Category Archives: avranches

Monday 3rd November 2025 – NEVER HAVE I …

… felt less like leaving the bed than I did this morning. For two pins I would have switched off the alarm and curled up back under the covers, and had it not been for the impending arrival of Isabelle the Nurse, I would have done too!

Mind you, it was somewhat late last night when I went to bed. Being delayed because of the length of time that it took to bake my cake, it was much later than usual by the time that I’d finished tea, and there was plenty of washing up to do too.

By the time that I’d finished my notes, it was after 23:00 and what with everything else that needed doing, it was much closer to midnight by the time that I crawled under the covers. And what with the early start, I was well and truly ready for it.

Once in bed though, I was out like a light and remember absolutely nothing at all until the alarm went off at 06:29.

As I said just now, I didn’t want to leave the bed. It took me a good while to summon up the courage to leave the bed, and even longer to haul myself to my feet.

After the bathroom, where I had had a good wash and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant later today, I went into the kitchen where I made another one of these hot lemon, ginger and honey drinks to take with my medicine.

And I needed it too, because I was coughing like nothing on earth.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. In this dream, I was back in Crewe again. I was working in an office somewhere, and part of the work involved dealing with different issues that arose from different situations, such as the question of certain meals. We made a series of cards by typing on a sheet of paper and then sealing it inside one of these laminated pocket things so that we had all of the instructions and the regularly-occurring companies, their desires and demands all done like that so that we could follow them up quickly. There was one where they were always asking for certain more information about a certain product. Another one was asking if there was an instruction book to go with the DVD that they had received. I was on my way home and was walking up the bottom of Edleston Road towards Market Street over the Chester Bridge. It was early evening but there was no-one about. There were very few cars at all. I’d probably counted two or three along the whole way. As I walked up Chester bridge, I went to cross over to the north side. There was a little baby, running around on her tricycle thing. It started to talk to me so I talked back to it. But her mother called her, so she ran to her mother, but she had left her doll behind so I had to call her back to pick up her doll. As I crossed the road, I noticed a car coming towards me from my left, quite a way back. Its headlights suddenly disappeared, and I put it down to the fact that it had gone down a slip road down to the road that now runs along the old railway line under Chester Bridge, so I thought that I’d meet it down there when I go down the pedestrian steps.

This idea of cards made of sheets of paper and laminated pouches is nothing at all new, and back on the farm I have a laminating machine for just that purpose.

But if I were going home, I certainly wouldn’t be going down Edleston Road, over Chester Bridge and into Market Street. I’d be going in the opposite direction.

As for the road that runs along the old course of the Chester line past the old General Offices, there is indeed a road these days, but it starts further along the line at Wistaston Road, not at Chester Bridge.

Isabelle the Nurse was bright and breezy and cheerful this morning. Not surprising, seeing as it’s her last day today for a week. We had a very chatty ten minutes while she fixed my feet, and then she disappeared on her rounds.

It was boring old toast with my breakfast today – the croissants have all gone for now, but I’m going to make another batch, don’t you worry. How could I not? But regardless, it was a very slow, leisurely breakfast that I enjoyed immensely.

Back in here, there were things to do which took some time, as usual. While I was doing them, I listened to the radio programme due to be broadcast this weekend to make sure that it was OK, and then I sent it off.

However, I was interrupted by the arrival of the plumber. He finally appeared, after all of his vicissitudes, to sort out the water leak.

It didn’t take him long either. It turns out that there was a faulty gasket in the U-bend for the waste pipe. There’s an inspection trap that can be undone so that the waste pipe can be cleaned, and the gasket was the wrong size. It was the work of ten minutes to change it.

While he was at it, he reset the hot water timer for me. It was a common error, so it seems, committed by many people, mainly because the instructions aren’t clear. You don’t just set the start time to “on” and the stop time to “off”, you have to set each half-hour segment individually to “on” or “off”.

After he left, I made a start on combining the radio programme on which I’d been working, but I didn’t do much before my cleaner came to apply the anaesthetic on my arm.

She stayed for a while for a chat, and then after she left, I awaited my taxi driver.

It was my favourite taxi driver too, and we had a lovely chat all the way to Avranches. We picked up another passenger en route but I’m not going to talk about him because one day, I might be like him too, although I desperately hope not. I’m not exactly the tidiest or cleanest of people but I do try to take some pride in my appearance when I’m out and about.

At the dialysis centre, I was on time for once and didn’t have long to wait before I was coupled up. And once I was coupled up, they left me pretty much alone throughout the session.

The boss turned up and had a little chat with me, but I suspect that it was more to show willing rather than anything else.

They unplugged me quite rapidly too, and I had a lovely chat with a very lovely driver all the way home. There are some benefits of this dialysis and I have to do my best to find them.

Being home early, I finished off the radio programme, chose the final track and wrote the notes ready for dictation. That should be out of the way the next early morning.

Tea was a vegan burger with rice, veg and gravy followed by cake and soya dessert. And the cake is as nice as it looks too.

As you can see, I’ve gone back to having puddings. The reason is that they are high calorie and high carbohydrates, so that if I can’t manage a main course meal very well, topping up with a pudding packed with these sorts of things will help me maintain some form of nutrition, even if it’s not all that healthy. Adding fats will at least give the muscles something on which to work.

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

However, in other news … "he said, blowing his own trumpet" – ed … I have been informed today that I have been elected to fill a vacancy on the Cymru Leagues’ Supporters Panel.

It’s not actually the first time that I’ve held such a position. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I was on the panel in 2006 and was nominated by the supporters to attend a meeting at FAW Headquarters with the Competitions Secretary to present the supporters’ view of the proposed changes to the league structure.

But that was a long time ago and since then, there have been many changes, both to the league structure and to my life too. It’ll be interesting to see what comes out of the situation this time.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the other passenger in the taxi … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of when I met a couple of friends in Brussels once, whom I hadn’t seen for quite some time.
"Epic!" one of them said. "We thought that you’d been dead for years!"
"Of course he isn’t" said the other one. "He just smells like it!"

0

Saturday 1st November 2025 – I HAVE JUST …

… watched the worst football game that I’ve seen for a very long, long time.

Ten minutes to the final whistle, and there I was, sitting here thinking “I wish that this game would hurry up and finish before I age another ten years”. We’ve seen games recently that have been brilliant adverts for Welsh football, but this one was definitely not. It was a perfect cure for insomnia.

Still, watching it this evening saves me from having to watch it tomorrow morning.

Mind you, if tonight is anything like last night, I won’t have the time to watch it. By the time that I’d finished everything that I needed to do, it was quite late. Long after 23:00 in fact.

Still, once in bed, I fell asleep quite quickly and remember nothing whatever until the alarm went off at 06:29. At that point, we were discussing some kind of military situation in four or five towns during some kind of conflict, but I can’t remember any more about it than this.

That might have been an interesting dream, I suppose, had I slept longer.

Anyway, after another few minutes to compose myself, I struggled out of bed and went off to the bathroom for a good wash and shave, in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant later, and then sorted out my medication, including another one of my cleaner’s evil concoctions.

Back in here, there was more stuff from the night on the dictaphone. There was something about shipping convoys along the north-west coast of Wales. But they weren’t exactly off the coast – they were on the coast, land-based convoys. There were quite a few attempts to sabotage these. The Germans had quickly caught on to where the control box was for the belt, but couldn’t find anyone who would sabotage it. The Italians and the Japanese knew where it was, and they had better luck. However, what they did was only temporary. Sometime, there was a big build-up of frozen food in the freezers and this had to be identified when it came to distributing the items. Cheryl Gray was looking for a certain pack of frozen items like the breadcrumbed panés that I use but he couldn’t find them. In the end, there I was, being treated for some kind of medical issue, had to tell her that they were right at the top shelf of the freezer, on the far side on top of another product.

We’re back on the convoys again, but the next part of that relates to something that I was reading the other day about the German sabotage units in the USA during World War I.

As for who Cheryl Gray is, I’ve no idea.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up, half an hour late. She’d had a great deal of difficulty with one of her earlier patients. Consequently, she’d been falling behind on her rounds. She dealt with the final injection, sorted out my feet and then dashed off again.

Once she’d left, I could make breakfast. And those croissants that I made, they may not have looked very much, but the interiors were perfect and they tasted just like croissants should.

After breakfast, I came back in here and began to work, but I seemed to have run out of time. Before I knew it, my cleaner appeared in order to apply my anaesthetic cream.

Once I was ready, she stayed for a little while for a chat, and we had a good laugh and joke, which was nice. She also asked me why I don’t fill my home-made croissants with apple purée.

Now, there’s an idea. There’s some in my fridge as it happens.

The taxi was a couple of minutes late, but as I was the only passenger, I arrived at dialysis on time.

However, thereby hangs a tale. Two other people arrived at the same time so they were dealt with first.

The first one was a new patient, and he took hours to be coupled up while the nurses went through all of the induction procedure.

The second was a regular customer, but she had a health crisis right at the start and all of the nursing crew plus Emilie the Cute Consultant were gathered round her for almost half an hour.

Even though my session today was such that they set the machine for three hours, we were so late starting that I’ve finished long before today’s finishing time when there has been a session of three and a half hours.

Once I was coupled up, I started my shopping list for next weekend, and then revised my Welsh.

And although Emilie the Cute Consultant didn’t come for a chat, she did give me a “hello” as she walked past the bed.

The chief driver was waiting for me when the session finished, but we had to wait fifteen minutes for another passenger and then go on a Tour of Normandy. Consequently, it was well after 19:00 when I returned home.

This food issue reared its ugly head again. I wasn’t hungry at all, but I found some crackers and vegan cream cheese and came in here to watch the football.

Colwyn Bay v Y Barri, it was, and it was awful. Colwyn bay scored first and then Y Barri scored two, because of two appalling defensive mistakes.

The game pivoted on an incident a couple of minutes later when Colwyn Bay had a player ordered off. But instead of going for the throat, Y Barri were content to keep possession and pass the ball around amongst themselves for the rest of the game, boring the crowd and the tele-spectators to death.

Y Barri scored two more, one was a wicked deflection into the path of an unmarked player, and the other was a wicked deflection into the net. But this is not a game that I would recommend to anyone.

Mind you, I did manage to eat a pile of crackers, so things aren’t all that bad.

So now, I’m off to bed, if this wicked pain in my foot, that started up again half an hour ago, will let me. I’m fed up with that too.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about composing … "well, one of us has" – ed … It reminds me of something that someone said when we visited the grave of Beethoven.
"He spent fifty-seven years composing, and then one hundred and ninety-eight years in there, decomposing. "

0

Thursday 30th October 2025 – AND SO IT WAS …

… three hours at dialysis today. And with the machine going at not far off full tilt too. Mind you, it was exhausting, and I reckon that I should be in for a good night’s sleep tonight.

Rather like last night, in fact.

The notes were finished at some kind of reasonable time and then I dashed through the rest of the things that needed doing. Somehow managing to avoid falling asleep while riding the porcelain horse, I was back here and in bed by 23:02.

A couple of minutes later than I intended, but it can’t be helped. It’s still earlier than several others have been just recently.

Once in bed, it took a few minutes to doze off to sleep, and there I stayed until all of … errr … 04:20. Not being able to go back to sleep, I was giving serious thought to leaving the bed but I reckoned that I’d give it five more minutes and then heave myself out of my stinking pit, but the next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 06:29.

At that moment, I was attaching some kind of white PVC guttering to a 1950s or early 1960s bungalow. There had been some discussion about fitting it, and how complicated it was, so I posted several photos of me doing it and how I could do it quite comfortably and make a good job of it, but people still carried on with this issue about how difficult it was. Anyway, the alarm went off at that moment.

After all the work that needed doing on the farm, I became something of an expert on fitting guttering. However, the guttering that I used was standard grey, except on the wooden buildings where it was brown if I could find it, and that wasn’t all the time either.

Having finally (but not without a battle) struggled to my feet, I staggered off into the bathroom for a good wash and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant today, and then I went into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what else might have been on there. Unfortunately, there wasn’t very much. A new ship had been launched during the American Civil War. It was instructed specifically to keep clear of any kind of naval engagement. However, the captain prepared it with cannon etc and was intent on waging war in it. There were various disguises etc, and quite a few people came to inspect the ship and then left, suitably impressed as he prepared to wage his one-man war on the enemy.

This dream is very reminiscent of the largely ignored but absolute classic film MURPHY’S WAR where a shipwrecked mariner fights a one-man war against a German submarine.

The story about ship disguises though relates to the commerce raiders that the Germans used. They would comb their merchant fleet for ships that had twins in foreign fleets, soup them up and arm them and send them, disguised as innocent merchantmen from other countries, to wreak havoc in the shipping lanes.

Quite often, a little wood framing and painted canvas could enable them to resemble completely different ships, so they were constantly changing identity in order to escape detention.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual and sorted out my injection and then dealt with my feet and legs. After she left, I made my breakfast and had a leisurely start to the morning.

Once I was back in here, there were a few things that needed doing and then I finished off sorting out the music for this radio programme on which I’m working. I now have twenty-one tracks for eighty-three minutes, from which I need to choose about fifty-two minutes-worth.

My cleaner turned up as usual to apply the anaesthetic on my arm, and then I had to await the taxi.

It was the guy who seems to be in charge who came for me. He was early, which was nice and made a change, and so I arrived early at dialysis.

By 14:10, I was plugged in, wired up and properly organised, and in the main, they left me alone.

Emilie the Cute Consultant was there and she spoke to everyone else, except to me again. I’m convinced that she doesn’t love me any more, which is a tragedy.

They weren’t as prompt in unplugging me, unfortunately. It was 18:20 when I finally made it back here, taking my cleaner completely by surprise. It was another one of the nice, chatty chauffeurs who brought me home and we had had a lovely non-stop chat all the way home.

After a nice long rest, I made tea. Baked potato, veg and some strange spinach pasty things in breadcrumbs. But once more, despite it being a small portion of food, a fair amount ended up in the bin. I really am worried about this.

But I shall worry about it tomorrow because I’m off to bed for that good sleep that I have promised myself. We’ll see if it’s not “famous last words”.

But seeing as we have been talking about not eating … "well, one of us has" – ed … losing weight the way that I’m doing it is easier than some other methods.
A girl from Crewe went to the doctor’s to ask for some weight loss guidance.
After he examined her, he told her "the easiest way is to eat normally for two days, skip a day, eat normally for two days, skip a day, and keep that up for a month. Then come back and we’ll examine you again."
So back she goes after a month and she’s lost seven kilos.
"That’s wonderful" said the doctor. "Was it difficult?"
"To tell the truth, doctor, it nearly killed me."
"The hunger, you mean?"
"No, doctor. All that skipping!"

0

Monday 27th October 2025 – IN A CHANGE …

… from the usual programme these days, when the alarm went off this morning at 06:29, I was fast asleep in bed.

Not that it’s any surprise because, what with one thing and another … "and once you make a start, you have no idea how many other things there are" – ed … it was 00:50 when I finally crawled into bed. And it’s a long time since I have been that late going to bed, that’s for sure

Whatever these other things were, I really have no idea because I wasn’t doing anything that I don’t normally do. It’s true that I was late back from tea, but not all that late I just seem to have run out of time here and there for no good reason.

Surprisingly, after that ridiculously early start, I wasn’t at all tired. I could have stayed up for much longer than I did but there’s no point in pushing your luck for no good reason. However, I didn’t go to sleep all that quickly last night … "he means ‘this morning’" – ed …

When the alarm went off, I was absolutely out of it and it took a good few minutes to work out what was going on. However, I did manage to be sitting on the edge of the bed when the second alarm went off, so I can’t complain about that.

In the bathroom, I had a good wash and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant at dialysis, and then I went into the kitchen for the medication. While I was at it, I cut the new loaf in half, wrapped them and put them into the stock in the freezer.

The bread was followed by the croissants. When the current half-loaf that I am toasting is finished, I’ll resurrect the croissants and see how they have come out. If they are inedible, I’ll abandon the project. If however they are worth eating, I’ll send my faithful cleaner off to Leclerc for some more puff pastry and make some more for my guests next weekend.

No sooner had I come back in here when the nurse arrived – ridiculously early again. He’s off on his week’s break this evening so I imagine that he wants to finish his rounds as early as possible.

After he left, I made breakfast and then came back in here to transcribe the dictaphone notes. And I was surprised that there were some, considering how deeply I must have slept. There was a group of us who set off on a kind of hike. It had been part of some kind of exercise where everyone had to walk around or run around this circuit. It was extremely complicated, with climbing exercises, running exercises and all kinds of different things. The first part of this, or should I say, the first one of this, went OK. I wax one of the people who had to wait on a street corner for the parties to arrive. When this had happened in the previous version of this, it was someone else who was doing it and I was one of the people who was running, so I had a good idea of what to do. However, it was in darkness – it was pitch-black. You couldn’t see anything and you were really doing this kind of thing by intuition. It didn’t seem to work very well. The next time, we set off. There was about eight of us in this group, but I didn’t really fit in with the others but I went with them all the same. Coming across a field, we were all carrying wire baskets full of fruit and vegetables. And coming across the field, there was one of the songs by Man being played, and I was singing it. They were all wondering what it was. We were going past some kind of courtyard with all these old buildings in it. We were walking through this courtyard and there were all lights on in the odd individual buildings. Someone made some kind of comment, and I pointed to the doorway right at the very end of the row on one side of this courtyard, and I said that they were the most famous toilets in rock music. When we reached the end of this courtyard, we had to climb out and onto the street. This involved going through some large kind of wire – metal grilled compound or something. We had to put down our baskets to climb up, pick up our baskets. I was the last one out, and I realised that someone had my basket and left theirs behind, so we had to sort out the baskets. Then we came to the city walls, which were the big city walls with a tiny gap in between them – two concentric walls. I again had to pass my basket up to the people who were up on top of the walls. Then I had to hoist myself up in a most undignified way by leaping up, catching the sides with my elbows and using my feet to walk the lower part of my body up, hooking it over the top of the walls and then somehow pulling the upper half of my body up. There were some other people sitting on the walls, a group of girls. They were impressed, so I smiled at them but the other guys with me made some kind of ribald comments. Then we were talking about the next stage of the journey. Some guy seemed to be extremely cocky about it so I said to one of the others “wait until we are further on. It’s his daughter who is doing the sentry duty on the street corner and she won’t take any nonsense from him”.

This is reminiscent of the dream that I had several days ago when I was crawling underneath fences and through hedges. And the … errr … restrooms reminded me of those in the woodworking block at Grammar School.

The rest of it, though, is quite meaningless as far as I can tell, and I’ve no idea why we would be walking around carrying those wire supermarket shopping baskets.

With all of that out of the way, I set out to pay a couple of bills. However, I’ll be badgered if I can’t find them. I had them in my hand a few days ago and put them somewhere, but wherever I might have put them, I don’t have an idea.

Instead, I tried to contact the tax office for a duplicate or to see if they would accept a payment on-line, but trying to contact them is impossible. Despite there being a helpline number, all it does is route you to a series of recorded messages and is of nu use whatsoever.

The bank was even worse, because they aren’t open today, recovering from having to work on Saturday mornings. I shall have to contact them again.

As for the hospital at Rennes, I needed to contact them too. They have given me an appointment for chemotherapy on Wednesday 12th November, but that’s no good because the follow-up will be on the Thursday and I’m in dialysis.

Eventually I managed to speak to them and they changed it to Tuesday 18th November. I believe that, barring accidents, that will be the last chemotherapy until I’ve had my six-monthly check-up in Paris in February.

All of that, would you believe, took me up to midday when my faithful cleaner arrived. She sorted out my anaesthetic and then left me to await the taxi.

For a change, it was bang on time so I braved the howling gale to go outside while I waited for the driver to bring the car round. Being new, he didn’t know where to park so he had ended up on the public car park.

There was another passenger in the car, a lively old woman, and we had an exciting chat all the way to Avranches. Bizarrely, she has exactly the same illness that I have, with very similar symptoms.

Being early leaving, I was early arriving and to my surprise, I only had to wait ten minutes before I was coupled up. That is the first for quite a while.

They left me pretty much alone today, although the doctor came to see me. Not Emilie the Cute Consultant, even though she was there and talked to everyone else but me. She clearly doesn’t love me any more.

Instead, I had the chef de service. I’m obviously being watched quite closely these days. But he brought me some good news. Firstly, I can abandon another one of my pills for a while and see how I get on.

Secondly, he plans to try a few sessions of just three hours instead of three and a half if the liquid level will permit it. The machine is limited to about 850 millilitres per hour.

The taxi arrived for me just a couple of minutes after I had finished, and wasn’t it nice to be back home early? Even if it was well dark by then.

There was even time for half an hour of relaxing before I went for tea.

Tonight, I had mashed potatoes and vegan sausage with vegetables in a cheese sauce. And that made a nice change, even if it did taste of salt … "there wasn’t even a grain of salt added" – ed …

So now, I’m off to bed. There’s a day off tomorrow as my Welsh class is on half-term. I shall ring up the bank and then crack on with a radio programme or two, to see how far I can go.

But seeing as we have been talking about medieval city walls … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the time a friend of mine went to see the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem
"How did you get on?" I asked her.
"Actually, it was quite embarrassing" she replied. "Thousands and thousands of people there, and I was the only one who had brought a harpoon."

0

Saturday 25th October 2025 – MY BROCCOLI STALK …

… soup was delicious this evening.

Actually, it wasn’t. But that’s not the fault of the soup, the ingredients or the method of cooking. It’s to do with my complete and utter lack of taste these days.

The soup tasted of nothing but salt, which is bizarre because there wasn’t even a pinch of salt in it. But that’s how my taste buds have gone since I started chemotherapy.

All in all, I’m not feeling too well today, which is no surprise given the night that I had. It was another late night, despite all of my good intentions, and although I was asleep fairly quickly, it wasn’t for long. By 04:20 I was wide-awake.

Having tried my best to go back to sleep and failing miserably, I left the bed at 05:30 or thereabouts and took advantage of the early start by recording some of the radio notes that had been building up.

After that, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been, and it was another disappointing night. That’s twice during the night that I’ve moved too rapidly in bed and pulled a muscle in my right thigh, and awoken in agony. I don’t know what I’ve done to this muscle. It must have been something that the physiotherapist did. If I move quickly, it locks up and hurts like hell.

Looking back, I can vaguely remember the muscle spasms. It seems rather strange, though, that I should dictate something about them.

During the night, there was a whole host of snippets of little moments that came and went so fast that I didn’t have time to record them. There was one that was concerned with music. I was editing songs and putting them in a special file – directory – for some reason but I can’t remember why. This went on all the way through the night.

There have been spells like this in the past where a whole raft of dreams has passed before my eyes. I remember one very dramatic occasion when I was on an intravenous drip in hospital, and it felt as if I was hallucinating. But the editing of songs and filing them in a special directory is one of the ways in which I organise my radio programmes.

Once I’d finished with the dictaphone, I edited the notes that I’d dictated earlier and now that programme is complete.

The nurse was at his usual time today. We had a good chat about the series of injections that I have to have, and also the ones that are in the pipeline, such as the ‘flu injection and the Covid injection.

After he left, I made breakfast and then came back in here to work.

There were a few things that needed doing, and then I carried on with sorting out the music for the two radio programmes that I have on the go right now. With an hour to go, I broke off and did half of my Welsh homework. I want to finish it this weekend if I can.

My faithful cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic, and then I had to wait for the taxi.

Our route out today took us to Champeau to pick up another passenger, so we were late arriving at Avranches. However, I was dealt with by Julie the Cook, the first time for ages, and she was quite rapid.

No-one bothered me at all today, but they were using some disinfectant to clean something and the smell was overpowering. I really felt like vomiting, it was so bad. It’s a good job that I only had to stay for three and a half hours. I would never have managed four.

They unplugged me quite quickly and another one of my favourite drivers was waiting for me. However, we had to wait around for the other guy to take him to Champeau again. Not that I minded too much because the driver and I had a lovely chat.

It was quite late when I returned, after all of that, and my cleaner was waiting. Back in here, we had a discussion, the result of which was that she’ll be coming on Tuesday afternoon instead of Wednesday for as long as I have to go to the Centre de Ré-education.

Tea was, as I mentioned, the broccoli stalk soup. And now I’m off to bed to try to make the most of this extra hour in bed. We put the clocks back during the night.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about disinfectant … "well, one of us has" – ed … my brother’s nickname at school was “Harpic”.
"Why do they call you ‘Harpic’?" asked one of the teachers.
"That’s easy, miss" said one of the other boys. "It’s because he’s clean round the bend!"

0

Thursday 23rd October 2025 – AS I HAVE …

… said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s pointless going to bed early, because all that happens is that I wake up correspondingly early next morning.

Mind you, the howling gale that sprung up at about 01:10 probably had something to do with that. I have, quite seriously, never heard winds quite like it.

It will be interesting to find out what wind speed was reached during the night, to see if it was anywhere near the record 209 kph that we had once. At the airfield, a speed of 87 kph was recorded but the airfield is quite secluded. It will be a different matter up here on the headland, exposed to the full fury of the Atlantic storms.

While I was at dialysis, my cleaner sent me A VIDEO OF THE STORM. And it’s quite sheltered around that side of the bay.

Throughout the day, it’s gone from bad to worse, and this is one of the reasons – only one – why I’ve had such a lousy day today.

Yesterday, I mentioned that I’d had no tea. When I’d finished everything else, I dashed through my evening routine and, much to my delight, I was in bed by 21:20 and that made a lovely change.

Not that it would last, though. As I mentioned just now, I was awake at 01:10 as the storm raged. And for the rest of the night, I drifted in and out of sleep.

Round about 05:20, I finally gave it up as a bad job and went to organise myself for the day, including doing the washing-up from yesterday.

After the medication, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a rock concert taking place with three groups in it. One of them was playing from 18:30 – 19:30, the second one from 19:30 onwards and the third was to come on later. At least, that was how I understood the situation to be. Someone asked me for some further information but I wasn’t able to give them any, except the proposed starting times for the first two groups because that was all the information that I had.

This reminds me of one of the rock concerts that I organised in Crewe in 1975 or thereabouts. Two local groups with the third one being a group from Chester in which a friend played. It was good fun, this one, but it wasn’t particularly successful and I didn’t organise many more after that.

We were given half an hour at school to write a story. It had to be a story about a holiday. I began to write a story about a young girl who had gone on holiday to Italy. She’d somehow ended up watching a beauty contest. She was all of the competitors and she saw the crowd cheering them. She was extremely envious and wished that she was up there with them. The situation carried on and eventually, she found herself in the arms of a young Italian boy. Just as she was starting to relax for perhaps her very first kiss, I dunno, there was this huge bellow of her name. She looked round and it was her mother. The boy ran away immediately and the mother gave this girl an enormous dressing-down and ordered her up to her room, so she ran off upstairs crying.

Now, this dream has a great deal of significance for someone whom I know. However, I’m not going to mention any further details in order to protect the anonymity of a certain young lady who will be familiar to regular readers of this rubbish.

A few of us were out there in these really high storms. Some kind of ball was being used for some purpose or other and it happened to fall to the ground in this wind just as one of the most feeble patients from dialysis was walking past. It hit her and she was rushed to hospital. A couple of days later we saw one of the taxi drivers, the guy who seems to be the senior driver. He expressed the opinion that if this ball was going to fall, it was bound to hit her more than anyone else just by simple Sod’s Law. Then he described in graphic detail the operation that had been taking place upon her. I had to leave the room again because I couldn’t stand to listen to it.

The lady concerned these days doesn’t walk to dialysis and hasn’t done for quite a while. But the part about the high winds is certainly apposite.

At some point or other I was out in the brown Cortina estate that I had for a while. I’d met some friends in the centre of Brussels. Before that, I’d been to see a psychiatrist. We had the interview in Brussels and she was asking me all kinds of questions. The answer in almost every case was “no”. She became frustrated and asked me if I was interested in pursuing this. I replied that I was, but she would have to ask me some meaningful questions if she wanted meaningful answers. In the end, I left and went to meet my friends. They told me to park up the car and come to join them. I parked up the car, but they wanted me to park in another car park next to it, which was a paying car park. I went in there, but as I was reversing into a car parking space, my foot slipped off the brake and the car rolled and hit an old Ford Escort. My friends came round to see what had happened. It had made something of a mess of the rear of my car but it was just the bumper that was bent on his. The guy came over and we agreed that I’d pay £20:00 for it, but I had a hell of a job searching through my wallet and all my papers for some money. They were becoming frustrated. In the end, I gave him this £20:00 to shut him up. We went for a walk, and we went past where I had a series of lock-up garages. We saw that two of them were open and were empty. I wondered what had happened to all my stuff and the cars that were in there. The third one had had its door broken but the stuff was still in there. I was wondering now what I was going to do about all of this because I couldn’t leave the door like this. And what about the stuff that had gone missing?

There’s a lot of relevant information in this one too, one way or another, although we can leave the trick cyclist out of the equation.

The nurse was early today, soaking wet and dripping everywhere. He told me that it was vicious out there, and I could well believe it from the noise of the howling wind. The soaking wet clothes just seemed to underline everything.

After he left, I had breakfast, not that I felt much like it, and then came back in here.

First task was to make an important ‘phone call, and that took quite some time. And for the rest of the morning, I was choosing music for another radio programme.

My cleaner blew in – quite literally – and applied my anaesthetic. She told me to summon her when the taxi came because I was going to need all the help that I could find.

She wasn’t wrong either. The howling gale was such that it needed the driver and my cleaner to hold on to me the moment that I stepped outside. It took over fifteen minutes to stagger the twenty metres to where the taxi was parked and there were times that the three of us didn’t really think that we could make it.

It was the most hair-raising fifteen minutes that I had had for quite some considerable time.

With picking up someone else along the way, I was hours late arriving at dialysis and as I was exiting the car, we had a torrential rainstorm and I was drenched.

Despite how I’d been watching my food and drink intake, I was well over the maximum limit and I’ve no idea at all why that should be. I’ve been very, very careful, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

As a result, they set up the machine leaving me with three hundred grams to take out “next time”.

The doctor came to see me, wrote a new medical prescription for me and gave me a prescription for a pedicure. Apparently I’m entitled to one every year.

After that, they left me alone – until the alarm on the machine began to go berserk.

Apparently, my blood had begun to clot so it was developing an airlock. There was nothing else to do but to cut the session short. So now I’m an enormous amount over the limit and the next few sessions are going to be gruelling.

Finishing early, I had to wait around for my driver. Luckily, it was one of my favourite taxi drivers, the one who took me to Rennes on Tuesday. We had a good chat as usual on the way home, talking about taxi operations and the like.

Back here, we managed to manoeuvre the car into the emergency space at the back of the building while my cleaner opened the fire escape. While the wind was even more ferocious at the back, there were only three metres to walk. Even so, it was still quite a struggle.

However, I’ll be in the taxi company’s bad books tomorrow. The wind tore the door out of my hand and slammed it against the front pillar with an almighty crash. I didn’t look to see if there was any damage, but I bet that they will when the car returns to the garage.

Tea was a leftover curry, and once more, I left a pile of food on my plate. I really don’t know from where this extra weight is coming, seeing as I’ve already cut down dramatically on the amount of food that I eat and I’m still throwing tons away.

But I’ll worry about that tomorrow because right now I’m off to bed. And I bet I won’t be able to sleep with all of this racket going on outside.

These winds are crazy. Since I moved here in 2017, I’m convinced that we are having more and stronger winds. There’s hardly a week that goes by without a very strong wind, and not a month without a hurricane.

But seeing as we have been talking about psychiatrists … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once went to see a psychiatrist about a problem that I had, where if anything was lying around, I would pick it up and disappear with it.
"I recognise your problem" he said. "You’re a kleptomaniac."
"Can you cure me?" I asked him.
"I’ll certainly try" he said.
"And if your cure doesn’t work?" I asked.
"In that case, could you pick up a new television for me?"

0

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 – I HAVEN’T HAD …

… any tea tonight.

Not that it should be a surprise to anyone. After all, if I didn’t have my breakfast until 13:30 today, it’s hardly likely that I’m going to be hungry at teatime, given the way that things have been just recently.

That’s right. We had another really early start today – the taxi due to come for me at 06:45 or thereabouts this morning to take me to chemotherapy.

Consequently, I’d rushed through the usual evening procedure after tea last night and was in bed by about 22:35, which makes quite a nice change.

However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s a waste of time going to bed early because what seems to happen is that I awaken correspondingly early the following morning. Like 03:55, for example.

Despite any amount of trying, I couldn’t go back to sleep afterwards. I lay there tossing and turning for about ninety minutes, but in the end, gave it up as a bad job and arose from the Dead.

The first thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Not that there was much on there. There was something about being in the army last night. One of the officers was complaining about one of the Generals going on leave all the time for long periods. He called the General’s aide-de-camp in to discuss it with him. The aide-de-camp reminded him that Generals don’t have leave. They are sent on leave at the discretion of the leader of the army. There’s no official entitlement to it.

This is another one of those dreams that is completely meaningless, as far as I am concerned.

After a good wash, I waited for the nurse to turn up. He arrived bang on 06:30 as promised, and sorted out my legs and feet. He was still in a very good mood, which is very pleasant. Once he’d gone, I awaited the taxi, which arrived at 06:50.

This morning’s driver was the young chatty guy, so we had a very long and interesting chat all the way to Rennes, a chat that included commentary on several other drivers, especially the one who pulled out right in front of us on the autoroute at 130 kph and the other one who drove for about 50 km with only one rear light illuminated.

We were early arriving at Rennes, but even so, I had to wait until 09:00 or thereabouts to be plugged in.

Once more, I was devilishly tired but I didn’t manage to doze off today. I read a book until it was 10:10 and time to be unplugged.

The driver was waiting for me when I came out. It was another one of the more sociable drivers. He took me on a little sightseeing tour of Rennes on our way to another hospital to pick up a young girl for Avranches. It was another chatty drive on the way back.

It was about 12:30 when I arrived here, and my faithful cleaner helped me into the apartment. I was slightly more sprightly today than yesterday.

After she left, the first thing that I did was to send off my shopping order. I have to eat, even if I don’t feel much like it.

Second thing was to make breakfast. Since tea last night, all that I’d had up to now was one very small mouthful of water and I had a thirst that you could photograph. And having eaten, I crashed out, hunched over the kitchen table, for over half an hour.

My cleaner came in to do her stuff, and I carried on with the radio programme that I’d started last week, choosing the music that I hope to be playing

When the shopping order came in, I put everything away and then washed, diced and blanched the carrots and the broccoli ready for freezing.

But now, even though it’s really early, I’m going to go to bed. Chemotherapy is exhausting and I’m really feeling it tonight. I’m glad that I’ve not had any food, otherwise that would keep me awake for hours trying to digest it. I’ll probably be awake early tomorrow, but it doesn’t matter all that much.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the car with one tail light … "well, one of us has" – ed … at one point, we flagged it down to tell the driver, and he left his car to go to have a look.
"Blast it!" he shouted. "This is all that I need. It’s going to cost me a fortune, this is!"
"There’s no need to panic" said my driver. "It’s only a rear light."
"Never mind the bleeding light!" he stormed. "Where the hell has my flaming trailer gone?"

0

Tuesday 21st October 2025 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since an old car featured on these pages?

Coming back from Rennes this late afternoon, I encountered a Panhard 24 CT two-door coupé coming the other way

Being driven by someone else, I couldn’t stop to photograph it, and as it was approaching us at some kind of ridiculous combined speed, it would have been an interesting challenge to say the least, so I had to let it go. But as it’s been almost a year since our last old car, I thought it worthy of note.

What else that was also worthy of note was that despite the alarm being set for 06:00 this morning, I was still early leaving the bed.

Having rushed through the usual procedure of notes, statistics, back-up and bathroom last night, I managed to be in bed early last night – round about 22:50. And although I fell asleep quite early, it wasn’t for long. I had a very turbulent night last night.

It was 05:10 when I awoke definitively, and after trying for about half an hour, I left the bed and went to the bathroom.

On the basis that “what doesn’t go in won’t want to come out”, I didn’t have anything to eat or drink this morning. Not even my medication. It’s going to be a long day.

At 07:00, my taxi arrived, driven by my favourite taxi driver. We had a lovely chat all the way down to the hospital at Rennes.

There were a couple of diversions too. Firstly, we had to go back to my driver’s house to pick up her ‘phone that she had forgotten. Then there was someone else to pick up on a housing estate outside Avranches. This passenger offered to show us the short-cut to the motorway, but ended up losing us in the maze of roadworks.

What with one thing and another … "and once you’ve made a start, you’ll be surprised at how many other things there are" – ed … we were twenty minutes late arriving.

It was a young intern doctor who saw me today, and he put me through the mill. He asked me to stand on the weighing machine, which was much more difficult than it ought to have been, and I’m convinced that he arranged it in order to see just if I managed to climb on.

He wasn’t very happy when he had to ring up Avranches to ask about my blood test results, because I’d somehow brought an out-of-date set.

In the end, he said that I was well enough to proceed with chemotherapy, finishing by saying "it’s all not so bad". I replied that as far as I was concerned, everything was an absolute disaster. "It was just a figure of speech" he said, hurriedly, but I still wasn’t impressed.

They took me straight in to chemotherapy, and then they all had some kind of discussion about what treatment I was supposed to have. I was there cringing, because there’s only one treatment of the (many) that I can tolerate with any kind of comfort, and I hoped that they weren’t going to mess it up.

Eventually, about an hour and a half later than advertised, they connected me up. I fell almost immediately asleep, and that’s how most of the day went. Me falling asleep, they waking me up with questions, blood pressure tests etc. At one stage I began to shiver so they gave me a sheet in which to wrap myself.

“This is very significant” I thought. “I wonder if it means anything”. It was certainly enough to put the dampers on everything.

The meal for me was boiled potatoes and fruit. I think that the vegan burger last time was beginner’s luck. And although fruit is banned from my menu, according to the dieticians, the orange and the banana looked so appetising that I couldn’t resist.

They unplugged me at about 15:15 and my taxi was waiting. I had to send for a wheelchair because I was in no state to walk. They don’t allow you even five minutes there to recover before you’re on your way. It’s very industrial there.

Before I left, they gave me a summons to come back tomorrow for part II of the treatment – again at 08:30! So another 07:00 start!

There was someone else to drop off at Avranches, and I finally made it home at 17:00 exactly.

To my embarrassment, I couldn’t exit the car, I was that weak. And once I did manage to raise myself to my feet, it was a real struggle to reach my front door.

After a good hour or so’s recovery, I transcribed the dictaphone notes. During World War I, several captured merchant ships were renamed and handed out to British companies who had already lost ships at sea because of the war. One of these ships became the SS Rhosllanerchrugog or a similar kind of name. When people heard of the name and saw the name written on the back of the jackets of the sailors, they were astonished because they didn’t understand how there would possibly be a name that long for a merchant ship. But she took the name and she took the crew and she sailed quite happily for the rest of the war.

This relates to what I read a couple of weeks ago about merchant raiding ships, disguised German warships capturing merchant ships, siphoning off their oil for fuel, and then either sending the ship to Germany if it had a valuable cargo, or scuttling it if it was valueless.

Interestingly, I pronounced the first syllable of the ship’s name as “ros” which, although is the “official” way of pronouncing the word, I’ve always pronounced it as “hrowse”. That is how it’s pronounced in a small area south of Wrexham and north of Rhiwabon, including in the town of Rhosllanerchrugog itself.

Why I pronounce it like that, I’ve no idea because my grandmother comes from South Wales and lived, apparently, north of Wrexham. When she married, they moved east to near the English border so I’ve no connection at all with the area of Rhosllanerchrugog.

We were camping somewhere in the Canadian Mountains. I’d not long arrived, and I decided that I would go to buy a loaf of bread so that I could buy something to eat. I walked round to the nearest shop, but all that they had left were two sandwiches, but someone immediately bought those. It wasn’t a shop, it was a petrol station. I tried to look around for a shop but the only shop that they had didn’t have any bread. We saw a mobile home thing drive off the campsite and shoot off somewhere. We’d heard that he was looking for bread too so we decided to follow him. About twenty miles into the mountains, we came across another small shop and there were several people hanging around there. So we went and asked if they had any bread. While we were doing that, I wandered around and found some loaves on the shelf. I went to pick one up but the woman told me not to pick that up because it was out of date0 I had a look, and it was about twenty years out of date. The guy in charge of the shop said that he had some bread in the back but he’s trying to find the keys for the storeroom. We waited and waited, and he searched and searched. After a couple of hours, he said that he was unable to find them. So we began to search to help him, but we couldn’t even find the lights to the storeroom, never mind the keys. We were there, searching for hours. I had to nip to the bathroom so I disappeared. I came back ten minutes later and found everyone gone. The place was shuttered. It seemed that he had not been able to find it at all. There was some rumour that the shop back in town had had sixteen hundred loaves delivered so we climbed back into our vehicles to head back. But there was someone, an old man, sitting on a bench outside the shop, and after we’d gone, the proprietor came out. It turned out that the little old man was Louis Roblès, the footballer from Bala. Those two greeted each other like long-lost brothers.

There’s a small town – a village really – on the “Forgotten Coast” of Québec called Godbout where I WENT TO STAY FOR A WEEK when they let me out of hospital in 2016. To find bread around there quite often involved a 20 km drive, and more besides at times.

However, although I met the solicitor from my neighbouring village in the Auvergne … "it’s a small world" – ed … I didn’t meet Louis Roblès, who, incidentally, plays for Colwyn Bay this season.

There was also something about me trying on hats. I found a nice, fur-lined olive green hat that I tried on. That seemed to fit quite nicely and it was warm, so I decided to take it. As I was doing that, a friend from school, who lived in Shavington from school walked past. He was surprised to see me and said “hello”. I said “hello” back. Once I had this hat on, two American soldiers walked past. One of them said “you are breaking the law wearing that hat”. I asked him if we were in the USA. He replied “no” so I told him that he could quickly go away, using a rather vulgar, vernacular term.

This dream doesn’t relate to anything at all, as far as I’m aware. And I bet that the boy was surprised to see me too! Considering that I haven’t given him a moment’s thought since we left school, I was surprised to see him in a dream!

Nerina and I had been working in a foreign country. We were sitting on a couple of chairs waiting to go home. We were on a cliff, and there was a real storm raging. The sea was really choppy and we could see trawlers and ships in the sea, struggling to make any headway. Then the currency exchange window opened. I went to the window but no-one would serve me for ten or fifteen minutes. When they finally did, after I’d made some remark, I had all of this money, and it was all in small change. I asked this woman if she would change it. She made some kind of grimace, but said that she would. I hauled out all of these pennies and ha’pennies. Nerina and I had counted them but we weren’t convinced that it was right, so she weighed them and worked out the price. I found some more, but she moaned at that and said that she didn’t think that she was going to add them into the total and give us anything for them. I told her that we could always find another currency exchange place if she wasn’t happy but she moaned even more. She said “your friend who was here last time took me out for a meal”, to which I replied “I’m not interested in going for a meal. I’m interested in changing my money”. I had noticed that on the counter, they had some really competitive prices for gold coin collections. I was wondering whether I had enough money to buy some gold and bring it home with me. But while this had started, Nerina was not in a particularly good mood so I went over and gave her a kiss. Someone sitting next to Nerina made some kind of comment but I ignored it.

There would have been no chance whatever of enticing Nerina to come to work abroad. Her feet were rooted firmly in Crewe, as close as possible to her mother. We had many a discussion about “abroad” but I realised quite quickly that nothing was going to persuade her otherwise, despite how many good arguments I might have been able to use.

And maybe if I’d kissed Nerina rather more when she had been in a bad mood, things might indeed have been different. But as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I can’t turn the clock back.

There was also something about changing my trousers into a pair of red trousers with a Welsh dragon on it, but they were about ten sizes too large for me. I had to draw the drawstrings really tight to keep them on.

This is completely strange too.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice. And I did manage to finish it all. That’s no surprise because that and the boiled potatoes are all that I’ve had to eat today. As for drinks, I’ve had 2×200ml disgusting drinks and two mouthsful of water, and that’s it.

So tomorrow, I’m off to chemotherapy again, so I’m off to bed, hoping to be in better shape than I am right now

But seeing as we have been talking about queueing for bread … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of when I was in Poland in 1979, and saw all these people queueing for hours for bread, which didn’t arrive.
One man began to make a fuss, shouting and waving his arms and denouncing the Communists. Subsequently, an armed patrol pulled up and surrounded the protestors.
"Now look what you’ve done, you old fool!" said one of the others. "We’re all going to be shot now!"
"There’s nothing to worry about" replied the old man. "If we’ve run out of bread, I bet that they’ve run out of bullets too!"

0

Monday 20th October 2025 – I HAVE LEFT …

… on the dinner plate about half my tea tonight. I just couldn’t physically eat it.

The way things are right now, I seem to be in quite a bad way, what with one thing and another, and unless I can find some way to pull myself out of it, I worry about what will happen.

It all had the air of being really good today too. Once more, I was in bed prior to 23:00 – well before, in fact, and I fell asleep quite rapidly.

Although I awoke at about 03:00 or so, it was only for a fleeting minute and then I went back to sleep again. And there I stayed until the alarm went off at 06:29

There was the usual procedure – into the bathroom for a wash and scrub up, and then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here, there was the dictaphone. The war was about to hit France in its full fury. I’d been leading one of the French armies. We’d ended up on the Normandy coast not too far from here when the information came through that the Germans were massing ready for a final sweep into Brittany. There was no time to spare so I ordered my army to stand to, and I went back to the base headquarters from where my army was administered. Everyone was waiting there for me, waiting for instructions, but I needed to look at reports and plans, and details from the sentinels as to what the German army was doing before I disposed my troops. But people were in such a rush. They asked if they should be ordered to arms, so I replied “yes”. “So what about being sent to the transport?”. I replied “there’s no harm in them being sent to the transports either”. I asked about Division 1816 which was the one that I wanted to be in the thickest of the fight. That was not actually present at Headquarters at the moment. Eventually, I obtained enough information to go to join my particular division which was at St Pair here and ready for an attack on the German Army.

This is, I believe, only the second time that I’ve dreamed about this area. But, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, there would be no chance whatever of me joining the Army, even in wartime. If I had to choose, I would be in the Merchant Navy.

There were three of us, two guys and me. We had to walk somewhere, which was going to take us about eight hours. We set out and began to walk, but at one point we were in a field where there was a big depression. To go round this depression, it meant climbing up some kind of bank, crossing over higher and going out through a hedge. The first person who went, she was actually a girl. She complained that I was too close behind her for her to manoeuvre at the top, saying something like “the purpose of being perpendicular is so that you can turn easily”, in other words, implying that I had to take a couple of steps back to give her room. At the top, there was a barbed wire fence to slide under. This turned to be more complicated than it might be, and I began to think that it would have been far easier just to jump the depression, and far quicker too. At the top, we had to slide under this barbed wire fence, then another barbed wire fence and into the roadway, but there was a cowpat in the way that didn’t look very comforting. Just then a car pulled up and a little woman was sitting in the car reading something that was on the seat beside her. We thought that if she stays here for long, we’re going to be very late. We have to push on regardless. Later on, there was this announcement that the British Government had discovered traces of three snakes. They described the three snakes, and I wondered if they meant that they had found our tracks on that embankment place where we had had to slide on out stomachs underneath that barbed wire.

It’s amazing how my fellow travellers change sex in the middle of a dream, isn’t it? As for the rest of the dream, including the cowpat, it’s quite meaningless. What would the snakes be doing in all of this?

There was also something about being in a house at the side of a road with a slight incline downhill. I had to come out of there in my van, towing a caravan, go down about 200 yards and turn left. I’d checked the road and it was clear, so I set out. But the van was really struggling to find any acceleration and a car caught up with me, which I thought that I’d have plenty of time to avoid. He cut in front of me at the traffic lights where this left turn was, and turned left, regardless of the light being on red, but just as I approached it, it turned green so I could carry on.

Where the house comes from, I have no idea. But the road junction, minus the traffic lights, is where you turn off the Upper Labrador road near Goose Bay to travel over the Mealy Mountains to the Labrador coast, SCENE OF OUR TRIUMPHS IN 2010. The van not working as it should, especially when towing a caravan, is something that doesn’t fit anywhere.

After that, I turned up in Wrexham after that. There were these people trying to register for something – there was a huge crowd. One girl was saying to her friends “come back here! Look at this!” and took them back to the reception window. As I walked past, I saw one of the guys whom I knew from the previous times that I’d been to hospital. He said “hello” so I said “hello”. I asked him if the way to the hospital that I wanted, which was a different one, was down at the bottom of this particular lane. He said that it was, so I set off. It was through a posh area with these Victorian buildings that looked like a school or a hospital or something. Then out in the countryside, I came across a ruined viaduct, so I had to walk down the valley to find another bridge to cross over, and then climb back up the other side.

This dream doesn’t fit anywhere either. I could easily see it as being the first part of the first dream, except that it’s out of order. But then, the purpose of this project at the beginning was to tie together some of these isolated dreams into some kind of continuous soap opera.

Isabelle the Nurse blew in on the gale (we’re having another storm). She told me that she doesn’t think that her oppo will be here in time tomorrow before I go. She’ll ring me if there’s a change in this decision (but as yet, not at all).

After she left, I made breakfast and then came in here.

There were several important things to do this morning, such as pay a few bills and write a letter or two.

To fill in the rest of the time, I prepared for the Welsh class tomorrow. I know that I won’t be there, but I need at least to have an idea of what’s going on so that I don’t fall behind. I’ve been doing too much of that in the past.

My cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic. She brought with her a pile of medication too, as I’m running low on that as well. And that reminds me – the prescription is expiring so I need a new one.

Once she had left, I waited for the taxi. And waited, and waited. It turned up eventually at 13:30 or shortly thereafter with another two passengers. The driver was a very young, chatty girl who has taken me once, months ago. She was somewhat insistent on the bell, so I apologised, saying "I’m not able to run".

There was heavy traffic on the road but she put her foot down when she could, and I wasn’t all that late arriving. And although I was last to be coupled up, I didn’t have to wait too long.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me to talk about my infection. She thinks that I’m fit enough to go to chemotherapy tomorrow. I told her about all of my medical appointments this week and asked her if she couldn’t find one for Sunday, so that I would have a full week.

While I was at it, I told her that I was going to sell my apartment and live in one of the taxi company’s ambulances. That would save everyone a pile of trouble.

They have also re-organised my dialysis sessions for when my niece and her daughter arrive so that I can spend all the time with them.

One of my favourite taxi drivers was waiting for me, and we had a nice chat on the way home, but I was battered by the storms once I left the car, trying to return to the apartment.

After my faithful cleaner left, I made a stuffed pepper with pasta and veg but as I said, half of it went into the bin. I’m throwing away tons of stuff just now and it’s not at all good.

So tomorrow, I shall be up at 06:00 ready (I don’t think) for chemotherapy. I’m not looking forward to it at all but I suppose that I have to go through with it.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about snakes … "well, one of us has" – ed … one day, mummy snake saw baby snake crying.
"What’s the matter, dear?" she asked
"It’s the snakes next door" sobbed baby snake. "They won’t let me hiss in their pit."
"Don’t you worry about them" replied mummy. "I can remember them when they were so poor that they didn’t have a pit to hiss in."

0

Saturday 18th October 2025 – I WENT TO …

… bed early last night – before 23:00 in fact – for once. And I’m so glad that I did because not long after I’d gone to sleep, I had a special visitor come to see me. Had I gone to bed late, I would have missed her.

But more of that anon

Firstly, though, I did actually make it into bed at something like a respectable time. In fact, had I concentrated and been more motivated, I could have been in bed a good while earlier than that. However, as usual, I dillied and dallied etc. etc.

Once in bed, it took a while for me to go off to sleep and I don’t know why. I ought to have been completely wasted after my session at the Centre de Ré-education, but apparently not.

Eventually though, I did manage to drop off to sleep and although I awoke a couple of times during the night for no good reason, I awoke definitively at about 06:00.

As usual these days, it took a while to raise myself from the Dead and head off to the bathroom. And after the medication, I came back in here to see what had happened during the night.

And to my surprise, I’d had a special visitor. And she’d come quite early too so, as I said just now, I was glad that I was in bed early. Yes, I was with Castor (or, rather, she was with me) last night. We were on board THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR again. There was some kind of meeting taking place and I was one of the last to arrive. I had to struggle my way in to find a place to sit. There was a place right at the back next to Castor so I went to sit down on it, thinking that I could probably move to a more comfortable seat at some other time. As I went to sit down, the ship lurched and I ended up sitting down almost on top of her. I excused myself, and she had a smile at me and something of a laugh. I thought “maybe I don’t want to move now”. While this discussion was going on, the two of us and Castor’s friend, we were having something of a chat. We were talking about electricity. They were saying that they needed some more electricity. I was saying that Canada doesn’t have any more, what with Muskrat Falls and all of this taking so long. Then the discussion turned round to the forests, how Canada was destroying all of the forests for lumber. It moved round then to someone else connected with the events of the 11th September being found in New York and extradition to Canada being asked. It turned out that he’d advocated the massacre of all kinds of children and was described in the Press as a “loyalist”. We chatted about that for a while, and then Castor put her arm around me and cuddled up tightly to me so I put my arm around her too. I thought that this was really nice and comfortable.

Nice and comfortable? I bet it was! And how glad was I to see her? I thought that she’d dropped off the end of my dreaming cycle, just as The Vanilla Queen has, and Moonchild, who put in a flurry of rapid visits a year or so ago and hasn’t been seen since..

Muskrat Falls, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is a hydroelectric project in Labrador that we have visited on a couple of occasions. It’s vastly overdue, vastly over-budget and has been described as "one of the most controversial public project cases in Canadian history"

As for putting our arms around each other, well, you can’t turn back the clock, can you?

The “loyalists” by the way, are the supporters of the Crown during the American Revolution. We’re back with Colonel Carrington and BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Someone else came to see me last night. It was Castor again. Just as I was stepping onto Her Majesty’s Steamship Pollard, we’d been asked for this incident to build shares and in this steam prop and everything so that if we were successful in capturing it, we could suppress it for a while, while these nasty ingredienty stuff is.

So did Castor appear again later? Not that it matters … "of course it does, really" – ed …
because I have no recollection at all about this. As for the Pollard, I’ve not been able to trace a ship of that name. The only Pollard whom I can recall was the captain of the “Essex”, the whaling ship that was sunk by a whale and the starving crew in one of the longboats killed and ate one of the crew members. That’s the inspiration behind the book MOBY DICK and also behind the song NANTUCKET SLEIGHRIDE by Mountain.

I was with my three friends with whom I travel frequently. We’d gone to Germany and had arranged to meet at a posh five-star hotel – restaurant type of place somewhere. When we arrived, and I was having difficulty with my crutches, we were welcomed by one of the waiters who escorted us to our seats. I had a special chef who had come to see me for my dietary requirements, and we had a lovely meal. Later on, we were actually on the stage, the four of us. We were singing folk songs, and there was quite a crowd there cheering us on, even when we were singing “The Rocky Shores of England” … "he means ROOTS" – ed …. It was all really enjoyable.

Not that there’s any chance of me singing folk songs praising England, of course. But news on the grapevine suggests that I may be having another visit in the Spring.

I’d been hired as some kind of umpire for a baseball team, which is crazy because I’ve never played baseball in my life. I had to go to Barony Park where, across the road, were some clay tennis courts. The team was practising on there. They all wandered off and I lay down on the floor for a relax for ten minutes. However, people came up and began to play tennis over the top of me. I had a baseball bat and I was holding it up, and if a ball came near me, it hit the bat and was deflected. When everyone came out, they presented me to the crowd and said that I’d hit every ball that had been thrown towards me. Wasn’t that brilliant? I replied “well, I’ve never ever played baseball in all my life before. That was the first time”. It was breakfast break at this time so we had to help ourselves to breakfast. This typical American buffet – it had cake, cream cake, pastries etc but I was simply looking for the muesli and some toast. I eventually found the muesli but I was still struggling for the toast. When I found the milk, which was over by the coffee, I had to ask the waiter if they had any plant-based milk but before he could reply, I awoke.

This is another one of those dreams that seems to be totally mysterious. The American buffet sounds quite interesting though, although there wouldn’t be much there for me to eat.

Isabelle the Nurse was late arriving, but she still found time for a little chat before departing again. I could then push on and make breakfast.

Back in here, there were the highlights of last night’s football matches in the Welsh Cup. However, the match that I particularly wanted to see wasn’t recorded, which was a shame.

After I’d seen all there was to see, I finished writing the notes for the joining track for the radio programme on which I’ve been working. That’s now ready to dictate, which I shall do at the first available opportunity.

My cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic and then I had to await the taxi. It was only a few minutes late but we had to drive out into the sticks to pick up someone else, so we were late arriving. And as usual, I was the last to be connected up.

The doctor, he who is in charge, was supposed to examine me for Tuesday but he barely stuck his head in the room. That was right at the very beginning of the session so I thought that he’d be doing his rounds later. However, I never saw him again.

Instead, I watched the live Cup Match. Bow Street, a little village team from mid-Wales, had fought their way through the preliminaries to this round and had drawn Y Fflint of the JD Cymru Premier Division.

They were well-outclassed but put up a brave fight and managed to keep the score down to 3-0, which, I suppose, is something of a moral victory.

One of the Bow Street players received the “man of the match” award, but it wasn’t the goalkeeper, Lewis James, which I thought was a travesty because he had done more than anyone else to keep his side in the game, as YOU CAN SEE.

For the rest of the session, I began to make up my shopping list, although I have no idea when I’m going to find the time to have it delivered.

The taxi was waiting for me when I was ready, but it was still late when I returned home. There was a reception committee awaiting me – several of the residents, including my cleaner, were having a chat at the door.

One of them offered to programme my timer for me, but after half an hour of trying, he was unable to programme it either. So it’s not just me who can’t make it work.

Mind you, it took so long, and with me being late to start with, that there was no chance of making a cooked tea. Instead, I made myself a few rounds of cheese on toast, something else that I haven’t eaten for years. And it was nice too.

But now I’m off to bed, ready for tomorrow and a lie-in until 07:59 if I’m lucky, which I doubt very much.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Castor … "well, one of us has" – ed … I mentioned the story to one of the nurses at dialysis.
"What was the name of Castor’s sidekick in Greek mythology?" she asked.
"Pollux" I replied.
"Look!" she retorted. "If you don’t know, there’s no need to be rude about it!"

0

Thursday 16th October 2025 – HAVING JUST FALLEN …

… asleep at the dining table in mid-meal, I suppose that I’d better hurry up, write my notes and go to bed before another disaster overtakes me. I’ve been having far too many of them just recently.

At least, last night wasn’t as late as some have been just recently. For once, I was actually in bed by 23:00. That was really nice. After all, a nice long sleep will do me the world of good, I reckon.

Ha ha! They were famous last words, weren’t they? Although it wasn’t until 06:15 that I actually awoke definitively, I’d had a very turbulent night and had awoken on several occasions.

Once more, it was another struggle to leave the bed and go to the bathroom. It was clothes-washing day too, with not having had a shower yesterday, so I gave my undies a good going over. I have to keep abreast of things like this.

After the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And I was surprised to have travelled so far. I was going on a mission to work somewhere in a town centre. With the town centre of this place being very tightly controlled for parking, I’d written a letter to the local council to explain what I’d been doing and asking for authorisation to park there for free during the period for which I was there. The day that my work started there, I set off and arrived. I went to the council’s offices and was met by a young girl who was in charge of the official parking. She told me that they had received my letter and that I could leave my car in the official car park, but it needed someone to let me in all the time. So she went with me. I saw a room with all kinds of machines in it, ticket machines for this, ticket machines for that. She went to one of the machines and presumably pressed a button to override it, but nothing happened. She ended up going back to her desk for something. She came back and said “you might just sit here for a moment”, pointing to an empty seat by someone’s desk. “You can watch a James Bond film if you can understand the language”. I looked, and it was a fight between James Bond and some evil character but I didn’t recognise the subtitles so I didn’t know in what language it was in. She came back a little later and allowed me to go in. She told me that the letter that I had sent, which was in the office inside the car park, I was to put that on my windscreen so that people who didn’t recognise the car would see what was happening. I drove in, and saw that this fight with James Bond and this character was actually taking place on the staff car park.

Wherever James Bond fits in with all of this, I don’t know. But the story of the car park presumably refers to the situation in Crewe at the moment where a pile of car parks are being or have been developed, replaced by one multi-storey car park in which it costs the earth to park.

And next, I had to go up north, to wherever my landing was taking place. But it was the Navy that was in charge of the boundaries of this city, not the Army, so I thought that my likelihood of being given a pass to travel into the war zone would be about absolutely zero.

This doesn’t seem to relate to anything either.

It was the first round of the Nations Rugby Cup. We were all in hospitals so we didn’t really have a chance to see any of the game but we’d heard vaguely that the results had gone our way. Our game was to be played this evening and if we were to win it, we would qualify for the semi-finals. At that moment, it was Emilie the Cute Consultant who appeared. She was doing her rounds. As she was leaving, I called her over and asked her if it was true that we stood a really good chance of making the semi-finals. She said that there didn’t seem to be any reason why we shouldn’t, and we had a little chat about everything. It turned out that the final was being played on the rugby ground across the road from where we lived on Davenport Avenue. I said that if we made it to the final, I’d fight for her to have a really good place on the touchlines where she could watch it. However, she pointed to her stomach and said “well, it would be rather difficult by the time that the final is played”. I replied “don’t worry. I’ll make a trolley for you and I’ll push you over” which made her laugh.

So this is the first time that I’ve dreamed about Emilie the Cute Consultant. This is astonishing. Much as I like her, she hasn’t made anything like the impact on me that has been made by most of the other regular nocturnal visitors.

It’s most unlikely that I would be going to watch a rugby match when there are other more exciting things to do, such as watching paint dry and watching the grass grow. There was a sports field over the road from where we lived in Davenport Avenue (it’s now a housing estate) but it was a cricket ground and football pitch.

But while I was out there on that sports field, there was a girls’ school that was having its sports on there. I was wandering around giving some help and advice to different people. One young girl came over to me and said that she wanted to talk. I asked her what was the matter, and she told me that she’d completely lost all of her interest in this. While at one time she was receiving really, really good marks, she was now just receiving average marks – yn aml, she said – for most of her subjects and she was really disappointed. She wished that she could find her motivation from somewhere. So we began to have a really long chat about this.

Now, yesterday I was looking through some of my photos from a famous trip that I made a few years ago, and they brought back certain memories of a couple of incidents that occurred and which relate to this dream more closely than anyone could imagine.

By the way, yn aml means “often” in Welsh, and Welsh wouldn’t be a language that the subject of this story would have ever used.

Later on, I was back in work. I’d arrived late, about 09:12. I wasn’t very happy about my choice of clothes. I had oil on one of the shirt cuffs, and I was having real difficulty in moving. Trying to make my way to my desk, I was disrupting everyone else’s work because I was swaying about from side to side. I could see that some of my colleagues were becoming rather short-tempered. To finally make my way to my desk was extremely complicated. One of the guys was complaining that I was knocking his papers everywhere so when I tried to stand myself upright better, it was making things worse. Eventually, I could make my way to my chair by disrupting just about everything, but noticed that my computer was missing from my desk. As I sat down, the boss’s secretary came over, starting to hand over slips of paper about things that needed to be doing. She came to me and mis-pronounced my name, saying that a medical report would be required on me because for the last few weeks, I’d been eating nothing but vegetables. I was sitting there, thinking “whatever this report comes up, it’s no loss because I should have been retired a long time ago”. But at that point, just as the dream was becoming interesting, I awoke.

At one time, dreams about being over the age of retirement in a miserable working environment were an everyday feature of these notes, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. It’s been a while though since the last one.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual, sorted out my legs and then cleared off, leaving me to make my breakfast.

Once I’d finished, I went one better than David Crosby because, although it wasn’t Christmas when I had the ‘flu, I am still not feeling up to par. It makes quite an improvement though, this new, trim me.

Back in here yet again, I finished the notes (Isabelle had interrupted me) and then began to prepare the next radio programme.

My cleaner came along to sort out the anaesthetic and then I had to wait for the taxi. And wait. And wait. 13:35 it finally turned up, so we were hours late arriving at dialysis.

On top of that, there were dozens of tests to perform, and then my internet account there had expired and needed renewing, so today took forever

At least Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me again. And you won’t believe this but she now has an infection. I apologised profusely but she didn’t think that it was the same as the one that I have. It ruled me out of offering to console her. Imagine a cocktail of infections in my state of health.

So, horribly late, and with a collapsing blood pressure, I ended up leaving, to find that it was the cute taxi driver whom I like very much who was waiting for me. We had a lovely chat on the way home, talking mainly about cats.

My faithful cleaner helped me in and after she left, I emulated THE CARMICHAELS and "supper waits on a table inside a tin". Once more, I left some on my plate and, as I mentioned earlier, I fell asleep at the table.

But now, I’m off to bed, thoroughly exhausted and desperate for a good sleep.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Emilie the Cute Consultant … "well, one of us has" – ed … I told her "I dreamed about you last night"
"Did you?" she asked.
"No" I replied. "You fought me off."

0

Monday 13th October 2025 – CHEMOTHERAPY IS …

… officially cancelled for tomorrow. Emilie the Cute Consultant seems to think that I’m far too ill to go and that chemotherapy will only make things worse.

Yes, lucky me! I’ve had Emilie the Cute Consultant soothing my fevered brow at dialysis this afternoon, and I reckon that I ought to be ill more often when she’s on duty.

But joking aside, after yesterday, I needed someone to take me in hand and sort me out. The day began awfully and as time advanced, it went from bad to worse. Those of you who saw the half-dozen notes that I posted last night will probably have gathered that I was in bed before 21:00, and it’s a long, long time since that has happened.

Once in bed, I was asleep straight away, which is no surprise. And I stayed asleep too until all of … errr … 00:30.

At that point, I was giving some light-hearted consideration to leaving the bed but in the end I decided against it, and spent several hours drifting in and out of sleep. Round about 05:30, I gave up trying and arose to my feet.

After the bathroom, I had another leisurely period of medication-taking, before coming back in here to restart writing my notes. But not for long, though. At about 07:00 I set the alarm for 08:05 and, something that I don’t recall doing for years, I went back to bed and slept for another hour or so. That’s the kind of state in which I found myself this morning.

Once the nurse had been and gone, I made breakfast and, once more, took my time while I ate it. I was in no real hurry, and I certainly wasn’t in any kind of mood to read my book.

Back in here afterwards, I finished off my notes from yesterday and then had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We were in the American Civil War this time (not the Revolutionary War). We were trying to track down the enemy, or the enemy was trying to track us down. I was suffering from fever and having to use my toilet frame to walk around. It was becoming extremely complicated. At one point, I knocked some things off the kitchen worktop, and with my improvised walkframe, I positioned one of the feet on top of two of the spice jars that I have. I thought that it was a good job that I noticed this before I put my weight on it otherwise they would have broken. But I still don’t know what I’m going to do about my health and how I was going to deal with the issue of the enemy, of them looking for us or us looking for him.

If I’m dreaming about a war in the USA, it makes a change not dreaming about the Revolutionary War. But then again, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, when I was in Eastern USA in 2005 for Rhys’s wedding, I VISITED SEVERAL SITES CONNECTED WITH THE CIVIL WAR.

Later on, there were three ships, the Ateb Harry, the Ateb something else and a third one. The Ateb Harry was coming back from the USA to Europe as a passenger liner, and was intercepted by the contraband patrol. The patrol found, underneath the coal, a pile of shells and ammunition. The captain tried to argue that it was for his own self-defence but they saw that it had been manufactured in Germany and was of a German calibre rater than an Imperial one so they decided that they would take the ship and intern it.

This relates to something else about which I’ve been reading recently – the British blockade of Germany in World War I. They set up plenty of barrages across the North Sea and intercepted as many of the vessels that they possibly could that were heading east, in an attempt to stop supplies reaching Germany. They were quite successful too and by the end of the war, there were shortages of every kind of imported goods over there.

At some point though, I had my Welsh lesson to do and I was parked in a car park. There was a lorry in front of me and its rear door was open. A policeman told me to close it so I closed it as best as I could and explained to the driver that there was only one of the two catches was working. He replied in a foreign accent “never mind” – to leave it with him and he’d sort it out. I went back to my van, which was a dark blue Sherpa long wheelbase towing an enclosed trailer that looked like the rear of a Sherpa. I climbed in, and could see on the laptop that my Welsh class had started. I took off all my excess clothes and found my sleeping bag. But my sleeping bag was inside-out so I had to turn it the other way, and then I could climb into the sleeping bag and begin to attend the lesson.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I had a Sherpa for a couple of years. It was quite nice when I bought it but it rotted quickly and ended up being unsafe. Furthermore, trying to find spare parts for it in Belgium was impossible in the end and it became a liability.

Next task was to finish off my Welsh homework and send it off, and the rest of the morning was spent revising.

At one point though, I could no longer stand the cold in here and so I switched on the heating for the first time. It’s not like me, and it shows just how ill I am right now.

My faithful cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic and then I had a long wait for the taxi. Not that I minded, because it was one of my favourite drivers. However, rather regrettably, I wasn’t in the mood for chatting.

Once again, we were late arriving, but for a change I was seen quite quickly. Because of my health, they put me into a private room and then spent half an hour examining me, including a Covid test (I was negative). I wasn’t too keen, but Emilie the Cute Consultant insisted on it being done, and I noticed that there seems to be no argument or discussion with her when she makes up her mind.

Having been wired up and plugged in, they left me alone pretty much. That was just as well because I slept through most of the session. All that I seem to be doing right now is sleeping.

At the end of the session, Emilie the Cute Consultant gave me another thorough going-over, and wanted me to spit into a container so that it can be analysed. She is of the opinion that I have a pulmonary infection. I can’t go to chemotherapy like that so she’s going to cancel it.

One thing that was nice though was that she patted my shoulder, and as I said earlier, I’m going to be ill again when she’s on duty if that’s the reward.

The poor taxi driver had to wait hours for me, and then we had to find a chemist’s that was open so that we could buy some medication that was prescribed. There was someone else to fetch too, so I ended up being the latest back here that I have ever been.

After my cleaner had sorted me out, I made tea. Burger with pasta and even though it was a small portion, some of it still ended up in the bin.

So I shall be at my Welsh lesson tomorrow then. In that case I’d better go to bed. It’s already later than I would like.

But seeing as we have been talking about spitting into a container … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember taking my niece to see my premises in Canada, situated as they are with one border of my land being the international border with the USA.
"Blimey!" she said. "You could spit into the USA from here!"
"I know" I replied. "Now ask me how I know."

0

Saturday 11th October 2025 – MY LUCK WAS …

… in today, for once – or, rather, for twice. I had my favourite taxi driver today, not just for the outward bound trip to Avranches but the return journey home too.

Yes, it’s about time that I had some good luck because, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

My good luck certainly wasn’t there last night. As usual, it was another horribly late night where I couldn’t seem to push on with any kind of urgency.

It was long after 23:00 when I finally crawled into bed, without realising that I’d forgotten to switch on the water again last night. And regardless of whatever time it was when I went to bed, I was wide-awake again at 04:10.

The pattern of the last few mornings repeated itself yet again though. After tossing and turning in bed for what seemed like a week trying to go back to sleep and miserably failing, the next thing that I knew was the alarm going off at 06:29. So once again, I’d managed to go back to sleep at some point.

It took an age to leave the bed, and in the bathroom I found out that I’d forgotten to switch the water back on. That was rather a shock, and it certainly served to awaken me properly, although not in a fashion that I appreciated all that much.

After the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. I was with TOTGA last night. She was telling me that she was leaving school and was going to college in Wrexham. I told her to let me know where she was going to be in Wrexham because I go to Wrexham quite often. We had quite a chat and we set off back to my house. As we turned into Davenport Avenue and slowed down in front of my house, I suddenly shouted “stop!”. I asked the driver to reverse again and go forward again, but I couldn’t see my Minerva. It wasn’t in the drive. There was another vehicle at the entrance to the drive so we piled out and went down past this first vehicle. The second vehicle was a Vanden Plas 4-litre R. There were a few bits missing off it and it was quite rough. We were having a look at it and we noticed that the front wing was rotten. One of my friends said that he would obtain another wing for me if I wanted one, but I said that I knew where I could find hundreds of these wings. I also noticed that the floor was rotten as well and needed replacing. But I found my Minerva. It had been put on one side at the end of the driveway before the garage, heaped over with things like old bits of wiring harness and I didn’t recognise it for a while. But while we had been reversing up and down the street in front of the garage, someone was looking out of the front window to see what we were doing. Anyway, we knocked on the back door of the house and went in.

So hello, TOTGA! Long time no see!

That dream though is one that is full of interest. TOTGA leaving school and going to college (she didn’t go to Wrexham, by the way) must have been a very young TOTGA. However, seeing as I was naught but a pup myself when I lived in Davenport Avenue for about three years in the very early seventies, it’s not too bad I suppose.

But what is the fixation these days with Davenport Avenue? I’ve lived in a lot of places for a lot longer than three years but I don’t dream about them half as much as I do about the aforementioned. It’s not as if the house meant anything significant to me either.

And there was a Vanden Plas 4 litre R at our house for a long while. They were based on the big Austin Westminster A105 but the difference was that they had a slimline all-alloy Rolls-Royce engine and, their Achilles heel, hydraulic tappets in an “over-under” valve configuration.

The tappets were absolute swines to adjust and my father sweated for weeks trying to set them correctly. Helping my father in the garage, I learned a lot of words that I never knew before.

My car in the drive last night wasn’t actually the Minerva. It was in fact the Lomax kit car that I owned for several months after I moved to Belgium. There’s a long story about this car, but here and now is not the time and place to discuss it.

Later on, I was going on holiday with a group of people from work. We’d stayed overnight at someone’s house in the area of Manchester Airport and the next morning, we were all preparing to leave. I asked if I had time to wash myself, but they said that we were leaving immediately. So I went and had a quick wash but the others were just about leaving the house when I came out, so I had to run after them. Then we reached the airport, and this big group of us were standing in the middle of the reception area having checked in. I needed to use the bathroom so I went. When I came out, they had all disappeared except for one person who was looking at the departures. I went over there but he headed off into a corner where I imagined that everyone would be waiting. I had a wander over there and when I arrived, I found that it was the exit door. They had all left. There were the shuttle buses outside waiting to run the people to the ‘planes. I had to find out which bus was going to my ‘plane but none of the drivers seemed to know which was which. Suddenly, they all drove off and left me standing on the apron. My immediate thought was to go to find a taxi to take me there but there were no taxis about so I began to walk to where the ‘plane might be. I ended up walking through the top end of Crewe. There were several girls there chatting away but no-one paid any attention. A couple of taxis drove past with their “for hire” signs lit but none of them stopped for me. I was beginning to think that I could see me going back to work on Monday instead of being on holiday with everyone else.

Whyever a dream like this has appeared, I really have no idea because nothing as far as I am concerned could be worse than going on holiday with my colleagues from work. Mind you, their opinion of me was probably the same as my opinion of them, so being abandoned in an airport terminal while they made good their escape would not come as any surprise to anyone.

The nurse was early yet again, and his good humour seems to be continuing. He didn’t take long to sort me out and then he cleared off. Whether his good humour will continue tomorrow after he’s helped me fit these foot supports that the Centre de Ré-education wants me to wear remains to be seen.

While I ate my breakfast, I finished the final part of BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. Although the surrender of New York was not actually as a result of a battle, I’m still surprised that he doesn’t mention it except very, very briefly in passing.

The next book on the list, which I shall start to read tomorrow, is AB-SA-RA-KA, LAND OF MASSACRE. When Colonel Carrington set out to Indian Territory to build the forts to protect the Bozeman Trail, his commanding officer, General Sheridan, asked Mrs Carrington to keep "a daily record of the events of a peculiarly eventful journey, " and this is the story of the book.

It will doubtless (I hope) contain much more colourful information than the terse military reports of her husband, and provide me with much more information for when I (finally) make a start on writing the full notes of the area that I visited in 2019.

Back in here, I carried on with the radio programme, sorting out all of the music, and that took me up to the time that my faithful cleaner arrived to sort out my anaesthetic.

My taxi driver came round bang on time to pick me up and we had a lovely, long chat all the way to Avranches. And it was a long chat too because we had to go via Champeaux to pick up another passenger.

Even though I arrived on time, I was still the last to be coupled up today. but once the machine was working, they left me pretty much alone. I wasn’t in the mood to do any work today, which is no surprise seeing as the blood pressure was dropping rapidly. At one point it dropped as low as 6.8, which is way below the critical level.

For a change, I wasn’t last to be uncoupled, although there wasn’t all that much in it. My favourite taxi driver and I had another nice long chat on the way back to where my cleaner was awaiting me.

After a rest of half an hour, I managed to find the strength to make some baked potato, vegan salad and one of these breaded quorn burgers that I like. However, I wasn’t (yet again!) in much of a mood to eat very much.

But now, I’m off to bed. there’s a footfest (I hope) tomorrow and then a Day of Rest while I summon up the energy for chemotherapy on Tuesday and Wednesday. In fact, I have six consecutive days of medical appointments, and that’s too much for anyone.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about being abandoned and unwanted … "well, one of us has" – ed … it’s not a new feeling for me at all.
One day, when we were kids, we had alphabetti spaghetti for tea. My mother carefully dished out the meal to each of us, and I noticed that the letters that I had been given were "C F F F K O U"

0

Thursday 9th October 2025 – IT WAS HARD …

… today at dialysis.

The weight to be taken out was exactly on the maximum for a period of three and a half hours, so they wound the machine up to full speed.

During the session though, my blood pressure dropped to 7.5 and I was riddled with cramps and pains. I was all set to push on, but they refused to countenance it and wound the machine back somewhat.

That wasn’t at all what I had planned, because it means that for the following session, the one on Saturday afternoon, there will be correspondingly more to take out so that I (hopefully) will be back at my target weight. And it better had all be taken out on Saturday too because with chemotherapy on Tuesday and Wednesday next week, they will be pumping even more fluid into me than I usually take on board.

Yes, it’s been a right tale of woe today

This really sad day started off yesterday evening, to be precise. Once more, being totally unable to concentrate yet again, it was another horribly late night when I finally crawled into bed. It may not have been midnight, but it wasn’t all that far off.

It was another night where I couldn’t go to sleep very quickly. I ended up tossing and turning around in bed for quite some considerable time before I fell into the arms of Morpheus.

Even worse, I was wide awake at 04:20, without (so it seemed) very much prospect of going back to sleep. In fact, I tried very hard without success, but just as I was on the point oof giving it up as a bad job and leaving the bed, the alarm sounded and awoke me.

So whether I’d been dreaming that I was awake, or whether I really had been awake and had gone back to sleep, I really don’t know.

Something else that seems to be quite usual these days is that it took an age to leave the bed to sort myself out. And what with the washing to do and the medication to take, it was really late by the time that I came back in here.

To my surprise, there was something on the dictaphone from the night. Not a lot, it has to be said, but there we are. This was something to do with having some kind of naval base in the middle of the Atlantic somewhere. Various ships and submarines would go out on patrol to try to keep the area clear of the enemy but I can’t remember very much at all about this unfortunately.

This is the kind of dream that you have when you spend most of your free time reading about commerce raider, submarines and the like.

The nurse was early again today. As well as the usual procedure, we discussed the question of these foot supports. He’s agreed to help me fit them on Sunday, so that shall be interesting.

Then it was time for breakfast and more of BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

The British army has now all but given up the struggle and I reckon that the next few pages will see the Fall of Yorktown and the end of British resistance – the very end of a sad, sorry campaign of delay, inaction and lack of aggressiveness.

Back in here, I had to ring up to book my taxi for Rennes next week, and then I had things to do. Finally, I carried on with my radio programme.

My cleaner arrived as usual and sorted me out, followed by the taxi, that was on time for once.

Well, the taxi might have called here on time and my arrival at the dialysis centre might also have been on time, but as usual these days, I was the last to be connected up. I’ve no idea why that might be, but it’s becoming far too frequent for my liking.

As I said a little earlier, it was a very painful session and I didn’t enjoy it at all. I couldn’t concentrate on doing any work which was a shame because I have plenty to do these days and it’s not being done.

After all of the confusion, they finally let me out – late as usual – and then I had to await the taxi which had not arrived. And what with having to drop off someone else, I was horribly late returning here, yet again. And here I found a pile of tax bills awaiting me. I told you that it was a bad day today.

After a little while to recover, I made tea – a leftover curry. And once more, I left a pile of food on the plate. I’m really not doing too well these days.

But right now, I’m off to bed. I can’t keep on going any longer. Whatever happened to the days (and nights) when I’d be still awake at 04:00 and 05:00?

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about how hard it is … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember talking to an Australian friend of mine about my illness and how fed up I was of the whole situation.
"It seems to be really hard to die" I told him.
"Too right" he replied "but it’s not as hard as it was yester-die"

0

Monday 6th October 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone this morning.

Mind you, that’s no surprise at all. The storm that had been raging for a couple of days had died down by the end of the evening and for once, it was as quiet as the grave outside.

Once I was in bed, I went to sleep quite quickly and with two days’ worth of sleep to recover, there I lay without moving, all through the night.

How I was looking forward to it too. Once more I rushed through the work that I needed to do before going to bed and by the time that I crawled in underneath the covers, it was 23:02 – past my ideal curfew time of 23:00 but I’m not complaining.

After that, I remember nothing whatever until I awoke with another one of these “sitting bolt-upright” awakenings at 06:20 precisely. It took a couple of minutes to summon up the courage to haul myself off into the bathroom, and then I went into the kitchen to take my medication.

With nothing on the dictaphone, I took the opportunity to do something that I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while, and that is to tidy up the freezer.

During the move, the freezer was filled in any kind of order and I had real difficulty finding anything that I needed. Now, though, a couple of the drawers are sorted out and there remains just one more to do. Everything that needs to be in there is in there, but it needs to be tidied.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up a little later. It’s her last day before her week’s break so she was quite naturally in a good mood. We had a good chat about her Breton grandmother and how sad she … "the nurse, not the grandmother" – ed … was that her grandmother hadn’t taught her to speak Breton.

That’s just how I felt too. My grandmother never taught my father to speak Welsh because it was considered to be shameful back in the 1930s. Consequently, I had to learn by other methods. My grandmother did say a few words in Welsh to us when we were very small but she never explained that it was Welsh. We thought that it was just meaningless speech.

After Isabelle left, I could make breakfast and read some more of BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

By now, it’s Spring 1781 and the British have all-but given up hope of retaking the United States. A few inconclusive battles have seen the British Army retreat, even when they have had the upper hand. I think that Cornwallis is retreating towards the coast in the hope that he’ll meet a British ship that will whisk him out of the mess that the politicians have created.

Back in here, I had the radio notes to check for this week’s programme and to carry out a little judicious editing. I was also chatting to my friend in Munich and my friend in Telford while I was at it.

With the time that was left, I spent doing my Welsh homework. It’s not finished yet but it won’t take very long. Then I can concentrate on the next unit.

My cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic and then I had to await my taxi. Although he was on tie, there was someone else to pick up and for that, we had to wait around for a while. I had to sit in the back seat too, which was uncomfortable.

And so we were late arriving at dialysis and, as usual, even though I wasn’t the last to arrive, I was last to be plugged in.

For some reason that I don’t understand, my weight had ballooned since Saturday. The amount that needed to be removed was over the threshold for three and a half hours, so I expected to be there for four hours. However, the nurse failed to notice and I wasn’t going to say anything. The quicker that I’m out of there the better.

And jamais deux sans trois as they say around here. My niece’s second daughter contacted me for a chat while I was at dialysis.

Despite the fact that I was finished after three and a half hours today, I may as well have stayed because the taxi was late coming to fetch me. I didn’t complain because it was one of my favourite drivers so we had a good chat all the way home. With plenty of traffic on the roads, her driving was suitably restrained today.

Horribly late back home again, and totally exhausted because when the dialysis machine is going flat-out, it takes a lot out of me, I didn’t faal like eating anything. However, I can’t starve myself to death, so I made some pasta and veg with a vegan burger. That will do me for now.

Anyway, I’m going to bed, hoping to sleep for a week because I am so exhausted right now. I’m really beginning to worry about my health.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my favourite taxi driver … "well, one of us has" – ed … she’s one of the “old school” of taxi drivers who has her own way of doing things that wouldn’t fit in with modern ideas.
The first time that she took me to Paris, I remember it vividly.
Being someone who is famous for his very low blood pressure, I was surprised when at the hospital there, they told me that my blood pressure had gone through the roof.
"Well, you go for a long drive through the Paris rush-hour with my driver" I retorted "and see what yours is like when you come back!"

0