Tag Archives: coffee in bed

Sunday 31st May 2026 – I HAVE BEEN …

… spoilt to death today. So much so that I’ve told my friend that he can come again!

It’s not every day that I treasure quite like this, but it certainly makes me grateful that I have such good friends. In fact, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I don’t have many friends, but those I do have are the best in the World.

Last night, though, was slightly different. It was more like this morning – 03:30, in fact – when I finally slid underneath the covers. And I promise you – I was asleep before my head touched the pillow.

The next thing that I remember was the quilt being whipped off my feet. Hurricane Isabelle the Nurse had blown in and was ready to attack my feet and legs. She did the necessary without me having to move, fitted my socks for me and then asked for my medical card so that she could prepare her monthly accounts. All of this while my head was firmly tucked down underneath the quilt.

The medical card was in the pocket of my telephone, which was underneath my pillow so I managed to fumble it out for her. When she’d finished with it, she handed it back to me and I began to think about today.

A few minutes after she left, my friend stuck his head in through the door “Notice your coffee?”. Apparently, while I had been asleep, he’d been in and put a mug off coffee on the bedside table behind the head of the bed And I had heard or smelt nothing at all. What has happened to my legendary light sleeping?

Eventually, I managed to struggle into the kitchen where I began to make my breakfast. And I was so far out of it all that I forgot the home-made croissants. I had toast instead, which is not quite the same thing.

There were things to do, places to go and people to see so I came back in here for an hour or two and was then interrupted by “do you want to go for a drive?”.

Two weeks or so ago, when my friend first arrived, he had asked me the same question, and I refused. I was simply not up to it and couldn’t even summon up the strength to go out of the door. Today, though, I jumped at the chance and positively galloped out of the door. The only downside was that I couldn’t find the NIKON J5 to take with me.

Obviously, our tidying-up session of a few weeks ago was more efficient than I thought.

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.

And THANKS to whoever in March bought some product via my links. My commission statement came today.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, the Hound of the Baskervilles and I piled into the car while my friend put everything into the boot. It was only then that I realised that instead of struggling over to the bollards in the street, I’d actually managed to walk across the car park to the car without even thinking about it.

genets mont st michel manche normandy franceWe drove down the coast road as far as Genets where there’s a large car park with a long, grassy footpath and a really good view over Mont St Michel. We stopped there so that the Hound of the Baskervilles could stretch his legs, and he duly dragged his master off down the path as I admired the view.

When they came back, we set off again. I lost the way a couple of times, not having been down here for several years, and we saw parts of Normandy and the coast that I can’t ever remember. We stopped a few times for my friend’s photography session and then we carried on to Avranches.

Firstly, though, I took him to see where the dialysis centre was. If he knows where it is, he might be able to come to pick me up from there at some point if I need to flee. I’ve already been picked up there once by a friend when the only protection was flight.

After that, we took the old mediaeval road into Avranches, the one that’s incredibly steep and narrow with the ridiculous hairpin bend halfway up. This took us into the town centre, where we drove around in a circle for a while as I tried to find my bearings.

We eventually managed to find the Leclerc petrol station where we fuelled up and then drove back into the centre of town, where we drove around … etc. etc. We found a parking space right in the centre of town, where we parked. My friend hopped out and returned five minutes later with a kebab for him and a bag of chips for me.

Armed with our lunch, we headed off to the big car park by the church to do some eating, followed by the Hound of the Baskervilles dragging his master off once more, this time into the park nearby.

Later on, we set off for a drive around the countryside. We reached as far as Mortain but by now it was becoming late. My friend therefore switched on his SatNav to bring us back the quickest way possible and we ended up coming through Avranches yet again.

Back home, it was 17:45 when we arrived, far too late to make a pizza. Not to worry, though. My friend conjured up a cottage pie – “made of real cottages”, he told me. It was absolutely delicious and I must make some more at some point.

When we’d finished eating, I washed up everything and came in here, musing on the fact that I’d been treated to café au lit – not café au lait but café au lit or “coffee in bed”, a lovely day out, a bag of chips for lunch and a cottage pie for tea. What more could anyone want?

There were the dictaphone notes from last night to deal with, so I attacked them.

When Hurricane Isabelle the Nurse blew in, I was living in Alton Street in Crewe. I had two children in my charge, who were allowed to go and play on the wasteland behind the house, but if they went away from there, they had to come and tell me where they were going and what they were going to do. They were out there playing in one particular game and I had to go to one of the shops in the town centre. I was talking to them about this, but this was when Isabelle the Nurse came along and that was that.

Alton Street in Crewe and children (at least, one child) feature in something that’s actually happening at the moment, but it’s yet another story that the World isn’t quite ready to hear. And I wish that it had gone to its conclusion because it might have helped someone with what’s happening right now. Still, you have to work for a living and sometimes, work is more difficult than you imagine.

So now that my notes are written, I’m off to bed. It’s horribly late again but I’m not really tired. Anyway, I can always sleep at dialysis tomorrow afternoon if they let me. And that’s a big “if”.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about going out in the car … "well, one of us has" – ed … I joked with my friend about dropping me off at the bollards.
"That’s nothing" he replied."Just wait until tomorrow when you have to go to dialysis and you are picked up by the bollards."

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Sunday 24th May 2026 – AS I HAVE …

… said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … “What a way to start the day!”

It wasn’t café au lait – “coffee with milk” – but café au lit – “coffee in bed”, and how much did I enjoy that? In fact, the nurse caught me in flagrante delicto in bed with a mug of coffee in my hand when he arrived.

That was a good start to the day, much better than the end of the previous one. As seems to be the case these days, it took an age to finish off everything that I needed to do, and then, on coming out of the bathroom, my friend asked me “have you remembered to take your night-time medication?”.

Ten minutes later, I finally made it into bed. It was actually a few minutes after midnight. And then, a strange thing happened.

I’d only been in bed thirty seconds when I began to dream. It was about a marriage bureau and there was something about your tax return or paying your tax or something and you could go to this marriage bureau. Some guy went there but he was only half-heartedly interested and they could tell that there, so one of the women told him that he was going to miss out on a couple of great opportunities. So while I was there, I thought to myself that probably I’m going to as well because I’m not all that interested in having a partner either.

In actual fact, looking at the timestamp on the recording, it was about fifteen minutes after I went to bed that all of this happened.

Firstly, the dream reminds me that I have my tax return to do, but secondly, even if they were to offer me a free encounter at a marriage bureau, I’d turn it down. I’m too old, I’m too set in my ways, I have all my own habits and so on, and having a woman around the place would just disrupt me far too much. I’m much happier on my own.

Having fallen asleep quite quickly for once, I stayed asleep until about 07:00, after which I was falling asleep and waking up on a regular basis every few minutes. When my friend brought in the coffee, I was asleep but I awoke as soon as the bedroom door opened.

And five minutes later, the nurse arrived. When he rang the doorbell to announce his arrival, the Hound of the Baskervilles let out a short yelp as if he had been taken by surprise, and then he didn’t react at all once the nurse had come into the apartment.

After he left, I dressed and went into the kitchen to make my breakfast.

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

richborough, Rutupiae, roman fort, roman walls, castle, sandwich, kent, july 2006We’ve finally finished our visit to Richborough, or Rutupiae, as the Romans knew it, and so I thought that I’d post a photograph that I took of the place when I visited it in July 2006 before we leave.

You can see just how impressive the Roman walls actually were, so what must they have been like when they were erected nearly two thousand years ago?

And much closer to us, you can see part of the Roman defensive trench and how it was lined with rocks to stop the sides sliding back down into the bottom of the trench. These Roman forts were really well built and intended to last forever.

reculver, west towers, church, Regulbium, roman fort, roman walls, kent, july 2006And so now, we are going to visit Reculver, or Regulbium, as the Romans knew it.

Back in those days, the Isle of Thanet really was an island as the River Wantsum cut it off from the sea before it all silted up. But just as Rutupiae guarded the southern entrance to the river, near Sandwich, Regulbium guarded the northern entrance.

In this photo, which I also took in July 2006, you can see the two mediaeval western towers of the old church that was there and some Roman remains to the right. And once more, you can see some Roman stonework below the remains, presumably also reinforcing the banks of what was once a defensive ditch.

Incidentally, I have quite a few more photos of Rutupiae and Regulbium, taken at the same time, if anyone wants to see them.

We carried on talking for a while at the breakfast table and when the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off for walkies, I came in here and found plenty of things with which to occupy myself.

Later on, I paired and segued the music for the first of the two radio programmes on which I’d been working. That’s all done now and I’ll find some time to write the notes. I have to keep on going forward, even if I don’t feel like it or if I have too many other things to do.

Seeing as we have been talking about having other things to do … "well, one of us has" – ed … I knocked off work at 16:00 to start to make the week’s bread and then the bases for tonight’s pizza. The home-made bread looks really good, and as chance would have it, I’d just finished assembling the pizzas when the oven pinged to say that the bread had finished. So it was a case of “one out and two straight back in” with no waiting.

When the pizzas came out of the oven, they looked wonderful. And when we tasted them, I do have to say that they were the best that I have ever made – and I’ve made some good ones in the past.

We chatted for a while afterwards, and then I had to come in here to do some work before starting my notes. And all the time, I was being serenaded by a singer with a guitar in the living room. There’s nothing like a bit of live music while you work.

So now that the notes are all finished, I’m going to do the stats and the backing-up, take my medication and sort myself out in the bathroom. I’ll close the window in here too. It’s been open since early this morning, as we’ve had another sweltering day of heat and it was nice to let a little breeze come in.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about marriage bureaux … "well, one of us has" – ed … there was a scene in CARRY ON LOVING that you couldn’t possibly broadcast today, and I used it as an example of a change in humour over time for an essay that I wrote at university.
It was Hattie Jacques interviewing Kenneth Williams in the marriage bureau and she asked him "as a fully grown man, I suppose you are thinking that you would like to have a child?"
"Oh, no" replied Kenneth Williams. "A fully-grown woman, I think."

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Sunday 24th September 2017 – THE ONE GOOD THING …

… about staying with other people – apart from the convivial company of course – are the facilities on offer.

It’s true that I had been awake for some little while but when the door of the bus opened and a hot mug of coffee found its way in towards my sleeping bag, I knew that I was in some place that resembled a home.

Once I’d heaved myself out of my stinking, but extremely comfortable pit, Rhys gave me the guided tour of his little kingdom here. And apart from stepping on several colonies of fire ants, I managed to avoid the more dangerous critturs such as the Black Widow spiders and the snakes.

We ended up having a chat with Terry on the internet too. He’s after some new batteries for his power drill, and they are sold in the USA under the “Rigid” brand name.

That’s stocked in Home Depot and there’s a big one between Lexington and Columbia, so we decided to go for a drive.

No luck though – most of the shelving in the power tools section was empty. But there will be other Home Depots.

stun guns flea markets lexington south carolina september septembre 2017For lunch, Rhys took me to a Mexican place that was absolutely crowded, and then we went off to look at the local flea market just down the road.

The things that were on offer here were, quite frankly, amazing. No firearms that I saw, but how about this to take with you on your travels?

And sold along with socks and fidget spinners. The mind boggles.

old town museum lexington south carolina september septembre 2017Next stop was the “old town” museum here in Lexington.

This was a rich southern cotton-growing region 160 years ago before the Civil War and there were many traditional properties still standing until comparatively recently.

As the towns and highways have expanded over the old cotton fields, many of the old buildings have found themselves in the way of “progress”

cotton gin old town museum lexington south carolina september septembre 2017Normally this kind of thing wouldn’t bother Americans in the slightest, especially as they have some kind of connection with slavery.

But even Americans can appreciate the value of some of the stuff that was endangered, such as this beautiful and complete cotton gin complete with all working parts.

Consequently, many old buildings were dismantled and removed to this site at the back of the town, which is now a museum.

old town museum lexington south carolina september septembre 2017The buildings were reassembled here and people are able to visit them.

But the reassembly has not actually been done in the best traditions of contemporary workmanship. Someone here has gone berserk with a nail gun and I’m sure that nail guns were not around in the USA in the ante-bellum period.

At least they could have used nails of the correct size.

storm damaged dam lexington south carolina september septembre 2017There is a park on the edge of the town by a small dam. And during a storm a couple of years ago, the dam badly damaged and burst.

And so Rhys took me out to see it, and to see some of the damage that had been caused and which had still not been repaired.

There was a lake just there to the right, as you can tell by the pavilion on stilts, but the contents of the lake have disappeared

Later on, we went to a restaurant for tea – one that was famous for its salad bar. And they were right too, because it was well-worth the visit.

But here we had a most bizarre – but sadly all-too-common – dialogue.

Our hero – “I’m a vegan, so I’ll just have a baked potato with my salad”
Waitress – “what would you like with it? Bacon, cheese or cream cheese?”

Yes, staff training in Ruby Tuesday’s leaves something to be desired.

I fuelled up Strider on the way back as I have an early start in the morning – and I went straight to bed when we arrived back.

I’m not looking forward to tomorrow.

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Sunday 23rd June 2013 – I WAS IN CHESTER …

… during the night in the street where I first went to live when I moved there in September 1972, only last night it was where I was working. Parking in this street was usually problematic but last night it was snowing lightly and there was hardly a car about. It had me worried – was it a working day or not?
But anyway I went in to my building which was a modern building of brick, concrete, aluminium and glass, well spread-out but not too tall, and with a couple of friends we went to the restaurant. But with having spent so much time talking, we arrived just in time to see the aluminium shutters lowered down, for it was 10:00, the time that the restaurant closed.
Just after this, there was a fierce banging from the other side of the shutters- it seemed that someone had been locked in behind them. I went off to the reception area where there were three women, one of whom by her behaviour clearly had the air of being in charge, and so I told her about this person behind the shutters. “That’s too bad” she replied. “She’ll just have to wait there until 11:00”
“Can’t you unlock a service door?” I asked with surprise. “There must be a way out of there”
“No – I don’t have access so she’ll just have to wait”. Our conversation after this became rather heated, but she still wouldn’t budge.
At this point the front door opened and a group of kids, dressed up as an American marching band, complete with instruments, came marching in, and behind them came three men, clearly officers of some import and wearing képis and cloaks of the style of the Royal Dutch Army. The senior of these was an enormously tall métisse, probably close to 7 feet tall, so I went up to him and told him the story of this woman locked in the restaurant behind the shutters. He went over to the woman at reception and said a few words to her that I did not hear, but she went bright red and took a set of keys out of the drawer in front of her and went down the corridor, opened a door, and let out the woman who was locked in the restaurant.This woman, for reasons that I did not undertand, was wearing an orange rotating light on her head.

That was another one of these dreams that it seems a pity to leave, but leave I did because Cécile bought me a cup of coffee in bed, which was extremely nice.

Yes, it’s Sunday, which means a day off, or, at least, it’s supposed to. But Cécile has so much to do at her house (well, I’m not convinced, but she is) and only a short time in which to do it, so we ended up repairing cupboards and moving shelves around and so on.

Sunday is also pizza day and Cécile cooked a lovely example for lunch (thanks, Rosemary, for fetching the vegan cheese), but as we were about to restart work, one of Cécile’s friends came round for a chat. Consequently we were late for Liz and Terry’s.

Terry is now a very happy bunny, seeing as he has all of the slates (and a darned sight more as well) to do the roof on his new extension, and I am aslo an extremely happy bunny, having been repaid in Liz’s home-made chocolate cake.

And after running through the radio programmes for tomorrow, back here and that was that. Tomorrow is another day;

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Saturday 26th March 2011 – For those of you concerned …

about my physical welfare, I didn’t have a solar shower today.

And it’s my own fault anyway. Although this morning was slightly cloudy it didnt look too bad at all. I went into St Eloy les Mines and did some shopping there and (just for a change spent a few bob too.

planting lettuce raised beds gardening les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnd in the Carrefour they had trays of baby lettuce for €3.99, so I bought one. I was expecting about 10 or 12 but in fact there were 25 all told, and you can’t leave that many in the tiny tray. And so I thoroughly watered one of the potato beds and planted them in there, thinking that I can plant the spuds around them and they will be long gone before I need to uproot the taties.

And of course, that was the cue for a torrential downpour as you might expect, and that was the summer over. I came up here with a coffee, crashed out, and am I going to have an uncomfortable night as I spilled a mug of coffee all over my bed settee as I keeled over and now it’s all wet.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire montel villosanges puy de dome ligue football league franceAt the footy tonight there was just one match, the 1st XI against Montel Villosanges. And Pionsat won with a most bizarre goal.

A beautiful ball over the top of the defence that set up a chase – two Pionsat attackers against two of the Chimps defenders. But the keeper got to it first, just outside his area, and he fairly whacked the ball as hard as he could – straight into the face of a Pionsat attacker. The ball ricocheted off his face, went back over the keeper’s head and with one bounce it went straight into the net.

Yes, you can tell that things are going Pionsat’s way for a change when they can win matches by scoring goals like this.

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Sunday 14th March 2010 – I had coffee in bed this morning!

Those of you with long memories will recall that about 2 years ago I bought a 12-volt coffee machine – the kind that truckers have in their cabs. I discovered it the other day while tidying up (I do that every now and again) and so last night I filled it full of water, put a filter and some coffee in, and left it by my bed. When I woke up I switched it on and stayed lying in bed smelling the aroma for a while.

It wasn’t very satisfactory and it needs some fine tuning. And it doesn’t half sup the juice but nevertheless it was very nice to be lying there having coffee in bed. Last time that happened was when I stayed at Liz and Terry’s in the summer, and I can’t remember when it was before that.

So having drunk coffee and had breakfast, today I did … nothing at all. I’ve been up here all day either reading or working on my website. I noticed that the last time I updated it was in June 2009 and a lot has happened since then! I need to extricate my digit a little bit.

There will be a lot happening tomorrow too. If the weather stays fine I’m going to be burning the leftovers from the garden-tidying and then digging up tree stumps. Luckily the weather has warmed up a bit so the soil might be workable.

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Tuesday 14th July 2009 – I HAD AN EARLY NIGHT LAST NIGHT

Yes, after the bedtime story (I can get quite used to staying at Liz and Terry’s), which was “The Chronologically-Challenged Duck That Was Admired More For Its Personal Qualities Than Its Physical Attributes”, I dozed off to sleep.

But not for long.

At 01:30 we were treated to the kind of spectacular storm that you only ever see once in a lifetime. Thunder and lightning continually until about 05:00. Impressive was not the word!

Terry stuck his head outside at 07:30 and it came back in wet so it wasn’t until about 08.30 until I got my coffee in bed (I can get quite used to …… “you’ve said that once” – ed) and once the rain quietened down at about 11:00 we set off to continue our attack on my roof. We had all of the chevrons on the front off (and half the front wall as well – this is going to be a longer job than I anticipated – we are even going to have to demolish the chimney and start again) and put half of the new ones on before the rain drove us off the roof again.

Terry came home and I stayed on to do some domestic chores but in actual fact I fell asleep.

It’s still thundering now so I dunno what’s going to happen in the morning. It was odds-on that the weather would change the moment I stripped the tiles off my roof.

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