{"id":19958,"date":"2025-05-09T21:32:16","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T21:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=19958"},"modified":"2025-05-09T21:34:01","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T21:34:01","slug":"friday-9th-may-2025-home-on-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=19958","title":{"rendered":"Friday 9th May 2025 – HOME ON A …"},"content":{"rendered":"

.. KITE WE FLY,
\nHOME ON A BREEZE WE BLOW<\/a><\/p>\n

Actually, substitute “ambulance” for “kite” and the rest would fit quite nicely because right now I’m sitting on my comfy chair at my own desk in my little apartment having had the quickest drive home that I have ever had.<\/p>\n

The hospital rang the taxi company to tell them that I could go home and could they have a car here for 11:00? The taxi company replied “could he wait until about 14:00?”.<\/p>\n

With the new Social Security regulations about combining trips wherever possible now in force, that told me one of two things – either that there was a vehicle already on its way to Paris, having just set out, with a passenger for Paris, or else there was someone else who needed to come home a little later than me.<\/p>\n

Not that I am complaining of course. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed<\/em> … it’s a free service for me in view of my terminal illness and France is, as far as I am aware, the only country in the World that offers it. So who am I to complain or argue about anything? <\/p>\n

It gave me an opportunity to catch up with my work, because it had been a very slow start to the day. That’s not surprising because it was after 23:30 when I finally made it into bed. And once there, although I fell asleep quite quickly, this was one of the noisiest nights that I have had and it seemed as if I’d hardly had a wink of sleep.<\/p>\n

Round about 05:30 I gave up trying and I began to work.<\/p>\n

First thing that I did was to review the dictaphone to see if there was anything on it. And to my surprise, I must either have had much more sleep than I thought or each one of the different personalities living inside me must have gone off on separate trips. I’d been out with my friend from Newport and the first thing that I noticed at the bottom of the door and the door frame were covered in some kind of white material like flour and there was a wooden batten nailed to the side of the door frame. When I leaned on the front door it opened wide and I fell in. It looked completely different inside and I couldn’t understand what happened. I went into the bedroom and one of the cupboards with the clothes in was missing. I suddenly realised that we’d been burgled. I had a good look round the apartment and noticed that all the guitars had gone. All my camera equipment had gone, everything like that, and my clothes, the television, the hi-fi. I went outside to call the police. I was standing by the bus stop outside and dialled 511 but I ended up with the police from the UK for some reason. The policemen to whom I was speaking on the ‘phone knew me and made some kind of remarks. I hung up and tried to dial 911 but for some reason my ‘phone wouldn’t give the number. It didn’t matter how I pressed the keys on the keypad the number 911 wouldn’t come up. Then another policeman walked over to me and made some kind of remark about how if he were me, he would be very careful about doing certain things and saying certain things. I wondered what was the matter with him but I just couldn’t persuade my ‘phone to come up with the number 911.<\/p>\n

The apartment was not the same as my current one or my future one and the bus stop was a totally different one. It was in the countryside near some hills etc where I’d been for a walk in the past with Liz. <\/p>\n

When I move downstairs, my apartment’s front door will be right by the front door of the building at the foot of the stairs. My door will be locked at all times but nevertheless if anyone leaves the front door open and anyone undesirable comes in, or we have any undesirable guests in one of the apartments that is let to holidaymakers, my apartment would be the first target. And it’s strange that I’m having a panic attack about the ‘phone not working. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that it’s usually the camera that is giving me these kinds of problems.<\/p>\n

And then we (whoever “we” were) were doing something with a drama. I can’t remember exactly what now. We ended up outside the house in Shavington with this Morris 1000 Traveller. We had to unload some musical gear from it and take it into the house. There was a guy who had been with us. He was the father of some friend or someone like that. We were talking about different music as we were emptying this thing. He replied “oh yes, that’s what they call ‘kitchen music’ “. I said “ohh look! Here’s someone trying to teach his grandfather to suck eggs here”, thinking that we as musicians would all know that, so he smiled. I began to tell the story about why it was called “kitchen music” but everyone wandered away after a few seconds and left me on my own so I carried on unloading this Traveller. Then we ended up in some recording studio where we’d been recording a radio programme. It was concerning what we’d mentioned as “kitchen music”. I was ushering everyone off the stage at the end. A piece of ordinary, banal music appeared as the background sound for the credits. I suddenly had this really good idea. I went and fetched a guitarist whom I knew and he played this lovely rock lead guitar solo over this banal music and it sounded really good and with that I decided that we would use as the introduction to the programme and the background music for the credits at the end.<\/p>\n

We (that is, Nerina and I) nearly had a Morris Traveller once. Someone advertised one for sale that “needed welding” and Nerina fancied it so we went to look at it. The “needed welding” was that the rear spring hanger had sheared off the chassis and come through the floor at the back. It was certainly possible to weld it up but it would have taken a lot of effort. I’m not sure now what the circumstances were that led to it not being added to our fleet. With a BMC 1.5 diesel engine, MG Midget discs and rear brakes, uprated front and rear springs, we could have had a very useful vehicle that would certainly have kept up with modern traffic.<\/p>\n

As for mocking the current trend in music, I have to be very careful when passing comment otherwise I’ll find myself turning into my father whenever he heard mine. As for the guitar solos, there are many, many banal, mundane pieces of music that have been utterly transformed by the addition of a lead guitar solo. Just listen to some early “Santana” stuff like NO-ONE TO DEPEND ON<\/a> and take away the guitars of Carlos Santana and 16-year-old Neal Schon.<\/p>\n

Later on I was in a hospital. One of my friends, a girl, was pushing me in a wheelchair. We were trying to find a doctor, a specific doctor for some reason or other. We wandered around – it was a morning and everyone was coming on shift but we couldn’t see the doctor whom we wanted so she went and made a couple of enquiries. In the end she managed to find a name and I recognised the name. When she came back and said the name I replied “he’ll be over there in that caf\u00e9 on the far side. That’s where he is usually with a group of other people whom I knew who preferred the smaller caf\u00e9 to the big one. Just as she was about to set off, Nerina came out of another doorway into the caf\u00e9. I said “hello” to her. This girl pushed me in the wheelchair around to the far side. The doctor wasn’t there but his senior nurse was, a young girl. We asked her to step outside, which she did, and my friend began to discuss the case with her. I looked in and there were only two other people in this smaller caf\u00e9 and they were people whom I knew too. When the girl had finished explaining to the senior nurse I said “if you go over to the far side there and tell my ex-wife that you are going to perform the operation on me, she’ll probably slip you \u20ac100 to make sure that you forget to turn on the gas on or something”.<\/p>\n

Seeing as we are talking about the ex-wife … "well, one of us is" – ed<\/em> … everyone knows that X is the Latin for “ten”. But there’s an interesting story about a wheelchair that you will find out if you have the stomach to read any more about this. And “forget to turn on the gas” – knowing my family it would be to have a small accident whilst wielding a scalpel or a circular saw.<\/p>\n

Finally, I stepped back into that dream later on. It was raining and we were round the Civic Centre. The girl pushing me in the wheelchair went into an office and came out. She telephoned our Head Office to explain that the gentleman we wanted to see wasn’t in work this week and had not left a forwarding address so we couldn’t contact hm anyway. The arrangement was then that we’d go back to my house to await the arrival of the stuff from Parcelforce or whatever company it is that is delivering and then come back down here to unload what we didn’t need and take away whatever else there was, and then head away. Just at that moment, out of the library came the guy and the girl for whom we were waiting in the previous dream, the doctor. We explained that we were going back to my house to await delivery and we’d be back later on. She also asked for his name so that she knew for which person to ask when we came back, rather than looking idly around the place for a person whom we recognised.
\nThis brings back memories of being pushed around in a wheelchair in several hospitals looking for the correct ward, or unit, or place to go<\/p>\n

In the bathroom having my usual scrub, the young Asian nurse came in and asked to take my blood pressure and temperature. She asked me if I needed any help washing myself but you’ll be so proud of me – I retrained myself. However, I did point to my feet which, not having had any care and attention for almost a week, were looking quite bad. She had things to do just then but ten minutes later she came back and washed them<\/p>\n

Breakfast this morning included a yoghurt but apart from that, it was quite nice and then, while I was trying to work, I had an endless stream of visitors, especially my Romanian stagi\u00e8re doctor, a different one from last time.<\/p>\n

But with an Asiatic nurse, another Romanian stagi\u00e8re doctor, British racism and xenophobia is driving away many people who want to come to bring their talents to the UK. The NHS is suffering and countries like France are profiting.<\/p>\n

So they told me about the taxi. But its late arrival did not concern me. I had plenty to do, such as answering stupid questions put by another therapist.<\/p>\n

Lunch was a yoghurt, and some fish, neither of which I could eat. I just had the potatoes in sauce, polenta and courgettes<\/p>\n

after that I packed my bags and I wasn’t quite ready when I had the first of two ‘phone calls from the ambulance drivers wanting to know whereabouts were of the building where I was.<\/p>\n

Eventually they found be, helped me pack and we set off -at least one of the drivers and I did. The other had to wait for the paperwork. I was supposed to leave at 11:00 but God knows what might have happened then because the paperwork wasn’t ready. The poor driver had to wait an hour for the papers to be ready.<\/p>\n

It was a good guess about the ambulance earlier. They had indeed brought a patient up to Paris – hence the ambulance coming for me -and had me as a return trip. <\/p>\n

It was a struggle for me to climb into the ambulance but I managed it and when the other driver joined us, we shot off through the streets of Paris. They were quite quiet, with many people doing the Pont<\/em> – taking a day off to bridge the gap of Thursday and the weekend.<\/p>\n

It was the fastest drive that I’ve ever had – three hours and forty-five minutes, and that included a ten-minute stop. There were no hold-ups on the prif<\/em> for a change, with half of the population of Paris being in Granville right now. T won’t ever be that quick until August when everyone goes off on holiday.<\/p>\n

The coffee machine where we stopped said “cards only” but when my driver looked, he saw that it also read “card reader not working” so I had to go without. That was sad.<\/p>\n

Back here, my faithful cleaner was waiting for me and she helped me upstairs. And I needed it too after being a week in hospital. I only did one of the flights. I took the lift from the first half-landing up to the next one and waled down to my apartment. And wasn’t it nice to be in my own place?<\/p>\n

Checking through the papers I found that I had been prescribed a wheelchair. I remember talking to the Romanian doctor who said that I ought to be in a wheelchair because of “those steps”, but how she expects a wheelchair to go up 25 high chairs I really don’t know.<\/p>\n

Tea tonight was salad, chips and the last of those mini-vegan nuggets followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert.<\/p>\n

So right now, I’m whacked so I’m off to my own nice, comfortable bed.<\/p>\n

But seeing as we have been talking about parents … "well, one of us has" – ed<\/em> … I remember my youngest sister once telling off her two kids, ranting at them, and suddenly stopping mid-word
\n"Ohh God!"<\/em><\/strong> She exclaimed. "I’m turning into my mother!"<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

0<\/span><\/a><\/div> <\/div>
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.. KITE WE FLY, HOME ON A BREEZE WE BLOW Actually, substitute “ambulance” for “kite” and the rest would fit quite nicely because right now I’m sitting on my comfy chair at my own desk in my little apartment having had the quickest drive home that I have ever had. The hospital rang the taxi […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4507],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eric-hall-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19958","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=19958"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19960,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19958\/revisions\/19960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}