… a lovely chat this afternoon.
It’s been ages since Liz and I have had a good natter over the internet, but this afternoon she came online and we had quite a discussion. It’s really nice to catch up with old friends.
Something else with which I shall have to catch up is my sleep, but that’s not going to be for a day or so, the way that things are panning out right now.
As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. it’s totally pointless going to bed early, because all it means is that I awaken correspondingly early the next morning. And so it was today.
Last night, after tea, I rushed through everything. My notes were on-line at 22:07 and it didn’t take long to finish off everything. By 22:40, I was tucked up under the quilt and already half-asleep. It didn’t take very long at all to go the rest of the way.
And there I lay, flat out and dead to the World until … errr … 03:15. I’ve no idea what awoke me, if anything actually did, but I couldn’t go back to sleep despite all of the trying.
By 05:15 I had given it up as a bad job and left the bed. Taking full advantage of the unexpected early start, I dictated the radio notes for the additional track on the radio programme that I’d been preparing.
Once I’d done that, I uploaded them to the computer, edited them and then completed the radio programme. It over-ran by nineteen seconds, which is better than under-running by nineteen seconds. I can edit out an over-run but there’s not much that you can do to an under-run except to slow the speed of the recording.
The editing took a while, but now it’s all up and running at exactly one hour in length, which is what it’s supposed to be.
The nurse turned up as usual today. His happy, cheerful self seems to be continuing, which is very pleasant. He’s much nicer than this.
To cheer him up, I told him that I’m going out at 07:30 tomorrow morning. He told me that he can’t make it by that time so I should have to sort myself out. That’s not too much of a problem, as it happens. I’m sure that I shall manage.
After he left, I made breakfast and then came back in here to find out where I’d been during the night. It was some guy’s party for a birthday, a wedding or something, so everyone had gone to town with him. When they were outside a pub, they were awarded a free kick, so one of their friends took the kick and hoisted it really high towards them. The commentator said something about “this is a typical gentleman’s wedding-type ball, this one”. Anyway, they all dispersed themselves, walking away. But before that, though, when the ball was played into the air, everyone ran forwards towards the ball except for two guys who stood waiting at the back. They were the ones who were able to get the ball and head it towards the goal, or towards the pub etc, and the commentator was saying something about it being a proper wedding ball. But these players who ran forward trying to get the ball, it was like a stampeding herd that you’d see in a couple of these other games. Anyway, later on, there was another free kick that needed to be taken, so the same player who took the previous one again kicked a high ball into the centre of the town where everyone was waiting outside the pub, trying to head it in.
Whatever that’s about, I’m sure that you can work it out for yourselves. I can understand the football part, but why they should be doing it in a town centre in the middle of a stag night is anyone’s guess.
Someone had made a cheese soup and they had brought it into the kitchen where we were all waiting. So I went into the cupboard and brought out a pile of bowls and began to hand them round to people who went up to be served with it. However, the woman in charge took a great deal of exception to the idea oof me handing out bowls. She told me quite simply that bowls were not allowed. I replied “I don’t know how else we’re going to eat this meal”. But she dispensed everything to everyone else in the bowls and just put the soup down. Then they all wandered off. As I wasn’t allowed a particular bowl, I picked up the big bowl that was already there and wandered off with that. I just sat in my car outside and ate it, or, at least, ate some of it. The next thing that I knew, I was surrounded by these two angry women who wanted to know what was happening with the soup. I explained that I couldn’t supply myself with a bowl from which to eat it, so I just ate it out of the main one. That made them even more angry. In the end, they took the soup. They wanted to know what had happened to the tickets that I must have taken from the people to whom I’d handed out the bowls. I replied “no-one gave me a ticket” so that made them even more angry. In the end, they searched through the car to see if they could find any tickets but all they found were two sets of ear-studs belonging to children, who must have been children who were at this meeting or whatever it was and had come there in the car. They were so angry, but I didn’t care at all because if I hadn’t been allowed to eat the soup out of a bowl that I’d supplied from my kitchen, then I was going to eat it out of the main bowl whether they liked it or not.
It’s not as if I have any interest whatever in cheese soup – it sounds disgusting to me – but this kind of situation where I’m excluded from something that I’ve organised on my own premises is nothing at all new to me.
One of the guys from the Welsh class was saying that he wasn’t here last week because he’d had to go to some small place on the Bristol Channel somewhere. There was a mutual Society there called something to do with the Bristol Concessions. They owned property and that kind of thing in their settlements, and everything was done on a very co-operative basis. It was very cheap to live there and one of the shares had come up for sale, so he went to see it to see if he could buy the share and move to the village. He was telling us all about this place and we all decided that we’d go with him to have another look around. He took us and showed us around the village. My eye immediately fell on someone’s workshop, which was full of motorbikes, many of which, I imagined, had never been used. He was saying that this was the guy to whom he’d been talking. There were even cars that that belonged to the Society that go back eighty years that are still active today, and there were many that they had bought that had never even had their engines fitted yet. This particular guy owns one of them. We carried on walking around the village and came to a field where there were about a dozen old cars, one of which was one of the vehicles that he mentioned. I swarmed in there and began to take photos. There was even a rare Audi van from the late fifties or early sixties. I was enthralled by this. For some reason, I couldn’t make my camera work to take photos on it. I was distracted by the city walls of this place. Having to take a photo, I found that to take a photo, I was far too faraway because I was used to having my big camera. I had to change my photography technique, and in doing so, I forgot to take half of the photos. I had to run back to where this Audi van was so that I could take the photographs of it that I wanted
This one is quite confusing too. For example, the car wasn’t an Audi (it would have been an Auto-Union or a DKW in those days anyway) but a Volvo PV544. I can still see it now, even though I can’t remember the dream. And how I wouldn’t mind finding one of those in a field.
A workshop full of old motorcycles would be my dream too. It’s been a while since I had my last proper motorbike – a Honda CX500 30-odd years ago.
However, this part about the camera not working at a crucial moment – that was a recurring dream at one time too.
After that, I … errr … crashed out for ten minutes, and then had a mad panic to revise my Welsh for the lesson.
However, I needn’t have bothered because there was a power cut in Yr Wyddgrug and the College was closed, so we had no tutor and the lesson was abandoned. Instead, I had a couple of hours of nice, personal relaxing time.
After the disgusting drink break at midday, I attacked the next radio programme and by the time that I had knocked off, I’d finished them and they are ready for typing when I next have an early start.
There were several interruptions today and all of them were very welcome.
Firstly, my cleaner came round to do her stuff and, once more, she ushered me into the shower. That was really nice. And now that the plumber is finished, I can call the joiner and have him install the handrails in the shower so that I can climb into and out of the shower without any assistance.
Secondly, as I said just now, Liz and I had a chat that went on for quite a while and was only finished because I had to go to make tea.
Tonight I had a taco roll with rice. The filling consisted of lentils, mushroom, garlic and tomato sauce, and it was delicious. Nevertheless, there was some left on my plate yet again tonight. Not to worry though, because chocolate cake and soya dessert filled the home that was left.
Now, I’m off to bed. It’s a 06:00 start tomorrow because I have dialysis in the morning. My hours are messed up so that I can have a free weekend with my niece, which is nice.
But seeing as we have been talking about my niece … "well, one of us has" – ed … a friend of mine from Crewe told me that his sister was going to have a baby.
"What’s she going to call it?" I asked.
"If it’s a girl, she’s going to call it Denise " he replied.
"And what if it’s a boy?" I asked.
"I don’t know for sure" he answered. "I think she’ll call it Denephew."
