… of these miserable days that I seem to be having right now,, like the one that I’ve had today when I’ve spent most of it asleep.

It totally beats me, whatever it is that’s switching me on and, more importantly, off like a lightbulb. I’m going through periods where I can’t stay awake no matter how hard I try. I can only think that it’s one of the pills that I’m taking and I wish I knew which one it was because I’d stop it without a moment’s hesitation.

It seems to be the same at night too though. What I’ve been doing for the last few nights is that once I actually get into bed, to run through a little scenario in my mind, and I’ve never reached the end of it, having fallen asleep somewhere along the way.

And last night was the same. I was in bed shortly after 23:00 and looking forward to a lie-in until all of 08:00 and running through my little scenario, didn’t reach the end before I must have fallen asleep.

There was something going on last night about a group of girls, maybe in a school or something. They had to dress themselves in the appropriate gear to fight off whatever it was that was coming to attack them. Some of them had just seen groups of humans coming their was. Others had seen supernatural figures. One had seen a dragon. The dispute roared on. If they wore clothes to defend themselves against the dragon they’ll be fine against any less powerful force but some of them just wanted to wear the clothes that were appropriate to fight the foe that they’d seen. They were in the middle of this huge argument when the alarm went off. Mt immediate feeling when the alarm went off was that it was too late now to change any decision that had been actually made because the moment had arrived.

It’s quite strange what goes on in my head just before the alarm goes off. There have been some really interesting things just recently that have been on the dictaphone from just before the alarm goes off and in some cases it’s a pity that the alarm disrupts them.

So when the alarm went off I fell out of bed and staggered off to the bathroom but the nurse was early today and gave me his three-minute warning before I’d finished dressing so I had to get a wiggle on and hurry up, which is quite difficult these days.

Anyway I just about managed to beat him this morning. Only just

When he came he told me that my neighbour had had another fall yesterday and that he’s worried about her. I think that all of us in the building are actually. She’s putting up a heroic fight against her illness but she really needs more help than we can give her.

After he left I had some breakfast and came back in here where I crashed out again. And for a couple of hours too. That’s really annoying as I said earlier.

Then I watched yesterday’s match between Stranraer and Stenhousemuir. Stranraer are bottom of the Scottish League 2 and Stenhousemuir are top so I imagine that everyone was surprised when Stranraer won the game 2-0.

Not that it did them any good because Clyde won too so Stranraer finished the season in bottom place and go into the relegation play-offs against East Kilbride of the Scottish Lowland League

After lunch I began to make my biscuits. I have some fresh – well, it’s not so fresh now after a couple of months in the kitchen – ginger and some coconut oil and desiccated coconut so for the next couple of weeks we’ll be having ginger and coconut biscuits.

While they were going through their preparation and standing phases I transcribed the dictaphone notes. Some of them you won’t wish to know about, especially if you’re eating your meal right now, but we had also gone to a Workingman’s Club in Crewe. We were only kinds and we weren’t sure whether we were going at first. It was all a very last-minute thing before my mother decided to take us. We had a wonderful time with all kinds of kids’ entertainments etc going on. At the end of the night I thanked my mother for taking us but wished that she’d spent more time with us because she was off with all of her friends but she insisted that she’d spent a lot of time with us although that’s not at all how it appeared to any of us at all. She was much more interested in her friends than she was in her children – that was the impression that we received and we were pretty much left alone for the entire night.

And there’s more truth in that dream than you can imagine too.

And weren’t Workingmen’s Clubs a strange phenomenon? Run by committees of elderly men who actively refused to consider anything at all except things that only they would enjoy, they drove away the youngsters in droves. When they died out, there was no-one to take their place and all of the clubs closed down

It doesn’t matter how well something is working at the moment, you have to move with the times and take on board modern ideas or else your pet project will die out with you too.

There’s a similar dispute going on in Welsh football right now. Ground improvement regulations have come into force at tier three clubs. They all now have to have covered seating accommodation, concrete walkways and so on.

Many people are upset by these regulations but the days of standing on a cinder bank in the open air in the rain are long-gone.

If I have the choice of a couple of football games to watch and it’s raining, and one ground has covered accommodation and the other doesn’t, which one will I choose? And if it’s not raining, but one ground has a pie hut and the other one doesn’t, where will I go?

The modern world is changing rapidly and we have to do the best we can to keep up with it.

There was also time to choose the music for another radio programme for which I’ll write the notes in the forthcoming week. When I’ll dictate them though is anyone’s guess. I need a quiet, late night for that but there’s no chance while the nurse is coming round every morning.

There was a vegan pizza to make too. I’d taken some of the dough out of the freezer and that was busy defrosting during the afternoon. At some point I rolled it out and assembled my pizza.

After the biscuits had been baked (and delicious they are too because I cooked the odds and ends of pastry in the air fryer and then sampled them) I baked the pizza and that was delicious too.

As a special treat for pudding, I finished off the strawberries with some more soya cream. They were really nice too.

So that’s everything for tonight, I reckon. I’ll do what I need to do to finish off and then go to bed where I’ll run through my little scenario and see how far I reach.

But the story of plays and scenarios reminds me of a story I heard about two rival actors, one of whom was appearing in a tragedy and the other in a comedy.
The one said to the other, who was appearing in the comedy "I saw your comedy last night and I’m afraid that I didn’t laugh once"
To which the other replied "well isn’t that funny? I saw that tragedy that you are in and I simply roared with laughter"