… something this morning that I have never done before, and that is to sleep through both alarms – the first time ever. And it was really a bizarre experience, as you will find as you read further on.
So once again, later than it ought to have been last night when I finally made my way into bed. And I’m sure that you can imagine that I was grateful to be under the covers.
As seems to be the case just now, I was asleep quite quickly, and there I lay. I have absolutely no recognition of waking up at any point during the night. However, a strange thing occurred. I had a very vague feeling of the alarm going off at some point. And a few minutes later, of it going off again. Something like one of these phantom alarm calls but a long way away.
The next thing that I knew, I was sitting up in bed wide awake, and so I checked the time because I was certain that there was something bizarre going on. But it was actually 07:20, and the two alarms must have corresponded with the first alarm at 06:29 and the second with the repeater at 06:34.
The first thought that was going through my mind was “what happened to the guy who must have left the bed at 06:29?”. And the second was “what happened to the guy who must have left the bed at 06:34?”. That’s because all that I could hear was the silence. No one was moving around in the apartment making any kind of noise.
It took me a really long time to realise that there was no-one else. It was just me, and somehow I’d managed to sleep right through both of the alarms this morning. That was embarrassing.
As time was now drawing on, I had to leap to my feet and go to unlock the front door, ready for the arrival of Isabelle the Nurse later on, and then go into the bathroom to sort myself out. I really couldn’t believe that I’d slept through both of the alarm clocks like that.
After I’d sorted myself in the bathroom this morning, I had a good wash and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon at dialysis.
Back in here … "eventually" – ed … I had a few things to do, but I didn’t go very far before Isabelle the Nurse caught me by surprise.
She asked how things went yesterday, and I explained that they passed by OK, and then she checked my toe before turning her attention to the rest of my body. She applied the cream to my legs and feet, sorted out my socks, and when she had finished, she set off on the rest of her round, ready for her week off and her visit to Paris on Wednesday.
Once she’d left, I sorted out everything that was needed, with a few exceptions, of course, and then I made my breakfast.
While I was eating, I was reading some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1867.
Today, they are discussing the geology of the local Woolhope area and, in particular, what they took to be signs of volcanic action. This is where everyone, including me, becomes lost. We have the impression of volcanic activity being Vesuvius-like activity, but they have in mind something more like a permanently molten mass of magma floating around under the earth’s crust.
After I’d finished eating, I came in here to review the radio programme that will be broadcast this weekend, and being satisfied, I sent it off for inclusion in the live stream. And then I wrote the rest of my Welsh homework to send off tomorrow morning.
There were also one or two other things to do, but I didn’t have too much time because I was in a rush today. The taxi would be coming for me at 12:30.
In the kitchen, I sorted out my disgusting drink and my midday medication, and then while I was organising my travelling laptop, my faithful cleaner came to apply the anaesthetic to my arm. She folded up my washing from Saturday while she was here, and as she was on her way out of the apartment at 12:20, she bumped straight into the taxi driver coming to pick me up.
He was ten minutes early, but I didn’t mind at all. And as I was the only passenger, we made really good time, at least, as far as Marcey-les-Grèves. As we drove round the bed to go over the motorway, there was a car stopped on the opposite side of the road, with an enormous queue behind it.
And on our side of the road, there was a car stopped opposite the other car, with about half a dozen cars, including ours, behind it.
It seems that the car on the other side of the road had had two dogs escape from it, and the “good samaritan” on our side of the road was trying to help, holding up all of the traffic from both directions.
And as we watched, totally incredulously, the woman on our side of the road managed to catch the smaller dog. She picked it up and hurled it onto the car across the road. And everyone sighed with total despair when the smaller dog realised, long before the woman, that the woman hadn’t closed the window first, so it was off down the road like a ferret up a trouser leg. You really couldn’t make it up.
Consequently, there was a whole battalion of blasts of motor horns and derisory insults aimed at this woman, and people worked their way around the obstruction and left them to it. It really was unbelievable.
At the hospital, I was twenty minutes early, so my driver said that we would take advantage of the wait to have his half-hour break, and he disappeared off to the canteen. No sooner had he gone than I was wheeled into the X-ray room, and my right foot was x-rayed immediately.
It took less than five minutes to do the x-ray, so I had to wait twenty-five minutes for my driver to come back, so I wasn’t early at all at dialysis.
There was another huge load of liquid to extract today, but luckily, I had the new young girl, so it was easy to persuade her to wind up the machine so that I only spent three hours there. Mind you, I was late being plugged in, and it wasn’t until 14:35 that I was up and running.
There were a few things that I needed to do, and then I settled down to watch the rest of Cambian United v Y Barri from Saturday. It was one of those matches that swung from end to end at the final score, of 3-3, just about represented the state of play of the game.
The next match that I chose was Hwlffordd v Cardiff Metropolitan. The Met play some really nice football, as you might expect with a good handful of players who have plied a lengthy trade in the upper reaches of the English pyramid, and Hwlffordd can play some tidy football too.
However, I’m not sure what went wrong with Hwlffordd today, but they were swept aside in this game. They offered absolutely nothing up front, and the final score, of 3-0 to the Met, was no exaggeration. Hwlffordd could still be playing even now, and they would still have no chance of scoring.
The big chief of the doctors was on duty today, and he came into our ward to talk to a few patients, but he kept a very good distance from anywhere near where I was.
When my machine finished, I had to wait another twenty minutes before my nurse came to unplug me, and even then, the two of them were not very good at co-ordination. And when I was released, I had a fifteen-minute wait for my driver.
She already had one other passenger on board, and we had to go to pick up another, consequently I had another very long Tour de Normandie and it was 19:20 when I finally made it home.
My cleaner helped me into the apartment, but it was far too late to go cooking, so I had some crackers and spreading cheese, followed by an orange.
Now that I’ve finished my notes, I’m off to bed. And I hope that I remember to wake up in the morning this time.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about alarm clocks … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone asked me "what do you call an alarm clock that has no ‘off’ button or ‘snooze’ button?"
"In my house" I said "I’d call it a ‘cat’.".
