Tag Archives: home made mince pie

Friday 6th February 2026 – I HAVE THROWN …

… away another huge pile of food today. And that included the leftover Christmas cake and mince pies.

And what a tragedy that was – all of my Christmas stuff consigned to the bin. It just shows you how ill I’ve been over the last couple of months that I couldn’t bring myself to eat all that much of it.

But last night, as I said, I was beginning to feel better. For the first time for a long, long while, I’d managed to eat a proper-sized meal, and that is definitely progress.

So back in here afterwards, I wrote up my notes, although I’m still not as well as all that because I managed to fall asleep a couple of times while doing them. In the end, by the time that I’d finished everything that needed doing, it was about 23:45 when I finally crawled into bed. And it didn’t take long to go to sleep either.

But here’s a thing.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall me saying that I was convinced that it was the after-effects of the dialysis, particularly the following morning, that were causing me so many problems with my sleep, leading me to wake up at some silly time of the morning. However, last night I slept all the way through to the alarm at 06:29 without moving a muscle.

So much for that idea.

Anyway, another desperate struggle to leave the bed, followed by a stagger into the bathroom and then into the kitchen for the hot drink and medication.

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

I was with a woman and her daughter – it might have been Laurence and Roxanne. We’d been for a drive somewhere, just aimlessly driving around the suburbs of this city. I remember that we came to some traffic lights and I was waiting for them to change, but I was busy talking. Suddenly, the car behind me beeped and overtook me. I could see that the lights had changed and I hadn’t noticed. We turned into the main road, and there was a side street on the left that I had never ever been down. We went down there and came to this really magnificent parking area. It had kind of wooden pavilions, lock-up garages and trees, these monkey-puzzle tree things, and there was a lake. The lake was enormous and there were quite a few people sitting around there enjoying it. Whoever I was with, she knew the owners of this lake. They were extremely rich people and this was part of their property, although people were allowed to go on it. We had some flasks, so we went to sit down by the water’s edge. One thing that we noticed was that there were several families. One of them was a small child, younger than the girl who was with us. That child was standing there, arms folded, in a real sulk. We wondered what could possibly have been wrong with this child, given the absolutely beautiful view that we were having.

The road, the traffic lights and the parking place with the lake are so familiar to me but I just can’t put a name to them. I’m wondering if it might have been when I was at FORT NIAGARA IN OCTOBER 2010.

As for the child sulking, I’m not going to embarrass someone who might (or might not) be reading these pages by reminding them of an incident at Pegwell Bay in Kent in 1966 or 1967.

Isabelle the Nurse was rather later than usual this morning, and she didn’t hang around very long. But she was in an exceptionally good mood today which was quite surprising.

After she left, I could make breakfast and read some more of Mortimer Wheeler’s MAIDEN CASTLE .

Now that he’s left his rambling preamble behind, his notes of his excavations are much more orderly, although not on a par with those of James Curle. It’s still rather difficult to follow his timeline for the occupation of the site.

But, going off on a tangent as I usually do, I ended up reading a critique of Wheeler’s work. He hasn’t yet reached the cemetery, as far as I have read, but someone, in his critique, has posted to the effect that Wheeler has posted “some kind of fanciful description” of a battle that took place at the site between the natives and the Romans but says that there is “no evidence to support it”.

Leaving aside completely the fact that “absence of evidence” is a totally different concept than “evidence of absence”, our critic notes that Wheeler uncovered some kind of ad hoc cemetery with twenty-odd skeletons in it, many with wounds that can only have come from battle, one of whom has a Roman ballista arrow embedded in his spinal column, but notes that “there is no evidence that they actually died there”.

Now, I’ve commented before on Wheeler’s flights of fancy, but even so, nothing in this World is going to convince me that these people with battle wounds died elsewhere and that some people hauled them all the way up to the camp from wherever it was that they died, simply to cast them any old how into a series of hastily-dug, poorly prepared graves.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … office, I had a few things to do this morning and then I had to prepare my shopping order for LeClerc as I’m running low on a few things. After that, I finished off the radio notes for the programme that I’d started earlier in the week.

Having done that, I then began to research the next programme. That took some doing too, but having found out what I needed to do, I had to track down some music, and that wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

When my cleaner turned up, I had to knock off because we needed to make an inventory of the apartment and work out what we need the joiner to do when he comes back here for a day’s work. There’s quite a lot to do, and I’m sure that anyone who has visited this apartment can think of a few other things.

As my cleaner was leaving, she bumped into the delivery man bringing the food, twenty minutes early. And so the next hour or so was spent putting away all of the food and cleaning, dicing and blanching a pile of carrots ready for freezing. Only a kilo today rather than two because there are some left, although not enough to last until the next order.

While I was blanching, the ‘phone rang, so while the carrots were draining, I checked to see who had called.

It was Rosemary, who wanted a “little chat”, so there I was for one hour and nine minutes having this “little chat” with her. And once more, we talked about nothing much at all. But she was shocked to learn that my bill from the supermarket for three weeks’ worth of food was just €69:00. But it’s true, give or take the odd few mushrooms for the Sunday pizza that my faithful cleaner brings me.

There was time afterwards to finish selecting the music, reformatting, remixing and re-editing it and then pairing and segueing it. I even managed to write some of the notes for it.

Tea tonight was chips, sausage and beans with a pile of cheese melted into it, followed by some of the fruitcake from before Christmas with a soya dessert. It was a fair-sized meal, not the largest that I’ve had, but I still managed to eat it all, which, I suppose, is progress.

While I was messing around in the fridge, I threw out a pile of stuff that was long past its sell-by date and, as I said earlier, all of the uneaten Christmas stuff followed it into the bin. It really is a disaster, but it can’t be helped. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s not like me to throw away food. I really must have been ill over that period.

After finishing the washing-up, I put the water in which the carrots had been blanched into a glass bottle and put it in the fridge to use to make my leek and potato soup next week (I bought some fresh leeks today) and then put the carrots into the freezer to freeze for future use.

And now that I’ve finished my notes, I’m off to bed, late as usual. I wonder if I’ll sleep as deeply as I did last night, or was that just a one-off? We shall see.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about those skeletons in that cemetery at Maiden Castle… "well, one of us has" – ed … Tessa Wheeler asked her husband Mortimer "fancy letting themselves be killed like that. Why didn’t they fight back at all?"
"Well, darling" said Mortimer "people like that just don’t have the guts to do it."

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Friday 26th December 2025 – I SHALL BE GLAD …

… when today is over and I’m tucked up in my little cot. It’s not been a very good day today.

It all went wrong last night when it seemed to take an age to make and eat my tea. As a result, everything else was running horribly late. It took hours to finish my notes and it was long after 23:30 when I finally crawled into bed.

What hadn’t helped was the fact that I’d fallen asleep several times while at the computer. It wasn’t as if it had done me any good either because I still felt just as tired as I had been earlier

And as usual, we had the very disappointing situation of being awake at 04:35 and not being able to go back to sleep, no matter how hard I tried.

Every cloud has a silver lining, though. After about an hour or so, I hauled myself out of bed, moved over to the desk and dictated the radio notes that I’d typed earlier in the week. When it was time to go for a scrub up, I’d even begun to edit them.

In the bathroom I had a wash, a shave and a good scrub of some of the clothes, and then wandered into the kitchen for the medication and the hot drink. I wasn’t very impressed with the state of the kitchen, though. Although I’d done all of the washing-up, there was still other stuff lying around that I should have tidied up. I’m not doing very well at the moment.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And last night, TOTGA put in an appearance. So “welcome back, TOTGA”. We’d been talking about two of her children who were still at primary school at the moment. They were just finishing Year 5. I asked how they were doing and she said that they seemed to be doing fine. I mentioned something about them being twins, always being promoted, going up to the next year together etc. But if one had to double a year, what would the other one do? She said that the girl is already well in advance of all of her fellow pupils so she’s almost certainly going to have no problems, but the boy is a typical boy and we’ll have to see. “I don’t know what they’d do if that ever were to happen”.

In British schools, children don’t double a year as they do in France. They push on to the next year, regardless of their academic abilities. Or, at least, they used to. I’ve no idea what the situation is now. Just like everything else, times have evolved.

In the meantime, something else that was happening was that I was walking and I had no idea why I was doing it but I was walking miles along this path at the sid of this main road. As I came into a town, I saw a lorry ahead of me suddenly swerve onto the wrong side of the road and stop. It was foggy so I couldn’t see what had happened but I imagined that there had almost been an accident or something. When I was further on, I could see that some lorry, like the red one of my brother-in-law, had come out of a workshop doing body repair. When it was turning to join the route, it hit a parked car. I thought “that’s an expensive body job that he’s just had done, isn’t it?”. I walked on down this steep hill into the centre of the town. I remember seeing a shop, closed and boarded up that was a former “Boots” shop. And then up the steep hill and out of the town. There was someone else walking up that hill but I walked past them. The woman said “did you receive that image that I sent to you?”. I’d no idea what she was talking about so I just said “I can’t remember now for the moment”. She went on and on about this image as I was walking past her and walking further on. At the top of the hill, there was a beautiful view across the countryside. The sun was starting to go down and I suddenly realised that I had to go back to fetch the van. I’d walked miles, so how on earth was I going to go back and fetch the van in the couple of hours before it’s dark? So I crossed over the road and began to hitchhike back the way that I had come. When I came into town, there was a crowd of people gathered round some kind of office. I stopped and went to see what was happening. It was the local planning consent people so I produced a baguette and a loaf of bread that I had in my van. I interrupted the proceedings and said that I’d like to apply for planning permission to open a bakery. I explained that the reason why I hadn’t made an application in time was that I’d only just been made redundant. In the end, they turned down my application on the spot. I asked if it was because it was late. They replied “no” because I needed to check out all these other kinds of things. So I climbed back into my van but he stopped me. He asked for the keys to the van so I gave them to him. he opened the side door and he could see that it was full of total rubbish so he closed the door again and handed me the keys. He said “the inside of your van is disgusting”.

What was impressive about that was that in the dream, I could recognise the red lorry. But although I said “brother-in-law”, it actually belongs to my niece’s husband and it’s the one that I drove from New Brunswick in Canada down to New Hampshire one year to deliver for repair an engine that had thrown a con-rod out of the side of the block.

Walking aimlessly around like that is something that I probably would have done in my youth. I often wandered over the hills and moors from one youth hostel to the next. It was lovely and peaceful and gave me plenty of time to reflect. But the inside of my van being a total tip? Now there’s a surprise!

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in later, bringing with her the news that outside, it was minus two degrees and she’d had to scrape the ice off her windscreen. So winter is a-cumen in. Lhude sing Rudolph, hey? No wonder I was feeling cold.

As she left, I gave her a little present – a slice of my Christmas cake and a mince pie in a plastic box. I’m feeling generous this year.

The plan was to make my Boxing Day breakfast as yesterday, but for some reason, I couldn’t face it. I decided to postpone it until Sunday when I’d have more time and went with the more usual breakfast of porridge, toast and coffee.

However, I did allow myself the luxury of mushroom pâté on the toast. And that gave me an idea. I make my own hummus every now and again, so why not try to find a recipe to make mushroom pâté?

In A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE, our author James Curle is now beginning to describe the excavations.

This is the interesting part because although we’re only on page 68 (of 708!), I’ve already learnt a great deal about how it all works and how they were able to identify the different layers of building and demolition. He makes plenty of assumptions about what he’s seeing, but most importantly, he explains exactly why he’s made those assumptions, and I wish that more people would do that.

Not for nothing has this book been described as " … a standard reference work, ahead of its time and still the most decisive work published in Scotland covering this period of Roman occupation, expansion and retreat."

Back in here, the first thing that I did when I sat down at my chair was to crash out. I’ve no idea why because I hadn’t seen it coming. I know that I’d been feeling out-of-sorts this morning, but I had simply brushed it off as one of those things.

It wasn’t just for five minutes either. I worked out that it was about 09:45 when I came back in here, and it was 11:20 when I awoke.

That had rather snookered my plans for today. I had wanted to finish this radio programme before going to dialysis but I was now lagging way behind and I was nowhere near finished when my cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic.

The taxi driver had a struggle to find me today. He hadn’t been to pick me up for ages, this one, so having come into the building with someone else instead of ringing my doorbell, he went up to the old place and was hanging around there when my cleaner discovered him.

We had to go to pick up someone else on the way, and he kept us hanging around for hours, so we were late arriving at dialysis. And there, they were in the middle of a crisis so instead of about 14:00 as is supposed to be, it was 14:50 when I was plugged in.

There had been another crisis too. On the way in, I nipped to the bathroom. And there, I found that I couldn’t rise up after the performance was finished. I had no end of a struggle, and it exhausted me. I’ve mentioned just recently that I’ve noticed a further weakening of the muscles, and it looks like I’m not wrong. This really is the end.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’d ended up making two Christmas cakes, due to the fact that I’d made too much mix. I took the smaller one into dialysis and presented it to the staff and let them demolish it. It’s probably the last time that I’ll see Julie the Cook, who is moving on to pastures new in the New Year, and I wanted her and her colleagues to sample my delights. She came to tell me how impressed she was with the cake, and that pleased me enormously.

There was football on the internet this afternoon – Penybont v Llansawel. I’ve mentioned in the past that Penybont have gone right off the boil just recently and have fallen down the table from a commanding second position to an also-ran fourth place. Today was more of the same as they ground out a 1-1 draw at home to a team third from bottom.

What didn’t help them was having to play eighty-three minutes with ten men, having had a player sent off after seven minutes for “striking an opponent”. Ironically, it’s the same player who was also sent off after seven minutes for “serious foul play” in his previous match.

The comments that his manager made after the first sending-off have led to him being charged with “bringing the game into disrepute” and “insulting and offensive language”, or some such, so I’ll be interested to hear what he has to say this time. But having seen both incidents numerous times, I don’t think that there’s any real cause to complain about either.

Eventually, they came to unplug me, hours later than I would have liked, and I staggered out to the taxi. I clearly wasn’t well, and I don’t know why.

Back here, my faithful cleaner helped me into the apartment, and after she left, I made tea. I wasn’t really in the mood for it, and a fair proportion ended up in the bin. I did manage a small slice of Christmas pudding afterwards, and that was excellent. I’m well-impressed with my Christmas cooking and baking, that’s for sure.

One sad part about it though was the number of times that I fell asleep while I was trying to eat. I almost fell off my chair at least twice.

Back in here, I began to type out my notes, but I couldn’t. I’d done four lines and that was that. I really couldn’t keep going any longer. I simply typed out a somewhat … err … terse remark and went to bed where I don’t care if I sleep for a week.

But seeing as we have been talking about archaeology … "well, one of us has" – ed … Nerina once told me that instead of marrying me, she should have married an archaeologist.
"Why is that, dear?"
"As I grow older, the more interesting he’d find me."

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Thursday 25th December 2025 – AND A MERRY …

… Christmas to all our readers.

That was something that we would always see on the front cover of our “Beano” and “Dandy” annuals when I was a small child.

A few years later, when I was an adolescent, coming home from the pubs in Crewe late at night, I would see it too, amongst the many cheery greetings written on the walls of the … errr … Gentlemen’s Restrooms at Crewe Bus Station.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I passed my Biology “O” Levels thanks to a careful study of the helpful notes and diagrams on the walls therein and shall always be grateful for their help, but I feel for the current generation of schoolkids who will no longer have the opportunity to do so.

That’s because in anticipation of all of this money coming to the town from HS2 and the new Northern Rail Centre, they demolished the bus station and the shopping precinct. But then, HS2 was cancelled, and the Northern Rail Centre went to Derby instead, so now they have an area that looks like the Gaza Strip after a Zionist peacekeeping mission, with no plans to do anything and no money with which to do anything.

Anyway, I digress … "again" – ed …

So today, I have emulated my namesake, the mathematician, and done three fifths of five eighths of … errr … nothing. And I really mean that too. It’s been the laziest day that I can ever imagine.

No surprise though. Last night, I was horribly late again, as I mentioned yesterday. And so, waking up at … errr … 01:30 was a total surprise to me. I stayed awake for a while too but eventually managed to go back to sleep, where I remained until the alarm went off at 06:29.

It took a good few minutes for me to summon up the energy and struggle into the bathroom, and then I had a leisurely start to the day in the kitchen for the hot lemon, ginger and honey drink and medication. I was in no hurry at all.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I’d been working for Shearings again on the coaches. I’d done a feeder for them from all over the Greater Manchester area into the depot. I had to have a map to find out where I was supposed to be and it was sitting in my lap. However, the roundabout round which you went into the depot – you had to go two hundred and seventy degrees around it, swing very sharply to the right and then very sharply to the left, then in through a door like the door of a house and it was very tight. You had to get it exactly right or you would have problems. However, as I was going round this roundabout, I dropped the map and I couldn’t put my foot on the brake so I had to do this at twenty mph. I was closing my eyes and gritting my teeth all the way and eventually managed to go in without hitting anything. The transport manager was on the gate controlling everyone’s entry. He was in a wheelchair. He said “did you have any trouble picking up at the marketplace in Swinton?”. I replied “not really, but they weren’t very happy but I picked up all the same”. He replied “yes, but they’ve been on to us again about that place”. I asked him what had happened to him that he was in a wheelchair. He replied that during his holidays he had had an accident with a garden roller that had run over him. I thought that that was a horrible thing to do. I then started up the coach and went to look for my bay to unload the passengers.

Well, at least driving coaches is better than driving taxis, I suppose. But that roundabout where you go round two hundred and seventy degrees and then immediately on leaving, the road takes a dramatic turn, but to the right, is the St. Gaud roundabout here in Granville.

There was an occasion when I was doing a feeder around east Manchester for Shearings, and another driver had missed some passengers at Swinton. When I ‘phoned in to check things, they sent me across the city to pick up the missed passengers.

Isabelle the Nurse was much, much later than usual, and she brought us a Christmas gift – a small box of chocolates. It was very nice of her, but they are of no use to me, as they are all milk chocolates.

She had her Father Christmas earrings in today, and they looked quite cute.

She brought with her some dramatic news – at 03:00 this morning we had had a heavy snowfall and when she went out to start her round at 06:00, some of the cars still had a covering of snow

After she left, I prepared breakfast. Porridge and coffee, baked beans on toast with hash browns and vegan sausage finished off with toast and mushroom pâté.

Despite all the time that the beans had been in the slow cooker, they were still quite hard. However, the sauce was excellent. I shall have to find another type of white bean to try. The hash browns, though, were perfection. Just as good, if not better, than shop-bought ones.

It took two hours to make breakfast and to eat it. I was in no hurry here either. It gave me plenty of time to carry on reading A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE.

James Curle has now finished the preamble and the excavations have begun. He makes several notes about the standard construction of many of these forts, as if there was a standard design, and mentions on several occasions that "Hyginus advises …"

And so accordingly, I went in search of works by Hyginus and found that there is a book entitled De Munitionibus Castrorum – “Concerning The Fortifications Of A Military Camp” of which at one time (although no longer) he was considered to be the author.

The book does indeed describe the “correct” construction and layout of a Roman fort and its defences. I actually found an English translation from the Latin but it’s not downloadable as a *.pdf so I’ve been making my own *.pdf version.

Back in here, I lounged about for a few hours and then went for my Christmas cake and mince pie. The cake is also perfection – I’ve never tasted one as good as mine and for a change, it doesn’t crumble into crumbs. The pastry for the mince pies is overbaked and too hard. I’ll have to steam the next one in the microwave before I eat it.

At 16:00, Ingrid rang me up for a chat. Long time, no see. We were on the line for fifty minutes talking about not very much. It’s lovely to talk to old friends, and I miss the Auvergne.

After we hung up, I … errr … closed my eyes for a while – some time, in fact – and when I finally awoke, I just mooched around until tea time.

Tea tonight was vegan wellington with carrots, leeks, peas, sprouts, mashed sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, roast potatoes and gravy. It was lovely too. There should have been Christmas pudding and custard for afters but by now I was totally full and couldn’t manage it.

Anyway, I’m all washed and changed, so now I’m off to bed, hoping that it’s not another one of these 01:30 starts. I want a good sleep.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the … errr … Gentleman’s Restroom on Crewe Bus Station as was … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember when they were opened in 1963.
Crewe Borough Council had advertised that there would be a guided tour around the “facilities” on Crewe Bus Station so I rang up to enquire about the price.
"Two shillings and sixpence" came the voice in reply. And, after a pause, "or two shillings and sevenpence if you want to see all of it. "

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Saturday 20th December 2025 – I HAD A …

… lie-in this morning.

At least, by current standards, that is. I didn’t wake up until all of 04:22 today, and isn’t that a change?

It was probably because I was even more tired than usual last night. Although after tea I was feeling rather perky, it didn’t last long and I was hit with an overwhelming wave of fatigue and ended up falling asleep I don’t know how many times while trying to type my notes.

As a result, it was another one of those evenings that should have been an early night but wasn’t – not by any means. It was a good 23:30 when I finally crawled into bed, and how grateful was I? Not as grateful as I would have liked because it took a while to go off to sleep.

Anyway, as I said just now, I awoke at about 04:22 and reckoned that I would give it half an hour and then raise myself from the Dead, but the next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 06:29.

Eventually, I managed to heave myself out of bed and into the bathroom to sort myself out. While I was in there, I filled the washing machine and set it off on its rounds. And there are STILL some clothes that wouldn’t fit in.

In the kitchen, I made my hot ginger, honey and lemon drink and took my medication, and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. I was back on the taxis again last night. I was driving a hackney carriage and was taking some passengers towards the hospital. We were fairly busy at that point, but a couple of jobs had become confused, and the dispatcher was trying to sort them all out. In the meantime, when I made it to the hospital to drop off these two people, two other people came running out from under the porchway and asked me if I was free. I told them that I was, because these other jobs would sort themselves out. These people climbed in and asked to go to the “Lion and Swan”. Suddenly, I had a mental blank and couldn’t think of where the “Lion and Swan” was. Then I realised that it was along West Street somewhere so I headed off down that way and came to one of these complicated road junctions where I had to turn left and then right. Once I’d sorted myself out there, I turned right whereas I should have turned left. The guy suddenly thought “no, it’s the wrong name of the pub”. It turned out that when he told me the name, we were going in the right direction. When we arrived at where he wanted to go, he and his partner stepped out. I went inside with them and was making some cheese and tomato sandwiches for them.

This is becoming ridiculous, isn’t it? Why am I dreaming all the time about driving taxis? We have had some recurring dreams in the past, plenty of them, but none have recurred as regularly as this. As to having a mental block, that’s the kind of thing that happens all the time. There’s nothing new here. However, it’s very unlikely that I would be making sandwiches for my passengers.

The nurse turned up, his usual cheerful self. I reminded him that I’m having a lie-in and not to forget the coffee. I would write out his reply, but these are, after all, family pages.

Once he’d gone, I made breakfast and then read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

He’s still wandering aimlessly around the roads of mid-Wales, not really being able to identify where he is or where some of his camps might be. That’s actually no surprise because, for one or two of the places that he mentioned, I can’t find anything either – not even a mention of their existence. While I was researching, I came across a decent modern map of Roman roads and camps in South and Mid Wales, but it’s embedded and difficult to extract.

After I’d finished, I went to collect the washing and hang it up on the clothes airer that my faithful cleaner had put out for me yesterday when she was here. And then, I had work to do.

And by the time I’d finished, so were my mince pies. Six nice, baked and golden brown ones: two for Christmas Day, two for Boxing Day and two for New Year’s Day. They don’t look very nice, it has to be said, because I baked them in a silicone pie mould, and it’s not as reliable as a metal one, but they still smell like mince pies.

However, I actually cheated because the pastry is a roll of flaky pastry rather than homemade. I did once ask Liz how to make flaky pastry but it sounded so complicated that I decided against it.

There was plenty of pastry left over too, so for the first time in I don’t know how long, I made a jam roly-poly.

Back in here, I was exhausted. I sat down in my comfortable chair and did nothing for about ninety minutes while I gathered my wits. And seeing how few wits I have these days, I’m surprised that it took me that long.

Once I’d recovered and had a disgusting drink break, I attacked the next radio programme. I’ve chosen all of the music for it, remixed and edited it, paired and segued it. And then in another wild fit of enthusiasm, I chose all of the music for the following one too. So now I have four radio programmes on the go as I try to build up another good head of steam following all of the disturbances this summer.

Actually, I could have made much more progress than I did. At 16:00, I had another one of these overwhelming waves of fatigue and crashed out for about half an hour or so.

Tea tonight was baked potato, vegan salad and one of those quorn fillets that I like, followed by a slice of jam roly-poly with, for a change, vegan mango sorbet. One of these days, I’m going to push the boat out and try to make some vegan ice cream. I have some almond milk that needs using, so with some cream of coconut and some grated chocolate, it has the potential of being something special.

But not tonight because I’m off to bed. It might, if I’m lucky, be a lie-in in the morning but the way that things have been going just recently, it’s unlikely.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about recurring dreams … "well, one of us has" – ed … another recurring dream that I have is about football, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.
That used to bother me so much that when the trick cyclist came to see me at dialysis the other week, I told her about it.
"It’s pretty much the same dream every night" I said. "I dreamed that I was playing in the Welsh Cup. The first night, it was the First Preliminary Round, the second night, it was the Second Preliminary Round, the third night, the Third Preliminary Round, the fourth night, it was the first round proper all the way through to last night when it was the semi-finals. I’m totally exhausted after all this football."
"Not to worry" she replied. "I’ll prescribe a somnifer for you for tonight. You’ll sleep like a baby, and you’ll have no dreams at all."
"Oh, I can’t take it tonight! " I said
"Why not?"
"I might be playing in the Cup Final"

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Wednesday 25th December 2024 – A MERRY CHRISTMAS …

… to all our readers.

And so it once said on the walls of the public conveniences on Crewe Bus Station, now sadly demolished after a life of just 60 years.

a World-famous place were the toilets on Crewe Bus Station. The number of times I’ve GONE DOWN TO THE BOG AND WARMED MY FEET at Crewe Bus Station. And of course, I passed my Biology ‘O-Level’ only thanks to the helpful drawings on the back of the doors, and future generations will all be denied the privilege of the revision notes, and also of knowing the whereabouts of Kilroy that particular week.

But I digress … "again" – ed …

It will probably be after midnight when you read these notes, because I’m much later even than usual today, but anyway, I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas and that Santa was kind to you.

As for me, it’s one year closer to destiny. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … no-one with this illness has lived longer than 11 years so I’m due to be gone by November 2026 at the latest.

And to be honest, regular readers of this rubbish will recall several occasions where I’ve been teetering on the edge of throwing in the towel. In the Summer I was actually preparing my funeral. One of these days I’ll not be able to pull myself out of wherever I slide into

Last night though, I had difficulty sliding out of my chair and into my bed. I was working away at a couple of things that I was doing and 01:00 came round, then 02:00 and finally 03:00 which was when I called it a night and went to bed.

What awoke me was a message on my telephone. And to my dismay, it was merely 08:40. No alarm, hoping for a nice long lie-in, and it was 08:40. By 09:00 I’d given up trying to sleep and rose up from the Slough of Despond and staggered off into the bathroom.

There is no nurse this morning, which is just as well, so I made breakfast. Porridge and toast with vegan cheese spread, beans on toast with sausage and home-made hash browns, and I forgot the mushrooms. Plenty of strong black coffee of course.

For Christmas morning I like to have a nice brunch-type breakfast. It’s not on the scale of a Taylor Breakfast Brunch in New Brunswick, with people known to have travelled hundred miles to partake, but it will do.

While I was eating, I was reading MY NEW BOOK.

Today we’re discussing the coming of the Bronze Age to the British isles, some Centuries after it had spread all over the Continent, and also the hundreds of hillforts that were built round about this time.

His writing is nothing really but page after page after page of pure assumption and guesswork, rather spoiled by the sideways swipes that he takes at his contemporaries who are also writing books based on sheer, but different assumptions.

As for hillforts, using a lovely bit of rhetorical hyperbole, he tells us that "they are conspicuous on nearly all the hilly districts of England, Wales, and Scotland".

He passes lightly over the construction of the forts which is a shame because there is a lot to say about theat. And then he mentions next-to-nothing at all about what I consider the most astonishing points –

Firstly, who organised the construction? We stood on one back in 2006 and noted that it was immense, and there are many forts much bigger than where we were. The labour that went into building one of those must have been enormous, and someone must have had enough influence on the local population to oblige them to participate for as long as it took to build them, abandoning their work on the land.

Secondly, who was threatening them that they needed the protection of one of these hillforts? It can’t have been anyone insignificant like a local rival tribe. These forts are much more significant than just a simple refuge from marauding bands.

For once, he doesn’t say very much, and that’s disappointing. I expected streams of comment about hillforts.

Back in here I listened to the dictaphone to find out what had been going on during the night. There was a party of elves out on a patrol somewhere. They came across a small group of humans trying to move surreptitiously through the long grass. Rather reluctantly the elves took it upon themselves to escort these humans through this disputed territory and out the other side, in the hope that no-one else crosses the threshold and brings danger with them. When they were halfway across they were ambushed in a surprise attack by a group of orcs and so many of their people were actually killed. The elf leader was standing there despondent. He caused everyone, including the two of us, to sing a song praising the elves, the heroic of the elves. I asked how much longer we had to serve. He replied “not very many at all” but he expected us, having undergone our education and schooling with the elves, to stay behind in this time of danger and repay the State by fighting on its behalf.

Elves and Orcs? I must stop watching THE HOBBIT as I eat my tea. It’s hobbit-forming. And did you notice how half-way through, the “they” turned to a “us”? When did I become involved in this dream.

Back in the olden days, not only was university tuition free, students received maintenance grants to go to University too. And many of them still had to do their National Service when they graduated – a way of repaying the State “by fighting on its behalf”

Today, I have emulated my namesake the mathematician by doing three-fifths of five-eights of … errr … nothing. Really I haven’t. I found some football to watch and then I’ve been playing about sorting some directories out on the computer.

That however caused me to be so engrossed that I didn’t even think about lunch but I will tell you something for nothing, and that is that my mince pies and Christmas cake are really wonderful. I have really produced something exceptional with that lot and I was so pleased when I sampled it at 16:00 during my hot chocolate break. I’ll make some more of that if I’m still here next year.

Tea was my Christmas dinner of course, minus the stuffing that I forgot to make. It was a slice of that vegan wellington that has been in the freezer since last year, with steamed veg (including endives, sprouts, cauliflower and leeks) but I was so full after that I decided to forego the Christmas pudding. That shall be tomorrow’s pudding, and for a few days after too.

So it’s now after midnight and I’m letting it all hang out yet again. Still working too at this time of night. Whatever next?

But talking about the long grass in that dream … "well, one of us is" – ed … reminds me of the explorers in the savannah of South Africa in the 19th Century who came across a tribe of pygmies, previously undiscovered by Europeans
The reason why they had remained undiscovered for so long was that they were only three feet tall, and the savannah grass was four feet tall so they had never been seen.
Cecil Rhodes, the British Administrator sent for one of the explorers and asked him what he knew about the tribe
"They have a very strange dance that they do, jumping up and down" and he said "and they are called the “Hellawi” tribe"
"How did you come to find that out?" asked Rhodes
"They told me" said the explorer.
"How did they do that"
"There they were, in the savannah, doing their dance, jumping up and down" said the explorer "and shouting ‘we’re the Hellawi’."

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Sunday 22nd December 2024 – I SOMETIMES WONDER …

… where I’d be now if I head my head switched on all the time, instead of just occasionally in the odd, rare flashing moments of inspiration.

But when it does happen, it reminds me of Kenneth Williams who once famously said "sometimes I’m taken aback by my own brilliance".

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that for a number of weeks now I’ve been having a really hard time in the kitchen, as standing on my feet for several hours is killing me completely.

So this morning, as Isabelle the nurse was oiling my legs and fitting my compression socks and I had my leg resting on the stool for the electronic drum kit, I suddenly thought “stool”.

For weeks now I’ve wanted one of these screw stools, where the seat is adjustable for height, so I could sit in the kitchen at the right height when I’m working and just swivel round to reach for what I needed. And there this morning, I thought “drum stool”.

Sure enough, when I had a look at my stool I found that the seat was adjustable for height. Not as much as I would like, but it made a real difference. For much of the day I’ve been working in the kitchen and being quite comfortable about it, because I’ve been sitting down and that makes quite a difference.

But returning to last night, after I’d finished my notes and everything that I had to do, I dictated the radio notes that I’d written last week and then went to bed. it was 23:40 which meant that although it was later than my ideal time of 23:00, the alarm was set for 08:00 so I was due for a decent, long sleep.

Or so I thought.

It might have been that I was asleep quite quickly, but it didn’t stay like that. It was another night of fitful sleep, tossing and turning and drenched in sweat like a few nights have been after the dialysis.. By 07:40 I decided to call it a day and when the alarm went off at 08:00 I was already up and about

Isabelle the nurse was early to day. There are no blood tests to perform as the laboratory is closed on Sundays. She did what we had to and we talked about the storm, the train cancellations and the cancellation of the Christmas parade.

The storm – yes. It’s a permanent fixture now. We have another one blowing like a hurricane. All trains along the coastal line between Caen, Granville and Rennes are cancelled and as I said just now, the Christmas parade is cancelled too.

After she left I made breakfast and then read MY NEW BOOK.

We’re discussing Palaeolithic, Stone Age Britain at the moment and in particular, the religious element.

The author, Thomas Rice Holmes, is struck with the idea that the Ancient Briton worshipped his weapons and prayed to his God to bless them. However, I have another theory.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m a great believer in the existence of the sixth sense. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few months ago we discussed how it was possible to stare at someone from a window, and after a while they would suddenly turn round and look up at you. Did anyone try it?

So what I’m thinking about this devotion or prayer is that it isn’t devotion or prayer at all. It’s ancient, prehistoric man concentrating hard on his weapon and transferring some of his mysticism and will to it so that when he would throw it, it would travel straight and true in accordance with its owner’s wishes.

Of course, that’s not so far removed from praying, but I think that it’s important to identify it correctly. But what do I know anyway?

There’s an interesting quote in the book that certainly struck a chord with me. He quotes an unknown author who once said "as I moved from place to place, I somehow seemed to know less and less, and I cannot say what would have been the result" That is something to which I can really relate.

But while we’re on the subject of Thomas Rice Holmes … "well, one of us is" – ed … I had a look on the internet to see what was known about him. I mentioned the other day his love of polemic and light-hearted “frank exchanges of views”, and someone called Bill Thayer, a commentator on ancient texts, notes that amongst Rice Holmes and his contemporaries, there was "a flurry of argument and counter-argument"

It looks as if I’m going to be in for a bumpy ride.

After reading my book, I started work, armed with my revolving stool.

First thing was to make some dough. If I’m having soup at lunchtime, I’m having fresh bread so I want to make a bap. One thing about the air fryer is that you can cook small amounts of bread so 100 grams of flour made a lovely bread mix, which I left to fester.

And then, people, I marzipanned my Christmas cake. The marzipan rolled out nicely and with some of the jam that my friends in Macon gave me last time I was there, it stuck a treat to the Christmas cake. Then the cake went back into the fridge to cool down

Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Someone came round to the house for a taxi. While he was waiting for a taxi to pull up, he began to nibble away at all my cheese on the kitchen worktop. After a couple of minutes I told him that if he doesn’t stop I’m going to charge him for it. He carried on nibbling so I had a look at the shopping list and said “right, that’s £1:60 for the cheese”. He replied “oh no, it’s £0:60”. I insisted on £1:60 and if he didn’t like it he could clear off. He cleared off, uttering all kinds of threats like dancing up and down on the vehicles, making a noise, slitting the tyres etc. I told him that anyone who does anything to any of my vehicles would need a very good doctor. Then he left. When I came back in the girl on the radio said “you’d better go to see your brother in law. His car’s on fire”. Just then a car pulled up. Two passengers, a very young girl and a woman alighted and so did my youngest sister’s husband. I had a look underneath it. It looked clean and tidy, and I couldn’t see anything. A asked “are you sure that this car has caught fire?”. He replied “the little girl is”. I replied “I can’t see anything at all under here that shows any sign of flames”.

The one thing that I miss since I’ve been on this vegan diet is the cheese. I used to love cheese and I could eat tons of it. But not any more, unfortunately. Vegan cheese is a very poor substitute. It’s just over 32 years – October 1992 in fact – since my pancreas gave out. And all the meat in my freezer that I had to give away that night when I came home from the doctor’s!

At the hospital they had given me four options –
1) – transplant. But the transplant was in its infancy and the success rate wasn’t assured.
2) – injections every day. But then I’d lose my professional driving licences
3) – die
4) – try to control it by diet, eliminating all animal fats

So while I went onto this extreme diet overnight, I thought that I may as well go the whole hog too so apart from that evening up on that mountain in Bulgaria with Percy Penguin and a host of other skiers lost in the fog in 1994, not a drop of alcohol has crossed my lips.

And it worked too. I lost 10kg almost immediately and in Brussels a couple of months later I started running again. And as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I was still running up until just two or three years ago.

Later on, I had to go to see a psychiatrist or psychologist or someone or other so I took myself off to his premises. It turned out to be a shop somewhere in the Ardennes and he was the shopkeeper. He was busy serving people so I sat myself down in the corner, took up my laptop and began to work. After a while he finished serving his customers and came over. I put everything away. He asked “you aren’t working today are you?”. I explained that I was always working. He was astonished by that. He said “we aren’t all that enthusiastic about work here in the Ardennes”. I replied “I can see that, looking at some of these dusty shops that need a good clean”. He smiled and just then another customer came in and was waiting to be served. I told him that he had a customer. He replied “so what?”. I asked “aren’t you going to serve her?”. He grudgingly picked himself up and wandered off over there and I took out my laptop again anfd began to work.

Having done that, this dream restarted when he came back and sat down on the bench by me. I said “I hear that you have been having trouble to pee”. I wondered how he’d heard that. I hadn’t said anything to him about that up until that moment just then.

Anyone who wants to go to see a psychiatrist needs his head examined. Quite But here’s another dream into which I stepped back later. What can’t I do that whenever Zero, Castor or TOTGA come around? I can’t imagine wanting to do that with a psychiatrist. I must need my head examining.

And that reminds me – the trick cyclist from the hospital hasn’t been to see me for ages. Has she forgotten me too?

Finally, I was at school and had been into town for lunch. I’d ended up in a big shoe shop, toy shop, department store. The queues were enormous and I had to fight my way around. There were people queueing on the stairs and I had a great deal of difficulty trying to go down them. People were going down either side of these people queueing on the stairs, making things even more difficult. Eventually I could extract myself and head back to school. I heard a voice behind me say “oh there’s someone else late for school. Let’s run and see if we can beat him and he’ll be last”. I made it back to school first and the teacher was already in my classroom teaching so I slunk in and sat at my seat, late again. He was already talking to the kids about the “Dirty Harry”, or was it “The Godfather” films, asking how long this series continued. Someone said “fifteen years” but he replied that in fact it was thirty years, which surprised everyone. Then we began to discuss the plot for another film. I began to dream about Eastwood who had been on a mission somewhere and had met a lonely girl in a bar. He’d spent the evening with her and then gone his separate ways. Next morning he’d looked for her name in the ‘phone book, went to a florist’s and ordered some flowers and sent them to her. Then, as arranged, went round to see her in the afternoon. He had a gold-coloured sports car in which he took off from the side of the kerb on the wrong side of the road and had to weave in through the traffic to do a U-turn and then headed off. He reached the address where there were a few people wandering around. Some woman came up to him and said something about him being in his work clothes. He asked “how do you know?”. She replied “you’ve changed since you were here last night”. He asked the people what was going on. Someone said “it’s a woman”. he worked out that it was the woman whom he’d come to see. “She’d committed suicide last night just after you had gone”. It turned out that she had a gunshot wound in the neck from previously. When he’d given her a playful karate chop he’d missed that gunshot wound by millimetres. He was wondering what on earth had happened that had made her want to commit suicide because she was certainly the kind who was depressed, being lonely in a bar but he thought that his presence would have cheered her up a little

It’s been a long time since I’ve had an epic dream like that. It’s one of these major ones that keep on going and going and it’s a shame that there was no nice young female involved with me appearing in that dream, as there sometimes is. It’s interesting though that there’s a “dream within a dream”. We’ve had a few of those where we’ve managed to move up a level. Not quite the 25th level, about which Dennis Wheatley used to brag, but a step up all the same

And here I am, scriptwriting in the night too. Is there no end to my nocturnal talents?

Back in the kitchen, I made my broccoli stalk soup, remembering to put the little pasta elbows in today. My bread went up like a lift, the best that I’ve ever made, and the soup was totally delicious with a tub of soya yoghurt tipped into it. What a nice lunch that was!

Then it was mince pie time. I have two rolls of puff pastry but I only used one. That made the bases and tops for five pies which is a nice number over Christmas. And in my silicon pie mould, five pies used half a jar of mincemeat. At this rate there will be enough mincemeat in stock for five more years

Football was next, Stranraer against Stirling Albion, who had a friend of mine in goal. And I have never seen so many open goals missed by Stranraer or saved by David Gaston. Some phrase concerning stringed musical instruments and the nether regions of certain ruminant animals sprung to my mind as I watched Stranraer miss open goal after open goal.

They finally managed to score right at the end of the game, only for Stirling to roar upfield and score an equaliser with probably their only shot of the game.

There won’t be another game like that ever again.

Making dough was next. I’ve run out for the pizza and that’s a calamity so I made a 500 gram mix, put two lumps in the freezer and the third lump I used as tonight’s meal.

Next was icing the Christmas cake. And despite it being cold, the icing kept on sliding down the side and I had to keep on spreading it back up. But that icing knife that I bought from Noz is a great tool to have. It made the job much easier than it might have been

While I was assembling the pizza I had the oven on, baking the mince pies. Now they are done and they look delicious. My pizza was delicious too.

You might think that after all of that, with the pudding that’s in the freezer, I’m ready for Christmas. But that’s not so. While I was working this afternoon I kept on thinking, as I was talking to Rosemary (I managed that too) “thers’s something else that I’ve forgotten”.

And now I know what it is. I forgot the hash browns.

So that will be the job tomorrow before I go to the Dialysis Clinic.

As well as all of that and chatting to Rosemary, I’ve been working on some of the radio notes too, and I’m exhausted which is no surprise.

In a few minutes, I’ll be off to bed. And then it’ll start all over again tomorrow. It’s relentless

But while we’re on the subject of football, dreams and psychiatrists … "well, one of us is" – ed … I once went to see a psychiatrist (well, I actually went more than once, but that’s another story)
"Doctor doctor" I said "I’m having these terrible dreams. I’ve seen all these ants playing football in the Ants World Cup. We’ve had a round of thirty-two, then a round of sixteen, then a round of eight, then a round of four. It’s driving me out of my mind, doctor. Please help me"
"Well, never mind" said the doctor. "Take this prescription to the chemist, have it made up and take two of the tablets tonight. I promise you – you’ll sleep like a baby and you won’t have any dreams at all"
"Ohh – I can’t do that tonight doctor" I said
"Why not?"
"Well, they are playing in the final tonight and I don’t want to miss that!"

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Wednesday 23d December 2020 – WHILE YOU ADMIRE …

storm high winds sea wall port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall… the storm and the high winds that were blasting us here on the Pointe du Roc all through the day, let me tell you about my miserable day today.

And it isn’t as you might think, because although I didn’t beat the third alarm to my feet, I managed to only … “only, he says” – ed … miss it by 45 minutes and that’s an improvement on yesterday, for sure.

After the medication, I came back here to start on transcribing the notes off the dictaphone. And there were plenty of them today. It’s hardly surprising that I overslept with the distance that I had travelled during the night.

storm high winds sea wall port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric HallThere had been something to do with my house in Virlet only it wasn’t my house in Virlet at all. It was about all the brickwork in it, something like that and how untidy the place was. Some people whom I knew had been into it to fetch a couple of things and I hoped that they weren’t too put off by the untidy state of it. It made me wish that the place had burnt down or something or destroyed or demolished and I could start again and build something else on the site. So I walked off and it was a case of I climbed down this cliff and reached the bottom and had to walk off. I suddenly realised that this guy was fetching something so I had to go back and stand at the foot of this cliff while he threw it down to me. I noticed that he had 3 or 4 big packages but he threw 1 down and that seemed to be all that he was going to throw down. I couldn’t work out what this little thing was that he had thrown, what it was and how it worked. I couldn’t remember what he was going to throw me anyway. I was scratching my head all about this.

I’d been out on my usual evening walk and it had been terrible, really wet weather. I was walking around the edge of Espinasse and I had to go to the bathroom so I went to the little village hut place and went in there to the bathroom but found that the bowl of the WC had been broken and was all sellotaped off. In the end I couldn’t go so I gathered up my stuff. I’d heard someone come in in the meantime so I gathered up my stuff and walked out. There were a couple of girls in there so I walked on out and carried on with my walk. I ended up right on the far side of St Gervais down where you drop down towards the Sioule. I started thinking about going home but suddenly realised that I didn’t have my camera. I must have forgotten to pick it up when I was using the bathroom. I had to go from where I was to the other side of St Gervais all across the town and the countryside to return to Espinasse to where the toilet was in the hope that in the meantime no-one like these 2 girls had seen it, taken a fancy to it and disappeared with it. I had to set off and I knew that there was a short-cut through St Gervais right up this path. It was starting to become steeper and steeper and I was having breath problems but I was getting to the top. Then the path petered out and I ended up being right by the armco barrier of a garage selling Minis. A guy had come up the path and was following me up it. We had to inch our way along the brick work up this path. When it stopped I could see that the only solution was to climb over this armco and go into the area of this garage and walk through that way. This guy was as awkward as I was so when I worked out what I was going to do I asked him if he would like a hand. He looked at me totally puzzled as if “what would anyone need a hand for?” so I thought that I’d leave him to it.

storm high winds sea wall port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric HallSomewhere in this we were discussing recipes and a programme was being recorded for broadcasting on TV. Someone was having difficulty understanding the issue about small weights so I offered to give them a demonstration to show them. But there was much more to this dream that I’ve forgotten that I wish that I had remembered that I was going to be doing it when I dictated it but it all disappeared.

There were other types of bread available to use but I chose that particular one for some unknown reason using this oat and flour yeast thing and I couldn’t get them to go very much at all. (it looks as if I’ve missed something out here).

There was something a little bit about someone driving a car down the Freeway and they had to pull over to the side and stop as a police car with its lights flashing went past. All the vehicles that had pulled over and made room for the police car and stopped were then allowed to proceed but the police were interested in an old pickup with old Ohio number plates towing a trailer. When they looked at the trailer they told the guy that when he got to his destination he had to have it inspected and send the inspection to them which they did. When they received a copy of the inspection they found that it had failed on several things and issued him with a ticket. Someone was telling me that in Illinois they had the most trailers and hence the most oppressive police when it comes to inspecting them.

All of these travels and all of this distance, and no-one I know coming with me either.

And if you think that it took me a long time to type out all of that, it took me longer than you think because I had a computer issue after about 2/3 of it. Everything went “bang” and the computer locked up. At least, that’s what I thought at the time.

It was still there, switched on and apparently working but not doing anything, so after trying just about everything I shrugged my shoulders and hunted around at the back for the power switch, and switched it off.

Leaving it to cool down for about 15 minutes I switched it back on, and there we had a “no keyboard detected” error message, and no mouse either. So at least, the computer was doing something. I unplugged the keyboard and mouse and tried various USB ports and eventually it managed to work. There’s one bank of USB ports on the front and two banks at the back, and it seems that one bank at the back has burnt out.

Getting to it where it is is not an easy proposition so I’ve rigged something up temporarily and hope that it holds out until the New Year. And then I had to start the dictation again, seeing as I’d lost what I’d already typed out when I’d switched off the machine.

So limping along for the rest of the morning, I did some work on some of the arrears from the summer. I don’t think that I’ll ever finish this. But it was far too late to go to the shops for the Christmas veg. I’ll go tomorrow just to LIDL and what they don’t have, I’ll have to do without.

After lunch I’ve been a very busy bee – to such an extent that I even missed guitar practice (although I did find the time to do my Welsh homework).

Yes, although it’s not Pancake Tuesday, Eric’s busy baking.

First task was to take out a roll of flaky pastry from the fridge (I haven’t tried to make it yet) and then spread it out on my baking sheet.

I have one of these silicone 6-hole mini tart moulds so using that, I cut out 6 rings of pastry to fit in. And with my last jar of mincemeat, I filled them”. I then had to re-roll the remainder of the pastry to make 6 smaller rings to go on top. I moistened the edges of the pastry already in the mould with soya milk, put the new pastry rings on top and pressed them down with a fork to seal them.

Finally, brushed the top with milk and sprinkled brown sugar on top. And forgetting to prick them to let out the steam I put them in the oven for 40 minutes.

Then I mixed 10 spoons of icing sugar with 3 spoons of vegan margarine and several squirts of lemon juice and whipped it all up into a nice frothy mix and then spent a rather long, delicate time icing the cake that regular readers of this rubbish will recall me marzipanning at the weekend.

Finally, there was the kefir. some of the kiwis were nicely ripe so they were peeled and whizzed for ages into a very liquidy pulp which was then passed through the filter stack with the juice straining through into the large jug.

And then the kefir that had been brewing for a few days followed it through the stack into the jug too, leaving the obligatory inch or so at the bottom. Into what was left went 40 grammes of sugar, half a lemon sliced, a dried fig cut in 2 and then filled to within about an inch of the top.

kiwi kefir marzipan iced cake home made mince pies place d'armes Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallThe kefir and kiwi in the jug was all stirred in together and then passed through the filer stack into the various bottles which were then sealed. And I mustn’t forget to vent them regularly.

And here’s the finished product. The kefir looks OK, but then I’ve had plenty of practice with that. The mince pies are somewhat “artisanal”, as you might possibly expect, and as for the icing – well, it’s only the second time that I’ve ever done it and I don’t have the correct tools to do it anyway.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say, so we’ll find out about the mince pies on Christmas Eve and the ad-hoc Christmas cake on Christmas Day. What I can say right now is that I did my best

storm baie de Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallMustn’t forget the afternoon walk, which I fitted in in the middle of everything.

And I rather wished that I hadn’t bothered because the wind was thoroughly wicked this afternoon. I’d heard reports of wind gusting at 40mph (65kph) out in the English Channel and they mustn’t have been joking either because it really was wild out there. Even though the tide was well out, we were having nice crested whitecaps out there.

The bruit du couloir had told me that wile I was wrestling with the computer, Normandy Trader had done a quick aller-retour this morning. I’ll bet that they will know all about the storm out there in that little boat.

storm high winds pointe du roc Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallThe few people who were out there would know all about it too because while it was pretty strong out here in the car park, the wind increased in velocity the further along towards the headland I went.

It’s a real sou-wester that’s blowing today so here on the north side of the headland we are in some comparative shade, but even so, the waves are still coming in with quite some force onto the rocks down here by the Coastguard Station on the north side of the headland.

You can see how much of the water that sprays up from the rocks here is being whipped away by the wind. I’m glad that I’m downwind of it all.

sunset brittany coast baie de mont st michel Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallAcross the lawn I went, and across the car park and down to the very end of the headland.

It was almost impossible to stand here with the strength of the wind that was coming in with full force. There was, once more, a beautiful sunset so I took a photo of it while I was here. And that wasn’t easy at all in all of this wind and I almost ended up having to go running off after my hat but I grabbed at it just in time.

Out of the corner of my eye I’d seen the spray from the waves hitting the harbour wall round in the port, even though we’re a good couple of hours from high tide so I wandered off around there for a look – and you’ve seen the results.

cb-303-te citroen u23 old cars father christmas boulevard vaufleury Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallBut here’s something that I didn’t expect to see while I was on my travels around this afternoon.

It’s quite true that we are almost at Christmas but who would have expected Santa to have come riding past on the back of an old lorry? Down the Boulevard Vaufleury there are only a handful of houses and I haven’t noticed any young kids around there, so it’s something of a wasted journey.

And as for the lorry? It’s not one that I recognise offhand and there was no insignia or anything on it to help me. At first I thought that it might have been an old Willeme LD but having given the matter further thought, I’m now pretty sure that it is in fact a Citroen U23 minus its Citroen logo.

My excuse is that it’s a lot more modern than THE LAST CITROEN U23 THAT WE HAVE SEEN
.

berliet GBC lorry old cars father christmas boulevard vaufleury Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallAnd Santa wasn’t alone either. he had some of his friends riding along behind him.

They are travelling in an old Berliet GBC lorry, a model first launched in 1956 during the Good Old Days before Renault became involved and badge-engineered everything. Yes, it wasn’t just Leyland who got up to tricks like that in Europe. It was great fun being in France in the early 1970s and seeing real lorries like Berliets, Willemes and Saviems driving around.

So I waved goodbye to Santa and his helpers and wandered off down the road out of the wind as much as I could.

moon Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallJust at that moment, as I rounded the corner, the moon peeped out from behind a cloud.

It didn’t stay very long at all but I was ready for it and as soon as I could see it through the wisps I took a photo of it for the record. It’s just over half-way round so another 10 days might just see us getting to a full moon.

But I came home for a really hot coffee to warm me up and to do my Welsh homework. And having done that, I went and carried on with my baking activities. I was really enjoying myself with all of that this afternoon and I can’t wait to do some more.

st martin de brehal Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallBut by the time that I’d done everything and done the washing-up it was already time to clear off out for my evening run.

And if you thought that the wind was strong, you should have been out in it just now with me. I ran on down to the Rue du Nord and took a photo of St Martin de Brehal just to say that I’d been out, and then carried on.

Going out was fine but coming back was not so. Both my homeward-bound runs ended up being aborted because it’s not possible to run into a headwind blowing at about 80kph. It was difficult enough to walk in it. I did what I could whenever I could do it, and then made my way home for tea.

There was a falafel burger left over from Belgium years ago so I had that with some veg and a potato followed by apple crumble and custard. And then the notes to write up.

Once more, with all of the distractions, I’m running rather late so heaven alone knows whether I’ll beat the third alarm. But no matter what, I have to make the shops tomorrow. How can anyone miss brussels sprouts, leeks, endives and seitan slices for Christmas dinner?

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Tuesday 24th December 2019 – CHRISTMAS JUST ISN’T CHRISTMAS …

home made mince pies granville manche normandy france… without any mince pies.

And so when you don’t have any and can’t obtain any, the only answer is to make a few yourself. And here are some I made earlier.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that my oven is somewhat “hit and miss” – in fact, it’s far more “miss” than “hit” so they haven’t turned out like they might do from the shop.

But they are still delicious and I should know because I had the oven-bottom for pudding tonight with the rest of the blackcurrant sorbet left over from the other day.

men having impromptu open air lunch Boulevard des 2E et 202E de Ligne granville manche normandy franceBut if you think that that was something of an impromptu or ad-hoc arrangement, you should have seen what was going on in the Boulevard des 2E et 202E de Ligne at lunchtime.

A handful of guys had set up a picnic table on the pavement and they were having some kind of casual picnic lunch at the side of the road.

They were clearly having loads of fun so I wished them “bon appetit” and left them to get on with it.

Talking of having loads of fun, I wasn’t this morning. I had a totally streaming head cold and ached in places I didn’t even know I had places.

The three alarms went off but I was in no mood to get up so I turned over and closed my eyes. Shame as it is to say it, it was 08:30 when I next saw the light of day.

After the medication and breakfast I transcribed the dictaphone notes to see where I’d been during the night. And last night it was Christmas and there were groups of people wandering around the town. I was playing music, either a Creedence Clearwater Revival or Canned Heat song, ideal for people to walk to or march to and they were walking around the town to that kind of music. Some young woman and her baby and I can’t remember what happened to her but I know that one or two people didn’t like my choice of music until I explained to them exactly why I had chosen the songs that I had. Granville’s Christmas lights were involved in this as well like the little LEDs in a blanket overhead they were involved in it too.
A little later on I was in Montreal discussing car rentals and someone was saying that the only way to make car rentals work was to hire a decent car and hire an old banger as well. I was trying to work that one out. First of all I didn’t have a clue how you could hire an old banger anyway. I thought that I would have to look into this. I went wandering off, and I was looking for some kind of meeting place because I was supposed to be meeting someone. A group of people from Somalia who had taken over one of these water rafting concerns, doing all kinds of things like delivering lorry loads and so on. But they had gone bankrupt and the local press was giving them a bit of a hard time. I’d arranged for someone to accompany me, a bassist (why I would want a bassist to accompany me I really don’t know) so I ended up in this big room and all these Oriental people turned up. They were mostly taking groups around but in the end I finally found one who was expecting to be with someone all on his own. I thought that that was me. I buttonholed this guy and he said he’d done this kind of thing before with individual people. Just then a couple of other people turned up – obviously the people in charge – a young Oriental guy and girl dressed in black outer clothes and white shirts or blouses, so I went to check with them but I couldn’t really get a direct answer from them – they were busy trying to organise other things, not really taking too much notice of what I was trying to say. The girl who was there was talking “yes it will be absolutely great as long as you show me a good time”. I thought “what the hell is happening here?”
Next task – the final one in the latest backlog of things, was to deal with the blog entry for the Saturday when I went on the bus for the away cup match.

As you can see, that’s now all done and dusted too, and there are just the “normal” arrears now to tackle. First job is going to HAVE TO BE tacking the photos from the summer when I was away for four months on various ships etc.

What I’ll have to do is to look into this image-editing program that everyone talks about and see what benefits that can bring to me.

medieval walled city granville manche normandy franceBy now it was after midday so I had to go into town for my dejeunette and my special Christmas fig and raisin bread.

The tide was right out so the harbour gates were closed. That meant that I could walk over the pathway and down the far side of the harbour.

The weather was so beautiful and the city walls and the Eglise Notre Dame de Cap Lihou were looking splendid in the sunshine.

And in the centre of the photograph you can see where they have been repairing the city walls just recently.

marite port de granville harbour manche normandy franceIn this beautiful weather even Marité was looking really nice.

What I’ll have to do is to overcome my scruples and make enquiries about going for a sail on her in the summer. It’s just that the people who are responsible for her are so disinterested in helping the public and have no idea about “customer service”.

Every question you ask, it’s always “it’s on the internet” and they go back to talking amongst themselves.

Now here’s a thing.

renault alaskan port de granville harbour manche normandy franceIf ever you wanted a pick-up in France it was always “Peugeot”. But Peugeot stopped making pickups after the 505 finished production.

In North Africa we did see a modern Peugeot pick-up but they aren’t sold in France, so that’s why I was really surprised to see this “Renault Alaskan”. Not the name that you associate at all with pickups.

I was going to say that I’ve never seen one of these before, but a close inspection is enough to convince me that I have, and plenty of them too. Next time you’re at your local Nissan agent …

bad parking rue lecampion granville manche normandy franceYou are all probably very fed up of me using these pages to go about bad parking.

But if you are, that’s rather too bad because here’s some more. If you look closely at the registration number of the vehicle just here, and then just have a look at the registration number of the reserved parking place at this apartment building, you’ll see exactly what I mean.

It beggars belief, doesn’t it?

At la Mie Caline I picked up my bread and then headed back to the apartment. The diners had cleared off so I came back in.

After lunch I made a start on Project 008 for the radio and assembled all of the music except for the closing track which I always leave until last when I can see how much time there is left.

And Rosemary rang up too and we had a nice long chat for well over an hour about nothing in particular.

flagpoles monument to the resistance pointe du roc granville manche normandy franceThat was the cue for me to go out for my afternoon walk.

When I was out in the dark last night I’d noticed that there was something new erected by the war memorial to the Resistance fighters, and I wondered what it was.

But it’s not one thing at all, but four things. Four flagpoles in fact, and the next question is “what flags will they be flying from there?”

spirit of conrad trawler chantier navale port de granville harbour manche normandy franceThere had been something new in the Chantier Navale so I went to see what was going on there.

Spirit of Conrad is still in there up on her blocks but she now has a new neighbour. One of these short stubby trawlers that sail out of here.

But there was someone working on Spirit of Conrad this afternoon. Does this mean that she might be nearing completion and ready to take to the waves?

joly france port de granville harbour manche normandy franceWhile I was musing on that subject I was roused by my reverie by a siren going off in the outer harbour.

It looks as if Joly France – one of the ferries that does the trip out to the Ile de Chausey and back – has been out for a sail during the day.

She must have unloaded all of her passengers and is now heading into the inner harbour and her berth.

victor hugo joly france port de granville harbour manche normandy franceAnd I was right.

Here she is, tied up at her berth just behind Granville and Victor Hugo on the far side of the harbour, right by where I went for my walk earlier in the day.

On that note, I headed back to the apartment.

Back here the first thing that I did was some tidying up. The old broken office chair and a few more cardboard boxes have gone into the back of Caliburn ready for the dechetterie at the weekend.

Afterwards I finished the music for Project 008 and then attacked the mince pies. There was enough pastry on the roll for four mince pies and enough left over to make a sort-of oven bottom thing to fill with mince filling.

The mince filling came from out of a jar so I must remember to order some more for when Liz and Terry come back from the UK.

Tea was a burger in a bap with baked potatoes and vegetables followed by my oven-bottom, and then my evening walk.

No-one about and nothing to photograph so I didn’t stay out long. I did my run and just about made it to the ramp before I gave up. Yes, clearly not well.

But that’s not going to stop me from going for a walk at 23:45 to see what’s happening in town this evening at midnight. Probably nothing, but it’s still worth going for a look, especially as it’s a bank holiday of course, so no alarm.

I’ll let you know what happens.

joly france port de granville harbour manche normandy france
joly france port de granville harbour manche normandy france

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Monday 23rd December 2019 – THESE FLU INJECTIONS …

… really work, you know.

My flu injection was only given to me about two weeks ago, and I’ve caught it already. How about that?

Yes, I awoke this morning full of aches and pains and feeling pretty exhausted. So mush co that it took me until about 06:45 to haul myself out of my bed.

After the medication and while I was waiting for it to work, I had a look to see what was on the dictaphone.

Last night I was out with a pile of people and I was doing some images for the website and doing all the tags. It wasn’t until I’d almost finished that I realised that I had the tags to all the wrong images, (something like I did the previous evening before going to bed) so I had to sit down and change them all. I managed to find a bulk utility that would change them all with just a few strokes of the key and when I’d done that the images leapt from the page and really took on much more relevance. I remember saying to whoever I was with that it’s amazing the power that you can get out of just a couple of words.

After breakfast I made a start on Strawberry Moose‘s Christmas card to his friends.

Over the past 18 months he’s made several new friends and he wanted them to feature on it too, so what could I do but oblige?

That took me longer than expected – although it didn’t really because I was far too optimistic that what I was able to do, I could do simply and without too much effort. But I ought to know better by now.

Anyway, it’s all done and dusted and it prints out nicely on the new photo paper. Someone whom I know doesn’t have the internet so I sent his by post.

That’s right – I went to the Post Office on my way out and posted the Christmas Card.

aztec lady victor hugo port de granville harbour manche normandy franceBut first, seeing as the harbour gates were closed, I went for a walk around the port to see what was going on.

We have seen a lot of Aztec Lady just recently in the Chantier Navale. But here she is in the inner harbour now moored up behind Charles Marie and ahead of Victor Hugo and Granville; the two Jersey ferries.

My walk took me by Aztec Lady and I was hoping to see if there was anyone around, but I was out of luck. One day I’ll catch someone.

So after the Post Office I went off to LIDL and bought a few things, including a drinks dispenser, because I’m about to start to make my own drinks and see how they turn out.

On the way back I picked up my dejeunette from la Mie Caline and then came back to the apartment.

First job that I did was to peel the carrots that were here. They were starting to look rather sad. But once they were peeled I diced them and put them in boiling water just long enough to blanch them with some bay leaves.

Now having drained all day, it’s in the freezer freezing off.

Second task was to peel the three lemons that I had bought a week or two ago. Then to chop them up and put them into a pan.

The fresh ginger, peeled and diced into tiny cubes, was added and enough water to cover them and about an inch more was added. This was boiled gently for about an hour or so while I had my butties.

After I took it off the heat I added a couple of tablespoons of honey and gave it a taste. Far too much ginger. Still, you live and learn.

That’s going to stand for 24 hours or so, be strained to remove the lemon and ginger that hasn’t dissolved, and then more water added to take it up to about 3.5 litres. And then it’s for the drink dispenser that I bought.

Tomorrow the cooking continues. I’m going to try to make mince pies. You can’t have Christmas without them.

Having done that I came back in here to make a decent start on Sunday’s blog.

But as the flu bug took more and more of a hold I felt less and less like it and at one stage was seriously contemplating going back to bed. And it’s been a good while since that has happened.

storm high winds waves splashing on plat gousset granville manche normandy franceBut I fought off the impulse and went out for a walk around the city walls.

And I’m glad that I did too because the tide was well on its way in and even though the wind has dropped a little on land, there’s still plenty of force in the sea.

The waves were smashing down on the Plat Gousset with the most astonishing force.

trawler english channel ile de chausey granville manche normandy franceAnd despite how impressive it all looked from up here, it still wasn’t disturbing the mariners too much.

There was a line of about four or five trawlers slowly battling their way into port and as I have said before … “on many, many occasions” – ed … my hat goes off to them all.

It’s not the kind of weather that would encourage me to go to sea in a small boat, that’s for sure.

Continuing on my walk, I broke into a run at one point but there were too many people around to really make it count.

bad parking rue notre dame granville manche normandy franceInstead, I headed for home and caùe across another example of pathetic parking here in the rue Notre Dame.

Madam in the red Citroen has just pulled up and … I suppose … parked. But you can see that the pavement is really narrow where she’s parking, so she parks across all of it.

Not a thought for any pedestrian with mobility difficulties or a wheelchair or kiddies’ buggy user. It really gets on my wick, as regular readers of this rubbish will realise.

la contremarche restaurant place cambernon granville manche normandy franceRemember that I told you the other day that they were renovating the old municipal offices in the place Cambernon?

Today, I noticed that the signwriters had been by so I went to see if there was any kind of clue as to what might be going on.

Sure enough, it looks as if we are going to have another restaurant here, called the Contremarche. And I do hope that it has vegan options because I’m fed up of not eating out here in the town.

And it’s going to upset the pizza van that parks just there, isn’t it?

autogyro flying over granville manche normandy franceFinal thing this afternoon was to identify the source of this incredible racket that was going on over my head.

That’s right. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve met the local autogyro in the past on a couple of occasions. And here she is again, just passing over head.

And for a change I was lucky. I just managed to grab a shot of her before she passed out of sight over the church roof.

That was everything for my walk. I came back here and carried on with Sunday’s blog even though I didn’t feel like it. But anyway it’s on line now.

For tea I finished off the stuffed pepper stuffing in some taco rolls with spicy rice, followed by the last of the rice pudding.

fishing boat spirit of conrad chantier navale port de granville harbour manche normandy franceAnd then I went out to brave the rainstorm for my evening walk around the headland, in two jackets and my new tactile gloves which really work.

It’s been a while since I’ve been to look at the Chanter Navale to see what’s happening there. Spirit of Conrad is still in there as you can see, and she’s been joined by a small fishing boat.

What I’ll have to do is to wait until daylight and then go for a proper look around to see what she’s up to.

By now the rain was belting down so I set off at a run for home. And shame as it is to admit it, I only made half of my little track before I had to give up.

Hardly a surprise with this flu thing going around my head

Now I’ve finished the journal for tonight, I’m off to bed. An early night will do me the world of good and I hope that I can shake off this flu.

It seems that I’m destined to catch it round about now and I’m getting rather fed up about it.

But then, this is what this illness is all about. I’ve no immune system so I’m catching just about every disease or bug that’s going around.

trawler english channel ile de chausey granville manche normandy france
trawler english channel ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

storm high winds waves splashing on plat gousset granville manche normandy france
storm high winds waves splashing on plat gousset granville manche normandy france

storm high winds waves splashing on plat gousset granville manche normandy france
storm high winds waves splashing on plat gousset granville manche normandy france

storm high winds waves splashing on plat gousset granville manche normandy france
storm high winds waves splashing on plat gousset granville manche normandy france

storm high winds waves splashing on plat gousset granville manche normandy france
storm high winds waves splashing on plat gousset granville manche normandy france

storm high winds waves splashing on plat gousset granville manche normandy france
storm high winds waves splashing on plat gousset granville manche normandy france

storm high winds waves splashing on plat gousset granville manche normandy france
storm high winds waves splashing on plat gousset granville manche normandy france

storm high winds waves splashing on plat gousset granville manche normandy france
storm high winds waves splashing on plat gousset granville manche normandy france

trawler entering port de granville harbour manche normandy france
trawler entering port de granville harbour manche normandy france

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Friday 21st July 2017 – WELL, I’M NOT …

… going out for an evening walk tonight, that’s for sure.

Not only do we have a howling gale, we have a lashing rainstorm too. And it’s pretty black over Bill’s mother’s too.

I had another bad night last night, that’s for sure. Only 5 hours and something-worth of sleep, with ony four hours of that in a deep and restful sleep. Yes, I’ve charged up the Fitbit and uploaded the data to the laptop.

I was busy working on another mega-blog page after my walk and somehow ended up being carried away. 01:45 when I went to bed. No wonder that I was tired when the alarm went off, and that I crashed out for a couple of hours this afternoon.

But a shower brought me round somewhet after breakfast and having dealt with “a computer issue”, i went shopping.

And I’ve been spending my money too, yet again. Although nowhere near as bad as last week.

The Centrakor was the beneficiary of my largesse today. They had some multi-USB hubs on sale at €3:99 and I need one of those, seeing as how Brain of Britain has somehow contrived to leave all three of his back in Virlet.

But of course one thing leads to another, and once you make a start you’ll be surprised just how many other things there are.

The Bluetooth oyster that I had as a hands-free device before the bluetooth radio – I took that to Canada for use in Strider, but it’s a different kind of lead than a standard USB lead, and I’ve … errr … misplaced that.

And so I’ve been havong a good look around for another one. And they had one in Centrakor – with a Bluetooth oyster device included. All for €7:99, which is the same price as I have been quoted for a cable. Do bears have picnics in the woods?

Not only that, they were having a sale of silicon pie dishes and the like for just €3:99 which is cheap at anybody’s price. And now I have a proper round pie dish, a bread/cake mould and a mould for making six tarts. I’ll be having a go at making mince pies in the winter.

Note to self – ask someone to bring me a couple of jars of mincemeat from the UK.

I stayed in at lunchtime too – the winds were wicked out there and I wouldn’t have enjoyed sitting on my wall at all. And I rather lost direction this afternoon with the fatigue. So it’s not been a very good day.

But I did finish the blog entries about the trip to the UK in June 2011. Now to see what else I’ve missed before I start on the Canada 2011 pages.

And I did have a visitor at lunchtime – and I’ll tell you all about that tomorrow. I’m too tired to go into details tonight.

Footnote
I did go out – just for a quick lap around the block. And in the 5 minutes that I was out, I was soaked to the skin. Except where I had my new McKinley raincoat. That did exactly the job that it was supposed to do – and I wish that I had bought it in a bigger size now.

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Sunday 7th December 2014 – SUNDAY IS A DAY OF REST …

… and so when I woke up at 07:30 this morning, I simply turned over and went back to sleep. Sod that for a game of soldiers.

09:30 is a much more realistic time to be up and about on a Sunday, although of cours that is nothing like what used to be usual in the not-so-distant past when on a Sunday I would be lucky to see the morning.

After breakfast, I did some work on the radio programmes and there’s now another month’s worth of rock music programmes. The live concert was rather more straightforward this time as it wall came from the same source and so mixing it was quite straightforward. However, each of the tracks was about 4 minutes long and there were 14 of them, specially designed for the truncated attention span of the MTV generation, so it took ages to merge them, edit out the gaps and overlap the applause.

This evening I went round to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse the radio shows for Radio Arverne. As well as the usual month’s worth of programmes, we’ve also been rehearsing the Christmas Special. Normally, our radio programmes aee part of an hour-long magazine programme but the magazine doesn’t run on Christmas week (too many absentees) and so we are taking it over.

And talking of taking over, I had my first mince pies at Liz and Terry’s, and I was given a pile to bring home. Home-made too – Christmas is definitely just around the corner.

But I’ll tell you one thing – sitting up here in my attic with the woodstove simmering away on a low heat and with a mug of coffee, made from water that has boiled up in a kettle on top of the stove – there can’t be too many things in life better than that.

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