Wednesday 26th June 2024 – WE HAVEN’T FINISHED …

.. yet – not by a long way.

Two more appointments to add to the list of liaisons, two more pills to add to the mountain of medication. My poor cleaner is running her socks off to help me up the stairs here and going to the chemist’s on my behalf. As she put it so succinctly – "I spend more time here than I do in my apartment. I may as well move in here."

Nothing is guaranteed to make me recover quicker than a threat like that. I value my independence and, strangely, my solitude. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I just wasn’t cut out to live with anyone else.

Poor Nerina, Laurence (and Roxanne), Marianne and Cécile. They all tried, bless them …

It seems to be the thing that I can’t even live with myself these days either. Once again it was late when I crawled into my lovely bed, and that was that.

Totally and definitively too. I don’t think that I moved a muscle and depressingly, there was nothing on the dictaphone to break the monotony.

When the alarm rang I was confused again but managed to work it out in enough time to beat the second alarm five minutes later. In the meantime I had hauled myself off into the bathroom to sort myself out and find some clean clothes.

The nurse doesn’t come for an hour or thereabouts so I had to loiter around doing a few bits and pieces until he put his sooty foot through the door.

For a change just recently he was quite chatty and told me several stories about life in the town, including the story of the “Aryan” posters being posted by the Fascists in the area.

After he left I made myself breakfast.

Much of the rest of the day has been spent organising the paperwork. There were several bills to pay, and thank heaven that much (but not all) of French administration has gone onto “payment on line”.

But how they have set it up is crazy. They have indexed everything under the file number of the bill, which means that if you have three bills to pay, you need to log in and go through the procedure from start to finish for each bill.

What they should have done is to register the bills under a person’s identity, like his social security number. Just log in once, “how much do I owe in total?” and one payment would clear the bill.

Next step was mail and letter writing, trying to catch up with where I left off with piles of outstanding correspondence.

Halfway through I came across my Tax Return which is now several weeks late. And so I’ve been collecting information for that too. Not that I’ll owe very much at all but one has to go through the motions

The cleaner came round as usual this afternoon and whisked her way through the premises. It now looks as if someone lives here, which is probably not a good idea. I’d have to fight off callers.

The taxi turned up early for me and I was dropped off at the medical centre in plenty of time. However, the driver insisted on accompanying me upstairs to the waiting room.

That was a shame because I wanted to go to the supermarket on the corner. I don’t know if I’ve explained the issue about my new bank card – how it has to be authenticated by making a shop purchase with the PIN. That should have been my chance just then

The vehicles that we use are chartered to take you from “X” to “Y” and so if it says “third floor, Pole Santé du Port then “third floor, Pole Santé du Port” it is, direct and in a straight line, with no turning, no deviation, no passing “Go” and no collecting £200.

It’s a question of Insurance, so I’m told. And having worked for an Insurance Company straight from leaving school, I can believe it.

Emilie the cute consultant’s sidekick was not pleased with my lack of progress and neither am I. Of the weight that I lost while I was in hospital, half of it has gone back – in a week!

Consequently he’s upped the dose of the diuretic that I take. I’m not convinced that it’s doing me much good but we shall have to see.

While I was there he gave me two appointments for August. How many is this now? And August already? Would you believe it. Time is melting away.

While I was there I asked him if he had a card machine so that I could pay for this consultation with my card and unlock it that way. But “No”. All of his clients are Social Security cases like me So “bang” goes that idea too.

The third idea was a “no-no” too because the driver came up to the waiting room for me so I couldn’t nip out to the shop on the corner even now.

And then the battery in the ‘phone was flat so that I couldn’t ring my cleaner to say that I was coming back. We had to ring her doorbell to attract her.

She seemed to think that my ascent as a little easier than yesterday. All that I can say is that it must have been bad.

But in here the two of us sorted out the medication (resurrecting a long-suppressed medication! What a surprise!) and sorting out the appointments.

Then teatime – a leftover curry lengthened with potato and peanuts and accompanied by rice and naan bread. As usual, absolutely delicious yet again

But right now, I’m off to bed for what’s left of the night, and to wonder how I’m going to fit all of these appointments in.

It was so much easier when I was with Nerina. I was once called in as a result of a blood test and the doctor gave me a thorough going over.
He telephoned Nerina the following day to ask to speak to her so she went in to see him.
"How is Eric?" Asked Nerina. "Is he going to be OK?"
"Eric is suffering from severe nervous strain and overwork." said the doctor. "He’ll be fine but only if you follow these rules very carefully. Let him put his feet up at home, feed him breakfast in bed every morning and cook him light meals three times per day. Gently tuck him up in bed and pander to his every whim"
So Nerina went back home and I asked her "what did the doctor say?"
She looked at me and said "I’m terribly sorry but I’m afraid you’re going to die."

Tuesday 25th June 2024 – SO IT’S OFFICIAL.

The anaesthetist “wants to see me” and has set aside 16:45 on Wednesday 3rd July for the purpose.

And then the operation will take place on 16th July. I shall be there overnight because given my opinions of hospital, operations, blood and gore as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have elected for the “General anaesthetic” rather than the local anaesthetic.

There’s no way in this World that I’ll be lying there watching a local anaesthetic slowly wear off and catching sight of what is going on.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall my adventures in Castle Anthrax a few years ago where they turned up unannounced in my room, whisked me and my bed off to the cellar clamped a gas mask over my face, said “smell this” and the next thing that I knew, it was four hours later and I’d had a surgical operation.

Even today, I still don’t know what they did, and that suits me fine. If all operations went like that, I’d have more of them. But this modern 21st-Century society where I have to be informed of each step and each procedure in graphic detail and formally agree to them.
"But it’s your right!" they wail.
But what about MY right not to want to know? No-one cares about my rights.

As long as the operation is in the morning. TNS are playing in the Champions’ League that evening. That time in Castle Anthrax I missed Newtown v Caernarfon

Meanwhile, abandoning another good rant for the moment, last night was again horribly late by the time that I went to bed. I just don’t seem to be able to make the time go any slower

Yes, when we were kids, our six weeks of summer holiday used to last for ever. Now six weeks goes in the blinking of an eye.

And once in bed, I didn’t need much rocking yet again. It’s lovely and warm and comfortable in there, just me and STRAWBERRY MOOSE tucked up tight.

Not so comfortable that I didn’t awaken before the alarm went off. When I awoke at about 06:00 I made some kind of comment and I’m certain that I had some kind of reply from someone sleeping in the next bed about life in the RAF. Of course, then then kind of thing evaporated and I realised that it really was 06:30 and I really was awake in my own bed with my own things

And that was weird too. It really did sound as if there was someone else in the room. And it wasn’t His Nibs either. If only he could talk, he would have a few tales that he could tell that would be worth a good few bob to anyone who might be interested.

He could tell me a few tales too of when he’s been let loose on his own in the company of ladies of the opposite sex.

But returning to the dream, I’ve no idea what was happening there.

I also have a vague impression of walking through Shavington en route for somewhere else, just using one crutch and feeling quite confident about it too

If only I could walk with one crutch. I used to be able to do that up until about 9 months ago but how my mobility has reduced over that period of time. There are times when I’m hard-pushed to walk with two these days.

Just to prove that I can do it when I really try, I pushed myself out of bed before the alarm went off. Only by five minutes, it has to be said, but five minutes is five minutes and they all count.

After a good wash and scrub up I loitered around for a while transcribing the dictaphone (such as they were) until the nurse came round.

When he arrived I told him about the prescription to which he readily agreed, and then he cleared off without writing one out. I hope that he does it back at the office and drops it off in the morning.

Once he’d finally gone I made breakfast – porridge and toast with orange juice and strong coffee. And believe me, I needed it.

There wasn’t much time to revise or review my Welsh before the lesson started, and having missed a week, Bane of Britain revised the wrong module. But it makes no difference because I’m rubbish whether I revise or not.

And having given the matter serious thought, as well as studying next year as normal, I’m definitely going to retake this year in an evening class with another provider because I’ve missed so much of it with hospital and all of that, and I don’t want to embarrass Coleg Cambria by doing it with them.

The difficulty is finding a provider who offers “North Welsh”.

For the southern dialect there are more courses than you can shake a stick at. It’s not too much of a problem because my grandmother came from down south even though she lived most of her life up in the north-east so I’m used to hearing both dialects. But I’m definitely a “North-id”. Bangor University is affiliated to the “LearnWelsh” programme so they might have something.

After the end of the lesson, when we all went our separate ways for the summer holidays, I changed the habits of a lifetime and had a sandwich seeing as I won’t be having my mid-afternoon snack.

And then I made myself ready for my trip to Avranches.

The trip down there was the first time that I’d felt tired? but I soon livened up when I couldn’t get out of my chair and everyone in the building had to rally round and help. Fancy a hospital waiting room with no arms on their chairs!

Anyway, the surgeon played ball, which was nice. He understood my fears, mumbled his way through what he was supposed to say, didn’t say anything else and asked if I agreed with what he’d just said.

How could I do anything else?

Next step will be the anaesthetist. He wants to “see me” – I suppose, in the same way that the executioner looks over the condemned man. I’m already feeling rather uncomfortable and we haven’t started yet.

We had a full car going home – it seems as if we went to every medical establishment in Avranches on some sort of Cook’s Tour to pick up everyone heading to this neck of the woods.

Back here I was first out, and my faithful cleaner helped me up the steps, standing behind me lifting up my foot with hers.

This can’t go on much longer. I don’t have the force to keep on dragging myself up the handrail, and neither does she, I suspect. I can only see an unpleasant future of doom and gloom if this carries on. And if I have dialysis, I’ll be doing it three times per week at least.

Once I was home I sat down – and crashed out. I was dead to the World.

Only 20 minutes late starting tea. At least it was taco roll with rice so it didn’t need much preparation.

As for me, neither do I. I’ll be in bed before you know it and there I intend to stay until my name changes to Rip van Epic. I am totally wasted after this afternoon – and I have to do it tomorrow too. That’s when I go to see Emilie the cute consultant’s sidekick.

But as I said, I’m off to bed to reflect on the events of the day and mull over the words of the surgeon – at least, the words that I understood.
"I’ve listened to you for fifteen minutes" I told him "but I’m still none-the-wiser"
"Maybe not" he replied "but you’re certainly better-informed."

Monday 24th June 2024 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

…long, hard, miserable, depressing afternoon when I’ve been more asleep than awake, more dead than alive

And that’s exactly how I’m feeling too – more dead than alive. This afternoon has been horrible and I can safely say that there was a certain moment when I felt worse than I’ve ever felt with this illness.

What’s depressing me about it is that it’s not actually anything physical. Having bitten off my tongue and having it sewn back after a car accident in 1987 I know what pain is, believe me, and while the physical feeling is nothing like the same of course, it’s something about when I awaken from one of these coma-type things

It’s as if there’s some kind of chemical being released into my body which immediately makes me think of one of these pills, powders and potions.

When we we were at school and the teacher left the Chemistry class for a few minutes, we’d experiment by dropping different chemicals into a test-tube in order to see what happened.

Sometimes something would go “boom” so we’d make a note of what it was that we’d mixed together so that it would come in useful in our adult life and boy, did we sometimes have some impressive “booms”. I wonder if somehow somewhere a couple of these chemicals are having the same effect inside me once their protective coating wears off in my stomach.

The medical professionals have assured me that that’s not the case and, after all, they ought to know, so I could go to bed without having to worry about anything.

Except going to bed of course. It was another really late night again last night by the time that I finished everything and I wished that I’d finished everything an hour or two earlier.

But exhausted as I was after my efforts I crawled into bed, I didn’t need much rocking. I was asleep quite quickly and didn’t feel a thing until the alarm went off. IN fact, judging by the position in which I was lying, I don’t think that I’d moved at all during the night – not one inch.

It was a very groggy me that lifted a shoulder from the bed when BILLY COTTON finally called and you’ve no idea the struggle that I had to leave the bed before the second alarm five minutes later.

In the bathroom I had a really good wash and brush up, and then went for breakfast. Grape juice and strong coffee with porridge and a couple of slices of my lovely, perfect fresh loaf toasted and smothered in vegan butter. Totally forgetting that I was supposed to have nothing whatever this morning as there was a blood test.

Ahh well. They’ll just have some very peculiar results but so what? Many of my results are already quite peculiar and so a few more won’t make any difference. It’ll give them something to think about at the hospital and stop them being bored.

The nurse did in fact ask me "you haven’t eaten, have you?"
"Who? Me?" I asked innocently, brushing the toast crumbs under the table quickly.

One thing I forget though is how many times he told me to write my name and date of birth on … errr … another little sample pot. But let’s be honest – no-one could ever mix up anyone else’s … errr … “sample” with mine.

He spent quite a lot of time today worrying about nothing at all but also gave me a shopping list of the supplies that he uses that are running low. So after he left I sent a mail to my loyal cleaner in order to set her a task while she was in town.

Next thing was to put away everything that I’d used yesterday and washed up. It had been draining overnight and needed tidying up. And there was a lot of it too. I didn’t realise that I had so much stuff. No wonder that I was struggling for room on the worktop.

But it’s a shame about the oven too. When I was on my final fling around Europe two years ago I picked up a fully-fitted full-size oven from Jean-Marc, the guy with whose family in Macon I stayed on a school exchange in 1970. He was modernising his kitchen and the oven that he’d just taken out found its way into Caliburn.

Hans lives in Munich about half a mile from one of the biggest IKEAs in Europe and so about a week later when I was there, I bought a kitchen unit in which to fit the oven.

That’s in the back of Caliburn downstairs too, but I don’t have the physical ability to bring it all up here. So all of that stuff will have to stay there and I’ll soldier on with my little desktop oven.

In here I didn’t do much at first. It takes me a while to warm up, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from last night, which was a surprise. Mind you, I’ve no idea what to make of it. “There was the boys stuff and then more stuff about bombers … indistinct … and I can’t remember any of it which is a shame” and that was all that it said.

Whatever it’s supposed to mean, I haven’t a clue. When I say that I was “away with the fairies” I think that I was over the hills and far away when I dictated that.

There was a ‘phone call too – could I go earlier to see the surgeon tomorrow? I declined the invitation because quite simply firstly I mess the taxi company around often enough with some of my trips. I don’t want to exhaust their goodwill by unnecessary changes.

Secondly, I have my Welsh lesson tomorrow and I’ve already missed far too many sessions what with hospital and all of that. I can’t really afford to miss any more.

The cleaner came round a couple of times to drop off different things. Apparently the nurse’s prescription has run out but the chemist obliged. The nurse must write out a prescription tomorrow for today’s supplies and I mustn’t forget to tell him.

While she was here I gave her a list of supplies to be bought from LeClerc when she goes to do her shopping. Things like my sunflower seeds and vegan cheese aren’t available on home delivery

After lunch, back in here I began to carry on with the editing of the notes that I’d recorded on Saturday night (thanks, Grahame) but this was where my troubles began.

No matter how I tried, I just couldn’t keep going. At one point I thought that if I just let myself go, have a good sleep and awaken, I’ll feel fresh enough to accomplish more than I would be fighting it off all afternoon.

Some hopes. It made me feel worse.

Finally at about 19:15 I began to pull myself together and by 19:30 I could go to make tea. A plie of stuffing, some of which went into a stuffed pepper and the rest into a container in the fridge for the next few days.

But with pasta and veg cooked in a tomato sauce, my stuffed pepper cooked in the air fryer was delicious, as it usually is. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I eat quite simply here but I don’t ‘arf eat well.

But right now I’m off to bed. I need to be at my best tomorrow as I have my Welsh lesson, this appointment with the surgeon and who knows what?

However I am going to make a rule, and that is “no breakfast until after the nurse has been and gone”. That way we can avoid any more unfortunate lapses of memory.

After all, we don’t want him in such a bad mood that he makes a mess of my blood test. It’s painful enough as it is without asking to be hurt.

But the way that he snatched up my other … errr … little sample pot before leaving. I thought to myself "now that is REALLY taking the p*ss"

Sunday 23rd June 2024 – I’M ABSOLUTELY WHACKED!

Yes, again!

And even worse and more tired than the other day when I was so tired that I really hoped that the World would end.

Once again, it was being in the kitchen that did it and once again it involved food. I’m pleased to say that it was a worthwhile exercise as the table is now groaning with victuals and I won’t ever starve again.

In fact it’s been an extremely busy 24 hours. Before going to bed I dictated a pile of radio stuff. Not all of it because there’s more there than any one man can handle in one sitting, but it’s part of the backlog out of the way.

And as for the new ZOOM H8, I wish that I knew where the tone controls are. When I’m dictating it sounds as if I have my head in a bucket.

What I did took me up until midnight and it was about 00:30 when I crawled under the covers. It didn’t take me long to drop off, that’s for sure.

There was another phantom alarm this morning at about 06:15 and I was halfway out of bed thinking that it was the real alarm before I worked out what it was. Someone had sent me a text message and it was the “alert” on my phone that had awoken me this morning.

What a way to start the day on a Sunday! I climbed back into bed for a couple of hours extra sleep.

When the alarm finally went off I fell out of bed, washed and dressed and proceeded to await the nurse. He didn’t have much to say for himself today but he seems to be more friendly all round so I’ve no idea what’s happening.

Hr sorted me out with my puttees and so on and then cleared off. I sat around for a few minutes to catch my breath and then went to make breakfast – porridge and nice, strong coffee.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from the night. And it’s rather ominous. I was back in Bomber Command but for some reason or other I ended up in hospital. You could tell by the long faces of the nurses that it was pretty serious. One day they announced that they were having to move the hospital. Most of the patients would be evacuated but some patients would have to stay behind as being too ill to move like that. I found to my horror that I was actually one of those being left behind. We were just going to be left in the battle zone and everyone else would clear off out of the way. This was what made me realise now that this was going down the final stretch of my illness and this would be it

And then later on I slipped right back into that dream. It kept on recurring two or three times before the alarm went off

It’s the idea of it being a recurring dream that’s unsettling. I mentioned yesterday that some people seem to think that I’m more ill than I think that I am (if that’s even possible) and this dream seems to underline it. With a visit to the surgeon during the week, it’s not really the correct time to have dreams like this at all.

The rest of the morning was spent relaxing, “saving my strength for the struggle that lies ahead” as Professor Janssens at Castle Anthrax mentioned. I’m sure that she didn’t mean “the kitchen” but that’s where I’ve spent most of the afternoon.

Having been slaving away over a red-hot stove all afternoon, I now have in the kitchen …

a loaf of bread, nice, big, soft and fluffy just like bread should be
a vegan flapjack, ready in case I have to go back to the hospital
24 raisin and orange biscuits that should have been cranberry and orange but I had no cranberries
the pièce de resistance – the usual Sunday pizza

With not having much room to work, with only a small oven and being on crutches, it involved quite a juggling act in order to make it all and then fire it up in the oven. It was so exhausting that at one stage when I sat down I crashed out and it was only Liz texting me that saved a disaster in the oven, awakening me just in time.

But while I was asleep I was away with the fairies again There was something about the turret of an Avro Lancaster but instead of four guns it only had one fitted. This sounded as if it might have been an interesting dream but I’m glad that I awoke anyway.

In between all of this there were other fish to fry.

Firstly, during one pause I listened to and edited the notes that would finish off one of the radio programmes. It ended up over-running by 19 seconds but there was 18.993 seconds of music that could be over-dubbed as it happened

Later, we had football. I mentioned the other day that I was glad that I wasn’t hospitalised during the football season. That would have been a disaster.

Mind you, as the Duke of Wellington said after the Battle of Waterloo, it was "the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life". Pre-season friendlies are now slowly springing into life and this afternoon we had Stranraer v Larne, the old “Seasick Derby”.

It was a quiet game without much excitement but Larne scored a belting goal after 61 minutes, only to concede an even better one 5 minutes later.

1-1 in a game where neither side broke out into a sweat was about right. Larne are playing in the Champions League next month and they are going to have to play much, much better than this if they want to go anywhere and do anything.

When I recovered my form and strength I went back and carried on in the kitchen and then once it was clean, tidy and all washed up, I could sit down to my delicious pizza.

and now that I’ve eaten my pizza I can sit down and finish my notes before going to bed. And won’t I be pleased to finally call it a day today? I mean – I’m surprised to be retired and supposed to be dying. Yet I don’t think that I’ve ever worked so hard in my life as I have these last few days.

The kind of people I used to know (with one or two exceptions) were summed up by the guy who; told me that he really liked work
"Is that so?" I asked him with a trace of bitterness
"Ohh absolutely" he replied keenly. "I can sit and watch it for hours"

Saturday 22nd June 2024 – I WOKE UP …

… this morning pause while we play a few notes of blues standard with a surprising air of optimism and a whole new outlook on life.

Where it came from I don’t know, and I don’t know where it went either because it didn’t last all that long. But it was good while it lasted.

And most unexpected too. It certainly wasn’t there last night when I went to bed.

In fact I was rather late going to bed last night – pretty much near midnight by the time that I finished and crawled under the covers. And that was that. I was dead to the World and didn’t move an inch from my nice comfortable bed.

Once more I awoke at about 06:00 but managed to go back to sleep and wasn’t I taken by surprise when the alarm went off? Once again I had no idea where I was.

It was as usual a struggle to leave my nice, warm bed but once I was up and about, washed, fed and watered I felt, as I said, a kind-of change. It’s as if a new wave of optimism had washed over me.

The living room window had been left open overnight and it seemed to refresh everything. It felt as if a renaissance, or new beginning, was under way in here and everything seemed to be so much more positive.

The first track on the playlist when I started up the computer was totally prophetic – a definite symbol of this new dawn –

"Somewhere there is some place
That one million eyes can’t see
And somewhere there is someone
Who can see what I can see"

And that was always the problem – no-one else could ever see what I could see. And I’m not talking about the green snakes climbing up the wall either

But that’s a tremendous song. The lyrics go on to say
"Brilliant days
Wake up on brilliant days
Shadows of brilliant ways
Change me all the time"

And isn’t that just like this morning?

After I’d washed I had to wait around for the nurse to come to see me. It’s the boss for this next few days. He seems to be much more concerned and so I could talk to him for a short while. I told him that I reckoned that they ought to be taking more than just a passing interest in my visible state of health.

Whether or not it sinks in, I dunno, and whether he and his sidekick take any notice I don’t know. But at least he admitted that he was worried that he wouldn’t see me again.

Quite a lot of people have said that kind of thing to me – my GP said it 18 months ago after I came back from Castle Anthrax. I know that I’m on a tightrope but are things really worse than even I imagine? Interesting food for thought.

My beetroot panic is, for a while at least, over.

After breakfast I had a close look at the packaging. It can actually be cut into a couple of smaller packs and being vacuum packed, the expiry date on the unopened ones is November 2024.

As for the opened one, I found a nice container for it and there’s room for that in the fridge. There’s no real hurry for that either.

And then Liz sent me a link about “101 Things To Do With Your Beetroot” and I shall peruse that at my leisure. It’s not quite up there with the Karma Sutra but you’ll be surprised at what goes on down in the depths of rural Rutland.

We had a little chat on the internet too this morning, Liz and I. It’s high time that Liz and Terry came over to see me again instead of gallivanting off to Prague and places like that. They’ll only get into mischief out there and I miss them terribly.

It’s been a day for chatting to people on-line. Our little travel group has been discussing Hans’s efforts at decorating his bedroom. He’s decided to give his place a makeover and I think that it’s looking good, even if the Hound of the Baskervilles isn’t impressed.

There was also someone else who wanted an on-line chat so I was there for a while dealing with that.

After that I had a little listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I’m not sure what I was doing but I was staying in some kind of shack with some girl. We’d been out and come back. I’d been with my father. He’d had his old blue Cortina and parked it up in the street and went home. There was no tax or MoT or anything on this Cortina but he drove it like that and didn’t care. He just parked it up and went home. I went home. There was a group of little kids waiting outside who always seemed to want to come into our house. I wasn’t very happy about it but my partner was. However I didn’t say much. I walked into the house and went into the back room and immediately the owner told me that one of the cats had been ill so I had to tell everyone in the house. Someone wondered why I was saying it instead of just cleaning it up. I said “I don’t want anyone stepping in it while I’m sorting myself out

My father never had a blue Cortina. I’m confusing it with the blue Mercedes that he had. He had to clean out someone’s garage in Hewitt Street in Crewe and there at the bottom was this ancient fintail Mercedes brush-painted blue and white. A left-hand drive diesel it was. Of course, we salvaged it, did some welding on it and he ran it for years until the tin-worm finally overwhelmed us. As for the cats being ill, ours were surprisingly healthy and rarely needed any kind of attention that wasn’t a stroke or a cuddle.

My broccoli stalk soup was delicious today. Broccoli stalk of course, and potato, onion, garlic, chervil, marjoram, cumin and coriander with a vegan stock cube. The pièce de résistance – a tub of vegan yoghurt, went in when it was off the boil and on the point of being whizzed.

The water that had blanched the carrots and then the broccoli yesterday, I’d saved and used that to make the soup. It’s not as thick as usual because I used all the water and so there’s plenty of soup for two days. And yes, I’ll make this again!

By the time that I’d finished it was later than usual, and much of the afternoon was spent dealing with some personal stuff. And then I did some work on one of the radio programmes to show that I’m still working. I’ve really let things go while I’ve been ill.

And as I said, I can see all the signs that indicate that I’m going to be ill again before too long.

But not while I have tea to make. Another one of my breaded quorn fillets with baked potato and salad (including beetroot) and it was delicious. Tomorrow of course is pizza – the first for far too long – and I’ll refrain from putting beetroot on that.

Apart from the pizza there’s a flapjack to make and if I feel like it, some biscuits. We’ve not had biscuits for ages. Any other simple, quick ideas, Liz? Preferably not involving beetroot.

But Hans and his decorating, it’s really to erase a few memories of the past. I remember when he and Ulli decorated their apartment last time, and it wasn’t going very well.
"Whoever invented decorating wants f*cking!" cried Hans in deep frustration.
"That’s not what you said last night while we were in bed" said Ulli. "You said ‘whoever invented f*cking wants Decorating’."

Friday 21st June 2024 – I DON’T THINK …

… that I have worked as hard as I have today for a very long time. I shall be glad to crawl into my nice comfy bed and burrow underneath the covers

However, at least I can say that I have accomplished a lot, which makes a change. What makes no change at all is that I haven’t done all that much of my own “work” though. It’s been all “housekeeping duties”.

What didn’t help was that it was another late night and I really ought to try my best to put a stop to these late hours, said he not finishing work and beginning to wrote his notes at 22:30 instead of about 21:30.

But anyway, once in bed I was soon away with the fairies and remember nothing whatever until about 06:00 when I had another one of these dramatic awakenings.

“Awake” is one thing. “Ready to leave the bed” is something else completely, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. It was quite a struggle to haul myself out of bed when the alarm went off.

Having to be on an empty stomach for my blood test I took my time this morning – that it, until I suddenly realised that I had bread to make. I made a hurried mix of flour, water, yeast and salt but for some reason it seemed to be rather wet so I had to add more flour to stiffen it up.

But I don’t understand that. I used the same proportions that I always do and I’m totally surprised that it gave me some totally different results.

As usual, the nurse was in a rush. She didn’t want to listen to what I had to say which was a shame. I had hoped to have a little chat to her about one or two things that are going on with this illness and the treatment but I dunno. I shall just have to make the best of it.

She injected me and took a blood sample and when headed for the hills. After she left I had some cornflakes and coffee, gave the bread its second working-over and then came in here to read my mails and messages and so on.

By now the bread was ready to go in the oven. And good grief! It had gone up like a lift! Now that was what I called “bread”. This looked wonderful.

While it was baking I checked through my order for LeClerc and sent it off. With my French bank card being blocked for the moment I had to use my Belgian one. Such are the benefits of having several cards.

That’s as a result of a bitter experience in Flagstaff in Arizona in 2002 when I went to buy some wind turbines from South West Wind Power. I told the bank that I was going, paid the money onto my account before setting off, bought the items, then went to fuel up the Mustang -“credit card blocked – unusual spending patterns”

That night I spent in the World’s worst motel paying cash because it’s all that I had available until next morning when I could grab hold of the bank. So these days we have a French card, a Belgian card, a British card and a Canadian card. We won’t be caught out like that again.

But that’s what I like about Canada – there’s no official identity check. A property tax certificate will open almost every door. Buying that place on Mars Hill was the best thing that I ever did even if the natives on my southern boundary are pretty restless.

By now I was ready for lunch so I made a toasted cheese sandwich with my beautiful, perfect bread. And I’d not finished when the guy from LeClerc came with the order.

And it was a huge order too. Supplies were running quite low here and as well as that a couple of things that I use were on sale on one of these “job lot” special offers so I took the opportunity to stock up. The poor delivery guy had to make a couple of trips up the stairs with the load.

Once it was here I had to put it all away, and that was where the fun began. A lot of it was heavy and there was a lot of rearranging to do in order to fit it in. When my cleaner came round to start on her work I was sitting down taking a desperate breather with tons of stuff still to do.

While she was working, so was I. Chopping up soundtracks in order to finish off the work that I’d started yesterday. We actually finished work at the same time, which was a surprise.

The place was much tidier after she had gone, with most of the stuff put away which was lovely.

Now I had 2 kilos of carrots to scrub,, dice and blanch Followed by a broccoli (broccoli stalk soup for lunch tomorrow, folks!) and four peppers to clean and gut ready for freezing and all of that is a long, exhausting task these days.

The freezer took some sorting out too to make room for the peppers. God help me when I have to put the carrots and broccoli in when they have drained.

But that’s later. I was exhausted with all the heavy lifting and came in here where I crashed out. I was totally whacked, it was un believable. All of this lifting and staggering around has completely done me in.

When I recovered there was time to transcribe the dictaphone notes before going for tea. I was back in Bomber Command last night doing a marvellous talk-through of a ‘plane in a rain going through a mission with one or two of the ‘planes all around it all communicating with base as they come in to bomb, talking about conditions in the hospitals to a Russian so presumably I’d been shot down over the Russian Front. What I’d been doing straying that far East I really don’t know. I had a three-man crew so it was a first-generation bomber, I reckon. I’d lost my way, missed my aim and had to bale out in the end into Russian hands

Quite a few bombing missions took place far to the east of Germany and it was occasionally the case where a badly-shot-up bomber would head east to land amongst the Russians rather than try to struggle home. And then there were the shuttle raids where the USA had an airfield at Poltava in the Soviet Union for a while and ran between the UK and the USSR dropping bombs on the Germans on the way

For tea there was a special treat. In the hospital I’d acquired a taste for beetroot and it was on special offer so I ordered what I thought was one beetroot. Instead, it’s one pack and there’s 8 in the pack. What the hell am I going to do with all of this? I haven’t acquired that much of a taste.

The big issue now is storage. How do I keep it? Where do I keep it? There’s no room in the fridge for a start.

Nevertheless it was a lovely salad with beetroot, chips and some of those nuggets. One of the best teas that I’ve had for a long, long time. Probably since just before I went into hospital in fact.

There was a ton of washing up tonight, all kinds of heavy stuff included, and then I had to wrestle yet again with the freezer to fit the carrots and broccoli in. Now, I can say without fear of contradiction that everywhere is totally full and there’s no room to put anything anywhere else.

Final job was to wash my puttees. The nurse told me that they needed a good scrub so I attended to that and then rolled up the clean pair that had been drying from last time so they are ready to use tomorrow.

And then fall into my chair with a huge sigh of relief. I have never felt as tired as I am right now and I’ll be glad to climb into bed.

So any suggestions about what to do with this beetroot will be much appreciated otherwise my leftover curry on Wednesday is going to be rather strange

But it wouldn’t be the strangest meal that was ever served up. Back in the days of the BBC Home Service and Alvar Liddell, the BBC was forced to make an abject apology to its listeners.
"Due to a typing error there was a mistake in our goulash recipe that we broadcast yesterday. It should have read ‘four tins of tomatoes’ and not ‘four tons of tomatoes’"
and the announcer continued "and ‘enough chili powder to cover a tablespoon’, not ‘enough chili powder to cover a table’."

Thursday 20th June 2024 – I AM TAKING …

… on certain days a total of 33 pills, potions, powders and pricks of a hypodermic needle as this illness rages on and on and on towards its inevitable conclusion.

No-one stands in my way because I’m rattling so much that they can hear me coming.

It’s not as if it’s actually doing me all that good either because as I said yesterday, all of the signs of a recurrence of what happened a couple of weeks ago are there and the question remains “can I hang on until Tuesday?”.

In actual fact, if I can hang on past Friday afternoon and my telephone consultation with Emile the cute consultant I’ll be doing pretty well. But you can imagine just how I’m feeling right now.

It all went wrong last night as far as I was concerned where I had a little 5-minute job to perform that actually took me an hour and I still didn’t manage to do it.

It didn’t help that I was already running late and it was well after midnight by the time that I crawled into bed and that was disappointing.

Being in my nice, clean, comfortable bed, it was another Sleep of the Dead until about 06:30 when I had a rather dramatic awakening. But nevertheless I still wasn’t in the mood to raise myself from the Dead when the alarm went off

For a change I had a really good wash and scrub up this morning and then I sorted out the clothing, including all of that that I’d had with me in hospital, and washed the lot, fleeces and towels included

Then I sorted out the kitchen. I can’t find half the stuff and that’s the story of my life, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. I’m so totally disorganised that the only way that I can cope is for everything to have a place and has to be there in its place. If it isn’t, then I’m sunk.

Having tried to organise my life like this I can now fully understand the nature of military discipline. The military is so disorganised that it’s the only way that they can cope too. “Has anyone seen that nuclear missile that I had five minutes ago?”. Can you imagine it.

The Visiting Nurse came round to sort out my legs. I wanted to have a chat about my rapidly deteriorating situation but I had the impression that she was rather busy. She breezed in, did her stuff and breezed out.

Still, tomorrow she should hopefully have more time as she’s taking her weekly blood sample. That’s not included by the way in the figure earlier. I forgot about that.

But it beats me how anyone is going to find any blood left after everything that’s been taken from me. And what can they possibly find in there that’s not so contaminated by all of the chemicals that are going into my body right now.

However, that’s for tomorrow. Today after she left I made coffee and a bowl of porridge for breakfast. But really, my heart’s not in it

First job was to go through all of the post and paperwork that have accumulated in here over the past few weeks. There’s a rack of bills to pay and I’ll have to get on with that tomorrow I can’t have anyone coming round here to seize my chattels.

Next stop was the dictaphone, to find out where I’d been Last night I was with Gordon Harker who was in the Air Force and had been shot down and taken prisoner. That was where he met Alastair Sim. Harker had had some kind of knockabout comedy act and had indeed partnered Sim in a few films as we know but had developed his own style whereas Sim who was in the Air Force and later became an officer had developed some kind of patter and had put together a group of three people who went round air bases making people laugh? This was where Harker came along and teamed up with them. They progressed from there through to the two of them making some kind of go of things professionally as a straight man and his comic.

As I said the other day, I have plenty of time for Gordon Harker. Never mind the overwhelming ham acting of the 1930s, he was someone who put his heart and soul into the performance and one or two bursts of laughter to which he was prone during his films were such that they couldn’t possibly have been scripted. He struck me rather like an early version of Burt Reynolds, making it up as you go along, outrageous ad-libs and everyone on the set having a really good time.

My cleaner came by to drop off some more medication and we had a little chat. She’s full of ideas and I reckon that I ought to engage her full-time as my secretary at this rate. Honestly, I would be all at sea if she weren’t here to steer me along.

The rest of the day has been spent, when I’ve not been …. errr … resting, hunting down music. While I was in hospital I went through and planned out the bones of a series of radio programmes that goes through until June next year.

There’s plenty of interesting music that needs broadcasting for one reason or another and as you might expect, I don’t actually have it to hand.

The task to day was to track it down, download it, convert it to a usable format and where necessary, cut it into the relevant snippets.

It all took much longer than I was expecting and I haven’t quite finished but I can do that tomorrow.

What delayed me was firstly having to book two taxis for next week. The first to take me to my appointment with Emilie the cute consultant’s boss. That’s in town down the hill here so I won’t be away for long.

Wednesday’s appointment is more serious. That’s a trip to Avranches and the hospital to meet a surgeon. And before anyone asks, “I don’t know and I don’t want to know”. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I don’t handle things like this very well.

At Castle Anthrax a few years ago I was asleep in a hospital bed and they came, whisked me away, bed and all, down into the basement, clamped a gas mask over my face and said “breathe this”.

The next thing that I knew what that it was four hours later and I was in a post-op room. And I still don’t know what they did and that suits me fine. I still have all of my fingers and don’t talk in a high-pitched voice so it can’t have involved dynamite.

And then I had an interesting conversation with the Bank.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I was the target of a phishing scam the other day so I changed al of my bank details including my card.

So now armed with my new card and new PIN, I rang up the bank to activate the card because I can’t make it to the branch

The only way to do it is in a cash machine, which I am clearly unable to do so the solution proposed by the bank was "why not give your card and PIN to a neighbour?".

Now, with my neighbours here, it wouldn’t be a real issue because they are lovely and friendly but the guy at the bank doesn’t know that. They could be anyone, yet he wants me to give my card and PIN to them.

Tea tonight was out of a tin because I wasn’t in the mood to conjure up anything elaborate. A tin of chick peas, veg at pasta in a tomato sauce. That will have to do.

So I’m going to bed before the doom and gloom descends too far. I really don’t know what I’m going to do about all of this because it isn’t going to end well, I know that. I have half of the entire medical profession of France trying their best to keep me out of the grave, and the other half of the population in the Credit Agricole doing their best to put me in it.

It reminds me of the guy who went for an interview for a new job
"And why did you leave your previous employment?"
"Ill-health and fatigue"
"ill-health and fatigue?"
"Yes. I was sick and tired of them and they were sick and tired of me."

Wednesday 19th June 2024 – SO THAT WAS …

… my first day of freedom. How did it go?

The answer is regrettably not too well and I have a feeling that I shall have to make the most of the next few days because whichever way you look at things, they aren’t too good.

But last night was wonderful. Crawling into bed between clean bedclothes that actually smelled of cleanliness and the like. Being curled up in there made coming home worthwhile.

And for a change I slept the Sleep of the Dead too and don’t recall stirring at all. The alarm when it went off at 07:00 took me completely by surprise for a moment and I had to think where I was.

When I left the bed I was quite agile too and could move very easily. That made it all worthwhile too. I wandered off to do the necessary and then to sort out the medication.

That is what I have been doing for much of the day – sorting all of that out. There was the Visiting Nurse who came by to sort out my legs and my puttees.

she helped me for a short while with the medication, we planned out her programme for the next few days because that has changed with the need to give blood tests and injections and the like, and then for a while I was on my own.

Luckily I checked my e-mails because I’d received a prescription from Paris so I printed that out and passed it to my cleaner when she came by. She was on her way into town to pick up my injections so she took the prescription with her, but that’s something that she won’t find in a hurry.

Looking at all of this medication I can’t really cope with it myself. I’ve no idea how many pills, potions and powders I’m taking. I lost count a long time ago but I’m taking them five times per day.

They need to be sorted out correctly for the appropriate times and that’s when it’s going to start to become complicated. After all, it’s all very well sorting them out for the correct time, if I can manage that, but then I have to remember to take it. And that, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is something else completely.

Somewhere in the middle of this I had to stop for breakfast. And my bread sandwich – two slices of bread with a slice of bread in between – was put to good use because I had three rounds of toast smothered in vegan butter and it was nice.

As well as the two appointments that I have in the very near future, I now have a third for some time in August. That’s with a heart specialist here in Granville.

And this is about the positive nadir of just about everything, because it’s with the same heart specialist whom I saw four years ago and who started me off on this trail.

Castle anthrax took up the case, passed me from pillar to post like a parcel in a Belfast pub until in the end I lost interest. Much as I liked Leuven and Alison, I wasn’t going all that way to be told “it’s not us, it must be them”. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the frustration

Four years and we’ve gone round and round in circles and we’ve arrived right back where we started. At least I can console myself that my appointment isn’t with the Oozelum Bird or that really would create another unexpected problem.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from last night as well, which I wasn’t expecting. We were back in the middle of being all shot down again but we were civilians. It was some kind of internment camp. They’d been testing gunfight and found surprisingly that many civilians were totally exempt from the effects of gunfire from machine guns and could come out of a barrage of gunfire totally unscathed. We were regrouping in some kind of camp. There was a trip organised to Portugal, only a quick going and coming back but I put my name down to make a change. So did a few others Then they began to wonder when it would be taking place. A process of elimination of about three days made out that it would be taking place over the course of the next day or two and we wouldn’t be staying long. That was a big disappointment to many but I thought that any change would be a nice present, a difference, and people didn’t have to go on it anyway but it would be nice to break up the usual routine because searches were becoming more commonplace. They’d wanted to search me on a couple of occasions but I’d somehow managed to postpone the inevitable.

Yes, anything to break up the routine and make a change. I’d be the first to volunteer. I’m always keen for a change of surroundings when I can, but that’s not likely to happen very much in the future. It’ll be an orbit going between here and Avranches with the occasional run-out to Paris, I should think.

I was at a football match last night where a team was playing and just after having conceded a silly, controversial goal, they went up to the other end of the field and Jack Kenny scored a magnificent glancing header to restore whatever it was that was happening prior to that silly goal. Then the alarm went off immediately just as he was running off to celebrate

While I was in hospital I was thinking how glad I was that it was the close season. Imagine being incarcerated when there’s football kicking off. Jack Kenny plays as a striker for Connah’s Quay Nomads and is one of my favourite players. He’s a tireless runner who works his socks off for the team but I wish that he’d concentrate more on the game and less on the injustices that he thinks that he has received.

My cleaner dropped by on her way home. As I expected, she won’t find that latest prescription easy to fill and the pharmacy had to make a few urgent telephone calls. Nevertheless she had the rest of the medication and a month’s supply of injections that needed to go into the fridge.

How many is this now? I haven’t a clue and I’m past caring.

For tea tonight, there was no leftover curry of course. But not to be outdone, I cooked some couscous with lentils and added a jar of that strange vegan Korma sauce that I bought ages ago.

While that was doing, I made some rice and veg and cooked myself a naan too.

The curry was actually delicious, which is just as well because there’s enough left for another meal, so the rest will go into the freezer for “again”.

So that’s everything. I’ve been feeling better today than I’ve felt for quite some time which at first glance is wonderful news, but having had a scare the other week I saw the physical signs of what was going on and they are creeping back already.

Emilie the cute consultant will ring me on Friday so I’ll be having a chat with her and I’ll be seeing one of her sidekicks next week.

If I’m still at liberty as late as this time next week it will be a miracle. The storm-clouds are gathering

And then it will be back to the Tricatel food, just like mother used to make. I remember once when our tea was ready and she shouted "if you’re not here in five minutes your meal goes to the dog" so we were there in four minutes.
After all, why should the dog have to suffer?

Tuesday 18th June 2024 – ON OUR WAY …

… home, going home where lovers roam.

Yes, unfortunately I can’t welcome you to the Pleasuredome yet – that’s another year away once the tenant downstairs clears off, but I can certainly welcome you to an apartment that I have never ever seen in all my life before.

Not only is the apartment spotlessly clean, and by that I mean my office and bedroom too, everything in sight has been washed to death including all the bedding and I have a lovely clean bed in which to climb later this evening.

My cleaner has worked miracles to have this place ready for me and I’m beyond speechless at the efforts that she’s made for me.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the solidarity that I have encountered in this building has made coming to live here all worthwhile.

A shame that the hospital couldn’t have joined in the fun. Like most French public functions it’s “duty before everything else” and most of the staff had a tendency to be rather brusque but nevertheless, in unguarded moments they could all (well, mostly) be good fun and apart from the dreadful stuff that passed for food, I enjoyed my stay.

Well, most of it, anyway.

And for a change, I actually enjoyed last night. I had a good sleep for once. Although I wasn’t in bed until long after midnight, I slept right the way through until 06:00 without awakening when I had to go for a ride on the porcelain horse.

And would you believe, well, I’m sure you would because you’ve been following these pages long enough, someone chose that moment to come in to tell me that they wanted to take a blood sample.

"Come back in five minutes" I grunted.

Ten minutes later we had the 06:15 whirlwind through the ward. I gave blood and just about everything else. Surprisingly they didn’t ask for a diabetes sample – I suppose that they’ll “get that from the blood test” – but they gave me a totally unsolicited glass of orange juice all the same.

Having gulped that down, I settled down under the covers again and was totally dead to the World until the next round of awakening at 08:15. That two hours or however long it was was the deepest sleep that I have ever had, I’m sure of that.

With that procedure out of the way, breakfast came round. And once I’d polished that off I nipped into the bathroom where, sitting astride the you-know-what, I had my last hospital shower.

And remembering what happened the other week in Paris, I didn’t wash my clothes. I don’t want to be lugging soaking wet clothes halfway around Normandy.

After the shower I had a visit from the medical staff. All of my medication has changed and I noticed with a wry smile that in some cases we’re back to where we were a couple of years ago.

And a real surprise was that the chief of the dieticians came to see me today to excuse herself and her team. Nothing I can say or do will change the Byzantine nature of things in the French Public Service so I listened politely and thanked them for coming, but I must admit that it was through gritted teeth.

As well as all of that, there are several appointments in the immediate future and a couple of tasks for the nursing staff who come to the apartment every morning. I’m definitely going to be having my money’s worth.

What was sad that it wasn’t Emilie the cute consultant who came to say “goodbye”. She sent a sidekick to blast me off into Eternity today and I was really disappointed at that.

And so it went on for several hours, people preparing me and then unpreparing me for departure so in the end I gave up and went to sleep in my chair.

Eventually an ambulance arrived and the ambulanciers strapped me to a stretcher and loaded me into the back of their vehicle. And there I was, hoping for a rather discreet and unobtrusive return.

My cleaner bless her was waiting downstairs to help me up here but the guys put me in a chair and carried me up. It’s a good job that I’d lost all that weight.

Once inside the place, while I was being overwhelmed by the kindness, my cleaner was going through my prescription, restoring to the shelves medicaments that had been discarded in the past, withdrawing medicaments that had only just been prescribed and then she sallied forth into town to have the new prescription made up, and presumably to arrange a lorry to bring it all back.

While she was away I had some hummus and biscottes along with a mug of hot chocolate. New stuff fresh from the bottle – you should have seen how bloated the stuff was in the fridge that I’d left when I went in.

When my cleaner came back, she had half the stuff. The rest will be here over the next few days. But we both came to the conclusion that the amount of stuff here now is overwhelming and I am going to need help to sort myself out with this medication otherwise we’ll be having a tragedy.

What I shall probably have to do is to involve the visiting nurse in all of this.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from the night. That was when we just realised that there would be quite a lot more than just rape back at our base so we decided to hurry back from the end of this mission and take up some kind of armed guard although we expected that if our armies were defeated we’d all be disarmed anyway in which case if would be very pot luck as to what happened and what people had to suffer before the end of the war was announced.

Quite a gruesome subject, I know, and ordinarily I wouldn’t post something like this but it actually has some kind of basis in fact. A prison camp containing prisoners of all nations was overrun by the Russians in Eastern Europe and the prisoners were released. Many of the prisoners remained in some kind of orderly cohesion but the Russian prisoners went berserk and began to commit all kinds of atrocities. A delegation from a local village came to the camp and pleaded with the British officer in charge to send a platoon of British prisoners to protect the inhabitants of the village from the depredations of the Russians. The irony of the situation was not lost on the British prisoners – defending their enemies from their allies – and it was definitely a premonition of the times five years hence.

Tea tonight was my long-anticipated pasta with vegetables and melted cheese, along with a burger from the European Burger Mountain in my fridge. And you’ve no idea just how delicious it was. It made the waiting all worthwhile.

Well, perhaps not.

So now I’m going to curl up in my luxurious clean bed and if it wasn’t for the nurse in the morning, I wouldn’t be leaving it for a week.

At least there will be no bed-baths. There was a strange, foreign nurse on the ward this morning giving bed-baths. With one guy she folded down his nightgown to his waist and said "first I wash as far as possible"
Then she rolled up his nightgown, began to wash his legs and said "next I wash as far as possible"
And finally, with a flourish, she ripped off his gown and said "and now I wash possible"

Monday 17th June 2024 – I’M BACK …

… from Paris, and in one piece too which makes a major change.

And I’ve learned a lot too, which also makes a change, but very little of it about what is going on, for the simple reason that I’m not convinced that the hospital knows all that much about things.

Not that that’s any surprise. It’s pretty difficult when you are dealing with a rare illness for which there is no known cure and everything has to be done by trial and error, crossing of fingers, and hoping that something somewhere will work a miracle.

Instead though, I’ve been shown a whole new way through Paris – a way that’s almost totally devoid of traffic – and Ill remember this for if, by any luck, a miracle happens and I can come here again under my own steam. However, I am not optimistic.

Just as last night I wasn’t optimistic about having a good night’s sleep. I never seem to manage one in normal circumstances and there’s even less chance when I have a journey the next day. It’s always the case and I’ve never worked out why.

Going to bed long after midnight doesn’t help matters much, but I’m at the stage where I’m past caring. As I said yesterday, whenever that was, I’ve long-since lost all track of time here.

Whatever the contretemps was last night when I was thinking of going to bed, it was still continuing so I thought that it was probably a better idea to keep well clear rather than sticking my oar into a controversial situation … "perish the thought" – ed … and I left them to it.

For a change I was asleep quite quickly but as usual kept on awakening which put me off my stroke.

There was the 06:15 blitz through the ward and even though I had my alarm set for 07:00 I was awakened unceremoniously at 06:25. Diabetes check below the limit but I was refused my supplementary orange juice. "Your breakfast will be here in a moment".

When I protested I was told to sod off. What a way to start the day!

However, she was right. Breakfast WAS served soon. Too soon in fact because the bread hadn’t arrived and I had to have biscottes.

The taxi driver came early and I wasn’t finished in the bathroom so he had to wait. But when I emerged I was shoved into a wheelchair and pushed off, clutching my crutches and the packed lunch that the nurse handed me.

There was “some issue” about my packed lunch. When it turned up it was ham and cheese sandwiches, absolutely ideal for a vegan I don’t think. And so for the first time ever in my life I have had bread sandwiches – two slices of bread with … a slice of bread in between.

The driver has run me around before. He’s a nice enough guy and a good driver but doesn’t have much to say for himself. Nether did I today so it was a fairly quiet drive and I slept for some of the way.

Astonishingly, we weren’t held up at all anywhere and sailed all the way through. A four-hour trip took just over three hours today.

Even more surprisingly, I was seen straight away by the specialist.

The lumbar puncture and the electric shock examinations from the other week when I was here as an in-patient don’t show any significant deterioration. But they don’t show any significant improvement either, which he found disappointing.

Consequently he’s going to change my chemotherapy tablet, the one that costs a King’s ransom for some other tablet.

There’s also the suspicion – only a suspicion, mind you – that there’s something else causing this creeping paralysis. He reckons that the amount of drugs pumped into me ought to have had a reaction. Consequently he wants to carry out a Biopsy of my nervous system. This will involve the stay of a few days in September.

Well, why not? What do I have to lose? Only my appetite with the food that’s on offer there.

But seriously, if I’m going to be poked and prodded around and used as a guinea-pig, I may as well make it worth my while and go the whole hog.

There was a blood sample that needed to be taken so I staggered off there where they had several goes at finding a vein and, on staggering out, staggered right into my driver who was passing down the corridor.

"Do you want time to eat your lunch?" he asked.
"No thanks" I replied, having seen what was in my food parcel "Let’s go straight back"

So having taken a different way home, at least as far as the suburbs of Paris, we were back here at 16:15 where the nursing staff, sincerely and unprompted, expressed their dismay at my lunch. "The hospital needs to make more of an effort". Someone fetched me an apple, for which I was grateful.

It’s been confirmed that I am going home tomorrow. "You could have gone home tonight but we didn’t want you to go home to a cold apartment and have the effort of cooking for yourself after the exertion of your trip to Paris" said Emilie the cute consultant who came to see me.

And you ought to be proud of me. I actually did refrain from offering her my front-door key and telling her warm up the place and put the supper on the stove.

But she did come to see me to find out how things went and she photographed the relevant info from Paris. She wished me luck on the next stage of my adventure with my health issues and by the time our conversation finished, I wasn’t really sure who was chatting up whom.

Yes, I’d quite happily massage her clavicles any time of the day or night, whether she asks or not.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from last night. I’d been out entertaining our parents in the RAF station.. When they came back there were three bats entangled in the barbed wire. We tried to laugh it off but in reality what had happened was that a couple of Lancaster trainers had one into the barbed wire too. Two of our students were killed. We tried to laugh it off as some kind of nothing much or not very important but from where we were we gradually prepared ourselves for flying operations and gradually tried to keep in shape etc ready to leave and set off. But we had the funeral and then we had to check the barbed wire in the camp and the guards. The guard was shaken up but I dunno I suppose that was what happened.

That’s rather a garbled account of something that I can’t really understand. The barbed wire from last night seems to be there but I’ve no idea about the rest of it Funerals on Air Force bases were commonplace following crashes and the like when trainees were overwhelmed by the equipment and machines that they ere operating and people who witnesses these accidents went to extraordinary lengths and took extraordinary measures to put the images of what they had seen behind them..

While I was on a field exercise I came across a guy living in a hut in the mountains. He was living in deplorable circumstances but I’ve no idea why. I had him arrested and taken back to base. It turned out that he was in fact someone who had been conscripted years ago but had fled. His whole life had been living in this cabin and he had learned so much in his two years of isolation. He taught it all to us, even down to eating possum Without him, our Air Force careers would have been so much tougher because he taught us to survive, and to survive on next-to-nothing. When we were prisoners that was just how it was – survive on what you had and don’t think about anything else

That reminds me of when I lived down on the farm and at a meeting once I was chatting to two British guys who were discussing “this strange British guy who lives like a hermit up in the mountains and no-one ever sees” and it took me a full fifteen minutes to work out that they were talking about me. I’d fit the description in this dream quite happily except that I’d draw the line at eating possum of course. The “deplorable conditions” would fit nicely though.

So anyway, home tomorrow it is. At least, if I can climb the steps up to my apartment. I’m not optimistic because I’ve been practising and it doesn’t seem to have made any difference.

And that bit about “dealing with a rare illness for which there is no known cure” brought a wry smile to my face. It reminded me of the Summer School for one of my University modules back 20-odd years ago where a group of us on a Science awareness course managed to club our heads together in the laboratory and discovered a cure for which there was no known disease.

Sunday 16th June 2024 – I’VE NOT DONE …

… all that much more today than I did yesterday.

Quite possibly because I was catching up on my sleep from last night. It was another late night, probably the latest of all just recently. As I have said before… "and on many occasions too" – ed … time has gone out of the window in this place.

Hours, days, weeks – I haven’t a clue where I am really and as we know judging by recent events, neither has the hospital. One of these days our two eccentric circles will correspond, only for them to fall apart again.

Tomorrow anyway, we seem to agree on one thing, and that is that I’m going to Paris. However it now seems, judging by a text message that I’ve had that my appointment has been advanced to 11:05 from 12:30.

Clearly, Paris should be joining in this group of eccentric circular timespans because there is no way in this World that I’m going to be there for then. My taxi isn’t picking me up until 08:30 and it’s about a 4-hour drive. I keep on telling them in Paris that with all the best will in the World I can’t respond to last-minute additions or changes, with all of the logistical difficulties that are involved, especially when I only receive the notification on a Sunday when the taxi office is closed.

So it’s going to be 12:30 whether they like it or not, and if it’s too late so they have to cancel, then that’s too bad. With this latest round of hospital treatment here, I obviously have other fish to fry at the moment and we’ll worry about my cancer treatment at another moment.

Anyway, I was having a good read of all of these notes and things last night, completely lost track of time and ended up crawling shamefully into bed long after everyone else and hoping that no-one noticed.

It was pretty much useless though; I don’t know what time it was but it sounds as if they are dismantling a factory outside my bedroom door. I don’t think that I’ve ever heard so much racket inside a hospital as what’s going on at the moment and going to sleep was pretty impossible for quite a while.

But go to sleep I did eventually, hoping for a night like last night but no such luck. We had the 06:15 whirlwind and blitz though our rooms, and the 08:00 diabetes test. 0.79 mine was today, just on the limit for orange juice. The nurse didn’t think it worth it but I wasn’t going to miss out on extra orange juice. Ohh no!

Breakfast was late today which was a shame because I was starving. And the coffee was cold so they must have been held up somewhere which is not a surprise because firstly there’s a new guy on the ward who seems to need a lot of people buzzing around him judging by his tone of voice and secondly, there was much more movement than usual of people in beds coming and going, pushed by the orderlies but having to be positioned and so on by the auxiliaries

After breakfast I had a good scrub and then watched a film – INSPECTOR HORNLEIGH ON HOLIDAY, the second film of the trilogy. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. I’ve downloaded a good few of these films onto my laptop for when I’m on my travels and bored in a hotel. I’ll never tire of Gordon Harker

And watch for the young girl at the piano right at the start of the film. She appears in tiny cameo roles in quite a few films of this nature during this period, and I still haven’t worked out why.

The doctor from yesterday came round to see how I was, so I had to pause the film. She seems now to agree that it is in fact Tuesday that I do go home, which is good news, but there’s still plenty of time to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in this respect.

More good news is that she weighed me. There are two target weights that I try to reach. The first is my “inactive” weight when I’m not running or keeping fit, and the second is my “active” weight when I am. And the weighing machine tells me that, fully clothed, I’m now below my inactive weight heading for my active weight target.

She of course thinks that it’s this water retention issue sorting itself out but I put it down to the starvation rations in this place.

The Creatine level is stable – at … err … 440. She told me that that was good news but I told her that it would be better news if it were stable at 270 where it was before all of this performance began or even stable at below 100 where it’s supposed to be. What’s this “300 is a critical level” thing all about?

Her reply was that I seem to be coping really well with the limitations and it would have been a different matter entirely had my body not responded to the shock treatment that they gave me when I came in.

After she left I carried on watching my film. Lunch was late too, but for a change I received everything that I was supposed to. Things are definitely looking up in that respect

This afternoon I watched another film, BEHIND GREEN LIGHTS, a cheesy detective thriller from 1946 with William Gargan and Carole Landis who are both actors far too good for this sort of script. Nevertheless, for passing an idle 90 minutes, there have been worse ideas than watching this.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone too which was a surprise. Amongst the people taken by surprise by our sudden movement was a certain Frenchman who was standing in the middle of where we pitched our tents shaking his head found by the military police wondering where we’d all gone. Apparently he used to come here every evening for reasons like … and was able to skip past the guards on the perimeter until he made it to the centre of the camp and whoever was billeted here

And then, it seems, I had a very similar dream later on. Similar, but in more detail and our mysterious man’s nationality had changed. Apparently the departure of 131 Squadron for the UK was so rapid that amongst the items left behind on the abandoned airfield in North Africa and recovered by a Recovery Unit was a young, immaculately dressed Italian man. Apparently he had been in the habit every might of climbing the barbed wire perimeter defences totally unobserved so that he could visit his “friend”, for whatever purpose one can only imagine. The departure had been so sudden that the airman hadn’t had the time to communicate the fact, and there was the Italian man, having climbed the barbed wire defences once more, face to face with an Irate Recovery Squad Officer.

For the record, 131 Squadron was a bomber squadron in World War I and a fighter squadron in World War II, yet I was convinced that I was discussing a bomber squadron which makes sense, with all this stuff that I’ve been reading. The squadron never served in North Africa anyway. In World War II it served in England, Wales and India, flying Spitfires and, later, Thunderbolts.

The rest of the day has been spent either working on more radio stuff or else reading more notes. Anything to keep out of mischief.

Tomorrow then, I’m off to Paris. What happens next, we’ll find out when we arrive. Apparently I’ll be given a picnic for midday by the hospital but that will remain to be seen. If the journey goes OK they’ll throw me out of here on Tuesday and I’ll resume the battle with just the Visiting Nurses keeping an eye on me, not that they did that too well just now.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, when I contracted this cancer back in 2015, the advice that every medical professional in Castle Anthrax gave me was to “save your strength for the struggle that lies ahead” and left me in no doubt that it would be a struggle. So despite all of the setbacks that we have had, the battle will go on.

First, though, I’ll go to see what the fight down the corridor is all about. But not before I mention that the story about Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris and the Australian airman yesterday reminded me of something else. I think that it was Percy Penguin, bless her, who told me about the time that the Queen Mother visited the Home where she worked.
There was one old lady who clearly no longer had both paddles in the water who objected to the fuss being made, and expressed herself in “forthright” terms.
"Don’t you know who I am?" said the Queen Mother indignantly
"No dear" said the old woman "but ask the matron. She’ll tell you"

Saturday 15th June 2024 – I HAVE HAD …

… another one of those days where I have emulated my namesake the mathematician by doing three fifths of five eights of … errr … nothing.

It’s probably not strictly true when I look a little more closely at it, but in a context where I don’t seem to be accomplishing anything at all in the usual run of events, I seem to have managed to do even less than usual.

In fact, I was so busy doing nothing at all last night that it was actually after midnight and I was still letting it all hang out instead of going to bed.

What had happened was that in these papers that I’m currently browsing that have just come into the Public Doman there’s a hitherto-unpublished first-hand account of the events of 1956 as the crisis unfolded on the western border of Jordan

In everything else that I’ve ever read about the situation, I’ve never seen anything as detailed as that which I was reading last night. It’s a fascinating account and I was lost amongst its pages for hours.

It’s actually hard to believe that I originally started all of this by looking for another topic completely in a totally different era.

That was one of the major problems with my University Degree – I was so absorbed in what I was doing and what I found that I was ending up researching and writing stuff that interested me and which usually had no bearing whatever on the subject matter that our tutor wanted us to do. I just couldn’t keep on track

At the end of the day I’m sure that they just gave me my degree to get rid of me.

Anyway, I hauled myself off to bed eventually.

And do you know what? We all had a lie-in today. There was no 06:15 stampede through the rooms, no diabetes test at 08:00, nothing whatever. I opened my eyes myself, totally undisturbed, at 08:30.

Had I known that the sleep would have been this good, I’d have gone to bed earlier to enjoy more of it.

Eventually breakfast was served and then I wandered off for a shower and a clothes-washing session. Even though I’ve been told that I’m going home, I’ll believe it when I’m sitting in my comfy chair in my office and not before.

While I was in there, there was a knock on the door. "Mr Hall?"
"I’m playing hide-and-seek" I replied. "Come and find me"
"I’ll come back" said a voice.

Unfortunately it wasn’t Emilie the cute consultant come to scrub my back but one of her side-kicks.

She wanted to look at my oedemas and when she was satisfied that they were still there, to tell me that I’ll be going home on Monday
"Don’t you mean “Tuesday”?" I asked, reciting the timetable that Emilie had given me yesterday
That confused her.

As I have said before… "and on many occasions too" – ed … the issues of the Binocrit injection and the Vitamin D capsule tell me that they don’t have a clue what day of the week it is here.

Consequently I rang up the taxi company after she’d left to make sure that the hospital had given the company the correct information about my trip on Monday. It’s a good job that I did too because the despatcher couldn’t find the trip registered on his list.

They are someone else who don’t know what day of the week it is either.

While we’re on the subject of not knowing what day of the week it is … "well, one of us is" – ed … there’s this issue about the lack of protein because of my vegan diet. This morning, they gave me a bottle of some kind of concentrated protein drink with my breakfast.

Smelling a rat, I checked. And sure enough, it’s made of concentrated cows’-milk. You really couldn’t invent stuff like this.

It’s definitely time to be moving on.

First though, it’s time to find out what I was us to during the night, so I had a listen to the dictaphone. A United Nations B-17 took off with a multi-national crew to go to bomb somewhere in North Korea. It was shot down over the Demilitarised Zone. As we know, it’s the aim of the different branches of the military there not to let anything at all survive of the opposition’s military equipment. It’s the aim of the country itself or the passengers not to let anything survive of its equipment that could be examined and/or used by the enemy. So with this ‘plane landing there, there were still several survivors who were desperately trying to contact the South to say that they were there and were still alive, but instead the South Korean grand artillery obliterated the ‘plane and of course the survivors with it. Then there was the usual talk about “the enemy, our allies etc” on a very impersonal basis that still didn’t change the outcome that the southern United Nations forces had been content to kill several of their own persons whom they knew were alive, quite simply to prevent the machine falling into North Korean hands

Not of course that a Flying Fortress would be going anywhere to bomb anyone by the time the Korean War broke out. They had all long been moved from the front line in favour of the B-29 Superfortress. And while in modern warfare artillery would have better things to do, pounding crashed aircraft and their crew to pieces was quite an artillery sport in World War I. Modern aircraft would have some kind of demolition charge to dispose of sensitive equipment

And then I went back to reading. Trawling my way through pages of the stuff, and being side-tracked as usual. Such as by reading the Reykjavik “Daily Post” of 7th September 1940 that describes an “exchange of prisoners”.

This was brokered by Sweden, who had a considerable number of interned soldiers from Germany and from the UK who had strayed over the border at some point during the invasion of Norway, some British volunteers from the Winter War in Finland, some civilians swept up in the turmoil and a random Red Cross detachment from the UK that no-one, not even them, I suspect, know what they were doing or where they were supposed to be.

They were exchanged on a like-for like basis, the British and the Germans and the latter, I imagine, were sent directly to Germany whereas the British part was sent to Iceland which had recently been occupied by the British to keep it out of the hands of the Germans after the Germans had occupied Norway, Iceland at the time being a Norwegian colony.

The stuff that turns up in these old papers is fascinating

As well as that, I’ve been doing some radio stuff (not very much, it has to be said) and talking to Rosemary on the ‘phone. She wanted a chat this evening.

Tea tonight was potato with carrot purée and green beans. I won’t be going too far on that, that’s for sure. I’ve forgotten what protein looks like, especially when it’s not made with cows’ milk.

But before I go, the stuff that turns up in these papers as fascinating, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …

After one particularly brutal encounter with night-fighter and flak an Australian bomber pilot rang up Ad Astra House, the home of the RAF and asked to be put through to Bomber Command Headquarters.
When he was finally put through, he told his respondent what he thought of him, his organisation, his route-planning, everything, in a fashion that only an Australian can
"Do you know why you are speaking to?" barked the voice
"No" answered the pilot
"I am Sir Arthur Harris" barked the voice, "Commander in Chief, Bomber Command"
There was silence for a moment while the gravity of the situation sank in
"And do you know who you are speaking to?" asked the pilot
"No" barked “Bomber” Harris
"Good" said the pilot, and hung up.

Friday 14th June 2024 – IT LOOKS AS IF …

… I’ll be going home on Tuesday, if all goes well.

The blood test this morning shows that the Creatine has reduced from 476 to 440 – still a long way over critical but never mind – and one or two other worrying figures have relaxed somewhat.

The idea is to send me to Paris from here on Monday and bring me back again, and see how I coped with the trip.

A quick blood test Tuesday morning and see what things look like. If they are showing a further decline out of danger then round about this time on Tuesday mid-afternoon I shall be free.

And my pasta and steamed veg in a vegan cheese sauce will be down my throat within minutes of making it upstairs to my apartment. You’ve no idea how much I’m looking forward to to it. If only it were to happen

But when I say “free”, it will be “free” only for a moment.

Emilie, the cute consultant (yes, I’m making progress) has been to see me this afternoon. Just abut the only person who has.

The others seem to have got the message and are leaving me well alone. They just open the door and bung the meals inside, then come back to take away the tray afterwards.

A nurse might come in and give me my medication and the rest of the time I’m here all alone.

And quite frankly, that suits me fine. They say that human beings are gregarious mammals but not me. I’ve always been happy with my own company.

The French have a saying mieux aller tout seul que d’être mal accompagné – “it’s better to travel alone than to be badly accompanied”.

Thinking about it, I could count on the fingers of one hand the good accompaniment that I’ve had in past times (modern times are much more different). Surprisingly to some people, Nerina would be there in that lot. If only we had learnt to talk to each other and share our souls. Percy Penguin too, who I also dragged all across Europe and into its farthest corners without ever a single word of complaint.

What I put it down to is the people whom I’ve had accompany me (or, more accurately, I’ve accompanied) previous to that. I never learned to socialise.

There wasn’t anyone to accompany me at 04:15 to the bathroom though. I had to go by myself. I still think that it’s a really strange idea to give me a diuretic just before going to bed

At 06:15 we had the morning tempest. This morning it was just temperature and a blood test. Not even testing the blood pressure. But –
"Where’s the diabetes test?"
"They’ll get the information from the blood test"
Bang goes my early morning orange juice then.

Some time after that I must have gone back to sleep because at 08:15 they awoke me for breakfast
"Where’s the bread"
Someone has to dash off to the big, main food trolley down the corridor.
This place and the service has really gone to the dogs just recently

Not long after breakfast someone comes round to perform the diabetes test – on my jam-stained fingers. The reading on the little machine goes through the roof. Who is surprised? What’s the point of that?

When I finally got up to go to the bathroom to sort myself out, I noticed a huge bloodstain on the leg of my pyjamas. So much so that it had soaked through and ruined the sheet on which I’d been lying.

When I saw that, I thought that I’d better call for assistance because, after all, you never know …

A nursing auxiliary and I had a close inspection of my thigh. Strange and impossible as it might seem, last night’s injection of anti-coagulant went bang on, bulls-eye into a previous hole, opened it up and it bled slowly but bled like hell for quite some time.

Regardless of Emilie the cute consultant and all of the cute student nurses in here, I think that it’s time to be moving on

In the bathroom I washed my pyjama trousers while I was there and hung them up to dry. I’ve no idea what I’ll wear to bed tonight instead but I’ll figure something out

The rest of the morning was quiet.

After lunch there was plenty of time to transcribe the dictaphone notes. It was about 03:15 when I was awoken. It was about being asked to go on a British penetration raid into Germany as a 31st mission after I’d already done 30 and could officially retire. But I’d had a lot of problems reaching 30 because the crew that I’d been assigned – I’d had two crews assigned to me and had two mutinies on my way to making up my 30 so I thought that I was really lucky to be able to finish without having to put extra stress on them to go again one more time but by the same token was being afraid of being called “yellow” by everyone else who came to hear that I’d turned down a mission

In the papers that I’m reading at the moment there are several recorded cases of bomber crews mutinying and refusing to fly on operations, preferring arrest, court-martial and at least a humiliation or even a prison sentence to facing the flak and night-fighters over Germany
Thirty operational flights over Occupied Territory were considered to be a full tour and the rare numbers of bomber crew who survived a full tour could then retire from front-line flying and accept any vacant post commensurate with their rank and experience. But at the height of the slaughter in 1943 and even later there are plenty of instances of some crews who made it to 30 trips being asked to stay on for further missions in order to support a “squadron maximum effort” when there were not enough crews remaining to man the available aircraft. Some crews even completed 3 complete tours – 90 missions – over Occupied territory.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this TOTGA put in an appearance. There was something going on with her children, particularly her daughter, who were implicated in what was happening during the night in some respect but everything evaporated when I reached for the dictaphone and the details completely slipped out of my mind.

How nice it was to see TOTGA and her daughter in the middle of the night too after all of this time, but fancy forgetting what was going on. That kind of thing is inexcusable. Neither TOTGA nor Castor nor Zero for that matter appear so often that I can afford to forget it when they do.

Much of the afternoon was spent in semi-consciousness and I would probably have gone to sleep had it not been for the racket as a torrential rainstorm outside fell against the bedroom window.

Mind you, I soon pulled myself together when Emilie appeared.

Basically, the plan is that if I’m capable of being sent home and left on my own, I can go home on Tuesday.

There will be a weekly blood test and I’ll go to the clinic across the road here the following day to discuss the results.

My kidney function is just 11% now, having fallen from a woeful but much more optimistic 25% in the past. 11% would usually guarantee me an automatic slot in the dialysis queue around here but they are surprised, if not impressed, about how well I seem to be coping and a more normal timescale for intervention will take place

So we are in the lap of the Gods now, apparently. Bringing the Creatine back down is straining the kidney function. Working on one aspect prejudices another. The story of my life I suppose.

So now we wait and see.

Surprised, if not impressed, would have been a good way to describe how I handled another issue tonight. Having seen a dietician the other day and discussed my dietary issues at great length which she took on board, tonight’s tea was chou-fleur au gratin – cauliflower in cheese sauce.

Won’t I be glad to be home?

Having had my injection and been well and truly plastered so I don’t bleed all over the bed, That’s about it. I can start to count the days.

But I bet that something will come along and throw a spanner in the works. Otherwise on Tuesday afternoon I shall be dancing down the street going "Yippee! I’m free!"
And the little boy in the flat upstairs going "So what? I’m free and a half. But I’ll be four in October."

Thursday 13th June 2024 – IT’S REALLY STRANGE …

… how the smallest thing can change your balance of humour when you are in what amounts to captivity like this.

Having been cheered up this morning by an e-mail from the hospital administration to say that my complaint about the food here has been taken up by the Director of the Hospital, and having received a computer printout that I should receive two (and the “two” highlighted in yellow by a person) portions of steamed potato, only one was served to me.

Good humour has never ever evaporated so quickly.

One day someone will write a Ph. D thesis on the effects of captivity on the human soul, and it will make very interesting reading, I’m sure. Just a handful of steamed potatoes being the difference between life and death.

To be honest, it’s not really “captivity” here. An able-bodied person who wasn’t a vegan could simply walk downstairs to the cafeteria to buy a sandwich (but then again an able-bodied person wouldn’t be in a hospital anyway) and if the person were a local, it could simply ask its partner or a neighbour to bring one when they visited.

But here I’m on my own 40 kms from the nearest neighbour who doesn’t drive with no public transport and I can’t even walk to the end of the corridor and back (more of this anon).

Yes, if someone were to want to write a Ph.D thesis on this subject I would make a pretty good case study. But they’d better get a move on because I have a feeling that if things carry on much longer like this and I continue to pour out my vitriol to the Director’s office in response, I shall be out on my ear before much longer. Especially if I have to continue to encounter the je m’en foutism of some of the staff who “work” here.

It’s a sad state of affairs really because I’ve been feeling, both physically and mentally, better than I have done for a while despite the dramatic deterioration recorded in my blood and other tests.

Apart from the odd visit by the nursing staff during the evening for my anti-coagulant injection, I was left alone and could write my notes and read my articles in peace.

Once more, it was about midnight when I crawled into bed and tucked myself in. And I must have been asleep quite quickly because I don’t remember anything at all of my bedtime mantra (about which I’ve spoken previously).

For a change I slept right through until all of … errrr … 04:15 and then I had to go to walk the parapet. I just don’t understand the logic of why they would give me a diuretic in the evening. It’s just totally illogical.

And, of course, once I’m awake, I’m awake. I lay there for quite a while making all kinds of plans, none of which will ever come to fruition. I can’t even hold a bass sitting down, never mind standing up in a concert.

We had the usual 06:30 hurricane but today it was just blood pressure and oxygen count. No blood test and no diabetes test.

There’ a new little student nurse on the wards today. She came to give me the diabetes test later, just as breakfast was being delivered so I didn’t qualify for an extra orange juice this morning.

Later on I reminded her about the test for diabetes and I asked if there was a similar test to see if a person needed a coffee, so she went away to ask. I really must stop teasing these students, but they are usually cute and there have to be some benefits from being stranded here on starvation rations.

Once breakfast was finished I hauled myself off to the bathroom and had another shower and clothes-washing session. There’s not much room in there and I don’t have much in the way of facilities but my principle is to do what I can where I can when I can with what I have. A quick hand-wash and rinsing off while I’m showering will have to do

A few years ago I bought some pillows and they came in some kind of plastic cover sealed with a zip. I saved the covers and in one of them I stuffed an old tee-shirt, pair of undies and an old pair of trousers, and that waterproof pack lives at the bottom of my rucksack. It’s my “change of clothes” whenever I’m in a place like this

A short while later a nurse came to fetch me. They are going to search my left arm to see if there’s a vein suitable to take a dialysis port. This search involved the use of an echograph and as there’s a unit across the corridor from here we went on foot.

On our way we rounded up the little student. She can come and watch the proceedings, and I told her that she could even manipulate the machine a little if she likes, although the doctor in charge was pretty quick to veto that, which I thought was a shame. How are these kids going to learn if they don’t have the practice?

Firstly the student had to take my blood pressure etc. The machine wasn’t working so they had to go back to the 19th Century and test me manually. There was this little student sitting next to me on this bench thing, holding my wrist as she took my pulse. I began to think of Roxanne holding my hand years ago, began to wish that I had a daughter holding my hand right now and that was, I reckon, when this latest cycle of depression began.

Lying on the bench listening to the doctor as she ran her detector up and down my arm. She found a few veins in my lower arm, all badly damaged by misplaced needles.

Eventually, she found a really good one and she’s going to keep it secret because she doesn’t want anyone else to use it until they are ready to perform the necessary surgery. I’ve no idea when that might be but things seem to be moving quickly here. I’m beginning to wonder if we aren’t in a race against time.

Back in my room I let the student give me the anti-coagulant injection. She deserved a reward after sitting through all of that just now.

The physiotherapist turned up too. She simply took me for a walk down the corridor and back, a walk that involved several pauses for breath, and then back here she showed me a few exercises of the type that I do already and then she cleared off.

And strangely, there seemed to be a little more movement in my lower leg. If we aren’t careful, we’ll be back to where we were a few weeks ago before this latest bout of illness and I might even be able to lift my foot up over the edge of the stairs.

But seriously, talking me for a walk. I felt like barking and cocking my leg up against a rubber plant.

So the physiotherapist turned up. But my second portion of steamed potatoes didn’t. I complained to the person who came to take away the empty tray (and I wish that I’d noticed earlier when she brought it) who seemed to take no notice, but a few minutes later a nurse came in to enquire about the problem.

After I’d explained, she seemed to simply shrug her shoulders and clear off. And that was that. I’m not doing very well in respect of my food, am I?

This afternoon, everyone kept their distance. I imagine that they had worked out that I was like a bear with a sore head after my disappointment about my lunch.

Consequently I spent some of the time transcribing the dictaphone notes from last night. I was dreaming about the fate of five bomber pilots either fallen into the hands of the Germans or Japanese, how their treatment was different, how the PoWs captured by the German were lucky compared to those captured by the Japanese. I didn’t really know or believe which group I was in while I was asleep, whether I’d been captured by the Germans or captured by the Japanese. Later on I was in Belgium and Laurence had been taken away by the Occupying Authorities or something. When I returned to our apartment in Rue Duysburgh Roxanne was living there on her own with the food that remained in the apartment just using the 30-second timer just pushing that one or two or three or four our however many times it needed to cook the food as best as she could until I returned. The first thing that I did was to make a great big dish of pasta and vegetables in a vegan cheese sauce.

Yes, I really must stop reading these aviation reports that I discovered yesterday. And it’s certainly true that prisoners were treated differently depending on who captured them. Bomber pilots always prayed that if they were going to be shot down, it would be by flak, because flakartillerie and the accompanying searchlights were manned by the Luftwaffe, they would inevitably race to capture the parachuting airmen as “trophies of war” and the Luftwaffe looked after its own prisoners and generally treated them with respect.
Parachuting out elsewhere over Occupied territory, you never knew who was going to capture you. The local Police risked handing you over to the Gestapo when anything could happen, and as I said the other day, landing in the middle of A BUNCH OF ENRAGED CITIZENS AND BEING BEATEN TO DEATH was not an uncommon end.

That was a nice little apartment our little family had in Jette, the three of us and our two kittens. And the microwave with its 30-second pulse button. I use that probably the most in my kitchen. And I’d made sure that Roxanne was a very self-sufficient and independent child as much as I could. I’m sure that she would have coped on her own had she had to, even at 9 years old.

As well as that, I carried on reading the papers about Lack of Moral Fibre in Bomber Command in World War II and spent some time on the radio stuff too. There’s not actually much I can do about the radio here. This laptop with its 8GB of RAM isn’t powerful enough to work the program that I use and the screen doesn’t have enough resolution. I really need the 64GB of the big desktop machine but that’s of course back at home

The nursing staff came past at the end of the afternoon. And in spades too. I couldn’t even begin to count the number of pills that there were in that batch that they just gave me. I can’t believe that it’s possible for anyone to take as many pills and potions as I’m taking right now. I thought that it was extreme when we made it to over 20 but now it’s just ludicrous.

Had my cute consultant put in an appearance as promised today, I might have said something but she must obviously be a new reader of these pages because after what I wrote yesterday she’s keeping her distance … "and who can blame her?" – ed … Tomorrow it’s her male sidekick on duty so I imagine that he’s drawn the short straw and will be here to fill me in (on the hospital’s plans, not “otherwise”)

Tea tonight was a surprise. It actually contained some protein! There was a batch of lentils along with my puréed pumpkin.

Bearing in mind the official guidelines that I need between 70 and 80 grams per day, I’d be lucky if there were 7 or 8 grams of protein in the amount of lentils that I was served. Still, why am I complaining? It’s 7 or 8 grams more than I would otherwise have received.

What is the irony of all of this is that in these papers on “Lack of Moral Fibre” that I’m reading, there are several reports of the chaos in Eastern Germany in winter 1944-45 and the 500-mile march through the bitter winter by the Prisoners of War from the camps in Silesia out of the way of the Russian advance where no food was delivered and they were living on frozen turnips and whatever else they could find.

At the end of the march the average weight of the prisoner who survived was 6.5 stone. I’ve not reached that stage yet but it is coming to the stage where I’m afraid to be weighed. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … who’d have thought that 80 years after D-Day it would have come to this?

But you think that I have problems? They are nothing compared to the guy in the next room. I happened to overhear the conversation that he had with his consultant.
"There has been a mix-up between you and another patient" said the doctor. "I’m afraid that instead of giving you the heart transplant we’ve given you the sex change"
"What???" said the patient in surprise. And after a moment of reflection he asked "Do you mean that I’ll never get another erection?"
"Of course you will" reassured the doctor. "Of course you will. You’ll get plenty. They just won’t be your own."

Wednesday 12th June 2024 – I’M CLEARLY NOT …

… as ill as I think I am. That’s obvious.

Bu more of that in a moment.

As seems to be usual these days, they leave me pretty much alone after tea. There might be the odd diabetes test here and there and a nurse might stick her head in the door to give me my anti-coagulant injection and to make sure that I’ve not absconded, but that seems to be that.

At some point I drag myself off to bed and it’s becoming later and later. Last night it was midnight when I finally slid underneath the covers but it doesn’t make much difference because the bed’s uncomfortable and what with the Autoroute out at the back here and the amount of noise in the building, most of which seems to be just outside my door, and the odd Air-Sea Rescue helicopter here and there, I don’t have much sleep.

Nevertheless, I was away with the fairies soon enough but the nursing staff coming here at 06:30 when you are fast asleep, coming like a tornado making enough racket to awaken the dead, and taking a blood sample and diabetes test, making you go to the bathroom, all of this kind of thing with so much commotion and then when they leave they say “have a nice day” and close the door. How the hell is it possible to have a nice day after you’ve been awoken like this at this time of morning?

That was probably the first decent sleep that I’ve had since I’ve been here too but at least, out of all of this and the diabetes test in particular I managed to blag a glass of orange juice. And in exchange they departed with a couple of bottles of of Chateau Eric Hall Appelation Controlée 2024

It was a waste of time trying to go back to sleep after all of that so I just lay there watching the clock and hoping that breakfast wasn’t going to be too late.

At least I know that my e-mails over the last two days seems to have worked. After breakfast had been and gone, and while I was busy in the bathroom scrubbing my back (I’m keeping a healthy distance between myself and my ex-Chinese Tong Hitwoman for the moment) there was a knock on the door.

It was the dietician who had come to see me. She presented the usual excuses and apologies which were really meaningless in the grand scheme of things but the fact that she was here was something. We went through the menu and I was able to choose – in only some kind of very limited fashion – what I was going to eat for the next few days.

We agreed at least that if something were to be withdrawn they would double up something in replacement and I could ask the serving staff for as much bread as I liked.

It’s not really suitable or the ideal solution, but it’s the best that I can get and at least it’s an improvement, I hope. It remains to be seen now if I can keep the momentum going for as long as I’m here.

The cute consultant came to see me today. My Creatine is now officially a disaster. Despite receiving treatment it’s now risen to 476. Just a reminder – a healthy person’s is less than 100 and it’s panic stations at 300. Dialysis is definitely on the cards and there might not be time for me to have the system fitted to my arm. I may well have to have a thoracic port of the type that I had at Castle Anthrax.

The good news is that she’s talked to someone in Physiotherapy. They’ll be coming to see me soon and give me a few mobility tests. The results of those tests will decide …

Whether I can go home
Whether I go into Convalescence
Whether I have to stay here

We shall see

Even better, she’s seen the food issue unfold, and so her unit is to write to the Director of the hospital to formally protest the situation. That’s taken me be surprise because much as I would have liked the situation to be escalated to that level, I didn’t expect it.

Her concern, and quite rightly too, is the question of protein. For an official guide that says that an average person needs about 1 gram of protein per kilo of weight per day, I’ve just received protein twice, and tiny portions of a couple of grams each, in 11 days and that’s ridiculous.

However, knowing how these things work in places like this, the Byzantine nature of French administration means that there won’t be any change before the end of the decade at least, far too late to be of any benefit to me.

But sitting on the edge of the bed demurely right next to me on my chair, we were chatting about many things that had only a very indirect connection with my health and well-being It was one of those conversations that you have that seems to go on for ever and I could be thrown out of the hospital for what I was thinking by the time she left. There’s obviously life in the old dog yet. It’s not all doom and gloom.

Later on, one of the nurses came by to bring me my anti-potassium stuff. "I was just speaking to the specialist. She says that you Creatine figure is dreadful "
"I know" I replied "But I’m quite happy with that, as long as it’s she who comes to tell me". I’m clearly not as ill as I think I am

At this point I transcribed the dictaphone notes from last night. I was actually surprised that there were some. Then I was asleep dreaming about a gangster who had some kind of involvement with the hospital. One of his sons was a weak, spineless cowering type who would wriggle out of anything on any occasion. HIs other son was quite a lot tougher than him but was still the last one of very quick at passing the buck where anything went wrong. It was always a very bad thing to become involved with these two youngsters because sooner or later they would drop you in the soup and you’d end up having to carry the can for what it was that they were doing. This dream seemed so life-like. I suddenly realised that what had happened was that I’d awoken. Two nurses outside the door were discussing a surgeon and somehow I’d tied all this in with this surgeon to represent the fact that he had two unruly children. I hope that he doesn’t have any unruly children and I hope he’s not the surgeon who’s coming to deal with me.

But don’t ask me if it really was a discussion taking place outside my door. I have absolutely no recollection whatever of this dream. But it seems that hospital life is having some kind of unsettling effect on me. I can’t think of any other meaning or interpretation.

After lunch, which failed to live up to expectations and was just more (but not more, if you know what I mean) of the same – the dietician presumably wasn’t quick enough to talk to the computer – I’ve been a busy bee.

Firstly, I’ve been revising my homepage. My homepage is simply a list of the most common web pages that I visit, written in *.html coding so I can just click on a name and it takes me directly to the site.

When I wrote it, it was quite comprehensive but times have changed. There were several dead links there, several had changed address and there were several more that I’ve been using in more recent times that were never added in so I thought that it was due for a rewrite

The second thing is that a whole shed-load of papers have been released into the public domain and which address the issue of “Low Moral Fibre” in Bomber Command aircrew in World War II

“Low Moral Fibre” was a serious issue as the Bomber campaign intensified and more and more was being asked of aircrew. The first signs of it were dealt with ruthlessly, even down in a few well-recorded incidents of public humiliation, for fear that any panic would spread throughout the Command

So much so that everyone who lost his nerve was punished equally, whether he was a novice who refused to take to the air at all or an experienced hero with 60 missions over enemy territory and a string of medals under his belt.

But as Leonard Cheshire said, station commanders were airmen, not psychiatrists. Their job was to produce results about the obliteration of enemy targets so naturally they were much more interested in keeping as many people as possible up in the air as often as possible and had no time for anything else, including the careful handling of individual waverers.

There were the usual interruptions. A couple of nurses (I notice that the younger ones come here in pairs now – they clearly don’t think that I’m as ill as I’m supposed to be either) came to check up on me and to ask if I needed anything.

When I mentioned “coffee” one of them sailed off to see what she coull find but came back empty handed.

A couple of hours later another nurse, the one from earlier thin morning, came by to take my blood pressure.
"And the diabetes test?"
So she gave me the diabetes test
"0.87. That’s near enough" and slipped me an illicit glass of orange juice and an apple purée.

For tea, the dietician had caught up with the computer and I had a double-helping of rice and oven-baked tomatoes. No protein again, but at least my stomach is full, for about the first time ever since I’ve been in this wretched place.

Things here though are definitely looking up. From going from situations where there were bevies of beautiful nurses wrestling with my lethal weapon and it not being able to salute them, I’m now inviting hospital consultants into my lair and my evil clutches are beginning to flex their muscles again. I must be getting better and there’s definitely something going on in this place that I don’t quite understand and I wish that I did. I wonder if it’s something that they’ve put in the orange juice.

No physiotherapist, so I’ve no idea when this promised review is going to take place, but I’ve had a good on-line chat with my faithful cleaner who knows all about these Convalescent places due to several of her clients having passed that way.

She reckons that there are a couple in Granville, and if I’m incarcerated there she’ll bring me some food parcels. She confirmed my worst fears about the TRICATEL food in these places.

But this morning after breakfast had finally arrived and been disposed of, we’d had a touch of excitement.

That was when I’d just stepped into the bathroom when door opened and a voice asked "Monsieur Hall, when was the last time you produced any solids?"
"Yesterday evening" I replied.
"Yesterday evening?"
"That’s right" I replied from the depths of the bathroom. "But if you come back in 5 minutes you’ll have a different answer"

EPIC HALL

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