, I said that because my aunt used to go there because my family is connected with royalty (which they didn’t believe but anyway …). So the next morning I awoke. I was in Shavington. There was a lot of traffic on the road because it was rush hour. I got into the car and started it. I thought that I’d do a lap or two around the block to warm it up but I noticed that it was low on petrol or diesel so I thought that I’d go to the garage on Newcastle Road and fuel it with diesel then come back and we’d be ready to go. I was driving up Chestnut Avenue which was a 4-lane road at the time, in the right-hand lane ready to turn right at the top.

I can’t remember very much about this next bit though but I was creating a 3D figure. The telephone rang so I answered it and said that I’d call them back because I was busy with this thing and hung up. Then I realised who it was and tried to call them back so that I could continue talking to them while I was continuing to work on this 3D figure.

And then I’d bought an apartment in a big house. Rosemary had come along to help me clean it up, the house and the balcony, and do some cleaning up outside in the public areas. We ended up making the place look pretty nice although it could do with a coat of paint inside because I didn’t like the red walls. The communal parts outside were confusing. It was a tiny village with several houses dotted around and what you would think at first was private to this particular house was actually a pathway that led to one of these other buildings. It was extremely confusing to try to work out which was the communal area, which was private to our house and which was private to some other house. While we were standing on the balcony having a look out because it was quite high up we could see loads of old vehicles moving around in the distance. It suddenly occurred to us that there was a vintage vehicle rally in the vicinity that weekend. I told Roemary that I knew where I’d be going to be this weekend.

Later on there was something about one of these American mobsters. He’d been convicted of an offence but there was some kind of public enquiry into his conviction. The FBI was involved in this but the cross-examination of this guy by the FBI was particularly bizarre because it almost amounted to the FBI agent going down on his knees and pleading with this mobster to tell the truth, which I thought was quite a strange way of going about cross-examining someone.

Once again I was up quite quickly when the alarm went off, despite the lack of sleep. And when I’d finished the medication and checked my messages I made a start on continuing the notes for the next round of radio programmes. I didn’t get very far though because Rosemary rang me up and we had another one of our marathon chats.

And she brought me some good news. The sunroof that I’d bought in Canada for that Ford Flex in the Puy de Dôme finally turned up today after several months of dispute and discussion. So that’s now been passed on to whom it may concern.

And the Genz Benz 200-watt bass combo that I’d found on sale for peanuts in a pawn shop in Ottawa turned up with it too. That’s going to have to stay at Rosemary’s for a while until I can go down and rescue it, but at least it’s on this side of the Atlantic and I’ll be back on the road.

It’s nice to have some good news for a change. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

Later on I went out for the bus into town. It was the new bus too, the first time that I’ve travelled on that one. and i’m definitely becoming used to these crutches because I was off the bus, in and out of the supermarket and back at the bus station all in 15 minutes and I had 15 minutes to wait for the bus back home. So I had plenty of time to soak up the sun.

Back here, with still no reply to my reminder to the solicitor handling the sale of this apartment, I filled in all of the forms that I need to organise the transfer of the money and sent them off. But there were a couple of things that need more explanation and I’ll have to sort that out over the weekend. And once I’ve done that, then the ball is firmly in the court of the solicitor.

Tea was a burger on a bap with a pile of salad and some chips that had been fried in the air fryer. It really was delicious – one of the best meals that I’ve cooked. That air fryer really is the business and I ought to experiment more with it to try to have my money’s worth out of it. I’m told that it will bake bread and that might be worth an experiment.

Tomorrow i’ll finish off the notes for the radio programmes and then I really can have a complete day off on Sunday. And won’t that be nice?

High time I had a good rest and relax. Anyone would think that I haven’t done that for ages.

Thursday 2nd February 2023 – I’VE BEEN TIDYING …

… out the freezer this morning.

Not that I’ve made any more room in it but I’ve managed to sort out everything and put it where I wanted it to be. I’ve not finished yet either though because I’m convinced that I can do even better than this and I might even have another go tomorrow to see what I can do.

I’m still convinced that a bigger freezer might have been a better idea, but then I would only have filled it even fuller of stuff and I wouldn’t have been any better off afterwards.

There had to be something to do to keep me busy today because the physiotherapist didn’t come this afternoon. He sent me a text message this morning to tell me that something had cropped up and he had to cancel all of his appointments for today. So If I remember, before I go to bed I’ll go for a walk up and down the stairs to see how I cope. I have to do some exercise.

Especially as I spent much of the afternoon curled up asleep on the chair in the bedroom. Coupled with the previous night or two where I didn’t have too much sleep I suppose that things have caught up with me. Last night was rather later than usual, what with one thing and another, and I suppose that that tipped me over the edge. And I’d been doing so well too. I hadn’t crashed out during the day for a while.

Going off on a few travels too during the night might have had something to do with it. I’m not sure what was going on with this particular dream but at one point there was a girl and a cat. The girl was sitting on the edge of something or other. I asked “how would it be if I were to jump over you and land down there in front of you?” to which she made some kind of non-committal comment. I had a look and the drop down wasn’t half as much as I thought it would be although it was still something considerable. I just took 2 or 3 steps, lauched myself and jumped over her and landed below at her feet. Someone said something about some other guy who had tried this somewhere else and had injured whoever it was who was sitting down. It had caused an awful lot of problems. I was lucky to get away with this without doing any damage

There was something else too about going off to see someone in Caliburn. I was told to fetch some chips back with me too, nice and hot. On the way out I noticed that they were putting the fish and chip caravan in place on Place Godal so I thought that I’d stop and pick some up. When I glanced at the time it was only 17:00 so I thought that I’d go to see this other person first and pick up the chips on the way back. I drove out of the car park that I’d just reversed into and carried on driving.

Later on, back in the dream about going to fetch the chips but it was too early as I said, and the chip van had only just arrived so I went off to do whatever else it was that I had to do, to see someone. I was early at his place too and the gates wouldn’t open. He had electric gates. On the way back I had to come straight home but I understood for some reason that I was to alight at Cammell Laird’s and walk through the town. When we arrived at Cammell Laird’s there was a group of people outside the ship company offices there. One of them was wearing a brown suit and a sheep jacket. She saw me knock. It was a quick knock today rather than a long usual one. She saw me knock and came after me to chase me away from the building.

Finally I’d been invited to a meeting on behalf of the employees to a management meeting of all the higher-ups. There had been another meeting a month or so ago that had been quite controversial because there had been a lot of anti-feminist sentiment and debate and discussion so no woman had gone to this particular one. I was there, and someone was using it as a vehicle to complain all about FIFA’s restrictive practice in broadcasting football matches etc. I asked the question “how does FIFA differ from UEFA and the national football associations?”. All I was met with was a pile of bluster so I burst out laughing. That embarrassed the person who was speaking. After the meeting I went back to the office. Someone was climbing up the stairs. He had one of these 3D masks on. He was taking his time trying to climb up so I tried go past him but he wouldn’t let me go past. All he did was to complain about other people trying to push him along. Then he cleared off. I had to go down to a storeroom to fetch something. There was some issue about some chocolate that was in there. Some woman had been let down over this chocolate and needed someone to go. I said that I would. It was a low concrete corridor with Christmas trees down it. I set off, very careful not to bang my head on the concrete beams.

That wasn’t everything either. While I was asleep during the afternoon I was at work in an office. In my desk drawer I had a barbie doll hidden and when I went to add a second I found that my drawer was open and that the doll was on clear view to everyone who cared to look. I grabbed some fruit to lunch and thought that I’d go and sit on a chair outside in the hallway to eat it. When I went outside I found that there was a girl whom I liked sitting at the reception, a girl who has featured in these pages before. I quite liked her but I didn’t want to give herthe impression that I was stalking her so I pretended to do something somewhere else that involved a trip down the corridor and then I went back to my desk inside the other room.

After the medication and checking my messages (and still no reply to my reminder to the solicitor about the documents that I need) I spend a pleasant hour or two with the freezer. Rinsing out the drawers to dispose of the build-up of ice made something of a difference and makes them look cleaner. I can actually see what’s in there now much better than I could before.

So apart from having a good sleep, I’ve also been writing up the notes for the next series of radio programmes. Not that I’ve done very much because there’s always something that crops up to distract me when I’m trying to work.

It’s true that I’m having a very hard time concentrating these days but news about what’s happening in Labrador about the controversial fall-out from the Muskrat Falls hydro-electric project is enough to distract anyone who has an interest in it. In fact, the whole issue of the development of Hydro-electric power going back to the 1950s in Labrador is so controversial that this is just one more raccoon skin on the wall.

But finally the First-Nation Innu of the region have had enough. In the words of Peter Penashue, the chief Innu negotiator, the next stage of the development, “the Gull Island hydroelectric project, is dead on arrival”. The project, that should have realised $5,000,000 per annum for the Innu community in Central Labrador for the loss of their traditional hunting grounds, has been reduced to just a small fraction of that “because of substantial cost overruns”. Had this been anywhere else in Canada, the compensation figures would have been ring-fenced

And it’s crazy cost overruns too. When I first went to Labrador the road was NOTHING MORE THAN A 1800-KILOMETRE FARM TRACK. Over the years that I’ve been travelling north the highway has been metalled, every last inch of it, and for no good purpose either. But that’s typical of what’s going on out there just to appease NALCOR, the contractors, and Valard, the builders of the project.

Tea tonight was veggie balls with pasta and veg in tomato sauce. And it was quite delicious too. But tomorrow I’m going off on the bus to the supermarket in town and amongst the stuff that I’ll buy will be some salad stuff. I’ve become quite accustomed now for salad with my potatoes and burgers.

A nice burger on a bap with salad and chips fried in the air fryer sounds like a nice tea for tomorrow night.

Wednesday 1st February 2023 – I’VE JUST BEEN …

… crashed out on the chair in the bedroom. Not actually asleep but in some kind of cataleptic trance. I could hear the radio playing in the background but for a good 20 minutes or so I was totally unable to move.

It’s probably something to do with tiredness and that’s no surprise at all. I ended up last night – or rather, this morning – not going to bed until about 02:30. I started something before I went to bed and was somehow swept up in the excitement, such as it was.

And no-one was more surprised than me – not even you, I bet – that I was able to haul myself out of bed when the alarm went off at 07:30. And I kept on going al day as well.

After the medication and so on, I had a few things to do. Like bake my fruit buns. And I do have to say that they are the best that I have made – I had one with my coffee. I think that I’ve got the hang of them right now, although I wish that the dough would rise more than it does.

Most of the rest of the day has been spent sorting out the music for the next batch of radio programmes. It’s not like me to go around getting ahead of myself but one lot of music is done and paired off, and I’m halfway through pairing off the music for the second one.

However, I had to grind to a halt as I had other fish to fry. In fact, while I was listening to the one that I’d intended to send off, I heard myself going on about a musician who had died since I recorded it. Consequently I had to rewrite that bit, record and edit it, and then filter it in. And as I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … it takes longer to edit a programme like that than it does to record it in the first place.

The cleaner came round too and had a good go at the place. She cleaned all of the air vents today which probably means that it’ll be a little cooler but smell nicer.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from last night too. I was with someone. We were living with someone on the edge of Paris. She’d been arrested in some kind of demonstration in Lyon so she was going to demonstrate against her arrest. She asked me if I’d drive her so we got into the car, a C15 van, and set out. We hadn’t been driving very long before I asked “are we actually going to Lyon?”. She replied “yes”. I then asked had she thought about what would happen if she were arrested again. She said “yes” and was quite prepared for everything. She intended to be true to herself and would feel pretty bad if she weren’t. We carried on driving. We stopped at a place for lunch, a pub. She decided that she wanted turkey, and they served me with turkey as well. There was someone else there whom we knew so the 3 of us were there eating turkey. She was talking about spells – how she’d like to go inside one of these spells and disappear off into the realms of darkness. She went up to the counter for something. When she came back she told us that she’d told the people at the counter what they had said and she told them what she wanted to do with this magic spell and this turkey. They had said that some Tory would probably come along and make sure that you stay there. We were eating this turkey and I suddenly realised that I was vegan and it was making me really ill. I had to stop and she was disappointed. I said that I wasn’t going to eat any more otherwise I’d be really ill. At that point a family came in, mother, father and a young girl. They looked around for a table and found one but there were no chairs. There were 3 of us and 4 chairs so the guy with us took our other chair and took it over to them to sit down so that they would at least have one seat.

Tonight’s leftover curry was delicious. It seems that my cooking is improving these days. I’ve no idea what I’m doing that is different or whether it’s my taste buds but the stuff looks much better and is much more tasty. But I’m hoping that when I eventually move into this new apartment with its nice kitchen and new appliances, it’ll be even better. A good oven will be a huge step up and I can’t wait for that.

But right now that’s for worrying about tomorrow because even though I’m not tired and it’s later than usual, I’m going off to bed. The physiotherapist will be here tomorrow afternoon so I suppose that I ought to make a start on trying some of these exercises otherwise I won’t ever improve.

Tuesday 31st January 2023 – AND I WAS DOING …

… so well too!

On my way out in Caliburn to the garage this afternoon I have to say that this was the first time since Canada that I’ve felt comfortable behind the steering wheel.

The physiotherapist and his exercises seem to have been doing me some good because not only could I climb inside Caliburn so much easier, I could use the brake and accelerator with my right leg without any unusual strain or effort.

As I pulled into the compound at the garage to drop Caliburn off I was congratulating myself on how well I’d done and how I was looking forward to having him back when he’s fixed, and going back on the road again.

And then my leg collapsed as I climbed out of the cab.

That’s the first time that such a thing has happened since I fell down the stairs at the railway station at Leuven the day that they threw me out of the hospital in early December. You’ve no idea how depressed that made me. I really had thought that I had passed beyond that stage by now.

But one thing that I do have to say. And that is that in the past whenever the leg has collapsed and decanted me onto the floor, it’s taken me longer and longer each time – most recently a matter of days – to gather up my strength again. But today, I wasn’t really inconvenienced at all. So I suppose that that is progress of a sort.

Last night’s sleep was progress of a sort as well in that I don’t remember very much about waking up. There was some stuff on the dictaphone, but not very much so I suppose that it must have been quite calm.

When the alarm went off at 07:30 I was up and about quite quickly and that makes a change just recently too. And having had my medication and checked my mails and messages (and still no news from the solicitor) I prepared for my Welsh lesson this morning.

And something else was quite surprising, that the lesson passed quite quickly and quite successfully too. I’m not quite sure why that would be because for the last few months I’ve been quite disappointed. Nothing seems to stick in my head.

When the lesson had finished I girded up my loins and went downstairs to Caliburn. Once more he struggled into life but he started up and I had a good drive out to the garage.

On the way out I noticed that there were notices plastered to all of the bus stops. It suddenly occurred to me that today is a General Strike by French Trades Unions so how was I going to find my way back home? That’s something to worry about in due course, I suppose.

At the garage I dropped off Caliburn and had a chat to the guy in charge about what needed doing. And then I staggered off to the bus stop down the road to see what was going on.

And there I breathed a sigh of relief. “Due to the General Strike the bus service will only be running from 09:00 – 12:00 and 13:30 to 16:00 today”. It was now 14:17 and there was a bus due at 14:32.

The bus was on time too and so I was back here by 15:00. And after a little rest I had sometidying up to do because the physiotherapist was coming round.

When he finally turned up, later than programmed, he ran me through a few more exercises. He seems to think that talking about surgery is premature and that a couple of months of intensive exercises might show enough improvement to render it unnecessary. I hope that he’s right because regular readers of this rubbish will recall how I feel about hospitals and surgery, but I have a feeling that he is being rather optimistic. With all of the walking that I did until recently, if exercise would be the thing to resolve the issue I wouldn’t ever have had the issue in the first place.

Armed with a mug of hot chocolate I came in here to transcribe the dictaphone notes. I was on the taxis last night, in the office waiting for work. One or two of the drivers were busy but I wasn’t particularly. I couldn’t recall having been out. It was coming close to my going-home time. There were a couple of other drivers in there from different firms who were chatting, talking about food etc. One of them all of a sudden had to run out to his car for something. Almost as soon as he left the room his hand-held radio started to squawk and the controller tried to talk to him about something. Of course he wasn’t there. I was just about to go home when the boss answered the telephone. He came over to me and said “fancy going to the airport?”. I thought “well, it’s late. What about one of the full-time drivers?”. He replied “he’s going as well”. He told me to take the Granada. The Granada was at the hospital for something or other. I told him that. he replied “what? The black one?”. That was the brand-new one that we’d just bought. I answered “no, the old blue one” because I would have gone in the old blue Granada rather than the brand-new car. He was busy trying to sort it out.

And then I can’t remember very much about this next bit. There were 2 teams of football, one playing in red and the other in white. The team in white had had a couple of players sent off but the team in red wasn’t particularly able to take advantage of the extra numbers. It was a match where there were plenty of loose balls and possession going to the opposite team.

Tea tonight was a delicious taco roll with rice and veg. And there’s a little stuffing left that I can use in a curry. There aren’t a lot of leftovers left over in the fridge so I’ll probably have to lengthen the curry with a tin of something – chick peas or lentils perhaps. It’ll be delicious anyway.

But I’m going to have to go through the spices in the box under the shelves again because a few of the pots are running low of stuff. That will be a nice job for tomorrow afternoon after the cleaner has gone home. Tomorrow morning I’ll have to bake some fruit buns because I’ve run out and there was too much going on today to make them as I planned.

And i’ll have to remind the solicitor to send me the information that I need because I really want to push on with everything and have this purchase completed. I don’t want it to drag on as I want to settle myself down in my new home as quickly as possible.

Buying it isn’t the end of the story though. I have to persuade the tenant to leave.

Monday 30th January 2023 – I’VE FINALLY FINISHED …

… these radio programmes that I’ve been trying to do since Thursday.

Much to my own surprise, and probably yours too, I was up and out of bed quite quickly when the alarm went off at 06:00. And after I’d taken my medication etc, I was soon back at my desk.

Mind you I only wish that I’d shown as much energy and enthusiasm working though as I had in leaving the bed. I was quite easily distracted unfortunately and what with one thing and another (and once you start, you’d be surprised at how many other things there are) it was just about midday when I was finally finished.

Mind you, these two that have have finished today are pretty good ones and the choice of music is quite impressive.

This afternoon I was intending to make the necessary arrangements about organising some kind of payment in respect of this apartment. But the solicitor who’s handling the sale STILL hasn’t sent me the information that I need to complete the forms that I’ve been sent. From what I’ve seen and experienced, he’s even worse than me at postponing everything until beyond the last moment. It’s not a very good advertisement for a solicitor, that’s for sure.

However, not that I’m short of a few things to do. For a start, I had to pay my cleaner. She’s not doing this job for nothing. That didn’t take me too long. She’d worked out for herself how many hours she’d worked and what was her hourly rate. I just had simply to fill in an on-line form and that was that.

And then there was the dictaphone. I’d had a dreadful night, tossing and turning all over the place. But even so, I’d been off for quite a few rambles during the night. I was making tea at one point. I was looking around for a tin of vegetables but couldn’t find one in my cupboard. In the end I had the cupboard out with almost everything moved so I could have a good look through. I found lots of stuff that I’d missed but I couldn’t find any vegetables. Suddenly I remembered that a few weeks ago I’d bought a couple of tins of really expensive peas and carrots that had been on sale at Noz at some ridiculously cheap price. I knew where they were so I went to look for those instead.

Later on I’d been wandering around some town somewhere. I can’t remember where now. It was where I was living and I was working as a sort-of odd job delivery person. One Saturday morning I had a few things to deliver. I had to go round to the house of one of my old taxi clients to pick up the facade of a piece of wooden furniture to take to somewhere else. While I was there I picked up a piece of chipboard that I’d had for years that I’d wanted for another project. I was roller-skating down this hill to a road junction and suddenly remembered that I didn’t know how to stop. In my anxiety I fell over. I picked myself up, picked up the facade of this piece of furniture and set off again. After I’d gone about 200 yards I suddenly realised that I’d left my piece of chipboard in the middle of the road. I was quite attached to this piece of chipboard for some reason. It had followed me around in a variety of moves so I went back to find it. I picked it up and came back again. I could hear some kind of arguing between a mother and two children. I recognised the voices as yet more people whom I’d taken on the taxis years ago. I glanced over the hedge as I went past. It was indeed this family but in the intervening years they had put on a lot of weight and were scarcely recognisable. While I was setting off again I was thinking that with walking to Chester that I’d done the other night, why didn’t I go on roller skates? That would only have taken me half the time, I reckon, and for a lot less energy too. “I shall have to look further into this travelling to places on roller skates” I thought.

As well as that I’d been in London somewhere. I had to go out to the East End. I’d picked up a printer on the way. For some reason it was much later than usual so I was running out of time. In the end I booked a room at a hotel out there so I could finish my journey next morning. On the way back I was walking and ended up in this countryside with these fields and hills somewhere in North London. There were some kids playing around. I suddenly realised that I didn’t have the printer with me. I had to make a detour somewhere else to pick up the printer. Then it wouldn’t all fit in the box. I realised that I had to dismantle it because I’d assembled it when I’d bought it. Then I could just about fit it into the box. I set off and was going past this row of terraced cottages. I had something to do in the back garden of one of them. I ended up borrowing a drill and a large bit. As I walked away from there they told me that I needed to be careful when I left. I walked away and ended up going down this alleyway out into the lane from where I’d come. I suddenly realised that the sun was over on my right which meant that I must have been walking back east again. I had to stop and have a think. Someone caught up with me and asked if I’d borrowed a drill from such and such a place. I replied “yes” so he asked if he could take it back as he needed it. I showed him the drill. He replied “that’s not exactly what he was looking for”. Then I thought that I’d pack everything into my rucksack that I was carrying. It was rather pointless having an empty backpack and my hands full of stuff. The first thing I noticed in my backpack was my bag of money. I thought “why was that in there when it’s going to be completely inaccessible. It should be in my pocket”. While I was arranging everything these 2 girls came up as well and started to talk to me about something or other. When the first one finished the second one said to me in a foreign accent that she wanted to talk to me about napalm. I didn’t know exactly what she meant by this. She said that she’d written to me a few months ago, which I didn’t remember. She asked me where I was living so I replied “in Normandy”. She asked “are you travelling?”. I replied “no” which stunned her for a moment. I turned round to the boy and whispered “if anyone else asks me another silly question I’ll go berserk”.

Finally, I had ended up with an orange somehow and had to take it back to the market stall to have my money back on it. Then I noticed that they had a net of 6 oranges for €2:00 so I was going to ask if I could swap and pay the difference. It took me a few minutes to be served. When the stall holder came up to see me he was extremely cheerful and laughing. He told me to speak very slowly so I could understand him. I wasn’t sure whether he was actually taking the mickey out of my accent or not

Talking about the radio programmes, which I was earlier, it’s going very soon to be the 200th programme that I will have prepared. For my 100th, I did a special series of concerts. But this time I’m going to be doing something quite different and that involves a lot of work. Consequently I made a start this afternoon and that’s what I’ve been doing for the rest of the day.

Of course, you’re all dying to find out what it will be but you’re going to have to wait a couple of months before you find out.

In between all of this I took Caliburn out for a spin. He’s going to the garage tomorrow to have this electrical fault checked over and I wanted to make sure that he would start. It was something of a struggle into life but off he went all the same. I hope that tomorrow he’ll start just the same.

Tea tonight was another delicious stuffed pepper with rice and veg. I’ve got the hang of this stuffing now and there’s plenty left over for a taco roll tomorrow evening.

While we’re on the subject of tomorrow … “well, one of us is” – ed … I’m going to be extremely busy. I have a Welsh lesson that needs preparation, then a quick run with Caliburn to the garage and back on the bus, then the physiotherapist. As well as that, I have some fruit buns to make as the last one will disappear at some point tomorrow.

In that case I suppose that I’d better go to bed. Despite having a bad night and being up early, I’ve managed not to fall asleep during the day today. I don’t want to fall asleep in the middle of my Welsh lesson or miss Caliburn’s rendezvous.

EPIC HALL

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

Monday 13th February 2023 – THAT AIR FRYER …

Sunday 12th February 2023 – I HAD A …

Saturday 11th February 2023 – I’M ABSOLUTELY WHACKED!

Friday 10th February 2023 – WHAT A WONDERFUL …

Thursday 9th February 2023 – CALIBURN IS BACK AGAIN …

Wednesday 8th February 2023 – CALIBURN IS BACK

Tuesday 7th February 2023 – MY WELSH LESSON …

Monday 6th February 2023 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

Sunday 5th February 2023 – I’VE ACTUALLY BEEN …

Saturday 4th February 2023 – AND I WAS DOING …

Friday 3rd February 2023 – IT REALLY WAS A …

Thursday 2nd February 2023 – I’VE BEEN TIDYING …

Wednesday 1st February 2023 – I’VE JUST BEEN …

Tuesday 31st January 2023 – AND I WAS DOING …

Monday 30th January 2023 – I’VE FINALLY FINISHED …

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