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Sunday 28th September 2025 – AS I HAVE …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Saturday 27th September 2025 – THIS HEALTH ISSUE …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Friday 26th September 2025 – ONCE MORE …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway, I digress … "again" – ed …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sunday 21st September 2025 – ONE OF MY …

… WEB PAGES is going berserk right now with hits, and the hit counter is rolling off the page through sheer weight of numbers.

The tiny little village of St Paul’s River, or Rivière St Paul, on the Forgotten Coast of Québec close to the border with Labrador has become famous overnight. It seems that a consortium of fourteen residents of that tiny place have won the latest round of Canada’s national lottery, a prize of no less than $50,000,00 or, as the Canadian national newspapers have to explain to their intellectually-challenged audience, about $3.4 million each.

When I say “the Forgotten Coast”, I really do mean the “Forgotten Coast”. Totally isolated from the rest of Québec, pretty much ignored by the Province and with its only road connection being east into Labrador. There is so little known or written about the place, and as I seem to be the only person on the whole of the planet who has ever researched and written about it, everyone seems to be coming to me and my web page for newsworthy snippets.

Not that I mind, of course. Everyone should be entitled to his five minutes of fame, especially me. After all, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed.

But thinking about it – which I always do, of course – if I live for another year or so, I will have more than five minutes of fame. I was told right at the start of this illness that no-one had ever survived more than eleven years with it. I was diagnosed in November 2015 and in principle, based on the Law of Averages, I should have been pushing up the daisies, or “eating the dandelions by the roots” as they say around here, a long time ago.

In fact, when I was ejected from the hospital in Leuven after eighteen months and told to find somewhere civilised to live, I asked the professor if I should buy myself a nice little apartment somewhere.

"You won’t have your money’s worth from it" the professor told me brutally. But here we are.

Mind you, we won’t be here much longer if things carry on like last night.

Once more, I sprinted right the way through all of my chores and ended up nicely tucked up in bed by 22:30. And how I wish that I could do that every night.

The next bit isn’t so clever, though. And that is that at 02:30, I was wide-awake. Try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep so eventually, round about 04:15, I left the bed.

Yesterday evening, I’d missed the live Caernarfon v Penybont game so I found the link to the game and sat back to watch it.

It’s really difficult playing football in a tropical monsoon, especially when it’s accompanied by a hurricane, and I could tell after five minutes that most of the Caernarfon team was wishing that it was somewhere else than on a football field. They really did seem quite disinterested.

After about 75 minutes, they totally fell apart and Penybont were striding through the Cofis’ defence with monotonous regularity. They scored two quick goals and could easily have three or four more.

Caernarfon pulled one back late in the game when Adam Davies latched on to an underhit backpass, and even had the ball in the net a second time in stoppage time, only for it to be controversially ruled out for offside.

Seriously though, I was convinced that the referee was refereeing a totally different game to the one that we were all watching.

After the final whistle, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. At some point during the night, I had this desire to turn round in bed but try as I might, I just wasn’t able to move. I kept on trying to think how I could bring everything that I wanted down towards where I was, which was in bed with some trees that had been planted to celebrate some kind of victory growing all around me if I was unable to change my position. It wasn’t until I awoke at 02:11 that I was able to move into a different position.

Reading this back, I have no idea whether or not it was true because I have no recollection of any of this. I’ve certainly no idea why trees should be growing all round my bed, planted to celebrate a victory.

Isabelle the Nurse was next to interrupt my train of thought. She was grateful for the prescription that I had obtained for her, and so was I because, without it, she couldn’t give me my injections. We had a friendly chat as she dealt with my legs, and then she disappeared off on her rounds.

Once she’d left, I made breakfast and read some more of BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

We’re not discussing the American invasion of Québec which Colonel Carrington, our author, describes as strategically correct but with enough tactical and logistics shortcomings to short-circuit the entire procedure. And I do have to say that I agree with him in this respect.

It was a slow start to the day. I was a couple of hours in the living room doing not very much at all, and then I came back in here for a footfest of highlights, including Stranraer gaining only the second point of the season.

But what a flukey equaliser the Elgin City goal was. I reckon that Kane Hester will TRY THAT SHOT a thousand times over the next ten years and not put the ball anywhere near the goal, never mind in it.

After the usual disgusting drink break, I came in here and began to work on the next radio programme, being interrupted by my visitor for tomorrow asking me to confirm my address.

Round about 16:00, I knocked off and went to make a loaf of bread for next week and some pizza dough for this evening. I was however interrupted by Rosemary, who ‘phoned me to say that she was back home after her mega-adventures in Italy.

She told me quite a bit about her holiday, but it was only a short ‘phone call today, just one hour and five minutes. Not up to our usual standard at all.

While I was at it, seeing as I had some vegan pie filling in the freezer, I baked a vegan pie for my guests for tea tomorrow. They have to eat, after all. For Tuesday night, I might ask my faithful cleaner to find a small aubergine and then I can cook one of my aubergine and kidney bean whatsits.

Tonight’s pizza was totally delicious, another candidate for one of the best that I have ever made. And now, I’m off to bed ready to Fight The Good Fight tomorrow, I don’t think.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the football highlights … "well, one of us has" – ed … a footballer from one of the games was injured and carried off the field.
They took him to hospital and while he was sitting there in the Accident Department, the registrar came over to check him in.
"And why have you come to the Accident Department?" she asked.
"I’ve no idea" he replied
"What do you mean?" she asked
"One of the other team kicked me on the knee" he explained. "But it wasn’t an accident. He did it on purpose."

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Saturday 20th September 2025 – I HAVE NO …

… idea about what is going on at the dialysis centre right now. After Thursday’s controversies, I seem to have been left in limbo. It’s not true to say that there was no doctor on duty today because I definitely caught a glimpse of Emilie the Cute Consultant at some point, but nevertheless, no-one seems to be interested in following up the examination that took place on Thursday.

It’s a shame, because it all seemed to be going so very well today. It actually started last night, even though I was feeling so ill. I’d dashed through my notes yet again and was, for once, actually in bed by 22:30, something that has not happened for quite some considerable time.

Even more rare than that, I slept right the way through until the alarm went off at 06:29, and I can’t even begin to think when was the last time that that happened. Mind you, I was totally exhausted after the previous night when I don’t think that I slept at all.

It took, as usual these days, an age to raise myself from the Dead and head off to the bathroom. I had a good wash and scrub up, and even washed my undies in the sink. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that, from my days of living out of a suitcase, it’s very important that I keep on top of the washing.

After the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was in South Africa last night, in a column with the British Army that was attacking the Boers in World War I. The Boers had decided for self-administration, they were armed and had risen up. The British had sent several armies to confront them, but at first things went horribly for the British and they were pushed back after three major battles. Everyone in this dream wanted to rise up and go again on the attack but the Prince of Vietnam wanted to hold on until new weapons were available because they were on the verge of coming up with something that worked over a distance and the cannons were not as successful as they had hoped that they would be. They were effectively living with the girl’s mother.

The first part of that is easy to explain. Yesterday, I was reading about the opening battles of the Boer War in South Africa, the three major opening battles that left the British with a very bloody nose and the four “Creusot” Long Tom artillery pieces that the Boers acquired. Where the dream goes after that, with the Prince of Vietnam and the girl’s mother, I have absolutely no idea where this fits in with anything. But then again, that’s nothing new.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in, and once more, I’m in her bad books. I obtained the prescription for the injections that I am supposed to have after chemotherapy, but apparently I forgot to ask for the prescription for the visiting nurse to inject me with them. But what do I know about all of this?

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

Our author, Colonel Carrington, is discussing the Battle of Bunker Hill that was in effect the first major battle of the American Revolution. The British in Boston attacked the Americans who were entrenched on Bunker Hill and Breed’s Hill, and although they won a major victory, albeit at terrific cost, the complete and utter lack of a strategic master plan left the British at a loss as to what to do next.

It was this type of indecision that in later battles eventually ended up with the British being expelled from what became the USA.

Back in here, I had plenty of things to do and in the hour that remained, I attacked my Welsh homework. It’s almost finished now, so I’ll do the rest tomorrow and send it off so that I’ll have it back by Tuesday. Then I can crack on with the next one which will be due in a week or so’s time.

My faithful cleaner came down to sort out the anaesthetic on my arm, and then I had a rather long wait for the taxi to take me to dialysis.

We also had to pass by Champeaux to pick up another passenger, so the driver took me on a series of very interesting rural roads. Just outside Champeaux we drove past the ruins of the Léproserie Saint-Blaise– the old leper hospital from the Middle Ages.

We were late arriving at the dialysis centre and once more, I had to wait a while to be plugged in.

And herein lies the disappointment. They told me on Thursday that my dry weight had been over-estimated by 2kg, so I’ve been on a very thin diet and have drunk almost nothing at all to prepare myself for a massive drainage session today. Based on the previous dry weight, I had just 1.7kg to eliminate instead of the usual 2.8 or 2.9 so I was well-prepared.

However, to my astonishment, the doctor who attended to the session on Thursday hadn’t altered my dry weight to the new revised figure so instead of the machine running at the maximum 950g/hour as I was expecting, it was a very sedate stroll along at 480g/hour. It seems that I had been depriving myself for no good purpose, and that’s really annoying.

Just you wait until Monday when they tell me that I have to stay for four hours at the max!

That wasn’t all either. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday I mentioned these dizzy spells and hallucinations that I’d been having. Towards the end of the session, they started up again and the dizzy spell was by far the worst that I have had.

Mind you, I didn’t say anything to anyone. There isn’t much point. They would probably just offer me a Doliprane and cut the session short, and then I’d be in an even worse position than I am now.

When the session ended, I had an interminable wait until they came to unplug and compress me, and then I could leave, about an hour later than planned.

In contrast to the driver who took me to dialysis who hardly said a word throughout the entire journey, it was another one of the interesting, chatty drivers who brought me home. We talked a lot about, would you believe, women’s rugby but also about travelling.

There was a howling gale blowing here when I returned, so in view of that and my dizzy spells, my cleaner and my driver had to help me into the apartment. I was glad to sit down.

She had been to the chemist’s this afternoon and fetched the latest supply of medication, and there is more to come, especially the injections that I need.

Tea was a baked potato with vegan nuggets and a small salad, because I’m still not hungry at all. The good news though is that having sent an e-mail to the doctor in Paris about the injections, he had sent me the missing part of the prescription, so Isabelle the Nurse should be happy, I hope.

Me too, because I’m off to bed now, and I really do need my sleep. All of this is just so tiring. I don’t understand what is happening to me right now in this respect. Gone are the days when I could work for thirty-six hours and more, non-stop, with no problem at all.

But seeing as we have been talking about dizzy spells … "well, one of us has" – ed … I mentioned to someone at the dialysis centre a while back that I’d been having the odd dizzy spell now and again.
"That’s terrible" she said. "Do you have vertigo?"
"Ohh yes" I replied. "It’s a forty-five-minute drive to Granville."

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Thursday 18th September 2025 – I’M THOROUGHLY FED UP …

… with this dialysis nonsense and for two pins, I’d throw it all in. I’ve been trying to talk to the medical staff for weeks upon end and no-one has paid the slightest heed to what I’ve been saying. Today, it was the time for the monthly assessment of my “dry weight”, and the results are exactly as I predicted and I am rightly furious.

The doctor on duty must have realised too, because he kept well out of my way and only showed himself in our room for a brief second.

It’s the last thing that I need, on top of everything else that’s going on right now.

Last night, I mentioned going to bed early. But if only … I finished my notes early enough but I simply could find neither the energy nor the motivation to haul myself out of my chair. I sat here like a vegetable until almost midnight before I could stagger, fully clothed, the two feet from my chair to my bed.

It took an age to go off to sleep – it really did – and that’s so unusual these days. I was still wide-awake at 02:30 and well beyond that too.

Once I was asleep though, I slept right the way through to … errr … 05:20 or thereabouts. That three hours in the afternoon must have made a difference somehow. I left the bed at about 05:50 and then went off for a good wash, a shave and a scrub up in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant at dialysis in the afternoon, 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 yesterday afternoon too.

Yesterday’s notes are now amended to include the relevant entry, and then I turned my attention to those from the night. I had a strange dream last night. I was with my friend, and it was a question of hunting down some of his papers for some reason. It turned out that he had given them to another friend of mine to store because he had no particular way of storing his papers. He was always someone who was on the move around so he needed some kind of place to keep them. But there was again much more to this dream, but the moment that I awoke, it all evaporated yet again. But there was certainly something going on in my head about something called “The Familynappers” but I’ve no idea now why this seems to have related to anything.

This is another dream that seems to relate to nothing at all, although I wish that I knew what the missing pieces were all about. I’m missing far too many extracts these days with this disturbed sleep pattern following chemotherapy, and I’m not all that happy about it. Not at all.

Isabelle the Nurse was late this morning but she was her usual cheery self today. It seems that both she and her oppo are very happy, which is nice to see. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I hope that it keeps up.

After she left, I made some breakfast and read some more of BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

Our author, Colonel Carrington, is excelling himself with this book. When discussing revolutions, rebellions and insurrections in general, he criticises Shay’s Rebellion of 1786 in Massachusetts, saying that it "The claim that the Governor’s salary was excessive, that the State Senate was aristocratic, and that taxes were odious,". One would think that he hadn’t heard of the Boston Tea Party and the American War of Independence.

Later on, he tells us that "The first grade is that which devolves upon distant dependencies, the assertion of Independence, when the controlling authority is unable or unwilling to grant the people their rights and proper representation; when laws are constraints without equivalents, and the subjects are, in fact, slaves". Twenty or so years previous to when he was writing his book, the US Government left John Brown’s body mouldering in the grave after the events in “Bleeding Kansas”.

Back in here, I had things to do, and then I had a very important letter to write. It’s been taxing my French and it’s not finished yet, because it’s going to end up like GUERRE ET PAIX, but for all the good it might do, it will be finished some time soon.

My cleaner came along as usual to apply my anaesthetic cream, and then she stayed talking for quite a while. The taxi was late, and with someone else to pick up too, I was quite late arriving at dialysis.

As I said earlier, it was time to assess my dry weight, which took about fifteen minutes to complete. And sure enough, it’s 2 kg less that they have set it. That means that there was 4.9 kg of water to remove.

The nurse set it at 2.9 kg, using the old dry weight, and said that she would speak to the doctor. However, he disappeared from view and that was that.

For weeks and weeks, I’ve been telling them that with my appetite reduced to next to nothing, I’m rapidly losing weight. But not only has he taken no notice whatsoever, he increased the dry weight a week or two ago, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, and he also cut halted a session a short while ago with liquid still to be extracted.

Another thing was that on Monday I asked them, seeing as there was a margin of manoeuvre on the maximum hourly rate to be extracted, whether they could increase the limit to the maximum in order to give me a head start for chemotherapy, but they refused. "We can’t take out what isn’t in" was the reply, but the events of this afternoon has shown clearly that it was in there all the time.

It beats me why I go through all of this pain and suffering for what seems to be no good reason. But watch this space over the next few sessions when they oblige me to stay for four hours, through no fault of my own at all.

The session eventually finished, at the old dry weight with still 2 kg to go. However, to cheer me up, I had the young chatty girl taxi driver to bring me home and we had a lovely journey home, talking mainly about cats.

My faithful cleaner helped me back into the apartment and, once more, stayed chatting for a while. But almost immediately after she left, I had a ‘phone call. It was the ex-girlfriend from school. She’s planning on turning up on Monday evening to stay until Wednesday.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I have very suddenly become extremely popular these days and I’ve no idea why. I’ll have to buy one of these “take-a-ticket” machines to install outside the door if it carries on like this.

Tea was a handful of pasta and an overcooked veggie thing in breadcrumbs (I still haven’t fathomed out the intricacies of this new microwave) and now, I’m really going to try to go to bed and to sleep much earlier than usual.

But seeing as we have been talking about vegetables, Starmer was in a restaurant with “a certain visitor from overseas” last night, when the waiter came over to take their order.
"What would you like, sir?" asked the waiter.
"I’ll have the steak" replied Starmer
"And what about the vegetable?" asked the waiter
"He’ll have steak too" replied Starmer.

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Wednesday 17th September 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… a horrible afternoon today and I’m going to bed in a moment. Sleep is and always has been my remedy for all kinds of illnesses; aches and pains, so if this posting suddenly stops half-way through, you know what has happened.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ll pick up the threads some other time when I awaken, if I ever do, because the way things are right now, that’s not at all clear.

First of all, my apologies to Alison. Firstly, for missing her birthday yesterday, and secondly, for replying to a text message of hers at … gulp … 03:40 this morning and probably awakening her from her beauty sleep.

Yes, I was up and about at 03:40 this morning and if the truth were known, I could have been up and about a long, long time before that.

With not cooking a meal last night, eating my lunchtime sandwiches instead, I was well over an hour earlier than usual and I made good use of the time by dashing through the notes from yesterday, probably missing off a pile of important stuff that I’ll find that I need to consult in the future.

That’s one of the many purposes of this blog, by the way. I have a hopeless memory – a "brain of a duck, you know" as was once FAMOUSLY SAID ON FILM. Consequently, I have to make notes of what goes on so that I can recall them later. Nothing is more satisfying when contacting “authority” to be able to say things like "but in our conversation of 9th April 2016 you said …" and to be able to put the contemporary quote before their eyes.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … office, I sprinted through my notes and everything else, and was in bed not long after 22:00, which these days is something of a record.

However, regular readers of this rubbish will recall exactly what happens next.

That’s right. There I was at 01:30, tossing and turning in my bed trying my very best to go back to sleep after a dramatic awakening, and failing dismally.

After a couple of hours, I gave it up as a totally bad job and arose from the Dead. And contrary to the expectations of other people, I did not have a wasted morning.

Apart from disturbing Alison’s sleep, there were two radio programmes which, as I mentioned the other day, needed some amendment to their text. And so I re-wrote the text and, in the absence of the howling gale, that seems to have died down now, re-dictated them (one of them twice because yet again, the first five seconds of one of the recordings had gone walkabout).

Once I was satisfied with what I had, I edited them and rebuilt the two programmes and now they are ready to go, sometime in March next year.

At that point, the alarm went off at 05:38 so I went and had a good wash and scrub up, then came back here to listen to the dictaphone. And I needn’t have bothered, because with just three or so hours of sleep, there hadn’t been much time to go anywhere during the night.

There were several other things to do, but in the end, at 06:30, I was interrupted by the arrival of Isabelle the Nurse who came to sort out my legs. She was in a very lively mood this morning and so the news that I had later of an incident involving a patient whom she visits after me took me completely by surprise. Anyway, that’s another story – rather like the one that I told yesterday about the house of the Franklins in Spilsby.

No breakfast, and no medication this morning because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … what doesn’t go in won’t want to come out at an inconvenient moment during the morning.

It was the young, chatty driver who brought me home yesterday who came for me this morning, bang on 07:00 as promised. He’d ‘phoned me a little earlier to confirm his arrival so I was ready and waiting by the door.

And that was where the first effects of yesterday’s chemotherapy hit me. It’s a very gentle, almost imperceptible slope up to the road, but I had an awful struggle going up it and I needed help. That was devastating news for me.

There was another passenger in the car with us, with an earlier appointment than mine at Rennes as I predicted, so we fought our way through the back lanes around Avranches station and the traffic queues on the rocade around Rennes to drop off our ladyfriend, and arrived at my building bang on 09:00.

Surprisingly, I was seen immediately, and by 09:15 I was coupled up and running.

It was only a short session this morning so I didn’t bother with the internet (although I found the free connection, which is good news). Instead, I read some of THE WAR IN THE AIR – the official history of the Royal Flying Corps.

It’s a fascinating book but, as you might expect, it’s full of the gung-ho jingoism that so characterised the inflated egos of the British upper classes at that moment. Reading things like "Flying Corps, when it took the field with the little British Expeditionary Force, was enabled to bear a part in saving the British army, and perhaps the civilization of free men, from the blind onrush of the German tide." makes me cringe.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the advantage of going to Rennes is that there are thirty or forty voyages to Rennes made by my taxi company every day. So when the secretary ‘phoned them to say that I was ready to leave, there was a car here in fifteen minutes with one passenger already on board and another to be picked up after me.

But it’s like being on a production line at Rennes. You’re in, you’re dealt with, and you’re straight out. No time for recovery or to calm down or anything. They had to fetch a wheelchair for me again as I was in no state to stand up, and I had to be helped into the car.

On the way home, I was feeling awful and as sleep is my usual remedy, I dozed off for half an hour.

We had the usual guided tour of half of Normandy, during which I visited a couple of places where I’d never been before and didn’t even know existed, and was back here by about 13:00, where my faithful cleaner was waiting. She helped me into the apartment (and I needed help) where I sat down for an hour to recover.

Once I’d recovered slightly, I had a small bowl of porridge (all that I’ve eaten today – and if I’m off my food, then regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m not at all well) and then went to bed where I slept for over three hours.

While I was asleep in the afternoon, I remember making something like a model lighthouse. It was made of plastic, like an Airfix model, with bits that we had to glue together and paint. It was rather complicated to do it, and we realised when we almost finished that it looked nothing like in the plan and we were doing it the wrong way round. Someone came to check on me while I was asleep in bed, and that jogged my memory so I went to have another go at making this lighthouse. I realised that in its natural position, it was pulled square but I had to tighten up the pillars, columns and safety bars which would draw it up into a hexagram – a circle, rather – and that was something that I hadn’t done at first so I set about having a go at doing that.

This evening, I’ve had a lively chat with my niece’s youngest daughter who tells me that she and her mother "are all booked in just down the road from you" so it looks as if this visit in November is really going to happen.

Alison and I had a little chat too, which was nice, and then Jackie came for a chat too. It’s been my lucky day today.

However, I really was feeling awful, and I’m not much better now so I’m off to bed in the hope that I’ll feel better in the morning.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the gung-ho jingoism of the British Empire … "well, one of us has" – ed … it has been rivalled, if not exceeded in modern times, by the manner and behaviour of many Americans.
In a small pub in a rural area in Wales, I once heard an American going on about "the miserable size of the Welsh hill farms. Why, back in Texas, I could get into my car, drive for three days, and still not reach the boundary on the other side of my land!"
"I know exactly how you feel" replied a Welsh hill farmer
"You do???" exclaimed the American, incredulously
"Ohh yes" replied the farmer. "I used to have a car like that too."

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Monday 15th September 2025 – I AM THOROUGHLY …

… completely and absolutely fed up with this blasted dialysis.

The taxi came early for me for a change, and I was one of the very first to arrive at the dialysis centre. And yet, just to confound everything, it was another one of the latest returns back home that I have ever had.

It seems that everything has conspired against me and confounded my expectations, and I really must stop being so paranoid about it all because it’s doing me no good.

Yesterday, as usual, it was another evening that dragged on and on as I struggled to bring myself into a position where I could actually finish things off. Not that things were of much use because even though I might have finished my notes before 23:00, there was so much else to do and I couldn’t find the energy and motivation to do it.

Eventually, I managed to crawl into bed, much later than I had intended, and there I stayed, fast asleep, until 06:03 this morning.

“Just give me two minutes and I’ll hop out of bed” I said to myself, but the next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 06:29. I must have gone back to sleep again, which is a surprise because I’m not able to do that when I would like, but can somehow almost always manage it when I don’t want to.

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

Back in here afterwards, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was something happening concerning the West Point Military Academy in the USA -about how if people stuck to the correct geometric … "he means ‘geographical’" – ed … co-ordinates, they would find themselves slap-bang in the middle of the camp quite properly, but if they were to deviate by even half a degree, they would find themselves in open country that surrounded the establishment. I’m not sure what else there is to say about that.

This presumably relates to something that I read about Benedict Arnold, who entered into an agreement with the British to hand over West Point to them during the American Revolutionary War.

My friends had built a log cabin for me. It was on the roof of a big hotel, and they had used some of the natural features of the rock at the back of the hotel to form part of the shape of it, and then built the rest out of small logs positioned width-ways around it and all cemented in. They had made a beautiful job of it. They showed me around afterwards and it looked really nice. It was fairly primitive with a beaten earth floor etc but it was exactly what I wanted. I hadn’t believed that my friends could have made something so nice as this. When they showed me around, there was a nurse there who gave me a massage on my back to make sure that everything was working fine for a while, and then they all left me there. I was really comfortable, looking out at all the scenery in the mountains with all the snow. The way into this cabin was to go into the hotel and ask for permission to use the lift to go right to the very top floor, and I could come out onto the roof and I’d be there. The first time that I tried this, there were some oranges on the hotel reception desk, so I took an orange too. But the nurse who was there, she came up to me afterwards and said “when I come again, there will be a little present in my room for me, won’t there?”. I realised that, of course, she’s going to need paying for coming to give me a massage and that kind of thing. But the bad news was that I overheard a conversation between several people, one of whom was a medical type, who told me that the illness is now creeping into my back and my arms, so I thought that I’m not going to be able to enjoy my little cabin for all that much longer

This could relate to my wonderful friends who helped me move house a month ago, although I’ve no idea where the hotel and the nurse fit in. It is generally reminiscent of my plot of land in Canada where I had indeed intended to erect a log cabin so that I could go there every summer. However, my health had other plans.

The nurse came around today, his usual (these days) cheerful self, full of joie de vivre and bonhomie. He didn’t stay long, so I could crack on with breakfast and read the rest of BATTLE MAPS AND CHARTS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

That book is now finished and I’ve started the next one, BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. This is the full-length version of over 800 pages and goes into everything in a much greater depth.

So far today, we’ve been having Carrington’s eulogy and it looks as if it might continue in this vein for a couple of days yet. He takes and age to reach the point … "think of a well-known phrase involving pots and kettles" – ed …

After breakfast, there was some housekeeping that needed attention, and then I had to send off the radio programme for the coming weekend. That was something else that took an age with this new file transfer program that we are obliged to use now that the old one has died a death.

There were also a few ‘phone calls to make, and then I could concentrate on my Welsh homework that I should have done ages ago. It’s going to take an age because I can’t remember anything at all about the unit on which the homework is based.

My cleaner was late arriving, so I’d already begun to prepare my bag for dialysis. We had quite a long chat too, which was interrupted by the arrival of the taxi driver, abut 20 minutes early.

We had to pick up another passenger in Granville to take to Avranches, but even so, we were still about 20 minutes early.

My bed was all ready for me, but it still took them one hour and fifteen minutes to plug me in, by which time I was a most unhappy bunny.

The delays continued throughout the session – I even had to be reconnected because one of the pins had missed its aim and they had to start again.

What with all of this, I was in no mood to work. I just wanted to leave there. The doctor came to see me but he had nothing to say for himself and left quite quickly.

When the alarm went off for the end of the session, I had to wait 15 minutes to be unconnected. And then they decided to work on my feet for a while.

The taxi was 15 minutes late too so by the time that I returned home, it was long after 19:30, and that’s quite late (although not unheard-of) for a dialysis session.

With it being so late, I wasn’t in the mood to do much so I had pasta and falafel for tea – the falafel well-overcooked in the microwave.

But now I’m off to bed for an early night (I hope) the alarm is set for 06:00 tomorrow to give me a good start for chemotherapy. But it really is awful, all of this.

But seeing as we have been talking about Emilie the Cute Consultant … "well, one of us has" – ed … she was there this afternoon but all that I had was a grudging “hello”.
It’s a far cry from last summer when she would sit at the foot of my bed and chat to me about nothing in particular.
Regular readers of this rubbish will recall when she brought the first set of test results to me. "You have acute anaemia" she said.
"Thank you" I replied. "I’m so glad that you like it."

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Sunday 14th September 2025 – THERE ISN’T MUCH …

… at all on the dictaphone from last night, unfortunately. But then, that’s hardly a surprise. If you don’t go to bed until 23:30 but then are wide-awake again at 03:15, you don’t have all that much time to go very far.

Yes, it wasn’t as early as I was hoping last night, once again. And that was despite making an effort, for once. But as usual, I was one of the ones who fell by the wayside.

Once in bed, I fell asleep quite quickly but, as I said earlier, not for long. By 03:15 I was wide awake again and, try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep, despite trying my very best.

Round about 04:30, I threw off the covers, but it took me another good fifteen minutes to find the energy to rise to my feet.

After a good wash and scrub up, I went to take my medicine and then I came back here to listen to the dictaphone, which didn’t take long as I said earlier. I was back having a dream that I had a few nights ago where I had some kind of robot that was going to act as my servant. I had to train it to listen to my voice and understand it, and also I had to program it so that it would do what I wanted and do it efficiently. It’s quite similar to one that I had a few days ago.

That was what I dictated, but now that I’m awake, I really can’t recall any such dream in the past. However, it wouldn’t surprise me if there were dreams that I’ve had that, for some reason or other, I haven’t recorded. That wouldn’t be a great problem, except if they were to concern TOTGA, Zero or Castor, and then I really would be annoyed.

For the past few days, I’d been wishing for an early start so that I could dictate the radio notes that have been building up. No time like the present, seeing as it was quiet outside and the wind had died down, so I set to work.

As it happened, I was glad that I had plenty of time to dictate them, because for some reason, a whole pile of notes had been missed off the front of one of the ones that I had dictated, as I found out when I checked, and I had to re-dictate those notes.

Uploading them to the computer seems to take a lot longer than it should, and I hadn’t quite finished when the nurse arrived. It really had taken me much longer than I had thought.

He was in his usual good humour, which is nice these days, much better than he was before he went on holiday the other week, and as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I hope that he keeps on going. It’s his last day tomorrow, I believe, and then Isabelle the Nurse will be back for her week’s duty.

Round about this time, I had a message on the ‘phone from the taxi company – "confirming your pick-up for Rennes on Wednesday at 07:00.". Seeing as it’s no more than 90 minutes to Rennes and my appointment is at 09:00 it looks as if I’ll be sharing a taxi with someone who has an earlier appointment.

Not that I’m complaining, of course. Because I’m a terminally-ill patient, these trips in taxis to my medical appointments cost me nothing at all, something that I wouldn’t have anywhere else in any other country, so I’ve no right to complain.

Once the nurse left, I made my breakfast and read some more of Carrington’s BATTLE MAPS AND CHARTS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

We’ve passed through many interesting battles, some through which I travelled and visited on my trips around Upstate New York, and we’re now coming up to the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, the event that effectively sealed the fate of the British in what was to become the United States of America.

Back in here, I had a very leisurely ramble through the radio notes and edited them. One of the radio programmes is completed ready for broadcast – except that there’s a glaring error in the text that I shall have to change before it goes out.

As for the second programme, the two halves are prepared, the joining track has been chosen and I’m in the middle of writing the notes for it. It won’t take long to finish, always assuming that I can find the motivation.

In fact, I might have been able to finish it today but my early start caught up with me and I had a little half-hour curled up on my chair. I didn’t begrudge it today either. After all, I can’t be expected to keep going when I’ve had less than four hours sleep.

There was a break to make some bread and a pizza. The bread was magnificent – once I put it in the oven it went up like a lift and it looks really good. The pizza was excellent too, as usual.

And so I do have to say that this new oven really is the business, and I wish that I’d had one like it a long time ago. It would have made things so much easier when I’d been baking, and it might even have helped with my sourdough experiments, which were a dismal failure in the tabletop oven upstairs.

So right now, totally exhausted after my long day, I’m off to bed. Dialysis Monday, Chemotherapy Tuesday and Wednesday, dialysis Thursday. I’m just going round and round from one medical appointment to the other, so there’s not a great deal to which I can look forward these days.

But seeing as we have been talking about loaves of bread … "well, one of us has" – ed … the other day the local priest walking to church saw one of his parishioners walking towards him, one hand nonchalantly in his pocket and the other clutching a baguette.
"Ahhh " said the priest "Luke Chapter 11 Verse 3 – I see you have the staff of life in your hand. What do you have in your other hand?"
"Why, a baguette, my Father."

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Saturday 13th September 2025 – JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT …

… last night, I suddenly awoke, with another one of these quite dramatic awakenings.

And about five seconds after I awoke, I received a message on the telephone. It really was an astonishing coincidence, almost as if awakening five seconds before the message was in anticipation of its arrival.

It wasn’t all that much beforehand that I’d actually come to bed, after another one of the slow, depressing evenings that I seem to be having these days. And I was so tired, yet again, that I must have gone off quite rapidly to sleep. It’s a shame that I couldn’t have remained asleep, though, but then that’s what usually happens.

It took an age to go back to sleep too, but once I’d slipped into the arms of Morpheus, there I stayed until the alarm sounded. And that woke me up quite dramatically too, I can tell you.

At that moment, we were back in World War I when the Germans were storming a trench full of Greek soldiers. They had launched a few shells into a few Greek pill-boxes and stormed the trenches. There were piles of dead people around, so they went through, identified the wounded and shot them on the spot. There was one person who was a British officer leading a Greek troop. They questioned him about a few different things but as he didn’t have the correct answers to what they wanted, they shot him too. But we were working somewhere behind the lines, watching a captive balloon or Zeppelin or something that had escaped from its moorings and was flying at a very low height around the edge of the cliffs. We were worried that it would collide with the church steeple, so we were trying to work out a way, if we could, of diverting it away because if we were to fire at it, it would explode and that would make more damage. In the meantime, we had been repairing a few watches and things like that. We actually had one working, but then we decided that we weren’t happy so we dismantled it to have another attempt. At this moment, the girls came along and looked at what we were doing. They couldn’t understand why we had decided to do it a second time. I was talking to one of the guys about new technology and how powerful it was. He was saying that how he wished that he had bought a new 2GB memory stick while their prices were low, because a new 2GB one these days would cost $64. I replied that a 64GB one would only cost $2, the way that technology is going these days.

There’s a bit of everything in there. The bit about colliding with the steeple relates to a discussion that I had the other day with one of the taxi drivers, when we were watching the Nazguls flying around near the spire of the Eglise Notre Dame de Lihou. As for the rest, it seems to relate to little snippets of conversation that I’ve had now and again with different people.

After the bathroom and the medication, I came back in here to transcribe the dictaphone notes, but as you have already read them, I needn’t have bothered mentioning it.

The nurse was next, still in his cheerful mood, and then it was breakfast and a new book.

While I was reading COLONEL CARRINGTON’S TESTIMONY, I noticed that he had written several others and so I began today to read his BATTLE MAPS AND CHARTS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that IN 2013 and 2014 I roamed up and down the Hudson Valley in Upstate New York visiting the sites of the battles of the Revolutionary War and also of the Seven Years War of 1756-1763, including the site of Fort William Henry, the fort that featured prominently in Fenimore Cooper’s LAST OF THE MOHICANS

One of the places that I visited in 2013 was Fort Ticonderoga, and I noticed from Carrington’s description of the siege of the fort that "The Americans neglected to fortify Sugar Loaf Hill", a prominent eminence overlooking the fort, ⁣strong>"deeming it inaccessible.".

You probably noticed just now that STRAWBERRY MOOSE and I walked quite comfortably to the top, and so did several other people. And there’s still a British cannon up there that the British Army managed to drag up the hill.

After breakfast, I came in here to begin a new radio programme, and in fact I’m currently working on two of them right now because, halfway through choosing the music for one, I realised that I’d missed one. Still, variety is the spice of life.

When my faithful cleaner came down to apply my anaesthetic cream, she brought with her my electronic drum kit. That was a one-day wonder, that was. I bought it as a challenge, something to do during lockdown, but my legs gave out before I was able to master it.

It was the boss who came to fetch me today and we had quite a quick drive down to Avranches. I was connected up quite quickly too and then I could concentrate on Y Barri v Y Bala.

Y Bala had only conceded four goals all season up to date, but Y Barri doubled that total with comparative ease and could (and should) have had a bagful more except for the inspired performance of former Salford City goalkeeper Joel Torrance.

It was nevertheless an exciting game and you can see the highlights HERE if you are of such a mind.

Although I finished my dialysis earlier than usual, I had to wait to be unplugged, and then finally the boss brought me back in the most astonishing rainstorm that was engulfing Avranches.

Ironically, it wasn’t raining at Granville when I returned. It was a nice, leisurely walk back to my apartment in the howling gale, which has now been blowing for several days.

For a change, Tea tonight was a burger with baked potato – one of those luxury burgers that are really delicious. And now, I’m off to bed in the hope of a good lie-in tomorrow. I need one after all of this.

But I forgot to mention my ‘phone message from during the night. It reads "(we) will see you Friday November 7 for a few days fly back on November 11.". This visit from Canada looks as if it may well be happening.

But seeing as we have been talking about Ticonderoga and The Last of the Mohicans … "well, one of us has" – ed … it was at Ticonderoga where I told my famous story to one of the American tour guides.
Sent on a spying mission by Colonel Munro to find out about the French forces in Fort Ticonderoga, Hawkeye and Chingachgook approach the fort very carefully
"How many soldiers do you think there are in the fort?" asked Hawkeye.
Chingachgook lay down and put his ear to the ground. "About 300" he replied
"And how many cannon?"
Chingachgook lay down and put his ear to the ground again. "About 30"
"And how many horses?"
Chingachgook lay down and put his ear to the ground yet again. "About 60"
"And how many native allies?"
Chingachgook lay down and put his ear to the ground once more. "About 200"
"That’s incredible" said Hawkeye. "Can you tell all that by just lying down and listening to the ground?"
"Ohh no" replied Chingachgook. "If I lie down here like this and turn my head so that my ear is to the ground just like this, I can see right underneath the gates of the fort"
The response of the tour guide was "that’s incredible! I never knew that Hawkeye and Chingachgook came to Ticonderoga. I shall have to amend the tourist leaflets."
Which just goes to show, as Alfred Hitchcock and Kenneth Williams once famously said, "it’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners."

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Friday 12th September 2025 – I DON’T KNOW …

… why I bothered buying an apartment. I may as well have saved my money because it seems to me that these days, I’m being passed around from one hospital bed to another and it’s all getting completely out of hand. There has been another message today – "please present yourself at the aforementioned at 09:00 in the forenoon" – and all that kind of thing.

That’s the last thing that I need right now because I’m not doing all that well at the moment. It was another wretched evening when I couldn’t seem to find the motivation to finish rapidly what I was doing. Although I had the notes from yesterday online at some kind of reasonable hour, it still took an age to finish everything off and crawl into bed.

It was a bad night again, where I spent most of the time tossing and turning and not being able to sleep. At one point, I was thinking of leaving the bed and dictating the radio notes that I’d prepared during the week, but the howling, roaring gale and the sound of the waves crashing onto the cliffs out here rendered that idea a waste of time. No-one would hear me over the noise.

By the time that 05:50 came round, I was wide-awake so I switched on the light ready to leave the bed. However, the spirit may be willing but the flesh was quite weak this morning again and it was … errr … somewhat later when I finally had my feet on the ground.

After a good wash and the medication, I had some jars of spices to fill. And woe is me! I’ve run out of cumin. I’ve seen the price in the local supermarket too and how I wish that I could go back to Leuven where I can buy enormous bags for next to nothing.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I dreamed that I was in chemotherapy again – dialysis again last night and had to plug myself into the machine. There was some big, aggressive, domineering type of nurse who was surveying me, seeing if I had done it properly, but it took several goes before she was satisfied with what I’d done, and I’m not surprised that I awoke at that point.

This is something else that is going beyond a joke. It seems to have become a nocturnal obsession with me, dialysis and connecting myself up with tubes. It’s bad enough being confronted with it during the day but dreaming about it too when I really want to be dreaming about other things … "like TOTGA, Zero and Castor" – ed … is too much.

When I awoke just now, I was convinced that I’d been sitting down somewhere talking to a girlfriend of mine, discussing four different options of piles of clothes, one of which was supposed to be wet but I couldn’t see which one was wet when I touched them. This evolved into talking about the dictaphone. I was going somewhere so I was planning to leave the dictaphone with her. I had to show her how to work it but she said not to worry because she’ll have plenty of trials with it to make sure that it was working fine for when she actually needed it.

As it happens, I remember this. And I really did think that I had been sitting down too. I’m not sure why I would be letting anyone else use my dictaphone though. It usually accompanies me if I am away from the house.

At this point, I went and put my fleece jacket on. I forgot to say that yesterday, I put on a fleece in the apartment for the first time this year. It’s gone quite cold this last couple of days. "Winter is acumen in. Lhude sing Rudolph."

The nurse turned up again, in a very good humour yet again. I hope that he keeps it up for the rest of however long it will be that I’m here. I have a sneaky feeling that it won’t be long at this rate.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of COLONEL CARRINGTON’S TESTIMONY. In fact, I’ve read all of it now because it wasn’t that long.

Apart from the usual facts that were chiselled out about the running of the forts and the deaths of Fetterman and his party, there were the gruesome details about how Fetterman and his men were mutilated – in many cases before death. And it doesn’t make very pretty reading. In respect of Lieutenant Daniels, who was killed a few weeks before, Carrington tells us that "Lieutenant Daniels, a little in advance, was shot, scalped, and barbarously tortured with a stake inserted from below." That is nothing compared to the fate of some of Fetterman’s men.

However, to give you some idea of the constraints under which he was operating with his 375 men against a war party of at least 3,000 Sioux, he reports to his General that "One contract train with supplies for Fort C.F. Smith"; one of his outposts further down the Bozeman Trail "(thirty-one wagons) had but five arms with the party. I had to furnish an escort, especially as I had to send ammunition to Fort C.F. Smith, then reduced to ten rounds per man."

In his own case at his own fort (Fort Phil Kearny), the chief location along the Bozeman Trail, "I found Spencer ammunition at Reno and thereby am relieved from some trouble on that account, but having drawn, en route, all I could, I have not now for my Springfield rifles, fifty rounds to the man.". How on earth he was expected to hold at bay a whole Sioux Army is a total mystery.

Rather ominously, in view of the disaster that befell Fetterman and his troop, just six weeks before the dismal affair, Carrington assures his General that "In no case will any rash venture be made". Carrington did indeed give instructions to Fetterman, in the presence of witnesses, "Under no circumstances pursue over the ridge viz; Lodge Trail Ridge, as per map in your possession" i.e. out of the line of sight of the fort. However, when I walked to the battlefield from the fort in 2019, I found it to be well over the crest of the ridge and halfway down the reverse slope, a long way (as in several miles) out of the line of sight of the fort.

Back in here, I had various things to do, and then I attacked the radio programme that I’d been preparing over the last couple of days. And now, after a Herculean effort, because I really wasn’t feeling much like it, it’s now finished and ready for dictation. I’m now going to have to find a quiet early morning with no storms when I can dictate the notes that are building up.

All of this was interrupted by a text message. "Don’t forget your appointment at the University Hospital of Rennes on Wednesday 17th September at 09:00."

My appointment is actually for the Tuesday so I rang them up to see if there has been a mistake or a change of plan. But to my surprise (and dismay) I was told "the chemotherapy goes on for two days. You need to come here for both sessions."

"So do I get to stay the night in between?"

"Ohh no" replied the nurse. "You go home and come back the following morning."

My cleaner turned up as usual to do her stuff in the apartment, and she’s been busy rearranging things. That means that I probably won’t be able to find a few more things for quite some time now, and when I do find them, the next day they will all be rearranged again.

After she left, I made some more vegan mayonnaise as I have now run out. And I shovelled loads of garlic into it to give it some added bite. Not in the sense of werewolves or vampires, because the amount of garlic in that stuff will keep them away. They don’t seem to come any closer to me than Transylvania.

Tea tonight was chips with vegan salad and vegan mini-nuggets, delicious as usual.

But now, I’m off to bed, all ready for dialysis, I don’t think. But I really am fed up with this endless series of visits to hospitals. Wouldn’t it be nice if it could all stop?

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about keeping things away … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone in Shavington where we used to live as kids always planted garlic in with his strawberry plants.
"Why are you doing that?" asked his neighbour
"It keeps polar bears off my strawberries"
"But the polar bears are in the Arctic" replied the neighbour. "that’s 2,000 miles from here"
"Yes, it’s powerful stuff, isn’t it?"

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Thursday 11th September 2025 – I DON’T KNOW …

… what happened at dialysis this afternoon, but there are a couple of things that just aren’t correct.

Take the diabetes reading, for example. My blood sugar level is usually around the critical minimum level of 0.8, but today, according to their machine, it was at an excessive 1.29, and it’s never been that high.

And then there’s the blood pressure. I’m plagued with low blood pressure, usually around 9.0, often down to 8.0 and even sometimes down to 7.0 when they have to call for help. It needs constant monitoring at dialysis so they check it automatically every half-hour and if it’s less than 9.0 an alarm sounds, which it does with monotonous regularity.

However, today the alarm didn’t sound at all and the blood pressure hovered around the 11.0 mark.

So what on earth is going on? It’s not like me at all, any of this.

It might be something to do with the night that I had last night. I was in bed by 23:30 – not early by any means but earlier than some have been just recently – and I slept right through without interruption all the way through to 06:23 – one minute earlier than yesterday.

That was when I awoke. It was not necessarily when I left the bed, but let’s not argue about that. But once I was up and about, I went for a good wash and brush up, and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

After the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We had some kind of project going to re-equip an old supermarket with new shelving, racking etc. We had a lot of the stuff already so it meant going up to our warehouse and sorting out what we had. The trouble was that there were bits and pieces everywhere and it took a while to sort it all out. There was about half-a-dozen of us doing all this. It involved collecting everything together and making a start, but because of the difficulties of finding the stuff, we’d been working on one particular range of shelving for quite some time, and I thought that the people in the supermarket would be fed up, so we should prioritise having that finished. It meant collecting together all of the stuff that was lying around for that particular range, so I began to collect everything together. I had to find a box in which to put it all so I went into the storeroom in which someone was searching through, to ask if there was a box. However, one of the girls who should have been helping us was there fitting a new speedometer to her motorbike. I thought that this isn’t really helping the situation of pushing on with this job. This goes back to some kind of situation where I’d been shopping, trying to collect everything that we needed but I’d only ended up going round half the supermarket before I ended up somehow at the checkout, so the following day I had to go back and do the other half. That’s where the story of this renovation came in.

There is nothing that I have done recently that ties in with anything in this dream, except maybe to look for a few cardboard boxes, so this is a puzzle.

There was also something about driving my old red Cortina estate around the back roads and dirt tracks near the North Wales coast in the Prestatyn area, and at the end of one dirt track was a big abandoned building with a castellated roof, that I recognised as the headquarters of the old local electricity company so I took a few photos of it. The road stopped abruptly there but in the distance directly across the fields I could see the North Wales Expressway near Rhuddlan and the huge spire of the marble church near Bodelwyddan. Back home I went to show the photos to some of my friends but they all seemed to have failed, showing only a portion of the building in close-up instead of all of it.

Yesterday I was reading up about the Kinmel Bay riots in 1919, the camp at Kinmel Bay being just a short distance from Bodelwyddan. But again, I’ve no idea where the reference to some fictitious building supposed to be the MANWEB (Merseyside And North Wales Electricity Board) head offices (which were actually at Rhostyllen) fits in. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall however much discussion about my red Cortina estate, currently languishing in my warehouse in Montaigut en Combraille with a 2000E saloon and a Traction Avant for company.

The nurse was once again much more like his cheerful self this morning, which is good news. He didn’t stay long, and after he left I could make breakfast and read some more of ADVENTURES ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER.

In fact, I’ve read all of it now because our author has arrived in Montréal, which is where his story ends. But he finished it with a delightful anecdote. Discussing the “conjugal” arrangements between some of the Native American women and some of the officers of the fur-trading companies, he tells us that "Mr. J was transferred that autumn from the Columbia to the Athabasca department, to replace a Mr. C who was about quitting the country, and leaving behind him a handsome" Métisse "wife. J succeeded him both in bed and board".

Tomorrow, I’ll be starting on a new book, which looks as if it might be Colonel Carrington’s testimony in relation to the Fort Phil Kearny debacle. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in the summer 2019 we went into the Powder River country to visit THE SITE OF FORT PHIL KEARNY and the battle site where Lieutenant Fetterman led an absolutely reckless pursuit of a group of Native Americans who led him and his men straight into an ambush where they were wiped out to a man, all eighty-one of them.

We spent a good couple of weeks roaming around Northern Wyoming, North and South Dakota visiting many of the sites of conflict between the Europeans and the Native Americans, including places like LITTLE BIG HORN and finishing up at SOUTH PASS where the emigrants on the Oregon and California Trail in the 1840s passed from the Atlantic basin to the Pacific basin and where you can still see the wagon ruts today.

Back in here, I carried on with the next radio programme. All of the music has been chosen, edited, paired and segued, and I’ve made a start writing the notes. With a little luck, I might be finished tomorrow.

My cleaner came round to apply my anaesthetic cream, and then I had to wait for the taxi, which was late. Not that I minded because it was the cute young driver who came to pick me up and we had a lovely chat all the way down to the dialysis centre.

Although it was a late arrival, I was attended to straight away so the connection was even earlier than some have been. But despite the lack of interruptions, I couldn’t concentrate on anything and it was rather a waste of an afternoon.

My Belgian friend brought me back home, so we had another good chat and I gave her the number of my plumber, because she needs some bathroom work doing. And although he was more expensive than I was hoping, he did a magnificent job and I’m well-satisfied.

Tea tonight was a leftover curry but it’s given me a wicked indigestion, so I’ll be glad to go to bed tonight and sleep it off.

But seeing as we have been talking about Colonel Carrington’s expedition into Native American territory … "well, one of us has" – ed … on one occasion he went to smoke the pipe of peace with one of the local chiefs.
The chief began to introduce his entourage to Carrington
"My name is Chief Running Buffalo"
"How" replied Colonel Carrington
"This is my brother, Laughing Spirit"
"How" replied Colonel Carrington
"This is my mother, Flying Eagle. She came from the Comanche Tribe"
"How" replied Colonel Carrington
"And this is my squaw, Shining Moon. I bought her for three buffalo skins."
"How" replied Colonel Carrington
"Never mind ‘How’" said Colonel Carrington’s aide-de-camp. "Where?"

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Wednesday 10th September 2025 – I’VE NO IDEA …

… what’s happening right now, but I suddenly seem to have become very popular and it’s not like me at all. All kinds of people are contacting me these days and if I’m not very careful, I’ll end up needing a bigger engagement book to control it all.

Not last night, though. I was left pretty much to my own devices after tea and once more, I failed to push on with my work in order to have an early night. It was almost 23:30 when I finished everything, and there was no real reason why it should be that late.

The water heater hadn’t switched itself on so I switched it on manually in the hope that it might keep going through the night, not that there’s any way of controlling or checking it that I have found.

Back in here, I was in bed quite quickly, and asleep quite quickly too, but not for long because I had another one of these highly mobile nights where I’m tossing and turning without actually being asleep, but not actually being awake either.

There was another one of this dramatic “sitting bolt-upright” awakenings, at 06:24 this morning, five minutes before the alarm would usually sound. I managed to be sitting on the edge of the bed with my feet on the floor when the alarm went off, so that counts as an “early start” – only just, but it counts just the same.

On the way to the bathroom, I checked the fuse box. Although the fuse setting for the water heater showed “off”, it was still humming as if it was drawing current, so I switched it off completely. I hope that I remember to switch it back on again tonight.

After a good wash and scrub up, followed by the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. It was another dramatic awakening at about 02:50 that wiped this dream from my mind. It was something to do with sound files. I had various files with sounds in them and a few others with different other side effects of sound. I’d been trying to assemble something but someone came along to give me a hand but ended up dismantling what I had done. As they chose pieces from the first lot which were probably longer and better, it was much more difficult to find a piece from the second block that would actually match the sound. It was becoming extremely complicated.

This relates to what I was doing the other day when I had to re-dictate a part of the notes for that radio programme, and to make that which I dictated then sound like that which I had dictated previously.

At one point, I’d been on a sea voyage around the South-Central Atlantic somewhere off the coast of Brazil but I can’t remember that at all and … fell asleep here … but going back to that dream again, there was a little girl in an ambulance crew uniform with a portable x-ray machine who was waiting by the door. She was waiting there for ages until she was beckoned to come in to do her job on me.

As it happens, I can’t remember anything of this, whether I had a dramatic awakening or not. In fact, I’m always asleep when I’m dictating these notes, and when I say that I “fell asleep here”, what I mean to say, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is that my speech gradually slows down and is followed by a long silence with the occasional breathing and snoring.

But here we are again on a sea voyage in the first part, and I can’t see what the second part has to do or how it relates to anything that I dictated in the first part.

I was asleep later on and in my dream, I saw all the stuff that I usually take with me when I’m going to hospital, all scattered about the floor as if someone had been picked up the bag by the wrong end. And all this stuff was … no-one was making any effort at all to try to clean it up.

That sounds more like my kind of house, doesn’t it? Rubbish all over the place and no-one cleaning it up.

It was the male nurse who came today. And surprisingly, he’s still in the same good humour as he was on his return from holiday a few weeks ago. I hope that he can manage to keep it going, because I like him much more when he’s like this.

After he left, I could make breakfast and read some more of ADVENTURES ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER.

Our author has now had enough of the Columbia River and has set out across the Rockies for “Canada” – which in those days was simply the combined Provinces of Ontario and Western Québec.

However, before leaving, he goes through a long list of animals that have been seen down near the coast and, to my surprise, he notes that "White bears are occasionally killed on the coast to the northward of the Columbia". Imagine that today – polar bears wandering around the streets of Seattle and Spokane.

Back in here, I had another go at sending off this radio programme, but the file transfer service is still playing up dreadfully and sent the file round and round in circles on several occasions and there was nothing that I could do to clear it. In the end, I uploaded it to my own web server and sent the link to the radio station.

And that was not without issues either. It took an age to upload, for some unknown reason.

After lunch, my faithful cleaner came round to do her stuff and I had a good shower – another lovely one in my beautiful new shower unit. However, I have encountered a problem that I never realised before, and that is that when I turn the tap on, the water is freezing cold for about fifteen seconds while I am obliged to stand underneath it.

Running the water through on the detachable hose doesn’t seem to make any difference either. I can see that I’ll soon be resorting to running a blowtorch up and down the shower column.

Back in here afterwards, I had a lovely message. "what are you doing for the Remembrance Day Weekend?"

As it happens, I’ll just be going to dialysis on the Saturday afternoon, but I was intrigued to know why someone wanted to know.

"My youngest daughter and I are thinking about coming to see you for that weekend" replied my niece from New Brunswick in Canada.

That will be a hell of a trip for a long weekend, but won’t it be lovely, really lovely if they actually do manage to make it here? I love my Canadian family and I wish that I could see them more often. I miss them terribly.

So having lived in splendid isolation upstairs for just over eight years, how many visitors is this that I have had in the couple of months that I’ve lived down here? And with ex-girlfriends planning to turn up, Rosemary and Ingrid discussing another trip, and now my niece thinking of coming over from Canada, the only person who has not so far declared for a visit is Nerina, and I’m half-expecting her to turn up on the doorstep any day soon.

The rest of the day has been spent radioing, and I’ve completed the one on which I’ve been working for a few days and have made a start on the next. This one is going to be complicated, I reckon, and will take some time, so the sooner I start, the sooner I finish. And then I can move on.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg, and now that my notes are finished, I’m off to bed. I’m not sure if I’ll sleep tonight though, because it’s a very high tide and with the wind outside, I can hear the waves crashing into the cliffs.

It’ll be a while before the tide goes down so I’ll be hearing this for some time yet. Actually, it’s a lovely sound, the waves pounding the cliffs, and if it does keep me awake, I shan’t be bothered. I can always sleep at dialysis tomorrow afternoon.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my family … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once asked me "do you miss your family in Crewe?"
"Yes I do," I replied. "I miss them terribly. But don’t worry. I’m trying my best to improve my aim."

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Tuesday 9th September 2025 – I AM IN …

… Isabelle the Nurse’s bad books at the moment. Apparently, I said something at the dialysis centre yesterday that I shouldn’t have said, and she went through the roof.

It’s a shame really. She’s usually a very nice, chatty, friendly person, but I have noticed on more than one occasion that if you push the wrong button, she goes up like a four-bob rocket. I think that in future, I shall have to refrain from saying anything to anyone.

Last night, I didn’t have much to say for myself … "a mere 1600 words, that’s all" – ed … because it was another night where I was totally and utterly flaked out after dialysis and the effort of coming home. I was in a rush to finish my notes and crawl into bed.

Not that it actually worked out like that though because for some reason, I just can’t seem to press on. From what should have been an early finish, posting my notes online at 22:16 precisely, it was yet again after 23:00 when I finally made it into bed.

Once in bed, I slept right through until all of 03:40 when I had one of those dramatic awakenings that I sometimes have.

The first thing that I noticed was the absolute silence in the apartment. There was none of that steady, deep humming from the fuse box just outside the door to tell me that the water heater was drawing current. In the end, I left the bed to look and sure enough, it hadn’t switched on yet again.

For a change, I managed to switch it on manually so there was some heat going in there. And I went back to bed.

With an interruption like that, I didn’t think that I’d go back to sleep but when the alarm went off at 06:29 I was well-and-truly away with the fairies (although not in any fashion that would incite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine).

As usual, it took a good while for me to summon up the motivation and energy to leave the bed but eventually I staggered off into the bathroom, having a quick glance at the fuse box, noticing that the water heater had at least switched itself off at some point.

After the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was travelling through Austria and ended up on the border with Liechtenstein. The moment that I drove into Liechtenstein I was stuck behind a traffic queue with a huge articulated lorry with three huge tractors on the trailer, with a load of other vehicles in front. Gradually, we inched our way through the country until we came to the Swiss border. A Swiss border patrol man walked out in front of the van, and I wasn’t sure whether to swerve around him or stop, so I tried a bit of both. In the end, he came over to me so I told him that I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to do. He asked me to lift up the bonnet of the van, so I did, and to my amazement it was covered in silt as if it had been swamped in a river or something. He poked and prodded around inside, and in the end, slammed down the bonnet. He came over to me and asked for my passport, so I showed him my identity card from France. He had something of a moan about that. In the meantime, someone else came over to talk to me, someone else in the queue, and asked what the engines in these vans are like. I said that they were great. The one in my van had done a quarter of a million kilometres and it’s still working fine. In the end, the Swiss border patrol guy waved me on, so I drove off.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have DRIVEN THROUGH LIECHTENSTEIN IN THE PAST and I also drove through here with Nerina when we were on our way to see her family in Italy during our honeymoon.

The incident at the Swiss border though is very much like the incident that I had CROSSING THE BORDER BETWEEN HUNGARY AND AUSTRIA in 2020.

The silt under the bonnet is something that defeats me though. Unless it’s a reference to that Rolls-Royce that I found in a scrapyard in Stoke-upon-Trent that had about a foot of silt inside, looking as if it had been caught in a flood somewhere.

As I mentioned earlier, Isabelle the Nurse blew in to deal with my legs, and blew out again in something of a storm. One very unhappy bunny here this morning. However, she’s gone off for a week’s rest and she’ll probably feel better when she comes back.

Then I could push on and make breakfast, and read some more of ADVENTURES ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER.

The other day, I mentioned that our author seemed to be very good at fortune-telling and predicting the future. Well, he’s at it again today. He’s discussing the spread of American settlers across the Native American lands of the West and concludes "Their anti-republican love of aggrandisement, by the continual extension of their territorial possessions, must sooner or later destroy the unity of their confederation"

His book, written in 1831, was 30 years ahead of its time.

Something else that he mentions that seems to have been missed by many historians is the question of tinned food. It’s generally assumed that the ill-fated Franklin Expedition to the High Arctic, 129 men of which there were no survivors, in 1845 was the first major use of tinned food, produced by Steven Goldner in London.

However, our author notes that in 1814, a supply ship brought a "quantity of prime English beef, which they had dressed and preserved in a peculiar manner in tin cases impervious to air ; so that we could say we ate fresh beef which had been killed and dressed in England thirteen months before"

That’s the earliest ever mention that I have seen of tinned food.

He also makes mention of a primitive Native American Sauna and an ice-plunge, both used by the natives as an excellent cure for rheumatism. I shall have to try that, to see if it works.

The tinned food is preserved by sealing it in a vacuum. That’s done by rapidly heating the liquid in which it’s stored. Hot liquid is much less dense than cold liquid so when it’s hot, you quickly ram down a lid onto it and seal it (or solder it with lead solder as Goldner did to the tinned food that he sent to Franklin’s men, thus killing them all by lead poisoning), when the liquid cools down, it shrinks in volume and the resultant empty space becomes a vacuum.

Back in here, I went through my LeClerc order and sent it off, asking for delivery between 15:00 and 17:00. And then I had things to do.

Now that I’m fully down here and the cleaning of the apartment is more-or-less finished, we no longer need the electricity up there. Consequently, I telephoned the electricity company to talk about them cutting the power to it and finalising my bill. The new tenant, whoever that might be, can arrange for the power supply.

And seeing as we have been talking about the new tenant … "well, one of us has" – ed … the letting agent rang me to ask if someone could come along and view the apartment tomorrow at 16:00. That’s not a problem.

After a disgusting drink break, I had another ‘phone call to make – this time to Canada. It seems that there’s an issue with my Canadian bank account, something to do with a change of account number that I need to note.

Having ordered my shopping for between 15:00 and 17:00, it turned up at 14:55 when I wasn’t ready for it. It was a large order too, seeing that I’d been letting supplies run down for a while, and contained lots of new stuff now that I have a place to store it.

There were also 2 kilos of carrots that needed cleaning, dicing and blanching, so that was this afternoon’s work sorted out for me

With what little time that was left, I had a listen to the radio programme that needs sending off for broadcast this weekend, only to find a glaring fault right in the middle. Consequently, I had to rewrite, re-dictate, edit and re-assemble the programme. I really need to take more care when I am doing these programmes.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper and now I’m off to bed, ready for a good sleep … "I don’t think" – ed … I’m having far too many wake-up calls awakening me these days – a sharp contrast to how things were a few months ago when I’d be up and about after a mere three or four hours’ sleep. What’s happening to change all of that?

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about vacuums … "well, one of us has" – ed … a girl from Crewe was on one of these quiz shows on TV, and the presenter asked her "if you were in a vacuum and someone shouted, would you hear it?"
She thought for a while, and then asked "would the vacuum be switched on?"

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Monday 8th September 2025 – WHAT A DAY …

… this has been. It’s been another one where almost everything that could possibly go wrong has gone wrong and I’m beginning to become totally fed up with days like this.

It all began to go wrong last night when I seemed once again to take hours to do the simplest of things. It ended up, from an optimistic start, being quite late yet again. It wasn’t far short of midnight when I finished everything that I had to do.

As the programmer for the water heater was due to fire up at midnight, I waited around to make sure that it did. And it was just as well that I waited around for it because, in fact, it didn’t start up. It took me an age to work out how to fire it up manually (and I still don’t understand how I managed it) and it was after 00:30 when I finally crawled into bed.

It was quite a turbulent night yet again with more long periods when I was unable to sleep, but when the alarm went off at 06:29 it caught me unawares, deep in the Land of Nod. And it’s been a good while since that has happened.

After breakfast, I came back in here to see where I’d been during the night. We were in West Street in Crewe, a group of us. We were again packing ready to go away. At the same time, a big box came and I had to unpack it. It was my Fender Jazz bass and amp. I picked it up and began to play, but realised that I could no longer play. I didn’t know how to. I was racking my brains about how I was going to start to play the bass. After a while, Nerina came up to me and said “we’re leaving in five minutes. You have to get a move on!”. I started quickly to pack everything away, and Nerina said that she was going for a shower, however the other girl with us had begun to pack and I had to give her a hand, and either put my boxes into a big box with handles or else cut handles into the sides of my own for easy manoeuvre. But then I noticed the moon. It was huge tonight, it was very close and was completely full. Away in the distance, I could see the sun that was quite full too. I thought that we would have a lovely sky tonight. But back inside the office of the service station where we were packing, the girl who was packing my stuff, I asked her how she was. She said that she was struggling to fit my things in. I had a look in the hold of the ship. The first thing that I noticed was an old pool table. I asked why it was there, why can’t we move it? She said that it weighs a ton. It was an old-style table and no-one can lift it. “We’ve asked the Council if they would lift it but they need an authorisation and my authorisation” she said “has expired a long time ago”.

So I’m going away yet again. This has become a regular theme just recently, and it must be my body telling me something. The Fender bass is another issue that I need to resolve. The bass and amp are currently languishing in Canada and they need to be brought over here quite soon before I forget. As for the ship’s hold, that is self-explanatory. If I’m going anywhere, there is inevitably a passage on board a boat somewhere.

At another point, we were walking down Chestnut Avenue in Shavington, looking at the new houses. I mentioned that the houses on one side of the street were built on the rubbish dump. Someone else pointed out that the houses on the other side of the street were built on a hill slope, but one that was secured with special material like a net. It was the best material that we had ever seen. So we had a look in the driveways of one of the houses. In one of them, on the side that had been netted, we actually saw a piece of net sticking out of the ground so we had a good look at it.

These hare hardly new houses in Chestnut Avenue. I remember them being built in the early 1960s on the field in which we played and over the brook into which we fell with monotonous regularity.

When the alarm went off, I was talking to a girlfriend of mine about another girl with whom I’d been in a relationship. But the moment that I changed apartment to buy a bigger apartment maybe for us all to move into, she suddenly developed cold feet and our relationship immediately fizzled out. But that’s all that I remember about that because the alarm went off.

Nothing new in this either. It’s something that has happened on a couple of occasions in the past.

Isabelle the Nurse came in to deal with my legs, and she gave me yet another dire warning about the dialysis at home issue. I promised her that I’d mention it today at dialysis, promising that I’d refuse it.

After she left, I made my breakfast and read some more of ADVENTURES ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER.

Our author has arrived on shore and is busy setting up camps and trading posts. He describes the cruel and savage reprisals that took place during the inter-native conflicts, acts that defy description. And he also recounts his experiences in the forests with wild beasts when he becomes separated from his party for a couple of weeks.

It’s full of stories like that, all described with immaculate care and attention.

Back in here, the plumber had set me a few tasks to check the pipework, and that occupied me for quite a while. I had to break off because my cleaner arrived to apply my anaesthetic cream.

She was late arriving today so naturally, the taxi was early – although not before I’d fallen asleep for five minutes, sitting on my chair waiting.

There were three passengers all told, including me, with the driver, and we had to drop off one of them on the way. However, we arrived quite early and I had high hopes of being connected quite quickly.

And so I was, but one of the needles had missed its aim and had pierced me, making me suffer the most indescribable agony. It had to be replanted, and it wasn’t much better.

While I was lying there, I organised my shopping list for tomorrow. There’s some new vegan produce available and I’m determined to try it to see what it’s like.

The doctor came to see me, and amongst one of the things that I wanted to mention was that I intend to refuse the “dialysis at home”.

My explanation was that I’d spoken to people like the visiting nurses and they had strongly counselled against it. His response was "they don’t know what they are talking about".

That was, I thought, a very strange response seeing that one of the nurses was actually a nurse in the dialysis clinic in St Malo. However, that cut no ice at all. Instead, I carried on with my shopping list and, regrettably, crashed out again.

It took the nurses an age, unfortunately, to unplug me and compress the punctures, and when I boarded the taxi, I was told that not only was the closure of the autoroute this month responsible for a long nose-to-tail traffic jam through Avranches, a road accident at Marcey on one of the deviation routes had bottled that up too and it was chaos.

To rub salt into the wound, we had to go to the clinic at Avranches to pick up someone else. Going there, through the backstreets, wasn’t too bad but coming back was a nightmare. By the time that we reached the dialysis centre on our way back from the clinic, we’d already been on the road for over an hour.

So from one of the potentially earliest departures that I might have had, it was probably the latest ever that I returned home, totally fed up.

For tea, I just scratched something together quickly. I was going to make something interesting, but not at this time of night. For some reason that I can’t explain, I’m exhausted and so I’m off to bed. I’ve had enough for today.

But seeing as we have been talking about the wild beasts in the forests of North America … "well, one of us has" – ed … the amount of alcohol that they used to swig down while hunting was phenomenal.
That’s a characteristic of North American hunting that exists even today.
I was once with a group of hunters in the forests of Maine and it went something like this –
BANG! – "I got a deer"
BANG! – "I got a bear"
BANG! – "I got a moose"
BANG! – "Oh, sorry. You OK, Bob? Well, never mind. Throw him on the pickup anyway. No-one will notice the difference"

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