… that has been today!

It actually started off quite well this morning but as seems to be the usual situation, it didn’t take all that long for it to descend into chaos.

For a change, last night I was in bed fairly early – round about 23:30. And that is early too, considering how things have been in here just recently. It’s even more surprising when you consider the wretched night that I had had after dialysis on Monday.

It didn’t take long to go off to sleep either, although I didn’t stay asleep for long. I have vivid memories of awakening a couple of times during the night, although they were just something brief and of the moment.

By 05:30 though, I was awake, and wide awake too. After a while of gathering my wits (and you’ve no idea how long it takes to do that, seeing as I have so few left), I gave some serious thought to leaving the bed and just as I was about to throw off the covers I went back to sleep again.

Once more, I awoke quite soon afterwards but even so, I had had time to go off for a wander around. I was making a start on digging the Dee Navigation, the stretch of the river that runs between Chester and the Dee estuary that was built in the – was it the Sixteenth Century? … "Eighteenth Century" – ed …to avoid the parts of the River Dee that had become silted up.

That’s why the border between England and Wales up around Queensferry and Shotton is nowhere near the river. It used to be, back in the days of old, but when that baron whatever-his-name-is … "Hugh Lupus" – ed … constructed the weir in Chester to power his water mill, the speed of the water slowed down dramatically and the Dee began to silt up with the incoming tide. Digging the new channel was a desperate final gamble to revive the fortunes of the port of Chester.

So when the alarm went off at 07:00 I had already been up, washed, had my medication and was sitting at my desk working. First task was to transcribe the dictaphone notes from the night. Isabelle the Nurse came round last night. She wanted to treat me with something to do with my legs. I had to put on my shorts before I went for a shower so that she could sort out my legs. The only pair of shorts that I had were an orange pair. She made some remark about “flesh-coloured” that I didn’t understand. When I had my shorts on I then went to put on my trousers but I suddenly had a realisation that she was going to treat my legs so I took off my trousers again. Then we had a chat about the bathroom and various kinds of things. Then she wanted the living room tidied – it was rather a mess. I had a look inside and thought “where has she put the stuff that she’s just brought in?”. No-one seemed to know. I thought “never mind, I’ll pick up the vacuum cleaner and begin to vacuum”. I pressed the foot switch for the vacuum cleaner but it wouldn’t work so I began to go round and pick up things by hand. There was a kitchen roll of orange paper and a ball of wool on the floor behind the sofa. The kitchen roll had been savaged by the cat and the ball of wool had been spread everywhere and looked as if it had also been savaged by the cat. I picked that up and the cat was still in it. It was struggling so I tried to put it down on the floor and let the cat find its own way out of the mess that it had created. We began to talk about cats. There were these cats that lived on some kind of marsh. One had just died that had been born in 1993. I thought that that was an incredible age for a cat to have.

Yesterday, I forgot to mention that I’d been talking to my little great-niece (or great little niece) in Canada. She’s back home from University for a couple of weeks and when she arrived, she was mobbed by the three cats. When she went up to the mill to see her parents she was mobbed by all of the mill cats. Consequently she spent all yesterday filming them and she was sending me her little videos for me to approve and to go “aww”. I would love to have another cat but I shall have to wait until I’m downstairs before I make any plans. As for wanting the living room tidied, so do I but somehow I have a mental block when it comes to things like that.

Later on I was on board a bus or train last night with some people, some of whom I knew. We’d been discussing various things. I’d been sorting out my papers. I had a look through – it was all my Welsh homework. I saw that it was a real mess, totally untidy and scrawly and I couldn’t read some of it. I just wondered what was in my mind when I had written some. The handwriting was just a jumble of straight lines. We were sitting there talking and I was putting away my things. I suddenly looked at the clock. It was after 18:30 and our train to take us home comes at 18:45. I said “shouldn’t we better be moving?”. Everyone began to make themselves ready. I began to put away my computer. Someone asked “why are you putting away your computer? Why not leave it here until the morning?”. I thought that that was probably the strangest thing that I’ve ever heard, leaving a laptop lying around on the seat of a bus so I carried on trying to put it away, panicking about the fact that we are going to miss our train if we aren’t ready in a minute.

Are we having another panic and bout of indecision again? It seems to be happening more and more often, although this is the first “train” dream that we’ve had for a while. We were having them quite regularly at one time, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in and out again in a matter of a couple of minutes. She didn’t hang around long at all today. I could make breakfast and read MY BOOK. We have finished at Knaresborough and are now in Leicester, having made a very brief stop at Leeds Castle in Kent.

We seem to be covering quite a bit of ground on our travels and we aren’t a quarter of the way through the book yet. At some point we’ll have to be spending a long time somewhere, even if just to fill out the pages of the book, and hopefully, we might even begin to discuss military architecture.

After breakfast I came in here to begin work. First task was to look for some music that I had been trying to find yesterday. And this was when all of my troubles began.

Some friends of mine, who have been very helpful to me in some of my certain endeavours, had, well, let’s just say “a certain issue” and as a result, everything went with its mammary glands pointing towards the sky.

Between us all, we had to end up rebuilding a computer program, and it took us about seven hours to do it. And to write a computer program of 121mb in seven hours is some going.

In the meantime, I was desperately looking around for another alternative to keep me going, without a great deal of success, and I ended up falling miles behind in the work that I had to do today.

There were the usual interruptions. There were a couple of disgusting drinks breaks, my cleaner put in an appearance, and there was also the shower, nice as it was. However, I had to put the heater back on in the bathroom for half an hour.

There was also a ‘phone call that needed my attention. Another builder rang me up to talk to me about my little project downstairs. This lot sounded frightfully professional and I have a feeling that their prices will reflect their professionalism. None of this “I’ll just nip round for five minutes with my tape measure” lark.

By the time that I knocked off for tea, I had all of the music that I needed, all edited, remixed, paired and segued. No notes though – I’ll have to dictate them tomorrow, I suppose.

The computer program is up and running too, and it works. Although for how long, I really don’t know. I shall keep my fingers crossed.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert, and now that I’ve finished my notes, I’m off to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow afternoon, I don’t think. I’m really not looking forward to it at all.

But seeing as we have been talking about falling behind … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was telling one of my friends about my problems earlier.
"Just like my local butcher" she said
"How do you mean?" I asked.
"Some woman came in and sat down on his bacon slicer" she replied
"what happened then?" I asked, bitterly regretting having done so.
"The butcher didn’t notice" she replied "and he ended up getting behind in his deliveries"