… no doc … errr … much rocking tonight, people.
Having an 06:00 start in the morning meant for me that I would celebrate it by going to bed at … errr … 04:20 this morning. And to say that I have had one hour and forty minutes of sleep would be overestimating things somewhat.
But as for not needing no doctor, regardless of what Ashford, Simpson and Ashford might have written, I could quite happily find a need that could be filled by this cute little Romanian exchange doctor who is taking care of me. Never mind taking my temperature, she can take all of the rest of me too, back to Galati whenever she leaves.
Anyway, retournons à nos moutons as they say around here, after having finished my notes last night I began to do a few things but ran out of steam and ran out of motivation. That should have been the cue to go to bed but I ran out of energy to raise myself up from my chair, something that seems to be becoming too much of a habit these days.
When I finally did manage to stagger to my feet I realised that I had bread to make. At this time of night! I’d made the dough earlier and it had been sitting there festering so I gave it a second kneading, put it in the mould and left it for a while. In fact, it was a while longer than I intended because I was side-tracked by nothing in particular.
It was quite late (or early) when I finally remembered the bread so I put it in the air fryer, let it bake for half the time, turned it over and left it to finish off. I went into the bedroom and fell into bed, fully-clothed. At 04:20.
Believe it or not, I didn’t go to sleep straight away either. But I must have done at some point because when the alarm went off I was definitely deep in the Arms of Morpheus. And no-one has ever felt less like leaving the bed than I did at 06:00.
In the bathroom I had a good scrub, changed my clothes for clean ones and then went to make my breakfast and to take my medication. Not forgetting the coffee because I certainly needed that. And toast with nice fresh bread too. I’m being spoiled these days, that’s for sure.
As for my book, it’s now nothing but page after page after page of spiteful, catty abuse and insult and had I not been so interested in the subject-matter I would have abandoned it a long time ago. I cannot understand how a reputable firm of publishers like the Clarendon House Press allowed themselves to have their name appended to it.
In fact I was so incensed that I tracked down a copy of the journal in which, in 1909, he announced that he had become a supporter of Wissant, despite his heated abuse. He tells us that "the drift of my argument was that Boulogne was in all respects a more convenient starting point than Wissant and that Caesar … would not have abandoned it in the following year. But for want of information which I found too late, I failed to see that Boulogne … had … one drawback which may have been damning."
Not an apology in aight.
That quote, by the way, is only from an abstract. For access to just one article in a magazine dated May 1909, Cambridge University wants me to pay £24:00 – when all other Universities ae putting their entire catalogue of records on-line for researchers free and for nothing. But regular readers will recall that we have had issues with the incestuous academia of Cambridge University in the past.
There are times, believe me, when I am appalled at this relentless chase for money that seems to be undertaken by some academic institutes. It’s as if the accountants have taken over, which is probably truer than I would care to think. All my research is on-line free and for nothing, and how unhappy was I that some writer in Canada a few months ago expected me to pay good money to see the results of my own research which she had quoted, without the courtesy of sending me a copy.
When I think of the thousands of miles that I have travelled to find it, I have done it for pleasure and for no other reason except that maybe someone might quote my name in a book (and send me a copy of course, which several people have done), shameless self-publicist that I am. There ae links aside for people to use to buy things through, or a link to buy me a virtual coffee, and when someone does I am extremely grateful. But it’s all voluntary and no-one is obliged to pay for anything that I have discovered, unless they are going to make a profit from it themselves.
Meanwhile, abandoning another good rant for the moment, I abandoned my book and went to make my butties. Cheese and tomato on fresh bread should be lovely. However I was interrupted by my faithful cleaner come to fit my patches so I had to go with what I had.
The taxi came for me on time so I had to brave the miserable weather outside to head to the car. And the driver and I had driven for several minutes chatting before I realised that there was someone else already in the car. That was an omelette sur le visage moment.
At the Dialysis Centre there were already several patients there. Apparently it opens at 07:30 and it was 08:15 when I arrived. There was the usual messing-around to connect me, which ended up being only slightly less painful than Saturday, and then a steady stream of visitors prevented me from crashing out too long. It was just the nurses though – my machine was misbehaving all through the session.
They unplugged me a 12:20 or so which was once more fairly painful and then armed with a huge raft of paperwork that I had been given, I headed for the car that was waiting outside
For a change, I was in luck. It was the young blonde driver whom I like. She’d drawn the short straw, so we had a very pleasant, chatty but uneventful drive through the rainstorm and fog.
At Paris, we hit the start of the rush hour and were in one big queue halfway around the Prif until we came off and dodged through the side-streets to the Porte d’Orleans and down the hill to the Land of Grey and Pink.
"Hello, Eric" said the receptionist, which worried me seeing as she hasn’t seen me for seven months and must have seen thousands of patients in between. And when the nurse, the one whose grandfather was an English soldier, repeated the remark I began to worry even more. What did I do last time that made them remember me so vividly?
So I’ve been poked and prodded and examined and questioned and had needles stuck in my arm ready for an intravenous drip at some point. Now, totally exhausted (I’ve fallen asleep three times typing this) I’m off to bed. Tomorrow the examinations start in earnest and amongst other things, I’ll be having a biopsy and a lumbar puncture.
Pray for me
But my fame is spreading, not just in the hospital, but elsewhere. The French President came to see me.
While he was here, news of the visit spread through the city and quite a crowd gathered outside. He went out to wave to them and I followed on behind.
On the TV news later were the televised shots of the scenes here.
Superimposed were the big headlines "Mystery Visit to Paris Hospital"
And underneath was written, in smaller letters "Who was the man with Eric Hall?"
in here too, with everything going on at the edge of the woodland, like the battle between the Riders of Rohan and the Orcs of the White Hand.