Tag Archives: elaine talbot

Saturday 6th December 2025 – MY CHRISTMAS CAKES …

… both are now marzipanned and back in the fridge, waiting for next weekend when I shall ice them. All that remains after that … "all!" – ed … will be to make the Christmas pudding and the mince pies.

And then to hope that my appetite comes back so that I can enjoy them. At the rate that I’m going, though, it’s unlikely. My appetite is still almost non-existent, but I’m doing my best.

Anyway, last night was another late night. Almost midnight, in fact, when I finally climbed into bed. It was a dreadful night too. It seemed almost as if I hadn’t gone to sleep at all, but instead I lay there tossing and turning throughout the night.

When the alarm went off, I was in that no-man’s land of not being asleep but not being awake either. However, I forced myself out of bed before the second alarm and then, at some point, staggered off into the bathroom.

After the medication and the hot ginger, honey and lemon, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And considering that I didn’t think that I’d gone to sleep at all, I was surprised by just how much there was on there.

I was back on the taxis and it had been a really quiet night. We hadn’t done very much so at the end of the night I went to book myself a room in a hotel to stay the night. I walked in, and one of my neighbours from Shavington was there. We had a chat and he asked me how things were. I told him that they weren’t so good at the moment. I dropped one of my crutches and he said “I’ll try to pick it up” but I picked it up instead. For some reason, his hand went onto my chest to try to stop me breathing. I had to tell him a couple of times to stop doing that. He asked me if I was going to look for another driver. I replied that I’d be finishing school in a couple of months so there’s not much point. Then, my girl driver came in. She wanted to cash up everything. She was very concerned about me. She laid all of her things out on the counter at this hotel reception. She asked if my phone would charge up my headphones. I replied “better than that, there’s a slot to listen where you plug in”. We began to chat but then she had a job to go out to do so she said that she’d have to go, but she didn’t really want to go. I replied “you can always stop the night with me”. She replied “well, I have this fare that I have to pick up”. I replied “well, you can always come back later”. She gave me one of these strange looks”.

It beats me why I would want to book a room in a hotel. And as for the neighbour, I’ve not thought about him since probably about 1972 so how come he worked his way into the scene, I don’t know. But we did have some quiet nights at times where we barely turned a wheel and that was what I call boring. I’d much rather be busy than lounging around doing nothing.

It had been a quiet night on the taxis. I hadn’t really done very much so I was thinking about going home to cash up everything and then maybe have an early night for once. Thomas from Peterborough was extremely offended that he would lose his evening’s work but people explained to him that he was a part-time driver and he would have to take what’s happening from the more important people who were planning the work and booking it … fell asleep here … so there I was, waiting for the final whistle and ready to drop down on my side to carry on working again.

This seems to be part of the first dream, with me going off on a tangent again, whoever Thomas from Peterborough is. But the second part of this looks like we’re back to talking football again.

There was some kind of big family group outing going on, and I was part of it on my own. I ended up talking to this married woman who had a daughter. She and her husband were there and the daughter but I was chatting to this woman. We ended up spending an awful lot of time together, so much so that I’m sure that there must have been talk. The daughter took to me too and I actually took her fishing on one occasion while we were on this outing. But then she said at the night as we were all prepared to camp down in this field that she was off fishing with another boy and she’d be back in the morning to see me so we bedded down. In the meantime, these kids were bedded down in this stream and they came across a car that was in the water. One of them opened the door and recoiled in horror, and they ran all the way back to where we were camping. The teacher was busy talking to a group of people about a missing car. These kids came dashing in, they saw this drawing and shouted “this is the car, this is the car”. They explained that they had seen the car in this stream so we all set out. I was with this woman again and we came to where we needed to go down to the bottom in a lift. There were several lifts, and everyone was queueing at one or two, so we went over to the one where no-one was queueing. We pressed the button and the doors opened, and the girl was in there, wrapped up in a sleeping bag asleep with one of her friends. We went down in this lift and as the lift approached the bottom, I shouted, woke these two kids and unzipped them out of their sleeping bag. We made ready to meet the others who were on their way down so that we could walk off to see the car in this stream and point out what was so horrific to the kids.

There’s an interesting story behind this dream too, but the World isn’t ready to hear it yet. I’ve no idea to what the car relates, though

Did I dictate this dream about a girl whom I knew who was a few years younger than me? We used to hang around a lot together … "no you didn’t" – ed …. It came to the time when she was eighteen and was planning on going to university. In the meantime, I’d been working for a few years after leaving school and was thinking of going to university so I’d applied to Aberdeen. My application had gone in and I asked this girl where she was thinking of going. She replied that she didn’t really know but Aberdeen sounded great to her. I asked if she had a prospectus but she said that she hadn’t, but she’d like to find one somewhere. I said that I had one and I asked her “why not come back to my house and we can spend a day or two going through the prospectus?”. Eventually, she agreed. When I arrived back home, this girl had transformed herself into a big spider. My mother hated spiders so she wouldn’t let this one into the house. I picked up a bike and a few camping things and went off to Canada, with the bike, these camping things and the spider. I set out, and while I was cycling around, I was talking to this spider about Aberdeen University. Eventually, I came to a great big kind of tourist attraction. It was really complicated. There was a river there down in the valley but there was also a river there had been partly canalised that was at the level at which we were. It was running over stones and was really rapid here, splashing everyone. There were people fishing, catching some enormous sizes of fish so I decided that I would spend half an hour fishing while this girl finished off making up her mind, and then we could get together and make a decision. However, I couldn’t make my bike stand up. I eventually found a bike park, which was complicated enough to reach, but no matter how I tried, there was too much weight on my bike for it to stand upright. I was having to think about a solution to prop it up somewhere so that I could go off to fish and leave this girl to finalise her decision. There were a couple of people there, married couples who were sitting around, and even they couldn’t help me make this bike stand upright. I was becoming so frustrated about that.

There is a girl to whom this story fits quite well, although at the time the events in the real World were happening, I didn’t realise it. Turning into a spider and cycling to Canada are quite surreal ideas though.

One thing about these dreams though is that it concerns fishing. I’ve only ever been fishing twice in my life, as a young kid, and found it to be one of the most boring “sports” ever. I couldn’t see the point then and it’s even less so today. I can’t understand why, all of a sudden, I’d be thinking of going fishing right now.

The nurse was late today coming round. I reminded him that it’s possible that tomorrow he’ll find me in bed in the morning, so he made a note. And after he finished my legs, he cleared off.

Once he’d gone, I could make breakfast and carry on reading some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN. Today, we’re still across Hadrian’s Wall roaming around Dere Street but as yet, I’ve not found anything of real importance.

After breakfast, I marzipanned my Christmas cakes. My marzipanning technique seems to be improving because it all went together perfectly the first time of trying the first time without any problems at all. I hope that the icing goes as well as this next weekend.

One thing that I miss though is my turntable. When I was building computers twenty-odd years ago, I had a turntable on which I would put them and it saved me hours. If I had had it here and used it for the marzipanning and the icing, I would save hours on those jobs too.

After a disgusting drink break, I had a mini foot-fest, watching the highlights of last night’s games in Wales. And that reminds me – ONE OF THE BEST GOALS YOU ARE EVER LIKELY TO SEE FOR A LONG, LONG TIME are now available. Take a bow, Corey Shephard!

Later on, I wrote the missing notes for another radio programme to be broadcast in the distant future and there was even time to make a start on yet another radio programme. I have to make the most of my freedom these days.

Things could have been so much better and I could have done so much more too except that once again, I fell asleep in the afternoon. For a good hour or so too. I’m really fed up of all of this.

There was more football tonight – the League Cup semi-final between Cambrian United and Y Barri. Cambrian, from the second division and who play their home games in the suburbs of Tonypandy, had the lion’s share of the play but the class of Y Barri showed through. Whatever chances they created, they took them, whereas Cambrian were pretty wasteful.

The score of 0-3 to Y Barri was definitely a flattering scoreline. And I do have to say that near the end, I crashed out a couple of times.

Tea was chips, salad and some of those vegan nuggets that I like. Only a small portion, but even so, I struggled to eat it all.

Right now though, I’m off to bed, hoping for a really good lie-in tomorrow. But we shall see about that.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about cycling to Canada … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of when I was AT THE POINT AMOUR LIGHTHOUSE on my mega-drive around the mountains of Labrador in 2010.
At the lighthouse, I met a woman who stared in disbelief at my small urban-motoring saloon and said, incredulously "have you driven around the Trans-labrador Highway in THAT??? "
"Ohh yes" I replied. "It’s not the car that counts, it’s the driver. And the next time that I come to Canada, I’ll be crossing the Atlantic on a motor-bike!"
The funny thing about this story is that when I told it to a Canadian girl a few years later, she asked "and did you?"
All of which goes to show that, as Kenneth Williams and Alfred Hitchcock once famously said, "it’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners."

0

Wednesday 28th May 2025 – GUESS WHO …

… has been a busy boy today?

It’s been a long time since I’ve had quite such a burst of energy, and I wish that I would have similar bursts much more often. I would be able to accomplish so much more.

It didn’t look as if it was going to be like that last night. As seems to be the case just recently, from a position where I was on course to have an early finish, I managed once more to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and ended up going to bed rather later than I anticipated.

Once in bed, I managed to go off to sleep quite quickly yet again and managed to sleep all the way through until … errr … 05:50 this morning. And with no prospect of going back to sleep afterwards, I was up and about, washed and cleaned up, and in the kitchen taking my medication when the alarm went off at 07:00.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We were going somewhere on a trip. There was a coach and I noticed on the dashboard that there was a “Bedford” emblem so I asked the driver if it was a Bedford. He said “yes” so I asked about the engine that was in it. He replied that it was the O-600. I thought that that was an interesting combination. I pulled out a workshop manual and began to read a little about it. I was with a friend of mine, a young lady who may well have been Moonchild. I was trying to interest her in something but I noticed that she was asleep. One of the guys there said “why don’t you awaken her?”. I replied “I wouldn’t be very popular if I did but it’s nice to think that she can sleep and feel so comfortable like this so we may as well leave her to it”.

So hello again, Moonchild. It’s nice to know that at least one of my favourite young ladies hasn’t deserted me completely as the other three seem to have done. And it’s hardly surprising that I’d be interested in the bus having an O-600 engine. While a few Bedfords had the smaller O-400 engine, they were lightweight coaches usually with a Bedford lightweight lorry engine, rather than a big heavyweight Leyland O-600. We had a few Leyland coaches at Shearings and quite often when I was running up to Scotland I’d “rev out” at 70 mph in 5th gear, never mind sixth. When I worked for Salopia back in 1979 it was embarrassing struggling up Frankley Bank on the M5 in a modern Ford R1114 lightweight coach when an ancient Yelloway AEC Reliance O-600 would roar past me as if I were standing still.

But going back to Moonchild and being asleep, there’s a story behind that too but it’s another one that the World is not yet ready to here.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in as usual, sorted out my legs and so on, and then breezed out again. She didn’t hang around long. I could then press on and make breakfast and sit down to read some more of MY BOOK.

Today, we’ve left Rochester Castle and its rude doorways and bold architraves, and have now arrived at Rockingham Castle. Our discussion on Medieval Military Architecture has turned to the interesting and very relevant subject of the trees and deer in the Royal Forest there, and the expropriation of the King’s land by various local people, including some people of a religious persuasion who clearly consider themselves exempt from the provisions of the Ten Commandments.

Back in here, I had a few tasks to finish off, and then I decided to have a look at the next radio programme, 260612. And by the time that I’d finished this afternoon, not only had I planned the programme, I’d chosen the music, remixed, edited, paired and segued it and written all of the notes.

As well as that, I’d edited the notes that I’d dictated the other morning for the two extra tracks for the two programmes that I’d prepared on Sunday and even assembled one of them too. I would have finished the other one too, except that Bane of Britain seems to have misread his timing run and chosen a track 2:32 long instead of 3:23 long.

So that’s now gone back onto the drawing board. I’ve chosen a new track, written the notes for it and I’ll dictate them at the next opportunity.

All of that was despite two disgusting drinks breaks and the appearance of my cleaner who came in to do her stuff this afternoon.

After she left I sorted out some naan dough from the freezer and left it to defrost ready for tea.

Tonight’s leftover curry was the best that I have ever made. I’m not sure what I did and I wish that I could remember because it really was excellent, just like a shop-bought one.

So that’s enough for tonight. I’m off to bed ready for tomorrow morning to attack my Woodstock programme and then prepare for dialysis, to which I am not looking forward at all.

But while we are continuing our discussions about medieval castles … "well, one of us is" – ed … the mystery of the rude doorway at Rochester is resolved.
When one of my friends came online earlier today I mentioned it to her.
"I know what’s the matter there" she said
"And what’s that?" I asked, bitterly regretting it ten seconds later
"Seeing as it’s a medieval castle" she said "it’s probably suffering from Turrets Syndrome"

0

Wednesday 29th January 2025 – MY APPLE CAKE …

… is magnificent.

In the oven, it rose up like a lift – the first cake to ever do that in all the time since I’ve started baking.

It’s a basic oil cake but instead of it being all-vegetable oil I substituted some coconut oil in place of about half of it, slowly melted in the microwave. In the cake itself are two eating apples, minced up with my big whizzer and also some desiccated coconut and spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg.

It’s now in the fridge, cut up into sixteen slices and ready to eat as of tomorrow night with the soya dessert because the chocolate cake is now all finished.

But talking of the beautiful cake … "well, one of us is" – ed … I’ve had a really good day today, which is a surprise considering how much moaning I’ve done just recently. But there’s a reason for that – I had a visitor during the night.

But more of that … "anon" – ed …

First of all, in yet more surprising news, I was actually in bed early. Not before 23:00 I hasten to add, but by 23:40 and that’s quite an early time for me these days.

But once in bed I remember nothing at all until the alarm went off. I was really soundly and comfortably asleep.

Once more, it was a struggle to rise to my feet but, beating the second alarm (only just), I headed off into the bathroom to sort myself out.

Into the kitchen afterwards to take my medicine, all of it (except the Vitamin D supplement) this morning, and then back into here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I was during the night.

And look at this! There was a football club that had recently undergone a change of manager. It was the first game under the new manager last night. The commentators were talking and were saying that this is a very important match for this manager to win because with him being new he will have set his stall out and the club that he was managing, which was Peterborough United was a big club with many fans who all used to go to the ground on one occasion but attendances had dwindled. I had a look at the attendances and found that they were in the nine thousands, which I thought for a town like Peterborough with a team like theirs is actually pretty good going in any case. If he could bring it up to eleven or twelve thousand that would be exceptional. This apparently was not an unrealistic dream and the commentators were fully behind him as he sorted out his team and would take advantage of his new position and take them to win the game. Somewhere amongst all of this, Moonchild was there. I distinctly remember speaking to her although I didn’t say very much of any interest but she was certainly there last night looking at the situation and looking at me on this commentary team talking about Peterborough United.

Yes, Moonchild came DANCING IN THE SHALLOWS OF A RIVER … PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK WITH THE GHOSTS OF DAWN, WAITING FOR A SMILE FROM A SUN CHILD and put in an appearance, How lovely to see her. It may not be a satisfactory appearance, her being on the fringe of a dream, but she was there none-the-less. I shall have to work much harder and try to entice her further towards centre-stage.

However, what’s all this about Peterborough United? That’s a team that has absolutely no significance in anything that I have ever done, so I’ve no idea why the club should figure during a night-time voyage. But then again, if I hadn’t gone there I wouldn’t have seen Moonchild.

Later on, there was a group of disabled people, me included, that were being examined for reassessment etc. Just as it was about to be my turn and everyone was going for a coffee or something like that, it was the end of the day and everything was quietening down, my alarm began to sound. everyone looked at me and said “Eric! How could you!” in an air of bitter disappointment. It wasn’t until about 30 seconds later that I realised that it actually was my alarm going off.

That was somehow prophetic, wasn’t it? But I’ve had plenty of dreams where the subject matter has fused into something that was actually happening simultaneously in real life.

Isabelle the Nurse and I had something of a chat. She’s off to the ski slopes on Saturday but unfortunately there is no room in her suitcase for me. I really need a holiday right now but that’s impossible.

If they had told me last summer that I wouldn’t have ever gone far again for the rest of my life, I’d have booked a cruise or something, or gone to a special home or resort where I could relax and stretch out. I enjoyed the voyage on THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR and I’d happily do it again. At least I fulfilled a few of my lifetime ambitions, such as crossing the Atlantic by sea and then sailing the North West Passage.

After Isabelle the Nurse left, I made my breakfast and read MY BOOK.

At long last, I’ve finished it, and I can’t say that I’m sorry. He’s spent page after page after page in complicated calculations, such as on which date did Caesar sail, only to tell us that it doesn’t really matter. I’ve come to the conclusion that he has plenty of knowledge (which is impressive) and I’ve enjoyed sharing in it but how he loves to flaunt it, quite often unnecessarily. And how he loves to insult his contemporaries who don’t have the same knowledge as he does, and don’t have the time to find it.

Here’s hoping that my next book, whatever it is, is less confrontational than this one was. It was really hard going.

Back in here I had bills to pay. Once more, the standing order that pays my taxe foncière – my local authority rates, has failed and I’ve no idea why. But anyway, these days we can pay on-line so once I’d found my wallet, off I go.

There was also the Property Tax on my place in Canada to organise.

Buying that place in Canada was a shrewd move. There are no identity cards in Canada so evidence of habitation is served by the possession of a Property Tax assessment. And armed with my Property Tax Assessment I could open a bank account, buy a mobile ‘phone, buy a pick-up, take out car insurance and a thousand and one other things.

Once I’d sorted myself out it was almost lunchtime but I made a start on choosing the music for the next radio programme.

Lunch was a slice of flapjack and some fruit which was nice, especially the flapjack. Mixing the ingredients in the big mixer is definitely the way forward. That mixer was a shrewd investment too.

Back in here I had to resort the music as I had mistaken one musician, but eventually all of the stuff was chosen, remixed, edited, converted, paired and segued.

At this point, the cleaner came along to do her stuff. And that included helping me into the shower.

First though, I have to hand-wash some clothes and then throw them into the bath where they will be rinsed. And then I climb in. It’s still quite a laugh that the company who came here to “help” me wanted €300-odd for a machine to help me that didn’t work, and my cleaner and I rigged up a system with one chair and two wooden boxes, cost €0.00.

After she left I began to write the notes for the music but it was soon Christmas Cake time. Just one more helping of Christmas Cake, which will be on Friday, and then it will be back to the hummus and crackers again

When my little break was over I made my cake. And as I said, it’s wonderful. It took even longer to bake than previous cakes but it’s risen really well, and really equally too. I’ll start eating that tomorrow with my soya dessert and if it tastes as nice as the crumbs that I ate, it really will be nice.

Tea tonight was a leftover curry, but there wasn’t much left over so a handful of lentils went into it. No naan either because I forgot to take some dough out of the freezer at lunchtime. Still, it really was nice all the same.

So right now I’m off to bed ready to finish off my music notes in the morning, and then continue this downloading..

But seeing as we have been talking about Canada … "well, one of us has" – ed … Canada is lovely, the people are lovely (especially my family in New Brunswick and Ottawa as well as Castor of course) and I could have quite happily emigrated there.

However, I fell into that gap – over 55 means no work permit and you can’t be an aged dependant until you are 65. I was 57 when I applied, and when I was 65 I was too ill to go.

But someone told me a lovely story about Canadians. It went "how do you make 200 rowdy, rioting Canadian men to leave a bar at closing time? "
"Go on" I replied. "I’ll buy it. How do you make 200 rowdy, rioting Canadian men to leave a bar at closing time?"
"Simple" replied my interlocutor. "You ask them."

0

Friday 24th January 2024 – HERE I ALL AM …

… not exactly sitting in a rainbow but sitting at my desk in the comfort and safety of my own apartment (well, someone else’s but I live in it) after without any doubt the quickest drive home that I have ever had.

It was an ambulance that brought me home, and there are a couple of advantages of being in an ambulance in Paris. Those two advantages are blue and they flash. Hence we didn’t have too much trouble fighting our way through the rush-hour traffic.

One of the big advantages of having thrown in my lot with the biggest taxi, VSL and ambulance company in Normandy is that they have vehicles everywhere. So when the hospital administration ‘phones them to say that I’m ready to go home, it’s not “okay, I have too find a driver first and then it’ll be a four-hour wait while he drives there”, it’s “we have an ambulance in Paris already, dropping off someone at another hospital, so when they are free, we’ll send it round”.

And so they finished with me at 16:40 and by 17:40 we were just about on our way home

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

Last night after I had finished my notes it was late – very late. But never mind. I went to bed, put my headphones back on and listened to some more good music for hours and hours.

Eventually I fell asleep, awoke again and switched off the computer, and then went back to sleep.

But it was a horrible night. It was as if my left shin had caught fire and eventually I had to give up and I called for the nurse. She smothered it in cold cream and that seemed to ease the pain for a while, and eventually I went back to sleep.

At 07:00 I had one of those dramatic awakenings that I sometimes have. I decided nevertheless to stay in bed and tease the nurses again, but it was a different crew today. They were nice and cheerful too, and that really makes a difference.

It was breakfast in bed yet again but I restrained myself from asking if the young student nurse would feed me with grapes.

After breakfast I went and had a good scrub up in the bathroom. I asked for a chair for the bathroom so that I could have a shower and eventually it turned up, just after I’d given up waiting and dressed. Never mind – I’ll have a shower later.

Back in the bedroom I transcribed the dictaphone notes. It’s a surprise that there actually were some, the way that the night had gone. And look at this! Moonchild came to see me last night. She came DANCING IN THE SHALLOWS OF A RIVER to see me in a folk music group. We were playing at Dungeness at the extreme south-east of Kent. I was playing some instrument or other. She wanted to come along and see what happened and see what went on and so of course I agreed to take her. Although she was in this dream she was very much in the background and it wasn’t really about her at all, more about this group I suppose.

But I’m still shaking my head in bewilderment about what’s going on here. Not that I’m complaining of course – in fact regular readers of this rubbish will recall that Moonchild has been rapidly promoted into the top tier of favourite nocturnal invitees along with Castor, Zero and TOTGA, and hasn’t worked anything like as hard as the others to be there, but I don’t understand why her dramatic appearance should have taken place at all. At the actual moments in real life when Moonchild was present, they was of no significance whatsoever. The folk festival is of some significance and so is the idea of taking her somewhere, but her fading into the background is, shall we say, disappointing at the very least.

And not playing bass? This probably relates to a decision that I made a day or so ago, and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have been to Dungeness ON A COUPLE OF OCCASIONS, including the famous occasion when I had to repair a Spitfire, and I bet that you think that I am joking too.

Later on we were talking about – there was a girl from work. Another one with long, blond hair. I’d been chatting to her for quite a while and it seemed that she had been becoming much more attached to me than perhaps she ought, not that I was objecting but she had a boyfriend. There was some talk about work, going away on a mission somewhere. Of course she was going, and I was going too. Our conversation developed into something quite intimate and it was suggested that this was one way that our employers could save the cost of one room. We were going home from work and ended up walking around Frank Bott Avenue, Underwood Lane area of Crewe. As we walked up towards West Street and the old railway works we began to discuss how close we were going to be. It was quite obvious that both of us had plans. The talk came round to how nervous people are the first time that they take each other to bed, how things never worked out as they were planned to do etc. So she just stopped, looked at me and said “does your weekly budget run to the cost of renting a room in a hotel for a night where we could go?”. I was stunned by this, but of course I replied “if it didn’t, I would make it”. At that point we walked hand-in-hand down West Street. We came past a hotel and we noticed that the side door was open. We walked in through the side door, walked upstairs, found an empty room and went in. A couple of weeks later, still before this trip, we were organising a party at work and were having fancy dress clothes etc. Of the costumes, there was only one left when I went into the changing room. It was something that I don’t suppose was particularly appropriate and it was small but I had to put it on. She was sitting on the top shelf of a cupboard laughing and joking. I asked her if I could change my clothes in there because there was nowhere else. She wondered why I had asked her and no-one else. I explained that I thought that she was part of the organising committee like me, although with an undertone that implied that she was probably much more friendly with me than anyone else there. She was with her boyfriend at the time, laughing and joking. In the end she climbed down from her shelf and went off. I climbed into her shelf and began to change. Then I was thinking that has what happened just now changed anything that might otherwise have happened at the place where were going away. Have I once more managed to rip defeat from the jaws of victory?

Getting the Girl? How often does that happen in a dream? It can’t have been more than a handful of times during the 26 or so years that I’ve been undertaking this project. Where are the members of my family who usually come along and stick le baton dans la roue at the crucial moment? They always used to do that in real life and, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, they do it quite often in my dreams too. But I’m impressed that I can remember phrases like to “rip defeat from the jaws of victory” in my sleep although, of course, “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” as I did right at the end here in this dream is also par for the course.

I was having a really long, complicated dream when all of a sudden at 07:00 exactly I awoke and sat bolt-upright and the whole thing disappeared except for right at the end when I was sitting at a table about to give a presentation. One of the women sitting at a table sideways on to me also on the stage asked if she could close the curtain so that she could be hidden from view. I told her that that would be fine provided that I could use the plug at her feet to plug in one of the machines that I needed for my presentation. Then I was thinking that perhaps I ought to make some kind of flying lead so that I could plug that into the floor at my feet and plug in a couple of appliances to that.

In the past I’ve given several presentations, like the one on THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR when I talked about the changing shape of maps in the High Arctic due to the melt of the Polar ice-cap and the one in France when I gave a lecture on my drive around THE TRANS-LABRADOR HIGHWAY but they’ve usually passed off with the same amount of polite and genteel passive disinterest

One task that I had set myself, TO PROVE MYSELF WORTHY was to deal with the outstanding correspondence, of which there was more than enough.

So no-one should be waiting for a reply from me now because I hope that I’m up-to-date. If you still haven’t had a reply to anything that you have sent to me, then drop me a reminder. And if you haven’t written to me but want to drop me a line, there’s a “contact me” button down at the bottom-right of your screen. I love to interact with my audience

My nice cute Romanian doctoress came to see me and reminded me of the biopsy, which will take place at abut midday. So no time to take a shower.

Lunch came on time, and considering that I had signed a form to say that I was a vegan, lunch today was fish –
IT’S FISH EVERY FRIDAY
IT’S FISH TWO FEET WIDE
IT COVERS UP YOUR PLATE
AND HANGS OVER THE SIDE

Round about 13:00, waiting for the biopsy, I began another project which was to track down *.pdf copies of some of the books that I downloaded years ago when this Gutenberg/Google project wasn’t as organised and it was all in *.txt format.

Some of them haven’t as yet been converted but others have so I was downloading those that I could find. It’s important to have the *.pdf copies if they are available because the *.txt copies didn’t, obviously, include the maps and illustrations.

Round about 14:00 my cute little Romanian doctoress came to tell me that the biopsy will be at 15:00 as the person who performs it is busy. So no time for a shower right now.

It was 16:00 when she finally put in an appearance, with my cute little Romanian doctoress trailing along behind. She wanted a slice of a saliva gland from my lip so first she gave me a local anaesthetic.

The actual sectioning of the gland was totally painless thanks to the injection, and they were very happy with what they had taken. They wandered off, leaving me lying on the bed waiting for someone to come back and sort me out.

Eventually my cute little Romanian doctoress came back with a huge pile of paperwork, and told me that I was free to go. They won’t have the results now until Monday and there’s no sense my staying there. The senior doctor in charge of my case will call me back for a discussion in due course.

Thinking that “at last I can have my shower because there will be four hours before the taxi arrives” she told me that they’d be here in half an hour. So no time for a shower.

Most of my stuff was already packed so I put the rest away ready for when my driver turned up. Only it was two of them. What had I done to deserve an ambulance?

This was when they told me about the person whom they were bringing. No shower then, but at least I’ll be home at some respectable time.

And so I was too. We dashed through the rush-hour traffic and then sped down the motorway. I have an app. on my ‘phone that can follow a route and it displays the speed at which we were travelling. Down the motorway in the pouring rain at 139kph will put hairs on anyone’s chest.

When we arrived and I told them that I was impressed with the speed, the driver apologised and said "I couldn’t go as fast as usual because of the conditions". I’ll travel with him next time in the sunny daylight them and compare notes.

Getting in and out of the ambulance is fun though. To climb in, I have to sit on the floor, swivel my legs in, press them up against the bulkhead and use the force of my arms and shoulders to lever myself up into the seat in the back. Exiting the vehicle is the reverse of the procedure

Back in here my cleaner helped me unpack and here I am, ready to fight another day. I’ll have the results of everything in a few days and then we’ll know where we are going with all of this.

But the story behind this ambulance is that someone called the Emergency Service.
He said "send an ambulance to 6 rue Monseigneur Aethelbaldric Essioriaeth. My wife has been taken seriously ill"
"Certainly sir" said the operator. "How do you spell the street name?"
"Wait a minute" said the caller. And then there was silence
"Are you still there?" asked the operator
And a heavy-breathing voice replied "Yes I am"
"Where have you been?" asked the operator
"I couldn’t spell the street name" said the caller "so I dragged her around the corner and she’s now on the pavement in the Rue Haute."

0

Friday 17th January 2025 – YET ANOTHER DAY …

… when I haven’t advanced anywhere near as far as I would have liked. Whatever happened to that spurt of energy and enthusiasm that I had when the dialysis first started?

After I’d finished my notes I’d tried to be ready for bed quickly but, as usual, a concert on the playlist came round to disrupt me. It was another Lindisfarne concert and, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I can’t ignore a Lindisfarne concert.

Consequently it was quite late yet again when I crawled into my nice fresh bed, still clean from Wednesday night when it was so delicious.

Being left alone with my thoughts is not a good idea for my long-term wellbeing but in the short-term I’ll just have to clutch the memories as they go flying past, and live out in my imagination how I would have liked things to have been – carpe diem and all of that – instead of how things did – and didn’t – turn out. That’s the big advantage of having a shocking memory but a vivid imagination. I can do this kind of thing with ease.

Eventually I managed to fall asleep and while it wasn’t as static as the previous night, I didn’t move around very much. But once more, we had a phantom alarm call at 06:25 this morning. I wish that I knew what was going on.

After that though I did manage to go back to sleep and was well away when the alarm went off at 07:00.

It was another struggle to haul myself to my feet, but it has to be done and I staggered off into the bathroom to sort myself out for the day.

Into the kitchen for the medication and then back in here to sort out the stuff on the dictaphone. And here we go. What’s been on my mind finally penetrated the subconscious last night. I wondered when it would. We were all at some kind of dance and I ended up dancing with Moonchild (who made her first appearance in my dreams). While we were dancing the music suddenly changed to a very slow dance so I took her in my arms and held her. We had this slow dance and there I was, with Moonchild in my hands. There was also something about going into the kitchen because the pots needed filling with raisins and we weren’t sure how to do it. A girl and I had done it at the start. We figured out that 100 pots at just under 500 grammes would be sufficient but for some reason everyone seemed to be doubting that.

Yes, so there was Moonchild, DANCING IN THE SHALLOWS OF A RIVER … PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK WITH THE GHOSTS OF DAWN, WAITING FOR A SMILE FROM A SUN CHILD and making her debut in my nocturnal rambles as I held her tightly in a dance.

Except that she has been here before, but a long time ago and I’d almost forgotten all about it. But whether or not she should appear at this moment, it’s difficult to say. You might say that I have “mixed emotions”, and that’s certainly true, but not in the sense that they usually mean.

But what the hell is happening here? Why has all of this suddenly appeared these last few days?

Isabelle the nurse came to sort out my legs. Once more she was in something of a rush and didn’t stay long. I could press on, make my breakfast and read MY BOOK.

Shame as it is to say it, I’ve become depressed with the author’s continual insults and vitriol that he’s heaping onto his colleagues. I really don’t know how his book ended up in print without the publisher having to take on some hefty legal insurance. Today he writes that a contemporary "again shows himself a most troublesome witness. Unfortunately this meritorious geologist, who laboured hard to elucidate the geographical questions connected with the ancient history of East Kent, was a bad writer"

He’s also criticising a couple of his contemporaries for their remarks. One author, he says, "quotes no authority and gives no reasons" for his conjectures and another author "also without giving either authority or reason" posts a certain position with which he disagrees.

And then a couple of pages later he devotes several thousand words to a section of the Kent coast without himself quoting one single reference to back up his comments.

So I despair.

Back in here I had a few things to do and all of that took me much longer than I was anticipating. It’s one of those things that the more you do, the more you have to do and the more you end up doing.

As a result, I was late going for my lunch today and had hardly made it back to my desk when my cleaner came to do her stuff.

Eventually I could press on and finish selecting the music for the next radio programme. That’s all remixed, edited, paired off and segued, and I’ve even written some of the notes. But I wanted to be much farther down the line than this.

What finally held me up was that Rosemary called for a chat. Not that I’ve any objection to speaking to friends – quite the reverse in fact; but there we were. And it was only a small chat today – one hour and eighteen minutes. We’re losing our touch.

Tonight’s tea was different than usual. We had salad and chips of course but I’d found some strange things in the freezer that I’d bought in NOZ ages ago and needed to be eaten. So I had half a packet of those tonight and they weren’t bad at all. I wished now that I’d bought a few more packets.

But this leads me on to the next thing – that there is stuff in the freezer that I don’t know that I have and was probably brought down from Mount Ararat when Moses docked his Ark there. One day I’ll have to make an inventory.

But not right now though because I’m off to bed. My two left-over pies are freezing in the icebox in the fridge and they’ll go into the freezer tomorrow, and then there’s all the washing to do. I’ll be glad to get to dialysis for the rest.

But while we’re on the subject of mixed emotions … "well, one of us is" – ed … I was talking to someone whoe mother-in-law had recently died.
"What happened?" I asked
"She was driving along the A259 near Folkestone" he said "when the cliff collapsed and the road, the car and the mother-in-law crashed down into the sea. She was buried under hundreds of tonnes of rubble"
"How do you feel about that?" I asked
"I have mixed emotions" he replied
"Why is that?"
"She was driving my Vintage Bentley at the time"

0

Thursday 16th January 2025 – MY VEGAN PIES …

… are delicious. At least, the one that I had for tea tonight was. I had to leave them to cook for a lot longer than recommended because of the inconsistency of my little table-top oven, but the end result was well-worth it.

And for some reason, being in bed last night was quite interesting too. It was yet another very late night, but I think that we are all becoming used to this. Tea seemed to take ages to make and then when it was finished I wasn’t in much of a mood to do anything, and whatever there was to do took an age to be done. That seems to be becoming something of a habit too.

It was long after 00:30 when I finally crawled into bed and going to sleep was also something that took an age to be done, and it’s dangerous for me to be left alone in the small hours with nothing but my dark thoughts to keep me company. I have a lot on my mind right now, and it’s nothing about which I can do anything at all.

And seeing that it relates to something that happened (or, more to the point, didn’t happen) over 45 years ago, there’s not much point brooding on it. I’d chase it out of my mind if I possibly could but then, deep down, I don’t really want to. I’m in a bit of a mess at the moment and have been for several days.

Eventually though I did go off to sleep and there I lay, dead to the World until the alarm went off.

It really was “dead to the World” too. In bed I wear a tubigrip bandage over the plasters on my arm to keep them in place, and inevitably, when I roll around in bed, the bandage rides up my arm. But this morning, when I awoke, not only was I in exactly the last place and position that I remember before going to sleep, the bandage was exactly where it had been put the previous night. I can’t have moved an inch.

When the alarm went off I found it difficult once more to raise myself from the Dead but eventually I staggered off into the bathroom for a good wash, scrub and shave. After all, you never know. Emilie the Cute Consultant might be there.

In the kitchen I sorted out the morning’s medication and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. And to my dismay, there was nothing on it from the night. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only excitement that I have these days is what goes on at night.

At least though, it really WAS “dead to the World”.

Isabelle the nurse was in a rush yet again and didn’t even have time to listen to my change of programme. She was in and out like a flash today.

And then I made breakfast and read MY BOOK.

We talked about the critic who said, and with which I am in complete agreement, that "a flurry of argument and counter-argument". Seriously, there is no place in any Academic publication for remarks that he uses to say that someone’s "argument rests upon a doubtful ‘perhaps’, an obscure ‘apparently ‘, a desperate ‘ must have been ’, and the baseless assumption that the Belgae had established dominion in Britain in the time of Pytheas".

Had I been his editor or publisher, I’d have long-since excised his remarks.

But turning to some more of his arguments, he’s puzzled as to why there is no evidence of tin production from Cornwall in the first two hundred years after the Roman conquest. Plenty before and plenty subsequently. "Yet if the tin trade had then been flourishing they would hardly have stopped"

In the period leading up to the Roman invasion, the inhabitants of Cornwall and the Roman Empire were at peace with each other. Then it took two hundred years of fighting for the Romans to establish themselves that far West and gain control of all of the mines for themselves. It’s hardly likely that during the period of the war and fighting, the Cornish tin merchants would be trading with the enemy.

Another issue that he’s having today is why, if Cornwall was where Cassiterides was and the shipping point led to an overland voyage all the way across Gaul rather than by sea direct to the trading port of Massilla, "The argument based upon the fact that the overland journey lasted thirty days implies that the merchants would have deliberately preferred a longer to a shorter route"

The answer to that is the “Voyage of Himilco”, that we mentioned a couple of days ago. He was the Carthaginian sailor who found his trip to the tin mines by boat so frightening that he wrote a book talking about attacks by sea-monsters and generally scaring his contemporaries to death.

Back in here I finished off my radio notes at long last and began to choose the music for the next radio programme. However, I hadn’t finished when I was once more take by surprise by the cleaner who came to fit my patches.

Once more it was a long wait for the taxi but it was the girl who brought me home last time so I didn’t mind at all. There were just the two of us and we had a nice, chatty time down to Avranches.

Plugging me in was painful as usual but nothing as painful whatever as last Saturday. I don’t think that anything could ever be. However, when the anaesthetic wore off I began to know about it.

During the last couple of days I’ve accumulated a lot of water, so much so that the machine doesn’t have the means to remove it all. I’ve no idea what they will do about that. But there was quite a crowd around me giving me an examination. Unfortunately, not including Emilie the Cute Consultant. She can come and examine me any time she likes.

There was something of a wait for a taxi home, and when it turned up it already had a passenger. But the driver was a history buff who knew, would you believe, all about the stuff that I’ve been reading, menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed …, Cartier and Champlain, the exploration of North America, and so we had a lively chat on the way home.

My cleaner was waiting for me and she watched once more as I strode up the stairs to the lift. The handrail still isn’t fixed up to here and it probably never will be. They don’t seem to be in too much of a rush

Back in here I made myself tea. I baked the three pies in the oven and steamed a lot of veg in the electric steamer. I’ve not used that for ages.

Everything was really nice, especially the gravy, which I made with the steamed veg water.

So now it’s bedtime and tomorrow I have a Day of Rest when I’ll be doing some more of this radio stuff so that I have another programme ready if I can.

But in this gaggle of people around my bed this afternoon someone was talking about life in the Nephrology Clinic, when a sailor had been admitted and they had examined him
Apparently the Ward Matron had gone into the Nurses’ rest room, saying "there’s a sailor just been admitted to the Nephrology Ward and he has the word ‘Ludo’ tattooed on his private parts"
Of course, all of the nurses dashed out to have a look for themselves
A few minutes later the pretty young student nurse came back. "It’s not ‘Ludo’" she announced. "It’s ‘Llandudno’"

0

Wednesday 15th January 2025 – MARGARET THATCHER …

… once said something like “anyone can do a good day’s work when they want to. The secret of success is doing a good day’s work when you don’t want to”.

That’s not exactly what she said but I reckon that it’s near enough and if that’s the case, then I have failed miserably today.

Don’t ask me why, but I’m thinking that today in Sunday and it’s not just once but several times that I’ve been thinking that it’s Sunday. I’ve certainly been lethargic and sloth-like today as maybe I would have been on a Sunday back in the olden days. These days I don’t have the time to waste like this and it’s really depressing to see by how much I’ve fallen short of my aims.

As you might expect, after the chaos at Cae y Castell on Deeside last night, it was horribly late when I finally finished everything that I needed to do and crawled off to bed.

Not that there was much time to sleep because once again we had a phantom alarm call. I’m so convinced that these are real because they sound just like an alarm but it’s clearly not anything in my bedroom. I’d try to identify it if I could but as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m usually flat-out asleep when it sounds and even though I do sit bolt-upright, by that time whatever noise it is has long-since stopped.

So resisting the impulse to climb out of bed I curled up back under the covers and went off to sleep again.

When the alarm did finally go off I was no-where near ready to leave my stinking pit. And that’s another mystery – why is it that I feel so much more energetic and more ready to leave the bed and spring into action when it’s a phantom alarm call?

So anyway, I eventually found the willpower to crawl off into the bathroom and clean myself up ready for the day, and then go into the kitchen to sort out the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There’s something stuck in my mind about someone talking about apartment-sharing, saying that he was ready to share an apartment with someone. This was after something had happened concerning a roundabout in the middle of the countryside in the ancient times. I can’t really remember any more about this but I have all this stuck firmly in my mind

Well, that’s what I dictated any as for what it means I’ve no idea. Ancient times probably refers to the book that I’m reading right now but I can’t place the rest. However it does strike a chord about something about which I’ve been thinking this last few days and which I briefly mentioned in passing a few days ago, dating back to my brief stay in Elm Drive. However some things are best left behind, dead and buried, even if I am brooding on some of them somewhat right now.

Isabelle the nurse came round rather later than usual today. She was quite busy, as you might expect and didn’t stay long. Nevertheless she was quite chatty and talked about the chaos in the town with all of these roadworks.

After she left, I made breakfast and read MY BOOK.

Our hero is busy lashing out left and right at all of his contemporaries. He’s demolishing all kinds of theories about Stonehenge and proposing one of his own which is just as incorrect (and maybe more so), and then arguing about the location of the mythical tin mines of the Phoenicians at Cassiterides.

To be honest, his flailing about is becoming rather difficult and off-putting to read, with the increase in personal attacks and the abuse that he is heaping on his colleagues. He makes a lot of interesting points, but they are swamped by the invective. But don’t worry – only another 300 or so pages to go.

What’s interesting though is that he’s quoting a lot of sources for his criticism, and I am busy tracking them down and downloading them. My virtual library is expanding rapidly.

Back in here I had things to do.

First off was to telephone Paris to argue with them about a convocation to attend next Wednesday. "We don’t do that here" they said, although their colleagues in Neurology do.

It’s important to have one because I need to book a taxi and it’s no good my saying “we’ll pick up the paperwork when we arrive” because if the hospital cancels the appointment mid-trip, there won’t be any paperwork and I’ll have to pay the taxi myself – €1600 – rather than the Securité Sociale picking up the bill.

And in case you are thinking that it’s far-fetched, regular readers of this rubbish will recall back in 2020 or 2021 in the middle of a train strike and so I drove overnight all the way to Leuven for an appointment, only for them to cancel it just as I pulled into the city after a 700km overnight drive.

The best that could do was to confirm it by voice over the ‘phone so I could ring up the taxi company. They knew about the change of day for my dialysis from Thursday to Wednesday, but they had me down for the afternoon, not morning. So I had to change all of that and book a car to Paris, hoping that it will all go to plan.

Having done that I was well on my way when the ‘phone rang. It was the taxi arriving to take me to dialysis."It’s tomorrow". I said. "but it’s on Wednesday next week, but in the morning".

So I had to ring up the Dialysis Centre to make sure, and then ring back the taxi company for them to put their records straight. At least, being early and wrong is better than being wrong and late

Next interruption for my plan to finish my radio notes was for lunch – flapjack and fruit. And then the cleaner came round to do her stuff.

That included the shower of course, so there’s a nice clean me with nice clean clothes ready to climb into a nice clean bed because the bedding has been changed too which I was showering.

We had Christmas cake break later with another one of these horrible drinks, and then I have been making pies. I could make three nice-sized pies from a roll of this flaky pastry, and my filling really is excellent.

It’s

  • lentils
  • split peas
  • potatoes

soaked for an hour in the slow cooker on “high”, rinsed, and soaked again for 18 hours in the slow cooker on “low” with herbs, spices and flavouring

And then I fried in the big wok the following –

  • onions
  • shallots
  • garlic
  • a tofu block
  • a tin of sweetcorn

When they were all nice and cooked, the contents of the slow cooker were tipped into the wok with the fried stuff, simmered to boil off the excess liquid, and then a handful or two of oats to bind it all together.

So three pies in the fridge ready to bake tomorrow, and a pile of filling in individual sized containers freezing for next time, and a ladleful of it added to my leftover curry to try it out.

And with naan bread, rice and veg it was excellent and I had no room for pudding. And in any case, believe it or not (because I find it hard to believe) I crashed out at the table.

So tomorrow it’s dialysis, but for tea I’m going to eat one of my pies with potatoes, veg and gravy. They should be delicious and make me feel better after what will be a very painful session. And I’ll finish the radio notes tomorrow too if I am lucky.

But while we ‘re on the subject of curries… "well, one of us is" – ed … regular readers of this rubbish will recall when we were on THOSE FERRIES ON THE OUTER BANKS off the coast of the USA and encountered all of those pelicans.
One person on the ferry went to a restaurant on Okracoke Island and asked to try the Pelican Curry that was on the menu.
When I met him later I asked him how it was.
"I won’t be going in that place again" he said.
"Why not?" I asked. "Wasn’t it any good?"
"The meal was great" he replied "but the bill was enormous."

0

Wednesday 8th January 2025 – I HAVE DONE …

… something today that I haven’t done several months – namely, I have crashed out this afternoon.

And crashed out royally too. It was one of those really deep ones where it was as if time and space all stood still as I plunged into the abyss. And there I stayed for a good 40 minutes. I’ve no idea what’s going on but there have also been one or two other signs that the dramatic effects of the first few sessions of dialysis are now tailing off and I’m regressing.

That’s pretty bad news, as far as I am concerned. I really had hoped that this dialysis would have solved many of my problems, but apparently not. What wouldn’t I give to be back fully fit and healthy again? Even the really sad me who had to live at Liz and Terry’s for four months when I was totally unable to fend for myself would be an improvement.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment I had another long, late night as This two-hour Lindisfarne concert went on. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … Lindisfarne holds a special place in my heart – and for many reasons too, and I’ll always listen to one of their concerts

That’s another thing. I’ve noticed that over this last couple of days I’ve become very nostalgic for a period that lasted between 1978 and 1979 and for something that I let slip through my fingers. I’ve no idea why that might be either because apart from a fleeting moment in 1994, neither this period nor this opportunity has never entered my head on any kind of scale before.

Looking back, there were several opportunities, nailed-on positive opportunities, that I didn’t see or recognise until it was far too late. It all just goes to prove the old saying that "nostalgia ain’t what it used to be".

Once Lindisfarne finished, round about 00:45, I took myself off reluctantly to bed for a good sleep over what was left of the night.

During the night though, I awoke once, in some kind of panic in case I’d missed the alarm. But reassuring myself that it was 05:20, I managed to go back to sleep.

When the alarm went off at 07:00, I struggled out of bed and had to wait a good few minutes before I could drag myself to my feet and stagger into the bathroom.

After a good scrub, it was into the kitchen for the medication and I’m becoming fed up of this too. I can never remember the days when I don’t take something and I’m becoming so confused by it all. Basically, today I take everything except the Vitamin D supplement – I think.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was back in the Dark Ages. We were travelling on foot through some kind of woodland at the edge of a forest when a tribe of dark-skinned Neanderthal men sprang up in front of us. They were extremely threatening so we had to defend ourselves. It ended up in some kind of fight as a Wold West film might have done where we managed to repel the attackers and restore peace for the moment. That was the key for us to move quite rapidly off elsewhere but we had someone who was wounded and someone who had died so we had to think about what we were going to do with them. We couldn’t just leave them behind while we made good our escape. That wouldn’t be right at all.

This reminds me of the topics that I’ve been reading over the last few days and that’s probably the source of this dream. There’s also a considerable amount of the LORD OF THE RINGS in here too, with everything going on at the edge of the woodland, like the battle between the Riders of Rohan and the Orcs of the White Hand.

And then I was with VBH, my very first Cortina … "actually it wasn’t, but it was my first MkIII" – ed …. I’d been driving around in it for a while and suddenly realised that there was no MoT on it. I came home, parked up and crawled underneath it to look at the underside. The front and the centre section underneath were in really good condition but the rear passenger side quarter was eroded away and needed to be welded before it went. I thought “that’s another job that’s going to add to the list. While I was underneath it some people game and knocked at the door. They were talking about me and talking about my taxi business so I wondered who they are. They rattled the door really hard so I stood up, shouted at them and told them not to make so much noise. They announced themselves that they were people from the local council and local Tax Office and they wanted to talk to me. So I said “yes” seeing as they wee there, I was there and I couldn’t escape. One or two of the people disappeared and I wondered where they went but the others stayed. A girl who seemed to be in charge took out a large sheaf of paper and began to write a couple of notes that I couldn’t read from where I was, and began to ask me one or two basic questions so I answered them. Then she asked “you don’t have to go anywhere, do you?”. I replied “no. I’m staying here. I’m going to enjoy this” which gave some kind of bewildered look on her face.

No MoT? Crawling under a car? Needing welding? We’ve been there a thousand times, in dreams as well as in real life. At one stage that was the sum total of my life. Not to mention the local Council, the Tax Office, the Police and everyone else after my hide back in those days. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m a different person today than I was back then

But strangely enough, I have a little skill that not many people know – I can read upside-down just as well as I can read right-side up. And that has confused so many people who have had their written notes in front of them when they have wanted to interview me for something or other.

The nurse was early today and he talked about the town’s triathlon. He’s not entering it but the heart specialist who saw me a few months ago – he’s going to turn out. That should be interesting.

After he left, I made breakfast and then carried on with my DNA study.

We’ve been side-tracked now and I’m crawling over a collection of skeletons exhumed from early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries. Almost all the males in there are of Anglo-Saxon descent and 82% of them are buried with weapons, indicating warriors. The females are almost all native British people.

The reviewer tells us, rather naively, that the Anglo-Saxons must have married local native women. But the complete absence of local native male British skeletons tells us a rather different, more depressing and sad story. The DNA of early Anglo-Saxon but indigenous people, born and bred in Britain, contains mostly male Anglo-Saxon DNA and mostly female British DNA. However the available evidence (or lack thereof) that I’ve quoted is suggestive and I bet that “marriage” had absolutely nothing whatever to do with the interbreeding between the two nations.

When we were in Iceland, we were told that Icelandic DNA is made up of 80% of the male DNA coming from The Scandinavian coast, and 80% of the female DNA coming from Ireland, meaning that boatloads of Norse voyagers on their way to populate Iceland in the 10th Century stopped at Ireland to pick up some females. I hardly think that “marriage” would apply to those circumstances either.

Back in here I’ve had a very slow start back to work and have spent most of the rest of the day editing the radio notes that I dictated before Christmas and assembling the programme. I’ve chosen the 11th track and written the notes ready to dictate on Saturday night. But in the meantime, I have another programme to write and dictate for Saturday night too and I mustn’t start slacking.

There were several interruptions this afternoon too. There was lunch of course with a slice of flapjack and there was Christmas cake break

Of course there was the shower. My cleaner came in to do her stuff this afternoon and that includes helping me in and out of the shower. It might only be once a week, but it’s beautiful to be under the hot water like that. Just wait until I have that walk-in shower downstairs.

Rosemary rang me today too. Just a brief ‘phone call this afternoon – only one hour and twenty-five minutes. We’re definitely losing our touch. She had plenty of news to tell me, which is nice. They were inches deep in frost in the Auvergne last weekend and heavy snow is forecast any day soon.

To be honest, I miss the weeks of all of that hard winter weather, half a metre of snow that would fall overnight and a couple of weeks of temperature round about minus 18°C

Tea tonight was a leftover curry with naan bread, rice and veg followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. Totally delicious as it usually is.

Ordinarily right now it would be bedtime but just this minute onto the playlist has come another one of my favourite concerts.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m a really big fan of Southern Rock with its lead guitar solos that can sometimes last several weeks. One of the more underrated Southern Rock bands, apart from Widespread Panic whom I saw in South Carolina with my little Mexican friend in 2005, is the Marshall Tucker Band and their concert from Boston in 1976 has just come round.

So that’s me lost to the World for 75 minutes while I lose myself in the music. And it’s a good job that I have the music because otherwise I would have been lost a long time ago. And I bet that many of you wish that I would get lost now.

But going back to the story of the people knocking on our door, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I come from a big family. My mother told me once "one day, someone came knocking unexpectedly on our door"
"Who was it?" I asked
"It was someone collecting for the local kids’ orphanage" she said
"So what did you do?" I asked
"I gave them two of mine" she replied.

0