… said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s totally pointless going to bed early because all it means is that I awaken correspondingly early the following morning.
And so it was last night and this morning. After breaking my neck to be in bed by 22:45, I awoke at … errr … 04:05 or so this morning. So how miserable and depressing is that?
It’s perfectly true that I did do everything that I could so that I could finish early. I rushed through my notes, rushed through the back-ups, rushed through the stats and staggered off into the bathroom to sort myself out. After all, despite the ninety minutes in bed in late afternoon, I was feeling quite exhausted and I’ve no idea why.
Nevertheless, it took a while to go off to sleep. There was too much rubbish churning around in my head. In the old days when I was taxi-driving or when I moved to Brussels, I used to go running before going to bed. It was a great way of dealing with the stress. It’s rather out of the question right now though, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.
Eventually though, I dozed off, hoping for a really good sleep. However it didn’t happen quite like that. I awoke quite suddenly yet again. It took a few minutes for me to come to my senses (which is a real surprise seeing how few senses I have these days) and when I looked at the ‘phone to see the time, it was 04:10.
Try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I drifted in and out of a kind-of semi-consciousness where I was neither here nor there (a usual state of affairs these days even when I’m awake) but I was wide awake by about 06:00 when I made the decision to leave the bed. And that wasn’t easy either.
After the bathroom I went into the kitchen for the medication and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out if I’d been anywhere during the night. There was something about having some kind of lime-green football kit last night. I’m not sure why and I’m not sure where it came from. This led on to another situation where there was a woman who was in the hospital who was a client of the two nurses who visit me. They had heard that she had been allowed to leave her bed. One of the nurses said that she had better go to the hospital to help her fit her compression socks for when she stands up. I thought that that was rather strange because I was sure that the nurses in the hospital could do that but the visiting nurse was insistent that she was going to go to the hospital to do it.
For the lime green football kit, this does in fact relate to something that happened to FC Pionsat St Hilaire when I used to hang out there. Three of us decided to do something for the club so one of us bought a full set of shirts, the second bought a full set of shorts and I bought a couple of full goalkeepers’ kits. The footballing shirts that were bought were a kind-of fluorescent lime green.
As for the visiting nurses going to visit a patient in hospital, that is most unlikely. I couldn’t imagine that ever happening.
First task was to send off my anti-cancer medication prescription to the pharmacy. My faithful cleaner asked them for their e-mail address so that I could forward it to them rather than printing it out and physically delivering it.
Second task was to review and then print out some documentation that I’d been sent. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that, due to my state of health, I’m being supported by an organisation that strives to do all in its power to keep people in their homes. Apparently, even with some kind of financial assistance, it’s cheaper than having them put into some kind of residential care.
With my proposed bathroom conversion, there might be a grant because that is the kind of thing that is covered. They had sent me some information and an application form, so I needed to read it and fill in the form.
This also involves scanning and sending a photocopy of my last income tax statement to them. That took some organising too, mainly because I couldn’t find it at first. I must sort out my filing system.
The nurse told me once more about his friend who is a handyman. I told him to tell his friend to contact me. After all, you never know. And maybe he will. Stranger things have happened.
After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.
We’ve left Middleham Castle and have arrived at Mitford Castle in the North-East, near Morpeth. That was the ancient pile of the previous generations of the family that later produced the disgraced Mitford children of the 1920s and 30s, although all of that was after the time of our book.
There’s not much to see of the castle these days, and I bet that we won’t be having much in the way of discussion about Medieval military architecture.
Back in here, I had a few things to sort out. It turns out that a well-known internet reseller had made a total mess of a repricing issue and instead of reducing its sale articles by 60%, it was offering them all for sale at $0:60. If something is too good to be true, it usually is and that was the case here, which was a shame. What surprised me was that it took them so long to notice. Needless to say, they voided all of the transactions.
Later on, I finished off the selection of music for programme 260417, remixed it, paired it and segued it ready so that I can write the notes for it.
After lunch, my cleaner turned up and we went through the medication that seems to be all over the place in this apartment. The stuff we found too, including the medical kit that I’d brought from England in 1992 with stuff so old that it didn’t have a “best by” date i.e. it was prior to the European Union Labelling Directive of 1979.
Rosemary rang me up for a chat too. She thinks that she’s found the oven that would go nicely in my new kitchen, if ever I have one installed. It costs about €20 over my budget but she thinks that it’s worth it. And who am I to argue? What do I know about ovens anyway?
It was quite a short conversation too, only about fifty minutes this afternoon. However our conversation carried on in a desultory fashion via an internet chat as she sent me photos of the produce growing rapidly in her garden. It made me quite nostalgic for the Auvergne and my potager down on the farm.
There was naan bread dough to make too, seeing as I have run out. And it was probably the best batch that I have ever made too. I made it with more flour than usual and the consistency was just right. I remembered the garlic too.
In between everything I sent off a few more enquiries to builders and electricians, tried to speak to the hospital in Paris (without success) to find out why they have arranged an appointment for me on a dialysis day, and, in a mad fit of enthusiasm that I still can’t understand, wrote all of the notes for the radio programme 260417 ready for dictation on Saturday night (or at some unearthly time in the morning if I have another early start).
Tea tonight was a delicious leftover curry with garlic naan followed my vegan chocolate cake and soya dessert, delicious as usual.
So right now I’m off to bed, hoping for a good night’s sleep at long last. I’m certainly tired enough.
But seeing as we have been talking about that organisation that deals with personal autonomy … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was told by my faithful cleaner that each member of that organisation wears …. well … special underwear.
"Why is that?" I asked. "What’s it like?"
"They’ve gone back into the Middle East and North Africa, rounded up all of the abacuses and transformed them into brassieres for the ladies" she replied.
"Yes, but why?" I asked
"It’s so that all of their clients can count on their support."