Tag Archives: joni mitchell

Friday 9th August 2024 – I’M HAVING A …

… really bad day today

Or, in fact, I was having a really bad day yesterday because it’s now tomorrow as I’m typing all of this

It’s been one of those days where I’ve accomplished next-to-nothing, done nothing at all and whatever I have done just hasn’t gone according to plan.

It all went wrong on Thursday afternoon. As I mentioned, I fell asleep in the afternoon and was totally out of it for a couple of hours.

And so we had the inevitable result, which I now recognise after having had several months to work it out. Too physically exhausted to haul myself out of my comfortable chair but not tired enough to go to sleep.

And so here I sat for several hours trying to find the energy from somewhere to haul myself across the couple of feet between my chair and the bed. And it was long after 01:30 before I finally pulled myself together and pulled myself up by the bootstraps

That of course is all very well, but waking up at 05:30 was definitely not part of any plan, and neither was staying awake either but there I was, wide-awake but too physically exhausted to rise up from my stinking pit.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I made it reluctantly into the bathroom to have a wash and so on, and then came back in here.

To my surprise, and probably yours, there was some stuff on the dictaphone from the night. I was with that old van from a couple of nights ago. I Had it back at our old house in Vine Tree Avenue. I took my tool box out ready to take away with me because my other car was parked in Edleston Road and needed picking up. The first thing that I needed to do was to check the keys. I had them but I didn’t actually have the keys for this old van. I thought that I must have left them in my coat on the inside. I went inside the van to fetch the coat and took out the keys from it and went to cross the two coats together as my battlefield cross but the big female lion objected and batted everything with her paw

As it happens, the van in my dreams I can see even now. It’s a light grey Austin A35 van and I certainly never ever had one of those when I was young. Probably the only vehicle that I didn’t own back in those days. I did have one of its big brothers, BILL BADGER, the Austin A60 or half-ton van that I mentioned yesterday. I paid £60:00 for that van, had it for several years, and had my money back several times thanks to the work that it did and the miles that we travelled, tucked in between the lorries on the motorway. No way was I going faster than about 50-55 mph with BMC’s single leading shoe drum brakes all round. Not even a hint of a disc brake.

When I was awoken by the alarm I was reliving an episode of DIRTY HARRY. Clint Eastwood had been detained in a roadside stop and made to sit on the pavement. While he was sitting there a policeman recognised him, came over and gave him a great big kick. Of course that inevitable started a riot and that was the point that I’d reached when the alarm went off. .

And so I must have gone back to sleep at some point. But it’s been a long time since there’s been a really good free-for-all down the High Street. We had a few in Chester in 1973-74 but that was about it.

The nurse was quite chatty today and had a lot to say for herself but I can’t remember much of it. She still thinks that I’m a wimp because I won’t take off this plaster on my arm but that’s how it is I’m afraid. As I’ve said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’ll have the panic attack to end all panic attacks when it comes to coupling me up.

After she left I had breakfast and read my book for a while, reading about the lynchings in the town of Hell’s Gate, Montana, how nine people out of the 12 who lived there "died without going through the intermediate stage of being ill" as the author so eloquently put it.

Back in here it took me an age to come round to my senses, which is a surprise seeing how few senses I have these days. What shocked me out of my lethargic torpor was a message from my cleaner "mushrooms? I’m coming homs."

Blimey! It’s 12:30 already, I’ve done nothing and I’ll miss my slot for my LeClerc order. And now my cleaner is on her way home, if they don’t have what I want on delivery, it’s too late to buy it anywhere else now.

When my cleaner came round I was preparing my order from LeClerc so she added a few housekeeping items onto it and I sent it off.

The fridge had defrosted itself during the night so there was water all over the kitchen floor and donning waders and a lifejacket, my cleaner valiantly attacked the pool of water. And there I was thinking what a good job it was that we put down that lino on top of the wooden floor in the kitchen area.

This afternoon I’ve been hunting down another pile of concerts, comparing setlists and the like. And also tracking down missing tracks that were omitted from the published versions of live concerts.

The sad fact is that with almost every concert that I’ve encountered, the published version is often far shorter than the actual versions. What’s missing is sometimes much more interesting than what was included. For that reason you’ve probably never ever heard Joni Mitchell tell her audience that they were "behaving like a bunch of tourists" or Dennis Yeahy scream "brilliant!" in the middle of a Santana concert.

The shopping eventually turned up and I put most of it away, and then I came in here where I sat down and ran out of steam.

And here I’ve sat ever since then. I’ve had no food today since breakfast except a few crackers with my coffee and right now I’m beyond caring. And if I’m off my food you know that I’m not well.

But I’ll sort myself out and maybe find the energy from somewhere to go to bed. I dunno It’s been a strange day, a really long one, but although I’ve not crashed out at all, I’ve been too tired to do anything.

But if I can’t sleep tonight I’ll try counting sheep like that shepherd in Cumbria – "… five, six, seven, hello darling, nine …"
"Did you say ‘hello darling’ to sheep number eight?" asked a passing tourist
"Yes he did" replied the sheep. "He’s my fa-a-a-a-a ther"

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Tuesday 23rd April 2024 – OUCH! THAT HURT!

And if you read on, you’ll find out what and why. I’ve not had a very good day.

Anyway, last night after everything had finished I sat down and READ A BOOK about an American sailor and his family, including his 6 year old daughter, captured in the South Pacific in 1917 by a German sea-going raider and who spent 10 months as prisoner on board before being shipwrecked off the coast of Denmark.

After that I settled down, fully dressed because I was freezing, under the covers and that was that.

A few times during the night I was awoken by a few comings and goings but for some reason or other I was so tired that I was back asleep almost immediately and ended up not awakening until they came to take my blood sample at about 09:15.

Actually it was the little student nurse who came on her own so I told her that if I leave here alive she’ll have earned her diploma. Anyway, she managed to find some blood. I still have some left, apparently.

Once she’d gone I went for a wash and brush up as best as I could and then a driver came to collect me. It was the rock music fan who has taken me before so we had a good chat before he dropped me off at Neurology.

While I was waiting for my appointment I had a good chat with the receptionist and another patient and saw several photos of cats and dogs before being ushered into the room where the examination was due to take place.

It was the doctor who had seen me before on two occasions. He and his sidekick gave me the electric shock tests to my arms and legs and I was right – there is a further deterioration. So no surprise there. We had a good chat and now he’s gone away to think about a Plan B.

The same driver came to pick me up for my next appointment but that’s not until tomorrow so he brought me back here.

While I was eating lunch a doctor came to slap a freezing patch on my lower back and we all know what that means. She took an age to find the correct position so I asked her "can’t you see the scars from the previous attempts?"

When she told me that she could, I told her that they ought to paint an “X marks the spot” or even a target in the correct place.

A short while later, Batman and Robin, the young ward nurse and her little student who follows her around like a shadow, came to prepare me.

It was the little student who drew the short straw and had to hold me down and I bet she wished that she hadn’t when the doctor missed her aim with the lumbar puncture and found the central nerve.

Eventually, but not soon enough by any means, the torment was over and I could go to lie down. “You’ll just need to be flat out for an hour” but she was joking. After an hour or so a nurse came round to make sure that I was still alive and to take my blood pressure, with predictable results. But in fact it was several hours before I crawled out of bed, and then only for a particular reason too.

Once I’d settled down in my chair I transcribed the dictaphone notes. Yesterday’s are now on line and then I started on today’s. I was going to start at a new school but the morning that I was due to go I had a ‘phone call that began speaking in Welsh. It was a young girl saying that she was glad to go back to live in Easingwold. I couldn’t understand who it was but the conversation became more and more intimate until in the end, I had to go, I said plenty of encouraging words and finished with “I love you” but I had no idea who this person was at all. Absolutely none. I arrived at the new school but couldn’t find out how anything worked, the system of how lessons were organised etc. In the end I stumbled across a lesson from one of my class so I asked the teacher where all the other lessons for our year were being held. He gave some kind of nebulous speech abut how I should have looked at the newspaper. Of course I knew nothing about this. I found a copy of the newspaper but didn’t understand it. In the end I found some kind of paper print-out with the details on it. It was headed with the most extraordinary offensive message that had nothing whatever to do with the subject matter. I thought it totally astonishing that they’d pin this on the wall. I couldn’t find any paper then. Every piece of paper on which I tried to write, I was making no impression with a ball-point pen. The writing was just not sticking as if it had one of these shiny surfaces. I kept on coming across paper that had already been used, carbon copies of the ‘phone call that I’d had earlier in the day from that girl etc, but nothing that I could do would be able to reproduce anything on any kind of piece of paper. It was just so frustrating because I wanted to crack on and organise myself as this was just not working at all.

Then this conversation that I’d had in the morning had completely shaken me. I didn’t have a clue who on earth it was to whom I was speaking and I really wish that I knew because it had all the air of being something really interesting. The only Welsh-speaking girl I knew at school was only in passing and it certainly wasn’t her so who on earth was it?

Then we had a boisterous kind of office party where everything was going out of control. The sad part about it was that these were all middle-aged people. The boss there had picked on someone else’s wife and was making life really uncomfortable for them. They were trying to work out a moment in which to disappear such as when the boss went to the toilet but they’d brought the PA with them so putting that into the car in the space of a couple of minutes was going to be complicated. There were all kinds of things like this. Some woman was making some very plain and clear hints that she wanted to dance etc with me but of course I was having absolutely none of this and sat stoically at my seat in the dining room watching the events unfold, taking absolutely no notice of any of the extremely broad hints that she was dropping. All in all it was an extremely sad evening watching these people behaving like this

There have been more than a few parties like this where everyone makes a fool of themselves and I note that I even made a remark about it while I was asleep, which shows you just what I think about it all.

Then I was going through the videotapes looking for a blank one but came across a football match that took place years ago that I hadn’t seen. It involved one of these obscure South American republics playing in similar colours to Portugal and who had qualified unexpectedly for the World Cup after beating a selection of prize teams from other parts of the World to make it to the finals. I’d obviously taped their opening match but I couldn’t remember how it went or what the score was so instead of doing what I was supposed to be doing I put on this videotape and settled down to watch them. I got as far as watching them come out onto the pitch before I awoke. I’d no idea who their opponents were in this particular game.

And despite what I said the other night, Castor put in a very brief appearance last night. And wasn’t it nice to see her? We were on board THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR rearranging the dining arrangements. I was passing the cutlery and crockery and glassware from one table to the next. There was the final piece that I picked up to take round to the other table and who should be sitting there but Castor? She was talking to someone else about their life, I suppose. She was saying that she was born into a policeman’s family. I’ll tell you that that didn’t ‘arf ring a few alarm bells with me finding out that she was the progeny of a policeman’s couple.

But even if it were true and I had known, nothing of what happened back then would have changed for a minute. As I said at the time, I would have accepted any consequence. And as Joni Mitchell sang, YOU KNOW I’D GO BACK THERE TOMORROW BUT FOR THE WORK THAT I’VE TAKEN ON

And fancy the dream stopping there! I suppose that it was the shock that awoke me.

While I was asleep in the afternoon I was going for a walk. I had all of the four cats coming with me, following in my footsteps, climbing and jumping over each other as they used to do etc. There were a few members of my family with me. I had to take some money out to pay for something or other, housekeeping or whatever. I needed €60:00. I walked as far as the cash machine but when I went to look through my wallet I couldn’t find the bank card that I usually used. In the end, looking through everything I found a selection of other bank cards but I wasn’t sure which ones would work and which ones wouldn’t. There was one from the bank in Belgium so I put that in the cash machine. It seemed to read the card because it asked for the PIN. I typed in the usual number and that seemed to accept it but that was as far as I reached in the dream.

Tea tonight was salmon lasagne with creamed spinach so some horse trading was undertaken but I’m not doing too well for food which is a shame, but not unexpected.

So right now I’m off to bed to try to recapture Castor and to hope that they try to check my blood pressure at calmer moments.

But while the little student was preparing me for my lumbar puncture I asked her why doctors always wear masks
"Is it to do with infection?" she asked.
"Not at all" I replied. "It’s in case the procedure goes all wrong. Then they can’t identify the guilty party"

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Tuesday 13th February 2024 – I’VE BEEN SUMMONED …

… back to the Centre de Re-education. They’ve arranged a visit for me for the 5th March, and even sent me a bon de transport so that I can have a taxi there and back.

There were several pages of notes setting out my medical history and what they have discovered during the examination. They reached the conclusion that

  1. dealing with my case was difficult due to all kinds of problems
  2. technical aid is proposed
  3. a timed walk that should have taken 43 seconds took me 6 minutes
  4. a further appointment is planned

And so by the same post an appointment on 5th March was sent to me.

And at 09:20 too – be there 10 minutes beforehand. What do they think that I am? I know that I might be up and about on my own two legs by that time but I’d hardly say that I would be coherent enough to discuss my medical affairs so early in the morning.

Mind you, I’m hardly coherent at the best of times so I don’t suppose that it makes much difference

However, I’m intrigued as to this “technical aid”. I wonder what they have planned for me. There isn’t much that would work around here that immediately springs to my mind.

But retournons à nos moutons as they say around here.

Last night, I couldn’t go to bed.

What I mean by that is that I couldn’t summon up the motivation to leave my comfortable chair and drag myself off to bed. Instead I wandered aimlessly through the internet and it was well after 01:00 when I dragged myself off.

You know the feeling though – when you can’t seem to find whatever it takes to raise yourself up and go to bed.

It would be no surprise to anyone if I had had a difficult start to the morning but instead I seemed to be quite lively for a change – and that’s a surprise. I shall have to do this more often

So I hauled myself off into the kitchen to take my medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I had been during the night. We were back in some kind of music dispute between Hawkwind and a group called Wyneb Wyneb … "which is Welsh for Face-Face" – ed …. It concerned a song that Wyneb Wyneb wrote. There was a considerable amount of plagiarism in the song, so Hawkwind said, and they were very unhappy about it. The two groups found themselves at the same music festival and this led to a great deal of complication and confusion with people threatening to sue and to counter-sue etc. It was sorted out at the last minute by Wyneb Wyneb withdrawing from this concert and playing at another at a later date with a couple of other acts who were also withdrawn. Basically anyone who bought a ticket for the main concert and didn’t want to go because Wyneb Wyneb weren’t appearing could claim some kind of refund that would go towards the cost of a ticket for the next festival.

Anyone would think that I have an obsession with Hawkwind. They have been regular visitors during the night over the last couple of weeks. It would be interesting to find out what’s going on that’s triggered off something like that.

What else has happened ever since they’ve been appearing is that my whole dream pattern seems to have changed and they are nothing like what they were in the past. So is one of the tablets that I take in the evening playing havoc and disturbing my subconscious? Or is something else happening?

But be that as it may, I had a Welsh lesson to deal with and that went on until 16:30, with a couple of breaks and an interruption from my cleaner who brought me my post as mentioned above.

Once it was all over I had my hot chocolate and then had a good scrub down and a change of clothes to make myself all pretty for tomorrow.

During the breaks I was dealing with the radio programme that I’m planning, and writing the notes. I managed to complete some and was planning to write more but instead I crashed out this evening.

All through the lesson I was fighting off waves of sleep but my bad night eventually caught up with me and I didn’t finish it.

Tea was a nice taco roll with some of the rest of the stuffing, and I’ll finish that off tomorrow in a leftover curry with one of my naan breads. I’ll have to make some more naan dough sometime soon as I’m in danger of running out

So that’s it now, ready for tomorrow. I need to take some bread from the freezer to defrost ready to make my sandwiches because it will be a long day. My appointment is at 12:40 when I shall find out my future.

What I suspect is that they’ll transfer me to a more local hospital – either Caen or Rennes, and more likely the former. I’m sure they won’t keep me there, going back and forth to Paris with what it costs to transport me.

Nevertheless, "how you gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree?" And knowing hospital food as I do, at least I had friends in Paris and Leuven who would smuggle me some supplies now and again. I know no-one in either Caen or Rennes who can help me break the monotony of the dreadful food supplied in these places..

And as Joni Mitchell SANG,
"I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive
Nobody was calling me up for favours
No one’s future to decide
You know I’d go back there tomorrow
But for the work I’ve taken on
Stoking the star-maker machinery
Behind the popular song"

And I am going back there tomorrow, maybe for the last time. I can’t see me going there again, certainly not unfettered and alive anyway.

That’s a shame because of all the times that I’ve walked through the city singing that song, and the nights that I’ve spent trying to get the metre of the song correct when I’m trying to play it on the guitar.

The last time that I walked through the city was almost two years ago, in the company of someone who figures regularly on these pages, usually during the night, but right now I can’t even wander around my apartment.

Frank Harris, in his rather … errr … explicit autobiography said "all human beings took what pleasure they could get whenever they could get it" and that’s certainly true of the past and the present. Make the best of whatever comes your way because that’s all that there is.

As for what happens after tomorrow, I shall just have to rely on my hero the Irish politician Boyle Roche and "all along the untrodden paths of the future, I can see the footprints of an unseen hand".

When I climb into that taxi in the morning I shall remember the words of Tom Bombadil – "be bold, but wary! Keep up your merry hearts, and ride to meet your fortune".

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Wednesday 20th January 2021 – I’M NOT SURE …

… whether today was a good day or a bad day. In fact it was probably a bit of both.

The good bit was that I almost beat the third alarm to my feet. And if you realise that it was after 01:00 when I went to bed, you’ll realise just what a feat that was. Mind you, when I say that I almost beat it, yes I was out of bed a couple of seconds after it rang, but it would be wrong to say that I was leaping about It took a good 10 minutes for the room to stop spinning around enough so that I could get off the bed.

After the meds I had a listen to the dictaphone.

There was some stuff on there from yesterday that I must have forgotten to transcribe. So I did that and added them back into the entry for yesterday where you can see them in all their glory.

And then I turned my attention to last night.

We were setting off on a cruise and it wasn’t an Adventure Canada cruise but another company. We all had to meet up and head back to board the ship. As usual I was last. We were in Nantwich and the ship was at Acton so everyone was streaming back up the road towards Acton. I set out at a run to try to catch everyone up. By the time I reached where the Star was, somewhere like that, I’d actually caught up the other people who were behind. Just in front of me before then was a woman, obviously something to do with the trip counting the people who went past. She said to 1 guy in front of me “you must be the last” but then I ran past and she looked at me “Oh God, not you”. I carried on running and the other guy there saw me and he started to run as well. For some reason I could run really well and really easily and had no trouble in keeping him away. I ran to the church and everyone was in there having a briefing. My father was in there somewhere – he was coming on the trip – but the briefing had finished by the time that I arrived. When I walked in, it wasn’t a church but a shower and they were all having a communal shower in about 4 or 5 different rooms. I had a look but couldn’t see my father in any of the rooms. I said “I’ll be glad to get back on board the ship again and have my familiar old cabin” and I quoted a number. Their response was “not that leaky old hulk” and started to talk about the showers and how the water went everywhere and soaked the beds, that kind of thing. A girl came out and asked “do you have a torch?” I replied “yes”. “Can I borrow it?”. She set off and went downstairs so I followed her. There was a motor garage there, a kind of workshop with benches in a glass-framed room. She sat down and I said “I can’t find my torch”. She replied “that’s a shame as I have some things to do”. “So why don’t you switch on the lights?”. “Am I allowed to?”. “Of course you are. I know the people who work here anyway”. She switched on the lights and she was taking a York diesel engine apart. She had all of the bits out and was busy writing notes about it. I watched her writing these notes and had a little chat with her for a while.

Yes, all of these exciting voyages and not a single person with whom I would really like to travel. I don’t know what the world is coming to.

For much of the day (although by no means all of it) I’ve been quite busy. I’ve had a letter to write to reply to one that I received in the Summer that somehow became lost. And that wasn’t easy.

In fat it led to the start of a major tidy-up in the office which, although it’s only just got under way, has resulted in a pile of outstanding filing being done and a load of paperwork being thrown away. And there’s still plenty more to go at.

Sadly the place doesn’t look much different than it did before I started – but then that’s usually the case when I’m tidying up. The place always seems to be worse and then when I run out of steam and have to sit down I’m in the middle of total chaos and that’s so disheartening too.

After lunch I sat down for 5 minutes to raise the steam for carrying on with the tidying up but I’m afraid that was that. 15:45 when I finally came round again having missed all of the early afternoon and I’m dismayed about that too.

rubble from gas pipe laying Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallIt took a good half-hour to recover my composure after that so it was rather a later walk this afternoon than usual.

Not that I went very far before I took my first photograph. Just outside the front door in fact. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall having seen seen them digging up the road in the Rue St Michel and probably noticed that there wasn’t anywhere to tip the spoil from the excavations.

But now we know the answer to that little problem. They have a little dumper bringing it all over here and tipping it on the car park of the building across the way.

ile de chausey english channel Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallSo off I went on my travels along the footpath. And I didn’t go much further either.

One thing that strikes me is the series of stories about ancient mariners sighting “land” and which turn out to be false sightings. But when you see something like this that I saw this afternoon, it’s not surprising.

Of course a camera can’t produce the same effect that you have with the naked eye but here there’s a curtain of rain approaching across the English Channel and what is presumably the water bouncing off the surface is creating an effect that does look like land out there in front of the Ile de Chausey.

sunset baie de mont st michel brittany coast Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallNot too many people out there this afternoon and that’s no surrpise because the storm has hit and we are having a hurricane right now.

But with being late out for my afternoon walk, the sun is much lower in the sky than it has been of late and once again we are having the reflections of the sunlight of the surface of the Baie de Mont St Michel. And I do have to say that this is one of the better ones of recent date, although we can thank the late hour for that.

And having thanked the late hour for the photo I pushed off along the footpath to see what was going on in the chantier navale. And just the same three boats as yesterday. No-one has left and no-one new has arrived.

rainbow Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallBy now the rainstorm that we’d seen out to sea had caught up with me and I was becoming rather wet … “so what’s new?” – ed.

The sun was out over on the other side of the bay as we have seen and with it shining over here, we were being treated to the appearance of a rainbow. Unfortunately the camera can’t bring it out very well but nevertheless it is there, if you look quite hard.

Having photographed it, I came on home for a cup of hot, strong coffee and the discovery that the hot water that i’d put in the water bottle that I had received from Adventure Canada when we were on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour was still hot.

That’s good news because for my early star on Monday morning I can take hot coffee with me to keep me going. Must remember to bring the heated mug out of Caliburn.

With hot coffee in hand I tidied away a few more papers and that took me up to guitar time. And surprisingly, it was an enjoyable session and I’ve recovered my voice – something that has just caused the rateable value of this building to hit rock-bottom.

Tea was a burger on a bap with baked potato and veg, followed by jam roly-poly. And while the jam roly-poly is well-overcooked, the general principle is sound and I shall be doing that again … “and again” – ed.

Later on this evening I wa giving Liz some long-distance computer maintenance advice. She’s having problems with her laptop going slower and slower so I spent some time helping her along with it. But there’s much more to do so this is going to be an ongoing task.

And now that I’ve written my notes, later than I hoped, I’m off to bed even if Joni Mitchell and Hejira, her greatest album by a country mile, has come round on the playlist. I need an early night and I deserve it.

Things aren’t getting any better round here and they won’t if I don’t take any decisive action.

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Thursday 9th April 2020 – TODAY WAS A …

… better day than some that I’ve had just recently. Mind you, that’s not to say that it was a good day. Just better.

It didn’t have the makings of a good day though. I’ve no idea what happened to the evening at all or where it went, but when I looked at the clock thinking that I ought to be going to bed soon, I noticed that the time was 00:40.

Obviously, leaving the bed at 06:00 or thereabouts was going to be rather difficult. But once again I slept through the alarms and it was 06:50 when I finally arose from the Dead.

After the medication, I looked at the dictaphone as usual. I had a new little girlfriend last night and she was ever so sweet. She was younger than me and I was a teenager. It was basically all about that and trying to make progress with a relationship. She lived a long way away from where I was staying so I had to travel quite a distance. I eventually found her house. I had seen something in the papers about a film in the cinema in a nearby town and I wasn’t sure if she wanted to go there but this way my plan. It was my plan for every week too – once a week take her to the cinema and just see how things developed. It all seemed really nice and lovely and warm and calm and relaxed and sweet and it was a dreadful shame that I had to spoil it all by waking up.

It wasn’t quite on a par with the “Worleston” dream that I had a few years ago and that I won’t forget in a hurry, but it was in that kind of ballpark area.

The digital file-splitting was straightforward this morning, although there were a couple of interruptions. Breakfast was one, and a phone call was another and I can’t remember now with whom it was that I was chatting.

The file-converting took up a good deal of time, and I was able to edit about 40 or so photos from Iceland in July 2019 while all of this was going on. I’m now up to photo 482 – just coming up to dock at Siglufjördur. And that’s day 8 of 31 and there’s a long way to go yet.

One task that I had been meaning to do for a while is to review the freezer and see what’s in there. The answer to that conundrum, having emptied out one of the shelves and given it a really good clean, is “not a lot”. The stocks have been going down nicely and the curry that I made yesterday is the only bulk-type of food in there now. It must therefore be time to make another aubergine and kidney-bean whatsit.

After lunch (more taco rolls of course) I carried on with the radio projects. And by the time that I knocked off at 18:00 I’d finished all of the text, dictated it and saved it to the computer. I could have done much more too except that I had a major crash-out at some point in the proceedings.

And that shouldn’t have been any surprise to anyone after last night’s late night.

And it means that I’ll have to carry on for longer than I intended, which means that this next project of mine will be delayed. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in my apartment are two desktop computers, 5 laptops, about a dozen different external hard drives, a pile of memory sticks and an even bigger pile of memory cards.

What I’ve done is to buy a big 4TB external drive, and absolutely EVERYTHING from every data storage device in the house will be transferred onto it. I’ll then go through and weed it down so that there’s just one major back-up copy with everything and then retire a whole load of obsolete stuff.

Having different loads of data scattered all about the place is proving to be a distraction that I can well do without so I want to tackle that task as soon as possible.

After the customary hour on the guitars, spent mainly working out Al Stewart’s “Valentina Way” and Joni Mitchell’s “Carey”, I went for tea.

Spoilt for choice, I didn’t know what to make so I ended up with pasta and vegetables with tomato sauce and the left-over stuffing with a couple of handfuls of peanuts thrown in for good measure.

atlantic wall trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france eric hallOnce I’d had the rice pudding and done the washing-up, I went for my evening runs.

Moving a lot easier today, I covered a bit more ground than usual which is always nice. I was at the end of the headland in no time and out there in the Baie De Mont St Michel, nicely framed between the bits of Atlantic Wall, was something moving out to sea

That bit of the wall is interesting though. When the war was over, they tried to move one of the bunkers. The put enough dynamite inside to shatter every single window withn a radius of 50 kilometres, yet moved two lumps of concrete about 20 feet.

They gave up after that.

trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france eric hallFurther on round the other side, I was able to take a much better photo of it.

It’s actually one of these trawler-type of fishing boats, and what that’s doing down there I really don’t know because we don’t normally see them fishing so far down the Baie de Mont St Michel.

But what it probably means that with there being such a high tide right now, there’s much more to go at that hasn’t been got at any time in the past.

trawlers chantier navale port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallFurther on round the headland I was able to see over the wall down into the chantier navale to see what was happening there tonight.

There’s been a continual shange of occupant down there just recently and last night, there were four ships in there. But they’ve obviously been doing some sort of work there today, because one of the ships has disappeared and they are now down to three again.

It’s just like a game of “Ten Green Bottles” in the chantier navale.

chausiais joly france port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallSo carrying on with my run down to the other end of the wall, there was a lovely view across the outer harbour tonight.

And there’s been some excitement in there tonight, and quite a lot of it too.

The first thing that you will notice is that Chausiais and Joly France have changed position. In fact I had noticed that yesterday but I had forgotten to mention it.

What this presumably means is that Joly France has gone out on a mission – presumably to the Ile de Chausey. Let’s hope so anyway.

trawler customs launch port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallBut even more interesting is what is actually leaving the harbour.

There’s a fishing boat on its way out, but that’s not really much of a surprise, but there’s also a Customs launch going out behind it.

“Going ou” implies of course that it has “come in”, right enough, but why would it want to come in here anyway? There’s no-one in the harbour who doesn’t belong there and no-one apart from the fishing boats has been anywhere just recently.

So that’s an interesting one. And on that note I came back to the apartment. Another 5 runs, and I’m working up a sweat now. That’s a good sign.

It’s extremely late now – and that’s because when I came in, Rosemary rang me up and we had a chat for an absolute age. But it doesn’t matter because toMorrow is Good Friday. And in accordance with usual practice there’s no alarm.

In theory I can sleep as late as I like. But you just watch someone come along and spoil it.

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Sunday 24th June 2018 – I’M NOT ANGRY.

les guis virlet franceNeither am I annoyed. And neither am I furious.

I’ve gone waaaaaaayyyyy beyond that into the stratosphere .

It’s the last time that I ever do anyone a favour ever again. If anyone ever wants something from me ever again they can pay full price for it. and if I ever want anything off anyone, I’ll pay full price for it too.

That way, it avoids all disappointments.

I must have MUG tattooed on my forehead in letters two feet high.

hotel le hussard alencon francedespite what I said about the hotel last night (well, it is rather overpriced and very tired, but it was the cheapest that I could find when I was tired) I had a really good sleep.

And it would have been even better had I not had a severe attack of cramp during the night – so severe that I had to get out of bed and stand up to ease the muscles;

Back in bed though, I was off on my travels and with no dictaphone handy I had to try my best to remember it.

But basically, I decided that I would like to learn a new language, so off I trotted to the night school.And who should be giving the course but TOTGA. Of course, I sat at the front of the class (my body might have given out but my mind certainly hasn’t). The end wall of the classroom sloped in at 45° so the white board attached to it was over the heads of the students at the front. And TOTGA needed to clean it. But whatever had been written on it had been written on it a long time ago and it had dried pretty hard so it took some scrubbing. So of course I volunteered to help, to the ribald remarks of my fellow classmates.

Back in the Land of the Living again, I had set the alarm for 08:45, even if it is a Sunday, but I didn’t need it because I was wide awake at 08:00. And amongst the (many) things that I have forgotten to bring with me (as usual, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall) are my pills and medicines.

I shall be like nothing on earth by the time that I get to Leuven – but then it’s not as if that’s anything new is it?

After breakfast I hit the road and headed south. I fuelled up Caliburn, tight to the brim and continued on my way.

A short while later, I picked up a hitch-hiker … "well, you shouldn’t have knoched him down" – ed. A Prisoner On The White Lines Of The Freeway, as Joni Mitchell would have us believe.

I’ve hitch-hiked all over the UK and North-West Europe in my youth (and not-so-youth) and been grateful for everyone who has stopped for me. Now that I have an empty and tidy Caliburn following my efforts of the other week, I’m not ashamed to stop for casual strangers.

“You wouldn’t by any chance be going anywhere near Tours, would you?” which is about 125 kms away.
“Well, as a matter of fact, I am” I replied.
And so we drove all the way round past Le Mans, down the Mulsanne Straight (without, unfortunately stopping to take a photo) and on into the suburbs of Tours where I dropped off my companion.

Regular Readers of This Rubbish will recall that I don’t like company, but it makes the journey pass that little bit more quickly when there’s someone else there.

loches franceHaving picked up a baguette on the way, I stopped at the car park by the river in Loches for lunch.

And there in the shade of some kind of tree I made myself a butty and had a quiet repose.

Another thing that I did was to have half an hour on the guitar. My Vox amPlug has an input socket as well as a headphone socket, so I can run tunes off my laptop into it. As a result, I can play along to the tracks that I’m learning even in the middle of a car park and that’s impressive.

I must keep up with things.

daihatsu hijet piaggio porter loches franceTalking about keeping up with things, there won’t be much difficulty keeping up with this, because the insurance ran out a few months ago and it doesn’t look as if it has moved since.

I bet that you are all wondering what’s so exciting about this Daihatsu Hijet and the answer is that it’s not actually a Daihatsu HiJet at all but a Piaggio Porter.

And even more excitingly, if you peer through the grime and dust, you can see that this vehicle once bore the livery of “La Poste”. And that’s really interesting because it’s not very often that you see “la Poste” driving around in vehicles that weren’tmade in France.

daihatsu hijet piaggio porter loches franceActually, you might say that it’s a Daihatsu, because it’s part of a project that Daihatsu and the Italian manufacturer Piaggio had on the go between them.

Daihatsu did drop out of the project when that company was taken over by Toyota and Piaggio carried on alone.

There are three versions of this, and I think that this might be a Version II, that dates it sometime between 1998 and 2011.

One version of this that I would really like to see is the Italian Military version that is fitted with a machine-gun. Contrary to rumours, it does NOT have one forward gear and five reverse.

A little later I did have a spell of fatigue. I did think that this trip might be too much for me, but I pressed on all the same.

And then we had the disappointment back at my house. I imagine that you all guessed that it was there.

Instead of staying there for a couple of nights, which was the plan, I went for a coffee and a chat with Rob and Nicolette, and then hit the road yet again. By now I’d found my second wind and i was ready to drive all night, but one has to be sensible about these things.

There’s a B&B hotel just on the edge of Moulins and I’m here tonight. Two nights of additional expense and 150 miles out of my way. I could have stayed at home until Monday had I known how thing were going to turn out.

I’m now running ahead of my plans at much greater expense than imagined and I’m one extremely unhappy bunny.

Let’s hope that tomorrow cheers me up.

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Friday 12th October 2012 – A RIGHT PICKLE!

I’ve been pickling today, and it looks as if I shall be eating beetroot for the next 100 years, with the amount that Rosemary and I bottled today.

And that tarragon-flavoured white vinegar didn’t half smell nice. By the time that we had added all of the spices to the vinegar and boiled it up, Rosemary’s kitchen smelt like a Babylonian boozer’s bathroom.

Still, it’s all done now.

We also shelled all of the peas and beans and I ended up with two jars of those. A few of them have chitted and so I’m going to try them out as winter plants under one of my patented plastic-bottle cloches. It might be worth a try.

Another thing that we did was to sort out the garlic and onions. I have enough garlic to last me all my life, I reckon, but not as many onions as I wanted.

I’ve no idea what happened to the shallots though – I had plenty of those a few weeks ago but I couldn’t find any the other day.

So first thing in the morning I went off to St Eloy-les-Mines. Firstly, to buy a recharge for the mobile phone, but the Post Office is closed for renovations for a few weeks so that was that.

Secondly I went to the dechetterie to dump all of the rubbish, but they are on winter hours so the blasted place was closed this morning.

After doing the weekly shopping though (seeing as I’m out, I’ll stay out and it’ll save me a trip tomorrow) I nipped off to Rosemary’s for the pickling session.

On the way back this evening, I “picked up a hitcher, a prisoner on the white lines of the freeway” to quote Joni Mitchell.

Only from Menat to St Eloy-les-Mines, but in my youth I spent lots of time hitch-hiking around the UK and France and I was always grateful for the ride, and so it’s nice to repay the debts that I owe.

I made it to the dechetterie and emptied a van-load of rubbish, mostly papers and glass bottles, and enquiries revealed that it is indeed true – if you go to the dechetterie during opening hours but during office hours, you can indeed help yourself to compost, which is freely available

So Saturday I’ll be having a working day – doing the radio programmes. I’m not going out at all, especially as there is not footy anywhere at all around here tomorrow.

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