… this morning – all the way to Montel de Gelat. and all for no good purpose too.

I’d had to arrange an inspection of a fosse septique – a septic tank on behalf of Terry for some project that Terry had on the go, and this was for this morning at 11:30. And so we duly presented ourselves at the premises.

And waited

And waited.

Terry had forgotten his mobile phone and I didn’t have mine either, so in the end Terry went back home for his phone and the phone number of the person who should be visiting, leaving me in possession of the field for the moment.

It was absolutely taters out there, with a high wind blowing like crazy and I was frozen to the marrow. In fact, I spent my time sitting on a small electric radiator. But I made a friend and had company all the time I was there. A young ginger moggy came across for a stroke and, of course, strokes are second only to food in a cat’s order of importance.

When Terry returned with the necessary, the matter quickly resolved itself. It appears that the former owner lived in the Creuse and so he had the phone number of the Inspector for the Creuse region. To reach the property where we were, you have indeed to leave the Puy-de-Dome and enter the Creuse and turn immediately right, but the land straddles the border of the two departments and the property itself is actually back in the Puy de Dome. I hadn’t seen the postcode of the property until today, and I could see that the postcode began with 63 – the Puy de Dome’s number.

Anyway, the inspector had realised that too this morning. It’s out of his area so he’s not authorised to inspect it. He had left a message on the phone but of course, we didn’t have it with us.

So back here for soup for lunch and then in accordance with my usual agenda, I crashed out on the sofa for an hour or so. And that’s no surprise because I was exhausted after last night’s adventures.

In fact, last night’s voyage was so special and so well-detailed that I sat bolt-upright at about 03:30 to dictate it into my machine. And finding the batteries in there to be flat, I sat down and typed it out then and there, so that I wouldn’t forget it.

I was back in Crewe again, back with Nerina, back running my taxi business and I’d just moved house. I was busy trying to fit the stereo and the chests of drawers and the like all round the walls of one of the rooms in which I was living, but there wasn’t enough room so I was going to have to stack them some how one on top of another. I ended up with one of my huge hi-fi speakers (the ones that I had bought from a guy in Tunstall in 1992) stuck on top of something else in a corner behind the armchair. That would never do but it was the best that I could manage right now. Nerina came home from work in Stockport and told me to stop what I was doing as there was much more to do that was more important. In fact we ended up in West Street with Paul, one of my former drivers, going to the chippy for meat pies and chips. They weren’t particularly generous with the chips so I gave mine to Nerina, who expressed surprise at my generosity where food was involved. “Never mind” I replied. “Here we are in West Street with two more chippies within 100 yards. I’ll buy myself another portion”. So I went into the next chippy for two large portions of chips and gave one of those away to someone, but I was depressed that my “large portion of chips” turned out to be a very tiny portion of chips and a tub of baked beans. We carried on walking past the desolation of the south side of West Street (it was all being demolished at that time) and Nerina told me about a confrontation that she had had with a bailiff. It was over some money allegedly owed in Stockport but she had had a statement from Stockport Metropolitan Council to say that she had overpaid by £0:02. The bailiff accused her of having forged the letter and said that he was going to come round and “sort her out” with threats of physical violence. We ended up on the Elm Drive estate, having added to our entourage the guy who married my younger sister (twice in two nights?) walking back towards town, discussing the merits of the two pubs on the estate, the one on the roundabout (which of course isn’t there) and “the Brunel” (which is actually the Royal Scot but which was a white-stuccoed pub, nothing like the Royal Scot, and the real Brunel Arms is in, would you believe, West Street, where we have just been) down a side street. I said that when I lived in Elm Drive (which I did, for a short while) I went to the pubs out on Sydney Road which was dangerous for coming back because they switched off the street lights and we were always walking into things. Further on down Elm Drive, towards the town end, we went to the home of the girl who answered the telephone, and she joined our little party. We told her that if the phone rang, we didn’t have a car available for half an hour (which was rather pointless as she wouldn’t reach our house to answer the phone before we did). We turned into Middlewich Street and walked down the hill to the railway bridge at the bottom near Henry Street. Here in a triangle of waste land in between the railway line and the new road were a few vehicles parked up of which two interested us. One was a Volvo B10M coach with an Alizee body, M-reg (as in 1994) and carrying the name of a dance troupe, parked up just before the railway bridge in fact, and an old Volkswagen or Mercedes van dark blue with a white top and looking as if it had stood for years. There were crowds of people across the new road, milling around as if they were waiting to get into a night club, so we reckoned that we had better get a move on and get home to do some work – it was already 20:30 and the night was drifting away. But we were then embroiled in a (friendly) dispute about the quickest way to reach home. I was all for the short cut up Meredith Street but each one of us had his own favourite way to go.

And all of this goes to show that it’s nothing to do with Liz’s cooking, despite what I have said recently, because I had nothing whatever to eat yesterday that had any connection whatever with Liz’s culinary delights.

But as an aside, back in the mid-late 1970s (a good few years before I met Nerina) we would indeed go for these mega-rambles around Crewe on a Saturday night. Crewe used to have some really decent pubs (neither of the two pubs mentioned came into this category, by the way) but they were scattered right across the town. We’d inevitably visit three or four, having a quiet pint in each, but most of our time would be spent on foot walking for miles around the town, and a visit to a local chippy en route would be always on the agenda. Good beer, convivial company (there would be three, four or five of us), excellent food (because in those days the chippies in Crewe were really good).

A really good night out. There wouldn’t be the slightest hint of misbehaviour because whatever alcohol we had consumed in one pub, we would walk off with travelling to the next one. And, strangely enough, all of the walking that we were doing would keep us really fit.

Those were the days of innocence really. You couldn’t do it now of course. Firstly, half of the pubs have closed down. Secondly, the chippies have changed ownership and I’ve yet to find a Chinese chippy that can cut and fry chips like an old-fashioned English chippy (although the popularity of Chinese chippies these days shows that I’m clearly in a minority). Thirdly, and sadly, British society has changed for the worse. People no longer know how to drink responsibly. The aim seems to be to drink as much as possible in the shortest space of time and as a result, I’ve seen loads of reports about town-centres being no-go areas after 21:00. Not that I would know too much about that these days, and to be honest I have no intention of finding out.

But why am I becoming all nostalgic? I could understand it if it had been during my waking hours but there’s clearly something happening in my subconscious that’s bringing all of this to the fore.

So having woken up from my snooze this afternoon I made a start on my Animation course but I didn’t get far. I’m not as energetic as I used to be. We had tea and after a while I went off to bed – another early night.

I really can’t last the pace but it’s hardly surprising today. This mega-ramble around Crewe last night has totally worn me out.

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