Tag Archives: bad night

25th September 2024 – YOU WON’T BELIEVE …

… this, but this afternoon, I have had a shower. In my apartment.

Had you been here, you would have laughed, watching my faithful cleaner and me struggling to help me climb over the side of the bath into the basin and, with even more difficulty, climbing back out afterwards.

Many people have a life that is full of nothing but problems, but it seems that my cleaner and I have lives that are full of solutions and we managed it in the end.

But I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that was that I was so exhausted afterwards that I almost fell asleep standing up while I was making my hot chocolate. And I did crash out later for half an hour or so on my chair in the office.

However I put that down to the miserable night that I had last night. When it came round to bedtime I was too exhausted to stand up from my chair (and I’m not sure why, as I’d done nothing strenuous all day) but not tired enough to go to sleep.

In fact I was so exhausted that I didn’t even have the strength to perform my daily back-up of the computer. Instead I just sat here with a blank expression on my face … "so what’s new?" – ed … just like Chris Isaak, WAITING FOR THE RAIN TO FALL

It was about 03:20 when I finally fell into bed. That was what I call “ridiculous”. But it’s no wonder that I fell asleep this afternoon, and it’s surprising that it was only for half an hour.

At least it didn’t take me long to drop off and there I stayed, totally out of this world when the alarm went off at 07:00

When the alarm rang I was away with the fairies. I was carrying out some kind of investigation into a General who had recently come out of hospital, I don’t know why, whether it was for an operation or a war wound. But this was coming back to Roman times, and as they began to tell me the story about the General I suddenly realised that I’d heard all this before some other time and this was a repeat of a previous incident that had taken place. So I wondered what on earth was going on about this because this sounded just far too unusual to be any kind of coincidence

And I’ll tell you exactly where this took place too. On the way to Avranches, half a dozen kilometres from the railway station, there’s a roundabout with a petrol station just past it and a wood to the eastern side of the road. It was in that wood, looking north-east where this went on. Obviously the stress and strain of hitting the road three times per week to Avranches and back is starting to take its toll.

It won’t surprise you to learn that I had a struggle to haul myself out of bed when the alarm went off. I really didn’t feel much like it at all but it’s one of those things that the longer I leave it, the more difficult it becomes

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up and then came back to listen to the dictaphone. There was nothing else on it so I carried on with tagging the videos. And that’s difficult too because for many of the videos, the metadata is locked and I can’t edit it.

When the nurse appeared she sorted me out and gave me a few instructions about this and that. She didn’t stay long either so I could carry on quite rapidly.

After she left I made breakfast and read MY BOOK. And the more I read, the more I like the author, Thomas Wright.

Today we’re wandering around the remains of Verulamium. And if you think that I’m far too cynical for my own good, you ought to read his account of the history of the Abbey of St Albans and the founding of the town
"The monks who built it wanted a saint; they found in a then popular Christian Latin poet, Fortunatus, mention of a man named Alban, who was said to have suffered martyrdom in Britain. The Saxon monks accordingly dug up some Roman bones, declared that they belonged to the martyred body of St.Alban, and built their church upon the spot"
And later on, when King Offa decided to found a monastery on the site in penance for the murder of King Aethelbert –
"More bones were dug up, and these were miraculously shown to be the same relics of the saint which had been lost since the first church was neglected"
And I thought that I was cynical. I tell you – I have nothing whatever on him

But all these little anecdotes from people who were there at the time or who interviewed people who were, they are all in danger of being lost as modern research is just centred around Wikipedia and nothing else, and the old books are abandoned.

Back in here I went to pair off the tracks ready to write the notes but I hit a problem. The audio-editing program that I use has had an upgrade, and all of my settings have been set to default. That means that when I’m editing, the program is doing things that I don’t want it to do.

This issue cropped up previously and I asked for help in the users’ forum and we managed to resolve it. And here it is again, I can’t remember what I did and I can’t find my original request in the forum.

It took me an age to find my question and once I had the answer it took just seconds to fix. And then I came across more issues but I had an idea of what might be causing them and I was able to fix them with e little persuasion and a lot of time.

It wasn’t until after (a late) lunch that I began to write the notes, and it took an age to finish them, what with all of the interruptions.

Firstly, I had to hunt for my swimming trunks. In the end after about half an hour I gave up. They aren’t in here. However I did find the missing pair of shorts which is good news. And that’s what usually happens with me. You never find what you are looking for but you always seem to find what you hunted and gave up looking for last time.

It’s like when I was rebuilding the house. I’d seen stuff on sale at a bargain price and think “I’m going to need that in six months time” so I buy it at the cheap price. And then when I come to need it, I can’t ever find it, have to buy a full-price article and then find the bargain price one two weeks later.

Anyway, now that I have two pairs of shorts, I can wear one in the shower. I don’t want to frighten the cleaner.

Helping me into the bath was one thing. I sat on a chair at the side of the bath, lifted my legs over the side and then tried to stand up. At first I almost fell over but the cleaner caught me and I struggled upright with the aid of a crutch. Imagine that – a crutch under the shower!

The shower wasn’t all that good, mainly because I couldn’t stand directly in the stream, having to lean against the wall. But it was so lovely just to be there with the warm water cascading down onto me.

There were many things that I could have done better, and I will do next time. Because there will be a next time. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I never make a mistake. I just learn a lot. I can’t remember who said it but I do remember someone saying "experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted". … "It Was Randy Pausch" – ed …

Helping me out of the bath was even more fun. As the bath is higher than the floor, the chair on the floor at the side of the bath was too low for me to sit on. My cleaner had the bright idea of fetching a wooden box and putting that on the seat. I could manage that and I gradually managed to lift my legs out of the bath, dripping water everywhere.

But at least I managed it

We did have quite a laugh though. "Imagine if someone came to the door now" said my cleaner
"Yes" I replied. " ‘Just give me a minute to put on my trousers’. They’ll wonder what on earth we’ve been doing"

After she left I carried on with the notes and then had a pause for my hot chocolate and coconut cake. And it’s quite nice, my cake. It really is. The coconut oil works really well. I’ll make this cake again, that’s for sure.

As I mentioned earlier, I almost fell asleep standing up while waiting for the chocolate to heat up, and back here, I didn’t hold out long before I was gone.

While I was asleep I dreamed that I’d gone to look at someone’s ‘H’ registered Volvo 7-series estate that was for sale. There was some kind of comparison run by the local newspaper. They had a total of 5 adverts for similar cars and compared the prices. They thought that one at €1895 by a private seller sounded like a good deal. And then We ended up somehow in the tundra and someone was driving a green industrial machine down along the railway track through a pine forest.

And I almost had a Volvo 7-series estate too once. Not long after I’d started chauffeuring in Brussels the garage where we bought our petrol had one on the forecourt at a reasonable price, a diesel, so I took it for a drive. It was a lovely car but it was at the wrong time. I couldn’t really afford it. But it’s true to say that I am yearning for the tundra. A trip to Upper Labrador, every night, “sleeping out” like I did in Strider, listening to the timber wolves howling. I’ve told my niece and her husband to make sure that there’s a cross planted for me at my favourite spot in the Mealy Mountains.

After I’d finally finished the notes I went for tea. Tonight it’s a leftover curry with rice and a naan bread, and there was enough leftover to make two helpings. And I’ll be looking forward to the second helping because it really was good. Right now though, it’s freezing to be put aside for another time.

The spotted dick with coconut soya cream for pudding was lovely too and I’ll make that again as well. My cooking is improving and I reckon that I’ll go berserk when I finally have a decent oven, whenever that might be. It’s a shame about the one in Caliburn.

So right now I’m off to bed, to catch up on my beauty sleep. And I need it too.

But talking about miracles … "well, one of us is" – ed … reminds me of the Priest who came back from a trip to Lourdes. At the airport coming home he was stopped by Customs who searched his belongings.
"What’s that in that flask there?" asked the inspector
"Holy water from Lourdes" replied the Priest.
So the Customs inspector opened it and sniffed it. "No it isn’t!" exclaimed the Inspector. "It’s brandy!"
"The Saints be praised!" shouted the Priest. "Another miracle!"

Saturday 21st September 2024 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about the pain in my foot keeping me awake all night. That was definitely a horrible night last night

Not that there would have been much sleep last night anyway by the time that I crawled into bed. Never mind 23:00 – it was long after midnight when I finally crawled into bed. At least it’s a little quicker with these socks rather than the puttees. I don’t have to wind them up before going to bed.

Once in bed I actually fell asleep – for all of about a minute. And then the first of the stabbing pains arrived. And that was it. In my nice, clean bedding too of which I was so hoping to make the most. Still, I suppose that I did in a way.

It took me a few minutes to gather my wits (not that there are too many wits to gather these days) after the alarm went off, and then I headed off into the bathroom to sort myself out.

And believe it or not, I began to wash my shorts. Which is what I do most Saturdays (when I remember) but today there’s a big heap of washing in the corner. And so I piled as much as I could (including the shorts) into the machine and set it all off on a 60°C cotton wash. That should shift some stains.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And to my surprise there was some stuff on there. I must have gone to sleep at some point. There I was, back with some members of my family. There was a new girl there so of course I was doing my best to impress her. It seemed that for once everyone was co-operating in a way by asking intelligent questions to which I knew the answer. This went on for quite some time but it made no impression on her at all. I was very surprised. She hardly said a thing. Anyway one of my friends or family or someone had to go to visit some neighbours so I said that I’d go too in order to have some fresh air. We went to see the neighbours but on the way up the road we bumped into an elderly, disreputable alcoholic man from the neighbourhood so we pretended to walk straight past the house where we were going to visit and doubled back once he’d gone out of sight, otherwise he might have come along and joined in the party and it wasn’t much fun with him anywhere. We passed through the gate and saw a lovely new sign on the door. My fried asked me what the sign said so I looked much more closely and saw that it was a rather offensive, vulgar message. I thought “well this is how this family is, I suppose”. We passed through the gate to the back garden. They were all there sitting on chairs sunbathing. I thought of all the other work that other people had been doing this afternoon and there they are, sitting here and I immediately thought of the expression about “if you want to work then you should but otherwise you can always let other people work for you and you can sit and put your feet up”. My friend said “yes, it’s a shame that there are people like this on the planet.

These people must have been my friends. It’s not like my family, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, to aid me in enticing some innocent young maiden into my lair. Mind you, even my closest friends (do I have any?) would do their best to prevent my evil clutches grasping around some helpless maiden. But as for neighbours as described in the dream, when we lived in Shavington we had those a-plenty.

Later on I heard a voice say something like “don’t be so sarcastic”. It concerned an enquiry that people were making about my health. With this terrible pain in my foot I thought that it was best that if someone else were to write it down they could record all of the “aarrgghs” and the horrible reactions as the pain kept on coming back. Anyway I was told not to be sarcastic. Then I thought about Oldham and the Roman remains around there but I was told to pick somewhere nicer. In the end I picked the Roman Empire in general and discussed the religious excesses and (…fell asleep here …) anyway I could hear all of these people commenting on me when I was there trying to talk about these illnesses that I had.

Me being sarcastic? Perish the thought, hey? But I bet that there were plenty of arrgghhs and reactions last night as the stabbing pain kept reoccurring. And Roman remains? I must stop reading all of these exciting books.

When the nurse came I told him about the pain in the sole of my foot. He examined it for foreign bodies but found nothing. There’s a slight swelling but that’s about it. But he knew all about the stabbing pain when I had another attack while he was holding my foot.

After he cleared off I went to have breakfast. And I’ve now finished my book on the Romans in Britain. The final chapter, on Administration, was not very interesting. I had been hoping on a final chapter containing details of the collapse of Roman civilisation in the aftermath of the depart of the legions but I imagine that whatever written records there might have been, the barbarian hordes who arrived did for all of those.

The washing was finished by now so I emptied the machine and hung up the washing. It’s not as clean as I would like it but it will have to do. I suppose that once I have my new shower and so on downstairs I ought to think about buying new bedding.

Back in here I had to hunt down the work that I did yesterday. I’d saved it without thinking and didn’t have a clue in which directory I’d saved it.

Eventually I could find everything and could sit down and finish off all the notes. I now have 13 lines of text which at 17 seconds per line is not far short of 4 minutes, and I have 2 minutes 51 seconds to fill. Consequently there will be a lot of stuff edited out, but that’s no problem. I’d rather be over and edit out than be short and have to rewrite.

My faithful cleaner stuck her head in the door to see how I was and to fit the anaesthetic patches on my arm. She wasn’t sure about where to put them so she put them in the place where their sticking plasters had been. That will have to do.

While she was here she put the quilt cover straight on the clothes airer. You’ve no idea how difficult it is for me with just one hand.

The taxi driver was another cheerful soul (sarcastic? Who? Me?) who didn’t want the car window open, and didn’t say a word all the way down to Avranches

And they were ready and waiting for me today, the fools. They told me that the doctor has said that I have to lose 2.8 kgs in weight. Was I happy with that?

"Not at all" I replied. "I’m looking to lose three times that" so they went away for a further consult.

Nevertheless, the patches worked and the pain was only momentary and much less than on Monday when I quite literally hit the roof.

Emilie the Cute Consultant wasn’t there today so a side-kick came to see me. He gave me a new prescription to keep my cleaner busy.

As for the pain in the sole of the foot, which was still going on, he didn’t even look at it. Leave it a couple of days, he sad (presumably by which time he’ll be off duty and someone else will have to examine it), and see how it goes.

And then despite the pain, I fell asleep

They woke me up to disconnect me and send me home, but the taxi was late arriving. It was a very friendly driver and we had a really good chat on the way back.

My faithful cleaner was there to help me back upstairs and I just fell into a chair and that was that for a while. I’d done enough

Tea was a baked potato with one of my breaded quorn fillets and a vegan salad, followed by jam roly-poly and chocolate soya cream.

So that’s it. I’ll dictate what I’ve written this week for the radio and then go to bed. Early, I hope.

But even as I write, I’m listening to the concert that I assembled. And it really is good. Technically one of the best that I’ve ever done and the music is excellent too. I think that I picked the correct tracks to feature.

Going back to the clinic this afternoon though, they weighed me on arrival and again on departure. And I’d lost 1.2 kgs during the process. So I made a quick calculation.
"Cheer up, girls" I told the nurses "If it keeps on going at this rate, after 70 more visits I’ll be gone completely"
But as Kenneth Williams once said to Alfred Hitchcock, "it’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners"

Friday 20th September 2024 – MY SPOTTED DICK …

… rose up really well this morning.

But that’s enough about me. Let’s talk about my baking instead.

And so as I had a loaf of bread to bake and there would be half an oven going begging and the supplies of jam roly-poly are diminishing, I thought that I’d experiment.

The other day I mentioned a spotted dick when I was talking about vegan oil-cakes and so I decided that quite literally the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and I’d bash one out

Thinking about it though, I could have bashed it out much earlier than I did because I was wide awake this morning at about 03:15.

Last night I was in bed early once again planning on making the most of having finished everything early, but it never worked out like that.

One thing that I’ve noticed is that a couple of nights following the dialysis have been difficult, and the night sweats that I used to have when my cancer was raging have also come back.

But last night I had everything in spades – wide awake early and the sweat pouring off me in buckets. They measured me with an echograph at the hospital and said that I had six litres of water in me. I bet that I don’t have that much now.

And so it was really difficult to go off to sleep and although I was drifting in and out of some kind of sleep, I saw 06:45 come round on the clock and then 07:00

When the alarm went off the first thing that I did was to go and make some dough for bread. I gave it a good working-over too because I wasn’t very happy with the last lot of bread that I made.

Then into the bathroom to organise myself and have a really good wash. And to wash a pair of the elasticated socks because the nurse wants to try those on me instead of the puttees.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And to my surprise I found that I’d travelled quite some distance too. A new junior manager started. He was quite a nice friendly young guy. We used to have some quite interesting chats. He was in charge of the motor pool so I’d made arrangements to borrow the modelling clay that we used for repairing dents for the cars so that someone could try a piece and I could order it because where they were living the prices were so extortionate that they were looking for ways of economising. This manager also had a list of clients whose files he was working. several of those people were quite interesting so I told him that I was going to photocopy it for taking home with me during the summer because there were a couple of names on there of people with whom I’d like to keep in contact. He was rather dubious about this but in the end agreed for me to do so. We were the last people out of the office on that Friday night. Getting everything together took much longer than I thought it would. By the time that I’d finished it was rather late. Then he told me that when he came back from holiday he didn’t have all that much longer to remain in our office and was going off to somewhere else. I thought that that was really sad because he was the first person in that place with whom I’d managed to create some kind of rapport

Once upon a time I did work with a really nice trainee junior manager. He was a keen snooker fanatic and there was a snooker club just down the road so at lunchtimes we’d go and bash off a couple of frames. He was writing a book in his spare time. I wonder if he ever finished it.

And then I had to go to Bangor University. There were some files that I wanted and someone had to sort them out for me. They were rather reluctant to do so but in the end they gave me the files. Then I heard a voice in the distance whisper “and keep an eye on him”. There was a mirror on the wall. I had a look in it and could see a man who looked like a policeman gesturing to two other men who were probably also policemen. I felt that they were on the point of following me to see what I would be doing with these files. Then we were at a railway station. There was a film being filmed although I didn’t realise that it was a film at first, about a Chinese girl and her boyfriend who were supposedly heading off from the interior to the city to spend a different life there. They were having the usual regrets about parting etc. Suddenly the girl announced that she had tickets not for the city but to actually go to the USA. They were off to the USA instead. The film then cut to the girl standing outside the window of the lottery office with some kind of wistful air on her face. I thought that if ever there was a moment to end a film it should have been there with that shot with that look on that girl’s face but for some reason the cameras kept turning and filming some further pointless action that totally spoiled the entire dramatic effect. I thought that they’d really missed an opportunity with letting the film roll on after that particular shot.

So it seems that I’m adding film-directing to my nocturnal curriculum vitae. I wish that I’d been able to do all of this when I was awake and could earn a living by doing it.

But the University story is familiar. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I once went to Cambridge University to raid their library to look at some papers that had been bequeathed to them. But no such luck. “We give priority to our own students” said the registrar “and it’s only when one of those has had the opportunity to look at them that they will be released into the public domain for other researchers to examine”. And they’ve had the letters and papers there under lock and key waiting for one of their students to examine them since they were bequeathed in … errr … 1869. It’s positively indecent, this incestuous academia. God alone knows what other papers there are lurking in their archives and what tales they could tell us?

And Bangor University? I had a girlfriend who went to Bangor University and if the group in which I was playing didn’t have any bookings I’d spend my weekends in Bangor. My old J4 van didn’t ‘arf clock up the miles.

So finally I’d been out with my girlfriend. We were on our way home and were looking in the newsagent’s window at different things, looking at some of these head-dummies that they use for displaying wigs etc. There were a few with very elongated necks for displaying polo-necked jumpers. We thought that they looked horrible and thought of a few people who resembled them. On the way back past a newsagent’s we saw a bust of a clown and of course made the usual politician remarks then carried on walking home. At one point I was sure that I’d taken two steps without using my crutches but I didn’t say anything. We arrived home, I undressed and went to bed. There was a cup of lukewarm tea so I began to drink it but my partner told me to wait. She was in the kitchen fetching me some medicine. Afterwards when I was drinking the tea she said “come over here. You have to be looking at this (…fell asleep here …) so she went over to check the computer before coming to bed. She said “God! Come here! You have to see this!” so I left the bed and walked over towards the computer but suddenly stopped and said “do you notice something?”. She replied “yes. You’ve just taken two steps without your crutches” so that was twice on that evening that I’ve managed to walk without my crutches.

That was only a dream though. I tried in real life to walk without my crutches but no such luck. I can’t even move, never mind walk. But who was the girlfriend? I can’t believe that I was in a situation like that and I didn’t pick up the girl’s name. How depressing is that?

When the nurse came round he sorted out my legs and fitted the clean socks that I’d found. We’ll see how that goes for the next few days. Last night I’d put the puttees in to soak and they’ll have a good clean over the next few days.

The nurse didn’t stay long. He’d soon cleared off and I went to check the bread. It had risen really well and I was quite pleased with that. I gave it a second kneading and put it in the mould, and while it was doing its stuff I made a basic oil cake with a couple of handfuls of raisins.

It’s not exactly a sponge cake, but it’s the nearest thing that I can make for a spotted dick with the facilities that I have

Our book this morning was talking about religion in Roman times and he makes a few very interesting points.

One of which was that Christians owed their loyalty to their faith above that of their Emperor and if they had to choose one if the two ever came into conflict, they would choose their faith.

There was an parallel with that, which I noticed immediately. Catholics were until comparatively modern times not allowed to hold a Government position or work in the Civil Service.

The reason was that they owed their authority to the Pope. And the Pope could excommunicate a King or even summon up an army to depose him. And in a case of confrontation, a Catholic would have been obliged to support the Pope rather than his monarch. They were not prepared to “abjure the temporal and spiritual authority of the pope” as required by Law.

When breakfast was over I put the bread and cake in the oven to bake and went to undertake part two of my tasks for the day.

The bedding has needed changing for a few days but I’ve been hoping somehow, somewhere, to be able to take a shower. That’s not going to happen but after last night the bedding needs to be changed and the quilt aired. After all, it was a glorious sunny day with a nice stiff breeze

That took longer than expected but at least I could clamber easier over the bed. Something is working somewhere. And while I was at it, I gave what little hair I have left a good wash.

When the oven stopped I checked the stuff in i. The bread was cooked nicely but the spotted dick, although it had risen nicely with the baking powder in it, was only half-done. I gave it another 20 minutes. I only have a table-top oven which is rather “hit and miss”. In view of its shortcomings I’d bought a fitted oven from a friend who was remodelling his kitchen and I wish that I’d brought it up here from the van while I still could.

After lunch, cheese and tomato sandwiches on nice, fresh bread, I did some work.

One of the concerts that I have “in stock” I identified and found that it fell on a day in which I’ll be broadcasting a programme in the near future. So why not have a concert “anniversary edition”?

The concert itself is almost an hour and a half long so I’d been listening to it all morning on repeat play to try to identify which tracks I could edit out. And that wasn’t easy because I liked them all.

Eventually though I’d edited it down to about 57 minutes, which means three minutes of speech which is 11 lines of text.

So now the concert runs together seamlessly and you can’t hear the joins where bits have been cut out, and I’m halfway through writing the text

The cleaner came round and we went through the medicine shelf, made a list of what is running low and she went off to the pharmacy. Another good job done. She also fitted the new quilt cover on the quilt – in a fashion that took seconds and I was so impressed.

Tea tonight was a rushed chips with nuggets and salad. Delicious as usual

And rushed because we had football, Penybont v TNS

And history was made tonight because for the first time EVER, in front of a four-figure crowd, Penybont managed to defeat TNS. And that’s TNS’s first league defeat for almost 18 months

Of course, one swallow doesn’t make a summer but Penybont were surprisingly good and well worth their win

Now I’m off to bed, late as usual because of the football.

And I won’t have much sleep tonight because that strange, stabbing pain that I used to have in my right foot? It’s now reappeared in my right ankle and this will keep me awake all night. You can be sure of that.

But that dream about walking home with a girl reminds me of one night in Nantwich late on a Friday evening (and anyone who has been around Nantwich late on a Friday evening will know what I mean) in the days of my youth I stumbled upon the young sister of a friend of mine hurrying home
"Would you like me to walk you home?" I asked. "Keep you safe from all the drunks and layabouts?"
She looked at me. "Frankly Eric" she said "I’d feel safer with the drunks and layabouts"

Tuesday 17th September 2024 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

…night I had last night.

For a start, it was after midnight when, after I’d let it all hang out, I went off to bed. And if that’s not bad enough, I awoke again at about 03:30, and there I stayed, tossing and turning with one trip down the corridor, until long after 05:00. I have never been so fed up in all my life.

There was one moment round about 04:30 when I was actually thinking of leaving the bed and working, in an attempt to make up some of the lost hours, but it needs to be more sustainable than that if ever I do.

At some point I must have gone back to sleep, not that I remember doing so, because when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was fast asleep. So at least I’ve had some slumber somewhere.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up to try to make myself presentable, and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. It was about 02:00 somewhere and I was wandering around the town. I suddenly bumped into one person after another out of my Welsh class. There were just three of us at first and there was something of a dispute between two of them about something rather trivial. One of them mentioned that he’d seen the others somewhere else in town and went off to fetch them. I went off to see if the little room in the café was free and we all met up there except the one who had been offended. He had disappeared and we couldn’t find him so we just ended up chatting amongst ourselves. This group slowly evolved into another group of my friends. We were upstairs on the top of a bus. I was sorting through some papers and had my personal, handwritten diary there. One of my friends grabbed it and began to read it. I asked for it back but she wouldn’t hand it back. I thought “well, never mind” and in something of a sulk went and sat somewhere else. I ended up having to go for a walk around the perimeter of the upstairs of this bus. I had STRAWBERRY MOOSE with me. It was quite crowded and we had to wrestle and fight our way through. By the time that I returned to where my friend was, she had almost finished my diary. I tried to take it from her and in the end she relinquished her hold. By this time I was in such a bad mood that when I noticed that she ws disappointed having to give it up I told her “well if it means that much to you, you carry on reading it!’ and I stormed off and went to sit somewhere else again. I found the place where I had sat before but just then a group of children in this real heavyweight pram pushed by these two women came past and crushed all the seats in under the tables etc. One of the little girls was sitting on my seat so I gave her Strawberry Moose, surprised that she hadn’t noticed him already. She began to feel all round him and I realised that she was blind. One of the other kids suddenly noticed the moose, began to cry and said something in Russian. I didn’t understand what it was that it had said but the woman replied in an American accent in English. I didn’t say anything but she made some kind of comment about the disturbance that she was causing and the mess that was going on. She said to me “and you should have grabbed me while the going was good”. I thought “well, yes, there’s not much chance of that, is there?” but I was still in such a bad mood about my friend hanging onto my diary and reading it

That is one of those dreams that the trick cyclist would have hours of endless fun examining. Freud would probably give you a completely different meaning and a third, say Nietzsche, would find another meaning. His involvement would be due to his famous phrase "out of chaos comes order" but he’d never looked inside my head at that point. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I feel really sorry for the person who draws the short straw and has to look inside my head

But that dream reminds me of one of Ambrose Bierce’s quotes – "A year is a period of 365 disappointments", and that dream seemed to be full of them

The chief nurse is back on duty today, complete with his sciatica, and maybe that’s the reason why he’s grumpy right now.

He told me that he used to work in a dialysis unit and began to tell me some in-depth information that I don’t need to know and I had to tell him three times to shut up.

Another thing he said was that if my legs continue to shrink widthways we will be able to dispense with the puttees and go back to these elasticated socks. We shall see.

Breakfast was next. And while I was at it, I was reading my book and we have reached a chapter about a Roman brickworks and Tile factory in my old neck of the woods just outside Holt in Wrexham.

It had been excavated at the turn of the 20th Century and my author, writing in 1923, was eagerly awaiting the published report. However he will have a long wait even today because after the archaeologist died in 1925 there was no trace of his notes.

The site is extremely difficult to spot from the air, unfortunately, but I checked it by overlaying a modern field map over the rough drawing, and to my surprise, if you go to an aerial map viewer like Google Maps and type or copy in the map reference 53.08382914907756, -2.8868042627705814, can you make out the trace of the Roman Road that went through the site?

Back in here I began to revise my Welsh – the correct unit this time – and then went for the lesson. There weren’t very many of us today and it was hard work. After my wretched night I felt awful too, so it was not my best lesson by any means.

But it was nice to see one of my classmates back after a long illness.

After the lesson I had work to do. Once more the fridge had iced up and before breakfast I’d switched it off. After breakfast I had emptied it and put some old towels (thanks, Liz) in the bottom.

Now I had the job of cleaning the fridge and mopping up everywhere, and that wasn’t the work of five minutes either.

Strangely, I always seem to be struggling for space in the fridge but just simply emptying it and refilling it seems to make plenty of room. I wonder if that would work for the freezer, but I’m not brave enough to try it. Every time I open the door, something inside closes it again.

There I was though, up to my ears in soggy towels and waterlogged floor and who should stick her head in with some supplies but my loyal cleaner. She shoved me aside and in five minutes flat had made the place habitable again.

But sticking that lino down on the wood floor in the kitchen area was a master-stroke

The rest of the day was spent choosing music for the next radio programme. That’s all done and the pairs of music are chosen and segued together. Tomorrow I’ll be writing the notes as much as I can, but I need to sort out a physiotherapist.

One of my UK bank cards and the new card reader finally turned up today so I had to configure them, make sure they work, and then set about transferring some money round and about here and there. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that there’s something on the go in the UK and we are about to start in earnest

All in all, despite being totally exhausted, I’ve accomplished a lot today.

The bad news is that the cleaner has talked to the pharmacist, and she doesn’t think that the anaesthetic cream is any better than the patches and that we should persevere. My answer to that is that it’s my arm that they’ll be persevering with, not hers.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg followed by jam roly-poly and coconut-flavoured soya cream, and it was delicious.

While we’re on the subject of coconut … "well, one of us is" – ed … I sampled my coconut cake today – the first slice. And it’s simply delicious.

It’s a standard oil-cake but with some of the oil replaced by melted coconut oil, and a big heap of desiccated coconut mixed in it.

So what else would work in this? I can make chocolate and ginger, and now coconut. Anyone any more suggestions? I haven’t overlooked a spotted dick – just haven’t reached there yet.

So that’s it, I’m off to bed. I’ve done enough, I’m absolutely worn out with my rotten night

But before I go, there are a couple of mails that I’ve received from some regular readers of this rubbish. I haven’t overlooked to reply – I’m simply overwhelmed with things right now

If anyone else feels the urge to write and say hello, don’t hesitate. There’s a contact form at the bottom right. And if you have a google or gmail address, it will be Strawberry Moose who will reply to you.

All hits, requests, comments and suggestions are welcomed, even those suggestions that are physically impossible. At least it shows that you are awake.

Once not too long ago there was someone who sent their son to study at the Sorbonne in Paris with the aim of giving him a formal and profound immersion in foreign culture and languages
"And did it work?" asked a neighbour
"Ohh yes" replied the mother. "In no time at all he could write home to ask for money in six different languages"

Saturday 7th September 2024 – THE PLAN WAS …

… to sit back and do nothing whatever today.

And so of course, as you might expect, I have been quite busy and done quite a lot of stuff. But nothing really towards the huge backlog of stuff that’s been building up. That seems to be growing even bigger as I’m simply swept aside in a torrent of paperwork and the like.

What didn’t help matters very much was that I had another really late night last night. After falling asleep so completely during the afternoon I was quite wide awake during the evening and come bedtime I wasn’t tired enough to go to sleep.

Too tired though to haul myself off my comfortable chair and cross the couple of inches that separates chair from bed. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s more exhaustion that I’m feeling than actual tiredness.

Nevertheless I did end up sorting myself out and at round about 00:30, long after the time at which I would have liked to have gone to bed, I finally hit the hay.

As seems to be the case these days I didn’t need much rocking. I was soon asleep and there I stayed until all of 04:30. After that, it was a miserable night of tossing and turning and trying to go back to sleep.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 it was close to Christmas. Some of our friends were visiting. We hadn’t prepared any Christmas cards and had no idea about what we were going to do about this. It was noticeable that our friends sent their children to the door first so they were obviously paving the way to see what kind of reception they’d receive. They’d receive a warm reception of course but they wouldn’t receive a Christmas card. That might upset them. When they finally turned up at the door she (…my friend’s wife…) said something like “is it any use us doing this?”. It was something like this that she said.

Right at that moment the alarm went off. When the room finished spinning around I hauled myself out of bed and crawled off to the bathroom.

In the bathroom I had a really good wash, a shave and of course I washed my shorts ready for tonight. I must at least make an effort to be clean and tidy, even if I don’t feel like it.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. For some reason there was a pile of clothing in one of my dreams too, a pile of clothing for a small girl probably about seven or eight years old. I have no idea why but there were some high-heeled shoes there of the type that had a small high heel that didn’t have any superstructure above the sole at the back to hold the shoe onto the heel at all. It was just held on the foot at the toe by a strap there. I don’t know where all this came from.

And neither do I either. I know that I’m likely to have some strange dreams every now and again but sometimes even I’m amazed at what I dream.

The next one is even more bizarre. For some reason I was identifying as a woman last night. I was playing for the Belgian national ladies’ volleyball team against a team from the Netherlands in a cup match that was taking place against the Netherlands. While we were waiting for the game to start I saw the crowds arriving. There was a bent little old woman leaning over a stick. I thought that I recognised her – it turned out to be my aunt from Ottawa. After the game she came over to chat. She asked about the performance. She thought that it was rather lethargic. I explained that that was hardly a surprise. This morning I had to get up really early to travel all the way here. I’d missed my breakfast. I’d normally come on the train as far as here all the way from Belgium but luckily this morning one of the other competitors and her friend brought me in their car.

Unfortunately this modern way of thinking is not for me, where you can self-identify as something completely different and expect everyone to adapt to you. Let’s face it – I self-identify as an intellectual who can write some really excellent prose and I wish that everyone would respect my choice and identify me accordingly. But some of the names that I have been called are not only unkind but completely disrespectful and I am offended. So there! As far as my writing goes, I can only echo the comments of the Reverend George Gilfillan of Dundee who, when commenting upon the works of another author 150 years ago, said "Shakespeare never wrote anything like this"

This was a series of dreams about a small girl. She reminded me a little of Percy Penguin, probably in her late teens or early twenties but she wasn’t very switched on. You had to explain even the simplest of tasks to her three or four times before you thought that she might have grasped it. Everything that she was doing was always a couple of tasks behind for example I remember telling her once to do something then telling her to do something else then telling her to do something else, but she came back with a problem about the first thing “yes, I’ve emptied the bath” which she should have emptied ten or fifteen minutes ago. It was very hard for anyone to look after her because she was so willing that she’d run around trying to do things and being too eager, she’d usually do them incorrectly or there would be a mistake where she’d forget something so all her work would have to be re-done. It was terribly frustrating because she was a lovely, keen, willing girl but she just could not grasp the same ideas that we had as quickly as we did.

“I remember telling her once to do something then telling her to do something else then telling her to do something else” – hark at me, barking out the orders. Who do I think I am? However, as we very well know, some people are like that and need to have orders barked at them if ever you wish to accomplish anything. Sometimes, organisation can be something of a thankless task.

The nurse came round as usual and he seemed much more like his old self – almost friendly in fact. However he asked if I had been down to the pharmacy to pick up the anaesthetic cream.

and so I asked him how he thought that I should have gone down there but he didn’t answer me. Instead, after much beating about the bush he asked me if I’d received the prescription.
"What prescription?"
"For the anaesthetic cream"
"I’ve not had any prescription"

It turns out that I should have had a prescription for the anaesthetic cream, I should have collected (or arranged to have it collected) it from the pharmacy and everything should be ready for the nurse to apply the cream because I start dialysis on Tuesday.

"No I don’t" I replied. "Apart from anything else, I told them right at the beginning that I’m not free on Tuesdays"

Then we had the usual argument that I have with everyone in the medical profession. Their job is to keep me alive, and the longer they do so, the more of a success it is.

However that all comes with a payoff with regard to the quality of life. I’m determined to have some quality in my life and if it means that I shuffle off this mortal coil six months or a year or two years earlier, I couldn’t care less.

There’s no way that I’m going to finish my days living like a vegetable in a Home. As Neil Young said, BETTER TO BURN OUT THAN TO FADE AWAY

As you might expect, the nurse was horrified but that’s just too bad. That’s the way it is. If they come for me on Tuesday I’m not going and that’s all there is to say about the matter.

After he left I made breakfast and then sat down to read my book. I’ve finished the book on THE ICKNIELD WAY and have started on THE ROMANS IN BRITAIN

That’s a book written in 1923 as a collection of lectures that were presented at Toronto University. It doesn’t pretend to be a scholarly tome but more of a lightweight approach as an introduction to what will inevitably be an inexhaustible study

Once breakfast was over I made some more bread. I’d used up the last of the old loaf this morning.

The bread didn’t rise as well as I would have liked. Nevertheless it’s quite light and fluffy. It was really nice having a cheese and tomato sandwich for lunch made with totally fresh, soft home-made bread.

This afternoon I had a chat with Alison on the internet and also rang Rosemary back after Friday when I fell asleep.

Rosemary’s garden s doing really well, which is nice, but we didn’t have much time to chat – only a short one of one hour and seventeen minutes – because I had a caller at the door.

My transformer (thanks, Grahame, for the heads-up) to power the Genz-Benz has arrived at last. But I can’t use it yet because the power cable that I need wasn’t included with the order. That’s coming from the USA apparently and will be here in a few days time. So we still aren’t up and running.

And then we had the football. It’s sad to say it, but Llansawel are already down, in my opinion, after just a handful of games. If form is anything to go by, the remaining relegation place should be occupied by either Aberystwyth or Y Ffint, and they were playing each other this afternoon.

It’s smething of a grudge match because Aberystwyth’s manager apparently said something unkind about Y Fflint when they were relegated a couple of seasons ago, and that has rankled with Lee Fowler, Y Fflint’s manager.

So far this season I’ve already seen each club, and for a team second-bottom with no points, I’ve been impressed with Y Fflint. They’ve taken the attack to the opposition and have been robbed of some of the spoils on a couple of occasions just by the cruellest of bad luck.

On the other hand, although Aberystwyth haven’t impressed me, they always seem to find something special at the important moments.

Today’s game was actually quite entertaining. It roared from end to end and each team created quite a few chances. It was littered with mistakes though – neither team could hang onto the ball and would lose possession far too easily.

For once though, Y Fflint had the rub of the green and while the score of 2-0 in their favour might be an exaggeration, you have to ride your luck when you can. If they play with this kind of spirit and enthusiasm and their luck holds, they should be OK but sometimes this league can be cruel.

Tea tonight was as usual, a baked potato with salad and one of my breaded quorn fillets followed by home-made apple crumble. I know that my meals are quite repetitive but I happen to like them and that’s what’s important.

So right now I’m off to bed, later than usual but with a lie-in until 08:00. And won’t I be happy when I can say goodbye to all of this nonsense with the nurses?

But all of this talk about people self-identifying reminds me of the man who went to the psychiatrists
"Doctor! Doctor! I think that I’m a dog"
"Really?" asked the psychiatrist. "How long is it that you’ve had this feeling?"
"Ever since I was a puppy"
"I think that you’d better lie down on my couch"
"I can’t" replied the man. "I’m not allowed to"

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 – I HAD A LOVELY …

… surprise last night. Zero came to visit me.

How long is it since one of my three favourite young ladies came to visit me during the night? I was really worried in case they have dropped out of the picture, as The Vanilla Queen seems to have done, but here we are.

It’s quite surprising really, because as you might expect these days, it was quite late when I finally went to bed last night. But once again, I didn’t need all that much rocking before I was away in the Land of Nod

As for how the night went, I’ll talk about that in a minute but it was a very weary, bleary me who made his way into the bathroom for a good wash and brush up ready to hit the streets

Yes, it’s a good idea to have a really good scrub because I’m being inspected by someone at the Centre de Re-education (or so I thought) later this morning.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been and, more importantly, who had come with me. And wasn’t it exciting? Last night I dreamed that I was dreaming that I’d met Zero. She’d figured in one of the dreams that I’d had while I was dreaming. Ironically, much later on when I “awoke” from that dream but was still asleep, deep in the major dream on the first level, Zero was actually there in the other room while I was asleep. She was talking to one or two other people and I wondered whether I’d actually manage to speak to her. I really hoped that I did of course. Eventually she came in so I told her that I had dreamed about her. She asked me to tell her all about it so I began to talk but I hedged some of the bits. She seemed to know that I was hedging so she asked me outright to tell her everything. I began to tell her about the dream and what had happened in the dream. But then I had a panic attack because I found that I couldn’t remember it. It was that that awoke me. I felt really upset and distressed by this – having Zero on my plate for the first time for ages and once again not being able to get my fork stuck in it.

“Disturbed” isn’t the word. I’ve been lying here awake for hours and I just can’t simply go back to sleep. I’ve no idea what I’m going to be like in the morning.

It was actually two hours and forty-three minutes later that I dictated that line there. I don’t think that I’ve ever been so disturbed about a dream as I was with that one. However it’s interesting that I was dreaming that I was dreaming. There are some people who can layer up a couple of dozen layers but I think that the most I’ve ever managed is three layers. It was interesting that it was about Zero too instead of some banal subject, and it was also very pleasant that she was still there when that “dream within a dream” finished.

However I wonder what bits about my dream with Zero that I was hedging on telling her. Can you imagine it? But that’s just another example of my wretched luck. Nothing seems ever to run as I would like it and the thought of what I’d missed totally disrupted my morning.

So for two hours and forty-three minutes at least, I was tossing and turning according to the timestamps of the sound files. Meanwhile, twenty-seven minutes later I went out for a wander around and came to a town centre where there was a huge queue of pedestrians going all the way down the High Street. I wanted to turn into the High Street but it was impossible. But some of the pedestrians hung about and presented a gap so I pulled out of the side street into it. Then all the pedestrians in front of me who had scrunched up then spread out to give themselves some space. Those in front recoiled backwards and collided with my car so I shouted at them to be careful. However I had my words all mixed up so they had a few things to say. It seems that I’d fallen into the middle of a big group anyway so everyone was all around shouting to each other. It was a queue for a shop, a sewing and seeds shop so I thought that I’d have a look in for my friends. They were selling some seeds for some kind of jasmine plant for £0.89 so I bought a bag. I thought that it would be OK for one of my friends but I couldn’t remember which one. When I went to pay I suddenly realised that I’d picked up a card. I had it in my inside pocket. I made a light-hearted joke about being so forgetful. The woman replied “don’t worry. We’d have frisked you down anyway before you left. So, rather impressed, I paid for the card and seeds and then cleared off

So which friend was it who was going to receive a packet of lavender seeds and a card? I don’t have that many friends I suppose so it’s not a wild, mad choice amongst a large selection of people.

The nurse and I had another row today. Tomorrow I have to leave early and he doesn’t like the idea. Well, that’s rather a shame, isn’t it? He’ll be here at 08:05 by the latest or else I’ll go without him and he can either come back later or send another nurse. But I’m not disrupting the work of the taxi company or the clinic in Avranches just because he can’t be bothered to arrive here early for once.

Isabelle, his replacement, is quite reasonable about it. She can’t/won’t come here early but if I ‘phone her when I return she’ll pop round at a convenient moment with no complaint at all.

Once he’d cleared off I could have breakfast, and read my book.

The author, Edward Thomas, refers us today to a friend of his, another poet called Ralph Hodgson

Hodgson’s claim to fame is that he wrote a poem called “To Deck A Woman” and with a title like that, I just had to hunt it down to read it

So after much searching and tracking down, here you are – “How To Deck A Woman” by Ralph Hodgson
"I know a place of summer doves,
Rapt lizards in its alleys lie,
And mostly there a linnet loves
To mend a wanting melody*

No men talk there ; no pit or gin
Trips Beauty on that sunny hill ;
Its voice is ever gracious din
Of bee and song-bird never still,

And anthem yet from other quires :
The muffled diapason gushed
From lips occult and privy lyres
And pipes of Eden never hushed —

The pipes and lyres and lips that are
In sods and bubbles, stones and trees
And flying seeds from woodlands far
And wandering airs and essences*

Within, about, above, below,
Sprites elemental, Night and Day,
And winds and climbers, frost and snow
And wild things only, know their way"

It’s certainly not what I was expecting, with a title like that, but it’s an example of how much has language evolved over the last hundred-odd years.

The taxi turned up bang on time to whisk me down the hill. It’s a girl whom I know who was the driver so we had a good chat and then she helped me sort myself out at the Centre de Re-education. I saw my favourite doctor but it wasn’t she who was looking after me today which was a shame.

The one who saw me today was also quite cute. I’d seen her before, the last time that I was here, so she wanted to know

why I hadn’t organised the physiotherapy sessions that she had prescribed
why I hadn’t gone for the echograph on my knee

Sometimes it’s very difficult to explain to people that even with the best will in the World, you are often overtaken by events over which you have no control

She’s re-prescribed the physiotherapy and she’ll fit me in for a day at the Centre for a complete reassessment. Unfortunately there’s a terrific backlog and she won’t be able to fit me in for quite a while.

So I enquired when that might be

"Quite a while, I’m afraid" she replied. "October, maybe even November"

It’s a good job that she doesn’t work in the UK where a “normal waiting period” would be about eighteen months, never mind “quite a while”.

Back here there was no-one to help me up the stairs but I managed on my own with some (considerable) effort. That was something to celebrate. But at least the taxi driver didn’t moan, like the last one did.

Having made a pot of coffee I came in here for my Welsh class and if you think that two units of the book was going some, we did three today and I am totally whacked.

So much so that while I didn’t actually crash out (well, maybe for 10 minutes or so) I was in no fit state to do anything.

Tea was a taco roll with rice and veg, delicious as usual, followed by yet more strawberries. I really have some wonderful neighbours.

So right now I’m off to bed. Avranches in the morning to see the nurse and find out what’s going to happen about dialysis. I shudder to think.

But I hope that Zero comes to see me again tonight. I can just picture the scene if ever I’m lucky enough tonight to be all alone with her –
"I dreamed about you last night, Zero" I shall say
"Did you?" She’ll ask
"No" I’ll reply. "You wouldn’t let me."

Monday 2nd September 2024 – AND IF YOU THINK …

… that our last Summer School went along at a cracking pace, you ain’t seen nuffink yet!

One unit in a day is some going when a course of twenty is supposed to take a year, but today we have worked our way through two units, with at least two more to come tomorrow.

And there’s homework too. I’ve had a big pile shoved through onto my desktop which I have to complete before the course starts again tomorrow.

But right now I’m whacked. I crashed out earlier on and as a result, once more I’m running horribly late.

And that’s really a disappointment because last night I was actually, for once in my life, in bed before 23:00. Not by very much, it has to be said, but even a minute is worth recording because it makes me feel better when I’m late like this.

So I sorted myself out last night, rescued the strawberries that my neighbour gave me, did what I had to do and then crawled into bed. And once more I fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow

And I slept through until about … errr … 04:25 when something, presumably outside, awoke me. No idea what it was, and I don’t care either. I didn’t stay awake long, but couldn’t go back deeply to sleep. I kept on tossing and turning until the alarm went off.

And at 07:00 I do have to say that I haven’t felt less like raising myself from the dead for a long time. It was quite a struggle to beat the second alarm and I reckoned that this would really be a good start to the day, I don’t think.

I the bathroom I had a good wash and shave and washed my undies too. Have to keep on top of the chores. And then back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was teaching English at a Primary School and in the class that I was teaching, i was teaching them the meaning of the word “Overwhelm”. What we did was to do this visually by having a pig, or a piglet I should say, and the children having to carry it and be overwhelmed while they were doing it and so forth … fell asleep here …. So where were we? Ohh yes, we had this pig and were passing it from one child to another and discussing whether they were overwhelmed or underwhelmed by it. I decided that that was how I was going to teach English in the future – by visual means rather than by sitting there with the kids bored to tears at a desk.

Or frightened to death by a pig. Most kids these days won’t ever have seen a pig in real life and would certainly be overwhelmed if someone were to pass a pig to them. I imagine that it would develop into a game that would be even faster than a game of “Pass The Parcel” in a pub in Belfast.

And then I was on board a spaceship and we had two main electric cables that had been accidentally cut somehow so we were trying to solder them together somehow using a cigarette lighter. While we were doing that, we were watching some kind of strange guy try to leave by one of the doors. We thought “we hadn’t seen him in here before. I wonder what he’s been doing and where he’s been hiding”.

That’s certainly a novel technique but here in France what in the UK would be called “Garden Shed Engineering” is called Système D – the “D” standing for something vulgar. It’s when you do the work that needs to be done with the equipment that you have to hand, so if you need to solder some cables together and all you have is a cigarette lighter, all you can do is to do your best.

The nurse and I had an argument this morning. There he was, in full-chat mode asking me stupid questions and when he asked me the same stupid question that he’d asked me five minutes earlier, I snapped and he cleared off with a flea in his ear. Talk about getting on my wick!

After he left I made breakfast and while I was eating I was reading my book again. The guy is a beautiful writer, as I’m sure that you’d expect when you see prose written by a poet, but much of what he writes, in what is essentially a travel book (albeit a very early one), is quite superfluous and detracts from the information that he gives. He needs to make up his mind what type of book he’s writing.

However it is a bit too late for that now, seeing as he passed on “to another place” in 1917.

Back in here afterwards we started up our Summer School, the first day. We are twelve students and I’ve been on previous Summer Schools with a couple of them before. These classes are, as you would expect, very parochial.

And it’s amazing what you learn. The word for “pumpkin” is pwmpen and for “courgette” it’s corbwmpen. Apparently the prefix cor… when in front of a word means “small”

So it took us much longer than it ought to have done to work out that Corgi, the breed of Welsh dog much loved by the recently-deceased monarch, simply means “small dog”.

During the lunch break I was preparing an on-line order from a well-known on-line retailer and at the end of the lesson went to pay for it, but for reasons that only my bank in Belgium will know, payment was declined

That is of course total nonsense but it was too late to ring up and complain. Consequently that’s a job for first thing in the morning.

There were a few other things to do, like make another flapjack, but I didn’t feel at all like it. Instead I came back in here after a very late hot chocolate and rather regrettably crashed out.

When I finally awoke it was rather late and so since then everything else has been running late. Tea was a stuffed pepper and I think that I’ve missed something out of the stuffing, and the pepper wasn’t cooked enough. It just wasn’t my night I reckon.

So tomorrow I’ll be late for class because I have an appointment down at the Centre de Re-education in the morning. I wonder what they want. I really have no idea.

But it’s good news that they are still interested in me. However just imagine if they offer me a series of courses like last time. Three days per week having dialysis, two days a week down there – I’ll be whacked. And so will the poor drivers who will have to help me upstairs if my loyal cleaner isn’t about

She’s dropped in twice today already for different things. It won’t be long, at this rate, before she moves in here for good.

But the recently-departed Lizzie and her Welsh Corgis – it’s a good job that she doesn’t live in the castle at Y Fflint. Apparently the Y Fflint players offered once to take her dogs for a walk but she told them to clear off
"Why’s that?" asked manager Lee Fowler. "I thought that it was a very noble gesture"
"2-0 up against Y Barri halfway through the second half and you end up losing 3-2?" she roared. "Before your lads take my Corgis for a walk they’ll have to learn to hold on to a lead."

Saturday 17th August 2024 – I’VE HAD A …

… lovely pudding for tea tonight.

There was half an oven left over after I’d prepared a loaf of bread for baking and so in a wild fit of enthusiasm (and where that came from, I have no idea) I made an apple crumble.

It’s been a long time since I’d baked one of those so I had to look up a recipe for how to make a crumble topping, and I’m glad that I found the one that I did because it was the best that I’d ever made.

Where this mad fit of enthusiasm came from I have no idea and I wish that I’d had it last night. For having crashed out at some point during the late afternoon, I wasn’t tired at al later on (exhausted, yes but tired, no) and it ended up being after … errr … 02:00 when I finally crawled into bed.

Yes, for the usual reasons – too exhausted too haul myself out of my comfortable chair etc – I just couldn’t make that couple of inches that lie between my chair and my comfortable bed. I really don’t know what’s happening to me.

Eventually though I could stagger across the gap between my chair and my bed and fall in underneath the covers.

One thing about it though was that I didn’t need much rocking. I was asleep quite quickly, and seeing how quickly I’ve been falling asleep that’s saying something too.

With it only being such a short night I was expecting it to have been an undisturbed sleep but that wasn’t the case. I was awoken by something a couple of times during whatever night there was and in that respect it was something of a miserable night.

Surprisingly, when the alarm went off I was awake quite quickly and made it into the bathroom without much difficulty. With it being Saturday I washed the shorts that I usually ear in bed. I did have a couple of pairs of these but for some reason I can only find one so I have to wash them as I go.

Back here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I wasn’t expecting there to be anything really so I was quite surprised. I was involved in some kind of women’s football match. Of the two teams of women it’s quite fair to say that some them were either drunk or on drugs because they weren’t at all in this world and maybe wishing that they were in the next but their behaviour was extremely bizarre and certainly weren’t taking an active part in the game at all so I began to take all of their names because I had a feeling that someone was trying something on for some reason and if there was going to be some kind of enquiry I wanted to make sure that I’d done everything that I possibly could to have organised this game and have given them the opportunity to play it without it being postponed for any reason whatever. But I suspected that it was going to be postponed simply because if I started to send players off one team would end up with less than the regulation minimum number on the field

That game actually sounds like one of these games involving Mexican girls. If you’ve ever seen a football game in the Mexican Women’s League you’ll understand exactly what I mean. The winners of a game in that League are not the team that scores the most goals, it’s the team with the most players still on the pitch after 90 minutes. Except for Jocelyn Montoya of course. She can come and dribble around my centre-circle any time she likes

There were some concerns about a girl at work so they made a few enquiries. She’d been off sick but when I’d been parked up in the middle of a lane near Shavington fast asleep, in the lane on the highway in the van fast asleep she walked past with a group of other people including some children. Then I saw her again the next day. I had to explain this to everyone and they asked me a lot of searching questions about these sightings. Then we all went to look at her house, a big detached house somewhere in the countryside near Crewe. There was a kind-of terrace of five of these big detached houses, each one completely different in style and joined together in a kind-of haphazard fashion. I didn’t know which one was hers so someone pointed it out to me. It was the biggest and best of these five. I thought that this doesn’t look right, the kind of house that she could have on her salary. How on earth can she afford a place like this?

Parked up fast asleep in a van in the middle of a lane near Shavington sounds about right to me. But I’m sure we’ve all known workmates who live in houses and have a lifestyle that is totally out of the kind of lifestyle you would expect, knowing their salary. Either they’ve had an inheritance, won the football pools or have something else going on about which no-one knows. Definitely not the taxman and probably not the police.

There was also something about a boy who ran off with a girl, her mother’s car and her mother’s credit card and the dream described their adventures.

There was more to it than this too but you really don’t want to know the rest, especially if you’re eating your tea right now.

This morning, the nurse, having ignored the dressing on my arm for the last few days decided to change it today, the day after I’d asked my cleaner to do it. I didn’t say anything but let him get on with it. If at last he’s showing willing, I don’t want to disrupt his flow. It seems that this enthusiasm is catching.

After he left I had breakfast and then set about making my loaf of bread, seeing as I’d had the last of the current loaf for toast this morning.

But talking of current loaf, does anyone have a recipe for currant bread? It’s years since I’ve had some currant bread and I ought to be thinking about making some of that some time.

While the dough was riding I was hunting down some recipes for making a crumble topping and having decided on a likely recipe, then after I’ve given the dough its second kneading I prepared the crumble topping. It’s basically

2 measures oats
2 measures flour
2 measures brown sugar
1 measure butter
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
cinnamon

and then rub it all together.

There were some sweet apples going to waste in the fruit bowl so I used those. You don’t need to add sugar to the diced apples with those, but some cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, raisins and desiccated coconut went down well.

When the bread was baked I had lunch – salad sandwiches and you’ve no idea how delicious they taste with soft, fluffy bread straight out of the oven. They were absolutely delicious.

By now the lack of sleep had caught me up and for the next couple of hours I was out like a light. Far out too with not the slightest chance of coming back.

When I finally came back into the Land of the Living I spent a couple of hours tracking down the dates of a few more live concerts and then we had the football – Caernarfon v Hwlffordd.

Caernarfon surprised everyone by winning their first-round Europa League match in the close season, just as Hwlffordd had done the season before.

With all of the turmoil at Connah’s Quay with half the team leaving and the manager and club “parting company”, second place in the League is very much up for grabs and both clubs “have aspirations”.

The first half was a cagey affair with no real chances for either side but the game came to life midway through the second period when Hwlfford scored, only for Caernarfon to equalise straight from the kick-off.

The game was destined to peter out for draw had it not been for a mistake at the back that let in Hwlffordd’s forwards deep into injury time.

So surprisingly, Hwlffordd sit top of the table. Not that it will last, but it’s an encouraging sign.

Tea was one of my breaded quorn fillets with baked potato and vegan salad as usual. Followed by my delicious apple crumble.

Tomorrow I have pizza dough to make and I hope that it turns out as well as the last batch because that really was epic.

Right now I’ll dictate some radio notes and then go to bed. Some of these will be edited tomorrow too and the rest during the week. We’ll see how we get on with everything else that I have to do

Stuff is piling up again but it can’t be helped. I really ought to be engaging a secretary

A secretary preferably of the type employed by a friend’s husband once a long time ago.
My friend rang up her husband at his work and his secretary answered.
"Mr whatever his name was?" asked the secretary "He’s just slipped out for the moment"
His wife made him change his secretary after that.

Saturday 10th August 2024 – IT’S NOT BEEN …

… all that much better today than it was yesterday. There has been a slight improvement to be sure but almost anything would be an improvement over what surely must have been one of the worst days of my life.

It was another late night last night. and I’m not talking about midnight or anything respectably late but I’m talking about times like 02:00, that sort of thing.

Something awoke me at 05:45 and I’ve no idea what it was. At te time I was in the middle of some kind of panic attack thing about how I must catch a bus to somewhere, a long-distance coach. I have to be somewhere else by 08:00 to board this bus and I’ve no idea what time it is and when the alarm goes off will I have time to go – another one of these panic attacks. But whatever awoke me sounded so real that I actually left the bed to answer my phone, which hadn’t rung or even received a message, so I’ve absolutely no idea why I would have done that.

Having made sure that there was nothing going on that might have been of an importance I went back to bed.

These days I’ve had a few of these panic attacks while I’m asleep.. I wonder if some part of my body is telling me something and that I need to take heed. But I really can’t think where I have to be that involves any kind of travel that I would undertake in a long-distance bus. The only place where I would ever be likely to want to take one would be between Montréal and Florenceville in New Brunswick, but not even that bus runs any more.

Once I was back in bed there I stayed until the alarm went off.

When Billy Cotton ROARED HIS RAUCOUS RATTLE I staggered off into the bathroom to have a good scrub, wash my night-time shorts and change my clothes. I have to look my best for Isabelle’s last day before she goes off on a well-deserved break.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was in a scrapyard somewhere and we had an old Class 20 or similar shunter. For some reason we had to go to a quarry. At the quarry was another one of the same type of machine. There was some issue involving the driver of that particular machine so as we were there one of our people drove it. There was a huge argument and he ended up escaping in this machine, not before he’s destroyed half of their infrastructure, driven over the top of a crane cutting the bodywork etc. The bailiffs or someone turned up at our place and wanted to take away our machine thinking that it was theirs but when they compared the registration numbers of our train with the registration numbers of the locomotive from the quarry they found out that it wasn’t the same so they couldn’t take it, so they left Then the guy turned up with this machine from a quarry so we ended up with two identical machines due to people losing their temper

Actually, I know someone who has a Class 20 diesel locomotive. He might even have more. He’s the neighbour of a former friend of mine and runs a company in Staffordshire hiring out locomotives to various railway companies and has a useful side-line ingoing round various locomotive breakers yards rescuing the more valuable spare parts. He started off with just one locomotive that he had bought to preserve but made a fortune hiring it out to the builders of the Channel Tunnel and, like Topsy, his business “just growed”.

Isabelle was in “chat” mode again today and she spent some time here. Having covered for her boss’s absence on holiday she’s now going off for ten days. He starts back tomorrow and their cycle of “one week on, one week off” begins again.

While I was having breakfast I was reading about the Maginnis Gulch Stampede, or Montana’s Phantom Gold Rush, an incident that was played to perfection in CARRY ON COWBOY

But for those of you who have expressed an interest, the book is called FOLLOWING OLD TRAILS, written by a newspaperman called Arthur L Stone.

Later on in the morning there were the highlights of last night’s game between Queen’s Park and Livingston, and then I joined that guy I mentioned the other day, Blair McNally, for a trip to the East end of Glasgow for Vale of Clyde v Port Glasgow Athletic, a proper amateur football match in about the eighth level of the Scottish Pyramid.

This afternoon I’ve been tracking down concert dates. And much to my surprise, because of all the ones that I’ve done this is the first, I came across one that took place on a date on which I will have a radio broadcast within the current cycle of programmes that I’m preparing.

So on 21st March next year we’ll be having a live concert from the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago in 1974. This afternoon I’ve mixed the music for the concert and I’ve written half of the notes. I could have written more but unfortunately I was away with the fairies for a while at some point.

While I was at it, I came across a few other interesting bits and pieces, and finally turned my hand to downloading a concert that had been sent to me by one of the musicians who took part, featuring the almost-last concert on which my hero Deke Leonard played.

It’s a real pity though because of how the dates fall, this one won’t be broadcast for several years yet.

Tea tonight was one of my favourite quorn steaks in breadcrumbs, with baked potato and vegan salad. And it was delicious as always. Something that I eat every week but why not if I enjoy it.

So now I’m going to dictate the next batch of radio notes and then I’m going to try to go to bed at something like a reasonable time.

But talking of “Carry On Cowboy” reminds me of the two bandits (one of whom was Sid James) talking to the Indian chief Big Heap (Charles Hawtrey)

Big Heap – "And this is my son, Little Heap"
One Bandit – "How"
Other bandit (Sid James) – "How"
Big Heap – "And this is my squaw. I bought her for two buffalo skins"
One Bandit – "How"
Other bandit (Sid James) – "Never mind how. Where?"

Friday 9th August 2024 – I’M HAVING A …

… really bad day today

Or, in fact, I was having a really bad day yesterday because it’s now tomorrow as I’m typing all of this

It’s been one of those days where I’ve accomplished next-to-nothing, done nothing at all and whatever I have done just hasn’t gone according to plan.

It all went wrong on Thursday afternoon. As I mentioned, I fell asleep in the afternoon and was totally out of it for a couple of hours.

And so we had the inevitable result, which I now recognise after having had several months to work it out. Too physically exhausted to haul myself out of my comfortable chair but not tired enough to go to sleep.

And so here I sat for several hours trying to find the energy from somewhere to haul myself across the couple of feet between my chair and the bed. And it was long after 01:30 before I finally pulled myself together and pulled myself up by the bootstraps

That of course is all very well, but waking up at 05:30 was definitely not part of any plan, and neither was staying awake either but there I was, wide-awake but too physically exhausted to rise up from my stinking pit.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I made it reluctantly into the bathroom to have a wash and so on, and then came back in here.

To my surprise, and probably yours, there was some stuff on the dictaphone from the night. I was with that old van from a couple of nights ago. I Had it back at our old house in Vine Tree Avenue. I took my tool box out ready to take away with me because my other car was parked in Edleston Road and needed picking up. The first thing that I needed to do was to check the keys. I had them but I didn’t actually have the keys for this old van. I thought that I must have left them in my coat on the inside. I went inside the van to fetch the coat and took out the keys from it and went to cross the two coats together as my battlefield cross but the big female lion objected and batted everything with her paw

As it happens, the van in my dreams I can see even now. It’s a light grey Austin A35 van and I certainly never ever had one of those when I was young. Probably the only vehicle that I didn’t own back in those days. I did have one of its big brothers, BILL BADGER, the Austin A60 or half-ton van that I mentioned yesterday. I paid £60:00 for that van, had it for several years, and had my money back several times thanks to the work that it did and the miles that we travelled, tucked in between the lorries on the motorway. No way was I going faster than about 50-55 mph with BMC’s single leading shoe drum brakes all round. Not even a hint of a disc brake.

When I was awoken by the alarm I was reliving an episode of DIRTY HARRY. Clint Eastwood had been detained in a roadside stop and made to sit on the pavement. While he was sitting there a policeman recognised him, came over and gave him a great big kick. Of course that inevitable started a riot and that was the point that I’d reached when the alarm went off. .

And so I must have gone back to sleep at some point. But it’s been a long time since there’s been a really good free-for-all down the High Street. We had a few in Chester in 1973-74 but that was about it.

The nurse was quite chatty today and had a lot to say for herself but I can’t remember much of it. She still thinks that I’m a wimp because I won’t take off this plaster on my arm but that’s how it is I’m afraid. As I’ve said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’ll have the panic attack to end all panic attacks when it comes to coupling me up.

After she left I had breakfast and read my book for a while, reading about the lynchings in the town of Hell’s Gate, Montana, how nine people out of the 12 who lived there "died without going through the intermediate stage of being ill" as the author so eloquently put it.

Back in here it took me an age to come round to my senses, which is a surprise seeing how few senses I have these days. What shocked me out of my lethargic torpor was a message from my cleaner "mushrooms? I’m coming homs."

Blimey! It’s 12:30 already, I’ve done nothing and I’ll miss my slot for my LeClerc order. And now my cleaner is on her way home, if they don’t have what I want on delivery, it’s too late to buy it anywhere else now.

When my cleaner came round I was preparing my order from LeClerc so she added a few housekeeping items onto it and I sent it off.

The fridge had defrosted itself during the night so there was water all over the kitchen floor and donning waders and a lifejacket, my cleaner valiantly attacked the pool of water. And there I was thinking what a good job it was that we put down that lino on top of the wooden floor in the kitchen area.

This afternoon I’ve been hunting down another pile of concerts, comparing setlists and the like. And also tracking down missing tracks that were omitted from the published versions of live concerts.

The sad fact is that with almost every concert that I’ve encountered, the published version is often far shorter than the actual versions. What’s missing is sometimes much more interesting than what was included. For that reason you’ve probably never ever heard Joni Mitchell tell her audience that they were "behaving like a bunch of tourists" or Dennis Yeahy scream "brilliant!" in the middle of a Santana concert.

The shopping eventually turned up and I put most of it away, and then I came in here where I sat down and ran out of steam.

And here I’ve sat ever since then. I’ve had no food today since breakfast except a few crackers with my coffee and right now I’m beyond caring. And if I’m off my food you know that I’m not well.

But I’ll sort myself out and maybe find the energy from somewhere to go to bed. I dunno It’s been a strange day, a really long one, but although I’ve not crashed out at all, I’ve been too tired to do anything.

But if I can’t sleep tonight I’ll try counting sheep like that shepherd in Cumbria – "… five, six, seven, hello darling, nine …"
"Did you say ‘hello darling’ to sheep number eight?" asked a passing tourist
"Yes he did" replied the sheep. "He’s my fa-a-a-a-a ther"

Tuesday 6th August 2024 – ABOUT TEN YEARS AGO …

… I was wandering around Fredericton in New Brunswick when I came across a sign that said something like “on this spot in August 1894 nothing happened”.

And I remember another film that I once saw that included the line “in this village in 1853 a tree fell down, and the locals have talked about nothing else ever since”.

That’s exactly the kind of day that I’ve had today

It was another late night when I went to bed after everything that I had to do, and I was asleep even quicker than usual, which is one thing, I suppose.

But going to sleep earlier means that I awaken even earlier, which is a problem in itself but when it’s 02:15 that’s just ridiculous. Luckily I managed to go back to sleep again fairly quickly but not for long.

And that’s how it went on for the rest of the night. All in all it was quite a depressing way to try to sleep.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 it was a struggle to get to my feet. The room and the bed were spinning around much more rapidly than they usually do first thing in the morning.

They tell me that that’s due to low blood pressure, and I ought to be monitoring it. Regular readers of this rubbish will however recall that earlier in the year I did, and I have a notebook full of readings to prove it. But no-one ever told me what to do with the readings, and how to raise my blood pressure to an acceptable level and so it seemed like a waste of time

However once I was on my feet I staggered off to the bathroom to sort myself out and to have a shave – otherwise my face would qualify me to play bass for ZZ Top

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And I was surprised by the amount of stuff on it. There was a big group of us who hung around together in the USA One was of course a nice girl. This girl and I became friendly, but not as friendly as I would have liked to be, which was a shame. She was being pursued by a guy who was a junior congressman but she wasn’t particularly sure why but she suspected that she might have made a good trophy wife and that was possibly maybe his interest in her. She wasn’t convinced that it was sincere and was just “politician’s bluff” and she tended to leave it. One day she, I, this politician and one or two of his friends were together. He engaged her in conversation and was busy chatting away with her. I could see that she was not enjoying the experience. I had a blackboard and some chalk so I was writing an account of what I was seeing, about this girl being chatted up by this junior congressman but she’s not happy in the least and he’s pushing things but wasting his time etc. While I was busy doing this I turned my back to them and carried on. The girl came to sit next to me and made one or two suggestions about the two of us going for lunch together, something like that. I was still writing this stuff about her and this congressman on the board then he turned up. He was most offended by what I was writing. He asked me if that was what I thought. I told him that it was so he asked if he was going to have some kind of grief from me. I told him that I didn’t understand what he means. It’s not my intention to resort to violence at any moment. What about anything else? He was pushing me then either to try to have some kind of response or try to goad me into making some kind of intemperate remark or doing some kind of intemperate reaction. I could see that unless I was very careful this whole situation was going to go South at a rather rapid rate of knots too quickly for me to be in any kind of control of it.

Here I go again, with a girl almost within my reach but not quite. And a situation rapidly escalating out of control through no fault of my own and there’s nothing that I can do about it. All of this has a very familiar ring.

Did I dictate the first half of this dream about this situation about people having to challenge about Health Insurance etc … "no you didn’t" – ed … but eventually the second part is that the get down and produce some videos showing escapers, getaways. I could see the one from my situation shown on this video so it looked as if the people concerned thought that they were getting away with it and evidently gave me a real incentive to fight even harder for justice. But as I say, although justice was eventually on my side, trying to have the Judge’s decision enforced was something far more complicated and is still awaiting implementation after all these years.

This sounds like a right load of gibberish but there’s an underlying truth in it, in that having Right, Justice and the Law on your side is all very well, but any decision that is made has to be enforced and the situation isn’t complete until enforcement is made. Any other interpretation of the situation is meaningless.

There had been some kind of museum display at a museum in Crewe. When we first arrived we couldn’t find out where we were going so we ended up going back home and borrowing a compass. Then we arrived again but the exhibit wasn’t going to be shown until the last hour so we all went back home again. At the end of the evening we all trooped off to the museum. The first thing that we did was to check the compass, how is it performing? Bang on! absolutely perfect! Once we had the museum hall in view we took a final check with the compass and sure enough it was exactly what we wanted. We walked into this building. As we approached the top of the steps someone began a conversation with one member of our party. He was telling us about Crewe Alexandra’s football match that afternoon. Their star defender had apparently scored an own goal, the second that he’s scored in as many weeks. He had a moan about it. One thing that I noticed was that this guy was blind so I turned to my friend and whispered to him “I suppose that his guide dog told him about the match” which did not go down very well but I thought that it was hilarious

So now I’m telling jokes – and good jokes too – in my sleep. I must admit that when I transcribed that little note I did have a good laugh. But it also underlines the fact that having a sense of humour is dying a death these days. Modern people won’t find it funny but I’m 50 years behind the times – a museum piece myself, if you like. I don’t belong in this modern World.

The nurse had a good moan at me this morning. I must have bled at some point because one of my trouser legs has a load of blood on the inside. She told me off and ordered me to wash them. It’s called “laying down the law” and I have to obey. She didn’t tell me what the “or else” meant.

After she left I had a leisurely breakfast, reading my book on walks around Montana in 1911 and 1912 and you’ll be surprised how interesting it is. The author was discussing the signing of the peace treaty with the native Americans 20-odd years before and had quite a lot to say on the procedure, especially about on how many of the obligations of the Government that were subsequently overlooked.

And then after a slow start to the morning I made a start on the next radio programme.

Actually, not the next one. I’d leapt a few dates because there are three or four weeks that are going to be really complicated. So today I decided to bite the bullet and attack one of them.

For that, I needed a pile of music that I didn’t have and so I’ve been tracking down obscure music from obscure groups, downloading it, converting it to an acceptable format, choosing selected tracks, remixing them and then pairing them off.

And then if that’s not enough, making a good start on writing the notes. I’ve not gone very far with that, and I could have done better had I not gone away with the fairies at one point. I’m actually impressed that I managed two whole days, Sunday and Monday, without crashing out at all after the events of Saturday.

My cleaner stuck her head in and gave me the cheese she’d bought for me at LeClerc. But it seems that the vegan cheese slices have disappeared off the shelves. So what’s going on here then?

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg. It might be simple fare but it’s nice and tasty and that’s what counts.

So having written my notes I’ll wash my trousers to keep the nurse happy and then go to bed

But talking of museum pieces and the like, My friend Liz seems to think that it’s appropriate that I’ve bought an apartment in an Ancient Monument. "You’re actually something of an Ancient Monument yourself" she told me.
"You’re too kind, Liz" I told her ."What you really mean is that I’m an old ruin"

Sunday 4th August 2024 – ♫ PANCAKE TUESDAY …♫

♫ … Eric’s busy baking♫

But leaving aside the question of whether or not it is a Tuesday today, Eric has been a very busy boy in the kitchen this afternoon.

We now have another loaf all ready and baked so that we can start the week tomorrow with fresh bread for our toast, and we have a monster flapjack cut into 12 slices that will keep the blaidd from the drws, as they say in Caernarfon, for the next few weeks

When I made my lunchtime sandwiches yesterday I noticed that I didn’t have much bread left so I made a mental note to myself that some baking wold be involved in the proceedings at some point today.

And I was not wrong. When I looked last night, I reckoned that there might be enough for toast and maybe for a sandwich at lunchtime but that would be it.

So I sorted myself out and put my puttees to soak in a bowl of soapy hot water, where they still are after 24 hours. If that doesn’t clean them to the nurse’s satisfaction then nothing will.

When I’d done that I rolled up the other pair and put them ready for the morning.

Before going to bed I dictated a pile of notes for the radio programmes ready to edit. I didn’t do too many because I could feel myself flagging as I was dictating, and making too many silly mistakes.

Nevertheless, it was still after midnight and I was letting it all hang out. I had hoped to be in bed a long time before this

And it was a miserable night too. I’m glad that I didn’t have to wake up until 08:00 today.

But when the alarm went off I was already awake. I’d been awake for a while. Dog-tired as I was when I went to bed, I’d gone off to sleep quite quickly but I’d woken up far too early.

After having a wash and a clean-up I came in here to listen to the dictaphone. And I was amazed at all the stuff on there. No wonder it had been a miserable night. I was going to make a pizza but I had the horrible realisation that I hadn’t taken the pizza dough out of the freezer at Sunday lunchtime. Then I suddenly realised that it’s still Saturday night and I’m still in bed so I don’t need to quite make the pizza as yet so I turned over and tried to go back to sleep again.

That was one of these “panic attack’ dreams that I have every so often. You have to admit – it’s not everyone who can make a pizza while he’s in bed asleep.

Then there was something about it being someone’s birthday and that seemed to affect a couple of rock groups and their music but I’m not quite sure how and I seemed to have forgotten part of the dream that included that but it generated onwards towards birthdays and cooking, people putting birthday recipes and birthday ideas for meals altogether. I was going to comment on a couple which I’d sorted out because they could be so easily changed to vegan but while writing out the notes I seem to have lost the thread completely. I started writing basically gibberish and in the end pressed “send” and sent it because I couldn’t think of what else I needed to say and sending anything at this stage is better than sending nothing. It was a really confused and miserable night last night with all kinds of activity and things going on with which I didn’t really get to grips.

It seems that I wasn’t just writing gibberish last night. I was speaking it too

I was at school and we had some project to do, to talk about our teachers. I was working away in a corner and another girl came to sit close to me so we ended up chatting while we were working. I’d picked as my subject one of the teachers who was married to another one. His wife was a former accountant and accounts manager. We were fantasising why the male prof didn’t like the idea too much of working on the internet. We came to the conclusion that it was because his wife didn’t let him because she was too busy doing other things with it, and why he was so late handing work back to us was because she would go through it with a fine toothcomb and being a teacher herself and an accountant she would absolutely have to find some fault with it. We were fantasising things about this that went on for ages. None of it was very complimentary and none of it was stuff that I could write down but it was still interesting. One of the teachers then came over to us with a big pile of notes. She said to the girl “I have your results here from the previous project. Would you like me to read them to you?” so the girl said “yes”. The teacher said “some of them are very confidential”, looking at me. The girl said “that’s all OK. I don’t mind Eric knowing anything of things like that”. “Yes, but one or two of them concern Eric”. I replied “don’t worry about making any comments about me. You might have comments to say for the first time but a lot of other people will have said them before this, I promise you”. It went on like this. This was another one of these nice warm comfortable dreams that I have some times and don’t have enough of and that I wish could go on for ever and ever

Yes, this is much more like the kind of dream that I want to have. I’ve had a few dreams, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, that focus on a girl and me at school back in our schooldays. And if only my schooldays had happened like this. All these girls hanging around me and I wish that I knew who they were and why they weren’t there when it mattered.

Later on I’m making my afternoon cocoa and I have it in the pan. I’m stirring away, talking about other things and thinking about loads of other things too while I’m doing it. I seem to be there for ages and ages and notice tat this chocolate now is starting to congeal. That can’t be right so I have a look and the gas has gone out in the little rechaud thing that I used for heating my chocolate and I’ve been standing there for the last I don’t know how long stirring it and it’s not made the slightest bit of difference. It’s just been going colder and colder and colder. Now I’m going to have to heat it up and wait for that to happen and it’s hot enough. I can see me being here with this all night.

And it wouldn’t be the first time that that’s happened, trying to cook a meal and the gas has been out for quite a while

I was in the European Union’s building in Brussels. It was time to go so I prepared to leave and picked up my briefcase, then picked up a long cane and began to push my briefcase along the floor in front of me. Quite a few people gave me some strange looks, some stranger than others including one woman who was extremely suspicious. When I reached the exit door at the interior of the building I picked it up and immediately went to open it. All the people dived for cover so I took out my laptop and packet of sandwiches. Before I had time to do anything again I was overwhelmed by security guards who insisted on demanding to know what I was doing. I told them to mind their own business and we had another stand-off in that … fell asleep here …

Yes, over the years I had a few good stand-offs with the Security guards. They were totally lacking in an understanding of what was happening in the modern World. The period in which we were living was changing rapidly and dramatically, far too quickly for them.

I was back giving a girl advice on buying a computer for her studies. She could have a grant to enable her to buy a computer but she needed to know the specifications and so on. I explained to her the maximum specifications that the Open University would allow under this grant but I also explained to her that firstly they didn’t check and secondly, as long as she didn’t tell them any different they weren’t going to know about what her computer was so we had a little discussion along those lines while she was having a look through the sales pages to see whether she could find anything suitable.

When I was living in Brussels I lost count of the number of computers I built and repaired. That was another field that was changing dramatically and rapidly and I was lucky enough to be there during that little window where we had SX, DX and Pentium architecture and I could cope with that. However I was left behind rather rapidly at that point.

Did I dictate the dream where we were all back in France again and there was something going on and someone had to submit some kind of written document … "no you didn’t" – ed … so one of our group took it upon herself to do it, and then asked if we needed any amendments before she sent it off. The problem was that this document was a complete mess and needed a total rewrite and revision before we could send it. I’m no journeyman so I could have cleared it up but … fell asleep here … which is a shame because this sounds as if it might have been interesting.

We had a new wheelchair for a friend of mine. I assembled it but couldn’t tighten it up because two of the straps that we needed to bring the whole thing into tension once there was a weight on it were not supplied with the kit and we had to fetch those extra. I explained to my friend that she’s going to be a bit flopping around on this. She was concerned about her blood test – if the blood test that she goes to takes for ever, how’s she going to cope? I explained to her that there was nothing wrong with the actual comfort of the machine, it’s just one or two pieces missing but she didn’t seem to understand. In the end I sat her in the machine and had things arranged as they normally would be. We were there for an hour or something then I set them up as they would be when we had the straps in there. Everything seemed to be much better so I asked her if she was comfortable but again she didn’t reply. Once I pressed her, she kept on going on about her blood test. I’ve no idea what was happening with her there but she was being extremely un-cooperative about this new wheelchair.

Phew! After that I’m exhausted. It’s no surprise that I was feeling pretty tired

In the middle of sorting this out the nurse came and dealt with my legs. She had rather more time than usual so we had a little chat which was nice

But as a result it was rather a late breakfast but the coffee was nevertheless really nice.

Back in here I watched Stranraer stroll to a 2-0 lead quite comfortably and then throw it away in the final stages of the game. They should have been out of sight and down the road a long time before the end of the game, and Peterhead only had two shots on goal during the whole match …

Then I’ve been radioing. The notes for two additional tracks have been edited and the radio programmes have been assembled. They are complete and ready to go. And then the first of the two longer ones is all edited and assembled as far as I can. The final track has been chosen and remixed and the notes written ready for dictating.

Doing the final editing for the last one that I dictated is tomorrow’s task, if I choose to accept it

And then we had the baking. That was after my hot chocolate. I have a loaf, a flapjack and I also baked a pizza for tea and that really was delicious. Just as good as last weekend’s.

So now I’m off to bed for a nice early night, I hope.

But did you note the phrase “another stand-off”. It wouldn’t be the first one. I remember a memo that came round saying “Fonctionnaires are reminded that they cannot bring their children into the office” and there I was, wandering around the building with Roxanne.
"Haven’t you read the memo about children in the office?" roared a a Security guard
"Ohh yes, I read it" I replied
"So why have you brought her in? She’s not allowed"
"But the memo talks about … ‘bringing your child …’"
"That’s right" he shouted
"But she’s not my child" I explained.

Wednesday 31st July 2024 – JOHN MAYALL HAS …

… died

Born in Macclesfield 90 years ago, down the road from where I used to live it’s doubtful if anyone has contributed more to the British blues scene than him.

Not that I’m a big blues fan, but ever since his first “proper” band in Manchester with long-time associate Hughie Flint (later of McGuinness Flint) on the drums, and his first incarnation of the Bluesbreakers on his arrival in London, with trainee Tax Inspector John McVie (later of Fleetwood Mac) on bass, just about anyone who is anyone on the blues circuit has played in one of his bands.

Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Harvey Mandel, Jack Bruce, Keef Hartley, a 15 year-old Andy Fraser, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Jon Hiseman, etc, etc, it’s a veritable Who’s Who of names who made it in the music World who have at one time passed through The Bluesbreakers

Even though he was 90 years old, and probably thinking about slowing down, he’s someone who will be sorely missed.

Something else that was sorely missed was my 23:00 curfew. I was miles away from it in fact, and on the wrong side as well. Probably much closer to midnight when I crawled into my sack.

And although I was asleep quite quickly, I was awake quite early too – at, would you believe, 02:15.

So there I was, for hours, tossing and turning and trying to go back to sleep, without any success at all. All in all, it was quite a miserable night

When the alarm went off, it was a very weary me who raised one eye up from under the quilt. But despite everything I did manage to make it out of bed before the second alarm went off.

Feeling depressingly weary, I made it into the bathroom where a good rub down with a cold flannel did little to revive my flagging spirits

Eventually I managed to make it back in here where I had a listen to the dictaphone. And to my surprise there was something on it from the night. I’d been appointed as one of two sporting ambassadors for Caernarfon Town. It was my job to welcome TNS to the ground after TNS had beaten them in a heavy defeat the previous week. Of course there was a lot of change and a lot of issues about it but we still had to do an extremely professional job

Presumably this has something to do with the fact that both Caernarfon Town and TNS are entertaining foreign opposition this week. TNS had Ferencvaros of Hungary down there in Oswestry last night, and Caernarfon will be entertaining Legia Warzawa of Poland tomorrow (Thursday) evening.

The nurse caught me by surprise this morning. She rings on my doorbell from downstairs as she arrives in the building but then goes to see my neighbour first, giving me about ten minutes. But today, she was here in seconds.

When she came in she caught me watching a football match. "You were quick at whatsit’s" I said
"She’s not here" she replied.

It seems that my neighbour has been taken into hospital. They aren’t convinced that she has what it takes to live an autonomous life in view of all of the falls that she’s had and the fact that she’s lost confidence in herself.

She’s gone to be assessed for a place in a Home, so she told me when I texted her later to find out how she was. And that is probably as good a solution as you can expect for her.

The nurse changed the covering on my arm and then dealt with my legs. She wasn’t here long and left quite quickly, running rather later than usual. But we did make arrangements for Friday because I won’t be here that morning.

While I was eating breakfast I was reading a book about lost trails in Montana. Once again I was so engrossed, especially when I reached the chapter on a band of vigilantes that roamed the Territory righting wrongs and hanging outlaws that I was there for a long time poring over the pages.

Once again, very little of this stuff has made it onto Wikipedia and so its all likely to fall out of the pages of recorded history as the three-minute truncated attention span of the MTV Generation takes more and more control.

The rest of the day, when I’ve not been asleep, has been spent tracking down musicians who played with John Mayall and samples of their music. Mayall is the kind of person who deserves a radio programme in his honour and I’m sure that there will be enough material for me to assemble some sort of something to commemorate his services to music.

The cleaner came by for an hour or so too in a vain attempt to make the place look pretty. We had the accounts to settle too and I had to go to lie down in a darkened room afterwards.

Tea tonight was another slice of pie with potatoes, mixed veg and gravy. And the secret to warming up the pie is to put it in the air fryer. It’s simple really.

So now, nice and early, I’m going to go back to do some more on my John Mayall project

But John Mayall’s passing reminds me of that hellfire-and-damnation vicar who was preaching a sermon at the local church
"One day, everyone from this parish will die, and will be called to answer for their sins before the merciless God"
To which a man on the back rown burst out laughing.
"I don’t think that you heard me" thundered the vicar. "I said – ‘one day, everyone from this parish will die, and will be called to answer for their sins before the merciless God’"
"Oh I heard you, right enough" said the man, laughing even more
"So why are you laughing?" asked the vicar
"Well, I don’t come from this parish"

Thursday 18th July 2024 – LAST NIGHT I FINISHED …

… my notes with "Which way did it go?"

So which way did the early night that I promised myself go last night?

It ended up being long after midnight with the cleaner and I mopping up blood yet again and I tell you that I’m thoroughly sick of all this.

When I took off my jacket while undressing there was a blood-soaked bulge on my arm where a plaster was supposed to be. Of course I’m not touching anything like that (I really am nesh) so in the end my loyal cleaner came down.

It’s really lucky that she’s here. She has all of the first-aid certificates and the like so she was able to clean everything up, inspect the arm, consider that there was no real damage and bandage it up again.

It took her long enough but she did a really professional job and bound it round with a long strip wrap to hold everything in place until the morning so that at least I wouldn’t bleed to death during the night.

After all of that I could go to bed.

But not to sleep. I wasn’t in the mood which was hardly any surprise. All in all, things were pretty miserable and there was nothing on the dictaphone of course. Zero didn’t come back to continue part II of our voyage which was a disappointment.

When the alarm went off I staggered into the bathroom and a cursory inspection showed no signs of anything unusual or out-of-the-ordinary, no trails of blood anywhere so I had a good wash and came back in here to wait for the nurse.

When she came, she had a look at my arm. She changed the dressing, commented on the good job that my cleaner had made, and remarked that she thought that my wrist was swollen.

She did a check of my fingers to make sure that everything moved as it should but she still wasn’t satisfied. She urged me to contact the hospital as soon as she left.

Not quite as soon as she left though. I wasn’t going to do without my breakfast.

When I was sipping a mug of coffee afterwards I rang them up. Apparently the surgeon is only there on Tuesdays, but his secretary will tell him that I called with a problem. So I can’t see what use this “24-hour number” is to anyone.

Meanwhile, the nurse called me She’d had the same irrelevant response when she phoned them so she went to see my doctor who has his office in the same building where she is.

He’s away on holiday, of course he will be at a time like this, but he has a locum and she will come round at lunchtime.

Meanwhile, my cleaner came round. She’d brought back more supplies, and wanted to know how I was getting on so I gave her the good news.

This locum – the first thing that she did when she came round was to hold my hand and feel my pulse. And I’ll tell you – she can hold my hand and feel my pulse any time she likes.

She thinks that my wrist is running a temperature but she didn’t want to disturb any of the bandaging as there doesn’t seem to be a problem as far as that goes.

She made several ‘phone calls, gave me a couple of phone numbers that are more likely to produce a response than the one that failed so miserably, and told me that if all else fails I mustn’t hesitate to telephone the emergency services.

She then wrote out a prescription for yet more dressings, which my cleaner came down to fetch.

An hour or so after everyone had gone and come back, I had a ‘phone call.

The neurosurgeon’s secretary called me. "we’ve heard from your doctor" she said. "We’re all quite concerned here. Can you come tomorrow at 11:30 to see the neurosurgeon and have an echograph?"

So that’s the taxi booked for 10:45 then. I wonder at just what point the Social Services will become fed up of paying for me to go gallivanting across northern France at the taxpayer’s expense.

In between all of this I’ve been trying to prepare a radio programme. I’m chosen all of the music, paired it off and begun to write the notes.

Not that I’ve gone very far, and I could have done much more had it not been for a little wobble at one point. But with no sleep last night it’s hardly a surprise.

There’s been no food tonight either except a bag of crisps and some biscuits. I’ve been watching the football, and watching hearts break all over Europe

Caernarfon clung on to win through to the next round but Bala were cruelly denied progress by a very late goal in Estonia and Connah’s Quay in Wales by two very late goals, one right at the end of normal time to be pegged back and then a killer punch right at the end of extra time.

But the fact is that there’s a wealth of difference between teams in Europe and teams in the UK, in style of play and in temperament too.

British teams tend to ride their luck instead of relying on technique and fitness. There’s too much of the “it’ll be all right on the night” about them.

When I interviewed Granville’s manager a while back about fitness levels between full-time teams and part-time teams, I brought up the subject of part-time teams running out of steam.

He poo-pooed the idea, and then Granville conceded three very late goals after matching Olympique de Marseille toe-to-toe for 75 minutes.

After tonight’s results, I’m more-than-ever convinced that there’s something in what I said to him and one day I’ll produce some statistics.

But not tonight because I’m going to bed in the hope of a decent sleep and some pleasant dreams, preferably in the company of Zero if she comes back after the other night.

But on the subject of statistics, and vital statistics at that,; I remember a civil servant friend of mine who went to buy a new bra for his wife
"what size, sir?" asked the shop assistant
"Sixteen and a half" he said
"Sixteen and a half?" repeated the shop assistant, rather puzzled
"That’s right" said the customer "My bowler hat is size eight and a quarter …"

Wednesday 17th July 2024 – I CAN’T BELIEVE …

… the nerve, or cheek of some people.

Highway robbery at the point of a pistol is a fairly common phenomenon, but highway robbery at the point of a card reader is something else again.

But anyway, more of that anon. Retournons à nos moutons as they say around here. Where was I?

Ohh yes, finishing off my bread and carrot purée and going to bed.

But not to sleep, unfortunately. It was a long, long night listening to my neighbour snoring away and waiting for the inevitable 06:00 stampede as the nightshift dashes to finish off its tasks before the day shift comes on at 07:00.

They gave me a diabetes check and it went off the scale, so no orange juice for me which was a shame. But I’m convinced that their reader must be wrong. How could it be off the scale when I’ve had next-to-nothing to eat for 36 hours?

After breakfast (which included jam despite the diabetes check) a doctor came to see me. She didn’t have much to say for herself but I managed to winkle out of her that I’d be leaving at 10:30

With that news I contacted my faithful cleaner but she told me that she wouldn’t be home until 13:00. And so I asked the staff here if I could postpone my departure but I was told in no uncertain terms to sod off and like it.

With that news I sat down to transcribe the dictaphone notes from the night while I was waiting. Some doctor here was looking for an e-mail about my health but he’d filed it away somewhere on line and when he’d gone to fetch it back it had disappeared so he was found rounding up all of his colleagues to come and look, to see whether any of them could help to try to find out how to fetch it back

That sounds about right for “cloud” storage systems. Everyone else can access the document except the person who posted it there. I’m afraid that I still favour the old traditional method of copying to USB key. There’s one plugged into this computer into which I back up every night, and there’s a “travelling key” on my keyring that I use for moving documents about between the big desktop machine and the portable that I take with me when I go anywhere.

And then Zero had come to see me during the night. She was in something of a bad mood, saying that she had to go to see the physiotherapist a week on Monday. Her step-father insisted, so I wanted to find out why. She told me that it was to fetch the results, the “results” she said in inverted commas, so I imagined that it was something to do with an incident that had happened a couple of weeks earlier in respect of which a complaint had been lodged. I thought that this was going to be the decisive moment but for some reason or other she was clearly not happy at all about having to go and I couldn’t understand why

How lovely to see Zero again after all this time. Wasn’t it nice of her to come to see me? But it wasn’t very nice to see an unhappy Zero, that’s for sure. I much prefer the lovely smiling face, puffy cheeks, green flashing eyes and all those miles of vibrant red hair. But a “step-father”? What’s become of her real dad? That’s worth a story all by itself. I wonder if I’ll have part two of this episode any time soon.

While all of this was going on, someone from the admin office came to see me and asked about my Health Insurance. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I don’t have the State insurance system. I have a private health insurance paid for by the European Commission so I gave them the form and also a copy of the form that they can use to seek direct billing.

The above is quite important, as you’ll see as the story unfolds.

The taxi turned up for me bang on time so we went to the Admissions Office to collect the paperwork for leaving, and this was where I was “held up” with the card reader

"That’s One thousand five hundred and seventy two Euros and 68 cents please"

"You have my Health Insurance details there" I said "and a form to apply for direct billing"

"It’s an assurance that I don’t recognise" (like, the European Union and she doesn’t recognise it) "so you’ll have to pay"

She was totally and utterly intransigent, apart from being too utterly bone-idle to scan my documents and send them off.

So eventually I made it home and as the taxi driver was helping me up the 25 Steps the phone rang. It was Isabelle the nurse. She’d heard that I was back on the loose and would I like my legs seeing to?

A cheerful word and a smiling face is always welcome so I told her to come round. By the time she arrived, so had I and she was able to sort me out.

She wasn’t impressed with what the hospital want her to do. She didn’t think that it was her job but with a good grace (which was nice to find someone with good grace after this morning) she agreed to do it.

She needed a lot of equipment and material so she wrote herself out a prescription and said she’ll leave it at the pharmacy. My faithful cleaner can pick up the articles this afternoon.

When my cleaner came round later we went through the medication, worked out what we were short of, and she went down into town to do the business. Poor thing – she had a struggle to come back with all of the supplies for the nurse. She’ll have to bring some back tomorrow, bless her.

So in my nice clean kitchen I made a taco roll for tea with rice and veg. It should be “leftover curry” night tomorrow but it’s also football so it’ll be pasta and veg, with the curry on Friday. It’ll probably walk out of the fridge on its own by then.

So having washed my puttees tonight, I’m going to bed nice and early, still fuming about today’s events but hoping that if I’m lucky Zero will come to console me. Good news is hard to find and, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

But going back to the hospital, my room-mate had a rather bad habit of … errr … breaking wind. And it was quite embarrassing at times.
At one moment, whilst being examined, poked and prodded by a doctor he let out an extremely loud raspberry
Obviously, to save his embarrassment, the doctor turned to his nurse and said "stop that, nurse!"
"Certainly, doctor" she replied. "Which way did it go?"

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

Tag Archives: bad night

25th September 2024 – YOU WON’T BELIEVE …

Saturday 21st September 2024 – I WAS RIGHT …

Friday 20th September 2024 – MY SPOTTED DICK …

Tuesday 17th September 2024 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

Saturday 7th September 2024 – THE PLAN WAS …

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 – I HAD A LOVELY …

Monday 2nd September 2024 – AND IF YOU THINK …

Saturday 17th August 2024 – I’VE HAD A …

Saturday 10th August 2024 – IT’S NOT BEEN …

Friday 9th August 2024 – I’M HAVING A …

Tuesday 6th August 2024 – ABOUT TEN YEARS AGO …

Sunday 4th August 2024 – ♫ PANCAKE TUESDAY …♫

Wednesday 31st July 2024 – JOHN MAYALL HAS …

Thursday 18th July 2024 – LAST NIGHT I FINISHED …

Wednesday 17th July 2024 – I CAN’T BELIEVE …

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