Tag Archives: hospital

Monday 7th October 2024 – MY APPLE CAKE …

… tastes absolutely delicious. I cut it up and put it in the fridge this evening and there were still some crumbs lying about so I was tempted to have a sample. And I’m glad that I did. I made a mental note to make this for pudding another time because it really was nice.

What made a big difference was to whizz up the ingredients instead of mixing them in a bowl with a spoon. Everything was properly and thoroughly mixed in, and that is definitely progress.

So what can I try to make next?

One thing that I can try to make is a concerted effort to be in bed at a reasonable time. Last night I actually managed it too, and with going to sleep fairly early I had a good sleep all the way through to … errr … 06:00

That might not seem much, but it’s a lot better than some nights have been just recently.

And then I managed to drift off back to sleep because when the alarm went off, I was miles away.

In fact there was a dream going on. I was working with a girl and she had this very irritating habit of whenever i said something she gave her agreement by using some phrase and she said it two or three times and it really got on my nerves. I wish that I could remember the phrase now but the dream had only just started when the alarm went off.

In the bathroom I had a good wash, a shave and a wash of the clothes, including the socks. And I applied plenty of deodorant in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant and you can laugh all you want to, I don’t care.

Back in here I transcribed the dictaphone notes from the night. We were all back at work and we had a military unit that had come along and been transplanted in. The General was one of these people who was a stickler for propriety. Everything had to be done absolutely perfectly so it was only natural that people began to mimic his actions, his way of saluting, his way of talking etc. It became something of a standing joke. One day he happened to come across a group of civilians, one of whom was one of his fiercest critics. After he’d talked to them for a couple of minutes he turned to that civilian and said “well, aren’t you going to salute me?”. The civilian, rising to the challenge, gave him an absolutely perfect military salute, an exact copy of what he would have done, and came out with a phrase that the General would have used, and exactly in the right accent. The General turned to the civilian and said “do you know, Mr so-and-so, that is probably the best thing that you have ever done” and walked away. Of course it became quite a subject for discussion in the office canteen about the General having seen to be the right kind of person for the people to take the mickey, and a person who would appreciate a good joke

We did have a Military Unit in the office and the General in charge was a Finnish General whose claim to fame was that he had been kidnapped by one of the groups of militia in Lebanon and held to ransom. When his chauffeur was away somewhere and my boss was in the USA I was given the task of driving him around for a week and after I finished he gave me a huge lumberjack’s axe which I have down on the farm. In his apartment just as you go in was a big stuffed brown bear in pouncing pose on its hind legs. "I shot that" he proudly announced.

But there’s a funny story related to that. There was a party at his place and people from all over Europe were there, all speaking English no matter where they came from. One woman asked him about the bear and when he said that he’d shot it, she asked what they did. He replied "we ate it". There is a lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding when you are using a second language, and she went around telling the rest of the party how the General, having shot his bear, then sat down in the tundra under a tree and tucked in, presumably without cooking it.

There was then also something about me living at home and meeting up with a group of kids. There seemed to be a youngish girl who took something of a fancy to me. She would always seek me out and spend a lot of time chatting. I happened to quite like her so I used in some ways to encourage it. We ended up chatting to each other on the ‘phone quite a lot. On one particular occasion she went down to the swimming baths but I had to work until 14:00. I told her that I’d give her a ring when I’d finished to see how the water was. Round about 13:40 there was nothing else happening at all so I ‘phoned her and asked her about the water, asked her about everything and told her that I’d be down shortly. I put everything away and went to see my mother to tell her that I was going down to the swimming baths. She must have heard my conversation because she made some kind of remark. Then she brought me a cup of tea and I had the impression that it was almost as if she was preventing me from going. I wasn’t really sure why but out of politeness I sat and drank the tea. I know who this girl is too. I did actually quite like her and I’m trying to thing of her name but I just can’t

This girl is so familiar that when I saw her in my dream I didn’t mind that it was she rather than Zero who had come to see me. So I really wish that I knew who she was because I really have no idea and that is just so sad. And how familiar is it that a member of my family will try to spike my guns?

Telephones in the baths is a novel idea too. In my day it was wristwatches that caused the most problems. I flooded one or two beyond repair and so did many others. How many ‘phones would be flooded these days? I’ve not been to the swimming baths since the happy days at Commentry when I used to go every Saturday afternoon on my way home from the shops at Montluçon.

The nurse came round and we had an even quicker record time today. He’s really got the wind up about something. Maybe it’s my deodorant, I dunno.

But after he left I had breakfast and read MY BOOK. Our author, Thomas Wright is still poking around the Iron Age Hillforts on the Shropshire-Herefordshire-Radnorshire-Montgomeryshire border

On our way round we inspected a megalith that was standing in a field near the village of Whitcott Keysett. Sad to say, it was flattened and smashed as recently as 1944. I could weep.

Back in here I attacked the next radio programme and all of the music has now been chosen, paired off and segued. Next task was to review the programme that will be broadcast on Friday and then send it off. Finally I made a start on my Welsh homework.

There was also a moment to ‘phone up the Dialysis Centre to confirm that they had my headphones. And I hadn’t, until then, realised that I was entitled to a locker in the dressing room.

All of that took me up to 12:10 when my cleaner came to fit the anaesthetic patches on my arm. We had a chat and then she departed hence and I made a start on cutting up my apple cake, but once more the taxi came early.

We had a good chat all the way down to the centre where I arrived really early so they could start quite quickly. One of the needles was fairly painful but the other, I hardly felt at all.

They had put me in a room today, presumably because I misbehaved last time, I dunno, but it did mean that I was hardly interrupted and I could crack on.

My Welsh homework was finished quite quickly and I could carry on reading Lewis Carroll’s biography.

And what do you make of this paragraph? It was written by the editor of “Aunt Judy’s Magazine” reviewing one of Carroll’s works
"Some of the touches are so exquisite, one would have thought nothing short of intercourse with fairies could have put them into your head"

Of course when we look at words like “brilliant” and “fantastic”, they have long-since lost their literal meaning and modern usage has given them a completely different meaning

Emilie the Cute Consultant was there today and although she gave me a wave, she kept well away from my lair. The chief of the unit came to see me and try to pitch me on this home dialysis. Instead I told him about the issues with my foot and he agreed that it’s probably a trapped nerve. He’s going to arrange a body scan and an IRM.

Eventually they unplugged me, weighed me and threw me out. Half of the weight that I had lost last time had stayed lost and today I lost another 1.7kg.

The driver who brought me home was another candidate for The Driver From Hell. As fast as it was possible to go and driving so close to the car in front that we would have all been done for if someone further in front had applied the brakes. I was glad to be home.

This evening I could only manage one step without using my hand to lift up my leg, and it was a struggle to make the last two stairs. That’s a backward step … "very good" – ed … and I’m disappointed by that.

After my cleaner had sorted me out and left, I checked the Welsh homework that I’d done and then sent it off.

Tea was as usual a stuffed pepper. And I’m going to stop buying tomatoes from LeClerc. They are going bad quicker than I can use them.

So now having finished my notes, I’m off to bed, later than I would have liked.

But seeing as we have been talking about second languages … "well, one of us is" – ed …what’s even funnier though is when people come out with something that you wouldn’t expect when they are speaking a foreign language. I have learned in many, many different languages of Europe certain phrases that would never be taught at school and many of my colleagues have learnt them in English, seeing as I was the only English-speaker in the whole of my unit.
One day I was looking for one of my Italian colleagues, and saw him down the far end of a crowded corridor.
"Domenico" I shouted. "What are you doing right now?"
"Eric" he shouted back in his lovely Italian accent "I am doing bugger all"
And there was a deathly silence in the corridor. How was I supposed to know that a committee from the British Permanent Representation, including the Ambassador, was being shown around the building?

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Saturday 5th October 2024 – GUESS WHO …

… came to see me during the night last night?

That’s right. Out of the gloom and murk came none other than Castor, back again after an absence that has been far too long

Even now I can still see her, which is no surprise. After all, they say that absence make the heart grow fonder, and the absence has certainly been long enough to tax my emotional wellbeing. We need more nights like this – that goes without saying.

What might help considerably would be if I could manage to be in bed at a reasonable hour. Last night was of course especially late with the football running on like it did and then everything that I needed to do afterwards. And it would have been even later had I not washed up at half-time.

But once I was in bed I was in bed, and there I stayed. I don’t have many memories of anything much during the night and seem to think that I stayed asleep until the alarm went off at 07:00. And that seems to be a rare thing these days too.

After I’d closed down the alarm I staggered off into the bathroom to wash myself, my shorts and my undies. I need to keep myself and my clothes as clean as I can. Having said that though, I forgot to wash my socks. I must try to remember that.

Despite the raucous roars of laughter from my friends last time, I still applied a liberal helping of deodorant so that I smell nice in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant at the Dialysis Centre.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what had been going on during the night. That was when I realised that Castor had been to see me last night. And not just Castor either but Castor AND Pollux. There was some kind of communal bathhouse place where everyone would sit around the lip of a bath underneath a jet of water where they could regulate the temperature themselves to whatever they liked, very hot or very cold. The idea was that it was more of a social thing than anything else and was very popular with the ethnic community. I had to go into Hanley as I was organising a raid on the market. I was wandering around looking at the products, looking at the men’s suits that were hanging there. There was an “Adult Shop” there and the girl who was partnered with me had never seen one so she was trying to peer into the window to see what was on offer while I was looking at the products that they were selling – from everything to start off the process all the way down later on through to the end and the kiddies’ pushchairs. They had some suits too and I though that that was a funny place to be measured. At the signal I moved a cart across the street that I was watching so no-one could leave and then we advanced in and herded all the people up to check their papers. When we came to the communal bathhouse I noticed Castor and Pollux sitting on the edge. I just discreetly walked up to them and turned on their tap so they had a soaking. I expected them to be outraged or something like that but Pollux said “ooh. Please turn the tap off for a minute but turn it back on again for the second half for 32 seconds”. I stood there and waited while they chatted amongst themselves. Just then some local Indian guy came up and began to talk to them. He pointed out something in the distance. It was a couple of people in a Jeep driving through the desert and some other activity out there. They began to talk about this and to comment on it. In the meantime I was counting. When it reached the appropriate moment I turned on the jet of water and soaked them again which completely interrupted the conversation

Whatever prompted this raid on the Market at Hanley? It would have been much easier the last time that I had been there because the Market is now indoors in the basement of the new shopping precinct that they built on the site of the old Port Vale football ground, and they could simply close the doors

And a desert in Stoke on Trent? What they are more likely to see these days is an industrial wilderness. All of the old heavy industry that used to be in the Potteries has now gone, and gone for good like in most other places in the UK.

There was also something about body positions … "presumably relating to the adult shop – ed" … in some kind of factory… "can’t be Stoke on Trent then – ed" …. Someone was saying that they didn’t know what use it was but maybe it’ll come in handy if they are doing first aid lessons. But that’s all that I can remember of that.

There’s also a very vague memory of walking – showing off my new-found skill to someone and proud of it too.

The nurse came rather later than usual and talked about not very much. He was soon gone and I could make my breakfast and read in peace. My reading of the excavations at Holborough came to an end and following yet another diversions, I’m now on the sands at Minnis Bay, just down the road from where my mother lived, investigating some Medieval wells that have recently been discovered

Once I’d finished breakfast I came back in here and I made an executive decision. For the benefit of new readers, of which there are more than just a few these days, an executive decision is a decision that if it turns out to be wrong, the person making it is executed.

Anyway, as I have far too much work to do to be able to take a Day of Rest on Sundays as I used to do, I have decided that Saturdays will be a couple of hours of rest – from the end of breakfast until the taxi comes at lunchtime, I shall emulate my namesake the mathematician and do three fifth of five eights of … err … nothing.

And so I did.

When the cleaner came she fitted my patches, helped me pack my things and we were busy chatting away when the taxi arrived. I was all on my own today down to the Centre and there weren’t all that many of us there today either.

The girls coupled me up a lot less painfully that on some occasions, but then it took them a good while to make the machine work. Everything was being difficult today.

Once we were up and running I listened to some music and read Lewis Carroll’s biography until it was time to go.

There weren’t all that many interruptions. My blood sugar level is still far too low so they were plying me with orange juice for much of the time that I was there. And now, at home I have to have a blood test. For that, I shall wait until next week, like everyone else.

Emilie the Cute Consultant was there too but she gave me a wide berth and didn’t even give me a wave, which I found rather disappointing.

Once I’d finished I had a good ride back home where my faithful cleaner was waiting. And to my surprise, I could make three stairs without using my hand to lift my foot before I ran out of steam. It was still a pretty rapid climb compared to at the beginning.

Back in here I found that I’d forgotten my headphones. That’s a tragedy and no mistake I shall have to ‘phone them on Monday morning.

Tea was as usual a baked potato, salad and breaded quorn fillet followed by spotted dick and caramel soya cream. All very nice indeed.

But now I’m going to dictate this two lots of radio notes and then go to bed for a good sleep, in the hope that Castor comes to see me again. YOU WOULD GIVE A SMALL FORTUNE TO GET BACK IN YOUR DREAMS right enough.

But talking about the “Adult Shop” … "well, one of us is" – ed … reminds me of when one opened in Crewe years ago. When the guy next door wanted to sell his house, the Estate Agent used a previous picture of the house that showed the previous occupant of the premises next door – “The Christian Science Reading Rooms” and I’m sure that you think that I’m making this up. Personally, I don’t know which one would be the more embarrassing.

However, some woman wasn’t so embarrassed, and she sneaked in for a good look around.
Later that night in bed she mentioned “foreplay” to her husband, so he went outside and brought back three friends.

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Thursday 3rd October 2024 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER …

… early start this morning.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I was actually in the bathroom having a good wash.

It wasn’t as if it was a particularly early night either. It wasn’t very far off 23:00 but still rather the wrong side of it by the time that I’d finished everything that I needed to do and found the energy to haul myself up out of my comfortable chair.

One thing though – and that I didn’t need much rocking. I’d barely started my little mantra before I was off away with the fairies.

It was something of a turbulent night too with a fair amount of tossing and turning as I struggled to make myself comfortable. And at least I wasn’t being wracked with pain from my foot like the previous night.

But wide-awake at 06:00 and I couldn’t go back to sleep no matter how I tried and by 06:45 I gave it up as a bad job and hauled myself out of my stinking pit.

Apart from a good wash, I had a shave and a change of clothes. After all, it’s dialysis later and I might even get to see Emilie the Cute Consultant if I’m lucky. I can but hope.

Back here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out if I’d been anywhere. And I was astonished by the distance that I must have travelled during the night.

Oui – j’étais hospitalisé I was kept in hospital. I was taken away to a bed, installed there and then left. Some time later I had to race to the bathroom. I managed that and when I came back there were quite a few people standing around who seemed quite concerned about what I was doing. I managed to make my way through the crowd and back to bed which this five circles was some kind of burnt wrestling ground. Then going off along the coast I was being put away I passed the postal town of Sandwich so I explained to my aunt (…fell asleep here …) I’ve fallen asleep dictating again, haven’t I? So where was I? Yes, I was in a hospital. People were interested in me etc. I left the bed to go to the bathroom and when I came back there was a crowd of people around my bed. One of them was a doctor. She came over and began to chat to me, quite friendly and quite socially so I wondered what I’d done to her to make her behave like that.

What’s impressive about this is that I was “asleep” for 53 minutes and could still remember some of the dream well enough to repeat it. As for the town of Sandwich, we were there just now with Thomas Wright and that’s why maybe I remember it. It’s the old stamping ground of my mother who was raised just along the coast at Birchington so naturally her sister would be there too.

I had a girlfriend who had started work delivering pizzas at a new pizza place on Nantwich Road in Crewe near the Royal Hotel so I went along to see how she was doing. While we were chatting she had a job to do so she went out and left me behind. I noticed that the pizzas there were really cheap, starting at £3:50. I asked the girl who was serving if they were busy. She replied that they had only just opened. They had noticed that Nantwich Road was the main centre of nightlife in Crewe so they thought that they’d tap into it, people going all along Nantwich Road rather than down to the town centre. They’d had a branch in Nantwich at one time but they had closed it after a few weeks because they wanted to concentrate their efforts on Crewe, which probably meant that they weren’t doing anything in Nantwich at all. She was quite sociable too and had a good long chat with me while I waited for my girlfriend to come back

There was in fact an Italian restaurant that opened just along there and we went to it a few times. It wasn’t too bad, I suppose. For Crewe it was quite exotic but by Italian standards it was rather sad. The location, on the main road across South Cheshire to the M6, didn’t help matters much

A short while later we were in a blue Ford Cortina like PMB, a Cortina Mk I. We turned up at a car park and pulled up. I still had the lights on so a couple of people began to sit down and eating something. I told them that I was – my girlfriend told them that we were going to turn off the lights as we had to protect the battery and did they mind?. While we were talking their car rolled out of the parking space and rolled across the road and hit a van that was embedded in the wall, a Bedford CA. We then had to sort this out. We found the owner of the Bedford CA – he was someone living nearby. They arranged that they’d move their car back into the car parking space and push this van back across the road into this person’s drive. There was some scrap in their drive so they said that they would put the scrap in the back of the van and have it weighed in. Of course I went to have a look at the van to see if it was of any use to me. My girlfriend told me off. She said that I had enough vehicles as it was already. I thought that that was a shame because this CA seemed to be in a reasonably tidy condition.

It’s difficult to believe that I’m surrounded by girlfriends tonight after everything that I’ve been through – and girlfriends with their heads screwed on too. But the girl who was most associated with my blue Cortina was the one who, after she left school, went to Bangor University. She had her head well and truly screwed on correctly and she would have made my life hell. I would have been on a very short leash, I bet, if she had had her way.

There was a City of London University class, although it was supposed to be the University of Kent and they were building their models out of wire mesh and papier maché which I thought was interesting.

I met a lovely girl. She was young with long blond hair. I know who she is and I’ve met her before. We hit it off really well. We were chatting away and she was telling me about her car going for its MoT – Contrôle Technique – in Belgium etc. She announced, after we had been talking for about an hour that she had a boyfriend, which disappointed me but she was still extremely friendly and I liked her very much. She happened to mention that he was coming round to pick her up the following lunchtime. So I caught the bus to the town centre and walked all the way out to her house. I loitered around there for a while and sure enough this boy turned up and went there. She came out and climbed into her car, drove away and came back again. Then the two of them walked off somewhere. They walked back into the city centre so I followed them at a really discreet distance and watched them for a while. They were both in a café and when he left to go to the bathroom I just sent her a message saying coucou . I didn’t know how this would work but I had a nice, chatty message back. They walked off back into the town centre and were sitting in a café so I was quite some distance away watching them. He finally stood up and left so I walked over to her. There was a big, beaming smile on her face. She looked ever so pleased to see me. I sat down by her and we carried on talking. She was telling me that she’d been discussing babies with her boyfriend. I said “you’re not planning on having a baby yet, are you?”. She said “no, but loneliness catches up with us in the end. It’ll catch up with you, Mr Hall one day” so I laughed. We carried on having this really wonderful chat. It was ever such a nice dream and I was really sorry when it ended

It took place along Hoole Road in Chester which was where she lived and I know the café where we met the second time – a modern brick and glass place and she was sitting in a window seat. It’s a café in a shopping centre and I can’t think where. The girl, I recognised her. I know her from Hanley and she had cancer too at a young age. But following her about – perfectly normal behaviour in the perfectly normal 60s and 70s but in the paranoid World in which everyone lives today and is scared to death of just about everything, I’d probably end up with 10 years in prison.

As for babies, I have no objection whatever to taking part in the fabrication thereof but there would never be any possibility of me going into a delivery room to witness the final output. How glad I was that Nerina didn’t want a child because of that. Being the youngest in her family, she told me that she was fed up of babysitting and that was enough for her. She did though ask me once “what would you say if I said that I was pregnant?”. I remember it well because we were walking up Mill Street at the time and a comment like that took the wind right out of my sails. I replied that I’d be scared to death. I didn’t refuse outright – I would have been prepared to negotiate on one condition – that she went into the delivery room on her own and I didn’t want any recriminations afterwards about it. This phobia that I have about hospitals would never have dragged me into the delivery room but I’d be waiting when she came out. I had to go to see her once in hospital and I had a panic attack after 15 minutes and had to leave. It’s hard to explain this phobia and what I’ve been going through since November 2015. I’ve had eight years of nightmare and no-one can understand it.

And then there was another dream. We were in a car going into Crewe. It was a white Ford Cortina. When we reached Gresty we took the road that goes down through the Mucky Bridge and as we came out the other side we took the little grass road that runs into the back of Crewe. Some woman was there and for some reason she’d tied a barbed wire strand across the road but I drove right underneath it. That road brought us into Crewe by way of the old castle so I pointed out the old castle to everyone and I pointed out the view. I said that the view is so much nicer from the top of the old castle. I used to come here for lunch in the old days. We reminisced a little about those days when I lived at that end of the town, then we carried on driving into the town.

You can’t take a car down the track into Crewe from the Mucky Bridge, and there certainly isn’t a castle there. These days there’s a council estate but in my day it was open fields. In the dream though the road went along a crest with a beautiful view away down both sides across a wide valley far below. And at a certain rocky outcrop to the right there were the remains of a Norman keep. It really was stunning.

The nurse was in a much better humour this morning. I’ve not seen him like this for quite a while. He’s probably just been paid, I reckon. That’s what may well have made a difference.

After he left I made breakfast and read, not my book, but the REPORT OF THE EXCAVATION of the Anglo-Saxon Cemetery on which they were walking.

And if at any time you want to follow a course about identifying Anglo-Saxon artefacts, you can do no better than make a start by reading this publication. The author doesn’t just go into identifying an item that the team uncovered, he explains the physical characteristics of why it is what it is, and the absence of physical characteristics that makes it not something else.

It’s certainly a fascinating book from that point of view, and also from many other points of view too. It’s hard to believe that Thomas Wright and his friends, keen amateur archaeologists that they were, were walking on this cemetery without realising. And how many other Anglo-Saxon cemeteries there are that we are all walking on without realising it.

Back in here I spent the morning choosing the music for another radio programme, reformatting it, remixing it and pairing it off. That’s all done now and I’ll write the notes for it tomorrow. And I had a play on the acoustic guitar too.

My cleaner put in an appearance and put my anaesthetic patches on my arm and sorted me out, The taxi came quite early. It was one from Avranches who had dropped off a patient at the Centre de Re-education and was going to run me down the road on his way back. Not that I minded – after all, it’s free to me and I wouldn’t have this service in any other country.

We picked up a passenger on the outskirts of Avranches and our driver dropped both of us off at the Dialysis Clinic. And I must be in their bad books because I was put in one of the separate rooms today.

Emilie the Cute Consultant saw me and gave me a wave – all four fingers too, not just two. Mind you, she kept well away from my lair. She must be a regular reader of this rubbish.

There wasn’t much of a wait before I was coupled up, a lot less painlessly than some times, and I passed the afternoon reading the manual of a computer program that I’ve recently downloaded.

At one point I did doze off for about 20 minutes but after the night that I had, it’s not anything worrying.

Once they let me out there was a taxi waiting to take me home. The driver and the other passenger were in full chat mode and talked incessantly all the way home and I was exhausted just listening. After the other passenger left the car, it was my turn to be on the receiving end.

My cleaner was here waiting when I arrived and she watched me up the stairs. She thinks that there’s a great improvement in how I cope with the stairs now. Once more, I could climb the fist stair without lifting up my leg with me hand.

This is indeed progress of some sort, but we shall have to see how long it lasts. Maybe this physiotherapy and these 28 sessions at the Centre de Re-education might help me in some way. But it does seem that Paris has forgotten all about me.

Tea tonight was out of the European Burger Mountain, with pasta and veg in tomato sauce, followed by spotted dick and caramel-flavoured soya cream. I’m running out of spotted dick now and I have a fancy for an apple cake. Does anyone have a good vegan recipe, or shall I just adapt my oil cake? I seem to have some success with that.

So right now I’m off to bed. I’m baking bread tomorrow as I now have run out. I might even have ago at baking some baps, seeing as I have now run out. That will be an interesting project.

But seeing as we are talking about cemeteries … "well, one of us is" – ed …I’m reminded of the American who visited the Scottish cemetery in search of his ancestors.
He saw a grave with a headstone that read "Here lies Angus McTavish, a devoted father and loyal husband"
"Isn’t that just like the Scots" exclaimed the American "burying three men in one grave."

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Monday 30th September 2024 – I SAW EMILIE …

… the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

She came to see how I was doing and her first words to me were "have you considered having your dialysis done at home?"

It looks as if our little romance is over, not that there ever was one at the beginning.

After all, the Hippocratic Oath that all doctors are obliged to take goes something along the lines of "you can make a patient out of your Mistress, but not a Mistress out of your patient".

And, I imagine, these days with all of these female doctors, I imagine that the oath has now become unisex

Last night anyway I dashed off to bed in eager anticipation of a possible encounter today, but my encounter with my pillow was rather later than I would have liked. I still can’t find the way to my bed at any kind of respectable hour.

For a few hours I managed a decent sleep too but I awoke early and then just spent the rest of the time tossing and turning and occasionally falling asleep until the alarm went off.

At the sound of the alarm I was with a couple of girls in a café. We were discussing some obscure English. I was explaining to her about the diphthong “EA”, giving her the example such as “heather”. We were talking about that for a while. Then the subject moved on to the triangular sign that you would see on a cassette keyboard so we were reminiscing about the old cassette players, the triangular arrow and the two triangular arrows, one key with two triangular arrows going one way and another key with two triangular arrows going another way. Then there was the key with a square on it, a key with a red dot on it. We were talking about all of this. These girls had grown up in the era of media and those buttons wouldn’t mean very much to them.

That’s something with which I have difficulty coming to terms. Never mind computers, I remember life before cassette tapes. I forget how old I am and that many people don’t have the same experience. Back in the good old days before I moved into the Real World I was bringing a coach and a hostess back from somewhere and as we were empty I put on a tape.
"What’s this music?" she asked.
And so I told her what it was. And added "it was recorded in 1971"
"1971?" she exclaimed "I wasn’t even born then!"
God knows what a girl of 19 would make of my choice of music today.

In the bathroom I washed myself and then washed my socks and undies, picking a clean pair off my bathroom octopus that hangs from the shower curtain rail. And then I had a shave and applied a liberal helping of deodorant. Must look my best in case I meet the aforementioned.

Back in here I listened to the dictaphone to find out if I’d been anywhere during the night. I was out on the West Coast with Marty Balin and that lot. They wanted a bassist because their last bassist had had trouble with the USA Government so they called for me to ask me if I would come down. I went down and met them, and happened to mention that I was having trouble with the USA Government too. It considered me to be a citizen and wanted all my taxes and for me to go to join the Military etc. The Chinese guy who was there said that I had told him to put my name down on the form. I replied that that was the Census that wanted to know everyone who was where at a certain place at a certain time. We had a lengthy discussion about that. I was sure that nothing would ever come of it, but anyway … That night there was a party so I went to join in. I was more talking about business. I was with a girl who wanted to know that if she subscribed, what would she receive for her money. I didn’t really know myself so I tried to tell her some kind of vague story but she wanted some more precise details from that. In the meantime there was a stash of money about the place. This was in danger of disappearing so I took it and hid it about my person. I was sure that someone would be bound to say something about it and point the finger at me but I thought that it was all getting completely out of hand, just like anything on the West Coast when once the evil substances started to be passed around, then anything could happen and usually did, and it was usually to the detriment of those who were naïve enough to think that they were going to do the best for everyone.

In the past I’ve met loads of well-meaning people and almost inevitably, almost all of them have been taken for a ride by the more unscrupulous members of society. And as for life in a commune, my experience was such that I went to live in a van instead.

The nurse apologised for being late but she had a considerable number of blood tests to do. That made me laugh. It’s her last day and her first day was full of blood tests too. As I explained to my faithful cleaner later, I think that the clients of this little nursing circle have sussed out her oppo. I know which one of the two nurses I would rather have when it comes to sampling my blood and I reckon that all the other clients feel the same.

After she’d left I had breakfast and read MY BOOK

Our hero has now left Portus Lemanis and is now at Anderida, another “Saxon Shore” fort, this time at Pevensey just down the coast. Once more, he’s bewailing the lost treasures, the demolished walls and so on, and spends a lot of time theorising, much of which was confirmed by later excavations

Back in here I put a spurt on. Firstly I reviewed my Welsh from last week and completed the first part of the homework. Secondly I chose the first ten tracks for the next radio programme, and thirdly I reviewed the programme that will hopefully be broadcast this weekend and, satisfied, I sent it off.

While all of that was going on, our little travel group was having a good and lively chat. It’s nice to keep up with people, especially as I don’t see Alison as often as I used to, or, indeed, as often as I would like. And the same goes for the others too.

Mind you, I don’t know where that impressive burst of energy and concentration came from.

That took me nicely up to the arrival of my cleaner who applied my anaesthetic patches with her usual dexterity.

And her I upset her. I told her that I nearly spilled my breakfast porridge all over me because the microwave is not too high. So we worked out that we could lower its shelves three notches if we were to move the baking trays around and swap the rest of the stuff round on the two shelves.

The taxi came early again while I was in the middle of organising the baking bowls so leaving them on the worktop I hit the streets.

Today’s driver was the young, friendly one and we had a good chat all the way through the rainstorms to Avranches

Some of Saturday’s weight loss has stayed lost, I’m pleased to say. And the “plugging in” was quite a lot less painful that other times. One of the nurses wanted to try out her English so we had a few little chats.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came to enquire after my well-being. No more friendly, social chit-chat perched on the edge of my bed. Instead she gave me a very broad hint that I ought to clear off. Maybe she really is a regular reader of this rubbish.

To pass the time I began to tidy up a few of the directories and, deep in the bowels of the computer, I came across a football match that I’d recorded but never seen, dating from 2019, Y Bala v Airbus. So now I can file that under CS too.

After they unplugged me I weighed myself again and I’d lost the grand total of 300 grammes. I want to lose a lot more than that.

The taxi driver had to wait a while for me and she already had a passenger with her. Ahh well, can’t be helped. But we had a nice little chat on the way home.

Having texted my cleaner earlier, she was waiting for me and watched as I made it up the stairs. Even managing the first one without lifting my knee up with my hand.

In here we sorted out the shelves and its now much more reasonable, as I found out later while cooking my delicious stuffed pepper

Now it’s time for bed, ready for tomorrow and my Welsh lesson.

During our on-line chat this morning the others were laughing at me because I’ve applied the deodorant “in case Emilie the Cute Consultant is on duty”.
It remind sme of when a solicitor had been searching for me in Brussels for several years and finally caught up with me.
"Mr Hall!" he exclaimed. "What happened to you? We thought that you might have been dead for years!"
"No he isn’t" said his assistant. "He just smells like it"

0

Saturday 28th September 2024 – ONE MORE DAY …

… in the Dialysis Clinic followed by another late night, followed by an early start on a Sunday again for the nurse. It’s relentless, all of this and there is no end in sight. Furthermore, I doubt if there ever will be.

But what happens at Christmas? It would surprise me (but there again, nothing surprises me any more) if the clinic were to be open on Christmas Day. And even if it were, would there be a taxi to take me? There are all these little things about which I need to think.

But not right now, of course. I’m beyond thinking. I’ve had a tough day, I’m deathly tired but I still have a lot to do so it’s going to be a late night.

Much later than last night in fact. And it was after midnight then when I could finally wrench myself out of my chair and into the bathroom. And that was when I noticed the cascade of blood from a wound in my leg. So off we go again. I’m fed up of that as well.

What I did in the end is to take one of the nurses’ sterile pads, fold it up against the wound and put some sticking plaster on it to hold it to the leg. That will have to do.

Once in bed I was asleep yet again quite quickly and only awoke a couple of times, perspiring away yet again. That seems to be becoming a habit as well.

When the alarm went off it took me a couple of minutes to rise to my feet and then to stagger across to the bathroom. No bread to make today.

However there was plenty of washing. My shorts, my socks, trousers and undies, and that’s before I could even think about washing myself. This sartorial elegance these days is proving to be too much for my routine. I might even end up being clean myself at this rate.

Back in here I attacked the dictaphone notes. Mountains of them too. I wanted to perform some experiments. That involved being outside so I set up a small kind of cubicle or tent inside the barn that I could use to change etc into some strange kind of clothes with a large woolly black mop as a hairpiece. I thought that if I were to set myself up there and then were to go outside I’d be fine. However it took so look to organise myself that everyone began to leave the house. The lorry driver who was leaving – he left at the same time every day – seemed to be leaving quite quickly and I was nowhere near ready to go to step outside so I knew that I was going to have problems doing what I had to do. One of my neighbours came down with his wife and he had to climb over my legs in order to find their way through the barn and go to the outdoors. He asked if I was living in here now. I relied “not exactly” and tried to explain the circumstances about where I was living but I was more interested in them clearing off so that I could continue making myself ready to go outside for just about what was left of the afternoon, most of which had disappeared with everyone either being late or hanging on. That I suppose included the Welsh class – I dunno – I can’t remember the Welsh class being there but I suppose that it must have been if I’m talking about it, I dunno but I still managed to get rid of everyone and carry on preparing myself in my little room or tent in the barn so that I could then step outside and do what’s needed.

And isn’t that the problem? I never see people for weeks then everyone turns up at once or they call me on the phone, and it’s always at just the wrong moment. I’m convinced that some people have installed a camera here at this apartment.

Did I dictate the dream about the old British couple and their mobile home thing towing a trailer? … "no you didn’t" – ed … They were somewhere in France heading back to the UK. I came across them on a car park and went over for a chat. While we were chatting, another vehicle pulled in on the car park and hit the trailer. I looked in the mirror and saw this car, which drove off across the car park to the far side. I ran after it and as I reached it a big woman, probably in her late 30s, a horsey type of person, alighted. She was in a car and trailer too. I asked her “why is it that you’ve driven all the way over here after hitting the trailer and making me run after you?” She went “ohh, I have my English insertion exam”. I said “you’d better come and sort out this trailer first that you’ve just hit”. She made a few disagreeable remarks, saying “that old guy is already in trouble for sexually assaulting me”. I couldn’t help thinking that no-one in their right minds would ever want to have any sexual contact with this woman at all. We stormed over to the old guy with his trailer with this woman still complaining that it was everyone else’s fault but hers, and how she had this important exam etc.

There are dozens of people like that whom we all know. “The rules are meant for the little people”. I know that I’m not exactly the best person to appeal to if you want someone to stick to the rules, but whatever comes out of it is no-one’s fault but my own. And if I can’t bewilder the opposition with brains, I will baffle them with b*llsh*t.

I was at a friend’s house and his mother came in and began to tell him off about something or other. After a couple of minutes she turned round to me and began to blame me, calling me all kinds of things as if it was all my fault, whatever it was that I had done. I’d contributed a little but it certainly wasn’t my responsibility. He had to nip out for ten minutes leaving me on my own with her. She continued to lecture with me while I was preparing to leave. I went downstairs into the kitchen. She was slitting eels open ready to jelly them. Of course I felt sick immediately but she carried on and carried on moaning at me. Then my friend came back so I said that I’d better go to say goodbye but I want to go to my garage next door and take away my tools because whatever is left in there you can have it. I have to liquidate some of my affairs and generally make a bit of space in my life. I’m never going to get round to doing these. I went next door to the garage. all the alarms were whistling because all the lights had been left on and the batteries were all low. I turned everything off but I couldn’t turn off the lights in the main room for some reason. Then I began to go through my tools and collecting the ones that I needed. I suddenly realised that there was far too much stuff here for me to take away. There’s nowhere for me to keep it back in my flat so I’ve no idea now what I’m going to do about anything. I am just so confused. That’s another dream about having garages and Ford Cortinas scattered halfway around the World isn’t it? I’ve had plenty of these in the past.

And I tell you what – I’m impressed that I can remember my previous dreams while I’m dreaming. That’s some achievement. But it’s true that in our dreams in the past we’ve had Ford Cortinas and workshops dotted about all over the place. Just like the old days, in fact. But I did once have a friend whose mother was from an island in the Mediterranean, and she was rather … well, I was going to say “emotional” but ” volatile” is a much better word.

The nurse put her sooty foot in the door and sorted me out with bandages and so on. She taught me a new phrase as well. I told her that the only way I would leave this building would be horizontally, but she explained that she would say les pieds à l’avant – “feet first”. She told me that when she worked in a hospital she was always taught that it’s the heads to the wall in bed, and if you are pushing a trolley or a bed with a patient on it, it’s always head first if they are alive, and feet first if they are dead. hence the expression.

After she left I made breakfast and then settled down to read my book. Our hero, lamenting the dispersal of excavated treasures into private hands and subsequently disappearing, has now left Rutupiae and set out down the coast past Deal and has arrived at the Roman lighthouse at Dover

Of course, it goes without saying that I agree with him. What treasures have been lost by being found before there was a system of registration and recording? And walls demolished for the rubble at Rutupiae and Verulamium and elsewhere?

Back in here I didn’t do much – just watched the highlights of the week’s football and watched TNS turned over by Y Bala with a couple of mystery time goals

My cleaner came along and fitted my patches. She also brought me a fairly new baking tray and oven pan that were on their way to the dechetterie

The taxi came early today so I wasn’t ready. She had a fare at Avranches to pick up at 13:30 so she wanted to get ahead if she could. It doesn’t bother me. After all, it’s free so it’s not an issue.

We picked up someone else going to the clinic and we had a good chat all the way down there. We were quite early so we had to wait, but that’s no big deal.

Once in the ward I weighed myself, and some of the weight that I’d lost last time has stayed off. Not all of it, but to say goodbye to some is encouraging.

Next step was to clamber into bed where eventually after a little wait they coupled me up. Nothing like as much pain as the other day when I literally hit the roof.

While I was being done I amused myself by finishing off the tagging of the videos and then read my book on Curious Church Customs. That is, when I wasn’t asleep. I did have a doze for half an hour or so but that’s the first time for several days. Isn’t that a change?

The driver who brought me back was quite chatty and had a lot to say for himself, and then my cleaner watched me up the stairs. On one stair I could lift my foot by just the leg muscles without using my hands. Just one, but that’s an improvement. The first time for several months.

Football was next. And it was also a pleasure watching Caernarfon turn over Connah’s Quay 3-1, and well-worth it too. But they had to cope not only with the opposition but with being on the receiving end of some of the most bizarre refereeing decisions that I’ve seen for a while.

And if you think that it’s just me, there were several comments made from the commentators’ box too. The referee was clearly refereeing a different game to the one that we were watching.

Tea tonight was a burger on a bap. When I looked in the freezer the other day I saw that I had enough burgers to last a lifetime – well, mine anyway. So I’d better start to eat them and make some space

So late again thanks to the football, I’ll dictate the radio notes and then go to bed ready to Fight the Good Fight tomorrow.

But thinking about cleaning myself up reminds me of A FILM in which another one of my heroes, Frankie Howerd, plays the rôle of a priest accompanying a leper in the Middle Ages.
There he is, ringing his bell and shouting "unclean! Unclean!"
And then he breaks the fourth wall, turns to the audience and says "well, let’s face it! It has been up to now, hasn’t it?"

0

Thursday 26th September 2024 – SO THAT’S ANOTHER …

… visit to the Dialysis Clinic done and dusted and out of the way.

Mind you, it’s no use counting them because they’ll go on for as long as I do, and if I have to keep on climbing up these blasted stairs that won’t be much longer. Roll on the end of May next year when, if all goes according to plan, I can finally plan to move downstairs.

After the events of the other night, I was actually in bed at something very much like 23:00 which was really nice for a change. It’s certainly better than 03:20, that’s for sure.

Even better, I fell asleep straight away, and there I stayed, curled up like a bug in a rug, until all of 04:20 when I had a rather dramatic awakening. However, I’ve no idea what it was that rocked me awake.

Eventually I could go back to sleep and there I stayed until all of 07:00 when I awoke. At that moment I was actually away with the fairies somewhere but I’ve no idea where because the moment my eyes opened, it all evaporated.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and then came in here to listen to the dictaphone. I was going somewhere with this girl. She and I were not actually a couple but it was very clear to everyone that there was something between us. When we came to a particular place one of the guys insisted on trying to chat her up which was most inappropriate. When we returned to the car he sat in the back where the two of us were sitting so I sat in the middle of the back seat with the girl on the other side. He had a good moan about that but I thought that he was behaving completely inappropriately. When we reached the airport we all ended up having to sit on separate seats. She was near the back, he was in the middle and I was at the front. He came and had a few words with me so I had a few words with him. He went off and sulked . The girl went and sat next to him to try to console him. I thought that that was rather inappropriate too. Later on we were somewhere in the van. I was trying to give the girl directions. She said “don’t worry, I’ll look at it on the map”. She was looking on the map and giving me directions. We were supposed to be in the mountains but this wasn’t very mountainous to me. I tried to look at the map while she was holding it but I couldn’t see exactly where we were so we were having a discussion about this. Suddenly we came into a village and I recognised it as Pipe Gate (in actual fact it was Madeley). I thought that there’s nothing for it now except to head home. We entered the motorway and began to drive North. I was wondering whether I should stop the car for five minutes with the girl, or ask her f she wanted to go straight home or to stop somewhere or something like that, but quite honestly I wasn’t really in the mood – this incident with that guy had spoiled the whole evening

So here we go again, people putting the spanner in the works, me snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, all of the usual clichés. But this “sitting in separate seats on an aeroplane” does remind me of a real-life event. And never mind strangers trying to chat up my bird, I had a friend who used to do that too. He thought that no-one else should have a girlfriend if he didn’t have one so he thought that he should have yours, and even if he did have one, that still didn’t stop him.

The nurse came round a little later and sorted me out. Her usual bouncy, happy self. They are quite a pair, she and her oppo. She brings joy and smiles wherever she goes, and he brings it whenever he goes. She had a lot to say for herself but nothing of any great importance.

After she left I made my breakfast and then read MY BOOK. while I ate it.

We started off this morning still at Verulamium, reading the account of the discussion that the author Thomas Wright had with the person who excavated the amphitheatre there.

There’s tons of interesting anecdotes about that which never seems to have made it into the official report and it’s fascinating to have all of this unfold before you.

And the more I read of him, the more I’m admiring his work. He has learned that a society has bought some land in old Verulamium and plans to demolish what’s left of the Roman remains in order to build houses there. Our author’s comment is –
"I can only offer up a prayer that some unforeseen event may interfere with their ruthless and unpatriotic designs"
As you might expect, I’m liking this author more and more. For a comment like that to be committed to writing in the early Victorian era, that would have actually been quite startling.

After we left there we went to Ramsgate, my mother’s old stamping ground in the south-east of England.

In the early 1840s one of the many railway companies down there was building a line from Canterbury to Ramsgate and digging out a cutting, came across an early Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Ozengell Grange.

An archaeological team (such as they were then) was called in to investigate and our hero, hearing of the events, went along to spectate. We’re just beginning to reach the exciting bit.

A little later, I went to carry out some modern research onto what was going on down there. And even today they are still coming across bodies buried in parts of the cemetery that they didn’t uncover.

And regrettably, one of the modern reports refers to the excavations at which our friend was present, and calls it “a very poor excavation”, which it probably was, bearing in mind the fact that our team from 1847 had no radar, no resistance meters and none of the modern techniques that are available to archaeologists today.

Yet with the relentless commercial pressure in those days and no Government body to protect them, it’s a miracle that it was done at all.

Back in here I was tagging films again and lost all track of time until my cleaner burst in at 12:00 to put on my patches. We had a little chat and a laugh about last night and then after she left I packed my bag and waited.

The driver who came for me was a young girl who had quite a lot to say for herself, and it was quite interesting too. She even took me on a little sightseeing tour.

She was a traveller and had spent a lot of time on the roads around Europe. So I suppose being a VSL driver was … errr … right up her street … "groan" – ed …

After she dropped me off I weighed myself and found to my dismay that the weight that I’d lost the last time had come back on again.

So I installed myself on the bed, the girls plugged me in with just a little less pain this time, and they left me to it.

To pass the time I tagged some of the videos on the portable laptop and had a probe into the depths of one of the graphics programs that I use

When they kicked me out I weighed myself again and the weight had gone once more, so it must be water retention that’s doing this, so my kidneys aren’t improving.

A friendly but rather taciturn lady driver brought me home and my cleaner helped me upstairs and we made plans for the future.

After a little rest I made tea – an aubergine and kidney bean whatsit out of the freezer followed by spotted dick and the last of the coconut soya cream. That made a nice change. I like surfing through the special offers at LeClerc on-line because sometimes they have some nice stuff in there that makes a change.

So now I’m off to bed. It’s a day with no outings planned but I have bread to make first thing before I can organise myself as I’ve run out

But that dream that I had reminded me of a girlfriend I had once who insisted that she could read a map, even though she couldn’t.
Once we were driving somewhere and I was convinced that wed become hopelessly lost
"Where are we now?" I asked
"Just here" she said, stabbing her finger on the map. "Driving down this road here"
"On that blue road?" I asked
"That’s right" She said
"That blue line, dear" I said "just happens to be a canal."

0

Monday 23 September 2024 – I’M FED UP …

… already of these blasted visits to the perishing Dialysis Clinic. 13:30 when I arrived and flaming 18:30 when I finally made it out of the accursed door. It’s really becoming ridiculous.

And to think that I went to bed early again last night. A good few minutes before 23:00 and settled down quickly to sleep. I didn’t have much to do in the evening after I’d finished my notes. I just washed my socks and that was that

It was a good sleep too and I wished that there had been more of it. I did actually awaken at some point but I’ve no idea what time, I didn’t go to look or anything like that. I just snuggled up under the quilt and that was that.

There I stayed until 07:00 when the alarm went off, and then I took myself off to the bathroom.

While I was in there I had a really good scrub, a shave, a complete change of clothes in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant at the Dialysis Clinic, and washed my trousers and undies, As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I have to keep on top of the clothes issue here.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a group of five of us doing casual work at some factory. It was a very well-paid job so there were many applicants for the post but basically someone else and I were given the job and I was to bring three other people with us. We had some kind of informal rota. On one occasion we’d gone home for lunch but one of the people wouldn’t come back in the afternoon for some reason so I suggested that someone else come along and they’d go and fetch this other person. In the meantime the person who wasn’t coming back had given his place up to his friend so after lunch to climb back in the car to go back there were six of us and that was not possible. We began to have a discussion that led to some kind of argument.

Most of the problems in the World are caused by lack of communication and lack of clear instructions. It seems that, in my dreams, I’m as guilty of this as anyone else. But no-one would leave me in charge of anything, not even today. I’m very much a cat that walks by itself. In the past I did have quite a bunch of followers but, like you lot, they only followed me out of curiosity.

We then all ended up in a coach owned by a local company in Crewe for whom I used to do some driving when Shearings had nothing else going on. We were about to go somewhere. It was a woman driver and she was telling me all about what you had to do have a licence these days and what different types of licence there were. For her, she had to apply for a new licence and had to take some kind of logic test because she’s over a certain age limit. We all piled into one of their coaches and the woman began to drive it. The first thing that she did was to reverse it out of this parking spot. I thought when she pulled up that it would be much easier to drive in and reverse out but she decided to do it the other way. It led to quite a long reverse and she was complaining about it. I said “I hope that it chokes you” because really she should have done it the other way round. But she was going on about her driving test too, how she wasn’t looking forward to it but she’d still be taking it all the same

It beats me why people drive into parking spaces and then have to reverse out when they want to go. We see dozens of examples of this down in the parking spaces by the port, and I bet that you can see this every day of the week in any supermarket car park. People reversing out into narrow roads when there are loads of other cars and pedestrians going by. I used to have crowds of shoppers watching me open-mouthed when I used to reverse into a parking space in North America. Reversing into a parking space is totally unknown across the Atlantic. But this came about because on Saturday our taxi driver had to go down a long entry to pick up another passenger and had to come back out the way she came in. So she drove up and reversed out, which was the strangest decision that I’ve ever seen made.

The nurse came this morning, and once again he got on my wick right from the start. Seeing my empty bottle of 0% Leffe on the worktop he asked me "have you had a beer?"
"No" I replied.

He really is getting on my nerves. If he’s still here and I haven’t cleared him off by the time that I’m downstairs and have a cat he’s going to be even more confused. I shall be blaming everything on the cat

The cleaner stuck her head in as she passed. She wanted the prescription that they had given me on Saturday so that she could take it to the pharmacy. The nurse buttonholed her and gave her a list of more supplies. I bet she regretted coming by.

After everyone had cleared off I made my breakfast and went to read my book.

Today, we are walking around the site of Ariconium, a Roman industrial settlement in Herefordshire. It’s sad to say that even as late as 1854 there were elderly locals who remembered when farmers, having cleared away a huge mess of brambles, came across walls, flooring and roadways of the abandoned town, and promptly pillaged them for building material and hardcore.

The amount of stuff that must have gone “missing” just over the last couple of centuries must be enormous. The author. Thomas Wright, tells us that every cottage in the area has examples of Roman coins that they found in the ruins. I wonder where they are now.

Back in my room I finished off my Welsh homework so that’s ready for a final check before I send it off.

Next, I began another project that has been in the pipeline for several years – to identify all of the videos that I’ve recorded and tag them with comments so that I can see from the File Manager what they are

Not that I managed to proceed very far because my cleaner turned up with the supplies and to put my patches on my arm.

"Il me saoule" – he p155es me off she said of our friendly neighbourhood nurse and I know exactly what she means. What … errr … colourful language I never learned working in a pool of French-speaking chauffeurs, my cleaner is completing my education.

And it seems that we both have the same idea. "One of these days I’d like to try having a shower" I said "But only when you are here in case I fall"
"Yes" she replied. "I was thinking that you ought to try"

So now I’m not sure whether that says more about my new improved mobility or the current state of my personal hygiene.

After she left I had to wait for a while until the taxi came, and when I finally made it downstairs I witnessed a heated “discussion” between the taxi driver and the driver of the local bus in whose bus stop the taxi was parked. Still, it makes life so interesting for the spectators.

Our driver forgot about the roadworks and so we had to make several deviations which took time, and he just dumped me at the Dialysis Centre while he cleared off with our other passenger to his appointment.

Emilie the Cute Consultant and her sidekicks were coming up from the hospital so she said hello as she went past and disappeared inside while I made my way to my bed.

The nurses there had plenty to do and it was long after the efficacity of the patches had worn off before they came to see me. I’m sure that they did that on purpose. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … you can tell how much the nurses like you by how they stick the needles in.

They eventually managed to couple me up to the machine and gave me an orange juice as my blood sugar was at a critical level, and then they cleared off. They were soon back though, as the machine had been wailing for five minutes.

It seemed that they had managed to put the needle into exactly the same hole as in a previous occasion and there was a leak. There was so much fiddling around and in the end they took it out and put it in elsewhere, long after the anaesthetic effect of the needle had worn off.

A little earlier I’d asked to see the chief of the unit, but he’s on holiday, so I’d asked to see Emilie the Cute Consultant because I really do need a second opinion about this massively increased dose of medication that’s been prescribed.

Instead she sent a sidekick – the same doctor who had written the prescription, so I didn’t bother to waste my time. Instead, presumably as a punishment, he increased the dialysis time by half an hour

When I wasn’t asleep, I was tagging the videos on the portable laptop and I made quite some good progress. The nursing assistant, with whom I’d been having a laugh and a joke, brought me a person-sized mug of coffee which was nice.

Eventually they finished with me and after a laugh and a joke, and a weigh-in during which I discovered that I’d lost over 2 kilos today, I could go to meet my taxi driver.

She was friendly enough but didn’t have much to say for herself, so we drove back to Granville in comparative quiet.

My cleaner was waiting for me and she watched as I climbed wearily up the stairs and into my lair. Thoroughly exhausted and thoroughly fed up, and a pain in my big toe. We discussed the latest situation and then she cleared off.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper – really nice and it would have been even nicer had I remembered to put the garlic in there tonight. I really don’t know what’s the matter with me these days.

So now I’ll read through my homework and send it off, and then go to bed, thoroughly fed up. And I wonder what kind of night I’ll have tonight.

But it’s sad that Emilie the Cute Consultant doesn’t love me any more. Perhaps she’s a regular reader of this rubbish and recalls what I have written in the past. Still, as Edward Fitzgerald wrote when he translated The Rubbaiyat of Omar Khayyam into English in 1859,
"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it"

But while we’re on the subject of translations … "well, one of us is" – ed … it reminds me of when Estonia and Malta joined the European Union. They couldn’t find a single person anywhere who could translate directly between Estonian and Maltese.
Instead, they had to translate from one into English and then from English to the other.
And so we ended up with delightful phrases such as when the Estonian President said "our desires for the future …" the Maltese President heard "our lusts for the future"
When he was questioned about it afterwards, the Estonian President simply said through gritted teeth "we must not be rude to old women, children or interpreters"

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Saturday 21st September 2024 – I WAS RIGHT …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then despite the pain, I fell asleep

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

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

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

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

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

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

0

Thursday 19th September 2024 – DAY FOUR OF …

… my dialysis today, and the trick cyclist came to see me. They are obviously taking this really seriously

And she’ll come back to see me in a fortnight, she says. "Maybe you’ll feel differently about the needles and tubes and so on by then"
"If I’ve not grown accustomed to tubes and needles over seventy years" I said "fifteen days isn’t going to make much of a difference"

God alone knows where they find these people.

If you had come by my apartment last night at my official bedtime of 23:00 you would actually have found me in bed. And asleep too because it didn’t take a fraction of a second before the light went out in my head.

As usual there were a few awakenings and tossings and turnings during the course of the night but nothing too much to disturb me. When the alarm went off I really was miles away.

When the second alarm went off I was on my way to the bathroom with an armful of clean clothes. Who knows? I might meet Emilie the Cute Consultant so I have to look my best

That meant a shave too, and then I washed my trousers and undies in the sink so that they’ll be ready for another time. I have to keep abreast of my clothes because I don’t have many here.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what had been going on during the night. At 04:30 the front doorbell rang. I awoke thinking that the nurse will be here in two minutes. Why hasn’t the alarm gone off? Then I looked at my watch and it was 04:30 and I’d obviously dreamed the doorbell going again. At that point I was actually somewhere else, doing something within a small family. There was a little girl who’d been fostered there for some reason. She was chatting away and suddenly announced to everyone that it was me whom she’d dreamed about the previous night. Of course I was extremely interested to know what the dream was but we never actually reached that point because of this doorbell

So now, as well as phantom alarm calls we’re having phantom doorbells. I’m really not doing too well with things like this. But then again, maybe it was a real one, although I doubt it. And being the subject of someone else’s dream? I wonder what it was all about. It’s a shame that that dream ended.

We were at a police station and someone had been brought in for questioning. He was proving to be rather difficult and wouldn’t answer any of their questions hoping that he could sit and sweat out the 24 hours and then be let go. We were listening to it – I can’t remember what we were supposed to be doing – we were far more interested in what was happening in this room. When the interview was paused so that the interviewer could go off somewhere I went in to see him, the interviewee, and began to chat with him thinking that maybe if he were more relaxed he might actually let loose a couple of hints but the alarm went off at this point – the real one.

And that’s a well-known interviewing trick – to pause the interview but send in someone sympathetic to the victim. It was almost de rigeur in World War II with captured prisoners and everyone was warned against it, but hundreds still let their tongues run away.

The nurse came along and didn’t stay long. He moaned about my puttees and said that tomorrow we’ll try the elasticated socks. Well, it will give me something else to hand-wash, I suppose.

But I wish that he’d cheer up. He’s supposed to be helping me improve my morale but it’s not working when he looks and acts like a wet weekend in Weymouth.

After he left I made breakfast and went to read my book for a while. We’re discussing Roman funeral monuments today and that’s something that I know something about, having been on one of these free courses from Oxford University.

Yes, that’s right! I’ve studied at Oxford University! Not that it’s done me much good.

Back in here I spent the morning going through yet more of my live concerts trying to find the dates. And apart from being able to identify another half-dozen or so, there won’t ‘arf be a big surprise in due course

My cleaner came round at lunchtime and put on the anaesthetic patches for me. And then she put on one of these tubagrip bandages over the arm to hold them in place and stop them falling off

The taxi came a little early so it was a bit of a panic to prepare myself. We had someone else to pick up out in the back of beyond so we didn’t go straight to Avranches.

The driver today didn’t have anything at all to say for herself so the three of us drove all the way there in silence. I’d given up trying to stimulate some conversation.

But by God! Didn’t she go down some of these narrow lanes at a hell of a rate? Not that it bothered me because it’s how I drive – but only when I’m on my own. Nevertheless wouldn’t we have had a problem had we encountered a herd of cows or a harvester?

It was a different nursing team on duty today and they had, well, issues trying to come to terms with the equipment and it all descended into something like chaos.

And I remain convinced that they deliberately waited until after the two hours when the anaesthetic wears off before they came to deal with me.

But the cleaner and her tubagrip bandage did its job. The patches were still there and it only hurt … errr … somewhat. Nothing like it did on Monday

They gave me a kind of echograph test and told me that I have six litres of water still in my body, despite all of the medication that I’ve taken. Whatever must I have had before?

And then the trick cyclist turned up. Painted-on, forced smile and patronising discussion. She probably thinks that I’m some kind of old, doddering has-been or, perish the thought, maybe even a coconut (no comments, please)

She had the typical psychiatrists’ trick of these long, pregnant pauses that are designed to embarrass the other party and make them feel guilty, thus encouraging them to talk. But having had the family and the upbringing that I’ve had, nothing embarrasses me any more and she’ll have to try harder than that.

But of course these people are professionals and even a stony silence will tell them something.

After about 15 minutes she asked me if I’d like her to come to see me again.
"I’m here to be cured" I said. "If the doctor thinks that I need it and sent for you, it’s for him or her to decide"
"No-one sent me" she answered, turning her head and whistling into the breeze. "I come to see everyone."
"Well you’re the professional" I replied. "If you think that I need it …"

And after more pointless, aimless discussion she agreed to come back in a fortnight. And why not? It’s free and I may as well have my money’s worth. But God help her when the going gets tough.

Emilie the Cute Consultant was there as well and she waved at me – with all four fingers raised, not just two. But she soon P155ed off when they threw me out of the clinic

The driver on the way back didn’t have much to say for herself either – maybe she’d been warned about me – but she was friendly enough

There was something of a reception committee here when I returned. My cleaner was here to keep an eye on me as I climbed the stairs and she was chatting to another neighbour who had just come home from work.

Tea was something out of the European Burger Mountain with pasta and veg, with roly-poly and soya cream for pudding.

So now I’m off to bed. I have bread to make first thing in the morning as I have now run out, and my cleaner will be here to check the medication before she goes into tow,

But the story of the psychiatrist reminds me of why we have ten commandments

Jehovah appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai and said "hey, Moses! Do you want a commandment?"
"How much are they, my Lord?" asked Moses
"To you, Moses, they are free"
"Well in that case I’ll have ten"

0

Monday 16th September 2024 – SO THAT’S DAY …

… three of my trip to the Dialysis Clinic. And you probably knew already because you may well have heard me scream when they stuck the needle in

These anaesthetic patches are no use whatever if they fall off inside the sleeve of your jacket and, without thinking, you stick them back on in the hospital so the staff doesn’t know that your forearm isn’t anaesthetised.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I never make a mistake. Instead I just learn a lot of lessons, and some of them are very painful, believe me. They had to douse my arm in alcohol.

Another lesson that I haven’t learned is the one about going to bed early. Last night’s early effort was just a flash in the pan because tonight is going to be horribly late

That’s because last night everything was all done and dusted quite quickly and, for a change, I was feeling a little more like it So with no distractions, like recovering from a painful arm, I headed for bed quite quickly.

At some point during the night I awoke but I can’t tell you when because I didn’t notice. It was dark so I just went back under the bedclothes and there I stayed.

When the alarm went off I staggered into the bathroom and sorted myself out, having a shave too in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant, and also washed the puttees that had been soaking in a bowl of water since about for ever. They are now hanging up to dry.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what I was up to during the night. We had a small chauffeur’s office and in the office next door were a couple of girls. We all got on extremely well. We used to cook communal meals – we’d cook a couple of things in our room and they’d cook a couple of things. We’d just go along and help ourselves to bits from everywhere. One day I was working on something and hadn’t noticed the time. Suddenly my two colleagues said that they were off out and there were sausages in the room next door if I wanted. I had a look and they had cooked some peas and mixed them with spaghetti and tomato sauce which didn’t look very appetising. Nevertheless I went next door and there wasn’t very much left at all, just a couple of potatoes and a sausage. The girls gave me something of a lecture about waiting until the last moment – if they hadn’t been so kind someone else would have eaten that. In the end I had to borrow a plate, scrounge some bread and start to serve myself this bit of an ad-hoc meal. As I said, the peas with spaghetti and tomato sauce didn’t look appetising but it was food all the same.

Wouldn’t it have been nice if our office had been as friendly as that? I had endless runs-in with my boss and my colleagues, as I have mentioned before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … and weren’t they glad when my Director’s Directorate moved to a different building. There just happened to be a spare room going begging and "if you were to move there you wouldn’t have to fight the Kortenberg traffic every time he wanted to go somewhere". . Yes, I’ll do that. And we all had some peace.

But the cooking in the office reminds me of school. The remodelling and modernisation of the school meant that the Sixth-form common room had previously been the old cookery lab and they hadn’t removed the appliances. And so for a group of us, lunch was a large tin of baked beans and a large sliced loaf divided four ways. And when we went running afterwards we would set record times without any trouble whatsoever. And that lasted until one of the boys casually mentioned that his uncle and aunt kept a pub just down the road.

Isabelle the nurse came in and did her best to raise my morale. She was on the point of giving me another shopping list when my cleaner stuck her head in for something. And so I let them get on with it between them

Breakfast was next and my book. We’ve moved on from abandoned towns (did you like that view yesterday) and on to abandoned villas, not so easy to spot from the air. But the story did go on about the ruins of a villa in private hands.

This was discovered in a forest in the 19th Century and excavated in 1882 by some amateurs who did more damage than good, and roofed over by a lean-to of corrugated sheets. In 1923 the roofing was described by our author as “in poor state, used for breeding pheasants” and in 1945 by another writer as “ruinous”. By 1979 “the sheds have now collapsed and the remains are suffering from weather and from the encroaching wood”. God knows what they will be like now.

Back in here I checked with the taxi company and they have me down for today, which is good news.

And so I wrote a letter that needs posting and afterwards had to contact my health insurers for a document that I need. That involved scanning a couple of documents to attach to my demand

All of my stuff needed sorting out for today too, and to put away what I’d baked yesterday. And you’ll be amazed at how quickly the time flies.

My cleaner arrived next, to put the anaesthetic patches on my arm and we had a little bit of a gossip before the taxi came for me.

It was my favourite Rastaman at the controls, and he had another passenger with him – an English woman.

She and her deceased husband had bought their house in 1997 (well, he wasn’t dead then, but never mind) and they came to live permanently in France in 2014. Despite that, she couldn’t string together two lucid words of French.

And yet these are the kind of people who complain about foreigners who come to the UK and can’t speak a word of English after just five minutes living there. I despair.

When my driver whispered in my shell-like about her and said “an Englishwoman – you can make a friend” I explained that I’d left the UK to come away from people like that.

We stopped in Sartilly to pick up another passenger, a retired doctor who didn’t say a word to anyone in any language, and we drove to the clinic.

My bed was right at the far end and so it took me a couple of minutes to make my way there and install myself. I had to be weighed, my blood pressure checked, all that kind of thing before they could plug me in

And that was when my torment began. It was totally agonising

But eventually the machine set off on its cycle and it’s quite strange because the pulses of the machine coincide with a tingling in my fingers, and I was having cramps in my left calf and that strange pain that I have in the sole of my right foot.

That was one day that I hope that I don’t have again, especially as they forgot the coffee and I had to harass them for it.

There’s a change of book too. I’ve finished Colonel Carrington’s report and I’m now on a book entitled CURIOUS CHURCH CUSTOMS. I’ll let you know if I find anything exciting.

Emilie the Cute Consultant was in the building today but she didn’t come to see me. I don’t think that she loves me any more. Instead I had another side-kick who came to see me, just for the sake of form, I suspect.

Someone else also presented herself to me – as the Assistante Sociale. Wouldn’t surprise me if she isn’t the trick cyclist in mufti sizing me up, or else she’s the mortician’s assistant sizing me up for the correct size of coffin.

Eventually they unplugged me and I went out to meet my chauffeur who would bring me back home. And we had the same man coming home again. Once more, he never said a single word, except when the driver asked “who wants to sit in front?”. Then he opened his mouth pretty quickly.

The driver didn’t have much to say for herself so I was glad to return home and see my cleaner, who made up for all the silence. She watched as I took myself upstairs, disintegrating puttees and all, and back in here where I collapsed into a chair, totally exhausted.

Eventually I could summon up the courage to go to make tea. Horribly late again, but it was another nice stuffed pepper, with plenty of stuffing left over for those who say that I need it.

So late as usual, I’m going to bed.

But the story of the Mortician’s assistant reminds me of my operation in January 2016 where I vented my spleen rather permanently.
There was a choice of two venues for the operation, the private clinic and the State-run hospital, and I chose the State-run hospital
"Why on earth did you do that?" I was asked on several occasions
"Have you seen where the clinic is situated?" I asked
"Nothing wrong with that" was the response. "It’s a nice part of town just there"
"I don’t care whether it’s situated in the Garden of Eden" I retorted. "No-one goes for a surgical operation in a clinic where the other side of the wall is the local cemetery. One false move with the knife, and then under cover of darkness there will be a ‘thud’ over the back wall and no-one will be any the wiser."

0

Saturday 14th September 2024 – SO THAT’S DAY …

… two of the rest of my life in the dialysis ward sorted out.

And to my surprise, apparently I’m something of a celebrity. The doctor in charge of the dialysis department listens to my rock programmes on the radio and has told the rest of the clinic who I am.

We’re not at the stage where people are asking for my autograph or where I’m being besieged by groupies (more the pity) but still ….

That’s the advantage of living in a small place – it’s much more fun being a big fish in a small pond than it is being a small fish in a big pond (or maybe talking about fish, I should have said “place”). I’m not cut out to be a city-dweller

Another thing that I’m not cut out for is going to bed early. It was another horribly late night last night, but that’s because the Highlights (if you can call it that) of Y Bala v Aberystwyth.

Over the last few seasons Aberystwyth have been getting worse and worse. They narrowly escaped relegation two years ago, and it was only an administration issue affecting Pontypridd United that saved them last season.

This season, slugging it out with Y Fflint for the other relegation place alongside LLansawel, they are doing badly and were swept aside by Y Bala last night. In fact the highlights had them in the Bala half just once

It’s a good job that it wasn’t the live match this weekend because it would have been painful to watch, I reckon.

So I was soon in bed after the final whistle and once more I didn’t need much rocking before I disappeared into the ether.

Just one or two brief awakenings but I went back to sleep almost straight away and there I stayed (for a change) until the alarm went off.

In the bathroom I had a good wash, a shave and a change of clothes. After all, at the Dialysis Ward I might even meet Emile The Cute Consultant so must look my best.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We were working for a Sports Radio. There was an apartment available to let and we’d been asked to show some people round it. It was only a single-roomed apartment, bedsit-type of place that doesn’t take much showing around. The guy who came to look at it was extremely interested even though it was untidy and dirty. He asked a few questions about the gas fire, whether it was connected to the mains and whether it was a good connection. While I was poking around in there having a look I came across firstly another key which had presumably been left down underneath the fire and some money too, some Euros and some £5 notes totalling (thinks) €30:00 and £10:00. There was something about this €30:00 but I can’t remember what it is. There was certainly rather more to this dream but I can’t recall it. The guy was extremely interested in this place. Finding the key and the money was the icing on the cake as far as he was concerned but the place was dirty and needed a really good clean-up after the previous tenant had left. It looked like the person smoked and there was cigarette ash everywhere.

And in a minute I’ll tell you a funny story about a Sports Radio. But finding stuff hidden under the gas fire is one thing, but it’s not where I would have hidden it. In the book of THE MALTESE FALCON Sam Spade hid the falcon in the ice compartment of his refrigerator

A friend of mine from Chester was talking about the collieries at Llay. It turned out that that was where a friend from school had gone to work. He said that it was his first real job and his last one too because the colliery had closed down. It was just over the Christmas period and never reopened. The people knew that it was closing but the fact that they didn’t reopen it after Christmas showed that they had changed the plans without communicating this to the workforce. The workforce was of course all laid off, part of the industrial desolation in North Wales. The site was left to rot for several years but eventually it was cleared away in some kind of demolition control. The Wrexham Maelor Council was left to look after what was left of the property. The site was now some kind of industrial estate. My schoolfriend said “why don’t we go to have a look at it?”. I thought that this was something that we should have done a long time ago, many years ago, but I suppose that now as as good a time as any. It would have been nice to have been there fifteen years ago when it was working but you can’t have everything

Llay has been in the news over the summer. The local football club won promotion to Wales’s second tier in dramatic circumstances. The name of the club, Llay Miners Welfare FC, recalls the days when there were collieries in the area. And if the family Bible is anything to go by, my grandmother’s people came from Penrhiwceiber in South Wales and likely came north when there was a wave of pit openings in the early years of the 20th Century.

But there’s another question. I rescued her Bible from a skip where it had been thrown after her bungalow was cleared out. Who’s going to rescue it when my apartment is cleared out after I’ve gone? Apart from the fact that it has her family tree in it, it’s actually one of the rare Bibles that was written in Welsh

I dreamed that some woman had come into my bedroom and began to lick and hug my door. She said that she was my teacher but I didn’t recognise her from school at all

And what on earth is that all about? Women coming into my room and licking and hugging my door? Obviously I’m not famous enough yet despite what goes on in the clinic and I’ll have to work hard at that.

There was also a dream about two German women coming out of a cafe. One of them was saying to the other about her daughter can stay with her for a couple of days and then return home, then her son could go to stay with her too. This woman was something to do with the German military. The subject came up about a motorbike somewhere in a town along the Rhine. The woman wondered if it would be suitable for her son so she went to ask some kind of German officer if she would borrow some kind of transport to go down to pick it up but the German officer was not impressed at all and told her that he’d already said in the past that she’s not allowed to borrow any transport for this kind of purpose

That’s not very relevant to anything at all that I can think of. I’m clearly losing my grip.

When the nurse came, she sorted out my puttees (which fell down again later), issued an order for supplies and tried her best to give me some encouragement for this afternoon. I asked her what time I should apply the anaesthetic patches and she told me to ring the hospital

And it’s a good job that I did because they didn’t have me down to come and they hadn’t therefore booked the taxi to bring me

And then I could finally make breakfast and read my book. And do you know? I can’t remember what it was that I read today

After breakfast I watched that new Sports programme showing the highlights of Newport City’s game last night. And the reporter "and (the ‘keeper) hangs onto the ball like my missus hangs on to an Easter egg" .

That’s my style of commentating so I sent the commentator a mail of encouragement and we struck up quite a conversation

There was some photocopying to be done so I attended to that, interrupted by my loyal cleaner. She’d brought up the post and was going to apply the anaesthetic patches.

The post had some good news, for me and for her. That Society that deals with personal autonomy who came to see me the other week considers that I need at least 13 hours of assistance per month (instead of the current 8) and will give me a grant for the extra hours.

One of the tasks for which I need assistance apparently is “moral support” – although what moral support I can have in 13 hours is a matter of debate.

The taxi came and whisked me off to Avranches. The driver was a rocker and so we had rock music all the way which made a nice change.

And who should be on duty today at the Dialysis Centre but Emilie The Cute Consultant. It really was my lucky day.

Today I was in the public ward where it was rather warmer but I was still stretched out on a bed and thus unable to work

Instead I carried on reading Colonel Carrington’s reports about life on his frontier post “across the lines” in Indian Territory. And we reached a crucial point in the narrative today.

He’s been accused by his own junior officers of timidity in confronting the Native Americans but it’s clear in that sending troops to the forest to bring trees back to build the stockade, to cut planks to make the buildings etc, he doesn’t have the time or the resources to go on the offensive.

However, one of his subordinates takes a couple of troops, totalling 80 or so men, on an independent command and disobeying all his clear orders, goes in an impetuous chase of a party of natives.

It goes without saying that this group of natives is just an advance guard for an ambush, and of all the palefaces, there’s not even one survivor.

When we were there IN 2019 and walked across the battlefield, you could see just how ideal it was for an ambush

Carrington noticed it too when he went to retrieve the bodies, and in his notes he describes – in lurid, gruesome detail – the mutilations that they had suffered, many of which had been committed while the victims were likely still alive.

When they were disconnecting me and unplugging me, they talked about my “unwillingness” to become involved in the more gruesome parts of this dialysis procedure.

They talked about sending the psychiatrist to see me and asked if I would like that. Well, apart from the fact that I think that anyone who wants to see a psychiatrist needs his head examined, I am actually quite comfortable with my problems. And if anyone can help me overcome them it won’t be a trick cyclist. I shall have to do it myself.

It was a silent drive back here with a very taciturn chauffeur, and then my cleaner watched as I fought my way upstairs alone

And Rosemary had sent me a message. She tells me that this morning she saw the snow on the Puy de Sancy. Winter’s on the way already.

Having mentioned Aberystwyth’s disaster last night, it’s even worse because Y Fflint surprisingly beat Hwlffordd this afternoon to pull away up the table.

Tea was, for a change, a burger on a bun. It’s been a while since I’d had one of those, made with the stuff that my friend in Munich had sent me ages ago. I’d made it up and then frozen the burgers to use bit by bit.

And my roly poly was delicious too.

So now I’m off to bed – when I’ve dictated the radio notes that I’ve written during the week. High time I went back to work

But on this psychiatry thing, the last time I was there they gave me the Rorschach test
The psychiatrist showed me a photo of an ink-stain and asked "what’s this?"
"Rorschach test image number six" I replied
"Ohh come on" he urged. "Be serious"
"OK" I said. "It’s a loaf of bread"
"And this?"
"A dragonfly"
"And this?"
"An octopus"
"And this?"
"Eeeuurrgg" I shuddered. "That’s an evil parasite that sucks out the lifeblood of human beings and gorges itself on their energy and shrinks the willpower …"
The psychiatrist looked at the card. "I’m very sorry" he said. "But that’s a photo of my wife"
"But was I close?"
"You were close"

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Thursday 12th September 2024 – I CAN’T EVER FORGET …

… my friend’s daughter who, on being told that what she was going through for the first time at 11 years old was what she’ll be going through every four weeks for the next forty years, stormed upstairs in a fury and slammed her bedroom door in a fit of pre-teen angst .

And now I know exactly how she must have been feeling, after having gone through what I’ve gone through today and knowing that I’ll be doing it three times per week for the rest of my life.

They said that it would make me feel better, but I’m hardly running around like a spring chicken right now.

“It takes time” they tell me, but how much time do I have?

Not enough last night, apparently. I eschewed a trip out around Central Scotland with one of my groundhopping friends and was in bed relatively early. And asleep quite quickly too, which seems to be becoming a habit these days.

However I awoke not long after 06:00, and couldn’t go back to sleep. By 06:45 I had totally given up the idea and was so wide awake that I arose from the Dead a good 15 minutes before the alarm, not something that happens every day.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, changed my undies and washed the previous pair in the sink. I must keep on top of things otherwise it will all let go and I’ll have no idea where I am.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was an athletics meeting taking place, a World Championships of some description. I was working as a driver. At one stage I had three people in my car, a couple of girls and a guy taking them from one place to another venue. One of them was actually talking about staying illegally in the UK because he had no passport or his passport had expired. The story he was telling was how he was staying with his aunt and how she had left sounded so fishy that it was unbelievable, the type that you hear every day from thousands of people, exactly the same. He was asking about going to Canada and whether he’s receive asylum there. The Canadian girl was very suspicious and was giving very guarded answers. It was all extremely complicated. When I reached my destination I unloaded my three passengers and stayed to listen to the news. They were talking about them on the radio saying that they’d absolutely loused up the first leg of their athletics tournament and so they had been sent away somewhere off-campus to a private room out of the way of the media where they could rebuild their confidence etc ready for the second round of the event. The radio was saying how this was a good thing to do in the circumstances of these three people. But I was listening to these stories and was just extremely suspicious about them all. I was sure that there was far more to it than just a simple “take them out of the public eye for a couple of hours”. It was one of the most suspicious things that I’ve ever encountered

And believe me, in my life I have encountered a great many suspicious things. I have had something of a chequered life in a couple of previous existences and one of these days I might actually say something about it. However, I have to be mindful of the fact that the UK is one of these countries that has a very minimal Statute of Limitations.

And then we were discussing the situation at Celtic where the manager had left, a new manager had come in and there was a lot of turbulence around there with players openly talking about leaving the club. One of them was interviewed on TV and was discussing it. It turns out that another one was released over twelve months ago and has yet to find a new club. I said “surely he can find a job working on a building site or something like that and play part-time to keep fit. I could find him a job tomorrow”. I told him of a job that I knew was going. Whoever it was to whom I was talking was some elative of his and said “I want him much fitter than that. He’s 29”. The discussion continued and it was extremely interesting that I’d dreamed that Rodgers had left Celtic and they had a new foreign manager

So why would I be interested in Brendan Rodgers and Glasgow Celtic? It’s not the usual kind of topic that is forever on my mind. Not at all.

The nurse came in to see me later to apply my puttees (which fell down later). She gave me the copies of my prescriptions that she’d photocopied and also gave me some other paperwork that the clinic wants to see. She wanted to tell me what was going to happen but I didn’t want to know.

My faithful cleaner had been past too and dropped off the unused injections for me to take. Apparently they put a blood-thinning product in the mix when I’m being dialysed so they’ll start with my injections, so as to use them up

After everyone had left, I made breakfast and read my book on ROMANS IN BRITAIN.

We’re discussing Roman Roads at the moment but I’m thinking about the camps at Caersws and Caerhun that we’ve seen on those aerial maps.

When our author was writing his book, it was 1923, a long time before the advent of aerial photography and aerial mapping, something pioneered by Sidney Cotton (inventor of the “Sidcot” flying suit), whose steps we stood in IN NEWFOUNDLAND, when he came to the UK in the late 1930s.

So we can see these things quite clearly thanks to Cotton and those who followed in his footsteps … "or vapour trail" – ed …, but these people in 1923 when they were writing these books had no idea of aerial photography, so what they were able to discover and identify is really quite astonishing.

After breakfast I had to telephone the bank in Belgium. There have been payment issues with a card and I ned to check. But it wasn’t any use. According to the bank they don’t have any marker at all on the card and it should work fine.

We shall see.

What was left of the morning was spent backing up the big computer onto the memory stick on my keyring, and I ran out of time because the taxi came early for me.

There was someone else to pick up and then off we set, two passengers and the taxi driver from Hell, to Avranches. If they give me a blood pressure test as soon as we arrive they’ll have a shock.

When we arrived, there I was struggling along on my crutches so they took me to the cubicle the farthest away from the door.

They slapped a few anaesthetic patches on my arm and then we went through a pile of paperwork and forms. Then they gave me an injection and I closed my eyes as they did what they had to.

All I did was to lie there in bed. They had all the windows open and the air conditioning going full tilt and I was freezing. So much so that I couldn’t concentrate on any work at all – and that’s something that I’ll have to sort out.

Instead I read the report of Colonel Carrington about life at Fort Phil Kearny, which was permanently under siege by the native Americans and the site of which WE VISITED IN 2019. Now THAT’s what I call an interesting document.

There were also times when I drifted away with the fairies and on one of my little trips Roxanne came to see me and I remember distinctly kissing her cheek.

They eventually uncoupled me and I had to wait around for half an hour while they checked that the joint would close correctly. And FINALLY I could go to the bathroom – and not before time. And with my puttees around my ankles.

There were three taxi drivers waiting in the foyer so I asked "who’s drawn the short straw?" and one driver knew exactly what I meant.

We had another person and so the return trip home, much more sedately this time, went via the Centre Normandy to drop him off.

My cleaner was waiting but she stood and watched as I hauled myself up the stairs without help. It’s a struggle, but it works.

There’s no bread so I made another loaf. And in a wild fit of enthusiasm I made a jam roly-poly.

That was easy – make half a bread mix, after it’s risen, roll it out flat and rectangular, coat it with Jacqueline’s lovely home-made jam, sprinkle some desiccated coconut and raisins, and then roll it up, sprinkle with icing sugar and bake it in the other side of the oven while the loaf is a-doing.

While all that was going on I made tea – a burger from what’s left of the European Burger Mountain with pasta and veg done in tomato sauce

But now I’m off to bed and I’ll tell you tomorrow how the bread and roly poly have come out.

However, I started this entry today talking about repetitive tasks. And that reminds me of a Trades Union meeting that I attended years ago to discuss new work proposals
"We have agreed" said a negotiator "a 10% pay-rise, an extra week’s holiday, a Christmas bonus, and as from now on, we only have to work on Wednesdays"
"What?" howled a discontented voice. "Every bloody Wednesday?"

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Tuesday 10th September 2024 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since we’ve featured an old car on these pages?

Or, more to the point, how long is it since we’ve featured a photo?

old cars Panhard C24 coupe sartilly Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo 10th September 2024So here you are – a photo of an old Panhard C24 Coupé

One of the very last models made by Panhard, this vehicle would have been built some time between 1963-1967, but this vehicle may well be manufactured later in the range rather than earlier judging by the restyled tail lights.

Not exactly my favourite old car, the styling of these 850cc flat twins was supposed to be aerodynamic and while well in advance of its period, I didn’t find it to be an attractive design at all

Another problem was that, unlike Fords, they required a lot of care and attention to keep them on the road, and the bodywork contained some notorious rust-traps

It’s a shame that the photo hasn’t come out too well, but it was taken on the camera on the phone in the miserable grey afternoon from a moving vehicle and through the car windscreen.

No-one can be the best in these circumstances.

And neither can I, seeing as I had a horribly late night again last night.

One of my ground-hopping friends was out and about and was somewhere near Bathgate just outside Glasgow, watching the game between Armadale Thistle Ladies and Bonnyrigg Rose Ladies.

Bonnyrigg were unbeaten this season but my friend thought that Armadale would give them a good run for their money tonight so he went along and streamed the game.

He was right too. Armadale matched Bonnyrigg all the way, and their Khya McGurk scored what surely must be a goal-of-the-season contender to win the game for Armadale.

Although the game was somewhat short on skill, THIS PIECE OF SKILL ought to be enough to win any game any time anywhere in the world. Thanks to NORRIE WORK for the video clip. You can hear him going berserk in the background of the clip!

You’ll notice the copyright logo on the video extract. I’m currently experimenting with a few videos and a couple of editing programs. Until I settle on a good version and pay the unlocking fees, I’m stuck with free versions and their copyright logos.

If anyone can suggest any programs worth trying, drop me a line. There’s a “contact me” button on the bottom right of the page.

So with a horribly late night again, I crawl off to bed and there I stay until the alarm goes off. That might sound as if it’s good but believe me, I’ve slept for much longer than that and called it a bad night.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up, a shave, a complete change of clothes and I hand-washed my trousers and undies. That was rather drastic, and dramatic too, but I’m off out this afternoon, waging war.

First task though was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I can’t believe that I’m standing in a queue at an event somewhere or other and there are four people around me. Every single one of them speaks Welsh. There’s me, there’s that girl who looks like my friend from Trefynnon, there’s a guy called Gareth Owen and he’s speaking Welsh to Nerina who’s replying. I thought that there’s something totally strange happening here. We’re just in queue for a coffee at some kind of festival

That’s what I dictated anyway. And you wouldn’t have caught Nerina speaking a different language. She was a mathematician and computer person and therein lay her talents. But it’s not every day that I’m dreaming in Welsh. It’s really getting to me, isn’t it?

Isabelle the nurse came to see me too. She gave me the injection and fixed my puttees (which fell down shorty afterwards) while she told me about her walking holiday in Brittany. It was of interest to me because one summer in the mid-70s I went hitch-hiking around Finisterre and enjoyed every single minute of it.

Our Welsh course started up again today so I did some revision, of the wrong unit as it happened (which depressed me immensely) and then I had to abandon the lesson because the taxi came early.

We then had to drive around Granville picking up two others, and then the driver made a complete hash of leaving the town and we ended up stuck for ages behind a tractor. Mind you, if we’d gone the way that I would have gone, we’d have been ages earlier but we’d have missed the Panhard

That vehicle crossed our path somewhere near Sartilly and we followed it until it turned off on the outskirts of Avranches.

The hospital where I had all of these problems is installing a pay barrier, and that tells you everything you need to know about the hospital, its financial situation and why it’s trying to do its best to hang onto my money.

Because of our problems, I was late for my appointment and the doctor was waiting. I’d hardly got into my stride before he was full of apology for what had happened and was issuing instructions to his secretary.

The appointment didn’t last long. He looked at the reports, didn’t even look at his work, and gave the all-clear for dialysis to start. Apparently I’ll be “hearing from” the dialysis clinic.

There was then a phone call – from the hospital administration. Full of apologies (and excuses) but they have prepared a cheque and it will be sent to me “in the next couple of days”. We shall see.

The driver to take me home was my favourite Rastaman driver. After we’d dropped off some other passengers around Avranches and he’d given me a sightseeing tour of the town we set off for home.

He’s the most amenable of the drivers and as there were now just the two of us we stopped at the bank in Sartilly where at long last I was able to activate my new bank card, which pleases me no end.

At Granville my faithful cleaner was waiting and she stood and watched, impressed beyond belief, as I took myself up the stairs without help.

How long this will go on I really don’t know, but make the most of it!

She had some good news to tell me too about my ground-floor apartment. We’ll see how that develops too.

After she left I had a very late lunch and came in here where, true to form these days, I crashed out.

Just before I slid off into oblivion the dialysis clinic rang. I will have my dialysis on Thursdays, Saturdays and … errr … Mondays. Putting my foot down about Tuesdays has worked.

Afternoon though, not morning, but you can’t have everything I suppose. At least I have two full days in the week free. Roll on the Physiotherapy classes!

And then they called me back. I’ll have to go earlier than planned because the nurses are refusing to apply this anaesthetic cream stuff. But don’t worry – they’ll organise the taxis.

With some time to go before tea I attacked the paperwork again and sorted out some more stuff. The desktop is positively empty at the moment. How long will that last?

Tea tonight was a delicious taco roll followed by apple crumble. What a good pudding that is. There’s still enough for a couple of days, and then maybe I’ll make a chocolate sponge for pudding next week

But not right now, because I’m off to bed. And maybe another dream in Welsh. Who knows?

Unless it’ll be a dream like the one where someone went to speak to the hotel management where he was staying.
"Last night" he said "I dreamed that I was eating a marshmallow, but it went on for ages this dream."
"It must have been a huge one" said the management. "A veritable giant"
"I suppose it was" said the guy
"But what’s that got to do with me?" asked the manager
"I just wanted to tell you" said the man "that when I awoke this morning, I couldn’t find the pillow"

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Wednesday 4th September 2024 – THERE HAVE BEEN …

… raised voices in this apartment today. And how!

The tension between the nurse and me has been simmering away for a short while now, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, and today it finally overflowed.

And it was going to be such a good day too. I was actually in bed before 23:00, for once in my life, and as seems to be the case these days, I fell asleep quite quickly.

And there I lay, flat out until about 06:15 too – one of the best sleeps that I have had just recently too. Over 7 hours-worth of uninterrupted sleep is a luxury these days.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I was fast asleep, but I soon hauled myself out of bed and went off for a good wash and scrub up ready for my trip out.

Yesterday I’d told the nurse that I was going out at 08:15 and so after much moaning and complaining he’d agreed to be here at 08:05 at the latest. He’d told me that at 08:00 I had to be sitting in the chair in the kitchen where he does his stuff.

So there I was at 08:00, sitting in the chair, and at 08:15 with him still not having turned up, the taxi came and we set off for Avranches.

We were some way down the road near the Granville ring road when the phone rang. It was 08:30. “Where are you?” asked a voice which I recognised.

“Where am I? Halfway towards Avranches. It’s now 08:30, not 08:05”. I replied

“OK. Call me when you’re back”.

We reached Avranches and the clinic at 08:55 for my 09:00 appointment – the first one in. And so it was logical I suppose that I wasn’t seen until 09:30.

Emilie the Cute Consultant wasn’t there which was a shame and I had to see the nurse. She asked me all kinds of probing questions although with no doctor or consultant there and no news about a follow-up, I couldn’t see the point.

And it looks as if this might be escalating. Now that they’ve talked the plaster off my arm so that my port is there in view in glorious technicolour if I choose to look at it (which I haven’t done as yet) they now want me to run an antiseptic cream on it and wrap it in clingfilm before I come for dialysis.

So that tells me two things. Firstly, that I have to come for dialysis and secondly, I am going to become more and more involved in the mechanics of this procedure.

In fact, she was there pushing a few boundaries, telling me a little bit more and a little bit more of things that I really don’t want to know.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … when this process starts we shall have the panic attack to end all panic attacks. I am living my worst nightmare with all of these tubes and pipes. I’m really sure that many people, people who have never been through any of this, just can’t understand what I’m feeling.

While I was there she weighed me, and my weight is stable, although it’s 7kg too much and even 12kg more than I used to like it. She said that my blood is stable too, so I told her that I would be much happier if the Creatinine was stable at 270 where it used to be instead of this 450.

With running late, everything else was running late. The taxi had arrived at 10:00 for me but I was nowhere near ready so the driver had gone off to pick up another passenger and then come back for me, and we reached the door of the building at the same time.

Back here at the apartment, these last two days have seen a stunning development – I’ve managed to climb back up the stairs all on my own, the first time since February.

It’s not very aesthetic, I have to say. I have to Put my right hand behind my left knee, raise my left foot onto the step and then push up my right side with the aid of my crutches.

God knows what anyone else might think if they were to see me, but twice now I’ve tried it, and twice now it has worked. If I carry on like this, Friday morning shopping might be back on the agenda.

This is the first time in quite some time that I can say that there has been an underlying improvement.

Back here I put on the coffee, put the porridge in the microwave and the toast in the toaster when the phone rang

“Where are you? asked a voice which I recognised.

‘I’ve just got back” I replied

“I told you to ring me when you came back”.

“Did you not hear the word ‘just’?” I asked

“I’ll be right round” so I switched off the breakfast to wait for his imminent arrival.

25 minutes later he finally turned up. By now my porridge was cold, my coffee was cold and my toast was soggy. And so I exploded.

And apparently it was all my fault for not being up earlier in plenty of time to have my breakfast earlier. And so that was that and the atmosphere became extremely unpleasant.

After he’d cleared off I could finally rescue the ruins of my breakfast. However I was in no mood to read my book. In any case the steam was obscuring my vision and my breath would have melted the computer screen.

Our Welsh Summer School cracked on today and I’m impressed about how much I know or have remembered. I wish that it was like this all the time. We had some interesting chats too which was nice

After the lesson was over I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Unfortunately neither Zero nor Castor nor TOTGA came to visit me, which was a disappointment after the other night. I was back at Shavington, Vine Tree Avenue, and we had a couple of guys, friends of my father’s, around. I’d been asked to try to collect worms for some project or other that was going on so I was collecting what I could find and dropping them down a tube, but I wasn’t doing very well. One of my father’s friends was talking to me about it. In the meantime someone else turned up at the house and asked my father if he had any leaf mould to spare. On the back lawn were several enormous piles of rotting leaves so this guy and I were joking about my father sucking his teeth and saying to this guy that he hadn’t any, and how difficult it was to get hold of. As it happened my father turned him away anyway and went back to weeding his garden but it was a very lethargic, disinterested weeding so we were wondering what was going through his head at the time

And my father weeding? If we had a nice garden (which we didn’t) when we were kids it would have been due to my mother. She was the only one who ever voluntarily did any weeding. We as kids formed a reluctant press-gang but you wouldn’t have found my father anywhere at all near a herbaceous border. But after Zero the other night, it’s my family again and isn’t that awful?

A little later I’d gone to a football ground. There, I’d been involved in helping tidy up and was collecting things for the shower room. I thought that I’d collected quite a few but people kept on pointing out things that I’d missed that I’d have to pick up and keep until I could get into the showers. They were discussing the games taking place this weekend, thinking that maybe Celtic would win because all the players will want to go out there and impress their new manager. Someone came round with a plate of sandwiches. One or two of the players helped themselves. I thought that that was really not a good idea because they’d be starting a game in a few minutes and the last thing that they’ll want to do is to have to run around with a full stomach like that. They’ll end up with stitch or cramp or something

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that back a long time ago I used to travel with and occasionally run (or walk, in my case) the line for Pionsat’s 3rd XI and despite (or maybe because of) my coaching they were always near the bottom of the lowest division in Puy-de-Dome football. One day they arrived at the wrong time at an away ground and had a two-hour wait so they all went out for kebabs. And knowing all about running around on a full stomach and what it can produce, I feared the worst. And so they went out and won decisively 5-2 and I shut up after that.

While we’re talking about football, we had football later. TNS playing Aberystwyth in one of the catch-up games after several of their matches have been postponed due to TNS’ European involvement.

TNS fielded a weakened team that included Doris the tea lady, Stan the car-park attendant and Tiddles the stadium cat so Aberystwyth packed their defence and refused to advance over the half-way line. If they were ever going to do any good against TNS today would be the day.

It was ugly to watch but it was effective up to a point. It took TNS a good while to break them down and the score of 2-0 to TNS can be seen as a triumph for Aberystwyth.

That’s because it’s going to be packed down at the bottom as Llansawel, Y Fflint and Aberystwyth are miles off the pace. LLansawel are down already after only 5 matches but the other two will slug it out and take the odd point here and there when they can. Goal difference might be crucial so a goal difference of minus 2 for Aberystwyth is as good as 3 points when compared with Y Fflint’s goal difference against TNS of -3 (a 4-1 defeat the other week).

Tea was a delicious leftover curry with naan, and so right now I’m off to bed ready to fight the good fight with the nurse tomorrow as I don’t think that we’ve heard the last of this.

Can you not just picture the scene? You can imagine him roaring "we itinerant nurses are the cream of the crop"
"Yes" I’ll reply. "And it looks as if I have the clot"

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Wednesday 28th August 2024 – MY GINGER CAKE …

… is really delicious. Not quite fiery enough, I reckon, but that kind of thing comes with practice. The consistency was exactly what it should have been, except that it was cooked more at the top than underneath.

Usually that would mean lowering it in the oven, but that won’t work as it’s already on the lowest possible shelf, so it’s going to be to turn down the oven and prolong the cooking time.

But that won’t work if I’m baking bread at the same time, so it will have to do.

Consequently, given the shortcomings of my table-top oven, it was a resounding success. Just wait until I have a real oven, whenever that might be.

At least the sponge rose up as it was supposed to do.

While we’re on the subject of rising up as it is supposed to do … "well, one of us is" – ed … I rose up as I was supposed to do this morning when the alarm went off at 07:00

That was helped by the fact that for once I was actually in bed before my ideal curfew time of 23:00. Not by very much, I have to say, but even one minute is some kind of progress.

After I’d finished my notes last night I did everything that I had to do and then headed for the hills.

Once in bed I remember very little. I started my little bedtime mantra but didn’t get very far before I fell asleep. And apart from a couple of awakenings at various times, there I stayed quite comfortably until the alarm went off.

In the bathroom I had a really good wash and clean-up, followed by a shave and some clean clothes. I must look my best for my trip out today. Who knows? I might even meet Emilie the Cute Consultant.

While I was at it, I washed my trousers and undies in the sink ready for next time. I try to keep ahead as much as I possibly can.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Nerina and I were going through one of our phases and were walking down Hospital Street in Nantwich or driving down there, but we stopped at a pedestrian crossing to let a pedestrian pass. I recognised him as he walked past. He was a musician and after listening to his album thanks to a recommendation by a friend I’d actually gone out and bought a copy. I just happened to mention that I’d bought a copy of his album and we ended up having a very lengthy discussion about the music business before he left. He noticed a cut on the side of my face so told him that it was nothing to worry about and began to sing a parody of the Dire Straits song I’D PUT A BIT OF PLASTER ON MY FINGER, PUT A BIT OF PLASTER ON YOUR THUMB. He came running back wondering where he’d cut himself. I had to explain to him that that’s the lyrics of a song. Once he’d worked it out he went on his way quite happily.

But I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that if I can write parodies of modern (well, for me anyway) songs while I’m asleep I’m doing really well here. And walking through Nantwich and encountering rock musicians would have been quite a usual occurrence in the mid-70s with a host of garage bands in the area and recording artists like Strife. They were some really good times with the pubs in Nantwich like The Wickstead, The Rifleman and The Bowling Green. There was a time when my friends and I were thrown out of most of the pubs in the town at one time or another.

There was a boxing match out in Aston, a girl from our class, whatever her name might have been. We set out in the car to go to see it. It was taking place outside the church. We knew that we had to rush. Nevertheless we arrived late and the fight was under way. It looked as if she had been hurt because she wasn’t her usual lively self for boxing. Her opponent, an older man, was there and they were standing toe to toe trading blows. She was fending off more of his but then she caught him with a beautiful overarm right just as he was trying an overarm right. It was a very painful, tired overarm right as well as if it was her very last effort that she put into it but it made a perfect connection on the point of his jaw and that was him out for the count. She won the competition again but this time it was much closer than it had been in previous attempts so we were going to have to work on why this was the case and do something about it for the next time

What beats me about this is that I actually mentioned the girl’s name. She would have been one of the most unlikely candidates for a competitor in a boxing match (having said that, had any of the girls in my year or thereabouts come up against a male boxer, my sympathy and commiserations would have been entirely with the boxer) but not only that, I don’t think that I’ve ever spent even a minute thinking about this particular girl since I left school. So what’s brought her suddenly to the forefront of my mind?

Later on we’d been sorting out some music concerts. There had been a complaint from one of the washrooms that all of the towels had been used by a certain group wiping the lipstick off their faces after being kissed by thousands of girls so there were no clean towels in the washrooms. A certain guitarist was also there on tour. He was a nightmare to handle as everything had to be absolute perfection but perfection according to his standards. He had no spatial awareness and no awareness of anyone else around him and their feelings and so on. Everything was all about him. It was a very complicated issue to deal with him. He was sacking everyone after the first show, replacing his staff and then firing them again after the second and we just couldn’t keep up with all of the changes. Neither could he. It was beginning to deflect from his show but he wouldn’t have it at all and wouldn’t listen to explanations from anyone that maybe he ought to moderate his unnecessarily high standards in order for a compromise to be made that would mean that everything would go ahead. The more people he upset and the more people he fired, the fewer people he would find who would be willing to work with him

Anyone in the music business would be able to name this guitarist – I did in my dream but I edited it out – whose constant search for perfection has had exactly the opposite effect to that intended. Anyone of any great competence will look at the speed at which our guitarist has been hiring and firing and decide that he’s better off where he is. It’s not at all like Neil Young who has often been criticised because of what is perceived to be the lack of ability of his backing group, Crazy Horse. But as he has said on many occasions, he’s here to have fun and a good time with his mates and make everyone happy, not to launch himself into an eternal quest for the unattainable goal of perfection.

The taxi was late coming for me but it was a lovely drive down to Avranches even if the driver kept the windows closed.

The letter that I had notifying me of my appointment showed a different time from the time that they had noted so I’ve no idea what was happening there.

Anyway, I was eventually seen and the first thing that the doctor did was to rip off the plaster and give me a lecture about having it covered. I felt like a small child up before the headmaster (although where I would find a small child up before the headmaster in that hospital I really don’t know).

So I have to keep it uncovered and let the air get to it, and like it. So far, I’ve managed to avoid not seeing it. How long I can keep that up I really don’t know.

The doctor ran her echograph machine all over my arm right up as far as my armpit, and passed it fit for service. So on the 4th September I’ll know when dialysis will begin.

While I was waiting for my taxi back I bumped into Emilie the Cute Consultant’s sidekick and we exchanged a few words. And then the taxi came for me

All the way back (with the windows closed again) and the taxi driver had to help me up the stairs – something that she found extremely difficult and so did I. Seriously, if my cleaner’s not available to help me it’s going to be a real struggle

First thing that I did back here was to have a very late breakfast. I’d had nothing to eat or drink all day as yet so I was ready for some food.

It was interrupted by the arrival of the nurse. "I was here at 08:20 but must have just missed you"

"Yes" I thought. "And the taxi was late so it was well after 08:30 when we left" but I didn’t say anything.

After breakfast I had a lengthy chat with a friend in the UK. We have a project on the go and that involved some lengthy discussion.

It should also have involved a transfer of money but the battery has gone flat in my card reader so I had to order another and the money will have to wait.

There’s some bad news about this project, but it’s not unexpected so it’s no skin off my nose really. But with having a professional on the job, there are already some considerable savings that have been made so it’s “swings and roundabouts” really.

Liz was on line too so we had a lengthy chat. She was keen to see how today went and what the plans are for the immediate future so I filled her in.

The cleaner was here too and she whizzed through the apartment.

Once everyone had gone and things had calmed down I went for a very late hot chocolate and a slice of ginger cake. And it really was delicious as I said.

But now I know that I can substitute things in my basic recipe, how about a coffee cake? What about strawberry cordial instead of water to make a strawberry cake, with real strawberries in there somewhere?

But this is how most recipes work – trial and error. Sometimes some of these experiments work in spades and other times they are absolute disasters.

After that I made some naan dough and put most of it to freeze but kept one ball for tonight’s leftover curry, which was delicious as usual and the naan was perfection.

But now I’m off to bed. I have no plans for the next two days so I might even do some work. But right now I’m listening to a live concert by a Canadian group called “Black Mountain” so I’ll be going nowhere for a while

But on the subject of Liz and “filling in” I’m reminded of the guy who went for an interview for a job at the Ritz Hotel in London
"You should fill in our questionnaire" said the receptionist
"Very good" he replied, and went outside and beat up the doorman.

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