Category Archives: Nerina Hall

Wednesday 18th June 2025 – THE FIRST OF THE …

… deliveries arrived today. We now have a built-in electric oven sitting on a pallet in the apartment downstairs.

We actually have the units in which to fit it too, but they are in the back of the van where they have been since June 2022 when I bought them in Munich. However, I’ve never been able to take them out. And that made me wonder – is it really that long since I lost the ability to walk?

Although I’d had several bad falls up until that date, it was on the boat COMING BACK FROM JERSEY ON 31st AUGUST 2022 where my legs finally gave way and I wouldn’t pick myself up off the floor.

Nevertheless, I went to Canada to finalise everything but that was a journey too far and not only did I not last out the journey, I caught that virus that almost killed me and led to a two-month stay in hospital as soon as I returned.

But anyway, I digress.

Last night it was late yet again by the time that I finished my notes – I do have to say that as usual, I was not in all that much of a rush.

Once in bed though, I had the longest sleep that I have had for quite some considerable time. It was 06:15 when I awoke this morning, and I had to rush to make sure that I was out of bed prior to the alarm going off.

It wasn’t long before everyone else was up and about too, so there wasn’t really any time to do very much. Instead, I sorted myself out in the bathroom and when the Hound of the Baskervilles, who had dragged his master outside for five minutes, came back, I went for a coffee.

It was a nice, slow start to the day as we sat around chatting about past times and the days of our youth etc., and we were still there when Isabelle the Nurse blew in. She fell in love with the Hound of the Baskervilles and probably spent more time talking to him than she did to me.

After she left, so did the Hound of the Baskervilles, dragging his master behind him, and I made myself some breakfast for a good start to the day.

A little later, we set out for the shops. First port of call was the Disabled Persons’ shop on the edge of town. This is a place where they sell everything that you need if you need some kind of special equipment for some medical reason or other.

My purpose was to look for grab rails for the shower and for the w.c. I’m not going to keep this weird framework thing in the w.c. here – it takes up far too much space. I would prefer a couple of handles on the wall. And the same for the shower too. I need to be able to hold on to something and pull myself in, and to hold myself upright when I’m showering.

The good news is that they have them in stock. There’s no need to order them. So I can come and fetch them any time that I like – assuming that I have some transport to take me there.

While I was there, I asked about mobility scooters to see what they had. However, they don’t stock them at all. That’s a shame. I was going to have a little try-out around the car park.

Next stop was in Centrakor for another window pole for the gap between the living room and the other half of the apartment. And as well as a window pole, I came out with a combined w.c. brush and toilet roll holder and also several large storage jars for my flour. This new apartment is starting to become a serious proposition.

Third stop was the local park. The Hound of the Baskervilles was becoming restless and wanted a run-around so I directed my friend to the Parc du Val ès Fleurs, the site of the old Christian Dior factory now transformed into a lovely park. They went off for a ramble while I sat and enjoyed the sunshine.

This was when the delivery lady rang me so we had to pile back into the car and drive home to unlock everything so that she could bring the oven in. Yes, things are looking up.

When she’d gone, I did something that I hadn’t done for ages, and that was to sit on the wall at the top of the cliff by our building. The sun was beautiful and I really made the most of it for half an hour or so, watching the ships coming over from Jersey and the trawlers out in the bay. It was wonderful.

On the way back I met my cleaner and also the lady whose briefcase we recovered yesterday. We had quite a nice chat for a while and then I staggered back up the stairs.

When my cleaner came up to do her stuff, the others went out for a walk and I went to have a shower. So there’s a nice, clean me this afternoon ready to charm Emilie the Cute Consultant tomorrow.

Back in here, I rather regrettably crashed out for half an hour – the first time for ages. But then again, I’d done a lot today – much more than I usually would.

Once I’d recovered, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. After only a couple of seconds after having gone to bed I must have fallen asleep because I saw Nerina come into the room. I was with someone else when she walked in. Of course, she was a lot older than she had been. She walked in and went out of a door in the wall. Another woman came in after her and stuck her head in the door and shouted “Neessa”. At that moment the Hound of the Baskervilles made a noise and I awoke. I would have loved to have known what was going to happen after all of that but the Hound of the Baskervilles broke the spell.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … much as I don’t appreciate my family coming along to disrupt my nighttime voyages, I don’t mind Nerina being there. After all, I did invite her to share my life so she has every right to be there, and in any case, you can’t choose to live with someone for nine years and not like them.

There was time to make a start on the next radio programme so I went through the notes, found that I’d written down incorrectly one of the dates and so had to start again from the beginning. In the pipeline already, there’s one set of notes to dictate but I want to see how far I can push on.

When everyone came back I set about making a curry – mainly because I fancied some more of that vegan soya mince that I’d used the other day. So the big mystery was “why, if the curry that I made tasted so nice, did I actually forget to put in the soya mince?”. I really am losing my mind these days.

So right now, it’s bedtime ready for dialysis tomorrow, I don’t think. Another seven hours of my life wasted and three and a half hours of painful purgatory.

But seeing as we have been talking about my shower … "well, one of us has" – ed … while I was drying myself afterwards, my cleaner and I were talking about school and punishment – the difference between our day and today.
It reminded me of one day when I was talking to one of my form teachers. I asked him "would you, as a matter of principle, ever punish a pupil for something that they hadn’t done?"
"Not at all" he said. "I would never ever do that."
"That’s good news" I replied
"Why did you ask?" he asked
"Because, I’m afraid, I haven’t done my homework this week."

Monday 9th June 2025 – THEY HAVE CHANGED …

… my hours at the dialysis centre, so it seems.

However, it wasn’t they who told me, it was the taxi company, when I rang them to find out why the taxi hadn’t come for me

It’s not been changed to the morning either, which was what I was hoping, but instead it’s being put back from 13:30 to 14:00. That is what they would in Mexico call a peon in the hacienda.

What was annoying was that I was good and ready for the taxi at 12:30, after having what for me is a good night’s sleep. It was after midnight when I stopped letting it all hang out and crawled off to bed. It took a while to go off to sleep but once I’d gone, I’d really gone.

And there I stayed until all of … errr … 05:50. I didn’t recall anything whatsoever going on during the night.

Being awake is 05:50 is not the same as being out of bed. That’s for sure. Mind you, when I heard the electric water heater switch off at 06:20 I was already sitting at my desk. I had decided to make the most of the opportunity and I was dictating the notes for the additional track to complete the radio programme that I almost finished yesterday.

After a wash, a clothes-washing session and the morning’s supply of medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what I’d been up to during the night. I wasn’t going to work any more. I’d been ill so I’d finished work and was at home. I’d been experimenting with a few things. At the end of the week, on a Friday, Nerina came home with a loaf of bread, some cakes and a few types of speciality loaves. She was showing them to me. “I don’t want to steal your thunder” I said, but reaching under the worktop, I pulled out a loaf that I had made during the day. She replied that her loaf was much nicer than mine, which they probably were. I noticed that my loaf of bread had been cut in half. It was in two halves under the counter and one half had not been put into the freezer to freeze. She’d also brought some cakes with her. She told me that a couple were for me. I wondered how I was going to eat them because it was going to be difficult. She made no explanation so I thought that I’d eat one today and maybe one tomorrow, something like that. I thought that this would give me a great opportunity to actually do some baking myself. I didn’t want to be put off by this idea of Nerina buying stuff and bringing it home when I’d like to have a go at making it

Nothing in the above would surprise me. Nerina never had great faith in my cooking, which was hardly surprising bearing in mind my mother’s cooking. What started off my culinary apprenticeship, such as it was, was with Nerina who, having an Italian mother, could rustle up a tasty meal out of the most basic ingredients. The rest was picked up here and there, especially from my friend Liz (“that” Liz, not “this” Liz) and by trial and error – usually much more of the latter.

There was a battle to be fought. It was to take place in the early months of the Spring. It was again something to do with the Wars of the Roses. The armies had to negotiate themselves into a good position so that they could defend it and attack the opponents. One of them had to inform its superiors in whichever army by 12th June – can you imagine that? Preparing for a war and having to organise something for several months like this?

We had a “Wars of the Roses” moment the other day too. This book about medieval castles is really getting to me right now. But the prelude to the battle bears a strong resemblance to the prelude for the Battle of Flodden Field in 1513

Later on, it was something to do with mobile ‘phones. Some young boy had had a mobile ‘phone at first and was totally confused by all of the offers on the market. His father sat down and went through them all with him. They worked out which one was the best so they arranged coverage with that one. In the meantime, the father decided that he’d buy the main shop in the town where this best company was installed and slowly set out the premises, then he could take over the installation of these sites and how tall they were. That way, he’d have a monopoly on the amount of work that was being done in the town on mobile ‘phones.

There was nothing in that dream that seemed to be of any significance or ring any bells with me.

Finally, I’d had a girlfriend. She was a few years younger than me but I liked her anyway and she liked me, which was the important thing. We hung around for a while, nothing particularly seriously, One day she’d been round to my house but my mother said that she’d have to go. I saw her to the door but told her to come back in half an hour. Half an hour later she was there on the doorstep and I smuggled her into the house. I had to leave her for a minute while I went to the bathroom, and she decided that she needed to go too. She went into the bathroom and I closed the door and waited outside. My mother had heard the toilet flush from the previous time so she came upstairs to use the bathroom, walked in and found this girl in there. Naturally, she was quite upset and it led to something of an argument but by the time that the three of us were walking downstairs again my mother had calmed down a little. I think that she’d started to accept by this time that this girl was going to be somewhere around in the future. I remember saying to this girl as we were walking down the stairs “you can’t say that life going out with me isn’t exciting, can you?”.

This house – it was the one in Shavington that we left when I was 16. I can see it quite clearly. I can still see the girl too. She was short, small-framed and with dark curly hair down just past her shoulders. I was convinced that I knew who she was too, but now that I’m awake … "really?" – ed … I can’t recognise her at all.

But finally “getting the girl” and overwhelming my mother? Things are surely beginning to look up. I just wish that I knew who the girl was.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in as usual and didn’t hang about. It’s her last day so I imagine that she has plenty of blood samples and injections to perform, seeing as her oppo starts his round tomorrow.

After she left I made breakfast and then sat down to eat it, with a good book on the laptop.

At long last, we’ve finished Geo T Clark’s MEDIEVAL MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND and I can’t say that I was disappointed. It ended up going out like a damp squib which is not surprising.

And having yesterday mocked somewhat the author of a book dated 1840, the next reading matter to come round on the book list was printed in 1604.

It’s called THE SURVEY OF LONDON and it’s a guide book discussing the different localities of London as they were at the end of the Fifteenth Century, with a few anecdotal notes about things that our author, John Stowe, picked up while he was researching.

It’s a book that’s been on my reading list for ages. Liz (“this” Liz, not “that” Liz) and I spent days wandering around London in between University meetings twenty years ago, visiting all kinds of hidden corners.

London has changed considerably since the slum clearances that began at the end of the Nineteenth Century and the Luftwaffe bombing, so I’m hoping to find a collection of books that describe how it used to be. I’ve found a few from the early Twentieth Century but they are in the period where the modernisation of the City was in full swing, and a lot had gone already by them.

What I’m hoping is that this book will fill the gap.

After breakfast I came back in here to start work. And today’s task was the Welsh homework, which is now finished, although God knows what it will be like. I’m really struggling to concentrate these days.

My cleaner turned up bang on time to fit my patches, and then I had to wait for the taxi. And wait. And wait.

When I rang up to enquire after it, I was told that the dialysis centre had changed my hours. That was the first that I had heard of it.

The taxi already had a passenger aboard when it arrived, and once I was in, we set off.

At the dialysis centre I was seen quite quickly. They confirmed that my hours had changed but they didn’t believe me when I told them that I knew nothing about it. That rather annoyed me.

No-one bothered me all afternoon, which was a good thing. However, I didn’t do very much. I wasn’t in the mood.

The same passenger was with me on the return journey so the driver dropped him off first. It took about fifteen minutes to take him to his room at the Re-education Centre so it was about 19:15 when I made it back home. And I’ve no idea why, but I found myself in a foul mood.

Back in my lair, I crashed into a chair and vegetated for an hour. I was exhausted. Tea was a simple pasta and burger and now I’m off to bed, totally wasted.

But seeing as we have been talking about historical novels … "well, one of us has" – ed … a book written in 1604 will be full of obsolete phrase and spelling.
That’s no surprise though, because the English language was in a state of confusion, consolidation and correction round about that time.
As Kenneth Williams once famously said "but English is a very peculiar language"
And as Sid James famously replied "you interrupt me once more and you’ll hear some VERY peculiar language"

Thursday 24th April 2025 – ONCE MORE, JUST …

… like yesterday I was op and about before the alarm went off. Not quite as early though. It was about 06:20 when I hauled myself out from underneath the bedclothes.

Considering that it was almost midnight when I went to bed last night, that’s some good going too. After my Herculean effort in the morning, staying awake and up and about until then was pretty good too.

So after I finished my notes, the stats and the backing up, I loitered around for a few minutes … "more than a few minutes" – ed … before crawling off to the comfort and safety of my own bed.

Once in there I was soon away with the fairies (although not in any fashion that would incite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine) and only have the briefest of recollections of anything going on during the night.

It was a different matter round about 06:05 when I awoke. I couldn’t go back to sleep and I was actually crawling out from under the covers when I heard the water heater switch off.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub and a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. And then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Nerina had a Ford Cortina MkIII, a gold one. She wanted to keep it or she wanted to sell it – she couldn’t make up her mind so I advertised it for her to have some people come round to look at it to see what they thought, to make an offer and she could decide and take it from there. But everyone seemed to think that there were some pieces missing from it. I explained that we did actually have everything – it probably just wasn’t to have at the moment. I’d be able to sort it out in a short space of time

That’s something about which I know a great deal. I have four Cortinas down in the Auvergne, three of which are basically quite good. There are plenty of bits to fix those that need fixing but ask me where they are. I know that they are all there somewhere.

Later on, when I awoke I was back at home, Shavington or Davenport Avenue, with a huge bunch of screaming kids, some of whom were ours and some of them weren’t. One of them seemed to take quite a fancy to me and hung around with me for a while. However I awoke in the middle of all of that and so never found out what was going on.

With plenty of time left before Isabelle turned up, I did some housekeeping on the computer to bring that more up-to-date. But like most things around here, I seem to be taking one step forward and two straight backwards.

Isabelle breezed in and didn’t stop long, just enough time to deal with my legs and admire my new compression socks.

When she left, I made my breakfast and read MY BOOK. We’ve finished Leicester Castle, breezed through several minor piles and now we are at Lincoln. I’ve no idea what we are going to find there but we probably won’t be there long trying to find it.

Back in here I attacked the notes for the radio programme and in a mad fit of effort I almost finished them too. That was some effort, I can tell you.

My cleaner was late today and so it will come as no surprise to learn that my taxi was early. I was nothing like ready when he arrived and we had to keep the two other passengers in the car waiting for a while.

We arrived early at the hospital but then again so did everyone else so I was still last to be coupled up. Luckily it was Julie the Cook who saw to me.

They set the blood pressure alarm higher than usual so every half-hour or so, one of the nurses came over to check me. It was just as well because I hadn’t been feeling well at all all day, aching in every bone and muscle, out of breath and so on.

One of the doctors (not Emilie the Cute Consultant) came to see me today. I managed to obtain from her a prescription for an occupational therapist to come to my new apartment to give advice about installations for the handicapped and disabled.

This evening I was one of the last to be unplugged, and then I had to wait around for fifteen minutes for the last person to finish so that we could leave the dialysis centre and drop her off on the way home.

My faithful cleaner was there and watched as I staggered up the stairs into my room. First thing that I did was to have a disgusting drink break seeing as the taxi came early and prevented me from having one before leaving.

Something else that the taxi prevented me from doing was taking a naan dough out of the freezer. And so I’ll have that and my leftover curry for tea tomorrow. Tonight I had sausage and mash with vegetables and it was delicious.

It’s really early but I’m still not feeling very well so I’m off to bed where I intend to sleep for a week if I have the chance

But seeing as we have been talking about Ford Cortinas … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember when I was welding up the floor in someone’s Cortina when she was off to her mother’s.
She saw the legs sticking out from underneath the car so in passing, she reached under and … well … you can imagine.
When I came out of the garage with a G-clamp she had gone and my friend John from Stockport was nursing a lump the size of an egg on his forehead.

Friday 18th April 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… a visitor today

My tenant has finally decided to present herself to me this afternoon.
"What do you want to do about the kitchen in the apartment?" she asked.
"If you look behind you" I said "you’ll see some kitchen units in boxes. I ordered them, paid for them and had them delivered a long time ago. It’s rather late in the day to tell me about yours"

She then began a long complicated spiel about the difficulties she was having with the apartment for which she has signed.

However, I cut her rather short. "That’s not my problem" I interjected. Then I proceeded to tell her what my problem was. I explained my medical issues, in rather forthright terms and how she was contributing to them. I told her that I had proposed an exchange of apartment but she had refused.
"But I can’t walk upstairs. I have this bad back"
"Madam" I replied. "In case you haven’t noticed, you’ve just walked up 25 stairs this very minute to speak to me. Your medical problems are obviously nothing like as bad as mine and I have to do that at least three times per week on crutches"

We carried on with that kind of chat for a couple of minutes and then I interjected once more, saying "I have nothing more to add to the matter. If you have anything further to say, you must say it to the letting agent" and I escorted her to the door.

Now she can walk the 25 stairs back down again.

She’s obviously not received the letter that I sent to the letting agent this morning because I have now decided on a course of action.

Gotthold Lessing once famously said "better counsel comes overnight" and that’s certainly true, especially when you have had a lot of night in which to think.

Having dashed through everything last night, I was finally in bed by not many minutes after 23:00, which made a very pleasant change. Looking forward to a good night’s sleep, I curled up under the bedclothes and made myself comfortable

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I had been up for an hour and a half. So much for my idea of a good night’s sleep. Of course, it’s dialysis night but it’s usually Saturday night / Sunday morning when I have sleeping issues. So it must be my guilty conscience preying on me.

But when you are awake at 05:05 and don’t leave the bed until 05:28 you have plenty of time, all nice and peaceful, to think of a plan.

My plan was firstly to go into the bathroom and have a good scrub up. And then into the kitchen and have my medication.

Back in here, armed with a mug of instant coffee, I sat down and listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I came home from school and found my mother doing her usual things, talking, and then our father came in. He was talking about a couple of things that he was intending to do in the future. One of them was “we have to pack because we are moving”. This took everyone by surprise. He said “we’re moving to London – I have a job down there. I already have the house and it’s all ready for us to move”. “Oh God!”. My mother and I were completely taken by surprise because he’d never said anything to anyone. We hadn’t put our house up for sale and there were still lots of little tasks that needed doing. The first thought that went through my mother’s mind was “I bet he hasn’t bought a house. He’s probably rented a room somewhere for us and the next stop will be two rooms and a bathroom then some kind of council house”. My mother was very dispirited. So was I. I said “I don’t want to go”. She replied “that’s not like you. You’re always wanting to move on”. I replied “yes but I want to move on to my place on my terms, not go down to south-west London”. My mother replied “you aren’t obliged to go, are you?”. I replied “no, but I’ll have to find a job, all that kind of thing, leave school”. My mother was worried about all kinds of tasks that needed finishing off, like the garage floor, all of that, but it never seemed to change anything and we were just extremely unhappy and dispirited by it all.

That is in fact just like my family. They never ever planned anything for the future. It was always a question of carpe diem quam minimum credula postero as Horace would have said and “make it up as you go along”.
.
Another intriguing thought is “why did I say “South-West London” “? I actually lived in Wandsworth once for a couple of months, that’s true. I was so fed up listening to someone’s sad tale of “never finding work” and having an excuse for every suggestion that I made, that I took action.

What I did was to place an advert in one of these local papers in South-West London – mainly because it was the only area of London that I didn’t know very well – and within 48 hours I had a room lined up. I caught the train down and found my room, dumped my stuff and went for a walk.

Around the corner was a pizza restaurant advertising for casual kitchen staff and delivery drivers (evenings) and a few doors down was an Employment Agency with an advert in the window looking for bus drivers to drive schoolkids around mornings and evenings. So within 20 minutes of arriving at my digs I was effectively in full-time employment.

It really was that easy.

When my mother said that not wanting to go was not like me at all, she was perfectly correct. I was always the adventurous one. If I had had my way, our family would have immigrated to Australia under the “ten-pound Poms” scheme in the 1960s.

After I’d finished, I sat down and wrote out my letter to the letting agents, the one about which I talked earlier. I set out all of my medical issues and all the action that I had taken to date vis-à-vis my tenant.

And here’s the crunch. The lease will definitely finish on the due date. And if she wants to stay on afterwards, she can do so – but on hotel terms and conditions and at hotel rates too. I finished with “these terms are non-negotiable. It’s ‘take it or leave it’ and I want to hear no more of the matter. The discussion is finished”.

The way she came upstairs and went back down after having rejected my home exchange offer eighteen months ago “on health grounds” has only made me more determined.

The nurse came round to sort me out and I asked me if he knew anyone in the Mafia. He seems to know everyone else who might be disreputable. It might come down to asking “Luigi and a couple of the boys” to help me do a home removal, and we’re not talking about my apartment either.

Once he’d gone I could make breakfast and read more of MY BOOK. We’re still in Kenilworth Castle having a good wander around looking at the architecture. And nothing has happened that is controversial as yet.

But seeing as we have been talking about breakfast… "well, one of us has" – ed … my hot cross buns were absolutely exquisite. Just as they ought to be, in fact. This is a real success.

Back in here, there was more discussion. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I should have had a ‘phone call from the UK last week. However, due to a family emergency it never happened.

Today though, we had a very lengthy exchange of messages, discussing the finalisation of phase one of my project and the projected start of phase two. We’ve had an estimate of sorts for the work and we discussed other work that we could also include. All we need to do now is to save up some money

Next task was to finalise my LeClerc order and send it off. They had almost everything too, and acceptable substitutes for what was missing.

We haven’t finished yet either. My niece and a couple of my little great-nieces (or great little nieces) contacted me for a chat and we had a lovely time together. Amber has just finished her exams and is quite confident that she’ll graduate in May. It’s streamed live and so she’ll send me a link.

Her High School graduation was streamed live too and I enjoyed watching it. It’s really hard to believe that in December 2003 she was such a tiny baby and I was bouncing her up and down on my knee in a car in a howling snowstorm in the Appalachians of Maritime Canada.

My first disgusting drink break, late that it was, was interrupted by the arrival of my cleaner who set about her afternoon’s task

After she left I could make a start on my Saturday At Woodstock, but not for long because my LeClerc order arrived and I had stuff to put away. With the LeClerc order came the tenant, about whom I spoke earlier, so I had her to deal with too.

Finally, I had everything put away (well, almost) and so I sat down to restart my Saturday At Woodstock.

And no sooner had I started then Rosemary rang. Just a short ‘phone call today – one hour and thirty-eight minutes. I forgot to mention earlier that I’d been speaking via text messages to Rosemary throughout the day, helping her to fix her computer at a distance.

It’s hardly a mystery that she’s having so many problems. I finally managed to receive her “SysInfo”. Her OSbuild is 5371 and mine is … errr … 5737, 360 rebuilds later, and mine’s not new. And her operating system is dated Seventh August … errr … 2020.

What I suggested to Rosemary is that she comes to help me move (if I ever do) and brings her laptop with her. I’ll fit one of my spare 250GB SSD units in it and give it a clean install from new.

What with one thing and another (and once you start, you’d be surprised at how many other things there are) it was a very late tea of salad, air-fried chips and some of those vegan nuggets, followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. All really nice, that’s for sure.

So horribly late, I’m going to bed. It’s dialysis day tomorrow. But what a day that was today. I’m glad that it was a Day of Rest. What would it have been like had I been busy? Just about everything happened today and that makes a change from the usual.

But seeing as we have been talking about Italian restaurants … "well, one of us has" – ed … a new Italian restaurant opened in Crewe and I went for a job as a delivery driver.
Nerina thought that I was crazy going for that job and that I’d never have it
However I did succeed in my application and when I saw her in the street later I gave her a wave as I drove pasta.

Saturday 12th April 2025 – WE ARE BACK …

… amongst the painful dialysis connections. After a few sessions of comparatively painless connections since Emilie the Cute Consultant did her stuff, they have been gradually worsening and today we were back in the agony stakes. So I’ve no idea what’s going to happen now.

Another thing about which I have no idea now is this story about early nights. I cracked on rapidly to finish everything last night and managed somehow to finish relatively early. However I was as usual side-tracked by a couple of really good concerts on the playlist and it ended up being long after midnight when I finally crawled into bed.

For a change it was a comparatively decent night. I slept right though until the alarm sounded with only the vaguest memory of awakening in mid-sleep.

It was a struggle to rise to my feet when the alarm went off but I staggered into the bathroom for a good wash and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

After the wash I set the washing machine off with a load of clothes. For once, I managed to fit everything into it but it probably wasn’t a good idea because it struggled with the weight. I need to wash my clothes more frequently – or wash fewer clothes more often.

After the medication I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I should have been going into work with Nerina. We were on our way to catch our bus at the top of Mill Street. I was walking on my crutches and Nerina was with me. Nerina suddenly remembered that she had a prescription to pick up at the chemist’s across the road. She said that she would go and pick it up. I told her to be quick so she dashed off while I continued as quickly as I possibly could, which wasn’t very quick at all. I saw the bus come up Mill Street to the traffic lights and turn right. I knew that I wasn’t going to catch it. I saw Nerina come out of the chemist’s and run across the road. I thought “at least she’s caught the bus”. When I reached the bus stop she was standing there. She was saying that she had seen that I wasn’t there and so had waited for me. I told her that that was a silly thing to do. She should have caught the bus and gone on into work anyway on time. I would follow as best as I could. She would have been on time but now we are both going to be late and there isn’t another bus for hours so we are probably going to end up missing half a day. That was a strange decision.

Why I should be going to work on the K43 to Nantwich (that was the bus route where I was) is a total mystery, as is why I would be coming from the general direction of the railway station. And I wouldn’t be on crutches in Crewe either. Furthermore, I reckon that Nerina would have had far more sense than to have missed the bus in order to wait for me if I were going to miss it.

There was also something about being on board a yacht. There was some boy there who seemed to be very well-educated from a good family but that was far from the case. He was very insistent on his rights etc. He was going on wanting this, wanting that and everyone was annoyed with him in the end. They decided that they would teach him a lesson. When he made some more demands, someone reminded him that he was hoping that we’d move back into more traditional ways that were all good and proper a hundred years ago. They put him on a bed face down, removed his trousers and spanked him with a slipper. Every time he protested, they reminded him that he was hoping for a return to the Good Old Days and isn’t this just the kind of thing that he would have wanted? When his parents came back they were outraged by what they saw but everyone on board said “well, he was asking for this – it was literally what he wanted, a return to the Good Old Days of a hundred years ago and he’s receiving exactly what he wanted. None of us can see what the problem is”.

There have been some very, very strange dreams in the past but I don’t think that there has ever been one quite as strange as this. It quite possibly relates to an argument that broke out on the Internet a while back when someone posted "the problem with today’s children is that they don’t seem to have the sense of fear that the sound of a leather belt being withdrawn quickly so a series of belt hoops on a pair of jeans would instil into them.".

Isabelle was in quite a chatty mood today and talked incessantly about nothing whatever as she organised my legs.

Breakfast was next, with more of MY BOOK. We have left Harlech and are now at Hastings Castle, discussing the finer points of corbels and arches, with the odd flying buttress thrown in for good measures. A flying buttress is the equivalent of half an arch, leaning against the outside of a heavy stone wall to stop the wall falling outward. But does our author tell us that? Of course he doesn’t. He describes the buttress’s more elegant points from an artistic point of view and that’s about it.

Back in here I spent a couple of hours drafting a complicated letter to my tenant downstairs, but after having had a couple of chats with a couple of people and having had second thoughts, it’s all becoming far too complicated for words and so I’ve decided that she will leave at the end of the current lease. I’m too old, too tired and fed up to start to negotiate complicated deals and arrangements.

My cleaner turned up on time and fitted my anaesthetic patches and then I tidied up the kitchen while I waited for the taxi. I didn’t have long to wait either. And I was the only passenger in the car so we arrived at the dialysis centre quite early.

For a change I was second in and second to be coupled up. Despite the patches and despite the new procedure and despite the ice pack, it still hurt, and it was hurting throughout the session.

The good news is that if they had the machine on max and ran it for three and a half hours, it would leave 200 grams behind. After a discussion with the doctor today, I decided that it would make more sense to go with three and a half hours, and have a look at how things are on Monday. Four hours would probably be better then, and bring me down to an ideal weight ready for my three-day break.

There was football on the internet as I mentioned earlier – Y Drenewydd v Aberystwyth. And for once in my life in the Welsh Premier League, I saw a team play the way that I would play my team against any team that has a rather pedestrian central defence.

Y Drenewydd were desperate to win to keep alive any possible hope of avoiding the drop, so they went on an all-out attack, However Aberystwyth, who have clearly been reading my training manual, played with the rapid winger Niall Flint at centre-forward. Every time Aberystwyth won the ball in defence they kicked it upfield over the head of the central defenders and Niall Flint ran after it.

He was causing panic in their defence all through the game. And while Y Drenewydd scored two goals, Niall Flint scored two of his own for Aberystwyth, he hit the post twice and only some desperate defending kept him out on another couple of occasions. And when Aberystwyth scored a third as the game drew to a close, that, I’m afraid, was that for Y Drenewydd.

During pre-season I’d seen Y Drenewydd play against Hednesford Town, and what I saw prompted me to enter into correspondence with the Drenewydd club secretary. On the 5th of August I finished my correspondence with "I can see it being a long, cold season ahead"

At least the Chairman of Y Drenewydd was quite frank after the game. "We lost some very good players in close season but didn’t replace like with like". That is no surprise at all. What is a surprise is that he didn’t do anything to redress the balance.

The boss was waiting for me when the dialysis was over and he brought me home through the immense traffic queue as the Parisians desert their city for the Easter break. Despite dropping off another passenger, I was at home for 18:15 and I wish that I could do that every time.

My cleaner watched as I climbed my weary way upstairs where I relaxed for an hour or so.

Tea was as usual baked potato, vegan salad and breaded quorn fillet, followed by cake and soya dessert. Now I’m having a little break before dictating my radio notes and going to bed. A lie-in until 08:00 in the morning and then I have baking to do. Bread, more bread and a chocolate cake. Let’s see how the new water measurer copes

But seeing as we have been talking about football … "well, one of us has" – ed … tomorrow there’s a live football match in the Women’s League Cup – Caerdydd V Llansawel.
In the previous round Llansawel beat a team representing the Walt Disney Fan club. It was quite an easy match for Llansawel so I asked them why
"It was as if that Disney team only played with ten players" explained the Llansawel manager. "They had a player on the pitch called ‘Cinderella’ but she spent the whole ninety minutes running away from the ball"

Sunday 23rd February 2025 – I HAVE BEEN …

… a busy boy again today. Not only have I completed everything that I intended, or, as TS McPhee would have it, I’ve DONE EVERYTHING THAT I’VE EVER SET OUT TO DO, I had half an hour to spare too, and that’s not something that happens every day. And how I wish that it did.

That was despite several interruptions too, because I can’t seem to have a day without something happening to knock me right out of my stride.

Things actually set off with a good start because I’d finished my work and all of the dictating quite early. Although it was after 23:00 when I went to bed, it was before midnight which means, with my lie-in, that I could have over eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.

In theory, at least.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m back with my turbulent sleep patterns, and last night was no exception. And following a Dialysis Day, it was a hot, sweaty night too and I really am going to have to find a solution to this

However, for a change on a Sunday morning, I was still in the bed when the alarm went off at 08:00 and although I can remember times when I have felt less like rising from the bed, there aren’t many of them that have been more difficult than today.

After my trip to the bathroom I came back in here because on a Sunday there’s not much time before the nurse arrives. I made a start on the dictaphone notes (of which there were more than just a few) instead.

In midstream I was interrupted by the arrival of the nurse who tended to my legs and then spent a few minutes trying to make his card reader read my health card so that he can invoice the Social Security for his visits. Being someone who is terminally ill, I’m 100% covered for my medical expenses so I don’t have to pay anything.

After he left, I made breakfast, took my medication and carried on reading MY BOOK.

Today we’re discussing dykes and ditches and we’re back on things about which I might know something.

He’s discussing the building of these earth ramparts and ditches that straddle the countryside and I’m not following his logic at all.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the discussion from a few days ago where he stresses that invaders wouldn’t build earthworks and complicated defences. They would be the work of the beleaguered defenders.

Now when you build a wall, the purpose of the wall is twofold – one is to hide behind it and the second is to stop your enemy crossing it. To build a wall, you need to find the earth, so you would have to dig a ditch from which to extract it. That serves two purposes too – it means that you only need to build the wall half as high, because the other half of height is the depth of the ditch, and it also makes the defence stronger.

So if you are going to dig a ditch, you would dig it in front of the earthen bank, firstly to make the defence stronger, and secondly to keep your enemy farther from the wall. If you had the ditch behind the wall, it would allow your enemy to shelter behind the wall and you wouldn’t be able to come close enough to dislodge them. So the ditch will be the direction from where you are expecting the attackers to arrive.

Having said all of that, if the Cambridge ditches are to the south-west of the dykes, why does he propose, on page 511, that "they may very well represent the work of some of the earliest of the Baltic immigrants, who, as is now believed, began to make settlements on the east coast of Britain".

Why would the “earliest of the Baltic immigrants” be building these extravagant earthworks when they are the invaders? Especially when he tells us on page 518 he tells us "none of the finer and more elaborate English dykes contradicts the fact that the civilization of the island has moved always from east to west.", which is, I imagine, what the “earliest of the Baltic immigrants” will be doing.

So although I don’t have a clue exactly what his argument is, I shall refrain from saying “neither does he” because you will all be calling me “T Rice Holmes”.

When I’d finished I began to make a small bread roll for lunch. I’ve enjoyed the ones with my soups and the flexibility of an air fryer means that I can serve up one or two without any effort or heating the big oven

Back in here the first task today was to finish the dictaphone notes. I was preparing myself ready to go to dialysis, explaining to Nerina just how painful it was. She didn’t seem to believe it particularly. She thought that I was being a baby. She told me that I ought to do better with it and think more positively. Then she began to discuss operations with me. That’s the kind of thing that makes me squirm and was causing me all kinds of agony in all different parts of my body so I asked her if she would stop talking about it. Eventually she agreed. Later on that night though I was writing out my notes. She asked if I was writing out the story of what had happened early in the day between the two of us. I replied that I was. She replied “that’s fine as long as you don’t write anything personal about me”. I replied “that’s rather difficult to avoid because the fact that you and I were together is something rather personal”.

Actually, I suspect that the nurses are secretly, under their breath, telling me “not to be a baby” but we all have our phobias. But the situation about people in my dreams, I had a discussion about this with someone just recently. I’m not obviously in control of what goes on during the night and so I don’t usually “name and shame” people who appear. It’s bad enough that they know me at all, poor people, without being outed for it. But some people’s association with me is too well-known to be hidden behind a nickname.

There was a plot of waste land opposite out house in Crewe that actually belonged to us. One day I sat down to clear it all out. I removed most of the weeds, bushes and shrubs, and there was a stream that ran through it. When I was upstairs in the bedroom I could see that it was full of big fish swimming around. I thought that it was wonderful. From a horrible, stony limestone surface it gradually began to turn green as I watched it. I thought that with another couple of hours work we’d have a nice lawn over there with a little featured brook running through. I went outside and sorted out a few things. I had an old Ford Thames van … "a Thames 400E" – ed … parked in the street with no tax and no MoT so I pushed that onto there too. In the end it was really looking quite nice and I was quite impressed with it

There actually was a patch of waste land (almost) opposite the family home in Davenport Avenue when we moved there in 1970. And the story of the fish relates presumably to the fish farming from the other day.

Later on I was working in the despatching of the ambulance company. One of the drivers came in towards the end of his shift and said that he had to go to fuel up his taxi ready for the morning. He asked if he could still keep the same car for tomorrow morning. I said that there’s no reason why he shouldn’t but he’d have to let me know what number it is so that I could mark it down on the sheets. He went outside and I heard his car start so I called him up on the radio and asked him to tell me his number but he didn’t reply and drove out. Then I was in the car with him after that. he said that he still had to go to pick up fuel and his car was number 210. I noted “210” on the sheets and he set off. He drove through Crewe down Badger Avenue and up to Bradfield Road at probably 100 mph. Someone pulled out a little further ahead and he said “look at that person there! No respect for anyone else. I whispered to the other passenger and said “said he, driving at 100mph through the town”. We turned onto Bradfield Road and he said “I hope that the petrol station down here is still open”. When we passed over the railway bridge there was a queue of taxis, the biggest queue you have ever seen. he looked at me and said “all of these will be alright for you, Eric” because of course they were Crewe taxis. He swung round and pulled up onto the station with a big line of vehicles but he weaved his way up the inside and went to an empty pump to fuel the car. There was a van next to us. Our driver had a jerry can and went to fill the car and the jerry can. The woman next to us was pumping diesel and it smelt horrible. he said “that’s a disgusting diesel, isn’t it?”. I replied “it’s the low sugar stuff so it doesn’t smoke and clog up your injectors”. he replied “I can’t think why people use it so I repeated that it doesn’t smoke and doesn’t clog up the injectors.

There is actually a petrol station where this one in the dream was situated. But the whole place being saturated in taxis is most unlikely, particularly as many as there were parked around there last night. But despite all that I have said about Crewe in the past, they do stop and fuel up their cars with diesel. There’s not one single driver left in the town today who stops at the stables to fuel up his cab with a nosebag full of oats

There was also a dream where I was with some friends of my own age. maybe we were at school, I don’t know. Someone turned up with some parcels and I wondered what this was all about because it was nearly Christmas. It turned out that it was a girl who had left. She’d sent some of us some presents and one of them was for me. It looked as if it might have been a cake. I thought “this is nice of her”. When I looked at it, it was the wrapping that resembled the cake. When I undid it, it was a board game all about growing your crops, harvesting them and making all kinds of vegetarian and vegan food, which I thought was really wonderful. One of two of the others then received some strange board games from this girl too. I thought “this is a really nice idea. I shall have to try to find where this shop is and investigate it for myself to see what else they had that I could maybe give as presents to other people”.

That game actually sounds quite interesting and I wonder how it could be made to work. There’s an on-line course doing the rounds on OpenLearn about making a game app for a smartphone and I’ve been debating about using my dialysis spells to catch up with a few more short courses. This game app one might be interesting, with this idea as its theme.

I’d been in Northampton and was heading back out towards the motorway with “that” Liz. We’d gone a different way this time to see what was alongside the motorway the other way. We ended up in this town but didn’t recognise it. It was a very modern town with a huge distribution centre for a supermarket, one of the ones in red, right at the end of the main street. We parked up and walked out to have a look round. We asked these two boys the name of the place. They wanted to know why we were here if we didn’t know where we were. We explained that we’d been to Northampton and wanted to go back a different way. He began to ask passers-by “which is the best way from here to reach the motorway?”. He told us that this place was called TW17. He then went to a travel agent’s to ask her where she could send him on a flight while we decided that we’d go for a look around and maybe have a meal. I set off to find the car to park it somewhere better so that we’d have time to eat.

So here’s “that” Liz back yet again. We had someone who sat on a University Committee on which we served who lived in Northampton and we went there a couple of times. But Liz was more of a friend with her partner and she unfortunately sought her release from her difficulties in an extremely tragic way and we never went again. One thing is certain though. None of this took place in Shepperton.

Next task was to watch the football, Stranraer at home to high-flying Stirling Albion, and against the run of play demolish them 3-0 even though a friend of mine from University days plays in goal for Stirling Albion.

And hats off to Robbie Foster. A big, burly, clumsy but quick and powerful centre-forward, out of his depth at this level of football but due to an injury crisis of epic proportions, forced into the side for the last couple of months.

He knows where to be and what to do – he has all of the strikers’ instincts, but he’s just not able to do it. No-one on any football field ever has ever tried harder than him and today he had his reward when he muscled his way into the path of a loose ball and prodded it home

But one day someone is going to give the “man of the match” award to eighteen year-old Josh Lane, forced into goal for the first team for the last few games. A nervous start a few weeks ago but the last few matches he has pulled off some wonderful saves to give his team a fighting chance.

If you are interested in the highlights, you can SEE THEM HERE

Today’s work was to edit a series of radio programme notes that I’d dictated last night, and prepare or complete the programmes.

The first one was a concert that I stumbled upon in Germany in 1981. I’d written the notes the other day and they were the first that I’d dictated.

By the time that I’d finished the editing I was almost four minutes over, but that was part of the plan because there were several short tracks that I could edit out to fit everything down. So one track then went, a pile of applause and other “irrelevances” followed and it all went together quite nicely

There were two “extra tracks” for the two programmes that I’d prepared last Sunday, and I managed to resolve one of them and complete the programme before lunch.

Lunch was a fresh bread roll cut in half and transformed into “cheese and tomato on toast” in the air fryer. And it really was delicious too. I shall do all of this again too.

This afternoon I attacked the remaining programmes and despite stopping to make a full-sized loaf of bread, I finished bang on the moment as the telephone rang. I’m convinced that Rosemary mounted a camera in this apartment when she was last here.

Our chat today was only a small one, just one hour and three minutes. And the most exciting news is that Myrtille the cat goes to sleep under the bed but when Rosemary awakens, the cat is asleep on the foot of the bed. I’ll give it two weeks before they are both curled up together.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … no-one I ever knew ever won a battle with a cat.

After a half-hour break I went to make my pizza. And it’s another one of the “best ever made” pizzas. My loaf was perfection itself too . it all seems to be working fine these days. What I think has been happening is that firstly my technique is improving and secondly, I think that my water measurer is inaccurate. If I use more water than suggested in the recipe it works so much better.

So having done all of my work, I’m having a Day of Rest tomorrow. Well-earned too, I reckon. If only I could work as hard as this all the time.

If I had worked as hard as this when I was at school I probably would have had a different path. I had this discussion with Nerina once and she asked me "what would you have done?"
"I would have been a criminal lawyer" I replied
"How far did you go in your studies?" she asked me.
"Only half-way, I’m afraid" I said. "I still have to do the ‘lawyer’ part."

Saturday 22nd February 2025 – I WAS BACK …

… here early this evening which made a lovely change. Mainly because I set out earlier to the dialysis centre. The taxi was well in advance. At least the driver sent me a message to say he would be here early, which is always a good idea.

Unfortunately though, I couldn’t emulate that last night going to bed. That night or two where I really cracked on and had things done early seems to be just an unexpected flash in the pan and I can’t repeat that, much as I would like to.

By the time that I’d finished my notes and done what I needed to do it was well after 23:00 and even later by the time I went to sleep in my nice clean bedding, having found the pillow case that had somehow gone missing from the wash the other week.

It was a turbulent night of the kind that I had when I was going through that cycle a few weeks ago and it was a very weary, bedraggled me that crawled out from under the covers when the alarm went off.

In the bathroom I remembered the sample that they need at the dialysis centre but forgot to shave and change my clothes for fresh ones. Emilie the Cute Consultant won’t be too impressed with me if she’s there today

The kitchen was next, and all of the medication. There’s a lot less than there used to be when I was going through that crisis six months ago, but it’s still an impressive quantity all the same. I wish that I could turn back the clock before my kidneys gave out and I was on just four per day.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been. And I’d travelled far during the night as well. I fell asleep quite quickly and found myself in the doctor’s discussing phallic symbols with him, I’m not sure exactly why but I wasn’t asleep very long and that’s hardly surprising.

Strangely enough I can’t remember dictating that – or even being awake at all at that particular moment. I thought that I would have remembered something about phallic symbols if it had been going on in my head. It’s not the kind of thing that you forget.

And then Nerina came round to my place of work last night. There was some kind of talk about a Trade Union meeting taking place in Manchester where the Trade Union Executive Committee was having its quarterly meeting. Someone was giving an account. They were talking about how they completed so much work, how it was sometimes quite emotional and how wen everyone went out into breakout rooms the observers were shared out between the rooms so that they could go to see. This person who had been on the Monday was extremely impressed. I was sitting tight up in a corner with Nerina. She turned and whispered to me in my ear “next time we ought to go to see this meeting”. I asked her if she really wanted to go because it was not something to which she had shown any particular interest before, but she was quite adamant about it so I decided that I’d make a few enquiries and see how we could go there. But I was actually with her and the two of us were so close together and so tight up in the corner.

That’s the kind of dream that brought back a few happy memories of former times. As for Trades Unions, I served on the Executive Committee of the Students’ Union at University and held a few other posts as well, such as Chair of the branch of students of Northern Europe. Those were the days after I’d taken early retirement from work and was looking for something to do. However I went back to work later, first covering for someone on maternity leave at General Electric’s training school in Brussels and then at that weird American company where I met Alison

And then it was my birthday so I had invited a lot of people round to my apartment, mostly friends from the University. They were all ages and they really were a bizarre bunch. Then at the end of the night I settled down in the armchair to go to sleep. Liz who was there as well, she settled down in the other armchair to go to sleep. Various other people settled down in all kinds of various other settees and chairs and prepared to spend the night. First thing was that I had to get up to go to the bathroom and come back down again. Liz came with me but she disappeared off somewhere. Gradually one by one other people began to disappear too. I began to wonder where they were going. There was a group of two people sitting on the sofa who suddenly began to awaken and eat chocolates again. A third person went along to sit on the sofa and join in with them. I asked them “is the party starting up again?”.

“That” Liz (not “this” Liz) has featured in several dreams just recently, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. In a fortnight’s time it will be sixteen years since she died. She came from the North-East of England and served on the same University committees as I did. As she couldn’t drive, she used to travel with me from one meeting to the next. Back in 2006 we were on our way from a meeting of the Disabled Students in Bristol to another meeting in Gosforth when we stopped for a meal in a pub near Oswestry, when into the dining room came the very same girlfriend from school with whom I was chatting yesterday. And despite it being 35 years later, you could have put her in her school uniform and she would have looked exactly the same as she did back then at school

Finally, In that dream … "which dream?" – ed … there was a moment when I was in the office. I was wandering around outside in all of the buildings that were there. I came across a woman who was walking around. I was the only person in the office at that time so I wondered who she was. She wondered who I was too so I told her which building I was in and asked her if she knew which one it was. She said that “it’s the one right down there at the entrance” so I imagined that she did. I ended up walking down a corridor where I saw someone else. Then I came into my room where everyone else was. I sat down on the sofa and then had to stand up, but suddenly realised that I couldn’t stand up sitting on the sofa. I had to go through all kinds of strange manoeuvres like leaning my back against the wall trying to push up with my ankles so that I was in an upright position in order that I might be able to stand up and move

That is actually my big fear – falling over, because I can’t pick myself back upright again if I do. When I fell over in an Underground station in Montréal in 2022 a couple of passers-by had to pick me up. It was difficult then, and I have even less control over my muscles today than I did back then. As for the “office”, the image that I have in my head is the hospital in Paris, which is in fact a collection of individual buildings on a campus.

There was more to it that all of that too, but you don’t want to know about it, especially if you are eating your tea right now.

The nurse was later than usual today and didn’t hang around at all. He didn’t even have time to ring the doorbell from downstairs to warn me that he was here. He was in and out in a matter of seconds.

Not that I’m complaining of course. I could make breakfast and carry on reading MY BOOK

Today we are discussing medieval fishponds and the delights of catching, cooking and eating a nice fresh bream “in its jacket”. In my opinion, he’s welcome to it. Even when I used to eat fish, oily, pungent fish like that was not to my taste at all.

Back in here I sorted out the bills that I needed to pay, dealt with all of that, and then finished off my Welsh homework so that I could have a day off to relax on Monday.

Some time round about then I had the ‘phone call from the driver who is going to take me to Avranches. Would it be OK to come round fifteen minutes earlier?

“No problem” I replied. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish (in theory) and I sent a brief note to my cleaner.

Just as I finished my homework she put in an appearance. Perfect timing, that. She sorted out my anaesthetic patches and then I had to wait for the taxi.

We had to pick up that woman who lives at the back of the dialysis centre and we arrived at the centre at about 13:05 which was rather early, because they don’t open the doors until 13:15.

For a change I was second to be dealt with, which suited me fine. I could settle down and watch the football.

A real bottom-of-the-table clash between Aberystwyth and Y Drenewydd, and it looked it too. Y Drenewydd were quite poor but Aberystwyth were dreadful and on this form they’ll find the second tier rather tough going. They look like a team that is already resigned to its fate.

The manager, interviewed afterwards, didn’t pull any punches about his team’s lack of fight but the problem lies with the club. Four years ago they had quite a strong team but a whole raft of players left and the ones who have come in haven’t been able to replace the quality and it’s been downhill ever since.

Unfortunately I fell asleep after that for a few minutes and then carried on tidying up and updating the travelling laptop.

Early in, early out which is good news and I was back here by 18:45, and I wish that I could do that every trip instead of some of these ridiculously late returns home that we have had.

Tea was a burger on a bap, some red-hot chili burgers that I found in the freezer. Certainly different, and quite enjoyable, especially with baked potato and vegan salad, followed by date bread and soya dessert. And it’s the first time in well over a week that I’ve felt like eating a proper meal.

So now I have things to dictate and then I’m off to bed. Loads of editing tomorrow, bread making and probably a few other things too, if I feel like it. But that’s not always obvious at this time of night.

But seeing as we have been talking about that meal in that pub near Oswestry … "well, one of us has" – ed … I told a little joke and the ex let out a sigh.
"Ohh Eric" she said. "You told me that joke when we were at school!"
"Yes that’s as may be" I replied. "I don’t change the material. I just change the audience"
"That’s why Eric likes travelling with me" said “that” Liz. "I have such a dreadful memory that he tells me a joke one day, then tells me again the next day and because I’ve already forgotten it I hear it again for the first time and laugh once more."

Thursday 20th February 2025 – I WAS RIGHT …

… the other day when I prophesied how I would be feeling today after dialysis. Not only have I gone back to square one, I have fallen off the edge of the board. I can’t be doing with too many more of these dialysis sessions.

However, I have to carry on for the rest of my life and if it goes like this for much longer, that won’t be too far away.

Last night I was in bed rather later than previous, but not at an unreasonable hour. It was before midnight, at least. However we were back at the awakening shortly after midnight and staying awake for several hours.

And even if I did manage to go back to sleep, I was awake again at about 05:50 and when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was already up and about. No point in staying in bed when I have things to do.

We had the usual routine of bathroom and kitchen, and then back here, the dictaphone was next.

There was a group of us singing that Supertramp song “Schooldays” while there was a radio presenter talking about presenting the song, about what was actually behind it. A couple of people who were with us were quite young and obviously wouldn’t have remembered the song when it came out originally but this was one of those things where I was quite young too so it must have been the first time that I heard it. It was one of these anthem-type singers and there was a couple of other people there too but I can’t remember very much about what they were doing.

SCHOOLDAYS is actually a song by Gentle Giant, but let’s not be carried away by the minutiae. It’s impressive that I could even remember the song seeing as it’s one of the Gentle Giant songs that I can live without.

There were then two girls had stowed away in an aeroplane. They had been arrested and imprisoned there while the ‘plane took off to fly them home. There was a problem there with one of the engines on the ‘plane and the crew was busy doing some work on it in mid-flight. Under cover of the noise that the crew was making to hit this engine with a hammer the girls were chiselling away at the side of the aeroplane to make a hole ready for them to escape when the ‘plane landed. Suddenly the hole gave way and one of the girls was sucked out in the air pressure. She disappeared into nowhere. The other girl was left there just looking at it. She suddenly thought “well perhaps maybe this is the moment for her to escape”. She ended up next falling out of the ‘plane but her clothing was hooked onto a jagged edge and she was there suspended outside the ‘plane, thinking “this is wonderful, I’m flying! How marvellous it is!”. Suddenly her clothing gave way and she cascaded out. She was immediately in a panic about this but realising that there was nothing that she could do she just sat back and admired the view from 30,000 feet. She could see that she was about to hit the water on the edge of the coast just off the beach. The water couldn’t have been very deep. She hit the water and managed to walk away. She was rescued and taken to a local Air Force base where she broke down and had an emotional crisis. She could never concentrate on her career on the Air Force again. She resigned four or five times, her marriage had fallen to pieces with her being in such an emotional state but of course she was lucky to be alive.

Bizarrely, I can see them even now as they fell from the ‘plane. I was a few hundred feet underneath them, looking up. And I can still see the second one as she fell and hit the water. And she wouldn’t walk away from that. The water is a lot harder than you might think, especially if you were to fall from 30,000 feet. I’m not surprised that she had an emotional outburst or two subsequently.

Nerina and I had gone on holiday again, driving around the UK looking at different places. We’d ended up in New York driving around. Then I ended up walking around somewhere. I’d seen an old disused railway line that used to run down to the port so when I was back in New York a couple of years later I went to look for this railway line and began to follow it. I had to cross a street and this street was so, so wide that it took me an age to cross over. There was a lorry coming in the distance and I thought that I would never ever reach the other side in time before the lorry would arrive. It was miles. On the other side I saw a strange-looking building so I went to have a look. As I put my head inside the door a voice said “don’t stand there, come on in”. I couldn’t see anyone who had said anything so I went in. It was like a small community centre with a table tennis table, some comfortable chairs and a couple of annexes. There was a coffee bar so I ordered myself a coffee and went to sit down. Back in the car later on Nerina was feeling tired or something. I was listening to music. She said “you couldn’t put music on your headphones, could you? On the car ‘phone put a track of complete and utter silence so that I could sleep?”. I thought “why not?” so I was busy trying to programme the telephone in the car that it would play the longest possible track which would be called “Silence”.

Crossing this street resembles somewhere where I’ve been in the past, although the road was nothing like as wide as this. I’m wondering if it might have been NEW BERN where the railway does actually run down the centre of the main street. However, in this dream there was a very big green park on the far side of the road.

The nurse was late today. I recon that he was on his bike because he brought his rucksack inside with him. He didn’t have much to say for himself today and was soon gone so that I could press on.

Breakfast and MY BOOK were next. But as far as the book goes, I didn’t read it for long. I had too much to do and in any case, the events of modern times are not as interesting as what I’ve been reading to date, in my opinion.

Yesterday, I said that I’d catch up on correspondence, so that’s what I’ve been doing. I reckon that I’m as up-to-date as I have been so if you are awaiting a reply and you haven’t had it, let me know. The chances are that I’ve forgotten or overlooked it.

Having dealt with that I pushed on and attacked the Welsh homework. It would be nice if I could finish that before Monday, then I can have Monday morning off which would be a nice change.

My cleaner turned up to fit my patches and then I had to wait for the taxi. And although it was a little in advance, it made no difference because it was running late for another passenger’s appointment at the clinic on the other side of Avranches so I had the round trip

Dialysis was about as painful as normal, and I had the pleasure of the company of the unsociable doctor today. He’s wondering if I have an infection so they took a blood sample and on Saturday I have to take in …. errr … another type of sample.

The Social Security regulations are beginning to bite too. We have a new patient in dialysis today. He lives out in the sticks and used to go to St-Lô but the Sécu reckons that it’s closer for him to go to Avranches. So here he is.

Late in, I was late out too. It was my usual Saturday evening driver who brought me home, pretty much in silence too. I’m not sure why he’s suddenly gone quiet but these days he doesn’t have much at all to say.

Climbing up here was a struggle, given how I’m feeling. And tea was a handful of pasta and veg in a tomato sauce. I don’t have the morale, the courage or the energy to do much else.

So even though it’s really early, I’m off to bed, hoping that the sleep will do me good and I’ll feel better in the morning. That would really be nice, but I doubt it.

But seeing as we have been talking about archaeology … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends once asked me "why are archaeologists so popular on these dating sites?"
"I’ve no idea" I replied
"Its because they spend most of their time dating these ancient and unusual ruins"

Wednesday 21st January 2025 – THIS TIME TOMORROW …

… I shall be having my fevered brow soothed by a bevy of nubile nurses while I’m tucked up in my comfortable bed in The Land of Grey and Pink – I mean, the Hospital Pitié-Sampetrière in Paris.

Actually, I probably won’t be, but there’s no harm in wishful thinking, is there? As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s only my imagination and my dreams that are keeping me going.

To tell the truth, I will almost certainly be in a bed in a hospital in Paris, assuming that we don’t have a calamity along the route. But as for the rest of it, who knows? And who really cares? As long as I have my imagination I can continue my desperate struggle against reality.

And the desperate struggle against fatigue too, because I have to be up and about at 06:00 in the morning. I have dialysis tomorrow before I leave for Paris, so that means a taxi at 07:45 and a session on the bed in the dialysis centre starting at 08:30.

At 07:30 this morning though I was still struggling to come to terms with being on my feet. When the alarm had gone off at 07:00 I was deep in the Arms of Morpheus and it was a real struggle to rise to my feet. However I made it into the bathroom just in time before the next alarm call went off.

There had been a lot of perspiration during the night so I needed a good wash. Emilie the Cute Consultant told me that the perspiration was usual, but if it carries on, I shall need a water bed. Then I can sail into the bathroom. Or paddle my own canoe. Or be up the creek without a paddle. I dunno.

After the medication I came in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. My brother had a MkIV Cortina. He’d had an accident in it and damaged one wing. He came to see me to see if I had another MkIV wing. At that moment I had about three MkIV Cortinas, a pale blue one that I was using as my run-around which was something of a wreck. It had no MoT or insurance. Then there were two others, one of which was a reasonably good car and the third one that I was planning to rebuild. He came round to ask if I had one so I replied that I hadn’t. Everything that I had was spoken for. Nerina said “why don’t you give him the one off the blue one? You’ll be scrapping that soon and it’ll save you the time in dismantling it if he were to take that”. I replied “that’s the car that I’m using to drive around at the moment. I can’t give him that”. We had quite a big discussion about t which became quite heated. In the meantime my brother was wandering around in the garage and came across a wing for a MkIII Cortina. he said “I’m going to break your hearts now” he said “and I’m going to take this”. I said “come here” and went into my workshop. Scrabbling around on the worktop I found the washers and bolts that had been used to hold it on. I was scrabbling around and ended up with about ten at that particular moment. He said “that’s OK, I’ll take those”. I sorted out some washers for him but he didn’t seem to want very many. I thought that a MkIII wing on a MkIV would invite lots of comment but he didn’t seem to care. But there was a question that he’d asked me about “was Ford bringing out a new car to replace the Granada?”. I replied that I’d not heard anything. There had been no executive meeting so no-one seems to know as yet.

In theory of course, a MkIII wing will fit a MkIV Cortina because they have the same chassis and A-post arrangement but as I said, it’ll look rather strange.

But I was, and still am, a big fan of the Cortina MkIII, IV and V. Practically the same car from 1970-1982 with all the mechanical parts interchangeable, they did me proud when I had my taxis. Not only did I have the cars, I’d pick up MoT failures, dismantle them for spares, sometimes repair them and until I had my health collapse after my big car accident, I was always ahead of the game.

There are still several Cortinas lying around. There’s an almost-immaculate MkV estate keeping a MkIII 2000E Cortina and a Citroen “traction avant” company in the warehouse in Montaigut, a “rare as hens-teeth and worth a fortune” MkIII 2000E estate in the barn on the farm, and an old rotten MkV saloon down the field that was going to be cut up for spares but it’s lost in the undergrowth now.

All the same though, that dream was disappointing. Nerina was there, as of course she is entitled to be, but once more we were arguing. We spent so much time arguing in real life – if only we’d stepped back, breathed, and began to talk to each other, things would have been so different. And my brother was there once again. How disappointing is that? Why can’t I summon up any one of the Fearsome Foursome to come to me during the night?

As for the Ford Granada, that relates to something that is running in a thread through my mind somewhere right now, relating to nothing in particular. But no MoT or insurance on a Cortina is a thread that’s been running through my dreams for ages, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

The nurse was early today. It’s His Nibs starting his seven days. He’s not impressed with my early start tomorrow (neither am I as it happens) and told me to keep my socks on during the night. That’s not a sound policy – not at all.

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

As I suspected, I’m right about him working up to a crescendo. With no sense of embarrassment or responsibility he’s laying in to all kinds of people. Not even the Astronomer Royal is exempt from his scorn. It really is quite shameful and how his publishers accepted it I really don’t know.

Back in here I revised for my Welsh class and then went for the lesson. Once more, it seemed to pass off quite well. However, that was then, when everything was fresh in my mind. Give me half an hour and it will all have evaporated from my teflon brain.

After lunch I had a few things to do and then I pushed on with this radio programme that I’ve been trying to finish since Sunday. Now it’s all done as far as I can, the 11th track is chosen and notes written ready to dictate on Saturday night when it’s quiet.

The next trick will be to finish the one that I started at the end of last week and have it ready for dictation on Saturday night too. I need to snap out of this depression and lethargy and push on.

And that’s the first time that I’ve said that since dialysis started.

While we’re on the subject of the radio … "well, one of us is" – ed … there was the radio programme for this weekend to review and send off, so I listened to it to make sure that it was OK.

It’s just as well that I do this because I’ve been caught out before by people dying in between the recording of the programme and its transmission. And not that I’m bragging, but this programme was recorded in May 2023.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with some of the leftover stuffing followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. Delicious as usual.

But then I had more food to make. The food in the hospital is dreadful, I’ll be arriving late, there’s never any food that I can make. So I’m in the process of making some bread and I’ve cooked a lentil and potato mix that’s in a plastic container that they can bung in the microwave when I arrive. I have to be prepared.

Right now though, I need to be prepared for bed if I’m going to be up at 06:00. I don’t fancy that in the least, but I can always sleep while dialysis is going on.

But in our Welsh class today we were discussing War poets. And one thing that most of us had in common was that we all had had to study War poets for our ‘O’ Level English Literature exam, and without exception, it destroyed any love of poetry that we might have had.

We all agreed that it was so depressing and so miserable, but it seemed to us that the examiners were working to their own very private agenda. It wasn’t until I discovered the works of AE Housman that I began to develop a love of poetry, but I never ever want to hear another War poet again as long as I live, if I live that long.

On the other hand, I can listen to this all night and next day too – one of Housman’s poems SET TO MUSIC

Another thing that we were discussing was the early television programmes. And I remember when the BBC, in an economy drive, was selling them off to independent producers.
At one meeting the Director asked the Sales Department for the accounts.
He asked them "What did we get for ‘Larry the Lamb’?"
"According to our accounts" said the accountant "we got four shillings per pound"
"And the guy in the historical records" said the Director. "What did he get for ‘Muffin the Mule’?"
"Eighteen months, I think" replied the accountant.

Tuesday 24th December … TO ALL THOSE PEOPLE …

… living in Panama, HIS NIBS and I wish you a Merry Isthmus

And so does Nanuk, a very friendly Polar Bear whom we met in the High Arctic Research Area in Cambridge Bay on Victoria Island in the Arctic Ocean where those of us on board THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR called for supplies.

Nanuk, or, I suppose, more correctly Nanu’q is Inuktitut for “polar bear”. Some words that I learned from the Inuit in the High Arctic seem to have stuck.

However, retournons à nos moutons as they say around here. It’ll be Christmas Day by the time that most of you read this so I hope that you have all been good and that Santa has brought you some nice presents. I know what he has brought me, and it’s the same that my namesake the mathematician will receive.

One thing that he will bring will be a nice lie-in. I’ve told the nurse to clear off, the alarm is switched off and that will be that. That’s the best present that anyone could want.

Not like this morning though. When the alarm went off I was already up and about.

It wasn’t as if I’d gone to bed early either. It was approaching midnight by the time I crawled into my stinking pit and once more, I was out like a light and felt nothing at all. Totally painless.

However, something awoke me at about 06:40 this morning, and it was another quite dramatic awakening. I’ve no idea what it was that went off but whatever it was supposed to do, it certainly did it.

Seeing that I stood a good chance of beating the alarm, I fell out of bed and had a most undignified crawl to the bathroom where I sorted myself out, and switched off the alarm when it went off.

In the kitchen I made sure that everything was put away and then took my medication for the morning

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what went on during the night. At one point I was having a really long, involved and complicated dream that was so interesting. I reached for the dictaphone and the dream evaporated immediately from my mind. I couldn’t recall a single thing about this dream at all

That must have been a real disaster, forgetting an exciting dream like that. But it’s like one of those projector slides that just slides down over the memory and blots it out completely.

Later on, Nerina and I had gone to the USA. We’d been driving around the Midwest just on a case of opportunism, looking at one or two things that were there, but otherwise just following our noses. We eventually turned up in this town in Wisconsin. There was a village fair advertised but which had taken place on 3rd June. We went to have a look at a couple of the notices that were on this site. After a while we worked out that we were actually on the training ground. There must be another site somewhere else where the events took place so we decided to walk across the road and have a look. There, we met some guy who was walking down the road. We said “hello” and ended up having a chat with him about the town. He wanted to know all about us and what we were doing there, a typical friendly American. He decided that he would show us around. The first thing that he took us to was what looked like a large rectangular area with grassed-over earth walls around it. He said that that was where a film had been filmed – one of these Space fantasies in the 1950s about people from Earth going to live on another planet. It had all been filmed there. Then next door to this was a huge office block that must have covered a dozen acres in a kind of Y-shape. It wasn’t very tall, about twelve storeys. This apparently was the offices for this fair. I thought that this was going to be an astonishing place. He took us round to the offices. When we walked around the corner there was this huge arena in the shelter of two of the arms of this Y-shaped building, a massive place. This was apparently where the events took place. We thought that for a little, small town fair this is an astonishing situation. He gave us a talk on it. We turned up at one of the corners of this building. There was a bar in there. he said that he was going in so Nerina said that we ought to buy him a coffee so what would he like to drink and what would he like. We’d had one of the most astonishing guided tours that I’ve ever had in my life.

This is another dream in which there’s a lot of mileage. Firstly, of course, Nerina appears in it. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I don’t mind at all her turning up. I invited her into my life all those years ago so she has every right to be there, and in any case, I wouldn’t have invited her if I hadn’t liked her and nothing that has happened since has changed a thing. They say that you can choose your friends but not your relatives, and that’s certainly true. She would be chosen ahead of a lot of other people much more closely related to me.

Then of course there’s the village, or small-town fair. That’s an institution in many rural areas of the USA and we used to always go to the one in Clinton, in Maine. They had tractor-pulling competitions there so my niece’s husband and two of his daughters used to compete with their monster truck. This fair, like all the others, was epic and there’s nothing like it anywhere else. Watching the kids take part in the piglet-wrestling competition is bewildering if nothing else.

And then there are Americans. Americans in groups are devastating but one American on his or her own in the rural regions is probably one of the most friendly people on the planet, as long as you don’t discuss politics. You’ll remember Isaac Weld saying something along the lines that Americans have a deep sense of curiosity and will ask the most intimate questions to enquire about you and your purpose of visiting their neck of the woods. That’s certainly true. They have a natural sense of inquisitiveness, more than any other people

But then there’s the huge stadium in the tiny town. That rings a bell with me because every now and again my website statistics are swamped by visits that come from the small town of Prineville in Oregon, with the browser being recorded as “other”. Prineville is a town of just 10,000 inhabitants and sometimes it seems that every one of those people visits my sites every day, judging by the number of hits.

However, the mystery is easily explained. In Prineville is the location of two massive data centres, one for a major telephone and computer supplier and the other for a huge social media company. So all these hits are actually coming from all over the World but accessed by the medium of the various private data network connections and the various “own brand” browsers.

There was a load of mileage in that dream.

The nurse came early today and didn’t hang around. I reminded him not to come on Christmas Day as I’ll be in bed. I’m sure that I can manage for one day without him being here sorting out my legs.

After he left I made breakfast and read MY NEW BOOK.

And in it, T Rice Holmes answers one of his own questions, and the answer is exactly as I expected it to be. He seems now to have forgotten his question about why the continued use of Palaeolithic tools even though Neolithic tools are in use on the continent. However, he does admit that "pastoral tribes do not turn to agriculture until their numbers have increased to such a degree that they have no prospect of being able to live by hunting".

Later, he says "but as their numbers multiplied and it became more and more difficult to find sufficient food, the struggle for life must have led to intertribal war, and men’s minds must have been exercised to improve their weapons"

So, as I said, if the old stuff works, keep on using it but, as I also said yesterday, "It’s only when something like a greater pressure from an increasing population comes along that new technology is considered"

He’s still stuck in the stereotypical myths of savage prehistoric man, which can hardly be the case bearing in mind the organisation that must have taken place to build the barrows, stone circles, hill forts and the like. He comments "matriarchy, it would seem, was the root of family life : descent was reckoned through the mother, for the father was often unknown.", and that on the basis of absolutely no evidence whatsoever.

Today, I have done almost nothing at all. I have had a nice relaxing day. All that I have done in the way of work is to track down a couple of concerts that I knew were somewhere about, identify them and date them.

My friendly cleaner came round today instead of tomorrow to give the place a clean-up. And that included me, because I had my weekly shower. And didn’t I feel better for it? I can’t wait to be downstairs, have a walk-in shower installed and then hava shower every day.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg, that didn’t drop onto the floor tonight. It was followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. Tomorrow it will be my Christmas dinner. I shan’t be doing much tomorrow, or celebrating. But I shall be eating well.

So I’m not off to bed yet, but I’ll finish my notes and take my time. A lie-in in the morning.

But while we’re on the subject of the town fair at Clinton in Maine … "well, one of us is" – ed … in one programme that we were given when we were there, it talked about the results of the previous year’s competition.
And there we saw the classic entry "Mrs Jones won the ‘throwing the rolling pin’ competition"
and a few lines further down – "Mr Jones won the 100 yards sprint."
I bet he did!

Friday 22nd November 2024 – AND THERE I WAS …

… dashing to make tea, wolfing it all down at a speed that’s more likely to give me indigestion than anything else, and then abandoning the washing up and dashing in here to watch the football tonight – Y Drenewydd v Connah’s Quay, only to find that the 86mm of rain that has fallen in mid-Wales in the last 24 hours has washed out the game

So after trying in vain to find another live match that was still being played, I went back to do the washing up

It’s a pity that Bonnyrigg Rose weren’t playing. After several seasons of playing their home matches at New Dundas Swamp, 86mm of rain falling on their pitch would have made quite an improvement and they would, quite literally, be at home on a pitch like that.

So it might be an early night for me once finish these notes, if I’m lucky. Not like last night where even though I finished my notes early I loitered around until it was actually quite late when I hit the sack.

And there I stayed until all of 06:00 or thereabouts when the loudest crack of thunder that I have ever heard in my life awoke me.

The storm raged for several minutes with some of the brightest flashes that lit up my bedroom despite the thick curtains. And the storm was so close overhead judging my the almost instantaneous thunder. Then it slowly moved away and we could go back to sleep

But not for long because the alarm went off at 07:00 and I had to leave my stinking pit in order to head to the bathroom for a wash and brush up

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I’d just taken delivery of a beige MkIV Cortina estate that had come from a scrapyard. The windscreen was missing and a few other bits and pieces. It was essentially acquired by me for its parts, to break it, so I’d had it in my drive. Later that night it turned out that it was not my drive at all but a public park somewhere. After I finished work I went over and began to have a look around it. First thing that I wanted to do was to find out its registration number but I thought that that would be difficult with its windscreen broken and tax disc gone. I eventually found a torn-up tax disc that gave the car as “M” reg, which is obviously incorrect. I had a play around with it and found that the radio still worked. After I’d switched off the radio I had my head all around it somewhere, and I heard a car pull up. I looked, and it was someone else. After a while he came into view, the driver, and walked towards where my couple of cars were. I didn’t say anything, I just watched him and stared – it was pitch-black. No-one could see anything, except that he had the light behind him so that I could see it. And staring at him would make him and his senses uncomfortable. Sure enough, after a minute or two he turned round and walked away. He obviously climbed back into his car because it drove off. I was there with this car, and I heard a door slam. I looked around, and sitting on a bench not too far away from me was a schoolboy from Sandbach School. He was feeling very happy, very pleased with himself. Then a few others came to join in. A boy and a girl began to disport themselves on the table. This other boy was teasing this boy and girl and so were one or two of the others. I asked them how much longer they had at school. They said “three weeks” with a big wide grin so I asked them if they were really looking forward to the end of it.

It was mainly MkIII Cortinas that I’d collect. When I had my taxi business people would offer me MoT failures if I would take them away, so I’d take them up to my yard and dismantle them. Sometimes I’d find that with a little welding I could make them better than a car that I was actually using and a couple had a new lease of life, mostly officially, but unofficially, well …

Have you ever done that, by the way? Stared at someone really hard from a distance away? And suddenly then turn round and look in your direction? We used to do that a lot back in the mid-70s when I had that flat on Nantwich Road. We were convinced that people still retained an element of the sixth sense that kept their forebears alive in the time of the sabre-toothed tiger and the other wild beasts of the distant past. It’s a sense that people should work at and develop. No worries with Nerina though. Her sixth sense was very well-developed and worked well on several occasions. I wonder if she ever made good use of it.

But schoolkids fooling around? I used to get on well with schoolkids at one time but these days I don’t see anyone at all, never mind schoolkids, and that’s a shame. I think that kids have a very raw deal from adults and I have a lot of sympathy for them.

Later on I was out with the Inuit again last night. There was a big tribe of them, probably fifty or something of people of all ages. When some white guy came by to study them for a thesis he tried to teach them to all go into a huddle. When he did, there was someone missing, a young girl of about fifteen. We couldn’t find her at all so we had to start again, the count, to verify it. It still ended up as one person short. Then a couple of the Inuit began to discuss the merits of eating human flesh. The meal that they described was quite revolting but I could see that several people were interested in the menu so I promised that if we were going to perform this again I would leave out any reference to humans, their age etc in the hope that they too don’t become dragged off down this road of cannibalism.

Revolting? Like some of Samuel Hearne’s meals when he was out on his travels?

One of my eternal gripes, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is the number of students who have gone to live amongst the Inuit, the Métisse and other groups, to study their habits and lifestyle as one would study goldfish in a bowl, write their thesis identifying various shortcomings in the dealings of the Canadian Government with those people, proudly receive their PhDs and then go to work in a bank and totally forget the factors raised in their thesis. It strikes me that they believe in all earnestness that the shortcomings are designed specifically for them to study, not to resolve. At what point are the First-Nation people and the Métisse going to be fed up of these interlopers?

Back in the past I remember reading something about the members of Military Intelligence going to the PoW cages of the elite at the end of World War II in order to interview some of the German experts. The writer said something along the lines of that it felt as if he was in a superior fish restaurant, going up to the lobsters in the tank, pointing to a lobster and saying “I’ll have that one, please”. And that’s the impression that I have of these PhD students

And then we were all in the army doing our military service and our period of engagement was drawing to a close. We’d had a whole series of boring lectures. We’d probably had enough so we were larking around making poor use of the time that we had when my friend from Germany appeared. He joined in the general fun and frivolities as we found humour in everything. We were talking about the Wild West and a border dispute between two States where here was a State claiming tolls for crossing a border into another State although the border wasn’t actually there. Some boy had been organising a campaign to refuse to pay it. It had gone one for quite a while. We were joking about the border and the situation about Dodge City came up. We were describing the place with hilarity, the place where every time that a tourist pus his sooty foot in the place, some cowboy is shot by some kind of Indian who pops up on a roof somewhere and they all give a good performance of dying etc, just to take some money off the tourist. My friend turned round to everyone and said “right, we’re going to have a lecture on the Intruder bomber. That’s your very last lecture of your period of service of engagement” so we all finished laughing and joking and gathered round.

No danger of ever catching me anywhere near the Military. Had there been a War during the period when I was eligible to serve, I would have joined the Merchant Marine. "Hello, sailor!" indeed!

By now, dawn was slowly starting to break so I went to have a look out of the window to see what the weather had been doing. And as I expected, we’ve had a sudden snowfall over the past couple of hours.

The entry to the Square here looks really nice at the best of times, with the city walls in the background and the Eglise de Notre Dame de Cap Lihou in the distance. But in this snowy weather it looks even better. The snow gives it quite a nice touch.

It’s no surprise that I want to stay here rather than go anywhere else because this really is a nice building and it’s in a lovely situation, stuck between the city walls and the clifftop with the sea just 25 metres away

On the left we have the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs – the French equivalent of the YMCA where youths can find a tiny box-room to call home – and straight ahead we have the annexe to the Municipal offices. That’s where marriages take place.

There has been quite a bit of snow there too that has fallen just now. I know that it’s nothing compared with what we had in the Auvergne when half a metre would fall in a couple of hours or to what people on Germany and Austria experience every year, but with snow being so rare here, this is enough to bring North-Western France to a standstill

The nurse came along, later than usual, to tell me about the chaos and the slipping and sliding of everyone on the roads this morning. She couldn’t hang around because she had other people to see so she was soon gone

After she left I made a breakfast and began my next book. It’s a story written by someone about his travels in North America in 1795.

Why it’s interesting to me is that he goes at some point in his journey to “Upper Canada” and “Lower Canada” and I reckon that he will almost inevitably travel on the “Chemin du Roy” – the first road to be built in Nouvelle France that linked Montréal and Québec.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I WROTE AN ARTICLE a few years ago about the Chemin du Roy and I’m ready to update it with stuff that I’ve accumulated since those days. Wouldn’t it be nice to include some eye-witness reports of what the road was like from a traveller’s point of view?

So hopefully our hero will at some point find himself in a diligence, or “stage-coach”, flying along the road of Lanouillier and Bécancourt and give me some good information

Back in here I’ve spent most of the day writing notes for the next radio programme and now that’s complete and ready to be dictated. This one wasn’t anything interesting which is a shame because I’ve been enjoying doing these last few “special interest” programmes and can’t wait to do some more.

There were the usual interruptions. Lunch was one of them of course – a cheese and lettuce butty followed by some fruit.

And then my cleaner arrived to do her stuff. We changed the table around and put all the medication in one of the drawers now that they are accessible, instead of having medication scattered about on top of the table looking untidy.

We also had a break for hot chocolate. I really like that, so it’s become something of an enjoyable habit. I could do with a few more like that to cheer me up because, let’s face it, I could do with cheering up.

Tea was sausage, chips and baked beans with cheese. And to liven them up I put some hot chili powder in there. That should get them going, I reckon.

After the chocolate cake and strawberry soya dessert (there was another pot in the fridge) I dashed in here, only to have my hopes dashed.

So what I’ll do is go to bed and hope that I have pleasant dreams and that the thunder doesn’t awaken me.

This afternoon I had a brief chat with Rosemary and I mentioned the storm.

"Did it shake you out of bed?" she asked.

"No" I replied. "I hung on to the rails in the headboard."

And that reminded me of the little girl who came running downstairs and said to her mother "mummy! Mummy! The au-pair is dying!"
"What do you mean, dear?" asked her mother
"Well, mummy" said the girl "she’s lying on the bed gripping the rails in the headboard and going ‘oh God! Oh God! I’m coming!’"
"Is she really?" asked her mother, rather alarmed
"Yes mummy" replied the girl "and she would be too, except that daddy is on top of her holding her down!"

Saturday 9th November 2024 – IF ANYTHING CAN …

… go wrong, then it surely will. Especially if I’m involved in it

And these dialysis sessions are certainly testing this theory to the limit. I am not having much luck at all.

That’s hardly to be unexpected, because right now I don’t seem to be having much luck with anything. And it’s not as if there are any ladders under which to walk or black cats to kick

Even going to bed at a reasonable time seems to have deserted me for the moment. Finishing my notes at a reasonable time last night, but the time that I’d finished everything else that I had to do, I still ended up running late, as usual.

At least, the compensation here is that it didn’t take me long to go to sleep in my nice, comfortable bed. And once I’d gone to sleep, there I stayed until the alarm went off. There had been a little tossing and turning, but nothing about which I needed to worry

When the alarm went off I was working in a chemist’s shop prescribing medication to people. I was told that there was a control on the amount of medication being given out and when I prescribed some to a woman she told me that I was giving her too much. I told her that at the end of the treatment, when she’s finished she can stick the remainder back through our letter-box so that we could have it back

This is an ongoing issue in real life, with all of the over-prescription of medication. I look at all of the stuff that I have in here and multiply that by so many million people and it’s a fortune. Many of these doctors in hospitals seem to live in a bubble and don’t seem to understand how their prescriptions affect those living in the real world. But we’ve talked about that quite a lot just recently.

Despite what might have been a good sleep it took an age to haul myself out of bed and I only just about beat the second alarm. Burning the candle at both ends doesn’t seem to be working so well

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up and then piled all of the washing into the washing machine, bedding included. It all goes in on a “mixed materials 40°C wash” and if anything wants any different than that then I don’t buy it. It goes without saying that I have nothing that needs ironing.

Back in here I had a computer issue. For some reason it wouldn’t boot up this morning. I had to go to tweak around with the BIOS to make it work and that took some time to do. Consequently I was only half-way through the dictaphone notes when Isabelle the nurse came

She had a good moan about all of the shopping scattered everywhere. That was going to be this morning’s job after I’d finished the dictaphone notes but the best-laid plans etc. Anyway I told her that it was my mess in my apartment and she can give me some of her hours to tidy up if she’s unhappy

After she left I made breakfast and read some more of Samuel Hearne’s travels. Except that I didn’t. Two days in and we’re still reading the editor’s preamble. That’s probably going to end up longer than the author’s book if it keeps on like this.

Then there was the washing to hang up, seeing as the machine had finished. And that’s quite a battle, given my state of health and my lack of balance

Back in here I finished off transcribing the dictaphone notes. I had been doing some work on the city walls. I’d cleared away a platform in front that we were going to use to put on music acts etc so that the public sitting in what was the old moat could see whoever was on the platform. I don’t know at all about the history of this platform but it just happened to be there. While I was cleaning it out I heard a noise like a sports car. I stopped and looked up, and there was a guy there. I asked him if that was his car. He replied “yes, it’s a ‘Facer'”. I said “that’s a marque of which I’d never heard before”. He replied “it’s the only one”. He looked down and asked “what are the chances of putting this car down there?”. I replied “if you have a look on top of the walls a little further down we have cranes that run up and down on top of the walls. We use them for raising and lowering things. Bring one of the cranes up here. They’ll soon lower your car down”. The fact is that the crane didn’t quite reach to where the platform is, but if I stood on the platform and threw a rope that would be tied to the car, then as he lowered the car down I could pull it to the platform. He set off and we set off to go round and come round onto the correct side of the platform. He suddenly began to think “what about the insurance? What about the MoT and the Public Liability?”. We told him to clear off, shut up and lower the car down. He didn’t like our brusqueness but we thought that it was the best way to proceed, to bring this car down onto the platform. As it happened, we had a quick look in the encyclopaedia. He played keyboards so with me on the bass and my friend who worked with me, he was a drummer, we had the makings of a pretty sound group, the three of us

One of my friends lived in a house right on the city walls in Chester and I worked in a building on the walls too. We’d often said that it would be an ideal place for a rock group, or any other musical act for that matter, to have a concert. A few power chords just at the start of the 14:30 Novices’ Handicap down below on the Roodee should upset quite a few punters.

I was in Court last night – a hearing trying to persuade a tenant to leave a property but he was being difficult. He was finding humour in all kinds of strange places but I reckoned that this humour was a front. He was trying to embarrass me in front of the judges so I kept a very clear silence and only answered the questions that they were asked to me and ask him until he pulled up out of steam which he did rather by the nineteenth of the second. He was unable to persuade the French children’s governess that she was the kind of person to be given a more senior role in the Government of France where she could make a name for herself in history.

Does this dream ring any bells right now? I bet that it does. Although where the children’s governess fits in, I’ve not quite worked out.

Did I dictate the dream about the two of us being on a coach tour with two drivers? … "no you didn’t" – ed … We had to stop for coffee but there was nowhere convenient and we ended up at some kind of dire roadside burger bar but it was the absolute best that we could be. The other driver took over to drive and on leaving was almost pranged by a silver 4×4 as he pulled out. In the meantime I’d gone off somewhere – I had Nerina with me – and all of a sudden there was an urgent contact “can you check and look out for a silver 4×4?”. By this time I was back driving this coach again. I looked in my mirror and could see this 4×4 right behind me so I replied “it’s behind me now”. The voice asked “can you follow it to find out where it goes”. I thought “follow it in a coach? I can try”. However I lost it, but I had a rough idea where so I circled around this housing estate again and sure enough, I found it. So I built a swimming pool and filled it with water, then the voice asked me to check on the number. When I checked on the number I saw the old guy driving it, he was standing on a set of ladders up some kind of pole in his garden where there was a light bulb that he was busy taking out. I took the number and reported it. Someone then gave me a briefcase and said “this is his” so I went and knocked on the door. His wife was there so I handed her the briefcase and we began to chat. She said something about his computer so I had a look. It was old and full of viruses so I cleaned it for him, removed the viruses and tweaked a few other things, and it worked so much better. When he ‘phoned up we told him what we’d come for. The wife told him the news so he asked “can you switch it off yet?”. He told me that it needed switching off so I arranged it. She said “yes, it switches off now”. he replied “that’s the first time in 100 years that it’s switched off”. Then Nerina and this woman engaged in quite a lot of small talk about nothing else in particular really

Wouldn’t it be great if I could build a swimming pool and fill it with water at the drop of a hat like that? And I have in the past done strange things like door-stepping someone for purposes other than which are obvious, but we don’t talk about these.

There wasn’t all that long to do stuff of my own before the cleaner came round to stick my anaesthetic patches onto me. It’s freezing outside, she reckons, so I put away my warm-season fleeces and brought out one of the Arctic ones. I kept my jumper on though if I’m going to be in Ice-Station Zebra.

While I was waiting for the taxi to arrive I put away all of the food and did a little rearranging on the shelves. It goes without saying that with my cleaner being early, the taxi was late. And we had someone to pick up along the way.

At the Dialysis Centre there was a crisis. Two patients had been sent over from the hospital for emergency dialysis and one was having a panic attack. Consequently every available nurse was helping out around the bed.

It was 35 minutes before I was seen and by that time the anaesthetic on my arm had worn off. They also missed their aim with the second needle and had to re-do it. Consequently I was in agony throughout the whole three hours and thirty minutes.

"Shall I bring some ice to ease the pain in your arm?" asked a nurse helpfully

"What?" I exclaimed "In this blasted igloo? You must be joking!"

So I listened to a couple of concerts, revised my Welsh, suffered being force-fed with orange juice, had a little doze and read more of Hakluyt’s PRINCIPALL NAVIGATIONS

He’s busy right now talking about a couple of trips in the 1580s and 90s to the Gulf of St Lawrence and the constant changing of sovereignty of the islands there is playing havoc with me being able to identify them in the names by which I know them today

Not only that, we’re talking in the period when the Basque country was still independent and its own language predominated so that makes matters even more complicated, especially when the ports on the Biscay coast are mentioned in passing, under their former names.

Being so late starting meant that I was so late finishing and the guy who came down with me, who has a four-hour session in the other ward, was ready before I was, so we both came home together.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me and once more watched in awe as I climbed the twenty-five stairs up to my door. Not as quick as Thursday or Friday but it was still an achievement. We have a new tenant in one of the apartments upstairs, so I met her cat on the way up.

After my cleaner left, we had football. Cardiff Metro v Y Bala. The Met scored after two minutes – a lucky rebound but Y Bala equalised just on the stroke of half-time.

The game came to light when Y Bala scored two goals right immediately after half-time and then we had an exciting second half as the Met clawed their way back into the game with two goals. The final ten minutes was certainly exciting.

It was a good game once it opened up. Cardiff Met play some pretty football but in their desire to retain possession, they can go from all-out attack to a long back-pass to the keeper in the twinkle of an eye and it’s so frustrating to see them do it – eight men up in attack that they pass it backwards.

Y Bala’s style is rather more agricultural but they play forward much more often and with better results.

Tea was a vegan burger on a bun with salad and baked potato followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. It’s all good stuff this.

There’s some dictating to do and then I’m off to bed.

But talking of my bad luck … "well, one of us is" – ed … reminds me of the time in Sheffield when I was walking past the soup canning plant, the boiler exploded and the streets were flooded in vegan tomato soup
"That must have been lucky for you" said a friend
"Not really" I replied. "I could only find a fork"

Friday 25th October 2024 – I HAVE HAD …

… a really good day today, and accomplished everything that I set out to do, with time to spare.

Tomorrow I am going to have a morning doing some correspondence. Several people are awaiting e-mails from me so I am going to do my best to try to answer them. Post is building back up again.

What probably contributed to at least some of the good day today was that last night I made it to bed before 23:00. It was really nice to be able to do that for once. I don’t do it often enough in my opinion, but then again that could be said about a lot of things.

Once in bed I was asleep quite quickly – but not for long. It was freezing last night and I seem to have gone in one swell foop from sweating profusely during the night to shivering like a jelly as a lorry is going past

In the end I gave up the struggle and put on my dressing gown. Not an ideal thing in which to be sleeping but it was the nearest thing to hand. I have a feeling that it’s going to be a cold winter.

It was quite a restless night too, which seems to be normal after a session at the Dialysis Clinic. I was wide-awake at 02:30, 04:00 and 06:00 and although I made an attempt each time to go back to sleep, at the latter time I failed miserably.

Consequently, when the alarm went off I was already in the kitchen making the bread. Another early start.

While the dough was festering away I went to have a wash, and then came in here to listen to the dictaphone. I’d been for a dialysis and that included having a bath (and wouldn’t that be nice?). When I left the Centre I’d left my earphones behind – a beautiful little pair that I’d received free when I’d telecharged or ordered something off the internet and downloaded it a while back. I thought that I’d never ever see those again because they were so nice and I’d never ever have another pair quite like them. I was completely devastated by the loss of my earphones

–telecharged? Downloaded, you mean. We’re dreaming in French again are we? And I did once leave my headphones behind at the Dialysis Centre not so long ago, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. And it will be the end if I do leave those behind and lose them because they are quite lightweight and fold up making them quite portable. I have another pair here and there’s a third pair somewhere and I wish that I could find them.

Next was a party of Arctic explorers stranded out on the ice trying to return home, having all kinds of difficulties. One of the young officers was in charge of manoeuvring the huge sledge that they had, loaded with all of their possessions. It happened to catch on something, tilt over and go in through the ice, and was lost. The dream went on to say that he did the only thing that he could. He saluted, clicked his heels, turned and walked out into the night. He was never seen again, leaving the other three members to make their way home as best as they could with what they had left, which was almost nothing.

The British had a frightfully stiff upper lip when it came to Polar exploration. While other countries sent their teams out with sleds hauled by dogs, the British insisted on man-hauling them. And consequently while casualties amongst the foreign explorers were generally caused by events such as ship-sinkings and to being iced in, the British pulled their sled by hand all the way to their doom. They were driven by the spirit of Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, whose guiding principle was "the important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle, the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well". Consequently it was the foreigners who conquered and the British who fought well, but died by the dozen. As the Canadian historian Pierre Berton put it, the British "failed to conquer because instead of adapting to the environment, they tried to bring their environment with them". The later explorers who discovered the camps of the party of Sir John Franklin, 134 strong that was wiped out to the last man, found dinner plates, silver service, dress suits, bottles of claret and all the luxuries that a British officer and gentleman would require at the dining table of his stately home while my American namesake, searching for traces of Franklin, was living in an igloo amongst the Inuit eating blubber off his sleeping bag with his bare hands.

Later on we were back living in Shavington. I was running my taxi business from there. I had a girl who worked the radio for me part-time at weekends. She was a young, rather unkempt girl. I took one of the cars off for a little spin round and came back. All the cats were loitering around the house so I stopped the car right by the front gate and climbed out. This girl came out of the house to see me. She told me that I ought to give her congratulations. I asked why and she replied that she’d won nearly £50,000 on the football pools. Of course I was really pleased for her. She replied that at last she could maybe have a flat. I asked where she was living at the moment. Was it in a hostel? She replied “no”. She was living in someone’s garage, which I thought was horrible. To make it worse, she’d lost her job during the day so she was loitering around and the owner of the garage didn’t like that. She was talking about buying a little snack bar too. I was really so pleased for her and so impressed. I asked her how many proposals of marriage she’d received already. She replied “none as yet but not many people know”. We had a little chat about the future, maybe she might start to run a snack bar or something. I told her that if she needed any help she could always ask me. But I was really genuinely impressed and genuinely pleased for her.

This was another one of these nice comfortable dreams that I have occasionally. But running my taxis from Shavington – not that that would be likely to work. I was glad really to leave Shavington. If Crewe is extremely parochial and small-minded, Shavington is ten times worse. But then, most small villages are.

Finally, Nerina and I had flown to Montreal and rented a car. We’d gone for a big drive round. We found ourselves down in the south-west corner of the USA in California. We were quite happy driving around through all these desert tracks and I happened to notice from the GPS that according to the GPS we were now in Mexico. I thought that we’d better make it back to the USA before we find ourselves in trouble here. We headed back to the border and this time we picked up the motorway that brought us back to an immigration centre. By now it was very late at night. Eventually it was our turn to be investigated. He gave my passport a cursory once-over and handed it back. But Nerina’s he examined much more closely and began to speak to her in Italian. She was rather put out by this, being caught unawares, but I replied in Italian, so the border guard and I had a little chat. We talked about beautiful women. Eventually he have Nerina back her passport and waved us through. But he was studying our entry stamps quite carefully. Of course we had Canada, and Canada to the USA but there was nothing about us going into Mexico because we’d driven through the desert. When we were back in the car I said “when we’re back home I’m going to work out that route that we took and sell it on eBay. I bet that I’d make a fortune”. Nerina replied “ohh no. I’m going to tell the American authorities so that they can block it”. We came into a small town and Nerina climbed out of the car and went to look at an American car. She hung her lantern on the bonnet and walked away. She pointed to another American car that was bashed and battered. She then tried a house door, and it was open so she went in. She settled down on the sofa and said “I’m not moving from here until I’ve had a sleep”. I replied “Nerina, you can’t sleep there! This is the USA! They’ll shoot you if they see you!”. “Well, I’m not moving”. I pleaded with her to move. I told her that I’d find a hotel somewhere. She said that she’d looked on the internet and there wasn’t a hotel with a room in the neighbourhood. I pleaded with her for anything that she’d move because she really would be shot if some American were to find her asleep in his living room but it was all to no avail

It recalled MY TRIP THROUGH THE DESERT IN 2002. What a trip that was! Driving past all of the sites that I’d seen in so many Westerns in the past. But there would be no question of leaving Nerina behind to face her doom at the hands of a paranoid American armed to the teeth. Believe it or not, I happen to like Nerina. Anyone who will put up with me for nine years has to be worth liking. What went wrong in our relationship was that I was in a bad place at a bad time fighting too many demons, and I fought quite a few more than I ought to have done. And of course, both of us were too tired and too stressed to learn to talk to each other. There were plenty of thoughts that we should have exchanged.

Isabelle came – and went. She was in quite a rush and didn’t stop around to talk. She’s promised though to film the events tomorrow morning in the town centre when they try to set up the market amongst the major roadworks in the centre.

After she left I made breakfast and read my book. We’re still at the annual dinner, the talk on trees has ended and we’re now talking about sheep, geology and fossils. And, apparently "Mr. Houghton had been kind enough to bring with him some photographs of a very curious and interesting character"

Photographs of a very curious and interesting character? Wouldn’t I have liked to have been at that meeting?

Back in here I had to sort out a few things, deal with my order to LeClerc and then I attacked the radio notes. It didn’t take me long to finish off the notes for the radio programme that I’d been preparing, and then I went to lunch – a salad sandwich on nice, soft fresh bread.

But the bread was another failure. I made a careful study of it today. I put the loaf in the oven at exactly the same spot that I put it last week, and once again, one side of it didn’t rise.

That’s the side nearest the front, and so I think that the door is fitting badly and there’s a draught of air coming in around it. If the temperature sender is at the back, that will explain why the temperatures are so messed up, because with the current of air, the temperature at the front will be much lower.

It’s a shame because I have a perfectly good oven in the van downstairs but it’s beyond me to bring it up here.

This afternoon I reviewed the notes that I’d written a while back for a couple of radio programmes. They are rather complicated and involved so I’d left them to one side until I had a lot of time to go over them. So that was this afternoon’s task.

Some of the stuff I rewrote, some other stuff I corrected and I reckon that barring accidents I have them ready to dictate. I might actually do these tomorrow night and then they’ll be out of the way. But I imagine that they’ll take some editing.

My cleaner had stuck her head in the door this morning to pick up a few things to take into town, and while I was reviewing my notes she came in and did her stuff. Now the place looks as if someone lives here.

Just after I finished my hot chocolate and chocolate cake the food delivery came, so I spent a very pleasant late afternoon dealing with 2kg of carrots making them ready to be frozen, and putting away the rest of the stuff.

It was actually a struggle to make up the €50:00 minimum order today. It seems that I have a good supply of everything that I need.

LeClerc had no peppers thought. So stuffed peppers are off the menu for the next couple of weeks. But they had aubergines on special offer and I took advantage, so it looks like we’ll be in for plenty of aubergine and kidney bean whatsits for a while.

Tea tonight was a nice salad with chips and falafel followed by apple cake in caramel sauce. So what shall I do when the apple cake is all gone. I have a fancy to see how a rice pudding would do in the air fryer

So having spent a pleasant twenty minutes looking for and finding the missing headphones, I’m off to bed

But before I go, seeing as we’re on the subject of the desert … "well, one of us is" – ed … I’ll tell you about the encounter I had with three men in the desert whose car had broken down and they were walking to try to find help.
One was carrying the radiator, the other a hub cap and the third one a door and so I asked them why
"I’m carrying the radiator" said the first "because if I become too hot, I can drink the water"
"I’m carrying a hub cap" said the second "because if I become too hot I can shelter in its shade"
"I’m carrying a door" said the third "because if I become too hot, I can wind the window down"

Wednesday 16th October 2024 – I HAVE BEEN ..

… a very busy boy today.

And not only that, I’m a very clean busy boy too because I have had another shower today. And not only that either, but I have a lovely clean bed to dive into tonight because while I was soaking myself down, my faithful cleaner was changing the bedding on my bed and sweeping out the room.

Yes, this is a luxury to which I’m not all that accustomed. At this rate I shall be learning to become civilised, far too late to do me any good.

And while we’re on the subject of lateness … "well, one of us is" – ed … I was late again going to bed last night. Not by much, I have to say, but enough for me to complain about it – as if I don’t do enough complaining anyway.

In actual fact I’d finished fairly early and could I suppose have made the bed prior to 23:00 but instead I followed a few distractions to relax myself before I finally hit the hay. We’ve been studying different dialects in our Welsh class and she found an interesting article on the subject so she sent it to me.

The dialect that I know is rather confusing. My grandmother’s family came from Penrhiwceiber in South Wales, she grew up in the borderlands near Wrexham, I worked with a Welsh-speaking colleague from Caernarfon when I was on the buses in Crewe, I study with Coleg Cambria in Mold and I’ve been on Summer Schools in Gwent and Caerfyrddyn, and so I have a bit of everything.

Going off to sleep seems to be taking a little longer than in the past so the fairies had to loiter around for a little longer, but once I was gone, I was gone. I awoke once during the night round about 05:00 (yet again:) but soon went back to sleep again.

That seems to be quite a popular time to awaken. I wonder why it is. I know that I’m a very light sleeper but that time or thereabouts is just too regular to be a coincidence.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I went off into the bathroom to have a really good scrub, and then came back in here to see what was on the dictaphone from the night. We’d set up a business with a couple of different people concerning an estate agency. We’d managed to secure a couple of clients and had gone into partnership with a couple of different people for a couple of different things. My partner was wondering about how progress was being made because we’d been away for a couple of weeks and there had been no contact. We went back to meet everyone again to see how things were. My partner wanted to make sure that nothing that we had done before we went away had been compromised. It was left to me to do the distasteful tasks of asking these other people who were in partnership with us. One guy said, rather offendedly, yes, he’d sold twenty-one apartments in the time that he’d been away but the two that we’d seen with him and organised, they hadn’t moved. Then he buttonholed my partner and asked “when are you going to come along and do this work that you promised?” so the two of them marched off somewhere. He was determined to make her work. In the meantime, the woman of another partnership with whom we’d gone into partnership at the beginning asked “when’s your partner going to deal with this examination and homework that we have to do? It’s already a week overdue now. I went with her we sat down, we each took a paper of this homework and she did one while I did the other. We then swapped papers to look at it and check each other’s work. I didn’t really know very much about what I was doing and was having to interpret it on the basis of what I’d seen in the question. That’s all I knew. It looked very common-sense to me but it was difficult for me to wrap my head around it because I didn’t know any of the technical terms however I did what I could and hopefully it was OK but the dream ended before we had the results of the checking by this other girl

“I didn’t really know very much about what I was doing” – that’s the story of my life, isn’t it? I seem to make it all up as I go along and hope for the best. When I rely on my intuition it works pretty much OK most of the time. Sometimes though I’ve had some spectacular successes but, on the other hand, once or twice I’ve had some miserable failures. Anyway, I’m far too old to change my ways now

Later on I’d been in the USA for some kind of work and was flying back to Canada but I’d looked in at a DiY shop on one occasion just before coming back and they had some 1.6Kw heater elements in there. There was also this beautiful kitchen unit in a flat pack. I looked at this kitchen unit and thought that it was lovely so I bought it. I bought my heater element then I realised that I couldn’t pick up the kitchen unit because it was too heavy so I took the obvious solution and just pushed it in its box. I pushed it all the way to the airport and all the way through the departure. It went into the hold of the ‘plane. When we arrived in Canada it was somehow with me on the ‘plane so I pushed it all the way through. Before leaving the USA I took this heater element and changed the plug on it for a Canadian plug. When I arrived back in Canada I left the ‘plane and pushed this through the airport, half expecting to be stopped at “Passports” but there was no-one on duty at Passport Control – we just pushed our way through into the main hall. I was there putting my things into some bags when someone came up to me and asked me why I’d changed this plug over to a different plug in the USA. I explained that I wanted it to work here in Canada. They asked “couldn’t you have waited until you arrived in France to do that? ”

Canadian plugs are the same as USA plugs, but let’s not bog ourselves down with trivialities. I would have loved to have worked in Canada but I was stuck in the “age gap”. Over 55 and you can’t have a work permit, and under 65 you can’t be a dependent. Now that I would qualify, I’m too ill to go. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that WHEN I WAS ON A BUS IN MONTREAL IN 2013 the driver of the bus had lived for years in Brussels and worked the route that I used to take to go to see Marianne. He encouraged me to apply for a job as a bus driver with the Montreal City bus company and reckoned that I’d be certain to be accepted, but I fell right into that age gap. I would have loved to have lived in Montreal although THE OLD FAMILY PILE IN DRAPER AVENUE in the Côte des Neiges has long-since been demolished and redeveloped. The only place our family still owns in Montreal is the six feet of earth in the Mount Royal Cemetery where the bones of my great grandfather lie.

The nurse today was quick and efficient and had very little to say for himself except the usual patronising remarks that get on my nerves. He soon cleared off and left me to make a start on breakfast.

As for reading matter, Old Sarum was the last place that we visited with Thomas Wright. I’m now on the annual report of the Woodthorpe Naturalists’ (not “naturists”, Rhys) Club from (thinks) 1867. Why that’s interesting was because the club was the organisation that pushed forward the idea of gathering mushrooms and this report was the first document to actually identify and catalogue the different types. It’s the mushroom gatherer’s bible.

After breakfast I tidied up in the kitchen and dining area for a while and then came in here. Firstly, there was football to watch. There had been a whole programme of matches last night in the Welsh Premier League, unfortunately not shown live but the highlights of every game were shown.

To be honest, I’m glad that they didn’t show Y Bala v Connah’s Quay live. The highlights ran for 1 minute and 37 seconds, and I counted two shots on goal. Y Drenewydd threw away a 2-goal lead to go down 4-2 against y Barri but the surprising scoreline was that Aberystwyth, dead and buried at the bottom of the table and now managerless, stuck four away from home against 3rd-placed Caernarfon. And of course, we had yet another “let’s play it out from the back, boys” moment too.

Then I started work. And busy boy that I am, not only did I finish off the notes for the next radio programme, I chose the music, paired it off and segued the pairs for the one after too. And even wrote some of the notes too

This next one is another complicated one too and it’s going to be so easy for me to find myself carried off on a tangent if I’m not careful. I’m not allowed to be partisan or adopt a polemic stance, so we’ll have to see how well I can control myself.

There were several interruptions too. Firstly there was lunch. And then there was the shower.

That means washing my socks and undies etc first. And then stripped down and put on my shorts. My faithful cleaner stood by in case I needed her and then, propped up with a crutch, I gave myself a good scrub down as best as I could, and it was wonderful.

There’s some kind of pivoting chair available to help me into the bath and it costs about €300. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in March someone came here with one to try out, but chipped the bath, promised to come back, and I haven’t seen him since.

So €300 for that. My cleaner and I found that a dining room chair and two wooden boxes do the job just as well, and cost nothing.

While I was hosing myself down she was in here changing the bedding and brushing out my room. And it is nice. In fact it was a wonderful hour or so all told and I hope that I feel the benefit of it tonight, even though it’s going to be late yet again.

Once I was out of the shower and dressed, I had a sort-out of my travelling rucksack that I take when I have to go to hospital.

The reason is that I’m running low on my anti-cancer chemotherapy medicine. They gave me a prescription for that at Avranches the other day but it’s a strictly-controlled medication that can only be prescribed by certain consultants, and there are none at Avranches (which is why I go to Paris).

Anyway, the pharmacy rejected it so so I rang them at Paris.
"Didn’t the doctor give you a prescription when you came?" asked the secretary.
"Yes" I replied. "But that was in June, it was only for three months and now it’s run out"
"I mean, when you came just now"
"I haven’t been just now" I replied. "The last time that I came was in June. The doctor said that he’d call me back there for a biopsy at the end of August but I’ve heard nothing since June."
"But surely you … didn’t you? …You must have … Let me see …Can I call you back? I need to speak to the doctor"

As a result, I’m expecting a call to go to Paris some day very soon. God alone knows when ‘ll be able to fit it in. Dialysis, 30 sessions at the Centre de Re-education looming, a series of 30 sessions of physiotherapy waiting for a place. It’s worse than when I was at work.

That’s not all either. The post has been building up and there have been several bills to pay to the Government for one thing and another. So I was busy setting up accounts on the Fench Government web-page so that they can use direct debit to take payment.

The good news is that I’m entitled to a tax refund. It’s only e40:00 but it’s symbolic

After all of that I reckoned that I deserved my leftover curry and naan bread, followed by apple cake and coconut soya cream. Another excellent meal that I really enjoyed. Tomorrow I might try a slice of pie warmed up in the air fryer with potatoes, veg and gravy.

But that’s tomorrow. Tonight, late again, I’m off to bed, a nice clean me in a nice, clean bed.

But talking about mushrooms … "well, one of us is" – ed … reminds me of the man who went to the Marriage Bureau
"You’ve been married before" sad the interviewer
"Three times" said the client "but I’m a widower"
"I’m sorry to hear that" said the interviewer. "What happened to your first wife?"
"She died from eating poisoned mushrooms"
"Oh dear" said the interviewer. "And the second?"
"She died from eating poisoned mushrooms"
"And the third?"
"She died of a fractured skull"
"A fractured skull?"
"Yes" replied the client. "She wouldn’t eat the mushrooms"

Saturday 12th October 2024 – WE HAD A …

… crisis in the Dialysis Centre this evening. The hole in the implant in my arm refused to close up after they pulled out the needle and we ended up with the place looking like a slaughterhouse.

“That’s the kind of thing that happens occasionally” said the nurse. And they want me to do the dialysis procedure myself at home. They must be joking. There is no chance whatever of that ever happening.

There was however a good chance of my going to bed last night at some kind of respectable hour. It wasn’t 23:00 by the time that I finished everything that I needed to do and crawled into bed but it was pretty close. There wasn’t much in it at all

Soon enough I was asleep, hoping to catch up on the sleep that I had missed the previous night, but it wasn’t to be. It was another one of these turbulent nights of which I’ve been having far too many. When the alarm went off Nerina and I were sitting in one of these plazas and were surrounded by food courts somewhere in Italy. We couldn’t make up our minds in which place to eat. We were being harassed by a couple of waiters from one establishment who wanted us to eat there. They were obviously making suggestions all the time. Nerina wanted to look at all the other menus so I had to stand up and go to the next restaurant, pick up a new menu, bring it back, read it, take it back, take the next one, all the way round the food court, all the time that these two waiters were harassing us about this and about that. In the end we decided, or rather, Nerina decided that the pizzeria in the corner would be the place where we’d order our meal so these two waiters went over with me to this restaurant to tell them that I was their best friend, all this kind of thing, but I suspected that there was something going on here that wasn’t quite right, about them receiving a commission or bumping up the bill or something like that. It all seemed to be extremely strange to me.

In the past we sat at plenty of places like that all over Europe. We’d wait for our holidays until the brats were back at school because the weather was usually nice, everywhere was still open and we’d have all the time in the World without being harassed by impatient waiters trying to clear us out ready for the next lot of tourists.

In one restaurant in Brest in Finisterre I remember that we were the only diners. They put us in a window seat to make the place look busy from the outside and then took their time serving us so that we stayed put. No-one came to clear away the table or give us the bill so we stood up. Still no-one came, so I worked out roughly how much the meal was, put the money on the table,, and walked out. And still no-one came.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment I staggered into the bathroom, had a good wash and scrub up, had a shave and applied the deodorant in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and then loaded up the washing machine, forgetting to put my gants de toilette in there.

Once the washing machine was off on its way I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone notes, of which there were more than just a few. I was working a school holiday job down in the South of England as a teacher of some description. I can’t remember too much about this unfortunately but I know that there was something to do with a small child being carried by his mother into the showers. We were talking about trees, how deciduous trees all go to sleep in the autumn and the leaves fall off. I showed him another tree, which was a kind-of wire brush screwed to the wall of the shower which people would use to clean their football boots etc before rinsing them off. It was all extremely surreal and I can’t remember very much of it but that was it.

Me? A teacher? I think not. I wouldn’t be any good. I don’t “do” preparation but work it out as I go along and that would never work with a classful of screaming brats

Later on I had a nightmare about a whole pile of glass bottles on the table that was just on the point of falling off. I had a panic-stricken awakening to try to grab hold of them but what was actually happening was that my feet were sliding out of the bed at that point and just about to fall on the floor. Luckily I stopped that quickly enough.

That’s much more like my kind of dream, falling out of bed. I’ve fallen out of a few of them in my time, sometimes with no help at all and sometimes with some help from someone else.

So the alarm went off at 07:00. I left the bed and went to wash and dress. I happened to look at the watch and I was still in bed. It was 05:00 and all of that had been a lively, exciting, vivid dream.

Judging by the timestamp of the audio file it was actually 05:15 and it goes without saying that I didn’t actually leave the bed. But by the sound of things we had another phantom alarm during the night.

And finally it was in the immediate post-war period and I was wandering around Crewe. We’d seen a few tanks go through. As I went round a corner there was a motorcycle shop there, Paul Wolf Motorcycles. Outside was a Triumph Tiger Cub 200cc, one of the very early ones with the footboards and the accelerator pedal. It said “good home needed” so I thought “I wonder if this is for sale? Does he have anything else interesting?”. I went in, and it was a labyrinth inside, steps up and down into the bowels of the earth all the way down. There must have been thirty or forty flights of stairs to the level of the river where he had his kind-of garage and workshop. There was a huge row going on between him and a few other people about someone who should have come in to see something but hadn’t but he ws going to come in now. I saw a guy come in from the side door which was actually on the level of his reception desk about eighty feet below. I thought “that must be an easier way in”. Then I looked back behind me and realised that there were just as many steps back up as there were down. It was easier to go down than it was to come up. But then what if I couldn’t find my way back up from the ground level where his office was? I was beginning to have another one of these disturbed quandaries during the night.

It’s been a while since we’ve had one of these dreams littered with indecision. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that at one stage it was a regular feature like the cars scattered all over the town, so I wonder what’s bringing it back. I wish that someone would bring back Castor, Zero and TOTGA and even The Vanilla Queen.

And there was a Paul Wolf Motorcycles, in Market Street in Crewe in the old Co-op store years ago.

Isabelle the nurse didn’t have much to say for herself today. I think that she said it all yesterday. But after she left I hung up the washing on the clothes airer and went to make my breakfast.

The WANDERINGS OF AN ANTIQUARY have taken us to Bignor Roman villa today. Thomas Wright gives us probably the best account of how it looked when it was discovered and states that it was the largest Roman villa in the UK. But that’s before the full extent of the Fishbourne Roman Palace was known

Back in here I had a chat with Alison on the internet and reviewed the work that I’d done during the week ready for dictation tonight. I need to take more care of what I type but it’s difficult with my vision these days and so wfvr wzpq. Last time I dictated some notes I found myself in a frightful muddle because a mistype presented another word that completely altered what it was that I was trying to say.

My cleaner turned up to fit the anaesthetic patches for me to and the taxi turned up a little earlier too. This was a vehicle from the other side of Avranches that had dropped someone off at the Centre de Re-education and was no on its way to pick up someone from the hospital at Rennes to take them back home. I was apparently something to make the empty journey pay. Not that I mind, of course.

There were very few of us there today, both patients and staff. It was a weekend team and while they were efficient they were far from sociable. And it goes without saying that I didn’t get to see Emilie the Cute Consultant.

Once they’d plugged me in, I was left totally alone except for the doctor who asked if I was OK – five seconds of attention. I had plenty of time to study my Welsh, now that I have uploaded the correct book, and almost reach the end of the biography of Lewis Carroll

It’s difficult to know what to make of him. With the benefit of hindsight many of his remarks could be taken in the wrong way that would be quite alarming but in the late Victorian era were probably quite innocent. They certainly aren’t on the same level as remarks made by someone like Frank Harris.

And then when they took the needles out we had quite the drama. Compresses, anti-coagulants, you name it, we had it. It quite wore me out and I was just sitting there with my eyes closed.

It took so long that my taxi went with the other passenger and I had to climb into a later one that ended up going all around the back of beyond to drop off someone else. Not that I minded because it was one of the nicer drivers who had taken me to Paris once and I quite like her.

My cleaner was there waiting and she watched as I hauled myself up the stairs. Today I managed six steps without lifting my leg up with my hand. I’d lost another 1.3 kg today so that might explain it.

Tea was a burger on a bap with salad and baked potato, and I was ready for it too. So now I’ll dictate my notes and go to bed.

But the dreams tonight and the hospital remind me about the patient with a broken leg.
A new arrival asked him "what’s the matter with you?"
"Appendicitis" he replied.
"But all the plaster?"
"Ohh, that" he replied. "I fell off the operating table".

EPIC HALL

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