{"id":18466,"date":"2024-06-27T20:40:33","date_gmt":"2024-06-27T20:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=18466"},"modified":"2024-06-27T20:41:41","modified_gmt":"2024-06-27T20:41:41","slug":"thursday-27th-june-2024-just-for-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=18466","title":{"rendered":"Thursday 27th June 2024 – JUST FOR A …"},"content":{"rendered":"

… change, especially given how things have been just recently, I’ve actually had a day at home.<\/p>\n

The word “quiet” was going to figure in there somewhere but Hurricane Cleaner has blown through here on a couple of occasions leaving a wake of desolation in her trail, and that has blown away any cobwebs that were hanging around anywhere.<\/p>\n

But at least I now have some brazil nuts. She actually managed to find them in the loose “weigh it yourself” products in LeClerc. But what a price! Cheaper than ordering them on-line when the postage is taken into account, but nevertheless …<\/p>\n

And nevertheless, last night was yet another in a long, long line of late nights. Robinson Crusoe may well have been the inventor of the five-day week, with all of his work being finished by Friday, but I wish that I could invent something that would finish all of my work by 22:30. Wouldn’t that be nice?<\/p>\n

But once again, once in bed I didn’t need much rocking and ended up with another one of these really deep sleeps. One where I don’t move a muscle for the entire night, and how rare is that?<\/p>\n

In fact, looking at the miserable collection of dreams that I’ve been having and all of these really deep sleeps, has someone slipped a sleeping pill in amongst all of this medication? <\/p>\n

There better hadn’t be. The only fun that I have these days takes place during the hours of darkness when I’m off on a nocturnal ramble and I’d hate all of that to be suppressed.<\/p>\n

Just imagine not ever getting into mischief, being up to no good, and not having close encounters of the third kind with Zero, TOTGA and Castor. Things are bad enough as they are without losing all of that.<\/p>\n

When the alarm went off I staggered out of bed and wandered off to the bathroom for a wash and brush up. Then back in here I transcribed the dictaphone notes from the night, such wretched affairs that they were. There was a girl in the sick bay reading something like “Pride and Prejudice” with a portable lamp to light up what she was doing and a hair dryer working to keep her warm. She was tucked up in bed like that. The Inspecting Officer who happened to come by the hospital at one particular moment caught her at it. There was going to be absolutely a fearful row. He confiscated the hurricane lamp but it didn’t make any difference and she continued to read.<\/p>\n

That was the best that I could do, and it doesn’t have any significance as far as I’m concerned. Living as we did in the wilds of rural Flintshire, Shropshire and Cheshire in the 1950s before the widespread introduction of electricity, we had a hurricane lamp, an old pump-action Tilley lamp that was real fun to work when you were a small child. I wouldn’t have liked to have taken it to bed though as it fizzled and popped away. However, the Tilley lamp and the “Aladdin” paraffin stove for heat on which you could boil a kettle or even some food in a saucepan if you were desperate were our friends when there was one of the frequent power cuts when we were small.<\/p>\n

When the nurse came I asked her if she’s enjoyed her swim. She’d been to see “Coldplay” in Lyon at the weekend but the Saturday performance was devastated by a flood. However, her tickets were for Sunday so she was safe.<\/p>\n

She told me how much she enjoyed it as she sorted out my legs. For a change we had quite a chat. She mustn’t be busy today.<\/p>\n

After she left I made myself breakfast and by the time that I’d finished I was surprised to see that it was 10:00. That chat must have gone on longer than I thought. <\/p>\n

Most of the day has been spent editing the radio notes that I dictated the other day. Two more radio programmes have now been completed and I would have finished the last one of the backlog that I dictated had I not wandered off a couple of times with the fairies. <\/p>\n

You’ve no idea – or maybe you have, I dunno – how fed up I am of all of this crashing out all over the place. I would give all that I own, and much more besides, to be able to keep on going for 16 hours every day without falling asleep. It’s really going beyond a joke<\/p>\n

However, it’s not all doom and gloom, during one of my spells of being away with the aforementioned, I actually went off on a little voyage. While I was asleep in the afternoon there was all kinds of stuff about flowers, the beautiful snapdragon types and that kind of thing. And then I was walking through someone’s garden but it was all fenced in and I couldn’t find my way out. I eventually came across a sign that said “we operate an ‘open door policy’ and by the sign I eventually find a well-disguised type of door that I could open and this took me to a little path that led to the road. The owners of this garden, two women, were in the neighbouring one doing some weeding and I was worried in case they saw me, but they seemed to take no notice of me;<\/p>\n

Now that’s more like the kind of dream that I used to have. It was much more picturesque and I actually felt involved deeply in it rather than just having some kind of passing interest. I really need a few more dreams like this.<\/p>\n

As I mentioned earlier, the cleaner came by a couple of times.<\/p>\n

Firstly, she brought some stuff that the nurse wanted. Later she came past with some stuff that had been ordered earlier from the Chemist’s which had now been delivered.<\/p>\n

Finally she came in waving a brown paper bag. “Peace In Our Time” I immediately thought, remembering a famous photograph, but it was actually a bag of brazil nuts.<\/p>\n

They are an essential ingredient in some of my baking. Their selenium content is very important so I grind them up in my whizzer and add them to my fruit buns and flapjacks, that kind of thing. I’d run out of my stock and couldn’t find any more so I asked my cleaner to keep an eye open for some.<\/p>\n

And now, we’re back in business, and that’s good news. I shall just have to go and lie down in a darkened room when she gives me the bill for the month.<\/p>\n

She also came up with an idea about my bank card. One of the smaller supermarkets which she uses has a “home delivery” service where you pay for your goods when they are delivered. The guy brings his card reader to your door.<\/p>\n

With it being the end of the month, she needs a lot of stuff delivering so she’s going to arrange to have it delivered to me, I’ll pay with my card which should then activate it and she’ll knock the total off her bill.<\/p>\n

That seems like a very eminently suitable solution, but it’s too simple to actually work. We’re bound to encounter a pitfall somewhere along the way "The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley an’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain for promis’d joy"<\/em><\/strong> as Robbie Burns was apt to say at moments like this. <\/p>\n

Tea tonight was one of the best of a long line of good meals. Steamed vegetables and falafel balls smothered in a nice vegan cheese sauce. Just one of the many meals that I could eat time and time again, with the broccoli and sprouts cooked to perfection.<\/p>\n

But now for once I’m going to try to go to bed early.<\/p>\n

But this story about the home delivery reminds me of one of my many visits to one of the hundreds of hospitals that I’ve visited over the past few years.
\nAs I was wheeled past one bed I heard a patient mutter "The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley an’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain for promis’d joy"<\/em><\/strong>
\nAt the next bed, that patient was muttering "O, wad some Power the giftie gie us to see oursels as others see us"<\/em><\/strong>
\nAt a third bed a patient was muttering "Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie, O, what a panic’s in thy breastie! "<\/em><\/strong>
\n"What is this place?"<\/em><\/strong> I asked. "The lunatic asylum?"<\/em><\/strong>
\n"No"<\/em><\/strong> replied the attendant. "It’s the Burns Unit"<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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… change, especially given how things have been just recently, I’ve actually had a day at home. The word “quiet” was going to figure in there somewhere but Hurricane Cleaner has blown through here on a couple of occasions leaving a wake of desolation in her trail, and that has blown away any cobwebs that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1710,44,4507,1616,8571,12057,7876],"tags":[15906,13133,12263,5577,1302,212,2560,2117,5565,8581,12058,7891,15905,10893],"class_list":["post-18466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cleaner","category-dream","category-eric-hall-2","category-france","category-granville","category-nurse","category-place-darmes","tag-aladdin-stove","tag-bouquet-granvillais","tag-brazil-nuts","tag-cleaner","tag-crash-out","tag-dream","tag-eric-hall","tag-falafel","tag-france","tag-granville","tag-nurse","tag-place-darmes","tag-tilley-lamp","tag-vegan-cheese-sauce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18466"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18468,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18466\/revisions\/18468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}