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

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

Good humour has never ever evaporated so quickly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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