Friday 29th December 2017 – AND SO …

… late last night, I crawled off into bed. Feeling like death but I thought that I’d be better in there seeing as there’s more room and it’s more comfortable than the sofa.

It took an age to go off to sleep, having had enough of that to pass the time in the hospital. But when I did, I was really away with the fairies.

We started off back in the family pile in Shavington and I had to leave my bed as a matter of urgence. But in the bathroom, the end of the bath had been smashed off, the toilet was broken and the sink was in pieces. There was water flooding everywhere. I was totally amazed as to all of this. My brother said “didn’t you see the end sheets?”. I didn’t have the first idea of what he meant for a while until it suddenly struck me that he was referring to the work sheets at the end of the day. “We’ll all have a whip-round and fix this” he suggested, but I wasn’t having any of this. I didn’t know what had happened except that it wasn’t anything to do with me.
From there I moved on to my house in Gainsborough Road where I was with my mother. I opened the curtains in the front window and noticed just how untidy everything was (we’re back on this tidiness thing yet again). My mother told me that it would be an idea to take some of the stuff outside so I gathered up a pile of rubbish, put it in some black plastic boxes and took it outside. There I bumped into the big ginger cat – a huge thing, mostly legs like one of the drawings of a Celtic horse in art form. I picked it up and took it inside and showed it to my little sister. She ran off saying that she hated it so I put it down – when immediately one of the other cats leapt on top of it to play with it.
A litle later I was driving along the Calveley Straight on the A51 (although this was actually the North Wales Coast Road) when I saw a low-flying passenger aeroplane fire off a distress rocket. My former friend from Stoke on Trent was driving but before I could draw his attention to it, the aeroplane did a “U-turn”, turned black, and then bright-red bits like lumps of molten metal were falling off it. And then it disappeared from view. By ow he had seen it so we turned off the road to go to where it might have crashed – but just then two cars coming extremely rapidly in opposite directions took off into the air over the brow of a hill and collided head-on in mid air. The crunch was sickening and flying debris knocked over a bride, complete with dress, standing on the street corner. She was covered in blood. The accident had also knocked over a couple of small motorbikes and their drivers were sprawled out in the road. We dashed for the steps (me hopelesssly in the rear) that took us up a hill to where we reckoned the plane had crashed but I was blocked by hordes of people coming down. “We know that you are trying to help” said a man, “but you’re just cluttering up the place”. And then I realised just how stupid this all was. I hate the sight of blood and operations as you know, so what good would i be at an air crash? I couldn’t even go to tend to this bride or the people crawling about all over the place after the road accident.

So having dealt with that marathon, I took my place in the vague direction of the Land of the Living. I was still feeling dreadful and as the Doctor wanted to see me, I phoned for an appointment. It’s not urgent so I took one tomorrow morning.

And as a treat, I managed a bowl of porridge. It took me an hour to eat it and it was disgusting but at least it stayed in. That, I suppose, is progress.

I had to go round to the hospital aterwards. To take the details of my Health Insurance. And surprisingly enough, I felt a little better being out in the cold windy air. But then again, it’s hard to feel worse.

At the hospital I was pushed from pilar to post but eventually found the correct people who, much to my surprise, were quite helpful. Certainly the best financiers tht I’ve met so far on my perambulations around the various French hospitals. I suppose that being a seaside resort they are more used to foreign visitors with strange Insurance details.

What was even more helpful was that they opened a file for me “for future use”. I imagine that I might need it.

On the way back, I called at the Casino for a few more bits and pieces and then came home. Despite it being warm in here, by 15:30 I was tucked up under the quilt asleep.

Later in the evening I was feeling a little better – to such an extent that I made some tomato soup from a packet. Despite spilling a good proportion of it on the hob, I managed a couple of mugs of it – which even stayed down. And I even finished off with a soya dessert.

So tomorrow is another day. I feel better with some food (such as it is) and I hope that I can keep up tomorrow. Meantime we’ll see what the doctor has to say.

Thursday 28th December 2017 – JUST FOR A COUPLE …

… of hours this afternoon I was in hospital.

I’d had something of a reasonable night given the circumstances. I was in Brussels back on my theme of untidy places and there was a street that needed cleaning up as it was full of littler. But when I arrived, it had all been cleared and there was some Arab woman sitting in an old black bus looking very pleased with herself as if she had done it. So I moved on round the corner and there was another coach there advertising tour. I climbed aboard and someone already on board closed off half of the coach to stop me going farther down. I made a few enquiries and he eventually condescended to tell me about the trip. It wasn’t going to be doing anything that I didn’t know about so I declined and stepped out.
Shortly later I was back again with a coach, an old Ford R1114 that I had bought for a project which had never really seen much of the light of day and we were all camping in the compound around it. Someone asked me if I had any gravy browning so I went on board the coach to see and grubbing around, found Christmas lights still plugged in and illuminated, a couple of dolls. All of this got me thinking that I’d never tidy out all of this and my investment such as it was, was going completely to waste.

I waited until 09:00 and then phoned up the doctor’s. They offered me an appointment for 12:00 which gave me some time to clean up, have a shower and to collect a few things together.

It was a struggle to the doctor’s but I was seen bang-on midday. And by 13:00 I was in the hospital at Granville. And by 13:30 I was being attended to. Imagine that in the UK!

Eventually they decided against keeping me in. The doctor who saw me hopes that a change in the antibiotic will stop the nausea and make me feel more like eating, but that’s not really the point. I’d stopped eating before I had the nausea.

On the way back I went to LIDL for more water and things like like that. And I was lucky enough to find a pharmacy still open just around the corner.

So now I’m back here, still on the sofa, still not eating but at least I have some of this multivitamin drink – if only I can keep it down.

They gave me a letter to give to the doctor so I’ll have a go at delivering it tomorrow. See what he has to say about it all.

Wednesday 27th December 2017 – I WAS RIGHT …

… last night about having a relapse last night, that’s for sure.

But first, having had a really early night I was well away with the fairies.

I was on an Arctic expedition last night – but not one that was doing anyone any credit. There were two camps – the advanced camp and the upport camp and they were both beset in the ice. The advancced camp was having a great deal of difficulty, being ice-bound as it was and was badly in need of support and supplies. However these were unlikely to come from the support camp which was organised in a totally chaotic manner and nothing was moving forward. I spend most of my time shuttling between the two, trying to see if I could hustle things along. But without any effect. And when sponsors started to reclaim their equipment I knew that the writing was on the wall for everyone.
After a little break involving a trip down the corridor and something to drink, I was back again. Living i extremely straightebed circumstances in a derelict shed full of waste and rubbish, rather like my barn in France. There was an old van in there and there was another couple – someone I knew from University in fact – living in it with his girlfriend. She needed to go to the bathroom, and so did I, so I offered to take her but the guy who was rather possessive refused to let her. So I asked if I could come through his van to leave the building rather than fighting my way all around. After I’d set foot out of the building she came – he’d agreed to let her go. She was carrying a ironing board and something else that needed to be delivered, both of which were to somewhere up in the Middlewich Street area of Crewe, one of which was an Indian takeaway. But I couldn’t remember where these places were which was rather bizarre.

I was awake fairly early but in no real hurry to leave the bed. I didn’t manage any breakfast though but nevertheless drifted along with the morning doing a little of this and a little of that.

The big mistake was making myself a bowl of soup in the early afternoon. I didn’t manage to drink much of it – and about an hour later back it came. And that was that.

It wasn’t much later that I went to fetch the quilt and the pillow – and there I spent the rest of the day – and the night too – flat out on the sofa hardly moving.

But the cough is back in spades again, and so is the nausea and vomiting. I’m just going to drift into graceful oblivion and if I’m feeling up to it, I’ll be back at the doctor’s tomorrow.

I just can’t go on like this.

Tuesday 26th December 2017 – PHEW!

What a night!

It’s been a long time since anything like this has happened. Years, in fact. I was still sitting up wide-awake at 04:00 and I’ve no idea why.

But I was eventually in bed and started off at the leaving ceremony and prize-giving of my old school. And how we trashed it! Not in any serious, major way of course but we did rather run riot, altering the script into a series of double-entendres, puns, spoonerisms all kinds of things. Having fun changing round the prizes and all of that. Nothing too extreme but exactly as I had planned it back in 1972 and which was vetoed by everyone else as being rather over the top (well, it WAS a rather conservative school).
But from there I moved on into the rather exalted realms of royalty. And it really was one of those absurd dreams where we were all living in stables, tipping oats into cars to feed horses and the like yet wining and dining in luxury. Everyone was wearing coffee carafes around their necks and I actually overfilled the carafe of one of the princes, almost drowing him much to the amusement of his partner but not to him of course. And in the middle of all of this I was using the telephone to send some faxes, spread out all across a road and blocking some young girl in a car. While I was clearing a path she ended up talking to one of these royal people and was impressed that home decoration articles could be ordered in this way so she came over to make further enquiries. Once I’d finished, I found out that I had to go round to the NWF offices in Nantwich to pick up the copy of my faxes – but then the idea entered my head was that I needed to be there first before a representative from the Royal family arrived to take away all of the faxes, and even if I were there first, would I be allowed to search through the Royal Family faxes to find those that I had sent?

All of the foregoing took me up until, would you beieve, 11:45 in the morning. And when was the last time that I’d had a lie-in quite like that?

Of course, all of this makes me running late, but then again it’s not as if I have too many other things to bother me, do I? I ended up for a while having a nice relaxing afternoon on the sofa, not doing much at all.

This afternoon’s walk was exciting. The wind has sprung up and it was rather absurd out there. I had to keep well away from the cliff edge and there were times when I wasn’t sure if it was prefereable to turn back and seek shelter. But the promise of a hot chocolate at the end of the journey dove me along.

But a weird thing later.

The wind dropped somewhat so I went out for my evening walk, but at a certain moment I was overwhenlmed with fatigue. To such an extent that I really struggled to make it back home.

Straight to bed – without even my second hot chocolate – and I promptly crashed out.

Am I heading for a relapse?

Monday 25th December 2017 – MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

If you’ve made it this far then you are all doing very well and I’m impressed. I’m also grateful that you’ve kept on reading. It’s something to help your turkey slide down the digestive tract.

As for me, last night I almost fell asleep in the middle of watching a film. So I crawled myself off to bed. And aftr an hour or so I awoke and started to have another one of these nuit blanches. Strangely enough I didn’t feel at al bad about it – and that’s a change.

Somewhere during the night I did drop off, and went off on one of my rambles. And we had a couple of strange people either making their acting debuts or first appearances for a considerable length of time.

I was back running my taxis again. And on Saturday mornings when I was having a lie-in the telephone was manned by Wendy (wherever did she spring from?) and Simon came in for a couple of hours to deal with breakdowns and do a little mechanical work. I’d been assembling a kind of breakdown kit and even cobbled together an old Jeep Patriot kitted out with emergency stuff for him. BUt when I came downstairs he hadn’t come in to work. So I rang him to ask where he was, and he gave me a list of things that he’d been doing instead. Clearly he had no intention of coming in to work again. So I explained that he was free to go if he liked, but I would have appreciated a little notice so that I could have made other arrangement.
I was also in Canada during the night. I’d booked a room in a motel and they knew that I didn’t intend to arive until the small hours. And so I turned up at about 03:00, was given the key to the room looking forward to crashing out in it straight away – and it was filthy; Hadn’t been cleaned for a month and someone had even tried to light a fire in it, leaving cinders and charred wood all over the place. Even worse than that Motel 6 in North Virginia.

Although I woke up on several occasions during the night, it was at about 09:30 when I arose from my bed. And after my medication I sent out a whole stream of cheery greetings to people on the internet.

One or two of the sites on my social networking were running a couple of quizzes so I passed a very entertaining morning, punctuated only by a pause for breakfast.

The paté that I had bought for Christmas lunch – it wasn’t mushroom paté at all. I’d made a mistake. I remembered that they had none, so I had bought garlic and fine herb paté instead. Nevertheless, it was equally delicious on hot buttered toast, and I ate rather a large amount of it.

I’m glad that I had bought that toaster when I first moved in here.

Apart from that, I’ve nibbled some biscuits, some clementines, some swets and a bar of chocolate-covered marzipan.

Pride of place goes, though, without saying, to the Christmas cake.

I don’t have many friends, but those that I have are the best in the wld – quality before quantity of course – and Liz has done me proud once again this year.

Her Christmas cake is absolutely delicious. Each year it gets better and better. So good health to you, Liz.

I’ve braved the hurricanes and been out for my two walks this afternoon – and merited my two mugs of home-made hot chocolate. More than you will ever know in fact because at one point in the proceedings I was actually running down the street chasing after my hat that had Gone With The Wind. That was totally unexpected – I haven’t really run for anything for over two years and didn’t know that I still could.

Mind you, the way that I’m out of breath, I’m not sure that I can.

Final word tonight must go on the perfidy of the internet.

You’ll remember that my web browser did a real mega-upgrade at the start of the month and dumped a pile of developers and their add-ons, including my much-loved *.ftp add-on.

And how I was left high and dry without a *.ftp program for a whole three and a half weeks.

And how I spent all afternoon in a relentless (and untimately successful) attempt to program my web server?

So today, a group of developers has launched an ultra-slimmed-down web browser using the Open Source code of the browser that dropped them, and many of the dropped code modules seamed straight in. I gave it a try and my *.ftp module was picked up immediately.

It’s called Waterfox and from what I’ve seen so far, it’s the fastest browser that I’ve ever seen. No bells, no whistles, just what I want.

There will probably be a few problems to overcome but as long as it handles my file uploads seamlessly like it seems to be doing, it will be fine by me.

Sunday 24th December 2017 – BY THE TIME …

… that you read this, you are probably all grouped around the Christmas tree grappling with the wrapping on your Christmas presents.

For those of you in North America and places west, you’re probably sitting down with a glass of something after having helped Santa spread all of the kids’ presents around under the branches.

Whatever your situation right now, I hope that you are making the most of it and that Santa has been kind to you.

For me, it’s a slightly different situation in that withut my bank cards I haven’t been able to purchase the things that I wanted for myself – or for anyone else either. I hope that I can organise all of this at some time in the near future otherwise it’s likely to become embarrassing.

Luckily, there were the twelve cans of alcohol-free beer at €0:25 each, and the peach-flavoured variety (the one that I’ve tackled to date) is extremely delicious.

It was a late night last night and a decent sleep, without sweating noticeably. And, I’m rather surprised to say it, a nice lie-in until almost 10:00 too.

So a late start meant that everything else was late too. Breakfast wasn’t until almosst 11:00, and lunch (I finished off yesterday’s delicious soup with some more bread) at 14:30.

A walk around the headland in the slight drizzle amongst the other couple of dozen people braving the weather – that cleared a few cobwebs.

And I walked round to the church to see if there was a carol service this evening. Something is going on at 22:30 his evening, so I made a mental note.

This evening, I managed to nibble a few things down – biscuits, clementines and that kind of thing. And I’ve put the time to profitable use too. With having no *.ftp program since my web browser streamlined its services, I’ve been configuring the control panel on my domain server for each of my websites to do the job.

It’s nothing like as user-friendly or as intuitive as the old web browser add-on and I soon saw why I abandoned it. But with no other course open to me right now I couldn’t think of an alternative plan. So pressing on and persevering, I’ve eventually managed to make it work and that must be something of a triumph.

At 22:15 I went for a lap around the walls and ended up at the church for 22:30. Not going in, I loitered outside to hear the music and singing but it wasn’t a carol service – an ordinary church mass and so I came home instead.

Two mugs of my home-made chocolate drink – one after each walk. And I remembered that I had a little coconut cream left fo I added that into the mixture. It made it quite richer too.

And I had a little relapse too. Asleep for half an hour round by 18:00.

So with not much going on in tha way of Christmas tomorrow, I’ll have an early night and another lie-in. I’m eyeing up some mushroom paté on toast for a breakfast treat tomorrow and that will be nice if I can swallow it down.

Saturday 23rd December 2017 – IF YOU’LL TAKE MY ADVICE …

… there’s nothing so nice
as sitting down on the sofa after a nice healthy walk, with a nice hot mug of hot chocolate, home-made with real patisserie chocolate.

Take a small saucepan
add an egg-cup of water and heat very slowly
add four squares of patisserie chocolate
stir the chocolate rapidly as the water slowly heats, so that the chocolate melts into a nice runny liquid (add a little more water if necessary).
just as the chocolate mix is on the point of boiling (whatever you do, DON’T let it boil) very slowly add two mugs full of milk, of whatever flavour of milk you like. I had soya milk, but coconut or almond milk is equally delicious, and even cow’s milk is good too.
Keep stirring rapidly and just as the mixture comes to the boil, pour half of it into a mug and sit down and enjoy it.
Save the rest for when you come back from your walk later in the evening.
Just remember to keep on stirring it while you slowly reheat it

I had a late night last night. And even so, I wasn’t in the least bit tired. 02:30 and I was still awake. It just goes to show about this infection- I must have had it for weeks. And how quickly it has seemed to improve.

By 08:30 I was wide awake though, and I found the bed to be saturated. No, Rhys! Not what you are thinking! All down my back. I must have sweated like a horse during the night in some kind of fever.

But having said that, I managed a proper breakfast for once – without the coffee though. I’m still not up to trying for that right now. And the breakfast made me feel much better too.

And the clementines! I’ve had a good attack on those today. And quite right too. it’s what Christmas is all about – free rein on a tray of the aforementioned.

During my illness I’ve let a few things go and so I’ve spent the morning doing some catching up. One or two important issues have arisen due to the loss of my bank cards the other week and they needed some attention. And someone else wanted a photo of mine.

My photos seem to be in some demand right now. In fact, one of mine of the Mohne Dam will be exhibited in a display in Reculver next Spring in celebration of the “bouncing bomb” of Barnes Wallis.

For lunch, I prepared a litre of this minestrone and olive oil soup that I had bought from Casino yesterday. Half of that went down very nicely too, and I even managed some bread with it. I’m definitely feeling a little better.

Having relaxed, I walked into town to the Carrefour. I wanted some soya milk for my hot chocolate, and I also picked up some falafel and – shame as it is to admit it, a Christmas tree. Well, a lump of log in a pot with a little bushy Christmas tree thing growing out of it.

And once more I bumped into the bank manager, and we had another lengthy chat. My account must be well in credit, that’s all that I can say.

But down in town there was a most unusual … errr … animal roaming the streets.

A giant rabbit was a-wandering around the street, carrying a man in its arms. Stopping to chat to almost everyone who had the time of day to pass, it was an immense attraction with the young kiddies of the area.

It seems that Strawberry Moose
and I aren’t the only ones with esoteric tastes

Back here I set up my little Christmas Tree thing, found the fairy lights that I had bought the other week and I now have Chrsitmas dcorations of some kind here in the apartment. And isn’t this decadence?

Whatever next?

No tea again though. My appetite might be improving, but not to that extent. Instead, later on, I went for another walk. The first evening walk since Sunday. And that made me feel much better too. What was even nicer was the hot chocolate when I returned.

So nw I’ll do the washing up and then go to bed. I’ve decided not to have an alarm until after New Year. Give me a chance to regroup, build up my strength and take it easy for a while.

And I can’t say that I don’t deserve it.

Friday 22nd December 2017 – WHAT A DIFFERENCE …

… a day makes.

24 hours ago I was at death’s door. I don’t think that I’d ever felt so ill.

I’d crawled off to bed early, consoled myself with one of my favourite films of all times, Casino Royale, the version starring David Niven and one with a whole raft of jokes running through it that would never ever be tolerated in the politically-correct environment of today’s United Kingdom.

And if that couldn’t cheer me up, then nothing could. And so I lay there desperately hoping that I could drop off to sleep, or that I would be struck by a thunderbolt, or the earth would swallow me up.

This clearly wasn’t going very well, so at about 03:00 I set the alarm for 08:30. Now that I had finally decided to go to the doctor’s, it would be rather a shame if I were to fall asleep and miss it.

And fall asleep I must have done, because I was off on my travels. Somewhere in mainland Europe in World War II dealing with escaping Prisoners of War. The Germans were actively looking for them and so we had hidden them in some small bulkhead rooms in this Navy destroyer. They started to have a good search of the ship and I realised that I hadn’t chosen a good place because there was no escape route from these rooms. Trying to think of a solution, one of my assistants came up with the idea that if we were to say nothing and the Germans might not notice them. And even if they did, they might not make the connection.

The alarm awoke me (so it was just as well that I had set it) and I struggled into the living room for my medication. No breakfast again, but I did manage to stagger into the shower.

I could stagger down to Caliburn and we had an exciting time driving to the doctor’s. I definitely wasn’t really up to doing that. But it’s a good choice, this doctor’s, because it’s on the bus route and there’s a chemist’s within a short walk.

By the time that I arrived I was in agony, but the doctor gave me a good going-over. Apparently I have one of the worst cases of bronchitis that he has ever seen. He gave me two options – a course of medication or 8 daily injections in my rear end. No prizes for guessing which I chose!

Having to obtain some more money from the Bank (thanks to this temporary bank card from Fortis Bank) I went for the medication from the pharmacie. And this is going to work out to be expensive, this health issue.

Just round the corner is the Casino supermarket so I called in for a tray of Clementines (Christmas isn’t complete without a tray of Celemntines to attack) and a loaf of bread to freeze. After all, I’ll be starting to eat again someday soon, maybe.

Back here, I had the first helping of the medication. And much to my astonishment, it wasn’t all that long before I could feel an improvement. To such an extent that I polished off the rest of the soup from yesterday. And that made me feel even better.

As a result, seeing that I don’t have any leeks, I went out again to the Casine and picked some up, along with a bag of mixed nuts, a pile of water (I’m almost out) and a couple of other things too. And, for the first time for almost a week, I almost felt a spring in my step.

This evening I’ve nibbled on a few things. I’m still not up to a cooked meal but who knows what I’ll be feeling like tomorrow.

But the problem is that I’m not much of a one for doctors. I’ve always been a believer in building up my own immune system to fight off illnesses and ben prepared to suffer for a few days in the process. I’m finding it difficult to come to terms with the idea that since my splenectomy in January 2016 I no longer have an immune system.

I’ll just have to get over it.

And I’ve not crashed out once today, or retreated under the quilt, and it’s 23:00. I must be feeling better?

Thursday 21st December 2017 – I’VE FINALLY BITTEN …

… the bullet and I’ve arranged a doctor’s appointment for tomorrow morning.

After last night, I was feeling rather better this morning. But to tell you how bad things really are, it took almost 2.5 hours of film on the laptop before I managed to fall asleep. I’m clearly not well, am I?

I’d been on my travels too – down Coleridge Way in Crewe. And when I say “down”, I mean about 30 feet down because it was all under water. A couple of trips down there at various epochs, comparing the cars that were parked there – like “N” reg Marinas, that kind of thing.

No alarm, but I was still awake quite early. Not that this meant that I left the bed early of course. More like 08:30 in fact.

It took me ages to summon up the force to leave the sofa for my medication, and it goes without saying that I declined breakfast. I was back on the sofa again.

For lunch, I made a litre of packet soup and managed to drink a couple of mugs. But that’s left a horrible, metallic taste in my mouth that I can’t shift.

There was still the question of picking up my medication so round about 15:00 I crawled into town. A baguette from the bouangerie (to go in the freezer with the other one) and some little bits and pieces from the Coccinelle. And then the medication.

The walk back up here was a nightmare. I fet weak and dizzy and had to sop every couple of hundred yards. Definitely the worst trip that I’ve ever made back here. That was what made up my mind to see the doctor.
“Is it an emergency?” asked the receptionist
I explained the circumstances.
“I can’t fit you in before 10:15 tomorrow” she said.
Imagine that in the UK?

And then I crashed out on the sofa.

Rosemary rang later and we had a little chat. Only a little one, because I’m not feeling so well right now. But by 18:00 I had succumbed, and went to fect the pillow and quilt.

I managed to force down some dry biscuits later, but without any real enjoyment. And now I’m going back to bed.

I wonder what the doctor will have to say tomorrow.

Wednesday 20th December 2017 – IT HASN’T …

… become any easier or better today. In fact, I’ve probably hit rock-bottom today.

The nadir of it all was when I didn’t eveb have the strength to take the top off a bottle of pop. That’s enough to make anyone feel ill.

I had a nuit blanche last night, which is hardly a surprise seeing the amount of sleep that I had yesterday. I cancelled the alarms but even so, I was still awake at alarm-going-off time.

Mind you, it wasn’t until about 07:45 that I left my bed. I took my quilt and pillow with me and moved to install myself on the sofa as soon as I had taken my medication.

I had a slight interruption though with a major attack of nausea. That was the worst one to date, and it floored me completely. I should have gone out later to pick up the medication that had been ordered yesterday, but there was no chance of that the way I was feeling.

Instead, I’ve spent all day on the sofa asleep. Although I did manage to force down a bowl of porridge during te course of the morning.

One thing that I have done which hasn’t helped matters at all is that I’ve coughed so much that I’ve pulled a muscle in my chest. And I’m in agony whenever I cough.

US Granville were playing their final match of the season tonight and I had every intention of being there. But no chance of that. I’m going to bed – to sleep for ever I hope.

I wish that I was dead.

Tuesday 19th December 2017 – TODAY HAS BEEN …

… just about the worst day of my illness so far.

I’d managed something of a reasonable sleep too, and even been on my travels again. I was back in an office where I had worked at one time and I suddenly realised that I was now over retirement age and still working – and no-one had said anything. I therefore decided to hand in my notice, to take effect in 6 weeks time at the end of May. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that this is something of a recurring theme in my nocturnal rambles.

The alarms went off at the usual time but it was … errr … somewhat later that I crawled out of my stinking pit. I managed to take my medicaments but didn’t have breakfast. And if I’m off my food, you’ll know that things are serious.

Later in the morning I had a phone call. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few weeks ago the Bank Manager had told me that there was a form that needed signing. And so he phoned me to arrange an appointment.

I need to go to the Bank about my missing cards, and I also need to go to the pharmacie for some more medication. So I struggled into the bathroom and plucked up the courage to have a shower. And I felt a little better after that. But only a little.

And so I braved the outdoors. At least it was a bright, sunny day even if it was cold and I made it to the bank. And to the boulangerie, and to the pharmacie. And I have to go out tomorrow too becausehe didn’t have all of my medication and needed to order some.

Back here, I had a hot blackcurrant and lemon drink, and then I was stark out on the sofa until … errr … 20:00.

However, I had awoken at some point, and even managed to eat one of the sandwiches left over from yetserday. And later, I had a packet of crisps and some peanuts.

So things might slowly be improving. Mind you, we mustn’t count our chickens and, to be honest, they couldn’t be much worse.

I’m off to bed, and I hope that I can sleep, and I hope that tomorrow will be better.

Monday 18th December 2017 – TODAY …

… wasn’t much beter than yesterday, unfortunately.

It started off well enough though, with me being wide-awake at 04:35 which is no real surprise given the amount of sleep that I had had yesterday.

Nevertheless, I didn’t move out of my bed until the alarm went off at 06:00, and then after breakfast I managed to find some little enthusiasm from somewhere.

But you can tell that I’m not myself at all though. I couldn’t finish all my lunch and I’ve had no tea either. And if I’m off my food you know that things aren’t right.

By 16:00 I’d had enough though and I fetched the quilt cover and pillow. And there I lay on the sofa until about 20:15.

I’d been on my travels too. During the night I’d been to MoT Caliburn in Belgium. The control was in two parts, and he passed the first part. There was someone dispensing diesel out of a big jerry-can and I managed to negotiate 5 gallons. From there, I had to go into another room for the second part of the check, and it was another large room in this filthy, dirty warehouse type of place, full of old cars. Nothing moved for half an hour so I went for a wander down. I found that I had been waiting in the wrong room because everything else was proceeding quite normally in a different room.

But I’d been on my travels during the evening too. I was on one of my trips to the USA and I’d been for a meal. It was now late but still quite warm and light. My route home took me past the local girls’ college where the female baseball team pitchers were practising. The field was quite rough so the ball was bouncing haphazardly and that made it interesting. I was lying on the field watching, next to a young black girl, who suddenly realised that she had lost the loaf of bread she had bought. So we had a good look for it, but couldn’t find it. I went into the bar to buy a soft drink – which was delicious – and then took it outside to carry on watching in the evening sun. I heard the PA announcer having fun with her announcements for student messages, and the subject of accommodation for hire came up. This gave me an idea about how I could have some even better holidays so I made a mental note.

Now I’m off to bed – another early night. I have to go into town tomorrow so I really do hope that I’m feeling better.

Sunday 17th December 2017 – I’VE HAD A …

… horrible day today.

Easily the worst that I’ve had for quite some considerable time.

With it Sunday and being a lie-in, I was disappointed to be awake at 05:45. And so I tried my best to go back to sleep, despite a nip to the bathroom and a bad attack of cramp on the way.

Despite all of this, I must have been to sleep for I was on my travels. Wandering around the streets of New York City where, instead of parking meters, there were lockable storage boxes where you could leave your things while you were walking about.

But when I finally crawled out of bed at 09:00 I was feeling totally awful. It took me a while to eat my breakfast and then I had to have a sit-down.

I couldn’t stay seated for long – there’s a few things that I need for food and the supermarket in town is open on a Sunday morning so regardless of how I was feeling, I went shopping.

Down at the Coccinelle I bought what I needed and then, seeing as there was a brocante going on, I went through for a brows. But there was nothing at all worth my while.

It was a struggle back up the hill to here, and after a hot blackcurrant, I sat down on the sofa and crashed out.An hour later, I was awake, and still not feeling good, so I fetched a pillow and the quilt from the bedroom an sorted myself out on the sofa.

And there I stayed, flat-out until 20:00. I was feeling dreadful.

It’s 22:00 now and I’m slowly feeling a little better. I’m going to bed anyway now and seeing if I can have an early night. I’ll take a film with me anyway to make sure I go off to sleep.

And I hope that I’ll feel better in the morning.

Saturday 16th December 2017 – AND AS BARRY HAY …

… once famously said – “there’s one thing that I want to tell you, man, and that it’s goof to be back home”.

Mind you, I nearly didn’t make it, because I didn’t have a very good day.

Sherlock Holmes – or rather Arthur Wontner – did the trick last night. I managed about 2 minutes of the film before I was away with the fairies. All of my walking – 155% of my daily exercise – had seen to that.

Mind you – if I do lay my hands on the person who decided that it would be fun to slam all of the doors in the building at 04:18 this morning he would be someone else who will be drinking soup through a straw for the foreseeable future.

None of that prevented me from going off on my travels though. I was in some kind of warehouse plece with a few other people chasing after a long-haired cat – a black mangy type of animal – with the intention of stroking it. But it disappeared from my view and I couldn’t remember what it was that I was supposed to be chasing and found myself chasing after a large wasp. Just imagine trying to give that a stroke!

This morning I wasn’t feeling so good. I had a bad attack of nausea that made me quite unsteady on my feet. But I managed to calm myself down intime to go searching for a bakkerei. I trawled the streets for 15 minutes before I found a supermarket, and only realised on the way back that had I turned right out of the alley instead of left, the first door in that direction would have sold me a baguette.

I made my butties for the journey but had run out of time so no shower – I can wait until I return home for that.

The train to Brussels was pretty uneventful but the bad news there was that to catch the earlier train would have cost me an extra €46:00. That’s not part of the plan at all so I sat down quietly in a very cold, draughty waiting area and read my book for a while.

The Thalys was one of the older generation of trains with everything manual and I couldn’t make the wi-fi work. But that’s not the end of the world at all really. I have plenty of other things to do.

Apart from visiting the bathroom I slept almost all of the way to Paris, and then I managed to cross Paris on the metro without any incident – and isn’t that a change for just recently?

The walk down the platform to Vaugirard was pretty uneventful, except that some woman was urging her mother on, in the most ungracious terms, to hurry for the train. Mummy was about 80 and so this situation brought back some memories from a previous existence.

They missed their train but there was another one in half an hour so they had to run all the way back to the ticket office to swap tickets and then run all the way back.

The look of despair on this old woman’s face was something that I shan’t ever forget.

But Vaugirard was packed out completely. I’ve never seen it so busy. Apparently it’s school holidays starting today. I grabbed a seat in the waiting room next to a nice girl who was going to Granville from Martinique for Christmas – the last seat available. We had quite a chat and I had to fight people out of her seat when she nipped to the bathroom.

The train was packed to the gunwhales with people and once again, I slept most of the way back. But on the station I bumped into my girl from the waiting room and I wished her a Merry .

Then began the long trudge back here.

It was cold in here, which is no surprise, but I had the heating on full blast while I watched Bangor City beat Cefn Druids on the laptop. The little laptop because the big one decided that it would do an upgrade as soon as I switched it on, and that took hours.

Tea was once more out of a tin, and then I went for a walk – for no good reason other than the fact that I was at 89% of my daily activity. I might as well wind it up to 100% – as it has been for every day this week.

Now it’s an early night. i’ll watch a film too. That seems to be working well right now.

Friday 15th December 2017 – WHAT AN EXCITING …

… football match that was!

OH Leuven were playing SK Lierse, the team at the top of the table. It was a freezing night but everyone who entered the ground was given a Santa hat and a free glass of glühwein (I declined mine) so we were all in the festive spirit.

OHL played the best that I had seen them play for quite some considerable time and were a deserved 2-0 up at half-time. Their left-winger, this guy Storm who they signed from KV Oostende, was tearing them to shreds down the left flank. He didn’t know what to do with the ball when he got to the bye-line but at least he was keeping the SK Lierse defence busy.

But the result was inevitable. He received one kick too many and after 75 minutes he hobbled from the field. A few minutes later OH Leuven were effectively down to 10 men. Casagolda, the centre-forward, had also been the vistil of a few heavy challenges and he received one too many. With no more substitutes, he had to hobble on but was clearly out of the game.

This took the presssure off the Lierse defence and they could push much further forward. They inevitably scored a goal late in the game but Leuven hung on to win.

Last night, I settled down to watch a Boris karloff “Mr Wong” film – and that had the desired effect. Out in 30 seconds. And off to Gresty Road outside the Alexandra Social Club where I was with a couple of people watching this young boy and young girl looking for a place where they could get up to no good. “It’s a shame about there being no tress to hide behind here in the Arctic” said one of the people – and only anyone who has ever stood on the windswept car park between the Social Club and Jail House on the corner will ever understand the connection.

After breakfast I headed up to the bus station for the bus to Everberg and the English shop. I wanted my mince pies and Christmas pudding.

The bus ws jam-packed with kids – I’ve no idea where they were going. Nor had I any real idea where I was going but once I saw somewhere tha I realised, I alighted and walked the rest of the way, only to find that there was a bus stop right outside.

I found what i wanted (no Dandelion and Burdock though – I’ll have to make do with fiery Ginger – but the woman in front of me spent over €170 on things like sliced bread, jams and so on-everything typically British. It rather defeats the point of living abroad if you do that.

On the way back I picked up some bread and tomatoes and made myself a butty with the cheese from yesterday, and that was followed by a little doze.

Later, I headed into town to look at the Christmas lights at this end of town and to visit the Christmas market now that I worked out where it was.

And also down to Hema. I want a very small saucepan for doing sauces and the like and they had one to match another saucepan that i bought from there. €11:00 reduced to €8:80 so I’m very happy with that.

Later on I was off to the football, and found another fritkot across the road from the nick. Their fritjes were excellent and I’ll go there again.

But forst i’m going to bed. I’ve had a very hectic day.

EPIC HALL

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