Tag Archives: monty python holy grail

Sunday 15th March 2026 – I HAVE HAD …

… many requests, most of which are physically impossible, but one of them has been for the recipe for my vegan cheesecake.

So here goes –

235 grammes of biscuits. I used the really cheap “Speculoos” biscuits which are vegan.
100 grammes of vegan butter.
400 grammes of soya yoghurt. I used my last “soya nature” and two pots of fruit yoghurt.
100 grammes of fruit purée. I had some pear purée on hand.
2 ice cubes of aquafaba (chick pea juice).
30 grammes of cornflour.
10 grammes of sugar.

whizz up the biscuits into a powder.
melt the butter gently and then thoroughly mix it with the biscuits.
line a baking dish and then press the biscuit/butter mix firmly onto the bottom and some little way up the sides.
mix all the rest of the ingredients thoroughly and then pour onto the biscuit base.
bake at 160°C for about 35 or so minutes.
when it’s cool enough, put it in the fridge and leave it to set.

It really is as easy as that. Let me know if you made it, if you have any suggestions for improving it, and if you enjoyed it.

As long as you enjoyed it more than I enjoyed last night, because it was another of what you might call a “turbulent night”. I was in bed by 23:30, which was later than I would have liked it to be, of course, and I went to sleep quite quickly, but I was wide awake again at 23:53.

There was a dream that I wanted to dictate but the batteries had gone flat in the dictaphone. Groping around in my sleep for the spare batteries, I managed to knock everything onto the floor, so in the end I had to wake up, look for them and swap them over.

But in my dazed and hazy state, I must have put in the wrong batteries because when I went to dictate a dream at 01:03, the batteries went flat in seconds and I had to wake up again. Luckily, I’d put on charge the batteries from earlier and although they weren’t as yet fully-charged, they would do. And then I could go back to sleep.

Sunday is a Day of Rest and it always starts these days with a lie-in. But a lie-in until … errr … 07:53 is good for neither man nor beast. I was hoping for a much later sleep than that.

When the nurse turned up, I was awake, but I pretended to be asleep because I wasn’t in the mood for any social chit-chat or recriminations about still being in bed.

However, after he left, I did manage to go back to sleep, and there I stayed until 09:30, which is much more like it.

In the kitchen, I made my breakfast. Hot black coffee, porridge and home-made croissants. And there’s no doubt about it— this more expensive flaky pastry is much better than the really cheap stuff. My croissants were superb, just like they ought to be.

While I was at it, I was reading some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.

We’ve left the outlying Greek islands and we’re now discussing the situation in Thessaloniki under its Latin conquerors, and our author makes a very interesting observation, with which I concur wholeheartedly. He tells us about the fate of many of these Crusader States that, in his opinion "should be a warning to those who believe that nations can be partitioned permanently at congresses of diplomatists."

You’ve no idea, no idea at all, how many conflicts in this World have been caused by the way that the Western powers divided up Africa and the Middle East by using geographical lines, splitting up ethnic groups and dividing them between two (or more) different countries, or forcing different ethnic groups who have a historical hatred for each other to share the same country. And these conflicts are still going on today.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night. And I was astonished by the amount of stuff that was on it.

I was with two girls last night. We were talking about my blog and the artificial intelligence program that I run as well. For some reason, we ended up talking about their boss at work. They were talking about some of his particular personal habits, that he never uses a toilet. He just goes outside and does what he has to do and then covers it with soil when he’s finished, and a few other things like that. I asked them basically why they still had him as their boss. They replied that first of all, he has some connections with a really big record company. Secondly, the big advantage that he has is that he never seems to remember everything or anything, so he’s not very demanding from that point of view.

This presumably relates to A SCURRILOUS RUMOUR BEING SPREAD AROUND WALES AT THE MOMENT BY A CERTAIN EXTREME FASCIST RIGHT-WING POLITICAL “PARTY” that a school in Wales is allowing children to self-identify as cats and instead of toilets, has provided litter trays for the pupils.

Not that there’s anything new in kids identifying themselves as cats. I’m sure that untold millions of children have gone through a phase of doing that sort of thing.

While we were dealing with this case of the teacher who had disappeared with this young girl, we’d been sorting out some clothes that related to the affair because part of the clothing was missing. Maybe we’d have a skirt or something but no blouse, or a blouse and no skirt, something like that, and we were trying to assemble all of the clothing so that we knew what we had and what we could list as missing. However, there was some small girl who was hanging around at the foot of the stage, but she didn’t really need to be there – there was somewhere else for her to go but no-one seemed to take any notice of her, so I decided that I would have to do that if no-one else would. I went to the edge of the stage to jump down, but it was probably two hundred feet down to the ground. Without thinking, I swung myself over the edge and spun round so that I was facing the side of the stage and went to climb down like a kind of monkey or something, but I’d totally miscalculated everything. Everyone gasped as I swung out over the stage and tried my best to slide down by digging my hands and fingernails into the wood as I slid down. I’d just miscalculated completely everything.

The first part of this dream presumably relates to the song CHILD BRIDE, a song that had been recorded by Bruce Springsteen for his album NEBRASKA but abandoned.

The part about sorting out the clothes is part of the plot of the Agatha Christie novel SLEEPING MURDER

As for the rest, it’s the usual panic-stricken nightmare that reoccurs every now and again at some point during the night.

Incidentally, throughout these pages, you’ll see links to Amazon products appearing every now and again. Being a Sales Associate of Amazon, I receive a small commission on goods sold via my links. It costs you nothing at all extra, but helps defray … "part of the" – ed … cost of my not-insubstantial web-hosting fees.

There are also links on the sidebar for AMAZON UK, AMAZON USA and, since the recent “troubles”, AMAZON CANADA for the use of my numerous Canadian visitors. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I am extremely grateful when someone uses them to make a purchase

Il y a quelque chose qui se passait avec les Beatles … I’m dictating in French, aren’t I … There was something happening concerning the Beatles as well last night. We were keeping some garrisons equipped and furnished with men in certain places, but with regards to one of them, we began to ask ourselves whether it was cost-effective to keep that particular one on or whether we should disestablish it. Someone mentioned that a couple of years ago, a few people had been injured there when the building had caught fire. Someone asked, rather tongue-in-cheek, although I suspect that there was more to it than this, if the Beatles had actually set the fire in the building themselves.

This presumably has a connection with the book that I’m reading at the moment. Several of the major fortresses had smaller outliers, but dividing a garrison is never a really good idea. The smaller one can be easily surrounded and overrun, and that would be a waste of manpower, supplies and ammunition. Everyone should be manning just one set of defences in order to concentrate the manpower and firepower.

Where the Beatles came into all this, I really have no idea.

We were going off to the university’s annual general meeting, so a large group of us piled into a coach and set off. We went down the autoroute into Paris and eventually came into the centre of the city, then round the périphérique and back out again. Then we all had to leave the coach and walk to the hotel, which was a couple of miles through the open countryside. It must have been midsummer because the hay was really high. We walked down these footpaths by these fields, and someone came across a booth that had all brochures in there, most of which were kiddy-designed. Someone even said that their father had, once many years ago, found one of these leaflets or magazines in there that they had prepared a long time ago when they were small. There was all this talk about the people we were going to meet. Several people mentioned the names of two girls who would be there, whom they were looking forward to meeting. I was feeling a little jealous because I was looking forward to meeting those two as well. There was also talk on the way down about the Americans who were going to be there. They were saying that on no account should we say anything about the war to upset the Americans. My opinion was that if the truth had to be told, it had to be told, and I didn’t care who was upset by it, so I calculated on my stay being a rather short one. There had also been some talk about “benzine” all the way down, and I was going to be drinking “benzine”. That was bewildering. As we walked, I came across a different two girls whom I knew from the university, so I walked with them into the hotel, but they disappeared as soon as we came in. As soon as I walked up to the reception, everyone recognised me – hotel staff etc. The first thing that they did was to pour a drink for me, some kind of fizzy drink with lemon and ice cubes in it. Someone shouted across the room “don’t forget that Mr Hall will have a ‘benzine’ as soon as he arrives”. Someone else replied “well, I’ve already poured it for him”. While we were waiting for everyone else to arrive, I had a chat with the manageress. She was saying that she admired the university and admired the people who were studying at it, such as me, which made me laugh. I replied “well, I admire you and I envy you and this lovely business that you have”. There was something else about an extra night’s accommodation. I seem to think that I’d paid for an extra night’s accommodation, but I wasn’t going to use it. I wondered how the refund would work if I were to leave without actually saying anything about cancelling this extra night.

The covers for the brochures for the Carnaval de Granville are designed by the local kids in some kind of competition, and the winner’s design will adorn the brochure for that year.

But I loved the comment that we must not upset the Americans, and so “I calculated on my stay being a rather short one”.

The “jealousy” part is quite interesting too. After all, there have been a number of times during my various dreams that I have been about to Get The Girl and someone comes along and spikes my guns. It’s no surprise that I’d be affected by people planning on spiking my guns before I’ve come within grasping distance of The Girl.

And once more, we end up with me dithering about this refund.

There was a campaign to put a bypass around Montaigut and St Eloy. They had built one around the eastern side but there was a campaign going on for one around the western side to link up with the other at both ends. I hadn’t been there for a while, but I drove down the road and saw that they had built a viaduct over a valley and had tarmacked it, but that was everything so far. I spoke to my architect friend about it, and he said that he had sent some plans to them about ten months ago and they’d built it, but at an old farm somewhere along the line, they had discovered a major water source, so they couldn’t really build it very far. He quoted some official as saying that the situation was much calmer now, there aren’t quite so many cars on the road, people don’t see the utility and they have become more accustomed to death since last time, and so it seems as if they were cancelling the project. I went along to the meeting about this, and they had several tape recordings of discussions between various people. For some reason or other, they had been recorded on string, not tape. They wanted to play these recordings to the people. I was asked if I’d hold the tape recorders while they did it. They gave me one to hold while the guy on the podium had a discussion with the people in the hall and then to play the string. There was definitely sound on it, but it was muffled and we could hardly hear a single word that people were saying, so after a while, he stopped it. At that point, I noticed that everyone had disappeared from that room, and I was there on my own. I didn’t have a clue what to do with this tape machine or anything. But one thing that I’d noticed when I was driving out that way earlier was that the skyline had changed completely. It was much higher away to the south than it used to be, so I wondered what had been going on there that had caused all of that.

They have in fact built a bypass around the eastern side of Montaigut and St Eloy, and not long before I left the area, they had built a segment around the north-western side of Montaigut, but it hadn’t gone any further than the road to Pionsat.

This part about everyone disappearing from the hall reminds me of a scene in MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL when they had been consulting an ancient sage, when suddenly, he vanished in the fog.

“I didn’t have a clue what to do with this tape machine” – I’m sure that regular readers of this rubbish will recall a few suggestions, and I bet that I’ll receive more than one or two of them in the post overnight.

After all of that, I was quite exhausted, so I had something of a relax by having a footfest.

There were the highlights of the rest of the games in the JD Cymru League and then I went, with some trepidation, to watch the Stranraer v league leaders East Kilbride game.

The wheels had well and truly come off Stranraer’s season after the defeat against Clyde that had ended their long-unbeaten run. But today, they managed to find some of their missing form and they ran out 2-1 winners. And well-deserved too.

After a rather late disgusting drink break, I went through my e-mails and replied to everyone who needed a reply to some earlier correspondence. So if you are waiting for a reply from me and haven’t had one, send me a reminder because I have probably missed your message.

For the rest of what little time remained (apart from the ten minutes or so when I fell asleep … errr …. riding the porcelain horse), I occupied myself with a task that I should have started fifteen years ago. It’s going to take an eternity to do, so I hope that I’ll have enough time to finish it. As to what it might be, well, you’ll have to wait and see.

There was baking to do this afternoon. I didn’t bake a loaf – I simply took a half-loaf from the freezer in the bathroom. But I made myself a lovely pizza.

And it was lovely too – one of the best that I have made, and there’s another half left over for Monday night when I come home from dialysis.

But seeing as we have been talking about dialysis … "well, one of us has" – ed … right now, I’m off to bed ready … "I don’t think" – ed … for dialysis tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about children identifying as cats … "well, one of us has" – ed … there was such a story doing the rounds not so long ago.
And when the child came downstairs to the dining room at teatime, it was surprised to find that no place had been set for it at the table.
"Where’s my tea?" asked the child.
"If you want some tea" said the father "go outside and catch it yourself. There are plenty of mice in the barn. And when you come in, you’ll find some Munchies in a bowl by the door."

Wednesday 17th September 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… a horrible afternoon today and I’m going to bed in a moment. Sleep is and always has been my remedy for all kinds of illnesses; aches and pains, so if this posting suddenly stops half-way through, you know what has happened.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ll pick up the threads some other time when I awaken, if I ever do, because the way things are right now, that’s not at all clear.

First of all, my apologies to Alison. Firstly, for missing her birthday yesterday, and secondly, for replying to a text message of hers at … gulp … 03:40 this morning and probably awakening her from her beauty sleep.

Yes, I was up and about at 03:40 this morning and if the truth were known, I could have been up and about a long, long time before that.

With not cooking a meal last night, eating my lunchtime sandwiches instead, I was well over an hour earlier than usual and I made good use of the time by dashing through the notes from yesterday, probably missing off a pile of important stuff that I’ll find that I need to consult in the future.

That’s one of the many purposes of this blog, by the way. I have a hopeless memory – a "brain of a duck, you know" as was once FAMOUSLY SAID ON FILM. Consequently, I have to make notes of what goes on so that I can recall them later. Nothing is more satisfying when contacting “authority” to be able to say things like "but in our conversation of 9th April 2016 you said …" and to be able to put the contemporary quote before their eyes.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … office, I sprinted through my notes and everything else, and was in bed not long after 22:00, which these days is something of a record.

However, regular readers of this rubbish will recall exactly what happens next.

That’s right. There I was at 01:30, tossing and turning in my bed trying my very best to go back to sleep after a dramatic awakening, and failing dismally.

After a couple of hours, I gave it up as a totally bad job and arose from the Dead. And contrary to the expectations of other people, I did not have a wasted morning.

Apart from disturbing Alison’s sleep, there were two radio programmes which, as I mentioned the other day, needed some amendment to their text. And so I re-wrote the text and, in the absence of the howling gale, that seems to have died down now, re-dictated them (one of them twice because yet again, the first five seconds of one of the recordings had gone walkabout).

Once I was satisfied with what I had, I edited them and rebuilt the two programmes and now they are ready to go, sometime in March next year.

At that point, the alarm went off at 05:38 so I went and had a good wash and scrub up, then came back here to listen to the dictaphone. And I needn’t have bothered, because with just three or so hours of sleep, there hadn’t been much time to go anywhere during the night.

There were several other things to do, but in the end, at 06:30, I was interrupted by the arrival of Isabelle the Nurse who came to sort out my legs. She was in a very lively mood this morning and so the news that I had later of an incident involving a patient whom she visits after me took me completely by surprise. Anyway, that’s another story – rather like the one that I told yesterday about the house of the Franklins in Spilsby.

No breakfast, and no medication this morning because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … what doesn’t go in won’t want to come out at an inconvenient moment during the morning.

It was the young, chatty driver who brought me home yesterday who came for me this morning, bang on 07:00 as promised. He’d ‘phoned me a little earlier to confirm his arrival so I was ready and waiting by the door.

And that was where the first effects of yesterday’s chemotherapy hit me. It’s a very gentle, almost imperceptible slope up to the road, but I had an awful struggle going up it and I needed help. That was devastating news for me.

There was another passenger in the car with us, with an earlier appointment than mine at Rennes as I predicted, so we fought our way through the back lanes around Avranches station and the traffic queues on the rocade around Rennes to drop off our ladyfriend, and arrived at my building bang on 09:00.

Surprisingly, I was seen immediately, and by 09:15 I was coupled up and running.

It was only a short session this morning so I didn’t bother with the internet (although I found the free connection, which is good news). Instead, I read some of THE WAR IN THE AIR – the official history of the Royal Flying Corps.

It’s a fascinating book but, as you might expect, it’s full of the gung-ho jingoism that so characterised the inflated egos of the British upper classes at that moment. Reading things like "Flying Corps, when it took the field with the little British Expeditionary Force, was enabled to bear a part in saving the British army, and perhaps the civilization of free men, from the blind onrush of the German tide." makes me cringe.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the advantage of going to Rennes is that there are thirty or forty voyages to Rennes made by my taxi company every day. So when the secretary ‘phoned them to say that I was ready to leave, there was a car here in fifteen minutes with one passenger already on board and another to be picked up after me.

But it’s like being on a production line at Rennes. You’re in, you’re dealt with, and you’re straight out. No time for recovery or to calm down or anything. They had to fetch a wheelchair for me again as I was in no state to stand up, and I had to be helped into the car.

On the way home, I was feeling awful and as sleep is my usual remedy, I dozed off for half an hour.

We had the usual guided tour of half of Normandy, during which I visited a couple of places where I’d never been before and didn’t even know existed, and was back here by about 13:00, where my faithful cleaner was waiting. She helped me into the apartment (and I needed help) where I sat down for an hour to recover.

Once I’d recovered slightly, I had a small bowl of porridge (all that I’ve eaten today – and if I’m off my food, then regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m not at all well) and then went to bed where I slept for over three hours.

While I was asleep in the afternoon, I remember making something like a model lighthouse. It was made of plastic, like an Airfix model, with bits that we had to glue together and paint. It was rather complicated to do it, and we realised when we almost finished that it looked nothing like in the plan and we were doing it the wrong way round. Someone came to check on me while I was asleep in bed, and that jogged my memory so I went to have another go at making this lighthouse. I realised that in its natural position, it was pulled square but I had to tighten up the pillars, columns and safety bars which would draw it up into a hexagram – a circle, rather – and that was something that I hadn’t done at first so I set about having a go at doing that.

This evening, I’ve had a lively chat with my niece’s youngest daughter who tells me that she and her mother "are all booked in just down the road from you" so it looks as if this visit in November is really going to happen.

Alison and I had a little chat too, which was nice, and then Jackie came for a chat too. It’s been my lucky day today.

However, I really was feeling awful, and I’m not much better now so I’m off to bed in the hope that I’ll feel better in the morning.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the gung-ho jingoism of the British Empire … "well, one of us has" – ed … it has been rivalled, if not exceeded in modern times, by the manner and behaviour of many Americans.
In a small pub in a rural area in Wales, I once heard an American going on about "the miserable size of the Welsh hill farms. Why, back in Texas, I could get into my car, drive for three days, and still not reach the boundary on the other side of my land!"
"I know exactly how you feel" replied a Welsh hill farmer
"You do???" exclaimed the American, incredulously
"Ohh yes" replied the farmer. "I used to have a car like that too."

Sunday 15th June 2025 – WHAT A LOVELY …

… day that I have had today. It’s been a very, very long time since I’ve had such an interesting day.

Well, actually, that’s not really fair. A friend of mine was over here for a couple of days several weeks ago and we had a very good and interesting time. And today (and these last few days in fact) were just as interesting and enjoyable.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I don’t have many friends, but those whom I have are the best in the World. No-one has better friends than I do.

So last night, I had another gentle meander around in cyberspace, sometimes looking for things on the internet and sometimes even writing my notes. But in any case it was long after midnight when I finally crawled into bed.

For a change, I was asleep quite quickly, and there I stayed until all of … errr … 05:10 when something awoke me. I’ve no idea what it was but anyway, I was awake and that was that.

“Being awake” is of course not the same thing as “leaving the bed”. That is something quite different. So there I was lying there vegetating when I thought “hang on – I have things to do” and left the bed. This was round about 05:30.

Everyone else was asleep so I sat down and began to transcribe the notes on the dictaphone. They were laying out some young girl last night, a 3D model of one. She had died. They were dressing her in whatever funeral clothes that they could find and making her ready for burial.

This was quite a morbid theme for the night when I’m supposed to be relaxing. And even now, I can still see the scene. Interestingly, they were dressing her in white. I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that when I was going through the wardrobe in here the other day sorting out things that I’ll be taking downstairs, I came across Roxanne’s communion dress and a bridesmaid’s dress that she wore that her mother left behind when our relationship ended. I’ve never been able to bring myself to throw them out.

There are lots of things – clothes, toys, a bike and so on of Roxanne’s that I still have that were left behind down on the farm that I came across when I scrapped the caravan in which we lived when we went down there at first on our holidays. It’s rather too late now to worry about what’s going to become of it, but whoever draws the short straw and has to sort out my effects is going to have something of a time trying to untangle everything.

Once I’d finished the dictaphone notes (which, let’s face it, didn’t take long) I sorted out the rest of the music for my biodiversity radio programme. That’s all chosen, edited, remixed and segued now, and I even began to write the notes. However, round about 07:15 I detected signs of people stirring so I went to join them.

After I’d had a good wash and scrub up we all sat around talking and drinking coffee until the nurse arrived. And he was once more taken unawares by the Hound of the Baskervilles. Consequently, he didn’t stay long and we could push on and make breakfast.

While breakfast was a-making, I set my friend a task TO PROVE THAT HE IS WORTHY. I mentioned the other day that I needed someone to place an advert on a certain Social Media Group to try to find a plumber. I was going to ask my friend Liz to do it but I can’t keep on asking her to do things for me or she’ll soon become fed up, so I set my friend onto the task.

While I was eating my breakfast, I sent off my on-line order for the oven, microwave, fridge-freezer and a few other things. They will start to arrive in midweek and carry on into the beginning of next week. So now it looks as if we are off, up and running.

To cement our progress, we sorted out some things and took them downstairs to put in the new place. That’s right! WE ARE BEGINNING TO MOVE IN! Slowly, it has to be said, but nevertheless …

Once we’d sorted out what needed to go downstairs, we decided to make the most of the beautiful weather and go out.

The first place that we visited was the radio’s studio at St Nicolas so that my friend knew where it was for the future, and then we had a nice, steady drive in the sunshine all the way down to the Pointe de Carolles where he took the Hound of the Baskervilles for a run on the beach and I went for a coffee.

That wasn’t as easy as it sounded either because it was lunchtime and the place was full. They offered me a kind-of casual table outside but the seats were no good for me. Eventually, they found a spare seat with armrests where I could sit down and, more importantly, lift myself out again.

When they had finished their walkies they came to join me and we were there for about an hour in the sun having coffee. And the cute little serving wench who waited on us can hand it to me on a platter any time she likes.

Interestingly, there were several young children wandering around, dressed in white. I asked the aforementioned serving wench about it, and she replied that the local kids had had their communion today. After that dream about the girl being laid out for her funeral, dressed in white, and Roxanne’s communion dress, that was a real coincidence.

We climbed back into the car and drove on down the coast and into Avranches to fuel up, and then carried on along the coast in the beautiful weather, admiring the view until we reached St Malo.

It’s years since I’ve been to St Malo and I can’t remember it at all compared to how it is now. But I sat on the side of the harbour watching the shipping while the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged its master off for another walk. And why I didn’t take a ‘photo of the first “Ship of the Day” since I was in MONTREAL THE 30th SEPTEMBER 2022 I really don’t know.

Back in the car, we had a nice, steady drive home, coming through the town centre to see the chaos that they are creating with these “improvements”. And all that I can say is that it’s better than Crewe Town Centre right now, that’s for sure.

Another nice surprise is that someone had replied to the advert that my friend had placed this morning. So now I have a plumber/handyman coming to see me on Friday afternoon to have a look at the job that needs doing downstairs in the bathroom. That might even be taking off at this rate.

For tea tonight I made another pizza, a large square one this time and that went down really well. There’s even some left over so my friend has bagged that for lunch tomorrow while I’m at dialysis.

So now, I’m off to bed, exhausted following a really wonderful day. I don’t have enough of those so I’ll make the most of whatever I can have.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about watching the boats in St Malo harbour … "well, one of us has" – ed … I spent a lot of time looking at this strange type of elasticated sailing boat that was there, flying the flag of one of these Middle-Eastern Emirate countries.
It was so unusual that I asked a local yokel about it.
He was a very vocal local yokel too, and told me "it’s a very famous boat, that one. Didn’t you know?"
"No, I’m afraid that I didn’t." I said
"It’s so famous" he said "that a very famous poem has been written about it"
"Which one was that?" I asked, bitterly regretting ten seconds later having done so
"It’s ‘The Rubber Yacht of Omar Khayyam’"

Wednesday 9th April 2025 – I HAVE MADE …

… an executive decision. And for the benefit of new readers, of which there are more than just a few these days, an executive decision is on that if it turns out to be the wrong decision, the person who made it is executed.

It’s amazing the thoughts that go through your head when you are lying there in bed at … gulp … 05:20 in the morning trying rather unsuccessfully to go back to sleep after another dramatic awakening, but there we are. I put the time to good use.

It wasn’t as if I’d been to bed early either. In principle I could have been in bed at a realistic time last night but as usual, just as I’m about to make up my mind to stagger off to bed after doing everything that I needed to do, a decent concert comes round on the playlist and so I find something to do as a good excuse for staying up to listen to it.

Eventually though, I go off to bed and go straight to sleep, only to awaken bolt-upright at 05:20 wondering why I’m still in bed when I was convinced that a couple of hours ago I’d arisen from the bed and gone into the kitchen.

So while I was pondering and musing, I was thinking. And one of the things about which I was thinking was that I’m never going to go back to sleep so I may as well raise myself from the bed and do some work.

Into the bathroom for a cursory wash today, after all, it is Wednesday and shower day, and then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, and to my surprise, despite the short night, I’d been out and about on a couple of occasions. I had to board a bus to go somewhere, and I was with a friend of mine. We climbed on board but the bus was crowded and there were people sitting on the floor. We found some space on one of the side seats over the rear wheel arch but there were some people sitting right in front of it on the floor so we had to manoeuvre our feet around. One of the people on the floor objected. I told them that my feet have to go somewhere but they carried on complaining so I told them that if they didn’t like it, they should have sat on the seat when it became vacant and then they could have put their feet on the floor but they were still extremely unhappy. In the end I couldn’t care less and began to take the mickey out of them for complaining.

Back on the bus again after last night? That seems to be becoming something of a regular occasion. I could understand the situation if I were driving it but as a passenger, that’s hardly likely. When I was fit I would walk miles and miles without even thinking about it. I remember in Brussels a few years ago when I was going to the hospital at Leuven and went for a little walk around one afternoon – and covered nineteen kilometres. And how far did I walk with Hannah on that Sunday when I was showing her around Brussels?

Later on I was driving taxis again. I was parked on the rank and was ready to pull away when another vehicle came along, drove past and reversed into a space at the side of me, another taxi, a white Hillman Hunter. As he pulled into this space he hit the front of my car. I climbed out to see what the damage was but there wasn’t a great deal. The guy wasn’t really all that apologetic. He asked me if I’d seen the guitar, some package, a similar thing. I said that someone had left a package yesterday and I’d put it in the boot of his car for him. He didn’t remember seeing it when he looked so I told him that I was certain that it was there and if it’s not there I probably still have it at home and I’ll sort it out for later.

Yes, “again”. That’s becoming far too much of a regular dream too, or is it a nightmare? If I had my time back and had to go through it again, I would have changed a great deal of what happened. I made some very poor decisions back then but hindsight is wonderful, isn’t it? And as was once said in the USA "it’s hard to remember, when you are up to your neck in alligators, that all you are trying to do is to drain the swamp".

Having put that out of the way I had plenty of work to do and I cracked on. I was hard at it when Isabelle the Nurse arrived to sort me out. We talked about my compression socks and she’ll remind the secretary of my doctor.

After she left I made breakfast. The loaf that I made before going to bed is absolutely excellent and made some lovely toast. I munched away on it while I was reading MY NEW BOOK.

This book has now turned into a whistle-stop tour of castles. We’ve probably been to six or seven this morning, just a quick walk around and then teleported ourselves on to the next one, in alphabetical order. With 669 pages at which to go, we are going to be covering a lot of ground at this rate.

Back in here, I began to concentrate.

My decision – about which I talked earlier – is that no matter what evolves downstairs, I’m going to rip out the kitchen and throw it away. I’ve been planning my own kitchen thanks to that 3D app about which I spoke the other day, and I’ve made myself a lovely kitchen and so I’m going to go with it and make my new apartment look really nice and practical.

Electrical appliances are next so I spent a couple of hours looking at fridge-freezers and built-in ovens and microwaves. In the end, my brain had turned to porridge so I abandoned the process. There were thousands and thousands and I had no idea what I wanted or what I needed.

It was at that point I had a good idea, and I contacted Rosemary. Just a short chat this morning – a mere fifty-seven yea … errr … minutes. But knowing how much care and effort Rosemary puts into checking things out, I set her a task TO PROVE THAT SHE IS WORTHY.

What I did was to tell her what I thought would be my requirements and what my budget is. And if she had my budget and my requirements, what would she buy?

She immediately made a couple of suggestions that had not occurred to me, and then she had to go to sort out a taxi to take her to hospital as she’s having some surgery in a couple of weeks. But she’s on the case which is just as well because I didn’t know who else to ask and I couldn’t sort it out on my own.

My faithful cleaner made a suggestion too. She reckons that this organisation with which I’m registered – the one that bends over backwards to help handicapped and disabled people stay in their own homes – might be able to offer some sort of assistance with the move and the fitting out of the apartment to suit my needs and requirements.

Having given the matter some thought, I wrote to them to see what they would have to say.

Then I had to send off the receipt for the new telephone and return one of the products that I’d bought from Amazon because they had sent the wrong one.

When my cleaner arrived this afternoon she helped me into the shower and I had a really good scrub up that made me feel so much better and then after a disgusting drink break, I cracked on with the radio programme.

But the time that I stopped for tea, I’d chosen all of the music (which wasn’t easy, as I said yesterday), edited and remixed it, paired and segued it and written all of the notes. That was a really busy spell of work and I was exhausted.

Tea tonight was a leftover curry. But there was so much left over that I added a couple of small potatoes, a jar of that korma mix that I bought ages ago, and made enough for three meals and the one that I ate tonight was delicious.

The naan was perfection too – definitely one of my better ones.

So it’s bedtime now, if the stabbing pain that has started up in my right heel will let me. Despite the late night and early start, I only had one or two wobbles during the day but kept on going until the end. But dialysis tomorrow of course, so we shall see.

Seeing as we have been talking about buses and Crosville the other day … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember back in Crewe in the early 1970s and the Lodekkas were beginning to be phased out. The Bristol VRTs arrived and were equipped for one-man operation.
During the first week there were several accidents and on one occasion I was there when the police were interviewing the driver
"So can you tell us what happened?" the police asked
"I’ve no idea" replied the driver. "I was upstairs collecting the fares when the accident happened".

Wednesday 8th May 2024 – IT’S GOING TO BE …

… another late night tonight, if last night wasn’t late enough.

My great little niece (or is it “my little great niece) sat around the dining room table for hours this evening discussing all kinds of things. It’s good to know that it’s not just her sister and I who see things in the same way.

But then that’s what going to University is all about – making you see different things from a real-world perspective rather than a small-minded rural perspective that’s stuck inside a time-warp. For example, those of us who sharpened our claws in some of some of the more confrontational conferences on our University’s debating forum certainly met several new ideas.

The two of us were having a good chat last night too and it wasn’t until quite late that she left. As a result it was about 01:00 when I finally crawled into bed and I’ve a feeling that it’s going to be pretty much the same today.

Once in bed though, I slept the Sleep of the Dead and didn’t show a leg until the alarm went off at 07:00 when I fell out of bed to switch it off.

Having done that I crawled off into the bathroom to prepare myself for the day, and then went for my half-litre of flavoured water and pills.

Once they were out of the way I arranged the dining room for the nurse. When she came round she was able to change the plaster on my wound and fit my puttees. We had the usual apocalyptical warning about what I can and cannot do, to which I took absolutely no notice whatsoever. No-one’s going to chain me up – at least, not without the changing hands of a considerable amount of folding stuff.

After she left I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I was during the night. There was some kind of strange war being fought last night between two groups of people. They were fighting each other quite heavily but there were umpires and judges, everything like that who supervised it. After one game, the fight broke out again. Everyone was fighting, I was busy fighting someone or other and I came across the fact that 30 or 40 of their members had actually come as prisoners on a barge and all of a sudden were now fighting. I thought that that was cheating so I made the point but no-one else took it seriously and began to laugh. I didn’t know at all what to do in this situation

And that’s the kind of chaos with which I’m usually associated. Apart from that, I don’t understand the significance

There was also something about a football team changing its goalkeeper at half-time without notifying anyone but I’ve no idea where that fitted in. I suspect that it might be to do with one of the football matches that I watched at the weekend. Having followed one particular team throughout the season I noticed that they had a goalkeeper of a different ethnic origin between the sticks for the first time at the weekend and that confused everyone, including me.

There was a live football match on the Internet afterwards – the USA women’s team against an Asian side – so for a change I settled down to watch it. Yet, not surprisingly, I fell asleep after 25 minutes. And a real, proper deep sleep too.

As a result I was late for breakfast – A couple of slices of hot, buttered toast with fresh bread and that made me want to eat it again

There were two mugs of hot, strong black coffee too and it’s a total lie about coffee keeping you awake because it didn’t work for me. In fact when my visitor texted me to say she’ll be here shortly I was flat-out away with the fairies.

However I awoke in time and when she arrived we began our little discussion, which went on for a couple of hours. She’d researched the area and the area where I used to live and was able to have a really good conversation.

One thing about her is that she’s definitely her father’s daughter. Strong, determined, self-reliant and confident, and "This new learning" that SO AMAZED KING ARTHUR and which seems to have gripped most of her generation hasn’t reached her yet which is very good news.

After a while she left to go to visit the Dior museum and I came in here to carry on working, selecting the music for the next radio programme.

Not that I got very far. Rosemary rang me and we had a very lengthy chat, putting the World to rights as we usually do, not that the World ever listens to us

We’re both convinced though that there’s a major breakdown in social order in the UK these days and, funnily enough, my little great niece who is wandering around the country on her own for the first time and seeing things from a totally different perspective, happened to mention that very same thing in out discussions.

After Rosemary’s phone call I did a little more work but my visitor returned. We carried on our discussion and I also made a chick pea curry with rice and veg. The soya yoghurt gave the curry a creamy taste and it all went down very well

Our chat continued for ages but after a while with her falling almost asleep on the table she set off back to our hotel and I did the washing up.

She’s on an early train in the morning so won’t have time to come here to say goodbye which is a great pity. I’ve enjoyed seeing her and having her come to visit me. I still can’t get over how quickly she’s grown since she was a tiny dot in my arms 20 years ago in 2003 when I was there in Canada that winter.

So tomorrow I’ll carry on with what I’ve been doing and hope to make some progress. Tomorrow is another day of course but as Kris Kristofferson sang, I’D GIVE ALL MY TOMORROWS FOR A SINGLE YESTERDAY

Yes, especially the days (and nights) when Castor, Zero and TOTGA would come to see me. I can’t remember now who I was with when, the next day someone asked me "who was that lady I seen you with last night?"
"I saw!" I replied. "It’s ‘I saw’!"
"Well OK. Have it your way" he answered. "Who was that eyesore I seen you with last night?"

Wednesday 27th March 2024 – A LITTLE EARLIER …

… this evening I was lying slumped over the edge of my desk, forehead leaning on the top, totally out of it altogether. Miles away from what was going on in the real world.

Since all of these problems began I’ve been having some weird sleeping fits to be sure, but this one totally beat anything that I have had to date. “Out like a light” was hardly the word.

Whatever is going on with me and my body right now totally defies all comprehension. There’s no logical reason for it at all, except to say that it must be one of the pills that I take.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that at first I thought that it was that horrible anti-potassium stuff. It certainly seems to be that which was making me have those hallucinations, but this crashing-out is carrying on nevertheless, so it must be one of the others

The hospital knows about it because I’ve mentioned it, but as yet they have taken no action. and I know what their response will be, because we’ve been here before. They’ll just give me another tablet to counter the problem, and then I’ll need yet another tablet to counter the side-effects of that one.

And so we’ll continue on … "and on, and on, and on etc" – ed …

It wouldn’t have done me much good last night either because once more I was hours late going to bed. There’s far too much to be doing here these days. Most of it just seems to be administration too and I’m beginning to think that “never mind a cleaner – I need a secretary”.

Still, I don’t think that I could pay a secretary to take my blood tests for me.

In bed, for what there was of it, was relatively relaxed and I wasn’t disturbed at all as far as I remember. But I would have loved an extra few hours in bed.

When the alarm went off I was in the middle of a really interesting journey but I immediately forgot all of it which was a shame, instead, I fell out of bed (literally) and went off to take the blood pressure. 15.9/9.0, which might sound high but nothing like as high as 19.4/11.2 which it was last night. What on earth was going on to make it so high?

The nurse came round later and I was lucky that I’d finished my wash and brush up by the time that she arrived. I’ve managed to persuade her to give a ring on the doorbell as she arrives so I’ll have a few minutes to prepare everything while she’s attending to my neighbour rather than just bursting in when I am incommunicado – and in somewhere else as well.

She almost forgot my injection this morning too. Apparently this “injection of the last resort” goes on for another three months and I’ve no idea what happens then. Anyway she remembered just in time (it’s no use asking me to remember anything these days) and so I’m like a dartboard again.

Checking my mails and messages I found a mail from an old friend of mine, someone with whom I’ve had no contact for almost 50 years.

He was a friend at school and we hung around together for a few years but then, like the Knights of the Round Table,WE WENT OUR SEPARATE WAYS. We do have a mutual contact and it seems that news about my condition is slowly circulating around.

It’s really nice to speak to people from the past like that. There’s a lot of catching up to do as our time draws slowly on to its conclusion. I say that because he’s not doing too well either.

Then I had to prepare for my Welsh lesson which didn’t take long.

And the lesson passed much better today than it has done over the previous two days and despite the fact that I can’t remember anything, I feel so much better about it. And that’s progress too.

The cleaner came round today too in order to make the place look pretty, and we went through the medication and made another list. She’ll go to the chemist’s tomorrow to order what I need, including some new injections, and pick it all up on Friday.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone too from the night. I’d started up in business again. I had a radio operator and driver for the daytime. And I did things a little on the way, like I made a little snack, something like baked beans on toast or mushrooms on toast or something, not very appetising or anything but at least I made sure that they had something to eat at lunchtime. I was sitting down doing a summary of everything and I asked how things were going. The subject of this food came up. They admitted that the food wasn’t particularly substantial but it was nice that I’d thought of them. They were really pleased about that but one girl had something of a moan about it. I’m not saying that she was wrong but I’m saying that there were limits as to what I could do during the daytime when I was supposed to be sleeping and that way they were lucky that they were receiving something.

And that would be a horror show if I started up in business again. I’ve had my fill of working hard for a living and the only kind of working in which I’m interested in doing is work where I’m sitting here at my desk within easy reach of the bathroom and the coffee machine.

That way, there’s only one person whose interests I have to look out for, and it’s not anyone else’s, that’s for sure. I’ve done enough of that, especially when its usually been the interests of the wrong people and not the interests of those who really matter.

But talking about food not being substantial, the thought of a good plate of beans on toast made my mouth water and had I had a loaf of bread here instead of baking it to order, I would have been really tempted.

While I was rummaging around looking for something or other I came across my collection of EAST OF EDEN albums.

Now that’s a blast from the past. They were a group from Bristol who buzzed around the festivals and concert circuits for years.

Apart from their hit single, JIJ A JIG that is nothing whatsoever like the rest of their music – they are a typical late-60’s rock band – their claim to fame is that violinist Dave Arbus was the musician who played violin on the Who’s BABA O’RILEY, one of the greatest singles of all time.

Once everything had calmed down I made a start on the next radio programme but regrettably I didn’t get very far, for reasons that I explained earlier. I can see this being a continual story.

Tea tonight was a delicious leftover curry, lengthened with some lentils, quinoa and peanuts, and accompanied by rice, veg and naan bread. And there’s no better meal than one of my leftover curries.

However I’ve now run out of dough for my naan breads so I’ll have to make some more for next week. We can’t be doing without that. Luckily I still have some soya yoghurt left.

But that reminds me – my biscuit-making operation (and delicious they are too) has meant that I’m running perilously low on vegan butter. I need to place an order for the food from LeClerc. I can’t be doing without my butter for my hot cross buns either.

It’s a surprise that I’m not putting on any weight with all of this food that I seem to be shifting. It’s rather like the little girl who noticed that her mummy’s stomach seemed to be growing bigger and bigger, so she asked her mummy about it.
"Well dear" said mummy "Daddy’s given me a baby"
"but hat’s that got to do with your tummy?"
"Because the baby’s in there dear" said mummy
So the little girl goes off to her daddy
"You know that baby you gave mummy?" she asked
"Yes dear?" asked her father
"Well" replied the little girl "SHE’S EATEN IT!"

Wednesday 14th September 2022 – PECCAVI WASN’T BACK …

… in the water for very long, was she?

A couple of days ago we sw the portable boat lift hovering around her like a bird of prey, and yesterday she had gone.

But this afternoon as I wandered around the headland on my walk, I noticed that she’s back in the cradle of the portable boat lift, either looking for a berth or else having ha da quick touching up and waiting to be lowered back down again when the tide comes in later this afternoon..

We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out what’s happened to her. But whatever is going on, it was rather a short stay in the water.

Just for a change my stay in bed last night wasn’t all that short. I was (for once) actually in bed at something like a reasonable time and it’s been a while since that’s happened.

Quite a few little voyages during the night too. I can’t remember who I was with now but I was at a fishing port somewhere. I had a daughter who lived here. My partner asked me about her so I made a couple of excuses and said that she’s just been sent to bed because she’s misbehaved. Just as I was saying that, round the corner she came along wiht the nurse or nanny who looked after her. I thought “that’s my story blown, isn’t it?”. I said to her “hello. What are you doing?”. She replied that she had indeed been sent to bed but for a different reason to the one that I just gave. I asked her if she wants to see me when I’m here, she obviously has to be on her best behaviour because if she keeps on being sent to bed she won’t be able to see me at all. The two of us, my friend and the child’s nurse or nanny, we had a little chat together about everything.

And later, Marianne and I were in the Metro or Underground on our way to a theatre to watch a play or a cinema. We were passing through different Underground stations talking about groups whom we’d seen performing at concert halls nearby. As we closed to our destination Marianne said suddenly that she didn’t have her handbag with her. She’d left it at one of our stops. She had to leap off the train and go back. I carried on and got off at our stop and took up a place where I could watch the train arrive. It wasn’t many minutes afterwards when she arrived, saying that she didn’t have her bag, didn’t have her purse etc. I looked a bit suspicious about everything. She came up with some small change to leave the Underground etc. We went over there and I bought the tickets to go in, all the drinks, sweets etc. We decided that we’d go somewhere else but I can’t remember now where that somewhere else was.

Finally I was unloading a load of Rowntrees products from Strider when I awoke. I thought that he was saying that that company would haul anything if the price was right. They had a couple of large containers with their food on board that was destined for Taylor’s to share out at Christmas. The rest of it was shop deliveries. Even though it was all mis-sorted all over the place it had to be delivered to individual shops. We were going on about our relationship with the shop, about how sometimes it was very good, sometimes it was very bad depending on the particular issues. Before that I’d been somewhere or other from town. We’d been wandering around and there had been this 6-cylinder Harley Davidson parked up at the side of this building. It had been there for a while. Everyone would come to look at it, Harley Davidson aficionados from all over the place. One day a Harley Davidson club turned up to see it and decided that they would take some of us for a ride so somehow they managed to disconnect the lock on it. Someone else bought a trailer of the type that this Harley Davidson would pull when it was working. I was unlucky enough that I had a lift on a traditional Harley. They went north out of Crewe through the lanes. It was a wild experience. He was playing an LP of A NEIGHBOUR OF MINE like THE TALE OF SIR ROBIN but it was the tale of the guy who was actually driving the motorbike and I can’t remember now his name.

For the benefit of any new reader, anyone who knows anything about LORD OF THE RINGS will know exactly what make and model of vehicle Strider is. He’s on my mind at the moment because he’s just been for his safety inspection in Canada and I’m told that he needs some welding. That’s bad news of course but he is 14 years old and is left outside during the Canadian winters, so it’s not a surprise.

It’s high time that I made up my mind about what to do with him.

Having dealt with all of that then most of the rest of the day has been spent with dealing with my Jersey photos. I’ve not done too many of those because most of the time has been spent researching.

And most of that time was trying to find out when a couple of buildings were erecting. It’s always puzzled me that there’s much more information available about older buildings than there is about newer ones

There were several breaks during the day of course, the afternoon walk being one of them.

As usual I went over to the wall at the end of the car park to see what was going on down on the beach. And today, it was a case of playing “spot the human being”. I certainly couldn’t see one in this photo.

Not that that’s really surprising. The weather has turned yet again and the temperature has dropped. It’s quite cool there and pretty much overcast. Winter won’t be long in a-coming, I reckon.

Looking out to sea was pretty much a waste of time this afternoon as well.

There was quite a sea mist and you couldn’t see the Ile de Chausey this afternoon. I’d almost given up hope of seeing anything out at sea when this zodiac came into view from around the headland. So at least that was something.

There was a guy on board who had in his possession a couple of fishing rods. So there’s no surprise as to where he’ll be going.

However I’m more concerned as to where he’s come from because in the kind of range in which a zodiac travels safely, there’s no port with a ramp into the water right now. It’s only people like us who’ll travel 30 miles in open water on a zodiac trying to find our ship.

But be all that as it may, about 30 seconds after this zodiac came by, another one came around the headland. It looks as if there’s quite a lot going on as far as they are concerned.

A little further on, I came across another marker buoy with a flag.

Having seen quite a few of these, I’m even more convinced that they mark the position of lobster pots that have been dropped overboard in the hope of making a catch.

And just in case I hadn’t seen enough of them already, there were several all dotted along the coast here.

They were all flying the same colour of flag so that seems to be pretty conclusive that the same flag belongs to the same owner, and a different flag belongs to a different owner.

With not too many people out and about this afternoon I wasn’t expecting to see anyone down at the bench at the cabanon vauban.

Nevertheless there were two people down there this afternoon. One of them went and hid out of sight behind the cabin when they saw me coming, such has my fame spread these days. But the other person took no notice so he fitted in quite nicely to my photo.

One or two people down on the lower path too but they didn’t hang around waiting for the bench to clear so that they could take their turn at sitting down.

And neither did I hang around. I cleared off down the path on the other side of the headland towards the port.

And plenty of excitement today in the chantier naval.

We’ve seen Peccavi back in town, but it looked very much as if we had yet another trawler in there that wasn’t in there yesterday.

To be on the safe side I took a photo of it with the aim of examining it back at base but when I did so, it turned out to be Pierre de Jade who was in there yesterday.

They must really be cracking on with that because they have already painted out her name with some undercoating. And with all of the workmen swarming all over her in contrast to how the work is progressing on the other boats, it looks as if they have a pressing engagement for her.

Meanwhile down at the far end of the inner harbour it looks as if we have a full house.

Not only is Marité there but it seems that Shtandart is back in town as well, tied up in her usual place. So what’s the story with her then? For how long is she staying?

Chausiaise is down there too in the loading bay underneath the crane. Now that things are quietening down at the end of the summer, maybe she’s thinking about going out with another load to the Channel Islands.

Meanwhile what I am thinking about is going home for a coffee. I’m really struggling, going round my circuit and I certainly can’t do it in 15 minutes as I used to. Fings ain’t looking so good.

For a while I carried on with my photos and later on ended up having a chat with my neighbour. This things isn’t happening this weekend, as I said, but we were talking about a few more opportunities. However, they are increasingly unlikely from my point of view.

Tea tonight was another delicious, magnificent curry and then Rosemary rang so we had another one of our marathon chats. Hence I’m running rather late tonight yet again. There’s no end to it.

Tomorrow I’ll be carrying on with my photos from Jersey. At least I’m ashore now having a coffee – about a quarter of the way through the images. It’s going to take another age to finish it, and then I can restart on all of the other hundreds of outstanding days when there was so much to do that is as yet undone.

It never ends, does it?

Wednesday 31st August 2022 – AND THAT, DEAR READER …

… is probably that!

Having been feeling a little better (both physically and mentally) this last week or so I decided today to pousser le bateau dehors as they might say around here, And I’ve had a day out.

What I was looking forward to was a good day out, and how I wish that it was. However my knee gave out again on the way out and luckily there was a handle to grab hold of.

On the way back I wasn’t so lucky. BOTH knees gave out and I couldn’t pick myself up at all no matter how hard I tried. It took two people to pick me up and sit me in a seat.

The walk back from the port took me almost an hour, taking baby steps and stopping frequently when my knees (and hips because they are now aching badly) gave out and clinging to everything to which I could cling. And I can’t climb steps with either leg now except if I’m grasping hold of something to pull me up.

Consequently I don’t think that I’ll be going far from now on.

Anyway, leaving aside the “feeling sorry for myself”” stage, let us begin. And I’ll “start at the very beginning – a very good place to start” as the old song goes.

So having gone to bed at some reasonably early time last night I was up and about at 07:00 when the alarm went off and the first thing that I did was to go and have a shower and a clean-up ready for the off.

Last night I’d packed my bag so I didn’t have too much to do and so at about 08:05 this morning I left the house, forgetting the secret supply of cash stashed away in Caliburn. And I was to regret that later.

There were quite a few people on the move today so I joined the crowd heading down the hill towards the town and then at the Rampe du Monte à Regret, like the KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE we each went our separate ways because there was a lot going on today.

And it was going down the ramp to the bottom that my right leg gave way but luckily I fell into the wall without hitting the ground. However it hurt like hell and I had to wait several minutes until I felt safe enough to move.

“This is a good start to the day” I thought to myself.

The wall across to the port and down the side of the quayside was agonising and I hoped that it would ease off. And there I pumped into my friend the captain of Normandy Trader and his family. I mentioned a while ago that there was no freight delivery while the Festival was on last week so he and his family had taken a holiday over here.

We joined the immense queue at the Ferry Terminal where we had to wait for what seemed like hours and then finally we could pick up our tickets.

Once in possession of our tickets we passed through passport control and a customs inspection and then had to wait for what seemed like yet more hours.

At passport control the guy there went to stamp my passport but I told him that I had a carte de séjour so he checked it and waved me through.

Finally Victor Hugo came around the corner from the inner harbour once the gates were opened and we could all pile on board.

Yes, that’s right. I’m off to St Helier. Living here all these years and never been once. Only three more sailings to go this year after this one but I can’t make any of them for a variety of reasons and who knows what next year might bring? So it’s now or never.

Not to mention the fact that I’ve been having all these reminders about my Arctic adventures just recently so I’ve really been hearing the call of the ocean and missing the touch of the salt spray on my lips.

We all had to sit inside and buckle up while the captain manoeuvred. Victor Hugo is a high-speed craft and walking about on board is not for the faint-hearted so it’s discouraged.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall several weeks ago that we saw Victor Hugo loitering around for quite some time off the end of the headland pointing towards Jersey. She did it again this morning. The cynic inside me suggested that now that they have rowed her out of the harbour they need to wind up the elastic band.

Once we were ready we shot off towards Jersey. I was given permission to go up to the upper deck and go outside. I was told that I had to remain seated and there was a large rubber collision buoy tied by the rails which made a comfortable seat.

And that reminds me. You might have to wait a while for the photos because there’s not much short of 100 that I took today and they all need editing.

It seemed to take quite a while to arrive at St Helier (not incidentally, pronounced as “Hell ‘ere”) and regrettably my seat was on the wrong side of the boat to photograph our arrival. But when the crewmen began to prepare for docking and were otherwise engaged I nipped over to the other side of the boar for a few photos.

There was another passenger on board who had difficulty walking so we helped each other to immigration. It seems to be miles to the terminal where immigration was quite painless.

From there it’s quite a long walk into the town and I wasn’t up to much of it but there’s a pop-up café that serves vegan food on the quayside where the pleasure boats tie up so I made for there. No snacks though – it was all main meals so I had a coffee and ate my crackers. I always buy packets of those and these are my emergency supplies when I’m travelling.

With no cash on me I headed to the bank where I drew out some money. Regrettably though the notes were endorsed “Bank of Jersey” so I’m going to be pretty limited as to where I can spend them.

The town centre of St Helier is actually quite nice. I did a recce of interesting sites and came across a healthfood shop that had inter alia “Old-time” vegan sausages. 16 of them went into my backpack and they’ll be in the freezer when I return home.

There were also some packs of hot-cross buns in one of the supermarkets there so I bought a pack of those for lunch.

An extremely long walk took me back into the town centre via the ferry terminal (I must learn to read the stuff that’s given to me) and outside the bus station waited for the “Vintage Bus” that was going to take me on my “Vintage Tour” of the eastern end of the island.

And you’ve no idea how disappointed I was when a single-decker Bristol LH turned up. And what does that make me when I was actually 21 years old when the “Vintage Bus” was built? That is really what I call “depressing”. and even more so when I found out that the bus was actually first registered as new when I was 23.

It was a beautiful drive out to St Catherine’s Pier at the extreme north-east of the island where we stopped for a look around. This pier and its installations were part of what the British Government hoped would be a good port for the Royal Navy but it took so long to build that steam had given way to coal and warships had evolved so much that there wasn’t enough draught in the harbour for the new generation of warships so it was abandoned.

We headed back down south along the coast and stopped for another break at Gorey, a beautiful little place where there’s a magnificent view of Mount Orgueil Castle

Back in town I bought an energy drink and went to sit down to eat some of my hot cross buns and have a drink. Following which I went off for a wander around the old harbour looking at what was happening there.

Before going back to the boat I went to one of the supermarkets. On my travels I’d seen some tins of real baked beans. British baked beans taste like no others in the World and having had a diet of European and North American ones for years and now that I have some real sausages, I put four tins of beans in my backpack as well. And if I could have carried them I would have had four more.

The walk back to the ferry terminal was agony. I was aching just about everywhere so it was a long, slow walk. And it was a good job that I decided to leave myself plenty of time because by now quite a wind was blowing and the sea was roughing up.

We left 20 minutes early straight into the wind. They let me upstairs and outside quite early on so I sat on the buoy and filmed our departure, and then took plenty of photos on the way back. I was joined by a young boy at some point who was quite interested in the geography and history of the area so we had quite a chat.

Standing up to go back inside as we pulled into port, this was where I had my fall and that was that, right in front of the President of the company that is now operating the line. A couple of crew members came, picked me up and sat me in a seat while we tied up.

Climbing the 30 steps up to the passport control was agonising, really agonising. Luckily it was the same passport control officer on duty so I gave him my carte de séjour along with my passport and that kept him happy.

As for the walk back here, I don’t really want to talk about it. I don’t think that I’ve ever been in so much difficulty. Climbing the stairs was even worse. Back here I collapsed into my chair and that was that until bedtime.

During the night though I’d travelled miles and it took me a while to transcribe all of the notes. I started off skiing. Things were just totally confusing. I had a bag of chips and some coffee etc. You had to enter this house by the 1st floor window. That was how the ski slope started. You had to climb up there and then ski down and keep on doing that all the time. I was in this queue with my bag of chips and my coffee but there were no ladders going up to the 1st floor windows. You had to lift yourself up with your arms onto a kind of ledge, push yourself up and in. I couldn’t do that, not in my state of health and with my chips and coffee etc. In the end the woman behind me gave me a leg up. Everyone was moaning because they all thought that I was pushing in the queue. By the time that I was up there on top everyone had gone there from behind. I sat down with my ships and coffee. a woman came clambering in through the window. We made some kind of witty remark about what i’d been up to in that queue. I mentioned that my coffee was going cold. She said that there was another coffee. Someone climbed in through the window behind her so she asked him if he had a coffee for me, but he didn’t. Then I couldn’t find my chips (“maybe I’d had them” I mused later). I could find loads of newspaper but the actual piece of newspaper with the chips wrapped in, I couldn’t find that at all. My idea to sit down and have a quiet 15 minutes to eat my chips and drink my coffee looked as if is was totally wasted

There was a drugs gang based in Nantwich that had been supplying drugs throughout Europe. This was at the time that the political changes were taking place in the late 80s and early 90s. There were all these upheavals happening and they were taking advantage of it to flood the world with the drugs from the Congo. Eventually they were caught. They were in Court and the judge was describing them as totally vile and evil human beings who’d brought death and misery to millions”. It looked very much to me as if he was leading up to a penalty of life imprisonment.

Later on I’d been round to someone’s house as a teenager. We’d been hanging out together. His mother didn’t look very happy at all. I had the impression that she’d been having arguments with the in-laws. Someone had died and the in-laws were bringing themselves much further forward in their lives and making it a misery for everyone else as they did things their way. I think that this woman had had some flak. She asked us if we’d like a coffee. We replied “yes” so she disappeared. We carried on doing some stuff and then decided that we’d go and play Scalextric upstairs in the bedroom so he’d go and tell his mother. I thought “yes, we’ll have these coffees as well because it’s been taking ages”. He went into the kitchen and there was his mother sitting on a chair really red-faced looking as if she’d been crying. I went over and was about to ask her what was the matter when I noticed a gesture from this boy to say nothing so I said nothing. He simply explained to his mother what we were doing. We went upstairs to his room. The 1st thing was to find my headphones that someone else had picked up and was wearing instead of theirs. I had to sort my headphones out and generally organise myself for this game of Scalextric but it was this guy’s mother who was worrying me.

And then I had to go to work so I decided that I’d take the Melody again. It was rather later than usual so I set off. I noticed that I didn’t have very much fuel so I went towards Stoke on Trent and turned off down a side road that went down a steep hill and back up the other side into a town where I could fuel up. I was actually pedalling it at this point. I came to the town and stopped at a road junction. Some woman who ran a corner shop said that someone was asking after me which I thought was strange because who knows that I’m coming this way and how would she know me anyway?. I asked what time and she replied “about 06:53”. I went and found a petrol station and fuelled up. Someone was there with an enormous cat in a cage. They’d taken the trap off the cage so you could see inside it. Everyone wanted to stroke it but the owner was very possessive of it and wouldn’t allow people to stroke it. We all said that it was a really wonderful cat. That cheered him up a little.

That dream where I was on my bike, I ended up with a young Chinese girl. I’d been in Crewe and was trying to find a bus back home. I couldn’t work out where the bus stop was and I couldn’t out the bus times so I just waited. I saw a bus arrive that was going back to my house so I shouted at it. he pulled up about 100 yards down the road. I had to run. It was really crowded but I fought my way on. The Chinese girl was on there. We started to chat and ended up having quite a flirt about. It was quite obvious that we were a couple. She complained that I hadn’t had a shower which was quite right. Anyway she’d had a lot of financial problems spending largely on her credit card. She’d had to sell her house and use the equity to pay off her credit card. I talked to her about that but she didn’t seem in the least embarrassed or anything. In the end it was quite later, almost 02:00 when we pulled up in the town where we had to alight. She went skipping off to the tram and I had al ths stuff to carry. I dropped half of it so I picked it up and we went outside. She was telling me about a shop there that had a couple of kittens. Then we set off to walk the rest of the way home

And finally I was back on that tram, with an English girl this time. She had to reassemble her glasses again because they came apart and she put them in her glasses case. We boarded the tram but there were only 4 or 5 of us on there and she wouldn’t come and sit by me or sit on my knee or something. We began to talk to the driver who was a professional boxer. He was to have a fight on the Monday night and if he were to win it he might even go through the entire season undefeated. This tram rattled in towards the city centre to pick up everyone else and the alarm went off.

It’s no wonder that I was exhausted after all of that. But I’m more interested in seeing how I feel tomorrow.

Right now though I’m off to bed and there will be no alarm in the morning. I’ll sleep until I wake, and then I’ll come back at some point during the day tomorrow to tell you all of my story.

“I am hurt but I am not slain, I’ll lay me down and bleed a while, and then I’ll rise and fight again” as said Sir Andrew Barton, according to one of the Child Ballads.

The photos will follow later.

Thursday 28th April 2022 – I’M NOT SURE …

… what happened today but I’ve been feeling much better than i have done for the last few days.

And so while you admire a handful of photos of all of the maritime traffic that was out and about this afternoon while I was on my post-prandial perambulation around the perimeter of the Pointe du Roc, I’ll tell you all about it.

Even the bit about not only not crashing out during the day but not actually feeling as if I needed to, and isn’t that some kind of progress from the way that things have been just recently?

Mind you, it was quite a turbulent night, as you can tell from thz amount of stuff that was on the dictaphone.

And after the nurse had been (because I had a blood test this morning) and I’d taken my medication I sat down to transcribe everything.

I was looking at apartments and houses last night. There was some kind of robot thing that went through them while I was looking at them, and put them up to let. It seemed that every time I wanted to buy a place it was miraculously transformed into a letting property. The noise that this robot thing made when it roamed through these houses and apartments was really annoying. I couldn’t find a single property to buy without being overwhelmed by this. When I tried to sell a place, again I was overwhelmed by this kind-of robot thing that came along. It was the same with water. I couldn’t have water at the right temperature. It was either too hot or too cold even when there were two different sets of mixing taps draining into a sink. I couldn’t get the water temperature to be right. This thing with these apartments was really stressful in this dream.

Then we were back on that ship yet again … “which ship?” – ed … but in an aeroplane now. The little girl and 2 other people on board had hi-jacked it and were preparing to sail off somewhere peaceful where they didn’t have to worry about being kidnapped again

Back in that dream yet again and there were Portuguese waiting down the road for that girl, to ambush her. This brought me on to I was actually at someone’s house when someone pulled up outside. The guy looked out of the window and said “Oh God it’s him”. I asked what had happened. he said that he had picked up someone at the docks when he’d come back over from Europe and was taking them home. When they arrived at a motorway interchange this guy had proposed going one way and the other guy proposed going a different wayto reach where they were going. This had led to something of quite a dispute between the 2 of them, quite a bit of bad feeling. When they met again outside this bungalow they explained the situation. I said that when one is used to going a certain way for 15 years and someone comes along and says to go another way it’s always something of a challenge. They gradually eased the situation between the 2 of them.

Finally; we were in North America somewhere. We were standing by this railway line watching these 2 girls running across some land and ended up running to this railway line. Whoever it was who was with me we both looked at these girls but we didn’t recognise them at all. We couldn’t think of why they would want to come to this railway line especially in the fashion that they had done running flat out like that.

So as you can see, the fact that I went the whole day without being tired is something of a miracle.

Another task that I needed to do today was to book my appointment with this Sports Therapist person. So I rang them up and that’s arranged for Thursday 12th May. a moment of destiny amongst so many others, one might say.

What I have been doing for some (and by no means all) of the day is to do what I should have done a while ago and updated the notes from when I was in Leuven and Kôln.

It completely slipped my mind that they needed editing and so I made a start. And I actually completed one day before I ground to a halt again.

That was because I had been set another task, presumably to prove that I am worthy, as AS THE OLD SAYING GOES. I need to produce an entertaining itit – init – itinin – initit – timetable for the weekend, seeing as I’m the only one who knows where I’m going (and even that is doubtful).

Anyway, that is all done and dusted now – three days of riotous fun and high living – I don’t think. But there are some hot cross buns going spare if I behave myself, but really there’s little chance of that, isn’t there? Especially considering who else might (if I’m lucky) be there.

There were the usual breaks for breakfast, coffee and lunch. And then, of course, the walk around the headland to which I referred earlier.

And first of all, as usual, is the wander across the car park to look down over the wall to see what was happening down below on the beach.

And as the weather was so nice and there were crowds of people and parked cars all over the place, I expected the beach to be quite busy. And I was right too. There were probably a couple of dozen people down there.

There was quite a bit of beach as well. The tide is on its way in though so it won’t be like that for much longer. You probably gathered that from the crowds of fishing boats loitering around just outside the harbour waiting for the gates to open.

As I said, there were hordes of people milling around on the paths this afternoon. It was very hard to keep some kind of distance, even more so as I seemed to be the only person out there wearing a mask.

There were a couple of people down there on the bench by the cabanon vauban watching the spectacle going on out at sea because it’s been a long time since I’ve seen so many boats out there waiting for things to happen.

So while they were waiting for things to happen I headed off down the path on the other side of the headland to see what’s happening there – if the multitudes of people would let me pass by.

When I arrived at the viewpoint overlooking the chantier naval I noticed that there’s a new boat in there.

Le Roc A LA Mauve III looks as if she’s put down roots. She’s still there after all this time. But down there with her is another shell-fishing boat.

She’s carrying registration number CH857132 and that’s not in my list of boats so she must also be new to the area. Luckily I can see what I think might be her name and she may well be called Valeque.

Lots of boats in the outer harbour today as you have seen but it’s impossible to say who they are at this range.

But we all know who this is, moored up at the loading bay in the inner harbour.

She’s one of two boats, and the fact that she doesn’t have that raised deck at the stern behind the bridge tells us that she is in fact Normandy Warrior, not Normandy Trader.

She must be in port to pick up the swimming pool that’s been on the quayside for a couple of days.

And the company that owns these two freighters is extremely busy. They are recruiting additional sea-going staff and there’s an advert doing the rounds. If only I had a mariner’s watch-keeping certificate I would be home and … errr … well, certainly not dry.

Before I went inside though I was overflown by the little red powered hang-glider thing or whatever it’s called.

It was on its way back from a trip down to Mont St Michel when it flew past me overhead. Luckily it didn’t have the same effect as the seagull did yesterday morning.

Back here I finished off my itinerary for the weekend and then went to make tea.

That sweet potato made lovely chips in the air fryer and I’ll do that again. Someone mentioned seasoning so I added a pinch of chili powder, a pinch of garlic salt and a generous twist of freshly-ground black pepper and that certainly added something to the mix. I’ll do that again too.

So now I’m off to bed. I have an 06:00 start in the morning, to which I am not looking forward at all. But as it’s the most important weeked for a good many years with a very crucial meeting, I have to do it.

What I’ll have to do is to nip out surreptitiously and hope that the butterflies in my stomach don’t notice.

Not that it’ll make much difference because if things run according to form and past history, I’ll make a mess of it. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Friday 25th February 2022 – REGULAR READERS OF …

… of this rubbish will recall that one of the recurring themes that run though these pages is photos of people taking photos.

And sure enough, we had a couple of those today. We also had the first Bird-Man of Alcatraz this year too today but his Nazgul came to grief on the car park at the back of the lighthouse at the Pointe du Roc.

There was a young girl taking a photo of our bird-man packing up his troubles in his old kit bag and so I joined in the fun by taking a photograph of the girl taking a photograph.

And then, like the KNIGHTS OF KING ARTHUR we went our separate ways.

My journey didn’t take me very far before I came once more to a stop.

This afternoon there were some people down there by the bench at the cabanon vauban and one of them was taking a couple of photos.

Even at this distance I could take a photo of what she was doing so that I could add it to my collection of photographs of people taking photographs.

However, as usual, I’m running ahead of myself here. Let’s go back and start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

While you admire a few photos of the huge rollers coming in and colliding with the sea wall, I’m going to start today’s story even before the very beginning.

In fact, last night, I couldn’t go to sleep. In the end I ended up watching a film on the internet while I was waiting for sleep to come and it was at about 01:30 when I finally staggered into bed.

That doesn’t bode well for a 07:30 start but if we turn the clock back a year or two, I was going to bed at that time and arising at 06:00 without the least problem. And then going out for a run around the town.

Ohhh! How things have changed!

There wasn’t a great deal of time to go off on much of a nocturnal ramble, but I did my best.

Compared to the events of the last few nights; what happened last night was rather tame. Nevertheless, there was a very enigmatic entry on the dictaphone.

It went “I wish that I knew more about that dark-haired girl who came to visit me last night but that’s all there was on the dictaphone so I’ve no idea at all about anything relating to this”.

And I was dead right too. I wish that I did know more about it as well because it’s the kind of thing that must have been extremely interesting. I seem to be meeting an awful lot of unidentified young ladies just recently and it’s extremely frustrating to say the least when I can’t recall who they are or what we did.

Later on I was with Nerina again last night. We were doing something at a bungalow on the Poets Estate near Coleridge Way around there. I’d been working on a car. I’d put my things away but when I went back there were still some bits and pieces lying around so I picked them up and put them in my pocket. Then I went to look at the car. The seat adjuster had broken – the circlip that holds it in place had come off. I made a mental note to do something about that when I was in a place where I could fix it. Then we drove to Nerina’s – it was about 21:45. Nerina’s mother said “oh, you’re early. She had tea ready which, for me, was vegan sausages. We had our meal then I was going to show Nerina this seat attachment thing because if she will be going out in the car in the morning she’ll need to know about this so she’ll know what to expect and she’ll know how to fix it. I couldn’t find a circlip to hold it in position. I was singing RIDING THE WAVES by Steve Harley all the time and I don’t know why and even Nerina made a mention of it during the dream.

And how I wish that I could sing it as well as I could 30 years ago

What I’ve been doing all day today is dealing with the arrears on the dictaphone that hadn’t been transcribed. I’ve no idea where I found all of the energy to do it but I did it all the same and now it’s finished.

Surprisingly, of the 40-odd sound-files that I had to transcribe, TOTGA and Zero only put in a very minimal appearance or two but we haven’t seen anything of Castor for a while and that is depressing me.

But anyway, all I need to do now is to find an hour or two over the weekend and update the relevant journal entries.

We had the usual breaks during the course of the day, a coffee or a hot blackcurrant here and there, a slice of my wonderful, delicious coffee cake and then lunch of course.

Another couple of things that I needed to do was to telephone the doctor about another appointment. I need more Aranesp for my fortnightly injections.

And then I had to write out a recipe. A while ago I’d promised my friend in Munich a copy of my vegan pie recipe but I had kept on forgetting. But the photo of my pie the other day reminded me.

There was a lot of noise going on outside during the afternoon, heavy machinery and so on, so I wondered what I was going to see when I went outside.

Right outside my front door was an articulated tractor unit with a low-loader trailer attached thereto. And running around the area was a large tractor-type JCB thing with a pair of fork loaders on the front.

What was strange about this, and I didn’t notice until afterwards otherwise I would have taken a photo of it, was that the driver of the JCB thing was a young woman.

That is surely the first time that I have ever seen someone of the female sex driving a machine like that.

And so as usual I wandered off down to the end of the car park to see what was happening down on the beach.

The tide was well in now so there wasn’t much beach to be on. But nevertheless there were plenty of people down there wandering around or sitting on the rocks as you can see at the bottom of the photo.

There was even a young girl down there in pink wellingtons actually going out into the water and that was rather courageous of her. I can’t see what she and, presumably, her father were doing down there. They had no equipment for the pèche à pied and in any case the tide is too far up for that.

Every now and again we notice a certain type of yellow buoy out there in the bay in between Granville and St Martin.

Today we have another one of them, and I wish that I knew what it was doing and what was its significance. It’s not a mooring buoy and it doesn’t look like a typical lobster pot marker buoy to me.

There were several seagulls flying around it and so I was wondering whether we might be in for a romantic love story. After all, the ocean is the place where buoy meets gull.

Yes, I’ll get my coat.

As usual I also had a good look around out at sea to see what was happening there.

Another thing that regular readers of this rubbish will recall is the different layers of water that coexist side-by-side in the bay and the mystery that it causes.

What we have here today is a kind-of ripple effect in the water. The last time that I saw something like this was POINT PELÉE, the southernmost point of mainland Canada when I was there with Katherine in 2010.

What was happening there was that we had a river flow heading to the east and a wind-blown flow heading west. However here today, just for a change there wasn’t anything like enough wind for a similar phenomenon today.

There were crowds of people milling around this afternoon as you might have seen in some of the previous photos. It was a nice day and it had certainly brought out the crowds.

The storm and the waves had subsided considerably since yesterday but coming into the Baie de Mont St Michel every now and again were some very heavy rollers. You saw a couple of them breaking on the harbour wall in the photos right at the beginning.

In the chantier naval we have a new occupier over at the back of the yard. She’s Courrier des Iles, one of the charter hire boats that operate out of the port.

Not that I know too much about the operation of the smaller boats that ply for hire but the larger ones certainly have to have an annual inspection before they can carry fare-paying passengers and so if that’s the case with her, she’s probably having an overhaul to prepare her for the forthcoming season.

Meanwhile, over on the other side of the yard, Tiberiade, Le Roc à le Mauve III and the two yachts are still in there receiving attention.

At the rear of the apartment I found out what was going on with all of this machinery.

They are laying some cable in the underground conduit and although you can’t see it in this photo, the cable reel is whizzing around. It’s on a stand of course, and there is someone somewhere else in the neighbourhood pulling on the end of the cable to whizz it through the conduit.

Back here I had a coffee and came back in here to carry on with the dictaphone notes and eventually I finished them

Tea tonight was a vegan burger with pasta and veg in tomato sauce and it was quite a delicious, if quick tea.

So now I’m off to bed. I’m going shopping tomorrow so I need to be fit. I don’t need much but we shall see what the shops come up with.

Tuesday 5th October 2021 – I’VE HAD A …

… very strange communication today.

People have given up asking me about my family because we weren’t really a family at all – just a collection of strangers living under the same roof, a 20th Century version of the “Harleian Miscellany”. and as soon as we were able to do so, we did our imitation of the KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE and each went our separate ways.

Some event that took place several months ago seems to have focused some minds, so it seems, and today I had an e-mail from someone who last spoke to me over 20 years ago and never replied to a couple of mails that I sent him afterwards.

Now, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m slowly dying of an incurable disease and I have no reason to suppose that “others” are unaware of this.

However, this mail spared us all the usual niceties about “how are you?”, “sorry to hear of your illness”, “is there anything that we can do to help you?” but it cut straight to the crux of the matter.

Yes, someone has found out that I have some things that they would like and the mail went “How are you making available ************ to the wider family? Could you include me in your circulation of such?”.

Seeing that no-one in “the wider family”, apart from my niece in Canada, has spoken to me in over 20 years, my reply was, quite naturally, “no-one in “the wider family” has ever asked me for it”.

Yes, because I have something that someone else wants, I’ve suddenly become popular.

Not that the lack of courtesy, politeness and concern ever bothered me – I’ve long-since given up expecting any of that. I simply admired the brass neck of it all

But anyway, returning to our moutons, as they say around here, as I have said before … “on many occasions” – ed … there isn’t really much point in going to bed early if I don’t go to sleep.

Last night, I was still tossing and turning in my bed long after 01:00 and so consequently even though I was lying in until 07:30, I was still half-dead when I crawled out of my bed when the alarm went off.

Much of the morning was spent hunting unsuccessfully for my notes from my Welsh lesson from last week, and it wasn’t until I’d written them out again that I finally found them.

And while I was reviewing the notes I … errr … closed my eyes for 10 minutes.

Armed with my coffee and one of my delicious fruit buns (and they really are delicious too) I went for my lesson. 150 minutes passed fairly quickly and it also passed quite well. Being tired was something of a drag but at least I didn’t fall asleep.

After my lunch, the first thing that I did was to book my stay in the hospital.

Surprisingly, all of the early TGVs were fully booked and I’ve ended up taking the 08:43 next Saturday from Brussels to Paris, and then I’m breaking new ground by going home via Caen. I’ve never been that way on a train before.

By now it was time for me to go for my post-prandial perambulation around the Pointe so I headed off as usual across the car park.

It was a case of hanging onto my hat, and eventually taking it off and stuffing it in my pocket because there was a totally wild and wicked wind blowing around out there this afternoon.

Just one look at the whitecaps on the waves is enough to tell you all that you need to know. It was one of the wildest seas that we have had just recently, with the blowing round today from the north-east for a change.

having made a note of that I went to look over the wall down onto the beach.

And to my surprise, there were quite a few people down there on the bsach this afternoon, despite the wind. Armed with buckets and spades, you might be forgiven for thinking that they are building sandcastles, but in fact they are scavenging for seafood amongst the rocks.

Into the teeth of the gale struggled Yours Truly, headig off on my walk along the path.

There was only me out there, which was no surprise. The wind really was taking away my breath and I had quite a struggle along the path.

When I reached the lawn by the lighthouse, just like Bob Dylan, I didn’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

The sea was quite wild in the Baie de Mont St Michel this afternoon and Le Loup, the marker light on the rock just by the harbour entrance, was being battered by the waves.

No cars on the car park, of course. There wasn’t anyone around at all.

You’ll notice the upright pole with the sign thereupon, just to the right of centre. They installed that a couple of years ago and laid a little path from the car park so that people could approach it. It took 2 workmen about a week to lay the path.

A year or so later, a few more workmen came past and dug up the path that they had laid, and laid the one that you see that leads up to the Monument to the Resistance Fighters.

That first path was a waste of time, effort and money, wasn’t it?

My walk takes me down the path and across the car park to the end of the headland

No-one on the bench by the Cabanon Vauban, as you might expect in this weather, but there were other forms of entertainment out there. A couple of fishing boats, one of which may well beCherie d’Amour, were battling with the waves out there in the bay.

And as I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … my hat comes off to all of those in peril on the sea working in weather like this.

The wind was far too strong for me to stay there for long, so I moved off down the path on the other side

The wind here was, for a change, just as wicked and it seems to have been wreaking havoc with the flags on the poles at the car park at the Boulevard Vaufleury.

The European Union flag has already gone and the French national flag is about to follow it, by the looks of things. The flags of Normandy and of the town also seem to have been taking quite a battering as well

What will remain of them tomorrow?

Now that the chantier naval is empty (apart from the dredger of course) they have been tidying up.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday we saw a street cleaning machine down there hoovering up the debris. They have also put up the blocks on which they drop the ships, so does that mean that we might not be expecting any more boats in there in the near future?

However I’ve been quite wrong in the past about my predictions for boats down there, so I’m going to say nothing. I’ll just carry on with my walk down the path.

Something else that regular readers of this rubbish will recall is that for the past couple of weeks there have been a pile of pipes and other equipment on the quayside.

Today, those pipes have moved, and some of them now seem to be in the water in the inner harbour. The rest are on the quayside looking as if they are about to take to the water.

It still defeats me exactly what the plan is for all of those, but I suppose that it will become more clear as time goes on.

Back here I had my coffee and then turned my attention to the dictaphone.

I was having a chat with my Scottish friend last night about loneliness, of all things. She was saying that she had a girl of 14 whom she took away and it taught her about relationships with other people, that kind of thing, and stopped her being lonely. She was thinking about becoming a Brownie leader. I explained that I lived on my own little world and occasionally came out to interact with other people but mostly, I was doing fine as I was. This discussion went on for ages but I can’t remember much.

There was some stuff from some previous days on there too so they have all been transcribed and are now on line in the relevant places.

Tea tonight was taco rolls with the left-over stuffing from yesterday and it was delicious.

And now I’m off to bed, in the hope that I can have a good night’s sleep instead of what I went through last night. It’s high time that I had a good night.

Saturday 2nd January – I MANAGED TO …

… beat the third alarm out of bed this morning.

Mind you, I have to admit that I cheated somewhat. Not having gone to bed until late and needing to be on form, I reset the alarms to start at 08:00 instead of 06:00. I reckoned that that was a reasonable compromise, what with one thing and another.

First thing that I did was to have a listen to the dictaphone to see if I’d been anywhere during the night. In fact I’d been in Shavington but it quickly transformed itself into Crewe. There was a fire in the outskirts and it was slowly heading into town. We had things to do, we had to sit down there and I wanted to watch a football match or listen to one on the radio. We were making our way into this big building but it was clear that the flames were starting to get worse and I noticed in the end that I was the only one in there. Then someone else came round, a woman with a few things . I had a feeling that if I stopped she would stop too and that was going to be a bit silly so I explained to her about how dangerous the fire was going to be. In the end we went outside and there were a few people outside co-ordinating rescue efforts. One of the guys from the radio was in charge. We stood and watched for a couple of minutes then slowly picked up our things and moved away as we heard that the fire had now reached the outskirts of Crewe round Davenport Avenue and Nantwich Road. We moved away and I had the satisfaction in seeing that I was the last one to gather up my stuff and move away and I checked to make sure that everything was clear before we did so. It reminded me of a General and his troops retreating and how the General ought to be the last and making sure that the way was clear in order to do so just like in the Army.

In connection with the fire, later on in the night 3 objects came up for auction. There was a soldier’s compass, a soldier’s badge and a 3rd thing that I can’t remember what it was. I remember thinking that these would have come in handy if we had been in the fire and these were available. This was where the fire dream came in at this point just here and now and we found ourselves back in Shavington on the corner between Edwards Avenue and Edwards Close with this burnt and blackened paper shredded and flying around.

The next task was the Welsh homework. No matter what, I have to keep up to date with that. It didn’t take me all that long although it’s bcoming more and more complicated and took quite some research. Interestingly, we aren’t now being asked to asnwer questions, we are being asked to come up with questions to ask.

Afer a shower, I made some sandwiches and then, gathering them up, I headed off to the Railway Station.

While I was waiting for my train to Brussels I was eating my sandwiches on the platform. And hence I was taken completely by surprise when the train came in early.

Our train today is one of the strange AM96 multiple units. When one trainset is coupled to another the rubber bellows make a perfect seal, and the drivers’ cabs at the join tilt round 90° so that passengers can walk from one trainset to another.

Our train pulled into Brussels Central Station bang on time, and walking up the steps I met my friend Esi.

Esi and I studied together and University when we both lived in Brussels years ago but she went back to Wales and I went on to France after we graduated. We’ve met up a couple of times since then when our paths have crossed in Brussels but earlier last year when Brexit became a reality she moved back to Belgium to cement her European rights.

The two of us went for a walk around the park opposite the Royal Palace where we chatted about our different adventures since we last met, and then went off to the Belvue Museum in the Place du Palais to meet one of her friends and then for a walk around the museum.

The museum is a fascinating place to visit. It’s all about the history of the country of Belgium since it won its independence in 1830.

There was plenty to see in there and I could have spent a lot longer in there than our alloted time slot. But for me, the pride of the place was this gorgeous FN 4. It’s the world’s first 4-cylinder in-line motorbike – block 4s and V4s had been made previously – and was made between 1905 and 1914.

This is a later one rather than an earlier one – you can tell that by the rear brake. This is a drum brake whereas the earlier ones had rim brakes rather like a pushbike.

Interestingly, to start it up, you had to pedal it until the engine fired up. No kickstart.

One of the more interesting things to see is the view from out of one of the windows.

This view is right up the Rue Royale, past the park where we walked just now, all the way past the old Jardin Botanique and all the way down to the Église Royale Sainte-Marie de Schaerbeek, one of the most beautiful buildings in the city but now sadly delapidated and more-or-less abandoned despite the fact that it was renovated 30 years ago.

After the museum, Esi had a few things to do so the three of us walked around the city running errands. We stopped for a coffee in the Central Station and then like the Knights of the Round Table, we went our separate ways.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, there are 4 expresses every hour from Brussels to Leuven. However they are all bunched pretty much together and then there’s a long gap.

There is however a semi-urban stopping train that runs across the Metropolitan area and terminates at Leuven. We’ve caught it a few times when we went to watch the football at Tubize and one of them pulled into Central Station just at the right moment. It’s one of the modern class AM08 multiple units that was just coming into service as I left the city.

When it pulled up in the station we all piled out and I headed off back home to my digs, having first stopped to take a photo of the train

Well, in actual fact, I didn’t head off hiome. I had a few things to do first.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the other evening when I was wandering around the city in the dark, I took a photo of the Bondgenotenlaan from the Rector de Somerplein looking down to the railway station. Tonight, seeing as I was standing outside the railway station in the Martelarenplein, I could take a photo of the Bondgenotenlaan looking back down to where I was the other night.

Right down the far end of the street we can see the lights of the Stadhuis – the Town Hall – in the Grote Markt.

While I was here in the Martelarenplein I had a good look around the neighbourhood to see what else I could see.

Where I’m standing now is on an overbridge that crosses the ring road – the Tiensevest – that is emerging from a tunnel underground. It’s one of the main throroughfares of the city with the railway station to my left and so just the kind fo place that you would expect to be brightly illuminated to welcome visitors to the city, but once again, it’s quite depressingly banal.

All in all, I’m rather disappointed with the Christmas decorations this year, not just in leuven but in just about everywhere that I have visited.

Turning round further to my left there was a view between the buildings to the eastern end of the train shed of the station.

Behind it, there’s one of the hotels in the vicinity of the station and then a couple of office blocks. This is the area where it all happens.

Back at my little room it was teatime so I made a plate of pasta and vegetables and chick peas with tomato sauce. But just as I was sitting down to start my notes, Rosemary rang me up for a chat and we ended up being on the phone together for 1 hour and 38 minutes.

There was now some packing to do and then I have to go to bed as son as I can because I have to get up at 05:00 and you know how I feel about that these days.

As for my notes, they’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

Saturday 12th October 2019 – IT’S THE FIRST …

… day of the Bank Holiday today and I have celebrated it by doing absolutely nothing at all.

And that is just as well because I had a horrible night last night. Lying in bed watching the clock go round and round as I tried – not very successfully – to go to sleep.

Yet sleep I must have done at one point as I awoke at 05:45 without the benefit of an alarm. Raining again, and there’s the metal roof of a trailer right underneath my bedroom window.

The alarms went off as usual but quite frankly I couldn’t have cared less about them. I went back down the bed. But Rosemary rand me up at about 08:00 and I spent a pleasant hour or so talking to her. That fired me up to take my medication and to go and make myself a coffee.

Liz was on line too so we had a chat on the internet too – a chat that went on in a kind of desultory fashion all throughout the day. And that included the news that Strawberry Moose will be going on another journey not long after he returns home.

Having had my coffee I was in no real mood for breakfast so I did without. And my fast, such as it was, went on until about 15:00 when I made myself some toast.

In between the coffee and toast I had been sorting out all of my stuff, throwing some stuff away, sticking some more in Strider and taking some stuff out of Strider to take home with me. I found a lot of stuff that was missing but to my great dismay, I can’t find my notebook now.

I’ve already lost one in my jacket in Calgary and to lose a second will be a disaster. So if you gave me your e-mail address on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour, then send it to me again using the comments link on the blog.

I shan’t publish the information, but at least I’ll have it for when I return home and can sort out the photos that I’ve promised you.

Once I’d tidied up and had my toast I spent a few hours playing on the bass. Working out a few more bass lines, in particular to a few tracks by Counting Crows off their Recovering The Satellites album. That, by the way, is another album that is guaranteed to reduce me into a state of depression.

A couple of the lyrics are quite meaningful (well, they all are, but in different ways). One in particular reminds me of an incredibly lengthy chat that I had with someone five or six weeks ago, quite late one night
Gonna get back to basics
Guess I’ll start it up again
I’m fallin’ from the ceiling
You’re falling from the sky now and then
Maybe you were shot down in pieces
Maybe I slipped in between
But we were gonna be the wildest
The Wildest
The Wildest
People they ever hoped to see
Just you and me
But as Peter Townsend would tell us, it’s all about Time and Chance, isn’t it?

Very similar to when I used to be repairing my old farmhouse, I reckon. When I had the time I didn’t have the money. And when I had the money I didn’t have the time.

Zoe came into my room later, wondering why I wasn’t coming out to be sociable. I suppose that I ought to be more sociable than I am, so I told her that if she made me a coffee I would come out and drink it. So she did, and I did.

Rachel and I cooked tea tonight, stir-fry vegetables and rice in soy sauce with vegan spring rolls. Delicious it was too. There was some apple crumble left over from last weekend, but there isn’t now.

We all chatted for a while and then like The Knights Of The Round Table we all went our separate ways.

Now I’m back in my room, wondering what tonight is going to bring me. Sleep, I hope, if I’m lucky. I could do with a pile of that. But something extra would be nice too. And right now, I’m listening to Jackson Heights and their album King’s Progress, and in particular the track “Insomnia” where Lee Jackson sings
The whole world’s still sleeping
Kept warm by their dreams
Wrapped up in their loved ones
How peaceful it seems
Lay your head on the pillow
How weary it seems
You would give a small fortune
To get back in your dreams

Those are sentiments with which I concur whole-heartedly.

Sunday 14th July 2019 – THIS MORNING …

… we walked all the way from the harbour at Reykjavik right the way through the city and out the other side, and up the hill to the big new modern church that towers above the place.

When we eventually arrived there we were greeted by a burly man standing cross-armed blocking the doorway, with the air of “none shall pass” as in Monty Python and the Holy Grail
“Why not?” asked Our Hero
“Because there’s a Mass going on. And you won’t understand it either because it’s in Icelandic so come back in an hour!”

Yes, it’s Sunday of course and I had completely forgotten.

Last night I had had a terrible night’s (lack of) sleep, probably one of the worst that I have had for quite a while. In fact so much so that I found myself on one occasion dictating the same dream twice. I’m clearly losing my marbles – not that I had too many in the first place.

Despite all of my exertions I did actually make it up (just) before the first alarm and staggered once more out on deck to take a couple of photos of Reykjavik in the rain. because the weather has now broken.

We had an early breakfast and then because we aren’t amongst the hordes saying goodbye to the ship today we had an hour or so free time. I spent my hour or so in the horizontal position on the bed and enjoyed every minute of what I remembered about it. Which wasn’t much.

At 09:00 we went out across the road to the café in the Flea Market where we were assured of a good wi-fi connection. And a good wi-fi connection it was too and we spent quite some time checking up on things, including the latest chaos in the UK.

Later, Rosemary wanted to go shopping for some presents for her friends so we headed off into town, looking at a few shops on the way, in one of which she bought a few winter woollies. After all, Iceland is the place to come for those.

There was the church of course, as I mentioned earlier, and then a walk down to the waterfront and back along the shore to the ship for lunch.

Grabbing Strawberry Moose we made our way back into town after lunch. We had had to wait for a while to give the rainstorm time to die down, so we didn’t have as much time as we would have liked.

The flea market was now open so we had a look around, and Rosemary tried some dried cod. A few more shops and a few more presents, and a couple of photo opportunities for His Nibs.

By now the rain was coming down in torrents so we fled back to the ship. All of our new co-voyagers were waiting to board but we didn’t hang about. We just charged through them and up the gangway onto The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour.

First thing that I did was to dive into the shower, taking a handful of clothes in with me. I needed a good scrub up and I have to keep on top of the laundry for I have a long way to go.

And then we had all of the briefings that I have sat through on innumerable occasions followed by the mandatory lifeboat drill. And in the time that it took to organise the drill we would have all disappeared beneath the waves a good while ago had we really been in trouble.

For tea we made the acquaintance of a couple from Edinburgh in Scotland on their first voyage. The husband had visited Greenland many years ago so he’s in for a bit of a shock when he gets back there.

After tea we had a tea and a chat, but it’s an early start tomorrow so we decided to retire early.

And I can’t say that I’m sorry. The pace is now going to heat up considerably.

Monday 8th October 2018 – SO MUCH FOR …

… the alarm this morning!

My telephone decided to do an update during the night and as a result it was waiting for me to restart it this morning. At … errr … 08:15 or thereabouts.

And it also took me until 09:00 to leave the bed either. I was making the most of it.

Just by way of a change though I had ended up with an early night. Flat out at 22:30 and Gone With The Wind in an instant.

And, would you believe, just by way of another change, back in the High Arctic. One might say that it’s all left quite an impression on me, mightn’t one?

Now here’s an exciting thing though. It was the final night of our trip before we were all due to break up in the morning. And just for a change we weren’t on the Good Ship Ve… … errr … Ocean Endeavour but somewhere else completely. And I was sharing a room with someone else, something that regulär readers of this rubbish will recall is highly unlikely indeed. This guy was of the “gung ho, full steam ahead” characteristics and he had changed all of the beds and bedding around in our room. My bed was in a different position, all of this kind of thing, and he had done it all in something of rather a strange way. But anyway, to cut a long story short … "Thank God" – ed … like The Knights Of The Round Table we had all been our separate ways, and we all had to meet up to come back to make our final reports the next morning. We were all sitting down in the lounge relaxing and who should come over to me but The Vanilla Queen. And it WAS her too. Not only did it look like her but she talked exactly in the same way with exactly the same accent that she had. She spoke to me too, which is most unlikely, and I couldn’t quite understand what it was that she was saying. So I arose and went over to her (which I wouldn’t normally have done) and asked her to repeat it. She replied “I don’t think that John Shearing needs to know anything about too much, but I want YOU to do the final debriefing and to tell everyone where we had been and what we were doing and all this kind of thing so that they could bring their notes of their holiday all up to date. I want YOU to do it”.
And to be quite honest, I was so amazed by this discussion that I awoke bolt-upright – 23:58 it was – wide awake, totally astonished. I went and tracked down the dictaphone, even managed to change the batteries in it correctly, and dictated the details so that I wouldn’t forget them.

And that wasn’t all the excitement either.

I’ve no idea who is was with whom I was rambling later on last night but she was certainly female and attractive, and she was driving a small car of the Austin 7 variety. We were having to travel somewhere and in order to do so we had to pass through a mountain range. There were two ways to pass through this range and they bifurcated at a small village. So we stopped in this village to fuel up and she tipped into the tank the contents of a metal can. I thought to myself that there wasn’t enough fuel in the can to take us to our destination and the nearest petrol station was a really good walk away. But to my surprise, where we had parked actually had a fuel pump and some woman there put a couple more gallons into the car. We then set off down the left-hand road at this fork and I thought to myself that this is a far quicker way than trekking though the countryside and little paths that I usually took and I wondered why I didn’t know this road. And we eventually turned up at a mountain pass that we have visited on nocturnal rambles on numerous occasions – usually on skiing trips and the like in the middle of winter.

As an aside, I should perhaps remind my readers (both of you) that I have indeed been asked if I am troubled by my nocturnal voyages and some of the situations in which I find myself.
My response was “definitely not. I actually quite enjoy them.”

After breakfast I loitered around for a while, including a session on the bass (because I’m starting to pic it up again after my voyage) and then set down to do some work.

Tidying up in the living room in fact. I need to make this place look much more like a home and make it clean. After a while I do have to say that it looks a little more like it, although there’s always room for improvement.

Next thing was, having been totally dismayed by the rubbishy photos that came out of my voyage to the High Arctic, I bit the bullet and ordered a couple of new lenses for the big Nikon. How I wish that I had done that a month or so before I had set off, rather than three weeks after I had come home.

And after that, I had a little … errr … relax.

TOTGA was on line later and so we had a little chat and then I went off and made my butties. There I was, sitting on the wall with my butties, my book and a lizard in the sunlight. It wasn’t warm but it was beautiful all the same.

Afterwards, I went off into town. With the possibility of a visitor arriving in early course, I need to know what activities are available. There’s a good Tourist Info place in town so my afternoon walk was down there to collect some leaflets.

Back here, I attacked some more photos but I couldn’t keep going and at about 17:20 I went ant lay down on the bed.

1:20 I was out for. 18:40 I finally came too and was able to carry on with what I had been doing. And that took me up to tea time.

While I had been going through the freezer I came across a pie that was left over from earlier in the year. So that disappeared into my stomach accompanied by some steamed veg cooked in the electric steamer and gravy.

Outside, i went for my evening walk around the headland, totally alone. Not another soul about anywhere although there were a couple of kids with scooters away on the car park.

Later I had another chat with TOTGA, with Liz and with Josée and then a little more work.

Now it’s bedtime and there will be an alarm tomorrow, I hope. Then it’s back to the grind again.

EPIC HALL

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

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