Bluehook's Diary

I started doing this diary in June. If you haven't been following have a look at the Cast of Characters which gives a quick low down on the essential day to day characters who are mentioned here...it will make more sense if you do.


Woken up by an alarm clock, I hate that. It went off at 9.30 am but I kept snoozing it until 10.15 am. That's quite a few snoozes. Incredible to think that an awful lot of people have already been working for hours by then. Well, the fire was out but at least it went up quickly and I even managed to have a bath before feeding the horses and getting off to Swansea.
Down at the artificial limb centre I seemed to have to do a lot of hanging about seen as it was just a fitting to see if the socket was going to be the right size. After a bit of stretching here and there and cutting off the end of the socket it fitted nicely, wasn't toooo hard to get on and didn't just want to fall off all the time. After I got out of there I wanted to find some bits for my Dremel and headed down to Llansamlet industrial estate. It's a dreadful place actually, it's a vast estate with big shops dotted about all over the place, there's no chance of walking from one to another, you have to be in a car to do it. And there's no way of finding out where the shop you want is, you just have to remember from last time or drive around aimlessly until you find it. I did find it eventually and got the bits I wanted and a few other objects. Once I got off the motorway onto the back roads in the dark with oncoming traffic I realised there was a lot of bad smearing on the inside of my windscreen and it was bothering me so much I had to stop in Llandeilo and buy a chamois sponge. A few miles after that something happened with my full beam headlights. Suddenly it didn't work in the permanently on position, only in the pull towards you and hold position. Well, that was ok, I could hold the thing but it meant steering with my elbow and that road is seriously winding. I stopped at the next garage to see if anyone wanted to try and be helpful. Not a chance, I was more or less laughed at. So I got a bit of baling twine (I often say that everything in Wales is held together with baling twine) and tied it to the stick and wound it round the passenger seat headrest and then held it in my mouth. That way I could switch them on and off with my teeth and steer with my hand (well, it sort of worked). Less than a mile up the road there was a lot of cars stopped and the whole thing looked like a big accident. Someone had gone to phone emergency services but not to get cutting equipment so I went back to the garage to see if they had any. Again they were scornfully unhelpful and so I went back to the scene to see what was happening there. Two cars each with an injured driver. One looked like he was going into shock and I clambered through into his passenger seat and got him covered up and another woman was outside keeping him talking until the ambulances got there and the process of getting them out began. It took a while, the police were there in the meantime and more and more people were milling about. Both were local people and friends and relatives of theirs were arriving. The (presumably) husband of the woman driving the other car arrived and looked quite hysterical and ready to beat up on the other driver. Anyway it got cleared eventually and we all got going again.
I came back over the mountain road, partly because I knew I would hardly meet any other vehicles and therefore wouldn't have to dim my lights much and partly because I might spot the moon. I did see a sliver of new moon suspended in the sky and met only one car coming towards me. The fire was out when I got home because I'd been out much longer than I intended but luckily dinner was very late as well so I just about had time to get the fire going before I ate. We sat about for a while after dinner with tea and cakes and tried not to get sucked into watching the kids on the playstation, and then Lorna after they had gone to bed. By this time the fire was roaring so hard I'd had to turn on the central heating to stop the water boiling and I was stripped down to my vest and still too hot. So we all went out under the stars with the dogs and, remarkably, both cats and walked down the bridge and back up the hill again. I'm still too hot and I've opened the window in my bedroom or else I won't be able to sleep in there.


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