… laugh.
It’s the start of the holiday season here tomorrow and for the next eight weeks we’ll be under siege by thousands of tourists coming to admire the crabs and the seabirds, blockading the town, wandering in the High Street obstructing the traffic etc.
And don’t let me start on the squadrons of motor homes that will be roaming the streets.
Of course, as a seaside town, we have to entertain them and they are erecting a sound stage on the steps of the Public Rooms at the back of our building outside the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs – the Hostel for Young People coming to work in the town.
My cleaner will tell you what this means. She’s a lovely woman and has a beautiful, rhythmic way of speaking with a lilt in her voice as she goes on about all the noise and “when I want to watch tv …” and “when I want to open my windows to air …” and “when I want to have a siesta …”
And on (and on, and on) she went until she finished off with a resounding j’espère que les goélands y vont chier dessus .. "I hope that the seagulls go and s**t all over them".
By that time I was bent double with laughter. That was probably the most fitting, most suitable comment that I could possibly imagine, and I’ll certainly save that for another occasion.
There’s nothing wrong with a good laugh, and a bit of vulgarity never hurt anyone.
Meanwhile, in other news, it was yet another late night crawling into bed and how fed up I am of that, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …
Nevertheless I was soon asleep which was at least something, I suppose. But not for long.
At about 06:15 I awoke yet again and just couldn’t go back to sleep. As a result, when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was in the bathroom having a wash.
While I was waiting for the nurse to show up I transcribed the dictaphone notes to find out where I’d been during the night. They were running a study down by the lives of the men in the trenches, between those who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths and those born poor. It turns out that the people who were born poor had much less expectation of everything but were not prepared to suffer as much because presumably they were used to things being worked out for them and were not so used to having to work out their own solutions to many problems.
What astonishes me is the depth of thought that I can plumb when I’m away on my travels. I wish that I could think as clearly and as profoundly as this during the day when I’m awake. I would have many fewer problems than I do, that’s for sure.111
One interesting thing that came out of another experiment that we were all doing was that the guy who was conducting it turned round and told me that between 1983 and 1987 “you didn’t do anything at all very much”. I thought “well that’s certainly not true. Why on earth would I ever make anyone think that? There’s obviously something wrong with this experiment if it’s come up with these kinds of figures and information”. But halfway through the debate one of the people said mais, le monsieur, il est fort anglais, oui? – “the guy is very English, isn’t he?”. I asked “does that make a difference?”. They replied “yes because a lot of information on the British national Government’s database was never copied over to Europol so the European Governments won’t know about what happened to you in the UK at that particular time. That was a revelation to me that Europol didn’t have access to the records to British people. That would explain everything because during that period I was extremely busy and didn’t really have the time for any trips over to the Continent and back again whereas in the periods both before and afterwards I was a frequent visitor.
Most people when they are asleep usually dream of green meadows and fluffy clouds and the like. I bet that I’m the only the only person who can have sweet (or not-so-sweet) dreams about the European Police Agency.
"But it wasn’t the bullet that laid him to rest, was
The low spark of high-heeled boys"
What a moment for that to come round on my playlist!
The nurse didn’t have much to say for himself. Except that he’s noticed that I’m putting on the weight again. That’s true, as I said a few days ago. But I really don’t know what to do about it. I have this surgery planned for the 16th – so then they will take me in charge to do the necessary but also give me a good going-over yet again.
With that date arranged there’s no point in rushing anything because whatever solution they reach will only be a temporary one anyway until the dialysis can begin. And then we’ll have to see where we’ll be.
Now regular readers of this rubbish will will recall that I always invite messages and requests. In fact, I receive many requests, most of them physically impossible it has to be said, but one of them was for the recipe for my vegan lasagne.
That’s difficult, because there’s not really a recipe, just an ad hoc collection of stuff hanging around in the kitchen all thrown together, but here goes, Hans –
- Cook a cup full of red lentils in plenty of water until thoroughly soft, and then when cooked rinse thoroughly.
- Fry a couple of large onions in olive oi
- Chop up some garlic and add in when the onions are soft.
- Add herbs and spices – I used sage, basil, tarragon, oregano
- Add a big pile of chopped mushrooms
- Chop up a block of tofu and add in.
- After it’s all been frying nicely, add in the lentils that you cooked in step one.
- Add in a jar of tomato sauce (I found a jar of tomato and mushroom sauce that had been loitering around in the kitchen for longer than it ought)
- Stir it all in and leave it to simmer for a while.
- When it’s ready, nicely cooked, take your pie dish and line it with lasagne sheets
- put a covering of your filling on top
- add more lasagne sheets
- add more filling
- add more sheets ….
- And build up until your dish is full
- Make a simple bechamel sauce with grated vegan cheese. Pour over the top of the lasagne.
- Add a couple of slices of vegan cheese to the top
- When your bread has about half an hour left to cook, slide yous lasagne into the oven alongside the bread.
There was football on the internet this morning – a game from a while ago between East Stirling and Cowdenbeath, two former Scottish League clubs now fallen on hard times and down in the non-league pyramid.
Played at the Falkirk stadium, the home of East Stirling since the tragic loss of their beloved Firs Park ground, it was the visitors who took away the laurels with a 3-2 victory.
But the Blue Brazil have keeper Craig Hepburn to thank for single-handedly defying a rampant East Stirling attack who should by rights have scored a hatful of goals
Apart from the football it was a rather slow start to the day but once I got going I chose another pile of music for a forthcoming radio programme, paired it off and segued the pairs, and while the cleaner was here, wrote half of the notes.
Yes, don’t ask me what happened. I must have been in a good mood to have done all that.
Unfortunately I couldn’t keep it going. I crashed out for an hour after my afternoon hot chocolate. And I actually managed to go off for a wander while I was asleep. There were five of us who used to hang around together, two boys, two girls and me. The boys and girls gradually paired off, leaving me on my own. That was a big disappointment to me because I was very keen on one of the girls and I genuinely thought that I would be able to pair up with her but no such luck. Her boyfriend had lent her a car and I’d even offered to buy her one but to no avail. Anyway we met in Flag Lane and my car was parked in Delamere Street. She had several items like a couple of saucepans and she also had a huge pile of grapes. She gave me a large bunch of grapes as she knew that I liked them and as I was making my way back to my car she blew her horn and called me back. I hoped that it was for some kind of friendly purpose but instead she gave me two saucepans in which to carry away the grapes. I was so disappointed.
What’s even more disappointing is that I know exactly who she is but I can’t think of her name and can’t think of how I know her either. I’m having some really serious brain-fade these days and I wish that I didn’t.
Tea tonight was as usual a lovely vegan salad with chips and the last of these vegan nugget things. I need to order some more of them, I suppose
I’ve run out of the salad dressing unfortunately so I mixed up some vegan mayonnaise with dijon mustard, lemon juice and olive oil. That made a very acceptable substitute.
So now I’m going to crawl into bed ready to renew the attack tomorrow morning. I’ll finish off these radio notes, dictate a few more during the night, edit them on Sunday and then be ready for my Welsh Summer School that begins on Monday for a week. It’s all “get up and go” here.
This time next week I’ll be flat on my back with my arms and legs in the air. They’ll ask me "what happened to your ‘get up and go’?"
And the answer is "It got up and went a long time ago"
