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Friday 20th February 2026 – THAT WAS A …

… better day today and I actually managed to accomplish a fair amount of work, which makes a change from how things have been just recently.

Mind you, it didn’t look much like it last night. Once again, things dragged and dragged and it was quite late once more, probably not much before 23:30, when I finally crawled into bed

And wasn’t I glad to be in bed too? As I said yesterday, I had fallen asleep quite embarrassingly and at that point I was all ready to throw in the towel and go straight to bed. However, I did manage to persevere (only just) and finish what needed to be finished.

Once in bed, it took me a few minutes to go to sleep. However, I awoke at some point, totally disorientated, and it took me a while to settle down and even longer to go back to sleep. And there I was when the alarm went off.

Although I was totally dead to the World, I did manage somehow to put my feet on the floor and sit upright before the second alarm went off. Eventually, I could stagger off into the bathroom to sort myself out and have a good scrub up.

After my hot drink and medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

There was something going on in some kind of big house, and there were several families living there, including ours. In one of the families was a young girl and I was quite taken by her so I began to chat her up. Although she didn’t actually encourage me, she didn’t tell me to clear off or anything like that so I just tried to be nice and tried to talk to her. After a while, she ended up opening up and we had quite a nice little chat. And then my mother turned up, and as usual, she joined in the conversation to such an extent that I could see the tears beginning in this girl’s eyes and she walked out of the room. I waited for ten seconds or so and then went to follow her. And there, sitting by a wall, one of the interior walls, was a cat. Somehow, I knew that this cat was this girl so I crouched down and began to talk to it, to tell the cat that she mustn’t take any notice of that kind of thing. Then I picked it up and began to stroke it.

Now, this was rather a strange dream. But it seems to be par for the course when you consider how things were a couple of years ago, when I had these recurring dreams when I was just on the point of Getting The Girl after a lot of hard work, when someone from my family would come along and heave a spanner into the works. I hope that it isn’t going to become a recurring theme

But as for her turning into a cat, I must admit that I would love a cat here in this apartment but I’m not sure how feasible it’s going to be. For a start, I can’t travel anywhere to collect one.

There was also a dream about a woman who was separated from her husband. She had two children. Her husband wanted to come round to see her so my friend decided that he would hide in this woman’s apartment in case anything went wrong. For some reason or other, I was there too. We arranged one or two things that we arranged quite easily what was going on by putting things in various positions. One of the things was a hidden camera that was in a plastic bag on a shelf. When he came, he asked what was in it, but we’d had the forethought to put a couple of tins of pop in there, so she simply produced a tin of pop. The discussion went on, and then he began to attack her. I had a flask of really hot coffee for some reason, so I remember opening the top of this thermos flask and throwing the coffee all over him, which stopped him in his tracks. Then my friend came along from where he was hiding and dealt with the rest

This is a dream that seems to have come out of nothing, but why do I have the feeling that my friend was hiding in the thermos flask that I was holding? That’s a thought that I can’t push out of my mind

There was also some kind of vague memory about a dream concerning AFKAP – the Andrew Formerly Known As Prince – but I didn’t dictate anything and I can’t recall it now.

Obviously, this wasn’t a very arresting dream.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up, earlier than she did yesterday. She told me that it was her birthday yesterday too so I wished her a happy birthday. It’s a shame that she hadn’t told me beforehand.

After she left, I made my breakfast and read some more of MAIDEN CASTLE EXCAVATIONS AND FIELD SURVEY 1985-6 by Niall Sharples.

We’ve now moved on to discuss bronze and iron working at the hillfort and this is a really interesting section.

He tells us that "Although sheet-bronze working appears to be at present a preserve of the hillfort, some aspects of metallurgy are shared with others, and, having considered the evidence of ironworking slag in the Iron Age deposits at the hillfort, "it is likely that at least 200 kg of iron artefacts were manufactured at Maiden Castle in the Late Iron Age".

This leads his team to the opinion that "it is clear that the ironworking site in the eastern gateway is one of the most important artefact production centres discovered in southern England."

Now, this makes me wonder if we are approaching some kind of idea of the purpose of hillforts in the Bronze and Iron Ages.

It has often been suggested that rather than being a defensive site against an enemy, a hillfort is the home of some kind of elite, with the peasants living outside it. Could it be that maybe the “elite” were the “elite” because they monopolised the important aspects of bronze and, later, iron fabrication, and the purpose of the defences was to protect the industrial site from being pillaged by envious locals who had no alternative but to obtain the sheet bronze and iron from the “elite” in the hillfort in order to fabricate their necessary articles?

Of course, the defences are somewhat extreme and the number of man-hours needed to build them must have been astonishing, and also the area covered by a hillfort is rather large. And as yet, it’s doubtful if the bronze and iron have been shown to have been fabricated in sufficient quantity in the hillfort to justify such a theory. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting idea that is worth exploring.

Back in here, I had a few things to do and then I pushed on with the radio programme on which I’d been working.

Taking rather a leisurely ramble, it was eventually finished, with plenty of time to go. And so afterwards, I edited the notes that I had dictated for the joining track for an earlier programme and ended up assembling that. So that’s now complete and ready to go.

There had been an interruption too. One of the net curtains here in the bedroom fell down. They are held up by hooks on these sticky pads, and the stickiness wears off after a while. However, we had bought some net curtain rails that came with some metal screw-in hooks, so my cleaner and I went round the apartment and replaced all the sticky pads with the screw-in hooks. I hope that they don’t fall out.

Tea tonight was chips, falafel and baked beans with cheese. French baked beans, which I don’t like at all. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I shall have to bite the bullet and order a tray of British baked beans online.

That was followed by tinned apricots and vegan sorbet, followed by a dismantling of the freezer when a pack of food fell down behind the bottom drawer.

So now, I’m off to bed, ready for a lazy weekend now that everything that I need to do has been done. However, I suppose that I’ll find plenty of things to do, as usual.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about cats … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once had to take Tuppence, my old black cat, to the vets because she was not very well.
The vet picked her up and gave her a really good examination. After ten minutes, he said "I’m afraid that I’ll have to put your cat down."
"Good grief!" I exclaimed. "Is she that ill?"
"Oh no" he replied. "She’s just so flaming heavy."

Friday 13th February 2026 – DID YOU KICK …

… any black cats today? Or break any mirrors? Or walk underneath any ladders? Today was, of course, one of those days when you don’t need to do any of that to bring bad luck upon yourself.

Take my faithful cleaner, for example. She walked out of the building this afternoon at 14:30 only to be drenched in a torrential downpour that began ten seconds later.

My bad luck today … "so far – the night is still young" – ed … has been with this perishing fibre optic cable installation, but more of this anon. Let’s start with last night.

And last night was bad enough. I forget how many times I fell asleep trying to write my notes and doing everything else that I needed to do before going to bed. As a result, what should have been a reasonable time for going to bed turned into a rather late one, much to my regret.

Once in bed, though, I was asleep quite quickly and that’s all that I remember until the alarm went off at 06:29. And what a time I had trying to haul myself out of bed. It’s definitely becoming more difficult as each day goes on.

Anyway, I was eventually in the bathroom having a good scrub and a change of clothes too because I’m going to run the washing machine later.

In the kitchen, I made my hot drink and had my medication and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

I was round at a woman’s house. She had a son in his twenties who was one of these manic depressive types. This woman and I were talking, and she pulled out from underneath her pillow a box which had a collection of gold coins. She called her son up and he came, and she showed him this box. She asked “what do you think of these?”. He looked at them and he was completely disinterested, and in the end, he went away. His mother said “I told him this morning that I was going to have someone round to knock a few nails into the foot of your bed but he’s obviously not made the connection and he doesn’t know what these are” so we carried on talking. A while later on, the son came back in. He told us a story that he’d met a famous actress. It was while he was canoeing on a lake with a friend. The wind rose up, and these two girls in this canoe were feeling very uneasy and wanted to be helped, so he and his friend helped them. He’d been on a date with this woman once or twice but this affair was in the throes of petering out because he wasn’t willing to take things any further. His mother tried to encourage him but it didn’t really work and he couldn’t seem to generate a spark of enthusiasm. Later still, we were in her room again and her son was there. He was a guitarist, quite well-known with a recording contract who’d opened one of these fundraising events for charity along with a few other big names. Again, he wasn’t particularly enthusiastic but he suddenly realised what this box contained and he’d come back up to talk about it again and to talk about the money that he has that he hardly ever spends. His mother gave him a huge box of chocolates but instead of eating it, he just took a few and said that he didn’t want the rest so the woman ate a few and gave me one or two too. We were then going to tidy up around her bedroom so I pulled a pile of paperwork down from a shelf on the top. It was all her university coursework with exams, assignments and everything. I noticed that a few were in different names so I asked her about them. She replied that her mother was a typist and her mother had intended to type all of them out so that they were neat and proper but unfortunately, her mother hadn’t survived.

In the past, I actually knew a guy like that, but there would have been no chance of him dating a famous actress, and neither would he have been a guitarist. And any romance of his would have petered out sooner rather than later.

The pile of university paperwork is extremely familiar from the past, and the gold coins are presumably something from the various excavations described in the books that I’ve been reading.

A few of us had in the past been talking about buying an island. While I was chatting to someone on the internet, it turned out that he owned an island off the coast of Newfoundland and was interested in selling it. I found out some more about the island and said that I wanted to talk to my solicitors, to which he agreed. However, I realised that I was in no health whatsoever to do that kind of project, but I would still have a share in it, simply as a foothold if I were able to recover, which would be nice. So I started to tidy up everything away and found some things that I’d bought from the shops, a loaf of bread, some carrots, things like that, and began to reorganise everything. I’d realised that I’d paid over the odds for carrots because there was a flood on the market and the price was coming down, but everyone is keeping the price high for the moment. I also sent a letter to my friend in Newport telling him about this island and expecting a few comments coming back. I’d finally sorted out everything that I needed, and then I had to change. I had some scruffy clothes lying around and also some much more tidy, casual wear that I could wear while I was getting dirty rather than my best clothes. I put that on and then had a look at the map to see where I would have to go to drop off some of these things, but the map wasn’t very clear and there was a printer’s error down the centre of the page that confused everything so I had to look very closely to find out where all of this was going to go. Then I could go out to the van ready to load it up, put some petrol in and do these deliveries.

Buying an island is actually something that several of us have been considering. It would have been a good plan fifteen or twenty years ago, but not today, unfortunately.

The story about the carrots seems to relate to a news item that I read the other day about potatoes. It’s been such a bumper year for potatoes that Europe is awash in them and prices have tumbled dramatically.

There’s also an ongoing project involving my friend from Newport too.

Did I mention that a group of us had decided to go to Edinburgh for a wander around? … "no, you didn’t" – ed … I’d been doing something with my Welsh, like cutting and pasting a few exercises which in part talked about Edinburgh. Then someone decided that we’d go. We all met up, and I had a big picture under my arm. It was something that I’d seen in a shop that I thought would be really nice in my apartment so I was carrying that around. Everyone was interested in the fact that it was quite heavy and we’d probably planned a whole day out, and this was going to be something of an obstacle but we carried on and we were walking around a couple of shops, looking at different things when the alarm went off. There was something in the middle of this dream about meeting up with cars and because there were so many of us, we’d have to use two cars but we could park them up at the top end of the city somewhere

Edinburgh was a city that I used to visit often with Shearings. Shearings had an arrangement with National Express Coaches in the past and occasionally ran a duplicate service overnight from Manchester to Edinburgh via Motherwell, Glasgow, Airdrie and Falkirk, with the return the following afternoon. If I didn’t have anything better to do, I would volunteer for it and I went up there quite a lot. It was a lovely run through the night.

It beats me, though, where the cars and the picture fit in with this, but the shop reminds me of the dream a couple of weeks ago … "22nd January" – ed … about being in Montreal.

The nurse was early today. He had a lot of work to do, so he said, so he couldn’t hang around. That suited me fine, because I had things to do too. For a start, I went and made breakfast and began to read my new book.

It’s called MAIDEN CASTLE EXCAVATIONS AND FIELD SURVEY 1985-6 by Niall Sharples. It related to further archaeological excavations that were carried out at Maiden Castle, to re-examine and develop the work by Mortimer Wheeler.

They aren’t just excavating the hill fort but are also casting their net much wider into the surrounding farmland and chalk downs.

And after reading the first few pages, I regretted having criticised Wheeler’s rambling preamble because it has nothing on the preamble in this book.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve commented in the past … "and on many occasions too" – ed … about the criticism that Wheeler received about his claims of battles and war cemeteries taking place at Maiden Castle, with people denying that there are traces of battle up there.

However, one of the comments in Sharp’s book is that, examining the sites of arrowheads discovered up on the chalk downs, "the distribution of arrowheads in the present survey can be seen to cluster around Maiden Castle", which you might expect if the place had come under heavy attack.

One interesting fact about this distribution that, surprisingly, he seems to have missed is that there’s another concentration of arrowheads around a ford over a river down in the valley. He seems to think that this was the site of a settlement and they may have been lost by the inhabitants over a period of several centuries.

However, it also seems to be possible that any attacking army coming from the north would try to cross the river wherever there was a ford and any group of defenders would do their best to stop them crossing. Hence the concentration or arrowheads.

That was something that I would have loved to pursue but I was interrupted, and before I’d finished my breakfast too. The man from the fibre optic turned up to have a go at installing the cable. And just like the first one, he was confounded, and at exactly the same point too.

The person at the estate agency who manages the building had given me her ‘phone number to ring if there is a problem, so we rang it. And as you might expect, there was no reply. Consequently, I telephoned the President of the residents’ committee and let her speak to the technician.

This question of fibre optics isn’t my problem. It’s a problem relating to the infrastructure of the building and that’s a problem for the residents’ committee and the estate agency to resolve. And it’s a problem that has been known for years, apparently, and no-one has lifted a finger to resolve it in all this time.

Over this past couple of weeks, I’ve wasted enough of my time, enough of the technicians’ time and enough of my internet supplier’s time. It’s long past the time that the people who have stood for election and the people who are being paid to manage it should have taken it in charge so they had better make a start before I become completely fed up.

This is the kind of thing that I’ve seen happen so many times before, and I know exactly how it’s going to end up because it all follows the same pattern. This time, however, I’m too ill to take on the running of the show myself, as I have done in similar circumstances in the past, but I’m not too ill to deliver a few hefty kicks into the nether regions of a few people and propel them into action one way or another.

So still seething after yet another good rant, I came back in here once everyone had gone, and begun to work on the next radio programme. And by the time I was ready to knock off, I’d finished it – at least, to the point where I’d written all of the notes. The next time that I have an early start, I’ll dictate them.

There were a couple of interruptions to my day, though. Firstly, I filled the washing machine with all of the clothes that were lying about, and set the machine off to wash them. Secondly, my cleaner came along to do her stuff and she brought with me another neighbour who wanted to know how things went. And had I still had a spleen, I would have vented it at that moment, but I managed to restrain myself.

Once the neighbour had gone, my cleaner hang out the washing. That’s another job that I can no longer do unfortunately.

Tea tonight was chips, sausage and baked beans with cheese and black pepper. It was the tin of French baked beans that I’d bought last week, and I do have to say that they aren’t a patch on British baked beans. They use these large beans that I tried but didn’t like.

The only answer then is that if no-one is going to come over from the UK in the near future to visit me, I shall have to bite the bullet and buy some online.

But that’s something about which to worry another time because I’m going to bed ready for tomorrow; And for once, I’ve already finished all of the work that I needed to do so I can have a weekend catching up on the arrears.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Friday the 13th and good and bad luck … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a club that I visited once, many years ago, and there was a bingo game going on.
The caller was on the stage calling out the numbers
"clickety-click, sixty-six"
"two fat ladies, eighty-eight"
"the Brighton line, fifty-nine"
"unlucky for some …"
"HOUSE!" shouted a voice from the assembled multitudes.
"House called on ‘unlucky for some, number twelve’" said the caller
"What do you mean?" roared the voice. "’Unlucky for some’ is number thirteen! Twelve’s not unlucky!"
"It is for you, madam."

Friday 6th February 2026 – I HAVE THROWN …

… away another huge pile of food today. And that included the leftover Christmas cake and mince pies.

And what a tragedy that was – all of my Christmas stuff consigned to the bin. It just shows you how ill I’ve been over the last couple of months that I couldn’t bring myself to eat all that much of it.

But last night, as I said, I was beginning to feel better. For the first time for a long, long while, I’d managed to eat a proper-sized meal, and that is definitely progress.

So back in here afterwards, I wrote up my notes, although I’m still not as well as all that because I managed to fall asleep a couple of times while doing them. In the end, by the time that I’d finished everything that needed doing, it was about 23:45 when I finally crawled into bed. And it didn’t take long to go to sleep either.

But here’s a thing.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall me saying that I was convinced that it was the after-effects of the dialysis, particularly the following morning, that were causing me so many problems with my sleep, leading me to wake up at some silly time of the morning. However, last night I slept all the way through to the alarm at 06:29 without moving a muscle.

So much for that idea.

Anyway, another desperate struggle to leave the bed, followed by a stagger into the bathroom and then into the kitchen for the hot drink and medication.

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

I was with a woman and her daughter – it might have been Laurence and Roxanne. We’d been for a drive somewhere, just aimlessly driving around the suburbs of this city. I remember that we came to some traffic lights and I was waiting for them to change, but I was busy talking. Suddenly, the car behind me beeped and overtook me. I could see that the lights had changed and I hadn’t noticed. We turned into the main road, and there was a side street on the left that I had never ever been down. We went down there and came to this really magnificent parking area. It had kind of wooden pavilions, lock-up garages and trees, these monkey-puzzle tree things, and there was a lake. The lake was enormous and there were quite a few people sitting around there enjoying it. Whoever I was with, she knew the owners of this lake. They were extremely rich people and this was part of their property, although people were allowed to go on it. We had some flasks, so we went to sit down by the water’s edge. One thing that we noticed was that there were several families. One of them was a small child, younger than the girl who was with us. That child was standing there, arms folded, in a real sulk. We wondered what could possibly have been wrong with this child, given the absolutely beautiful view that we were having.

The road, the traffic lights and the parking place with the lake are so familiar to me but I just can’t put a name to them. I’m wondering if it might have been when I was at FORT NIAGARA IN OCTOBER 2010.

As for the child sulking, I’m not going to embarrass someone who might (or might not) be reading these pages by reminding them of an incident at Pegwell Bay in Kent in 1966 or 1967.

Isabelle the Nurse was rather later than usual this morning, and she didn’t hang around very long. But she was in an exceptionally good mood today which was quite surprising.

After she left, I could make breakfast and read some more of Mortimer Wheeler’s MAIDEN CASTLE .

Now that he’s left his rambling preamble behind, his notes of his excavations are much more orderly, although not on a par with those of James Curle. It’s still rather difficult to follow his timeline for the occupation of the site.

But, going off on a tangent as I usually do, I ended up reading a critique of Wheeler’s work. He hasn’t yet reached the cemetery, as far as I have read, but someone, in his critique, has posted to the effect that Wheeler has posted “some kind of fanciful description” of a battle that took place at the site between the natives and the Romans but says that there is “no evidence to support it”.

Leaving aside completely the fact that “absence of evidence” is a totally different concept than “evidence of absence”, our critic notes that Wheeler uncovered some kind of ad hoc cemetery with twenty-odd skeletons in it, many with wounds that can only have come from battle, one of whom has a Roman ballista arrow embedded in his spinal column, but notes that “there is no evidence that they actually died there”.

Now, I’ve commented before on Wheeler’s flights of fancy, but even so, nothing in this World is going to convince me that these people with battle wounds died elsewhere and that some people hauled them all the way up to the camp from wherever it was that they died, simply to cast them any old how into a series of hastily-dug, poorly prepared graves.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … office, I had a few things to do this morning and then I had to prepare my shopping order for LeClerc as I’m running low on a few things. After that, I finished off the radio notes for the programme that I’d started earlier in the week.

Having done that, I then began to research the next programme. That took some doing too, but having found out what I needed to do, I had to track down some music, and that wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

When my cleaner turned up, I had to knock off because we needed to make an inventory of the apartment and work out what we need the joiner to do when he comes back here for a day’s work. There’s quite a lot to do, and I’m sure that anyone who has visited this apartment can think of a few other things.

As my cleaner was leaving, she bumped into the delivery man bringing the food, twenty minutes early. And so the next hour or so was spent putting away all of the food and cleaning, dicing and blanching a pile of carrots ready for freezing. Only a kilo today rather than two because there are some left, although not enough to last until the next order.

While I was blanching, the ‘phone rang, so while the carrots were draining, I checked to see who had called.

It was Rosemary, who wanted a “little chat”, so there I was for one hour and nine minutes having this “little chat” with her. And once more, we talked about nothing much at all. But she was shocked to learn that my bill from the supermarket for three weeks’ worth of food was just €69:00. But it’s true, give or take the odd few mushrooms for the Sunday pizza that my faithful cleaner brings me.

There was time afterwards to finish selecting the music, reformatting, remixing and re-editing it and then pairing and segueing it. I even managed to write some of the notes for it.

Tea tonight was chips, sausage and beans with a pile of cheese melted into it, followed by some of the fruitcake from before Christmas with a soya dessert. It was a fair-sized meal, not the largest that I’ve had, but I still managed to eat it all, which, I suppose, is progress.

While I was messing around in the fridge, I threw out a pile of stuff that was long past its sell-by date and, as I said earlier, all of the uneaten Christmas stuff followed it into the bin. It really is a disaster, but it can’t be helped. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s not like me to throw away food. I really must have been ill over that period.

After finishing the washing-up, I put the water in which the carrots had been blanched into a glass bottle and put it in the fridge to use to make my leek and potato soup next week (I bought some fresh leeks today) and then put the carrots into the freezer to freeze for future use.

And now that I’ve finished my notes, I’m off to bed, late as usual. I wonder if I’ll sleep as deeply as I did last night, or was that just a one-off? We shall see.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about those skeletons in that cemetery at Maiden Castle… "well, one of us has" – ed … Tessa Wheeler asked her husband Mortimer "fancy letting themselves be killed like that. Why didn’t they fight back at all?"
"Well, darling" said Mortimer "people like that just don’t have the guts to do it."

Friday 30th January 2026 – JUST BECAUSE I …

… awoke this morning at 02:10 doesn’t mean that I was in bed early last night. I would have liked to have been, and I might even have been too, had I not fallen asleep on my chair during the evening. However, it was nearer 23:00 than anything else when I finally crawled underneath the covers.

However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it looks as if dialysis is the catalyst for these early awakenings. It always seems to be following a dialysis session that I only have a very short sleep.

So last night, after lying awake for well over an hour (I was watching the clock), I must have gone back to sleep at some point because the alarm awoke me at 06:29.

As seems to be the case these days, it took an age to sort myself out and crawl out from underneath the covers. In fact, I was giving serious thought to abandoning these 06:29 starts and setting the alarm for 07:15, today and for the future, but I still harbour faint hopes of being able to pick up my old lifestyle at some point.

In the bathroom, I had a good wash and scrub up and then went for my hot drink and medication. And I do like my hot lemon, honey and ginger drink.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what went on during the night.

I’d received some kind of offensive e-mail from some kind of organisation so I was determined to sit down and reply. I’d been thinking for quite a while how to do it but eventually, I had some kind of idea formulated in my head. There was a young child, who was a cousin, who was in the house with us at the time so I sent her on a little errand to fetch a book, to fetch some paper and to fetch something else, and I said that she could help me write a reply. We sat down at the table, but for some reason, she was at the far end and I was at the other. There was a huge tablecloth on the table and as I tried to write, the pattern on the tablecloth was preventing me from writing on the paper so in the end, I had to roll it back. I began to write, and made three or four attempts but I couldn’t find the correct kind of words. All the time, this girl was sitting at the far end of the table. In the end, she asked if she could come and sit up near me. I said that she could, so she came up and climbed up onto the lorry that was parked next to me, opened the door and sat on the back of one of the front seats so that she was level with me at the table. Then I sat down to write out this reply. Even then, I couldn’t seem to express exactly what I wanted to say. I could see myself sitting there for hours trying to formulate some kind of response with what I had going around in my head previously for ages.

In fact, I have actually had such an e-mail, and I’ve been planning for some of yesterday evening and much of the day in order to make a suitable response. Why my cousins should appear, though, I don’t know. That’s twice in a week or so, and I haven’t really paid them much attention in the thirty or forty years before that.

As for the lorry, that was an extremely surreal situation. And I can see it now. It was either a Thames Trader or a Bedford S-series and was painted olive green.

But there was also something else about another one of my cousins who had left school. I enquired whether she had found a job yet. The response was “well, she doesn’t come from a very well-motivated family, does she?”. But I reminded whoever it was speaking that a couple of her elder brothers had actually gone on in life and started their own business so they were certainly well-motivated, and so were one or two others, so I didn’t really think that it was fair to pick on the younger ones like that.

And that’s perfectly true too. Two of my cousins, having left school with no job and no prospects, joined the Army and served under fire in Northern Ireland. On demobilisation, they went to work for a roofing contractor in Nantwich, and within a couple of years, they had their own roofing business. My niece came across a third who had been in a similar situation after leaving school. However, when she met her twenty-odd years later, she was running her own contract cleaning company. So even if their family environment had been non-motivational, they certainly weren’t.

But as I said, where do my cousins (my father’s sister’s children) come into all of this?

The nurse blew in quite early today to see to my feet, and he didn’t hang around at all, which suited me. I could crack on and make breakfast and read some more of A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE.

We’re now quite close to the end, going through the appendices. We’ve finished plants, animals and humans, and we’re now on coins. And once more, I must confess to having had a laugh at James Curle’s tale of cataclysm at the end of the occupation, as I mentioned yesterday.

He talks about the abandonment of the fort and in particular, "the bodies of unburied men". According to the anthropologist to whom he sent all of the human bones that he found, they related to just ten individuals, most of whom were in pits or ditches. Of those that were identified, two were children, three were women and four were men, and only one showed any signs of battle damage. That’s not, of course, to say that the others did not die a violent death – just that the parts of the skeletons recovered show no evidence of it.

The passage on sheep is interesting too. The bones recovered seem to relate quite closely, if not exactly, to the Soay sheep, the feral sheep on the island of Soay in the Outer Hebrides. As long as there have been written records – over a thousand years – there is no evidence of anyone having introduced a different breed of sheep to cross with the feral sheep there, so they would seem to be truly Neolithic sheep.

We’ve now started coins, which is interesting. And this is how a lot of dating of sites can be done. For example, if you find a coin dated 120 AD underneath a Roman road, you know that the road can’t be any earlier than that date. And successive coins (and pottery, of course) in successive layers can further help in dating.

After breakfast I came back here, and the first thing that I did was regrettably to doze off until about 11:00. I really was tired.

And then I had to chase up the comptes rendu of the aborted fibre-optic installation so that I can go and sit on the building’s management committee and make them pay attention to what’s going on.

Next task was to track down some music for the next radio programme, and if this lot isn’t going to be an obscure collection of songs, I don’t know what is. It took hours to track down everything that I needed, reformat, remix and edit it, pair it and segue it.

There were the usual interruptions too. My cleaner came in to do her stuff and she brought me a new pair of slippers, seeing as my old ones had died a death. We went for a stroll down the corridor to see what was going on in the technical zone too.

Then Rosemary rang. "Do you have a minute or two?" And so, one hour and twenty-two minutes later …

There was even time to write some of the notes for this programme, and with a bit of luck, God’s help and a bobby, I shall finish it tomorrow.

Tea tonight was vegan sausage, baked beans and chips. Proper beans too, not ones that I made. The sauce on those that I made was quite good but it was the beans that were wrong. I’ll buy a tin of French baked beans with my next order to see what they are like, and if they aren’t up to much, I shall have to bite the bullet and buy a tray of real beans online, unless any of my British friends are passing a supermarket on their way here sometime.

There’s one thing about this meal, and that is that it seems to be the only food that I enjoy these days. And as it’s packed with protein and fibre, especially when I drop a handful of vegan cheese into it, it’s quite a healthy food.

So on that point, I shall clear off to bed ready for a good start tomorrow (I hope).

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about sheep on the island of Soay … "well, one of us has" – ed … they are in fact a protected species, classed as “endangered” by UNESCO.
And as with most endangered species, they have to be counted every year. However, quite rarely for an endangered species, there has NEVER been a recorded tally of their numbers in the UNESCO yearbook.
One day, at a European Union meeting, I met a representative from UNESCO, and I asked him about it.
"Well, we do send people there" he said "but they don’t come back and we have to go to look for them"
"And do you find them?"
"Ohh yes, they are always there, but the task is never completed"
"Why’s that?" I ask
"Well, they only ever get as far as ‘sixteen’ or so, and then they always fall asleep."

Friday 16th January 2026 – AS I HAVE …

said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s a waste of time going to bed early, because all that it means is that I wake up correspondingly early the following morning.

Take last night, for example. I went to bed at some time round about 21:00 and I was wide-awake again at 03:20.

Yes, I was totally wasted last night, and I’ve no idea why. However, it seems to be connected with my dialysis sessions. But anyway, I couldn’t keep my eyes open and after having fallen asleep I don’t know how many times, I gave up everything and went straight to bed.

And there I stayed until all of 03:20 when I awoke. Not that I left the bed at that time, of course. I lay there drifting about in a haze for a while and at one point did actually manage to go back to sleep.

But not for long. At about 05:25 I was wide-awake again and at 05:40, I fell out of bed.

With plenty to do, I took full advantage of the early start. I dictated the notes for the joining track of a radio programme that needs finishing and then dictated the notes for another programme, leaving just the joining track to be done now, when I know how long it needs to be.

When the alarm went off, I went for a good scrub up and then into the kitchen for my hot drink and my medication. I do like my hot honey, lemon and ginger drink.

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

There were a load of TV cameras around Nantwich last night. In fact it was a Sunday morning, and it was a kind of street racing thing for motorbikes. The motorbikes had come from all over Europe and probably the World to see these races, and the streets were crowded. It started off with a race by quads. They started in the town square and went out by Hospital Street. Once they were out in the country, they were racing through fields, etc., where there was plenty of mud and sliding, etc., and then back along Millstone Lane and Beam Street and into the town centre again via the market hall. The first quad race was won by someone or other, but the second race was won by someone from Nantwich, which was quite a surprise and was well applauded. There were all kinds of these races. One of the races involved horseboxes, lorries transformed into horseboxes rather than towed ones. That, apparently, was total carnage as they kept on slipping and overturning in the mud. There was someone who managed to complete the run in record time, but no-one else managed to return for quite some considerable time. It all ended with a football match in the mud. Stanley Matthews was playing for Blackpool. He had a beautiful header that went to someone from Huddersfield Town. One of the attractions was a Lotus Cortina used as a rally car in the late 1960s. It was on display, and someone was saying that it cost £2,000 when new, but it’s probably worth a hundred times that now. The car transporter that was bringing it was at the garage having a hose-down because it was rather dirty.

This would have been an exciting event to see, and no mistake. But competing with St Mary’s Church on a Sunday morning would have invoked Divine retribution without any doubt at all. But where did the football match fit in?

However, there did used to be a world-championship-class motorcycle scrambling venue at Hatherton, just outside Nantwich, in the 1960s, and my brother and I would cycle there regularly to watch the races. But unfortunately, motorcycle scrambling is very much a thing of the past today.

There were three criminals who had broken into a house. Their aim was to take away the safe that was on the first floor. They planned to do this by cutting away the ceiling underneath it and letting it drop onto the ground floor. As the householder was in, how on earth they expected to do it without waking him, I really don’t know. They set out to be extremely silent but they began to make a little noise so one of them went to position himself at the foot of the stairs. Sure enough, the householder came downstairs and he reached the bottom stair. The crook who was there hit him in the face with a shoe, knocked him unconscious and then ran. Eventually, his friends caught up with him. They were disappointed because with the householder now being unconscious, they could have gone ahead and removed the safe. However, the guy reminded them that the safe weighed fifty-two tonnes, so how were they going to move it? They replied that they had a block and tackle and could lift it into the back of a van. He felt that at fifty-two tonnes, that would be absurd. The police became involved but couldn’t identify any of the crooks, even though that one particular crook was very well-known to the police. But something that was interesting was that one of the other two was having an unofficial relationship with the Asiatic wife of this householder, and they had been seen together on a couple of occasions after this attempted burglary.

Wherever this dream came from, I’ve no idea at all. It doesn’t seem to relate to anything that has happened recently. But trying to fit a fifty-two tonne safe into the back of a van is a clear absurdity

The nurse was early yet again and didn’t hang around long, so I could push on and make breakfast.

And read some more of A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE.

Our author, James Curle, has begun the excavations and at the moment he’s uncovered a couple of skeletons lying on the floor under sixteen hundred years of accumulated soil and two severed heads tossed down an abandoned well. Fun times indeed on the Roman limes.

After breakfast, I had a few things to do and then pushed on with finishing off the radio programme that I’d started the other day. That’s all written now (except for the joining track) although it took a while because there’s almost no information anywhere about the groups that played at this particular festival. In the end, I had to resort to setting an artificial intelligence searchbot off on the hunt.

My work was interrupted by the arrival of my faithful cleaner who had come down to do her stuff. I noticed from the shopping that she had left that she had been down earlier, but I hadn’t heard a thing.

Anyway, she shooed me into the shower and now I’m a nice, clean boy with nice, clean clothes. And that makes me feel better.

She carried on with her stuff while I was sorting myself out, and after she left, I finally finished my notes. To round off the day, I edited the notes that I had dictated for the joining track for one of my programmes and assembled the programme. That’s now ready to go.

And with what time was left, I carried on with editing the next lot of notes, but I didn’t manage to go very far because with the new version of my sound editor, one of my favourite effects, “adjustable fade” seems to have been dropped and now I’m stuck.

Tea tonight was sausage, chips and home-made baked beans followed by Christmas cake. But the beans aren’t really as successful as I would have liked, and I’ve pretty much decided that if I don’t have any visitors from the UK in the near future, I’ll have to order a tray of beans online.

So now having finished my notes, I’m off to bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about motorcycles … "well, one of us has" – ed … we were once riding through the Wirral on a friend’s Velocette 500 when we were stopped by the police.
"What’s up, officer?" asked Ray
"I’m going to have to give you a ticket. You’re riding with three people on the seat"
"Three? Three?" asked Ray, incredulously
"Yes, three" insisted the policeman
"Blimmin’ ‘eck" said Ray, looking at the rest of us. "Can anyone remember where Alvin fell off?"

Friday 9th January 2026 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about the storm.

Having abandoned everything after tea and gone to bed, I settled down underneath the quilt and fell sleep quite quickly. And there I lay until all of … errr … 02:39.

The wind that awoke me was the noisiest that I have ever encountered – and believe me, I’ve heard some noisy ones. It sounded as if it was definitely at its climax and it carried on like that for at least two hours. Sleep was impossible

Round about 05:00, having lain awake for a couple of hours, I left the bed, had a wash, went to take my medicine and to make my hot drink, and then came back in here to write up yesterday’s notes. They are all done and dusted now and posted online.

It took much longer than expected, due to this steam-driven computing that I’m using at the moment, And that led me to think of a cunning plan, more of which anon.

Isabelle the Nurse blew in with the breeze and didn’t stay long. She mentioned that she had not encountered any fallen trees on her circuit so far, or seen any visible sings of damage. One thing that she mentioned though was that just up the coast at Cherbourg, a gust of 213 kph had been recorded, and surely that’s a record for this area.

After she left, I made breakfast – the usual porridge, toast and coffee. However, it left me with the most terrible stomach ache and I really was feeling quite ill afterwards.

With the wind having died down slightly, it was quieter in the office and so, the early start having caught up with me, I went to lie down for a while to catch up with my beauty sleep and to try to sleep off this stomach ache.

So there I lay until all of … errr … 11:45. That was a good two hours, and I felt as if I’d needed it too. There was plenty of work to do, tidying up files and the like, but the most important was to start another batch of home-made baked beans.

Rather than try again with soaking dried beans, I’d bought a large tin of beans soaked in brine. I want to see if these are any more successful – i.e. less hard. That first batch that I made really were too hard.

The beans themselves are too big for baked beans. They are about twice the size of normal ones, but you have to go with what you’ve got, I suppose.

In the meantime, I’d had a parcel delivery. It was a laptop computer, but not the one that I want. It was the one that I’d tried to cancel and which should, according to the supplier, be still at the factory. So what’s going on here then?

All that I know is that it will be going back on Monday once the confirmation of receipt is lodged at the supplier’s office. In the meantime, I’ll wait for the other.

That took me up to my cleaner arriving, and the first thing that she did after she’d organised the bathroom was to shoo me under the shower to make up for that which I didn’t have on Tuesday. While I was washing, she picked up the huge pile of paper that was lying on the floor following my tidying-up the other day, and rushed it to the bin across the road.

After she left, I put my cunning plan … "see above" – ed … into action.

What I did was to take out the desktop computer from the cupboard where I’d put it the other day, and I began to strip it down.

The aim was to take out the power pack, see if there was a built-in fuse, and if not, to note the details of the pack so that I could order a new one.

After a lengthy struggle, I finally managed to locate the securing screws and remove them, and then to deal with taking out the power pack. But this is where "the best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley an’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain for promis’d joy".

Unbelievably, the cables are hard-wired into the transformer rather than being plugged in. And whoever had assembled it had obviously done so before the motherboard had gone in, because there was no way to move the cables without dismantling practically everything.

Nevertheless, we did have a Plan B. If I have a motherboard, a case, a processor, 96GB of RAM, a DVD drive etc, I’m halfway to an office computer anyway. Disks are easy to obtain , so is a power pack, and so would be an uprated processor.

Consequently, I sent an e-mail to the computer technician at the radio, to involve him or one of his friends into helping me rebuild this one into an even leaner, fitter, fighting machine. We’ll have to see if he replies. It’s certainly going to be quicker and cheaper than the only quote that I’ve had to date. I’m still trying to recover after that one.

While I was a-dismantling, I had a message on the ‘phone. "Can you spare a minute?"

It was Rosemary with a little problem and needed some quick help. So there we were, one hour and sixteen minutes later, still chatting about not very much. She seems to think quite highly of my theory, a theory that I have had for some time, that Caligula, Putin and Xi in China have had an agreement to divide up the World between them – Caligula in the Americas, Putin in Europe and Xi in Asia.

This explains Caligula’s mad panic about Greenland. He’s suddenly realised that when Russia occupies Denmark, it will also inherit Greenland as a colony of Denmark. And when Russia is installed in Greenland, it can control the North Atlantic and also the North-West Passage to the Pacific, and he’s scared stiff.

That, in my opinion, was one of Hitler’s two big mistakes – the first was not pushing on and taking Gibraltar and the second was not landing several divisions of troops in Iceland and Greenland while he had the upper hand.

Hard at work later, I suddenly realised that I’d forgotten to transcribe the dictaphone notes, so that was the next task.

There was something about my cousins in Whitchurch in Shropshire and something else that involved some kind of stately home owner, a Lord or something or other. I remember saying to him that really, he should have been able to have his own car. He replied that he did at one time, before all of this happened, but that’s all that I seem to be able to remember of this

My father’s sister and her husband had ten children (I think that my family was trying to start a new race of humans) and their progress around from farm to farm can be plotted by where her children ended up. Some are in Bronington still, some are in Whitchurch, some are in Barbridge and some are in Crewe. I lost count a long time ago of who is where.

All of that work had worn me out and I ended up crashing out again for twenty minutes. That took me up to tea time so I wandered off into the kitchen.

Tea was sausage, chips and home-made baked beans followed by Christmas cake for pudding. The beans were OK, I suppose, but they aren’t like real baked beans and I’ll have to do my best to liberate some more real ones, I suppose. A tray of twenty-four tins from a leading manufacturer costs €53:99 delivered, and I suppose that I shall have to bite the bullet one of these days.

But not now of course, because I’m off to bed. The wind has died down considerably from earlier and it’s a lot quieter now. Looking at the data from the weather station down the road, we had gusts of wind at the apogee of the storm blowing as much as 140 kph and that’s some going. And although it’s gusting a lot less, it’s still wreaking havoc. It should have been the final round of matches in the first phase of the JD Cymru League tonight but every single one has been postponed until Tuesday night. So there’s nothing else to do but go to bed.

But seeing as we have been talking about Caligula … "well, one of us has" – ed …, three men met in a prison cell in Leavenworth, Kansas, after the next Presidential election in 2028.
They ask the first one why he was in prison. "I’ve been here since 2025" he replied. "I was a bitter opponent of Caligula"
They turn to the second one. "And you?"
"I’ve been here since just after the recent election. I was a fanatical supporter of Caligula"
They turn to the third one. "And you?"
"I’ve only just arrived" he replied. "And I am Caligula."

Sunday 4th January 2026 – I HAD A …

… parcels delivery this morning, on a Sunday! What kind of strange idea was that? There was nothing in my e-mails to suggest that one would be arriving today.

Not only that, I wasn’t anything like prepared for its arrival either. What with one ting and another, like a late restart after tea, falling asleep on my chair for almost an hour, all of that, it was long after midnight and I was still letting it all hang out. It was probably 00:30 when I finally crawled into bed.

That’s why I was so surprised and disappointed to be awake at 03:20. There was something about being in a strange place and some American expected me to be in charge of the gentlemen’s restroom when I knew nothing at all about the exact situation.

The next time that I awoke, it was 07:50. I was in two minds whether to leave the bed at that point but I decided that it wasn’t worth the hassle and went back to sleep.

At about 08:15, there was this insistent ringing on the doorbell. The nurse usually rings when he arrives to make sure that I’m about, but I ignore it as he has a key to the building and my door. And then it rang again. “Don’t worry” I thought. He’ll work it out.

But a third time? And a fourth one? At that point, streaming profanities and vulgar abuse, I began to leave the bed but the door opened and in came the nurse, carrying a parcel. I quickly nipped back under the covers.

"Parcel delivery for you".
"Where was it?" I asked. "On the doorstep?"
"Oh, no" he replied. "The courier was ringing your bell to deliver it when I arrived"

So a courier delivering parcels at 08:15 on a Sunday morning? Whatever is going on here? It’s rather an extreme way of behaving, dragging people from their beds at silly times on a Sunday morning when all respectable people should still be asleep.

The nurse fitted my socks while I was lying in bed, and after he left, I have it a few minutes and the left the bed.

This morning, I didn’t bother with a wash. I just sorted myself out and then went to make breakfast – porridge, coffee and the last of the inside-out croissants. I must make some more next week, but I’ll make them the correct way round this time.

Back in here, there was some football from last night. I started off with Connah’s Quay beating Y Barri 3-1, despite being 1-0 down with only twenty minutes to play. And that’s as far as I went because this computer is just not up to watching streamed programmes

Instead, I transcribed the dictaphone notes.

There was some kind of party going on in Stoke-on-Trent and I’d been invited by my friend. So I turned up, and I was in my van. I had some things in the back to drop off. He noticed the spare wheel in the back and the large sheet of wood – pallet wood made into a sheet.I explained that one of my tyres was down somewhat on tread so I need to replace it. He said that it’s no surprise that it’s down on tread because it’s always sagging down to one side He had a look inside and said “yes, we have a jack. Yes we have a wheelbrace. There’s a DC socket in the back for the compressor and a few other things”, and he said that we’ll deal with it, but right now, there were other things to do. We had to go round to the front, but people kept on appearing with things wrapped in towels. They were unwrapping the towels and handing them to us. There were all kinds of different food supplies, piles and piles of stuff, loads and loads of loose mint sweets in wrappers. There was so much that we were just dropping it on the floor because we couldn’t carry it all at once. We decided to make a couple of runs and then come back for it, hoping that no-one else comes back for it in the meantime. Some of the people coming back were my youngest sister and her husband. They were dressed as if for Hallowe’en, with blackened faces. I went in to drop off these things, and all my family was in there. My mother said “oh Eric, you’re looking smart today”. I replied “meaning that I don’t look very smart any other day?”. There were all these children around, children whom I knew, children and grandchildren of all the people whom I knew in my circle of friends. There was one particular girl whom I would have liked to have seen, but she hadn’t come. I was particularly disappointed, but so was everyone else. However, she had sent a letter saying “don’t think that I am being rude but ..” and I didn’t manage to hear the rest of it. I was quite disappointed. We dropped these things off, and all these children whom we knew milling around. A couple of young teenage girls came over to chat. I thankedt one of them for doing something for me in the past, but I can’t remember what it was. She went to pat me on the chest and I replied “be careful. I have a catheter port in there” so she apologised. We began to chat, and that was that.

“all my family was in there” – how about that for a scary nightmare Hallowe’en scenario? But this was a dream with all kinds of things going on. A friend and I had had been talking about her children and grandchildren a day or two back, and this probably is where the scenario about all these kids comes from.

As for the missing girl, I am sure that you can all guess who it was, so I’m going to award Zero marks for that.

Caernarfon were playing in the Welsh Premier League and were very close to the top. With the final game to play, it was extremely important. If they were to win, they would qualify for Europe. However, they were hemmed in and surrounded by a large force of Apache warriors and i was very difficult to do anything under these events. The captain of the fort found two of his players fighting . He broke them up, and gave them a lecture about tomorrow being the most important day in the club’s history, all of this, In the meantime, he sent two people out during the night through the enemy lines. They were successful and managed to meet up with a large force of cavalry that was heading their way to try to relieve them. Having been told of the forces and their positions etc, the cavalry commander decided to sleep the night in a dry gulch in the immediate area so that his troops would be fresh and rested ready for battle that he would give on the first of the month as soon as it becomes daylight

If you think that the previous dream was all mixed up, then this one was even worse. The root of the word “Caernarfon” – “Caer” – implies a Roman fort or camp of course and there was a Roman camp there, but they were hardly likely to be defending it against Native Americans. The idea of resting after a march and launching an attack at daybreak was quite a common US Army military tactic in those days.

Did I dictate the dream about the guy going on the bus to the neighbouring town? … “No you didn’t” – ed … He was disabled too, just like me, and couldn’t walk properly. He had no force in his legs. He managed to climb aboard the bus and it set off. Its destination was this town and was going no further so it didn’t pick up anyone as it entered the town. When it came to the edge of the pedestrian area, the bus stopped and everyone alighted. The disabled guy went up to the bus driver and asked if this was where they would come back on board later. He replied “yes” so the guy said that he wouldn’t manage to climb back aboard. The driver recommended that he go to one of the bus stops a little further out of the town centre where the pavements were raised. In the meantime, back at home, there was an absolutely tremendous shower of snow. Within half an hour, there was maybe half a metre of snow everywhere. Some was some poor guy, a footballer, standing by the door of his apartment looking very miserable because he had been planning on breaking some kind of record for his team that afternoon but all the matches had been postponed. People began to shovel, but it wasn’t really much good because the snow was coming down too fast. They wondered if they should bring in some professional snowmen. They thought that that might be a good idea, but they remembered reading that one professional snowman had been killed a couple of days earlier during an incident involving heavy snow. Someone else had the idea of picking up a couple of laptops and taking them outside to put on chairs so that when the snow fell down, the warm laptop would actually melt it and it would be somewhere for people to sit while they were taking a little break from shovelling snow.

We’ve had a few dreams abut buses in built-up areas just recently. And having difficulty climbing aboard a bus is another one of those issues. Here in Granville, some of the pavements have been raised to bus-door height but, ironically, the ones outside the medical centres and in the town centre, where most disabled people are likely to go, have not.

Leaving a laptop outside to melt the snow that falls on it is an interesting idea. It might work for te minutes, but it would be an expensive way of doing it.

The rest of the morning and the early part of the afternoon were spent doing some housekeeping on the travelling laptop and the external hard drive, trying to tidy everything up before the new computer arrives.

Later on, I tried a different way of making bread. I’d seen a “no-knead” recipe for making bread in the air fryer, so I thought that I’d give it a try.

It’s very long-winded and takes a fair bit of time and the result wasn’t anything spectacularly good. It was only half a loaf too (my air fryer is quite small) so I might persevere and next time, make a full-sized loaf but bake it in the conventional oven.

While I was at it, I baked a small pizza and managed to eat half of it. I’ll save the other half for tea tomorrow night. But it was a weird pizza, because I had no fresh mushrooms. My cleaner hadn’t been to the shops this weekend.

Instead, I used frozen mushrooms, a great big handful, and I simmered them to dry the water out. And when I’d finished, there were hardly any mushrooms left. You’ll be amazed at how much water thee is in frozen mushrooms.

So right now, I’m off to bed, if the pain in my foot will subside. Dialysis tomorrow, unfortunately. We are back in our usual routine. And my new laptop might be here for Wednesday so that I can start working again. Steam-driven computing is not an ideal way forward.

But seeing as we have been talking about dreaming … “well, one of us has” – ed … one of my friends told me about a dream that she had.
"I dreamed that I was to have a new washing machine" she said. "If I went to sleep on my right side, I dreamed that I would have an Indesit, but if I went to sleep on my left side, I dreamed that I was t have an Electrolux."
"So what happened?" I enquired wearily
"I woke up my husband and told him"
"And what did he say?"
"He said ‘if you lie there on your back like that, quite still, I’ll give you a hotpoint"

Friday 2nd January 2026 – HERE WE GO …

… again!

Tonight, I made myself a pretty small meal of a handful of chips, a couple of those little vegan nuggets and a small salad. One of the smallest meals that I’ve made for quite some considerable time. But even so, still about half of it ended up in the bin.

That’s a shame because last night, I was feeling somewhat better despite not having had any tea. I finished my notes off at some kind of reasonable time and was in bed not long afterwards once I’d finished the backing up and the stats, etc.

Now only was I soon asleep, there I stayed until the alarm went off at 06:29, dead to the World and it took me a good few minutes to raise myself to my feet.

In the bathroom, I had a good wash and a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and then went off to take my medication and to have my nice, hot ginger, honey and lemon drink.

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

I was back on the taxis last night again and was living in an apartment over an old shop. I’d actually bought the building, and the reason why was because behind the shop there was a large parking area where you could park six cars. So when my boss was talking about having to move from where he was, I recommended my place. He came to see it, and as a result, decided to lease it. So for once in my life, I had a lot of money so I decided that I’d decorate my apartment and do something with it with wallpaper. I bought this cheap fibreglass stuff to put on the wall and began to paint it

And there’s a lot more relevance to this dream than anyone might think at first glance too.

The nurse turned up as usual, with his happy smiling face, and we had a little chat about nothing in particular, and then he cleared off. I made my breakfast, but there was no book to read because the laptop is currently in the office filling in for the defunct office computer.

Back in here, I prepared an order for my online retailer.

Most importantly, give it a few days and I’ll have a new portable computer. I’ve been meaning to change this for quite some time, especially since I started dialysis. I bought it in 2017, not long after I moved here. It has always been quite slow, and I put a new SSD in it a good few years ago, but it’s creaking and groaning. With the price of laptops these days, I reckoned that I may as well treat myself to a new, up-to-date one that will do the job much better than this one while I keep on searching for a supplier for a new office computer. I have a feeling that that might be a long job.

There are a few other bits and pieces on their way too, but nothing exciting. I’m past the stage of excitement these days.

Next task was to sort out the array. I dismantled and salvaged the hard drives from the office computer and fitted the data drive into the array. It needed some … errr … persuasion to fire up, but now it’s all up and running and seems to be working well. Here’s hoping that it keeps on going because I don’t want that to go wrong.

What was surprising was that when I performed a compare of the data drive with the files that I’d transferred over onto the laptop in the past, the laptop was considerably short. So much for all of my careful planning in the past. I shall have to improve my technique somehow and take more care.

My faithful cleaner came along to sort out the anaesthetic on my arm and then I had to wait for the taxi. It was on time, but we had to go to pick up someone else. He kept us waiting, and so we were late again arriving at dialysis.

For once, I was seen quite quickly. I only had to wait around for fifteen minutes before being plugged in, and then everyone left me to it. No-one came to bother me at all, not even a doctor. I spent a very pleasant afternoon trawling through the laptop doing some housekeeping and uninstalling programs that I no longer use. I’ve cleaned up quite a large amount of free space and the computer functions a little better.

Just for once, I was unplugged rapidly too. My taxi was waiting, so I had a quick drive home . I was here before 19:00, and it’s always nice when that happens. The driver even had time to take me through the town centre for once to see what was going on. The lights were still up but they were slowly dismantling the Christmas stalls.

Bck here, my cleaner helped me in and after she left, I made tea. A disappointingly small meal and then only half of it, as I said just now. It looks as if I’m losing my appetite again before I’ve even got it back I did manage some Christmas pudding and custard though, and it’s just as nice as ever.

So right now, I’m off to bed. I’ve already fallen asleep once, and I don’t want to fall asleep again. And a nice early night will do me some good.

But seeing as we have been talking about driving through town … "well, one of us has" – ed … while we were there, a man came out of the chemist’s carrying two small babies.
"What’s going on here?" I asked.
"I’m a condom salesman" he replied
"And these?" I said, pointing to the babies.
"These are this week’s refunds that I’m taking back to the factory."

Friday 19th December 2025 – HERE WE GO …

… again!

Yet again, I awoke at some totally ridiculous hour – to wit, 02:55 – this morning. That’s four consecutive days, if I remember correctly … "not that there’s much hope of that" – ed …

It’s hard to believe that I’m awake so early in the morning after the nights that I’ve been having, when I’ve been so tired that I’ve fallen asleep while typing my notes.

Last night was another night when I fell asleep mid-type. And by the time that I’d awoken, finished everything and gone to bed, what might have been an early start was now something like 23:30.

As usual, I fell asleep quite quickly, which was no surprise seeing how tired I was. What was a surprise was how quickly I awoke.

So there I was, tossing and turning and trying to go back to sleep, but to absolutely no avail. In the end, round about 04:50, I abandoned all attempts at sleeping and rose from the Dead.

Taking advantage of the early start, I dictated the text for the joining track for one of the radio programmes and then all of the notes for another one that I’d written earlier in the week. That was a huge slice of work to do, so I’m glad that I had this early start.

When the alarm went off at 06:29, I went into the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up and then into the kitchen for the medication and the hot ginger, honey and lemon drink.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was with Nerina last night, and we were in Shavington. For some reason, we had two girls living with us. They were in their early 20s, I imagine, but I had to take them to primary school in the morning. I’ve no idea why. Then Nerina, who turned out then to be another friend instead of Nerina, was signing up for a university course on the internet. I had as well, and there was another woman too. We were given all of the books and all of the paperwork and given a machine that related in some way to the exam. However, we couldn’t work out how this machine worked. I thought that it would be something that we would learn as we worked our way through the course, but apparently, there was an exam on the very first day, or this was the impression that we had from the paperwork, and none of us were able to do it. This woman was rather upset by it and we felt really sorry for her being upset. The other two of us thought that we’d be able to puzzle it out as time went on and work out about this exam. In the meantime, we needed it to be confirmed about when the date of this exam was. I suggested that my friend sign up for the university’s intranet group to see who else was online whom we could ask. She said that she needed to have a dozen names but didn’t know anyone. I suggested that she sign up anyway and trawl through the names to see if there was anyone whom she recognised from when she was there on a previous occasion. This was turning into a difficult problem so in the end, she said that if I were going to take the two girls to school tomorrow morning, why don’t we go early? She’d come with me and we’d go for a coffee, and then she could find a few footpaths to walk round while she cleared her head. I asked her “where could you find a cup of coffee in Shavington anywhere?”. She agreed that there really wasn’t anywhere. Not even the bakery had a place where you could sit and drink coffee.

Back in those days, and probably still today, there was nowhere in Shavington to go for a coffee. There wasn’t even a bakery. And these two adult girls going to primary school is an interesting subject.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the other day, we discussed in brief the university’s intranet system and the utter chaos that reigned on there. It’s probably much more focused and managed there these days, which is a shame because the chaotic nature of the intranet was quite enjoyable from a bystander’s point of view.

The nurse put in an appearance as usual. I’m worried about his cheerful state of mind these days. He’s been like this for several months now and it’s not normal. I don’t know what he puts in his morning cuppa but I wish that he’d bring some of it round here.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

He’s still all at sea with his forts in South Wales. He’s tracing Iter XV from Gloucester into Wales but, according to him, "there is little evidence of a Roman road either from Gloucester or on to Monmouth, where no Roman remains are known.".

Today, we know that Monmouth is the Roman town of Blestium and considerable Roman remains have been uncovered there. And, being more confused, he puts Ariconium near Littledean, whereas modern research places it twenty or so miles north near Ross-on-Wye.

After breakfast, I came in here and edited the first lot of notes that I’d dictated. And then, assembling the programme, I was thirteen seconds over so that called for some editing to bring it down to the one-hour time limit

Next task was the second, long batch of notes. And by the time that I finished work, they were all edited and the programme assembled into its two halves. I chose the joining track and then wrote out the notes for it, ready for dictation the next early morning.

Everything should have been finished much earlier than it was but we had a few interruptions. Firstly, the postie came with a couple of packets, and then the cleaner turned up to do her stuff. Thirdly, and regrettably, I crashed out on the chair here, not that that’s any surprise.

Tea tonight was air-fried chips, a small salad and some vegan nuggets, followed by a slice of fruitcake and soya dessert. And now, I’m off to bed to try again to have a decent sleep.

But seeing as we have been talking about university … "well, one of us has" – ed … an Oxbridge graduate went into the office for his first day at work. The manager handed him a mop and bucket and told him to clean the floor.
"I’ll have you know that I’m an Oxbridge graduate!" roared the new starter.
"Oh right" said the manager. "In that case, come over here and I’ll show you how to use them."

Friday 12th December 2025 – WELL, THAT WAS …

… a waste of my afternoon. As if I don’t already have enough to do without being sent on fools’ errands halfway across Normandy.

At least, there was an upside to it all, so I can take some consolation from that. My favourite taxi driver, the chatty girl with a houseful of cats, was assigned to take me so I had the undisputed and undivided pleasure of her company. But even so …

It was bad enough last night, and that didn’t contribute much to my goodwill. I was en route to finish my notes quite early (for once) when I fell asleep … "yet again" – ed … on my chair in here. As a result, it was much closer to 23:30 than it should have been when I finally crawled into bed.

Mind you, I was asleep quite quickly and there I lay, without moving (as far as I know) until … errr … 06:03 this morning when I had another one of these dramatic awakenings that I sometimes have. I lay around in bed vegetating for a while and then with a desperate effort, hauled myself out of bed.

When the alarm went off, I was sitting on the edge of the bed with my feet on the floor so that counts as an early start. Nevertheless, it wasn’t such an early start by the time that I finally made it into the bathroom

In the kitchen afterwards, I made my hot ginger, honey and lemon drink to take with my medication, and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was with my former friend from Stoke-on-Trent, a former girlfriend of mine and one of his friends. We’d been out somewhere wandering around and had come across a motorcycle shop. There were lots of motorcycles in there of all ages and all sizes. We were looking around them, and there was a 350cc two-stroke twin there of some description and several smaller bikes. I was beginning to think that maybe I could buy myself a motorbike, but the more I sat and the more I thought about it, it turned out to be lightweight motorcycles that were the ones. I didn’t think that I had the strength these days to have a big one. I was thinking that I started off with a 50cc motorbike and this is probably how I’m going to finish. It was all very depressing. When we came out, we climbed into my van and set off down the motorway. I wasn’t driving for some reason. We were driving along when someone overtook us on the inside. It was at that point that the driver pulled onto the hard shoulder and reversed. It turned out that there was a large van on the side of the road by an emergency telephone, with a couple of people by it. One of them was wearing a bright yellow fleece. My friend said something like “we saw this bright yellow fleece and wondered who it was”. Of course, it wasn’t me because I was in the van with them. It turned out that the radiator had burst on this van and there was water everywhere all over the road. These people with the van were arguing about it. They had a small child with them, and that small child was looking very sunburnt. Someone said something about it, but the child’s mother obviously thought that it was OK. My friend who had said something about it carried on, but I told him that he had no room to talk because he was quite sunburnt too. In the end, we left them to wait for a breakdown truck and climbed into the van. We began to talk about motorbikes, and he said that I should be moving that 350 from his garage sometime. I didn’t understand what he meant at first, but then it suddenly hit me that it was my Honda 125, the Benly. I replied “yes, I’ll have to think about it”. We carried on driving until we came near his house. I was thinking that I had hardly spoken to my girlfriend, and I would like the opportunity to chat to her and hang out with her, and when we drop off my friend and his friend, I could have a chat to this girl and try to arrange some kind of appointment to have some kind of time with her. Instead, they pulled up at the kerb not too far away from my friend’s house, and said “well, we’ll leave you here, Eric, and see you again some time”. They made it quite clear that I had to climb out of the van. I climbed out of the van and they drove away, and that was even more depressing and disappointing. I set off to walk home, but for some reason, there was a woman hitchhiking at the side of the road and a Royal Mail van pulled up and offered her a lift. But I was still there being terribly depressed and disappointed about everything that had gone on. Nothing had gone right, nothing had gone the way that I had wanted it to go and I was just really depressed about it all.

Phew! That was some marathon last night! But it’s usually the case that in certain circumstances I was often sidetracked out of the way by more than just one person. So much so at one time that it became something of a habit.

Anyway, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I do have a couple of bright yellow fleeces that I keep for special occasions. I haven’t worn them for quite a while, but they are here. And my first motorbike was indeed a 50cc motorbike, a Suzuki M12. However, it was something of a disaster because it kept on stretching the gearbox return spring. I was always replacing it until in the end I lost interest. I should have saved my money and bought something more interesting, like an old C11 or C12 BSA 250. It would have been just as powerful as the Suzuki and probably a lot more reliable.

There is also the Honda Benly, but I mentioned that the other day. The rest of the dream is unclear, but the disappointment and the depression certainly weren’t, probably even more so in that Zero never put in an appearance last night.

Isabelle the Nurse put in her usual appearance. We discussed my ‘flu vaccination. I told her that the doctors had agreed that I could have it, so she’s programmed it in for tomorrow morning. Still no news on the Covid injection though.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

We’ve finally arrived in Devon but the search for Roman remains has proved to be “inconclusive”. He’s made several assumptions about different likely sites for Roman camps and seaports, but not one has been borne out by modern research. We’re now heading back up another Roman road towards Birmingham but the chances of finding a site on an aerial map are “remote”, due to the massive urban sprawl in the West Midlands.

Back here, I had my shopping order to send off. Not having ordered anything for five weeks, it’s the most expensive order that I have ever made, but I’ll now be stocked up until the New Year, which is good news. I reckon that I’ll have everything that I’ll need in the way of food and I can keep out of mischief.

There was then another footfest. I’d forgotten that Stranraer had been playing in the League Cup on Tuesday night and I stumbled by accident this morning across a recording of the match.

Whatever Stranraer’s manager has put in the team’s half-time cuppa, I wish that he would send some to me. If we were to turn the clock back a couple of months, Stranraer were languishing at the foot of the table and couldn’t even buy a goal. But in their last three matches, they have scored eleven. From the last five league games, they have earned eleven out of fifteen points and advanced in two cup competitions as well.

So having beaten second-placed Spartans 4-0 in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago, on Tuesday they were away in the League Cup to league leaders East Kilbride. And having twice lost easily to East Kilbride earlier in the season, on Tuesday night they swept them aside quite comfortably to win 4-1 away. I wish I knew what was going on there and I hope that they can keep it up.

Once the football was over, I began to write the notes for the next radio programme but, as usual, I was sidetracked. We had the disgusting drink break, of course, and then my faithful cleaner came in to do her stuff, followed shortly afterwards by the taxi driver.

When I was a baby, I was hospitalised for several months because of some kind of infection, and ever since then, I have always been told that I have an allergy to penicillin. At the dialysis centre, they weren’t convinced. They believe that many babies show signs of an allergy to penicillin, but it’s some kind of infantile thing that passes as kids grow older, and so they had arranged an appointment for me at this allergy specialist in Avranches.

His clinic was in some kind of smelly apartment building and access was extremely difficult. I had to cross a main road, climb up a step and then wander around in a labyrinth before I found his clinic, which was on the first floor (it’s a good job that there was a lift).

When he finally saw me, he put three different drops of solutions on my arm and pierced the skin. After a couple of minutes, one of them began to burn like Hades and went bright red.

He immediately wrote out for me a certificate of allergy to penicillin and gave me a note to give to the dialysis centre suggesting two other alternatives. Then we had the repeat journey back to the taxi.

There was another passenger to bring back from the hospital, but she wasn’t ready so I had the pleasure of the company of my driver all to myself.

My cleaner helped me back in here and gave me another disgusting drink, and then, regrettably, I crashed out. And there I stayed until about 19:20. All that walking had worn me out.

While I was asleep, I was away with the fairies. I was at school and one of the girls from a couple of years below me was chatting to me. Suddenly she asked if I’d like to go with her to the swimming baths. It was early morning so I said something about going after breakfast. She was surprised and said “but we could have something to eat at the breaktime” so, seeing as she was really keen to go, I agreed to go right now. I went into my locker for my towel but I could not see my swimming trunks so I picked up the towel and we set off. We found outselves with our arms around each other walking into town past the hordes of pupils whom we knew heading towards school to start the day. I suddenly realised that without my swimming trunks, I couldn’t go swimming, so I was stuck in this difficulty about being with this girl but not being able to do anything about it.

This is one of these typical dreams, full of doubt and indecision. Here I am, with the bird on my plate, and not able to get my fork stuck in it, as Frankie Howerd once famously said. That’s something else that seems to be the story of my life.

Tea tonight was sausage, chips and baked beans, followed by fruitcake and soya dessert. And now, I’m off to bed, ready to enjoy another Saturday off. I have to make the most of it when I can.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about allergies … "well, one of us has" – ed … I’m relieved to know that I’m not alone in having an allergy.
Later on this evening, I was discussing my allergies with a friend, and she said that I was in very good company
"How do you mean?" I asked
"Well, take Thomas Gray for example" she said. "Didn’t he write a poem saying how he had an allergy to a country churchyard?"

Saturday 6th December 2025 – MY CHRISTMAS CAKES …

… both are now marzipanned and back in the fridge, waiting for next weekend when I shall ice them. All that remains after that … "all!" – ed … will be to make the Christmas pudding and the mince pies.

And then to hope that my appetite comes back so that I can enjoy them. At the rate that I’m going, though, it’s unlikely. My appetite is still almost non-existent, but I’m doing my best.

Anyway, last night was another late night. Almost midnight, in fact, when I finally climbed into bed. It was a dreadful night too. It seemed almost as if I hadn’t gone to sleep at all, but instead I lay there tossing and turning throughout the night.

When the alarm went off, I was in that no-man’s land of not being asleep but not being awake either. However, I forced myself out of bed before the second alarm and then, at some point, staggered off into the bathroom.

After the medication and the hot ginger, honey and lemon, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And considering that I didn’t think that I’d gone to sleep at all, I was surprised by just how much there was on there.

I was back on the taxis and it had been a really quiet night. We hadn’t done very much so at the end of the night I went to book myself a room in a hotel to stay the night. I walked in, and one of my neighbours from Shavington was there. We had a chat and he asked me how things were. I told him that they weren’t so good at the moment. I dropped one of my crutches and he said “I’ll try to pick it up” but I picked it up instead. For some reason, his hand went onto my chest to try to stop me breathing. I had to tell him a couple of times to stop doing that. He asked me if I was going to look for another driver. I replied that I’d be finishing school in a couple of months so there’s not much point. Then, my girl driver came in. She wanted to cash up everything. She was very concerned about me. She laid all of her things out on the counter at this hotel reception. She asked if my phone would charge up my headphones. I replied “better than that, there’s a slot to listen where you plug in”. We began to chat but then she had a job to go out to do so she said that she’d have to go, but she didn’t really want to go. I replied “you can always stop the night with me”. She replied “well, I have this fare that I have to pick up”. I replied “well, you can always come back later”. She gave me one of these strange looks”.

It beats me why I would want to book a room in a hotel. And as for the neighbour, I’ve not thought about him since probably about 1972 so how come he worked his way into the scene, I don’t know. But we did have some quiet nights at times where we barely turned a wheel and that was what I call boring. I’d much rather be busy than lounging around doing nothing.

It had been a quiet night on the taxis. I hadn’t really done very much so I was thinking about going home to cash up everything and then maybe have an early night for once. Thomas from Peterborough was extremely offended that he would lose his evening’s work but people explained to him that he was a part-time driver and he would have to take what’s happening from the more important people who were planning the work and booking it … fell asleep here … so there I was, waiting for the final whistle and ready to drop down on my side to carry on working again.

This seems to be part of the first dream, with me going off on a tangent again, whoever Thomas from Peterborough is. But the second part of this looks like we’re back to talking football again.

There was some kind of big family group outing going on, and I was part of it on my own. I ended up talking to this married woman who had a daughter. She and her husband were there and the daughter but I was chatting to this woman. We ended up spending an awful lot of time together, so much so that I’m sure that there must have been talk. The daughter took to me too and I actually took her fishing on one occasion while we were on this outing. But then she said at the night as we were all prepared to camp down in this field that she was off fishing with another boy and she’d be back in the morning to see me so we bedded down. In the meantime, these kids were bedded down in this stream and they came across a car that was in the water. One of them opened the door and recoiled in horror, and they ran all the way back to where we were camping. The teacher was busy talking to a group of people about a missing car. These kids came dashing in, they saw this drawing and shouted “this is the car, this is the car”. They explained that they had seen the car in this stream so we all set out. I was with this woman again and we came to where we needed to go down to the bottom in a lift. There were several lifts, and everyone was queueing at one or two, so we went over to the one where no-one was queueing. We pressed the button and the doors opened, and the girl was in there, wrapped up in a sleeping bag asleep with one of her friends. We went down in this lift and as the lift approached the bottom, I shouted, woke these two kids and unzipped them out of their sleeping bag. We made ready to meet the others who were on their way down so that we could walk off to see the car in this stream and point out what was so horrific to the kids.

There’s an interesting story behind this dream too, but the World isn’t ready to hear it yet. I’ve no idea to what the car relates, though

Did I dictate this dream about a girl whom I knew who was a few years younger than me? We used to hang around a lot together … "no you didn’t" – ed …. It came to the time when she was eighteen and was planning on going to university. In the meantime, I’d been working for a few years after leaving school and was thinking of going to university so I’d applied to Aberdeen. My application had gone in and I asked this girl where she was thinking of going. She replied that she didn’t really know but Aberdeen sounded great to her. I asked if she had a prospectus but she said that she hadn’t, but she’d like to find one somewhere. I said that I had one and I asked her “why not come back to my house and we can spend a day or two going through the prospectus?”. Eventually, she agreed. When I arrived back home, this girl had transformed herself into a big spider. My mother hated spiders so she wouldn’t let this one into the house. I picked up a bike and a few camping things and went off to Canada, with the bike, these camping things and the spider. I set out, and while I was cycling around, I was talking to this spider about Aberdeen University. Eventually, I came to a great big kind of tourist attraction. It was really complicated. There was a river there down in the valley but there was also a river there had been partly canalised that was at the level at which we were. It was running over stones and was really rapid here, splashing everyone. There were people fishing, catching some enormous sizes of fish so I decided that I would spend half an hour fishing while this girl finished off making up her mind, and then we could get together and make a decision. However, I couldn’t make my bike stand up. I eventually found a bike park, which was complicated enough to reach, but no matter how I tried, there was too much weight on my bike for it to stand upright. I was having to think about a solution to prop it up somewhere so that I could go off to fish and leave this girl to finalise her decision. There were a couple of people there, married couples who were sitting around, and even they couldn’t help me make this bike stand upright. I was becoming so frustrated about that.

There is a girl to whom this story fits quite well, although at the time the events in the real World were happening, I didn’t realise it. Turning into a spider and cycling to Canada are quite surreal ideas though.

One thing about these dreams though is that it concerns fishing. I’ve only ever been fishing twice in my life, as a young kid, and found it to be one of the most boring “sports” ever. I couldn’t see the point then and it’s even less so today. I can’t understand why, all of a sudden, I’d be thinking of going fishing right now.

The nurse was late today coming round. I reminded him that it’s possible that tomorrow he’ll find me in bed in the morning, so he made a note. And after he finished my legs, he cleared off.

Once he’d gone, I could make breakfast and carry on reading some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN. Today, we’re still across Hadrian’s Wall roaming around Dere Street but as yet, I’ve not found anything of real importance.

After breakfast, I marzipanned my Christmas cakes. My marzipanning technique seems to be improving because it all went together perfectly the first time of trying the first time without any problems at all. I hope that the icing goes as well as this next weekend.

One thing that I miss though is my turntable. When I was building computers twenty-odd years ago, I had a turntable on which I would put them and it saved me hours. If I had had it here and used it for the marzipanning and the icing, I would save hours on those jobs too.

After a disgusting drink break, I had a mini foot-fest, watching the highlights of last night’s games in Wales. And that reminds me – ONE OF THE BEST GOALS YOU ARE EVER LIKELY TO SEE FOR A LONG, LONG TIME are now available. Take a bow, Corey Shephard!

Later on, I wrote the missing notes for another radio programme to be broadcast in the distant future and there was even time to make a start on yet another radio programme. I have to make the most of my freedom these days.

Things could have been so much better and I could have done so much more too except that once again, I fell asleep in the afternoon. For a good hour or so too. I’m really fed up of all of this.

There was more football tonight – the League Cup semi-final between Cambrian United and Y Barri. Cambrian, from the second division and who play their home games in the suburbs of Tonypandy, had the lion’s share of the play but the class of Y Barri showed through. Whatever chances they created, they took them, whereas Cambrian were pretty wasteful.

The score of 0-3 to Y Barri was definitely a flattering scoreline. And I do have to say that near the end, I crashed out a couple of times.

Tea was chips, salad and some of those vegan nuggets that I like. Only a small portion, but even so, I struggled to eat it all.

Right now though, I’m off to bed, hoping for a really good lie-in tomorrow. But we shall see about that.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about cycling to Canada … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of when I was AT THE POINT AMOUR LIGHTHOUSE on my mega-drive around the mountains of Labrador in 2010.
At the lighthouse, I met a woman who stared in disbelief at my small urban-motoring saloon and said, incredulously "have you driven around the Trans-labrador Highway in THAT??? "
"Ohh yes" I replied. "It’s not the car that counts, it’s the driver. And the next time that I come to Canada, I’ll be crossing the Atlantic on a motor-bike!"
The funny thing about this story is that when I told it to a Canadian girl a few years later, she asked "and did you?"
All of which goes to show that, as Kenneth Williams and Alfred Hitchcock once famously said, "it’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners."

Friday 14th November 2025 – MY NEW OFFICE …

… chair is not as comfortable as I would have liked it to be.

Mind you, that’s not the end of the World, not at all. Firstly, if I can’t try it out before I buy it, I have to accept whatever I can find. And secondly, it’s far more comfortable than the previous one.

Anyway, my faithful cleaner and I had loads of fun late this afternoon assembling it and I’m now sitting in it, making the most of a seat that actually goes up and down as it’s supposed to do and a backrest that reclines into a comfortable sleeping position if ever I need it.

As you can gather, I’m feeling rather better this morning. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, sleep has always been my go-to cure for all evils.

Not that I had a good sleep last night, though. I was determined to push on and write up the notes for yesterday and the missing ones from the day before yesterday, before I went to bed, and although I managed it, it was not far off midnight by the time that I hit the sack.

And although I was asleep quite quickly, it lasted until all of … err … 05:10 when I awoke, and no matter what I tried, I couldn’t go back to sleep.

In the end, round about 06:10, I gave up trying and had an early start to the day. Not that I was in any rush, though. I took my time having a good scrub up and taking my medication, including making another honey, ginger and lemon drink, and I wasn’t back in here any earlier than I might usually have been.

And so I transcribed the dictaphone notes to find out where I’d been during the night. I was in the tower block at work and had gone out for a quick coffee. However, there had been a couple of folk musicians playing in the café so I stayed around to listen for much longer than I really ought to have done. On the way back to my office, I found myself on the roof. It was November and it was a beautiful sunny day. There was a sandy kind of beach on the roof and you could see for miles, and the sea in the distance looked beautiful. I thought that I could bring my sandwiches up here at lunchtime to have a nice little relax. I looked back into the building through the fire escape. It seemed that the top floor stairwell had been completely redesigned over some kind of period and repainted. One of the senior officials who knew me was there, so I asked him when it had been done. He said that it had been done during the Luxembourg Presidency and made the building much easier to maintain and clean. I set off to walk down the stairs to my office but after about three or four floors, found myself on the ground floor. It was inside a little delicatessen type of place in the busy shopping street just outside. I wondered what had happened to all the intervening floors. I was being hours late back to work so I rushed to the lift and opened the doors, but there was a girl in it. I asked her “do you mind if I join you?”. She replied “yes, if you are going to do it today”. I asked her which floor she required but she gave a very non-committal answer so I set the dial to go to my floor and the lift set off. But there was the sound of a girl panting very loudly. It wasn’t the girl who was with me so I asked her if she knew what was happening. She replied that it was obviously some girl in a hurry so I asked “where is she?”. She replied “ohh, she’s around somewhere” and that made things even more confusing.

The tower block relates to a building in which I once worked for a short while in Manchester, although it didn’t have a beach on the roof and you couldn’t see the sea from there. There was no delicatessen on the ground floor either.

However, being horribly late back from a tea break or a lunch brings back a few memories of a very troubled time and I’m surprised that it has risen its ugly head once more after all these years.

And later on, I was at someone else’s house and my niece was there with one of her daughters and her daughter’s friend. They were messing around with an AI app and had managed to make the television in this room talk to them. They were discussing things like going out. It was a Sunday afternoon and fairly late and I would have expected them to go out much earlier because it was such a nice day. But they were talking to this app about going out, and in the end, one of them asked about when they could have a taxi. The app replied that he could be there in about ten minutes. My niece said “well, I want to get washed and get ready and everything” so I said “well, just go out as you are”. So they arranged to have this car come to pick them up via this AI app and they dashed upstairs to get ready. I went to look out of the window and there were crowds of people walking up and down the street, kids running around, and there was a huge dog, an enormous thing. Then there was a slightly smaller dog, all white like a polar bear, and there was a strange kind of deer that was also white. It had the two hind legs much shorter than the front legs so it was walking on a lead with someone in a kind of strange fashion. As I looked, a brown Cortina MkIII pulled up in the street at the bottom of the hill and went to reverse into someone’s drive. However, he hit a trailer that was parked on the pavement. I thought that if he’s the taxi, he’s going to be in a lot of trouble. But he parked in the drive and walked off. So then I went up with the television and found my mobile ‘phone, which was an old type of Nokia. The back of it didn’t seem to fit on the front. I noticed that I’d written some notes on the back about where all the data was stored on which memory stick. I didn’t remember doing that in the past, so I sat down and began to play around with this television and this AI map. However, it was long after ten minutes, the taxi hadn’t arrived and the girls still hadn’t come downstairs from getting ready.

The view from this house corresponds with a view that I had from a house that I used to visit in Neston on the Wirral fifty-odd years ago, although my niece never ever visited it. Talking Ai apps are all the rage these days, although I’m doing my best to avoid them. I prefer text that I can cut, paste and save rather than rely on my fading memory.

The animals were quite curious too and I don’t know what to make of them.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up and sorted out my legs. And then, in accordance with the prescription that I received yesterday, she took my blood pressure.

"If the blood pressure is less than 8.5" said the prescription. "telephone the dialysis clinic immediately."

And so she telephoned immediately. "Mr Hall’s blood pressure is 7.9!"

"Oh" came the reply. "That’s normal for him!"

After she left, I made breakfast and for once, I managed to eat everything as well as drink my coffee. And how I have missed a good mug of coffee!

Back in here, there was the uploading of a pile of little miscellaneous programs, some of which I’ve been using for over twenty years and which are difficult to find these days. Luckily, I’ve been saving all the installation programs but even so, there are one or two of the full executable programs that are no longer on line and in one case, the link to the executable program has been hi-jacked so I had to end up cleaning out all of the mess that it had created.

After a disgusting drink break, I made myself ready for the Centre de Ré-education and the taxi came to pick me up.

Having told them that three is the maximum amount of sessions that I feel able to do in a day, they had changed my programme to give me four this afternoon. And while it’s back to three next week, the week after, they have given me four again. I may as well talk to myself, I suppose.

The first session was sitting at something like a rowing machine, using my leg muscles (such as they are) to move some weights. A whole thirty minutes of it too and I couldn’t stand up afterwards. They had to lift me from the machine.

Secondly, I was with my physiotherapist who had me lying on my side giving me breathing exercises. She also suggested some exercises that I can do in bed, although I have my own ideas about those. That was when I realised that I was feeling better.

Thirdly, they strapped me to a machine that had me standing up. They kept on asking me every five minutes if I was still OK. I’ve no idea why, because it didn’t seem like any effort for me and I was enjoying the view out of the window.

Finally, the occupational therapist wanted to see me about hints and tips for the shower. However, that was really a waste of half an hour because he had no suggestions to make. And when he was talking about non-slip rubber mats, he was showing me examples at €150:00 or thereabouts. We’re doing the same job with a worn-out bath towel that one of my cleaner’s other clients was throwing away.

Back here, my cleaner helped me in and then we attacked the new chair. It was a complex piece of machinery to assemble but it seems to work really well. As I said earlier, it’s not as comfortable as I would have liked, but it’s definitely an improvement.

Tea was air-fried chips with salad and those breaded quorn nuggets that I like. And, regardless of there being only very small portions, for once I managed to eat everything. And it’s been a long time since that has happened.

So now I’m off to bed. With a repaired (I hope) washing machine, I shall be clothes-washing in the morning and then off to dialysis to see what delights they have in store for me there.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the girl in the lift … "well, one of us has" – ed … I did once meet a girl in a lift
"Do you mind if I join you?" I asked.
"I suppose so" she replied. "But honestly, I had no idea that I was coming apart."

Friday 31st October 2025 – AND EVEN THOUGH …

… I served up a much smaller portion of food for tea tonight, I still left the table with some food left on the plate. My appetite has all-but disappeared these days and, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. I’m beginning to worry about it.

At least I’m managing a reasonable breakfast, so that’s something for which to be grateful.

Last night, I remember saying that I was going to leave off worrying about my (lack of) appetite, and so I did. I finished my notes at a time that was much more reasonable than just recently, and then after taking the statistics and backing up the computer, I crawled off to the bathroom.

Managing this time not to fall asleep on the porcelain horse, I sorted myself out in the bathroom and then fell into bed at something like 22:45. Not early, but definitely not late either.

Although I awoke at about 04:15, it was only for a couple of minutes or so, and I was soon back fast asleep in bed. And there I stayed until the alarm went off at 06:29.

There was nothing on the dictaphone from the night, and so it must have been a really deep, relaxing sleep. But I’m in two minds about this. A deep, relaxing sleep will probably do me the world of good, but as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. I enjoy my nocturnal travels. It’s the only excitement that I seem to have these days.

After sorting myself out in the bathroom, I went into the kitchen for my medication.

Because of this cough that I have that doesn’t seem to want to go away, my cleaner recommended a hot drink of fresh lemon juice, ginger and honey. I had some honey so yesterday she brought me a root of ginger and some lemons. I made myself a hot drink with some of it and then went for the medication.

Of course, Brain of Britain forgot that the Calcium Carbonate powder that I take, diluted in liquid, is alkaline. Consequently, when I added it into the hot mix which contained very acidic lemon juice, I had a most interesting reaction.

Anyway, I’ll tell you how this concoction goes when I can find my throat again.

There was some repair work to do this morning. These IKEA drawers are very poorly made and every now and again, one falls apart when I pull on it. Last night, I had one do exactly that so this morning, I had to gather up the pieces and reassemble the drawer.

That didn’t leave much time before Isabelle the Nurse arrived.

She sorted out the injection and then tended to my feel and legs, and then disappeared off to her next port of call. I went and made breakfast.

Back in here, there were things to do, as there always seems to be. But once I’d completed everything, I began work on the radio programme, editing, pairing and seguing the tracks that I’ve chosen.

There are two more tracks than usual in that week because they all seem to be quite short ones. To make up for it, one day I’ll play the thirty-two-minute version of Mountain’s NANTUCKET SLEIGHRIDE.

When the music had been sorted out, I went for my disgusting drink break and then I prepared myself for this afternoon’s torture.

The driver came on time, which makes a change, and I arrived at the Centre de Ré-education just in time for my 14:00 appointment. However, I had to send someone in search of my physiotherapist. Consequently, I missed ten precious minutes of my session.

Today, she had me walking with this huge upright walk frame. It’s certainly easier to use than a pair of crutches, but I almost came to grief when, on the little slope, the front end reared up and nearly sent me flying.

These walk frames are OK, but where am I going to put one? They don’t fold up so there’s no room in here for it, and it won’t fit into the boot of the taxi either.

The rest of the session, she had me trying to stand up from a seat without pushing with my hands. I managed it once, but after that, it was a dismal failure.

She reckons that I’ll benefit from some more “advice” from a few more people, and will arrange the appointments. If it’s free, why not?

The second session, after a half-hour pause, was fifteen minutes sitting down pushing a series of weights with my legs. I can’t manage all that much, but every little helps, I suppose.

The remaining fifteen minutes was lifting weights with a downhill pull on a cord. That wasn’t too difficult, but the greatest part of the exercise was trying to stand up out of the chair afterwards.

The taxi was waiting for me when I left, so I didn’t even have a second to relax and recover. And it’s a long, complicated hike out to the car.

Back here, with the aid of my faithful cleaner, I staggered into the apartment and sat down on a chair, totally exhausted, while I had another disgusting drink.

And then back in here, where I began to write the notes for the songs that I’d chosen. That was a task that took me up to teatime, by which time I’d written about half.

Tea tonight was salad, chips and some of those breaded quorn nuggets that I like, but as I said, I left food on my plate yet again.

When I’d finished, I made another one of these ginger, honey and lemon hot cocktails. I reckon that it’s a case of either “kill or cure”. We’ll find out if it works in the morning.

But seeing as we have been talking about these wonderful cures … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the two farmers at Crewe Cattle Market back in the 1960s.
One of them, clearly worried, asked the other "when your cow had that mystery ailment in her throat, what did you give her?"
The other replied "I gave her a mix of turpentine, molasses, beeswax and rapeseed oil."
They met up in the market two weeks later, and the first one said "Remember that mix that you told me about? I gave it to my cow, but she died."
"Now isn’t that strange?" said the second. "So did mine!"

Friday 17th October 2025 – I AM COMPLETELY …

… exhausted again right now.

In fact, I spent much of the late afternoon asleep on my chair in here. That is, however, no surprise, because they really put me through the mill at the Centre de Ré-education earlier.

As well as that, I spent half an hour or so asleep on the chair this morning. But then again, that’s no surprise either when you consider that I awoke at 04:10 this morning, despite how tired I was last night before going to bed.

All in all, it’s not been a very good day at all, and I’m going to have to snap out of this and organise myself properly before long.

Last night, I finished off by saying how exhausted I was, and I wasn’t wrong. I had never felt so relieved as I did when I finally crawled into bed, bang on 23:00. And the prospect of a deep, uninterrupted sleep of about seven and a half hours was so, so welcoming.

The deep sleep I certainly had, for I remember absolutely nothing at all about anything during the night. But long, it was certainly not. As I mentioned just now, I was awake at 04:10 and once more, I couldn’t go back to sleep no matter how hard I tried.

After about an hour of trying, I thought “no time like the present” and arose from the Dead. And it wasn’t easy either.

Taking advantage of the early start, I dictated the radio notes that I’d written on Wednesday. And I made a total mess of them too. My heart wasn’t in it at all. I remember thinking “this is going to take a lot of editing”.

When I had finally finished, I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I had been during the night, and regrettably, there was nothing on there at all. It must have been a really deep sleep. Instead, I checked my mails and had a look at what else had been going on elsewhere during the night.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up, as cheerful as usual, and she asked me if I’d spoken to them at dialysis about the proposal for chemotherapy on Tuesday. I said that I’d mentioned it, and that they would examine me on Saturday and see how I am. If I’m still full of infection, they won’t allow me to go.

After she left, I made breakfast and then came back in here to start work.

There were a few things to do and then, as I mentioned earlier, I rather regrettably fell asleep. I was out of it all for a good half-hour or so too. I really do need to pull myself together and push on. I thought that dialysis was supposed to put an end to all of this.

Once I’d finally brought myself round into the Land of the Living, I made a start on editing the radio notes that I’d dictated. And I was right about them needing a lot of editing too.

After a while, I had to break off for a disgusting drink break and to prepare to go to the Centre de Ré-education.

My faithful cleaner turned up too ready to start her rounds. She noticed the enormous pile of washing that has built up while I’m waiting for this plumber to fix this leak, and she proposed to take a handful with her so that there could be more room in the basket. And I wish that the plumber would hurry up and sort out his problems and come round to sort out mine.

The taxi turned up on time, with two other passengers so I had to squeeze into the back. And, although you might find this hard to believe seeing as we are in mid-October, going past the port I noticed that they were putting up the Christmas decorations already. That is really taking the mickey.

At the Centre de Ré-education the first task was to sit on a chair and pull on some elastics in order to work the muscles in my upper arms. That was OK but the chair was too low and there were no armrests, so it was a nightmare for me to stand up again.

In the end, the monitor had to help me haul myself up, in some kind of bear-hug. And then some passer-by had to pass me my crutches. But while the monitor had me in her arms, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to ask her if she would like to dance.

Chance would be a fine thing, wouldn’t it?

With my physiotherapist, I was given some kind of apparatus to hold my knees steady and then invited to stand up, just pulling on the safety bar of this apparatus. I had about ten attempts, and actually managed it twice. So all is not lost. However, I was completely exhausted trying to do it. It took an awful lot out of me.

The rest of the session was spent walking around in some kind of machine that’s like a walkframe but it’s quite tall, with handles rather like that of a skid steer machine. She asked me if I would like one of these at home, but where on earth would I put it? It wouldn’t go into the boot of a taxi either so it’s quite pointless really.

As I was leaving, they gave me the programme for the next series of sessions, and they are taking the mickey too. Two sessions per day I can just about handle, three is the absolute limit, but giving me four? I put my foot down at that.

One thing that I noticed though was that my effort today was much less than previously. Whether my body has deteriorated over the last week or whether it’s the effect of this infection, I really don’t know. But whatever it is, I don’t like it.

It was a struggle to come back in here from the car and I crashed into a chair, where I sat for a good half-hour or more while I tried to gather my wits – something that should take much less time seeing how few wits I have left these days – and then I came back in here and crashed out definitively.

While I was away on my travels, I was at some point busy untangling small lengths of wire from a huge mass and testing each wire for conductivity. I’m not sure why.

Eventually, I managed to sort myself out and carry on with editing the rest of the radio programme, texting with Rosemary while I was at it.

Tea tonight was vegan sausage, baked beans with cheese and fried mushrooms, and air-fried chips. That was the first meal that I’ve properly enjoyed for quite a while, although after about half an hour, my stomach was back in the usual turmoil.

So now I’m off to bed. And I can’t say that I’m sorry. There’s no point in wishing for a good night’s sleep because it makes no difference what I would like. I’ll “get what I’m given” as my mother used to say.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the washing … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of back in Gainsborough Road. If the man was hanging out the washing, it was always going to be a sunny or windy day. It never rained when he had the clothes out.
One day, I asked him the secret.
"It’s the wife’s rheumatism" he replied. "If she’s lying on her right side, it means that the weather will be damp. If she’s lying on her left side, it means that the weather will be fine, so we do the washing."
"And if she’s lying on her back?" I asked. "What does that mean?"
"It means that we have far more exciting things to do than to worry about the washing."

Friday 10th October 2025 – I AM TOTALLY …

… exhausted.

Today, I have been to the Centre de Ré-education and they have put me through the mill. I don’t think that I have ever worked as hard in recent times as I have today.

And seeing as we have been talking about being tired … "well, one of us has" – ed … last night, I was totally dead to the World. I’ve been extremely tired late in the evening on a few occasions just recently, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but last night’s beats just about everything that I’ve ever had before.

In fact, I was asleep long before I finished writing my notes, sagging face-down over my desk on a couple of occasions before wrestling myself upright again with a few Herculean efforts. It’s a mystery how I managed to carry on and finish.

Once I’d sorted myself out, I was in bed quite quickly, flat out asleep in an instant, and there I lay without moving until all of … err … 04:10.

At that point, I was again wide-awake, and for quite a while too, but just like the other morning, the next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 06:29. Either I’d gone back to sleep or else I must have been dreaming that I was awake.

Being awake at 06:29 is one thing – being up and about is something completely different, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. And especially after yesterday evening. Consequently, it was a very slow start to the day today.

After the bathroom and the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. I didn’t honestly expect there to be anything on it, but there we are. We were back in the State of New York during the American Revolution and the commandant of a group of forces was cornered and was obliged to surrender to the British, where he was taken as prisoner in a barge and imprisoned in one of the forts in New York. But the food there was terrible and the conditions were terrible. It was easy to dodge the British controls so he had been out and about several times during his imprisonment, trying to line up strength of supporters ready to oppose General Carleton, and General Carleton was just as careful not make sure that he would lose his numerical advantage if things began to go wrong for him in New York.

Later on, I was back in the American Revolution. The Americans had been besieging a British fort in the interior and after a while, they had finally captured it. Then there were all kinds of discussions about expelling the British garrison etc and what happened to the fort afterwards but I can’t remember very much more about this particular dream unfortunately.

My book, BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, is really getting to me right now. I’ve been having quite a few dreams about it just recently, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. What am I going to dream about when I’ve finished this book and moved on to the next one?

The nurse turned up, early as usual these days, and sorted me out. He asked me a few strange questions, presumably out of curiosity, before he left. which took me by surprise … "with asking the questions, not leaving" – ed.

Breakfast was next, and some more of my book. The British Army has now surrendered at Yorktown after putting up only a token resistance.

And that is perplexing. Reading the stories of Lord Cornwallis, his total lack of aggression, his insipid retreat and how he allowed himself to be trapped with his back to the sea, I can’t help feeling that his heart was never in this campaign from the beginning. I reckon that his whole aim was to extricate himself out of the Southern States without a care as to how he did it, what the fate of his army would be, and without a thought about how it would affect his country.

The politicians in Britain were no better. They prevaricated and prevaricated, refusing to send to the British Army the supplies and reinforcements that they needed to fight a decent campaign, and in the end, abandoned the army to its fate.

Maybe I’m being unkind – I dunno. Perhaps there are a lot of issues hidden much deeper than I realise that influenced the conduct of the war.

One thing of which I am sure is the partisan nature of our author, Colonel Henry Carrington. He writes pages and pages about the reprehensible conduct of the British, looting, pillaging and plundering as they go around. However, in George Washington’s diary, which I know that Carrington has seen, Washington talks about the lack of supplies, arms, ammunition and clothing for his troops "and in all that business, or a great part of it, being done by military impressment, we are daily and hourly oppressing the people, souring their tempers and alienating their affections"

A while ago, I mentioned something like this, but whatever – it shows that irony is not Colonel Carrington’s strong point.

Back in here, I began to work on the next radio programme and, after a while, I decided that what I was doing was in rather poor taste, so it all went into the bin and I decided to start again.

After a disgusting drink break, I waited for the taxi. And waited. It finally turned up, fifteen minutes late, and I barely arrived at the Centre de Ré-education on time.

There were three sessions today – the first being weightlifting. The monitor had me lifting weights, using my arms only, from a sitting position, and I’m disappointed with how much force and strength I seem to have lost. Long-gone are the days when I could lift a Ford Cortina engine out of a car without an engine hoist.

There was half an hour before my next session, so the monitor had me sitting on a bench practising how to raise myself up. As if I don’t do enough of that during the day when I’m here, but it’s free, I suppose, and I may as well do something while I’m waiting.

With my physiotherapist, it was pretty much more of the same – lifting myself in and out of a chair, and then exercising my legs. And there’s no doubt – all the force has gone from my lower legs and she doesn’t think that it will come back. That’s really bad news.

After a half-hour pause, it was back into the gym for group therapy – involving standing up and sitting down once again. I wonder if someone is trying to tell me something.

By the time that I had finished, I was exhausted and my head was spinning round. It was really difficult to walk down to the car. It’s the very first time that I have felt that maybe I’m doing too much, but if it’s not stretching me and causing me discomfort, then it’s not doing any good at all.

My faithful cleaner helped me into the apartment and I collapsed into a chair with a disgusting drink to cheer me up. I was there for well over half an hour trying to recover, before I could find the strength to come back in here.

Until teatime, I worked on the radio programme and then went to make myself some salad, chips and some of those vegan nuggets. And I’m still off my food. This is no good at all.

But now, I’m off to bed. I have dialysis tomorrow, just by way of a change. And then Sunday is a Day of Rest while I prepare for chemotherapy. I have a medical appointment of some description every day (including Saturday) next week. All I need now is one for Sunday to complete the week.

And there is some exciting news about yesterday, in that I set a new record as far as readership went. We had one thousand and six readers, which is the very first time that I have ever had a four-figure readership in one twenty-four-hour period. Well done to all of you.

Anyway, before I go, seeing as we have been talking about being awake … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the old Tommy Cooper joke –
"I once knew a man who dreamed that he was awake. And when he woke up – he was!"

EPIC HALL

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

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