{"id":21735,"date":"2026-09-23T21:25:41","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T19:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=21735"},"modified":"2026-09-23T21:33:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T19:33:48","slug":"live-wednesday-23rd-september-2026-what-a-lovely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=21735","title":{"rendered":"
LIVE: Wednesday 23rd September 2026 – WHAT A LOVELY … <\/div>"},"content":{"rendered":"

… day I’ve had today! <\/p>\n

Round about 10:30 this morning, the doorbell rang and there on the doorstep were Liz and Terry. They have come over to Normandy to catch up on friends and contacts, and I was one of the people whom they wished to see, which was really nice of them.<\/p>\n

Actually, I could do with some cheering up today because it was another awful night last night. I was actually in bed by 22:30, which makes a change, and I was looking forward to a good eight hours’ sleep until the alarm went off at 06:29.<\/p>\n

However, it was not to be. I awoke again at some early time in the morning \u2013 and it was early too because the lights were on in the car park so it must have been before 02:30. After that, I lay there for a while, tossing and turning and trying to go to sleep.<\/p>\n

Eventually, I looked at the time and it was 05:52, so I reckoned that in five minutes, I’ll haul myself out of bed and claim another early start. The next thing that I remembered was the alarm going off. Why is it that I always fall asleep at the wrong moment? Why couldn’t I have fallen asleep an hour earlier?<\/p>\n

It took the usual long, long period for me to find the courage and enthusiasm to haul myself out of bed, and the first thing that I did was to go and sort myself out in the bathroom.<\/p>\n

Back in here, there were the dictaphone notes to transcribe, so I set to work on those. <\/p>\n

\nThis is another one of those dreams that evaporated when I was picking up the dictaphone. I was walking around Crewe with an old friend of mine. We were by the new parade of shops in Market Street. I happened to mention that I’d written a book and he said that he would love to be able to read it and maybe have a copy. But I told him that it was a bit of a children’s fairy tale more than anything else, but he still seemed to be interested in having a copy. That’s all that I remember of this.<\/div>\n

Even if I can’t remember very much about this dream, I can still see where it took place. It was at the beginning of Market Street, where Lloyds Bank used to be in the olden days, and we went over Chester Bridge and down past the top of High Street towards the traffic lights by the “Duke of Bridgewater” pub where we intended to turn right into Wistaston Road.<\/p>\n

The story about the children’s book is of course true. I’m still on chapter twelve at the moment, not having had the time to go any further with it just recently, and I’m still looking for a reader, but it has to be a child or someone who understands children, and that would rule my friend out immediately.<\/p>\n

\nThere was a bit more about that dream that I remembered later. I’d often go out in the morning for a walk and I’d always end up at the same bookshop at a couple of minutes after 09:00 when it opened. There would be people sitting at tables reading books, there would be lots of new books there, and there would be records and second-hand records. There was a hi-fi section at the back and I was looking at the hi-fi equipment, thinking that I’d had my hi-fi equipment since 1985 and it’s forty-one years old. I was looking around at all these things, but I ended up at the counter at the bakery. I’d buy some bread and some croissants and take most of them home. Then I’d go out again another day at the same time.<\/div>\n

The shop in this dream reminded me of the old British Home Stores shop in Crewe, demolished when they knocked down the town centre a couple of years ago. And I’m impressed by the memory of when I bought the hi-fi and the maths of working out how long it is that I’ve owned it, while I was asleep.<\/p>\n

The story in this dream about buying the bread and taking it home reminded me of when I had to go into work in Brussels early some Saturday mornings for a couple of hours, I’d always come home with couques (patisseries) for breakfast for Laurence, Roxanne and me. It’s a Belgian national habit of eating patisseries for breakfast on a Sunday morning, but we’d have them too for a Saturday morning breakfast if I was up and about.<\/p>\n

Another thing about this dream is that I began it by saying “there’s a bit more about that dream,” referring to the first dream. However, I can’t see where the second part would fit into it.<\/p>\n

\nLater on, there was something about baking. I’d been baking with whatever bits of equipment I happened to find. Either I’d bought or someone had given me a huge collection of baking accessories like moulds, whisks and things like that – there were all sorts – so my assistant and I began to make something for tea. I thought that it came out extremely well, so I discussed it with someone else. I remember saying that it always used to cook OK when I lived here, but of course it was twenty years ago and things could possibly have changed in that time.<\/div>\n

This does sound very much like my own experience here \u2013 cooking with a make-do set of equipment accumulated one by one over the past thirty-four years. Yes, that’s how long it has been since I left the UK. I keep on meaning to upgrade the baking equipment with a proper kit, but up to now, I’ve yet to find what I need.<\/p>\n

And it was actually twenty years ago back in April when I left the big apartment at the Avenue d’Exposition in Brussels and moved down to the farm. It was impressive remembering that too while I was asleep.<\/p>\n

As for the kitchen assistant too, there’s a story behind that, but the World is not yet ready to hear it.<\/p>\n

Halfway through transcribing the dictaphone notes, I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t unlocked the front door. I had to dash … "well, sort of" – ed<\/em> … into the living room and unlock it before she arrived.<\/p>\n

It didn’t take long for her to turn up either, so I was only just in time. She asked if I had any news about the Hound of the Baskervilles, so I explained that it was Oktoberfest time in Munich so I’ll be expecting garbled reports for the next couple of weeks until the festival closes down and everyone sobers up.<\/p>\n

After she had dealt with my feet and legs, she cleared off on her rounds and I went to make my breakfast \u2013 porridge and toast with coffee and fruit juice to wash down my medication. While I was eating, I was reading some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not very much more of it because, whilst talking about Llangorse Lake, it was coming up with all kinds of interesting facts and curious stories, so I spent much of the time following up these leads and enlightening myself on old Breconshire myths and legends.<\/p>\n

Back in here, there were the usual things to do, and I also reviewed the radio programme for this coming weekend and sent it off ready for adding into the stream for broadcasting.<\/p>\n

And then, we had the famous knock on the door.<\/p>\n

There’s an old Roman saying, originally by Virgil – "timeo Danaos et dona ferentes"<\/em><\/strong> meaning “beware of Greeks bringing gifts”, but anyone who comes to my house bringing six tins of baked beans for me is more than welcome. And not only that, it’s been a couple of years since I’ve seen them, so just like the Hound of the Baskervilles and his master, they are always welcome here whenever they pass by.<\/p>\n

The first thing that I did was to make Liz a coffee, and then we sat down and brought each other up to date with the latest news \u2013 and there was a lot to say too. It was wonderful to catch up with old friends like this.<\/p>\n

My faithful cleaner breezed in too. She’d been to the chemists and fetched my medication for the next month. And when she opened the medication drawer, Liz gasped. She hadn’t seen as much medication in one place outside a pharmacy before.<\/p>\n

At lunchtime, we made a salad with lettuce, tomatoes, olives, cucumbers, kidney beans and potatoes and it really was nice too. There is some left over too so I might have that tomorrow night for tea if I’m hungry. But as I said last night, I don’t know what’s happened, but I seem to have my appetite coming slowly back. And Isabelle the Nurse seems to think that it may well be the perfusion that I had on Monday that has stimulated me as well as the red blood cells (I asked her this morning). <\/p>\n

We carried on chatting until about 16:30 when Liz and Terry left. They are only here for a few days and they had other fish to fry, so I thanked them for their visit and I look forward to the next time.<\/p>\n

After they had gone, I had a rather late disgusting drink and midday medication and then came in here to do some work, but instead, I crashed out for a while. That’s a disappointment because for the last couple of days, I’ve managed to keep going and I had hoped that this run would continue. I shall have to work harder.<\/p>\n

Anyway, once I’ve backed up and done the stats, I shall be off to bed for … "he hopes" – ed<\/em> … an early night.<\/p>\n

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the chemists … "well, one of us has" – ed<\/em> … my cleaner told me that she was there when another woman came in.
\nShe went up to the chemist and asked him "do you have cotton wool balls, by any chance?"<\/em><\/strong>
\nThe chemist replied "what do you think I am, madam? A teddy bear?"<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

0<\/span><\/a><\/div> <\/div>
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… day I’ve had today! Round about 10:30 this morning, the doorbell rang and there on the doorstep were Liz and Terry. They have come over to Normandy to catch up on friends and contacts, and I was one of the people whom they wished to see, which was really nice of them. Actually, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1710,4507,1616,8571,16665,330,16250,12057],"tags":[3501,4788,13133,5577,1302,212,2560,5565,8581,618,261,15372,12058,16676,5595,16562,9354],"class_list":["post-21735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cleaner","category-eric-hall-2","category-france","category-granville","category-liveblogs","category-liz_terry-messenger","category-n6","category-nurse","tag-archive-org","tag-bad-night","tag-bouquet-granvillais","tag-cleaner","tag-crash-out","tag-dream","tag-eric-hall","tag-france","tag-granville","tag-hound-of-the-baskervilles","tag-liz-terry-messenger","tag-n6","tag-nurse","tag-report-of-the-woolhope-naturalists-1870","tag-ric-baines","tag-seren","tag-vegan-salad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21735","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=21735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21736,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21735\/revisions\/21736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}