Category Archives: France

5th April 2025 – WE HAD ANOTHER …

… much less painful session at the dialysis centre this afternoon. Even better news was that I only had to stay for three and a half hours. That will suit me just fine.

It was however quite tiring, mainly because it was after 01:00 when I finally crawled into bed last night, or this morning. It was another one of those nights where I couldn’t really concentrate on what I was doing.

Writing up my notes and backing up the computer seemed to take forever and I’ve no idea why, other than the fact that neither my heart nor my mind was in it

Quickly asleep again but it wasn’t for long though. It was another turbulent night with me still being away when I heard the water heater switch off at 06:20. I was thinking that I ought to raise myself from the dead and claim another early start but I must have gone back to sleep again because the combined forces of the new and the old alarm did more to awaken the dead than John Peel ever did. I had both alarms set for this morning to make sure that the new one actually worked.

When the alarm went off I was walking with someone through the streets of an industrial town. I’d planned to take her out for a long walk at some point but she wasn’t all that interested in going. Then we had to go to see a shop so we set off along this new footpath that they had created. I thought “this is the way that I was going to take her anyway”. We walked a little way, then there was an even newer bit that went down between the railway lines and up the hill on the far side so we walked down there. We came to an area where this path was not very distinct. I thought that we’d go to the left but it wasn’t so clearly marked. We thus carried straight on and found that there was a left turning. We turned left there, and one of the locals said “you could have gone the other way”. We walked on and came through some bushes where there was a beautiful view across a lake, a really stunning view, so we walked down a slope and came to some gates of a big house. There was a crowd of people outside it. We realised that this was the home of someone famous and there were always people here. We felt somewhat embarrassed about being seen joining the crowd of all these people waiting at this gate.

Wherever this area was, I have no idea. But I can see it quite clearly even now. As for whoever it was who was with me, I’ve no idea. That’s the real disappointment about things like this. All these young ladies accompanying me on my peripatetic wanderings and I can’t remember who it was, if ever I knew them in the first place.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, and then handwashed my socks, undies and nightwear. Then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. Some girl had come into our family circle for some reason or other. She was telling us all about her childhood. She had been on a school exchange visit to the same area where I had been in 1970. We were chatting about all kinds of different things and she remembered a lake and a beautiful view across it with a view down a valley past a few villages and a large parking area at the side of the road, all situated at a very sharp bend. I told her that I knew exactly where that was because it’s a road that I take regularly down to the south-west of France. I was sure that I went there too when I was on a school exchange programme, but of course she didn’t believe it and thought that I was pulling her leg. A few months later we all set out on holiday, our family, and we took this girl with us. I thought that it would be interesting to spring a little surprise on her. Instead of going down the A7 to the Mediterranean I went along some of the old roads, through Burgundy and the area where we’d been on this school exchange. I knew exactly how this was going to end. As we came down this road the signs were for a junction to the left going off in the general direction of the Rhône and Switzerland. The old road that we were on carried on round a sharp turn to the right to go round a reservoir. As we came over the brow of the hill and the reservoir was just below us, this girl suddenly let out an enormous exclamation “this is it!”. I replied “I know that it is, exactly where I thought that it was”. We turned to go round the bend and there was a big beaten-earth parking space on the left, so even though we were pushed for time, I drove onto the parking area. We all alighted and this girl went skipping off around, looking at all the things that she remembered, the changing huts, the swimmers and everything. She was absolutely delighted. She began to tell me some more stories about her childhood, one of which involved a diary. She’d written everything down in her diaries but she already had eleven diaries so the one after that, she wasn’t really all that interested in keeping and either her friends lost it or stood on it or something but she no longer had it. That was a shame because she would have loved to have compared notes today with things that she wrote about this lake back when she was a child and had come here before.

And I wish that I knew who she was too.

The site and situation of this lake or reservoir reminds me of the Barrage des Fades near to where Liz and Terry used to live in Sauret-Besserve, although the description was nothing like how the Barrage des Fades looks. But as for my trip on a school exchange, I do have to say that it was the best thing that ever happened to me. It was my first taste of foreign travel, my first taste of a different culture and it opened up, quite literally, a whole new World. I couldn’t wait to go again – and again, and again.

But seeing as we are talking about avoiding the A7 – the “Autoroute du Soleil” that goes down the east bank of the Rhône … "well, one of us is" – ed …, on many occasions I have driven down the old road on the west bank. It’s much more picturesque and less-crowded

The nurse was in a rush today. It’s weekend so he wants to be home as quickly as possible, I suspect. And that suits me fine I went and made breakfast and read some more of MY NEW BOOK

It’s not really a book on architecture – at least, not in the fashion that I was expecting. It’s the kind of book that you would expect to see written by a tour guide, listing the interesting features and describing them in terms that would baffle any layman.

What would be important for me is not the “what” as much as the “why”, why were these castles built in the way that they were and the principles that went into their construction. These designs were not haphazard but quite significant and well-planned and I for one would want to know more about the engineering that went into them

Back in here I carried on with my Woodstock notes. I’m now at not far short of nineteen minutes of notes and I’ve probably written about a third of what I need. There will be some hefty editing quite soon.

My cleaner turned up bang on midday to fit my patches. She’d only just applied them too when the doorbell rang. "He’s early!" we both said together.

However, it was the postie with the first instalment of my recent order. Some new clothes, some baking stuff and, most importantly, the protective pouch for my new ‘phone. I had just finished fitting it to my ‘phone when the taxi arrived.

We were two passengers down to Avranches but there was quite a crowd waiting when we arrived, so I was one of the last to be fitted.

The good news is that the debit at three and a half hours was just about 800ml/hour, just under the limit for a three and a half hour session and that cheered me up. The glycerine count wasn’t much good and they kept on force-feeding me with orange juice.

Apart from that, no-one bothered me at all and I could crack on with updating the travelling laptop, revising my Welsh and looking at a few cookery recipes to see if they gave me any ideas.

It was the boss who brought me home this evening and my faithful cleaner was waiting for me to watch me as I climbed the stairs up to my place. It was really nice being here at 18:30 and knowing that, with a bit of luck on arrival, I could have been back here fifteen minutes earlier.

Tea was baked potato, salad and one of those breaded quorn fillets that I like, followed by orange, ginger and coconut cake with soya dessert.

So for once, I’m early. I’ll do the notes, the stats and the backing up and then dictate my radio notes before going to bed. I really could do with a decent sleep.

But seeing as we have been talking about taxi drivers … "well, one of us has" – ed … the police were called to an accident in Avranches this afternoon after reports of multiple casualties. 59 people had died
They interviewed the driver at the scene and asked him what had happened.
"I was going down the hill in my cab and the brakes failed" he replied. "It was either hit two men or a wedding party, so I chose to hit the two men"
"But how come there are so many casualties?" asked the policeman
"Well, one of the men made a run for it but I got him in the end, just as he reached the wedding party."

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Friday 4th April 2025 – THIS BLASTED NEW …

… phone isn’t ‘arf complicated!

My previous telephone was made in 2016, according to the serial number, and it took a while to figure out but once I’d understood how it functioned, it was all quite straightforward. But even though I’ve had a smartphone for eight years (March 2017 in fact) and know much more about them than I ever did before, setting up my very first one was child’s play compared to this.

Yes, my faithful cleaner has been at it again, queueing up outside the ‘phone supplier’s at the end of lunchtime to pick up my new ‘phone, for which I am extremely grateful, but I bet that she isn’t after all of that.

Anyway, retournons à nos moutons as they say around here. It was actually a surprisingly early night last night – 23:25 when I crawled into bed. And it would have been earlier too had I motivated myself to finish the notes and to do the backing up without being distracted.

But anyway, once in bed I fell asleep quite quickly too. But not for long. As seems to be typical after a dialysis session, I had another turbulent, perspiration-laden night, even though it was fairly cold.

Eventually, I awoke, and stayed awake too without any possibility of going back to sleep. And after lying there for about fifteen minutes and thinking to myself “why don’t I show a leg and raise myself from the Dead” the alarm suddenly went off and Billy Cotton’s RAUCOUS RATTLE beat me to it. There I was – if only I had been two minutes earlier, I could have recorded another “early start” to make my statistics look good.

So I wandered off into the bathroom for a good scrub up, and then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. I was discussing things and life on board the space shuttle or the space station with a group of like-minded young people. We had a really good time. There was a string of characters known as an “Ouf”, there were massage sections and bed sections, dietician sections and you could even pick and change the modules that you were studying so that you would have a better choice of seeing more lectures. I chose the four principal ones of mine, Welsh, History, Geography and Geography and twenty-one other days afterwards to make up a full twenty-four-hour period that I could use for consulting just about everything including the Oracles at Delphi.

What was it that we were saying … "well, one of us was" – ed … the other week about my dreams making no sense at all? But going to see the High Priestess of the Oracle at Delphi, if she could tear herself away from chatting to Apollo, would be interesting, to say the least.

I was staying in a hotel with a group of people. We were on an excursion or tour or something. The last few days had been really beautiful weather so when I awoke at 05:00 I looked out of the window and saw the clear sky with no sun and decided that I would rise up. I prepared myself, washed myself etc and went downstairs and went outside. I went to my car to pick up a book. My car was parked right outside the door of the hotel. I found my book and thought “well, I’ll sit down here and read my book in the sunshine”. A few minutes later some of the girls who were on our trip came waling back but they had obviously been up early too. As they reached the front of the hotel they shouted up a few words to one of their colleagues who shouted something down again. They then said that they were going to go for a walk. They looked up at where my room was and shouted my name, saying “Eric, do you want to come for a walk with us?”. I replied “yes” from the car right behind them and the girls must have jumped about three feet in the air when I spoke from behind them. We all had a quick chat while I found my shoes ready to go for a walk.

The local town rang me up in the middle of the night as well. They wanted to write a feature on my recording studio at home and talk about some of the people who had been there. We made an arrangement etc so they came round. A few weeks later I was waiting at the ferry for something. The ferry that came in didn’t have half of the cars on board that it usually had. I went to have a look and it was full of these books, leaflets or magazines about the recording studio that I have in my home. I thought “this is completely exaggerated”. In the meantime I was at a folk concert. Several of the musicians were playing and one particular group had this awful habit that I detest of inviting their friends up on the stage to join them. They were telling a story about how three years ago someone local to them who they knew well had picked up the guitar, and now he’e going to play his first song to the public. He played an up-tempo rapid style arrangement of “Amazing Grace” which quite frankly was the worst song that I have ever heard from the stage in the past

Both those dreams have some kind of connection with my trip home from dialysis on Thursday. My taxi driver was formerly the manageress of a spa and massage parlour and we were having a good chat about that sort of thing on the way home. I told her about MY LEGENDARY STAY IN RENNES LES BAINS when I was hot on the trail of the Cathars and the legendary, if not mythical trail of the treasure of Rennes-le-Chateau. That was of course, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, when I nipped out for a Sunday afternoon and didn’t come home for three weeks.

But going back to the story of the taxi driver, we wer so engrossed in our chat that when her data head shouted out vous êtes maintenant près du zone de dépose – “you are close to the dropping-off point”, she really did jump into the air from her seat. I saw her.

However, if that version really is the worst song that I have ever heard being played on a stage, it must have been dreadful. I will never ever forget BILLY DRE AND THE POOR BOYS across whom I had the misfortune to stumble when I was photographing the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival in Canada. Billy Dre had the letter “I” missing from his name and “poor” definitely summed up the musical talents of his boys.

The nurse didn’t hang around long this morning, but it was long enough to ask me who was going to do the renovations of the apartment downstairs because, as you might expect "I have a friend"

After he left, I could have breakfast and read MY NEW BOOK. But not for long because as usual, I was distracted.

He made reference to the works of Matthew Paris, a thirteenth-century chronicler whose “Chronica Majora” is considered to be the first authentic attempt at creating a historical record of the British Isles. All the previous ones, such as Bede’s History, are full of myth, legend and polemic.

What also makes Paris’s work more interesting is that it’s littered with all kinds of personal notes, anecdotes and recollections that make if of much more value than a terse historical catalogue of events.

Our author, George Clark, makes reference to a translation in English, undertaken by an obscure country vicar, of the “Chronica Majora”, something for which I have been looking because my Latin isn’t up to all that much these days, and now that I know that a version exists, albeit made in 1852-84, I set off on its trail. And after much searching, I’ve tracked down all three volumes and they are now in the (long, long) list of books to read.

Back in here I set about a task that I had been meaning to do for ages, and that was to clean-out the back-up drive of redundant files from the radio shows. There’s no need to keep the music or the sound files except for the programmes not yet broadcast. All I need for the ones that have gone out are the completed programmes and the project files.

Next, I transferred over the project files and programmes for the ones that I have done since I last backed up, and blow me if I haven’t ended up with less space on the drive than I had before I started. I’m going to have to buy another 4TB disk for the back-up array and split the back-up into two.

We had the telephone to sort out next. I’d printed out the paperwork last night before going to bed, and my faithful cleaner sallied forth to the mobile ‘phone shop to wait until it opened.

And then she called me on the computer, (which would have been a lot easier for me to answer had I plugged the microphone in) with a pile of technical questions, and the shop assistant wanted to chat to me too. However, in the end all was good and she could leave with my telephone.

Back here, I set about the onerous task of configuring it.

First of all, there’s no SD card. It’s all on the internal memory (of 128GB) so it’s not just a case of swapping over the SD card. It’s possible to clone a new phone with the data and settings of an old one if the operating systems are the same. Not only that, but it involves downloading an app.

First of all then I had to fit the SIM card. And that wasn’t straightforward either but now it works. I downloaded the app onto the old ‘phone and then onto the new one, configured the Bluetooth settings and let it do its business.

Most of the stuff came over so I had to plug the new phone into the computer to copy the remainder over from there. And that wasn’t easy either because not only did I have to configure the ‘phone, I had to configure the computer too. Apparently USB linking isn’t supported on new ‘phones so I had to “persuade” it

Eventually, I could make the connection (and it took hours) and copy them over. But while I could see “my files” in the file manager, the directory that I had created, the ‘phone sounds wouldn’t identify them. Apparently personalising your ‘phone to that extent isn’t officially allowed either, but as you might expect, there’s an app available in the app store which I had to download onto the computer, check it for viruses and then load it onto the ‘phone and set it up.

It’s still not all set up as I would like, but the compass works, and so I identified Spica out of my window, now that “Skymap” is fully operational

Another issue has also arisen that came out of my cleaner’s visit to the telephone supplier. ADSL connection is ending in 2027 and everyone should be on fibre-optic by then (as an aside, I had fibre-optic in Belgium in 1997). However, where I live is in a historic building, part of the Patronym de France – the “French National Treasures” – and we aren’t allowed to deface the building. Knocking holes through the walls for cables is classed as defacing it.

And so I’ve been tracking down how to apply for fibre-optic and once I had a link I mailed everyone in the building of whom I could think, and we’ve all applied. We’ll let France Telecom and the Batiments de France fight it out between them. But we have all agreed, that if Batiments de France refuse to allow the work, we shall take out a procès against them. Internet and ‘phones these days are considered to be as essential as water, electricity and sewage connections.

In between all of that, I’ve been Woodstocking. My 6.5 minutes of notes has now grown to almost 17 minutes and I’m not even a quarter of the way through it yet. I have a feeling that I shall be having a lot of sleepless nights in the near future as I wade through this

Tea tonight was air-fried chips, vegan salad and vegan nuggets followed by orange, ginger and coconut cake and soya dessert, and then it was back in here to carry on and fight the good fight with the new ‘phone, write the notes and do the backing-up.

Now I’ve done all that I intend to do today, especially as it’s no tomorrow. So I’ll do the statistics, the backing-up and go to bed ready to carry on tomorrow.

But while we’re on the subject of new telephones … "well, one of us is" – ed … I can remember when Zero had her first mobile ‘phone back in the day
The ‘phone rang and she answered it, and was chatting away for about 20 minutes before she hung up
"20 minutes?" said her mother. "That was a short ‘phone call for you. Who was it?"
"I don’t know" replied Zero. "It was a wrong number."

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Thursday 3rd April 2025 – I HAD TO …

… stay for four hours today at dialysis. Apparently the weight to be extracted was such that it over-ran the three-and-a-half hour limit

But Héloise was very nice to me. She kept the machine wound up so that I would leave there ahead of my target weight so in principle we shall see how that unfolds on Saturday.

My evening last night unfolded just the same as any other just recently. It was late when I finished what I had to do, and later still by the time that I plucked up the courage to go to bed. And another disturbed night saw me tossing and turning in my bed without being fully asleep.

There were a couple of times when I was wide-awake and I remember thinking that I may as well rise up in a couple of minutes, but when the alarm went off I was actually fast asleep.

It took a minute or two to find the energy to leave the bed and then I staggered off into the bathroom where I had a good wash, scrub up and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

After the medication I came back in here to see if there was anything on the dictaphone, and to my great surprise, there was. In the middle of the night I was miles away but the moment that I went to reach for the dictaphone the whole lot evaporated – every single moment, every single memory, every single thought of it. I couldn’t remember a single thing about it.

As long as neither Castor nor Zero nor TOTGA nor Moonchild were appearing in it, it’s not really all that important, although it is rather sad that my favourite young ladies have been conspicuous by the absence of late.

This next time it was connected with health issues. I’d been diagnosed all kinds of various treatments, much of which I thought was superfluous so I hadn’t been very attentive to the prescription. I’d been taking medicines when I felt like it, even abandoning some. Every time I went to see the doctor they went on increasingly wildly about it. On one occasion I went into a laboratory to do something and there was actually one of my doctors there. She gave me a really long lecture and a dressing-down about everything, how it had all been done for my own good etc. All that succeeded in doing was to annoy me. I spoke to a friend about it afterwards and told him what I thought, that I was still unconvinced by these medication arguments. However the dream drifted on like that with me being stubborn and the medical service being more and more insistent. It went o for hours but I can’t remember the rest of it. However, there was quite a lot of treatment that they were giving me that didn’t seem to make any sense at all. I just didn’t see the point in going ahead and taking it.

And that’s a contentious issue around here, right enough. The medical people have different aims than me, and that’s the root of it all. Their aim is to keep a patient alive for as long as possible, and the longer they stay alive, the more of a success it is. For me, it’s the quality of life that counts. I have no intention whatever of clinging on to life by the edge of my fingertips with no dignity just to please the medical staff.

Kingsley Amis once said "No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home in Weston-super-Mare". Percy Penguin once told me a delightful story of an old woman who had received a large box of chocolates and was stuffing them down one after the other.
"You’ll be ill eating them like that" said Percy Penguin
"I’m ninety-eight" the old woman told her. "What do I care?"

And me? Stubborn? Perish the thought!

The nurse came around but he didn’t stay long. He was soon out of the door and I could crack on and make breakfast.

We started our new book today – MEDIEVAL MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. It’s a collection of articles that appeared in magazines, mainly “The Builder”, at the end of the 19th Century.

And we become embroiled in controversy at the first page when the very first example of “medieval military architecture in England” talks about Dolforwyn Castle which, as far as most people in the neighbourhood are concerned, is situated in Wales, near the town of Abermule in Powys.

However, no-one should be surprised by this. The “Wales and Berwick Act 1746” (20 Geo. 2. c. 42) made a statutory definition of England as including England, Wales and Berwick-upon-Tweed and it wasn’t until the passing of the Local Government Act of 1972 that Wales was accorded any statutory recognition.

And there I was, thinking that this book isn’t likely to be controversial.

Back in here I had my Welsh homework to do, seeing as how I was distracted on Monday. I’ve done about half of it right now and I’ll finish off the rest on Monday next week.

My cleaner came along and interrupted me to fit my anaesthetic patches and after she left I had to wait for the taxi to arrive. There were two of us in the taxi with the driver and it was a fairly quiet drive all the way there.

For a change, I was one of the first people in there today and I was looking forward to being one of the first out too, but the weighing machine told a different story. The nurses tried to run my machine for three and a half hours but Emilie the Cute Consultant insisted on four hours. She probably wanted to see me for a little longer.

Héloise however had other ideas and kept the machine going at full stretch all the time, and I did have a few wobbles here and there. But if it means that I can finish early on Saturday, then I don’t mind. However it is disappointing to see the weight going back on.

After backing up the travelling laptop with the more recent files, I read through my Welsh for next week and, surprisingly, I went right through the unit from front to back without stopping.

The rest of the time was spent browsing through the IKEA catalogue to look for kitchen ideas for when I finally move, if I ever do. Only two months to go now.

Héloise unplugged me from the machine and once she’d compressed the vein I weighed myself and found that I was indeed under the target weight. A very chatty taxi driver brought me home where my cleaner was waiting for me, and I staggered upstairs. It had taken a lot out of me.

Tea tonight was a delicious spicy stir-fry, primarily to use up some of this cabbage and a tin of bean sprouts. And it would have been even nicer had I remembered to put the bean sprouts into it. I really don’t know what’s happening to me these days.

But now I’m off to bed. I’m Woodstocking tomorrow if all goes well, and we’ll see how far I can travel with it. All the music is chosen and some of the notes are written. But it’s not going to be easy, this series of programmes.

But seeing as we have just been talking about Old People’s Homes … "well, one of us has" – ed … the Queen Mother once visited one in Crewe a few years ago.
While she was there one of the old women who was suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease let out a string of verbal curses, oaths and foul language
"Really!" exclaimed the Queen Mother. "You have no respect for me at all. Do you know who I am?"
"No, dear" replied the woman. "But ask the matron. She’ll tell you"

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Wednesday 2nd April 2025 – WHEN THE ALARM …

… went off this morning I was already up and about. I’d had another one of these dramatic awakenings, this time round about 05:30, and despite my best efforts I couldn’t go back to sleep.

It’s not as if I’d had an early night either. It was shortly after midnight when I’d finished all of my notes, the backing up and things like that and it took a short while for me to summon up the energy to go off to bed.

It was very difficult to go off to sleep too, and I had another quite turbulent night. I don’t think that I’d had a continuous sleep that had run for more than about an hour or so.

So wide awake and trying to go back to sleep, I heard the water heater switch itself off at 06:20 and that was the point at which I gave up and raised myself from the Dead.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up in view of the fact that yesterday’s was somewhat interrupted, and then I went into the kitchen for my medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was back in that dream about clothing again. There was something to do with buttons on that bikini although it wasn’t the same bikini but a different one, a sort-of denim blue colour. This changed eventually into something like out of the Navy Lark where Heather was talking to one of her colleagues about Leslie Phillips. They were discussing him, how he might have been cuddly and lovely but Heather said that that was only as far as it suited him and then he could be off with some other girl somewhere and he would be only interested in what he could get out of it rather than anything about anyone else.

It’s been ages since I’ve listened to on-line radio. I’m far too busy these days so programmes like The Navy Park, Round The Horne and Paul Temple have gone to well at the back of the back burner.

Most of my listening these days is spent reviewing this huge heap of concerts that I have collected from various sources over the years and trying to identify the individual tracks so that I can check the setlists to find out when and where the concerts were recorded. No-one ever thought to label the tapes back in the 70s and early 80s.

Later on I was discussing Bomber Command with a couple of airmen last night. We were talking about the typical waste of life and equipment that went on during the British attempts to bomb Germany into submission. Someone came out with a statistic that of the aeroplanes used, only one spare part was allowed per 10,000 kilometres – the equivalent of four trips to Prague and back. They were bewailing the loss of all of their friends etc who were shot down and killed, and those who never became famous simply due to bad luck that brought them down. They were talking about crashing and I asked them if they all had their little siphon tube with them in case they hit the water. Someone commented that if you hit the water from 10,000 feet a siphon tube wouldn’t do any good. They couldn’t wait to be back home at their aerodrome and mentioned a couple of girls’ names who were waiting. I went on about my way and sorted out my medication. I went into the office and there stuck in the duplicating machine was the blister pack of one of my medications that I must have left in there. I wondered how come no-one else had noticed them but I went them to take my medication and suddenly realised that I’d already taken one of them this morning and I awoke in a panic

Some of the stories that were told by the survivors of Bomber Command were horrific. On one occasion a flak shell hit a flare that had just been loaded into the flare chute of an aeroplane. The subsequent explosion destroyed the centre of the aeroplane and killed everyone on board except the pilot, navigator and rear gunner. However the plane returned home.

Someone else watched in horror as two ‘planes collided in mid-air over the target and dropped out of the sky right onto an aeroplane that was below them, and all three crashed to earth.

My mother was a WAAF in the latter stages of World War II and she’d tell us (only very, very rarely though) of some of the tales that she’d heard at de-briefing the morning when an air raid came back. Where our family lived before we moved to Shavington (about which I talked a few weeks ago) was as squatters on a variety of redundant air bases, such as Marchweil near Wrexham and at Calveley.

The nurse didn’t have too much to say for himself, although he did mention that a patient who had a blood test programmed for today cancelled it when he discovered who it was who would be doing it. That doesn’t surprise me at all.

After that, it was time to make breakfast and read MY BOOK, which is now finished.

We’ve reached the conclusion at last, which is rather disappointing. He states that "these clock-star observations were introduced into these islands about 2300 B.C.", however Maeshowe, which we discussed a couple of days ago, dates from the period 2800-3000 BC and was abandoned by about 2600BC, so this undermines his conclusion right at the very start.

Interestingly, he shows a table of various stone circles and menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … in the West Country and the dates at which their alignment was directed towards the rising cluster of the Pleiades. I plotted the sites on a map and one thing that appeared quite clearly to me was that we have two contemporary groups of neolithic constructions, which start off (Stonehenge) on a very accessible plain or (The Merry Maidens) on an exposed coastal site, and then over the years retreat into more inaccessible and inhospitable areas.

In a couple of these more accessible places, the orientation is changed to reflect the setting of Antares.

Incidentally, he tells us that "The warning stars at Athens were the Pleiades for temples facing the east, and Antares for temples using the western horizon.", but there was also a gap of several Centuries between the two.

He tells us that he has "shown that some circles used in the worship of the May year were in operation 2200 B.C., and that there was the introduction of a new cult about 1600 B.C., or shortly afterwards, in southern Britain, so definite that the changes in the chief orientation lines in the stone circles can be traced."

He goes on to say that "This change of cult may be due to the intrusion of a new tribe, but I am inclined to attribute it to a new view taken by the priests themselves due to a greater knowledge,"

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that our “Invasions Cheat-Sheet” tells us that the “Beaker-people” began to arrive in England round about 2400-2500 BC, which corresponds with the start of the alignment with Pleiades. However round about 1600BC, immigrants of the Wessex Culture began to flood into England. This date is significant as it marks the abandonment of places like Stonehenge and the beginning of the flight of the Pleiades Culture to more inaccessible and inhospitable places, and the construction of the earliest hill forts.

The more I read of things like this, the more I’m convinced that these invasions were anything but peaceful, despite the modern way of thinking, and I reckon that my cultural migration timeline and maps will have quite a lot to say on the subject.

And while we’re on the subject of the subject … "well, one of us is" – ed … you’ll understand now why I was a lousy student at University. I’d go off and do my own thing, in which I was thoroughly absorbed and thoroughly enjoying myself, regardless of whether or not it had anything to do with what I was supposed to be studying.

Most of the rest of the day has been spent radioing. I’d assembled all of the music that I needed, edited, remixed, paired and segued it, and then I wrote out all of the notes for it ready to be dictated on Saturday night.

That was despite the usual interruptions, such as my cleaner arriving, the disgusting drink break, and a wonderful, refreshing shower.

As well as that, the bank rang me up. I have a savings contract with them and that expires next month. What did I want to do?

The answer is “roll it over into a new one and use the balance on the old one as the starter sum”. I don’t know what else I’m going to do with it. It was supposed to be my savings account for if I had to change my vehicle, but as I no longer drive, it seems rather pointless.

It’s not as if I could go mad and spend it either because I can’t go out to the shops. Another trip to the High Arctic, which I would love to do, is out of the question.

While we’re on the subject of shopping … "well, one of us is" – ed … I sent off an Amazon order today. A water jug to replace the broken one, a case for my new telephone and some baking equipment as well as a couple of other things that I need.

Tea tonight was one of the best leftover curries that I have ever made, with a delicious naan followed by some more of my orange, ginger and coconut cake with soya dessert. Probably the best meal of this type that I have made. What with the excellent pizza on Sunday, the food situation is looking up.

So now I’m off to bed ready for dialysis tomorrw. But seeing as we are talking about looking up and were talking about Bomber Command … "well, one of us is and was" – ed … there was that much surpus war equipment from Bomber Command lying around after the War that it went into store for years.
Eventually, someone found it and they began to distribute it amongst the various Air Cadets branches in the country.
The Crewe branch of the Air Cadets received a supply of parachutes and so they went for parachute training.
"These parachutes are old stock, been in store for years" said the instructor "so we aren’t all that sure about them. So whatever you do, don’t pull the ripcord until you are ten feet from the ground"
"What happens if it doesn’t open then?" asked a cadet
"Well, surely you can jump ten feet" replied the instructor.

0

Tuesday 1st April 2025 – I HAD AN UNEXPECTED …

… lie-in this morning.

Every now and again, except that it’s more often than not these days, the battery in my mobile ‘phone is evaporating before my eyes.

Now that has taken me quite by surprise because it’s not as if it’s all that old. I only bought it in March 2017 so it’s really quite new. Anyway, yesterday it was doing it again so I switched the battery saver to “maximum” and charged it up from the travelling laptop while I was at dialysis.

It goes without saying that I was aware that quite a few of the services would be disabled while the battery saver was at the max, but I really and honestly didn’t expect the alarm function to be one of them. I can’t believe that my own telephone would play a poisson d’avril on me!

It was therefore actually quite a good night for sleeping. In principle I could even have been in bed by 23:00 but as usual, I loitered around for a while. Nevertheless, it was still before midnight when I crawled under the covers.

As far as the night went, I can’t remember very much at all. I was well away with the fairies, although not in any kind of fashion that would incite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine.

One thing that I can definitely say is that there seems to be nothing at all wrong with my body clock. In real money, the time is one hour less than the time on the clock since the clocks were altered at the weekend, so it was really 07:02, not the indicated 08:02, when I opened my eyes this morning.

Once the actual time had registered in what remains of my brain these days, I leapt to my feet … "not exactly" – ed … and staggered off to the bathroom. Of course, it had to be the day that the second nurse starts his round, so with no injections or blood samples to take, he arrived quite early, long before I was ready.

After he left, I could finish my scrubbing, change my clothes and then wander off for breakfast. And armed with my porridge, toast and coffee (and orange juice, and medication) I could read MY BOOK.

We’re reaching the end of the book now. He’s finished his exploration of stone circles and menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … in Cornwall and Devon and we’re now off to Egypt where tomorrow we’ll be comparing the sacred sites there with those that we’ve encountered in Britain.

What I have to say though is that, enjoyable and informative the book may have been and I don’t regret reading it, I expected a book entitled “Stonehenge and other British Stone Monuments” to have much more than 60 pages out of 332 pages of content devoted to the principal subject.

And having spent so long before coming round to the important issue of cultural migration, he abandons it and moves on much too quickly. In my humble … "?!?!?" – ed … opinion, whilst all of the physical details of the monuments are important, it’s even more important to consider the progression and evolution of the monuments in general, either in a time-basis at the same location or a place-location at various different times so as to see how the various cultures have migrated, bringing their gods and so on with them as they travelled

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … there must be a lot of mileage in plotting the spread of cultures from their original place and throughout their track to their point of arrival and final settlement.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was telling one of the nurses to be careful of this guy from the Wild West who started to appear. It seemed that he had chosen a couple of my clothes to wear to make his first appearance. That was very confusing because one of the nurses undid the wrong set of clothes for me so I warned them about it and warned them that this person would be coming in to dialysis. I would be stopping two days and taking a little more out each day. The dialysis for me went OK but everyone else was bothered by the noise coming from the bathroom where this little guy had come into the World and now wanted to go out again and go away. They asked me (…… fell asleep here …) it seemed that the guy had actually come into dialysis wearing a pair of my clothes and that’s why he wasn’t noticed. It wasn’t until they’d shaken them that he fell out. By that time the dressing room was closed and locked etc – no-one could go in. They had to find someone who had the key to the place to let him out.

If I’m dreaming about my dialysis sessions, it really IS the end of the world. I want to forget all about them when I’m not there and to relax, but I can’t do that if it’s preying on my mind like this. Especially when it all deteriorates into some kind of incomprehensible mutterings. However as for the guy who had just come into the World and wanted to leave and go away again, I can’t blame anyone for wanting to go out of this World once they’ve seen what’s going on in it.

Next stop was to prepare for my Welsh lesson, and there was a lot of ground to cover. It had to be thorough too because there would only be a couple of us today, what with ill-health, holidays and the like. So for once, I had to exert myself.

It’s not very often that I’m right, but there were only three of us today (a fourth arrived half-way through). We worked hard and quickly, and to my surprise, I enjoyed it and I thought that I did quite well, which makes a change. Since I’ve been using the dialysis as a kind-of enforced revision period, I seem to be making better progress.

After I finished, I had a disgusting drink break and then there were things to do. I needed to contact the Canadian Border Security people about that strange letter that I had the other week. That was quite important.

There were also some bills to pay, including the rates on my Canadian property. They have increased to their highest level ever this year, and for my couple of acres of North American hillside, I’m having to pay the massive sum of $145.60 – just under £79:00.

That was an interesting exercise. It took me an hour all told – five minutes to connect with my Canadian bank, five minutes to make the bank transfer and the remaining fifty minutes to look for my Canadian bank card.

There was a hospital bill to pay – there’s a daily charge of €20:00 for your food etc but as I’m classed as terminally ill, I can claim it back from the Social Security later.

Finally, there’s the indexation increase for my rent here. It’s now increased by €2:70 per month. But not for long, because I’m hoping to be out of here by the end of summer.

Having put all of that out of the way, I put another plan into action. I mentioned my failing telephone just now and as it’s the anniversary of my contract, I’m entitled to a substantial discount on a new ‘phone. I had a look on my provider’s website and saw that they had the “previous model” of the latest 5G ‘phone.

It has 128Gb of internal memory and also a compass, something that would be useful if I install the “Skymap” and some other geographical features. Last year, when it was the latest model, it was selling at an “upper three-figure” price but because of my contract renewal, it was available to me for just the two final digits. That has to be the way forward, I reckon, and so it’s on its way even as we speak.

The rest of the day has been spent on starting the next radio programme. This is going to be an interesting one because there are quite a few birthdays, deaths and album releases to celebrate. Some of the stuff that I need I don’t have, so I spent the latter part of the afternoon tracking it down.

Tea tonight was of course a taco roll with rice and veg followed by orange, ginger and coconut cake with soya dessert. Delicious as usual. However, I am going to come across a problem, namely that I shan’t need a LeClerc order for another few weeks, with the amount of stuff on hand, but I shall be running out of peppers to stuff – there’s only one left in the freezer.

That means that for once in my life I shall have to use my imagination and make several meals that aren’t on the programme. That should be interesting, to say the least. But it’s high time that I varied my diet.

But that’s something to worry about later. Right now I’m off to bed.

But not before this subject about people leaving this World because of the mess that we have made of it, about which we were talking just now … "well, one of us was" – ed … has been explored.
A few years ago a couple of extra-terrestrials came down to Earth to look for intelligent life on our planet, but they soon departed.
"Did you find any?" asked the commander of the expedition, back on their spaceship
"Intelligent life on Earth?" retorted one of them. "You must be joking"
"What do you mean?" asked the commander
"They have these incredible nuclear weapons" replied the extra-terrestrial visitor " and they can defend themselves to the death with it. Anything that comes close to them, they can exterminate it and everything for thousands of miles around, simply at the push of a button"
"And who are they pointing them at?" asked the commander. "Mars? Jupiter? Alpha Centauri? Sirius?"
"You won’t believe this" replied the visitor "but they are pointing them at each other!"

0

Monday 31st March 2025 – THAT WAS MUCH …

… more like it at the dialysis centre this afternoon. Julie the Cook’s plan of putting an ice-pack on my arm for ten minutes and changing the size of the needles, and Emilie the Cute Consultant’s plan to connect me up in another part of my arm combined this afternoon to make it one of the least painful sessions that I have ever had.

Something else that was comparatively painless was going to bed last night. I might not have beaten my old 23:00 curfew but I was certainly in bed and asleep before midnight. The timestamp on one of the recordings on the dictaphone confirms that.

At one point I did awaken though – to throw off the fleece that I’ve been wearing in bed this last week or so. It’s been comparatively warm this last day or two and last night, for the first time, the warmth carried on through the night.
"Sumer is iceumen in
Lhude sing cuccu"
and all that.

When the alarm went off, I was dead to the World and it was a valiant struggle to my feet and into the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up. And a shave and change of clothes too! After all, who knows? I might meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

After giving my old clothes a good scrub in the sink I went into the kitchen for the medication and then back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.

Last night I was out driving taxis. I can’t remember all that much about it because it disappeared quite quickly when I awoke but there was something about me going off to fetch my evening meal. It was something on toast. I had to wait for my evening meal until I’d taken £30:00 so far on that particular shift but it was something of a slow night and I seem to have been waiting for ever. Eventually I took my excuse of everyone else and went home to have something on toast for tea.

Just recently I seem to have been spending a lot of my sleeping hours driving taxis. I’m not quite sure why because I won’t ever drive again so even if I were to have any ambitions in that respect, they would be thwarted immediately. Perhaps that’s why I’m dreaming – I’m pining for the open road.

That dream about taxi driving, I stepped back into it later on. The taxi driving was some kind of cover for a real criminal event that was stealing women and selling them off into slavery in the Middle East. This had been going on for several years. The police finally latched onto the trail of something so these two people discreetly hid out of the way in their town somewhere and the police chased after whoever it was who they were chasing. They had some extremely interesting chases and captures but these two people still eluded them. However a couple of policemen were watching them for some reason or other but this man and wife were doing nothing particularly illegal but the police were interested in them. One day during one of these big car chases something happened that led one or two of the police cars to return to the town. At the time, these two people were sitting in an open-air restaurant halfway up a mountain near a U-bend on a main road. They were having a meal with these two policemen watching them from another table. Suddenly, they were surprised by this police car coming back and coming up this road. The police car stopped outside this restaurant and the two guys went over to talk to it to make their report. They indicated to the policeman where these two people were sitting so of course these two people began to panic

There are quite a few stories I could tell you about that too, not concerning me, I hasten to add. However I once had an extremely uncomfortable encounter with several taxi drivers in the back of Hanley once when I was engaged in a completely different activity shortly before leaving for Europe, and shots were fired

later on I was on board the train again going to Moncton. It pulled into the station at wherever it is … "Matapedia" – ed … and they announced “terminus – all change”. I suddenly realised that the train was running on the winter timetable and the train stopped here. Everyone went on by bus. I had to find my shoes and put them on, sort out my baggage. There was another guy there who was making ready to leave so I said “we’re on the winter timetable now” to which he replied “yes”. I showed him one train trip on a strip that I had cut out. I said “my friends back in the UK can’t believe that this is the winter timetable”. he burst out laughing, shook his head and said that it was sad. “yes” I replied “and the worst of it all is that they think that this is one train per day, not one train per winter”. We had a chat about Canadian Railways. He asked where I was from so I told him “near Manchester”. We had quite a lengthy chat on board the train about nothing whatsoever while we waited for the bus to arrive to carry us on.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall OUR LEGENDARY JOURNEY ON CANADIAN RAILWAYS to Moncton and back in 2022.And shame as it is to say it, Canadian Railways are a national disgrace and an embarrassment to a developed country. I’m used to travelling on state-of-the-art high-speed trains all over Europe, but what passengers are offered in Canada is more like state-of-the-Ark equipment. Apart from a small handful of commuter lines around Montréal and the city of Québec, there is just one passenger train east of Montréal, and that runs just three days every week to Halifax. In any civilised country, the equipment used on that service would have been sent for scrap years and years ago. We crawled along at an average speed of 35mph from Montréal to Moncton and I was on that blasted train for almost 20 hours. Then I had to wait three hours for a four-hour bus trip to take me to the family pile. If you don’t have a car in North America, you have some very major problems to confront.

Isabelle the Nurse didn’t stay around for very long today. It’s her final day before her break so I imagine that she had plenty of blood tests and injections to handle with people refusing to let her oppo do the.

But once she left, I could make breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

We’ve reached a very interesting point in the book today. We’re discussing languages and he seems to think that the syntax and sentence order in Welsh is very similar to the sentence order in some North African dialects. He quotes one researcher, saying that "he finds the similarities between Old Egyptian and neo-Celtic syntax to be astonishing ; he shows that practically all the peculiarities of Welsh and Irish syntax are found in the Hamitic languages."

Why that’s important is because there have been traces of common bone structure between some North African people, some Iberian people and some Brythonic people, to such an extent that it is suggested by others in more modern times that a wave of invaders that came to Britain round about 4000BC took that particular route

He goes on to consider similarities between the Babylonian temples and the pyramids etc of Egypt and then, in discussing Maeshowe on the Orkneys, he (and many, many other people have) compared the design, contruction and finishing of the chamber at Maeshowe with some of the pyramids.

According to later research, Maeshowe was constructed in about 3000BC and was abandoned round about 2500BC in dramatic fashion, with personal possessions left behind.

It can’t have escaped your notice that if work began on Stonehenge round about 2600BC in a much less skilful fashion, it would be likely to have been built by different people from a different part of Europe, unaccustoned to the fine proto-Egyptian work. And according to my invasion cheat-sheet, the Beaker people arrived in Britain round about that time. One modern researcher who carried out a DNA analysis "calculates that Britain saw a greater than 90% shift in its genetic make-up" in other words, some pretty ruthless ethnic cleansing.

Back in here I had things to do and was still doing them when my cleaner arrived to fit my anaesthetic patches. The taxi came early too, but it was not to my advantage because we then had to go out and about to pick up two other people.

At the clinic I was one of the last to arrive so of course I was one of the last to be plugged in. But the good news was that the amount of water to be lost was just marginally under the three-and-a-half hour limit so I would be home early tonight

Apparently I have been allocated a personal nurse who will handle my dossier and it’s Julie the Cook who has drawn the short straw. She filled me in on what that implies before she went home. And apparently it does NOT include soothing my fevered brown.

She’s arranged an appointment in May for me to have a scan and x-ray on my stomach. Whatever for, I have no idea. I prefer not to know.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came for a little chat today which was nice of her. She can come to chat to me any time she likes of course.

The hospital at Paris rang me up too. This appointment that I’m supposed to be having, its not with the Haematologist but with the Neurologist so the dialysis centre will have to organise something with them.

There were a few wobbles this afternoon at a couple of moments but I kept on going until the end. But any hopes of being home early evaporated as there was another medical emergency, this time involving someone else and all the nurses dashed off.

A nice chatty driver brought me home in the sunshine and it was pleasant to be back in the warm daylight. I stood outside without a jacket for a few minutes and soaked up the air.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper with pasta followed by orange, gigner and coconut cake with soya dessert.

Welsh tomorrow of course, and I have a lot to revise so I need to put in another good effort. But right now, I’m off to bed

But seeing as we are talking about my train trip in Canada … "well, one of us is" – ed … there were three Americans and three Canadians sitting together on my train to Moncton The Americans had a ticket each but the Candians had only one between them
"How’s that going to work?" asked the Americans
"Wait and see" replied the Canadians.
When the inspector came down the aisle the Americans prepared their tickets while the Canadians dashed into the toilet.
After chacking the Americans, the inspector knocked on the toilet door and one Canadian slid the ticket out underneath. The inspector stamped it and walked on.
On the return trip back to Montréal, they were there again.
This time the Americans had only one ticket, but the Canadians had none
"How’s that going to work?" asked the Americans
"Wait and see" replied the Canadians.
When the ticket inspector came down the aisle the Americans dashed off into the toilet
The Canadians sauntered slowly along to the toilet in the next carriage but on passing the toilet where the Americans were hiding, one of them knocked on the door and said "ticket, please?"

0

Saturday 29th March 2025 – THAT WAS BETTER …

… art the dialysis centre this afternoon. I had a couple of small wobbles towards the end but I managed to keep on going until the session concluded, and that’s progress compared to how things were on Thursday.

Having a somewhat better sleep might have accounted for some of it. By the time that I finished my notes and had done the backing up, it was 00:45 – much later than usual thanks to the football, but much earlier than Wednesday night.

Once again, I was asleep quite quickly and there I remained, totally motionless, until about 06:00, just as it was starting to become light. “Far too early for me to rise up” I thought so I turned over and actually, this morning, managed to go back to sleep.

When the alarm went off I threw off the quilt immediately but it took me a few minutes to rise up into a sitting position and a few more to head off into the bathroom.

It’s Dialysis Day today so I had a good wash, a scrub up, a shave, a change of clothes and even hand-washed my socks, undies and nightwear so that I would look nice and pretty. Then I headed off into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was having a row with my brother … "what a surprise" – ed …. He made some kind of threatening gesture with a knife, that he was going to chase me until he caught me. Of course I dismissed that idea and carried on with what I was doing, which was preparing some things because someone was coming round to visit me. This story about fleeing through the woods with my brother behind me, I didn’t take it very seriously. A few minutes later I was working around the house performing some tasks. There was a couple of other people there, one of whom was my brother and one of them was this person who had come to see me, so I thought that I’d better finish preparing this pack of clothing that needs to be taken, then we can set off. While I was preparing it this guy came to see me. He asked “are you Eric?”. I replied “yes”. He answered “right, yes. I thought that I’d just put my foot in things. “Why is that?”. “Because I went up to your brother and asked ‘do you have those things for me’ thinking that he was you. He asked ‘what things?’ so I answered ‘that clothing that we ought to be dropping off in the woods’ and he made some kind of stupid remark about taking me into the woods and leaving me there’ “. I explained to him the situation and prepared everything so that we were ready to leave. But there was some swimming costume or something that fell out of the cupboard while I was fetching these clothes. I wasn’t really sure why that was there. It shouldn’t have been there either. I was sitting there puzzling about this and wondering if I was supposed to take it with me or whether it had found its way into that cupboard by accident.

Our disputes never reached the stage of going armed but we certainly didn’t behave like siblings, any of us. And I can still see this swimming costume even now. It’s a faded pale bluey-green bikini with a bright, dark pink trim. No-one I know has ever worn anything like this so I wonder why I’ve seen one during my sleeping hours. As for leaving things in the woods, in the past it was usually babies, especially sickly ones who were not expected to live. Sometimes they were simply abandoned and at other times they might be sacrifices to whatever gods and spirits inhabit the woods. FOLKLORE AS A HISTORICAL SCIENCE that we read the other week is full of fairy-tales relating to abandoned children.

Isabelle the Nurse had plenty to say for herself today, mostly about the chaos in the town centre. And sure enough, as predicted, the remodelling of the town centre won’t be complete for the Summer. They will stop work in July and August and then re-start. Heaven alone knows when they will finish.

After she left, I made breakfast, including some more of my apple and kiwi puree, and then read some more of MY BOOK.

Today, we are discussing pagan and prehistoric customs that have been absorbed into Church ritual, and he makes a very convincing case for many of them, although like most experts, he tend to see his favourite subject in every single one.

There were a couple of customs that stood out. In fact they leaped off the page right in front of my eyes. He tells us that "at both solstices it would appear that a special fire rite was practised. This consisted of tying straw on a wheel and rolling it when lighted down a hill. There is much evidence for the wheel at the summer, but less at the winter, solstice"

Anyone who has ever been to Gloucestershire on Spring Bank Holiday will know all about the Cooper’s Hill Cheese Rolling where a wheel of cheese is sent rolling off down a hill. People will be even more surprised to learn that not only has this event been going on for many centuries, it formerly took place on Whit Monday which, before Easter became a moveable feast, coincided with the start of what Lockyer describes as “the New May Year” and which corresponds with the alignment of many of the stone circles and menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … at which we are looking.

He also tells us that in the olden days, some rural farmers "would travel bareheaded and barefooted from ten to twenty miles for the purpose of crawling on their knees round;" certain holy " wells, upright stones, and oak trees, westward, as the sun travels, some three times, some six, some nine, and so on in uneven numbers until their voluntary penances were completely fulfilled."

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in August 2013 when we were in Montréal WE WENT FOR A LOOK AT THE ORATORY OF SAINT JOSEPH and saw all of the pilgrims climbing up the endless flights of stairs on their knees to the Oratory. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Back in here I had to hunt down a codec pack for some types of video as I had forgotten to add it in when I fitted the new drive. I found one of the more comprehensive packs and installed it, but there are still two or three videos that won’t play.

With downloading something from the internet I ran a complete virus scan on the computer and then emptied the recycle bin of all of the temporary files that the installation process had been using.

My cleaner came in, armed with a photograph, to fit my anaesthetic patches. The photo was the one that Emilie the Cute Consultant had prepared to tell my cleaner where to fit the patches these days.

The taxi was on time, driven by the young chatty guy and we had a very animated conversation all the way to the dialysis centre.

One of my predictions came true today. The dialysis session has been put back to four hours after Thursday’s fiasco. However, it’s not all doom and gloom because what we agreed is that there should be a maximum level of 850 millilitres per hour for a three-and a half hour session. So if I have 2000 millilitres to lose, at 3.5 hours that’s roughly 640 millilitres per hour so that’s good. But if there’s 3500 millilitres to lose, at 3.5 hours that’s 1000 millilitres per hour, so they will go for four hours in that case.

That sounds reasonable to me, I suppose. We need to reach some kind of agreement about something.

During the discussion I had an ice-pack on my arm, and when they came to plug me in at the news area of connection, it was one of the most painless that I have had. Still not perfect, but much better. We’ll have to see if it continues.

They set the blood pressure measurer every 20 minutes instead of every half-hour and came to check on me quite regularly. The machine rang regularly to say that blood pressure was low and they came scurrying over each time, but despite a few unpleasant moments, I kept on going.

The same driver brought me home and then I prepared tea. My bread bap wasn’t a success because I’d left the dough standing for too long and it had dried out. There’s nothing wrong with the principle though so in future I’ll have to make my bread roll early and bake it before I go to dialysis. The burger itself and baked potato and salad followed by orange, ginger and coconut cake with soya dessert was delicious.

So now I’ll dictate my radio notes and then go to bed. We lose an hour in the morning of course so I’ll be crabby all day… "so what’s new?" – ed …

But seeing as we have been talking about ancient customs, folk tales and the like … "well, one of us has" – ed … each village used to have its wise man or woman, the faith healer or the enchanter.
One day a farmer went up to the local faith healer and said "remember that cow that you had that had worms and a bad attack of disease?"
"Of course I do" said the faith healer
"So what did you give it? Mine has the same affliction"
"I gave it a mixture of burnt ashes, sacred water from the well, two feathers from a goose and a ladle-full of clay"
A few weeks later the faith healer is walking through the village when the farmer grabs him by the throat
"I gave that cow the mixture that you told me, and two days later it died"
"Now isn’t that a coincidence" said the faith healer. "So did mine!"

0

Friday 28th March 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone this morning when I awoke.

And that’s not surprising either seeing as I didn’t go back to bed until 04:15 and I was awake again at 06:50 (you will note that I said “awoke” – I didn’t say that I left the bed).

Last night’s fiasco was enough to put the shakes on just about everything. After my rather dramatic exit from the dialysis centre, coming home and going straight to bed where I was probably asleep before I hit the horizontal position, there I stayed in a state of what I can only imagine was unconsciousness until after midnight.

When I awoke, I was fully-clothed still, with a thirst that you could photograph. Luckily I still have some of that banana-flavoured soya drink that I like that I bought in Belgium (is it really eighteen months ago since my last trip to Belgium?), so I helped myself to a litre of it, wrote my notes and backed up all the files.

After I’d finished what I had to do I still wasn’t tired so I found a few things to do to keep me occupied and then eventually crawled into bed, fully clothed again.

It was difficult to go back to sleep, so I don’t suppose that I slept all that much, and when I looked at the time and saw that it was 06:50 I gave up all hope.

The alarm clock made up my mind for me so I crawled out of bed and went to the bathroom to sort myself out. Then into the kitchen to take my medication and to do yesterday’s washing-up which I had forgotten. I hate going into the kitchen in the morning and finding the washing-up still there.

With nothing on the dictaphone I found some things to do and then Isabelle the Nurse arrived. I told her about yesterday and she thinks that the machine was too powerful for my heart to cope and that caused the dramatic loss of blood pressure that triggered everything off.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

We’re still discussing these stone circles and avenues in the West Country. At Stanton Drew he makes the point that while there are circles and avenues that suggest that Arcturus was the target when they were constructed, at 1690BC and 1410BC, he finds that "With regard to this N.E. circle … " – the third one in this series of circles – its strange alignment "… would suggest that the N.E. circle was really erected to provide the alignment, from the centre of the great circle, or from the Cove, to the summer solstitial sun, about the year 870 B.C.,".

Furthermore, "There is other evidence, to which I attach importance, as it deals with a method and policy found in many temple fields in Egypt, that of blocking the alignment of an older star- or sun-cult, which the astronomer priests replaced by their own. The stones of the avenue, of the solstitial N.E. circle I expect once blocked the May sunrise line from the great circle ; judging from the Ordnance map, and remembering the number of stones that have disappeared,"

According to my “wave of invasions” cheat-sheet, a huge wave of Celtic invaders began to arrive in England round about 800BC. They brought with them the Iron-Age “Halstatt” culture and their superior tools and weapons would have overwhelmed the previous settlers. If those previous settlers were pushed west, they would push before them the people who had previously occupied those lands, so maybe they replaced the previous culture of the worship of Arcturus with their own culture of worship of the sun.

What is also interesting is the reference he made to the situation in Egypt where the worshippers of one star arrived and overwhelmed a previous culture. Archaeological evidence lends a great deal of support to this idea, so I’m now interested in plotting, as I said yesterday, a timeline of the worship of Arcturus and seeing if I can follow it through Europe and maybe arrive in England at the same time that the worship of Arcturus seemed to have begun there.

But this is all sounding like my University studies. I’d start by researching something and be so engrossed in what I’ve found that bore no relation to what I’d be studying that I’d go miles off course on a tangent into some other realm that had nothing whatever to do with the subject. I enjoyed what I was doing, enjoyed it very much, but the lecturers didn’t.

His next chapter is actually on “folklore”, but not the folklore what we know. He’s more interested in finding relics of customs that relate to the old forms of worship and how they became tied into Christianity, rather than using them as I would and as LAURENCE GOMME was doing – plotting the migration of groups of people by the relics of the customs that remain in modern society.

After the book, I came back in here and prepared my LeClerc order. And I was really struggling to complete it too. Despite the fact that I haven’t sent in an order for three weeks, I’m not eating as much (or as often) as I did and I was really struggling today to reach the €50:00 minimum order

Times are really bizarre around here. I look at my “usual products” and my “reminder list” and think “I have some of that” or “I don’t need that” or “I don’t feel like eating any of that”. I don’t think that I can ever recall a period such as this that has lasted for so long. I look in the kitchen and the shelf unit is full of stuff.

Once I’d sorted that out, I spent the rest of the day (or much of it) on my Woodstock programme. I now have every song that I need, and they are all re-edited and remixed. Some of the tracks took some hunting down, others had to be extracted from the soundtracks of concerts that I have.

Every song (except one) was actually played at Woodstock by the band or musician concerned, although I can’t use any sound that came from the loudspeakers at Woodstock. I’ve had to use versions from other places.

My cleaner put in an appearance to do her stuff as usual, and while she was here the LeClerc delivery turned up. I usually order it for “after 16:00” but he often rings me up to ask if he can come earlier if I’m the only client in the afternoon. I’d rather have it after my cleaner has left but I’m not going to stop him having an early finish on a Friday if he can.

After my cleaner left I had 2kg of carrots to wash, dice and blanch ready to freeze and then back in here Rosemary, back from her break in Italy, rang me up for a chat. I’m convinced that she has a camera hidden in here somewhere to find out when I’m free.

Tea tonight was a rushed salad and chips with some of these vegan nuggets and it was delicious. The chips were cooked to perfection in my air fryer.

Tea was rushed because we had football, Drenewydd v Y Barri. Y Barri needed the win to keep alive their push for the European playoffs and Y Drenewydd needed a win to keep alive their hopes of avoiding relegation.

Y Barri came out of the traps so much quicker and played some nice football and were looking comfortable at 2-0 up. But Y Drenewydd came alive in the last ten minutes and when they scored with three minutes to go, they threw everything that they had into the attack.

Y Barri won the ball and roared upfield with a one-on-one on the Y Drenewydd goalkeeper – only for the Y Barri forward to miss the easiest goal that he could have scored in his life. That spurred Y Drenewydd on and we witness some desperate defending in the final minute and Y Drenewydd couldn’t find the goal that they needed.

Why they hadn’t played like that with the same desperation throughout the game I really don’t know, but now, while they are not mathematically sure of being relegated, they are going to have to find something special from somewhere.

At half-time I did the washing up and then I grabbed a slice of my new orange, ginger and coconut cake to eat for the second half. And it really is as delicious as I thought that it might be. I’m proud of that.

So now that I’ve finished my notes and backed up the computer, I’m off to bed ready for an exciting (I don’t think) day at the dialysis centre.

But seeing as we have been talking about shopping … "well, one of us has" – ed … I’m glad that I don’t go shopping any more. It saves unpleasant surprises.

Once I was in a supermarket in Belgium and a woman came up to me and asked me "aren’t you the father of one of my kids?"
That stopped me dead in my tracks. I had to rack my brains and think hard. There was the girl in Morlaix and the other one at that strange house when I was hitch-hiking around Brittany but that was in France in the mid-seventies.
For a whole minute I had to rack my brains about trips that I’d made into Europe subsequently. In the end I gave up.
"I can’t really recall anything" I said, shaking your head.
"Oh, I’m sorry" she replied. "I’m sure that I’ve seen you bringing Roxanne to school. She’s in my class this year"

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Thursday 27th March 2025 – I HOPE THAT NO-ONE …

… panicked after reading my previous message.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that back in the Summer when I was in hospital at Avranches I had one of those collapses that I had quite frequently at home during that period, and awoke to find a group of panicking nurses and doctors around my bedside. They reckoned that it was a diabetic coma.

And so this afternoon, there I was in my bed at the dialysis centre, working away on the travelling laptop, when I began to shake and feel nauseous. That was exactly how I felt when my pancreatic issues began in 1991 and I thought “surely not again! As if I don’t have enough to worry about!”.

A few minutes later I had an enormous wave of fatigue, the room began to spin around and a haze descended across my vision. I blinked my eyes to clear my vision and when I opened them, my bed had been positioned flat instead of upright, the foot of the bed had been raised up and every member of the medical staff in the centre, including Emilie the Cute Consultant, was flapping around my bed.

Apparently I’d gone into another coma and had been out of my tree for about ten minutes.

It’s actually probably the best sleep that I’ve had for several days because last night it was another 02:30 finish, waiting for my algorithm to finish (and it did finish this time, too).

Being in bed is one thing. Going to sleep is quite a different thing entirely and I’m not sure that I slept for very long at all. When the alarm went off it was a very weary me who staggered to my feet and crawled off to the bathroom for a wash and a shave, in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant.

After the medication I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone but as I expected, there was nothing on it. You can’t dream if you don’t go to sleep (well, you can but that’s another story too).

Isabelle the Nurse was quite chatty this morning. She’s noticed that the oedemas on my legs have returned to a very slight degree. That’s bad news because it means that they’ll be turning the dialysis machine up to pump out more water.

After she left I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. We’re still exploring stone circles and avenues in Devon and Cornwall and checking their alignment.

He considers that many of these circles are aligned to witness the rising or setting of the star Arcturus, the fourth-brightest star in the sky after Sirius, Canopus and Alpha Centauri, all four of which also figure prominently in the alignment of prehistoric structures throughout the World.

One thing that he hasn’t done, which would be an interesting project, would be to go back to our book on folklore and plot the worship of Arcturus in different time periods and different cultures to see if there’s any relation between them and the waves of migration across Europe in prehistoric times. It wouldn’t surprise me if something interesting turned up.

Back in here I had plenty of things to do and I was right in the middle of them when I noticed that it was after 12:00 and the taxi will be here shortly so I’d better make a move. I’d sorted everything out and was almost ready when my cleaner arrived in a state of breathlessness to fit my anaesthetic patches.

It was the “boss” who came to pick me up. We had someone else in the car too and he drove us all the way to Avranches where he dropped me off and carried on with his other passenger.

At the centre I was one of the first to arrive and they treated me with an ice-pack while they waited for “the doctor” to come to look at my fitting with the x-ray machine.

“The doctor” turned out to be Emilie the Cute Consultant who examined my implant closely, recommended that in future they inject elsewhere and even marked my skin for future reference so that my cleaner will know where to put the patches. She photographed it and gave me a copy for future reference.

Plugging me in the old places wasn’t as painful as it has been, thanks to the ice pack, and I leaned the good news that the time has been reduced to three and a half hours. After that, i could crack on with work.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came back for a chat later – about my health unfortunately. She was with me for about twenty minutes talking about all kinds of things and more good news is that I can dispense with two more lots of tablets. She’s not really all that happy about reducing my time but “we’ll give it a go and we’ll see”.

She did discuss with me all kinds of options, including psychiatric care. "But you don’t need that, do you? You don’t suffer from depression or anything". All of the different characters who live inside my head roared with laughter at that and told me that I ought to be nominated for an Oscar.

And then we had the drama. All kinds of people running around in a panic. Apparently I was just sitting there, totally unresponsive, eyes wide-open in a kind-of cataleptic daze. They honestly thought that I’d died. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall however that we’ve talked previously about these cataleptic dazes that I sometimes have

Interestingly, my blood pressure was at 8.0 and it won’t go much lower than that without serious consequences so they abandoned the dialysis session. I still had to stay lying down for an hour or so before I could sit up. They were not happy at all.

So that looks as if it might be the end of the three-and-a-half hour experiment which is a shame. My heart can’t withstand the force of the machine, although the machine has run faster than that in the past.

A very groggy me staggered to the taxi and back here, I came upstairs, flung off my shoes and went straight to bed, fully clothed. And there I stayed until after midnight when I arose to type out my notes.

Now I’m going back to bed where I shall sleep until my name becomes Epic van Winkle and who cares about anything else?

But that little discussion with Emilie the Cute Consultant reminded me of one of the SAINT TRINIANS films when a riot in the school was taxing the patience of the headmistress who had taken over from Alastair Sim.
"I have a feeling that very shortly I shall be the only one around here who can actually produce a certificate to prove my sanity !"

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Wednesday 26th March 2025 – BLIMEY! THAT WAS HOT!

Now I understand why it was that a couple of years ago Noz had row after row after row of jars a well-known food manufacturer’s Vindaloo curry sauce on special offer. I bought a couple of jars and they have sat on my shelves ever since.

With too much stuffing left over from Monday and Tuesday, this evening a threw in a tin of chick peas and a jar of the Vindaloo sauce to make several portions of curry, some of which I can freeze for a later date.

But I doubt if they will freeze at all. Even in a cold state, I bet that I’ll put them in the freezer and they will melt all the ice for miles around.

It wasn’t cold in here either last night. In fact, I went to bed without the fleece. It’s possibly a sign that it’s beginning to warm up outside although I wouldn’t bet on it quite yet.

What might have helped in that respect was that it was close to 02:00 when I finally went to bed, and I was absolutely exhausted. Earlier in the evening I’d set up the computer to run an algorithm running through all of the back-up drives to identify more duplicates in respect of the batch of the old files that I found a week or two ago.

It seemed to take an age crawling through all of the disks identifying stuff and so I thought, as it became later and later, "here I am so here I stay", or "J’y suis, j’y reste" as Maréchal MacMahon once said at Malakoff.

Then, of course, the inevitable happened. At 96%, the algorithm crashed and that was that. What I call a waste of an evening, but it was inevitable.

Once in bed, there I stayed, sound asleep until the alarm went off at 07:00. And then, a very weary me took to his feet and staggered into the bathroom to sort myself out.

After the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was back at home last night. There were a lot of children there and the place was running a little wild. I was doing something with one of the small girls and she walked on the face of my youngest sister and my sister began to cry. I explained to my mother what had happened and told her that there was really nothing that anyone could have done about it – it was quite an accident and I was sure that she didn’t do it on purpose. My mother was however extremely unhappy about this and and I could see that she was waiting for the ideal moment t in which she would probably blow her top.

My mother not listening to any explanation and blowing her top was nothing new. Most people say that it’s unpredictable behaviour that makes for an uncomfortable household. That’s certainly not true. In our house it was completely predictable and we spent all of our childhood walking on eggshells. But my youngest sister has appeared quite regularly in my dreams just recently. Why can’t Castor, Zero, TOTGA or Moonchild appear as frequently?

Isabelle the Nurse and I had a long chat about the shambles that is the Town Centre right now with all of the roadworks and rebuilding. The mayor’s vanity projects are reaching new heights, so they say, but in my opinion they are plumbing new depths. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall a few years ago when they ripped up the old railway line down by the docks to turn the area into a car park. They just dumped a load of asphalt down and rolled it in instead of doing something really attractive. But when it comes to the view outside the Town Hall, it’s all a completely different beast.

Isabelle the Nurse thinks that I ought to run for Mayor, but I don’t even have the right to a vote here – nowhere in the World, in fact.

After she left I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK

Our author has discovered that several stone circles and menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … on Dartmoor align with the same stars of some of the alignments at Stonehenge do, but some 300 or 400 years later due to the precession of the stars that we mentioned yesterday. In view of the crude nature of the stones he considers that these are more primitive people than those at Stonehenge.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have discussed something along these lines before. One of our authors has pointed to the fact that invading forces in the British Isles have pushed the preceding inhabitants westward onto poorer land. The work on Stonehenge began approximately 2600BC and stopped at about 1600BC. Round about 1800BC we have the arrival of what are termed “The Wessex Culture”, described by one historian as "an intrusive ruling class who opened trading networks with France and central and northern Europe, and imported bronze tools and probably also artisans", from mainland Europe.

They certainly reached the Wessex area (hence their name) where there have been numerous discoveries of rich graves .

It doesn’t take much imagination to speculate that with their superior organisation, the people of the Wessex culture swept away the previous inhabitants who fled West, and built what they could to continue to worship what they worshipped, with whatever they could find and whatever skills that remained.

Back in here, I had a few things to do and then started work. By the time that I finished, I’d sorted out all of the music, remixed it, paired and segued it and written all of the notes for the next radio programme, ready to dictate on Saturday night.

So for the rest of the week I can attack my Woodstock magnum opus and see what inroads I can make into it.

That was despite several interruptions – my cleaner arriving to do her stuff, my weekly shower, the disgusting drink break etc. But at least I’m now nice and clean, my clothes are washed and I can enjoy my night’s sleep, if I ever reach my bed.

Tea tonight was rice and veg and a naan of course, With all of the stuffing though, far too much for one meal, I threw in a tin of chick peas and a jar of the Vindaloo sauce and had it simmering away for twenty minutes in the microwave on a low heat

And by God! That’s what I call “hot” It’s no surprise that no-one in France ever bought it. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I lived on my farm we used to have communal meals in our area where each one of us would take a dish. I always took a dish of pepper and lentil curry, made especially lightly. All of the British people there would be going "what the hell is this insipid rubbish, Eric?" and all of the French people would be gasping for air and throwing themselves into the nearby pond.

Right now though, I’m going to throw myself into my bed and have a sleep, later than usual of course.

But before I go, seeing as we are talking about going to bed … "well, one of us is" – ed … I was told a story about a boxer who was unable to sleep. His doctor told him to try counting sheep after he lay down and that should do the trick.
"I’ve tried that" said the boxer. <"and it’s totally useless"
"Why’s that?" asked the doctor
"Because every time I lie down i begin to count .. one .. two .. three .. four .. five .. six.. seven .. eight .. and every time I say .. nine .. I automatically leap to my feet again"

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Tuesday 25th March 2025 – I HAD ANOTHER …

… good day in my Welsh lesson today and I’ve no idea what happened. In fact, we had another quiz and I finished in second place. That was something that took me completely by surprise. And had I realised quicker that I had to press “send” to register my results, I might even have finished first.

No danger of me finishing anything like first last night. Another long night dragged on and I was still letting it all hang out after midnight. In fact, it was shortly after 00:30 when I went to bed and, asleep quite quickly, I remember nothing whatever until the alarm went off at 07:00 – nothing at all.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I was out and about on my travels, somewhere with some kind of tropical situation going on, I’m not sure exactly what and I can’t really remember very much of it now but it was certainly one of these tropical scenes with palm trees and all of that kind of thing

However, that was that. I can’t remember any more at all. However, I wonder if the tropical setting of that dream relates to the tropical years that we were discussing … "well, one of us was" – ed … yesterday.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up and then went for my medication. Back in here there was nothing on the dictaphone – it really must have been an undisturbed night – and so i checked over my Welsh homework and sent it off

Hurricane Isabelle the Nurse blew in, later than usual on her first day after her rest, what with all of the injections and blood tests that people won’t let her oppo do. She was her usual cheerful self but didn’t hang around long, soon back out on her travels.

Once she’d left I made breakfast and read more of MY BOOK.

Having discussed the Tropical and Sidereal Years yesterday, we have moved on. Today, we started off by discussing the Metonic Cycle, which has nothing whatever to do with bicycles.

In fact, it’s an ancient Babylonian period of time of nineteen years, with twelve years of twelve lunar months and seven years of thirteen lunar months. According to Titus Livius a Roman historian, "in the twentieth year the days should fall in with the same position of the sun from which they had started".

We talked about the Hyperboreans just recently. It was said in the myth that Apollo visited the Hyperboreans every nineteen years. We also talked about the Antikythera Computer, and it is said that that machine could calculate on the basis of the Metonic Cycle in addition to its other functions.

Surprisingly, the Metonic Cycle was still being used as recently as 1752 for the calculation of Easter, although the inclusion of Leap Years subsequently has confused the cycle.

From there we went on to discuss the Callippic Cycle, discovered by the Greek astronomer Callippus who worked out that if we had four Metonic Cucles and took one day away from the final Metonic Cycle, it would be more accurate. Modern calculations indicate that the Metonic Cycle loses one day every 219 years, whereas the Callippic Cycle loses one day every 553 years

From there, we went on to discuss the Hipparchic Cycle, calculated by the Rhodian astronomer Hipparchus about whom we have talked recently. He took four Callippic Cycles of 304 years in total, removed one day, and thought that it would be totally accurate. Actually, it isn’t. It’s out by all of 33 minutes every 345 years, and not even modern calculations were not that accurate until NASA’s eclipse computer came on-line.

Back in here I revised my Welsh and then went for my lesson. It actually passed very well which was surprising. We’re discussing crime and punishment this week and the tutor gave us an assignment to discuss, about the times that we might have broken the law.

The examples were things like cycling on the pavement and that sort of thing and I was sorely tempted to throw a shark into the swimming pool.

However I restrained myself and talked about the time that I (at just seventeen) and my girlfriend (not quite fourteen) borrowed the ID cards of my sister and her husband to go to see Lindisfarne at the local nightclub. It wasn’t my fault that I didn’t realise that they wouldn’t go on stage until 22:45 and not finish until 01:00 (she had to be in by 22:30), or that my girlfriend had never drunk alcohol before that night. So at about 02:00 I was probably the most unpopular person in Wistaston and I never saw her after that.

After the lesson I had a disgusting drink break and then my cleaner put her sooty foot in the door. And what a marvel she is. A few weeks ago they had on special offer at LeClerc some large plastic boxes with lids, the kind that you hide under the bed. I’d given up hope of ever receiving any, but she turned up with four or five, which is marvellous.

So all of the cables and so on that are lying around here that I only ever use once every Preston Guild, so they can be stuck in a box out of the way and hidden under the bed until needed.

What I’ve been doing for the rest of the day is tracking down the music that I need for the next radio programme. One or two of the tracks were, as usual, difficult to find but eventually, by the time that I had finished, I had managed to lay my hands upon them and now I have a full selection from which to choose.

Tea tonight is, of course, taco roll with some of the stuffing, accompanied by rice and veg, followed by the last of the date bread. Tomorrow I’ll start on the ginger, orange and coconut cake.

The problem with what to do with all of the stuffing that I made yesterday has been resolved. LeClerc has tins of chick peas on special offer this week so I’ve ordered a couple. Tomorrow I shall throw in a tin that I have here, along with a jar of sauce that has been here since Noah brought it down from Mount Ararat, and there should be enough for several servings, some of which I can freeze for another time.

So right now I’m off to bed ready for a day of radioing and showering.

But seeing as we have been talking about me coming second in the Welsh quiz … "well, one of us has" – ed … It reminds me of Job, who in his Book, Chapter 23 Verse 10, said "I shall come forth as gold". Hovever he actually came fifth and was silver.

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Monday 24th March 2025 – THAT WAS QUITE …

… a shambles this afternoon. Not the dialysis itself exactly, but everything else that surrounded it. Roll on the day that this new centre opens in Granville when all of this will (hopefully) be a thing of the past, although I bet that it won’t be.

Going to bed early is also a thing of the past these days. After I finished dictating my notes I had the backing-up to perform and then one thing led to another. And until you start, you have no idea how many other things there are. Considering that there was nothing really planned for after the notes, I took an awfully long time doing it.

Once n bed though I was soon asleep but once again, not for long. This time I was actually too hot in bed with my old fleece but I wasn’t going to take it off because I knew full well that i’d only wake up an hour later and put it back on.

At about 05:00 we had another phantom alarm that awoke me bolt-upright and I took some convincing to go back to bed. I found out later that it was a message that someone had posted. So that time, it was easily explained, and I wish that there was an explanation as straightforward as that for all of the other times.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I was deep in the arms of Morpheus. However, I threw off the covers and sat on the edge of the bed quite rapidly. Going to the bathroom was quite something else, however.

After a good wash and scrub up in case I see Emilie the Cute Consultant, I went into the kitchen to take my medication, along with the last of the home-made orange juice, and then I cut up my nice cake and put it in a box in the fridge before the nurse could put his sticky hands all over it.

And if the crumbs are anything to go by, it will be totally wicked.

By the way, seeing as we are on the subject of my cake … "well, one of us is" – ed … if you noted down the recipe earlier, you’ll need to note it down again because it’s changed slightly. I forgot something.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was away somewhere on a course from work and there were quite a few of us. We were in this kind-of complex that was consisting of small single rooms formed into some kind of terrace outside in a small park. We each had a little room. I was coming back from doing something and it was dark. I suddenly realised that I couldn’t remember my room number. I walked up and down this particular row of terraces hearing my radio programme being broadcast on the radio but that didn’t give me any help. I just could not remember my room. In the end I walked back to the office, went in, put on the light and had a look for my number, which was n°315. While I was in there, someone else came in and had a look around the office and went outside. He went to one of the cabins at this end of the complex which were on stilts and you needed steps to go up to them. This guy went to one of the cabins and I heard the discussion, one of them saying that a girl had cleaned his windows for him. He said the name of her but I can’t remember but it was a girl whom I knew. This guy came back down the steps again. I asked him what was the problem. He said that he was looking for a newspaper with the football results in from tonight. I asked him why he didn’t look at the football results on the internet but he became quite aggressive about that and said that he didn’t want to take on board another website to go with the others that he had, which I thought was one of the craziest things that I’d heard.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall all kinds of things that would make anyone realise that crazy things appear quite regularly during my nocturnal rambles. There’s nothing new about that. And as for the complex where I was during the night, I’ve been here before and I can see it quite clearly, but I’ve no idea where it is. It’s row after row of white single-storey buildings rather like the HORSA huts that were installed in schools after the 1944 Education Act raised the school leaving age from 14 to 15. We had some at our school – the old Science block, the Woodworking room and the school canteen.

The nurse had a lot to say today but nothing of any relevance, and once he left, I could make breakfast and read MY BOOK

Today, we’re back on the Astronomy lessons, discussing the Tropical Year, the one that everyone recognises with 365.24219 days in it, the time the Sun takes to return to the same position relative to the seasons of the calendar year.

However, there is also what is called the “Sidereal Year”. This is the year relating to the time that the Earth takes to complete one full orbit around the Sun, and line up again in the same position with the same stars that were there at the start of the cycle. Although the stars are said to be in “precession” – meaning that they are moving very slowly to the West relative to the position of the Earth – apparently it’s the Earth’s axis that is slowly changing. The sidereal year is actually 20 minutes or so longer than the Tropical Year.

This will explain why there is so much coal to be found in the Antarctic – many millions of years ago the position of the earth would have been such that the Antarctic would have been in a temperate forest zone.

We are also discussing the Antikythera computer. It was only found a couple of years before Lockyer wrote his book and so it was even more of a puzzle then that it still is today. However he makes some very educated guesses as to what it might be and quite a few of his remarks have been confirmed subsequently.

He considers that it might be a device for measuring the precession of the stars as an aid to seagoing navigation. Modern thought certainly considers it to be for that purpose but not for use at sea. It’s suggested that it was part of a shipment of freight being taken from the workshops of the Greek astronomer Hipparchus in Rhodes (he is known to have considered the very problems that the mechanism can predict, and the ship carried a load of other Rhodian produce) and the calendar details are in the Corinthian calendar, indicating therefore the likely destination of the ship

Back in here I sorted out a few things and then attacked the rest of my Welsh homework. And now all of that is finished and ready for a final check tomorrow before I send it off.

My faithful cleaner turned up to fit my patches and then I had to wait around for the taxi.

On the way to Avranches we had to pick up someone else at the hospital to take home down there, and despite the visit we arrived bang on time at the dialysis centre.

Unfortunately, so did six other people and I was last in the queue. However a Nursing Auxiliary brought me an ice-pack and I put it on my arm while I waited.

Eventually, I was plugged in. And with the ice-pack, it wasn’t as painful as it might have been. But it was still hours late.

And I had a visit this afternoon. Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see how I was. And although our chat was strictly professional, she did smile, which is certainly a change from just recently.
"Is there anything that you need?" she asked
"Actually, there is" I replied. "But I don’t think that the hospital will provide it."

One thing that I did though was to ask her that, in view of the fact that my water retention is less than it was before, whether they might reduce my dialysis time. She asked how long and I replied "much as I love you, reduce it to as short a time as possible.". She’ll “think about it” and look at my tests.

They came and took several measures with their electronic machine and, rather ominously, a form to fill in about my final directives “if necessary”.

Once I was unplugged and ready to leave, I was told that I would have to wait ten minutes for someone else to bring back. That ten minutes turned out to be half an hour, consequently it was 19:25 when I finally returned home and I can well do without that. My cleaner was fed up of waiting, but not half as fed up as I was.

Tea was a stuffed pepper with pasta and veg in tomato sauce, and I seem to have gone rather berserk with the stuffing today. I shall be eating that for the rest of the month, I reckon.

Now that I’ve finished my notes I’m going to back everything up and go to bed ready for my Welsh class tomorrow.

But while we’re on the subjects of Space, the stars and planets … "well, one of us is" – ed … there was someone once abducted by aliens and promised a trip around the Galaxy to see the stars and the planets.
Just as he was settling down to enjoy the trip a voice boomed out on the tannoy system near his head. "you’re not going anywhere, young man, until you’ve tidied your room, taken out the rubbish and brought your coffee mugs to the kitchen"
"What a strange thing to say" I told him. "What on earth was that all about?"
"You wouldn’t believe it" he replied. "Only I could be abducted by aliens and somehow end up on board the Mother Ship"

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Sunday 23rd March 2025 – MY ORANGE, GINGER …

… and coconut cake is absolutely delicious, if it tastes anything like the mix that I sampled and the crumbs that broke off when I brought it out of the oven. The proof of the pudding is indeed in the eating and I’ll have to wait a couple of days before I start on it, so I’ll tell you more in a few days time.

So last night, after I’d finished my notes, I dictated the radio notes that I’d written during the week and then went to bed. It was only a few minutes after midnight too so with my Sunday morning lie-in until 08:00, I was looking forward to a decent sleep.

To be on the safe side, I’d found an old fleece jumper in the chest of drawers so in desperation I put that on before going to bed. And while I may well have awoken in the middle of the night for a variety of reasons, cold wasn’t one of them. For once just recently, I was quite comfortable in that respect.

When the alarm went off at 08:00 I was away with the fairies, although not in any fashion that might incite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine. However, wherever I was and whatever I was doing evaporated completely from my mind and that was that.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what I’d been doing during the night.

Not that I advanced very far because the nurse came round to sort me out. He had a lot to say for himself this morning but nothing of any importance, so I could crack on and make my breakfast, including some home-made orange juice and home-made apple and kiwi purée with home-made bread out of the toaster and porridge.

I also read some more of MY NEW BOOK and, unfortunately, Sir Norman Lockyer is tying himself up in knots.

Having criticised the builders of these stone monuments on the grounds of their uncivilised nature, to day he tells us that, according to Caesar "that in the schools of the Druids the subjects taught included the movements of the stars, the size of the earth, and the nature of things … Studies of such a character seem quite consistent with, and to demand, a long antecedent period of civilisation.".

He also talks about the stories that the Greek, Hecataeus, told of the Hyperboreans – "so called because they live beyond the point from which the North wind blows". That’s interesting to me at least because the early Polar explorers were convinced, for some reason, that there was a warm sea beyond the ice belt, a delusion that led so many of them to their deaths. I always wondered why it would be possible to believe such a thing but if the myth of the Hyperboreans really was believed, (and Hecataeus was convinced they and the Greeks had been in contact and that the Hyperboreans were "in general very friendly to the Greeks.’") that would explain everything.

There was a bap to make this morning so that I could have my cheese on toast for lunch. I made the mix rather wetter than in the past to see what happens and it was rather difficult to knead. But once it was made I left it to fester for a while.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night. There was something about my youngest sister last night – I can’t remember exactly what it was but I wanted her to do something or to go somewhere and pick up something where I was. It took her a while to turn up and I can’t really remember any more about it because it’s another one of these dreams that evaporated away.

Just as well really. I don’t want my family loitering around my bedside during the night, that’s for sure

Later on, I started work being an Accompanier … "you mean ‘escort’" – ed … on a school bus in New Brunswick. I had to go to the local small town pick-up point to run a check on all of the pupils there. There were probably fifty children waiting there. Each of them wore a badge with their names, and several of them had changed their names and put “Bigfoot” there instead. After I’d reviewed all of the names I asked “how many Bigfoots have we here?”. Someone replied “well, there are five “. I replied “well, it’s New Brunswick, isn’t it? That will explain it”. Everyone burst out laughing.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … you could put everyone in New Brunswick, and in particular, Carleton County where my place is, into Tennessee and no-one, neither the New Brunswickers or the Tennesseans, would notice the difference. Much as I love that area of North America, western New Brunswick, Maine, Vermont, it is like going back seventy years in time. That’s probably why I like it.

Next, there was football. And I despair of Stranraer FC. Having played like a championship side last week and blown away so convincingly the leaders of their division, and away from home too, this weekend they were at home to the bottom club, played one of the worst games that I have ever seen them play, and lost 1-0.

These Jekyll-and-Hyde performances have to stop if they want to be serious about keeping their place in the league. Last season they had a lucky escape from demotion out of the League, and they haven’t really improved all that much.

And while we’re on the subject of demotion and relegation … "well, one of us is" – ed … the weekend’s results in the JD Cymru League mean that Aberstwyth are relegated, as predicted at the start of the season, and Y Fflint just need one point to be assured of staying up – and with three matches to go.

With Aberystwyth’s relegation, it means that Y Drenewydd are the only club to have been in the league for every year that it has been in existence, and they are looking by no means safe quite yet.

Next task was the radio. Last night I’d dictated the notes for eleventh track of a radio programme and so I edited them and joined everything up together. The whole lot over-ran by seven seconds but I always dictate stuff that can be edited out without disrupting the sense and the rhythm and that was soon accomplished.

Lunch was next and I do have to say that my bap was absolute perfection today, the best that I have ever made. I’m certain that my water measurer is inaccurate and that’s been the root of all of my problems. The air fryer baked it really well and made some lovely cheese on toast, even if it is vegan cheese.

This afternoon I attacked the next programme. Last night I’d dictated the notes for ten tracks and so I edited it all down and assembled it. Later on, I chose the eleventh track and wrote the notes for it ready for dictation next weekend.

After the disgusting drink break I set about making my cake.

It’s a standard oil cake of

  • one cup of flour
  • one cup of sugar
  • half a cup of hot water
  • half a cup of oil (I use 50% vegetable oil and 50% coconut oil)
  • half a teaspoon of baking powder
  • half a teaspoon of salt
  • one teaspoon of vanilla essence

to that I added

  • a couple of inches of ginger paste (Heaven only knows where my fresh ginger has gone
  • a teaspoon of ground ginger
  • a teaspoon of mixed spice
  • some desiccated coconut
  • an extra half-cup of flour
  • all of the orange pulp from which I had extracted the juice yesterday
  • some whizzed-up almonds and Brazil nuts

All of the dry stuff was whizzed up in my whizzer, then all of the wet stuff was added in and whizzed into the mix, and it was all then poured out into a lined cake tray and baked for 35 minutes at 180°C

While that was going on, the pizza dough that i’d taken from the freezer was defrosting. I made the pizza while the cake was baking and then popped it into the hot oven when the cake was done.

The pizza was perfection too, especially as I had remembered everything this week, for a change.

Now I’m off to bed ready for dialysis tomorrow, I don’t think

But while we are talking about Bigfoot "well, one of us is" one of my friends in Crewe contacted me the other day and told me that there was a big, hairy monster running around Crewe scaring everyone.
"Crewe’s equivalent of Bigfoot, I suppose?" I asked
"Very probably" he replied "but here, he’s called ‘Big Thirty point Four-Eight Centimetres’"

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Saturday 22nd March 2025 – IT WAS ANOTHER …

… freezing cold night last night when I had to leave the comfort of my stinking pit to put on my dressing gown and go back to bed. I’ve no idea what’s happening here but as I said yesterday, it’s completely the opposite of how things were even a week ago.

At least it wasn’t quite such a late night as it was the previous night. After midnight, I was still letting it all hang out, but not for long and I was glad to see the inside of my bed, where I fell asleep quite quickly.

Not for long though, because I froze again. And after awakening a couple of times I gave up and put in the dressing gown, and then went back to sleep.

When the alarm went off I sat bolt upright and was out of bed in an instant. I’m not sure why because I certainly didn’t feel like it. It was another uncomfortable stagger into the bathroom to sort myself out ready for dialysis – a wash and a shave in case Emilie the Cute Consultant is there, not that it makes any difference because she doesn’t love me any more.

There was also some washing to do, including the bedding from last week that my cleaner changed. And as you might already have guessed, there’s still some washing left to do that I couldn’t fit into the machine

In the kitchen I had some things to do. There were six oranges that were definitely looking the worse for wear so I whizzed them up in my whizzer and filtered out the juice.

There’s a load of whizzed-up pulp now so what I plan to do is to make an orange, ginger and coconut oilcake and put all of the orange pulp in it. It might not work but if it does, it will certainly be different

The nurse came round and told me a few of the details about the funeral yesterday. He also asked for my medical card, that I don’t have, so he searched through the apartment too and couldn’t find it. I did tell him….

For breakfast I had some diluted fresh orange juice and some of my home-made apple and kiwi purée with my porridge and toast made of home-made bread. And it was all beautiful too. That’s what I call a good breakfast.

I also read some more of MY NEW BOOK. Our astronomy lessons are continuing and we’re still discussing different New Years, but we’re now coming round to the more practical aspects of what we have learned so far.

He’s come up with some surprising facts, including the fact that there are many similarities of religious and cultural practices between the Ancient Egyptians and some of the contemporary races of Central America. I wonder if this book is where Thor Heyerdahl found his ideas that led him on his adventures in papyrus and balsawood rafts

Going back to the story about various New Years, of which there are more than just a few scattered around the globe, the English New Year was the 25th March until 1752, and it still is for Income Tax purposes, although with the change of calendar, also in 1752 when England lost 11 days to bring it into alignment with everywhere else, The Income Tax New Year is 6th April these days.

Back in here I had the dictaphone notes to transcribe from last night. There was something going on about one of the earliest airports and airfields in Wales, created in the early 20th Century by someone who was wandering around there looking for something special. He came across a very flat piece of land that people were using from which to fly some kind of primitive machines. He was immediately captivated by this and went back to London to create the idea of having the first airport in Wales based on this particular site in the hills.

And if someone could find a flat place in the Welsh hills big enough to build an airport they will be doing well.

There was also an article that I saw in something that I’d written about Granville being the site of one of the very first ports for armed reconnaissance in the New World. But as I looked at it I saw that it was a considerable jumble of words rather than being anything coherent. I wondered whether it had been a dream that I’d written down some time or other in the past without thinking about it and had come across it again. It certainly made no sense, but on the other hand it was a lot of truth in what I’d written.

As it happens, unlikely though it might seem, there was a famous corsair authorised by the French Government who sailed out of Granville, Georges-René Pléville Le Pelley, whose statue is just down the road from here. But “a considerable jumble of words rather than being anything coherent” – my dreams “certainly made no sense”. Perish the thought, hey?

And later still, I went out around Brussels with Zero’s father. We’d come past one of the supermarkets so I suggested that we go there and do some shopping for me while we are out. Eventually we found a car park after several wrong turnings but I didn’t have my disabled car badge and there was nowhere to park really close to the supermarket door so I had to stagger all the way over to the supermarket. We found a parking place right outside but for some reason he didn’t go to fetch the car. We went to go in but I suddenly realised that I didn’t have my crutches. I was finding it extremely difficult to move. I could see that this is going to be extremely difficult if I didn’t have my crutches with me to be able to move about in the supermarket, or anywhere for that matter.

Zero’s father? But no Zero. That’s a disappointment. And how I would like to be able to stagger somewhere without my crutches, difficult or not. However, I recognise this supermarket. It’s one that I’ve been to in Canada in the pouring rain, but I can’t remember where it is now, apart from the fact that it’s in Québec.

Back in here I had a few things to do and I was in the middle thereof when I was interrupted by my cleaner who had come to fit my patches. And while she was here I went to answer my telephone and there in the pouch inside the case was my medical card. However it managed to find its way there I really don’t know.

The taxi at lunchtime was driven by a very garrulous driver and we had an interesting chat all the way to Avranches.

At Avrenches they put an ice-pack on my arm for ten minutes and then went to connect me up. And while it did hurt, it didn’t hurt as badly as some have in the recent past.

No-one bothered me at all today so I watched the highlights of last night’s football, carried out a few tasks that have been meaning to do, and then cut up a few sound-bytes. But the travelling laptop is not the quickest machine in the World and it takes forever.

After they unplugged me it was the same taxi driver who brought me home and we had another interesting chat coming home. My cleaner was waiting for me and we went through the medication and made a list of what I need, seeing as we now have a medical card to take to the Pharmacy.

Tea tonight was a baked potato, salad and one of the breadcrumbed quorn fillets that I like, seeing as I have now run out of baps for my vegan burgers. Maybe I ought to experiment and make some myself

So now I have radio notes to dictate and then I’ll go to bed. Tomorrow there will be the notes to edit and my orange, ginger and coconut cake to make. I’ve some pizza dough left for tomorrow night and I’m using up the bread that is in the freezer right now to make some space.

But seeing as we have been talking about Georges-René Pléville Le Pelley … "well, one of us has" – ed … it’s not very well-known that he and his corsairs sailed occasionally with a group of pirates.
One day, in company with the pirates, his corsairs came across a British ship that, after a spirited fight, they managed to seize.
They rounded up all the British crew and upon doing a headcount, found that there were two missing, so the pirates and corsairs searched the ship for them and eventually dragged them out of hiding.
Later on, back in London the two men were interviewed by the Admiralty about their capture.
"How was it that you were captured?" said the First Sea Lord to the first one.
"I was dragged out of my hiding place by the pirates"
"And you?" he asked the other one
"I was dragged out of my hiding place by the … errr … other ruffians"

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Friday 21st March 2025 – I’M HAVING ANOTHER …

… late night tonight. Mind you – this time it’s for a very good reason. Hwlffordd, third in the table, are playing Penybont, second, and need a win quite badly if they are to take second place. Normally, these days, I wouldn’t watch it until tomorrow afternoon at dialysis but this is a crucial match that I can’t really miss.

It’ll probably end up being later than last night’s, anyway. For a change, I was in bed not long after midnight once I’d finished everything that I had to do. And although I was asleep quite quickly, it wasn’t for long.

It was another freezing cold night and I was chilled to the marrow. In fact I grabbed hold of my dressing gown and put it on in bed and went back to sleep, feeling a little warmer.

And that’s surprising me. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in the very recent past I’ve been sweating buckets and feeling so hot in bed that it’s unbelievable. Right now though, for the last couple of days it’s been exactly the opposite. So what’s happening here then?

Once I was asleep, there I stayed until the alarm went off and then a very weary me staggered to his feet and wandered off into the bathroom.

After a good wash and tidy up I went for the medication, and then back in here to listen to the dictaphone to see what had happened during the night. Some woman was talking to someone from the northern part of the USA about things that had been going on in a chat group. The person replied that it wasn’t actually things in general but a few specific occasions where people had been adopting some kind of strange attitude and coming out with some unusual comments. He couldn’t explain anything about them but he did mention that he was very friendly on line with a girl from Oregon. She was possibly the latest person to take part in this strange way of talking and using strange words and so on. He gave a couple of examples of things that she had said but they weren’t particularly complimentary.

That reminds me of a group of people with whom I used to hang around back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when we all talked in clichés. You would never ever hear someone say "it’s over there" without someone else replying "what? Behind the rabbit?"

Or when someone needed to find out how heavy something is the answer would always be "we shall use my largest scales"

There were thousands of quotes like that that filtered all the way through everyday conversation back in those days, and many of them still hang around today but for the most part, it’s a form of communication that has become very exclusive because there are fewer and fewer people who remember it.

These days, in general, a sense of humour is non-existent. I remember a fellow student, in despair after an “exchange” with an American, created a spoof web site with the University logo on it for a course entitled, “Understanding Irony” and pushed it into the USA. Not only did he have several applicants, his point was proven rather more dramatically than he intended because the University, which also didn’t have a sense of humour and would have benefited from his course, threatened him with all kinds of sanctions if he didn’t take down the site.

Later on in the night I had Crewe Alexandra v Barrow. Barrow, who were bottom of the league, put up a really stubborn existence but Crewe ended up overwhelming them and scoring in a late goal. As a result, Crewe won the championship, probably the first actual championship that they have won, and Barrow were relegated to the National League. Even so, many of the commentators were in admiration of Barrow’s determined style of play and their determination to hold on to win a point at all costs

Earlier in the season Crewe Alexandra were pushing for the leadership of the table and Barrow were down in the depths. But a look in the table just now shows that the Alex have slid down somewhat and Barrow have found some form and climbed up. So this is one dream that won’t be coming true – just like all the rest, I suppose.

The nurse is off to a funeral this morning so I told him to pass on my condolences to the family of the deceased. It’s for one of the guys with whom I used to travel to dialysis. He passed away last Saturday.

After he left I made breakfast and read some more of MY NEW BOOK. We’re still in the introductory basic astronomy lesson, discussing the various calculations of different New Years and, would you believe, mistletoe

Nevertheless I sat rather bolt-upright when I read his remark "It was absolutely essential for early man, including the inhabitants of Britain as it was then—townless, uncivilised — that the people should know something about the proper time for performing their agricultural operations".

Surely, if man had stopped being a hunter-gatherer and had settled down to a sedentary life to pursue agriculture, that must mean that they have stopped competing with each other and are learning to co-operate. And is it not the embracing of co-operation between human beings a sign that humans have become civilised?

Back in here I made a start on the Woodstock programmes and by the time I’d finished I had all of the music for Friday and Saturday, all edited, remixed and ready to go. Mind you, I’m not quite sure how I’m going to manage to fit one hour and twenty-two minutes of music plus all of the accompanying speech into a one-hour time slot on the Saturday

Tomorrow, if I have a moment spare, I shall have to do the music for the Sunday and see how much I have for that.

Some of the notes have already been written and I can work my way through the rest as I go along.

My cleaner turned up today and between us we have still not managed to find my medical card. This is going to become a problem if I’m not careful. I can’t think where it might be. I’ve put it somewhere safe and so that will be that.

That reminds me of life down on the farm. I’d see something on special offer and think that i’ll need that for a renovation in six months time, but it’s such a good price that it’s well worth buying it now. So I’d buy it, put it somewhere to keep it safe and when I came round to need it, I could never ever find it again.

Tea tonight was a very quick salad, veggie nuggets and chips, and then back here for the football.

Hwlffordd took off at a very rapid rates of knots and scored an early goal, but then Penybont roared back upfield and scored an equaliser almost immediately.

Having played at 100 mph for the first 20 minutes or so, Hwlffordd seemed to run out of steam and they became less concerned with attacking and more concerned with retaining possession, to such an extent that it became embarrassing at times. It goes without saying that Penybont scored a second late in the game and even so, Hwlffordd still didn’t show any sign of urgency

You don’t score goals if you don’t attack and Hwlffordd are one of the lowest-scoring teams in the league. Their defence is (usually) excellent but their lack of effort to move the ball quickly upfield and to find a striker who can score goals is going to cost them in the long run.

So now I’ll do the washing up and then go to bed. Washing clothes, making orange juice, and dialysis are on the agenda tomorrow.

But yesterday, we were having a discussion about light bulbs … "well, one of us was" – ed …
This morning a friend of mine in Germany asked me "how many Germans does it take to change a light bulb?"
"I don’t know" I replied. "How many does it take?"
"None" she replied. "German light bulbs are engineered correctly and so never ever need changing. And anyway, Germans don’t have a sense of humour."

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