Tag Archives: evie

Wednesday 26th November 2025 – AND ONCE AGAIN …

… I crashed out in the chair in my office during the late afternoon.

That’s something that I really must stop because it’s really driving me insane, all of this. I’m not managing to complete anything that I set out to do.

Part of it is probably due to the late night that I had. I can’t keep these early nights going for any consistent length of time. By the time that I’d finished everything that I needed to do at the end of the evening and crawled into my nice, clean bed, it was well after 23:30.

Add to that, the fact that for a couple of hours, I was totally unable to go to sleep might also have had something to do with it. I lay there tossing and turning and trying to make myself comfortable, but to no avail.

Eventually though, I must have gone to sleep because I remember waking up. I lay there, half-awake, for a little while and then checked the time. It was 06:28, one minute before the alarm but not before it enough to be able to be sitting upright with my feet on the floor when the alarm went off and claim an early start.

Instead, I just lay there waiting.

Eventually, I managed to force myself out of bed and went off into the bathroom.

Next stop was the kitchen, where I made my hot lemon, honey and ginger drink to wash down my medication. And then back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was with TOTGA and her daughter, her son and her slightly older daughter. We’d all gone to the seaside. TOTGA was sitting there thinking that maybe she would like an ice-cream so daughter and I went for a walk. We had a chat, and it turned out that her elder sister had had some kind of accident a few months ago and it was something that was recurring. When I asked where she was, her sister replied that she was in hospital again and her mother was off doing something else, she didn’t quite know where. We walked along together down the seafront and it began to be cold and rainy somewhat. She pointed to an ice-cream stall halfway up a set of steps so we climbed up these steps and went into the ice cream stall. There were lots of people milling around and they all recognised the girl. Anyway, we bought three cornets. I noticed that mine didn’t have a flake in it and hers had two and her mother’s had one. Then we walked as if we were heading back home. We came to a place in the street where she wanted to cross the road so we had to worry. She went in and I found that it was a health food shop. She was wondering if they had any of these products – she wanted some breakfast nuts, something like that. We had a look around, still holding these ice-creams and she found what she thought might be fine. She explained that her brother was looking for these and had not been able to find them anywhere else. But at the ice-cream stall, everyone knew the girl and they were all talking about her, whether she was coming back to work there again. However, I was certain that she was far too young to be working in a place like that, even on a Saturday.

So welcome back, TOTGA, even if it was only for a short while. It’s been a while since you’ve featured on these pages. However, instead of two daughters and a son, it’s two sons and a daughter, but let’s not go letting the facts stand in the way of a good dream… "perish the thought" – ed …

The idea of walking around the town with melting ice-creams is a bizarre one, but the conjuring trick with the flakes is the kind of thing that Zero would be more likely to do, rather than TOTGA’s daughter.

Later on, Nerina and I had been driving taxis last night and it had been a slow, slow day. We’d done about three or four jobs, that’s all, and were sitting at the side of the road in a lay-by having a chat. Someone came over with a big parcel and we thought that this might be a fare but it wasn’t. It was just someone chatting to a neighbour. In the end, Nerina decided that she’d go back to the rank. Before she did, someone in a blue uniform came over. He said that he wanted to book a taxi for 04:00, but it was only a short trip. I said to Nerina “ladies first” so she began to note the details. However, she said “we already have this job” when she looked at the paperwork. “It’s down for 03:55”. The guy apologised and then needed some help to be pushed onto the bus that turned up, because the bus was crowded and there wasn’t very much room on there for anyone else.

Strangely enough, the subject of taxis has been something that has featured quite considerably elsewhere in very recent times. But things would help if I stopped trying to remember the things that I did forty years later and how I could improve on them if I were to do it all again, something that I have absolutely no intention of doing.

Isabelle the Nurse drifted in, dressed for an Arctic winter. Apparently, it was minus 2°C when she set out on her rounds this morning and she had to scrape the ice off her windscreen. “Winter is acumen in, lhude singe Rudolph” and all of that.

She gave me my injection, sorted out my feet and then drifted out again to brave the Arctic temperatures. I made breakfast and read some more of ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

In fact, I didn’t read all that much of it. I ended up being sidetracked into the Iter Britanniarum – the guidebook said to have been prepared for the Emperor Augustus although it’s suggested that it was the Emperor Caracalla who was its sponsor, seeing that it includes much that was not in existence in the time of Augustus.

It’s like the kind of thing that we had in the distant past, a kind of “RAC Handbook” listing Roman roads, wayside stations, inns and the like. I’ve been following Codrington’s book and using the Iter Britanniarum to plot where the wayside stations might be. If one considers that a Roman mile – a mille passum – was actually one thousand double paces, and is equivalent to about 0.92 of a modern mile, the distances given in the Iter Britanniarum are surprisingly accurate.

Back in here, I had things to do and then I began to edit the rest of the radio notes that I’d dictated the other day.

Later on, I knocked off in order to prepare for the Centre de Ré-education. The taxi was late coming to pick me up and I missed the first ten minutes of my session with the occupational therapist.

Not that I missed much, because despite spending a week searching, he couldn’t find anything more practical than the system that we were using. However, he did suggest a liberal usage of anti-slip tape. On the other hand, I prefer four good stainless steel screws myself.

My second session was with my physiotherapist and she worked me quite hard today, forcing my legs into all kinds of impossible positions. I was so exhausted after this session that I couldn’t lift myself up off the bench.

And that was all today. They had cancelled my next two sessions! But let’s not be carried away by this because there are stil four, and sometimes five sessions for the next couple of visits.

One of these visits though is to see my doctor, when I shall tell her how I’m feeling.

It was another desperate struggle to the taxi to bring me home, and another desperate struggle to come into the apartment. I really don’t know how I would manage if my faithful cleaner were not there to help me.

Back in the apartment, I collapsed into a chair for half an hour, trying to summon up the energy to move, and then I moved into the office where, regrettably, I fell asleep.

Once I’d awoken, I completed the radio programme but I’m a few seconds short. I shall have to re-dictate something to include a few more notes in order to make the commentary rather longer.

Tea tonight was rice with vegetables and a vegan burger, followed by ginger cake and a mandarine … "PERSONdarine" – ed … and lemon soya dessert. It really is nice too.

So now, I’m off to bed. I’ve done enough for today and I have the delights of dialysis tomorrow. Let’s see what my water retention is like, then I hope that they won’t want me to come in on Saturday.

But seeing as we have been talking about ice-cream … "well, one of us has" – ed … Crewe was very famous for its ice-cream vans, made by SC Cummins and Co. They were exported all around the World, but even so, there were always plenty plying the streets of the town.
One day, out at Queen’s Park, a girl from Crewe went up to an ice-cream van there and asked for a chocolate ice-cream cornet
"I’m sorry" replied the salesman. "I’m out of chocolate ice-cream"
"But I want chocolate" she insisted.
"I’m sorry" replied the salesman.
"But sorry is no good! I want chocolate!"
"Look" said the salesman, exasperated. "If you took the ‘s’ out of ‘strawberry’, what would you have?"
"trawberry" replied the girl
"And if you took the ‘p’ out of ‘pistachio’? "
"Istachio " she replied.
"And if you took the ‘f’ out of chocolate?"
"But there’s no ‘f’ in chocolate!"
"And isn’t that what I’ve been trying to tell you for the last ten minutes?"

Tuesday 14th March 2023 – IT’S ALL VERY WELL …

… going to bed early, but it counts for nothing if you can’t go to sleep. It was another one of these miserable, depressing nights when I’m tossing and turning to no good purpose.

To make matters even worse, when I finally did go off to sleep at one point, something awoke me quite dramatically and I sat bolt-upright wide awake.

And then even though I must have gone back to sleep at some point I awoke again just after 07:00 and when the alarm went off at 07:30 I was already up and about.

After the medication and checking the mails and messages I prepared for my Welsh class – interrupted by the local nurse calling round to take a blood sample. For some reason, that was extremely painful. So was my injection yesterday, thinking on. I must be quite sensitive these days, in more ways than one.

The Welsh class passed off quite quickly. Some of it was surprisingly good, which took me by surprise, but some other of it was not so good. Rather patchy, all told

At 14:00 the guy came round so see me about having a shower installed in my new property, whenever it might be that I finally complete the purchase. He was actually a guitarist himself with a Rickenbacker 12-string so we spent more time talking about guitars and music than showers.

However he finally bashed out some kind of quote but I doubt that I’ll be proceeding with it. It’s way out of my pocket, even the “economy” version. It works, I suppose, if you qualify for a French Government grant but I pay my Income Tax in Belgium and the UK and so that is that.

And that reminds me – I should be due for my quarterly Belgian Old-Age Pension payments some time soon. That should be exciting. Whatever can I do with the €97 that I’ll receive?

Once he’d gone, I had a shower and then had a good listen to the stuff on the dictaphone. To my surprise I’d been on quite a few travels during the night. I’d gone somewhere to pick up a pile of clothes. It was something to do with the Avengers and TV programmes from the 60s. I was in Caliburn. I reached where I was supposed to be. These coats were thrown to me and I threw them up onto the roof rack. I had to look around for a way to fasten them on. It was near Christmas by this time although it was sunny. Someone was coming round from this place handing out boxes of chocolates etc to all the employees. Everywhere I turned, there was another piece of chocolate. Someone kept on sticking a box of chocolates in my hand. Every time I went to reach for something or other to tie these clothes onto the roof rack I ended up grabbing a piece of chocolate instead. It was really strange.

Then I was back in this apartment. I had Tuppence, my old black cat, here. I made myself a coffee but it wasn’t strong enough so I put another teaspoon of coffee into it even though it was already now in the pot having percolated. Tuppence was crying to go out so I went and opened the door for her even though it meant that she would just be running around inside the building. The next moment we were in Gainsborough Road. I had all my cats here but something – I don’t know what – awoke me dramatically as I mentioned earlier.

Later on we were at some kind of building in the countryside like a Social Club. Behind it was a car park that you had to access via an arch. Behind it was a building that was another type of Social Club. In the building where I was were all these rich people with Rolls-Royces, horse boxes and things. I was there talking to a lorry driver for some reason. A Rolls-Royce came in towing a horse box. It had been accident-damaged and hit all down the side, this Rolls-Royce dark red. We made a few remarks about it. Someone mentioned something about someone’s Rolls-Royce having broken down and they’d been quoted over £8000 for a new engine. I was thinking about the one that I knew IN A SCRAPYARD IN THE USA (and I was impressed that I could remember that in a dream) and what could be good would be if I could lay my hands on that engine and rebuild it. As I was leaving 2 more people turned up and asked about the Social Club. I told them where to go. They asked where they could park so I told them about the car park. They asked about the one in the rear. I said that the people in there were rather possessive. They had to be careful. Then I had an engine. I’d stripped it down, rebuilt it and had it running on a test bed. I’d put it back in a car and started it up with no water in it just to make sure that it would run. I was slowly filling it with water, talking to someone. All the time there was a stream of water coming out. I could see in the end that one of the hoses for the windscreen washers underneath the bonnet had decayed or broken. The stream of water was coming from there. Trying to remove it to replace it was a nightmare.

I was next living at Davenport Avenue with Nerina. Something happened so I decided that I’d go out for a change for the evening down to the swimming baths. I took a book with me and set off. When I arrived the first person whom I saw was TOTGA (so welcome back, TOTGA) and her daughter. I wasn’t sure if they saw me but they certainly didn’t come over to talk. I thought that I’d go and get ready. Then I started to worry about my catheter. I know that I can’t go swimming in salt water with it. What about chlorine? I thought that I’d relax and read my book for a while then summon up the courage to go to ask someone. There was a little room on a bench next to a little girl and her mother so I squeezed on and started to read. A couple of people whom I knew from work came over for a chat. I ended up with a drink and a packet of crisps. By the time all that finished it was really late. I thought that I’d better go home. I went to pay but they only charged me for the crisps so I paid for them and ran all the way back home. I arrived back. Nerina was sitting on the floor in apair of pyjamas, brand-new by the looks of things. She was surrounded by all kinds of rubbish as if she’d been unwrapping presents etc. She was rather grumpy because I’d been out but it turned out that some members of her family had come round. They had spent the evening talking about a holiday they’d had down in the South-West.

Finally I was back in this dream again with TOTGA and her daughter, staying at some kind of fitness place. It was the break so we all crowded into the break room. There were so many of us that we had to jostle for a place and a place to put our bags down. When we did, someone would move it somewhere else. We helped ourselves to hot water. When I’d done that TOTGA’s daughter made some room for me on a chair next to her. It was beginning to become really chaotic. Everyone complained about the crush and the arrangements in this room. No-one was happy but that was just how it was.

Sitting down here waiting for things to happen I crashed out again. That’s quite disappointing because I ought to be doing so much better than this. Gone are the days where I could work 30 or 40 hours non-stop after just 4 hours of sleep. i’m not as young as I was.

The physiotherapist came round later and he had me walking up and down the stairs outside. He was impressed with the weights that I’d bought at the weekend.

While I was at my lesson earlier I’d worked out that my foot fits nicely into the handle of one of the weights so I’d been practising lifting it up and down with my foot while sitting down. The left leg is quite good but the right leg is struggling to even move with a weight of 2kgs attached to it. What kind of state am I in?

Tea tonight was a delicious taco roll with rice and veg. There’s plenty of stuffing left as well so I’ll have a good curry tomorrow night with what is left in the fridge

While I’m on the subject of tomorrow … “well, one of us is” – ed … the cleaner will be coming round tomorrow so I’ll have to have a whizz round to make the place look respectable. A well as that, I’ll have to check all of the paperwork to make sure that I have everything that I need to take with me on Thursday morning to the hospital at Avranches.

08:30 at Avranches on Thursday? Whose silly idea is that?

Monday 18th April 2022 – THERE WAS MUCH …

… more activity out on the water this afternoon.

Still not as much as I would have expected to see, given that it’s a bank holiday and we’re having nice weather, but still much more than there has been just recently.

But be that as it may, let’s retourner à nos moutons and while you all admire the photos of the water craft out there today, I’ll tell you about the morning that I had.

at least, insofar as I remember it because until about 11:00 or so I was deep in the arms of Morpheus. It’s a bank Holiday today so there was no alarm.

It’s no wonder that I was exhausted this morning because I must have travelled miles during my sleep, as I discovered when I listened to the dictaphone.

Some girl had fallen foul of a gangster boss for some reason. She’d been taking photos and dictating things into her dictaphone about this and that, dictating her dreams. This gangland boss insisted that she hand over her memory card and dictaphone which of course she flatly refused to do. This led to some kind of argument or stand-off. In the end one of his minions managed to produce some kind pf portable machine that would copy everything off the memory card and off the dictaphone so that she could have copies of everything that she had done. She could possibly have her memory card and dictaphone back. This was again a completely realistic kind of dream and made me worry about my dictaphone.

And then it was the birthday of TOTGA’s daughter so she was dancing around, reciting words in a form of poetry about presents that she would like to have for her birthday. Then TOTGA was talking about going to China … “JUST LIKE SWEET REGINA” – ed … so I asked if the whole family was going. She replied “yes” or at least to the China museum which is free for everyone who visits China. She went over to a ticket machine to try to sort out everything from the machine that was there. I’m missing a few bits off this. I can’t remember all of it.

There were a couple of cowboys, taxi drivers, but one of them was an Indian. There had been some talk about disabled passengers. There was a notice on the door that said “if you’re phoning up for an elderly disabled person make sure that the taxi has a wheelchair lift fitted”. Anyway these 2 guys were on horses. One of them had a horse blanket over his horse because he was an Indian. When you took the blanket off you could see the saddle underneath all ready for war. One of his comrades came into town, also sitting on a blanket ready for war. The other cowboy went out to confront him.

I was in a pub waiting for someone to bring round a settee to make it more comfortable. When the pub closed for the afternoon I was cleaning it up and doing some tidying up. There was something like an indoor pool in this pub, a water feature. I thought that I’d put a spade in and get down to the bottom here and see what was happening. Then 2 people turned up, a girl who worked here and her boyfriend, and they were in the middle of having an argument so I left them to it. I put my spade into the water and dug down into the mud and pulled up a huge pile of LPs and single, an Alquin double album, a pile of stuff by Alquin, loads of stuff like that. Everyone came to give me a hand to help me pull all of these out. I realised of course that they would all be ruined but I wondered what on earth they were all doing in there. I recognised one or two of them from stuff that I’d upgraded to CD but I don’t remember throwing away. There I was, picking out all these LPs from this dirty, muddy, filthy water inside this pub.

Robert Fripp was having a party to celebrate the release of his new blues album. A whole pile of us went. There was a young girl there, a bass guitarist, who played bass on his album but when she came to listen to his album you couldn’t hear the bass on it at all. She asked Robert Fripp what had happened to the bass and he told her that basically her playing was rubbish. That had of course reduced her to tears. I went to see him and asked if he would play the album with the bass on it. He replied that with the bass being rubbish he didn’t want to feature it. I told him that he didn’t really understand music because music isn’t just one performer, that sort of thing, music is everyone together, the whole ensemble. We had this argument. I told him that there had been other cases like Richie Blackmore who for example had sacked Mark Clark in the middle of a recording session and played the bass himself because he didn’t like Clark’s bass playing and I’m impressed that I could remember that when I was asleep. I said that it was dishonest in a way to have this girl play and then wipe out her playing. I insisted that he play the album version with her bass on it. He said that it would take some time so I asked him if he would send me a copy of the album with her bass playing on it. He had to fiddle around in the corner of the room to try to find the master tapes.

Finally I’d been at work. Everyone was slowly leaving. In the end there was just me and a girl, the girl whom I knew from Stoke whose name I can’t remember, the pretty one who had cancer. We were chatting away and the conversation became more and more about our intimate selves. In the end I ended up kissing her. We spent a good few minutes like that. Then I had to leave. On the way out I bumped into my elder sister. She noticed that I was late so I said that I’d been seeing some guy whose sister she knew who lived in Shavington. Then I walked down to my parents’ house in Davenport Avenue. It had changed quite considerably from when I remembered it, the outside. I knocked on the door and one of my younger sister’s children let me in. It told me to make sure that I wiped my feet but there wasn’t really any need because the lawn inside the house was all churned up like a ploughed field, a real horrible mess. My sister said that one of her children was dropping out of school. I told her that she better hadn’t because she only has one chance at education and this is it. She didn’t seem to think that she was, it was my sister’s idea that she would.

There was an interruption in the middle of this for a rather late brunch. Porridge, coffee and the last of the hot cross buns. I shall have to hope that someone I know is going back to the UK soon to bring me back another couple of batches. They aren’t very easy to make correctly and I do like them very much.

When I’d finished the dictaphone notes I had a good session on the guitar and then made a start on the radio programme that I’ll be completing tomorrow if all goes according to plan.

And while we’re on the subject of tomorrow … “well, one of us is” – ed … I’ll have to tidy up the apartment tomorrow as I have someone coming round at 14:00 to see me and the place is something of a mess. How I’m going to manage raising myself from the dead with an alarm after several days of lying in remains to be seen.

But that all relates to tomorrow. Today, it was time for me to go out for my afternoon walk.

As usual I wandered off across the car park to the wall at the end to see what was happening down on the beach.

The tide is of course well out, as we have seen over the last few days. But there weren’t as many people down there today as there have been.

The difference today is the amount of wind that we are having. It’s a lot windier than it has been and I suppose that that is keeping people off the sand. No-one really wants to be out in a cossy in this wind.

But it’s an ill wind that doesn’t blow anyone any good.

And so consequently we had the birdmen of Alcatraz out in numbers this afternoon. I counted a good half dozen and maybe more out and about in the air.

This one is carrying a passenger too, and I haven’t forgotten that it’s on my bucket list to go up for a flight one of these days if I can find an intrepid birdman intrepid enough to take me up, and a Nazgul strong enough to support the two of us. I really could do with losing another 8 or so kilos to bring me down to what I consider to be my optimal weight.

The birdmen of Alcatraz weren’t the only people up in the air today.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that over the last couple of days we’ve seen the red powered hang glider flying around and I mentioned yesterday that I wondered what had happened to the yellow one.

Sure enough, around the corner she came this afternoon, pilot and passenger, on their way back to the airfield after a lap around the bay.

All we need now is to see the yellow autogyro and we’ll have had the full set but she’s been conspicuous by her absence for quite a while now.

There was also a small aeroplane flying around the bay but she was too far out for me to be able to take a decent photograph.

Not so many people out on the path either this afternoon.

That’s much more like how it ought to be these days when there’s a pandemic raging.c Not that I’m all that bothered during normal circumstances but if people won’t wear a mask when I’m a person at high risk, I would rather the path be empty.

Only another 87,000 cases yesterday and 35 deaths. Mind you, it hasn’t escaped my notice that the UK hasn’t declared its figures for the last few days. I wonder what’s going on there right now.

With all of the excitement going on out at sea this afternoon I was expecting to see crowds of people down by the cabanon vauban.

Well, at least there were a couple of people gazing out to sea at the trawlers and the zodiac in the Baie de Mont St Michel.

And also at the pecheurs à pied too because there were plenty of those down there on the rocks this afternoon too. I wondered why there were so many cars on the car park and so few people about.

So I left them to it and headed off down the path on the other side of the headland.

It looks as if there were several boats that missed the tide and the open harbour gates this morning

Settling down in the silt over there at the quayside next to the Fish Processing Plant from front to back are Briscard, Pescadore and Roc A La Mauve. It’s not like any of those to be moored there deliberately.

Back at the apartment I made myself a coffee and settled down in front of the computer for this evening’s football match – a basement match between Barry Town, second bottom, and Aberystwyth Town, third from bottom, in a game that Barry Town must win.

Considering the positions of the teams in the League, this was one of the most exciting games that I’ve seen for quite a while, ranging from end to end like a tide. Aberystwyth took the lead quite early on and managed to hang on for the victory despite Barry throwing the kitchen sink at them in the final 15 minutes.

Whether Barry Town remains in the league now depends on whether Llanilltud Fadre or Pontypridd Town’s grounds are up to the required standard. I wasn’t impressed at all by the ground at LLanilltud when I’ve seen it.

It was too late for food by the time that the football finished so I had a few rounds of toast instead. It won’t do me any harm to go without a full meal here and there. But now I’m off to relax before going to bed.

Tomorrow I’ve an alarm to set, a radio programme to complete, a meeting to attend and a session with a new physiotherapist as well as an apartment to tidy. My few days off passed rather quicker than I was expecting.

Monday 8th March 2021- A NOT-SO-UNEXPECTED …

… Brexit dividend reared its ugly head this afternoon.

Amongst my friends is a woman in the UK who had a daughter who is a keen and accomplished junior ballerina (she’s danced at the Royal Ballet) and is hoping to come to France for an audition in the summer. And when I was in NOZ at the weekend I found a kids’ novel about a girl who was a ballerina.

It’s full of all of the technical-speak in French for a ballerina as well as all of the current kids’ slang and as it cost only €1:99 I bought it for Evie to give her something interesting and useful to read before she comes over.

This afternoon I took it down to the post office to send it off to the UK.

For a product that weighed just about 300 grammes and cost €1:99 and being sent non-commercially as a gift between friends, it took me half an hour to do all of the paperwork, involving the completion of four forms, and the postage came to €15:90.

And I’m still recovering from the shock.

And as well as that, I’m still also recovering from the shock of being up and about once more long before the third alarm went off. I wonder how long I can keep this up.

After the medication I made a start on the radio programme, this time doing the programme that I should have done last week. With having done all of the music already, it was all up and running properly by 11:30, all hours-worth of it. And I found a really belting final track to finish it.

The rest of the morning was spent working on the Greenland photos and by the time that lunchtime arrived, I’d done just over 40 of them and we are now in Arsuk Fjord in a zodiac cruising around looking for THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR which had moved off from where we had left it and then been lost in the fog.

After lunch I started off by listening to the dictaphone. I had been in France during the night. I’d gone there from Dunkirk and I’d met up with two people while I was there. I had to escort them back to the port of Calais in order to catch the ferry back to the UK. I was able to retrace my steps in reverse on most occasions although we did lost the way once or twice particularly when we were in buildings having o work our way through buildings. There was one particular part where someone was rather nasty to me so I was rather nasty to them. One of these girls was shocked. She didn’t really want to walk the way that I went – she wanted to find another way. I said “yes I understand your predicament but really there was a war on”. She was the one who found the lift down in one of these buildings. It had some luggage in it but we squeezed in anyway. The weight was such that the lift cable broke and it hit the ground with quite a thud. We eventually made our way into Calais to find out that our boat hadn’t arrived yet so we had to wait around for a couple of days. We were there when there was a huge ship that crushed a small one as it came into port and one or two other little things.

Later on I was living in some kind of digs and right outside them I was talking to some Pakistani girl. We’d started off talking in a café somewhere. I’d been in to order a glass of kefir. I’d had one of one type and later on I’d gone in and ordered another one. We were chatting inside this cafe place. She was serving and telling me all about how she’s graduated from University and how she’d done this and done that and it hadn’t really worked out for her. She was going to get a gang together and go off and do some work. We were discussing different places in France where this worked and I told her about all of the British people in the Combrailles who worked as a team when necessary. We finished off by talking outside a house in a run-down area, a terraced house at the end of a cul-de-sac. While we were talking a guy pulled up on a motor scooter and drove it right up against the wall, almost crushed me. After she went I had a speedway motor cycle type of thing, an old Jawa and I pushed it towards Caliburn – I was going to put it in the back of Caliburn. I realised that I needed a ramp so I went round to fetch my tools. They were all underneath a van, a trolley jack and a box of tools. I thought “how come I’ve left these there and they haven’t gone?”. I picked up a plank of wood. These kids were watching me wondering what I was going to be doing. I knew what I was doing because the plank of wood was going to be the ramp to put this speedway bike into the back of Caliburn. I pushed it towards Caliburn but then the alarm went off.

For the rest of the afternoon I’ve been working my way through the duplicate files that I’ve been backing up onto the back-up disk on which I’d uploaded all of the external drives and memory sticks and so on. Another 83GB of memory space has now been created and there will be much more to come.

In fact I was so engrossed in this project that I missed my evening meal completely and it was 21:30 when I finally noticed the time.

Having spent some time wrapping up the present for Evie and writing out a little note for her, I went out for my afternoon walk.

We didn’t have the sea fog that we have been having for the last few days, but instead there was quite a haze out there.

And we had some traffic sailing around outside as well. Out in the distance heading into port was one of the larger trawlers, presumably with today’s catch. At first I thought that it might have been Le Coelacanthe or else her sister ship Le Tiberiade, the big green and white trawlers with the gold stripes.

But back here at the apartment afterwards when I examined the photograph I noticed that she was actually pale blue and white and I didn’t recognise which trawler she would be.

There was another trawler out there too, only this one was heading out to sea, rather later than the rest of the fleet.

By what is presumably a total coincidence, whereas the homeward-bound trawler is white with a blue stripe, the outward-bound trawler is blue with a white stripe.

While I was admiring the two trawlers and hoping to catch a photo of them both crossing each other out in the English Channel, one of my neighbours put in an appearance and we ended up having a good chat instead of concentrating on the local shipping.

She needed some advice about booking her vaccinationcara

appointment. Apparently I must be the local expert or something.

For the last few days we’ve been looking at the crowds of people wandering around on the beach at the foot of the steps in the Rue du Nord.

Today we didn’t have so many people down there, and certainly no-one going out for a swim. There was however someone sitting comfortably on a rock reading a book – the very epitome of deep and intense relaxation. Mind you, she didn’t look as if she was very warm.

Clutching my parcel for the post I wandered off around the footpath, across the lawn and the car park. There wasn’t a great deal of activity out there of course. After all, the kids are now all back at school starting today so there were just the old fogeys wandering around.

Nothing new down in the chantier navale, just the same four boats that we’ve seen for the last few days.

But on the edge of the quayside down in the inner port there’s a whole pile of plastic pipes. They are far too long to be transported by one of the little Jersey freighters, so I’m wondering what they are doing here and how they’ll be moved onwards to wherever they might be going. I’ll have to watch this space.

Down in the town I went to the Post Office to post off my parcel to the UK, and then round to the Carrefour to but a lettuce that I had forgotten on Saturday. And there I bumped into yet another one of my neighbours and we had another lengthy chat. I seem to be in demand right now.

While I was down in the town I had a little wander around to see what might be happening down there.

And it looks as if we are preparing for the summer season already because the sweet and candy floss caravan has now turned up and parked in its usual spot ready to snare the holidaymakers and day trippers. That’s definitely a sign of the times. I wonder if the Big Wheel will be back in the town too this year.

From there, I went back to the steps at the Rampe de Monte à Regret and climbed back up to the Rue des Juifs ready to head for home and my coffee.

Having a look down into the port to see what was going on, something that I hadn’t seen before caught my eye.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, they spent a lot of time installing new pontoons, ladders and walkways in the port 12 months or so ago. But it seems that there’s a new pedestrian ramp of the same style of the rest of the equipment of the port that now leads down onto the deck of Marité.

That’s certainly quite new, as far as I can tell. I don’t recall having seen it before. But what interests me even more is how the deal with it when Marité is ready to sail away from the quayside. That should be a complicated manoeuvre.

One final thing caught my eye while I was out there.

Just as I started back up the hill I heard the bells to indicate that the harbour gates were closing. By the time that I had the camera ready they were almost closed. You can see the red traffic light indicating that the passage is now closed, and a couple of pedestrians on the walkway waiting to be able to complete their passage to the other side.

Back here I had my coffee and my slice of chocolate cake and then carried on with the editing of the back-up hard drive.

At 18:00 I remembered to stop for my guitar practice but I missed just about everything else.

Tomorrow I have my Welsh lesson and then I need to make some more enquiries about updating my big computer. I need to make more extra space and while I’m at it, make it work faster too.

Saturday 21st March 2020 – “I FEEL RATHER SILLY, REALLY” …

… said one of the three security guards at LeClerc this morning.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the other day in Belgium there were queues of people stretching right across the car park at the Carrefour at Mont St Jean, and they had set up something of a similar crowd control arrangement here to keep the masses in order when they swamp the Hypermarket.

But it’s now about 09:30 and you can see the crowds of people fighting their way in. We were about 50 people all told in there.

One woman to whom I chatted in the car park later said “isn’t this wonderful? We’ll have to invent another virus scare when this one is over”. I didn’t realise that any French people had my sense of humour.

As for me, despite an early night, I missed the alarms and it was 06:45 when I hauled myself out of bed. And I’d been doing so well just recently too.

After the medication (now that I have supplies) I had a look at the dictaphone.

I was round at TOTGA’s last night and we were having one of these big deep discussions about all kinds of things. There was someone else there but this other person was being sidetracked out of it. We were talking about things, how she never imagined me with Laurence and that kind of thing. She asked “where did Laurence live?”. I explained that she lived on the edge of the city at one time then had an apartment in town – she asked where Laurence lived and I told her she had an apartment on the edge of the city at one time and then moved in. This discussion rambled on. Then her husband was there and some other guy and I’d already got my breakfast and thought “maybe I ought to get TOTGA’s breakfast as well”. But she’d wandered off into another kitchen somewhere and came down with a big breakfast of scrambled eggs, stuff like that. Then she asked for something else. I thought that it was for her so I got some fresh spinach and sprouts, one or two other things and put them on a plate. She said “you’ll need to wash and polish the vegan knife” and told me where it was. I took the stuff over to her and she added that onto her plate to eat it. This discussion skirted on and it was a case of “how long is this going to go on before we get to the point of what is probably going to be the real issue” because it was a talking all that time about nothing and there must have been something else going on that had made all of this happen and it was another one of these “teetering on the clifftop” kind of things again, not able to go d=forward and not able to go back
This was another one of these dreams with TOTGA in it. We were together in this house and talking about things. She had never imagined me in one situation she said she never imagined me in a situation with Laurence and Roxanne. She asked where Laurence lived so I explained that she had an apartment outside town then moved into the city at one time. This conversation drifted on and on. There was a third person and I can’t remember who it was but they weren’t involved in this. She came down into the kitchen with her husband and she had a plate full of something or other to have for breakfast. She sat down – she said “I’ve forgotten (whatever it was that she said), I’ve forgotten”. So i went into the kitchen and said “I’ll get it for you. What do you want?” She said “fresh spinach” which they had got, some bacon, baked potatoes, stuff like that.I had to microwave them in oil, I couldn’t cook them any way and then take them to her. Her husband was there but it was quite clear that TOTGA was on her own in this situation without anyone else. I was wondering when she was going to get round to broaching the subject about why she had got me down there. I thought that any minute she was going to come out with it or not. It was another one of those things without any exit, without any end. I wondered when it was going to be that she was going to ask me the question that was bound to be asked about the future of the two of us and she was just drifting on talking about anything that came into her head and wasn’t actually approaching the situation.

Now – do you spot the similarity between the two? And there would have been a third one too exactly the same except that I awoke in the middle of dictating it.

So the question is – “did I really dream it on three separate occasions, or did I just think that I did?” It isn’t ‘arf confusing.

After breakfast I was planning on a shower and so on but I had a ‘phone call. Someone had decided to have a group radio meeting on-line to discuss an idea that someone had.

With us not being able to meet up and go out, half of our radio programmes have fallen into dust. No surprise there. But how do we replace them?

One of the people has had a marvellous idea – why don’t we each keep a diary of how our life has changed. The discussion rolled on, and it set me thinking. Instead of a simple diary, why not an “audio agenda?”

Everyone has mobile phones these days and these have recording facilities. That’s half our work done before we start and it’s realistic and authentic. I hate these artificial things with a passion, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. People don’t want to hear a monotonous drone of an emotionless translator. They want to hear the real person, mistakes and all, in full flight and full of emotion! Authentic radio as it happens!

On that note, I went out. About half an hour later than I intended.

No NOZ today. It’s classed as a non-essential business and has thus been obliged to close its doors. Straight to LeClerc.

While it’s totally wrong to say that I’ve been panic-buying, there are three or four (yes, just three or four) more tins here than normal (small kidney bean and small chick pea tins), an extra roll of pastry, a three-pack of crackers as well as a loaf of bread which has gone into the freezer.

My difficulty is that I live so far from the shops, my favourite bakery has already closed its doors and then, of course, I have my health to think about. While I’m feeling pretty good right now, that’s not going to last.

Regular readers of this rubbish, my family in Canada and several people on board The Good Ship Ve … errr Ocean Endeavour were witness to how quickly my health deteriorated after three months without medication at the end of August last year, and I have a lot more than that to look forward to this year.

6 months minimum is what I’ve been told, and it may well be more. What kind of state will I be in after all of that? And will I be fit enough to travel? It doesn’t bear thinking about.

Back here afterwards, I reached a significant milestone. The last of the complete digital sound-track file was cut up into its individual tracks. And that has pleased me greatly. There is in fact just one left, but that’s an impossible one to deal with as it’s just a mix of segments and no complete tracks.

All that remains are the … gulp … 200 or so for which I couldn’t find any digital soundfiles, and I’ll have to plan another way to deal with those.

After lunch, I decided to do some work.

On my travels this morning I’d been having a little think about our phone call this morning. And I’d had another idea, which we discussed on another group chat.

As a result, I contacted a few people throughout the world and a couple of them have agreed to participate in keeping an audio-diary. It’ll be interesting to hear how kids in the UK and Canada are coping with a change in their lifestyles due to having to stay in at home. Doing it in French will be a challenge of course, particularly for one little girl who has only been learning french for 18 months, but the challenge will be good for them and bring them along.

While I was at it, I rang Rosemary and we had a good chat. She’s signed up to my little project too – may as well cast the net around. I’d rather have too much stuff than not enough.

And while we’re on the subject, if YOU fancy keeping an audio diary of how your life has changed due to this virus – what projects you’ve had to drop, what new ones you have started, how you are passing your time, what laws have been applied in your country, I’ll be pleased to hear from you.

French is good, but English is good too if you have a story to tell. Use the “contact me” button at the bottom right of the page to register your interest and I’ll tell you what’s involved.

Having done that, I did a little more organising and then it was time for tea. The second half of the curry from yesterday followed by the last of the rice pudding, and this was when Brain of Britain realised that he had forgotten to buy his cooking apples

On my walk tonight I was almost all alone. There were two people sitting in different places along the walls smoking cigarettes, and that was my lot.

The Place Cambernon was absolutely deserted which is bizarre for a Saturday night. But then it’s a sign of the times, isn’t it?

At least, I managed to fit in my two runs. And on my second I was well up the second ramp before I ran out of steam. It’s a shame that it’s so steep because that’s what is stopping me pushing on.

So now I’ve had a chat with Amber and one or two other people, and I’ll finish my blog. A lie-in tomorrow which will suit me fine and then I’m going to change the habits of a lifetime and do some work.

Today has been a lazy day when I’ve not done anything like I hoped. I need to put that right.

Saturday 29th October 2016 – IT NEVER RAINS …

… but it pours, doesn’t it?

I decided that in order to changer mes idées, as the French so aptly put it, I’d go out of town this lunchtime and do my shopping out at Kessel-LO, to give me a good opportunity to have a wander around.

And the net result of my external perambulations?

The Fortis Bank there has swallowed my bank card.

That’s all that I need, isn’t it? Lurching from one disaster to another while I’m here this last two or three weeks. I’m getting totally fed up of this. It’s about time that something went right with me for a change.

But at least I’d managed to go to Bio-Planet and buy some more vegan cheese and a beautiful baguette, as well as helping myself to the free samples and the complementary coffee. I bought some stuff (but nothing exciting) in Carrefour that I need to tide me over until Thursday when (hopefully) I’ll leave here and I had a good look around in Krefel to see what they had in the way of electrical appliances. But there was nothing that particularly excited me.

Last night, it didn’t take me long to go to sleep. And once I was asleep, I stayed asleep (except for one trip down the corridor). I awoke about 5 minutes before the alarm, and for once, I was washed and breakfasted and back in my room by 07:45.

My voyage last night was something of a strange parallel to real life. I was somewhere in north-west England, Lancaster or the like, and I had a few days spare. I was torn between going back home to Crewe for a short while or finding somewhere to stay up there. The idea of going to Silloth appealed to me, but I had a look at the map, which was in a holder up above my head in Caliburn and found the town of Oxenhope right on the coast not too far from where I was (and Oxenhope is of course miles away from the sea in real life) I could see that it was fairly large with a port and harbour, with a main street running along the front and so I reckoned that I would go there. But I couldn’t get Caliburn to start – and that was painful. We also had two children – rather like two kids that I know in real life – and they appeared on my voyages for some reason or other.

After breakfast, I had a little doze and did a few bits and pieces and round about 11:30 I wandered off down to Caliburn and out to Kessel-Lo.

Back here, it ended up being a late lunch and then I attacked the web site again. I’ve been working on it again and I’ve amended three web pages, this one, this one and this one. Stuff from my 2015 voyage needed to be added into the first two pages, and that led to adjustments on the third page.

I had a good chat with Liz and another one of my friends on the internet too. It’s certainly been a marvellous invention, hasn’t it?

Tonight, I finished off my curry from yesterday and now I’m planning on yet another early night. i’ll hopefully make the most of it because the clocks go back tonight. Back 100 years for those of you who voted for the Brexit.

But for me, it means that I might have an extra hour in bed asleep.

But I’ve heard all of that before.

Tuesday 30th August 2016 – WELL HERE I AM AGAIN!

That’s right, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed … "well, yes" – ed … here in the hospital, ready for my final session of mapthera.

And bright-eyed and bushy-tailed I ought to have been too, because I was asleep relatively early too. Not that it did me much good of course, because round about 01:00 we had a party of fellow-residents returning from a night out in the town and they certainly let everyone know that they were back.

Not only that, I had a nightmare too! How long is it since I had one of those? Things are definitely being rather depressing around here right now if that’s the level to which I seem to have sunk.

An early start and a reasonable breakfast in the bright morning sum did much to restore my morale and then after a little relax to gather up my wits, not that it takes too long these days … "you said that the other day" – ed … I set off for the long trudge up the hill to the hospital.

I was here early too, and soon installed in a nice room by a couple of my favourite nurses (but not the cute and sweet Tara as yet). It’s nice to be on my usual ward with everyone so friendly and helpful. And I had a new doctor too. It looks as if Hermione is now a thing of the past. No more Ericus Reparo.

And we’ve had some very bad news too. They took my blood count and it is DOWN – from 12.0 to 11.0. It’s true to say that 3 months ago I would have happily settled for 11.0 and gone home smiling and whistling, but not after I’ve been up as high as 12.0. Here I was, thinking that I was out of the woods. It seems however that I have merely moved into different woods.

On the other hand, they have now made a formal announcement of the illness that I have. It seems that I have Waldenströhm’s disease (I should have kept well-clear of Waldenströhm, I suppose). It’s quite rare, which is probably why they were having issues with dealing with it at Montlucon, but then again it’s not as if I’m likely to have anything plebeian, is it?

They talk about vision loss, which as regular readers of this rubbish will recall is something that I have mentioned frequently over the last year or so, and a change in mental state. Well, you can all make up your own minds about that one.

They also say that it’s incurable, and that there’s a life expectancy of between 5 and 11 years (now, of course, 4 and 10 years) and I don’t like the sound of any of that at all. But as far as you lot are concerned, at least it gives you all some kind of idea of how long you have to suffer theremaider of this rubbish that I churn out.

I had all of the antidotes and calmants and stuff like that, and then I had the mapthera. That didn’t take too long and by 17:00 I was all done and dusted, having had an hour or so away with the fairies meantime. Now I have to wait the 18 hours to check for the side-effects, and I do hope that my room-mate doesn’t snore. And I suppose that he’s hoping that I don’t cough.

Now here’s a thing. In the absence of the cute and sweet Tara, I’m being attended to by the just-as-cute and just-as-sweet Evie. And she wants to know why it is that whenever she takes my blood pressure, it’s always higher than when the other nurses take it.

Ordinarily, I would tell her – but not when my room-mate is listening and the door to my room is open.

Tuesday 19th April 2016 – LAST NIGHT …

… as predicted, I settled down to watch one of my Inspector Hornleigh films. And, as anyone who has been a regular reader of this rubbish for any length of time would have predicted, I fell asleep before the end. The film was still running and it was a scream from one of the performers that awoke me, right near the end. I was in half a mind to go back to where I fell asleep and watch the film from that point but instead, I turned off the laptop and went back to sleep. That seemed to be a much better idea.

It seems that last night’s subject was cats – or, at least, it was during the early part of the night. I was back at Vine Tree Avenue again and everyone had come round to see me – all kinds of the usual suspects whom you have seen making appearances in these nocturnal rambles – and everyone brought a cat with them. All of the cats were put in the hall while we had a little “do” and then when the evening was over, I opened the door between the kitchen and the hall and all of the cats came in. All kinds of cats there were, all different colours, and to my surprise we hadn’t had a single moment of squabbling like you get when you usually put a bunch of cats (or children) together.
Talking of children, I was in Neston a little later with the daughter of a friend, and we were looking for my cats (whatever they might be doing in Neston I really have no idea). We managed to find three of them but Tuppence was being stubborn (like she sometimes was) and this young girl made some kind of comment about her.
I don’t know what it was that woke me so dramatically at 04:30 but I was soon back to sleep, and I’d moved back to Crewe by now. Up near the Liberal Club in fact. And I was parading with the Home Guard, Captain Mainwaring’s platoon in fact, and the issue of the gun cropped up. For those of you who don’t know the film, there’s a scene in there where an elderly man turns up on parade with a shotgun, the only weapon the troop has, and Mainwaring insists that he should have it. I’ve always thought that that was rather a silly decision, not the least reason being that because he would have been the only person with a gun, he would have been the only person firing at the Germans, so they would naturally fire back at him and that would remove the head of command from the Home Guard troops (with Mainwaring, that wouldn’t have been much of a loss, but there you go). Anyway, last night, there I was, and there the subject cropped up again. I suggested making the owner of the gun a Lance-Corporal, giving him two privates to assist him (all of which would have enhanced his ego and brought him on board) and thus forming a ready-made light artillery section whenever more substantial weapons appeared on the scene. I’d seen some builders and they had a stack of about two dozen trenching shovels – very thin-bladed shovels on long pole handles – and I’d fancied liberating one of those for use on the farm. But here I was on parade with a three-metre pole with a spoon on the end (with no idea what I would do with this). I was sent off to patrol around the corner of Richard Moon Street (which bore no resemblance whatever to the real Richard Moon Street) and down there was an ancient garage that I had never seen before. It had a bodyshell of an old Lotus Elan and the bodyshell of an old 105E Ford Anglia, both white, both covered with dust and green mould from standing for so long and both on sale at £100. Behind them was what remained of an old Mark II Ford Zodiac, yellow, and which was also for sale. But this place was a treasure trove. There were the remains of a 1920s hand-cranked petrol pump and all kinds of things like that, all overgrown and abandoned and I would have loved to have spent a day or two going through everything that was here.

But then the shower down the corridor woke me up again. 06:35 this time, so it looks as if these early-risers are in for the duration. So much so that when I went down the corridor for breakfast, there were just two of us there. Judging by the amount of bread left in the bread container, everyone else had been and gone already.

Back in my room, I had a nice relaxing morning not doing all that much but as the time drew on, I went and had a good shower and changed my clothes. I need to look my best (and smell my best too) for the Social Services department.

I went off on foot to the fritkot as I fancied chips for lunch. When I arrived, they were just closing even though it was still 5 minutes to 2. But I persuaded them to make me a portion, which they did, and then, seeing as it was a nice day, I took my courage in both hands and set off to walk to the hospital.

And I made it too, despite it being uphill all the way, and I was early too. That gave me enough time to have a drink, which I reckoned that I deserved too.

But the Social Services weren’t really all that helpful, in the sense that they haven’t really come up with something definite as yet. They’ll be “in touch” but they could be in touch anyway without me having to go all that way there. There is however some talk about a place in a … would you believe … monastery, just as I predicted. I hope that they have a good laundry where I can get rid of some of my dirty habits, but they need to improve the monotonous food. Regular readers of this rubbish know that there are only two brothers who work in the kitchen of a monastery – the chip monk and the fish friar.

Once I’d organised that, I went off to the Day Hospital to find out when my next appointment is – and it’s on Thursday – this Thursday – at 10:30. It’s a good job that I went to enquire.

Caliburn was next, and I moved him around the car park and rescued the shampoo and the toothpaste. I’ll have more stuff here than I will at home at this rate. And then, seeing as the afternoon was even nicer, I walked back here, all the way. And I know that I have done it too, but then this time last week I had difficulty walking to the bathroom so it’s a major step forward and I can be quite pleased with myself. It’s not quite a 10-mile hike around Montreal but I’m getting there.

Tonight for tea, I had a vegetable stir-fry with rice. A huge helping for just €5:00. And now I’m ready for bed.

But I did watch an interesting film that I found on the laptop. It’s a story about logging in Russia and they had all of the lorries doing things like driving along rivers with huge bow waves swamping the bonnets, and with the cabs almost totally under water. It’s frightening stuff and puts into perspective how easy the road is around Labrador, especially now that they are improving it.

So I have a day off tomorrow. I’ll be taking it easy I reckon because that walk is making me ache all over. Still, I’m proud of what I managed to do today.

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality