… of lovely, pain-free feet, the pain in the sole of my right foot suddenly erupted again at dialysis and erupted in spades too. I’ve been in pain for most of the afternoon and evening, and I wish that it would go away.
What’s worse is that I really had thought that I’d finished with all of this, but “no”. It looks very much like “back to the drawing board, Cecil”.
Not like last night, though. I was late again going to bed. After midnight, and more, I reckon. But I didn’t need much rocking last night either and I was soon asleep.
And there I lay, dead to the World, until about … errr … 06:00 when I awoke. When the alarm should have gone off at 06:29, I was up and about at my desk working.
First thing to do was, of course, listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.
It’s a shame that I didn’t catch all of this dream, because this is another one of those dreams with a story behind it that the World is not yet ready to hear.
This is just the kind of thing that I can imagine Roxanne doing. She would ask a question in a very innocent way but there would be a smile behind her lips that it wouldn’t surprise me if she knew exactly what was going on and had made the mistake deliberately.
The dream, though, reminds me of one of these revivalist meetings in the Deep South of the USA. I never actually managed to visit one, but I heard all about it.
There were a few other things that needed doing, such as checking my e-mails. And amongst them was the monthly report from the shipping group whose “Bay of Granville” shipping detector is installed in my apartment. The little set-up here is apparently covering an area of over two hundred and sixty-three square kilometres, which is not bad going for the equipment that I have.
When I heard movement from the kitchen, I went in there to see what was going on and ended up with a mug of hot coffee and my morning medication. And for some reason or other, we ended up having a lengthy discussion about computer passwords.
The Hound of the Baskervilles didn’t bark at all when he heard the doorbell with Isabelle the Nurse on the other end. Mind you, he did look up when he had a belly rub, as if to say “don’t stop! Don’t stop!”
After Isabelle left for her week’s break, I made breakfast. And while I was eating, I was also reading the last of NOTES ON SOME OF THE ANTIQUITIES OF FRANCE by Charles Roach Smith.
To finish off his book, he’s reading some Carolingian tombstones found in a cemetery in Amiens. That’s a long way from the Cher Valley, but never mind.
Back in here, I began to revise my Welsh for tomorrow, but my body had different ideas.
There are no factories in Selworthy Drive, nor have there ever been, nor will there ever be. But stopping the traffic for a reversing lorry is par for the course in industrial areas.
There was still time to do some work, so I pressed on but was overtaken by events when my cleaner arrived. She dealt with my anaesthetic and then tidied up a little before leaving. My friend and I hung around until about 12:55, when we went out into the sun to wait for the taxi.
The girl who picked me up is quite nice and chatty, so we talked all the way to the hospital, where we picked up someone else who wanted to go to Avranches, and our chat, which had now become a three-way chat, continued all the way to dialysis, where I was dropped off.
Today, I was in a different bed than usual, but that’s not a problem. This dialysis isn’t about “seeing all of Normandy in a taxi” or “seeing all of the dialysis centre from a different bed”.
As usual, I was the last to be plugged in, but they had a temporary nurse in from St Malo and he was quite efficient, aided by another nurse who applied a “manual garrote” and the freezing spray to numb the forearm.
There was a third nurse in there too and she’s quite chatty. She came over to see how I was doing, which was nice of her. She has a cousin who’s married to a Welsh guy so I’m secretly teaching her a bit of Welsh so that she can shock him when they meet.
During the dialysis, though, I began to feel nauseous and the head began to spin. The blood pressure seemed to be fine, so it must be me. And it certainly was when the pain in the foot started up. That was a flaming nuisance. I was in agony.
There was some kind of relief when Emilie the Cute Consultant came by. She didn’t stop, but she managed a cheerful “Bonjour, Monsieur Hall”. No-one else received such a greeting, so I considered myself honoured.
Last in, last out as usual but at least it was one of my favourite drivers who would be taking me home, and she was already waiting for me. We had another passenger with us who wanted to be dropped off at Sartilly. After that, we chatted all the way back home where, amongst my comité d’acceuil – “welcoming committee” – was the Hound of the Baskervilles.
My driver fell in love with him straight away and she spent ten minutes giving him a lot of fuss. And he enjoyed every minute of it too. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … why don’t some of these women treat me like that?
Back in the apartment, there was a lovely meal of beans, chips and a burger with a bap and also a pile of garnish. My chips were especially good so I asked my friend the secret. He tells me that he parboils them first for ten minutes, so I shall have to try that.
After I’d done the washing up, I came in here to write out my notes, but I was becoming more and more ill as the evening worsened, so in the end, I said “sod it”, abandoned the notes and went to bed. There’s always another time.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about passwords … "well, one of us has" – ed … I told my friend that I once knew a guy who went to use the name of … errr … a certain part of his body as a password.
My friend asked "what happened?"
"He received an error message" I replied. "Sorry, password not long enough."
