Category Archives: Nerina Hall

… last day of my summer holidays today.

The other day, I know that I said that I would start work today, but falling asleep at my desk after breakfast and remaining like that until exactly 11:21 rather made up my mind for me.

It’s understandable though. Even though I crashed out last night by about 21:30 and was well-tucked up in bed, going to bed early just means that I wake up early, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …

The thing that startled me most was hearing the “click” from the immersion heater relay. “Surely it can’t be 06:38 already, it’s switching off and I’ve slept through the alarms?” No it wasn’t. It was 01:10 and the immersion heater was just switching on.

From then on, I just tossed and turned all night until I finally checked the time again – 05:52. That made up my mind so I leapt to my feet … "well, sort of" – ed … and went over to the computer to finish off last night’s notes, which are now on line.

There was time to do a few other things, including checking the stats, where I found that once more, an AI chatbot has visited my website and used ONE OF MY WEB PAGES as a reference. I forget how many times this is now.

When the nurse arrived, he was very disappointed to find me all alone. He’d grown quite fond of the Hound of the Baskervilles, and I’m sure that the feeling was mutual. But never mind. He sorted out my legs and feet and then cleared off on his travels.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870.

This report, written in 1871 or so, describes the field trips of the members and guests and includes verbatim copies of the “papers” that were read at their lectures. The one that we’ve been discussing today is meteorology, and, bearing in mind that this is 1871, this following quote is bound to be of interest to almost everyone and takes my “earliest mention of global warming” back yet another few years.

"it appears plain from this diagram that our climate has become warmer, the month of January particularly, say from 2 to 3 degrees. There is not so much difference in the summer months, or even of March; but the whole year is somewhat warmer on the average than at the close of the last century."

This is a fascinating quote from a group of committed and determined observers, and it’s a shame that it’s been missed by most modern means of mass communication. And it’s a good indication of the fact that global warming has been around longer than most people realise.

Back in here again, I had a few things to do but found myself fast asleep in my chair yet again, as I said earlier. How I wish that I could avoid it, especially when it takes a good twenty minutes at least to pull myself together afterwards. In fact, I don’t think that it was until I had my disgusting drink and midday medication (and midday plum) at about 12:40 that I was ready to go.

Back at my desk, the first thing was to transcribe the dictaphone notes from last night.

This is a dream that I can only remember bits of because it all evaporated when I reached for the dictaphone. I was with another younger boy from school, and there was something going on there that I can’t remember. And then I ended up in London again and I was driving away from the city centre and the North Circular Road in a sort-of North East direction through one set of housing after another after another after another, and it basically involved Liz, “that Liz”, not “this Liz” and me, and we were somewhere at some kind of fête and they called the tombola number winners, and it was a ticket that I had, and the prize was something like £113,000. Naturally, we were both delighted. We met someone who was obviously jealous because she began to ask us what we were all going to do with it and all of that. Liz seemed to think that splitting it in half was not the right kind of thing. I think she wanted her daughter to have a share too. She was annoyed when I was talking to this person about splitting it in half and stormed out. I stormed off after her but I couldn’t persuade her to come back in. In the end, she just disappeared. I went to find her daughter, and her daughter and I looked around for a while. Her daughter showed me her wedding photos, and I hadn’t realised that she’d married. That was when I had that bit about driving through London thousands of miles later while I looked to find her, and I remember the road that was dark and damp and all these terraced houses and old-type semis. I pulled up at a house at one point, and another Ford Granada pulled up behind me. I went in, and these two women asked me if I was their taxi, so I replied “no”. The other driver said that he was theirs, but he sounded completely drunk from my point of view.

“That Liz” appears quite often in my dreams, but this is the first appearance for many a long year of her daughter. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I TOOK HER TO CANADA IN 2010 after her mother died. And in any case, neither of them was the kind to make a fuss about money.

However, I’m back in London again, aren’t I? This is becoming quite a habit.

There was another dream about being back in Pionsat. Half of the football club was there waiting for the other half to go for a match. Eventually, they turned up and they went. There were plenty of players whom I knew from before, and not one of them said “hello” to me. They went off, but they came back a few hours later this Sunday morning, but they didn’t tell me how the game had gone.

This is possibly something to do with the merger nine years ago of Pionsat and Marcillat football clubs in an attempt to make a much stronger first XI. However, it didn’t work out that way, but that’s another story.

It’s interesting to see that they don’t notice me. Was I a ghost at that moment? That’s always an intriguing possibility.

When I was working in an office, there was a girl who was working there. She was married and had two children, or was it three children? But her husband was flirting around with one of her work colleagues. It turned out that they went swimming together and doing all sorts of other things together, leaving this girl pretty much on her own, so she used to come along to talk to me about it. I said “I know what advice I would give you, but it’s not my business. She had another friend who used to come along and talk to the two of us, and she made some kind of remark that I hadn’t noticed that I’d started to hold this girl’s hand. I felt “well! What’s happening here?”

I know this girl right enough, and she certainly didn’t have three children. The situation also related to her too, although I was never lucky enough to hold her hand, much as I would have liked to.

But being lucky in a dream is an unusual situation for me anyway. My family usually comes along and puts the spanner in the works long before we get to this point.

And then, of course, I was back in London again and was walking around the streets. I’d parked the van up somewhere on the edge of the city and I’d walked in. There had been some kind of confusion that Nerina and I had won all this money, but a solicitor just picked it up and walked off with it and refused to hand it back. I went to see my friendly solicitor at work, who happened to be there at the time, and had him write out the statement as to what he saw, because I was going to take it to the police. Then I had to walk back to my van through the streets of north-east London that I’ve walked through dozens of times in a dream. I started it up, and I was surprised that it started. I set out to drive away, but I realised that I hadn’t had anything to eat for ages, so I turned round and headed back. There was a bakery that I’d visited when I’d been walking around London in a dream, and with a chip shop next to it. So I parked up there and went off to buy some food.

This looks as if it might be connected to the first dream, although Nerina is there instead of “that Liz”. As for my friendly neighbourhood solicitor, I know him too, and he’s certainly not a solicitor, not by any means.

And back in London again, and in the same street as the bakery and the chip shop that I have visited on numerous occasions in recent dreams.

Having finished all of that, I began to write chapter nine of my story. This is an important chapter, the key in fact to the whole book and, if I’m lucky, the whole series. It’s where the heroine suddenly finds her feet in her new world after her tragedies in the earlier chapters, and it took quite a while to write. However, it’s turned out exactly as I would like it to.

All I need now, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … is to find myself a target audience willing to read it to see what she thinks. So if you have a girl in your entourage aged, say, between nine and twelve who might like to read it, let me know.

Chapter ten will be next, but I’ve no idea when I’ll find the time to write it now. It won’t be tonight because there’s football on later – newly promoted Airbus UK Broughton v established Y Fflint, lingering third from bottom without a win.

This is a game that Y Fflint must be targeting if they are to close the gap that’s widening at the foot of the table, cutting off the bottom three.

My cleaner put her sooty foot into the apartment and did some cleaning in the middle of all of this, and, poor girl, she was here for almost three hours this afternoon. She’s still not convinced that she’s collected everything, even though this is the first ever time that I’ve seen her use a vacuum cleaner. At least, I think that the place is spotless now.

When chapter nine was finished, I fed it through the first of my two chatbot proofreaders, and he liked it very much, so I fed it through the second one. There were a couple of typing errors and missed punctuation that it found, but the continuity and the chronology are holding up really well.

Tea tonight was my usual Friday favourite – air-fried chips with vegan sausage and baked beans with cheese and black pepper. It was delicious beforehand, but since my friend advised me to boil the chips first in order to soften them before frying them in the air fryer, they have come out even better, so I really enjoyed my meal tonight.

Especially when it was followed by a mixture of tinned apricots and tinned fruit cocktail with some of that lovely vegan ice cream from Noz. It’s a shame that I don’t know anyone else who shops there, otherwise they would be getting a weekly order.

And having said all of that, I can’t believe that I’ve had a meal and enjoyed it. God knows what it’s done to my water retention issues, but ask me if I care.

Back in here, there was the football – Airbus UK Broughton v Y Fflint. As I said earlier, this was a match that Y Fflint needed to win to kickstart their season, and indeed they played some really nice football – in fact, they showed much more skill than Airbus did. So what I simply do not understand is why they lost the match 4-1. They were the much better team, I reckoned, and they had the Airbus defence under siege for some very long periods, even after they had had a player sent off.

Mind you, their goal was a cracker. A young lad – Levi Morrison, I think – had just come on as a substitute and was playing right-back. He played a magnificent ball right over the top of the Airbus defence into the path of an onrushing striker who had the simplest of jobs to lash it into the net.

And my “man of the match”? Lassana Mendes, Y Fflint’s Spanish midfielder, who ran the game better than anyone I have seen for a long time.

It has to be said, however, that playing football in a monsoon with hurricane-force winds and the distractions of aeroplanes taking off and landing in the background can’t have been easy.

And whatever happened at Caernarfon? Four players (three from Cambrian United) were sent off, eighteen minutes of stoppage time and a 9-1 victory for the home side. That has to be a game worth watching, and I shall be looking forward to it tomorrow at dialysis.

But right now, later than ever, I’m off to bed. I need my beauty sleep if I am going to look my best for whoever knows who comes along.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about winning at tombola … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the time Nerina asked me what I would do if I won the lottery.
"Give you half and throw you out" I said.
"Good!" she said. "Here’s £6:00, half of my win last night. Now clear off!"

LIVE: Sunday 13th September 2026 – AFTER YESTERDAY’S SHENANIGANS …

… we returned to something rather resembling routine this morning.

Yesterday, I mentioned that I was up and about, writing my notes, at 04:01 this morning. and it didn’t take me too long to finish them either. I was back in bed for 05:10 and there I lay, dead to the World.

It was Isabelle the Nurse who awoke me when she came in at about 08:30. She sorted out my legs and feet and I told her my tale of woe from yesterday. She sympathised but didn’t offer any practical advice or solutions.

After she cleared off, my friend brought me a mug of coffee in bed, which was lovely, but I fell asleep again, and when I awoke, it was stone cold so I must have been asleep for a long time.

When I finally went into the kitchen, the place was as deserted as the Marie Celeste. I reckon that the Hound of the Baskervilles had dragged his master off for walkies again. So I made my breakfast and read some of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870.

This morning, we were reading a report on Goodrich Castle, so naturally, I was off on a research trip all of my own, just as I used to do in university.

Back in here later, I had a few things to do and then I began to transcribe the dictaphone notes.

It was a famous footballer’s birthday, like, I dunno, someone from the 1930s, and there was a huge party taking on. There were hundreds of footballers there and loads of spectators. Everyone was hunting around for this guy or for some sign of his life, like an old football strip in order to carry on the celebrations with him. I’d told his club, which was Stoke City, that I was intent on capturing him for his money value, but they couldn’t see where he was in that time. In the end, we just had this huge party all the way through the streets of Stoke on Trent, and everyone was totally plastered. I was in Crewe, but I joined the party in Crewe and we had to circulate home one by one on the bus. It was going to take absolutely hours for this, and people were asking us who we were and if we’d seen so-and-so. It seemed as if we were going to be there all night handling this other footballer’s dreams.

A famous footballer from Stoke City could only ever be that Manly Statues guy. Apart from him, the only other player who could ever approach anything near his fame would be Gordon Banks.

But it’s a strange dream, this one, because I have never before ever been interested in what the Clayheads have been doing.

Later on …

… Nerina and I were going to New York for a long weekend, and some of our family decided that they’d go too … indistinct … fell asleep here …

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that Nerina and I WENT TO NEW YORK A FEW DAYS AGO on a voyage, so this must be in the throes of becoming a regular occurrence.

And some of our family deciding to accompany us would be the kiss of death on a trip like this, too, so it’s just as well that I fell asleep again before it all went out-of-hand.

In fact, when I arose from the bed earlier, I’d found the dictaphone on the floor down by the bed, still switched on, still recording.

Interestingly, it contained not only me snoring and coughing, but also Isabelle the Nurse coming into the apartment, and the first thing that she said was "Bonjour, the Hound of the Baskervilles!" – nothing at all to my friend and me. And her last words were, inevitably, "au revoir, the Hound of the Baskervilles!"

After the dictaphone, there was football – the match in the Scottish fourth tier between Stranraer and Dumbarton. Stranraer went a goal down in the first half, and then an astonishing change of fortune enabled them to play like I have never seen them play before, and they scored a runaway three goals. Wouldn’t it be nice if Y Flint could ever have a change of fortune like that?

Once I’d finished all that, I went for a disgusting drink and the midday medication, and then I came back in here to begin to write the sixth chapter of my book.

However, by 14:00 I once more had a thirst that you could photograph, so in a wild break from the usual traditions, I had a beer – one of my “Kronenburg” alcohol-free ones – and it was delicious, straight out of the fridge, and I’ll buy some more of these next time, sales or no sales.

Back in here, I finished off Chapter Six, and at least, my chatbot likes it, which is good news. He’s currently my proofreader and keeps a check on spelling, punctuation and continuity. However, I really want a “real reader” to read it and to tell me if she likes the book and what she thinks, so that I know whether I’m on the right lines or whether I’m wasting my time.

It can’t be an adult, though, because adults won’t understand it and they’ll probably say that it’s boring and repetitive. It needs to be a girl of the same age bracket as our heroine – namely the 9-12 age group – and preferably brought up in a British environment. Volunteers (or their parents) please form a queue on the right. The story is effectively a modern-day fairy-tale.

Seriously, though, if anyone can conjure up such a person as part of their tribe, there’s a “contact me” button on the lower right of your screen.

Round about 16:15. I knocked off and went into the kitchen to do some baking, and by the time that I finished, I had a rather bizarre-shaped loaf and a really good pizza. I didn’t fancy the pizza myself but my friend tells me that it’s delicious.

So now, I’ll finish off my notes, do a few other things that need doing and then go to bed. If I can have an early night and a good sleep, I’ll be more than happy.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about fairy tales … "well, one of us has" – ed … there was an obvious story that I could tell, but this isn’t 1967 so it would go down today like a Led Zeppelin. Instead, I’ll tell the story that once upon a time, a little girl asked me if all fairy tales began with "Once upon a time".
"Of course not" I replied. "Most of them begin with ‘if I am elected, I promise’ … "

Sunday 30th August 2026 – SUNDAY IS A ..

… Day of Rest, and nothing goes to prove it more than today because despite the stuff that’s piling up to be done, I have emulated my namesake, the mathematician, and done three-fifths of five-eighths of … errr … nothing.

Last night, I was in bed by about 22:00 and it wasn’t long before I was fast asleep. It wasn’t quite as simple as that, though. I was awake about three or four times at least during the night. But what a long night it was. In bed at 22:00 and when the nurse arrived at about 08:30, I was still in bed, fast asleep after the latest awakening.

He sorted out my legs and feet and then disappeared. And I went back to sleep.

It was 22:16 when I finally made it into the kitchen for breakfast – porridge, juice, the morning medication, black coffee and the last two of the homemade croissants. It was all delicious too. You can’t get better than that. And while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a couple of days ago I said that "We’ve not had any outright vulgar abuse or “language lower than Billingsgate” but I’m expecting it to arrive sometime soon, and I’ll keep you posted." and I wasn’t wrong.

Today we had "From no part of a church had the old spirit further departed than from the monuments of the dead – no wonder then that they were the first to yield to the new corruptions ; that the arched and fretted canopy soon made way for the heathen column and entablature, and that the attitude of prayer was gradually changed for that of strife and debate, and attendant angels made way for the demons of a fallen superstition."

That was followed shortly by "When sacrilege had devastated the abodes of ancient piety and munificence, had levelled our most glorious temples with the ground, or at best substituted a single half-starved curate for the princely abbot and his monastic choir, and when the revenues which had been disposed in hospitality and pious works were scattered among the basest flatterers of an ungodly king ;".

But seriously, if you want to talk about “a single half-starved curate”, it’s not the Renaissance period where you need to be. Look at the condition of the clergy in the seventh and eighth centuries, where there wasn’t just abject poverty amongst the rural clergy, worse than anything that you had in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they also ran the very real risk of being cloven in twain by a dissenting nobleman or invading army.

Back in here, I had yesterday’s notes to type up. And that took so much longer, as firstly, one of my friends from Germany wanted a video chat, and that ended up in a very Rosemary-esque conversation, and then another one of my friends from Germany wanted a chat too.

Once the notes were on line, there were the dictaphone notes to transcribe. And WOW!

We were on holiday again, a group of us. It was a terrible place where we were living because people had all brought their family and friends. Some of these friends were spongers who wouldn’t do a thing for themselves and expected everyone else to chip in and do things for them, yet we were all supposed to be on holiday ourselves. Then there was a question of copying a lot of text for labels or something, so we had to rush and find a newsagent’s so that we could get a telephone directory and cut the things out, but there was nothing. In the end, one of my father’s friends went into the newsagents across the road to buy a paper. Then he found that he didn’t have any money so I said that I’d lend him 25p, but he just wandered off, so I bought the paper anyway. However, before I could get out of the premises, another group of two old women, and also two young boys were having a big problem because they had booked a cottage on the edge of town but had come out without the address. They had flown all the way here and didn’t have the address at all. They could describe the house and I knew that I had seen it because there was a Mark IV Cortina outside at one time, so I thought that I’d help them look. Then, I bumped into two girls while I was escorting these guys, and they tagged along for some reason too. Somewhere along the line, the friend of one of these girls disappeared, leaving just one, me and these two boys. We went into endless places where we thought that we would have a good view to see over whether we could see the house, but we couldn’t. And on one occasion, we had to hide because someone had let a giraffe out and it was banging on the doors and windows with its neck. As we were leaving one house, this girl and I and these two boys bumped into two ladies whom I used to take in the taxis years ago, so this girl and I stopped to talk to them. We were chatting away, and then, for some reason, I put my arm around this girl and she didn’t move at all. That took me by surprise because I’m not used to girls who let me put my arms around them, so I was wondering what was going to happen next.

So here I am, and I’ve Got The Girl at last. So what happened to my family? Why didn’t they come along and throw the spanner into the works as they always seem to do?

The start of the dream, though, is very much like several other dreams that we’ve had over time, with family chaos and all that kind of thing. And we even have a MkIV Cortina thrown in for good measure. But who were the two women who used to be my passengers on the taxis? And how come I recognised them? And what were they doing in an Alpine skiing resort?

This dream continued on much later, and I was back at home and everyone was making a huge row and noise. I’d actually built a proper water heater that would work off solar power, and when I tried it, it had actually heated water for me, which was nice. So once the ‘phone was free, I tried to telephone this girl. It took me a couple of goes because I didn’t quite work out what her number was. In the end, it was the first five letters of her family name, which were G-R-A-N-D. I finally spoke to her, despite all the interruptions that were still going on. In the end, I asked her if I could call her tonight, so she replied “round about 18:30 would be fine,” so I hoped that everyone had quietened down and gone by then.

So even though there was a good couple of hours between these two dreams, the second carries on from the first, and I still Get The Girl, if only everyone would shut up and go.

Nerina had to go to New York, and so I decided that I’d pack my suitcase and accompany her as far as I could in case I had the opportunity to stow away. We went all the way to Paris and then all the way to Charles de Gaulle Airport, but for some reason, that was in New York. We were wandering around the airport trying to find her ‘plane, so in the end I put her on it. But something happened and everyone had to leave the ‘plane, and for ages when they announced the delay. So we took a Metro into the city, and in the Metro, Nerina began to make a nuisance of herself by stopping and interviewing people if their papers weren’t in order or there was something else about them, and she’d have them sit and wait while she went to interview some more people. I thought that this was going to get really out of hand in a minute or two, so I made a discreet exit. Later on, we caught up with each other again. She said that she had been so realistic that she had lunch with another police officer, and it was only later that they worked out that she wasn’t. I asked her if she was given five years, but she said no, she was just told to clear off, to which I thought that she was extremely lucky. We ended up back at the airport, but not until I’d been trying to take some photos of things like the Eiffel Tower, which, in New York, of course, doesn’t exist, and a few other things. Eventually, we found our way back to the airport on one of these silly metro things. We arrived at her ‘plane and they were loading again. I went on with her and my suitcase, hoping that sooner or later there would be a spare seat. However, there wasn’t, so the captain announced that he was closing the doors, so I jumped off. I caught this strange metro system thing to New York City. It was basically like a locomotive engine pulling a load of open carriages behind it, and you had to jump on it as it went past. I came into the city and went and did some more sightseeing and photographing. We went down past a little church that was in a discreet back alley, and I realised that that’s where I store some of my cars. Then I had a think about how I could catch up with Nerina. I thought that maybe there would be a spare seat on an aeroplane sometime going that way, so we had a panic-stricken run to the airport metro, and I jumped aboard. However, I couldn’t find a seat on this Metro. I found a seat, but it belonged to a young boy who was talking to his mother next door, so I had to move. And when we came into the airport, I thought that I’d have to go up to one of the companies that flew to the USA to see whether there was a spare seat on a plane that I could buy

This is a lovely definition of “chaos”, isn’t it? Nerina and I can’t make up our minds whether we’re in Paris or New York, Nerina pretending to be a police officer, weird metro systems and even a place in New York where I have some old cars stored. This makes no sense at all … "nothing new here then" – ed … Still, it must mean something to someone somewhere.

Did I type out this dream about being in New York and reading about this murder of this musician? … "No, you didn’t" – ed … So I went out to look at his house. It was in terrible condition. The driveway was all blocked over with rubble and that kind of thing. There was a whole forest of pine trees that were overhanging – they were growing up the side of his house but were bent over with the wind and were covering his house and preventing the sunshine from reaching it. While I was there, the courts took an order against the occupants of that particular street to clear all these pine trees out. While I was talking to them, I said that I would do it. It would give me an excuse to stay in the USA. But it really wasn’t half a difficult job because it wasn’t just cutting down the trees. They were growing out of rocks, all that kind of thing. In the end I had a friend of mine from South Carolina come to help me. We slept in his bus and did the job as well as we could, and we ended up with this huge pile of trees. I asked the local residents if they wanted to take them away, but they didn’t. In the end, we had a huge load of firewood for burning through the winter. I gave them my bill, which was for $8500. While I was waiting for payment, I awoke. It has to be said that Nerina was there at some time. She didn’t really like what I was doing, and I was taking the opportunity to sort through some of my boxes that I’d brought with me with piles and piles of old paperwork in them. I found some of our earliest petrol receipts too, and a lot of stuff ended up in the bin. Nerina said that she wished that I had never started to look through these boxes. I replied that it was my intention to look through all of them in the end and throw out all of the rubbish and keep the correct receipts and sort them.

So my friend from South Carolina, doing an impossible job, Nerina appearing, finding the oldest receipts from my taxi business years ago (and I knew that they were the oldest because there was a receipt for fuel for the old Mark II Cortina that I had as a runabout)

But I can still picture the scene in my imagination, and it really was a mess, this house and the trees.

And my vote for my favourite one? Has to be number three, doesn’t it?

After all of that, there was more football from Friday – Trefynnon v Caernarfon.

Trefynnon are another newly promoted side, but again with no points at all. They can score goals, but they can’t keep them out. And Caernarfon are a team with bags of experience in the league, in the cup and in European competition.

This was a match where skill was impossible. The pitch at Halkyn Road is a disgrace, and if it’s cut up as badly as it looks on a screen after just three matches played, what’s it going to be like in March after a wet North Walian winter? “Hoof and Run” and “slog it out in midfield” were how this game worked.

But at least we had goals, and plenty of them. And Trefynnon gave Caernarfon a good run for their money, even though the score finished 5-3 in favour of the Cofis.

But right now, it’s bedtime, ready … "I don’t think" – ed … for dialysis tomorrow afternoon.

And as an aside, another artificial intelligence websearcher has used my website as a reference tool yet again.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about spanners and the USA … "well, one of us has" – ed … on one Fourth of July in the USA, I was handed a parcel that had been wrapped in paper tied with a ribbon that had the stars of the American flag on it, with a note – "if you’re working today, this should help you dismantle that car"
"Where did you get this?" I asked the messenger.
"Doctor Spooner gave it to me" he replied
"And what is it?" I asked
"Seeing as it’s Independence Day today, it’s probably his interpretation of ‘The Star-Bangled Spanner’."

Wednesday 26th August 2026 – CONSIDERING THE DIFFICULTIES …

… that I am facing every day, such as falling asleep spontaneously at some point, I have worked hard today and I’m quite proud of what I have done.

Not like last night though, where despite my best efforts, it was just past 23:00 when I finally crawled into bed last night. The nice clean bedding was wonderful and it really was a pleasure to be in there. And I was asleep quite quickly too.

But not for long.

At about 02:15 we had another phantom alarm. I awoke and was waiting for the repeater, but nothing happened so that was when I looked at the time. I don’t know what’s going on.

How many phantom alarms is that now? It’s definitely unsettling, and I’ve no idea how it’s all going to end.

However, I was soon back to sleep, and although I have the vaguest of memories about waking up, I was definitely asleep when the alarm went off.

It’s definitely dark now when I wake up, so my body clock will need to adjust – at least, that’s my excuse for the time that it took for me to get out of bed, stand up and head to the bathroom to sort myself out for the day.

And then, back in here to check the dictaphone to see if anything else went on during the night.

I was at work again last night. It was a Friday and I’d finished all my work. There was nothing left there to do and it was still about an hour before the office closed, so I went to see the boss for the usual permission to leave early. Today, for some reason, he decided to refuse, so in the end I went back to my desk, and a group of us were there chatting away when some woman came in with a blue form and asked to see one of our team. We explained that he wasn’t in the office today. She was not happy about something on this form, so we had a look at it. As far as we could tell, it was perfectly correct and we couldn’t see what was wrong with it, but she was fed up with the persistence and the number of forms that she’d had. I said that the person who deals with your file isn’t in today. He’s quite an accurate officer but he’s probably not seen one of these forms before. She said that that was exactly what he told her. We agreed that she should come back on Tuesday when he would be there. In the meantime, I’d ‘phoned Nerina to say that I couldn’t come home early. She, jokingly – or perhaps not so jokingly – asked, “what’s her name?” so I explained to her that it was the decision of the boss at the office. She did one of these “oh yes”es as if she didn’t really believe it. At 17:00 we all went home, and once I was outside, I telephoned her to say that I was on my way home. Nerina asked “alone?” to which I replied “of course I’m alone” and we started this little teasing about “you’re only late home from the office today because someone special kept you there” – that kind of thing.

Usually, my dreams about work generally involve me on the point of leaving because I’m well past retirement age, so this is a new departure, just as leaving work an hour earlier would be.

And the officer who was not there to deal with that woman. I recognised who he was – the old Head Boy of the school when we were in the Upper Sixth. What’s he doing, appearing in my dreams, I have no idea.

Nerina’s teasing has an underlying serious aspect too. I don’t think that she was ever convinced about me.

The nurse turned up as usual and sorted out my legs and feet. And I had a surprise for him today.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the other day, I had an intruder open my apartment door. I’ve decided now to lock the door when I go to bed and open it when I’m awake. This will cause problems for the nurses on Sundays if I’m lying in, so I gave the nurse a key that I’d had cut to add to their huge collection so that they can open the door all the same.

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

Well, actually, I didn’t. I was led up a blind alley by something else that he wrote and spent a good while following the trail. I even ended up – don’t ask me how – reading the biography of Nicolae Moromete, a senior prison officer in Romania for the Communists when they came to power. Don’t ask me how I found myself there with him.

After breakfast, I came back in here where there were plenty of things to do. Once they were all out of the way, I turned my attention to the radio programme that I had started yesterday. I had to hunt down loads of music, have a good chat with my artificial intelligence chatbot about some of it, download it, reformat it, re-edit it and remix it.

Once I had the ten that I needed, I had to choose from amongst them a good opening track, a good second track and a good final track, then pair and segue every one of them.

And this will be an interesting programme, that’s for sure. For instance, have you ever heard Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll” played with a lead violin? We have my friend Mark to thank for that.

There were several interruptions today while I was doing that – firstly, there was the disgusting drink break. Then we had Rosemary calling me for a chat, and finally, I fell asleep for about three quarters of an hour. So, pushed for time as I was, I managed to write over 25% of the notes as well.

That was what I call “a productive day”.

No tea again tonight. I grabbed a handful of biscuits instead. I can’t face any food again right now. I’m definitely not well.

So now, I’m off to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Nicolae Moromete … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends asked me what I had learned about him
"Quite a lot" I replied. "For example, he was the person who came out with the famous quote ‘Under socialism, people guilty of nothing would still go to prison, but for less than ten years’"

Saturday 22nd August 2026 – THERE HAS BEEN …

… a calamity at dialysis today, and it’s as if the World had come to an end. For quite a while, I wondered if I would ever survive the shock.

Yes, that’s right. They forgot to bring the coffee round to the room in which another woman and I were being dealt with. Luckily, we had a very understanding nurse, and once we mentioned the problem to her, she went off and did the necessary. But it wasn’t half worrying.

That’s not been the worst of my worries either, but more of this anon.

Last night, after the football, I spent some time writing my notes, but as it became later and later, I began to think that I’d never finish them at this rate and I’d be here all night. So I called it a day round about 23:30, finished off what needed to be finished off and I was in bed round about midnight.

At some point in the middle of the night, I think that I awoke, but once again, it was the same as has been happening just recently – I wasn’t sure if I was awake or not, if I was still asleep or dreaming or anything like that. It reminded me of that line in THE PRISONER – "by the time we’ve finished with him, he won’t know whether he’s No. 6 or the cube root of infinity".

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

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

However, I was definitely asleep at 06:15 when someone opened the door to my apartment. I shouted “who is it?”, but the response was that whoever it was closed the door and cleared off. I can see that I’m going to have to take “certain steps”, which might include involving a bucket full of whitewash.

And then we had the usual struggle about hauling myself out of bed and going to the bathroom to sort myself out. I managed to have my feet on the floor before the alarm went off, which counts as an “early start”, but the rest isn’t quite as easy. In the end, I managed it, including a good scrub-up and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant at dialysis this afternoon.

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

We went to see some friends who lived in a small seaside port. We noticed that there were three shipping containers sitting on the quayside here waiting to be picked up by some kind of boat. There was a guy there too, and I didn’t like him, but he definitely sounded like some kind of underworld villain, and he was pointed out by my friends as having a place somewhere in Argentina where he’d go to hide every now and again. A few weeks later, there was an article in the local paper about a British guy who lived in Argentina who had been arrested and the police were still looking for three shipping containers. I said to Nerina “I know where they are”. A couple of months later, I was at an auction sale which took place on behalf of the government that was to sell the possessions of this guy, and one of them was his interests in taxis in quite a few councils, so I went along to see what was happening. It started surprisingly cheaply, so much so that I could make an offer and I could bid on it at one time, but the bidding went slowly out of my reach, and eventually some guy had part of it knocked down to him. He wanted an option on the rest, but he needed to have the support of 50% of the people. A lot of people put up their hands but he said that he was one county short. I thought “in for a penny, in for a pound”, and I put my hand up. He said “right, yes, Cheshire! That’s all I need!” and the whole lot was knocked down to him. Then he had a meeting of all of his supporters afterwards, and I went along to see what was on offer. He started to tell us a few things that had nothing whatever to do with taxis, so I wondered what on earth his game was.

This little port, I’ve seen it before on several postcards and photos, but I just can’t put a name to it. It’s a tiny port, and it beats me how they would ever manage to sail a ship into here to take away one container, never mind three.

Argentina doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere, but the story of the crook who had interests in taxi businesses all over the UK rings a familiar bell if you were to turn the clock back thirty or forty years and is probably still continuing today, for all I know. But Arsenal FC supporters will be much more clued in to this than I am.

There had been a whole group of us staying somewhere in Spain in a hotel-kind of place, and some friends of ours in the neighbourhood came to visit too. We stayed there for a couple of days, and when we were on the point of leaving, some Spaniard turned up in a strange kind of van. It had some kind of maker’s name on the side that was in initials and we were trying to identify it. I reckoned that it was a Japanese clone of something. It had no roof and no sides where the driver sat, and he was complaining that the starter motor didn’t work and a couple of other things didn’t work and the quality was rubbish. We were there with a dog, and a policeman came. He had an Alsatian, and this dog of ours took a great deal of interest in the Alsatian, and the Alsatian, which was a female, ran and hid. We thought “our dog’s found a new girlfriend, has he?”. In the end, we all piled into my van and we set off for home and to drop off these people on the way. For the past two or three days when we’d gone down this road, there had been some girl struggling to get on her pushbike, and she was still there today, struggling. When we reached the bottom where I’d normally turn left, I did a U-turn and came back up the hill. Everyone was wondering why. One or two people were complaining, but I said “don’t worry, it’s only going to put a couple of extra seconds on your timetable” and I stopped back outside the gates of this house again. Instead of asking someone to open the gates, I had a strange kind of hook made out of an old garden rake. I put that over the top of the gates, climbed up it and went over the top, then dropped down onto the garden. What I’d come to check was to see whether a friend of mine who was supposed to be coming but never turned up had finally made it, because we could intercept him on the way home, but if we went a different way home, we’d miss him for that five minutes while we were getting back on the correct one, so I wanted to make sure that he hadn’t come before I set off again in the hope of trying to meet up with him.

Strangely enough, this is pretty much the same scenery as in the dream a few days ago when I was living up on the Czech/Austrian border

The van could be any one of a dozen French microvans that are on the road today, or maybe one of those tiny Japanese vans that were common on the roads forty years ago. The dog, of course, needs no explanation.

The rest of it, including the girl struggling on her bicycle and my weird “garden hook”, must have some explanation somewhere, and I wish I knew just what it was.

The nurse turned up as usual and sorted out my legs and feet. He didn’t stay long, and once he’d left, I could make my breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Our hero is now back discussing a few foreign edifices of a religious nature, but concludes with "Certainly when we compare these edifices with our own contemporary ones, we can have but little hesitation in esteeming England to have been, during the fifteenth century at least, the chosen abode of Christian art"

He then goes on to list several marvellous examples of European Gothic work but remarks "Our buildings never run into the same senseless extravagance, where nothing but mere excess of ornament is left to supply the place of real art"

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I was hoping to be reading a book on architecture, not a book on art.

Back in here, I had a few things to do and then I made a start on the notes from yesterday. And they took much longer than they ought to do, because from about 10:30 to 11:15, I was asleep on my chair. And I remember nothing whatever about falling asleep. No-one was more surprised than me when I awoke.

By the time I’d finished and put them online, there wasn’t much time for anything else. I had to go to prepare myself for dialysis. My faithful cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic as usual, and then I had to wait for the taxi.

And not for long either, as it was here for 12:40. We had to go to pick up Mrs Dinosaur and then we set off nice and early for Avranches, only to be stuck in a traffic queue at Marcey-les-Grèves due to the autoroute being blocked in both directions with holiday traffic coming and going.

However, at the dialysis centre, I was seen to pretty quickly, so by 14:05 I was up and running and could watch Rhydaman v Connah’s Quay Nomads.

There’s no doubt that the Nomads were in a class above Rhydaman, but the latter managed to defend heroically for much of the match and even had several good chances themselves. But even so, a 2-0 victory for the Nomads was only to be expected, and Rhydaman could be proud of their performance.

After that, I was going to watch a second game, but there were too many interruptions and disturbances, not to mention the Quest For The Coffee.

As luck would have it, when I was finished, the nurse was doing nothing much so I was unplugged straight away, although she had jammed the catch on my backpack with my laptop inside it. My taxi was waiting too, so I was home by 18:00.

My cleaner was there to stick a disgusting drink into my sweaty little mitt, and after she left, I came in here to begin my notes and watch this evening’s football match. However, after I’d fallen asleep for an hour on the chair, I booted that idea into touch, wrote a terse note on my blog and went to bed. It was 20:20.

Now, it’s 05:00, I’ve been up for an hour or so, finished my notes, and I’m now going back to bed to await the arrival of the nurse.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about traffic jams … "well, one of us has" – ed … apparently the queues on the autoroute were caused by an accident. A golfer playing on a golf course at the side of the road had sliced a ball which crashed through the window of a coach, hitting the driver, causing him to swerve and have a fatal accident.
Later that same day, the gendarmes were interviewing the golfer "due to your negligence, you caused a road traffic accident which killed the bus driver, fifteen schoolkids and one accompanying adult" they roared. "What are you going to do about it?"
After a minute’s thought, the golfer replied "Perhaps I ought to tighten my grip, take a shorter swing and incline the golf club head more to the right."

Friday 21st August 2026 – TODAY HAS BEEN …

… a little better than the relapse yesterday, although the hallucinations are back. It’s amazing how they just appear when I’m doing something and I end up being distracted.

Not that I was distracted last night. It was a very determined me that went to bed at the end of the day, round about 22:30 or thereabouts. I didn’t hang about very long.

It wasn’t very long before I was asleep either. Well away in the Land of Nod, I was. At least for a certain time, that is. However –

The alarm went off this morning, and I awoke and switched it off. I thought that in a couple of minutes, I would have to get up again. But it didn’t feel at all like getting-up time. There was no “tired” situation or anything. So after a few minutes, when I finally agreed that it was darker inside the house than outside, I’d have a look at the bathroom fittings. It turned out that some of them were modular types and others were these “push-on” suction types, so I thought that rather than being some kind of suction type, I’d wait until I could get them all in one go and buy a complete set of pushers.

The alarm really did awaken me back then, and while I didn’t actually get up this time, something strange must have gone on afterwards as the dream descended into all kinds of things that make no sense at all … "no change there then" – ed …

Shortly afterwards, I awoke again – or, at least, I think I did. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m finding myself in these situations where I don’t know if I’m awake or not … "nothing new there either" – ed … if I’m dreaming or having one of these hallucinations.

I must have been asleep at some point because the alarm awoke me at 06:29 – a proper alarm and a proper awakening. We had the usual ten minutes or so while I tried to awaken myself and find the enthusiasm to stand up, and then I went to the bathroom for a good scrub-up, etc.

Back in here, I had a listen to find out what else was on the dictaphone.

It was in the early 1930s, and in the ramshackle car that we had, two friends and I went to Montréal from the USA. While we were in Montréal, there was an announcement of a huge earthquake, so everyone ran for their lives. This led to some kind of indiscriminate looting and pillaging of the town, and we ended up with quite a few things. I carried something heavy with me all the way, and when I came to the car, the two guys there told me to throw it away again. I was surprised after carrying it all that far, but I put it down and watched it roll away, and then we drove off. They told me that it was a barrel of whisky and, obviously, in Prohibition and I’d bought that back to the USA, we’d have been in a lot of trouble. We arrived back in the USA and I went and caught a tram home. There was some young guy on there so we ended up having a long chat with him.

Part of this dream that I can still see and which doesn’t seem to be recorded is that when we were pushing the car through the crowded streets in a column of other vehicles, occasionally, we had to stop because of an obstruction ahead. And all the time, someone was shelling the city and the shells were landing quite close to us. At one point, we stopped and then moved on again, and the car immediately behind us was hit by a shell exactly at the spot where we had been waiting for five minutes, not two seconds before.

This dream could be anything related to any one of the hundreds of old black-and-white films that I own, but the bit about the vehicles in the queue being shelled reminds me of a scene from THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY, except that my viewpoint last night would have been diagonally across the road from where Clint Eastwood was watching the queue go through the town where he was.

Later on, Nerina and I came back to Crewe. We had another Mark III Cortina estate this time. We came back to Gainsborough Road and went in. It was all dark and gloomy and hadn’t been lived in for years. We saw what kind of state it was, so we went round to the DIY place with a couple of friends. We bought some things that we needed and I was picking up all the wood offcuts, including some very long ones. I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but they were free. We went back home with all these huge nails, planks of wood, etc., and put them in the house, which was already full of tonnes of building material to start with. I had a look at the house and there was mould everywhere coming up the walls. I thought that I was going to have to do a lot of work on this place. Then it was Christmas and we had a pile of friends round celebrating. We did one of those line dance conga things all the way around the house and back out into the streets. Then, everyone decided that for an hour, they would go to find someone who needed help and give them some help for an hour or so. Nerina knew some kind who needed some help with reading, but I didn’t know of anyone who needed any help. It had been a long time since I’d been here.

This is very similar to a dream that I had a long time ago when I had also come back from years away elsewhere.

But the state of the house could so easily have been the same at Gainsborough Road had luck not gone my way at the most unexpected times. And Mark III Cortina estates all around the place? It does sound like home, doesn’t it?

The nurse came round as usual to sort out my legs and feet. He didn’t have much to say for himself except to tell me to rest today, and then he left.

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

He’s still doing his best to keep clear of controversy by not mentioning anything to do with foreign locations, so it’s becoming rather boring. However, I am continuing to add to my knowledge of architectural terms as he introduces more and more strange words into his book, and I’m having to do more and more research. Hammer beams, anyone?

Back in here, I had a few things to do, and once they were out of the way, I could carry on with the radio programme.

That’s now finished, but it took much longer than it ought to, due to the fact that I had to redo part of the music. I did wonder why I had only forty-one minutes of music when I’d calculated forty-six and a half. Now I know.

There were the usual interruptions – the disgusting drink break and then my cleaner turned up to do her stuff and to have a chat too.

After she had left and I’d finally finished the radio notes, I had a relax for half an hour (somehow avoiding falling asleep), and then I started the next – not one, but two – radio programmes.

It’s a bit of a cheat really. The first one will be a concert. It’s one hour and thirty-eight minutes long, so it needs to be cut down to about fifty-seven or fifty-eight minutes to give me time to introduce everything. However, there was no running list with this concert so I had to listen to it all and make my own.

And while I was listening to the concert, I was looking at the next programme, trying to find out what music I’ll need.

At teatime, I knocked off and went to eat. As seems to be usual on these Fridays, tea was air-fried chips, vegan sausages and baked beans in cheese and fresh ground black pepper. And it was beautiful as always.

After tea, we had football – Hwlffordd, usually a challenger for the European spots but struggling right now at the foot of the table with no points and no goals, v Cambrian United, the team from the Rhondda Valley, newly promoted and looking quite impressive so far.

This was another exciting game that roared from one end to the other at a hundred miles and hour, and there was plenty of skilful football being played. It was nothing at all like the midfield mauls that we’ve seen just recently.

Cambrian scored a goal not long after the restart, and as the game went on, Hwlffordd began to throw the kitchen sink at them. However, that left them vulnerable at the back and Cambrian fully exploited it, not just once but twice. The latter being with the penultimate kick of the match from a guy who had only been on the pitch five minutes.

It does have to be said, though, that while Cambrian fully deserved their victory, 3-0 is a rather flattering scoreline for them.

After that, I started to write the notes for today but ran out of steam. Eventually, having fallen asleep twice, I headed for bed. I can finish my notes tomorrow and you can see them in the morning.

But just a little notice – there’s a game tomorrow evening, so you might not have the complete notes until Sunday late morning.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about drinking … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once walked into a pub and asked "where are the books, please?"
"There are no books here" replied the landlord. "We don’t sell books, we sell alcohol."
"Not a problem" said the customer. "Do you have ‘Tequila Mockingbird’, please?"

Monday 10th August 2026 – DON’T BE SURPRISED …

… if I fail to complete today’s notes before I’m forced to retire early to bed.

This afternoon, I have been to dialysis, as you might expect, and the nurse who dealt with me is one of the longest-serving nurses there. But she’s one of these “minimalist” people who does as little as she possibly can while still completing her assigned tasks. It’s quite true that her approach can save an awful lot of time, and for that, it should be applauded. However, it also leaves room for some glaring errors, and we’ve had one of those today.

And for a change, my luck was well and truly in, so I’m not complaining in the least. Far from it.

Last night was difficult, though. I was hours late finishing off what needed finishing, and it was well after midnight when I finished letting it all hang out and crawled into bed.

For some reason, it was really difficult to go to sleep, and when I finally did, it wasn’t for long, because at about 01:20, I was wide awake again. And there I was for a few hours too before I finally managed to go off to sleep.

When I awoke next time, I wondered what time it was. I thought that I’d better go and have a look, but just at that moment, the alarm beat me to it. It took a few minutes as usual to bring myself round into the Land of the Living, and then I headed off to the bathroom for a good scrub-up and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant today. I have to do my best to look pretty, even if I don’t feel like it.

Back in here, I had the dictaphone notes to transcribe so that I could find out what’s been going on during the night.

We were doing some renovation work on a hospital. The original builder had not done a very good job at all. There were quite a few early mediaeval pieces of sculpture on show, and when we measured the dates with the periods, it seemed that there was plenty of ancient British craftsmanship going on between 375 AD and 450 AD. But when we wanted to know where this had come from, we saw that a message was posted on his page saying that it just came from various research following an investigation of the WORKS OF BEDE, which was no help at all. But then we were there in the afternoon, trying to take this wheel off this Land Rover, and he drove by, extremely closely, missing him by a couple of millimetres, I should think. We wondered if we should report him for the harassment of our diggings first.

You can see in this dream the influence of Charles Freeman’s book that we are currently reading and also my theory of ethnic cleansing by the Anglo-Saxons – about 450 AD was when the Anglo-Saxons began to arrive en masse.

There was something else about a film that we had been making, an old man and me. After a lot of time, expense and money, the film was about to see the light of day. The old man had now retired into the countryside, so I remember asking him if he was going to come up to London for the premiere or whether he was going to wait until it reached the local cinema near where he lives. He expressed some doubt or opinion as to whether the film would last until it reached any kind of cinema near him

There have been several films like that where they have underperformed so dramatically that they have been taken off general release before they have gone very far around the circuit. Probably the most famous of these is Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.

There was a third thing about a girl who was playing football. She was right-back for some kind of team, but every time the ball came down the left flank, she would naturally gravitate towards the centre of the penalty are, which meant that out on the right wing where she had been, it was an undefended zone and the team was being cut to shreds through there

This dream is very reminiscent of a football match that I saw at the Stade Louis Dior in Granville. In this case, it was a male left-back who was being drawn inside, and just as I was discussing this with another spectator, a beautiful crossfield ball found the unmarked right-winger, who just cut inside and scored a simple goal.

Isabelle the Nurse came as usual, and she noticed my three new herb plants, now in jars of water. She was pleased that I was taking good care of them

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

Well, in theory I could, but I was sidetracked up yet another blind alley, looking up obscure architectural terms. Some kind of glossary and maybe even pictures would have been a really great help with this book.

Right at the very beginning of the book, he told us "The present work is not illustrated ; there was at one time an intention of adding engravings, but the idea was relinquished, as to illustrate it completely was altogether out of the question, and a partial and inadequate illustration seemed even more objectionable than none at all …. But, though a complete illustration of the work would have been highly desirable, the way in which the subject is here treated renders its loss less objectionable than it would be in a treatise of detail, or a record of existing specimens."

All I can say on this subject is "you speak for yourself, Mr Freeman. You’re the author, but I’m the reader. A five-minute sketch of, say, a polygonal abacus or a vaulted clerestory would save me hours of research".

Back in here, there were the usual things to do, including checking the radio programme that will be broadcast this week and sending it off.

And once it had gone, I began to research the next radio programme. This is going to be another difficult one to complete as, once more, I don’t have all the music that I would like to use, and again, it’s all quite obscure stuff that might take me a week or two to find.

Round about 11:40, I’d finished the first part of it, and so, as a reward, I curled up on my chair for a relax. It’s a good job that I have an alarm set for midday on dialysis days, otherwise I would still be relaxing now.

In the kitchen, I sorted out a disgusting drink and my midday medication and then began to prepare myself and my things for dialysis. My cleaner came along to fix my anaesthetic, and after a brief chat, she cleared off, so I waited for the taxi.

And waited, and waited.

While I was waiting, I’d had a good sleep, which was nice, hunched up over the table, but I couldn’t stay all afternoon like that. I rang up the taxi depot to find out where my car was, and they replied “another five minutes”. Sure enough, five minutes later, he turned up. Apparently, they had given him a whole host of local work without the slightest of ideas as to how long it takes.

He made good time down to Avranches, but in the car park there was a plant shredder busily shredding away at branches they had cut down. We had to park almost in the road, and so I had an uphill slog of fifty metres on top of the long walk that I usually have to take.

There were no aides infirmières – “nursing assistants” – to help me today, so I had to find my bed all on my own, having first stopped off at the gentleman’s restroom.

With no one about, I weighed myself and then found my bed and sorted myself out. I put my weigh ticket on the temporary table underneath the bombe de froid – “cold spray” – sorted out my computer and climbed into bed.

And this is where it all went wrong. The weight that I’d recorded includes the weight of the clothes, etc. that I’m wearing so usually, the nurse knocks off eight hundred grams for my outfit, telephone, keys, etc. Anyway, she computed her figures into the machine and said “two thousand seven hundred grams to take off today”.

“Get off”, I thought to myself. “It’s never that much!”. I went through all of the calculations that I could, and I couldn’t come up with a figure of two thousand seven hundred grams, but not having the correct information to argue, I left her to it and the machine pumping away almost flat-out at nine hundred grams per hour. And sure enough, it wasn’t long before I was in agony. It’s hard work when the machine is running almost on “max” …. "”Max” in our hero’s case is nine hundred and fifty grams per hour." – ed …

Halfway through the session, I suddenly realised what had happened. I don’t recall her, or anyone else, asking me how much to deduct for my outfit. And when I factored in this eight hundred grams, the figures made much more sense. I still didn’t say anything, though. I’ll have a good head start for Thursday as long as they don’t realise what she has done.

While I was being dialysed, I was watching some more football from the weekend.

The first match was Trefynnon v Connah’s Quay Nomads. Trefynnon, newly promoted and thrashed 6-1 on the opening day of the season, played much better today against a team tipped to be up there in the fight for the title this year. They lost 3-1, and it’s true that the Nomads played the better football, but Trefynnon kept on pushing forward and had the Nomads defence in a panic on one or two occasions.

What was interesting about this was the size of the crowd for Trefynnon’s first home game in the Premier League. Once it was announced, hordes of locals began to appear, carrying big, big carpets to be cleaned for less than half a crown.

The second game was Cambrian United v Llansawel. Another new club to the league, the team from the Rhondda Valley impressed me last week in their match against Y Barri, and I was looking to see how they would get on today. I managed to watch about fifteen or twenty minutes of it before it was time to go.

The nurse dealt with me quite quickly, but she couldn’t stay and compress me, so she found some kind of clamps that would do the job too. And they worked. And when I weighed myself, I was indeed eight hundred or so grams under my dry weight. We’ll see how this impacts the Thursday session.

My driver was waiting for me – one of my favourite drivers – and we had a good chat on the way home. My cleaner helped me into the apartment and then pushed a disgusting drink into my hands.

After she left, I made some food – a cheese salad with rice and veg which was delicious – and then came back in here.

Fighting off waves and waves of sleep, I made a start on my notes, but I couldn’t keep going. After half an hour or so, I posted online what I’d written and then went to bed. The draining of this non-existent eight hundred grams has rather flattened me.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about losing weight … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once bought a lovely new dress for Nerina, but it was two sizes to small for her, so I left her a little note – "I’d love to see you in this"
When I came home from work the next day, there was a coffin in the living room with a little note from Nerina that said "Ditto".

Thursday 6th August 2028 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day this has been. I really and honestly feel that my health has taken one or two steps back today. I hope that it isn’t permanent because I can do without this kind of worry at the moment.

It all began to go pear-shaped last night when I was in bed by something like 22:00. It’s rather unusual for me to be this early, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but at least it shows that I know that I have a problem and want to deal with it.

As usual, I was asleep quite quickly, but once more, at about 02:30, something awoke me. I reckon that it must have been something outside, because I’d left the bedroom window open all night, it was so warm.

From then on, I was drifting into and out of sleep for the rest of the night until the alarm went off, and I was definitely asleep at that moment.

When it came to standing up, I was shocked, surprised and dismayed to find that I couldn’t do it. I don’t know where all my strength had gone, but I couldn’t haul myself upsright with my hands and arms. It took me three or four goes before I found enough strength.

Walking was extremely difficult too. I was totally unsteady on my feet, and I felt as if at some point, I was going to topple over like I did BACK IN JANUARY, but slowly and surely, I made it into the bathroom for my wash and scrub up, and a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

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

There was a football match on somewhere, and a group of us, including Nerina, decided that we’d go. We walked down towards the ground, and across the road was one of these sweetshops. One of our company wanted to go in so we all went in. She was looking for some of these menthol or eucalyptus sweets, and they had almost everything in this shop except that. Then we carried on down to the football ground, and at some point, I was asked if I would run the line for the game. I’d done it before so it wasn’t going to be of any problem, but in a fairly large crowd, how am I going to get people out of the way while I run up and down? We arrived at the ground and I noticed that that problem had been solved because between the spectator barrier and the pitch, they had put up another kind of barrier, which wasn’t very wide, but I imagined that that was where I was supposed to be. We began to talk, this group of ours, but suddenly I noticed that the match was under way so I had to hurry and get myself in the correct position

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I ran the line … "actually, like Johnny Cash, he walked the line" – ed … on several occasions when I travelled with FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s third team back in the good old days. I wish that I could do it today, but see the above. In any case, I don’t know why they would recruit an amateur linesman for a match with a big crowd. The only time I’ve run the line in front of a four-figure crowd was when it consisted of one man and three sheep.

Apart from that, though, I couldn’t ever imagine Nerina being interested in a football match under any circumstances, but like any of us, the menthol/eucalyptus sweets would be nice. In fact, I wouldn’t mind a packet right now.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual. I mentioned how I was feeling, and her response was “oh dear. Make sure you take it easy”, which was not the kind of casual response for which I was searching. In fact, I had advice from my AI chatbot later that was more useful.

By the way, did anyone actually make their AI chatbot after I posted the instructions on here? How did it go?

After Isabelle left, I made my breakfast, and while I was eating, I read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Today, his complaint is about segmented arches, which he considers to be "aesthetical errors just as great, and no greater, than similar uses of the segmental arch at Romsey and Salisbury." and that "they throw a lateral instead of a vertical thrust on the piers ; hence as pierarches they should be avoided".

The segmented arch, a favourite principle of Roman and Islamic design, was used slightly later than Freeman’s book as the principle method of building a great many railway bridges, most of which are still extant today, long after it was anticipated that they would be replaced and carrying loads vastly in excess of what was thought to be their limit at the time.

Back in here, I had yesterday’s notes to finish and then a few other things to do, and all of that took me up to midday when it was time to go and make myself ready for dialysis. That started with a disgusting drink and my midday medication, followed by sorting out the laptop and putting on my shoes.

My faithful cleaner turned up as usual to apply the anaesthetic on my arm. She didn’t have all that much news to bring me, except that the local supermarkets are rapidly selling out their stock. It seems that we are being hit by a record number of tourists right now.

The taxi turned up ten minutes early because we had to go to pick up someone else. And not Mrs Dinosaur either, but someone in the Avenue du Maréchal Leclerc who was also going to Avranches.

Incidentally, it seems that the taxi drivers are now referring to “Madame Dinosaur” these days. It seems that I’ve started a fashion here.

We arrived early and I was dealt with almost straight away. By 14:05 I was up and running. However, the bad news was that there was an excess of fluid. "I’m afraid that we’re going to have to send you home 400 grams over your limit." said the nurse.

“On no you aren’t” I said to myself. Not if I can avoid it. "Seeing as I’ve started early, why not prolong the session?"

In the end, we agreed on three and a half hours, which meant that the machine was operating just under full capacity and I could watch the rest of the Barry Town v Cambrian United game from last weekend.

It wasn’t as easy as that, though. I saw Emilie the Cute Consultant in the distance but she sent the holiday relief doctor to see me. However, there wasn’t much that she could do for me.

And then there wasn’t much that anyone could do about the loss of arterial pressure in one of the needles in my arm, and every two minutes or so, the alarm would sound, bringing the nurses running. Consequently, although I saw the Barry – Cambrian game right through to the end, I didn’t see as much of the Colwyn Bay v Trefelin BGC match as I would have wanted.

When it came to unplugging me, the nurses were there straight away, which was nice. They dealt with me quite rapidly, and, even better, the driver was already waiting for me. And more good news was that I left dialysis 100 grams UNDER my usual dry weight.

However, I was totally finished. It was a really hard drag to walk to the car and I was feeling awful. It was also the young, chatty driver whom I like and who, usually, I would have been very pleased to see. However, all I wanted to do was sleep, and I doubted that that was possible.

When I arrived home, my faithful cleaner was there to help me into the apartment, and she bunged a disgusting drink into my hands. I was glad about that too because I certainly needed something to keep me going.

After she left, I came back in here to write my notes, but it was useless. I was really tired, falling asleep, and couldn’t even think coherently … "nothing new there then" – ed … so I posted a terse note on my blog and went to bed with no tea. Maybe I’ll feel better in the morning.

Tomorrow, though – Friday, that is – there probably won’t be a blog entry. I’ll have to do it on Saturday morning. With the football being in full swing now and kick-off now at 20:45, the game won’t be over much before 23:00, and all that I shall want to be doing at that time is to be going to bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about me as a linesman … "well, one of us has" – ed … a football fan was in court charged with assaulting the linesman.
The judge asked him "Are you sure you only threw tomatoes at the linesman?"
"Yes, M’Lord" he replied.
"So how do you explain the cuts and bruises on his face?"
"Well, M’Lord, the tomatoes were still in their tins at the time."

Tuesday 4th August 2026 – I HAVE HAD …

… a much better day today than any other day in the very recent past. I’m not sure why, though, because it isn’t as if I’ve had any more sleep than usual.

Believe it or not, by the time that I made it into bed last night, it was after midnight. Long after midnight too. I mustn’t ‘arf ‘ave been letting it all hang out last night. But once in bed, I was asleep quite quickly, lying in the position that seems to ease my coughing.

However, round about 03:30, I was awoken yet again by one of these phantom alarm calls that I’ve been having just recently. And once more, it seemed so real that I almost climbed out of bed with it at that point. Although it was fairly cool in here, I was drenched in sweat for some reason. That’s not easily explained.

Once I’d realised that the alarm call was a phantom call and there was no alarm going off anywhere else … "and just who else would have a BILLY COTTON alarm call?" – ed … I tried to go back to sleep, but without much avail at first.

During the period in which I was awake, I checked the time a few times. I saw 05:20, and then the next thing that I remember was 05:50. Then 06:09 and I thought that I’d get up in a few seconds once I’d relaxed, but the alarm going off at 06:29 scuppered that idea.

As usual, it took me a few minutes to summon up the energy and the motivation to go into the bathroom … "but not as much as usual, surprisingly" – ed … but once I’d finished, I came back in here to find out where I’d been during the night.

Seren and I were doing something around the house when Nerina turned up. We decided to show her what we’d been doing, which was to build a game something like Snakes and Ladders where you advance down a street towards the town centre or you are derailed up side streets and sent backwards. We developed some kind of kiddies’ slide to slide the die down to tell us the number, but for some reason, I couldn’t fit underneath the bar so I had to stand and watch. Then, the coin or admission token didn’t work very well and we needed to give it quite a bit of force to make it move, and then the water in the watermill would come over and … fell asleep here …

Surprisingly, this would not be the first dice game that I invented. After Roxanne had been to see the film “Jumanji”, I invented a game called “Jumanji”. Our floor where we lived, throughout all the apartment, was tiled. We chose six of her favourite stuffed toys and numbered them from one to six. We put them at the start line by the French windows in the living room and we then threw a die. If the die came up with, say, a “four”, we’d move stuffed toy number four forward one tile, and so on. The first stuffed toy to reach the window in Roxane’s room was the winner.

Interestingly, the two cats played too. Each would have his or her turn “throwing” (or batting around the room) the die, and when we eventually found it, the number on the upper face would tell us which stuffed toy to move.

It was all totally anarchic.

As for the rest of the dream, it deteriorates into the usual nonsense.

Did I finish that dictation from the previous one about the die? It would slide down a kiddies’ slide thing and tell us the number but we’d made it a bit more complicated than it should be and the first two occasions that we tried it, the die shot off the end and disappeared off up the far end of the kitchen

“We’d made it a bit more complicated than it should be”… "nothing new there, then." – ed …

But it seems that at some point, I stepped back into that first dream and even managed to present us with a different ending.

Isabelle the Nurse came round as usual. I told her about Monday at dialysis and she told me to “take it easy” this morning. Chance would be a fine thing.

After she’d left, I made breakfast and while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Today, I’ve not really found any controversy in anything that he’s written. But that might be because I was side-tracked quite a few times. There were several occasions where I’d skipped into the situation of the church at Barthomley, Heighley Castle near Keele and the old racecourse at Woore.

And on a few other occasions, I was off with the Black Prince on his chevauchée around Western France during the opening days of the Hundred Years War.

Back in here, there were a few things to do, as usual, and then I made another start on the radio notes. They weren’t easy either because a lot of the artists and albums are new to my programmes so I have to prepare their notes right from the very beginning.

There were several interruptions too, such as the disgusting drink break and the arrival of my faithful cleaner to do her stuff. And while she was at it, she chased me under the shower and I was able to have a good scrub-up and make myself look pretty.

One more, I needed no help to go into the shower and none for helping out either, so I was in the bathroom all on my own. It meant that I could even go into the shower as nature intended.

Once all of the notes were completed … "as indeed they were" – ed … I could make a start on the next radio programme.

This one is going to be a concert so it’s much easier to work. But where editing the sounds and the tracks of the concerts might sometimes be difficult, I managed to do that before I knocked off for tea. So “press on boldly” tomorrow to write the notes.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg, and I made a different filling tonight. Apart from the usual tomato, mushrooms, onions and garlic, we had lentils, spinach and bulgur. And it was totally delicious. It made a nice change, and there’s still some left for next week.

So now that everything is finished, I’ll be going to bed ready for a good day’s work tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about mushrooms … "well, one of us has" – ed … A lady wanted to make steak and mushrooms for a dinner she was giving, but when she saw the price of mushrooms, she abandoned the idea.
Her husband told her "go and pick some in the field, from down by the river. I’ve seen all kinds of animals eating them so they must be okay"
She goes down to the river and picks a basketful and hands them to the cook to prepare the meal. When the cook thinks that the meal is ready, she gives some of it to Rover the Dog. Then she dishes up the food to the guests and the host and hostess.
Half an hour later she goes back into the dining room. "I’m afraid Rover the dog is dead, ma’am."
"Ohh God, no!" she exclaims. "Did he have any of that meal we ate?"
"Yes ma’am, he did."
So in a wild panic she calls the emergency services and a fleet of ambulances takes the guests to hospital to have their stomachs pumped.
A couple of hours later, still feeling weak and groggy, they go back to the host and hostess’s house. There, they are met by the cook.
"I was telling you about Rover when you all dashed off like that" she said. "And do you know what? The car that hit him never even stopped."

Monday 20th July 2026 – NOT ANOTHER MARATHON …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday 19th July 2026 – WHEN I AWOKE …

… this morning, there was bright sunlight outside and the birds were singing, including a dove that lives somewhere around here. So I checked the time – 06:29 exactly. So there’s nothing wrong with my body clock, is there?

Mind you, it wasn’t the first time that I’d awoken. I’d been awake on several occasions previously, usually when it was pitch-black, but I couldn’t be bothered to check the time at those moments.

Anyway, by 07:07 I was sitting at my desk working, having had time to organise myself in the bathroom first.

First job was to reply to a couple of messages that I’d received during the night, and then I could make a start on yesterday’s notes that had been abandoned before they had even begun.

For a change, I actually put my back into it and the notes were almost complete when the nurse came in. He was surprised to find me up and about … "and so were you" – ed … but I explained about the dreadful night that I’d had.

While he was dealing with my feet, he was complaining about the dreadful showing of the French team in the first half against England last night. He reckoned that the players out there, particularly in the first half, had absolutely no interest in playing and it was embarrassing to watch.

On leaving, he told me to take it easy, something that I had every intention of doing. First, though, was to make my breakfast. Porridge, coffee and the last of the two home-made croissants. I must make some more soon.

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

Well, actually, I wasn’t. He ended up talking about the Papal residency in Avignon, and although Nerina and I visited Avignon in 1991 and danced upon the bridge, I can’t remember much about it, and all my old 35mm photos are down on the farm. Consequently, I spent much of the morning reading about the time the Popes lived in Avignon and looking at pictures of the mediaeval magnificence.

Back in here, I finished off the blog entry for yesterday and it’s now on line. That was followed by listening to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

At something like about 04:40, someone came into the bedroom shouting “Ian Henstone! Ian Henstone!” who I couldn’t see what on earth he was looking at but the vet saw me and said “as you are here and all these … fell asleep here …

As for Ian Henstone, whoever he is when he’s at home … "if he ever is" – ed … I have no idea, but I do know of a Henstone Distillery.

And I’m not surprised that this degenerated into a load of the usual drivel … "you said it" – ed … with me falling asleep in the end.

Nerina and I were talking to some old woman about some cream that Nerina needed for something. It had to be a very special type that was not normally available. This woman said that she knew where she could obtain it so we asked her whether she would mind. She replied that it wouldn’t be a problem at all. A couple of days later, we went back to see how she was getting on but she said that she hadn’t received it yet. Just at that moment, a policeman appeared. He asked this woman for her name, which she gave him. He asked her if she had tried to obtain some cream made of some part of a duck or something from a herbalist somewhere, to which she replied that she had. The policeman replied that it’s not allowed for sale any more and formally charged her with a crime. Both Nerina and this lady pleaded their cases but the copper was adamant. At that point, I had something to do so I had to wander off, but I said to Nerina that when I come back, I’d love to see that charge that he’s given her. She asked why, and I replied that I bet it’s set down as “receiving” instead of “attempting to receive”. I went to do what I had to do, and then coming back down Victoria Street in Crewe, there was an old furniture sales place that had been empty for years but now had a big “Tesco” sticker stuck on the window, and there were people inside clearing up the inside. It looks as if we’re having another one of these local Tescos here. I went back to where Nerina and this old woman were. Nerina showed me the charge, and it was written down as “attempting”, but “attempt” had been written incorrectly. I thought “well, there’s a loophole here that I can exploit,” so I was quite looking forward to representing this woman in Court.

There’s a lot going on in this dream too. There’s more than enough to render the summons invalid. I’d love to prove that in Court.

And then the Tesco’s in the old furniture shop – that would be interesting too and help liven up the town centre, not that it would ever happen. But the need for special cream is something of more relevance to Laurence rather than to Nerina.

After that, there was football. There had been several matches in the Scottish League Cup yesterday, so I searched for the highlights of the St Johnstone v Greenock Morton game. And I rather wish that I hadn’t because, once again, Morton were awful and the 3-0 defeat rather flattered them. In my opinion, they were lucky to get 0.

When the match had finished, I did some reading before going for a disgusting drink break. And then I was working on another project for a few hours, just to keep myself busy.

By then the highlights of the match between Stranraer and Alloa Athletic had been posted on line. And Stranraer did really well, drawing 2-2 away to higher-level opposition.

Later on, it was time to go a-baking. And today, I made some bread. I wanted to try something different instead of the usual sunflower seeds, so I ground up a large handful of almonds and added them in. We’ll see how they react to the bread.

While the bread was baking, I assembled another half-dozen home-made croissants. And when the bread was baked, they went into the oven and now they are ready for starting next weekend.

And I think that I’ve fixed the problem relating to the drawers in the kitchen. I had another one collapse on me this evening, and while I was repairing it, I finally managed to understand why they kept falling apart. This time, therefore, I fixed it properly and little by little, I’ll go round and do the rest.

So having written my notes and generally done what needs doing, I’m off to bed, hoping for a good night’s sleep before dialysis … "and not before time too" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about distilleries … "well, one of us has" – ed … I had a friend once who drowned in a vat of whisky in a distillery.
"That must have been a quick end" said my friend.
"Not at all" I replied. "He got out three times for a bite to eat."

Friday 17th July 2026 – AFTER THE DISASTER …

… of yesterday, today has been a much more satisfying, and a much more productive day, and for once in a long, long time, I am happy with what I have accomplished.

Not that you might have thought so during the night. What with one thing and another … "and until you make a start, you have no idea just how many other things there are" – ed … it was 23:45 when I finally crawled into bed last night, looking forward to my long, uninterrupted sleep.

And there I stayed, too, until all of 02:03 (I checked). At that point, an enormous coughing fit awoke me (yes, the antibiotics stopped a week ago) and I couldn’t go back to sleep again.

At some point, though, I must have done, but it wasn’t for long and I was awake again, watching the darkness gradually turn into daylight as the sunlight slowly began to creep round the edges of the shutters.

The alarm shattered my reverie, and to my surprise, it didn’t take long for me to have my feet on the floor. Mind you, having my feet on the floor is one thing. Standing upright on them is something else completely.

Once I’d summoned up the enthusiasm and the energy, I went to sort myself out in the bathroom and then came back in here.

I had my CX500 out, so I thought that I’d go to see my friend on the Wirral. I went all the way there, but he wasn’t in. It turned out that he was in the local bar, so I went to look for it and there, I joined him. We were chatting about things and he mentioned that there was some kind of motorcycle rally taking place over the weekend in his area. We carried on chatting for a while and then I asked him if he wanted me to come up on the weekend to go to this rally, but he said “no”. I thought “there’s not much point carrying on this conversation” so I went to begin to go home. But I had no headlight on the motorbike. There was a sidelight but no headlight. First of all, I went down to another pub and had half of bitter. That was absolutely packed and I had trouble trying to find a seat. There was someone in there saying “God, this place is just packed with people drinking” so I shouted out “so what did you expect to find in a pub?” that brought a whole roar of laughter from most of the people in there. When I went to go, I climbed onto the motorbike and made sure that the sidelight at least was working, started up the bike and headed for home. But I was halfway down Electricity Street and Alton Street before I realised that I was going the wrong way, so I turned the motorbike round and headed for home. I stopped off on the way at a friend’s house in Winsford. He found a headlight bulb so I went to try it in the motorbike and it actually worked. I thanked my friend and my father. This other guy was here, he from the Wirral. He said to my dad and his friend “do you want to see two motor scooters?”. They had no interest in that so they said “no”, but it turned out that they were two types from Eastern Europe. One was a Korno but I don’t know what the other one was. Eventually, they went to see them but they were distracted by four kittens that came out of the garage. One of the kittens I knew, but I didn’t know the three others. When he went away to do something, my father, his friend and I just stayed there looking at these kittens.

There’s lots of mileage in this dream.

My father and his friend are here again, after making an appearance a couple of days ago. My father, I can understand, but not his friend, about whom I haven’t thought for something like thirty-five years.
As for my friend, there is a pub just around the corner from where he used to live. And there is actually a funny story about it, but the World is not yet ready to hear it.
He was also extremely moody and his rather abrupt “no” wouldn’t have been any surprise in real life.
Why I would be in Alton Street and Electricity Street (in Crewe) when I’m supposed to be on the Wirral, and coming home via Winsford is totally mystifying me.
The friend with the lock-up garages (and the kittens) is a different friend completely than the one on the Wirral.
In that particular friend’s garages, you might well be likely to find a couple of rare motor scooters from Eastern Europe, but as far as I have been able to find, there was nothing called a “Korno”. However, there is a village of that name in the Czech Republic.

And probably much more besides.

There was also a dream about me having a very tight timetable for the place where I worked. There was talk that I’d be having a few days off from the Wednesday to the following Tuesday to go to see a concert by a German composer, somewhere on the north coast of Scotland on the Saturday night. Nerina would be going with me and so would my brother and his wife. We met in a pub to discuss what I thought was the trip but it turned out that they had no intention whatever of going. They couldn’t recall mentioning it in the past, but I was certain that they did. But I’d warned everyone at work, but obviously we aren’t going now so it doesn’t matter.

Not that I’m likely to be going anywhere with my brother and his wife, a classical music concert wouldn’t be of all that much interest to me.

But the idea of organising everything and having it all fall apart at the last moment is nothing new whatsoever, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. It’s something that happened frequently in the old days. As for working to a tight schedule, I’m sure that you have seen plenty of evidence of this.

But there was one boy who was fed up with having porridge and things like that for breakfast and was agitating his parents to have sandwiches. I hoped that that didn’t happen because I enjoyed my porridge in the morning.

This is something that I dread happening. Breakfast, with my porridge and toast, is just about the only meal I really enjoy these days and it would be an absolute catastrophe if I were to lose my appetite for it.

And that reminds me – regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve been talking a lot about the loss of my appetite following the chemotherapy sessions that I had. While I was browsing through these pages looking for something in particular, I came across this quote –
"At lunchtime, I had some vegan cheese on my butty and I’m a little disturbed because the taste seems to have changed. It hasn’t – it’s that my taste buds have changed since I’ve had chemotherapy and that’s disturbing me. It’s one of the reasons that I’m off my food right now. I don’t really fancy anything to eat and the idea of eating anything greasy makes me queasy."

That’s a quote from the first time that I had chemotherapy, and in particular the ENTRY FROM 10th APRIL 2016 – over ten years ago. Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose.

The nurse was a little later than usual today, and he wittered away about nothing in particular while he dealt with my legs and feet. After he left, I could make breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

At the moment, he’s having an interesting discussion on the difficulties that people had back in his day almost two hundred years ago, telling the difference between Anglo-Sacon and Norman stonework.

If you ever see them close together these days now that we know so much more, there’s no difficulty in recognising the differences

You can see the difference here in this photograph that I took of St Mary Magdalen Church in Geddington. The Anglo-Saxon stonework is on the left and straight ahead over the arch. Then round to the right, where it all becomes so much neater, that’s the Norman stonework. The Normans had much more experience of stonework than did the Anglo-Saxons, what with everything that they built in Normandy prior to the Battle of Hastings.

Back in here, I had the usual few things to do, and then I attacked the notes for this concert on which I’d been working. They are now all written and ready for typing.

After that, there was one that I started a week or two back, and that’s now all done too and ready for broadcasting, although that won’t be for a while just yet.

There were the odd interruptions while I was doing that. First of all, there was a disgusting drink break with the lunchtime medication, and then my faithful cleaner turned up to do her stuff.

While she was here, I had her take two of the drawers out of the freezer, and I sat on the chair and went through them, sorting them out. Some stuff was binned but the rest is now organised and I know what I’ve got and where it is. And doesn’t that make a change?

Back in here and after the radio stuff was finished, I began to tidy up the mass of papers that was hanging around in here. That’s mostly now done too. As I said, it’s been a very productive day.

However, I didn’t ‘arf have a fright. While I was looking at something out of the window, a big bird, probably a seagull, flew slap-bang head-first right into it. The noise was astonishing and I thought that the window had broken, but it remained intact.

I told my cleaner about it, and she went outside to look but there was no evidence of anything.

Not like the owl that flew into the window of a place where I was staying in Leuven.

The poor bird – an owl by the looks of things – quite clearly left his mark on the glass there, and I don’t think that he could have survived a collision like that. But on my window, there’s not a trace.

Later on, it was time for tea. Chips, sausage and baked beans – the beans cooked with freshly ground black pepper and vegan cheese. Delicious as always.

And for pudding, I had some of the fruit bread that I made a few days ago. It’s a little dry, but the taste is magnificent and I’m really happy with that.

So now it’s bedtime, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about appetites … "well, one of us has" – ed … a young guy takes a young girl out for a meal. To his surprise, she orders almost everything on the menu. And then she gulps it down.
"Blimey!" said the boy. "Do you eat like this at home?"
"No" she replies. "No-one wants to sleep with me there."

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality