… a very busy boy today.

Yes, even though it’s not Pancake Tuesday, Eric’s busy baking. Currently cooling down on a rack is a coconut-flavoured oilcake and (rather overcooked) tray of flapjack. There’s enough here to keep me going for a couple of weeks.

And I’ll need it too because I won’t have much time for anything else once this dialysis stuff gets properly under way. I worked out that I’ll be losing at least 18 hours per week at this, and as I’m not crashed out for 18 hours per week, time that I can recover by having the dialysis, if I’m only crashed out for, say, 9 hours, I need to find the other 9 hours from somewhere else.

Either that or there has to be such a major improvement in my health that I can work twice as fast.

Either way, it looks as if many of those hours will be lost for good in which case I shall have to do something.

What I could do is of course go to bed later and use the afternoons in dialysis to catch up on my sleep, seeing as there’s nothing much else going on while I’m there.

And so we made a start on this idea by being later in bed last night, staying up to dictate the radio notes that I’d written during the week.

Actually a late night wasn’t so important because with it being Sunday it’s a lie-in day where I can stay in bed until 08:00.

That is of course provided that I don’t awaken at … errr … 06:25 like this morning.

Even so, no chance of my leaving the stinking pit at that hour even if I could have recovered 90 minutes of my missing time. Instead I curled up under the bedclothes and waited for 08:00

When the alarm went of I leaped … "yes" – ed … out of bed and headed off for the bathroom to make myself ready for the day

There was then time to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I seemed to have been subjected to the old dodge about the blind man who loses the bottom six inches off his cane, standing there on the edge of a precipice about to fall over. Luckily I came to my senses and realised what was happening before I’d made it completely out of bed so I could control the situation from where I was

Yes, I remember, in trying to help the old man I was almost out of bed before I realised that it was a dream and so I climbed back in. If I’m going to go sleepwalking around during the night, it’s a good job that I’ve started wearing shorts in bed. I don’t want to give anyone an inferiority complex

And then I was with Cecile. We’d had a huge, blazing row just before we’d planned to go off on a skiing holiday in the Highlands of Scotland. I’d picked a really interesting route by going as far as the Ayrshire coast and then island-hopping all the way to the far north, which we were both looking forward to. After this row she decided that she didn’t want to go and I had to persuade her and use all the tactics in my power to persuade her to go, telling her about all the wildlife that we’d see and the good time that we’d have have etc. But she was worried that her ex-boyfriend would be up there at that time and make life difficult for us but that wouldn’t bother me and all of the usual replies. The situation still never resolved itself by the time that the dream ended but I certainly did my best to try to have Cecile change her mind and come with me to the North.

Arguing with Cecile is a new dream. I seem to recall in a dream having argued with anyone else but not with her. And I wonder how she’s doing. Since she abruptly quit the Auvergne 10 or 11 years ago to go to help her mother on that isolated island in the Bay of Biscay I’ve not seen her, neither have I had any news. I hope that they are OK, although in all honesty I doubt if her mother is still with us.

Finally, I was with a group of people, Americans, and they wanted a cup of coffee so we went to a café but it was busy and the people were queueing outside. These Americans were most annoyed and snapping at the serving staff about the delay. I was so embarrassed because it was clearly nothing to do with them and was so sorry for them that I apologised. A little later I found myself on a stretcher being pushed around Charles de Gaulle Airport. The guy pushing me encountered a girlfriend and they stopped, chatting for 10 minutes. Then they pushed me, on this stretcher, onto a TGV. We had to go into the cafeteria carriage. We were there in the cafeteria, me on the stretcher and the guy in attendance, as we were hurtling at 300 kph across Europe. It was really most astonishing.

Where would I be going on a stretcher from Charles de Gaulle Airport on a TGV? If you’d asked me a year or two ago it would of course have been Brussels and then on to Leuven. Today it would be Rennes where I’d be put on a local train or, more likely, an ambulance to bring me back home

But issues with Americans, we all know about those. Many Americans, and indeed many other city-dwellers, don’t seem to understand that the pace of life is so much slower over here and they need to take it easy.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up. She wanted me to take off the plaster and look at my operation, so I asked her if she knew the reply given in the case of “Arkell v Pressdram”, which she didn’t.

She sorted out my puttees, took the recipe for Jam Roly Poly which she had asked me to prepare and then she complied with the reply given in the case of “Arkell v Pressdram”.

But Hans is going to have his work cut out writing the Epic Hall Book of Vegan Recipes at this rate

Once Isabelle had departed I could make breakfast and then go to read my book while I ate. Today we’re talking about abandoned settlements and those at Silchester and Venta Icenorum have been the topic of discussion.

As for the latter, its situation was only tentatively identified as “likely” and it wasn’t until 1928 when a chance aerial photograph revealed something hitherto inexplicable.

So if you take Google Maps or whatever, put it in “aerial view” mode and copy co-ordinates 52°35’00″N 1°17’27″E, now isn’t that absolutely beautiful, streets and all?

Back in here afterwards we had Stranraer v East Fife and what a game that was. Stranraer actually managed to win (for once) and that will make them feel better. With a squad ravaged by injury and barely able to put out any substitutes, they went into a 2-1 lead and clung on until the final whistle.

Meanwhile, in other news, over at the Excelsior Stadium in Airdrie, in the game between Airdrie United and Falkirk we had a classic example of PLAYING IT OUT FROM THE BACK from a goal-kick. What price a glorious hoof upfield?

After lunch I attacked the radio notes that I’d dictated before going to bed.

They are all edited, assembled, the length of the extra track calculated, the track chosen, remixed, notes written, dictated, edited and everything joined together as it should be to make one good hour-long radio programme

And then we started on the baking. A tray of flapjack and an oil cake, but with some of the oil substituted by melted coconut oil, and heaps of desiccated coconut added in

The oil-cake needed longer than the flapjack so I covered the flapjack with baking paper and that seemed to work (thanks, John).

The problem with my oil-cakes is that they rise really well in the oven but the moment that I open the door to take them out when baking is finished, they collapse again

Anyway, it’s baked now and everything else is cooling off. I’ll see what the coconut cake tastes like tomorrow.

With a stinking-hot oven I was sure that my pizza would cook nicely – and I was right. This new cheese is good, the base is excellent and the heat of the oven made sure that it was cooked really well.

So dialysis again tomorrow. I wonder where it will end. But I was so impressed with that aerial image, so if you have access to an aerial map, go for a look

But the story of the blind man with a cane reminds me of the time that a family was eagerly awaiting the return of their husband and father from work back in the Victorian era.
He’d gone up to London in a thick smog and throughout the day it went from bad to worse.
On the way back to the station for his train he found his way by tapping his cane along the street
"And then what happened?" asked his wife when he finally returned home next morning
"Suddenly, there was nothing. No sound, and no feeling" he said. "I thought that I reached the end of the pavement"
"What did you do then?" she asked
"I tapped my stick to the left, but nothing" he said. "So I tapped it to the right, but nothing. So I turned to go back, and still nothing. I thought that the World had come to an end so I stayed still, didn’t move, and prayed"
"So when the fog cleared and the dawn broke, what had happened?" asked the wife
"I found that the bottom six inches had broken off the end of my stick and it wasn’t reaching the ground."