Tag Archives: crash out

Thursday 12th June 2025 – I AM NOT …

… alone.

And not only that, I have done something that I haven’t done for quite a while, and that is, to go to a restaurant for a meal.

Currently lying asleep on the sofa in the living room is my friend from Munich, and at his feet is lying the Hound of the Baskervilles. So we have something of a full house tonight.

Last night though, there was only me in the apartment, writing up my notes, wasting time, and generally having something of a late night yet again as I failed miserably to motivate myself once more.

Once in bed though, at whatever late hour it was, there I lay, fast asleep, until all of … errr … 04:40 when I had another dramatic awakening.

Being unable to go back to sleep, I was lying there vegetating when it occurred to me round about 05:20 that here is the moment for which I have been waiting. I arose from the Dead and dictated the radio notes that I’d written the previous day.

Next port of call was the bathroom, and then the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here, there were now two lots of radio notes on hand so seeing that once more there was nothing on the dictaphone, I sat down and began work.

By the time that the nurse arrived, I’d finished editing one of them – the notes for the extra track to join the two halves of one of the programmes I’d prepared a week or so ago. I had to break off at that point to sort him out.

He had the usual banal comments and questions, but didn’t hang around long. I could then crack on, make breakfast and read MY NEW BOOK.

We’re discussing the wharves on the River Thames and its tributaries today. One thing that I hadn’t realised was that most of the wharves and landing stages were private and a toll was charged to anyone who used them. Quite a few had been authorised by the City but quite a few more were unauthorised.

There were however a few free wharves where one could come ashore without payment, and I imagine that they were quite popular.

Breakfast was however interrupted. The electrician came, so I had to take him downstairs and show him what needed doing. Once he was settled in, I left him to it. So work has started downstairs at last.

Back in my little room, I finished off assembling the programme that I’d started earlier, and then attacked the one for which I’d dictated the notes this morning.

There was the usual interruption from my cleaner who came by to fit my anaesthetic patches, and with the taxi not now coming until 13:00 I came back in here to carry on working.

By the time that it arrived, I’d just about finished it, which is another good day’s work done already.

We had a pleasant drive down to Avranches, the driver, another passenger and me. And when we arrived there, most of the people had been already plugged up so in theory there wasn’t a very long wait.

However, our plans came to nought as one of the elderly patients, an old man with dementia who was there for the first time, was proving to be difficult and all the nurses were crowded around him.

Once I was connected though, I could review my shopping list for LeClerc, revise my Welsh and … errr … have a little relax.

Once more, at unplugging time; the elderly patient was having another crisis and so it was quite late when I was unplugged and compressed.

However the principle of these 13:00 taxis and 14:00 starts is something of a benefit, if it all works out as it’s supposed to.

There were two other passengers in the car with me on the way home so we went around the houses, but waiting for me at the apartment was not only my faithful cleaner, but the Hound of the Baskervilles and his owner.

We stuck our heads into the apartment while we were passing and noticed that the electrician seems to have done a good job. He’ll finish off when the kitchen fitter is there.

Later on, we went out for a meal at this new Italian restaurant where I had an excellent penne arrabbiata – the first time for a positive age and I enjoyed every mouthful of it.

Back here, we had a good chin-wag until tiredness overwhelmed us and it was time for bed.

But what a nice pleasant day it has been today, and for many reasons too. It’s been quite exciting.

It’s always very nice to meet old friends, and “old” is the word, for we have been friends for 60 years this coming September when we sat next to each other on our first day at Grammar School.
He was always a very devoted and loyal friend. One day he came up to me in school and said "the other boys in the class are saying that you aren’t fit to live with pigs"
"And what did you say?" I asked.
"Ohh, I stood up for you" he said. "I said that you are!"

Saturday 7th June 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone again last night. That is, of course, extremely depressing from my point of view, but ss I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … if you don’t go to bed until 01:00 and you’re wide-awake again at 04:40, you haven’t really had all that much time to go anywhere.

It’s still quite disappointing though, because I enjoyed my nocturnal rambles, even if I did keep on falling over members of my family, and I wish that they would start up (the dreams, not the family) soon.

Last night I dillied and dallied through my notes and a few other things and, as I wasn’t feeling in the least bit tired, I found a few other things to do to waste some time. In the end, though, I called it a night – or a morning – and staggered off to bed.

As usual, I fell asleep quite quickly but as I said just now, it wasn’t for long. I checked the ‘phone when I awoke and it was 04:40 – far too early to raise myself from the Dead so I loitered around, trying to go back to sleep but in the end, gave it up as a bad job

The first thing that I did was, as I promised, to take advantage of the peace and quiet of the early morning and dictate the radio notes that I’d written the other day. That will save me some time on Saturday night

The bathroom was next. I had a good wash and scrub up, and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and then went into the kitchen to sort out the medication.

Back here, I sat down and in a mad fit of enthusiasm (and God alone knows where that came from) I began to edit the radio notes that I’d dictated earlier.

The sound on my recorder is back to being all over the place and it took an age to adjust the controls so that I had something passable without sounding as if I had been dictating with my head stuck inside a bucket.

Isabelle the Nurse came along as usual, and she noticed that I had another weeping oedema, and how I am fed up with all of this too. I really did think that I’d seen the back of all of these problems, but apparently not.

After she left, I made some breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. Today, we’ve arrived at York where our author has spent several pages extolling poetically the virtues of the city and the area without mentioning once anything to do with medieval Military Architecture.

But that’s the story of this book, really. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it seems to be a guide book for the benefit of the more-informed tourist rather than, as I was hoping, a serious treatise and discussion on the important aspects of Medieval Military Architecture

Back in here, I carried on with the editing of the radio notes and by the time that my cleaner put her sooty foot in the door to sort out my anaesthetic patches, I’d just about finished them. Tomorrow, I’ll assemble the programme.

After my cleaner left, I didn’t have long to wait for the taxi, and even though we had another passenger to pick up, we arrived at the dialysis centre early.

The problem was though that so did everyone else, and they weren’t ready for us. And when they let us in I found that I’d been moved to the bed the farthest away from the entrance. As I’m slow when it comes to moving about, I was the last in bed and so the last to be coupled up.

When they came to deal with me, I told them about the oedemas and although the doctor didn’t come to see me, he recommended that they reduce my dry weight and increase the fluid extraction. I’ll go along with that until they start talking about this “four hours” and “four sessions” again. I’ve had quite enough of that kind of talk.

Today I was in a little room all on my own and no-one came to bother me. I should have been revising my Welsh but instead I drifted in and out of sleep for most of the afternoon. I really was feeling quite exhausted after my very short night’s sleep.

At the end of the session I had to wait for a while for the taxi to show up so we were just as late arriving back home as we would have been had we set out late for the outward trip.

At the building I went into the new apartment to do some more measuring of distances that I needed. One thing that I really did notice was how much easier it is to go into there rather than to struggle up all of these stairs. That’s one thing to which I shall really be looking forward when I finally do make it downstairs permanently – none of these 39 Steps or whatever they are to struggle up here.

However, that’s not for right now. I still had to struggle back up here and sort myself out.

Tea tonight was a vegan salad with baked potato and falafel, followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. The vegan salad was laced with some home-made vegan garlic mayonnaise that I made yesterday but forgot to mention. And it really is excellent.

So right now, I’m off to bed. I was planning on finishing off the radio programme but I’m still quite tired so a good night’s sleep will do me good. But if I can’t sleep or if I awaken early, I can always deal with the radio programme too.

Something else that I have to do tomorrow is to sort out my apartment – plan what I need and talk to the people who are involved in all of this. I need to push on rapidly.

But seeing as we have been talking about home-made mayonnaise… "well, one of us has" – ed … I was talking to someone about making my own mayonnaise.
"That’s supposed to be a rather religious experience isn’t it?" she asked
"Not that I know about it" I replied
"Someone wrote a hymn about it though, didn’t they?"
"I’m sure that they didn’t" I answered
"Yes they did" she insisted. "It goes something like ♬ ‘mayonnaise have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord’ ♬ "

Thursday 5th June 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone yet again this morning.

But there again, what do you expect? When you don’t go to bed until midnight and you’re up and about again at … gulp 03:15, you don’t really have all that much time to go very far.

The irony of this is that had I made a special effort, I could have been in bed a lot earlier than that but, as usual, I prevaricated. I wasn’t really in the mood for going to bed, despite the fact that it had been a ridiculously early start that morning. Where is this 03:15 awakening coming from?

Once I made it into bed, I didn’t go to sleep straight away either. I had all kinds of things churning over inside my head and it was quite crowded in there. Eventually, I could settle down and go to sleep.

At about 03:15 I awoke with another mysterious pain – in the left shin and calf this time. I felt a desperate urge to scratch it but I’m trying to stop doing that. But whatever it was, I couldn’t go back to sleep and eventually I raised myself from the Dead. No point in lazing around when there are things to do.

Despite being exhausted, I attacked the radio programme that I’d begun to prepare the other day and I pushed on quite rapidly. I may as well make the most of it.

In the bathroom I had a wash and a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and washed my undies in the sink ready for the next occasion.

After I’d had my medication I came back in here to carry on until Isabelle the Nurse arrived. She couldn’t hang around today as she had plenty to do. Still, we had a nice little chat while she sorted me out. And it seems that where my shin is hurting, I have a leaking oedema. So here we go again, back to where we were twelve months ago.

After she left I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. We’re still at Wareham Castle, but that’s because I was side-tracked on several occasions.

Back in here, I carried on with the radio programme until my faithful cleaner interrupted me to fit my patches.

The taxi was early today, which was nice, and even though there were two other people to pick up en route we arrived at Avranches quite early.

The only trouble was that so did everyone else, and the nursing staff hadn’t completed the cleaning of the machines so we had to wait. And being amongst the slowest people there, I was seen to last of all. Just my luck.

Emilie the Cute Consultant was there but she kept her distance.So did everyone else and it was the little student who drew the short straw. The coupling-up was comparatively painless, which makes a change from how it’s been just recently.

To amuse myself, I revised my Welsh and also had a little crash-out.

My favourite taxi driver brought me home which was nice. And my cleaner was waiting, with the spare keys for the new apartment.

Tea was a vegan burger and pasta, and right now I’m off to bed, totally wasted after two days of no sleep. I shall probably sleep for a week now, if I’m lucky. I’ve not written much today, but I’m in a rush to have this day over and done. I’ve already fallen asleep twice.

But while we’re on the subject of leaving the bed early, one of Nerina’s friends once asked me "when you have these sleeping issues like this, do you always wake up grumpy?"
"Ohh no" I replied. "I usually let her sleep on".

Tuesday 3rd June 2025 – WHAT A DAY …

… this has been. I certainly seem to have packed a lot into it. And there will be more to come in due course – much more.

And considering how little sleep I had last night, I reckon that I did quite well too, even if I did have a little doze off once or twice in the taxi coming back from Paris. Yes – I’ve been to Paris and back today in a taxi.

But not for much longer, so they seem to think.

Last night, any dream that I might have had about going to bed early was shattered by yet more prevarication and aimless wandering around in cyberspace before I could summon up the energy. And with the alarm set for 06:30, I knew that it was going to be a short night.

But never mind the alarm. I needn’t have bothered because I was wide awake yet again at 05:50 and up and about, having a really good scrub, by 06:00.

No medication this morning, and no breakfast either. I’m working on the principle that “what doesn’t go in won’t want to come out at some inconvenient moment in the middle of a four-hour journey”.

Instead, I came in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was with Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson last night. We were on the trail of some kind of primitive life-form like a large snake or slug that was slithering around London bringing terror with it. We – or someone – had come across it and there had been some kind of conflict, and the creature had escaped so Sherlock Holmes was reviewing the confrontation. He decided that it was light that frightened it more than anything else so later on Sunday night we arranged for all of the lights in a certain area of the city to be turned off and we set out to hunt it. Watson made the point that surely this is dangerous with all of the people wandering around the streets. Holmes said that there’s not one member of the serving class of London who would be out on the streets at this time of night. We heard a noise and saw a movement so we constructed our ambush, which was basically to be in the dark and have a light burning underneath a dark lantern so if the creature were to come to us as we were the only people on the street we could illuminate it with this dark lantern and be able somehow to overpower it and deal with it accordingly.

A dark lantern is just like an ordinary lantern, except that it has a thick black cover over the lens. You light the lantern, close the cover, and there is no light emitted. When you want there to be light, you simply lift up the cover. It’s the Victorian equivalent of an on-off switch.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall however that in the past we have been on several nocturnal rambles with Holmes and Watson, although I don’t recall that we had too much success at whatever it was that we were doing.

Later on, I dreamed that I was in hospital and it was dialysis time. I had to make myself ready for dialysis and was not looking very forward to it so I was sitting there in my bed and then drifted off to sleep. I awoke again with someone shaking me awake, like at the hospital yesterday when it was a nurse but today it was no-one – I just awoke and slipped off to sleep in the middle of that dream again

It sounds just like the little student nurse who awoke me yesterday, with a little shake. But it’s really sad that I’m dreaming these days about dialysis. As if I don’t have enough problems about it during my waking hours, never mind spoiling what are supposed to be enjoyable, relaxing rambles.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up nice and early to sort out my legs, and she brought with her the first of today’s news. There is apparently a large van outside the building and my tenant and her friends are busily loading it up. So it looks as if this move might actually be on.

It’s a good job that Isabelle came early because no sooner had she left than the taxi turned up – a good half-hour earlier than I was expecting and I was nowhere near ready.

Nevertheless, in the glorious sunshine I staggered down the stairs and across into the waiting vehicle, seeing for myself that this move really is happening. However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I have no sympathy with her, and even less now, having seen her walking across the yard carrying boxes of things when I can’t even carry a saucepan out of the bathroom.

The drive to Paris was exciting – road accident after road accident, bus on fire, car overturned on its side, half a dozen collisions. And the queues around Paris meaning that despite setting out half an hour earlier, we were half an hour late arriving.

The news about the biopsy the other week is that they have actually found something. It seems that I might be suffering from something called AMYLIODOSIS. Traces of amyloids have been found in the nervous system in my legs.

This is apparently what they were suspecting ever since the beginning and why I have had so many tests. However, until just now, the amyloids have been remarkably good at hiding.

It seems that the thinking in the past was that my recurring illness was something that was causing my neurological issues, but now they are slowly coming round to wonder if it’s not the reverse and that it’s the neurological issues that are causing the other problems.

The first positive result is that the anti-cancer treatment, that costs €4950, can be stopped as of right now. This begs the question “what do I do with the full, unopened bottle sitting on my shelves?”.

The second positive result is that the doctor tells me that the treatment they are going to try is one that involves a stay in hospital for a couple of nights every month or so …. and when he said that, a few bells began to ring in my head.

… and they will throughout that time be giving me an intravenous drip … which rang yet a few more … called Rituximab. And that was when the siren inside my head went off

"Haven’t I done this before?" I asked.

"As a matter of fact, you have" he said. "Back in 2016"

So in nine years and many, many miles, we have gone round in one big circle. If we aren’t careful, we’ll end up like the Oozelum Bird.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I was so ill back in 2015 and 2016 that I couldn’t fend for myself and luckily, Liz and Terry took me in for four months and nursed me, something for which I shall always be grateful.

One of the problems there was that I was having enormous difficulty walking and had to learn from the very beginning again. However, after six months of treatment with Rituximab (actually, its generic equivalent, Mapthera), I was IN CANADA.

Of course, I’m not pretending that I can do the same thing again, but being able to walk would be something. However, I mustn’t build up any wave of optimism. I’ve been told quite clearly that this isn’t going to be a cure – just a relaxation of the symptoms at best.

They have told me that the first two sessions will be done here in Paris, and if it all goes well, they’ll find a more local hospital, that might be either Caen or Rennes. So it’s just possible that if it works, I might not be going back to Paris.

The drive home was completely uneventful – there wasn’t even the slightest sign of a traffic queue until the autoroute junction at Caen. And we were home by 17:30, when I found that my apartment downstairs was indeed empty and shuttered up. No keys in my letter box though. I shall have to see the letting agent about those.

Back in here, I had a disgusting drink break and then relaxed in the chair until tea time – a taco roll with rice and veg followed by ginger cake and soya dessert.

So early as it might be, I’m tired and so I’m going to bed in a few minutes to see if I can have a good sleep after my exertions.

But seeing as we have been talking about Holmes and Watson … "well, one of us has" – ed … on one of our previous rambles I spoke to Holmes.
"You don’t seem to be as popular these days as you used to be" I said
"It’s true" he said. "The young people don’t seem to care for me these days. I relate mostly to the previous generations"
"I see" I replied. "You’re more like an Old People’s Holmes then"

Sunday 25th May 2025 – I HAVE DONE …

… something this afternoon that I haven’t done for quite some time.

But that’s enough about Percy Penguin for now – what else I did this afternoon that I haven’t done for quite some time is to crash out on my chair.

Back in the old days, I remember the times that I’ve fought against going to sleep, but I’ve never been able to do anything, being so tired. So letting myself go at those times, I’ve awoken feeling much more energetic and lively.

And that’s exactly how it was today. I’ve had a dreadful, painful morning (and afternoon, and evening) and round about 15:00 I reached a point where I was no longer able to function. At 15:36 when I awoke, I was certainly feeling much better and could crack on

All of this started yesterday. I wasn’t feeling myself all day (which is just as well, as it’s a disgusting habit) and it gradually drifted deeper and deeper into the abyss. I finished my notes and everything else at about 22:55 and having then dictated the radio notes, I was in bed at 23:15 ready for a long night until 08:00 and my Sunday lie-in.

However, regular readers of this rubbish will recall what usually happens on a Sunday following a Saturday dialysis session. And this morning was no exception either.

It was still pitch-dark outside when I awoke. I’ve no idea what time it was but I certainly didn’t look. I buried myself back under the bedclothes and there I stayed.

At some point I must have gone off to sleep again because I awoke just as it was becoming light. A glance at the clock showed that it was about 06:05. This time I didn’t go back to sleep and when I heard the electric water heater switch off at 06:20 I crawled out of my bed.

If ever there was a morning that I didn’t feel like it, then it was today. The stabbing pain was still going in my foot and is still going now which, after thirty hours, is something of a record. I felt washed out and exhausted, "like butter scraped over too much bread" as Bilbo Baggins once famously said.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and then went for my medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. My cleaner came by while I was in hospital and had a quick look at me, then proceeded to wipe her hands clean on the bed clothing. I was so annoyed. I thought that it was a horrible thing to do

Not that she would ever do such a thing. After all, she’s nowhere near as uncouth as I might be.

And then I was working on the accompaniment for a TV show with a group. They were performing some music there. One of the songs was an extremely complicated song, although it wasn’t complicated – it was complicated to make it right. It was just not seeming to fit at all no matter how we edited it. Listening to it became rather painful after a while. That was when I began to have the pain in my heel again and that awoke me

Yes, that’s rather psychosomatic, isn’t it? Building up to an attack of pain in my foot like that.

There was also something else about being out for a drive around Northern France somewhere, coming across a repair garage, an old place with a couple of old cars outside. It was a total mess of untidiness inside there. I stopped and had a brief “hello” with them and carried on driving. I went past there a couple of times. On one occasion, there was a Traction Avant and a microcar stuck outside. That suddenly rang a bell with me. I stopped and went in and they all greeted me, even in the mess that they were in. I asked “you didn’t by any chance used to live in the Auvergne, did you?”. One of these two guys said “well, we did have some connection with somewhere”. I asked “it wasn’t Montlucon in the Allier, was it?”. He replied “as a matter of fact it was”. I replied “then you’ll remember me from 25 years ago. I came with a friend and we took away some microcars from you”. He could remember, and remember more about it than I did, and we had quite a chat. They were preparing to go somewhere while I was hanging around there. We went out of the rear of the garage to look at the other cars that he had, but there was nothing particularly interesting there. His wife was there, busily trying to cut off a tree, a tree that had been pollarded in the past so it had shot out from about nine feet upwards. She was there trying to cut off one of these outstretched branches to use on the fire before they went. I thought that that was really strange. Then they were preparing to go. They had a tractor just like mine. We were talking about fitting a tow-bar on it and towing trailers etc. They also had someone there who was really not all that intelligent, rather slow, so they suggested that he went to talk to the others who were busy trying to sing this song while we finished off preparing everything and then we could all go.

This rings loads of bells with me. Nerina and I did once meet a guy who had a Traction Avant for sale, a garagiste in Cergy-Pontoise in the suburbs of Paris. His place was like this one in the dream. And there was a garagiste in Montlucon in the Allier who had a pile of scrap Microcars and two of those ended up in the UK at the house of someone whom I knew at the time. I also did once have a little tractor with a tow-bar, and I rigged it up with a generator and inverter so that I could run my cement mixer down the fields. There are loads of miles in this dream.

Having done that, I carried on with the printer and now the offending file has been identified and eliminated. I could proceed with the uninstallation of the remaining bits of the program and then perform a full install ready to start again

Isabelle the Nurse didn’t stop for long and I didn’t manage to see her photos of Copenhagen. Not to worry though. It’s not as if I don’t know where Copenhagen is.

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

We’ve now left Portchester and have arrived at Richard’s Castle in Herefordshire. But before leaving Portchester, I must admit that I did have quite a laugh, even though I know that I shouldn’t.

He tells us that "Henry I., probably before 1133, seems to have built the keep, and enclosed the inner ward, repaired the Roman curtain, rebuilt or restored the gatehouse, and placed a hall and other domestic buildings along the south side of the inner ward. It may be that Henry himself raised the keep before the works were completed, ".

There I was, picturing the scene of King Henry in his ermine robes and crown, wielding a trowel and a bucket of cement, stacking blocks of ashlar one on top of another while his courtiers all stood around admiring the handiwork.

Back in here I had quite a slow start but I managed to edit the notes for the eleventh track of programme 260403 and now that programme is all ready to go at the appropriate moment.

Next task was to print out the invoice for the electrician and prepare it for sending off, and then order the taxi for 3rd of June to take me to Paris, sending off all of the paperwork.

There were some radio notes from a couple of weeks ago that I’d begun to edit but didn’t go very far. I finished those off this morning too and assembled the two halves of the radio programme. I chose the eleventh track and wrote out the notes ready for dictation on Saturday night next.

Rosemary rang me at about midday and we had a short chat today – just about one hour and four minutes. We’re obviously losing our touch.

That took me up to lunchtime, and then after my cheese on toast I came back in here.

All through the day I’d been feeling dreadful and feeling worse and worse as the day wore on. Round about 15:00 I abandoned the fight and let myself slide into oblivion. Very disappointing, I have to admit, but necessary

When I awoke I was feeling better, and I cracked on and dealt with the notes for the following radio programme. The eleventh track has been chosen and the notes prepared ready for dictating for that too.

In between, I made a spicy ginger cake and it looks really good. I can’t wait to taste it.

Tonight’s pizza was excellent too, another one of the best that I have made. And now I’m going to bed while I still can. If I can sleep is another matter completely, what with all of this pain in my foot that’s still going on.

But seeing as we have been talking about the King and his labours … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me about Charles and Andrew discussing the art of making love. They couldn’t agree whether it was work, or pleasure, or a combination of both.
In the end they decide to ask one of their humble serfs on one of the Royal farms.
They put the question to the first one that they met and after a moment’s thought he replied "I reckon that it must be one hundred percent pleasure"
"Why is that?" The Royals asked.
"Well, " said the humble serf "I reckon that if there was any slight amount of work at all involved in it, you badgers would have us poor sods do it for you."

Tuesday 13th May 2025 – I HAVE DONE …

… something this afternoon that I vowed never to do unless there was a dire necessity to so do, and that was to go back to bed for a while.

Mind you, there actually was a dire necessity this afternoon. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s absolutely pointless trying to go to bed early. All it means is that I wake up correspondingly early the following morning.

Not that last night was all that early either. It was quite a struggle for some reason to keep my concentration going and I kept on drifting off down little side alleys when I should have been working and finishing everything off.

Once I’d finished doing what needed to be done, it was quite another matter to find the energy to haul myself out of my seat and head off into the bathroom to prepare for the night. However, once I finally made it into bed, I remember nothing. I must have been out in an instant.

And as I implied just now, we had another early start. We’ve had some early starts in the past, that’s for sure, but awakening at 03:05 is something like extremism. It’s not as if I went back to sleep either, but I was tossing and turning for quite a while to no good purpose.

Eventually, round about 05:00, I gave up the struggle and raised myself from the Undead. In the bathroom, I sorted myself out and then went into the kitchen for the medication.

It was about 05:45 when I finally came back in here. It was deadly quiet outside – not even the goélands were cackling – so I made the most of my early start by dictating the radio notes that I had written on Sunday for the eleventh track of programme 260313.

Pressing on, I remixed and edited them and then combined them with the two halves of the programme that I had already assembled. I ended up being, would you believe, as much as twenty-eight seconds over. But as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … there’s enough superfluous stuff in what I dictate that can be edited out without changing the sense, the meaning or the rhythm, that it was no real problem to cut the programme down to exactly one hour.

So that was a job well done, making the most of the unexpected hour or two.

There was time to transcribe the dictaphone notes, and I’m still scratching my head about these. Firstly, over the fact that there were some. Less than four hours’ sleep doesn’t give you very much time to wander off, but somehow I managed it. The second surprising thing is the actual contents of the notes themselves. What on earth must I have been doing?

Starting off, I dreamed that I was in hospital, having to be compressed at the end of a session of dialysis but there was much more to it than that because I had to have some kind of other treatment too. This meant that I couldn’t really leave the bed so they had to take me home on a stretcher. From where I was in the hospital, all the windows looked out into the mountains. You could see cars in the distance simply by the reflection of the sun in their windscreens. This went on for miles. We were there, trying to guess which one was our vehicle that would be picking us up. I ended up trying to sit up, which I managed, and they gave me some kind of programme towards when I should be able to walk and when I should be able to leave the bed etc but I was convinced that I was going to complete this programme much sooner than they wanted me to and I was already making plans to rise up and leave the bed even though I shouldn’t be able to do that, I wasn’t going to let this illness get in my way of getting up.

This reminds me of when I was in North-Eastern USA in 2019. I’d been reading John Bourke’s book ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK about his spell serving with General Crook on their mission to pacify … "you mean ‘exterminate’" – ed … the Native Americans. Bourke tells of the success that they had in tracking raiding parties … "you mean ‘groups of people defending their homeland’" – ed … thanks to the use of the heliograph. The air was so clear up there that a heliograph message flashed off a mirror could be seen fifty miles away. When I was up there in Montana looking for the remains of Fort CF Smith, I saw the sunlight reflecting off the roof of a corn silo, all of forty miles away.

As for hauling myself out of bed when I’m not supposed to, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have “previous” in this respect. I’m determined not to let this illness get the better of me and I’ll fight until the end

And then I stepped back into that dream again. After they had given me an injection, they said that I could go home. I had to take my time really slowly to sit up in bed, by which time my neighbour was eating a meal and it must have been really difficult for her to concentrate. She kept on looking round and I could see the shelves and the parcels shelf behind the rear seat. She wondered how I was going to travel six hundred miles on that … fell asleep here … it came to the point that I’d had to walk and was going to do my best to do it properly on my béquille.

Whatever that dream is all about, I don’t have the faintest idea. Although I do have to say that if I’m sharing a room with a charming young woman, I wouldn’t be in any great rush to leave the hospital, that’s for sure.

It was nearly time to leave the hospital. I was dressed and all my things were packed etc. I knew that it wasn’t going to be as simple as it sounded because of the distances that these drivers have to cover every day. They couldn’t be here on demand like you might think that they would so I was prepared for a wait. There were a couple of young nurses assigned to help me climb into the van but I didn’t really encourage them because I knew that it was going to be far simpler the … fell asleep here … I had these nurses assigned to me to help me climb into the car but I didn’t know where or when or whatever that was going to arrive. There’s much more to it than this but I keep falling asleep so I can’t dictate it and I can’t remember most of it anyway but it was about me being prepared to leave the hospital in a taxi.

This is clearly related to the struggle that I had to climb into the minibus yesterday. I wish that they had allowed two nurses to come to help me into the thing. They could have come home with me too and helped me out of the vehicle, up the stairs and into the bed.

Well, there’s no harm in wishing, is there?

It’s the male nurse’s turn to work for this coming week. He duly turned up and tried to begin a discussion about my stay at the hospital. I’m not sure how many times I had to tell him that I didn’t want to discuss it and he was still going on about it when he left.

Once he’d gone I could press on and make breakfast, with my lovely fresh bread from Sunday, and read some more of MY BOOK.

We’ve now left Ludlow Castle after having had a good chat about the history, and having passed by several minor edifices, we’re now at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire where, doubtless, we’ll have another guided tour of whatever is left of the castle without any kind of discussion about the military architecture of the place.

Back in here, I revised for my Welsh class until the lesson began and then, to my surprise considering that I’d been absent for two weeks, I had a rather successful lesson and I was quite pleased with what I had accomplished. So what’s been happening here?

This afternoon, I had a visit from one of these agencies who responded to my advert about my new apartment. After only thirty seconds of discussion, I decided that they were not for me. It became evident only too quickly that it wouldn’t be my project but theirs.

We had fatuous questions like "what about the insulation of the apartment? That will need checking" and "those radiators will have to go" and "it’ll all need a good coat of paint too" etc etc.

The crowning glory was the discussion about the kitchen
"What’s your budget on the kitchen?"
"The apartment is rather a budget apartment, 40m². It’s pointless, if not ridiculous, putting a deluxe kitchen in there. But on the other hand, I don’t want a ‘bargain-basement, economy’ kitchen"
"I see" she replied. "So you’re looking at about €15,000 then. And we can sort out some nice electromenager too."

In other words, they can sling their hook.

This renovation is turning out to be much more complicated than I ever imagined, simply because I can’t persuade tradesmen to turn up. I would give all that I had … "and more besides" – ed … to have a reliable artisan who would be happy to do just what I wanted him to do.

Throughout the afternoon I’d been going colder and colder until I was feeling really uncomfortable. My head was spinning round and I could feel myself sliding into one of these spells that I have where I’m not able to function at all.

That was the cue to set the alarm for ninety minutes hence and climb into bed underneath the bedclothes, fully clothed. I blame it on less than four hours sleep last night, myself.

After I awoke, it was a struggle to leave the bed, but once I was up and about I concentrated on choosing the music for programme 260417. There are quite a few gaps in the series but I’ll start to fill those once I finish my Woodstock weekend, whenever that might be.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg, followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert, delicious as usual. And now I’m off to bed, hoping to have a decent night’s sleep.

But seeing as we have been talking about our Welsh class … "well, one of us has" – ed …one of my classmates had said earlier that she would be late as she had to go for a memory exam at the local hospital.
However, as the lesson began, there she was.
"What happened to the memory exam?" I asked her
"Ohhh damn!" she replied. "I’ve forgotten to go".

Monday 21st April 2025 – YOU ARE PROBABLY …

… that is – the night-owls who only come out after the Hours of Darkness (of which there are more than just a few these days) – wondering what happened to the usual “just before I go to bed ….” update earlier this evening.

The answer to that is that I was probably unconscious again. That’s right – “again”. It wouldn’t be the first time today (or, rather, yesterday).

All in all, it’s been something of a chaotic, catastrophic day, just as I thought that things were getting better. And it started off so well too.

It wasn’t a particularly late night either. By the time that I’d finished everything that I wanted to, sorted myself out and climbed into bed, it was midnight. So I was looking forward to having a good seven hours sleep.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I was already in the bathroom on my way to the kitchen for the medication. I’d been tossing and turning throughout the night trying to make myself comfortable without all that much success and in the end I gave up the struggle when I heard the immersion heater click off at 06:20.

After the medication I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. And to my surprise I had travelled miles. I started off by taking Roxanne around Crewe showing her a few of the places that were in the town. One of the things though was that there was some kind of measurement about the ribs of the town and that the ribs had only two types of measurement. Whatever they were, it was difficult to interpret what it was supposed to represent as far as the town was concerned. Certainly it was something to do with the fact that it was just an ordinary person and not actually a built-up area or anything like that so I’m not sure how Roxanne and I managed to see things all on our way around it, especially when we’d been told to just stay near the chest and not wander very far away.

It must have been an exciting trip, going round trying to show someone the sights of Crewe. And sights there are a-plenty too, but not the kind that would usually attract visitors. You can’t even have the guided tour of the public convenience on Crewe Bus Station (2/6d, or 2/7d if you want to see all of it) because that was flattened a year or so ago. As for the rest of the dream, it simply degenerated into the usual nonsense.

Then we went back into that dream again … "which dream?" – ed … and were building a new prison so all the female warders were interviewing the men about what the men thought about the new arrangements in the prison and whether there should be any improvement. There was an Artificial Intelligence chatbot standing there. He would give his opinion on the comments of the other patients.

It seems that Artificial Intelligence is becoming the theme of the moment. As we have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … AI can’t do anything that a human can’t do. However, it does it much quicker and much more thoroughly than a human. As we have seen though, it’s not infallible. Not by any means.

Later on I’d been driving taxis around Brussels. We’d gone into the office to cash up. It was my first day so I didn’t really know what to expect or how to do it so I was watching everyone else. They had already done all their calculations before they’d gone into the office. I hadn’t even handed my prices in over the radio. I thought that I’m going to have to learn to do this quickly. I was chatting to the other drivers while I was waiting. Then I suddenly realised that I hadn’t brought my clipboard up with me with all my jobs and prices on it so I had to go back downstairs to fetch it. One of the other drivers said “don’t worry. It’ll still be there. They’ll know who it is”. Someone else said “yes but if you leave stiff in a car with some drivers around here you wouldn’t ever see it again”. I’d taken off my shoes and socks . It takes me a while to put them back on again. I thought “should I nip down in my bare feet but the garage is dusty and filthy”. This was where I was back at some indecision again.

So I’m back to driving taxis again. I’ve had a couple of nights off just recently, which is more than I ever had when I really was driving taxis. One of the options after I retired from work in Belgium in 2004 was to go to drive for the limousine hire company. Another one was to go to drive for the local bus service, but I was overtaken by events when I went into the Employment Agency to see if they needed assistants for the 2004 Travel Fair in the Exposition Centre.

Did I dictate the dream where I was invited all of a sudden to play bass in a group that had a booking at my old school? … "no you didn’t" – ed … The person who invited me was Alan Dean. He was a bassist so I wondered what was going on here but I agreed and began to talk about rehearsals. Their response was “it’s all stuff that everyone knows and you should know it”. They didn’t even tell me the set list so I was going to be completely in the dark about this. I tried to find out more information but nothing was ever forthcoming. I turned up at school and everyone was there. Apart from him I didn’t recognise anyone else. We began to wait for the organisers to have the stage ready for us to put out our gear but no-one seemed to be doing very much at all. The school dance was going on and it was becoming late, towards 22:30. I thought “we’ll never go on at this rate”. In the end we all went for a lie down because this was going absolutely nowhere. One by one we awoke. This confusion and this school dance was still going on, people still dancing, the stage still cluttered and no-one had been to see us or to talk to us at all, when we would be expected to go on, what we would be expected to do. I didn’t know the set list even. We were just waiting around and no-one seemed to be doing anything whatever. I thought “this is the weirdest situation in which I have ever been”.

Why Alan Dean should come onto the scene when I haven’t given him a moment’s thought since 1975 I really don’t know at all. But the last two dreams are a repeat of the chaos and confusion that seem to happen quite often during the night. There is definitely an undercurrent of something going on in my subconscious about something and it’s not doing me much good. My survival depends on a stress-free environment because at the speed at which my heart is pumping, it can’t go on forever.

The nurse didn’t have too much to say today. He was in and out in a couple of minutes. It’s his last day today so I imagine that he wants to finish work as quickly as possible.

After he left, I made breakfast – porridge and the last of my delicious hot cross buns toasted and smothered in vegan butter – and settled down to read MY BOOK.

We’ve left Cydweli Castle and are now at Kilpeck in Herefordshire. This is another site that is not well-known and there is not much architecture left to examine. We aren’t going to be here long.

After breakfast I set out to make all these ‘phone calls that I promised but soon came to a shuddering halt. It’s a jour ferié – a Bank Holiday – isn’t it? You won’t find anyone answering their ‘phones today, that’s for sure.

Instead, I had a cunning plan about my radio programmes and began to do some research.

My cleaner turned up on time to fit my patches, and then I waited for the 12:30 taxi. And waited. And waited.

Round about 13:00 I rang them up … "what did you say just now about people answering their ‘phones?" – ed … I asked them if they had forgotten me.
"Oh merde!" came a voice. "I’ll send a car!"
To be on the safe side, I ‘phoned the dialysis centre … "what did you say just now about people answering their ‘phones?" – ed …and warned them that I would be late.

While I was climbing into the car I looked at the time. 13:55. It’s a good job that I had telephoned the centre to say that I would be late.

With all of the holidaymakers in the area the centre was full. They had had to rearrange the wards and the bed that they found for me could not have been farther away from the entrance if they had tried.

It’s a good job that it would only be a three-and-a-half hour session today because it was 15:00 when they’d finished plugging me in. I had had visions of being here all night.

What with one thing and another, I couldn’t concentrate on anything and was drifting in and out of sleep. With about five minutes to go, my head began to spin and I blinked my eyes. When I opened them I was surrounded by all of the medical personnel, the bed was flat rather than upright and my legs were raised.

"Thank God you’re back!" exclaimed one of the nurses. Apparently I’d been unconscious for several minutes. My blood pressure had been hovering around the 87-88 mark instead of the more usual 120-130.

It took quite an age to recover and they had to take me to the taxi in a wheelchair. It was a very quiet, sombre drive home.

The 25 stairs were too much for me tonight. I staggered up to the half-landing and then had to take the lift to the half-landing above and then walk down to my door. Once inside, I sat down and couldn’t move.

After my cleaner left I went straight to bed, fully-clothed, and there I stayed, totally dead to the World, until 00:05. And I didn’t leave the bed then either

Starving and tired, I managed some pasta and tinned mushrooms, and now having written my notes, I’m going back to bed. The nurses though are worried. They have a feeling that one day I’ll have one of these unconscious fits and not wake up.

But seeing as we have been talking about guided trips around Crewe … "well, one of us has" – ed … there was once a tour that took American visitors around some of the selected bungalows in the town.
One of the Americans said "bungalows, bungalows, bungalows! Why can’t we see any houses?"
"We can’t" replied the guide
"Why not?"
"Ahhh – that’s another storey"

Monday 7th April 2025 – WE HAD ANOTHER …

… short session of three and a half hours at the dialysis centre today. Even though I wobbled a couple of times and crashed out for five minutes, I made it to the end

But seeing as we are talking about crashing out … "well, one of us is" – ed … I was in a different bed today where I could see everyone else in the public ward. And without exception, everyone else crashed out shortly after their machines were set under way. That doesn’t make me feel quite so bad now about crashing out.

Something else that we very nearly had this morning was another early start. Despite not going to bed until late, I was awake at about 06:40 and was debating whether to raise myself from the Dead – I’d even put the light on – when BILLY COTTON’S RAUCOUS RATTLE beat me to it

It’s quite surprising that I was awake so early because I didn’t go to bed until after 01:00. I’d finished my notes, the statistics and the backing up well before that but as usual something came along to disrupt me and I can’t remember what it was right now. It was probably a very good concert and I’ll always postpone bedtime if something decent comes round on the playlist. … "Actually, you were designing kitchens" – ed …

But once in bed I fell asleep quite quickly, but only for a short while and then we were back on the turbulent, somewhat mobile nights.

Whatever it was that awoke me at 06:40 left no impression on me whatsoever. It wasn’t the bin lorry, and it wasn’t the hot food delivery to the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs either because they both turned up when I was awake and trying to summon up the courage and the energy to leave the bed.

Billy Cotton made up my mind for me and his rattle certainly is raucous coming from this new ‘phone. No-one will sleep through this, that’s for sure

In the bathroom I had a good wash, scrub up and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant and then went for my medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, and no-one was more surprised than me to see all of the stuff thereupon. When I switched on my computer there was a message “you must go to full-screen view for this” it said, so I pressed on the full screen and there was a humanoid figure, a female one. Apparently I must have been trying to manoeuvre some of the limbs during a 3D exercise or something and somehow I’d become distracted and closed the window before I’d finished what it was that I was going. Now that I was in this full-screen I could read all the notes and see which would be the best way to resolve the issue with which the error message was dealing.

It goes without saying that in the middle of the night I didn’t actually switch on the computer. But manoeuvring … "PERSONoeuvring" – ed … the limbs of 3D characters is something that I did quite often when I was working in 3D down on the farm.

Then there was that I had to put a fascia panel across underneath the fridge and the model initiative size before its transform so that I know where everything should be

This of course makes no sense at all, but then what does? As we have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … There are all kinds of rubbish that comes to the fore during my nocturnal rambles … "and not just then either" – ed … But the fascia panel reminds me of something that I saw when I was looking at kitchens. A plinth of wood to cover the feet of the units, four metres long by about ten centimetres wide, will cost me €39:00

Later on I had another visit during the night. I was actually in hospital. At one stage in my life I’d fathered a child with someone but the relationship didn’t stick and the mother and I went our separate ways. I was in hospital last night and into my room came the sister of this girl and her mother and my little daughter who was about three or four with a couple of other small kids. I chatted to them all because I liked them. My daughter climbed onto my bed, standing there having quite a long chat about her birthday, what she’d had for her birthday, what she was going to do with her birthday money and everything like that. It was a lovely dream.

It’s a question that I’ve often been asked – "do you have any kids?" and my response is always the same – "none that I know of – no-one has come knocking on the door yet". Nerina didn’t want any kids – we’d had a couple of long talks about that – and that suited me at the time. It was only when Laurence, Roxanne and I set up home together in Jette that I realised just how much fun kids could be, especially girls. I came to the conclusion a long time ago that all kids should be girls, they should be born when they are five and at age eleven they should go into hibernation until they reach eighteen.

And then we were on holiday somewhere. We started off by going in a car and it was evening. We were driving towards Chester and came to Bluestones crossroads and turned right up the A51. We were heading towards the reservoir and noticed that the traffic had stopped so we stopped too. I could see the lights in the distance – this was a huge, enormous queue of vehicles that stretched for miles. We began to think about turning round and going back across country via Worleston, that way. Just then, a lorry came down pulling a bus with it and the bus had all been smashed in. There was another breakdown vehicle behind it pulling something else. Then the police came and told everyone to go back. They had us roll backwards down the hill towards Bluestones again so I let off our handbrake to roll back and all of a sudden rolled at an incredible rate of speed almost out of control. I really had to apply the brakes to make it stop but for that little moment it was frightening.

It was frightening too, I can tell you. I can still see it now.

And finally, I stepped back into that dream again. There was a group of us and we were going on holiday again. This time we were back at the hotel where we had started and a bus pulled up, dropped off a load of people and went again. A few minutes later another bus from the same company, one in Calveley, dropped people off as well. We wondered if this was anything to do with the accident and these people were maybe passengers on one of those buses that had been in an accident and the bus had brought me here. This time we left again and boarded a bus, an old double-decker. I was with two other guys so I grabbed a pair of seats with a free one in front but they all wanted to sit at the back. I looked round but there was no place to sit at the back so they couldn’t really do that anyway. Then we set off and were out doing something and all came back. We’d been through a forest and had been told to be careful in the forest. There were these people gathering the old decayed wood and burning it. One of them was pushing some kind of load and came to a T-junction in the forest path but instead of stopping, they just went straight on and straight through the undergrowth opposite the T-junction. We thought to ourselves “that’s not being careful, is it?”. Then we heard some music, trumpets and trombones. We had a look and it was one of these West Indian marching bands in the forest playing their instruments to entertain the workers presumably. We thought “we’d seen these on the road a little earlier. I wonder what they are doing here”. We came back to the bus and we boarded it. I grabbed three seats but the other two guys complained that they wanted to sit at the back but there was only one seat free at the back so again I wasn’t quite sure how they were all going to manage to sit at the back.

Why there should be a West Indian marching band in a forest in the UK is totally beyond my comprehension. As for the bus though, I travelled on loads of Crosville “K-series” buses, the type that they had before the Lodekka with the five-eater bench seats upstairs and the aisle down the offside. Crash boxes and manual steering, they were wicked beasts and once someone worked out the principle of the cranked axles so that they could drop the floors by a foot and the Lodekkas arrived, they soon all disappeared.

The nurse tells me that I need new compression socks – the ones that I have are wearing out rapidly, he seems to think. So as I don’t go near my doctor’s these days, I set him the task of persuading my doctor to write out a prescription.

After he left, I made my breakfast and read some more of MY NEW BOOK. We’ve finished our guided tour of Dursley Castle and have gone north to Durham. At the moment we’re talking about the history of Durham Castle and at least, the history of these places is interesting, but I don’t imagine that it will be too long before we have the guided tour.

Back in here I attacked the Welsh homework and one of the things that I had to do was to write a review of a film that deals with Crime and Punishment so I chose THE ITALIAN JOB, one of my favourite films. There was a second option, which was to write about famous criminals in your area. I considered that option for a moment but I decided to let someone else write my life story.

My cleaner turned up to fit my patches and it was a good job that she was early because so was the taxi. It was my favourite taxi driver, back from her holiday and the two other passengers with me in the car with her, we were regaled with tales of her holiday adventures.

The ‘phone rang en route. It was the hospital in Paris telling me that according to the hospital register I’m expected on Monday 5th May in the afternoon so I need my dialysis in the morning. But ominously, they have arranged a session of dialysis for me there on the Thursday. That is ominous. It looks as if it’s going to be a long stay in Paris.

We arrived early at dialysis and had to wait fifteen minutes for them to open the door. I was third to be plugged in and the good news was that I need only stay for three and a half hours.

While I was being dialysed I backed up the computer and while I was sorting some things out on the laptop I came across a book about the ephemeral railway line near where I used to live in the Auvergne. It took forty years to agree to build it, ten years to build and lasted just eight years before it closed down.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came for a chat to see how I was doing, which was nice of her. I mentioned to her about Paris but I’m not going to confirm it until I have a formal summons in my sweaty little mitt.

My taxi was waiting for me when I was unplugged and we had a nice, chatty drive back home. My cleaner was waiting for me and helped me upstairs. And wasn’t it lovely to be back home at 18:35?

Tea tonight was a delicious stuffed pepper with veg and pasta followed by orange, ginger and coconut cake with soya dessert. There’s plenty of stuffing left for the next few days too.

Now I’m off to bed ready for my Welsh class tomorrow. I need to be on form.

But before I go, one of the things that Emilie the Cute Consultant mentioned was this stomach x-ray that has been prescribed for me at the end of May.
"Why are they doing that?" she asked.
"I’ve no idea" I replied."I imagined that you had prescribed it"
"It’s nothing that I have asked them to do" she answered
"And there I was" I said "thinking that you wanted to see more of me. And let’s face it, once you’ve seen the contents of my stomach there’s not an awful lot more of me left that you won’t have seen"

Thursday 27th March 2025 – I HOPE THAT NO-ONE …

… panicked after reading my previous message.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that back in the Summer when I was in hospital at Avranches I had one of those collapses that I had quite frequently at home during that period, and awoke to find a group of panicking nurses and doctors around my bedside. They reckoned that it was a diabetic coma.

And so this afternoon, there I was in my bed at the dialysis centre, working away on the travelling laptop, when I began to shake and feel nauseous. That was exactly how I felt when my pancreatic issues began in 1991 and I thought “surely not again! As if I don’t have enough to worry about!”.

A few minutes later I had an enormous wave of fatigue, the room began to spin around and a haze descended across my vision. I blinked my eyes to clear my vision and when I opened them, my bed had been positioned flat instead of upright, the foot of the bed had been raised up and every member of the medical staff in the centre, including Emilie the Cute Consultant, was flapping around my bed.

Apparently I’d gone into another coma and had been out of my tree for about ten minutes.

It’s actually probably the best sleep that I’ve had for several days because last night it was another 02:30 finish, waiting for my algorithm to finish (and it did finish this time, too).

Being in bed is one thing. Going to sleep is quite a different thing entirely and I’m not sure that I slept for very long at all. When the alarm went off it was a very weary me who staggered to my feet and crawled off to the bathroom for a wash and a shave, in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant.

After the medication I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone but as I expected, there was nothing on it. You can’t dream if you don’t go to sleep (well, you can but that’s another story too).

Isabelle the Nurse was quite chatty this morning. She’s noticed that the oedemas on my legs have returned to a very slight degree. That’s bad news because it means that they’ll be turning the dialysis machine up to pump out more water.

After she left I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. We’re still exploring stone circles and avenues in Devon and Cornwall and checking their alignment.

He considers that many of these circles are aligned to witness the rising or setting of the star Arcturus, the fourth-brightest star in the sky after Sirius, Canopus and Alpha Centauri, all four of which also figure prominently in the alignment of prehistoric structures throughout the World.

One thing that he hasn’t done, which would be an interesting project, would be to go back to our book on folklore and plot the worship of Arcturus in different time periods and different cultures to see if there’s any relation between them and the waves of migration across Europe in prehistoric times. It wouldn’t surprise me if something interesting turned up.

Back in here I had plenty of things to do and I was right in the middle of them when I noticed that it was after 12:00 and the taxi will be here shortly so I’d better make a move. I’d sorted everything out and was almost ready when my cleaner arrived in a state of breathlessness to fit my anaesthetic patches.

It was the “boss” who came to pick me up. We had someone else in the car too and he drove us all the way to Avranches where he dropped me off and carried on with his other passenger.

At the centre I was one of the first to arrive and they treated me with an ice-pack while they waited for “the doctor” to come to look at my fitting with the x-ray machine.

“The doctor” turned out to be Emilie the Cute Consultant who examined my implant closely, recommended that in future they inject elsewhere and even marked my skin for future reference so that my cleaner will know where to put the patches. She photographed it and gave me a copy for future reference.

Plugging me in the old places wasn’t as painful as it has been, thanks to the ice pack, and I leaned the good news that the time has been reduced to three and a half hours. After that, i could crack on with work.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came back for a chat later – about my health unfortunately. She was with me for about twenty minutes talking about all kinds of things and more good news is that I can dispense with two more lots of tablets. She’s not really all that happy about reducing my time but “we’ll give it a go and we’ll see”.

She did discuss with me all kinds of options, including psychiatric care. "But you don’t need that, do you? You don’t suffer from depression or anything". All of the different characters who live inside my head roared with laughter at that and told me that I ought to be nominated for an Oscar.

And then we had the drama. All kinds of people running around in a panic. Apparently I was just sitting there, totally unresponsive, eyes wide-open in a kind-of cataleptic daze. They honestly thought that I’d died. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall however that we’ve talked previously about these cataleptic dazes that I sometimes have

Interestingly, my blood pressure was at 8.0 and it won’t go much lower than that without serious consequences so they abandoned the dialysis session. I still had to stay lying down for an hour or so before I could sit up. They were not happy at all.

So that looks as if it might be the end of the three-and-a-half hour experiment which is a shame. My heart can’t withstand the force of the machine, although the machine has run faster than that in the past.

A very groggy me staggered to the taxi and back here, I came upstairs, flung off my shoes and went straight to bed, fully clothed. And there I stayed until after midnight when I arose to type out my notes.

Now I’m going back to bed where I shall sleep until my name becomes Epic van Winkle and who cares about anything else?

But that little discussion with Emilie the Cute Consultant reminded me of one of the SAINT TRINIANS films when a riot in the school was taxing the patience of the headmistress who had taken over from Alastair Sim.
"I have a feeling that very shortly I shall be the only one around here who can actually produce a certificate to prove my sanity !"

Saturday 22nd February 2025 – I WAS BACK …

… here early this evening which made a lovely change. Mainly because I set out earlier to the dialysis centre. The taxi was well in advance. At least the driver sent me a message to say he would be here early, which is always a good idea.

Unfortunately though, I couldn’t emulate that last night going to bed. That night or two where I really cracked on and had things done early seems to be just an unexpected flash in the pan and I can’t repeat that, much as I would like to.

By the time that I’d finished my notes and done what I needed to do it was well after 23:00 and even later by the time I went to sleep in my nice clean bedding, having found the pillow case that had somehow gone missing from the wash the other week.

It was a turbulent night of the kind that I had when I was going through that cycle a few weeks ago and it was a very weary, bedraggled me that crawled out from under the covers when the alarm went off.

In the bathroom I remembered the sample that they need at the dialysis centre but forgot to shave and change my clothes for fresh ones. Emilie the Cute Consultant won’t be too impressed with me if she’s there today

The kitchen was next, and all of the medication. There’s a lot less than there used to be when I was going through that crisis six months ago, but it’s still an impressive quantity all the same. I wish that I could turn back the clock before my kidneys gave out and I was on just four per day.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been. And I’d travelled far during the night as well. I fell asleep quite quickly and found myself in the doctor’s discussing phallic symbols with him, I’m not sure exactly why but I wasn’t asleep very long and that’s hardly surprising.

Strangely enough I can’t remember dictating that – or even being awake at all at that particular moment. I thought that I would have remembered something about phallic symbols if it had been going on in my head. It’s not the kind of thing that you forget.

And then Nerina came round to my place of work last night. There was some kind of talk about a Trade Union meeting taking place in Manchester where the Trade Union Executive Committee was having its quarterly meeting. Someone was giving an account. They were talking about how they completed so much work, how it was sometimes quite emotional and how wen everyone went out into breakout rooms the observers were shared out between the rooms so that they could go to see. This person who had been on the Monday was extremely impressed. I was sitting tight up in a corner with Nerina. She turned and whispered to me in my ear “next time we ought to go to see this meeting”. I asked her if she really wanted to go because it was not something to which she had shown any particular interest before, but she was quite adamant about it so I decided that I’d make a few enquiries and see how we could go there. But I was actually with her and the two of us were so close together and so tight up in the corner.

That’s the kind of dream that brought back a few happy memories of former times. As for Trades Unions, I served on the Executive Committee of the Students’ Union at University and held a few other posts as well, such as Chair of the branch of students of Northern Europe. Those were the days after I’d taken early retirement from work and was looking for something to do. However I went back to work later, first covering for someone on maternity leave at General Electric’s training school in Brussels and then at that weird American company where I met Alison

And then it was my birthday so I had invited a lot of people round to my apartment, mostly friends from the University. They were all ages and they really were a bizarre bunch. Then at the end of the night I settled down in the armchair to go to sleep. Liz who was there as well, she settled down in the other armchair to go to sleep. Various other people settled down in all kinds of various other settees and chairs and prepared to spend the night. First thing was that I had to get up to go to the bathroom and come back down again. Liz came with me but she disappeared off somewhere. Gradually one by one other people began to disappear too. I began to wonder where they were going. There was a group of two people sitting on the sofa who suddenly began to awaken and eat chocolates again. A third person went along to sit on the sofa and join in with them. I asked them “is the party starting up again?”.

“That” Liz (not “this” Liz) has featured in several dreams just recently, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. In a fortnight’s time it will be sixteen years since she died. She came from the North-East of England and served on the same University committees as I did. As she couldn’t drive, she used to travel with me from one meeting to the next. Back in 2006 we were on our way from a meeting of the Disabled Students in Bristol to another meeting in Gosforth when we stopped for a meal in a pub near Oswestry, when into the dining room came the very same girlfriend from school with whom I was chatting yesterday. And despite it being 35 years later, you could have put her in her school uniform and she would have looked exactly the same as she did back then at school

Finally, In that dream … "which dream?" – ed … there was a moment when I was in the office. I was wandering around outside in all of the buildings that were there. I came across a woman who was walking around. I was the only person in the office at that time so I wondered who she was. She wondered who I was too so I told her which building I was in and asked her if she knew which one it was. She said that “it’s the one right down there at the entrance” so I imagined that she did. I ended up walking down a corridor where I saw someone else. Then I came into my room where everyone else was. I sat down on the sofa and then had to stand up, but suddenly realised that I couldn’t stand up sitting on the sofa. I had to go through all kinds of strange manoeuvres like leaning my back against the wall trying to push up with my ankles so that I was in an upright position in order that I might be able to stand up and move

That is actually my big fear – falling over, because I can’t pick myself back upright again if I do. When I fell over in an Underground station in Montréal in 2022 a couple of passers-by had to pick me up. It was difficult then, and I have even less control over my muscles today than I did back then. As for the “office”, the image that I have in my head is the hospital in Paris, which is in fact a collection of individual buildings on a campus.

There was more to it that all of that too, but you don’t want to know about it, especially if you are eating your tea right now.

The nurse was later than usual today and didn’t hang around at all. He didn’t even have time to ring the doorbell from downstairs to warn me that he was here. He was in and out in a matter of seconds.

Not that I’m complaining of course. I could make breakfast and carry on reading MY BOOK

Today we are discussing medieval fishponds and the delights of catching, cooking and eating a nice fresh bream “in its jacket”. In my opinion, he’s welcome to it. Even when I used to eat fish, oily, pungent fish like that was not to my taste at all.

Back in here I sorted out the bills that I needed to pay, dealt with all of that, and then finished off my Welsh homework so that I could have a day off to relax on Monday.

Some time round about then I had the ‘phone call from the driver who is going to take me to Avranches. Would it be OK to come round fifteen minutes earlier?

“No problem” I replied. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish (in theory) and I sent a brief note to my cleaner.

Just as I finished my homework she put in an appearance. Perfect timing, that. She sorted out my anaesthetic patches and then I had to wait for the taxi.

We had to pick up that woman who lives at the back of the dialysis centre and we arrived at the centre at about 13:05 which was rather early, because they don’t open the doors until 13:15.

For a change I was second to be dealt with, which suited me fine. I could settle down and watch the football.

A real bottom-of-the-table clash between Aberystwyth and Y Drenewydd, and it looked it too. Y Drenewydd were quite poor but Aberystwyth were dreadful and on this form they’ll find the second tier rather tough going. They look like a team that is already resigned to its fate.

The manager, interviewed afterwards, didn’t pull any punches about his team’s lack of fight but the problem lies with the club. Four years ago they had quite a strong team but a whole raft of players left and the ones who have come in haven’t been able to replace the quality and it’s been downhill ever since.

Unfortunately I fell asleep after that for a few minutes and then carried on tidying up and updating the travelling laptop.

Early in, early out which is good news and I was back here by 18:45, and I wish that I could do that every trip instead of some of these ridiculously late returns home that we have had.

Tea was a burger on a bap, some red-hot chili burgers that I found in the freezer. Certainly different, and quite enjoyable, especially with baked potato and vegan salad, followed by date bread and soya dessert. And it’s the first time in well over a week that I’ve felt like eating a proper meal.

So now I have things to dictate and then I’m off to bed. Loads of editing tomorrow, bread making and probably a few other things too, if I feel like it. But that’s not always obvious at this time of night.

But seeing as we have been talking about that meal in that pub near Oswestry … "well, one of us has" – ed … I told a little joke and the ex let out a sigh.
"Ohh Eric" she said. "You told me that joke when we were at school!"
"Yes that’s as may be" I replied. "I don’t change the material. I just change the audience"
"That’s why Eric likes travelling with me" said “that” Liz. "I have such a dreadful memory that he tells me a joke one day, then tells me again the next day and because I’ve already forgotten it I hear it again for the first time and laugh once more."

Monday 10th February 2025 – I’M FED UP …

… of asking people questions and having a completely different response to that which would have answered the question and terminated the discussion.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall when in Québec I encountered Spruce Beer for the first time, so I asked "is this beer alcoholic?"

The response was neither “yes” nor “no” but "that’s over there"

Today at the Dialysis Centre I asked the doctor "have you prescribed me a sleeping pill?"

The response was neither “yes” nor “no” but "do you want one?"

Leaving aside the ethical question of patients self-prescribing their own medication with the connivance of doctors, what’s wrong with anyone answering a question simply and straightforwardly?

As you can tell, I’m in a foul humour this evening. And it started out so well too.

Last night, by the time that I’d finished my notes and done what I had to do, it wasn’t all that late so I headed to bed at something like a reasonable time for once. And that cheered me up.

Once in bed I was asleep fairly quickly and there I stayed until all of about 05:30 when I heard the phantom doorbell. At least, that’s what it said on the dictaphone round about that time. I have no recollection of that at all.

When the alarm went off I was away with the fairies (although not in any situation likely to bring forth comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine) and it was a very weary me who staggered off into the bathroom

It’s Dialysis Day today so I had a good clean-up, a shave and so on ready for if I encounter Emilie the Cute Consultant and then went for my medication, remembering not to take the medicine that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I had a girlfriend at school. She used to come into school later than we did so when I came in I would go to my classroom and about 08:25 she would turn up. But one day there was a load of people in our classroom who didn’t belong in there, some kind of managers or something like that. I imagined that they would have an awful lot to say about this girl coming into a different classroom in the morning. I was there waiting for her and round about 08:20-08:25-08:30 she hadn’t turned up but I had some things to do so I went into the boss’s office next door. I caught a glimpse of her and she smiled at me and went into our room. I took these things for the boss and went back into our room. There was my girlfriend on the scales weighing herself. Really disappointedly she’d reached 325lb this week and was very disappointed by that. I noticed that she’d filled out this white dress suit that she was wearing, filled it out rather too much. We basically agreed to see each other at lunchtime and then she cleared off. The teacher looked at me, looked at the people who were surveying the class, looked at me again and asked me some comment about the girl, then looked at these people again as if to say “just be careful what you say because they’ll be writing it down and noting it”.

Weighing yourself as you go into a room? What does that remind you of? It certainly does to me.

To each his own of course, but attraction is a very personal thing – as they say over here des gouts et les couleurs on ne discute pas – but my ideal kind of girl would be one whom I could throw over my shoulder and carry off to bed. Strangely enough, apart from once at school, I have never ever ended up with anyone at all like that. It just goes to show that life and fate sometimes deal out some very strange hands and you have to play them as best as you can. Whoever would have thought 30 years ago that I would have ended up in a relationship where there was a child present?

It’s true nevertheless that our school bus, which was the prolongation of a service route, always used to arrive first and a couple of girls with whom I spent some time used to travel on the last one to arrive. As for the rest of the dream, it rings a vague bell somewhere in the back of my mind that is best left there.

Having finished that I made a start on finishing off the radio programme that I’d started yesterday. However, Isabelle the Nurse interrupted me. We talked about Carnaval and her float while she sorted out my legs, and then she cleared off, leaving me to make my breakfast and read MY NEW BOOK.

We’ve moved on now to discuss the construction of an earthen fort, with helpful plans and diagrams. That will come in useful if the Romans ever attack us here, I suppose. But joking apart, it’s extremely interesting and I wonder what I’m going to discover next.

Before we leave the general pages, he mentions that "It would seem to be a legitimate inference from such a priori reasoning that, subject of course to exceptional circumstances, a camp is later in date according as it is less irregular in plan, less elaborately defended, and constructed upon a less elevated and less defensible site"

Anyone who has ever seen a Norman or Edwardian castle will know that this is far from the case. And while many of the forts that we visited in the USA were built accordingly, when Fetterman and Curser dug themselves in against the rampaging hordes of Native Americans, they both chose hilltops and promontories

Regular readers of this rubbish will also recall that in 2014 we WERE AT MONTSEGUR, the last refuge of the Cathars, and that is probably the most inaccessible, difficult-to-reach castle that I have ever visited, and I knew all about that climb for several days. None of your “constructed upon a less elevated and less defensible site” with Montségur.

Back in here I finished off the radio programme, chose the final track and wrote out the notes ready for dictation on Saturday night. Then I made a start on the remainder of the Welsh homework. That’s not yet finished, and heaven alone knows when I’m going to find time to do it.

My cleaner took me by surprise yet again as I was nowhere near ready, and she fitted my anaesthetic patches. We talked about cats, and it seems that I’m not going to find it as easy to adopt one as I might think. These days, these refuges are very picky and choosy as to who can adopt a cat and she reckons that I would fall down near the end of the queue.

If that’s not enough bad news for the moment, the taxi didn’t turn up until 12:45. It’s the school holidays of course and many drivers have taken time off. The car that came to pick me up was the wheelchair-carrier and we hadn’t gone half a mile before his ‘phone flashed a message “next job, wheelchair from the Centre Normandy – at 13:00”. So he had 15 minutes to undertake a 90-minute round trip to Avranches and back.

It wouldn’t have been quite so bad had we not encountered just about every problem possible on the road. And then when we arrived, there were seven vehicles all trying to unload at the same time – and we were sixth, so we had to wait our turn.

With everyone arriving at once and me being next-to-last I had to wait an age to be seen

The connection was as painful as it could possibly be and I suffered throughout the whole session. But the nurse did confirm to me that once the machine does start up, it’s not uncommon to have a wave of fatigue. It’s to do with the drop of blood pressure and strain on the heart.

The doctor came to see me as well, the unsociable one. We had our little discussion as I mentioned earlier and eventually he did confirm to me, as I suspected, that they had prescribed a sleeping pill. It has several other uses too which they think might be useful, which was why they prescribed it in the first place.

My response was that I was going to stop taking it as of now. He replied that I might find it difficult all at once and I should “taper off”, but if it’s a medication like that then I don’t want to be on it anyway so as of earlier this evening it’s off the list.

And so, incidentally, is the medication that they prescribed to counter some of the side-effects.

Unplugging me was just as painful as plugging me in, and then I had to wait. The driver who was to take me home had stuck her head in earlier but I told her that I would be fifteen minutes so as she had someone to pick up at the Clinic across town she decided to go there first.

She hadn’t come back by the time that I was ready so I waited. And waited.

Not that I minded because Emilie the Cute Consultant came past.

"Wiating for your taxi, Mr Hall?" she asked
“No, I’m waiting for N°11 bus to Marble Arch and Trafalgar Square” I would have said had it been anyone else but Emilie the Cute Consultant
"Yes I am" I replied "You don’t fancy taking me home, do you?"
"I don’t live in Granville any more" she said. "I live in Marcey, just around the corner"
"Well, you could always take me to Marcey with you"

She had the decency to laugh, but she wasn’t all that impressed. Ahh well …

A car suddenly screeched up outside, but it wasn’t my driver who hopped out. Nevertheless he had come for me.

He was one of the ambulance crew who was in the depot washing the vehicle when the call came through. Apparently my driver who had gone to the clinic discovered that there was a major problem there with the other passenger and she was obliged to wait. It’s a good job that I hadn’t gone with her.

We had a good chat all the way home, so much so that I forgot to warn the cleaner that I was on my way, and she had a mad scramble to meet the car. 19:45 when I finally arrived home.

Tea was a stuffed pepper with pasta followed by apple cake and soya dessert. But then I cut up the date bread that I had made, and if the rest of it tastes as good as the crumbs that I tasted, it will be absolutely excellent.

So fed up, in pain and glad that the day is almost over, I’m off to bed ready to fight the good fight tomorrow. I can understand what they meant in Leuven back in 2016 when they said "save your strength for the battle that lies ahead" because I can’t do with too many more days like this one.

But talking about going home just now … "well, one of us is" – ed … it reminds me of a guy in a pub in Nantwich.
He would sneak a photo out of his pocket, glance at it, put it back and then order a beer.
After three or four times curiosity got the better of the and he asked the customer about the photo
"What’s about the photo?" he asked
"It’s the wife" replied the man
"Do you always look at it just before you order a beer?"
"Yes I do" he replied. "When she starts to look beautiful, that’s when it’s time to go home"

Saturday 8th February 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… just about enough of this dialysis.

These four-hour sessions didn’t last long. Today, they gave me four and a half hours, and they still haven’t extracted all of the water from me that they ought to have extracted. So how long is it going to be when I go back on Monday?

One thing’s for certain though, and that is that if they keep on pumping the stuff out of me at this rate, I’ll be pushing up the daisies quicker than I think.

Ordinarily I would have complained, except that the doctor on duty was the miserable one who hates his job and loves his patients even less. I imagine that I would have been sent away with a flea in my ear had I gone to see him

In fact, it’s true to say that I am having as much luck with the senior hospital staff as I am about going to bed early because for no particular reason last night it was another late night by the time that I’d finished everything. It was a very weary me who staggered into bed at about 00:30 this morning.

And even though I was fast asleep straight away and didn’t move for the whole night, at 05:35 I sat dramatically upright, wide awake. I’ve no idea what awoke me either because I couldn’t hear any noise.

Try as I might, I could not go back to sleep and in the end gave it up as a bad job. When the alarm went off at 07:00 I was having a good scrub in the bathroom, followed by a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant.

Once I was ready, I filled the washing machine with all of the clothes that remained and se it off on its cycle (a very clever machine, mine) and then went into the kitchen for my medication, remembering not to take the anti-potassium stuff and not the sunlight pills either

Back in here I began to transcribe the dictaphone notes but there were so many that I hadn’t finished by the time that the nurse came.

There were the usual banal questions and then I wished him a very happy holiday. It’s his turn to go skiing now. Isabelle should be back tomorrow.

Breakfast was next, and then I read MY NEW BOOK.

We’re still moving on with our discussion of contour forts and he gives a few example of them. With regard to several of them he makes the pertinent observation that "the fortress seems to be too large to have been defended by any force which it could shelter."

That is of course perfectly true but it’s a moot point because if the defenders are not likely to be very numerous, neither are the attackers, so the defenders wouldn’t have to defend all of the perimeter. Instead, they would just concentrate on the point where the attackers are launching their particular offensive

No-one has any idea of the population of Britain in 500BC but it can’t have been more than half a million, so it’s not as if you could gather a large army at one place and at one time.

Back in here I finished off the dictaphone notes. I was in the living room of a semi-detached house. I’d been off with this girl and her parents weren’t very happy. We’d had a confrontation when I’d brought her home. We had managed to pass over the confrontation and we were saying goodbye to each other in the hall when the dream faded away

Apart from the fact that there I was, just about to Get The Girl and the dream dies, there’s a great deal more to this dream that anyone would imagine or realise, and I would care to admit. And parents being unhappy was just about par for the course back in those days.

There was also something about the ceremonial exchange of keys for a car that I ended up buying from a garage. The exchange was something that was reproduced in India at the same times. If you were buying something in India you would have to step back for thirty seconds so to convince everyone that it was OK. It was during that period that the recourse would take place, that the former wife of a friend of mine, would come along and do something instead of whatever her name was and me.

So who is “whatever her name was”? And why can’t I remember the first part of this dream? f there’s a girl involved, I ought not to go around forgetting or missing out..

I was out with a friend and we were wandering around a fairground. There were two of us, a guy and a girl. We walked around this fairground and ended up in a place where we could have a hot snack. One of my friends wanted a hot snack so we went round there but the hot snack place was closed. There was a tape across it. We ended up having a coffee. The coffees were tiny, a tiny expresso type of thing and they had to be drunk in the cafeteria on the first floor. ….battery flat .. So we bought a coffee and we had to go up the stairs to drink it to the café. There was a spiral staircase, very tight, very steep and I couldn’t walk up it so we were there with these coffees wondering what to do

So who were my friends? Do I have any?

Then I was with a group of gendarmes. We were going somewhere to pick up something and we had to go there very quietly but we suddenly discovered that something had gone wrong. When we looked at one of the objects that we had that we’d bought at this café we could see the maker’s name. That suddenly rang a bell with one of the gendarmes. He told the others, who suddenly realised what it was. We all piled into the car and we drove. It was driving through Crewe down a few of the side streets. We came in to the bottom end of Delamere Street. We drove down to the bottom. We were looking for a number something like 148 but there weren’t that many houses in that street, not at all, so we didn’t know or I didn’t know where this was going to be. They identified a house – at least, the guy in charge did – that was nowhere near that number and he said to the driver “park a little further down the street” so we did . Someone exited the car and there was some kind of commotion outside so I left the car to go to see. The guy who had exited the car was helping a pedestrian stand up who had been knocked down. I suddenly realised that our car was driving forward. I shouted to “put the brake on” but no-one paid any attention to it. It kept on rolling forward and forward and forward. Suddenly it stopped. I shouted “for God’s sake put the brake on!”. Someone in the car said “well, it was on, but we didn’t know what was going on”. I said “you were rolling forward and you knocked someone down!”. Anyway one of the gendarmes went up to the house. He had a key in his pocket and unlocked it. He walked in and we followed him. It was a filthy, disgusting, untidy house. I have never seen or smelled anything like this . It was full of cats. At first though there was nothing. There was no-one to be seen and he walked around shouting. In the end he walked through this curtain that was hanging over the doorway into what was the kitchen. It was filthy and disgusting, and smelly. There were these cats everywhere. Suddenly two girls appeared. One was about twelve and the other was about nine. The younger one was blonde, the elder one was dark. I suddenly realised where we were because I’d sent birthday presents to these kids. They were the family of one of these gendarmes. They were trying to make some coffee, he was asking them where such-and-such was but they didn’t know. He was looking around for papers and came across some papers about two matching pieces of furniture. He said “this might explain the mystery because they were bequeathed to the two of us and it looks as if the guy has just taken one which he thinks might be his share but we were so totally in the dark and totally bewildered about this.

The house is still clear to me even now. If anyone knows Crewe, it’s just before where the old white single-storey buildings and the belisha beacons and zebra crossing used to be. But the stench in that house was so strong I could actually smell it at the time. Apart from that, it was just like a sketch out of one of the GENDARME DE ST TROPEZ films.

And finally we had a nightmare. I’m not sure where this fitted in anywhere but at one point I dreamed that my cleaner went to take off my plasters and found that one of my puncture holes was still leaking after all this time. There was blood everywhere all over this plaster and all over my lower arm

That really is my worst nightmare of all of this and I shall hate the day when it happens

After typing out my notes, I crashed out, believe it or not. Never mind about being upset about crashing out, I can’t believe that I crashed out so early on in the day. I might at least have had the decency to have waited until I was on my bed in the dialysis centre.

Once I awoke though, I finished off the notes of the next radio programme and was busy involved in doing a few other things when the cleaner turned up. I told her about my nightmare and prepared her to be standing by just in case … .

The taxi was late again, but not as late as it might have been. Just me as a passenger with a friendly, peasant driver and we had a nice drive down to the centre.

For a change, I was first to be seen and that boded ill for the rest of the day. And it hurt just as much as it had on previous days.

There was football on the internet too – TNS v Penybont, 1st v second. At one time Penybont were pushing for the Championship but they have fallen away quite badly just recently, and were well-beaten by TNS, even with TNS playing the final 10 minutes with just 10 players.

One of the nurses came by with the bad news about the extension to the session (the doctor, I suppose, didn’t have the nerve) and so at the end I was the last out of the centre. I mentioned my nightmare to the nurse who unplugged me so she put extra plaster strips on my dressing.

And with the taxi having to drop off someone at Avranches, it was miserably late when I arrived home, tired, fed up and completely exhausted.

You have no idea how much a dialysis session takes out of me, never mind a four-and-half-hour session.

Tea was a burger on a bap with salad and baked potato followed by apple cake and soya dessert, and that’s it for tonight. I’ll dictate my notes and then I’m off to bed. Quite frankly, I don’t have the courage or the energy to do anything else.

The secret of these increased dialysis sessions was explained to me later. Apparently one of the doctors (I’ll leave you to guess) is fed up of me chatting her up all the time
She told the girls to increase the suction time to take more water out at each session
"Isn’t that dangerous?" asked one of the nurses
"Who cares?" answered the doctor."If we extract at a rate of 5 kilos per session, in 16 sessions he’ll be gone completely."

Thursday 6th February 2025 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day I have had today!

Or, more importantly, what a horrible afternoon. Everything that could conceivably go wrong this afternoon has gone wrong. It seems that I’m destined to have this albatross hung well-and-truly around my neck like the Ancient Mariner.

"Ah! well a-day!"

Last night, as I expected, I was horribly late going to bed. I’m surprised that I kept on going as long as I did though because I was absolutely exhausted. And again I’m not sure why either because it wasn’t as if I’d done that much.

Once in bed though, just like Maréchal MacMahon, "j’y suis, j’y reste" – “here I am and here I stay”. No danger whatever of me moving under any circumstances.

And there I did stay too. When the alarm went off I was still in exactly the same position as I had been when I went to sleep. And no-one had it any more difficult than me to leave my bed before the second alarm. I know that I’ve had a few struggles in the past but this one beats all of them.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, forgetting to have a shave for a moment, and then went into the kitchen to sort out the medication for the morning, remembering not to take the medication that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day.

Back into the bathroom to remember to have a shave in case Emilie the Cute Consultant is there this afternoon, and then back into here to sort out the details of any voyages last night. I was at a school somewhere. One of the teachers was at the entrance to the school chatting to a few people. He had a green sports car like a 1930s Bentley only smaller. I happened to glance at the registration number. It was WEE and then three numbers (or maybe the other way round). Whatever it was, if read in a certain way it made something quite indecent. It was obviously not the original number of the car so I was first of all surprised that the Department of Transport would allow such a registration number to be issued and secondly, surprised that a schoolteacher would buy it and fit it on his vehicle.

It really was surprising too to see this registration number, and I wish that I could remember now what it was. But I know exactly where it took place – in between the canteen and the steps up to the front of my old Grammar School. I can still see it now.

The nurse came round and I asked him about this prescription whether it should be done before breakfast before I have anything to eat. "Don’t worry about that" he replied. "They’ll do it anyway".

What I’ll do is to ask Isabelle the Nurse and see what she thinks about the affair.

After he left I made my breakfast and carried on reading MY NEW BOOK.

We’ve finished promontory forts and are now tackling contour forts, those that encompass a hill, with defences all round. These are really difficult to date as their position, commanding a wide expanse of countryside, means that they may well have been used by many different waves of civilisation.

Before leaving the promontory forts though, he makes an interesting observation. While they may be good at keeping invaders out, they aren’t much good at keeping cattle in, and many of them have no interior fencing of any kind.

His supposition is that people don’t abandon their possessions lightly, so if they were designed for defenders, the defenders must have been in desperate straights to have to take flight there leaving all their beasts behind.

The alternative suggestion that he puts forward is that they were built as strongholds by invaders who had yet not had the opportunity to recruit any cattle, and the speed at which a promontory fort could be built when compared to a contour fort, is certainly suggestive.

Back in here again I carried on writing the notes for this radio programme, and they are almost finished. Half an hour tomorrow will see them done and then I can push on with the next lot.

It wasn’t my cleaner who interrupted me today either. I noticed (for once) that time was rolling on so I went into the dining area and began to prepare things for leaving.

My cleaner was running late today so we were in something of a rush. But she was soon off out to her next client, and I wait here to wait for my taxi.

And wait. And wait.

At 13:00 I rang them up to find out where they were and it seems that they have cancelled (I hope) the Wednesday taxi that shouldn’t be coming but forgotten to reinstate the Thursday one. So they’ll arrange for someone to fetch me.

The car that turned up (20 minutes later) was one from St Hilaire du Harcoët on its way back from the Centre de Re-education, with three passengers already inside. So it was a rather cramped car that made its way down to Avranches. But needs must.

It goes without saying that my anaesthetic patches had long-since lost their efficacity by the time that I was finally seen and I’m sure that everyone in the street down the hill knew about it, because I certainly did. I’ve had some painful issues, but not quite as painful as this one this afternoon.

Once I was settled into my bed, plugged in and wired up, I had the crash-out to end all crash-outs. Well into the bad old days of last summer. I’m not sure why that should be either, unless it’s something to do with the fact that I’m in a bed, semi-recumbent.

But it was terrible. During the whole session I couldn’t concentrate on anything at all, I was so tired. Even so, I performed the major back-up that I wanted to and the travelling laptop is now as up-to-date as it can me. That’ll last for about a week, I reckon, before it will fall by the wayside once more.

But that did remind me – there’s still the laptop that I bought IN NORTH DAKOTA to update too. I haven’t used that since I fitted the 1TD SSD into it and it could do with some updating. Still, that’s one more task to add to the list of things that won’t ever be done.

Unplugging me was just as painful as plugging me in. I could see that the girls were edgy about things, wishing to leave in a hurry and I can’t say that I blame them. I was by far and away the last patient in there tonight. And I was glad to be out of there too.

It was this senior driver who was waiting for me tonight but he wasn’t in a talkative mood again this evening. I don’t know what I have done to him to upset him.

Mind you, in some ways I was glad because I wasn’t in any real mood to converse. Tired, exhausted and in pain, I’d had enough for the day.

The climb up here was difficult tonight and I only just about managed it, but there was no time to relax because I had bread to make.

After making and kneading the dough I made tea while it was proofing. It was another “Mr Carmichael” moment when SUPPER WAITS ON THE TABLE INSIDE A TIN. I was way past caring by this point. At least my loaf of bread is the best that I have ever made, and I mean that too.

So right now I’m off to bed. I’m shattered and I can’t keep on going like this. One day my luck will have to turn, and I hope that I will still have time to enjoy it.

But going back to the story about promontory forts, a group of Belgae natives were holed up inside a promontory fort as several hundred people were advancing on them
The captain of the fortress couldn’t make out at the distance who they were so he asked his lookout "are they friends or foes?"
"Friends, I reckon" said the sentinel
"You must have wonderful eyesight" said the captain. "How can you tell?"
"Well" replied the sentinel "they are all laughing and joking together and look as if they are engaged upon a common purpose"

Thursday 30th January 2025 – ANOTHER FOUR HOURS …

… coupled up to the machine, and I’m not sure which hurt the most – the pain in my arm once the anaesthetic wore off or the stabbing pain in my heel that arrived mid-session. It was another one of those days.

And can you guess the medical staff’s reaction to both? Of course you can. "Would you like a Doliprane, Mr Hall?". Yes, this whole country seems to float on a lake of Doliprane.

But seeing as we are talking about floating … "well, one of us is" – ed … I don’t know what I was floating on the other night when I managed a fairly early night but I wish that it had come back to float me off last night.

Even though I’d finished at a not-unreasonable time it was still a good while later when I could manage to find the courage to rise up and go to bed. It was probably only the hope that in bed would be the only way that I would be able to see Moonchild again, or one of the other Fearsome Foursome, that drove me on.

Once in bed though, I didn’t hang around and was soon asleep. And there I stayed until the alarm went off in the morning at 07:00.

It goes without saying that I wasn’t in any kind of mood to raise myself from the Dead but I did manage to beat the second alarm into the bathroom where I had a good wash and scrub up. While I was there I also applied plenty of deodorant and had a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

In the kitchen I had the morning’s medication, remembering not to take the medication that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day. But the bad news is that I’ve run out of my anti-cancer portable chemotherapy stuff that’s been keeping me alive for the last couple of years. I hope that there was a bottle in the last batch of medication that my faithful cleaner brought me. If not, I’ll be pushing up the daisies much quicker than even I think.

Thinking about it though, I should have asked for a new prescription when I was in Paris just now (they can’t prescribe it in Avranches) but I was hoping that I’d manage to see my consultant when I was there. But with the results not being anything like ready (they had hardly finished all the tests) I’m having to go back some time soon.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And I’ve no idea of anything at all about anything out of this. We had another phantom alarm at 02:50. It sounded so real that I did actually rise up and begin to leave the bed. But I’d been in some kind of folk group and had been playing an instrument and it had been the case of hitting my knees with my hand in the rhythm of the music, something like that. Anyway they stood me up and took me and we just – Rick – and at that traffic lights that was that hippo that was Rod Wayne’s and at that meeting I had to drive all the way back to Crewe when I could be posting but then having to think about disposing of her. Where will I dispose of her and then I said “if you are going to take me to this troublesome bear-y and dispose of Linda at the end of the programme so that we could have a little life? We had a girls’ school at first and looked after it. It was a very shabby and run-down area (…fell asleep here …)

Apart from the fact that none of it makes any sense … "so what in your dreams actually does?" – ed … I can’t remember a single moment of it. However, the utter gibberish and falling asleep indicate that I must have been really tired while all of that was going on.

Isabelle the Nurse is counting down the moments until her ski holiday. She’s promised to show me the photos but that’s no good at all. I need to see the real snow, and feel in under my skis. It’s probably a dozen years since I’ve last been skiing and how I really used to enjoy it.

After she left I made my breakfast and then began to read my new book.

To most of you, it’s probably not very exciting. And it’s not a book either. In 1936 an archaeologist named William Jones Varley excavated an Iron-Age Hillfort at Eddisbury in Cheshire. Although he had made a couple of initial reports, he died in 1970 with his in-depth report unfinished.

In 2006 when his wife died, a box in her caravan was examined and found to contain some very rusty pieces of iron which, judging by the quality of the ironwork and welding, were believed to relate to the Iron Age.

These were passed to a group of researchers who, comparing the pieces with Jones’s written notes, believe that these pieces of ironwork are the pivot points of the gates of Eddisbury Hillfort.

They published their own report a few years later after an extensive examination of the pieces and a re-examination of the site, and I’ve managed to lay my hands on a copy. So far I’m on about page 26 and no-one has managed to insult or abuse anyone else, even if the authors do disagree with some of Jones’s conclusions, so it makes some nice, calm reading

Back in here I had things to do, such as to finish off the missing notes from the next radio programme. So that’s all done now and it’s ready to be dictated on Saturday night.

The rest of the morning was spent on this question of backing-up that’s going to be the bane of my life over the next few weeks because there isn’t enough room on the USB key that hangs on my keyring.

“So why not use a portable drive like I used to in the olden days?” The question that I need to ask before that is “can I make a portable drive work with one hand?”. Remember that when I’m in the Dialysis Centre I had pipes and tubes going into one arm and the arm is clamped into a mould to hold it still, clamped to my leg

My cleaner was rather late coming to fit my patches, so as you might have expected, the taxi was rather early. He didn’t like having to wait for me, which was no surprise seeing as he had someone else in the car with him.

It was a slinet drive down to Avranches and we were really early there so I had to wait 20 minutes. Still, the earlier we start, the earlier we finish I suppose.

My bed was down in the far corner today which is always something of a struggle, especially when there’s almost 5kg of water to remove today

In the end, they agreed that they would only remove 4.5 kg. What they are going to do with this excess water, now that they are already on the maximum (1.1kg/hour at a maximum of four hours), I really don’t know. And neither, I suspect, do they

Once I was comfortable I began the back-up but then had one of those dramatic crash-outs that I used to have in the bad old days. But there I was a little later, being shaken awake by none other than Emilie the Cute Consultant.

"Mr Hall!" she said. "I thought that you were having a crisis!". She obviously doesn’t know about these diabetic comas.

And you should be even more proud of me that you were a few days ago. It took a great, immense effort but I managed to avoid saying "next time you want to awaken me, don’t shake me. Just roll over and give me a gentle nudge."

Before I was plugged in, I reminded the nurses that I needed a prescription of all of my other medication. They’d printed it off on Monday but there was no doctor there to sign it. Anyway, while she was hovering over me, I reminded Emilie the Cute Consultant that I needed it.

Ten minutes later one of the nurses came back waving a prescription signed by one of the doctors, and five minutes later Emilie the Cute Consultant came in carrying one too.

"Ohhh" she said. "I see that you already have one" and began to turn on her heel.

"In fact, I’d rather have yours" I replied. "It has your nice handwriting and signature on it" and she blushed again.

Once more, I was the last to leave. I hadn’t lost all of the liquid, which is no surprise. But it’s not going to help. What’s the betting that within a year I’ll be permanently coupled up to a dialysis machine?

The taxi was waiting for me when I came out. There was another lady to travel with me who lived in Avranches but this time we went up the old road that is probably one of the steepest roads that I have ever travelled. And then I had a lovely view of the old city walls and castle on the way past after we’d dropped her off.

She had mobility problems so I’d sat in the back of the car … "as if you don’t!" – ed … and after she left, I didn’t have the energy to move into the front. It was a very quiet and subdued drive home.

My cleaner was waiting for me and she watched as I climbed all 25 steps to my door – the stair handrails are now fixed.

We had a little chat and she promised to have the prescription framed, with Emilie the Cute Consultant’s signature in full view

After gathering my breath and having my protein drink, I made tea. Steamed vegetables and vegan sausage in a vegan cheese sauce. It was absolutely delicious. And my apple cake and caramel soya dessert was magnificent. The cake is as good as I thought it would be.

Bedtime now, and more work to do tomorrow. It’s a never-ending cycle, isn’t it? One of these days it will stop, but only when I’m pushing up the daisies.

But going back a little, seeing as we have been talking about archaeologists … "well, one of us has" – ed … have you ever noticed how so many of the people on the site are female?
On day I was passing an archaeological site and noticed this so I asked the team leader.
"We always engage women when we can" he replied. "And usually married women"
"Why’s that?" I asked
"Because they are so good at it" he explained. "There is nothing like a married woman for digging up all the past"

Monday 20th January 2025 – YET ANOTHER THREE …

… and a half hours under the dialysis machine today, and that might soon be changing. They are talking about increasing the dose to four hours. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … we seem to be moving slowly towards a climax and the overall prognosis isn’t that good.

In fact, things must be even more serious that I imagined, because they sent Emilie the Cute Consultant to break the bad news to me. And considering that she has been doing her best to steer clear of my bedside these last few weeks, that must have been some effort.

It was some effort for me to go to bed last night too. It was even later than normal when I finally hauled myself out of my chair and went into the bathroom to prepare for the night. I was definitely not feeling like sleeping and I lacked the motivation and energy to haul myself out of my comfortable chair.

Eventually I managed to make my way into bed and there I lay trying to go to sleep and trying to chase the black thoughts from my mind. And as it happened, I did neither. So there I lay, being tormented, for several hours.

When the alarm sounded I was fast asleep so I must have dropped off at some point. And what an effort it was to haul myself from my bed. It’s a good job that the nurse is coming, for I could quite easily have stayed in bed until I don’t know when.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and shave and even applied the deodorant in case Emilie the Cute Consultant should come to see me, and then went to take my medication.

Back in here I went to listen to what was on the dictaphone but to my dismay there was nothing at all, and that’s really disappointing. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only excitement that I have these days is what goes on (or comes off, but I should be so lucky) during the night.

Isabelle the nurse came around, her last day for this round. She had a few things to say, but nothing of too much importance. She’s going to spend the week packing for her ski holiday soon and also working on her Carnival float.

After she left I made my breakfast and read MY BOOK.

Our author has spent probably 100 pages attacking the idea that Wissant was the port from which Caesar sailed to Britain (not that it matters much, as the book is about Britain, not Caesar), insulting the people who believe that it might have been, and lampooning the people who have changed their opinion over time.

And here we are, on page 579; with a statement "for I myself once argued that the Portus Itius was at Wissant. But my knowledge was then imperfect.". Not a word about why his knowledge was imperfect, not a word about why he once believed that Wissant had been Caesar’s port, not a word of the factors that he had considered at that time, not a word of why he had rejected them, not a word of criticism of his own ideas and not an apology to those whom he had lampooned for changing their mind.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I shan’t be sorry to reach the end of this book. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of interesting facts in there but by God! What a struggle it has been to wade through the mass of invective, insult and abuse to find them.

It seems to me that he is working himself up into a crescendo and I wonder how it’s all going to finish.

Back in here I had things to do, like my Welsh homework for example. I like to do half of it in one week and the other half the following week so as to spread it out. But what I’m going to do at some point is to read through all of the homework that I’ve done, and make a dictionary of words that I have already forgotten. As if I don’t have enough work to do.

My cleaner took me once more by surprise. She was late but I’d lost track of time anyway. And we hadn’t even finished when the taxi came for me. There was someone with an appointment at Avranches at 13:00 so these new Securité Sociale rules means that because my trip falls within this 45-minute window, I have to grin and bear it.

Not that I am complaining, because as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s all free, and this is the only country in the World as far as I am aware where such a service is provided for the likes of me.

One advantage of being there early was that not only was I the first of the afternoon shift to arrive, I was first in bed and consequently first to be plugged in. And strangely, the first pin didn’t hurt at all and the second only marginally so, even if they had to take out the pin and reinsert it.

Having said that though, I began to know more about it as the anaesthetic wore off.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me, and we had an interesting chat. "How are you today, Mr Hall?"
"Very well now that I’ve seen you" I replied. And she had the decency to giggle and blush

So we chatted, all about work though, not one of those intimate personal chats that we had last summer, and she broke the bad news to me. But at least she confirmed that Saturday’s dialysis is no different than any other day so it’s not that which is disrupting my sleeping patterns.

"Would you like me to prescribe a sedative for you" She asked.

It seemed to me that that referred to my earlier comment so I restrained myself, with great difficulty I promise you, from saying something like “what I really need is someone to keep me warm and cosy in bed. When’s your next day off?”. You should be proud of me.

Instead I replied "no thanks". All that I have left these days are my dreams and they seem to be fading right now which is a shame. And never mind restraining myself, it will be other people restraining me if I carry on like this. But ask me if I care.

While we’re on the subject of dreams … "well, one of us is" – ed … I crashed out as usual once the pump started sucking my blood out and went away with the fairies (although I did nothing worthy of any comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine)

There I was, in some building in which I’d been before. Someone came to pick me up and when he took me outside I found that he was to take me away on a motorbike. He had left the engine running so I told him that that had been a very dangerous thing to do around here

The building reminded me of somewhere in (I think) either Cleveland or Buffalo … "IT WAS BUFFALO" – ed … in the USA where I’d passed through on my mega-voyage around North America after having dropped off Kit at her University at Windsor.

And as for motor bikes, we’re either talking about motorcycle taxis again or else it’s to do with crossing the Atlantic on a motor bike, something else that we’ve mentioned recently.

When I’ve been awake, I’ve been tidying up a long-forgotten site on the internet. That all started with a search for someone whose name cropped up there and when I followed it up, I was surprised at how out-of-date this site was. So I did some of it, and there’s plenty more to do.

Don’t you ever become fed up of finding all of these tasks that you need to do that totally distract you from what you were trying to do in the first place?

With starting early, that usually means finishing early. And I was certainly unplugged early. But all of the rest went haywire as the compression burst and we red-washed the entire wall of the Clinic by my bed.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the taxi that came for me had to wait another ten minutes to take someone else too.

So once more I ended up being late home but at least it was the nice female taxi driver, the one with twins at the school here, so we had a nice chat. I hope that she’s the one who takes me to Paris, either her or my favourite lady taxi driver who gives me a running commentary throughout the whole route.

It’s freezing outside again here so I was glad to be indoors again. With about 20 minutes to spare I edited some more of the outstanding radio programme that I should had completely dealt with on Sunday.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper with pasta and veg followed by chocolate cake and soya yoghurt. Plenty of stuffing left, but I’ve no idea when I’ll finish it, what with going to hospital in Paris later this week

So now it’s bedtime, ready for my Welsh lesson tomorrow. And hoping that I’ll have pleasant dreams involving Castor, TOTGA or Zero, or Moonchild whom I shall add to the Terrible Three and make a Fearsome Foursome.

But before I go to bed I’ll give you an exclusive scoop, one that you’ll hear nowhere else, on the handover discussion between Trump and Biden in the Whitehouse (and that’s not a spelling mistake, although that will soon change) this afternoon
"You just watch" said Trump. "I’m gonna be a goddam Emperor"
"You can’t do that" said Biden. "An Emperor is someone who rules an Empire, and the USA isn’t an Empire"
"Well in that case" said Trump "I’m gonna be a goddam King"
"You can’t do that either" replied Biden. "A King is someone who rules a Kingdom, and the USA isn’t a Kingdom"
"Actually" continued Biden "with you in the White House, Donald, the USA will be just fine as a country"

EPIC HALL

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