Sunday 26th April 2026 – I AM OBVIOUSLY …

… feeling a little better, because as I begin to write these notes, it’s 20:20 And I haven’t gone to bed yet.

Mind you, after all of the sleep that I had yesterday, it’s hardly a surprise. As I said yesterday, I was totally wasted by about 18:30, and it wasn’t many minutes after that that I was underneath the covers.

It took a few minutes for me to go to sleep, and there I stayed until I don’t know what time, when I awoke. It was still totally dark outside but the electric water heater was on, so it must have been some time between midnight and 05:00, and my money is on earlier rather than later.

So for a few hours, I lay there, coughing my head off, and then I must have gone back to sleep because the next thing that I knew, there was bright sunlight streaming in around the edges of the shutters.

When the nurse arrived, I pretended to be asleep, but once he’d gone, feeling wide awake, I sat on the edge of the bed waiting for the bedroom to come to a halt. And I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that it took me seventy-five minutes from first sitting on the edge of the bed to going into the kitchen. That’s what kind of state I was in this morning.

For my medication, I took a mouthful or two of orange juice again and then made breakfast – the last two of my home-made croissants. I shall have to make some more now – after all, they do taste nice with porridge and strong black coffee.

Back in here, I had a few things to do, but believe it or not, I forgot to check the dictaphone. However, I managed to check it he following day and the notes that I added in are below

There had been a release of political prisoners in the Soviet Union and they had been sent to the West. This had immediately caused controversy because one of them was a water polo professional, and she was immediately recruited into the English, whereas many other countries felt that she should have at least undergone a three-year residence qualification. It was part of my job to look into the cases of these people who were brought over to the UK and make a report on them. It meant visiting the places that they visited, doing the things that they were doing. On one occasion, this involved going to a cinema, a really posh cinema, and eventually, we managed to find our seats. But we were so cramped in at the front row by this couple who were quite big, that I had difficulty moving. I was losing a shoe, and it felt as if my arm was being trapped behind this large gentleman’s shoulder. Everything went on for probably an hour. In the end, a hostess came along and took this couple for a meal or something like that, leaving the two of us – it was not Nerina but someone like her. She stood up, so I asked her if she had enjoyed the film. She made a grimace so I stood up to go too. As the two of us came out, there was a look back, and there was an artificial rose on a stand by where my partner had been sitting and it was looking quite nice, so I congratulated her on it. We came back to Gainsborough Road, and it was probably March or something – it was a dark day and it was wet. I was struggling here to put on a sweater. IN fact, I couldn’t manage it so I thought that I would go inside. She was looking at the garden, planning things, so I said to her “isn’t it about time that we started off some lettuce in the conservatory place?” but she didn’t really answer to that.

This is another one of those dreams that doesn’t seem to fit into anywere. However, the only conservatory that I knew was the one down on the farm, and I did start off some of my plants, including the lettuce, in there.

I was working in the Diplomatic Service and we were staying at a hotel where the Russian Diplomatic Service was also staying. One night, on the way home as I was coming into the hotel, I found a set of keys on the floor, so I picked them up and went to hand them in at the reception desk, but I noticed that they were for the floor above mine, roughly where the Russian embassy was. I thought that in the small hours, I’d creep in to see what was happening. If the door is alarmed, a junior member being sent home in disgrace would be much better than a senior member. I went up and gently opened myself into the room. It was empty, and so was the bathroom suite, but there were plenty of leaflets and information there. I found where the ambassador was partying, which was further down West Street from where our hotel was, so I set out. Because I didn’t have my crutches, I had to go on my hands and knees all the way down West Street. Eventually I was let into the building, but he took a lot of persuading to come away from his party. Eventually, in a room on our own, which contained a shower, I told him of what I had found. He began to talk about it, but it was a very lengthy conversation about nothing in particular, and then he beckoned to me to come outside, and we went for a walk. By now, I was walking properly with no crutches, and he asked me about this parade that was taking place in Crewe about peace. I said that it was all about idealists who wanted to live the way they wanted to live, which, I said, was not a bad idea, but they didn’t think things through far enough. In a lock-up garage where we were looking around, some old lady came in and looked around with us. She apologised for not being dressed as a very good witch, so I told her that there would be plenty of good witches out there in the crowd today. We walked all the way down West Street, had a curry and then walked all the way back looking at these old cars on display and everything, and they were really old and ancient, the types that had hand-made bodies and so on. I felt that the minister was killing time so that there wouldn’t be enough time for anyone senior than me to go along and investigate this room, and this had me puzzled.

What a strange dream this was. There was never in my lifetime a hotel in West Street in Crewe, and even if there had been, the chances that anyone from the British embassy or the Russian Embassy would be staying there would be just about zero.

Going down West Street on my hands and knees would be dangerous too, with all the broken glass about, but apart from that, I really did feel that I was being shunted off into a corner, as if the Minister were intent on keeping me away from the subject.

My first job today, though, was to write out yesterday’s notes, which are now online, following which I attacked some more of my Welsh homework. There’s not much now left to finish tomorrow morning before I need to send it off.

We then had a little footfest.

Firstly, we had Ross County v Greenock Morton, and I do have to say that I have never seen such a shambles. Bottom-of-the-League Ross County made short work of thrashing Morton 4-0, and it was well-deserved too. Morton were totally dreadful.

Following that, we had Stranraer at home to Stirling Albion. This game finished 1-1 but Stranraer should have been down the road and out of sight a long time before the final whistle, given the number of clear-cut chances that they created.

And then, I had a little wobble for a while. Not exactly crashing out, but one of those situations that I have every now and again when I can’t seem to move a muscle. And that was how I stayed for over forty-five minutes before I was able to go into the kitchen for a disgusting drink.

The day was finished off with the second of the two European play-off semis. And in a change from yesterday’s poor game, we had two teams going at it hammer and tongs, playing as if they actually wanted to win it.

Y Barri took the lead early in the game from another one of these “let’s play it out from the back, boys” calamities that we see so often in modern football, and Hwlffordd equalised with about fifteen minutes to go.

So, once more, we had a penalty shoot-out, and as far as Y Barri goes, a well-known phrase involving a stringed musical instrument and the nether regions of a ruminant animal springs to mind. So next week, it’s Penybont at home to Hwlffordd.

But it should have been a totally different story had the referee awarded to Y Barri the two penalties that everyone else in the ground except him and a linesman would have awarded them.

So right now, I’m off to bed, ready to fight the good fight again next week and see where we end up. I need to pull myself round and crack on with something. I can’t continue like this.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about waking up … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends once told me that he had one of those things that used to make a screeching noise when it was time to wake up, and made you a cup of tea.
"So what happened to it?" I asked
"Ohh, nothing much." he replied. "I got divorced so in the end, I just bought a Teasmaid."

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