Tuesday 20th May 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… a lovely afternoon out this afternoon. A nice drive out in the sun with a chatty, pleasant driver, all the way down to Avranches for a scan.

And then a nice drive home ditto, having been told that the scan had been cancelled by the doctor. What a shame that the doctor never thought to let the ambulance company and me know before we upset everyone.

It seems that my run of bad luck that I mentioned yesterday is continuing into today.

Last night I was thoroughly and completely exhausted after another gruelling dialysis session. It was a real struggle to finish my notes and to do everything else that I needed to do before going to bed, and I was out on my feet.

It was late when I ended up in bed too, not too far short of midnight despite all of my best efforts. And I don’t even remember going to sleep. I must have crashed out immediately.

And during the night, I remember nothing at all. It must have been one of the deepest, heaviest sleeps that I have had for quite some considerable time. Having said that though, nothing in the foregoing prevented me from being awake at … errr … 06:15, just to keep up the tradition of an early start.

When the alarm went off at 07:00, I was in the kitchen sorting out the medication, having already dealt with the bathroom situation. And it’s certainly true, what they say about these new calcium tablets. I have proof.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone, and found that there was nothing on it at all. That left me with somewhat mixed feelings. Part of me was grateful for having had a really deep, undisturbed sleep for once, but the other part of me was disappointed. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only excitement that I seem to have these days is what happens during the night – and that doesn’t sound quite right, does it?

Instead, I found a few things to do although my heart wasn’t really in it. I wasn’t feeling too well this morning for some reason.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in to start her week on duty. And breezed out again just as promptly. "I can’t stop" she said. "There are people waiting for me down at the office".

Yes, it’s her first day back, so all of the people who have postponed their injections and blood tests over the last week are now clamouring to be caught up.

After she left, I made breakfast, not that I was feeling much like it, and read some more of MY BOOK.

Our whistle-stop tour is continuing and, after passing by a couple of somewhat minor piles, we’ve arrived at Penrith Castle. But there doesn’t seem to be much to see there either, so I suppose that we shan’t be there for long.

The history of many of these places is interesting, but that’s not why I’m reading the book. I’m here for the military architecture and in that I’m disappointed. It’s just becoming an endless, repetitive litany of mullions, corbels, pilasters and architraves.

After breakfast I checked over my Welsh homework and sent it off to be marked. It came back with a "excellent as usual" which took me quite by surprise. I often think that I wouldn’t mind a sip of whatever our tutor has in her water bottle.

The preparation for the lesson passed well enough and I was surprised by how much I – well, didn’t know, but could make a reasonably-accurate guess. Mind you, the subject this week is the story of Saint David and seeing as I have been spending an awful lot of time just recently reading about the Sixth Century, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I could probably have written the article myself.

As for the lesson itself, it passed really well and I was quite pleased with it. However, I learned something new today that had nothing to do with my lesson, and that is for all my talk about rubbing shoulders with rock stars when I used to drive my sound engineer around, one of my classmates is related to DJ “Spot On” John Morris and was chatting at his funeral to PJ Proby and also Uli John Roth of The Scorpions.

After the lesson was over I went and had a disgusting drink break and then prepared myself for my scan.

It’s a good job that I did too because the taxi was early. And we had a lovely, chatty drive down to Avranches and the hospital.

It was there that I was told that my appointment had been cancelled. And cancelled on the 8th of April too, the day after I walked out of the hospital after having discharged myself. So if this is someone’s idea of a joke or an act of petty revenge, then I am not impressed at all.

It’s not that I mind them cancelling my appointments, but more the fact that they don’t tell me and, even worse, don’t tell the taxi company. I can’t afford to be in their bad books. Still, it was a lovely drive out and a lovely drive back with pleasant company.

My cleaner was waiting for me and watched as I made my weary way upstairs. Not too long to go now before I plan on moving. I’ve decided that even if I can’t find a plumber and an electrician, then as long as I have the basic kitchen installed, I shall go with that and like it for now.

Tea tonight was a delicious taco roll, with loads of stuffing remaining for a leftover curry tomorrow. But I need to think about emptying the freezer at some point, although it won’t be long before that’s a thing of the past when I eventually have my new fridge-freezer. There will be tons of room in the new set-up, but I bet that it won’t take me too long to fill it.

But I can worry about that again because right now I’m going to have an early night, even though this is the least tired that I have felt at this time of night for quite a while. That good sleep last night really did do me some good.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about pointless journeys … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the guy who went into the ticket office of Crewe Railway Station.
"I’d like a return ticket, please" he asked
"Certainly, sir" replied the clerk. "Where to?"
"Why, back here, of course."

Monday 19th May 2025 – IT’S NOT OFTEN …

… that I have a sense of humour meltdown, but today has been one of those days, right enough. Nothing that I have done seems to have gone as it should.

Last night’s activities set the scene somewhat for today’s disasters. What with the football and everything, I ended up being really late going to bed when I could really have done with going to bed early.

Once in bed though, I can’t remember all that much. I have the vaguest memory of waking up, noticing that it was still dark and so going beck to sleep pretty much straight away.

Be that as it may, I awoke at 06:40, 20 minutes before the alarm and when the alarm finally did ring, I was already in the bathroom having a good wash. Not as early as some, but an early start all the same.

After the medication I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. I was in a public ward in a hospital after an operation on my leg. I found it really difficult if not impossible to walk around at the moment but being in this ward with all these other people made me realise just how healthy I was. It was probably the best reason that I could think of for actually leaving the bed but it was so painful trying to move. There were examples being shown on the television of other people who had had this kind of operation to their leg, mostly foreigners, people from abroad. It was interesting to spot their places where they were actually going to fit into this hospital regime as far as needing help and lack of autonomy went. They would be cruising so many hours of their own private life for so many hours per day on dialysis and was it worth it?

If you want to know my opinion about this, read on. But once more, I was dismayed that I’m spending so much of my time dreaming about medical issues.

Later on, my brother was talking to a girl from his class whom I recognised and to whom I used to chat occasionally. When they finished I asked her what she was doing. She replied that she was at Manchester University. I took hold of her and pulled her so that she sat down on the edge of my bed and asked her what she was studying. She said, with a strange look on her face, “geography”. I asked how she meant. She replied “different parts of Europe and Dalmatia – I moved my bath the other day and there they were, all of them on the floor. I was horrified”. I said “had I known, I would have let you come and share my bed”. We had something of a laugh, a joke and a flirt around. I thought to myself “this is yet another good chance of actually trying to build on something, some kind of relationship for the immediate future”.

Even now, I can still see this girl. I’ve no idea who she is but in the dream I knew that I knew her. She was wearing a red and white gingham school dress too, so what she was doing at University I really don’t know. However, there is some kind of undercurrent to this story but the World isn’t ready to hear it. And what a shame that the dream finished when it did.

There was something going on with a Native American tribe in North America of which I was a member. I was there, I suppose, because I respected the people, liked them, liked their culture. A group of Native Americans from outside my group were not content with everything and were trying to incite my group of Native Americans into rising up and rebelling whereas our opinion was that rising up and rebelling is OK in books and folk songs but it’s much more complicated than that. In the end the situation became so severe that those from outside our group were expelled from the tribe. There was talk that I would be expelled too because my position was seen as being something of an anomaly and I was being seen as a position of suspicion by some people from within the group.

What immediately came into my mind when I was typing out these notes was my visit in 2019 to Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, the site where the US Army massacred what was left of the Lakota Sioux people, where I went for a walk around the site of the slaughter and visited the mass grave of the victims.

This is what the author of “The Wizard of Oz” had to say at the time about Wounded Knee "The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untameable creatures from the face of the earth".

Nothing has changed in the USA.

The nurse had very little to say for himself, which suited me fine. He was soon in and gone and I could carry on with making breakfast and read MY BOOK.

We’re pushing on with our visits, dashing from one site to another in some kind of indecent haste. We’ve been to the castle at Oswestry, such as it is, and then back across the dyke into Wales for a couple more places. We’re pushing on at quite a rate and there can’t be all that many places left to visit.

Back in here, I reviewed the radio programme that will be broadcast this coming weekend and then I had an electrician to see.

Not that I know an awful lot about electricity – I do it all by trial and error – but I don’t think that I’ve ever seen such a disgraceful estimate. To supply and fit a new power board (that isn’t necessary) that costs €199:00 at Brico Depot, he’s quoted €2,000. For changing eight double sockets for multiples and wiring up the oven, microwave and hob, he wants another €2,000.

What beat me though was that he had the quote back here in less than the time that it would have taken to go back home to type it, and he rang me up thirty seconds after the quote arrived, to tell me to sign it and return it quickly. I’m not sure from which tree he thinks that I fell, but I feel really sorry for any elderly person who comes across him.

Next task was to finish my Welsh homework, which is now ready for a final check tomorrow morning before I send it off for marking.

My cleaner turned up to fit my anaesthetic patches, and then I had to wait for the taxi. And wait, and wait, and wait. Round about 13:00 I ‘phoned them up to enquire and was told that "he’s running a little late."

These new Sécurité Social regulations allow a 45-minute window in order for the vehicles to carry multiple passengers, and when my vehicle did turn up, 44 minutes late, it already had one passenger in it.

The driver and the other passenger chatted like long-lost buddies so I relaxed and enjoyed the view, knowing full well that by the time I arrive, my anaesthetic will have worn off.

As I was leaving the car, my telephone fell out into the footwell, as I found out later when the driver brought it back. And an envelope in my pocket with a prescription for a blood test became dislodged and I won’t tell you where it fell, because you are probably eating your tea right now.

There was a new patient today and all of the nurses were congregating around him, sorting him out. It was 14:20, 50 minutes late, when I was finally plugged in. painful yet again

There were plenty of things for me to do, right up to the moment when the needle ceased to work and my arm began to swell up. By that time though, the new patient was having a crisis and the entire medical staff, doctors and nurses, were congregating around him so I had to wait.

When the crisis began, my nurse was standing by me bed, dealing with an infusion. When the alarm sounded, she dropped the infusion pouch – right onto my leg where the wound is.

Later on, moving the table with my computer, she banged the wound yet again.

Everyone finished at the same time today but while most of the staff were dealing with this emergency, there was just one nurse unplugging everyone. So guess who was last?

By the time that I made it back home it was 19:20 and I was thoroughly fed up with everything. So in answer to the question that was asked during one of my dreams, it’s certainly not worth it

Tea was a stuffed pepper with pasta followed by vegan chocolate cake and soya dessert, and now I’m off to bed. I’m thoroughly fed up with today. Gotthold Lessing once famously said "Better counsel comes overnight " and that is for what I am hoping.

But seeing as we have been talking about transport issues … "well, one of us has" – ed … it’s not by any means the first that I have had.
Several years ago I was waiting for a train in Canada – the 11:55 from Calgary to Regina – when at 11:42 exactly it pulled into the station.
It’s never happened like that before so I went to express my admiration to the driver.
"It’s not like that at all" he replied
"Why not?" I asked
"Because, if the truth be known, this is the 11:55 train from a week last Tuesday"

Sunday 18th May 2025 – REGULAR READERS OF …

… this rubbish will recall what happens on a Sunday morning, so they won’t need any reminder.

But for the benefit of new readers, of whom there are more than just a few these days, in the Good Old Days, Sundays used to be days of rest and I would lie in until I felt like leaving the bed. Sometimes it would be long after midday before I personally would see the light of day.

Since the nurse has been coming to see me every morning, those times really are a thing of the past. As he (or she) doesn’t usually arrive until about 08:20, I’ve tried my best to have a lie-in until about 08:00, just on the principle of the thing.

But now we have dialysis of course, and ever since then, almost every Sunday has been an early start, long before the alarm has gone off. Some times are earlier than others, but I don’t think that there has ever been a start as early as 02:05

Last night, I was absolutely whacked, as seems to be the case after a dialysis session. I skimmed through my notes and skimmed through the stats and the back-up. When I had finished everything, it was a mere 22:50.

There were the radio notes to dictate for programme 260417 and there weren’t all that many of those. By 23:15 I was tucked up in bed ready for a good night’s sleep and something of a little lie-in.

And so the story went. I was well away until all of 02:05 when I awoke. And to put the icing on the cake, I was drenched in sweat again and it’s been a long time since that has happened, hasn’t it?

It must have been a good hour at least that I was awake there, tossing and turning and trying my best to go off to sleep, and to my surprise, I eventually managed it. But not for long though. I was awake again at 05:50, drenched in sweat once more.

This time I couldn’t go back to sleep and by about 06:10, with it going light outside, I bit the bullet and hauled myself out of bed.

After the usual stint in the bathroom, I went into the kitchen for the medication. They have given me a new calcium pill, an effervescent one, and it gave me a stomach ache almost straight away. I shall have to make a note of that.

Back in here, there was some stuff on the dictaphone that needed to be transcribed. I was dreaming about some mythical God and his wife and family who used the taxis to take themselves to hospital examinations and how they were on good terms with as many people as possible although there were of course the usual one or two whom they hadn’t seemed to appreciate at all. It was only just going under way when I awoke, which was a shame.

That was when I awoke at 02:05. The dream itself is the usual confused mass of something else quite meaningless. Why would a God be going for medical treatment? Especially in a taxi? Surely if you are a God, you don’t need medical treatment, being omnipotent and eternal and all of that.

Then later, there was absolute chaos taking place as the whole economy had collapsed. There were people forming companies and businesses to do different things and were trying to arrange finance but the currency was collapsing so quickly that by the time that they had arranged some finance it was absolutely worthless. People were fighting over these limited resources and it was all becoming extremely unpleasant. There was no possible way for anyone to actually save anything. The medical service was probably the worst-hit with no medical care being offered to anyone. The most obvious course was for people to start dying by their thousands. I managed to isolate some kind of company and try to keep it out of the mainstream so that it wouldn’t be sucked in anywhere but it was a pretty difficult task and I really had to be very careful about where I was and what I was doing because I couldn’t allow it to be infiltrated or pirated by anyone else. While all of this maelstrom was going on inside the house, I was upstairs at the top of the stairs tucked away behind a corner. I heard a door open and it was two girls from the Grammar School in brown skirts and cherry-red cardigans. They were talking about a couple of musicians who had de-electrified themselves and were going to spend much more time just doing acoustic numbers instead as a way of keeping going. As these two girls went past, I decided that I’d follow them so that I could see if I could find out more about what it was they were talking about and who it was who was involved

This sounds just like post-Brexit Britain, or the housing collapse in 1992, but regular readers of this rubbish will recall the dramatic collapse of Sterling in 1973,1974 and 1975 with inflation roaring up from an already-high 10% to almost 30% per annum and the UK going cap-in hand with the begging bowl to the International Monetary Fund for a bale-out.

This dream has however made me scratch my head. Which Girls’ School had brown skirts, a brown blazer and cherry-red cardigans? I can see the school uniforms now but can I Elephants put a name to it?

The nurse came round as usual and the long-expected explosion took place. He began to talk about a subject that fills me with distaste (regular readers of this rubbish will recall exactly what it is) despite having been told on a couple of occasions not to discuss it so I told him that if he mentions it one more time, I’ll put him outside the door and find another nurse who will treat me and my wishes with respect.

After that, we had the silent treatment and then he cleared off.

I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. We’ve left Norham Castle, had a brief whistle-stop of less than half a page at Nottingham Castle and have now arrived at Odiham Castle in Hampshire, where we began by discussing that unique piece of Medieval Military architecture known as … errr … “The Basingstoke Canal”, built at the height of the medieval period in … errr … 1794.

Our author tells us that "the place, no doubt, was always one of strength, and the open woodland about it was favourable to the preservation of game, and to the wilder kind of sporting in which the Plantagenet monarchs took great delight.". I don’t know about you, but that had my imagination racing.

After breakfast I came in here to deal with some e-mails. One of them was from a guy in Caen who had seen my advert for a joiner and had replied, requesting further information. I sent him what he needed and he ‘phoned me back. We had a very long chat that turned out to be quite productive.

If I engage him, he’s going to be expensive because he lives so far away but he seemed to have the correct kind of attitude – sensitive to my ideas but with good suggestions of his own.

There was another ‘phone call, this time from a plumber. He’s going to come to see me on Wednesday for a chat.

After I’d dealt with everything, I went for a disgusting drink break and then began to edit the radio notes. There were some from a couple of weeks ago so I attacked those, and now all of that is done, the two parts are assembled, the eleventh track is chosen and the notes written ready for dictation.

Then I made a start on those that I dictated last night, and I’m about a third of a way through them.

What made me stop was that it was baking time. I need a loaf of bread and a pile of pizza dough so I set about and bashed out some dough, leaving it to fester.

Back in here, there was football, Hwlffordd v Caernarfon Town. This was a “winner take all” scenario, with the winner representing the League in European club competition next season.

In front of a massive crowd for West Wales, the largest in the League this season, it was something of a damp squib. The Cofis were clearly exhausted after their marathon 50-week season and once it became obvious that their game plan of long balls over the top to feed lightning winger Louis Lloyd wasn’t working, they had no Plan B. There were some very leaden legs out there.

Hwlffordd on the other hand had a very slow start but once they slipped into gear they gave a workman-like performance without actually setting the game alight. Some rather uncharacteristic sloppy defending by the Cofis let Hwlffordd in for two simple goals that they should never have been allowed to have, and they scored a third from a breakaway right near the end when everyone from Caernarfon was up in the Hwlffordd penalty area.

Deep in stoppage time the Cofis pulled one back, New Zealand keeper Zak Jones thinking a ball was going out and not realising that Louis Lloyd was lurking behind him, but it was too little, too late by then.

In truth, it wasn’t a great spectacle. We’ve seen many much better games than this, and Hwlffordd will have to pull themselves up a few notches if they are to improve Wales’s coefficient on the European club stage.

Tonight’s pizza was another candidate for “the best ever”, and the bread looks really good too. I’ll tell you tomorrow what it’s like because right now I’m off to bed, later than usual.

But seeing as we have been talking about the Basingstoke Canal … "well, one of us has" – ed … it somehow seems to be appropriate that "it was favourable to the … wilder kind of sporting in which the Plantagenet monarchs took great delight".
When a friend of mine, who lives down that end of the country, came on-line later I mentioned it to her.
"I’m not surprised" she said. "Didn’t you know?"
"Know what?" I asked.
"The Basingstoke Canal in the time of the Plantagenet monarchs was where the sport of Serf Riding was invented."

Saturday 17th May 2025 – I AM CONVINCED …

… that they tried everything that they could at the dialysis centre this afternoon to make me run as late as possible. It’s been one of those days today.

In fact, it’s been one of those days all day today and it started last night, as a matter of fact. Although I wasn’t feeling particularly tired, I still managed to complete my notes by 22:30 and by the time that I’d done everything that needed doing, it was just about 23:05 when I finally fell into bed, hoping for a really good night’s sleep.

And believe it or not, I managed to stay asleep until all of … errr … 03:40 this morning.

Once I’d awoken, I tried as usual to go back to sleep seeing as it was such an early start, and eventually I did manage to drop back off, although it took quite a considerable while. I thought that it would never happen.

Having gone back to sleep, I awoke again at 06:15, and after trying for about 20 minutes to go back to sleep, I gave up and headed for the bathroom.

After a good wash and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cure Consultant, I rounded up all of the winter coats and the like and put them in the washing machine so that the machine can do its stuff. It looked like a lovely day outside.

After I’d had my medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And once more, I was surprised that there was so much stuff on it, bearing in mind how short a night it was.

There was some kind of confusion about Lee Dorsey and music. I think that Lee Dorsey used to write songs that were sung by females and Gerry Dorsey who used to write songs that were sung by males but I’m not sure why I thought of that and I’m not sure why it came into my mind.

In actual fact, not that it’s particularly important, Lee Dorsey is the old American pop singer who actually owned a car repair business and Gerry Dorsey is better-known as Engelbert Dumper truck

Later on I was being held prisoner in a house by some kind of weird kind of obscene bully. I was friendly with his daughter and he had a handicapped wife. The relationship between his daughter and me developed into something rather more than friendship. He was extremely unhappy about this and so were the rest of his children. They remembered her being with a parson and had spent eighteen months together. It was supposed to be the next big romance but it ended dramatically just before I came along. I was extremely resented by this man and his other children. The woman and I became quite friendly. I had a suspicion that this was going to be rather more than friends and I was trying desperately not to have any kind of involvement in anything that might be misconstrued in this respect because I was simply interested in the daughter despite all of the issues with her father. This woman and her husband began to have fierce arguments and I felt the situation becoming more and more uncomfortable until in the end the woman must have told her husband that she was going to leave him and run off with me. Of course that was the final trigger to an extremely unpleasant moment where I was quite literally forced into a room with all the family. The family first of all, that is, the other children of the man began to interrogate the daughter about the time that she’d spent with this priest guy. She was saying that what turned her off him was the idea that he was going to rescue all of these animals and keep them at home. They pointed out that she had a hamster or a gerbil or something. She replied “that’s hardly the same thing as that which this priest guy was trying to bring in to any kind of home where he would be living”. I could see that this situation was not going to turn out very well at all and I began to wish that I was somewhere else indeed. I didn’t really have much choice at that particular moment.

This next one was a return to the dream of that domineering, bully father where I was mentioning that I was being interviewed in the hope of tripping me up or of persuading the daughter of the house that I was not the man for her future. Either way, as the time passed, it was becoming less and less comfortable and I began to feel more and more anxious about the situation.

It’s been a while since I’ve had some kind of menacing dream like this one, and I certainly didn’t appreciate dropping back into it a second time. However, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I can in real life easily find myself stepping into situations just like that, quite by accident and with no real effort at all

And then I was in hospital again after the biopsie musculaire having the wound checked over again. On the way I’d noticed a huge advert on a roadside advertising tablet, advertising the National Folk Dancing Championships taking place in the town. I’d checked my agenda and found that I was actually doing something on that particular day which would have been a shame because I would have loved to have gone and maybe to have competed but it’s rather late in the day now … fell asleep here … anyway so I would really have liked to have taken part but being in hospital, it was not possible.

This is another one of those dreams about which I remember absolutely nothing at all. However, I can say that these hospital issues are really getting to me these days, that’s for sure.

Finally, I was back living at home. Looking through the newspaper I saw a room to let with shower. I rang up about it and a very polite young Afro-Caribbean voice answered and gave me some information. I asked where it was and he replied that it was in Tiananmen Square in Crewe. I’d heard vaguely of that at one time and thought that it was near Bedford Street but he told me that it wasn’t so I set out to go to look at it. My car wasn’t outside the house. I suddenly realised that I’d left it in Bedford Street in a car park there. I had to walk to Bedford Street and walked into the car park where there was my old white Luton Transit that was parked in the car park. I climbed into that and to my surprise it started so I set off to go to look at this flat.

Wherever Tiananmen Square might be in Crewe, I really have no idea. It’s certainly not near Bedford Street. And there’s no car park there either

The nurse turned up, early as usual. He didn’t have anything to say for himself which was just as well because for some reason or other I was spoiling for a fight. I’ve no idea why, because nothing had happened to trigger off anything.

So after he left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. We’re still at Norham, discussing the civilian architecture of the castle and mentioning the odd tower and curtain wall here and there in terms that I find difficult to understand.

But one thing is certain, and that is that we aren’t explaining anything about the whys and wherefores of the military features of the castle.

After breakfast I hung out the washing in the living room and opened the window seeing as it was such a lovely day, in the hope that it would soon dry.

Back in here I drafted a few advertisements about the work that I need doing, having split it up into individual tasks, and then posted it on this Chamber of Commerce website. And within no time at all I was swamped … "well, sort of" – ed … with replies and before I left for dialysis I’d already spoken to a few and arranged appointments.

When my cleaner turned up, she fitted my anaesthetic patches and sorted out a few things ready for my taxi to turn up. It was one of my favourite drivers, the Belgian girl with twins in the first year of High School across the car park. We picked up our usual Saturday afternoon passenger and we had a lovely chat all the way to Avranches.

We were early arriving at the centre but so was everyone else and I was last to be seen, as usual. There was a problem with someone’s connection so for quite a while all of the nurses were congregated around his bed.

There’s one of the nurses there who is not quite so attentive as the others, so guess who I had. At first she tried to run my machine for four hours, and I had to explain to her, and not once either, that she’s not deducted the 700 grammes for my shoes. It took a while for her to grasp the issue, recalculate the figures and switch the machine to three and a half hours.

And then she had three painful goes at coupling me up to the machine. so once again, all in all, it took one hour from my arrival to the start of the process.

My machine was misbehaving all the way through the session, and then once more, right at the end I had to wait an age to be uncoupled from the machine. I was thoroughly fed up by all of this.

It was the same taxi driver who brought me home which was nice. We had another interesting chat. And then my cleaner was waiting for me to watch me up the stairs.

Tea was a breaded quorn fillet, and I notice that I’m running low of those. I shall have to think of a Plan B.

But not right now because I’m going to dictate my radio notes and then go to bed, in hope of a decent sleep.

But seeing as we have been talking about dancing … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once went to one of these Country Dances in the local village hall, and I was so impressed. Everyone was leaping up and down and around quite energetically like some kind of Jitterbug Competition from the 1920s or like something out of HELLZAPOPPIN’
Finding a local standing around idly watching the show, I expressed my amazement.
"Don’t worry" said the local – a very vocal local yokel. "It won’t last long"
"Really?" I asked. "Why’s that?"
"They’ve sent for the caretaker" he replied. "He’ll soon turn off the underfloor heating."

Friday 16th May 2025 – AS YOU MIGHT …

… have guessed already, it was rather more of the same again this morning. Yet another early start.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s pointless going to bed early because all it seems to mean these days is that it’s a correspondingly early start the following morning.

The benefit is probably something to do with the fact that I’m usually so tired in the evening that going to sleep at that point is a good idea, but would I be so tired in the evening were I not to awaken so early in the morning? It’s one of those conundrums that ca go on forever.

So last night after tea, I put my back into everything and had finished all of my notes as early as 22:30. There was then the statistics and the backing-up to do and after the bathroom to prepare myself for bed, I was under the bedclothes by 22:50.

And that reminds me – seeing as we are talking about the statistics … "well, one of us is" – ed … the ones that I take here are a far cry from what I used to take down on the farm. I counted once and there were at that point no fewer than 22 readings to take, and quite a few of those involved a lengthy trip down the field to take readings of rainfall and of the temperature in the greenhouse, etc.

Those were the days, of course. I had a huge pile of notes that I was slowly entering into a spreadsheet ready to publish a report, but alas! I was overtaken by events, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

So once under the covers I wasn’t awake long. Not at all. And I can’t remember anything until I awoke.

It was vaguely becoming sort-of light outside so I looked at the ‘phone to find out the time. It was just about 05:29, far too early to leave the bed. I tried to go back to sleep again but I gave that up as a bad job and at 06:10 I was up and about.

After a good wash, I went into the kitchen for the medication and then came back in here to have a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. It was a friend’s birthday and he was going to have a big party round at his house. Unfortunately, for some reason, I couldn’t go so I was spending the weekend doing something else. I lent him my vehicle, a Triumph Herald estate, for a short while while he organised himself. While I was in my little apartment in Manchester on the edge of the city somewhere, I happened to look up and there on the flyover going past in the distance was my Triumph Herald Estate with this guy driving it and someone whom he’d picked up from the railway station. I thought “how surprising. That’s really a coincidence”. As it happened, seeing as this birthday party didn’t work out too well and I spoke to my friend later on, I asked him how it went. He said that the guy whom he’d picked up from Manchester was OK for a while but once we came round to the subject of birthdays and wrapping presents he had a meltdown. It didn’t go down very well at all. I told him that that was a shame. I asked him if he had been in Manchester on the Friday evening. He replied that he had. I told him what I had seen of this Triumph Herald estate and two people who looked like him and his colleague etc. He agreed that it could well have been his … fell asleep here … so that was the situation. He told me that it was in fact him – that it may well have been him who was coming back from Manchester on that Friday with that guy in that vehicle

This actually does remind me of a real event, except that it was a different friend whose party it was, I was the one who went to pick up the other friend, it wasn’t the railway station in Manchester either and it wasn’t my Triumph Herald. I did have a Triumph Herald estate once, in the days when I was going through about one car every week, recycling cars that were on their last legs before they eventually made their final trip to the scrapyard

He also explained that things didn’t go very well in general, that he had ended up with all of his possessions out all over the floor while he was trying to sort things out. His friend tried to help him a little with some architecture and some property renovation but to no success. He was perfectly glad that today was on the point of drawing to an end.

This is presumably related to the first dream, but the people are actually the wrong way round in it

That dream went on and I could also use my own plate and the car as something from under my netball work tournament that in the 258 cars and the 278 cars that could be pieced together and never go very much but he got away with this but was extending by whose place he was going to use for camouflage but he wanted to hand the car back to the previous owner to mark him right again

As for whatever this is about, I have absolutely no idea.

In the end I had my light blue Opel Ascona as a taxi. The area where I operated was round the South of Wales. The plate had gone back to its owner and I was making do with a fitted kitchen and the escort who looked very much like Marie Rhiwabon was looking at her charms saying that she wasn’t ready to come home for at least another hour which disappointed me because I was in a hurry to be home

This story has a great deal of actual significance, even down to the car, but it didn’t take place in South Wales.

The third and fourth dream are quite interesting. For the benefit of new readers, of whom there are more than just a few these days, although I’m asleep when I’m dictating these notes (and “falling asleep” means that I go silent and after a minute or so you can hear the heavy breathing as if I’m talking to some strange woman on the telephone) when I come to transcribe them, I usually have a slight recollection of the events coming back from the depths of my subconscious. However, for these latter two, there was absolutely nothing whatsoever.

The nurse turned up as usual and I told him about the quote that I received from his friend. "But you don’t understand how prices have rocketed since Covid and the war in Ukraine" he said. He really does talk the most extraordinary bulls … errr … nonsense.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. We’ve now left Montgomery Castle and having passed by Morlais Castle (which is in that part of England known as “Glamorgan”) we’re now at Norham Castle in Northumberland.

Norham is an important castle situated on the English side of the River Tweed. It played an important rôle during the conflicts between the English and the Scots. The town itself is the site of a well-known Saxon Church in which are said to be the remains of the Saxon Bishop Saint Ceolwolf, translated there at some date in the first half of the Ninth Century,

A curious fact about the town of Norham. It was a personal possession of the Bishops of Durham so even though it is right at the far north of Northumberland, it was considered to be an enclave of the County of Durham until the passage of the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844.

So when will we begin to talk about the military architecture of the castle?

Back in here I sorted out a few things that needed my attention, and then for the rest of the day I’ve been Woodstocking. I’ve now finished all of Saturday and I’m well on the way to dealing with Sunday – the final day.

Saturday’s programme should be interesting though. For a one-hour programme, I’ve one hour, twenty-five minutes and six seconds so far and by the time that I will have finished reading it though again, it’s likely to expand even more. The big question is not “what to include” but “what to leave out?”. That was the story of my life when at University – word-counts were the bane of my life.

There were the usual interruptions too. My cleaner put her sooty foot in the apartment, there was lunch, there was a disgusting drink break or two too. But for a change, no-one bothered me on the ‘phone.

Tea tonight was falafel with chips and a vegan salad followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. The chocolate cake is running low and I reckon that next weekend I shall have to make another cake. If I remember, next week I’ll ask my faithful cleaner to find some fresh ginger and I’ll make a fiery ginger cake.

But right now, I’m off to bed, to see if I can actually manage a nice, long sleep. It’s dialysis tomorrow so I’m likely to be pretty wasted afterwards.

But seeing as we have been talking about word counts … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of something that I heard a long time ago while I was at school.
"There was a young man from Japan
Who couldn’t make limericks scan
He said “my old bean
I know just what you mean
But I always do my best to fit as many words into the last line as I possibly can."

Thursday 15th May 2025 – I HAD THE …

… quote this afternoon from that girl who came to see me on Tuesday.

Just a mere €27,000 “or thereabouts”. I haven’t sent off my reply as yet, because had I sent it the moment that I read the e-mail, it would have been … errr … “far from polite”. I have a feeling that this work that I want doing is not going to be as easy to arrange as I have been thinking.

Something else that I had today was yet another early start. And it could have been another quite ridiculous one for I was wide-awake at just after 04:00 this morning. However, I did manage … "for once" – ed … to go back to sleep for a while and it was a much more reasonable 06:15 when I left the bed.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … It’s pointless going to bed early because all it seems to mean is that I awaken correspondingly early next morning. So breaking my neck to finish before 23:00 as I did last night is hardly worth the effort, although I really was tired last night and it did me some kind of good to go to bed early.

Once in bed, I remember nothing whatsoever – it was as if I really did go to sleep the moment my head touched the pillow. And there I stayed until I awoke, at just after 04:00. At that time, I rolled around in bed for a while trying to make myself comfortable and at some point I rolled off to sleep again.

It was another one of those dramatic awakenings that I have every now and again, and after a few minutes to collect my thoughts from where they had strayed, I climbed out of bed.

It’s dialysis day today so I had a good wash and even a shave, and then went into the kitchen for my medication. Back in here, I transcribed the dictaphone notes from the night, such as they were. I’d moved jobs to some other department. I was no longer working in the same place. I was still in touch with some of my former workmates. One day we were talking about skiing. They sent me some kind of handwritten article about someone but I couldn’t read it so I wondered what it was. I asked them and they said that it was a report of someone and “you’ll see how important it is that everyone wears helmets when they are skiing because he had his adjusted only the previous day by a friend of yours and went out on the ski slope the following day. He’d only removed his helmet for a couple of seconds to have a breather when he was involved in a collision and was killed”. I couldn’t read the name on this piece of writing to see who it might be but suddenly I saw the name. I knew exactly who it was. A friend of mine had been his secretary, and considerably more than his secretary too for a while. They were still in contact so I wondered if she knew about her friend who had died because it’s going to be a dreadful shock to her when she finds out and I would really like to be there to console her but I doubted if that was going to be possible.

This rings a rather large and noisy bell with me and I suspect that someone might recognise the scenario. If I were to mention the name of the deceased, they most certainly would. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the World is far too small for my liking,

The nurse came around to sort out my legs and to change the plaster on my wound. And he immediately began to discuss it, no matter how many times I told him that I wasn’t interested in hearing. He really is getting on my nerves these days.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. Today, we’ve arrived at Montgomery Castle which, for the geographically-challenged author of a book entitled “MEDIEVAL MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND”, is actually in Wales. We’ve spent a great deal discussing the confrontations between the Welsh Princes and the Marcher Lords, but nothing whatsoever about the military architecture.

Back in here, we had an interesting time discussing the next few radio programmes. 260424 is the birthday of Tony Visconti. As well as being a record producer, he is also a bass guitarist and played bass on several albums. People like him, Tony Stratton Smith and Giorgio Gomelsky deserve programmes on their own.

Programme 260501 will be broadcast on the fête du travail – “Labour Day”, when people celebrate work by, with a marvellous sense of irony, not doing any and 260508 is the anniversary of peace breaking out, or, as Ambrose Bierce once famously put it – "peace – a period of cheating between two wars"

So as well as dealing with Tony Visconti, I’ve been looking for songs talking about work and also songs talking about peace. I shall have some themed programmes, I reckon.

My cleaner was late at lunchtime and I’d already sorted out the anaesthetic patches etc for when she came. But she wasn’t as late as the taxi. And thereby hangs a tale.

The driver had come from Coutances and was horribly late. He already had someone in the car who was hours late for an appointment and moaned about it all the way to Avranches. The driver didn’t know the way out of here so I had to guide him. And then there was a third person to pick up and he didn’t have a clue so I had to guide him there too.

And the first woman had moaned so much about being late that he felt obliged to go right past the dialysis centre to the clinic on the far side of town to drop her off first and then come all the way back to drop us off.

It was 14:30, one hour late, when I was coupled up and the time seemed to drag. Emilie the Cute Consultant was there but she clearly doesn’t love me any more. Her oppo, on whom I walked out the other week, was there too so doubtless she had been spreading the news.

Paris finally rang me back. My appointment is now arranged for 3rd June. Still not ideal but I can’t change it too often, I suppose. It will have to do.

They were late uncoupling me this evening and it was a miserable, depressing 19:10 when I made it home. I made a stir-fry, which I didn’t really feel like eating, and now I’m off to bed for another early night and presumably, another early start tomorrow.

But seeing as we have been talking about skiing … "well, one of us has" – ed … many years ago Percy Penguin and I went skiing in Bulgaria. I left her for a while on the nursery slopes and went up the mountain.
While we were up there, the fog fell dramatically and we had to pick our way down the mountain in terrible conditions.
One of the guys asked me "what’s the first thing that you are going to do when you reach the bottom of the valley?"
"I reckon that I’m going to give Percy Penguin a really good seeing-to"
"What’s the second thing that you’ll do?" he asked
"I’ve no idea" I replied. "Take my skis off, I suppose"

Wednesday 14th May 2025 – AS I HAVE …

… said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s totally pointless going to bed early because all it means is that I awaken correspondingly early the following morning.

And so it was last night and this morning. After breaking my neck to be in bed by 22:45, I awoke at … errr … 04:05 or so this morning. So how miserable and depressing is that?

It’s perfectly true that I did do everything that I could so that I could finish early. I rushed through my notes, rushed through the back-ups, rushed through the stats and staggered off into the bathroom to sort myself out. After all, despite the ninety minutes in bed in late afternoon, I was feeling quite exhausted and I’ve no idea why.

Nevertheless, it took a while to go off to sleep. There was too much rubbish churning around in my head. In the old days when I was taxi-driving or when I moved to Brussels, I used to go running before going to bed. It was a great way of dealing with the stress. It’s rather out of the question right now though, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Eventually though, I dozed off, hoping for a really good sleep. However it didn’t happen quite like that. I awoke quite suddenly yet again. It took a few minutes for me to come to my senses (which is a real surprise seeing how few senses I have these days) and when I looked at the ‘phone to see the time, it was 04:10.

Try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I drifted in and out of a kind-of semi-consciousness where I was neither here nor there (a usual state of affairs these days even when I’m awake) but I was wide awake by about 06:00 when I made the decision to leave the bed. And that wasn’t easy either.

After the bathroom I went into the kitchen for the medication and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out if I’d been anywhere during the night. There was something about having some kind of lime-green football kit last night. I’m not sure why and I’m not sure where it came from. This led on to another situation where there was a woman who was in the hospital who was a client of the two nurses who visit me. They had heard that she had been allowed to leave her bed. One of the nurses said that she had better go to the hospital to help her fit her compression socks for when she stands up. I thought that that was rather strange because I was sure that the nurses in the hospital could do that but the visiting nurse was insistent that she was going to go to the hospital to do it.

For the lime green football kit, this does in fact relate to something that happened to FC Pionsat St Hilaire when I used to hang out there. Three of us decided to do something for the club so one of us bought a full set of shirts, the second bought a full set of shorts and I bought a couple of full goalkeepers’ kits. The footballing shirts that were bought were a kind-of fluorescent lime green.

As for the visiting nurses going to visit a patient in hospital, that is most unlikely. I couldn’t imagine that ever happening.

First task was to send off my anti-cancer medication prescription to the pharmacy. My faithful cleaner asked them for their e-mail address so that I could forward it to them rather than printing it out and physically delivering it.

Second task was to review and then print out some documentation that I’d been sent. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that, due to my state of health, I’m being supported by an organisation that strives to do all in its power to keep people in their homes. Apparently, even with some kind of financial assistance, it’s cheaper than having them put into some kind of residential care.

With my proposed bathroom conversion, there might be a grant because that is the kind of thing that is covered. They had sent me some information and an application form, so I needed to read it and fill in the form.

This also involves scanning and sending a photocopy of my last income tax statement to them. That took some organising too, mainly because I couldn’t find it at first. I must sort out my filing system.

The nurse told me once more about his friend who is a handyman. I told him to tell his friend to contact me. After all, you never know. And maybe he will. Stranger things have happened.

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

We’ve left Middleham Castle and have arrived at Mitford Castle in the North-East, near Morpeth. That was the ancient pile of the previous generations of the family that later produced the disgraced Mitford children of the 1920s and 30s, although all of that was after the time of our book.

There’s not much to see of the castle these days, and I bet that we won’t be having much in the way of discussion about Medieval military architecture.

Back in here, I had a few things to sort out. It turns out that a well-known internet reseller had made a total mess of a repricing issue and instead of reducing its sale articles by 60%, it was offering them all for sale at $0:60. If something is too good to be true, it usually is and that was the case here, which was a shame. What surprised me was that it took them so long to notice. Needless to say, they voided all of the transactions.

Later on, I finished off the selection of music for programme 260417, remixed it, paired it and segued it ready so that I can write the notes for it.

After lunch, my cleaner turned up and we went through the medication that seems to be all over the place in this apartment. The stuff we found too, including the medical kit that I’d brought from England in 1992 with stuff so old that it didn’t have a “best by” date i.e. it was prior to the European Union Labelling Directive of 1979.

Rosemary rang me up for a chat too. She thinks that she’s found the oven that would go nicely in my new kitchen, if ever I have one installed. It costs about €20 over my budget but she thinks that it’s worth it. And who am I to argue? What do I know about ovens anyway?

It was quite a short conversation too, only about fifty minutes this afternoon. However our conversation carried on in a desultory fashion via an internet chat as she sent me photos of the produce growing rapidly in her garden. It made me quite nostalgic for the Auvergne and my potager down on the farm.

There was naan bread dough to make too, seeing as I have run out. And it was probably the best batch that I have ever made too. I made it with more flour than usual and the consistency was just right. I remembered the garlic too.

In between everything I sent off a few more enquiries to builders and electricians, tried to speak to the hospital in Paris (without success) to find out why they have arranged an appointment for me on a dialysis day, and, in a mad fit of enthusiasm that I still can’t understand, wrote all of the notes for the radio programme 260417 ready for dictation on Saturday night (or at some unearthly time in the morning if I have another early start).

Tea tonight was a delicious leftover curry with garlic naan followed my vegan chocolate cake and soya dessert, delicious as usual.

So right now I’m off to bed, hoping for a good night’s sleep at long last. I’m certainly tired enough.

But seeing as we have been talking about that organisation that deals with personal autonomy … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was told by my faithful cleaner that each member of that organisation wears …. well … special underwear.
"Why is that?" I asked. "What’s it like?"
"They’ve gone back into the Middle East and North Africa, rounded up all of the abacuses and transformed them into brassieres for the ladies" she replied.
"Yes, but why?" I asked
"It’s so that all of their clients can count on their support."

Tuesday 13th May 2025 – I HAVE DONE …

… something this afternoon that I vowed never to do unless there was a dire necessity to so do, and that was to go back to bed for a while.

Mind you, there actually was a dire necessity this afternoon. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s absolutely pointless trying to go to bed early. All it means is that I wake up correspondingly early the following morning.

Not that last night was all that early either. It was quite a struggle for some reason to keep my concentration going and I kept on drifting off down little side alleys when I should have been working and finishing everything off.

Once I’d finished doing what needed to be done, it was quite another matter to find the energy to haul myself out of my seat and head off into the bathroom to prepare for the night. However, once I finally made it into bed, I remember nothing. I must have been out in an instant.

And as I implied just now, we had another early start. We’ve had some early starts in the past, that’s for sure, but awakening at 03:05 is something like extremism. It’s not as if I went back to sleep either, but I was tossing and turning for quite a while to no good purpose.

Eventually, round about 05:00, I gave up the struggle and raised myself from the Undead. In the bathroom, I sorted myself out and then went into the kitchen for the medication.

It was about 05:45 when I finally came back in here. It was deadly quiet outside – not even the goélands were cackling – so I made the most of my early start by dictating the radio notes that I had written on Sunday for the eleventh track of programme 260313.

Pressing on, I remixed and edited them and then combined them with the two halves of the programme that I had already assembled. I ended up being, would you believe, as much as twenty-eight seconds over. But as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … there’s enough superfluous stuff in what I dictate that can be edited out without changing the sense, the meaning or the rhythm, that it was no real problem to cut the programme down to exactly one hour.

So that was a job well done, making the most of the unexpected hour or two.

There was time to transcribe the dictaphone notes, and I’m still scratching my head about these. Firstly, over the fact that there were some. Less than four hours’ sleep doesn’t give you very much time to wander off, but somehow I managed it. The second surprising thing is the actual contents of the notes themselves. What on earth must I have been doing?

Starting off, I dreamed that I was in hospital, having to be compressed at the end of a session of dialysis but there was much more to it than that because I had to have some kind of other treatment too. This meant that I couldn’t really leave the bed so they had to take me home on a stretcher. From where I was in the hospital, all the windows looked out into the mountains. You could see cars in the distance simply by the reflection of the sun in their windscreens. This went on for miles. We were there, trying to guess which one was our vehicle that would be picking us up. I ended up trying to sit up, which I managed, and they gave me some kind of programme towards when I should be able to walk and when I should be able to leave the bed etc but I was convinced that I was going to complete this programme much sooner than they wanted me to and I was already making plans to rise up and leave the bed even though I shouldn’t be able to do that, I wasn’t going to let this illness get in my way of getting up.

This reminds me of when I was in North-Eastern USA in 2019. I’d been reading John Bourke’s book ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK about his spell serving with General Crook on their mission to pacify … "you mean ‘exterminate’" – ed … the Native Americans. Bourke tells of the success that they had in tracking raiding parties … "you mean ‘groups of people defending their homeland’" – ed … thanks to the use of the heliograph. The air was so clear up there that a heliograph message flashed off a mirror could be seen fifty miles away. When I was up there in Montana looking for the remains of Fort CF Smith, I saw the sunlight reflecting off the roof of a corn silo, all of forty miles away.

As for hauling myself out of bed when I’m not supposed to, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have “previous” in this respect. I’m determined not to let this illness get the better of me and I’ll fight until the end

And then I stepped back into that dream again. After they had given me an injection, they said that I could go home. I had to take my time really slowly to sit up in bed, by which time my neighbour was eating a meal and it must have been really difficult for her to concentrate. She kept on looking round and I could see the shelves and the parcels shelf behind the rear seat. She wondered how I was going to travel six hundred miles on that … fell asleep here … it came to the point that I’d had to walk and was going to do my best to do it properly on my béquille.

Whatever that dream is all about, I don’t have the faintest idea. Although I do have to say that if I’m sharing a room with a charming young woman, I wouldn’t be in any great rush to leave the hospital, that’s for sure.

It was nearly time to leave the hospital. I was dressed and all my things were packed etc. I knew that it wasn’t going to be as simple as it sounded because of the distances that these drivers have to cover every day. They couldn’t be here on demand like you might think that they would so I was prepared for a wait. There were a couple of young nurses assigned to help me climb into the van but I didn’t really encourage them because I knew that it was going to be far simpler the … fell asleep here … I had these nurses assigned to me to help me climb into the car but I didn’t know where or when or whatever that was going to arrive. There’s much more to it than this but I keep falling asleep so I can’t dictate it and I can’t remember most of it anyway but it was about me being prepared to leave the hospital in a taxi.

This is clearly related to the struggle that I had to climb into the minibus yesterday. I wish that they had allowed two nurses to come to help me into the thing. They could have come home with me too and helped me out of the vehicle, up the stairs and into the bed.

Well, there’s no harm in wishing, is there?

It’s the male nurse’s turn to work for this coming week. He duly turned up and tried to begin a discussion about my stay at the hospital. I’m not sure how many times I had to tell him that I didn’t want to discuss it and he was still going on about it when he left.

Once he’d gone I could press on and make breakfast, with my lovely fresh bread from Sunday, and read some more of MY BOOK.

We’ve now left Ludlow Castle after having had a good chat about the history, and having passed by several minor edifices, we’re now at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire where, doubtless, we’ll have another guided tour of whatever is left of the castle without any kind of discussion about the military architecture of the place.

Back in here, I revised for my Welsh class until the lesson began and then, to my surprise considering that I’d been absent for two weeks, I had a rather successful lesson and I was quite pleased with what I had accomplished. So what’s been happening here?

This afternoon, I had a visit from one of these agencies who responded to my advert about my new apartment. After only thirty seconds of discussion, I decided that they were not for me. It became evident only too quickly that it wouldn’t be my project but theirs.

We had fatuous questions like "what about the insulation of the apartment? That will need checking" and "those radiators will have to go" and "it’ll all need a good coat of paint too" etc etc.

The crowning glory was the discussion about the kitchen
"What’s your budget on the kitchen?"
"The apartment is rather a budget apartment, 40m². It’s pointless, if not ridiculous, putting a deluxe kitchen in there. But on the other hand, I don’t want a ‘bargain-basement, economy’ kitchen"
"I see" she replied. "So you’re looking at about €15,000 then. And we can sort out some nice electromenager too."

In other words, they can sling their hook.

This renovation is turning out to be much more complicated than I ever imagined, simply because I can’t persuade tradesmen to turn up. I would give all that I had … "and more besides" – ed … to have a reliable artisan who would be happy to do just what I wanted him to do.

Throughout the afternoon I’d been going colder and colder until I was feeling really uncomfortable. My head was spinning round and I could feel myself sliding into one of these spells that I have where I’m not able to function at all.

That was the cue to set the alarm for ninety minutes hence and climb into bed underneath the bedclothes, fully clothed. I blame it on less than four hours sleep last night, myself.

After I awoke, it was a struggle to leave the bed, but once I was up and about I concentrated on choosing the music for programme 260417. There are quite a few gaps in the series but I’ll start to fill those once I finish my Woodstock weekend, whenever that might be.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg, followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert, delicious as usual. And now I’m off to bed, hoping to have a decent night’s sleep.

But seeing as we have been talking about our Welsh class … "well, one of us has" – ed …one of my classmates had said earlier that she would be late as she had to go for a memory exam at the local hospital.
However, as the lesson began, there she was.
"What happened to the memory exam?" I asked her
"Ohhh damn!" she replied. "I’ve forgotten to go".

Monday 12th May 2025 – IT HAS BEEN …

… one of those days that has been a disaster from start to finish, a day when nothing has gone right at all.

At least, that’s how it seems The truth is that most of the disasters relate to this afternoon and concern the dialysis centre. The rest, well, ça va as they say around here.

The morning actually started quite brightly, but before we arrive at that point, let’s just mention last night, which was another late-night calamity when I couldn’t summon up the energy to go to bed early.

Not that it would have been early either. It would have been about 23:30 by the time that I finished my notes and that’s not early by any means. And even then, it took me over half an hour to stagger off into the bathroom and then into bed.

Nevertheless, I was asleep quite quickly though, but not for long. And I tossed and turned throughout the night until round about 06:30 when I finally gave up trying to go back to sleep and headed off back into the bathroom.

After a good wash and the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. We had some silver pie base container things. For some reason we were going to have our evening meal in them. The girl who was nominated to do it had first of all to fetch our knitting files from Sam Apple Pie or wherever into the mix and merged properly. That took her a while. The supper came and it was leek soup … fell asleep here … I’m sure that one of the players playing alongside me was Adam Davies but anyway, going back to the story, these pie cases were flattened by some kind of road roller and we had to have them so that the sides came up again. We were managing a block of three hundred houses and apartments so imagine the cheer when one of them was rectified. Then it would go dark again and it, it would join one of the others that had yet been seen with floodlights and this carried on all the time. It was very, very rare that the product … fell asleep here … but we had these silver dishes and looking for one that we’d thrown out and trying to find one that was this Adam Davies, trying to make the sides stand up for some usage.

Adam Davies is of course centre-forward for Caernarfon, whom we watched yesterday, and “Sam Apple Pie” is the group in which my friend Dave Charles, the recording engineer for Rockfield Studios, played before joining “Help Yourself”. As for the rest of the dream, I’ll let you lot work it out and if you come up with an answer, don’t forget to let me know, because I don’t have a clue … "nothing new there" – ed ….

By the way, seeing as we are talking about Caernarfon … "well, one of us is" – ed … HERE ARE THE HIGHLIGHTS OF YESTERDAY’S GAME

And next, we were offered a pile of dressed stone for two shillings apiece so we arranged for them to have these stones delivered to the Haurace (?). They brought it in through the ice and deposited it just by his front door so he couldn’t move it and couldn’t open his door. He had to start to put it away quickly and do it well so that we could press on but that wasn’t his speedy work at all, wasn’t his thing. He’d seen the things that take the ghost when he played with the cards from Metz and he wanted to go to … fell asleep here … and we were peddling works after six series of taking it, I suppose you’d call it, where each club has been on it for over a month. It doesn’t work beforehand like that.

It seems that I have ashlar … "and rubble" – ed … on the brain right now with all of this medieval architecture that I am reading. As for the rest of it, this is something else that seemed to degenerate into the usual load of … errr … nonsense.

Finally, I went for a walk with a couple of friends of mine. One of them might have been Cécile. We’d been strolling over this agricultural area where she said that she had bought some land. The further we walked, the closer we came to something that looked like an old mill with a big, tall chimney. It was an abandoned place in this field. I went to look at it, but as I did, my attention was distracted by something in a quarry that was covered in rocks. I climbed up this ladder into this quarry. There were these two boys playing at the foot of the ladder. In the quarry it turned out to be an old American 6×4 lorry, camouflaged by being covered over in rocks. I took a couple of photos of it and had a good look around it, then climbed back down. I nearly put my foot on the hand of one of these boys. I told him that it was dangerous, playing around like that. I walked off to rejoin my friends. They had come to some kind of ruined house of the kind that you find in North America. Cécile, if it was Cécile, was extremely depressed because she’d bought it thinking that it was a place to live but it was in fact a ruin. We had a really good look around inside it. There was abandoned furniture and everything and the floors were unsafe. It was in a terrible condition. The two girls decided that they would go upstairs so I said that I’d stay down here to take some photos because there was a really good view of the mill from up here on the top of this hill where we were at this house. I walked out onto the verandah ready to take some more photos of the mill while they were upstairs looking around.

Cécile of course, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, featured in my life quite significantly for a six-month period. And the American army lorry presumably relates to the one in the Grès de Lapeize … "we’re talking “ashlar” again" – ed … quarry at … errr … Lapeize where Clotilde lives, the quarry that we visited BACK IN 2010 and found the lorry. However, climbing up on a ladder to the quarry is a new departure.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up early. "I can’t stop long" she said. "There are plenty of blood tests to carry out back at the office". Of course, it’s her final day today before her week off, and her colleague’s “reluctance” in this respect is well-known.

After she left I made breakfast and then read some more of MY BOOK. We’ve had the guided tour of Ludlow Castle and we’re now having the potted history of the place. What this has to do with the “Medieval Military Architecture” I really have no idea.

Back in here I attacked my Welsh homework and I actually managed to complete three-quarters of it. It was quite difficult too, especially seeing as I had missed the one-and-a-half lessons that covered this section.

When my faithful cleaner turned up, I was still bashing away at it, so I gave up and went to have my patches fitted.

And just as well that I did, because the taxi came early – 12:20. And it was my favourite driver too. After she installed me, she told me "we have to go to the Centre Normandy to pick up another passenger". So much for my hopes of an early arrival.

Even less chance too. The other passenger was in a wheelchair and he took some rounding up. It was 12:45 when we drove away from the “Normandy”.

And when we arrived, they weren’t ready for us. They had been explaining to a new stagière how to clean and then calibrate the machines.

There were some additional tests to perform on me too today, which meant that I wasn’t finally coupled up until 14:15, fifteen minutes after the effectiveness of the anaesthetic patches has worn off, so you can imagine how the coupling up went.

At least they left me alone pretty much once the machine began to work, although there were still some tests to carry out. But everyone finished at roughly the same time, so guess who was left until last.

Once I was finally sorted out, I went outside to find that the vehicle sent for me was the minibus. And, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have an extraordinary amount of difficulty climbing into it. In the centre, I’d banged my wounded leg putting on my shoes, and now I banged it again trying to enter the vehicle. And it was so complicated and difficult to climb in.

The torrential rainstorm didn’t help. I was soaked to the skin trying to climb in.

To cap it all, the guy in the wheelchair from the “Normandy” was in there already, and the driver wanted to drop him off first. Not much that I can do about it.

It was 19:30 when I arrived home, soaked, uncomfortable, in pain and completely fed up.

Tea was a stuffed pepper with plenty of stuffing left for the rest of the week, followed by vegan chocolate cake and soya dessert.

So now, thoroughly fed up and thoroughly exhausted, I’m off to bed where I shall sleep for a hundred years.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about “Sam Apple Pie” and “Help Yourself” … "well, one of us has" – ed … It reminds me of when I was arranging my CDs on shelves down on the farm.
Half-way through the exercise I burst out laughing.
"What’s so funny?" asked Cécile
"Have a look!" I replied.
I’d been labelling the shelves with the musician at the start and the musician at the end, and one of my shelves was labelled "Help Yourself to Kate Bush."

Sunday 11th May 2025 – WHAT A GAME …

… that was. Another fine illustration of the quality and excitement that exists in some of the matches in the JD Cymru League. And for a town of just 9800 people, the 1,568 people who flocked into the stadium to see the game were treated to a pulsating, entertaining match.

But that’s something to savour later. Let’s talk about last night first.

By the time that I finished my notes and whatever else I had to do, I was running miles behind as usual. And, completely exhausted, I made a total cod of the dictating that I had to do and it ended up as being one of the longest that I’ve done. There is going to be a huge pile of editing to do there.

Anyway, it was at about 00:30 that I ended up crawling into bed, and I fell asleep before I’d hardly begun my usual nighttime mantra

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall what happens next. It’s the Sunday after a Saturday dialysis session and so round about 06:50 I was wide-awake. So much for my lie-in until 08:00. I lay there for a while tossing and turning but at about 07:05 I gave it up as a bad job and fell out of bed.

Off I staggered into the bathroom and cleaned myself up. Then I wandered into the kitchen for my medication, remembering to take the Vitamin D and Vitamin B12 that I should have taken yesterday.

Back in here I checked the dictaphone but there was nothing on it. That’s a disappointment because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only fun and excitement that I have these days is what does on during the night. And if it involves my family, it’s not much fun and not what I would call “exciting” either.

Instead, I made a start on the back-up that I should have done yesterday but I didn’t go very far because Isabelle the Nurse arrived.

She changed the plaster and cleaned the wound where I’d had this biopsy, lanced the blister where I’d had my compression sock that I couldn’t pull over the wound on Thursday, dealt with my legs and fitted my compression socks for me. She was grateful for everything that my faithful cleaner had fetched on Saturday but she had forgotten the prescription that she promised.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. We’ve finally left the Tower of London, not before doing some lengthy research into the Earls of Gloucester, and have now moved on to Ludlow Castle where, doubtless, the finer points of civilian architecture will be pointed out, at the expense of anything military.

Back in here, I had work to do.

The free trial period of an expensive antivirus that came when I installed Windows on my new System drive has now expired and so I disabled it. I have a favourite free antivirus – or, that is to say, I did – but just recently, it’s been picking and choosing what sites I can or cannot access.

It keeps telling me that even my own sites, that I wrote with my bare hands, are “unsafe”, not to mention many of the more famous sites on the web, many of which I access on a regular basis.

After a play around with it this morning, it still wouldn’t respond so I reluctantly uninstalled it. I used another one previous to this one, that I had rejected several years ago in favour of the new one, so I went back to install that one again, and it works just fine.

When I’d finished breakfast I had made some dough for a lunchtime bread roll. I baked it and then made some lovely cheese on toast for lunch. You’ve no idea how nice it tasted. And as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m really impressed with my air fryer, almost as much as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin.

This afternoon I made a start on the radio programme notes that I’d begun to edit just before going into hospital. And in a mad fit of energy I’d finished them, assembled the programme as far as I could, chosen the final track and written the notes ready for dictation next Saturday night.

There were of course the notes that I’d dictated last night but I ran out of time, which is probably just as well. I’ll try to catch up with those during the week some time.

There was more baking to do this afternoon. I’ve almost run out of bread so now seemed like a good time to make a loaf. I assembled enough ingredients for an 800-gramme loaf and with the correct amount of water thanks to my new scientific measuring gauge, with which I am also impressed etc etc, the dough rose up like a lift.

Not that I was watching it. I was in here watching Caernarfon play Cardiff Metropolitan for the right to play Hwlffordd next weekend for the coveted final spot in European competition in the summer.

The Caernarfon fans packed the ground and they had the privilege of being entertained to one of the fastest, most competitive games that I’ve seen all season.

The Cofis had the bulk of the attacking play but the Met’s defence stood firm and if their defence were to play like that in every game, they would be a force to be reckoned with. They had recognised long before the game that flying winger Louis Lloyd was the Cofis’ main attacking strength and had three men marking him throughout the game, giving him no room at all to move.

It wasn’t until near the end that the Met began to attack in numbers, and they created a few moments of panic in the Cofis’ defence.

And, would you believe, the match was decided by the very last kick of the game. You can see the game HERE or wait until the TV company has edited the highlights. But the highlights will miss the flavour of the game, that’s for sure.

While all of this was going on, I’d had some pizza dough, the last lot, defrosting in the kitchen. So while the bread was baking after the final whistle, I assembled my pizza.

The bread looks superb, the pizza tasted really good and everything now looks fine for the week to come. So I’ll finish my notes, back up the computer, take the statistics and then go to bed. Later than usual of course, but that’s just how things are these days.

But seeing as we have been talking about Isabelle the Nurse lancing my blister … "well, one of us has" – ed … they had a specialist unit once at Leighton Hospital near Crewe where a man was employed specifically to do just that.
However, I had head that it had closed down so I asked my friend who still lives there.
"It’s quite true" he said. "The unit has closed down"
"Why was that?" I asked, bitterly regretting ten seconds later that I had done so
"It was the man who lanced the boils and blisters" he replied. "He kept on falling off the horse."

Saturday 10th May 2025 – GUESS WHO …

… forgot to switch the alarms back on this morning? That’s right. Bane of Britain has triumphed again.

Consequently I had a nice, long sleep until all of 07:31 when I suddenly awoke with one of these dramatic awakenings that I have every now and again. It was nice, bright sunlight outside so I immediately guessed that there was something wrong, so I glanced at the time.

And after another late night last night a really good sleep probably did me some good too. I was exhausted after the journey back and by the time that I’d finished my meal and was back in here I wasn’t fit for very much.

Nevertheless I wrote the notes and performed some of the backing- up and then crawled off to bed at about 23:40 or something. I was asleep quite quickly and, for a change, I was dead to the World throughout the entire night. I remember nothing whatever until I awoke at 07:31.

Once I’d realised exactly what time it was I dashed … "errr … quite" – ed … into the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up, and sorted out the washing. Far too much to put in one machine so I just put the important things into the washing machine and set it off on its routine.

In the kitchen I had my medication, forgetting the vitamin D and the vitamin B12 that the hospital wants me to take and then back in here I was just about to check the dictaphone when Isabelle the Nurse turned up.

She admired the huge plaster on my leg and read the prescription attentively. She made a list of what she needed and ticked off what we had, indicated on the hospital’s prescription what she needed, and then issued instructions as to what else she needed, promising to write a prescription for tomorrow.

After that, it was breakfast. And then I read more of MY BOOK. Except that I didn’t. I was side-tracked yet again, firstly reading about the curious antics of Ranulf Flambard, the treasurer of William Rufus and imprisoned by Henry I, only to become the first-ever prisoner known to have escaped from the Tower of London, and then of the downfall and subsequent resurgence of William de Forz and the siege and subsequent capture of Castle Bytham by Henry III.

You can probably understand why I was no good at being a University Student. I was always wandering off down alleyways that led me far away from my course syllabus.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was something last night about a ferry – a small one like one of the ones that they have here in Granville that go out to the Ile de Chausey. In some kind of tempest or hurricane it had been badly damaged. The ferry company had one of their previous ferries – it was sitting on a plinth outside their office. What they did was to take the boat off the plinth and put it in the water and began to use that. The damaged one, they hauled it out of the water and put it on the plinth. The owners of the company decided that they would give it a thorough overhaul and repair it. Then they would check it every three years for any kind of deterioration and keep on repairing it if it needed it so that if something similar happened again they could take the one off the plinth and drop that in the water and it would be ready to go without any problems whatsoever

There was a similar story about the “Gate Guardians”, the Spitfires and Hurricanes that stood on plinths outside former World War II airfields. When we were kids, on our way to North Wales, we always noticed the one at Hawarden Airfield. However, when the film BATTLE OF BRITAIN was proposed, all of the Gate Guardians were rounded up and where it was possible to do so, were put back into the air.

There was also something about being in hospital and a nurse doing something to me which impressed me so I said something. She replied that she was only a student nurse, which surprised me. I wonder who she was. I’ve had several student nurses attending to me in the past

After that? I had some e-mails to write. There is a mountain of correspondence here going back weeks that I really must answer. However, I must have let the time slip away with me because my cleaner turned up to fit my anaesthetic patches when I was nowhere near ready.

She turned up, but the taxi didn’t. After waiting half an hour, I ‘phoned them up. "Ohh merde!" said the dispatcher in a voice loud enough that even my cleaner heard it. "I’ll find another vehicle for you".

We decided to go outside and wait, and we had a lovely forty minutes under the sun until an ambulance turned up. I hate them – it’s quite a fight for me to put myself inside – but if it’s the only vehicle available I can’t complain.

It was driven by the driver who took me to Paris. She told me that they had been on the autoroute not far from St-Lô when the call had come through. No wonder that it had taken so long to arrive. I told her that I didn’t understand any of this – after all, the taxi company had brought me back from Paris yesterday so they knew that I was at home.

Hours late at the dialysis centre, and what made it even worse was that it was a three-and-a-half hour session today. Had the taxi been on time, I could have had a very pleasant late afternoon back at my place.

The consolation was that I had Lexi and Océane dealing with me today. All of the nurses there are wonderful but as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … Lexi really does have the most delicate touch.

Who cares whether or not the coupling-up was painful? After Tuesday afternoon and the muscular biopsy, nothing else is painful. I had plenty of work to do, apart from sitting there watching the blood pressure slowly sink through the floor to a rather dangerous 88.

Emilie the Cute Consultant was there too, but she remained stoically in her little glass cage. If she wanted something, she sent one of the girls for it. It’s a shame that she’s no longer speaking to me after my revolt the other week.

This evening, I was the last one there so they were both dealing with me. While Lexi was compressing me, Océane was inspecting my feet. I told them that I had delayed my arrival on purpose so as to have the undivided attention of both of them.

The taxi was waiting for me to bring me home and we had a very silent drive back. My cleaner was waiting and she watched and helped a little while I struggled up the stairs. She’d been to the chemist’s to buy what was needed and had bought a lettuce and some potatoes for me.

After she left, I made tea. Baked potato, salad and breaded quorn fillet followed by chocolate cake and almond soya dessert.

Now that I’ve finished my notes, I have some dictating to do and then I’m off to bed. I have plenty of work to do tomorrow, and there’s footy too – Caernarfon v Cardiff Metro, the winner going on to meet Hwlffordd to compete for the vital third European spot, accompanying TNS and Penybont.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about student nurses … "well, one of us has" – ed … regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m not made correctly and taking a blood sample from me is not easy.
Nevertheless, I always encourage the student nurses to have a go. After all, they have to learn somewhere.
One of them was having so much difficulty that I told her "cheer up! If I leave this hospital alive, you won’t need to sit your exams. You will have earned your diploma by default."

Friday 9th May 2025 – HOME ON A …

.. KITE WE FLY,
HOME ON A BREEZE WE BLOW

Actually, substitute “ambulance” for “kite” and the rest would fit quite nicely because right now I’m sitting on my comfy chair at my own desk in my little apartment having had the quickest drive home that I have ever had.

The hospital rang the taxi company to tell them that I could go home and could they have a car here for 11:00? The taxi company replied “could he wait until about 14:00?”.

With the new Social Security regulations about combining trips wherever possible now in force, that told me one of two things – either that there was a vehicle already on its way to Paris, having just set out, with a passenger for Paris, or else there was someone else who needed to come home a little later than me.

Not that I am complaining of course. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s a free service for me in view of my terminal illness and France is, as far as I am aware, the only country in the World that offers it. So who am I to complain or argue about anything?

It gave me an opportunity to catch up with my work, because it had been a very slow start to the day. That’s not surprising because it was after 23:30 when I finally made it into bed. And once there, although I fell asleep quite quickly, this was one of the noisiest nights that I have had and it seemed as if I’d hardly had a wink of sleep.

Round about 05:30 I gave up trying and I began to work.

First thing that I did was to review the dictaphone to see if there was anything on it. And to my surprise, I must either have had much more sleep than I thought or each one of the different personalities living inside me must have gone off on separate trips. I’d been out with my friend from Newport and the first thing that I noticed at the bottom of the door and the door frame were covered in some kind of white material like flour and there was a wooden batten nailed to the side of the door frame. When I leaned on the front door it opened wide and I fell in. It looked completely different inside and I couldn’t understand what happened. I went into the bedroom and one of the cupboards with the clothes in was missing. I suddenly realised that we’d been burgled. I had a good look round the apartment and noticed that all the guitars had gone. All my camera equipment had gone, everything like that, and my clothes, the television, the hi-fi. I went outside to call the police. I was standing by the bus stop outside and dialled 511 but I ended up with the police from the UK for some reason. The policemen to whom I was speaking on the ‘phone knew me and made some kind of remarks. I hung up and tried to dial 911 but for some reason my ‘phone wouldn’t give the number. It didn’t matter how I pressed the keys on the keypad the number 911 wouldn’t come up. Then another policeman walked over to me and made some kind of remark about how if he were me, he would be very careful about doing certain things and saying certain things. I wondered what was the matter with him but I just couldn’t persuade my ‘phone to come up with the number 911.

The apartment was not the same as my current one or my future one and the bus stop was a totally different one. It was in the countryside near some hills etc where I’d been for a walk in the past with Liz.

When I move downstairs, my apartment’s front door will be right by the front door of the building at the foot of the stairs. My door will be locked at all times but nevertheless if anyone leaves the front door open and anyone undesirable comes in, or we have any undesirable guests in one of the apartments that is let to holidaymakers, my apartment would be the first target. And it’s strange that I’m having a panic attack about the ‘phone not working. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that it’s usually the camera that is giving me these kinds of problems.

And then we (whoever “we” were) were doing something with a drama. I can’t remember exactly what now. We ended up outside the house in Shavington with this Morris 1000 Traveller. We had to unload some musical gear from it and take it into the house. There was a guy who had been with us. He was the father of some friend or someone like that. We were talking about different music as we were emptying this thing. He replied “oh yes, that’s what they call ‘kitchen music’ “. I said “ohh look! Here’s someone trying to teach his grandfather to suck eggs here”, thinking that we as musicians would all know that, so he smiled. I began to tell the story about why it was called “kitchen music” but everyone wandered away after a few seconds and left me on my own so I carried on unloading this Traveller. Then we ended up in some recording studio where we’d been recording a radio programme. It was concerning what we’d mentioned as “kitchen music”. I was ushering everyone off the stage at the end. A piece of ordinary, banal music appeared as the background sound for the credits. I suddenly had this really good idea. I went and fetched a guitarist whom I knew and he played this lovely rock lead guitar solo over this banal music and it sounded really good and with that I decided that we would use as the introduction to the programme and the background music for the credits at the end.

We (that is, Nerina and I) nearly had a Morris Traveller once. Someone advertised one for sale that “needed welding” and Nerina fancied it so we went to look at it. The “needed welding” was that the rear spring hanger had sheared off the chassis and come through the floor at the back. It was certainly possible to weld it up but it would have taken a lot of effort. I’m not sure now what the circumstances were that led to it not being added to our fleet. With a BMC 1.5 diesel engine, MG Midget discs and rear brakes, uprated front and rear springs, we could have had a very useful vehicle that would certainly have kept up with modern traffic.

As for mocking the current trend in music, I have to be very careful when passing comment otherwise I’ll find myself turning into my father whenever he heard mine. As for the guitar solos, there are many, many banal, mundane pieces of music that have been utterly transformed by the addition of a lead guitar solo. Just listen to some early “Santana” stuff like NO-ONE TO DEPEND ON and take away the guitars of Carlos Santana and 16-year-old Neal Schon.

Later on I was in a hospital. One of my friends, a girl, was pushing me in a wheelchair. We were trying to find a doctor, a specific doctor for some reason or other. We wandered around – it was a morning and everyone was coming on shift but we couldn’t see the doctor whom we wanted so she went and made a couple of enquiries. In the end she managed to find a name and I recognised the name. When she came back and said the name I replied “he’ll be over there in that café on the far side. That’s where he is usually with a group of other people whom I knew who preferred the smaller café to the big one. Just as she was about to set off, Nerina came out of another doorway into the café. I said “hello” to her. This girl pushed me in the wheelchair around to the far side. The doctor wasn’t there but his senior nurse was, a young girl. We asked her to step outside, which she did, and my friend began to discuss the case with her. I looked in and there were only two other people in this smaller café and they were people whom I knew too. When the girl had finished explaining to the senior nurse I said “if you go over to the far side there and tell my ex-wife that you are going to perform the operation on me, she’ll probably slip you €100 to make sure that you forget to turn on the gas on or something”.

Seeing as we are talking about the ex-wife … "well, one of us is" – ed … everyone knows that X is the Latin for “ten”. But there’s an interesting story about a wheelchair that you will find out if you have the stomach to read any more about this. And “forget to turn on the gas” – knowing my family it would be to have a small accident whilst wielding a scalpel or a circular saw.

Finally, I stepped back into that dream later on. It was raining and we were round the Civic Centre. The girl pushing me in the wheelchair went into an office and came out. She telephoned our Head Office to explain that the gentleman we wanted to see wasn’t in work this week and had not left a forwarding address so we couldn’t contact hm anyway. The arrangement was then that we’d go back to my house to await the arrival of the stuff from Parcelforce or whatever company it is that is delivering and then come back down here to unload what we didn’t need and take away whatever else there was, and then head away. Just at that moment, out of the library came the guy and the girl for whom we were waiting in the previous dream, the doctor. We explained that we were going back to my house to await delivery and we’d be back later on. She also asked for his name so that she knew for which person to ask when we came back, rather than looking idly around the place for a person whom we recognised.
This brings back memories of being pushed around in a wheelchair in several hospitals looking for the correct ward, or unit, or place to go

In the bathroom having my usual scrub, the young Asian nurse came in and asked to take my blood pressure and temperature. She asked me if I needed any help washing myself but you’ll be so proud of me – I retrained myself. However, I did point to my feet which, not having had any care and attention for almost a week, were looking quite bad. She had things to do just then but ten minutes later she came back and washed them

Breakfast this morning included a yoghurt but apart from that, it was quite nice and then, while I was trying to work, I had an endless stream of visitors, especially my Romanian stagière doctor, a different one from last time.

But with an Asiatic nurse, another Romanian stagière doctor, British racism and xenophobia is driving away many people who want to come to bring their talents to the UK. The NHS is suffering and countries like France are profiting.

So they told me about the taxi. But its late arrival did not concern me. I had plenty to do, such as answering stupid questions put by another therapist.

Lunch was a yoghurt, and some fish, neither of which I could eat. I just had the potatoes in sauce, polenta and courgettes

after that I packed my bags and I wasn’t quite ready when I had the first of two ‘phone calls from the ambulance drivers wanting to know whereabouts were of the building where I was.

Eventually they found be, helped me pack and we set off -at least one of the drivers and I did. The other had to wait for the paperwork. I was supposed to leave at 11:00 but God knows what might have happened then because the paperwork wasn’t ready. The poor driver had to wait an hour for the papers to be ready.

It was a good guess about the ambulance earlier. They had indeed brought a patient up to Paris – hence the ambulance coming for me -and had me as a return trip.

It was a struggle for me to climb into the ambulance but I managed it and when the other driver joined us, we shot off through the streets of Paris. They were quite quiet, with many people doing the Pont – taking a day off to bridge the gap of Thursday and the weekend.

It was the fastest drive that I’ve ever had – three hours and forty-five minutes, and that included a ten-minute stop. There were no hold-ups on the prif for a change, with half of the population of Paris being in Granville right now. T won’t ever be that quick until August when everyone goes off on holiday.

The coffee machine where we stopped said “cards only” but when my driver looked, he saw that it also read “card reader not working” so I had to go without. That was sad.

Back here, my faithful cleaner was waiting for me and she helped me upstairs. And I needed it too after being a week in hospital. I only did one of the flights. I took the lift from the first half-landing up to the next one and waled down to my apartment. And wasn’t it nice to be in my own place?

Checking through the papers I found that I had been prescribed a wheelchair. I remember talking to the Romanian doctor who said that I ought to be in a wheelchair because of “those steps”, but how she expects a wheelchair to go up 25 high chairs I really don’t know.

Tea tonight was salad, chips and the last of those mini-vegan nuggets followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert.

So right now, I’m whacked so I’m off to my own nice, comfortable bed.

But seeing as we have been talking about parents … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember my youngest sister once telling off her two kids, ranting at them, and suddenly stopping mid-word
"Ohh God!" She exclaimed. "I’m turning into my mother!"

Thursday 8th May 2025 – I SAID THE …

… other day that I never ever wanted to go through the pain that I suffered on Tuesday when I had that muscular biopsy.

And so this morning, trying to put on my compression socks I put my hand onto the wound, didn’t I? And then later on, when I tried to put on my shoes at the dialysis centre … well …

Anyway, enough of that. Retournons à nos moutons as they say around here.

Last night I was in bed at about 23:30, totally flaked out, and I went straight to sleep. Not for long though, and when the nurse came in at 06:00 to fit my anaesthetic patches I was already wide-awake thinking about leaving my stinking pit. I’d actually been awake for some considerable time.

It wasn’t long after she left that they came in with my breakfast. For a change, everything on the tray was something that I could eat. And the coffee was wonderful.

They had told me that a porter would come to fetch me at 07:30 for my dialysis so I went into the bathroom at about 07:10 to do what one has to do. Sure enough, two minutes later the porter turned up.

That was rather a shame, for he had to hang around for a few minutes while I finished.

He pushed me in a wheelchair downstairs to one of these electric vehicles that they have, and then he drove me round to the dialysis centre.

What I experienced there made me glad that I am usually dealt with in Avranches. Here in the hospital, although it was a comparatively modern building, it was old, quarry tiled, no ticket printout on the weighing machine, no television for the patients etc. It really was rather sad.

The nurses were nowhere near as pretty as those in Avranches, although the one who saw to me was friendly enough. But they had no echograph machine to find the connection under the skin so it really was like playing darts on your body. I’m not sure how many goes she had to find the bullseye. At least she managed to miss treble nineteen.

Luckily I had taken my laptop so I had plenty of things to do seeing as there were no pretty nurses to admire.

One good thing about it all was that for the coffee break, they proposed an orange drink as well seeing as I can’t eat their cake. And the orange juice was one of these protein drinks, lactose free too. I shall have to make further enquiries about this drink.

After they unplugged me, the driver took me back to my little room just in time for lunch. The vegan meal consisted of a salad niçoise (that’s a tuna salad) and fish. Of course, tomorrow is Friday and in a Catholic country, even though it has been officially laic for well over one hundred years, we know what that means.
"IT’S FISH EVERY FRIDAY, IT’S FISH TWO FOOT WIDE
IT COVERS UP YOUR PLATE AND HANGS OVER THE SIDE"I

After the first day of non-vegan meals served to someone on a vegan diet with a recorded allergy to animal fats, I wrote to the complaints department of the Hospital. As yet they have not replied so I sent them another one about the meal today.

This afternoon, it was just like yesterday afternoon. A huge wave of fatigue came over me and after trying to fight it off for quite a while I was overwhelmed.

When a nurse came in to see me, I asked her what they were giving me to make me go like that. "Nothing that’s not recorded on your prescription" she replied.

And I’m not even having that because the tablets that she brought me for my afternoon snack were one short, and I’ve not had even one of my disgusting drinks.

The laptop sliding off my knees caused a sudden rush of adrenalin that awoke me, so I buttonholed a passing Auxi who brought me a coffee which was nice of her.

Back in the land of the living, I could make a start on the dictaphone notes. I was with a girl from school. I thought that it was a certain girl but it didn’t look like her. We’d been doing a lot of things together and we’d spent the Sunday doing things and we’d seen each other for a few weeks after that. Then I became time to take her home. I said that I’d take her home but if she wanted, she could stay the night. After thinking for a minute she agreed to stay. I promised that I wouldn’t do anything silly – she could stay fully-clothed and I would stay fully-clothed but it would be nice just to spend the night together. She agreed to that so I began to prepare things. There was a problem with the house in which we were living and some other smaller women there, whom I recognised as being my sister, was involved in sorting out these problems. This went on and on and on and on. In the end the other girl came to me to apologise, saying that she had had second thoughts and wanted to change her mind. She’ll stay the night here, she said, “but I don’t want to share a room or bed with you because if I do, we’ll be sharing a bed with each other every time we meet up and I don’t think that I’m ready to do that. Of course I was disappointed but I could understand so we agreed that she’d stay in another part of the house somewhere and we’d meet up for breakfast. By this time, the searches were going on in this room for whatever this problem was. There were all kinds of people in thee and I couldn’t go to bed because of it. Whatever it was, my sister was looking at this girl who might have been the one with me. She expected to hear that the girl was spending the night with me. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that she wasn’t. She came out with some kind of talk about how she would spend the night with me sometime but she had to tell him and sort things out with him, all this kind of thing. I wondered who “him” was because I was convinced that she didn’t have another boyfriend somewhere but this long speech implied that there was someone else to whom she needed to talk first. Then this enquiry into what was happening with this business went on and on and on and they’d moved down the street to somewhere else and there was no way on this earth where I could find a bag of chips now because all the shops were now closed or closed down ready for demolition so we didn’t last very very long in that route (…fell asleep here …) but we did alright as a sort-of couple I suppose.

There is actually a story about going to bed fully clothed with a fully-clothed girl, but the World isn’t ready to hear it at the moment. As for the girl in the dream, a name was mentioned but it certainly wasn’t her. The girl with the name had a mass of black hair but the one in the dream was smaller and had light brown or dark blond hair, very fine and only shoulder-length. I have a feeling that I might know who she is, but I just can’t remember. However, despite their best efforts to throw a spanner into the works, my family managed to avoid disrupting my evil schemes. The girl must have seen them for herself and come quickly to her senses.

Later on, there had been some huge conflict between my youngest sister and someone or other – some guy. I was out and about on my travels walking around and I came across a friend at his house who was going to a party that night to which I’d been invited too, and a few others. He was outside trying to deal with a huge snowfall that had covered his car and covered his drive. He was trying to sort it out so that he could make things ready for him to come tonight so I went to lend him a hand. Another one of our friends was there. I’d had a long talk with this other friend at some point in the recent past. The three of us ended up chatting. Something came up in the conversation that this third guy had said. The first guy asked him “from where did you receive that information?”. The third guy pointed to me, saying “we were talking about that and in the end Eric mentioned it”. We carried on and something else that came up – the first guy wanted to know where the third guy had learned that. The third guy said “oh, Eric had mentioned it”. The first guy said “well, Eric is doing a lot, isn’t he at the moment?”. We set about to try to shovel the snow while the conversation went on, saying “it’s going to be hell tonight. This lot is going to freeze and it will be a nightmare”. Someone mentioned that the guy with whom my sister had had an argument was going to see her. I thought that I’d better go there as well. So I went, and she was in hospital, in her little bed. She had all her stuffed toys around her, and STRAWBERRY MOOSE was there too. I sat him up properly at the side of her bed and made sure that she was comfortable. Then I saw this guy come into the ward and walk down towards her bed. At that moment a nurse came in and awoke me to fit my anaesthetic patches.

The snowfall in this dream was a snowfall of Montrealesque proportions. It reminded me of my epic trip along the North Shore of the St Lawrence that I DID IN THE WINTER OF 2001/2002

And how often does His Nibs appear in my dreams? In the old days when I used to be able to travel, he was my constant companion and was the first moose to set hoof on Ellesmere Island, Philpot’s Island, the Brother John Glacier and the Greenland Icecap. But my youngest sister seems to be back in my dreams again. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s rather depressing that my family keep on sticking their noses into my dreams and I can’t seem to summon up any of my young ladies, apart from that flying visit from Zero the other night.

Once I’d finished my notes I had a quick chat with my faithful cleaner on the internet and carried on with my hunt for films of Launder and Gilliatt to download. I was in luck because I found two classics – ROME EXPRESS starring my hero Gordon Harker and then the legendary GREEN FOR DANGER starring Alastair Sim in what I consider to be his best performance.

By the way, if you notice aside in the right column, I receive a small commission from purchases made from Amazon via my links. It doesn’t alter the price that you pay, but it helps defray my web-hosting expenses which are quite considerable these days. I know that some of you do already, and I’m very grateful to you, and if other people were to make use of the opportunity, I would be just as grateful.

For tea tonight, my vegan meal included yoghurt and omelette, so another e-mail followed the ones that I had sent earlier. If no-one replies by the time that I go home (whenever that might be) I’ll print them out and send them to the director-general of the hospital to demand an explanation, firstly for the state of the vegan meals, and secondly for the failure to reply and take any action over my complaints. I shall go on the offensive and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that “offensive” is certainly the correct word to use in these cases.

Right now though, it’s late and I’m off to bed. But seeing as we have been talking about His Nibs … "well, one of us has" – ed … he went with me on our first Arctic Expedition in 2018 when we reached about 600 or so miles from the North Pole via the Greenland Icecap and the Kane Basin
In 2019 when we went back for part two of our expedition, we encountered some anthropologists scratching their heads.
"What’s going on here?" we asked.
"That’s what we don’t understand" they replied. "There’s a very strange phenomenon here"
"What’s that?" we asked.
"Several polar bears have given birth this summer and there’s something very strange about their offspring. They are just like little polar bear cubs but their fur is brown and furry and they look as if they may have antlers."
"I see" I replied helpfully. "They look like what you might say ‘like a moose in front but with a bear behind’"

Wednesday 7th May 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… a day of rest today. And who can blame me for that after yesterday?

And especially after the wretched night that I had had. I was in bed by about 23:15 and was asleep quite quickly, but it didn’t stay like that for long.

By 04:00 I was wide awake again and when the nurse came to take my blood sample I was about ready to rise up from my bed.

However, I stayed put until about 06:50 when I limped gingerly into the bathroom.. I say “limped gingerly” because I’m not supposed to put any weight on the leg from which they extracted the sample. That’s not possible of course because I have to move around, but I have to be careful.

Back in here there was a long wait until breakfast (which included a yoghurt for my vegan diet) but the coffee was scorching hot and had a lovely taste

After breakfast we had the usual interruptions while I tried to transcribe the dictaphone notes. I was seeing Nerina off on a train somewhere. I had to find some extra clothes for her because it was going o be cold. I gave her the sweater that I was wearing. A friend of mine, who was on a bed in the hospital but one of these mezzanine beds hat was raised quite high-uppish, she had another one of mine so I took that one and ran to the train. Nerina was sitting in the very last carriage at a window right at the end. I threw her the one, that she caught, but I couldn’t find the second one so I had to run back to this mezzanine bed but I couldn’t find it. I found one of my lightweight fleeces and dashed down the corridor of another train right into the driving compartment where there were four or five men sitting talking. They began to make some kind of weird remarks about the speed in which I was travelling. Then I went right out of the cab at the front and down the steps at the front which were a long series of stone steps right down to the bottom. One of the guys took off behind me and shouted at me to stop. He told me that I was trespassing but I took absolutely no notice whatsoever. There were some policemen there, halfway down the steps, and he shouted out to them but they didn’t do anything at all. I ran down and reached the bottom. At the bottom he caught me up and said that he was going to “sort me out for my impudence”, everything like that. He was struggling to put on his police overcoat with the stripes on it. “So you are going to teach me, are you? Come on then, let’s see you do it”. He took a swing at me but I stepped back. I goaded him again “do it again” but he burst into tears. I left him there and ran but when I reached the platform where Nerina’s rain was, it had gone. I walked back and there were a few people whom I knew there. One or two had used to play in a group that I knew but had been asked to leave and had been replaced by some other people whom I knew. I expected these people to come over and talk to me to ask me what I knew about them having to leave this group but they didn’t even notice me so I carried on walking towards the doorway for the way out of the station.

That situation is one that I could easily manage to have – from all points of view. If I had something urgent to do, I wouldn’t let protocol stand in my way. And if someone wants to take a swing at me, they are quite welcome to try.

And then I was out taxi-driving last night. I had to go to pick up some people off a little mews in Welsh Row, Nantwich to take them to the railway station. They turned up and climbed into the car and I set off. When I came to the corner where I turned into Hospital Street I felt the clutch begin to slip on the car. I felt “ohh, not again!”. I carried on and we were chatting. The woman asked me if I would be going anywhere near Brierley Street. I explained that I would be going straight down Crewe Road. By now we were on some kind of country lane that I didn’t recognise at all. I wondered “how did I arrive here and where had I gone?”. The road went round to the left on a bend but in the past there was this big U-turn type of thing, a U-bend … "he means ‘hairpin bend’" – ed …. I ended up taking the old road for some reason or other and when I reached the end it was gated so I had to apologise, turn round and go back again. Then they began to ask me about cashing up. When did I cash up? How often did I cash up? Do I have a £10:00 note on me? Could I see one? I had to begin to make excuses about this. I thought “this is all beginning to sound suspicious to me. I wonder what is going to happen next”.

That’s something that used to happen every now and again after I had my taxi accident in Sandbach and fractured my skull. I’d suddenly find myself in a street and I’d have to stop to think …
1) how did I arrive here?
2) to where am I heading?
It was all very confusing. And I had my fair share of strange characters in my taxi at different times.

So no family last night, except Nerina. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … seeing as I invited her to share my life, she has every right to appear in my dreams. And frankly, in what might come as a surprise to many people, if I had to choose between Nerina and any member of my family (except the Canadian side of course), Nerina would be in pole position, and by a country mile too.

Some therapist came by too. She asked me a pile of questions about my autonomy and then had me putting pegs into holes and then taking them out – doing it against the clock.

For much of the rest of the day I was left alone so I cracked on with the radio programme 260403. All of the notes are now written ready for typing. It took me much longer than usual because I kept on falling asleep. I don’t know what pills they have given me that are different from the normal but they are knocking me out.

After I’d finished, I hunted down the names of songs for the next programme, 260410. That’s the anniversary of the Titanic setting out on its first and only voyage, so I’m going to have a sea-related programme that week, I reckon.

There have been e-mails to write, ‘phone calls to make and to receive, nurses and auxis coming in to interrupt me for no good reason, but I sent them off to find a doctor. When one finally arrived I mentioned the missing Burinex and she told me that I’d been prescribed one per day. However she changed to prescription and sent a runner off for a couple more pills.

The meals were as usual. For a vegan diet my meals included
1) breakfast – yoghurt
2) lunch – yoghurt, cheese slice and cheese omelette
3) tea – yoghurt and steamed fish

So now I’m off to bed ready for my dialysis tomorrow.

And seeing as we were talking about protocol … "well, one of us is" – ed …
One day in 2022 there was an important dignitary coming to the office so it was all decked out and the cameras from the TV stations were there.
And what the crowds, and the millions or people on European television saw, was a dark green Opel Omega driven by Yours Truly pull up to drop off my boss’s assistant.
The woman in charge of protocol sailed down and gave me a really stern lecture that went on and on.
When she finished, I replied "if you had said nothing, I would have been in and out in ten seconds. However, you’ve kept me here for five minutes on live television and made me famous, something that I appreciate greatly. Thank you very much"

My car was an Opel Omega, armoured of course and with the police’s 6-cylinder 24 valve engine that would run the four and a half tonnes of car at 260 kph easily on a German autobahn at night. But it was an ordinary car, with civilian number plates, and we never ever had an official police escort. I convinced my boss that the best security was to pass unnoticed in the crowd, rather than draw attention to ourselves.
One day he asked me "are you armed?"
"No I’m not" I replied. Anyone who wanted to attack us would have his gun all ready anyway and I would never have had the time to pull mine out of my pocket or from under the car seat.
He was surprised by that. "but what would you do if we were attacked?"
"Well, Sir Brian" I said. "I would rely on the force of my personality."

Tuesday 6th May 2025 – AS I HAVE SAID …

… before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … a thoracic puncture is the most painful medical intervention that I have ever suffered in my life.

And, having said that, I now wish to withdraw that remark. I do not ever in my life wish to suffer the pain through which I went with this muscular biopsy. I would rather take a dozen thoracic punctures any day. I have never hurt so much in all my life.

But be that as it may, there is a lot of ground to cover before we actually arrive at that point.

Last night, after I’d finished writing my notes, I was thoroughly exhausted despite all of the sleep that I had during the day, and by 22:30 I was in bed, tucked up under the sheets. Not “under the blankets” because there weren’t any on the bed.

It wasn’t all that long before I was asleep either, although as is usual in a hospital, being a very light sleeper means that I have very little sleep, what with all of the racket that goes on in a hospital during the night.

And as I have also said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … there is no point whatever going to bed early because all it means is that I wake up correspondingly early.

And while 04:05 might seem to be rather absurd to some, I didn’t have any choice in the matter. There I lay, drifting in and out of reality until the nurse came to take a blood sample at 06:30. Her procedure was what I would call “efficient” and she didn’t hang about either. It was all done and over in a matter of a handful of seconds with no trouble at all.

Before she left, she asked me "Anything else that you need?"
"A coffee" I replied, more in hope than expectation, but needless to say, I was told to clear off.

Round about 07:30 the circus began in earnest and I had no more rest after that, with blood pressure, temperature, all of that kind of thing.

As Hawkwind once famously said in SONIC ATTACK "your only protection is flight" and I fled into the bathroom for the morning ablutions.

Not that I was safe in there either because someone came to look for me – to ask me if I needed any help, just as I was finishing.

Breakfast wasn’t long a-coming, but my medicine never arrived. And never arrived at all during the day, possibly because no-one had thought to take my prescription yesterday when I checked in.

After breakfast I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was an advert on television about washing powder or something. Some woman was sitting on a sofa holding a bowlful of it when a dog jumped onto her lap and the bowl went everywhere. My younger brother decided that he would try it. He waited until someone was sitting on the sofa with a bucket full of something but it was actually cooking fat. He was training the dog to jump up on her and the cooking fat went everywhere. I went in to see what the commotion was and saw the mess. I went back into my room and on the two-way radio I said “that looks three metres by three metres, nine square metres, nine metres cubed so we reckon that if you make a start now, you might have it all tidied up and cleaned away by breakfast. My mother heard it and was immediately swept up in a kind-of anger. She dashed into the bedroom and sorted out some old bedclothing, bed covers, sheets and so on. She said “you can’t leave your brother to clean that up. I’m going to do it”. I asked “how do you think he’s going to learn? And then again, you’re always complaining that no-one ever takes any notice of me. Here I am, giving some kind of instruction and you’re almost immediately undermining it, so what do you expect?”. She completely lost her temper at this point . She stuck her face right in front of mine and began to scream at me. I just couldn’t understand what on earth was the matter with her. My brother had caused all of the mess so it’s up to him to clean it up. It all seemed quite logical to me

“I just couldn’t understand what on earth was the matter with her”. That was perfectly true when we were small, but as we grew older we certainly began to understand exactly what it was. It was a combination of several factors, none of which should be the subject of discussion here. But, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, the idea that I would get it in the neck for anything that my brothers and sisters did was a habitual state of affairs. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I remember talking to my friend’s daughter in Florida on the internet years ago who was having a major bout of pre-teen angst. "whenever I do anything wrong and my little brother tells my mom, my mom yells at me. But whenever he does anything wrong and I tell my mom, my mom yells at me for not watching him". I really felt for poor Tina at that moment.

And having said all of that, since when did logic ever play any role in anything that our family ever did?

Somewhere along the line, Nerina put in an appearance. We were talking about the USA. She said that although she had only visited three or four States of the USA she had certain opinions about certain things. I asked her which States she had visited. She listed four of them in New England, Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, that area, That was how that part of the dream went on but I’m not sure how it fitted in.

If ever I had to live in the USA (not that I would – the USA has become a horrible place since the election of Bush and the de-humanising of the country – I would be most at home in New England. Vermont would be my State of preference – I’ve spent many a happy hour, day, week there in Burlington and Brattleboro’ – followed by New Hampshire and then Maine

I was talking to friends about the underground floor of the Place d’Armes when suddenly the door of my apartment opened. There were people in there brushing it out and it was filthy, disgusting. There was dust and all kinds of stuff everywhere. it looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned for twenty years. As they carried on working with the door open, firstly the woman whom I knew came out and said a few words. Then an older woman with only one eye came out and said a few more. Then a man who was probably the partner of the first woman came out. He saw me and said “you’ve done all right out of this, haven’t you?”. This started a huge row in the …. On one occasion I said “on one occasion I did propose that you can take over my apartment. I wasn’t putting you out on the street”. He replied “she can’t do that. She has two weak knees”. I replied “and what do I have?”. He didn’t have an answer to that. In the end I told him to shut his mouth, go back into the apartment and carry on. He could of course spend as much time arguing with me as he likes because the longer he argues, the less work he’s doing so the more work he’s going to have to do so the longer he’s going to have to stay so the more rent he’ll have to be paying me.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I did offer the tenant an exchange of apartment as far back as November 2023, but the tenant refused. She’s also had at least two opportunities to buy it (in France, if a property with tenants is put up for sale, the tenant must be offered the property first) and has refused to buy it on either occasion. But seeing as she has had informal notice 18 months ago and formal notice in July last year, she’s had plenty of time to find somewhere else as she said herself in a letter in her reply to me eighteen months ago.

As I was revising for my Welsh course, I was invaded by a doctor and a gaggle of students who began to pull my legs apart and watch me as I marched later up and down. He gave a running commentary on my condition and the examination that he made and then had a lengthy chat afterwards, which told me nothing that I didn’t really know before.

He disappeared with my paperwork and my inscription but it changed nothing. I still didn’t have any medication. It’s a good job that I’d brought my own anti-cancer medication with me.

Because of his lengthy visit I had missed the first fifteen minutes of my Welsh class. I joined in rather late and was doing quite well, despite the lack of preparation, but had to exit rather hurriedly when lunch came.

It was a good job that it came when it did because about fifteen minutes later they came to fetch me for my biopsy. We had to wait ten minutes outside the laboratory in the wind and then I had a fifty-minute wait inside until the specialist arrived.

Whatever happened in there, you don’t want to know and I don’t want to talk about it, except that I will go through anything except a second one of those.

Back here, I collapsed into my chair and I haven’t moved since. I’ve been searching for a few more films by Launder and Gilliatt to watch in bed tonight, without very much luck although I did manage to locate a copy of the “dummy run” for the SAINT TRINIANS films, a film called THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF YOUR LIFE with many of the usual suspects.

Yesterday, I was afraid that I was rather over-optimistic with the vegan meals. Today at lunch, the vegan option was an omelette. This evening, it was steamed fish. So I ate what I could tonight and then made myself a cheese butty. It’s a good job that I’d brought my own supplies

So now I’m off to bed. I have a blood test in the morning at 05:30, so I’ve been told. That means another night of studying, I suppose, one one day I might even pass. We shall see.

But seeing as we have been talking about States in the USA … "well, one of us was" – ed … when I took Kit, Liz (“this” Liz, not “that” Liz)’s daughter to University in Ontario I crossed over the river and went to have a look around Detroit.
Back in France later, someone asked me "what State is Detroit in?"
"Well" I replied, "from what I saw, it was in a flaming dreadful one."

EPIC HALL

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