… a proper Sunday should be organised, and I enjoyed every minute of it, for a change.
Despite not finishing my notes and going to bed instead, it was by no means early when I hit the hay. It might not have been after midnight, but I bet that it wasn’t far off.
But never mind. Sunday is my Day of Rest and my aim was to sleep for as long as I could and be awoken by Isabelle the Nurse when she arrived, especially as today we were all treated to an extra hour in bed.
Although I awoke a couple of times during the night, I was soon asleep again, and it was indeed Isabelle the Nurse who awoke me when she came into my bedroom. I didn’t hear her ring the doorbell or open the front door to come in. Considering that I’m supposed to be a light sleeper, what use would I be if someone broke into my apartment overnight?
She gave me my anti-flu injection and then dealt with my legs and feet. Once they had been oiled and massaged, she had to hang around because there was a wait time of fifteen minutes to see that there were no unpleasant side-effects with this injection, so we had a cosy little chat about dialysis.
After she left, I raised myself from the Dead and went into the bathroom to sort myself out. Then, into the kitchen for breakfast – porridge, black coffee, juice for the morning medication and the last of my delicious home made apricot jam croissants. I’ll make some more like that next Sunday too.
While I was eating, I was reading some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1867.
Today’s topic concerns a visit of the group to Llandrindod Wells, and the first item is that of salmon fishing. Apparently a bunch of salmon poachers had been arrested in the river there, and the leader of the group was lamenting the fact that these days, salmon in the upper reaches of the Wye and its tributaries were few and far between.
However, he tells us that "as we have lately seen new and wise fishery laws passed, giving a much better chance to the upper proprietors than they ever had before, by the removal of fixed engines, a weekly close time for nets, and the prohibition of all fishing by nets after the first of September—all which regulations are very much in their favour—we may hope now for a better spirit to prevail. We have heard from more than one member of the Board of Conservators that there is every disposition on their part to act in the fairest and most liberal manner to the upper proprietors, and on the other hand it is fair to expect that they, the upper proprietors, will assist all they can in protecting the breeding fish"
On the following page, he records with pleasure of "Sir J. Bailey’s fishing cottage, then by the Nydd and its far-famed salmon catch of Cavan Shwn Lewis, where it is said Mr Charles Stretton killed twelve fish in one day".
With equal pride, he adds that "A salmon was taken as high up as Newbridge by angling, 39.5 lbs., and several over 20 lbs., and at Holm Lacey, four miles below the city of Hereford, the monster fish of 56 lbs. was caught by the nets …. Two other salmon were caught at the same draught, one 11 lbs. and the other 12 lbs. Numbers of others, varying from 35 lbs to 15 lbs, have been taken, and this season the capture of a 25 lb fish has been an ordinary occurrence."
It seems very much to me that his supposed admiration of the “new and wise fishery laws” and his crocodile tears over the salmon being “few and far between” were really nothing more than window-dressing.
Back in here later, I attacked the outstanding notes, and they are now on line. They took quite a while to do because there was so much of them. I don’t know how, out of a boring day like yesterday, I could have written so much.
One thing that I noticed, though, was that it was warm in here. In fact, the thermometer was showing 23°C. Consequently, I turned all the heating off to let things cool down a little.
After the outstanding notes were on line, it was time for the disgusting drink and the midday medication, and then I was back in here transcribing the dictaphone notes.
.
This is not an unreasonable dream because, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, we did have a travel club, a little group of us … "certainly nothing like eighty though" – ed … but it’s not been as active as it used to be since I lost the use of my legs and began dialysis.
Actually, in real life, the “traffic lights” were the zebra crossing in Earle Street between Tiko’s café and the Cheese Hall pub. However, there’s certainly no luxury hotel across the road from there. There’s a very cheap building with what used to be the old Victor Value supermarket and with government offices on top.
As for Nerina, it really was her in the dream. Her mother was Italian, and Nerina had inherited not only her mother’s cooking but also her mother’s Italian character. It took me a while to come to terms with her somewhat flamboyant emotional side, but once I’d understood the psychology behind it, I found that married life was refreshing and exciting, and, to be frank, since I’ve met other women afterwards, I really wish that things between Nerina and me had worked out better. Anyway, this dream went way, way beyond anything that I had ever experienced with her.
It’s hard to explain what was going on in this dream, but this was one of those rare dreams that seemed to be completely real when I was asleep. And although there is nothing in the dictated notes about this, I can still remember going with Nerina up a set of stairs over a shop to a small, candlelit restaurant with red furnishings and heavy dark oak furniture in the Victorian style, and also getting on board a train made up of individual carriages, although I was with just one other person on that train, who wasn’t Nerina.
And the bit about “busy trying to scratch my head about all of this” – this afternoon, I noticed a scab of some sort on the back of my head as if I had been scratching it so much that it had bled. That wasn’t there yesterday.
Later on, we had more football – this time it was the Scottish Cup between Stranraer and non-league Tayport, played in a monsoon at the bottom of a waterfall in a tornado.
Tayport played with the wind in the first half and made the most of it, going in 1-0 up at half-time.
But class will out in the long run, and in the second half, Stranraer scored three, with this site’s favourite forward, Robbie Foster, scoring one of them.
Greenock Morton’s game against Ayr United was postponed due to a waterlogged pitch.
While all of this was going on, my chatbot was busy researching music for me, and he came up with piles of interesting stuff. He’s done about two days worth of my research for me while I’ve been doing other things, and that’s one of the benefits of artificial intelligence. And based on what he’s found, this programme is going to be a really interesting one, I reckon.
Later on, it was time to go a-baking, and a sunflower-seed loaf was first on the agenda.
While the was proofing, I began to prepare the ingredients for the recipe for the aubergine and chilli whatsit that my chatbot found for me the other day. And after I’d added the sunflower seeds into the bread and left it to prove for a second time, I fried the onions, aubergine and garlic lightly and then tipped them and everything else into the slow cooker on “low”, where they will be festering all night.
The loaf was magnificent. It had risen the highest that I have ever had a loaf of bread rise, and it’s cooked to perfection. As for the stuff in the slow cooker, it tastes wonderful, although before I have a helping of it, I shall have to remember to put the toilet paper in the fridge first. It seems that the measurements for the chilli powder are somewhat exaggerated.
While the bread was cooking, I had a bite to eat – the first food on a Sunday night for ages. It was a small helping of this vegan chilli meal that was on special offer at Leclerc, with a generous helping of steamed vegetables tossed in butter. It was nice, but if it had been sold at full price, it would have been expensive for what it was.
So with the notes now written, there are just one or two more things to do, and then I’m off to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed … with the heating still switched off and the thermometer showing 18°C.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about playing football in heavy rain … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember discussing a football match at (thinks) Llanberis several years ago which was postponed because there was three feet of water covering the pitch.
Whoever the opponents were, I can’t remember now, but they were keen to play the game.
When I asked their manager why, he replied "Llanberis can switch on the floodlights, and we’ve brought a full complement of subs."
