Tag Archives: crash out

Tuesday 6th February 2018 – YOU COULDN’T MAKE IT UP!

I had the Royal Bank of Scotland on the ‘phone this morning. Complaints department ringing me back about my call yesterday.

They gave me a brief and unconvincing explanation about why they had sent out the letter to my old address but I didn’t pursue it any further – they were well and truly on the back foot. They did however confirm that my new address had been noted.

So having dealt with that, I asked about my bank cards. In my letter advising them of my change of address I had told them of my … errr … missing bank cards and requested duplicates. So I wanted to know when I might receive them.

There was a brief silence – and then a cough. “It seems like no-one has dealt with the second part of your letter” was the embarrassed reply. So he had to deal with that, and then pass me through to the Bank’s credit card centre to talk to them.

“Please enter your credit card number” said the automatic reply.

And so I did.

“I’m sorry. We don’t recognise that as a valid card number” replied the machine. And that’s hardly a surprise because when I noticed that the card was missing, I rang up to cancel it.

And so we went round and round in circles until some human intervened.

You really couldn’t make up any of this nonsense.

Although I didn’t have a very long sleep last night, it was quite deep. And I was off on my travels too, not into an igloo with Sylvia or with TOTGA either, but I ended up running around after some neurotic 40-something woman. Very tense and edgy – and also armed with a pistol. And the people whom whe was intended to confront were likewise armed, but much more experienced and much more at ease with it, so I had to try to persuade this woman to calm down and at least disarm herself, otherwise this could all end in tears.

One look at the weather convinced me that I wasn’t going anywhere this morning, despite my plans. Howling gale, freezing cold and torrential rain. I didn’t even have my shower, but sat on the sofa sorting through that disk full of photos and merging another pile. That was my morning’s work.

Despite not liking the soup, I finished it off at lunchtime and then – surprise surprise – I did some more housework. I’ve cleaned the hallway and what will be the dining area. That’s all tidied, vacuumed, washed and cleaned. And Brigitte, one of my neighbours, caught me washing the floor. That will go down well, I reckon.

And then I braved the elements for my walk. I declined the opportunity to go round the headland in view of the howling gale. It was tough enough going around the city walls.

Back here with a coffee, a little .. errr … repose, and then I attacked the issue of my train and accommodation next week in Leuven. Fortunately I can receive messages on this new phone now so I could pick up the bank’s confirmation code.

And then the database. I’m still no further forward in the long run with this.

Tea was more tortillas and spicy rice, and then a walk. And bumped once more into Brigitte. Apparently there was a meeting this evening of the local residents and I missed it.

But back around the walls and now I’m home again in the warm and my nice partly-clean apartment. If the weather eases tomorrow I have things to do in town. But there’s no chance whatever if it continues like this.

Friday 2nd February 2018 – IN NEWS WHICH WILL SURPRISE …

… everyone who reads the rubbish that I write, I have spent a good part of the afternoon cleaning the bathroom from top to bottom.

And I have to be honest and say that it wasn’t a case of the bathroom not needing it either. I seem to have been somewhat remiss of late.

It now makes the rest of the apartment look rather dubious and so I have resolved that when I don’t have any other fish to fry, like going to the shops or to football matches, I shall attack the apartment corner by corner.

As Nietzsche once famously said, “out of chaos comes order” – but Nietzsche had never ever visited anywhere where I might have been living.

Sleep was better last night and I almost (but not quite) beat the second alarm. I was poised on the point of putting my foot to the ground when it went off.

And after the usual daily start and a little relax, I attacked the European Photo Mountain – and freed up another 10GB of space on the external hard drive, with plenty more to go. But it’s going to take for ever to do, I reckon.

While I was ferreting around in the freezer I came across another part-loaf of bread from the days when I was feeling well. So I liberated it and treated myself to cheese on toast for lunch. It’s difficult to eat because of my mouth problems, but I managed it, taking my time. And nice it was too. I’ll have to pick up some more cheese from Leuven when I go back there.

But that set me on to tidying up the freezer a little and finding a pack of frozen mixed vegetables about which I had completely forgotten. Next time that I make a curry, instead of using tins I’ll add this stuff in and use it up. Then I’ll have room for more oven chips. Not had them for a while.

And I had a quick go around the fridge too. More stuff that I had bought when I was well that had now time-expired. And all of that went into the bin too.

After lunch I arranged the bathroom as I said, and while the floor was drying I went for my afternoon walk.

It was quite windy but very bright out there this afternoon.

And the tide was right out too. And so we had some unusual activity on the beach, with this person out here going for a walk and, I thought, maybe a paddle too.

Not exactly the weather for it if you ask me, but then some people do have some weird ideas about what constitutes amusement and entertainment.

But then I changed my mind about that person, because as I walked farther around the headland, I discovered that they were not alone.

There were at least three other people here on the beach, and they were carrying some kind of tools. So perhaps it’s mussels season or something like that and they were searching in the tidal pools.

But then, what do I know about shellfish?

Back here, I made myself a coffee, sat down quietly – and went to sleep. You’d be surprised about how much a little thing like tidying the bathroom takes it out of me. I know that I’m not well and unfortunately I’m not going to get any better.

Tea tonight was a frozen curry that I had liberated from the freezer. and delicious it was too with rice, fresh carrots and frozen peas. I can’t wait to install a proper kitchen here – my meals will be even better when I have the correct facilities. As it is, I seem to be managing fine enough as I am.

And so back out for a walk this evening. And it’s probably the first evening for quite some considerable time when it hasn’t rained.

My route took me round the walls again and the Place Maurice Marland where we were the other day. It looks quite beautiful now that it’s all finished and the temporary fencing has been taken down.

The photo of the floodlit trees has come out really well and I’m quite pleased with that.

It’s the shops of course tomorrow; and I’ll have to find some football for tomorrow night too. The season should restart, if there are any pitches that aren’t waterlogged.

But not much hope of that.

Thursday 1st February 2018 – I DON’T KNOW …

… what I did yesterday, but as well as having a message service on my phone, both of the alarmss now seem to work fine this morning. Ask me how I know.

And last night I was in some kind of public place like a shop where I’d bought a DVD, and I wanted to check that it worked correctly. This involved putting it in my DVD player, passing the signal trough some kind of pre-amp and then into a television to watch. And conveniently, all of my equipment was there on the shelf and wired up. I reckoned that this would be quite an impressive thing to accomplish in this public place so I duly set it all up. But it wasn’t as impressive as I wanted it to be and I was left with a pile of omelette sur le visage because somehow there was a radio programmme running in the background of ll of this with the sound coming out of the television as well as the sound of the image and the picture, and it was all very disappointing.

Not feeling much like leaving my bed this morning, the second alarm did the business which is just as well, otherwise I might still be in bed now. No idea why I was so tired, unless it was the after-effects of feeling so bad yesterday.

But the medication, breakfast and a nice hot shower brought me round somewhat and once the medication did its stuff I braved the high winds and headed for the shops. It was the usual struggle up the hill to LIDL and there wasn’t really anything that I needed or wanted. I just made do with a baguette and a couple of bits and pieces of food.

On the way back I went down to the docks to see if I could see what was going on.

But I was out of luck. It’s not easy to see from there at the best of times and particularly now, because they have fenced off everywhere in the vicinity where they are working.

What I’ll have to do is to wait until the tide turns, and then go off to the other side of the basin with the telephoto lens and see what I can see from over there

Back here I made a coffee and settled down for a relax – but not for long. The doorbell rang. It was the Postie with a registered letter for me.

Yes, my new driving licence has arrived – complete with the authorisation to drive buses and articulated lorries for hire or reward. I really can’t take that seriously. But it’s scanned into the laptop for future reference just like all of my important documents

After my soup I tackled some paperwork that had been building up and ow that’s all filed away. I’m certainly more organised than I have been for quite a while – and quite right too. Let’s hope that I can persevere.

My work was however interrupted by a need to have a little rest. And I don’t know what it was that awoke me but I sat bolt upright for some reason or other.

Despite already having had a good walk, it was a nice if windy afternoon so I went for another walk.

And I was wondering what was making all of the noise yesterday. It seems that they’ve been doing some gardening round at the back of the college and it looks quite neat and tidy now.

High time that they did something about it too. But whatever vehicle they had used had churned up the lawn by the lighthouse. It’s really not the right kind of weather for driving heavy vehicles on there.

But here’s a thing!

We saw the other day that there was a big digger out in the tidal harbour during low tide raking over the bed. He’s still out there, but today there was some other activity in the tidal basin.

Like this digger and a couple of earth-moving lorries hard at work making a deep channel.

And if that isn’t enough to be going on with, there was another digger and an earth-moving lorry working closer inshore too.

That’s the place where the fishing boats tie up – right by the fish-processing plant. And they seem to be making the channel along the sea wall there much deeper.

Whether this means that we are going to be having bigger trawlers coming into the port I don’t know. But all of this work in the barbour is exciting for a ship-spotting fan like Yours Truly.

Back here I carried on with a few things that I needed to do (without very much enthusiasm it has to be said) and then made tea. The falafel that I had bought weeks ago went straight into the bin untouched – well past its sell-by date. So I had rice with vegetables and a vegan burger.

With only one cooking ring, it wasn’t easy. But a little oil in a pyrex bowl with onions and garlic and cooked in the microwave for three minutes, and then add the burger for 6 minutes (3 minutes each side) and then add a little water and gravy power, and there you are.

I’d planned to go for a walk but just as I was getting ready we had the most astonishing storm. So I stayed here and played the guitar.

But later I did go for my walk, and you can see what weather we had had.

There had been a hailstorm and it seemed to have fallen like snow – fairly deep in places. I’m glad that I hadn’t gone out in it earlier.

Football on the laptop (or on my television of course) later. A Welsh Premier League match between Connah’s Quay Nomads and Bala Town. A pretty sad game, just like the bad old days of 15 years ago on the Nomads’ sodden, waterlogged pitch that gave no hope whatever of a decent match.

So I’ll see what tonight brings. A nice relaxing sleep, I hope.

Wednesday 31st January 2018 – AND I DIDN’T …

… go out to take my mobile phone to be seen to today either.

And there were three good reasons for that

The weather this morning was almost as bad as yesterday. Not quite, but almost. And seeing as I shall be out at the shops (weather permitting) tomorrow, there’s no point in giving myself an unexpected drenching for no really good reason
I’ve not been feeling too good today. In fact this afternoon I was feeling pretty awful
I’m not quite sure what I’ve done, or what buttons I pressed, but all of a sudden the “messages” started to work as it should. And I’ve been able to send and receive messages now. So I hope that it continues tomorrow. We shall see.

I’d had a reasonable night’s sleep last night but waking up was a struggle. I dozed back off to sleep again and the second one didn’t go off (and I’ve no idea why – it’s correctly programmed). So it was with rather a jolt that I awoke a couple of minutes later than I should have done. And that set the tone for the day.

This morning I attacked the photos again and made more progress. And regular readers of this rubbish will recall that this thing about photos started because I was looking for a certain couple of photos that I couldn’t find anywhere where they were supposed to be. But I found them today – called by a different name than I remembered and in a totally different directory too.

Such is the Kingdom of Heaven.

But I wondered why, as the day drew on, it was starting to go cold in here. It seems that I had forgotten to switch on the heating this morning.

After lunch, my exertions caught up with me and I was flat out for a good 45 minutes. Really feeling the strain. And then the Bank finally called me up and we had a chat for a while. It seems that the information that I had given them back on the 5th of January wasn’t sufficient (but of course they hadn’t let me know) so that needed re-doing.

And tracking down the information wasn’t easy either.

The weather had eased off a little by late afternoon so I went for a walk – around the walls today missing out on observing the bad parking. I don’t want my blood pressure going through the roof.

And it seems that they have installed some kind of step at the entrance to the harbour – the tide was out but there was definitely water in the basin and ships were moored in there without grounding out.

I shall have to go for a wander around there tomorrow for a look around and see what gives.

Back here, I grabbed a couple of memory sticks and copied a pile of music onto them. My new hi-fi only plays 999 tracks so I organised the memory sticks accordingly.

But there are thousands of CDs, tapes and records here, with tens of thousands of tracks, and by the time that I’ve finished I reckon that I’ll need a dozen. So anyone who has any old 2GB memory sticks, let me know.

Tea was more tortillas with my spicy filling, and then I went off for a walk around the headland.

It’s full moon tonight so I need to shave the palms of my hands in the morning of course, but it really was nice watching the moonlight reflecting off the water in the harbour.

It made me realise how lucky I was to find this little apartment. It’s only 38.8 m² but it’s ideal for what I want. A sea view and a balcony would be nice of xourse, but having seen the rubbish that is on offer here, I’m glad that I’m in this place.

And final news will surprise you all as much as it surprised me. I’ve had a message from the Driving Licence people – “your application has been processed and your licence sent for printing”.

Well, well, well.

Wednesday 24th January 2018 – I HAD AN UNEXPECTED …

… lie-in this morning. It seems that the telephone battery went flat during the night and so it didn’t ring. Instead of a 06:45 awakening, it was something more like 08:45 when I left my stinking pit. It’s a good job that that hadn’t happened yesterday, isn’t it?

And I’d been on my travels too during the night – reliving parts of a nocturnal ramble that I had undertaken a good while ago. I was at one of the railway termini in South London (Victoria? Waterloo?) and needed to travel to Leicester (why, I have no idea). So instead of going on the Tube, I took the bizarre decision of crossing London on the bus, despite the heavy traffic on the streets. So I walked away from the Underground station that we have visited before on a nocturnal ramble and leapt aboard the bus, with the conductor telling me that it might take TWO HOURS. We ended up going down Euston Road on a high ridge looking northwards to some kind of rural view (which we have seen before) quite unlike anything that you might see around Kilburn and Kensal Green. I cant remember who I was with now but she insisted that we stop for a meal, even though time was running out. And there she was, gaily chatting away quite nonchalantly with her food and the sands of time were disappearing. It all fitted in with another nocturna ramble, where I was on a train heading somewhere but ended up at Crewe Station instead.

With no reason to go out early, I could have my medication and eat breakfast. But I didn’t feel like doing very much at all. In the end I made a start on the pile of photos that I mentioed earlier, trying to sort them, but my heart wasn’t in it and I was easily distracted.

When I was at Coutances yesterday I saw some more packets of soup that I could eat – no milk proteins or anything like that. “9 vegetables passed through a sieve” so I bought a few packets. This lunchtime I made one up. And while it isn’t the best soup that I’ve ever tasted, it went down quite nicely with some more bread. Thickening the soups out with this small pasta and bulghour is definitely the way to go.

This afternoon I finally knuckled down to work and scanned all of the paperwork from yesterday. Tomorrow when I come back from the shops I’ll send off for my new licence. I hope that I have all of the paperwork now.

Many people have asked me why I keep a detailed blog like this, and I always answer that there are several reasons.

When I used to work on rebuilding the farm and installing all of the solar panels and wind turbines and the like, it kept people up-to-date with that I was up to. Believe it or not, there were many people who were interested
When I’m on my travels, it lets people know what I’m doing and where I am, so that they have plenty of time to head for the hills if I’m on my way in their direction.
With my health issues, it lets people know that I’m still here and still alive. And if there’s a silence for a couple of days, like there was in Verdun last March, they can come to look for me and mak sure that I’m okay.
I’m the world’s worst at self-motivation. And so if I put down o here that I’m going to do something the next day, then I’m obliged to do it so that I don’t look silly, as well as being some kind of reminder.

But it serves another purpose too which is much more important. It’s an indexed blog and I can save keywords. And then I can search the keywords and see the entries that relate to those words. And that way I can tell, for example, exactly how many times I went to the Bank since 2009, and more importantly, the text of the blog will tell me why I went.

So when I receive a rather aggressive letter from the Bank, as I did yesterday, about something that they think that I have failed to do, I can search through my index (which takes about half a second) and tell them in an even more aggressive reply of the FIFTEEN times that I have been to the Bank since 27th April 2017, whom I saw and the reason for each of the visits. All there, documented in black and white.

And if they don’t like my reply, which I’m sure they won’t, they can close down my accounts and send me back all of my money. And then I’ll go and look for a competent Bank where my custom will be welcomed.

Having written my letter, I went out for a walk.

Today I took the route by the city walls – but on the pavement, not on the footpath below due to the weather conditions.

And we can see that our crane has now moved from the side of the quay down to the entrance to the port area where there are the lock gates. I imagine that it’s those that are going to be replaced.

And I wonder what that might mean for the port.

But there’s a thing over there.

They have been building a new block of flats at the port for as long as I can remember and they are slowly reaching their finish. There’s a radio aerial been erected and today there was a guy climbing up there connecting the wires.

A hard hat, but no safety harness, not colleague to assist, no nothing. Just imagine that in the UK Nanny State with all of the Health and Safety restrictions.

Back here I made myself a coffee – but promptly fell asleep for an hour instead so it was cold. And then I’ve spent the time, apart from the half-hour on the guitar, re-reading my letter and tweaking it a little. When writing something off the cuff like that, it’s always a good idea to go for a walk and a think before sending it.

I had some grated vegan cheese left over from the other day so I made myself a pile of mashed potatoes and assorted vegetables all drowned in a cheese sauce. And delicious it was too. And then the evening walk around the headland.

And I hope that the alarm works tonight.

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 – AND IN NEWS …

… that will surprise, if not shock, regular readers of this rubbish who have been following my vicissitudes with bated breath, according to the medical examination that I was given this morning by a doctor who works in partnership with the French Government, I am considered fit enough to drive a 44-tonne articulated lorry or a bus with 75 paying passengers on the public highway.

Last night was another miserable night, having gone on yet another lengthy travel, the details of which were immediately wiped from my memory as soon as I awoke. And I staggered off into the living room with no medication and no breakfast this morning, for obvious reasons.

Nevertheless I did manage a shower and a change of clothes though – I need to look my best for my appointment at 09:15.

At about 08:00 I hit the road for Countances.

And it’s a good job that I allowed myself plenty of time because I needed it. Quetteville sur Sienne isn’t “Quetteville on Sienne” at all – it’s “Quetteville-in-the-Sienne” right now.

You’re all aware of the weather that we’ve been having just recently. While most of Europe has been swaddled in snow these last few weeks, we’ve had nothing but torrential rain

As a result the Rivier Sienne has burst its banks and the outskirts of the town (the town itself is perched on an eminence) are flooded.

It’s completely cut off to the north and so all of the traffic heading to Coutances and Cherbourg is diverted down a country lane. And by the looks of things, a couple more days of this weather and this won’t be passable either.

It certainly messed up my arrival.

But I was there in good time and, as luck would have it, I found a parking place right outside the doctor’s at the back of the sous-Prefecture. And that’s not something that happens every day either, is it?

Being early, I was first in. And out again after 10 minutes.

And this medical is a total farce. I hadn’t said anything about it because I was convinced that I would fail it, with my well-documented medical history. And I was determined to answer every question honestly, truthfully and completely. Which I did.

The only problem with that though is that he only asked two or three questions – and nothing of any significance.

The scar on my chest from neck to navel and the chemo port in my left shoulder should have given the game away but, unbelievably, he stethoscoped me with my tee-shirt on.

A test of my vision and a few exercises in co-ordination, and that was my lot. I’m fit to drive a 44-tonne artic or a bus on the public highway. And if that’s an example of a medical undergone by every other lorry or bus driver in France, then God help the average motorist.

Being out early, I had plenty of time to kill. And so I went for a wander around the town.

Coutances is a Roman town, named for the Emperor Constantine, but was destroyed by the Vikings in 866, the French in the 12th Century (Normandy was an independent Duchy until 1204), the Huguenots in the 16th Century, the town planners in the 18th Century and the Royal Air Force and American Air Force on 6th June 1944 and a couple of days thereafter.

And so there are traces of ruins here and there about the place, and you can’t really identify them or say who it was who destroyed them.

But the Allies’ bombardments killed well over 300 civilians and there’s a monument to them at the back of the cathedral.

And I do have to say that I was very disappointed in this monument. I could have done something better and more powerful than this, and I expected to see at least a list of names of those who died.

But apparently not. And I can’t understand why

As for the cathedral itself, it remained surprisingly undamaged during the bombardment. Clearly, the Devil looks after his own.

But then again, it has suffered enough.

The first recorded church on the site (this isn’t of course to say that there weren’t earlier ones) dates from about 430, and the story goes that a heathen temple was cleared away to make the space.

This chirch was destroyed in the Viking raids, and when the town was reoccupied at the beginning of the 11th Century, construction of the cathedral began.

When the French took over from the Normans, they completely redesigned the cathedral and what wasn’t demolished was hidden by their modifications.

The interior of the Cathedral is nothing much to write home about.

I was expecting something spectacular give the cathedral’s fame as one of the favourite churches of William the Conqueror and as a pilgrimage venue, but it’s nothing like that at all.

It’s actually quite spartan ad even the stained glass windows are nothing like as flambouyant as you might expect.

The cathedral is the “Cathedral Notre Dame” – the Cathedral of Our Lady, and so ypu might be forgiven for expecting to see statues of Mary and Jesus all over the place.

But you’ll be very disappointed, because I couldn’t see any statue of any significance.

And as for the Chemin de la Croix, we’ve seen some exotic symbolisation on our travels, but here, there were just a few notices with numbers written thereupon – no paintings or statues at all.

The Twon Hall across the square though is certainly splendid and does the town a great deal of credit.

I’ve no idea when it was built, but a great deal of civic construction took place in the period of the “Second Empire”, so it’s quite possible that it dates from that period – the third quarter of the 19th Century.

The fountai in front of it was rather disappointing though. I was expecting much more than that.

I’m not sure how much the town hall was damaged by the bombings of June 1944, but you can tell that the surrounding area was pretty badly hit.

You’ll notice the building on the left – the row of shops with flats over the top (this is actually a hotel here). Go to any French town that was badly damaged during the war and you’ll see this style of building in every town centre.

Designed by architects such as Louis Arretche, they were designed to be thrown up in a matter of a couple of days to bring back the life into the town centres as quickly as possible, and they’ve withstood the pressure of time rather well.

At 10:00 I was outside the mobile phone repairer’s, and at least, they decided to have a look at it. And that’s progress. They would call me back.

I went for a coffee and then to do some shopping. Apart from the usual stuff that I need, I found a cheap shop and bought some stationery and also a new dash-cam – for just €11:95. I already have one but I don’t like it much – it’s big and obtrusive but it will do to take to Canada and install in Strider. The new little one, I’ll put in Caliburn.

They called me back bang on midday. They couldn’t get it to work so could I come by and pick it up?

Not until 14:00 after lunch so I grabbed a baguette and some stuff to go on it and had a quiet relax in the rain.

There’s an Orange shop in the town so I went in to see what they had. Strangely, they didn’t want me to browse the stock, but they would give me a “special deal”. They would knock 50% off one of their phones for me and let me have it at … errr … €349.99.

Quite.

Down the hill at the repairer’s, they also tried to fix me up with a deal. And while it might have bee more attractive, it wasn’t that attractive. So they suggested I try a phone laboratory in Saint-Lô who might be able to repair mine.

But when my new UK credit card arrives (I posted off all of my letters this morning too) I have another idea.

Having done all of that I came home, to find that yet another problem has arisen at the Bank. I’m not saying too much now, but I’m going out tomorrow to buy a pick-axe handle and I shall deal with the issues in the traditional manner by impressing my message into the skull of the bank manager in Morse Code with the aforementioned.

Having exerted myself quite a lot today, I crashed out for a couple of hours too. And I’m not surprised. And then it was tea. Microwaved potatoes with home-made burger in a bun from the batch at Liz’s, and vegetables. delicious it was too.

And then it was walkies. Around the headland.

And that was where I should have been had I been able to exert myself the other day. At the football. And Granville won too – 3-2 in extra time. Just 16 clubs left now in the Cup and I wonder who they’ll draw in the next round.

Rest assured – I’ll be camping out at the ground the night before and I’ve asked if, if the match is “away”, whether there will be any buses running.

But now it’s bed-time. I’ve done over 100% of my daily activity target and that’s enough for today. All 1560 words of it.

Saturday 20th January 2018 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… 24 hours I’ve had.

It all started to go wrong round about this time last night when I was thinking about going to bed. Never mind not being tired enough to go to sleep, I wasn’t even tired enough to go to bed – and that’s a surprise after everything that I did yesterday.

Instead I sat on the sofa, read some stuff on the internet and listened to a continual stream of Led Zeppelin until about 03:30.

Going to bed after that although still not in the mood, but I must have gone to sleep at some point because I went off on my travels again. But it’s another one that you won’t want to know anything about if you are eating your tea or have a nervous disposition.

But nevertheless, I was awake at about 06:00 before going back to sleep again – and a very tired and sad me hauled itself out of bed at some time later than the alarm.

After the medication and breakfast I had a shower and then hit the town – rather later than intended. I did the usual round of the shops and the only thing that I bought as an extra was a spectacle repair kit for €5:00. That’s important because it has lots of little stuff in it that will come in handy for dismantling this smartphone and seeing it I can fix the touchscreen.

However, firstly I didn’t spend a centime in NOZ and that’s only happened once or twice over the past seven or so years. There was nothing of any interest at all. In fact, I’ve been noticing that their prices are slowly creeping up and it’s nothing like the bargain basement that it used to be.

And secondly, no tickets for the football on Tuesday night. I tried at LeClerc, the stadium, the ticket agency and a couple of Sports bars. Not a one. And that’s surprising because the opponents, Concarneau, are only one division higher than Granville – it’s not at all like Bordeaux.

Back here, after lunch I found that I had forgotten to put on my fitbit after my shower. So that was a whole morning’s effort unrecorded. And I had so much to do too but instead, I crashed out completely and was gone into a really deep sleep for a couple of hours. 17:15 when I awoke.

There was football this evening at Cérences so off I set in the torrential rainstorm, only to find the stadium in total darkness. That’s not really surprising with all of the rain that we have had. A waterlogged pitch is inevitable.

So I had a quick drive around a couple of other grounds and they were all in darkness to so I came home and had tea.

The rain subsided later so I went for a walk around the walled town, keeping to the cobbled streets so as not to sink in the mud.

So now I’ll be off to bed if I can tire myself out enough. And Sunday is a lie-in and Day of Rest. But I doubt if I shall be able to have one. I’m not doing too well right now.

Thursday 18th January 2018 – IT WASN’T …

… such a good, exciting day today as it was yesterday.

It started to go wrong when I went to bed last night and found that, once more, I couldn’t sleep. Tossing and turning for much of the night and waking up bolt-upright part-way through.

Mind you, I had been on my travels during the night but you don’t want me to tell you about them. You’re probably eating your tea or something. It’s what probably awoke me too.

When the alarm went off I managed to crawl out of bed at a reasonable time thereafter, and after the medication and breakfast I had a shower. And SHOCK! HORROR! I did a machine-load of washing, including the bedclothes. Tonight I’ll have brand-sparkling-clean covers on the bed and won’t that be luxury?

But no chance of going out. The rain was back, and in spades too. I really didn’t fancy the walk up to LIDL in this kind of weather.

I’m not really sure where the morning went, because I don’t recall doing anything much. It wasn’t as if the washing took all that much time. It was actually 14:00 when I noticed that it was lunchtime.

After lunch, checking my e-mails, I found that I had had a reply from the French Agence Nationale des Titres Sécurisés. I had sent them an e-mail to ask them where I could find the two documents that I need for Tuesday. They sent me a link, but that wasn’t the answer and I had to spend a good hour or so exploring the site before I found them.

They are not at all called what the Doctor told me that they were called at all, but they correspond to the description. And so I downloaded them.

And then they needed to be printed.

It took a while to sort out this mains connection but it seems to work now, which is good news. But the next issue is trying to make the thing function. The drivers aren’t loaded onto this laptop and I don’t seem to have brought the disk with me.

And so I had to track down an installation disk image on-line and download it – only 255mb of it and that took an age. And then set it up.

And much to my surprise it actually worked and I was able to print off the documents.

While it was doing all of that I did some more sorting out of papers and all of those are ready for a good examination in due course.

The weather had cleared up by now so I went for my little walk around the headland again.

And there’s yet more excitement in the port today. Part of the port area is tidal and this is where some of the yachts and smaller fishing boats tie up, and ground out at low tide.

But there’s a digger out there just now working away. On what, I have no idea but it’s interesting to say the least. I shall have to go back tomorrow for another look.

Back here, i made myself a coffee. But I didn’t drink it though. I crashed right out and was gone for over an hour. A really deep sleep too and I felt quite feeble when I awoke.

Not too feeble though to have a session on the bass guitar again. And this time, one of the things that I was working on was “Orgone Accumulator” – the Hawkwind track that I played when I was with Mike Allen and one or two others whose names I forget. After all, it is over 40 years ago.

For tea I tried some pasta and managed to eat it all although it took some time.

But the walk was a bit of a disaster. I hadn’t gone 400 yards before the heavens opened and I was drenched to the skin. NO point in risking double-pneumonia so I came back home.

So here’s hoping for a better night, and a better day tomorrow. But at the moment I don’t feel like it at all.

Saturday 13th January 2018 – ISN’T IT NICE …

… to be able to watch the football on the big screen?

Unfortunately the laptop with the broken screen didn’t work – it’s quite an old laptop of course and the software in it won’t run the video plug-in for the browser.

But the laptop that I’ve been using as a media centre up until recently did the business, that’s for sure, and I was able to watch the first half of Cefn Druids v Llandudno in perfect comfort.

Unfortunately it wasn’t such a perfectly comfortable night? I was awake in the middle of the night and took a while to go back to sleep again. But I was dead to the world when the alarm went off and it was a struggle to leave the bed. How I’m looking forward to a nice lie-in tomorrow!

After breakfast I had a shower, a good clean-up and change of clothes, and then off to the shops, where I spent another pile of money.

LIDL had some hand towels of the type that I bought the other day so a pack of three disappeared into Caliburn, as did a battery charger. All of mine are back at the farm and in any case are over 30 years old. A little hi-tech modern one will do much better when I might need it.

At Mr Bricolage I bought a knob for my saucepan lid – the one on which I broke the handle the other day, and NOZ came up with the usual stuff.

Centrakor provided a new washing-up bolw of the correct size (so my wok and my pizza platter will fit into it), a few other bits and pieces and a box with a tight-fitting lid – just the thing in which to keep my socks and undies.

At LeClerc I went to look at the HDMI cables because the one-metre cable that I have isn’t really long enough for what I need. And with -metre ones on offer at just €9:99, that’s long enough for just about everything.

LeClerc was also having a sale on suitcases. And a small cabin-sized one on wheels at just €15:99 – just the thing for my trips to Leuven – also ended up in the back of Caliburn.

And I’m glad that I had bought that TV last weel, because there wasn’t a cheap one anywhere to be seen in the shop.

After fuelling up, I came back home, made myself some soup and then … errr … had a little rest for half an hour. And then cracked on with organising the shopping and sorting out another pile of papers. There’s actually some room in the drawers here now, and isn’t that astonishing?

At the end of the football I had to leave.

Caliburn and I went off to Cérences where we were the other week.

It’s the nearest Saturday night match and the home side were playing the Mouettes of Donville.

The first half was all one-way traffic towards the Donville goal. But the Donville keeper put in a performance that neither he nor I will ever forget, including a magnificent “Banks” reverse save. It was the performance of a lifetime and I don’t think that I’ve seen better.

At the start of the second half Donville made two substitutions and the two players that came on, playing down the left, changed the balance of the game and we had a much more even contest.

However it didn’t last. The new left winger had clearly unsettled the defenders and after about 25 minutes he was on the receiving end of a bad challenge and limped off the field. We then went back to the one-sided match that we had in the first half.

The Donville keeper was finally beaten with just 10 minutes to go – a long-range shot that dipped and curled out of his reach and in underneath the angle of the post and crossbar – but he still made a couple more top-class saves to make the result look a lot closer than it deserved.

But there was a lot of naughty stuff going on in this game about which the referee didn’t seem at all concerned. One Cérences player made two tackles in as many minutes, either of which merited a red card in my opinion but nothing was given. And so a minute or two later a Donville player exacted his own retribution by giving him a kick that would have felled an ox. No card for that either.

And that’s just a couple of examples. There were many more.

So, frozen to the marrow, I drove back here and now I’m going to bed.

A nice lie-in, I hope. I deserve it.

Monday 8th January 2018 – I’M CRACKING …

… on with the arrangements in here, I’ll tell you.

I had a closer look at the TV today. there’s a USB socket that, surprisingly, can be used to record TV programmes (not that this concerns me of course) but it’s also a data input socket.

And so Brain of Britain had a marvellous idea. He found a USB memory stick and copied a pile of black and white films onto it, and then inserted it into the USB socket.

Making the TV read the memory stick wasn’t the work of five minutes though, but eventually I managed to make it function, and there on the menu were all of my films.

The problem is, however, that the format of most of them isn’t supported by the television and that was something of a disappointment.

But not to be outdone. Where there’s a will there are relatives, so the old saying goes.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have an old laptop that runs perfectly well, apart from the smashed screen and keyboard. And it has come in useful at times too in the past.

But it’s having a dramatic lease of life right now. Because regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few weeks ago I bought an HDMI cable in the NOZ for €1:99. And there’s a HDMI socket on the laptop and two on the television.

And so I connected the one to the other via the third, and spent the next considerable while trying to make the TV read the signal from the laptop.

It was easy once I’d figured it out, and then I had the delightful pleasure of not only watching all of my films, but a slideshow of my photographs and also some Youtube videos in full glorious technicolour.

Not only that, I reckon that the streamed football matches that I watch at weekend can be picked up on the old laptop and I’ll be able to watch them on the TV too and maybe even, if I can configure it properly, to record them too.

But I need a much longer HDMI cable. At the moment I’m having to make do with an old cordless mouse to control the laptop – or I would if I had any batteries. I must sort this out.

Yes, it’s all systems go here – even if it did take much of the day to sort it out.

For one reason or another I still had the alarm set at 07:30 this morning. But I did manage to beat it out of bed.

After breakfast and doing some paperwork and watching a couple of miscellaneous itemsfor which I was bidding (and winning) on an on-line auction site, I began my marathon odyssey with the television.

We had an interruption for lunch when I finished off the soup from Saturday, and another one when I went for a walk around the headland – first time for quite a while. And yet another when I stopped for half an hour on the guitar, during which I … errr … fell asleep.

Just for a change I managed a third meal tonight too. Baked potatoes with cheese stuck in the cuts and baked beans. The cheese melted nicely in the microwave and it was all delicious.

When the washing-up was finished I went for a walk around the city walls. And that’s the first for quite a while too. But that proved to be a little too much and it was something of a struggle over the last 400 metres.

So now I’m sitting listening to Led Zeppelin on my new hi-fi, with which I’m even more impressed that I am with my galvanised steel dustbin, and I’ll be off for a well-earned sleep in early course.

I really can’t stand the pace these days.

Saturday 6th January 2018 – I’VE BEEN CHANGING …

… the habits of a lifetime today.

And how!

We started off with another bad night last night. Despite going to bed at something like a reasonable hour I was tossing and turning for ages and spent most of the night watching the clock wind down.

And never mind the alarm going off at 07:30 – at that time of the morning I was up, medicated and thinking about breakfast. And my porridge did go down nicely too.

At about 09:15 I hit the road for the shops and I’ll tell you more about them in due course. But my shopping trip was interrupted by Rosemary phoning for a chat, and we passed a very pleasant half hour or so, with me parked up at the side of the road.

Back here, a late lunch (because I’d been out for ages) was followed by a snooze as you might expect, and then I had plenty of things to do – such as making start on tidying up the paperwork seeing that I bought a binder today.

This was followed by watching Cardiff Met play Aberystwyth in the Welsh Premier League, and then off out I went.

Up to the 3rd floor and Odile’s apartment. She was having a little fête to celebrate Epiphany and I’d been invited, which was very nice of her. Brigitte was there, and Roberte, David, Nicolas and Patrice. We all had a good chat for ages, and I wasn’t the first to leave either.

Not like me to be sociable is it? But then, I was never really invited anywhere before. My reputation hasn’t reached here yet, obviously!

But the shops!

I have resolved to make my life easier and more comfortable, and that includes buying things of a better quality than maybe I might usually do, and also to have one one or two luxuries around the place to bolster my morale.

And didn’t that work in Spades today?

Not that it means abandoning my trips to NOZ of course. IN fact I was there today and another €15 of near-expired food and a few other irrelevancies ended up in Caliburn. And the braderie at LeClerc was hit as well, with a waste bin for the living room and a bucket-waste bin for the bedroom.

But that’s only part of it – and a small part of that.

I seem to only have two towels here and both of them seem to have long-since seen better days. So with LIDL having a sale on and luxury towels reduced to a reasonable price, they had one blue shower towel and one blue hand towel (the bathroom is blue) left, as well as a matching blue bathrobe (my old one is falling to bits).

So they ended up in Caliburn too.

Next stop was NOZ, and then Centrakor for a new wallet to replace the one that was lost.

After that it was to “Happy Cash”, the second-hand shop.

Regular readers of this rubbish will be surprised to hear that I’m looking for a cheap television. I have a DVD player here – the one that I bought in Belgium years ago, complete with hard drive, and I only used it for about 6 months before I moved to France.

It’s been in a cardboard box ever since, and here I am watching DVDs on an old laptop. So I want a cheap TV and the second-hand shop seemed to be the place to go.

No such luck unfortunately, but I did strike gold in a quite unexpected direction.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I moved here I went looking for a stereo hi-fi. It needed to meet several criteria, like AM/FM radio, CD, auxiliary input, USB port (for a memory stick or a USB turntable). And how I had been singularly unsuccessful.

And there sitting on the shelf was an old battered LG stereo hi-fi with absolutely everything that I wanted, and as an added bonus, a cassette player/recorder. All powered by a remote control.

A lengthy chat with the manager saw it disappearing into Caliburn for the grand sum of … errr … €49:00.

One very happy little bunny here. I spent part of the afternoon wiring it up and the rest of the afternoon having a nostalgia trip listening to a pile of cassettes from the 1970s. Ohh Happy Day!

And later, having bought a memory stick, I copied a pile of music onto it and it’s running even now in the hi-fi. It recognises 999 tracks, which is quite acceptable

But that’s not all. Ohh no it isn’t!

Still in search of a television, I went, more out of curiosity to LeClerc. They had some televisions advertised at €99:00 and that could have been a possibility. But a 57cm screen won’t go far and besides, no SCART socket – just a HDMI cable, so my DVD player wouldn’t work. And after all of the money that I paid for it (because it was a top-of-the range machine) I didn’t want to throw it away lightly.

But there in the corner in the sale were three or four cheap Chinese TVs – 80cms – much more like it. With SCART and HDMI cable plugs and a USB port. €149:00.

So >copulatum expensium , as we Pompeiians say.

That’s now in the back of Caliburn too and it will be up in here tomorrow.

And if that’s not enough, I lost my carte de fidelité the other week and with this kind of thing it’s important because if there’s a complaint they can track your article.

The girl at the cash desk sent me to the accueil and I had to queue behind another guy. He asked for two tickets for tomorrow’s Cup Match against Bordeaux. I thought they would be sold out but “we only have six left”. So he bought two and that left four.

So badger that for a game of soldiers. I bought two too. And Terry is going to come with me to watch the game.

But shopping did wear me out – the first time for three weeks that I’ve hit the shops. I’ll be hitting the sack in a minute to gather my forces for tomorrow.

Friday 5th January 2018 – USELESS LOAD OF BANKERS!

I actually managed to struggle into town this morning.

And it’s just as well that I did too.

my early night didn’t work out as well as it ought to have done because I was wide awake at 05:00. Never mind the former times when the alarm used to go off at 06:00 (and it will again, starting next week) – by 06:00 I was sitting on the sofa having had my medication.

After breakfast, I had a shower and a good clean up, and then spent a good hour or two collecting all of the paperwork that I needed. And I’ glad that I did too because I had a nasty surprise.

But never mind that for a moment. First stop was the Police Station to complete the paperwork about my missing wallet. He had a grouch and a growl because, in his opinion, the work that they had done in Paris was bidon. But at least I now have a temporary driving licence so that I can legally use Caliburn.

And then we went to the Bank ready for a battle.

My bank cards are ready so I picked them up. And I paid a bill that need to be paid, and then battle commenced.

I shan’t bore you with all of the details. But a brief recap is that when I moved here, I went into the bank to open an account here, to close down my account in Pionsat, and to transfer all of my payments to the new account.

And then we’ve had the long sorry story of how everything seems to have gone wrong – a relentless stream of failures and incidents that have shaken my faith in the bank.

But today was the final straw. It seems that they haven’t closed the accounts in Pionsat at all, all of my payments have been paid in duplicate and I’ve been paying bank charges on two accounts that I don’t use.

Anyway I left them busily repainting the woodwork where the paint had blistered off in the heat. They are going to sort it out, so they say, but we’ll just wait until the next disaster. The Credit Agricole here in Granville is like lurching from one catastrophe to another, and my finances are catastrophic enough without any help from my useless load of Bankers.

But the most telling part of all of this was the question “who dealt with your affairs? Was it Madame xxxxx?”
Well, as a matter of fact it was. And having heard one or two stories, I’m not surprised that her name cropped up without any prompting.

Next stop was the Post Office to renew the redirection of my mail. That’s important because of my driving licence issues, more of which anon.

And here we had the delightful, typical Post Office scene of a crowd of people waiting in a queue while no less than THREE assistants dealt with one customer.

Everyone was fuming so I turned to the woman behind me
Our hero – “typical Civil Servants. No idea whatever about the Real WOrld. They should be made to take 6 months unpaid leave every five years and come and scratch around for a living like the rest of us and see what it’s like to live in the Real WOrld”
Woman behind me – “I’m a Civil Servant”.

Final port of call was at the Driving School.

To apply for a replacement driving licence on line, I nedd a special kind of certified official photograph and I had no idea where to obtain one. They would know, of course.

And indeed they did. So next time that I’m out on the town I can pay a visit.

When I returned home Liz was on line so we had a chat, and then it was lunchtime.

After lunch I did some tidying up and even had the vacuum cleaner out for a while. And I’ve made a few plans about organising myself better. If that works, I’ll be amazed because it’s never worked before. But all of this time spent hunting down paperwork is totally absurd.

Havng had a little (well, more than a little) snooze and an hour or so on the bass, I made tea. Baked potatoes and beans with cheese. And my vegan cheese slices will melt if I break them up and put them with the beans in the microwave.

And for pudding, some of Liz’s Christmas cake.

To finish off the day, I’ve been for a walk. It was slow and painful but I did it. So I’m hoping that I’ll have a decent night’s sleep tonight.

Final word must go to my former colleague and friend Anne-Marie. She joined the EU the same time that I did and we went round together for a while, even going on a skiing trip together for a week in Bulgaria. I’ve heard on the grapevine that she received her long-service medal from work the other daY.

Sp hats off to her.

Thursday 4th January 2018 – I DIDN’T …

… end up with my ealy night last night either.

You know how it is – just before you go to bed you start a little job that will only take 5 minutes but one thing leads to another and you end up being surprised at just how many other things there are. And so it was more like 02:00 when I finally retired.

During the night I’d been on my travels. I was driving a coach, an empty one, out in the countryside and came round a bend and hit a steep hill. I needed to change down two or three gears but somehow I couldn’t make the vehicle change gear, or I wasn’t quick enough or something, and the coach wouldn’t climb the hill. I felt rather silly about that.
And then later I was out running – something that I used to do quite often during my nocturnal rambles when I would run miles across South Cheshire in my bed. THis time I was running along the pavement down a long road, stepping into the roadway to pass pedestrians. I was pacing myself, planning to speed up near the end and that meant predicting the movement of the pedestrians and much to my surprise I was perfectly correct. I arrived at work – a concrete office/car park clad in red and light brown brick, on the corner of the street. I was in time to go into work but I wanted to run home again and that wouldn’t leave enough time for me to return, so I would have to take the day off.

Once more, the alarm went off at 07:30 and I was out of bed … errr … rather quicker than I was yesterday.

Not only that, I managed three meals again today. Breakfast of course, a soup with pasta and bulghour, and for tea I tried a pizza, seeing as I had a pizza base that was running out of time. It took me about an hour to eat it but I did manage it eventually. It wasn’t nice as the previous ones – I don’t like this sauce very much and I’ll be glad when it’s all used up.

One thing that I was planning to do was to go into town. There’s a list of things that need attention and the sooner the better, but one look out of the window this morning dissuaded me. Persisting down in fact.

Instead, I did some more stuff around here including a little tidying up, and spent half an ohour with the guitar. Apaprt from a brief flurry a couple of years ago, I’ve not really played the bass for almost 40 years. And so what I’ve decided to do this year is to try to pick up where I left off all of those years ago.

I do have to admit that the little gadget that I bought three years ago so that I could play the bass in the apartment is worth itw weight in gold, now that I have some decent headphones and I figured out how to work it.

And I mustn’t forget a little snooze, or the mince pie with spray-on vegan cream.

So if I have the chance, I’ll be in bed early tonight and if the weather is on my side I’ll give serious thought to going into town. I’m feeling better in myself but I still can’t shake off this cough.

Wednesday 3rd January 2018 – I WAS THINKING …

… about going to bed last night round about 01:20 when all of a sudden this ferocious wind suddenly sprung up.

I knew that it was coming of course – it’s been well-forecasted – but it hit with a violence that I haven’t encountered for quite a long time. Instead of going to bed, I stayed on the sofa and listened to it for quite a while.

Some time later I went off to bed and was off on my travels again. Playing football on a pitch down in front of the Mairie here in Granville, and the opposition was replacing thir players with young girls as the match advanced. It became a very uneven contest and I couldn’t understand what was going on.
A short while later, I was elsewhere in another football match on a very rough unkempt pitch where the grass hadn’t been mown for a year. I was up front, basically to make up the numbers (which sounds more like it), For some reason the opposing goalkeeper was caught out of position and the ball was played to me completely unmarked about 30 yards out. Of course I couldn’t run, and with half of the opposition bearing down on me I decided to trust my luck and kick it towards the goal and hope for the best, but with all of my best effort, I kicked it all of about 18 inches. And then I was caught up by the others.

Tha alarm went off at 07:30 but it was about 08:00 that I finally left the bed. And today I’ve managed three meals too – porridge for breakfast, soup for lunch and a plate of mashed potato and peas for tea.

I’ve not set foot out of the apartment today. The wind this morning was enough to keep anyone in and it kept on going until about 14:00. But after that, I was busy doing other things, including reading a pile of stuff on Roman Architecture and doing some more stuff on my little 3D animation project which I have rather neglected of late.

And also crasging out for half an hour too. I’m not sure as to whether this is a sign of tiredness, ill-health or that I’m feeling better.

But the toothache has come back so I’ve had a paracetomol and now I’m off to bed. Let’s hope that I can sleep.

Saturday 30th December 2017 – AND IT WAS ALL …

… going so well towards the end of the evening too.

I’d had some soup and, much to my surprise, it managed to stay down. That °C to save a couple of Euros. cheered me up somewhat and I was starting to feel a little better. And I eventually crawled off to bed and to sleep.

By 01:30 that was that. I was wide-awake again and that’s how I stayed right the way through until the alarm went off. And the nausea was back as well and I was feeling dreadful.

Mind you, I’ve no idea what they must be putting in this medication that they are giving me because in that short time I’d travelled miles. Startig off by chasing a young girl aound a ski slope (and not the usual ski-slope of our nocturnal rambles either) and how upset was I when she took to her skis? There was I at a ski resort with no skis to hand. That’s the story of my life. So I watched her in her bright blue jacket disappear into the distance with her mother and I trudged back with my friends to our hotel. There were 6 of us sharing a room in this hotel and I’ve stayed in some desperate hotels in my youth, but nothing quite like this. Just an old pot-bellied stove in the middle of the room to keep us warm in 6 feet of snow. The girlfriend of one of my mates told me that she had overheard this girl’s mother say that she wasn’t going to wash during the whole time that they were there and how that would save them some money. I didn’t understand the significance of this so when I enquired, the aforementioned girlfriend just gave me a conspiratorial wink. And I was still none the wiser.
From there I moved on into central Germany or Austria to a city that might not have been Vienna. I was staying there somewhere and I’d gone out for a meal but someone stuck a very old greasy guidebook into my hand suggesting a place to go so I made my way there. It was like an amphitheatre where you entered at the top and walked halfway down, where you were met by some girls in a brown body-wrap, with stained brown skin and hair (although they were West-European). Apparently you were supposed to take hold of one and she would take you to your preferred stall where you could order your meal and sit on a bench. But me being me, I was too busy trying to identify the cutest and in the meantime everyone else was pushing past me, leaving me stranded. these girls were coming and going quicker than I could find a nice one and after about 10 or 15 minutes I gave up and went home.
Next morning I fancied visiting Dornbirn and that involved taking a train at 09:00. So there I was at 07:00 and I’d actually called a taxi to take me to the station. What actually turned up was a man leading a donkey and this was my taxi. So he led me off and I hadn’t gone more than 200 yards before I realised that it was -9°C out here and I was just in a tee-shirt and jumper. We could go back for my coat – time was no problem at all – but that would cost more money so I pushed on regardless. All day out in -9°C and the snow to save a couple of Euros. So we arrived at a kind of saloon door arrangement thing and my guide led the donkey through, almost knocking me off in the process, and then asked for €15:00. But I couldn’t see the railway station. This was the bus station, full of all of these German coaches from the late 40s and early 50s. But he pointed me back over my left shoulder to a pink stucco building and that was the station. And then I realised that I’d been here the previous evening on my way for this chaotic food arrangement, and why I hadn’t noticed all of the cafés and restaurants around here I really didn’t understand

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … if only my real life were even a quarter as exciting as what I get up to in the evenings.

I crawled out of bed with the alarm, had my medication and collapsed onto the sofa. And eventually I went off to see the doctor. I was the only one there and he took some time with me. He too didn’t think much of what had happened at the hospital but he gave me a good going-over.

And here’s an object lesson for you. Never eat hot soup after taking a painkiller. It seems that I’ve burnt my tongue. But he’s identified what he thinks is an infection in my mouth that’s causing all kinds of problems. So I now have some more antiseptic mouthwash and nausea tablets.

My weight loss isn’t significant as yet so he doesn’t think that an intravenous drip is the answer at the moment. He’s confident that if I take all of this medication as and when I’m supposed to, I’ll be able to be back on real food in four or five days. If it’s still not working, go back and we’ll watch my weight loss.

But we’ve heard all of this before. And I remember a couple of people who existed for a while on a diet of grape juice, so round to the Casino and the apartment is now flooded out with the aforementioned, as well as a few more supplies.

Back here, I hung on for a while but I was soon under the covers again. After all, no sleep last night (well, almost).

Ingrid rang for a chat, and so did Rosemary, and one or two friends on the internet too. And much to my surprise, I managed to finish off yesterday’s soup. Without burning my tongue.

So now I’m feeling a little better, just like I did last night. Let’s just hope that we’ll see a sustained improvement tomorrow because this is really depressing me now.

EPIC HALL

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