… the Pleasuredome is all upside-down right at the moment with extra bodies lying all over the place.

And yes, I use the plural form because there are not one but two extra people in here today, and in an apartment of forty-one square metres, we are living somewhat “cheek by jowl”. It’s a good job that we are old friends.

Don’t think that I’m complaining, by the way. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … living the life of a hermit or a recluse, I don’t see anything like enough people. Consequently, when people do descend upon me, I am more than grateful to receive them.

There are one or two exceptions to this rule, of course, but so far, I have been delighted to see everyone who has turned up and the latest arrivals are no exception.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, last night I was once again confounded by another lack of effort to complete everything that needed completing at some kind of reasonable hour, and I crawled into bed much later than intended. At least, I had had my most delicious pizza to console me and I’ll make more like that.

Next morning, I had another one of those dramatic awakenings that I sometimes have, where I sit bolt upright in bed for no good reason.

Looking at the time, it was 06:28 exactly – just one minute before BILLY COTTON’S RAUCOUS RATTLE. I’m not sure that one minute counts as an “early start” so I’ll rule this one out for now.

It may have been 06:28 when I awoke, but that is not necessarily the time that I staggered into the bathroom, of course. Being a dialysis day, it’s also a change of clothes day so I washed the undies while I was at it, had a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant, and then went for the medication.

This morning was probably the most leisurely start to the day that I have ever had. Usually, it takes me about an hour to sort myself out given the speed at which I work these days and I’m back in here round about 07:30, but today, it was 07:50 when I was finally back at my desk.

First thing to do was to check the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was something else too about us having the taxis. I could work out at the end of the day that we had about two decent cars and one that was half-decent. It was proving to be too much for me in the end and I was beginning to lose my energy. The opportunity came that I found a job in Stoke-on-Trent and Nerina was working in Stockport so I decided in the end that I would sell my house in Crewe and buy a house somewhere at the north end of Stoke-on-Trent near the railway line where Nerina could catch a train to work and I could catch a bus to this new job. I enlisted the aid of a friend of mine, an Australian guy whom I knew, and was talking to him about selling up, Nerina and I could keep a car each etc. He was surprised, but I tried to persuade him of all of the logic of this.

This Australian guy was in real life a resident of Crewe whose family immigrated to Australia but didn’t like it and so they came back. I had a few dealings with him at one time but distanced myself from him after a while. And Nerina did end up with a job in Stockport.

Later on, a group of us had been going somewhere. We climbed out of the bus and started walking across this car park place – it was like an underground car park with a wall, and I suddenly realised that again, I was walking without my crutches. I happened to mention it to someone else in this party. They were surprised too. I didn’t feel the slightest discomfort but I couldn’t decide whether to carry on and hope that it keeps on going, or go back to the bus and fetch my crutches just in case this was only a temporary thing and that I’d need my crutches some time in the near future.

How many times is this that I’ve dreamed of walking without my crutches? If only it were true that I really could. I’ve not entirely lost hope that this chemotherapy will do me some good, but I am not counting upon it.

Isabelle the Nurse interrupted me with her visit and sorted me out. She’s told me that she’s programmed this series of injections and her oppo will be doing it as she’s off on her week’s rest. I’m sure that he’ll be delighted to handle the task.

And then I could crack on with breakfast and read some more of BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

We’re still in Canada, discussing Arnold’s retreat from underneath the walls of Québec City and how a large part of his army surrendered rather than face the wrath of the native allies of the British forces. It’s quite true that they treated their prisoners with extreme cruelty, as ROSS COX told us the other day, but Carrington, our author, was still not impressed.

Once again, it was quite a leisurely morning and I was much later than intended coming back in here. And there was plenty of work to do too.

The first task was to find out where I had to send the temporary internet connection box that we had had here when I first moved in. That took a while, and then I had to pack the box and print off the return slip.

Next was to review this extremely long letter that I had written the other day. I don’t like it much, but better that letter than none at all so I printed it off and prepared it to send.

Third was to finish my Welsh homework, transform the notes into a *.pdf and send that off too.

Finally, there was this week’s radio programme to review. It needed no amendment so I sent off that one.

My cleaner turned up to sort out my anaesthetic and we had another long chat. She took away with her the things to be posted and I waited for my taxi.

And waited, and waited, and waited.

It eventually turned up at 13:45, by which time I should have already been in Avranches. There was someone else to pick up too, and our driver lost her way. So instead of a 14:00 or 14:15 start, it wasn’t until 15:00 that things were up and running.

There were plenty of things to do there too, but instead I watched a few old re-runs of some old football games. I wasn’t in the mood for much.

The doctor came to see me too. He told me that they were “still discussing” what to do with my damaged implant, and “still discussing” this weight-loss situation. Not that any of that helps anything of course.

It was horribly late when I was finally released. The driver was waiting for me, but it was still horribly late when I returned home, to be met by a reception committee of my faithful cleaner, my old girl-friend from school days and one of her friends.

After my cleaner left, the rest of us had a really long chat, catching up on old times, and then I served up vegan pie with vegetables, which went down extremely well.

To my surprise, the dirty dishes etc were whipped off the table and washed before I even had a chance to say anything, and how I wish that I could work that quickly these days.

Another long chat, and then I finally staggered into bed much later than I was expecting, ready to resume battle tomorrow.

But seeing as we have been talking about my tea tonight, one of my visitors is a mathematician. We were discussing maths and she came out with the formula for finding the area of a circle – πr²
"That may be true" I replied "but as you can see, in this apartment pie are round."