Tag Archives: philosophers stone

Saturday 14th February 2014 – WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME …

… that I had a severe attack of cramp during the night?

It’s a good while ago, and so I was quite surprised to have one last night. Severe was not the word, and to make matters worse, there’s one position – my “recovery position” – where I can take the strain and ease the cramp a little, and I had an attack of cramp in that position too as soon as I eased myself into it.

It was absolute agony for a good 15 minutes before it eased off.

What was sad about this is that I was in the middle of a big discussion with Sir Winston Churchill and we were inspecting a couple of VW Beetles, having to be very careful about opening the bonnet of one of them in case the two kittens underneath escaped.

It was cold, wet and miserable this morning, raining in torrents. But I still set off for Montlucon and the shops. The only exciting items purchased were the 2nd and 3rd series of the Hercule Poirot TV series. Of course, they came from NOZ as you might expect. It seems that they are some kind of weekly or monthly offering in the French press and NOZ gets hold of the unsold copies.

But it’s really quite funny llstening to Poirot in French. 90 is translated into “Quatre-vingts-dix” as you might expect from a French TV station, but as everyone knows, Poirot is actually a Belgian and so he would never say “Quatre-vingts-dix” but “nonante”. In fact, all of the slang is translated into Francais de Paris rather than Francais de Bruxelles and it makes a complete nonsene of Poirot’s insistence all throughout the series that he’s Belgian, not French.

Mind you, who am I to complain? Any moral high ground that I might have had went right out of the window when Professor McGonagall said to the students of Hogwarts “I’ll be with you momentarily” in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. I died of shame when I heard that, and it still makes me cringe even now.

At Brico Depot I bought a pile of floorboarding, some more beading, the missing hinge (about which much has been written) and all of the hardware for the wardrobe doors. I’m set up for next week now (I hope).

On the way back, I stopped off at Ice Station Zeb … errr … the swimming baths at Commentry. It was freezing although the water in the smaller pool where there’s the bubbling spa was warmish. I had a shower (which was the whole point of going) and tonight I’m going to treat myself to clean bedding.

Thursday 1st November 2012 – I’M GLAD …

… that it was today that was a Bank Holiday and I decided not to work, because it has done nothing but pour down all day – at times with some really torrential rain.

And after a not-so-early night, switching off all of the alarms and so on, I managed to stay in bed until all of … errr … 08:56am. So much for that!

so after breakfast (which included coffee for the first time since when I was ill – i’ve been reintroducing foods one by one to see if there is anything that is bad) I sat down and watched Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone;

It’s a really excellent film, much better than you might expect if you can steel yourself to pass the dire 10 minutes of opening.

I had loads of other things to do as well, but I did … precisely nothing. Sat and vegetated for all of the day. I didn’t even go downstairs to make any food – just nibbled on bits and pieces (but I did make a second coffee though).

Still, as Joy said, I deserve a day off every now and again where I shouldn’t feel guilty about doing nothing.

But if it’s as bad as this tomorrow I’ll crack on with the shelving in the cupboard. I really want that to be finished.