Tag Archives: fetterman massacre

Tuesday 11th November 2025 – TODAY’S WELSH LESSON …

… was another one that passed quite well, and I’m not sure why. Maybe, subconsciously, all of this preparation that I’m doing is having some effect, even if I don’t really notice it.

Having a good sleep also helps. I finished my notes fairly early last night, dashed through everything else that needed doing and found myself in bed for 22:50 – early by the standards of these days.

Once in bed, there I lay, fast asleep, until I had another one of these dramatic awakenings. This time, though, it was at 06:17, just twelve minutes before the alarm was due to go off. And being sat on the edge of the bed with my feet on the floor when the alarm sounded allows if to be counted as an early start.

In the bathroom, I had a good wash and scrub up, and then I went into the kitchen for the medication. This involved another honey, ginger and lemon drink to hopefully dissolve what is causing all of these fits of coughing. It doesn’t seem to be working so well so far.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was some big battle going on in Europe. In the USA, they would be sending thousands and thousands of shells over to Europe to fight this battle. When they had unloaded them on the docks and put them on a big railway, it would send them somewhere near the front line. Then, they would have a system of trench railways that would bring the stuff right up to the front. It was the Scots who were mainly involved in this battle. What they did in the USA was to encourage exiled Scots to make a monthly contribution. It only had to be a few pence or it could be a few Pounds every month to a bank account that had been set up, which could be used to purchase more ammunition and equipment.

That’s another thing about which I’ve been reading just recently – the trench railways in World War I. There were hundreds of miles of them built to bring supplies from the forward depots up to the front line. And this military subscription thing is similar to something that was set up to supply the Ukrainian forces in order to defend their country against the aggressor.

Isabelle the Nurse started her week this morning, and started in excellent fashion by turning up early. She was her usual cheerful self, except when she began to talk about the new War Memorial plaques that have begun to create a huge scandal.

In the town centre, they have commemorated the fallen by adding new plaques, listing the names of the fallen from the town in both World Wars, alongside the statue in the town square.

However, all of the names on the list are of the men who fell. There is not a single woman listed, although it is well-known that there were nurses from the town who were killed in action in both wars, there were female resistance fighters who were either killed or executed, there were females who were transported and died in the camps and there were females who were killed in the bombardment of the town. All of these people were mortes pour la France.

Many people are outraged by the omission of these names from the rolls of honour.

After she had left, I made breakfast and, having finished the project that I had been undertaking just recently, I went back to reading AB-SA-RA-KA, LAND OF MASSACRE.

It’s the diary of Margaret Carrington, wife of Colonel Henry Carrington of Fort Phil Kearny fame, and talks about her journey to the fort, her encounters there, and the final retreat after the Fetterman Massacre.

It’s written in a spirit of total naïveté, which would be charming had it not been full of comments that would be considered most offensive these days. Imagine someone writing today about the Powder River valley, saying"Buffalo Tongue and other Indians who infest its valley." and what the response would be.

She also has absolutely no sense of irony either. She mentions that "the Crows lost possession" of the Powder River "by robbery".

Furthermore, she then berates the Sioux and Cheyenne warriors at the Peace Council at Fort Laramie, asking them "Why do the Sioux and Cheyennes claim the land which belongs to the Crows?". They reply, quite naturally "The white man is along the great waters, and we wanted more room.".

Yes, no sense of irony whatever.

But she tells us of some very interesting events on the border. When talking about “Old Little Dog”, she announces that "he sprang upon the bare back of his pony with all the elasticity of youth and more than the skill of our mounted infantry, and galloped swiftly away. He had the appearance of being very old, but his agility and address in his intercourse with that pony were decidedly suggestive of the probable skill and activity of the young warriors of his nation"

Now, who amongst us would not have liked to have been present to witness that?

The most noteworthy remark however, was when she was talking about her house catching fire just before leaving for the Powder River. "But as this was only an incident very possible in army life, the fun of the affair made up for its losses."

Yes, “the fun of the affair being “an incident very possible in army life”. I’m all agog to find out what she makes later in the book about the death at the hands of Red Cloud and his band of Oglala Lakota of Lieutenant Fetterman and the eighty soldiers who went with him from the fort. How much “fun” will she think that this “incident very possible in army life” was?

After breakfast, I had to revise for my Welsh and then I attended the lesson. One of the subjects that we discussed was the UK’s Postmaster scandal. Many sub-postmasters were convicted of false accounting and sent to prison, with several committing suicide, only to be told later that the new computer program that they were obliged to use contained a bug that corrupted the entries that they had made.

The Post Office knew all about it but chose to keep silent, thus destroying the careers and the future, and in some cases the lives, of many of their sub-postmasters.

After the lesson, my cleaner turned up to do her stuff and I had a lovely shower. So now I’m all nice and clean for once.

After she left, I fitted the new SSD hard drive into the computer and loaded up the operating system. However, despite trying all afternoon, there’s a corruption in the C++ libraries that is preventing many of the programs that I use from loading up.

Had I realised this, I would have updated the operating system before loading up the programs. What I’ll have to do now is to format the disk and start again.

Tea was another helping of Moroccan bean tajine, but once again, I left a pile of food on the plate. However, a helping of chocolate cake and strawberry soya dessert filled a hole.

So now, this nice, clean me is off to bed to make the most of an unexpected Day of Rest tomorrow, to see if I can’t sort out this C++ library and then finish this radio programme.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Margaret Carrington’s offensive remarks about the Native Americans … "well, one of us has" – ed … since writing this entry, I am told that the Oglala Lakota Sioux are planning to take legal action against the estate of Margaret Carrington, and have consulted lawyers.
"It’s quite surprising that you have done that" I said to Red Cloud
"Not at all" he replied. "We’re not called ‘the Sioux’ for nothing, you know."

Thursday 2nd October 2025 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

… one of these miserable sessions at dialysis today, where nothing whatever seems to have gone my way.

The only bright spark of the afternoon there was the interaction with some of the nurses. We had a good laugh at times, although I imagine that if the doctor in charge of the service were to overhear it, he would put a stop to it in an instant.

But after the events of yesterday, I needed a good cheering-up. My depression went on and on, culminating in forgetting to switch on the water AGAIN last night, meaning that I had no hot water today.

It was probably due to the fact that I had yet another late night when I failed to concentrate on anything, and finished hours later than I would have liked. I crawled into bed at about 23:30, and at least, I was asleep quite quickly.

The night though was another one of these turbulent ones where I’m tossing and turning, trying to make myself comfortable. And although I had had some amount of sleep, at about 05:50 I gave up the struggle. By 06:00 I was up and about.

After a wash and shave (in lukewarm water) I went for breakfast. And then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. And what a task that was!

There was a group of prisoners in a prisoner-of-war camp who decided that they were going to escape. They had thought of a foolproof plan and were making their preparations before leaving. The first thing that they had done was that they had arranged to have six cups of coffee each to take with them. They were busy sorting out these cups onto some kind of trolley that they could pull along behind them. They were discussing their route. The obvious route was to head for Switzerland, but one of the people planned to head for the interior first – the interior of Germany, and make his way round in some kind of arc. They were discussing various towns that they would pass through on the way. There was some guy there with his wife, and they were planning on escaping. When they were out of the prison, the wife fell into the River Rhine or one of the rivers that pass into Switzerland. It was ice-cold and she was in danger of freezing. A barge was going past so she put out her hand and caught hold of a trailing rope from the barge and allowed herself to be pulled on down the river. That way, she managed to cross into Switzerland, although her husband was miles behind, trying to make his way down to the Swiss border on foot.

Part of this relates to the story of Edouard Izac, a lieutenant in the American Navy in World War I. He was captured when his ship was torpedoed and was taken to Germany. He escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp and although he was only eighteen miles from the Swiss border, he took a circuitous route of almost ten times that in order to throw his pursuers off the scent.

As for the rest of it, I’ve no idea at all.

Then there were two athletes, male athletes, who were caught in a wave of a German advance. Rather than be taken prisoner, they linked their arms between each other’s elbow joints and, hanging on to their necks, they counted to three and suddenly wound and moved their bodies, thus breaking their necks.

We discussed the “Fetterman massacre” a few weeks ago. The opinion of the fort’s medical officer was that the two officers had linked arms and shot each other, presumably to avoid capture and torture by the Native Americans.

There was then a story about a guy and an associate of his who were tramping miles across the country accompanied by two cats. They came to a big girder bridge across a river. They had to toss these cats onto the bridge and then leap onto the bridge themselves in order to cross. Instead of crossing, they went to the bridge-keeper’s office. The bridge-keeper was discussing various criminal matters with various different people, about robberies and crimes and everything that was due to take place, as if he was some kind of organiser. The guy in this dream went over to him and was talking about his plan to kill some businessman by looping two chains around his door. When the guy opened the door and subsequently closed it, the chains would pull in really tightly and break his spine. The bridge-keeper warned him about doing this and didn’t recommend it at all. But early next morning at the house of this wealthy guy, he came out of his door and then went and slammed it, and you could hear the groan from outside. A couple of hours later, his wife awoke and went downstairs. She couldn’t find her husband so she called the police. The police found the guy who had climbed onto the bridge. He was sitting in his car, naked. The Police Inspector interrogated him but extracted no particular information so he had a Constable sit behind him in the car, armed with a shotgun. The guy in the front seat said that he was nervous about the shotgun, but the Inspector told him that he could be even more nervous if he knows that it’s loaded.

What I shall do with this dream is to leave you lot to interpret it.

From there, it went on back to my house. I was in my bedroom, somehow confined there and wasn’t allowed out. I heard the front door open and it was the nurse apparently who came in. When I was finally allowed out of my bedroom, he was giving Nerina an injection for something or other and a series of tablets. I wondered why this had taken place. Then he gave me my injection. Nerina was there with some kind of machine that had a recoil starter. She was pulling on this starter, but it was very, very difficult to start. She had to cut part of the cowling away to reach the choke, which was one of these flip-chokes that you work with your thumb. Eventually she managed to cut the piece away and it was quite a neat job. I could see these thousands of tiny, tiny LED lights around this machine so I asked her what they were for. She told me that they were for Carnaval. I asked her if we were going to have a float at Carnaval then.

It won’t be long before we shall be preparing for Carnaval, assuming that the current mayor doesn’t ban it and he doesn’t want to redevelop the funfair site or the workshop where they build the floats. Anything is possible around here at the moment. And it’s nice to see Nerina back, although why she would confine me to my room I have no idea at all.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up and sorted me out, and then I could press on with breakfast and BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

The British, having captured Philadelphia, have now abandoned it and are retreating to New York. That was a mystifying decision, because the only way to defeat an army is to bring it to battle. Retreating like this and abandoning posts that the enemy would like to occupy is a pointless exercise. They may just as well have stayed in New York in the first place.

After breakfast, I came back in here and carried on sorting out the hard drive, making sure that the directories run how they should and linking files to programmes. But I was interrupted by the charity shop that took away the unwanted furniture. They were only here ten minutes yet in that time they must have worked like heroes.

My faithful cleaner came along as usual to deal with the anaesthetic cream, and then I had to wait (and wait and wait) for the taxi. If that wasn’t enough, there was someone else to pick up so we were hours late arriving.

One thing that they had asked me to do on Monday was to conserve one day’s output of … errr … liquid waste and take it in a plastic bottle so that the laboratory could examine the contents. That was embarrassing.

And I also have to say that I was surprised about how little there was. And that’s probably why my weight had almost gone off the scale today and why they said that I had to stay for four hours. What with being so late arriving, that was horrendous news.

“Never mind” said one of the nurses. “You can sleep here with us tonight.”

“You know what” I replied. “That’s the best proposition that I’ve had for quite some considerable time.”

There were cramps, low blood pressure ringing the alarm, all kinds of things. A patient had a funny turn in her bed, and another one collapsed when he stood up. It was all go this afternoon.

The dietician came to see me too and had another little moan about my diet. It’s not doing her much good though because I’m not changing, even if my appetite has plummeted dramatically.

The taxi was waiting when I finished, but even so, I was hours late coming home. Especially as we had to go via his office to pick up some papers.

Tea was late tonight – bangers and mash with cheese sauce and veg – and no washing-up as I have no hot water. That’s a horrible task awaiting me in the morning, assuming that I switch the water on again tonight. I hate waking up to washing-up in the sink waiting to be done.

But now I’m off to bed, ready for the Centre de Ré-education tomorrow. But not looking forward to it. I have a pain in the neck and in the shoulders and I’m not feeling too well at all. I wish that I could have a good night’s sleep.

But before I go, seeing as I have been talking about my … errr … liquid output … “well, one of us has” – ed … my cleaner saw me pick up the bottle and put it in a plastic bag
“What are you doing with that?” she asked.
“Nothing really” I replied. “I’m just taking the p***.”

Friday 12th September 2025 – I DON’T KNOW …

… why I bothered buying an apartment. I may as well have saved my money because it seems to me that these days, I’m being passed around from one hospital bed to another and it’s all getting completely out of hand. There has been another message today – "please present yourself at the aforementioned at 09:00 in the forenoon" – and all that kind of thing.

That’s the last thing that I need right now because I’m not doing all that well at the moment. It was another wretched evening when I couldn’t seem to find the motivation to finish rapidly what I was doing. Although I had the notes from yesterday online at some kind of reasonable hour, it still took an age to finish everything off and crawl into bed.

It was a bad night again, where I spent most of the time tossing and turning and not being able to sleep. At one point, I was thinking of leaving the bed and dictating the radio notes that I’d prepared during the week, but the howling, roaring gale and the sound of the waves crashing onto the cliffs out here rendered that idea a waste of time. No-one would hear me over the noise.

By the time that 05:50 came round, I was wide-awake so I switched on the light ready to leave the bed. However, the spirit may be willing but the flesh was quite weak this morning again and it was … errr … somewhat later when I finally had my feet on the ground.

After a good wash and the medication, I had some jars of spices to fill. And woe is me! I’ve run out of cumin. I’ve seen the price in the local supermarket too and how I wish that I could go back to Leuven where I can buy enormous bags for next to nothing.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I dreamed that I was in chemotherapy again – dialysis again last night and had to plug myself into the machine. There was some big, aggressive, domineering type of nurse who was surveying me, seeing if I had done it properly, but it took several goes before she was satisfied with what I’d done, and I’m not surprised that I awoke at that point.

This is something else that is going beyond a joke. It seems to have become a nocturnal obsession with me, dialysis and connecting myself up with tubes. It’s bad enough being confronted with it during the day but dreaming about it too when I really want to be dreaming about other things … "like TOTGA, Zero and Castor" – ed … is too much.

When I awoke just now, I was convinced that I’d been sitting down somewhere talking to a girlfriend of mine, discussing four different options of piles of clothes, one of which was supposed to be wet but I couldn’t see which one was wet when I touched them. This evolved into talking about the dictaphone. I was going somewhere so I was planning to leave the dictaphone with her. I had to show her how to work it but she said not to worry because she’ll have plenty of trials with it to make sure that it was working fine for when she actually needed it.

As it happens, I remember this. And I really did think that I had been sitting down too. I’m not sure why I would be letting anyone else use my dictaphone though. It usually accompanies me if I am away from the house.

At this point, I went and put my fleece jacket on. I forgot to say that yesterday, I put on a fleece in the apartment for the first time this year. It’s gone quite cold this last couple of days. "Winter is acumen in. Lhude sing Rudolph."

The nurse turned up again, in a very good humour yet again. I hope that he keeps it up for the rest of however long it will be that I’m here. I have a sneaky feeling that it won’t be long at this rate.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of COLONEL CARRINGTON’S TESTIMONY. In fact, I’ve read all of it now because it wasn’t that long.

Apart from the usual facts that were chiselled out about the running of the forts and the deaths of Fetterman and his party, there were the gruesome details about how Fetterman and his men were mutilated – in many cases before death. And it doesn’t make very pretty reading. In respect of Lieutenant Daniels, who was killed a few weeks before, Carrington tells us that "Lieutenant Daniels, a little in advance, was shot, scalped, and barbarously tortured with a stake inserted from below." That is nothing compared to the fate of some of Fetterman’s men.

However, to give you some idea of the constraints under which he was operating with his 375 men against a war party of at least 3,000 Sioux, he reports to his General that "One contract train with supplies for Fort C.F. Smith"; one of his outposts further down the Bozeman Trail "(thirty-one wagons) had but five arms with the party. I had to furnish an escort, especially as I had to send ammunition to Fort C.F. Smith, then reduced to ten rounds per man."

In his own case at his own fort (Fort Phil Kearny), the chief location along the Bozeman Trail, "I found Spencer ammunition at Reno and thereby am relieved from some trouble on that account, but having drawn, en route, all I could, I have not now for my Springfield rifles, fifty rounds to the man.". How on earth he was expected to hold at bay a whole Sioux Army is a total mystery.

Rather ominously, in view of the disaster that befell Fetterman and his troop, just six weeks before the dismal affair, Carrington assures his General that "In no case will any rash venture be made". Carrington did indeed give instructions to Fetterman, in the presence of witnesses, "Under no circumstances pursue over the ridge viz; Lodge Trail Ridge, as per map in your possession" i.e. out of the line of sight of the fort. However, when I walked to the battlefield from the fort in 2019, I found it to be well over the crest of the ridge and halfway down the reverse slope, a long way (as in several miles) out of the line of sight of the fort.

Back in here, I had various things to do, and then I attacked the radio programme that I’d been preparing over the last couple of days. And now, after a Herculean effort, because I really wasn’t feeling much like it, it’s now finished and ready for dictation. I’m now going to have to find a quiet early morning with no storms when I can dictate the notes that are building up.

All of this was interrupted by a text message. "Don’t forget your appointment at the University Hospital of Rennes on Wednesday 17th September at 09:00."

My appointment is actually for the Tuesday so I rang them up to see if there has been a mistake or a change of plan. But to my surprise (and dismay) I was told "the chemotherapy goes on for two days. You need to come here for both sessions."

"So do I get to stay the night in between?"

"Ohh no" replied the nurse. "You go home and come back the following morning."

My cleaner turned up as usual to do her stuff in the apartment, and she’s been busy rearranging things. That means that I probably won’t be able to find a few more things for quite some time now, and when I do find them, the next day they will all be rearranged again.

After she left, I made some more vegan mayonnaise as I have now run out. And I shovelled loads of garlic into it to give it some added bite. Not in the sense of werewolves or vampires, because the amount of garlic in that stuff will keep them away. They don’t seem to come any closer to me than Transylvania.

Tea tonight was chips with vegan salad and vegan mini-nuggets, delicious as usual.

But now, I’m off to bed, all ready for dialysis, I don’t think. But I really am fed up with this endless series of visits to hospitals. Wouldn’t it be nice if it could all stop?

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about keeping things away … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone in Shavington where we used to live as kids always planted garlic in with his strawberry plants.
"Why are you doing that?" asked his neighbour
"It keeps polar bears off my strawberries"
"But the polar bears are in the Arctic" replied the neighbour. "that’s 2,000 miles from here"
"Yes, it’s powerful stuff, isn’t it?"

Thursday 11th September 2025 – I DON’T KNOW …

… what happened at dialysis this afternoon, but there are a couple of things that just aren’t correct.

Take the diabetes reading, for example. My blood sugar level is usually around the critical minimum level of 0.8, but today, according to their machine, it was at an excessive 1.29, and it’s never been that high.

And then there’s the blood pressure. I’m plagued with low blood pressure, usually around 9.0, often down to 8.0 and even sometimes down to 7.0 when they have to call for help. It needs constant monitoring at dialysis so they check it automatically every half-hour and if it’s less than 9.0 an alarm sounds, which it does with monotonous regularity.

However, today the alarm didn’t sound at all and the blood pressure hovered around the 11.0 mark.

So what on earth is going on? It’s not like me at all, any of this.

It might be something to do with the night that I had last night. I was in bed by 23:30 – not early by any means but earlier than some have been just recently – and I slept right through without interruption all the way through to 06:23 – one minute earlier than yesterday.

That was when I awoke. It was not necessarily when I left the bed, but let’s not argue about that. But once I was up and about, I went for a good wash and brush up, and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

After the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We had some kind of project going to re-equip an old supermarket with new shelving, racking etc. We had a lot of the stuff already so it meant going up to our warehouse and sorting out what we had. The trouble was that there were bits and pieces everywhere and it took a while to sort it all out. There was about half-a-dozen of us doing all this. It involved collecting everything together and making a start, but because of the difficulties of finding the stuff, we’d been working on one particular range of shelving for quite some time, and I thought that the people in the supermarket would be fed up, so we should prioritise having that finished. It meant collecting together all of the stuff that was lying around for that particular range, so I began to collect everything together. I had to find a box in which to put it all so I went into the storeroom in which someone was searching through, to ask if there was a box. However, one of the girls who should have been helping us was there fitting a new speedometer to her motorbike. I thought that this isn’t really helping the situation of pushing on with this job. This goes back to some kind of situation where I’d been shopping, trying to collect everything that we needed but I’d only ended up going round half the supermarket before I ended up somehow at the checkout, so the following day I had to go back and do the other half. That’s where the story of this renovation came in.

There is nothing that I have done recently that ties in with anything in this dream, except maybe to look for a few cardboard boxes, so this is a puzzle.

There was also something about driving my old red Cortina estate around the back roads and dirt tracks near the North Wales coast in the Prestatyn area, and at the end of one dirt track was a big abandoned building with a castellated roof, that I recognised as the headquarters of the old local electricity company so I took a few photos of it. The road stopped abruptly there but in the distance directly across the fields I could see the North Wales Expressway near Rhuddlan and the huge spire of the marble church near Bodelwyddan. Back home I went to show the photos to some of my friends but they all seemed to have failed, showing only a portion of the building in close-up instead of all of it.

Yesterday I was reading up about the Kinmel Bay riots in 1919, the camp at Kinmel Bay being just a short distance from Bodelwyddan. But again, I’ve no idea where the reference to some fictitious building supposed to be the MANWEB (Merseyside And North Wales Electricity Board) head offices (which were actually at Rhostyllen) fits in. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall however much discussion about my red Cortina estate, currently languishing in my warehouse in Montaigut en Combraille with a 2000E saloon and a Traction Avant for company.

The nurse was once again much more like his cheerful self this morning, which is good news. He didn’t stay long, and after he left I could make breakfast and read some more of ADVENTURES ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER.

In fact, I’ve read all of it now because our author has arrived in Montréal, which is where his story ends. But he finished it with a delightful anecdote. Discussing the “conjugal” arrangements between some of the Native American women and some of the officers of the fur-trading companies, he tells us that "Mr. J was transferred that autumn from the Columbia to the Athabasca department, to replace a Mr. C who was about quitting the country, and leaving behind him a handsome" Métisse "wife. J succeeded him both in bed and board".

Tomorrow, I’ll be starting on a new book, which looks as if it might be Colonel Carrington’s testimony in relation to the Fort Phil Kearny debacle. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in the summer 2019 we went into the Powder River country to visit THE SITE OF FORT PHIL KEARNY and the battle site where Lieutenant Fetterman led an absolutely reckless pursuit of a group of Native Americans who led him and his men straight into an ambush where they were wiped out to a man, all eighty-one of them.

We spent a good couple of weeks roaming around Northern Wyoming, North and South Dakota visiting many of the sites of conflict between the Europeans and the Native Americans, including places like LITTLE BIG HORN and finishing up at SOUTH PASS where the emigrants on the Oregon and California Trail in the 1840s passed from the Atlantic basin to the Pacific basin and where you can still see the wagon ruts today.

Back in here, I carried on with the next radio programme. All of the music has been chosen, edited, paired and segued, and I’ve made a start writing the notes. With a little luck, I might be finished tomorrow.

My cleaner came round to apply my anaesthetic cream, and then I had to wait for the taxi, which was late. Not that I minded because it was the cute young driver who came to pick me up and we had a lovely chat all the way down to the dialysis centre.

Although it was a late arrival, I was attended to straight away so the connection was even earlier than some have been. But despite the lack of interruptions, I couldn’t concentrate on anything and it was rather a waste of an afternoon.

My Belgian friend brought me back home, so we had another good chat and I gave her the number of my plumber, because she needs some bathroom work doing. And although he was more expensive than I was hoping, he did a magnificent job and I’m well-satisfied.

Tea tonight was a leftover curry but it’s given me a wicked indigestion, so I’ll be glad to go to bed tonight and sleep it off.

But seeing as we have been talking about Colonel Carrington’s expedition into Native American territory … "well, one of us has" – ed … on one occasion he went to smoke the pipe of peace with one of the local chiefs.
The chief began to introduce his entourage to Carrington
"My name is Chief Running Buffalo"
"How" replied Colonel Carrington
"This is my brother, Laughing Spirit"
"How" replied Colonel Carrington
"This is my mother, Flying Eagle. She came from the Comanche Tribe"
"How" replied Colonel Carrington
"And this is my squaw, Shining Moon. I bought her for three buffalo skins."
"How" replied Colonel Carrington
"Never mind ‘How’" said Colonel Carrington’s aide-de-camp. "Where?"

Saturday 14th September 2024 – SO THAT’S DAY …

… two of the rest of my life in the dialysis ward sorted out.

And to my surprise, apparently I’m something of a celebrity. The doctor in charge of the dialysis department listens to my rock programmes on the radio and has told the rest of the clinic who I am.

We’re not at the stage where people are asking for my autograph or where I’m being besieged by groupies (more the pity) but still ….

That’s the advantage of living in a small place – it’s much more fun being a big fish in a small pond than it is being a small fish in a big pond (or maybe talking about fish, I should have said “place”). I’m not cut out to be a city-dweller

Another thing that I’m not cut out for is going to bed early. It was another horribly late night last night, but that’s because the Highlights (if you can call it that) of Y Bala v Aberystwyth.

Over the last few seasons Aberystwyth have been getting worse and worse. They narrowly escaped relegation two years ago, and it was only an administration issue affecting Pontypridd United that saved them last season.

This season, slugging it out with Y Fflint for the other relegation place alongside LLansawel, they are doing badly and were swept aside by Y Bala last night. In fact the highlights had them in the Bala half just once

It’s a good job that it wasn’t the live match this weekend because it would have been painful to watch, I reckon.

So I was soon in bed after the final whistle and once more I didn’t need much rocking before I disappeared into the ether.

Just one or two brief awakenings but I went back to sleep almost straight away and there I stayed (for a change) until the alarm went off.

In the bathroom I had a good wash, a shave and a change of clothes. After all, at the Dialysis Ward I might even meet Emile The Cute Consultant so must look my best.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We were working for a Sports Radio. There was an apartment available to let and we’d been asked to show some people round it. It was only a single-roomed apartment, bedsit-type of place that doesn’t take much showing around. The guy who came to look at it was extremely interested even though it was untidy and dirty. He asked a few questions about the gas fire, whether it was connected to the mains and whether it was a good connection. While I was poking around in there having a look I came across firstly another key which had presumably been left down underneath the fire and some money too, some Euros and some £5 notes totalling (thinks) €30:00 and £10:00. There was something about this €30:00 but I can’t remember what it is. There was certainly rather more to this dream but I can’t recall it. The guy was extremely interested in this place. Finding the key and the money was the icing on the cake as far as he was concerned but the place was dirty and needed a really good clean-up after the previous tenant had left. It looked like the person smoked and there was cigarette ash everywhere.

And in a minute I’ll tell you a funny story about a Sports Radio. But finding stuff hidden under the gas fire is one thing, but it’s not where I would have hidden it. In the book of THE MALTESE FALCON Sam Spade hid the falcon in the ice compartment of his refrigerator

A friend of mine from Chester was talking about the collieries at Llay. It turned out that that was where a friend from school had gone to work. He said that it was his first real job and his last one too because the colliery had closed down. It was just over the Christmas period and never reopened. The people knew that it was closing but the fact that they didn’t reopen it after Christmas showed that they had changed the plans without communicating this to the workforce. The workforce was of course all laid off, part of the industrial desolation in North Wales. The site was left to rot for several years but eventually it was cleared away in some kind of demolition control. The Wrexham Maelor Council was left to look after what was left of the property. The site was now some kind of industrial estate. My schoolfriend said “why don’t we go to have a look at it?”. I thought that this was something that we should have done a long time ago, many years ago, but I suppose that now as as good a time as any. It would have been nice to have been there fifteen years ago when it was working but you can’t have everything

Llay has been in the news over the summer. The local football club won promotion to Wales’s second tier in dramatic circumstances. The name of the club, Llay Miners Welfare FC, recalls the days when there were collieries in the area. And if the family Bible is anything to go by, my grandmother’s people came from Penrhiwceiber in South Wales and likely came north when there was a wave of pit openings in the early years of the 20th Century.

But there’s another question. I rescued her Bible from a skip where it had been thrown after her bungalow was cleared out. Who’s going to rescue it when my apartment is cleared out after I’ve gone? Apart from the fact that it has her family tree in it, it’s actually one of the rare Bibles that was written in Welsh

I dreamed that some woman had come into my bedroom and began to lick and hug my door. She said that she was my teacher but I didn’t recognise her from school at all

And what on earth is that all about? Women coming into my room and licking and hugging my door? Obviously I’m not famous enough yet despite what goes on in the clinic and I’ll have to work hard at that.

There was also a dream about two German women coming out of a cafe. One of them was saying to the other about her daughter can stay with her for a couple of days and then return home, then her son could go to stay with her too. This woman was something to do with the German military. The subject came up about a motorbike somewhere in a town along the Rhine. The woman wondered if it would be suitable for her son so she went to ask some kind of German officer if she would borrow some kind of transport to go down to pick it up but the German officer was not impressed at all and told her that he’d already said in the past that she’s not allowed to borrow any transport for this kind of purpose

That’s not very relevant to anything at all that I can think of. I’m clearly losing my grip.

When the nurse came, she sorted out my puttees (which fell down again later), issued an order for supplies and tried her best to give me some encouragement for this afternoon. I asked her what time I should apply the anaesthetic patches and she told me to ring the hospital

And it’s a good job that I did because they didn’t have me down to come and they hadn’t therefore booked the taxi to bring me

And then I could finally make breakfast and read my book. And do you know? I can’t remember what it was that I read today

After breakfast I watched that new Sports programme showing the highlights of Newport City’s game last night. And the reporter "and (the ‘keeper) hangs onto the ball like my missus hangs on to an Easter egg" .

That’s my style of commentating so I sent the commentator a mail of encouragement and we struck up quite a conversation

There was some photocopying to be done so I attended to that, interrupted by my loyal cleaner. She’d brought up the post and was going to apply the anaesthetic patches.

The post had some good news, for me and for her. That Society that deals with personal autonomy who came to see me the other week considers that I need at least 13 hours of assistance per month (instead of the current 8) and will give me a grant for the extra hours.

One of the tasks for which I need assistance apparently is “moral support” – although what moral support I can have in 13 hours is a matter of debate.

The taxi came and whisked me off to Avranches. The driver was a rocker and so we had rock music all the way which made a nice change.

And who should be on duty today at the Dialysis Centre but Emilie The Cute Consultant. It really was my lucky day.

Today I was in the public ward where it was rather warmer but I was still stretched out on a bed and thus unable to work

Instead I carried on reading Colonel Carrington’s reports about life on his frontier post “across the lines” in Indian Territory. And we reached a crucial point in the narrative today.

He’s been accused by his own junior officers of timidity in confronting the Native Americans but it’s clear in that sending troops to the forest to bring trees back to build the stockade, to cut planks to make the buildings etc, he doesn’t have the time or the resources to go on the offensive.

However, one of his subordinates takes a couple of troops, totalling 80 or so men, on an independent command and disobeying all his clear orders, goes in an impetuous chase of a party of natives.

It goes without saying that this group of natives is just an advance guard for an ambush, and of all the palefaces, there’s not even one survivor.

When we were there IN 2019 and walked across the battlefield, you could see just how ideal it was for an ambush

Carrington noticed it too when he went to retrieve the bodies, and in his notes he describes – in lurid, gruesome detail – the mutilations that they had suffered, many of which had been committed while the victims were likely still alive.

When they were disconnecting me and unplugging me, they talked about my “unwillingness” to become involved in the more gruesome parts of this dialysis procedure.

They talked about sending the psychiatrist to see me and asked if I would like that. Well, apart from the fact that I think that anyone who wants to see a psychiatrist needs his head examined, I am actually quite comfortable with my problems. And if anyone can help me overcome them it won’t be a trick cyclist. I shall have to do it myself.

It was a silent drive back here with a very taciturn chauffeur, and then my cleaner watched as I fought my way upstairs alone

And Rosemary had sent me a message. She tells me that this morning she saw the snow on the Puy de Sancy. Winter’s on the way already.

Having mentioned Aberystwyth’s disaster last night, it’s even worse because Y Fflint surprisingly beat Hwlffordd this afternoon to pull away up the table.

Tea was, for a change, a burger on a bun. It’s been a while since I’d had one of those, made with the stuff that my friend in Munich had sent me ages ago. I’d made it up and then frozen the burgers to use bit by bit.

And my roly poly was delicious too.

So now I’m off to bed – when I’ve dictated the radio notes that I’ve written during the week. High time I went back to work

But on this psychiatry thing, the last time I was there they gave me the Rorschach test
The psychiatrist showed me a photo of an ink-stain and asked "what’s this?"
"Rorschach test image number six" I replied
"Ohh come on" he urged. "Be serious"
"OK" I said. "It’s a loaf of bread"
"And this?"
"A dragonfly"
"And this?"
"An octopus"
"And this?"
"Eeeuurrgg" I shuddered. "That’s an evil parasite that sucks out the lifeblood of human beings and gorges itself on their energy and shrinks the willpower …"
The psychiatrist looked at the card. "I’m very sorry" he said. "But that’s a photo of my wife"
"But was I close?"
"You were close"

Tuesday 13th August 2024 – DAY TWO …

… of my Summer School passed by today.

And to my surprise, it all went really well. I’ve no idea what’s happened there, but that’s simply not normal. Things just don’t go quite like that.

So last night I washed my puttees and went to bed in something of a hurry. It was later than I would like – about 23:30 – but that’s not late enough to be worried by anything.

It didn’t take me long to go off to sleep either. Just a matter of minutes. Although I can’t remember falling asleep, I know how far I reached with my little bedtime mantra and it wasn’t far at all. Still, with not crashing out at all during the day I must have been quite wasted.

Once I was asleep, I slept through all the way until about … errr … 05:30 when something outside must have awoken me. I’ve no idea what it was and I didn’t go to find out. I just pulled the bedclothes tighter, and had my RAIN SPLATTERED WINDOWS MADE ME DECIDE TO STAY IN BED I’d have dreamed of summertime instead.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I fell out of bed and once the room stopped spinning round I headed for the bathroom for a good scrub up. I have to look my best for these on-line meetings, even if I don’t feel much like it.

And I managed to dress without falling over of having to sit down and that’s some kind pf progress. And if you think that it’s strange that I’m celebrating something like this as being an achievement, you just don’t understand the state that I’m in.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. That big freshwater lake in South America was due to close so I’d gone down there to hire a boat and was messing about on the water before it all disappears. In the meantime while I was down there it seemed that there had been some kind of incident. A tractor had driven straight through the crowd from some fellow’s field onto the road, scattering everyone. What an insane use of language. There were many words here that I had never heard before in the UK and in some respects I was glad that I don’t because some of these people are really out of control and this is appalling.

There aren’t too many words that I have never heard before. working in a pool of chauffeurs from all corners of the European Union speaking a variety of different languages and having been as popular as I was with my colleagues, you can imagine that I’ve heard them all at close quarters too. But this reminds me of my prevarications a couple of years ago – I was always going to learn to sail “next week” or “next month”, and look at me now. It’s an object (or maybe even an abject) lesson of “never put off until tomorrow any plans that you can do today”.

I was taking a coach trip somewhere. I had to give my passengers an afternoon out and there was a nuclear power station in the vicinity of where we were going so I went round there and tried to speak to someone about the possibility of bringing my coach and tourists around for a look. The guy whom I saw explained that it would be rather difficult because of the organisation of the factory. I said that the factory would be organised into three parts. There would be the equipment, the operation and the security and we would just be interested in the operations, how the thing worked and what it did etc but the guy was extremely stubborn and made the point that with the building and plant not being equipped for this kind of thing we could lead to all kinds of problems about security etc. I was still in the middle of an argument trying to convince him when I awoke.

When I worked for … "he means “employed by”" – ed … Shearings, my coach tours were fun. I never stopped at the usual motorway service stations. I know that on one occasion I even managed to arrange a coffee break in a local monastery. People had their money’s worth. In all seriousness, if I could have taken them for a guided tour and coffee break around a nuclear power station, I would have done without a second thought.

When I was trying to organise myself I dropped a carton of milk that I was drinking into a bucket of cold water that was standing close by me. Of course all the milk and all the water mixed and I was extremely disappointed in that because I was enjoying that carton of milk .

And it wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve done something stupid like that either.

The nurse came around to deal with my legs and to give me my injection. I’m not sure if I’ve told you that the blood test results came bac a few days ago – and they make grim reading.

But I’ve received the message loud and clear about the plaster on my operation from the other day. The nurse is ignoring it completely. He and his colleague think that I no longer need it, and medically they are probably correct.

However, psychologically I’m certain that I do, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, and tending to my psychological needs is just as important as attending to any other needs.

After he left, I had breakfast and carried on reading my book. And I’ve finally reached the part that interested me – that of Nelson Story’s famous cattle drive along the Bozeman Trail at the time of the Fetterman Massacre.

One of the reasons why it’s so interesting is that it was written 35 years after the disaster that befell Fetterman’s patrol along the Bozeman Trail near Fort Phil Kearny, which regular readers of this rubbish will recall that WE VISITED IN 2019, and after several public enquiries had been held to establish the true facts and after written memoirs had been published, the old myths, legends and falsehoods were still circulating.

Back in here after breakfast I did my Welsh homework. And to my dismay we weren’t asked for it. It wasn’t even discussed. Nevertheless, I suppose that there’s a point in doing it so I’ll press on

As I mentioned earlier, the Welsh lesson passed off quite well and I only fell asleep twice – but on both occasions there was a dramatic and instant awakening and the second time pumped enough adrenalin around to stay awake for the rest of the day.

At the end of the lesson I went into the kitchen for my cocoa and chocolate cake. The cake was nice and cold, having been in an airtight container in the fridge.

That’s at least one good thing to come out of this – that even though I’m trying to do away with plastic here, I can’t do without them completely and had to rescue a couple of containers from the stock that I’d put to one side

Once I’d wound down I chose the final track for the radio programme that I’d been editing, and written, the notes for it.

There’s one radio programme left of this batch that I recorded so I’ll start on that tomorrow.

But tomorrow I’m having my assessment. Not that it’s likely, but we could be moving into an entirely new ball-game. It wouldn’t be a disaster if I were to be placed in a Home, but it wouldn’t be far off. As long as it’s not a Home where the jacket fastens at the back.

Tea was a delicious taco roll with rice and veg. Plenty of stuffing left so its going to be a lovely leftover curry for tea tomorrow night, with rice and a naan bread.

So that’s me finished for the night. If I’m lucky I might have an early night but I’m not betting on it. There’s still plenty of stuff to do.

But going back to what I said earlier about going to the Monastery, we had a guided tour around the place
"But you can’t go in this room" explained the guide
"Why not?" asked one of the tourists
"It’s the … errr …. laundry" he replied
"What does he mean by that?" whispered another tourist
"He means that it’s where the monks go when they want to deal with their filthy habits" I explained.

Thursday 8th April 2021 – TODAY, I’VE HAD …

… another one of those nautical days that we have every so often.

There has been so much traffic on the waters today that I’ve really been spoilt for choice when it came to taking photos because I could have taken 100 and still not done justice to everything that was going on out there at sea this afternoon.

When I went out there this afternoon for my little walk around the headland I was overwhelmed by the amount of nautical traffic that was bobbing up and down on the high seas, from the smallest plank-boarders to some of the larger trawlers and freighters that hang around the port.

And it wasn’t just out at sea that we were having all of this excitement.

It was pretty busy in the harbour this morning too. One of or favourite boats, the little Jersey Freighter Normandy Trader has come into port on the overnight tide. She’s now tied up underneath the crane at the loading bay while the personnel of the Chamber of Commerce make ready to unload her.

You can see all of the material on the quayside already. I reckon that this is the load that she has to take back with her to St Helier. And you can see how busy she is with all of that load. No wonder her owners are talking about buying a larger boat

And it’s not just at sea and in the port that we are extremely busy. Thee was quite a lot going on in the air today too.

The bright sunny weather has certainly brought out the aeroplanes this afternoon, like this one that overflew me as I walked my weary way around the headland. I’ve no idea what it is because I couldn’t see the registration properly. I can see the last three letters – VNA – of its registration.

Although I checked, there was nothing of that registration that had taken off from or landed at Granville Airport this afternoon. It’s probably frustrating me deliberately by not filing a flight plan so people like me can’t identify it.

So while you admire the picture of the busy port this afternoon with the crowds of boats queueing up and the portable boat lift now tackling Lys Noir, I’ll tell you about my busy morning.

It was rather a late night, although not as late as it has been once or twice, so I was able to leap out of bed with alacrity when the alarm went off.

After the medication I attacked the dictaphone notes for the last couple of days seeing as I missed out on doing it yesterday. And if you now look at yesterday’s entry, you’ll see that that is now up-to-date with the entries for yesterday now incorporated. Now that those were out of the way I could turn my attention to last night’s travel.

Some people came round to my house, including an old friend of mine so I invited a girl to come along as well. I made all of the arrangements but just at the last moment when I was getting ready to receive my visitors I had a ‘phone call to say that this girl was having to go into work so she wouldn’t be able to come. I had a little morning’s entertainment with these people and just strode out and the followed me. They went their separate ways. I just happened to be walking past their house when a car pulled up and these 3 girls got out. 1 of them said “so-and-so will run you home” referring to her youngest sister. “She knows the trick about the car”. They parked up but then they saw me walking past and asked “Eric, are you coming in?”. I walked up the path towards the door to join them.

having dome that I turned my attention to the photos from August 2019 on my North American Adventure and managed a few of those before it was time for me to go off for my shower.

And having done that, I wandered off out on my way to the shops for my mid-week shopping trip.

My route took me past the top of the Rampe du Monte à Regret where they are using the poor state of the medieval wall as a training ground for young apprentices.

And sure enough, there were about half a dozen there, a few of whom were females, something that is always nice to see. All of them with their trowels and mortar boards doing a nice rightward lead along all of the cracks. It brought back many happy memories of when I was POINTING THE WALLS AT MY HOUSE all those years ago.

having watched them for a while I pushed on … “pushed off” – ed … down the steps and on into the town.

And it looks as if they are getting ready for the summer season, such as it might be this year, in the town.

The other day when we were around the town we saw the candyfloss and sweet stand that had arrived in the town and was now parked up hear the harbour. Today I noticed that the kiddies’ roundabout has arrived and has now been set up in the Place Charles de Gaulle ready to entertain them for the next few months.

My next port of call was LIDL for the midweek session of my weekly shopping. I didn’t want all that much from there so I ended up with quite a light load. So not to waste the trip I stocked up with some soya milk and some tomato sauce because I can always use that sort of thing and I never seem to have enough.

On the way back home I had to go along the Rue Paul Poirier, and that wasn’t as easy as it might have been.

There were roadworks in the street today and it was closed to all traffic. Not for pedestrians though so I could make my way along there and while I was it it, I could see what they were trying to do.

They had half of the road dug up near the junction with the Rue Etoupefour but as for why, I didn’t have any idea. They were digging a small trench and one of the guys was relaying the cobbles where there is the 5-minute waiting spot, cutting a few of them with his stone cutter to make them fit into their spaces. I suppose we’ll have to wait for a few days after they have cleared off in order to see what they have been doing.

At the other end of the street, having pushed my way through the roadworks, I crossed over the road and started to go up the Rue des Juifs where I glanced down at the junction of the Place des Corsaires and the Rue Etoupefour.

There was a man down there with some of the cobbles pulled up, chipping away at them. I’m sure that it can’t be a coincidence with people working like this at both ends of the street . They must be doing some kind of work in common so I suppose we’ll find our about that in due course too.

Anyway I carried on up the Rue des Juifs with my light load hardly impeding me at all. I wasn’t going to say that I ran up the street but it was a good climb up there with hardly a pause for breath.

There was an occasion to call for a pause halfway up the hill because there was something of interest going on at the docks.

One thing that I’ve noticed is that each of the Jersey freighters, Thora and Normandy Trader has started to carry a couple of small sealed containers, presumably with private freight, and this morning they were unloading one of them from the deck of Normandy Trader and putting it on the quayside ready to be taken away.

That was all of the excitement for the morning. I wandered off home for my hot chocolate and sourdough fruit bread and to continue with my photo editing.

Unfortunately I didn’t manage to do too many because I crashed out on my chair. And crashed out completely too. I must have been out for about an hour and a half altogether. As a result I had a very late lunch.

After lunch, seeing as it was a nice sunny day with very little wind I went and attacked Caliburn’s door.

Trying to take off the door card was a contortionist’s delight and it took me an absolute age to free it off just so far that I could put my hand inside the door skin. And as for where the spring clip that holds on the window winder went, I have absolutely no idea.

Being able to put my hand inside the door skin was one thing. To actually open the door was something else and my hands ended up black and blue with cuts and bruises but with a great amount of force and inconvenience I finally managed spring the catch and open the door.

With the door open I could re-attach the bits that had fallen off and do the necessary adjustments and now the door will open from the outside as well as the inside. But I’m not putting the door card back on until I’m sure that it works.

While I was out there working, I was not alone.

Yesterday we saw the seagull on the windowsill of one of the apartments on the other side of the building. And this time the bird is waiting at the correct window – the one where there is the plastic bird model on the inside. And you only have to look at the state of the window to see how often it is that the bird calls there.

But anyway, I went off inside to put away my tools and then came back outside to go for my afternoon walk in the sunshine.

The first thing to do was to go to the wall at the end of the car park to look over the wall to see what was going on down on the beach today.

The tide is quite well in this afternoon so thee wasn’t all that much beach to be on today but even so, there was still enough room for a few people to wander about. These two people were having a pile of fun leaping about from rock to rock down there and they will probably keep on doing it until the tide comes in and cuts off their only means of retreat.

There was no retreat for me today. I was continuing my walk along the path on top of the cliffs. And despite the really nice weather there was hardly anyone else about so I had the place pretty much to myself

A little earlier I mentioned that there was quite a lot going on in the air and I mentioned the light aeroplane that flew by overhead.

We also had another regular visitor going past me overhead this afternoon someone whom we haven’t seen for quite some time. It’s the old yellow autogyro that we’ve seen in the past on several occasions. We saw a different one, a reddy-orange one, fly past us the other day and it made me wonder when we would be seeing this one again.

She was flying quite high over my head too, much higher than normal and he had a passenger too so they presumably are on one of these sightseeing trips that she does every now and again

The French have a saying jamais deux sans trois – “never two without a third”, and that applied to the aircraft that I saw today.

In fact they may well have said “thirty-third” because there were so many in the sky this afternoon. Today’s choice of aircraft is an Airbus A320-232 that’s operated by Vueling Airlines, a Spanish low-cost airline and is operating their flight VY7826 /VLG7826 which is the 15:00 from Barcelona heading to Gatwick Airport.

Her registration number is EC-MVE and airframe number 8130 which means that she was built about three or so years ago and supplied new to the airline which means that she was supplied new to the airline in February 2018.

She wet past me over head at about 25,000 feet and 388 knots and had already started her descent down to the Gatwick flight path as I was watching her

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have spent a great deal of time discussing Chausiais, the little freighter or barge that runs the freight between the Ile de Chausey and the mainland.

She’s usually been tied up at the ferry port or in the inner harbour but today I’ve actually been lucky enough to catch her on her travels, coming back from the ile de Chausey.

She’s down there now manoeuvring her way between a couple of yachts as she returns to the port after her little run out. I suppose that with all of the tourists and second-home owners being here fleeing the lockdown in Paris, she has plenty of work to do, ferrying the supplies out there to the island.

From the end of the headland I followed the rail of yachts Chausiais and all of the fishing boats towards the harbour.

The harbour gates into the inner harbour aren’t open as yet but the time can’t be that far off because the queue of trawlers around them waiting to go in was quite oppressive. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen so many loitering around the harbour gates. Chausiais had quite a struggle to fight her way into her berth.

Earlier on we saw the portable boat lift wrapping her slings around lys noir but I didn’t hang around long enough to see what they were going to be doing with her. Instead, I carried on along the path.

While I was walking around on the path above the harbour I’d noticed a sail being erected in the inner harbour. And earlier while I’d been fixing Caliburn’s door, I’d seen my neighbour Pierre who owns Spirit of Conrad in his working clothes leap into his car and drive off.

Putting 2 and 2 together, I assumed that it must be Spirit of Conrad that was having her sail hoisted, and it seems that I was quite right. It looks as if she’s being prepared for the sea again so I wonder where she might be going this time. We had fun on her when we were down the Brittany coast last summer.

Back at the apartment I had a coffee and then finished off the day’s photos from August 2019. I’m now on the Bozeman Trail at the site of the worst humiliation of the US Army at the hands of the native Americans prior to the battle of Little Big Horn where Colonel Fetterman and his entire troop of 79 soldiers and four civilian scouts were cut down by Red Cloud and his Sioux warriors.

Before guitar practice there was time for a little bit of the Central Europe trip and then I absorbed myself in music. And I didn’t really enjoy it al that much tonight. My heart wasn’t in it for some reason and I couldn’t really get going.

Tea was taco rolls and rice and veg, followed by some of my jam roly-poly and coconut dessert.

Tomorrow is going to be a Welsh revision day, I reckon, ready for the restart of my courses. I’m becoming far too rusty. I could do with an early night but I’m not going to get it today, that’s for sure. It’s late so I’m going straight to be. And I’m hoping to have pleasant dreams despite my new evening medicine which somehow has the effect of tranquilising me.

Saturday 3rd August 2019 – HERE I AM …

… again, back in the Story Pines Motel or whatever it’s called.

The reason is that there’s a charabanc outing from the town tomorrow and there was a spare seat on it. And as it’s going to places that I would have wanted to visit had I known about them and there’s a guide going too, then include me in!

After all of the messing about last night, it was rather a late night and as a result, something of a struggle for me to rouse myself. I wasn’t in much of a shape to do much for a while so I sat and vegetated.

My breakfast porridge was nice though.

By the time that I had gathered my wits (which doesn’t take long these days what with one thing and another) and had a coffee kindly provided for me by the landlady, I hit the streets.

First on the cards today was a delightful drive down the road a couple of miles to a field at the foot of an escarpment in the Rocky Mountains.

This field is forever immortalised as the site of what became famous as “the Wagon Box Fight”. A group of US soldiers was protecting a gang of woodcutters, who had taken all of the boxes off their conestoga wagons so that they could carry more timber down to the sawmill.

Luckily the officer in charge had had the foresight to arrange the boxes into a kind of defensive corral, because suddenly they were set upon by a band of Native Americans.

The tactics that the natives applied was to incite the soldiers to fire, and then charge before they had time to reload their single-shot muzzle-loaders.

But what they hadn’t realised was that just before the event, the weapons of the soldiers had been replaced with breech-loading repeating rifles. So when they charged, they were met with several other volleys.

A sentry post on a hill a few miles away saw the fight and sent a signal to a relief column which was armed with a mountain howitzer, and they put the native Americans to flight.

Interestingly, the report at the time puts the number of natives killed by the 26 defenders of the wagon boxes as “over 1500”. A later investigation put the number as “no more than 60”.

There was a report that after this incident a more substantial stockade was built a few hundred yards away. And looking carefully, I could make out a trace of what would correspond with an earthen mound in the area where this was said to be.

Next stop was several miles down a dirt track to Fort Phil Kearny, and while I was there we had 5 minutes of rain. The fort was built in 1866 to protect emigrants on the Bozeman Trail north, in defiance of a treaty with the Native Americans. Those latter were not at all happy and in the two years that the fort was operational there were countless conflicts, the most famous of which I’ll talk about later.

The fort was eventually abandoned after just two years and the jubilant natives burnt it to the ground. It was first excavated in the 1960s but a full-scale programme was launched in the 1990s and the entire site has been mapped. Pickets placed in the ground show the outlines of the walls and the buildings and an entrance has been reconstructed.

On that note I headed off to the nearest big town, Buffalo, for fuel and groceries. I found both (or at least, I thought that I had) at the same place but while I was fuelling up, they closed the shop.

So much for that. I ended up at a local Dollar Store and from there the local IGA supermarket.

And more bad news – my Canadian bank card has now ceased to function. I shall have to get onto that.

A beautiful drive through the countryside (as much as I could because Interstate 90 has simply wiped out much of the traditional route) saw me back near Story and heading into the hills on the other side. I found the only shade in Wyoming where I could eat my lunch, and then headed further up to where the old Highway 87 (which replaced the Bozeman Trail) was washed out.

Here on the peak of a hill is a monument to a Lieutenant Fetterman, 78 soldiers and 2 civilian volunteers.

in December of 1866 native Americans had been intimidating a wood supply train and Colonel Carrington, in charge of Fort Phil Kearny, ordered Fetterman to take a detachment to push the natives away, but under no circumstances go beyond a certain ridge, which was the last line of sight from the fort.

The soldiers did as they bid, but here the issue becomes confused. As the soldiers stopped, a group of natives taunted them for their timidity. One of the officers – some say Fetterman but other say Lieutenant Grummond in charge of the cavalry detachment – rose to the bait and pursued the band. So as one shot off, the others followed.

The natives ran away, leading the soldiers into an ambush which was carefully sprung. Evidence from a party that visited the site the next day found evidence of panic and indiscipline as the soldiers fled in chaos, but no-one answered for this because not one of Fetterman’s party remained alive.

it was that heaviest defeat suffered by the US Army at the hands of the natives until Little Big Horn 10 years later

All but one of the bodies had been horribly mutilated. That one, of bugler Metzler, had been covered with a buffalo robe as a mark of respect. His bugle was battered and shapeless, leading to the conclusion that after running out of ammunition, he fought the natives in hand-to-hand combat using his bugle as a weapon, and his bravery earned him the right to respect.

Drenched in sweat and with a thirst that you could photograph after my long walk in the heat of the sun, I headed back through the herd of cows to the car and drove back to my motel.

First thing that I did was to sit on the porch and drink a can of flavoured water. Second thing that I did was to crash out for half an hour.

I managed tea tonight – some vegetable soup with bread. The appetite isn’t quite back but I’m still coping all the same.

And now an early night as I’m off of my outing tomorrow.

EPIC HALL

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