Author Archives: Epichall

Wednesday 14th May 2025 – AS I HAVE …

… 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."

Tuesday 13th May 2025 – I HAVE DONE …

… something this afternoon that I vowed never to do unless there was a dire necessity to so do, and that was to go back to bed for a while.

Mind you, there actually was a dire necessity this afternoon. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s absolutely pointless trying to go to bed early. All it means is that I wake up correspondingly early the following morning.

Not that last night was all that early either. It was quite a struggle for some reason to keep my concentration going and I kept on drifting off down little side alleys when I should have been working and finishing everything off.

Once I’d finished doing what needed to be done, it was quite another matter to find the energy to haul myself out of my seat and head off into the bathroom to prepare for the night. However, once I finally made it into bed, I remember nothing. I must have been out in an instant.

And as I implied just now, we had another early start. We’ve had some early starts in the past, that’s for sure, but awakening at 03:05 is something like extremism. It’s not as if I went back to sleep either, but I was tossing and turning for quite a while to no good purpose.

Eventually, round about 05:00, I gave up the struggle and raised myself from the Undead. In the bathroom, I sorted myself out and then went into the kitchen for the medication.

It was about 05:45 when I finally came back in here. It was deadly quiet outside – not even the goélands were cackling – so I made the most of my early start by dictating the radio notes that I had written on Sunday for the eleventh track of programme 260313.

Pressing on, I remixed and edited them and then combined them with the two halves of the programme that I had already assembled. I ended up being, would you believe, as much as twenty-eight seconds over. But as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … there’s enough superfluous stuff in what I dictate that can be edited out without changing the sense, the meaning or the rhythm, that it was no real problem to cut the programme down to exactly one hour.

So that was a job well done, making the most of the unexpected hour or two.

There was time to transcribe the dictaphone notes, and I’m still scratching my head about these. Firstly, over the fact that there were some. Less than four hours’ sleep doesn’t give you very much time to wander off, but somehow I managed it. The second surprising thing is the actual contents of the notes themselves. What on earth must I have been doing?

Starting off, I dreamed that I was in hospital, having to be compressed at the end of a session of dialysis but there was much more to it than that because I had to have some kind of other treatment too. This meant that I couldn’t really leave the bed so they had to take me home on a stretcher. From where I was in the hospital, all the windows looked out into the mountains. You could see cars in the distance simply by the reflection of the sun in their windscreens. This went on for miles. We were there, trying to guess which one was our vehicle that would be picking us up. I ended up trying to sit up, which I managed, and they gave me some kind of programme towards when I should be able to walk and when I should be able to leave the bed etc but I was convinced that I was going to complete this programme much sooner than they wanted me to and I was already making plans to rise up and leave the bed even though I shouldn’t be able to do that, I wasn’t going to let this illness get in my way of getting up.

This reminds me of when I was in North-Eastern USA in 2019. I’d been reading John Bourke’s book ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK about his spell serving with General Crook on their mission to pacify … "you mean ‘exterminate’" – ed … the Native Americans. Bourke tells of the success that they had in tracking raiding parties … "you mean ‘groups of people defending their homeland’" – ed … thanks to the use of the heliograph. The air was so clear up there that a heliograph message flashed off a mirror could be seen fifty miles away. When I was up there in Montana looking for the remains of Fort CF Smith, I saw the sunlight reflecting off the roof of a corn silo, all of forty miles away.

As for hauling myself out of bed when I’m not supposed to, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have “previous” in this respect. I’m determined not to let this illness get the better of me and I’ll fight until the end

And then I stepped back into that dream again. After they had given me an injection, they said that I could go home. I had to take my time really slowly to sit up in bed, by which time my neighbour was eating a meal and it must have been really difficult for her to concentrate. She kept on looking round and I could see the shelves and the parcels shelf behind the rear seat. She wondered how I was going to travel six hundred miles on that … fell asleep here … it came to the point that I’d had to walk and was going to do my best to do it properly on my béquille.

Whatever that dream is all about, I don’t have the faintest idea. Although I do have to say that if I’m sharing a room with a charming young woman, I wouldn’t be in any great rush to leave the hospital, that’s for sure.

It was nearly time to leave the hospital. I was dressed and all my things were packed etc. I knew that it wasn’t going to be as simple as it sounded because of the distances that these drivers have to cover every day. They couldn’t be here on demand like you might think that they would so I was prepared for a wait. There were a couple of young nurses assigned to help me climb into the van but I didn’t really encourage them because I knew that it was going to be far simpler the … fell asleep here … I had these nurses assigned to me to help me climb into the car but I didn’t know where or when or whatever that was going to arrive. There’s much more to it than this but I keep falling asleep so I can’t dictate it and I can’t remember most of it anyway but it was about me being prepared to leave the hospital in a taxi.

This is clearly related to the struggle that I had to climb into the minibus yesterday. I wish that they had allowed two nurses to come to help me into the thing. They could have come home with me too and helped me out of the vehicle, up the stairs and into the bed.

Well, there’s no harm in wishing, is there?

It’s the male nurse’s turn to work for this coming week. He duly turned up and tried to begin a discussion about my stay at the hospital. I’m not sure how many times I had to tell him that I didn’t want to discuss it and he was still going on about it when he left.

Once he’d gone I could press on and make breakfast, with my lovely fresh bread from Sunday, and read some more of MY BOOK.

We’ve now left Ludlow Castle after having had a good chat about the history, and having passed by several minor edifices, we’re now at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire where, doubtless, we’ll have another guided tour of whatever is left of the castle without any kind of discussion about the military architecture of the place.

Back in here, I revised for my Welsh class until the lesson began and then, to my surprise considering that I’d been absent for two weeks, I had a rather successful lesson and I was quite pleased with what I had accomplished. So what’s been happening here?

This afternoon, I had a visit from one of these agencies who responded to my advert about my new apartment. After only thirty seconds of discussion, I decided that they were not for me. It became evident only too quickly that it wouldn’t be my project but theirs.

We had fatuous questions like "what about the insulation of the apartment? That will need checking" and "those radiators will have to go" and "it’ll all need a good coat of paint too" etc etc.

The crowning glory was the discussion about the kitchen
"What’s your budget on the kitchen?"
"The apartment is rather a budget apartment, 40m². It’s pointless, if not ridiculous, putting a deluxe kitchen in there. But on the other hand, I don’t want a ‘bargain-basement, economy’ kitchen"
"I see" she replied. "So you’re looking at about €15,000 then. And we can sort out some nice electromenager too."

In other words, they can sling their hook.

This renovation is turning out to be much more complicated than I ever imagined, simply because I can’t persuade tradesmen to turn up. I would give all that I had … "and more besides" – ed … to have a reliable artisan who would be happy to do just what I wanted him to do.

Throughout the afternoon I’d been going colder and colder until I was feeling really uncomfortable. My head was spinning round and I could feel myself sliding into one of these spells that I have where I’m not able to function at all.

That was the cue to set the alarm for ninety minutes hence and climb into bed underneath the bedclothes, fully clothed. I blame it on less than four hours sleep last night, myself.

After I awoke, it was a struggle to leave the bed, but once I was up and about I concentrated on choosing the music for programme 260417. There are quite a few gaps in the series but I’ll start to fill those once I finish my Woodstock weekend, whenever that might be.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg, followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert, delicious as usual. And now I’m off to bed, hoping to have a decent night’s sleep.

But seeing as we have been talking about our Welsh class … "well, one of us has" – ed …one of my classmates had said earlier that she would be late as she had to go for a memory exam at the local hospital.
However, as the lesson began, there she was.
"What happened to the memory exam?" I asked her
"Ohhh damn!" she replied. "I’ve forgotten to go".

Monday 12th May 2025 – IT HAS BEEN …

… one of those days that has been a disaster from start to finish, a day when nothing has gone right at all.

At least, that’s how it seems The truth is that most of the disasters relate to this afternoon and concern the dialysis centre. The rest, well, ça va as they say around here.

The morning actually started quite brightly, but before we arrive at that point, let’s just mention last night, which was another late-night calamity when I couldn’t summon up the energy to go to bed early.

Not that it would have been early either. It would have been about 23:30 by the time that I finished my notes and that’s not early by any means. And even then, it took me over half an hour to stagger off into the bathroom and then into bed.

Nevertheless, I was asleep quite quickly though, but not for long. And I tossed and turned throughout the night until round about 06:30 when I finally gave up trying to go back to sleep and headed off back into the bathroom.

After a good wash and the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. We had some silver pie base container things. For some reason we were going to have our evening meal in them. The girl who was nominated to do it had first of all to fetch our knitting files from Sam Apple Pie or wherever into the mix and merged properly. That took her a while. The supper came and it was leek soup … fell asleep here … I’m sure that one of the players playing alongside me was Adam Davies but anyway, going back to the story, these pie cases were flattened by some kind of road roller and we had to have them so that the sides came up again. We were managing a block of three hundred houses and apartments so imagine the cheer when one of them was rectified. Then it would go dark again and it, it would join one of the others that had yet been seen with floodlights and this carried on all the time. It was very, very rare that the product … fell asleep here … but we had these silver dishes and looking for one that we’d thrown out and trying to find one that was this Adam Davies, trying to make the sides stand up for some usage.

Adam Davies is of course centre-forward for Caernarfon, whom we watched yesterday, and “Sam Apple Pie” is the group in which my friend Dave Charles, the recording engineer for Rockfield Studios, played before joining “Help Yourself”. As for the rest of the dream, I’ll let you lot work it out and if you come up with an answer, don’t forget to let me know, because I don’t have a clue … "nothing new there" – ed ….

By the way, seeing as we are talking about Caernarfon … "well, one of us is" – edHERE ARE THE HIGHLIGHTS OF YESTERDAY’S GAME

And next, we were offered a pile of dressed stone for two shillings apiece so we arranged for them to have these stones delivered to the Haurace (?). They brought it in through the ice and deposited it just by his front door so he couldn’t move it and couldn’t open his door. He had to start to put it away quickly and do it well so that we could press on but that wasn’t his speedy work at all, wasn’t his thing. He’d seen the things that take the ghost when he played with the cards from Metz and he wanted to go to … fell asleep here … and we were peddling works after six series of taking it, I suppose you’d call it, where each club has been on it for over a month. It doesn’t work beforehand like that.

It seems that I have ashlar … "and rubble" – ed … on the brain right now with all of this medieval architecture that I am reading. As for the rest of it, this is something else that seemed to degenerate into the usual load of … errr … nonsense.

Finally, I went for a walk with a couple of friends of mine. One of them might have been Cécile. We’d been strolling over this agricultural area where she said that she had bought some land. The further we walked, the closer we came to something that looked like an old mill with a big, tall chimney. It was an abandoned place in this field. I went to look at it, but as I did, my attention was distracted by something in a quarry that was covered in rocks. I climbed up this ladder into this quarry. There were these two boys playing at the foot of the ladder. In the quarry it turned out to be an old American 6×4 lorry, camouflaged by being covered over in rocks. I took a couple of photos of it and had a good look around it, then climbed back down. I nearly put my foot on the hand of one of these boys. I told him that it was dangerous, playing around like that. I walked off to rejoin my friends. They had come to some kind of ruined house of the kind that you find in North America. Cécile, if it was Cécile, was extremely depressed because she’d bought it thinking that it was a place to live but it was in fact a ruin. We had a really good look around inside it. There was abandoned furniture and everything and the floors were unsafe. It was in a terrible condition. The two girls decided that they would go upstairs so I said that I’d stay down here to take some photos because there was a really good view of the mill from up here on the top of this hill where we were at this house. I walked out onto the verandah ready to take some more photos of the mill while they were upstairs looking around.

Cécile of course, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, featured in my life quite significantly for a six-month period. And the American army lorry presumably relates to the one in the Grès de Lapeize"we’re talking “ashlar” again" – ed … quarry at … errr … Lapeize where Clotilde lives, the quarry that we visited BACK IN 2010 and found the lorry. However, climbing up on a ladder to the quarry is a new departure.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up early. "I can’t stop long" she said. "There are plenty of blood tests to carry out back at the office". Of course, it’s her final day today before her week off, and her colleague’s “reluctance” in this respect is well-known.

After she left I made breakfast and then read some more of MY BOOK. We’ve had the guided tour of Ludlow Castle and we’re now having the potted history of the place. What this has to do with the “Medieval Military Architecture” I really have no idea.

Back in here I attacked my Welsh homework and I actually managed to complete three-quarters of it. It was quite difficult too, especially seeing as I had missed the one-and-a-half lessons that covered this section.

When my faithful cleaner turned up, I was still bashing away at it, so I gave up and went to have my patches fitted.

And just as well that I did, because the taxi came early – 12:20. And it was my favourite driver too. After she installed me, she told me "we have to go to the Centre Normandy to pick up another passenger". So much for my hopes of an early arrival.

Even less chance too. The other passenger was in a wheelchair and he took some rounding up. It was 12:45 when we drove away from the “Normandy”.

And when we arrived, they weren’t ready for us. They had been explaining to a new stagière how to clean and then calibrate the machines.

There were some additional tests to perform on me too today, which meant that I wasn’t finally coupled up until 14:15, fifteen minutes after the effectiveness of the anaesthetic patches has worn off, so you can imagine how the coupling up went.

At least they left me alone pretty much once the machine began to work, although there were still some tests to carry out. But everyone finished at roughly the same time, so guess who was left until last.

Once I was finally sorted out, I went outside to find that the vehicle sent for me was the minibus. And, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have an extraordinary amount of difficulty climbing into it. In the centre, I’d banged my wounded leg putting on my shoes, and now I banged it again trying to enter the vehicle. And it was so complicated and difficult to climb in.

The torrential rainstorm didn’t help. I was soaked to the skin trying to climb in.

To cap it all, the guy in the wheelchair from the “Normandy” was in there already, and the driver wanted to drop him off first. Not much that I can do about it.

It was 19:30 when I arrived home, soaked, uncomfortable, in pain and completely fed up.

Tea was a stuffed pepper with plenty of stuffing left for the rest of the week, followed by vegan chocolate cake and soya dessert.

So now, thoroughly fed up and thoroughly exhausted, I’m off to bed where I shall sleep for a hundred years.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about “Sam Apple Pie” and “Help Yourself” … "well, one of us has" – ed … It reminds me of when I was arranging my CDs on shelves down on the farm.
Half-way through the exercise I burst out laughing.
"What’s so funny?" asked Cécile
"Have a look!" I replied.
I’d been labelling the shelves with the musician at the start and the musician at the end, and one of my shelves was labelled "Help Yourself to Kate Bush."

Sunday 11th May 2025 – WHAT A GAME …

… that was. Another fine illustration of the quality and excitement that exists in some of the matches in the JD Cymru League. And for a town of just 9800 people, the 1,568 people who flocked into the stadium to see the game were treated to a pulsating, entertaining match.

But that’s something to savour later. Let’s talk about last night first.

By the time that I finished my notes and whatever else I had to do, I was running miles behind as usual. And, completely exhausted, I made a total cod of the dictating that I had to do and it ended up as being one of the longest that I’ve done. There is going to be a huge pile of editing to do there.

Anyway, it was at about 00:30 that I ended up crawling into bed, and I fell asleep before I’d hardly begun my usual nighttime mantra

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall what happens next. It’s the Sunday after a Saturday dialysis session and so round about 06:50 I was wide-awake. So much for my lie-in until 08:00. I lay there for a while tossing and turning but at about 07:05 I gave it up as a bad job and fell out of bed.

Off I staggered into the bathroom and cleaned myself up. Then I wandered into the kitchen for my medication, remembering to take the Vitamin D and Vitamin B12 that I should have taken yesterday.

Back in here I checked the dictaphone but there was nothing on it. That’s a disappointment because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only fun and excitement that I have these days is what does on during the night. And if it involves my family, it’s not much fun and not what I would call “exciting” either.

Instead, I made a start on the back-up that I should have done yesterday but I didn’t go very far because Isabelle the Nurse arrived.

She changed the plaster and cleaned the wound where I’d had this biopsy, lanced the blister where I’d had my compression sock that I couldn’t pull over the wound on Thursday, dealt with my legs and fitted my compression socks for me. She was grateful for everything that my faithful cleaner had fetched on Saturday but she had forgotten the prescription that she promised.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. We’ve finally left the Tower of London, not before doing some lengthy research into the Earls of Gloucester, and have now moved on to Ludlow Castle where, doubtless, the finer points of civilian architecture will be pointed out, at the expense of anything military.

Back in here, I had work to do.

The free trial period of an expensive antivirus that came when I installed Windows on my new System drive has now expired and so I disabled it. I have a favourite free antivirus – or, that is to say, I did – but just recently, it’s been picking and choosing what sites I can or cannot access.

It keeps telling me that even my own sites, that I wrote with my bare hands, are “unsafe”, not to mention many of the more famous sites on the web, many of which I access on a regular basis.

After a play around with it this morning, it still wouldn’t respond so I reluctantly uninstalled it. I used another one previous to this one, that I had rejected several years ago in favour of the new one, so I went back to install that one again, and it works just fine.

When I’d finished breakfast I had made some dough for a lunchtime bread roll. I baked it and then made some lovely cheese on toast for lunch. You’ve no idea how nice it tasted. And as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m really impressed with my air fryer, almost as much as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin.

This afternoon I made a start on the radio programme notes that I’d begun to edit just before going into hospital. And in a mad fit of energy I’d finished them, assembled the programme as far as I could, chosen the final track and written the notes ready for dictation next Saturday night.

There were of course the notes that I’d dictated last night but I ran out of time, which is probably just as well. I’ll try to catch up with those during the week some time.

There was more baking to do this afternoon. I’ve almost run out of bread so now seemed like a good time to make a loaf. I assembled enough ingredients for an 800-gramme loaf and with the correct amount of water thanks to my new scientific measuring gauge, with which I am also impressed etc etc, the dough rose up like a lift.

Not that I was watching it. I was in here watching Caernarfon play Cardiff Metropolitan for the right to play Hwlffordd next weekend for the coveted final spot in European competition in the summer.

The Caernarfon fans packed the ground and they had the privilege of being entertained to one of the fastest, most competitive games that I’ve seen all season.

The Cofis had the bulk of the attacking play but the Met’s defence stood firm and if their defence were to play like that in every game, they would be a force to be reckoned with. They had recognised long before the game that flying winger Louis Lloyd was the Cofis’ main attacking strength and had three men marking him throughout the game, giving him no room at all to move.

It wasn’t until near the end that the Met began to attack in numbers, and they created a few moments of panic in the Cofis’ defence.

And, would you believe, the match was decided by the very last kick of the game. You can see the game HERE or wait until the TV company has edited the highlights. But the highlights will miss the flavour of the game, that’s for sure.

While all of this was going on, I’d had some pizza dough, the last lot, defrosting in the kitchen. So while the bread was baking after the final whistle, I assembled my pizza.

The bread looks superb, the pizza tasted really good and everything now looks fine for the week to come. So I’ll finish my notes, back up the computer, take the statistics and then go to bed. Later than usual of course, but that’s just how things are these days.

But seeing as we have been talking about Isabelle the Nurse lancing my blister … "well, one of us has" – ed … they had a specialist unit once at Leighton Hospital near Crewe where a man was employed specifically to do just that.
However, I had head that it had closed down so I asked my friend who still lives there.
"It’s quite true" he said. "The unit has closed down"
"Why was that?" I asked, bitterly regretting ten seconds later that I had done so
"It was the man who lanced the boils and blisters" he replied. "He kept on falling off the horse."

Saturday 10th May 2025 – GUESS WHO …

… forgot to switch the alarms back on this morning? That’s right. Bane of Britain has triumphed again.

Consequently I had a nice, long sleep until all of 07:31 when I suddenly awoke with one of these dramatic awakenings that I have every now and again. It was nice, bright sunlight outside so I immediately guessed that there was something wrong, so I glanced at the time.

And after another late night last night a really good sleep probably did me some good too. I was exhausted after the journey back and by the time that I’d finished my meal and was back in here I wasn’t fit for very much.

Nevertheless I wrote the notes and performed some of the backing- up and then crawled off to bed at about 23:40 or something. I was asleep quite quickly and, for a change, I was dead to the World throughout the entire night. I remember nothing whatever until I awoke at 07:31.

Once I’d realised exactly what time it was I dashed … "errr … quite" – ed … into the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up, and sorted out the washing. Far too much to put in one machine so I just put the important things into the washing machine and set it off on its routine.

In the kitchen I had my medication, forgetting the vitamin D and the vitamin B12 that the hospital wants me to take and then back in here I was just about to check the dictaphone when Isabelle the Nurse turned up.

She admired the huge plaster on my leg and read the prescription attentively. She made a list of what she needed and ticked off what we had, indicated on the hospital’s prescription what she needed, and then issued instructions as to what else she needed, promising to write a prescription for tomorrow.

After that, it was breakfast. And then I read more of MY BOOK. Except that I didn’t. I was side-tracked yet again, firstly reading about the curious antics of Ranulf Flambard, the treasurer of William Rufus and imprisoned by Henry I, only to become the first-ever prisoner known to have escaped from the Tower of London, and then of the downfall and subsequent resurgence of William de Forz and the siege and subsequent capture of Castle Bytham by Henry III.

You can probably understand why I was no good at being a University Student. I was always wandering off down alleyways that led me far away from my course syllabus.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was something last night about a ferry – a small one like one of the ones that they have here in Granville that go out to the Ile de Chausey. In some kind of tempest or hurricane it had been badly damaged. The ferry company had one of their previous ferries – it was sitting on a plinth outside their office. What they did was to take the boat off the plinth and put it in the water and began to use that. The damaged one, they hauled it out of the water and put it on the plinth. The owners of the company decided that they would give it a thorough overhaul and repair it. Then they would check it every three years for any kind of deterioration and keep on repairing it if it needed it so that if something similar happened again they could take the one off the plinth and drop that in the water and it would be ready to go without any problems whatsoever

There was a similar story about the “Gate Guardians”, the Spitfires and Hurricanes that stood on plinths outside former World War II airfields. When we were kids, on our way to North Wales, we always noticed the one at Hawarden Airfield. However, when the film BATTLE OF BRITAIN was proposed, all of the Gate Guardians were rounded up and where it was possible to do so, were put back into the air.

There was also something about being in hospital and a nurse doing something to me which impressed me so I said something. She replied that she was only a student nurse, which surprised me. I wonder who she was. I’ve had several student nurses attending to me in the past

After that? I had some e-mails to write. There is a mountain of correspondence here going back weeks that I really must answer. However, I must have let the time slip away with me because my cleaner turned up to fit my anaesthetic patches when I was nowhere near ready.

She turned up, but the taxi didn’t. After waiting half an hour, I ‘phoned them up. "Ohh merde!" said the dispatcher in a voice loud enough that even my cleaner heard it. "I’ll find another vehicle for you".

We decided to go outside and wait, and we had a lovely forty minutes under the sun until an ambulance turned up. I hate them – it’s quite a fight for me to put myself inside – but if it’s the only vehicle available I can’t complain.

It was driven by the driver who took me to Paris. She told me that they had been on the autoroute not far from St-Lô when the call had come through. No wonder that it had taken so long to arrive. I told her that I didn’t understand any of this – after all, the taxi company had brought me back from Paris yesterday so they knew that I was at home.

Hours late at the dialysis centre, and what made it even worse was that it was a three-and-a-half hour session today. Had the taxi been on time, I could have had a very pleasant late afternoon back at my place.

The consolation was that I had Lexi and Océane dealing with me today. All of the nurses there are wonderful but as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … Lexi really does have the most delicate touch.

Who cares whether or not the coupling-up was painful? After Tuesday afternoon and the muscular biopsy, nothing else is painful. I had plenty of work to do, apart from sitting there watching the blood pressure slowly sink through the floor to a rather dangerous 88.

Emilie the Cute Consultant was there too, but she remained stoically in her little glass cage. If she wanted something, she sent one of the girls for it. It’s a shame that she’s no longer speaking to me after my revolt the other week.

This evening, I was the last one there so they were both dealing with me. While Lexi was compressing me, Océane was inspecting my feet. I told them that I had delayed my arrival on purpose so as to have the undivided attention of both of them.

The taxi was waiting for me to bring me home and we had a very silent drive back. My cleaner was waiting and she watched and helped a little while I struggled up the stairs. She’d been to the chemist’s to buy what was needed and had bought a lettuce and some potatoes for me.

After she left, I made tea. Baked potato, salad and breaded quorn fillet followed by chocolate cake and almond soya dessert.

Now that I’ve finished my notes, I have some dictating to do and then I’m off to bed. I have plenty of work to do tomorrow, and there’s footy too – Caernarfon v Cardiff Metro, the winner going on to meet Hwlffordd to compete for the vital third European spot, accompanying TNS and Penybont.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about student nurses … "well, one of us has" – ed … regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m not made correctly and taking a blood sample from me is not easy.
Nevertheless, I always encourage the student nurses to have a go. After all, they have to learn somewhere.
One of them was having so much difficulty that I told her "cheer up! If I leave this hospital alive, you won’t need to sit your exams. You will have earned your diploma by default."

Friday 9th May 2025 – HOME ON A …

.. KITE WE FLY,
HOME ON A BREEZE WE BLOW

Actually, substitute “ambulance” for “kite” and the rest would fit quite nicely because right now I’m sitting on my comfy chair at my own desk in my little apartment having had the quickest drive home that I have ever had.

The hospital rang the taxi company to tell them that I could go home and could they have a car here for 11:00? The taxi company replied “could he wait until about 14:00?”.

With the new Social Security regulations about combining trips wherever possible now in force, that told me one of two things – either that there was a vehicle already on its way to Paris, having just set out, with a passenger for Paris, or else there was someone else who needed to come home a little later than me.

Not that I am complaining of course. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s a free service for me in view of my terminal illness and France is, as far as I am aware, the only country in the World that offers it. So who am I to complain or argue about anything?

It gave me an opportunity to catch up with my work, because it had been a very slow start to the day. That’s not surprising because it was after 23:30 when I finally made it into bed. And once there, although I fell asleep quite quickly, this was one of the noisiest nights that I have had and it seemed as if I’d hardly had a wink of sleep.

Round about 05:30 I gave up trying and I began to work.

First thing that I did was to review the dictaphone to see if there was anything on it. And to my surprise, I must either have had much more sleep than I thought or each one of the different personalities living inside me must have gone off on separate trips. I’d been out with my friend from Newport and the first thing that I noticed at the bottom of the door and the door frame were covered in some kind of white material like flour and there was a wooden batten nailed to the side of the door frame. When I leaned on the front door it opened wide and I fell in. It looked completely different inside and I couldn’t understand what happened. I went into the bedroom and one of the cupboards with the clothes in was missing. I suddenly realised that we’d been burgled. I had a good look round the apartment and noticed that all the guitars had gone. All my camera equipment had gone, everything like that, and my clothes, the television, the hi-fi. I went outside to call the police. I was standing by the bus stop outside and dialled 511 but I ended up with the police from the UK for some reason. The policemen to whom I was speaking on the ‘phone knew me and made some kind of remarks. I hung up and tried to dial 911 but for some reason my ‘phone wouldn’t give the number. It didn’t matter how I pressed the keys on the keypad the number 911 wouldn’t come up. Then another policeman walked over to me and made some kind of remark about how if he were me, he would be very careful about doing certain things and saying certain things. I wondered what was the matter with him but I just couldn’t persuade my ‘phone to come up with the number 911.

The apartment was not the same as my current one or my future one and the bus stop was a totally different one. It was in the countryside near some hills etc where I’d been for a walk in the past with Liz.

When I move downstairs, my apartment’s front door will be right by the front door of the building at the foot of the stairs. My door will be locked at all times but nevertheless if anyone leaves the front door open and anyone undesirable comes in, or we have any undesirable guests in one of the apartments that is let to holidaymakers, my apartment would be the first target. And it’s strange that I’m having a panic attack about the ‘phone not working. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that it’s usually the camera that is giving me these kinds of problems.

And then we (whoever “we” were) were doing something with a drama. I can’t remember exactly what now. We ended up outside the house in Shavington with this Morris 1000 Traveller. We had to unload some musical gear from it and take it into the house. There was a guy who had been with us. He was the father of some friend or someone like that. We were talking about different music as we were emptying this thing. He replied “oh yes, that’s what they call ‘kitchen music’ “. I said “ohh look! Here’s someone trying to teach his grandfather to suck eggs here”, thinking that we as musicians would all know that, so he smiled. I began to tell the story about why it was called “kitchen music” but everyone wandered away after a few seconds and left me on my own so I carried on unloading this Traveller. Then we ended up in some recording studio where we’d been recording a radio programme. It was concerning what we’d mentioned as “kitchen music”. I was ushering everyone off the stage at the end. A piece of ordinary, banal music appeared as the background sound for the credits. I suddenly had this really good idea. I went and fetched a guitarist whom I knew and he played this lovely rock lead guitar solo over this banal music and it sounded really good and with that I decided that we would use as the introduction to the programme and the background music for the credits at the end.

We (that is, Nerina and I) nearly had a Morris Traveller once. Someone advertised one for sale that “needed welding” and Nerina fancied it so we went to look at it. The “needed welding” was that the rear spring hanger had sheared off the chassis and come through the floor at the back. It was certainly possible to weld it up but it would have taken a lot of effort. I’m not sure now what the circumstances were that led to it not being added to our fleet. With a BMC 1.5 diesel engine, MG Midget discs and rear brakes, uprated front and rear springs, we could have had a very useful vehicle that would certainly have kept up with modern traffic.

As for mocking the current trend in music, I have to be very careful when passing comment otherwise I’ll find myself turning into my father whenever he heard mine. As for the guitar solos, there are many, many banal, mundane pieces of music that have been utterly transformed by the addition of a lead guitar solo. Just listen to some early “Santana” stuff like NO-ONE TO DEPEND ON and take away the guitars of Carlos Santana and 16-year-old Neal Schon.

Later on I was in a hospital. One of my friends, a girl, was pushing me in a wheelchair. We were trying to find a doctor, a specific doctor for some reason or other. We wandered around – it was a morning and everyone was coming on shift but we couldn’t see the doctor whom we wanted so she went and made a couple of enquiries. In the end she managed to find a name and I recognised the name. When she came back and said the name I replied “he’ll be over there in that café on the far side. That’s where he is usually with a group of other people whom I knew who preferred the smaller café to the big one. Just as she was about to set off, Nerina came out of another doorway into the café. I said “hello” to her. This girl pushed me in the wheelchair around to the far side. The doctor wasn’t there but his senior nurse was, a young girl. We asked her to step outside, which she did, and my friend began to discuss the case with her. I looked in and there were only two other people in this smaller café and they were people whom I knew too. When the girl had finished explaining to the senior nurse I said “if you go over to the far side there and tell my ex-wife that you are going to perform the operation on me, she’ll probably slip you €100 to make sure that you forget to turn on the gas on or something”.

Seeing as we are talking about the ex-wife … "well, one of us is" – ed … everyone knows that X is the Latin for “ten”. But there’s an interesting story about a wheelchair that you will find out if you have the stomach to read any more about this. And “forget to turn on the gas” – knowing my family it would be to have a small accident whilst wielding a scalpel or a circular saw.

Finally, I stepped back into that dream later on. It was raining and we were round the Civic Centre. The girl pushing me in the wheelchair went into an office and came out. She telephoned our Head Office to explain that the gentleman we wanted to see wasn’t in work this week and had not left a forwarding address so we couldn’t contact hm anyway. The arrangement was then that we’d go back to my house to await the arrival of the stuff from Parcelforce or whatever company it is that is delivering and then come back down here to unload what we didn’t need and take away whatever else there was, and then head away. Just at that moment, out of the library came the guy and the girl for whom we were waiting in the previous dream, the doctor. We explained that we were going back to my house to await delivery and we’d be back later on. She also asked for his name so that she knew for which person to ask when we came back, rather than looking idly around the place for a person whom we recognised.
This brings back memories of being pushed around in a wheelchair in several hospitals looking for the correct ward, or unit, or place to go

In the bathroom having my usual scrub, the young Asian nurse came in and asked to take my blood pressure and temperature. She asked me if I needed any help washing myself but you’ll be so proud of me – I retrained myself. However, I did point to my feet which, not having had any care and attention for almost a week, were looking quite bad. She had things to do just then but ten minutes later she came back and washed them

Breakfast this morning included a yoghurt but apart from that, it was quite nice and then, while I was trying to work, I had an endless stream of visitors, especially my Romanian stagière doctor, a different one from last time.

But with an Asiatic nurse, another Romanian stagière doctor, British racism and xenophobia is driving away many people who want to come to bring their talents to the UK. The NHS is suffering and countries like France are profiting.

So they told me about the taxi. But its late arrival did not concern me. I had plenty to do, such as answering stupid questions put by another therapist.

Lunch was a yoghurt, and some fish, neither of which I could eat. I just had the potatoes in sauce, polenta and courgettes

after that I packed my bags and I wasn’t quite ready when I had the first of two ‘phone calls from the ambulance drivers wanting to know whereabouts were of the building where I was.

Eventually they found be, helped me pack and we set off -at least one of the drivers and I did. The other had to wait for the paperwork. I was supposed to leave at 11:00 but God knows what might have happened then because the paperwork wasn’t ready. The poor driver had to wait an hour for the papers to be ready.

It was a good guess about the ambulance earlier. They had indeed brought a patient up to Paris – hence the ambulance coming for me -and had me as a return trip.

It was a struggle for me to climb into the ambulance but I managed it and when the other driver joined us, we shot off through the streets of Paris. They were quite quiet, with many people doing the Pont – taking a day off to bridge the gap of Thursday and the weekend.

It was the fastest drive that I’ve ever had – three hours and forty-five minutes, and that included a ten-minute stop. There were no hold-ups on the prif for a change, with half of the population of Paris being in Granville right now. T won’t ever be that quick until August when everyone goes off on holiday.

The coffee machine where we stopped said “cards only” but when my driver looked, he saw that it also read “card reader not working” so I had to go without. That was sad.

Back here, my faithful cleaner was waiting for me and she helped me upstairs. And I needed it too after being a week in hospital. I only did one of the flights. I took the lift from the first half-landing up to the next one and waled down to my apartment. And wasn’t it nice to be in my own place?

Checking through the papers I found that I had been prescribed a wheelchair. I remember talking to the Romanian doctor who said that I ought to be in a wheelchair because of “those steps”, but how she expects a wheelchair to go up 25 high chairs I really don’t know.

Tea tonight was salad, chips and the last of those mini-vegan nuggets followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert.

So right now, I’m whacked so I’m off to my own nice, comfortable bed.

But seeing as we have been talking about parents … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember my youngest sister once telling off her two kids, ranting at them, and suddenly stopping mid-word
"Ohh God!" She exclaimed. "I’m turning into my mother!"

Thursday 8th May 2025 – I SAID THE …

… other day that I never ever wanted to go through the pain that I suffered on Tuesday when I had that muscular biopsy.

And so this morning, trying to put on my compression socks I put my hand onto the wound, didn’t I? And then later on, when I tried to put on my shoes at the dialysis centre … well …

Anyway, enough of that. Retournons à nos moutons as they say around here.

Last night I was in bed at about 23:30, totally flaked out, and I went straight to sleep. Not for long though, and when the nurse came in at 06:00 to fit my anaesthetic patches I was already wide-awake thinking about leaving my stinking pit. I’d actually been awake for some considerable time.

It wasn’t long after she left that they came in with my breakfast. For a change, everything on the tray was something that I could eat. And the coffee was wonderful.

They had told me that a porter would come to fetch me at 07:30 for my dialysis so I went into the bathroom at about 07:10 to do what one has to do. Sure enough, two minutes later the porter turned up.

That was rather a shame, for he had to hang around for a few minutes while I finished.

He pushed me in a wheelchair downstairs to one of these electric vehicles that they have, and then he drove me round to the dialysis centre.

What I experienced there made me glad that I am usually dealt with in Avranches. Here in the hospital, although it was a comparatively modern building, it was old, quarry tiled, no ticket printout on the weighing machine, no television for the patients etc. It really was rather sad.

The nurses were nowhere near as pretty as those in Avranches, although the one who saw to me was friendly enough. But they had no echograph machine to find the connection under the skin so it really was like playing darts on your body. I’m not sure how many goes she had to find the bullseye. At least she managed to miss treble nineteen.

Luckily I had taken my laptop so I had plenty of things to do seeing as there were no pretty nurses to admire.

One good thing about it all was that for the coffee break, they proposed an orange drink as well seeing as I can’t eat their cake. And the orange juice was one of these protein drinks, lactose free too. I shall have to make further enquiries about this drink.

After they unplugged me, the driver took me back to my little room just in time for lunch. The vegan meal consisted of a salad niçoise (that’s a tuna salad) and fish. Of course, tomorrow is Friday and in a Catholic country, even though it has been officially laic for well over one hundred years, we know what that means.
"IT’S FISH EVERY FRIDAY, IT’S FISH TWO FOOT WIDE
IT COVERS UP YOUR PLATE AND HANGS OVER THE SIDE"
I

After the first day of non-vegan meals served to someone on a vegan diet with a recorded allergy to animal fats, I wrote to the complaints department of the Hospital. As yet they have not replied so I sent them another one about the meal today.

This afternoon, it was just like yesterday afternoon. A huge wave of fatigue came over me and after trying to fight it off for quite a while I was overwhelmed.

When a nurse came in to see me, I asked her what they were giving me to make me go like that. "Nothing that’s not recorded on your prescription" she replied.

And I’m not even having that because the tablets that she brought me for my afternoon snack were one short, and I’ve not had even one of my disgusting drinks.

The laptop sliding off my knees caused a sudden rush of adrenalin that awoke me, so I buttonholed a passing Auxi who brought me a coffee which was nice of her.

Back in the land of the living, I could make a start on the dictaphone notes. I was with a girl from school. I thought that it was a certain girl but it didn’t look like her. We’d been doing a lot of things together and we’d spent the Sunday doing things and we’d seen each other for a few weeks after that. Then I became time to take her home. I said that I’d take her home but if she wanted, she could stay the night. After thinking for a minute she agreed to stay. I promised that I wouldn’t do anything silly – she could stay fully-clothed and I would stay fully-clothed but it would be nice just to spend the night together. She agreed to that so I began to prepare things. There was a problem with the house in which we were living and some other smaller women there, whom I recognised as being my sister, was involved in sorting out these problems. This went on and on and on and on. In the end the other girl came to me to apologise, saying that she had had second thoughts and wanted to change her mind. She’ll stay the night here, she said, “but I don’t want to share a room or bed with you because if I do, we’ll be sharing a bed with each other every time we meet up and I don’t think that I’m ready to do that. Of course I was disappointed but I could understand so we agreed that she’d stay in another part of the house somewhere and we’d meet up for breakfast. By this time, the searches were going on in this room for whatever this problem was. There were all kinds of people in thee and I couldn’t go to bed because of it. Whatever it was, my sister was looking at this girl who might have been the one with me. She expected to hear that the girl was spending the night with me. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that she wasn’t. She came out with some kind of talk about how she would spend the night with me sometime but she had to tell him and sort things out with him, all this kind of thing. I wondered who “him” was because I was convinced that she didn’t have another boyfriend somewhere but this long speech implied that there was someone else to whom she needed to talk first. Then this enquiry into what was happening with this business went on and on and on and they’d moved down the street to somewhere else and there was no way on this earth where I could find a bag of chips now because all the shops were now closed or closed down ready for demolition so we didn’t last very very long in that route (…fell asleep here …) but we did alright as a sort-of couple I suppose.

There is actually a story about going to bed fully clothed with a fully-clothed girl, but the World isn’t ready to hear it at the moment. As for the girl in the dream, a name was mentioned but it certainly wasn’t her. The girl with the name had a mass of black hair but the one in the dream was smaller and had light brown or dark blond hair, very fine and only shoulder-length. I have a feeling that I might know who she is, but I just can’t remember. However, despite their best efforts to throw a spanner into the works, my family managed to avoid disrupting my evil schemes. The girl must have seen them for herself and come quickly to her senses.

Later on, there had been some huge conflict between my youngest sister and someone or other – some guy. I was out and about on my travels walking around and I came across a friend at his house who was going to a party that night to which I’d been invited too, and a few others. He was outside trying to deal with a huge snowfall that had covered his car and covered his drive. He was trying to sort it out so that he could make things ready for him to come tonight so I went to lend him a hand. Another one of our friends was there. I’d had a long talk with this other friend at some point in the recent past. The three of us ended up chatting. Something came up in the conversation that this third guy had said. The first guy asked him “from where did you receive that information?”. The third guy pointed to me, saying “we were talking about that and in the end Eric mentioned it”. We carried on and something else that came up – the first guy wanted to know where the third guy had learned that. The third guy said “oh, Eric had mentioned it”. The first guy said “well, Eric is doing a lot, isn’t he at the moment?”. We set about to try to shovel the snow while the conversation went on, saying “it’s going to be hell tonight. This lot is going to freeze and it will be a nightmare”. Someone mentioned that the guy with whom my sister had had an argument was going to see her. I thought that I’d better go there as well. So I went, and she was in hospital, in her little bed. She had all her stuffed toys around her, and STRAWBERRY MOOSE was there too. I sat him up properly at the side of her bed and made sure that she was comfortable. Then I saw this guy come into the ward and walk down towards her bed. At that moment a nurse came in and awoke me to fit my anaesthetic patches.

The snowfall in this dream was a snowfall of Montrealesque proportions. It reminded me of my epic trip along the North Shore of the St Lawrence that I DID IN THE WINTER OF 2001/2002

And how often does His Nibs appear in my dreams? In the old days when I used to be able to travel, he was my constant companion and was the first moose to set hoof on Ellesmere Island, Philpot’s Island, the Brother John Glacier and the Greenland Icecap. But my youngest sister seems to be back in my dreams again. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s rather depressing that my family keep on sticking their noses into my dreams and I can’t seem to summon up any of my young ladies, apart from that flying visit from Zero the other night.

Once I’d finished my notes I had a quick chat with my faithful cleaner on the internet and carried on with my hunt for films of Launder and Gilliatt to download. I was in luck because I found two classics – ROME EXPRESS starring my hero Gordon Harker and then the legendary GREEN FOR DANGER starring Alastair Sim in what I consider to be his best performance.

By the way, if you notice aside in the right column, I receive a small commission from purchases made from Amazon via my links. It doesn’t alter the price that you pay, but it helps defray my web-hosting expenses which are quite considerable these days. I know that some of you do already, and I’m very grateful to you, and if other people were to make use of the opportunity, I would be just as grateful.

For tea tonight, my vegan meal included yoghurt and omelette, so another e-mail followed the ones that I had sent earlier. If no-one replies by the time that I go home (whenever that might be) I’ll print them out and send them to the director-general of the hospital to demand an explanation, firstly for the state of the vegan meals, and secondly for the failure to reply and take any action over my complaints. I shall go on the offensive and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that “offensive” is certainly the correct word to use in these cases.

Right now though, it’s late and I’m off to bed. But seeing as we have been talking about His Nibs … "well, one of us has" – ed … he went with me on our first Arctic Expedition in 2018 when we reached about 600 or so miles from the North Pole via the Greenland Icecap and the Kane Basin
In 2019 when we went back for part two of our expedition, we encountered some anthropologists scratching their heads.
"What’s going on here?" we asked.
"That’s what we don’t understand" they replied. "There’s a very strange phenomenon here"
"What’s that?" we asked.
"Several polar bears have given birth this summer and there’s something very strange about their offspring. They are just like little polar bear cubs but their fur is brown and furry and they look as if they may have antlers."
"I see" I replied helpfully. "They look like what you might say ‘like a moose in front but with a bear behind’"

Wednesday 7th May 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… a day of rest today. And who can blame me for that after yesterday?

And especially after the wretched night that I had had. I was in bed by about 23:15 and was asleep quite quickly, but it didn’t stay like that for long.

By 04:00 I was wide awake again and when the nurse came to take my blood sample I was about ready to rise up from my bed.

However, I stayed put until about 06:50 when I limped gingerly into the bathroom.. I say “limped gingerly” because I’m not supposed to put any weight on the leg from which they extracted the sample. That’s not possible of course because I have to move around, but I have to be careful.

Back in here there was a long wait until breakfast (which included a yoghurt for my vegan diet) but the coffee was scorching hot and had a lovely taste

After breakfast we had the usual interruptions while I tried to transcribe the dictaphone notes. I was seeing Nerina off on a train somewhere. I had to find some extra clothes for her because it was going o be cold. I gave her the sweater that I was wearing. A friend of mine, who was on a bed in the hospital but one of these mezzanine beds hat was raised quite high-uppish, she had another one of mine so I took that one and ran to the train. Nerina was sitting in the very last carriage at a window right at the end. I threw her the one, that she caught, but I couldn’t find the second one so I had to run back to this mezzanine bed but I couldn’t find it. I found one of my lightweight fleeces and dashed down the corridor of another train right into the driving compartment where there were four or five men sitting talking. They began to make some kind of weird remarks about the speed in which I was travelling. Then I went right out of the cab at the front and down the steps at the front which were a long series of stone steps right down to the bottom. One of the guys took off behind me and shouted at me to stop. He told me that I was trespassing but I took absolutely no notice whatsoever. There were some policemen there, halfway down the steps, and he shouted out to them but they didn’t do anything at all. I ran down and reached the bottom. At the bottom he caught me up and said that he was going to “sort me out for my impudence”, everything like that. He was struggling to put on his police overcoat with the stripes on it. “So you are going to teach me, are you? Come on then, let’s see you do it”. He took a swing at me but I stepped back. I goaded him again “do it again” but he burst into tears. I left him there and ran but when I reached the platform where Nerina’s rain was, it had gone. I walked back and there were a few people whom I knew there. One or two had used to play in a group that I knew but had been asked to leave and had been replaced by some other people whom I knew. I expected these people to come over and talk to me to ask me what I knew about them having to leave this group but they didn’t even notice me so I carried on walking towards the doorway for the way out of the station.

That situation is one that I could easily manage to have – from all points of view. If I had something urgent to do, I wouldn’t let protocol stand in my way. And if someone wants to take a swing at me, they are quite welcome to try.

And then I was out taxi-driving last night. I had to go to pick up some people off a little mews in Welsh Row, Nantwich to take them to the railway station. They turned up and climbed into the car and I set off. When I came to the corner where I turned into Hospital Street I felt the clutch begin to slip on the car. I felt “ohh, not again!”. I carried on and we were chatting. The woman asked me if I would be going anywhere near Brierley Street. I explained that I would be going straight down Crewe Road. By now we were on some kind of country lane that I didn’t recognise at all. I wondered “how did I arrive here and where had I gone?”. The road went round to the left on a bend but in the past there was this big U-turn type of thing, a U-bend … "he means ‘hairpin bend’" – ed …. I ended up taking the old road for some reason or other and when I reached the end it was gated so I had to apologise, turn round and go back again. Then they began to ask me about cashing up. When did I cash up? How often did I cash up? Do I have a £10:00 note on me? Could I see one? I had to begin to make excuses about this. I thought “this is all beginning to sound suspicious to me. I wonder what is going to happen next”.

That’s something that used to happen every now and again after I had my taxi accident in Sandbach and fractured my skull. I’d suddenly find myself in a street and I’d have to stop to think …
1) how did I arrive here?
2) to where am I heading?
It was all very confusing. And I had my fair share of strange characters in my taxi at different times.

So no family last night, except Nerina. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … seeing as I invited her to share my life, she has every right to appear in my dreams. And frankly, in what might come as a surprise to many people, if I had to choose between Nerina and any member of my family (except the Canadian side of course), Nerina would be in pole position, and by a country mile too.

Some therapist came by too. She asked me a pile of questions about my autonomy and then had me putting pegs into holes and then taking them out – doing it against the clock.

For much of the rest of the day I was left alone so I cracked on with the radio programme 260403. All of the notes are now written ready for typing. It took me much longer than usual because I kept on falling asleep. I don’t know what pills they have given me that are different from the normal but they are knocking me out.

After I’d finished, I hunted down the names of songs for the next programme, 260410. That’s the anniversary of the Titanic setting out on its first and only voyage, so I’m going to have a sea-related programme that week, I reckon.

There have been e-mails to write, ‘phone calls to make and to receive, nurses and auxis coming in to interrupt me for no good reason, but I sent them off to find a doctor. When one finally arrived I mentioned the missing Burinex and she told me that I’d been prescribed one per day. However she changed to prescription and sent a runner off for a couple more pills.

The meals were as usual. For a vegan diet my meals included
1) breakfast – yoghurt
2) lunch – yoghurt, cheese slice and cheese omelette
3) tea – yoghurt and steamed fish

So now I’m off to bed ready for my dialysis tomorrow.

And seeing as we were talking about protocol … "well, one of us is" – ed
One day in 2022 there was an important dignitary coming to the office so it was all decked out and the cameras from the TV stations were there.
And what the crowds, and the millions or people on European television saw, was a dark green Opel Omega driven by Yours Truly pull up to drop off my boss’s assistant.
The woman in charge of protocol sailed down and gave me a really stern lecture that went on and on.
When she finished, I replied "if you had said nothing, I would have been in and out in ten seconds. However, you’ve kept me here for five minutes on live television and made me famous, something that I appreciate greatly. Thank you very much"

My car was an Opel Omega, armoured of course and with the police’s 6-cylinder 24 valve engine that would run the four and a half tonnes of car at 260 kph easily on a German autobahn at night. But it was an ordinary car, with civilian number plates, and we never ever had an official police escort. I convinced my boss that the best security was to pass unnoticed in the crowd, rather than draw attention to ourselves.
One day he asked me "are you armed?"
"No I’m not" I replied. Anyone who wanted to attack us would have his gun all ready anyway and I would never have had the time to pull mine out of my pocket or from under the car seat.
He was surprised by that. "but what would you do if we were attacked?"
"Well, Sir Brian" I said. "I would rely on the force of my personality."

Tuesday 6th May 2025 – AS I HAVE SAID …

… before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … a thoracic puncture is the most painful medical intervention that I have ever suffered in my life.

And, having said that, I now wish to withdraw that remark. I do not ever in my life wish to suffer the pain through which I went with this muscular biopsy. I would rather take a dozen thoracic punctures any day. I have never hurt so much in all my life.

But be that as it may, there is a lot of ground to cover before we actually arrive at that point.

Last night, after I’d finished writing my notes, I was thoroughly exhausted despite all of the sleep that I had during the day, and by 22:30 I was in bed, tucked up under the sheets. Not “under the blankets” because there weren’t any on the bed.

It wasn’t all that long before I was asleep either, although as is usual in a hospital, being a very light sleeper means that I have very little sleep, what with all of the racket that goes on in a hospital during the night.

And as I have also said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … there is no point whatever going to bed early because all it means is that I wake up correspondingly early.

And while 04:05 might seem to be rather absurd to some, I didn’t have any choice in the matter. There I lay, drifting in and out of reality until the nurse came to take a blood sample at 06:30. Her procedure was what I would call “efficient” and she didn’t hang about either. It was all done and over in a matter of a handful of seconds with no trouble at all.

Before she left, she asked me "Anything else that you need?"
"A coffee" I replied, more in hope than expectation, but needless to say, I was told to clear off.

Round about 07:30 the circus began in earnest and I had no more rest after that, with blood pressure, temperature, all of that kind of thing.

As Hawkwind once famously said in SONIC ATTACK "your only protection is flight" and I fled into the bathroom for the morning ablutions.

Not that I was safe in there either because someone came to look for me – to ask me if I needed any help, just as I was finishing.

Breakfast wasn’t long a-coming, but my medicine never arrived. And never arrived at all during the day, possibly because no-one had thought to take my prescription yesterday when I checked in.

After breakfast I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was an advert on television about washing powder or something. Some woman was sitting on a sofa holding a bowlful of it when a dog jumped onto her lap and the bowl went everywhere. My younger brother decided that he would try it. He waited until someone was sitting on the sofa with a bucket full of something but it was actually cooking fat. He was training the dog to jump up on her and the cooking fat went everywhere. I went in to see what the commotion was and saw the mess. I went back into my room and on the two-way radio I said “that looks three metres by three metres, nine square metres, nine metres cubed so we reckon that if you make a start now, you might have it all tidied up and cleaned away by breakfast. My mother heard it and was immediately swept up in a kind-of anger. She dashed into the bedroom and sorted out some old bedclothing, bed covers, sheets and so on. She said “you can’t leave your brother to clean that up. I’m going to do it”. I asked “how do you think he’s going to learn? And then again, you’re always complaining that no-one ever takes any notice of me. Here I am, giving some kind of instruction and you’re almost immediately undermining it, so what do you expect?”. She completely lost her temper at this point . She stuck her face right in front of mine and began to scream at me. I just couldn’t understand what on earth was the matter with her. My brother had caused all of the mess so it’s up to him to clean it up. It all seemed quite logical to me

“I just couldn’t understand what on earth was the matter with her”. That was perfectly true when we were small, but as we grew older we certainly began to understand exactly what it was. It was a combination of several factors, none of which should be the subject of discussion here. But, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, the idea that I would get it in the neck for anything that my brothers and sisters did was a habitual state of affairs. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I remember talking to my friend’s daughter in Florida on the internet years ago who was having a major bout of pre-teen angst. "whenever I do anything wrong and my little brother tells my mom, my mom yells at me. But whenever he does anything wrong and I tell my mom, my mom yells at me for not watching him". I really felt for poor Tina at that moment.

And having said all of that, since when did logic ever play any role in anything that our family ever did?

Somewhere along the line, Nerina put in an appearance. We were talking about the USA. She said that although she had only visited three or four States of the USA she had certain opinions about certain things. I asked her which States she had visited. She listed four of them in New England, Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, that area, That was how that part of the dream went on but I’m not sure how it fitted in.

If ever I had to live in the USA (not that I would – the USA has become a horrible place since the election of Bush and the de-humanising of the country – I would be most at home in New England. Vermont would be my State of preference – I’ve spent many a happy hour, day, week there in Burlington and Brattleboro’ – followed by New Hampshire and then Maine

I was talking to friends about the underground floor of the Place d’Armes when suddenly the door of my apartment opened. There were people in there brushing it out and it was filthy, disgusting. There was dust and all kinds of stuff everywhere. it looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned for twenty years. As they carried on working with the door open, firstly the woman whom I knew came out and said a few words. Then an older woman with only one eye came out and said a few more. Then a man who was probably the partner of the first woman came out. He saw me and said “you’ve done all right out of this, haven’t you?”. This started a huge row in the …. On one occasion I said “on one occasion I did propose that you can take over my apartment. I wasn’t putting you out on the street”. He replied “she can’t do that. She has two weak knees”. I replied “and what do I have?”. He didn’t have an answer to that. In the end I told him to shut his mouth, go back into the apartment and carry on. He could of course spend as much time arguing with me as he likes because the longer he argues, the less work he’s doing so the more work he’s going to have to do so the longer he’s going to have to stay so the more rent he’ll have to be paying me.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I did offer the tenant an exchange of apartment as far back as November 2023, but the tenant refused. She’s also had at least two opportunities to buy it (in France, if a property with tenants is put up for sale, the tenant must be offered the property first) and has refused to buy it on either occasion. But seeing as she has had informal notice 18 months ago and formal notice in July last year, she’s had plenty of time to find somewhere else as she said herself in a letter in her reply to me eighteen months ago.

As I was revising for my Welsh course, I was invaded by a doctor and a gaggle of students who began to pull my legs apart and watch me as I marched later up and down. He gave a running commentary on my condition and the examination that he made and then had a lengthy chat afterwards, which told me nothing that I didn’t really know before.

He disappeared with my paperwork and my inscription but it changed nothing. I still didn’t have any medication. It’s a good job that I’d brought my own anti-cancer medication with me.

Because of his lengthy visit I had missed the first fifteen minutes of my Welsh class. I joined in rather late and was doing quite well, despite the lack of preparation, but had to exit rather hurriedly when lunch came.

It was a good job that it came when it did because about fifteen minutes later they came to fetch me for my biopsy. We had to wait ten minutes outside the laboratory in the wind and then I had a fifty-minute wait inside until the specialist arrived.

Whatever happened in there, you don’t want to know and I don’t want to talk about it, except that I will go through anything except a second one of those.

Back here, I collapsed into my chair and I haven’t moved since. I’ve been searching for a few more films by Launder and Gilliatt to watch in bed tonight, without very much luck although I did manage to locate a copy of the “dummy run” for the SAINT TRINIANS films, a film called THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF YOUR LIFE with many of the usual suspects.

Yesterday, I was afraid that I was rather over-optimistic with the vegan meals. Today at lunch, the vegan option was an omelette. This evening, it was steamed fish. So I ate what I could tonight and then made myself a cheese butty. It’s a good job that I’d brought my own supplies

So now I’m off to bed. I have a blood test in the morning at 05:30, so I’ve been told. That means another night of studying, I suppose, one one day I might even pass. We shall see.

But seeing as we have been talking about States in the USA … "well, one of us was" – ed … when I took Kit, Liz (“this” Liz, not “that” Liz)’s daughter to University in Ontario I crossed over the river and went to have a look around Detroit.
Back in France later, someone asked me "what State is Detroit in?"
"Well" I replied, "from what I saw, it was in a flaming dreadful one."

Monday 5th May 2025 – HERE I ALL AM …

… not sitting in a rainbow but sitting in a chair by the window in a room on the fifth floor of the Neurological Ward in the Hôpital Pitié-Salpetrière in Paris.

It’s a new departure … "he means ‘arrival’" – ed … for me, seeing as I’m usually in the Haematology Ward, so presumably this is to do with the neurological development of my cancer that has been eating into the nervous system of my legs this last couple of years

It’s been a very long, hard, tiring day that began, would you believe, at 04:00 when I awoke this morning. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s pretty pointless going to bed early because all it means is that I awaken correspondingly early.

That was true of last night. When I finished everything that I needed to do, it was still 22:30 and I lost no time in going to bed. Fully-clothed too because I needed a good start to the morning, with the alarm set for 05:30.

It didn’t take long to go off to sleep either but unfortunately I didn’t stay that way for long. I awoke at about 04:00 and couldn’t go back to sleep. When the alarm did go off I was busy in the dining area packing my bags. Two bags, because I decided to keep the “office” separate from my travelling items.

There was even time to have a proper breakfast with porridge and my lovely fresh loaf (no coffee though) and I rearranged the stuff in the freezer to make room for some of the bread because I’m taking most of it with me, along with a packet of vegan cheese slices, some of my flapjack and one of these vegan spice cakes. I’m not going to be caught out for food.

My cleaner (poor thing) turned up at 06:30 to fit my anaesthetic patches and we waited for the taxi to turn up, which it did, fifteen minutes late.

At the dialysis centre I was one of the last of the morning patients to show up. I was shown into a private room in the other ward where I ended up being the last to be connected. I thought that I would be tired but I had plenty of work to do in order to keep myself busy.

My machine only played up once or twice, because of my low blood pressure, but everyone is used to that by now. There wasn’t much water to remove again so the machine wasn’t set very high but even so, it’s very tiring.

My taxi driver turned up at about 12:30 to run me to Paris. It wasn’t my favourite one but it was a chip off the same block and we had an interesting drive all the way there, my driver using her hands not on the horn but in a series of gesticulations of the kind that you would expect more of an Italian taxi driver.

We had a pretty good run as far as the Tunnel St Cloud but from there on we were stuck in the traffic and it took a while to come here.

The building is one of the more modern ones but I don’t understand why they have the entrance so far from the edge of the pavement. It’s a long way to walk for someone with neurological problems, and I wasn’t the only one having a great deal of difficulty.

It took ages to find the correct floor but once I was in, I was in. We had the usual problem of trying to find a vein for a blood sample. In the end they had to send for a specialist nurse. He told me that he had learned his technique in the Army’s medical service and I shall carry the scar for ever, but he managed it in one go.

On the way here I’d dozed off a couple of times for a few minutes but once I’d settled down in a comfy chair I was out like a light despite a desperate struggle to keep awake, and was away with the fairies (but not in a manner that would incite any comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine) for an hour or so.

And to my delight, tea was a veggie burger with cauliflower. Not very much, but some vegan food at last. Things must be looking up.

As far as any nocturnal rambles went, there were two balls, one green and one red, attached to my clothes somehow. One had fallen off and was already in the bathroom. The red one fell and rolled into the bathroom where it kissed the one already in there and rolled to the left closer to the bath. It looked very much like my bathroom in Winsford.

So dreaming about my house in Winsford? That’s not a very common occurrence by any means.

Right now though, early though it may be, I’m still wasted so I’m off to bed. I have a blood test in the morning at 06:00 so I’m told, so I need to sit up and do some studying.

Seeing as we have been talking about Italian taxi drivers … "well, one of us has" – ed … when I was chauffeuring, I had a colleague who was Italian.
We had to go on a very long trip somewhere, the two of us, and another colleague had warned me of his rather garrulous nature.
When we returned, the other colleague asked me "how did you get on with him?"
"He didn’t talk much" I said
"Why was that?"
"Simple" I replied. "I tied his hands together".

Sunday 4th May 2025 – HAPPY STAR WARS DAY

May the fourth be with you.

And regular readers of this rubbish will recall exactly how today began. Probably many of the occasional readers will have some kind of idea too because it seems to happen almost every Sunday following a Saturday dialysis.

However, having said that, 02:55 is carrying it rather to extremes.

It can’t be because I went to bed early either. I know that 22:25 is a rather extreme time for hitting the sack these days, but I was so exhausted after yesterday’s dialysis session, light though it might have been, that I simply dashed through everything that I needed to do and just fell into bed.

At 02:55 I was wide-awake and actually thinking about leaving my bed and making a start but even then I realised that doing that was probably going to unnecessary extremes. I made myself comfortable the best that I could and prepared for a very long morning.

At some point though, I did go back to sleep. But not for long because when the alarm went off at 08:00 (it’s lie-in day today) I was back in here having already washed and had my medication.

Although I’d started to transcribe the dictaphone notes, the nurse beat me to it and I had to go to have my legs seen to. He’s definitely not coming tomorrow morning and wants me to go to bed in my socks. My cleaner is outraged but as it happens, I’ll be going to bed fully-clothed tonight. I have a 05:30 start.

After he left, I made breakfast and began to read MY BOOK.

On page 233 he tells us that someone was employed in 1223 to make balistas corneas. A ballista is an ancient type of heavy-duty crossbow used for launching stones and heavy iron objects at buildings and obstructions and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in one of the ancient hill forts that we visited, a skeleton was found with a ballista bolt, or heavy-duty arrow, embedded in its back.

Consequently, I expected to see the odd page or two about ballistae and their construction, especially in a book about Medieval Military Architecture, but there is not a word. Nevertheless I carried out my own research and I’m now confident that I can build a reasonable ballista, to go with the rest of the Medieval and Roman equipment that I built during my University course in Historical Technology

Back in here, I transcribed the dictaphone notes from last night. I’d been out and about on quite a long walk etc. I’d been out all day and had travelled miles. When I had come back to the hotel in the evening I suddenly remembered or suddenly realised that I only had one of my crutches. I wondered where on Earth I’d left that – the other one – and how far I’d actually walked around my enormous circuit with just one crutch holding me. I asked them at reception and I held up my béquille – my crutch. Someone said “ahhh yes, we have the other one of those”. I thought to myself “have I really gone all day without one of my crutches and done it all with the one in all that distance that I’ve walked?” One guy came back he had a belt with him, a leather belt he handed it to my brother who put it on and was admiring himself I took hold of another waiter and asked him what was happening there The waiter said “that was found at breakfast and we thought that it might have been your brother’s” I said “I didn’t know about that, but what about my béquille that he went to fetch?” The guy replied “I don’t think that there was one. I think that what he was thinking about was that belt”. I had to accept the fact that somewhere I had lost a crutch and I would have to try to organise another one and pretty quickly too because I really couldn’t go anywhere without two crutches. I was surprised that I’d even attempted to go the kind of distance that I did today and only used one of the crutches for at least part of the way

That’s not the first (by any means) dream that I’ve had where I’ve picked up my bed and walked, in a manner of speaking. Wishful thinking, I’m afraid. And once more, someone from my family has put his sooty foot into my dreams.

Back in here there was the football and for the final game of the season, it was another insipid performance from Stranraer as they went down 0-1 against basement club Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic, and it was on their own ground too, not the New Dundas Swamp.

They had only five players on the bench too, mostly youth players, as the injury crisis has ravaged their tiny squad. But that’s a self-inflicted problem.

They need to be thinking about a much improved squad and performance next season, that’s for sure.

There was a ‘phone call after this. A builder whom I had been trying to contact ‘phoned me back. We had a lengthy chat but the big issue with him is that he isn’t an electrician and I can’t find an electrician anywhere right now. There’s no point starting the work if there’s no electrician to do the electrical bits.

After lunch, of leftover pasta and salad, I made a start on editing the radio notes but I knocked off to watch my niece’s youngest daughter graduate from University.

St Francis-Xavier University had begun to stream the Graduation ceremonies during the pandemic and they had kept on going. So I had the pleasant sight of seeing her mount the stage to receive her Degree. I had to wait for ages though, with her name being down at the bottom of the alphabetical list.

Rosemary rang me too and we had a chat – only forty minutes today because it was the Welsh Cup Final between TNS and Connah’s Quay Nomads. There’s no need to ask the score because it’s pretty self-evident, especially when the winners were handed the winning goal on a platter as the opposition defence stood around and watched.

But in an event that can only ever happen in Welsh football, the Nomads took the field with only ten men. They had named the wrong player, an injured defender, in the starting line-up and so were obliged to start the game with (or without) him on the field, and make a substitute for the missing player once the ball had gone out of play.

While all of this was going on, I was making bread and defrosting pizzas. The pizza was excellent as usual and the bread looks wonderful too. I’ll know for sure when I make my sandwiches tomorrow morning.

Right now, though, I’m off to bed ready for my early start tomorrow.

But seeing as we have been talking about Connah’s Quay Nomads just now … "well, one of us has" – ed … regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have spoken before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … about various Welsh football clubs who have been playing with Martin Bormann and Lord Lucan, or a couple of Easter Island Statues in the centre of their defence
Next time that I need to talk about Connah’s Quay Nomads’ defence, instead of talking about our usual defenders, I shall mention that they are playing with the Invisible Man in central defence, and know that this time I shall be perfectly correct.
Rather like the time that the Invisible Man tried to make an appointment at the dentist’s
"I’m sorry" said the dentist. "I’m rather busy. I can’t see you right now."

Saturday 3rd May 2025 – THAT WAS SUPPOSED …

… to be one of the easiest sessions of dialysis that I have ever had, with only 1.6 kg of fluid to be removed. However, it’s totally exhausted me and in a few minutes I shall be off to bed.

It probably wasn’t the early start that did it – after all, being up and about at 06:20 is pretty much par for the course these days. And as well as that, it was a comparatively early night last night – in be by 23:30.

What with one thing and another, I had had a good session at the work that I needed to do after tea last night and I didn’t hang around at all. I suppose I could even have been in bed before than had I applied myself.

Once in bed though, I remember very little of the night until, once more, I had rather a dramatic awakening for no good reason at about 05:55.

Try as I might, I could not go back to sleep and, checking the time once more, I nipped out of bed just before the electric water heater switched off.

After a wash and shave (in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon) I went for my medication, sitting at the table when the first alarm sounded at 07:00.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a group of us, including my father, in a car driven by some young lad whom we knew. We’d come by Leighton Hospital and on the old road cut-off there was a Sherpa minibus. It had a taxi radio aerial on the roof and another one bolted onto the back door. I had a quick look but couldn’t see a taxi plate on it so I suspected that this one was operating illegally. We carried on down the hill towards Pym’s Lane, and this Sherpa caught us up. It was probably half an inch from our back door but we were probably doing about fifty mph. As we reached the bottom and began to come back up the hill the Sherpa became even more aggressive. We told the driver “take your foot off the throttle”. The driver took his foot off the throttle and the Sherpa drove straight into the back of it. Of course, we stopped and he stopped and we all alighted. We could see the driver of the Sherpa beginning to panic. He tried to escape but my father reached in through his window and took the keys out to stop him driving off. We made him alight from the vehicle to talk to us about the accident. In the meantime the young lad who owned the car had set up some kind of workshop at the side of the road with all his tools. He was busy preparing stuff to make a running repair of the damage. I was impressed by all of this. He said “well, I have nowhere else to keep it except in my car”. I replied “it won’t be long before you have your own place, and then you’ll find somewhere”. I’d been to the new place that he had bought. It was a tiny two-bedroom flat much smaller than mine. He would have a great deal of difficulty putting stuff into it. He took the top off a tube of something or other but dropped the top and someone nearly walked on it. We were all there, becoming busy while my father and one or two of his friends were stopping this guy from driving away.

This was an extremely realistic dream. The road layout was just as I remember it from when I lived in Crewe and Winsford and travelled that way regularly back in the 1970s and 80s. But once again, someone from my family seems to be involved in one of my dreams, even though there was nothing at all from which I might have needed saving.

Then later on, there had been a group of us. We had been for a walk in the hills over by Macclesfield. We were walking around there looking at all the mountains on the horizon, trying to identify them, which was which, which were the fields beyond it. We were trying to identify where the Salt Way, the ancient road over the hills between Cheshire and Derbyshire went. We were all pointing out amongst this group of people what we’d seen and where we’d seen it. I’d had a really good view five minutes earlier and I told everyone about it. They all came back but we couldn’t see it, or I couldn’t find it again. We ended up on a pub car park, looking. Just then, a group of five motorcyclists and their pillion passengers pulled up. The riders alighted and we noticed that one of the riders had the most enormous feet you have ever seen. They parked their motorcycles anywhere, one of them in the middle of the road. We thought that it wasn’t the best place to leave it. They went in but we were all sitting around a table outside. The manageress came out with the notepad and wanted to take our orders. She ran through the menu. One of the girls with us said that she would have a “Vegan Delight” but she would be horrified if she knew how much it was going to cost. The woman said that the devilled kidneys alone were £31:00. nevertheless the girl ordered it. I ordered the “Vegan Delight” but without the kidneys.

A few of those people I recognised – members of my Welsh class. What we were all doing walking over the moors at the back of Macclesfield I really don’t know either. But the biggest puzzle about this, something about which I am still shaking my head, is whatever would devilled kidneys be doing anywhere near a “Vegan Delight”. It’s no surprise that I eschewed them.

The nurse didn’t have too much to say for himself this morning, although he was not at all happy when I told him that he needed to be here at 06:45 on Monday morning at the latest. He told me to go to bed in my compression socks, which was what I suspected that he would say.

After he left I made breakfast. And my new mini-loaf is really, really nice, just as it should be. As far as MY BOOK goes, we are still in the Tower of London having the guided tour. I’ve long-since abandoned any hope of having any military architecture explained to me.

Back in here, I had a few bills to pay. There’s still no earthly reason why this monthly standing order won’t go through. Whenever I go to pay it manually, it automatically inserts my bank details so it must have them on file somewhere.

There was also a sum of money to transfer from my Canadian bank account for my great little niece (or little great niece)’s graduation from University, which is tomorrow.

There was time to start writing the notes for radio programme 260403 but I didn’t go very far before my cleaner came round to fit my patches.

After she left, I waited (and waited, and waited) for the taxi to turn up. Eventually it arrived and we set off, picking up someone else along the way. I was the last to arrive and so was the last to be connected. But there was only 1.6 kg of fluid to lose today so it was a session of three and a half hours. Imagine how early I could have been out had I been first to be connected up.

For a change, it wasn’t me who had a crisis in there. It was someone else. The nurse explained to me afterwards that she had been coming for several years and was now on the final downhill slope.

No-one bothered me and the machine behaved itself. I revised my Welsh while I was waiting.

Julie the Cook uncoupled me and while she was compressing me, she showed me some photos of a cake that she had baked. It looked lovely, a kind-of flan with fresh summer fruit on a cream base.

The boss came to pick me up this evening, and the poor woman who had come down with me had had to wait half an hour for me to finish. I felt awful, even though it’s not my fault.

After the taxi driver drove away, I realised that he had taken my jacket with him in the boot of his car. He brought it back later on, full of excuses. I told him that my cleaner was most upset about it and wanted a word with him so he made a quick getaway.

Tea was a baked potato with vegan salad, delicious vegan mayonnaise and breaded quorn fillet followed by vegan chocolate cake and soya dessert.

That was followed by a lovely chat with my niece and her three daughters who are in Antigonish ready for the Graduation Ceremony tomorrow. How I wish that I could be there. Antigonish is a lovely little town – I went there on several occasions when her elder sister was studying here – and it would be a lovely day. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I remember bouncing Amber up and down on my knee as a tiny baby (Amber, not me) when she was just a couple of months old in 2003 that winter that I spent in Canada. It’s hard to believe that she’s graduating from University.

Right now though, I’m feeling pretty miserable so I’m off to bed. It’s a good job that there’s nothing to dictate because I would not have felt much like doing it.

But seeing as we have been talking about Julie the Cook … "well, one of us has" – ed … regular readers of this rubbish will recall that she appeared a couple of weeks ago in one of my nocturnal rambles.
So this afternoon I told her "I dreamed about you the other night"
"Did you?" She asked
"No" I replied. "You wouldn’t let me"

Friday 2nd May 2025 – AS I HAVE SAID …

… before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … there’s not much point in going to bed early because all it means is that I awaken correspondingly early.

So when the alarm went off this morning at 07:00, I was already in the kitchen sorting out the medication, having already done the necessary in the bathroom.

But retournons à nos moutons as they say around here.

Last night I really was feeling quite queasy and uneasy and after I finished my notes at 22:20 and it wasn’t very much later than that when I hit the sack.

Once I was in bed it took a few minutes to settle myself down and once I did, then that was that. I remember absolutely nothing else.

That was until 05:50 when I had another one of those dramatic awakenings that I have sometimes. I lay in bed tossing and turning and trying to go back to sleep, but when I heard the electric water heater switch off at 06:20 I gave up the ghost and arose from the Dead.

After the good scrub and the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. Unfortunately, there was no Zero last night. However, there was a rock festival taking place. I was asked if I would deal with the sanitation issues so I tried several aspects of the toilets, several different designs, and in the end I simply went for the large pit with a big wooden board with holes over it. I had to supply all of the paper and everything like that, arrange to have the pits pumped out and it began to become extremely complicated. I began to wonder whether or not I’d bitten off more than I could chew with this. First of all, of course, I didn’t know how many people were going to attend – if it would be something like Woodstock with a 50,000 crowd limit but half a million people who appeared.

It’s a little-known fact that as part of my Degree in Environmental Technology, I have a Diploma in Environmental and Pollution Control so not only can I design a fantastic waste disposal site for you, I would be quite happy to design a sanitation system for a major festival. It’s clear though that I have my Woodstock Festival on the brain right now. I really ought to crack on and finish it instead of messing about so much.

And then I stepped back into that dream later. After we’d installed what we needed to do, a couple of other people and I, we went for a walk into town. We could see the crowds coming away from the festival behind us. They had obviously just installed their things. We thought that seeing as we were ahead of the queue coming up the hill, maybe we should go to the shops and buy some food because we had a suspicion that the food was not going to last anything like as long as the festival. We saw all kinds of things. We even saw them digging holes as if they were ready for graves. We entered a supermarket and began to look around and select things to put in a small basket. They had some of these iced buns with white icing crosses on them. They looked really nice so I said that I would have one. The girl with us put her hand inside and grabbed hold of one. She began to eat it. I thought “this is probably not the best advertisement for us that there could have been”. She was telling us that in the local paper that day there was a letter from a guy who had tried to come to the festival but couldn’t make it. He had written a huge, enormous letter of complaint to the shop that the shop had published in the newspaper.

One thing that you will find, if you listen to my radio programmes on Woodstock this coming August, is that food was a major issue at the festival. Many people gave no thought whatsoever to food, and the organisers had counted on 50,000 people, not 500,000 turning up.

The nurse didn’t have too much to say for himself this morning or, if he did, I paid no attention. And after he left, I made breakfast and carried on reading MY BOOK. We are, as I expected, still in the Tower of London and so far, there has been nothing controversial in what he has said. That is rather disappointing.

Back in here, there was plenty to do today. The first task was to finish off choosing the music for programme 260403. That took longer than it ought because I didn’t have half of what I needed and some of it took some finding.

While I was at it, I also took the opportunity to research for the programme for the following week, 260410. That should be an interesting programme and no mistake.

Once I’d assembled all of the music I went for a disgusting drink break and then my cleaner appeared to do her stuff. After I’d prepared for my shower and washed my clothes, she helped me into the bath to have the shower, and it was delicious.(the shower, I mean).

While I was under the shower the ‘phone rang. So after I was out and my cleaner had gone, I rang the number back.

It was the taxi company who had ‘phoned. Apparently my authorisation from the Social Security only lasts for one year and it had now expired. I needed some more paperwork from the hospital.

Not exactly sure of what I needed, I rang the hospital. It sounded so complicated to me that in the end I gave the hospital the taxi company’s ‘phone number and left them to fight it out between them.

Liz rang me after that and we had a Rosemaryesque chat of over an hour, split in two because the hospital ‘phoned me back midstream to tell me that they had sorted it out between them, the paperwork had been e-mailed and everything was to go ahead as normal. And so I could continue my discussion with Liz.

It’s been ages since we chatted but she’s been up to her eyes in grandchildren for the last while, what with one thing and another. We had a really good chat about lots of different things, which was nice.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the other day I was having “another think” about my apartment renovation. Liz and Terry have an “in” on a certain Social Network group so between us we worked out an advertisement that we could publish on there about the work that needs doing. And not only is it now published, it’s also had some response.

It’s just a shame though that they don’t live in this area otherwise I would have had them come and do it in a heartbeat. We all worked so well together as a team and in that really hard winter of 2010-2011 when it was too cold to work in the Auvergne, we went up to Brussels to my centrally-heated apartment and blitzed it from top to toe in just six weeks.

Liz has really good taste too and that helped a lot, to add some nice little touches to the place. And between the two of them, they managed to keep my feet firmly anchored to the floor instead of soaring off on some flight of fancy. It would be worth any price whatever to have them here doing the work, even if I had to hire a holiday let for them for a month on top of whatever they would want to do the job. However, you can’t turn the clock back and once people have retired, they want to enjoy themselves.

Having sorted out everything else I went one better than David Crosby, probably because last night I wasn’t feeling up to par. It increases my paranoia like looking at my mirror and seeing a police car. But I’m not giving in an inch to fear because I promised myself this year. I feel like I owe it to someone.

Finally I could sit down and edit, remix, pair off and segue the music for programme 260403, miles behind time as usual, but ask me if I care..

Tea tonight was air-fried chips, vegan salad (with more of my delicious home-made vegan mayonnaise) and some of the vegan nuggets that I’d bought from Noz the other day, followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert.

In between preparing and eating the food I made myself a very small 200-gramme loaf. I’m out of bread at the moment so until I have the time to make something on Sunday afternoon, that will keep me going. With the new water gauge, the loaf turned out to be spot-on. That was a good purchase.

So now I’m off to bed ready for dialysis tomorrow afternoon (I don’t think). However, it’s the Welsh Cup Final between TNS and Connah’s Quay Nomads.

The Nomads are desperate to win as it’s their only avenue into Europe but they are currently managerless after a very poor season by their standards so we shall see. There were three clubs in the Welsh Premier League, The Nomads, Y Drenewydd and Aberystwyth, who lost several of their bigger names in the last close season and their recruitment was simply just not good enough. They have all paid the price for that.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about me being able to build a decent waste disposal site … "well, one of us has" – ed … I mentioned that to Liz
"You’ll need to go out on the street and collect some rubbish then" she said.
"I refuse" I replied.

Thursday 1st May 2025 – WHEN I WAS SMALL …

… and Christmas trees were tall
We used to love while others used to play
Don’t ask me why, but time has passed us by
Someone else moved in from far away

Now we are tall and Christmas trees are small
And you don’t ask the time of day
But you and I, our love will never die
But guess we’ll cry come FIRST OF MAY

Happy Journée International de Travail – the “International Day of Work”, a day in which, with absolutely no sense of irony whatever, everyone celebrates work by taking a day off.

That is, of course, except the nurses and staff at the dialysis centre who were hard at it today. And hard it was too, because I have a head spinning round at I don’t know what speed, I’m feeling nauseous and I’m rather groggy on my feet. I shall be going to bed as soon as I finish these notes.

It’s probably something to do with another late night. It was after 00:30 when I finally crawled into bed after I’d finished everything. And I was asleep quite quickly too.

During the night I awoke several times but I was fast asleep when the alarm went off this morning.

No-one ever felt less like leaving the bed than me this morning but I struggled to my feet and staggered off to sort myself out.

After a wash and shave (after all, I may meet Emilie the Cute Consultant) I went off to take my medication. And then back in here for the dictaphone notes.

And a special visitor came to see me during the night. Welcome back, Zero. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you! In the dream I can’t remember too much about this but there was certainly something about her being there. I’d had another dream during this particular dream, about Emilie the Cute Consultant who was there. She’d been treating me for something or other that meant that I had to stay over. There were all kinds of things that needed doing and I had to stay over in hospital. One of them was to do some kind of cleaning process. I was going to be heavily involved in that for some reason but I can’t remember where the border lay between the “dream within the dream” and the “dream”. At some point the idea was Zero was there so I was hoping that it would work out that Zero would be staying on too so that while I was doing the cleaning she would be there. I was desperately trying to negotiate myself onto some kind of work rota that would involve me actually doing the work when I knew that Zero was going to be present so that I could talk to her. But this was proving to be extremely complicated because every time I tried to approach Zero to talk to her, something happened and she kept on moving two steps away. I was trying all through this dream to end up next to her to speak to her, to end up on the same shift that would work when she was going to be present but it never seemed to happen. There always seemed to be something that was coming along to stand in my way again

More and more than ever before I’m convinced that it’s my subconscious that is keeping me apart from making a fool of myself over all of these young ladies during the night. It obviously knows something that I don’t know, but I’m not going to let that worry me. I shall live for the moment and cling on to whatever crumbs of comfort I can catch.

And next time anyone hears me bewail the fact that I never seem to step back into a dream involving any of my special young ladies, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, make sure to remind me that last night, Zero appeared again later on. It was her birthday and she was quite a young woman round about this time. I was wondering what had become of her, whether she was married, whether she had had children, everything like that. I was musing over this when the dream ended.

It often makes me wonder in reality where she is, what she’s doing, whether she’s married, whether she has kids. I mean, another one of my favourite young ladies is a grandmother these days. But whatever Zero is doing now, I hope that her life is happier than it was when I knew her. I felt really sorry for her back then, but there was nothing that I could do to help.

Later on, a friend of mine was managing a project for some young people and was finding it very difficult to go ahead. He said that the trouble with the younger people today was that they are so naïve. They are open to believe almost anything that someone tells them. “It’s making my life really difficult to bring them into the real World for any particular kind of project that they are trying to deal with”.

That’s something that I have noticed quite frequently these days.

The nurse came earlier than usual and we had a good chat. I told him that I’d missed his friend at that builders’ place yesterday. He didn’t know why but he imagines that she’ll be in contact with me. However, I have had another thought in this respect.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. Having passed by a few smaller piles, we’re now at the Tower of London and discussing William the Conqueror’s arrival on the scene and the beginning of the construction.

It’s likely that he will have a lot to say on the subject as it’s one of the most important places in the Capital. But seeing as its history is well-known, I would be surprised if we were to learn anything new.

Back in here I made a start on programme 260403. I’ve not gone very far but even making a start is some kind of progress, I suppose. I doubt if anything will be finished for dictating on Saturday night but I do have some unedited notes that need attention on Sunday.

My cleaner turned up as usual, but my taxi didn’t. After she had fitted my patches we waited and waited. In the end I telephoned. "We thought that you were still in hospital" said the despatcher.

Whoops! I knew that there was something that I had forgotten to do on Tuesday morning. That was what they call an omelette sur le visage moment.

The young garrulous driver turned up and the three of us (there was another passenger in the car) had a lively, chatty voyage all the way down to Avranches.

Today’s nurses were Océane, Amandine and Alexi. I really like Alexi – she has a very soft touch and it’s like being stroked rather than being handled. Mind you, they all have their little speciality and I like them all. I really do think that the nurses who work in dialysis here have been hand-picked for their charm. Even the Nursing Auxis are lovely.

The coupling-up was comparatively painless which was nice, and then I had plenty to do. I’m making a list of tasks to do downstairs and it’s growing longer by the minute.

Liz contacted me too, asking if it was convenient to chat – we’d had a brief on-line discussion this morning. It’s difficult to talk in dialysis so she’s going to contact me tomorrow.

Starting late, I was finished late, even though it was only three and a half hours today. I managed it without a crisis but as I mentioned earlier, the low blood pressure is knocking me out right now

The garrulous driver who took me brought me back, and we chatted all the way home. My cleaner was waiting and watched as I staggered up the stairs., rather worse for wear.

Tea was a delicious leftover curry, but no naan. And there was so much left over that there’s enough for two more meals in the future. Having emptied some stuff from the freezer, it’s filling up.

So now, much earlier than usual, I’m off to bed, hoping that Zero will come to see me again and that I wake up feeling much better than I do now.

One thing that I learned today is that my dialysis session is arranged for 08:00 on Monday, so I’ll be leaving here at 07:00. Which means leaving my bed at about 05:30 if I’m going to eat anything before I go.

But seeing as we have been talking about the Journée International de Travail"well, one of us has" – ed … Nerina once told me "I’m totally fed up with all of the sexual harassment that I have while I’m doing my work"
"Well," I told her, "if you don’t like it, the answer is to give up this working from home and go back to the office."

Wednesday 30th April 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… another wonderful day out today. And I’ve been shopping today again too. It was really pleasant to hit the streets again and I enjoyed it tremendously.

And that’s even after the lack of sleep that I had last night.

In fact, it was after 01:30 when I finally hit the sack. I was quite wound up after all of my efforts yesterday and couldn’t settle down. Instead, I found a few things t do on the computer and had a wander around in cyberspace doing a bit of this and a bit of that. As for “a bit of the other”, I managed to restrain myself.

When I finally made it into bed, I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned for quite some considerable time.

However, I must have dropped off to sleep at some point because BILLY COTTON awoke me at 07:00.

Surprisingly, I wasn’t as tired as I might have been. I made it into the bathroom and sorted myself out, as far as it is possible to do so, and then went into the kitchen for my medication.

There was a beautiful draught of air coming through the open window (I’d left it open all night). And as I sat there, the sun rose from behind the church and immediately the current of air became warm. I was only there ten minutes too.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, and the answer was a predictable “nowhere”, given the amount of sleep that I had had.

The nurse was in full chat mode and for a change it was quite interesting. He also mentioned another one of his friends who had some kind of connection with a building company. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I know all about his friends.

While we’re on the subject of friends … "well, one of us is" – ed … my friend turned up shortly afterwards and we had a good chat as we waited for the builder to show up (late, as usual, but we expected that).

When he turned up, we found that he was quite efficient, quite frank and quite easy to talk to. He made me fully aware (however, I already knew) that there would be no guarantee or promise that his company could start work within my deadline. It was that that impressed me the most.

He’s arranged for an appointment on 3rd June (when I should have possession) to measure up and talk to his contractors. And it can’t be done any quicker than that.

After he left we had breakfast and continued our discussion for a while, tearing apart all kinds of ideas and plans for downstairs.

Eventually, we decided to make the most of the lovely weather and went out to the car – or, rather, we went outside and my friend went and brought the car to me.

Our first stop was at Donville-les-Bains. The branch of my bank there is much easier to access and parking is easier so I went in and drew out some cash – the first time since I can’t remember when. Not that I need it, because I do have an emergency supply here in the apartment and I haven’t spent any in ages – but it’s always handy to have around “just in case”. And I won’t have many other opportunities.

After we left, we went down the hill to the seafront and had a very, very leisurely drive along the coast as we chatted about old times. We saw some wonderful sights, and made quite a few U-turns as our path led up into various dead ends.

We decided to go to Coutances for lunch and my Artificial Intelligence search engine made several suggestions as to where a vegan could eat.

However, I don’t know what France has come to these days.

When Marechal Foch took over overall command of the French Army in 1918 it is said that he said that he only had two conditions – "a free hand with the Army, and two hours for lunch". We arrived in Coutances well before 14:00 only to find that every single restaurant that we tried had closed its kitchen at 13:30

We ended up at the LeClerc supermarket where we grabbed some “Tricatel” food, thanks to a couple of nice serving wenches who took their time closing at 14:30 so that we could just about have time to be served.

On the way back home we stopped at Noz, my first time since October 2023 where I struck lucky with some fabric softener, some coffee, some noodles and a pile of frozen vegan food.

Leaving Noz, we drove slap bang past the place that my nurse had mentioned, so we went in anyway. His friend wasn’t there but a helpful girl gave me several pointers and arranged an appointment for someone to come to see me. There’s no harm in it, I suppose.

On our arrival home, we found that my faithful cleaner had been to LeClerc in Granville and had found my pyjamas as well as more of those curry patties that we had bought yesterday.

For tea I had lasagna out of the freezer, making space to put in everything that we had bought. It’s not ‘arf crowded in there but it all went in, right enough.

Our chat, reminiscing about old times, continued for ages. He showed me some photos of our project in the UK – the “before” and the “after”. The “after” is so impressive and looks wonderful and we will soon be ready to start Stage Two of our project but the “before” photos are horrifying and I was genuinely appalled.

Eventually he left to go back to his hotel ready for an early night as he has to set off for back home at 05:30 tomorrow morning. We had a lovely two days together, going to places, catching up on old times and discussing new times, but what kind of state is this to be in when someone has to drive all the way from Newport in Shropshire to take me to the shops?

Now that I’ve finished my notes, I’m off to bed, later than usual yet again. Dialysis tomorrow and I’m not looking forward to it at all. I wonder if there will be any more feedback from my rebellion on Monday

We shall see.

But seeing as we have been talking about going down a few dead ends … "well, one of us has" – ed … I am reminded of a report on male sterility that was published a few years ago.
A newspaper had laid its hand on the article and the headlines the next day were "Male Sterility – a dead end?"