Tag Archives: queen of the south

Sunday 12th October 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone again this morning.

But then what do you expect? If you don’t go to bed until 23:30 and you are wide awake again at 01:30, you don’t really have time to go very far.

As you might expect, it was a horrible night last night – one of the worst that I have ever had. Having noted how much better I was feeling over the last couple of evenings, last night saw the collapse and I was back to where I had been earlier last week, struggling desperately (and sometimes unsuccessfully) to stay awake.

It was definitely one of those nights where I could have done with being in bed much earlier but as usual, I couldn’t concentrate on anything and the time simply drifted away to nothing.

Once in bed though, I don’t even remember being awake for a minute. I was out like a light, only to be awoken a couple of hours later by a dreadful attack of cramp in my thighs, an awful cough and a powerful urge to vomit. These sensations kept on coming and going, making things most uncomfortable for me and the pain and inconvenience was such that I abandoned all hope of going back to sleep.

For the last couple of nights, I’d been awake quite early but had gone back to sleep again without very much effort. But I tried – oh, how I tried – this morning and nothing would seem to work … "he was very trying" – ed … . So round about 05:30 I gave up the ghost and left the bed.

After a good wash, I went for the medication, and it was a very leisurely medication too. I wasn’t in any rush at all this morning, what with feeling as ill as I was. In fact, it was quite a struggle to keep the medication down.

Back in here, with nothing on the dictaphone to transcribe, I started my little footfest.

First match up was at the top of the JD Cymru League – TNS, who are leading, against Penybont who are second. It should have had all the air of being an exciting game, but quite frankly, Penybont were abysmal. The TNS attackers were going through the static Penybont defence like a knife through hot butter and the final score – 6-2 to TNS – didn’t do TNS any justice.

If Penybont are serious about mounting a challenge for the title, they are going to have to organise themselves much better and play much better than this.

In the middle of all of this, the nurse turned up. He sorted out my feet and then helped me fit these foot supports that the Centre de Ré-education gave me. But he didn’t really have much of an idea how to fit them, and neither did I, so after he left, I removed them.

After breakfast, which I really didn’t feel like eating, I came back in here to watch the highlights of the rest of the games, not that there was anything of interest to report.

All of this was followed by Stranraer v Queen of the South in the Scottish League Cup, and Stranraer ground out a very respectable draw against a team that is comfortably in mid-table in the league above.

What was interesting ABOUT THIS GAME was that we had another one of these exciting “let’s play it out from the back” moments that so entertain the crowd.

This afternoon, I’ve had a whole raft of exciting things to do, such as to sort out my tax affairs which are proving to be more complicated than I could ever imagine.

There was my Welsh homework to do too, and that’s almost finished. Half an hour on that tomorrow will see it ready to go off.

The printer needed a good overhaul too, as some of the stuff that I’ve been printing just recently isn’t as it is supposed to be. In the end, I changed a couple of ink cartridges and it seems to be working a little better, although the Magenta is still being troublesome.

And that reminds me – I need to order some more ink cartridges.

This afternoon was beautiful and sunny, so seeing as I didn’t have my shower last week and I shan’t be having one for a couple of weeks with all of these medical appointments, my faithful cleaner came down and helped me organise the shower. At least, now I smell nice and sweet for Emilie the Cute Consultant tomorrow, although how long it will last, I really have no idea.

There was bread to make, and pizza to make too. I really didn’t feel like doing anything, but it has to be done. I was in total agony while I was making it, but I forced myself to carry on, and in the end I managed to produce an excellent loaf and an excellent pizza.

In the middle of all of this, Rosemary rang me for a chat. She’s had her car serviced just recently and she didn’t understand a few things on the bill.

It wasn’t one of our usual chats though – my voice was giving out and in the end, I had to terminate the chat as I couldn’t keep on going.

Throughout the whole of the day, I could feel myself becoming worse and worse. By teatime, I was feeling totally dreadful. I don’t think that I’ve ever felt as bad as I was feeling just then. In fact, halfway through my pizza, I just couldn’t go on any longer.

The pizza was abandoned on the table. And even though I hate waking up to dirty dishes all over the kitchen, so was the washing-up. I came back into the bedroom and simply climbed into bed, probably the best decision I had ever made.

But seeing as we have been talking about the difficulties in going to sleep … "well, one of us has" – ed …, apparently one of the best ways to fall asleep is to try counting sheep.
I asked one of my friends if this were true.
He replied "I’m not sure. I tried it the other night, starting off with one sheep. By the time that I had to leave the bed to go to work, I had ten thousand sheep, a huge farm in Australia and I was busy constructing a meat-packing factory"

Sunday 27th July 2025 – SO THERE I WAS …

… last night, talking about having an early night and hoping to have a lie in until the later time of 07:59 when the Sunday alarm goes off.

There’s nothing like a bit of optimism, is there?

Firstly, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall and probably expect, the early night didn’t happen. I’m not sure what went on, but I found myself at 23:00 still sitting at my desk working. However, I didn’t stay there for long. An early night I was determined to have and although it was not as early as I would have liked, I downed tools and cleared off.

Just as the last couple of days, I fell asleep quite quickly, thinking of having a really good sleep of eight hours at least.

Consequently, no-one was more disappointed than me to find that when I awoke, it was all of 04:10. I could well have done without that.

Refusing to give in, I curled up and did my best to go back to sleep again. And it worked too, at least for a while. 06:05 was still far too early to be awake again, and this time I couldn’t go back to sleep. When the water heater switched off at 06:20, I was already having a ride on the porcelain horse.

After a good wash, I went into the kitchen for the medication and then came back in here to find out where I’d been during the night. I dreamed that I was parachuting last night, taking some kind of course of something or other that wasn’t parachuting but parachuting was included in it. We went up in an aeroplane to quite a height and I leaped out. Eventually, I managed to touch down onto the ground, far quicker than I was intending to land, but it was a quite accurate landing and I was impressed. Someone came over and asked me how it was. I replied “to be quite honest, I was freezing. The wind was cutting through my jeans and I ought to have worn some kind of windproof trouser underneath to stop that”. Then I was thinking about going to do it again, working out that if maybe I were to pull on this guy rope here and that guy rope there, I’d be able to direct the parachute and land much more appropriately, much closer to the target and be able to steer the parachute and land pretty much where I liked.

There is absolutely no danger whatever of me ever leaping from a ‘plane wearing a parachute. And I certainly wouldn’t do it a second time. I’ll take all of my chances on solid ground, thanks. But it would be just like me, when I’m falling headlong towards the ground, to be thinking of a way to improve the system or its accuracy.

Later on, I’d been associated with a football club somewhere and our team had been promoted from the bottom division to the third at long last. The manager of one of the other teams in the club came over. He was surprised. He asked if it were true that we had been promoted. I replied that it was. He answered “God! Because I’m short of players for Sunday”. It was for a game in St Niklaas in Vlaanderen against The Old Irish. We had a chat and it turned out that one of my friends was playing in it, so I replied “go on then. You can put me down as a substitute if you like” although I really wasn’t interested in playing all that competitively. So off we went on the Sunday to the field to have a look around. There were plenty of people swarming around, including one woman who had a dog and a cat, each on a lead and was taking them for a walk. I had a chat with the woman and the cat. Her husband usually took the cat for a walk but he was away for a few days so she was doing it. The cat usually went in a certain direction but there was something going on there and she didn’t want to take it this time. The more I looked around, the more I saw that there was going to be an auto-cross in the middle of this field after the football match so I thought that this was going to be a really nice day to have out as long as I don’t actually go onto the football field.

Back in the Auvergne, I was associated with a football team – the 3rd XI of FC Pionsat St Hilaire, who were one of the worst teams in the local pyramid in the Puy de Dôme and always finished near the bottom of the lowest division. And I do have to hold up my hand and admit that my involvement was completely by default – none of the other committee members wanted to run the team and I happened to admire the players for continuing to turn out week after week so I took on the task.

However, there is plenty of mileage in this dream apart from that. Leaving aside the fact that this seemed to take place in Vlaanderen, although I might not be interested in playing, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that there have in the past been rafts of dreams where I’ve turned out for a local football club and some of those dreams are far too real for my liking.

As it happened, I did have a friend who played for the club, and I also know a man who really does take his cat for a walk in the evening.

When the nurse turned up, the first thing that he wanted was my health card. He’s off on holiday on Monday night so he needs to bring his accounts up-to-date. Once he’d sorted out his paperwork, he attended to my legs and then cleared off to continue his rounds.

After he left, I began to make my breakfast but I didn’t get very far because the kitchen fitter came and I had to throw him the key to the front door seeing as the electric door lock on the front door doesn’t seem to work.

When he turned up here, I gave him my instructions and he wandered off downstairs to begin. I could go back to making my breakfast, only to find that my toast had burned.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of MY BOOK.

We started off in the quaintly-named Bladder Street, wherein he makes mention of several local "tippling houses." I shall have to remember that little phrase the next time that I want to make reference to the local boozer.

He also tells us about Allhallows Church in Bread Street where "two priests of this church fell at variance, that the one drew the blood of the other …. the priests were committed to prison … and being enjoined penance, went before a general procession bare-headed, bare-footed and bare-legged, before the children, with beads and books in their hands, from Paules, through Cheape, Cornehill etc."

It’s a real shame that modern-day clerical transgressors aren’t subjected to the same humiliation.

After breakfast, I sorted out more things and put them into boxes ready for my faithful cleaner to take downstairs whenever she’s next passing.

Back in here again, there was football and I watched with no little amount of amusement as Stranraer, near the bottom of the fourth tier, beat hated local rivals Queen of the South, championship contenders one division higher up.

Watching the players of the team from Dumfries totally lose their cool in the final five minutes as they panicked to the core when Stranraer unleashed their lightning-quick young centre-forward and had a player sent off, several others booked for professional fouls and for fighting was one of the funniest things that I have seen for quite a while

By now it was time to start work and the first thing was to sort out all of the music that has accumulated over the last couple of years but has not been classified. That took much longer than I would have liked.

Eventually, it was finished and I could then find the final piece of music and write the notes for it, which I can dictate when I next have an early start so that I can finish this radio programme and move on.

There was a break in all of this while I made my pizza base, and when it had arisen, I baked an excellent pizza which tasted delicious.

Just as I was getting my fork stuck in it, the kitchen fitter came up to say that he was leaving. He showed me the photos of the new, nicely-painted bedroom and it really does look wonderful. That room is now finished, except for the curtains, and I shall be organising those in very early course.

When I’m down there tomorrow, I’ll take some photos of it to show you, and I hope that you’ll all be as impressed as I am.

So now that my pizza is eaten and my notes are written, I’ll take the stats, do the back-up and then go to bead. It’s dialysis tomorrow, and how I am not looking forward to that. But then two days off and I can pack a whole pile of stuff ready to move downstairs not that things down there are drawing to a close.

But seeing as we have been talking about the painter in the bedroom … "well, one of us has" – ed … before he bought the paint, he said "the bedroom here looks the same size as the one downstairs. When you painted it, how many tins of paint did you buy?"
"Actually, I bought three" I told him
When he finished this evening, he came up to me and said "I bought three tins of paint, but when I’d finished, I had one tin left over"
"What a coincidence!" I exclaimed. "So did I!"

Thursday 8th August 2024 – I’VE NO IDEA …

… why but I’m absolutely whacked this afternoon. Anyone would think that I haven’t slept for a month

At least, that’s what it feels like. It’s not true of course because I managed a couple of hours last night where I was away with the fairies

Just a couple of hours mind you. I had another late night. Before going to bed I stumbled across the report with a difference of a football match in Scotland.

There’s a guy who goes around all the Scottish and Irish football grounds and broadcasts commentaries from within the huddled masses on the terraces, giving marks out of ten for the quality of the meat pies and the public conveniences as well. A proper football report.

For a while now I’ve been following his exploits because he’s doing exactly what I would have done, and have done too in better times, and I can enjoy vicariously the excitement of being swept up in a passionate crowd.

Last night I caught him at Palmerston Park, Dumfries for Queen of the South v Arbroath so I stayed up to watch the kippers be well and truly smoked by the home team.

It’s years since I’ve stood on the terraces there at Palmerston Park. 1977 or 1978 if I remember correctly. The height of the “troubles” and I was the only one who would take a British-registered van to Northern Ireland (where I was once arrested by an Army patrol, but that’s another story).

And on the way back once, seeing the crowds swarming across the river, I followed them.

It was on one of those trips that I had that classic encounter that I’m sure that I’ve mentioned before – the young girl from school who was serving in that pub at Galgate where I stopped for a pint on the way home.

One thing led to another and a few weeks later I’d lured her back to my lair and my old black cat Tuppence, the most anti-social cat you can imagine (like her owner), went and sat on her knee.

"Even my cat likes her!" I thought to myself, and invited her back to my lair for another encounter

"Yes, but you’ll have to get rid of that cat! I hate cats!" she said.

Of course it goes without saying that I kept my cat for another twelve or so years. She knew what she was doing – driving away all the competition for my affection.

Of course, with Nerina she didn’t stand a chance. Nerina loved cats and as soon as she came into my house it was "ohhh! A cat!" and she had Tuppence in her arms before Tuppence had time to think.

Yes, I had so much affection from my cats that the first thing that I’ll do when I’m downstairs is to have a female cat come to live with me.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment I went to bed late last night after the football and was awoken again at some silly hour of the morning and I’ve no idea why.

Nevertheless I stayed in bed until the alarm went off and then I had a very unsteady lurch into the bathroom to sort myself out.

Given the rather difficult night, I wasn’t surprised – just disappointed – to find that there was nothing from the night on the dictaphone. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only excitement that I seem to have these days is whatever goes on during the night.

The nurse was in chat mode this morning and we had a good discussion about my neighbour, who apparently is destined for a Home near Bayeux. It did make me wonder where they would send me if I had to go into a Home. Presumably one where the jackets do up at the back.

After she left I had breakfast and carried on reading my book about Montana at the turn of the Twentieth Century. We’re reading about the trip “Judge Woody” made to arrive in the Territory and I suppose that tomorrow we’ll find out more about the early days of Law Enforcement and Justice.

It was another slow start to the morning, and then once I started work I was busy.

First task is to go through another batch of concerts and try to date them. There’s a wiki on line called SETLIST where people who have been to concerts publish the setlist that was played. By comparing that with the setlist performed in the concert that I have, I can match them up.

However, not every setlist is published and of those that are, I’m convinced that one or two are wrong.

Having dealt with a batch of those, I then attacked the special project on which I’m working for the radio. I gave that a couple of hours of my time.

There was more that I could have done but regrettably, I was away with the fairies for a couple of hours late this afternoon.

Well-away too. I felt dreadful when I awoke and I have to do better than this

My cleaner came round to drop off more medication and we had an interesting chat for half an hour about kitchens and buying and selling apartments. But no news about she downstairs in my apartment.

Tea tonight was the last slice of lasagne with veg and vegan cheese sauce – only really to make more room in the freezer because tomorrow I have an order that I want to sent to LeClerc and I need the space.

So having done that I’ll unwind a little before going to bed and hope that nothing comes along to deflect me from an early night

But on-line shopping. There’s an interesting phenomenon. I was once talking to my friend Josée in Montréal. I told her that shipping in North American was really borjing
"Why is that?" she asked
"Well" I replied. "In North America, when you’ve seen one bunch of shops you’ve seen a mall"

Saturday 24th December 2016 – WHILE YOU ADMIRE …

city lights christmas eve brusselsestraatleuven belgium december decembre 2016… the city of Leuven and its Christmas illuminations, I’ll tell you about the day that I’ve had today.

Most importantly, I went out for a walk this evening. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been for a stroll out at night – probably since I was in Montreal in October, and seeing as it’s Christmas Eve tonight, it seemed to be a good-enough opportunity.

city lights christmas eve brusselsestraat leuven belgium december decembre 2016One thing that I haven’t done since I’ve been in Leuven to show you where I’m staying.

It’s in the Brusselsestraat, which used to be the main way out of the city before the Motorway link road was built, and on the corner of the Kruisstraat. And that’s the building just down there on the left, on the corner after the third street light.

My room is on the first floor, on the left hand corner at the rear, with a window at the rear overlooking the garden.

city lights christmas eve leuven belgium december decembre 2016And so as for last night – a total disaster.

Someone in here was “entertaining” and the beds creak like nobody’s business, as I might have mentioned before. I was all for giving them a round of applause but of course it’s impossible to clap with just one hand as you know.

And then we had the party.

city lights christmas eve leuven belgium december decembre 2016About 02:00 they started, and it wasn’t until about 04:00 that they finished.

I’d been asleep, having had an early night until they started, and I gave up any idea of going back there once they had started. By 02:30 I was working on the laptop. I may as well make the most of all of my discomfort. No point in missing out on the time that I had unexpectedly been given

city lights christmas eve leuven belgium december decembre 2016I went back to sleep shortly afterwards and that was that until the alarm went off. And rather petulantly, I didn’t turn off the alarm for quite a while. And likewise with the reminder. I let it ring for a few minutes

After breakfast I went and had a shower. I didn’t wait until everyone was awake like I usually do – I went straight in regardless of the noise that the shower makes in the bathroom.

I was in something of a bad mood, wasn’t I?

city lights christmas eve leuven belgium december decembre 2016For much of the morning I was researching stuff again for my stuff on Labrador. And I came across some work by a certain Rudy Mauro, someone who had gone out (in a helicopter) to the site of where Leonidas Hubbard, about whom we’ve talked on many occasions, had died during his ridiculous “exploration” of Labrador’s interior where he had starved to death after being “out” for only a few weeks.

He also had amongst his papers some notes by Dillon Wallace, he who accompanied Hubbard and who went back to complete his work, and which were previously unpublished.

city lights christmas eve leuven belgium december decembre 2016Later on I went out to the shops and to the market. I bought everything that I had written down on my list, but something that I had subsequently remembered that I needed, I even more subsequently forgot.

And worse was yet to come, because the vegan shop had sold out of the spray-on vegan cream. It means that I’m going to have to eat my mince pies “dry” and that’s a tragedy. I was rather looking forward to my special little treat.

city lights christmas eve leuven belgium december decembre 2016I carried on working this afternoon, as well as having a little doze too (which I reckoned that I needed), as well as keeping up-to-date with Morton’s game with Queen of the South.

That all took me up to tea time when i finished off the last of my curry. But it was rather difficult making my tea tonight as my current lot of housemates don’t seem to understand the necessity of cleaning up and washing up after them.

The sooner I can find a place of my own the better.

city lights christmas eve leuven belgium december decembre 2016But then I went off for my walk up town in the evening.

What surprised me was that there was no-one about. Well – that’s not necessarily true. What I mean was that in most other cities the centre would be heaving and there woud be all kinds of things going on – and that was what I was hoping – carol singers and all of that.

grote markt city lights christmas eve leuven belgium december decembre 2016But as you can see from a photo of the Grote Markt – there are very few people wandering around here and nothing in the way of entertainment. It was all rather disappointing.

And so instead I came back home.

It’s now Christmas Day and I’m celebrating with a can of alcohol-free raspberry beer that I bought from Noz in Montlucon the other week.

And now I’m off to bed, if my housemates will let me, and I’ll show you the rest of my photos tomorrow.