Tag Archives: greenock morton

Sunday 3rd May 2026 – WHAT A DAY …

… this has been today. But not for any positive reason – in fact, quite the reverse.

And yet last night, things were looking rather better. Although I seemed to have taken a positive age in finishing off everything, it couldn’t have been before 22:30 when I finally crawled into bed. Not to worry, though, because with it being a Sunday, if things go according to plan … "some hope" – ed … I don’t have to move until about 08:30 when Isabelle the Nurse arrives.

So once under the quilt, and when the wracking fits of coughing stopped, I tried to go to sleep, but as usual, it took longer, much longer, than it ought.

And that was all that I remember until I awoke, for the usual reason. At that point, I checked the clock and it was just after 06:00. I’d slept for about seven and a half hours.

Back in here, I climbed back into bed and I was dead to the World when Isabelle the Nurse arrived. She sorted out my legs and feet and then she cleared off, and I went back to sleep. Once more, it was a really, really deep sleep.

It was another one of those dramatic sitting-bolt-upright awakenings, something that I haven’t had for quite a while. It took me a while … "as usual" – ed … to summon up the energy to go into the bathroom to sort myself out, and then on arrival in the kitchen, it was 10:30. That’s a nice time to start the day.

But going back to the night, at some point, and I’ve no idea when, I had one of those coughing fits that was so intense that I ended up being violently sick again. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I can’t stand much more of this.

The first thing that I did was to switch on the oven to let it warm up. Next was to brush with milk the croissants that I’d made yesterday and, when the oven was hot enough, put them in for fifteen minutes.

While they were baking, I made my porridge and strong, black coffee.

Breakfast was really nice this morning, and the croissants were excellent. And while I was eating, I was reading some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

Today, we are discussing the Saxon system of civic organisation. He quite rightly says that very little is known of this, and so we have made a quantum leap into the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries where there are plenty of charters and decrees extant that give us some idea of how things ended up before the arrival of the Normans.

However, this is probably a rather biased way to look at things because half of the country was held by the Norse and much of the rest was under Alfred the Great, so it’s hardly a fair and representative capture of the true situation.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

I was responsible for the publication of two books written by famous people when they were children. There was an older lady of that age, the acrobatic age, and she was rather injured at that particular time, so they went through the muddle with her … fell asleep here … and the particular problem with this. Anyway, the first one there was rather disabled so there wasn’t much in there that needed to be edited or corrected. But the second girl was a much more lively person. There was a story that she’d been to a zoo in Chester and then gone on to meet Jimmy Saville … fell asleep here … so from there, she had received some very healthy advertising revenue and popularity, and then … fell asleep here …

Whatever time this was dictated, I must have been really tired. I do, however, admire how I kept on going after the first two fallings asleep and only threw the towel in at the third hurdle. That’s some perseverance. But it’s another dream that means nothing at all to me, although imagine meeting Jimmy Saville.

There were other things to do, and then I had a little footfest.

The first game was Morton v Airdrie United. Both clubs were fighting to escape the relegation playoffs, with Morton needing to avoid defeat – something that was not looking very likely after their dreadful performance last week.

And when Airdrie took the lead, we were all thinking “here we go again!”.But late in the game, Morton managed to equalise, and, even more surprisingly, managed to hang on until the final whistle. So Airdrie must face the winner of the promotion playoffs of the league below.

The next game was Elgin City v Stranraer. There was nothing really for which these two teams were playing so Stranraer’s manager gave an outing to a huge batch of fringe players.

On the bench was Robbie Foster, and how nice it was to see him back after over ten months out with a serious injury. And the script couldn’t have been written any better. He eventually made it onto the pitch and, believe it or not, scored the only goal of the game. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a football player try so hard with such little reward as him in the past.

After that, fatigue caught up with me and I was unable to respond for a good couple of hours. Eventually, I staggered into the kitchen and made the next loaf of bread, but it really was a struggle. The loaf, however, is excellent.

No pizza for tea. Instead, I had a taco roll with salad. Much as I didn’t want to, it will help keep the lupus from the porte, as they would have said in Ancient Rome.

So now, after finishing my notes, there are one or two things to do and then I’m off to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed … What a waste of a day this was.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about being sick … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the sign in the parish church at Neston on the Wirral when we all went there for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve fifty-odd years ago.
"Will patrons please note that the box marked ‘for the sick’ is restricted to monetary contributions only."

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Sunday 26th April 2026 – I AM OBVIOUSLY …

… feeling a little better, because as I begin to write these notes, it’s 20:20 And I haven’t gone to bed yet.

Mind you, after all of the sleep that I had yesterday, it’s hardly a surprise. As I said yesterday, I was totally wasted by about 18:30, and it wasn’t many minutes after that that I was underneath the covers.

It took a few minutes for me to go to sleep, and there I stayed until I don’t know what time, when I awoke. It was still totally dark outside but the electric water heater was on, so it must have been some time between midnight and 05:00, and my money is on earlier rather than later.

So for a few hours, I lay there, coughing my head off, and then I must have gone back to sleep because the next thing that I knew, there was bright sunlight streaming in around the edges of the shutters.

When the nurse arrived, I pretended to be asleep, but once he’d gone, feeling wide awake, I sat on the edge of the bed waiting for the bedroom to come to a halt. And I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that it took me seventy-five minutes from first sitting on the edge of the bed to going into the kitchen. That’s what kind of state I was in this morning.

For my medication, I took a mouthful or two of orange juice again and then made breakfast – the last two of my home-made croissants. I shall have to make some more now – after all, they do taste nice with porridge and strong black coffee.

Back in here, I had a few things to do, but believe it or not, I forgot to check the dictaphone. However, I managed to check it he following day and the notes that I added in are below

There had been a release of political prisoners in the Soviet Union and they had been sent to the West. This had immediately caused controversy because one of them was a water polo professional, and she was immediately recruited into the English, whereas many other countries felt that she should have at least undergone a three-year residence qualification. It was part of my job to look into the cases of these people who were brought over to the UK and make a report on them. It meant visiting the places that they visited, doing the things that they were doing. On one occasion, this involved going to a cinema, a really posh cinema, and eventually, we managed to find our seats. But we were so cramped in at the front row by this couple who were quite big, that I had difficulty moving. I was losing a shoe, and it felt as if my arm was being trapped behind this large gentleman’s shoulder. Everything went on for probably an hour. In the end, a hostess came along and took this couple for a meal or something like that, leaving the two of us – it was not Nerina but someone like her. She stood up, so I asked her if she had enjoyed the film. She made a grimace so I stood up to go too. As the two of us came out, there was a look back, and there was an artificial rose on a stand by where my partner had been sitting and it was looking quite nice, so I congratulated her on it. We came back to Gainsborough Road, and it was probably March or something – it was a dark day and it was wet. I was struggling here to put on a sweater. IN fact, I couldn’t manage it so I thought that I would go inside. She was looking at the garden, planning things, so I said to her “isn’t it about time that we started off some lettuce in the conservatory place?” but she didn’t really answer to that.

This is another one of those dreams that doesn’t seem to fit into anywere. However, the only conservatory that I knew was the one down on the farm, and I did start off some of my plants, including the lettuce, in there.

I was working in the Diplomatic Service and we were staying at a hotel where the Russian Diplomatic Service was also staying. One night, on the way home as I was coming into the hotel, I found a set of keys on the floor, so I picked them up and went to hand them in at the reception desk, but I noticed that they were for the floor above mine, roughly where the Russian embassy was. I thought that in the small hours, I’d creep in to see what was happening. If the door is alarmed, a junior member being sent home in disgrace would be much better than a senior member. I went up and gently opened myself into the room. It was empty, and so was the bathroom suite, but there were plenty of leaflets and information there. I found where the ambassador was partying, which was further down West Street from where our hotel was, so I set out. Because I didn’t have my crutches, I had to go on my hands and knees all the way down West Street. Eventually I was let into the building, but he took a lot of persuading to come away from his party. Eventually, in a room on our own, which contained a shower, I told him of what I had found. He began to talk about it, but it was a very lengthy conversation about nothing in particular, and then he beckoned to me to come outside, and we went for a walk. By now, I was walking properly with no crutches, and he asked me about this parade that was taking place in Crewe about peace. I said that it was all about idealists who wanted to live the way they wanted to live, which, I said, was not a bad idea, but they didn’t think things through far enough. In a lock-up garage where we were looking around, some old lady came in and looked around with us. She apologised for not being dressed as a very good witch, so I told her that there would be plenty of good witches out there in the crowd today. We walked all the way down West Street, had a curry and then walked all the way back looking at these old cars on display and everything, and they were really old and ancient, the types that had hand-made bodies and so on. I felt that the minister was killing time so that there wouldn’t be enough time for anyone senior than me to go along and investigate this room, and this had me puzzled.

What a strange dream this was. There was never in my lifetime a hotel in West Street in Crewe, and even if there had been, the chances that anyone from the British embassy or the Russian Embassy would be staying there would be just about zero.

Going down West Street on my hands and knees would be dangerous too, with all the broken glass about, but apart from that, I really did feel that I was being shunted off into a corner, as if the Minister were intent on keeping me away from the subject.

My first job today, though, was to write out yesterday’s notes, which are now online, following which I attacked some more of my Welsh homework. There’s not much now left to finish tomorrow morning before I need to send it off.

We then had a little footfest.

Firstly, we had Ross County v Greenock Morton, and I do have to say that I have never seen such a shambles. Bottom-of-the-League Ross County made short work of thrashing Morton 4-0, and it was well-deserved too. Morton were totally dreadful.

Following that, we had Stranraer at home to Stirling Albion. This game finished 1-1 but Stranraer should have been down the road and out of sight a long time before the final whistle, given the number of clear-cut chances that they created.

And then, I had a little wobble for a while. Not exactly crashing out, but one of those situations that I have every now and again when I can’t seem to move a muscle. And that was how I stayed for over forty-five minutes before I was able to go into the kitchen for a disgusting drink.

The day was finished off with the second of the two European play-off semis. And in a change from yesterday’s poor game, we had two teams going at it hammer and tongs, playing as if they actually wanted to win it.

Y Barri took the lead early in the game from another one of these “let’s play it out from the back, boys” calamities that we see so often in modern football, and Hwlffordd equalised with about fifteen minutes to go.

So, once more, we had a penalty shoot-out, and as far as Y Barri goes, a well-known phrase involving a stringed musical instrument and the nether regions of a ruminant animal springs to mind. So next week, it’s Penybont at home to Hwlffordd.

But it should have been a totally different story had the referee awarded to Y Barri the two penalties that everyone else in the ground except him and a linesman would have awarded them.

So right now, I’m off to bed, ready to fight the good fight again next week and see where we end up. I need to pull myself round and crack on with something. I can’t continue like this.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about waking up … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends once told me that he had one of those things that used to make a screeching noise when it was time to wake up, and made you a cup of tea.
"So what happened to it?" I asked
"Ohh, nothing much." he replied. "I got divorced so in the end, I just bought a Teasmaid."

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Sunday 19th April 2026 – WHAT A NICE …

… way to start the day. When I opened the shutters in here and sat down at my desk to start work, it was already … errr … 12:20. Who could ask for a Sunday morning any better than that? As was said once a long time ago in a “Gunsmoke” episode, "Sunday is the one day of the week a man can get up at noon and sit around with his boots off without anybody hollering at him about it."

Mind you, for reasons that I still don’t understand, Saturday was a rather late night and I didn’t finish everything and slide under the bedclothes until 22:30. The football can’t have taken all that long, surely?

But Sunday is a lie-in so I was planning to sleep until Isabelle the Nurse came to sort out my legs at about 08:30 as usual.

At least, that was the plan, and, as we all know, "The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley an’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain for promis’d joy." At some point during the night, I awoke for what seemed to be the usual reason and went off to stroll the parapet. I’ve no idea what time it was, and neither did I care.

Back in bed, I went to sleep again fairly quickly and although I awoke at some point when it was light outside, I shoved my head back down under the quilt and went back to bed.

Isabelle the Nurse awoke me, ringing the doorbell to announce her presence. She sorted out my legs and feet, chatting away about the brocante in the town while I was cowering under the quilt. After she left, I went back to sleep almost straight away.

When I checked the time, sitting on the edge of the bed ready to stand up, it was 10:33, so all in all, it was a very good sleep and a very relaxing morning.

In the kitchen, I just had some of my medication and then made breakfast – porridge, coffee and two of my home-made croissants – and the croissants were, as usual, delicious after ninety seconds at 180°C in the microwave.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

We’re discussing agriculture today, and he tells us that "Mr. Bruce observed … traces of cultivation on the waste lands in Northumberland, and he is probably right in attributing them to the Romans. ‘A little to the south of Borcovicus,’ he says, ‘and stretching westward, the ground has been thrown up in long terraced lines, a mode of cultivation much practised in Italy and the East. Similar terraces, more feebly developed, appear at Bradley. I have seen them very distinctly marked on the banks of the Rede-water, at old Carlisle, and in other places."

These terraces are called “lynchets” and date all the way from the Iron Age and maybe before, to the early medieval period

By now, it was 12:15 after my lazy start to the day, so I headed back in here and switched on the computer after first, of course, opening the shutters.

The first thing that I did was to transcribe the dictaphone notes to find out where I’d been during the night.

I’d come across a brochure about coach tours so I was looking through it. There were lots of coach tours going all around the UK, but it was a shame that every one just picked up in London rather than anywhere else. There were adverts in there for British Rail which said “we aren’t only this and we aren’t only this and we aren’t only this” and someone suggested that they aren’t only anything, in fact. There was someone who had to return to the USA and someone was giving her some kind of instructions about where to go to catch the bus to take her back to her home town. There was a guy there with an elderly woman who was probably his mother, and they were in the queue for having a burger so he asked his mother if she wanted rye. The mother didn’t understand at all what he was walking about and tried to have him explain, but he wasn’t being very patient with her. Then it was my turn to order so I asked for a veggie burger. They asked me what else I wanted on it but the dream faded out there.

As if I’m ever likely to go on a coach trip anywhere as a passenger – except those few times to football matches. Mind you, I did go on a few with Nerina in the past.

The rye bread relates to some bread that Jackie left with me when she left. It’s been ages since I’ve had some good German bread, so I really enjoyed it, thanks, and I’ve been thinking of ordering some more at some point.

One thing though, and that is that I have no idea why British Rail would be allowed to advertise in a coach company’s brochure.

There was also something about being in Virlet. I was down there and I was looking at the barn. There were all kinds of things growing out of the slates on the barn but right at the peak of the roof where the wind turbine is, there was a tree growing out of it so I tried to find a ladder. I eventually found a ladder and I was trying to stand it up but it fell over. I picked it up but it was the wrong way round, upside-down. I needed to clean some electrical contacts so I was looking for something to clean the contacts but I couldn’t find anything. There was probably something in the barn, but I wanted to put this ladder up so that I could climb up onto the roof and pull this tree out. However, I was in my work clothes, so I was really tidy, with tidy shoes, and I was afraid of dirtying them, but I couldn’t think of how I could change into anything or whether I had anything with me.

It’s not like me to bother about making good clothes dirty – I’ve ruined enough of those in the past. And I never really was much good at manoeuvring ladders around, particularly the old, heavy wooden ones. But anyway, there won’t be plants growing in between the slates on the roof because there aren’t any. It’s a sheet roof pressed to resemble slates.

After that, we had a footfest. Firstly, we had the highlights of the rest of the matches in the JD Cymru League. There was nothing of any excitement there today, except a few heart-stopping moments as a couple of clubs tried the “let’s play it out from the back, guys” routine, but unfortunately, it came to nothing as the teams recovered and cleared their lines.

Secondly, we had Greenock Morton at home to Queens Park. And what a match that was. Morton could have had a dozen goals before half-time and another dozen in the second half, but a well-known phrase involving the hindquarters of a ruminant animal and a stringed musical instrument comes to mind. They were so dominant, especially after a Queens Park player had been sent off, that I was expecting an extremely tragic ending for Morton in the last couple of minutes, but both teams left the field with a 0-0 draw, accompanied by the boos and jeers of both sets of supporters.

Finally, we had Stranraer at home to their bogey team, Forfar Athletic, and as you might expect, the Loons went back to Angus with the three points and a 0-1 victory.

After all of that, I vegetated for a while and then did some more of the long project that I mentioned several weeks ago. And now, it’s slowly beginning to take shape, but there’s a long way to go.

There was a pause as well during the afternoon when I went to make a loaf of bread. That’s now cooked and cooling down in the kitchen, and I’m going to be off to bed in a minute or two, without any tea again.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about lying in bed … "well, one of us has" – ed … Nerina and I went camping once, and I awoke in the middle of the night. The view was so magnificent that I awoke and pointed upwards.
"Look at all of that!" I exclaimed. "I don’t think that I’ve ever seen so many stars before in my life! And there’s a shooting star over there if you look that way!"
"Do you know what that means?" she asked.
"Not at all" I replied.
"It means that some swine has stolen our tent, you berk!"

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Sunday 12th April 2026 – SO FAR, I HAVE …

… managed to avoid falling asleep today.

However, that’s not such a big deal today, because when you don’t wake up until about 09:00 and you don’t leave the bed until about 09:40, there isn’t much time to fall asleep afterwards.

In fact, you might say that I spent twelve hours in bed last night and, believe me, I enjoyed every minute of it. I didn’t actually, to my shame, rush through everything last night – it was something more like a leisurely stroll – and by the time that I’d finished the notes, the stats and the back-up, and then gone to sort myself out in the bathroom, it was just coming up to 21:30.

How long I spent in the bathroom, I didn’t record, but it wasn’t all that long and I was soon in bed, tucked up under the quilt.

And there I stayed until … errr … 03:55, when I had to go walking the parapet, and then back in bed, I slept until 07:05. However, I managed to go back to sleep quite quickly, and there I lay until the nurse awoke me. And that first sleep was not far short of six and a half hours, and it’s the best sleep that I’ve had for ages.

The nurse was having another good moan at me this morning. He was complaining that I hadn’t pulled the curtains. Well, much as I love the dark, seriously, I love the light too so I’m happy in the morning with the sunlight creeping around the edges of the shutters in here. He thinks that I ought to be in a perfect state of darkness in here while I’m asleep.

Once he left, I tried to go back to sleep but without success. And Alison made up my mind for me when she sent me a text message. Trying to reply when you have your head and your ‘phone down under the quilt is not easy, believe me, and when you drop the ‘phone on the floor and the message turns into a load of gibberish that sends itself, it’s even less easy than that.

With all of that going on, I decided to leave the bed, although it took me a good twenty minutes to find the enthusiasm and the energy to stand up. But once I was up, I headed off into the bathroom to sort myself out.

Back in the kitchen afterwards, where I forgot to take my medication, I baked my croissants, and they turned out really well. I was so impressed, especially as I was using some of the cheap pastry rolls.

So, with two of my croissants, some porridge and some hot black coffee, I sat down to read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

And here we go again. In a footnote on page 115, he launches another attack on one of his predecessors, Thomas Stukeley, saying "The antiquary Stukeley published a “Medallic History of Carausius”, which, although it displays too much of that writer’s hasty speculations and conclusions, shows us with how much advantage the coins might be made to illustrate the history."

Whilst he’s not wrong about the coins illustrating the history, as we have seen before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the phrase “the writer’s hasty speculations and conclusions” reminds me of a well-known phrase involving a pot and a kettle.

After breakfast, I came back in here to transcribe the dictaphone notes.

There was some kind of civic centre opened in a local town. It had a huge ballroom-type of place, meeting room or whatever and there was a small annexe that had a licence for fifty people. Someone had applied to hire the smaller room for a birthday party and had sent in a list of fifty people who would be attending. However, the local council was dithering about this because they were thinking that whilst a couple of people on this list might not turn up, a couple of other people might turn up unannounced and take the attendance to over fifty, in which case there would be all kinds of legal issues, so they were still dithering about this for ages.

We were actually talking yesterday about people turning up uninvited to funerals and weddings. It’s strange how these things come round so quickly. And, of course, fire regulations, particularly in the UK, are such that there is a genuine fear of being found over the limit for the room. And when you see the size of the fines, no wonder people are rather nervous

I was staying with Bob Dylan last night. We were at his house, which was overlooking one of the lakes in either Vermont or New Hampshire. It was a very steep climb up to the front door and the garden was filled with flowers. We were sitting on a kind of terrace, and the way to go back to the front door was to go down, across and back up again, but he went inching his way along the edge of one of the flower beds, which looked extremely dangerous to me. He came back with a plate of cold baked beans. I asked him about why he preferred them cold instead of hot, but he didn’t really answer. Then, he said a little later that we had to go into town for something so I went into the house to put on my shoes. However, every couple of minutes, there was some kind of interruption, and there were lots of things that I had to do. Each time that I tried to put on my shoes, there was something else, but in the end, I managed to put on my shoes. Then, the story skipped and it was about a musician in a group who also played for Y Bala. He had mysteriously disappeared and no-one knew where he was. The police report said something that he had been living in a two-bedroomed terrace but he had seen something that had dragged him out, and no-one knew what that something was. He’d gone to follow it but hadn’t returned. Later on, back at Bob Dylan’s house, he was having an evening with his friends. There were three of his friends there and the father of this missing musician, footballer or whatever. They were all eating mashed potato and baked beans that were cold.

Actually, this looked much more like one of the lakes in northeast Maine to me, a region that we have visited ON NUMEROUS OCCASIONS.

But the cold baked beans are interesting, especially if they are American ones, packed full of sugar and additives. They must be disgusting. Even the “British recipe” baked beans don’t taste the same as they do back in the UK. I can’t recall whether a musician ever played for Y Bala, but Ywain Gwynedd had a long and successful career in the old Cymru Alliance League, mainly for Porthmadog FC.

With all of these interruptions while I was trying to put on my shoes, I’m surprised that a member of my family didn’t turn up. The odds would have been nailed on that they would have been involved somehow with all of that.

After that, I had a few things to do and then I recommenced the editing of the radio notes from where I had fallen asleep yesterday.

Not that I advanced very far because the girls arrived to say goodbye. We had a little chat and then an exchange of presents before they pushed off to catch their train for a girly evening in Paris. It was really nice of them to come to see me, and I appreciated it very much. I hope that they come again soon, and stay for longer.

Once they had left, I carried on with the editing, and the programme is now finished. It’s not very good at all, but given the circumstances that surrounded this concert, it’s lucky that there is a tape recording at all. Its value is in its rarity – it’s probably never been broadcast on the radio previously.

By now, it was time for the football. I’d already seen Stranraer beat Spartans 2-1 away from home and Greenock Morton lose away at Kirkaldy against Raith Rovers earlier this afternoon, but now it was the Welsh Cup Final between Caernarfon and Y Fflint. And for seventy minutes, we had one of the most exciting games that I have seen recently.

It’s a pity, though, that Y Fflint didn’t wake up until the twentieth minute, because the match was all over by then. Caernarfon had roared into a 3-0 lead while Y Fflint were still sleeping.

But as I implied just now, after that Y Fflint made a game of it and had several chances to score, but it was all too late and the score remained the same until the final whistle.

There were a few things to do after that, and then it was time for tea. Just chocolate cake and home-made ice cream again. That will do me for this evening, and now, when I’ve finished everything, I’m going for an early night.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about walking the parapet … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once asked me "you know how we say ‘spend a penny’ to say that we are going to the bathroom"
"Yes?" I replied.
"So what do you say in Europe?"
"Simple" I replied. "We say that we are going to euronate."

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Sunday 5th April 2026 – YET ANOTHER NIGHT …

… when I’m going to bed without any tea, except, of course, a slice of my home-made chocolate cake and a helping of home-made ice cream

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m valuing my sleep much more than I’m valuing my food right now, and that’s not like me at all, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

You wouldn’t think that I’d had a decent lie-in last night. As usual, things rather dragged and it ended up being just after 22:00 when I went to bed. Never mind though, at least I could have a decent sleep.

That’s what I thought, anyway, but as you might expect, it didn’t work out like that. I awoke on a couple of occasions and once, round about 05:30, I thought that I would never go to go back to sleep.

However, I must have done at some point because, when the doorbell rang, I was so far out of it that I thought “who the heck is this waking me up at this time?” and I was half out of bed before I realised that it was Isabelle the Nurse. I had to dive quickly back under the covers and pretend to be asleep for when she came in here.

She was her usual chatty self, which is something that I don’t really need, early on a Sunday morning. But after she left, I could turn over and go back to sleep.

Eventually, I awoke and once I’d managed to stand up, which was not easy, I headed off into the bathroom to sort myself out. It was a respectable 09:40 when I arrived in the kitchen. No medication this morning except the urgent stuff. I simply made breakfast, including more of my delicious hot cross buns.

We started a new book today too. It’s HISTORIA BRITTONUM, written by Nennius in the tenth century. It’s a book with probably the most obsequious introduction that I have ever read, and it’s also one of the most inaccurate, although it’s one of the first to mention Arthur, even if it doesn’t describe him as a king.

The translation dates from 1838 and it contains one of the most glorious mistranslations that I have ever seen. How it passed the proof-readers, I really don’t know. Our translator tells us that "St. Germanus, after his death, returned into his own country". That would have been interesting to witness.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

When I awoke, round about 00:44, I was busy working on planning a radio programme about some kind of index. It was importing likely songs into it but at the moment that I awoke, I was puzzling over what name to give to the file. That was the point that I reached when I awoke.

Usually, I can think of a really good name for my files, but most often, it’s about ten minutes after I’ve already named them and backed them up. But this actually relates to a discussion I was having on Friday with one of my regular readers, who was talking about my database. Actually, I keep an index in a series of text files and in an Open Office spreadsheet under the rather prosaic name of “Playlist”.

There was also some more about something from the other night. They had managed to identify the cowling of that ice cream lorry and had prepared one in plastic and sent it to him to fit himself. In the meantime, they were still making enquiries about that project that was discussed the other day but they hadn’t as yet made very much progress.

Now, I wonder to which dream this relates. I can see the cowling now – it’s off a Leyland FG-550 and it’s green – but this dream and the one to which it refers still don’t ring any bells with me now that I’m awake.

I was down in Virlet last night with Nerina. We were sorting out a few things down there with someone else. Then this other person left and we decided to leave too. Nerina climbed into her car, which was a blue Ford Classic … "it was actually a Ford Corsair" – ed …, and I locked up the house. As I approached Nerina’s car, she let out the clutch and moved off about fifty yards, so I walked along towards the car, and she did this on several occasions. I thought “what on earth is the matter with her?”. So we carried on like this, but then the next-door neighbour arrived in a kind of horse box. Just as I was about to go out of sight round a corner, a little boy shouted after me “mister, mister”. I turned round and he said that their house was on fire, so I immediately ran down there and asked them if they had a hose, which they hadn’t, so I went into the barn. They followed me in, and they were amazed by the three cars that were in there that dated to the 1930s and early 1940s. I was rummaging around looking for the hose, and I found it and plugged it into the tap, but it was very short. I thought that I had much more hose than this, so I had a search around and I found another length. It still wasn’t very long so I began to look around outside. Nerina was there by this time, and she pointed out a hose that was lying on the ground underneath some wood. I went to fetch it, but it was the wrong connection. In the meantime, no fire brigade had turned up, no ambulance, no police or anything, so I asked them if they had ‘phoned the fire brigade. They replied “you have a decent-looking pushbike there. Why don’t you ride into the village and tell the mayor?”. Although the pushbike might be decent, which it probably wasn’t, I was in no healthy state to get on a bike and cycle up and down a few mountains, so I carried on looking for this hose.

This wasn’t the Virlet that I know. In fact, I’ve no idea where it might be. And I can imagine Nerina driving off as I approached the car. In fact, I did that one with Laurence but she didn’t notice and climbed into the car that had pulled up behind.

The garage with the old cars is the same one that appeared in a dream several weeks ago, but down in the Auvergne, there would be no problem about hosepipes as I have miles of the stuff.

When I’d finished, there was a footfest. Firstly, Stranraer fighting to a 1-1 draw with Dumbarton, followed by Greenock Morton throwing away a one-goal lead to go down 3-1 away to Dunfermline Athletic.

After that, I attacked the radio notes for the next programme. And by the time that I’d finished, I’d prepared and assembled the two halves of the programme, chosen the joining track and written the notes for it.

That’s three radio programmes that I’ve assembled this weekend. That’s some good going, and I wish that I could do it every weekend.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall exactly what happened after this. And for over an hour too. And when I finally did return to the Land of the Living, I couldn’t move for a good fifteen minutes. As I said earlier, it’s hard to believe that I had a lie-in this morning.

In the kitchen, I made a loaf of bread. Not a pizza, because as I said a little earlier, I’m valuing my sleep more than I’m valuing my food right now. And the loaf is cooked to perfection. I hope that it will taste as nice as it looks.

While it was baking, I washed up everything and then had my chocolate cake with home-made ice cream. The pudding was delicious as usual.

So right now, I’m going to sort myself out and go to bed. And as well as that, seeing as it’s a Bank Holiday tomorrow, I’m going to set the alarm to 07:30 and have an extra hour in bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about house fires … "well, one of us has" – ed … there were two men sitting on a pier in the Bahamas quietly fishing.
Neither of them actually looked like the flashy type so the first one asked the second "How come you managed to come here?"
"I had a house fire and I lost absolutely everything" he replied. "But the insurance company was very generous and paid me for everything."
"It’s pretty much the same story for me" replied the first man "except that it was a flood that wiped me out."
"Blimmin’ ‘eck!" said the second man. "However did you manage to start a flood?"

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Sunday 22nd March 2026 – I HAVE BEEN …

… a busy boy yet again today. You wouldn’t believe that it’s a Sunday, which is supposed to be a Day of Rest for me.

Not that it was much of a rest last night because it was another really late night again. I’ve no idea what time it was when I finally crawled underneath the covers, but it certainly wasn’t 23:30 I’d seen that come and go some time earlier.

It took longer than usual for me to go off to sleep, which appears to be par for the course these days. And although I have a vague recollection of waking up once or twice during the night, the next thing that I remember was the tail-end of the doorbell as Isabelle the Nurse announced her arrival.

She found me in bed, of course, and as well as sorting out my legs and feet, she also had to take some measurements of them too. That was complicated enough, and as much as I wanted just to go back to sleep, her irrepressible good nature meant that she talked all the way through the procedure.

After she left, try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep afterwards and so, about half an hour later, I raised myself from the Dead and went off to the bathroom.

In the kitchen later, I remembered to take some of my medication, and then I made breakfast. Porridge, strong coffee and two of my home-made croissants. And there’s no doubt about it — these croissants are some of the best that I have ever made.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.

Today, we’re discussing the (brief) Venetian recapture of some of the Greek territory from the Ottomans.

But it’s the same story as usual — disputes among the conquerors, disputes among their subjects, disputes between the conquerors and their subjects. Here, you have all of the ingredients that you need to ensure that, once the Ottomans gather up their strength and their resources, they will simply walk back into their former territories.

Back in here, I had the dictaphone notes to transcribe.

I’d been chatting to a taxi driver around Granville, related to a company that had a lot of Mercedes cars and a few odd, indiscriminate ones. At the end of the shift, I was talking to this taxi driver and looking through the window of the garage where you could see all of the vehicles there. He asked if I would go in to see if he’d been given credit for the final job that he had done. That meant going up and touching the taxi plate, pushing it and the last job would appear in the windscreen of the car. I went in, but I couldn’t find his particular car. There were all sorts of cars in there. The dream then moved on to something about the work in the European Union and an article on the chauffeurs. I was really disappointed to see that my name wasn’t mentioned, but it described some of the work that we had to do. It said that only two of the chauffeurs were authorised to take the luggage down to the south of France. This dream carried on, discussing the work, and then there was an article that the chauffeurs had decided to stop issuing certain visas to certain people. The company that controlled the issue of visas agreed with them, so these visas were stopped being issued

The first part of the dream relates to the taxi company that takes me about to my hospital appointments. I’ve been to their premises a few times late at night, and seen through the window their taxis parked up in the barn until next morning. Pressing the taxi plate wouldn’t do anything, though, because they don’t have plates — they have stickers.

As for the second part, we did have the press round the EU on several occasions and on one of them, I was actually filmed. Not that I ever denied anyone a visa though — I don’t understand that. It was however my responsibility to take one of my boss’s subordinates around for visas when someone from that office was required to travel.

There had been a rise in pilgrims from the Latin, the Frank and the Byzantine communities heading towards Jerusalem, and their habit of lying prostrate on the floor and kissing the soil when they arrived was inciting a lot of comments. It was therefore decided that they would stop the ferries that were bringing the pilgrims over by sea and the Byzantines were delighted by this.

This presumably relates to the book that I’m reading right now.

After that, I had a footfest – the highlights of the games in the JD Cymru League yesterday. However, there was nothing interesting or controversial in there.

Afterwards, there was Stranraer once again losing — this time to Clyde 2-1 in a game that they should have won had it not been for them falling asleep for five minutes shortly after the start of the second half.

We then had Greenock Morton recording a surprising away win against Ayr United. The way that Morton have been playing just recently, I wouldn’t have thought that they would win a raffle, even if they were the only entrants.

After a rather late disgusting drink break, I attacked the new computer. Yesterday, I couldn’t seem to make it read the disks in the array, so I concentrated on that for several hours. In the end, I managed to make it function, and now I have most of what I want in the way of disks connected to the computer.

With what time was left, I was uploading my entire suite of programs to the computer, and now, that’s pretty much how I would like it to be.

At about 17:00 I knocked off for cooking. Firstly, I made the dough for my pizza base and then secondly, I made my really thick custard.

While I was baking my pizza, I poured the cooled custard all over the vegan jelly. Now it’s beginning to look like a trifle. I hope that it actually tastes like one too. I shall find out on Tuesday.

The pizza was delicious, though. I experimented by using sliced cheese that I grated rather than the grated cheese. And indeed, it was much nicer. It’s more time-consuming though, but you can’t win everything.

And now I’m off to bed if this appalling cough will let me. It’s really bad tonight. I just hope that they will be impressed by it at dialysis tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the disk array … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was speaking to one of my friends about it, and I asked her to send her congratulations to the array now that the computer can read it
"Certainly" she replied. "Hip, hip, array!"

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Sunday 1st March 2026 – DYDD GWYL DEWI …

… hapus iawn, pawb!

Did you all enjoy your leek soup? And did you arrange your daffodils neatly in your living room? And did you give your pet dragon a little treat? As long as you did all of that, you aren’t likely to receive a visit from an angry druid today.

As for me, I’m afraid that I didn’t. Sunday here is pizza day, and as well as that, I can’t go out hunting for daffodils, although Rosemary did send me some virtual daffodils via an internet chat program.

Instead, I’ve had something of a lazy day, and you’ll be surprised at just how productive I have been, because I know that I am.

Last night wasn’t as I had planned it either. It ended up being horribly late, just after midnight, when I stopped letting it all hang out and went to bed instead. And instead of the decent sleep and long lie-in that I wanted, it was one of those mobile nights where I was tossing and turning, half awake and half asleep, without actually going into a really deep sleep.

When the nurse put in an appearance, I was actually awake, and so I pretended to be asleep so that I didn’t have to leave my comfortable bed. He sorted out my legs and feet and then disappeared. I curled up under the bedclothes and tried my best to go to sleep, but with no luck at all.

Eventually, round about 09:15, I gave it up as a bad job and arose from the Dead. I gathered up my clothes from the chair and, throwing my slippers in the general direction of the bathroom, I scored a beautiful hole in one, right into the toilet bowl. What a way to start the day!

In the kitchen, I forgot my medication, but I had a lovely breakfast of porridge, hot coffee and two of my homemade croissants. That’s a really nice way to start the day, especially when you take your time and don’t go into your office to start work until 10:45. I wish that every day could be like this.

What took me so long was that I was engrossed in my new book, ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A. Miller.

Today, we’re discussing the complicated relationship between Thebes, Athens and Sparta, a relationship that sporadically erupted into warfare, with any two pitted against the third. It’s helping me brush up on my classics from when I studied Latin at grammar school, and it’s amazing just how much of the old classical stories have been proved by modern archaeology to be true.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.

I was living in some kind of communal living thing. There were lots of different people there doing lots of different things. There should have been a meeting late one night before going to bed, but it turned out that the guy on whose behalf the meeting was being held had simply gone ahead and applied the texture mix to his skin, which meant that he’d be busy recovering or whatever, changing or something, and so the meeting was cancelled. That was extremely disappointing, so I gathered up a couple of things from the radio, some old English-language programmes that I’d done years ago and went to see the girl in the next room who worked for the local radio. She thanked me for coming but said that they were doing things in a different way these days and didn’t need the programmes that I had. However, there would be plenty of opportunity to do stuff in the future. She was thinking of having some kind of doll or something and she would want me to write the speech for it. I took my things to go back to my room, but on the way back, I heard that there had been some kind of announcement that Jim Dale, one of the CARRY ON stars, had been seen hiding in a tree near the old airfield up near Wardle – it was described as “Stoke Bank” in this news report. He’d been repeating one of his “Carry On” speeches from out of this tree and it had made the local news in all the papers.

Whatever the significance of the first part of this dream might be, I have no idea. As for the second part, I have a whole stock of English language radio programmes that Liz and I prepared when we were running “Radio Anglais”, programmes that were broadcast on French local radio. A short while ago, a radio station in Nantwich was calling for radio presenters and programmes, so I sent them one or two as tasters, to see whether they might be interested in a programme from me every now and again. It goes without saying that they never replied.

There is a “Stoke Bank” along the A51 a couple of miles from the old Wardle Airfield, which was my home … "the airfield, not Stoke Bank#34; – ed … for a short while when I was a baby. But there aren’t any trees there in which Jim Dale could loiter, whether or not he might be repeating a “Carry On” speech.

And I did once live in some kind of commune. But not for long, though. Firstly, I’m not a sociable animal, and secondly, most people in that place preferred to live off the backs of other, hard-working people. In the end, I preferred to live in my van.

Incidentally, throughout these pages, you’ll see links to Amazon products appearing every now and again. Being a Sales Associate of Amazon, I receive a small commission on goods sold via my links. It costs you nothing at all extra, but helps defray … "part of the" – ed … cost of my not-insubstantial web-hosting fees.

There are also links on the sidebar for AMAZON UK, AMAZON USA and, since the recent “troubles”, AMAZON CANADA for the use of my numerous Canadian visitors. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I am extremely grateful when someone uses them to make a purchase.

There had been a couple of girls who had come over for an environmental conference. I’d been chatting to one and I was getting on extremely well with her. For some reason, my brother ended up with their contact details, but I didn’t. On the Sunday, we had various things to do, like we had to pack our place up as we were moving house that weekend. We were busy organising everything, and there was this beautiful cupboard that I’d had my eye on for ages with several drawers in it. It just looked like a huge bass speaker. The price on it was something like £275.00, which I thought was too much. Someone whom we knew came along and asked about it. The woman said “if you take it now, you can have it for £180.00. He paid her cash on the spot, and I felt really annoyed because I would have had it for £180.00 any day of the week. I told her to wait a minute because it had some of my paperwork in it. I had to go through and find somewhere to put this paperwork. I asked someone if they had a sack, and my mother made some kind of comment about that, but I wasn’t in the mood to joke. In the end, someone found a large paper sack and I began to put my things into it. One thing that I’d noticed was that a plot of land on which I’d had my eye too, which was formerly a garage in Audlem, had come back onto the market. The announcement from the paper was that there was a confusion about the closing date of the auction. Of course, I was far too busy to concentrate on this and we were still putting away our things. I came across a press cutting that showed that this conference to which we’d been was going on today, and there was a chance to meet all the contributors. That really annoyed me because I could have gone along and seen that girl again. Then my brother came up with some kind of story about how his car, with a trailer on it, had an electrical fault and he’d had to manually flash the rear lights to make some kind of brake lights every time he stopped. I was still in no mood for any kind of joke

This is quite a regular theme, isn’t it? Here I am, just about to Get The Girl, and a member of my family comes along and throws a spanner into the works.

The chest of drawers sounds interesting, and had I been healthy, I would have gone all-out to make one. And moving house, cars with electrical faults and looking for plots of land were habitual themes in real life back in the day.

There was also something about a Grand Prix around by Monte Carlo, the Monaco Grand Prix, twisting and turning through the streets with all of these cars taking part. We were watching it from a distance, and suddenly, after about half of the cars had gone past, there was complete silence and nothing. Then, all of the Grand Prix drivers who hadn’t gone through in their cars, they came through, and they were running. Apparently, there had been a major accident somewhere and they couldn’t proceed any further with their cars – this major accident behind the leading group so they couldn’t proceed with their cars, so they were going to run the rest of the course.

Before I went to bed last night, I was reading a news article about Cadillac’s entry into the Formula One circuit, but that their engine is not considered to be as reliable as it needs to be. Running the course on foot would be a novel way to proceed, though.

There was some kind of dream going on about a football competition. One of the teams had been relegated. There was something about a particular match and it involved my vegan ice cream somewhere, but I really can’t remember any more about it because I awoke as it was under way and it all evaporated … "the dream, not the ice cream" – ed …

Llanelli has just been relegated from the JD Cymru League, and lest night, we were watching the Welsh League Cup Final, complete with its very emotional ending, followed by vegan ice cream for dessert.

Seeing as we have been talking about the Welsh League Cup Final … "well, one of us has" – ed … this is the LINK TO THE HIGHLIGHTS. This is the LINK TO THE FULL MATCH. If you have the time, it’s well-worth it from a footballing point of view. The highlights don’t really show anything like a fair representative proportion of the game.

When I’d finished the dictaphone notes, there was yet more football. Morton were comfortably beaten by Airdrie after going down to nine men, and then Stranraer’s long unbeaten run came to an end as they were beaten at home by Elgin City.

After a disgusting drink break, with some of the medication that I’d forgotten, I had a pile of *.html coding to edit.

First thing though was to upload my graphics program onto this laptop. That’s easier said than done because there is no DVD drive on it. I had to rummage around deep in the bowels of the box where all of the redundant hard drives are hiding, and there it was, right at the bottom. And to my surprise, the USB cable and power pack were with it. Usually, knowing me, I would have expected them to have been scattered to the four winds a long time ago.

The next step was to open the drive. With not having been opened for years, the springs had seized. Luckily, there’s an escape hole, and a straightened paper clip fitted in quite nicely to lever down the internal catch.

Having uploaded the program, I could then go ahead and prepare some graphic images. And then I had to hunt down a few web links to tie to the images, and that wasn’t as easy as it might have been.

The next task was to edit the *.html coding to include the images and their links, and I was dismayed at how much *.html coding I’ve forgotten. Turn the clock back thirty years, and I was writing web pages by hand in “Notetab” and even teaching basic web design to a couple of interested people, but I couldn’t do it now.

There was an hour to spare, so I made a start on the Welsh homework. I’ve done about two-thirds of it, and as it doesn’t have to be done for two weeks, I’m glad that I’m well in advance because I can have a relax at some point.

At 16:30 I knocked off to go a-baking. A loaf of bread and a vegan pizza were today’s output. The bread rose like a lift and looks excellent, and the pizza was absolutely delicious, with half left over for tomorrow.

But right now, I’m off to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed … and to reflect on what a busy day I’ve had, considering that Sunday is supposed to be a Day of Rest.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about The Monaco Grand Prix … "well, one of us has" – ed … Percy Penguin once told me that she’d like to go there to watch the Formula One race.
However, I told her "we don’t have the money to go to watch the Formula One race in Monaco. And in any case, it’s pronounced Gron’ Pree."

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Sunday 18th January 2026 – WHAT A LOVELY …

… way to start a Sunday. A slow, gentle awakening and a gradual sliding out of bed into the daylight – at 10:00 this morning. I really should do it more often.

Especially if I can manage to be in bed before 23:30 the night before.

Last night, though, I didn’t quite manage it. As usual, I dillied and dallied and dallied and dillied while I was trying to finish off everything, and in the end, it was about 23:50 when I finally made it into bed.

Although I was asleep quite quickly, it was something of a disturbed night and I awoke on several occasions. Mind you, I was fast asleep when the nurse breezed into the bedroom to deal with my legs. I actually took no notice so he did what he thought was necessary and then breezed out again. He can’t have been here longer than two minutes.

It hadn’t really disturbed me, and I was soon asleep again, right up to my rather gentle awakening at 10:00.

My clothes were in here from last night so, for a change, I didn’t bother with the bathroom. I dressed and went into the kitchen to make breakfast.

Porridge and piping-hot coffee, and a couple of my homemade croissants warmed in the microwave. What a lovely breakfast that was too!

While I was eating, I was reading some more of A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE

Today, James Curle has been emptying the various wells and pits around the fort and camp. So far, he’s examined no fewer than one hundred and seven, and that’s an enormous number.

Some of them are empty of relics, some have a few, some have more, but some are astonishing.

Take Pit I for example – "Near the surface a fragment of an inscribed table. At § feet, a piece of twisted silver wire, part of a penannular brooch, two bronze rings, and twelve links of a small bronze chain. At 8 feet, a human skeleton, near it a bronze penannular brooch, as well as two pieces of bronze, perhaps part of a second brooch. At 12 feet, an altar dedicated to Jupiter, and below it a ‘first brass’ coin of Hadrian. From 14 feet downwards, bones of animals; the skulls of oxen (Bos Longifrons), and of horses were-frequent ; also soles of shoes, fragments of leather garments, and deer horns. At 18 feet, fragments of stone moulding, pieces of amphorae, and small bits of undecorated Terra Sigillata; also two pieces of deer horn fitted together like a rude pick. At 21 feet, an iron bar. At 22 feet, a human skull complete and part of another skull near it, remains of scale armour of brass, also the necks of five large amphorae, and the bottom of a cup of Terra Sigillata (Type Drag. 33), with the stamp PROBVS-F. At 25 feet, the upper stone of a quern, an iron knife with a bone handle, an iron knife, a linch pin , a bar of iron, a sickle, portions of an iron corselet mounted with brass; the staves and bottom of an oak bucket, 7 inches high, 8 inches in diameter; the iron rim of a large bucket; a large block of sandstone having a rudely-sculptured figure of a boar on one side; a small fragment of stone, with a figure of a boar in relief; five arrowheads of iron; pieces of chain armour; the iron umbo of a ‘shield and fragments of brass, perhaps belonging to its decoration; a brass coin of Vespasian or Titus; a stirrup-like holdfast of iron; a fragment of wall plaster, necks and sides of several amphorae"

That’s just one example of a well-filled pit.

He makes the point that it seems to be the earliest pits that have all of the relics. That would fit in with the idea that the abandonment of the fort was a panic-stricken flight and whatever couldn’t be carried away was cast into the pits and quickly filled in, in the hope that it could be recovered at a later date. However, with the passage of twenty years before the return of the Roman Army to the area, the generation that had hidden it was gone and the whereabouts of the caches forgotten.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

My friend from Wellington was around last night. He’d come to see how I was and to see how my house move was going. He was having a look and he saw that I had a toolbox. He asked me about the toolbox – it was a dark green cantilever thing. I said that I’d picked it up for a couple of quid with one or two tools in it and I’d gradually been expanding it. I now had about three or four of these toolboxes with different tools in them and more complete toolkits etc. He seemed to be quite interested in it. In the end, he asked me what we were going to do so I replied that we would rearrange the living room and sort out the furniture in there. We decided to go in, and we were looking at the big, black wall unit with mirror doors. I was thinking of putting it across the door to protect everything from the draught but pulling it about four feet forward so that people could slalom around it in comparative ease

The cantilever toolbox that I have here is a light green, but there are several others back on the farm. There isn’t a dark green one though. And my friend from Newport (not Wellington) did come over here to help me design the plans for the new apartment. The large black wall unit with mirror doors didn’t fit in with the plans and that was taken away by the charity shop people. When it was upstairs though, it was across the doorway but pulled a few feet forward. It protected me from draughts when I was sitting at the table.

Did I miss the end of that dream about my friend from Wellington? We went into the other room to rearrange the furniture. We thought that with the black and white shelf unit which was much too close to the porte, it would have been interesting in bringing the certifed form ending and the final reel over to my new address and sharing oil one night. But for some reason, it became very complicated … fell asleep here

This quickly degenerated into a pile of whatever, didn’t it?

When the nurse came, I was somewhere in the Alps. I’d been there before, years ago, and I had plenty of photos, including photos of the boats that were on the lake right up in the mountains. There was even an imitation Spanish galleon on this lake. Don’t ask me how it arrived there. There were several pleasure cruisers. I remember talking to one of the guys in a rowing boat who was just sitting there, lying on his back enjoying the freezing cold weather as his boat followed the current through this lake. This inspired my German friend to go there once he’d seen all of my photos so we’d arranged to meet one day. But he’d met someone the previous day who had some kind of horse-drawn contraption. He became friends with him, and asked him if he could borrow this horse and cart, or whatever it is, and go off camping for the night. We made some kind of strange remark about leaving a holiday in order to go on another holiday, a holiday within a holiday or something. He eventually turned up, and all that he had was a metal chair. He had to try to make himself comfortable on this metal chair during the night but it had casters on it. He was afraid that during the night, if he moved, it would begin to roll and he would be over the edge of the cliff so he was looking for things to try to chock the wheels to make sure that it wouldn’t move while he was asleep.

As for this, I’ve no idea to what it refers, although I have vague recollections of being somewhere similar in a dream several weeks ago. It wasn’t as detailed or as complicated as this, though.

There was also something about being on board a ship. I was the captain of it. It was a cruise ship, that sort of thing. I’d been receiving secret messages by the time the ship went into port, it would go slowly along the docks until it reached its berth and someone would walk alongside the dock and tell me these messages. But when it came to berthing down, the cabin for the captain was also the cabin for the First Officer so we had to share. So I grabbed the bunk on the ground floor for mine and I thought that I’d let the First Officer climb up the ladder to the one on top. It turned out that the First Officer was a woman. I thought that this was going to be rather complicated but neither of us really cared and we both went to bed. We had a little chat about this and that. But while I was trying to fall asleep, I was rummaging through the lockers at the side of the bed. There were all kinds of things in there. There was a huge homemade battery clamp, there were other kinds of bits and pieces in there, but I was going through it, trying to take an inventory while I was waiting to fall asleep.

The First Officer, I can see her now. She was the driver who brought me home on Thursday from dialysis, although why she should pop up here, I don’t know. Walking along the shore at the side of a ship reminds me of being AT THE WELLAND CANAL IN 2010 where I did just that. The rest is about my preoccupation with the untidy state of this apartment, I imagine.

After that, there was football. Greenock Morton were away to Stenhousemuir in the Scottish Cup yesterday, and I have to say that I have never in my life seen such an inept, incompetent display from a professional club.

Giant-killing acts in cup matches occur so frequently that it’s hardly ever worth mentioning them, but when a full-time professional club in the second tier of Scottish football comes up against part-timers in the third tier and loses, it’s not really headlines, but to lose 4-0? It’s an embarrassment. Morton were really lucky to get nil, that’s for sure.

The rest of the day has been spent working on the next radio programme. It took an age to find all of the songs that I wanted, and then they needed to be reformatted, remixed, edited, paired and segued. By the time that I knocked off, it had all been done. It just remains now to write the notes, which I shall do during the week.

There was time to make the pizza base for tea – not a loaf, though, because there’s plenty of bread in the freezer that needs using. And for a few minutes, I reviewed my Welsh for Tuesday.

The pizza was delicious, and there’s a half left over for tomorrow night. Right now, I’m off to bed, ready … "I don’t think" – ed … for dialysis tomorrow.

But seeing as we have been talking about the Welland Canal … "well, one of us has" – ed … the Welland Canal was built to by-pass Niagara Falls.
While I was there, I went into Niagara where I heard a story about a couple, a 95-year-old man and a 94-year-old woman, who were there on their honeymoon.
"Did they have a good time?" I asked
"Not really" was the reply. "They spent the whole two weeks trying to get out of the car."

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Sunday 21st December 2025 – AND IF YOU THOUGHT …

… that starting work at 11:00 on a Sunday morning was some good going, how about starting at 12:00 today, then?

Not that it felt like it was going to be anything like that. As usual, thanks to drifting off to sleep on a couple of occasions while I was typing out my notes, it was another night where I failed miserably to beat my 22:30 deadline. In fact, it was so long ago that I was in bed before 23:30 that I can’t even remember when it was.

Anyway, when I had finally finished, it was more like 23:30 and I was really glad to be tucked up in my little cot. However, as seems to be the case these days, it wasn’t for long. It was 03:44 in fact when I opened my eyes, although a few coughing fits earlier had awoken me for a brief moment here and there.

Try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep at that point. I lay there tossing and turning and watching the time on the ‘phone advance round to about 05:00. I began to think “give it half an hour and I’ll get up and do some work, like dictate the outstanding radio notes”.

The next thing that I remember was the nurse shaking me awake. Apparently I’d gone back to sleep again at some point. He sorted out my legs but wasn’t very happy about doing it while I was in bed. Mind you, neither was I. I’d have much rather been up and about and working rather than lying in my stinking pit, but there you go.

After he left, I reckoned that I’d give it a few more minutes and raise myself from the Dead, but it was somewhat more than a few more minutes. Actually, it was about 10:15 when I next awoke, and at that point I decided that I’d better shoot into action, otherwise I’ll be in here all day.

It was a quick nip into the bathroom and then a slow stroll into the living room to check the washing and to make breakfast. More porridge and coffee with two of the strange croissants that I made last Sunday. How could I possibly have rolled them inside out?

There was no rush at all this morning, and so it was midday when I was finally back in here. The first thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was still on the taxis last night, and so was Nerina. There was something happening about a coat of hers that had had a bowl of porridge fall on it so she was thinking of throwing it away. However, her mother, even though she didn’t really know what was wrong with it, said that she’d have a close look at it and see what she could do. That’s all that I remember of this.

There’s definitely something of an obsession with taxis right now, and I’ve no idea why. Those days are long behind me and they can stay behind me for all that I care. By the way, Nerina’s mother was a tailoress and she could work miracles with a piece of cloth.

Later on, I was in Crewe doing my shopping last night. I’d been to Woolworth’s to buy a few things. I’d sorted out what I’d needed and the shop assistant came along and tipped them into my bag and I paid for everything. I was then supposed to go to Marks and Spencers, but when I looked, I didn’t have very much time and had to go to the railway station. I picked up my bag, threw it over my shoulder and set out to walk. I found myself a couple of minutes later on a motorway interchange, the one up near Northwich. I had to walk all the way down the motorway to come off at Sandbach and then walk across to Crewe and had about fifteen or twenty minutes to do it so I thought that I should have to hurry. I set off down the slip road and there was a policeman there with his dog. The dog barked, which frightened the policeman. I walked past them and was looking at the traffic on the motorway bridge a little further down the hill. They were driving along normally on this bridge when suddenly, they leapt into the air and landed again as if they had hit a large object on the road. I was wondering what was happening there, but I thought that I didn’t have the time to stop and look because I had my train very shortly.

Those were the days when Woollies was next to Marks and Sparks. Woollies has long since closed down and Marks and Sparks has moved onto the new retail park where we used to go speedwaying and banger racing all those years ago. What a sad state of affairs that was when they demolished the old railway sports ground thirty or so years ago.

However, imagine walking down the motorway from Northwich to Sandbach, especially in about ten minutes.

There were also a few things going round in my head when I awoke that I didn’t dictate. Two things that I remember, so I don’t know if they were dreams or not, were firstly, there was some famous TV presenter sitting at a table with us who suddenly started to spout off a vicious anti-Welsh rant, to such an extent that I became violently angry. The second was being in a pub with friends of mine when suddenly one of them put on the table a very large and very dangerous-looking knife in a sheath. I remember saying that I’d told him on several occasions not to bring it out with him and that he was risking seven years in prison carrying it about with him.

Next, we had a footfest. Stranraer v Dumbarton. And while the unbeaten run goes on, it was a very poor, lacklustre performance that saw them creep to a very unsatisfactory 1-1 draw against Dumbarton. But with a squad containing five strikers, every one of whom is out injured right now, it’s hardly surprising that they didn’t manage to launch any kind of attack at all.

After that, I had the misfortune of coming across the St Johnstone-Greenock Morton game. And it was embarrassing to watch Morton slither to a miserable 5-0 defeat. Their squad just isn’t up to Championship-level football and I’ve noticed in a couple of previous games that several of their players look less than interested in what’s happening out there on the field.

For some reason, it was as quiet as the grave out there right now, so I decided to dictate the radio notes before the endless streams of tourists go strolling past.

When I’d finished, I edited the notes for the joining track for one of the radio programmes. That programme is now assembled and ready to go. It was actually thirteen seconds over the hour, but a judicious piece of editing enabled it to fit the timescale exactly.

Next task was to edit the other notes, which are the major part of the following programme. I didn’t get very far into those before it was time to knock off and go a-baking. Homemade bread and homemade pizza were on the list for today, so I made a couple of piles of dough.

While it was all festering, I came in here and did a few more bits and pieces of my Welsh homework. And this is a really difficult exercise because it’s revising a lesson that we learnt when I was absent in chemotherapy a few weeks ago.

So back in the kitchen, the bread and pizza were all made, and the pizza, such as I ate, was delicious. But once more, there’s half of it left that I shall finish off for tea tomorrow. All that remains to cook for Christmas now is the vegan Wellington, for which Liz sent me a recipe a couple of years ago, and the hash browns.

As well as that, I might try a little experiment. I’ve received a recipe for homemade baked beans and, struggling to find any good ones here, I might give it a try and see how they work out.

But that’s for Tuesday. Tonight, I’m off to bed, probably to dream about more taxis and wake up at some silly time in the morning.

But seeing as we have been talking about cleaning clothes and porridge … "well, one of us has" – ed … after a late working session in the White House, Monica Lewinsky went into the local dry cleaner’s to pick up a dress she had left behind for cleaning.
As the cashier handed her the dress, she said "Thank you Miss Lewinsky. Come again!"
"No" replied Monica. "Porridge this time."

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Sunday 16th November 2025 – WHEN ISABELLE THE NURSE …

… came round this evening, she made some remark about the delicious smell in the kitchen.

It wasn’t me, of course. I was in the office. However, I did reply, saying "I’m not surprised. There’s a cake baking in the oven."

That’s right, people, I’ve been a busy boy yet again this afternoon.

Not that I felt much like it, however. I’ve been feeling better today than I was yesterday and on Thursday, but not by much. However, if I don’t do things around here, no-one else will.

With it being a Sunday, I was anticipating having a decent lie-in. After all, Sunday is a Day of Rest and the alarm doesn’t go off until 07:59. And if it wasn’t for the nurse coming round, it wouldn’t be going off them.

So last night, I made a determined effort to be in bed rather early, and once again, I failed miserably. By the time that I’d finished everything that needed finishing, it was just after 23:15 when I finally slid in between the sheets ready for my long lie-in.

But so much for that. Despite going to sleep quite quickly, it was all of … errr … 06:15 when I finally awoke. That’s an early start for a weekday, never mind a Sunday.

Anyway, I hauled myself out of bed and into the bathroom for a good scrub up. Next, I went into the kitchen to make my hot honey, ginger and lemon drink, and used it to wash down the medication.

Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I’d been out with someone, a guy. We’d been roaming around everywhere. He suggested that we went round to the house of his family to stay the night seeing as we were in the area. We made our way to his house and walked inside. I went in, “I’m so-and-so’s friend. My name is Eric” but I stopped in mid-speech because there were probably about thirty people in this living room, young people of all different age groups. It seemed that they were spread out over sofas and chairs and everything as if they were somehow camping there to spend the night. We had a brief chat with them, and people squeezed up to let us perch on sofas and arms of settees. Somehow, we all managed to drop off to sleep. Next morning, it was fairly late when I awoke and there were a few other people still asleep, a few people awake and talking. I remember someone saying, while pointing to a young girl at the far end of the room, that she spent much of the middle of the night talking about her family in Australia. I replied “I don’t remember anything about that because I crashed out straight away until right this minute”. They all replied “yes, we noticed”. Later on, we were out and the guy with whom I’d been wandering around the previous day was showing his photos to me, all these beautiful buildings. I didn’t remember passing those buildings with him, and I wish that I had taken some of those photos because the buildings were really beautiful. We ended up in some kind of big shop and I bought a baguette, a long baguette but it was very soft. Then, I looked around and one or two other people from this had bought baguettes too and were walking around with them. But I’d been nibbling mine in between because I was really hungry by this time. The dream then moved on and I was in a hospital. I took advantage of an empty bed by sitting in it, starting to write my blog for the previous night because I remembered that I hadn’t written it yet. I began to write it out by hand but then thought “should I fetch the computer?” but I looked around, and no-one else in this ward had any computer or anything like that so I went back to start to write it out by hand. However, I wasn’t comfortable and couldn’t read my own writing in the end. I noticed that one by one, these people were being called for interviews. I thought that these beds must be here for a doctor’s queue or something, and people could lie down on the bed while they were waiting. I wondered what would happen to me once everyone in this hospital realised that I’d been there for a long time trying to write out my blog and didn’t have a single medical appointment at all.

Later on, I remembered that one of the reasons why we’d gone out next morning was for me to go to the van to fetch my rucksack with the computer etc in it.

This was an interesting dream, right enough. Regular readers of a previous version of this rubbish will recall that I once stayed in a house like this with so many other people staying there that we had to chisel out a little corner of floor space for ourselves.

The hospital, I imagine, relates to how we are arranged at dialysis. But the photos and the baguette don’t seem to relate to anything much, although in the past, I’ve been on trips with people and their photos have been so radically different from mine that I was certain that they had taken them in different places to those that we visited together.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up and took my blood pressure while I was seated in the office. It saves her having to wait five minutes after I’ve moved about, because if I move, the blood pressure needs time to stabilise.

She also sorted out my legs and left to carry on with her rounds. I could go to make breakfast – porridge with two of the croissants left over from last weekend. And the croissants were delicious. I shall definitely make more of those.

After breakfast, I had a footfest to watch. I’d seen all of the matches in Wales, but there was Stranraer v East Kilbride. East Kilbride, having been promoted from non-league for this season, are making Scottish League Two look easy.

And despite Stranraer’s improved form of late, East Kilbride hardly broke into a sweat but still managed a comfortable 3-1 victory.

Greenock Morton are also having a poor season. They were playing Ross County last night and the game was televised. Once more, Morton made it look easy and ran out comfortable 3–0 winners. So why can’t they play like that every game?

After a disgusting drink break, there were things to do.

The array of back-up disks isn’t working very well at the moment. It’s switching on, but cutting out before it begins to run. It’s difficult to know which USB cable powers it because there are (at the last count) fifteen plugged into this computer.

Consequently, I unplugged all of them and, by plugging in one at a time and checking the File Manager, I managed to work out which was which.

And so I unplugged them all again and this time, I labelled them before I put them back. And having plugged the array into a USB 3.0 connection instead of a USB 1.0 as previously, everything worked fine.

For half an hour or so, I played with the radio programme, dictating the notes that I wrote to the other day ready for editing.

Later on, I went into the kitchen. I had bread, pizza and cake to make. I’m going to keep up with this idea of a high calorie, high carbohydrate cake to fill me up when I’m leaving other food on the plate.

Today’s cake was ginger, almond and coconut.

The bread and the pizza were excellent, and the cake is magnificent. When Isabelle the Nurse came back for the evening’s blood pressure, she said that she thought that it smelt excellent. When I took it out of the oven, she said that it looked excellent too.

While I was eating my pizza, I was chatting to my niece’s eldest daughter. She was at home, sitting on her sofa with her dog just chilling out before she goes to make supper – roast chicken with mixed vegetables. I haven’t seen her for ages, and it must be her turn to come to see me soon.

But I’ll worry about that another time because I’m off to bed for a good sleep … "he hopes" – ed …

But seeing as we have been talking about cake … "well, one of us has" – ed … a girl from Crewe went to the doctors.
"Doctor" she began "It was my birthday yesterday and my friends made me a cake. But ever since I ate a slice, I’ve lost the vision i my left eye."
"I’m not surprised" said the doctor. " I can see what’s wrong from here. When you go to eat another slice, blow out the candles first and remove them from the cake."

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Sunday 2nd November 2025 – MY VEGAN PIZZA …

… was absolutely excellent this evening. The chocolate and coconut cake that I have made is also excellent too, although it’s a little burned on the top – only natural while I try to figure out the characteristics of my oven.

Today, I’ve been making meal plans for when my niece and her daughter come for this weekend in just … gulp … five days time. They will need to eat something so I need to plan and send off a food order later in the week.

Yesterday at dialysis I’d already started to food order, as I had said yesterday, and it was my intention to finish it yesterday evening but "the best-laid plans o’ mice and men etc. etc." intervened as usual and by the time that I’d finished everything else, it was already horribly late without having to worry about staying up to finish the shopping list.

Instead, still with the stabbing pain in my foot, I crawled off into bed.

It didn’t take long to go to sleep, and the next thing that I remember was sitting bolt-upright at 05:20. Try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I felt bitterly disappointed because Sunday is, after all, a Day of Rest.

In the end, after an hour of trying, I crawled out from under the covers and dictated the radio notes for one of the programmes that I’ve been preparing. I may as well make the most of the early start. Mind you, it wasn’t easy because of the howling gale that has sprung up outside yet again.

Once I’d finished, I went into the bathroom for a good wash, and then into the kitchen for the medication. To wash it down, I made another one of these drinks of honey, ginger and lemon. It’s a case of “kill or cure” with this throat.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And I hadn’t gone very far. I remember something about needing help to dress. Someone came to see me from the top end of Granville, the part from near the roundabout by the football ground. I asked them if they had come far, and they replied “not ‘far, far'”. But that’s all that I remember of that

They keep on asking me at all of these assessment interviews whether I can dress myself or not. My usual answer is that it’s undressing myself, where I have problems, and if they have a nice young, nubile assistant who would like to help me, then I would be grateful.

Their usual response is to throw me out.

Isabelle the Nurse blew in with the hurricane this morning. Her irrepressible good humour continues, and we had a very pleasant chat for five minutes while she sorted out my feet.

After she went, I made breakfast, and ate the other two home-made croissants. That really was quite a success and I shall make some more.

Back in here, the footfest began. Firstly, we had the highlights of all of the other games in the JD Cymru League. No surprises there, though. Everything went according to plan. Not like last night in the Second Division where third-placed Llandudno thrashed unbeaten leaders Airbus UK Broughton 5-0 -a result that surely must stand out as one of the highlights of the season.

Following those games, we moved on to Scotland.

The first game was Stranraer v Forfar Athletic. Forfar always has been Stranraer’s bogey side, but Stranraer put that to bed this weekend. This strange upturn of form continued with a comfortable 3-1 victory to move clear of the bottom two for the first time this season.

Two leagues higher up the pyramid, Greenock Morton were away at Raith Rovers in Kirkcaldy. Following their disastrous 0-4 defeat at home against St Johnstone last week, we were all expecting the worst. However, the game ended 1–1 thanks to a bizarre, improvised shot on goal by central defender Kris Moore.

After a disgusting drink break, I began to edit the radio notes and, despite chatting online to someone while I was editing, I managed to complete everything. It’s edited down to six minutes and forty-six seconds, which is one of the shortest that I’ve done.

All I need to do now is to join everything up, choose the final track, and then write and edit the notes for that. The work of an hour, if I’m allowed an hour to spare in which to do it.

It was then time to go into the kitchen to do some work.

No bread today because the freezer is full of it, and I’ll be taking half a loaf out to defrost later before I go to bed.

To start, I made the dough for the pizza base, and then I attacked the cake. It’s a chocolate oil-cake made with coconut oil and desiccated coconut.

When it came to bake it, I reduced the time from how I would have baked it in my old oven upstairs.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t long enough and I had to leave it in there for another fifteen minutes. By now though, the top was overcooked so next time, I shall have to bake it in a lower position in the oven. However, it rose up beautifully and looks quite impressive from that point of view.

The pizza itself was delicious – another candidate for “one of the best” and I shall think about the pizza when I’m in bed, which is where I’ll be going as soon as I’ve finished these notes.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about pizzas … "well, one of us has" – ed … a girl from Crewe went into a pizza restaurant and ordered a pizza.
She could only eat half of it, and asked if she could take the rest of it home.
The waiter asked her "do you want a box for it?"
She replied "no thanks. If it means that much to you, you can have it. I’m no good at fighting."

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Thursday 20th January 2022 – DAY THREE …

… of my enforced confinement was very much like Day Two; with very little of any kind of note happening at all.

And seeing as I’m not going anywhere, doing anything or seeing anyone is hardly any surprise.

Although I just about beat the alarm to my feet this morning, it was a dreadfully slow start. But there was a reason for that. I’m suffering from a lack of football and my thirst was satiated last night instead of going to bed early.

It’s the Scottish Cup at the weekend and Greenock Morton, a team in which I have an interest since I wrote a newspaper article about the club and its controversial chairman 20 years ago, have drawn Premier League opposition.

In the past, Morton have had four major acts of giant-killing and last night someone strung together a video of the highlights of those four matches and broadcast them on the internet. So I stayed up to watch them – videocam recordings of old 405-line transmissions in the good old days of steam-driven television.

And worth is just to watch ANDY RITCHIE’S MARVELLOUS GOAL that dumped Aberdeen, Alex Ferguson and all, out of the Scottish Cup.

Anyway, having struggled out of bed and having taken my medicine, I came back in here to see how things were with the dictaphone. There was something on there from last night – and about 20 things from the previous few nights. And you can tell how lightly I’m sleeping these days with the volume of stuff that’s on there. This is no deep, profound sleep that I’m having.

But never mind the dictaphone for the moment. I had other things that needed my attention.

As it happens, I’m a member of an organisation that is fighting to defend the SNCF from the onslaught of privatisation that the right wing of the political spectrum is fighting to impose on the rest of the country. And I happened to post a couple of messages relating to a couple of things that related directly to me.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … “hooray” – ed … the organiser of the campaign asked me for dates and times. And that meant going through about 18 months’ worth of blog entries. They were relatively unimportant, minor things so I hadn’t tagged them and that explains the time that it took.

Perhaps I ought to mention in passing that my journal is tagged and indexed. I keep it as a diary and as a reminder because my memory is hopeless, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. I can sing any number of lyrics of songs from the 1960s and 70s totally word-perfect, but ask me what I was wanting when I walked into the kitchen 5 minutes ago …

It also serves other purposes too, as I have probably mentioned in the past.

Then I could turn my attention to where I’d been during the night. As it happened, Nerina and I had another one of our arguments. This time she had a friend with her and it was pretty permanent so she stormed off, leaving me with the business and the dry-cleaner’s to run. All the people wanted assurance that I’d still be open at 09:00 on a Wednesday. I replied “of course”. Then I realised that it was going to be difficult because there was going to be a bus run that I normally did but I didn’t return until 10:00 so I could see that I had about 2 days to organise a pile of changes to make sure that everyone else was happy and that they could have their dry-cleaning when they wanted but it wasn’t going to be easy.

After lunch (I remembered today) I carried on with the entries from yesterday and was actually planning on doing a lot more but I rather sadly fell asleep. And to my surprise, I was off on my travels there too. I was with my brother and someone else. I can’t remember why now but I had some work to do so I set myself up in a room in some kid of village hall place to do it and they wandered off. However I couldn’t settle and when someone came in – a big ugly-looking man rather like Jack Elam, I lost my concentration completely. I went out for a walk to settle myself down. There, I bumped into my brother and the other person. They were angry that I wasn’t working so I invented a story that I was looking for a torch. The third person said that he had one and went to fetch it and they accompanied me back to where I was working while I tried to invent a story as to why I needed the torch. When we arrived back where I was, my brother bumped into this strange man and let out a gasp of surprise and shock which awoke me.

Later on I went for tea. I’m not feeling very hungry right now but I have to go through the motions. There was some stuffing left over from Monday’s pepper so I had a taco roll with some rice.

Rosemary rang me up while I was eating so I called her back and we had a chat. But not for long because my throat gave out.

But the question of food was rather interesting. Last time that I was ill like this was when I was in Minnesota in July 2019 (in the days when we could travel) and I lost 10kg in weight. If I can lose even half of that during this bout of illness I’ll be happy with that and I’ll have gained something.

So now I’m off to bed – at … errr … 02:05. Just as I was thinking of going to bed earlier, Help Yourself came onto the playlist, followed by Quicksilver Messenger Service with the magnificent John Cipollina, Roxy Blue (a vastly underrated band who could have been another Aerosmith or Bon Jovi and whose lead guitarist is now a dentist), followed by Kate Bush. And that’s enough to keep anyone awake, for all kind sof different reasons.

But now that Kansas has come round, I’ll clear off to bed because we’ll end up next with Lone Star (another vastly underrated band featuring Paul “Tonka” Chapman, later of UFO and Jon Sloman, later of Uriah Heep) and I’ll be here all night.

See you in the morning.

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Friday 4th September 2020 – IT’S BEEN A …

… rather better day today than yesterday. For a start, I beat the third alarm again. Not by very much, and I was sitting quite groggily on the edge of the bed when it went off, but I beat it nevertheless.

After the usual morning ablutions I had a go at the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night.

We were staying in the city, something like that, last night. It was winter and I was on this hospital car park for some reason. Someone pointed out to me a dog that had two pairs of shoes on and a man running behind with some kind of paper wrapped round his feet. Apparently he’d been getting the dog out of his car in the snow and the dog had taken his shoes and gone off, leaving him behind. It was some kind of hospital and I had to walk across this car park to do something. Then I realised that I had my own appointment so I carried on. I was carrying a ladder and something else that I’d borrowed from the hospital. I got into the sheltered walkway and came to the door where there was a row of steps going up. When I got there, there was someone I recognised. It might have been someone whom I know from Newfoundland who was the caretaker. I had to give my things back to him. There was another guy on the door. It occurred to me walking across the car park that I didn’t have any form of identity with me, any kind of money. I didn’t have my hospital paper so I don’t know how I was going to talk my way into having my appointment. It was too late to run back to the car now. Anyway when I got there I thought that my Newfoundlander friend would vouch for me and who I am. There was a receptionist guy on the counter and I was about to go up and tell my story to him when I awoke again with yet another bad attack of cramp. I don’t know how many attacks of cramp I’d had during the night but that part of it was quite awful..
At somewhere else during the night I’d been with a guy who I know from a Greenock Morton Football Club internet site. We’d been to watch the game. Morton had started the season very unprepared with quite a few players short. They had been talking about players who the club was signing so I went to the ground. We were all standing around the field watching. the first action was a clearance from one of the defenders that hit a Morton player and the refereee blew for handball. Under the new procedures it wouldn’t have been given so we all had a moan at the referee. The we suddenly realised that we were all encroaching on the pitch so we had to walk back a couple of yards and found a chain link around the ground so we walked further back and put the chain link back up. There was some kind of fence that stopped us seeing much of the game so the two of us walked round behind Morton’s goal to watch the action from down there. There was talk of someone signing from a non-league club. he was supposed to be very thin and very tall. There was a discussion about players initials, some kind of gambling thing where you gambled on who the club would sign based on initials. We were talking about the game and the score was 2-0. I couldn’t find out who is was who had the 2. It looked like Morton as they were doing all of the attacking but I couldn’t be sure.

While I was at it, I transcribed a few more from the backlog from when I was on my travels. It was really hard to do anything while I was away because the computer was just not quick enough to respond and I wasn’t well enough

Another thing that I’ve done this morning is to do some tidying up of the things that I’ve bought. There was more stuff than I thought that I had, including some round rice that I thought that I didn’t have.

One day i’m going to have a major rearrangement of the things on the shelves and make some more space. There’s no need for half of the plastic containers that I have, for a start.

With some time that was left I attacked the photos from my voyage. I didn’t edit anything like as many as I wanted because I ended up with two photos having to track down where I was when I took them.

In the end, one I managed to trace but the second (and one or two that come later) will require much more of a detective effort to work out where I was when I took them.

Another reason why I took so long was that I … errr … closed my eyes for a moment or two.

After lunch, I did some of my Welsh revision and then attacked the new internet course. It took most of the afternoon but I managed to do a whole week’s course today.

It’s true to say that I knew a great deal about the basics of the course and that helped a lot, but I still learnt quite a lot from it.

tractors trailers mussels nets bouchots donville les bains granville manche normandy france eric hallThere was the usual break in the working afternoon while I went out for my afternoon walk.

Not that I went very far before I was distracted. The tide was quite far out this afternoon and out across the bay at Donville-les-Bains the mussels posts were uncovered.

What I think they are are the posts and strings for the bouchots – the mussels that grow on strings. The tractors and trailers are out there harvesting them.

The advantage that bouchots have over ordinary mussels is that with not being on the ground, they aren’t full of grainy sand so they taste much more natural and don’t break your teeth.

zodiac fishermen pointe du roc english channel granville manche normandy france eric hallIt’s not just down on the seafood beds that the ocean is rendering up its harvest – at least, in principle.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that over the last few das we have seen several fishermen out there casting their lot into the water. Today, we have a couple of guys on a zodiac coming round the headland.

They have their rods at the ready and it looks as if they will be taking up their positions just off the Pointe du Roc. I wonder if they will have any more luck than anyone else whom I’ve seen.

kids games pointe du roc granville manche normandy france eric hallThere was something extremely curious going on this afternoon on the lawn by the old bunkers at the Pointe du Roc.

The kids, presumably from a local school, where playing a game there. But what caught my eye more than anything else was the absence of masks and the absence of any social distancing.

It’s apparently true to say that kids aren’t as susceptible to the virus than adults (so they say) and don’t suffer as much, but then they all go home and see their siblings, parents, grandparents and neighbours over the weekend.

It seems to me to be pretty short-sighted to exempt kids from the requirements that everyone else is obliged to take. But then, looking at the horrendous casualty figures and the lack of decisive action to prevent or enforce the regulations, it looks as if Western Governments have given up the fight and prepare to sacrifice the population to the God Mammon.

chantier navale port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallWhile we’re on the subject of social distancing … “well, one of us is” – ed … there isn’t much social distancing going on down in the Chantier navale right now.

My walk continued round the headland to the viewpoint there and I could see the latest developments in there. It’s been pretty full with seven boats in there but just the other day we went down to six. However today, we’ve gone back up to seven as another boat has come to join the collection.

Plenty of people down there working on them too. It’s all go in there right now, so it seems. I’m particularly interested with the one on its own on the left in the front of the row of five. They have been spending the last week or so stripping all the paint off it.

bad parking rue st pierre granville manche normandy france eric hallFrom there I walked along the path and down past the the end of the Rue Saint Pierre, the little street that leads up to the College Malraux.

It’s close to school chucking-out time and you can tell that by the vehicles that are parked half-on, half-off the pavement blocking the path to anyone who would like to walk along the pavement on that side.

When you consider that there’s a huge free car park just 50 metres away from where they are parked, it’s really a shameful situation to see them parked like that.

Anyway, you’re all probably quite fed up of me talking about pathetic parking so I’ll move on back home where I finished the internet course for the week and had my hour on the guitars.

Tea tonight was vegetable balls with steamed vegetables and vegan cheese sauce followed by the last of the rice pudding.

Later on, I went out for my evening walk. There were only two other people out there which is no surprise because it was quite dark.

Nothing was going on round by the rue du Nord so I carried on to the footpath and then ran along there, pushing on 20-odd metres past my limit.

illuminated trees square Maurice Marland granville manche normandy france eric hallThere was nothing happening at the viewpoint overlooking the Place Marechal Foch so I went over to the Square Maurice Marland and ran all the way along it and up the ramp at the end.

A couple of days ago we saw the lights in there come on and illuminate the trees. They were already on by the time that I reached there, and everything was so much brighter so the photo is better tonight.

With nothing else going on at all, I ran on back home to write up my notes and then have an early night.

Tomorrow it’s shopping day so I need to be on form. I don’t need very much, for once, but I’ll need to remember exactly what I do need.

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Saturday 27th April 2019 – A HURRICANE …

… is not the ideal weather in which to be playing football.

It’s even worse when you are standing on the touchline watching the game too. Howling, whining gusts of winds of incredible violence, sudden torrential downpours that drenched everyone through and disappeared before one had time to put on one’s rain gear.

What surprised me was that the match was quite entertaining given the circumstances.

I didn’t feel much like going, though. yet another bad night. Yet another early awakening.

And yet another interesting nocturnal voyage. Last night I was doing my pension calculations. I worked out that I would get about £19:00 per month from the Belgian Government, £19:00 per month from the French Government but then I suddenly realised that i was living in Canada and I was entitled to a small pension from them because I’d been here for a couple of years and been working. That meant that I would be entitled to about £57:00 per month. I thought that that was fine because if I were very careful I could live on that. Of course everyone ridiculed this and said that it can’t be done, but one girl sitting at this table in the café said that there were loads of other things that I could do to raise money – for example she picked the entire crop of tea in the whole of Canada, to which I thought “I bet that it doesn’t take you long, does it?” because there isn’t all that much there at all. We were sitting outside what used to be a café but had closed down and the sign had been practically painted over. Someone was giving me some food – two cheese and onion sandwiches cut into triangles and put in a plastic bag and they went to give me the plastic bag. They said “hang on a minute – where’s your tray?” so I went over to where I had been sitting. “Ohh it’s over there is it?” they said and gave me this pack of sandwiches.

I was wide awake when the alarm went off at 06:00 but it was more like 06:45 when I left the stinking pit. Medication, breakfast and then a shower, and I was ready for the shops.

storm place d'armes granville manche normandy franceBraving the tempest raging outside, I made it to Caliburn ready to head to LIDL.

And you can see just how violently the storm was raging. You can actually see a wave of storm moving across the image of the photograph here.

I was glad that I was only out there for a matter of 30 seconds while I ran across the car park, and not actually having to walk to the shops.

After LIDL I went next to Noz and then to LeClerc. And all in all, I bought next to nothing and spent about €25:00 in all.

On the shopping list today was an aubergine. I’ve run out of aubergine and kidney bean whatsit so it’s time to make some more. I’s probably going to be an idea for me to spend one evening a week cooking some mega-meal, like a curry or a giant pie or an apple tart or something, parcel it up into individual-sized portions and freeze the portions. But then, how about me getting organised? I must be getting older.

Back here, I put the frozen food away and then crashed out for 20 minutes on the chair. Feeling the strain early in the day, I am.

Once I’d recovered myself, I put the shopping away and that took me nicely up to lunch. Once again, indoors in view of the horrendous weather.

This afternoon I had plenty of things to do but ended up as usual being side-tracked. I was having a little 10-minute play around with my 3D program and ended up running off down a long alleyway with a little application that I had discovered.

As well as that, I had an eye on the live updates for two football matches being played this afternoon. Crewe Alexandra came back from being dead and buried at 3-1 to run out 4-3 winners against Forest Green Rovers, and Morton scored a late winner at Dunfermline to escape relegation. Morton have in fact won more points in their last two matches than they have won in the previous two months.

At 18:15 I headed off to the football. The weather had improved in that the rain had stopped. But I wasn’t taking any chances and took my waterproof gear with me in the small rucksack.

There was a little deviation on my route. I had run out of that caffeine-based energy drink and that is what I use sometimes to lift me up when I’m flat out. I’d forgotten to buy any today but as LIDL was open and I was early I popped in for a few cans.

football us mouettes de donville us percy cite des ports granville manche normandy franceAt the football, USM Donville were playing US Percy. I noticed quite a difference in the stature of the players on the field. The Donville players looked as if they were 11 ordinary people whom you might find on any street anywhere, whereas the Percy players looked more like athletes.

Nevertheless, on the field they were quite evenly matched and despite the wind it was an entertaining game. Donville had a n°9 playing up front who had some skill but was pretty much a lightweight easily pushed off the ball.

After 30 minutes, the Donville player pulled off a midfielder, pulled the n°9 back into a rather attacking midfield position, and sent on a substitute to play up front. He didn’t have the skill, but was much more aggressive and the game picked up.

Percy, playing against the wind, took the lead but Donville soon pulled back to level.

After the break, the second half was a game of two quarters. At first Percy had the ascendency and scored a second goal. But later in the game Donville gained the upper hand.

The n°12 playing up front got himself into some good positions. Had he had someone playing up front with him, something may well have come of them. He was quite unlucky with two good chances that he had too.

Not only that, had the ref not been unsighted and had the incident happened on the side of the field where the linesman could have seen it, Donville might have been awarded a penalty for a handball in the penalty area.

So 2-1 to Percy, which was rather unfair on Donville but these things happen in football.

On the way back, I was caught in a torrential downpour and by the time I had struggled into shelter to put on my waterproof trousers I was soaked to the skin and the downpour had passed.

Back here and hungry, I fancied something different for tea rather than a tinned meat.

So I cooked some pasta and when it was done, drained it off, added a big handful of frozen spinach, some garlic, some ground pepper and olive oil and warmed it all right though. The secret of course is not to overcook the spinach. That’s how you kill off all of the vitamins and minerals.

Once it was thoroughly warmed through I added a big handful of grated vegan cheese and stirred it all around.

That was probably the most delicious instant meal that I have ever eaten.

So now I’m off to bed. Tomorrow is Sunday and a lie-in I hope. I need a decent sleep, a good relax, and the will and energy to get myself back on track. My life is running away with me and I can’t seem to catch it up.

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Sunday 21st January 2018 – TODAY WASN’T …

… the day that I wanted either.

We started off with another depressing night where it took me ages to go off to sleep. And then I was awake again just before 07:00. Mind you I’d been on my travels during the night. Or, rather, someone else had. One of the football clubs whose results I always check is Greenock Morton in Scotland and someone from the club came to see me and chatted for three hours to me about the future plans of the club, all of which were very interesting.

But never mind 07:00 – it was more like 08:30 when I crawled out of bed – mainly for the reason that any male of my age will immediately recognise.

After medication and breakfast, I vegetated for quite a while (well, it IS Sunday) before I did anything. And when I felt like it, I put away the washing that had been drying in front of the radiator for a couple of days.

And having spent a couple of days looking for the little laptop that I take with me on my travels and which I couldn’t find it, I cme across it, in its little portable carry-case. What a silly place to leave it, hey?

Much of the day has been spent going through another portable external drive that I came across on my travels and discovering another pile of unsorted photos on there that relate to one of my trips to Canada.

They’ll need to be sorted at some time or other but I couldn’t face it this afternoon.

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Going through the box that I was unpacking, I found two new ink cartridges. I’m hoping that they are for the Hewlett Packard that I have here (I can’t think why else I would have brought them from the farm) and they don’t look much like the old Canon stuff to me.

There should have been a football match at St Pair-sur-Mer this afternoon but with the depressing weather continuing, I decided to give it a miss. If last night’s games were called off everywhere I couldn’t see this match taking place with the additional downpour this morning and it’s a long way to go to find out.

But I’ve been for my two walks today all the same, and got myself pretty wet too in the process. It looks as if it’s never going to stop, doesn’t it?

And for tea, another pizza. And I’m going to have to stop buying the bases at LIDL. Last week’s was rolled backwards so it took all kinds of effort to get it out of the packet, and this week’s wasn’t any better and ended up being quite a mess. I’ll have to bite the bullet and buy the expensive stuff from LeClerc.

So back to work tomorrow, and I need to continue to write the pile of letters that are awaiting me. I’m out on Tuesday so I want to have as many as possible done for then so that I can post them off.

I shall take full advantage of this printer while it’s still working.

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