… from dialysis this afternoon in an ambulance, flat out on a stretcher.

However, before anyone is alarmed, there was no urgent reason for it. They didn’t have a taxi available to bring me home at that moment, so it was either wait forty-five minutes for a car to be free or else hop into an ambulance that was doing nothing.

My hopping days are, unfortunately, over and I couldn’t climb into the ambulance, so the girls who were crewing it put me on the stretcher and I had a nice relaxing ride home.

It’s about time that I had a nice relaxing time because things have been rather rough these last few days, and last night was no exception. Despite not having much to do after tea, I ended up being in bed rather later than I wanted to be. It was about 22:45 when I finally crawled into my stinking pit.

Although I went to sleep quite quickly once I was in bed, it wasn’t for long. By 01:20, I was awake again and this time, I managed to drift occasionally back to sleep. However, what sleep I did have didn’t really do me much good.

And in news that will surprise everyone, the alarm didn’t go off this morning. And for a very good reason too. At the times when it was supposed to have gone off – at 06:29 with its repeater at 06:33 – I’d already been up for a good half-hour and I’d long-since switched it off. I didn’t manage to go back to sleep and I thought that there was no point trying to force myself or to waste time when there was plenty of work to do.

The first thing to do is to listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night.

A couple of days ago, I’d had to refill the liquid soap in the soap dispenser in the bathroom sink and also refill the shower gel container in the shower. Filling up the sauce bottles … "sauce bottles?" – ed … in the bathroom is something probably related to that.

Interestingly, though, this is one of those dreams for which I have absolutely no recollection at all. And it was the “also” that interested me. Has there been a previous dream that I might have missed somewhere?

First of all, I didn’t marry any woman like that. Nerina had a character all of her own, including an “emotional” side that she presumably inherited from her Italian mother, but she was never aggressive. Well, not unless I’d done something to really upset her.

However, this house and the description of this woman do sound like someone and somewhere where I stayed a few times twenty-odd years ago, as regular readers of this rubbish in an earlier version will recall, and it didn’t turn out well. The aggressive side of this woman’s character was actually her real character which she kept well-hidden for a while, but she couldn’t keep up the pretence for all that long.

And what’s my brother doing, co-operating with me? That would be an event unique in history.

So I’m going back to this dream, am I? Does this mean that I’ve missed another one, or is it a reference to the previous dream?

The house in the middle of the lake is interesting. I was looking at one of these street map things on line to see the changes to Shavington, where I lived from 1956 to 1970. And they’ve built houses on a field where we used to play. One thing that I noticed is that there’s a house slap-bang in the position of the old marl pit into which we fell on many an occasion. I wouldn’t like to be living in that house.

And rebuilding engines in the bedroom? I somehow don’t think so.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual to sort out my legs and feet. She was in the usual rush but she told me that tomorrow she’s going to be horribly late. It’s the brocante tomorrow in the old walled town at the back of where I live, so all of the streets are cordoned off. Consequently, she’s going to have to do some of her round on foot, which will take an age.

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

He’s continuing his tirade against Roman architecture with such comments as "Roman architecture can only take its stand on the ground of mere vastness and magnificence ; it cannot even claim so high a place as those specimens of cinquecento and debased Gothic, which often exhibit the most perfect grouping combined with the most barbarous detail."

Anyone who has ever stood underneath the Pont du Gard will tell you that it’s the “vastness and magnificence” that is the whole point of it, and the innovation and architecture that went into its design and building are phenomenal. Dismissing all of that in a couple of lines and then using the rest of the chapter to heap scorn upon it is not at all what I was expecting in a book on architecture.

Back in here, there were a few things to do and then I began to edit the next set of radio notes that I’d dictated a good while ago. They are all finished now and I’ll connect everything up the next time that I have a free moment or two.

My faithful cleaner turned up, feeling a little better than she did yesterday. She applied my anaesthetic and made sure that I had everything that I needed at dialysis this afternoon.

And then she gave me a little present. A while back, someone had given her a cutting of basil, so she had reared it in a glass of water. It’s now become a triffid, so she’s taken several cuttings, nurtured tham and now that they have taken root, she’s passed them on to everyone whom she knows, each in its own glass of water.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that it’s always been my intention to grow my own herbs, but I’ve not been able to find the correct size of window box. Now, though, it looks as if I’ve begun anyway.

The taxi was early for me today, which suits me fine. The sooner I start, the sooner I finish. But it was stifling hot in the car and I was almost suffocating. It was a day probably as warm as yesterday, I reckoned, and I was wasting it in dialysis.

When I arrived, I had the long march … "he’s in the new, air-conditioned building" – ed … to my bed via the weighing machine, to find that the nurses were already waiting for me, including the one who always likes to be a human garrot on my arm.

It was nice to be up and running by 14:05 so I could sit back and relax for a while. That wasn’t so easy, though, because the dialysis machine was on the wrong side of the bed and all of the tubes and pipes were going across my chest. I asked them why they hadn’t simply turned the bed around 180°, but the thought had never occurred to them.

So for three hours I relaxed, looked at the news and read some articles on the internet. And every half-hour, the automatic blood pressure machine kicked in, took my blood pressure, sounded the alarm and brought the nurses running. However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … they needn’t have bothered. Low blood pressure is the norm with me, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

It was another heavy session with the machine going full tilt, set at eight hundred and thirty-four millilitres per hour, just sixty-six short of the maximum, and I could tell too because near the end, I began to have the most appalling cramps in my legs and the pain in my foot, which had been missing for almost a week, came back. However, after the startling news of the other day when I was here, the doctor didn’t come back to see me. In fact, I didn’t see a doctor all the time that I was there.

When it was time to disconnect me, the nurses were, for once, ready and waiting. And it was the nurse who always wants to make the garrot who volunteered to compress my arm. I wasn’t complaining at all.

On leaving, I had to carry my own bag, which is really difficult for me as it puts me out of balance, so I was struggling. But a helpful nursing auxiliary spotted me and she took it over.

And then we had the surprise at the exit. There was an ambulance awaiting me, not a taxi. Apparently there were no cars available so it was either an ambulance or a forty-five-minute wait. It didn’t take very long at all for me to make up my mind.

They put me on the stretcher (which was nice and comfortable), strapped me in and put me in the back. Then we set off for home. And what disappointed me more than anything was that they didn’t use the flashing blue lights.

My faithful cleaner was awaiting me, and after I’d climbed off the stretcher, she helped me into the apartment, and I needed the help too after that session of dialysis. She’d also brought a cutting of mint for me, which was lovely of her. My herb garden is expanding before I even have the garden.

After she left, I made tea. Baked potato, vegan salad and burger on a bun with salad dressing, mustard, tomato, cheese and onion. And how delicious was that? My cleaner had also told me that the plants grow best in a bottle. And while the mint was in a bottle, the basil wasn’t. It was in a wine glass. However, there were two bottles of alcohol-free beer in the fridge too, so I decided to empty one of them. And that was delicious too.

Back in here, I began to write my notes but a huge wave of fatigue crept all over me and in the end, I had to abandon the procedure and finish them tomorrow morning. I’m really sorry about this.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about ambulances … "well, one of us has" – ed … a man in Florida once rang up the ambulance station. "Help! I need help urgently. An alligator has just bitten off one of my legs"
The dispatching clerk asks "which one?"
"How do I know?" replied the man. "All these alligators look the same to me."

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