… last night walking in the countryside and seen a car that was being pushed about by this enormous ginger cat, really enormous, probably bigger than the car. I watched it for a while then carried on walking. I came across a grey tabby, a normal-sized one. I began to stroke it and it seemed quite friendly so I asked it where its food was. It led me round to someone’s front door where there were a couple of empty bowls. I said “that’s why you’re friendly then is it? You have no food out”. I was giving it a good stroke when the alarm went off and awoke me.

As it happens, i’m surprised that I was in such a deep sleep because for some of the night I was in total agony.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I was out at the hops the other week I had a searing pain in my left leg followed by a heavy fall. While I was in bed I had exactly the same thing, and not once but twice. That was what I call agony.

When the physio came round this afternoon I told him about it but he was at something of a loss to explain it. But that’s no surprise really, I suppose.

But meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … bedroom I fell out of the bed when the alarm went off and went to perform my ablutions. And after the medication I came back in here to carry on with some work.

And I’ve been a very busy boy today and accomplished tons of stuff.

First thing was to go through and sort out the European Paper Mountain that has been building up, and file everything away. Not before time either because some of this stuff really did have whiskers on it.

Next thing was to do the accounts. Not only do I have to pay the cleaner but I have to do the paperwork that goes with it. I forgot last month so there was two months worth of that to do.

Next step was to fill in a form that my Belgian bank needed, and then to scan it and send it off. While I was at it I came across a couple of e-mails that I’d received and hadn’t answered so that was the next task.

While we’re on the subject of forms filling in … “well, one of us is” – ed … there was a form that the French Government needed. I could do it by going into my “personal space” but I don’t have an access key so I had to telephone them.

And when I finally made contact I was number 24 in the queue so I sat down to read “War and Peace”.

Eventually I spoke to a human and we did the necessary on the telephone. He reminded me that there was a payment outstanding so that was the next task, followed by a shower as the physiotherapist would be coming.

There was probably much more than that too, but I finished off by enrolling on my Welsh course for next year. Level one of the “Advanced” course, although it doesn’t seem much like it. I hope that all this stuff for which I’ve signed up throughout the Summer actually does me some good.

Right now I really don’t have any idea about what’s going on. I’m working on the principle that if you throw enough whatsit onto a wherever, some of it might stick. But that’s no way to run a business.

There was some more stuff on the dictaphone too from during the night. I was driving a coach for a local coach firm in Crewe for whom I did some work at one time during the winter when there was no work at SHearings. It’s the first time that I’ve driven a coach for nearly 30 years. I had to do a whole series of pickups around different places in Crewe. I suddenly realised that it’s 30 years since I’ve lived in Crewe. I don’t know where one or two places are and all the road layouts changed so what I might possibly have done years ago in order to go to the various places will all be different now. I don’t have a clue how I was going to do it. I got into the coach and drove it through the Flag Lane area and down Broad Street. When I reached the top of broad Street I had to do a right-left shunt into one of the streets there but I suddenly realised that it probably would have been better if I’d gone the other way but it’s a bit too late now. In the middle of all of this the owner’s wife called me up on the radio to ask me how long I’d be before I arrived at the pickup point. I was obviously later than I should have been. I just told her “a couple of minutes” but this was starting to become extremely uncomfortable one way or another with all of this that I didn’t know and hadn’t done for years.

After that I was in Brussels last night with a couple of people. One of them had a friend who worked for the European institutions. We were driving around the city. On the way back I pointed down the street towards the Parc Leopold, explaining that that was where the Parc Leopold was and where her friend worked. As we drove a little further on we went over into an area that was supposed to be Schaerbeek but wasn’t. I pointed out the beautiful Town Hall, which amazed them. We headed on back for my apartment.

At some point or other I’d become an MP and theyw ere discussing the thing that I’d done in my constituency. I explained that I’d been away for a couple of weeks but before I went I ordered a pile of tickets for some of them to visit the Parliament. I’d been to the bank to organise some money. I should really go to pick it up but at the moment I’ve only just come back and need to regroup my strength before I go out to do something like that.

Later on I was walking down a street somewhere last night. There were shops and everything, a new parade of shops set at 45° on to the road further down towards the end. I was on my way down there and noticed that one of these shops was full of old motorcycles that had been recovered from barns etc and were up for sale. I was just about to stop for a good look when I had a really bad attack of cramp in the left calf again that awoke me. Yes, fancy that! Just as I get to the interesting bit.

As it happens, I miss my motorbike. When I came to Belgium I had a little Honda Vision scooter and at one time a big Honda CX500. I enjoyed driving that around the countryside in Northern Europe and one thing going through my mind was to buy another one at some time.

I have a CZ 175 down on the farm but it’s not really suitable for what I had in mind. But now even that is out of the question.

While I was rummaging around in the Land That Time Forg … errr … the fridge, I noticed some soya, carrot and lentil burgers that the dinosaurs must have left behind. One of those with some rice, veg and a pile of very thick onion gravy made a lovely tea tonight.

That’s one thing that you can say about round here – no matter how tough things might be, there’s always some good food to eat.

Tomorrow if I’m feeling better I’ll walk into town for a bit of food and post off the cheque that I wrote out today. And then in the afternoon I have the meeting of the owners of this building. I must make sure that my 250/10,000th of this building is adequately represented.

So I’d better have an early night. Here’s hoping that I can actually have a good night’s sleep for a change.