Monthly Archives: November 2024

Friday 15th November 2024 – I HAVE BEEN …

… a very busy boy … "for once" – ed … and worked hard today … "for once" – ed …

And that might have been because I had one of the best sleeps that I’ve had for a long time … "for once" – ed … I didn’t awaken, turn over or do anything while I was asleep, to the best of my knowledge. I awoke for the first time at 06:55, 5 minutes before the alarm was due to go off and that was that.

As seems to be the case these days, I was late again going to bed. But I have this little project of sorting through, would you believe, 22,000 photos and I’m doing a few each night, in the hope that one day I’ll finish. I won’t finish it if I don’t make a start, that’s for sure.

After a while I crawled off to bed and there I slept the Sleep of the Dead until the morning, and I could do with a few more sleeps like that every now and again. I don’t know why nothing awoke me

When the alarm went off I managed slowly to bring myself back into the Land of the Living and crawled off into the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And I didn’t go far at all. Someone shouted me again in the middle of the night. This time it was attached to a dream about having a new kitchen installed and they were the installers come to deliver the material ready to fit it

Strangely enough, I remember nothing at all about that. But I am going to have a new kitchen installed when (if) I finally manage to move downstairs. There is already a row of kitchen furniture up against the wall and I’ll be installing units in a kind-of island something along the same lines that I have here.

Naturally, I have proper units for that. There are those that I bought in Munich that are still inside the back of the van, and the four base units still in their boxes outside the door here. There’s also a worktop in the van along with the oven that I bought and is still in the van.

Looking at all of this, it’s just about four months in 2022 between me going on a mega-drive around Central Europe for several weeks and me being unable to walk any more. It’s difficult to believe how quickly I became so ill

This cancer that I’ve had since 2015 is bad enough and that’s been slowly dragging me down and further down, but what went on in that four months was totally inexplicable. However, I made it to Jersey and I made it (just) to Canada to tie up my affairs, but at what cost?

The nurse was quite early again today and that suits me fine because the sooner he comes, the sooner he goes and I can continue with some more exciting stuff.

When he arrived he asked me the same kind of silly question that he asks me every day, as if he hasn’t heard the answers all these times, and that irritates me considerably. Today I left him in no doubt that he was irritating me so he changed the subject to something else just as patronising, and got on my wick even more.

After he left I made my breakfast and carried on with my book. Hearne does indeed discuss some of the “family arrangements” of his First-Nation companions and is hardly complimentary. And of the arrangements of the families who live around the fort he has even less of a good opinion, if that were ever possible, He describes them as "being the most debauched wretches under the Sun"

Considering that we are talking of a book written at the end of the Eighteenth Century when feelings were much more delicate than they were twenty years ago (although not today in this current society that seems to be becoming more Puritan by the minute), his book and his accounts must have caused uproar

He concludes his narrative in this chapter with "In fact, notwithstanding the severity of the climate, the licentiousness of the inhabitants cannot be exceeded by any of the Eastern nations"

But we moved quickly on from there and have just read the account of the massacre by his First-Nation guides and porters of a hunting party of Inuit camped on the shores of the Coppermine River by what became known as the Bloody Falls. And the gratuitous savagery and brutality that he describes is dreadful

We flew over the Bloody Falls on our way back to Calgary from Kugluktuk at the mouth of the Coppermine River, and it’s hard to believe that such a peaceful place was the site of such horror.

Back in here I’ve finished off all of the notes for the next radio programme, which I’ll be dictating on Saturday night. For a change just recently, this was quite straightforward and will probably be quite boring after what I’ve been up to with the radio just recently.

There were several interruptions during the course of the day.

The first was, of course, for lunch and a slice of flapjack followed by some fruit.

Secondly, my faithful cleaner came to do her stuff and we tidied up the medication and then sorted out a new water filter for the jug that I keep here. There’s a pack of water filters on the top shelf and I can’t reach it but today my cleaner came with her step-ladder so she climbed up and passed one down to me.

As well as that, I’ve been talking to a friend on the internet about business, looking for a maker of stained glass and trying to find someone who will supply me with a couple of new drawers for my freezer, seeing as two of the old ones have gone the Way of the West. I want to defrost the freezer but there’s no point with the drawers in the state that they are.

That’s really all that I’ve done today. I don’t know where the time goes but it doesn’t seem as if I’ve wasted any time doing nothing or being distracted, which makes a change.

Tea was some vegan nuggets with chips and a vegan salad, followed by chocolate cake with strawberry (in honour of HIS NIBS) flavoured soya dessert.

So now that I’ve finished my notes there are a few small things that I have to do and then I’m off to bed. I have bread to bake tomorrow so I hope that it turns out well. The last couple have not been as I would have liked.

Samuel Hearne will be continuing his travels tomorrow too, to find the mouth of the Coppermine River (he should have asked me, because not only do I know where it is, I’ve been there) persuade the natives to come to trade furs with the fort, and to find the copper mine where they make their artefacts and report on its value

But he also told a very interesting story about how, when one group of his party diverted to carry out another task and was hurrying to meet back up with the main party, the members of each group announced their whereabouts each day by sending up a column of smoke

That reminded me of a discussion that I was having at the Little Big Horn when LITTLE BIG ANTLERS and I were talking to one of the Sioux guides there.
He was explaining the system of Native American smoke signals and there were several in the distance that he was interpreting.
He explained to me that the system worked by lighting a very smoky fire of damp grass and holding a blanket over it, then releasing the blanket to allow the column to rise in a kind-of Morse Code arrangement that he could read
But there was one of the columns in the distance that looked bizarre even to a tenderfoot like me
"Can you read THAT signal?" I asked him
"Oh yes I can" he replied. "Most definitely"
"What does it say?" I asked
"It says" he said "Help! My blanket has caught fire!"

Thursday 14th November 2024 – SO HERE I AM …

… back from the Dialysis Clinic, still in one piece. But not without them trying their best though. I’m really not too sure how long I can keep it up (as the Bishop once famously said to the actress).

And while we’re on the subject of things being up … "well, one of us is" – ed … I was up quite late again last night. However that was a personal choice of mine and nothing to do with any work or other obligation so I’m not complaining.

But once in bed, when I finally made it, I slept the sleep of the Dead and remember absolutely nothing at all.

When the alarm went off I was off on my travels somewhere but it evaporated immediately which was a shame. It must have been exciting, and there’s not enough excitement in my life these days. It’s a pity that every last memory of whatever it was simply disappeared.

The bathroom was first, and I managed to stagger in there before the final alarm of the morning. I had a good wash and scrub up, and even a shave. I know that Emilie the Cute Consultant doesn’t love me any more, but that’s no reason not to make an effort.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out if I’d been anywhere during the night. I was with my youngest sister. We’d gone to a walled city, something like Chester or something like that but in actual fact it was a port on the south coast. We were going to see a ferry – the one that goes from Sheerness to Vilssingen but it had been doing something else on the high seas somewhere and had changed its name. We were discussing the ship. When we arrived at the outskirts of this town I made the remark that I’d only ever been here once before but didn’t have a camera with me. You could see across the bay in the cliffs all these houses that had been carved out of the cliffs. Once I’d passed underneath the entrance gate to the city and began to climb the hilltop towards the city centre, I stopped to take a photograph of it but the camera on my ‘phone wasn’t working properly. It was having difficulty taking the photo. A couple of guys came over and began to chat. They were really getting on my nerves – one of them saying “I know a good place where you can photograph”. Anyway, right in the end I told him to clear off while I tried to take this photograph. I had to go back down towards the gate again but still this photograph wouldn’t turn out. Then I joined my youngest sister again who had been for a run. She told me that you could run in this city as long as you obeyed various rules like in which order you can run, the distance that you are running, which lane you should be in etc. It sounded really complicated to me but when she set off I joined her and we were only losing 2-1 for quite some time before we were overtaken again by events but I thought that we put up a really magnificent performance …fell asleep here … so we had a good run in this city. My sister set off and ran down the hill so I ran after her. Instead of keeping to the footpath she ran right back through the road in the city gates and underneath the walls into the town. I was surprised that that was allowed but she insisted that it was perfectly safe to run through on the road instead of on the pavement and so underneath the city gates rather than through the pedestrian exit. She began to explain all the lanes, their order and what they meant, where you should be, who you may overtake and in which lane

Not that I’m ever likely to be going anywhere with my youngest sister, and she is even less likely to want to go running. But I’ve had a couple of dreams about being in Chester or somewhere like it just recently so am I becoming all nostalgic? I lived there between 1972 and 1974 in my late teens and I do have to say that it was amongst the happiest times of my life. What wouldn’t I give to return to that joyous, carefree period surrounded by good friends and a healthy ambience? And a camera not working? That was a recurring dream at one point, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Later on I found myself another girlfriend. She’s someone whom I know and I wish that I knew who it was. We hadn’t been officially boyfriend/girlfriend but we spent a lot of time in each other’s company and I really looked forward to seeing her. She became ill, and had to have a lot of people looking after her which cut down quite considerably the time that we spent together. She slowly began to go out again. I met her once at some kind of concert where she was with some friends. I went over to say “hello” to her, and the first thing that she did was to give me £15:00 because she owed me £15:00 and I’d completely forgotten about it. I made a remark about her being a little better so would she like to come and have a chat with me. She said “no” which really disappointed me. She replied that things had changed. “I’ve been ill” she replied “and you’re no longer going to like me”. I told her that I’d always like her regardless of anything. She replied “you can’t trust me really, can you?” which was a reference to my own insecurity more than anything else. I was going to reply but at that point the dream faded away. Either that or I did.

That’s another thing, isn’t it? Me finding myself a girlfriend. In fact there’s something connecting this to real life too. I had a girlfriend at school and we drifted apart. A a couple of years later I was at the Teacher Training College in Crewe watching a rock group when I noticed, among the people in the crowd, the aforementioned. I went over for a chat and one thing led to another, and once you start you’d be surprised at how many other things there are. So our couple reignited but when she left school and went to University at Bangor it fizzled out again after a while.

The nurse was, for a change, late today. He asked about my plans for moving apartment and then proceeded to try to teach me to suck eggs, as if I’m senile or something. I wish that he would stop patronising me like this. It’s really getting on my wick.

After he left I made breakfast and carried on reading my book. Samuel Hearne is now well on his way to the Coppermine River. He’s making some very pertinent observations about the life and habits of the First-Nation people out in the Barren Grounds of Canada – that area of peri-Arctic tundra situated above the tree line. He describes the philosophy of the First-Nation people as “every man for himself” and “the survival of the fittest” and describes how a stronger man taking away even a weaker man’s wife seems to be an everyday occurrence. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the Barren Grounds is one of the most remote, isolated and cruellest places on earth. If Jacques Cartier had called Labrador "the Land God Gave To Cain", whatever would he have said if he had made it to here? I was in Yellowknife in 2018, AS REGULAR READERS OF THIS RUBBISH WILL RECALL and while that’s not exactly in the Barren Grounds, it was still dismal enough from a natural history point of view.

Back in here I had a few things to do and hadn’t even started work when my faithful cleaner came to fit my patches. After she’d done it she took away with her all of the medication that I no longer use. She’s going to sort it and make a list to see whether any of her other clients can make use of it, to save throwing it away.

The taxi came early and it was one of my regular drivers but she was quite quiet. But didn’t she drive us down to Avranches at a hell of a rate? I’ve no idea what might be the matter with her.

There were quite a few patients here today and as a result, even though I was early, I was the last to be seen, as you might expect. I’m convinced that they do it deliberately, wait until the anaesthetic effect of the patches has worn off.

The first needle though was painless. Totally painless. However, the second needle made up for that. I knew all about that one and so, I suspect, do those people walking past outside.

My glucose limit was right down in the basement but no-one brought me an orange juice. Consequently I slipped into a diabetic coma until one of the Auxiliaries brought me a juice with my coffee. And then I revised my Welsh, listened to some music and read more of Hakluyt’s translation of Jacques Cartier’s voyages.

Here, Cartier sets the scene for all further problems between the French and the First-Nation people by kidnapping the sons of the chief of the local tribe in order to take them back to Europe. And then on his return, on his second voyage, he befriends the wrong tribe, hence leading to 250 years of conflict between the French, the Dutch, the English, the Iroquois and the Huron, along with various other Europeans and First-Nation groups.

Last to be connected, I was last, and by a long way too, to be disconnected. My cleaner had sent me a frantic message wondering where I was.

In the meantime though a doctor came to see me. We had the usual banal questions but said nothing about my scan last week so I asked him. He went away to have a look and came back to say that I had a slipped disc. And then wandered away before I had chance to ask him what their plans were about it.

That rang a bell with me. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall me saying in the past that there’s one of the doctors here at this hospital who has all the air of wishing that he was driving a taxi or serving in a restaurant, anywhere but working in a hospital. It looks as if he’s been pencilled in to deal with me

It was another speedy drive back home with a driver who was listening to the news all the way back. And then my helpful cleaner watched as I managed once more to climb the twenty-five steps up to here totally unaided.

Tea was steamed veg with falafel in a vegan cheese sauce followed by chocolate cake in a soya pistachio cream. And it tasted wonderful too. I really must stop eating so well.

But now I have some more things to do before going to bed. And tomorrow, I’m not (planning on) going anywhere so I can take my time.

What I shall do is to read some more of Samuel Hearne’s adventures in search of the Coppermine River.
The next chapter, written by Samuel Hearne is "Some Observations On The Sex Life and Practices Of The Athabasca and Chipewyan First-Nation People"
And the following chapter, written by the Athabasca and Chipewyan First-Nation People is entitled "Some Observations on the Sex Life and Practices of Mr Samuel Hearne"

Wednesday 13th November 2024 – I HAVE FINISHED …

… the second radio programme, the notes of which I also dictated on Saturday night.

This one was much more complicated than the last one but because of my little program it was all done, finished and dusted off much quicker.

It helps having used an array for the numbers rather than entering them manually whenever they needed to be changed, so let’s all give it a big hand … "hip, hip, array" – ed …

Last night I had a lot of things to do and as a result I didn’t go to bed until late, long after my ideal time of 23:00 but one thing that I can say is that I had the best sleep that I have had for ages. I awoke once during the night as far as I can remember, but I was asleep very quickly afterwards so I didn’t pay much attention

When the alarm went off, three girls had just come round to my apartment. I was still in bed but I was wide-awake. I was making plans for the immediate future, what I was going to do. Then one of the girls came up to me, ripped the bedclothes off and shouted “wakey wakey”. At that moment the alarm went off and Billy Cotton REPEATED THE CALL.

But can you imagine that? I suppose you can because it’s pretty much par for the course. 3 girls come into my apartment and just as it’s about to become interesting, Billy Cotton spikes my guns. It’s a change for him to do it though. Usually it’s one of my family who would put the spanner in the works, just like they did in real life.

So there I was, sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for the World to stop spinning around and then when it stopped I got off and headed off to the bathroom to clean myself up.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. My girlfriend had come round with her mother, and we’d left her mother in my apartment while the two of us went to a kind-of party in the afternoon. When we came back, the taxi dropped us off by the club on Nantwich Road and we walked down the side street there to the side door of my building. The first thing was that we couldn’t open the padlock. It was as if something had been stuffed down the keyhole but eventually I managed to open the padlock and could unlock the place and walk in. At the first glance I thought that her mother had died, the way that she was lying on the sofa, but she was lying there chewing, and it suddenly occurred to me that she was chewing a chocolate. My girlfriend went over to talk to her to make sure that she was OK while I prepared the papers and so on from this party/reception type of thing to which we’d just been.

Who this girl was, I have no idea at all which is a shame. Some kind of company would be a nice thing to have in a dream. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have met some really nice girls on occasion during the night. It would be nice if I could do that today but first of all I don’t go anywhere these days and secondly I’m far too old for any of that kind of nonsense.

The nurse came early again today and after making the usual remarks, saw to my legs and then cleared off. He can’t have been here ten minutes. Not that I’m complaining though. It suits me fine.

After he left I made breakfast and read my book.

Samuel Hearne is on the move again, out on his third trip to find the Coppermine River. He makes some very prescient and penetrating remarks about the First-Nation women whom he encounters which, if read in the wrong spirit, would not be appreciated. He likens them to nothing more than beasts of burden

However, it should be remembered that if the men are out hunting for food, chasing deer around and hoping to catch them, they need to be able to move quickly so someone else has to do the heavy lifting and carrying. Life on the Barren Grounds is really tough and in fact a guy from Nantwich, John Hornby, starved to death with two companions out there almost 100 years ago. It’s a fight and only the toughest survive. Co-operation and partnership is essential.

Back in here, I had some editing to do. Listening to the radio programme that I’d prepared yesterday, I found that I’d left in there a reference to a track that I’d cut out. So the reference had to go too, which meant that I was now 2.23 seconds short.

Not a problem though – just add in some applause at an appropriate moment and we’ll be fine.

Then I began to prepare the next programme by editing the notes that I’d dictated.

Having done that I broke the finished sound file up into segments for each track and then entered the times of the sound-bytes and tracks into my little program and the machine did the rest.

It found me a selection that ran out to one hour and twenty-eight seconds – not a problem – except that one track wasn’t what it was supposed to be and by the time I’d edited it to represent what I wanted, the batch was short by several minutes. And there was, regrettably, an error in my programming that caused one track to be counted twice.

In the end, I was nine minutes short so I had to go again. This time I was one minute and twenty seconds over, but editing that much out is no problem at all.

There were several interruptions.

Firstly, there was lunch. I can’t go without food and I had a slice of the flapjack that I’d made a while ago.

Secondly, my cleaner came round to do her stuff and that meant a shower for me this afternoon. And although she stood and watched, I did absolutely everything on my own today and you’ve no idea how proud I felt.

She cautioned me about attempting a shower when I’m on my own. There might be an improvement in my mobility and I’m right to push myself onwards, but I mustn’t take any risks. I’m not out of the woods yet. I have simply moved into different woods.

We then spent a pleasant half-hour going through the medication and you wouldn’t believe (or maybe you will) the amount of medication gathering dust around here that is long out-of-date. There’s some stuff dated 2017 and I bet that I can find stuff older than that if I look around. It’s high time someone got to grips with this over-prescribing of medication.

After my hot chocolate I had naan dough to make because I’ve run out. This lot is extremely garlicky which is just as well. I’m not going to be bothered by werewolves and vampires, especially when the garlic naan is smeared in my garlic butter

Tea tonight was a leftover curry with naan bread, as usual. It really was delicious and I reckon that it was the best that I have ever made. My chocolate cake, with lumps of real chocolate, is also excellent, especially with a pistachio soya cream

So that’s enough for today. Tomorrow I’m off to dialysis so Heaven help me. I can’t take much more of this.

But I’m still having a laugh at some of the comments made by Hearne in his book.
Apart from his beautiful quote "they never give themselves the trouble to acquire what they can do well enough without" to describe the philosophy of the First-Nation people in the Barren Grounds, something from which many people in Western society would do well to note, he records a conversation between several of his First-Nation guides
Sitting around the fire late at night after a heavy meal of venison they jokingly ask each other whether they would ever consider having "an intrigue with a strange woman"
It reminds me of a party in Munich to which I went several years ago and an Italian girl asked me "tell me – would you ever consider making love to a perfect stranger?"
"Madam," I replied "the way that things have been just recently, I would even consider making love to a bloody awful stranger"

Tuesday 12th November 2024 – I HAVE FINISHED …

… this radio programme that has been hanging around my neck like a perishing albatross for over a week.

In the end, I made a selection of tracks that were something like, and some judicious editing of the applause and the speech from the stage finally brought it all down to one minute and twenty seconds over. And the rest, I had to hack about a bit and I eventually managed to shoehorn it into a programme of one hour.

It’s currently turning around on the playlist and I do have to say that it works quite well

Something else that worked quite well was my sleep last night. After I’d finished everything that I needed to do, it was long after bedtime but nevertheless it was the best that I could do. And the good thing about it is that I can’t remember awakening at all.

Having said that, I awoke with a start at about 06:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep. When the alarm went off I was sitting on the edge of the bed already, so this will class as an early start

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, and then came in here to deal with the dictaphone notes. For a short moment I was with Percy Penguin last night. When she climbed into the van she told me that she had something to tell me. She wanted to finish our relationship. One of the reasons that she gave me was that she didn’t like my choice of music which was fair enough, I suppose. For a change she seemed to be quite confident and quite sure of what she wanted to do. That’s not like her at all. In some ways I admired what she said. It goes without saying that I was disappointed but life is full of disappointments, isn’t it? You just have to become used to them

It’s been a while since Percy Penguin has put in an appearance, so welcome back to you. She was a very simple, uncomplicated girl and when I was going through a very bad patch she was the only one who ever gave me any support. In fact she was the only one who ever listened to me when I wanted to talk. She herself had been dealt a terrible hand by the fates but she just drifted through life, tossed about on the currents and never seemed to care at all. She just carried on as best as she could with whatever came her way.

Later on I was in London. I’d been listening to someone talking, a very kind-of unkempt fellow, saying that he’d been living on the streets and had no home but had been appointed leader of a playgroup in Central London. He’d been on some kind of trip to see some kind of concert. He’d been so many days without sleep but he’d come back into work – gone straight to work thinking that when things quietened down he’d take a sleeping pill but by that time he was far too irritable and touchy to have thought about the sleeping pill and went the whole day without it. This playgroup bewildered me. I was actually in Central London at the time and had a rough idea of where it might be. I walked out of my hotel down the road. There was a pub on the corner called “The Brewery”. I turned round and was in the Cathedral precincts. I walked up past the Cathedral but I couldn’t see this other church anywhere. After I’d had a good look around, I decided that I’d walk back. First thing that I noticed was some old guy. He was picking things up off the streets so I thought “homeless person, I suppose”. I thought “there really are some people who are down on their luck if they are having to pick discarded clothing etc up off the streets”

This dream doesn’t seem to have any significance at all as far as I can tell. I can still see the pub and the cathedral precincts but I can’t recognise them from anywhere that I’ve been, either in my sleep or when I’ve been awake.

The nurse came early today, and we had the usual inane, patronising comments that get on my nerves so much. I suppose that I’ll have to stop moaning and deal with it. It doesn’t look as if it’s going to go away any time soon.

After he left I made breakfast and carried on reading the story of Samuel Hearne. Today, he’s on his second attempt to reach the Coppermine River and has just had an encounter with a group of Northern First Nation people who promptly relieved him of everything that he carried that was of any use to them, so now he’s on his way back to the fort on the shores of Hudson’s Bay

Third time lucky, heh?

We had a meeting here today at 10:00 – one that we should have had on Friday had it not been for the complications surrounding that hospital appointment.

It was concerning the radio, and a couple of people from the Admin and the Local Council came for a chat to see how everything was with me, which was quite nice of them

As a result, I was late going for my Welsh class. But what I did there and for how much I missed, I did quite well yet again. It’s becoming a habit and I hope that it keeps up.

After lunch I waded into the radio programme.

Once I’d remembered how to deal with arrays, things went so much better with the little program that I was trying although there were several shortcomings with it and I shall have to tweak it some more whenever I have time, whenever that might be.

The radio programme is now up and running satisfactorily so tomorrow I’m going to make a start on the second one of this series. So God help me!

Tea tonight was a taco roll with some more of the refried beans, tomato and mushrooms. Had it been more spicy it would have reminded me of my stay in Santa Fe in Arizona twenty-odd years ago when I had the Mustang convertible.

THAT WAS A TRIP AND A HALF – through the deserts of the Southern USA and then back through the Rockies – even driving up to the top of Pike’s Peak, all 14,000_odd feet of it.

All the time that I had the Mustang, the top never came down. Even when it was snowing up in the Rockies. After all, if you’re going to have a convertible with the top up, you may as well have had a saloon car.

So having finished my notes, I have a few things to do and then I’m off to bed for another good sleep (I hope).

But one thing that Samuel Hearne might have said in is book about the First Nation peoples was that they made a great deal of use of the plant that is known by people in Eastern Canada as “Labrador Tea”. They dry it and drink buckets of it.
Hearne was telling his boss in the fort about the time that he and his band were camped by the side of a lake and his guide, having drunk so much tea that he could hardly stand, crawled off to his bed instead of leading the expedition
"Did you find him next morning" asked his boss "and give him a good talking-to?"
"We found him" said Hearne "but it was far too late by then"
"What do you mean?" asked his boss
"We found him all right" said Hearne "but during the night he had drowned in his teepee"

Monday 11th November 2024 – THIS BLASTED DIALYSIS …

… thing isn’t becoming any easier. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

Four of us arrived at the clinic together today. I was the first to be coupled up and, as you might expect, the last to be uncoupled. There I was, hoping for a quick getaway today but it didn’t quite work out like that.

Going to bed at a reasonable time is something else that isn’t working out either. Once again, it was well after 23:00 when I finally crawled into bed . At least I had a decent sleep though because I slept right through to when the alarm went off, with no pain at all.

When the alarm went off I was busy in an adventure. There was a bank robbery or something like that planned, a huge, elaborate way of doing it too and a lot of people had a lot of little parts in this. Where I joined in was where the local bus driver who had been asked to do something suddenly realised what he was being asked to do and declined to do it, right on the very day. One of the girls went onto his bus and with a fluttering of eyelids and so on asked “you will do just this one little task for us, won’t you?” which was to throw a mine through the open window of an apartment. In the end he agreed to do it, so she gave him this little mine. It was a false mine, but the purpose was for the people inside to flee their apartment and leave the door open. She gave him the mine and I went with him. He asked a lot of questions about the mine, how far is the tailback etc. My issue was how were they going to throw this through the window of an apartment on the thirteenth floor. I imagined that they’d already worked this out. There must be a balcony or something. We talked about the mine and set off in the bus. I thought to myself that when someone writes the story of this bank heist it’s going to make one of the most exciting adventure novels I could ever imagine

That was something that I wished would have carried on because it was certainly exciting enough. And as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only excitement that I seem to have is what happens during the night.

Mind you, that’s not true at all. I’ve received an e-mail to day saying that someone has taken control of my computer, has videos of me watching filthy movies and what I was doing while watching them, and will send them to all of my contacts unless I buy Bitcoins to a value of $1410 and send them to a Bitcoin wallet. So in about 45 hours we’ll see whether he can walk the walk as well as he can talk the talk. This should be very interesting. I hope that you will be waiting with bated breath.

Meantime, back at the ran … errr … apartment I staggered off into the bathroom for a good wash and shave, and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. Did I dictate the dream where a bunch of four kids was responsible for destroying a house? … "no you didn’t" – ed … They had a water leak in the washroom of where they were staying so they began to explore to try to find it and fix it. Of course, everything that they did led on to further problems then on to further problems and further problems. They ended up destroying a house. The girl and her two younger sisters took to the road and found another boarding house in which to stay by pretending that their parents would be joining them later. The same thing happened with this one – they totally destroyed it. When I arrived on the scene the girls had left but had somehow managed to go into Space where they had landed on the Space Station and were busy pulling that to pieces looking for a leak too. There was another false alarm at 07:00. It didn’t awaken me but I heard the alarm go. I knew that it was a false one so I took no notice but I was in London, part of the street crew who had been defeated by London University. I was in Fulham and I can’t really remember what was happening but I was a guest there and helped them with a few events, the Fulham University, but we didn’t make any progress at all.

Funnily enough, I can’t remember this false alarm going off this morning. As for kids destroying a house, that’s not a problem at all for modern kids. They seem to be much more destructive than we ever were.

Later on I’d been to see the doctor. I’d given him all the details of my illness and a few other problems. When I’d finished, he looked at me and said “yes I’ll have to write a prescription for you”. Then he took from the inside pocket of his jacket, not his prescription pad but a rough notebook and proceeded to write in there. I had to tell him three times about his prescription. It was only after the third time that he happened to look at what he was doing and realised that he had the wrong pad and had to start again.

That’s something that I seem to have on my mind right now – this story about prescriptions. It seems to be a big issue right now. But if people want to pay less tax, then there’s going to be less money available for Social Services. Here in France we still have something that’s far, far better than any other country in Europe.

Isabelle the nurse blitzed in and out today. She didn’t want to hang around too long. I don’t seem to be popular with too many other people right now. I wonder what I’ve done? Maybe this cyber-blackmailer has already been in contact with them, I dunno.

After she left I made breakfast and carried on with my book. Samuel Hearne has set out on his first trip into the Barren Grounds in his search for the Coppermine River, and recounts how his native guides robbed him and his companions of everything that they possessed and how they had to retreat to the fort on Hudson’s Bay. Times were tough in 1769

Back in here I had things to do, like my Welsh homework for a start, and then afterwards I still made no headway with this blasted timing for this radio programme.

In the end I’ve bit the bullet and begun to write a computer program. It’s been years since I’ve written a program and I’m surprised that I could still remember. I wrote my first program in 1975 using loads of If:Else and GoTo constraints but this needs to be more sophisticated than that.

It’ll probably take me longer to write the program than to do it by hand, but the program will be useful for another time

My cleaner surprised me in mid-calculation and I had to go to have my patches fitted. And the taxi was early – I was busy cutting up last night’s chocolate cake when the driver turned up.

For once just recently I was on my own and it was probably the quickest journey that I’d ever had. As a result I was early arriving and although I had to wait ten minutes while they cleaned up after the morning shift I was soon in the ward, with three other people coming in with me.

They coupled me up quickly enough and while it wasn’t actually painless, it was better than some times just recently.

However they noticed that my arm was starting to swell up as if they had missed their aim with the needles. They carried out a quick echograph to check and found that everything was perfect, and indeed the dialysis pump was showing a good circulation.

Consequently I spent most of the session with an alcohol compress on my arm to reduce the swelling. I still have one on now so I’ll be going to sleep with alcohol fumes all around me and I’ll have a huge bruise there in the morning

There was a couple of new people there today too so the doctor came to see them. He didn’t come to see me though to find out how things were and to tell me what was in my scan from Friday. I was rather disappointed by that.

At some point I had a little doze and while I was away with the fairies (but not doing anything about which the Editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine would comment or which would be of interest to my cyber-extortionist) I saw three bodies. One was a girl and one was a man and I don’t know the third, all wrapped in cloth, in the water. two were chained down under the water to some kind of attachment and had been there for a couple of years. The third, either the woman or man, was with them under water but a new arrival, not yet chained down

In this dream I was actually underneath them in the water and was looking up at them. It was weird.

Apart from that I read my Welsh, drunk loads of orange juice and then carried on with PRINCIPALL NAVIGATIONS

Hakluyt is now attacking the works of Jacques Cartier and his voyage of 1534. This is interesting because it refers to two comments that Cartier wrote in his journal. Firstly he says "in all my travels along this (Labrador and Newfoundland) coast, I have not seen even a bucketful of good soil"

That’s my impression too and much as I would have loved to move to Labrador, gardening would be ruled out for a start.

The second quote of Cartier is much more famous. Sailing up and down the Straight of Belle Isle between Labrador and Newfoundland, he describes it as "the Land that God must truly have given to Cain"

Despite finishing early, uncoupling me was something else completely. I had to wait until there were two nurses free because if one is compressing a patient, there must be another one ready in case of emergencies elsewhere in the Unit.

It took an age until they sorted me out, and they seemed to be more interested in my arm than anything else. The poor taxi driver had been waiting for a while and I bet that she was fed up. But once in the car we sped off to Granville.

My cleaner was waiting for me and watched along with another neighbour as I climbed all of the stairs unaided up to my little apartment

After I’d had a rest I put away the rest of the chocolate cake and then made tea – a stuffed pepper, which was really nice. There’s still some ginger cake left so I had some of that with pistachio-flavoured soya dessert.

Bedtime now, and I need to be ready for my Welsh lesson in the morning. I may well be late joining because there’s a meeting here in the morning

But seeing as we were talking about absent-minded doctors just now … "well, one of us was" – ed … it reminds me of that hospital in Belgium a while back
"Doctor" said a nurse "why are you writing your notes with an anal thermometer?"
So the doctor hands it to the nurse
"Will you go back into that patient’s room" said the doctor "and bring me back my biro?"

Sunday 10th November 2024 – THIS PERISHING RADIO …

… programme is driving me crazy.

What I have to do is to edit the text that I dictated last night, chop it into segments and attach it to the relevant track, and then make a selection of tracks with their attached speech in order to make a runtime of an hour or maybe some seconds over that I can edit out.

Sound simple doesn’t it? But I’ll tell you something, and that is that it isn’t anything like.

Even a decent night’s sleep didn’t help matters much. Although it was after 23:00 when I went to bed, it’s a lie-in in the morning so I still had over eight hours sleep (in principle).

“In principle” of course because, as usual, I was awoken several times during the night by someone or something and I can see that being a problem when I’m living on the ground floor, if I ever do actually make it there.

Despite all of that, I was still fast asleep and dead to the World when the alarm went off at 08:00. At that moment we were discussing someone’s face – how they’d only had it for ten years and it’s always been the same. Something like that but I’d only just begun when the alarm went off.

And the significance of that, I have no idea whatever.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub-up and came back in here to listen to the dictaphone, but I hadn’t gone far before the nurse came to see me.

She’s obviously someone else who doesn’t love me because she was here and gone in a twinkling of an eye, not really wishing to chat. She says that she’s really busy tomorrow, which is no surprise because on Tuesday her oppo takes over.

Once she’d left I made breakfast and read my book. Having finished the editor’s preamble, we’re now reading the author’s preamble.

Interestingly, despite Samuel Hearne being alleged by many to have been the person who discovered on Marble Island the traces of the long-lost James Knight expedition, he makes it clear in his notes that a party of fishermen from his ship, in their "boats, when on the look-out for fish, had frequent occasion to row close to the island, by which means they discovered a new harbour near the East end of it, at the head of which they found guns, anchors, cables, bricks, a smith’s anvil, and many other articles"

Furthermore, despite the many theories that circulate about the mysterious disappearance of the crew, "while we were prosecuting the fishery, we saw several Esquimaux at this new harbour; and perceiving that one or two of them were greatly advanced in years, our curiosity was excited to ask them some questions concerning the above ship and sloop," and they were given an explanation that should remove any doubt about the likely end of the survivors of the shipwrecks.

Back in here I had some football to watch. There were the highlights of the other matches in the Welsh Premier League and then Stranraer away at league leaders East Fife.

Stranraer have only won once since August last year and have been looking well off the pace but to everyone’s surprise, including theirs, I bet, they actually ran out 2-1 winners and are now off the bottom. If they keep this up they might actually avoid the relegation playoffs this season.

Then there were the dictaphone notes to deal with. I had an old, white Ford Cortina MkII. I was in London somewhere. I had someone with me and we were trying to leave the city. We’d been all the way round the north and in the Midlands. There had been some talk about it being a Bank Holiday and how if someone was going to visit the local supermarket he’d better do it on the Friday because otherwise everything would be sold by the Saturday. I’d made it down to London and was trying to exit the city. I told the person with me to look out for Croydon and if we could follow the signs for Croydon we’ll be half-way there. So we kept tacking across the south hoping to pick up a road. We ended up in some residential area where I nearly knocked down some woman crossing the road after alighting from a bus. Suddenly this guy said “just stop for a minute”. He left the car. I thought “this isn’t the moment to be stopping. We’re in a rush and we have to leave”. I heard some water running, and then I was distracted by something. I suddenly realised that he was standing behind me. We both climbed back into the car and I set off again. I asked him what he had been doing. He replied that he had seen some washing-up. I answered that we had much more important things to be doing than washing-up. The washing-up could have waited for another moment if we want to leave this city without being caught.

Just recently during the night I’ve been spending a lot of time in a white Ford Cortina MkII. That’s quite strange, because the one that I owned was black. But I’ve no idea why anyone would want to leave a car in order to do the washing up.

The reference to shops being closed is possibly a reference of when I first came to live in Brussels. The 11th of November is a Bank Holiday in Belgium but an “optional” one where I was working so I was coming in to work anyway. I’d forgotten about the Bank Holiday and ended up in a panic because I had all my shopping to do and nowhere to do it. For tea that night I walked quite a long way looking for a fritkot

And never ever is Trevor going to bother anyone with that feeble attempt at the styrofoam that just trickled by as he tried to have his ticket read by the machine at the entrance to the Undergound.

That’s what I dictated, and I can’t think of any meaning at all that applies to it. I like the rhyme at the beginning though.

That was everything on the dictaphone but there’s also an impression going through my mind about discussing football managers – someone saying that they thought someone to be too old for the job, but someone else reminding them that some famous football manager is actually 106.

Anyway, I then started work on the first of the two radio notes that I dictated last night. And they weren’t straightforward to edit either. They took quite a while. And now I’ve ended up with thirteen segments that, with their music, total about one hour and thirty minutes.

So thirty minutes has to go, which is in principle no problem, but as yet there’s no combination of tracks and speech that makes about one hour, no matter how I try.

It goes without saying that I haven’t yet started the second one. Perhaps I should have done that one first.

After the hot chocolate I started the baking. First of all was a load of dough for a few pizze, one tonight and a couple more for the future.

Then, there was some dough for a small loaf, followed by what should have been a ginger cake but the ginger has gone the Way of the West so it was a rich chocolate cake instead. That’s the next pudding.

All of that took several hours and once more I was out on my feet again. I can’t do all of this standing up and I really ought to buy a stool for the kitchen. But when do I find five minutes to do any on-line shopping?

So the pizza is done and baked and eaten, and it really was lovely too. The bread looks nice and so does the chocolate cake. Mixing the cake mixture in the food processor is really a good idea.

So now it’s bedtime, ready for tomorrow and another painful session at the Dialysis Clinic.

But baking that chocolate cake reminds me of my friend near Macclesfield who was baking a cake. When the oven “pinged” she was speaking to someone on the ‘phone so she told her daughter, who was aged 11, to go to check to see if it was done
"How do I do that?" she asked
"You stick a knife into the centre" said her mother "and if it comes out clean, you know that it’s done"
So off she went – and didn’t come back until tem minutes later
"Well? Is it done?" asked her mother
"Ohh yes" she replied. "The knife came out clean"
"So what took you so long then?"
"Well, the knife came out so clean" said the daughter "that I put the rest of the dirty cutlery in there too".

Saturday 9th November 2024 – IF ANYTHING CAN …

… go wrong, then it surely will. Especially if I’m involved in it

And these dialysis sessions are certainly testing this theory to the limit. I am not having much luck at all.

That’s hardly to be unexpected, because right now I don’t seem to be having much luck with anything. And it’s not as if there are any ladders under which to walk or black cats to kick

Even going to bed at a reasonable time seems to have deserted me for the moment. Finishing my notes at a reasonable time last night, but the time that I’d finished everything else that I had to do, I still ended up running late, as usual.

At least, the compensation here is that it didn’t take me long to go to sleep in my nice, comfortable bed. And once I’d gone to sleep, there I stayed until the alarm went off. There had been a little tossing and turning, but nothing about which I needed to worry

When the alarm went off I was working in a chemist’s shop prescribing medication to people. I was told that there was a control on the amount of medication being given out and when I prescribed some to a woman she told me that I was giving her too much. I told her that at the end of the treatment, when she’s finished she can stick the remainder back through our letter-box so that we could have it back

This is an ongoing issue in real life, with all of the over-prescription of medication. I look at all of the stuff that I have in here and multiply that by so many million people and it’s a fortune. Many of these doctors in hospitals seem to live in a bubble and don’t seem to understand how their prescriptions affect those living in the real world. But we’ve talked about that quite a lot just recently.

Despite what might have been a good sleep it took an age to haul myself out of bed and I only just about beat the second alarm. Burning the candle at both ends doesn’t seem to be working so well

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up and then piled all of the washing into the washing machine, bedding included. It all goes in on a “mixed materials 40°C wash” and if anything wants any different than that then I don’t buy it. It goes without saying that I have nothing that needs ironing.

Back in here I had a computer issue. For some reason it wouldn’t boot up this morning. I had to go to tweak around with the BIOS to make it work and that took some time to do. Consequently I was only half-way through the dictaphone notes when Isabelle the nurse came

She had a good moan about all of the shopping scattered everywhere. That was going to be this morning’s job after I’d finished the dictaphone notes but the best-laid plans etc. Anyway I told her that it was my mess in my apartment and she can give me some of her hours to tidy up if she’s unhappy

After she left I made breakfast and read some more of Samuel Hearne’s travels. Except that I didn’t. Two days in and we’re still reading the editor’s preamble. That’s probably going to end up longer than the author’s book if it keeps on like this.

Then there was the washing to hang up, seeing as the machine had finished. And that’s quite a battle, given my state of health and my lack of balance

Back in here I finished off transcribing the dictaphone notes. I had been doing some work on the city walls. I’d cleared away a platform in front that we were going to use to put on music acts etc so that the public sitting in what was the old moat could see whoever was on the platform. I don’t know at all about the history of this platform but it just happened to be there. While I was cleaning it out I heard a noise like a sports car. I stopped and looked up, and there was a guy there. I asked him if that was his car. He replied “yes, it’s a ‘Facer'”. I said “that’s a marque of which I’d never heard before”. He replied “it’s the only one”. He looked down and asked “what are the chances of putting this car down there?”. I replied “if you have a look on top of the walls a little further down we have cranes that run up and down on top of the walls. We use them for raising and lowering things. Bring one of the cranes up here. They’ll soon lower your car down”. The fact is that the crane didn’t quite reach to where the platform is, but if I stood on the platform and threw a rope that would be tied to the car, then as he lowered the car down I could pull it to the platform. He set off and we set off to go round and come round onto the correct side of the platform. He suddenly began to think “what about the insurance? What about the MoT and the Public Liability?”. We told him to clear off, shut up and lower the car down. He didn’t like our brusqueness but we thought that it was the best way to proceed, to bring this car down onto the platform. As it happened, we had a quick look in the encyclopaedia. He played keyboards so with me on the bass and my friend who worked with me, he was a drummer, we had the makings of a pretty sound group, the three of us

One of my friends lived in a house right on the city walls in Chester and I worked in a building on the walls too. We’d often said that it would be an ideal place for a rock group, or any other musical act for that matter, to have a concert. A few power chords just at the start of the 14:30 Novices’ Handicap down below on the Roodee should upset quite a few punters.

I was in Court last night – a hearing trying to persuade a tenant to leave a property but he was being difficult. He was finding humour in all kinds of strange places but I reckoned that this humour was a front. He was trying to embarrass me in front of the judges so I kept a very clear silence and only answered the questions that they were asked to me and ask him until he pulled up out of steam which he did rather by the nineteenth of the second. He was unable to persuade the French children’s governess that she was the kind of person to be given a more senior role in the Government of France where she could make a name for herself in history.

Does this dream ring any bells right now? I bet that it does. Although where the children’s governess fits in, I’ve not quite worked out.

Did I dictate the dream about the two of us being on a coach tour with two drivers? … "no you didn’t" – ed … We had to stop for coffee but there was nowhere convenient and we ended up at some kind of dire roadside burger bar but it was the absolute best that we could be. The other driver took over to drive and on leaving was almost pranged by a silver 4×4 as he pulled out. In the meantime I’d gone off somewhere – I had Nerina with me – and all of a sudden there was an urgent contact “can you check and look out for a silver 4×4?”. By this time I was back driving this coach again. I looked in my mirror and could see this 4×4 right behind me so I replied “it’s behind me now”. The voice asked “can you follow it to find out where it goes”. I thought “follow it in a coach? I can try”. However I lost it, but I had a rough idea where so I circled around this housing estate again and sure enough, I found it. So I built a swimming pool and filled it with water, then the voice asked me to check on the number. When I checked on the number I saw the old guy driving it, he was standing on a set of ladders up some kind of pole in his garden where there was a light bulb that he was busy taking out. I took the number and reported it. Someone then gave me a briefcase and said “this is his” so I went and knocked on the door. His wife was there so I handed her the briefcase and we began to chat. She said something about his computer so I had a look. It was old and full of viruses so I cleaned it for him, removed the viruses and tweaked a few other things, and it worked so much better. When he ‘phoned up we told him what we’d come for. The wife told him the news so he asked “can you switch it off yet?”. He told me that it needed switching off so I arranged it. She said “yes, it switches off now”. he replied “that’s the first time in 100 years that it’s switched off”. Then Nerina and this woman engaged in quite a lot of small talk about nothing else in particular really

Wouldn’t it be great if I could build a swimming pool and fill it with water at the drop of a hat like that? And I have in the past done strange things like door-stepping someone for purposes other than which are obvious, but we don’t talk about these.

There wasn’t all that long to do stuff of my own before the cleaner came round to stick my anaesthetic patches onto me. It’s freezing outside, she reckons, so I put away my warm-season fleeces and brought out one of the Arctic ones. I kept my jumper on though if I’m going to be in Ice-Station Zebra.

While I was waiting for the taxi to arrive I put away all of the food and did a little rearranging on the shelves. It goes without saying that with my cleaner being early, the taxi was late. And we had someone to pick up along the way.

At the Dialysis Centre there was a crisis. Two patients had been sent over from the hospital for emergency dialysis and one was having a panic attack. Consequently every available nurse was helping out around the bed.

It was 35 minutes before I was seen and by that time the anaesthetic on my arm had worn off. They also missed their aim with the second needle and had to re-do it. Consequently I was in agony throughout the whole three hours and thirty minutes.

"Shall I bring some ice to ease the pain in your arm?" asked a nurse helpfully

"What?" I exclaimed "In this blasted igloo? You must be joking!"

So I listened to a couple of concerts, revised my Welsh, suffered being force-fed with orange juice, had a little doze and read more of Hakluyt’s PRINCIPALL NAVIGATIONS

He’s busy right now talking about a couple of trips in the 1580s and 90s to the Gulf of St Lawrence and the constant changing of sovereignty of the islands there is playing havoc with me being able to identify them in the names by which I know them today

Not only that, we’re talking in the period when the Basque country was still independent and its own language predominated so that makes matters even more complicated, especially when the ports on the Biscay coast are mentioned in passing, under their former names.

Being so late starting meant that I was so late finishing and the guy who came down with me, who has a four-hour session in the other ward, was ready before I was, so we both came home together.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me and once more watched in awe as I climbed the twenty-five stairs up to my door. Not as quick as Thursday or Friday but it was still an achievement. We have a new tenant in one of the apartments upstairs, so I met her cat on the way up.

After my cleaner left, we had football. Cardiff Metro v Y Bala. The Met scored after two minutes – a lucky rebound but Y Bala equalised just on the stroke of half-time.

The game came to light when Y Bala scored two goals right immediately after half-time and then we had an exciting second half as the Met clawed their way back into the game with two goals. The final ten minutes was certainly exciting.

It was a good game once it opened up. Cardiff Met play some pretty football but in their desire to retain possession, they can go from all-out attack to a long back-pass to the keeper in the twinkle of an eye and it’s so frustrating to see them do it – eight men up in attack that they pass it backwards.

Y Bala’s style is rather more agricultural but they play forward much more often and with better results.

Tea was a vegan burger on a bun with salad and baked potato followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. It’s all good stuff this.

There’s some dictating to do and then I’m off to bed.

But talking of my bad luck … "well, one of us is" – ed … reminds me of the time in Sheffield when I was walking past the soup canning plant, the boiler exploded and the streets were flooded in vegan tomato soup
"That must have been lucky for you" said a friend
"Not really" I replied. "I could only find a fork"

Friday 8th November 2024 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day I’ve had today. I’ve done nothing, accomplished nothing, have loads of things that I need to do and I’m going to be here until eternity just doing the most urgent things that I have to do..

And it all started off so well too. Even though I wasn’t in bed at 23:00, it was something quite like it – not a horribly late night like some have been.

Furthermore, although I wasn’t asleep quite quickly, once I’d dropped off, there I stayed for quite some considerable while. There was the odd awakening here and there but nothing that particularly kept me awake.

However, once I was awake at about 06:00, then awake I stayed and nothing at all would induce me to go back to sleep. So when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was already up and about.

In a departure from usual tradition, I went and took my medicine straight after washing. Usually, the medication is taken at breakfast but I have a feeling that I’ll be struggling for time a little later.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We were discussing radio programmes again. There was something to do with a famous star who owned a Triumph Herald. An interviewer had been talking to me about interviewing him. Then there was a change and we found ourselves on the Orient Express heading deep into what was formerly the USSR. I was on there in an ordinary carriage with someone else. The train was packed. We were coming into a village where we were going to change locomotive, which meant that we would be not moving for a good few minutes. I knew this village, and knew that there was a really first-rate ethnic Indian restaurant right by the station. I told the guy with me about it. We agreed that we’d take a risk and go there while the train was stopped. As the train was pulling into the station we left our seats and ran the whole length of the train. When we came to the sleeping cars we were told that there was no room in there. The train was crowded, which we knew but we took no notice and pressed on right to the front. When the train stopped we nipped out of the station and found this little café but it was now a big restaurant. There were loads of people there and it was really busy. It was quite upmarket, and it wasn’t what I was expecting at all and neither was my friend, but here we were. The first thing that I did was to grab a plate of something or other to take with me to the table because I could see how busy it was. There was a decent possibility here that we would never be served and have our meal by the time that the train is ready to leave. At least I wanted to eat something while I was here. I was really disappointed by this famous little Indian café place being no longer here and all the delicious hot food had gone – “hot” in both senses of the word of course.

This dream reminds me of that little Indian café that I found out in the Côte Vertu in Montréal. It really was nice and I went back there time after time. Going back in 2022 for the first time since 2019 I found that it had been enlarged and wasn’t quite the same, and neither did it have the same level of intimacy, as the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine might have said. The food was still excellent though.

There was something really bitty next. First of all I was round at a friend’s girlfriend’s house, somewhere where a group of us went quite often. I actually bought a jar of coffee to give to the mother to thank her for all the time that she’d made coffee for us. But somewhere along the line I had a new house, a brand-new solid front door and I was busy measuring it up to fit security bolts in it. But it was winter and I didn’t really feel like opening the door and working just there then with how cold it was outside.

There was actually a girl who lived near me in my adolescence who was the girlfriend of a friend, and it was pretty much open house. Any one could come round and visit, and several people made new acquaintances there. In fact, I made a little friend there who was my companion for a couple of months. However everything fell apart when my friend discovered that his girlfriend had become much too friendly with another one of the visitors.

Isabelle the nurse was late coming around this morning – swamped with blood tests as the laboratory is closed on Monday and no-one wants them done on Tuesday, for reasons that I have either mentioned or implied.

She didn’t hang around and was soon gone, leaving me to make breakfast in peace.

That thesis on the Border Marches has gone the Way of the West now. I think that we reached rock-bottom when our author described “Rhuddlan Castle, in Cheshire, right on the border with Wales”. Although it was in part of the lands that was administered by the Earl of Chester and so can be called “in Cheshire” at a pinch, it’s well over be border, almost half-way to Anglesey and the only way of supplying it was up the River Clwyd from the sea because the overland route was in the hands of the Welsh.

Having finished that I made a start on the history of Samuel Hearne’s famous trek to Coppermine on the northern coast of Canada where had he done the trek in 2019 Castor and I would have been there to him.

However I didn’t read much because the taxi came early for me. I hadn’t even finished my breakfast which was a shame.

At the hospital, with all of the renovations going on, we had the devil’s own job to find the radiography area, and then I was abandoned.

It didn’t take too long for them to come to see me and I was in and out of the machine in five minutes. I didn’t even have to undress or take off my shoes, which was strange if they wanted to look at my foot.

They pushed me outside where I had to wait for the taxi. And wait. And wait. One hour and twenty minutes in total, and there were two other passengers in the car so I went on a sightseeing tour all round Southern Normandy. 12:35 when I made it finally back home.

Mind you, once more I excelled myself. My faithful cleaner stood and watched in awe as I climbed all 25 steps up to here yet again.

After she left I warmed up the remains of my breakfast and finally managed to eat it.

The next task was to complete my order for LeClerc and send it off. It’s a cheap order this week as I have much of the stuff in stock, but olive oil is on special offer again so that helped bulk it up

My cleaner came round to do her stuff and we sorted out the medication, disposing of a load of stuff that’s no longer in use. It’s gone into a bag in the corner, not thrown away, because what’s the betting that sooner or later another prescription will bring it out?

Then I came in here to deal with the radio programme. I’ve paired off the music and segued it, and even made a good start on the notes but Rosemary rang me for a chat. But I had to abort that because the delivery came from LeClerc and I had to put away the frozen stuff

Having done that, I called Rosemary back and we had another one of our marathon sessions that went on for quite a while, and I forgot to check the time.

It wasn’t far short of tea time though, and only just enough time to put away the chilled stuff. The rest will have to wait until tomorrow, although with a session at the Dialysis Clinic, a football match to watch and some radio notes to finish, I’m not sure exactly when tomorrow it will be.

Tea was a handful of those mini-nuggets with chips and a vegan salad, followed by spicy ginger cake and soya dessert. Really nice too.

That was followed by starting to make more bread. You can see that my day is a long way from finishing. Blimey! What a day! And it’s not going to improve any either. And I’ve not had even one sip of coffee today either.

But a strange thing happened at the hospital just now. A nun came rushing out of the doctor’s room in tears.
A few minutes later the doctor came out so I asked him "what’s the matter with her?"
"I’ve just told her that she’s pregnant" said the doctor
"Blimey!" I exclaimed. "Is she?"
"Ohh no" replied the doctor "but I think that I’ve cured her hiccoughs"

Thursday 7th November 2024 – I MADE IT!

Yes, for the first time since I really can’t remember when, I succeeded in climbing up all twenty-five steps to my apartment door without once using my hand to lift up my leg

The other day I said that if I could manage to do the first thirteen for three consecutive trips, I’d give it a try all the way up. And here we are.

Of course, doing it once is no really big deal. Doing it time after time after time again is something else completely and it remains to be seen how or if I can keep going

Having said that, I wish that it was as easy to go to bed as it is to climb the stairs. It was another night where it was almost midnight when I finally managed to crawl into my nice clean bed.

And wasn’t it wonderful too? A nice clean me in nice clean clothes in a nice clean bed. I wonder how long it will be before the bedding walks into the bathroom on its own. I really must make a more determined effort to behave like a grown-up.

Anyway once I was in bed, there I stayed in the lap of luxury until 07:00, and I can’t remember anything about what happened during the night.

When the alarm went off I struggled into the bathroom to have a good wash and clean up, and even a shave to make myself look pretty, and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. I was working at the royal palace in Wales. The King was a big admirer of Tolkein. At one point he had the statue of Louis de Funès cut out, enlarged and placed in the hall of the Parliament Assembly. We all had to go over there to wish us luck before the Parliament began. After a while, this custom eased off but there was a statue of his in the area where we worked. I always had it ready but no-one ever needed it. One day some soldier guy came and washed himself there. He had a couple of companions – nether of them was armed. Suddenly one of them threw back his hood, and washed his face ready to enter the room of provocation. It turned out to be a very close resemblance to our hero who we all thought had died ignominiously in 1305

There was then something about the previous expedition having left some potatoes behind. I’d recovered them and brought them back to England. However they had been taken to be weighed on the Royal scales at Manchester. I’d gone with it and I’d watched them as they were being weighed but a couple of people in attendance had to perform all of the manoeuvring. One of them looked exactly like the person who was the foreman so we all wondered if maybe the abbot had been here before

And do you know what? I know or remember absolutely nothing whatever about either of these dreams and not a single clue whatever as to what they mean or infer. There was however something that I vaguely recall about a girl with very long dark brown hair being somewhere about last night and I expected to hear something on the dictaphone about her, whoever she was. But no luck there either.

Isabelle the nurse was still in an almighty hurry, trying to catch up with everything that was left undone while she was on her week off. She told me that she might – just “might” – have some time on Sunday. In other words, when the laboratory is closed so there are no blood samples planned.

That’s no surprise.

After she left I made breakfast and for a change, I didn’t read the thesis. In fact, he mentions a certain raid by the Welsh into Cheshire that destroyed “salt works”. Nantwich, where I went to school, was famous for its salt in those days – in fact its name in Welsh is “Hellaeth Wen” – The Place of White Salt – so I did a little digging around.

Not only did I find details of several incursions and battle by the Welsh, there was one where the English destroyed the Salt Works to stop them falling into Welsh hands. All of this led me on to a book that is almost 200 years old that is a compendium of Cheshire and its parishes and so I’ve been off on my travels.

All of that meant that I didn’t have time to do much before my cleaner came to fit my patches and prepare me for my trip to dialysis. And the taxi came early too. This control by the Securité Sociale is beginning to bite and now they really are regrouping different trips. We were three in the car, all with appointments at different times.

The result was that I had to wait twenty minutes before they opened the door of the ward to let us in. But there are a few things that you can do to pass the time, especially if you are going to spend three and a half hours coupled up to a machine and not move.

Once more, I was stuck in a private room, the “naughty corner” I reckon, and it didn’t take long for them to come to see me and wire me up.

The first needle went in absolutely painlessly – I never felt a thing. The second though was noticeable, although not as painful as some have been. And the dull pain that I had throughout the session was no more than an irritation.

Once I’d read and sorted out my Welsh, I carried on hunting down ancient books about Cheshire to see what else I could find. There’s a book about “Curiosities in Cheshire” but it was written long before I was born.

The taxi was already waiting when I went outside and, true to form, we had to go right across Avranches to pick up another passenger and then come back. So I wasn’t at home as early as I was expecting to be.

My cleaner was waiting for me and she watched with amazement as I attacked the stairs. "You won’t be needing to move downstairs" she said. Mind you I had been thinking that I’d either be cured or be dead by the time my tenant vacates the apartment – but more likely the latter of the two.

The driver who took me to Avranches was the same one who took me this afternoon and he said, surprisingly, that I seemed to be walking much better today than then. So something’s going on.

Tea tonight was a vegan burger with pasta and veg followed by spicy ginger cake and soya dessert. Very nice too

So now I’m going to make up my LeClerc order and then go to bed. I’m back at Avranches, but for a scan tomorrow.

But climbing up the stairs like that today reminds me of the time I was wandering about Crewe one night years ago en route from the Boddingtons in the Lion and Swan to the Robinson’s in the Crown.
Being in urgent need of a pitstop I dashed onto the bus station – alas! No more! – and dived into the legendary restrooms, also alas! No More!
"Phew!" I said with relief as I stood facing the wall. "Just made it!"
"Blimey!" said the man standing next to me. "Could you make me one just like it?"

Wednesday 6th November 2024 – I’VE GOT A LUVVERLY …

…. bunch of coc … errr … I have a lovely clean bed in which t climb later tonight.

And in fact, there’s a lovely … "well, maybe not" – ed … clean me to climb into it too. It’s Wednesday and with my cleaner giving me either the grand toilet or the soutien moral, one or the other, I’ve had a really beautiful shower.

And while I was under the shower she went and changed the bed for the clean bedding that was washed a couple of weeks ago. It does look lovely, fresh and inviting, and I shall be doing my best to be in there at a reasonable time tonight.

Not like last night. Having crowed yesterday about my reasonable night and early start, I couldn’t find the energy to go to bed last night and it was quite a way after 01:00 when I finally made it into bed

And there weren’t ‘arf some strange goings -on last night. At one point I was away with the fairies, being careful not to do anything that would earn reprobation from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine, when I used a certain word. Someone else in my bedroom repeated it loudly, but in an interrogative way as if questioning why I’d used that word, and that awoke me. I sat up, bolt-upright, and of course there was no-one there. I looked at the watch and it was 06:57 and the alarm was due to sound any minute now. I wish that I could remember what the word was now because it must have been really important and significant.

When the alarm went off I staggered into the bathroom to sort myself out with a good wash and scrub up, and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone.

To my surprise there was something on there from last night. I was trying to kill some kind of insect that was living inside the kernel of some nut. I put it in some kind of heated – what would you call it? – a heated kind of pair of scissors that make an impression on a piece of paper or something on a wax seal … "an embossing stamp" – ed … I tried to press it with that but it didn’t seem to work. In the meantime there was someone else, some woman, who was trying to sort out the decoration of some of the rooms in this palace. I was supposed to be helping her but I was too busy with a little task. She said that she’d have to go off and find a stronger ladder to do one particular job. I looked at this press that I had and squeezed it but the kernel was burnt and whatever was in it was burnt to a crisp. The pair of scissors thing had become so hot that whatever it was that would melt the wax seal had melted away itself so I doubted it these would be any good. Then I noticed that up in the building, higher up, there were some lights that had come on in one room so I went up there. There was someone else there decorating and they had two rooms on the go at once. I could see that they were busy so I helped them with the masking tape to hold down some of the paper that was being used to protect the woodwork and the drawings on the walls from being painted over.

It’s not as if I would have volunteered to do any painting and decorating back in the old days. But when I had finished the attic and the first floor back at the farm and it was time to wallpaper and paint everywhere, I found that I quite enjoyed doing it. However, it’s certainly different when you have the time, the space and the proper tools and material to do it. Cheap white emulsion with some coloured dye in it makes a lovely surface on top of some of that glass-fibre paper. MY BEDROOM DOWN ON THE FARM looked wonderful when it was finished. It’s a shame that I only benefitted from it for four months. I hope that the mice are enjoying it.

Isabelle the nurse came round again, slightly less rushed than yesterday. She had some news to tell me and taught me a new useful phrase which I promptly forgot. That’s just how it is, I reckon.

After she left I made breakfast and carried on with this thesis that I’ve been reading. Our American friend tells us that William the Conqueror must have had some genuine belief that he was overlord of Wales, because of a remark that one of his chroniclers said.

Apparently, William’s defeat of the English was equated to Caesar’s defeat of the Britons and our friend thinks that the “English” refers to the people living in England but “Britons” means the people living in Great Britain – the whole of the island – and so equating the two events means that William considers himself to have the same rights over all of the island.

That’s a perfectly true situation today, this definition of “English” and the one of “Britons”, but that certainly wasn’t the case in 1066 and in 43AD. In 43AD there were no English people in Britain so it’s quite natural that Caesar didn’t fight them. The Angles and Saxon who made up the roots of the English people didn’t begin to flood in until the 5th Century.

Consequently Caesar was not differentiating in his speech between the “English” and the “Britons” as our American friend seems to think

And that is one thing that really gets on my wick, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … People should stop looking at historical events and people from a modern perspective. They need to be judged on the standards, opinion and perspective of their time.

Back in here I had a few things to do and then I pushed on with the radio programme that I mentioned yesterday.

This one was extremely complicated. There were only four tracks, one of which was 21 minutes long, and there could neither be any more nor any less. And even finding the four that I ended up choosing was complicated

With that kind of constraint I had to have the text to approximately the correct length right from the very start because there was no other music that I could add in, and nothing that I could take away.

When I write out the text I calculated who long it would run when dictated and I planned it to be 30 seconds over, in case of emergencies. But by the time that I’d finished merging it into the music I’d trimmed off 25 seconds off the time and I could find plenty of speech to edit out to lose the extra five seconds.

But it didn’t ‘arf take some juggling about.

After I’d finished that I chose all of the music for the next programme. That’s going to be a return to the boring, run-of-the-mill programmes because there was nothing special to celebrate or to remember on the date for which the programme is being prepared.

There were several breaks in the proceedings.

There was lunch of course – one of my flapjacks and an apple. later on there was the hot chocolate and crackers with hummus as a mid-afternoon snack

But there was also the shower, and you’ve no idea (or maybe you do, I dunno) just how good it feels to be in there. I had the water really hot and I loved every minute of it. And I took my time, washing my undies while I was at it.

But my faithful cleaner gave me a good scrutiny going in and coming out. She noticed that this week I didn’t need any help, and I was moving so much better, climbing in and out without aid. I might be tempted to have a go on my own one day when she’s not here.

One thing that was quite important was that I managed finally to have a telephone conversation with the hospital at Paris.

The secretary assured me that I hadn’t been forgotten even though I’d had no contact with them since June and the promised appointment at the end of August had come and gone and nothing had happened.

She said that only a week or two ago my case was discussed and there are plans to bring me back for a week. I replied that that was what they said in June about coming at the end of August, but she promised me that it really was on the cards this time.

We shall see.

With no leftover stuffing, tonight’s curry was a leftover curry from several weeks – even months – ago that had been in the freezer. It was still just as good, even if the naan bread fell apart

So tomorrow I’m being dialysed again. I wonder if it will hurt as much as the last few times.

But right now, there’s clean bedding, clean clothes and a clean me and we are all looking to unite in bed tonight even if it’s somewhat later than intended

But seeing as we have brought the Romans into the story … "well, one of us has" – ed … Caesar is walking around the Forum when he sees a young man who looks exactly like his son.
So Caesar goes up to him and asks "Young man – I don’t suppose that your … errr … mother ever worked in the Imperial Palace on the night shift, did she?"
"Ohh no" replied the boy "But my father did"

Tuesday 5th November 2024 – A FEW YEARS AGO …

… I was given the sack for letting the Bonfire Night fireworks off in the wrong sequence.

In their opinion, it was bang out of order.

But that’s enough frivolity for the moment. Let us return to more serious matters

Last night I might not have been in bed by my preferred time, but it wasn’t far off it. But from having gone from “way beyond” a few months ago to a spell of a couple of weeks where I was “quite early” I seem to be creeping up and up again.

Once in bed, it took an age to go to sleep and that’s something that I’ve noticed after a dialysis session. It’s usually quite late by the time that I’m tired enough to sleep and going to bed early doesn’t change that at all.

And once I was asleep, I was awake again at 02:30, again at about 04:00 and a third time at about 06:00.

At that time I didn’t go back to sleep so in the end I gave it up as a bad job and when the alarm did go off at 07:00 I was already up and about.

That was just as well because I’d forgotten to finish my Welsh homework and send it off so with an extra half-hour of the morning to play with, once I’d finished washing and dressing I put the extra time to good use.

Mind you, I wish that I hadn’t because as soon as I pressed “send” I realised that I’d made a couple of silly errors and I wished that I could unsend it. But too late now.

Next task was to listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. And to my surprise there was some stuff on there. I had one of the chauffeurs from the ambulance company in here last night. He was talking about LeClerc and their on-line orders, people making joint efforts to order so that they could keep their delivery charges down etc. Then it was time for him to go back to work. He looked to make himself a quick sandwich and pulled out a slice of roast beef or something from his lunch box. He looked at it and asked “is it OK to eat this if it’s a little …”, then gave a noise like “uuggh” and threw it in my paper bin right at my feet. I told him that if the meat is off, go go to fetch a pie from the pie shop around the corner in Elm Drive. So he went off, but that piece of meat in my paper bin – ohh it smelt horrible and I can still smell it now.

And as a matter of fact I could smell it too – and see this slimy piece of brown rancid meat. But judging by the directions, I must have been living in that little flat at the back of the High School in Crewe, just off Middlewich Street to where we were all decanted after the house in which we were squatting was declared insalubrious. Ohh happy days!

Later on I’d been having a huge row with Crewe and Nantwich Borough Council yet again. There were two important bills that needed to be paid. They weren’t very big amounts but I was in dispute with them about it. They were insistent and were planning to take all kinds of action if I didn’t pay up. They sent me some copies of some newspaper articles that they intended to have published in this respect so I thought rather reluctantly I’d better pay the money and I can always continue the argument afterwards. In the meantime I put my house up for sale and the one that I had in Sandbach I also put up for sale on the grounds that whichever one sold I could move into the other. That was bound to cause a few complications for some people but I was beyond caring at this point.

Back in those days I had plenty of rows with the local council over all kinds of things and for being in breach of an Enforcement Order I was being fined a total of £1:00 per day for several years. Everyone wondered why I continued with the dispute and let the fines rack up but I knew something that no-one else knew. That is, to have complied with the Enforcement Order would have cost me a minimum of £25:00 per week, and much more than that too when variable costs are taken into consideration. So £7:00 per week was an absolute bargain and it could go on for as long as it liked. And I wish that I did have a house in Sandbach too. That would have been interesting. The council there was much more compliant.

There was another issue too about some people whom we knew. One of my friends was telling me that they had to go to stay at the home of the parents of one of them while the parents were away. There wouldn’t be any problem because the living room was far enough away from the bedrooms that they weren’t going to make any big issues. They’d have the chance to see their cats again because their parents were looking after the cats while they were also having huge housing issues. I said that it would be nice for them to see their cats again. He replied “yes. They might not ever get to see them again after that” which took me by surprise. He also said that if someone gets in contact with you, tell them that they won’t be going tomorrow at 15:00. I couldn’t understand the meaning behind that either.

Dreaming about cats is making me wish that things would hurry up and my tenant would move out from the apartment downstairs. Apart from a shower and a revised kitchen, a cat is something else that I’m also going to have

The nurse was late today. And she didn’t have time to stop and chat. Not that any of that surprises me in the slightest. It seems that every patient on this circuit is now postponing blood tests and injections until she’s on duty. I wonder how long it will be before both of them “get the message”. And what will happen then?

Breakfast came next, and reading this thesis. Our American friend is still being bewildered by events and incidents that are strange to him but perfectly normal to a European. “Why didn’t William invade and crush the Welsh?” is a perpetual theme of his thesis, being totally unable to grasp or to comprehend that it’s only Americans who have this horrible feeling of vengeance for every blow, no matter how small, that is struck against them. The rest of the World simply brush it off and carry on as normal.

He’s also puzzled about the Domesday Book’s description of “waste” in the east of Cheshire. “If the Welsh reached that far and destroyed it, how come they didn’t lay waste land much nearer the border in the West?”.

The answer is that it wasn’t the Welsh who laid it waste. William the Conqueror had had difficulty in pacifying the northern part of his realm so in 1069 he began what is called “the harrying of the North” and destroyed anything and everything in his way. And as what is today Cumbria and Northumberland were not part of England at the time, “the North” was much further South than it would otherwise be today. Consequently it’s likely that the eastern part of Cheshire was destroyed by William during his campaign of 1069-1070.

One of William’s chroniclers wrote "The King stopped at nothing to hunt his enemies. He cut down many people and destroyed homes and land. Nowhere else had he shown such cruelty. To his shame, William made no effort to control his fury, punishing the innocent with the guilty. He ordered that crops and herds, tools and food be burned to ashes. More than 100,000 people perished of starvation. I have often praised William in this book, but I can say nothing good about this brutal slaughter. God will punish him."

Back in here I revised for my Welsh lesson and then went to class. It was another one of these that seemed to pass off quite well and I seem to be slowly coming to terms with it. But still, with this teflon brain that I have, nothing at all is sticking to it.

After lunch I attacked the radio programme for which I’d begun to write some notes. And by the time that I’d knocked off for tea I’d finished all of it.

For this one, I don’t know how it’s all going to fit in so I’ve chosen more than the usual number of tracks, notwithstanding the fact that some are much longer than the usual, and I’ve written text for each one. I’ll dictate it all too, pin the speech to each track and then select what I need to make an hour’s worth of programme.

As if I don’t make things complicated enough.

My faithful cleaner stuck her head in at the door. She brought the mail and also the cheese for future supplies of pizza. It’s a good job that she goes to LeClerc every week because there’s a lot of stuff that I need that they sell but don’t deliver.

Tea tonight was more refried beans and salad in a taco roll with rice and veg, followed by lumps of ginger cake and soya cream. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the cake may well be a failure but it’s still tasty.

So having done that, there are things that I need to do and then I’m off to bed. Tomorrow there’s a radio programme to assemble. I dictated the notes on Saturday night but I haven’t edited them yet. If I can do that and then make a start on the next programme I’ll be back on track, which will be nice.

But seeing as we have been talking about fireworks … "well, one of us has" – ed … and it’s Guy Fawkes night, someone asked me "How many Health and Safety Inspectors does it take to light a firework?"
"I don’t know" I replied. "How many Health and Safety Inspectors does it take?"
"Four" she replied
"Four?" I asked. "How come?"
"It’s easy" she answered. "One to light the firework, one to ‘phone the fire brigade and two to work the fire extinguishers"

Monday 4th November 2024 – ANOTHER BAD DAY …

… in the Dialysis Clinic.

Mind you, it was much less painful than the last couple of times, to be sure. However I think that I’m sickening for something and consequently I’ve not been in the mood for anything.

Last night I actually made it into bed before (“just” before) 23:00 which made a nice change but it took a long time to go to sleep for once.

That might however have something to do with the Kefir that I drank before going to bed. It’s been fermenting for several years in its airtight bottle and I’m surprised that I awoke at all this morning. It was still functioning however when I opened it last night because when I flipped the stopper out it came out with a “pop”.

It was another night of tossing and turning, as seems to be the case these days, but when the alarm went off I was definitely deep in the arms of Morpheus. In fact I’d just been to a motor auction with a near-neighbour from Winsford. There were four lorries there. The first lorry that went through was a Foden Chinese six, one of the “space cab” models. There was a full MoT on it, it was rather old but it didn’t look too bad at all. The auctioneer asked for bids on it and my neighbour offered £500. Much to everyone’s surprise, including his, it was knocked down to him. The rest of the auction went on and they turned round to some Yugo saloons, little tiny things. They were only two years old and had belonged to a newspaper company. They were up for auction too. There was about a dozen of them. They were not very popular cars. I’d had one as a hire car once years ago. They were cheap, tinny, plasticky but they did a job. The auctioneer put them up for sale and for the first one, asked “what am I bid?”. I replied “£200”. Mine was the only bid and I had this car knocked down to me, a bright red two year-old Yugo 45 saloon for £200. I paid him a cheque, climbed into the car and drove it away. It was night, the lights were bright and everything seemed to work. It was a little rattly like most of these Yugos but it seemed to be OK. I thought that for £200 I had an absolute bargain here.

The former neighbour of mine lost his job as a driver at Tesco and was not able to find another. However he did come across someone who had a contract delivering pre-cast concrete garages and a lorry with a HIAB, but was unable to carry on working, so my neighbour leased his equipment and carried on with the contract. Having his own lorry would have been a dream for him and an old Chinese Six (with two axles at the front and one at the rear) Foden S-series would have been a superb lorry for him to go hauling

But as for the Yugos, it was actually when I worked for that Italian restaurant in Wandsworth that I encountered the Yugos. They had two for deliveries. They weren’t bad cars either. They did what was expected of them, no more, no less and if I wanted a cheap runabout, I could have done worse than buy one of those, especially two years old for £200.

So into the bathroom I staggered and sorted myself out in there, washing my undies as I went along. And then into the kitchen to put away last night’s culinary efforts. The nurse will be coming by shortly and while I could tell him and his inane comments to clear off if he makes any silly remark, there’s no point going looking for issues

The ginger cake fell apart when I took it out of the mould. The top had risen and cooked to the point of burning, but it had detached itself from the bottom, the bottom hadn’t risen at all and wasn’t cooked. I’ll try to find a circular 18cm silicon cake mould and give it one more go and if that doesn’t work I’ll abandon the idea.

Not that I’m downhearted though. Experimenting with new ovens, new recipes, new procedures and so on – there’s bound to be the odd failure along the way.

Back in here I listened to the rest of the dictaphone notes. I was in the office again last night. I’d been going through some things with someone in the basement. We’d been sorting out some screws, nuts and bolts. I had a handful of nuts, bolts including some small round washers from a previous time that I’d been working, and took them up to my office because in there we were in the old cookery room and the kitchen was at the side of our place and we had a three-burner stove. I went in – it was early in the morning and one of my colleagues was already there. I wished him good morning and put the things in the saucepan, put the water in and put it on a ring. he asked me what I was doing so I told him. He asked what I had in the saucepan. I replied “just water” so he answered “that’s OK. But what do you notice on the boss’s desk?”. I had a look on his desk and it was completely different from before. I suddenly realised that I could see across the office. I said “his computer’s gone, hasn’t it?”. He replied that it had. I asked “what’s he going to do Now?” but he walked away so I shook my head and carried on trying to clean these nuts and bolts.

Once again, I can’t keep out of the office. But it does remind me of the old sixth-form common room at school. It was the old cookery classroom and the oven was still there. So lunch for three or four of us was a large can of baked beans and a sliced loaf of bread. We had wind-powered lessons in the afternoons.

The nurse came early yet again and once more, didn’t hang around for very long. He was soon gone. He looked at my legs and told me that he thought that there was a great deal of improvement. And on looking at them, I thought so too. They are almost as they used to be.

Breakfast was next, and so was reading this thesis. Our American friend is now puzzled over why any “incursion” by the Normans into Wales would be made from the more rusticated Shropshire rather than the heavily-fortified Cheshire.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve answered that a few months ago. Any glance at any topographical map will see that the valleys of the Severn and the Dyfi make a natural avenue into Wales all the way to the coast and split the country in two. It’s been a route for invaders for a couple of thousand years and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a couple of weeks ago we visited a Roman marching camp at Caersws, halfway along the path.

Anyone going that way could cut the country in two and then deal with each half at his leisure. A series of independent Princelings isn’t likely to be able to mount a co-ordinated attack on any invader. Invading by the north coast from Chester would just push the Welsh up into the hills where they could (and did) stay for ever.

In here I had a few things to do that took much longer than I was thinking and I’d hardly started work before my cleaner turned up to apply my patches.

She was on her was to town via the Pharmacy so she took the whole bundle of prescriptions with her and she promised to have the Chemist go through them to work out which ones are valid and which ones are expired.

After she left, I put on one of my Arctic undershirts. If I’m going to spend several hours in Ice Station Zebra I shall dress for the part.

The taxi came for me on time and neither the driver nor the other passenger would say a word the whole way down to Avranches. I tried to engage them in conversation but I gave up after a while. Clearly wasting my time.

It was quite a speedy, aggressive drive down there and when I arrived, I was ushered into a side ward on my own. I must have been naughty last time.

That’s what I thought, and it was confirmed when it was the male nurse who came to attend to me. I had to wait a while for the machine to go through its cleaning cycle before they could couple me up.

As I said earlier, it was less painful than the last couple of times, but I was having some tingling sensations all up my arms, I felt like I was having the wind, and then, for the first time for several weeks, I crashed out – and crashed out definitively.

Hardly surprising really. I have been told that these are diabetic comas, and when they checked my blood sugar level it was 0.63. Consequently for the rest of the afternoon I was being force-fed orange juice.

While I was awake I passed the time trying to read some entries in the Domesday Book. I have a hard-copy here of course, but access to an on-line copy when I’m in the hospital is a useful thing to have.

In contrast to the journey to Avranches, the journey home was non-stop conversation. The driver was a young guy and he was leaving his job at the end of the year to go travelling in New Zealand for a year. He wanted to pick my brains about everything.

But as I came to leave the car he asked me a strange question – "when you were travelling about, did you ever feel lonely and depressed being on your own?"

Well, first of all, I was never alone. For a start, I had STRAWBERRY MOOSE to keep me company and laugh all you might, talking to him was good therapy, I promise you.

And then there’s the old saying “You’re never alone with schizophrenia”. There was always one of the other mes who live inside my head that would pop up for a chat.

But what would inevitably cheer me up would be to wonder how things would be if I had a member of my family with me. That made me glad that I was on my own.

The climb up here was difficult but I managed all thirteen of the first flight again, but I was glad to be back in here and to sit down.

Tea was pasta and an aubergine and kidney bean whatsit followed by a couple of lumps of failed cake with soya cream. The cake might look a mess but it sill tasted really nice.

So bedtime now, ready to fight the good fight tomorrow. It’s Welsh lesson so we’ll see how much I’ve forgotten.

But talking of travelling on my own, I’ve had some strange encounters, like the time RUPERT THE BEAR either on his way to a picnic or to use the bathroom, planted himself in the middle of my path

There have also been some interesting people too, most of whom failed to understand my sense of humour, which was a shame
Once though I remember saying to someone that while most people usually end up with someone else or in a group I always seems to end up on my own and I could never understand why.
"That’s easy" she replied. "If you had a best friend he would tell you. Now B.O."

Sunday 3rd November 2024 – I AM IN …

… agony right now. I’ve been on my feet for four hours between 16:30 and 20:30 and I don’t think that I have ever hurt so much so continually.

It was agony when I was standing still but when I tried to move, my legs were locked up and even moving them one centimetre sent a searing pain through all my joints

All in all, it’s been something of a depressing day, and it started out so well too.

Last night, although I missed my 23:00 bedtime yet again, I was still in bed before midnight which means that with my little lie-in to 08:00 I was going to have a good eight hours sleep.

In principle, that is. Although I was asleep quite quickly I awoke a few times and on one occasion I was actually planning to leave the bed. However I thought that an 02:15 start to the day was probably being over-optimistic.

Nevertheless, when the alarm went off at 08:00 I was already up and sitting on the edge of the bed. I’d been awake for about 20 minutes and thought after about 15 minutes or so that I ought to have a go at breaking the 08:00 barrier. So there I was.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and then came in here to dress and begin to listen to the dictaphone.

Not that I made much progress though. The nurse came by early today and disturbed me. He didn’t stay long though. He seems to be working quicker and quicker these days, or maybe he doesn’t like me any more. Probably the latter.

After he left I made breakfast and then continued to read this thesis on the Lords of the Marches.

Written by an American whose contact with the UK seems to have been quite “limited”, it’s quite amusing.

We’re at the stage where he is shaking his head, completely puzzled and bewildered, as to why William the Conqueror hasn’t used the same tactics of devastation against the Welsh that he used in the “harrying of the North” where the Domesday Book records such lovely entries as “Earl Harold formerly held this. It had land for three ploughs, 16 serfs and 4 slaves. Today it is waste”.

For an American, that is quite understandable. His answer to the Welsh raids would have been what every other American would have done, gone ahead and invaded them, smote them mightily and made them sell Coca-Cola

To a European though, the answer is quite simple. Having (he thought) been unjustly deprived of his heritage, William went across the Channel to claim his inheritance. Wales was not at this stage part of England and so was not in his inheritance and he had no reason to go there.

Border raids were at that time a normal state of affairs everywhere and there was no reason for this to be any different, but try explaining that to an American whose only thought, despite what the Bible tells him, is vengeance.

There’s going to be a lot of mileage in this thesis.

Back in here I carried on with the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. I was in a town in the suburbs of Liège and wanted to go to the swimming baths. The nearest swimming baths were in the suburbs of Aachen so I prepared everything. It took me three or four goes to prepare everything – I’d set out from the house without my sac banane and everything in it, I set out without my towels and trunks etc but eventually I had everything together and I set out to walk. I found myself at Aachen railway station, a really busy junction, and I couldn’t remember which line it was as I wanted to go to the baths. Try as I might, I couldn’t identify it. The only thing that I was certain that I’d have to do was to take the train back to Liège and set out to walk as I usually did. That seemed like a whole waste of time to me. I was intrigued by the definition of this walk along the river through the forest to the swimming baths. It was called “The Nun’s Walk”. When I’d asked about the name I was told that it was a nun walking on the hot tar back to her convent was so hot that she took off her shoes and walked back through the river that follows the path. I thought that that was most unlikely to have been the case but that was the only explanation that I’d heard

If I can walk from Liège to Aachen just for a trip to the swimming baths, I’m doing really well. I’d have to get a move on because it’s quite a distance. But I remember the scenery and it reminds me of when I was IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO walking to Karlovy Vary. That’s something that makes me quite sad though. I won’t ever walk like that again and it upsets me.

Later on I was with my elder sister and her husband, which was a surprise (and wasn’t it just? I can’t think of too many people whom I’d be less willing to see). We had been discussing what had gone wrong with our family. We threw various suggestions around. My sister’s husband came up with the idea that one part of the family is now married off. They all had children so there were grandchildren and that’s really all that’s interesting for one person, isn’t it? I said “I couldn’t agree with you more on that”. We were in Aachen again (so I must have stepped back into the first dream). I’d arrived there on foot and had gone round the shops looking for the railway station back and ended up in a big hotel. I found myself in the basement. There was a concièrge there asking everyone who came past if they wanted to use the toilet. I didn’t answer but wandered away. That was when I met up with my family. I was asked if I wanted to go to have a look around the sales but despite everyone’s insistence I declined. My niece’s daughter said that she was going to eat her cornflakes with bath water. I said “bath water? How horrible”. She said yes, but one of her aunts did it. I replied “God! They must be out of their minds! Eating their cornflakes with bath water?”.

It doesn’t take much to work out exactly what was wrong with our family. The fact was that we weren’t a family, just a lot of strangers living under the same roof, with a philosophy of “every man for himself”. It’s no surprise that I have relationship issues after eighteen years of that.

And next, I watched Stranraer throw everything, the kitchen sink included, at Elgin City and still manage to come away from the Highlands with a 1-0 defeat. It was an object lesson in “it doesn’t matter how much possession you have and how many shots you have on goal if you can’t put one past the keeper”.

After that I had work to do. I’d dictated two of the three programmes in the pipeline, and sat down to edit the first dictation. And I was doing really well until the programme that I use crashed and I lost all that I had done.

That called for a break for lunch, a salad butty with the last of the air-fried bread followed by fruit. The bread was delicious and I resolved to try another air-fryer loaf.

Back in here I began again, and eventually ended up with a programme that was one hour and twenty-three minutes long. Some ruthless editing was called for and that took an age to sort out, but eventually I finished with exactly one hour of talk and music.

No time to do the second one though because it was hot chocolate time.

Having drunk that it was then baking time. First task was to make some dough for bread. I gave it a good kneading and then left it on one side.

The flapjack was next. The food processor was involved in that task and I actually found the mixing gear which I coupled up when I’d finished chopping up the nuts and banana chips.

With the mixing attachment it made the mix so much better. It took longer of course, but it was worth it. The finished result was much more like it was supposed to be.

So much so that I did the same with an oil cake. I decided on a spicy ginger cake and used the chopping attachment to chop up the ginger and the mixer attachment to mix up the rest of the ingredients – the dry ingredients first and add the wet ones next.

By now the bread was ready for its second kneading and I put it in one of my silicon air fryer liners, flattening it well down in case it rose up and touched the element again.

At lunchtime I’d taken out some pizza dough from the freezer and it was now defrosted so I rolled it out and put it in the pizza tray, leaving it to rise up

The flapjack went into the oven and the cake into the air fryer while I assembled the pizza. The flapjack was lovely but the cake was a problem yet again. I can’t seem to make the air fryer work with cakes

The bread went in the air fryer next while I put the pizza in the oven. And they were both done to perfection. This idea of baking bread in the air fryer is looking like a success, Hans.

After the pizza I finished off the washing up. There was a mountain of it and I’d been doing it here and there while I was waiting for things to happen.

So now I’ve finished my notes and I’m off to bed. Tomorrow I’m going to look on the internet for a kitchen stool because I can’t go on like this.

Talking about the swimming baths … "well, one of us is" – ed … reminds me of the ones that they opened in Crewe in the town centre a couple of years ago. Over the entrance door was the sign "PSWIMMING BATHS"
And so I asked the caretaker "how come the place has been spelled like that?"
"Ohhh; it’s not like the old Municipal Swimming Baths here" he said. "In these baths the ‘P’ is silent."

Saturday 2nd November 2024 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER …

… painful afternoon in Ice Station Zebra this afternoon and I really don’t know where it’s going to end. I can’t keep on going on like this, spending three and a half hours in agony and trying to make a good face of it all

Many people tell me that the alternative is far worse but it won’t be long before I’m at the stage where I’ll be wondering if it actually is.

It’s hard to believe that I went to bed last night full of optimism for the day. For once I’d gone through my closing-down procedure quite quickly, even managing to relax for fifteen minutes, and haul myself off to bed within touching distance of my curfew hour.

And I reckon that I had a reasonable (for me, anyway) sleep, just awakening once or twice. I almost made it out of bed early too but I reckoned that 05:38 is far too early to force myself out of bed unless I’m completely awake – and no smart comments about that, please. I’ve heard them all before.

When the alarm went off I crawled out of bed and went into the bathroom to pretty myself up and to wash some clothes. The clothes that need washing in the sink seem to be growing. There are socks, undies, shorts and now one of my Arctic undershirts that I’ve begun to wear in bed. They are very soft and have long arms that cover the patches where the needles go in and stop me trying to rub the spots when they itch or tickle.

They have given me in the past some medication to stop the irritation on my skin, and then gave me three more to stop the side effects. And then, I imagine, several more to stop the side effects of the medication that’s stopping the side-effects of the first

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone. And to my surprise I had a little visitor too – one of my favourite people, as you will find out as you read on. But first, there was a piece of land for sale in Wistaston and we were interested in it so we went to see it, and found out that the auction was taking place. We walked by the side of the canal to where the big house was, a big detached house with a brick extension that I loved, my second-favourite house in that area, and then walked down the road towards the old farmhouse that was part of the sale. My father had a catalogue, a huge catalogue and we began to have a look through it. There was a lovely old woodstove there that was actually built into a sewing machine with treadle table. I said to my sister that she could keep warm while she’s working here. She told me to clear off. One thing that caught our eye was all the bikes. There were thousands and thousands and thousands of pushbikes in all different stages of disrepair crammed into every room and outbuilding of this place. You couldn’t move because of all the old bikes everywhere. I thought that when they put those up for auction it’s going to be total chaos. It looked really impossible that there could be so many bits of bikes, frames, lose wheels, etc. They had all been crammed so tightly into these outbuildings.

Of course, they aren’t my favourite people. But I’m intrigued by all of the pushbikes lying around. Interestingly, that’s a word that I’ve not heard since I left Crewe. I’m also intrigued as to the canal, because there’s no canal anywhere around there at all

And then there was once again … "once again?" – ed … some kind of enchanted person in a fantasy tale. I can’t remember a great deal of this dream except that I had to go to an office building to visit a range of toilets on each floor. I had to make sure that there was no-one about while I did this. On one floor there were some people talking in the corridor so I had to wait until they’d finished. The scene then shifted to some kind of tavern. I was again keeping watch on this tavern from the inside from a secret place. There were several people around there and I thought that I’d come out of my hiding place when most of them had gone. Suddenly I heard someone mention my name so I looked. It was a boy who was in my brother’s class at school, telling everyone how he’d been on a skiing holiday with a load of people from a school and was walking around wit me and another boy from the sixth form and another people from his age, making some kind of allegation that this older boy and I were stoned out of our minds on marijuana or something, and Greg Lake went past on a pushbike, so he said. Greg Lake is alleged to have shouted “hey Eric! Look at this!” and disappeared himself behind a cloud of weed smoke. I couldn’t remember any of this at all. I’d no idea at all where he’d heard this or seen this because I remember nothing about it in the dream.

During my dreams just recently I seem to be spending a lot of my time in offices, something that I tried to avoid in real life. As for being under the effects of any kind of noxious substance, that is something that has never happened. Coffee is about the closest that I have ever come to anything like that. But we have a pushbike again, with Greg Lake of all people riding it. I remember nothing at all whatever about this dream.

While we’re on the subject of coffee … "well, one of us is" – ed … later on I was in a luxury hotel somewhere. It was about 02:00. I was queueing for something to do with the personnel. There was a member of staff in front of me who was waiting to be seen. However suddenly a commotion at the bar so the guy in front of me went off to have a look to see what it was. It was two Americans, who wanted a drink but there was no-one at the bar. The guy said that he was the night shift manager and was responsible for the bar. Could he help them? They were most offensive and I was so annoyed by this so after I’d finished doing what I did I walked over to where these two people were arguing with this guy and said “for God’s sake be reasonable!”. Then I wanted a cup of coffee but I didn’t really want them to make me a whole pot or anything like that so I began to wander amongst the tables looking at people who were drinking coffee to see whether there might have been some left in one of the pots that I could finish off.

A whole pot of coffee? I could finish one of those quite happily, as I do every day, with no problems at all. When at the hospital we went through what I drank every day they were totally astonished by how much coffee I drank

Finally I was giving a concert on the stage in a big hall in front of a few thousand people. I had Castor (so “hello Castor! Long time no see”) who was playing bass guitar and I don’t know what I was doing. Last time I’d been there I’d been booed off-stage so I’d insulted the audience and told them that they ought to behave better than to object again and make such a noise concerning a young person and was nothing to do with the performance. A bouncer came to drag me off and we ended up having a fight on stage. So I was due to go back. I went down by the dressing room at the back of the theatre to find Castor to make sure that she was OK and was ready. The audio technician was there. I asked him if this time we had a drummer or not. He replied “yes you have a drummer but you won’t see him. He’s staying behind in the wings and working from there”. Then I mentioned that I’d lost a shoe – let me put this in the correct order – when I awoke I was wearing a shoe in bed and there was one missing. I found the one that was missing and that was when I went downstairs. By this time the one on my foot had gone. I was going round telling everyone that I had an ear missing. They couldn’t understand what I meant so I said that it’s probably not switched on at this moment, which bewildered them even further. When I reached the doors to leave this particular room I couldn’t work out whether you pulled or pushed them. I was there saying “how the hell do you leave this place?”. Then I had to go to find a lift to go back up to my room to see whether I’d left my shoe there. All in all I could see that this performance was going to end in total chaos before it had even started

That’s quite a typical dream isn’t it, all ending in panic and chaos. Not even the presence of Castor could lighten up my morale. Even though it was lovely to see her again I wish that it had been under better, happier circumstances. That’s despite the fact that my last memory of her was a very sad, tragic one that morning on that windswept airstrip in the High Arctic. Still, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … sometimes, some goodbyes have to be said like that.

The nurse blitzed in and blitzed out again this morning. He clearly didn’t want to hang around so he just spoke some of this inane hairdresser-type of patter and then cleared off quickly once he’d done what he had to. He’s been quick before, but even I was surprised this morning by how quickly he came and went.

After he left I made breakfast and carried on reading. The report on Beeston Castle is finished, going out like rather a damp squib, and next in line is a thesis about the Marcher Lords.

When William the Conqueror invaded England, his hold was far from secure for all kinds of reasons. One of his problems was the incursions by the Welsh, keen to recapture territory that they had lost to the Saxons and later, Mercians.

His possession of the areas along what is today the Welsh border was doubtful to say the least and so he promoted three of his favourites to hold the title of “Earl” and gave them territories in what is now Cheshire, Shropshire and Herefordshire, lands on which he had the barest control, and instructed these “Marcher Lords” to use whatever means they could to pacify their area and keep the Welsh at bay until he was in a position to conquer the Welsh.

The first thing that is puzzling me about all of this is why an MA student in, of all places, Fresno University in California would want to study the Marcher Lords of post-Conquest England for his MA. The second thing that is puzzling me is how there would be a professor in Fresno University in California competent to mark it.

However, I suppose that I shall find out as I go along.

Back in here I didn’t do much this morning as I had other fish to fry for a change.

And I was still busy frying them when my cleaner came, bringing with her the hair dryer that she promised, which was nice of her. Defrosting the freezer will be a nice job for a Sunday.

The taxi came early today and with no distractions or other passengers to pick up we arrived early and I was the first person to be seen to. No complaints about the anaesthetic wearing off today, but it still hurt like I don’t know what.

My blood sugar level is right down again so they force-fed me three large glasses of orange juice, without a great deal of effect. I suppose that that will be the next thing to give up the ghost in my body

While I was freezing to death in the Arctic temperatures of the treatment room, shivering under a blanket, the doctor came to see me for a few seconds. He wrote out a prescription for the medication that they had forgotten on the last prescription (it’s a good job that my cleaner and I had noticed) and that was that. I was left pretty much alone to carry on reading Richard Hakluyt.

After they unplugged me I weighed myself and I’m slowly coming closer to my first target weight which is good news. I’m hoping that Bibendum, the Michelin Man, is gone for good.

The taxi was waiting when I went outside and we came straight home where my faithful cleaner was waiting. Once more I made all thirteen stairs of the first flight, although the last couple was quite a struggle.

For once I was home in time for the start of tonight’s football, but the match was one of the worst that I have ever seen. Not like last week’s lethargic, pedestrian game but because of the quality (or lack thereof) of skill on display.

It was a match between the two bottom clubs, Llansawel at the bottom and Aberystwyth just above them. It was a woeful match from the point of view of misplaced passes and wayward shooting but bad as Llansawel were, Aberystwyth were even worse and played like a team of strangers, just going through the motions.

The score was 4-0, would you believe, to Llansawel and it wasn’t because they were that good, it was that Aberystwyth had given up playing long before the end On this showing, Aberystwyth are dead and buried and whoever it is who is appointed to the hot seat, if he can’t pull some rabbits out of the hat in the forthcoming transfer window, that will be that.

Tea tonight was a burger on a bap with vegan salad and baked potato followed by the last of the rice pudding. I’ll bake a cake tomorrow and see what good that will do

But that’s tomorrow. Right now I’m going to dictate my notes and then go to bed

But not before I tell you the little story that came to mind when I was typing out my dreams. It concerned being on stage and the various one-man shows in which I appeared. I told a friend about them once.
"I thought that there were three of you in your group" he said
"I know" I replied "but when I talk about a ‘one-man show’ I’m referring to the size of the audience"

Friday 1st November 2024 – I’VE HAD ONE …

… of those days where nothing whatever of any note at all has taken place

Not even during the night either. So I was seriously thinking of not writing anything at all today. But then again I’d have you lot all champing at the bit wondering where I’d gone and what I was doing, so in the end I – well, I was going to say that I picked up my pen, but instead I’ll say that I sat down at the keyboard instead.

Last night after I finished my notes it was long after bedtime so I didn’t hang around at all. I went to the bathroom to sort myself out and then came in here, dressed for the night and went to bed

When the alarm went off I’d just finished eating a big bowl of ice cream and had gone back to work. I’d had to see some clients and talk to them, and then there was some talk that I might take over my old job again. I thought “I’ve not been doing that for six years. I wonder how it’s evolved over that particular period”. I did some more mental arithmetic about what had been going on and what had been accomplished but then the alarm went off.

It was as usual a struggle to leave the bed but I staggered into the kitchen to prepare the dough for some bread.

Hans has given me a few hints about making bread in the air fryer so I decided that I’d make a 250gramme mix and cook it in the air fryer in accordance with his instructions, to see what happened.

While It was festering I went into the bathroom and had a good scrub up ready for the day, and then came back in here to dress.

At the computer, I had a listen to the dictaphone but to my surprise, all that was on it was that which I’d mentioned just now.

That I found strange because I had a distinct impression that I’d gone off arranging a date with a girl during the night and we decided (or rather, she did) that we’d play squash.

Playing squash brings back a few memories. When I was living in my van I joined the local squash club and played there twice a week, simply so that I could have a shower. That all worked fine until one day I was drawn against a girl who turned out to be one of the “posh” elite girls from my grammar school. That didn’t go down very well.

As well as that, I have a very clear memory of waking up, wide awake, and deciding that if I were to leave the bed now I could make a head start on the day’s work. But when I looked at the time on the watch,, it was 02:05 so I went back to bed. But there’s nothing about any of that on the dictaphone.

When the nurse came, he refrained from making any inane remarks about the dough, asked me a few other silly questions and then once he’d sorted me out he left. He can’t have been here more than ten minutes.

After he left I looked at the dough. It had hardly risen, which was disappointing. Nevertheless I gave it a second kneading and left it on one side while I made breakfast.

Alfred Watkins’s book has now gone The Way of the West. Interestingly, while he talks about “lines” connecting all these points, he’s talking about imaginary lines drawn on a map connecting up all of these places, not actual tracks on the ground.

While he does make reference to these lines falling, in many places, along the lines of roads, paths, field boundaries and the like and hints at ancient highways connecting up many of them, he refrains from drawing the conclusion that there really were tracks connecting up all of these places in every case. The theory of the country being criss-crossed with Neolithic pathways came later, long after he was dead.

There is no doubt however that he was certainly on to something. I don’t think that he knew what it was, and I wish that I did.

Right now I’m reading a report about the excavations that took place at Beeston Castle. We’ll be into an interesting argument here because the author of the report is one of those people who promote the theory that the castle was less a symbol of defence and more an ostentatious symbol of power

While it’s perfectly true that a wealthy noble lord with a good, competent staff would want to have something rather opulent to represent his social position, you only have to look at the period 1067 – 1487 with the pacification of England, the war between Stephen and Matilda, the incursions of the Welsh and the Scots, the Wars of the Roses and all of the various uprisings and civil unrest to realise that anyone who could afford it and was at risk of being killed or captured for ransom wouldn’t live anywhere except behind some fortification guarded by his loyal retainers.

Back in here I had a very slow start to the day. It’s always the case when I’ve had dialysis. It takes a lot out of me and not even a full pot of string coffee could bring me round.

Eventually though I made a start and by the time that I’d finished I had not only sorted out the music, I’d converted and remixed it ready to broadcast, with one hour and twenty-eight minutes which, with the notes that I have already started to write, will have to be shoe-horned into a programme of one hour.

That will call for some serious editing.

While I was at it, I tried some editing of a different nature. One of the tracks was a mono recording so I copied it so that I had two tracks, cut out the bass from one and the treble from the other and then joined them to make a stereo track

It’s rather rough and ready but it works after a fashion.

There was a break for lunch and a break while my cleaner was here.

And I’m glad that she was here because she pointed out that the freezer door was open. By now it was all iced up so it was the devil’s own job to close it.

As for the ice, when this happens to her freezer she attacks it with a hair dryer. I don’t happen to have a hair dryer, mainly because I don’t have any hair to dry, but she has two hair dryers, one an old one that she liberated from somewhere. She offered it to several of her clients but no-one wants it, so it will be coming down here tomorrow, and staying for good too.

That’s quite a plan, because the freezer has needed defrosting for quite some time.

The plug for the freezer was hidden behind the washing machine so I’ve been moving furniture around, and I now have an extension lead plugged into the socket with the freezer plugged in there within easy reach.

The most important break though was a lot earlier than this. After breakfast, I’d put the bread in the air fryer, switched it on and left ot for 20 minutes.

And by God! What a loaf! Nice and soft and gone up like a lift. The best loaf that I have ever, ever made. It had risen so much that the loaf had come into contact with the heater element.

So there’s nothing wrong with my bread-making techniques. It’s my table-top oven that is the major issue, as I suspected. So when I make my next loaf I must flatten it out more than I did so that it won’t reach the top.

Either than or buy a bigger air fryer.

Tea tonight was vegan salad, air-fried chips and vegan nuggets followed by rice pudding. The bread in the air fryer might have been a success, but the rice pudding definitely wasn’t

It’s bed-time now, ready for fighting the Good Fight at the Dialysis Clinic in the afternoon. A good sleep will do me some good I hope.

But I do have to say that despite it being Halloween last night and the night when all evil walks abroad, I remained relatively undisturbed.
Not so one family in the town who, according to my cleaner, had a visitation from all of the ghoosties and ghoulies of the region
"All of the women were strung up by the ghoosties" said my cleaner
"What about the men?" I asked
"The men?" She said. "They were all strung up by the … errr … other phantoms"

EPIC HALL

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

Monthly Archives: November 2024

Friday 15th November 2024 – I HAVE BEEN …

Thursday 14th November 2024 – SO HERE I AM …

Wednesday 13th November 2024 – I HAVE FINISHED …

Tuesday 12th November 2024 – I HAVE FINISHED …

Monday 11th November 2024 – THIS BLASTED DIALYSIS …

Sunday 10th November 2024 – THIS PERISHING RADIO …

Saturday 9th November 2024 – IF ANYTHING CAN …

Friday 8th November 2024 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

Thursday 7th November 2024 – I MADE IT!

Wednesday 6th November 2024 – I’VE GOT A LUVVERLY …

Tuesday 5th November 2024 – A FEW YEARS AGO …

Monday 4th November 2024 – ANOTHER BAD DAY …

Sunday 3rd November 2024 – I AM IN …

Saturday 2nd November 2024 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER …

Friday 1st November 2024 – I’VE HAD ONE …

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