… at the Dialysis Clinic. Another session where they had to put the branching connection into one of the pins and close the other off. There’s definitely something wrong with all of this as no-one else seems to be suffering in the same way that I do.
Or else it’s that I’m nesh and nothing more than a big baby. But that can’t be true as I have suffered quite a lot of pain quite stoically in the past..
But anyway, I digress.
Last night I finished my notes quite early (well, comparatively, anyway) and I could have gone to bed at a decent time. However I was listening to a concert on the internet and became rather engrossed, so I decided to stay up and watch the end of it. And then there was another one ….
So as the explorer Nansen once famously said, "the more extensive my studies became, the more riddles I perceived – riddle after riddle led to new riddles and this drew me on"
Consequently it was late when I went to bed, but I no longer care. If necessary I can sleep in the Dialysis Centre. It’s not as if I do very much else while I’m there.
It was another one of those nights where I slept the Sleep of the Dead and remember nothing of whatever might have gone on during the night – until all of 06:00 when I had another dramatic awakening. But when the alarm went off I was fast asleep yet again.
Once more, it was an undignified stagger into the bathroom for a good wash and a hunt for clean clothes as I don’t seem to have anything handy.
That was the cue for a major wash and even though I crammed as much as I could in the washing machine, there’s still a load left to do.
That’s the cue to change the bedding on Wednesday next week and so I can do yet another wash next Saturday morning too.
But while I was in the bathroom I had a shave to make myself look pretty, although I suspect that it will take more than a shave to do that.
There were the dictaphone notes to transcribe too. We were working at a music festival during the night, and one of the jobs that we were doing was erecting the tents and fitting the flooring. We had a huge pile of chipboard and a huge pile of tongue-and-grooving that we were using to fit out the floor. They were telling me that when they did this last year Peter Gabriel was there and when they went to fit the flooring in one tent they were using the flooring that had been used in his tent and found that underneath it was a big drawing that he’d drawn without anyone knowing. Of course they had pulled it up and all of the laths were distributed around elsewhere. There had to be some kind of mission to find these laths in order to reconstruct his drawing. There was a huge pile of chipboard downstairs at the bottom of the stairs that someone was cutting into squares with a huge circular saw. I was running the tongue and grooving around from one tent to the next that was erected. There was a huge argument going on. The festival organiser had ordered that one floor must be pulled up and taken away. I spoke to the guy who was in charge of the assembly of the tent. He told me that what he’d been doing was erecting the tents and then fitting the flooring inside the tent so that the turn-round at the foot of the wall of the tent was underneath the floor. That would stop the wind coming underneath the tent and into it. But for some reason the festival organiser wanted the turn-round to be above the floor. She had ordered all of the floors to be taken up. Of course, now they were going to be the wrong size but nevertheless she insisted. It seemed totally illogical to us that the tents should be erected that way. For a start, how do you fit the tent pegs in on the floor?
The concerts that I saw last night have clearly left their mark on me after all of that. But can I now add tent-erecting and furnishing to my list of subconscious night-time achievements?
Later on, we were on a ferry going to the mainland past a couple of islands. Someone was talking about one of these islands and talking about Iron Butterfly as if they had some kind of connection with it. I’d been on my way to see a friend. He’d had to go because he was going to see another friend of his who was thinking of joining some kind of rock group so they were going to meet the other players. This was strange because I’d been at someone’s house, another friend of mine, He was also going off to meet some players who were forming a group. I wondered if it could be the same people, it was such a coincidence. If it was, I felt rather sad and disappointed that they hadn’t invited me to go along with them to see what was happening with this group, if they needed a bassist. I felt quite disappointed about that.
It wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve been forgotten by friends in these circumstances. But being on a ferry threading my way through the islands, am I missing the ferry between Sydney, Cape Breton and Argentia, Newfoundland? 27 hours of the Gulf of St Lawrence? Or is it that I’m missing life on THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR?
But there’s a funny story about that ferry. I had “roaming” switched off on my telephone during the three months that I was in North America living in Strider, but on that ferry as we approached the coast of Newfoundland my ‘phone suddenly went berserk with piles and piles of messages, missed phone calls and the like.
It turns out that Bane of Britain had forgotten that we pass close to the islands of St Pierre and Miquelon – still French possessions in the Gulf of St Lawrence – and all of the services there are provided by French companies, including my network operator back at home. And so my ‘phone had picked up a domestic signal.
The nurse came early again today but any benefit was negated by the time that it took for his card reader to connect to his bluetooth so that he could read my health card.
After he left I made my breakfast and carried on reading ISAAC WELD’S BOOK. He’s now made it to Canada.
He tells us that "the compact and neat exterior appearance of the houfes, the calaches, the bons dieux, the large Roman Catholic churches and chapels, the convents, the priefts in their robes, the nuns, the friars ; all ferve to convince you that you are no longer in any part of the United States"
He’s also had two encounters with bands of First-Nation people – at least, two that he reports. One of the chiefs says that "if we came to fee him he would make us very happy ; that there were fome very handfome fquaws in his village, and that each of us would have a wife"
The second one tells him that "fhe head clerk or principal agent" of the Hudsons Bay Company "generally marries an Indian girl, the daughter of fome eminent chief, by which he gains in a peculiar manner the affections of the whole tribe, a matter of great importance." but that "thefe marriages, as may be fuppofed, are not confidered as very binding by the hufband"
And all of that tells me far more about the morals of the Europeans in North America in the 18th Century than it does about anything else
However, why I’m so interested in Weld’s book is because for the last few days he’s been prowling around in areas that I know very well and about which I’ve written in the past. He’s now in Montréal talking about life there in late 1790 and I’m finding it totally fascinating. There are tons of stuff in there that seem to have slipped through the hands of the modern compliers of history.
When I’d finished, I had all of the washing to hang up and there was quite a load of it. The clothes airer was totally full and so was the octopus in the bathroom.
That took so long that there wasn’t much time left to do anything important before I was ambushed by my cleaner.
We’re running low on anaesthetic patches and the prescription is expired so she packed it in my bag and told me to find the doctor who wrote it and ask for a new one.
The taxi came for me and once we’d picked up my usual Saturday voyager the three of us headed off to Avranches.
As seems to be usual, I was left almost until last to be seen. I think that it’s because I seem to be the most complicated, but it’s also the most painful as the anaesthetic has worn off by then.
And once they started we had all of the issues about making the machine work and that took longer than it should.
The doctor was there but he kept a very low profile and as a result I didn’t receive a new prescription. But the nurses – bless them – had a scout around and came up with a dozen or so patches that I could take home.
When they finally unplugged me I made ready to leave but had to wait for the taxi. And I almost cornered the doctor too but he slunk away.
When the taxi turned up I climbed in but I still had to wait fifteen minutes for another passenger. The tightening of the belt is causing a few delays here and there.
Back here the cleaner watched my climb up to my apartment. She thinks that I’m moving much better these days and so I have a cunning plan, more of which anon .
Tea tonight was a breaded quorn fillet with baked potato and vegan salad followed by chocolate cake and lemon flavoured soya dessert.
There are now some radio notes to dictate and then I’m off to bed. I have a busy day tomorrow with soup to make, pizza dough to make and a cake to bake. There’s no end to what I’m trying to do.
But talking about Peter Gabriel … "well, one of us is" – ed … I once met some young musician who told me that not only had he met Peter Gabriel, Peter Gabriel had talked to him.
"That’s wonderful" I said. "What did he say to you?"
"He said ‘what are you doing in my f***ing dressing room?"
