… what’s the matter with me today. This afternoon, I seem to have gone from feeling energetic, dynamic and focused to being flat-out, exhausted and overtired in my office chair, all in one swell foop.
It might actually be something to do with last night. What with one thing and another … "and until you make a start, you have no idea just how many other things there are" – ed … it ended up being a night rather later than most just recently. It wasn’t until almost midnight that I finished everything and crawled into bed.
Once again, it was another one of those really deep sleeps, and I was shaken to the foundations when the alarm went off at 06:29. I just about managed to beat the second alarm by having my feet on the floor and the covers off when it went off. However, as the Duke of Wellington said after the Battle of Waterloo, it was "the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life"
In the bathroom I managed to have a good wash, and then I went into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.
Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.
How long is it since Percy Penguin last showed her face in one of my dreams? She certainly deserves to appear more often than she does. But you won’t ever catch her driving a car. She had absolutely no interest, all the way throughout the twenty years that I knew her, and that’s not likely to have changed.
She wasn’t easily upset either, although she could be a little sulky at times.
The local Rolls-Royce factory in Crewe, back in its heyday in the 1970s, used to have these inter-departmental football matches. However, massive redundancies in the early 1980s put an end to all of that, and it was never the same again.
As for the broken leg, I was at a football match at Alsager Town in the 1970s when a player broke his leg, and they used my heavy overcoat to cover him while they waited for the ambulance to arrive.
This is the story of my life. I have too much rubbish accumulated just about everywhere, and I really ought to have a good sort-out of everything that I have. However, I expect that this will be a job for my heirs, who won’t be as emotionally attached to my possessions as I am.
The nurse turned up after his week in London, and while he was attending to me, he gave me an account of his visit.
After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of MAIDEN CASTLE EXCAVATIONS AND FIELD SURVEY 1985-6 by Niall Sharples.
We are now beginning to read his conclusions from the excavations. And the first thing that he notes is that "there was a significant change in the vessel type and fabric between phase 6F and 6G. The build-up of a substantial layer of soil between these phases suggests that there was a long period, where there was no in situ occupation"
This suggests that a new group of people from a different culture arrived to occupy the fort, having found it abandoned. These phases seem to be round about the end of the final century BC and the beginning of the first century AD, round about the period of the Belgic invasion, maybe.
His phase 6G is also the period when most of the piles of slingshots seemed to be assembled. Could this be the new arrivals having to defend themselves against further attack? This would seem to be about the time of the coming of the Romans.
Following that, phase 6H, presumably the après-guerre period, seems to show the most domesticated activity. This seems to suggest that if there had been warfare at the end of phase 6G, one side had a decisive victory. Could this relate to the crushing blow that the Roman forces gave to the local inhabitants?
However, about my theory about control of the iron manufacturing, he tells us that "there is little evidence to suggest that hillforts were high-status areas. ". Of course, “absence of evidence” is not the same as “evidence of absence” and such events as looting by victors of anything worth taking away are always a possibility.
Back in here, there were things to do. And in answer to several e-mails that I was sent, I managed to avoid being arrested on my birthday, unlike certain well-known people. And I received no birthday presents. After all, what exactly do I need that I don’t already have?
Having done what needed to be done, I attacked the radio programme that I’d started for fifteen minutes yesterday. And in some kind of Herculean effort, all of the music has been sorted out and dealt with, and I’ve written all of the notes ready for dictation too.
And then I began to edit the notes that I’d dictated a while back for another programme. That’s now all complete, and the two halves have been assembled. The joining track has been chosen and remixed, and the notes written ready for dictation.
This was the difficult bit because I kept on falling asleep while doing it and it took an age, all told. There was an interruption too that awoke me from a doze – a neighbour came by to see how I was and to inspect the apartment as he hadn’t yet seen it. He was well impressed with everything.
By the time that I’d finally finished everything after dozing off all those times, it was teatime, but I wasn’t hungry. I couldn’t however resist another helping of my gorgeous fiery ginger cake, this time with vegan ice cream.
So now, I’m off to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed …
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my lack of presents for my birthday … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was once at one of these super-motivational evenings with one of these highly energetic speakers.
He was actually talking about buying presents for the wealthy and as a question, asked "and what do you give the man who has everything?"
And a small voice piped up from the back "penicillin?"
