… spoilt to death today. So much so that I’ve told my friend that he can come again!

It’s not every day that I treasure quite like this, but it certainly makes me grateful that I have such good friends. In fact, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I don’t have many friends, but those I do have are the best in the World.

Last night, though, was slightly different. It was more like this morning – 03:30, in fact – when I finally slid underneath the covers. And I promise you – I was asleep before my head touched the pillow.

The next thing that I remember was the quilt being whipped off my feet. Hurricane Isabelle the Nurse had blown in and was ready to attack my feet and legs. She did the necessary without me having to move, fitted my socks for me and then asked for my medical card so that she could prepare her monthly accounts. All of this while my head was firmly tucked down underneath the quilt.

The medical card was in the pocket of my telephone, which was underneath my pillow so I managed to fumble it out for her. When she’d finished with it, she handed it back to me and I began to think about today.

A few minutes after she left, my friend stuck his head in through the door “Notice your coffee?”. Apparently, while I had been asleep, he’d been in and put a mug off coffee on the bedside table behind the head of the bed And I had heard or smelt nothing at all. What has happened to my legendary light sleeping?

Eventually, I managed to struggle into the kitchen where I began to make my breakfast. And I was so far out of it all that I forgot the home-made croissants. I had toast instead, which is not quite the same thing.

There were things to do, places to go and people to see so I came back in here for an hour or two and was then interrupted by “do you want to go for a drive?”.

Two weeks or so ago, when my friend first arrived, he had asked me the same question, and I refused. I was simply not up to it and couldn’t even summon up the strength to go out of the door. Today, though, I jumped at the chance and positively galloped out of the door. The only downside was that I couldn’t find the NIKON J5 to take with me.

Obviously, our tidying-up session of a few weeks ago was more efficient than I thought.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, the Hound of the Baskervilles and I piled into the car while my friend put everything into the boot. It was only then that I realised that instead of struggling over to the bollards in the street, I’d actually managed to walk across the car park to the car without even thinking about it.

We drove down the coast road as far as Genets where there’s a large car park with a long, grassy footpath and a really good view over Mont St Michel. We stopped there so that the Hound of the Baskervilles could stretch his legs, and he duly dragged his master off down the path as I admired the view.

When they came back, we set off again. I lost the way a couple of times, not having been down here for several years, and we saw parts of Normandy and the coast that I can’t ever remember. We stopped a few times for my friend’s photography session and then we carried on to Avranches.

Firstly, though, I took him to see where the dialysis centre was. If he knows where it is, he might be able to come to pick me up from there at some point if I need to flee. I’ve already been picked up there once by a friend when the only protection was flight.

After that, we took the old mediaeval road into Avranches, the one that’s incredibly steep and narrow with the ridiculous hairpin bend halfway up. This took us into the town centre, where we drove around in a circle for a while as I tried to find my bearings.

We eventually managed to find the Leclerc petrol station where we fuelled up and then drove back into the centre of town, where we drove around … etc. etc. We found a parking space right in the centre of town, where we parked. My friend hopped out and returned five minutes later with a kebab for him and a bag of chips for me.

Armed with our lunch, we headed off to the big car park by the church to do some eating, followed by the Hound of the Baskervilles dragging his master off once more, this time into the park nearby.

Later on, we set off for a drive around the countryside. We reached as far as Mortain but by now it was becoming late. My friend therefore switched on his SatNav to bring us back the quickest way possible and we ended up coming through Avranches yet again.

Back home, it was 17:45 when we arrived, far too late to make a pizza. Not to worry, though. My friend conjured up a cottage pie – “made of real cottages”, he told me. It was absolutely delicious and I must make some more at some point.

When we’d finished eating, I washed up everything and came in here, musing on the fact that I’d been treated to café au lit – not café au lait but café au lit or “coffee in bed”, a lovely day out, a bag of chips for lunch and a cottage pie for tea. What more could anyone want?

There were the dictaphone notes from last night to deal with, so I attacked them.

Alton Street in Crewe and children (at least, one child) feature in something that’s actually happening at the moment, but it’s yet another story that the World isn’t quite ready to hear. And I wish that it had gone to its conclusion because it might have helped someone with what’s happening right now. Still, you have to work for a living and sometimes, work is more difficult than you imagine.

So now that my notes are written, I’m off to bed. It’s horribly late again but I’m not really tired. Anyway, I can always sleep at dialysis tomorrow afternoon if they let me. And that’s a big “if”.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about going out in the car … "well, one of us has" – ed … I joked with my friend about dropping me off at the bollards.
"That’s nothing" he replied."Just wait until tomorrow when you have to go to dialysis and you are picked up by the bollards."

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