… of yesterday, today has been a much more satisfying, and a much more productive day, and for once in a long, long time, I am happy with what I have accomplished.
Not that you might have thought so during the 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 was 23:45 when I finally crawled into bed last night, looking forward to my long, uninterrupted sleep.
And there I stayed, too, until all of 02:03 (I checked). At that point, an enormous coughing fit awoke me (yes, the antibiotics stopped a week ago) and I couldn’t go back to sleep again.
At some point, though, I must have done, but it wasn’t for long and I was awake again, watching the darkness gradually turn into daylight as the sunlight slowly began to creep round the edges of the shutters.
The alarm shattered my reverie, and to my surprise, it didn’t take long for me to have my feet on the floor. Mind you, having my feet on the floor is one thing. Standing upright on them is something else completely.
Once I’d summoned up the enthusiasm and the energy, I went to sort myself out in the bathroom and then came back in here.
There’s lots of mileage in this dream.
- My father and his friend are here again, after making an appearance a couple of days ago. My father, I can understand, but not his friend, about whom I haven’t thought for something like thirty-five years.
- As for my friend, there is a pub just around the corner from where he used to live. And there is actually a funny story about it, but the World is not yet ready to hear it.
- He was also extremely moody and his rather abrupt “no” wouldn’t have been any surprise in real life.
- Why I would be in Alton Street and Electricity Street (in Crewe) when I’m supposed to be on the Wirral, and coming home via Winsford is totally mystifying me.
- The friend with the lock-up garages (and the kittens) is a different friend completely than the one on the Wirral.
- In that particular friend’s garages, you might well be likely to find a couple of rare motor scooters from Eastern Europe, but as far as I have been able to find, there was nothing called a “Korno”. However, there is a village of that name in the Czech Republic.
And probably much more besides.
Not that I’m likely to be going anywhere with my brother and his wife, a classical music concert wouldn’t be of all that much interest to me.
But the idea of organising everything and having it all fall apart at the last moment is nothing new whatsoever, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. It’s something that happened frequently in the old days. As for working to a tight schedule, I’m sure that you have seen plenty of evidence of this.
This is something that I dread happening. Breakfast, with my porridge and toast, is just about the only meal I really enjoy these days and it would be an absolute catastrophe if I were to lose my appetite for it.
And that reminds me – regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve been talking a lot about the loss of my appetite following the chemotherapy sessions that I had. While I was browsing through these pages looking for something in particular, I came across this quote –
"At lunchtime, I had some vegan cheese on my butty and I’m a little disturbed because the taste seems to have changed. It hasn’t – it’s that my taste buds have changed since I’ve had chemotherapy and that’s disturbing me. It’s one of the reasons that I’m off my food right now. I don’t really fancy anything to eat and the idea of eating anything greasy makes me queasy."
That’s a quote from the first time that I had chemotherapy, and in particular the ENTRY FROM 10th APRIL 2016 – over ten years ago. Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose.
The nurse was a little later than usual today, and he wittered away about nothing in particular while he dealt with my legs and feet. After he left, I could make breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.
At the moment, he’s having an interesting discussion on the difficulties that people had back in his day almost two hundred years ago, telling the difference between Anglo-Sacon and Norman stonework.
If you ever see them close together these days now that we know so much more, there’s no difficulty in recognising the differences
You can see the difference here in this photograph that I took of St Mary Magdalen Church in Geddington. The Anglo-Saxon stonework is on the left and straight ahead over the arch. Then round to the right, where it all becomes so much neater, that’s the Norman stonework. The Normans had much more experience of stonework than did the Anglo-Saxons, what with everything that they built in Normandy prior to the Battle of Hastings.
Back in here, I had the usual few things to do, and then I attacked the notes for this concert on which I’d been working. They are now all written and ready for typing.
After that, there was one that I started a week or two back, and that’s now all done too and ready for broadcasting, although that won’t be for a while just yet.
There were the odd interruptions while I was doing that. First of all, there was a disgusting drink break with the lunchtime medication, and then my faithful cleaner turned up to do her stuff.
While she was here, I had her take two of the drawers out of the freezer, and I sat on the chair and went through them, sorting them out. Some stuff was binned but the rest is now organised and I know what I’ve got and where it is. And doesn’t that make a change?
Back in here and after the radio stuff was finished, I began to tidy up the mass of papers that was hanging around in here. That’s mostly now done too. As I said, it’s been a very productive day.
However, I didn’t ‘arf have a fright. While I was looking at something out of the window, a big bird, probably a seagull, flew slap-bang head-first right into it. The noise was astonishing and I thought that the window had broken, but it remained intact.
I told my cleaner about it, and she went outside to look but there was no evidence of anything.
Not like the owl that flew into the window of a place where I was staying in Leuven.
The poor bird – an owl by the looks of things – quite clearly left his mark on the glass there, and I don’t think that he could have survived a collision like that. But on my window, there’s not a trace.
Later on, it was time for tea. Chips, sausage and baked beans – the beans cooked with freshly ground black pepper and vegan cheese. Delicious as always.
And for pudding, I had some of the fruit bread that I made a few days ago. It’s a little dry, but the taste is magnificent and I’m really happy with that.
So now it’s bedtime, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed …
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about appetites … "well, one of us has" – ed … a young guy takes a young girl out for a meal. To his surprise, she orders almost everything on the menu. And then she gulps it down.
"Blimey!" said the boy. "Do you eat like this at home?"
"No" she replies. "No-one wants to sleep with me there."
