… even though it’s ridiculously early, I’ve abandoned and gone to bed. And without any food too.
The fact is that I am definitely ill. It’s twenty-three degrees here in my bedroom, according to the thermometer, yet I’m here in a fleece fully buttoned up and a thick dressing gown over the top, and I’m shivering like a jelly on a plate when a lorry goes past the house.
It’s difficult to understand what’s happening with me right now. Last night, having a tea already prepared, I was finished quite quickly. It didn’t take too long to do what needed to be done afterwards, and I was in bed just before 22:30.
And in contrast to the previous night, I slept right the way through to the alarm going off at 06:29. I was dead to the World at that moment, so far out of it that I didn’t move, not then, and neither when the reminder went off at 06:33.
It was closer to 07:00 when I finally stirred and staggered off into the bathroom. And then into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.
Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone but, as I expected, there was nothing on it. It must have been a really deep sleep. So instead, I did some work on the computer.
Isabelle the Nurse put in an appearance, and in “chat” mode, she sorted out my legs. After she left, I began to prepare breakfast but I didn’t manage to go very far because the technician came to install the fibre optic.
And that was a total waste of time and money (one hundred and nine euros) because after two hours, he left without installing anything. Despite what the management company for the building has told us, the building is far from ready for the installation.
The aim, he tells me, is to disconnect the two ends of the telephone cable, attach the fibre-optic cable to one end and pull it through the conduit from the other end. And then fasten up the cable.
He pulled on the cable, and it moved about two inches before jamming up solid.
In my apartment, the telephone cable goes up to the ceiling, but in the cupboard under the stairs where all of the technical equipment is, it goes down into the floor. So somewhere, it climbs back up to the ceiling. He climbed into the false ceiling in the WC, but the cable is definitely stuck and won’t move. It’s attached to a junction box somewhere and he couldn’t find it.
It might be behind a wall, or in the ceiling, or under the floor of another apartment, which will, according to him, involve a massive reconstruction job with much inconvenience to everyone, but without a wiring diagram for the electricity and the telephone cable, it’s pointless even trying to make a start. And so, after two hours, he left.
What I did next was to write a report and send it to the management company and also to members of the House committee, and expressing my dismay. I received a reply from the President of the House committee telling me “C’est un retour sur des questions très pratiques et concrètes évoquées très antérieurement” – "This is a return to very practical and concrete questions mentioned very previously."
So, in other words I’ve paid one hundred and nine euros of my own money to tell them something that they already know and have known for quite a while. That has enraged me even more and I haven’t replied, for fear of using what can only be described as “unparliamentary language”.
However, generous person that I am, I printed out my note and posted it on the entrance door of the building. There’s been no reply or communication from the management company, which is shameful to say the least. The company should be notifying the other residents as quickly as possible and I don’t want anyone else paying one hundred and nine euros to further underline the knowledge that has been going around the House committee for months.
After that, I could finally go to make breakfast and read some more of A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE
James Curle has moved on from weapons and is now discussing pottery. There were two European experts who have made a really good study of Roman pottery. They have dated the examples by looking for finds in camps, forts and towns where the period of existence was known, i.e., nothing in Pompeii can be later than 79 AD, that kind of thing.
From there, by examining the contents of different wells and ditches, the pieces of pottery present can give a date range of when the well or ditch was first used and when it was finally abandoned. And this explains how he is able to date the different periods of reconstruction of the site.
Interestingly, though, while hot on the chase of a subsidiary subject, I came across the following quote by Tacitus while discussing the Roman forays north of Hadrian’s Wall – "Robbers of the world, having by their universal plunder exhausted the land, they rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if he be poor, they lust for dominion; neither the east nor the west has been able to satisfy them. Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a solitude and call it peace."
Now, who does that remind you of today?
My cleaner put in an appearance to ask me how I found the fibre optic. I explained the shambolic nature of the visit and let her read my mail to the management company so that she’s aware of the issues.
Back in here, I began to edit the third lot of radio notes that I dictated the other morning. And I managed to complete it too and assemble the radio programme, so that’s ready to go at some point in the future.
At that point, I began to write the notes for the next programme but instead, I crashed out. And properly out too. I remember nothing whatsoever. I must have been out for at least an hour.
However, I had been away on my travels.
Now that’s a novel way of editing a radio programme, and it’s clearly a preoccupation, with me trying to record as many programmes as possible so that I’m well in advance before I shuffle off this mortal coil. The American voices are clearly a reflection of what’s going on in the World right now.
But having awoken, with the stabbing pain in my foot, wracked with pain, with a nose running like a tap, feeling totally miserable, shivering and freezing and generally feeling unwell, even though it’s only about 20:00, I’m off to bed with no tea because, quite frankly, I can’t face any.
Let’s see how I feel tomorrow. Maybe a good night’s sleep will do me good, but it’s doubtful whether I’ll even wake up in the morning. I feel like death.
But seeing as we have been talking about Roman pottery … "well, one of us has" – ed … James Curle was asked to identify something that came out of one of the pits.
"What is it, Mr Curle?" asked an apprentice.
"It’s a Roman urn" he replied.
"What’s a Roman urn?" asked the apprentice.
"Oh, about ten sesterces per week."
