Category Archives: doctor

Wednesday 22nd July 2026 – WHAT A WASTE …

… of a morning that was. How many times is that now that I’ve come back from breakfast and crashed out for a while in my comfy chair? Many more than I would like to admit, that’s for sure.

However, when you don’t go to bed until 23:00 and wake up at 01:30 in the morning, what do you expect?

Yes, it was another late night last night. I tried all that I could try so that I could finish early but nothing at all seemed to work. Once I was in bed, though, I fell asleep quite quickly. But it wasn’t for long. At 01:30 I was awake again. And there I lay, drifting in and out of sleep until I awoke again at about 06:20. No point in leaving the bed at that time, so I waited a few minutes until the alarm went off.

After I’d sorted myself out in the bathroom, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone in order to find out where I’d been during the night.

A couple of us were walking around a few football grounds and we were talking about a few of the matches that we’d seen there. One person was telling us about a match in which he played. We ended up talking about the stadia and the seats, where we’d sit for important games. Then this question came around about designing our own football stadia that would actually fold up and be put away when they aren’t in use, but somehow, that didn’t seem to catch on anywhere so I went home. Just inside the house was a great big parcel addressed to my brother. I asked him if he would be going to move it, but he said that he couldn’t at the moment because it was too heavy. I opened the box and looked at the things inside it, then shouted to him to come and take a look. When he arrived, everything was there in the box. He was annoyed that everything had been opened, but he sat down for the next twenty minutes and began to assemble it. I asked him what it was, and he replied that it was a trolley jack. However, as he put it together, it became one of these space heater-type of machines that you have in garages that throw this … fell asleep here …

Those were the days. I spent several happy days walking around VARIOUS FOOTBALL GROUNDS IN THE UK, mainly by myself, I should say.

As for parcels addressed to my brother, that’s not likely, nor is the fact that I was helping him. It’s no surprise that I fell asleep before I finished.

So that was a space heater and I told him that it wasn’t a trolley jack. He insisted that it was. He then suddenly pointed to another object in there which was, in fact, a trolley jack. Then he agreed that what I was standing by and had just started to unwrap was a space heater. He said that that should keep us all warm if we are working.

So, a while later, I stepped back into the dream again. That’s something that happens every now and again, and it’s bizarre when it does happen.

So once my brother had unlabelled his space heater, everyone in the audience stepped back a fair way. I explained that it wasn’t dangerous at the moment because it hadn’t been charged with fuel. I went to have a look at his guns, including this GAZ 9/9, which is presumably an official Soviet military handgun.

So, a third time now. That’s quite unusual, but the dream is beginning to drift at the end. I’d have loved to hear the end of this.

My brother used to be very interested in guns and other firearms until the Dunblane Massacre put an end to many private gun clubs. However, as far as I’m aware, the Gorki Avto Zavod never made firearms. They just made cars, like the GAZ 21 which I would have in a heartbeat if I could, if it were a Series III model.

I was in my office. I’d been away for a few hours but I’d come back because I was getting ready to go on holiday. When I was tidying the things that had been put on my desk, I found an envelope with seven hundred euros in it and I couldn’t leave that lying around on my desk while I was away so I took it down to the cashiers’ office. I explained what had happened and asked them if they would cash it and give me a receipt for it so that I could put it in this person’s file, then at least the accounting would be correct. She took the envelope, pulled the money out and handed it back, but I noticed that there was still some money left in it. I didn’t say anything until she came back. At the cubicle next to me, a woman arrived with her daughter so another officer came to deal with her. She had her son with her. They chatted and did what they had to do, then the woman turned round to her daughter and said “right, let’s go and find Mr so-and-so.” My ears pricked up at that because I was planning to look for him myself for some reason, and there were two other people who also noticed. As this woman left the building, the three of us independently followed her. She got into her car so I got into mine and those two men got into theirs, but all she did was to reverse across the car park and park the car somewhere else. We waited until she got out of the car and set off on foot, so we followed her.

This dream doesn’t mean very much to me. My dreams about work are usually about being on the point of retirement – should I stay or should I go?

The quest for the missing man is interesting too. I wonder why everyone, including me, is so keen to find him.

The nurse turned up as usual. We had an interesting chat about home renovations while he was dealing with my feet. And after he left, I made breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

We’re still exploring the Norman Romanesque of England and Normandy, but I’ve spent most of my time looking for towns and villages that I don’t know, where there are some interesting historic remains from that period. He’s managed to keep out of controversy so far, but that’s because, once more, I spent more time researching some of the places that he mentioned than I spent reading Freeman’s book.

Back in here, there were things to do, and I duly began to do them, but within fifteen minutes, I was fast asleep in my chair. I vaguely remember waking up at one point, but it wasn’t for long. It was about 11:40 when I finally awoke, and that was definitely a waste of a good morning.

Much of the rest of the day has been all about the radio programme. I now have all of the music that I need. It’s been reformatted where necessary, re-edited, paired and segued, and I’ve even begun to write the notes for it.

One thing, though, and that is that I could have done so much more had it not been for several interruptions, the most important of which was to go to hospital.

It was time for a review of my implant and so an appointment had been made for 14:00 here in Granville. At 13:00, I knocked off work and prepared myself and everything that I needed, and that included photocopying a document to take with me. The taxi turned up at about 13:40, and I was at the hospital in good time.

Unfortunately, the “good time” didn’t last. We got lost in the labyrinth of hospital corridors and when we eventually found our destination, it was 14:02. The doctor was waiting for me and she set to work straight away.

The doctor who does these tests is definitely my favourite doctor. She’s small, thin and a “certain age”. And when she’s looking at my implant with her echograph machine, she’s continually chuntering, saying things like “why have they done this?”, “that’s not correct”, “they should have done it this way” and so on. It puts some animation into what would otherwise be a very boring examination.

The net result was that there was no change in the fistule and the debit since the last examination in January. That means that I’m going to still be stuck on 950 millilitres per hour maximum.

The driver was waiting for me when I came out, so he helped me into the car. I had a fall at one point and he had to help me by dragging me bodily onto the car seat. But once I was safely installed, he drove me home, where my faithful cleaner was waiting. She helped me into the apartment and served up a disgusting drink and the midday medicine. I hadn’t taken it before I went

Once I was on my own, I came back in here to carry on work.

Tea tonight was a vegan burger with pasta and ratatouille, and delicious it was too. Back in here afterwards, I started to write my notes but once more, sleep descended quite rapidly. As I’d written a good proportion, I posted them on line with a little “to be continued” and went to bed. I’ll finish them in the morning.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about doctors … "well, one of us has" – ed … the girls from Crewe went to the doctor’s.
The doctor asked the first one "what’s three times nine."
"three hunndred and seventy-three" she replied.
He turns to the next girl and asks her "what’s three times nine?"
"Friday" she replied
He turns to the third girl and asks her "what’s three times nine?"
"Twenty-seven" she replies.
"Well done you. How did you arrive at the answer?"
"Simple" she said. "I just divided three hundred and seventy-three by Friday."

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Monday 20th July 2026 – NOT ANOTHER MARATHON …

… session at the dialysis centre, surely. The maximum rate of extraction for me is 950 millilitres per hour and they had it running today at 934. This dialysis is beginning to look like an extreme sport.

Going to bed is becoming an extreme sport too these days. Try as I might, I can’t seem to go to bed at anything like a reasonable time. Even last night, it was still getting on for 23:30 when I finally went to bed.

That’s not all either. I had another turbulent night that ended at 02:30 when I awoke. From then on, it was another one of these “drifting in and out of sleep” nights;

When the alarm rang, we had the usual struggle to drag me to my feet but eventually I managed to drag myself into the bathroom to sort myself out, including a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon at dialysis.

Back in here afterwards, I turned my attention to the dictaphone to find out what had been going on during the night.

I was in bed when I dreamed that a girlfriend’s mother came by and started to give me food. But one of the pieces of food went down my windpipe instead of my throat, and I awoke with one of these incredible coughing fits that I haven’t had for a while as if I had something stuck in my throat.

This dream is self-explanatory, and it’s really sad news to see that this cough is slowly coming back to haunt me.

There is also “something” going on right now involving a former girlfriend’s mother, and who knows? You might get to hear about it if you’re patient, because it won’t be any time soon.

We were at a big university and there was a lot going on there. The first thing was that one of the girls whom we vaguely knew ended up being the girlfriend of a friend. He used to spend most of his time in her room so we went up once and had a crafty listen at the door. And we weren’t wrong! We noticed on the door was this girl’s name and her boyfriend’s name, with a couple of boyfriends’ names crossed out – they had obviously once been going out with her. My two friends wanted to creep away but I wanted to write “congratulations” on a piece of paper and push it under the door to surprise them. But in the end, I left, and we carried these spear things that we had. We carried them down the stairs with us. Then, there was a drought and things were struggling. We knew that the Japanese students were able to conjure up water so we thought that we’d capture a couple, so I went to try to capture one of these Japanese people, but in the end my friends talked me out of it. At the same time, someone decided that he was going to play a game. He was going to be let loose and roam around this tower block and everyone else would have to try to capture him. We were doing something like this with dice and counters in a game called “The Met”, like you have with the Metropolitan Police, but this was real life so we started off on the hunt. Eventually, I could tell roughly which room he was in, so we went again down the corridor and listened at the door until we were chased away by some Japanese soldiers. I had a plan then that they would be guarding that corridor and they’d be guarding the uphill approach to there, so I got into the lift and went to the floor above. There were different people waiting to get into the lift, and in the end, my two friends joined me, and we managed to keep everyone else out. So we walked down to the end of this corridor and climbed over the safety rail and walked down the fire escape until we were near the door which would lead into the hostel there on that floor. But there were two students standing guard on the window there to that room so we had to think of a way to break in because these students were thin and maybe malnourished. Anyway, we arrived there at this window, and there were two people sitting there on the window and they were pushing everyone away, including us, even though we’d come from a different direction. In the end, we had a maths challenge where the three of us were given a hundred questions and we had to see how many we could do and how many of them would be correct.

What a strange dream this was! It’s not the first time that I’ve invented a new game during my sleep. I ought to patent and market them. But for this game here, I can already imagine the entries on several squares –
1 – insult a colleague of ethnic minority
2 – kick a peaceful protester in the groin
3 – interview a witness so thoroughly that he has to spend the next five weeks in hospital

The two friends in this dream are unknown to me but the other guy and the girl involved are people whom I know and recognise from fifty-five years ago. The building, too, is also one that has featured quite regularly in my life during my waking hours thirty-five to forty years ago.

Apart from all of that, this is another dream that would be quite interesting to explore further, although not necessarily the maths test and the Japanese people. I’m not sure why they are there.

The nurse was really early again today but he didn’t stay long. He seemed to be in quite a hurry and didn’t have much to say. Once he’d left, I could make my breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

We’ve left early mediaeval France and are now discussing “The Romanesque Of Northern France And England, Or Norman Style”.

We’re not even ten lines into the chapter when he comments that "it will be allowable to dwell with greater minuteness upon the architecture of so splendid a period, when if art had not reached the same zenith of perfection as in the palmy days of Gothic skill, yet the number, vastness, and magnificence of its works attest alike the bounty of founders and the genius of architects.".

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that only ten days ago, he was heaping abuse on Roman architecture "on the ground of mere vastness and magnificence" and lack of artistic effort.

However, the reasons for his dramatic change of opinion when it comes to the architecture of Northern France and England soon become clear. "Majestic and awful, rather than beautiful, no style is more truly religious, more imbued with the spirit and position of the Church in its own day, the day when St. Anselm braved spoliation and banishment, and St. Thomas sealed his witness with his blood."

Back in here, there was, as usual, plenty do but it ended up being more than that because, at about 10:15, I fell asleep and didn’t awaken until 11:10. That was a waste of an hour.

At 12:00 (I’ve set an alarm on dialysis day now so that I don’t oversleep), I headed off into the living room to prepare my things. My cleaner turned up ready to apply the anaesthetic but when she took the plasters off from Saturday, one of the punctures began to bleed, so that delayed us for a while.

While she was here, I also showed her how I had repaired the drawer yesterday. And while I was demonstrating, another one fell apart so we’ll fix that when I come back.

The taxi was ten minutes early today, which is good news. The earlier I arrive, the earlier I can depart. We had to go to Sartilly to pick up my usual travelling companion, but even so, it was just a handful of seconds after 13:30 when we arrived.

As I said earlier, there’s another mammoth load of water to remove from me today, as I discovered when I weighed myself, so I wasn’t looking forward to this session. I was in a small ward with just one other person today, but the nurse in charge was one who seems to have something of an attachment to me and she even stroked my arm several times.

She explained which of the blood pressure readings were important and which weren’t, so if the alarm rang for an unimportant reading, she showed me how to cancel it. That meant that I could pretty much be left in peace.

One of the doctors came round and asked me how things were, so I told him about the cough and the pain in my foot. “We’ll see how it develops” was his response. That’s helpful.

When I was unplugged, I had to wait for the taxi but even so, I was still back here for 18:20. My faithful cleaner was there to help me in, and then we set about repairing the drawer that had collapsed at lunchtime. This time, though, it wasn’t as easy as the others that I repaired, but once we resorted to the use of a hammer, it seemed to go together acceptably.

After my cleaner left, I made a quick tea – a plate of pasta and veg tossed in olive oil, freshly ground black pepper and grated vegan cheese. And it was just as delicious as always.

After I’d washed up, I came back in here to write up my notes, but no sooner had I started than a huge wave of fatigue overwhelmed me. To my extreme disappointment … "and to yours too, I imagine" – ed … there was no other solution but to go to bed, and my notes can take care of themselves in the morning.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the police … "well, one of us has" – ed … one day a policeman turned up at our front door and spoke to Nerina.
He showed her a photo and asked her "is this your husband?"
"Yes it is" she replied.
The policeman continued "I’m afraid that it looks as if he’s been hit by a lorry"
"I know" she replied. "His personality is not up to much either."

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Thursday 16th July 2026 – WHAT A BAD …

… day this has been!

It’s hard to think of anything that has actually gone right today and it’s really been getting on my wick.

Take last night, for example. I had every good intention of being in bed at some reasonable time but even though I tried, the torrential downpour that opened up meant that I had to walk around the apartment closing all of the windows. And you’ve no idea just how long it takes me to do something like that these days.

It was round about 23:15 when I was finally in bed, but the sound of the rain kept me awake for ages before I eventually slid into the arms of Morpheus.

And I wasn’t there for long, either. Round about 02:20 … "why is it always 02:20?" – ed … I awoke again. And awake I stayed for hours, thinking that I’d never go back to sleep at this rate. But at some point, I did, because I awoke again at 06:19 or something like that – just a few minutes before the alarm.

If I’d tried hard, I could have gone for an early start, but I decided not to bother. However, it was still a real struggle when the alarm finally did go off. I was sitting on the edge of the bed for a good ten minutes trying to wake up.

In the bathroom, I had a good wash and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon at dialysis, and then I came back in here to start work.

There was nothing on the dictaphone when I went for a listen. The short night had evidently curtailed all of that, but there was still plenty to do while I waited for the nurse.

He was early again too and it didn’t take him long to sort me out. While he was dealing with me, we were chatting about Montreal and how he wants to go there to visit. I told him where to go and mentioned THE CITY OF QUÉBEC too, which is beautiful.

Once he’d gone, I could make breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Today, we’ve finished Byzantium, had a whistle-stop tour of early mediaeval Germany and Ireland, and we’re now in Anglo-Saxon England. As yet, he’s been behaving himself and there’s nothing controversial in what he’s written. Here’s hoping that he keeps it up.

Back in here, I finished selecting all of the tracks that I wanted for this live concert and the sound track is assembled. One of the joints was pretty dreadful so I had to splice in some additional applause so that I had more room to fiddle about with everything. And now, it’s working fine and you can’t tell where any of the joints are.

Once that was up and running, I began to write the notes. However, round about 10:45 I crashed out dramatically, and there I was, fast asleep in my chair when my cleaner awoke me at 12:15 to apply my anaesthetic.

With her being late, it was late when she left, and the taxi arrived early, about two minutes after I’d gone for a ride on the porcelain horse. Definitely caught in flagrante delicto there, I was.

Not that I’m complaining, though. We arrived quite early and I was seen almost straight away, and by 14:06 I was up and running. It was another new nurse too who saw to me.

As usual, the blood pressure was set for every thirty minutes, and every thirty minutes the nurses came running when the low pressure alarm sounded, but it wasn’t low pressure at all to me – just normal.

The doctor came to see me too, but unfortunately it wasn’t Emilie the Cute Consultant today. I had to make do with an ordinary one. But he didn’t help me very much;

The dialysis machine was going full blast again so I was exhausted by the time that it finished. However, they dealt with me quickly yet again and by the time that I was unplugged, the driver was waiting for me to take me home.

Earlier this afternoon when I had set out, my walking was “gone” and I had a real struggle to move. I felt absolutely awful. But on leaving, I was walking much better, despite being exhausted by the dialysis process.

We were back here for 18:20, which made a really pleasant change, and my faithful cleaner had to rush back from shopping to help me back into the apartment.

She helped me sit down and gave me a disgusting drink, and after she left, I made tea – rice and veg with something with kidney beans, olives and tomato sauce. And I didn’t enjoy it. Once more, it tasted of nothing but salt.

So now, having finished my notes, I’m going to go to bed. And I hope that tonight is better than last night and I can have a decent sleep for once, not that it’s likely.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about walking, like around my apartment and how difficult it was to go to dialysis … "well, one of us has" – ed … when I was in Nova Scotia twenty-odd years ago talking to Anne Murray, she of SNOWBIRD fame, I asked her "why do birds fly south in winter?"
"I don’t know" she replied. "Why do birds fly south in winter?"
"Because it’s too far to walk."

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Monday 13th July 2026 – JUST FOR A …

… change, we had some rain here this afternoon. And that was something that many people were pleased to see, bearing in mind the last few weeks of drought. And I do have to say that it did indeed make a welcome change.

Something else that made a welcome change was the fact that I actually had something of a decent night’s sleep. That certainly took me by surprise.

After I’d finished baking yesterday, I came back in here to write up my notes, totally oblivious to the fact that I hadn’t had anything to eat. I had completely forgotten about tea.

After my notes were finished and on line, I had a few things to do, and then I went to bed. It was round about 23:00, not as early as I was hoping, but then again, nothing is these days.

Strangely, it took me an age to go off to sleep. That’s the first time for quite a while that I’ve had a problem in this respect. But once asleep, there I stayed until all of … errr … 03:10.

At that time, I was awoken by someone shouting “hey”, and then something extremely important about the Welsh Premier League. I’ve no idea what it was now but it awoke me with a start yet again.

The bedroom window in here is slightly open, so I suppose that it could conceivably be someone outside shouting, but why would they be shouting something about the Welsh Premier League? In the end, I decided to treat it as a dream because I can’t think of what else it might have been.

The next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 06:29. I don’t even remember going back to sleep after that earlier incident, so it really did take me by surprise. And once again, we had the usual struggle to rise to my feet and head off to the bathroom.

It’s a good wash and shave today, just in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. And then after that, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And as well as the previous dream, there was something else on there too.

It was ironic because earlier, I’d been dreaming about the Welsh Premier League. I had to make a series of radio broadcasts about the different leagues, different clubs and so on. They gave me a list of Premier Division clubs that I had to include somewhere or other in the programme and also made other suggestions about things that I should mention. By the time that I’d reached a thousand words, or something like that, I’d already written quite a few and it was moving quite nicely.

So here we go with the Welsh Premier League again. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I do spend a lot of my time one way or another with the Welsh Premier League, but it’s quite rare for me to dream about it. And judging by the opening comments, it’s in some way linked to the previous incident at 03:10.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up earlier than usual today – her last day for twelve days. She was looking all radiant in her summer gear, ready to go home and put the reclining seats on the patio and her feet up until a week on Sunday.

She told me about an accident that had taken place down the road during the night in which a car had gone out of control and collided with three parked vehicles. I’d heard nothing, of course.

After she’d left, I could make my breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

We’ve finished Rome now and moved on to Byzantium, which pleases him much more, seeing as it’s Christian architecture and art.

Nevertheless, he still can’t resist firing a parting shot – "The division is purely horizontal ; a bay of a basilica is a thing which cannot be imagined. Size, splendour, even proportion, may make basilican architecture pleasing to the eye, and no other style has associations which can speak so powerfully to the heart ; but the living soul of art is wanting. It has freed itself from the absurdities and inconsistencies of heathen Rome,"

After breakfast, I cut in half the loaf that I made yesterday and put both halves into the freezer for another time. And the fruit loaf went into a tin. I’m determined to try it one of these nights.

Back in here, I had plenty of things to do. First of all, I reviewed the radio programme for this week and then sent it off. After that, despite my best intentions, I regrettably crashed out instead. And although I awoke later and made another start, I crashed out once more and it wasn’t until 11:45 that I awoke.

That gave me just enough time to choose the first record for the next radio programme before my faithful cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic.

She drew my attention to the sky outside. “That’s storm weather, if ever I have seen it,” I said to myself. “We’re going to be in for it quite soon”.

After she left, I waited for the taxi, and it was almost half an hour late. There was also someone else to pick up, so I was horribly late arriving at dialysis. Even so, I still had to wait, and it wasn’t until 14:45 that I was actually up and running.

Almost as soon as we had left my house, there was an enormous clap of thunder and flash of lightning, and it rained all the way to Sartilly.

During the whole session at the dialysis centre, which was another heavy one, by the way, the blood pressure alarm was going off every half-hour, bringing the nurses running. But there was nothing to worry about. It kept on interrupting my work and my attempts at some more beauty sleep, though.

The doctor came to see me too and told me the good news – that I don’t need another one of these cameras stuck up my nose. They are going to monitor my situation.

When it was time to unplug me, I had to wait fifteen minutes, which was annoying. The taxi driver was waiting for me, however, so we could push off quite quickly. The bad weather had gone and it was actually quite warm again.

There was another passenger in the car, whom I hadn’t noticed at first, so we had to go to Sartilly to drop her off. And it was 19:10 when I finally arrived home.

My cleaner helped me inside to sit down and recover, and after she left, I made some food – a bowl of pasta and vegetables, boiled and then fried in olive oil and black pepper, and covered with grated cheese. Another delicious meal.

So now that I’ve finished my notes, there are a few things left to do and then I’m off to bed, hoping for an even better sleep than last night. But as long as I don’t crash out during the day, I’ll be fine.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about churches and basilica … "well, one of us has" – ed … everyone was quietly praying one Sunday morning at the Basilica in Koekelberg in the north of Brussels when suddenly Satan appears.
Everyone immediately panics and runs for the exit except for one old man
"So, aren’t you afraid of me too?" asks Old Nick
"Not at all" replies the old man
"And why not?"
"Why should I be? After all, I’ve been married to your sister for nearly fifty years."

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Thursday 9th July 2026 – WHAT A NIGHT …

… that was.

At some point during the night, I actually dreamed that the alarm had gone off. It was so realistic that I actually left the bed and I was up for about two minutes before I realised that it was far too early.

It’s not the first time that that has happened either. I don’t know what caused it but I really did think that it was real.

However, I must have been ready to wake up, I suppose. After all, I’d managed to make it into bed at something like a reasonable time and I was soon asleep. I didn’t do much waking up either, until that phantom alarm call at whatever time it was.

When I saw that it was still fairly dark outside, I crawled back into bed and went back to sleep. And there I stayed until … errr … 06:19 when I awoke again. Just like the other day, I was trying to make up my mind whether to leave the bed and claim an early start, but I took so long debating with myself that the alarm beat me to it, and that was that.

After I’d finally plucked up the courage to stand up, I headed to the bathroom to sort myself out. That involved a really good scrub-up and, quite naturally, a good shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. Then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

There was a mother and daughter who had come down the Rue Couraye and the Rue Paul Poirier into the centre of Granville, where I met them. I asked them how they had managed coming here – whether there had been any danger. They replied that there had been nothing as far as they could see. I warned them that when they go back, they may well encounter something unexpected, like the big house there where they do tests on germs and allergies and whatever, and she might be taken in by the guy who runs it. Then we talked about the enemy soldiers. The woman said that she had a shield so she’d be fine. I asked her about offensive weapons like swords. She admitted in the end to having one, so I asked the daughter what weapons she had, and just as she was about to reply, the dream ended.

This is another one of those dreams that, at first glance, mean nothing at all. However, there are a couple of strands in it that do mean something to me

  • The streets that I mentioned are real streets in Granville, and that’s the way that you come from the station into the town centre and to the foot of the slope where you climb up to the mediaeval walled city.
  • Back in the past, I worked with a Swedish woman who had a daughter, and those two would correspond with the people in the dream.
  • There was a hoary old joke about how, in these computer games, men always go out fully armed and dressed in armour, yet the women have to make do with just a metal bikini.
  • The big house where they test for allergies reminds me of the allergy clinic in Avranches, to where I went a few months ago and which we drove past on Monday.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in again today, full of joy and energy. No trace of any bad humour as reported the other day. She sorted out my legs and feet and then went off to continue her rounds. I could go to make breakfast and, while I was eating, read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

And here we go yet again. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … a few days ago, he was knocking the simple “post and beam” architecture of places like Stonehenge, but today, it’s "There is then one mechanical system and one type of outline which pervade the whole style, and both of these the most simple that can be imagined. Posts supporting beams are arranged in the form of a parallelogram. No mechanical construction can be simpler than that of the entablature ; none requires so few component parts, or so small an exertion of any but the merest physical powers of mechanism."

And yesterday, I also mentioned that he’s now attacking the architecture of ancient Rome. Today we have him having a good moan about "both the debased Romans and their modern imitators …" As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, the Romans developed the architecture of the arch, something that has totally transformed the nature of building ever since.

Back in here, there were things to do and then I made a start on editing one of the radio notes that had been waiting for a few months, since early May in fact when I dictated it. There are loads to do, and they aren’t going to be done by me sitting in here looking at them.

Not that I managed to go very far, because I was slipping in and out of waves of fatigue, so hopefully tomorrow, I’ll be full of enthusiasm and energy and dash off the editing in five minutes.

My faithful cleaner was late coming today. She had been held up by her previous client, who wanted her wardrobe clearing out so that she could sell her surplus clothes at the walled city brocante or car boot sale on Sunday. Anyway, she arrived eventually, applied my anaesthetic, checked that I had everything and then cleared off.

Once she’d left, I decided to have a little doze at the kitchen table, but I’d hardly started when the taxi came, ten minutes early. I was the only passenger too, so I was there by 13:30 and looking forward to an early start and early return home.

Today, though, I was in the new air-conditioned building so I had to walk miles to my own little private room. And then I remembered that I’d forgotten to weigh myself so I had to go halfway back from where I’d come from.

Since Monday, my weight, for some reason, had increased more than any other time, so I was looking forward to a difficult, unpleasant session of dialysis. And it got off to a bad start, as I wasn’t connected until 14:25.

The low blood pressure alarm kept ringing every fifteen minutes, and every fifteen minutes a nurse came running. And then we had the doctor – not, unfortunately, Emilie the Cute Consultant.

The doctor told me that she had received the scans from yesterday, and they did indeed show a massive build-up of infection. The previous series of antibiotics had only managed to put them to sleep, not to kill them off completely.

And then she dropped her bombshell. She wants me to go for another one of those nasal things that I had several weeks ago. If I had been wearing boots at that moment, the news would have made my heart sink right into them, and no mistake. But we shall see how this pans out.

Eventually, much later than I was anticipating, I was released from my tubes and pipes, and it was a very weak and feeble me who made my way to the foyer of the building where my driver was waiting.

It was the young, friendly, chatty guy who brought me home, on my own again, so we had a good chat all the way back, where my faithful cleaner was awaiting. And it was a good job that she was there too, because I needed the help after that session of dialysis.

After she had me settled in the dining area, she cleared off. I loaded up a tray with a packet of crackers, the vegan cheese spread, a peach, a few biscuits and a disgusting drink and came back in here, because there wasn’t one football match tonight but two on the internet, one after the other and it was going to be a very late night.

The first match in the European Conference League was Caernarfon v Levadia Tallinn from Estonia. Caernarfon played some good football, even though they went 1-0 down after fifteen minutes, but an astonishing lapse of concentration for a five-minute period either side of half-time saw them concede three goals, and there was no coming back after that. They conceded a fifth one later and had a player sent off to compound their woes. All in all, it was a sad match with which to open their impressive, rebuilt stadium and entertain their full house of fans.

The second match was Penybont v Santa Coloma, from Andorra. As Penybont’s ground doesn’t meet European standards, they played the match at the Cardiff City Stadium, so the fans were rattling around like peas in a drum. If only they had played the match at a much smaller European-compliant stadium, there would have been a much better atmosphere to encourage their players.

A bad injury to Penybont’s centre-half Billy Borge forced him off the field, and while he was receiving treatment and Penybont were down to ten men, Santa Coloma scored a marvellous headed goal. That was the only goal of the game too. Although Penybont played so much better in the second half, they couldn’t pull it back. They had a glorious chance to equalise when they were awarded a penalty, but the weak kick was easily saved by Santa Coloma’s Mexican keeper.

By now, I was right out of it, and I just fell into bed, and that was that. My notes can wait until tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about daughters and children … "well, one of us has" – ed … the daughter of one of my friends came home from school and asked her mum "what do you call it when one person sleeps on top of another?"
Mother let out a sigh and said "Here we go – I may as well explain the facts of life to her seeing as she brought up the subject."
Next day, the daughter came home crying, and said "mother, you told me wrong. It’s not called sex, it’s called bunk beds."

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Wednesday 8th July 2026 – LAST NIGHT WAS …

… a somewhat better night than a few of the previous ones.

It was probably helped by the fact that I was in bed by 22:45, which is one of the earliest times (leaving aside the times when I’ve crashed out) that I’ve been in bed for a while. Not that it did me much good, though, because at 01:20, I was wide-awake again.

This time, however, I managed to go back to sleep and apart from the odd bit of tossing and turning, there I stayed, flat out, until the alarm rang at 06:29. At that point, I was enjoying myself in a really nice dream but the sound of the alarm caused the whole lot to evaporate before I could record any of it, which was a shame.

As usual, it took a while for me to raise myself from the Dead, and when I finally found the energy and the motivation, I headed off into the bathroom to sort myself out for the day. I also had to fill the soap dispenser in the shower because I’d run out of soap when I was showering yesterday.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, and I was surprised at how far I had travelled.

There was some kind of TV programme going to take place and I was going to appear on it, doing some cooking from the Neolithic period. So before this programme, I went to bed early so that I’d feel in good form when the alarm went off and get up easier. However, Tuppence had other ideas, and once I’d settled down in bed and thrown the bedclothes over me, she came along to sit on me and to interrupt whatever procedure I was trying to apply in this long-awaited project … fell asleep here …

Cooking is something that’s quite high on my agenda, and so is the Neolithic period, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. And I’ve also appeared on TV a few times in the past.

Tuppence is my old black cat and she is currently appearing as a star in another project that is taking place elsewhere. This kind of behaviour – sitting on the important papers, sitting on me in the middle of the night – was actually part of her character and I lost count of how many times she did it back in those days.

There was a group of us, and we met in a pub. The pub was crowded and one or two of our group were sitting in a corner against the back wall, and as we came in, we went to join them. We were chatting, and suddenly we broke out into song. We were singing a Fairport Convention song, and this carried on for a while. It was crowded, this pub, but we were OK. Then one of the girls suggested that we go across the road to another pub because that was usually quieter and there was a juke box in there, so if we each put half a crown in, we could choose ten records, and as there were eight of us, that would be eighty records and we could sing along to all of them. Just as one of our group came back with a pint, we told him that we were going so he drank his pint down quickly, and we left and went across the road to another pub. We all went over to the jukebox, but someone had already put a load of money in it and there was a huge list of records that he’d chosen that were waiting to play. We reckoned that we would have to wait a good while before we could do anything. One thing that I noticed in this dream was that every time I sat somewhere, it was always with my back to the wall but I don’t know why

The second pub reminded me very much of the “Ermine” in Hoole, Chester, but the first pub was definitely not the old Beehive on the other side of the road. They were pubs that I knew well when I lived in Newton Lane and Lightfoot Street in Chester and hung out with a couple of guys from that area.

The first pub, I can’t recognise at all, though. I only saw the interior of it last night and it didn’t resemble any pub that I knew. And believe me – I knew many pubs all over the UK back in those days. The girls in the dream are something else that I can’t recognise. They aren’t the “usual suspects”, yet they must be people whom I know quite well.

I was on my way to Vine Tree Avenue last night. I don’t know where I’d been but I was walking home and I was carrying something like a big tent groundsheet with me. There were several people here and there on the streets, and as I turned into Vine Tree Avenue, there were two guys behind me. We carried on walking down the avenue but there was a police car there. The policeman got out of his car and went over to these two other people to ask them “why are you following that man?”. So I left him to deal with it and carried on to where I was going. It was the Copes’ house in Vine Tree Avenue and I had to give them this groundsheet, but the tent was already built so I put the groundsheet against the wall by the front door. This caused a dog to bark, and I had noticed that the front door was actually open as if they were expecting someone. So having done that, I went over to our house to have breakfast.

There were two families called “Cope” who lived in Vine Tree Avenue. This one is the one lower down the street opposite Edwards Avenue. Although they had a son my age with whom I played occasionally when I was a child, I didn’t really like them all that much, so I can’t think why I’d be taking a tent groundsheet to their house.

The two guys following me are interesting too. I can’t think what they might have been after, but one thing is certain and that is that I didn’t have it. Back in those days, we were constantly broke. The police engaging with them is interesting too. That kind of thing wouldn’t happen today – they would just drive past.

Isabelle the Nurse was late today, and I’ve no idea why. We had a little chat as usual as she sorted me out, and then she carried on to the rest of her round. Mind you, I did hear a story later about how she’d had a blazing row with one of her clients further on along her round. How true it is, I don’t know, but I know that she has a “character” at times. I’ve mentioned it before, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Once she’d gone, I could make breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

He’s still moaning about the Egyptian and Persian architecture and loudly praising the Greeks, and now it’s the turn of the Romans to come under fire. He says that some early Greek buildings "demonstrate, even more clearly than larger structures, the complete freedom of Grecian genius from the degrading fetters with which Italian pedantry would fain enslave it. They are pretty, but odd"

He goes on to say that "simplicity is the grand characteristic of Grecian architecture, and seems peculiar to it. Even in Egypt and India, where everything had stiffened in the mould of caste, we find greater variety than on the free soil of Greece ; the forms are more diversified, and the designs more complicated."

And that’s from someone who has been criticising Persian and Egyptian architecture as being no work of art.

After breakfast, there were things to do back in here, and then there was the radio programme. I finished re-editing, reformatting, pairing and segueing the rest of the music and then I started to write the notes. However, I was interrupted by my faithful cleaner, who caught me in flagrante delicto riding the porcelain horse.

She came by to see if I was ready and had everything that I wanted. I told her that I’d completed all of the forms this morning and that everything was ready.

After she left, I had to wait for the taxi. And once more, I dozed off and was in the middle of a lovely dream when the doorbell rang. At that moment, everything evaporated and I couldn’t remember a thing.

For a taxi that was booked at 13:00 to be present at the scanner in the hospital at 13:20 for the scan at 13:30, it actually turned up at 13:34, meaning that I was thirty minutes late arriving for my scan. That’s not really a surprise because there’s an ambulance strike on today, and many vehicles are off in a protest convoy up the A84, so I suppose that they are short-staffed.

As I was entering the building, I bumped into one of the doctors from dialysis who was just leaving. Unfortunately, it was not Emilie the Cute Consultant, but I suppose that you can’t win a coconut every time.

As I was late, they had passed a few people in front of me, which is normal, so I had to wait around for a while. Eventually, they let me into the scanning room, where I noted that it was one of these big time-tunnel portal-type of machines made by General Electric, for whom, as regular readers of this rubbish in a previous version will recall, I worked for six months in 2005 to cover someone’s maternity leave.

They had to give me a perfusion, and it took the nurses three attempts to find a vein correctly. Then, I passed through the machine a few times. After that, someone said “we’re starting the perfusion”. Almost immediately, I went red-hot from head to toe, and then they passed me through the machine a couple more times. “Breath in, fill your lungs and hold it” – “now breathe normally” etc.

The driver was waiting to bring me back, so I was home in no time, where my cleaner was waiting to help me into the apartment. And it’s a good job that she was there because this driver didn’t even help me out of the car. And he almost drove off with my crutches still in the boot.

Once I’d recovered, I came back in here and thrashed my way through the rest of the notes for the radio programme, and they are all now complete and ready for dictating.

For tea, I grabbed some crackers, the cream cheese, the spice cake and a disgusting drink, put it on my trolley and pushed it in here, because there was football on the internet – Connah’s Quay Nomads v FC Ballkani of Kosovo in the European Conference.

Ballkani, the seeded side who have played in the group stages before, played the prettier football, without any doubt, but the Nomads absorbed the pressure and hit the Kosovans on the break on several occasions, causing panic in the defence. However, neither side could break through and the match ended 0-0, which is really a moral victory for the Nomads.

Now that the game is over and I’ve finished my notes, I’m off to bed. It’s dialysis tomorrow and I’m not looking forward to it.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about sitting with our backs to the wall … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of someone whom I met many, many years ago who had been fighting in the Civil War in Spain.
He told me that he always sat with his back to the wall "because I was assaulted in the rear by a Spanish Falangist in a brothel during the Civil War"
After he left, one of his friends said to me "doesn’t he talk a load of rubbish? He sits with his back to the wall so that he can keep an eye on the door. That way, he can spot his creditors before they spot him!"

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Monday 6th July 2026 – WHEN THE ALARM …

… went off this morning, I was sitting in my chair, working. I’d actually been up and about for 45 or so minutes, and when was the last time that that happened?

But anyway, last night was another one of those nights where I couldn’t seem to push on and finish everything. While I was writing my notes, I had a plate of crackers and the vegan cream cheese in front of me, and I managed to finish all of that, right enough, but it still ended up being a horribly late night again.

Once I was in bed, I was asleep quickly enough, as usual, but once more, not for long. Round about 01:20 (I checked the time) I awoke, and that was that. It was another one of those nights where I tossed and turned, trying to make myself comfortable as dawn very slowly began to break.

Round about 05:30, I was wide-awake and with no apparent possibility of going back to sleep, I decided to raise myself from the Dead – although it took a good while to find the energy and the courage to do so.

However, I’m glad that I did because I managed to dictate the notes that I’d written ages ago for three radio programmes. It’s only one small chip off a very large block, but at least I’m making a start.

What was interesting about this, though, was that when I awoke, it looked as if it might be a bright, sunny day but within a period of fifteen minutes or so, a thick mist had appeared and I couldn’t even see the car park from here. “This bodes well for the rest of the day,” I thought.

When the alarm sounded, I was just finishing off the third so when I was ready, I went and organised myself in the bathroom, having a really good wash and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon at dialysis.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. However, I needn’t have bothered because there wasn’t anything there. After all, if you don’t sleep, you can’t really dream, can you? Either that or my subconscious is totally exhausted after last night. Instead, I found plenty of other things to do. There’s no shortage of work around here.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in as usual and chatted away for a while as she sorted out my legs and feet. And after she left, I had another lengthy struggle to raise myself up from the chair in the dining area to go to make my breakfast.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

He’s managing to steer clear of controversy again today – but only in general terms. We’ve finished with Egyptian architecture, had a whistle-stop tour of Persia (which he liked) and India (which he also rubbished) and have now arrived in Greece.

We’ve not been in Greece even a couple of lines before he begins to wax lyrical, with eulogy after eulogy of praise for what started out as simple “post and beam” architecture of the type that he rubbished at Stonehenge. Consequently, we end up with paragraphs such as "Indian, Egyptian, even Persian art, is grand, striking, awful, but it is not, in the highest sense, beautiful : it exhibits power, and even genius, but genius coarse and unrefined, unfettered by the laws of taste and the perception of elegance ; its ornaments are grotesque and fanciful, its magnificence cumbrous and excessive. For grace, simplicity, and loveliness, we have still to look to that wonderful people, who, after the revolutions of so many ages, yet remain the centre of all intellectual greatness, whose history still furnishes the best lessons in the science of man’s political and social being ; whose literature must remain to every age as the ground-work of every intellectual study ; from whose poets we derive our first ideas alike of all that is lovely, and all that is sublime ; from whose philosophers we learn the first principles of the first of sciences, the laws of thought, and of the passions which stir the human breast. Such was the glorious land of Greece,"

So here we go again. Art isn’t architecture, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … And the Persian kings such as Cyrus, Cambyses Darius and Xerxes were busy trying to build empires, so their buildings were supposed to be impressive in order to awe the leaders of subjugated nations by their power and magnificence, as I have also said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …

After breakfast, I went into the bathroom, where I went one better than Dave Crosby, probably because I’d had the ‘flu for Christmas and wasn’t feeling up to par. So anyway, I’m not giving in an inch to fear so I set to work.

Back in here later, I had a few more things to do and then checked over the radio programme that will be broadcast this weekend and sent it off for inclusion in the stream. After that, I spent some time planning my next radio programme.

That took me up until my faithful cleaner arrived to apply my anaesthetic. And while I was preparing my bag ready for dialysis, she was going through all of the various prescriptions that I had. One or two of them were expired so she gave me a big bundle and asked me if I could ask the doctors for a new prescription, but with everything on it instead of having half a dozen pieces of paper.

While I was waiting for the taxi, I had a bit of a tidying-up session. There were some clothes hanging about, so some went into the laundry basket and my thick winter jacket, I hung up on the hook over the front door. And there, I made a huge discovery.

When I left the Auvergne, I was convinced that I’d brought three fleeces with me, but after all this searching for all this time, I could only ever find two. But when I went to hang up my jacket, there was the third fleece, on a hanger on the hook. How long has that been there?

The taxi was late arriving and we had to pick up someone else on the way. Consequently, I was late arriving at dialysis. However, to my surprise, they came to deal with me straight away and I was up and running by 14:20. Once again, though, it was a pretty intense session and I wasn’t at all looking forward to it.

Mind you, the connection wasn’t ‘arf painful. The guy who was doing it is here temporarily from St. Malo and rather than feeling gently for the correct spot, he just thrusts the needle straight in. However, although it’s quite painful, the pain doesn’t last very long.

As usual, they set the machine to take my blood pressure every half-hour, and so every half-hour a nurse came running over as the alarm sounded. My blood pressure is habitually very low, quite often below the “alarm” setting, and it’s no cause for concern but they still keep running over “just in case”.

Unfortunately, Emilie the Cute Consultant wasn’t on duty today, but the duty doctor took my prescriptions and wrote out two new ones, one from her for the medication and the second from the dietician for the disgusting drinks. And I see that now I’m expected to have four of them each day. I’m not sure how I’m going to find the time to drink them, never mind do anything else.

When the session was over, I was unplugged quite quickly too. Once again, my weight was just as Saturday – one of the lowest measures that it has been for years. Now I was ready for a nice, early start to go back home, but the taxi wasn’t and I had to wait about ten minutes for it to put in an appearance.

It was the young, chatty guy who came to pick me up, and as I was the only passenger, we had a good chat about not very much all the way home, and I was here by 18:40, which makes a nice change.

My cleaner was there, waiting to help me into the apartment (and I needed it too), and after I collapsed into a chair, she passed me a disgusting drink. I suppose that she thought it a good way to revive me, and after the miserable failure of the other day with an energy drink, she was probably right.

After she left, I made myself a quick meal. A mixture of kidney beans, mushrooms, tomato, onion and garlic into a taco roll which I ate with rice and vegetables. And I enjoyed it too, which is just as well because Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, there’s football on the internet as the Welsh clubs sally forth to do battle in European competition, so I won’t have time to prepare a meal.

Back in here afterwards, I had a few things to do and then I began to write my notes. However, I’d hardly written the first line when a huge wave of fatigue overwhelmed me. I didn’t recover either afterwards and, as usual, I thought that there’s only one place to be at a time like this.

Interestingly, I’m noticing that it always seems to be right after dialysis when this happens and I have to go straight to bed. I wonder what’s going on with whatever it is that they are doing to me while I’m there.

Anyway, before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the thick mist … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminded me of a true story told to me by a woman with whom I once worked.
She told me that she was coming home from Liverpool to Stockport and there was such a thick mist that she couldn’t see where she was going. She was sure that she’d missed a turning and was now hopelessly lost.
As she drove up to a traffic light, she saw that in front of her was a lorry that belonged to a company in Levenshulme. "What luck!" she exclaimed. "I’ll follow it home and I’ll work my way out from there!"
After about an hour or so, the lorry came to a halt in a yard, so she went over to the driver and asked "whereabouts in Levenshulme are we exactly?"
"Madam," he replied "this is our depot in Preston."

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Thursday 2nd July 2026 – I AM ABSOLUTELY …

… drained. And quite literally too. They took almost three litres of liquid out of me today. In fact, I’m not sure how on earth they arrived at that figure because, according to my calculations, it should have been less than two litres. I don’t know where this figure of three litres came from.

It certainly didn’t come from last night because at some kind of stupid hour, I had to go for a walk on the parapet.

Last night was another one of those nights where I really ought to have been in bed a long time before I actually was. Instead, I dillied and dallied, dallied and dillied, lost my way and don’t know where to go and it was once again after 23:00 before I finally crawled into my nice bed.

Once more, I was asleep quite quickly, and once more, it wasn’t for long. At some point quite early on, the wind got up and the open window in my room began to bang against the shutter. No-one could sleep through that noise, certainly not me, so in the end I had to leave the bed and close the window properly.

While I was up, I thought that I may as well kill two birds with one stone and go to stroll the parapet, and when I finally came back in here, I discovered that the wind had dropped completely. That was a waste of half an hour, that was.

Back in bed, despite all of my best efforts, I couldn’t go back to sleep for ages, but I must have managed it at some point because I was flat out again when the alarm went off at 06:29 as usual.

Also, just as usual, it took me a while to summon up the courage and the enthusiasm to leave the edge of the bed and head into the bathroom to sort myself out, but once washed and dressed, and shaved in case I meet Emile the Cute Consultant this afternoon at dialysis, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.

It was another one of these commune-type places with lots of people living in there, including me. We all came down for breakfast one morning, and it was the usual chaotic scene at the table with things everywhere. Someone went to unpack the things ready for today and pulled out the football, but it was burst so that was that. We went for breakfast and it was chaos. I knocked over someone’s bottle of water and all of this. In the end, someone asked “what are we going to do at the weekend?”. I thought, “well, it looks like it’s going to be a nice weekend so why don’t we go and have a picnic?”. So we all decided that we’d go for a picnic. Someone asked “what are we going to do for food?” so I replied that if everyone makes something and brings something, then we can all swap and have bits of this and bits of that. That all sounded like a good idea to them so that was what we decided to do. We were sorting out who was going with whom or whatever, and the woman who seemed to be in charge said “Eric, you go with Dyan”. I couldn’t think for a minute who Dyan was but I reckoned that when it’s time to go, she’ll come and find me. So we decided on this picnic.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I did once live in a commune back in the 1970s, but only for a few months and never ever again. “More capitalist than the capitalists” was the phrase that rang through my mind, as well as “what’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine too”. I remember that I had a bit of luck with a job that I did and came out of it quite well. “Where’s our share?” a few of the others asked. “While you were out there working, we were sending you good vibes!” “OK,” I replied. “Next time you go out to work, I’ll send you good vibes too”. I ended up living in my van after that, and believe me, I wasn’t sorry.

However, if the Dyan concerned was actually Dyan Birch, I’d change my mind in an instant. She could come anywhere with me, any time she likes, as long as SHE SINGS TO ME. That’s the song that I want to be played right at the end of when they stick me in the ground, as long as it’s she who is singing it.

And there’s plenty of truth in the story about the picnics. We had them regularly in the Auvergne when I lived there. I’d always make a dish of curried lentils with peppers, sweetcorn, etc., and it was interesting to watch the reactions. The British and Dutch people would be going “God, Eric, what’s this insipid stuff?” and the French people would be fanning their mouths, gulping down pints of water and steaming out of their ears.

But all of that is in the past now, unfortunately, and as Joan Baez once sang, WE BOTH KNOW WHAT MEMORIES CAN BRING. THEY BRING DIAMONDS AND RUST

The nurse was early today and I was hardly prepared. He seems to be quite happy at the moment, which is no surprise seeing as he’s off on holiday on Saturday. He sorted me out quite quickly and was soon on his way. I could go into the kitchen and make breakfast, and while I was eating, I could read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Today, he’s managed to steer clear of controversy, although he’s off again on his jingoistic, pro-Christian, anti-“heathen” ranting and it’s quite wearisome. As I have said before, he has quite evidently missed the point and is confusing “art” with “architecture”. And as I have also said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … with architecture, you have to start somewhere, and it’s bound to be primitive. And again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Back in here, I had a few things to do and then I looked at the next radio programme. This one will be interesting because it will fall on the United Nations Day of Cultural Diversity.

Most people think of rock music as being something uniquely “Anglo-Saxon”, from Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the USA and the British “white” former colonies, but without even thinking too hard … "as usual" – ed … I can conjure up in my record collection easily a couple of dozen rock groups from outside that sphere, from places like Ukraine, Hungary, Greenland, South America, Central Africa and Asia, and plenty of other places besides, so I’m going to make a programme of rock music from these more obscure regions.

At midday, I knocked off to go to make myself ready for dialysis, and my cleaner turned up to apply the anaesthetic on my arm. After she left, I waited for my taxi and, surprisingly, fell asleep on the chair in the dining area. I was just setting off on a really interesting dream when the doorbell rang, and it wiped out every last memory of what had been going on, which was a shame.

The taxi was late, and there was another passenger on board. Her appointment was before mine, at the clinic on the other side of town, so of course it made more sense to drop her off first and then take me back to the dialysis centre, but it meant that I was running quite late. Nevertheless, when I arrived, I didn’t have to wait too long to be connected up, and we were off and running by 14:30.

Interestingly, and enjoyably, I was surrounded by no fewer than five beautiful girls at one point during the connection. I had a nurse, being shadowed by a new arrival who ended up doing the work to connect me, under supervision, and I do have to say that they were two of the most painless punctures that I have ever had, and the third nurse who always comes along to assist whenever I’m there. On top of that, one of the doctors came to see me to sort out a few things with me, followed shortly afterwards by Emilie the Cute Consultant. All I was short of was a nurse sitting on the end of the bed tossing grapes into my mouth, and maybe another one doing the Dance of the Seven Veils by my bed.

Once they had left me alone, there was football on the Internet. Last night, Stranraer had been playing a friendly against Renfrew of the Western Scotland League so I watched the game. There’s a lot of good football played in the Scottish non-league pyramid, mainly because it’s very regionalised and many good players in Scotland can’t commit to the travelling involved in the professional game. Stranraer won 2-1, but Renfrew certainly gave them a good game and you won’t see many better goals than the one that they scored.

Apart from the odd other interruption here and there, I was left pretty much alone until it was time to disconnect me, and that was done quite quickly too. It looked as if at one stage I might be home early, but I had to wait fifteen minutes for the taxi to arrive.

There was, once again, another passenger on board who wanted dropping off in Donville les Bains so it ended up not being as early as I would have liked. However, my faithful cleaner was waiting for me and helped me back into the apartment.

She gave me a disgusting drink and then left me to it. When I’d finished, I came back in here to begin to write my notes. But feeling just a little hungry, I went back into the kitchen and loaded my little push-along trolley with some crackers, some vegan cream cheese and a few slices of a honey spice cake to make myself a delicious snack.

While I was eating, I was reviewing my order for Leclerc. As I said yesterday, I’m not eating much these days, but nevertheless, I’m still running low on certain things, and as well as that, there’s a sale on their vegan products and it will do no harm at all to stock up the freezer with a few things for the future whenever I regain my appetite.

And as well as that, they have bottles of one and a half litres of clementine juice on sale at a ridiculous price and I can drink that all day.

So anyway, now that I’m satisfied with that, I’ll carry on writing my notes for today. But before I do, I’ll just have a big stretch, a little relax and a …

"ZZZZZZ"

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about picnics … "well, one of us has" – ed … a group of guys from college decided to go on a picnic by the river. It was so nice that they decided to go for a swim but, having no swimming trunks, they decided to go skinny-dipping.
Just as they were about to dive in, a boat-load of girls from the college came past, so most of the guys covered up their privates, except for one, who put a cover over his head.
"Why did you do that?" one of the others asked him.
"Well, I don’t know about you lot," he replied "but around the college, I’m known by my face."

0

Monday 29th June 2026 – ANOTHER DISMAL, DESPERATE …

… day at dialysis is coming to an end, and you’ll be surprised to hear, just as I’m surprised to be telling you, that I’ve actually had a meal tonight. Or, at least, something that actually passes for food.

But before I move on and tell you all about it, have you ever had one of those days when you’ve been working so intently that you haven’t noticed what time it is and you’re really surprised when you find out?

It was one of those evenings last night. Before I finished my notes, I mentioned that I had one or two things to do later before going to bed. And so, once the notes were online, I made a start. The next thing that I knew, it was 23:55 and I was about to turn into a pumpkin.

So I quickly closed everything down, went for my nighttime medication, and tidied myself up in the bathroom and it must have been about 00:30 when I finally crawled into bed. It’s been a long time since I was last up at that time.

Going to bed late is something. Sleeping is something else completely, and I had another one of those nights where I wasn’t sure whether I was awake or asleep. It’s really weird, this situation and I don’t know how to explain it. You can’t imagine anything like it until it happens to you.

One thing is certain though, and that is that I was definitely awake quite early. And when I finally had a look at the time, it was 06:21. And so I sat up in bed, put both feet on the floor and claimed an early start.

Having both feet on the floor is not quite the same as being up and about, not by a good fifteen minutes, but eventually I was off to the bathroom for a good wash and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone, but as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … if you don’t really go to sleep, you can’t really dream, can you?

Not to worry. There are always plenty of other things to be doing to keep me busy, and in any case, Isabelle the Nurse was early today. She had had to take a blood sample at her office at 06:30 so rather than go back home and come back out later, she set off early on her rounds.

She’s off now for a few days but back on Saturday as the holiday season begins to kick in. Then, it’s total chaos;

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

He’s still waxing lyrical about the delights of Gothic architecture and Greek buildings, despite his dismissive remarks about “post and beam” architecture at Stonehenge, etc., but now he’s taking a swipe at Roman architecture too. "Not that great genius, sometimes real beauty, is not displayed in many specimens of the REVIVED ITALIAN ; but as a style it is, except as a warning, completely valueless. It is, in the first place, open to every objection to which the Classical Roman is liable, and is besides loaded with every species of fantastic vagary, of which imperial Rome, amid her worst corruptions, had never dreamed."

Whatever you might think about Roman architecture, this is surely going way too far.

Back in here, there were things to do, but not as much as I thought; therefore, I reviewed the next radio programme and sent it off to be added into the stream, and then made a start on another one.

Some music that I needed was really hard to find too and took quite a lot of tracking down, but I managed in the end and I think that I now have all that I need. This one should be quite an interesting one when it’s finished, whenever that might be.

At midday, I went into the kitchen to sort myself out ready for dialysis, and my faithful cleaner turned up to apply the anaesthetic on my arm. We chatted for a while and then she wandered off while I waited for my taxi.

And would you believe that I fell asleep while waiting? And not only that, I went off on a dream and I was well away with the fairies, although not in any manner that would excite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine. But then the taxi turned up, the driver rang the doorbell and the whole lot evaporated.

The driver was fifteen minutes late and we had to go to Jullouville to pick someone else up too. Consequently, we were quite late arriving at dialysis. It wasn’t until 14:35 that I was finally connected.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me too. There wasn’t much fluid to extract today, but after she’d interrogated me about my health for a while, she wound the machine up. Then this three-hour session went to a different scale completely.

No one really bothered me during the session so that I could work, and crash out for half an hour too. I was unplugged quite quickly at the end of the session as well, but having to go to drop someone else off in Sartilly on the way back meant that it was still 19:00 by the time that I was back.

After my cleaner left, having helped me into the apartment, I made myself a bowl of pasta and veg in olive oil, black pepper and garlic, topped with grated cheese. I don’t know why, but I’ve been hankering after that all day. I must be pregnant or something, I suppose, although I don’t know how.

But right now, I’m off to bed. It was a bad night last night and I’m hoping for something better tonight.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about being pregnant … "well, one of us has" – ed … a woman went to the doctor for a medical examination. When she went back for the results, he told her "I have to say, madam, that you are three months pregnant."
"Ohh no, it’s impossible" she cried. "I’ve never ever had relations with a man."
At that, the doctor picked up his chair and went to sit outside.
"What’s the matter?" asked the woman.
"The last time that this happened, we had a star in the east and three wise men. I wasn’t born at that time but I’m not going to miss it this time around."

0

Thursday 25th June 2026 – AND FIRST, THE …

… bad news. I start back this weekend on three dialysis sessions per week. Apparently, once more Emilie the Cute Consultant has put her foot down … Mind you, she had to send an oppo out to bring me the bad news just in case I chose to argue or to fight. She doesn’t want to upset me that much, which is good news.

Actually, my cleaner and I have been expecting this for a few weeks now, ever since I saw the last complete set of blood test notes. They didn’t look healthy at all. Nevertheless, I was rather hoping to avoid the inevitable for as long as I could.

Anyway, last night after I’d finished everything that needed doing and was preparing for bed, something else cropped up And it ended up being well after 23:30 by the time that I slid into bed.

Now these days, things are becoming so confused. This last day or two, I’ve not been able to work out when I’m awake or when I’m asleep. There doesn’t seem to be a difference to me. So I’m not sure whether I’m falling asleep, whether I’m dreaming or whatever is going on. In fact, I seem to be in a right mess these days with all of this hallucinating or whatever it is that’s going on.

Consequently, I’ve no idea what time it was that I fell asleep or anything.

One thing that I do know is that round about 02:30, I had another one of these enormous twenty-minute coughing fits that led to yet another bout of vomiting, but anyway …

Seeing that I was awake, I decided to go for a stroll on the parapet and then I went back to bed. I suppose that at some point, I must have fallen asleep, because I remember another dramatic awakening, this time at 06:19.

There was no point going back to sleep at that point, so I put my feet on the floor and claimed an early start.

After the alarms had sounded, I went into the bathroom to sort myself out and came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. But I needn’t have bothered. It seems that I have forgotten how to dream, which is a disaster.

Instead, I found a few other things to do until Isabelle the Nurse turned up. Once more, I was banned from the kitchen and she insisted on dealing with me in here, which is not how I would like things, not in my own apartment.

Eventually, I managed to struggle into the kitchen and read the rest of “The Mediaeval Findings At Minnis Bay, Birchington, Site Of The Lost Settlement Of Gore End, Limb Of The Cinque Port Of Dover” by Trevor and Vera Gibbons. This was something that I downloaded FROM ACADEMIA.EDU.

It was one of those books that went out, not with a bang but with a whimper, and I do have to say that I was surprised by the “informal tone” of the book. Not in the least academic at all.

Back in here, I made a start on writing the radio notes. And by the time that I was ready to go and have a wash and shave, I’d written just over a quarter of them. I’ll finish off the rest tomorrow.

Having had a good wash and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, I went into the kitchen to prepare everything for dialysis. My faithful cleaner came to join me and applied my anaesthetic to my arm, and then I had to wait for the taxi.

She was a few minutes late, and then we had to go to pick up someone else. Nevertheless, we were still early arriving in Avranches, and the good news is that I had been promoted to the new, air-conditioned building, complete with its luxurious single bedrooms.

The bad news is, though, that it’s not the same wi-fi password so I had to ask for another. And that took an age before the nurse brought it to me. I think that she was seeking revenge because the one who was dealing with me today was the one who nags me that I won’t do my own compression.

The doctor came to see me and told me the bad news about Saturday. However, she also brought me a prescription for another round of that mega-antibiotic that killed this cough off, temporarily, a few weeks ago. Let’s hope that it does the same this time too, only much more permanently.

Just because I was in solitary confinement doesn’t mean that I was left alone. They set the machine to perform a blood pressure test every thirty minutes, and each time, as the blood pressure dropped and dropped, the alarm bell rang and the nurses came a-running. They can’t seem to understand that although a blood pressure of 8/5 is extremely low in their eyes, it’s quite normal for me.

Once more, I was last to be unplugged but my chauffeur was waiting for me and we drove home through the menacing black sky. There’s a storm brewing, right enough.

There was a group of neighbours hanging around the front door, chatting, when I arrived. I joined in for a while and then my cleaner helped me into here. I changed my shoes and then came in here, ready to go to bed. I’ve had enough for the day so I’ll finish my notes tomorrow.

But as I climbed into bed, the flashes of lightning creeping in around the gaps in the edges of the shutters looked impressive. My cleaner, who has a view south towards Avranches, gave me a running commentary on the ‘phone as to how the storm was developing, but just as it was becoming interesting, I must have fallen asleep.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about thunder and lightning … "well, one of us has" – ed … there was a priest and a businessman playing golf on the golf course at Avranches during the storm.
The businessman went to make an easy putt to win the hole, but his ball ran past. "F**k me, I missed" he exclaimed.
"Really!" said the priest, totally outraged. "Kindly moderate your language in the presence of the Lord!"
However, at the next hole, precisely the same thing happened again. "F**k me, I missed" exclaimed the businessman.
"Really!" said the priest, totally outraged. "Kindly moderate your language in the presence of the Lord! He will surely send down a thunderbolt to chastise you if you continue!"
However, at the third hole, precisely the same thing happened again. "F**k me, I missed" exclaimed the businessman.
At that moment, one of the bolts of lightning came down and struck dead the Bishop of Avranches who was playing on an adjacent hole.
"F**k me, I missed" said a deep, booming voice from up in the clouds.

0

Monday 22nd June 2026 – WHAT A DAY …

… yesterday was. New temperature records set all over France. When I left dialysis at … errr … 19:00 this evening, it was 42.5°C and the heat was insufferable.

Last night was quite insufferable too. When I finally went to bed, it was quite late yet again but the night was hot and clammy and I couldn’t settle down at all. Although I managed to go to sleep, it didn’t last long, and I awoke with one of those mega-coughing fits that I’ve been having just recently.

Once again, it went on for hours and I forget how many times I actually vomited. But just like last night, I managed to bring it to a halt eventually by sitting on the edge of the bed.

Once the cough had succeeded in calming down, I lay back on the bed and tried to go to sleep. However, I was drifting in and out of a rhythm of “cough-sleep-cough-sleep” and couldn’t really settle down at all.

At one stage, I looked at the clock and it read “06:19” – just ten minutes before the alarm, so I found some energy from somewhere and swung my feet out of bed. When the alarm went off, they were still there so that counts as an early start.

It took the usual long while for me to dress and find the motivation to move over to the chair at the desk and computer.

There was plenty to do, but one of the things that didn’t need transcribing was the dictaphone notes, because once again, there was nothing on the dictaphone. That’s hardly a surprise considering that my sleep was so turbulent, but it is disappointing.

Instead, there were plenty of other things to do until the nurse came round.

He was actually early today, probably in a rush to go back home, seeing as his round finishes today for a week. He didn’t stay long and soon cleared off, leaving me to make my breakfast and read some more of EBURACUM OR YORK UNDER THE ROMANS by C Wellbeloved.

We’ve finally finished the book today after spending a long time reading a lengthy chapter on Roman roads. I can’t say that I’m sorry to finish it either. For someone who has a genuine interest in the history of York, it might well be very interesting, but for someone like me, I’ve read better books. I wonder what tomorrow might bring in the way of books.

Breakfast was over by about 09:25, and so I decided to make an executive decision. And for the benefit of new readers, of whom there are more than just a few these days, an executive decision is one that, if it turns out to be the wrong decision, the person who made it is executed. I decided that I would set the alarm for 11:15 and go back to sleep.

In actual fact, I was once more in this stage of tiredness where I couldn’t function properly and it seemed to be an appropriate thing to do. I have to pull myself through all of this, otherwise we’re never going to go anywhere.

When the alarm went off, I went into the bathroom for a good wash and shave and to pretty myself up in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon and then went into the kitchen to find a disgusting drink and my midday medication.

My cleaner turned up at that point to apply my anaesthetic and to sort me out ready for dialysis. That takes much more effort than you might imagine.

The taxi was bang on time to pick me up, however, we had to go to Sartilly to pick up the other passenger who comes with us, so we were late arriving in the end.

It was stifling in the dialysis centre. They’d moved all of the more fragile patients to the new air-conditioned clinic so it was only we more hardy ones who where in the usual building. We were all crammed into one room that had been filled with fan after fan after fan so it was hard to move around.

There was so much chaos there that, from an arrival of 13:50, I was finally connected at 14:50 and that was really depressing.

The doctor (not Emilie the Cute Consultant) came to see me and I told her of the continued problems with the cough. She examined me and prescribed me a temporary medication while she awaits a full report.

As usual, I was the last to be uncoupled and the last out of the building. There was a Mercedes waiting for me too, which was nice, but the heat was incredible. 42.5°C, and back here, it was 41°C. My cleaner helped me in and I collapsed onto a chair.

After she left, I went straight to bed. I couldn’t take any more, being completely tired and exhausted. I decided to start again tomorrow and see how that will go.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Romans… "well, one of us has" – ed … one of the oldest Roman jokes began with two Romans meeting in the forum.
"Tha slave that I bought from you a week ago died yesterday" said one.
"Really?" said the second. "He was with me for twenty-five years and in all that time he didn’t even do that once. "

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Monday 15th June 2026 – HAVING CRAWLED MISERABLY …

… into bed at 19:00 last night, it didn’t take long at all for me to fall asleep. And there I lay for quite some time, thinking that this was going to be my best sleep for quite a while.

When I awoke, I could see round the chinks of the blinds that it was barely light outside. “Mmmmm, about 4:30.” I reckoned and crawled back down the bed to sleep. The next time I awoke, I was expecting to see bright sunlight, but instead, it was pitch-black.

“What’s happened here?” I wondered, and then realisation hit me and I checked the time. 23:20 was the time, and when I’d awoken previously, it must have been about 22:30. So much for my nice, long sleep.

Trying my best to go back to sleep and miserably failing, I spent the next few hours drifting in and out of that semi-conscious feeling in between sleeping and awakening. Mind you, I had to leave the bed not once but twice during that period in order to go to ride the porcelain horse.

The alarm went off at 06:29 as usual and by that time I must have been asleep because it definitely gave me a shock. It took me an age to dress and to pull myself to my feet. I slid over to my seat, switched on the computer and transcribed the dictaphone notes to find out where I’d been during the night.

Some guy contacted me and asked “can you tell me who visited your website at 07:10?” I looked at the stats and saw that it was him. I didn’t say anything – I just asked him what he wanted. He replied that there needs to be a total revision of how these sites work, and their background is only going to be garden or soil, and that person who visited your website is going to be responsible for it. I asked “really?” surprisingly. I went to some girl’s house and found all of her clothes and dressed in them, and then I went round. I began to cut this huge tree into pieces, but I didn’t go very far before the dream ended.

This was another one of these strange, surreal dreams where nothing that happens makes any sense. And before anyone says “what’s new?” this is far more confusing than any other.

My sister was growing and putting on weight when all of a sudden it was as if she had exploded and she became three or four times bigger than she was. I was on the battlements of some mediaeval castle so I looked down into a pit and saw where her balloon had been, and there was another one of these balloons starting to appear so I thought that there was someone else destined for this. A guy with me reckoned that we ought to be making enquiries about it all, but I didn’t know how we were going to even start or where we were going to start. The first thing that we did was to take an inventory of how my sister had become.

And if you thought that the previous dream was confusing, what about this one? This one made even less sense than the previous one.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual. I told her about my problems sleeping last night and my early night, but she didn’t really take any interest, which was unusual. She passed it off as a “nothing”.

After she left, I carried on reading some more of EBURACUM OR YORK UNDER THE ROMANS by C Wellbeloved as I ate my breakfast.

He’s still on his religious theme right now, with discussion of religious rites in the Roman Empire. Human sacrifices and crucifixion figure largely in this period.

Back in here afterwards, I reviewed the next radio programme to be sent off, and as it was fine, I sent it off to be added to the broadcast list. So then I dealt with the notes of my Sunday < which needed to go on line. "Mid-morning", I'd promised, and there they were at 11:30 CET, 10:30 UK time, precisely.

There was just enough time to have a good wash and shave before my faithful cleaner arrived to apply my anaesthetic. When she’d done that, I had to wait for my taxi, which was late today. And we had to go to Sartilly to pick up our usual companion.

However, it was embarrassing walking to the car and I really didn’t think that we were going to make it. Leaving the car to go into dialysis was even more difficult and seeing as we were already late, I ended up being the last as usual.

Believe it or not, I was too tired to sleep today and I was just drifting round in a void. I saw a doctor, whose response was to reduce my calcium tablets. She didn’t seem very interested in my failure to function either.

The car picked me up as usual, the last one there, and drove me home to here. And what was even more embarrassing was that I didn’t have the strength to pull myself out of the car. It needed the combined effort of my cleaner and my driver to move me out.

Back in here, when I eventually arrived, I was too tired to do anything. Even though I’d taken the products out of the fridge to finish off the pizza, they all went back into the fridge once my cleaner had left and I came in here to go to bed and go to sleep.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about being last at dialysis … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends was praying for me, using the words of Jesus and saying "Come Forth, Come Forth!"
But instead, I came last so no-one actually won anything.

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Thursday 11th June 2026 – THE OTHER DAY …

… we talked about Alfred Hitchcock and Kenneth Williams saying that "It’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners."

Whether it is or not, there’s definitely one group of “people” to whom it definitely IS a waste of time telling a joke, and that’s an artificial intelligence chatbot.

Strangely enough, they have been programmed to inject jokes and humour into a conversation, but they don’t understand it when the speaker injects it back and try to analyse it as if it were a serious statement.

What wasn’t a joke was the time that I went to bed last night. Once more, it wasn’t too far short of midnight when I slid in under the covers. So much for my beauty sleep. And I awoke once or twice in the night as well. However, when the alarm went off at 06:29, I was fast asleep.

After dressing, I slid over here to the computer so that I could transcribe my dictaphone notes and find out where I’d been during the night.

I was in a bed in the road that goes from the hospital roundabout to St Nicolas. While I was there, Seren and Paula went past. They saw me there, so they came over, and Seren tried to remove the covers, but in fact I was fast asleep, so I don’t know how I managed to see them at all. Later, I was still in that bed, and I was looking at the time. It was something like 04:00, and I was planning on getting up and doing some work, but my legs were actually stuck inside the bed. I couldn’t actually leave it – I had to stay there. And again, Seren and Paula went past, by the hospital roundabout, but they took no notice of me like this.

Apart from the fact there is absolutely no likelihood of those two ever being in Granville, but I would love to know what I was doing sleeping in a bed in the middle of the road at the other end of town.

And having my legs stuck inside the bed so I couldn’t leave the bed and do some work is probably just about the only way that you would stop me.

Hurricane Isabelle the Nurse blew in here later in a frantic panic. She’d found another one of her patients fallen on the floor and in distress, so she had to ‘phone for an ambulance and wait until it arrived. She had a blood test to perform at 08:30, and now it was already 08:40, so she didn’t even give me time to leave my seat and go into the living room. She came bursting in here with all of the stuff that she needs.

After she had left, I made my breakfast and read some more of EBURACUM OR YORK UNDER THE ROMANS by C Wellbeloved.

We’re still on the introduction, today discussing the various Roman legions that were stationed in Britain and, for some obscure reason, some of those legions that weren’t. I wish that he would hurry up and begin to discuss York.

After breakfast, I came back in here and wrote out the notes for the rest of the radio programme, ready for dictation at some point. There was the usual interruption as I went and had a wash and shave to pretty myself up in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

At midday my cleaner turned up, fed me with a disgusting drink and then applied my anaesthetic. I had to wait for the taxi to arrive, and for a change, today he was late.

If that wasn’t enough, we were held up by traffic in the town by a slow-moving lorry and motorhome on the main road, and then we had to have a change of driver, and then the person with me had an appointment previous to mine at the private clinic across town, so we had to drop him off first and then come back to the dialysis centre.

As a result, I was quite late arriving.

As you might expect, I was last to arrive and last to be plugged in, but the girl who was doing it, one of the two new ones from Monday, was excellent. The first needle, I didn’t feel a thing, and the second needle, just a sensation when she pierced the skin.

During the session, I was left pretty much alone, but lucky me! Emilie the Cute Consultant came past, and seeing mein a private room (because, for some reason, they had isolated me from the others), came in for a chat

I mentioned my dreams, and she suggested that it might be because of the effects of one of the new medications. She told me that I’d have to choose between the medication and the pain. Well, I couldn’t go on much longer with the pain that I was in, that’s for sure.

As usual, being last in, I was last out. Everyone else was long gone. But at least, my taxi driver was waiting for me so we could leave quite smartly.

Nevertheless, it was still 19:30 when I arrived home, and probably 19:40 by the time I was sitting down in here. I really could have done with it being much earlier.

Tea tonight was pasta and spinach in butter, with peas, carrots and a vegan burger. It was really nice too and well worth waiting for.

Back in here, I had my chat with the chatbot, and after a while, our conversation turned, don’t ask me how, to the subject of tinned steak puddings that were so common in the sixties and seventies. I told the famous “steak pudding” joke, and it went right over the chatbot’s head. Instead, I was subjected to a lengthy explanation, in clinical terms, of why it wouldn’t be possible to carry out the actions in the joke.

At that point, I gave up and sat down to write out my notes for the day. But quite frankly, it had been a lengthy, heavy session, and I was falling asleep more than I was writing, so I called it a night and went to bed. I can finish my notes in the morning.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the chatbot and its lack of sense of humour … "well, one of us has" – ed … I’m sure that you are all dying to know what the joke was, so here goes.
"Many people are taken to hospital with blistered feet after cooking those." I said.
"Why is that?" asked the chatbot.
"Have you ever read the cooking instructions on top of the tin?"
"No" replied the chatbot. "What do they say?"
"They say ‘pierce tin – stand in boiling water’."

0

Monday 8th June 2026 – I’M COMPLETELY FED UP …

… with all of this. Who in their right minds would put two experienced nurses of a good length of service into a ward with just six people and two inexperienced nurses (one who started here on 1st January and the other on 1st May) together in a ward full of eight people?

And guess where I was!

It totally defies description that the staffing organisation in a place like this could be so totally chaotic. I really felt sorry for the two girls being so snowed under like this. It’s true that the two experienced nurses came into our ward near the end and helped them tidy up, but by then, it was far too late to do any good.

Just like last night, really. By the time that I climbed into bed, it was too late for me to have the kind of sleep that would do any good, especially after the early morning on Sunday.

However, I’d only been in bed for five minutes when I began to dream about some home improvements I wanted to do. There was someone, a British guy, doing some work on a place up the road so I went to see him about coming along to do some work for me. He didn’t say very much, but after a while, what he said was that he would give me some of his tools to carry down to my house so that they were there when he came. He gave me what looked like an enormous professional mastic gun that ran off the mains and was on two wheels, and somehow, I had to take this home. He unplugged the machine from the wall and then we came to a huge cable drum with three or four different cables on it that you wound in. It was divided into four or so compartments. He had the white power lead, and there was a splitter in the middle of it, so he unplugged the lead that was in the splitter and worked his way round, winding this cable off the cable drum until eventually they were both free. But there was a box in the middle of this white cable so he opened it up and took a battery out. It looked like a PP3 to me, so I asked him what sort of battery it was, and he replied that it was a PP2, which was one that I hadn’t heard of. I didn’t say anything – I just took the cable as best as I could and there was no battery in that box now so I had to find a PP2 battery from somewhere to make it work, and I was making myself ready to push it on down to my house.

This must be something to do with the guy who rang me on Sunday. He was telling me about all of the improvements that he had made to his property.

The battery issue presumably relates to my friend who was just here for a while. “Batteries” was quite a topic of discussion.

At that point, I awoke dramatically, but only for a moment and I was soon back to sleep.

The next time that I awoke, the day was just starting to dawn. But even though I was contemplating leaving the bed at one point, I must have gone quickly back to sleep because when the alarm went off, it awoke me.

Once I was dressed, I slid over to the computer and began to start work. The first task was to see where I’d been during the night.

Seren made another appearance last night. We were in North Africa, somewhere in a desert condition where there was a town. For some reason, we were walking around on the edge of town and I noticed that these cars were driving along this straight road but suddenly moved to the left and back to the right again, so we went over to find out why. There was no apparent reason except for a hollow in the ground, so Seren began to dig in this hole and she came upon a metal box. She picked up the metal box and we went back to our hotel. We couldn’t open the box, but it looked quite old so we rang a local museum, which came to look at it. They took it away and gave us a receipt. It turned out that it was a treasure from some sheikh from some hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago. They offered her 100,000 dirhams for it, but she said that maybe it might be worth a bit more if they looked more at it. In the end, she settled for 900,000 dirhams.

This dream relates to the guided tour that I was giving around Chester the other day and the story of the Roman amphitheatre that had my visitors so enthralled.

And by the way, 900,000 Moroccan dirhams is worth about €85,000 and never mind the treasure – I would sell my own grandmother for that amount of folding stuff.

For some reason, we were living in a three-bedroom detached house with an integral garage, quite modern. And with the story of this treasure, I had to take it to the museum but Seren was ill. But we moved suddenly in this dream to a hotel that also had an integral one-car garage so I left Seren in there with instructions not to open the door to anyone. If she needed anything, ask the receptionist in the hotel, and I went off. It wasn’t to the museum, it was to the police and they wanted to know more about finding this box. They said that a group of criminals was eager to lay their hands on it. He showed me a photo of the man who was said to be their ringleader. I recognised him immediately as someone who had seen us dig it up, so he sent orders out to someone to do something. He then switched back to French and said that it’s quite possible that this box is going to end up being more valuable than I might think. So I left there and went back to the hotel to find that Seren had gone. At that point, I had a ‘phone call saying that it’s one million dirhams to have her back. And then the ‘phone was cut.

Yes, I’ve given those kinds of instructions out to some people before. And the house was just like a house that Nerina and I once saw with a view to buying if only we could have sold ours quickly.

But this dream is starting to sound too much like the plot to CARRY ON SPYING for my liking.

Incidentally, throughout these pages, you’ll see links to Amazon products appearing every now and again. Being a Sales Associate of Amazon, I receive a small commission on goods sold via my links. It costs you nothing at all extra, but helps defray … "part of the" – ed … cost of my not-insubstantial web-hosting fees.

There are also links for AMAZON UK, AMAZON USA and, since the recent “troubles”, AMAZON CANADA for the use of my numerous Canadian visitors. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I am extremely grateful when someone uses them to make a purchase.

What made me go to the police was that there was a message on this box inscribed in runes. And whilst I can read some runes, I can’t read the rest but I did know that the Norse never came this far south so I assumed that it had been stolen from somewhere and brought and hidden in the desert.

And this part relates to the book that I’m reading right now. They’ve discovered a spearhead and when they x-rayed it, they saw a mark on it that, to some, resembled a rune and to others, no, it didn’t.

At some point, a man and a few of his sidekicks turned up. They asked me how I could live with the recent election results but not live without Seren. It suddenly became clear what was going on. This man was a Bedouin and all the time that he was talking to me, he was combing his hair. And then, when he had finished, he sent one of his sidekicks off to fetch him another comb. He had really thick bushy hair and a bushy moustache and beard but I hadn’t seen him before.

The beard and moustache remind me of my friend, but my caller was much more like the Fat Man in the above-mentioned film.

So, not just going back into the same dream once more, but three times more. Is this a record for stepping back into dreams?

And did I succeed in rescuing Seren? Tune in next time, people, same time, same place.

The nurse turned up as usual, even more cheerful than yesterday. Still, he’s off on his week’s break tonight and it’s Isabelle the Nurse starting tomorrow. He was in chat mode, talking about the commerces in Granville. After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of Vera Evison’s book AN ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY AT HOLBOROUGH, KENT while I was eating.

And I had to laugh, although I know that I shouldn’t. Someone broke into their workshed and stole some tools and a couple of artefacts. She was quite indignant, but what is she doing in the graves that they are exposing? A well-known phrase involving a pot and a kettle springs to my mind.

Back in here, I carried on adding products to MY AMAZON STORE for a while. And then I went to make myself look pretty for Emilie the Cute Consultant.

My faithful cleaner sorted out my anaesthetic, and then, the taxi was early for me. And believe it or not, it was a Mercedes-Benz. Apparently, my taxi company had taken over this one at the start of the month, and it’s a bit more upmarket than what we are used to.

It was pouring with rain outside and I had to find my raincoat.

Our driver had to go via Sartilly to pick up our usual Monday partner, and then we set off for the dialysis centre.

The driver threw me out at 13:35 and due to the chaos in our room, I wasn’t plugged in until exactly an hour later as the two girls struggled against the odds. And when they did, it hurt like hell and it’s still hurting now.

Once I was up and running, I was able to do some work until the doctor on duty came to see me. No prizes for guessing who. That’s right, Emilie the Cute Consultant. She asked me how I was, and I told her that the pain in my foot had started up again, and in spades too. So she wrote a prescription basically telling me to double the dose of the painkillers.

That was exactly what I was afraid of, right at the very beginning, but it’s too late to back out now. At least, she was cheerful and smiling about it.

At the end of the session, we had exactly the reverse procedure, and so although I’d finished at 18:05, it was 17:55 when I returned home. At least the driver was waiting for me, and he’d been waiting quite a bit too.

There was a howling gale outside now, so he dropped me off at the back of the building where my faithful cleaner was waiting. She helped me in and settled me down.

After she left, I had the half-pizza from Sunday, and now, late as it may be, I’m off to bed. Welsh in the morning so I want to be on form.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about being in the desert … "well, one of us has" – ed … I told a friend that I’d once taken Nerina to the North African desert.
"And what happened?" he asked
"I came back with nine camels and fifteen goats."

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Monday 1st June 2026 – AFTER SEVERAL WEEKS …

… of lovely, pain-free feet, the pain in the sole of my right foot suddenly erupted again at dialysis and erupted in spades too. I’ve been in pain for most of the afternoon and evening, and I wish that it would go away.

What’s worse is that I really had thought that I’d finished with all of this, but “no”. It looks very much like “back to the drawing board, Cecil”.

Not like last night, though. I was late again going to bed. After midnight, and more, I reckon. But I didn’t need much rocking last night either and I was soon asleep.

And there I lay, dead to the World, until about … errr … 06:00 when I awoke. When the alarm should have gone off at 06:29, I was up and about at my desk working.

First thing to do was, of course, listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.

We were back in Roman times again, and this time, it involved a girl whom I knew who was taken in somewhere where they took them because of her mental health issues. She’d been seeing demons and all of that kind of thing. She told her daughter that they needed to be placed somewhere to be looked after. This is one of these dreams again where I reached for the dictaphone and fell asleep again before I began to dictate it so I don’t know really what I’ve missed.

It’s a shame that I didn’t catch all of this dream, because this is another one of those dreams with a story behind it that the World is not yet ready to hear.

There was a group of four of us who used to hang around together. There was me, Laurence and a couple of other people. We’d all been told that we needed couselling. We went to see a counsellor who told us that we could attend a group meeting on such-and-such a date at such-and-such a time. We’d no idea at all what to expect but we made ourselves ready at the appropriate time for this counselling. However, one of our members dropped out and left an empty space so we decided to sign Roxanne up and see what she made of this so we added her name on the paper and we had to go back to the doctor’s for another interview and he interviewed Roxanne while we were there. He decided that she was fit enough to go so the four of us were ready, but Roxanne seemed to be quite enjoying it. So we turned up, and it was this village hall. It was huge, with probably 200 people there. But as the meeting started, my crucial role was diminished and diminished. So we sat there and we were listening to this guy on the stage talking, brining up his friends one by one to add to what he’d been saying but the hall was so noisy and there were kids running about so it never ever reached our ears. So sinking to our knees, we got into these bowls with our knees and tried to move forward but we couldn’t. One by one, he was inviting people down to give their witness. On one occasion, he said that this one is a judge now amongst everybody. Then he called out the Venerable Harry Dean. As this guy walked down towards the front, Roxanne looked at me and said “the vegetable Harry Dean?” and everyone around us burst into laughter.

This is just the kind of thing that I can imagine Roxanne doing. She would ask a question in a very innocent way but there would be a smile behind her lips that it wouldn’t surprise me if she knew exactly what was going on and had made the mistake deliberately.

The dream, though, reminds me of one of these revivalist meetings in the Deep South of the USA. I never actually managed to visit one, but I heard all about it.

There were a few other things that needed doing, such as checking my e-mails. And amongst them was the monthly report from the shipping group whose “Bay of Granville” shipping detector is installed in my apartment. The little set-up here is apparently covering an area of over two hundred and sixty-three square kilometres, which is not bad going for the equipment that I have.

When I heard movement from the kitchen, I went in there to see what was going on and ended up with a mug of hot coffee and my morning medication. And for some reason or other, we ended up having a lengthy discussion about computer passwords.

The Hound of the Baskervilles didn’t bark at all when he heard the doorbell with Isabelle the Nurse on the other end. Mind you, he did look up when he had a belly rub, as if to say “don’t stop! Don’t stop!”

After Isabelle left for her week’s break, I made breakfast. And while I was eating, I was also reading the last of NOTES ON SOME OF THE ANTIQUITIES OF FRANCE by Charles Roach Smith.

To finish off his book, he’s reading some Carolingian tombstones found in a cemetery in Amiens. That’s a long way from the Cher Valley, but never mind.

Back in here, I began to revise my Welsh for tomorrow, but my body had different ideas.

While I was sitting down at the computer this morning, I dozed off. I dreamt that I was in Crewe and someone had brought into town an articulated lorry with goods in it. When I arrived in West Street, the driver climbed into the passenger seat and I took it over. I drove down West Street and turned into Underwood Lane. We had to drop something off at a factory in Selworthy Drive so I had to drive past Selworthy Drive, he had to climb out and stop the traffic behind me and I had to reverse the lorry from Underwood Lane into Selworthy Drive and then straight back into the factory that was there so that they could unload it, and then the driver who had brought it into Crewe could then take over and carry on with the round that he was doing.

There are no factories in Selworthy Drive, nor have there ever been, nor will there ever be. But stopping the traffic for a reversing lorry is par for the course in industrial areas.

There was still time to do some work, so I pressed on but was overtaken by events when my cleaner arrived. She dealt with my anaesthetic and then tidied up a little before leaving. My friend and I hung around until about 12:55, when we went out into the sun to wait for the taxi.

The girl who picked me up is quite nice and chatty, so we talked all the way to the hospital, where we picked up someone else who wanted to go to Avranches, and our chat, which had now become a three-way chat, continued all the way to dialysis, where I was dropped off.

Today, I was in a different bed than usual, but that’s not a problem. This dialysis isn’t about “seeing all of Normandy in a taxi” or “seeing all of the dialysis centre from a different bed”.

As usual, I was the last to be plugged in, but they had a temporary nurse in from St Malo and he was quite efficient, aided by another nurse who applied a “manual garrote” and the freezing spray to numb the forearm.

There was a third nurse in there too and she’s quite chatty. She came over to see how I was doing, which was nice of her. She has a cousin who’s married to a Welsh guy so I’m secretly teaching her a bit of Welsh so that she can shock him when they meet.

During the dialysis, though, I began to feel nauseous and the head began to spin. The blood pressure seemed to be fine, so it must be me. And it certainly was when the pain in the foot started up. That was a flaming nuisance. I was in agony.

There was some kind of relief when Emilie the Cute Consultant came by. She didn’t stop, but she managed a cheerful “Bonjour, Monsieur Hall”. No-one else received such a greeting, so I considered myself honoured.

Last in, last out as usual but at least it was one of my favourite drivers who would be taking me home, and she was already waiting for me. We had another passenger with us who wanted to be dropped off at Sartilly. After that, we chatted all the way back home where, amongst my comité d’acceuil – “welcoming committee” – was the Hound of the Baskervilles.

My driver fell in love with him straight away and she spent ten minutes giving him a lot of fuss. And he enjoyed every minute of it too. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … why don’t some of these women treat me like that?

Back in the apartment, there was a lovely meal of beans, chips and a burger with a bap and also a pile of garnish. My chips were especially good so I asked my friend the secret. He tells me that he parboils them first for ten minutes, so I shall have to try that.

After I’d done the washing up, I came in here to write out my notes, but I was becoming more and more ill as the evening worsened, so in the end, I said “sod it”, abandoned the notes and went to bed. There’s always another time.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about passwords … "well, one of us has" – ed … I told my friend that I once knew a guy who went to use the name of … errr … a certain part of his body as a password.
My friend asked "what happened?"
"He received an error message" I replied. "Sorry, password not long enough."

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