Tag Archives: hospital

Thursday 28th August 2025 – YET ANOTHER MORNING …

… when I slept right the way through until the alarm at 06:29. And once more, I had no end of a struggle to leave the bed prior to the alarm going off.

Last night wasn’t however as late as some have been just recently. I was actually, for once, in bed prior to midnight although it does have to be said that there can’t have been much in it.

Once in bed, I was asleep quite quickly and that’s all that I remember of anything until 06:29 when the alarm went off. It’s not very often that I sleep as soundly as that.

It took me an age to make myself ready this morning too. What with having a good wash, scrub up and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, I went into the kitchen for my medication and didn’t come out again until 07:41 precisely. That was what I would call a “slow start”.

Yes, and “Emilie the Cute Consultant” … while I was waiting for my Doppler examination yesterday, with nothing better to do, I found a copy of the “Patients’ Charter” and read it. I do strange things like that every now and again.

Article 11 states that "a person who has been hospitalised has the right to express his observations on his treatment and on his reception." Consequently, if I have received an “over-generous” welcome from a member of staff, I shall say so, whether or not the doctor in charge of the service blows a gasket.

Even more importantly, Article 9 says that "every hospitalised person has the right to have his private life respected." It continues by saying that such a person "has the right to confidentiality respect of his …" communications.

Therefore, if the chef de service doesn’t like what I’m writing, I shall want to know why someone has been disrespecting my private life by hunting me down on the internet and reading my communications.

Frankly, I’m not in the least bothered about who tracks me down on the internet and who reads anything that I have written. But as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … if you have seen something that displeases you, no matter how you found it, there’s a “contact” button on the bottom right.

But if you are reading this and you aren’t supposed to, no matter what the reason, you only have yourself to blame.

Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. At some point during the night, I was at Aberystwyth watching Aberystwyth Town playing in the JD Cymru South League following their relegation from the Premier League. It was a completely new side with all their old favourites missing. It just wasn’t the same kind of team that it was before. Several of their former players who had left in the summer were there but seemed not to become involved or take any kind of side during anything that was going on. That was a disappointment again.

Amongst the players whom I recognised in the stand was Louis Bradford, Aberystwyth’s former centre-half, but also Alec Mudimu, someone who has no connection at all with Aberystwyth. He’s a Zimbabwe international defender who played in the JD Cymru League previously with Cefn Druids and after a spell playing in Eastern Europe, signed for Y Fflint the other day.

The nurse came at the usual time for a change today, and once more, he was full of jovial good humour. I really don’t know from where it’s coming, but I hope that he keeps it up. He’s a much more agreeable person when he’s in this kind of mood.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of MIDDLESEX IN BRITISH, ROMAN AND SAXON TIMES.

Our author is still setting the scene but he’s now moved on to talk about hunting. And in the middle of his discourse, he stops to paint a very illuminating but fanciful account of a fictional hunt involving Cunobelinus and his “daughter” Helena, a personage just as fictitious as Montagu Sharpe’s description.

Sharpe talks about the wild "animals turned by the long line of bank and hedge now known as Grimm’s dyke, blindly rushing towards these outstretched leafy arms," of the hunting trap. And then he loses the plot completely as he talks about the "blast from a long bronze carnyx, the sportsmen scatter to their places, and with weapons ready".

Would anyone like to guess what might happen to a herd of wild animals if someone in their vicinity were to blow a note on a solid bronze anything?

Really, this kind of writing has no place in what is supposed to be a genuine and serious historical account.

Back in here, I had a few things to do but time caught up with me quite rapidly and my cleaner arrived to sort out my anaesthetic patches. After she’d finished, we had a very long chat and then she left me to await the taxi to take me to dialysis.

It was late coming this afternoon and the other passenger in the car with me had the air of being extremely unhappy. We were late arriving at Avranches and as you might expect, I was the last to be plugged in.

To make matters worse, having had the session interrupted on Monday, I had so much liquid to lose that I had to stay for four hours. And the internet was down all day too, which really put the tin hat on it.

Océane was looking after me today, which was nice. The first needle, I felt a sensation when she pierced the skin but that was all. As for the second, the one that gives me problems, I didn’t even realise that she’d injected me, so good was the puncture. She can do it again like that and I’ll be happy. And once she had finished, I crashed out for a whole forty-five minutes

The doctor came to see me at one point. They had had the report from the hospital. The implant is definitely faulty and they are discussing whether to repair it or replace it. That was not what I wanted to hear.

During the session, the blood pressure alarm kept sounding as my blood pressure dropped. With twenty minutes to go, it was down to just about eight so at that point, Océane stopped the session. She’s already seen me in a coma once and doesn’t want to see it again.

She raised the bottom of the bed to give my blood pressure the space to recover, and when my pressure was stable at 9.5 she uncoupled me. The doctor gave me a prescription for the nurse to monitor my blood pressure for the next couple of days.

The taxi driver was waiting for me, last out of the building as I was, and she brought me home. My faithful cleaner was awaiting me and what a relief it was to come back into my apartment without those wretched 25 steps.

After a good while to recover, I made tea – a leftover curry. And now I’m off to bed, exhausted once again. I don’t know what’s the matter with me these last few days.

But seeing as we have been talking about hunting … "well, one of us has" – ed … two guys are out hunting in the forests of Maine when they are attacked by a black bear. One of them escapes but the other one is badly mauled.
Eventually, the one who escapes goes back to his friend and sees the bloody mass on the floor.
Taking up his ‘phone, he ‘phones 911."My friend has just been badly mauled by a black bear. I think that he’s dead"
"Really?" asks the dispatcher. "Can you make sure?"
On the other end of the ‘phone, the dispatcher hears a “BANG”
"I’m really sure now" says the surviving hunter. "What do I do next?"

Wednesday 27th August 2025 – AND ONCE AGAIN …

… when the alarm went off at 06:29, I was still fast asleep.

It’s no surprise really, for when you don’t go to bed until after 00:30, there really isn’t all that much time for sleeping. It is, however, disappointing to say the least. I was hoping that this series of very early starts would go on and on and on.

Yes, it was after 00:30 when I finally went to bed last night. I know that what with one thing and another, it was a late night but I hadn’t realised that it was that late until I checked the time.

Once in bed, though, I remember nothing at all. I must have gone to sleep quite quickly and stayed there until the alarm. Being as tired as I have been over this last week or so since chemotherapy, the good (well, for me, anyway) sleep probably did me some good.

Mind you, I didn’t feel like leaving the bed when the alarm went off. Once again, for two pins I would have gone back to bed. I had a real struggle to leave the bed before the second alarm went off.

It really was a slow start to the morning. It took an age to sort myself out in the bathroom and I didn’t rush to take my medication. It was about 07:40 when I finally made it back into here.

First thing that I did was to check the dictaphone, “just in case”. I was travelling miles in my sleep but I can hardly remember anything of it because the alarm awoke me yet again. However, I do remember that on one occasion I was going back into a place where I worked, trying to smuggle out a textbook or instruction book or something so that I could do some work at home on the Thursday or Friday and have the book back in the office for Monday morning. I also remember doing something with a sheet of newspaper, rolling it up into some kind of spiral like the kind of thing that you’d make if you were lighting a fire. That’s all that I remember about what was going on during the night.

And isn’t that disappointing too? Having a really interesting dream, only to find it evaporate away like that.

The nurse was early again and he was once more in a spirit of amiability. I hope that this keeps up, rather than his usual depressive state

After he left, it was breakfast time. However, I had hardly started it, never mind finished it, when there was a ring on the doorbell. I’m not sure that I mentioned yesterday that the dialysis centre wants me to go for a Doppler examination on the implant in my arm. It had been arranged for 09:30 this morning here in Granville, so I wasn’t expecting the taxi at 08:45.

We arrived at the hospital at 09:05, in plenty of time for my appointment at 09:30, so it goes without saying that I wasn’t seen until a little after 10:00. My taxi driver had already been once to pick me back up but she found me sitting there waiting to be called.

The doctor who performed the examination was someone whom I have met on several occasions in the past. A small lady of “a certain age”, she would make a very good companion to my favourite taxi driver, for she is another one who gives a running commentary of “a certain kind” while she is working. Those two working together would make a wonderful combination.

She had me there for well over half an hour, and the result is exactly as I knew it to be before we even talked about going – namely, there’s a fault in my implant right where the second needle goes, and the fault has been there for months, exactly as I said that it had.

That is the responsibility of the clinic that tried its best to rob me of €1667 or thereabouts last summer, and for which I had to fight over four months for it to be returned. I am now awaiting the formal report before I decide my next move.

However, I shall be having words with the doctors at the dialysis centre too. I’ve been complaining about this implant for months, and no-one has done anything about it. It’s a shame that I had to write to the dialysis centre’s head office so that something could be done, and despite the objections of the chef de service who, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, took great exception to my letter, my letter has produced some kind of results.

When I left the radiology booth, my poor taxi driver was still awaiting me. I felt terribly sorry for her but there wasn’t all that much that I could do about it.

It was 10:55 when I arrived back here and I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that was that it was lovely just to walk back all on my own across the courtyard to the front door, into the building and straight into my new apartment without having to worry about how I’m going to climb 25 stairs.

First thing that I did when I was back here was to reheat my porridge and coffee in the microwave and then finish my breakfast, at long last.

The second thing was to say hello to my faithful cleaner who came in carrying an urgent letter. And so it’s official that Tuesday 16th September I go to Rennes for my next session of chemotherapy.

It looks as if it’s just for the day too. Plenty of mention about what I need to bring, but nothing at all about an “overnight bag”. Of course, I’ll telephone to check. However, if it is just a day visit, that will cause a few other problems because I don’t think that I’ll be in much of a state to travel afterwards, if the previous sessions have been anything to go by.

Much of the afternoon has been spent beginning to unpack my office and installing my external drives. There’s a lot to do in this respect and it will take a while to do it all.

However, the good news is that I have had my first shower. And it was gorgeous too. It worked just as I wanted it to and I was so impressed. However, climbing in and out of the shower is difficult. The step up is just a little too high for me.

But I have a solution to that. Lying around here are all kinds of offcuts of scrap wood from the kitchen, and if I put two or three together and screw them so that they don’t move, they would make a nice step up of half-height and so I should be able to manage the ascent so much better.

What kind of state am I in these days?

Later on, we had another foot-fest. I’d missed the match between Stranraer and Clyde at the weekend, and last night Stranraer had taken on Glasgow Rangers Youth in the Scottish League Cup.

The match at the weekend was a tame 1-1 draw but last night’s match was … errr … interesting, to say the least. Stranraer won 4-1 but, big Stranraer fan that I am, their third goal was scored from the softest ever penalty award that I have ever seen which in 99 games out of 100 would have been waved away, and as for the fourth goal, you can show me that again as many times as you like and from every kind of angle too, and I will still say that the Stranraer forward was half a mile offside.

However, Stranraer has in the past been on the wrong end of several dubious decisions in the past so I suppose that things eventually even themselves out.

Tea tonight was an aubergine and kidney bean whatsit out of the freezer with pasta and vegetables, and in a return to normality after the upheaval of the last week or so, I read some more of MIDDLESEX IN BRITISH, ROMAN AND SAXON TIMES by Montagu Sharpe.

Sharpe has been discussing the Iron-Age occupation of Middlesex by the various Celtic tribes and that has led me on a chase around cyberspace for buried treasure. Quite literally too, because the subject of buried hoards from the Iron Age came into the discussion.

Of course, I went off on a side-track and in the words of Fridtjof Nansen, "the more extensive my studies became, the more riddles I perceived – riddle after riddle led to new riddles and this drew me on."

And that, dear reader, is the answer to why it takes me so long to write up my notes, and why my Degree studies were not as they ought to have been. I am side-tracked far too easily by things that, to me at least, are much more interesting than whatever I am supposed to be doing.

So late once more, even though at one stage it promised to be quite early, I’m off to bed, wondering if I’ll have another “lie-in” until the alarm goes off.

But despite my having the first decent meal tonight since before chemotherapy, it’s been something of a bad day. On several occasions, I’ve felt my head spinning round and I’ve had to hold on to something to stop me falling. I’ve still not recovered from chemotherapy, I reckon, and I have no idea for how long this is going to continue.

But seeing as we have been talking about Fridtjof Nansen … "well, one of us has" – ed … he is of course famous for his epic hike across Greenland in 1888. During his trek he came across an Inuit building one of these little round houses out of ice blocks.
"What do you call this building?" asked Nansen
"It’s an ig" replied the Inuit
"Don’t you mean ‘igloo’?" asked Nansen
"Oh no" replied the Inuit. "There’s no plumbing up here on the Greenland Ice Cap."

Saturday 16th August 2025 – IT WAS ANOTHER …

… horrible day at dialysis where even more things went wrong than on the last horrible day that I had had. And add to that the fact that the nurse who dealt with me was the one who doesn’t like me all that much, it could hardly be any worse than it was.

However, it was brewing up like that last night. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I was off my food last night – a sure sign that I was sickening for something. Once more, it was quite late when I went to bed and I didn’t take long to go to sleep.

However, I awoke at 04:10 and couldn’t go back to sleep at all for quite a while. I was giving serious consideration to leaving the bed at one point, but the next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 06:29. I must have gone back to sleep again.

That’s twice just recently that I’ve been awoken by the alarm. I hope that it’s not becoming a habit because I enjoy my early mornings, even if I am dog-tired by the end of the day. I must have a think about this.

It took a while to summon up the morale and the energy to go into the bathroom to have a wash and a shave too, in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and then I went for my medication.

While I was in the kitchen, I could see the sun rise over the roof of the church. A tiny, bright-red disc, nothing like its usual morning appearance. Some say that it’s another Sahara sandstorm and the smoke from the wildfires in Spain that are causing the problem.

Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I can’t remember too much about this dream but I was living on one of these housing estates in Crewe. I’d discussed with someone the idea of going round to see them one afternoon. As the afternoon came round, I thought that I’d take a cake with me but I didn’t have a cake tin so I put a message on the internet to ask if anyone could lend some cake tins to me. There were one or two answers so I called for a taxi, and the taxi took me to one of the addresses. When I began to talk to this woman at this address about cake boxes, she shook her head in bewilderment. She had no idea about what I was discussing, and after five minutes it became quite evident that I had the wrong address and that I’d come here instead of whee I ought to be going. Eventually, after quite some time, I managed to work out that I could borrow a cake tin. The old lady who lived there was reasonably nice in the end although she had been somewhat brusque and sharp at first. I climbed back into the taxi to be rushed over to the next football ground accompanied by a beep from the driver and a hand-wave from the woman. I was thinking that well at least I had my cake for this afternoon so it’s not a bad thing.

It was part of my big plan to bake a cake or two, and a few other things for when my friends come to help me move but unfortunately, first of all, I’m feeling far from well and secondly, what with dialysis, chemotherapy and the like all happening next week, when am I going to have the time?

The nurse was very late this morning. He’s just back from his holidays so I suppose he wanted a lie-in. So I had to wait quite a while before I could make breakfast.

Having finished Daniel Gooch yesterday, I’ve started a new book today – Montagu Sharp’s MIDDLESEX IN BRITISH, ROMAN AND SAXON TIMES. It’s a comparatively modern book for me, written in 1856.

It has all the air of being quite interesting … "you’ve said that before about others" – ed … and at the moment, we are discussing the sharpened wooden stakes that were found in the River Thames, presumably to guard the British ford crossing the river at Brentford.

After breakfast, I came back in here and carried on packing a few more boxes ready to be moved downstairs. The more I can do, the better while I’m still in the mood and in the health to do it.

And then, I went a-playing with this radio soundtrack that I’ve been preparing. After much binding in the marsh etc, I’ve managed to fix one of the joins that was annoying me. It’s now much better than it was. There are still one or two more to fix, and I suspect that they might give me even more trouble.

My cleaner turned up to fit my anaesthetic patches and then we went downstairs to see how the plumber was doing. He’s made a really impressive job of the bathroom, and the shower looks beautiful, as far as it has gone. He seems to think that it will be all finished by Monday afternoon, which will be wonderful if it is.

There will still be a few other jobs to do, but I’ll contact the kitchen fitter and see what he thinks about his availability

This morning, I had awoken with a pain in my chest. I mentioned yesterday that I reckoned that I was sickening for something. But at dialysis, I made the huge mistake of telling them.

The preparations for the dialysis shuddered to a dramatic halt, I was given an electromyogramme and they took a blood sample, that needed to be analysed. "It’ll only take twenty minutes" they assured me. And when the blood pressure dropped to 7.0, then they really did go into a panic.

These twenty minutes turned out to be one hour and forty minutes and by that time, I was seething with rage. I’m afraid that I left the doctor and the nurse in absolutely no doubt about how I felt, and now the nurse likes me even less than before

Having arrived early at dialysis, it was 18:45 when the session finally ended and they unplugged me, and I was totally past caring.

If I have learned anything from today’s disaster, that is that next time they ask me how I am, I shall say that everything is perfect. I’m not being messed around like this again.

Another decision that I have made is that this trip to Paris will be my last. If they want me to continue with chemotherapy, it will have to be done in a local hospital or, the absolute limit, Rennes. I’m fed up with being a slave of the medical service.

Back here, there was a reception committee awaiting me – my cleaner, my friend from Munich and the Hound of the Baskervilles. It says something for my friends that they are prepared to make a 2400 km round trip just for a few days to help me move house. No-one could ask for better friends.

My friend had a guided visit of the new apartment and he thinks that it’s wonderful too. I really am pleased with it and I hope that it all works as well as it looks. With a little luck, I might even be in there on Monday when I return from dialysis. It would be wonderful if I could.

Tea was something of an ad-hoc scratch affair as I wasn’t up to doing much, and then I staggered in here to write my notes. I really am finished tonight and I shall be glad to climb into bed, where I shall sleep for ever, I reckon.

But seeing as we have been talking about showers … "well, one of us has" – ed … in one of these hostels of the kind where I stayed in Leuven, a girl went down to see the manager.
"It’s the man in the room next door" she said. "He’s doing rude things to himself in the shower."
So the manager went up to her room, had a look round, and said "I can’t see anything, miss."
"Well, " said the girl "if you put this chair onto the table just here and then climb ap to the top, you’ll be able to see him if you stare closely through the air brick up there in the wall."

Thursday 14th August 2025 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day at dialysis that was! Everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong and it wasn’t until 19:45 that I finally made it back here.

It had all gone wrong a long time before that, though. Once more, another night where I failed miserably to beat my curfew time of 23:00, mainly due to prevarication and lack of motivation, and I really need to do something about that. Over the last eighteen months or so I seem to have lost the will and there’s nothing that I can do that seems to recapture it.

At least, once I go to bed, I don’t stay awake for long. I’m away quite quickly, which is at least an improvement on how things used to be. But in some kind of weird compensation, I seem to awaken quite early and quite easily.

It was 02:45 when I awoke for the first time, and try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep at first. I reckoned at one stage that I may as well leave the bed and do something constructive, but as I was trying to summon up the energy, I must have gone back to sleep.

And then a strange thing happened. For the first time since I don’t know when, I was still asleep when the alarm went off at 06:29. I must have been really tired last night, because I was completely out of it all at that moment.

It took a good few minutes for me to gather up my senses, which is a surprise seeing how few I have these days, but I still managed to beat the second alarm – but only just.

After a good scrub up and the morning medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I’d gone to Paris for the weekend. On the Sunday morning I awoke and went down to the metro station to buy a metro pass. I then set out for a little walk. I walked down alongside the River Seine for a while and then decided to catch the metro. I climbed onto the metro and headed south along the river. I suddenly then had a horrible sensation that I’d left my keys in the metro station when I bought my ticket. So what was I going to do? I had to leave the metro and then run all the way back, all the way down the banks of the Seine, all the way to the metro station where I had been. I remember thinking that I don’t have my crutches here. How am I doing this? When I reached the metro station, I had to climb into my car and drive out into the suburbs or something. I drove out, and it was quite a fast drive with people not really obeying the speed limit at all. When I reached where I was supposed to be, I found that everyone from work had assembled there. One of the people gave me my suit that was in one of these plastic suit cover things on a hanger. I mentioned to him about my keys so he opened the plastic suit container thing and pulled out my keys. Of course I was extremely relieved about this and I thanked him, but then everyone began to take the mickey out of me. Although I knew that it was done in good nature, I wasn’t really in the kind of mood to be teased at that moment again. It was more a great big sigh of relief.

These days I seem to spend a lot of time wandering around without my crutches. If only it were true! But why would I be walking around Paris? That’s something that I certainly can’t do these days, not that I would want to, because Paris isn’t my favourite European city. The last time that I had a good walk around Paris was about three years ago with a certain young lady who figures every now and again in these pages. I don’t know why my colleagues from work would be there either, but that’s another story.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in as usual, and as well as dealing with my legs, she removed the plaster from my catheter, without giving me an opportunity to express my opinion on the matter. She’s probably right to do so, but it’s still going to be uncomfortable for me if I see it.

Once she’d left, I could make breakfast and read some more of THE DIARIES OF SIR DANIEL GOOCH.

Today, we’ve been treated to a very lengthy and involved discussion about fishing in 2400 fathoms (14400 feet) of sea with a couple of grappling hooks for the broken end of a transatlantic telegraph cable so that they could haul it up, splice a new length in it and lay it as a second cable from Valencia to Heart’s Content.

He also spends some time talking about the shipping that went past them as they fished for the cable. And in those days, there was so much marine traffic and so many different companies sailing the Atlantic. When we sailed the Atlantic in 2019, we met just one ship after leaving the Orkney Islands behind us until we were in the Davis Strait off the west coast of Greenland.

After breakfast, I did some more packing for a while and then came back in here to begin work on the next radio programme. And just five minutes convinced me that this is going to be a real mess. I’ll be lucky to salvage anything at all out of it.

And seeing as we have been talking about the radio, don’t forget that this weekend features my series of Woodstock programmes. I hope that you’ll all listen to it, even if you can’t understand French. After all, it took ages to prepare and involved an enormous amount of research. I was really happy about how it all turned out.

You can hear the broadcasts HERE at 21:00 Central European Time, 20:00 UK Time and 15:00 Toronto Time on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and even download them for later perusal.

My cleaner turned up a little later than usual to fit my anaesthetic patches, and then we went downstairs where I had a good chat with the plumber. Judging by what remains to be done, it looks as if he might be finished by Monday night if he works tomorrow, which is a Bank Holiday around here.

The taxi was late arriving but the driver put her foot down and we weren’t too late arriving in Avranches. But the doctor wanted to inspect the fitting in my arm, and then the nurse found that one of the patches had missed the fitting so it hurt like Hades, and the needle that goes in there missed the fitting too, so they were talking about doing it again. But wiser counsel prevailed and they fitted a “Y” branch on the one that was working.

They also found that I’d gained quite a lot of weight this last couple of days and so I had to stay for four hours. And to add insult to injury, they put me in the bed that is the most uncomfortable.

Having arrived at 13:45, it was 14:45 when the treatment actually began. And as I said earlier, s late as 19:45 when I returned home.

We had a quick look in to see where the plumber had reached this afternoon. He had made good progress while I was at dialysis. The plasterboard walling is all done and he’s applied the first layer of jointing compound. He has everything that he needs to repair the floor and to tile everywhere. It’s looking really impressive and will look even better when it’s finished

Coming back upstairs was a nightmare, and shan’t I be glad to no longer have to do it? I was exhausted and it took me a good half hour to recover enough breath to make a quick tea. Nothing exotic at all – I wasn’t in the mood.

So I’m off to bed now, wondering if I’ll have another sleep like last night or whether I’ll be back to the “four hours per night” lark.

But seeing as we have been talking about shipping … "well, one of us has" – ed … Nerina and I met a couple of people on a ferry once and had a really interesting chat with them.
"My husband is a sea-captain" said the woman. "He works for Cunard."
"My husband runs a taxi business" replied Nerina. "He puts a great deal of effort and energy into his work too."

Monday 11th August 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone again this morning.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that at this point I usually wail about the lack of excitement and interest etc, but as I have said it before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … you are probably as fed up with it as I am, so I shall desist.

Mind you, it’s not really all that much of a surprise because I was still letting it all hang out after midnight last night. For one reason or another, despite my best attempts to be early, it was nothing like. I really don’t know where the time goes these days.

And so in bed after midnight, I was asleep quite quickly, but not for long. At 04:10 I was wide awake again, which was probably why there was nothing on the dictaphone. You can’t go far in four hours.

Try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep. By about 05:15 I gave up the struggle and arose from the Dead.

In the bathroom, I had a good wash and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and then I went into the kitchen for the medication. Back in here, I discovered that there was nothing on the dictaphone, but not to worry because I have plenty to do.

In the living room, I filled all of the boxes that we had emptied on Wednesday so they are now all ready to be taken down and emptied. I also emptied one of the CD racks so that one is now ready to be moved.

Isabelle the Nurse inspected my catheter port and changed the dressing, and then dealt with my legs. She didn’t hang around for long, and I could make breakfast and read some more of THE OLD ROAD.

Our author is at it again with his flowery prose. He wants to talk about the Dissolution of Monasteries. I’m not going to reproduce what he has to say but if you were to look at page 199 you’ll see that he takes well over a page of his book to say "the monasteries were taken into possession of the Crown."

There’s another one of his … errr … rather inexact paragraphs. Talking about the Enclosure Act 1773 and its effect on the road, he says "it has been caught by the enclosures of the great landlords in four places alone : Albury, Denbies, Gatton, and Titsey. It passes, indeed, through the gardens of Merstham House,".

So is it “four places alone”, or is it actually five? Rhetorical hyperbole is one thing, but that which he is writing is something else.

The plumber finally turned up this morning, and we had a lengthy discussion about how I want the job to be done. Today, I found him much more amenable to my ideas than he was the last time that he was here, which is good news. He had also appeared with a trailer and he intended to move the bath, sink and mirror which I had been trying to give away but no-one wanted.

After he went downstairs, I had a few other things to do until my cleaner arrived. We fitted my anaesthetic patches and then took everything downstairs, where we found the plumber busily smashing old tiles off the wall.

We had a chat, and he showed me a few more defects that the builders who had converted this building into apartments in 1998 had done. The standard of workmanship in this place is appalling.

While I was waiting for the taxi, I began to unpack the boxes. But when she arrived, I was whisked down to Avranches at a rapid rate of knots by an impatient and probably very busy driver.

For a change, they had found a comfortable bed for me and I made the most of it because I crashed out completely for an hour or so.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me but didn’t have much to say. She asked me if there was anything that I needed, but I told her that whatever I needed wouldn’t be supplied by the dialysis clinic. One disappointment was that she hadn’t had an opportunity to speak to Paris about transferring my chemotherapy to Rennes.

If I were honest, I have to say that there wasn’t much work done this afternoon. I was far too tired to concentrate.

When the session was over, I had to wait around to be disconnected, so consequently I was no earlier coming home.

Back here, we inspected the work that the plumber had done. It’s quite impressive, it has to be said, but not so the work that we saw underneath that the builders had done in 1998. It really is disgraceful and one of these days, I’ll post a few photos of their efforts.

The climb back up the stairs was awful again, and so my cleaner and I have made a decision. While I am at dialysis on Monday next week, she’ll round up some willing volunteers and move my bed downstairs so that I don’t have to worry about coming back up here when I return.

If she is able to do that, it means just two more climbs up the stairs and my nightmare will be over. Mind you, that’s still two climbs too many. I really wanted to stay down there today – really.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper, but I really wasn’t all that hungry. I just wanted to go to bed, and I’m on my way there now.

But seeing as we have been talking about the awful standard of renovations in this building … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a builder’s van that I saw once in Birmingham.
Written on the side was "Gurdeep Singh, builder. You’ve had the cowboys, now here come the Indians."

Saturday 9th August 2025 – TODAY’S DIALYSIS SESSION …

… was slightly less painful than that of Thursday. Not by much though, it has to be said. I’m still quite dissatisfied as to how things are developing with all of this but there doesn’t seem to be very much that I, or anyone else for that matter, can do about it.

What probably didn’t help was that I was in a bad mood, and I was also desperately tired. I’d had another bad night last night.

At first though, it looked as if it was going to be quite good. I’d finished tea early and for some reason (maybe because I was rather more focused than usual) I didn’t take all that long to write up my notes.

By the time that I’d taken the statistics and backed up the computer it was only 22:30 and how nice it was to be in bed at that time for a change. And I was asleep quite quickly too.

However, it wasn’t to last. Round about 03:10 I awoke, and that was that. I couldn’t go back to sleep again. There I lay, vegetating in bed until about 05:00 when I gave it up as a bad job.

When the alarm went off at 06:29, I was already in the bathroom having a good wash. And that was after dictating the radio notes that I’d written the other day, and I’d already begun to edit them too.

After I’d washed and taken the morning’s medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Last night I was having my bath changed for a shower. My care assistant was a young girl. I was living in some kind of apartment in one of these big United States plantation houses of the Nineteenth Century, a type of thing like that, made of wood, very light. The bath was one of these freestanding units on feet, but I was having it taken out to be replaced by a shower. They hadn’t actually started work yet but this girl and I were discussing it. She was looking out of the window saying how she would love to be able to go out there and sit down in the sun, and abandon her job and the people for whom she was caring. Then she calmed down a little and said that when the shower room is done, there would be plenty of room in the bathroom. She could sit in there and admire the weather and the view because it was bound to be really nice in there in the sun.

There’s quite a bit in there that is relevant to what is going on in my life right now. And I have had that very same conversation, or one very much like it, with someone just recently. I’m surprised that it’s preying on my mind though.

Later on, I must have stepped back into that dream. My cleaner said that she wanted to go to sit out in the sun but I told her that when the bathroom had been finished it would be lovely in there and there would be much more room to move about. She could sit in the bathroom which would be just as pleasant, in order to admire the views

There is actually no window in my bathroom so you won’t be able to see very much outside. But there will be plenty of room in there, once I can find someone to take away the old bath that’s still in there. It’s advertised on the internet as to be taken away for free but as yet, there are no takers.

Isabelle the Nurse was late again … "although nothing like as late as yesterday" – ed … and as well as dealing with my legs, she had a look at the catheter in my chest and changed the dressing. And that made me squirm just to think about it.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of THE OLD ROAD.

Yesterday, I mentioned that his flamboyant style of writing was irritating me. But it’s not just his style of writing. What do you make of these two sentences, quite literally one immediately after the other? "The Old Road, as the reader has already seen, never during its course turns a sharp corner. It has to do so at Canterbury because it has been following a course upon the north bank of the Stour,".

He goes on to say "The Old Road falls, as we shall see, into Watling Street, a mile before the city, and enters the ecclesiastical capital by a sharp corner, comparable to the sharp corner at Headbourne Worthy in the exit from Winchester.".

Personally, I don’t know what it was that he was drinking but I could do with a drink of it myself.

There are however a few moments of extreme levity. After spending the night sleeping in an inn at Alresford, "next morning before daybreak, when we had satisfied the police who had arrested us upon suspicion of I know not what crime, we took the hill again and rejoined the Old Road."

After breakfast, I came in here and edited the radio notes right the way through to the end. And here I had a disaster. I was convinced that I had edited the music and had that been the case, I would have been just seven seconds over. However, it turned out that I hadn’t, and I was 48 seconds under when I had finished.

Not even I can pad out that much time, so I began to rewrite them.

Not that I progressed very far though, because my cleaner came along to fit my anaesthetic patches and to serve up a disgusting drink.

When I was ready, we went downstairs and began to unpack the boxes that I had packed the other day that my cleaner took down. She began to fill the CD and DVD shelves while I carried on sorting out the kitchen with the things that had come down.

The driver who came to pick me up was a couple of minutes late today and by that time I’d almost finished what I was doing. We had a quick drive down to Avranches in the beautiful August sunshine.

At the dialysis centre, we had another problem. They wanted to put me in the bed on which the mattress had collapsed, so I dug my heels in. Today though, the team on duty in the room consisted of Julie the Cook and Océane, and they swapped the bed over for another empty one.

Not that that one was all that much better either. I mustn’t be assembled correctly or something like that. What with the pain in my arm from the connection and the pain in my hip from the bed, by the time that the session finished, I was in a right old mess. I’d managed a sleep at first, but not for long. And in the end I had to abandon work as I was in too much agony to carry on.

The taxi was already waiting when the session finished, but it took the girls a good fifteen minutes to come to deal with me when my machine timed out, so I was no earlier coming home than I might otherwise have been.

My cleaner and I stayed downstairs for twenty minutes finishing off what we had started earlier and we also sorted out a few more things too. Now we have plenty more boxes for me to fill ready for Monday.

Just four more trips back up the stairs before I’m down there for good. And that’s just as well because I had a real struggle on the stairs tonight and I won’t be able to do it at all very soon. My cleaner has said that for her Friday session, she’ll work downstairs and have the place looking fine for when the removal begins, which was nice of her.

Tea tonight was a baked potato, vegan salad and breaded quorn fillet, and now I’m off to bed because I’m thoroughly wasted and I just want to sleep.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the police … "well, one of us has" – ed … Percy Penguin once asked me "are you a policeman?"
"No, I’m not, petal" I replied. "Why do you ask?"
"Every time that I see your name in the local newspaper" she said "it’s always about you helping the police with their enquiries."

Thursday 7th August 2025 – I AM IN …

… total agony after the dialysis session today.

For a change, the taxi was early today. And not just five minutes either but a good half an hour early. But then came the bad news. There were over three litres of water to extract today (which explains why I have been so tired) so they made me stay for four hours. And in the bed where the mattress has collapsed right where I put my left hip so all through the session, I was in complete and utter pain.

It had all the air of being a good day too, unfortunately.

Last night, I was late yet again, despite not hanging around all that much. I think that it was down to the fact that tea took so long to make that I didn’t begin to write my notes until much later that usual. I could well have done without that.

Once in bed, I went to sleep quite quickly although I do have some vague memory of being awake at about 01:30. However, I went back to sleep again and there I stayed until about 06:05.

As usual, it took a few minutes for me to gather myself together before I fell out of bed, and then I staggered off into the bathroom, and then the kitchen for my morning medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. This was another one of these dreams where I was working in the office but I didn’t really care. I was letting all the work build up but I didn’t really care because I was planning on retiring, just walking away and leaving it all. I’d said that a couple of weeks ago but it was now three weeks later, everything was still there and I was still there and I hadn’t said that I was going. We were discussing some particular file that needed work doing on it. I had been helping a colleague out with a few things while he was away but when he came back there was still this particular file that needed attention. I said “never mind, bring it to me. Let me have a look at it and I’ll deal with it. I’m sure that I can find the time”. In the meantime, he was somewhere around and there was some kind of programme about houses. It showed this weird kind of semi-detached pair of bungalows. It turned out that it was fabricated out of an old London single-decker bus from 100 or so years ago. I seem to remember that in Shavington there was another bungalow that was exactly the same. It said that in this particular first one if you were to look closely you could see the shape of the bus but I had a really good look and I couldn’t see the shape of the bus at all in it.

We’ve had quite a few of these dreams in the past where I’ve abandoned all idea of working as I prepare for my retirement and then never actually retiring. There has to be something significant in this, I suppose. But the dream about bungalows being basically converted buses is nothing new, although it’s usually old abandoned railway carriages that are the most popular. There are some good examples HERE but as far as I know, there were none in Shavington.

Last night, there was a plan by Stoke City to have a big festival of football because they had reached an important milestone in their age so they began to organise this festival. They asked members of Crewe Alexandra if they could help. It turned out that when someone from Crewe was giving the matter some thought, it turned out that it was 100 years since the formation of Crewe’s first team. So instead, they began to organise a festival of their own and that it would be bigger and better and more important than the one that was being organised by Stoke City.

If they want to celebrate the 100 years of Crewe Alexandra’s first team, they are rather late. The club was founded in 1877 and played its first competitive match in December of that year.

There was another dream that took place in the hilly country where it had rained almost non-stop for several weeks. All of the ground above a village had become waterlogged and slowly a small depression had appeared in the hillside. This was immediately cordoned off and a guard was mounted on it. Slowly, the depression increased in size. Eventually the news filtered out that it was a burial chamber from when the village had first become occupied in the 1830s and people were warned to keep well away. But as the rain continued and the depression increased in size, slowly the earth was washed away and people began to see the old coffins. I was keeping well away because I didn’t want to see a decaying corpse or a skeleton.

Part of this dream seems to relate to Penrhiwceiber maybe, when we were talking about the desertion of the Welsh countryside as people flocked to the mines and the heavy industry. But the rest – the coffins, skeletons and all of that – could easily have its parallel from when we were in Greenland and climbed up to a cave near Uummannaq where a few years earlier, several mummified Inuit bodies had been found. When we were in the interior of the country later, scrambling over the tundra we came across a hitherto-undiscovered stone chamber burial with the skeleton still present, visible through a small gap in the stones. Of course, it’s very bad form to disrespect the Inuit dead in this way, but at first we had no idea what it was. We thought that it might have been a food cache or a collapsed fox trap.

Isabelle was late again this morning. The town was heaving with people, with it being the annual brocante. Some of the streets were closed off to vehicles and with the mayor’s wonderful new road system, the diversion took the cars miles out of their way.

After she left, I could make breakfast and read some more of Hilaire Belloc’s THE OLD ROAD.

It hasn’t taken me long to start nit-picking, that’s for sure. He tells us that "the Romans invented frontiers", which must have come as a dreadful surprise to the Chinese who started 400 years previously to build what eventually became the Great Wall of China, and also to the Neolithic and Iron Age settlers of Britain whose border dykes and earthworks we discussed at length several months ago.

He also tells us that "the south always conquered the north,", another comment that must have come as a surprise to King Penda of Mercia and Kind Aethelhere of the East Anglians, who were soundly beaten by Oswu of Northumbria, and Penda lost half of his kingdom.

One interesting comment that he makes concerns the Normandy coast between the Cotentin and the Seine estuary. He notes that it "gave an opportunity for the early ships to creep under the protection of a windward shore.". That was something that was used to full advantage in June 1944.

Back in here, I carried on with the radio programme that I had started yesterday, spending probably more time looking for the notes that I’d written that doing anything else. I was so carried away that I forgot to note the time and ended up being quite late.

My cleaner was quite late too so we had something of a rush, but when I was ready, she helped me downstairs to the new apartment. There were some things that I wanted to do. However, as I said earlier, the taxi came far too early and I hadn’t done a thing.

The taxi had to drop off another passenger – a young lady – somewhere out in the wild at the back of Sartilly and the driver spent more time chatting her up than he did concentrating on the road, and it was a most unpleasant drive. Apart from that, he was all accelerator and brake which is not the way to drive a diesel car.

However, at least with these new Social Security regulations about shared travel, I’m seeing parts of Normandy that I never knew existed.

At Avranches, we were way too early so I had to hang around. Then I was weighed and found to be considerably over my dry weight and the machine’s capacity so I had to stay for four hours. And then they put me in the bed with the collapsed mattress so I was in total agony throughout the whole four-hour session.

First though, I crashed out. For some reason (probably because of the water retention issue) I was exhausted and couldn’t keep awake. The pain soon brought me round, though, and in the end it became so bad that I was obliged to stop work as I couldn’t concentrate.

Eventually I was let loose and the boss of the drivers brought me home.

Once more, it was a very difficult climb back up here, and I’m not sure whether I can cope with the five that remain before I move downstairs.

Tea was a vegan burger with pasta and tomato sauce, simple but delicious, and now I’m off to bed for a good sleep ready to crack on with work tomorrow if I can and there aren’t too many interruptions.

But seeing as we have been talking about it raining non-stop, in that village in the Welsh mountains … "well, one of us has" – ed … the rain increased and the floods began. Everyone evacuated except the vicar. When someone in a boat urged him to climb in, he replied "oh no! The Good Lord will provide."
A couple of hours later the church is flooded and he’s standing on the roof, when another boat came past. The occupants urged him to climb in but he replied "oh no! The Good Lord will provide."
A couple more hours later and he’s standing on the top of the steeple as the floods lap around his feet. Another boat came by and the occupants urged him to climb in but he replied "oh no! The Good Lord will provide."
However, ten minutes later he’s swept away.
In the queue at the Pearly Gates he met St Peter, to whom he expresses his dismay. "I don’t understand it" he said. "I put my faith in the Lord that he would save me, and he let me down."
"What do you mean ‘let you down’?" roared St Peter. "He did send three boats to rescue you."

Monday 4th August 2025 – BANE OF BRITAIN …

… strikes again:

Sitting here all morning fuming because the plumber hadn’t shown up, I eventually decided to re-read the message that he had sent me at the beginning of last week.

And sure enough, there in black and white, is written “a week on Monday” – i.e. the 11th August.

Here I am, having been fretting all day for nothing at all.

Even worse, in the mad rush to order what I needed and ended up with what I could buy at short notice rather than what I would like, it turns out that I had plenty of time to shop around and make an online order. Still, it’s too late to fret about it now.

And seeing as we have been talking about it being too late … "well, one of us has" – ed … it was too late last night when I finally went to bed last night. After my marathon lie-in on Sunday, I wasn’t all that tired, which is no surprise

Mind you, I was asleep quite quickly and there I stayed, flat out, until all of … errr … 04:10.

At that point I could easily have left the bed but I decided once more to loiter around for a while. The next thing that I knew, it was 05:45 and so at that point I decided to leave the bed. Not that I managed it straight away – it took me a good few minutes to summon up the courage to leave the bed.

The first thing that I did was to go back to yesterday’s entry and add in the dictaphone notes that I had forgotten to include last night.

After a good scrub up and a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, I went to sort out the medication and then I came back in here to find out what was on the dictaphone from the night. I was in an apartment in the rue de Villedieu. Looking out of the window I could see someone going past with a pile of books and records so I wondered what was happening. As I opened the door, a paper that had been on my desk blew out and I had to run after it but the faster I ran, the faster it blew in front of me. It took me quite a while, up to the hospital roundabout in fact, before I was able to catch it and stamp on it. By this time, the people with all these books and records had disappeared. I was chatting to a friend about this and we had no idea of what was going on. A few days later, I was walking down by the old cemetery and in the corner at the bottom where all of the records of the cemetery and the burials of the town had been kept, it was now an office for an auto-electrical company. I was wandering around a little more and came across a guy who used to supply sand into the cemetery. I asked him if he knew what was happening. He replied that the books and records department had been closed in May. I thought that this was the reason why the books and records had been moved, but to where have they gone? No-one at all seemed to know. They had disappeared off the face of the earth. I thought that if the company had closed down, that might be the reason why there was no football on Sunday morning, maybe because the commentators who accessed all of the records for their broadcasts, they had decided to move on too although it would be extremely unlikely.

This reminds me of an incident in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, in 1992 where the disposal of a pile of records led to an extremely unfortunate crisis that had still not resolved itself when I left for the European mainland. It was one of those events that would have the most enormous repercussions but we’ll leave it at that, for fear of incriminating certain people.

Later on, I stepped back into that dream. We were talking about the ancient martial art of Terzhik which involved a way of entering through the window of some kind of sacred or special place. This is what had started off on this series of dreams by thinking that I had seen someone coming through the window into the records office. However, I didn’t spend long dreaming of this because I awoke with a start again halfway through.

As for any martial art called Terzhik, I doubt very much that there is such a thing. But people coming in through the window is a concern that I need to address when I’m on the ground floor, knowing how suddenly and how profoundly I can crash out.

While we were tidying up, my cleaner came across a video that I hadn’t seen. It talked about the Welsh migrations during the Industrial Revolution when hundreds of thousands of people left their homes on the farms and in the mountains to go to work in the coal mines and in the big cities. I hadn’t seen this before so I sat down to watch it. It was extremely interesting, talking about the lines of emigration up the Conwy valley and places like that. It went on to talk about the migrations from the South to the North in 1913 when the Wrexham coal mines open – that would seem to be when my grandmother moved from Penrhiwceiber in South Wales up to Wrexham. It showed all kinds of interesting things like the contemporary carriages and the rock-strew routes that they used to take, how their carriages were broken down along the way and had to be repaired so a whole new breed of carriage repairers had to be set up in mid-Wales. It talked about the cemeteries being vacated, bodies being removed and being found just about everywhere because there was no possible way to bury them anywhere else. It was just reaching the interesting part when I awoke.

Rural depopulation is something that has been going on since the start of the Industrial Revolution but in Wales, with the dramatic rise of heavy industry, the process was much more intense and many villages lost a huge amount of their population. In 1871, Penrhiwceiber wasn’t even listed in the census, yet in 1909 there were over 4,000 people working in the coal mines there As for the roads in mid-Wales, they are not much better than those that I saw in my dream. The problem in a lack of investment – neither the Welsh Assembly nor Central Government believes that there’s anything north of the “Heads of the Valleys” except sheep and druids.

There was another part of a dream somewhere but I can’t remember where it fitted in, but I’d gone for a walk and had gone almost as far as Nantwich before I realised that I had set out without my crutches. I wondered how that was possible and, more importantly, once I realised, how was I going to return home?

Wherever this fits in, I have no idea. But it’s not the first time that I’ve dreamed that I’ve been walking without my crutches. But I’d love to know how I returned home once I’d realised.

Isabelle was late this morning and she didn’t stay long, just enough time to sort out my legs and then she was away. I could then make breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

Our author has pressed on today and is now discussing the chronology of the Bishops of London.

He has quite a few comments to make about some of the Bishops, but he reserves his most incendiary vitriol for Eustachius de Fauconbridge, the Chancellor of the Exchequer who was made bishop in 1221. He says that while Fauconbridge "was giving Holy orders, a great tempest of wind and rain annoyed so many who came thither whereof it was gathered how highly God was displeased with such as came to receive orders, to the end that they might live a more easy life of the stipend appointed to the churchmen, giving themselves to banqueting, and so with unclean and filthy bodies (but more unclean souls) presume to minister unto God, the author of purity and cleanness."

Back in here, still fuming over the non-arrival of the plumber (I hadn’t re-read the message at this point) I drafted an advert onto one of these Chamber of Commerce sites to see if I couldn’t find another one.

While I was at it, I put some more things online for sale and, in the case of the old bathroom fittings, to give away. There is still plenty more to be sold.

When my cleaner had finished applying my anaesthetic patches, we collected some more things together, photographed another piece of furniture, and then took downstairs the things that we had assembled.

Once I was down there, I put things away, mainly in the new bathroom unit, and then began to rearrange and reorder the food in the kitchen cabinets. There’s now much more space in there, which is good.

When it was 13:00 we went outside in the sun to await the taxi, but it was half an hour late. Not that I was complaining, because it was a gorgeous afternoon and I was enjoying the fresh air.

There was another passenger in the car and the driver spent all of the time talking to her. No-one said a word to me. I settled down in the back of the car and had a nice rest.

At dialysis I was put in a small room with three other people. It was a nice, comfortable bed with nice surroundings so I didn’t do much this afternoon. I simply relaxed and enjoyed the nice view.

And who should come to chat to me but Emilie the Cute Consultant. We discussed the issues about chemotherapy, and an in-depth discussion it was too. In the end she promised to ring Paris to explain in greater detail the issues that I’m having, and suggest that I go to Rennes for any subsequent treatment. It would be lovely if she could persuade them

With being late arriving, I was late leaving but we made good time on the way home. Back here, we measured the windows in the apartment downstairs so that I could order some curtains, and my faithful cleaner has struck lucky. Some of the shelves in the fridge here are broken and I would have to order some new ones as replacements before I go, but someone has dumped over in the rubbish bay a fridge the same size as mine and she was able to rescue a couple of shelves, which is wonderful.

It was another long, weary climb up here and I had to sit down for twenty minutes to recover before I could make tea.

We’re back in our usual routine as of today, with stuffed pepper, and enough stuffing left over for a couple of days. It’s only a small mix of stuffing too, but I’m really not in all that much of a mood to eat a great deal right now.

So tomorrow, there is plenty to do so I’m going to go to bed, late as it is. And here’s hoping for a good sleep because despite the events of Sunday morning, I really need it.

But seeing as we have been talking about the cemetery here in Granville … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone from Crewe came here years ago and was astonished by the number of graves in it for such a small town.
"Do people die here often then?" he asked the gravedigger.
"Ohh no!" replied the gravedigger. "Only the once."

Saturday 2nd August 2025 – TODAY’S DIALYSIS SESSION …

… was totally horrible.

Not so much the session but the aftermath. I was totally drained, totally exhausted and I felt as if the end of the World had come. When BILBO BAGGINS said "I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.", I knew exactly what he meant.

It wasn’t as if I’d had a particularly early start either. Although it was quite late by the time I finished my notes, the stats and the back-up, I slept all the way right through without moving until 06:20 – nine minutes before the alarm.

So while you admire a couple of photos of my freshly-painted living room, once more in a colour rather brighter than that which I had chosen, and with the curtain rail over the door in the wrong place, I shall tell you about my day.

When I awoke, I really was feeling rotten but a Herculean effort saw me sitting on the edge of the bed with my feet on the floor when the alarm went off at 06:29

But it didn’t galvanise me into action though. It classes as an early start because I was out of bed and with my feet in contact with the floor when the alarm went off, but that’s how it stayed for a good fifteen minutes.

Eventually, I managed to drag myself in some kind of undignified fashion into the bathroom where I had a good wash and a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and I also hand-washed some clothes. With not having many clothes, I try to keep on top of things when I can.

In the kitchen, I dealt with the medication and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Jordan Davies had left Greenock Morton last night and had signed for a football club in Wales. His arrival was heralded by the club and they made a big issue out of it with headlines in the local paper etc. However, when he was on his way to the football ground to be greeted by the chairman etc, he was involved in a car crash and was killed. That was really the end of all of that. All of the celebrations were cancelled and it ended up being something of a really damp squib of an affair.

It’s no surprise that they would have cancelled the celebrations after that. However, this dream is a combination of two different things.

Actually, Jordan Davies has left Greenock Morton and yesterday he signed for Colwyn Bay AFC in the JD Cymru League. But the part about death in transit refers to Emiliano Sala, whose aeroplane crashed as he was flying from Nantes to play for Cardiff City in 2019.

Isabelle the Nurse came in a little later to deal with my injection, the last in this series, and to sort out my legs. There are all kinds of events taking place in the town tomorrow so she told me that she has no idea what time she will arrive.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

We’re still in Westminster, discussing inter alia the enormous list of famous and important people buried in Westminster Abbey.

But it’s John Stow’s little personal remarks that are so interesting and amusing. When he is talking about the raising of funds to rebuilt St Margaret’s Church, he tells us about King Henry III banning all trade in merchandise for fifteen days, which the citizens were obliged to redeem by paying the King two thousand pounds of silver because of the King "devising how to extort money from the citizens of London."

That’s nothing compared to his remarks concerning the revised works of Geoffrey Chaucer which were "twice increased through mine own painful labours" and "again beautified with notes by me." Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that if it weren’t for my own overwhelming modesty, I would be perfect, but not even I would write quite like that.

Still, if you have a trumpet, you may as well blow it.

As a matter of a more serious nature, he talks about the Great London Floods of 1236 and 1242. In the former flood, the Palace of Westminster was flooded and "men did row with wherries in the midst of the hall, being forced to ride to their chambers.". In the latter, "in the great hall of Westminster men took their horses because the water ran over it."

Back in here, I had some things to find to take downstairs and then I sorted out the photos from Thursday (which you have seen just now) and do it quickly too because my cleaner was coming early.

After she’d fitted my anaesthetic patches we measured all of the furniture in the living room, took one of the CD and DVD columns with us, and went downstairs with some masking tape to mark on the floor exactly where all of the furniture will go in the living room downstairs.

That’s important because the Saturday and the Monday afternoon, I’ll have dialysis and then on the Tuesday and Wednesday I’ll be having chemotherapy in Paris so anyone who will be here to help me will need to know where to put everything if I’m not here.

The chief driver of the taxi company turned up to collect me, and he was early too so it’s just as well that I was ready.

We arrived at Avranches much earlier than planned, and so as usual I had to wait an age to be seen and plugged it. At least, I had good company because Alexi looked after me today.

At first, I was really drowsy, due in no small measure to the fact that my blood pressure dropped to 7.7/5.6, which is about the lowest that it has been.

Once I’d recovered, I spent most of the afternoon trying to find a series of books called “The Paston Letters” – a book containing all of the correspondence issued by the Paston family in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century.

These six volumes are extremely important because firstly, they give an eyewitness report of the Wars of the Roses, as seen by the ordinary man in the street who suffered so much, and secondly, they cover the period of the evolution of the English language from Medieval English to Early Modern English and the official codification and standardisation of the language following the invention of William Caxton’s printing press.

As usual, having arrived early, I was late being disconnected and then I had to wait ten minutes for the taxi. Even then, the driver had another passenger to drop off at Brehal up the coast and she wanted to take him first, which annoyed me greatly but there wasn’t much that I could do about it.

Consequently, I was just as late coming home as I might otherwise have been had I left here late.

Climbing the stairs in my weakened state was awful and when I made it into here I had to sit down for half an hour to recover before I could make tea.

So a baked potato, vegan salad and breadcrumbed quorn slice later, I’m off to bed, totally wasted after all of my exertions. I really need to be downstairs as quickly as possible because I can’t keep on going like this. It’s awful.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the floods … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the time of the Great Flood of Crewe a while back.
When the Municipal Buildings were flooded, they decided that they would take advantage of the situation and play a game of water polo.
"Was it a success?" I asked.
"Not really" came the reply. "Most of the horses drowned."

Thursday 31st July 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone from last night.

But when you don’t go to bed until 23:45 and you awaken at 03:10, what do you expect?

It’s quite a surprise that I was awake so early because I really was ill last night. I was so feak and weeble that I could hardly move, and when I finally fell into bed, I expected to be there for a week without moving a muscle.

Moving a muscle I certainly didn’t do, but when I awoke, that was that.

03:10 is far too early to be up and about so I tried valiantly to find a way to go back to sleep. However, nothing that I could try seemed to work and by 04:45 I’d abandoned the struggle and was sitting on the edge of my bed trying to find the courage and the energy to stand up.

Once I was on my feet, I made my way over to the desk and by the time that the alarm went off at 06:29, I’d dictated the radio notes that I’d written yesterday, edited them and assembled the programme ready for broadcast some time deep in the future.

Next stop was the bathroom, followed by the kitchen for the medication, and then back in here I had plenty of other things to do that took quite a while.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in and gave me my injection, followed by the treatment for my legs, and then I could crack on and make breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

It’s surprising how many “modern” aspects of life that we take for granted were well-known in John Stow’s time. He tells us that in 1530, Bermondsey Abbey "was valued to dispend by the year four hundred and seventy-four pounds fourteen shillings and fourpence halfpenny" – proof if ever any were needed that they had accountants in those days.

Take holiday homes too. Many people think that they are a modern phenomenon but that’s far from the case. When our author is talking about the buildings extra muros, he says that "wherein are built many fair summer-houses and, as in other places of the suburbs, some of them like Midsummer pageants with towers, turrets and chimney pots, not so much for use of profit as for show and pleasure, betraying the vanity of men’s minds."

There’s a lengthy account of the plague pits on the edge of the city, and also a very whimsical account of St Giles’ Hospital where "the prisoners conveyed from the City of London to Teybourne, there to be executed … were presented with a great bowl of ale, thereof to drink at their pleasure, as to be their last refreshing in this life."

Back in here, I began to sort out the music for the next radio programme, and I was well under way when my cleaner came to fit my anaesthetic patches

When she’d finished, we went downstairs to the new apartment to tidy up and put away a few things, and I took a few more photos that I’ll publish one of these days when I’m feeling like it.

That’s not going to be today though because I’m feeling totally dreadful, the worst that I have felt for years. I crashed out completely earlier this morning while working on the radio programme and while I felt a little better when I awoke, it didn’t last long.

The drive down to Avranches was horrible and by the time I was on my bed, I was finished. I crashed out for an hour and a half and felt even worse when I awoke. In the end, they had to cut short the session because I was not responding.

If ever there was a time when I needed to talk to a doctor, it was today but as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, whenever you want a doctor, they keep well away.

The drive home was painful too and I had to struggle to reach the building’s front door. My cleaner and I went into the new apartment to finish off a few things, and then we had to come back up here. I really couldn’t manage it at all and my poor cleaner had almost to carry me up.

Once I’d caught my breath I gad the rest of last night’s curry and now, even though it’s early, I’m off to bed. I’ve had enough. Here’s hoping that I feel better tomorrow.

But seeing as we have been talking about prisoners … "well, one of us has" – ed … three prisoners at Wormwood Scrubs were talking to each other, discussing their sentences.
"I only have three years to serve" said the first.
"That’s nothing" replied the second. "I only have two and a half"
"I only have four days to serve" replied the third
"You lucky so-and-so!" exclaimed the others. "How did you manage that"
"Well," he replied "they are hanging me on Thursday."

Tuesday 29th July 2025 – I STILL HAVEN’T …

… uploaded the photo of my bedroom, despite what I said yesterday … "and the day before" – ed …

For a change, I have been in great demand and I’ve no idea why I’ve suddenly become so popular.

Not that I was in any fit state to upload the photo last night either. I was so tired last night and had a real struggle to reach the end of the day’s programme. I was fighting off (sometimes unsuccessfully) wave after wave of sleep while I was working and that made me even later than it otherwise might have been.

In the end, I’ve no idea what time it was when I finally hit the hay. I couldn’t be bothered to look. All that I wanted to do was to sleep.

Not that I managed much of that either. It was an extremely restless night that saw me awaken several times. In the end, round about 05:30, I gave up even trying and crawled out from under the covers.

It was the usual desperate stagger into the bathroom followed by an even more desperate stagger into the kitchen for the medication. None of this should be any surprise of course, bearing in mind how I was feeling.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, and I was astonished. I must have travelled miles. I was at the dialysis centre last night. They were busy sorting out people into what particular treatment they needed. With me of course it was the filtration but also I’m there for three and a half hours with my legs raised somewhat. During the dream they had me weighing myself and they were calculating the weight of my legs, fitting weights and things to them that were inclined and much more complicated to work so that I was walking around with my full weight all the time. It was a most uncomfortable situation to walk around or to sit down or to sleep like this but they didn’t seem to care. Into the room came some Jamaican Hercules dancing troupe people who had presumably been captured by the ancient explorers and brought to Europe. They were there in full dance mode while we were waiting to be treated with dialysis.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … even though I’m asleep when I’m dictating, when it comes to transcribing the notes there’s some kind of recollection of something in the back of my mind. But for this one, I have absolutely no idea at all. Apart from the dialysis and the musculation exercises (which will become relevant as you read on), it’s totally meaningless … "aren’t they all?" – ed …

On the dictaphone too, some time later was a note that I can still see the emblems from this dialysis session too. On this machine where I was being treated, on the floor was an arrow and a drawing of one of these ad-hoc storage unit things on wheels, something like a portable patient, with a drawing of a patient upside-down by his ankles and the person in charge of the county of Chester was also drummoned and sentence to be executed on this Danish island somewhere and he had a small chest and a double overlooking a uniform thing, yoga pants, tight yoga top. People were wearing that and this was how it was drawn, this pictogram, along with you upside down having been held by your ankles and an umbrella upside down, being held by the hook over the arm of the dialysis thing.

It’s strange that I stepped back, totally unawares, into a dream of which I was totally unaware. This is some kind of new experience. Usually, I can remember stepping back into dreams, even if it doesn’t happen as often as I like, especially when one of my young ladies is involved.

Later on, one of the boys from the Welsh class came round last night. He was in an extremely bad mood and I thought that it was something that I had done at first. Instead, it turned out that he had been trying to do the Welsh homework all day, which was a bookkeeping exercise, and had failed miserably despite all that he could do. We sat down and looked at it, and I couldn’t make head nor tail of it either. Generally, when bookkeeping goes wrong, you have something in the wrong column. We tried various permutations but that didn’t work. In the end, we thought that we’d leave it and let our heads clear, and go back a little later. He told me that he’d seen another member of the class wandering around who was on his way to sit on the beach at Goodwin Sands so after seeing him leave, I went for a wander out onto the cliffs overlooking Goodwin Sands. That guy was there on the cliffs looking down at the people. We could hear someone having a really good discussion with a small group. Suddenly, he mentioned the name of our classmate and there was a reply, so we shouted down his name. He stuck his head out of the crowd, saw us and waved so we waited. Someone wanted to know who it was who called down to him. He replied “it’s some friends”. They said something like “it’s not that little girl who follows you around who has come to see what you’re doing, is it?”. He replied “no, because her mother is already down here on the beach and she’s hardly likely to come down here on the beach and leave her daughter somewhere else. So if her mother is here, the daughter is here so it can’t have been her who yelled”.

We should have had a Welsh group chat today but this morning we had a mail to say that it’s been postponed. The area around the Goodwin Sands, that is, the cliffs of Pegwell Bay, is an area that I know very well from the days of my youth and summer holidays with my mother’s relatives on the Isle of Thanet.

There was a whole group of us wandering around in IKEA doing the shopping but it was dragging on and on and on. In the end I lost a little patience and went for a wander around. Eventually, everyone else caught up with me and asked where I’d been. I told them that I’d been off with Zero looking at a few things and then I’d wandered off into the food hall. “Well, Zero never said anything” her father said “but she did ask if anyone thought whether she was trying to get you into trouble”. I replied “no, she won’t ever get me into trouble”. “Well, you need to be careful because she’ll dye your work trousers brown without any second thoughts”. We had something of a laugh about that but I was definitely not in a very good mood during that shopping trip. I was really fed up with this whole kind of thing at the moment.

So welcome back, Zero. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. It really is nice when one of my young ladies puts in an appearance during the night, and how I wish I could step back into a dream with one of them. However, as seems to be always the case, someone comes along to throw a spanner into the works.

Isabelle the nurse turned up this morning. She gave me my injection and then sorted out my feet. I could then make breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

Today, we are talking about all of the jousts between knights etc and the trials by combat that all took place at Smithfield, quite often in front of the monarch. One of the combatants was called, rather eloquently, “The Bastard of Burgundy”

There’s a lengthy discussion on the banquets that were served up at the Bishop of Ely’s residence, and I couldn’t believe the amount of food cooked. Even our author says that "it were tedious to set down the preparation of fish, flesh and other victuals consumed at this feast."

As it happens, I’ve seen the list, and I wouldn’t know where to begin to describe it. We start with "twenty-four great beefs… and one ox" through an entire menagerie to "larks, three hundred and forty dozen."

More interestingly though, he touches on the origins of the Old Bailey and the Inns of Court.

After breakfast, the taxi came to pick me up to take me for my x-ray. It was the guy who thinks that he’s the boss, and we had a very interesting chat all the way to the hospital.

When the x-ray was finished, I had to wait around for the taxi to take me back, and as there was no cleaner to help me upstairs, I had to manage myself. After a pause to recover, I packed a few more boxes.

My plumber had mailed me with a list of things that he needs for the shower so my kitchen fitter and I spent an age going through various on-line catalogues to find stuff that was available at short notice.

In the end, we had quite a list and he went off on a prowl to try to find what we need. He found most things, and acceptable substitutes for the rest, so who knows? I may even have a shower quite soon.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday I had something of a moan about the kitchen fitter, but I really must shut up and instead, count my blessings that I have found someone who is prepared to go way beyond the extra mile to help me out.

When my cleaner turned up to drop off tomorrow’s injection, she took down the boxes that I’d packed and they are now ready for putting away, which will be Thursday’s task.

There was the radio programme to finish, and that’s now done. I followed that by reviewing the programmes for the month of August and they are being sent off one by one ready for inclusion while the coordinator is on holiday.

In the middle of all of this, the Re-education Centre contacted me. Would I like to come for an assessment interview on 26th September? I don’t see why not. After all, it might even do me some good, even if I doubt it very much. But one thing is for sure, and that is that the taxi owner can buy himself a new Rolls-Royce this year.

While I was at it, I rang up the dialysis centre about the mattress, but for all the good that it did me, I may as well have saved my energy. "No-one else has complained about it" was the helpful … "I don’t think" – ed … reply.

So having had a fry-up (for a change) for tea, I’m off to bed ready for all of this work that I have to do tomorrow.

But seeing as we have been talking about x-rays … "well, one of us has" – ed … while I was in the hospital, I heard two x-ray plates talking to each other.
"I’ve lost an electron" said one of them
"Are you sure?" asked the other.
"Ohh yes. I’m positive."

Monday 28th July 2025 – YET MORE TORTURE …

… at the dialysis centre today. The mattress on my bed has collapsed and there’s a big hollow right where my left hip fits. And so, after about ninety minutes, with two hours still to go, I was in total agony. And so it dragged on throughout the entire session.

It’s bad enough being poked, prodded, stabbed with needles, awoken when I’m trying to doze, but this is the final straw. I shall telephone them tomorrow and tell them that if it’s not fixed by Thursday, I shan’t be coming again. I reckon that i’ve had quite enough.

Especially after last night. Chatting with my kitchen fitter after he’d finished seemed to take hours and all that I wanted to do was to eat my pizza. It was stone-cold by the time that he went, I was royally fed up and in the end, it was some quite ridiculous time when I finally managed to haul myself off to bed. I really can’t take much more of this.

When the alarm went off at 06:29, I was totally flat out in bed. It was quite a battle to raise myself out before the second alarm and had there not been a second alarm to encourage me to leave the bed, I probably would still be in there now. I was totally shattered.

In the bathroom, I went for a wash and a shave and then into the kitchen to sort out the medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night but there was nothing thereupon. I must have had a really deep, intense sleep. And if so, why aren’t I feeling much better than I am right now?

There were a few things that I needed to but I was interrupted by the arrival of the nurse. He was in and out in a flash, seeing that he’s off on his holidays this evening. I could push on, make breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

We’re still on our perambulations of course, but today he tells us that "on the River Thames, of late years, was placed a corn mill, upon or betwixt two barges or lighters, and there ground corn, as water mills in other places, to the wonder of those who had not seen the like, but this lasted not long without decay, such as caused the same barges and mill to be removed.". I would have loved to have seen that in operation. It must have been a fantastic machine.

We’ve also had another rent payment made in flowers. This refers to one of the towers in Baynard’s Castle, which Edward III gave "to William, Duke of Hamelake, in the county of York, and his heirs, for one rose yearly.to be paid for all service."

There’s also a movement inspired by the Bishop of Rochester and several others to provide aid for the poor, and many men "moved liberally to grant what they would impart … and what they would contribute weekly for their maintenance for a time.". Where is the church today when it should be leading the same kind of campaign amongst the wealthy and privileged?

And yesterday, we had a fight amongst a couple of priests. To day, he tells us of a rather incendiary confrontation between the Archbishop of Canterbury and his retinue and the canons of the Priory of St Bartholomew. Tomorrow, we’ll probably find the Pope in there somewhere having a helping of violent disorder.

Back in here, I had a radio programme to review ready to broadcast. But once more, I didn’t like it so I re-edited it and remixed it. The programmer is off work on holiday in August so I’ll have to review the programmes for that month tomorrow and send them off.

There wasn’t much time to do much else before my cleaner arrived to fit my patches. When she had finished, we went downstairs with a few boxes to empty out. And I did take a photo of the bedroom but I’m so whacked that I really don’t have the energy to post it. I shall do it tomorrow.

The driver who took me to dialysis was the young, chatty guy and we had a very interesting chat all the way down there. We were early arriving too, but it did no good seeing that so were several other people and as usual, I was last to be plugged in.

They gave me a prescription for an x-ray on my chest, which is arranged for tomorrow. That is just crazy. I’m not having a moment to relax, with yet another climb back up the stairs when I should be resting. Why couldn’t they arrange it for a day when I have dialysis?

The disinterested doctor was on duty today and he didn’t seem too interested in what I had to say. He did, however, inspect (at my insistence) my catheter port and pronounced it healthy. But there’s a bruise that is causing the pain that I am feeling.

Apart from the mattress, which has totally annoyed me, nothing much else happened. Being late coupled up, I was late leaving. It was the young Asiatic girl who brought me home and we talked about Italian food all the way home.

Back here, we went into downstairs and began to make a list of the work that needs doing, but it ended up being something of a building meeting with a group of us outside my door chatting.

It was a real struggle to climb back up here. I feel that I’m going backwards with this chemotherapy and losing whatever mobility that I had. There was another barrage of messages from the kitchen fitter but I’ll reply to them when I’m in a better humour.

Instead, I made tea – a burger with pasta and veg. I couldn’t be bothered to do much else.

So right now, I’m off to bed, hoping that I’ll awaken in a better frame of mind tomorrow, although with this trip to the x-ray and the climb back up here, I doubt it very much.

But seeing as we have been talking about flowers … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of one of those “Mr and Mrs” quizzes in which Nerina and I competed.
The presenter asked me which was Nerina’s favourite flower. And Yours Truly, completely misunderstanding the question, replied "Homepride self-raising, I think."

Saturday 26th July 2025 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… when the alarm went off at 06:29 this morning, I was still flat out, fast asleep in bed. And that’s something that hasn’t happened too often recently.

What I put it down to was the miserable night (if you can call it a night) that I’d had the night before when I’d had just about two and a half hours’ sleep, and odd cat-nap during the day. In fact, looking back on it, I’m surprised that I kept on going for as long as I did yesterday without too many signs of fatigue later in the day.

It wasn’t as if it had been a very late night either. I wasn’t sure what time it was when I finished my notes, the stats and the back-up, but it can’t have been many minutes after 23:00, if at all. And once again, I was asleep almost straight away, so tired was I.

But when I awoke this morning, once more I was drenched in sweat as all of this chemotherapy stuff that they pumped into me in Paris slowly fights its way out of my body. This is not a pleasant situation in which to be.

It was a struggle to leave the bed before the second alarm but I managed it, and then headed off to the bathroom for a good wash and shave, in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant at the dialysis centre.

Once more, it was quite a leisurely start to the day and it was about 07:40 by the time that I finally finished my medication and made it back into here.

Once I was settled down at my desk, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was at a match between Ayr United and Morton last night. At first, Morton had no kitchen. They had positioned a couple of players in the kitchen area to defend the space but it wasn’t very easy without any furniture in there at all. They were conceding ground regularly. Then the furniture began to arrive and they began to assert themselves much more strongly as the trainers took more charge of the players, gave them more instructions and told the fans basically to no longer try to coach the team so that they would be able to manage and do a better job of it. The place where this was taking place was called “Canada Hall” – a huge one-storey building on top of a tunnel under which the railway ran. It belonged to the tunnel. There were all kinds of jokes going around talking about what would happen if it were to change its name to another railway company in another particular set of circumstances.

There was something else though about animals and pets in this dream but I can’t remember anything particular about that.

It’s no surprise that I can’t remember anything about the above because when I was transcribing these notes, I had no recollection of ever having dictated them. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I am in fact usually asleep when I dictate these notes. However, when I’m typing them out, a light usually switches on in the back of my mind with a tiny spark of recollection, but there was nothing whatever about any of the foregoing.

Later on, I was with Nerina last night and she was wearing the dark blue anorak that she had bought in Luxembourg when we were on our honeymoon. We’d been wandering around together as usual and ended up in some kind of military auction. We were going through some of the goods that were on sale there, having a laugh and a joke about things like “lots of half a ton of gentleman’s battle dress blouses” etc. We couldn’t really see what kind of use a large lot like that would be to everyone. But just as this dream was becoming exciting, the alarm went off and I awoke. But from what I remember, we’d been walking through the countryside on the edge of this town in order to reach this car boot sale and we’d seemed to be fairly happy, although I’m not quite sure why. I can remember us crossing a big, main road. One thing that I’d noticed though was that we’d been on the road for several weeks and I was wearing these jeans that were quite dirty and stained. I wasn’t looking very respectable at all

The only times that Nerina and I would ever be able to relax would be on holiday. We’d wait until September when all the brats would be back at school, and then take off across the Channel, drifting aimlessly around Western Europe from one cheap village hotel to another, eating local food, drinking local wine and generally chilling. Nerina had a map that indicated scenic routes (a green stripe along the side of the road, the thicker the more scenic) and she’d guide the car along as I drove. We neither knew nor cared where we were or where we were going.

They were good times and we had several good stories to tell. In one tiny village in Brittany we had the cheapest wine on the menu – a litre of house red – with our main course. For the dessert we had, as usual, the cheese board.
"Do you know what would go really nicely with this cheese" she said.
"Tell me" I replied
"Another bottle of that wine" she answered.

On the way back to the hotel I had to walk her around the village for two hours to stop her giggling.

The nurse was early once more this morning. He forgot the heat treatment on my knee, which isn’t really important, and didn’t take too long sorting out my legs He soon cleared off and left me in peace.

Once I’d made my breakfast, I sat down to eat it and to read MY BOOK.

We’re still roaming around the churches of London intra-muros and I’m thoroughly impressed by the number of bodies said to be interred in the old Grey friars Church and in the old St Paul’s. I’m surprised that they could fit them all in, what with so many recorded by John Stow.

He also quotes the Charter of St Paul’s, granted by William The Conqueror. "to all his well-beloved French and English people, greeting. Know ye that I do give unto God and the Church of St Paule of London and the rectors and scruitors of the same, in all their lands which the church hath, with borough and without, sack and sock, thole and theam, infangthefe and grithbriche, and all the rights that into them christendome byrath, on morth sprake and on unright hamed, and on unright work, of all that bishoprick on mine land and on each other man’s land. For I will that the church in all things be as free as I would my soul to be in the day of judgement".

He’s also talking about St Paul’s School again, and it’s a veritable tonic for today’s teachers who believe themselves overworked with twenty-five kids. He tells us that the school has been created "for one hundred and fifty-three poor men’s children … for which he appointed one master, one surmaster or usher and a chaplain."

After breakfast I packed a few more boxes with kitchen stuff ready to take downstairs. There are six now waiting to be emptied and we’ll do that this evening when I return from dialysis.

Back in here, I went a-searching for more music for another project and was still hard at it when my faithful cleaner turned up to fit my anaesthetic patches.

When she finished, she took down the boxes while I made my way slowly and gingerly downstairs to my new home. The aim was to begin to unpack but a neighbour came along for an inspection and chat, and then the boss of the taxi company turned up early so we accomplished nothing. However, I might have recruited a couple more volunteers into the moving plan – quite useful since we’ve already had one fall by the wayside.

We were early arriving at the dialysis centre but once more they took their time connecting me. I’m not sure what I’ve done to upset them but once more I was put into the little room at the end – the “naughty corner”.

They left me pretty much alone, except for when my machine gave out an error message. And I crashed out for twenty minutes too. I must have been really tired today.

When my time was up, it took them an age to see to me and as a result, I was no earlier that I might otherwise have been. But at some point, they had run a resistance current through me, recalculated my dry weight, reset the machine, and now I’m the lightest weight that I have been for probably 15 years.

Much as I enjoy the new svelte, slimline me, if I continue to lose weight like this, it’s going to start to become worrying

Late returning home, we had time to unpack the boxes nevertheless, although I’m going to have to sort everything out again when I’m down there permanently and put it away much more tidily.

It was another desperate struggle up the stairs. I could manage two steps before I needed help. This chemotherapy is sending me backwards instead of forwards. Throughout the day, I’d noticed an improvement in my health, but just these two steps were enough to knock me right back.

After my cleaner left, I had a disgusting drink break and then made tea. Baked potato, vegan salad and breaded quorn fillet and not very much of it. I’m not hungry and in any case, I couldn’t stomach it tonight.

So now I’m off to bed. The alarm is set, as usual on a Sunday these days, at 08:00 and wouldn’t it be nice to actually be asleep from now until then with no disturbances?

But before we go, seeing as we have been talking about Nerina and her map … "well, one of us has" – ed … we were driving along one road and I asked her "is this supposed to be a pretty road?"
"Ohh yes" she replied confidently
"Where are we?" I asked
"Somewhere along here" she said, indicating a line on the map with her finger
"That line there" I said, "that’s a canal!"

Thursday 24th July 2025 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day I’ve had today. If I’m leaving the table with food still left on my plate, then you know that I’m really ill. I can safely say that it’s been a long, long time since I’ve felt as bad as this and I’m beginning to understand when I was first at Leuven that I chose a place with breakfast provided, so that at least I’d have one meal each day.

But last night, after finishing writing my notes, I was back in bed at about 23:45 and I wasn’t long awake.

The alarm going off at 06:29 shattered my joyful sleep, and I was feeling so ill that I switched off the alarm, switched on the one for 07:59 and went back to sleep.

Not for long, though, because Brain of Britain had forgotten about the second alarm at 06:33. That put the tin hat on it and as I couldn’t go back to sleep, I arose from the Dead.

A desperate stagger into the bathroom was followed by another desperate stagger into the kitchen for the medication. All in all, it took me a whole hour to sort myself out this morning.

Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to see what there was that I’d recorded. There were a couple of little voyages that I’d had over the last couple of days that I added back into the various entries, and then turned my attention to last night’s. I’d gone to a rugby league match at somewhere. It was an important cup final. There were all kinds of confusion taking place. First of all, it was freezing cold and the ground was extremely hard. Secondly, one of the teams had changed its starting line-up and the referee had to intervene to make sure that the players who had not been in the original starting line-up were placed in positions in which they had registered themselves rather than in positions in which the team wanted them to play, which meant that there was an extremely strange field formation for one of the teams at the kick-off. The game started, and I began to wander around and came across an Indian market, one of these tiny little affairs inside a village hall where the local Indian community was having a kind-of car boot sale type of thing. I had a good wander around in there for a while but didn’t see anything that I particularly fancied but it was coming up to lunchtime so I went to find a food stall. There was a food stall there but it didn’t open until a little later. I thought that I wasn’t inclined to waste too much more time wandering around in here until the food stall opens or was I going to go to somewhere else to see what was happening there instead.

It beats me why I would go to a rugby league match. That’s a sport that has no interest for me. We did play it at school, but mainly to annoy our new games teacher who wanted us to play rugby union instead of football. We passionately refused to co-operate and in the end he gave up. He spent the games lessons in the staff room drinking coffee and we carried on playing football. However, I did find a hidden talent. I could kick quite accurately with either foot so our tactic was to pass the ball to me and I’d kick it over the bar, something that totally enraged the teacher.

It’s much more likely that I’d be at an Indian market, especially if there’s Indian food about.

The nurse came as usual today and expressed his sympathy at my plight, although I need more than sympathy right now. Anyway, he didn’t stay too long.

After he left, I could make breakfast, not that I wanted much, and I could read some more of MY BOOK.

Our author is still perambulating around the various wards of inner London and he’s come across another payment of rent by flowers. Ralph Le Feure and his heirs could hold a parcel of land from Thomas de Arderne "freely without all challenge yielding therefore yearly to the said Thomas and his heirs one clove or slip of gilliflowers at the feast of Easter."

Back in here I wrote out the notes for Tuesday that were outstanding, and they are now online, complete with some photos of my new kitchen as far as it has gone right now. It’s well-worth a look if you haven’t seen it before.

That took me up to the arrival of my faithful cleaner who sorted out my patches and left me to await the arrival of the taxi.

That was when I discovered that the electric door lock wasn’t working and I had to descend the stairs, in my state of health and carrying my bag, all alone. And that’s not something that I ever want to do again.

The bad news at the dialysis centre was that my weight was over the three and a half hour limit so they put me down to stay for four hours, something that I could well do without. And with all of the tests that they had to do, it took hours to connect me and I wasn’t let go until 18:45.

The doctor came to see me for a chat but didn’t have much to say really that was of any kind of solution. But he had the blood pressure sensor set for every fifteen minutes so I was constantly disturbed by nurses running in.

Not that I minded much because one of them was Alexi, the baby of the service and she’s quite cute. She can soothe my fevered brow any time she likes.

Eventually I could leave, and then we had to drop off someone else in Avranches so it was 19:30 when I returned home, quite fed up.

My cleaner had brought down a couple of boxes of stuff from upstairs so I sorted those out in the new apartment, and then I failed miserably once more to climb the stairs.

After my cleaner left, I tried to eat some food but that failed miserably too, and so I’m going to bed and I don’t care any more. I really am in a state right now.

But seeing as we have been talking about restaurants, food and the like … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a sign that I once saw in the window of an Italian restaurant in the Midlands somewhere.
"Don’t stand outside feeling miserable. Come inside and be fed up."

Monday 21st July 2025 – THAT WAS THE …

… quickest drive to Paris that I have ever had.

We left Avranches at 18:30 with an estimated travel time of 3.06 which is what it tells us almost every time, although with the heavy traffic around Caen and particularly around Paris, it’s much closer to four hours Today, though, we pulled up at the Haematology Department here at the Hospital Pitié-Salpetrière at 21:24 – a trip of less than three hours.

The first time that we actually had to slow down for traffic (never mind stop) was on the Prif about two miles from the Porte d’Italie, and then it was only a momentary braking and we kept on going.

And we won’t ever have a trip like that again.

Not that I was looking forward to it either. Last night was another one of those nights that went on and on and I wasn’t able to make much progress. I was hoping to be in bed early but once more, it ended up being round about 23:45 when I finally crept into bed.

Not that I stayed asleep for very long either. For the past few weeks I’ve been having one of these heavy summer colds and I awoke with a streaming head and a stuffed-up nose, feeling very uncomfortable indeed.

Despite all my trying, I couldn’t go back to sleep and in the end I abandoned the procedure, left the bed, and had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been. A friend of mine was out there walking his dog last night amongst a crowd of people but that’s all that I remember of this dream. The rest of it seems to have evaporated as soon as I went to pick up the dictaphone and I wasn’t able to dictate any more than that.

That’s all there was, which is hardly a surprise because if you don’t go to bed until 23:45 and you are up and about at 03:30 the following morning, there hasn’t been all that much time to go very far

Having dealt with that, such as it was, I had a listen to the radio programme that I’ll be sending off for broadcast this week. I didn’t like the voice at all so I re-mixed and re-edited it. It’s not much better now but I sent it off anyway.

Having done that, I wrote the notes for another radio programme that was in the middle of the queue for which I’d sorted out the music quite a while ago, and then I sorted out the music for another one and began to write the notes It was what one would call a “productive morning”.

It’s Isabelle the Nurse’s last morning today for a week, so she was extremely busy with blood samples and injections that folk don’t want her oppo to do, so she didn’t have time to hang around.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK

Our author is still on his prowl around the churches, but also mentions the situation where "the houses of London were built of stone for defence of fire, which kind of building was used for two hundred years or more " but lately, "houses of timber set up in place".

You can see the seeds of the Great Fire of London already being sown.

After breakfast, I made some sandwiches for Paris and packed my backpack, fitting in all kinds of goodies to keep the lupus from the porte as they would have said in Ancient Rome … "well, puer amat mensam!" – ed … and then I was back in here to carry on with my radio programme.

However, I did have a brief power nap of about 10 minutes. This early start is playing havoc with my body clock.

My cleaner turned up on time to fit my patches and then we had a chat about moving stuff about. While we were at it, she moved the two boxes that I had packed yesterday and took them downstairs where I’ll empty them on Wednesday or Thursday.

While she was here, I told her about the very uneasy feeling that I have about this trip to Paris. I can’t explain why, but I’ve been uncomfortable about it all day and all last night. And I’m spoiling for a fight, but for no good reason, and I’m not there yet. Things are not going my way.

The taxi driver wasn’t very helpful today. He’s clearly not used to dealing with the elderly and the infirm, but he’ll have to learn, and quickly too.

At Avranches, once more I was one of the last to be coupled up and it was as painful as I have ever had. And one of the punctures missed its aim, and that made it worse.

What with this early start, I wanted to go to sleep, but no such luck. The doctor who doesn’t like his work, he was on duty and he shook me awake. They are afraid that I’ll have another crisis, I reckon.

He stayed around so we had quite a chat. I told him about the uneasy feeling that I’ve had all day but he wasn’t much help on that score. In the end, he left me to it and I could crack on.

Unplugging me was complicated too and once more, I was one of the last to leave, not helped by confusion at the weighing machine. However, we thrashed through the autoroutes with its accidents and overturned artic lorry (and I’m sure that you are thinking that I’m making this up) and arrived nice and early.

A nurse eventually took me to my room and my driver could leave, and then they took a blood sample. I valiantly resisted the idea of a perfusion and rehydration (why take two litres of water out at dialysis and then immediately put half a litre back in?) and they even brought me some food – of sorts.

So now I’m off to bed, ready to fight the good fight in the operating theatre tomorrow morning, and then the chemotherapy begins.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the nurse here … "well, one of us has" – ed … he looked at my notes and said "you have acute anaemia".
"Thank you" I replied. "I’m so glad that you like it"

EPIC HALL

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