Tag Archives: carry on

Sunday 1st March 2026 – DYDD GWYL DEWI …

… hapus iawn, pawb!

Did you all enjoy your leek soup? And did you arrange your daffodils neatly in your living room? And did you give your pet dragon a little treat? As long as you did all of that, you aren’t likely to receive a visit from an angry druid today.

As for me, I’m afraid that I didn’t. Sunday here is pizza day, and as well as that, I can’t go out hunting for daffodils, although Rosemary did send me some virtual daffodils via an internet chat program.

Instead, I’ve had something of a lazy day, and you’ll be surprised at just how productive I have been, because I know that I am.

Last night wasn’t as I had planned it either. It ended up being horribly late, just after midnight, when I stopped letting it all hang out and went to bed instead. And instead of the decent sleep and long lie-in that I wanted, it was one of those mobile nights where I was tossing and turning, half awake and half asleep, without actually going into a really deep sleep.

When the nurse put in an appearance, I was actually awake, and so I pretended to be asleep so that I didn’t have to leave my comfortable bed. He sorted out my legs and feet and then disappeared. I curled up under the bedclothes and tried my best to go to sleep, but with no luck at all.

Eventually, round about 09:15, I gave it up as a bad job and arose from the Dead. I gathered up my clothes from the chair and, throwing my slippers in the general direction of the bathroom, I scored a beautiful hole in one, right into the toilet bowl. What a way to start the day!

In the kitchen, I forgot my medication, but I had a lovely breakfast of porridge, hot coffee and two of my homemade croissants. That’s a really nice way to start the day, especially when you take your time and don’t go into your office to start work until 10:45. I wish that every day could be like this.

What took me so long was that I was engrossed in my new book, ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A. Miller.

Today, we’re discussing the complicated relationship between Thebes, Athens and Sparta, a relationship that sporadically erupted into warfare, with any two pitted against the third. It’s helping me brush up on my classics from when I studied Latin at grammar school, and it’s amazing just how much of the old classical stories have been proved by modern archaeology to be true.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.

I was living in some kind of communal living thing. There were lots of different people there doing lots of different things. There should have been a meeting late one night before going to bed, but it turned out that the guy on whose behalf the meeting was being held had simply gone ahead and applied the texture mix to his skin, which meant that he’d be busy recovering or whatever, changing or something, and so the meeting was cancelled. That was extremely disappointing, so I gathered up a couple of things from the radio, some old English-language programmes that I’d done years ago and went to see the girl in the next room who worked for the local radio. She thanked me for coming but said that they were doing things in a different way these days and didn’t need the programmes that I had. However, there would be plenty of opportunity to do stuff in the future. She was thinking of having some kind of doll or something and she would want me to write the speech for it. I took my things to go back to my room, but on the way back, I heard that there had been some kind of announcement that Jim Dale, one of the CARRY ON stars, had been seen hiding in a tree near the old airfield up near Wardle – it was described as “Stoke Bank” in this news report. He’d been repeating one of his “Carry On” speeches from out of this tree and it had made the local news in all the papers.

Whatever the significance of the first part of this dream might be, I have no idea. As for the second part, I have a whole stock of English language radio programmes that Liz and I prepared when we were running “Radio Anglais”, programmes that were broadcast on French local radio. A short while ago, a radio station in Nantwich was calling for radio presenters and programmes, so I sent them one or two as tasters, to see whether they might be interested in a programme from me every now and again. It goes without saying that they never replied.

There is a “Stoke Bank” along the A51 a couple of miles from the old Wardle Airfield, which was my home … "the airfield, not Stoke Bank#34; – ed … for a short while when I was a baby. But there aren’t any trees there in which Jim Dale could loiter, whether or not he might be repeating a “Carry On” speech.

And I did once live in some kind of commune. But not for long, though. Firstly, I’m not a sociable animal, and secondly, most people in that place preferred to live off the backs of other, hard-working people. In the end, I preferred to live in my van.

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 on the sidebar 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.

There had been a couple of girls who had come over for an environmental conference. I’d been chatting to one and I was getting on extremely well with her. For some reason, my brother ended up with their contact details, but I didn’t. On the Sunday, we had various things to do, like we had to pack our place up as we were moving house that weekend. We were busy organising everything, and there was this beautiful cupboard that I’d had my eye on for ages with several drawers in it. It just looked like a huge bass speaker. The price on it was something like £275.00, which I thought was too much. Someone whom we knew came along and asked about it. The woman said “if you take it now, you can have it for £180.00. He paid her cash on the spot, and I felt really annoyed because I would have had it for £180.00 any day of the week. I told her to wait a minute because it had some of my paperwork in it. I had to go through and find somewhere to put this paperwork. I asked someone if they had a sack, and my mother made some kind of comment about that, but I wasn’t in the mood to joke. In the end, someone found a large paper sack and I began to put my things into it. One thing that I’d noticed was that a plot of land on which I’d had my eye too, which was formerly a garage in Audlem, had come back onto the market. The announcement from the paper was that there was a confusion about the closing date of the auction. Of course, I was far too busy to concentrate on this and we were still putting away our things. I came across a press cutting that showed that this conference to which we’d been was going on today, and there was a chance to meet all the contributors. That really annoyed me because I could have gone along and seen that girl again. Then my brother came up with some kind of story about how his car, with a trailer on it, had an electrical fault and he’d had to manually flash the rear lights to make some kind of brake lights every time he stopped. I was still in no mood for any kind of joke

This is quite a regular theme, isn’t it? Here I am, just about to Get The Girl, and a member of my family comes along and throws a spanner into the works.

The chest of drawers sounds interesting, and had I been healthy, I would have gone all-out to make one. And moving house, cars with electrical faults and looking for plots of land were habitual themes in real life back in the day.

There was also something about a Grand Prix around by Monte Carlo, the Monaco Grand Prix, twisting and turning through the streets with all of these cars taking part. We were watching it from a distance, and suddenly, after about half of the cars had gone past, there was complete silence and nothing. Then, all of the Grand Prix drivers who hadn’t gone through in their cars, they came through, and they were running. Apparently, there had been a major accident somewhere and they couldn’t proceed any further with their cars – this major accident behind the leading group so they couldn’t proceed with their cars, so they were going to run the rest of the course.

Before I went to bed last night, I was reading a news article about Cadillac’s entry into the Formula One circuit, but that their engine is not considered to be as reliable as it needs to be. Running the course on foot would be a novel way to proceed, though.

There was some kind of dream going on about a football competition. One of the teams had been relegated. There was something about a particular match and it involved my vegan ice cream somewhere, but I really can’t remember any more about it because I awoke as it was under way and it all evaporated … "the dream, not the ice cream" – ed …

Llanelli has just been relegated from the JD Cymru League, and lest night, we were watching the Welsh League Cup Final, complete with its very emotional ending, followed by vegan ice cream for dessert.

Seeing as we have been talking about the Welsh League Cup Final … "well, one of us has" – ed … this is the LINK TO THE HIGHLIGHTS. This is the LINK TO THE FULL MATCH. If you have the time, it’s well-worth it from a footballing point of view. The highlights don’t really show anything like a fair representative proportion of the game.

When I’d finished the dictaphone notes, there was yet more football. Morton were comfortably beaten by Airdrie after going down to nine men, and then Stranraer’s long unbeaten run came to an end as they were beaten at home by Elgin City.

After a disgusting drink break, with some of the medication that I’d forgotten, I had a pile of *.html coding to edit.

First thing though was to upload my graphics program onto this laptop. That’s easier said than done because there is no DVD drive on it. I had to rummage around deep in the bowels of the box where all of the redundant hard drives are hiding, and there it was, right at the bottom. And to my surprise, the USB cable and power pack were with it. Usually, knowing me, I would have expected them to have been scattered to the four winds a long time ago.

The next step was to open the drive. With not having been opened for years, the springs had seized. Luckily, there’s an escape hole, and a straightened paper clip fitted in quite nicely to lever down the internal catch.

Having uploaded the program, I could then go ahead and prepare some graphic images. And then I had to hunt down a few web links to tie to the images, and that wasn’t as easy as it might have been.

The next task was to edit the *.html coding to include the images and their links, and I was dismayed at how much *.html coding I’ve forgotten. Turn the clock back thirty years, and I was writing web pages by hand in “Notetab” and even teaching basic web design to a couple of interested people, but I couldn’t do it now.

There was an hour to spare, so I made a start on the Welsh homework. I’ve done about two-thirds of it, and as it doesn’t have to be done for two weeks, I’m glad that I’m well in advance because I can have a relax at some point.

At 16:30 I knocked off to go a-baking. A loaf of bread and a vegan pizza were today’s output. The bread rose like a lift and looks excellent, and the pizza was absolutely delicious, with half left over for tomorrow.

But right now, I’m off to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed … and to reflect on what a busy day I’ve had, considering that Sunday is supposed to be a Day of Rest.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about The Monaco Grand Prix … "well, one of us has" – ed … Percy Penguin once told me that she’d like to go there to watch the Formula One race.
However, I told her "we don’t have the money to go to watch the Formula One race in Monaco. And in any case, it’s pronounced Gron’ Pree."

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Friday 1st August 2014 – I’VE FINISHED …

rear of house lime morttr cement pointing les guis virlet puy de dome france … the rear of the house this afternoon. I put in two big buckets full of lime mortar before lunch, and then two-and-a-half buckets full went in this afternoon.

Not only have I finished the pointing that I wanted to do, I managed to cut down a pile of brambles embedded in the wall between the field and the public highway on the other side so that I could get to part of the wall of the lean-to that badly needed doing, and I’ve done that as well.

While I was cleaning off all of the tools and so on, the 19:00 time signal went off and so it was 19:10 when I knocked off. Later, I crashed out once again while watching Carry on Columbus
. Many people think that that is probably the best thing to do while watching the film – it had some dreadful reviews – but I personally think that it’s a film that is rather underrated and deserves more credit than it ever received.

I’d been on my travels again during the night.

I ended up playing in goal for Pionsat’s football club through the night.It was an indoor match in some kind of Sports Centre. And I was total rubbish. I must have let about 5 or 6 goals in in a space of about 5 minutes but luckily no-one noticed 3 or 4 of them that had squirmed out of my grasp or under my body. I do remember Pionsat’s regular goalkeeper (no-one I knew) having a shot at goal that bounced off the sidewalls five or six times before finding the opposition net

From there I went into a little gift shop to look at the Teddy Bears. There was nothing that I particularly fancied but I do remember that I was carrying so much stuff with me that it took me four trips to get out of the shop. There were several cars parked outside and a few of them had left their lights on so I wrote some notes to stick underthe windscreen wipers of the cars. One though, a big white American muscle car thing, had a few kids playing in it and so I gave the note to them to give to their dad.

While I was working on the website I was interrupted firstly by the boulangère, and then Rosemary telephoned me for a chat. So one day I might even finish what I’m working on if I’m lucky.

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Monday 3rd March 2014 – LAST NIGHT’S HOTEL …

hotel de la paix oloron ste marie pyrenees atlantique france… was called the Hotel de la Paix at Oloron Ste Marie, and a good choice it was too.

But I wasn’t alone in my room last night. Frankie Howerd, who as you know is my favourite comedian, came in with the script for his new “Carry On” film, all 391 pages of it, and so much of the night was taken up with reading it.

And I can still remember quite a lot of the script too this morning. I’ll have to sit and write it all down before I forget it. I could be on to something here.


And so with raging toothache yet again, I loaded up Caliburn and sat down to check the route for the next stage of my journey.

But something was clearly not correct as it made no sense at all, and after puzzling over the map for a good 20 minutes I realised that somehow in plotting my route I had turned over two pages of the map at once and I had driven myself up an impasse, as it were.

Consequently I decided to follow the Lady Who Lives In The Satnav for the route today and she took me via Tarbes and Pau and then right across the foothills of the Pyrenees – having me stuck behind a caravanette on a narrow series of lanes for a good 60 km.

Loads of interesting things to see but I wasn’t in any mood to stop and look – this toothache ws driving me mad. I felt like finding a dentist and having allof my teeth taken out – something like back in the 1970s when Malcolm Allison had been appoined team coach at Crystal Palace Football Club. He went to the dentist to have his teeth taken out, and they fitted seats instead.

vielha spainI finally met up with my route but The Lady etc etc had found me a route that seemed to be much shorter than mine so I followed that and ended up in Spain again.

She brought me to a town called Vielha and it’s a strange situation here because all the rivers flow north into France and we have the headwaters of the River Garonne here. The International boundary is not a watershed as you might think.

And as an aside, here I was stopped for a spot-check by a Spanish Police road patrol.


valle de aran vielha spainThe Lady Who etc etc had designs on sending me up the Valle de Aran, so it seemed. That’s a huge ski area with loads of faciiities, and the road up there goes through passes at well over 2000 metres. Ahh well – in for a penny, in for a pound.

But it wasn’t to be. About 15kms up the road and well into the snow, we encountered a sign “closed to all vehicles not equipped with chains” – and even local 4×4 drivers were chaining up for the route. They know the area so much better than I do and they’ve been driving in snow for a lot longer than I have, so if they are chaining up, what chance do I have with Caliburn?

The Lady Who Lives etc etc was rather annoyed about me retracing my steps but discretion is the better part of valour.


We carried on south through the enormous Tunnel de Vielha – this road would have been so much fun to drive 30 years ago before the tunnel had been built, I reckon – and this brought me out on the southern side of the Pyrenees and, would you believe, into the sun.
col de perves aragon spain
She took me off the main road and we climbed up and up and up to the aptly-named Col de Perves, where Strawberry Moose stopped for a photo opportunity as you might expect. With a name like that, he just had to.

A few flakes of snow fell onto the camera lens, but nothing much to worry about. There was hardly a trace of snow on the ground anywhere around here.


valle de aran pyrenees spain
Not so over there, though.

That was where I actually should have been – climbing up out of the Valle de Aran and over the top to the town of Sort which is just on the other side of those mountains over there. This was turning into something of an enormous detour.

col de perves spainAnd if you thought that the climb up the Col de Perves was exciting, the descent was even more so.

The town of Perves is situated just below the summit and there is a track from there that leads straight downhill – clearly back before the days of the motor-car the peasants were a hardy lot – but for modern vehicles there’s a road something like this – and several good kilometres of it too. Where I’m standing is about half-way down but it’s the first good photo opportunity where there is some kind of parking.

col de perves spainBy now though the weather has considerably brightened up and I was really enjoying the day, had it not been for this raging toothache that was putting the dampers on just about everything.

And we hadn’t finished with the mountains yet either.

We ended up climbing up a mountain pass or two via a road that was barely wide enough to take Caliburn and that was exciting when we met a couple of vehicles coming the other way. But once we arrived in Sort (about two hours after the time I should have been here) the rest of the journey was comparatively straightforward. A couple of mountain passes to be sure, but we are on N-roads, the equivelent of A-roads in the UK and I arrived at my ultimate destination, the little country of Andorra, without further ado.


But this toothache is driving me berserk and I went straight to bed, where I promptly crashed out, and that was that.

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