Tag Archives: Lee Potiphar

LIVE: Saturday 3rd October 2026 – ANOTHER MYSTERIOUS AFTERNOON …

… in dialysis today. But I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that I’m going to do my best not to fall asleep in dialysis again so that I can keep my eye on what’s going on behind the scenes.

Another thing on which I wish that I could keep an eye on is what’s going on with my sleeping patterns. Anyone who checked my blog between about 22:00 and midnight and then went to check it later will be bound to be confused by what they read.

Round about 21:30, I fell asleep in the chair here, and when I awoke at about 22:00, I just posted on line what I’d written to date and added a “TO BE CONTINUED” sticker to it.

Before I fell into bed, though, I went for a ride on the porcelain horse, and when I came back in here, I found that I was wide awake somehow, so I finished off the blog, overwrote the “TO BE CONTINUED” sticker and posted the completed entry on line.

And then I fell into bed and went straight to sleep.

At some point during the night, I awoke again and was tossing and turning around for what seemed like an eternity, trying to go to sleep, but without any success. But I must have managed it at some point because I was dead to the World when the alarm went off at 06:29.

We had the usual struggle with ourselves to leave the bed, and then I went into the bathroom to sort myself out. While I was there, I had a good scrub up and a shave, in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon at dialysis.

Then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what went on during the night.

There had been something in the news about adoptions. There was a family from Preston who had adopted a boy from a Preston children’s home, and a couple of other people who had done the same thing too. There was even someone who had taken an abandoned child from a children’s home with a view to adopting him, and escaping to Vietnam. That had me thinking about whether, as a single man, I could adopt a child too. So I went away from here and had a think about it and then went back to the office to talk to them. It was only later on that I realised that I was living in a one-bedroomed apartment, so if I did adopt a child, then where would it sleep?

There’s certainly some mileage in this dream. Some “friends of friends” have recently adopted a child from a local children’s home, and that’s what has probably inspired this dream. And then adopted child and Vietnam has a story behind it too, but it’s another story that the World is not yet ready to hear.

As for adopting a child, I’m quite ready, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, to adopting a cat, preferably a female cat. And it’s true that I only have a one-bedroom apartment, so adopting a child would be out of the question, even if I were not ill.

Then I was at work, and it was a Sunday morning and there was plenty of overtime to be done to clear some arrears. I went in and there were quite a few other people in as well. There was a guy sitting next to me, and suddenly, a pile of people’s files turned up on my desk, so I asked him if they were his, and he said that they were, so I put them onto his desk somewhere and began to make myself comfortable. A girl came in extremely late, and everyone cheered her, so she came out with some story about having been locked in somewhere over the weekend, and how would we have liked it? We said that, well, we were certain that we could have rolled up our sleeves, done something and swam to somewhere. I began to look at everything on my desk, and it was a complete and utter shambles, so what I had in mind was to leave quietly on Friday and not go back to the office.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that these dreams of being in work after my retirement date and threatening to walk out without notice used to be a regular occurrence, but they seem to have died off a while back. However, as I said the other day, they are slowly making a comeback.

And the untidiness of mine in the office is nothing new at all. I was always like that, wherever I was and whatever I was doing.

We’d gone skiing somewhere in one of these big resorts. The car that we used was one of these big Transcontinental Vauxhall estates. There were five of us in this car, and the amount of stuff we’d brought with us was astonishing. After we’d packed, for example, I found my old ski boots and all kinds of things like that, so when we arrived in a town near the border to be inspected by the police, we were fully loaded and it took quite a while. I found later that we’d brought all the books with us from home, all that kind of thing. We went skiing, and then we decided to put our chalet up for sale. Someone in the town responded immediately, so we had to do a lot of clearing up and tidying up before we could let him in. When we let him in, he was big and he was active, bouncing around, and we were busy trying to put our ski things away and stack these books somewhere. We ended up stacking them against the wall next to the fireplace. I found a camera that didn’t work because the batteries were flat in it, all kinds of things like that, and getting them into my bag was going to be complicated. Someone came up to my girlfriend and asked me about the car. Before we were leaving, someone else came up to us and asked about the car. My girlfriend didn’t know much about it, so I told him. He said that he was really impressed with the amount of luggage we had in there. He cancelled an order for a new car so that he could buy one of these Transcontinental Vauxhall Estates.

In case you’ve forgotten what a Transcontinental Vauxhall estate looks like, there’s one HERE. It’s the beige one, SPU903M. Strangely enough, of all the cars that I’ve ever owned, I’ve never ever had a Vauxhall. The closest I ever came to one was having a Bedford CA van for a short while.

However, in the past, we never went to any fashionable ski resort, except that I went once with an Italian girl to a ski resort in Italy. Most of the time, we went to the unfashionable ones, although when I was driving coaches and we had no work for a few months after Christmas, I’d go to ski resorts in Eastern Europe such as Romania and Bulgaria. I even took Percy Penguin with me once.

The nurse turned up as usual, and while he was dealing with my legs and feet, he gave me the same warning as my cleaner did yesterday about the festival down in the port and how it was total chaos.

After he left, I made my breakfast and read some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870.

Today, we had another little chat about geology, and then we returned to fungi, with a discussion about fairy rings. Maybe the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine would have been interested in joining in the discussion. It’s a shame that the subject wasn’t “fairy boots”, otherwise it would have given me a good opportunity to drag Lee “I’m a prostitute” Pottymouth into the discussion. He’s not put in an appearance in these pages in an age.

When breakfast was finished, I had a few things to do, after which I intended to work on reformating the music that I’d downloaded the other day. However, in the end, I ended up having an on line discussion with someone about music that went on for quite a while, discussing mainly folk-rock songs.

And when the chat finished, I was so fired up that for the first time in a couple of years, I picked up the acoustic guitar and played CAREY by Joni Mitchell and MOONAGE DAYDREAM (I don’t know why) by David Bowie. I was surprised how much I’d forgotten, and also how much it hurt afterwards.

At midday, I went into the kitchen for my disgusting drink and midday medication, and then I began to make myself ready for dialysis. My faithful cleaner turned up too to put the anaesthetic on my arm too.

After she left, I hunched up over the table and let myself relax, with my head resting on my forearms. I was once again just about to drift off into a really nice dream when the doorbell rang. I looked at the time and it was 12:58 – I’d been away with the fairies … "although not in any manner that would excite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine" – ed … for just over half an hour.

There was no one else to pick up en route so we arrived at dialysis a few minutes early, despite the chaos around the port today. However, it made no difference because there was a queue of people in front of me, and it took until 14:25 to be plugged in.

Once everything was up and running, I had to wait until 15:30 for the football to kick off so I found one or two other things to do while I was waiting. However, I must have crashed out somewhere along the line because I awoke with a start at 15:27, just three minutes before kick-off.

The match that I’d chosen today was the basement clash between Rhydaman and Trefynnon. This was a real six-pointer, as both sides had yet to record a victory, and they needed to start winning soon, as the rest of the table was cutting them adrift.

As you might expect, this was another game played at a hundred miles per hour with both teams going at it hammer and tongs. And its opening was certainly dramatic – Johnny Evans missed a sitter of a free header when surely it must have been easier to score, and then straight from the goal kick, Trefynnon roared up the field and scored to go in front.

Then we had goals disallowed for offside, balls hitting the post or being cleared off the line, until Johnny Evans, in the fortieth minute, scored with a delightful lob from outside the penalty area, right over the head of the Trefynnon goalkeeper.

It went from bad to worse for Trefynnon when in the fifty-sixth minute, Rhydaman scored a second goal to take the lead. From then on, Trefynnon threw everything they had at the Rhydaman defence, but to no avail and Rhydaman took all of the points.

That was a shame because I thought that Trefynnon had the better of the play, but they are deep in it now after that.

And spare a thought for Cambrian United. For the second away match in succession, they conceded nine goals. And they are one of the better promoted teams too.

This was when I noticed something rather bizarre. When I’d begun to watch the football, there were fourteen minutes after the final whistle before the end of the session. However, despite there being over fourteen minutes of stoppage time in this game, there was still half an hour to go, and I wasn’t finished until 17:55.

From 14:25 to 17:55 is three and a half hours, not the three hours that I’m supposed to have, and when I weighed myself later, I was still four hudred grams over my dry weight. Mind you, I did notice that the chief doctor, he who doesn’t like me chatting up the nurses, was on duty again today. He spoke to several people in the ward, but kept well clear of my bed.

When I was outside, I had to wait a few minutes for the taxi but I was once more the only passenger. Nevertheless, it was 19:15 when I finally arrived home.

My cleaner was waiting for me, sitting on her mushroom outside, and she helped me into the house and gave me another disgusting drink.

After she had left, I made myself a small plate of pasta and veg tossed in olive oil, garlic, black pepper and vegan cheese. And delicious it was too, especially as it was followed by a peach yoghurt.

Back in here, I had things to do, and then write up my notes. Now when I’ve checked the stats and backed up the computer, I’ll be off to bed. It’s horrendously late tonight … "or this morning" – ed … but I don’t care. I’m aiming for a lie in tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about people sitting on mushrooms and other bizarre things … "well, one of us has" – ed … a man walked into a doctor’s surgery and began to speak to another man sitting there.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
"I have the biggest piles the World has ever seen" he replied.
"Is that why you’re sitting on that giant bean cushion?" he asked.
The man replied "look more closely."

Thursday 6th December 2018 – BRAIN OF BRITAIN …

… strikes again.

With having the appointment for my anti-flu injection at 11:00 this morning I decided to go and do my shopping at LIDL as normal and call in at the medical centre on the way back.

And do you know? I was halfway into town, quite wet in the rain, before I realised that I had forgotten to take the injection with me and that it was still in the fridge. And that’s despite leaving a prominent note on the table in the dining room.

Last night was a rather later night than normal and I was still asleep when the alarm went off. Much to my surprise I was up and about fairly quickly too which is a change.

After breakfast I had another letter to write. One that I had forgotten to write the other day and which needed doing quite rapidly as there was a time limit involved.

After my abortive trip into town, and back here having found the medication, it was too late to go back out to LIDL so I stayed here and made a phone call. And as a result it was arranged that I can make another phone call on Monday afternoon in this respect.

But as an aside, I was given an e-mail address to which I can send a mail. But knowing the way things work, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I will be surprised if I have a reply.

Back into town for my injection.

That isn’t snow down there in the place General de Gaulle, even though it might look like it. They are busy setting up the decorations for Christmas.

Only two and a half weeks away now.

The nurse who attended to me is from Lille, and he has a Flemish surname. It turns out that he has relatives in Flanders and we spent some of the time talking in Flemish.

At the Post Office I posted off all of the letters that I had written over the last few days, and then worked my way round to the Railway Station to pick up my tickets. And I’m glad that I picked them up well in advance during office hours because the ticket-printing machine was once again out of order.

One of these days I’ll forget, turn up at the station for my train and the machine will be out of order again. I wonder what the penalty is for travelling without a valid ticket.

There were a couple of things in LIDL that I would have picked up today but I wouldn’t be able to carry them home. I’ll have to wait until Saturday when I go up there in Caliburn and hope that there will be some left.

The exertions of the morning had worn me out and I ended up crashing out for half an hour in my comfy office chair. That took me up to lunch.

This afternoon I attacked the files that I had downloaded from the desktop computer. And I found all of the OU postings that I had saved for further reference, including the legendary “I’m a Pottymouth” message by the equally legendary Lee Prostitute, fairy boots and all.

Now that the wet weather was drying out this afternoon, there were crowds out there walking around the Pointe du Roc.

And on my way out of the apartment I bumped into one of my neighbours coming in.

But there’s a storm brewing in the offing as the waves are slowly to climb up the sea wall. I hope that it it will be as good as the one last winter.

By the time that I rounded the headland and came back, it was school chucking-out time.

And so of course we have cars parked all over the pavements by the College Malraux and on the boulevard Vaufleury which is the main bus route and where the school coaches pass by.

There’s a huge free public car park just 50 metres up the road from there, but that is clearly too far for our poor little dears to stagger, so let’s just disrupt all of the traffic instead.

Why not?

And as I was coming back in, I met the same neighbour going out. It’s a small world.

Remember the tin of potatoes that I had opened in error yesterday? While I was ferreting around in the freezer I found a pie from last year left over. So I switched on the oven, prepared a quick rice pudding, soaked some of the tinned potatoes in olive oil, and bunged the rice pudding, the pie and the potatoes in to cook.

While that was going on, I cooked some frozen peas and carrots, and made some gravy. And it was all very delicious. Except the rice pudding, which wasn’t ready. But I’ll finish that off next time that the oven goes on.

No-one else was about on my walk last night, which isn’t much of a surprise.

I had plenty of time to stand on the walls and admire the view. The Christmas lights down in the town were illuminated quite brightly.

They seem to have done a good job of lighting up the mairie and I hope that they can do as good a job of the rest of the town as they have done down there.

There is quite an array of lights going up the rue Couraye too.

One of these evenings I’ll go for a walk up there and see what they are really like in the dark.

Alone out there I might have been, as far as human company went. But Minette was there though, and she let me stroke her for a few minutes before having a spit at me and wandering off. Dunno why she’s in such a bad mood just now.

On the way back to the apartment, I walked up along the rue St Jean.

From the corner of the rue du Nord there was a good view right down the street, under the gate and off into the place d’Armes. So I stopped to take a photograph of it on my way up.

Back here, I bumped into yet another neighbour. And she told me about a music course in the vicinity. I asked her to make further enquiries on my behalf.

So an early night is now on the cards. Tomorrow I’m going to wire up a big external hard drive to the desktop computer and copy the entire contents of the desktop computer onto the external drive.

Then, I can review it at my leisure without having to worry about the reliability of the desktop computer.

That lot should keep me out of mischief.

storm sea wall port de granville harbour baie de mont st michel manche normandy france

fishing boats port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Saturday 12th May 2018 – IT’S A WELL-KNOWN PHENOMENON …

… that when you lose something that you desperately need, you can’t find it anywhere even though you know almost exactly where it ought to be.

And it’s an even more well-known phenomenon that while you are looking for the aforementioned, you find something that you lost a while ago and were totally unable to find and you had since given up all hope of ever finding it again. And – you usually find it in a place where you are certain that you have already looked – and on several occasions too.

So for this reason I unreservedly and unequivocally withdraw all of the intemperate remarks that I made at the time and have made since then a propos the mobile phone which disappeared from my possession just before Christmas.

The next question of course is – “what will I have lost and be looking for when I find the spring retaining clip off Caliburn’s window winder?”

Now here’s something rather strange. I was sitting here last night feeling somewhat (but not all that much) tired but I couldn’t find anything that I wanted to do all that much. So in the end I gave it all up as a bad job and went off to bed in default. That’s not at all like me, is it?

And it didn’t take me long (like a matter of a couple of minutes) to go off to sleep too.

The first part of the night was quite restless though and I was tossing and turning somewhat. But eventually I settled down and was well away with the fairies.

We had another one of those nights where I was wandering around aimlessly, my clothes in my hands, from one big public building to another trying to find where the public showers were.
But later I was with a couple of people, one of whom was a young girl of about 10 or 11, on bicycles waiting at a roundabout for the traffic to clear. It was early one morning and still dark and the girl had no lights on. Suddenly she darted off between the traffic and took the wrong road. I had to chase after her, which wasn’t easy seeing as I couldn’t see her, but caught her up eventually on the Coleridge Way estate in Crewe. She’s come to a dead end and couldn’t work out where to go next. I knew where we were although I couldn’t understand how we had arrived there, and to return to our route we had to go down a footpath that would lead us back to the road. But there were these anti-bicycle gates on the footpath so I had to lift her bike over them, and in doing so I scratched the paintwork. You could see through the deep pink down to the original purple colour. She was most upset about that.

It was another struggle to leave the bed this morning. I’m clearly suffering the after-effects of my journey the other day. But having made a nice new muesli mix yesterday I could enjoy a nice fresh breakfast – even if I did forget the orange juice.

A shower and a shave and a general clean-up and then I hit the streets. My trip out took me to LIDL, NOZ and LeClerc where I bought nothing special but nevertheless spent a lot of money because the stocks here are right down.

But I couldn’t help thinking to myself that they must have some strange men doing their shopping at NOZ. Here on the “men’s” shopping rack we have a nice selection of dresses and an even better selection of handbags.

It takes all sorts, I suppose. I wonder if Lee Pottymouth does his shopping here. But then, I didn’t see any fairy boots on offer.

I also visited the Controle Technique station to book Caliburn’s next appointment and also the garage where he goes to be serviced, but they are taking advantage of this week of two Bank Holidays by being closed until Monday.

With the controle technique being due, I reckoned that it might be a good idea to find out why the driver’s door on Caliburn no longer opens from the outside. It was a good morning – not too hot, dry, no wind, so I could work in comfort.

And it didn’t take too long to discover the problem. There’s a rod that operates the door latch and it’s adjustable with a nut on the end. Only there was no nut on the end. It’s fallen off. So I rummaged around, found a nut of the correct size, and reassembled it. It’s not quite adjusted correctly, but it works and that’s good news.

Then, the reassembly bit. The window winder is held on by a spring clip, not a screw, and it’s flaming awkward to fit. The first time that it sprung off I actually caught it as it flew across Caliburn’s cab – much to my own surprise – but the second time it disappeared off in the general direction of under the driver’s seat.

So I bent down to look for it – and the rest is history.

The phone was under there looking as if it had been placed there. It’s impossible for it to have fallen out of my pocket into the position where I found it. And in any case, I’m certain that I’ve looked there before. So I dunno. It’s mystifying me.

The weather was nice enough to work on Caliburn but not nice enough to eat my sandwiches outside. And then, much to my dismay, I was gone with the wind for a good hour or more. Clearly not up with it, am I?

Nevertheless I went for my walk this afternoon and then settled down to watch the football. Cardiff Metro v Barry Town in the Europa League playoffs. Barry unbeaten in the last 10 matches and the Met having been on a woeful run of form although they came good in the last two matches.

And everyone in a packed ground at Cyncoed and those watching on the internet were treated to a thriller for the first 25 minutes. Barry had most of the possession but Cardiff Met played some good, neat football. And then the Met took the lead with a goal out of nowhere. And then a second ditto. A third followed shortly thereafter – an own goal from a defender who headed a free kick into his own net. And that was that.

The second half was pretty much the same although the killer instinct had gone from Cardiff Met. They scored a fourth but Barry pulled one back to make the score a little more respectable. Cardiff Met were the better team to be sure, but not three goals better. If they play like they did in the first half against Cefn Druids next week and win, they’ll tear up Europe next season.

I had my little walk this evening after a tinned tea, and now I’m vegetating. No alarm tomorrow as it’s Sunday so I’m going to sleep until I awake. I reckon that I need it.

Sunday 5th September 2010 – One thing that I promised never to do …

… was to criticise anyone else’s attempts at foreign language translations. And for two reasons –

people ought to be congratulated for making any attempt at doing their best to make themselves understood/li>
of course, the stuff that I do is nothing to write home about and I wouldn’t like mine to receive the same kind of criticism

But be that as it may, my imagination isn’t half working overtime about the condition third from bottom on the list on the right, and all kind of images are floating through my mind.

I had a lovely afternoon out this afternoon though, although this morning was something of a disaster. It was about 04:00 when I went to bed, I was dealing with a computer issue for all of Saturday until then – and yet at 09:00 I was up and about and breakfasted. And on a Sunday too.!

“How did you manage that?” I hear you say.
That was thanks to whoever it was who rang me at 08:10 and said “C’est toi, Albert?” And when I told him that he had a wrong number, rang me back twice more until I finally convinced him.

And so with my Sunday ruined, I did some more website stuff for the rest of the morning.

After lunch I set out for the football at Blot-l’Eglise, a nice village up in the hills at the back of Manzat and Combronde.

FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 1st XI won 1-0 in a good, enjoyable match played in a very friendly atmosphere in beautiful weather conditions, but in all honesty Blot l’Eglise could still be out there now, all on their own attacking an empty net, and they still wouldn’t have equalised.

On the way back I parked up for a while at the Moulin de Braynant (where I saw the above notice) and went for a walk along the Gorge de la Sioule, such a beautiful afternoon that it was. The weather was gorgeous, the scenery was impressive and it really was a pleasure to be out and about.

This is quite a touristy spot here and a very popular place for watersports, as Lee Potty-mouth and Rick Hollyoaks will tell you.

They also hire out kayaks (and this is what the notice above refers to, by the way) and one day I’m going to have a go at this. It’s a long time since I’ve been in a boat – I used to canoe for my school back in the late 1960s, which is just as well as there are no lessons on offer here.

I asked them how beginners manage, and the response was that they have to paddle their own canoe around here.

They need to make sure that they take all the correct equipment with them otherwise that they can find themselves right up the creek without a paddle.

The notice above, by the way, omits two of the most important rules of kayaking, and maybe I ought to repeat them here.

you are not allowed to light a fire in a canoe. After all, you cannot have your kayak and heat it
it is forbidden to make love in a canoe. After all, making love in a canoe is just the same as English beer – it’s f*cking close to water

And after all of that, I came back here and crashed out for … errrr …. four hours – now I can’t sleep.

In other news, something has happened this evening that I have been waiting 10 months to do. And just like a hurricane, you know that it is inevitably going to happen and you are totally powerless – there is nothing that you can do that will stop it.

Yes, I have finally, at long last, managed to spill a full mug of coffee all over the floor in my nice attic room 🙁

-1

Sunday 20th December 2009 – Wahey!!!!

Yes, the Stairway to Heaven is finished!

Well, it isn’t actually because with not going to Montlucon this weekend I didn’t buy the wood that I need to make the treads. So I’m using scraps of wood right now and I’ll replace the treads in due course. Krys kindly sent me a message – she’d seen the scraps of wood that I’m using for treads and she was worried that they weren’t strong enough and concerned for my safety in case I fell through them. I thought that that was quite sweet. Most readers of this blog would pay good money to watch me crash through a tread and hurtle 6 metres to my doom.

I dunno why it is but this morning with no alarm clock (it’s Sunday) I managed to wake up earlier than I normally do when I want to have an early start. And dramatically, while I was drinking my coffee and watching the thermometer I noticed the temperature rise by about 1.5 degrees. It’s stayed a little warmer all day, and it’s now above freezing for the first time for a week. Which is just as well. I’ve been wandering around in about 10 different layers of clothes – woolly jumpers, fleeces, body warmers and the like. I feel like a cross between Nanook of the North and Eskimo Nell.

And that reminds me – I did hear of a story about the Brighton “Gay Pride” rally one Easter a few years ago, when it actually snowed!. Lee “I’m a Potty-mouth” Prostitute was taking part in the parade dressed in his fairy boots and about 10 jumpers to keep out the cold. He bumped into Rick Hollyoaks, and they discussed Potty-mouth’s attire.
“I bet you feel like Nanook of the North” said Hollyoaks.
“Well as a matter of fact I do” replied Potty-mouth. “But I’ve no idea how I’m going to find him in this crowd!”

So I dug Caliburn out of a snowdrift and drove him up and down the lane to free off the road. And then the snow hurtled down again. Liz rang up and said that they were having a tempest out there and she couldn’t get to this carol-singing, and I didn’t think I could either. It was diabolical. You can get an idea of what the weather was like.

And that was how come I finished the Stairway to Heaven. It was dark when it was all complete so I’ll post a pic in due course.

It’s still warming up and I’ve already taken some layers off. I might even turn off the fire if it carries on.

Tomorrow I’ll be starting the stairs on the ground floor. This is looking quite optimistic.

-2

Friday 20th November 2009 – On my drive down to Liz and Terry’s yesterday …

… I stopped to take my traditional photograph of the Gorge of the Sioule bathed in cloud. Each time I go that way in the morning I always take a pic as the effects of the cloud are always different.

Yesterday we had an island – the peak of one of the hills in the gorge that was just peeking out above the level of the cloud. It looked like something that Roger Dean would have drawn for the cover of a “Yes” album.

After breakfast I telephoned this radio guy as requested.
“I’m sorry, he’s not here“
“Well, I’ll leave my number so he can call me back later“
“Actually he’s out all day“
“Never mind – he can call me on Monday“
“He has meetings all day Monday and Tuesday. So it won’t be before Wednesday“.
So much for urgency.

The weather is still unseasonably hot – the last four days have all been round the 20-degree mark. So I burnt a pile of rubbish in my galvanised steel dustbin, with which I am very impressed. But much of the paper is still wet and damp so it needs more time to dry out. It if keeps fine by Sunday I’ll have another fire and bake some spuds while I’m doing it. After all, there’s no footy on Sunday.

I’ve carried on with the tidying up too.

And earlier this evening I was sitting quietly in my room when there was a terrific crash from outside in the stairwell. I had 5 or 6 boxes of screws all neatly stacked and for no apparent reason they all fell down the stairs. There are thousands of screws everywhere now.

I must have a ghost, I suppose. My house in Crewe is haunted and the local vicar told me that he would come round and exorcise it. I asked him why. As far as I was concerned the ghost was one of the family and had just as much, if not even more right to be there.

And Lee Pottymouth lives in a flat that is haunted by two ghosts, and he reckons that they are homosexual ghosts. “They don’t half put the willies up me” he said.

-7

Wednesday 18th November 2009 – At least I know now …

… why it is that my little room is getting so damp. I moved a pile of wood and the evidence is right before my eyes.

The soil has once more banked itself up against the kitchen wall (I keep digging it out every couple of years) and also, some of the pointing has fallen out and water is infiltrating between the stones.

I’m glad that I’m going round to Terry’s tomorrow morning to have a pointing lesson with Mark. I can see me putting this to use in a very short space of time.

In other news, I’m still tidying up the garden, albeit in a rather desultory fashion. Most of what I’ve been doing is to sort out the scrap wood into what is useable elsewhere and what is only fit for burning. I’m also pulling up brambles and nettles in a sort-of tidying up of the scrub for I need a place to put the compost bin that I bought a couple of weeks ago and everywhere else is full up.

And what else? Ahh yes. I’ve dug over the carrot patch and the potato patch and rescued some veg. I fact I had home-grown potatoes and carrots for tea just now. I’ve also tidied up Caliburn’s cab and cleaned the inside of the windscreen which was all greased over and filthy. We’re off to Liz and Terry’s tomorrow and Strawberry Moose has been promised a huge hug from Liz. He’s quite looking forward to it.

And in other news, Rhys and I have been looking at cement mixers on the internet – Rhys has to lay a concrete foundation for his new shed. But never mind the cement mixer, Harbour Freight has a heavy duty concrete vibrator for just €99. Now isn’t that right up Lee “I’m a potty-mouth” Prostitute’s alley?

-6

Wednesday 28th October 2009 – One thing that you need to understand …

… when you read my adventures is that I never ever make any mistakes. What I do is that I learn a lot, and sometimes learning can be expensive. In the olden days in the Wild West (yesterday in South Carolina, Rhys) greenhorns were continually being cheated at cards by people called “Doc”, and whenever anyone ever said anything, the response always was “you have to pay to learn“.

And so it is with house renovations.

And having got the preamble out of the way, let us now discuss the woodstove.

I lined the base with damp sand as required, and assembled a fire inside. “You need a 6x6x6″ fire, and be careful that it does not touch the sides“. How you do this when you have a fire that is 5.5×5.5×5.5” no-one actually said. But anyway I did my best and it toook ages to get going, but I slowly warmed it up. And when I was happy that it was burning I started on the grouting of the bricks I laid the other day (much more useful that laying eggs, I can tell you)

Halfway through the grouting the phone rang, so I opened the door to climb down the ladder to the phone, and “Blimmin’ ‘eck!” You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face with the smoke, and the fumes were overpowering. All through the house, even in my little room, was a pall of black smoke. I was appalled. as was the smoke.

Normally I would expect that the hot air would rise up the stovepipe and carry the soot and ash with it. When they burst out into the chimney the hot air would rise creating a current of air from the chimneys below, which would pull up the soot and ash. But not a bit of it. The soot and ash had descended in the chimney and come out at the bottom. So much for free circulation. And so much for the woodstove too.

I was toying with the idea of lining the chimney and putting the stovepipe all the way up to the outside, and I wish I had done it now. I can’t get the pipe in now that I’ve done the walls and so basically the woodstove will have to be put on hold while I think about this.

It’s not the end of the world though as I have the bottled gas heater, but I was hoping to get away from fossil fuels and go for a more natural source. What is going to be a major problem is that if the soot and ash can get from the attic to the living room it can also do the return journey when I light the fire down here. And that will be “an issue”.

Today’s image is entitled “What I saw when I opened the door”.

On the phone, as it happened, was a member of OUSA’s Executive Committee who wanted a chat. Of course I shan’t name names as talking to me is punishable by a “visit” from Pol Pot’s sibling, a whine from Caligula and her horse, and a thorough dressing-down from Turdi de Hatred (not to mention a thorough dressing up, in fairy boots if I remember correctly, by Lee “I’m a prostitute” Potty-mouth. But I digress – something that you ought to be used to by now)

I’ve now done all the grouting and the filling, and I started poncing (But not in fairy boots) this evening. Tomorrow will be finishing off the poncing, cleaning up the room and making a start on the wallpapering. D-Day is getting closer.

-5

EPIC HALL

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