… stay for four hours today at dialysis. Apparently the weight to be extracted was such that it over-ran the three-and-a-half hour limit

But Héloise was very nice to me. She kept the machine wound up so that I would leave there ahead of my target weight so in principle we shall see how that unfolds on Saturday.

My evening last night unfolded just the same as any other just recently. It was late when I finished what I had to do, and later still by the time that I plucked up the courage to go to bed. And another disturbed night saw me tossing and turning in my bed without being fully asleep.

There were a couple of times when I was wide-awake and I remember thinking that I may as well rise up in a couple of minutes, but when the alarm went off I was actually fast asleep.

It took a minute or two to find the energy to leave the bed and then I staggered off into the bathroom where I had a good wash, scrub up and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

After the medication I came back in here to see if there was anything on the dictaphone, and to my great surprise, there was. In the middle of the night I was miles away but the moment that I went to reach for the dictaphone the whole lot evaporated – every single moment, every single memory, every single thought of it. I couldn’t remember a single thing about it.

As long as neither Castor nor Zero nor TOTGA nor Moonchild were appearing in it, it’s not really all that important, although it is rather sad that my favourite young ladies have been conspicuous by the absence of late.

This next time it was connected with health issues. I’d been diagnosed all kinds of various treatments, much of which I thought was superfluous so I hadn’t been very attentive to the prescription. I’d been taking medicines when I felt like it, even abandoning some. Every time I went to see the doctor they went on increasingly wildly about it. On one occasion I went into a laboratory to do something and there was actually one of my doctors there. She gave me a really long lecture and a dressing-down about everything, how it had all been done for my own good etc. All that succeeded in doing was to annoy me. I spoke to a friend about it afterwards and told him what I thought, that I was still unconvinced by these medication arguments. However the dream drifted on like that with me being stubborn and the medical service being more and more insistent. It went o for hours but I can’t remember the rest of it. However, there was quite a lot of treatment that they were giving me that didn’t seem to make any sense at all. I just didn’t see the point in going ahead and taking it.

And that’s a contentious issue around here, right enough. The medical people have different aims than me, and that’s the root of it all. Their aim is to keep a patient alive for as long as possible, and the longer they stay alive, the more of a success it is. For me, it’s the quality of life that counts. I have no intention whatever of clinging on to life by the edge of my fingertips with no dignity just to please the medical staff.

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". Percy Penguin once told me a delightful story of an old woman who had received a large box of chocolates and was stuffing them down one after the other.
"You’ll be ill eating them like that" said Percy Penguin
"I’m ninety-eight" the old woman told her. "What do I care?"

And me? Stubborn? Perish the thought!

The nurse came around but he didn’t stay long. He was soon out of the door and I could crack on and make breakfast.

We started our new book today – MEDIEVAL MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. It’s a collection of articles that appeared in magazines, mainly “The Builder”, at the end of the 19th Century.

And we become embroiled in controversy at the first page when the very first example of “medieval military architecture in England” talks about Dolforwyn Castle which, as far as most people in the neighbourhood are concerned, is situated in Wales, near the town of Abermule in Powys.

However, no-one should be surprised by this. The “Wales and Berwick Act 1746” (20 Geo. 2. c. 42) made a statutory definition of England as including England, Wales and Berwick-upon-Tweed and it wasn’t until the passing of the Local Government Act of 1972 that Wales was accorded any statutory recognition.

And there I was, thinking that this book isn’t likely to be controversial.

Back in here I had my Welsh homework to do, seeing as how I was distracted on Monday. I’ve done about half of it right now and I’ll finish off the rest on Monday next week.

My cleaner came along and interrupted me to fit my anaesthetic patches and after she left I had to wait for the taxi to arrive. There were two of us in the taxi with the driver and it was a fairly quiet drive all the way there.

For a change, I was one of the first people in there today and I was looking forward to being one of the first out too, but the weighing machine told a different story. The nurses tried to run my machine for three and a half hours but Emilie the Cute Consultant insisted on four hours. She probably wanted to see me for a little longer.

Héloise however had other ideas and kept the machine going at full stretch all the time, and I did have a few wobbles here and there. But if it means that I can finish early on Saturday, then I don’t mind. However it is disappointing to see the weight going back on.

After backing up the travelling laptop with the more recent files, I read through my Welsh for next week and, surprisingly, I went right through the unit from front to back without stopping.

The rest of the time was spent browsing through the IKEA catalogue to look for kitchen ideas for when I finally move, if I ever do. Only two months to go now.

Héloise unplugged me from the machine and once she’d compressed the vein I weighed myself and found that I was indeed under the target weight. A very chatty taxi driver brought me home where my cleaner was waiting for me, and I staggered upstairs. It had taken a lot out of me.

Tea tonight was a delicious spicy stir-fry, primarily to use up some of this cabbage and a tin of bean sprouts. And it would have been even nicer had I remembered to put the bean sprouts into it. I really don’t know what’s happening to me these days.

But now I’m off to bed. I’m Woodstocking tomorrow if all goes well, and we’ll see how far I can travel with it. All the music is chosen and some of the notes are written. But it’s not going to be easy, this series of programmes.

But seeing as we have just been talking about Old People’s Homes … "well, one of us has" – ed … the Queen Mother once visited one in Crewe a few years ago.
While she was there one of the old women who was suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease let out a string of verbal curses, oaths and foul language
"Really!" exclaimed the Queen Mother. "You have no respect for me at all. Do you know who I am?"
"No, dear" replied the woman. "But ask the matron. She’ll tell you"