Tag Archives: a show of hands

Saturday 18th October 2025 – I WENT TO …

… bed early last night – before 23:00 in fact – for once. And I’m so glad that I did because not long after I’d gone to sleep, I had a special visitor come to see me. Had I gone to bed late, I would have missed her.

But more of that anon

Firstly, though, I did actually make it into bed at something like a respectable time. In fact, had I concentrated and been more motivated, I could have been in bed a good while earlier than that. However, as usual, I dillied and dallied etc. etc.

Once in bed, it took a while for me to go off to sleep and I don’t know why. I ought to have been completely wasted after my session at the Centre de Ré-education, but apparently not.

Eventually though, I did manage to drop off to sleep and although I awoke a couple of times during the night for no good reason, I awoke definitively at about 06:00.

As usual these days, it took a while to raise myself from the Dead and head off to the bathroom. And after the medication, I came back in here to see what had happened during the night.

And to my surprise, I’d had a special visitor. And she’d come quite early too so, as I said just now, I was glad that I was in bed early. Yes, I was with Castor (or, rather, she was with me) last night. We were on board THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR again. There was some kind of meeting taking place and I was one of the last to arrive. I had to struggle my way in to find a place to sit. There was a place right at the back next to Castor so I went to sit down on it, thinking that I could probably move to a more comfortable seat at some other time. As I went to sit down, the ship lurched and I ended up sitting down almost on top of her. I excused myself, and she had a smile at me and something of a laugh. I thought “maybe I don’t want to move now”. While this discussion was going on, the two of us and Castor’s friend, we were having something of a chat. We were talking about electricity. They were saying that they needed some more electricity. I was saying that Canada doesn’t have any more, what with Muskrat Falls and all of this taking so long. Then the discussion turned round to the forests, how Canada was destroying all of the forests for lumber. It moved round then to someone else connected with the events of the 11th September being found in New York and extradition to Canada being asked. It turned out that he’d advocated the massacre of all kinds of children and was described in the Press as a “loyalist”. We chatted about that for a while, and then Castor put her arm around me and cuddled up tightly to me so I put my arm around her too. I thought that this was really nice and comfortable.

Nice and comfortable? I bet it was! And how glad was I to see her? I thought that she’d dropped off the end of my dreaming cycle, just as The Vanilla Queen has, and Moonchild, who put in a flurry of rapid visits a year or so ago and hasn’t been seen since..

Muskrat Falls, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is a hydroelectric project in Labrador that we have visited on a couple of occasions. It’s vastly overdue, vastly over-budget and has been described as "one of the most controversial public project cases in Canadian history"

As for putting our arms around each other, well, you can’t turn back the clock, can you?

The “loyalists” by the way, are the supporters of the Crown during the American Revolution. We’re back with Colonel Carrington and BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Someone else came to see me last night. It was Castor again. Just as I was stepping onto Her Majesty’s Steamship Pollard, we’d been asked for this incident to build shares and in this steam prop and everything so that if we were successful in capturing it, we could suppress it for a while, while these nasty ingredienty stuff is.

So did Castor appear again later? Not that it matters … "of course it does, really" – ed …
because I have no recollection at all about this. As for the Pollard, I’ve not been able to trace a ship of that name. The only Pollard whom I can recall was the captain of the “Essex”, the whaling ship that was sunk by a whale and the starving crew in one of the longboats killed and ate one of the crew members. That’s the inspiration behind the book MOBY DICK and also behind the song NANTUCKET SLEIGHRIDE by Mountain.

I was with my three friends with whom I travel frequently. We’d gone to Germany and had arranged to meet at a posh five-star hotel – restaurant type of place somewhere. When we arrived, and I was having difficulty with my crutches, we were welcomed by one of the waiters who escorted us to our seats. I had a special chef who had come to see me for my dietary requirements, and we had a lovely meal. Later on, we were actually on the stage, the four of us. We were singing folk songs, and there was quite a crowd there cheering us on, even when we were singing “The Rocky Shores of England” … "he means ROOTS" – ed …. It was all really enjoyable.

Not that there’s any chance of me singing folk songs praising England, of course. But news on the grapevine suggests that I may be having another visit in the Spring.

I’d been hired as some kind of umpire for a baseball team, which is crazy because I’ve never played baseball in my life. I had to go to Barony Park where, across the road, were some clay tennis courts. The team was practising on there. They all wandered off and I lay down on the floor for a relax for ten minutes. However, people came up and began to play tennis over the top of me. I had a baseball bat and I was holding it up, and if a ball came near me, it hit the bat and was deflected. When everyone came out, they presented me to the crowd and said that I’d hit every ball that had been thrown towards me. Wasn’t that brilliant? I replied “well, I’ve never ever played baseball in all my life before. That was the first time”. It was breakfast break at this time so we had to help ourselves to breakfast. This typical American buffet – it had cake, cream cake, pastries etc but I was simply looking for the muesli and some toast. I eventually found the muesli but I was still struggling for the toast. When I found the milk, which was over by the coffee, I had to ask the waiter if they had any plant-based milk but before he could reply, I awoke.

This is another one of those dreams that seems to be totally mysterious. The American buffet sounds quite interesting though, although there wouldn’t be much there for me to eat.

Isabelle the Nurse was late arriving, but she still found time for a little chat before departing again. I could then push on and make breakfast.

Back in here, there were the highlights of last night’s football matches in the Welsh Cup. However, the match that I particularly wanted to see wasn’t recorded, which was a shame.

After I’d seen all there was to see, I finished writing the notes for the joining track for the radio programme on which I’ve been working. That’s now ready to dictate, which I shall do at the first available opportunity.

My cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic and then I had to await the taxi. It was only a few minutes late but we had to drive out into the sticks to pick up someone else, so we were late arriving. And as usual, I was the last to be connected up.

The doctor, he who is in charge, was supposed to examine me for Tuesday but he barely stuck his head in the room. That was right at the very beginning of the session so I thought that he’d be doing his rounds later. However, I never saw him again.

Instead, I watched the live Cup Match. Bow Street, a little village team from mid-Wales, had fought their way through the preliminaries to this round and had drawn Y Fflint of the JD Cymru Premier Division.

They were well-outclassed but put up a brave fight and managed to keep the score down to 3-0, which, I suppose, is something of a moral victory.

One of the Bow Street players received the “man of the match” award, but it wasn’t the goalkeeper, Lewis James, which I thought was a travesty because he had done more than anyone else to keep his side in the game, as YOU CAN SEE.

For the rest of the session, I began to make up my shopping list, although I have no idea when I’m going to find the time to have it delivered.

The taxi was waiting for me when I was ready, but it was still late when I returned home. There was a reception committee awaiting me – several of the residents, including my cleaner, were having a chat at the door.

One of them offered to programme my timer for me, but after half an hour of trying, he was unable to programme it either. So it’s not just me who can’t make it work.

Mind you, it took so long, and with me being late to start with, that there was no chance of making a cooked tea. Instead, I made myself a few rounds of cheese on toast, something else that I haven’t eaten for years. And it was nice too.

But now I’m off to bed, ready for tomorrow and a lie-in until 07:59 if I’m lucky, which I doubt very much.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Castor … "well, one of us has" – ed … I mentioned the story to one of the nurses at dialysis.
"What was the name of Castor’s sidekick in Greek mythology?" she asked.
"Pollux" I replied.
"Look!" she retorted. "If you don’t know, there’s no need to be rude about it!"

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Wednesday 21st January 2025 – THIS TIME TOMORROW …

… I shall be having my fevered brow soothed by a bevy of nubile nurses while I’m tucked up in my comfortable bed in The Land of Grey and Pink – I mean, the Hospital Pitié-Sampetrière in Paris.

Actually, I probably won’t be, but there’s no harm in wishful thinking, is there? As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s only my imagination and my dreams that are keeping me going.

To tell the truth, I will almost certainly be in a bed in a hospital in Paris, assuming that we don’t have a calamity along the route. But as for the rest of it, who knows? And who really cares? As long as I have my imagination I can continue my desperate struggle against reality.

And the desperate struggle against fatigue too, because I have to be up and about at 06:00 in the morning. I have dialysis tomorrow before I leave for Paris, so that means a taxi at 07:45 and a session on the bed in the dialysis centre starting at 08:30.

At 07:30 this morning though I was still struggling to come to terms with being on my feet. When the alarm had gone off at 07:00 I was deep in the Arms of Morpheus and it was a real struggle to rise to my feet. However I made it into the bathroom just in time before the next alarm call went off.

There had been a lot of perspiration during the night so I needed a good wash. Emilie the Cute Consultant told me that the perspiration was usual, but if it carries on, I shall need a water bed. Then I can sail into the bathroom. Or paddle my own canoe. Or be up the creek without a paddle. I dunno.

After the medication I came in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. My brother had a MkIV Cortina. He’d had an accident in it and damaged one wing. He came to see me to see if I had another MkIV wing. At that moment I had about three MkIV Cortinas, a pale blue one that I was using as my run-around which was something of a wreck. It had no MoT or insurance. Then there were two others, one of which was a reasonably good car and the third one that I was planning to rebuild. He came round to ask if I had one so I replied that I hadn’t. Everything that I had was spoken for. Nerina said “why don’t you give him the one off the blue one? You’ll be scrapping that soon and it’ll save you the time in dismantling it if he were to take that”. I replied “that’s the car that I’m using to drive around at the moment. I can’t give him that”. We had quite a big discussion about t which became quite heated. In the meantime my brother was wandering around in the garage and came across a wing for a MkIII Cortina. he said “I’m going to break your hearts now” he said “and I’m going to take this”. I said “come here” and went into my workshop. Scrabbling around on the worktop I found the washers and bolts that had been used to hold it on. I was scrabbling around and ended up with about ten at that particular moment. He said “that’s OK, I’ll take those”. I sorted out some washers for him but he didn’t seem to want very many. I thought that a MkIII wing on a MkIV would invite lots of comment but he didn’t seem to care. But there was a question that he’d asked me about “was Ford bringing out a new car to replace the Granada?”. I replied that I’d not heard anything. There had been no executive meeting so no-one seems to know as yet.

In theory of course, a MkIII wing will fit a MkIV Cortina because they have the same chassis and A-post arrangement but as I said, it’ll look rather strange.

But I was, and still am, a big fan of the Cortina MkIII, IV and V. Practically the same car from 1970-1982 with all the mechanical parts interchangeable, they did me proud when I had my taxis. Not only did I have the cars, I’d pick up MoT failures, dismantle them for spares, sometimes repair them and until I had my health collapse after my big car accident, I was always ahead of the game.

There are still several Cortinas lying around. There’s an almost-immaculate MkV estate keeping a MkIII 2000E Cortina and a Citroen “traction avant” company in the warehouse in Montaigut, a “rare as hens-teeth and worth a fortune” MkIII 2000E estate in the barn on the farm, and an old rotten MkV saloon down the field that was going to be cut up for spares but it’s lost in the undergrowth now.

All the same though, that dream was disappointing. Nerina was there, as of course she is entitled to be, but once more we were arguing. We spent so much time arguing in real life – if only we’d stepped back, breathed, and began to talk to each other, things would have been so different. And my brother was there once again. How disappointing is that? Why can’t I summon up any one of the Fearsome Foursome to come to me during the night?

As for the Ford Granada, that relates to something that is running in a thread through my mind somewhere right now, relating to nothing in particular. But no MoT or insurance on a Cortina is a thread that’s been running through my dreams for ages, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

The nurse was early today. It’s His Nibs starting his seven days. He’s not impressed with my early start tomorrow (neither am I as it happens) and told me to keep my socks on during the night. That’s not a sound policy – not at all.

After he left, I made breakfast and read more of MY BOOK.

As I suspected, I’m right about him working up to a crescendo. With no sense of embarrassment or responsibility he’s laying in to all kinds of people. Not even the Astronomer Royal is exempt from his scorn. It really is quite shameful and how his publishers accepted it I really don’t know.

Back in here I revised for my Welsh class and then went for the lesson. Once more, it seemed to pass off quite well. However, that was then, when everything was fresh in my mind. Give me half an hour and it will all have evaporated from my teflon brain.

After lunch I had a few things to do and then I pushed on with this radio programme that I’ve been trying to finish since Sunday. Now it’s all done as far as I can, the 11th track is chosen and notes written ready to dictate on Saturday night when it’s quiet.

The next trick will be to finish the one that I started at the end of last week and have it ready for dictation on Saturday night too. I need to snap out of this depression and lethargy and push on.

And that’s the first time that I’ve said that since dialysis started.

While we’re on the subject of the radio … "well, one of us is" – ed … there was the radio programme for this weekend to review and send off, so I listened to it to make sure that it was OK.

It’s just as well that I do this because I’ve been caught out before by people dying in between the recording of the programme and its transmission. And not that I’m bragging, but this programme was recorded in May 2023.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with some of the leftover stuffing followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. Delicious as usual.

But then I had more food to make. The food in the hospital is dreadful, I’ll be arriving late, there’s never any food that I can make. So I’m in the process of making some bread and I’ve cooked a lentil and potato mix that’s in a plastic container that they can bung in the microwave when I arrive. I have to be prepared.

Right now though, I need to be prepared for bed if I’m going to be up at 06:00. I don’t fancy that in the least, but I can always sleep while dialysis is going on.

But in our Welsh class today we were discussing War poets. And one thing that most of us had in common was that we all had had to study War poets for our ‘O’ Level English Literature exam, and without exception, it destroyed any love of poetry that we might have had.

We all agreed that it was so depressing and so miserable, but it seemed to us that the examiners were working to their own very private agenda. It wasn’t until I discovered the works of AE Housman that I began to develop a love of poetry, but I never ever want to hear another War poet again as long as I live, if I live that long.

On the other hand, I can listen to this all night and next day too – one of Housman’s poems SET TO MUSIC

Another thing that we were discussing was the early television programmes. And I remember when the BBC, in an economy drive, was selling them off to independent producers.
At one meeting the Director asked the Sales Department for the accounts.
He asked them "What did we get for ‘Larry the Lamb’?"
"According to our accounts" said the accountant "we got four shillings per pound"
"And the guy in the historical records" said the Director. "What did he get for ‘Muffin the Mule’?"
"Eighteen months, I think" replied the accountant.

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Friday 13th December 2024 – IT’S FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH …

… today and so far nothing disastrous has happened. Mind you, there’s still three hours yet to pull defeat from the jaws of victory so I’m not relaxing yet. But as soon as I finish these notes I’ll be scrambling off to bed, pulling the quilt tightly around me and praying that the ceiling doesn’t drop down on my head

That was what I should have done last night – scrambled off to bed as soon as I’d finished my notes but the new reformed me, desperate to chisel out of my busy schedule some private time for myself, stayed up for a while and loitered around cyberspace until … errr … let’s just say “some time later” than 23:00.

Once in bed though, I had another sound sleep all the way through to … errr … 06:05, when I note from the dictaphone that I was awakened by a phantom alarm call. How many of those have we had just recently?

Having said that, when Billy Cotton let forth his RAUCOUS RATTLE I was fast asleep and it was something of a struggle to make it to my feet before the second alarm sounded.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up and then went into the kitchen for a drink and to sort out the medication. I really wonder how long I’ll have to keep up all of this. Mind you, bet that I’ll order a further pile of medication in mid-January,, only to have my prescription amended when I’m in Paris on the 23rd

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what went on during the night. I’ve told you about the phantom alarm, but there was other stuff too. When I was in bed I was dreaming that Steve Knightley came along and began to play COUSIN JACK and began to give a talk on how the song was made, how the song was formed etc. I was asleep me room down a corridor in some old Victorian building. I had to get up, make sure that my shorts were on but I couldn’t find my socks anywhere in the room and I had a really good look for them and couldn’t see them at all

Then I dreamed that a load of folk musicians like “A Show of Hands” and a few others came to awaken me and make me leave the bed. When they turned up in my room I had just awoken so I wasn’t exactly asleep but I wasn’t really awake either. Then they had this huge discussion about should they search me for searching the lyrics to one of the songs that they’d play. They all had something of a discussion about it. In the end one stepped forward and ripped off my blouse and found that I was actually wearing the shorts with this particular music written on it. So again another chat ensued, during which I escaped out of the centre where I’d been sleeping. Of course, they didn’t notice until after I’d gone, when they began to have a guilty chat amongst themselves

All this probably has some relation to the famous comment of Kim Howells, who said in 2001 that "listening to three Somerset folk singers sounds like hell". At the time, he was a Junior Minister in the UK’s Ministry of Culture

Steve Knightley replied by singing that his"idea of urban sprawl is a pub where no-one sings at all"

The nurse was early again today, and decided once more that I don’t need any more plasters on my leg. But I’m not going to file them under CS quite yet. I’ll speak to Isabelle the Nurse and make sure that she agrees.

After he left, I made breakfast and carried on reading ISAAC WELD’S BOOK.

He’s finally made it onto dry land at what was then Buffalo Creek but which is today the city of Buffalo. He and his friends have engaged native American guides to conduct them through the forest towards New York.

His observations are remarkable though. He comments that "the varied hues of the woods at this season of the year, in America, can hardly be imagined by those who never have had an opportunity of observing them ; and indeed, as others have often remarked before, were a painter to attempt to colour a picture from them, it would be condemned in Europe as totally different from any thing that ever existed in nature"

Those are comments with which I concur wholeheartedly. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s always been my habit until recently to go across the Atlantic at the end of August and stay there for several months, as the autumns and early winters there are fantastic and the colours of the leaves are unforgettable

Talking about several treeless plains that he encounters on his way back from the Lakes to New York he notes that "very different opinions have been entertained respecting the deficiency of trees on these extensive tracts of land, in the midst of a country that abounds so generally with wood. Some have attributed it to the poverty of the soil; whilst others have maintained, that the plains were formerly covered with trees, as well as other parts of the country, but that the trees have either been destroyed by fire, or by buffaloes, beavers, and other animals … It appears to me, however, that there is more weight in the opinion of those, who ascribe the deficiency of trees on the plains to the unfriendliness of the soil … Dutch farmers, who have made repeated trials of the soil, find that it will not produce wheat or any other grain, and, in short, nothing that is at all profitable except coarse grass. I make no doubt but that whenever a similar trial comes to be made of the soil of the plain to the westward, it will be found equally incapable of producing any thing but what it does at present."

After the Native Americans were expelled from their land on the Plains in the States of Oklahoma and Kansas, those Plains were settled by farmers who ruthlessly and relentlessly ploughed up everything and planted as much as they could on what was perceived to be the fertile plains of the Mid-West. This led to the legendary “Dust Bowls” in the 1930s and the flight of tens of thousands of impoverished “Okies” to California and Chicago.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall accompanying me in 2002 to THE HIGH PLAINS OF WYOMING – the Plains taken from the Native Americans after “Wounded Knee” in 1894 and farmed extensively, making millionaires out of people like “Judge Garth” of the “Virginian” fame, who had millions of head of cattle roaming around up there. And when we went for a look, we found nothing but a dust bowl and abandoned shacks where farmers had fled from the land that they had destroyed.

He’s also still going on about the preoccupation of the European Americans with money and profit. He notes that "we were particularly struck with the prospect from a large, and indeed very handsome house in its kind belonging to a Major Wadsworth, built on one of these hills. The Genesee River, bordered with the richest woods imaginable, might be seen from it for many miles,, meandering through a fertile country, and beyond the flats on each side of the river, appeared several ranges of blue hills rising up one behind another in a most fanciful manner, the whole together forming a most beautiful landscape. Here, however, in the true American taste, the greatest pains were taking to diminish, and, indeed, to shut out all the beauties of the prospect. Every tree in the neighbourhood of the house was felled to the ground; instead of a neat lawn, for which the ground seemed to be singularly well disposed, a wheat held was laid down in front of it; and at the bottom of the slope, at the distance of two hundred yards from the house, a town was building by the major, which, when completed, would effectually screen from the dwelling house every sight of the river and mountains. The Americans, as I before observed, seem to be totally dead to the beauties of nature, and only to admire a spot of ground as it appears to be more or less calculated to enrich the occupier by its produce."

There’s no doubt that some of his prophecies were remarkably and surprisingly accurate

All throughout the day I’ve been working on my next radio project. This has involved speaking, would you believe, to one of the artists who was on the stage performing at the first Glastonbury Festival back in 1970 and who very kindly sent me a rare recording of himself and his friends performing one of their numbers. I also managed to track down a copy of the very first ever song performed at the very first Glastonbury Festival.

However, that’s not true. It’s a little-known fact that there was a series of Glastonbury Festivals between 1914 and 1925 but when it was revealed that the organiser was a paid-up card-carrying member of the Communist Party who debased the Nativity with a crude joke, his festivals were quickly brushed under the carpet.

There were interruptions for lunch, for my cleaner and for my hot chocolate break, but most importantly, I’ve selected all of the music that I need, tracked it down, downloaded it, edited it, paired it, segued the pairs and written about half of the notes. That’s what I call a good day’s work.

Tea was vegan nuggets with chips and vegan salad, delicious as always, especially when followed by home-made ginger cake and soya dessert. I am lucky.

So now I’m going to bed, and probably dream of folk singers again as I now have Lindisfarne round on the playlist.

But going back to Kim Howells, it reminds me of the French schoolboy who was asked "can you list the factors that separate modern Homo Sapiens from the Palaeolithic Humanoid Stone Age culture?"
The little boy puts his hand up and says "please Sir – it’s la Manche – the English Channel"

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Saturday 7th December 2024 – IT’S NOT THE …

… bells on her toes that matter. It’s the ring on her finger that counts.

It only seems like yesterday when I was bouncing a bonny, tiny baby on my knee as her mother wrestled with the controls of a GMC “Jimmy” through masses after masses of snowdrifts in the foothills of the Appalachians in Canada

amber taylor st fx ring saint francis xavier university antigonish nova scotia canada 2024That was in late December 2003, and here’s that bonny, tiny baby now, 21 years later on, proudly displaying her ring.

"One ring to rule them all
One ring to find them
One ring to bring them all
And in the darkness bind them"
it is not but it’s just as hard to find. The wearing of this ring signifies that the wearer has completed a degree course at Canada’s most prestigious (in my opinion) University, Saint Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia

Our family isn’t all a load of tat as you may think, judging by what I have a tendency to write. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, my maternal grandmother was one of Canada’s leading singers in the period 1915-1924. Even though her father (my great grandfather) re-enlisted in the Canadian Army after retirement, one of her distant cousins was SENTENCED TO DEATH IN WORLD WAR I as a conscientious objector (I have in my possession some of the letters that he wrote in prison).

And going even farther back, that distant side of the family is related in some way to Edward Kenealy, the barrister who defended the Tichborne claimant so vigorously that he was struck off.

It’s obviously that side of the family where all the brains are, because my great little niece (or is it my little great niece?) is now the second member of our family to qualify for her St.F-X ring.

So well done, Ammie. I’m proud of you!

Not so proud though of the time that I went to bed last night – or, rather, this morning. I’d finished quite early what I had to do last night but as usual, finishing work is one thing. Going to bed is quite something else. I hung around for quite some time trying to summon up the courage to pull myself out of my chair.

Once more though, once in bed it took an age to go to sleep but once I did, I was gone for good and the howling gale outside didn’t disturb me at all, which is surprising.

When the alarm went off it took quite a while for me to stagger to my feet and head to the bathroom, rounding up a pile of clothes on the way because, having changed the bedding yesterday, it’s washing day today.

After I’d had a good wash, I had a shave and then loaded up the washing machine. And believe it or not, there’s still a pile of stuff that wouldn’t fit in. This is becoming ridiculous.

Next port of call was the kitchen for a drink, and while I was at it, to take my medicine. And I was so distracted that I took the medication that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day. Still, you can’t take it out once it’s gone in.

Back in here I listened to the dictaphone to find out what I’d been up to during the night. There was something strange going on at school. There was a group of us, boys and girls of all ages, who used to hang around together. I suspected that one of the girls was becoming rather too friendly with me – that is, rather more friendly than “just being friends”. I decided that I might encourage it a little and see where it goes but we were interrupted by the bell to go back to lessons. A little later on a few of us met again, including this particular girl. I happened to mention obliquely something along the lines of “girls who seem to find older boys at school more attractive” and “there seems to be one at least who might be tilting her cap towards me”. This girl replied “yes. I’ve noticed that, Eric” and she mentioned two girls, one of whom was a daughter of a friend of mine, and a second one. But the daughter of a friend of mine was even talking about obtaining a marriage certificate. I found that really hard to believe because I hadn’t really noticed anything. This discussion went on, more complicated, until it was time to go back to the lessons so I said to these girls and boys, and in particular to the one whom I mentioned earlier “I’ll see you all at lunch then”. She replied “don’t forget to go to talk to these two girls. One of them is in her Physics class”. I had a bottle of beer with me that I’d opened so I walked up to the Physics class. They were all crowded around a bunsen burner talking about something so I took a piece of kitchen roll, rolled it up tightly and used it as a stopper in this bottle. I smiled at this particular girl and that was when this dream ended.

Imagine that! There I was with the bird on my plate, just about to get my fork stuck in it, and “poof!”. It comes to a shuddering halt. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … there is something going on in my subconscious that is preventing me from Getting The Girl. It seems to happen every time (with just one or two exceptions). So what does my subconscious know about my relationship with girls that it doesn’t want me to proceed any further than this point?

It’s interesting too that this is always the kind of thing that occurs when I’m an adolescent in my dreams. It’s true that my adolescence was not a happy one, for a variety of reasons, and a loyal and reliable girlfriend of the type who would have helped me weather the various storms would have been a very great comfort to me. But my subconscious is not letting me go down that route at all, and in any case, teenage girls like that are very rare birds indeed.

Then there was some kind of confrontation between a Jewish school and the local community. When it came to the end of term the kids had to be taken away by buses to another centre. They had all tried to arrange times with their parents but it was impossible. For a start, the E40 was always blocked on school chucking-out days so people would arrive home quand ils s’amusent – when they could. I was driving one of the buses with someone else and we had a police escort. We reached the school and handed the ticket to the teacher who was on the door. She directed us to the school theatre where a group of pupils were singing some kind of pseudo-religious song from the stage. It really was wonderful. After they finished I turned to my colleague and said “we aren’t allowed to applaud in a church, are we?”. He asked “you thought it was that good, did you?”. I replied “yes”. He said “quite frankly I have never ever heard it done better”

This second dream relates to a concert I’d been watching before going to bed. It was a concert from 2016 commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme and was taking place in Exeter Cathedral. One of the tributes was from a well-known folk group who performed a musical tribute, a poem by my favourite poet A E Housman with music composed by George Butterworth who was killed at the Somme. And when they finished, everyone in the congregation applauded. And I remember thinking last night as I was watching that applause in a Cathedral shows some pretty bad taste

And the confrontation with the Jewish school presumably relates to something that I’d read, also yesterday evening, about a couple of obscure Jewish sects burning copies of the New Testament.

Isabelle the Nurse came early this morning and didn’t hang about. Not that I can blame her because this storm in increasing in velocity and it’s going to be much worse than this. But I’m glad that she wasn’t here for long, because it means that I can start making breakfast early.

And armed with breakfast, I can go to carry on reading ISAAC WELD’S BOOK.

Today, his book contains the longest footnote that I have ever read in a book. It spans four complete pages, and is a really good rant about the peevish relationship that the USA is trying to cultivate with Canada in an attempt to absorb it. He very presciently observes that "there is more reason to imagine that the Floridas, and the Spanish possessions to the east of the Mississippi, will be united therewith" than there is of Canada uniting with the USA, for the "people of Upper Canada are refugees, who were driven from the States by the persecution of the Republican party and though the thirteen years which have passed over have nearly extinguished every spark of resentment against the Americans in the breasts of the people of England, yet this is by no means the case in Upper Canada. It is there common to hear, even from the children of the refugees, the most gross invectives poured out against the people of the States and the people of the frontier states, in their turn, are as violent against the refugees and their posterity and, indeed, whilst Canada forms a part of the British empire, I am inclined, from what I have seen and heard in travelling through the country, to think that this spirit will not die away."

As well as that, I have had a fascinating lecture on how to build a blockhouse, if ever the need should arise.

After breakfast I sorted out the washing and hung up that which needed to hang. In my present state of health where I’m totally unsteady on my feet, that was a rather complicated issue but I managed in the end. Mind you, in this weather it will take an age to dry.

My faithful cleaner fitted my anaesthetic patches for me and then I had to wait around for the taxi. When he arrived I was hustled out into the gale-force wind and staggered as best as I could to the car. The waves on the water were magnificent in this weather, I noticed as we passed by. What wouldn’t I have given to have gone for a walk?

We picked up our second passenger and then headed for Avranches. Strangely, away from the coast, the wind was much less.

In the clinic there were very few of us today. Maybe the wind was keeping the others at home. Julie the Cook fitted my connections today. The first was absolutely painless. I felt nothing at all. But the next one was different and hurt throughout the session.

Once more, I drifted off for a few minutes at the start and once I’d recovered I revised my Welsh and then read some more of Hakluyt. He’s repeating the legend of “King Arthur” and his presumed voyages to subdue the Norsemen, basically copied from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae. That’s quite a shame, but he had no other sources to use and didn’t have the archaeological knowledge or access to papers in the Danish Royal Library that we have today.

No-one bothered me at all today and I was out quite early. I had a chatty driver bringing me home and she brought me through the town to see the Christmas lights, which was nice of her.

Coming home was one thing – coming to the building was something else. My cleaner was there waiting, and even with two women hanging on to me, I was almost blown over twice. I’ve never known a storm like this one.

To add insult to injury, the handrail fell off the wall so I had enormous difficulty coming upstairs.

Tea tonight was a baked potato with breaded quorn fillet and vegan salad followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. So now I’ll dictate my radio notes and then go to bed for a nice lie-in.

Yesterday though, we left Isaac Weld hunting on the shore of Lake Erie. This morning the wind had changed direction so the captain called him up on his mobile ‘phone
"Where are you now, Isaac?" asked the Captain. "What are you doing?"
"I’m hunting bear on the shores of Lake Erie" said Isaac
"Well, put your clothes back on and come back to the ship. The wind has changed direction and we are ready to sail"

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