Tag Archives: freezing outside

Thursday 13th March 2025 – THERE HAS BEEN SNOW …

… up the road in Caen earlier today, so someone said. I don’t imagine that there was very much at all, but even so, it’s a sign that winter is still with us, despite the glorious week that we had at Carnaval.

It was certainly freezing last night. My cleaner mentioned that there was ice everywhere quite early on and when Isabelle the Nurse came round, it was a mere 2°c, despite the sunshine.

Not that I felt any of it, because I was tucked up in bed and fast asleep. I finally managed to drop off into the Land of Nod, even though it was another late night last night. I managed to catch Colwyn Bay come from behind to beat Caersws and to watch Gresford Athletics really good run of form over the last few weeks come to a shuddering halt against Cegidfa.

But at least it wasn’t as late as the previous one though. I was in bed by 00:30 which was about an hour earlier. And I remember almost nothing of what happened during the night – just a vague memory of changing the batteries in the dictaphone, so there must be something on there from the night.

Despite actually managing to sleep, it was a very weary Yours Truly who struggled out from underneath the sheets and into the light, beating the second alarm by not very much at all.

And after a good scrub up it’s Dialysis Day) and a stop in the kitchen for the medication I came back here to listen to the dictaphone. I was doing something with a 3D character when the bed collapsed underneath me. I had a panic attack at that point because I couldn’t pick myself up off the floor and couldn’t stand up again. When I was dictating that the batteries in the dictaphone went flat so it’s not been my night at all

And apart from that moment about changing the batteries in the dictaphone I remember nothing at all.

Isabelle the Nurse was late yet again, flying in and flying out again. She apologised for being late today because one of her clients had mislaid his medication. And for that reason,when I finally move downstairs, all of my medication will be in one box on one shelf and nowhere else.

While we’re on the subject of moving downstairs … "well, one of us is" – ed … I forgot, to my shame, to mention yesterday that I’d had a chat with Alison. How could I forget to mention that? Anyway, it looks as if our intrepid band of travellers will be descending on me some time in August. That will be lovely.

Breakfast was next, and then MY NEW BOOK. Today, our talk on “cohabiting customs” has taken us into the realm of migration.

He makes some very interesting points too. He reckons that as in most mammal groups, there may well have been a dominant male who kept the females to himself and when teen boys reached sexual maturity they were expelled from the group.

If one man had five women, then it means of course that four men had none. And the only way that they would obtain a mate was either by overpowering the senior male and seizing some of his, or else roaming afield to raid a neighbouring group. If a strong group of wandering males encountered a weaker group, they would seize the females and the men of that group would either be killed or would flee.

That’s not as far-fetched as it sounds either. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that Samuel Hearne’s first-nation Canadians, on their way back from their trip, came across a weaker band, seized all of the women and girls and … well … Samuel Hearne didn’t leave much to the imagination.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … book, the fleeing men would start off the next cycle, roaming afield until they in turn found a weaker band und so weiter

He draws a parallel between this scenario and the fact that it seems to be always the weaker, more impoverished and less-technologically-advanced groups who seem to exist in the worst and poorest environments.

There are pages and pages of this – in my opinion far more than there needs to be, and I can’t help thinking that our author must have been a bundle of fun to have around at parties.

After breakfast I began to edit the radio notes that I’d dictated on Saturday night but I didn’t manage to go very far because I was distracted. And in any case my cleaner appeared, earlier than usual.

It’s a good job that she did too because my 12:30 taxi to dialysis turned out to be a 12:05 ambulance on its way back to Avranches, and so we had the pantomime of me trying to climb into the back. With no power in my legs, I have to sit on the floor and heave myself up with my arms. God alone only knows what will happen when this paralysis spreads into my arms.

First in again though at dialysis, so early that I had to wait around. But when they did let me in I was first in and first to be coupled up. With the anaesthetic not having had long enough to act, I spent five minutes with an icepack wrapped around my arm but it didn’t seem to do very much good and I certainly felt it.

Apart from the coffee coming round, no-one at all interrupted me and I managed to accomplish a pile of work today. I wish that it would be like that all the time.

The guy who seems to run the show came to pick me up tonight and with another passenger on board, we came to Granville. My cleaner was there waiting for me and it really was nice to be back here by 18:30. I wish that it would be like that every trip. And who knows? When they set up the centre at Granville, whenever that may be, I may well be home before then.

Tea tonight was one of my pies with steamed veg and gravy. Potatoes, broccoli, sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower, a little of each. And my pie was delicious. But I really have gone too far overboard with all this cabbage. It’ll still be here long after I’ve gone.

But I’ll be gone in a moment- off to bed ready to Fight The Good Fight tomorrow.

But seeing as we have been talking about dialysis … "well, one of us has" – ed … we had some fun in the centre this afternoon.
One of the nurses was going to couple up a female patient, and she was saying "now just relax, Julie. It’s only a little job this with the two needles. It’s not difficult and it won’t hurt, Julie, and it’ll be all over in a matter of seconds and you’ll breathe a sigh of relief"
"But my name’s not Julie" said the patient
"I know" said the nurse "but mine is"

Monday 20th January 2025 – YET ANOTHER THREE …

… and a half hours under the dialysis machine today, and that might soon be changing. They are talking about increasing the dose to four hours. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … we seem to be moving slowly towards a climax and the overall prognosis isn’t that good.

In fact, things must be even more serious that I imagined, because they sent Emilie the Cute Consultant to break the bad news to me. And considering that she has been doing her best to steer clear of my bedside these last few weeks, that must have been some effort.

It was some effort for me to go to bed last night too. It was even later than normal when I finally hauled myself out of my chair and went into the bathroom to prepare for the night. I was definitely not feeling like sleeping and I lacked the motivation and energy to haul myself out of my comfortable chair.

Eventually I managed to make my way into bed and there I lay trying to go to sleep and trying to chase the black thoughts from my mind. And as it happened, I did neither. So there I lay, being tormented, for several hours.

When the alarm sounded I was fast asleep so I must have dropped off at some point. And what an effort it was to haul myself from my bed. It’s a good job that the nurse is coming, for I could quite easily have stayed in bed until I don’t know when.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and shave and even applied the deodorant in case Emilie the Cute Consultant should come to see me, and then went to take my medication.

Back in here I went to listen to what was on the dictaphone but to my dismay there was nothing at all, and that’s really disappointing. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only excitement that I have these days is what goes on (or comes off, but I should be so lucky) during the night.

Isabelle the nurse came around, her last day for this round. She had a few things to say, but nothing of too much importance. She’s going to spend the week packing for her ski holiday soon and also working on her Carnival float.

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

Our author has spent probably 100 pages attacking the idea that Wissant was the port from which Caesar sailed to Britain (not that it matters much, as the book is about Britain, not Caesar), insulting the people who believe that it might have been, and lampooning the people who have changed their opinion over time.

And here we are, on page 579; with a statement "for I myself once argued that the Portus Itius was at Wissant. But my knowledge was then imperfect.". Not a word about why his knowledge was imperfect, not a word about why he once believed that Wissant had been Caesar’s port, not a word of the factors that he had considered at that time, not a word of why he had rejected them, not a word of criticism of his own ideas and not an apology to those whom he had lampooned for changing their mind.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I shan’t be sorry to reach the end of this book. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of interesting facts in there but by God! What a struggle it has been to wade through the mass of invective, insult and abuse to find them.

It seems to me that he is working himself up into a crescendo and I wonder how it’s all going to finish.

Back in here I had things to do, like my Welsh homework for example. I like to do half of it in one week and the other half the following week so as to spread it out. But what I’m going to do at some point is to read through all of the homework that I’ve done, and make a dictionary of words that I have already forgotten. As if I don’t have enough work to do.

My cleaner took me once more by surprise. She was late but I’d lost track of time anyway. And we hadn’t even finished when the taxi came for me. There was someone with an appointment at Avranches at 13:00 so these new Securité Sociale rules means that because my trip falls within this 45-minute window, I have to grin and bear it.

Not that I am complaining, because as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s all free, and this is the only country in the World as far as I am aware where such a service is provided for the likes of me.

One advantage of being there early was that not only was I the first of the afternoon shift to arrive, I was first in bed and consequently first to be plugged in. And strangely, the first pin didn’t hurt at all and the second only marginally so, even if they had to take out the pin and reinsert it.

Having said that though, I began to know more about it as the anaesthetic wore off.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me, and we had an interesting chat. "How are you today, Mr Hall?"
"Very well now that I’ve seen you" I replied. And she had the decency to giggle and blush

So we chatted, all about work though, not one of those intimate personal chats that we had last summer, and she broke the bad news to me. But at least she confirmed that Saturday’s dialysis is no different than any other day so it’s not that which is disrupting my sleeping patterns.

"Would you like me to prescribe a sedative for you" She asked.

It seemed to me that that referred to my earlier comment so I restrained myself, with great difficulty I promise you, from saying something like “what I really need is someone to keep me warm and cosy in bed. When’s your next day off?”. You should be proud of me.

Instead I replied "no thanks". All that I have left these days are my dreams and they seem to be fading right now which is a shame. And never mind restraining myself, it will be other people restraining me if I carry on like this. But ask me if I care.

While we’re on the subject of dreams … "well, one of us is" – ed … I crashed out as usual once the pump started sucking my blood out and went away with the fairies (although I did nothing worthy of any comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine)

There I was, in some building in which I’d been before. Someone came to pick me up and when he took me outside I found that he was to take me away on a motorbike. He had left the engine running so I told him that that had been a very dangerous thing to do around here

The building reminded me of somewhere in (I think) either Cleveland or Buffalo … "IT WAS BUFFALO" – ed … in the USA where I’d passed through on my mega-voyage around North America after having dropped off Kit at her University at Windsor.

And as for motor bikes, we’re either talking about motorcycle taxis again or else it’s to do with crossing the Atlantic on a motor bike, something else that we’ve mentioned recently.

When I’ve been awake, I’ve been tidying up a long-forgotten site on the internet. That all started with a search for someone whose name cropped up there and when I followed it up, I was surprised at how out-of-date this site was. So I did some of it, and there’s plenty more to do.

Don’t you ever become fed up of finding all of these tasks that you need to do that totally distract you from what you were trying to do in the first place?

With starting early, that usually means finishing early. And I was certainly unplugged early. But all of the rest went haywire as the compression burst and we red-washed the entire wall of the Clinic by my bed.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the taxi that came for me had to wait another ten minutes to take someone else too.

So once more I ended up being late home but at least it was the nice female taxi driver, the one with twins at the school here, so we had a nice chat. I hope that she’s the one who takes me to Paris, either her or my favourite lady taxi driver who gives me a running commentary throughout the whole route.

It’s freezing outside again here so I was glad to be indoors again. With about 20 minutes to spare I edited some more of the outstanding radio programme that I should had completely dealt with on Sunday.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper with pasta and veg followed by chocolate cake and soya yoghurt. Plenty of stuffing left, but I’ve no idea when I’ll finish it, what with going to hospital in Paris later this week

So now it’s bedtime, ready for my Welsh lesson tomorrow. And hoping that I’ll have pleasant dreams involving Castor, TOTGA or Zero, or Moonchild whom I shall add to the Terrible Three and make a Fearsome Foursome.

But before I go to bed I’ll give you an exclusive scoop, one that you’ll hear nowhere else, on the handover discussion between Trump and Biden in the Whitehouse (and that’s not a spelling mistake, although that will soon change) this afternoon
"You just watch" said Trump. "I’m gonna be a goddam Emperor"
"You can’t do that" said Biden. "An Emperor is someone who rules an Empire, and the USA isn’t an Empire"
"Well in that case" said Trump "I’m gonna be a goddam King"
"You can’t do that either" replied Biden. "A King is someone who rules a Kingdom, and the USA isn’t a Kingdom"
"Actually" continued Biden "with you in the White House, Donald, the USA will be just fine as a country"

Saturday 18th January 2025 – ANOTHER THREE HOURS ..

… and thirty minutes of sheer, unadulterated agony this afternoon as once more, one of the nurses managed to find the “sensitive spot” in whatever it was that they did in that hospital in the summer.

Whatever else happens in this hospital, I can’t go on like this. I’m sure that dialysis isn’t supposed to be this painful.

At least I can console myself that I’m not suffering as much as the guy who usually comes with me on a Thursday and Saturday. I asked why we hadn’t seen him for a few days and was told "he comes in an ambulance now. He’s had a bad fall"

The only fall in which I’m interested right now is to fall from my chair into bed as I’m exhausted.

It was another late night last night. Just as I was going to bed, a “Traffic” concert came round on the playlist and that’s another “must” to stay up and listen to, especially when there’s an 11-minute version of SOMETIMES I FEEL SO UNINSPIRED and almost 10 minutes of DEAR MR FANTASY.

Anyway, once we returned to normality I crawled off to bed, with the words of Steve Winwood echoing around my head –
"sometimes I feel like my head is spinning
Hunger and pain is all I see
I don’t know who’s losing
And I don’t care who’s winning
Hardships and trouble are following me".
My head is definitely spinning, I can certainly feel pain and while I’m not suffering any hardship – those days are long gone – I’m definitely being followed by a heap of trouble right now. What is worse is that it’s all of my own making too.

Those troubles kept me awake once more and it seemed like an age before I finally drifted off to sleep.

When the alarm went off this morning. I was away on my travels, with a shower that I had to repair so the first thing was to drain the tank. I profited from that by having myself a nice hot shower. I disconnected the shower hose so the pump was on the wall in the bathroom so I took off the pump from the wall and lowered it down a little. This forced the water out of the pump which then drained into the bath. I put the shower pump down, about halfway down the wall so that it was about halfway down to the level – so the water in the tank was halfway down, and put the pump there so that it was drained off the top half. I was sitting there contemplating what to do next when the alarm went off. I was really disappointed because I was enjoying that.

So don’t tell me that all of my nocturnal skills, about which I have so boasted in the past, have deserted me during this crisis through which I’m going right now. It’s the one thing on which I could rely in the past and with the right kind of support, I could have made millions from the skills that I never knew that I had

It was a desperate struggle to rise to my feet and go into the bathroom before the next alarm went off but I just about made it. And then a desperate discovery – that I’ve run out of clean sweaters. Nothing else for it but to put last week’s back on. I have just about enough of other clothes to have a good change but I really am going to have to overhaul my wardrobe. What am I going to do with all my Arctic clothing for a start?

Having washed and shaved, I put the bedding from last week into the washing machine with a selection of other dirty clothing and let the machine do its stuff. Then I wandered off for my medication, remembering to take my “sunlight” Vitamin D.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what else has been going on during the night. There was something about an extremely valuable – well, not valuable but a historic plate that was of great significance between me and some young lady and I don’t know who she was. I had to keep it safe so I hid it under my coat but as I moved, I broke it. A V-shaped piece fell out of it. I was thinking “how am I now going to repair this so that it will be the correct type of plate and that no-one will notice that it’s damaged.

In fact, I really didn’t know who she was. She didn’t resemble anyone whom I might know at all

There was also something about people who were working in Crewe Works. They had to cycle a certain way around the Queen’s Park and would reach a point where someone was waiting. When they reached that point they would have to turn round and cycle back towards the Works. They couldn’t take a short cut by turning around earlier but they all had to go to where this particular guy was standing in the middle of the road.

“Queen’s Park”, or, at least, the road around the back of it by the Golf Club, and “Crewe Works” – that is, the Railway Works – are playing something of a role in what’s going on right now in my mind so it’s inevitable, I suppose, that they should put in an appearance at some point. No sign of Moonchild though. She didn’t come dancing through the shallows of the river into my dreams last night

But what’s sad about this is that I can remember when half of the town was covered in the various branches of the Railway Works and when every boy in the town was destined to become an apprentice in either “The Works” or “Royce’s”. The town was flooded out with bicycles at chucking-out time, and how much like a ghost town it was during “Works Week” – all that was missing were the tumbleweeds. Nowadays Crewe is a ghost town all the time, but for different reasons. There is nothing whatever left of its railway heritage and even the big multi-storey “Rail House” is empty and threatened with demolition

Isabelle was in and out in a new world-record time today. She doesn’t seem to be so keen on stopping and chatting as she used to. Perhaps word about me is filtering around the town

After she went, I made my breakfast and carried on reading MY BOOK.

For a change, I’m not going to post any selected comments because firstly, I don’t know enough about the subjects that he’s discussing – it’s all conjecture unsupported by any evidence anyway, and secondly, because his invective and abuse has become tiresome to read and even more tiresome to repeat. I shan’t be sorry to finish this book and start the next one.

Back in here I carried on with the radio notes and they still aren’t finished. Once more I was caught in flagrante delicto by my cleaner who surprised me by her arrival when I wasn’t expecting her. She fitted my anaesthetic patches and we didn’t have long to wait for the taxi to come for me.

Just me in the car today with the driver. Apparently the other passenger who usually accompanies my on a Saturday has had a bad fall and goes to dialysis in an ambulance now.

Everything was running horribly late at the Centre today and it took hours to plug everyone in. That can’t be why it hurt so much because the first pin went in much less painlessly. Anyway, I didn’t enjoy it at all.

As usual, once the pump started up I crashed out and I was away for quite a while. So much so that my coffee that had been brought to me while I was asleep was stone-cold.

Before crashing out though, I was hallucinating again as I did the other day. This time there was something about me being on board a Spanish Galleon but I didn’t stroke it this time to see if it was real..

That miserable doctor was on duty today and he managed a brief “hello” as he passed by my bed. And that was my lot. I must be thankful for that, I suppose

Unplugging me was just as painful as plugging me in and how I wish that it wasn’t. The same driver who brought me was waiting to take me back and we had a guided tour of his Head Office at Marcey les Grèves on the way home. I’m convinced that he is in some way charged with the running of the place in some capacity.

Anyway, he’s confirmed that I’ll be picked up in principle at 07:45 on Wednesday for my trip to dialysis followed by my taxi to Paris at lunchtime afterwards.

It’s freezing outside tonight, literally freezing, at 0°C so I was glad to be in the warmth indoors even if climbing up these stairs doesn’t seem to have become any easier just recently.

Tea tonight was a breaded quorn fillet with baked potatoes and salad, which was nice as usual, especially when followed by chocolate cake and soya yoghurt.

So now i have to dictate what I wrote earlier in the week and then finish off the lot that’s half-way done sometime. I need to go back too and review the couple of weeks that are missing and have another think about what I’m going to do. I can’t leave it until the last moment to come up with a plan.

So I’ll do that and then go to bed – to make the most of my little lie-in

But in the radio programme notes that I was writing, I was writing something about Caravan’s album A BLIND DOG AT ST DUNSTAN’S
St Dunstan’s was a Charity in London created to care for Blind People and is famously known for its hotel in Brighton which was praised for its "magnificent views over the Downs and out to Sea" – the sense of irony being totally lost on the writers.
But the title of the album relates to a story that one day a little boy saw a male dog mount a female dog.
"What’s that big dog doing, daddy?" asked the little boy
"Well," stuttered daddy nervously, "the dog at the bottom is blind, and the one on top is helping him, pushing him along to St Dunstan’s."

Friday 3rd January 2025 – MY CHOCOLATE CAKE …

… is exquisite. What makes it, in my opinion, is the coconut oil. It’s based on a simple oilcake recipe but I substituted some of the oil for some coconut oil and that gives it a certain something that you can’t describe, but it’s there all the same. It’s one of the best cakes that I have ever made.

And while we’re on the subject of things being there … "well, one of us is" – ed … I was still there at 01:00 this morning.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I mentioned something about going to bed, and that was true at the time, but just as I was planning on switching off the computer, a concert from a folk festival in 2017 came onto the playlist and, strange as it may seem, I had never heard it before.

It was one from that batch that I’d had sent to me a year ago and it had never previously come up on the playlist but now that it was finally there, I stayed up and had a good listen to it.

It was about 01:20 when I finally made it into bed, and once there, I fell asleep quite quickly. And that was all that I remember of the night. The next thing that entered my mind was the alarm call this morning.

When that went off, it took a minute or two to gather my wits – they seem to travel about much more than I do – and then I wandered off into the bathroom for a good wash.

Isabelle the Nurse was late this morning so I had a listen to the dictaphone but to mu surprise and disappointment, there was nothing at all on there. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … wandering around in the subconscious late at night is the only fun that I seem to have these days.

When Isabelle the Nurse arrived, she told me that she couldn’t hang around. Her oppo had arranged several blood tests for her back at the ran … errr … office for 08:45 and it was now already 08:42.

She did have time to tell me that it was minus 3°C outside this morning and although snow had been forecast, none had (as yet) arrived.

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

Our author is now discussing Caesar’s second invasion and at the moment we are still in mid-Channel awaiting the turn of the wind and tide so he can bring himself and his army to the shore.

As yet, there is nothing controversial about what he has been saying. He’s been discussing the beam and draught of Caesar’s ships, how they have been built by the sailors with a beach landing in mind rather than their sailing characteristics.

That’s a fact that it’s impossible to prove or disprove, and in any case, as he’s said on several occasions that Cicero’s younger brother was sailing with the invasion, it’s very likely that he’s quoting from the letters that the younger Cicero sent to his elder brother as well as the usual source, Book IV of THE GALLIC WARS by Caesar himself

And that reminds me – I must brush up my Latin. I’m really dismayed about how much I have forgotten since my school days. Puer amat mensam and all that

Back in here afterwards, I began to turn the place upside down to find this missing letter with the notice that I had to pay. I looked absolutely everywhere and, after about three hours, I finally found it.

It was exactly where it should be and ought to have been, and where I’d looked at least three times yesterday and three times this morning. I have no idea at all as to why I couldn’t see it before.

That’s another one of these mysteries – why I can’t see something that must be there, no matter how many times I look. Sometimes I really do wonder what on earth is going on inside my head.

By now my cleaner had arrived to do her stuff so I had missed my lunch, which serves me right. She brought the cold weather with her into the apartment and froze me to death. It really is wicked outside today, apparently.

Later on in the afternoon Rosemary rang me. It was just a short chat, one hour and forty minutes, and it would have lasted longer had someone not rung the doorbell. It was one of those calls where no-one responded to the interphone, and that was a shame because Rosemary and I could have gone on much longer than that.

And I must admit, that I had something of a laugh to myself. When I was round there three or four years ago she was “don’t leave the door open – that stray white cat might come in and I don’t want that”.

Eighteen months ago it was “that stray white cat is actually quite friendly and sweet”

On the ‘phone six months ago it was “this cute white cat is lovely, curled up in front of my fire”

Today it was “I was thinking of going away for a couple of weeks but I changed my mind because Myrtille would be cold and lonely”.

That’s right – I never met anyone who won a fight with a cat.

Tea tonight was falafel and chips with a vegan salad, followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. My cleaner had bought some mushrooms and tomatoes for me, but I ought to have asked her to buy a lettuce too. I would usually send off an order to LeClerc today for delivery but I have enough frozen food to last another week and I can survive on what else I have.

The chips were cooked to perfection in the air fryer which is certainly doing its stuff. Rosemary told me that in her air fryer last weekend she cooked a chicken quite successfully and she’s quite pleased with hers too.

In other news, Seàn sent me a report yesterday about new DNA techniques that can probe deeper into ancient bones to establish a much greater DNA profile.

That’s of great interest to me because of what happened in Greenland. The last written record from the Norse colony in Greenland was of a marriage that took place in 1408 at the old church at Hvalsey which regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we VISITED IN 2019 on our way across the Atlantic on THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR when we sailed the North-West Passage.

After that, there is silence and when the Bishop of Norway’s envoy went there in the 16th Century he found no trace of any survivors.

What happened to the people is a complete mystery and there have been several theories. James Enterline wrote A BOOK in which he suggested that the Norse went west onto the mainland of North America, and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we went to THE UNIVERSITY OF LAVAL in Québec to check on some of his sources.

For what it’s worth, I’m waiting to see if any bones of any Inuit in Greenland will turn up some Nordic DNA. I find it hard to believe that there was no “interaction” between the Inuit and the Norse as the ice drove the Inuit south into the path of the Nordic colonists. If the Inuit, who were much better-adapted to the climate than the Norse, overwhelmed the latter, they must have taken a few female prisoners. We saw what Samuel Hearne had to say about the Northern people’s handling of female captives. The editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine would also have had something to say on the matter.

So now it’s bedtime. Tomorrow it’s Dialysis Day and I’m not looking forward to that at all. But we’ll see what happens on Monday. That’s going to be complicated.

However, with all of this stuff written in Latin that I seem to be finding, I wish that I had paid more attention to my Latin lessons at school .I mentioned to a friend that I was going to look for a Latin teacher.
She asked "Will you be looking for a native speaker?"
And so, smiling, I replied "if I do, you can learn with me. Then we can both go together on holiday somewhere in Latin America"

Saturday 2nd December 2023 – I AWOKE THIS …

… morning at 05:30, even after all of my exertions last night. And I was feeling so awake that by 05:40 I was seriously thinking about leaving the stinking pit.

But I’m glad I didn’t.

Some time later I must have fallen asleep again. And I’m glad that I did because during that little period I had a visitor. Zero came to visit me.

In fact her presence so startled me that I awoke bolt upright. And this time I actually did leave the bed before the alarm went off. Not my much, it has to be said, but any period of time is worth noting.

First port of call was to take my medication. And that was especially important seeing as how I’d abstained yesterday.

Second port of call was to check the temperature. When I lived in the Auvergne the temperature was just one of the several dozen records that I took twice a day so I could make graphs that would hopefully show a correlation between the different types of weather and the different types of energy that was being produced and consumed but I don’t do anything at all like that here.

What was important today was the fact that even though we’re so close to the sea, everything was iced up outside.

And sure enough, at 07:00 this morning the temperature was minus 3.5°C. That’s the lowest temperature that I’ve seen here, but it’s still a far cry from how things were in the Auvergne. Rosemary rang up for a chat later on (as you will find out in due course) and she told me that the temperature in the Combrailles had dropped to minus 7°C and as things had warmed up in the morning they’d had a fall of snow.

But as for my temperature (well, the temperature outside actually) it was enough to put me off going out.

After yesterday’s exertions I was really exhausted but I wondered whether I should force myself to go out but as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, if I fall over I can’t pick myself up again and staggering about on the ice in sub-zero temperatures is a recipe for disaster.

Instead, I came in here and finished off my order for LeClerc. I was going to send it off on Monday but instead I added in everything that I would otherwise buy at the Carrefour and it was on its way even before I’d had my morning coffee.

There were no tomatoes on delivery today but my cleaner usually goes to the market in town on Saturday morning so I sent her a message and she duly obliged.

Next stop was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And, more importantly, who had come with me. I’d been collecting up tools, the kind that you’d find on market stalls in the northern UK. I’d been making a collection of all kinds of stuff. Then I’d been going through it and deciding what I wanted to keep and what I didn’t, and maybe I would advertise the rest for sale or something like that, maybe even visit a market stall to try to sell them or even try to have a market stall myself so much of last night was spent going through this collection of tools and making decisions. There were things like hammers and drifts, taps and dies, files etc that I would have loved to have had at another moment.

And in a certain region of India a man was having an extreme amount of difficulty trying to buy many items that would be considered to be normal, average everyday use in the rest of the World. At a certain moment he won £721 in a lottery for deprived areas so used his winnings to place an internet order to buy stuff on line that he could have sent to him. He went on one of these reality TV programmes to talk about his winnings and his order. Some visiting dignitary from his Province’s Government climbed onto the stage without invitation and immediately began to denounce everything that he’d ordered that had not yet been delivered, claiming that it was all Chinese warmongering equipment, even things like barbecue grills, and had no place in an ordinary decent home in his Province. he was picking up these things and throwing them about on the stage, coming out with all kinds of rhetoric. I tried to calm him down but he wasn’t going to have anything about this so in the end I reluctantly decided that the only way to deal with this matter is to have a huge confrontation with him on the TV and embarrass him by his lack of knowledge and obvious prejudice.

Later on there was a couple of domineering parents who had 4 teenage children. One day they decided that they would assassinate some kind of Russian emigré noblewoman. He knew where this noble emigré woman went to relax so the arranged to be present with rifles. As the woman was leaning against a wall smoking, the father gave a signal and everyone levelled their rifles across the room at this woman relaxing in the doorway. At the very last moment she saw them and swayed to one side as they fired. Instead of being killed outright one hit her in the cheek, another hit her in the shoulder and the other 4 missed. In a fit of anger she stormed over to this table where these 6 people were sitting and tore an absolute strip off the father and demanded that he give her a glass of gin. He was astonished that she was still moving and insisting on a glass of gin, which he poured for her. First he took a mouthful himself before giving it to her. One of this children piped up “just look at that! Now you can see what it is that we as kids have had to suffer for all our lives. He can’t even give someone a drink without having to take a drink of it himself. You’ve just met him for 10 minutes and he’s treated you like this but this is how he’s treated us all out lives”.

This was when I awoke at 05:30 and as I said just now, when I went back to sleep Zero put in an appearance. I was at school and it was the middle of summer. There were loads of kids milling around. I’d been working on a few of the radio programmes. One of the guys who ran the radio asked me if I’d put together a pile of programmes that had been broadcast previously which were my favourites. I had an enormous amount of difficulty trying to find the ones. I was looking for some certain live concerts but every time I opened a folder it was the wrong one. Eventually I put 4 or 5 together onto a memory stick and walked out of my classroom ready to go downstairs. I was wearing a shirt with no sleeves that was completely open, a tie that was actually around my neck and not around the collar of the shirt and a pair of shorts which I never ever wear. You could see the skin imperfections on my legs and you could also a great big scar running down the inside of my right arm. As I walked down the steps there were all these girls sitting down there. One or two made a remark about my sartorial elegance. I explained that if they thought that I would wear full school uniform on the hottest day of the year they are totally mistaken. One of the girls talking to me had a very white pasty face and hair as if she’d been covered in flour. There was another one, a much younger girl, who was flirting around with me as she was talking so naturally I was flirting around with her too as I was replying. Then I set off and ended up in Market Street in Crewe in the period before they demolished it all. Zero came in at some point as I was going through the directories looking for these particular files. Whether she was helping me or whether she was actually involved in one of the programmes I can’t remember now but she was certainly there as I was searching through these directories looking for the specific files.

But what is going on here? I’m flirting around with another girl while Zero is in the immediate vicinity? I really must be losing my touch these days!

By this time the shopping – including my bigarreaux confits – had arrived and I was in time to watch the delivery guy go head over heels on the stairs up to my apartment. No bones broken so he was lucky. Slabs of solid granite are really hard when you fall on them.

Before I’d sent off the order I checked the promotions to see what was on special offer, and they had broccoli heads at 99 cents so I’d ordered one.

It was more stalk than florets so after I’d trimmed it and blanched the florets ready for freezing, I decided to have a broccoli stalk soup for lunch.

Cut up an onion and fry it in oil in the base of a heavy saucepan
Add in your herbs. I used
- chervil
- tarragon
- coriander
add in a sliced lump of garlic
dice your broccoli stalk finely and add it in
dice a potato ditto
fry it all up nicely for a few minutes
add back enough of the water in which you blanched the broccoli florets
Simmer it until everything in there is extremely soft, and then add in some cream. I used soya yoghurt as I have plenty that needs eating quickly
whizz it up with your magic wand
eat it with some of the crusty bread that you remembered to add onto your order with LeClerc

Fighting off (sometimes unsuccessfully) a few waves of sleep I carried on writing the notes for Canada 2022. I’m still wandering around the vieux port – I had no idea that I’d taken so many photos there.

Rosemary rang me up too (as I said just now) to find out how things went yesterday so I told her the bad news. She tells me that in the Spring next year she’ll come to visit if her operation passes ok.

If she does, I hope that she remembers to bring with her my big bass combo amp that’s sitting in her shed. That’s the one that I found in a pawn shop around the corner from Sandra’s in Ottawa in 2019.

And while we’re on the subject, sometime in the future I’ll be expecting another parcel delivery from Canada. In the back of Strider were a Fender bass and combo amp that travelled around North America with me. Now that Strider is, apparently, no more, it’ll be in the way at my niece’s house and I need to bring it here.

Apparently my talk about Christmas cake earlier in the week inspired Rosemary and she checked in her cupboard where she found that she had all of the important ingredients for a Christmas Cake.

She’s had all of her fruit soaking since then but now she can’t find her baking tin. And at least I can smile because although I moved to the Auvergne in 2006 and still haven’t unpacked yet, Rosemary moved to France more than 30 years ago and she is far from being unpacked even yet.

Anyway we agreed that cooking and baking is a fine hobby to have if your mobility is restricted. You don’t need to move around much and you can really enjoy the fruits of your labours – in the literal sense of the word.

Tea tonight was a burger on a bap, which I can enjoy now that I’ve found that I can order on-line the special burgers that I like. With a baked potato and salad it was delicious.

So tomorrow I have a lot to do. Before I go to bed I’ll be dictating the radio notes that I prepared the other day (if I get pull my head round in the right direction) so that I can prepare a programme tomorrow.

Then there’s the Christmas Cake and Pudding that need baking too.

Finally too, I have biscuits to bake. I had a couple of store-bought packets lying around but while the first packet was fine, the odour that came from the second one that I opened today convinced me that I didn’t need to taste them.

There’s some freh ginger lying around, some almonds and a few other bits and pieces so that looks as if it will make a really nice biscuit mix. It’s a good job that the vegan butter was on special offer today and I took full advantage by buying an extra packet.

So before I go to bed I’ll have a play about on the guitar and work my way through some more of my playlist. I might have a good run through RECOVERING THE SATELLITES

"We only stay in orbit
For a moment of time
And then you’re everybody’s satellite
I wish that you were mine"

Now who does that remind me of?

Wednesday 22nd December 2021 – ALL OF THE …

… scaffolding has gone from the Rampe du Monte à Regret, I noticed today.

It looks as if all of the repointing of the wall has now finished, they’ve dismantled the scaffolding, picked up their tools and, as Longfellow once wrote, “shall fold their tents, like the Arabs and as silently steal away.”.

As for the quality of the work, they’ve mixed the mortar too dry by the looks of things. It won’t percolate into the stone and so will eventually solidify and drop out and they’ll have to do it all over again.

You are probably thinking that that means that I can now take the short cut and go down the steps to the street.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case. The Christmas market is in full swing down there and the whole area is cordoned off. There’s just one entrance and that’s at street level, where there’s a security guard checking Covid passports.

As I type out these notes I’m actually supposed to be down there. A group has been in touch with me about doing a live show for my radio programme and they are playing there tonight.

But if anyone thinks that I’m standing outside in a bitter wind for 2 hours with a temperature of minus 1°C they are mistaken.

And it was freezing this morning too. Winter has come with quite a bang just now. I was freezing when I awoke – at 06:45, about 45 minutes before the alarm went off.

At least I managed to leap out of bed with alacrity (and you all thought that I slept on my own) and dress rather hurriedly before I froze to death.

After the medication I came in here to check my mails and messages, and then went back into Ice Station Zebra to make the bread for this coming week now that I’ve finished off the bread that I’d brought back from Leuven.

Another 500 grammes of flour, a couple of handfuls of sunflower seeds and this time I remembered the Vitamin C tablet too. It all went together really well and kneaded up quite nicely.

It went into the oven and 75 minutes later I had a beautiful, soft loaf of bread with a nice even texture. One of the best that I’ve made so far. My bread-making technique is improving, so it seems.

While I was at it, I cleaned, diced and blanched the 2kg of carrots that I’d bought on Monday. They are waiting for some room to be made in the freezer so I can file them away for future use.

One thing that I needed to do was to listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. In fact I’d been invited out again for a meal with some people whom I knew. I went off and turned up at this restaurant. I didn’t know these people all that well. There were 2 of them, a guy and a woman who weren’t a couple. We were having a chat and at that moment another girl came down to join us. She was a young girl and dressed so simply but really well, really beautifully that it took my breath away. I made a few complimentary remarks and she blushed I suppose, and sat down. They asked about when the others would turn up. I had heard that someone I used to know and his wife and daughter (who was actually Zero) were coming but they had to go to the dentist’s first so they may not make it depending on what had happened at the dentists, which was going to be something of a shame. They were asking “should be order?”. I replied “no. We’ll have to wait until everyone else turns up and we’ll have to order together, I suppose. That seems to be the normal way of doing things”. However, I did have another reason for not wanting to start until everyone (well, at least one person) was present.

At some point during the night I was walking around the fish docks at some fishing port in the UK. I was doing something at one end of the port where there were a few fishing boats at anchor but I had to walk round the other side of the port where everyone was and that was where you could really smell the fish. Then I had to walk all the way back again but I can’t remember why and I can’t remember what was happening about it all.

As I was off to the physiotherapist this afternoon I needed a shower so I had to wait until the oven had finished backing as I needed the heater in the bathroom. And as a result of everything I ended up having a very late lunch.

By now it was time for me to brave the freezing conditions and head up to the physiotherapist.

And you can see how cold it is by looking out beyond the outer harbour into the bay. You can see a layer of freezing fog that’s obscuring the view of the Pointe de Carolles.

It was the first thing that I noticed when I walked round the corner to the viewpoint at the corner of the Boulevard Vaufleury and the Boulevard des 2E et 202E de Ligne.

And although it’s only 14:45 the sun is pretty low in the sky as well, as you can tell. It’s not the kind of weather to be out unless you have to.

But talking of being out, the port was quite empty of fishing vessels.

They all must be out at sea this afternoon, except for Jade III that is doing something exciting, having reversed up to the wharf by the fish processing plant. Unfortunately, I can’t see what she’s up to.

There wasn’t much else of any excitement going on around the town so I had a slow, weary trudge up to the physiotherapist. For some unknown reason I wasn’t feeling myself this afternoon which is just as well because it’s a disgusting habit.

At the physiotherapist she put me on the cross trainer for five minutes and then we did some kinetic exercises, finishing off with 5 minutes on the tilting platform. The exercises that I had to do on there were agonising but I suppose that if it hurts men it’s doing me some good – except that it’s hurting me in places where I have no problems and not where I have the issues.

It was a very weary and painful me who staggered into the street when my half-hour was up. And also a very destitute one because it’s the year-end and I had to pay her.

On the way back I noticed that we had a little mini-outdoor market going on in the Place General de Gaulle.

It usually takes place on Saturday of course and that’s Christmas Day so it looks to me as if they have brought it (or, at least, part of it because there aren’t all that many stalls there) forward to today.

There weren’t all that many people there this afternoon which is really no surprise in this weather, and I felt really sorry for the stallholders who are obliged to stand outside without any real form of shelter from the cold and the wind.

My weary trudge continued on up the hill towards home. However I stopped to have a look at the charter boats in the port.

On the left is of course our old friend Spirit of Conrad in which we sailed down the Brittany coast in the summer of 2019. To her right is Aztec Lady who has now been liberated from her stay in the chantier naval.

The large blue boat to her right is Anakena, the big boat that is planning to sail up the Norwegian coast next summer if conditions allow, and alongside her under a tarpaulin is CHarles Marie. She doesn’t look as if she’s going anywhere any time soon.

It goes without saying that before I can go in, I have to go for a look at the beach.

And to my surprise there was someone taking a long, solitary walk out towards the water’s edge. all alone down there without another soul around him (or her). That was a lonely stroll.

Back here I had a coffee and then I had work to do. Someone at the University of Newfoundland is writing a thesis on Paradise River, a settlement of sorts on the Labrador Coast. I’ve visited it on several occasions and have dozens of photographs of the area.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … “hooray” – ed … he’s written to me and asked me if he may use some of my photos to illustrate his thesis. So we agreed a trade – I’ll send him some photographs and he’ll send me a copy of his thesis to add to my pile of Labrador literature.

Consequently I had to sort back through my photos for September 2014 and September 2017 to dig out some good ones for him.

Tea was taco rolls with the leftover stuffing, lengthened with a small tin of kidney beans. And now, as it’s cold and I’m cold, I’m off to warm myself up in bed.

Tomorrow I have to tidy up in my bedroom as I have someone coming round on Friday to record something or other for the radio so the place needs to look as if it’s habitable.

Tuesday 21st December 2021 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER …

… day when I’ve not accomplished anything like as much as I intended to today and I’m really going to have to snap out of this if I want to make any progress because it’s getting me down.

Going late to bed last night didn’t help matters too much and as usual it was difficult to haul myself out of bed. However, as I had things to do, there wasn’t any question about it.

No medication this morning because I don’t have time to wait for the side-effects to kick in. Instead I took the paper rubbish out to the paper bin, and I hadn’t realised just how much there was and how long it had been hanging around.

But of course, you couldn’t take a pile of paper outside with the winds that we have had just recently.

Back inside I actually tidied up the kitchen and the dining area and even vacuumed the floor and it’s a long time since I’ve done that.

Caliburn’s new brake discs had arrived, having been on order for several weeks, so I had to take him to the mender’s and drop him off so they can fix him. And it was freezing outside, really cold. Minus 0.3°C and that’s the coldest that it’s been so far this winter.

Laurent came to pick me up and bring me home where we had a coffee and then wandered off down the road to speak to Nadia.

She’s a costumier who lives down the road and makes all of the costumes for the Carnival. We’re starting a series pf programmes about the Carnival in February in the hope that it isn’t cancelled again, and she’s an ideal candidate to be interviewed to tell us about her life, her work and how the Carnival affects her.

After we’d finished Laurent went home and I came back here for another coffee and to crash out in front of the computer. Well, not exactly crash out because I was as compos mentis as I can be these days, but I certainly was in no mood to do anything.

After lunch I forced myself into work and began the arrangements for my Christmas programmes. –

Wednesday 22nd December 2021 at 11:00 –
An exclusive interview with Father Christmas and his Elves, direct from his workshop in a secret location

Friday 24th December 2021 and Saturday 25th December 2021 at 21:00
Christmas songs with your favourite rock stars

Friday 31st December 2021 and Saturday 1st January 2022 at 21:00
A New Years Eve live concert from Boston, MA,; USA recorded on 31st December 1975

These can be heard on LE BOUQUET GRANVILLAIS

There’s also a special treat – while I was sorting out all of the old hard drives I came across many of the old radio programmes that we did in the old Radio Anglais days. So what I’ll be doing is on Christmas Eve at midnight I’ll upload it to my website and you can hear it AT THIS LINK – but not yet. You’ll have to wait until Christmas Eve.

And just a reminder …
All times are CET (French time)
For the UK, subtract one hour
For Toronto, subtract six hours
And you’ll have to work out the rest for yourself

Despite everything there was still time for me to go out for my afternoon walk and with the aim of catching up with my old habits I went over to the wall at the end of the car park.

What took me by surprise was the number of people down there on the beach this afternoon. As I suspected, all of the holidaymakers and second-home owners have descended on the town and packed it out.

And there were many down there trying their luck at catching fresh oysters for their Christmas treat. Oysters is a big tradition in France on Christmas Day, rather like my Christmas cake is to me.

In fact there were so many people around roday that you had to be inventive if you wanted to have some peace and quiet.

Here’s someone out in the bay in his zodiac having a little relax. At first I thought that he might be fishing but having a closer look at his boat I couldn’t see any fishing equipment.

Just as I was standing here watching him, a neighbour of mine pulled up in her car and we had a chat for a quarter of an hour or so before I wandered off on my travels.

Even though it’s coming up to Christmas for most of us, others are still out there working.

While I was looking out to sea I noticed two fishing boats heading slowly for home, presumably with a full catch after a hard day’s work.

And of you look very closely at the photo, to the upper left of the right-hand fishing boat you’ll see what looks like the Loch Ness Monster rearing its ugly head out of the water.

That took me rather by surprise. I’ve enlarged the photo and enhanced it and I still can’t make out what it is.

And how long is it since we’ve seen an aeroplane overflying us?

Today it’s the turn of F-GSBV – a Robin DR400-180 from the flying school here at Granville, flying past on its way home.

At least, I thought that she was on her way home but according to her flight plan, she took off at 16:06 and flew southwards before coming back, did a figure-of-eight over the airport heading northwards before coming home much later than when I saw her.

Someone clearly has a lot of flying hours to catch up.

Regumar readers of this rubbish will recall that the Pointe du Roc was devasted by gusts of 136kph at the height of Storm Arwen.

One of the flagpoles was uprooted and I posted a photo of it leaning drunkenly against its neighbour.

It’s now been removed and the base has been cordoned off. Presumably in the New Year they’ll re-drill it and fit new anchor bolts and then re-erect the flagpole.

You can see the size of the anchor bolts in the concrete base as they seem to have left one behind. You can imagine the force of the wind that tore the others out of their concrete settling.

As I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … what I like about this time of the year are the magnificent sunsets that we have.

With the beautiful blue, clear sky that we had had today we were having another one and this has to be one of the best that we have seen for quite a while.

As I came up the path towards the lighthouse I noticed how nice it was looking, and as I walked across the car park I could see it in all its splendour. And one of the fishing boats that we had seen earlier had caught me up and you can see it silhouetted over on the right.

And, just for a change just recently I wasn’t on my own admiring it.

As well as the crowds that were milling around on the car park and the footpath, there was someone down below on the bench by the cabanon vauban at the end of the headland.

Whatever it was that she was doing, she seemed to be totally engrossed in it, so I left her alone and pushed on … “pushed off, he means” – ed … along the path towards the port to see what was happening there.

At the chantier naval there was no change in the situation this afternoon. Aztec Lady was still there of course but that was about it.

Over at the ferry terminal, we have one of the Joly France ferries in a NAABSA (not always afloat but safely aground) situation. She’s the older one of the two, as we can see because there’s no step in her stern.

There were a couple of people up on the sea wall making the most of the early evening sun sinking slowly down below the horizon, but my attention had also been caught by something in the water in the background, moving quite rapidly.

Having done all of that I set out back to home, but I didn’t go far before I was distracted by the sound of Pink Floyd.

Further investigation revealed that there were a couple of workmen on a roof down in the Rue du Port, doing a re-roofing job by the looks of things. And I do have to say that I admired their choice of music.

Further along here, while walking on the path just above the port I fell in with another neighbour and we had another chat for a while – so much so that by the time I arrived home the coffee that I’d set in motion before coming out was now cold.

Having finished my radio notes I thought about tea. Stuffed pepper with veg and rice and it was delicious.

And while I was at it, I almost forgot the dictaphone too. We were all by a river somewhere in different positions. I wanted to attract someone’s attention so I built a mine and put it in the river to float it down there so that everyone else would see it. However I didn’t have any means of controlling it or directing it so it wasn’t as good an idea as it sounded. I was wishing, when I was halfway through making it, that I had some kind of radio control apparatus that I could make this thing work.

In actual fact, back in the 1960s my grandparents lived near a canal and it was the start of the pleasure boat cruise network in those days. A big marina had been built at Barbridge and there was a lot of traffic on the canal. My brother and I had the idea to build a replica “mine” complete with horns, like an old German contact-mine, and float it down the canal into the marina and watch the chaos and confusion from a discreet distance. However our parents, in a rare act of parenting, vetoed the idea quite firmly.

Later on we were at the side of a river waiting for something. The guy in charge of this expedition said that he had sent someone down with the sandwiches. They got down to where we were. As they approached the first person he dropped the lot onto the floor. Of course everyone mulled round to see what they could find but the sandwiches were all messed up in the mud and totally unfit to eat

I was also back with the taxis last night. My brother was driving and he had driven all night, all the previous evening until quite late and was back in again early next morning working. My mother mentioned that when he had taken her home at the end of the shift at the evening he’d fallen asleep a couple of times driving and she had to wake him up. That surprised him that he was back in early next morning working away again. There was something about a job going on from Underwood Lane to Audlem so I made sure that whoever it was had our ‘phone number so they could ring up and book it for the next evening

I’d been out somewhere and I had a pile of oranges and one of them was rotten and had leaked everywhere so I had to go upstairs and wash everything out. Some had fallen on my pillow so I’d rinsed everything off. My mother wanted something so I went into her room. She started to laugh about these oranges and I became extremely annoyed so I tipped the contents of the bag, rotten oranges and all, all over her bed and left them there with it all staining into her bedclothes.

There was something else about photocopying. There was a girl doing a pile of photocopying and she was saying something about how the photocopying companies said that it couldn’t be done but she could do it. I asked “is that recto-verso? Because I found the same”. She asked “how do you do your recto-versos?”. I had to think for a moment because it’s one of those automatic things that you do without even thinking about it. I had to think for a minute and then explain it to her but I wasn’t sure if I was doing it right because I’d never really thought about it. She asked “did you write and tell the company?”. I answered “no. They told me that it couldn’t be done when I asked them and I had to work it out for myself so it’s nothing to do with the company. It’s something to do with me that I can do it. The company shouldn’t be profiting from my ideas”. She agreed to that.

And now, later than intended, which is no surprise after transcribing all of that, I’m off to bed. I’m baking bread tomorrow, making more hummus, peeling a pile of carrots and going to the physiotherapist. It’s all go around here and I’m exhausted.

Wednesday 10th February 2020 – I WAS RIGHT …

… this morning about the snow.

Actually it’s not as much of a triumph as it sounds. It was a pretty safe guess that it would still be here this morning, judging by the way that it was coming down last night so as soon as it was light I stuck my head and the camera out of the window to take a photograph or two of the beautiful Alpine scenery, such as it is around here on the Normandy coast.

Well, when I say that I stuck my head out of the window etc, that is rather somewhat poetic licence because I did no such thing. I’d checked the temperature earlier this morning when I had my medicine and at that moment it was minus 2°C.

And if anyone thinks that I’m going to be sticking my head out of a window at minus 2°C they are mistaken. In fact that’s the coldest that I can remember it being since I’ve been here.

It’s a far cry from back in the Auvergne when I’d be out working on a roof or in a garden in two feet of snow and minus 18°C but I’m a lot older now than I was back then. But whatever we have here, it has everyone worried as I expected. They’ve cancelled all school transport for today. How would they have managed in the Auvergne?

But did you like the bit about “I’d checked the temperature earlier this morning”? Yes, I managed to beat the third alarm yet again, and that’s a surprise because I ended up working quite late last night – getting on for 01:00 when I went to bed.

This morning I took it rather easy. The only task of note being to rearrange once more the running order on the database for the radio programmes. It seems that the radio engineer is just as confused as I am about where we are in the running order and so we some confusion and on Monday I had sent him a programme that had already been broadcast.

There was the dictaphone to listen to too. I was around Winsford last night and I’m not sure why but I was walking around carrying a paraffin heater with me that was lit. I can’t remember very much at all about this but I was walking through the Shopping Centre there and the guy in the Fast Food Stall was putting up a sign “Closed – back in 15 minutes”. I looked at him and it was the guy who used to work in the bank there. I remember him saying how unhappy he was so we had told him that if he was unhappy he ought to leave. I was on my way to see a girlfriend – no idea who – who lived in Winsford. I hadn’t seen her for years and I was worried that it was rather late. I had a look on my watch and it was still 18:30 so I thought that there was plenty of time yet. I can’t understand though why it was so early. I hadn’t seen this girl for years yet I was so wrong about a lot of the other times that it might only have been a couple of days. And I can’t remember any more than that.

However, this “meeting up with former girlfriends after so many years as if it’s only a couple of days ago” was a recurring theme from a few years back, as regular readers will recall. Back then I was planning on ringing up former girlfriends for dates thinking that they might be free, even if I hadn’t seen them for over 30 years

Just as it was coming up to hot chocolate and sourdough fruit-bread time, Rosemary rang me up for a chat. We put the world to rights and by the time that we finished there wasn’t any point in going for breakfast as it was almost lunchtime.

Not much bread laft now so if I forget to bake on tomorrow morning, it’s going to be soup from the freezer again with the bit of bread that’s left.

But once I’d eaten my lunch I made another batch of kefir. Now that I have plenty of empty bottles I can make them earlier than I have been doing and give the contents more time to settle.

Today’s ingredients were orangs and kiwi again, with a mandarine thrown in for good measure. I’m not sure how this batch will turn out but I have high hopes. And having set that under way in the flip-top bottles for its second fermentation, I made another batch that can sit and ferment for the next 6 days or so.

And while I was at it, I had a look at my ginger bug – the ginger beer starter. That’s fermenting nicely in its little corner by the radiator and has started to bubble. That means that fermentation has begun and we are now on our way. It needs five days or so of feeding before it’s ready to use.

Basically, it’s rather like sourdough – you just help yourself to some of it to make a second fermentation in a flip-top bottle with more water and ginger, and and a little water back to your starter again so that the volume of the starter remains constant.

Of course, every other day you feed it with ginger and sugar to keep it going.

For the rest of the day I’ve been working on my Oradour sur Glane notes. Right now, the murderers have been convicted (those who were brought to trial, that is) but the fun is just about to begin.

Off I went on my afternoon walk in the freezing cold weather.

There was still a fair amount of snow about covering the car park. The bright sunlight had melted some of it but not all by any means.

In fact, we’d had a thaw and then a freeze by the looks of things because there were signs that water had run out of the snow and down the slope towards the grid but then frozen again leaving a nice trail of black ice.

And if you like, you can ask me how I know about this.

Now that the fishermen are back out at sea again, we’ve been seeing the trawlers on their way home again from the fishing grounds.

There was another one out there today heading back into port. One whose name I have unfortunately forgotten but she’s the older sister of the new trawler Le Pearl who arrived in port just before Christmas. She’s surrounded by seabirds too, all hoping for a little treat, so she must have a very good catch in her hold.

There were one or two other trawlers way out there too in the distance, heading back for port. It seems that the fishing is now back in full swing after the little pause while the island of Jersey attempted in vain to hold the French fishermen to ransom.

The sun was pretty low down in the sky today but where the light could actually reach, it was really beautiful

In this photo we’re looking back down along the northern side of the headland past the Rue du Nord and the beach at the Plat Gousset towards Donville les Bains.

But nice as the weather might look, it really was freezing out there and I was glad that I’d come prepared. I usually wear these shell trousers because they wash and dry easily. But they are rather thin and the wind goes right through them.

However, I did bring with me a pair that are one size bigger than I would normally wear. And I simply slipped these on over the ones that I was already wearing and that was great. Mind you, my ears froze again.

Nothing much doing anywhere else so I made my way around the headland to look at the activity in the port.

And we aren’t alone there again today. We have a visitor, because Thora is in port right now having come in from the Channel Islands with another load. So she’s keeping busy which is good news.

But that was me just about done. I headed off back home for my afternoon coffee and to carry on with my work. But unfortunately I was out like a light yet again for about half an hour or so, which I don’t suppose is any surprise given the circumstances of last night.

The hour on the guitar passed OK, I suppose. And on the acoustic guitar I was working out the Allan Clark number “Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress” – I’ve no idea why that entered my head this afternoon. And that’s not an easy number to sing because there’s a key change in there somewhere and I end up one scale higher than I ought to be at one point and I can’t think why.

Mind you, it’s the same with “Behind the Mask” that I was playing yesterday. And strangely enough, it’s the same note each time, an “A”.

Tea was taco rolls with the rest of the stuffing from Monday, followed by rice pudding. And having written my notes, I’m not messing about. I’m off to bed for I’m exhausted and a good sleep will do me the world of good, I reckon. And I hope that the photos work properly tonight, Sean. Thanks for the note.

Pleasant dreams, everyone.

Thursday 5th December 2019 – AT LONG LAST …

… I’ve finished all of the dictaphone notes. I dragged the final ones into the “filed” subfolder at about 12:15 today. That was another job well-done and I can start to get on with things now – or, at least, I can when I’ve backed them up and deleted them from the back-up folder on the dictaphone.

If my memory served me correctly, from the time that I left France on 27th June until I’d recovered from my exploits away on or about 26th October, there were something like 286 entries to be transcribed.

Some of them were quite long too. Leaving aside the one of over four hours (which was 3 minutes of me talking and four hours of me sleeping), there were quite a few that ran into double figures too.

And some of the stuff was quite exciting too. It’s amazing the kind of thing that goes on in a nocturnal ramble and about which I am totally unaware until I come to dictate it.

Talking of “exciting” … “well, one of us is” – ed … you should have been with me during the night too, because it’s been a good while since I’ve had such an exciting time.

We started off the evening on board a ship – not sure which one but it could quite easily have been The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour. We sailed at night into this port that was held by the Germans, at night so that while they could see the ship, they could not see its nationality or anything. We sent a big party ashore – almost everyone in fact and made our way peacefully to the supply depot. We overwhelmed the people in the supply depot, one of whom was a 19 year old Danish Freikorps soldier boy by ruse or trick. I was having to speak to the German officer in charge who congratulated me on my German but didn’t much like my accent. I said that I was a Volksdeutsch, not a natural German. Having overwhelmed the supply depot, we collected the supplies and sent our first group off to clear the way back to the ship. However, they ended up being pinned down under fire by a young boy there. Whoever was leading that column said that he wasn’t going to go along and flush out this boy because he was only a kid. This obviously upset our commander because in war everything is important and no individual, regardless of age, merits consideration. He decided to send this young Danish Freikorps boy out there. He told him “he’s your mate – you do and get him out of there” and packed him off with one of our soldiers to try to talk this young kid out of his position so we could get off and go home before the Germans woke up and realised exactly what was happening.
And, dear reader, that was really exciting that was. For some unknown reason it was the most exciting and most realistic voyage that I’ve been on for quite some time.
A little later on – a good while later on in fact – I was away again, on the same ship and we ended up in New York. We saw our ship come into the harbour but I couldn’t find my camera to take photos of it. I was really dismayed by that. But as we docked, a group of people disappeared off onto the shore. I couldn’t find my camera and, even worse, I couldn’t find Strawberry Moose. I thought well, I’m going at least to have a look around on shore even if we can’t stay here long and I can’t get any photos. However, just as I got off the ship two people from the crew came back to the ship again. They were carrying Strawberry Moose in that big shoulder bag that I have and they had my camera. They explained that they had taken him off on a few photo shoots. So Strawberry Moose and I – I should say that I took Strawberry Moose with me. He came for a climb but having been in that bag he was all matted and his fur was a total mess – set off to climb up this hill up a load of steps where there’s a really good view over the docks. But it wasn’t the docks that I particularly remembered though, it’s the kind of New York that we have visited on numerous occasions on one of our nocturnal excursions where there’s the big elevated highway out of the city off to the left. Our ship was moored almost underneath that flyover type of place and all around the docks was greenery. There was another main road at ground level off to the left of the docks. There were steps up to the top and there were some people climbing them in front of me, obviously locals, and going on about the health clinic at the bottom, saying that it can’t have been there before these steps were open. Someone laughed and said “oh yes of course it was, it’s just that we couldn’t get to it”. I got to the top of the steps and the view from the top was stunning as you could imagine. You could see the ship and see all the docks below me and that highway that I mentioned and a couple of other roads and I went to take a photo of it all. As well as that there was something about a couple of other people up there. They were fuming because they had asked someone to take a photo of them and he had turned round and said “so you aren’t really third-party intimates are you?”. Their camera was one of these with different picture settings and “third party intimate” was one of the choices. That was the style of photo that they wanted but he had changed the settings and it ruined their photo. But just as I was about to take a photo of everything spread out before me, that was when I awoke.
And that’s not all either. I had another dream – a political dream this time. Clearly the situation in the UK is getting to me big-time. Again we were on the The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour and again Cook was being broadcast on the TV, again all kind of falsehoods about Jeremy Corbyn, even though he was on the ship and even though we knew that these things were false. Even though they had been disclosed publicly as being false, the BBC was still broadcasting them as if they were the real thing.

All that I can say is that it was a good job that I had had an early night for a change. I would otherwise have never fitted all of that in.

Unfortunately I missed the alarms this morning, but I was up pretty quickly regardless, round about 06:30 or something like that.

It took me an age to transcribe my notes from the night, and that was followed by breakfast and a shower. With some time before I needed to leave the apartment I made a start on the remaining dictaphone notes.

It was soon enough time to leave the apartment and I wish that it wasn’t because, once more it was absolutely taters out there again.

We’ve had a visitor during the night. Normandy Trader has made it in and she seems to be pretty well loaded up. I can’t see what with though because of this blasted fog and mist that is shrouding everything.

One of these days I shall have to go for a look.

It seems that I shall also have to go and have a look to see what’s going on with Marité too.

They have set up a cherry-picker in the quayside and there were some guys up there in the nacelle doing some work on Marité‘s mast.

It seems a shame, but it seems that the days when you would send a small boy up the mast to fix the rigging are long-gone. Times are definitely a-changing.

The railway station was deserted when I arrived. The whole of the French public service is on strike today apparently. But no matter. I went simply to pick up my tickets for next week and I can do that out of the machine there.

There is something of a reliability issue with regard to the machines so I like to go and collect my tickets before the day of travel, just in case there’s a problem.

The main reason for going to LIDL was to buy a lettuce because I had run out, so while I was there I did a quick run round and picked up some other stuff.

On the way back to the apartment I passed by the big St Paul’s Church.

At the back of it, in the impasse de la Corderie, they have erected a large crane. And I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s for the church because that is definitely in need of urgent repair, or it might be for one of the houses nearby.

And it was round about here that I realised that while I had indeed bought a few other bits and pieces, I had forgotten to buy the lettuce.

Nevertheless, I did remember to call at La Mie Caline for my dejeunette and then I sailed on up the hill towards home.

There’s a little Square – the Square Potel – just off the rue des Juifs and here they seem to be setting up some Christmas decorations too. But what kind of decorations these are going to be I really don’t know.

When I come by here tomorrow I’ll have another look and take a photo of how everything has turned out.

Back at the apartment I made myself a quick coffee and then knuckled down to the dictaphone notes. And as I said earlier, they are now all done and dusted and I can relax somewhat until the next project – like the photos for example.

After lunch I made a start on cutting up some more of the digital music that I have downloaded. I only did about four all day, but one of them was quite complicated. Not because it was difficult (although the mixing that was done in the studio was appalling and I had to redo it here) but because there were plenty of little extras, like loads of applause tracks for example, that I could extract and keep in my sound library for future use.

We had a break in the middle of all of that for my afternoon walk.

it was still really cold outside today and the freezing fog hadn’t really lifted at all. You can see the haze covering the medieval walled town and the Plat Gousset.

And it waas much worse further down the coast and out to sea.

No chance of spying any fishing boats out there working today, but there was one leaving the harbour just as I rounded the headland.

Nothing worth photographing in the cjantier navale or, at least, nothing that we haven’t seen just recently, so I took a photo of the trawler instead.

And that didn’t take long to disappear out of sight into the mist either. I was going to take another one of it further out in the Baie de Mont st Michel but I couldn’t see it at all.

But there are strange goings-on at the passenger terminal for the ferries to the Channel Islands and the Ile de Chausey.

Joly France, one of the boats that runs to the Ile de Chausey, was moore dup there today, but Chausiais, the boat that the company has bought to carry out a freight service, that’s over there too having come out from the inner harbour.

Does this mean that the freight service is about to start? Watch this space.

There was no-one around at all so I tok the opportunity to have a good run. And I managed it all the way to the end of my little track where I cross the road. It might not be all that far – a mere three hundred metres or so – but it’s the principle of the thing.

One thing that I had forgotten to do was to take the rubbish out to the large collection point. So I went and did that too and reflected, on the way back, that this is now three times today that I have run up the stairs. When I first moved here, I couldn’t even walk up them.

Tea was a lentil and carrot burger with pasta, followed by rice pudding. And then off for my evening walk.

It’s even colder out there now so I didn’t hang around. Just a bried pause to admire the Christmas lights in the rue Paul Poirier.

And I have to say that they are something of a disappointment. Not because they aren’t very good but they seem to be no different from the previous years.

Ohh for someone with some imagination!

Moving on, I ran (yet again!) on my track but didn’t quite make it up to the top of the ramp. But then again, with all of the running that I’ve done today, I’m reasonably happy with that.

Minette was there so I said hello to her and then came back here in the warmth. An early night is called for, and a quiet day tomorrow. I’ll make a start on the photos and maybe even unpack the final box from the big delivery last week. High time I did that.

Wednesday 4th December 2019 – BRRRRHHHH!

Winter is acumen in. And Caliburn is the first to notice it.

It was absolutely taters in my apartment this morning. And even with one of the radiators going full-tilt overnight in the living room, the temperature was a mere 9°C.

The other radiator won’t be switched on though, because I spend most of my life in the bedroom-cum-office here and even with just one small radiator, it keeps quite warm in here.

But outside this morning, the temperature had descended to just 0°C, with the promise of more frost on the way. Winter is well and truly on its way.

It’s not the only thing that’s on its way either. I was on my way during the night. I had an old beige Cortina mkIV (UOB? YLO? WGS?) that had been involved in an accident and was quite badly damaged at the front so we were taking the seats out of it to put in another one. We were having to do this on the very quiet in the hope that no-one would ever get to see about it because with the floor pans being the same all the seats in the mkIII, mkIV and mkV were quite the same. But the door cards wouldn’t fit and I remember thinking so it was probably a mkIII that we were going to fit these seats in. But apart from that I don’t really remember very much else and awoke shortly after the dream started.

There were further instances too, but the battery in the dictaphone went flat as I began to dictate them and by the time that I had sorted out new batteries, I’d forgotten where I’d been.

An early start meant an early breakfast and I was back at my desk quite early too. And by the time that I knocked off at lunchtime, I’d reduced the dictaphone backlog to just 8 files. I’m hoping to finish those tomorrow if I can get a good whack at it.

Yesterday, I mentioned that I was planning to head off for this outside market on the football club car park. So I took a break from the dictaphone and headed off outside.

My route took me up the hill into the avenue des Matignon and here once again we witnessed one of the eternal banes of this site – the pathetic parking of various selfish motorists.

Here’s one guy who’s parked over not one but two places in a loading bay while he went into the boulangerie, despite the fact that right behind where he parked was an empty public parking place.

It really is unbelievable.

Another thing on which we focus is the various house-building activities that are going on all over town.

This site in the avenue des Matignon has featured before, but a long while ago when it was nothing like as completed as it is now.

And judging by the space heaters and moisture extractors in use in the building, it won’t be long before it’s ready for occupation, I reckon.

Ad I’m glad that I wasn’t expecting too much of this open-air market today, because I wasn’t disappointed at all.

There were a couple of bakers there but none of them had a loaf my size so I eschewed the opportunity. And the price of the fresh veg was, well, out of my range I’m afraid.

But there was someone there selling baking apples and had I not been planning my getaway in a week’s time, I’d have bought a few. Instead, I’ll get a few next week and they will be nice and ready for when I return.

On the way back down into town, the workmen were there once more at the roundabout at the place Pierre Semard, working on the Christmas tree.

Today they have brought another pile of smaller trees and they seem to be erecting their own little forest. And without any obvious Health and Safety issues, although had it been the UK, they all would have had to wear armour-plating to defend themselves against splinters.

Having admired them for a few minutes, I continued on down into town, picked up my dejeunette and came back home.

And much to everyone’s surprise, especially mine, I managed to run about 100 metres up the steep hill. I’ve not done that before.

Still an hour or so to go before lunch so I continued with the dictaphone notes, leaving just 8 to do, as I mentioned when I knocked off for lunch.

After lunch I had another play around with the Fostex mixer desk and I’ve managed to make it work after a fashion. At least, it’s recording tracks and I can upload them to the desktop computer, but the recording level is too low for my liking.

Still, I’ve ordered a few of the correct cables for the external microphones and when they arrive, I’ll be in business (I hope).

Next task was to edit out some soundbites of Louis de Funes and his friends from a few video soundtracks so that I can use them in my projects. I had an 8-minutes soundtrack and I’m halfway through it, having selected out about 15 so far.

At some time during the course of the afternoon I must have dozed off on my nice new comfy chair, because I suddenly sat bolt upright with quite a shock. And it’s been a while since I’ve done that.

16:00 – time for my afternoon walk.

There was bright sunlight out there in places, yet it was freezing cold still and the sea was covered in this layer of freezing fog.

All in all, from this point of view it looked like a rather depressing afternoon.

Despite the cold and the fog, there were some people out there enjoying themselves.

Some guy was out there with his bucket, doing what they call round here the peche à pied – fishing on foot. Scavenging in the rockpools for the cockles and mussels, alive, alive-ohh, hey?

And I hope that he shares them out with his friends. After all, one mustn’t be selfish with one’s shellfish

Further on along the coast the beach out at Donville-les-Bains was swathed in glorious sunshine.

There were quite a few people out there on the beach enjoying the sunshine while they could, and that sad former hotel building that is now apartments and where I went to look at something once, even that was looking quite nice today in the conditions.

But as you can see, the fog isn’t all that far away. You can’t see very much behind the building.

It wasn’t just on the beach at Donville-les-Bains that the people were sunning themselves either.

There were quite a few people walking out on the promenade at the Plat Gousset and there were even some intrepid souls who had made their way onto the beach.

As for me, I carried on with my walk and seeing as there was no-one out and about on the Square Maurice Marland where I take my evening run, I leapt into action there too.

All the way along my little track and up the ramp at the end too. It was something of an effort, that final 20 metres and that’s what usually finishes me off, the rise at the end, but I made it up to the top today.

Back at the apartment I started to split into their individual tracks the digital music that I have been downloading just recently. Today, I did two albums and I reckon that along with the photos, this will be my project once the dictaphone notes are finished.

There was some stuffing left over from the pepper the other day so I added a tin of kidney beans and made some taco rolls for tea. And there’s still some stuffing left over now. What I’ll do, probably on Friday, is to make some pasta and eat it with the stuffing and the left-over veg.

Freezin cold and pitch-black outside so I didn’t loiter on my evening walk.

They have installed the Christmas lights on the rue du Port so I stopped to photograph them. And, frankly, if that’s the best that they can do, it’s all rather sad if you ask me. They needn’t have bothered.

No-one about again so I broke into a run and made it all the way down my course here without too much effort.

Even though I say it myself, I’m feeling much better with myself because I’m making the effort to move about more. Who knows? At this rate I might even start looking for a partner. Wouldn’t that be something?

So LIDL tomorrow. I don’t know what they have in the specials but it will be fun finding out. So I’ll catch up with my beauty sleep right now.

After all, with my looks, I need all the beauty sleep I can get.

Wednesday 23rd January 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day I had today.

It finished by being all right on the night, but it not without a great deal of effort.

For a start, I had what they might call a nuit blanche. Despite a reasonably early night, I don’t remember going off to sleep at all.

I suppose that I must have at one point though, because I was off on my travels for a short while. And here’s a blast from the past. I was back playing in a rock group again and we had a booking lined up somewhere in West London. There was a girl from school whom I quite fancied (which I actually did all those years ago, funnily enough) and she was at University down there. She had suggested at one time that I should drop in and look her up. I’d suspected that this was just a little bit of flannel but nevertheless it was worth following up so as I was in the company of her brother (who coincidentally has sent me an e-mail just yesterday) I’d check up. His reply was that “she’s very popular with her fellow-students down there, you know”, which of course told me everything that I needed to know. Even I could read between those kind of lines.

I was definitely awake at 05:20 and when the alarm went at 06:00 I leapt out of bed (well, sort-of) immediately.

With most things already being packed, I just drank the rest of the contents of the drinks bottles and rinsed them out, gave the room a quick once-over, and was then out of the door well before 06:30.

There was snow and ice all over the place and it was a difficult walk up town.

But I was on the station in time for the earlier train to Brussels. It was being pulled by one of the Siemens Serie 18 electric locomotives.

The SNCB owns 120 of these and, beleive it or not, despite their looks they are only about 8 years old. They get plenty of use.

My train from Leuven brought me early into Brussels.

This gave me a good opportunity to go for a look around outside the station at the heavy snow was falling. It looked quite impressive this morning, illuminated with the flash on the camera.

And then off to the supermarket, which was now open, for my raisin buns for breakfast.

The TGV was on time this morning.

It’s our old friend 4302, one of the PBKA (Paris-Brussels-Kôln-Amsterdam) series 43000 units of which there are 19 – built in the mid-90s when the service was launched

I was looking forward to having a good sleep to catch up with what I had missed during the night but it wasn’t to be.

Instead, because of all of the snow (it really was heavy) the train had to slow down because otherwise it might overrun signals. And so we crept along at a slow but steady 180kph instead of a flat-out 300kph.

We were warned that we would be at least 40 minutes late arriving in Paris. That meant that I had to go off and hunt down the train manager to have her sign my ticket. I have a feeling that I’m going to be horribly late in Paris and if I miss my connection, the next train is 3 hours later.

I don’t fancy spending three hours sitting on a freezing cold, draughty platform and I certainly don’t want to have to pay for the privilege if there’s a way of avoiding it.

First off the train and along the platform – a long time since I moved so fast. And just as I arrived on the Metro platform a train pulled in. So I leapt aboard and it rattled off.

Arriving at Montparnasse, I was first off the train and off on the long walk to my platform right at the far end of the station miles away. I even took all of the travelators and even though they were rolling, I walked along them to speed things up.

And I was lucky I did. It’s about a 2km walk from the metro to my train, and I couldn’t afford to hang around.

I turned up at my platform just as the guard was about to signal the departure. No sooner had I put my feet on board than he blew his whistle and the train pulled out.

I was so stressed out with all of this that it took me a while to regain my composure. Totally out of breath I was.

The snow eased off by the time we reached Surdon and we rattled along quite steadily. Somewhere round about Vire or so I fell asleep because I remember nothing whatever from then on until we arrived in Granville. Dead to the world.

It was another struggle back up to my apartment.

What with all of the effort I stopped to catch my breath half-way up the rue des Juifs and I could admire the harbour.

As well as Marité down there at her mooring too we have Thora tied up at the quayside. I can’t see what her load is today, and there didn’t look as if there was anyone down there

In the previous photo you might have noticed one of the gravel lorries driving onto the quayside.

They have obviously been very busy because there’s quite a pile of gravel accumulating on the quayside now, and that can only mean one thing.

Very soon we might be receiving a visit from Neptune who will come to take it all away back to the UK

It was cold and windy out there, although nothing like as cold as it had been in Belgium. But it was freezing in here and the first thing that I did was to switch on the heating.

There were a few things that I needed to do back here but round about 18:30 I’d had enough. I’d had a very bad night with almost no sleep, I’d been up early, dashed about all over the place and moved like I had never done for years. On top of that, I’d missed most of my siesta.

So that was that. I went to bed. When I awake, I’ll carry on.

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 – IT’S SNOWING!!!

Well, it was this morning.

it started at about 09:30 and went on until about 11:00. And by that time there was a healthy white covering across the courtyard out here. Not exactly an Alpine vista but it’s the first snow that I’ve seen this winter. We just don’t get it in Normandy like we did in the Auvergne.

You might be excused for thinking that having gone to bed last night and not set the alarms for this morning, I might have missed it. But with it having been an early night, by the time that 05:00 came round I was wide awake.

But wide awake is not the same as being out of bed.On a Day of Rest (to replace my Sunday lie-in) 08:00 was much more like it, although I have known better.

And Nerina put in an appearance last night. She was apparently doing some kind of research into performing dogs and I remembered that I had actually written a document on this during my University studies. So I started to sift through everything that I had written but to my dismay I couldn’t find it. I thought that it was at some time during the last year or so but I’d been all the way back for a few years and it wasn’t there. So I was wondering if I had written it but not yet submitted it. This all went on for quite some considerable time.

While I was watching the snow falling, I attacked some work that needed doing. making all kinds of enquiries about my lost passport. But provided that I can negotiate the TGV back to France tomorrow, the urgency has lessened. I’ve had another message concerning something that I need to do and for which I need my passport, and that’s not going to happen for quite a while.

At lunchtime I nipped outside into the snow to buy a baguette from the supermarket down the road. Tomato and vegan cheese baguette was delicious.

This afternoon, I didn’t do very much at all. I drifted around going through some more paperwork and then made a start on the packing. But I couldn’t keep going for long and ended up having a little … err … repose for an hour or so. This really is getting somewhat out-of-hand and I’m becoming more and more dismayed by the fact that I simply can’t keep it up any longer.

It was about 18:30 when I finally came to, having missed the opportunity to go out and buy the second instalment of my medication. At least there’s enough to keep me going for the next month, and then we’ll have to see how we go.

Tea was my second weinerschnitzel with potatoes and frozen veg. Just as delicious as yesterday. And followed by the rest of the raspberry sorbet. With everything (almost) now finished off, I had a mega-washing-up and cleaning session; followed by the rest of the packing. Leave the place as I would like to find it, which will come as a major surprise to anyone who knows me.

It wasn’t that cold when I went out for my evening walk. A mere minus 2°C. There was some scattered snow about and everywhere was quite icy, and for that reason there weren’t many people about at all. And I didn’t go far either. The walk does me good but there’s no point in going mad.

Before going to bed, I finished the packing and had a good check-around to make sure that I’ve not forgotten anything. I’m fed up of losing stuff and as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, over the years I’ve left a trail of my possessions scattered all over the Northern Hemisphere.

An early start in the morning. I can’t afford to hang about.

Monday 21st January 2019 – AS I HAVE SAID BEFORE …

… “and on many occasions too” – ed … the big problem about going to bed early is that there is a tendency to awaken early.

But waking up at 03:50 is a bit on the ridiculous side.

And waking up with a thirst that you could photograph too, without very much in the way of drink to assuage my thirst either. Half a litre of drink and I could quite easily have polished that off.

But regardless of that, I couldn’t get back to sleep and just lay awake, reminiscing on the nocturnal ramble that I was having and which has now gone completely out of my mind, until 06:00 when the alarm went off.

I heard the other two alarms too, but the next thing that I remember was someone banging a door in the building – at 07:18. I’d gone right back to sleep again. I’d been on a nocturnal ramble too – pushing a shopping trolley around a supermarket in Stoke on Trent stocking up with food and toilet paper – things like that-until the trolley was overloaded. People were looking at me and so I said that I was stocking up now before prices went through the roof, and the strange thing about that, as I even recognised at the time which is surprising, was that I said it in French. In Stoke on Trent they struggle to even speak intelligible English.

Having had a bad day yesterday, I wasn’t feeling much better today. For two pins I would have turned over and gone back to sleep.

But I went through the morning ritual and then hit the streets. Glorious sunshine and a temperature of minus 4°C. Not the day for loitering.

But loiter I did for at least part of the journey.

In the daylight I stopped to take a photo of the drainage work that I had seen in the Tiensestraat last night. They were all out there, the workmen, working on it. I hadn’t noticed the pipes last night so they may have been anly just delivered

A little further on down the Tiensestraat I was distracted yet again.

Fire engines and ambulances and barriers in the Herbert Hooverplein told us the story. There had been what I assumed to be a fire in one of the blocks of flats just there as you can see, and the emergency services had been called out.

They didn’t look to be in all that much of a hurry so I imagine that there wasn’t anything serious going on and that the crisis had passed.

My perambulations took me down the hill into the Brusselsestraat where there was more of interest going on.

There’s a huge plan to knock down the big modern hospital that is now surplus to requirements and also to refurbish a couple of the derelict 19th Century buildings in the vicinity.

They are water-washing the brickwork of one of these buildings, so that have shrouded it all off to avoid inconveniencing the passers-by.

I was early at the hospital and it was just as well because the reception area was heaving. It must have taken 15 minutes to be seen. And it was even worse downstairs. My appointment was for 09:50 and it wasn’t until 10:35 that I was taken off by a nurse to be fitted out.

She didn’t speak English so we had my insertion interview in Flemish. Things are definitely improving from that point of view.

There wasn’t a comfy seat for me either so I had to make do with a normal one. It definitely wasn’t my day.

But there s some good news. The protein loss has stabilised and the blood count has increased. And I’ll tell you for nothing that it certainly doesn’t feel like it

And that’s not all either. You never know what you are entitled to until you ask, and I asked a speculative question. The answer was quite surprising and it’s opened up a whole new vista of opportunities that I thought might have been closed.

It was long after 16:00 by the time that I was kicked out. And then I had the rounds of the chemists to do. There seems to be issues of supply of certain of my medications. I had to try three chemists before I could find what I needed – and then a lot of it was substitutes.

The Delhaize was next, to buy the food for the next couple of days. And as well as vegan sorbets and vegan margarine, I picked up some Vegan wienerschnitzels which I hadn’t seen before and … “SHOCK” … “HORROR” … some vegan cheese, which seems now to be on sale there. I forgot to buy some drink though, so I had to call up at the big SPAR near my accommodation.

Back here, I had a shower and washed my clothes. There’s a curtain rail right over the heater here so they won’t take long to dry. And that was the cue for a coffee.

The vegan schnitzels were delicious, with potatoes and frozen peas and carrots. and followed down by raspberry sorbet.

But having had a day where I wasn’t able to have a good sleep, I decided on an early night. I didn’t even do the washing up. Tomorrow is a Day of Rest while I gather up my resources and gird up my loins ready for the journey back home.

21 January 2019 fire herbert hooverplein leuven belgie

building work brusselsestraat leuven belgie

Sunday 20th January 2019 – IT’S BEEN BUILDING …

… up for a while so it’s no surprise that I was going to have a bad day sooner or later. But to have one on the day that I’m travelling is not what I was expecting at all.

Possibly it was the late-ish night that didn’t help, or possibly it was the fact that I couldn’t drop off to sleep..Or maybe even the fact that I awoke at about 05:40. But whatever it was, it wasn’t very good.

Still, no point in holding off the inevitable. I crawled out of bed.

No medication, and no breakfast either. Instead, I had a shower, a clean-up and a change of clothes, and then unplugged all of the electrical appliances (although I realised later that I had still left a few plugged in).

Packing the food and making the butties was next. A quick bit of cleaning up and tidying was next and then I hit the streets.

It was a long, lonely, difficult crawl up to the railway station and I really didn’t feel at all like it.

When I arrived at the station the garrulous cleaner was there so we had a little chat about things.

Luckily the train was in so I quickly grabbed a coffee and clambered aboard to my seat. I could sit and eat my breakfast in comfort while I waited for things to happen.

The train set off bang on time and that’s always encouraging, but my optimism didn’t last all that long. We’d only travelled a few miles before there was a call over the PA ystem “could any doctor or nurse on board make themselves known to the ticket collector?”.

Is there a doctor in the house? I hadn’t realised that I looked so bad.

But as it happens, it wasn’t for me.

Our train made an unscheduled stop at Folligny and all of a sudden there were a lot of people running around outside. Eventually, an ambulance pulled up on the station forecourt and the emergency personnel started to run around.

Round about this time I dozed off to sleep but by the time that I awoke we had the SAMU here too. And after a good while they evacuated a person on a stretcher. Judging by the heavy covers over the stretcher and the lack of urgency of the emergency personnel, it can’t have been good news for whoever it was.

75 minutes late, we headed off on our route. I made sure that I had the ticket collector sign my ticket to say that the train was delayed. It’s going to be touch-and-go for me to catch my TGV in Paris.

At Villedieu-les-Poeles I was joined by a fellow-passenger – a charming lady. I was looking forward to some convivial company but she just buried her head in her book and that was that.

70 minutes late at Montparnasse-Vaugirard so I had to move fairly rapidly – the last thing that I felt like. I was interrupted too by some African woman who wanted me to tell her the directions to somewhere or other – but what do I know?

We had a long wait for a metro too. This wasn’t looking good. And it was crowded too but I managed to grab a folding seat and make a start on my butties.

Much to my surprise, when I arrived at Paris Gare du Nord our train was already at the platform. She is our old friend PBKA 4304. We’ve travelled on this one on several occasions

Even more surprisingly I found that I still had half an hour to wait before I could board the train. I hadn’t been delayed as long as I thought. There was even a free seat in the public area for me to sit and finish off my lunch and that was even more surprising.

We were allowed on board the train early and I ended up with another charming and personable companion. But she was busy on her telephone so I curled up and went to sleep – just waking up long enough to have my ticket inspected.

The train arrived in Brussels a few minutes early which was very nice. I actually had plenty of time to buy my ticket for my train to Leuven.

That was on time too so it wasn’t long before I was in Leuven. A nice comfortable ride in a nice comfortable train.

But winter is here in Leuven, that’s for sure. It’s minus 2°C and there’s plenty of frost lying about all over the place.

At my little lodgings there is no trace of my passport unfortunately, but at least my room is warm and comfortable. I unpacked everything and then, shame as it is to admit it, I crashed out. And for two hours too. I was well away with the fairies.

I was awake later long enough to walk into town to pick up a pizza. After all, it is Sunday.

One thing that I noticed was that the Tiensestraat is closed off and they’ve dug up the road. Judging by the look of things it seems to be something to do with the drainage. But whatever it is, it will keep them out of mischief for a while.

My pizza was absolutely delicious and I really enjoyed it.

But I was soon back in bed. I just can’t last the pace these days, can I?

medical emergency gare du folligny manche normandy france

drainage work tiensestraat leuven belgie

Wednesday 26th December 2018 – STILL NOT HAVING …

… to manage the dreadful mess that the new upgrade that my blog-host has forced upon me, wiped out all of my essential features and added piles of new features that do nothing but add total confusion to my site, and not having found a new, more suitable host that I can bring into my site, I shall press gallantly on regardless.

God help us all!

Luckily I was recording the entries into a text file so I can simply copy/paste, but that’s the least of my worries.

So, on with the Motley.

With it being another Bank Holiday, I had another lie-in. And although after all of my efforts this last few days, it wasn’t all that much of a lie-in either. Something of a disappointment in fact because I was rather hoping for another 10:00 session.

But it was a late breakfast anyway and then I had another day of doing very little. It’s what Bank Holidays are for.

Mind you, there was one thing that I wish that I had done, and that was to go out for my medication. You’ll remember me saying that the chemists were closed on Monday. They (or at least some of them) planned to be open today and I had intended to be out there to stock up as I’m running low.

Instead, I was crashed out on the bed, under the covers, for a good couple of hours. I remember 15:00 coming round but the next thing that I remembered was that it was 17:12. And that’s not to say that I was out of bed by then either. But regardless, I’d forgotten all about the chemists and that was that.

Tea was the rest of yesterday’s meal, including the half of Christmas pudding that I didn’t eat.

Later on, I went for a good walk around the town again.

Not with any purpose in mind, but simply to see what was going on, and to admire the Christmas lights that were illuminating the Town Hall, or Stadhuis of Leuven.

We’ve seen them before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … but they are still impressive.

And the temperature has dropped outside too this evening.

It was cold enough yesterday but it’s freezing now. Gloves and hat and everything.

But nevertheless I still stopped off to take a photo of the Universum tavern on the corner of the Herbert Hooverplein and the Tiensestraat. That was looking quite impressive in the dark too.

Back in the apartment I started to pack ready to leave. And I seem to be taking home with me more than I came with. It’s going to be a crush to make it fit into my luggage.

And I didn’t eat one of the packs of frozen veg either. I’m going to have to work out how I can get that home too.

But not right now. I have an early start so I’m going for an early night.

night monseigneur ladeuzeplein leuven louvain belgium

night town hall stadhuis christmas lights leuven louvain belgium

night eikstraat town hall stadhuis leuven louvain belgium

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: freezing outside

Thursday 13th March 2025 – THERE HAS BEEN SNOW …

Monday 20th January 2025 – YET ANOTHER THREE …

Saturday 18th January 2025 – ANOTHER THREE HOURS ..

Friday 3rd January 2025 – MY CHOCOLATE CAKE …

Saturday 2nd December 2023 – I AWOKE THIS …

Wednesday 22nd December 2021 – ALL OF THE …

Tuesday 21st December 2021 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER …

Wednesday 10th February 2020 – I WAS RIGHT …

Thursday 5th December 2019 – AT LONG LAST …

Wednesday 4th December 2019 – BRRRRHHHH!

Wednesday 23rd January 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 – IT’S SNOWING!!!

Monday 21st January 2019 – AS I HAVE SAID BEFORE …

Sunday 20th January 2019 – IT’S BEEN BUILDING …

Wednesday 26th December 2018 – STILL NOT HAVING …

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