… everyone, to those who celebrate it and also to those who don’t, because today, AS THE BEE-GEES WILL REMIND US, is the First of May.
And today has also been a somewhat better day for me too, which is also good news, although it does have to be said that days couldn’t have been much worse just recently.
Last night, after sorting myself out after dialysis, I came in here and attacked the notes. And, would you believe, it wasn’t long after 20:00 that I’d actually finished. I must have been in bed by 20:45 – it was still light outside anyway.
As usual, it took longer than it used to for me to go off to sleep, but once I’d gone, I’d gone completely. I awoke once during the night due to another bad coughing fit, but I must have gone back to sleep at some point because when the alarm went off, it awoke me.
And also as usual, it took me quite a while to summon up the courage and energy to leave the bed, and then I went into the bathroom to sort myself out. Once I’d finished in there, I went into the kitchen to make my hot drink with which to take my medicine.
Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.
This is another dream that doesn’t seem to relate to anything in particular, although the park with its forested bit and the town centre with its fair are places that we have visited before on our nocturnal rambles, albeit a good while ago.
Isabelle the Nurse came in as usual, and we had a good chat about this and that as she sorted out my legs and feet. Once she’s gone, I could make breakfast and read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.
Today, we are discussing the arrival of the Saxons, but that’s not something about which I know very much. And neither does anyone else because there are no contemporary written documents for this period. People like Gildas and Bede, from whom most of our current knowledge is taken, were writing one or two centuries after the events and from a very jaundiced point of view.
However, our author seems to think, as is the current way of thinking, that the Angles, Saxons and Jutes merged in with the native British people, but as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I remain totally unconvinced. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is full of battle after battle, massacre after massacre and slaughter after slaughter, and as we have seen during our travels through the late Roman-early Mediaeval period, the number of trades and skills that disappeared completely at this time points to some kind of ethnic cleansing of the native population. As I said just now – “no contemporary written documents for this period”.
Back in here, I had a few things to do, and then I finished off the radio notes for the programme on which I’d been working.
After a little rest, I eventually began to research the next radio programme. That also involved some considerable searching for some music that I wanted and took an age. I wasn’t very motivated about it and by the time that I knocked off, I’d chosen all of the music, reformatted, re-edited and remixed it. Tomorrow, I’ll push on and see how far I can get.
There was an interesting break in mid-afternoon, though. I found a recipe for a salad dressing that Liz had sent me years ago. Today, I decided to make it, and it really is delicious. I actually had all of the ingredients on hand, which makes a change. When it was ready, I made myself another taco roll of salad with a red and green pepper pâté as a base and then put some of the dressing on it. That was really delicious too.
But I was also looking at my shopping list today, which indicates that there’s some kind of rekindling of my appetite somewhere, and that’s good news.
But right now, though, I’m off to bed hoping for another good night like last night and also hoping that this slow improvement will continue.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about prisoners … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once met a man who had been in prison. He told me that he had been imprisoned for something that he hadn’t done.
"What was that?" I asked him
"I hadn’t wiped my fingerprints off the knife."
