… an exciting wrestling match with a pile of cables.

First of all, you’ve no idea how many pipes and cables I have plugged into me. And then there’s all of the cables that are, have been or will be plugged into the computer.

So the nurse, having finished what she’s doing, passed me all of the cables but forgot the mains cable for the laptop.

From where I was sitting I couldn’t reach it and the nurse having put the brakes on my chair, presumably to stop me punting off out of here using my crutches to propel me, I couldn’t move to reach the cable.

Consequently I’ve just spent a pleasant 20 minutes trying to lasso it with the cable of the headphones. And I managed it too, hence this posting.

But that’s about the only excitement that I’ve had today.

Plenty of excitement last night though. As the nurse was putting me to bed she found my empty crisp packet and went berserk. Apparently that’s one of the worst things that I can have.

But they were delicious all the same. What do I care?

Percy Penguin once told me a story of an old woman in a place where she worked. The old woman had just received a box of chocolates and was stuffing them in one after the other
"You’ll make yourself ill eating them like that" said Percy Penguin
"I’m 98" said the old woman. "What do I care now?"
Kingsley Amis once said "No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home in Weston-super-Mare" and that’s how I feel right now. Pass me the crisps!

The nurse helped me into bed by making matters far more complicated than they ought to be, and I settled down for a very long night.

It was a totally turbulent night last night with the stabbing pain in the left sole of my foot for a change, and a dreadful pain somewhere else too.

What with the noise too, it didn’t seem as if I’d had more than half an hour’s sleep. By 05:30 I’d given up the struggle once again.

No orange juice this morning and no blood test either. Probably something to do with the diabetes test they gave me at 03:30 I suppose.

By 08:30 no-one had come by which was a good thing in some senses but bad in others, especially when they forgot to replace the … errr … receptacle in your chair

That was what I call an emergency but they didn’t. It took them 15 minutes to answer my call.

It took me nothing like 15 minutes to take advantage of it when it was finally installed. A good job that the rapid method that I wanted to use last night was actually a rapid method or it could have been embarrassing.

It took them ages too to deal with things like bed-baths. A doctor came by too to tell me their plans for tomorrow. So much for “going home on Monday”. This is going to take a while.

The good news is that when they weighed me I was 4kg less than yesterday. No wonder it’s a little easier to move about. But there’s still a long way to go before Bibendum is no more.

Mind you, if this rate keeps up, it’ll only be a couple of weeks before I’m gone completely

By the time that they’d finished with me I managed about 20 minutes of my Welsh lesson before lunch came round. And there was a little more food on my tray this time.

But in punishment for my misdemeanours with the crisps they “forgot” my afternoon coffee and put my backpack so far across the room that I couldn’t reach it and had to bribe the cleaner to pass it to me.

First thing to do this afternoon was to transcribe the dictaphone notes. To my surprise there were plenty.

I was in Beverley last night doing some investigation or something. We ended up in this museum a Museum of Childhood. Instead of following the signs we found some kind of tunnel. We crawled through the tunnel. Eventually it said “Exhibition to the right” but we turned left. We came to a grille-work that led out onto the street. Some woman had to come along to undo the grille-work from the outside to let me and the ten people in front of us out of there as well before we could go out.

It’s been absolutely years since I’ve been to Beverley with its buses with weird-shaped roofs to pass under Beverley Bar. We’d catch the train from Hull to Beverley, go to Old Nellie’s where she still served beer out of a jug, and then walk back to Hull after closing time, stopping at Arnott’s Bakery for a fresh fadge on the way.

The Olympic Flame had come to town. They’d surprised Eddie Waring with it. He’d been one of the celebrities who had been handed the flame and he’d had to run with it. In the end, he ended up in Port Stanley where there’s a street with an unpronounceable name. He ran the length of this street to the cheers of the crowd, the population of the town and some of the Army that was there while he was carrying the flame.

Port Stanley is one of the few places I’ve never visited so why should that feature in my dreams right now? But there’s always a place for Eddie “up and under” Waring.

Later on in Wembley Stadium there was a veterans’ football match. He came onto the field for two minutes or so as a right-back. They also had a celebrity goalkeeper for two minutes whose name I didn’t catch. In the end they won 3-0 and it was Caernarfon’s First XI that was basically a load of trialists who had gone out and won. There was a report on all these trialists some of whom were exceptionally good and some of whom were quite awful and some were in between. I can’t remember any of the names now but they did say that at least 15 clubs in the English Second Division would be disappointed if a certain particular player signed for Caernarfon instead of signing for one of them but their own team was excellent. They were 2-0 up and scored a third in extra time but I’m not sure how the game finished at the final whistle

In the close season last year one team played a friendly match and had “Trialist” in every position. I thought to myself “he’s going to be a busy player”. Seriously though, you’ll always see “Trialist” in many friendly matches in the close season. A lot of players are trying out to receive a contract and clubs don’t publish their names, thus no-one knows who is where and can’t be poached from under another team’s nose.

Later on still I was with Marianne. I’d been invited to an exposition of jewellery and things like that. Although it wasn’t my taste I thought that I’d go along. I was feeling really tired and exhausted from an overnight trip that I’d made back from the UK. In the end I couldn’t keep going so in the corner of the room they found a little kind-of shelter for me, a ten-kid of shelter thing and laid me down in there. I was dozing away half-asleep when I heard someone say in English “here’s some tell-tale signs” so I asked “tell-tale signs of what?”. They replied “all these bruises and everything on your feet and lower legs”. They began to chat to me. In the end a group of people began to sit in this shelter underneath this umbrella-type of shelter thing. I had to squidge up. A lively conversation sprung up. Then Marianne sat down on the outside of this shelter thing right next to me. She said “famous technician? Are you really famous?”. I replied “well, I’ve come here but if you want to know why I’m a famous technician you really need to ask the people who made the sign and put it here and see what they have to say about it

Marianne would have loved an exposition like this and we probably went to one or two. I took her to quite a few places but mostly concerned with religious observation. I always seemed to find religious girls and women, but I suspect that they only ever prayed when they knew that I was coming around.

But seriously, apart from a trip to Dover to pick up a lorry-load of slates in 2013 and to Aberdeen in 2019 to pick up THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR for our Transatlantic crossing to the Frozen North of Canada, I’ve not set foot in the UK since 2011. And even if I were well, nothing would change in that respect.

So apart from dealing with yet more correspondence and reading my book that’s about it. Tea was an improvement (but let’s face it, it could hardly be worse) and so having done everything that I need to do, I’m calling it a night.

But talking of nights … "well, one of us is" – ed … after what went on during the night I’m reminded of the guy in the Bois de la Cambre who hobbled over to the ice cream van and asked for an ice cream cornet
"Crushed nuts?" asked the vendor.
"No" replied the man. "I always walk like this."