Tag Archives: vegan wellington

Thursday 25th December 2025 – AND A MERRY …

… Christmas to all our readers.

That was something that we would always see on the front cover of our “Beano” and “Dandy” annuals when I was a small child.

A few years later, when I was an adolescent, coming home from the pubs in Crewe late at night, I would see it too, amongst the many cheery greetings written on the walls of the … errr … Gentlemen’s Restrooms at Crewe Bus Station.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I passed my Biology “O” Levels thanks to a careful study of the helpful notes and diagrams on the walls therein and shall always be grateful for their help, but I feel for the current generation of schoolkids who will no longer have the opportunity to do so.

That’s because in anticipation of all of this money coming to the town from HS2 and the new Northern Rail Centre, they demolished the bus station and the shopping precinct. But then, HS2 was cancelled, and the Northern Rail Centre went to Derby instead, so now they have an area that looks like the Gaza Strip after a Zionist peacekeeping mission, with no plans to do anything and no money with which to do anything.

Anyway, I digress … "again" – ed …

So today, I have emulated my namesake, the mathematician, and done three fifths of five eighths of … errr … nothing. And I really mean that too. It’s been the laziest day that I can ever imagine.

No surprise though. Last night, I was horribly late again, as I mentioned yesterday. And so, waking up at … errr … 01:30 was a total surprise to me. I stayed awake for a while too but eventually managed to go back to sleep, where I remained until the alarm went off at 06:29.

It took a good few minutes for me to summon up the energy and struggle into the bathroom, and then I had a leisurely start to the day in the kitchen for the hot lemon, ginger and honey drink and medication. I was in no hurry at all.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I’d been working for Shearings again on the coaches. I’d done a feeder for them from all over the Greater Manchester area into the depot. I had to have a map to find out where I was supposed to be and it was sitting in my lap. However, the roundabout round which you went into the depot – you had to go two hundred and seventy degrees around it, swing very sharply to the right and then very sharply to the left, then in through a door like the door of a house and it was very tight. You had to get it exactly right or you would have problems. However, as I was going round this roundabout, I dropped the map and I couldn’t put my foot on the brake so I had to do this at twenty mph. I was closing my eyes and gritting my teeth all the way and eventually managed to go in without hitting anything. The transport manager was on the gate controlling everyone’s entry. He was in a wheelchair. He said “did you have any trouble picking up at the marketplace in Swinton?”. I replied “not really, but they weren’t very happy but I picked up all the same”. He replied “yes, but they’ve been on to us again about that place”. I asked him what had happened to him that he was in a wheelchair. He replied that during his holidays he had had an accident with a garden roller that had run over him. I thought that that was a horrible thing to do. I then started up the coach and went to look for my bay to unload the passengers.

Well, at least driving coaches is better than driving taxis, I suppose. But that roundabout where you go round two hundred and seventy degrees and then immediately on leaving, the road takes a dramatic turn, but to the right, is the St. Gaud roundabout here in Granville.

There was an occasion when I was doing a feeder around east Manchester for Shearings, and another driver had missed some passengers at Swinton. When I ‘phoned in to check things, they sent me across the city to pick up the missed passengers.

Isabelle the Nurse was much, much later than usual, and she brought us a Christmas gift – a small box of chocolates. It was very nice of her, but they are of no use to me, as they are all milk chocolates.

She had her Father Christmas earrings in today, and they looked quite cute.

She brought with her some dramatic news – at 03:00 this morning we had had a heavy snowfall and when she went out to start her round at 06:00, some of the cars still had a covering of snow

After she left, I prepared breakfast. Porridge and coffee, baked beans on toast with hash browns and vegan sausage finished off with toast and mushroom pâté.

Despite all the time that the beans had been in the slow cooker, they were still quite hard. However, the sauce was excellent. I shall have to find another type of white bean to try. The hash browns, though, were perfection. Just as good, if not better, than shop-bought ones.

It took two hours to make breakfast and to eat it. I was in no hurry here either. It gave me plenty of time to carry on reading A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE.

James Curle has now finished the preamble and the excavations have begun. He makes several notes about the standard construction of many of these forts, as if there was a standard design, and mentions on several occasions that "Hyginus advises …"

And so accordingly, I went in search of works by Hyginus and found that there is a book entitled De Munitionibus Castrorum – “Concerning The Fortifications Of A Military Camp” of which at one time (although no longer) he was considered to be the author.

The book does indeed describe the “correct” construction and layout of a Roman fort and its defences. I actually found an English translation from the Latin but it’s not downloadable as a *.pdf so I’ve been making my own *.pdf version.

Back in here, I lounged about for a few hours and then went for my Christmas cake and mince pie. The cake is also perfection – I’ve never tasted one as good as mine and for a change, it doesn’t crumble into crumbs. The pastry for the mince pies is overbaked and too hard. I’ll have to steam the next one in the microwave before I eat it.

At 16:00, Ingrid rang me up for a chat. Long time, no see. We were on the line for fifty minutes talking about not very much. It’s lovely to talk to old friends, and I miss the Auvergne.

After we hung up, I … errr … closed my eyes for a while – some time, in fact – and when I finally awoke, I just mooched around until tea time.

Tea tonight was vegan wellington with carrots, leeks, peas, sprouts, mashed sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, roast potatoes and gravy. It was lovely too. There should have been Christmas pudding and custard for afters but by now I was totally full and couldn’t manage it.

Anyway, I’m all washed and changed, so now I’m off to bed, hoping that it’s not another one of these 01:30 starts. I want a good sleep.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the … errr … Gentleman’s Restroom on Crewe Bus Station as was … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember when they were opened in 1963.
Crewe Borough Council had advertised that there would be a guided tour around the “facilities” on Crewe Bus Station so I rang up to enquire about the price.
"Two shillings and sixpence" came the voice in reply. And, after a pause, "or two shillings and sevenpence if you want to see all of it. "

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Tuesday 23rd December 2025 – GUESS WHO …

… has been a very busy boy today?

It’s been non-stop from start to finish here today and I’m thoroughly exhausted after all of it. And the worst of it all is that it all started at about … errr … 04:30 this morning too.

Last night was busy too. Apart from falling asleep several times while I was trying to write out my notes, there were the usual man-made distractions and everything else. What should have been an early night ended up at 23:15. Still, it’s earlier than some have been just recently.

Once in bed, I was asleep quite quickly, but not for long. Mind you, 04:30 is later than some have been just recently too.

Round about 05:30, I gave up any further hope of going back to sleep and heaved myself out of my stinking pit. And taking advantage of the early start, I dictated the notes for the joining track for the radio programme that I’d been preparing, edited them and then assembled the programme.

This one was just about eleven seconds over the hour, but editing that out is no real problem.

Just as I was finishing, the 06:29 alarm went off so I scurried off into the bathroom to organise myself and then into the kitchen for my medication and hot ginger, honey and lemon drink.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. I was out at my niece’s and my father was there. A couple of years ago, my brother had been to visit but no-one had seen hide nor hair of him since then. My father and everyone else were talking about going off on holiday – they’d arranged a camping holiday for two weeks, leaving the following morning. I had to go down to Sartilly to pick up their tent ready for an early start. Just at that moment, the door burst open and my brother walked in and said “hello” to everyone. Of course, everyone was pleased to see him but the timing was all totally wrong. Everyone would be off on holiday that following morning. He’d come all this way and no-one was going to stay with him. He said that it didn’t matter anyway. He couldn’t stop because the alternator on his car was giving up. My niece’s husband turned to me and said “while you’re out at the shop picking up the tent, pick up a voltage regulator 1071. That’s the one for his alternator”. I walked out and left them to it and set off for Sartilly. For some reason, I was in a coach, and when I reached Sartilly I found myself going to reverse all the way through the town centre. It wasn’t the real town centre at Sartilly but somewhere else. I was trying to reverse this coach and making a real dog’s breakfast of it. A few people on board were talking about another coach driver, a woman who owned her own business so I immediately thought of Dolly Barratt. I was busy trying to sort out this coach, reversing through this town centre in all this kind of chaos, but eventually I arrived at the shop, which was something like Boots in Crewe. I went in and found the counter. There was a guy serving behind it, and he had a port wine birthmark on his face. Where it was was not in the car part or the camping part, but his post was surrounded all by seeds of flowers and vegetables

The chances of us all being together and pleased to see each other are … errr … somewhat remote, especially as spread out as we are. As for my father, someone would have to drag him up from shovelling the coals in the depths of Hades and that would be rather a complicated task for someone.

What else impressed me was how much of that dream was actually based on real events, people and situations too.

Another thing is that, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, we had another dream, only a few days ago, where I was with my brother and trying to reverse a coach through another city centre. There’s obviously some kind of significance here.

Isabelle the Nurse beamed herself into the apartment at that point. I asked her how her week’s break had been, and she told me that she’d spent the week ill in bed. Now that’s what I call sad. However, she was still smiling, so I definitely want a mug of whatever she drinks before she comes out.

After she left, I went and made breakfast and then started my new book – A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE.

This is the report, all seven hundred and more pages of it, of the archaeological excavations of the Roman fort of Trimontium near Newstead in the Scottish Borders by James Curle at the start of the twentieth century. The book has been described as " … a standard reference work, ahead of its time and still the most decisive work published in Scotland covering this period of Roman occupation, expansion and retreat."

It was an outlier fort, built beyond Hadrian’s Wall and after the Antonine Wall across the Forth-Clyde gap was abandoned, it was heavily fortified, presumably because then it was deep into enemy territory. It was finally abandoned, presumably as untenable, round about 184 AD.

After breakfast, I began the hard work. The first task was to make my vegan Wellington for Christmas and New Year. It’s a roll of flaky pastry filled with a stuffing made of chestnuts, mushrooms and sweet potato. I made one a couple of years ago and it was delicious, so I hope that this one is as good. It took several hours and a lot of hard work to make.

After I’d finished and it was all nicely baked, I was about to move on to the next task, but my faithful cleaner appeared and chased me into the shower. Not that I felt much like it but there was no possibility of argument. At least I’m nice and clean now … "well, clean anyway" – ed …

She had remembered to buy the tomato passata so after she had left, I could make the sauce for the baked beans. I have a feeling that it’s not going to be much of a success, because the recipe seems to need much less soy sauce than the instructions said. But you can’t win a coconut every time. At the moment, it’s all sitting simmering in the slow cooker where it will simmer away all through the night.

Finally, there were the hash browns to make. And after a very hit-and-miss start, I finally got to grips with it and understood what I was supposed to be doing. And these seem to have turned out to be a roaring success by the looks of things, much better than any attempt that I have made in the past. They even held together when I turned them over in the oven.

On top of all of this, the postie arrived with two packages. There still seems to be one missing, but now I have my new quilt cover, veggie knives and giant-sized sieves. My previous giant sieve is destined to go to that great kitchen in the sky because the paint has come off and when I drain my carrots for freezing, it’s leaving rust stains on some of them. These new ones are stainless steel.

All of that had completely worn me out and when I finally came back in here, I sat in the chair and crashed out for an hour. I was totally exhausted.

For tea, when I eventually made it into the kitchen, I made pasta and veg in tomato sauce with a vegan burger, followed by fruitcake and vegan sorbet.

Back in here, late as usual, I ended up having a good, long chat with Liz and so I’m running horribly late yet again. But I don’t mind. I’d rather talk to friends than do anything else so I’m not complaining. It’s nice that my friends still think about me.

But right now, I’m off to bed. Tomorrow , I have a radio programme that I want to do from start to finish if I can. there are also several other tasks too but I’ll worry about those in due course.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my dreams … "well, one of us has" – ed … something in that dream reminded me of something many years ago.
Back in Crewe in the olden days, we had a man who was one sandwich short of a packed lunch (Crewe is full of those) and who thought that he was a suicide bomber. He’d creep up unawares on people and shout " BOOM" down their ears quite loudly
When I went back to Crewe once, after I’d left to live in Brussels, I didn’t see him so I asked one of my friends "whatever happened to the man who thought that he was a suicide bomber?"
"Oh, him!" she replied. "He’s gone off on holiday."

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Tuesday 31st December 2024 – BY THE TIME …

… that you lot read this, the old year will have gone out and it’ll be a new year. For many people it will be a new beginning too, but for many others it will be more of the same old routine.

25 years ago today we were eagerly awaiting the Millennium. I’d given an interview on Belgian TV (in Flemish, of course) a few days earlier and on New Year’s Eve I was sitting in a bar in a motel in a small town on an island off the coast of New Jersey.

We were partying, of course. I was wearing a hat to which I had tied a helium balloon. I’d tied the hat to me all the same with just enough string so that the hat, by virtue of the balloon, was floating an inch or so above my head and it looked really cool.

The Continental USA has five time zones and so we celebrated New Year for New York, then for Chicago, then for Denver, then for San Francisco, and finally for Anchorage.

Once we had celebrated New Year in Anchorage, we all trundled off to the all-night petrol station and convenience store down the road where we bought a big tub of ice cream and with a spoon each, we tucked in. Then a couple of us walked down to the beach and waited for the dawn to break and for all of the hope that we wanted it to bring.

But look at me now, 25 years later. Never mind crossing the Atlantic, I’m struggling to cross my bedroom and my best hope for the New Year is that they can somehow resolve the issue of this painful dialysis.

How the Mighty have fallen.

So if I have any advice for anyone in this coming year it is "if you feel like doing something, do it now, right now, before it’s too late. Because you become much more ill and infirm much quicker than you think."

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, I stayed up last night, loitering around for my own pleasure reading a few web pages about this and that, although not about “the other” of course. That boat sailed a long time ago.

It was 01:00 when I finally crawled into bed and then I slept the Sleep of the Dead until the alarm awoke me. I hadn’t moved at all during the night.

When I awoke though I was in the middle of an exciting dream but the moment I went to reach for the dictaphone it all evaporated, every last drop of thought and that is really a tragedy. I only hope that it didn’t involve Castor, TOTGA or Zero.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and sorted myself out, and then came back in here to wait for Isabelle the Nurse.

While I was waiting, I had a listen to the dictaphone to see if there was anything on it from the night. I was in work again. It was one of the very last days of work before Christmas so we weren’t doing very much. We were sitting around, talking and playing some kind of game that went on round and round the building. after lunch, I was late back. There were already six or seven people in this group. Our boss was there, the big boss of the building. He told us that we may as well continue this game and he’d actually like to play it with us too, so he joined in. Just then, his ‘phone rang so he answered it. It was a woman, asking for permission to be in late tomorrow because her husband worked at Knorr and they were doing something at 09:00. He replied that that wasn’t a problem. Then what he said was that he had a whole host of adverts that he’d cut out of the papers and he was going to ring round and speak to everyone to find out who they were, what they were doing and whether we knew all about them. I had something of a thought myself because my ‘phone number was also in that lot. He made a start and I could see that he was coming closer to my number in this pile. I’d worked out what I was going to say, and that was that this was just simply a way that I could use as an aide-memoire to make sure that I’d filled in all my forms on time and sent them in, and that would be really all.

Whatever was going on in that dream, I can’t think of how it relates to anything that I might know, especially why Knorr should feature in it so prominently. But then nothing in my dreams ever makes sense – just like in real life, I suppose.

Later on, we’d been playing football in a 5-a side football tournament. We were waiting for our final matches to start. My brother told me that his match was in a couple of minutes. I said something like “so is my final match”. We went to our various respective areas of this field. I played my game and when I came back I couldn’t find my brother. I searched and searched but with no luck so in the end I went home. Being back home, first of all I was shouted at for being late and then shouted at for losing my brother but I told the story of the final games and I still don’t think that they believed me but they were becoming completely agitated. Just then we heard the front door downstairs open. We thought “is this him?” I looked out of the door and down the stairs. It was my old black cat. She sat at the bottom of the stairs miaowing for a couple of minutes. I kept on talking to her. In the end she ran up the wall and across into our room. I picked her up, stroked her and took her back into the room where my parents were. They seemed more relieved to see the cat than any news about my brother

This is what I call “unlikely”. There would be no chance whatever of my brother ever playing football. And being shouted at was nothing compared to what would have happened had I lost my brother somewhere.

It was interesting watching my old black cat climb up the wall but she is the only member of my family whom I would be pleased to see. Why the others keep on appearing so often is something that completely defeats me and I wish that they’d move out of my head and make room for some others to appear.

Isabelle was late today. First day back so I imagine that she had all of the blood tests and injections to do. But she was her usual chatty self and she complimented me on being the only person up here to have some kind of Christmas decoration visible to the public.

After she left I made breakfast, and that was when I discovered that I’d run out of bread and had forgotten to make any more yesterday evening. And so I had to have a quick breadmaking session first.

While I was waiting for the dough to rise I had breakfast and read MY BOOK.

Today we are discussing housing, coinage and religion but it is the “religion” bit that is the most interesting, and not for the more obvious reasons either.

It’s long-been a mystery to me why so many Welsh words seem to come from the Latin, even though the words describe some vital item that surely must have existed and had a name prior to the coming of the Romans. Anyway our author tells us, in an aside, that "Celtic religion, in so far as it was descended from the religion of the undivided Aryan stock, was fundamentally one with the religions of Italy and Greece ; and we might expect that it would resemble most closely the religion of the Italians, to whose tongue Celtic was most nearly akin."

There is a variety of early Italian languages, like Etruscan and Umbrian to name but two, that preceded the Latin language. And if the root of these words in common usage was derived from words in one of these early Italian languages that later influenced the Latin language, that would explain everything.

It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. The word for a snake in Welsh is neidr which sounds uncannily like “adder” and a river in Welsh is afon, pronounced “Avon”, so you can see that Modern English has been influenced by words from an ancient Celtic language. Why wouldn’t this work with any other languages?

After breakfast I carried on making the bread and by the time that I finished, I had the best loaf that I have ever made and I was really impressed with that. While it was baking I tidied up around the kitchen and regrettably, dropped and broke one of my best glass storage jars

Then I had to check the radio programme that I’ll be sending off later. And this is that mega-complicated one that took me weeks of thought and work to make. But listening to it, it really does work and there’s a pile of good stuff in it.

It features someone who was born in 1892 and probably never ever met a rock musician in his life but he’s an important personage in the story of rock music, and it’s well-worth a listen. So tune in to LE BOUQUET GRANVILLAIS on Friday or Saturday at 21:00 CET, 20:00 UK time, 15:00 Toronto time.

There was an unexpected visit today. The woman who is President of the Residents’ Committee and who helped me so much with the purchase of the apartment downstairs came to see how I was. She stayed for an hour or so too chatting away. And she was another one who admired my Christmas lights, so I had a moan to her about the lack of festive spirit shown by everyone else.

For lunch I tried one of my new flapjack slices and this batch is the best that I have ever made too. Pushing the mixture down tightly into the baking tray with a potato masher is definitely the way to go here.

My cleaner turned up today instead of tomorrow and helped me into the shower. And once more, it really was lovely. Only five months to go until I can move downstairs and have a real shower.

While I was showering she was cleaning so there’s a nice clean apartment and a nice clean me in nice clean clothes. How long all of that will last, I really don’t know.

Football was on next – Penybont v Cardiff Metropolitan, and once again at the vital moment Penybont threw away a two-goal lead. They went from 2-0 to 2-3 against TNS a few weeks ago and tonight, they went from 2-0 to 2-2. They have now been knocked off the top of the table.

A match played in a howling gale was always going to be a lottery but the Met, playing with the wind and a 6’4″ centre-forward in the second half managed the conditions much better and had Penybont under the cosh for most of the last 45 minutes.

If Penybont have any aspirations in challenging TNS at the top, they are going to have to look at the question of concentration much more closely. They can’t let matches slip out of their grasp like this.

Tea tonight was the last of the frozen wellingtons with a big pile of veg and gravy, followed by Christmas pudding and custard. But as for the veg, the roast potatoes and roast Butternut squash went down really well.

There are some leeks left so at the weekend, it may well be leek soup for lunch. There’s some butternut squash soup in the fridge for tomorrow.

So now I’m going to loiter around for a while before going to bed. Isabelle isn’t coming so I can lie in.
"I’ll give you a ring to see how you are tomorrow morning" she said instead
"No you won’t" I replied. "I’ll be in bed"
"I’ll leave it late then" she said. "About 11:30"
"No you won’t. I’ll still be in bed then!"

Anyway, just before I go, latest news from Bridgend in that Penybont FC’s dog walking service has collapsed.
"Why is that?" I asked my informant
"They have lost all of their contracts"
"What happened?"
"Apparently no-one is letting them take their dogs for a walk, seeing as how they are totally incapable of hanging on to a lead."

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Saturday 24th February 2024 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY …

… to me.

yes, and it’s one of these “significant milestone” birthdays, as several people have been quick to point out, thank you very much.

Not that I’m celebrating too loudly because at my age it’s not how many birthdays you have but how many you have left

However I did like the card that my friend Robert in Shetland sent me – "Seen it all, done it all, heard it all – just can’t remember it all". In my case though, I can’t remember anything these days.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … two things happen to you when you reach my age. The first is that you forget absolutely everything
… "what’s the second thing?" – ed …
I don’t know. I can’t remember.

Last night I remembered eventually to go to bed. Round about 02:00 it was because I didn’t set an alarm this morning. I decided to have a lie in. and I would have had one too apart from the barrage of text messages that started at 08;02. It’s actually quite nice to be popular for once.

Anyway it was 11:15 when I finally arose from the Dead and that’s about right for a lie-in.

This morning’s blood pressure – 17.7/10.0. Last night it was 18.3/10.8 so there was nothing exciting happening during the night to make my blood boil

After the medication I came back in here and began to transcribe the dictaphone notes from the night. We were in some kind of competition or something like that to try to reach the end of the obstacle course. We had several difficulties. The first thing was that we had two young people with us who were perhaps not as committed as maybe I would have liked them to have been. One was a famous singer and she kept on having her photograph taken. She had it once taken at a very inconsiderable point when she should have been singing something for us and a group photograph was taken of us and then, say, the two of them singing or the two of them dancing when they’d been performing a completely different task that the rest of us have been performing, usually on their own. We didn’t win, which was no surprise with those two young people but it was an extremely stressful occasion. But one thing that we learned was that we weren’t the only people who cheated by a long way. The other people cheated by much more than we did. They cheated in real terms and real figures. We of course used to fly the odd stranger in and dress him in uniform, a fire brigade uniform or school uniform or whatever and infiltrate them into the group as a whole, but only after they had died and it had all been over and there was still plenty of work to do. I’d engaged a drummer and he … fell asleep here …

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m actually asleep when I’m dictating these notes. So when I say that I fell asleep, what I mean is that everything suddenly goes quiet and after a few seconds I hear a low, sleeping breathing.

Or occasionally a deep snoring sound, and I’m sorry for not believing you, Percy Penguin

Another thing, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is that even though I’m asleep, dreaming and dictating, I usually have some recollection of a dream that comes back to me as I’m typing it.

But sometimes I have absolutely no recollection at all of them, like the one above. I could recall nothing whatever of it.

In complete contrast to the one below.

I’ve forgotten most of this dream thanks to having to look for the dictaphone that I’d lost in bed. We’d had a foreign girl staying with us. She was one of these people who knew everything and made sure that you knew that she knew everything. I can’t remember anything about it except that we all went to bed at the end of the night. She was sleeping in my room as a child. All of a sudden her alarm clock went off. I had a look at the time and it was 08:02. I suddenly realised that it wasn’t an alarm clock at all but someone sending a message and it was my phone that had given its message signal

In this dream I was in Worcester. My German friend and another guy were busy picking out a tune on a guitar. I was wondering all the time whether to go and fetch my acoustic bass to join in. They carried on picking out this tune but it was winter and we were outside and I was freezing and so was everyone else. Gradually they worked it out and gradually we walked up a hill with the two of them playing this song. We had a small child with us and it was complaining about how cold it was. I was wondering when we’d go to find some food as I was starving. But we carried on walking up the hill. We reached the top and my car was there. I opened the door to my car and a charity collector turned up. He was collecting money so I asked him what for. He replied “for taxi passengers to wish them a happy Christmas and they’d give the money back as tips for the driver”. I put my hand in my pocket and threw in what change I had- about 5.5p. he said “that’s more then 10p” and pulled some strange object out of one of the collection boxes. “I’ll give you the change for that next week”. I couldn’t see what it was. Now this situation i the town is becoming crucial. I thought that we’d drive into the town and go to the railway station to look around for a while. But I was picked up in this dispute by Worcester Council. They, or some other people wanted to change everything from “Wulfrunian” to “Worcester” o the grounds that no-one knew where Wulfrunia was. But I was opposed to that idea because it’s just another “dumbing down” exercise for the UK and they’ll sink to the level of the Americans at this rate.

It looks as if “dumbing down” has already commenced because, as any schoolboy might know, “Wulfrunian” related to Wolverhampton, not Worcester.

And as it happens, I do have an acoustic bass. In all of the various apartments in which I’ve lived in Belgium, I don’t think that I ever had the electric bass out. I probably didn’t play it for 20 years.

Instead, I had the Ibanez acoustic and I could play that anywhere, including in a van and occasionally at Folk Festivals like the one on the Scottish Borders where a few of us from University hung out and did voluntary work.

It was there that I met a few people and had a great deal of fun playing bass with a few different people here and there.

It wasn’t until I was set up in Virlet that I had out the EB3, and of course I play it here along with the 5-string fretless electric bass. Not for nothing have I found an apartment in a building with solid granite walls 1.20m thick.

But the EB3 is a genuine Gibson guitar from the early 1960s, totally original. It’s exactly the same model as played by Jack Bruce. I bought it in 1975 when the group in which I played was going on the road after a couple of months of rehearsals.

It cost me an arm and a leg back them but I’ve been offered a King’s ransom for it and turned it down. They’ll have to take it …. errr … “from my cold, dead hand”.

Later on I’d been on a University course and we were at Nottingham. It was a course that I didn’t like for some reason. There was something about it that irritated me. At the end of the course we were all assembled, given a closing speech and then dismissed. I set out to walk to the railway station. It was along a public footpath that wends its way out of town and crossed over a railway bridge of this really elaborate cast-iron railway bridge that had been a railway bridge a long time before but was now part of the footpath. There was a girl in the distance who had been on the course. She shouted at me and pointed “what’s this area here that looks all desolate?”. That’ son the other side of the bridge, a huge flat area. I replied “that would have been the marshalling yard for the old railway line on which we’re walking”. She made some kind of disparaging remark about Nottingham and said that she didn’t know why she was walking this way because she’d understood from the University that if she’d been on this course you’d have to stop in your own time and look around areas like this. I couldn’t remember any such instruction in the instructions that I’d received but if that’s what she’d received then fair enough, I couldn’t see why she was arguing about it.

This reminds me of an on-line course I was studying. It was an aeronautics course provided by Oxford University. I had immediate misgivings when they began to talk about the Messerschmitt Me109.

Although colloquially it is often referred to as an Me109 it was actually designed by the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke before it was reformed as the Messerschmitt company in 1938 and so the correct description of the model is the Bf109

Not that a thing like that would normally bother me but a University teaching a course ought to get it right.

This morning to celebrate (although I’m not quite sure what I’m actually celebrating) I made myself a cooked breakfast. Some of the hash browns from the freezer, tinned mushrooms, a vegan sausage and some beans on toast with my porridge and coffee.

For once I decided to treat myself, and why not? It’s not every day that you reach a milestone like this.

This afternoon there was football on the internet – Pontypridd United v Colwyn Bay. The bottom two clubs in the League desperate for points to overhaul the teams above them and scramble to safety.

But for a few administrative errors and subsequent penalties, Ponty would have been clear already but they had ground to make up

And they played like it too. There was no-one special who caught the eye but they played as a team, which is a strange thing to say seeing as when I saw them 18 months ago they played like a clueless, leaderless, headless rabble.

On the other hand, Colwyn Bay played like a team already dead and buried. There was no leadership out there today and in fact (for I timed it) it was just over 60 minutes into the game before I heard one of the commentators mention the name of their captain.

Colwyn Bay certainly had a couple of chances and the crossbar will long be rubbing itself where Owen Cushion’s shot hit it, but they spent most of the time trying to walk the ball into the net, without the skill to do so, when they have players like Creamer and McCready who can launch screamers towards the net.

And height! High balls into the penalty area from corners and free kicks that sow panic and confusion into the defence instead of low flat balls easily and monotonously cleared away by the first defender ….sigh

The final result was 4-0 to Pontypridd, a margin that was rather unfair to Colwyn Bay but just underlines the size of the mountain that they have to climb. If you are going to make mistakes at this level you will be punished for them.

At the end of the match I went for a slice of my chocolate cake. I lit the candles on the top but a couple of icebergs in the Arctic immediately melted so I was obliged to extinguish them

But it was nice, chocolatey and gooey. And the cream certainly worked, which was very nice to know. I was worried about that for a while in case it had given up the ghost during the night.

Tea tonight was a slice of my wellington from the freezer, with roast potatoes, steamed veg and gravy, followed by rice pudding. The air fryer did a perfect job on the wellington and roast potatoes.

A real birthday treat that, and I reckon that I deserve it.

So here I am, another year older and deeper in debt as they say. Uma Shanker said "Life teaches us two important things – we are careless when we are young and by the time we get old, it is too late to be careful!" and that’s certainly true.

It was a long time ago that I passed the stage of caring about anything. I’m going to grow old disgracefully.

What consoles me is that half the population of the UK my age or older are dirty old men and I’m going to be like them.

And why can’t I be like the other half? That’s because they are dirty old women of course.

So when I’ve dictated the two radio programmes in the queue I’ll go to bed and plot the course of my life for the next 10 years – my next 10-Year Plan – knowing full well that it will be something that will never ever be fulfilled.

I’ll be pushing up the daisies a long time before then.

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Monday 25th December 2023 – A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS …

… to all my readers. I hope that you had a lovely day and that Santa was kind to you.

This year I shall be changing the habits of a lifetime and I shan’t regale you about the public conveniences on Crewe Bus Station as I do every Christmas, for the simple reason that they are no longer there.

Like everything else in Crewe these days, they have gone the Way of the West and right now Crewe Town Centre is looking like Dresden in 1945 after an Allied air raid.

And that’s a shame about the public conveniences. I have many fond memories of them and in particular about how a careful study of the helpful diagrams on the walls helped me pass my ‘O’ Level Biology so convincingly.

But anyway, retournons à nos moutons as they say around here. Despite going to bed late last night I was up and wandering about at 07:45 this morning – after just about 6 hours sleep.

It beats me what is going on right now – the days when I could have 10 and even 12 hours sleep weren’t all that long ago, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Mind you, I did notice that for one of these medicaments that I’ve been having since my stay in October, one of the side effects is “disturbed sleep patterns” but I don’t think that it’s the sleeping patterns that are necessarily disturbed.

Once I’d organised myself, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Nerina and I were staying somewhere at a hotel, a fairly comfortable hotel. She suddenly announced that she was going to go swimming or to the cinema with some friends from work or something like that at about 23:30. That didn’t bother me but the place needed to be cleaned and tidied as we were leaving. She said that she’d do it when she returned but I told her not to bother. There’s no reason why I couldn’t do it while she wasn’t there. She seemed to want to insist but quite seriously I couldn’t see the point. Once she set out on her way to go I managed to find a polishing cloth etc and began to wipe down the surfaces and the tops of the chests of drawers etc. I had one of these old tape recorder radio things, a Grundig thing. There was a tape of Steve Marriott singing but I can’t remember which group he was in. I put that on to listen to it but the quality was absolutely awful and I couldn’t understand why. It was usually so much better than this. Even Steve Marriott instead of singing was having a really good complain about the quality. I could hear him in between the crackles and whizzes having a really good moan about the state of everything. I just didn’t know why this cassette wasn’t playing properly at all.

It’s been a couple of weeks since Nerina came to join me on a nocturnal ramble, so welcome back Nerina. I know (because it’s been said before) that some people think it’s strange that I’d welcome back Nerina into a nocturnal ramble, but it’s far from being strange in my opinion. Apart from the fact that I actually invited her to share my life all those years ago so she has more right that most to be there, we were in a very bad place at a very bad time with all kinds of very dark storm clouds hovering on the horizon back then.

And given a choice between Nerina and almost anyone else of my family coming along to keep me company, I know exactly who I’d choose

I fell asleep dictating this and I can’t remember where I’d reached. There I was cleaning the room and Steve Marriott on the tape deck of this big Grundig tape recorder-radio thing. The quality was dreadful and I couldn’t understand why it was so bad. Neither could he because while the speaker was crackling and popping I could hear him complain. Anyway I made a start but some people suddenly appeared. There was a recording that needed to be done and could Nerina and I do it? I explained that she wasn’t here at the moment and wouldn’t be back for a while. That didn’t seem to please them at all. They decided to stay. I decided that while he was staying and Nerina would be on her way home from this cinema or whatever I’d go to have a shower. It was one of those where you have to juggle the controls so that it would be correct and then climb over and in to it as if it was the base of a bath.

By the way, for the benefit of new readers, of which there are more than just a few these days, when I say “fell asleep” and “woke up” when I’m dreaming, that’s not actually what’s happening.

At the time that I’m dictating, I am in fact fast asleep but I’ve been doing this for 25 years and it’s become an automatism these days. When I “fall asleep” what happens is that the dictating starts to slur, it all goes quiet and then after about a minute or so we have the deep breathing and, occasionally, snoring (and I’m sorry for doubting you, Percy Penguin).

But when I’m “awake” I’m actually asleep but I’m somewhat conscious and aware of my surroundings and when I transcribe the dictaphone notes later I do have a recollection of some of the events.

On the other hand, sometimes, I transcribe some notes that mean absolutely nothing. I have no recall whatsoever of some of the dreams that I have, like the following, which means absolutely nothing to me. I had 2 overtime Gods or whatever fighting over me trying to drag me this way or that way to go along and work under them for some overtime etc. It was quite an extraordinary dream and it all evaporated when I awoke and took hold of the dictaphone but they were pulling me one way and another one another way offering me all kinds of inducements to follow them and do the homework that they had planned. Instead, I kind-of awoke.

Finally I was back in the Vietnamese jungle or some such. We were running a guerilla unit. I was in the stores somehow. We were sending out patrols. I was trying my best to keep our camp quite tidy but no-one else could be really bothered. Stuff was being dumped in the jungle and I was in despair because of this. Someone would have to come along in years time and clean it all away, old metal skips and everything just abandoned. We were expecting to be pulled out at some time. As we were discussing this the phone rang in the office. Someone went to answer it. I remember saying to people that it looks as if we finally have our orders to go. There was no cheering or anything like that from within the hut so I didn’t think anything of it. Then someone came dashing in saying “for God’s sake try to stop such-and-such a patrol”. It seems that someone has sent them off with the wrong gelignite and it’s 10 times more powerful, they stuff they’ve taken, than what they should have. If they are planting booby-trap bombs with that they are likely to become casualties themselves. Of course there’s no way of stopping a patrol once it’s gone out. As it happened, we were lucky. The captain of the patrol had decided that he would sample some of the gelignite to make sure that it worked correctly. When he did, he was astonished by its performance. A simple lump demolished a considerable part of the suburb of one of the towns that he was supposed to be attacking so he too came to the realisation that he had the wrong gelignite so he and his troop beat a hasty retreat before anyone of the opposition realised what exactly was happening and what had gone on.

So today I have emulated my namesake the mathematician and done three fifths of five eighths of … errr … nothing. I spoke briefly to Liz, Alison and my ill neighbour on the internet, and a neighbour came here for five minutes, and that was that.

So, what about my Christmas food? I know that you are all dying to know how it went

  • The Hash Browns – not the absolute disaster that they have been in the past but they were still a long, long way from where I would like them to be
  • The Christmas Cake – too dry and crumbly, but that’s always the case with eggless cakes. I think that Liz must have a special ingredient that she keeps secret. But despite that, it looked like a Christmas Cake and tasted like a Christmas cake, even if I did have to eat it with a spoon
  • Icing and Marzipanning – not my strongpoint. I can’t do icing to save my life. But the cake was covered with it so what I did worked to a point. All in all, the cake passed muster.
  • The Vegan Wellington – this was superb and a big thanks to Liz for sending me the recipe. There’s plenty left and I’ll be eating it for ever, I think
  • The Stuffing – the chestnuts having been discarded as unfit for human consumption and having to improvise, it could have been a problem. It was dry and crumbly but it looked like stuffing, smelled like stuffing and tasted like stuffing. What more do you want?
  • The vegetables – I was using the electric streamer which is rather hit and miss. Following everything that I usually do, they ended up overcooked. That’s a rare event
  • The Christmas Pudding – Leave the best until last. This was a masterpiece, it really was. Exactly how a Christmas pudding should be. I’m really pleased with this.

There’s no peace for the wicked. The Centre de Re-education is open tomorrow and I have three sessions, spread right out through the afternoon. There’s plenty of paperwork that needs sorting out but I’m in no mood to do it.

An early night sounds as if it might be a good idea but I don’t have the energy to go to bed right now

But that’s Christmas over for another year. I’m wondering if I’ll see the next one. If my health continues to deteriorate like this, it’s unlikely. No-one with this illness has lived longer than 11 years and I was diagnosed in 2015. Time is running out.

But not me. I can’t even stagger out at the moment.

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Saturday 23rd December 2023 – A GREAT BIG …

… “hello” to a certain young lady from my past who has featured in these pages, mainly during my nocturnal voyages, on about a dozen occasions over the previous ever so many years.

It’s pretty certain that she won’t want her name blasted all over these pages – after all, who would really want to be associated with me to that extent? – but she’s found her way here, recognised herself from a few of the remarks that I’ve made in passing, and sent me her best wishes.

So best wishes back to you too!

Also a big “hello” to Grahame who did indeed listen to the wrong track the other morning and wrote and told me about it. I hope that you enjoy the correct version while you’re stuffing your Christmas bird.

And not to forget a big “hello” to Robert from the Orkney Islands who sent me a few photos from 45 or so years ago. And when I’ve recovered from the shock, I’ll post them on here and give you all a laugh.

The reason why I’m mentioning the correspondence here is because all three people wrote to me using a Gmail account, to which I can’t reply. Google has blocked access to its e-mail system from all small independent webservers who won’t put Google’s own code into their sites.

So if anyone receives an e-mail in the future from STRAWBERRY MOOSE, you’ll know that he’s writing on my behalf. As far as I’m aware, his account can still access Gmail.

Anyone else who has written to me recently from a different account will have received a reply.

However, I’m not sure how I managed to do that because even though I was up and about at 09:45 this morning, I didn’t go to bed last night … "this morning" – ed … until after 04:00. I wasn’t at all tired and just couldn’t go off to sleep.

But when I finally awoke, first task was to take my blood pressure.

The dratted box was flaming well sealed shut and took some rather aggressive action to open it. And then I had to wrestle the blasted batteries out of the sodding plastic wrapping and that was a real work of art to do that.

Then I couldn’t open the perishing battery flap in the wretched machine for ages.

And how the hell do you wrap the flaming strap around your perishing arm with only one bleeding hand?

At that point I noticed the instructions – "blood pressure should be taken in a calm, relaxed and stress-free situation" and I thought “maybe I ought to start this tomorrow rather than today”.

Instead, I went to deal with the broccoli.

Firstly, I trimmed off the florets and put them in cold water which I slowly brought to the boil.

While it was heating up, I diced the stalk into tiny pieces, diced a small potato ditto, chopped some garlic and a small onion.

When the broccoli reached boiling point I fished out the florets and put them to drain. Then I put the water on one side for reuse.

Into the saucepan went a knob of butter and when it reached cooking temperature, in went the onion with some coriander, chives and marjoram and fried until it started to go brown.

Then I added the diced broccoli stalk, the diced potato and the garlic and spent five minutes or so stirring it all round before adding enough of the broccoli water to cover the veg – not forgetting the stock cube this week as I had the last time.

When I judged that it was ready, I added a pot of soya yoghurt and whizzed it up ready to eat.

While it was cooking I was topping, tailing, scrubbing and slicing 2 kg of carrots into the giant saucepan.

When the soup was ready the carrots went on to blanch while I ate my soup with the nice crusty bread that I’d bought.

Once I’d had my food I came back in here to transcribe the dictaphone entries from the night. Once again I was dictating into my hand and when I awoke most of this dream evaporated. What I do remember is that I was walking down a street and I came across a group of children whom I knew from somewhere else. They were all having a play around with a couple of other kids. It seemed to me as if there was some tension in the air and I couldn’t understand why. One of them, probably the one whom I knew best had on a swimming costume but had a tailored winter coat over the top of it. That looked quite strange. There was some discussion about milk and so on. Because they were busy having their issues they didn’t actually hear it. Later on when the woman was dictating the report, she said “and there was milkshake too, strawberry, but no-one seemed to want any”.

I think that I dictated that dream about me and all of those kids … "yes you did" – ed … At the place where we were, there were a couple of adults too. One of the adults there was a particularly obnoxious character who seemed to detest everyone and didn’t have a good word to say about anything. He had an accident one day and slipped. He had to be somewhere so one of the girls went to fetch some kind of toy-type of thing like a small horse on four wheels with a handle on which a parent would put a child and pull it round the room for fun. She went to fetch this and somehow the old guy managed to mount it, broken arm and all. She set off quite happily pulling him to his meeting like that. It was one of the sweetest things I’d ever seen.

Later on I was on my way to a folk music concert in Abingdon and had the computer open on my lap for how to arrive there. I was flagged down by a policeman who saw me with the computer open. He wondered if I was watching a film. I satisfied him that it was a map. When he turned it round he could see that in the camera was actually me being shown on the screen. He accepted that that was OK and waved me on again. I drove as far as Basingstoke. As I came into the town there were these 3 great big buildings at the side of the road, one after the other, all completely derelict and abandoned. I thought “what a sight to greet visitors this is”. I parked up and went for a walk around. I ended up in the shopping precinct, a miserable place. But then I couldn’t find the exit. I was wandering around that shopping centre for ages. Then I bumped into Zero’s parents (but unfortunately not Zero). We went for a coffee. They were discussing things that they needed to do. I told them that I’d be quite happy to help so they asked me if I’d make a phone call to Penzance on their behalf. I didn’t know where the phone boxes were. She said “there’s one just outside the centre”. I replied “I’ve been wandering around here for ages trying to leave. Where’s the exit?”. She pointed out some kind of tiny spiral staircase thing. Before I left, we began to talk about other plans. A while ago I’d referred them to a guy who built computers. I asked if they’d had much luck with him. They suddenly realised that he’d never contacted them al all. They were all for contacting him on the spot. In the end we worked out some kind of plan about I’d ring them every morning before they left for work at 07:30 to receive my orders for the day. Then I was wondering whether it might be better if they were to ring me before they left for work. That was where I was busy debating with myself

My cleaner turned up round about now and awoke me from a little siesta that I was having. She had brought with her some more medication that had had to be ordered. Now I really am overflowing with medication and I’ve no idea where to begin. I can see that I’ll have to rejig my entire schedule and it’s going to become really complicated.

vegan wellington Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo 23rd December 2023And this, dear reader, is my vegan wellington.

It doesn’t look particularly attractive but then again, it’s not the culinary disaster that I was half-expecting. It actually tastes quite nice too, if the bits that bubbled out of the side are anything to go by.

That was this afternoon’s task – to make the vegan wellington. It took quite a long time too all told and I was hard at it for several hours all told.

Despite only making half a quantity, there’s still a considerable amount here and there will be plenty left over. It’ll probably freeze for another time, if only I were to have some room in the freezer. No matter how much I use out of there, the quantity never seems to go down.

All that remains now, as far as food for Christmas goes, are the hash browns.

And it’s quite appropriate to talk about them seeing as I mentioned culinary disasters just now. No matter how I try to make them, they never go right. My family in Canada can belt these out by the thousand, perfect every time, but somehow the technique always escapes me

Tomorrow I’ll have another go and see where that takes me. I have plenty of potatoes here.

And I had a smile to myself today. Rosemary has taken the first photograph of her cat.

When I was down there in the summer three years ago there were several feral cats roaming around.

When I was down there in the summer last year it was “don’t let that white cat into the house! It keeps on trying to come in”.

A few weeks ago I was talking on the phone to Rosemary and I asked her to read something that she’d received. “Just hang on a minute. I’ll have to stand up to fetch it. Let me take Myrtille off my lap”.

And today we had the first photo.

No-one I ever knew ever won a fight with a cat.

Tomorrow, for one of the very rare occasions on a Sunday, there will be an alarm call – and at 08:20 too.

The injections start up again on Wednesday and the nurse wants to see the prescriptions beforehand so he knows what tubes to bring for the blood samples – blood tubes are colour-coded depending on what they are testing.

He’s in the building administering to my ill neighbour so he says that he’ll pass by – between 08:30 and 08:45

Then there’s just the hash browns to make and I’ll be as ready as I ever will be for Christmas. I’m really not feeling festive one little bit which is a shame but that’s no surprise. It’s been another year when I’ve been through the mill

But I’ll go through the motions all the same. I don’t know what else to do.

"Me, my thoughts are flower strewn
With ocean storm, bayberry moon
I have got to leave to find my way
Watch the road and memorise
This life that passed before my eyes
Nothing is going my way"

I HAVE GOT TO FIND THE RIVER

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