… late again. Not even going to be in bed before midnight at this rate.
But there was so much exciting stuff on the internet this evening, and we are at the stage where there is only one club from te Welsh Premier League through to the next round of the Cup, and they had a struggle too.
There’s one more team that is playing their match tomorrow and I don’t think that they are in any danger, but you never know. There have been some crazy results this last round or two.
No danger of me being in bed before 23:00 last night either. I’ve given up rushing, stressing myself out, and all for no good purpose too. I’ve decided that I’ll take it easy, enjoy myself and if I have to sleep during the dialysis sessions, then so what? It’s not as it I do much else while I’m there.
So late again last night into bed, and asleep quite quickly too. For a change, nothing disturbed me and I slept right through until 07:00 without moving a muscle.
When the alarm went off I struggled to my feet and went into the bathroom for a good wash, a scrub up, a shave (not that Emilie the Cute Consultant will be there) and to hand-wash some clothes. I have to keep on top of how the wardrobe is doing, seeing as there isn’t very much in it.
Into the kitchen was next for my drink and medication, and remember to take the “Sunlight” medication too. Apparently the doctor thinks that I ought to get out more often, a sentiment that I’m sure is shared by every one of you.
There was time to check the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And to my surprise, there was something in it.
I’d gone to Burma and was living there for a few months. I’d met a young girl and fallen in love with her. After a while I discovered that there was a way by which people could sponsor young people in Third-World countries like Burma. It involved the filling on of a form. I applied for a form and it told me that I needed some kind of form from the Burmese. I went off to my Burmese local council and spoke to a woman there. She found a form for me and told me basically how I should fill it in. She very carefully asked me if our relationship was any more than that of sponsor/guardian to which I hedged my bets rather, although I was sure that she picked up on the fact that there was something going on. She warned me about the consequences if anything like that were to be discovered. She had to find a chair for me to sit upon while I filled in this form. She wandered off and came back with a chair. Then she found that she didn’t have a chair herself upon which to sit. This was starting to become complicated. She asked about my intentions. I told her that I was embarrassed about how we in the West were so rich and had so much going on in our favour yet we deliberately wanted to shut out the Third World from participating in our success. I carried on in that kind of vein for a few minutes. She sympathised, and blamed everything on the EU. I told her that it isn’t really the EU’s fault. It’s the individual countries that are pushing for tighter border controls and cut down on aid to poorer nations, very much forcing the EU’s hand. Anyway, we continued this discussion for quite a while and drifted away from our original purpose which was me sponsoring a Burmese girl.
This is in fact one of the most interesting dreams that I have had and there is a lot of mileage in it, and not just because of my sentiments either.
For a start, it’s not just in the Third World that this lack of resources and assistance is going on. In 2002 I passed through a Navajo Reservation and in 2019 through a Sioux Reservation in the USA and in 2018 and 2019 I was amongst the Inuit in Canada and Danish-controlled Greenland. As well as that, I have on several occasions passed through the Innu lands at Sheshatshiu and the Mikma’q Reservations at Burnt Church in Canada. How these developed nations treat their own ethnic minorities brings shame and disgrace upon them. And I’ve seen desperate poverty that you cannot imagine amongst the poorer people, both black and white, in South-Eastern USA. When I passed through these places, it filled me with shame and embarrassment too.
But falling in love with girls from Burma reminds me of the Burmese girl whom I met in Brussels. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I had a strange e-mail years ago telling me this sad story of how the writer had struggled through the jungles of Burma into Thailand where she escaped and arrived in Brussels on an aeroplane and how she desperately needed papers. If it looks like a rat, walks like a rat and smells like a rat then it’s a rat and I smelled it all right, but my curiosity, which has always been my downfall, was ignited. I wanted to know how she’d obtained my e-mall address and why she thought that I might be able to help her. So we met, and the first thing that I noticed were her clothes – beautifully tailored denim jeans and jacket. Then her hair – perfectly coiffured. This is no fleeing refugee. So once she was in my car I drove her to a little spot that I know where I can check that no-one is following us, because I’m not as stupid as I look, and then took her to a park where we walked and she talked.
And what a yarn she spun me.
But to me, she was well-worth the effort because she really was beautiful. Nevertheless, I was sure that she was trying to entice me into some kind of indiscretion just as I was trying to entice her into my bed. After all, you don’t get something for nothing, as she would find out if she carried on trying. Eventually, after much binding in the marsh, she admitted that she did after all have a passport with her in Belgium, which I had guessed all along, and so I was by now even more curious to find out what was her game. But once she realised that I wasn’t even going to begin to discuss anything without her staying the night at my place, all contact ceased.
In the end I suspected that this was something to do with work. We mixed with all kinds of different company at work and in my official car, and knew all kinds of information that would have been of interest to many people, so it wouldn’t be unnatural for the Service to want to know how easily we might impart this information to people who had no right to know it. But some of us aren’t as green as we look
This dream intrigued me so much that I had a look on the internet at a certain couple of sites and to my surprise she is there, with her full career history, although there’s a gap of four or five years between when she finished her studies – in London, would you believe – and started work in Belgium, which covered the period about which we’re talking. Seriously, I have half a mind to write to her to say “hello” and remind her of our meetings. And how I wish that I could be there to see her reaction when she receives the message.
It’s interesting that the EU figures in this dream too. A great many people blame “the EU” for many things that happen in the World but in fact “the EU” is nothing more than the Civil Service of the member countries and makes no decisions of its own that aren’t provided for in the various treaties signed by the member states or agreed by the Ministers of the member States at the various meetings. And even then, some countries have a veto or can negotiate an opt-out. I have seen with my own eyes Ministers from certain countries (one in particular, of course) vote in favour of a measure that they know is going to be unpopular back home, don’t negotiate an opt-out or a veto, and then when it’s applied and the population is restless, blame “the EU” for the issue. The hypocrisy of many of these politicians is astounding.
That wasn’t all that was on the dictaphone either, but you don’t want to know the rest, especially if you are eating your meal right now.
Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, the nurse didn’t stay long today. He asked the usual banal, meaningless questions and then cleared off quite quickly
With him being early, I was early making my breakfast so I had plenty of time to sit and read ISAAC WELD’S BOOK.
He’s taken to a canoe with his friends, but they’ve been upset in some rapids, so they’ve gone to seek help at a local farmhouse.."The people here were extremely civil; they assisted us in making fresh paddles in lieu of those which we had lost the night before; and for the trifle which we gave them above what they asked us for our breakfasts they were very thankful, a most unusual circumstance in the United States.".
The last few words of that quotation really made me laugh
So having equipped himself and his party with new oars, they set out again and arrive in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania where, disembarking from their canoes on the banks of the Susquehanna River, they fell in with a community of Moravian farmers. He’s astonished to find that the children of the community don’t live at home but go to a boarding school. Then on leaving, live in communal houses, one for each sex.
And the editor of Aunt Judy’s magazine would be quite at home here in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, I’ll tell you that. Weld tells us that "the young persons of different sexes have but very little intercourse with each other; they never enter each other’s houses, and at church they are obliged to sit separate". I’m just surprised that they have any at all.
Marriage amongst the Moravian young people is interesting too. When a young man in the Men’s Home catches a glimpse of a girl in the Girl’s Home and likes what he sees, "it is only in consequence of his having seen her at a distance perhaps, that a bachelor is induced to propose for a young woman in marriage, and he is not permitted to offer his proposals in person to the object of his choice, but merely through the medium of the superintendant of the female house. If from the report of the elders and wardens of the society it appears to the superintendant that he is able to maintain a wife, she then acquaints her protegee with the offer, and should she consent, they are married immediately, but if she do not, the superintendant selects another female from the house, whom she imagines would be suitable to the young man, and on his approval of her they are as quickly married. Hasty as these marriages are they are never known to be attended with unhappiness; for being taught from their earliest ¡infancy to keep those passions under control"
Judging by the number of divorces and so on in the World today, it’s as good a proposition with as much chance of permanent success as any other. But I’d love to see how I would be able to keep my own “passions under control”.
Back in here I had things of my own to do and was so engrossed in doing them that my cleaner took me by surprise yet again. She fitted my patches and then I had a long wait for the taxi while this new system of controls continues to create havoc.
At the Dialysis Centre I was last to arrive so of course I was last connected. And the two girls managed it with much less pain than usual.
That meant that I could have a sleep, so I duly profited. And why not too?
But I still found time to read my Welsh and to tidy up and re-sort some of the books that I have downloaded in the past.
When it was time to go I was uncoupled, compressed and then shown the door where I had to wait a few minutes for the taxi. We were two passengers coming, so we were two passengers going, and I arrived quite late back here.
There was only just enough time to grab a quick baked potato and salad before the football started – Connah’s Quay of the Premier League who won the Cup last year, against Yr Wyddgrug of the Second tier.
It was an exciting match, but it was clear that Connah’s Quay had much more skill than their opponents. That meant nothing because you can have all the possession you like and it makes no difference if you can’t score.
Yr Wyddgrug had a few chances too and should have done much better with one or two of them, but it was Connah’s Quay who scored the decisive goal, in a goalmouth scramble. But I do have to say that if the referee were to have seen the goal again from the camera behind the goal, as we did, it would have been an indirect free-kick to Yr Wyddgrug for offside.
So now, much later than intended, I’m going to dictate my radio notes and go to bed.
But this dream – and in particular my commentary – reminds me of an incident when a cowboy riding across the desert in the USA came across a young girl who, by way of being tortured by the Apache, had been buried up to her neck in an ant-hill
"Ohh do dig me out, please" she pleaded. "I implore you!"
"If I do" said the cowboy, licking his lips "what’s in it for me?"
"Why" said the girl. "Ants, of course."
