Tag Archives: caliburn

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 – AS I HAVE …

… said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s pointless going to bed early, because all it means is that I wake up correspondingly early the following day.

And so no-one should be surprised to learn that at 05:50 this morning, I was sitting at my desk working.

Mind you, there was a reason behind it all, as you will find out for yourself if you read on a little further.

But last night, as some of you may have realised if you logged on early, I was simply overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with pain, overwhelmed with discomfort, overwhelmed with everything. In the end, I abandoned my notes and went to bed.

It didn’t take much rocking last night either, and I was soon asleep. But not for long. Round about 03:00 we had one of the fiercest storms that I have known since I’ve been here, and we have had a few.

This storm was wicked. It was lashing down with rain and the howling winds at probably over one hundred kilometres per hour were making mincemeat of the car park. No-one could sleep through this racket.

Round about 04:30, it all calmed down, only to spring up again from a different direction. This was full on to the front of the house and it was so powerful that it blew my windows open. I had to climb out of bed to close them.

After sitting on the bed for fifteen minutes thinking, that was when I decided that there was no point in staying in bed. Instead, I dressed … "at a very leisurely pace" – ed … and began work.

First task was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

This is another dream that I seem to have forgotten from during the night. I know that I was in it, and there was something about bottling something or putting things in jars and putting them on one side. Out of the stuff that we had made, there were four of these huge flip-top bottles and two ordinary ones. They had to be taken away, stocked and generally looked after. This is where it was all confusing, with us putting them into the van to take them away. There was a lot more to it than this. There were scenes when I was in bed, another scene where I was sulking and the tied cottage that we had, and I wish that I could write more about it.

This is another dream that I would have loved to finish. You can’t leave me on a cliffhanger like this

I went to a rock concert with a friend of mine and one or two of this friend. This was a friend whom I’d had for years and for some reason, he was extremely depressed, something that affected him quite often in the past. It was really going on late, this concert, and at the end of it, the three of us left. My friend turned to me and said “I don’t think that I’ll be having any more Cortinas again. I asked him “why not” and in the end, he explained that in his opinion, they were far out of date now and he needed a new, modern car to keep up and all that stuff. As we walked into town, he made it perfectly clear that he and his friend were going off in one direction and I should go off in the other. It was a cold, rainy thing but I started to walk away. I noticed that it was getting light and the birds were singing. At that moment, I went into Boots the Chemist and wandered around looking at the products for a while. I really wanted some deodorant but instead, I bought a packet of tomatoes and a huge packet of crisps. I paid for them at the checkout, which was quite funny because the cashier lost my bag of tomatoes somewhere on my conveyor belt

There is a story about this going back to about 1974 when I was “sent off” from a pub crawl, but that’s another one that the World is not yet ready to hear.

However, I did have a friend who once was so overwhelmed at work that he took a holiday not knowing where he was going and ended up being lost. And the incident at Boots at Crewe – the interior is very suggestive of a dream I had a couple of weeks ago of a shopping mall in Montréal, but the outside was definitely the Crewe British Home Stores.

When the nurse came, the Hound of the Baskervilles didn’t even lift an eyelid, never mind barking at him. He allowed the nurse to stroke him and then the nurse turned his attention to me. He didn’t actually stroke me but massaged my feet and legs with the cream and put my elastic compression socks on my feet.

Then, after another stroke of the beast, he cleared off on the rest of his rounds and I could make my breakfast.

The next book on the list is RECENT EXCAVATIONS IN ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERIES by T C Lethbridge, an author whom we have encountered before.

He starts off his book by saying "this work is nothing more than a report on certain excavations, and as such, follows the modern pattern of being as colourless as possible. In the last century, a similar work would have included musings on the brevity of life, scraps of poetry and various other frills. Now, archaeology has become so stern a subject that I have not even dared to describe our feelings when a skull at Hollywell Row began to walk away with a young rabbit inside it."

He goes on to add "most readers would surely prefer the older method" and he’s not wrong there, because I know what I would, except when the author goes berserk with his remarks.

Lethbridge also makes the remark that "it would seem probable that male skeletons without weapons in this cemetery and others of the pagan period are those of slaves". Slavery was quite common in those days. These slaves were usually captured in battle or criminal slaves doing penance for their crimes, and, believe it or not, some people actually gave themselves voluntarily into slavery.

That latter phrase is certainly true, whether modern people like to admit it or not. But the life of a peasant in early Mediaeval times was a struggle between life and death, with not much margin between the two. But if your crops failed and your wife and children were starving, what options did you have? The duty of a lord was to feed, clothe and house his slaves, and it was better than starving to death. And let’s face it – the life of an early mediaeval peasant was not much more than that anyway.

Incidentally, throughout these pages, you’ll see links to Amazon products appearing every now and again. Being a Sales Associate of Amazon, I receive a small commission on goods sold via my links. It costs you nothing at all extra, but helps defray … "part of the" – ed … cost of my not-insubstantial web hosting fees.

There are also links for AMAZON UK, AMAZON USA and, since the recent “troubles”, AMAZON CANADA for the use of my numerous Canadian visitors. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I am extremely grateful when someone uses them to make a purchase.

At this point, the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off for walkies and I came in here to go through my Welsh, ready for the lesson. And while I was breakfasting, our tutor had sent us by e-mail a huge pile of work that we were going to be doing during our lesson. I had less than an hour to go through it and that was rather unfair.

The lesson itself passed really well, although one or two of my classmates laughed when I told them about my Welsh-speaking artificial intelligence character. I still think, though, that it’s an excellent idea for someone who is isolated from the mainstream.

Next on the list was my cleaner, who breezed in to do her stuff and to shoo me into the shower. When I came out, I found that I had a nice, clean bed with nice, clean bedding. And so there will be a nice, clean me inside it tonight … "well, clean, anyway" – ed …

While I’d been at my Welsh class, the new battery had arrived and my friend had taken it out to the vehicle. He’d managed to couple it up and when he turned the key to make sure that there was a current passing through to the ignition circuit, the vehicle fired up as if it hadn’t ever been left unattended.

So after I’d come out of the shower and sorted myself out, we went over there for a triumphant drive around the car park.

However, our plans were blighted. The handbrake has seized, with the callipers stuck to the brake discs. That’s a nuisance. So near and yet so far. It seems that every step we take to advance, a new problem comes along to stifle us.

Not everybody agreed with this, of course. We’d attached the Hound of the Baskervilles to a lamppost behind the bus shelter, and when we looked around, we found that there were two schoolgirls making a big fuss of him and he was enjoying every minute of it. The girls told my friend that they thought that he was “magnifique”.

Back in here, I cleaned myself up and began to make the dough for tonight’s pizza. We’d missed out on a pizza on Sunday and I can’t possibly go two weeks without one. And while I was cooking, we were chatting about an electrical company and its website, and I was having a lengthy conversation online with an old schoolfriend from my Shavington days. It’s nice to catch up with friends from years ago.

One of the subjects that we were discussing online was “The Dockers’ Umbrella” – the Liverpool Overhead Railway that ran close to the docks from the latter part of the nineteenth century to December 1956 and so nicknamed because it allegedly sheltered the dock workers from the rain as they went to work.

The pizza tonight was acclaimed by my friend as “the best you have ever made”, and who can argue with that? He did also mention that “you look really tired tonight” and that will be the subject of later discussion.

Back in here afterwards, I had a few things to do, and then I started on my notes. However, after about five minutes, I fell asleep at my desk. When I awoke, I carried on and then fell asleep again. I lost count of how many times I fell asleep whilst trying to bring my notes up-to-date, and in the end, I gave it up as a bad job and hit the hay. There’s always another time to finish them off.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about that electrical website … "well, one of us has" – ed … I told my friend from Shavington that part of the menu on the site was “watch batteries”.
He asked "and what about it?"
I replied "we were there for half an hour looking at them but they didn’t seem to be doing anything."

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Saturday 30th May 2026 – EVEN AS I …

… begin to write my notes, it’s 01:02 on a Sunday morning. Now this is going to be a late night … "or early morning" – ed … without a shadow of a doubt. But when work rears its ugly head and some of the folding stuff is involved, you don’t say “no”.

At least, I don’t.

Last night was rather a late night too. Because of the power cuts and everything, I was running very late and it was just coming up to 01:00 when I finally slid into bed. And I didn’t need much rocking either. I was probably asleep before my head hit the pillow.

And, having gone to sleep, I remember absolutely nothing at all until the alarm went off at 06:29. At that point, I was dead to the World and it really was a shock to my system when BILLY COTTON’S RAUCOUS RATTLE disturbed my peace.

But even though I was so tired and in such a deep sleep, by the time that the second alarm rang, I was sitting on the edge of the bed half-dressed, with the rest of the clothes to follow very shortly.

With no sound from the living room, I slid over to the computer and the first thing that I did was to transcribe the dictaphone note.

I’d been on a bus from somewhere in the centre of France to Tours and another French city not too far away. They’d been discussing some kind of employment there in some kind of factory and the more they talked to me about it, the less interest I had in it. I’d been taken on a tour of it and there was a guy there stocking margarine on the shelves. One of the margarines that he was stocking claimed to have seventeen different ingredients. I looked at the packet and there was nothing particularly unhealthy there, so I looked at my packet of “Echo” and tapped him on the shoulder. I asked him why his margarine was better than mine. He didn’t really come out with an answer to that so I left the factory and walked down by the river , and then I had to cross the road to catch the bus. I caught the bus, and then the alarm went off and everything completely disappeared. But I do remember something about Ford’s car factory, where there was some kind of job there that I went to enquire about. Then I heard that there was a train with one hundred and thirty-eight people on it coming from somewhere like Coventry or something coming down from Dagenham. All of the people on board this train were unemployed and actively looking for work.

“Echo” margarine is a blast from the past, isn’t it? There was always Echo margarine at our house when we were kids. But it wasn’t very healthy. Its advantage was that it was cheap, and that was important in our family when we were kids.

The bus ride to Tours is following in the footsteps of Charles Roach Smith on his holidays, as you will find out in early course. But Coventry would be one of the last places from where a train-load of the unemployed would come. It has one of the highest employment rates in the UK.

Still no sign of life next door so I found other things to do, but eventually there was movement, so I went in there in time to see coffee in the course of being made. I took my medication and then grabbed a mug.

Isabelle the Nurse was late this morning – she’d had plenty to do earlier – but we hardly noticed, chatting away so much. And the Hound of the Baskervilles hardly noticed her arrival but he certainly noticed Isabelle the Nurse when it was belly rub time. She’s never rubbed mine like that, not even with any ointment or cream.

After she’d sorted out my legs and feet, I could make breakfast. And while I was eating, I was reading some more of NOTES ON SOME OF THE ANTIQUITIES OF FRANCE by Charles Roach Smith again.

He’s on holiday in the Cher valley, as I mentioned yesterday, and he’s been to Tours and several other places in the vicinity. Today, he’s been at Lançey and Doué.

At Doué is a kind of amphitheatre and Roach Smith has heard that it’s Roman so he goes to have a look. However, he starts to become suspicious when he sees the windows in the subterranean galleries, saying "it has been suggested, without plausible reason, that these windows are of later date."

However, by the end of his visit, he’s saying that the author Hadrian de Valois suggests that it is "the ruins of a palace built by one of the Carlovingian kings". And while our author was a little sceptical of that claim, later history has proved Hadrian de Valois to be perfectly correct.

After breakfast the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off for walkies and I came in here to do some work. I was interrupted, though, by my faithful cleaner, who messaged me to say that she had a load of drying space empty and with the wind, washing would dry in double-quick time. My drying space is occupied by the Hound of the Baskervilles at the moment, so I took advantage of the offer and she came down to collect the washing when it was ready.

When they came back from their walkies, we went outside. We coupled up the battery to the vehicle but to no avail. There was not a spark from the battery and nothing would work. After trying out several tests, we came to the conclusion that it was totally dead.

However, the deep discharge battery that took the charge from the solar panels had enough charge in it to power the little 12-volt air compressor so we tried it with a pair of jump leads. There wasn’t enough charge to turn over the starter so when we finished outside, which was not straight away, I promise you, we brought it in here and it’s now on a trickle charge to put some more life into it and wel’ll try again tomorrow.

At that point, we stopped for coffee and had a rest, following which I had work to do, so I came in here. The work that had been “can you tell me about …” had now become “could you send me some street views of …” so I was roaming virtually all over South Cheshire and North Staffordshire, taking screenshots of various places and still describing them as I went along.

Tea was thus late tonight. We had baked potato, salad and some of my lovely vegan nuggets. They really went down well too.

After I’d washed up, I came in here and finished off the work that I’d been doing, ready to start my notes for the day. And it’s so late that I’m glad that it’s a lie-in tomorrow. When was the last time that I was up and still working at 02:30?

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the folding stuff … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a scene from CARRY ON FOLLOW THAT CAMEL, although heavily paraphrased.
Client – "can you carry out this task for me, Mr Hall?"
Me – "not unless you say the magic words."
Client "Oh stop messing about. You’ll be well-paid!"
Me – "ahhh! So you know the magic words then!"

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Friday 29th May 2026 – WHAT AN EXCITING …

… day we had today.

Electricity power cuts, the Hound of the Baskervilles chasing rivals out of his territory, finally managing to open a car door, making exciting discoveries. You name it – it all happened here.

Not much happened here last night, though, except for the fact that I was late yet again going to bed. And once more, I slept on top of the quilt rather than underneath it.

However, when I awoke at … errrr … 04:00, I was underneath the quilt. The weather had changed and it was now 17°C – a far cry from the 25°C of yesterday. So I lay there, slowly watching the day dawning through the gaps in the shutters.

Round about 05:50, I took the plunge and went to leave the bed. At 06:00, I was dressed and sitting in front of the computer.

The first thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.

There was something going on with music and last night there were five or so groups of different styles who had to practise rehearsing a country folk song to play the following week in the village hall. I was one of these five groups of people and so were Hawkwind. It seemed from the start that everyone’s music was totally wrong, including “Skip” Spence, he of one time of the album “Oar”, who seemed to pull together any kind of noise at all … fell asleep here … I don’t know what happened after this.

There’s probably a very good reason why “Skip” Spence and his album OAR would appear in a dream, but you’ll have to wait for a few months to find out why.

But this idea of different styles of groups playing the same song is not new at all. It’s been done on several occasions in the past.

Incidentally, throughout these pages, you’ll see links to Amazon products appearing every now and again. Being a Sales Associate of Amazon, I receive a small commission on goods sold via my links. It costs you nothing at all extra, but helps defray … "part of the" – ed … cost of my not-insubstantial web hosting fees.

There are also links for AMAZON UK, AMAZON USA and, since the recent “troubles”, AMAZON CANADA for the use of my numerous Canadian visitors. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I am extremely grateful when someone uses them to make a purchase

Eventually, I heard movement from the kitchen, so I went in search of hot, strong coffee and I was not disappointed. A mug of the aforementioned was thrust into my hand and I sat down at my chair to drink it.

When Isabelle the Nurse turned up and rang the doorbell, the Hound of the Baskervilles took absolutely no notice whatsoever. Mind you, when it came to having his tummy ticked or his neck scratched, he certainly noticed then. I was beginning to feel rather left out.

After Isabelle the Nurse had finished with me and given the Hound of the Baskervilles a parting stroke, I could turn my attention to making breakfast and reading my new book.

It’s called NOTES ON SOME OF THE ANTIQUITIES OF FRANCE and it’s by, once more, Charles Roach Smith.

This time, he’s on holiday in the Cher Valley south of Tours and he’s exploring some of the many Gallo-Roman remains that are around there.

Incidentally, you should never say “Roman …” in France. I’ve seen warfare break out over this. The French insist (probably rightly) that they were perfectly civilised before the Romans came and that some of the Roman architecture and building practices relate back to them and the Romans took them up, rather than the Romans bringing everything here.

Hence, you should always use the term “Gallo-Roman”.

When everyone was ready, we went outside with a pile of tools. The first thing that we did was to connect the battery up to the vehicle on which we’d been working. After much binding in the marsh, we went to fire it up, but there was not even enough power in it to light the ignition lights.

That was a huge disappointment. We’d been really looking forward to hearing it running. We tried a few tricks and shortcuts and even inspected all of the fuses but there was no light on the Christmas tree, Momma.

We then turned our attention to the door that wouldn’t open. I finally managed to take off the door card on the other door so that I could see it and understand how it worked.

That gave me a much clearer idea of what I needed to do so I attacked the driver’s door. However, nothing I could do would free off the locking mechanism. The door card was right in the way of everything.

Eventually, I lay on the floor and tried again to free off the screw that was holding the door card in position. It took about half an hour, but eventually, I felt some resistance in the screwdriver, and after something of a fight, the door card finally came off.

We still couldn’t free the door, so we soaked all of the mechanism in WD40 and left it for a while. And after a while, still lying on the floor, I attacked it again and, to my complete surprise, suddenly it went “ping” and the door opened. That was success.

We then soaked it in yet more WD40 and when we were confident that the door would open next time we tried it, we went inside the apartment (which was a story in itself) and I had a disgusting drink.

My cleaner came along to do her stuff and she had to clean around us while we were recovering from our exertions. But after she’d gone, we carried on recovering for a while and eventually, we went back out.

The door opened straight away when we tried it and so I greased all of the mechanism and the catches in the hope that they would stay greased. And tomorrow, I’ll do all of the doors.

While we were sorting a few things out in the cab, we came across the huge 100-amp-hour solar panel battery that had been accumulating the charge off the solar panel that was, until a week ago, on the roof rack. I gave it a try and, to my surprise, it was still holding a very good charge.

This is now forming the basis of a cunning plan, more of which anon.

Back in here, we sat and recovered for an hour or so, and just as I was about to start to make tea, at 19:09 precisely, the power went off in the apartment.

It turned out to be a general power cut affecting the whole Haute Ville and we had to wait an age for something to happen. Just as we were on the point of abandoning tea and making sandwiches, the power came back on. And went off. And came back on. Etc.

It was not until about 20:45 that tea would start cooking, and twenty minutes later, we had out chips, sausages and beans with cheese and pepper. It was worth waiting for too.

So now that my notes are written, long after midnight it has to be said, I’m going to do what else needs to be done and then go to bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about power cuts … "well, one of us has" – ed … after a recent power cut in Crewe, two Crewe girls were talking.
"When the power went out" said one "I was stuck in a lift for 50 minutes."
"That’s nothing" replied the other. "When the power went off, I was stuck on a moving walkway for over two hours."

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Friday 22nd May 2025 – WHAT A WONDERFUL …

… day this has been. And for a whole variety of reasons too.

We’ll be discussing all of the wonderful parts of it later, of course, but right now, we’ll start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

And the beginning, which was actually last night. I dashed through writing my notes and doing everything else that I needed to do before going to bed, but it was still about 23:15 somehow when I finally made it into bed.

Strangely, it was not as comfortable as it had been during the night before, and not even my favourite sleeping position helped all that much. However, I did manage to go to sleep. And I was dead to the World from then until about 05:10 when the Hound of the Baskervilles had a nightmare and was growling in his sleep.

At that time, he was the only one here in this apartment, and probably in the building too, who was asleep, but once he quietened down, I managed to go back to sleep again.

When the alarm went off at 06:29, I was well away with the fairies, although not in any manner that would excite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine.

When the alarm went off, there was a torrential rainstorm going on. I’d been walking around a town somewhere. When I came back, I had a jigsaw to do, but it was huge plates of metal that needed to be assembled together. I tried to do that, but there were certainly a few interruptions. My brother came along – something had happened at school and he was now looking for work. In the meantime, he was going to Dane Bank College for a couple of nights to learn something. He’d moved house from Bedford Street and was somewhere over Wistaston way, so I was wondering how he was actually going to get to Dane Bank for his studies. The dream drifted on like that until I awoke.

It’s been a while since a member of my family last took centre stage in one of my dreams. But at least last night they weren’t interfering in my plans, as they usually do. But it was a shame that the alarm awoke me at that moment because I would have loved to know what happened after that.

There was no-one else awake in the living room, so I imagined they were both still in dreamland, so I shuffled over to the computer and transcribed the dictaphone notes above, and there were plenty of other things for me to do to keep me busy.

Round about 07:50, I heard movement from next door so I went to join them. And the delicious smell of coffee-in-the-making greeted me as I walked in. What a nice way to start the day.

The nurse turned up as usual and, unprompted, gave the Hound of the Baskervilles a stroke. Things are looking up. Anyway, he sorted out my legs and feet and then cleared off, and I could make breakfast.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of Charles Roach Smith’s THE ANTIQUITIES OF RICHBOROUGH, RECULVER, AND LYMNE, IN KENT.

We’ve passed rapidly over such things as weapons and household artefacts and are now giving a thorough examination of a huge pile of coins that were scattered all over the place at Richborough. And one thing for which I am grateful is that in his lists of coins, classified by “Emperor of Rome”, he gives the dates of each emperor – something that no other writer to date has given.

We carried on chatting for a while and when they went a-walkies, I came back in here to work. They were gone for ages, and when they came back, we had to go back outside where I had to … "try to" – ed … free off a seized door on a vehicle. Believe it or not, I managed to scramble in and … "try to" – ed … take off the door card so I could … "try to" – ed … reach in with my hand and flip the catch.

The door card wouldn’t come off because a vital screw is in the door jamb, but I could push my hand in somehow. I oiled the catch, but try as I might, there was not enough force in my fingers to push it. It’s now thoroughly being soaked in oil ready for another try over the weekend.

However, I came out with my hands covered in oil and grease and a big cut up my arm, which was bleeding. Ohhh! Happy day! It was just as if I’d turned back the clock to the 1970s and 80s when I was doing things like this every other day and it brought back many happy memories.

One thing, though, was that with it being the hottest day of the year so far … "and it was hot too" – ed … I was totally dehydrated, and a high-energy drink did little to bring me round.

Later on, we left the Hound of the Baskervilles with his Aunty Cleaner and we went off to the shops to buy a window box 1 metre long, some compost, some potted herbs and a few other bits and pieces. We came back with … nothing. No wonder people tend to buy from these online shops and so on.

However, would you believe I met my favourite taxi driver in one of the shops? She was buying plants for her new house. We had a long chat and a kiss on the cheeks in the French greetings pattern, and that certainly made my day.

Back here, I collapsed into a chair and couldn’t move for ages. I really was quite out of it. Totally exhausted. Not even a cold, disgusting drink could bring me round.

Eventually, though, I came in here to sit down and think about the next radio programme that I’ll be preparing. It happens to fall on “World Book Day”, so I had a cunning plan.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve talked a lot in the past … "and on many occasions too" – ed … about artificial intelligence. I actually have an artificial intelligence web browser so I asked it to give me a list of rock songs from the late 60s, the 70s and the 80s that were concerned with books.

It took a fraction under ten seconds to present me with a list of about 35 songs based on books, and if that’s not impressive, I don’t know what is. It would have taken me an age with a standard web browser.

By now, it was teatime so I made a very democratic tea of chips, baked beans with cheese and vegan sausages. The simple meals are quite often the best, especially as I had to wash it down with two glasses full of lemon drink that I’m not supposed to have. I really was dehydrated.

After the washing up, I came back in here, serenaded by guitar and singing from the living room, and having had the windows in the apartment open all late afternoon and evening, we were having the first flies of the year.

Anyway, I closed the windows and wrote up my notes. When I’ve done everything else, I’ll be off to bed ready … "I don’t think" – ed … for a new day tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about flies … "well, one of us has" – ed … When I was discussing the situation with my friend, I said "no flies on me!"
"No" he murmured under his breath "but you can see where they’ve been!"

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Monday 25th November 2024 – I AM STILL IN …

… agony after the session at the Dialysis Clinic this afternoon.

Once more, they could only fit one pin into the tube in my arm, once more it hurt like absolute Hades, and once more they had to come running to the machine every five minutes when it let out its little plaintive wail.

So what am I going to do? I don’t know. I have no idea what the alternatives are. The visiting nurse who is on duty as of tomorrow formerly worked in a Dialysis Clinic, but I suspect that I’ll be wasting my time asking him. Every time I ask him a question, he replies with a completely different answer.

But the agony is now going beyond a joke. It can’t really, surely, be as painful as this? No-one else seems to have the slightest problem

By the looks of things, everything seems to be a problem these days. Like going to bed, for example. Last night I couldn’t even be in bed for midnight, there was that much going on that needed doing and finishing.

So when I finally crawled into bed I didn’t have much time to sleep but, believe me, I was out like a light once I was in bed, and there I stayed until the alarm went off.

When I awoke, it was with a mighty crash – one of THOSE awakenings where the whole World seems to stop. Except of course that it was still spinning round and I had to wait, poised, on the side of my bed until it stopped spinning and I could stand up.

In the bathroom I had a wash, a shave and washed my undies. I need to do what I can to keep clean as much as I possibly can.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a quiet, shy girl who worked in an office somewhere. She used our vehicles every now and again for hospital runs. Sometimes I’d take her, and I’d quite enjoyed taking her too. I came to quite like her. I was hoping that she might quite like me as well but nothing ever came of it for a while which was quite sad. One day I had to take her to the hospital but for some reason we decided to walk there. She came out of her office, and she told me about some of the things that she’d been doing over the last couple of weeks as we set off. I knew the short-cut through the hills so we walked through the hills. She began to tell me a few more interesting things. We climbed over this steep bit of hill. There were two types like this that we climbed over. We found ourselves in a little valley. As we walked along this small valley we saw a sign that said “exhibition of the factory that made Churchill’s beds. I made some kind of witty remark about that and carried on walking. I put my hand down and found her hand, and began to hold it. She didn’t take her hand away, just left it there for me to hold and we walked off hand-in-hand like that

So i Got The Girl last night, and no-one from my family came along to spike my guns or put le baton dans le roue as they say around here. That’s not something that happens every day, is it? And a guided tour of the factory that made Churchill’s beds? That sounds exciting and is obviously a trip not to be missed. But that range of hills – it’s the one that we’ve walked – and skied – over on many occasions in the past and keeps on reoccurring. I’ve no idea where it is, although you would think that I would know by now.

There was also something else, that I haven’t dictated but that I have a very strong memory of it happening during the night, of going into a newspaper office and placing an advert to sell the van. I can even remember describing it in great detail. I’ve no idea though why there’s nothing like this on the dictaphone. It makes me wonder what else I’ve missed in the past. Nothing involving Castor, TOTGA or Zero, I hope.

The nurse came and told me some more about the demolition of the War Memorial. It seems that following a poll where the town was something like 90% against the mayor’s plan to remove it, the mayor is going to move it anyway. My nurse expressed herself in such extremely unparliamentary language that had someone from the General Medical Council heard her, she would have been struck off.

After she left, I made breakfast and carried on reading MY BOOK

Our author, Isaac Weld, is remarkably prescient. You have to remember that he is writing in the 1790s, and makes some predictions that are astonishingly accurate.

"at a future day, if the affairs of the United States go on as profperouHy as they have done, it will become the grand emporium of the weft, and rival in magnitude and fplendor the cities of the old world."

And talking of the removal of Congress from Philadelphia to Washington he predicts "a large majority, however, of the people in the United States is defirous that the removal of the feat of government mould take place and there is little doubt but it will take place at the appointed time. The difcontents indeed, which an oppolite meafure would give rife to in the fouth could not but be alarming and if they did not occafion a total feparation of the fouthern from the northern ftates, yet they would certainly materially deftroy that harmony which has hitherto exifted between them."

He also talks about "the prefident’s houfe, which is nearly completed on the outride, is two ftories high, and built of free ftone. The principal room in it is of an oval form", something that will ring a bell with many people today.

He saves most of his vitriol for Washington himself when he visits Washington’s house and the first things that he sees are the "SLAVE" (his capitals, not mine) cabins.

He says, on the subject of Washington’s slaves, "Happy would it have been, if the man who flood forth the champion of a nation contending for its freedom, and whofe declaration to the whole world was, ” That all men were created equal, and that they were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, amongft the firft of which were life, liberty, and the purfuit of happinefs;” happy would it have been, if this man could have been the firft to wave all interelted views, to liberate his own flaves, and thus convince the people he had fought for, that it was their duty, when they had eftablifhed their own independence, to give freedom to thofe whom they had themfelves held in bondage !"

No more needs to be said.

Back in here I had things to do, such as my Welsh homework, and then I carried on with editing the radio programme notes. However the Welsh homework had taken me much longer than it ought to have done so there wasn’t much time for the radio

My cleaner turned up bang on time and fitted my anaesthetic patches and then helped me tidy up the mess from yesterday. We kept all of the packaging because it will all come in useful in the future

The taxi was early because we had to go to pick up someone else – this sharing of taxis now is proving to be inconvenient but who am I to complain?

And then we had the pantomime of fitting the plug in my arm. And how painful was that? Nothing that they tried to do seemed to make any difference until after about an hour, they finally found a position in which the machine was comfortable. Then they taped the plug and pipes to my arm with so much tape that it was ridiculous

Even before I’d arrived, I’d made up my mind to speak to the doctor about the situation.

There’s a team of four doctors whom I’ve identified so far and as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … there’s one of them who gives the impression that he really doesn’t want to be there. So guess who was on duty today.

He is really disinterested in his job and has no interpersonal skills at all. So I told him about the situation and his immediate response was to tell the nurse to bring me a Doliprane – a notion that I immediately shot down.

No, a painkiller is no good for me. I want the situation resolved. In the end he agreed to arrange a scan of my implant to see what the problem might be. “But it won’t be today”.

While we’re on the subject of scans … "well, one of us is" – ed … I asked him what was the plan about the scan that I’d had the other day.

“Nothing” was the answer. “We’ll see how it goes because things like this usually disappear after a couple of weeks or months”.

“Seeing as I’ve been suffering like this for over a year” I said, “I promise you it won’t go away ‘in a couple of weeks’ ”

That rather deflated his ego and he beat a hasty retreat.

They eventually unplugged me, hours later than it ought to have been and the poor taxi driver had to wait quite a while.

Luckily it was one of the friendly ones and we had a good chat all the way back to Granville.

My cleaner was waiting and watched as I climbed all the stairs on my own up to my room

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper with plenty of stuffing left over for a curry on Wednesday. Tomorrow I’ll use the last of the refried beans.

But wasn’t it a lovely change to go to the freezer and open the drawers without a fight? I hope that the drawers last without breaking again until I can move downstairs and have a decent fridge-freezer.

But right now I’m off to bed, not before time too. It’s my Welsh class tomorrow and I want to be on top form.

But one of the nurses told me about a footballer who was admitted to the emergency department on Saturday with a dislocated knee.
He screamed “Blue Murder” when the physiotherapist went to put it back in place.
“"Don’t be a baby" urged the nurse. "There’s a woman in Maternity who has just given birth to triplets and she’s made far less noise than that"
"You go and try to put them back in" said the footballer "and see what noise she makes then!"

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Thursday 9th February 2024 – THIS MORNING AT …

… 02:44 I was sitting on the edge of my bed.

Not going to bed, or not getting up, but rubbing cold cream into my lower legs. It was as if my legs were on fire last night.

It had been like that for a couple of hours but in the end it became insupportable and I had to do something about it. And the cold cream actually worked too. After a couple of hours they had cooled down sufficiently for me to go back to sleep.

But not for long because the alarm went off at 07:00 as usual and I felt like absolute death. For any sum of money whatsoever I would have gone back to bed.

However I raised myself from the dead and took my blood pressure – 18.7/10.6, compared to last night’s 15.1/8.5 – and then went in search of my medication.

Having dealt with that, I had the weekend’s bread to make. And having taken on board everyone’s kind suggestions and different flour and different yeast I actually managed to make it rise somewhat.

There’s still a long way for my bread to go before I’m really happy with it, but it was definitely an improvement and actually looked like proper bread rolls too. The one that I ate for my cheese on toast was delicious.

However I’m rather depressed by my small oven and wish that I had the big one up here along with the furniture to fit it. As I said yesterday, I’d make a rice pudding and I did too, but the only dish that would fit in with the bread tray was a very small one and there ended up being not enough milk

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night – apart from the edge of my bed of course. I had two daughters last night. One was the kind of girl who enjoyed taking risks and getting into strange situations etc while the other was very much a stay-at-home orderly girl who wanted things to be much more orderly. She was going through some kind of crisis as to why she couldn’t possibly be like her sister. I was having to reassure her

And then we were on the subject of this young bassist again. At 15 years of age she left John Mayall to go to play in her own group. Of course that’s the story of Andy Fraser from Free in real life, and I’m ever so impressed that I could remember that fact in a dream.

Later on, Hawkwind were at a hotel. They were on tour. A flash of lightning hit the swimming pool and everyone was electrocuted. There were several stars at the time as well as Hawkwind’s bassist whose name I’ve forgotten. The Energency services arrived and first of all they began to deal with the American stars. Everyone else was left to wait. Robert Calvert and Nik Turner and the girl who was with them had to sit there and watch their bassist die in front of their eyes while all these other people were receiving first aid for relatively minor injuries

And as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’ve sat and watched someone die and it’s the most horrible experience on earth

What was more horrible about that though was although she was someone who was popular and had a wide circle of friends, she was totally deserted by everyone when she fell ill. She had to ring me up, who had been out of her life for seven years, to come and take care of her for her final months because no-one else would.

All of her religious friends said that they would pray for help but she needed far more help than that. And when they found out that she had a man in her apartment they were horrified, even though I (and Cécile for a short while until her mother fell ill) was the only one who had offered to take care of her.

Five months I was there watching her die, when all of her friends had turned their backs to her. It was a dreadful situation in which to be.

As it happens, I actually own a burial plot in Ixelles cemetery but I don’t want to be put in there. I want to be donated to science, where they can take out whatever organs they need, let students practise their arts on me, and then my remains, if there’s anything left, put in a natural cemetery with a tree growing on top

Not cremated though. I hate the idea of that.

But let’s not dwell on that kind of thing right now. Let’s dwell on me tidying up the kitchen and sorting a few things out later on. It looks quite tidy now, and that’s unusual

This afternoon I’ve been planning future radio programmes, and my plans have now taken me up until the end of November.

It’s amazing how much music I don’t have that I need for those next couple of months. I have a lot of hard work to do in preparing those problems, whenever I get round to it.

The cleaner came round today for an extra hour to carry on with the deep cleaning, and then finally, the garage turned up for Caliburn. He’s now gone for his annual check-over (not that I have been anywhere this last 12 months) and biennial major controle technique.

He needs attention to the headlights, that I know, and probably standing around for 4 months will have seized up an odd joint here and there.

The bodywork is looking tatty in one or two places too but this summer he’ll be 18 years old. What do you expect?

It was strange when the cleaner came. Having had a very disturbed night I was flat-out on my chair when she came in and I took some awakening. She brought with her the new medication, which is basically just double the medication I was taking before the lot of medication that I now have to abandon.

It’s crazy, isn’t it, all of this?

But never mind awakening, right now I’m going to take some sleeping. I’m feeling the effects of that bad night and need to catch up.

There’s the blood pressure to take, and the medication too but I’m also going to smother my legs in cold cream before retiring, just in case.

If I’m not careful, I’ll end up like that soldier described in Paris-Match in the 1960s as "waiting for his fiancée in the uniform of the Cold Cream Guards".

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Tuesday 28th November 2023 – MY BREAD AND BUTTER …

… pudding went the Way of the West this morning.

It was looking rather suspicious yesterday and this morning when I opened the cake tin my suspicions were confirmed.

Either it wasn’t cooked through thoroughly enough or else my cake tin isn’t air-tight or, more likely, it’s a combination of them both.

It has to be said that I’m actually baking with a cheap table-top oven and I’ve long-known that it’s pretty much hit and miss. To cook anything in it I have to increase the temperature 20° and increase the cooking time by 50%

What’s sad about all of this is that in the back of Caliburn not only do I have a proper built-in oven that I picked up in Macon from Jean-Marc last summer after he and Jacqueline remodelled their kitchen, I also have the units to fit it that I picked up from IKEA in Munich. It’s handy having friends who live next door to the largest IKEA in Europe.

But be that as it may, in the van they are and in the van they’ll stay because there is no way on this earth that I can bring them up here in the state in which I find myself.

As for airtight containers, I have quite a few more and better ones of those too but they are up on the top shelf in the kitchen and I can’t reach them. What kind of state am I in that I have a set of steps here but I can’t climb up them?.

Anyway, that’s enough of my moaning. Life isn’t all about being dealt a good hand of cards, it’s all about how you play the cards that you’ve been dealt and instead of worrying about problems, I ought to be thinking about solutions.

All of that will give me something about which I can think while I’m in bed tonight, so I’m hoping that it will be a longer night than last night because what with one thing and another (and once you make a start you’ll be surprised at how many other things there are) I ended up going to bed late last night.

And having spent all that time talking about garlic keeping away vampires and my three favourite young ladies, I had a visitor last night. TOTGA came to see me.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I staggered to my feet and wobbled off into the dining area for my medication. And back here afterwards I listened to the dictaphone notes. I’d been a guest in someone’s house and had been interested on one or two items in someone’s collection. Every time I went to have a closer look at them I was suspected of stealing them. The whole situation in this country house-type of place became very complicated. There was one of the guests, a girl with one leg. She was wearing a pair of trousers. She asked me if I’d change the trousers and put a pair of shorts on her. Of course that would be something that I would find extremely difficult to do so I tried to hedge. In the end she explained to me that I was the only person here so it had to be me who would do it. The girl and I had to think of a way in which it would be possible to do it. Every idea with which I came up seemed to have a pitfall in it that wouldn’t make it work. And that seems to be par for the course these days.

And then later on TOTGA turned up, as I mentioned earlier. I’d gone with someone to some kind of club meeting because a guy had some Land Rover wheels and some kind of jacket for sale. My friend was very interested in them so I agreed to go with him to have a look and to help him. We arrived there and he found the person whom he was wanting to see so he wandered off for a chat. While I was wandering around on my own I came across TOTGA and we began to talk. What had actually happened was that there was some kind of snake slithering along the ground. All of a sudden its tongue darted out and caught a most enormous beetle, swallowed it, and slithered off on its way. I pointed it out to TOTGA and asked her if it was a snake or a slow worm. She didn’t know and neither did it. I’d taken some photos of it but the colours looked rather weak and insipid so we ended up talking about colours, palettes etc for photography and images. She told me that she used a palette that was called something like “City of Oklahoma”. I began to do some research and found out a few things about it but couldn’t find out how to load it up. In the meantime my friend came over to me, handed me his glasses in the glasses case and told me to put them in my pocket. I put them in my pocket but just the something hit me really hard on the foot. I thought that the glasses had fallen through a hole and dropped on my foot that way but they were still in my coat. It can’t have been them. I couldn’t see anything at all around there that might have dropped onto my foot. My friend gave me one or two other things, said “come on, give me a hand” and began to collect up the wheels and this jacket. Obviously he’d had a successful negotiation and was now prepared to carry away his prizes.

And wouldn’t I have liked to have carried away my prize too? But as I have explained before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … TOTGA always had far more sense than to allow herself to be swept up in my evil clutches.

Fighting off (sometimes unsuccessfully) waves of sleep I prepared for my Welsh lesson and to my surprise it passed off quite well, which took me by surprise. We spent much of the morning discussing shipwrecks and ocean travel, and I spent time talking about trailing along in the wake of John Ross.

Something else that we had to do today was to produce something from our day-to-day life and talk about it.

Of course, it goes without saying that I produced STRAWBERRY MOOSE and we discussed the events surrounding his confrontation with the Minister of Education, an unexpected death and the issue that arose with a group of students in Scotland, all of which led to his expulsion from the University.

Mind you, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, had he had different friends and companions, the eventual outcome would have been much different.

This afternoon, despite falling asleep on several occasions (and I don’t know why because it’s not as if I’ve done much) I finished off the radio notes ready for dictating later tonight, and then carried on with the photos from Canada 2022.

That latter task is taking far longer than it ought but I’m hoping that tomorrow after I finish the radio programme I can finish those off too. And then I have the notes to write, which will probably take me another 3 months.

And if you think that that’s a long time, I still haven’t finished the post-production of the … gulp … 6,000 photos that I took in the High Arctic in 2019.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg, and there’s still some stuffing left to make a left-over curry tomorrow

So tomorrow I have a radio programme to prepare, photos to finish off, forms to print out and a physiotherapy session down at the Centre de Re-education. And then I have to think about what I’m going to do about Friday and my trip to Paris.

One thing’s for sure, and that is that you won’t get much sense out of me on Saturday. But then again, why should Saturday be any different from any other day anyway?

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Thursday 23rd November 2023 – HAVING SAID …

… the other day that I was thinking about getting up before the alarm went off, I actually managed to make it out of bed this morning before the alarm went off.

A few months ago I went through a phase of early rising, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but just recently it’s been just a distant memory.

Mind you, at one point I didn’t think that I’d ever go to sleep, never mind awaken. For several hours starting shortly after going to be I was wracked by attacks of cramp, one after another after another.

But something must have awoken me this morning and I’ve no idea what it was but I couldn’t go back to sleep afterwards. So I spend 15 or 20 minutes doing some exercises in bed with the elastic strap with which I sleep, wrapped round my ankles, and then I raised myself from the dead.

After the medication I had a listen to the dictaphone. And considering that it was a short night, it was quite a lively one. There were some huge problems about confrontations between the Government, the University and the Students’ Association. The Students Union magazine that was sent round for that month had dozens and dozens of cases in it where students claimed that they had been provoked by the Government or University into a whole variety of things. As members of the Executive Committee we had to sit and examine these cases. I was on my way to a meeting, walking through a street where all these ragged children were playing around telling each other jokes etc. When they were running around they were leaving their shoes all over the place. I had a couple of particular pairs of shoes that I’d encountered and had been playing football with them up and down the street as I was walking. One of the kids noticed and began to chase after me, making a few remarks. I was distracted because there was another instance taking place right before my eyes of the goings-on between the Government, the University and one of the students. I was in a hurry to go along and actually witness it first-hand so I couldn’t stop and sort out this boy’s shoes for him.

strawberry moose bill rammell open university Eric Hall photo April 2002And that brought back a few memories from the time that the Minister of Education was invited by the University to address the student body, and being forewarned by one of our “moles on various committees” we laid an ambush with STRAWBERRY MOOSE and the Minister fled. Such was Strawberry Moose’s fame in those days.

But of course, Strawberry Moose had the final say, as you might expect.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … bedroom I was going off by road to the far north of Canada. We set off in a big double-decker express coach. I had my huge suitcase with STRAWBERRY MOOSE in it. I handed it to the driver, boarded and found a seat. There were a few other people sitting near me and we had a chat every now and again but I spent a lot of time dozing off. We eventually pulled into a service area with a restaurant etc where we had to alight because this was where our different buses came in to take us further on our way. I alighted from the back along with these other people whom I’d met. The driver began to take the cases out of the coach. We were checking times with each other and discussing our plans etc. One of the girls with us asked where the restaurant was. I said “it’s behind you” … "ohh no it isn’t" – ed … so she turned round. Of course by this time the bus had gone so you could actually see the service area. It suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t have my case and the bus has gone. It’s dark and I could hardly see anything on this motorway service area. I certainly can’t remember my case being taken off the bus and now he’s disappeared.

And later I was with a girl who might have been Roxanne. She wanted to know if she could borrow my big Bosch hammer drill to drill a hole through a piece of wood. We had a look at the wood and saw how thick it was. We ended up having to tape a couple of drill bits together. I put them in the drill and was busy giving her a lesson on how to drill wood and how to drill deep lengths etc.

Nerina and I had had some friends round at one point – another couple. We were chatting away and it was becoming quite late. I said something to Nerina about going to bed. It caught her unawares and she sked me exactly what I meant. I explained that I was having to go to the bathroom so if she was planning on going to bed at some point in the near future I’d switch on her electric blanket for her so that her bed would be nice and warm. I switched it on and the evening carried on. I wandered off to do something. later on I went upstairs and she was there in bed with the bedclothes thrown back. I asked if the bed was warm enough. She replied that it was too warm. I asked why she hadn’t switched off the electric blanket but she didn’t say very much. We ended up having a lengthy discussion about Christmas and birthday presents.

Later on there were 3 of us. We were having a virtual tour on the internet of Yeovil, getting into a virtual car and on one of these map sites having a street view out of the town. We decided that it looked fairly sophisticated so we found another way back into the city. I went a strange way because I said that it’s one way of seeing what’s in people’s gardens. We came across a nouse where behind a tarpaulin were dozens and dozens of police motorbikes all with white fairings. They were a model that I hadn’t seen before so I imagined that they had been imported from somewhere obscure and were slowly being prepared for sale. This visual programme was incredible. We ended up on the very top of a hill really high up looking over this really beautiful valley with a river and viaduct in the distance etc. We climbed out of the car to look and the car just accelerated away on its own down the hill. I could feel the wind whistling through my hair as Nerina, this other guy, another couple of people and I stood there watching it. All 5 of us seemed to go at the same time. The woman of this other couple completely forgot who she was with and took my hand as we walked away which of course had everyone bursting out into laughter.

The last time that I was in Yeovil was with Sue from Swindon. I moved her from Brussels when I had my Luton Transit and we saw each other a few times after that if I happened to be in the UK. We celebrated the Solstice together at Avebury one year but like most things involving the UK it petered out.

Thinking about it, I was in the UK for half a day in 2013 to pick up a lorry-load of slates to deliver to the South of France and Rosemary and I went in Aberdeen in 2019 to pick up THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR instead of flying to Greenland to meet it there, and they are the only times that I’ve been in the UK since 2011. And, to be quite honest, I’ve no intention of ever returning.

Having finished the dictaphone notes I carried on with the radio programme and that’s now finished and up and running, ready for broadcast on … errr … 5th July next year.

In between all of that, I had my coffee and bread-and-butter pudding and phoned the garage to talk about Caliburn and his controle technique. He actually has a vacancy and he’ll send someone round “shortly” to pick him up. And Caliburn will soon be 17 too.

The lift engineer who came to chat with me was a woman – not that that’s a surprise in itself these days – but I wouldn’t go doing any lift engineering in the clothes that she was wearing. And she was wearing enough perfume to pole-axe a bactrian camel. It reminded me of the story about the guy spreading white powder outside his front gate and his neighbout asked him why.
"It’s to keep Polar Bears off my cabbages" he replied.
"But there are no Polar bears within 5,000 miles of this place"
"Powerful stuff, isn’t it?"

This afternoon I’ve been sorting out more of my Canada 2022 photos and I’m now about to board my train in Moncton ready to travel back to Montréal. And what a journey that was.

As well as that I’ve been going through one of the backup drives checking duplicates and disposing of yet more.

Tea tonight was steamed veg and veggie balls in vegan cheese sauce, delicious as usual. Tomorrow’s tea with have to be sausage and beans, not salad, as I’m not going shopping in the morning. At some point the garage might come by for Caliburn and I’ll probably be out at the shops or something so I’ll stay at home and wait, which will mean that he won’t come.

But I’ve plenty of other things that will keep me out of mischief. At some point I’m even going to soak my fruit ready for Christmas baking and that’s the kind of thing that will be exciting.

My first ever Christmas cake a couple of years ago, coached on the internet by Hannah from Batley, was a resounding success but I put that down to beginner’s luck. And in any case Hannah is no longer in our Welsh group so I’ll be on my own for this one.

But I learnt a lot last time. Here’s hoping that I can remember it.

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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 – AND THERE I WAS …

… sitting on a chair outside the doctor’s office and she asked me to come in – and I couldn’t stand up.

She had to help me up out of my chair and the two of us nearly went AOT onto the floor. What kind of state am I in?

However, it’s an ill-wind that doesn’t blow anyone any good and every cloud has a silver lining. After our struggle outside her office door she agreed to extend my stay at the Centre de Re-education until the end of January instead of the end of December.

Leaving the bed this morning wasn’t actually a struggle this morning. I had half a leg out of the bed when the alarm went off and I’m not sure why that might have been because I had another late night – having a bash about on the acoustic guitar before going to bed.

After the medication and checking the mails I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night and, more importantly, who had come with me. In between everything else that was going on last night I was working on a website. I’d taken plenty ot photos of different railway installations and was making some kind of geographical record. I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t working properly and nothing seemed to be going right with it. As well as that I kept on being interrupted by all kinds of different things with my family. Eventually I found out the reason why it wasn’t working. In the past I minimised the images so that they’d fit down the column of a page with the text on the other part of the page. You clicked on the image to see a full-size reproduction. For some reason I was just including the full-size images directly onto this web page and it was distorting absolutely everything. There were some really nice photos in there including some of the electrification work of lines in the spine of England. Then my mother called me for something. After a couple of minutes I went to see. I saw on the table a great big parcel wrapped in brown paper addressed to our family in Canada, seeing my mother’s writing. She also gave me a parcel. Apparently it was my birthday but I’d forgotten. I unwrapped it and inside the parcel was a camera exactly the same type as one that I had already. I couldn’t understand why it was that she’d given me this as a birthday present.

I was also at some point in the proceedings last night clutching a hoe in my hand rather like a Roman centurion. Don’t ask me why because I awoke wide-awake at that particular point. Everything that I was dreaming just disappeared completely out of my mind.

later on during the night I was back in Crewe. I had to go back to our old family home in Davenport Avenue. When I arrived the whole site had been cleared and they were making preparations to build a huge housing estate on the site of several of the houses and the old petrol station and tyre depot that was at the back of it. I didn’t recognise anything. It had just so completely changed. In the end I went to Shavington to a house where a schoolfriend of mine lived at one time. That had all changed too and I couldn’t remember anything. In the end I found the house where it might possibly have been and talked to the neighbours. They told me about all the changes. They agreed that this was the house that I’d thought was the old house of my friend even though it was now submerged in the middle of other housing. There was still a tiny plot of land there that had not been built on, belonging to a guy called Bob Hope who I imagined to be my schoolfriend’s father although that wasn’t his name. In the end there were about 10 of us sitting around there chatting and reminiscing about things that had taken place in the area in the 1950s and 1960s when we were living in Shavington. It was really most unsettling and uncomfortable to see how everything had changed and how everything in Crewe where we lived had been swept away and was a demolition site.

And finally I met a girl somewhere during the evening – a big girl which is of course quite unlike me. We got on really well with each other. In the end we went back to her house and stayed the night together. Next morning we awoke. There was no alarm. I couldn’t understand why. We got up and I wanted to take a photo of the two of us together with me holding this girl off the ground in my arms. It was rather complicated with her being on the large side. Then we found that not one single telephone that we had between us had any charge left in it. Then the subject of breakfast came up. It turned out that she would go to eat breakfast at a local café. She set off first while I did a few things to prepare everything. I found half a bread roll on a table at a café just round the corner from where she lived. I thought that it must be for me. She wasn’t there so I picked up the bread roll and walked around the next corner. She was there with 3 or 4 other people at a table. There were all kinds of breakfast things laid out on this table. She was chatting to these people as if she knew them. I went and sat down but no-one said a word to me. I was there with this half a bread roll. I felt rather guilty that I was going to be eating a bread roll brought from some other establishment with the jam that this proprietor had provided and presumably not paying anything for breakfast. It didn’t seem right to me at all.

After a brief … errr … relax I carried on with the notes for the radio programme and they are now complete. I’ll dictate them later on before I go to bed. And then I paired off the music for the next one and I’ll start to write the notes for that one when I’ve finished making the current one.

The one after that should be quite interesting, but I’ll tell you more about that in due course.

While I was doing that I had a listen to the one that will be broadcast this weekend to make sure that it’s all correct. And then I could send it off to be added into the radio’s playlist.

After a good wash the car came to pick me up to take me down the hill into town and my appointments. I mentioned the doctor just now, and then I went off to Severine for some physiotherapy. Whatever it is that she’s doing, it seems to be doing some kind of good because coming up the stairs back here was easier than it was the other day.

After my hot chocolate and chocolate biscuits I came back in here where I went away with the fairies for over an hour and it really was a very deep sleep too. I was with Christian and we were talking about rock groups who were lost in the High Arctic. There was a map that someone had found that listed the routes of several rock groups who had disappeared and so we went to look but we had a lot of difficult trying to unfold the map. There were several tracks in all kinds of places, each one in a different colour showing the supposed routes and one on or two of the islands there were legends such as “no information”. But we had a real struggle to open this map correctly.

There was also time to carry on with the tidying of the shelves. And I came across two boxes of breadcrumbs and a small Christmas pudding that I must have bought when I was living in Leuven. But nevertheless I’m still going to have a go at making my own, starting over the weekend.

And while we’re on the subject of Christmas baking … "well, one of us is" – ed … I had a chat on line with Liz about marzipan. It’s not available for delivery from LeClerc so I’ll have to see if I can find it in Carrefour on Friday. If not, I’ll have to order it on-line from an internet vendor. After all, you can’t have a Christmas cake without marzipan.

Tea tonight was a leftover curry with the last of my naan bread dough. I’ll have to make some more but the soya yoghurt has disappeared off the menu on the LeClerc delivery site. That’s something that I’ll have to check at Carrefour on Friday.

So now I’ve finished my notes I’ll have my hot drink and dictate my notes before I go to bed. Tomorrow I have the engineer coming and I also have to ring up about Caliburn’s Controle Technique too. It expired a long time ago now.

Not that I imagine that I’ll be using Caliburn again. I don’t think that even Severine’s magic touch can restore enough power to my right leg to work the brake. But I have to do something about it. I can’t leave things like this.

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Sunday 28th May 2023 – A BIG HAPPY …

… birthday to Caliburn. He’s growing up – sixteen years old today.

And we’ve had plenty of adventures together, usually accompanied by the third member of our team, STRAWBERRY MOOSE. We’ve been to about half the countries in Europe together, battled our way through snowdrifts and mountain passes, towed mini-diggers all the way from North Lancashire down to the south-ish of France non-stop on a 34-hour journey, gone off to photograph a suspension bridge 2 hours down the road and not come back for almost 3 weeks and endless shuttles from Brussels to Virlet overnight in the early days of our relationship

At his last controle technique the examiner told me that he still has a few years left so it’s likely that he’ll outlast me, so here’s to many more years of happy Caliburn motoring.

The only regret was that I never succeeded in taking him over to North America for a run around. We had all of our ducks in a row at one time but then Strider came along and he was a much more appropriate vehicle with which to attack the sub-Arctic byways. Caliburn, good as he has been, would never have got down to that abandoned iron mine at the abandoned town of Gagnon.

It seems that I’m being overwhelmed with nostalgia over the last few days and I’ve no idea why. It’s probably because I have too much time on my hands right now. Perhaps I ought to do something about that – like “go back to bed and sleep it off”.

Last night was one occasion when staying in bed sounded like a good idea because it’s a Sunday and that’s always a lie-in around here. I’ll get up at any time you like for 6 days of the week, but never on Sunday. Everyone’s entitled to a day of rest.

So even if I awaken at something silly like 09:00, 10:30 is much more like a realistic time to show a leg.

It took me a while to gather my wits which, seeing how few wits I have these days, is quite surprising. But once I’d entered the Land of the Living the first thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We started off with something happening about oil filters on vehicles, yellow heavy-duty plastic spin-on ones rather than filter cartridges that you’d have to change but I can’t remember very much about this dream at all.

And then I was working as a lorry driver for someone. We were extremely busy. Someone had gone off sick and I’d had another spell of ill-health so I ended up taking a couple of days off. He had a lorry loaded with waste that needed tipping somewhere so he rang around and ended up speaking to a woman who was a lorry driver and asked her if she would do it. He explained the urgency of it, which I thought was strange because it would give this woman a lot of power over him if she knew how urgent the job was. I could hear the conversation because I was in bed in the next room. She sounded dubious and asked him “what had happened to so-and-so?”. He replied that there was something the matter with him. She asked what was the matter with me. He gave some sort of reply that basically he thought that I was malingering, which I thought was a horrible thing to do because I’d never ever missed a shift as long as I’d worked for him and had volunteered to do all the extra stuff.

After breakfast, or lunch, or whatever you might call it, I sat down and made a start on work.

Yesterday, I mentioned that I was going to go on the attack with my Labrador stuff so I sat down and reviewed the directories that I’ve been keeping.

Up to 2015, everything is all shipshape and Bristol-fashion. But then I had all of my hospital issues and then went to live in Leuven and since then everything went haywire and it’s just a complete mess.

For a start, I can’t find any trace whatsoever of any of my notes from my 2017 trek around Labrador so I’ve decided that I shall have to go back to basics and start from the very beginning.

There are the dictaphone notes – well, some of them – and then the blog notes from the relevant periods and that seems like a very good place to start.

But then you won’t believe this but I had to have a really good hard think because I’d forgotten how I write my websites. Back in the old days I’d be churning them out on a regular basis but since my health issues over the last 8 years I’ve not written more than half a dozen.

That’s the problem with growing older thought. Two things happen to you when you reach my age. The first thing is that you forget absolutely everything.
… “What’s the second thing?” – ed.
“I can’t remember”

Anyway, even just collating the stuff from 2017 is going to take an age, never mind adding it in to the earlier voyages.

What’s worse is that I can’t find the mileage notes.

With travelling several years over the 2100 kms of the Trans Labrador Highway and taking a couple of thousand photos, it’s important to have them all in the correct order and in the correct positions. And although I noted the mileages because I anticipated this problem, I’ve travelled the highway in both directions so the eastbound mileages are not the same as the westbound mileages of course.

Back in the past (or past in the back if you are George Bush) I managed to identify a couple of identical views taken from each direction on different occasions so I used them as reference points and calculated all of the mileages of every photo from every trip to correspond with those marker references. But if I can’t find my notes I’ll have to go back and do it all again, I reckon. That’ll take a while and no mistake.

There was a break while I made s batch of pizza dough, seeing as I’d run out. It rose quite nicely too. Two lumps went into the freezer later on and I made a base with the third. And once more, we had a magnificent pizza. Using these small cherry tomatoes cut in half and putting them on top of the cheese is definitely the way to go.

So before I go to bed I’m going to make a start on editing the radio notes that I dictated last night. I had a go recording them directly onto the computer now that I’ve configured it, however the quality was really poor and it all ended up in the bin and I redictated it using the ZOOM H8.

Had I been of a mind, and had it not been 01:00 when I finished, I suppose that I could have filtered out the interference and enhanced the quality, but I’ll have to work on that for another time.

Tomorrow I’ll finish off the radio programmes and then carry on with the Canada 2017 stuff. Right now I’m on a bus heading through the mountains to pick up Strider. There’s a really long way to go yet.

We haven’t reached the funny part of the whole trip though and I’ll dine out on this for ever, I reckon. That year I went to see my friend in St John’s so that meant the long sea crossing across the Gulf of St Lawrence to Argentia instead of the short (as in 9 hours) crossing to Channel Port aux Basques.

“Roaming” was switched off on my telephone of course because it’s quite expensive in North America but as we were sailing along the southern coast of Newfoundland the phone suddenly went berserk with missed phone calls, messages and all of that kind of thing and at first I was bewildered.

However there’s a French colony – St Pierre et Miquelon – on an island in the Gulf of St Lawrence and obviously my French mobile network supplier provides the service to it. For a brief moment my telephone connected with the network and caught up with everything that I’d been missing.

That explains all of that, but it still doesn’t explain the situation in 2019 when we were in mid-Atlantic, 1000 miles from just about everywhere on board THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR, and I suddenly picked up an internet connection out of nowhere. I’ve never been able to explain that.

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Friday 3rd March 2023 – HERE I ALL AM ..

… not sitting in a rainbow but sitting on my comfy seat in my bedroom. I’ve made it back home.

With just the usual problems, such as losing my keys on the train and having to rouse the staff that was asleep in the office at the station. A good job that it was at the terminus and there was still another train to come in otherwise I would have been well and truly snookered.

And that reminds me of the old French joke –
“Frappe! Frappe!”
“Qui est là?”
“Lost”
“Lost qui?”
“Oui”

Anyway, after another miserable night’s sleep, I was awake yet again before the alarm went off. And after the previous night there was nevertheless plenty of stuff on the dictaphone to be going on with

I was out with an American policeman last night driving around California. he was showing me all these mountainous areas where people had moved in and put cabins. These were in some of the routes taken by wolves during their migration and the cabins were blocking the routes. I awoke quickly after that.

Later on I was at one of these competitions on TV about 2 items. There was an explosive shell. For some reason I began to look inside the shell casing. I dropped it and all of the gunpowder went everywhere all over the film set. We tried washing it away with water but of course that didn’t work. It froze immediately. Some girl was about to skate off and go right through it

I took a girl to the airport last night in a taxi. I don’t know who she was but I ought to. We were discussing the airport, saying how handy it was for us. She said that her father ran some kind of taxi service in the airport area. He’d bought a couple of limousines, a black one and a silver one with the idea of trying to get hold of some high-quality airport work. The chat went on for quite a while. We arrived at the vicinity of the airport. I grossly undercharged her for going and I’ve no idea why that would be. I only ended up charging her £6:00 or something like that. Going to the airport cost a lot more than that back in the day. It was an extremely interesting chat about her father and his 2 silver K135 cars

We were in Walsh class last night reading a paper on changing roles in society. It listed probably 10 roles like mending a fence, mending your roof, taking money to the bank etc. The discussion was about how modern people are now changing their way of thinking. The key word here was “remuneration”. We’re all older in our Welsh class. I was saying that I was up on my roof in August. Someone else said that they’d fixed their own fence the other week. It seemed that we were bucking a trend about this question of changing DiY into paid remuneration.

And so I was up and about and ready to go out of the door at 07:00. The train that came in at 07:10 was another push-me-pull-you double decker and I have a hard time climbing on board them. Someone having chained his folding pushbike to the disabled handrail didn’t help matters at all.

At Brussels Gare du Nord I left the train and found my way onto the concourse but the lift downstairs was out of order so I had a very delicate walk down the stairs. I’ll tell you something for nothing and that is that no matter how much better I’m feeling, it’s a totally different kettle of fish with a backpack on my back.

My bus was due to leave at 08:20 but there was no sign of it. All the others were in and gone, and ours finally staggered into the loading bay 40 minutes late. But there’s one thing about being a disabled passenger and that is that even though it’s difficult to climb up the steps into the bus, they let me on first so I can have the pick of the seats.

Between Brussels and Lille I had a very charming young lady sitting next to me and we had a lengthy chat all the way. It’s a long time since I’ve had such an erudite companion so if you read this, Pauline, un grand bonjour.

She alighted at Lille and I had another companion as far as Rouen. He didn’t have much to say for himself but he picked up my phone for me when it fell to the floor.

From Rouen to Caen I was on my own but we did have a moment of excitement when we were stopped in a police barrage and the bus was searched for drugs. Two people were taken off the bus to be interviewed but they were allowed back on afterwards.

It’s no surprise to anyone that I missed the 16:10 train to Granville. But there’s another one at 17:10 so I was able to grab a nice hot coffee. I hadn’t had too much to drink on board the bus, on the basis that what doesn’t go in won’t want to come out. 8 hours on a bus is a long time and the toilets are really inconvenient for people with mobility issues.

As we pulled into the station at Granville I checked my keys and put them into the outside pocket of my coat so that they were handy. When I reached Caliburn on the car park I no longer had them. In the confusion of organising myself to leave they must have fallen out.

It took a while to awaken the people in the station. Presumably they had gone off for a coffee before the next train comes in, but eventually they arrived and we did the necessary so that I could collect my keys. Serves me right for being disorganised.

Back at Ice Station Zebra I made a drink because I had a thirst that you could photograph. And then I watched the football. Connah’s Quay Nomads v Y Bala in the Welsh Cup semi-Final.

The Quay took the lead after just 35 seconds and from them on we had a right full-blooded cup-tie that was played with an extraordinary amount of skill. A really good advert for the Welsh Premier League.

In the second half Bala scored 2 quick goals to take the lead but with 10 minutes left the Quay equalised. We were heading for penalties when Bala popped up with a third and despite Connah’s Quay throwing everything including the kitchen sink at Bala in the dying seconds of the game they couldn’t find an equaliser.

They did actually have the ball in the net right at the end but with Jack Kenny holding down Alex Ramsey in the Bala goal, there was no way that the goal would be allowed.

And how I wish that Jack Kenny, who is one of my favourite players in the WPL, would stop moaning and protesting every time a decision is given against him. He’d be a really good player, one of the best in the league, if only he would stop being so petulant.

On the bus I’d eaten some of my butties so at half-time I fetched the leftovers and demolished them with a pear and a banana. And now I’m off to bed.

Tomorrow I’m shopping, and as I missed my St David’s Day, when I return I’m going to make some leek and potato soup for the weekend to vary my diet a little. I’m quite looking forward to that.

And I’m looking forward to my own bed as well. The hotel bed was comfortable, but it’s not mine.

And just a word before I go. Travelling everywhere on crutches is difficult, yet it would have been much more difficult without all of the help that I received from all kinds of people who showed me some extraordinary kindness as I went around on my travels.

It’s the kind of thing that restores my jaundiced faith in humanity and I am really grateful to everyone who helped me along the way.

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Wednesday 1st March 2023 – THAT WAS A …

… loooooooooooooooooooong day today.

14 hours I was on the road in total, give or take a few minutes. I left my home at about 07:10 and arrived in Leuven at just about 21:00.

Yes, I’m in Leuven. I’ve heard nothing from the heart people and nothing from the people who are dealing with my cancer, but regardless, the kidney people contacted me for an appointment.

Not that I’m all that bothered, because as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, after the events of October and November I’m pretty-much resigned to the inevitable, but I was interested in seeing, as well as I could, how I could cope with the travelling.

And so having gone to bed rather early last night, I was up with the lark at 06:00 and made some sandwiches and so on, and did a little organising.

Plenty of stuff on the dictaphone last night. My mother was a policewoman last night. She was interrogating a suspect or witness or something similar but was doing it at home. This was dragging on into the night and we as kids couldn’t go to sleep. In the end there was no real point going to bed so we were just sitting up waiting for her to finish. But it just went on and on. We’d go in regularly to ask how she was doing. She said that she wasn’t ready yet. We’d go in to pick a banana or something to eat. In the end one of my sisters went in. My mother said quite sharply that it wasn’t going to be finished before 05:00. This was the final straw as far as we were concerned. That was a ridiculous time for children to be still up and about waiting for their mother to finish her work.

This dream continued later on. We were crying out for toilet paper or tissues etc. Some guy came into the apartment where we were living with his arms full of rolls of toilet paper and just dumped it on the floor in one of the rooms and then left. We kids had to go in there to sort out what he’s just brought and check what we had then organise the bathroom with it.

Plus tard nous avons eu l’idée de reintégrer le chasson dans la famille qu’on a du faire alors le chef s’est adapté assez rapidement et le chat de la famille est poussé en dehos du groupe alors celà a provoqué une investigation comment on a fait commencer et c’est à ce moment-là qu’on a eu la série de la pied d’entre nous

So, a dream in French yet again. And I haven’t translated it because it’s total nonsense that makes no sense whatsoever.

Just after 07:00 I headed for the hills and Caliburn and we drove to the station where I was lucky enough to find a parking space almost right outside the door.

When the train came in, I headed off in the direction of Rennes, but only as far as Avranches where I alighted. Public transport is so messed up here that you end up going all round the Wrekin to get anywhere.

The bus came in at 08:55 and we drove through the snow (yes, the snow!) and ended up in Caen where we had a half-hour wait for the next bus. This was packed to the gunwhales but I found a seat eventually and we roared off to the big underground bus station at Bercy in Paris.

This time a wait of 45 minutes before the next bus came in. This was likewise packed but the driver made sure that I had a comfortable place by the door. We called at the airport and then all the way to Brussels, making a stop at a service station where I grabbed a coffee.

Stuck in the traffic for ages, we eventually arrived in Brussels rather later than planned so I’d missed the train that I wanted and had to catch a later train. The escalator up to the platform wasn’t working so I had a long walk to find the lift.

The train was a push-me-pull-you double-decker and climbing into these proved to be quite difficult as the steps in are quite high. I had quite a bit of difficulty and it was extremely awkward.

Having eaten my sandwiches on the way to Paris, I tucked into my potatoes and lentils on the train and that was a really good plan because they went down a treat.

Leaving the train at Leuven was difficult too but I managed in the end.

The hotel where I’m staying must have been wonderful 100 years ago. It’s certainly seen better days. It’s not one of my usual haunts but it’s right outside the railway station so I don’t have far to stagger. It’s expensive too, hence I’m only staying for two nights and coming home on Friday.

And the verdict?

It’s quite difficult and I’m glad that I did bring two crutches, not just one. When things are on the level I’m fine and I could in theory go for miles but carrying a backpack up hills and steps is quite complicated and I have real difficulty trying to carry a coffee cup too.

At one point I was thinking that I might be ready for another adventure with backpack and airline ticket but having done all this today, maybe I’ll leave it a while before making more plans.

But I got here, and that’s a miracle in itself

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Thursday 9th February 2023 – CALIBURN IS BACK AGAIN …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway, he sailed through with no issues.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Wednesday 8th February 2023 – CALIBURN IS BACK

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then the fun will begin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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