.. to have their nether regions given a good kicking in the near future. And I can’t say that I’m sorry.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few months ago I had an ugly confrontation in the private hospital at Avranches with someone on the accounts department that led to me writing to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the company.

Today I’ve finally had a response, full of grovelling apology (I had a cheque sent back to me a week or so ago) and containing the ominous “your letter will be placed before our Committee who will examine your complaint”.

Having received full reimbursement, it’s obvious that my complaint has been upheld, after all, it’s not like a private organisation to hand back money without a fight, so all we need now is a good witch-hunt, complete with a ceremonial burning at the stake

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, after I finished my notes last night I had one or two things that needed doing so yet again I was rather late going to my nice, clean, fresh bed.

But once in it, I was away quite quickly and there I stayed, all curled up, until the alarm went off. There had been one or two minor awakenings during the night but I was soon asleep again.

When the alarm went off I was in the middle of a dream. I was auditing some accounts for some company, going through their office and checking everything. There was a guy and girl there working together. It was quite obvious that the guy had his eye on the girl. After he went out of the room I began to talk to the girl to find out a little more about her to see if I could encourage these two in some way. Then the guy came back and carried on talking. I could see that he was looking nervous and was glancing at me so I just said to him “oh, go ahead. Don’t mind me” and tried to encourage him to ask her for a date. Then I was at home and one of my friends was there. We were talking about diabetics. I was watching TV in French, a TV programme in French while she was working. She was wondering why I was sitting down and not doing things. She found that it was actually a programme about diabetes. They were talking about “if you’re having a crisis, have a fruit” but I replied that quite often when I have a diabetic crisis I don’t have any fruits any more. I’ve run out”. And then I was thinking “maybe it’s a good idea to go out and buy some, then we can have a coffee as well, things like that” but my friend had so much work on her plate that I thought “maybe it’s not such a very good idea to propose that we stop for a moment”

Eating a fruit is a good idea in a diabetic crisis and at the hospital they usually give me a cup of orange juice if I’m having a wobble. Then along came the dietician who tells me that fruit has loads of potassium in it, my potassium is too high and I must cut down on the fruit. But that is just how everything is – one thing going on is affecting something else so I need a pill for the side-effect, but that pill then affects something else so I need another. And so on. I counted once just recently and it was about 32 pills, tablets and medicines per day (it’s increased since then). And I bet it’s all on account of the first one that I started taking. It’s hard to believe that when I went to live in Leuven in early 2016 I was just taking four pills per day.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, a shave and applied plenty of deodorant, even though it probably serves no useful purpose. And then I came in here to listen to the dictaphone. I can only remember a small part of this dream but I had to go to the bank to draw some money out at a cash point. I drew out £80:00 when I went to the shops last Tuesday but I thought that if I was drawing out that sum every week it’s going to be an awful lot of money. I was driving down the hill to where the little bank branch was where there was a machine where I could draw the money but suddenly I found myself maybe half a mile further on at a road junction. “Never mind” I thought. I could turn left here, turn round and go back again. But the left turning was a one-way street. I thought “I’ve been here before and turned down here but it’s all really complicated but I can’t remember seeing the bank branch when I drove down here just now. I mean, it’s dark and usually all its lights are on and you can see it from quite some distance away but tonight there was nothing. I hope that it’s not been closed down while I’ve been going”.

And I’ve been down this road during a previous night too. It’s the road that I drove down once and waited on a corner somewhere in South London when I was on another nocturnal ramble. And although I can’t recognise the first part of it, I now recognise the second part where I tried to turn left last night and the corner where I waited last time. It’s in Saint John in New Brunswick, just around the corner from where my Canadian insurance broker has her office. Well, well, well. But I wonder if the dream is symbolic of the issues that I had recently with my bank card.

It was Isabelle the nurse today, seeing as her partner has had to go to the doctor (and doesn’t that inspire a lot of confidence in a nurse?). She was her usual cheerful self, blitzed through her task and then cleared off, leaving me alone.

And so I made my breakfast and read my book. Right now, I’ve read the introduction and all the members are taking the train in the middle of a blinding rainstorm, to go to look at the rocks at Colwall in the Malvern Hills. We’re having a long, complicated talk on geology and underlying rock strata, which makes me wish that I could remember more of my A-level Geography. All the time that I spent studying rock formation in the Arctic with Mark St Onge on our trips out there on THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR seems not to have done me much good

Back here I cleared up a few bits and pieces and then made a start on writing the notes for the next radio programme. I’ve now done a few but this is turning into something rather more complicated than I had imagined. It’s not easy.

My cleaner came in and helped me with my anaesthetic patches, and then she tried some of the new tubi-grip bandage that we’ve acquired thanks to the prescription from Isabelle the nurse. That seems to work really well and I’m impressed.

The taxi came early and we set off, picking up another passenger on the way, for the Dialysis Clinic.

Being quite early I was soon installed in my bed with my laptop and music and the nurses didn’t hang about either. The first needle went in almost painlessly but the second one wasn’t so easy and they needed the echograph machine to test for the tube in my arm.

And when they finally found it and pushed the needle in, the anaesthetic had worn off.

It looks as if it’s definitely all over between Emilie the Cute Consultant and me.

She was there this afternoon and although she gave me a little wave of her hand, she kept her distance and that was that.

She certainly speaks English because there’s a monolingual English-speaker being dialysed and she was talking to him in English so she’s probably a regular reader of this rubbish and will recall a few of the comments that I have made. That’s enough to drive anyone away, I suppose. Let’s face it, I have enough trouble trying to persuade anyone to come near me in normal times, never mind when we are thrust together cheek by jowl to fester away in a hospital.

The other nurses came by every now and again to check the machine and to ask me to translate stuff for them so that they could speak to the English guy.

However I spent most of the time now that I have an internet connection trying to track down the dates of some of these live concerts that I have. I didn’t check many because it’s really had to do it when you aren’t comfortable, you only have one hand that you can use and that’s interrupted every 20 minutes by a blood pressure reading.

They carried out a diabetes test on me and sure enough it was at a critical level so they gave me a big glass of orange juice. Presumably they don’t think much of the dietician either.

After they unplugged me, disconnected me and compressed me, I went to weigh myself. I’d lost 3.1 kg in this session. All of that would be quite impressive if I wouldn’t put almost all of it straight back on again. It’s no good taking it off and it all going back on.

And a blood test report was sent to me today. After dialysis a few days ago the creatine was down to 283 (the required level in less than 100 and mine was at 450 which is close to fatal just before all of this started). However when I went back to dialysis a few days later it was up at almost 350 again. So not even that is staying put.

But never mind all of that. If I’m feeling better with just that much improvement, what will I be like if ever it goes down to less than 100 and I’m at my target weight?

There were three of us in the taxi and the driver was having an intense discussion with the other passenger so I sat in the back and relaxed.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me and watched as today I made 8 steps without using my hand to lift up my leg. If I keep this up, in a couple of months I’ll be outside through the skylight climbing up the roof to the chimney.

My cleaner says that she’s noticed a major improvement over the last few weeks and thinks that I ought to try going for a drive. But that’s out of the question right now. There’s not enough force in my right leg to apply the brake and that’s that.

Tea was, as I said yesterday, a slice of vegan pie with vegetables in gravy and I forgot the herbs with the gravy. But the pie defrosted and warmed up really well in the air fryer and really was nice. I made the gravy thick and glutinous and stirred the veg in it so that the gravy stuck to all of them. That made it even nicer.

So right now, later than intended, I’m off to bed. But the talk of tying someone to a stake and burning them alive reminds me of a boy at our old school.
He came in one morning saying."I saw this incredible film last night. It was all about this man who changed into a bat and they killed him by hammering a stake into his heart. Can you imagine that? Killing a man with a stake?"
"That’s nothing" I retorted. "My mother can do that with egg and chips"