Category Archives: alison weihe

Sunday 12th April 2026 – SO FAR, I HAVE …

… managed to avoid falling asleep today.

However, that’s not such a big deal today, because when you don’t wake up until about 09:00 and you don’t leave the bed until about 09:40, there isn’t much time to fall asleep afterwards.

In fact, you might say that I spent twelve hours in bed last night and, believe me, I enjoyed every minute of it. I didn’t actually, to my shame, rush through everything last night – it was something more like a leisurely stroll – and by the time that I’d finished the notes, the stats and the back-up, and then gone to sort myself out in the bathroom, it was just coming up to 21:30.

How long I spent in the bathroom, I didn’t record, but it wasn’t all that long and I was soon in bed, tucked up under the quilt.

And there I stayed until … errr … 03:55, when I had to go walking the parapet, and then back in bed, I slept until 07:05. However, I managed to go back to sleep quite quickly, and there I lay until the nurse awoke me. And that first sleep was not far short of six and a half hours, and it’s the best sleep that I’ve had for ages.

The nurse was having another good moan at me this morning. He was complaining that I hadn’t pulled the curtains. Well, much as I love the dark, seriously, I love the light too so I’m happy in the morning with the sunlight creeping around the edges of the shutters in here. He thinks that I ought to be in a perfect state of darkness in here while I’m asleep.

Once he left, I tried to go back to sleep but without success. And Alison made up my mind for me when she sent me a text message. Trying to reply when you have your head and your ‘phone down under the quilt is not easy, believe me, and when you drop the ‘phone on the floor and the message turns into a load of gibberish that sends itself, it’s even less easy than that.

With all of that going on, I decided to leave the bed, although it took me a good twenty minutes to find the enthusiasm and the energy to stand up. But once I was up, I headed off into the bathroom to sort myself out.

Back in the kitchen afterwards, where I forgot to take my medication, I baked my croissants, and they turned out really well. I was so impressed, especially as I was using some of the cheap pastry rolls.

So, with two of my croissants, some porridge and some hot black coffee, I sat down to read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

And here we go again. In a footnote on page 115, he launches another attack on one of his predecessors, Thomas Stukeley, saying "The antiquary Stukeley published a “Medallic History of Carausius”, which, although it displays too much of that writer’s hasty speculations and conclusions, shows us with how much advantage the coins might be made to illustrate the history."

Whilst he’s not wrong about the coins illustrating the history, as we have seen before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the phrase “the writer’s hasty speculations and conclusions” reminds me of a well-known phrase involving a pot and a kettle.

After breakfast, I came back in here to transcribe the dictaphone notes.

There was some kind of civic centre opened in a local town. It had a huge ballroom-type of place, meeting room or whatever and there was a small annexe that had a licence for fifty people. Someone had applied to hire the smaller room for a birthday party and had sent in a list of fifty people who would be attending. However, the local council was dithering about this because they were thinking that whilst a couple of people on this list might not turn up, a couple of other people might turn up unannounced and take the attendance to over fifty, in which case there would be all kinds of legal issues, so they were still dithering about this for ages.

We were actually talking yesterday about people turning up uninvited to funerals and weddings. It’s strange how these things come round so quickly. And, of course, fire regulations, particularly in the UK, are such that there is a genuine fear of being found over the limit for the room. And when you see the size of the fines, no wonder people are rather nervous

I was staying with Bob Dylan last night. We were at his house, which was overlooking one of the lakes in either Vermont or New Hampshire. It was a very steep climb up to the front door and the garden was filled with flowers. We were sitting on a kind of terrace, and the way to go back to the front door was to go down, across and back up again, but he went inching his way along the edge of one of the flower beds, which looked extremely dangerous to me. He came back with a plate of cold baked beans. I asked him about why he preferred them cold instead of hot, but he didn’t really answer. Then, he said a little later that we had to go into town for something so I went into the house to put on my shoes. However, every couple of minutes, there was some kind of interruption, and there were lots of things that I had to do. Each time that I tried to put on my shoes, there was something else, but in the end, I managed to put on my shoes. Then, the story skipped and it was about a musician in a group who also played for Y Bala. He had mysteriously disappeared and no-one knew where he was. The police report said something that he had been living in a two-bedroomed terrace but he had seen something that had dragged him out, and no-one knew what that something was. He’d gone to follow it but hadn’t returned. Later on, back at Bob Dylan’s house, he was having an evening with his friends. There were three of his friends there and the father of this missing musician, footballer or whatever. They were all eating mashed potato and baked beans that were cold.

Actually, this looked much more like one of the lakes in northeast Maine to me, a region that we have visited ON NUMEROUS OCCASIONS.

But the cold baked beans are interesting, especially if they are American ones, packed full of sugar and additives. They must be disgusting. Even the “British recipe” baked beans don’t taste the same as they do back in the UK. I can’t recall whether a musician ever played for Y Bala, but Ywain Gwynedd had a long and successful career in the old Cymru Alliance League, mainly for Porthmadog FC.

With all of these interruptions while I was trying to put on my shoes, I’m surprised that a member of my family didn’t turn up. The odds would have been nailed on that they would have been involved somehow with all of that.

After that, I had a few things to do and then I recommenced the editing of the radio notes from where I had fallen asleep yesterday.

Not that I advanced very far because the girls arrived to say goodbye. We had a little chat and then an exchange of presents before they pushed off to catch their train for a girly evening in Paris. It was really nice of them to come to see me, and I appreciated it very much. I hope that they come again soon, and stay for longer.

Once they had left, I carried on with the editing, and the programme is now finished. It’s not very good at all, but given the circumstances that surrounded this concert, it’s lucky that there is a tape recording at all. Its value is in its rarity – it’s probably never been broadcast on the radio previously.

By now, it was time for the football. I’d already seen Stranraer beat Spartans 2-1 away from home and Greenock Morton lose away at Kirkaldy against Raith Rovers earlier this afternoon, but now it was the Welsh Cup Final between Caernarfon and Y Fflint. And for seventy minutes, we had one of the most exciting games that I have seen recently.

It’s a pity, though, that Y Fflint didn’t wake up until the twentieth minute, because the match was all over by then. Caernarfon had roared into a 3-0 lead while Y Fflint were still sleeping.

But as I implied just now, after that Y Fflint made a game of it and had several chances to score, but it was all too late and the score remained the same until the final whistle.

There were a few things to do after that, and then it was time for tea. Just chocolate cake and home-made ice cream again. That will do me for this evening, and now, when I’ve finished everything, I’m going for an early night.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about walking the parapet … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once asked me "you know how we say ‘spend a penny’ to say that we are going to the bathroom"
"Yes?" I replied.
"So what do you say in Europe?"
"Simple" I replied. "We say that we are going to euronate."

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Saturday 11th April 2026 – THIS IS RIDICULOUS!

Most of the day has been spent fighting off wave after wave of sleep, quite often unsuccessfully.

Anyone would think that I wasn’t in bed by 21:30 last night with all of this, but it’s true that I was. Once again, tea last night was just chocolate cake and home-made ice cream, and then I came back in here to write up my notes.

Once my notes were finished, there were the other usual things to do, and then I went into the bathroom to sort myself out ready for bed. As I slid under the quilt later, it was just 21:28, and that made me feel so much better.

It didn’t take long to go to sleep either, and there I stayed, flat out until all of … errr … 03:20. Mind you, that’s almost six hours of continuous sleep and I was happy with that. I even managed to go back to sleep a little later too.

When I awoke again, it was 05:23 exactly. I hung around in bed for a while and then raised myself from the Dead to go to walk the parapet.

Back in here afterwards, in a fit of keenness, I dictated a pile of outstanding radio notes. However, I had this very dry throat, which seems to be a symptom of one of these new pills that Emilie the Cute Consultant prescribed for me, so I binned what I had dictated, went into the kitchen to gargle with some water, and then came back in here to start the dictation again.

By the time that the alarm went off at 06:29, I’d dictated the notes for four “additional tracks” and also the notes for a concert to replace those that I had discarded yesterday.

The next stop was the bathroom, where I had a good scrub-up and then went into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.

Back in here, fighting off the first of many waves of sleep, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night. But first, I had to find the dictaphone. Eventually, I came across it underneath the little bedside table at the head of the bed. It looks as if I’d missed my aim after I’d finished dictating something and had been presumably trying to put it on the table where it lives during the night.

There was some kind of new society or something like that which was created. It had all kinds of different social rules with the aim of people living together more happily than they seem to do at the moment under the current system. One of the surprising things about this was that they had “sock hand grenades”, you stuck a brick down the end of a sock and you would wield it around as a weapon and challenge other people in your society to a duel with these sock hand grenades. When these socks weren’t in use, they were hung over what looked like a horse hitching rail that you see outside saloons in Westerns, something like that.

It beats me how people can live together more happily together when they are clouting the living daylights out of each other with bricks stuffed down socks. But bricks or stones stuffed down socks made an effective blackjack during the war when you wanted to remove a sentry from his post without alerting his colleagues. You could have a nice swing from short range if you were to hold the open end of the sock, that’s for sure.

There had been a new artificial intelligence encyclopedia opened on the computer. But this time, instead of people making contributions to the meaning, people would suggest a word and the computer would work out the meaning and insert it. The plan was that people would only request words when they were actually working on a topic that included it. But some of these definitions were not very accurate at all and of course, people were not happy. However, it became quite quickly some kind of established way of job hunting, and people would look for new jobs on this system. Apparently, the keywords were something like “I want to push myself further on”. But this program actually was liked from that point of view.

We’d been talking about artificial intelligence yesterday evening and the rather variable quality of some translators, so that will explain this dream. But it’s true that many of these translators do leave something to be desired. They haven’t been perfected yet.

The nurse turned up, rather later than usual this morning, which is not like him. He didn’t have much to say for himself and was soon back out on his rounds. I could then go to make breakfast and read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

Today’s highlights include "the barrows and other monuments of this island, which we are accustomed to attribute to the Druids, belong, not to the earlier Celtic population, but to the later settlers". Seeing as the arrival of the Celtic people is generally dated to the period 100 BC – 0 BC, he’s putting all of these Neolithic (4000 BC to 2200 BC, give or take a bit) barrows and monuments such as Stonehenge and Avebury towards being at least contemporary with the Roman occupation of Britain, if not closer to our own time.

That was bad enough, but I really and honestly did groan with dismay when discussing cave-dwellers, whom these days we associate with the Old Stone Age of 10,000 years ago, and I read his "these caves … were probably inhabited in the times of the Roman rule,"

Back here eventually, after fighting off a few waves of sleep at the breakfast table, I had a few things to do, and then I began to edit the radio programmes. However, it wasn’t long before a wave of sleep caught up with me yet again. Wave after wave, in fact, and at one point I fell asleep at about 12:00 and didn’t awaken until the girls came and rang the doorbell at 13:30. If they hadn’t, I’d probably still be asleep even now.

We had a good chat, catching up on old times, until they went out at about 15:30 to take some photographs. I came back in here to carry on … "and to sleep" – ed … until they came back again a little later, and our discussion continued.

After they left, I made the next batch of homemade croissants, and they are now ready for baking tomorrow morning, and then I came back in here to carry on. However, once more, I fell asleep. And there I stayed until teatime, which is ridiculous.

Tea tonight was, as usual, just chocolate cake and vegan ice cream. But I am starting to feel hungry again. I’m going to try to hold out until at least Monday night after dialysis, to see what happens there, and then I might slowly begin to reintroduce more food into my routine.

But not right now, though. I’m going to have another early night and then … "he hopes" – ed … a nice long lie-in. The girls say that they will be round at about 11:30 so I shall have to set an alarm for tomorrow, but I’ll tell you one thing for nothing, and that is that it won’t be at 06:29, that’s for sure. It’ll be enough time to have a good wash and have breakfast before they arrive, and that’s the lot. The nurse can sort out my legs and feet while I’m still in bed.

And before long, I really am going to have to snap out of this chronic fatigue. It’s one of these new tablets that’s causing it, I’m pretty sure, so I’d better hurry up and become accustomed to it.

But at least, today, despite everything, I’ve managed to totally complete four radio programmes, which is better than a slap in the face with a wet kipper. I would have loved to have finished the fifth too, but you can’t have everything, I suppose.

Tomorrow afternoon, by the way, it’s Welsh Cup Final day between Caernarfon and Y Fflint. If you want to watch the game live, THE LINK IS HERE and the programme begins at 15:00 UK time (16:00 CET, 10:00 Toronto time) and the kick-off is fifteen minutes later.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Welsh Cup … "well, one of us has" – ed … a strange fly saw a large group of flies running round the edge of a saucer, stopping to stretch and to limber up every so often.
"What are you doing?" the strange fly asked.
"We’re warming up" replied one of them
"Warming up?" asked the strange fly. "What for?"
"Well, we’re playing in the Cup in half an hour."

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Friday 10th April 2026 – I HAVE HAD …

… a lovely early evening just now. Two of my friends, Alison and Jackie, have dropped in to see me for a chat. They decided to have a weekend away and so they have come down here to see me, which is really nice. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I don’t see my friends half as often as I would like to.

It certainly breaks up my miserable routine, which never seems to change from one week to the next. I seem to be doing the same old things week after week after week after week, basically because I don’t have anything else to do with my life.

Like last night, for instance. I had my chocolate cake and home-made ice cream at 19:30 and was back in here by 19:50, when I began to write out my notes for the day. There were the usual things to do afterwards, such as to take the stats and to back up the computer, and after I’d been to the bathroom to sort myself out ready for bed, it was a mere 21:20 when I crawled underneath the covers.

That’s what I call an early night, but it didn’t do me much good. Even though I was asleep quite quickly, regular readers of this rubbish will recall what happens next at times like these. At 01:20 or thereabouts, I was wide awake again, and I had to leave the bed, for the usual reasons that any man my age will understand.

Back in bed, it was another session of tossing and turning, dozing, sleeping and so on. I couldn’t settle down at all.

When the alarm went off at 06:29 though, I was fast asleep, and I wished that I could have stayed like that. However, I was having coughing fits like I had never had before, I had a streaming head cold that I’d caught from somewhere, and despite the painkiller that I’d taken last night, the pain in my right foot was killing me.

Eventually, I managed to struggle into the bathroom and sort myself out, and then I went into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication. And one of the tablets that I took was another painkiller because I could no longer stand the pain.

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

I was reading the Bible last night. And while there were plenty of obsolete words in there that had either been removed or been changed to represent the actual occurrences of the time, the language was generally left quite basic. It was one of those things that, the way that it was left and the way that the voices were speaking, it was almost as if it was threatening me with violence on my way home that night from dialysis – it wasn’t dialysis – it was teaching that I was doing.

This is another one of those dreams of which I have no recollection at all. It certainly wouldn’t be anything like me, going teaching for a living. I don’t have the patience.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m asleep when I’m dictating, but I usually have some very vague memory of the dream when I’m transcribing the notes. However, this one wasn’t one of those at all.

When the alarm went off, I was busy editing a very long speech, about three different copies of what had been said. I was trying to go through them to sort them out and see where the common threads were at first. What I was doing when the alarm went off was that I was actually spell-checking the documents to make sure that there were no spelling errors in them before I started to copy and paste them.

Three different copies of what had been said in a recent speech by someone. I remember from the dream that two had been digitalised but the third one had been handwritten, which made things much more complicated.

The nurse turned up as usual. He’s trying his best to make me change my lifestyle, but I am resisting valiantly. He also thinks that painkillers are a waste of time, and I don’t necessarily disagree with him. He knows of many cases where they don’t seem to work, and, as it happens, so do I.

After he left, I had my breakfast to make, and some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright to read.

And right now, I’m becoming fed up of Thomas Wright and his “likely assumptions”, and I’ve only read about 15% of his book. Up to the present, he’s certain that the hillforts are of Saxon origin, that all bronze artefacts found by archaeologists are Roman and not from the Bronze Age, 1000 – 2500 years previously, and that the monuments like Stonehenge are Celtic, probably concurrent with the Roman occupation, rather than built by Neolithic farmers some 3500 years earlier.

There are still 480 pages to go, so I wonder what other “likely assumptions” he’s going to make before we reach the end.

Back in here, I had a few things to do, but by now, the painkiller was beginning to have an effect, and I ended up drifting away to sleep for a couple of hours. I really didn’t need that.

While I was having a little doze this morning, I was editing songs, trying to make up a radio programme and having to decide which ones to include, which ones to exclude and whether any would need shortening or lengthening.

That just sounds like a normal day in this apartment – nothing new in this.

When I awoke, it took me half an hour to get to grips with myself and then I had those things to finish off.

Once they were done, I could turn my attention to another lot of radio notes that needed editing. And fighting off (sometimes unsuccessfully) wave after wave of sleep, I edited the notes, assembled the two halves of the radio programme, chose the joining track and prepared it, and wrote the notes for it, ready for dictation.

There was even time to edit the notes for a subsequent concert, and I could have prepared a full radio programme by doing so, but the more editing I did, the less I liked the result. I’d dictated it a couple of weekends ago when I had another stinking head cold, and it sounded as if I were dictating with my head in a bucket.

No matter what I tried to adjust the sound, it only seemed to make it worse. In the end, I chucked it into the bin and decided to re-dictate the notes when I’m feeling better, whenever that might be.

At this point I knocked off because my visitors arrived. My cleaner had been around to do her stuff earlier, so everywhere was looking quite nice and tidy. My friends had brought me some presents too – a book of photos from their last trip last August and, most importantly, some ground cumin from one of the Leuven spice shops. The French spices are nothing like as strong as the genuine Indian product.

We had a lovely chat for an hour or so, and then they wandered off for a meal. I had some of my chocolate cake and home-made ice cream, and that’s my tea for tonight.

Back in here, I wrote up my notes, and now I have a few other things to do before I can have another early night, hoping that tonight, I’ll FINALLY have a really good night’s sleep.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Stonehenge … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was talking ages ago to a small girl about Stonehenge
"These stones are really old, you know. They go back a very, very long time" I said.
"How old are they?" she asked.
"Nobody knows for sure" I replied. "They are really ancient stones and go back to a time before people could write and tell the date."
"Oh, I see" she replied. "Are they Mick Jagger and Keith Richards then?"

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Sunday 24th August 2025 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… evening that was last night. I can’t think of a time when I have been as tired as I was last night. In fact, I can’t remember whether it was three or four times that I fell asleep while I was writing my notes. One thing was sure though, and that was that I fell into bed almost immediately afterwards and that was that.

It wasn’t as if I had done anything special to warrant it last night either. And I’d had a nice, relaxing if painful session at dialysis too. It must be the after-effects of the chemotherapy that I had on Tuesday and Wednesday, I suppose. That does quite a few strange things, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Anyway, once in bed, there I stayed. I knew nothing about anything at all until all of … errr … 06:50. And it took twenty minutes for me to raise myself from the Dead. This might sound late to some people, seeing as the alarm is usually set for 06:29, but in fact Sunday is my Day of Rest and the alarm doesn’t go off until 07:59, so it’s still an early start.

First thing was to go to sort myself out in my nice new bathroom, and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was one dream about the hospital and the taxis, and dialysis, all of that, but I had rather a rude awakening and the moment that I basically went to grab hold of the dictaphone, the dream evaporated and I could remember nothing whatsoever except a very little of how it began and what was involved in it. It was a huge disappointment when it happens like this.

It’s obviously preying on my mind, all of this, and it’s no surprise. Over the past twelve months or so, I’ve become a slave to the medical service and I can’t see any way out of it, except to go out horizontally. There is no cure in sight, nor is there ever likely to be, and I shall have to just keep on trudging wearily on until I meet the inevitable.

Although I didn’t dictate it, I have a vague memory of being upstairs, looking at the old apartment and how clean and tidy it was, even down to the polished glass in the old oven. And there was someone there saying “you aren’t really dreaming, you know” or “this isn’t a dream, you know” – something like that. There was also a vague recollection of having to go downstairs, and that I’d taken half a dozen steps to the top of the stairs before I realised that I didn’t have my crutches, and I had to send someone to fetch them.

As it happens, I have been specifically banned from entering the apartment upstairs, on pain of suffering the wrath of my faithful cleaner who has done her best to tidy up after me And I am not alone in that interdiction, because a similar ban has been also placed upon the Hound of the Baskervilles.

Interestingly, how many times is that now that I have been dreaming of going somewhere without my crutches? I hope that this is a positive premonition once I start to have my treatment in Rennes. We can but hope.

Eventually, the sleeping beauties on the sofa crawled back to life and I was looking forward to a coffee but the Hound of the Baskervilles had urgent business to which he needed to attend so he dragged his master off outside.

But not before the nurse had taken us unawares yet again. Not quite as early as yesterday, but still early enough. And once more he didn’t hang around.

While I was waiting for everyone to come back, I attended to the erection of the antenna for the maritime data recorder. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I maintain and operate the maritime data recorder for the Port of Granville, a radio transceiver that tracks the movements of the boats and ships in and out of the port and sends them to a Worldwide central control database receiver in Denmark.

When we had all collected in the kitchen, we had a coffee and a chat, and when they went out again, I attended to the assembly of the hi-fi unit. That involved drilling a couple more holes in the rear and the side of the shelf unit so that I could pass the cables through. It didn’t take too long, and we celebrated our success by eating breakfast accompanied by music.

After breakfast, my friend went to empty out the van while I tidied away the tools that I had been using, but we didn’t get very far because the girls turned up. They checked the books to make sure that I hadn’t rearranged them, and then we sat around for a while and had a really good chat as they are going home this afternoon.

Everyone went off later for a late lunch so I came in here to sit down and relax for an hour or so. I needed it.

When my friend came back, having stuck the girls onto the train, I began the baking exercise – a loaf of bread, and a pizza for tea.

Firstly, my new adjustable stool really is the business. Adjusted to the maximum height, sitting down to knead the dough is totally painless. The stool was an excellent purchase.

Secondly, the oven is wicked. Even with the baking time reduced from 55 minutes to 30 minutes, it still burned the top of the bread. It’s now a glorious dark brown instead of the insipid white of the old table-top oven.

As for the pizza, I cooked it for 15 minutes instead of 25 minutes, and even so, it still burned the edge. Nevertheless, it was delicious.

There was a mountain of washing-up to do and that took an age, but now I’m finished. I’ve written my notes and I’m off to bed in a minute. Tomorrow, the Hound of the Baskervilles and his master are leaving, so I’ll be on my own. There are still plenty of things to do, but they will have to be done some other time, and I don’t think that we’ll be able to take the solar panel off the roof of the van, which is a shame.

You can’t win a coconut every time.

But seeing as we have been talking about the new oven and its cooking capabilities … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was thinking that my mother would really be at home with my new oven.
Back many years ago, I remember telling a friend "my mother treats me like a God"
"Why’s that?" he asked.
"Well, every time we came home from school, my mother served me up a burnt offering."

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Friday 15th September 2023 – AS BARRY HAY …

… once famously said, "there’s just one thing – IT’S GOOD TO BE BACK HOME".

And you’ve no idea the size of the sigh of relief that escaped from my lips when I collapsed into my chair here in my office.

Hardly surprising since I’ve been on the road since 05:20 this morning. That was when my alarm went off and I was already packed and dressed. It didn’t take too long to load up the car and then hit the road.

Alison dropped me off at the Kortenberg railway station and it took me a while to work out how to reach the platform. It’s not like a conventional station and things take some hunting down.

nevertheless I was soon on the platform and in time for the 06:28 to Brussels. And it was just as well that I chose that train because these are low-line commuter units where the floor is level with the platform, not like the urban express double-deckers where there’s a climb up into the carriage that I can no longer accomplish.

The rain pulled in bang on time so I had about 75 minutes to wait.

However, what I’d learnt so far today was that the 65 minutes to traverse Paris isn’t going to be enough. I need to think of another plan.

At the booking office they wouldn’t let me change my ticket, but up on the platform, speaking to the train manager I had better luck and she let me hop aboard one of the casual seats at the back of the bar, which I thought was very nice of her.

And it was just as well too because with the renovations taking place at the Gare du Nord they have moved the taxi rank from just outside the door and now it’s a real marathon trek to the rank. I really was finished long before I reached it.

As luck would have it, the taxi marshal waved me to the front of the queue and I had a really nice and chatty lady driver who drove me to Montparnasse.

There was 33 minutes to wait for the departure of my train so it was just as well that I’d caught the earlier train. I was able to grab a cup of coffee which was also just as well – that’s all that I had to eat or drink on the journey because I’d forgotten my bottle of ginger beer in Alison’s fridge.

The train was packed and we were crammed in like sardines. I managed a brief five minutes of … errr … relaxing, but that was all.

It was on time pulling into the station and I was lucky in that I only had to wait two minutes for the bus to the town centre. And from there I had a horrible, miserable walk to the bus stop at the port for my bus up here.

There’s no kerb there and the buses don’t kneel down very much so climbing in was a real effort. And then climbing up the stairs to here, I just couldn’t do it. In the end I had to take off my backpack and drag it on the floor behind me. I am not ever going to do this journey again.

Back here when I finally arrived I made myself an ice-cold drink and came in here where I crashed out on the chair and that was really that.

Tea tonight was sausage chips and beans (I’ll end up looking like a sausage after this week) and then we had football on the internet – Colwyn Bay v Aberystwyth.

The match was a real bottom-of-the-table shocker that Colwyn Bay won 3-1, and I have to be honest and say that they won’t ever have a victory as easy as that again. After only 40 minutes the commentator said “Mae Aberystwyth yn siomedig” – Aberystwyth are disappointing – and that was aun understatement.

One bright spark for Aberystwyth was that at half-time they brought on a left-back called Akeem Hinds. I hadn’t seen him before. He certainly livened up the team with some good interceptions and some beautiful crosses into the penalty area.

What with Colwyn Bay’s Nigerian forward Udoyen Akpan who has come to the club from Cyprus, here are two players on whom I shall be keeping a very close eye.

Mind you, I said the same about Okera Simmonds who played for Y Fflint last season, and he disappeared without trace. I must be the Kiss of Death.

Surprisingly, despite the short night there were tons of stuff on the dictaphone. I don’t know what was happening here but I was pulling nails and plastic skewers out of my foot. I took one out and it didn’t ‘arf hurt. I just wondered whether that was symbolic of the pains that I’m having in my feet or something at the moment.

The next thing was that the alarm went off so I trued to turn off the dictaphone and tried to turn off a couple of other things. I suddenly realised that it was the phone. I fell out of bed and crawled across the floor to turn off the phone. For some reason my brother wouldn’t leave the bed so the girl with me was wondering what on earth was the matter with him. Suddenly I looked at my watch and saw that it was 01:27. I’d awoken and actually dreamed of the alarm going off.

I was with my mother and brother. We pulled into Paris. We left the train and walked outside the station ready to walk across Paris to the next railway station. There were kids on bikes and scooters having fun in one of the squares. My mother said something like “we need to be careful around here because of all these kids” but they looked fairly harmless to me. For some eason we became separated. My mother and brother went off down one street and I went off down the other. I was sure that I was correct. This road took me to the top of a hill where I could see right over Paris. It looked miles away but the way my mother was going was even further away. I shouted for my mother but couldn’t hear anything so I carried on walking by myself in a field. I shouted again and this time she answered. The fence was quite high and I couldn’t climb it so I had to walk back to where the fence was low and then climb up a bank to go over the top. As I climbed up the bank the top kept falling down and I kept sliding down to the bottom again. This happened several times. In the end there was a vehicle, some kind of army lorry buried in the bank. Suddenly it gave a lurch and rolled over, throwing me onto the floor near where my mother and brother were . They said “quickly, grab that guy …” and mentioned someone’s name “… and he’ll take us”. But I couldn’t see who it was that she meant because I couldn’t see anyone around

I was with my friends from the weekend. We’d just left the train and gone walking. We came across a big bush that was on fire. We tried to stop the fire by stamping it but it burnt me. The fire gradually burnt itself out. All the climbing ivy over this object died so we scraped away some of the ivy and that was a job and a half of its own. We found a woman sitting there. Apparently she was with some kind of Social Services and had come to check up on us to make sure that we were all OK and not up to mischief. Of course we caught her like this.

When we finally did leave the house we ended up at the end of the drive and across the road into the chemist’s, nearly being knocked down by a big old Humber that stopped to let us through. I handed a form to the chemist and said “four dailies”. He said “this isn’t the correct form. Where’s the rest of it? It should be twice this size”. He showed me a full example of a form. The last thing I wanted was an argument so I took the form back and said “just give us four dailies”. She rattled off four dailies. One of my friends went to pay but it was £30 and something. That horrified him but I thought that this job of getting to the station to catch his train was just so complicated that we weren’t ever going to manage this at all at this rate. All we want is four tickets and it was turning into a right pantomime

I was in a butcher’s buying food for tea for about a dozen meals that I needed. He sat down with some huge piles of meat and began to give me things like brains of DH Lawrence etc. I wondered what on earth was going on because I was a vegan and he was giving me all these cuts of meat to eat for my tea

Anyway, I’m off to bed. Shopping tomorrow and I don’t feel at all like it. As I said, I’m not going to be doing this journey again. I just can’t.

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Thursday 14th September 2023 – THERE’S GOOD NEWS …

… and there’s bad news.

The bad news today is that the professor came to see me today to tell me that they have tried everything that they have in their armoury and there’s nothing left to try.

Mind you, she did say that she was impressed that I’ve kept going as long as I have. She told me quite frankly that when I turned up there seven and a half years ago for the first time, she was worried that I wouldn’t pull through at all.

Anyway, my sleeping patters are back to where they used to be. I awoke a couple of times during the night and I was fast asleep when the alarm went off.

There had been plenty of little travels during the night. An Asian woman who was the mother of a friend of mine – in fact the mother of a girl whom I knew. I thought that it was a girl whom I knew from school but it could well have been Castor had come down to the road into Tarporley from Chester. She was ever so upset because someone from the school had turned up in an awful panic and said that she hadn’t brought any of the children with her. They were all about to get into her car and be driven here but they all disappeared. None of them actually got in and she couldn’t find them. The mother was distraught. I said that that reminded me of a dream that I’d had ages ago that she had actually turned up with a group of other children at this spot and I went to fetch her but she was with her brother and they all said that they had something else important to do and couldn’t do. They just simply disappeared from the spot where I was standing. I thought that that was an amazing coincidence that I’d had that in a dream and then something almost identical had happened like that in real life.

There’s an interesting story about this girl whom I knew. When she started at school everyone agreed that she would grow up to be a real stunner. Anyway a good few years later I’d been delivering freight to Northern Ireland and was on my way back home and decided to stop off for some fish and chips and a beer.

At Galgate just outside Lancaster was a pub that brewed its own beer and a fish and chip shop next door so I went there. And who was serving behind the bar?

“What are you doing here?” I asked.
3I’m a student at the University and I work here sometimes to earn some cash”.

It goes without saying that every time there was some freight to go north, I’d be the first to volunteer

Coming up to Easter “what plans do you have?”
“I don’t know. I want to go home but I can’t afford the trip”
“Would you like me to come and pick you up?”.

So back at home we went out together for a few times until the famous night that I invited her back to my house. My old black cat was extremely antisocial and always went to hide when people came round but when she walked in, the cat went over, jumped on her lap and settled down
“Ohhh look! Even Tuppence likes her!” I thought

On the way home later I said to the girl “thank you for the lovely evening. I’d be really happy if you’d like to come round again”.
“Yes-s-s-s-s” she stuttered. “But you’ll have to get rid of that cat! I hate cats!”
And the rest, as they say, is history.

With Nerina, Tuppence never stood a chance.
“Ohhh look! A cat!” she said. And she’d bent down and picked up the cat and began to stroke her before Tuppence had even had time to react.
And the rest of that was history too.

Then we were in Nantwich, walking up Welsh Row towards the school. We met a girl whom we knew who was really quite excited, telling us that they’d had a visitor at school, someone really important. It turned out to be the King or Prime Minister, someone handicapped who needed help to move around but was one of the most important men in the Kingdom. He’d been to the field opposite the school

And finally I was having a big chat with a neighbour and a few other people, discussing globalisation and international commerce from an individual’s point of view last night.

There wasn’t long to hang around though because Alison was in a rush. We drove through the fog and mist to the hospital where I had to wait for an age to sign in.

The kidney specialist poked and prodded me as I told him my tale of woe. Not that it did me much good because although he listened quite intently, he didn’t change anything at all.

He did give me a prescription for the next batch of medication – three months of it too. I went and had the prescription made up and I’ve no idea now how I’m going to manage to take everything home with me.

The doctor had sent me off to give a blood test too and to my surprise (and yours too) the nurse had no problems whatever in finding some.

Next stop was the Social Services department. I’d received a bill for treatment which surprised me because there’s a direct billing arrangement with my health insurance provider.

No need to give a blood sample in the afternoon, having given one in the morning.

At the meeting with the doctor though she did the usual bit about asking me all kinds of questions and then doing nothing whatever to change anything that I’m taking. And then the professor came to see me for a chat.

There was some good news too, as I mentioned. The doctor considers that the state of my mobility is now non-existent so she game me a certificate to that effect.

That means that in principle (because insurance companies can be bizarre) I’m entitled to claim my travelling expenses. In other words, while claiming the train is out of the question, I can go by taxi, obtain a receipt and then submit it for review in the hope that someone somewhere will pay it.

Consequently I had a hospital porter push me to the front door in a wheelchair, and then had a nice new Mercedes taxi back to Alison’s house.

Once I was back here I had a little … errr … relax and then slowly began to pack my things.

Tea was more pasta and sausages and now I’m off to bed because I have to raise myself at … errr … 05:15. Alison wants to be on the road by 05:40 at the latest and I have a train at a wayside station at 06:28.

That’s something that I don’t want to miss because I shall be in a rush all day tomorrow.

And I’ll tell you something for nothing – I’ll be glad to be back home and I won’t be doing this again.

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Wednesday 13th September 2023 – IT LOOKS AS IF …

… I’m slipping back into my old routine again, as far as sleep goes right now. For the first time for several days I awoke in the middle of the night.

Not only that, I crashed out again in the middle of the afternoon for 20 minutes and it’s been a good few days since I’ve done that – apart, obviously, from when I’ve been exerting myself by going walkabout outside.

Regardless of all of that, I was still wide-awake before the alarm went off, just on the point of putting my feet down onto the floor.

However, it seems that I’ve been going one place backwards yet again. The sofa is quite low and for the first couple of days the only way that I could stand up is by going via a chair. After that, I was able to push myself up from that low position. But today, it was a real struggle.

After Alison had gone to work I spent all of the day sorting out stuff for the next series of radio programmes that will be broadcast in the second half of next year.

Importantly, there are two festivals that have caught my eye. One programme will be broadcast on the anniversary of the first Hawkfest and another one will be broadcast on the anniversary of the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival.

The Hawkfest one is going to be quite interesting.

There are half a dozen groups which, if my listeners and the radio station manager would stomach it, I would broadcast during an entire programme non-stop from start to finish. Hawkwind would be one of them. Unfortunately that’s not really appropriate.

Hidden away in my music collection is a whole pile of esoteric stuff relating to groups who have played at one or other Hawkfest so what I’m going to do is to recreate my own Radio Hawkfest for broadcast on the appropriate anniversary date. That’s one of the things that I’ve been doing today.

The Isle of Wight Festival is a much easier proposition. I’ve found a list of bands, a few set lists and all that kind of thing so a programme like that won’t be too difficult to assemble. Most importantly, I’ve been able to trace quite a few press reports and the like that give interesting facts about the performers and the music that I can add in as appropriate

It’s not easy though, doing all this audio-editing on the laptop. It’s not the most powerful of computers and that was one of the reasons why I bought the monster desktop version. But whatever I can do here, regardless of how long it takes me, means that I have less to do when I finally return home, even if it will be much quicker.

In between everything else I had another wash. Once more in the kitchen because I cant make it up the stairs. This time I remembered to close the blinds in the kitchen before I started so as not to surprise anyone who might be walking down the path of the house next door.

Alison had even found be a bucket so I could give my feet a good scrub. I can’t fit them in the sink and I’m not able to climb onto a chair.

Really? I ask you! What kind of state am I in these days?

There was a lot of stuff on the dictaphone from the night. I’d had a huge row with my family, a really violent argument. In the end I stormed away, climbed into Caliburn and set out to drive away to the family home. I didn’t really want to go home because that was where they’d come looking for me. In the end I parked up somewhere in a field and sat and watched these vehicles driving down the track alongside the river suddenly come to the end and trying all to find ways to drop down into the field. There were things like these old Morris vans, a 3-wheeled version rather like Heinkel bubble-cars but enormous ones that were trying to drop down into this field with 1 or 2 overturning on the way. In the end I set out to walk into town from there. My brother bumped into me and insisted on following me about. While I was in one particular street there was a place advertising Bed and Breakfast. I thought that with it being a Sunday tomorrow I’d go in here and see. It meant climbing down a couple of weird flights of steps to reach the front door but the people came out. They seemed nice and friendly and charged me £30 per night which I thought was reasonable. My brother insisted on hanging around and I couldn’t get rid of him – he just wouldn’t leave me alone. I remember saying that¨£30 per night, I’ll remember this place if I have to come around in this kind of situation again.

And then I had a Ford Cortina that was causing me a few problems. I had it in the garage and was crawling underneath it. I could see that the exhaust was broken. I had to cut off the back box part to have a look to see what was happening. I cut it off and I could see the air filter inside the exhaust. Cecile came down and she was interested in what was happening. I showed her and she went to fetch a friend to show her the air filter. At that moment a girl whom I knew came in. She had a boy with her and they were talking so I thought that I’d go into the kitchen and wash my hands. My mother was in there. We were talking about washing my hands when the phone rang just once then stopped. She had a look and said that it’s Nigel Gregory ringing for your sister to apologise for last night. I said “she’s in the garage with some guy at the moment”. She replied “it won’t take long”. While I was washing everyone came in for tea. We were talking about the exhaust. I said that the exhaust for a 1.6 is cheaper than for a 2.0 so I suppose that we ought to have that, waiting for some kind of comment from Darren. He didn’t actually say anything at the time. Earlier on I’d been in some kind of woodworking class where there was a kind-of bench. I was trying to draw a circle on a piece of OSB with a set of compasses but it was much more complicated that I thought. The people next to me were borrowing my tools and putting them back so I didn’t object too much. They made a comment about my little socket set that I had. I said “just wait until you see the big one that I have in the car”. When I’d drawn my circle to some kind of satisfaction I took a G-clamp and went to clamp it to the bench but there was no threaded rod in it so I had to find another one then clamp it to the bench. I borrowed the wood saw off the guy in the bay next to mine and began to saw away at these marks that I’d made ready to cut the circle out of this OSB

Someone posted a photo of the National League South table pointing out “look how well Torquay were doing” but someone else commented that that was the National League South and it’s the National League here so that photo shouldn’t be posted, which led to some kind of heated debate

Tea tonight was pasta in a cheese and tomato sauce with vegetables and a couple of those delicious vegan sausages. They really were delicious too.

It’s Castle Anthrax tomorrow where they can check up on me and see what this last 4 months has done to me. So I’ll probably go to bed and hope for a good sleep on my comfy sofa. It’s an early start as Alison is dropping me off on her way to work. I’ll have to catch the bus home afterwards though.

It’ll be interesting to see how I’ve been doing after all this time without treatment for my cancer. That might be stable at the moment but the problem is that everything else is breaking down.

It’s for that reason that my trip to Paris will be interesting. Not so much that I’m expecting them to work miracles – it will just be nice to see them try. You never know what might happen.

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Tuesday 12th September 2023 – I HAVE HAD …

… the kind of day today that you can only ever have in Belgium.

In the middle of my Welsh lesson, during which I was speaking Welsh, I had a ‘phone call which I had to answer, and ended up having a conversation in French.

Back to the Welsh lesson, speaking Welsh again, and someone came to the door, so I ended up having a conversation in Flemish.

And then back to speaking Welsh.

It reminded me of the time years ago when I was living here and there were 14 of us sitting round a table talking in French, and French was the mother-tongue of none of us.

Something else that was good and interesting was that I had another excellent night’s sleep again and I wish that I could have a few more of those. I’ve really no idea why that might be because sofas are not actually renowned for their comfort and my bed was the best that I could afford.

Anyway I was up once more before the alarm went off and had a very slow awakening before I was ready to Fight The Good Fight.

Alison was going to work late this morning so she dropped me off at the supermarket in the village where I stocked up on the basics that I need to keep me going until Friday morning.

The walk back here with a heavy rucksack was not easy because it’s much further than you might think and the road is quite uneven. So I was glad to be back and have my cheese and tomato on toast, especially now that I have some tomato to go on it.

There was something on the dictaphone from the night. I was in Canada talking to my niece. Actually, I wasn’t in Canada but somewhere else and she was there. We were chatting and she was talking about the tyres. She had a little Subaru vehicle that she used as a private runabout. She had a certain type of tyre on it which she found to be great in winter when she was in and out. My car over there had Arctic Grip tyres on it but her husband’s vehicle had racing tyres which surprisingly gave him the best grip of all in the snow and ice. They’d already had snow and ice there. There was plenty of snow but it had all levelled out. They also had a guy with a cattle truck, one that my father had found for him. He used to work for people in the area including my niece in transporting the cattle around from one day to the next to different places in the area.

It’s not easy having my Welsh lesson using the mobile phone but the computer isn’t powerful enough to run videos. We have a couple of new students in our class this year so hopefully we’ll keep on going.

The good news is that there’s no exam at the end of the year so I might go to take the exam that I should have taken last summer. Having spent all that time away and then in hospital, I didn’t feel that I’d done enough prepare me for it.

The discussion in Flemish was with the guy who mows Alison’s lawn, but the phone call in French was with the hospital where I went 10 days ago, and that was much more exciting.

"Mr Hall, we’ve arranged a bed for you. We’d like you to set aside a week to come to stay with us, starting 25th September"

So six weeks from seeing the Specialist to seeing the Hospital Consultant, and then three and a half weeks from seeing the Consultant to being called into the hospital. It’s not quite the four days that I had to wait when I first came to Leuven in 2016, but it’s still treatment that you would never have on the NHS.

After the lesson was over I had a slice of toast and a coffee and then crashed out. I’d been fighting off sleep since I came back from my walk but in the end I succumbed.

While I’d been asleep we’d had a rainstorm so the Angel Of The Lord Came Down And Gave Another Rinse to the clothes that I’d had drying outside. They aren’t ever going to dry at this rate.

For the rest of the afternoon I’ve been doing more radio stuff and then I went for tea – burger on a bun with pasta and veg in a tomato and cheese sauce.

When Alison came back we had a chat and then she went off to bed. Now that I’ve written my notes I’m going to bed too and if I sleep as well as I have done this last couple of days I’ll be more than happy.

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Monday 11th September 2023 – EVEN THOUGH I …

… had the alarm set for 06:30 this morning I was still up and about before it went off.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … this settee is one of the most comfortable places where I’ve ever slept.

Even more interestingly, I’ve not had one of these night-sweats that I’ve been having just recently back at home. I’ve no idea what’s happening. I think that Alison might be afraid that I’d be wanting to move in here permanently.

Something else that was quite surprising too is that I remembered to take my medicine too – the first time since Thursday last week. It’ll be interesting to see what will happen to my sleeping pattern now that I’m back on the medication.

Loads of stuff on the dictaphone from the night. I started off in Nantwich, walking up Welsh Row towards the Grammar School where I used to attend. There were people there and it was late at night. I was intending to walk up one of the side streets that were there. Suddenly we came under attack. We were in a big spacecraft thing so we all had to fit into our flying suits, like a large sack of something. We had to unzip it and it was like 3 flying suits all joined together. It took ages to sort them out because we’d never done this before. We were panicking quite badly because the attack was quite severe. In the end the first person in front climbed into his. I managed to unzip the parts behind him so I could climb into the middle piece. Someone else unzipped the part behind to climb into the back. We were then ejected n some kind of capsule into Space. We could see the fog, mist and ice forming on the outside of our helmets etc. It was freezing cold in this capsule but the 3 of us inside more or less the same flying suit meant that it was extremely warm in there too as far as we were concerned. We were quite comfortable even though ice was forming everywhere. But what this had to do with Nantwich I’ve really no idea

Back into this dream again. The woman recognised her daughter first then the father recognised her later. There they were in the middle of the Square in Sandbach dressed informally and were giving her a hug. They tried to question her about where she’d been and what she’d done but I explained that this wasn’t the best time to do it here in public because you never know who’s listening and what kind of capabilities they had, where the surroundings actually either don’t help anyone or just work in their favour.

I was with a girl last night talking about a couple whom we knew. They were a very strange couple. She was a straight-laced young girl and he was an older guy, rather wild. She asked if they had any profession or anything. It turned out that she was a former probation officer and she was someone whom she’d encountered during her work and they’d started a relationship together, which was extremely strange. This conversation went on for quite some time. She suggested that we go to meet some people whom she knew. She took me on a walk around the town in the rain. We ended up in these blocks of buildings which were actually 4 flats. She just came to the door of one of them and walked in. There were all kinds of people around here in this living room, I suppose, where she’d entered without even knocking. There was a girl having her eyebrows plucked by someone. She was in her underclothes. There was a cat being fed with a bottle, a pile of kids and an old woman. She went off into another room to fetch someone. I had to make some small talk with these strange people, introduce myself etc. It was certainly not the meeting that I’d been expecting with people. It was one of the strangest groups of people or families that I’d ever encountered

I don’t know where this fitted in with anything but on my travels during the night I saw a National Express coach reverse into a parking bay at the same time that a pile of kids were trying to alight. It was a woman driver reversing it. I thought that it was probably the most dangerous thing that I’d ever seen, all these people alighting from the coach as she was backing it up into this bay.

All of the day has been spent choosing music for the radio programmes for next year. I’m doing things slightly differently for next year so choosing the music is much more complicated in certain circumstances. It’s the more complicated ones that I’ve been doing today.

There was an interruption though – the Jehovah’s Witnesses came a-calling. They didn’t stay long though – I soon to saw to that.

Washing myself is a complicated affair so I can’t go upstairs. I ended up washing in the kitchen and I was half-way through when I thought that it might be a good idea to close the blinds in the window.

While I was at it I washed my clothes to date. I managed to hang them over a couple of chairs in the garden, only for them to receive an extra rinse. We had a torrential downpour this evening.

Tea tonight was pasta in my home-made cheese sauce with a vegan burger in a baguette. It was surprisingly delicious.

Alison was late coming home from work so we had a good chat for a while and now it’s bedtime. Tomorrow I’m going to have an attempt to go to the supermarket. It’s 400 metres up the road so it will be a brave try but we are running low on supplies.

So I’d better clear off an have a good sleep so I’m ready to fight the good fight.

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Sunday 10th September 2023 – SO FAR THE SCORE ..

… is “Eric 2, Alison’s cups and saucers 0”. And that was just trying to make one meal here this evening. By the time that I leave here after my hospital appointment Alison won’t have any crockery left

However, look on the bright side This sofa on which I’m sleeping is one of the most comfortable on which I’ve ever slept. Once I’d finally gone to sleep last night I had the best night’s sleep that I’d had for some considerable time.

So much so that at 06:15 I was awake and by 08:00 I was up and about, feeling quite refreshed. How about that for a Sunday?

Hans came down a short while later and brought me a coffee, and when everyone had finally assembled down here we went for breakfast in Tervuren where we were yesterday.

Alison knew a scenic route through the park and the forest and quite luckily there was a parking space nearby.

Everyone else had patisserie but I had my bread rolls with jam, coffee and orange juice. We sat in the sun for hours and put the world to rights.

Later on we came home and an elderly lady passer-by actually helped me into the car which was very nice.

Back here we sat in the sun, nibbled on bits and carried on with our chat, and then Alison took Hans to the airport and Jackie to the station. There wasn’t much point my going, although after seeing the kind of damage that I can do while tidying up, I bet that Alison wished that I’d accompanied her.

Instead, I had a listen to the dictaphone. There was something going on last night about finding medals stuffed down sofas. When we uncovered this one we had a feeling that it was fake. later on there was an issue at a petrol station. I was with Paul. In the end I can’t remember very much but ha had to speak to a cashier. At the end of each line of petrol pumps at these Motorway services there was a kind-of hatch where there should have been a bank employee sitting. We had a drive around this fuel station but could only see one that was occupied, right at the top of the hill. We had to go to the bottom, swing the car round and drive back up again to pull up alongside the kiosk.

I then had to go to pickup someone at the airport at 12:45 – pick them up to take them to the airport. I was in one of these Japanese-style midi vehicles from the 1980s. I found the address and pulled up outside but no-one came out. I was waiting for about 15 minutes. Then I saw that the door was open and the keys were in the door. I imagined that they must have wanted me to go along and knock. I went and knocked, and a guy and a few boys dressed in some kind of sports uniform and track suit came out, said their goodbyes to whoever was in the house and went into my vehicle ready to leave.

Later on Alison had bought some kind of dancing sheep, cut-out trains and earth-moving equipment that were being used as a promotion for a cartoon film about sheep. She asked me to look at it. It was cheap and not very good, one or two of the things didn’t work properly so for just £1:00 or whatever I thought that it was quite interesting and amusing. It turned out that she’d paid £60:00 for one pack and £50-odd for the second. I thought that that was absurd. She realised that it was expensive, particularly as one or two of the things didn’t work but she happened to fall in love with them when she saw them being stored at the side of the road. Later on when we were around at her house which was actually Rosemary’s, thinking of something else I asked her if all the vehicles had been removed from that plot of land, thinking of the place where Terry found that old van that we drove away. She said “no, there’s just the old red one left”. I couldn’t remember any red one there. She said “the one that my son was going to use when he started his business before he died. I had someone come and take away all the others but that one hasn’t gone yet”. I realised then that we weren’t talking about the same plot of land at all. I was talking about one next to her cottage in France which was all overgrown etc.

There was something else with cars too. We were preparing a fleet of vehicles ready to go to a war zone, big red American-type tipper vehicles towing trailers. We prepared them. Before that there was a building site nearby. I’d been there to ask if they needed any volunteers to do any work. They asked about what I did, and to come back the next morning. I was there preparing these cars. In the end there was just one like an American Cobra sports car left. We couldn’t find the key to it. We spent hours sorting out the seat belt for it. When it was ready the guy looked under the table and found the key. he asked “what’s this key doing here?”. I replied “I don’t know – I’ve never seen it before”. he looked at it, looked at the registration number of the car and said “it’s one off the buses off on the holiday tomorrow”. I asked everyone what I was supposed to be doing tomorrow. One of his children – he had four, 2 boys, a girl and another who, although it was the oldest, was the smallest and rather fragile. This smallest one said to me “it’s lime-washing tomorrow again, I’m afraid”.

We had something about a cup of tea. Tea in Italy was something of a delight and they’d bought me a tea and a biscuit. The tea had milk in it but it tasted really nice. I couldn’t understand that because normally I wouldn’t drink tea with milk. It tastes bitter anyway

For tea I had pasta in a cheese sauce with olive oil, black pepper and oregano along with a couple of the vegan sausages that I’d bought yesterday.

Alison has an early start in the morning so I’m going to bed early. It would be nice to drink a coffee with her before she goes to work.

And then I can find a few things to do; to keep me out of mischief.

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Saturday 9th September 2023 – ALISON’S SOFA …

… is one of the most comfy places in which I’ve ever slept.

There is actually a bed for me but to tell the truth, I can’t make it up the stairs any more so “arrangements” were made. Oh!!! How the mighty have fallen

For a change, I was the first awake (with no alarm) but the others soon came to join me and we sat outside in the heat and drank coffee.

Later on we headed into Tervuren. Alison knows a nice cafe where they do pastries so while they were tucking into pastries and coffee I had bread rolls and strawberry jam.

Up the street we then went to see Alison’s new house. It looks quite small from the outside but it’s a real labyrinth inside. We had the guided tour while she outlined her plans.

The sale was only concluded on Monday and she’s decided to have a pile of work done to it before she thinks about moving in

On the way back home we raided the English Shop for Ginger Beer, ice cream (I even found some vegan ice cream) and vegan food for me, then we came home to sit outside in the heat with ice cream and ginger pop like something out of an Enid Blyton novel.

We found a new vegan restaurant that does a buffet where you pay by weight so that seemed like a good idea.

We knew where it was but driving to it was another complication but we eventually settled down. And I’m glad that we went because the food really was delicious.

Back here now, everyone’s exhausted and gone to bed. I’ll be going too in a minute, but not before I exploit a remarkable discovery that I’ve made.

If I select more than one piece of music (like a whole album-full for example) and keep them selected while I go into “properties”, I can batch-edit all of the properties for each track simultaneously.

1994 was the first time that I played with “Windows” and it’s taken me that long to work this out.

What’s even more bizarre is that I discovered it by accident too.

One final thing – the dictaphone. There was some stuff on there from my nice, comfortable night. I had posted on a Social Network page that I was planning on leaving Leuven and going back home. Someone posted to ask if I could bring something back. I replied that it wasn’t possible so someone else asked me if I could bring back something else. I explained that that wasn’t possible either. It ended up with me being given a rather unfortunate heap of abuse.

There was also a dream about a load of Port Vale replica football tops which were not in Port Vale colours at all and a series of bad “knock knock” jokes told by a girl of about 4. And I’m glad that I can’t remember them. After all they won’t trouble my sleeping any.

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Friday 8th September 2023 – THAT WAS A …

… horrible journey and I don’t ever want to do it again.

As usual, when I’m going away, I had a bad night’s sleep and spend much of the hours of darkness tossing and turning.

Nevertheless I was up and about (in principle) before the alarm went off

First thing that I did was to grab a shower and then I did a few last-minute things before going out for the bus.

The bus was there but the driver wasn’t so I had to wait a few minutes before he turned up. And then we set off with a bunch of kids who were staying at the youth hostel in the town and who had been for a morning run.

The bus threw me out at the port and I had a 200-metre walk to the bus stop around the corner where the next bus would pick me up. And it was this 200 metres so early in the journey that convinced me that my travelling days are over.

There was a 20-minute wait for the bus during which time firstly my cleaner went past and rearranged my backpack on my shoulders, and then one of the girls from the radio came past and said hello.

The bus didn’t drop me off at the station but across the road so it was a long walk. And with my carriage being right down at the far end it was something of a scramble to be seated before the train pulled out

Updating all of those files took an age, not helped by the fact that I had a little … errr …relax at some point, and we were late pulling into Montparnasse too.

What with one thing and another I’d decided long-since that I was going to throw caution to the wind and have a taxi across Paris, but the walk to the taxi rank was about as far as the walk to the underground, which is regrettable

The ride with a friendly taxi driver wasn’t as expensive as I thought, but my leg had collapsed again getting into his car so I wasn’t enjoying it one bit

To make matters worse I staggered into the Disabled Persons’ room and asked for assistance to board my train to Brussels but they told me to clear off because I hadn’t booked 24 hours in advance.

So four of the assistants there sat and watch me make my slow weary way all the way down the platform to my carriage right at the far end of the train.

There was plenty of stuff on the dictaphone from the night. We were back at school – some kind of sports day with competitions etc. We were with our own House and had to stay with our own House all day. There were all kinds of things going on in the way of competition etc. The final one was a football match so we all had to go to our various common rooms afterwards to prepare. It was then that I realised that in all my things I didn’t have any shoes with me do it looked as if I would be playing in my socks. I didn’t really fancy playing too much because of that so when they began to talk about goalkeepers someone asked a girl “have you ever tried to be rather rough with a goalkeeper when you have the ball in the penalty area. I replied “you can always try it with me and see what happens” but no-one seemed to pick up on it so I didn’t bother all that much. I went up to the common room to prepare. One of the girls was closing the door so I had to insist and make some kind of rude comment before she’d open it again. There was a girl there from about 2 years younger than us whom I knew. Her boyfriend was in our year. The two of them were together and there was another girl in a green check dress – our colours were blue so I don’t know where she was from and what she was doing in there.

Back into this dream again, I eventually made it into the room when they let me in and sorted out into houses except these two girls and I don’t know what was happening with one of them. The other one was with her boyfriend, and we were joking about the football with my ingrowing toenail on my right foot and wasn’t going to be very happy for it especially as I didn’t have my shoes etc with me.

Back once more into the same dream and we were all back in our groups again, going back up Welsh Row towards the Grammar School dressed in our school uniform. Something happened and one of the boys pointed to another one in our class and called him names because he was more interested in eating a bar of chocolate than playing football. There were a few other things like that too.

This was another dream that took place in connection with a school. This time I was in a bath and the water was coming out with such a force that I was sure that it would break the porcelain fittings etc so I was prepared to be dumped into the middle of the bathroom. Somehow the contraption kept on running which surprised me greatly.

still on the theme of children, there was something going on about therapy for children who had been troubled. It was like a drawing and colouring class. What they had for adults was like a painting-by-numbers where you could go along and paint yourself a picture and hope to get rid of stress and tension by doing that.

This final part looks as if it might be something to do with the previous one. There was something about a clinic, people who have financial health problems. Part of the therapy there for children is drawing. For adults they had a few of these huge “painting by numbers” outfits with pictures even taller than the people themselves. The adults could spend as many hours as they wished simply painting the image.

At Brussels I didn’t have long to wait but climbing into the train was next-to impossible on these double-deckers with their steep stairs. Next time I go to Leuven I’ll have to wait around for one of the local stopping trains. These are all on the same level, and a level that is level with the platform so there’s no trying to climb in.

Leuven was roasting hot when I arrived and the walk along the platform to the lift finished me off.

And for some reason my phone wasn’t receiving messages so Alison and Jackie didn’t know that I’d arrived.

Eventually we met up and roared off to meet Hans at the Airport.

Alison knew a lovely Indian restaurant in Sterrebeek so we went there and had a delicious meal. Then we cam back here and sat outside in the heat until God Knows what time chatting.

My sofa is comfortable so I’m going to get in it and sleep for a week. I don’t ever want to do that journey again. Not on any terms.

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Monday 28th November 2022 – I’VE HAD A FEW …

…lovely interactions with some friends today, and isn’t that nice?

Ingrid phoned me this afternoon and we had a lovely chat that went on for about an hour or so where we discussed our problems. And “our” problems too because Ingrid has several of her own that at time make mine pale into insignificance.

And not just Ingrid either. Lots of other people have a lot more problems than I have right now and I do ought to stop moaning about them.

None of the foregoing stopped me bending Alison’s ear when she put in an appearance a little later. She came to see me later in the day too and we had an interesting chat as well. There’s quite a lot going on right now what with one thing and another.

But she’d been on a mission to Germany last week and she brought me another pile of vegan chocolate. That should keep me going for quite a while and I’m grateful.

Liz had messaged me at one point or another during the early evening so we had a lengthy chat as well and discussed a few of the issues that are arising out of my stay in here and which are of considerable interest following my visit to the operating theatre with my virus on Sunday morning.

It was nice to discuss them with several sympathetic ears and I appreciate their patience and forbearance.

Someone else whose ear was much less sympathetic but who nevertheless had to listen to my spiel without much of an option was the doctor who’s on patrol in this ward this week.

She got the “what’s next on the list of excuses?” speech and her answer was to fob me off with the thing about “you need to speak to the doctor concerned” to which my reply was a rather curt “if they don’t ever come to see me, how can I speak to them?”.

Once again, there was no answer to that – not that I was expecting any.

So last night having been to bed at some ridiculous time, I was awake this morning at 04:28. And having had a trip across the room to the bathroom I just lay there counting the minutes until the alarm went off at 06:30.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from the night. There was a group of ballerinas who came into the room where I was lying and began to do their exercises. One did a big kick and ended up straddling the rail on the wall. She was stuck there for quite some time. I said that if she wasn’t very happy about where she is and what she’s done, then as far as I’m concerned she can come to where I am and do that any day of the week and I’d be more than happy to see it. That was the first intimation that she’d had of the fact that there was someone present in this room and she and her colleagues were all embarrassed and went off to fetch the shoe if this dancer while I talked to her. It turned out that I was living in the north of England in a home. I went to these events with my half-litre of hot water or tea or coffee etc. For some reason that disturbed her quite a lot. She vowed that she wouldn’t work anywhere at all beyond the mayor’s office in any particular town.

The highlight of the morning was the visit of the doctor. She was the only member of the medical staff (apart from the nurses of course) who came to see me throughout the whole day. Had it not been for Liz, Alison and Ingrid, it would have been an awful day.

Compounded by the fact that my two little students and my Iranian refugee are now working elsewhere on this floor. I seem to have been entrusted into the care of a retired Bulgarian weightlifter. I wonder why.

On the subject of Ingrid though, we both remarked that the only difference between this and a prison is that this door here is open. And that’s a sad state of affairs, isn’t it?

But tomorrow is another day and maybe I’ll be feeling better. My Welsh class might bring me some kind of interest and who knows? The priest might come and see me again.

Things can’t get much lower than they are now.

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Thursday 17th November 2022 – IT LOOKS AS IF …

… this idea of kicking me out of the hospital on Friday is gathering momentum. And so we’ve had a day of arguments and disputes today.

Anyway, all of that is for the future. Last night I was curled up in bed at 21:00 fast asleep, and wide-awake again at about 00:00.

And I DO mean “wide-awake” because it took me hours and hours to go back to sleep. I was in such a state that I could easily have done a pile of work during the period that I was awake, so it was last night..

As usual the rattling of all of the stuff that they push around on trolleys early in the morning awoke me before the alarm went off. And then we had the endless procession of nurses coming in here doing their stuff.

One of the things that needed doing was changing my catheter in my chest. As well as the trained nurse, there are two young student nurses here and they are really cute. I asked them if they had changed a catheter before and thy replied “no” – so I told them to do mine. It will be good practice for them.

And so the more senior one changed the catheter while the junior one watched closely and the trained nurse supervised. It all passed off very well and these nurses can change my catheter again whenever they like – not that they’ll have much chance with me being kicked out tomorrow.

That was the nurses. The issues with the doctor didn’t go quite so comfortably.

At some point in the morning a professor from one of the departments concerned in my health came by. She told me that because of the way things are, they are going to cancel my appointment for a lung examination this afternoon. It’ll take place in two weeks time instead.

As you might expect, I went totally berserk. I made this person read my letter to the hospital from last August and made sure that she understood it. And I expressed all of my concerns, as I have done ad nauseam.

The net result was that it didn’t sway her one little bit. And so I played my trump card. I told her that if I had to come back in two weeks time (and I explained all of my difficulties of travelling) I wanted to see an euthanasist because I’m totally fed up and can’t go on any more like this.

That was met with a stony silence.

Later on, at lunchtime, the physiotherapist came to see me. He gave me a few exercises to perform and then tried to make me walk. We managed 30 steps before I had to stop for breath.

At that point I asked him if he was happy that they were throwing me out tomorrow and he looked appalled

Despite having said that my appointment this afternoon they came to fetch me and took me downstairs.

Having waited for a while a doctor came out and repeated what the doctor had said to me this morning. And so I repeated what I’d told the doctor this morning, including the bit about euthanasia. He tried to discuss and debate the position but I wasn’t having any of it.

Back in my room the regular doctor came to see me. She told me that the scan yesterday revealed a trapped nerve in my back, one that corresponds with my right leg. There was then a pregnant pause while I waited for her to tell me what their plan was to deal with it.

However there was no response and I’m still none-the-wiser. I’m not even better-informed.

We discussed the situation in general and once again I expressed my dismay at the way things have unfolded. I told her that the physiotherapist was concerned about my mobility and she looked surprised. She told me that she would check with the physiotherapist but I doubt whether it will change her opinion any.

While I was at it, I gave her my little speech about if I’m having to come back in 2 weeks I want to see an euthanasist etc etc. That shook her a little but she didn’t seem all that bothered in the end.

It looks to me as if I’m leaving here regardless tomorrow.

Something strange happened later on. Alison came to see me and while we were chatting the doctor saw us. She came in and interrogated Alison about who she was and why she was here. That was what I call extremely bizarre.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, Alison and I used to work together at that extremely bizarre American company, but that’s by the way.

One thing at least that might help a little is that I seem to have shamed them into giving me a blood transfusion. Being let loose to go into the great wide world with a blood count of only 7.8 when the critical level is 8.0 is not a good idea at all and this will explain why I’ve been feeling so bad just recently.

it’s a very far cry from when they let me go for 6 months or so with a blood count approaching 10.0. Whatever the situation is, this Iqymune or whatever they call it isn’t the answer to my problems.

Sure enough, they turned up with some blood later in the evening, and this is the first transfusion that I’ve had for several years..

So now it’s all gone, I’m going to finish listening to this Paul Temple episode that’s currently being broadcast and then I’m going to bed. I need to gather up all of my strength if they really are going to expel me tomorrow.

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Friday 11th November 2022 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER …

… bad, miserable day today. Not quite a relapse but it was the nearest thing to it.

Last night I went to sleep fairly early and slept right the way through until the alarm went off at 06:30. There’s a very vague feeling of being awake at some point but I really couldn’t remember.

After my early morning orange I had a look at the dictaphone. Sure enough, there was a couple of files on there from some point during the night. I awoke in a hospital ward dreaming about having some sprouts fried in butter with mashed potato and a quorn fillet. This dream was so realistic that when I awoke at about I dunno 01:40 I was quite ready to sit up and eat it. The cooking was brilliant and the smell was gorgeous. It was really nice and I was really looking forward to it.

I was up arguing yet again with a group of people, boys and girls, about all kinds of different things. We’d started off somewhere or other and had to walk an enormous distance. It originally began with me being at home, the phone ringing and whoever answered it taking what sounded like a taxi job. She asked me “how long would it take me to get to Rome?”. I thought “at least 3.5 hours” so she told the person and they seemed to accept the time so we had to get the car ready, find a map etc. It was an area of Rome called Dommodossola which is actually a town on the Italian border between Switzerland or Austria or somewhere like that. I had to go to the Rome Railway Station East at Dommodossola in Rome and pick up these people who had been mistakenly told that there was a train north but there wasn’t. This was the only way that they could return home. We took the job and I prepared things and had to set out to walk there. It was a complicated route – we were in these villages and moors and on the fells. One village seemed very much like another, one road seemed like another. We took short cuts through people’s houses. Some kind of argument broke out about something to do with history. I found myself on my own in this village high on the hills on my way to Rome.

On a more depressing and urgent note the battery indicator on my dictaphone has started to flicker, an indication that the batteries are going flat. And the spare batteries and battery charger are still at the Hotel de France in Brussels where I left everything when I was admitted to hospital.

But never mind. I sent an urgent SOS to Alison which she acknowledged.

Yesterday I mentioned that I’d written a letter about the wicked events of yesterday afternoon. This morning the houseman, or housewoman in fact, came by to check up on me. Of course with it being a Bank Holiday in Belgium today there are no specialists or Professors about but I gave my visitor the letter and she promised me that she’d leave it on the desk of her Professor.

As for what happens next we’ll have to see, but if she really did pass it on I’m prepared for a fight. I’m not being treated like that.

That was all of the excitement as far as the medical staff goes. No specialists and no Professors means no examinations so nothing is going to happen until Monday at the earliest. It’ll be a nice relaxing weekend, I hope.

Later in the day Alison turned up. She’d remembered my batteries which was really nice of her. We had a good chat which was also very nice but it’s the last one that we’ll have for a while as she’s off to the UK tomorrow on family business tomorrow for most of next week.

During the course of the day I’ve found myself slipping into the abyss. I’m not sure whether it’s my illness having a little relapse or whether it’s the Black Dog that’s awoken. It might be the former of course but if it’s the latter it’s hardly a surprise with everything that has gone one just recently.

But there was something that brought a smile to my face this evening. When they brought round the evening meal, the lid of the coffee pot – we have little 500 ml thermal coffee pots each -was screwed on so tightly that it took me 5 minutes and quite a wrestle in order to loosen it.

Actually it was one of the young nurses who had screwed it up so tightly and she didn’t look as if she had the strength.

“Woe is me” I thought to myself “that I didn’t have the strength to undo it”.

It reminded me of the story of the man who went to the doctor. “Do you remember the pills that you gave me to give me strength?”
“Ohh yes” replied the doctor. “Did they work?”
“I don’t know” replied the patient. “I can’t get the top off the bottle”.

I’ll get my coat.

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