Tag Archives: medical receipts

Monday 9th September 2024 – HERE WE GO AGAIN

Up to our ears in paperwork.

The paperwork has been on hold for several weeks while I’ve had other things to do but circumstances dictated that I had a look at it today

And you’ll be amazed how, in this world of digitalisation and computerisation, I can find so much paperwork that needs to be sorted and filed. And once I think that I’ve reached the end, I come across another bundle.

One of the things that I thought that retirement would bring me would have been an end to all of this. But what with hospital issues, old-age pensions, mobility issues, there seems to be more than there was when I was healthy.

That’s easily measured by just looking at the thickness of each year’s paperwork. What I have here only starts at 2016 but the early years seem to be positively bulimic compared to the mountain of paperwork for this year so far. And at this rate, I’ll be sorting paperwork in my sleep.

And last night I could have done that because it ended up being another late night. One of my groundhoppers had gone over to Dublin to watch Ireland v England so I ended up staying up to watch the carnage.

Once in bed I went to sleep quite quickly as you might expect after all that, and slept a deep, uninterrupted sleep for all of four or five hours.

Nevertheless I was flat out when the alarm went off at 07:00 and it was something of a struggle to haul myself up out of bed when the alarm went off.

However I was soon in the bathroom organising myself ready for the day. It’s Isabelle the nurse for the next 8 days so I need to look my best of course.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We also (also?) discussed the idea that someone might be mad and create all kinds of problems for the Earth by detonating nuclear missiles and so on. The guy to whom I was talking was more interested in the idea of there being huge excesses rather than there being actual catastrophes, him threatening everyone with an unexploded bomb, the rocks crushing away before his bones beneath his palace etc. I replied “don’t worry, people will just think that you’re mad”. “How would that be better?”. I said “well, throughout the whole of the Kingdom they asked, and good questions too”.

That all sounds quite gruesome. I’ve no idea at all what I was on about here

Meanwhile in football it was 3-1 or 3-2, I can’t remember. They won 3-1 and the result never really looked in doubt. The victorious team played really well and managed to contain the (…fell asleep here …)

I can’t believe that I fell asleep mid-sentence but I suppose that it might happen now and again.

Someone else was messing me around for some reason or other about a payment. I’d paid it somewhat under pressure and done some research when I returned home. I found that I wasn’t liable to make this payment so I excluded it as from … and that caused a lot of complications about this. In the end I phoned my mother and told her that I was taking two days from work. One day we were travelling on the (…fell asleep here …)

Here, I dreamed that someone took the dictaphone from me and put it on the bedside cupboard. But it was a dream because when the alarm went off I’d lost the dictaphone down the bed somewhere somehow, it was still recording and had been for almost 2.5 hours. My beautiful rhythmic breathing and so on.

When the alarm went off there was a plot to kill a German General who used to nip through the British front line in his car on his way to his own troops. Whenever he did that he was heavily armed and fought off any attempt to attack him. The British used to play a lot of music really loudly, drums and everything, to awaken everyone to the fact that he was coming that way in the hope that someone could stop him. I’d proposed mining the road and having a detonator somewhere where someone could just press a button and blow up a crater with him in it but for some reason no-one had ever thought of that. One day we were driving a couple of Army lorries along that road. All of a sudden there was just total mayhem, lorries overturning and swerving out of control. At first we thought that we’d hit a mine but we hadn’t – there was no noise of any explosion so it couldn’t have been that. While all of this chaos was going on, one of the lorries having to perform some violent manoeuvres burst a front tyre and overturned. In the middle of all this carnage a black Ford Thames van with German number-plates on it disappeared into the distance. Speculation was that this van had been driving recklessly, overtaking a couple of lorries, and had carried out some manoeuvre that had caused one of the lorries to swerve and that had caused a pile-up of vehicles behind it so everyone seemed to think that this German Ford was responsible for this chaos but no-one could ever catch it. I tried to send a message to the border so that they could hold him at the border as he tries to go through but there was no way of contacting anyone at the site of the accident.

The van was actually a Ford Thames 400E, the predecessor to the Transit and the competitor to the Bedford CA but for some reason I described it as a 117E. Anyway it was a model that was mainly built for the British and Commonwealth market although some left-hand drive versions were built by Ford of Denmark so finding a left-hand drive German-registered example would be a rare bird indeed. But during the days of the “Red Ball Express”, the shuttle service of war goods from the ports to the Front Line, the haste and indiscipline was such that there were hundreds of accidents and many a French farmer, garagiste or haulier acquired an “Army Surplus” lorry or Jeep that had some kind of accident damage and which had been simply left by the roadside.

Later on Hurricane Isabelle blew through the apartment. She’s convinced that I’m being dialysed on Tuesday and wants to know why I haven’t had this prescription – the one that I don’t have – made out

If I don’t have it I can’t do anything, but this was what started me off on this paperchase today.

But not until after breakfast. And especially until I have had a coffee.

During breakfast I read some more of my ROMANS IN BRITAIN and today he mentioned the fort on the River Tweed at Newstead.

Newstead, probably the most important and substantial Roman town north of Hadrian’s Wall, has been excavated a couple of times. The most famous time was by James Curle in 1905 and he prepared a report that ran to 235 pages and a lovely list of books that contributed to his opus. And as it happens, his report is AVAILABLE ON-LINE for downloading, to add to the huge pile of books that I need to read.

It was situated on the banks of the River Tweed and was the junction presumably of the road north from Londinium and Eboracum and where the roads branched off to each end of the Antonine Wall across the isthmus between the Forth and Clyde. When the Antonine Wall was abandoned in AD184 and the Romans retreated to Hadrian’s Wall that ran between the Solway and the Tyne, it’s likely that Newstead was abandoned too. The amount of artefacts excavated at Newstead is astonishing and seems to suggest that the abandonment and subsequent flight was so panic-stricken that they could only take away what they could carry in their arms and left the rest behind. It really must have been something, this flight, and it’s a shame that whoever it was who was responsible for it could leave no written record. I would have loved to have read it.

And believe me, I shall be sifting through his list of books that the author read to see what I can find to add to my downloaded library of books to read

As for the site itself, which was discovered when the railway bridge just down the road was built across the Tweed, it’s nothing like as clear from the air as the site at Caersws is, sue, I imagine, to the constant ploughing of the site.

There was some football on the internet next. This rage for televising your home games seems now to have percolated into Wales and Newport City in the Second Division were broadcasting their match against Llanelli.

Newport picked up a couple of good players in the transfer window and they are mounting a challenge for the title. I hadn’t seen them before so I wanted to watch the game. And I quite enjoyed it too.

But it’s sad that I can only live the life of a groundhopper these days thanks to someone else’s GoPro.

The next task was to have a play around with that site where I have to send my medical expenses claims.

After much binding in the marsh I seem to have made it see a kind of sense and managed by chocolate time to upload all the receipts that I could find.

My cleaner came by with more supplies and the day’s post. We had a chat about this and that (I’m keeping well clear of chatting about “the other”) without solving any real problems and then I came in here to attack the paperwork.

Almost straight away I found two more receipts but I suppose that it’s like that. But now anyway I have about 5 different piles of paper that need either merging together or putting in the medical folder for the next batch of medical claims.

But where’s it all going to end?

Tea was a stuffed pepper with pasta. A lovely meal, especially when followed by home-made apple crumble

So now I’m going to have another 20 minutes filing and then go to bed

But it’s a mystery where things go to in this place. I’ve lost yet another clip for these puttees and I’ve not been anywhere for it to disappear to.

And did I really have this prescription? Or is the doctor imagining it?
It could be that, I suppose. I was told that he was the doctor on duty when they were filming the remake of “The Invisible Man”
After an accident on the set he went to see the doctor and the receptionist announced him
"I’m busy right now" said the doctor. "Tell him that I can’t see him at the moment"

Sunday 8th September 2024 – I’M FED UP …

…of trying to make this stupid site work.

This afternoon I’ve been trying to upload my claim for reimbursement of my medical expenses but every time I try to attach an attachment, such as a scanned receipt, the site locks up, and that’s that.

What should have been a half-hour job has so far taken me all afternoon and I’ve not done one batch yet, never mind the whole package

Still, as the bank robber said when he was arraigned before a midget judge, these little things are sent to try us

Everything that I touch at the moment seems to be either breaking or falling off right now. I’m at the stage where I’m afraid to go to the bathroom these days.

It wouldn’t be too bad if I were to have an early night, I suppose. But the nights are becoming later and later these days.

last night was well after midnight before I finally hit the sack, long after I wanted to of course and I was thinking that it’s a good job I don’t have to get up until 08:00.

At least I was asleep quite quickly and although I awoke once or twice during the night, I simply turned over, tucked myself back in and tried to go back to sleep.

When the alarm went off at 08:00 it was quite a shock and I had a desperate scramble around trying to find the ‘phone with the alarm so that I could switch it off.

When the bedroom stopped spinning round I could stand up and go into the bathroom to sort myself out. Even if it is a Sunday when I do nothing at all, I still have the nurses coming round.

Back in here I made a start on transcribing the dictaphone notes but was interrupted by the arrival of the nurse.

He was once more in full chat mode. He tells me that he rang up the clinic in Avranches and it is indeed Tuesday when they want me to start, as I suspected that it probably was.

he says that he told them that I didn’t want to come on Tuesday and they told him to tell me that they’d ‘phone me on Monday

They can ‘phone me as much as they like but it won’t change anything. I told them right at the start of all of this that I am not available on Tuesdays.

After he left I made breakfast and read my book on THE ROMANS IN BRITAIN

Today the author was discussing the Roman marching camp at Caersws in mid-Wales. There were two camps at Caersws, a permanent one that had a vicus attached and which has now been built over. But there was a second, earlier camp just outside the town that the Romans built as a temporary camp when they first explored the area.

The map co-ordinates for this early camp were given as 52°31’13″N 3°25’05″W so I set my on-line map to “aerial view” and copied in the co-ordinates.

Considering that this was a marching camp that was only used for a couple of years at the very most in about 60AD, almost 2,000 years ago, it leaped off the page of the map right at me when I looked for it

And that surprised me. I didn’t expect to see anything. I know that a couple of readers are interested in archaeology so see if you can see it on an aerial view of, say, Google Maps too.

Back in here later there was football and I watched as Stranraer were put to the sword by local rivals Annan Athletic.

Stranraer are a division lower than Annan so we knew that this Cup match was going to be tough, but Stranraer were matching them blow for blow until Annan were awarded a very dubious penalty.

Dubious because firstly I wasn’t convinced that it was a foul and secondly, even if it was, in my opinion whatever took place took place outside the penalty area

Still, I’m not refereeing it, someone else is, and he awarded a penalty, which Annan converted.

After that, Stranraer fell away and the 5-1 score-line was somewhat exaggerated. Stranraer were much better than the score-line suggested.

One of my groundhoppers was out and about too so I was treated to Lanark United v Bonnyton Thistle In the West of Scotland League Division Two

Lanark raced to a 3-0 lead in the first half and in the second half they simply parked the bus and played out the game until the final whistle, to the frustration of Bonnyton.

Lunch was a lovely cheese and tomato sandwich made with fresh bread, followed by some fruit. But there won’t be fresh fruit much longer because it doesn’t seem to want to keep.

Thiis afternoon I finished off the dictaphone notes from the previous night. We were writing match reports for football games in which we’d played or refereed. It became extremely complicated because we didn’t have half the vocabulary that we needed and had to invent all kinds of phrases, some of which were good and some of which were rubbish, in order to describe what we wanted to say. But in the middle of all of this they were talking about another Covid injection so I went round into the main office of my section which my old boss was running. I went in there and gave myself an injection which I thought was extremely brave of me. I found out later that it was the wrong one so after waiting for a while during which nothing happened, I took my injection, went to see my old boss and asked him if he’d inject me. He was busy arguing with a couple of his workforce, a couple of guys, and didn’t really see me at first. I was standing in his office rather self-consciously until he suddenly noticed me and I arranged for my injection. The next week I was signed to play with Singapore so not only did I order that, it was a syringe different to the one to which I was accustomed so I had to change my injection yet again. I thought to myself “this is becoming too much of a good thing, isn’t it? There’s too much going on here for me to take in at the moment, my pepper box, especially if it involves food”.

Whevever the final line came from I really don’t know. It doesn’t fit in with the rest. Neither does asking my old boss to give me a Covid injection before I’m transferred to play for Singapore so I dunno. Nothing seems to make any sense these days

We were next going on a coach tour with the office. We had several coaches lined up for the staff. We had to walk to pick up the buses, which was quite difficult for me on my crutches but I just about made it and hauled myself up, only to find that the buses then drove back to the office to pick up everyone else. Then we set off. Because the seats were so cramped I had to swing round and put my legs in the corridor, to which one girl took a great deal of exception.. We arrived at our destination. There was a woman there swimming around so I borrowed her newspaper. She came along and said something to me to complain so I put down the newspaper. Then we ended up going for a swim, then for a walk around outside then back on the bus to go back to the swimming pool. We then had this issue again about me sitting with my feet in the corridor and the one female passenger not liking it. We returned to the swimming baths and there was the woman again with the newspaper. She was actually running the baths. She was rummaging through a box or something. It was food and there was some diabetic bread in there. I told her “thank you for providing the diabetic bread”. She looked at me and said “no, yours was the sliced loaf” so being somewhat beaten I replied “this is a (name of our employer) coach …fell asleep here …

That was a confusing mess too and ended up with me rhythmically breathing deeply into the dictaphone, totally out of this World and out of my head

There’s no pizza dough, as I found when I went to take some out of the freezer. I’m sure that I made some the other day but wherever it might be, I can’t fond it. And so I had to make a batch of that. Two lumps went into the freezer in the fridge and the other one I rolled out and put on the pizza tray ready to make my pizza.

When the dough had risen again sufficiently I assembled it with all of the ingredients and put it in the oven to bake.

In between times I’d been sorting out my medical expenses into date order insofar as I could find them and then trying to prepare a claim. But as I said, the site just keeps on freezing up every time I try to load an attachment.

At a certain moment I fell asleep too. The strain is obviously far too much. However, while I was asleep I went away with the fairies. I was visiting a town with a couple of people, man and wife, who may well have been Zero’s parents. We’d been looking around a shop and were now standing outside. The guy wandered off somewhere and after a couple of minutes so did the wife. I asked the guy when he returned if he knew where his wife had gone and he said that she had gone to buy some nylons. I asked where and he told me that she was in the shop behind us. He pointed to a modern car showroom and accessory shop and told me that he knew that I couldn’t wait to go inside. Just then a group of guys turned up on motorbikes. One of them was a beautiful bright green Honda CB450. I said to the woman, who had now come back from the shops, that if I were to have another motorbike it would be one of those. Suddenly the road became really busy with cars. We noticed the time and it was shortly before the ferry sailed back to the mainland so we imagined it was all the traffic going to catch the boat. I suddenly realised that we needed to be on it too but we were nothing like ready.

I have some very happy memories about a friend who had a CB450 when we lived in Chester in the early 1970s. Back in the days when its rival was a Triumph Speed Twin it was a real beast of a machine. But today, it would be rather pedestrian compared to modern bikes of an equivalent cc. But if it were Zero’s parents in this dream, I’m disappointed that they didn’t bring Zero with them. Who wouldn’t be?

The pizza maybe needed another 10 minutes of cooking – it seems that this new cheese acts as some kind of thermal insulation. But the cheese itself is delicious, melts perfectly and tastes wonderfully good. My faithful cleaner did well to find this batch.

So now I’m going to have another little go at uploading some of these documents to see if I can do any better, and then I’m off to bed.

But talking about newspaper reports … "well, one of us us" – ed … reminds me that the real heroes of newspaper reporting are the sub-editors who think up the headlines.
Everyone admires the sub-editor who, writing a headline for an article to inform everyone that, during the Korean War, General MacArthur was on his way back to his troops after speaking to his advisers. The headline was "MacArthur Flies Back To Front"
My own personal favourite was the headline in 1953 when Sir Vivian Fuchs set out on a trip to cross the Antarctic continent. A headline that read "Fuchs Off To Pole"

Monday 28th June 2021 – NOT VERY MANY …

… photos today unfortunately.

And no people on the beach today either, and none of that should be any surprise when you look at the weather that we had today. You can see the water streaming like a waterfall out of the outflow pipe on the right of the image.

Last night I must have been lucky to have found a little gap in the weather when I went out for my evening stroll because all day it’s been teeming down like this and those of us who braved the weather ended up looking like haggard, drowned rats when we made it back home. I know that I did.

The person I felt most sorry for was the little girl trying desperately to seek shelter underneath our doorway while she waited for a parent to come and pick her up after school. She was still there, even wetter, desperately trying to contact someone on her mobile phone when I returned home.

30 years ago I would have invited her in and lent her a towel to dry off in the warmth while she waited because I wouldn’t have let a dog out in this weather, but these days it’s not possible to do this sort of thing, even with the best intentions.

People have become so suspicious about other people’s motives. And all that I can say is that these suspicions tell me far more about what’s going on in their minds than what’s going on in my mind.

“And just in case you are wondering” said he, returning to his moutons, remember the path that I showed you the other day?

This is the path today. It’s like a river running all the way down the path now and it’s almost impossible to walk down there. It’s true to say that these are exceptional times this weekend, but there’s really no need to let it get out of hand like this. Half a day’s work, several sacks of gravel and some plastic pipe could clear all of this, if anyone were bothered.

So apart from that, what else has happened today?

The alarm went off at 06:00 as usual and I was up pretty quickly too which is always nice. And after the medication I listened to the dictaphone to see where I’d been.

I was talking to my friends from the Wirral and a few people. She was talking about the skiing trip that she was going on with a few friends to Italy. I asked her when she was going and she replied “Sunday”. The more she continued to talk about it, the more my ears pricked up until in the end I asked “do you have a vacancy”? She replied “yes” so that was that. I was gone. She told me the times of the flights and everything. I had to get there for the first flight and sort out all of my equipment. I didn’t have any – it was all in the Auvergne. I didn’t even have a ski jacket but I went all the same. I turned up in the resort and the first thing was to check the hotel that they had me down as a vegan and then to the bank to talk to the receptionist there. Then I was sitting outside in my shirtsleeves in the snow watching a couple of helicopters land, and the landings were really rough. Someone came out to fetch us all to give us the introductory talk inside. It was really snowing heavily while I was outside there as well sitting on that stone wall.

But what’s this? A dream about snow and skiing and not being in the mountain pass that features so regularly in our nocturnal voyages? What’s happening here?

Once I’d organised myself I attacked the radio programme and round about 11:45 I brought it to a conclusion, even with one stop for a coffee and a second for breakfast. And even though I say it myself, it all went very well.

The rest of the day has been spent dealing with yesterday’s journal entry and bringing it up to date. That’s all completed and now on line with all of the photographs. It would have been finished earlier except for the fact that I had a little … errr … relax. And it was a little relax too – about 10 or 15 minutes, that’s all.

There was the break for the afternoon walk, colliding with our young person sheltering underneath the door as I went out. And I didn’t hang about on my way round the circuit either

Mind you, this is one photograph that I had to take.

This afternoon there seems to be some kind of training session going on at the Pointe du Roc involving Segways and some kind of obstacle course. and chapeau to the few people who seemed to have persevered despite the adverse weather conditions. It can’t have been any fun standing around out there in all of this.

So I left them to it and waded on down the path at the top of the cliff overlooking the harbour. And it’s a good job that there was nothing going on down there this afternoon as there wasn’t anywhere for me to stand to photograph it. Instead I hurried on home for my hot coffee, colliding once more with the young person on our doorstep.

And I did feel sorry for her

When I’d finished the journal from yesterday I had a bit of a sort-out, emptying a drawer to look for missing receipts for my health insurers. And I found one too, which was quite pleasant. I’m sure that there most be a couple more knocking around somewhere, but like most things these days, I’ve let my organisation go to pot.

Guitar practice was, for a change, quite enjoyable today and I had a good time. For the half-hour on the acoustic guitar I gave myself a little concert of four or five songs that I can play quite easily and which don’t sound too bad when I sing them. I’m going to do what I said I’ do a long time ago, and just concentrate on having 15 or so and playing them really well rather than dispersing my energies.

Home-made Cornish pasty for tea, with baked potato and vegetables and it was exceptionally good. If the pie is as good as this was then it’s really going to be something. Apple pie and coconut whatsit for pudding and the rest of the apple pie is going in the freezer for I have ambitions to do something nice for pudding tomorrow while I’m baking my bread.

High time that I treated myself.

Friday 25th June 2020 – AFTER EVERYTHING …

… that a certain person not a million miles away from this keyboard has said about people going out without wearing a facemask, guess who forgot his this afternoon when he went out for a stroll?

That’s definitely a case of omelette sur le visage if ever there was one. Someone whom we all know is blushing with shame right now.

There was nearly some more omelette sur le visage this morning too. When the alarm went off I leapt out of bed like a scalded cat, totally convinced in my own mind that this was the second alarm going off and that I’d failed to leave the bed for the first one.

The fact is that it was indeed the first alarm and I’ve no idea what had entered my head to convince me that it was the second.

After the medication I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I’d actually started a new school. It must have been round Northwich way because I was on my way home. I was in a new car, a company car and I had to be careful of all the speed limits coming back to Crewe around Middlewich. Then I came across a bus. It got back in Crewe at about 6 o’clock and it started out at a Grammar School in Manchester. I thought to myself that that would be really nice because getting up early in the morning is no problem to me and after all, going away to Manchester and going down through the University at Keele to the motorway there and getting to Stoke on Trent that way I could make lots of new friends who don’t really know me and anything about me and it would make a really nice change. By the time I got into Middlewich I’d taken the wrong turn and ended up in Middlewich … I fell asleep here … because I wouldn’t know to deal with any of this.

And I’ve no idea what was going on in that lot.

First thing to do was to write up the journal from yesterday. I’ve no idea why but I was just so tired and I’d fallen asleep a couple of times while I’d been writing it out. Bed was the only answer to that.

And it’s just as well because it took much longer than you might have expected to type it out. Sometimes an early night can pay dividends. I’d probably still be here typing it even now had I stayed up to do it.

The rest of the day has been spent scanning in all of my medical receipts. You’ve no idea how many there are, and I bet one or two are expired It took me right the way up to guitar practice to do it as well and that’s without making out any of the claims. There are still a few missing but I’ll have to find them again, I reckon.

We had the usual breaks of course. Breakfast with my own home-made fruit bread and real hot chocolate made with real chocolate and lunch with my own bread. And at this rate I’ll be making my own water before too long.

There was the afternoon walk too. Mustn’t forget that.

Off across the car park to the wall at the end to see what was going on down on the beach this afternoon.

Not too many people at all down there today. And that’s not a surprise because it was raining. Just some people out there at the water’s edge doing a bit of peche à pied .

For the benefit of any new reader, of which there are more than just a few these days, the beach that is between normal high-water and normal low-water is leased out to commercial seafood harvesters. Much of it isn’t exploited but even so, people are still officially not permitted to harvest anything from there. You can sit on it, make a sandcastle, bury your father, but you can’t harvest any shellfish.

But occasionally, we have very low tides when the water goes below the normal low-water line. That area is public and regular readers of this rubbish will have seen in the past the swarms of people hunting for shellfish and the like. We even made a radio programme last year about it.

Today, the tide is quite low and despite the rain, there were one or two people working the public areas of the beach.

While I was looking down on the beach, I also had half an eye out looking out to sea to see what I could see.

And the answer is today “not very much” the rain that is falling is creating one of these “wet mists” that we have every so often and there wasn’t much hope of being able to see and great distance. I could see this yacht out in the Baie de Granville and somewhere behind it are the Iles de Chausey, but there’s little hope of seeing those today.

No fishing boats out there this afternoon. The are probably too far out and lost in the mist, wherever they are. And so with nothing else going on of any note out there and no Birdmen of Alcatraz hovering by overhead, I decided to push on along the path around the headland.

Yesterday I mentioned the peculiar taping that had taken place on the path around the headland.

It’s difficult for me to remember if all of this was here yesterday as I was too engrossed in the fate of the Birdman of Alcatraz who had come to grief just behind where I’m standing right now, but it certainly looks new to me. And there was nothing in the local newspaper about anything going on here so I’m still none-the-wiser. I’m not even better informed.

It was round about here that I realised that I didn’t have my mask. Ot my cap either for that matter. It was raining fairly heavily and I was getting rather wet, as if I’m not wet enough already. So I can’t hang around here getting rained on like this. High time that I was clearing off on my way.

As I walked down the footpath and across the car park at the end of the headland I saw something moving out at sea so I went for a closer look.

Struggling towards me out of the mist was one of the smaller trawlers. I can’t tell which one she is from this distance but judging by the direction of her approach she’s been fishing in the outer part of the Baie de Mont St Michel. Another one of the boats that is trying its luck there as insurance in case this arrangement with the Channel Islands is broken next week.

She’s heading towards the harbour so I suppose that I ought to as well. I took to the path on top of the cliffs on the other side of the headland and headed off on my way, admiring as I passed by the two or three brave souls who were at the peche à pied down there on the rocks.

And in no time at all, geologically speaking, we ended up at the viewpoint overlooking the port and the chantier navale.

The yacht Rebelle is still in there. She looks as if she’ll be there for a while yet. And she has some company too. For a while there was a fishing boat, the Gwenn Ha Ruz in there with her but she had gone by the time that we arrived here yesterday.

Instead, there’s one of the trawler-type of boats up there on blocks receiving attention. She’s the Philcathane, a boat that has FEATURED A FEW TIMES in these pages in the past.

And that’s not the only thing that was receiving attention either. While I was minding my own business a couple came up to me and asked me if the Christian Dior Museum was anywhere near. And they were most put out when I explained that it was at the other end of town, a good walk away in the rain.

My good walk in the rain brought me round to the fish processing plant.

And they must be expecting a bumper catch today because as well as the assorted refrigerated vans, the tractor and trailer and so on belonging to the small traders and merchants, we have no fewer than fiver refrigerated lorries wairing to take away whatever the fishermen can bring in.

But at this rate I’ll be expecting pleurisy if I don’t get a move on and go back home. I headed off to the apartment, watching a crazy Parisian motorist getting in everyone’s way while he tried to work out where he was supposed to go, and back in the apartment made myself a mug of coffee and carried on scanning receipts.

The guitar practice was hopeless tonight but the taco rolls with yesterday’s leftover stuffing was well worth the effort, especially followed by apple pie and custard.

Now i’m off to bed. It’s shopping tomorrow and I need to be on form. I’ve not been to the supermarket for a fortnight so I’m keen to see what goes on there.

And I mustn’t forget my mask either.

Thursday 24th June 2021 – I’VE HAD A …

… really tiring day today – so much so that I was stark out for a couple of hours round about midday and ended up having a very late lunch.

And that’s really no surprise because in what time was available I did quite a lot of work.

When the alarm went off at 06:00 I struggled out of bed and went off to take my medication. And then back here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

I’d been to see a band play – it might have been Strife – and then a while later they were in a rehearsal room or village hall setting up for a kind of concert. They were going through a few things before they started, talking about stuff on the stage and said “we’re a bit overwhelmed with basses as well because Eric has his stuff here as well and someone else has his stuff” and so on. A little later on he took me on one side and said “did you learn the three numbers like I asked?” I replied “well to be quite honest no I didn’t”. He said “right” and fetched a pile of paperwork out. He said “someone worked out a way of teaching people how to follow music a bit like some kind of game. All you need to do is to watch your ‘phone and watch the paper”. He drew this kind of musical anotation thing with each string going down to the end of the page and then it doubled back going the other way rather like Chinese writing. He said “this is far the easiest way to learn and I’ll show you how it all works in a minute”. I was really intrigued by this method. Anyway sometime during this I’d been to the supermarket or the chip shop or something and while I was waiting around for this group to turn up I bumped into a girl and she gave me a really nice smile. I looked puzzled and she said “you don’t remember me but I was the girl in the shop yesterday. I made a special effort to remember everyone’s faces because I’m new here”. She was really extremely friendly about this kind of thing and that took me by surprise as well.

Having organised myself as well as I can these days I had an hour or so attacking the photos from August 2019. Right now I’m in Montana on the verge of making a fabulous discovery.

That was followed by a shower and – surprise surprise – a haircut. And having tidied myself sort-of-ish and set the washing machine of on a cycle (a very clever washing machine, mine) I hit the streets.

Not that I had actually managed to proceed very far before I stopped to take a photo.

Yesterday we had seen the two Jersey freighters Normandy Trader and Thora here in the port. By the time that I went out this morning they had both cleared off back to Jersey but it looks as if they (or at least, one of them) is going to be back fairly soon.

These two lorries here are the reason for that. The only reason that they would be here in the port area is if they are bringing merchandise to the quayside for the little freighter to take away back to Jersey with them.

Full of curiosity I went to see what was going on in the loading bay but I was distracted.

Marité, the old fishing vessel now used for training and sightseeing trips has been away from port for the last week or two but this morning she is back. She’s definitely the star attraction of the waterfront so a photo was in order.

Every time that I see her I’m tempted to find out how and when I can go off on her for a sail but I’m not a big fan of the people who run it. Every time that you go down to their office and ask a question they scowl at you as if “how dare you interrupt us?”, tell me that “everything is on our website” and then go back to chatting amongst themselves.

It’s the kind of thing that makes me wonder if they are Belgians. They certainly know all about Belgian customer service.

It was a long, hard climb up the hill to LIDL this morning. I remember a few times when I sailed up there like a Spanish galleon or if I was on my way to invade Poland but those days are over. After my operation I’ve aged 20 years and I felt every single, solitary step up that hill

At LIDL I didn’t buy anything special but even so the bill today came to almost €13:00. I did buy myself an energy drink because I reckoned that that would be the only way that I’d get up the hill at the other end of my journey.

On the way back, I hadn’t gone all that far before I came to a stop.

Here in the Rue de la Houle they have been reroofing a house and today they are fitting a series of laths around the chimney as if they are going to be tiling that too. In fact, if you look further along the roof, you can see a chimney that has already been tiled by the roofers.

It’s a strange way of going about things, tiling a chimney like that. All kinds of things can be going on to the chimney, the brickwork and the cementing underneath the tiles and you won’t be able to see it until the chimney collapses. And as I looked at this one, it certainly needed a bit of fixing before they go to seal it in.

One thing upon which we have been keeping an eye is the building site on the corner of the Rue St Paul and the Rue Victor Hugo, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

There used to be a little cafe here but that had long-since closed. They demolished it and fenced off the site a few months ago, and then a notice appeared to the effect that planning permission had been granted for a 4-storey block of flats.

Today though, I noticed that things might be starting to get under way at long last. As well as some equipment that has been deposited on the sire, there’s a digger here and it looks as if he’s just dug a big rectangular hole in the middle of the plot.

As for why, we’ll have to wait and see. I pushed off down the hill into town where I became entangled in a schoolkids’ crocodile that had obviously just set off from the youth hostel.

As I passed through the town I noticed my first “G” registered car. The turnover is about 2 years and a couple of months for a letter, but the “F” plates started in October 2018. It shows you just what effect Covid had on the new car sales market.

Up the hill I staggered underneath my heavy load, wishing that I had a shopping trolley to take with me, and made several stops to catch my breath – one of which was the viewpoint overlooking the loading bay.

That pile of wood wasn’t there yesterday evening and it won’t have come over from Jersey because wood travels in the other direction. It made me wonder if that was what one of the lorries had brought in this morning for one of the Jersey freighters to take away.

Over the next couple of days I’ll have to be keeping my eye open on the quayside. The turn-round of the freighters in the port is so rapid these days that I miss their visits quite regularly. By seeing when the load has gone from the quayside, that will tell me when one of them has been in here.

Right behind where I’m standing is the Square Potel, which at one time had the famous unstable set of steps.

Work has been promised to start on here in 2022 but the other day we saw a digger in here and it looked as if it had just brought down the set of steps. I was wondering if that was going to herald the start of the work, a year or so ahead, but that was being rather optimistic, I reckon. The digger has gone and the site is fenced off and that looks to be it for now.

As I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … the way that the patrimony of he town is treated is a disgrace. The whole place seems to be tumbling down around our ears and the council is showing no sense of urgency.

Heading back up the hill on my last leg(s) home I noticed something else going on.

There was a boat out there, moving quite quickly and towing a smaller boat behind it. Thinking that it might have been the patrol boat that we have seen a coupe of times just recently I took a photograph of it so that I could have a closer look when I returned home.

However when I enlarged it back at the apartment I noticed that it was simply an ordinary fishing boat heading out to sea. So why it would be towing another boat behind it I don’t know, unless it’s to go closer inshore when it arrives at wherever it’s going.

Back at the apartment I put the frozen food in the freezer, made myself some hot chocolate and cut myself a slice of fruit bread, and then came in here to carry on working.

At some point I crashed right out completely and I don’t know when, because it was another one of those occasions when I didn’t remember going off to sleep.

And this is something that worries me because if I’m going to be out driving around in Caliburn here and there, I would really like to know when I’m becoming tired and ready to sleep so that I can find a suitable place to stop and sleep it off. Just “switching off” like this is the kind of thing from which accidents are made.

Round about 14:00 I awoke again and it took me a good 10 or 15 minutes to orientate my head into the right direction. And when I finally managed to stand on my own two feet I was somewhat unsteady as I staggered around the apartment but I eventually managed to find my way into the kitchen to make a rather late lunch.

After lunch I had a task to complete. Well, to start actually. I have a huge pile of medical receipts that need scanning and then sending off to my insurance company to claim reimbursement. I made a start on some that I had to hand, and then had to break off to go for my afternoon walk.

Hardly had I managed to set foot outside my front door before the dark shadow fell upon me.

It’s the kind of thing that makes me understand what the Hobbits went through as they were being overflown my the Nazgul in LORD OF THE RINGS but of course there’s very little that is sinister in this particular occasion because we all know what’s going on here and there is no evil intent, unless one happens to crash-land on your head.

Yes, we have quite a wind (yet again) today and so the hang-gliders are out in force. There is probably half a dozen out there this afternoon.

And that’s not all of the aerial activity. Not by a long shot.

After the incident with the hang-glider I’d probably gone no more than half a dozen paces before I was overflown by something else. That’s right, someone has got his chopper out this afternoon and is flying around the headland.

It’s not the usual yellow and red air-sea rescue helicopter that we have seen on so many occasions but its grey-green colour suggests to me that it’s a military machine and I wonder why one of those has decided to come out to entertain us today.

Nevertheless it reminds me of the story in which a class of schoolchildren were asked to write a sentence including the words “chaste” and “by helicopter”. And one boy wrote “the boy chaste the girl and by helicopter”.

One thing that I always like to do is to go out and check on the beach and see how the tide is doing and whether there are any people taking advantage of it.

One thing that you’ll notice is just how much beach there is compared to YESTERDAY AT ROUGHLY THE SAME TIME. There’s about 50 minutes time difference between each high tide, so comparing this photo and that of yesterday give you some idea of how quickly the water comes in

But anyway, there are a few people out there enjoying themselves on the beach this afternoon, even if they are about to be overflown by the Nazgul that is hovering away in the distance.

Earlier this morning round about 07:15 or something like that I heard a lot of noise – schoolchildren cheering and all that kind of thing. But I couldn’t see anything from here.

But what I noticed this afternoon as I went on my afternoon walk around the headland is that some kind of path had been marked out by all of these tapes. It made quite a circuit and so I wondered if there had been some kind of race going on around the headland. And maybe that might explain the presence of the schoolchildren whom we saw earlier who seem to be lodging in the youth hostel.

But whatever was happening, it was all over now and there was no-one around to ask. Not even anyone coming to take away the rubbish that they have left and to remove the tapes. Maybe I’ll find something in the local paper tomorrow that might give me a clue as to what has been going on with all of this.

Now how I wish that I’d come out for my afternoon walk about 5 or 10 minutes earlier. I might have been treated to an exciting spectacle.

The blue and green object on the ground over there near the gun emplacement is the parachute or whatever they call it of one of these Nazgul It seems that one of the bird-men of Alcatraz has come to grief over there and I was quite disappointed at having missed the spectacle.

Quite a few other people didn’t by the looks of things and there are plenty of people with mobile phones and cameras over there who presumably have recorded the incident. But anyway, the pilot or whatever you might call them doesn’t seem to be injured or anything and he’s up and about on his own two feet organising himself and his parachute.

Once he’d gathered up his wits, presumably from wherever he might have dropped them, he made his preparations for getting back into the air.

And getting back into the air seemed to be quite easy. He just lifted up his parachute and the wind filled it full of air. Gently, he rose up and away from the ground, and once he had sufficient height he was able manoeuvre himself and his parachute around and head off back the way that he had come.

The crowds of people watching the spectacle clearly enjoyed it. They had all taken enough photos and even a few films about all of the activity. when they return home to wherever home is, they’ll have plenty of exciting films and photos to show the grandchildren

While all of this was going on, my eyes had been roving around and when they came back they pointed out more goings-on out at sea.

And so I took off down the path and across the car park down to the end of the headland for a closer look at what was happening. And living in a fishing port, you can expect that there is always something to do with fishing.

With issues going on involving the Channel Islands, which need to be resolved within the next seven days or so, the local fishermen are busy trying to exploit new fishing grounds that don’t fall within the scope of the Treaty of the Bay of Granville that the British Government unilaterally revoked under the pretext of Brexit

And so the Baie de Mont St Michel has become a favourite fishing ground at the moment for several local boats who are trying to see whether they can do any good here.

But the story of the Treaty of the Bay of Granville is that it was signed in 1839 between the Channel Islands and the fishermen of Brittany and Normandy to give fishermen from the three regions equal access to the bay. It was reinforced on many occasions, the latest being in 2000.

The Channel Islands are not and never have been part of the European Union and they are also free to negotiate on their on behalf in local affairs independently of the British Government so there is no reason for the British Government to intervene in the affairs of the Channel Islands.

However, the UK has claimed a 12-mile limit around the Channel Islands after Brexit and has revoked the Treaty without consulting either the Channel Islands or the local fishermen who have fished together in peace since 1839, and this is the subject of the dispute.

In the meantime while I’m talking about the Treaty of the Bay of Granville another boat comes in from down the Baie de Mont St Michel.

It’s coming in at quite a rate of knots too so I imagine that it must be late for a tea break or something like that. And as it’s surrounded by seabirds, I’m assuming that it must have quite a harvest on board. And that’s why many of these little shellfish-catchers have canopies or tilts across the cargo space – to prevent dive-bombing by the seabirds eager for a cheap and easy meal.

But I’m not going to hang about too long watching it. I’m taking to the path, despite all of the people ignoring the Prefet’s regulations on face masks, to see what’s happening in the harbour.

And today, we have another change of occupancy in the chantier navale.

At the moment we’re down to just one boat in here, the yacht Rebelle from London. The other boat that was in here, the fishing boat Gwenn Ha Ruz, or “White and Red” has now departed, presumably back into the water to carry on with whatever it is that she does.

Who will be the next arrival in the chantier navale, I wonder. as I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … a thriving ship repairing business is good for the port because it encourages people to base their boats, whether working boats or pleasure boats, in the port where they can be assured of a good and reliable repair and maintenance service.

But this issue of people leaving their fishing boats to go aground when the tide is out instead of mooring them in the inner harbour is still continuing.

There’s another one moored over there this afternoon, right at the ferry terminal. So here’s hoping that none of the joly France ferries to the ile de Chausey want to go out or come in. We know that the Channel Islands ferries Granville and Victor Hugo won’t be going out any time soon.

But as for going out, I’m going back in. I’m ready for a nice piping hot coffee and then I can carry on with the work that I’m doing, sorting out the receipts for my medical expenses and getting them ready to submit to my insurance company.

And by the time I’d sorted them out, I found that there were two months missing. I remember one month where I wasn’t seen by a doctor at the hospital and so didn’t receive a prescription, but I don’t know what happened to the other month. I certainly had a prescription but there’s no mention anywhere of me going to a pharmacy to collect the medication, so I can’t have done.

By the time that it was guitar practice, I was still a long way from sorting them out, never mind scanning them. That’s a job for tomorrow. and so is guitar practice, I reckon, because I’m not making all that much progress with what I want to do. It’s a slow, laborious task.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper, because I bought some this morning, followed by apple pie and coconut whatsit. But that’s the last of the coconut so I’m going to treat myself to some custard tomorrow and Saturday.

And now I’m off to bed. I’ve finally caught up with everything that I did today and I’m ready for a good sleep. Tomorrow I’mm continue sorting out my receipts. There must be €1000 here so it’s “spend spend, spend” I don’t think.

Friday 28th February 2020 – I MISSED …

… the alarms this morning.

Yes, round about 07:30 when I finally heaved myself out of my stinking pit this morning. I’ve no idea why because last night wasn’t exactly a late night.. after the medication I had a look at the dictaphone as usual. I’d been on a few travels too during the night, but not enough to wear me out.

I’d been in Audlem and it had been some kind of New Years Eve or something like that. There were hordes of people out in the street all dressed in fancy clothes. I’d been wandering around looking at them and admiring their outfits, all that kind of thing. Then I headed down to where the Buttermarket was. There were even more people coming out from down Shropshire Street, all in a sort of nightwear type of thing as if they had been to some kind of pyjama party. They were all streaming up to a pub that of course doesn’t exist somewhere on Stafford Street. This pub was a black and white Tudor building with all kinds of statues on the edges of the roof like in Austria. There were all these bunk beds outside and this was the middle of winter and all these bunk beds for kids outside. These kids were all dressed in nightwear and I couldn’t understand what it was that they were doing. This was really late for kids to be out and so on.
Before that we had been in a procession, a procession of all kinds. We were dressed as seafaring pirates, a Marsupilami thing. We were quite happily parading and making up the story as we went along. We saw some being questioned about who was in a huge queue and who wasn’t and we realised that this was going to be the fate of death for us because we wouldn’t be allowed to continue. We chatted amongst ourselves who it was and ended up talking to this very young girl about 6 or 7 and ask her all these questions but by now we weren’t having the microphone passed down to us and being put on the air.

And there was more to all of this lot too.

After breakfast I had a look at some more sound files and, sure enough, just as expected, a couple of them were all over the place and took an age to sort out; Somewhere in the middle of all of this I took my Carnaval costume back to its owner. We had quite a chat and she had a lot to say for herself about her work so I made a note for the future.

After having finished the sound files I went down into town for my bread. The long way round too seeing as I wasn’t going anywhere special tody.

But down on the harbour, the hydraulic concrete-breaker that’s been breaking up the rocks over at the ferry port is back so that it looks as if they will be restarting there some time very soon.

Not today though. Chausiais and Joly France were over there moored in a NAABSA position on the bottom. It looks as if they have things to do this weekend.

While I was here I went to look at the new pontoons that they’ve been installing.

And regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the other day I mentioned the cranes on the quayside and that I didn’t think that they will reach over the pontoons.

Today, there were a couple of fishermen there so I asked the question. And the answer is “no, they don’t reach”.
“So what are you going to do then?” asked Our Hero
“Bof” replied one of the fishermen with a beautiful Gallic shrug.

A beautiful word, “Bof” – a must-have word in anyone’s vocabulary. It means basically “I don’t know” but with a much greater air of abandonment.

The tide was out so I could walk across the harbour gates to the other side.

Thora had gone, as I had expected, so I could admire the new pontoons here too. They are cracking on with all of this and I don’t think that it will be long before they have finished.

But as I have said before, I hope that they will leave some space for the commercial boats like the gravel boats that come in here, even if they haven’t been in for a while.

At La Mie Caline I picked up my dejeunette and headed for home.

Still plenty of time before lunch so I made a start on scanning in all of the receipts that needed scanning. And I was surprised that there were so many. I seem to have run aground somewhere in my plan for rolling scanning. even worse, I can’t find the receipts for medication that i bought at the end of June prior to going off on my sea voyage. It was an expensive do too so I hope that I didn’t discard the receipts along with all of the rest of the paperwork that I threw away on my travels.

After lunch, I had something very important to do. I’d used up the last of the hummus so I had to make some more. And although it took a while, it was thoroughly wicked when it was finished.

Basically, for any given weight you need 50% of chick peas and 25% sesame seed paste. These are the important figures to remember.
The remaining 25% of the given weight is made up of all kinds of things – olive oil and chick pea juice for a start. Then I use sea salt, ground black pepper, garlic (tons of that) and then your “flavouring ingredient”.

Everything except your flavouring ingredient goes into the whizzer and it’s whizzed round until it’s a nice creamy paste. Then, add your “flavouring ingredient”. I made two batches, one with the roasted peppers that I had prepared last night and the second with some sliced olives. You add that to the mix in the whizzer and whizz it just enough to disperse it rhrough the mix but not enough to break it up completely.

After that, I could crack on then and fill in these forms. And that wasn’t the work of five minutes either, with so many to do. I hadn’t really realised just how many receipts had piled up over that period when I broke my hand.

There was the usual pause for my afternoon walk. Around the walls this afternoon, but no run because there were far too many people around.

Despite the wind, there were quite a few people down on the beach at the Plat Gousset too. I’ve no idea what they were doing but they were clearly having a good time doing it.

So I came back to carry on work, but it wasn’t quite the success for which I was hoping. There was a little … errr … repose during the afternoon that slowed me down too.

By the time that I had finished the medical expenses it was 18:30 and so I did something that I haven’t done for quite some time, namely I had a play on the bass. It shows you just how much work I’ve had to do that the guitars have been on the back burner all this time. The track “Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys” by Traffic came round on my playlist so I spent half an hour working out the bass line.

There has been some excitement too. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall my disenchantment with certain events over the weekend. The controller has called a meeting for Monday to discuss them but EVERY ONE of the volunteers is refusing to go and there has been a frantic exchange of e-mails.

There are stories of one or two others who are as disenchanted as I am, but I had no idea that the feeling was so general. Not, of course, that I am surprised.

Tea was an “anything curry” of leftover food in the fridge, including a couple of falafel balls that had been in there maybe longer than they ought to have been.

The evening walk around the headland was disappointing. I only managed one run and that was a struggle too as I had a headwind against me. Reaching my mark, never mind extending it, was something of a battle.

Later, I had the football to watch so I started to write my notes on the little old Acer laptop that I have recently raised from the dead just to prove that it still works.

It was Welsh Cup quarter-final and we should have had two second-division teams, Prestatyn Town and Flint Town United. But their match was called off so the cameras made a dash across North Wales to show us Caernarfon Town v Cefn Druids instead.

Caernarfon scored after just a minute – a wicked deflection from a corner that shouldn’t have been awarded in the first place. And then they had Alex Ramsey to thank for a series of excellent saves to keep them in the game for the next hour.

The match hinged on a moment of madness on the hour-mark.

Arsan, one of the Druids defenders, was fouled and the referee blew his whistle to award the free kick. Arsan, in his folly, kicked out at the Caernarfon player for which he was rightly booked. Probably not 30 seconds later, he had the ball and as he ran past a Caernarfon player, fell to his knees. No clearer case of simulation you will ever see, and he picked up another yellow card and was thus expelled from the game.

In my time I’ve seen some stupid players do some stupid things, but nothing quite as stupid as this.

Within the next 5 minutes Caernarfon had scored two more goals, and went on to score a bizarre fourth right at the end when an outstretched Caernarfon boot touched the ball awkwardly causing it to loop up over everyone and drop down behind a defender into the net.

So I’m off to bed now. For the first time in a while I’m off shopping and I hope that they have more of that Alpro soya ice cream. I started on that for tea tonight and it was delicious.

Tuesday 14th February 2017 – YOU CAN TELL …

… that the guy who runs the “weigh-it-yourself” olives shop isn’t a Bekgian. Seeing as how I had run out, I went for a beautiful walk in the sunshine down there to buy a pile.
€1:03, the price was.
“So just give me €1:00” aid the cashier.

Yes, Definitely not Belgian.

And then tonight, I made myself a kidney bean whatsit with fresh carrots and tomato sauce as planned, and promptly forgot to add the olives that I had bought earlier. You couldn’t make that up, could you?

Another difficult night where it took ages to go off to sleep, but once gone I was gone for good. Just the odd bit of awakening but nothing exciting.

They really had forgotten to bring breakfast round, so we were on rather short commons yet again this morning. But back down here afterwards (in the light too – the nights are getting shorter) I had a bit of a doze for an hour or two.

Apart from some tidying up this morning, I went round to the bank. I’d found one of my bank cards but it needed activating. However, I couldn’t do it over the phone, hence my walk. Unfortunately, I’ve waited too long so the activation window has expired. I need to head off to my branch in Brussels one of these days.

And that gave me ideas.

Sorting out my medical expenses is something of a nightmare, so I sent an e-mail off to the Pensions Service of my former employers. They weren’t much help last time I was there, but this is what they are there for. I’ll blag my way into an appointment with them, and then I can go to the bank while I’m there.

For lunch I didn’t eat all of my baguette. I’m not that hungry, and if we are having no breakfast tomorrow either (and checking at 21:15, it looks very much like it) I’ll toast the rest that remains and that will do me fine.

This afternoon, as well as chatting to The One That Got Away, I sorted out another huge pile of papers. That was an enormous task and although I finished the most important stuff, I haven’t quite done all that is needed. But I ran out of enthusiasm – something that is happening far too frequently these days.

As well as the kidney bean whatsit, I had ice-cream for pudding. That was nice. And now I’ll try another early night.

It’ll do me good.

Sunday 6th March 2016 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since I posted a photo on here?

It must be ages and ages – I know for a fact that I didn’t take any photos at all during February and that has to be the first time for about 15 years since I had a photo-free month.

But so that you don’t feel deprived, here’s a photo taken with the camera in my mobile phone and it shows the snow that came a-falling down today.

And you’ve no idea how nice it is to be sitting inside here, by the stove, with a mug of hot coffee and a home-made banana muffin, and watching it fall. Unfortunately it didn’t stick around because we had a weird sort of weather day. heavy snowfall and then sunlight which melted the snow, and then snowfall again, and then sunlight, und so weiter.

When I went out for a walk just now, 99% of the snow had gone, but there was a crystak-clear sky with tons of stars and a rapidly-plummeting temperature. It’ll be cold tonight, that’s for sure.

As for my walk, this was the best so far. I’ve progressed to a fair distance now – about 150 yards away, I reckon. And I’m moving easier and quicker without quite so much pain and with less of a breathing difficulty although I still have this egg in my lungs that I can feel when I’m getting out of breath. So apart from that, there might be hope for me yet if only I could overcome this blood-loss thing.

So what else did I do today?

Apart from laughing at Manure, I spent all of the day going through my medical receipts. Now that the Insurance Company has agreed my maladie grave and given me a case number, I can send them all in. That meant putting them in date order, finding the prescriptions that went with them, printing out a dozen or so claim forms and filling them in, and then scanning the documents in order to keep copies. That lot took me from about 09:30 to about 16:00, with a couple of pauses for coffee and home-made banana muffins and a pause for lunch.

And how much do they owe me then? Well, to date, bearing in mind that there are quite a few bills that have yet to arrive, it’s about three months’ pension money. And that’s what I’ve spent out in about two and a half months of illness. So you can see why I’ve been struggling and in all kinds of difficulty.

So why haven’t I made a claim beforehand?

The answer to that is that without having had my claim for a maladie grave approved, I would have had to submit my claim under the normal procedures and only had part of the expenses approved. And then, the relevant claim file for that period would have been closed and you know just as well as I do what it would have been like trying to persuade an Insurance Company to reopen a closed claim.

I also had a haircut today. Liz was busy scalping Terry and so I took my turn in the queue. It needed doing but it wasn’t ‘arf cold outside afterwards.

As for last night, though, I was on my travels yet again.

I was up on the moor somewhere round by Northumberland and the Scottish border with a party of soldiers, maybe 100 of us, but we weren’t troops and in British Army soldiers but more like a throwback to Roman times, that kind of thing. We were in search of a powerful band of orc-like creatures who had been devastating this area. We had travelled so far into the wilderness and it was late in the day so the leaders of the party called for a halt for the night. He sent out two parties for observation. One of these parties had some kind of flying machine – a primitive light aeroplane made with a tubular aluminium frame but with no covering and they would fly over they area to see what was happening and see if any trace could be found of these orc-like people, while the second party, of which I was a member, would go to a watch-tower, something like a Martello tower not too far away, to liaise with whoever was in the aeroplane and receive their signals. So there we were, inside this watchtower but there was no sign of this plane – we waited and waited. Just when we considered that it was time to go back to the main party, we heard the plane flying over so the leader of our party took the lamp, a big black affair with a solar panel for recharging the battery (you have to admit that the Romans were very advanced technologically) and went outside. He didn’t return, so someone else went out, and found the first guy with an orc spear right through his body, thrown with tremendous force to the extent that it had gone halfway through him. At that moment he too was speared by the orcs, and this is how it went on. There were just 5 of us left and then the other party that had been with the aeroplane, they came back (minus the aeroplane). Not being quite aware of what was going on, I went down to meet these four people, who had a girl of about 4 with them. But there were also four other people there, two men and two women, and they were in business attire and the people from our party were looking at them. Suddenly, the penny dropped and I shouted out “run, you fools! Can’t you see that they are orcs!”. This led to something of a struggle and two of our group of four were cut down and the other two made it inside. But the little girl was left cowering by the door. I fought off these orcs and in a short time they had gone. I picked up the girl and went inside but the place was deserted. All that I could see were muddy orc footprints all over the walls and the ceiling. They had somehow managed to enter the building and removed the rest of our two parties while I was outside fighting. This left just me and the little girl, and we had to rejoin our main party a mile or two away, and God knows where these orcs were. Had they gone off with their captives, or had they killed them and were lying in wait for us, or were they attacking our main party. So we just had to grit our teeth and make a run for it, hoping that we would get through.
That was another unpleasant situation to be in and I was glad that a call of nature had aroused me from certain death. And after the usual trip down the corridor I was back with a group of children and there was gambling, people injecting themselves with needles and all of that kind of thing, which (strangely enough – or maybe not, as it happens) relates to a discussion that we were all having here on Saturday afternoon.

So now, having had my walk, I’m off for another early (but not quite so early) night. I have a blood test in the morning so I need to study.

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: medical receipts

Monday 9th September 2024 – HERE WE GO AGAIN

Sunday 8th September 2024 – I’M FED UP …

Monday 28th June 2021 – NOT VERY MANY …

Friday 25th June 2020 – AFTER EVERYTHING …

Thursday 24th June 2021 – I’VE HAD A …

Friday 28th February 2020 – I MISSED …

Tuesday 14th February 2017 – YOU CAN TELL …

Sunday 6th March 2016 – HOW LONG IS IT …

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