Tag Archives: zack clarke

Saturday 19th July 2025 – I HAVE BEGUN …

… to move my things downstairs.

Just a few things from the kitchen for the moment – nothing at all exciting, but nevertheless, it’s progress of some kind, having some of my possessions in some of the drawers downstairs.

What I have decided, with my faithful cleaner’s co-operation, is that every time she goes downstairs, she will take with her a box of things to put in the apartment. And then each time that I come back from dialysis, I will sort them out, put them somewhere and then bring the empty boxes back upstairs ready for the next load

But my kitchen really is magnificent. I am even more impressed with it than I was with my galvanised steel dustbin. I can’t wait to move in there for good … "the apartment, not the galvanised steel dustbin." – ed …

Mind you, the benefits of sleeping up here in my comfortable bed can’t be ignored either. I could certainly do with as much of that as I could have too.

Last night wasn’t early enough to enjoy it. As usual, I dillied and dallied and dallied and dillied, lost my way and didn’t know where to roam as I tried to concentrate on writing up my notes, but with not much success. It was almost midnight when I finally crawled into my stinking pit.

However, once in bed, I fell asleep extremely quickly. I didn’t even have time to start, never mind finish my bedtime mantra before I was away with the fairies, although not in any fashion that would excite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine.

For a change, I slept right through until all of 06:27, and then it was a mad scramble to put my feet on the floor before the alarm went off, and I wasn’t convinced that I actually managed it.

In the bathroom, I had a good wash and scrub up, and then I filled the washing machine and switched it on. For a change, everything went into it without too much of a crush. There were no clothes left over at all.

After a slow start to the day with the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a group of us down on the Auvergne. One of the people was the old British guy who died in 2013. Someone was talking about him having taken all different kinds of medication. The side effects of one particular one that he had taken was that it made his hair grow which of course was something that he really liked because he had started to lose his hair several years ago and was trying many different things for it to come back. The quite accidental secondary effects of something incidental was really quite a surprise to him.

It was a shame about him. His fate was what made me decide to come to live in civilisation instead of in the mountains. In that really severe winter of 2012-2013 when we had snow from 25th October to 27th May, he had a bad fall and lay for several days on the floor of his house undiscovered for almost a week when he suffered from hypothermia and never really recovered.

Strangely enough, the first time that I took Cécile out on a date was to his funeral. The first time that she took me out on a date was to the court at Riom where she had been summoned to give evidence against a defendant (and it wasn’t me). No-one could ever accuse us of having boring dates.

There was also something happening too about football matches, about a footballer going back to the club from which he had been signed and how the crowds of people there appreciated his return and how much he was looking forward to playing for the team again after having left in January early this year.

That’s a true story too. In the January transfer window, one of the fastest centre-forwards in Wales was signed by a well-heeled opponent, simply, I suspect, to stop him competing against them and his teal threatening them. They hardly played him and signed several other centre-forwards, I’ve no idea why, and so the subject of our story has returned this last week to the club from whence he came

Finally, I was in my new kitchen again, trying to work out how to bake a cake or something like that. Of course I needed first of all to find everything, which was in a totally different place to how it had been. Secondly, it was a case of how long it would take now that I have a decent oven instead of my old hit-and-miss thing. But even after thinking about that for a couple of minutes, I was still wandering around looking for the clothing for the club’s striker

It’s nice to be in my kitchen at last, even if it is in a dream. But it will be quite a problem trying to find things when I’m finally settled, and it will be an even bigger problem to work out all of the revised cooking times now that there’s a decent oven that (hopefully) will work properly.

Isabelle the Nurse was running late today so she didn’t have much time to hang around. She applied my heat treatment, dealt with my legs and then cleared off. I could then press on and make breakfast, and then read some more of MY BOOK.

We are still wandering around the churches of London today. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday we had a very strange transfer of property for the sum of "one rose at Midsummer, to him and to his heirs for all services, if the same were demanded.".

The strange property transactions are continuing today. He tells us of a property that changed hands for a fee "paying yearly one clove of Gereflowers at Easter, and to the prior and convent of St Mary Overy, six shillings.".

He also talks about someone called William Fitz Osbert, the leader of a large gang of rioters, who holed up in the steeple of St Mary Bow church until he was smoked out when someone lit a fire at the base of the steeple underneath him. He was stabbed in the ensuing melee and captured, subsequent to which he was drawn to a scaffold and hanged.

Stow clearly didn’t like him. He comments that "such was the end of this deceiver, a man of evil life, a secret murderer, a filthy fornicator, a polluter of concubines and (amongst his other detestable facts) a false accuser of his elder brother."

Now come on, Mr Stow, don’t mince your words. Tell us what you really think.

After breakfast, I came in here to assemble the “Sunday Woodstock” radio programme. And it’s now all complete at long last. However, it runs out at about one hour and ten minutes, so it looks as if two songs are going to be filed under CS. I have a good idea which ones they might be, and I can deal with them tomorrow.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m quite impressed by how the three programmes have turned out.

My cleaner turned up to fit my anaesthetic patches and we discussed our (or, rather, my) plans for moving and she fell in with them so we made a brief start before the ambulance came.

It was driven today by the boss, and he had already picked up the woman who travels with me so we had a very interesting chat all the way down there.

At Avranches, the bad news was that they had to carry out a few tests on me before they could plug me in. Consequently, I wasn’t plugged in until 14:40 – which meant being unplugged and compressed ready to leave at 18:00.

None of the doctors came to bother me so I was left to my own devices, and one of the things that I did was to listen to my radio programme to see if there were any errors. I picked up one, and I can soon edit that.

Once I was released, it was a very weary me who made his way to the taxi, and it was 19:15 when I returned home. Having to sort out some things that my cleaner had taken downstairs meant that it was nearer 19:45 when I finally made it back here.

Vegan salad, baked potatoes and veggie balls were on the menu tonight but I wasn’t all that hungry. I was glad to be back in here.

Hopefully, I can have a good sleep tonight and feel more refreshed tomorrow. It’s really dragging these days, this health issue, and I wish that it was over.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about William Fitz Osbert … "well, one of us has" – ed … during his interrogation concerning his actions and subsequent arrest, he was asked "were you stabbed in the fracas?"
"Ohh no" he replied "it was actually in the right shoulder, nowhere near there."

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Thursday 11th July 2024 – I’M LATE AGAIN

and if it carries on like this they’ll be calling me “the late Epic Hall” long before I officially earn the title.

And for a change, I don’t mind being late at all for I have very good re son. It’s “Europa Cup” night tonight and while Connah’s Quay travelled to Slovenia and Y Bala to Estonia to follow on from the game that TNS played against some Albanians, Caernarfon made the long trip down the road as far as Nantporth Stadium on the outskirts of Bangor to take on those giants of European football … errrr … Crusaders from Belfast.

Late nights seem to be the norm these days and instead of moaning about them, I’ll just have to say nothing and celebrate the early nights instead, so there was nothing to celebrate last night.

In fact it was long after midnight when I hit the hay and I settled down for sleep for what was left of the night. And I awoke in the middle of it and took an age to go back to sleep again

Mind you, I was dead to the World when the alarm went off and it was a rather ungainly stagger into the bathroom to sort myself out.

There was blood on the floor too, but I’ve no idea where it came from. It could be anywhere.

Back in there I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We were all going flat out in pursuit of this monster . We had a good idea of where it would be and where it would strike next so we put a cordon round with people just doing ordinary things, nothing suspicious, hoping that whatever it was would pass within this cordon to pick a victim and we could all close in behind it. I was in charge of course but there were lots of other people who were quite willing to take responsibility. My job was the big tree that was the focal point of this little community, which was where probably the most important person would expect to be and that was where you’d expect the final battle to be so they left that responsibility to watch that area to me. And now we just waited around for things to begin.

This looks as if it’s a continuation of the dream from the other night when we were chasing monsters around. And it’s quite rare to have two episodes of the same dream so close together like this. Usually they are months, if not years apart.

And later on I’d gone down to Virlet for a look around and for something. While I was in the house I heard a noise as if a couple of people were searching around in te lean-to. I picked up a blunt instrument and just as I was going to go outside to catch them in the act a guy came through the door into the house. He looked so shocked to see me so I just said “can I help you?”. He just stood there totally open-mouthed as if I was the last person he was expecting to see.

And it would be a shock too if it were to happen, but I’m not likely ever to go down to Virlet again. That’s a chapter of my life that is well and truly completed unfortunately. Someone else can take over down there when the time comes.

Finally I was making a salad. I didn’t really have all that much to go in it but I was listening to the local radio and there was a bring-and-buy sale taking place at the church at Audlem. Someone was selling picked courgettes. I thought that that sounded interesting for a change but I couldn’t really summon up the enthusiasm to go all the way to Audlem. They kept on talking about one or two other things that they had and it all sounded perfectly tempting to me but there were all these excuses popping up about why I shouldn’t go but I kept on finding out answers to these questions and still pointing out (… fell asleep here …)

For the benefit of new readers, of which there are more than just a few recently, when I say that I “fell asleep” I am actually asleep when I’m dictating. I’ve been working as part of this project for almost 30 years. But when I say that I “fell asleep” what actually happens is that whatever I’m dictating tails off into a mumbled silence and then sometimes you’ll hear a little snore or two and I’m sorry for doubting you about that, Percy Penguin.

But courgettes in the Auvergne – they were the only things that seemed to thrive down there. You’d check your courgettes over, think “they look nice, I’ll pick them in the morning” but you’d have a downpour during the night and end up with half a dozen enormous marrows.

Everyone was sick to death of courgettes after a while. We used to pass around recipes (and courgettes) and I for one don’t ever want to see a courgette ever again.

It’s Isobelle the female nurse for the next week or so and she usually brings the sunshine and warmth with her (although I have seen another side of her once or twice that I didn’t realise existed). She nicely and cheerfully informed me that on Saturday she’s going to take a blood sample.

There’s another sample to be take too, so she’ll leave me a little pot on Friday. I have a feeling that she’ll be taking the p*ss too.

After she left I had breakfast and then a look through the notes for today’s lesson. Unfortunately I didn’t get as far as I would have liked and so my enthusiasm tailed off towards the afternoon.

The hospital rang me up about registering for my operation on Tuesday – right in the middle of a crucial point and so towards the end of the lesson my concentration (such as it was) was broken and I was all at sea.

Mind you, nothing new there. I’ve been all at sea for years, up a creek without a paddle for most of the time.

After the lesson finished I sorted out the music for the next radio programme and began to write a few notes. And then we had the football.

Y Bala didn’t do too well, going down 2-1 to Paide Linnameeskond but Connah’s Quay performed brilliantly, winning 1-0 in Slovenia and being set up nicely for the return match next week.

Then we had Caernarfom playing in front of a packed house at Nantporth. And the Cofi Army burst into song after just four minutes when Morgan Owen picked up a pass 20 yards out from the Crusaders goal and walloped it home

They had even more to sing about after 35 minutes when Danny Gosset found Darren Thomas whose delightful through ball was inch perfect for Zack Clarke to pounce on and slot home for the second.

The game though wasn’t a particular spectacle. It was rather agricultural at times bordering on the desperate at the end as the Crusaders threw everything, including the kitchen sink at the Cofi goal but Caernarfon held out to record a famous victory in their first ever match in European competition.

But these results are really good news for Wales because the more successful they are, the higher their coefficient will be which means that they could have more teams in club competition and maybe even enter the tournaments at later stages.

Not to mention of course the money that’s on offer for doing well in Europe. The prize money from UEFA is well-worth having for a small club. A team that’s defeated in Round One will receive €150,000 and if they make it through to the next round they’ll receive at least €350,000.

And then there’s sponsorship, TV revenue, all of that kind of thing.

After the final whistle I threw some pasta into a pan with some frozen veg and tomato sauce. That will keep the lupus from the porte as they used to say in Ancient Rome.

So on that note I’m off to bed ready to kick off nice and early tomorrow morning.

But talking of courgettes reminds me of the guy in the Auvergne who was determined to protect his courgettes at all costs so one night he slept with them. And instead of the fine weather for which he was hoping, it snowed instead.
They found him next morning and he was frozen to the marrow.

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