Tag Archives: eric hall

Tuesday 7th October 2025 – AS I HAVE …

… said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s totally pointless breaking my neck in order to go to bed early, because all it means is that I awaken correspondingly early the following morning.

So there I was, rushing to finish everything as early as possible, given how ill I was feeling last night, and eventually managing to be in bed before 22:30 for once, and there I was, wide awake at 03:30.

What finished it off was that I’d fallen asleep quite quickly too, so I could reasonably have expected to have had a really good sleep. That would have been really nice for once to have managed to have still been asleep at 06:29 when the alarm should be going off.

Having said that, however, I did in the end manage to go back to sleep, although it took a good ninety minutes of tossing and turning. And even then, I was once more awake at 06:10, feeling even more tired than I had been at 03:30.

It took a good few minutes to summon up the courage to leave the bed and head off into the bathroom for a good wash. And then it was into the kitchen as usual for the medication.

Back in here, there were tons of stuff on the dictaphone so I must have had a decent sleep at some point. There was some kind of camp set up – a campsite for nomadic people. I was one who turned up there with my caravan. I settled down for something like a temporary home for a while. But I’d built some kind of weird contraption something like one of these switchbacks on a fairground – I’d built it out of planks of wood. The aim was for kids to climb up into it and roll or otherwise descend down to the bottom. It looked really good but it was really rickety and the first wind would blow it down but the kids were going to enjoy themselves and make good use of it.

These days, with half of the roads out of town closed for repair, we’ve been going past the camp site for the nomads so I’ve seen quite a lot of it. Although the nomadic life appeals to me (or, at lest, it did until I was taken ill), the idea of having a camp defeats the whole purpose of it.

The “weird contraption” however reminds me of the industrial log-chutes that we have encountered on our travels in the past, at PLACES SUCH AS FORESTVILLE

And later, during one period of hostilities in the USA they caught a girl who was a bunny girl. Although she was dressed in civilian clothes, she had her uniform with her so the authorities obliged her by using force to march through the city in her bunny girl outfit. This is against the rules of War of course, but she was obliged to march like this through the city.

This is another one of those really strange, meaningless dreams that I have every now and again. And as far as I can tell, it has no relevance to anything.

Some time later, I had Percy Penguin in the car. I’d picked her up in Shavington and there was someone else with us too, a youngish guy. We’d been loading up some furniture to take and we’d put it in my car and set off. We drove through into Belgium and then we reached the coast. We had a lovely drive out on the coast road and then over a kind of ramp and onto an island. We drove all the way to the far end of this island where there was a huge bridge. We drove over this huge bridge and ended up on a smaller island with a canal, and all around this island were cruise ships etc. Then, we ended up having to go over a third bridge, and on the island at the end of the third bridge were all these skyscrapers. It looked so impressive. That was the head office of the European Union. We pulled up outside and we had to unload all of these pieces of furniture. I asked Percy Penguin what she thought, and she thought that it was really nice. Then she decided that she would like us to go for a walk in the park. I said we could but we couldn’t stay long because they know what time I’d delivered this furniture and I’d be expected to be at my desk a few minutes later than this. So if she wanted to go for a walk, it would have to be quick.

The islands, the ships, the bridges and the buildings in this dream, I can still see them now and they were all really quite impressive. It was like something from a science fiction film. But how nice it was to see Percy Penguin again. I haven’t seen her for years and I do sometimes wonder how she is doing these days. I’m not even sure if she’s still alive after Covid, what with working in a high-risk environment.

But there was something somewhere in the middle of all of this about me going for breakfast. However, I’d turned up really late after a series of meetings and there was very little breakfast left. I had to scratch around for some cornflakes and some muesli, and it looked like a mess. Someone actually asked me what it was. And then trying to find the soya milk, and with the water, I almost ended up tipping it out of someone’s glass because it was all that I could find. Generally speaking, this breakfast was turning into a total disaster, seeing as it was so late being taken.

The breakfast is something that I can still see too. And it looks disgusting, I do have to say. It must have been even more frightening in the dream. But at one point, I did use to have muesli for breakfast – I made it myself by mixing all of the ingredients. However, one winter I went onto porridge and there I seem to have stayed.

The nurse was early today, and he’s still the cheerful, happy person that he became after he returned from his holiday. We had a nice chat about musical instruments and then he cleared off on the rest of his rounds.

Once he’d gone, I made breakfast and, instead of my book, I read some articles about German commerce raiders in the two World Wars. These were fast freighters that could, with plenty of canvas and wood, easily be disguised as many other different types of freighter, usually of neutral countries.

They had several heavy guns, well-hidden and disguised. Their rôle was to sidle up to innocent freighters belonging to the allied countries, lull them into a false sense of security, and then capture them, remove their freight and their fuel, and then either sink them or send them with a skeleton crew back to Germany.

It was all quite a lucrative operation for a while but the counter-measures adopted by the Royal Navy put an end to it.

Back in here, I revised my Welsh and then went to the lesson. It was another one that passed quite well, and although I wasn’t quite as confident as I had been last week, I was still very satisfied. It makes a great deal of difference being thoroughly prepared, but it would be even better if I could remember it all later once the lesson has ended.

This afternoon, I began to dictate the notes for the radio programme on which I’ve been working for the past few weeks. They are all done and I’m about half-way through editing them. It should be finished tomorrow and then I can push on.

It should have been finished today but, apart from a little wobble at some point, I was interrupted by the letting agent for my previous apartment. They came to inspect it to make sure that it’s in good order so that they can refund my deposit.

Thanks to my faithful cleaner, the agent was completely satisfied. Once they’ve worked out all of the accounts, they will send me the money, which will be quite nice. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it because I can’t think of anything that I actually need right now or am likely to need in the future.

For some reason, tea seemed to take hours to make. It was a stuffed pepper with pasta tonight, tasty as usual, but now I’m running horribly late – again! So I’m not going to hang around. I’m going to clear off and go to bed.

But seeing as we have been talking about the nomadic life … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a couple of lines in David Bowie’s THE LAUGHING GNOME
"Haven’t you got a gnome to go to?"
"No, we are gnome-ads"
Presumably, David Bowie came across them in Gnome-man’s land.

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Monday 6th October 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone this morning.

Mind you, that’s no surprise at all. The storm that had been raging for a couple of days had died down by the end of the evening and for once, it was as quiet as the grave outside.

Once I was in bed, I went to sleep quite quickly and with two days’ worth of sleep to recover, there I lay without moving, all through the night.

How I was looking forward to it too. Once more I rushed through the work that I needed to do before going to bed and by the time that I crawled in underneath the covers, it was 23:02 – past my ideal curfew time of 23:00 but I’m not complaining.

After that, I remember nothing whatever until I awoke with another one of these “sitting bolt-upright” awakenings at 06:20 precisely. It took a couple of minutes to summon up the courage to haul myself off into the bathroom, and then I went into the kitchen to take my medication.

With nothing on the dictaphone, I took the opportunity to do something that I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while, and that is to tidy up the freezer.

During the move, the freezer was filled in any kind of order and I had real difficulty finding anything that I needed. Now, though, a couple of the drawers are sorted out and there remains just one more to do. Everything that needs to be in there is in there, but it needs to be tidied.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up a little later. It’s her last day before her week’s break so she was quite naturally in a good mood. We had a good chat about her Breton grandmother and how sad she … "the nurse, not the grandmother" – ed … was that her grandmother hadn’t taught her to speak Breton.

That’s just how I felt too. My grandmother never taught my father to speak Welsh because it was considered to be shameful back in the 1930s. Consequently, I had to learn by other methods. My grandmother did say a few words in Welsh to us when we were very small but she never explained that it was Welsh. We thought that it was just meaningless speech.

After Isabelle left, I could make breakfast and read some more of BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

By now, it’s Spring 1781 and the British have all-but given up hope of retaking the United States. A few inconclusive battles have seen the British Army retreat, even when they have had the upper hand. I think that Cornwallis is retreating towards the coast in the hope that he’ll meet a British ship that will whisk him out of the mess that the politicians have created.

Back in here, I had the radio notes to check for this week’s programme and to carry out a little judicious editing. I was also chatting to my friend in Munich and my friend in Telford while I was at it.

With the time that was left, I spent doing my Welsh homework. It’s not finished yet but it won’t take very long. Then I can concentrate on the next unit.

My cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic and then I had to await my taxi. Although he was on tie, there was someone else to pick up and for that, we had to wait around for a while. I had to sit in the back seat too, which was uncomfortable.

And so we were late arriving at dialysis and, as usual, even though I wasn’t the last to arrive, I was last to be plugged in.

For some reason that I don’t understand, my weight had ballooned since Saturday. The amount that needed to be removed was over the threshold for three and a half hours, so I expected to be there for four hours. However, the nurse failed to notice and I wasn’t going to say anything. The quicker that I’m out of there the better.

And jamais deux sans trois as they say around here. My niece’s second daughter contacted me for a chat while I was at dialysis.

Despite the fact that I was finished after three and a half hours today, I may as well have stayed because the taxi was late coming to fetch me. I didn’t complain because it was one of my favourite drivers so we had a good chat all the way home. With plenty of traffic on the roads, her driving was suitably restrained today.

Horribly late back home again, and totally exhausted because when the dialysis machine is going flat-out, it takes a lot out of me, I didn’t faal like eating anything. However, I can’t starve myself to death, so I made some pasta and veg with a vegan burger. That will do me for now.

Anyway, I’m going to bed, hoping to sleep for a week because I am so exhausted right now. I’m really beginning to worry about my health.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my favourite taxi driver … "well, one of us has" – ed … she’s one of the “old school” of taxi drivers who has her own way of doing things that wouldn’t fit in with modern ideas.
The first time that she took me to Paris, I remember it vividly.
Being someone who is famous for his very low blood pressure, I was surprised when at the hospital there, they told me that my blood pressure had gone through the roof.
"Well, you go for a long drive through the Paris rush-hour with my driver" I retorted "and see what yours is like when you come back!"

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Sunday 5th October 2025 – THIS BLASTED STORM …

… has only just died down.

It was hard at it again during the night, rattling and shaking just about everything that wasn’t tied down (and some things that were too) with an intensity even more powerful than yesterday.

The list of damages is going to be quite a long one by the time that it finally blows itself out, whenever that might be.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that last night, I was hoping for a decent night’s sleep to make up for Friday night’s lost sleep, but it wasn’t to be. I was in bed just before 23:00, which is something to celebrate these days, I suppose, and I was asleep quite quickly. But that’s about as good as it ever was.

Several times during the night, I was awoken by an extremely savage gust of wind. However, the one that awoke me round about 05:15 while I was presumably OUT OF MY BRAIN ON THE TRAIN was definitely impressive. There was no chance whatever of going back to sleep after that.

Although I did try, round about 05:45 I abandoned the attempt and went to the bathroom, and then off for the medication.

Back in here afterwards, my footfest began. And what on earth has happened to Caernarfon? Leading the league and looking unbeatable just a couple of weeks ago, defeats at home to Penybont (when the whole team looked totally disinterested) and next-to-bottom Cardiff Metropolitan, today they played with that fighting spirit for the first twenty minutes and then went back to sleep.

Colwyn Bay scored a simple goal that should have been defended, and threatened on several more occasions, especially after Caernarfon were reduced to ten men after thirty-five minutes. The Cofis didn’t awaken until about ten minutes before the end, by which time it was far too late to do anything at all.

This should have been Caernarfon’s season, but somehow they seem to have come totally off the rails this last few weeks.

Isabelle the Nurse blew in with Storm Amy, sorted out my feet and legs, and then blew out again. She didn’t hang around for long. I made breakfast and carried on reading BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

Once more, the British are retreating from some more good positions, and the American army is far too slow to follow up. The tactics of the British are totally bewildering. They win a few battles, capture a couple of towns, and then retreat.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … you aren’t going to win a war unless you can bring the enemy’s army to battle and soundly defeat it. And the best way to bring them to battle is to occupy more and more of their territory until they are cornered, not to keep on retreating.

But the fact is that the British Parliament won’t send reinforcements. It seems that back at home, the politicians are no longer committed to the war and they were leaving Cornwallis to do whatever he could with whatever he had. And that’s a situation that’s not going to last too long.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Last night, I was in a hospital bed. The poor patient in the bed on the left of mine was having a really, really difficult time and the nurses were around there all the time looking after him. But next morning when it came down to the ward inspection, the matron asked me about the spare bedding and implied that my bed had been changed only the previous day. As far as I was aware, I knew nothing about the spare bedding at all. After she left, a few minutes later, a couple of the nurses came down carrying some planks. They put them on the framework at the side of the beds so that they were over the top of our heads. Then they came back with a pile of sheets and blankets and pillow cases etc and began to distribute them out, putting them on the shelves above our heads (…fell asleep here …) so they were spreading out these sheets and pillow cases, blankets etc and putting them on the planks that they had erected over our heads, so that there was spare bedding at every bed in this particular ward.

These days, I spend a lot of time in a hospital bed, and I’ve seen them bring the clean bedding into the ward in some kind of trolley. It’s certainly not stacked up over our heads.

But when I say (…fell asleep here …) – regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I am actually asleep while I’m dictating, but what I mean here is that suddenly, I stop speaking and you can hear the sound of heavy breathing. Sometimes you can even hear my snoring and I’m sorry, Percy Penguin, for doubting you.

Later on, there was something about a foreign tourist who came over to Europe in the 18th Century or something like that. He had an accommodation of £100 at a local bank which of course he began to spend. But it wasn’t until the end of his journey and he was preparing to return to the UK that he realised, or someone else realised for him, that he hadn’t actually paid for his return journey and that would have to be paid out of his accommodation of £100, which he no longer had. And so he began to have a panic about this. But at that point a large gust of wind awoke me and we didn’t reach any further than that.

Wouldn’t it have been nice to find out how that dream continued? But that gust of wind just then was, as I said earlier, something completely special. No-one could sleep after that.

Once I’d finished, I carried on with my footfest. There were the highlights of the other matches in the JD Cymru League and then Stranraer v Annan Athletic in a local derby.

That latter match was quite interesting because, being played almost on the seashore, the storm was playing havoc with the ball and I’m surprised that the referee allowed it to continue. It was a game of two halves, with the team playing with the wind having all the advantages. Annan however made the most of it and ran out 1-0 winners in a match that should never have been played.

After a disgusting drink break, I carried on with the reorganisation of the computer hard drive that I changed the other day. It’s turning out to be much more complicated than it ought to be, considering that it was only removed in March this year. I’m sure that I didn’t do all that much organisation of the replacement hard drive.

Later on, I knocked off and went to make the bread and the pizza. The bread is excellent and the pizza is, once more, a candidate for the best ever that I have made. I love my new oven and the new water measuring gauge. They are contributing a great deal to the success.

So right now, I’m off to bed. The storm has subsided and if it continues like this, I might be able to sleep at last. I crashed out for fifteen minutes earlier, which is no surprise, but I can’t keep on going like that.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about people going to sleep … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was discussing death with someone not so long ago.
She told me "when I die, I want to die in my sleep, just like my grandfather"
"I must admit" I replied "that’s a lovely way to die"
"Ohh yes" she answered. "Much better than screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car."

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Saturday 4th October 2025 – WHAT A DREADFUL …

… twenty-four hours this has been.

Round about 02:30 this morning, the wind started to blow up. By about 04:00, we were having gusts of over 100 kph and it’s not let up since.

And seeing as I now live at the front of the building, I’m having the lot rattling against my windows, and I’d forgotten just how noisy a howling gale can be.

It was looking quite good though earlier in the evening. I’d finished my work a good while before 23:00 and I’d climbed into bed with an air of optimism … "makes a change from a hot water bottle" – ed … hoping to have a decent sleep for once.

Once in bed, I was asleep quite quickly, but it didn’t last. I awoke as the wind began to rise, and although I fell asleep again shortly afterwards, by about 04:00 I was awake and had given up all hope of going back to sleep.

Having said that, at one point I did actually go back to sleep but I was wide awake again at 06:00 and at that point, I arose from the Dead and headed off for a wash and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

After the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night and if I had been able to persuade one (or more) of my favourite young ladies to put in an appearance.

I was doing something with some kind of newspaper. There had been some issues with a couple of women over something, that were not connected to the newspaper at all. I’d actually witnessed something so I was ready to make a statement before the police, but this newspaper launched a big personal attack on me, basically to say that if I were to go before the police and make some kind of statement, then they had plenty of statements that they could make about me. I wasn’t sure what they meant, and in any case, that was a wicked thing to say. However, I decided that I’d publish in my newspaper these letters that I’d received, in the headlines, and that way, I could control them without any kind of problem. But the offence concerned related to offences against a certain man. They mentioned his name but I can’t remember it now.

The centre of France was rather lawless with people with objections making up the rules as they went along. I had four litres of milk on hand at Virlet but I was told by a troop, one of Barber’s troops, to empty it all away because somehow lying unattended on a battlefield could be extremely dangerous, so they extracted this promise from me. But it made life difficult because every time I was coming to the hoarder, and the hoarding was at the top of the list, I was stopped and thoroughly searched. But my ankle right at the time who was resigned was never searched, and neither was the bass guitarist woman who actually played together in the concert drive. It seemed to be that they were just targeting me and no-one else in this.

As I mentioned the other day, sometimes I have no recollection whatever of some of my dreams, and these two certainly fit in to that category. I can’t remember anything at all about them. But did you like the archaic use of the word “before” in the first dream?

We were in Crewe last night and we were planning on setting up some kind of radio post in a motel there. So we checked the equipment that we had. We had the radio, of course, and we had a suppressor to act as an aerial and a few other things like that. Someone else brought with him another receiver so that we could boost the power, and then we set off. We turned from Gresty Road into Davenport Avenue, and there were the two new houses on the corner. There was a third one in the far corner, a small detached house, with access into the garden of one of the houses next door. I explained that this was bought by the family to house one of their daughters who had grown up. She lived there but she had communication and shared facilities with her family. We walked past one of these signboards where the American President had several of his statements and his Truth Social account, and every time you wrote something in this book on this table, one of his Truth Social things sprung up. The one that I noticed was “only half the water on the earth is due to water”. We saw some of the comments and some of them were hilarious. We were thinking that we hope that this book will be available in a thousand years time to show the people just how stupid the current times were. Then we went to set up in our hotel but for some reason, every time the radio was plugged in, it kept on screeching. Changing the amplitude of the aerial didn’t seem to help. The person with us said that he couldn’t possibly couple up his radio to this network with this noise happening. We’d have to try to think of a way to overcome it but that was going to be complicated.

When our family moved from Shavington in 1970, we settled in Davenport Avenue in a house right on the corner with Gresty Road. I know the patch of land on which the new houses were built. Furthermore, I reckon that I know the girl referred to in the dream. She and her family lived in one of the houses in Gresty Road just before you turn in to Davenport Avenue.

As for the American President and the stupid current times, I try to keep politics off these pages but someone clinically insane in charge of the most powerful country in the World, another madman trying to turn the clock back to 1940, and another group of people committing a genocide of a magnitude that the World hasn’t seen for 1400 years, all of which while the rest of the World looks hopelessly and helplessly on, I’m glad that I shan’t be around to see how it all transpires.

Finally, I’d been doing some things around this stately home for some reason or another. I’d begun to chat to the daughter of the owners. She was in my opinion a very nice girl, not the kind of girl that you would normally meet when you are dealing with the aristocracy. We began to see each other on a very informal basis. One day, I was round at their house early one morning to take her to work but there was a commotion somewhere. I rushed to see what it was, and at first I thought that it was the Lord and his son who were being attacked. However, they were sitting there quite nonchalantly, not having heard anything. Then we heard some screams coming from across the lawn. In another wing of the house, the butler or whatever was trying to defend it from some burglars. The burglars came running out, we rushed over, and there was the mess. Once we’d tidied it up, I happened to notice that there was a film playing on the video recorder, one of the INSPECTOR HORNLEIGH FILMS so I stood and watched it for a few minutes; Then I thought that I had to take this girl to work, so I tried to stop the video recorder, but I couldn’t see the “stop” button or a “pause” button so after a few minutes, I ejected the cassette and then I went upstairs. The girl was waiting for me, and she was not very happy. She said that if we had gone as soon as I had turned up, which was what she wanted to do, she would have been at work for six minutes already. I could only apologise, but I felt that it wasn’t going to be enough. But one thing that I noticed was her perfume. She had on this lovely perfume and that’s something else that I can still smell it now, this perfume.

It beats me where this one has come from too. But the Inspector Hornleigh films, the vastly underrated Gordon Harker with his sidekick, a very young Alistair Sim, are amongst my all-time favourite black-and-white films.

And the perfume was gorgeous too.

Isabelle the Nurse blew in with the wind, sorted out my legs and then blew out again, so I could make breakfast and read some more of BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

The American Army is half-starved, unclothed, unpaid and near mutiny. But even so, the British still refuse to sally out of their camps to press home an advantage. It’s as if they have given up all hope and are waiting for a miracle. It makes very depressing reading.

Our author, Colonel Carrington, is however also hilarious. He has a complete and utter failure to recognise irony when he sees it. He tells us that General Greene detached General Morgan to, inter alia "collect provisions and forage, form magazines, prevent plundering, etc."

Maybe someone ought to explain to Colonel Carrington that the difference between "collect(ing) provisions and forage" and "plundering" is “who is doing it?”. When an army is plundering, it’s called "collecting provisions" but when a starving private soldier is collecting provisions, it’s called "plundering."

Back in here, I carried on with my notes for this radio programme and it’s now all finished, ready for dictating if I’m up early tomorrow. But I probably won’t be. I’m really exhausted after today and the bad night last night.

My faithful cleaner was late to come and apply the anaesthetic, and shortly after she left, there was a knock at the window. I thought that it was the taxi coming early but it was in fact the tenant of one of the holiday homes in the building who had locked himself out. I could have done without that.

The taxi was late again and in the howling gale, it took me ten minutes to walk to the car, hanging on grimly to my crutches and the driver. It was no fun at all.

There was someone else to pick up too, out in the back of beyond, so all in all we were horribly late arriving.

They put me in a different room today, but I had no peace. The low blood pressure alarm went off every half-hour and the nurses came a-running, poor things. Not that it did any good though.

For a change, I was reading about the battlefield clearances ofter World War I, the hunt for bodies and the consolidation of smaller cemeteries into larger ones. It made some quite gruesome reading and I’ll probably be having nightmares about it in the very near future.

Bodies are still being discovered in Flanders Field, on the Somme and elsewhere even today. As recently as eighteen years ago, a mass grave was discovered with about two hundred and fifty Australian soldiers in it.

As seems to be the case these days, I was left to be the last to be unplugged. Consequently, I was once more horribly late returning home.

My faithful cleaner and the driver had to help me to the apartment, in view of the wind, and I was glad to be back inside, even if it is cold right now.

Tea was a baked potato with a burger on a bun, and once more, even though I cooked a smaller portion, I left food on my plate. This is not very much fun at all. There’s definitely something wrong somewhere.

But that’s to worry about tomorrow. Right now, I’m off to bed. Sunday is a lie-in until 08:00 of course, but we’ll have to wait and see. If this wind keeps up, it will be most unlikely.

And seeing as we have been talking about the archaic use of the word "before" … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of once upon a time when I uttered an expletive in front of some rather posh lady.
A short while later, her husband came to see me. "how dare you swear before my wife?"
"I’m terribly sorry" I replied. "I had no idea that she wanted to go first."

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Friday 3rd October 2025 — AFTER YESTERDAY’S LITTLE …

… health and morale wobble, I have spent the day in a much better and much more positive state of mind. And, to my, and probably your surprise too, not only have I not crashed out at all today, I have also managed to keep going without sinking into one of these catatonic fits.

It didn’t seem as if it was going to be like that last night, though. I really was feeling quite out of sorts and a late night … "yet again!" – ed … didn’t help matters all that much. I was certainly ready for bed, and glad that I could slide in underneath the covers without any further ado.

If only it had continued like that. At about 03:15, I awoke, and couldn’t go back to sleep. There was this nagging feeling in my mind about whether or not I’d switched on the water heater before going to bed and, if so, was it still working?

Realising that I’m never going to have any peace at all until I find out for definite, I went to look. And sure enough, it was switched on and still heating, so there will be hot water to wash the dishes in the morning.

On that note, I went back to bed and luckily enough, I managed to go back to sleep quite quickly.

Not for long, though. By 06:00 I was wide awake, having given up all hope of going back to sleep, and so I heaved myself out of my stinking pit and headed for the bathroom and the lovely hot water.

After the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. It was during the American Civil War. I was in some kind of charge of a small area where I had eventually to transform everything into war defences to keep the Union army out. For a few months, it was a very vicious siege until at the end of the day we had beaten the Union Army and they began to retreat from the area. This was another one of those occasions where I really was ill and had a most upset stomach. I didn’t really feel like doing anything at all during the night and morning with all this going on.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … although I’m asleep when I’m dictating these dreams, there is usually some kind of vague recollection that comes back to me when I am typing them out. On a few rare occasions though, I remember nothing whatever about them and they are a total mystery to me, just like this one is.

There was some kind of meal being given in a restaurant where my boss, I suppose, had invited someone to lunch. Anyway, it wasn’t my boss at all but another guy and he was sitting at a table upstairs in this restaurant. I was hovering around on duty. I could hear the front door open and someone come in. As I looked down the stairs I could see this woman coming upstairs. She came in and stood by the door, but before I could go over to her, my boss went over to her and invited her back to a chair at his table. I felt embarrassed about that because I should be doing this. But this woman, she had Zero with her. They began to discuss the meal and the point of this meeting, but she said that she would like to start the meal straight away and eat while she is talking. For starters, she decided that she would have meatballs, and everyone else would have meatballs – the man would have meatballs and so would Zero so I beckoned the waiter over to take the order.

So welcome back, Zero! How lovely to see you again! I wish that she, and Castor, and TOTGA would come back more often into my dreams. As for this restaurant, though, I’ve been there before and I can still see it quite clearly in my imagination, but can I recall where it is? But it does remind me of a restaurant in Brussels to which I went once with a young lady of my acquaintance, but I shall say no more about it in case she is one of my anonymous readers.

By the way, if you are one of my anonymous readers, introduce yourself and say “hello”. I like to interact with my audience. There’s a contact button on the bottom right that you can use. I don’t bite … "well, not hard, anyway" – ed …

There was something else about someone coming into Granville. I’d arranged to meet them at the roundabout at the Sports Centre. However, I can’t remember anything else about this. It’s one of those that has evaporated completely.

Is this the first time that I’ve dreamed about Granville? I can’t recall Granville figuring in the dreams before and that’s a surprise because I’ve been living here for eight and a half years after I left Leuven.

Isabelle the Nurse came around, her happy, enthusiastic self as usual. She didn’t stay long, so I could push on and make breakfast, and then read some more of BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

The British are at it again. Despite an overwhelmingly superior army (in numbers and supplies), they are refusing to take the battle to the Americans in the Northern States, and are abandoning coastal cities in the South for fear of being enveloped by the French fleet that has now joined in.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the British are not going to win this war unless and until they bring the American Army to the battlefield and defeat it. Running away from a fight won’t win any battles. I have the distinct feeling that the British are wasting their time here. If they aren’t going to fight to the bitter end, what was the point of starting?

Back in here, after dealing with some correspondence, I’ve spent the rest of the day dealing with this difficult radio programme that I’ve been trying to sort out for several weeks.

By the time that I’d knocked off for tea, I’d sorted out and remixed all of the music and I’ve written over half of the text. It all took an age to do and I’ve no idea where all of the motivation and energy came from, but here we are. I’m hoping to finish it tomorrow so that I can dictate it on Sunday morning and then move on to another one.

There was an interruption for me to go down to the Centre Normandy for my physiotherapy etc. My first appointment was for 13:30 but the taxi came for me at 12:45, which meant that I had a wait of over half an hour. Why can’t the taxi come early like this when it’s dialysis?

To my surprise, my physiotherapist proposed a foot massage, to try to force the circulation back into my feet and toes. They are actually quite cold and numb, as no blood is reaching them. It sounded such a strange idea to me, but who am I to complain? I’m just grateful that I’m having all this attention, all for free. There have to be some consolations with being terminally ill.

The second session was with the ergotherapist. He discussed my living arrangements and what I would need to be more autonomous. And one thing that I learned was that “a young Thai serving wench” is not the answer to my problems – at least, according to the ergotherapist.

He took a lot of notes and filled in several forms, but what the outcome of all of that will be, I have no idea.

When I went in, they gave me a programme of next week’s sessions, and the driver duly photographed it to send off to her dispatching office. And so, when I came out, they gave me another one to replace the one that I’d had just an hour or so earlier.

Back here, my faithful cleaner helped me inside and then she cleared off. I had a little relax, a disgusting drink, and then carried on work.

Tea was falafel and chips with vegan salad, and now I’m going to bed. It’s dialysis tomorrow so I need to be on form. And then with a bit of luck, there will be a foot fest on Sunday if I’m lucky. It seems to be my only source of enjoyment these days.

But seeing as we have been talking about useful help around the house … "well, one of us is" – ed … it reminds me of a chat that I had once with a French woman.
"What do you call in English that machine thing that you have around the house to make the clothes smooth and flat after you’ve washed tham?"
"Ohh, that," I replied. "That’s called a ‘wife’."

0

Thursday 2nd October 2025 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

… one of these miserable sessions at dialysis today, where nothing whatever seems to have gone my way.

The only bright spark of the afternoon there was the interaction with some of the nurses. We had a good laugh at times, although I imagine that if the doctor in charge of the service were to overhear it, he would put a stop to it in an instant.

But after the events of yesterday, I needed a good cheering-up. My depression went on and on, culminating in forgetting to switch on the water AGAIN last night, meaning that I had no hot water today.

It was probably due to the fact that I had yet another late night when I failed to concentrate on anything, and finished hours later than I would have liked. I crawled into bed at about 23:30, and at least, I was asleep quite quickly.

The night though was another one of these turbulent ones where I’m tossing and turning, trying to make myself comfortable. And although I had had some amount of sleep, at about 05:50 I gave up the struggle. By 06:00 I was up and about.

After a wash and shave (in lukewarm water) I went for breakfast. And then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. And what a task that was!

There was a group of prisoners in a prisoner-of-war camp who decided that they were going to escape. They had thought of a foolproof plan and were making their preparations before leaving. The first thing that they had done was that they had arranged to have six cups of coffee each to take with them. They were busy sorting out these cups onto some kind of trolley that they could pull along behind them. They were discussing their route. The obvious route was to head for Switzerland, but one of the people planned to head for the interior first – the interior of Germany, and make his way round in some kind of arc. They were discussing various towns that they would pass through on the way. There was some guy there with his wife, and they were planning on escaping. When they were out of the prison, the wife fell into the River Rhine or one of the rivers that pass into Switzerland. It was ice-cold and she was in danger of freezing. A barge was going past so she put out her hand and caught hold of a trailing rope from the barge and allowed herself to be pulled on down the river. That way, she managed to cross into Switzerland, although her husband was miles behind, trying to make his way down to the Swiss border on foot.

Part of this relates to the story of Edouard Izac, a lieutenant in the American Navy in World War I. He was captured when his ship was torpedoed and was taken to Germany. He escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp and although he was only eighteen miles from the Swiss border, he took a circuitous route of almost ten times that in order to throw his pursuers off the scent.

As for the rest of it, I’ve no idea at all.

Then there were two athletes, male athletes, who were caught in a wave of a German advance. Rather than be taken prisoner, they linked their arms between each other’s elbow joints and, hanging on to their necks, they counted to three and suddenly wound and moved their bodies, thus breaking their necks.

We discussed the “Fetterman massacre” a few weeks ago. The opinion of the fort’s medical officer was that the two officers had linked arms and shot each other, presumably to avoid capture and torture by the Native Americans.

There was then a story about a guy and an associate of his who were tramping miles across the country accompanied by two cats. They came to a big girder bridge across a river. They had to toss these cats onto the bridge and then leap onto the bridge themselves in order to cross. Instead of crossing, they went to the bridge-keeper’s office. The bridge-keeper was discussing various criminal matters with various different people, about robberies and crimes and everything that was due to take place, as if he was some kind of organiser. The guy in this dream went over to him and was talking about his plan to kill some businessman by looping two chains around his door. When the guy opened the door and subsequently closed it, the chains would pull in really tightly and break his spine. The bridge-keeper warned him about doing this and didn’t recommend it at all. But early next morning at the house of this wealthy guy, he came out of his door and then went and slammed it, and you could hear the groan from outside. A couple of hours later, his wife awoke and went downstairs. She couldn’t find her husband so she called the police. The police found the guy who had climbed onto the bridge. He was sitting in his car, naked. The Police Inspector interrogated him but extracted no particular information so he had a Constable sit behind him in the car, armed with a shotgun. The guy in the front seat said that he was nervous about the shotgun, but the Inspector told him that he could be even more nervous if he knows that it’s loaded.

What I shall do with this dream is to leave you lot to interpret it.

From there, it went on back to my house. I was in my bedroom, somehow confined there and wasn’t allowed out. I heard the front door open and it was the nurse apparently who came in. When I was finally allowed out of my bedroom, he was giving Nerina an injection for something or other and a series of tablets. I wondered why this had taken place. Then he gave me my injection. Nerina was there with some kind of machine that had a recoil starter. She was pulling on this starter, but it was very, very difficult to start. She had to cut part of the cowling away to reach the choke, which was one of these flip-chokes that you work with your thumb. Eventually she managed to cut the piece away and it was quite a neat job. I could see these thousands of tiny, tiny LED lights around this machine so I asked her what they were for. She told me that they were for Carnaval. I asked her if we were going to have a float at Carnaval then.

It won’t be long before we shall be preparing for Carnaval, assuming that the current mayor doesn’t ban it and he doesn’t want to redevelop the funfair site or the workshop where they build the floats. Anything is possible around here at the moment. And it’s nice to see Nerina back, although why she would confine me to my room I have no idea at all.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up and sorted me out, and then I could press on with breakfast and BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

The British, having captured Philadelphia, have now abandoned it and are retreating to New York. That was a mystifying decision, because the only way to defeat an army is to bring it to battle. Retreating like this and abandoning posts that the enemy would like to occupy is a pointless exercise. They may just as well have stayed in New York in the first place.

After breakfast, I came back in here and carried on sorting out the hard drive, making sure that the directories run how they should and linking files to programmes. But I was interrupted by the charity shop that took away the unwanted furniture. They were only here ten minutes yet in that time they must have worked like heroes.

My faithful cleaner came along as usual to deal with the anaesthetic cream, and then I had to wait (and wait and wait) for the taxi. If that wasn’t enough, there was someone else to pick up so we were hours late arriving.

One thing that they had asked me to do on Monday was to conserve one day’s output of … errr … liquid waste and take it in a plastic bottle so that the laboratory could examine the contents. That was embarrassing.

And I also have to say that I was surprised about how little there was. And that’s probably why my weight had almost gone off the scale today and why they said that I had to stay for four hours. What with being so late arriving, that was horrendous news.

“Never mind” said one of the nurses. “You can sleep here with us tonight.”

“You know what” I replied. “That’s the best proposition that I’ve had for quite some considerable time.”

There were cramps, low blood pressure ringing the alarm, all kinds of things. A patient had a funny turn in her bed, and another one collapsed when he stood up. It was all go this afternoon.

The dietician came to see me too and had another little moan about my diet. It’s not doing her much good though because I’m not changing, even if my appetite has plummeted dramatically.

The taxi was waiting when I finished, but even so, I was hours late coming home. Especially as we had to go via his office to pick up some papers.

Tea was late tonight – bangers and mash with cheese sauce and veg – and no washing-up as I have no hot water. That’s a horrible task awaiting me in the morning, assuming that I switch the water on again tonight. I hate waking up to washing-up in the sink waiting to be done.

But now I’m off to bed, ready for the Centre de Ré-education tomorrow. But not looking forward to it. I have a pain in the neck and in the shoulders and I’m not feeling too well at all. I wish that I could have a good night’s sleep.

But before I go, seeing as I have been talking about my … errr … liquid output … “well, one of us has” – ed … my cleaner saw me pick up the bottle and put it in a plastic bag
“What are you doing with that?” she asked.
“Nothing really” I replied. “I’m just taking the p***.”

0

Wednesday 1st October 2025 – HAVE YOU EVER …

… had one of those days where nothing whatever seems to have gone your way? Well, that’s how it seems to have been today.

Actually, it probably wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and one or two (but only one or two) things did seem to go according to plan, but the rest of the time seems to have been spent lurching from one disaster to another.

There’s no point complaining about last night, because finishing my notes early but going to bed late seems to be par for the course these days and nothing that I seem to be able to do will ever change that, by the looks of things.

Once in bed though, I was asleep quite quickly but whatever happened after that was the first entry in this catalogue of disasters.

When I awoke, I had a feeling that there was something totally wrong, so I checked the time. Yes, it was actually 07:10 – some forty minutes after the alarm should have gone off. Did I sleep through the 06:29 alarm and its repeater at 06:33? Or did I forget to set it last night (it should set itself automatically)?

When you consider how loud BILLY COTTON’S RAUCOUS RATTLE is, first thing in the morning, it can really only be the latter.

So at that point, I leaped to my feet … “well, not exactly” – ed … and staggered off into the bathroom, and then into the kitchen for my medication. That was when Bane of Britain found that he had forgotten to take his Vitamin B12 and Vitamin D on Saturday

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

I was playing American football last night. We were all lined up on the goal line of our team, and someone threw the ball in from the touchline. It landed almost right at my feet so I fell on it to try to kill the ball. For some reason, the referee didn’t call the ball dead so I had to struggle to my feet, with two or three of the opposing players clinging on, and tried to move it away from near the goal. I managed to make about three or four paces before the weight pulled me down to the floor. I thought that that was really impressive, given everything else happening at the time.

Throwing in from the touchline in Gridiron? Somehow I’m confusing my sports here. It might be possible to do so in Rugby Union, I suppose, but then the ball wouldn’t be called dead in that kind of circumstance anyway.

And then there was something else about being in the kitchen of someone else’s house. They had a large white dog that was always hungry, looking for its food, so they simply turned the door of the cupboard upside-down so that the dog’s food was at the top and the dog couldn’t reach it. After a couple of minutes of sniffing around, the dog suddenly began scratching at the bottom of the cupboard door. It had only worked out where the food was, but it couldn’t manage to open the door. The old man of the house was quite comfortable with this going on, although everyone else wasn’t so much. Then this girl appeared. She walked into the kitchen where everyone was sitting. She said something along the lines that she was feeling hungry, but she had to hurry because she was having to go out. The young boy of the family said “the food’s off tonight”. She wondered what he meant. He told her that her father was fed up of the kitchen not actually making a profit so was rather in the way of putting various restrictions on what went on. The dog was amongst the first people to suffer.

That’s another dream that is totally meaningless as far as I am concerned. Whoever heard of a kitchen making a profit? I wish mine would.

But at least there’s no mention of anything to do with the American Revolutionary War.

Isabelle the nurse breezed in as usual, full of good humour and bonhomie. She dealt with my legs and feet, and then breezed out as rapidly as she had come. I could then push on with breakfast and BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

Today, we’re discussing the British attack on Philadelphia where, for once, it’s the American dilatory tactics that affect the battle, with the British for once pushing on rapidly.

But Henry Carrington’s writing is sometimes, quite unintentionally amusing because of the stance that he takes. He writes pages about the “looting, pillaging and plundering undertaken by the British Army” but glosses over the “American Army seeking forced contributions from the local inhabitants”

Back in here, I had to prepare my timetable for the Centre de Ré-education and then do one or two other things, but the taxi driver rang me to say that he would be early, so I had to abandon everything in order to make myself ready.

At the Centre de Ré-education, my first appointment was with a physiotherapist who gave me a good in-depth examination in order to work out what programme of exercises would do me most good.

The second one was with with someone from the APA – the organisation that deals with autonomy. She wanted to see what I could do and what I needed in order to continue to live alone in my own property.

My next sessions are organised for Friday, so it’s all going to be really quick.

The taxi was due to come to pick me up at 12:30, but by 13:00 I was still waiting, so I ‘phoned them up. Eventually, the car arrived. The driver had had a breakdown … “he means ‘the car'” – ed … and it had taken a while to fix.

Back here, I could hear the computer in the office making strange noises, but I needed a disgusting drink break and to take my midday medication.

My cleaner appeared shortly afterwards and so I went for a shower. It seemed to be easier to climb into the shower today, which made a pleasant change, and it was beautiful. This shower really works and I’m glad that I had it done.

The washing is building up, due to not being able to use the washing machine until the leak somewhere is fixed, so my cleaner grabbed an armful of clothes to wash in her machine, which was nice.

Back in here, we had the ultimate catastrophe. The computer had ground to a halt and wouldn’t restart. There was just an error message “auto-repair cannot fix this drive”. And that’s bad news because I’d only bought this drive in March this year.

This could, in normal circumstances, be considered a calamity but that’s not so in here.

First of all, I keep the system files on one disk and the data files on a second, so that if one fails, the other one still is accessible.

Secondly, it’s the system disk that has failed, and I still have the previous disk, the one prior to March 2025, that I had put on one side after I’d taken it out. So having found it again (which is a surprise after the house move when I can’t find anything at all), I swapped it back and reinstalled it.

But it’s totally disappointing, and it’s shattered my illusions. The drive that has failed is a 1TB Solid State Drive and because these drives have no moving parts, which, according to their publicity, makes “them faster, quieter, and more durable. This absence of mechanical components means SSDs are less prone to physical wear and mechanical failure”

Well, so much for the publicity

In the middle of all of this, I crashed out yet again with another one of these catatonic attacks followed by actually slipping off to sleep for twenty minutes. I hope that this isn’t going to become a regular feature. I’ll be totally dismayed if it is.

Rosemary rang me later for a little chat. And it was a little chat too – only one hour long today. One of the subjects of discussion was the semi-feral cat that has adopted her and has rapidly transformed itself into a pampered domestic feline. It makes me even more determined to find a cat that will adopt me.

Tea tonight was a leftover curry and once more, I left food on my plate. This is all rather worrying because it’s not like me at all and it’s a sure sign that things aren’t as they should be. I’m definitely sickening for something

But I’ll worry about that later. Right now, I’m off to bed ready for dialysis tomorrow, I don’t think. I’ve had quite enough of today, thank you very much.

But seeing as we have been talking about my new computer drive … “well, one of us has” – ed … it’s a good job that I can remember my password.
It takes me back to when my brother first had a computer. When setting it up, he needed to create a password so he asked me about it
My reply was “You need at least six characters, plus one capital and also one special character”
So he replied “How about ‘HawkeyeTheLoneRangerThe VirginianMickyMouseBossHoggGandalfParisHermionebecauseIloveher”

0

Tuesday 30th September 2025 – IT WAS ANOTHER …

… afternoon that ended up just like so many others just recently – with me hunched over the table in some kind of catatonic fit for well over an hour.

Perhaps not exactly a catatonic fit because for a good part of that time, I really was asleep. I know that because of how far the Byrds’ concert that I was listening to had advanced.

That’s the thing, though. When I’m having one of these fits, I can hear quite clearly everything that’s going on, but I’m just not capable of reacting to anything. Perhaps one of my followers from Avranches, presumably the dialysis clinic, can supply some information in this respect to help me understand what is happening.

But all of that is for another time. Right now, I’m more interested in what happened last night.

What also seems to be the case is that no matter how quickly I finish my notes, everything else seems to take correspondingly longer and I’m still no earlier in bed, no matter how I try.

And such was the case last night. My notes went on-line at 22:41 yet it was 23:30 when I finally crawled into bed and made myself comfortable. I don’t know why it takes so long to motivate myself these days.

During the night, I remember awakening and turning over a couple of times, but when I awoke at about 05:50, that was that and I couldn’t go back to sleep.

After vegetating around for a while, I left the bed and went for a good wash, followed by the medication and something to drink, because I had a thirst that you could photograph.

Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to find out what had been going on during the night. It was in the Revolutionary War again. We were there patrolling the outposts of the British front line. We noticed that one of them had seemed to be under attack by the Native Americans because there was food scattered around, indicating that there had been some kind of fight during the lunchtime. We had to think about how to reinforce these posts with enough men to defend the front line, making sure that first of all we didn’t step on the toes of any colonist there, and secondly, that we could find some trained troops to do it, who wouldn’t panic and run if the Native Americans decided to attack.

By the looks of things, I seem to be totally immersed in BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. I wish that I could dream like this about other things in which I have an even greater interest.

And then the Social Services had intervened in the case of a girl and her baby. One of the many things that they were doing was trying to sort out her car for her, an old Ford Escort estate. They had been in contact with a female friend of mine about this car. She had asked me to come along to look at it. The guy from the Social Services had sent a long list of work that needed to be doing on this vehicle, much of which wasn’t really all that important, such as grinding off the surface rust and treating it, painting it etc. I noticed that one of the gutters had come away and was flapping around. While I was examining it closely, I saw that the sill on the nearside was rotten. It would need to be replaced. First of all, I went to attack this gutter mount but I couldn’t find any self-tapping screws the correct size so I would have to go back to my garage to look for some. But the sill, I marked it off with a big piece of chalk where it needed to be replaced. I thought that at the weekend, I’d go to the body panel shop to see what I could find. But as soon as I’d put this chalk mark on, my brother went to fetch an angle grinder to cut it out. I told him not to do that because if we can’t find a sill and the existing sill had been cut away, we are going to have an awful lot of problems. I could patch it if necessary with some of the sill remaining by welding a few plates over the missing pieces, but if it’s all cut out, it’s going to be extremely complicated to manufacture something. When I explained this to my brother, he picked up the angle grinder again. I had an enormous amount of problems trying to stop him cutting this sill out. I still wasn’t sure that he was going to take any notice, and the moment my back was turned, he’d cut it away, and that would be that as far as this car goes if I can’t find another sill.

Once upon a time I did actually have a Ford Escort estate. It was quite a nice car and I wish that I’d kept it now. But the number of cars that I must have welded up in the past when I had my big oxy-acetylene kit – it must have been phenomenal. I remember once having to weld the floor back into someone’s ancient Cortina but we couldn’t remove the seat to take out the carpet. So I was underneath welding it and every time the carpet caught alight, the guy would tip a bucket of water on the flames – and on me via some of the holes in the floor.

And as usual, my brother is up to his shenanigans – not being able to leave things alone and doing his very best to make the situation even worse than it already is.

It’s Isabelle the Nurse’s turn to be on duty now for a week, so she breezed in as usual just as I was in the middle of doing something. She didn’t hang around long, though. She took my medical card so that she could do her accounts and when she’d seen to my feet and legs, she cleared off.

That was the cue to make breakfast, and with my porridge, toast and coffee I read some more of the aforementioned book.

The British invasion of the Hudson Valley from Canada has come to a shuddering halt and an embarrassing defeat AT SARATOGA, WHERE WE VISITED ALMOST EXACTLY TWELVE YEARS AGO.

It’s a defeat that can be summarised by three factors –

  1. the failure to adequately supply General Burgoyne with the necessary men and stores
  2. the failure of General Howe to push General Clinton and his troops further up the Hudson Valley to take the American defenders in the rear
  3. the overall lack of aggressiveness and haste in the British Army, who, having cornered the Americans on several occasions, was far too slow to press on and finish the task

Although Point Three is probably the most crucial. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall – at least, those of you who were with me twenty years ago at the THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN – that the Confederates had the Union Army – and Washington DC – at their mercy, but failed to press home the advantage. This lack of the killer instinct seems to be infectious.

After breakfast, I came in here to revise my Welsh, and then I went to class. And how our numbers have grown! There are quite a few new faces, as well as one or two returning former classmates.

For a change, not only did the lesson pass really well, I actually felt confident, and it’s not at all often that I can say that. I reckon that over the summer, despite having done almost no studying, I’ve been listening to a large amount of Welsh football commentary, and I suppose that it’s a case of throwing a lot of whatsit at a wherever and some of it will stick. I was disappointed when the lesson finished.

Nest task was to book my taxi for the Centre de Ré-education tomorrow, and then to send off my order to LeClerc.

It was quite a large order today, and it took an age to unpack and put away correctly. And having done that, that was when I had my little wobble, and had to go to sit down.

It’s quite worrying really, these little fits that I seem to be having. One of these days, I’m not going to awaken from one of them and that will be that. I’ve tried to speak to people about them but no-one seems to be all that interested in discussing it with me. I have the feeling – and I don’t think that I’m too far from the truth – that the treatment that I’m having is more palliative rather than curative, maybe because the overall long-term prognosis is not good at all.

After a while dealing with the radio programme that I really need to finish, I made tea – a taco roll with rice and veg. And I managed to eat it all tonight – just about.

So my physiotherapy begins tomorrow morning. I’ll probably be worn out again after that but if it’s free, why should I worry? I’m not expecting it to do much good but it’s worth giving it a try. What do I have to lose?

Right now, I’m off to sleep in the hope that I can actually recover some of my force and energy. I’m not doing too well right now.

But seeing as we have been talking about force and energy … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of the doctors once prescribed some force and energy pills for me
However, I had to ring him up – "do you remember those pills that you prescribed to give me force and energy?"
"Yes I do" he replied
"Well, I don’t have the force and energy to be able to open the bottle."

0

Monday 29th September 2025 – I HAVE DONE …

… something today that is so rare and so unusual that it is worthy of some note.

And that is that I have left food on my plate tonight.

Usually, I’m really good at estimating how much food I want to eat at a meal, but tonight, even with my much reduced appetite, I still didn’t manage to finish the small (for me, anyway) portion of food that I served myself.

It’s down, I reckon, to a combination of a lack of appetite, a horrible salty taste of just about everything (since chemotherapy began) and a feeling that things are fermenting in my stomach, and I’m not sure which is the principal, or worst of those three situations.

That’s rather a shame because it was looking as if it might have been a good day today. Although it was later than I would like when I went to bed, I slept right through until the alarm went off at 06:29, and judging by how I was lying in bed, I hadn’t moved a muscle all night.

In the bathroom, I had a good wash, scrub up and also a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. While I was there, I washed my undies and had a change of clothes too, and then I went into the kitchen to take my medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I’d started a new job in a solicitor’s office and was being shown around the building. I was looking at all of the files and all of the documents, and thought that all of the things in there that they had collected over time were magnificent. Then I was taken to a table where there were two girls sitting, and was introduced to them. I was told that this was going to be my little case group. The first thing that I wanted to do was to find out what their attitudes were towards different things, motorists and so on, so that we could have some kind of uniform approach. However, they didn’t seem to be all that interested in that kind of thing so I had the impression that there wasn’t really any kind of uniformity there. Everyone dealt with the legal cases as they saw fit. Later on, we were filing away some papers, and I was fascinated by some of the things that I saw in there, on the files and on the evidence etc. It was the little comments that made my morning when I was looking at these – all kinds of remarks scribbled on them by other solicitors. They were sometimes hilarious, sometimes very cutting remarks. There were old papers there that you could see written on them details of the cases and similar things. There were files there relating to old vehicles that went back years. I remember saying to one of the girls that I could have an immense amount of fun just sitting here and reading these old papers. Then we began to file away some books. This girl had a book where the name of it began with an ‘A’ so she was trying to put it at the very beginning of the run. However, I had noticed that at the beginning of the run they had things that were grouped and the alphabetical names only began about halfway down this run. She was up on the top trying to put away this book. I explained to her, but she dropped the book. A whole pile of other books fell off and I caught them, but it was a real struggle to pass them back up to her so that she could put them back on the shelves.

Now, that would be a job that would be right up my alley – poring over ancient papers and files, noting all of the interesting information that they contained. When I worked for that Insurance Company in Chester between 1972 and 1974, several of the files held old deeds of trust and deeds of assignment dating back to the Seventeenth Century after the Restoration. I could (and did) sit and read them for hours, even though I worked in the section that dealt with the insurance of commercial garages.

The nurse was early today, but that was because his client from down the road was still in hospital. Not doing so well, apparently. He … "the nurse, not the client" – ed … didn’t stay long and was soon out of the way so that I could make breakfast and read some more of BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

The subject today had been the woeful lack of urgency, and the delay by General Howe in following up his victory at New York, allowing the colonists to slip away in good order. And then the embarrassment that the British must have felt when, having occupied Trenton, they forgot to fortify it or even mount a proper guard, so that they were overwhelmed and pushed back with the loss of most of their supplies and weapons.

That really is the eternal story of the American War of Independence – the British refusing to press home their advantage with enough speed or determination to launch a killer blow.

Back in here, I had things to do and then I spent the rest of the morning working on my Welsh. I’ve finished reviewing and preparing the chapter, and I’ve also made a start on the homework. I’m trying my best to keep up to date with that at least because I can’t afford to fall any further behind than I already am.

My faithful cleaner came along as usual to apply my anaesthetic cream, and the taxi came early for me too. Not that it did much good because, even though I arrived at 13:30, I wasn’t plugged in until 14:20.

While I was waiting, though, I had a ‘phone call from the Centre de Re-education. My fourteen-week course there starts on … errr … Wednesday at 11:30.

Believe it or not, Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me today. She told me that they have thought of a way to repair my implant, but they are not convinced that it will improve the situation any. What did I think?

"What do I know?" I replied. "I’m quite happy to leave it in the hands of the medical staff and follow their advice."

We discussed my recent blood test, and then she asked if there was anything else that I needed.

"A pretty nurse to sit at the foot of my bed throwing grapes into my mouth, and a couple of dancing girls on that table over there" I replied. She laughed at that, but I wouldn’t like to type out what she was thinking or my site would be taken down.

The rest of the session was spent preparing my LeClerc order ready to send off tomorrow. It’s going to be a large one too because it’s been a good three weeks since my last delivery.

When the alarm sounded to signal that I had finished, I had to wait a good 20 minutes for them to attend to me, with the result that, once more, I’m hours late returning home and it’s dismaying me.

After gathering my wits (which takes longer than it ought, seeing how few I have these days) I made tea – a stuffed pepper. There is plenty of stuffing left for the next few days too.

But as for leaving food on my plate, that’s worrying. It’s not like me at all and it’s a sure sign that I’m not at all well. Perhaps a good sleep might make me feel better, but that’s a comment made more in hope than expectation.

But seeing as we have been talking about being off our food … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the cannibal chief of a village where the chief cook put a captured blonde woman in the stew pot.
After thirty seconds or so of contemplation, the chief went over to the fire and put it out.
"What’s the matter, chief?" asked the chef. "aren’t you hungry?"
"Not really" replied the cannibal chief. "I don’t think that I could eat anything right now. I’ll probably just play with my food for a while and see how I feel later."

0

Sunday 28th September 2025 – AS I HAVE …

… said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s totally pointless going to bed and going to sleep early, because all it means is that you awaken correspondingly early too.

So, having dashed all the way through my notes and all of everything else that I needed to do, I crawled into bed just before 22:30 – some kind of record these days – thinking to myself how glad I was to be in bed at something like an early night, with the prospect of a nice lie-in until 07:59 awaiting me.

And there I was, after my nice, long sleep, wide awake at … errr … 04:11, trying desperately to go back to sleep and failing miserably.

Round about 05:00, I gave it up as a bad job and left the bed. And for the first time this year, I put on a dressing gown because it was definitely colder than I would like it to be.

Today, we have had a footfest. Well, actually yesterday, because yesterday evening there was a live televised match Y FFLINT V LLANSAWEL in the JD Cymru Premier League. However, as I had missed the first hour or so of the game, I had deliberately kept away from anywhere where the score might have been displayed, and waited until this morning so that I could see all of it non-stop.

There have been many, many more skilful matches than this that we have seen, but this match was by far and away the most exciting that I have seen for a long, long time. It ranged from end to end at 100 mph and the entertainment was a credit to the league.

Whether or not there are any football fans reading these pages, I really don’t know, but if you have a couple of hours to spare, have a look at the game. The link is a few lines higher up.

At the final whistle I went for a wash and then for the medication, and finally came back in here to listen to the dictaphone while I awaited the nurse. In the vicinity of where this second battle was taking place, some British troops had installed themselves on the high ground nearby so that they could shoot the battlefield and keep a fire of stready maleiks or mareiks or something onto the dug-in soldiers. They did this as best as they could and managed to advance almost two hundred metres, and were then sent to bomb the English positions so they gored over a late attempt to cross by Proncis Richards take of work, although she’d long-since retired and seeing if they couldn’t between them manage to push this guy Simpson out of the post that he’s occupying.

What happened to the first part of this? It sounds as if it might have been really interesting, even if it did descend into a pile of utter gibberish towards the end. And what is a stready maleiks or mareiks or whatever?

We were back in North America last night. The Americans had dug themselves in somewhere and the British were on the point of advancing towards them. The British notes were quite unclear about this but they must have set out, for bloodstains along the way indicated that they had had little battles and skirmishes. The Native Americans were interested in what was happening but were remaining neutral. The results of this advance were that the American positions fell to the British. But there was no account of the battle or anything ever prepared by anyone.

This dream and the previous one must relate to Colonel Carrington’s BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION that I have been reading recently, when the British tried without success between 1776 and 1783 to suppress the colonial revolution.

Nerina and I had been living apart. I’d come back to Crewe to find a whole pile of stuff, old furniture and things like that, put on my driveway around the back of the house. I asked Nerina if she knew of anyone who would come along and remove it – she knew people who had a van – but no-one heard at all. I never heard anything from her. I was walking around the town late at night, wondering what to do. There were crowds of people drifting around, and I remembered that there was a nightclub on the corner of Market Street and Victoria Street where I could make a ‘phone call. I passed through these crowds of people going home, but when I arrived at the nightclub, it was far too noisy and far too loud to make any kind of ‘phone call. As I walked in, I met a friend of mine carrying a double-bass. He was dressed in a red velvet jacket. We began to talk, and asked him how he was, what he was doing. I told him that I was living in France, which he knew. He said that it had been the talk of all the clubs after I left. We carried on chatting and he introduced me to his friends. We had a chat, and I asked them if they knew anyone. They replied that with the sheerest bad luck, they were supposed to be meeting someone that evening who had a van but he hasn’t turned up. I persuaded them that if they could think of anyone, to send them round to my house. I prepared to leave but they offered to give me a lift. Parked outside across the road were several coaches, some with foreign number plates. They had a van out there. When we arrived at the van, there was a pile of rubbish in the back of it. It was a pick-up. Someone set light to the rubbish, and the woman of this group thought that this was a dangerous thing and she wanted to unload it and let it burn off the back of the van. When the lorry behind moved, she began to think of how she was going to do it, but it was well-ablaze by now. Someone reminded her that every community was obliged by law to appoint a fire warden. She replied that she was the one for this community. Someone thought “wouldn’t it be a good idea to write spoof orders and spoof instructions for spoof fire wardens in spoof villages, and publish it in all of the local papers?”. She wasn’t too happy but everyone else thought that it was a good idea.

The guy in the dream is – or was – actually a drummer and used to play in a cabaret band whose van and equipment I drove around from gig to gig in 1974 and 1975 after I left my job in Chester. And another dream about things burning? It’s becoming a habit. It must have some significance somewhere.

And the “nightclub” in question is the former Burton’s menswear shop, on two floors, that is currently up for sale. Its corner situation would make it an ideal spot for a café, bar, and games venue and I’ve often pondered about what I could do with a place like that.

Finally, in the back of my van was a whole pile of furniture equipment moving stuff and a whole pile of things that had accumulated over the years. I wanted to dispose of it but no-one would come along and lend me a hand. The van’s controle technique had expired and I couldn’t drive it, so I came back from Europe after four years to try to organise something. I couldn’t even find the van so I began to hunt around. Nerina was with me but she was living somewhere else – she’d just popped by. In the end, we went upstairs to one of the bedrooms, and in the bedroom at the rear of the house, there was the van. I thought “what on earth was it doing in the bedroom? How did I bring it up here?”. It was buried in the hedge in the bedroom. I had a look around it, found the keys, unlocked the back door, and the whole of this furniture stuff was in there. One thing that I noticed was that the light came on, so I went round to the cab, put the key in and turned it, and it started. I thought “that’s not bad for four years being away”. I worked out that I must have brought it up into the bedroom by winching it up on a couple of planks, making a kind of ramp, so I need to find those planks and then I could winch it back down to the street again. Once it was down on the street again, then never mind the controle technique, never mind anything, I would nip out one night down a really dark road that I knew and just drop everything off because I was beyond now thinking of any kind of reasonable or logical way and with no controle technique on the van, I couldn’t go anywhere in daylight where there was a waste recycling centre open

Can you imagine it? Winching a van up to the first floor bedroom on a couple of planks, and losing it in the hedge inside the room. But it’s true that there are many things that I’m having to consider and having to think about winding up as my health deteriorates from day to day.

There are also many things that will have to be wound up by other people as there are simply not enough hours in the day to deal with them. It will be an extremely sad and emotional moment, but at least I won’t be around to witness it.

The nurse finally turned up at 09:45 this morning, ninety minutes or so late. He’d been to another client and had no answer at the door when he knocked. However, he could hear noises from inside so, not knowing what to expect, he called the emergency services. When they arrived, they broke down the door and found the client on the floor, where, apparently, he had fallen yesterday and was unable to stand up. The nurse had to reanimate him and then he … "the client, not the nurse" – ed … was rushed off to hospital.

That, by the way, is the reason why I’m here in Granville. In the Auvergne, one is totally isolated if anything goes wrong. An old English guy with whom I was very friendly had a fall down his stairs and lay there at the foot for five days in temperatures of minus 10°C until someone found him.

He was still alive, but he didn’t survive long. And that was the fate that awaited me if I were to have a health issue.

After breakfast and more of my book, I came back in here for part II of my footfest – Stranraer away at Dumbarton.

Stranraer are having a wretched season so far and up at The Rock in the driving rain, things weren’t looking much better. A penalty had put them in the lead, but Dumbarton had equalised shortly after. However, a wonder goal in stoppage time from James Dolan gave Stranraer their first win of the season.

During the week, Stranraer had played against the Motherwell junior team and those highlights were online too, so I watched that game. How nice it was to watch Stranraer amble on to a comfortable 3-0 win for once.

While I was at it, I picked up a few other matches from Saturday, and it made a nice morning’s relaxation.

After the disgusting drink break, I spent some time working on my Welsh and then went to make the dough for the pizza and for the loaf.

The pizza was perfection itself – absolutely wonderful – and having read the instructions closely and adhered to them, the bread turned out to be marvellous too and it even looks like a proper loaf.

So now, I’m off to bed, trying … "in vain" – ed … to catch up with my beauty sleep ready for dialysis tomorrow.

And seeing as we have been talking about difficulty sleeping … "well, one of us has" – ed … it’s not like the hill farmer in Cumbria being interrogated by someone from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
"And how many sheep do you have?"
"I’ve no idea" replied the farmer
"My goodness!" exclaimed the official. "Don’t you ever count them?"
"I try" replied the farmer "but I get just so far and then I fall asleep."

0

Saturday 27th September 2025 – THIS HEALTH ISSUE …

… that I mentioned the other day is still continuing. I’m feeling absolutely wasted right now and wish that I could just climb into bed and go to sleep, and forget about everything.

What makes it worse is that I had another decent sleep last night. I might not have been in bed so early but I managed to sleep right the way through until the alarm went off. There had been a couple of times during the night when I remember tossing and turning about, but I managed to go back to sleep again quite quickly afterwards.

As usual, it took a while for me to raise myself from the Dead but I picked up my bed and walked to the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up, and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant today.

After the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone, and I was surprised by how much there was to hear. It was late in the afternoon and I needed to have a bath, so I decided to go into work where I usually had a bath at the time. I arrived there and it was just like at school, with many of my colleagues and classmates hanging around there trying to do some work. As I walked in, I overheard someone asking about STRAWBERRY MOOSE – did anyone know where he was. I piped up to say that I had him, which made everyone realise that I’d arrived at last. I went to sit by my bed, which was already being filled with water, but one of my classmates came over and he climbed into my bath. He stood there up to his feet. We had a little chat, and then I pulled out the plug, saying “right, you have to go now because I’m having a bath”. He moaned and groaned and then left. There were some clothes on my bed which were now soaking wet so I asked “whose are these?”. My brother piped up, saying that they were his. When he came to see them, he had a moan too about them being wet. He said that I’d done it deliberately. I told him that if I had had the time to arrive here, sort out a few things, fill the bed with water and then drain it all out again in the time that I’d actually been here, I must be doing really, really well. He took his clothes away with something of a moan. I began to chat to the little girl in the bed next to her, but as I turned my back and turned round a minute or two later, my brother was bringing a mortmain bag over, the kind of thing into which you put bodies that have died in a hospital. I wondered what had happened to that girl in the minute that my back had been turned. I thought that I’d wait until my brother has packed her in and then gone away until I could open the bag again to have a look to make sure in fact that she is still dead.

Mortmain is a French term that was common in post-Conquest England. It literally means “dead hand” of course but in those days, it was used to describe the type of holding that a body such as the Church would have, holding properties that were not governed by the usual laws of inheritance. So whatever its significance might be when discussing the death of a girl in the bed next to me, I really don’t know.

However, that’s how my friend Marianne died. I sat by her side for almost six months, watching her fade away as the cancer spread. But I was called away from her bedside to answer a telephone call. There was no-one on the line and when I returned to her side, she had died in that minute.

As for the rest of this dream, apart from the appearance of one of my family, the rest is meaningless. But then again, you expected that.

Later on, I’d been out for a ride on a little 50cc moped. I’d gone out towards Wrexham way, and I’d kept on meeting all of the little mini service buses coming back as I was riding. I travelled so far, and then I turned back. I was listening to a news report about one of the buses while I was busy chasing one on the bike. It was talking about someone who had taken a series of photos of the interior of what was said to be one of their buses and was using them in a campaign about some kind of ill child. Although the interior in the photos resembled very much one of their buses, the people who owned the buses were convinced that it was not one of theirs and wondered what had been going on with this coach trip with this disabled person on board. Gradually, I ended up behind another person on a motorbike. It was interesting because with the two motorbikes limited to 30 mph, I was passing him in certain places and he was passing me in certain places, but on an uphill stretch he managed to pull away from me. At a certain point, we came across a car that was on fire. It looked as if it was at the bottom of Gresty Road at the foot of the hill on the way up to Gresty. It was blazing away. We heard on the news that they were asking for the person’s relatives, to ask where this person was. Someone suggested that he was in the Cheshire Cheese in Gresty, although they called it Caws Sir Gaer of course in Welsh. But this car that was blazing, it had some flashing orange lights on the roof. They weren’t horizontal like many flashing lights but there were two of them set vertically, these banks of orange lights, and it looked totally strange to me.

Apart from the dream in Welsh, this dream didn’t mean all that much to me either. Consequently, seeing as I have been playing around with Artificial Intelligence recently, I asked an AI Bot what it had to say about it. Its reply was "Dreams about cars on fire often suggest turbulence or transformation in your drive, path, or personal ambitions. The exact meaning depends on your emotions in the dream and what’s happening in your life, but it typically signals strong feelings or changes needing attention. If the dreams recur or feel disturbing, consider exploring what real-life worries or transitions might be influencing your subconscious.".

Exploring my subconscious is a job for this psychiatrist person, so we’ll leave it to whoever pulls the short straw. However, these dream analysts don’t mean all that much because the whole point of this project when it started twenty-five years ago was that dreams couldn’t be analysed like this.

Finally, I was with my niece last night and her husband. We were doing something to the brakes of one of my cars, and we found that we needed a certain nut to hold on the brake pipe into the brake calliper. He had a few cars lying around so we went and went to take one off one of them. Of course, with the flared end on the brake pipe, we couldn’t pass the nut over the end. After a few minutes pondering over this, we began to reassemble it. I thought that my niece’s husband could post over from Canada the parts that I needed at some time if I were to ask him. While we were trying to reassemble this brake pipe into the car, the owner turned up. My niece gave him some story about checking it over for its annual safety check and that we’d be finished soon, but I couldn’t make this nut start up onto the threads on the calliper onto where it would fasten, no matter how I tried. I thought that for a simple job like this, it’s going to take me hours.

My niece will, hopefully, be here in a few weeks, but I doubt if she’ll be bringing with her any brake parts. Tinkering about with cars, though, was something that we did quite often over in Canada and, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … how I wish that I was over there now.

The nurse came early this morning. He gave me the last one of this series of injections, sorted out my feet and legs, and then cleared off, leaving me to make breakfast and read some more of BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

The British have succeeded now in dislodging the Americans from their best defensive positions on Long Island and are preparing to inflict upon them a vital disaster. However, as in the American retreat from Québec, the British are far too slow to follow up and press home their victory against demoralised and disorganised part-time soldiers.

Back in here, there were the highlights of last night’s game between Y Bala and TNS, and Llanelli and Hwlffordd. It goes without saying that TNS beat Y Bala, but Llanelli beat Hwlffordd, pushed the latter down into the bottom position and climbed out of the relegation zone, something that looked most unlikely three weeks ago.

My cleaner came along and sorted me out as usual, and for once, the taxi was early. However, it was to no avail because firstly, we had to pick up another passenger, and secondly, the patient connected before me had so many difficulties being connected – even the doctor was called -that they kept me hanging on.

13:30 was when I arrived, and it was 14:20 when I was finally connected up.

It was about an hour later that I crashed out, and then I was groggy for quite some time afterwards. It was a tough day there, all in all.

Luckily, I was uncoupled straight away and my taxi driver was waiting too, so I wasn’t all that late returning home.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me as usual and helped me into the apartment where, after she had gone, I crashed out again. For fifteen minutes, this time.

Tea was baked potato, salad and breadcrumbed quorn fillet, and now I’m off to bed, thoroughly wasted and totally fed up. I hope that I feel better tomorrow.

But seeing as we have been talking about the American defeat on Long Island … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of the American Generals spotted some of his rearguard digging a trench instead of covering the retreat.
"What’s going on here?" he asked
"Well, sir" explained one of the privates "it’s a last-ditch attempt to stop the enemy."

0

Friday 26th September 2025 – ONCE MORE …

… I relapsed into a catatonic fit at the end of the afternoon, and was away with the fairies (although not in any manner that would offend the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine) for at least an hour.

Mind you, I put this down to the fact that I have had quite a hectic and energetic (for me these days, anyway) afternoon and it’s worn me out.

It should have been a good day too because, for once, I was in bed before 23:00. Not long before, it has to be said, but even so, it’s a welcome sign of progress.

It was another night too where I found that I was able to turn over in bed without using my hand to lift my leg, and if that’s not some sign of progress, I don’t know what is. But as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … one swallow doesn’t make a summer and I must be very careful not to tempt fate.

The alarm at 06:29 didn’t go off this morning, for the simple reason that I had switched it off. I had awoken at about 06:00 and as there was no point in going back to sleep, I vegetated around for a while and then arose from the Dead.

After the bathroom, I went for my medication, piling the stuff down as usual, and came back in here, rather earlier than usual. I don’t know what happened there.

First thing was of course to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We were somewhere about the High Arctic of Canada. It was something to do about taking the statistics which involved the temperature, the length of darkness etc. One of the girls who was doing this had this paper. She was trying her best to read it and write it in the semi-darkness there, so I shouted at her a couple of times to turn on the light, but for some reason she was very reluctant to do this. I began to wonder why it was that someone had been taken on board this expedition to keep all the notes and statistics when I was quite capable of doing it myself. However, for some reason I was promoted to assistant … of the ship which, in view of its history, made me fairly famous, I suppose. But I kept on urging people to write things down instead of committing it to notes on board the ship, which could easily be lost at any moment in the ice.

When I look back (as I did later this morning) at the statistics that I used to keep, all the way from 2006, when I lived down on the farm, it brought back several memories. All of the notes that I took of rainfall, temperature, wind speed, solar energy and so on. That was all going to be my maître d’oeuvre for my Master’s Degree, but like everything else, bad health came along to confound it all.

And also the High Arctic. I loved my time out there in 2018 and 2019 when we ended up about 700 miles from the North Pole, and what wouldn’t I give to be able to go back there again? Samuel Gurney Cresswell once said that a voyage to the High Arctic "ought to make anyone a wiser and better man" but looking at myself in a mirror and pondering over my adventures ever since, he was clearly far from the truth with that comment.

Later on, I’d been on holiday somewhere and I had my really big suitcase and a rucksack full of stuff. I’d been staying in this hotel and had to go off somewhere for a couple of days, which had put me all behind. When I came back to the hotel, I asked the landlady if I could stay for another couple of days. However, she said “no”. The hotel was fully-booked and I had to leave, so I picked up my things and wandered away. I contacted my old friend in Stoke-on-Trent and told him that I was on the lookout for a hotel, but I was popping round to his house to pick up something on the way. I took a taxi down to where he lived, climbed out of the taxi and then walked into his driveway. There was a car parked up there, and there was a pile of things propped up against the side of the gate. I knocked a tow bar down that hit the wheel of his car, and I picked it up. I went on up to the house. They saw how much baggage I had, and helped me into the house. His wife said “I’m just going to make you something to eat before you go to bed”. I asked “what do you mean?”, and they had converted the sofa in their living room into a kind-of bed. I was so surprised and so overwhelmed because I hadn’t planned on staying there at all. It was lovely of them to have made a little bed for me.

There was once a friend of mine who would indeed do anything he possibly could to help anyone along the way. However, the drugs and medication that he was obliged to take after a serious motorcycle accident transformed his personality completely. In the end, I had to stop going round there.

Anyway, I digress … "again" – ed …

The nurse turned up as usual to give me my injection and then to sort out my feet and legs, and then after he left, I could have breakfast and read some more of BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

Today, we have been discussing the Battle of New York, when the British sailed up the Hudson and East River in some considerable force … "why didn’t they sail up there in a boat?" – ed … to launch an attack on the city.

After breakfast, I had plenty of things to do, and doesn’t the time fly quickly when you are enjoying yourself? Before I’d even done half of what I was hoping to do, my cleaner arrived to do her stuff. Luckily, I’d managed to prepare my file of documents for the Centre Normandy and to write out a timetable of when I’m occupied and when I’m free.

That’s the kind of state that I’m in with my medical appointments.

It was one of my favourite drivers who took me down to the centre this afternoon. And how my health has deteriorated over the last year, as I remarked to myself as I struggled into the building. It was never as bad as this in the past. In fact, I can’t believe how it could be possible for a building dedicated to the rehabilitation of disabled people to be so awkward and complicated in which to move around.

At the reception, I was interrogated and quizzed, and then I had to retrace my steps to see the nurse.

She gave me a good going-over and then insisted on accompanying me upstairs to see the doctor, and so we re-retraced our steps.

The doctor, Elise the Cute Consultant, was horrified at my state, especially when I couldn’t rise out of the chair in which she sat me. She began to insist that I have a wheelchair, I flatly refused, and we ended up with a Mexican stand-off.

In the end, after much negotiation, we reached an agreement. No wheelchair, but I have to see a psychiatrist. And as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … God help the poor psychiatrist who has to probe the innermost depths of my subconscious mind.

She also wants me to see a dietician and also to have twenty-eight sessions of therapy over fourteen weeks. I’m now trying to work out when I’ll have any time to go to sleep, what with all of these medical appointments that I have, one after the other like this, the dialysis, the chemotherapy and now the Centre Normandy.

But Elise the Cute Consultant really is cute and we had a good chat and something of a laugh. I wish that more people would be happy and cheerful like this.

Having failed to persuade me to have a wheelchair, she accompanied me to the edge of her office and waited with me until a nurse arrived to accompany me to the reception, where it was confirmed that I would be having some therapy sessions there. They’ll call me in due course with a timetable.

While I was waiting for my taxi, I saw several of my favourite taxi drivers. I told one of them to take me home instead of the passenger whom she had come to collect, but she told me that her boss wouldn’t be too pleased.

"But I would, though" I retorted "and it’s my opinion that counts.". However, she was unmoved.

It was another one of my favourite drivers who brought me home where my faithful cleaner was awaiting me. She helped me into the apartment and sorted out my things for me, and then after she left, I collapsed into this catatonic fit.

It took an age to bring myself round, but I was unable to do anything for quite a while. I managed tea though – chips, salad and vegan nuggets, although I didn’t really feel much like it.

But now, still exhausted, I’m off to bed. But I’ll probably end up listening to THE REST OF THIS CONCERT BY MY FAVOURITE QUÉBÉCOIS FOLK GROUP, LE VENT DU NORD, and especially the demon hurdy-gurdy and violin solo in “Forillon”, a song that starts at about 49:00.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about how quickly time flies … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember talking to a friend of mine … "yes, he does have one" – ed … saying "time flies like an arrow"
"I know" she replied "but fruit flies like a banana".

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Thursday 25th September 2025 – I AM DEFINITELY …

… not feeling myself today, which is just as well because it’s a disgusting habit.

But what I mean is that although there was an improvement this morning in how I was feeling after yesterday evening, the improvement didn’t last long and now I’m back to where I was.

One was of dealing with how things were yesterday was to try to dash through my notes and hope for an early night, but if only I had been able to manage it. As usual, having dillied and dallied and been side-tracked all the way, it was just as late as usual when I finally managed to fall into bed.

And what a nice bed it was too! Lovely brand-new sheets, quilt cover and pillow cases. I felt really in my element in there, and although it took a few minutes to fall asleep, I enjoyed every minute that it took.

Something else that I noticed was that when I went to turn over, I had the force to move my right leg without having to heave it over with my hand. It’s been an absolute age since I’ve been able to get my leg over without having to use my hand. I hope that it’s a good sign for the future.

It was another morning when I was awoken by the sound of the alarm. I’d slept right through until 06:29, and that can only be good news. Mind you, it was not 06:29 when I finally crawled out from under the covers, but that’s quite another story.

After a good wash, shave and scrub up in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and then went for the medication. It was rather a slow start in the dining area, and I was later back in here than I intended.

Once I’d settled down on my chair, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out if I’d been anywhere during the night. Surprisingly, I had, but I can’t remember anything about it. I was dreaming about Cheshire’s ace master-spy, a woman called Sue who was a dancer and was used frequently to infiltrate into the hearts and minds of the Germans of the people who were leading the French Revolution who had landed in Britain in an attempt to overwhelm it. According to one of the words that was sung, she saved England from subjugation, or saved Cheshire from subjugation. One of the dancers with her had a job controlling the movement of German Reparation officers. This led to quite a lot of conflict between the two.

This would seem to relate to the book that I read during the odd moments when I’m waiting around for the taxi to take me to dialysis – THE SECRET HISTORY OF MI6. There is plenty of talk about spies and secret agents in there, although not so much about the dirty tricks that they performed.

The nurse came round as usual and he was still in this typical good mood that has persisted since he came back from holiday. I can see myself wishing that he would go away more often.

After he left, I made my usual breakfast and, once more, had a very leisurely time over it. I just can’t seem to motivate myself at the moment and I don’t know why.

Back in here, I had a few things to do and then I spent the rest of the morning researching some stuff for the radio programme that I’m preparing. This is another thing that’s taking far longer than it ought.

My faithful cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic, and then I had to await the taxi. He was early today but it counted for nothing, because with all of the roadworks that are covering the area at the moment, there were all kinds of diversions and hold-ups.

Today at dialysis, I persuaded them to increase the amount of extraction. We ended up with 700 grammes extra taken out, which is more like what I am hoping to see. It’s just as well, because even though it’s been three days since I’ve been dialysed, there was just officially 1500 grammes to remove.

There’s definitely something wrong with me just now with regard to my fluid and food intake. Over a three-day period, there’s usually twice that and more, so I’m glad that I managed to persuade them to extract 2200 grammes, to help me catch up with this new dry weight that they seem to be ignoring. But there’s still plenty more room to manoeuvre.

While I was being dialysed, one of the nurses came for a chat. They are all lovely and I love them all but the one who came to see me, if it had to pick one, would be my favourite, although that’s hardly fair on all the others.

She wanted to have a discussion about my implant, which is extremely difficult seeing that I don’t want to know about it, so it was rather a stilted conversation. We ended up talking about all kinds of other things, which was nice.

For a change, I didn’t have to wait all that long to be unplugged, and I was home at something of a more-reasonable time. I seemed to need less effort than usual to force myself over the hump that protects the building from rainwater running off the road, but that’s probably my imagination working overtime.

By now though, I was feeling the effects of everything and after my cleaner left, I crashed out on the chair for half an hour.

Tea was the left-over pasta from Tuesday, accompanied by a vegan burger, and now, feeling thoroughly lousy, I’m off to bed. I have the Centre de Réeducation tomorrow and I’m definitely not feeling at all like it.

So before I go to bed, seeing as we have been talking about the nurse, his holiday and my sentiments … "well, one of us has" – ed … regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have vowed never to criticise anyone for their attempts to speak another language.
However, there are some occasions that are too good to miss.
In Brussels, all of the shops are doing their best to prepare adverts and publicity in English in order to woo the officials of the European Union and entice them into their establishments.
And so in a window of a Travel Agent’s in Jette where I used to live, was this lovely big sign that read, in huge bold characters, "WHY DON’T YOU GO AWAY?"

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Wednesday 24th September 2025 – I DON’T KNOW …

… what happened to me this afternoon, but I suddenly went ice-cold, frozen to the marrow in fact, and I had another one of those sessions that I haven’t had for ages when I simply sit and am totally unable to function, rather like a catatonic episode.

It’s surprising really, because it was another night when I had something of a decent sleep. I was in bed by 23:30, which, although it’s later than I would like, is earlier than some have been.

Once in bed, I remember nothing at all until about 06:00 when I awoke. I hadn’t moved an inch during the night, which is quite rare.

No point in going back to sleep at that time so I switched off the alarms and slowly eased myself out of bed and into the bathroom.

After a good wash and after the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, but there was nothing on it at all. That’s disappointing in some sense, because the only excitement that I have these days is what happens during the night when I’m asleep. On the other hand, nothing on the dictaphone means that I must have had an undisturbed night.

Yesterday, there had been a full programme of football in the JD Cymru League, including a live match, and I hadn’t seen any of the games. I’d deliberately kept myself from looking at the scores so that I could enjoy the games this morning.

The live game was Hwlffordd v Y Barri so I watched that first. I didn’t get very far because the nurse put in an appearance.

He was disappointed that my guests had gone, but he gave me my injection and then sorted out my legs, forgetting to put away the oil afterwards. It drives me berserk, that does.

Once he had left, I could make breakfast – porridge and toast with coffee. And I do have to say that my bread is excellent these days, since I bought that scientific measuring gauge for the water. To think of all those years that I have been producing failures, all due to the measuring gauge on the water jug that I was using being incorrect.

Back in here, I resumed watching Hwlffordd v Y Barri. It sounds like an interesting and exciting game, finishing 3-2 in favour of Y Barri, but it really wasn’t. It had its moments, but the rest of it wasn’t a really good advert for the league, despite what Steve Jenkins, manager of Y Barri, said after the game.

The defeat for Hwlffordd has rooted them in the basement of the league along with Llanelli and Cardiff Metro.

It’s hard to believe that just two months ago, the club was competing in European Club Competition. It had just about the meanest back lines in Wales last season but the club sold the goalkeeper and three of the four defenders, and failed to replace them. It was odds-on that they were going to struggle in the league this season without adequate replacements, but what do I know? The chairman obviously knows best.

Their plight is worsened by Llanelli having their first win of the season last night, away at Llansawel. They are now on four points, with Hwlffordd and Cardiff Metropolitan on five, so things are looking interesting down in the basement.

While I was at it, I watched the highlights of all the other games and there were no real surprises in the results, although Y Fflint could leave Park Hall with their heads held up, having gone toe to toe with perennial champions TNS until the final ten minutes.

After a disgusting drink break, my faithful cleaner arrived and she organised a shower for me. After all, it’s been a long time since I’ve had one, what with chemotherapy etc.

And while I was showering, she changed the bedding. Even better, when we were unpacking a few weeks ago, we came across a brand-new quilt cover and pillows, with matching new sheet. So I’m going to be in unashamed luxury tonight.

Once she’d left, I had some bills to pay and then I went for my mid-afternoon disgusting drink break. That was when I had my catatonic episode, sitting at the kitchen table. And I was there like that for well over an hour.

There was still time to carry on with another radio programme that I’d started the other week. I need to motivate myself much better than I am doing these days, because I’m really struggling to exert myself right now.

Tea tonight was lovely. There was some boiled potato and veg left over from the vegan pie meal on Monday, so I fried it in oil and butter, and with a vegan sausage cooking in the air fryer, I ended up with a lovely dish of bubble and squeak. It’s been years since I’ve eaten one of the “great peasant dishes of the world”, as Howard Hillman once described it.

But now, tiredness and my lovely new bed are calling, so I’m going, and if I wake up tomorrow, which is doubtful the way that I’m feeling right now, I’ll see you all tomorrow.

But seeing as we have been talking about bubble and squeak, one of the “great peasant dishes of the world”, another one of the “great peasant dishes of the world” is toad in the hole, made of sausages in a suet or batter pudding.
When there were three of us, impoverished as we were, living in an apartment in Crewe, we would often eat that when the money ran out.
But one day, just as we had finished cooking the dish, another group of starving friends turned up.
"What did you do?" asked my girlfriend when I told her later.
"There wasn’t much that we could do" I replied. "We all just ended up with more hole and less toad."

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Tuesday 23rd September 2025 – HERE I ALL AM …

… not exactly sitting in a rainbow but sitting all alone in my nice apartment. My visitors have flown the nest this evening due to wanting to put some tarmac underneath their wheels. They have an appointment in Limoges tomorrow evening and so want to break the back of the journey this evening.

They had a lovely lie-in this morning, though. My alarm went off at 06:29 – yet another morning where I slept right through, out like a light – and as there were no signs of life coming from elsewhere, I cracked on and wrote yesterday’s blog entry.

By the time that I had finished, I heard sounds of movement so I went and made some coffee for everyone. While it was brewing, I went to the bathroom to sort myself out and then we sat around drinking coffee and chatting.

One thing that I learned was that my camp bed was not very comfortable. In fact, not at all comfortable. I shall not be proposing that to anyone in the future unless the unlucky recipient brings an air mattress.

The nurse was surprised to see me with a house full of women. Nevertheless, he sorted out my legs and gave me the first of this series of five injections that I have to have a week after the chemotherapy.

When he left, my visitors took turns under the shower, and the first one in found out all about the length of time it takes the hot water to run through from the water tank.

After they had showered, I had to give a couple of porridge-making lessons to my hungry visitors and we sat down and had breakfast.

Almost immediately afterwards, the bowls were whipped from the table and the washing-up was done before I could even blink an eye. I told my visitors that they can certainly come again.

We had another long chat afterwards, and then I mentioned the sheet of chipboard that needs to be … errr … lost. A brief flurry of text messages, and it was cut in half with my circular saw and stuffed into a car from where it will end up in Limoges at some point.

After a coffee, my guests wandered off for a walk, and I came in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. This was another one of those dreams where something went on at one of the testing stations while we were stopped en route somewhere and I didn’t have enough room for all my things. They were on one of the carts. This led to an argument and one of the inspectors was knifed but I was convinced that it wasn’t me who did it.

This is another one of those dreams of which I remember nothing at all. I like the bit “I was convinced that it wasn’t me who did it”. As if I would need convincing.

We were discussing the treatment of captured women spies by different States of the USA. There were some States, like, say, South Carolina who would really just interrogate them and then let them go where there were other States that were farther north like New York that would take them very seriously and execute them. But that’s all that I remember of this particular dream because the batteries went flat in the middle of dictating it, and by the time that I’d wired it up again, all of the memory that I had was gone.

It makes me wonder what the rest of the dream that I had forgotten was all about. I suppose, however, that this dream relates to what I have been reading about the American Revolution.

One of the players on the opposite side was called for a foul, and the referee called him over. She began to talk to him about the incident but he took absolutely no notice at all. She began to become a little sterner with him but again, he just totally ignored it. She began to take out her notebook, which was an electronic notebook, but he just took it from her. A couple of us tried to intervene to take the notebook back but in the end, he just hung on to it. She was obviously not able to deal with him so she sent him off but he refused to leave, so she called the police. In the meantime, he took the notebook and went into the buffet. There was an oily salad in there. We heard him inside there, soaking this notebook in the oily salad and then taking it into the kitchen and boiling it into the pan of orange juice that someone had left. We all thought that this was the strangest thing that we had ever seen. We then heard a car pull up outside and the sound of tramping feet but it wasn’t the police at all but something else. However, they didn’t come in, so we were sitting there in this kind-of impasse waiting for the police to arrive.

Yesterday at dialysis, I was watching an old football match in the Cymru Alliance – I can’t remember now which – where female referee Cheryl Foster was officiating. A mass brawl broke out and in the end when things had calmed down, she sent off one of the players

When the alarm went off, I had some kind of metal plate, an oval type of metal plate with three screw holes in it. What I was trying to do was to screw it to something like a porcelain dish or porcelain plate. I’d already done it once in the past because there were three screw holes in the plate. However, it’s really complicated to screw into something solid and hard like that, so I had to find the exact three screws that I used last time, so I was searching through my box of loose screws, trying to find the exact three screws. The aim was that this plate would have this bracket on it, and the bracket would support a tripod, a small desktop tripod, but I had no idea why I wanted to do this.

There is actually a mini-tripod on my desk. It belongs to the webcam but since I moved down here, I’ve positioned the webcam elsewhere. But screwing something into a porcelain plate is certainly a novel idea.

When my visitors came back, I showed them where the bread and salad were, and they made themselves some cheese salad sandwiches for lunch. I settled for a disgusting drink.

We had another long chat, reminiscing about all kinds of old times from school. We were so engrossed that it took us all the way up to tea-time.

My faithful cleaner had dropped in earlier to give me some sunflower seeds and an aubergine that I had asked her to buy. The sunflower seeds, I put on one side for future bread-making activities but with the aubergine, I made an aubergine and kidney bean whatsit for tea, which went down very well.

Once more, the empty plates were whipped off the table and washed before I even had time to think.

Finally, my friends left me for Limoges, with a promise to come back to see me again. And I really do hope that I do. I don’t have anything like enough visits these days, although it’s certainly more than it used to be.

But before I go to bed, making a sandwich reminds me of a conversation that took place in the film HELLZAPOPPIN’.
One of the actors was talking on the ‘phone –
"That’s good – that’s bad – that’s bad – that’s good – that’s bad – that’s good – that’s good …"
"Who are you talking to?" asked his sidekick
"I’m talking to my sister" replied the first.
"But what are you doing?"
"Why, I’m helping her sort a box of strawberries!"
If you want to know where shows like Monty Python and the like obtained their ideas, have a look at HELLZAPOPPIN’.

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