Category Archives: sartilly

Monday 25th May 2026 – THE ALARM DIDN’T …

… go off this morning.

However, there was a reason for that. At 06:29 when the alarm should have gone off, I was at my desk working. I’d switched the alarm off because there was no point in waking up the rest of the household for no good purpose.

In fact, I’d been awake since about 04:00 and, dismal failure that I am, I couldn’t go back to sleep no matter what I tried. I just lay there watching, through the gaps in the shutters, the day slowly dawning. After a while, I thought “this is ridiculous” and heaved myself out of my stinking pit.

So it’s not very often just recently that we’ve recorded an “early start”, but here we are. If I’m too tired later on, I’ll be at dialysis, of course, so if they all let me, I can catch up with my sleep this afternoon.

I suppose that I should have caught up with it last night, but as usual, I was too busy prevaricating to be doing any good about having an early night. For a start, after I’d finished work in here, I had to go into the kitchen for the medication that I’d forgotten and then sort myself out in the bathroom. It was after 23:00 when I finally made it into bed.

For a change, it didn’t take long to go to sleep, and there I lay until about 04:00, as I mentioned earlier.

So, once I was up and about and at my desk, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And to my surprise, there was something on there.

I know it’s strange, but Keighan Jones, the Trefynnon goalkeeper, who was voted the best goalkeeper in Division 2 North just recently, had left Trefynnon and signed for Airbus UK Broughton and I’ve no idea why because both clubs were promoted and he’d be playing in the Premier League anyway if he had stayed, but I don’t know why he decided to leave and go to Airbus.

With this dream, it was actually rather a case of “deja vu” because he left Trefynnon to sign for Airbus a good while ago. However, being “dazed and confused” is nothing at all new around here.

Round about 07:30 or so, I heard the sound of mus … errr … movement in the kitchen so I went to join the assembled multitudes therein. And I was a couple of minutes early because the coffee wasn’t made. But when it was made, it was delicious as usual.

The nurse came along as usual, just as the Hound of the Baskervilles was dragging his master off for walkies, and they collided in the corridor. And not a yowl or bark from the aforementioned. He’s definitely become accustomed to the nurse. And it’s Isabelle the Nurse starting her week tomorrow so he should be even more happy.

The dog was quite happy too.

After the nurse left, I made breakfast and read some more of Charles Roach Smith’s THE ANTIQUITIES OF RICHBOROUGH, RECULVER, AND LYMNE, IN KENT.

It seems that as far as Reculver is concerned, he carried out no excavations at all and is merely relying on second- (and in some cases, third-) hand information about the finds that have been made there. But I suspected something like this when I was reading his references to “Richard of Cirencester”.

After breakfast, I came in here and reviewed the radio programme for the forthcoming weekend. It seemed to be OK so I found a few other things to do while it took its time being sent to the radio station.

Later on, I had a really good wash and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant later, and then my cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic. I had no idea that the time was passing so quickly. She sorted me out and then took the rubbish across to the bins. I had my disgusting drink and then made myself ready for the taxi.

By 13:00 the taxi hadn’t arrived so, seeing as it was another boiling-hot cloudless day, my friend helped me outside and we stood in the sun, and it was lovely.

The taxi turned up at 13:15 so I piled in, and then we had to go off to Sartilly for our other passenger. Consequently, it was 14:05 when we finally arrived.

As usual, I was the last in so I had to wait, and then the nurses missed their aim when trying to connect me so they had to disconnect what they had done, compress the arm for ten minutes and then start again. It was not far short of 15:00 when I was finally connected.

And this time, they forgot the cold spray so it … errr … hurt somewhat.

There was a lot to drain out today and for four hours at that rate, it was tough going. For half an hour or so, I actually managed to crash out, which was really nice, but it was, as always, at the wrong time because at that moment I had other things to do.

By the time that the session had finished and I was unplugged, compressed and weighed, it was 19:05, and so it was 19:50 when I finally arrived back.

My reception committee was waiting for me, and she helped me back into my apartment where a steaming hot curry was a-waiting. My friend seems to have worked his magic yet again and he can definitely stay as long as he likes.

When I’d finished, I put the leftovers in the freezer for another time and then did all of the washing-up. Back in here afterwards, I wrote up my notes and did everything else that needed to be done, and next I’ll be going back into the kitchen for tonight’s medication. Then I’m off to bed.

That is, if I can. I seem to have become “flavour of the month” with the Hound of the Baskervilles and, instead of being with his master, he’s now lying down, extremely relaxed, at my feet. It’s a good job that I changed my socks.

But seriously, we don’t know why he’s decided to lie down here in my room with me. I must be doing something right.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Hound of the Baskervilles … "well, one of us has" – ed … the other day, the aforementioned was leading a pack of dogs, chasing after two rabbits.
The rabbits slid down a rabbit hole, only to find that the bottom was all blocked up and there was no way out except past the baying hound and his mates.
"What do we do now?" asked the girl rabbit.
The boy rabbit thought for a while and said "I suppose we stay here until we outnumber them."

0

Monday 11th May 2026 – GOD ALONE KNOWS …

… what happened at dialysis today, but by the time that they’d finished with me and I was ready to leave, I had a spinning head, a strange feeling in my stomach and I was feeling light on my feet. It’s not the volume of liquid that they have taken out of me, because I’ve had much more than this in the past, so I dunno.

It’s probably something related to the bad night that I had last night. I wasn’t in bed as early as I was hoping to be, which was a shame. By the time that I’d finished everything that needed finishing and crawled in underneath the covers, it was about 21:45 and, believe me, I was ready for bed.

As usual, it took an age to go off to sleep, but once I’d gone, I’d gone until all of when I needed to leave the bed to take a stroll down the corridor.

As I was passing the Fusebox on the wall, I checked the time. 01:34. That was a good night’s sleep, I have to say.

Back in here later, I crawled into bed but I just couldn’t go back to sleep again, and there I lay for almost five hours, tossing and turning, until the alarm went off at 06:29.

Eventually, I managed to summon up the courage to go into the bathroom for a wash and shave, and then in the kitchen, I washed my medication down with a mouthful of orange juice. After all, it’s dialysis day today.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

There was something about having to massage a different leg than usual. This was more swollen, maybe, than the other one. But when I went to dialysis, they began to extract the water from that leg instead of out of my left arm.

That wasn’t much good, was it? I could do with more exciting dreams than that! But this idea of “a different leg” – how many legs do you think I have? I’m not Jake the Peg.

However, dreaming about dialysis is not just scraping the bottom of the barrel, it’s going through the barrel and into the mud underneath.

The nurse turned up today as usual and chatted about not very much. He’s off on his week’s break this evening so as he left, I wished him a nice break.

Once he’d gone, I could make my breakfast and finish off the last of REPORT ON EXCAVATIONS MADE UPON THE SITE OF THE ROMAN CASTRUM AT PEVENSEY by Charles Roach Smith.

To be quite honest, this book was something of a washout. Roach Smith spends just about three or four pages discussing the excavations, and the rest is comparing the site with other Roman sites elsewhere. As for the finds, there are about three pages of coins tucked away in the appendices. I hope that the next book is more enlightening and interesting.

Back in here, there were a few things that I needed to do, and then I had to check over the radio programme that I was sending off for broadcast this weekend. Afterwards, I made a start on my Welsh homework. There’s still another week before it needs to be in but I want to press on if I can.

As usual, my faithful cleaner turned up to put the anaesthetic on my arm, and then I had to wait for the taxi. And wait, and wait and wait.

The taxi was half an hour late coming for me, but it was my favourite driver so I didn’t mind too much. We had to go to Sartily to pick up another passenger, and so we were hours late arriving at dialysis.

It was in fact 14:45 when I was finally plugged in, and so that meant another really late night arriving home.

With the two bad nights that I’ve had, I was hoping to have a good sleep this afternoon to catch up, but it wasn’t to be. There was a constant stream of visitors this afternoon, and when there wasn’t, the machine was playing up so that brought the nurses running every five minutes.

On top of that, firstly, the doctor came to see me. I had to take a “sample” to him today, so he told me that they were going to analyse it to see whether it’s the dialysis that’s “causing these problems” for me (whatever “these problems” are) and if so, they’ll “do something to help solve the problem”. I don’t like the sound of that one minute.

And then we had the dietician. Apparently, she’d been talking to Emilie the Cute Consultant and they’ve found an intravenous drip that they think might work plugged into the dialysis machine. I don’t like the sound of that either, but at least it means that I shan’t have it stuck in a vein or something.

The way things are, I’m beginning to regret ever having said anything to anyone at dialysis.

Once again, I was the last to be unplugged, but luckily the driver was waiting to take me back home. And it was another one of my favourite drivers so we had a lovely talk all the way home, mainly about cancer and suicide, would you believe? She had quite a story to tell me.

My cleaner was waiting for me when we arrived. She helped me into the apartment and sorted me out.

After she left, I came in here to write up my notes, and now I’m off to bed. Now that the coughing seems to have calmed down, it’s really annoying that there’s something else now that seems to be keeping me awake.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about different legs … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of an incident at Balmoral Castle all those years ago when a serving wench, serving Prince Philip, suddenly burst out into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
"What’s the matter, girl?" asked the Queen. "Are you feeling hysterical?"
"Och, no, ma’am. He’s feeling mine."

0

Monday 4th May 2026 – I’M REALLY GLAD …

… that I didn’t have to go to dialysis this morning. I would probably have never even made it to the front door.

As I told Isabelle the Nurse later, this morning was the worst that I had ever felt in my life.

It didn’t seem like that last night, though. It’s true that with baking my loaf and all of that last night, I was quite late starting to write my notes. And with everything else that I have to do too, it ended up being well after 22:00 that I finally finished everything and crawled under the quilt covers.

As usual, it took a good while to go to sleep, but I awoke at some point due to a desperate coughing fit, so desperate that it caused me to vomit no fewer than four times. After that, somehow I managed to go back to sleep.

But not for long. I awoke again, this time for a different reason, and when I checked the time, it was 03:54. So when I’d finished walking the parapet, I came back to bed but I couldn’t go back to sleep. There I lay until the alarm went off at 06:29.

At that point, it was a desperate struggle to rise to my feet and I almost didn’t make it. And in the bathroom, I crashed out on the chair in there at least twice while I was trying to sort myself out.

Not surprisingly, I was hours late going into the kitchen, but as it’s a Dialysis Day, I just had a mouthful of grapefruit juice to wash down my medication.

Back in here, I fell asleep in my chair I don’t know how many times, but even so, I managed to transcribe the dictaphone notes.

This was a dream about a girl whom I knew in school but unfortunately it vanished as soon as I reached for the dictaphone. That was a shame because it was one of these extremely interesting. One part that I do remember is that some kind of booklet had been published and that a friend of mine who was a critic had given very positive reviews. But it turned out that it was one of these “new wave” books, talking about lesbianism, that kind of thing. It was denounced in several countries because of its theme and she was put on some kind of list to prevent entry into many of these countries because of her critique

What a pity that I can’t recall the first part of this dream. It sounds as if it might have been interesting. I wonder who the girl was too.

As for the second part, this appears to relate to nothing at all.

When Isabelle the Nurse turned up, I told her of my woes, and she insisted that I talk to a doctor about them. She has agreed that this has gone beyond a joke.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright. However, I can’t remember anything that I read. I do, however, remember falling asleep four or five times while I was eating, despite how strong I’d made the coffee.

Back in here, I fell asleep for an hour in my chair and then gradually came round into the Land of the Living. I spent the next fifty minutes researching the next radio programme and then went to prepare my things for dialysis.

My faithful cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic and then I had to wait for the taxi. We had to go to Sartilly to pick someone else up, and so we were late arriving at dialysis. It goes without saying that I was one of the last to be plugged in too.

While I was being attended to, I mentioned that I would like to see the doctor on duty, so my nurse made a note. And once she’d left, instead of doing any work, I settled down and went to sleep – in so far as it was possible to do so in there.

There were all kinds of people buzzing around my head, but I didn’t take very much notice. It turns out that with everything that I had told them about the fatigue, they had turned the machine up to “maximum” and prolonged the stay from three and a half to four hours. Consequently, just over 3500 ml of fluid was being extracted and my dry weight was set well below my “sporty” weight.

The doctor on duty who came to see me was Emilie the Cute Consultant. She told me that the fibroscopy had discovered two aggressive microbes in my lungs, and so she would prescribe a course of aggressive antibiotics to deal with it. I hope that their aggressiveness matches the microbes – or at least gives me some relief.

While I was at it, I was also having a little chat with an old schoolfriend who now lives in Crewe. He was doing his best to console me, which was very nice.

It was one of my favourite taxi drivers who came to pick me up, and because we had to fuel up with diesel at the depot, we were later than ever arriving home. My faithful cleaner helped me into the apartment and after she left, I came in here to write up my notes. No tea again.

So now that I’ve written up my notes, there are still a few things to do and then I’m off to bed, hoping for a better day tomorrow. After all, it could hardly have been worse today, could it?

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the contents of my lungs … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once asked me "do you know what ‘bacteria’ are?"
"They are the rear entrances to cafés, aren’t they?" I replied.

0

Monday 27th April 2026 – TODAY HAS NOT …

… been much better than the last couple of days, unfortunately.

As seems to be usual these days, I was later than I would have liked to have been, going to bed last night. With the football that ran on until about 20:15, by the time that I’d finished what needed to be done and sorted out myself in the bathroom, it was about 21:30 when I finally settled down in bed.

Something else that is also becoming usual these days too is the fact that it took me longer than usual to drop off to sleep, But once I’d gone, I was gone.

Whatever time it was that I awoke, I had no idea, but it can’t have been long after I’d dropped off to sleep, because the electric water heater hadn’t switched on, so it was obviously before midnight. And there I lay, tossing and turning and coughing for the rest of the night until the alarm went off at 06:29.

It took a good while for me to leave the edge of my bed and stagger off into the bathroom, where, as well as a good wash, I had a good shave too in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. By the time that I arrived in the kitchen, it was much later than usual, but no hot drink today. It’s Dialysis Day, so just a quick mouthful of orange juice to wash down my medication.

Back in here, I transcribed the dictaphone notes from the previous night and they are now online, all of them. And what an effort that was. There weren’t any notes from last night – after all, if you don’t sleep for long, you don’t really have the time to go far.

The nurse came along as usual, and it shows you just how interested he is, in that he’d forgotten why I had been to the hospital on Friday morning. I certainly hadn’t!

After he had left, I made my breakfast and read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

Today, we’re discussing interments and cremations, and so far, he’s managing to steer clear of any controversial subject. However, every time that he states that “it is, in my mind, undisputed that …” my immediate reflection is to go to check.

After breakfast, I came back in here and did a few things that needed doing (and didn’t do a lot of things that did) and then finished my Welsh homework. And that took much longer than it ought to have done too, what with having to reformat it into a *.pdf so that I could send it off for marking.

All the time that that was going on, I was having a chat, mostly about cats, would you believe, with an old school friend who now lives in Crewe, but I had to abandon in the end because it was time to gather up my things for dialysis.

My faithful cleaner came to sort out my anaesthetic. We had a really good chat and then, after she left, I had to go to … errr … walk the parapet, where I was caught in flagrante delicto by the taxi driver who came fifteen minutes early. “Still, the sooner we start, the sooner we finish” said Yours Truly, not knowing what the fates had in store for him.

There was already someone else in the car and we had a third passenger to pick up en route, the lady from the Old People’s Home at Sartilly, but even so, we were still early arriving.

It made no difference to me, though. I was still one of the last to be plugged in. And once more, after four days of no dialysis, I was still under my dry weight when I checked in. It’s amazing what no food will do for you.

There is one nurse there who is … well … a little lacking in tolerance than the rest, so guess who I had. And throughout the whole session, she did nothing but try to make me feel guilty about not being able to perform any of the procedures myself.

Let’s face it – there are people who have what I consider to be an irrational fear of spiders, or clowns, or anything else for that matter, but I don’t spend all of the time criticising them. By the end of the session, it had reached such an extent that I almost told her where to stick her plasters, instead of on my arm.

Another thing that really got my goat was that not one of the doctors on duty there came to discuss Friday morning with me. That they might not yet have received the results would be no surprise, but at least they might have come to talk about the visit and “what happens next”.

During the session, I was so wracked with coughing fits that I vomited again. This isn’t turning out very well.

The nurse had the last laugh. I’m convinced that she terminated the session early. I have an automatic blood-pressure test every thirty minutes, but I definitely counted one short of however many there should have been.

When the disconnection was complete, I had to wait twenty-five minutes for the taxi, and when he arrived, he confirmed the time for which he’d been summoned, which agreed with my suspicions. But then, we had to wait another twenty-five minutes for the lady from Sartilly to finish. It’s definitely not my day, is it?

My cleaner was waiting for me as usual, and she helped me into the apartment. And after she left, I said a phrase that has a connection, albeit distant, with a lump of turf and came in here to write out my notes.

Now that they are finished, I have no idea and neither do I care, but I’m off to bed, without a meal yet again. As I came into the building, I could smell chips being cooked, and quite frankly, it turned my stomach

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my cleaner … "well, one of us has" – ed … she and I were discussing apartments on sale around here in case my friend from Munich ever wants to come to join us up here in the “Monaco du Nord”.
There was one that I’d seen that looked quite nice, so I mentioned it.
"Do you know how much that costs?"
"No Idea" I replied
"It’s on sale at one million three!" she exclaimed.
Which, at that point, we both said in unison, completely impromptu, "between the two of us, we could probably manage the ‘three’. But where would we find the rest?"

0

Monday 6th March 2026 – I HOPE THAT …

…you all had a very happy Easter and that the Easter Bunny was very generous to you. As for me, I’ve finished all my hot cross buns, regrettably, but I still have plenty of chocolate cake and the new batch of homemade chocolate ice cream to go at.

In fact, the chocolate cake and the last helping of the first batch of home-made ice cream were delicious. And once more, that’s all that I’m having for tea because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … sleep for me is much more important right now than food. And you know that I’m ill if I’m thinking like that. It’s not like me to turn my back on a good meal.

And sleep I need too, after last night. I was back in here at about 20:30 yesterday evening after clearing up and doing the washing-up, and then I sat down to write my notes.

By the time that I’d finished, done everything else that needed doing and sorted myself out, I was in bed just a minute or two after 22:00, looking for the good night’s sleep and lie-in that I had promised myself.

However, regular readers of this rubbish will recall what happens at times like this. Just like the other night, I had to go to stroll the parapet, and not once but twice. The first time was at 01:20, which seems to be a popular time for me to awaken, and the second time was, would you believe, 06:29 exactly.

The first time, I managed to go back to sleep but the second time, no such luck. I needn’t have bothered trying for a lie-in at all. Nevertheless, I stayed there in bed until the alarm went off at 07:30.

The alarm going off is one thing – leaving the bed is quite something else. And by the time I’d been into the bathroom for a good wash and shave, there wasn’t much time for anything else as Isabelle the Nurse arrived.

She chatted on about nothing in particular, happy because, presumably, she’s off on her week’s break this evening, and after she left, I could make breakfast.

There went my last two delicious hot cross buns this morning, just as did HISTORIA BRITTONUM by Nennius. It didn’t take long to read, and I can’t say that I’m sorry either. I didn’t enjoy it at all. However, the genealogy tables in there were fantastic works of fiction. It seems that every person in Europe is a descendant of Woden, according to Nennius.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

There was something going on in a recording studio about writing and recording songs relating to certain incidents, such as some old woman who was bedridden and who only used to eat bread, etc. On several occasions, there was a choice of perhaps two or three subjects where people in the studio had to write a song on one of them, but it was all very confusing, all of this. I was asked to write a song on one particular subject, but it was one of those subjects that I couldn’t face so I decided not to

Just recently, I seem to have been spending a lot of time in a recording studio. It’s probably due to all of these radio programmes.

And seeing as we have been talking about radio programmes … "well, one of us has" – ed … after I’d finished the things that I usually have to do in the morning, I reviewed this weekend’s radio programme and sent it off for inclusion in the stream.

With that out of the way, I attacked the next radio programme on the list … "see what he means" – ed … It’s going to be another concert, and once again, the soundtrack is going to be complicated to prepare. I’ve done a “first pass” already but it’s going to be amended on several occasions, I reckon, before it’s ready to go.

My faithful cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic, and then I had to await the taxi. I didn’t have to wait long because he was early and caught me unawares while I was … errr … otherwise engaged. However, it was the young, chatty guy and we had a nice, pleasant drive down to Sartilly to pick up someone else on our way to Avranches.

Having set out early, we arrived early at dialysis, but that counts for nothing if you arrive at the same time as four others just ahead of you with only two nurses on duty. Consequently, I was no earlier being attended to.

And having read about the times that I have … errr … been for a gipsy’s just recently, just as towards the end of last week when we had all of that rumpus at dialysis about my weight, I’m convinced that the scales were wrong that Thursday. Today, I clocked in at UNDER my dry weight.

Nevertheless, I made them take out 500 grammes so that I can be ahead next time. But I’ll keep on going as I am, with just breakfast and chocolate cake for now, until I’m sure that it’s all properly under control and I’m not as tired as I currently am.

With everyone arriving all at once, everyone needed unplugging at the same time. And being last in, I was last out, after something of a wait, so I was no earlier arriving home.

My cleaner helped me in, and after she left, I had my chocolate and ice cream and then did the washing up. And now that I’ve finished my notes, there are just a few things to do and then I’m hoping for a better night than last night.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my … errr … problems during the night … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the two old men in the urology clinic.
The first man asks the second "why are you here?"
"I have this terrible problem" he replied. "I don’t seem to be able to manage to … errr … go to the bathroom these days."
"I don’t have that problem" replied the other. "Every morning at 07:00, as regular as clockwork, every day, I have no trouble at all."
"So why are you here then?"
"I don’t wake up until 07:30."

0

Monday 9th March 2026 – WHATEVER COULD HAVE …

… gone wrong at dialysis today did in fact go wrong. And in spades too! I tell you, I’m totally fed up with all of this, and for two pins, I’d pack it all in and do something else with my time than keep on putting up with it.

In fact, things started to go wrong last night when I fell asleep … errr … riding the porcelain horse before going to bed. As if I don’t have enough trouble trying to be in bed at some reasonable time, last night ended up being completely unreasonable.

As seems to be the case these days, I was asleep quite quickly. However, at some point in the morning before the alarm went off, I awoke. I’ve no idea what time it must have been, because regardless, I had absolutely no intention of leaving the bed at that moment. Not even the combined efforts of Kate Bush and Jenny Agutter could have tempted me out of bed this morning.

In fact, I must have gone back to sleep at some point because the alarm at 06:29 awoke me from my slumbers. And once again, we had a real struggle to rise from our comfy bed and face the World.

After a good wash and shave (not that there’s much point in the latter these days seeing as Emilie the Cute Consultant is keeping her distance), I headed off into the kitchen for my morning hot drink and medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what had gone on during the night.

I was driving somewhere down the Devon and Cornwall peninsula on the coast. As I came round a corner, I could see, way out to sea, three enormous freighters or passenger liners heading out towards the Atlantic. I decided to chase them for a minute and look for a car park somewhere where I could take some photos of them. The first car park that I found, the view wasn’t particularly good. I had to climb up onto a rather large rock where the view was slightly better, but I still couldn’t take a really good photo of these ships – or not as good as I might have had from the vehicle a few miles back. Suddenly, I heard a voice behind me saying “it’s Mr Hall, isn’t it?”. I turned round, and there were two people whom I knew from university. They came over for a chat, and I fell off this rock, but I managed in the end to pick myself up. It turns out that they were staying in the hotel that was behind me. They were telling me about a whole series of new rules at university that basically cut down a lot of the jokes and a lot of the fun that we used to have there. I told them about the ships, and they said that there was a really good viewpoint inside the hotel, so I followed them in. We were talking about luggage labels – how it seems that if you go to an airport and you already have a luggage label on your suitcase, every other airport to which you go for the rest of your life with that suitcase, the suitcase will have a label from the landing crew, but it wouldn’t necessarily have a label if there wasn’t one in the first place. We were talking about good ways to dispose of a body, which was to put it into a suitcase and send it off on a flight somewhere. We went in, but I couldn’t find a way in to this viewpoint. It was one of these traditional hotels with lots of people walking around and very small rooms, but they showed me the way in, which I hadn’t realised was an access, which was through a staff door, and then you could open another set of doors once inside there, and there was a hidden corridor that went all the way down alongside the rooms. I was thinking that if I go down there, at long last I may have a photo of these ships, and that was what I was hoping for in the beginning.

The last time that I was driving down there was back in the 1980s when I took a coach tour that way, but I can’t remember seeing any ships.

The hotel reminds me of where we used to stay when we went to the university for meetings, and the idea that they would change all of the rules to stop people having fun is about par from the course. Even STRAWBERRY MOOSE ended up being expelled after he taunted a British government minister.

The thing about luggage labels seems to have come out of nowhere, though.

There was also something about a Dutch rock musician who had died. He had this Gibson SG guitar, but there was some kind of issue with it, but that’s really all that I remember of that particular dream.

As this dream didn’t really end, I can’t really say anything about this.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual, with a big cheesy grin on her face as it’s her last day before her week’s rest. She even had time for a little chat before leaving to finish off her round.

Once she’d gone, I could make breakfast and read some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.

Today, we’re discussing the Frankish Duke of Athens and his successors. The first Duke seems to have been able to build up a prosperous territory out of the ruins of the conquest, but as usual, it seems that his heirs went about and managed to undo everything that he had created.

Back in here, I had a radio programme to review and then to send off ready for broadcast this weekend, and after a few more tasks that needed attention, I spent the rest of the morning revising my Welsh ready for tomorrow and checking over the homework that I then sent off for marking.

At 12:00, I knocked off and went to sort myself out for dialysis. my faithful cleaner turned up as usual to sort out the anaesthetic and we discussed my idea of moving all of the medication – to such an extent that I forgot my disgusting drink before leaving.

The taxi turned up early for me, and we had to go off to Sartilly to pick up another passenger. We arrived at dialysis early, 13:40 to be precise, and I staggered off to my bed and waited to be seen.

And waited … and waited … and waited …

Sometimes I find it difficult to understand what goes through the head of the planning department at the dialysis centre. Who in their right minds would put two trainee nurses in a room of eight patients without the guiding hand of someone more experienced?

It was 14:50 when I was finally plugged in, in total agony with one of the pins. And I wasn’t the only one who suffered this afternoon either. And at least I was left pretty much alone after that.

The doctor came to see me and asked if he could do anything for me. "How about making me better?" I asked. He didn’t stay long after that.

As I mentioned the other day, they have decreased my dry weight and are taking out the excess water bit by bit. At least, that was the plan. But today, they took out a whopping 2,000 grammes. I’m not sure if that’s all of it, but I’m now down to below my ideal non-active weight. Since I’ve been having dialysis, I’ve lost 8,000 grammes in total, but much of that is down to not eating so much.

When my session of three and a half hours was over, I waited to be unplugged. And waited … and waited … and waited, while the two nurses cleaned up the empty machines from the other people who had left.

Eventually, one of them wandered over. "Has it finished already?" she asked.

"Yes, and for quite a while too" I replied.

"But surely … ohhh! It’s only three and a half hours, not four!" and she carried on cleaning the other machines.

Eventually, I was unplugged, and as I was preparing to leave, she suddenly remembered that she should have taken a blood sample. So here we go again.

It was 19:00 when I was finally ready to leave and 19:10 when the taxi arrived. “That’s what time it was booked for” said the driver, and I could believe him.

Consequently, it was 19:50 when I returned home, having left at 12:50 for a session of three and a half hours. And I bet that the senior doctor, who follows these pages and tries to pull me up if I say anything bad about the service, will have “missed” this entry and nothing will happen about it. But it’s really getting on my nerves.

Tea tonight was the rest of last night’s pizza with birthday cake and home-made ice cream for pudding. And now I’m off to bed, hoping for a better day tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about ships … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends told me that in the High Arctic, they once encountered a ghost ship.
"How did you know that it was a ghost ship?" I asked
"There was only a skeleton crew on board"

0

Monday 23rd February 2026 – I AGAIN FELL …

… asleep in a most embarrassing situation earlier this evening. So we’ll have to see how far we go with these notes right now before I throw in the towel and head for the hills.

It’s something that is very difficult to explain because last night, I had probably the deepest sleep that I have had for many a long time.

Not that it was early, though. It was another night where I struggled to make progress and once more, it was round about 23:30 when I finally finished everything and was able to crawl into bed.

But once in bed, I remember nothing, absolutely nothing at all, and when the alarm went off at 06:29 as usual, I was in such a deep sleep that I could quite easily have slept through it. It took a surprising amount of effort to reach out over my head to the bedside table to find the ‘phone

It took just as much effort to haul myself upright and sit on the edge of the bed with my feet on the floor before the second alarm, and there I sat for quite a few minutes, waiting for the bedroom to stop spinning around my head and for me to find the effort to stand up.

After a visit to the bathroom for a good scrub up and a shave, I headed off into the kitchen for the hot drink and medication. Then back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I had been during the night.

There was some guy called Peter McTurk. He’d been found wandering around the streets of Rome as a street child and had been adopted by some rich American woman who had managed to bring him back into society and teach him all kinds of different things relating to civilisation. He’d settled down quite nicely. In 1917 he’d begun to play with a rock band and later on, went on to have his own group in which I was the bassist. This group had a great deal of success, even though it was only something like a high school band. I remember a kind of four-wheeled trolley that you’d push, with a flat bed on it, and it used to take all of our equipment as we were moving about from place to place and unloading the van to go into halls etc. We didn’t have a great deal. One person who figured in it was my girlfriend at the time, but I can’t remember very much more after this.

Fancy having a girlfriend in a dream and not remembering anything about it! That’s a real disappointment.

However, it must have been fun playing in a rock band in 1917. Can you imagine it?

I had another dream similar to the one the other night … "it was earlier this evening" – ed … about playing in that rock group. We had all kinds of rehearsals, things like that, but I can’t remember very much about it from last night, unfortunately.

At one time, we used to have recurring dreams quite often. However, they were never the kind of recurring dreams that I would have liked to have had. For this one, for example, I can’t even remember if the mythical girlfriend from the first instalment put in another appearance.

Isabelle the Nurse put in her usual appearance to sort out my legs and feet. She had a few moments to chat, but it looks as if I won’t see the photos of Carnaval until she’s back on duty in a week’s time or so. She’s working tomorrow, but as it’s her last day before her break, she’ll be in quite a rush.

Once she’d left, I made breakfast. Porridge, toast and black coffee as usual. And while I was eating, I was reading some more of MAIDEN CASTLE EXCAVATIONS AND FIELD SURVEY 1985-6 by Niall Sharples.

We’re still discussing pottery, and our author is rather puzzled as to why early Iron Age pottery pans are still being found in layers that relate to the close of the Iron Age. The fact that by the end of the Iron Age, there is little pottery from outside the local area suggests that the area was isolated by this time, but this is even more puzzling, bearing in mind that wine jars from southern Spain dating to this period have been recovered and that in earlier iron Age periods, pottery has been found that has evidently travelled some considerable distance

It seems that there are tons of mileage to be explored when considering the considerable remains of pottery that he and his team uncovered at the site.

But while I was in the kitchen, I checked on my cake. Putting it in the fridge did the trick and the filling cream did solidify again. However, not all of it remains in between the two layers of the cake. The cake on its plate looks like a rather large island in the middle of a small frozen lake.

Still, not to worry. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I never make any mistakes. I just learn a lot of lessons, and some of them are expensive.

And that reminds me. Seeing as we have been talking about my cake … "well, one of us has" – ed … I have received a few requests from readers. Most of them are physically impossible, of course, but one was for the recipe for the cream filling.

So here goes –

  • 150 g vegan cream cheese or thick coconut yoghurt. I used 100 g of plain soya yoghurt with 50 g of coconut oil
  • 75 g vegan butter
  • 200–250 g icing sugar – depending on how thick you would like it
  • chopped ginger to taste
  • powdered ginger to taste
  • 2 tablespoons of syrup or maple syrup
  • A pinch of salt
  • cinnamon, nutmeg, orange, lemon to taste.
  1. whisk up the vegan butter until it goes all fluffy
  2. add the yoghurt and whisk until mixed (not too much or it will separate)
  3. sift in the icing sugar, salt, ground ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, orange, lemon, then whisk until it goes as thick as you would like it
  4. add in the chopped ginger and syrup, and stir well in
  5. leave in the fridge for half an hour to go really cold.

Back in here, I had things to do. And then I reviewed this week’s radio programme and sent it off. Following that, I reviewed my Welsh for tomorrow and, in whatever time was left, made a start on the next radio programme.

My cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic, and after she left, I waited for my taxi.

There wasn’t long to wait because today, she was early again. There was someone else to pick up in Granville and another person in Sartilly, but even so, we were still early arriving at dialysis.

It wasn’t possible to find a bed to which I had to walk further than the one in which they installed me today. And once there, I had to wait no fewer than forty minutes for them to come to see me. And then it was to couple me up to an electric machine first to check my dry weight. I had to wait even longer for the session to start.

Once installed, they left me pretty much to my own devices. The duty doctor (not Emilie the Cute Consultant) came to see me.

"Is there anything I can do for you today?" he asked.

"No, thank you" I replied, and carried on reading.

When the session came to an end, the nurse dealing with me found everything else to do except to unplug me. I had to wait an eternity to be liberated. And then the taxi driver had to go to the depot to fuel up the car and collect some paperwork so I was horribly late returning home

Tea tonight was the other half of last night’s pizza with tinned apricots and vegan sorbet, which was just as delicious as always. But tomorrow, I’m going to treat myself to some custard for tea. I know that it’s banned for me, but I don’t care.

So right now, having survived falling asleep on the way back to the office and having kept on going to the end, I’ll finish off everything and go to bed ready for exciting times tomorrow;

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my cake again … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone mentioned about it being cooked on the top and not as well cooked at the bottom.
"What did it say in the instructions about putting it into the oven?" she asked.
"Nothing much" I said. "Just ‘put into the oven at 180°’"
"Well, there you are!" she exclaimed. "Put it in the oven at 180°. That means ‘turn it upside-down’."

0

Monday 26th January 2026 – AS I SUSPECTED …

… when they weighed me at dialysis this afternoon and calculated the figure against the dry weight figure the last time that they calculated it, there were just 19 grammes to remove today.

Telling them that I’ve eaten next-to-nothing this last week or so cuts absolutely no ice with them. Their calculations must be correct, and that’s all that counts. It’s a far cry from the days when they were taking out 2,500 grammes three times per week.

Last night, though, as I said, I did manage to eat something, even if it was only half a small pizza. And I still managed later to end up being late finishing off everything. Nothing that I seem to do makes any difference.

So it was not far short of 23:00 when I went to bed, and once again, it seemed to take forever to go off to sleep.

Even then, I remember it being something of a turbulent night, not being able to settle down. However, I was asleep when the alarm went off at 06:29.

Isabelle the Nurse told me to stay in bed this morning but, with so much to do, I left the bed … "eventually" – ed … and headed off into the bathroom. And I do have to say that I was feeling rather better than I had just recently.

In the kitchen, I sorted out my hot drink and medication, and then came back in here to see where I’d been during the night.

On a eu un deuxième .. – what am I doing, talking in French? We had a second lockdown and everyone was confined to home again. The first couple of days, it didn’t bother me at all and I had plenty of things to keep me occupied. But after a while, I began to feel that I had cabin fever, so I thought that I’d take advantage of the calm by going out for a walk. So I left my house, which was a little terraced house in a pedestrian area and began to walk towards the village square. The first thing that I noticed was a hairdresser’s, with the bust of a woman in a window, with some long, flowing hair on it and a sign “with sadness after 109 years”. However, the hair didn’t resemble at all anything of any woman of that kind of age and even in the 1960s when this style had been the rage, that woman would still have been well over forty and that didn’t look right at all to me. There was another terraced house with a white stucco front and no window, with newspaper cuttings on the front. While I was reading these newspaper cuttings, a couple more people came past so I ended up following them, only to be sidetracked again by some more press cuttings pasted on the end wall of a house as we turned the corner. Having turned this corner, I walked about another hundred yards and found myself in the village square. Across in the corner was a building that I recognised. Although it looked like the village hall, it was in fact the local supermarket. People were queueing to go in, with several people loitering in the vicinity, looking as if they couldn’t make up their minds whether to join the queue or not. I was debating whether to join the queue, to go into the supermarket just for a walk around and maybe pick up a packet of biscuits just for some comfort food when suddenly an enormous dogfight broke out between two big dogs. Neither of the owners of these two dogs could seem to control it. In the meantime, there was a radio broadcast about some event that had taken place. It was on the Saturday in September, a week before the cup final involving Seraing. But there would be no cup final taking place in September – the new season should be well under way so I wondered just what this news broadcast on the radio was all about.

This reminds me of the first lockdown. I had a medical appointment that morning so had to go out, and I’ve never seen the town so deserted. I was half-expecting a tumbleweed to roll out of an alley. And do you remember having to queue to be allowed into a shop?

But leaving aside the question of a cup final in September, there would be no chance of Seraing competing in it. It’s one of the professional football clubs in Liège, although its fortunes have been such that it’s played in the amateur leagues on several occasions just recently. As for Seraing itself, it’s the home of the old Cockerill-Sambre steel mill, and it’s probably the grimiest, dirtiest industrial place that I have ever known

We were coming back from the Auvergne towards Brussels and we ended up going round the bypass of some small town or village in the middle of Burgundy. I pointed out one or two buildings to my companion as we were going past, and I was surprised that I hadn’t driven through the centre, because the centre was extremely old and decayed but was really mysterious and weird at the same time. It was a town that I really loved. At some point, a group of us, who were together by now, stopped and being accompanied by one or two other people, walked through the town and came to some kind of bar or café. My companion made as if to go into the bar so I opened the door for her. However, she stood there at the door and glared at me with some kind of really evil look in her face so I made a laughing remark that “some people don’t like having the door open for them these days”. The guy who was with us gave my companion €2:00 and asked him to buy her a can of pop. She went in, still glaring at me, ordered two small bottles of some kind of alcoholic spirit and another drink. As soon as she had these bottles, the ripped the tops off and drank them both at the same time, followed quite quickly by this glass of beer or whatever it was. I had to remind her about the can of pop, which she eventually bought, and we made our way back. I carried on walking and ended up in the town centre of this really large city. I was on my own and that began to suit me much better because I’d seen a side of my companion that I didn’t wish to see. I began to walk, but then I had some kind of epileptic fit and was bouncing around on all fours on a patch of grass at the side of a pavement. One or two people came over to see that I was OK. One of them was this companion, and she made some kind of crazy remark about taking the wrong acid, but all that I wanted to do was to be there and calm down and let this fit pass, then gradually be able to get up and carry on with my walk. I was in no mood for company at that moment.

We’ve been to this small town or village before, in a previous dream quite some time ago. It’s not actually a real town, although when I was asleep, I was convinced that it was. “It was a town that I really loved”, probably because I’m “extremely old and decayed” too.

And what was going on with my companion was really strange and unnerving, especially when I had this epileptic fit.

I was back somewhere around the centre of France last night. I was in another small town. When I parked the car, I had a walk around the town to find out where the strongest radio signal was. It turned out to be right outside this doctor’s surgery place so I went in there to sit down, thinking that this would be a good place to wait in case anyone wants me on the radio. There were a couple of other people in there. The doctor came out and instead of inviting them into his room, he began to give them a medical examination right in front of me. I thought that this was totally wrong. He tried to make me move so that this patient could lie down where my chair was so I told him that there was another chair over there that he could use. He took this woman over to this other chair. All the time that I was sitting there with this mug of coffee and a young girl came in. She was looking for a place to sit so I asked her to sit next to me, and we began to chat. At that moment, my brother came in and he began to make some really sarcastic comments about me and what I was doing and why I was chatting to this girl. In the end, I just stood up, picked up my mug of hot coffee and threw some of it into his face. Everyone stopped and looked, including my brother, but I just sat down and carried on talking. After a while he came over and apologised but I took absolutely no notice whatsoever and carried on with what I was doing. Then, this girl and I decided that we’d go for a walk together. I found out then that the reason why she’d come into the doctor’s surgery was also because of the strongest radio signal. We went for this walk and it went just around this particular area where the radio signal was. But shortly later, we found ourselves out of the town, sitting down in a lay-by. We were having something of a picnic. My brother came up again and dropped some kind of map on the table. He said that the next day, he was going on a tour around the power stations of Yorkshire, and mentioned one or two. I pretended to be interested, but I wasn’t really, and carried on talking to this girl. After a while, we decided that we’d both get on my motorbike and head back into town and make plans to do something extremely similar the next day

So not only do I Get the Girl last night, I manage to put the family in its place too. That’s a rare event for a dream and I wish that I could do it more often.

The bit about the medical examination in the public waiting room of the doctor’s surgery is interesting, and I would love to know the significance of it.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in on her last day before her week’s break. She took my temperature, and it’s now down to normal. She wasn’t impressed when I told her that I hadn’t taken the doliprane, but I stuck to my guns all the same.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE.

It’s not just pottery where the developments have been quite surprising. Talking about wheelwrights for example, he tells us that "at the bottom of Pit LXX, which, from its pottery, had evidently belonged to the later period, lay the remains of a large wheel. It had been, on the whole, coarser and heavier than the wheels found in Pit XXIII,"

It really is surprising, this. Two possible explanations may be that the potters and wheelwrights had so much work that they were obliged to recruit less-trained assistants or, chillingly, some kind of cataclysm in the Western Empire had seen the wiping out of the skilled craftsmen, leaving their untrained assistants behind.

There are probably a dozen other explanations too.

Back in here, I had a radio programme to review before I sent it off, and then my Welsh homework followed it into the “out” box.

Finally, I could revise my Welsh but here wasn’t much time.

My faithful cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic, followed by a neighbour who was also having a lot of trouble trying to have a fibre-optic connection installed.

There wasn’t much I could do for him, and after my cleaner left, I awaited the taxi.

It was early for once, but it made no difference as we had other people to pick up and drop off, so we were still pretty much at the same time as usual.

Here, I had my discussion about the weight. They were pretty much unmoved by my pleading, although in the end I managed to have it increased to 300 grammes – not a lot but nevertheless …

They left me pretty much alone today, although Emilie the Cute Consultant came to give me a prescription for these antibiotics – the original, presumably, being lost.

The taxi was waiting for me when I finished and, after dropping off someone in Sartilly, we came home. My faithful cleaner was waiting for me and she helped me into the apartment. After she left, I warmed up the other half-pizza and ate it, even if I didn’t feel like it. And now, I’m off to bed. I’m absolutely exhausted and I’ve fallen asleep twice already

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about pleading … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once asked a friend why my pleading never seemed to work.
"Let’s face it" he said. "You’re such a miserable pleader."

0

Monday 22nd December 2025 – HERE WE GO …

… again!

After yesterday’s long and marvellous lie-in, it didn’t take us too long to revert to our usual habits, did it? As in “wide awake at 03:45”.

That was rather a shame because for once, I made a determined effort to finish everything early. And I did too – except that I fell asleep on my chair at some point. By the time that I’d awoken and made myself ready for bed, it was 23:15. That is, however, still earlier than some have been just recently, and I was soon asleep.

Waking up at 03:45 was definitely not part of the plan though.

Once I was awake, I tried everything that I could think of, in order to go back to sleep, but nothing seemed to work. In the end, I decided to make some use of an early start, so round about 05:00, I arose from the Dead and carried on with the editing of the radio notes that I’d dictated yesterday. I was glad that I did, too, because that programme is now all ready and assembled. All it needs is the joining track to connect the two halves, but that’s been chosen and the text written, ready for dictation when I next have an early start.

When the alarm went off, I went into the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant at dialysis this afternoon.

Next stop was in the kitchen for the hot ginger, lemon and honey drink and my medication, and then back in here to see where I’d been during the night. I was back on the taxis again last night. I’d had to go somewhere to do a lot of things but I can’t remember what but my father gave me some money towards it. So I set off to do these things that I’ve been asked to do. Coming back, I went round to one of my former bosses. he was talking about going back into the taxis again and we talked about sharing my car – that I’d do the day shift and he’d do the nights, or vice versa. He asked me how it would work. I told him to never mind, and I’d try to work out some kind of procedure. On the way home, I stopped at the top of Clifton Avenue (or was it Clifton Street?). There was a yard down there at the back, down one of the entries where I was going to go. Before I went, I took out the account book that we had and went to photograph it, or one of the pages of it, which I was going to use to divide up to show the jobs that I did and the jobs that he would do when he took over, with one page for each day between the two of us. I went to photograph it, but it was really dark and the photo came out all blurry. I thought “never mind. I’ll do this in the daylight sometime”. But there were several people coming up the avenue or road there where I was parked. It was really quite a noisy street. There was one couple who were very quiet and didn’t say anything very much, but there were two guys coming up there who were laughing and joking. I was rather concerned about having my camera in my hand at that time of night with those two about. There was a third couple who were coming to a house at the top of the hill. They were boisterous of the kind that you have when you have had a considerable amount of drink. The next thing that I remember, I was in a car on my way to take some people to Oswestry.

There wouldn’t ever be any danger of me allowing someone to drive my car, apart from Nerina, of couse. Nerina was actually quite a good driver, but then again, she had had plenty of practice. The description of the “upper class” terraced houses from the end of the Victorian era around the Clifton Avenue/Clifton Street area is surprisingly accurate, even down to the alleyway and the yard.

And I did several trips in taxis down to Oswestry and that area.

Later on when it was dark, I was back inside the school. There was no-one around and all the lights were off. I just had a small torch with me that I used, to see where I was and park myself correctly on the road. After a few minutes’ discussion, we’d finished preparing the car for Nerina so the other guy came along to have this penalty shoot-out. He tried three shots, and Nerina saved one, and he missed the other two. He thought that this was going to be a really strange enterprise, and in the end I talked to the aforementioned former boss, and he agreed to drive when I was not driving. Then we talked about this bed in either Clifton Avenue or Clifton Street, about how we can divide up the jobs and the day between the two of us

But whatever is this all about? It seems to be something of a continuation of the preceding dream, but it doesn’t ‘arf shoot off along quite a tangent.

The nurse was early today. It’s the final day before his break so I imagine that he wants to be finished early. He didn’t stay long, either, and was soon on his way.

After he’d gone, I made breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

Well, when I say that I “read some more”, there wasn’t all that much more to read. That book is now finished and tomorrow, I’ll be starting something new. I hope that it’s something interesting.

Our author Thomas Codrington seemed to have managed to bog himself down in a mass of confusion the closer towards the end we came. I wonder whether it was one of these projects that sounded so good at the beginning but saw him lose interest as time passed by and he was unable to resolve some of the inevitable problems.

Back in here, I had a few things to do, and then I attacked my Welsh homework. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. this is probably the toughest assignment that I have done, but I think that I might have broken the back of it now. Another good day should see me finish it, I hope.

At 12:00 I knocked off so that my faithful cleaner could apply the anaesthetic to my arm, and then to await the taxi. For a change, it was bang on time but it was to no avail as we had to go to Sartilly to pick up someone else.

We were a few minutes late arriving at the dialysis centre and to make matters worse, there was a medical emergency going on. Consequently, it was 14:45 when I was finally coupled up.

There were a few interruptions, including from one of the doctors (but not Emilie the Cute Consultant, unfortunately), and it wasn’t until 18:15 when I was finally uncoupled.

It took a while to sort me out, but the driver was here and waiting. One of the young, chatty guys, we had a good talk on the way home and it was quite an enjoyable drive. Back here, we met a neighbour who had a lot to say for himself, so it was round about 20:00 when I began tea.

Not that it took too long to make. It was the half-pizza left over from Sunday and just needed rewarming, and followed my more vegan fruitcake and mango sorbet.

Then, I made a start on soaking the white beans because tomorrow, I have a cookery festival, all on my own, with baked beans and vegan Wellington on the agenda.

But that’s tomorrow. Tonight, I’m off to bed before I fall asleep yet AGAIN!

But seeing as we have been talking about my trip home from the dialysis centre … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of the things that we were talking about was the superior nature of German technology.
It reminds me of that old joke "how many Germans does it take to change a lightbulb? "
"I don’t know. How many Germans does it take to change a lightbulb?"
"None. A German lightbulb is correctly engineered and so never needs changing."

0

Monday 8th December 2025 – MY GINGER CAKE …

… or, rather, what was left of it has found its way into the bin this evening. It seems to have developed one or two suspicious stains that were worthy of further examination, and the further examination was not positive.

That’s quite a disappointment because I was enjoying eating it. But you learn from your errors, and one thing that I have learned is that I’ll cook it at a higher temperature for longer, and lower down in the oven too.

All in all, it’s not really been a very good twenty-four hours. As is usual these days, it took me an age to finish off what I needed to do last night and it was long after 23:30 when I finally crawled into bed. I was absolutely exhausted and had fallen asleep once or twice writing out my notes.

As for what happened after that, I remember very little, except that for some reason, I was freezing cold. I’ve no idea if it was really the case (it was quite a mild night, apparently) or whether I dreamed it. In any case, when the alarm went off at 06:29, I was flat out, dead to the World.

It took quite a while for me to come to my senses and force myself to my feet, but I did eventually manage to stagger into the bathroom and then into the kitchen for my medication and my hot ginger, honey and lemon drink

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I’d given up coach-driving for health reasons, but my brother was driving a coach. He asked Nerina if she would go with him on a European tour as a hostess. She refused, and he couldn’t find anyone else, so with a great deal of reluctance, I said that I’d go. We loaded the coach with people and set off. But he has getting the coach all dirty inside and no-one was cleaning it. He wasn’t very good with the passengers, and he decided that, when we came to a town in Germany while we were on our way somewhere else, instead of going around the bypass, he’d go through the town centre. Unfortunately, it was Carnaval so we were trapped in this town centre for quite some considerable time. He was arguing about all kinds of things, and in the end I decided that I’d had enough and that I was going to drive. However, he’d parked the coach somehow inside another coach, and trying to manoeuvre it out of there was extremely complicated. First of all, he had to tell me which were the panels in order to pull the driving seat out into its traditional place instead of sitting on the front bumper. When he’d done that, I had to reverse the coach out of this complicated parking space inside another coach. I found that I didn’t have the force to work the brake pedal correctly so as I was driving backwards down this very narrow area, the coach was running away with me. Luckily, I managed to control it without hitting anything, but it was a very, very close thing. All of the passengers alighted to give me a better chance of driving it out of the door of this coach. However, it was on a slope, and as I wasn’t concentrating particularly, the coach rolled forward and we had to start all over again. Eventually, I had the coach on the street, and I found that the coach was better going forward for me, so I thought that I’d go forward around the block and back to pick up these people. However, I missed the turning to turn right around the block. I ended up carrying straight on and under the flyover that carried the bypass around the town. I thought that I was really lost now, so I parked the coach. All of the water on the front stove was boiling away, about five different pots of it so I had to work out which controls controlled the gas for those particular hobs and try to turn them down. While I was doing this, I found some tools embedded in the ashes. I thought that I’d take those out later when I’d sorted out all of this. In the meantime, someone else came over and began to talk to me. He asked me about my PSV badge and pointed to one hanging on the wall, an old, rusty one. He said that he thought that it was mine, but mine was in a water-stained leather holder that was next to it. I told him that that was mine. By this time, I was completely fed up. I couldn’t drive the coach any more, I couldn’t control the brakes, so I decided that the best thing that I could do was to walk away, let my brother find the coach and let him carry on on his own.

Driving coaches certainly makes a change from driving taxis these days, but I could have done without any of my family members involved in it. But the dream seems to be one big mass of a mess with all kinds of surreal and unusual events taking place. It’s enough to make me wonder what on earth was going on in my head last night.

The nurse turned up early again and he was soon gone. He starts his week’s break today so I imagine that he’s in a rush to finish his rounds and clear off. And once he’d cleared off, I could make breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

But seeing as we have been talking about breakfast … "well, one of us has" – ed … I didn’t have any vegan butter for my toast, having used all of what was left for my vegan Christmas pudding. Luckily, I had some strawberry jam left over from when I marzipanned my cake, so that had to do.

Ohh, how I suffer.

Thomas Codrington has been leading us out of East Anglia today along the Icknield Way into the West Country. We’ve been passing a series of dykes in Cambridgeshire that were presumably built by the early Anglo-Saxons to defend their territory before they pushed west. We cab gather that these dykes are later than the Roman period because late-issue Roman coins have been found underneath a couple of the dykes but on the top of the original layer of ground.

Back in here, I had a few things to do and then I revised some of my Welsh for the lesson tomorrow. I’m trying to push ahead whenever and wherever I can.

My cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic, and then I had to wait for the taxi, which was late today. We had to go to Sartilly to pick up someone else too, so I was quite late arriving.

Today, I was put into the little room with three other patients. One of the nurses was new (to this branch) and didn’t know where anything was, so it took an age to be coupled up. Luckily though, they left me alone afterwards and I could amuse myself as I wished.

The new nurse was assigned to uncouple me too, so, as usual, we had some more lengthy delays while she sorted out everything that she needed.

It was my favourite taxi driver who brought me home tonight, so we had a really good chat. She also brought me through the town centre to see the Christmas lights. However, this year they are something of a disappointment.

Back here, my faithful cleaner helped me in. I sat on the chair in the kitchen for a while and then made my tea, although really I did nothing more than warm up the half-pizza left over from yesterday, followed by soya dessert with a couple of biscuits. I’m really disappointed about my ginger cake, so I’ll have to make another cake on Wednesday. Anyone any ideas for the ingredients?

Right now, though, I’m off to bed. I’m exhausted and I’ve already almost fallen asleep about half a dozen times since I’ve been sitting here. I’ve no idea why I’m so tired these days. There’s definitely something not right with how I’m feeling.

But seeing as we have been talking about my health issues and not baking until Wednesday … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of one occasion when Nerina was sitting in the kitchen bot doing very much when I came home from a coach-driving job.
"Is tea ready?" I asked.
"No, it isn’t" she replied.
"What’s up?" I asked.
"The kitchen is closed, due to illness and fatigue" she replied
"How do you mean? "
"Just that I’m sick and tired of cooking."

0

Monday 1st December 2025 – THERE’S A HOWLING …

… gale blowing outside the building right now. So much so that in fact, coming home from dialysis this evening, I had to come into the building through the back door. It would have been impossible for me to have walked the twenty yards from the street down to the front door.

It’s been blowing up over the last twenty-four hours actually. The wind started to freshen yesterday late evening when I was typing up my notes before I went to bed.

Mind you, it was quite late when I finally retired, having not eaten until late and, as usual these days, being wracked with indiscipline and all of that as I tried to finish off everything that needed finishing. It was actually close to midnight, and I wouldn’t like to speculate which side of midnight it was.

Once in bed though, I remember nothing at all until the alarm went off at 06:29. It was such a deep sleep that I regretted not having gone to bed earlier.

Eventually, I managed to find the energy to leave the bed and stagger off into the bathroom for a good wash, and a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant at dialysis.

In the kitchen, I made myself a drink of hot lemon, ginger and honey to wash down my medication, and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. It was Crewe Carnival, so everyone was lining the streets to watch the parade. I went to take up a position in Mill Street. I could see the carnival on Nantwich Road but it didn’t turn in to Mill Street – it turned into Edleston Road instead. I had to run through one of the side streets onto a balcony overlooking Edleston Road where I could see things passing below. I noticed one or two people, and someone had a big coiled snake that he was carrying – a toy one. I suddenly recognised it as “Hissing Sid”, a snake that I used to keep as a mascot. I shouted down, and the fellow came up and handed it to me. I said something along the lines of “he’s grown somewhat since I last had him”. He replied “yes, we’ve let a piece of hosepipe into the middle”. So possession passed and everyone wandered away. I climbed back into my car, and they were talking on the two-way radio about a back road that I knew over the hills, saying how difficult it was for an ordinary car to pass. I said “I’ve been over those hills three times today already”. They asked me in what car, so I replied “The Ranger”. They answered “that’s a different matter. Anyway, we’ll want you in a few minutes for a job”. So I drove down to the start of these hills ready to drive over and come out on the other side on Nantwich Road near Wells Green, but the wooden gates were locked so I had to find the key for it. As I was looking for the key, a car came round the corner, an old Citroën DS estate with an old woman driving it. She turned into the entry, scraped all the way down my car, didn’t stop, drove through, broke the gates and carried on. I decided to go on foot so I walked over to pick up my crutches, and realised that I was walking without my crutches. I thought “it’s a long way over these hills in the sandy road. If my legs give out again, I won’t make it at all”. I went back to the car, wondering just when they were going to call me up to tell me about this job for which I’m needed.

Now, this is a road over which we have travelled on many, many occasions during the night but surprisingly, only the first or second time that we’ve approached it from this direction. It’s almost always been from the other end.

And I did have a “Hissing Sid” too. He was one of those snake-type draught excluders that everyone was making to keep the draughts from coming under the door, but mine was brown, not green. Apart from that, I’ve no idea if Crewe Carnival is still going, and when it did, it had never appeared at the south side of the town. The Citroën is a mystery too.

Someone came to see me to tell me that there was some work going, abroad. It meant that we had to take a ‘plane to fly there. The ‘plane was leaving at 15:15. I had a look, and that gave me two hours to pack and to go to Manchester. I thought that this was a strange timetable, so I went home and began to pack, but I couldn’t think of what to take. I needed some casual clothes, some work clothes, some entertainment etc. By the time that I’d finished, I had the size of a suitcase that everyone would take for a month, especially with a camera in it. It wasn’t the kind of thing that you’d take for a couple of days’ work at all. I went outside but the taxi had already gone with some other people so a group of us began to run. I found that running was comparatively easy and I actually ended up in the lead in this, although after a while, someone began to close the gap. There was one section with a long, steep uphill and this is where the person began to close the gap, but I began occasionally to sprint up this hill to keep the distance. Everyone was saying that I’d soon blow up at this rate, but I reckoned that if I made it to the brow of this hill, I could push on really well. It turned out that the brow of the hill was the railway bridge in Edleston Road. Just over the top by the traffic lights was a pub on the corner. As I reached the pub, a group of policemen came out with someone so we all had to stop and wait while the police sorted out this arrest or whatever it was. Then, I forgot where I was going. I sued to work in a building across the road from there as if I was going back to work there. I suddenly realised that I had a good way to go yet to the airport, so I had to turn round, go back to the road and carry on running. In the meantime, I saw some members of my family who were also running along this road. They knew that I was well ahead so they asked me what had happened. I explained about this incident at the pub. One of the people there was my niece’s second daughter. She was so pleased to see me. She said something like “Eric, wherever I am going to go to live in the near future, I want it to be somewhere near you”. I replied that there were a lot of other places in the World. She replied “yes, but not near you though”.

This is typical me, though. Always packs ten times more than he really needs. Running was another thing, and so is forgetting where I’m supposed to be going. As for my family, here we go again. Who on Earth in their right mind would want to live near me?

Finally, I had to go to a medical examination and it’s said that there were one hundred and forty pieces among the tour and some were trying to start before the others had finished. I told my daughter how dissatisfied I was and she told me that she’d alleviate these symptoms or cancel them altogether for either the awful growth and one of the holiday weekends later in the year. Back home, I was trying to pack for this trip. It was only for a couple of days but I couldn’t think of what to leave behind. Things like the computer and the camera made my briefcase weigh a ton. Then we had that race up the hill again in Dream Two and we carried on back from there.

This is another one of my dreams that means absolutely nothing at all to me. I have no recollection of any of this. As for my daughter, this is obviously a Freudian slip. Someone is trying to tell me something.

Isabelle the Nurse brought the rain in with her this morning. She was her usual cheery self, not that it’s much of a surprise seeing as she’s off on her week’s break later today. She dealt with my legs and then she bounced off outside again. I made breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

There was nothing worthy of report today, though. No interesting fortresses to track down.or anything like that.

Back in my office, I checked over this week’s radio programme to make sure that it was goos enough to broadcast and then sent it off. Next task was to check my Welsh homework, export the text into *.pdf format and then senf that off too for marking.

The rest of the time was spent revising my Welsh ready for tomorrow.

My cleaner came along to apply my anaesthetic and then I had to wait for the taxi. We had a couple of other people to fetch too. They lived at the Old People’s Home at Sartilly. It’s on the way, but we were still late arriving so I was late being plugged in. There’s a big shortage of staff right now so they had drafted a male nurse in from the AUB at St Malo. He was, well, not what I was accustomed to.

The chef de service came to see me to ask how it went at the Centre de Ré-education so I told him. He’s still going on about this chemotherapy so I told him AGAIN what they have told me before.

"We shall see" and I reckon that we will, too.

Emilie the Cute Consultant didn’t come to see me today so I was rather disappointed. It took me a good while to get over it and it was 18:40 when I finally left the hospital, with one of the passengers who had come down with me.

After we had dropped her off in Sartilly, we came back here only to be buffeted about by the wind so, as I said earlier, I had to come in via the back door.

My faithful cleaner helped me to a chair in the kitchen where I sat, completely exhausted for a while. And then I warmed up and ate the remaining half of yesterday’s pizza.

Now I’m off to bed, thoroughly exhausted once more. I need to prepare for my Welsh tomorrow so I’ll do that in the morning. I can’t keep going any more.

But before we go, seeing as we have been talking about Hissing Sid and daughters … "well, one of us has" – ed … one day, one of his daughters slithered over to him
"Are we poisonous snakes, dad?" she asked.
"No dear, actually we aren’t" he replied
"Thank heavens for that" she replied. "I’ve just bitten my tongue."

0

Thursday 7th August 2025 – I AM IN …

… total agony after the dialysis session today.

For a change, the taxi was early today. And not just five minutes either but a good half an hour early. But then came the bad news. There were over three litres of water to extract today (which explains why I have been so tired) so they made me stay for four hours. And in the bed where the mattress has collapsed right where I put my left hip so all through the session, I was in complete and utter pain.

It had all the air of being a good day too, unfortunately.

Last night, I was late yet again, despite not hanging around all that much. I think that it was down to the fact that tea took so long to make that I didn’t begin to write my notes until much later that usual. I could well have done without that.

Once in bed, I went to sleep quite quickly although I do have some vague memory of being awake at about 01:30. However, I went back to sleep again and there I stayed until about 06:05.

As usual, it took a few minutes for me to gather myself together before I fell out of bed, and then I staggered off into the bathroom, and then the kitchen for my morning medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. This was another one of these dreams where I was working in the office but I didn’t really care. I was letting all the work build up but I didn’t really care because I was planning on retiring, just walking away and leaving it all. I’d said that a couple of weeks ago but it was now three weeks later, everything was still there and I was still there and I hadn’t said that I was going. We were discussing some particular file that needed work doing on it. I had been helping a colleague out with a few things while he was away but when he came back there was still this particular file that needed attention. I said “never mind, bring it to me. Let me have a look at it and I’ll deal with it. I’m sure that I can find the time”. In the meantime, he was somewhere around and there was some kind of programme about houses. It showed this weird kind of semi-detached pair of bungalows. It turned out that it was fabricated out of an old London single-decker bus from 100 or so years ago. I seem to remember that in Shavington there was another bungalow that was exactly the same. It said that in this particular first one if you were to look closely you could see the shape of the bus but I had a really good look and I couldn’t see the shape of the bus at all in it.

We’ve had quite a few of these dreams in the past where I’ve abandoned all idea of working as I prepare for my retirement and then never actually retiring. There has to be something significant in this, I suppose. But the dream about bungalows being basically converted buses is nothing new, although it’s usually old abandoned railway carriages that are the most popular. There are some good examples HERE but as far as I know, there were none in Shavington.

Last night, there was a plan by Stoke City to have a big festival of football because they had reached an important milestone in their age so they began to organise this festival. They asked members of Crewe Alexandra if they could help. It turned out that when someone from Crewe was giving the matter some thought, it turned out that it was 100 years since the formation of Crewe’s first team. So instead, they began to organise a festival of their own and that it would be bigger and better and more important than the one that was being organised by Stoke City.

If they want to celebrate the 100 years of Crewe Alexandra’s first team, they are rather late. The club was founded in 1877 and played its first competitive match in December of that year.

There was another dream that took place in the hilly country where it had rained almost non-stop for several weeks. All of the ground above a village had become waterlogged and slowly a small depression had appeared in the hillside. This was immediately cordoned off and a guard was mounted on it. Slowly, the depression increased in size. Eventually the news filtered out that it was a burial chamber from when the village had first become occupied in the 1830s and people were warned to keep well away. But as the rain continued and the depression increased in size, slowly the earth was washed away and people began to see the old coffins. I was keeping well away because I didn’t want to see a decaying corpse or a skeleton.

Part of this dream seems to relate to Penrhiwceiber maybe, when we were talking about the desertion of the Welsh countryside as people flocked to the mines and the heavy industry. But the rest – the coffins, skeletons and all of that – could easily have its parallel from when we were in Greenland and climbed up to a cave near Uummannaq where a few years earlier, several mummified Inuit bodies had been found. When we were in the interior of the country later, scrambling over the tundra we came across a hitherto-undiscovered stone chamber burial with the skeleton still present, visible through a small gap in the stones. Of course, it’s very bad form to disrespect the Inuit dead in this way, but at first we had no idea what it was. We thought that it might have been a food cache or a collapsed fox trap.

Isabelle was late again this morning. The town was heaving with people, with it being the annual brocante. Some of the streets were closed off to vehicles and with the mayor’s wonderful new road system, the diversion took the cars miles out of their way.

After she left, I could make breakfast and read some more of Hilaire Belloc’s THE OLD ROAD.

It hasn’t taken me long to start nit-picking, that’s for sure. He tells us that "the Romans invented frontiers", which must have come as a dreadful surprise to the Chinese who started 400 years previously to build what eventually became the Great Wall of China, and also to the Neolithic and Iron Age settlers of Britain whose border dykes and earthworks we discussed at length several months ago.

He also tells us that "the south always conquered the north,", another comment that must have come as a surprise to King Penda of Mercia and Kind Aethelhere of the East Anglians, who were soundly beaten by Oswu of Northumbria, and Penda lost half of his kingdom.

One interesting comment that he makes concerns the Normandy coast between the Cotentin and the Seine estuary. He notes that it "gave an opportunity for the early ships to creep under the protection of a windward shore.". That was something that was used to full advantage in June 1944.

Back in here, I carried on with the radio programme that I had started yesterday, spending probably more time looking for the notes that I’d written that doing anything else. I was so carried away that I forgot to note the time and ended up being quite late.

My cleaner was quite late too so we had something of a rush, but when I was ready, she helped me downstairs to the new apartment. There were some things that I wanted to do. However, as I said earlier, the taxi came far too early and I hadn’t done a thing.

The taxi had to drop off another passenger – a young lady – somewhere out in the wild at the back of Sartilly and the driver spent more time chatting her up than he did concentrating on the road, and it was a most unpleasant drive. Apart from that, he was all accelerator and brake which is not the way to drive a diesel car.

However, at least with these new Social Security regulations about shared travel, I’m seeing parts of Normandy that I never knew existed.

At Avranches, we were way too early so I had to hang around. Then I was weighed and found to be considerably over my dry weight and the machine’s capacity so I had to stay for four hours. And then they put me in the bed with the collapsed mattress so I was in total agony throughout the whole four-hour session.

First though, I crashed out. For some reason (probably because of the water retention issue) I was exhausted and couldn’t keep awake. The pain soon brought me round, though, and in the end it became so bad that I was obliged to stop work as I couldn’t concentrate.

Eventually I was let loose and the boss of the drivers brought me home.

Once more, it was a very difficult climb back up here, and I’m not sure whether I can cope with the five that remain before I move downstairs.

Tea was a vegan burger with pasta and tomato sauce, simple but delicious, and now I’m off to bed for a good sleep ready to crack on with work tomorrow if I can and there aren’t too many interruptions.

But seeing as we have been talking about it raining non-stop, in that village in the Welsh mountains … "well, one of us has" – ed … the rain increased and the floods began. Everyone evacuated except the vicar. When someone in a boat urged him to climb in, he replied "oh no! The Good Lord will provide."
A couple of hours later the church is flooded and he’s standing on the roof, when another boat came past. The occupants urged him to climb in but he replied "oh no! The Good Lord will provide."
A couple more hours later and he’s standing on the top of the steeple as the floods lap around his feet. Another boat came by and the occupants urged him to climb in but he replied "oh no! The Good Lord will provide."
However, ten minutes later he’s swept away.
In the queue at the Pearly Gates he met St Peter, to whom he expresses his dismay. "I don’t understand it" he said. "I put my faith in the Lord that he would save me, and he let me down."
"What do you mean ‘let you down’?" roared St Peter. "He did send three boats to rescue you."

0

Saturday 11th January 2025 – WHAT A CALAMITY …

… this whole day has been. Everything that could possibly go wrong has gone wrong today, but these days it’s becoming par for the course. I’m beginning to think that I must have kicked a black cat or walked under a ladder somewhere on my travels, and it all seems to be coming home to roost.

Even going to bed last night. It was well after midnight and I was still letting it all hang out before I staggered off into my stinking pit. But at least I was asleep quite quickly, and there I stayed, snug as a bug in a rug, until 07:00.

When the alarm went off, it took me quite a good few minutes to gather my wits which is a surprise seeing how few I actually have left these days, but even so I managed to beat the second alarm to my feet and headed off to the bathroom

Clothes-washing this morning. My night attire and undies went into the sink after I’d finished washing myself, and the clothes had a good wash through. And there they went, onto the octopus that hangs from the shower rail.

In the kitchen I had my medication, remembering not to take the anti-potassium stuff, and then I tidied up all of the shopping bags that were lying around all over the place. The place has to look tidy at least occasionally, even if I can’t manage that all the time.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Once more back on Middle Earth with a bunch of men and women and in this theme I dreamed that women were people and apologists being shown around. One question that came up was about some visitor to here from a while ago who was sitting on top of a plank that was on top of a paint tin that was stuck on the top of some kind of column. He was doing this in the 13th Century. They were pointing out to him that he had people listening on the news and watching on the television watching what he was doing and he had to hold his foot in his mouth in a certain position when the cameras were filming him so that it would provide an illusion with the camera. They asked him why he was there and whether he followed TNS. He replied “no, it was the other European teams that interested him like Y Fflint and Connah’s Quay” where he could follow them and experience the real atmosphere. But even in the other clubs the opportunity to speak Welsh was presented to him by having to carry out the PA reports in Welsh. The aim of this plank on this pot of paint was so that he could balance it in the one direction so that it wouldn’t actually fall off the plank. He could sit there and watch it or rugby if he so desired, sitting on his plank and have been sat there, really … indecipherable … that was a free seat or something. He was sitting on a big expensive paid type of free seat that didn’t give the right results.

Whatever that was all about, I really have no idea. None of it makes sense, especially the bit about Y Fflint qualifying for Europe. But quite honestly, this was one of the strangest dreams that I have ever had, and I’ve had a few of those.

The nurse was early today and he had a few things to say for himself. But he didn’t stay long and I could press on and make my breakfast

Armed with my porridge, toast, purée and coffee, I had another read of MY BOOK. Our hero is certainly letting his polemic run away with him now and is making no effort whatever to hide his contempt of his contemporaries.

He’s also tying himself up in knots with the different strands of the Celtic language.

There are two principal strands, the “P” strand which is Welsh, Cornish, Breton and maybe Galician; and the “Q” strand, which is the Irish, the Manx and the Gael. There are certainly similarities between the two, for example, there are surnames. In Wales, “son of” is “Mab” (mutated to “Map”) and in Scotland it’s Maq (modernised into “Mac”) which is why in Wales a surname might be “Map Hywell” which over time has become “Powell”, or “Map Reece” – now “Preece” whereas in Scotland it’s “MacAdam” or “MacArthur”.

The Welsh name for the British Isles is “Prydain” (from where “Britain” comes) and our hero is trying to tie the name in with the name “Pict” for the Pictish inhabitants of Northern Scotland, with the argument that they were “Q Strand Celts’ who were formerly the settlers of the whole island before the “P Strand Celts” arrived. But what I don’t understand is that if they were the “Q strand Celts”, why do they have a name that begins with a P?

It’s perfectly true that some of the very early Mediterraneans like Pytheas reported their name, but surely he would have found it out by speaking to them and asking them, especially if the name of the islands had been taken from their tribal or generic name and later mutated into Britannia.

Sometimes I find it very difficult and confusing to follow our author’s arguments.

Back in here I carried on with my radio programme editing and by the time that I’d finished I had something that might actually pass muster. And if it works, it really will be impressive.

It wasn’t that I actually finished but that my cleaner came along and surprised me again. She soon had my patches on me and after a little chat she left me to await the taxi.

And wait. And wait.

Eventually there was a ‘phone call. It was my driver. "I’m sorry I’m late, Mr Hall. I’m in Avranches. I’ll be another half-hour".

So where does that leave me with my anaesthetic?

After about 25 minutes another driver turned up. He’d come from St Hilaire du Harcoet to drop someone off at St Pair so they sent him here to pick me up on his return journey. At least that’s the one big advantage of being a client of one of Normandy’s biggest taxi companies. They have drivers everywhere.

We had to pick up our other passenger too, and then we had a really rapid drive down to Avranches.

Horribly late at Avranches, everyone else was already plugged in so I was seen straight away. The first pin went in totally and absolutely painlessly. I didn’t feel a thing. As for the second, that really hurt. However, it wasn’t working so they had to take it out and insert it again.

And if, dear reader, you ever want to know what pain is all about, I recommend that you go to your local Dialysis Clinic and ask them to try that out on you.

So swathed in ice to deaden the arm and the pain, I could relax.

There was football on the internet and with the lightning-fast connection there, I could watch the game in comfort. Y Bala v Caernarfon, with the winner taking a gigantic leap towards the European Qualification playoffs.

This was actually one of the best games that I have ever seen. Y Bala were the much more technical team but the Cofis are one of the fastest teams in Europe and while their style is more “agricultural” they can tear a more static team to shreds.

And this was precisely how the game went. It was one of non-stop action and excitement and the Cofis caught out Y Bala several tims with their lightning pace. And they made two of those attacks count. You can see the highlights of the game HERE

So now, Y Bala must win their final match this half season against Connah’s Quay (which the Quay must do too) on Tuesday night, and hope that Caernarfon lose at home to Y Fflint.

Eventually I was unplugged and, hours later than usual, the taxi was already waiting for me. It was one of my favourite drivers too and we almost always (except last weekend) have a good chat.

We were halfway home, on the by-pass around Sartilly, when her data head pinged. “Pick up Mr … for Granville”.

That’s the guy who is dialysed with me and he must be ready. This is going to be a very long night for the driver so "it’s OK. Let’s do a U-turn at the next roundabout" I suggested. No sense leaving him waiting and making the driver’s day any longer than it has to be.

As a result, it was after my usual tea-time when I arrived back. And as a result, everything is running really late, yet again.

There’s stuff to dictate of course, and then I’ll go to bed. But I’m never going to have this early night that I need so badly.

But this thing about asking other people to tell you what is someone’s name can lead to all kinds of confusion.
Once upon a time I had to write down a woman’s particulars.
When I finished she asked me "do you want my husband’s name too?"
"That’s right" I replied. "I need to have his name. What’s he called?"
"Well" she replied "There are a lot of names that I call him. But if I told you what they were, I bet that you wouldn’t write them down on your form."

0

Monday 21st October 2024 – I’M STILL ACHING …

… just about everywhere that it’s possible to ache, and probably a few places where it isn’t possible either.

Mind you, I have to admit that I’m not aching quite as much as I was when I awoke this morning. I thought that a good night’s sleep might have helped everything ease off seeing as I was lying comfortably in bed, but it wasn’t to be.

A longer sleep might have been nice but once again, I missed by some considerable distance my target of being in bed by 23:00. It’s still taking longer than I would like to finish off what needs to be done, and there’s the added problem with the aches and pains that make me reluctant to move from my comfortable chair.

But once in bed I was soon asleep and I can’t recall any awakening until about 06:15. And even then, I turned over and went straight back to sleep again. When the alarm went off I was in a pub in London watching a pub band play. There were Keith Ginnell and his wife on keyboards. His wife had been a famous model in the past, Vicky somebody I think. On drums was Keef Hartley and the singer was Magic Michael. He was too tall for the stage and had to bend his head to fit under the ceiling while he was singing. he was singing that song “Giddy up, Bobby” and I was thinking how easy that was to play when I thought about it. Then I went to the bathroom where I overheard some kind of dispute going on between Keef Hartley and Keith Ginnell. I thought that it was a shame that they were arguing like that because they were a really good group.

What I didn’t dictate was that I was staying at that pub but had to clear out my room ready to leave. And in the WC I’d bolted the door behind me but nevertheless someone still came in and walked past me, and I wondered how they had managed to do that.

Now you are of course going to ask me who Keith Ginnell is and what the song “Giddy Up Bobby” is all about. And the answer to both questions is that I don’t have any idea at all. I know who Magic Michael is of course, and who doesn’t? He was one of the hangers-on with Hawkwind back in the early 70s and later on had a few singles out of his own, most of which sunk without trace. Keef Hartley was of course one of John Mayall’s drummers and later on had a group of his own, but Keith Ginnell and “Giddy Up Bobby” escape me completely.

What’s so surprising is that I could actually remember them.

While we’re on the subject of remembering … "well, one of us is" – ed … I didn’t forget someone’s birthday yesterday. Not at all. It goes without saying that I won’t ever forget it

So I staggered to my feet in a cloud of agony and slowly inched my way into the bathroom where I had a good scrub up and even a shave to make myself look pretty, even though it will take more than a scrub-up and a shave to make me look pretty.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And there was some stuff on there too. There had been a big riot somewhere. The soldiers were all hemmed in at some kind of barracks and had been completely overwhelmed. They decided that what they would so as a desperate kind of last stand for all those who were fit enough was to make some kind of fighting arrowhead and charge out of the building on their horses hoping to break through the enemy lines. So they charged out in this arrowhead and almost broke through but were held somewhere down at the bottom of Oak Street and Mill Street in Crewe. The fight raged round there for an hour or two when suddenly the enemy surrendered and gave up the fight. I’d been watching the events unfold and after the events went peacefully some kind of big American convertible, a huge car with a woman driver pulled up and said “taxi for Hall”. I climbed in and it took me off down Wistaston Road/Victoria Avenue. I was chatting to the woman – she’d been in London earlier in the day in the fog, just socialising. I told her that I’d been to Scotland and it really was foggy there. She was telling me how she did taxiing part-time, how she enjoyed it. She was working for Orange Cabs but she didn’t have a card with her number on for me so we carried on chatting like that and eventually she brought me home

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we were AT THE SITE OF THE BATTLE OF LITTLE BIG HORN with LITTLE BIG ANTLERS a few years ago and the question that was going through my mind then was “why did Custer and his men dismount?”

On foot they would have no chance of escaping the native Americans, as events were to prove. Knowing that there was a detachment of soldiers with the baggage train in the vicinity, if they had formed a “fighting head” – a triangular-shaped formation, they stood a very good chance of piercing a surrounding line of enemy and the weight of their charge would have pushed at least some of them through the encirclement and on to safety at the far end of the ridge

But as for riots going on in Crewe, it’s extremely unlikely. The people there have long-since lost any free will and initiative.

The nurse came early and caught me off-guard this morning. He refrained from upsetting me, which was good, and now he’s gone off duty for a week which suits me fine. It gives me a chance to gather up my sang-froid ready for the next bout.

Still, the earlier he comes, the earlier he goes and I could crack on with breakfast.

Today, the Woolhope Naturalists are having a lecture on Space and Interplanetary rotation, sitting at a picnic around a waterfall. Some of their propositions have long-since been contradicted by later discoveries but it’s interesting all the same to hear the state of knowledge in 1867.

What’s also interesting is that the 48 members present had to go into the back of beyond to visit this waterfall, and not only did the railway company agree to stop the train at an isolated spot, it built a railway platform and had three gangers ready to help the party alight.

Just imagine that today! It would take them ten years to build the platform, even if they were so disposed to do so, and there would have to be all kinds of Health and Safety surveys and inspections first.

And this “Health and Safety Culture” – do you know what’s brought it on? It happened the day that Solicitors were allowed to advertise.

Back in the old days if you stumbled on a pavement and hurt your toe, you shrugged your shoulders and moved on. But once we began to see the "had an accident? It might not be your fault. Contact us for a free interview" advertisements, everything changed overnight.

The Naturalists were also visiting the famous church of Capel-y-ffin, a site that became notorious later on with the arrival of “Father Ignatius” and then the infamous Eric Gill, whose famous sculptures and type design did little to counter the later unsavoury allegations about his private life that were to occur once his biography was published after his death.

Having finished all that I came in here and finished off as far as I could (because some of it requires access to a television) and then carried on selecting music for the next radio programme.

My cleaner turned up to help me fit my anaesthetic patches and while she was here I gave her my orders for the supermarket tomorrow. And the taxi for the Dialysis Clinic was driven by a young guy and we had a very lively chat all the way down to Avranches.

At the clinic they didn’t hang about to plug me in. The first one hurt like hell but the second needle, I didn’t feel it at all.

The nurses asked if I had any pain anywhere so I mentioned the issues that I’m having. They gave me a Covid test and that was that. No doctor came anywhere near me to make further enquiries so I don’t see the point in asking.

As well as the doctor in charge, Emilie the Cute Consultant was there too and although she went to see a few other patients, she kept well away from me. Julie the Cook did likewise, so she must be a regular reader of this rubbish too.

I read my Welsh and spent some time reading, and I also had a little doze. While I was away with the fairies, being careful to avoid drawing the attention of the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine to my activities, I was on a train in Tunisia. A Tunisian woman in local dress came to sit next to me. I suddenly realised that I hadn’t validated my ticket so I stood up and went to look for a machine. There was none in my carriage and the next one was compartmentalised with the curtains drawn and what looked like discreet security guards. I turned to a guy in the vestibule of my carriage to ask him. He told me that you don’t validate it – the ticket inspector does as he or she passes – so I went to resume my seat. However it looked nothing like it did when I left and the Tunisian lady wasn’t there

There was a similar issue about TICKETS ON TRAINS when I was in Tunisia a few years ago, and I can well-believe the presence of Security Guards and curtained compartments on certain trains.

They unplugged me and threw me out into the torrential rain where my taxi was waiting, and we had to wait for the guy who lives in Sartilly. And he had already reserved the front seat

My driver was friendly enough but didn’t say too much and as we stopped outside the building, the rain stopped, the sun shone and we had a rainbow.

My cleaner watched me upstairs, and it was a retrograde number of steps today, no surprise with me feeling not too well. And I was glad to sit down and relax for an hour.

Tea was a lovely stuffed pepper with pasta followed by apple cake and soya cream and now I’m ready for bed.

But the subject of having pains everywhere reminds me of the guy who went to the doctor.
"Every time and everywhere I touch myself" he said "I’m in absolute agony."
And he proceeded to prod himself in his leg, his arm, his torso, his neck, his posterior, everywhere. And each time he winced in pain.
The doctor looked at him for a moment and then took him by surprise, prodding him in his ribs
"Did that hurt?" asked the doctor
"Well, actually doctor" said the man "no it didn’t. What does it mean? Am I dying? Do I have a serious problem?"
"Not at all" said the doctor. "All it means is that you have broken your finger."

0

Thursday 26th September 2024 – SO THAT’S ANOTHER …

… visit to the Dialysis Clinic done and dusted and out of the way.

Mind you, it’s no use counting them because they’ll go on for as long as I do, and if I have to keep on climbing up these blasted stairs that won’t be much longer. Roll on the end of May next year when, if all goes according to plan, I can finally plan to move downstairs.

After the events of the other night, I was actually in bed at something very much like 23:00 which was really nice for a change. It’s certainly better than 03:20, that’s for sure.

Even better, I fell asleep straight away, and there I stayed, curled up like a bug in a rug, until all of 04:20 when I had a rather dramatic awakening. However, I’ve no idea what it was that rocked me awake.

Eventually I could go back to sleep and there I stayed until all of 07:00 when I awoke. At that moment I was actually away with the fairies somewhere but I’ve no idea where because the moment my eyes opened, it all evaporated.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and then came in here to listen to the dictaphone. I was going somewhere with this girl. She and I were not actually a couple but it was very clear to everyone that there was something between us. When we came to a particular place one of the guys insisted on trying to chat her up which was most inappropriate. When we returned to the car he sat in the back where the two of us were sitting so I sat in the middle of the back seat with the girl on the other side. He had a good moan about that but I thought that he was behaving completely inappropriately. When we reached the airport we all ended up having to sit on separate seats. She was near the back, he was in the middle and I was at the front. He came and had a few words with me so I had a few words with him. He went off and sulked . The girl went and sat next to him to try to console him. I thought that that was rather inappropriate too. Later on we were somewhere in the van. I was trying to give the girl directions. She said “don’t worry, I’ll look at it on the map”. She was looking on the map and giving me directions. We were supposed to be in the mountains but this wasn’t very mountainous to me. I tried to look at the map while she was holding it but I couldn’t see exactly where we were so we were having a discussion about this. Suddenly we came into a village and I recognised it as Pipe Gate (in actual fact it was Madeley). I thought that there’s nothing for it now except to head home. We entered the motorway and began to drive North. I was wondering whether I should stop the car for five minutes with the girl, or ask her f she wanted to go straight home or to stop somewhere or something like that, but quite honestly I wasn’t really in the mood – this incident with that guy had spoiled the whole evening

So here we go again, people putting the spanner in the works, me snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, all of the usual clichés. But this “sitting in separate seats on an aeroplane” does remind me of a real-life event. And never mind strangers trying to chat up my bird, I had a friend who used to do that too. He thought that no-one else should have a girlfriend if he didn’t have one so he thought that he should have yours, and even if he did have one, that still didn’t stop him.

The nurse came round a little later and sorted me out. Her usual bouncy, happy self. They are quite a pair, she and her oppo. She brings joy and smiles wherever she goes, and he brings it whenever he goes. She had a lot to say for herself but nothing of any great importance.

After she left I made my breakfast and then read MY BOOK. while I ate it.

We started off this morning still at Verulamium, reading the account of the discussion that the author Thomas Wright had with the person who excavated the amphitheatre there.

There’s tons of interesting anecdotes about that which never seems to have made it into the official report and it’s fascinating to have all of this unfold before you.

And the more I read of him, the more I’m admiring his work. He has learned that a society has bought some land in old Verulamium and plans to demolish what’s left of the Roman remains in order to build houses there. Our author’s comment is –
"I can only offer up a prayer that some unforeseen event may interfere with their ruthless and unpatriotic designs"
As you might expect, I’m liking this author more and more. For a comment like that to be committed to writing in the early Victorian era, that would have actually been quite startling.

After we left there we went to Ramsgate, my mother’s old stamping ground in the south-east of England.

In the early 1840s one of the many railway companies down there was building a line from Canterbury to Ramsgate and digging out a cutting, came across an early Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Ozengell Grange.

An archaeological team (such as they were then) was called in to investigate and our hero, hearing of the events, went along to spectate. We’re just beginning to reach the exciting bit.

A little later, I went to carry out some modern research onto what was going on down there. And even today they are still coming across bodies buried in parts of the cemetery that they didn’t uncover.

And regrettably, one of the modern reports refers to the excavations at which our friend was present, and calls it “a very poor excavation”, which it probably was, bearing in mind the fact that our team from 1847 had no radar, no resistance meters and none of the modern techniques that are available to archaeologists today.

Yet with the relentless commercial pressure in those days and no Government body to protect them, it’s a miracle that it was done at all.

Back in here I was tagging films again and lost all track of time until my cleaner burst in at 12:00 to put on my patches. We had a little chat and a laugh about last night and then after she left I packed my bag and waited.

The driver who came for me was a young girl who had quite a lot to say for herself, and it was quite interesting too. She even took me on a little sightseeing tour.

She was a traveller and had spent a lot of time on the roads around Europe. So I suppose being a VSL driver was … errr … right up her street … "groan" – ed …

After she dropped me off I weighed myself and found to my dismay that the weight that I’d lost the last time had come back on again.

So I installed myself on the bed, the girls plugged me in with just a little less pain this time, and they left me to it.

To pass the time I tagged some of the videos on the portable laptop and had a probe into the depths of one of the graphics programs that I use

When they kicked me out I weighed myself again and the weight had gone once more, so it must be water retention that’s doing this, so my kidneys aren’t improving.

A friendly but rather taciturn lady driver brought me home and my cleaner helped me upstairs and we made plans for the future.

After a little rest I made tea – an aubergine and kidney bean whatsit out of the freezer followed by spotted dick and the last of the coconut soya cream. That made a nice change. I like surfing through the special offers at LeClerc on-line because sometimes they have some nice stuff in there that makes a change.

So now I’m off to bed. It’s a day with no outings planned but I have bread to make first thing before I can organise myself as I’ve run out

But that dream that I had reminded me of a girlfriend I had once who insisted that she could read a map, even though she couldn’t.
Once we were driving somewhere and I was convinced that wed become hopelessly lost
"Where are we now?" I asked
"Just here" she said, stabbing her finger on the map. "Driving down this road here"
"On that blue road?" I asked
"That’s right" She said
"That blue line, dear" I said "just happens to be a canal."

0