{"id":21003,"date":"2026-04-01T20:19:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T20:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=21003"},"modified":"2026-04-01T20:19:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T20:19:04","slug":"wednesday-1st-april-2026-i-had-nothing-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=21003","title":{"rendered":"
Wednesday 1st April 2026 – I HAD NOTHING ON … <\/div>"},"content":{"rendered":"

… the dictaphone this morning when I awoke. <\/p>\n

Not that that was any surprise. Leaving aside the question of these new medicaments that Emilie the Cute Consultant prescribed for me, if you don’t go to bed until 23:30 and you awaken at 04:00, there’s not a lot of time to go anywhere, is there?<\/p>\n

Yes, it was another late night last night. For some reason or other, tea last night took ages to cook and consequently, I was quite late finishing. And then with the writing of the notes and everything else that I have to do, we ended up finishing much later than I had hoped.<\/p>\n

Once in my nice, clean bed, I was hoping for a really good sleep. And for the first part of the night, that was what I had. Asleep quite quickly and not moving a muscle at all. However, it all went wrong at 04:00 when I awoke. <\/p>\n

For quite a while, I stayed with my head tucked firmly under the quilt, nice and comfortable, but after about an hour, I began to think of all of the things that I could be doing instead. <\/p>\n

Consequently, I managed … "eventually" – ed<\/em> … to crawl out of bed and take my place at the computer.<\/p>\n

And by the time that the alarm went off, I had dictated no fewer than five sets of radio notes. That was a good morning’s work, especially as there are only now a handful left to do.<\/p>\n

When I’d finished, I crawled into the bathroom to sort myself out and then went into the kitchen for the hot drink and medication. <\/p>\n

Back in here, I checked the dictaphone and then occupied myself with a few tasks to keep me busy.<\/p>\n

Isabelle the Nurse arrived as usual and sorted out my legs and feet. She didn’t have much to say for herself today, which is not like her. After she left, I could make breakfast and make a start on the new book. <\/p>\n

It’s called THE ROMAN FORT AT BALMUILDY<\/a> on the Antonine Wall, written by Stewart Napier Miller and concerns the excavations in 1912-1914 of a Roman fort on the Antonine Wall that ran between the Forth and the Clyde in Scotland.<\/p>\n

Its ruins were always visible up to about 1820 or so when it was quarried for its stone. With its existence being threatened by the expansion of Glasgow, it was decided in 1912 to excavate it to recover what might be lost. The excavations finished in 1914 when Miller was mobilised into the Army at the start of World War I.<\/p>\n

Back in here afterwards, I sat down at my desk, and the next thing that I remembered, it was 11:27. I’d fallen asleep yet again and had been out like a light for a little over two hours. That was a huge disappointment because I had so much to do today, and I thought that, by and large, I’d overcome these rather dramatic crash-outs. <\/p>\n

Then again, I suppose that with only four and a half hours sleep during the night, I’d have to catch up on it somehow, some time. So with not having much time to hang around, I immediately attacked the radio programme that I’d been preparing.<\/p>\n

There was a deadline for this today – 16:00 for reasons that you will soon find out. And despite a pause for a disgusting drink, by 16:00, I’d chosen all of the music, remixed and re-edited it all, paired and segued it, end even written all of the notes for it. That was probably the quickest radio programme that I’ve ever prepared, and I wish that I could do them all as quickly as this.<\/p>\n

At 16:00 I went into the kitchen.<\/p>\n

The first task was to make some bread baps – four of them. Two of them were destined for this evening and the other two for tomorrow evening.<\/p>\n

While they were proofing after their first knead, I melted a bar of cooking chocolate over an ad-hoc bain marie<\/em> with a little water. When it had all melted, I put it on one side to cool, and then, when it was cool enough, poured it over the top of my chocolate cake to make a kind of chocolate shell.<\/p>\n

That’s going to be my Easter treat and I bet that it will be as sickly as anything. And won’t I enjoy it?<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I’d been preparing my butternut squash, scooping out the seeds and filling the holes with garlic and chili. Then drizzling some olive oil over the two halves. The two halves went into the oven to roast, along with an onion and some potatoes.<\/p>\n

At some point during all of that, I’d kneaded the dough for the bread rolls and separated it into four equal portions that I then shaped in the form of discuses, which I left to prove again.<\/p>\n

When the squash, potatoes and onions were ready, I took them out of the oven and put in the bread rolls. With the squash, potatoes and onions etc, I made a soup using the carrot water that I’d saved from blanching my carrots that I’d ordered from Leclerc.<\/p>\n

Once the soup was ready, I whizzed it up, added some plain soya yoghurt and a few handfuls of these little pasta elbows and let it simmer for ten minutes. Half of it then went into my bowl and the other half was put on one side with two of the baps, for tea tomorrow.<\/p>\n

And it was absolutely delicious, one of the best soups that I have ever made. And there wasn’t any room for any trifle afterwards either. The soup and bread were quite enough.<\/p>\n

And now I’m off to bed. I’ve had a hellish day today. Never mind the crashing out, I’ve been coughing all day, sneezing and I have a streaming head cold, so strong that not even any Vick’s or Olbas Oil can control it. I hope that it all clears up quite quickly because it all gets right on my nerves all of this. As if I don’t have enough problems. <\/p>\n

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about waking up early … "well, one of us has" – ed<\/em> … when I was back in Crewe, I used to wake up early quite often, even after only an hour or two of sleep.
\nOne of my friends once asked me "whenever that kind of thing ever happened, did you wake up grumpy? "<\/em><\/strong>
\n"Oh no"<\/em><\/strong> I replied. "I always let her sleep in."<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

0<\/span><\/a><\/div> <\/div>
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… the dictaphone this morning when I awoke. Not that that was any surprise. Leaving aside the question of these new medicaments that Emilie the Cute Consultant prescribed for me, if you don’t go to bed until 23:30 and you awaken at 04:00, there’s not a lot of time to go anywhere, is there? Yes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4507,1616,8571,16250,12057],"tags":[5146,3501,4788,13133,14115,1302,2482,2560,5565,8581,13592,13341,15372,16498,16497,6326],"class_list":["post-21003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eric-hall-2","category-france","category-granville","category-n6","category-nurse","tag-antonine-wall","tag-archive-org","tag-bad-night","tag-bouquet-granvillais","tag-butternut-squash-soup","tag-crash-out","tag-early-start","tag-eric-hall","tag-france","tag-granville","tag-home-made-bread","tag-home-made-lemon-ginger-drink","tag-n6","tag-stewart-napier-miller","tag-the-roman-fort-at-balmuildy","tag-vegan-chocolate-cake"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21003","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=21003"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21004,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21003\/revisions\/21004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}