… about it going to be four hours today at the dialysis centre. It wasn’t anything complicated to work it out. However, it was a pretty close thing and they could, if they had turned up the machine a little, gone for three and a half hours.
However, I have a three-day break and it’s important for me to have as much water evacuated as possible beforehand so that I can have a head start when I go back on Thursday.
Four hours is probably all the sleep that I had last night too. Although I finished everything that I need to do – the notes, the statistics, the backing-up – at a not-unreasonable hour, there are always other things that I can find to do when a good concert or two come round on the playlist.
Last night, it was Robert Calvert’s final concert with Hawkwind, at the Ramsgate Marina Park in Ramsgate on 28th May 1984, all one hour, forty-seven minutes and forty seconds of it. The best front-man that Hawkwind ever had, and with Huw Lloyd-Langton on guitar, what more could anyone want?
Once it finished, I staggered off to bed at a little after 01:00. And ask me if I care.
Despite the short night it was fairly turbulent and I didn’t have all that much sleep, or so it seemed. When the alarm went off I fell out of bed and the dictaphone fell out with me so I must have been doing something at that point.
However, I went into the bathroom for a wash and a shave (in case I meet Emilie The Cute Consultant this afternoon) and then into the kitchen to sort out the medication for the morning. And my chocolate cake, that had been cooling overnight, smelt delicious.
Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out if I’d been anywhere during the night. I’d been looking at new apartments. I’d seen different apartments and I found myself in a car with my cleaner or was it Rosemary? As we pulled up outside this old building we were going to have another look at that apartment that she didn’t like at all. We went in, and the door was difficult to open so I put my weight against the door to open the way into the building. Then we found the apartment and went in. There were some people in there doing some things and it was becoming dark so I turned the lights on but they didn’t work. It was as if the whole current was earthing out somewhere and absolutely everything electrical went completely dim. I could see the kitchen in the distance that looked huge. This room was a big, tall, Gothic place. I wasn’t really sure about this at all. Another girl there tried to open the door to go out but she couldn’t manage it. I said “lift up the catch” so she put her hand around the door frame and had a feel for the lifting bracket but I had a huge, big old mug hanging from there that I had in France when I was a teenager. She knocked that off and it cascaded down through the stairwell and hit the ground about three floors below. I said “that’s my old mug gone then, isn’t it?”. I was really disappointed. There was someone down there who went to have a look at it but they didn’t say anything. We were there in this apartment trying to sort something out, trying to arrange the kitchen, trying to think about these lights. It was another one of these dreams that went round and round in chaos as we were trying to sort out all of these things.
It seems to be the thing right now, looking at new apartments, but I’m hoping that my search for a new home all of my own will finish in two months time. But I can’t understand why I’d be travelling in a car with my cleaner. Rosemary is a much more likely prospect, especially as my cleaner doesn’t drive, but even so, Rosemary won’t be coming around here any time soon. She has other preoccupations. Even more interestingly, I did have a coffee bowl given to me when I was in France as a teenager but I imagine that it was left behind at home when I moved out
Later on I was back into that dream. It was something about everyone having to be careful because the scales were measuring in grams weren’t accurate unless the scales were in a certain position and the load was placed in a certain way
What the idea about scales and weights has to do with looking for an apartment, I really don’t know. But I suppose that that was my hope when I saw what figure the scales had registered last Thursday.
There was a song that appeared last night in a dream but I can’t remember what it is now. I recognised it at the time and knew which album it was from. We had to search through all of the music files to see if we had anything by this particular group. We had, and it turned out that it was something to celebrate our second anniversary together … "second anniversary together? With whom?" – ed …. I thought that maybe I could play this programme again with the special referencing included. I set out to try to adjust the sound for what I wanted but it didn’t seem to want to work … fell asleep here …
I was right about something happening with the dictaphone during the night when it fell out of bed with me. I fell asleep (well, you know what I mean) while I was dictating and I was presented with a sound-file that ran for two hours and twenty-six seconds. It only stopped because the memory on the machine was full, so I had to clear that up and back it up. But it was my second anniversary with whom? I wish that I knew
Isabelle the Nurse’s chatty mood continued this morning. And in mid-conversation I happened to mention my tenant wanting to stay on for a few more weeks. Her reaction was quite violent and told me in no uncertain terms not to even think about it. I’m beginning to wonder whether some people know something that I don’t
After she left I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.
We left Hawarden this morning and are now at Helmsley Castle in Yorkshire. And for a change, he has not said anything controversial today, apart from taking up a position in the School of “Saxon” Hill forts. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that that position was roundly stamped upon by most of the members of the Woolhope Naturalists in 1867 and by many more people since.
After breakfast I set about drafting another letter ready to give to my faithful cleaner to hand in at the letting agency. I’ve decided to let them deal with it all and not become involved. It is, after all, what I pay them for.
When my cleaner came to fit my patches I had barely finished what I was doing and so I had to hurry. And after she left, I began to cut up my chocolate cake but the taxi came early and I left it half-finished.
There were two of us in the taxi with the driver and I was dropped off first, early yet again. This time I was second to be coupled up and it would have been nice had it only been for three and a half hours.
There was quite a crowd around me while they were plugging me in – three nurses and Emilie the Cute Consultant, who had come along to watch and to chat about things. She came back later for a good chat too which I appreciated.
Julie the Cook was in the other ward and she came by to say “hello” too. I seem to be very popular right now. Do I owe them some money maybe?
It wasn’t all milk and honey though. Although I didn’t have a dramatic collapse like the one the other week, my head was spinning round now and again and it kept up for several hours.
When I was unplugged and ready to go home, we had a crisis as someone’s patch gave way. And we had to wait for fifteen minutes while they cleaned the floor and let it dry
Back here, still feeling unsettled, it was a slow, weary climb up here and my evening disgusting drink while my cleaner sorted out the medication that she had brought back.
Tea tonight should have been an aubergine and kidney bean whatsit but when the frozen lump that I had taken from the freezer defrosted, I saw that it was a Vindaloo Curry. It was even hotter than when I made it but still enjoyable.
But seeing as we have been talking about that Hawkwind concert … "well, one of us has" – ed … Robert Calvert told me later that he was certain that he saw a familiar face in the crowd
"That was Leonard Cohen, I’m sure of it" he said.
"What did you do?" I asked him
"At the end of the song that we were playing I pointed to him and asked over the PA ‘are you Cohen?’ "
"What did he say?" I asked
Calvert replied "he said ‘Too right I am. I’ve heard more than enough of this rubbish’ ".
