Tag Archives: Zoe

Tuesday 24th February 2026 – ♬ HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO …

… me ♬

Yes, another year older and deeper in debt, right enough. And don’t ask me how old I am because at my age, you don’t count the number of years that you’ve had – you count the number of years you have left. And in my case, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s not all that many. In fact, if I see this one out, I shall be setting a new record.

So in preparation for my birthday, I tried my best … "and failed miserably" – ed … to rush ahead with what I needed to do. However, it was still late by the time that I finished, but not as late as some have been. I was in bed by 23:00, which is not bad going these days, although I wish that it could be better.

Once in bed, I was asleep quite quickly. But as seems to be par for the course following a session of dialysis, I was awake quite early. 03:50 as it happens.

And for the first time in a while, I managed to go back to sleep again – until all of 05:00. And after that, I just lay there trying unsuccessfully to doze off again. But when the time came round to about 06:15, I slid out from under the bedclothes and put my feet on the floor.

When the alarm went off, my feet were still on the floor and so that counts as an early start, even if I hadn’t been able to do anything in the way of work.

It was a struggle to stand up and go to the bathroom, but I did manage it in the end, and then I went off into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.

Back in here, I found that I’d already received a few birthday messages, which I then read, with a great big thank you to those of you who had written. And my three friends from our travelling club were online and we all had a chat, including my friend from Munich who is just out of hospital after an eye operation.

While we were chatting, I was transcribing the dictaphone notes from last night.

There had been a body discovered in a shallow grave in Canada. It was of a girl about ten years old. Eventually, the police managed to track down her family – they lived in the Maritime Provinces. At one stage, they had moved out west but the lure of the Maritimes was too strong and they had returned. That was as far as I’d gone before I awoke.

Bodies are being pulled out of shallow graves by the dozen in North America, so there’s nothing new here. And neither is people going out west to the oilfields of Alberta from the Maritime Provinces, especially after the collapse of the fishing industry following the cod moratorium of 1992, something that we have discussed on numerous occasions during our visits around the Atlantic coast of Canada.

It’s also true that most of the families do end up coming back. The pace of life in the oilfields is much more intense than the laid-back attitudes of the Maritimers, so once they have done several years out there and made their pile, they gradually filter back home to work at whatever they can find while drawing on their not-insubstantial savings.

I was with one of my friends last night and we were in Crewe watching the Crewe Carnival. And while I was trying to fix something and she was watching me, another parade went past with all young people. I happened to recognise two or three people in this parade. I’d heard that there was going to be some kind of parade in respect of something else, some march or demonstration, so I wondered if this was it. After the crowds dispersed and we slowly began to walk away, we were walking down Queen Street … "It was Queensway actually" – ed … and there was sunlight with a very fine rain and we bumped into one of the girls whom we’d seen in this parade. I asked her how her parade went and she replied “ohh, the speech by the leader was magnificent and it’s really going to make him grow”. I replied “yes, but what about the parade?”. “Well, maybe there were six hundred people there and it all seemed to go very well” she said. And while I was standing in a queue for something or other, it might have been a packet of crisps or something, another girl whom I knew came along. She tried to take her mug off the counter but she couldn’t quite reach it, so I reached behind me and it was much easier to reach from there so I passed it to her with a smile. She wandered off, but my friend asked me about the girl – who she was. I replied that she was someone from our office. We began to walk down Queensway and I was eating my packet of crisps. I asked my friend what she was doing this evening. She replied that she was going to look for a pair of shoes in some of the shops around the area, so I said that I’d come with her, with the idea that maybe later on, we’d go for a meal or something. Then she began to talk about Margaret, a former employee of mine on the taxis. She said that she went round to see Margaret’s first accommodation which was some kind of bedsit place down one of the back streets off the West End. She said “it has to be worth more than £1000 per year”. She mentioned something about the smell but I didn’t really notice it. She began to think aloud about investing some of her money from her retirement pension into a rental property in Crewe and seeing whether that would make a better return than what she’s receiving on her investments at the moment.

Strangely enough, in our Welsh class later, we were talking about rituals and ceremonies and discussing how many old ceremonies have disappeared in recent times. The subject of Crewe Carnival actually did crop up during this discussion. It disappeared about fifteen or so years ago, which was a shame because at one time it attracted tens of thousands of people to the town.

The two girls – I know them too. The second girl was a girl with whom I worked for a while, and the first one was a friend of a friend from Stoke-on-Trent who came to stay with me for a few days while she was interviewed for a post at the European Commission. The bit about “the leader” sent a chill through my spine, though. There are far too many of these “leaders” around these days and it can only go all pear-shaped.

Isabelle the Nurse came along later and wished me a happy birthday as she sorted out my feet and legs. And after she left, I made breakfast. As a special treat, I had cheese on toast with my porridge, and it would have been really nice had I not dropped both slices upside-down in the oven.

While I was eating, I read some more of MAIDEN CASTLE EXCAVATIONS AND FIELD SURVEY 1985-6 by Niall Sharples.

He’s finally finished discussing pottery, and he’s still no nearer solving the riddles that have been plaguing him throughout the chapter. His conclusions are full of theories and unanswered questions, but at least, his “layering” technique for identifying periods of occupation seems to have produced positive results, even if they aren’t the results that he’s expecting.

Back in here, I went to revise my Welsh and then I joined the lesson. And it passed really well today. All of this revision seems to be paying off, if only I could remember it the following morning. Wouldn’t that be nice?

After lunch my faithful cleaner came to do her stuff and she shooed me into the shower too, so now I’m nice and clean … "well, clean, anyway" – ed …

Liz ‘phoned me later and we had a Rosemaryesque chat that went on for an hour and eighteen minutes. Just a short one today. We discussed lots of things and she promised to send a recipe for a grilled vegetable salad, which I received later.

My niece and one of her daughters ‘phoned me later, as did my friend from the Orkney Islands. I shall have to have birthdays more often at this rate, if I’m so popular.

Once everything had quietened down, I began work on another radio programme but regrettably, I fell asleep for almost an hour – one of those sleeps where I don’t even realise that I’ve gone to sleep until I awaken.

While I was asleep in the early evening, I was with two friends. I’d met them while I was out driving down Chestnut Avenue in Shavington, presumably on the way home to Vine Tree Avenue and they were walking up the hill. There was a house for sale in the avenue and I’d noticed it because it seemed to be remarkably cheap for what it was so I happened to mention it. They looked at it – a big, modern detached home, on sale for £199,000 and it had a big gazebo at the back. The wife liked the look of it so the three of us went into the garden. She was worried that we had no authorisation but I told her that it didn’t matter. I’d simply pretend. As we walked up to the house, we noticed that there was no path and the lawn towards the front door was badly eroded. But as we walked, it became steeper and steeper and more and more eroded until we found ourselves on the roof. There seemed to be no other way in, despite how it looked from the road. And the roof seemed to be all old slates rather than the nice, neat tiles that we’d seen from the road. We eventually found our way inside, and it didn’t seem to be so bad, but there was someone else in there showing another couple around. He was telling them “you’ll probably get this place for £130,000 because … ” and then he mumbled something that I didn’t quite catch. I asked him to repeat it but before he could, I awoke.

Whatever this is about, I have absolutely no idea. I can’t think of anything that has cropped up recently that will have triggered this off.

Tea tonight was a lovely vegan vegetable stir-fry with noodles followed by a slice of fiery ginger cake with thick custard. And “fiery” is definitely the correct word to use here. I’m well-impressed. Isabelle the Nurse had asked me if I would be putting candles on my cake, but I told her that with climate change, global warming and all of that, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. Mind you, my breath alone after eating that will contribute to a rise in planetary temperature, I imagine.

But now, I’m off to bed to sleep off my rather large meal. I couldn’t resist all of that lovely food, no matter how ill I might have been feeling.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my friend from Munich … "well, one of us has" – ed … the doctor came to check up on him this morning.
"How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Four" replied my friend
"Good" said the doctor. "Now come with me" and they both went outside.
"Now what’s that?" said the doctor, pointing up into the sky
"That’s the sun, of course"
"Well, that’s ninety-three million miles away from here. If you can see that far, your eyes must be good enough to go."

Thursday 22nd January 2026 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day it’s been today.

And for a change, I’m not going to start with “As I have said before …” because you are probably just as fed up of reading it as I am of typing it and as I am of it happening.

But I really was quite ill yesterday. As I mentioned, it was some time shortly after 20:00 (and had I not fallen asleep in the chair after I’d finished my notes, it might well have been not so long after 20:00 too) when I climbed into bed, fully clothed, threw the bedding over me and went straight to sleep.

And there I stayed until all of … errr … 02:30.

After that, I lay there, trying to make myself as comfortable as possible and, if possible, go back to sleep but, I thought, without much success. However, it certainly wasn’t four hours later when the alarm went off at 06:29, so at some point, I must have dozed off to sleep for a couple of hours without realising it.

It took quite a while, much longer than it ought, to extricate myself from underneath the covers, and then I staggered into the bathroom. At least, I was feeling a little better than I was last night.

In the kitchen, I made my hot drink and took my medication, and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

I was in the USA last night and had ended up in a motel where I was waiting for my friends to arrive. The receptionist was a rather simple boy who couldn’t speak very well and I had a great deal of difficulty understanding him. There was an old black-and-white film on the television about a group of people, men and women, who were escaping from somewhere. One or two of them were caught and were rescued. The film was probably from the early 1930s and it was an interesting one so I was trying to watch it but this boy kept on interrupting me. He mentioned something and I said “well, that’s pretty small beer really” to which he said “yes, we have nine of those”. Then he had to open the door for the stairs up to the rooms to let a dog out but the dog came down, looked around, and went back upstairs again so he closed it. At some point, I’d left the motel and ended up in Montreal. I went to look at this huge basilica that was built of brick and was going to photograph it but I couldn’t find a place to park the car. Everywhere was “no parking” and there were one or two police patrols so I thought that I would have to come back and do this on foot again, but I couldn’t think when I’d be able to. I drove a little out of town to try to find a place to see if I could have a good view with a telephoto lens but I noticed that time was running on so I had to abandon that idea too. Then I was walking back to the railway station. The streets were crowded and I was trying to watch this film as I was walking but the film kept on freezing and when it began to move again, it had actually finished. It was really disappointing for me that I’d missed the end. But outside one of the big stores in Montreal was a guy with a barrow with all kinds of things on it from the store such as pencils, paper, writing pads, sweets and everything. As I walked past, I thought that maybe I’d buy a bag of sweets or something to take with me on the train. I thought that I had five minutes so I nipped into the store. It was something like Woolworth’s or British Home Stores. Despite a good search, I couldn’t find where all of the sweets were and I began to feel rather disappointed that I’d have nothing to take with me on the train.

There’s a story about a motel in Flagstaff, Arizona, where I stayed in 2002, that relates to this, but the World isn’t ready to hear it and I doubt if it ever will be. As for the basilica, the big brick-built basilica is actually the Basilique Nationale du Sacré-Cœur at Koekelberg on the northern edge of Brussels and although the view of it and its situation that I had in this dream is nothing like its actual situation, it’s very similar to its situation in a dream that I had a few months ago.

I’d been to Manchester with my niece’s eldest daughter. We’d been roaming around the different TV studios. We’d seen several performances being recorded and we’d even seen a football match taking place in one of the studios there between Llanelli and Y Barri. On the way back, we bumped into one of my father’s friends from Winsford who asked us if we’d had a good time, what we’d done and where we’d been. I noticed that gradually he was separating my niece’s daughter from me and having a very intimate chat with her at the other end of the street. I wondered what was happening between the two of them and what was going on.

This is a kind of situation that I could easily imagine, had it been a different girl (not a daughter of my niece) and a different friend of my father. But the indoor football match is “interesting”, to say the least. There are very few full-size indoor stadia in the World, and certainly none in the JD Cymru League.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in as usual to sort out my legs. She was her usual chatty self but didn’t stay long. I could then go on to make breakfast and read some more of A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE

James Curle is still telling us about pottery – it seems that there’s a long way to go in this. And I’ve learned two interesting facts about Roman pottery –
Firstly, pottery from the earlier period of the occupation at Trimontium (up to, say, 120 AD) is of better quality than the later period (from, say, 140 AD until 180 AD). That’s unusual. You’d expect it to be the reverse.
Secondly, even in 1909, the examination and cataloguing of Roman pottery had reached such an intense degree that even without the potter’s stamp on his wares, they were able in many cases to identify the potter, his workshop and even the period during which he was working.

Back in here, I had a few things to do and then I made a start on writing the notes for the next radio programme. But I had noticed that my health was starting to slip back again and my cough, which had calmed down for a moment, had now returned with a vengeance.

My cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic, and after she left, I waited for the taxi to take me to dialysis, all the time feeling weaker and weaker.

It was actually quite a struggle to walk to the car and even more of a struggle at the other end to walk to my bed. By now, I was freezing cold and eventually, they were obliged to bring me a blanket.

That made very little difference, so they took my temperature – thirty-seven point seven degrees. The nurse telephoned the doctor, who told her to check it again in an hour.

After an hour, during which I became even worse, she checked the temperature again. This time, it was thirty-eight point four degrees. She telephoned the doctor again and Emilie the Cute Consultant came a-running.

She performed various examinations (including a Covid test, which was negative) and took several samples and said that she’d let me have the results tomorrow and that she’d send any prescription necessary directly to my chemist.

When the taxi came for me, I could barely walk out to it. It was a most undignified stagger. However, I made sure that the driver wore a face mask because I don’t want to infect her with whatever I’ve caught. When I sent my message to my cleaner giving her an idea of when I’d be back, I told her to wear a face mask too.

While I was at it, I sent a message to Isabelle the Nurse to tell her to wear a mask when she calls tomorrow. I don’t want her to spread my viruses around her patients.

When I arrived back here, it was 19:20, and by 19:25, I was in bed, fully-clothed yet again. There was just time to take off my shoes, but no time (or desire) to make any food. Once in bed, my cleaner threw the quilt over me and went on her way, and I went straight to sleep.

Round about 23:30, I awoke, and thought that it might be a good idea if I were to post an entry to say that at least, I’m still alive. Alison must have read it quite quickly because we ended up having a little chat about our health problems. She has a few of her own right now. We’re all growing old and it’s sad.

After that, I settled down again and waited to go back to sleep.

But before I doze off again, seeing as we have been talking about face masks … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once asked someone why it was that doctors and nurses always wear face masks around the hospital.
"Is it to prevent the spread of infection?" they asked.
"Oh no" I replied. "It’s that if ever they make a mistake or do something wrong, you can’t identify them and bring them into Court."

Sunday 16th November 2025 – WHEN ISABELLE THE NURSE …

… came round this evening, she made some remark about the delicious smell in the kitchen.

It wasn’t me, of course. I was in the office. However, I did reply, saying "I’m not surprised. There’s a cake baking in the oven."

That’s right, people, I’ve been a busy boy yet again this afternoon.

Not that I felt much like it, however. I’ve been feeling better today than I was yesterday and on Thursday, but not by much. However, if I don’t do things around here, no-one else will.

With it being a Sunday, I was anticipating having a decent lie-in. After all, Sunday is a Day of Rest and the alarm doesn’t go off until 07:59. And if it wasn’t for the nurse coming round, it wouldn’t be going off them.

So last night, I made a determined effort to be in bed rather early, and once again, I failed miserably. By the time that I’d finished everything that needed finishing, it was just after 23:15 when I finally slid in between the sheets ready for my long lie-in.

But so much for that. Despite going to sleep quite quickly, it was all of … errr … 06:15 when I finally awoke. That’s an early start for a weekday, never mind a Sunday.

Anyway, I hauled myself out of bed and into the bathroom for a good scrub up. Next, I went into the kitchen to make my hot honey, ginger and lemon drink, and used it to wash down the medication.

Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I’d been out with someone, a guy. We’d been roaming around everywhere. He suggested that we went round to the house of his family to stay the night seeing as we were in the area. We made our way to his house and walked inside. I went in, “I’m so-and-so’s friend. My name is Eric” but I stopped in mid-speech because there were probably about thirty people in this living room, young people of all different age groups. It seemed that they were spread out over sofas and chairs and everything as if they were somehow camping there to spend the night. We had a brief chat with them, and people squeezed up to let us perch on sofas and arms of settees. Somehow, we all managed to drop off to sleep. Next morning, it was fairly late when I awoke and there were a few other people still asleep, a few people awake and talking. I remember someone saying, while pointing to a young girl at the far end of the room, that she spent much of the middle of the night talking about her family in Australia. I replied “I don’t remember anything about that because I crashed out straight away until right this minute”. They all replied “yes, we noticed”. Later on, we were out and the guy with whom I’d been wandering around the previous day was showing his photos to me, all these beautiful buildings. I didn’t remember passing those buildings with him, and I wish that I had taken some of those photos because the buildings were really beautiful. We ended up in some kind of big shop and I bought a baguette, a long baguette but it was very soft. Then, I looked around and one or two other people from this had bought baguettes too and were walking around with them. But I’d been nibbling mine in between because I was really hungry by this time. The dream then moved on and I was in a hospital. I took advantage of an empty bed by sitting in it, starting to write my blog for the previous night because I remembered that I hadn’t written it yet. I began to write it out by hand but then thought “should I fetch the computer?” but I looked around, and no-one else in this ward had any computer or anything like that so I went back to start to write it out by hand. However, I wasn’t comfortable and couldn’t read my own writing in the end. I noticed that one by one, these people were being called for interviews. I thought that these beds must be here for a doctor’s queue or something, and people could lie down on the bed while they were waiting. I wondered what would happen to me once everyone in this hospital realised that I’d been there for a long time trying to write out my blog and didn’t have a single medical appointment at all.

Later on, I remembered that one of the reasons why we’d gone out next morning was for me to go to the van to fetch my rucksack with the computer etc in it.

This was an interesting dream, right enough. Regular readers of a previous version of this rubbish will recall that I once stayed in a house like this with so many other people staying there that we had to chisel out a little corner of floor space for ourselves.

The hospital, I imagine, relates to how we are arranged at dialysis. But the photos and the baguette don’t seem to relate to anything much, although in the past, I’ve been on trips with people and their photos have been so radically different from mine that I was certain that they had taken them in different places to those that we visited together.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up and took my blood pressure while I was seated in the office. It saves her having to wait five minutes after I’ve moved about, because if I move, the blood pressure needs time to stabilise.

She also sorted out my legs and left to carry on with her rounds. I could go to make breakfast – porridge with two of the croissants left over from last weekend. And the croissants were delicious. I shall definitely make more of those.

After breakfast, I had a footfest to watch. I’d seen all of the matches in Wales, but there was Stranraer v East Kilbride. East Kilbride, having been promoted from non-league for this season, are making Scottish League Two look easy.

And despite Stranraer’s improved form of late, East Kilbride hardly broke into a sweat but still managed a comfortable 3-1 victory.

Greenock Morton are also having a poor season. They were playing Ross County last night and the game was televised. Once more, Morton made it look easy and ran out comfortable 3–0 winners. So why can’t they play like that every game?

After a disgusting drink break, there were things to do.

The array of back-up disks isn’t working very well at the moment. It’s switching on, but cutting out before it begins to run. It’s difficult to know which USB cable powers it because there are (at the last count) fifteen plugged into this computer.

Consequently, I unplugged all of them and, by plugging in one at a time and checking the File Manager, I managed to work out which was which.

And so I unplugged them all again and this time, I labelled them before I put them back. And having plugged the array into a USB 3.0 connection instead of a USB 1.0 as previously, everything worked fine.

For half an hour or so, I played with the radio programme, dictating the notes that I wrote to the other day ready for editing.

Later on, I went into the kitchen. I had bread, pizza and cake to make. I’m going to keep up with this idea of a high calorie, high carbohydrate cake to fill me up when I’m leaving other food on the plate.

Today’s cake was ginger, almond and coconut.

The bread and the pizza were excellent, and the cake is magnificent. When Isabelle the Nurse came back for the evening’s blood pressure, she said that she thought that it smelt excellent. When I took it out of the oven, she said that it looked excellent too.

While I was eating my pizza, I was chatting to my niece’s eldest daughter. She was at home, sitting on her sofa with her dog just chilling out before she goes to make supper – roast chicken with mixed vegetables. I haven’t seen her for ages, and it must be her turn to come to see me soon.

But I’ll worry about that another time because I’m off to bed for a good sleep … "he hopes" – ed …

But seeing as we have been talking about cake … "well, one of us has" – ed … a girl from Crewe went to the doctors.
"Doctor" she began "It was my birthday yesterday and my friends made me a cake. But ever since I ate a slice, I’ve lost the vision i my left eye."
"I’m not surprised" said the doctor. " I can see what’s wrong from here. When you go to eat another slice, blow out the candles first and remove them from the cake."

Saturday 3rd May 2025 – THAT WAS SUPPOSED …

… to be one of the easiest sessions of dialysis that I have ever had, with only 1.6 kg of fluid to be removed. However, it’s totally exhausted me and in a few minutes I shall be off to bed.

It probably wasn’t the early start that did it – after all, being up and about at 06:20 is pretty much par for the course these days. And as well as that, it was a comparatively early night last night – in be by 23:30.

What with one thing and another, I had had a good session at the work that I needed to do after tea last night and I didn’t hang around at all. I suppose I could even have been in bed before than had I applied myself.

Once in bed though, I remember very little of the night until, once more, I had rather a dramatic awakening for no good reason at about 05:55.

Try as I might, I could not go back to sleep and, checking the time once more, I nipped out of bed just before the electric water heater switched off.

After a wash and shave (in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon) I went for my medication, sitting at the table when the first alarm sounded at 07:00.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a group of us, including my father, in a car driven by some young lad whom we knew. We’d come by Leighton Hospital and on the old road cut-off there was a Sherpa minibus. It had a taxi radio aerial on the roof and another one bolted onto the back door. I had a quick look but couldn’t see a taxi plate on it so I suspected that this one was operating illegally. We carried on down the hill towards Pym’s Lane, and this Sherpa caught us up. It was probably half an inch from our back door but we were probably doing about fifty mph. As we reached the bottom and began to come back up the hill the Sherpa became even more aggressive. We told the driver “take your foot off the throttle”. The driver took his foot off the throttle and the Sherpa drove straight into the back of it. Of course, we stopped and he stopped and we all alighted. We could see the driver of the Sherpa beginning to panic. He tried to escape but my father reached in through his window and took the keys out to stop him driving off. We made him alight from the vehicle to talk to us about the accident. In the meantime the young lad who owned the car had set up some kind of workshop at the side of the road with all his tools. He was busy preparing stuff to make a running repair of the damage. I was impressed by all of this. He said “well, I have nowhere else to keep it except in my car”. I replied “it won’t be long before you have your own place, and then you’ll find somewhere”. I’d been to the new place that he had bought. It was a tiny two-bedroom flat much smaller than mine. He would have a great deal of difficulty putting stuff into it. He took the top off a tube of something or other but dropped the top and someone nearly walked on it. We were all there, becoming busy while my father and one or two of his friends were stopping this guy from driving away.

This was an extremely realistic dream. The road layout was just as I remember it from when I lived in Crewe and Winsford and travelled that way regularly back in the 1970s and 80s. But once again, someone from my family seems to be involved in one of my dreams, even though there was nothing at all from which I might have needed saving.

Then later on, there had been a group of us. We had been for a walk in the hills over by Macclesfield. We were walking around there looking at all the mountains on the horizon, trying to identify them, which was which, which were the fields beyond it. We were trying to identify where the Salt Way, the ancient road over the hills between Cheshire and Derbyshire went. We were all pointing out amongst this group of people what we’d seen and where we’d seen it. I’d had a really good view five minutes earlier and I told everyone about it. They all came back but we couldn’t see it, or I couldn’t find it again. We ended up on a pub car park, looking. Just then, a group of five motorcyclists and their pillion passengers pulled up. The riders alighted and we noticed that one of the riders had the most enormous feet you have ever seen. They parked their motorcycles anywhere, one of them in the middle of the road. We thought that it wasn’t the best place to leave it. They went in but we were all sitting around a table outside. The manageress came out with the notepad and wanted to take our orders. She ran through the menu. One of the girls with us said that she would have a “Vegan Delight” but she would be horrified if she knew how much it was going to cost. The woman said that the devilled kidneys alone were £31:00. nevertheless the girl ordered it. I ordered the “Vegan Delight” but without the kidneys.

A few of those people I recognised – members of my Welsh class. What we were all doing walking over the moors at the back of Macclesfield I really don’t know either. But the biggest puzzle about this, something about which I am still shaking my head, is whatever would devilled kidneys be doing anywhere near a “Vegan Delight”. It’s no surprise that I eschewed them.

The nurse didn’t have too much to say for himself this morning, although he was not at all happy when I told him that he needed to be here at 06:45 on Monday morning at the latest. He told me to go to bed in my compression socks, which was what I suspected that he would say.

After he left I made breakfast. And my new mini-loaf is really, really nice, just as it should be. As far as MY BOOK goes, we are still in the Tower of London having the guided tour. I’ve long-since abandoned any hope of having any military architecture explained to me.

Back in here, I had a few bills to pay. There’s still no earthly reason why this monthly standing order won’t go through. Whenever I go to pay it manually, it automatically inserts my bank details so it must have them on file somewhere.

There was also a sum of money to transfer from my Canadian bank account for my great little niece (or little great niece)’s graduation from University, which is tomorrow.

There was time to start writing the notes for radio programme 260403 but I didn’t go very far before my cleaner came round to fit my patches.

After she left, I waited (and waited, and waited) for the taxi to turn up. Eventually it arrived and we set off, picking up someone else along the way. I was the last to arrive and so was the last to be connected. But there was only 1.6 kg of fluid to lose today so it was a session of three and a half hours. Imagine how early I could have been out had I been first to be connected up.

For a change, it wasn’t me who had a crisis in there. It was someone else. The nurse explained to me afterwards that she had been coming for several years and was now on the final downhill slope.

No-one bothered me and the machine behaved itself. I revised my Welsh while I was waiting.

Julie the Cook uncoupled me and while she was compressing me, she showed me some photos of a cake that she had baked. It looked lovely, a kind-of flan with fresh summer fruit on a cream base.

The boss came to pick me up this evening, and the poor woman who had come down with me had had to wait half an hour for me to finish. I felt awful, even though it’s not my fault.

After the taxi driver drove away, I realised that he had taken my jacket with him in the boot of his car. He brought it back later on, full of excuses. I told him that my cleaner was most upset about it and wanted a word with him so he made a quick getaway.

Tea was a baked potato with vegan salad, delicious vegan mayonnaise and breaded quorn fillet followed by vegan chocolate cake and soya dessert.

That was followed by a lovely chat with my niece and her three daughters who are in Antigonish ready for the Graduation Ceremony tomorrow. How I wish that I could be there. Antigonish is a lovely little town – I went there on several occasions when her elder sister was studying here – and it would be a lovely day. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I remember bouncing Amber up and down on my knee as a tiny baby (Amber, not me) when she was just a couple of months old in 2003 that winter that I spent in Canada. It’s hard to believe that she’s graduating from University.

Right now though, I’m feeling pretty miserable so I’m off to bed. It’s a good job that there’s nothing to dictate because I would not have felt much like doing it.

But seeing as we have been talking about Julie the Cook … "well, one of us has" – ed … regular readers of this rubbish will recall that she appeared a couple of weeks ago in one of my nocturnal rambles.
So this afternoon I told her "I dreamed about you the other night"
"Did you?" She asked
"No" I replied. "You wouldn’t let me"

Monday 24th February 2025 – THEY SENT THE …

… minibus for me again today to bring me home.

It is a free service, I’m well-aware of that, but it’s even more complicated and difficult for me than climbing into an ambulance. Next time I see the driver who thinks that he runs the show I’ll have to have a word with him about it and see what they can do.

My faithful cleaner said that seeing as it’s my birthday today, given the amount of money that I help put into the owner’s pocket, they should have sent a Rolls Royce for me.

That’s right people, another year older and deeper in debt. Seeing the start of another year that, back in the summer, I honestly never thought that I would see. I was in all seriousness preparing my funeral.

Thank you all once again for your unwavering support over the last twelve months. It means a great deal to me to receive your messages, those of you who write to me. Why don’t some of you others drop me a line too?

So last night it was another late night going to bed – just about midnight in fact, and I could have done with being in bed a couple of hours earlier, that’s for sure.

As it was, it was another turbulent night just like a few of the others just recently, and the tempest that began at 04:00 and started to rattle a sign on this building with a noise that awoke me and stopped me going back to sleep was all that I needed.

It goes without saying that when the alarm went off I was already up and about. And I even remembered to shave and to change my clothes too just in case Emilie the Cute Consultant is there today.

After I’d taken the medication I went to have a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. I was at dialysis last night lying in my bed watching a couple of the nurses working. One of them was Julie the Cook. She seemed to spend most of her time folding up sheets and putting them away in a cupboard which I’ve no idea why

That’s something else that I could do without. It’s bad enough having to go there during the daytime, never mind during the time when I’m supposed to be relaxing.

There was also something going on where I was discussing the rules of inheritance with someone, leaving money to the first-born which I suppose makes sense if it’s something like a farm but I can’t see what other reason it makes for anything else

This relates to a conversation that I’d had with Rosemary the other day. Inheritance Tax is a hot topic in the UK at the moment but I can’t see why it’s a worry to anyone over here. And then, when you are dead and Inheritance tax is applied to your wealth, you are in no position to worry about it.

Finally I was in Paris with a couple of people and they had been giving me the run-around so we set out to go to Lille or to Leuven or somewhere. When we arrived in the railway station I managed to give them the slip and abandon them. Walking around, I came to the shopping centre which was up 25 flights of stone stairs. There was a large flight of stairs that went up from the street but if you went round the corner into the forecourt of the railway station there was a flight of stairs there which weren’t so many which I hadn’t noticed until today so I set out to work out how easy it was to go up these because there were fewer of them. I did my trick of hauling myself up with my arms. Everyone was watching me and a few people walking up quicker than me were looking at me. I reached the top where there was a convenient handrail for me to pull myself up right outside the door of the flower shop there. I could see the flowers, I could see the shop assistants and everything selling. For some reason or other I was doing something with the coins in my pocket but I don’t know why. But when I’d made it up to the top of the stairs I was really unsteady on my feet and thought for a minute that I’d end up falling backwards all the way down again.

Twenty-five stairs is a familiar number, isn’t it? And having to haul myself up them three times per week at least is something that I won’t ever forget even when (if) I am living downstairs and no longer have to do it.

The nurse was in and out in a flash today. He’s off on his break now for a few days so I suppose that he doesn’t want to hang around. I could make breakfast and continue to read MY BOOK

Today we are discussing contemporary earthworks and he finds a great deal of amusement in some of his colleagues having mis-identified some contemporary slit trench for a Neolithic burial pit. I shall be waiting with bated breath for the omelette sur le visage moment.

Seeing as it’s my birthday today I emulated my namesake the mathematician and did three-fifths of five-eights of … errr … nothing for a couple of hours. I just stirred a few papers round with no great urgency and spoke to several friends on the internet, who had contacted me to wish me well, which was nice of them.

My cleaner, who had popped in earlier for the list of medication, came back with some of the supplies and to fit my anaesthetic patches. Then I had to await the taxi.

Late again leaving, the other passenger in the car was even later so we had to drop him off first, right across town at the Clinic. So I was very late arriving for dialysis.

Not only that but there were six other people who had arrived simultaneously and I was as usual the last. Then we had to run through a handwashing demonstration to waste even more time.

Plugging in was slightly less painful than normal, and then I reviewed my Welsh, although there’s no lesson tomorrow as it’s half-term.

The doctor in charge came to see me. There’s no real indication of anything that might be causing these sweats, so he said.

He did have two items of good news for me and as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

Firstly, this new dialysis centre in Granville is all systems go and will be open within a year. Secondly, as things stand I would be one of the patients to be transferred there. So that will save me about four hours per week.

While he was there, I tried to negotiate a reduction in hours. My weight seems to be stable right now compared to how it was, so I wondered if instead of reducing the machine’s power they could reduce the hours that I have to spend.

His reply was that it’s not as easy as that but he’ll check the analysis and see what it says.

While I was there I had a video chat with my niece, her husband and one of her daughters in Canada. That was a lovely surprise, one of the many highlights of my day.

When they finally threw me out we had the pantomime with the minibus but I managed to enter it in a slightly more dignified way than the other day. Leaving it is still the same old circus though.

It was a very exhausted me who made it into my apartment and now that I’ve had my stuffed pepper and written my notes I’m off to bed. I’m exhausted. I have all these goodwill messages to answer but that will be tomorrow. I can’t keep my eyes open.

But seeing as we have been talking about my namesake the mathematician … "well, one of us has" – ed … he once told be "I have a completely irrational fear of negative numbers"
"So what do you do?" I asked him. "Is it a serious problem?"
"It’s extremely serious" he said. "So much so that I’ll stop at nothing to avoid them."

Friday 21st February 2025 – WHAT A NIGHT …

… that was!

Not that I saw all that much of it because I was in bed at 21:30. I threw in the towel and hit the hay, without even finishing off the things that I usually do before going to bed. Once my notes were done, that was that.

And to be honest, I was surprised that I even finished those because I was really in no mood to do anything whatsoever.

To give you some idea of how tired I was, there was a pool of blood on the pillow where my puncture must have leaked after I’d had a shower. I simply swapped pillows, threw the soiled one on the floor and left it

Once in bed though, I couldn’t sleep. Sometimes it’s possible to be too tired to sleep and that was certainly the case last night. But once I’d gone off nothing whatever moved me until about 04:15. By the looks of things I’d had six hours of uninterrupted sleep and it’s been a very long time since I can say that.

Surprisingly, I actually managed to go back to sleep too at some point but not for long, and when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was already up and about.

We went through the usual routine of bathroom, kitchen and back here for a listen to what was on the dictaphone from the night. I was working on a radio programme last night about Lindisfarne. It was an hour long and I was collecting all the songs, all of the anecdotes etc. I didn’t actually have very much to say but I was trying to think of a way of ending it. Of course Simon Cowe has died in Canada and one or two of them have retired from regular performances. And it was Alan Hull who died too but Rod Clements is still going with Lindisfarne with (…fell asleep here …) and I was just trying to think of a way to end it.

And I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that it’s impressive that I knew – in a dream – the real fate of three of the musicians of the “original” Lindisfarne. As for guitarist Simon Cowe, I was at the Harvest jazz and Blues Festival in New Brunswick one year when I met someone who actually knew Simon Cowe in his new job as a wine importer. he was still alive then so it must have been 2014.

Later on I fell asleep again and I was working for “Private Eye”, the review magazine, writing a column about changes in police attitudes and the expenses that were incurred by the police officers, and how they were reimbursed etc but I wasn’t asleep for long.

In the past I did write a few articles for “Private Eye” but we had a falling-out when they began to support the B Liar’s war in the Middle East. I thought that as a satirical magazine mocking the Establishment, they should have taken up an “anti” viewpoint, like most of us.

The nurse was early again today, and he didn’t hang around. In and out in five minutes, which suits me fine. I could carry on by making breakfast and reading MY BOOK.

Today, we’re discussing moated houses and as I don’t know enough about the subject I shan’t pass any comment, other than to say that I now know a lot more than I did before I started to read the chapter.

Today, I’ve had another busy day with radio stuff. Firstly, I had several holes in my forthcoming schedule of programmes so for three of them, in the absence of any better proposition, I used three of the programmes that I’d stocked from a while back that had never been broadcast previously.

Secondly, there’s another live concert in the offing so I had to identify the tracks, the running order and work out the timings so that I could edit the entire concert down to a manageable size and then write the notes. So that’s all complete for tomorrow night to dictate.

Finally, we’re soon going to be upon the anniversary of Woodstock and while broadcasting anything from the concert itself is streng verboten I had to track down the artists, find their setlists and see whether I actually had anything that was played elsewhere that the relevant group or musician played at Woodstock so at least I can broadcast a “flavour of Woodstock” programme.

You’ve no idea just how complicated all of this is becoming. It seems to have developed a life all of its own.

There were plenty of interruptions too. The cleaner came by to do her stuff so we sorted out the bloodstained pillow and changed the bedding while we were at it.

Next, I had a lovely chat with one of my old girlfriends from school. We still keep in touch and she’d left a message on my ‘phone while I was in dialysis so I called her back for a chat. It was lovely to speak to her

Finally I’ve had two chats with Canada. My niece was one of them, and her eldest daughter was the other. Her youngest daughter, the one who came to see me last Summer, is currently in Ecuador. They don’t half move around.

In yet another change, I was feeling more like food tonight, so chips, salad and some of these vegan nuggets. Not particularly exciting but I haven’t eaten this much for over a week. I must be feeling better but then, we have dialysis tomorrow.

So while we’re on the subject of tomorrow … "well, one of us is" – ed … I have my Welsh homework to finish, a couple of bills to pay and then that’s me done until Tuesday. It’s not like me to be getting ahead of myself like this..

But seeing as we have been discussing Canada … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone in Canada asked an American "can you name the two important differences between a Canadian and an American?"
"No I can’t" replied the American
"Well" replied the Canadian "not only do we have a sense of humour, we know how to spell ‘humour’".

Sunday 10th March 2024 – TODAY IS THE …

… first day of the new regime, in which I have an alarm call on a Sunday morning.

It was set for 11:00, which makes for a nice lie-in after working until 02:00 dictating radio notes that I’d written, but it will be a different time next Sunday and for every Sunday onwards for the next few months as the nurse comes to visit me.

Yes, a much different time on Sunday mornings in the future, so make the most of it today.

Sure enough, when the alarm went off I was deep in the arms of Morpheus but I still managed to stagger to my feet.

Last night had been quite calm after I’d finished my notes. I went back to reading THE DAWN OF ASTRONOMY and the baffling phenomenon of Sothic time periods and the calculation of epacts until the street outside had quietened down and then went to dictate the notes for three radio programmes

In fact though, there were only two. I hadn’t finished the third, what with being in hospital and all of that. It had completely slipped my mind, thanks to my teflon brain, to which nothing whatever seems to stick. Still, it will give me something to do on Monday.

So just two to dictate, and that was enough. The usual nonsense and garbage because first of all I’m all up to my eyes in a state of confusion and secondly, with the cancer now beginning to affect my eyes I can’t see what I’ve written anyway.

In fact, it reminds me very much of the student at art school when his teacher checks his art folder
"What on earth is this?" asks his teacher, waving a piece of the student’s work around
"I assure you sir" said the student "I paint what I see"
"Well the shock will come" said the tutor "when you see what you paint"

Having done that I cleared off to bed where I had a rather bizarre night, as you will find out in due course.

When the alarm went off I fell out of bed and the first thing that I did was to check the blood pressure. 16.9/10.7. Last night was 18.0/10.6, but that was after dictating the radio notes so it’s no surprise.

After the medication I went into the bathroom and gave me feet a really in-depth wash. At the hospital they had put some kind of vaseline cream on my legs to hydrate them and it seemed to work. Somehow the tube was left behind in my room and it found its way into my rucksack.

Now that it’s here in my apartment I may as well make use of it before they work out that it’s missing.

Having done that I came in here to transcribe the dictaphone notes from the night. We’d been to a restaurant, a group of us. We’d been having a meal. We’d ordered dessert but dessert was served in a strange way. There was a big bowl and everyone’s dessert was in the bowl. We would pass the bowl and had to help ourselves to our dessert from it. People were dipping in and taking their bits and pieces. I’d ordered some kind of pastry which was served as round balls covered in cream … "profiteroles" – ed … I was having a look for them but couldn’t work out which was mine or not. I lifted one up and said to the assembled multitudes “is this one of my balls?” which of course stopped the conversation and brought forth a whole gulf of eruption of laughter from the table, so much so that it actually awoke me.

That was what I mean by a bizarre night. The sound of the laughter did actually awaken me and I did actually sit upright with my eyes wide open

And then we’d been fighting a war against the Germans in World War I. We were in our front line somewhere and I vaguely remember walking in the air over the front line looking at all of the people still in the trenches as I passed by over their heads. It was a weird sensation. Then there was an attack, apparently the French attacking the Germans because the Germans had massacred all of their French prisoners in a certain town as some kind of reprisal for this particular raid.

It really was a strange feeling, that. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall several years ago I had a strange dream where I was running down some marble steps when I took off near the bottom and actually flew for some distance. It was a similar sensation to that, floating over the trenches looking at the heads of the soldiers in there.

It’s the kind of thing that makes me wonder if that’s what happened to the soldiers when then died. Was it just as case of the light going out, like a switch being switched off, or did something live on afterwards?

There are lots of stories about people in a high emotion doing all kinds of things that they could never normally do, and there can’t be a much more heightened state of emotion than being psyched up to charge an enemy trench.

Later still I was with a friend and another guy. We were up in the hills looking down over a beach waiting for the D-Day landings to begin. The guy had one of the latest cameras that was capable of taking photos in the dark. He was playing with it and taking some really good images with the camera stopped quite low down. So I had a play with the little NIKON 1 J5 and that was producing some pretty good pictures too so I decided to go as low as it was possible to go and take a photo to see how it would come out. I pressed the shutter and knew that I would have to wait for several seconds but then my friend went and stood right in front of the camera to block the light. Every time I moved the camera he moved again with it to block the light so I was really quite annoyed about that because I was sure that regardless of the money that the guy had spent on his new camera my Nikon would take photos even better than the ones that he’d managed to squeeze out of his new camera.

Having my friends step in to confound my progress is not a new experience either. There was one of my friends who seemed to enjoy doing that as a matter of course but it wasn’t this particular one. Having said that though, I can think of a couple of occasions when I put my mind to it …

Finally the eldest daughter of my niece came to see me last night. She asked if I’d heard of a certain beach, (and she mentioned the name of it, but I’ve forgotten). I said “no”. She said that her friend suggested that they take me there. It’s very quiet and there are hardly any cars there. It would be nice. They handed me a card and after a little while I noticed that it said “credit cards accepted” so I wondered what on earth type of place it was.

Most beaches in North America are private. It’s not like Europe.

In the UK, for example, when lands began to be allocated shortly after the Norman Conquest, there was already an established road system and lands were allocated “back from the road”.

In North America however, there was no road network at the time of the allocation of lands and access was by the river, so lands were allocated “back from the river” and that included the beaches of course.

Québec is really interesting in this respect because much of the traditional medieval French system of allocation of lands is still reflected in the current system. For example, if you go around the St Lawrence valley you’ll see première rang or “first row” back from the river, and then deuxième rang or “second row” back from the river and so on that still exist today when you look at a map of current land allocations.

Anyway, I digress … "again" – ed …

After lunch, or breakfast, or whatever, I made a start on the next radio programme but I didn’t go far. I had pizza dough to make as I had now run out. And having used the same flour and the same yeast as yesterday I’m totally bewildered as to why it went up like a lift as I watched it.

There’s really something not quite right here with this dough and I don’t know what it is.

“Watching it” because I was making biscuits while it was proofing.

On the internet last night I found a recipe for oat and syrup biscuits, and I had all of the ingredients if I were to use honey instead of the syrup. That was what I did for the flapjack and it seemed to work perfectly, so why not?

It was quite an interesting way of making biscuits, more in the American line than the European but once I figured out what was going on (which took a while and wasn’t easy) they were absolutely fine.

The pizza was delicious too. The base had risen just as it ought to have done and it was well cooked too. I really seem to have found the knack of making these now, but I wish that I could pass on the skill to the bread-making activities.

The radio programme is almost finished now – just the notes for the final song to write and dictate. So I’ll do that tomorrow too along with everything else.

It looks as if I’ll be extremely busy this coming week with all that I have to do. Still, it keeps me out of mischief and I’d only be bored.

But right now I’m tired so I’m going to bed. But before I go let me just mention that it’s not just Rosemary who has joined the Air Fryer revolution. Grahame tells me that so has he, and he doesn’t know what he’d do without it now.

In the future I can see huge “hint-swapping” and “recipe-swapping” sessions on the agenda

The best recipe-swapping session took place in the mid-west USA in the 1940s when two farmers were having a discussion
"I hear that your old cow had the colic" asked one. "How did you treat it?"
"I made up a mixture of three parts turpentine, two parts paraffin and one part molasses" said the other.
"Very good" said the first.
Two weeks later they were talking again
"You know that recipe that you gave me for the cow with colic?" asked the first
"What about it?" asked the second
"I made it up and gave it to my cow and it died"
"That’s strange" said the second. "So did mine"

Monday 17th October 2022 – HAVING GONE TO ..

… bed quite early last night, I ended up not going to sleep for quite a while. In fact, it was almost midnight when I finally went to sleep – at least as far as I can remember.

With no-one coming to see me during the night, there was plenty of time for me to go off for a wander or two. I went to Spain last night, a small town just over the border. what had happened was that again I was having loads of problems and issues etc in work (and isn’t this a regular occurrence?). As I was well-past retirement age I didn’t really care much so one morning I just didn’t go in. I had a piece of music from a rock group on an old LP that was actually the National Anthem of a group of revolutionaries somewhere. They had borrowed my LP because at 07:00 every morning they played the National Anthem on their radio station and had a little speech. They asked me if I wanted to join them so with nothing better to do I decided that maybe I would. I turned up there at 07:00 and they kitted me out with some equipment but no arms and they sent me off on a foot patrol around Shavington. That’s how I ended up on this foot patrol in Spain. I walked around the outskirts of this town a little, and then I found the town centre. It was full of all dubious characters and old British cars as well, and old cars that I didn’t know what they were. I was in a real paradise looking at these Reliants and Ford Anglias, all sorts of stuff. As I was walking down this alleyway I went past a house where a woman looked at me, noticed that I was British. She tidied up her cat out of the way and asked me if I wanted some Coca-Cola. I said “no” but we started to chat.

Later in I was back in Spain again, back in this dream and wandering around the town trying to find a place to hang my towel rail. In the end I found some kind of shop where there were crowds of people who might have had some screws but he told me that there was some kind of communal field on the edge of town where everyone took their clothes to hang up and dry. He pointed it out to me and said that that was where I had to go.

Finally I was in the Welsh Premier League headquarters. There had been a complaint than a Welsh club had entered the English FA Cup and was therefore ineligible to enter the Welsh Cup. It seemed that the Welsh FA had missed it so I went down to Premier League headquarters to lodge a complaint on behalf of the fans. I met someone there, some woman, and we had the same acquaintances in Welsh football. We were discussing things but she wouldn’t keep to the point. She kept on going off on a tangent and it was very difficult to haul her back into the matter that we were discussing. She sent all of her colleagues out for a tea break for half an hour while she talked to me as well. I’d no idea what her intention was at that particular moment. As I’d set out, I’d left the apartment with my partner and her child. I had to go back for something but found that she hadn’t locked the apartment door. I sent her a message but because I didn’t have anything to write I used my thumbnail to make an impression of the letters on some obje0ct or other and left it so that she could see it.

Interestingly, back in 2006 when there was talk in the Welsh FA headquarters about reorganising the league competitions, I was chosen by a group of fans to be their representative to go down to headquarters to meet the Competitions Secretary to discuss the concerns that the fans had.

Once everyone had gone off to work I dragged myself out of my bed and had my medication. And then I sat down to transcribe the notes from the dictaphone.

In the middle of all of it, Cujo the Killer Cat came to sit on my knee. In fact she didn’t sit but turned round and round, climbed up and over me and then once she had attracted my full attention she ran to the front door and asked to be let out. She knows the score well enough.

When I’d finished the dictaphone notes I went and had a shower and a clothes-washing session to pretty myself up, and then had lunch. Toasted cheese with tomato.

Once I was ready I went up to the mill to chat to Rachel and Zoe until throwing-out time. And that was rather later than usual too. Back here I had to wait for everyone else to turn up and to talk to a couple of guys who needed roadside assistance.

Tea was a vegan burger with onion, garlic and tomato and, totally new for me, spaghetti squash. Not my favourite but it’s nice to try something new.

Back in here I had to write out the dictaphone notes again because for some unknown reason I seemed to have wiped out the file but I really don’t know how or why, and then I wrote out the notes for today.

And early though it might be, I’m off to bed. I have a Welsh lesson in the morning so it’s another 05:45 start. But I’m more interested in what time it will finish.

Sunday 16th October 2022 – IT’S SUNDAY TODAY …

… and yet even so, I had an alarm set this morning. It may well have been set to 07:30 this morning but that is 12:30 in real money and that’s plenty late enough to be in bed, Sunday or no Sunday, even if in real terms it was actually about 03:00 when I crawled into bed.

And even if I was unfortunately alone in bed last night. Cujo the Killer Cat decided that she would stay elsewhere, presumably in her laundry basket. It’s quite strange really. There are three cats here in this house and each one has its favourite place in the house where you would be sure to find it.

Consequently there was plenty of stuff on the dictaphone and so after I had arisen from the dead and in the absence of anyone else moving around, I transcribed the notes. We’d been doing some stuff with some new type of London double-decker bus. We’d had to go back and pick up another one from the makers but it wasn’t ready. They didn’t know when it was going to be ready so this girl and I had to hang around for a while to receive some further information. There were other people coming and going in this building. She said to the man whom we’d seen that there was something called “Wall of Silence” that he had to attend that was on the weekend of 18th/19th December. I was trying to work out what this was. I didn’t really have a clue. It sounded strange to me but this person had obviously heard it because as soon as this girl said that it was €42 for 2 tickets the guy coughed up quite willingly. I made some remark. She said that the group that was appearing was called Pink Floyd. Then I suddenly realised what it was – that it was a tour to re-promote the album “The Wall”. The guy asked where it was taking place. The girl replied “it’s at Calveley near the old airfield”. They started talking about the airfield. The girl said that it wasn’t actually on the airfield. That’s going to be used for over-parking, excess parking. The next thing was that we were actually out there having a look around. There was a woman with a little girl with very long red hair who were walking around somewhere on the main Chester road not too far away from where we were.

Later on there were two people, one discussing hiring a housemaid from the other. They were talking about her in the most disparaging terms. The conversation drifted from there to other things that she was able to do which I thought was extremely out of order, this kind of discussion.

I was then in Canada with someone whom I knew from Crewe in the old days. There was something about some kind of antiques fair in Palo Alto in California. He wanted me to take him there. We had to work out a route, where we were going to drive past, where we’d stay etc. It turned out that as well as the two of us there were several other people, a couple of women with their daughters who he wanted to bring along as well. It ended up that we would be seven people in Caliburn which I thought was way too many but we started to go ahead and plan this particular route and trip.
I was then walking through Sandbach. For some unknown reason I had a goalkeeper’s jersey with me that I’d just washed and was looking for a place to hang it. I was wandering around the back streets around the Third Avenue area and came across the rear wall to Sandbach Ramblers football ground. We talked about the club and ground for a bit saying that it’s now the Corporation’s lorry park. Then we walked back. There was a place to hang the football shirt on a wire that was coming off a telegraph pole or something but I couldn’t get it on there. A little further down there was someone else’s goalkeeping shirt that had been presumably thrown by a couple of kids and had caught on a wire way above the ground. It was impossible to reach it. You’d need a big pole or an enormous ladder to get to it. I wondered what on earth that was doing there. What was the story behind that particular goalkeeping shirt.

Finally, we were living in Gainsborough Road. There were a load of people around answering the phone and working on the radio etc. They had left the place really untidy, these kids, when they had gone. Nerina had gone to do a taxi job so I started to clean up. I found some awful stains on the floor by the sofa so I became quite angry about that. No-one else volunteered to clean it so I had to clean it and there was a great deal about that. I put away the cleaning stuff and then had to go and make some tea. We didn’t have many tea-bags, we had very little milk so I was outside making the tea. Nerina came back. She got out of the car and started to talk to a few people. My hands were full so I was bringing back the stuff in 2 or 3 trips. I mentioned that we needed some new camping equipment. She said that she knew about that and someone was organising it. I was trying to tell her about these stains in the living room but for some unknown reason she didn’t want to listen. I had some papers in my hand. I dropped one. I thought “should I pick it up and make the place look tidy or just leave it because my hands were full?

Eventually everyone collected in the living room so we set off for Woodstock. And it was pretty crowded in the Golf because by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong. Zoe and Chris, her partner, had already arrived and so we all went for breakfast. And it was my turn to pay as well.

On the way back we stopped off at Sobey’s for a few groceries and then came back. While Darren went off to reassemble a back axle, Rachel and I attacked a pile of squashes. We microwaved them for a short while, peeled and diced them and then put them for freezing.

This is an agricultural area famous for corn and for potatoes. In fact, this is where all of your McCain frozen potatoes come from and the factory in Florenceville was at one time the largest food-processing plant in the world. And there’s a huge movement here amongst the locals to go “back to the land” and Darren and Rachel are quite committed to it. There are tons of veg around this house and several large freezers that are quite full.

That took most of the afternoon and then it was time for tea. I had some vegan sausages baked in onions, garlic and tomato and we made piles of veg along with some baked potatoes. Right now I’m totally stuffed.

Just walking around the kitchen with the squash and then doing the washing-up, I ran up over 3 kilometres on the fitbit and right now I’m exhausted so even though it’s early I’m going for a lie down and that’s going to be that. Setting the alarm and leaving the bed early is all well and good and I can do more than I otherwise might, but it takes it out of me at the end of the day.

Sunday 9th October 2022 – AFTER ALL OF THE …

… non-events of yesterday I have had quite a bad day today.

In actual fact, what I mean to say is that I had a very bad night. And quite honestly, I hardly had any sleep at all.

Had I not actually seen anything on the dictaphone I would actually have said that I didn’t sleep at all. But there is a small file on there (that I have yet to transcribe) quite late on.

And despite it being Sunday I’d set an alarm for 09:00 as we were going out. However I forgot that the alarm programme isn’t set for a Sunday so it didn’t actually ring. Nevertheless I was actually up and about when it should have gone off.

After we had done all of the household chores like feeding the cats (there are three of them here) we set out for Woodstock. We were going to a café for a breakfast.

We were actually in the Volkswagen estate (about which you might hear so much more in due course) but we really should have gone in a fleet of buses because by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong.

My meal was home fries with onion and mushroom followed by toast whilst Darren and Rachel had a fried breakfast. It was totally delicious.

On the way back home we had to make a little detour. There’s a taxi job that I have to undertake on Wednesday from Woodstock to Fredericton and return so I needed to find out where the pick-up will be, and then we came home.

Later on, while we were preparing the Thanksgiving meal, I had quite a wobble. So much so that I went to lie down. And while I didn’t actually go to sleep, I was well away with the fairies for a couple of hours. Anyway, once back on my feet we finished the meal.

Zoe came round with her partner for the meal. I’ve not me him before and he seems quite a nice guy. I’m glad about that. Zoe deserves someone nice to share her life.

And the meal was excellent. I had vegan sausages with all of the usual trappings and there wasn’t anything at all that disappointed.

The washing up and tidying up probably took longer than the preparation of the meal but at least we left the place looking tidy. And now I’m in my room writing up my notes. And that’s not easy because Cujo the Killer Cat is crawling all over me and the computer seeking attention. It seems to be my lucky night.

It’s the best offer that I have had for a considerable period of time and I intend to make to most of it.

Tomorrow it’s a Bank Holiday here but there will be an alarm all the same because I need to organise myself so much better. I have plenty of work to do, such as to transcribe all of these dictaphone notes. There are quite a few of those and I’m hoping that there will be even more in the morning.

But in the meantime, here are the ones from last night. I was driving around Crewe. I might even have had a very young TOTGA with me, so “hello” to her. I’d seen in the distance a huge overhead water tower that might have related to the railways so I wanted to go and have a look at it. However I was side-tracked by a house that was for sale, a 3-bedroomed Victorian terrace with an outbuilding at the back that could be converted into apartments on sale at £55,000. We went to have a look at it but lost our way. Then we took a wrong turning and ended up outside a cemetery where there were loads of funerals taking place. We had to turn round. Something came up about sports matches in which the 2 or us had played in 2 or 3 consecutive games where people had committed a foul by using their hands to score a goal. I was saying that maybe we ought to do the same tactic. She said that we hadn’t really been in a position to score a goal as yet.

Friday 19th August 2022 – JUST FOR A …

… change, I’ve had a good day today.

Here in the apartment I can’t move because of carboard boxes too. And printers. There are two of them that are destined for that great office in the sky once it goes dark.

What I’ve actually done is to strip out the cupboard and wardrobe in the bedroom. Apart from finding all kinds of stuff that I didn’t know that I had or forgotten that I’d bought, I found a big pile of cardboard boxes that I had no idea why I was keeping them.

They are all now piled up by the door waiting for dark as well, always assuming that I can leave the apartment because of the cardboard boxes in the way of the door.

In fact I had a good couple of hours in the cupboard stripping it out without even stopping to catch my breath. And now, there’s tons of storage space that I’ve liberated. I shan’t know myself at this rate.

As well as that, over the last couple of days I’ve been walking a little easier too and it was better again today, although I’ve no idea why that should be. But whatever it is, all of the foregoing has made me feel much better.

And it’s been a long, long time since I’ve been able to say all that.

It will be interesting if this new, improved me can keep on going and keep the momentum. We all know some very well-worn phrases about swallows and summers but there’s absolutely no reason why I can’t make the most of it while it’s there to be made the most of.

So while you admire a couple of photos of the two Joly France ferries coming back from the island in line-astern, I’ll tell you how my day went today.

And as usual these days, it started off with a late night. I’m having a few of those just now.

A turbulent night as well. I didn’t sleep very well at all. Tossing and turning around for much of it, wide awake, something of a failure as far as I can see.

Consequently it was something of quite a struggle to rouse myself from the depths of wherever I was when the alarm went off. I’m having more than just a few of those as well just recently too.

after the medication I came here to have a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night.

To my surprise, I hadn’t gone very far. I had a group of people around, a couple of girls whom I knew and one or two others. I was sorting out something to eat. There was a bag full of cooked sausages so I put some plates out and started to put these sausages on the plates for these people. Gradually everyone came in and began to sit down. One of the girls piped up and said ‘now Eric what about our ski holiday?”. I simply had a flash of horror because it was now 20:30 and we had a plane to board at 22:00 to take us to our ski holiday. It had completely and utterly slipped my mind. Of course it seemed to have slipped everyone else’s mind too who was going except this girl who had left it until the last minute to remind me. I sat there totally lost for words which is not like me trying to think of what to say while everyone else sat there and waited for some kind of reply from me but I really didn’t know what to say about that.

It must have been a bad night if I’d only gone off for a wander once despite spending most of the night tossing any turning around like that.

But it’s an ill-wind that doesn’t blow anyone any good, so the saying goes. Having typed that out fairly quickly, in a mad fit of enthusiasm I dealt with (a mountain of) recordings from one of the days when I was out and about in Central Europe. And I bet that that took you by surprise as much as it took me.

Had I not had an interruption in mid-transcribe, I could have done far more too. However Rosemary rang me up and we had another one of our marathon chats that go on for hours and hours.

It’s almost back-to-school time and some arrangement ought to be made for Miss Ukraine to be educated. Whether or not she’ll benefit academically is one thing, but she’ll certainly benefit from having some social contact with local kids of her age.

And now that she’s a teenager I’m sure that the question of “boys” will be somewhere on the agenda at some point in the near future and she isn’t going to meet too many where she is.

Her parents don’t have a clue about what to do and neither does Rosemary so we spent some time surfing the internet looking for clues, as well as having one of our usual chats.

It was after the phone call and having finished the notes that I was transcribing that I attacked the cupboard in here.

It’s not very well-laid out so it’s always going to be problematic but I’ve been stuffing things in there for a little over 5 years without much thought. And I’ve no idea why I have so many empty boxes.

But now they are ready to go along with a lot of other old stuff (yes, I’m ACTUALLY throwing stuff away) and there’s now quite a lot of room to bring yet more rubbish into the apartment. This is progress.

With a break for my fruit and to chat with my niece’s eldest daughter on the internet (it’s her birthday today) all of this took me up to the time for me to go for my afternoon walk.

And as usual, my first stop would be at the wall at the end of the car park to see what was going on down on the beach.

With nothing to hold me up on my way across the car park I strode out (for the first time for months). I wasn’t expecting to see too many people down there on the beach because the weather has changed dramatically.

The temperature must have dropped about 20°C since those heady days of 10 days ago and although we had some blue sky, we also had plenty of cloud and wind.

There wasn’t anyone at all in the water and that’s no surprise at all to anyone in this weather

During the morning we had had some rain, and with the rain that we had had overnight, it’s done wonders for the local plant life.

Although the path is still quite dusty, the vegetation is starting to regain its colour. We saw yesterday how the weeds had picked up after those two quick showers but if you look closely today at a photo that I took from roughly the same place as the others, you’ll see that the grass is now starting to find its colour.

It’s pretty good how quickly nature can revitalise itself after such a period of stress. Give it a few hundred thousand years after humans have been eradicated from the planet and we’ll see Mother Nature in all her glory.

Well, we won’t, because we won’t be here. But you know what I mean. But it’s not just in the nineteen-seventies that humans have “Mother Nature on the run”.

Just now we saw the older of the two Joly France boats coming across the bay from the Ile de Chausey.

Shortly afterwards we had another boat come around the headland heading out into the bay. At first I thought that it might be Lysandre or her look-alike Petite Laura so I took a photo with the aim of enhancing and enlarging it when I returned home to see who it was.

However, it’s neither of the two. It looks like some kind of unusual design of cabin cruiser that has taken to the water.

So leaving that alone I fought my way through the crowds to the end of the headland. It was busy up here today yet again as holidaymakers look around for something to do.

When I was out here yesterday I forgot to check to see if the buoy for what I preusme to be a lobster pot was still out here just offshore.

So either it’s the same one that I hadn’t noticed yesterday or else it’s an entirely new one that has appeared offshore today. And it seems to have found a friend too.

Not that I would know anything about it but I would imagine that the fact that the flags on the buoys are different colours, they belong to different owners. But I really have no idea. I know that I would want my flags to be different from any other.

There wasn’t anyone on the bench by the cabanon vauban so I cleared off down the path towards the port.

There was no change in occupant yet again at the chantier naval so I had a look over at the ferry terminal to see what was going on.

Moored over there at the head of the queue is Belle France. We didn’t see her out and about this afternoon but that is not of course to say that she hasn’t gone anywhere.

My attention was also caught by the fishing boat down there with the impressive-looking HIAB on board. She’s le Roc à la Mauve III who we saw in the chantier naval for a while a couple of months ago.

With a crane like that on board they must be expecting to haul in a whole load of shellfish.

Meanwhile, as I was watching Belle France, the first of the Joly France ferries that we saw earlier pulled into port.

She is of course the older one of the two. That you can tell from her windows in “landscape” format and the larger upper deck superstructure. She has quite a crowd of people on board this afternoon. It must have been quite busy over there today.

And regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the other day I mentioned something about the water over on the island. There was something about that in the local paper yesterday.

Scooped them again, didn’t I? I wonder if they are actually reading my notes.

As I walked down the path on top of the cliffs overlooking the harbour I had a look at the lawn by the Boulevard Vaufleury.

A little while ago I mentioned the grass and how quickly it seems to be regenerating. But nothing like as quickly as this here.

This plant has not only recovered its green colour but pushed out some flowers since I was last here. That’s quite dramatic. Mind you, whatever would my friends make of me taking photographs of flowers?

IT HAS BEEN SAID in the past that the only time I would ever take a photo of a flower would be if there were an old car parked upon it.

While I was musing over this, the other Joly France ferry pulled around the headland and you saw a photo of that just now.

Before going home to carry on, I went to have a look in the inner harbour.

Victor Hugo has gone out again but back in port is Chausiaise after her run out to St Helier. She docked at 21:04 last night.

Back here I had a coffee and sat down for a while. And regrettably I … errr … disappeared with the fairies. Only for about 15 minutes or so but even so it was something of a disappointment after what else had been happening.

Tea tonight was falafel with steamed veg and vegan cheese sauce. Delicious as usual. At least I’m slowly making some room in the freezer but there is still plenty more to go at in there that needs finishing off.

And while we’re on the subject of cold storage … “well one of us is” – ed … it IS nice to be able to open the fridge door without the fear of being buried under a pile of bottles.

So how long will that last?

Anyway I’ll try one more time for an early night. Shopping tomorrow although I don’t need all that much. And we’ll see how long this mad fit of enthusiasm lasts. If it keeps up, I shan’t know myself but not even I am that optimistic.

Saturday 15th January 2022 – HERE I ALL AM …

… not actually sitting in a rainbow, but sitting in my nice comfortable chair in my office thinking that Barry Hay was absolutely right when he said “there’s one thing that I can tell you, man, and that is that it’s good to be back home”.

And after one of the most uneventful journeys that I have ever had too.

In fact the only thing that went wrong during the trip was that the ticket collector caught me having a crafty bite out of my butties. Since 3rd January 2022 it’s against the law to eat on public transport. So he had a good moan at me about it.

The morning started quite bizarrely because although the alarm was due to go off at 05:00 I had left my bed a long time before hand and was busy drinking a coffee and making my sandwiches when the alarm did go off.

Despite the somewhat reduced sleep, I still managed to go off on several voyages during the night. I’d picked up my daughter (!!!) from Crewe Railway Station and we had to go to Edge Hill in Liverpool to catch a boat so we hired a car and drove there. Everyone else stayed on the train. At Edge Hill we had to board this boat to go across the ocean but I can’t remember where now. It involved stepping onto this beach where there were 3 wild animals, an elephant, a tiger and a third animal. The tiger was extremely playful but nevertheless it unnerved me quite a lot as I was trying to walk around this island. It kept trying to pretend to stalk me by getting behind me and attacking me. I had to turn round to face it and chase it away. Then the elephant joined in and started to push me around with its tusk. This was starting to become really out of hand. I had the feeling that this elephant, if I let it, was going to do far more than just play around with me. I told the person who was with me, whoever it was, that if they didn’t do anything to control these animals the elephant was going to have a bullet through the brain. They insisted that it was just being playful but it wasn’t very playful as far as I was concerned and I was determined to deal with this elephant permanently either by having it taken away or else by the fact that I was going to shoot it and I’d do the same to the tiger as well if they didn’t organise themselves any better and control their animals

This was the dream about the “Hawkwind” group about which I’d been thinking. There were a couple of girls called Aral or Araf, something like that, who had joined as well but that was all it was really, about the two groups and merging together to perform those Hawkwind tracks that I had mentioned and I can’t remember anything else about it (and I’d love to know what I missed recording that made me dictate this in this particular way).

I was in Canada last night. I’d just arrived. I’d been to a car auction and there was someone there trying to sell one of these minivan things. He didn’t want very much money for it – about £700 or £800 – but it was a non-runner and needed a lot of work doing to it. It was really only suitable for using as a shed or something. There was a big argument going on between a woman and the auctioneers and a couple of other people about this. The next lot to be offered was an old panel van, the type from the 1940s or 50s. I was talking to the girl. This had no engine in it or anything like that so I said “well if it’s only for a garden shed this is what I’d use as it has no windows in it for a start. It turned out that she was only looking for $50 for it and that was much more reasonable.

Then I ended up at my niece’s house. She was saying something like they could only have one egg delivered by the ‘phone. She gave me a letter than hadn’t been opened and asked me to deal with it. It was something about some company stopping deliveries to the house. I rang them up to find out what had happened. It turned out that there had been a delivery to the house 2 years ago but no-one had signed for it so they were recommending to courier companies that they no longer delivered here. That would stymie just about everything for what was going on in Canada with her and so on so I rang up the tyre depot to speak to her daughter. I asked if she knew anything about this company. She replied that that was the company she dealt with. I asked her about this parcel. She said that she remembered it so I told her that she had to ring them back straight away and explain the situation to them otherwise we aren’t going to have any more deliveries. That will bring the business to a halt. She sounded drunk on the phone, something like that, and I couldn’t get any sense out of her. I carried on talking to her but it was still extremely difficult. Trying to give her the phone number was extremely complicated because she wasn’t paying any attention to anything that anyone was telling her. I thought “this is going to end in tragedy, isn’t it?”

There’s a reminder alarm that goes off at 05:30 but at that time I was already down the street on my way to the railway station.

Of course I can’t go and look for a train without checking on how the work in the Martelarenplein is progressing. And the answer to that is, unfortunately, “slowly”. They don’t seem to have made very much progress at all since we were here four weeks ago.

It’ll probably be just the same when I come back here in four weeks’ time, if I do. At the rate at which I’m going, I’m not convinced that I’ll still be here in four weeks’ time. I feel as if my battery has gone completely flat.

There’s a choice of three trains to take me to Brussels – the 06:08 stopper, the 06:11 that goes via the airport and the 06:31 direct, all of which arrive at roughly the same time so it makes no difference really which one I catch.

However, the airport train was one of the very comfortable AM96 multiple units. It was already in the station too and looked quite warm and inviting – it was absolutely taters outside – so I clambered aboard that one.

Having gone the long way round, it was 06:58 when it pulled into the Gare du Midi and that left me 45 minutes to wait for my train to Paris. I can cope with that, even if I can’t find anywhere warm and comfortable to sit. I hate these huge, draughty stations where you can’t ever keep out of the wind.

Much to my surprise, the train was announced a long time before the usual 15 minutes. And even more surprisingly, we were actually allowed to board it.

It was quite empty this morning so we had plenty of space to spread out. Not the usual “crammed in like sardines” situation. I made myself comfortable and listened to my Hawkwind concert – the one that I had prepared on my way to Brussels on Wednesday.

And during the journey I did some more work on making notes on the Flatey Book and I could have done more than I did but to tell the truth, I had something of a “relax” for part of the journey.

At the Gare du Nord it took me a few minutes to find a metro ticket that worked, and then I was able to board probably the most crowded metro train that I’ve ever seen

At the Montparnasse metro station I came up into the Rue du Départ, plumping for the easier walk on level ground rather than up and down the steps in the labyrinth.

Behind where I come out of the bowels of the earth is the Boulevard Montparnasse and the Place du 18 Juin 1940. I wlked from down that way somewhere when I did my TRAVERSEE DE PARIS during the strike of public transport.

The walk in the opposite direction was quite straightforward and it’s quite depressing to think that I hadn’t thought about walking on the surface beforehand.

At the station it was much quieter than when I was here four weeks ago and I even managed to bag a comfortable seat with a power point.

No prizes for guessing which one was my train to Granville.

And even more so when the red lights came on with about 15 minutes to go before we were due to depart.

When the train was called, we trooped off to find out seats. Mine was right down at the far end of the train near the driver. And once again, the train was empty. 12 carriages and I reckon that the passengers on the train could have had a carriage each.

On the way home I listened to my concert again and read a book about a cavalry unit from Michigan during the American Civil War. And tried rather unsuccessfully to eat my sandwiches.

Our train was made up of two 6-car units and I’d been in the front unit. I hadn’t photographed that in Paris so I took a photo of it on my way out of the station at Granville.

First stop was at the Carrefour down the hill from the station. A pizza isn’t a pizza without mushrooms on it and they sell 250-gramme punnets at €0:99 so if I can’t go to LeClerc for my loose ones, I’ll pick them up here.

And that reminds me. I’ve run out of pizza dough so I need to make some more tomorrow.

The town was fairly quiet this afternoon with no tourists and I took the back way home anyway so I had even less to worry about – except for the ambulance that nearly ran me down in a back street. And then reversed back to have another go seeing as he had missed on the way past.

Going up the hill towards home dragging my suitcase behind me was something of a struggle and I was glad to stop halfway up and eat my butties.

There was also some work on the wall in the Rue des Juifs that I’d missed. Some of the capping bricks had crumbled away and they have now been replaced. I suppose that they will be back on Monday to point them.

Back here I had a coffee and collapsed into my chair without moving for a good couple of hours. All of this travelling is exhausting me and the final climb is killing me off, I reckon. And if they can’t find the problem at the hospital, I suppose that I’m going to be stuck like this.

Tea was some of those small breadcrumbed soya fillets with veg and potatoes. Really quite delicious. I needed that.

And now I’m off to bed. I’m absolutely whacked after my early start and my trek home. A good sleep will do me good, so just watch someone phone me up or something.

Saturday 10th April 2021 – WOO-HOO – I’M VACCINATED!

Yes, I’ve now had both my jabs and I have a Certificate to prove it too! At least I shall be in the forefront of the queue whenever normal service is resumed.

That’s not to say that I’m going to be perfectly safe. I’ve had the Pfizer vaccination so I’m now about 95% safe against current strains of the virus but there are no details about how I’ll be covered against any new strains and in any case I could carry the vaccine around and infect others.

So I still have to be careful whatever I do. I can’t throw caution to the wind.

Mind you, I did throw caution to the wind last night because what with one thing or another it was long after 01:00 when I finally went to bed.

Nevertheless I still managed to crawl out of my stinking pit a 06:00 when the first alarm went off. It just confirms my suspicions that the issues that I’ve been having about leaving my bed have nothing to do with any physical complaint.

First thing was to grab the medication and the second thing was to listen to the dictaphone to see if I’d been anywhere during the night. In fact I was doing something last night and I can’t remember what it was but I ended up in Canada. It was something to do with cars ad I can’t remember at all. I ended up at my niece’s. One of her daughters was there and feeling very happy with herself because she had taken some courses to improve her reading ability. The had studied these courses for 12 months and when I arrived there I found that she had received a Diploma award from the Open University for English speaking and she was absolutely delighted. And of course so was I because she deserves something like that.

There was time to have a whack at some of the photos from North America from August 2019 before going for a shower, and then I made a coffee in my thermal mug, grabbed some crackers and then leapt into Caliburn.

And I did too, because the door opened quite easily this morning which is very good news.

It was pouring with rain this morning so it was a pretty miserable drive up north towards Valognes. There was a lot of things to see on the way but the rain put a complete dampener on everything.

There was something that I stopped to see on my way north, because there was a good view from inside Caliburn.

This is the Calvaire de Le Plessis-Lastelle on the outskirts of the town of Le Plessis-Lastelle.

It’s formerly the site of a castle on a nice high ridge and was destroyed during a revolt against Duke William of Normandy in 1047. It was rebuilt later but fell into disrepair, although a traveller in 1835 remarked that it was still in reasonable condition.

In 1911 the locals transformed what remains of the site into a Calvary but during the fighting in Normandy in 1944 it was very badly damaged. A programme of restoration was finished in 1967 and this is how it appears today.

And that reminds me of the story that I heard about the renovation of the Calvary after the war. There was a call for designs for the Calvary but due to a misunderstanding on the telephone, someone sent in a drawing of George Custer on his horse.

Eventually, 15 minutes early I arrived at the hospital.

As you can see, it looks quite … errr … interesting from the front. It’s actually an old Benedictine Abbey and as it came into the possession of the State in 1803 one can easily imagine that it was a prize of the Revolution. It was registered as an ancient monument in 1937.

When the hospital was inaugurated in 1977 it didn’t have a particular name but it was opened by Simone Veil who was Minister of Health – the fist female to hold the post – at the time. When she died in 2018 the hospital was given her name.

Round the back though, it’s totally different, with all kinds of modernisations having been undertaken.

When I came here before, the Vaccination Centre was under there but seeing it all in darkness and it being a Saturday morning, I was full of foreboding.

A sign on the door said “Vaccination Centre now moved to …. (another address in town)” so I had to leap back into Caliburn, type the address into the Satnave and let the Lady Who Lives In The Satnav plot me a course.

Eventually I arrived at the Sports Centre on the other side of town where I had my injection, was given my certificate and left to fester for 15 minutes before they threw me back out into the rain.

My route back was a different one from my way out so there were new things to see on the way home.

As I came down the hill into Saint Saveur le Vicomte I was confronted by this beautiful building here. I had to do a U-turn and go back up the hill to find a good viewpoint where I could stick the camera out of Caliburn’s window.

This is the Chateau de Saint Saveur le Vicomte and it has a very interesting history because in view of its strategic position on a hill at the side of a river that leads into the interior, the Norse raiders built a fort there, according to one local historian.

Whatever was on there was destroyed during the revolt against Duke William. A subsequent castle here was an English stronghold in the Hundred Years War.

It later became a hospital, an orphanage and later a prison. Badly damaged by Allied Bombing in 1944, it’s now the subject of a restoration project financed by the proceeds of the national lottery.

On the way home I called in at Coutances and fuelled up Caliburn and then went to the LeClerc and LIDL here. They are much bigger than the ones in Granville and even though there’s more stuff in there, there isn’t anything extra that suited me. I did by some sweet potatoes though as they were cheap, and I’ll have to think of something to do with them.

Back here I made a sandwich for lunch and then came in here to carry on work but unfortunately I crashed out. And crashed out good and properly too, for about an hour and a half.

And when I awoke I had a sore arm again and I was also freezing, freezing cold. So much so that having turned off the heating about a week ago, I tuned it on again full-blast.

When I eventually recovered, I went outside for a walk where I bumped into Pierre the skipper of Spirit of Conrad. he told me that the other week the boat was simply in the chantier navale simply for an annual service.

But all of his tours this year are cancelled yet again. He’s thinking about doing trips up the Brittany coast whenever the situation relaxes.

Finding that the battery was yet again flat in the NIKON D500 I came back in for the NIKON D3000 and then I went back outsode again for my afternoon walk in the wind and rain.

The whole of the town around here was totally deserted which was no surprise given the weather. There wasn’t a soul on the beach at all.

That’s something of a surprise of course because we’ve seen people down there in all kinds of weather, even swimming in it. But not today. I suppose that it was just too much for them today.

Instead, I trudged off along the path towards the end of the headland in my lonely solitude, and also in the rainstorm too. It must have been raining quite a lot over the last 18 hours because the path was flooded yet again and I had to pick my way gingerly around the puddles as I wended my weary way.

From the elevated part at the far end I could see something moving right out there in the English Channel so I took a photograph of it, regretting that I didn’t have the big NIKON D500 with me.

Of course it’s much too far out for me to be able to identify it but enhancing the image considerably I could make out some rough idea of its colours. That seems to indicate that its a Condor Ferries boat.

Its silhouette seems to match that of Commodore Goodwill, the Ro-Ro ferry that does the shuttle between St Malo, St Helier in Jersey and St Peter Port in Guernsey.

Ro-Ro stands for “roll on, roll off” and should not be confused with ferries such as Herald of Free Enterprise and Estonia which were Ro-Ro-Ro ferries, which stands for “roll on, roll over, roll off”.

There was more movement out to sea too, but this time so much closer to home.

This is one of the little shellfish boats that worked the beds off the Ile de Chausey, I reckon. She’s on her way home to port in Granville, even if the tide isn’t far enough in for the harbour gates to be open.

Off the lawn and down the path to car park I went, encountering a family whose members were as surprised to see me as I was to see them.

Across the car park to the end of the headland to see what was going on. And the answer to that was nothing at all. So picking my way through the puddles I walked down the path on the other side of the headland.

There was very little going on in the harbour this afternoon.

The tide was still far out so the outer harbour was quite dry. But we can see all of the tyre tracks of the various heavy vehicles that have been working in there over the last month when we had the very low tides. Their work doesn’t seem to be finished so I wonder when, or maybe if, we will ever see them back working here again.

The fishing boat that we saw earlier is now in the harbour, here on the left, and it’s looking rather bewildered as the skipper tries to think of what to do next with it. And unfortunately she’s still too far out for me to be able to read her name on the visor over the cabin.

There is still no change in occupancy in the chantier navale today.

We have, from left to right, Anakena, Hermes I and the lifeboat Notre Dame de Cap Lihou. In the background is Aztec Lady, with a pile of small assorted yachts on the other side of the wall.

Unfortunately I couldn’t stay around to count them because I had to rush on home for the football this afternoon. TNS were playing away to Bala Town.

What astonished me about this match was that the two best players in the Welsh Premier League, Greg Draper and Henry Jones, managed just 28 minutes on the field between them.

Even more strangely was that the best player on the field, TNS’s Ben Clark, was substituted after 60 minutes of the game, with no sign of an injury. He’d run the Bala defence ragged and had a hand in TNS’s goal, but after he left the field the spark went out of the TNS side and Bala had several good chances to equalise, although they were unable to convert them.

Tea was out of a tin seeing as it’s Saturday and now that I’ve finished my notes I’m off to make some sourdough dough ready for baking tomorrow. And then I’m off to bed for a nice lie in.

And I deserve it too.

Friday 22nd January 2021 – JUST TO PROVE …

… that Ireland doesn’t have a monopoly on this sort of thing, I thought that you might be interested in a telephone conversation that I had this morning

“Hello Mr Hall. This is the hospital at Leuven”
“Hello”
“You have your appointment with us on Wednesday afternoon”
“That’s correct”
“Well there has been an important change. Before you come to the hospital on Wednesday you need to have a Covid test on Monday or Tuesday”
“No problem. Where can I go for that?”
“Well I don’t know. I don’t know how the system works in France”.
“But I’ll be in Belgium from Monday afternoon”
“Then you need to be tested in Belgium”
“Where can I go for a test in Belgium?”
“Wait a moment”
… lengthy pause …
“You can have an appointment here on Tuesday afternoon at 14:30”
“At the hospital?”
“Yes”
“So if I can have an appointment at the hospital on Tuesday afternoon, why can’t I have one on Wednesday prior to my appointment?”
“Because you can’t come to the hospital without having had a test”
“But the test is at the hospital?”
“Yes”
“So I can come to the hospital without a test in order to have the test?”
“Yes”
“So why can’t I do that on Wednesday?”
“Because you can’t come to the hospital without having a test”.

And I promise you – I am not making this up.

Mind you it’s a good thing that the hospital did ring me because that was what awoke me. I’d slept through all of the alarms and it was now 09:45. So that was another morning wasted and I’m becoming quite fed up of this. It serves me right for not going to bed until late.

After the medication I had a listen to the dictaphone.

There had been some kind of issue with the Ranger in Canada. I was working on it but I was making no progress at all and no-one seemed to be giving me very much of a hand. I was pretty much resigned to being without the Ranger for quite some time. I’d been given a rail warrant to go off on the train to fetch some parts but I was in no way ready to do that so I didn’t use the warrant. One of the daughters of my niece came back with a big fire extinguisher thing. Apparently it used to be full of old tar but she had gone and bought some paint for my Ranger. She said that her dad was unhappy about it being put in that container but she’d done it all the same. I was in pyjamas – I’d been in pyjamas all week and it was time for me to go home so I said to my niece “I’ll let you have these pyjamas back”. She replied “no, no, keep wearing them”. I said “I’ll let you have them back on Sunday when I return home” so that was fine. Then her husband turned up. “That railway warrant that you didn’t use – you’ll have to see your sister’s husband about that. It came from him”. I replied “I’ll sort it all out. It’s not a problem”. I noticed in his work bag – he had a huge work bag/holdall kind of thing that there was all kinds of food in it and there was food in other places. I thought that this place was becoming untidy now. I wouldn’t leave food lying around like that, not even me. Things need to be tidied up around here because it’s really in a mess. I asked about the paint – what paint they had bought. He said that it was a dark green but it should have been red. I replied “no, it should have been yellow like Caliburn if it was going to be anything”. He said that he had to go somewhere to see someone about the Sky cards so I asked “may I come with you for the drive?”. So we agreed on that. he took the Sky cards out of the machine to read the passwords and off we set. At a certain point someone came haring down the driveway towards the road in an old green and white Consul Mk II. For some unknown reason I had it in my mind that it was a Cortina. They came down there and just got to the end and stopped so I had a smile. He asked what was the matter. I replied “nothing really. I was just having a smile at that car”.

As well as the phone call from the hospital, I made several other ‘phone calls today, all of which were to do with my potential Covid vaccination.

Having been given a prescription by the doctor and also at the same time a letter of introduction listing my illness and other health issues, I rang up the Covid centre at St-Lô. I explained that with being a foreigner with a private health insurance I’m not registered with the Sécurité Sociale and as it’s they who are dealing with the Covid injections, I’m afraid that I’ll slip through the cracks and be missed.

She replied, after presumably consulting a few colleagues, that if I have a prescription and a doctor’s letter I would be added to the list but at the moment there aren’t too many vaccines here in the département. We aren’t a high-risk area.

The next batch of vaccines is due to arrive on 8th February so if I ring back then, they will add me onto the list.

While I was speaking to them I also had the idea that maybe it might just be a good idea to be registered with the Sécurité Sociale here even if I’m not liable to be covered by anything that they can offer me.

Having made a few false calls (because it’s not clear to whom you need to contact) I eventually managed to speak to someone who seemed to know what he was talking about. And the net result of this that if I send them a pile of information INCLUDING proof of my own private health insurance, they will register me into the system.

So that’s some good news anyway, although I’m not expecting it to be a speedy solution. The straightforward appointment at St-Lô seems to be the best. But I’m not going to the shops tomorrow seeing as I’m off on my travels on Monday, so I’ll deal with this form them and there.

Apart from that, the rest of the day, such as it was, has been spent dealing with the siege of the Chateau de Chalus and the death of Richard the Lionheart. And I’m not making very much progress.

Although there was no pause for breakfast, there was still a pause for lunch and more of my nice bread.

And there was the pause of course for the afternoon walk around the cliffs.

First stop was just outside the door to see how they were getting on with the relaying of the gas pipes in the Rue St Michel. But I don’t have to worry about that any more these days as there is an eminently qualified inspector on the job as you can see if you enlarge the photo.

So leaving him to carry on with his good work, I cleared off down the path which was now starting to dry out somewhat.

But it’s not going to remain like that for long, I reckon.

As you can see out there in the distance over the sea there’s a storm cloud and a pile of heavy rainfall and the wind is blowing it in our direction. It won’t be long before we have that lot dropping on our heads.

So not wishing to hang about any and wait for it, I headed off across the lawn and the car park to see what was going on across the bay. And today, there was nothing to see. A few clouds but the sun was quite bright and we weren’t having any special effects on the water.

The huge puddle in the path on the southern side of the headland had receded somewhat so it wasn’t as awkward as it was to pass by there yesterday. And as there was nothing going on at the chantier navale I turned my attention to the port.

There hadn’t been any fishing boats out at sea this afternoon as far as I could see, so I imagined that they were all in harbour. There were certainly plenty of them in there. It seems that they haven’t resolved this dispute with the Channel Islands yet.

Nothing else of note so I turned my attention to the mug of hot coffee that was waiting for me back at home.

The hour on the guitar passed quickly enough and after all of this time I’ve suddenly found myself able to play the bass again with 2 fingers like I used to back in the early and mid-70s. Having struggled along playing with just one finger (I never ever used a plectrum on the bass) since I started to play again a couple of years ago, it came back just like that.

I need to work on the timing because my synchronisation seems to be out on one or two tracks, but I’m sure that it will come. But I can’t sing and play with two fingers – well, not yet anyway. I’m working on that.

Tea was taco rolls with the rest of the stuffing, and then a ‘phone call from Rosemary to finish off the evening.

Now that my notes are written up, I’m off to bed. Last night was a disaster and I need to do much better than this, especially as as I have a 04:30 alarm call on Monday morning.

What a way to start the week, hey?

Sunday 13th October 2019 – I SAID YESTERDAY …

… that I was hoping to have a really good sleep last night. And to be honest, I said it without too much conviction.

So consequently, having closed my eyes at some time rather like 22:45 or thereabouts last night, no-one was more surprised than me to notice that when I reopened them, it was … errr … 09:45.

Out like a light, totally painless, didn’t feel a thing.

Even more surprisingly, all of my old good humour, positive thought and optimism had reappeared too. That led me to the conclusion that the deep depression in which I have found myself over the last … I dunno … seven or eight weeks and which affected my sea voyage around the High Arctic so much was caused by nothing more than good old plain and simple fatigue and exhaustion.

That’s certainly borne out by the facts, where in the latter stages of that journey I was existing on about three hours of sleep each night and being kept running by nothing more than adrenalin.

So this morning, with it being a Sunday, everyone else was having a lie-in too and no-one surfaced much before 11:00. The breakfast brunch ended up being much later than it usually is but it was delicious all the same.

After lunch I took Zoe down to her house in Woodstock. And by the time we got … “ohhh not again!” – ed. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I used to hire a Dodge Caravan I had a mattress that I used for sleeping. Almost new, it didn’t have much use and so when I emptied my storage locker I brought it back and gave it to Zoe for when she has visitors round at her house.

We went back up to Bob and Ellen’s afterwards to drop her off for a Thanksgiving Dinner. On the way we called at the tyre depot and a mammoth search around the premises turned up my missing notebook for which I shall be eternally grateful.

Ellen made me a coffee and we had a little chat, and then I wished them all goodbye. They wished me a pleasant voyage back to Europe, which was nice of them.

When I returned, everyone was out tidying up the yard. I was put on fire duty, in charge of the rubbish burning. We ended up with fire everywhere except where it was supposed to be, but armed with a big metal snow shovel I was able to deal with the matter before the house burned down.

I ended up smelling like a fire myself, so a shower and change of clothes was called for.

Some more stuff disappeared out of Strider too – into the garage downstairs.

Thanksgiving dinner here tonight. Rachel was cooking lamb for everyone so I made stuffed peppers for our little visitor and me. They were quite delicious. As a special treat I had saved two of the vegan muffins and the two of us ate them to celebrate our own Thanksgiving.

Plenty of carrots left over so the plan for tomorrow is to make a carrot soup using coconut milk, ginger and bay leaves. Meanwhile, I put the lamb bones in some water with some sage, thyme, rosemary and olive oil and I’m boiling them down to make some lamb stock. Not for me, I hasten to add, but for the basis of the weekly work soup for the carnivores.

But it did remind me of the story about when the BBC closed down the children’s programmes on radio and went to sell off all of the assets
“How much did we get for Larry the Lamb?” asked the BBC’s accountant.
“Three and six a pound” was the reply.

Rachel and I are chatting right now as I’m typing, and I’ll be off to bed in a short while. Desperate for another long sleep tonight (without the alarms because it’s a Bank Holiday tomorrow) but who knows?

And I need it too. Tomorrow is going to be a very long and painful night and I won’t be having much sleep at all.

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

Tag Archives: Zoe

Tuesday 24th February 2026 – ♬ HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO …

Thursday 22nd January 2026 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

Sunday 16th November 2025 – WHEN ISABELLE THE NURSE …

Saturday 3rd May 2025 – THAT WAS SUPPOSED …

Monday 24th February 2025 – THEY SENT THE …

Friday 21st February 2025 – WHAT A NIGHT …

Sunday 10th March 2024 – TODAY IS THE …

Monday 17th October 2022 – HAVING GONE TO ..

Sunday 16th October 2022 – IT’S SUNDAY TODAY …

Sunday 9th October 2022 – AFTER ALL OF THE …

Friday 19th August 2022 – JUST FOR A …

Saturday 15th January 2022 – HERE I ALL AM …

Saturday 10th April 2021 – WOO-HOO – I’M VACCINATED!

Friday 22nd January 2021 – JUST TO PROVE …

Sunday 13th October 2019 – I SAID YESTERDAY …

Your reactions

Excellent

Useful

Interesting

Weird

Surprising

Boring