Category: Personal

Borders – a Sign of the Times?

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Drivelling and wittering on, some more.

Writing up the previous post I accidentally touched upon something since the Brexit-folly happened and the fortress USA dogma has been soap-boxed. I am much more nervous approaching border control than I once was. When the UK was a part of Schengen it was light, free and easy. Now it is much less pleasant. We are due to cross borders in Autumn. In principle I have a British passport so it should be OK for me to go “home”. Will I be allowed back into France? It is less taken-for-granted than it once was. Should we cancel and bin the trip? Just in case?

Gee thanks guys!!

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Were I, like Harry, to seek entrance into the USA I might be tempted to lie about weed. Unfortunately I did inhale and deeply so and on more than one occasion. Man…

I would be very, very uncomfortable about traveling to the USA given the prevailing rhetoric. In fact there would have to be some truly massive incentive. Even then I would go out of my way to avoid it. I would seek other avenues.

It is no big loss for the USA…I know.

But I wonder how many others are put off and increasingly so. America will be first and with less visitors. It probably is not quaking in its cowboy boots…

Strange times we live in and they are not getting any more pleasant.

So what is the Plan?

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No specific dreams overnight. I have started painting the end of the room near the log burner. The winter wood situation is now ready and good to go until February. There are a few items left on the checklist.

It seems to me that as I enter my 62nd  year tonight around midnight there is not a lot of change foreseen.

There are a number of medical things upcoming. The wife may / may not stop the lenalidomide maintenance therapy for her multiple myeloma and will soon get back the post breast cancer genetic screening tests. The treatment of myeloma is evolving and the epidemiology complicated by diverse treatment protocols and disease presentation. It seems that the better the initial depth of success with first line treatment the greater the disease free longevity. Studies on stopping lenalidomide maintenance are sparse and of low number participation. Drawing reliable conclusions is tricky. In France they tend to stick to agreed {collective} protocols so we will soon find out if that has changed since the last visit to the haematologist.

It seems to me that a fair proportion of the tests that I have undergone will be let slip “laisser-tomber”. I have a repeat prostate specific antigen test upcoming. Any increase in  number will trigger another MRI and possible biopsy. I need a dental infection all clear before the scheduled hip operation. In the pipeline is a cardio ECG stress test. Assuming all is OK I should sliced and drilled in autumn with round two pencilled in for spring next year. After that I will complete my job application at the Bolshoi. I may start treatment for osteoporosis. The French budget deficit is big maybe they need to spend less on some aspects of healthcare. I will have to do physiotherapy.

We could get a nationalist anti-immigration government which will cast a cloud over our right to stay in Brittany. We could be booted out if they raise the financial threshold for residency.

Being positive we might hope for no recurrence of myeloma symptoms and some enhanced mobility for me for summer ’26. We do need to downsize house. The window of opportunity is before the second hip operation or after it. We have a short visit to blighty booked during which we wish to find out how the UK now feels. From the news here and on UK TV it looks to have gone somewhat down the shitter since we left. We need to see for ourselves. The expectation is that it will be cramped and expensive. The wife managed to grow cavolo nero so we sourced one of the things we missed.  At £4 a coffee for an Americano it could be painful.

Irrespective of the dream content which tends towards the highfalutin, life here will probably carry on much as normal. The lack of mobility will increase over the next few months. The circles I move in are very unlikely to change. I will not be at the fromagerie meeting with big cheeses any time soon. Some people my age are still pursuing high-octane careers and being all stressed out and busy. I have been “retired” for five years and am miles from the greasy pole hamster wheel. It was another world.

Unless anyone is reading the blog in a surreptitious manner, what I type here is read by only a small handful of individuals. If people are snooping and want to get in contact, how might they broach the subject? People do not often think things through.

Of late we have watched a number of Netflix series and in all of these smartphones and social media play a significant part in the plot, the so-called story line. It is another alien world to me. Weird to see text messages as part of a film plot!! We look at a ‘phone on a bigger screen. Seems a bit desperate. And they say Fentanyl is bad.

I guess I have reached the part of life when I have turned into my father, at odds with the current version of modern life. Maybe I’ll start harping after Bing Crosby next. I already think people need to shave and get a haircut…pull their trousers up.

The plan then is to increasingly turn to DIY as the autumn rains arrive. Our pampas grass has just grown fluffy bits, as usual in time for the Atlantic winds to blow in from the wet West. There are some more jobs in the garden but soon the bulk growing will slow.

We have to navigate the medical merry-go-round and that is about all on the dance card so to speak. Aside from the blighty trip it is unlikely we will leave our prefecture.

The plan is not overly complicated…

The Toad Diaspora

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The annual toad diaspora has begun. It is a part of the cycle of life here on the compound. Each January and February both toads and frogs gather in the pond for reproduction. They turn up, shag like loonies, and are gone in less than a fortnight.

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The top count walking around the pond has been something in excess of 100 individuals. There are more toads than frogs. There are more amphibians which I cannot see from the bank. At a conversion rate of 10 legged new born individuals per toad that means ~1000 micro-toads to migrate away in search of their own territory. It could be ten or a hundred times more. I assume they have a migratory diaspora which radiates outwards from the pond centre.

They are small enough to get through the ventilation gaps in the double glazed window-doors. Whenever it rains the little blighters are on the move. The total of toad humane removal events so far is around ten. We have to beat the cat. If you don’t save them, they desiccate. Generally the migration tails off towards the end of September. It depends upon the rain.

Now we are on toad watch….

Does This Matter?

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As a part of my personal end of year review, I like to review. One of the questions is, “does this matter?” “Is what I am doing here of any significance whatsoever?”

The only objective criteria I have for readership is supplied by WordPress stats. It tells me that there are around 400,000 words here spread among 575 posts over the last year or so. There have been a total of ~900 visitors. These come from France {Normandy and Paris region}, UK, USA. Spain. Germany, Canada and India. {In decreasing order of number of visitors.} The views are from diverse towns which might be real or arise from a floating IP used by many ISPs. That works out at about 450 words per visitor. The average post gets a few {literally} views.

Clearly my significance as a global influencer knows no bounds!!

On the basis of this it does not matter what I write because “nobody” is listening. Whatever idea or notion I come up with will sink without a trace in the petabyte torrents of this raging internet thingy. There is no point in me developing any of my ideas, just get them out of my head and move swiftly on. I can sit here dreaming away and the world at large goes about its business unperturbed.

We live in a surveillance society. There is an outside chance that some of my key words might pop up in an intelligence search. But I am not connected to any group. I am pacifist and hermit like. I am not a civil disorder problem. I don’t agree with Trump or Netanyahu. They are powerful men and face disagreement from others way more important than me. I doubt the NSA and MI6 are quaking in their bunkers.

To an extent I have drawn what meaning I can from the dream catalogue herein. I know how I interpret them and in what context. I have a number of theories about what they mean individually and collectively. I have clarity of sorts. One that does not need to be verbalised. I understand the wider potential implications. My understanding points at large tracts of unresolved karma burdening others. I cannot foresee them addressing this.

If I want to change things, then one do-able is to wipe the blog. I will still catalogue incoming dreams (privately) but I will create a space which might be filled with something, else. Sometimes a tiny change can be causative.

The growing trend is that each blog I write gets fewer and fewer views. Which says something.

I reckon that a hip replacement blog with what passes for my sense of humour would have a much larger readership…This could propel me into internet stardom. I could become a legend on my disability enabled throne hand crafted by Armitage Shanks.

Maybe I’ll sleep on it…

Tempest Ciaran – Towards Carbon Neutral

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In autumn 2023 tempest Ciaran laid waste to a great number of trees in Brittany. This one was weakened and then fell in a subsequent storm a week or so later.

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At first glance it does not look much. The shed in the background is however 4-5 metres long!

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That is a lot of wood and debris..There were many trips to the green waste tip.

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Sized and stacked…and now two years later ready for use in autumn 2025.

This morning I split a bunch of these and the wife stacked them in the garage….

Many talk a good climate game, few put their backs into to it with a 2.5 kg splitting axe…some can be a bit cerebral and precious.

It is a nice feeling to know we will use the carbon from the tree felled by a perhaps climate change fueled tempest to heat our home.

At over 100 trees we are by rough calculation aproximately carbon neutral.

We are making ready for when I can’t use the axe late autumn. One more session and we are good to go.

Martin Luther King Quotes

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“We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

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“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

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“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

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“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

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“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

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“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

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“Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.”

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“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”

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“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”

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“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

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“We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the positive affirmation of peace.”

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“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

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“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”

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“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.”

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Waking Dream – Mystical Vision

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If one was to imagine someone having a waking dream or a mystical vision it is unlikely that you would picture an unshaven white man in his sixties dressed in a white t-shirt and army surplus combat trousers who had been around the block a few time. That person would not be technically obese nor skilled in the art of high resolution laser spectroscopy. He would not be a grey. There may be a tint of eroticism to your imagination of a visionary. The person having the vision would either be young and “attractive” like Joan of Arc or Joseph with his groovy coat. There would be some kind of glow or aura perhaps. There could be some CGI graphics and perhaps some pointy elven ears. They could be a Russian mystic blinded at birth. They could be misshapen. They would have some cool sounding foreign name. They would not be called John Smith.

Either that or they could be in a secure psychiatric ward having avoided taking their medication by hoodwinking the staff.

People are likely to have prejudice about how they might imagine a visionary / whacko.

Last night whilst watching a fly on the wall crime drama about crystal meth in Norfolk I had a tremendously strong vision of the Dalai Lama and one other senior figure in Tibetan / Bhutanese Buddhism. That subjective observation has persisted on and off since then. It interfered with one of my normal nocturnal, pre-sleep meditations. This morning I have that subjective experience conflated with people at Stanford university. {They may be inquiring about Phowa practice – my guess.}

There is no logical reason why out of the blue I get a strong visual image of the Dalai Lama to mind and in mind. There is no effort for/by me to have it there. In fact it would be more convenient for it to fade. I can type, do the shopping and in a few moments, I will make a sandwich with these “visions” at the periphery of consciousness.

In the context of my normal CV and life experience it does not make sense. It is illogical and irrational. I have not exactly hung around with Tibetan Buddhists on a regular basis. Nor have I been brooding on either Tibetan or Buddhist themes of late.

After lunch I will start to sugar soap wash the wall by the log burner, then begin the chore of sizing the wood in the garage so that it is ready for use post operation in autumn-winter. We have about ¼ of the mass needed in the garage.  Once tided up, we will order a couple more cubic metres this month before the price goes up.

It is a bit odd but for me not unusual as Mr Jones might sing.

A Fly in the Ointment  – ECG ST Segment Depression

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Earlier this week we learned that the specialist machine doing CT angiograms is very busy at the big hospital in Saint Brieuc. They are backed up and will not be able to do the study before the date upon which my hip operation is scheduled. This means that the risk is less quantified. They are possibly worried a little about how I might respond to being hacked open and losing a few wine glasses of blood while someone saws off the head of my femur and whacks in a Titanium implant.

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The added concern comes from my recent resting electrocardiogram (ECG) in which the ST level was depressed below the isoelectric point.

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The ST segement is seen as potentially diagnostic for a number of conditions, lowering is correlated with these things.

Causes of ST segment depression:

Myocardial ischemia

Hypokalemia

Digoxin

Cocaine

Left ventricular hypertrophy (with concurrent T wave changes)

Bundle branch blocks (with concurrent T wave changes)

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I can exclude the three middle suggestions unequivocaly.

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The depressed ECG ST wave form is characterised as above into three basic types. My ECG has a lowering of  about 1 mm and is most like the horizontal depiction above

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Bearing in mind that I have spent decades looking at spectroscopy traces on chart paper, oscillosocpes and computer screens it is easy for me to spot “anomalies”.

Whenever I see ECG traces the first thing which comes to mind is, “why is the data so shite?”

Is the test human not grounded, is there a floating earth?

Can’t they do better, develop better machines, improve protocol?

Verbally the cardiologist wanted to check for myocardial ischemia or ventricular hypertrophy. The latter can come from being overly athletic in which case it is ok or it is simply that the heart if gettting old. Back in the last century I had strong athletic tendencies.

He has propsed a so-called cardio stress test. They asked me if I could pedal. Maybe enough to raise the demand on the heart…we shall see.

Going left to right the power output by the human hamster wheel rider increases by 50 watt quanta B-C. This data shows the depression of an ST ECG trace as incresing demand is placed upon the heart.

“Reversible ST-segment depression is the characteristic finding associated with exercise-induced, demand-driven ischemia in patients with significant coronary obstruction but no flow limitation at rest.”

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The jury suggests that this methodology could tend the “diagnosis” either towards or away from ischemia or blood supply insufficiency. The guess was that my aging heart was just as bit too big and aged. The holy trinity of fat, fags and booze have given me their sacred blessing.

If I am losing blood during the operation the heart will pump that little bit harder.

All the articles suggest that when a stress test is done there is a medic present who is cardio-trained in case the stress test causes a heart attack…

It was mooted that an appointment for this stress test may also not be easy to come by. The pre-op anaesthesia meeting is scheduled about 1 month out before the operation.

If the ST depression is unexplained, will they go ahead or will they insist upon more data?

There is a potential fly in the ointment.

We have found that in general the French are more keen on lastminute.com than we are…I foresee a mad clustering of yet more medical appointments early autumn…

Snapshot of Thinking

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Felix our longest resident stray cat has not showed for a couple of weeks now. The last time I saw him he was pretty beaten up with extra open wounds to his face. The vet thought he had feline AIDS and he has been through the wringer. It seems to me that Felix has had his last dinner and gone off somewhere to die.

Bibi our formally adoptive indoor stray caught two birds yesterday and proceeded to eat them a few feet from my desk. This on top on her normal dinner. BiBi in rugby terms has a front row physique and does not jump like a ninja. Anyway she seems to have lost a lot of her fear and anxiety.

Gandalf the newest arrival, the grey and white, has been a bit confused without Felix. Of late she has been increasingly domestic-ish looking for a cwtch perhaps. When she first arrived, she was more tame. Life with Felix made her more wild. Now he has gone she seeks us humans more. I think she may be angling to come indoors.

The swallows are now fledging their second brood of what looks like five chicks in the “corridor” by the back door. That is ten chicks this summer. We should be able to finally power wash the guano off soon.

The frequency of medical appointments and test results has slowed. I am due the result of my sleep apnoea test still. My guess is that most of the threads are going to be dropped with no action. The UK private rheumatologist recommendations for the osteoporosis problem are probably a bit too fancy. The high haemoglobin, haematocrit and ferritin will probably just be noted. I will probably not get tested for myeloproliferative neoplasm via JAK 2 genetics. They will test liver function next spring. I may not start on any osteoporosis treatment until after my pencilled-in first hip operation. If I have no femoral neck there is no risk of a new hip break, the left one is already Titanium reinforced. If nothing too sinister is found in my CT cardio-angiogram, nothing will be done. It will just serve as a baseline.

I have prostate fun scheduled early August which could be nothing or it could be a game changer.

Somethings are simply allowed to pass. No biggie. There is no need to assert or inflict myself.

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So far it all seems like a huge amount of effort that ends up going nowhere.

It is about four months of hip and back pain to go before the operation. Then I will have postoperative pain and rehabilitation exercises. The second hip may be done at the earliest mid to late spring. This means a weird kind of stasis and a waiting game of sorts.

There is little requirement for me to develop any ideas, it is not my job and there is zero likelihood of them going anywhere. I am easily ignored and unimportant. I could try for a vanity patent as already discussed. I can ramble on here to while away the time. I can’t garden as much due to handicap. It will rain soon.

The idea of a move back to blighty is again wafting by. West country or Wales are the current very loose ideas. Given the hip situation a move might be on the cards for summer 2026.

The dreams have not shown any clear indication as to a residual fate, a devoir outstanding. There are vague hints about things like mental health work. These, nice as they may be, are subject to qualifications and things regulatory. They are not feasible. Nothing crystal clear or emphatic is coming through in the dreaming.

The working notion is that I just have to let things pass and get all hippie with it.

The major obstacle to the blighty notion is cost of living. I am 90% sure that I could pick up some “A” level tutoring there. It would be slow the first year but after the good recommendations on-line to my profile came in, it could take off. It should be possible to do ten grand a year. It is funny how much some people need, positively need, just to be listened to without judgement. I used to help bump up grades two to three points from C to A  etc. It is easy to help people pass exams; how much sticks differs. I’ll wager that my 1:1 tutoring has more longevity.

We have found someone local to help with the mowing over summer and into autumn when I am incapacitated and the wife is busier with the patient.

I put out 13 mole traps yesterday and there is mole sign in another place around the pond today. I’ll probably put out some more traps tomorrow. Then I must get down to fixing the slow leak on the pond. It needs fixing so that I can fill it fully before any drought and the inevitable autumn rains fill it to over flow.

Things look to be pretty much the same as we head over summer towards autumn. September the dance cards have already started to fill a little…more medical stuff…

Hey-ho…

The Uncanny Ability of Being Ignored

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Before I get into this. I have had a nagging question of late. Why are there so many people called Pam in the USA?

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Last night we started to watch a TV series called “Pine Gap” about an American led listening post / command and control centre for satellites and drone strikes near a town like Alice, Alice Springs in Northern Territory Australia. The said base exists in real life and you can find it on Google maps using satellite view. Alice is about 1200km by road from Mount Isa where I lived as a child. The scenery was a partial motivator for starting the series.

What the hell would the locals in Alice make of a bunch of septics and septic spooks to boot?

In the dramatization they listen in to mobile ‘phone conversations and monitor internet traffic. The notion of an all seeing NSA / CIA Palantir is invoked. People may be crunching meta data to point at internet traffic of interest.

The implication is that someone could be monitoring this blog. Though they would probably die of boredom. On a whim some dude could fire a drone attack through my office window. But I suspect that they would struggle with a cost benefit analysis.

I have noted that I have developed an uncanny ability at being ignored. People can discount what I say, ignore it. It is really noticeable with Jean-Jacques and Marie-Claire. They just talk at high speed in French. I say nothing and they don’t even notice. As a consequence we have just received a quote which does not match what we were seeking. It is weird being talked at. I tend to switch off. People don’t notice.

Over the years I have made quite a few inquiries of people, professionals, in the “scientific” dreaming community. Almost without exception they have been ignored. Were, I still institutionalized it might have been a different story. Sat where I am, with my knowledge, they have missed a huge opportunity, from my point of view. But of course I will never fit into a rigidly defined funded programme. I am ignored and not crucial to the furtherance of their {current} agendas. No biggie.

I did not for one moment expect to be listened to or taken seriously.

I also approached various people with my quantum optics ideas. Again I was very largely ignored.

It is my supposition that my increasing handicap with walking makes it even easier to ignore me. I am not only a “grey” but according to the rules and metrics, an obese man, who limps. This renders me not only easy to ignore but almost invisible.

I have a kind of camouflage in which I am not seen, not noted and am ignored. I am not taken into consideration.

This means that I could do all sorts of stuff under the radar, if I were arsed so to do. No bugger would cotton on.

The other weird thing I get is the notion that from time to time people are waiting for me to make a move. They will probably be waiting for a long, long time.

How can people ignore me yet wait for me to make a move at the same time?

Life is odd … people make some weird shit up in their minds…

Iridium this morning was a bit odd…