… a day of rest today. And who can blame me for that after yesterday?
And especially after the wretched night that I had had. I was in bed by about 23:15 and was asleep quite quickly, but it didn’t stay like that for long.
By 04:00 I was wide awake again and when the nurse came to take my blood sample I was about ready to rise up from my bed.
However, I stayed put until about 06:50 when I limped gingerly into the bathroom.. I say “limped gingerly” because I’m not supposed to put any weight on the leg from which they extracted the sample. That’s not possible of course because I have to move around, but I have to be careful.
Back in here there was a long wait until breakfast (which included a yoghurt for my vegan diet) but the coffee was scorching hot and had a lovely taste
After breakfast we had the usual interruptions while I tried to transcribe the dictaphone notes. I was seeing Nerina off on a train somewhere. I had to find some extra clothes for her because it was going o be cold. I gave her the sweater that I was wearing. A friend of mine, who was on a bed in the hospital but one of these mezzanine beds hat was raised quite high-uppish, she had another one of mine so I took that one and ran to the train. Nerina was sitting in the very last carriage at a window right at the end. I threw her the one, that she caught, but I couldn’t find the second one so I had to run back to this mezzanine bed but I couldn’t find it. I found one of my lightweight fleeces and dashed down the corridor of another train right into the driving compartment where there were four or five men sitting talking. They began to make some kind of weird remarks about the speed in which I was travelling. Then I went right out of the cab at the front and down the steps at the front which were a long series of stone steps right down to the bottom. One of the guys took off behind me and shouted at me to stop. He told me that I was trespassing but I took absolutely no notice whatsoever. There were some policemen there, halfway down the steps, and he shouted out to them but they didn’t do anything at all. I ran down and reached the bottom. At the bottom he caught me up and said that he was going to “sort me out for my impudence”, everything like that. He was struggling to put on his police overcoat with the stripes on it. “So you are going to teach me, are you? Come on then, let’s see you do it”. He took a swing at me but I stepped back. I goaded him again “do it again” but he burst into tears. I left him there and ran but when I reached the platform where Nerina’s rain was, it had gone. I walked back and there were a few people whom I knew there. One or two had used to play in a group that I knew but had been asked to leave and had been replaced by some other people whom I knew. I expected these people to come over and talk to me to ask me what I knew about them having to leave this group but they didn’t even notice me so I carried on walking towards the doorway for the way out of the station.
That situation is one that I could easily manage to have – from all points of view. If I had something urgent to do, I wouldn’t let protocol stand in my way. And if someone wants to take a swing at me, they are quite welcome to try.
And then I was out taxi-driving last night. I had to go to pick up some people off a little mews in Welsh Row, Nantwich to take them to the railway station. They turned up and climbed into the car and I set off. When I came to the corner where I turned into Hospital Street I felt the clutch begin to slip on the car. I felt “ohh, not again!”. I carried on and we were chatting. The woman asked me if I would be going anywhere near Brierley Street. I explained that I would be going straight down Crewe Road. By now we were on some kind of country lane that I didn’t recognise at all. I wondered “how did I arrive here and where had I gone?”. The road went round to the left on a bend but in the past there was this big U-turn type of thing, a U-bend … "he means ‘hairpin bend’" – ed …. I ended up taking the old road for some reason or other and when I reached the end it was gated so I had to apologise, turn round and go back again. Then they began to ask me about cashing up. When did I cash up? How often did I cash up? Do I have a £10:00 note on me? Could I see one? I had to begin to make excuses about this. I thought “this is all beginning to sound suspicious to me. I wonder what is going to happen next”.
That’s something that used to happen every now and again after I had my taxi accident in Sandbach and fractured my skull. I’d suddenly find myself in a street and I’d have to stop to think …
1) how did I arrive here?
2) to where am I heading?
It was all very confusing. And I had my fair share of strange characters in my taxi at different times.
So no family last night, except Nerina. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … seeing as I invited her to share my life, she has every right to appear in my dreams. And frankly, in what might come as a surprise to many people, if I had to choose between Nerina and any member of my family (except the Canadian side of course), Nerina would be in pole position, and by a country mile too.
Some therapist came by too. She asked me a pile of questions about my autonomy and then had me putting pegs into holes and then taking them out – doing it against the clock.
For much of the rest of the day I was left alone so I cracked on with the radio programme 260403. All of the notes are now written ready for typing. It took me much longer than usual because I kept on falling asleep. I don’t know what pills they have given me that are different from the normal but they are knocking me out.
After I’d finished, I hunted down the names of songs for the next programme, 260410. That’s the anniversary of the Titanic setting out on its first and only voyage, so I’m going to have a sea-related programme that week, I reckon.
There have been e-mails to write, ‘phone calls to make and to receive, nurses and auxis coming in to interrupt me for no good reason, but I sent them off to find a doctor. When one finally arrived I mentioned the missing Burinex and she told me that I’d been prescribed one per day. However she changed to prescription and sent a runner off for a couple more pills.
The meals were as usual. For a vegan diet my meals included
1) breakfast – yoghurt
2) lunch – yoghurt, cheese slice and cheese omelette
3) tea – yoghurt and steamed fish
So now I’m off to bed ready for my dialysis tomorrow.
And seeing as we were talking about protocol … "well, one of us is" – ed …
One day in 2022 there was an important dignitary coming to the office so it was all decked out and the cameras from the TV stations were there.
And what the crowds, and the millions or people on European television saw, was a dark green Opel Omega driven by Yours Truly pull up to drop off my boss’s assistant.
The woman in charge of protocol sailed down and gave me a really stern lecture that went on and on.
When she finished, I replied "if you had said nothing, I would have been in and out in ten seconds. However, you’ve kept me here for five minutes on live television and made me famous, something that I appreciate greatly. Thank you very much"
My car was an Opel Omega, armoured of course and with the police’s 6-cylinder 24 valve engine that would run the four and a half tonnes of car at 260 kph easily on a German autobahn at night. But it was an ordinary car, with civilian number plates, and we never ever had an official police escort. I convinced my boss that the best security was to pass unnoticed in the crowd, rather than draw attention to ourselves.
One day he asked me "are you armed?"
"No I’m not" I replied. Anyone who wanted to attack us would have his gun all ready anyway and I would never have had the time to pull mine out of my pocket or from under the car seat.
He was surprised by that. "but what would you do if we were attacked?"
"Well, Sir Brian" I said. "I would rely on the force of my personality."
