… a fairly uneventful day today. So much so that I had to struggle to think of a dramatic way of opening today’s entry, but in the end I couldn’t, so that was that. Instead, I’ll just stroll on in a chronological timeline until I have a marvellous fit of inspiration.
And so to begin, I didn’t have the early night for which I’d been hoping yesterday. Although it was before 22:30 when I went to bed, it wasn’t many minutes before it. And although I was soon asleep, it wasn’t for as long as I had hoped.
At some point, and I’ve no idea when it was, I awoke. And then I tried to go back to sleep, which was not as easy as it might have been. However, I did notice something bizarre. I can sleep quite well when I’m lying on my left side and even better when I’m lying on my right side, so those are the positions for which I try to aim.
However, when I tried that last night, I’d wake up again a short while later to find myself lying on my back, and that’s a position in which I can never go off to sleep. And thinking about it, I’ve been spending far too much time lying on my back instead of on my sides just recently.
At some point, though, I must have gone to sleep because the alarm at 06:29 awoke me from my slumbers.
We had the usual battle of wills about standing up and heading to the bathroom, and I think that it was only the possibility of meeting Emilie the Cute Consultant at dialysis that drove me onwards, having first remembered to unlock the front door. And in the bathroom, I had a good scrub up and a shave, “just in case”.
Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened last night.
Strangely enough, I do have a form that needs completing this week. But the bit about having the text removed reminded me of what I had written last night about Kent. That, I suppose, was also too long and not to the point of whatever it is that I’m supposed to be doing.
Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual. It’s her last day today before her week’s rest, so I wished her good luck. She replied that she’s probably going to need it because it’s raining outside right now.
After she left, I made breakfast (and my new bread is delicious) and read some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870.
Luckily, they finished talking about that gruesome parasite and have moved on to discuss the flora of the Clee Hills and the Longmynd. And in discussing autochthonous plants, he notes "At the Miocene period, or, more strictly, at its dawn, a temperate clime prevailed within the Arctic circle. Poplars, planes, and lime trees grew within twelve degrees of the Pole, and so have beds of the same fossil plants been found in North Greenland, where now an enormous ice cap covers the whole country, leaving only a narrow slip of land free from ice in summer."
When I was in Greenland in 2018 and 2019, I can promise you that it was nothing like as bad as that. I wondered what his opinion back in 1871 was about global warming, but I didn’t have long to wait before I found out.
Just two or three pages further on, we have "Mr. Croll, who attributes the changes of climate marking the different periods of the tertiary epoch to periodical variations in the eccentricity of the earth’s elliptical orbit, tells us that for the last 60,000 years eccentricity has been very small."
Back in here afterwards, I reviewed the radio programme for this coming weekend and sent it off for insertion in the stream, following which I reformatted the music that I need for the programme that I’ll be preparing. When that was all done, I even managed to re-edit a couple of songs that have gone into the folder to await my further instructions.
At 12:00 my faithful cleaner came in and sorted out my anaesthetic, and then I had to wait for the taxi. He was late today, and we already had one person in the car. We had to go to St Pair for a third one and then down all these little country lanes where our driver drove as if the hounds of hell were after him. We ended up being three minutes early at dialysis, despite how late we were running earlier.
Today, I was honoured with being placed in a single room, so I was either going to have a medical examination or the head doctor was going to come and give me … "yet" – ed … another lecture about chatting up the nurses. But it was also the farthest possible bed away from the front door. They really are making me work for a living around there.
And being early, I’d arrived at about the same time as everyone else, so I had to wait for a while before they came to sort me out. Although it was the same nurse as Saturday – one of the newer ones – the connecting up was much less painful and I was up and running by 14:20.
At first, all I wanted to do was to sleep – I don’t know why – but I livened up after I’d had my 15:00 coffee and orange juice, so I began to watch the football.
Today’s match was between two of the newly promoted clubs, Cambian United from Andypandy … "he means Tonypandy" – ed … in the Rhondda Valley and Llandudno.
Both these clubs are doing reasonably well and seem to be managing to keep up with the established mid-table clubs, which is more than can be said for some of the others, so I was expecting it to be a good match.
And I wasn’t disappointed either. Both clubs went at it hammer and tongs right from the kick-off and it ended up being one of the best matches that I’ve seen. Plenty of blood and thunder, plenty of skill, plenty of aggression. What really surprised me, though, was that Cambrian roared into a 4-0 lead after forty-seven minutes, and that was a long, long way from representing the balance of play.
In the second half, Llandudno had a change of tactics and managed to claw three goals back, but ran out of time at the end. Still, I’m not complaining at all about the game.
There was also time to watch the first twenty minutes or so of Cardiff Metropolitan v Caernarfon, and I’ll tell you more about that game when I’ve seen the rest of it.
Although I’d seen Emilie the Cute Consultant on my way in, I was right in thinking that the big white chief would come to see me. However, we just talked about the implant in my arm and the pain that it was generating when I was plugged in. He said that he’d have a chat with the nurses about trying a different method.
However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s not the way that they do it that’s the problem. It’s because the implant itself is damaged, as I have been told on many occasions by the doctor who gives it the six-monthly examinations.
When my time was up, I was unplugged quite quickly while my taxi driver was waiting at the door to my room. It was another one of my favourites, so we had a really good chat all the way home, like we always do. She told me all about her holiday in Brittany and how hot it was. But luckily, the campsite had a pool, so she, her husband and her two kids spent every day sitting in the pool to keep cool.
Funnily enough, I’d been thinking for several days that I hadn’t seen her for a while, but she had come over to chat with me the other day while she was on ambulance duty, and now she had come to take me home.
We were home quite quickly, and my faithful cleaner helped me into the apartment and stuck a disgusting drink into my sweaty little mitt once I’d sat down.
After she left, I added the vegan cream into my curry and gave it a good stir. Then I made some rice and veg and helped myself to a ladleful of curry. It really was delicious, and there’s plenty left to freeze for later.
Back in here, I began to write up my notes, and I was doing quite well ar first. However, this huge wave of sleep came out of nowhere, and as it passed, it took me with it.
When I awoke, I was totally incapable of carrying on, so I posted on line what I’d written up to then and went to bed. The rest can wait until tomorrow morning.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about parasites … "well, one of us has" – ed … Donald Trump was arrested and placed in a filthy parasite-infested cell.
"That must have been awful," said a news reporter "Trump having to share a cell with parasites in it."
"I know" replied his colleague. "I felt really sorry for those parasites."
