… exhausted.

Today, I have been to the Centre de Ré-education and they have put me through the mill. I don’t think that I have ever worked as hard in recent times as I have today.

And seeing as we have been talking about being tired … "well, one of us has" – ed … last night, I was totally dead to the World. I’ve been extremely tired late in the evening on a few occasions just recently, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but last night’s beats just about everything that I’ve ever had before.

In fact, I was asleep long before I finished writing my notes, sagging face-down over my desk on a couple of occasions before wrestling myself upright again with a few Herculean efforts. It’s a mystery how I managed to carry on and finish.

Once I’d sorted myself out, I was in bed quite quickly, flat out asleep in an instant, and there I lay without moving until all of … err … 04:10.

At that point, I was again wide-awake, and for quite a while too, but just like the other morning, the next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 06:29. Either I’d gone back to sleep or else I must have been dreaming that I was awake.

Being awake at 06:29 is one thing – being up and about is something completely different, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. And especially after yesterday evening. Consequently, it was a very slow start to the day today.

After the bathroom and the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. I didn’t honestly expect there to be anything on it, but there we are. We were back in the State of New York during the American Revolution and the commandant of a group of forces was cornered and was obliged to surrender to the British, where he was taken as prisoner in a barge and imprisoned in one of the forts in New York. But the food there was terrible and the conditions were terrible. It was easy to dodge the British controls so he had been out and about several times during his imprisonment, trying to line up strength of supporters ready to oppose General Carleton, and General Carleton was just as careful not make sure that he would lose his numerical advantage if things began to go wrong for him in New York.

Later on, I was back in the American Revolution. The Americans had been besieging a British fort in the interior and after a while, they had finally captured it. Then there were all kinds of discussions about expelling the British garrison etc and what happened to the fort afterwards but I can’t remember very much more about this particular dream unfortunately.

My book, BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, is really getting to me right now. I’ve been having quite a few dreams about it just recently, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. What am I going to dream about when I’ve finished this book and moved on to the next one?

The nurse turned up, early as usual these days, and sorted me out. He asked me a few strange questions, presumably out of curiosity, before he left. which took me by surprise … "with asking the questions, not leaving" – ed.

Breakfast was next, and some more of my book. The British Army has now surrendered at Yorktown after putting up only a token resistance.

And that is perplexing. Reading the stories of Lord Cornwallis, his total lack of aggression, his insipid retreat and how he allowed himself to be trapped with his back to the sea, I can’t help feeling that his heart was never in this campaign from the beginning. I reckon that his whole aim was to extricate himself out of the Southern States without a care as to how he did it, what the fate of his army would be, and without a thought about how it would affect his country.

The politicians in Britain were no better. They prevaricated and prevaricated, refusing to send to the British Army the supplies and reinforcements that they needed to fight a decent campaign, and in the end, abandoned the army to its fate.

Maybe I’m being unkind – I dunno. Perhaps there are a lot of issues hidden much deeper than I realise that influenced the conduct of the war.

One thing of which I am sure is the partisan nature of our author, Colonel Henry Carrington. He writes pages and pages about the reprehensible conduct of the British, looting, pillaging and plundering as they go around. However, in George Washington’s diary, which I know that Carrington has seen, Washington talks about the lack of supplies, arms, ammunition and clothing for his troops "and in all that business, or a great part of it, being done by military impressment, we are daily and hourly oppressing the people, souring their tempers and alienating their affections"

A while ago, I mentioned something like this, but whatever – it shows that irony is not Colonel Carrington’s strong point.

Back in here, I began to work on the next radio programme and, after a while, I decided that what I was doing was in rather poor taste, so it all went into the bin and I decided to start again.

After a disgusting drink break, I waited for the taxi. And waited. It finally turned up, fifteen minutes late, and I barely arrived at the Centre de Ré-education on time.

There were three sessions today – the first being weightlifting. The monitor had me lifting weights, using my arms only, from a sitting position, and I’m disappointed with how much force and strength I seem to have lost. Long-gone are the days when I could lift a Ford Cortina engine out of a car without an engine hoist.

There was half an hour before my next session, so the monitor had me sitting on a bench practising how to raise myself up. As if I don’t do enough of that during the day when I’m here, but it’s free, I suppose, and I may as well do something while I’m waiting.

With my physiotherapist, it was pretty much more of the same – lifting myself in and out of a chair, and then exercising my legs. And there’s no doubt – all the force has gone from my lower legs and she doesn’t think that it will come back. That’s really bad news.

After a half-hour pause, it was back into the gym for group therapy – involving standing up and sitting down once again. I wonder if someone is trying to tell me something.

By the time that I had finished, I was exhausted and my head was spinning round. It was really difficult to walk down to the car. It’s the very first time that I have felt that maybe I’m doing too much, but if it’s not stretching me and causing me discomfort, then it’s not doing any good at all.

My faithful cleaner helped me into the apartment and I collapsed into a chair with a disgusting drink to cheer me up. I was there for well over half an hour trying to recover, before I could find the strength to come back in here.

Until teatime, I worked on the radio programme and then went to make myself some salad, chips and some of those vegan nuggets. And I’m still off my food. This is no good at all.

But now, I’m off to bed. I have dialysis tomorrow, just by way of a change. And then Sunday is a Day of Rest while I prepare for chemotherapy. I have a medical appointment of some description every day (including Saturday) next week. All I need now is one for Sunday to complete the week.

And there is some exciting news about yesterday, in that I set a new record as far as readership went. We had one thousand and six readers, which is the very first time that I have ever had a four-figure readership in one twenty-four-hour period. Well done to all of you.

Anyway, before I go, seeing as we have been talking about being awake … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the old Tommy Cooper joke –
"I once knew a man who dreamed that he was awake. And when he woke up – he was!"