Tag Archives: cujo

Tuesday 18th October 2022 – A FUNNY THING …

… happened this morning. But anyone who knows anything about cats will know that there is nothing whatever strange about it.

The alarm went off as planned at 05:45 ready for my Welsh lesson but immediately (and I DO mean “immediately”) Cujo the Killer Cat jumped on me and trapped me in bed.

She refused to move until she’s had a good 20 minutes of strokes and consequently I was late for my lesson.

Once the lesson began she came and sat on my knee for an hour or so, hogging the camera while the lesson continued.

At last I think that I’ve sorted out the best way to deal with the Zoom meetings on this computer.

A year or so ago I upgraded it by swapping the hard drive for a solid-state drive but the processor is still quite slow. Zoom uses up all of the resources which means that when I open the course book *.pdf the Zoom window stutters. However if I minimise the Zoom window so that it shows “active speaker only” then it doesn’t work too badly.

As for the lesson itself it passed quite quickly and it wasn’t too bad. In fact I did rather well in what I was asked to do. But I really need to work on my vocabulary. Well, more than that actually. I’m feeling that I’m falling way behind.

After the lesson finished I … errr … relaxed for a while and then had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. We were at an archaeological dig last night having to clean some of the artefacts. There were quite a few of us there. I found some kind of switch made from bakelite from the 1950s. It was extremely delicate and took me ages to get into all the nooks and crevices etc to scrape away years years of dust. Then I had to go to work on some kind of miniature man, wrap him in ivy seeds and ivy runners. It was called a “gorseinon” whatever that might be. I didn’t have a clue how to do this but there was some young girl there who was making one who gave me some instruction as to how to do it, hanging part of it around his neck and twisting it round so that the whole length of whatever it is that you had was covering his whole length to varying degrees.

Then I was out with Rachel. We were shopping somewhere. She was telling us about all the chaos there had been over the Christmas shopping. She had a list of shops that she wanted to visit but there was so much chaos on the roundabout and traffic junctions that she never actually managed to make it to one particular shop which was a pretty important one on the list. She was describing to me how people just take so much time doing their shopping because they would want to talk to the counter clerk, inane, banal things. She was imitating some of their conversation in this perfect Canadian accent while everyone in the queue with us was listening and smiling. We’d already had some kind of chaos on the roundabout with telling some stories to my brother who was in the car behind and was so intent on listening that he ended up being in the wrong lane coming into this roundabout and caused an almighty snarl-up of his own while he tried to sort himself out and get him on the right track

There was also something that I vaguely remember about a gold BMC1800 “ADO17” being parked up at a house in Canada. And that’s a surprise because the car was never available in North America as far as I can tell.

After lunch I headed off down to the mill again. It was quite busy there these days especially as they are loading up the feed truck to go on a delivery round. But these days I’m in no condition to help out as I used to.

But at least I think that I’ve worked out why the transmission in Strider might be slipping occasionally. There wasn’t a drop of oil in the gearbox so I topped it up – with about a litre of hypoid.

Strider has been stood for three years, I know, but I didn’t think that the oil would leak out over time. I shall have to put him up on a ramp and see of there’s a leak. Gone are the days when I could crawl underneath.

We were there until quite late this evening and when we came home, we were in no mood to cook. Consequently we ended up with leftovers. I had what I had yesterday except with a baked potato instead of the spaghetti squash.

Rachel and I chatted for a couple of hours and made plans for the future, and now I’m off to bed. Tomorrow I’m going to start to pack as I ought to be thinking about going home.

Not that I want to, but I can’t stay here for ever. Apart from anything else, I have no fewer than 6 hospital appointments in Leuven a week on Thursday. Things are hotting up.

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Monday 17th October 2022 – HAVING GONE TO ..

… bed quite early last night, I ended up not going to sleep for quite a while. In fact, it was almost midnight when I finally went to sleep – at least as far as I can remember.

With no-one coming to see me during the night, there was plenty of time for me to go off for a wander or two. I went to Spain last night, a small town just over the border. what had happened was that again I was having loads of problems and issues etc in work (and isn’t this a regular occurrence?). As I was well-past retirement age I didn’t really care much so one morning I just didn’t go in. I had a piece of music from a rock group on an old LP that was actually the National Anthem of a group of revolutionaries somewhere. They had borrowed my LP because at 07:00 every morning they played the National Anthem on their radio station and had a little speech. They asked me if I wanted to join them so with nothing better to do I decided that maybe I would. I turned up there at 07:00 and they kitted me out with some equipment but no arms and they sent me off on a foot patrol around Shavington. That’s how I ended up on this foot patrol in Spain. I walked around the outskirts of this town a little, and then I found the town centre. It was full of all dubious characters and old British cars as well, and old cars that I didn’t know what they were. I was in a real paradise looking at these Reliants and Ford Anglias, all sorts of stuff. As I was walking down this alleyway I went past a house where a woman looked at me, noticed that I was British. She tidied up her cat out of the way and asked me if I wanted some Coca-Cola. I said “no” but we started to chat.

Later in I was back in Spain again, back in this dream and wandering around the town trying to find a place to hang my towel rail. In the end I found some kind of shop where there were crowds of people who might have had some screws but he told me that there was some kind of communal field on the edge of town where everyone took their clothes to hang up and dry. He pointed it out to me and said that that was where I had to go.

Finally I was in the Welsh Premier League headquarters. There had been a complaint than a Welsh club had entered the English FA Cup and was therefore ineligible to enter the Welsh Cup. It seemed that the Welsh FA had missed it so I went down to Premier League headquarters to lodge a complaint on behalf of the fans. I met someone there, some woman, and we had the same acquaintances in Welsh football. We were discussing things but she wouldn’t keep to the point. She kept on going off on a tangent and it was very difficult to haul her back into the matter that we were discussing. She sent all of her colleagues out for a tea break for half an hour while she talked to me as well. I’d no idea what her intention was at that particular moment. As I’d set out, I’d left the apartment with my partner and her child. I had to go back for something but found that she hadn’t locked the apartment door. I sent her a message but because I didn’t have anything to write I used my thumbnail to make an impression of the letters on some obje0ct or other and left it so that she could see it.

Interestingly, back in 2006 when there was talk in the Welsh FA headquarters about reorganising the league competitions, I was chosen by a group of fans to be their representative to go down to headquarters to meet the Competitions Secretary to discuss the concerns that the fans had.

Once everyone had gone off to work I dragged myself out of my bed and had my medication. And then I sat down to transcribe the notes from the dictaphone.

In the middle of all of it, Cujo the Killer Cat came to sit on my knee. In fact she didn’t sit but turned round and round, climbed up and over me and then once she had attracted my full attention she ran to the front door and asked to be let out. She knows the score well enough.

When I’d finished the dictaphone notes I went and had a shower and a clothes-washing session to pretty myself up, and then had lunch. Toasted cheese with tomato.

Once I was ready I went up to the mill to chat to Rachel and Zoe until throwing-out time. And that was rather later than usual too. Back here I had to wait for everyone else to turn up and to talk to a couple of guys who needed roadside assistance.

Tea was a vegan burger with onion, garlic and tomato and, totally new for me, spaghetti squash. Not my favourite but it’s nice to try something new.

Back in here I had to write out the dictaphone notes again because for some unknown reason I seemed to have wiped out the file but I really don’t know how or why, and then I wrote out the notes for today.

And early though it might be, I’m off to bed. I have a Welsh lesson in the morning so it’s another 05:45 start. But I’m more interested in what time it will finish.

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Saturday 15th October 2022 – GUESS WHO …

… had company in bed last night?

And before I went to bed too, because I was still sitting on the edge of the bed starting to undress when Cujo the Killer Cat jumped on the bed miaowing. And as soon as I settled down under the bedclothes she snuggled up and that was that.

She stayed for quite a long time too but when I eventually awoke, she was gone. Still, it was nice while it lasted. It’s the best offer that I’ve had for quite some considerable time.

Plenty of stuff on the dictaphone from the night too. We were babysitting this girl of about 11. I got on really well with her and spent a lot of time with her. Her father came to pick her up afterwards. My father told him that the bike that he had found for her was a Raleigh or something. I went into the hall to look and there was a kid’s bike there, a Raleigh, the type that you would have in the 1960s for a child so I took her to try it. It was a little big for her but nothing that you couldn’t adjust out. On the way we saw a circus across the road. She looked and said “that looks great”. I replied “guess where we’re going to come the next time you come round?”. I could see that there was a look of disapproval in her father’s eye but the girl seemed to be reacting a lot more with me than she did with him. You could see that he was disappointed by that.

This next one was another long, rambling dream with loads missing. It involved a funeral and burying a coffin. There was a big argument about the grave. They’d dug out the grave but it wasn’t really big enough but these people insisted that they knew what they were doing. In the end they prepared the coffin to drop into the grave but found that it wasn’t going in because the hole wasn’t big enough. They had to lift it out again and enlarge the hole. In the end I had them dig a huge pile out to make an enormous hole because that was the only way to stop the bickering and the arguments, to make sure that there was more than enough room to drop the coffin in and then back-fill it but it was one of these typical small village things where everyone knew better than everyone else. There were the local experts who had never done this before, that kind of thing, and it went on for hours.

Finally I was at work. I’d just come back from lunch 5 minutes early so that I could cut my hair. I was there busily shaving it away and the manager came in, rounded up everyone and said that a file was missing. He gave us the number and insisted that we searched the entire office for it. He said “when you’ve finished cutting your hair of course”. I replied “I’ll go and look for it now and cut my hair later”. We all stood up and went our separate ways searching everywhere to see if we could find this file. There was a cheque that needed issuing on it and we needed the file to check the validity.

After I had finally come round from the dead I went up to the mill in the pouring rain. We weighed the two parcels and I was surprisingly accurate in my guesses. I thought 25kg and 20kg but in fact it’s 30kg and 20kg. That’s not too bad.

They were really busy up there today but I couldn’t help them any as shifting sacks of grain is rather beyond me these days but I waited around for quite a while chatting.

Back here I had beans on toast for lunch and then transcribed the dictaphone notes from yesterday which are now on line, and then I made a start on last night’s.

When Rachel came home we started on tea. We discussed all kinds of cookery recipes and in the end I made a pyrex dish with my veggie balls, tomato, onion and garlic to go with the baked potato and vegetables that she was cooking to go with the lamb chops. And my meal was delicious.

For dessert I had a surprise. On her was home Rachel had called at the home of the old lady whom we had visited yesterday and she had made me a “demonstration cake” of egg-free molasses cake.

And that was delicious too.

After tidying up I came in here to finish off the dictaphone notes and then wrote up today’s entry.

And now I’m off to bed. We’re dining out tomorrow morning so I won’t have too much of a lie-in. And I probably won’t have any lie-in at all if Cujo the Killer Cat comes to visit me.

Not that I’m complaining, of course.

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Friday 14th October 2022 – THE NEXT PERSON …

… who tells me that there’s a recession will receive a smack in the mouth.

This afternoon I went down to the border between the USA and Canada at Houlton as I had heard that there were a couple of freight forwarders with offices there. The idea was to talk to them about shipping this sunroof back to Europe.

When I eventually found the offices (thanks to a helpful officer in the Canadian Customs Post), the guy in the first office, that belonging to Kühn and Nagel, couldn’t even be bothered to leave his seat to come to the counter. The gist of his information was to tell me to clear off and not bother him.

Mind you, that was better than at the second office. There, there was a notice to the effect that they are not welcoming personal callers.

And there’s the rub. I have all of this money burning a hole in my pocket and it needs to be spent, and it’s far too much effort for anyone to come and take it. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that this is a regular occurrence. Nobody these days wants to earn any money and I’m completely on my own when it comes to dealing with this.

It’s not the only thing for which I’m completely alone either. I was completely on my own last night too. Cujo the Killer Cat didn’t come to share my bed, something that quite disappointed me.

Consequently there was tons of stuff on the dictaphone from last night but I haven’t transcribed it yet.

And there was a good reason for that. Once everyone had gone to work I left my bed and while I was checking my mails and messages I had the old-time radio on the computer. And on came a “Paul Temple” episode, all 3 hours and some more of it, so just for a change I did very little except listen to it.

At a certain moment Cujo the Killer Cat came to join me so we listened to it together.

After lunch I set out for the border and after my disappointment there I went to Woodstock to buy fuel , and by the time we got to Woodstock we were … etc.

Next stop was the bank at Florenceville and for a change I followed the west bank of the Saint John River and crossed over the river at Hartland on the world’s longest covered bridge where I got the protocol about crossing horribly wrong and annoyed just about everyone.

The tyre depot was extremely busy so we never had time to weigh my packets so I’ll have to do that tomorrow, but I had a lovely chat with a very verbose 4th grader who was waiting for her father who was having a tyre changed.

And it’s not just very verbose 4th graders that occupy my time either.

mill cat centreville new brunswick Canada Eric Hall photo 14th October 2022The mill here is full of corn as you might expect and so it’s quite an attraction for the local wild rodents which upsets just about everyone concerned. Consequently there’s a fleet of mill cats here, as you would also expect.

They are extremely wild, ferocious cats whose job is to tear to shreds any unsuspecting rodent that falls into their clutches. You can see just how wild and ferocious they are by looking at this photograph.

Honestly, if you were a wild mouse bent on stealing some corn from a corn mill, wouldn’t you be frightened to death on encountering such a savage beast as this?

eggless molasses cake new brunswick Canada Eric Hall photo 14th October 2022On the way home we called at the house of an old woman in the neighbourhood who is a friend of Rachel, and had an interesting chat. And she gave me a recipe for egg-free molasses cake.

When I returned home later I tried it out and it was quite delicious. But I wish that Canadians and Americans would use weights for their ingredients rather than volume. And what is a “cupful” anyway? How dos anyone know how big your cup is?

It all goes back, I suppose, to Pioneer days when no-one could afford scales or just didn’t possess them, and a cup was a standard size sold by the Sears, Roebuck or Hudsons Bay Company traveller

Surprisingly I had a lot in common with this lady and we talked about churning butter, water-powered fridges and the like.

We were there for hours so I’m running quite late yet again. A “left-over supper” of my Chinese vegetables, potatoes and burger followed by rice pudding was quick and easy, and now having written my notes, I’m off to bed.

Eventually I managed to transcribe all of the dictaphone notes. We’d been talking about the shop round the corner at the top of the street in Wardle. Someone was saying that they weren’t very friendly and didn’t seem to want to help anyone out and wouldn’t do deliveries. That really surprised me because if I were living in a small village like that and a shop I’d have one of these Vespa-type scooter freight delivery vans. I’d be happy to drop off anyone’s shopping anywhere for an extra £1:00 or so a time. I’m pretty sure that that’s the way to go and it would be a success but these people at Wardle didn’t seem to be interested at all.

And then I was going skiing. I was ready to go but I suddenly found myself without my skis, boots, and bag in which to put them so I had to go back to the apartment where I’d changed and I couldn’t find them there. Then I thought that I’d been in my brother’s apartments so I thought that I’d go there. I had to persuade him because he didn’t want to let me go back in again. Eventually I did and I had a really good hunt around. I couldn’t find what I needed. In the end I had to go. There were several buses going past his apartment which was something like one every hour carried on to where I wanted to be. While I was waiting for it I was doing some work sitting at a desk but I hadn’t quite finished it when the bus came so I missed it. I decided that I’d set out and walk. It was pretty dark. Nevertheless as I was walking down the track from one bus stop to the next I came across a couple of small families with young girls who were out for a walk. One of the young girls didn’t want to go at all and started to make a scene. There was a church so I popped in. They were celebrating the death of someone with the same name as me. I sat down for a couple of minutes to listen to it. Then I wanted to get back up again and carry on but I had to disturb the people sitting in my row and possibly the row in front and behind in order that they could make space to leave but I didn’t feel like embarrassing everyone to make them do this in the middle of e ceremony.

At another moment I was dictating to my hand again. I was playing in defence for a football team last night. There was the local Sunday league team training and was a player short so I helped out at left-back for them. I was totally exhausted in the warm-up. We were kicking the ball around. One guy who looked very much like Cedric Pény was always kicking it out of play and I had to leap over the barbed wire fence to get it. I did that once and then after that let someone else do it. On one occasion it had been tormented by a wasp or something like that so I went over to see. Someone asked what it was. I said that it was a bestiole but they didn’t know what that was. There was a rabbit so I threw the ball at it to move it but the rabbit grabbed hold of it and tried to run off. In the end Cedric Pény picked it up like you would a cat and threw it out of the door. It was all completely surreal. I remember the times that I’d been playing in goal for this team during the dream and of course I’ve never played in goal for anyone for 40 years. This was what surprised me the most was reminiscing about turning out for this team a couple of times in goal because it seemed to be so real and so vivid as well.

This is another one of which I only remember bits. Of the bits that I remember, we were going to a dance but we couldn’t get the usual car going so we got this old Rolls-Royce to go. We encountered a girl who said something about the Rolls-Royce so I said “well we don’t usually bring it out in the rain but we thought that we’d give it a bit of a run-out today”. I didn’t like to mention that the Rolls wasn’t taxed or insured or MoT’d or anything and shouldn’t have been on the road anyway but it was the only car that we had when the first one wouldn’t start. There was lots more to it than this but I can’t remember.

With a bit of luck we’ll weigh these packets tomorrow and then I can press on with my plans. And hope that I can find a way of posting them without having to rely on a commercial courier.

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Thursday 13th October 2022 – I WAS NOT …

… alone in bed last night. I’d just curled up and settled down quietly to go to sleep when suddenly there was a thud on the bed and some thing pushed a black and furry head into my chin.

Sure enough, Cujo the Killer Cat had decided to come to join me. She curled up next to me and went to sleep. All in all, she was there for an hour or so, changing position every 15 minutes or so to make herself more comfortable while I of course was becoming even more uncomfortable, but in the end she jumped off, ate a couple of cat biscuits and went off for a prowl around the house.

Anyone who knows anything at all about cats will know that this is simply normal, usual behaviour. When we were married Nerina and I had four cats so you can imagine how that worked out. Here, there are three cats but so far only Culo the Killer Cat has found me on a permanent basis. Oscar, the ginger and white cat, found his way onto the bed at one point but Gilligan, the young long-haired cat not at all.

With Cujo waking me up during the night, I forgot about a dream that I was having. I was having a lovely dream, but with Cujo the Killer Cat coming to join me I awoke and most of it went immediately out of my head. But there was some woman telling me that she’d let me know if something happened again and so on. Unfortunately I can’t remember what that was or anything but it was really nice wonderful comfortable dream.

And later, we were talking about defence in World War I and how the new German heavy machine gun was supposed to be the best. They fortified all of their railway stations and places like that with examples of their heavy machine gun

I stepped back into that dream some time later .Our unit had been badly shot up in World War I and we were being evacuated from the Front with a pile of wounded. One of the wounded was a French private and I spent a lot of time chatting to him. He was in complete agony. Eventually we found some road transport that brought us into the city centre of Verdun. Luckily he was one of the first off the transport into the hospital. I asked the nurse if he’d been shot with a machine gun. She replied “yes”. I asked what were his chances of recovery because he had a seizure. A few of these nurses came rushing round to him but he pulled his way through this seizure. They turned to me and said “he’ll be OK now that he’s gone through that. There will be no worry with him”.

Finally, I’d gone to a mobile phone shop because I wanted to download from my mobile phone an album that had been supplied free with the ‘phone. I couldn’t find which directory it was in despite knowing the name of the musician … "it was Steve Winwood" – ed. The first thing that I noticed was that he typed my phone n° into his computer and immediately had access to the contents of my phone via some kind of remote connection. He could see everything that I had on my phone, what my desktop was, etc. He hadn’t asked me for permission to do that and in any case I didn’t think that he could use his computer to view the contents of my phone from his desk. I was absolutely appalled. I was going to write to as many people as I possibly could to make this kind of thing known to them. I thought that it was awful that they could just type my number into their computer and see on their screen the contents of my phone and what I had visible on my screen at that moment.

When the alarm went off there were still people moving around the house and so I waited until everyone left before I arose from the dead.

The first thing that I did was to transcribe the dictaphone notes, that you have already seen.

Next plan was to book some accommodation for the next couple of stages of my journey. I’m leaving here in 10 days so I have to make sure that I have somewhere to stay.

It’s not easy because I have no Canadian ‘phone these days for the bank to send me some verification instructions for payment, so I have to book into these “pay on arrival” places and there aren’t too many of those

Next step was to try to find some freight companies to ship this sunroof back to Europe. After much research I found a couple of freight forwarding companies in Saint John and I’ve been in touch with them. Whether or not they reply is something else completely.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that receiving replies to e-mails that I send off to try to organise something or other is something that very rarely happens. Everyone complains that there’s a recession and that business is difficult but my own experience is that no-one really wants to do any work.

After lunch I had to go and measure my parcels. Having turned out the cab of Strider I couldn’t find my tape measure. Luckiiy though when I was in IKEA in the summer I’d picked up a measuring tape and it was still in my little bag so I managed to do it after a fashion.

They need to be weighed but I can’t lift them on my own. I shall have to wait for assistance.

One thing that I’d noticed was that it looked as if someone had been growing potatoes in Strider’s cab. I found an old yard brush and swept out as much as I could. He really needs a good vacuuming too as he’s full of dust. I’ll bet that he’ll go 5mph faster when I’ve done all that.

While I was out there, I noticed something quite amusing. Cujo the Killer Cat lived up to her name and brought back a live mouse to the front of the house. She dropped it off in front of Gilligan, the young long-haired cat, and was teaching him how to hunt it.

He performed a few practice pounces on it but after a while he lost interest. Cujo couldn’t incite him to continue so in the end she picked up the mouse and wandered off into a quiet corner to deal with it herself.

However I’m not sure what had happened because back in here I crashed out – and for all of three hours too. I must have been completely exhausted after all of my efforts for the last couple of days.

Tea tonight was more of my Chinese meal from yesterday and then I spent a good while chatting to Rachel. Consequently I’m late going to bed.

There’s plenty to do tomorrow so I need a good night’s sleep. That is, unless Cujo the Killer Cat comes to join me tonight.

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Tuesday 11th October 2022 – THE CAT SAT …

… on the mat, as the old saying goes.

But this morning, she didn’t. As I found out when I went to sit on the chair to take part in my Welsh lesson.

Of course, at 05:55 it’s quite dark and you can’t see all that much. And as I’m half asleep anyway and my eyes aren’t focusing properly after another miserable night, seeing a black cat on a dark blue chair is not easy.

However, she soon let me know that she was there. Poor Cujo, the Killer Cat.

The Welsh lesson itself was quite awful. I wasn’t in the mood, I was tired, I was having to juggle computer screens around and at one point my microphone stopped working. I was really glad when the lesson ground to a halt.

cujo the killer cat centreville new brunswick Canada Eric Hall photo 11th October 2022Cujo the Killer Cat had forgiven me for my faux pas earlier because during the first part of the lesson she was on my knee.

She cleared off at some point but as soon as the lesson ended she came back again. For an hour or so while I was dozing after the lesson I didn’t mind but when I wanted to work she just sat on the laptop on my knees and that was that.

No chance whatever of actually doing any work this morning so I relaxed instead.

Later on, I went for a shower and a clothes-washing session, and having rounded up all of the felines, I hung up my clothes in the wind. Then Strider, STRAWBERRY MOOSE and I headed for Woodstock.

And by the time we got … errr … etc. etc.

This sunroof is enormous. It only just fits into the back of Strider. It’s heavy too and sending it back to Europe is going to be astronomical. Buying it hit the limit on my bank card so that’s grounded out right now and I had to use my European card for the balance.

It was a good job that I had some cash on me for my purchases at Sobey’s afterwards.

From there I drove to Florenceville to go to the bank to sort out my card, but I wonder is any of the regular readers of this rubbish would recall which day of the week is the one when the Scotia Bank closes early?

Round to the mill in Centreville to see what was happening there but, falling asleep, I ended up going back home for a coffee and a doze.

There was time before tea to transcribe the dictaphone notes from last night. I had joined some kind of internet chat room but the nickname that I had chosen, I didn’t really want to advertise so I only published it as a form of coded URL so that only a certain few people would be able to know the URL and know that it was me but that’s really all that I remember of this at the moment

I should mention somewhere that Hannah and Jake were involved in this but I can’t remember how or why.

But I remember a bit more about that dream now. We were having a party somewhere in North America. I’d had a friend on the internet, a girl whom I knew. They wee talking about travelling so I said that if ever they were to find themselves in the UK they can come to Crewe and I’d be quite happy to put them up, cook a meal, that sort of thing. She said that that wouldn’t be possible because she and her partner were lesbians. The authorities would look very dimly on the idea of a pair of lesbians travelling with a very young girl and sharing accommodation with her, that kind of thing. They needed to be very careful about it which I thought was ridiculous.

Tea was a burger with baked potatoes and the left-over beans from yesterday’s brunch. I had a long chat with Darren and when Rachel came home we had a good chat too.

But right now I’m off to bed. It’s early but I’m exhausted and I have a long day tomorrow. I need to be on form, and I also need to avoid sitting on any cats. If they want to sit on me, that’s fine. But not the other way round.

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Monday 10th October 2022 – WE HAD A …

… tactical substitution during the night.

When I finally crawled into bed last night, Cujo the Killer Cat climbed onto the bed and curled up next to me. Of course it’s not too easy to sleep when someone is continually head-butting your arm demanding strokes and the like.

oscar the cat centreville new brunswick Canada Eric Hall photo 10th October 2022Eventually though I fell asleep but when I awoke with the alarm (you can tell that I’m full of all good intentions) Cujo the Killer Cat had gone at some point and curled up against me on the other side of the bed was Oscar, the ginger and white cat.

He’s a cat that Hannah brought back from University. He had been effectively abandoned by his previous owner and she couldn’t see him allowed to go feral.

Cujo the Killer Cat took a great deal of exception to this intruder and does her best to keep him under control, but he’s learning to fight back.

oscar the cat centreville new brunswick Canada Eric Hall photo 10th October 2022But anyway, here was was on my bed this morning, which is quite unusual. He’s not usually this affectionate with me.

But there was an undefended stomach there that demanded attention and so I duly obliged. And once I started to tickle it he grabbed hold of my arm and held on to it, refusing to let go. Consequently we stayed like this for some considerable time, and neither of us complained at all

So much for my good intentions.

In fact, had it not been for the necessity of my going for a ride on the porcelain horse, the two of us would probably still be there now.

With the time that was left I managed to do some of the work but with it being a Bank Holiday there was one of Rachel’s legendary breakfast brunches with which I needed to contend. People travel miles for one of those and it’s no surprise.

Darren and Rachel had recently bought some wooden furniture for around the pool and it needed wood treatment. Darren went to rig up the compressor and the spray gun and I went as labourer and we spent a happy couple of hours in the sun this afternoon giving it all the treatment.

Later on Rachel wanted to go down to the mill to feed the mill cats so I went along for the drive. We went visiting while we were out and I ended up having a really good chat with someone about the Norse in North America. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that this is a subject in which I have quite an interest.

Tea tonight was made by making use of all of the leftovers that have accumulated over the last week – I’m not the only one who does this. However, it wasn’t a curry but a stir-fry of rice, vegetables and black beans. Things like this are just as delicious as when they are cooked, and sometimes even more so.

However, at last I’ve managed to finish the dictaphone notes. There was actually some stuff from last night that I had recorded. We’d been coming back from a works outing somewhere. The coach was coming up the bank past Wistaston Manor. The driver said that there were a couple of people to alight here. He couldn’t remember their names. There was a huge pile of paperwork that I’d collected which was totally in chaos. I couldn’t find the names either. I was just so disorganised and had stuff everywhere. I only had half the passengers on the bus. In the end I went back and enquired as to who they were. We stopped and a couple of people alighted. I made a note of their names. Then a few more alighted as well but I wasn’t sure why. I imagined that the next stop would be somewhere round the top of Ruskin Road but there were people milling around so much that it was actually impossible to have them sit down so that I could enquire where they wanted to be. All in all it was a total chaotic situation. Only the driver seemed to have any kind of control over anything and even then it was only by the sheerest luck.

There was also something about me being on an express double-decker coach on another occasion last night but I can’t remember anything else at all about that.

The notes for the last couple of days are now on line too so now I’m off to bed for an early night. There’s a Welsh class again tomorrow so I have to be up and at the computer at … gulp … 06:00 and I’m not looking forward to that.

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Tuesday 4th October 2022 – WE HAD A NEW …

cujo centreville new brunswick Canada Eric Hall photo October 2022… student in our Welsh class this morning.

There I was taking part in the lesson when suddenly something black and furry stuck her head in front of my camera. It’s been three years since I’ve seen Cujo the Killer Cat but she certainly remembered who I was. She jumped up onto my knee in mid lesson and has spent much of the day sitting on my lap being stroked.

That’s because I wasn’t in any condition to go out and about today.

But anyway, more of this anon.

Last night was spent doing a lot of tossing and turning about. The bed isn’t as comfortable as the one in Montreal, that’s to be sure, but I really wasn’t in much of any state to go to sleep.

An alarm going off at 05:45 didn’t improve my morale any, and when I connected to my Zoom lesson at 06:00 and found that I’d downloaded the wrong course book to bring with me, I didn’t feel any better.

Eventually I managed to sort myself out, download the correct book and introduce Cujo to my classmates, accompanied by a pile of “ooohs” and “aaahs”, then the lesson could continue.

It was slow and painful, not helped by the internet connection, and I was glad when it was over.

Next stop was to listen to what was on the dictaphone. There was some kind of nightmare about everyone who was in the water. Some were in tattoos etc. I was watching them. It was the end of a film. When the whistle went, these people set off to start to swim. There was a load of people coming up behind them dressed in Victorian clothes of the era, very posh, who were just shooting them in the water like some kind of sport until there wasn’t anyone left alive. It was so realistic a nightmare that I thought it was the end of a film of a real event. It really was realistic

And then I dreamed that there was a contract out to build a pile of boats for the Canadian Shipping Company or something that meant that some of them had to be redesigned. I submitted work to redesign 4 but when it came down to it I was awarded the contract for 3 but I couldn’t find out what had become of the 4th. So when we had to introduce ourselves to everyone who was watching, this was what I said. Basically that I’d applied for the contract for 4 but only had 3 so it seemed as if boat n°4 which was called Zodiac had not been remodelled and I really didn’t have the remotest idea whether or not that was correct. I might have been given the plans and lost them, something like that, but that was what I said.

Finally I was with my Welsh group. We were about to take part in a lesson so I was changing. There were other people around there changing as well. It was a very small changing room so there wasn’t much room to spread out at all and we had our feet around everyone else’s faces etc. They were talking about photos. The photo that we’d submitted for our group came 2nd. They were talking about a few of the others. One of them of the Weddell Sea in the Australian Antarctic (that’s what I said) was won by someone called June Weddell or something. I said that I knew someone of that name with whom I’d been on trips. Someone said that she studied at the OU and I said “yes, that’s the girl”. Of course my friend’s name is quite similar to that but it’s not the same. I said that I’d talk to her about it and find out more about her photo.

One thing that I haven’t mentioned so far is that when I awoke this morning my foot had swollen up again like a balloon and I was in no fit state to go out anywhere. And so instead I’ve been sorting out photos and recovering from my exertions over the last few days. And that has been that.

Darren came home late from work this evening but he found me a bowl in which I can soak my foot tomorrow. And when Rachel returned we had food and a really good chat.

Right now I’m off to bed for a good sleep. And tomorrow I’ll soak my foot and then I’ll take Strider out for a run to see how he goes. It’ll be good to get out and about up and down the road and see what’s happening in the world.

Not to mention the vegan food on offer at Sobey’s. I need to stock up the larder in here for the next few weeks.

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Tuesday 8th October 2019 – I’VE BEEN …

… Mr Computer Repair Man again today.

having revelled in my triumphs a few days ago about getting my old Acer Laptop up and running after it crashed out on me in the USA and being able to salvage all of the data, down at the office today Rachel bunged another old laptop at me to see if I could raise that one from the dead too.

I spent a couple of hours working on it and, as much to my own surprise as anyone else’s, it’s now up and running again with not only all of the data still intact but all of the programs too.

It’s an old 2009 Lenovo with a 1.3ghz processor running Windows 7, but now that it’s working again it’s quite sprightly for its age as long as you don’t try to do anything too ambitious with it, but for taking down to the storeroom to do an inventory (which is why it was here in the first place) it’s just the job.

And talking of the storeroom, I’ve checked again and we do have indeed a large supply of 165/80 x 13 and 185/70 x 13 tyres for Ford Cortinas, as well as several other obsolete sizes too for other makes, so I’ve been posting the info on various North American classic car groups to try to drum up the sales.

All in all, I’ve had quite a busy morning.

A relaxing morning too. Although I heard all of the alarms go off, it was about 07:00 when I finally managed to raise myself from the dead. And with no school run this morning I was able to have a leisurely start to the day.

Not to transcribe the dictaphone notes though. There’s a couple on there from during the night and I’ll have to copy those over as soon as I can.

For once, Cujo the Killer Cat co-operated with me so I was able to leave the house pretty much when I wanted to without having to hunt her down.

This afternoon was more running around. Taking the cheques to be posted (it’s that time of the year) mainly.

But I had another task assigned to me which I managed to accomplish. In the garage is a 2004 Dodge Ram 1500 pick-up with a major electrical problem. With my little home-made testing apparatus I can tell that there’s a live feed reaching the relays at contacts where no live feed should be. This points to a short circuit in the fuse box somewhere and these are impossible to repair.

The easy answer is to replace the fuse box but, to my amazement (or maybe not, because I’ve long-since ceased to be amazed at the antics of modern motor manufacturers) the part is “no longer available” from the manufacturers.

Consequently, with the repaired laptop (and I’m glad now that I repaired it), I’ve been scouring the scrapyards of North America and I’ve eventually tracked down a rear-ended Dodge of the correct year and model in a scrapyard in Colorado.

A photo of the part on that truck looks identical to the one here, and so that’s now winging its way northwards in our direction. And who knows? We might even be able to make this Dodge start properly without having to hot-wire it all the time.

Fighting off waves of fatigue yet again (and I’ve no idea why) I went to pick up Amber from cheerleading practice after school, only to find that our little visitor had stayed behind too. Never mind the crowded cab when we have half-a-million strong therein by the time we get to Woodstock, it was pretty cramped in there with three, but we managed all the same.

Everyone was out this evening so I made myself some potato thins with onions, carrots garlic and assorted herbs with some vegan sausages, and it was delicious. Especially when followed down by one of the vegan muffins from the weekend.

Later this evening after tea I retreated to my room. I’m not feeling myself at the moment … “and quite right too” – ed … so some peace and quiet will do me good. I’m beginning to feel the strain and I really need a couple of days in bed to haul myself up again, but I doubt whether that will happen any time soon.

Looking at my schedule over the past three and a half months, it would have been pretty hectic for a younger person in good health. For an older person who is slowly dying, it’s been taxing to the limit and beyond.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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Monday 7th October 2019 – JUST LIKE OLD TIMES!

Just pulling into the yard this evening with Amber after picking her up after cheerleading practice when Rachel stuck her head out of the door
“Could you go down to the tyre depot and pick up Darren?”

So I dropped off my passenger and headed off to my next job, musing that I ought to fit a meter under Strider’s dashboard and a taxi sign on the roof. When I sold my taxi business in 1989 I thought that I had put this kind of thing well-and-truly to bed.

But no. It was just like old times.

However, if anyone thinks that I’m complaining or that I’m unhappy about it, then that’s far from the truth. I was actually enjoying myself being out and about, especially with some decent music churning away on Strider’s hi-fi.

Actually, one of my old Mancunian acquaintances had made an appearance on my playlist. And as I listened to the words, I realised that they are really quite appropriate to the situation in which I have found myself these days as I struggle with my illness and events associated with it all.

The killer lives inside me: yes, I can feel him move
Sometimes he’s lightly sleeping in the quiet of his room
But then his eyes will rise and stare through mine;
He’ll speak my words and slice my mind inside
Yes the killer lives

Angels live inside me: I can feel them smile…
Their presence strokes and soothes the tempest in my mind
And their love can heal the wounds that I have wrought
They watch me as I go to fall – well, I know I shall be caught
While the angels live

And I too, live inside me and very often don’t know who I am
I know I’m not a hero, but I hope that I’m not damned:
I’m just a man, and killers, angels, all are me:
Dictators, saviours, refugees in war and peace
As long as Man lives…

Because, make no mistake, I am starting to struggle now. I had a really miserable afternoon yesterday and even though I was in bed early and had (for once) a really decent night’s sleep, I wasn’t feeling much better.

Luckily the girls had a lift into school so that I could take things easy this morning. I was in no hurry to surface. I had some food for breakfast, and a coffee, and then a play around on the laptop doing some stuff.

Zoe had told me when she left that she hadn’t been able to find Cujo the Killer Cat, so before I left I tried to hunt her down so that I could put her in one of the rooms where there’s no alarm sensor.

45 minutes I spent trying to find that blasted cat and when I went to the front door to accept a huge parcel delivery, there she was sitting on the bonnet of Strider. Outside all the time!

For most of the day I’ve been running around western New Brunswick fetching parts. It’s been really busy at work today. What added to the confusion was that just as everyone had something important to do, we had a delivery of 72 winter tyres and they all needed sorting and stacking.

Not only that, I’ve been doing my salemanship efforts today. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m something of an expert in Ford Cortina Mk III, Mk IV and Mk V, having made my fortune with them when I ran my taxi company. There are one or two in North America and someone posted on a forum that he couldn’t find any tyres anywhere to fit them

This place where I’m working right now is like an Aladdin’s Cave of treasures dating back years so I had a good look around. And sure enough, there are a handful just the correct size stuck down the back of the depot. And so I put an advert on the appropriate forum.

Back here, still in the driving rainstorm, i went to the Post Office on the way home to post the letters and then came back for tea. Plenty of pasta left over from the weekend, and rice pudding left over from last week. A meal fit for a king.

And then out taxiing until late. Just like old times.

But that’s enough for tonight, I reckon. I’m going to bed and I’m hoping to sleep. I need to pull myself round if I can but then again it’s been almost four months since my last blood transfusion, which I’m supposed to have every four weeks.

But do I care? Of course not. I’ve had a good time. And who wants to lie in bed at home to sit and stare at the bedroom ceiling anyway?

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Sunday 6th October 2019 – IT’S BEEN …

… another day that has been somewhat … errr … less-lively than the others.

Sunday is a Day of Rest as we all know, and resting until about 08:30 flat-out with hardly an interruption during the night is as restful as it gets.

I did manage to leave the bed though round about 09:15 for a trip down the corridor and on returning I found that the place in my nice warm bed had been taken by Cujo the Killer Cat, so I had company for a while.

The Taylor Breakfast Brunch was of the usual high standard, although it was rather later than usual because Strider and I had to run to the shops for some milk as we had run out.

I was summoned to the telephone too, and that took about 20 minutes to deal with.

After breakfast we chilled for a while and then I ran Darren back to the tyre depot where he was going to spend the afternoon working on the one-ton truck. He needs to have that running because we are going to take off the dump body from the old one-ton Ford that we brought down here the other week to fit on the new one so that we can haul grain sacks around with it.

Back here, I emptied out Strider and tidied him up some more. I gave a pile of stuff to Zoe and there’s some more for Darren too.

The pace though had rather overwhelmed me and back in my little room I had a doze for an hour or two – despite my lie-in this morning. But I livened myself up with a shower and a change of clothes. I look almost human now!

Rachel made a lovely tea, a kind of hamburger mash with baked potatoes followed by apple crumble. And I loitered around to chat to her and Zoe for ages.

But now I’m off to bed. Worn out too and I don’t understand it because I’ve had a quiet relaxing day. I always seem to be more tired when I’ve not done anything.

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Thursday 12th September 2019 – IT’S NOT BEEN …

… a particularly good day for me today.

And that’s hardly a surprise bearing in mind the events of last night.

It’s totally pointless going to bed early and trying to sleep because right now we are in the grip of forces much stronger than ourselves and as I have been told by various members of the medical profession, I need to conserve my strength and energy for the battle that lies ahead.

And so the last thing you would think that I was needing was yet another extremely mobile night. Once more it seemed that every 20 minutes I was waking up to add something to the dictaphone. And then going back to sleep again and dropping right back in to where we left off when we awoke.

The proof of the pudding is in the dictaphone with a file from the night as long as your arm. And looking back through the pages of this blog (one of the reasons why I keep it) it corresponds with the period round about the turn of the year 2016 when I had been first diagnosed and they were fighting to keep me alive. Pages and pages of rambling notes about where I had been and what I had done during the night and when we had all kinds of weird and wonderful people making guest appearances.

Not quite how it’s working out though right now because (until I listen to the entries and transcribe the notes) it’s basically the same two or three people accompanying me around. So after having had a night off on Tuesday night, welcome back Castor!

But as to whether I’m rueing all of these nightly interruptions, then the answer is “far from it”. Oscar Wilde’s friend Frank Harris once said that “man takes his pleasure whenever and wherever he can find it” and as I have said before, and on numerous occasions, what I get up to during the night is far more exciting and interesting than whatever goes on during my waking hours – one or two recent events being the exceptions of course.

The alarms went off at the usual time but I didn’t pay much attention. The morning stampede at 07:22 quickly brought me to my senses and a bang on the door shortly afterwards told me that my services were required.

Just for a change, it was a nice morning when I drove the girls to school. Not like the last couple of days when I’ve had thick fog and heavy rainstorms to contend with.

The morning passed completely uneventfully and I went home at lunchtime – to make some sandwiches and to deal with the download that I had done yesterday. That’s all up and running correctly.

So 20 minutes for lunch, 40 minutes for the music, and a blasted hour and a half trying to catch Cujo the Killer Cat and put her in the place in the house where she won’t disturb the alarm. Difficult at first, but once I found the cat treats the rest was easy.

I leapt into Strider to go back to the depot and the first thing that I heard on the *.mp3 player was –
“We need new dreams tonight
“Desert rose
“Dreamed I saw a desert rose
“Dress torn in ribbons and in bows
“Like a siren she calls to me
“She stands with a naked flame
“I stand with the sons of Cain
“Sleep comes like a drug… In God’s Country” and I couldn’t agree more. The events of recent nights (and one or two days too) are clearly getting to me

This afternoon we finished the pickup that had had all of the work done on the springs and that was driven away. I thought that it would never be finished and end up like a Canadian 21st-century version of Crawshay Bailey’s steam engine. Going “to Cardiff College for to get a bit of Knowledge” wouldn’t have solved this problem

The garage is now finally empty so we can tidy up, but the rush starts at 08:00 tomorrow.

But I was totally wasted afterwards. I was right out of it, sitting on a chair, for an hour or so. The stress and the strain (and my illness) are getting on top of me now.

The cash balanced first time round to just a $0.01 difference, and seeing that one cents are no longer valid in Canada, someone has forgotten to do the rounding.

We were in a rush back here so I made the vegan meal for the two vegans amongst us. So well did it go down that the remainder was purloined for a young person’s lunch tomorrow, and I’ve been invited to cook again. So Rachel and I spent well over an hour planning vegan recipes.

But you’ll be amazed at just how complicated a simple task like wrapping a parcel can be when you aren’t in the mood. But once it was done, I found a couple of live tracks (over 37 minutes each) of a Welsh rock group called Lone Star from the 1970s who featured on my radio programmes ages ago so I’ve been editing and engineering them ready for further use.

Not only that, I had a play around with the bass to work out the bass line to the song that I quoted just now. If I’m going to have random music roaming around my head, I may as well work out how to play it.

But I’ll finish that off tomorrow.

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Thursday 20th September 2018 – AND SO …

… after the vicissitudes of the last three weeks or so, I crashed out good and proper at some kind of unearthly hour yesterday evening in the busom of what remains of my family.

But not for long.

My guilty conscience was clearly pricking at me again because I was wide-awake at about 03:00 and again an hour or so later. And what was remarkable about all of this was that not only did I not remember any particular nocturnal ramble, on the latter occasion I was totally disorientated and had to recycle myself back through the last four or five weeks in order to work out where I was.

It was all rather short-lived though.

Next thing that I remember was that it was about 10:00. Everyone here had gone to school or to work except for Cujo the Killer Cat who still remembered me and came for a really good cuddle and stroke.

There’s a new cat too, called Oscar. Hannah adopted one at University and brought it back when she graduated. Cujo is definitely not impressed.

Four pieces of toast and three coffees later I was tempted to jump into Strider and go in search of food but I was in no condition to move. I had a go at starting to update the blog with the missing entries and managed one and a half.

This is going to be a very long job.

Amber came back from school and we had a chat, and then I went back to bed for another three hours.

When Darren came home I had a chat with him and then also with Rachel and Hannah. But I was pretty-much done and that was that.

I went back to bed where I shall sleep for the next 100 years. This has taken so much out of me

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Monday 9th October 2017 – HAPPY THANKSGIVING

And everyone around here is celebrating and giving thanks – for tonight I’ll be on the bus back to Montreal – always assuming that it doesn’t forget me like last year.

I’d had a really early night again last night – alone again, as it happens, and I’d been off on my travels again. back in Virlet as it happens, and everyone was poking fun at me, although there didn’t seem to be any reason why. But I approached the Secretary of the Commune and she explained to me that I was wearing odd shoes. I had a look, and it took quite some doing, even on a close inspection, to see that they were different. How anyone else had noticed from a distance away at a casual glance was beyond me. I asked which “pair” she preferred, and she replied that the “dark blue” shoes were preferable. However they looked the same colour to me and while it might have been dark blue in reality, on my travels last night I reckoned that they were black. So off I trotted back home to look for a matching shoe, but instead found a pair that were a real pair, but were black, and nothing like as highly-polished as the ones that I was wearing (because they really were highly polished). And so, do I ignore the catty remarks, do I carry on hunting for “the other shoe” or do I put on the black, dirty shoes and if so how would everyone else in the village react?

When my alarm went off I went off to ride the porcelain horse, and encountered Cujo the Killer Cat on the way back. I went back to bed seeing as no-one else was stirring, and she stayed there with me for a while before disappearing off.

Eventually, the clatter of dishes from the kitchen told me that Rachel was up and about so I went to help her prepare the breakfast brunch. Famous the whole world over, as I have said.

My share of the breakfast was the beans on toast with hash browns and one of my vegan burgers.

In the afternoon, Amber’s boyfriend came round and we all chilled out and did precisely nothing at all. Round about 14:30, Hannah and her friend left to go back to University at Antigonish and the rest of us, having said goodbye, carried on chatting.

Tea for me was the rest of the vegan burgers, the rest of the beans, and some left-over potatoes from the Thanksgiving meal, followed by rice pudding ditto. Then I went for a shower to wake myself up.

At 19:45 I took my leave of everyone and Rachel drove me to Florenceville and the bus stop. We were an hour early which I preferred after the dreadful performance last year that inconvenienced just about everyone except the bus driver.

We weren’t alone either. One of Rachel’s neighbours was there, putting her son on the bus back to Montreal where he’s at University studying aero-engineering.

maritime coach atlantic riviere du loup quebec canada october octobre 2017We were there quite early, as I have said.

And so, as you might expect, the bus was late arriving.

And Coach Atlantic is spending its money too, so it seems, because this was a modern, clean, comfortable coach, which makes a change from one or two that we’ve travelled on.

Not to say that they were ever dirty or uncomfortable – far from it. But they were starting to become rather long in the tooth. This one was brand-spanking new, with wi-fi, but, alas, still with no power points.

And no data tracker too. Most buses and coaches these days have data trackers fitted so that you can go to the website of the company and see where the bus or coach is. Once Coach Atlantic fits these to their coaches, there won’t be any of this “missing the bus” or waiting around for well over an hour in the pouring rain.

Because pouring rain was what we had had all day. I’d never seen anything like this rain. Heavy, yes, but not persistently so all day.

So having dozed all the way to the St Lawrence, I’m now at Riviere du Loup waiting for the bus that’s coming from the Gaspé that will take me on to Montreal.

It’s always a long night on the overnight bus but at least I don’t have far to stagger from the bus terminal to the hotel where i’ll be staying until tomorrow evening.

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8th October 2017 – CUJO THE KILLER CAT …

… didn’t come to visit me last night.

And that’s just as well, because I wasn’t there.

I’m not sure where we started off last night, or even who I was with, but I can tell you exactly where we finished – and that was where we have finished quite a few times just recently, with Ford Cortinas scattered across various lock-ups in various parts of Crewe. It’s a few times that we’ve been in this situation, and I’m not sure why.
We moved on from here. I was an undercover policeman working in a partnership with a female policewoman. We had booked into a hotel undercover as man and wife in order to have a close look at the hotel’s security arrangements. But it all went wrong when I caught a young guy trying to steal a car – a Hillman Minx V or VI, and left-hand-drive too, from the hotel car park. He had a “health crisis” when we was caught, and it became obvious from my response to it all that I was a policeman and not who I was pretending to be.
And if that isn’t enough, I was in digs in a dingy seaside town when I heard that Michael, a boy from my school, was also in digs there. I went round to see him and his landlady knocked on his door to say that he had a visitor. He came out and, not recognising me, walked right past me. From there I ended up sitting in a church. It was a multi-denominational one and I was getting married, at the same time as someone else.They were catholic so they were on the right side, and I was a protestant so I took up my position on the front row to the left of the aisle.But there was only me, and more and more of the others so I was gradually crowded off my bench. I ended up outside with a fold-up chair with another few people, chatting to a young girl, and we watched a girl of about 5 go past in a full-length burqa. I made some remark about the “photographer” to this girl. Just then my bride arrived. It was Nerina. I offered her my fold-up chair but she went to sit on an empty bench nearby, near this girl who was sitting in a sand heap. I introduced them and much to my surprise Nerina was being sociable, chatting and playing cards with her. Not like Nerina at all.

But the second reason was that I was in bed by 20:00, curled up with the door closed, fast asleep. Even if Cujo the Killer Cat had wanted to come into my room, she wouldn’t have been able to.

I had to go off a few times during the night as well – down the corridor to ride the porcelain horse. And that’s just as well because I would probably still be in bed right now.

Everyone else had a lie-in this morning – there wasn’t much movement around until about 11:00 – not that that is unusual for a Sunday around here of course, as well you all know.

No Sunday brunch though. The Taylor breakfast brunches are famous the whole world over and people travel miles to participate. But today we are going out for lunch. Tonight will be my last night here (and isn’t that a shame? Hasn’t that gone quickly?) and so I’ve invited everyone out for lunch.

We crossed over into the USA and fighting the rainstorms, headed off for Presque Isle, Maine. There’s a Chinese restaurant there, the Oriental Pearl, that everyone likes that does a Sunday buffet lunch, and they do a vegetable and tofu stir-fry for me.

That took us several hours, and then Darren had a surprise for me. They have been expanding the shopping mall down the road, and one of the new businesses that has installed itself in there is Harbor Freight. Huge auto and tool suppliers they are, and I’ve visited their stores on many occasions. But it’s nice to see one in this particular neck of the woods.

Our exit coincided almost exactly with the exit of the girls from JC Penney’s – that couldn’t have been timed better – and we went across the road to Marden’s.

Marden’s is one of those chains of shops that buys up bankrupt stock, fire-damaged stock, all that kind of thing, and they are veritable Aladdin’s Caves of all kinds of things. Most of the tools and accessories in Strider come from there.

We had the usual complications at the border coming back, and then we all launched into something exciting.

A while ago, Hannah and Darren sent their DNA away to be analysed, and the results came back today. Their roots are clearly identified with Darren having Irish/Scandinavian ancestry (which ties in with the Viking settlements over there) and Hannah, as well as that, having British ancestry with a bit of Mediterranean thrown in for good measure (which ties in with what we know about her mother’s side).

That’s led of to a massive ancestry search and there have been all sorts of exciting things being thrown up the research. Mostly on her father’s side and some on ours too, which is interesting.

Anyway, I’m off to bed and I’ll leave them to it. Doubtless there will be more surprises being thrown up during the night.

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