… one of those days where I’ve not been able to accomplish much, much to my regret, of course, but I seem to have gone from one interruption to another.
Those interruptions started last night, as I’m sure that you will remember – typing out the notes quite efficiently until I crashed out at the desk, and the worst thing about it was not knowing that I’d crashed out until I awoke.
As I mentioned yesterday, when I awoke, I went more-or-less straight to bed, hoping for a good sleep.
And so I thought, but I had not one, but two phantom alarm calls during the night. The first one was sometime round about 02:30 and I managed to ignore that one pretty much. The second one, round about 04:30, I took much more seriously. I found myself sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for the second alarm. And after a while, when it didn’t come, I checked the time and it was 04:38, so I climbed back into bed.
However, the damage had been done with the call at 02:30. From then on, I was just drifting in and out of sleep. I was definitely asleep at 04:30 or so, but I was awake before the alarm went off at 06:29.
Once again, we had the same old struggle to rise up from the bed and to unlock the front door, but I managed it eventually. And then back into the bathroom to sort myself out, ready for Isabelle the Nurse.
Back in here, I had last night’s notes to finish, so I buckled down and bashed them out, but just before I could put them on line, Isabelle the Nurse arrived. She asked me about my week while she was on her break, so I told her, but that didn’t leave much time for her to tell me about her week.
And she gave me a lecture about dialysis too, saying that I was expecting too much if I wanted things to go as normal every time. There could have been a hundred reasons why it all went wrong and she told me some of them. However, that’s not really the point. The point is that they didn’t tell me about them, so I couldn’t argue about the situation then and there.
After Isabelle the Nurse had left, I made my breakfast and read some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870.
Today, they are still discussing the safety concerns relating to the local weather, but something they mentioned caused me to go off on a tangent again and begin to search for the sinking of the Dublin Packet Boat in 1770, with the loss of all hands, without very much success.
Back in here, I finished off the notes and posted them on line, then I began to revise for my Welsh lesson. The revision went really well and I managed to finish the first unit, so I was looking forward to the lesson.
And the lesson went really well too. I did quite well, except for a couple of mistakes that I made, and I was quite happy with my progress. Sad as it is to say it, much as I loved my previous teacher and wished that she was still teaching our year, the current teacher, apart from being really scatty, seems to be more efficient, and I’m learning more with her than I did with her predecessor.
When the lesson was over, I wrote up the notes from the dictaphone last night – and about time too.
What a dream that was!
Regular readers of this rubbish will recall a dream a week or two back about Nerina and me being in New York for something to do with her work. This boat was moored on the Hudson River in New York, roughly where we were in the previous dream, although the crew of the British freighter were all for buying the boat and doing some privateering on the way home.
Apart from that, there’s the street in London that we know so well, although not this end. We know much more about the far end, which is presumably in Edmonton somewhere and where we buy our chips and pastries.
But, as usual, the dream is just an example of the kind of nonsense that I can conjure up when I try.
The cleaner turned up next to do her stuff, but she sorted out the bathroom first and then chased me under the shower for my weekly scrub.
Back in here, I did some work on my radio programme, and the music is really taking shape. For the last two or three weeks, I’ve had to search for loads of music that I don’t have to hand, and this week is no different. But as of tomorrow, I’m going to have to crack on if I want to finish it before the weekend.
When teatime came round, I went into the kitchen and made myself some mashed potato with onion, peas and carrots and the last slice of my vegan pie. That was delicious, and I’m going to have to make another one at some point. A slice of that makes a nice, traditional meal.
It was followed by a raspberry soya dessert, and they are quite nice too. I’ll have to order some more of these when they next come round on special offer.
Back in here, Rosemary ‘phoned me. Her external hard drive had arrived, but she wasn’t sure how to use it. We ended up just having a quick chat – a mere 00:53:48 today – and helped her install the external drive and perform her first complete backup. With a bit of luck, God’s help and a bobby, she won’t lose any more files.
Once I’d finished with Rosemary, I could crack on and do the notes for the day, and now, they are finished. There are just the stats and my back-up to perform, and then I can go to bed.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about alarms … "well, one of us has" – ed … I heard a story that one of my friends had bought a new alarm clock earlier that day.
It had come by post from the Tourettes Society, and we were having a good discussion about it.
At least, we were, until one of my friends said "well, he’s going to be in for a rude awakening tomorrow morning then"
