Tag Archives: principall navigations

Saturday 7th December 2024 – IT’S NOT THE …

… bells on her toes that matter. It’s the ring on her finger that counts.

It only seems like yesterday when I was bouncing a bonny, tiny baby on my knee as her mother wrestled with the controls of a GMC “Jimmy” through masses after masses of snowdrifts in the foothills of the Appalachians in Canada

amber taylor st fx ring saint francis xavier university antigonish nova scotia canada 2024That was in late December 2003, and here’s that bonny, tiny baby now, 21 years later on, proudly displaying her ring.

"One ring to rule them all
One ring to find them
One ring to bring them all
And in the darkness bind them"
it is not but it’s just as hard to find. The wearing of this ring signifies that the wearer has completed a degree course at Canada’s most prestigious (in my opinion) University, Saint Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia

Our family isn’t all a load of tat as you may think, judging by what I have a tendency to write. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, my maternal grandmother was one of Canada’s leading singers in the period 1915-1924. Even though her father (my great grandfather) re-enlisted in the Canadian Army after retirement, one of her distant cousins was SENTENCED TO DEATH IN WORLD WAR I as a conscientious objector (I have in my possession some of the letters that he wrote in prison).

And going even farther back, that distant side of the family is related in some way to Edward Kenealy, the barrister who defended the Tichborne claimant so vigorously that he was struck off.

It’s obviously that side of the family where all the brains are, because my great little niece (or is it my little great niece?) is now the second member of our family to qualify for her St.F-X ring.

So well done, Ammie. I’m proud of you!

Not so proud though of the time that I went to bed last night – or, rather, this morning. I’d finished quite early what I had to do last night but as usual, finishing work is one thing. Going to bed is quite something else. I hung around for quite some time trying to summon up the courage to pull myself out of my chair.

Once more though, once in bed it took an age to go to sleep but once I did, I was gone for good and the howling gale outside didn’t disturb me at all, which is surprising.

When the alarm went off it took quite a while for me to stagger to my feet and head to the bathroom, rounding up a pile of clothes on the way because, having changed the bedding yesterday, it’s washing day today.

After I’d had a good wash, I had a shave and then loaded up the washing machine. And believe it or not, there’s still a pile of stuff that wouldn’t fit in. This is becoming ridiculous.

Next port of call was the kitchen for a drink, and while I was at it, to take my medicine. And I was so distracted that I took the medication that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day. Still, you can’t take it out once it’s gone in.

Back in here I listened to the dictaphone to find out what I’d been up to during the night. There was something strange going on at school. There was a group of us, boys and girls of all ages, who used to hang around together. I suspected that one of the girls was becoming rather too friendly with me – that is, rather more friendly than “just being friends”. I decided that I might encourage it a little and see where it goes but we were interrupted by the bell to go back to lessons. A little later on a few of us met again, including this particular girl. I happened to mention obliquely something along the lines of “girls who seem to find older boys at school more attractive” and “there seems to be one at least who might be tilting her cap towards me”. This girl replied “yes. I’ve noticed that, Eric” and she mentioned two girls, one of whom was a daughter of a friend of mine, and a second one. But the daughter of a friend of mine was even talking about obtaining a marriage certificate. I found that really hard to believe because I hadn’t really noticed anything. This discussion went on, more complicated, until it was time to go back to the lessons so I said to these girls and boys, and in particular to the one whom I mentioned earlier “I’ll see you all at lunch then”. She replied “don’t forget to go to talk to these two girls. One of them is in her Physics class”. I had a bottle of beer with me that I’d opened so I walked up to the Physics class. They were all crowded around a bunsen burner talking about something so I took a piece of kitchen roll, rolled it up tightly and used it as a stopper in this bottle. I smiled at this particular girl and that was when this dream ended.

Imagine that! There I was with the bird on my plate, just about to get my fork stuck in it, and “poof!”. It comes to a shuddering halt. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … there is something going on in my subconscious that is preventing me from Getting The Girl. It seems to happen every time (with just one or two exceptions). So what does my subconscious know about my relationship with girls that it doesn’t want me to proceed any further than this point?

It’s interesting too that this is always the kind of thing that occurs when I’m an adolescent in my dreams. It’s true that my adolescence was not a happy one, for a variety of reasons, and a loyal and reliable girlfriend of the type who would have helped me weather the various storms would have been a very great comfort to me. But my subconscious is not letting me go down that route at all, and in any case, teenage girls like that are very rare birds indeed.

Then there was some kind of confrontation between a Jewish school and the local community. When it came to the end of term the kids had to be taken away by buses to another centre. They had all tried to arrange times with their parents but it was impossible. For a start, the E40 was always blocked on school chucking-out days so people would arrive home quand ils s’amusent – when they could. I was driving one of the buses with someone else and we had a police escort. We reached the school and handed the ticket to the teacher who was on the door. She directed us to the school theatre where a group of pupils were singing some kind of pseudo-religious song from the stage. It really was wonderful. After they finished I turned to my colleague and said “we aren’t allowed to applaud in a church, are we?”. He asked “you thought it was that good, did you?”. I replied “yes”. He said “quite frankly I have never ever heard it done better”

This second dream relates to a concert I’d been watching before going to bed. It was a concert from 2016 commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme and was taking place in Exeter Cathedral. One of the tributes was from a well-known folk group who performed a musical tribute, a poem by my favourite poet A E Housman with music composed by George Butterworth who was killed at the Somme. And when they finished, everyone in the congregation applauded. And I remember thinking last night as I was watching that applause in a Cathedral shows some pretty bad taste

And the confrontation with the Jewish school presumably relates to something that I’d read, also yesterday evening, about a couple of obscure Jewish sects burning copies of the New Testament.

Isabelle the Nurse came early this morning and didn’t hang about. Not that I can blame her because this storm in increasing in velocity and it’s going to be much worse than this. But I’m glad that she wasn’t here for long, because it means that I can start making breakfast early.

And armed with breakfast, I can go to carry on reading ISAAC WELD’S BOOK.

Today, his book contains the longest footnote that I have ever read in a book. It spans four complete pages, and is a really good rant about the peevish relationship that the USA is trying to cultivate with Canada in an attempt to absorb it. He very presciently observes that "there is more reason to imagine that the Floridas, and the Spanish possessions to the east of the Mississippi, will be united therewith" than there is of Canada uniting with the USA, for the "people of Upper Canada are refugees, who were driven from the States by the persecution of the Republican party and though the thirteen years which have passed over have nearly extinguished every spark of resentment against the Americans in the breasts of the people of England, yet this is by no means the case in Upper Canada. It is there common to hear, even from the children of the refugees, the most gross invectives poured out against the people of the States and the people of the frontier states, in their turn, are as violent against the refugees and their posterity and, indeed, whilst Canada forms a part of the British empire, I am inclined, from what I have seen and heard in travelling through the country, to think that this spirit will not die away."

As well as that, I have had a fascinating lecture on how to build a blockhouse, if ever the need should arise.

After breakfast I sorted out the washing and hung up that which needed to hang. In my present state of health where I’m totally unsteady on my feet, that was a rather complicated issue but I managed in the end. Mind you, in this weather it will take an age to dry.

My faithful cleaner fitted my anaesthetic patches for me and then I had to wait around for the taxi. When he arrived I was hustled out into the gale-force wind and staggered as best as I could to the car. The waves on the water were magnificent in this weather, I noticed as we passed by. What wouldn’t I have given to have gone for a walk?

We picked up our second passenger and then headed for Avranches. Strangely, away from the coast, the wind was much less.

In the clinic there were very few of us today. Maybe the wind was keeping the others at home. Julie the Cook fitted my connections today. The first was absolutely painless. I felt nothing at all. But the next one was different and hurt throughout the session.

Once more, I drifted off for a few minutes at the start and once I’d recovered I revised my Welsh and then read some more of Hakluyt. He’s repeating the legend of “King Arthur” and his presumed voyages to subdue the Norsemen, basically copied from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae. That’s quite a shame, but he had no other sources to use and didn’t have the archaeological knowledge or access to papers in the Danish Royal Library that we have today.

No-one bothered me at all today and I was out quite early. I had a chatty driver bringing me home and she brought me through the town to see the Christmas lights, which was nice of her.

Coming home was one thing – coming to the building was something else. My cleaner was there waiting, and even with two women hanging on to me, I was almost blown over twice. I’ve never known a storm like this one.

To add insult to injury, the handrail fell off the wall so I had enormous difficulty coming upstairs.

Tea tonight was a baked potato with breaded quorn fillet and vegan salad followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. So now I’ll dictate my radio notes and then go to bed for a nice lie-in.

Yesterday though, we left Isaac Weld hunting on the shore of Lake Erie. This morning the wind had changed direction so the captain called him up on his mobile ‘phone
"Where are you now, Isaac?" asked the Captain. "What are you doing?"
"I’m hunting bear on the shores of Lake Erie" said Isaac
"Well, put your clothes back on and come back to the ship. The wind has changed direction and we are ready to sail"

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Thursday 5th December 2024 – “THERE SEEMS TO BE …

… a series of scars …”

“That’s enough”, I replied. “I really don’t want to know any more”

“OK” said the doctor. “But there’s this series of scars …”

You can tell that I went for the scan on my implant this afternoon. And what is it that people don’t understand about me not wanting to know any more? It’s almost as if they go out of their way to make like difficult for me.

All in all, it was a long, tiring day today. Not helped by another late night again last night. I don’t even think that it was before midnight when I finally retired. It seemed to be long after that.

Once in bed I was asleep quite quickly and there I stayed until the alarm went off at 07:00. I was dealing with … "you mean ‘dreaming about’" – ed … the USA last night when the alarm went off, about someone who had acquired all of the land West of the Mississippi at a price that worked out at £00.005 per acre, which might sound cheap but he was obliged to undertake certain infrastructure works within the next five years. If he failed to do so the purchase would be voided. That’s as far as I went into this dream.

This is something else in ISAAC WELD’S BOOK. Land speculators, and the amount of money they make by doing it, is another one of his favourite subjects.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up but I forgot to have a shave. I shall look like The Old Man Of The Sea at this rate. Instead I went into the kitchen to make some breakfast. It’s going to be a long day.

While eating it I read some more of ISAAC WELD’S BOOK. He’s now reached the Niagara Falls – well, sort-of, because we are on the eleventh page of today’s journey and he’s still waxing lyrical about the effect that the noise and mist is having on him, and he’s not yet even seen the Falls as yet.

However, he does venture the opinion, and quite rightly so, that "the great falls of the river must originally have been situated at the spot where the waters are so abruptly contracted between the hills; and indeed it is highly probable that this was the case, for it is a fact well ascertained, that the falls have receded very considerably since they were first visited by Europeans, and that they are still receding every year"

Isabelle the Nurse turned up to deal with my legs and to fit the anaesthetic patches. To my surprise she didn’t know where the patches went and asked me. As if I know? So I hope that she fit them in the correct place.

The taxi turned up on time and, for some reason, it was the wheelchair transporter. I don’t know what I’d done to deserve that. It’s higher than the standard saloon cars so it’s easier to enter and exit.

The driver didn’t have much to say for himself and it was a quick drive down to the Dialysis Centre in comparative silence.

At the Centre we had a moment of hilarity. We have to weigh ourselves when we go in and hand the ticket from the machine to one of the nurses. When I handed mine to her she said “Look how much weight you have gained!” However, it turned out that one of the patients before me had forgotten to take his ticket and I had picked it up.

The nurses weren’t impressed with the positioning of the patches. However I suppose that it’s difficult when you don’t know. One pin went in quite easily and painlessly while the other one was much more of a painful struggle, although it actually worked today, the first time since I don’t know when.

The doctor came to see me, but he soon beat a hasty retreat when I tackled him about this scan that I had the other day. He really has no interest in his job, which is a shame.

For once, the machine behaved itself this morning and I wasn’t interrupted at all – not even for a coffee. I seemed to have missed the morning hand-out. Instead I revised my Welsh, listened to music and carried on reading Richard Hakluyt’s PRINCIPALL NAVIGATIONS.

Apart from the usual sycophancy towards his patron, the Earl of Nottingham with loads of lines such as "here by the way mo?t humbly crauing pardon, and alwayes ?ubmitting my poore opinion to your Lord?hips mo?t deep and percing in?ight, ", pages and pages of it, he has a delightful turn of phrase, such as " our Engli?h nation, at the fir?t ?etting foorth for their Northea?terne di?couery, were either altogether de?titute of ?uch cleare lights and inducements, or if they had any mnkling at all, it was as mi?ly as they found the Northren ?eas,"

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I adore Hakluyt’s cynicism.

They eventually unplugged me and threw me out into a waiting taxi that took me across the road to the hospital. There I was unceremoniously pushed into a hospital wheelchair and pushed around the hospital until my driver found out where to take me.

There was quite a wait until they could see me, and then we had all of this performance with the doctor and the scanner. The doctor was not at all impressed that they’d sent me straight here from being dialysed.

Eventually they could let me go and I was then pushed by my taxi driver down to the waiting car and driven home.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me and she watched as a very weary me hauled myself up the stairs into the apartment where at last I could sit down comfortably.

Having bashed out some dough for the next loaf, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. We were all in a hospital. There were people who came from many different countries in Europe. It seemed that the treatment wasn’t the same. Someone was astonished that the knock-out drops that they administered to people to make them pass out for operations etc were given to the people when they were awake. I said “there’s no point giving them to someone who’s asleep. If he’s asleep, he wouldn’t need them”. Someone else talked about things that took place in other parts of Europe with regard to the administering of anaesthetics. When I came to be discharged they handed me a huge pile of information, including some stuff on a tape. I asked what the tape was for. They said that it was because I’m someone who isn’t courageous enough to confront the issues of the illness that they are having to give me the information like this, first of all to make sure that I hear it and secondly so that I can pass it to anyone else who is going to make any kind of medical intervention on my behalf. Once again; other people in this ward were quite surprised that it was necessary to give me this kind of information. Why shouldn’t it be available to the general public?

My thinking about anaesthetics might sound logical, but I wouldn’t want anyone to test the theory on me. As for me not having the courage to know about what’s going on, you can make of that what you will.

Later on I was playing with Quicksilver last night. There was just me and Dean Freiberg … "David Freiberg" – ed …. The two of us were keeping the group alive. We went to the airport to see off Jefferson Airplane on some kind of tour circuit. They blockaded our car so we couldn’t leave. This went on for a while until in the end I said to Freiberg “would you like to go to play with Jefferson Airplane?”. After much prevarication he admitted that he did so I told him to go over to their car and join in, and I’ll sort something out. I went back home, worked on one or two songs and collected a few ideas together. They I was out one day and someone pointed out Don Airey to me, a British musician and his drummer. I went up to say “hello” and to ask them what they were doing in the States. They replied that they had come over to join a group but it had all fallen through. So seeing as we now had a keyboard player and bassist, I said “I have some ideas if you want to join in”. We ended up going to a motorway service café, one that I knew really well where the girl on the till was quite jovial and joking. She was reading a newspaper but when she saw the three of us walk in she immediately put her newspaper on the floor. I walked over and asked “what’s in the news today?” to which she laughed. She recognised Don Airey and said “oh he was in earlier. He broke a cup of coffee and offered to pay for the cup”. Someone said something like “well, he’s British, isn’t he? Not American. He would offer to pay for it”.

Actually David Freiberg did leave Quicksilver and later, play with Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship. But what Don Airey, organist of Deep Purple, is doing in all of this, I really don’t know.

Tea wasn’t up to much tonight. I tried a plate of baked vegetables and butternut squash in the air fryer but it didn’t really work out, so we’ll dismiss this one as a failure. But at least the oven was nice and hot for the bread and made a lovely loaf. And my ginger cake was lovely too

So right now, I’m exhausted and I’m off to bed. It’s been a tough day today and I can’t wait to take to my lovely bed.

Anyway, Isaac Weld was on a boat with a Japanese tourist and their American guide, the boat drifting helplessly and out of control towards the Niagara Falls.
Suddenly, a genie appears. "I can only give you three wishes" he said. "That’s one each"
"I love my country!" shouted the American. "Give me a heavenly choir to sing ‘The Stars and Stripes’ before we go over"
"I love my country’s food" said the Japanese. "Give me a banquet of raw sushi, raw sea slug, sea urchin and pickled omelette"
"Do me a favour" said Isaac Weld to the genie. "For God’s sake kill me off before those other two wishes are granted"

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Thursday 28th November 2024 – I AM GOING …

… to shut up about this blasted dialysis. Once more I’ve had a pretty miserable and painful experience. I’m convinced that it’s the implant in my arm that’s not working properly. I don’t see what else it might be.

Mind you, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few weeks ago they gave it a scan and they told me that it was working fine just then. It can’t have given up the ghost since then, not so dramatically.

It’s enough to put me off my sleep. It’s bad enough for me to have to go through all of this with all these pipes and tubes, and that’s without any pain as well.

It put me somewhat off my sleep last night. It was once more quite late when I went off to bed. It was after midnight and I was still letting it all hang out.

But once I was in bed I didn’t feel a thing. It was totally painless, all the way through to the alarm going off. I didn’t feel a thing or move a muscle.

When the alarm went off I fell out of bed and went off to the bathroom for a good wash to try to liven myself up. But that’s an impossible task these days.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And to my surprise the dictaphone was empty. There was nothing on it all all.

The surprising part about that is that I have two very clear and distinct memories from the night going round in my head. The first was that I had a new medication to take, but it wasn’t to start for a couple of days so I had to hide it under the bed until the appropriate time in case anyone else found it. This was a dream so vivid that I almost went to look under the bed when I awoke this morning.

The second was that I was in Crewe Town Centre on the corner of Queensway and Victoria Street talking to someone and it suddenly occurred to me that they had rebuilt the area that they demolished last year, but it didn’t look all that different. So I wondered why they had gone to all that expense to do so. A few of the buildings were finished in different materials to the others, but the biggest difference was that the building right on the corner only had one glass window, that facing into Queensway and the wall in Victoria Street was blank. In our opinion that immediately ruled out any big retailer from taking up the lease. One of the shops opposite had been converted and fitted out as a hot pie shop, bakery and café but it was so narrow and the display window so small, but going deep inside the building, was so impractical as to be useless and we thought that it would never be let to a serious retailer. All in all, our opinion of the rebuilding of the Town Centre was that it was a dismal failure and a total waste of money.

And this dream was so vivid that I had to look at an on-line mapping service to make sure that Crewe Town Centre was still looking like Fallujah after an American offensive.

When the nurse came round we had a chat about chiropodists. Of course, as usual he would always have chosen “the other one” so it’s not really worth asking him things like this.

After he left I made breakfast and read more of ISAAC WELD’S BOOK. He’s calmed down a lot today. In fact, he’s gone sightseeing.

There is a rock bridge in the USA that is effectively the remains of a roof of a collapsed cavern but back in 1790 it was quite something. Our hero is so enthralled by it that he’s forgotten to have his usual moan about taverns and innkeepers.

Later on, back in here I had a few things to do and was so engrossed that I was taken unawares by the arrival of my cleaner. It was time for her to apply my patches.

Once it was done I had to wait for the taxi. It already had another passenger in it so the three of us (driver and two passengers) had quite a chatty drive all the way down to Avranches.

There was something of a wait while the nurse on duty coupled everyone up. There was another nurse with her – a trainee in that department – so it took ages because every single step of the procedure had to be done exactly by the book

Nevertheless there didn’t seem to be a procedure to cover what to do about my reaction when she stuck the needle in my arm.

This afternoon I revised my Welsh and then read some more of Hakluyt’s PRINCIPALL NAVIGATIONS.

And while Isaac Weld might have calmed down, Hakluyt certainly hadn’t. He’d heard a story about a trip that "set forth out of the Thames the 20 day of May in the 19 yeere of his raigne, which was the yere of our Lord. 1527" and went to North America where “white bears” were found (so God alone knows exactly where the people went) and which descended into cannibalism.

However, to his lasting dismay and regret (and mine too) "And thus much (by reason of the great negligence of the writers of those times, who should have used more care in preserving of the memories of the worthy actes of our nation,) is all that hitherto I can learne, or finde out of this voyage"

Another thing that I discovered is that I can access my LeClerc account and so I spent some time going over my order again. I’ll give it another run-through tomorrow morning before I send it off.

Unplugging me was almost as painful as unplugging me. It was Julie the Cook’s turn to sit by me and compress my arm afterwards.

She’s booking a flight to San Francisco to go to see her brother who lives there, so I told her that if there was any room in her suitcase to fit me in. She wanted to know if we should take the dialysis machine too.

The taxi was waiting for me and we had what I thought was a rather nervous drive back to Granville.

My cleaner was waiting and watched in amazement as I strode manfully … "PERSONfully" – ed … up all the steps into my apartment.

Tea tonight was a stir-fry of rice, veg and some beansprouts. That was nice with my chocolate cake and lemon soya for dessert.

So right now I’m off to bed but not before I describe another encounter that Isaac Weld had with a local.
He arrived at a river and the only way to cross was to swim so he asked a local in a boat "are there any alligators in this river?"
"None at all" replied the local, so Weld dives in and swims for the opposite shore.
Half-way across the river he swims alongside the boat and asks the local "How come there are no alligators in this river?"
"There used to be" said the local "but the sharks took care of them all."

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Thursday 14th November 2024 – SO HERE I AM …

… back from the Dialysis Clinic, still in one piece. But not without them trying their best though. I’m really not too sure how long I can keep it up (as the Bishop once famously said to the actress).

And while we’re on the subject of things being up … "well, one of us is" – ed … I was up quite late again last night. However that was a personal choice of mine and nothing to do with any work or other obligation so I’m not complaining.

But once in bed, when I finally made it, I slept the sleep of the Dead and remember absolutely nothing at all.

When the alarm went off I was off on my travels somewhere but it evaporated immediately which was a shame. It must have been exciting, and there’s not enough excitement in my life these days. It’s a pity that every last memory of whatever it was simply disappeared.

The bathroom was first, and I managed to stagger in there before the final alarm of the morning. I had a good wash and scrub up, and even a shave. I know that Emilie the Cute Consultant doesn’t love me any more, but that’s no reason not to make an effort.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out if I’d been anywhere during the night. I was with my youngest sister. We’d gone to a walled city, something like Chester or something like that but in actual fact it was a port on the south coast. We were going to see a ferry – the one that goes from Sheerness to Vilssingen but it had been doing something else on the high seas somewhere and had changed its name. We were discussing the ship. When we arrived at the outskirts of this town I made the remark that I’d only ever been here once before but didn’t have a camera with me. You could see across the bay in the cliffs all these houses that had been carved out of the cliffs. Once I’d passed underneath the entrance gate to the city and began to climb the hilltop towards the city centre, I stopped to take a photograph of it but the camera on my ‘phone wasn’t working properly. It was having difficulty taking the photo. A couple of guys came over and began to chat. They were really getting on my nerves – one of them saying “I know a good place where you can photograph”. Anyway, right in the end I told him to clear off while I tried to take this photograph. I had to go back down towards the gate again but still this photograph wouldn’t turn out. Then I joined my youngest sister again who had been for a run. She told me that you could run in this city as long as you obeyed various rules like in which order you can run, the distance that you are running, which lane you should be in etc. It sounded really complicated to me but when she set off I joined her and we were only losing 2-1 for quite some time before we were overtaken again by events but I thought that we put up a really magnificent performance …fell asleep here … so we had a good run in this city. My sister set off and ran down the hill so I ran after her. Instead of keeping to the footpath she ran right back through the road in the city gates and underneath the walls into the town. I was surprised that that was allowed but she insisted that it was perfectly safe to run through on the road instead of on the pavement and so underneath the city gates rather than through the pedestrian exit. She began to explain all the lanes, their order and what they meant, where you should be, who you may overtake and in which lane

Not that I’m ever likely to be going anywhere with my youngest sister, and she is even less likely to want to go running. But I’ve had a couple of dreams about being in Chester or somewhere like it just recently so am I becoming all nostalgic? I lived there between 1972 and 1974 in my late teens and I do have to say that it was amongst the happiest times of my life. What wouldn’t I give to return to that joyous, carefree period surrounded by good friends and a healthy ambience? And a camera not working? That was a recurring dream at one point, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Later on I found myself another girlfriend. She’s someone whom I know and I wish that I knew who it was. We hadn’t been officially boyfriend/girlfriend but we spent a lot of time in each other’s company and I really looked forward to seeing her. She became ill, and had to have a lot of people looking after her which cut down quite considerably the time that we spent together. She slowly began to go out again. I met her once at some kind of concert where she was with some friends. I went over to say “hello” to her, and the first thing that she did was to give me £15:00 because she owed me £15:00 and I’d completely forgotten about it. I made a remark about her being a little better so would she like to come and have a chat with me. She said “no” which really disappointed me. She replied that things had changed. “I’ve been ill” she replied “and you’re no longer going to like me”. I told her that I’d always like her regardless of anything. She replied “you can’t trust me really, can you?” which was a reference to my own insecurity more than anything else. I was going to reply but at that point the dream faded away. Either that or I did.

That’s another thing, isn’t it? Me finding myself a girlfriend. In fact there’s something connecting this to real life too. I had a girlfriend at school and we drifted apart. A a couple of years later I was at the Teacher Training College in Crewe watching a rock group when I noticed, among the people in the crowd, the aforementioned. I went over for a chat and one thing led to another, and once you start you’d be surprised at how many other things there are. So our couple reignited but when she left school and went to University at Bangor it fizzled out again after a while.

The nurse was, for a change, late today. He asked about my plans for moving apartment and then proceeded to try to teach me to suck eggs, as if I’m senile or something. I wish that he would stop patronising me like this. It’s really getting on my wick.

After he left I made breakfast and carried on reading my book. Samuel Hearne is now well on his way to the Coppermine River. He’s making some very pertinent observations about the life and habits of the First-Nation people out in the Barren Grounds of Canada – that area of peri-Arctic tundra situated above the tree line. He describes the philosophy of the First-Nation people as “every man for himself” and “the survival of the fittest” and describes how a stronger man taking away even a weaker man’s wife seems to be an everyday occurrence. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the Barren Grounds is one of the most remote, isolated and cruellest places on earth. If Jacques Cartier had called Labrador "the Land God Gave To Cain", whatever would he have said if he had made it to here? I was in Yellowknife in 2018, AS REGULAR READERS OF THIS RUBBISH WILL RECALL and while that’s not exactly in the Barren Grounds, it was still dismal enough from a natural history point of view.

Back in here I had a few things to do and hadn’t even started work when my faithful cleaner came to fit my patches. After she’d done it she took away with her all of the medication that I no longer use. She’s going to sort it and make a list to see whether any of her other clients can make use of it, to save throwing it away.

The taxi came early and it was one of my regular drivers but she was quite quiet. But didn’t she drive us down to Avranches at a hell of a rate? I’ve no idea what might be the matter with her.

There were quite a few patients here today and as a result, even though I was early, I was the last to be seen, as you might expect. I’m convinced that they do it deliberately, wait until the anaesthetic effect of the patches has worn off.

The first needle though was painless. Totally painless. However, the second needle made up for that. I knew all about that one and so, I suspect, do those people walking past outside.

My glucose limit was right down in the basement but no-one brought me an orange juice. Consequently I slipped into a diabetic coma until one of the Auxiliaries brought me a juice with my coffee. And then I revised my Welsh, listened to some music and read more of Hakluyt’s translation of Jacques Cartier’s voyages.

Here, Cartier sets the scene for all further problems between the French and the First-Nation people by kidnapping the sons of the chief of the local tribe in order to take them back to Europe. And then on his return, on his second voyage, he befriends the wrong tribe, hence leading to 250 years of conflict between the French, the Dutch, the English, the Iroquois and the Huron, along with various other Europeans and First-Nation groups.

Last to be connected, I was last, and by a long way too, to be disconnected. My cleaner had sent me a frantic message wondering where I was.

In the meantime though a doctor came to see me. We had the usual banal questions but said nothing about my scan last week so I asked him. He went away to have a look and came back to say that I had a slipped disc. And then wandered away before I had chance to ask him what their plans were about it.

That rang a bell with me. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall me saying in the past that there’s one of the doctors here at this hospital who has all the air of wishing that he was driving a taxi or serving in a restaurant, anywhere but working in a hospital. It looks as if he’s been pencilled in to deal with me

It was another speedy drive back home with a driver who was listening to the news all the way back. And then my helpful cleaner watched as I managed once more to climb the twenty-five steps up to here totally unaided.

Tea was steamed veg with falafel in a vegan cheese sauce followed by chocolate cake in a soya pistachio cream. And it tasted wonderful too. I really must stop eating so well.

But now I have some more things to do before going to bed. And tomorrow, I’m not (planning on) going anywhere so I can take my time.

What I shall do is to read some more of Samuel Hearne’s adventures in search of the Coppermine River.
The next chapter, written by Samuel Hearne is "Some Observations On The Sex Life and Practices Of The Athabasca and Chipewyan First-Nation People"
And the following chapter, written by the Athabasca and Chipewyan First-Nation People is entitled "Some Observations on the Sex Life and Practices of Mr Samuel Hearne"

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Saturday 9th November 2024 – IF ANYTHING CAN …

… go wrong, then it surely will. Especially if I’m involved in it

And these dialysis sessions are certainly testing this theory to the limit. I am not having much luck at all.

That’s hardly to be unexpected, because right now I don’t seem to be having much luck with anything. And it’s not as if there are any ladders under which to walk or black cats to kick

Even going to bed at a reasonable time seems to have deserted me for the moment. Finishing my notes at a reasonable time last night, but the time that I’d finished everything else that I had to do, I still ended up running late, as usual.

At least, the compensation here is that it didn’t take me long to go to sleep in my nice, comfortable bed. And once I’d gone to sleep, there I stayed until the alarm went off. There had been a little tossing and turning, but nothing about which I needed to worry

When the alarm went off I was working in a chemist’s shop prescribing medication to people. I was told that there was a control on the amount of medication being given out and when I prescribed some to a woman she told me that I was giving her too much. I told her that at the end of the treatment, when she’s finished she can stick the remainder back through our letter-box so that we could have it back

This is an ongoing issue in real life, with all of the over-prescription of medication. I look at all of the stuff that I have in here and multiply that by so many million people and it’s a fortune. Many of these doctors in hospitals seem to live in a bubble and don’t seem to understand how their prescriptions affect those living in the real world. But we’ve talked about that quite a lot just recently.

Despite what might have been a good sleep it took an age to haul myself out of bed and I only just about beat the second alarm. Burning the candle at both ends doesn’t seem to be working so well

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up and then piled all of the washing into the washing machine, bedding included. It all goes in on a “mixed materials 40°C wash” and if anything wants any different than that then I don’t buy it. It goes without saying that I have nothing that needs ironing.

Back in here I had a computer issue. For some reason it wouldn’t boot up this morning. I had to go to tweak around with the BIOS to make it work and that took some time to do. Consequently I was only half-way through the dictaphone notes when Isabelle the nurse came

She had a good moan about all of the shopping scattered everywhere. That was going to be this morning’s job after I’d finished the dictaphone notes but the best-laid plans etc. Anyway I told her that it was my mess in my apartment and she can give me some of her hours to tidy up if she’s unhappy

After she left I made breakfast and read some more of Samuel Hearne’s travels. Except that I didn’t. Two days in and we’re still reading the editor’s preamble. That’s probably going to end up longer than the author’s book if it keeps on like this.

Then there was the washing to hang up, seeing as the machine had finished. And that’s quite a battle, given my state of health and my lack of balance

Back in here I finished off transcribing the dictaphone notes. I had been doing some work on the city walls. I’d cleared away a platform in front that we were going to use to put on music acts etc so that the public sitting in what was the old moat could see whoever was on the platform. I don’t know at all about the history of this platform but it just happened to be there. While I was cleaning it out I heard a noise like a sports car. I stopped and looked up, and there was a guy there. I asked him if that was his car. He replied “yes, it’s a ‘Facer'”. I said “that’s a marque of which I’d never heard before”. He replied “it’s the only one”. He looked down and asked “what are the chances of putting this car down there?”. I replied “if you have a look on top of the walls a little further down we have cranes that run up and down on top of the walls. We use them for raising and lowering things. Bring one of the cranes up here. They’ll soon lower your car down”. The fact is that the crane didn’t quite reach to where the platform is, but if I stood on the platform and threw a rope that would be tied to the car, then as he lowered the car down I could pull it to the platform. He set off and we set off to go round and come round onto the correct side of the platform. He suddenly began to think “what about the insurance? What about the MoT and the Public Liability?”. We told him to clear off, shut up and lower the car down. He didn’t like our brusqueness but we thought that it was the best way to proceed, to bring this car down onto the platform. As it happened, we had a quick look in the encyclopaedia. He played keyboards so with me on the bass and my friend who worked with me, he was a drummer, we had the makings of a pretty sound group, the three of us

One of my friends lived in a house right on the city walls in Chester and I worked in a building on the walls too. We’d often said that it would be an ideal place for a rock group, or any other musical act for that matter, to have a concert. A few power chords just at the start of the 14:30 Novices’ Handicap down below on the Roodee should upset quite a few punters.

I was in Court last night – a hearing trying to persuade a tenant to leave a property but he was being difficult. He was finding humour in all kinds of strange places but I reckoned that this humour was a front. He was trying to embarrass me in front of the judges so I kept a very clear silence and only answered the questions that they were asked to me and ask him until he pulled up out of steam which he did rather by the nineteenth of the second. He was unable to persuade the French children’s governess that she was the kind of person to be given a more senior role in the Government of France where she could make a name for herself in history.

Does this dream ring any bells right now? I bet that it does. Although where the children’s governess fits in, I’ve not quite worked out.

Did I dictate the dream about the two of us being on a coach tour with two drivers? … "no you didn’t" – ed … We had to stop for coffee but there was nowhere convenient and we ended up at some kind of dire roadside burger bar but it was the absolute best that we could be. The other driver took over to drive and on leaving was almost pranged by a silver 4×4 as he pulled out. In the meantime I’d gone off somewhere – I had Nerina with me – and all of a sudden there was an urgent contact “can you check and look out for a silver 4×4?”. By this time I was back driving this coach again. I looked in my mirror and could see this 4×4 right behind me so I replied “it’s behind me now”. The voice asked “can you follow it to find out where it goes”. I thought “follow it in a coach? I can try”. However I lost it, but I had a rough idea where so I circled around this housing estate again and sure enough, I found it. So I built a swimming pool and filled it with water, then the voice asked me to check on the number. When I checked on the number I saw the old guy driving it, he was standing on a set of ladders up some kind of pole in his garden where there was a light bulb that he was busy taking out. I took the number and reported it. Someone then gave me a briefcase and said “this is his” so I went and knocked on the door. His wife was there so I handed her the briefcase and we began to chat. She said something about his computer so I had a look. It was old and full of viruses so I cleaned it for him, removed the viruses and tweaked a few other things, and it worked so much better. When he ‘phoned up we told him what we’d come for. The wife told him the news so he asked “can you switch it off yet?”. He told me that it needed switching off so I arranged it. She said “yes, it switches off now”. he replied “that’s the first time in 100 years that it’s switched off”. Then Nerina and this woman engaged in quite a lot of small talk about nothing else in particular really

Wouldn’t it be great if I could build a swimming pool and fill it with water at the drop of a hat like that? And I have in the past done strange things like door-stepping someone for purposes other than which are obvious, but we don’t talk about these.

There wasn’t all that long to do stuff of my own before the cleaner came round to stick my anaesthetic patches onto me. It’s freezing outside, she reckons, so I put away my warm-season fleeces and brought out one of the Arctic ones. I kept my jumper on though if I’m going to be in Ice-Station Zebra.

While I was waiting for the taxi to arrive I put away all of the food and did a little rearranging on the shelves. It goes without saying that with my cleaner being early, the taxi was late. And we had someone to pick up along the way.

At the Dialysis Centre there was a crisis. Two patients had been sent over from the hospital for emergency dialysis and one was having a panic attack. Consequently every available nurse was helping out around the bed.

It was 35 minutes before I was seen and by that time the anaesthetic on my arm had worn off. They also missed their aim with the second needle and had to re-do it. Consequently I was in agony throughout the whole three hours and thirty minutes.

"Shall I bring some ice to ease the pain in your arm?" asked a nurse helpfully

"What?" I exclaimed "In this blasted igloo? You must be joking!"

So I listened to a couple of concerts, revised my Welsh, suffered being force-fed with orange juice, had a little doze and read more of Hakluyt’s PRINCIPALL NAVIGATIONS

He’s busy right now talking about a couple of trips in the 1580s and 90s to the Gulf of St Lawrence and the constant changing of sovereignty of the islands there is playing havoc with me being able to identify them in the names by which I know them today

Not only that, we’re talking in the period when the Basque country was still independent and its own language predominated so that makes matters even more complicated, especially when the ports on the Biscay coast are mentioned in passing, under their former names.

Being so late starting meant that I was so late finishing and the guy who came down with me, who has a four-hour session in the other ward, was ready before I was, so we both came home together.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me and once more watched in awe as I climbed the twenty-five stairs up to my door. Not as quick as Thursday or Friday but it was still an achievement. We have a new tenant in one of the apartments upstairs, so I met her cat on the way up.

After my cleaner left, we had football. Cardiff Metro v Y Bala. The Met scored after two minutes – a lucky rebound but Y Bala equalised just on the stroke of half-time.

The game came to light when Y Bala scored two goals right immediately after half-time and then we had an exciting second half as the Met clawed their way back into the game with two goals. The final ten minutes was certainly exciting.

It was a good game once it opened up. Cardiff Met play some pretty football but in their desire to retain possession, they can go from all-out attack to a long back-pass to the keeper in the twinkle of an eye and it’s so frustrating to see them do it – eight men up in attack that they pass it backwards.

Y Bala’s style is rather more agricultural but they play forward much more often and with better results.

Tea was a vegan burger on a bun with salad and baked potato followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. It’s all good stuff this.

There’s some dictating to do and then I’m off to bed.

But talking of my bad luck … "well, one of us is" – ed … reminds me of the time in Sheffield when I was walking past the soup canning plant, the boiler exploded and the streets were flooded in vegan tomato soup
"That must have been lucky for you" said a friend
"Not really" I replied. "I could only find a fork"

0

Thursday 31st October 2024 – IT WAS ANOTHER …

… painful session at the Dialysis Clinic today. This time though it wasn’t all the fault of the people who worked there. The taxi company had something to contribute towards the debacle that was today.

And there I was, all proud and happy that last night I’d managed to go to bed before 23:00. Not many minutes before, it has to be said, but it was enough to be noteworthy and cheer me up a little after yesterday. "Oh folly! Folly! And deep joy!" as Stanley Unwin once famously said.

It wasn’t such a bad night as one or two have been just recently. I only awoke once or twice, I didn’t check the times, and I was soon asleep again.

However when the alarm went off I had a struggle to haul myself up out of bed. I would gladly have stayed there for another couple of hours but no such possibility today.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up, applied the deodorant and even had a shave. Not that it would do me much good of course but we have to go through the motions.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night and I was surprised by how much distance I’d covered. Some kids in a primary school were doing a course on awareness of the slavery trade. They had to choose a character and stand up to talk to me about them. The first girl talked to me about the difference between good and evil and the others who were small told a story about what they wanted everyone to hear. One said that the slavery business was dominated by her grandfather who imported tobacco from North America. Each of these children had a little story to tell.

And I bet that they did too. Many famous people of the 17th, 18th and 19th Century were slave-owners and it has to be said that there were many other people whose treatment was not all that much better until the rise of the Trades Union Movement. When I finish my magnum opus about the treatment of the “liveyers” on the Labrador and Québec coasts in the 18th, 19th and first half of the 20th Century (a project that has been on hold since the chaos began last October), you’ll see what I mean. Slavery has many different faces.

Later on I was looking through the file of a German person. At the front of the file was pinned a piece of paper, a typewritten note of some kind of thesis which began “my parents were buried somewhere on the border in the early days of the conflict in 1939” and then went into e lengthy philosophical discussion. It referred me to his thesis which was hidden somewhere in the depths of the file so rather than do the work that I was supposed to do, I sat down and began to read his history, or, at least, looked like the history of his father of the person concerned, because the given name of the person whose file it was and the given name of the person who wrote this document were different so I sat down and had a read of it

Quite often I was side-tracked by what I found hidden away in the archives. There was once a reference to a huge blackmarketeering ring being uncovered in Crewe just after the war with some famous names being implicated. But that aside, Crewe was and probably still is famous for all the Italians, Germans and Poles in the town. Of course, as you might expect, many people blame the European Union but the fact is that there was a prisoner-of-war camp in the vicinity and after the war, many of the prisoners opted to stay. After the war, the camp became a resettlement camp for the Polish Army that had fought alongside the British in North Africa and Italy and when the Russians annexed the eastern part of Poland in 1946, some of the Poles found themselves with no home to which to return so they settled in the town.

Finally I was putting on my brown shoes but the shoelaces were too short and it was annoying me so I asked the mother of the boy where I was staying where I could buy some brown shoelaces. They gave me a list of suggestions so I replied “yes, but I mean ‘now'”. They looked at me and laughed, saying “nowhere is going to be open yet. It’s not 09:00”. I’d forgotten all about restrictions in Belgium on opening hours. It was so frustrating. But the woman came along and had some kind of “Système D” method in mind where she glued a broken piece of shoelace to my shoelaces to help me work because she thought that I was using it to surf the web. But I was using the mouse of course to surf the web. Someone came up to me and asked “why are you on the internet now? Everywhere is going to be closed, all the shops”. I replied “yes but it’s the World-Wide Web. The USA is 16 hours behind so the USA shops are going to be open now”. They had a very hard time getting their head around this idea of different time zones, which I found to be completely strange. So there I was, hoping to find a pair of shoelaces from somewhere.

“Système D” is a lovely French phrase, the “D” being short for something rather vulgar, and it’s a phrase that means making do, adapting what you have and managing to perform tasks with whatever kinds of unorthodox tools and equipment you happen to have to hand. I’ve been doing that for years and so have many of my friends. It’s probably what binds us together.

Belgium, and Brussels in particular is a strange place as far as shop opening hours go. They are regulated quite tightly. There was one guy who ran a normal grocer’s shop and obtained a licence to run a “Night Shop” so he simply stayed open past the regulation hours for a conventional shop. He was found to be in contravention of the law about day-shop hours so he fitted his shelving with wheels and at the appointed closing time of a conventional shop, simply pushed his shelving with all his stock on it across the road into a shop premises that he rented and ran his “Night Shop” from there. And then pushed everything back across the road the following morning.

It was the other nurse today who came to see me. He asked how everything went so I told him that it was awful so that shut him up and he did what he had to do and then left in rather a hurry which suited me fine.

Then it was breakfast followed by more of my book. Alfred Watkins is still drawing his ley lines across the Herefordshire area and makes some very interesting assumptions about some surnames and place-names, some of which more modern research seems to have undermined.

It seems to me that if he had toned down much of his unwarranted speculation his work would have been much better received. The problem with modern vernacular researchers is that if they encounter someone like Watkins who presents 100 assumptions and research shows one of them to be misplaced, the other 99 are also dismissed automatically and that’s certainly not the case.

Back in here I carried on tracking down music for the next radio programme, and that’s proving to be difficult. There’s a list of artists whose work I need to find and for some of them their work is tending to be much more elusive than for which I had bargained

My cleaner turned up bang on midday to fit my anaesthetic patches and after she fitted them she stayed for a few minutes for a chat and then cleared off to attend to her afternoon clients.

The taxi turned up a little later than planned. It was a driver from St Hilaire du Harcoët who had taken a passenger to St Lô, than then travelled light to Villedieu to pick up passengers for Granville and then for me to take to Avranches.

He told me a story that I had heard “elsewhere”, that the Sécurité Sociale is taking more of a keen interest in expenditure and is insisting that much more effort is made to combine trips and cut down on the light mileage

That explained why we had to go to St Planchers to pick up a passenger for the other hospital in Avranches.

We were late picking him up and as his appointment was before mine, it was only right that we went right across town to drop him off and then come back to drop me at the Dialysis Clinic. I mean – they can hardly start without me, can they?

Consequently I was late at the Clinic and the anaesthetic had worn off, as I found out when they stuck the needles in.

There I was, in agony for the whole session of three hours and thirty minutes. No-one came to see me or to interrupt me. I just read my Welsh notes and then started Richard Hakluyt’s PRINCIPALL NAVIGATIONS

Hakluyt was a writer and being acquainted with “the chiefest captaines at sea, the greatest merchants, and the best mariners of our nation” of the late 16th Century he wrote his book to record and report all of the discoveries that British and some other seamen had made during that period, with the aim, so it’s believed, of encouraging colonialisation.

My interest of course lies more in the northern end of the spectrum, around “ye New Founde Lande” and in particular those of Humphrey Gilbert, who was sailing his spectacularly unsuccessful voyages during the period about which Hakluyt writes.

Disconnecting me from the machine was probably as painful as plugging me in, and I was glad to leave.

The driver who took me home was my favourite driver who has taken me to Paris a few times. We had to go across town to pick up yet another passenger, and then we had a running commentary all the way home – so much so and so engrossed was she in what she was saying that she drove right past the turning to drop off the lady we had just picked up, and had to turn round and go back.

Back here my faithful cleaner was at her post awaiting my arrival and I managed the 13 steps of the first flight of stairs, but it was touch and go for the final two or three. I’m not ready for further exertions yet.

And how glad was I to be back in my apartment? I sat down for a while to recover and then made tea – vegan pie and steamed veg followed by rice pudding

Bed-time now and tomorrow I have to Fight the Good Fight and sort out this music ready to write out the notes.

But talking of my favourite taxi driver … "well, one of us is" – ed … reminds me of the story about the difference between a Parisian bus driver and a bus driver from Marseilles that I told a friend of mine
So I asked her if she knew
"No" she replied. "What’s the difference?"
"In Paris" I said "you shouldn’t speak to the bus driver."
"And Marseilles?" she asked
"In Marseilles" I replied "you shouldn’t reply to the bus driver."

0

Saturday 25th November 2023 – I WAS HAPPY …

… that it was today that I went on the bus to the shops and not yesterday.

Yesterday was a cold, wet windy miserably day but today was one of the nicest days that we’ve had for ages and it was a real pleasure to be out.

It was the kind of day where, had things been different, I’d have made a flask of piping hot coffee and gone for a nice long walk northwards along the coast with the camera, but how things have changed in that respect.

Things changed a little in bed last night too because I seem to have had something of a rather more relaxed night. That’s a good thing from the point of view of sleep but a bad thing from the point of view of adventure. The only adventures I have these days are these rather vicarious ones at second hand as my ethereal spirit goes walkabout during the night.

At the hospital they keep on asking me if I want sleeping pills, and I keep on turning them down. My little nocturnal voyages are about all the fun that I have, given the way that things have turned out.

When the alarm went off I fell out of bed and struggled to my feet, and then having dressed, I toddled off into the dining area to take my medication.

Back here I transcribed the dictaphone notes from last night – and it didn’t take me long. I was with a bunch of pirates last night. We’d gone ashore in the High Arctic somewhere amidst all the snow and the ice. Some of the descriptions that the crew was giving off about the are in which they found themselves were extremely poetic, including things like “if it wasn’t for the cold you’d never realise the danger” etc. A couple of the crew wandered away during the night to explore and we didn’t know if we’d be lucky enough to see them next morning etc. As it became light next morning we were rounded up into some kinds of fishing parties. We’d tried to do some fishing the evening before and had caught some cod but this morning we were going to go out on a full-scale fishing operation to revictual the ship. That involved a couple of the rowing boats with a net spread between them and the two rowing boats rowing round in a circle towards each other to tighten the catch inside the net. We were busy organising this when I suddenly awoke

It’s a shame that it ended at that point because I would have loved to have seen how our fishing expedition unfolded. When Richard Hakluyt transcribed John Cabot’s notes in order to include them for publication in his “Principall Navigations” in 1589 he came across Cabot’s delightful description of the Labrador coast and "The cod were in largeness and quantitie … that they stayed our ships".

When my book about the Labrador coast finally hits the shelves, you’ll notice the difference. Constant over-fishing by industrial trawlers decimated the cod fishery so much that in 1992 the Canadian Government imposed a moratorium on cod-fishing. And so all the big industrial trawlers moved off elsewhere and the small subsistence fisherman along the coast was deprived of his livelihood and fell into desolation and despair.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall us working our way down the Nova Scotia coast on our voyages of 2003 and 2010 when we picked our way through the decay and dereliction of piles of abandoned fishing equipment.

strawberry moose, buccaneer, near moyock, north carolina, usa, eric hall, photo, 30th september 2017But while we’re on the subject of pirate ships … "well, one of us is" – ed … we’ve encountered pirate ships before.

In 2017 when we were on our way back from visiting Rhys in South Carolina STRAWBERRY MOOSE and I came across a pirate ship. His Nibs quickly recruited an ad-hoc crew and set sail for the Spanish Main in order to wreak havoc amongst the treasure ships heading back from New Spain to the Old World.

And as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, his antics on the High Seas on his way home from looking after Kathryn at University in Ontario in 2011 led to questions being asked in the Canadian Parliament.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … bed there was a story about me being at some kind of formal party with about half a dozen other people, having an enormous amount of difficulty trying to keep still, having to keep moving my legs quite regularly. This led to some kind of commotion about food but I can’t now remember very much about this issue of food except that it was something that had caused it.

There was time for a quick wash and brush-up and then I headed for the bus. He was late arriving and with not being able to move around it was quite cold.

However there was a really beautiful blue sky. Jersey stood out really clearly on the horizon this morning and it looked as if I could reach out and touch the Brittany coast across the bay, it was so clear.

There was no ice or frost on the car windscreens which is no surprise as we are only 50 feet from the sea here and in the face of the prevailing westerly winds, but once we were out of the wind, all of the cars parked at the side of the road were iced up.

At St Nicolas no-one made the sign of the Cross today, but after I’d done my shopping I had a pleasant chat about historic buildings with the guy drinking coffee next to me as I waited for my bus home.

The only marzipan that they had was this tricolour stuff but I don’t suppose that it matters under icing. I have to use what I can.

They did have soya yogurt to make my naan bread but it’s only sold in packets of 8 so I’ll be making a lot of naan bread dough tomorrow.

Coming back up the stairs was another nightmare. There’s no doubt that I’m actually moving easier – that was quite evident today and I’m pleased about that – but I can’t lift my leg high enough to climb the steps and we had another gymnastics morning.

But I’ll have to have a word with Severine when I see her again and find out what she can do for me.

Having put the food away I made my cheese on toast and then came in here, where I promptly fell asleep.

A ‘phone call awoke me. The paperwork has come in from the engineer and the co-property committee has decided that they want a couple more quotes. Could I organise it?

When I lived in Expo, that was a co-property and there were enormous issues about an apartment owner who would launch himself into all kinds of unauthorised adventures and then bombard the committee with all kind sof paperwork, and I remember very well many of the issues that arose.

Consequently, I told them that if they give me an authorisation I’ll do it quite happily but I’m not doing it without any authorisation.

This afternoon I soaked all my fruit – and found that although I had all kinds of things in my baking box I didn’t have any glacé cherries, or bigarreaux confits as they call them around here. They had some advertised in LeClerc’s home delivery catalogue so I hope that they’ll still be in stock when I send off my order.

So we now have currants, sultanas, raisins, figs, cranberries, some of that dried gelified fruit, desiccated coconut, ground almonds, banana chips, dried orange chips and the odd partridge in a pear tree divided into two lots – a small one for the pudding and a big one for the cake – soaking in a mixture of vanilla, fleur d’orange, rum essence, brandy essence, all kinds of spices and probably a few other things too.

It’ll be in there for a week or 10 days, being stirred and fed with more liquid over that period ready for a baking session next weekend.

But the essences of rum and brandy are interesting. It’s not available in France – after all, if you have the real stuff, why use artificial? But there’s a chain of shops called “Bulk Barn” in all of the big cities in Canada – something like an old UK “Weigh and Save” on steroids.

Rural Canada is just like the 1950s which is why I really like it, and home baking and that kind of thing are major occupations. And when I was in the one in Fredericton last year I made a wonderful discovery and several bottles of essence found their way into my suitcase for future use.

And by God is it strong!

Back here afterwards I crashed out again, for ages this time, and since then I’ve been de-duplicating one of the backup drives.

Tea tonight was baked potato with salad and a veggie burger in breadcrumbs and that was as delicious as usual.

So now I’m off for a hot drink or two and then I’ll dictate the radio notes ready for tomorrow when I’ll prepare the programme. There’s naan dough to make as well as I’ve now run out.

Something else that I’ve run out of is chocolate biscuits. However when tidying up the shelves the other say I found a couple of packets of industrial ones about which I’d forgotten. I’ll finish these off and bake another batch of biscuits next weekend.

That should keep me out of mischief for a while.

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