Tag Archives: charles roach smith

Thursday 14th May 2026 – THE BAD NEWS …

… is that they want me to go back to doing three days per week at dialysis.

Apparently, the … errr … sample that I took in the other day is almost pure water. There is not very much in the way of waste matter in it, so they are beginning to worry again.

The good news is that tomorrow, we’re expecting the arrival of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Both my cleaner and my nurse are in eager anticipation, so I can imagine that we might end up with a brawl at some point.

As for me, there isn’t very much in the way of good news. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

Last night went the typical way of all of the other nights just recently. I sit down fairly early to begin to write my notes, but then I seem to be sidetracked by this, that and the other and it takes an age to finish them. That was how it went last night, and by the time that I’d done everything else that needed doing and slid under the covers, it was round about 21:45.

Once again, it took a while to go off to sleep, and once again, I slept quite soundly until about 01:00 or so. Just as the previous night, there was a howling gale outside and that was what probably awoke me, but I managed to go back to sleep after a while, and there I lay until the alarm at 06:29.

For a change, I was fairly rapidly on my feet and headed into the bathroom for a wash and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. I was early heading into the kitchen too, where, because it’s a dialysis day, I just had a mouthful of orange juice to wash down my medication.

Back in here, the first thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone notes to find out if I’d been anywhere during the night.

I dreamed that I was working for some kind of organisation and dealing with towns and villages. I had to go to see some town somewhere that had been referred to our association. One thing that I noticed more than anything else was the total chaos on the roads – people drove any old how with no giving way, no stopping, no anything. So I decided that I’d start some kind of campaign to regularise the matter. I went back to my office and made a start, but my boss wasn’t happy with any of this and wanted a second kind of opinion. However, it was not possible to do that because there was no day that fell on a Sunday in the near future.

This is another dream that means very little to me, particularly near the end when it seems to degenerate into the surreal. I’d love to know what’s going on with this type of dream.

There was plenty of time to do a few other things before Isabelle the Nurse arrived. She told me that the noise that awoke me at 01:00 or thereabouts was a massive hailstorm. Apparently, a supermarket car park at St-Lô looked as if it had had a heavy snowfall during the night, according to the photos in the local press this morning, so she told me.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of Charles Roach Smith’s THE ANTIQUITIES OF RICHBOROUGH, RECULVER, AND LYMNE, IN KENT.

Today, he’s been discussing a few other itineraries from the Roman or early mediaeval period, such as the Ravenna Cosmography and comparing them unfavourably with the work of “Richard of Cirencester”, which, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … has long-since been denounced as a fabrication.

Back in here, I don’t know what came over me but I sat down to write out the notes for the next radio programme, and by the time that my cleaner came to apply my anaesthetic, there was just one set of notes for one song that I hadn’t completed.

It’s been absolutely ages since I’ve worked this hard, and it shows that I must be feeling somewhat better these days.

After my cleaner left, I had to wait for the taxi to take me to dialysis. The driver was a few minutes late but as there was no-one else to pick up, I was still early arriving.

And my luck was in, too. I didn’t have long to wait before I was plugged in, and I settled down to what I was hoping would be a quick session so that I could be home early.

For the most part, everyone left me alone, except for Emilie the Cute Consultant. I don’t know why it is, but whenever there is bad news to tell me, they usually always wheel her out. There’s no doubt that somewhere in the hierarchy at Avranches, there is someone who is reading my notes.

Anyway, she told me the bad news, and that led to something of a discussion. What we have agreed, albeit temporarily, is that they will keep the two sessions but increase the number of hours that I have to stay for each one. They will review the situation after four weeks and “let me know”. I can’t say any more fairly than that.

After she left, there were about forty-five minutes of this session left, and as I was feeling rather tired, I decided to have a little sleep. However, it was to no avail. You can’t believe the amount of noise that goes on in that place when the sessions begin to wind down.

Eventually, the session came to an end, but I still had to wait fifteen minutes for someone to come to disconnect me and to compress where the needles had been. The compression takes about ten minutes, and that’s a long time when you are in a hurry.

Luckily, the taxi driver was waiting for me when I came out, so we were back here just before 19:00. And you won’t believe how light I was when I left – two kilogrammes below my “athletic weight”. I suppose that it’s no wonder that people are worried about me. Since I started dialysis in October 2024, I’ve lost twelve kilogrammes.

My cleaner was waiting for me and she helped me into the apartment. She also gave me a disgusting drink to drink, so she’s obviously worried about me too.

After she left, I came back in here to write up my notes, and now, when I’ve finished everything, I’m off to bed, ready for the Hound of the Baskervilles tomorrow. And so, with having visitors, my notes will probably be rather sporadic for the next while, but eventually they will all be here. You’ll need to have a little patience.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about a little patience … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the … errr … vertically-challenged old man in the queue at the hospital.
He was ranting and raving about being kept waiting for treatment for a minor injury whilst more serious cases were being pushed ahead in the queue.
Eventually, a nurse came over to see him. "Excuse me, sir" she said. "I understand that it’s difficult to wait, but you’ll just have to be a little patient."

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Wednesday 13th May 2026 – AND THERE I …

… was again, thinking that last night was going to be the same as the previous two or three that I have had.

However, it wasn’t quite to be, but as the Duke of Wellington said after the battle of Waterloo, it was "the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life".

Actually, things started off that way. I began to write up the blog notes at about 19:30 but as usual, I was sidetracked much more than I would have liked to be, and by the time that I’d finished the notes and done everything else that I needed to do before going to bed, it was more like 21:30 when I finally slid under the covers.

As usual, it took a while to go off to sleep, and there I lay until all of 01:00.

It wasn’t a coughing fit that awoke me but a howling gale that had sprung up outside. It wasn’t ‘arf making a racket and anyone pushing up the daisies from underneath the surface of the churchyard up the road would not only have been awake but probably walking around.

Being wide awake, I took the opportunity to go for a ride on the porcelain horse and then came back here to climb into bed.

At the rate that things were going, I thought that the wind would keep me awake for the rest of the night. However, after about an hour or so, I must have gone back to sleep, which certainly makes a change just recently.

When the alarm went off, I struggled into an upright position and then had to wait for the room to stop spinning so that I could think about standing up. And once I’d summoned up the energy and the courage, I headed off into the bathroom to sort myself out.

In the kitchen, I had my energy drink and medication and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what had gone on during the night. But to my dismay, there was nothing on it. What a disappointment! Still, never mind. It gave me an opportunity to catch up on a few other things.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual and we had a chat about the weather while she sorted out my legs. It’s sunny outside but cold, and the gale is still raging. I hope that it will be gone by Thursday when I have to go to dialysis.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of Charles Roach Smith’s THE ANTIQUITIES OF RICHBOROUGH, RECULVER, AND LYMNE, IN KENT.

And I might have known! Back in the introduction he mentioned “my friend Thomas Wright” so I ought to have guessed what would come soon afterwards. Mind you, we have to wait until page sixteen for the first mention of “Richard of Cirencester”.

By the time we reach page eighteen, we have "it may be mantioned that the authority of Richard of Cirencester’s ‘De Situ Britannia’ has been questioned’ … Hatcher, in his preface to his translation, has ably combatted the objections brought against the original of the itinerary… But what no cavilling can set aside is his itinerary."

So there we go again.

Back in here, I had a few things to finish off and then I began to write the rest of the radio notes. There was however, a brief pause while I sent off my food order to LeClerc.

Once I’d finished, I went for a disgusting drink break and then came back in here, where I began to research the next programme.

Later on, I went into the kitchen to do some more tidying and throw away some more stuff that was lingering in the fridge. How I hate throwing away food, but as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … if I’m not eating it and it begins to grow legs, there’s really no other alternative.

The Leclerc order then turned up, and I managed to put everything away and to sort out and put away the delivery bags. But I’ve found, to my dismay, that I’ve forgotten to order the taco wraps and that is going to be a real inconvenience.

By now, I was totally exhausted and so I came in here to collapse into my chair for a while to recover. But I managed to find some energy from somewhere and all of the music for the next programme has now been selected, remixed and re-edited, paired and segued, and all that remains is to write the notes. I’ve no idea where that energy came from.

So right now, I’ll take my evening medication, finish off a few things and then climb into bed. I’ve had a better day today and I seem to be a little more energetic and enthusiastic. I hope that this improvement will continue.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the high winds … "well, one of us has" – ed …regular readers of this rubbish will recall that about eighteen months ago, we had gusts of wind touching two hundred kph.
Shortly afterwards, i met a guy whom I knew who told me that he had had enough and was moving.
"Where are you going?" I asked him.
"About ten miles inland to La Haye-Pesnel" he replied.
"Why there?" I asked.
"Because that’s where my house has gone."

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Tuesday 12th May 2026 – OH NO! NOT ANOTHER …

… night like Sunday and Monday! It’s becoming far too much of a habit, this is.

So on Monday night, after I came back from dialysis, I came straight in here to write up my notes. Considering how much I didn’t write about yesterday, it took a lot longer than I expected to finish them.

And then, I had the stats and the backing-up to do, my evening medication to take (with a square of chocolate cake and a mouthful of orange juice), and then finally the bathroom to sort myself out for the night. It was about 21:30 when I slid under the covers and how grateful was I to be there?

Once I was asleep, I stayed asleep, but only for a while. At some point, I awoke, and try as I might, I could not go back to sleep. And so there I lay, watching everything tick over and over towards 06:29 and the alarm. I’ve no idea what time it was when I awoke because I didn’t look. And I didn’t care either.

When the alarm went off, it was another struggle to leave the bed and head for the bathroom, but eventually, I found myself in the kitchen with a high-energy drink and my medication. If the drink won’t kick-start my day, then nothing will.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone, and I was surprised that I’d actually had the time to go anywhere.

I was dreaming about reading a book. I can’t remember which book it was but it was one that the taxi driver from yesterday evening had lent me. I distinctly heard a voice ask “what page are you on?”. I distinctly remember replying “I can’t remember”, and I said it out loud too.

So here we are – one of the very rare dreams where I actually talk out loud in my sleep. These are very few and far between and I can’t even remember when the last time was.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up after her week’s break and told me all about her weekend hiking around Normandy with her little group. It actually made me quite jealous that I can no longer do things like this. When I think of all the miles that I’ve walked in the past …

After she left, I made breakfast and started a new book – THE ANTIQUITIES OF RICHBOROUGH, RECULVER, AND LYMNE, IN KENT, also by Charles Roach Smith. I’m hoping that this book will be more interesting and more useful than the last one, but so far, he is just setting the scene.

Back in here, I had a few things to do and then I had to revise for my Welsh lesson. The lesson itself passed OK, but we’ve now finished the course several weeks early. So what we have started to do is to revise the salient points of previous lessons and that’s going to be a challenge, especially for people like me with a Teflon brain.

Unfortunately, it looks as if our little group will be breaking up at the end of the year. We were shown a copy of the book for the final two years of our course and that has put the wind up several of our members. It is indeed complicated, there’s no doubt about that, but I’m going to push on and try it. However, I doubt that many of the others will join me.

That will be a shame because some of the people have been with me since the course started in 2020 and we’ve built up a really good rapport.

After the lesson ended, I prepared the bathroom and then went to tidy up in the kitchen. You have no idea just how much food I threw away just now. It’s shameful and embarrassing, but if it’s fresh food like potatoes and onions and I’m not able to eat it, there really isn’t any alternative once their shoots begin to sprout.

My cleaner turned up to do her stuff and she shooed me under the shower. So now, there’s a nice, clean boy … "well, clean anyway" – ed … in clean clothes, ready for a comfortable night in clean pyjamas.

We also sorted out a few things and tidied up a few more places, as rumour has it that we might be having a guest here at the weekend, so the place needs to be tidy.

After she left, I made myself a taco roll with salad and some of that vegan cream cheese. It makes a really, really nice mid-afternoon snack, but things might be improving a little because LeClerc has on offer some new vegan products this week, and I’ve also found a recipe for vegan mushroom pâté which I am determined to try.

Back in here, I relaxed for a short while, catching up on a couple of football matches that I missed, and then, eventually, I began work on the notes for the radio programme. I haven’t done half as much as I would have liked, so I shall have to get a move on and finish tomorrow morning and then make a start on the second one.

So now, having finished my notes, and having vomited violently on three occasions (and I’ve no idea why because I haven’t been coughing), I’m going to finish everything off and go to bed, hoping this time to actually sleep … "some hope" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about vomiting … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of being on THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR up in the High Arctic in 2019 when we were hit by a raging storm in the Lancaster Sound.
One guy was leaning over the rails, being extremely ill.
"The trouble with you," I said "is that you have a weak stomach."
"Rubbish!" he retorted. "I’m throwing up farther than anyone else on this boat."

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Monday 11th May 2026 – GOD ALONE KNOWS …

… what happened at dialysis today, but by the time that they’d finished with me and I was ready to leave, I had a spinning head, a strange feeling in my stomach and I was feeling light on my feet. It’s not the volume of liquid that they have taken out of me, because I’ve had much more than this in the past, so I dunno.

It’s probably something related to the bad night that I had last night. I wasn’t in bed as early as I was hoping to be, which was a shame. By the time that I’d finished everything that needed finishing and crawled in underneath the covers, it was about 21:45 and, believe me, I was ready for bed.

As usual, it took an age to go off to sleep, but once I’d gone, I’d gone until all of when I needed to leave the bed to take a stroll down the corridor.

As I was passing the Fusebox on the wall, I checked the time. 01:34. That was a good night’s sleep, I have to say.

Back in here later, I crawled into bed but I just couldn’t go back to sleep again, and there I lay for almost five hours, tossing and turning, until the alarm went off at 06:29.

Eventually, I managed to summon up the courage to go into the bathroom for a wash and shave, and then in the kitchen, I washed my medication down with a mouthful of orange juice. After all, it’s dialysis day today.

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

There was something about having to massage a different leg than usual. This was more swollen, maybe, than the other one. But when I went to dialysis, they began to extract the water from that leg instead of out of my left arm.

That wasn’t much good, was it? I could do with more exciting dreams than that! But this idea of “a different leg” – how many legs do you think I have? I’m not Jake the Peg.

However, dreaming about dialysis is not just scraping the bottom of the barrel, it’s going through the barrel and into the mud underneath.

The nurse turned up today as usual and chatted about not very much. He’s off on his week’s break this evening so as he left, I wished him a nice break.

Once he’d gone, I could make my breakfast and finish off the last of REPORT ON EXCAVATIONS MADE UPON THE SITE OF THE ROMAN CASTRUM AT PEVENSEY by Charles Roach Smith.

To be quite honest, this book was something of a washout. Roach Smith spends just about three or four pages discussing the excavations, and the rest is comparing the site with other Roman sites elsewhere. As for the finds, there are about three pages of coins tucked away in the appendices. I hope that the next book is more enlightening and interesting.

Back in here, there were a few things that I needed to do, and then I had to check over the radio programme that I was sending off for broadcast this weekend. Afterwards, I made a start on my Welsh homework. There’s still another week before it needs to be in but I want to press on if I can.

As usual, my faithful cleaner turned up to put the anaesthetic on my arm, and then I had to wait for the taxi. And wait, and wait and wait.

The taxi was half an hour late coming for me, but it was my favourite driver so I didn’t mind too much. We had to go to Sartily to pick up another passenger, and so we were hours late arriving at dialysis.

It was in fact 14:45 when I was finally plugged in, and so that meant another really late night arriving home.

With the two bad nights that I’ve had, I was hoping to have a good sleep this afternoon to catch up, but it wasn’t to be. There was a constant stream of visitors this afternoon, and when there wasn’t, the machine was playing up so that brought the nurses running every five minutes.

On top of that, firstly, the doctor came to see me. I had to take a “sample” to him today, so he told me that they were going to analyse it to see whether it’s the dialysis that’s “causing these problems” for me (whatever “these problems” are) and if so, they’ll “do something to help solve the problem”. I don’t like the sound of that one minute.

And then we had the dietician. Apparently, she’d been talking to Emilie the Cute Consultant and they’ve found an intravenous drip that they think might work plugged into the dialysis machine. I don’t like the sound of that either, but at least it means that I shan’t have it stuck in a vein or something.

The way things are, I’m beginning to regret ever having said anything to anyone at dialysis.

Once again, I was the last to be unplugged, but luckily the driver was waiting to take me back home. And it was another one of my favourite drivers so we had a lovely talk all the way home, mainly about cancer and suicide, would you believe? She had quite a story to tell me.

My cleaner was waiting for me when we arrived. She helped me into the apartment and sorted me out.

After she left, I came in here to write up my notes, and now I’m off to bed. Now that the coughing seems to have calmed down, it’s really annoying that there’s something else now that seems to be keeping me awake.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about different legs … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of an incident at Balmoral Castle all those years ago when a serving wench, serving Prince Philip, suddenly burst out into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
"What’s the matter, girl?" asked the Queen. "Are you feeling hysterical?"
"Och, no, ma’am. He’s feeling mine."

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Sunday 10th May 2026 – WHAT A CHAOTIC …

… night that was! I’m still not sure of quite what happened, but I’ll try to piece it all together as I continue, and we’ll see what we can find.

Last night, having made something of an effort, I finished my notes and had them online by about 21:00. With everything else that I needed to do, it was not far short of 21:45 when I climbed into bed. It was rather later than I had hoped, but a nice lie-in was forecast for tomorrow.

So, well tucked in, deep beneath the quilt, I tried to fall asleep. And tried, and tried, and tried.

Instead of going to sleep, I just lay there, having what they call over here a nuit blanche, watching the clock go round and round and sifting through all kinds of various thoughts and memories of a misspent youth and dozens after dozens of opportunities missed.

At one point, I had to leave the bed to go to stroll the parapet. When I came back, I checked the time – 05:10 – so I surprised myself, and probably you too, by spending an hour or so dictating some radio notes from the outstanding pile.

In fact, I would have done much more, but as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … one of these new medicaments is giving me a very dry throat and after about an hour, I was croaking like a frog.

Back in bed, I actually managed to fall asleep, but not for long. I kept on waking up, wondering when the nurse would arrive. And when he finally did put in an appearance, I was fast asleep.

He didn’t stay long, but after he left, I was wide awake and couldn’t go back to sleep. Eventually, I hauled myself out of bed and went into the bathroom.

When I finally made it into the kitchen, it was just 09:33 and that will suit me fine for a Sunday. I made my porridge and strong coffee, warmed up two of my homemade croissants, which I had today with apricot jam, and read some more of REPORT ON EXCAVATIONS MADE UPON THE SITE OF THE ROMAN CASTRUM AT PEVENSEY by Charles Roach Smith.

His excavations are being hampered by many missing pieces, which he puts down to looting by the local population. He tells us that "when the Government of our country has no regard for its ancient monuments and will not protect them, the ignorant despoilers who pull down Roman walls and plough up Roman camps can no more be blamed than the covetous jobbers who conspire to destroy old buildings and churches to make new ones."

If you didn’t know that this was written 170 years ago, you would swear that he’s talking about HS2, where ancient cemeteries, listed buildings, thirteenth-century churches and prehistoric remains are being destroyed day by day for a failed vanity project that will reduce the time of travel from London to Birmingham by just ten minutes, ten minutes that will then be lost by walking to another mainline station to catch a connection onwards.

He’s also right about his assumption of the Iter Britanniarum. Thomas Wright, our previous author, used the absence of places such as Pevensey in the Iter to justify his faith in the (forged) works of Richard of Chichester. Roach Smith tells us, correctly as it subsequently turns out, "that most of these castra were not constructed until subsequent to the compilation of the Itinerary of Antonius … were clearly brought into the line with what became in later times the ‘Littus Saxonicum’ … there is every reason to infer that they were not at that time in being."

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone and, to my surprise, there was something on there, so I must have gone to sleep at some point.

I was discussing changes to the JD Cymru League again. One of the things that I suggested in respect of the playoffs was to abandon these abysmal penalty shootouts if the scores are equal after ninety minutes and the teams just play on and on and on until someone scores a goal.

These penalty shootouts really are abysmal and if I had the chance to be in charge, I would want teams to play on until someone scores. However, I would go farther and say that any player who had received a booking would be excluded from any time after ninety minutes;

A game between Stoke City and Uruguay would be interesting. Come extra time, there would be no-one on the field to play.

We were then at the JD Cymru League playoffs, at the final. There was one team that was having to have some kind of extreme treatment so that they could carry on playing in the final. I was there with this kind-of trophy. It was like two cermaic segments of a circle or something, bits of a bowl. They were arranged in a sort of cruciform pattern. I had to carry it out to the touchline, something that I was not happy to do because if I were to drop it, I was certain that it would break.

And couldn’t you just imagine me carrying a huge ceramic trophy onto a football field? How far towards the centre circle do you think that I would reach?

Back in here, we had a footfest. One Scottish play-off match after another. I think that there was only two that I missed. There were even some English ones too.

After a nice relax when I didn’t do much, I turned my attention to the radio programme that I started yesterday. All of the music has now been chosen, not without difficulty. It’s all reformatted, re-edited, remixed, paired and segued, and all that remains to do is to write the notes, which I shall start on Tuesday afternoon after my shower. Some of the notes are written already.

At 16:30, I knocked off to make the bread for next week and, even as we speak, it’s busy baking in the oven. When it’s finished, I’ll take it out to cool and then I’ll be getting ready for bed, early as it might be.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my voice croaking … "well, one of us has" – ed … a little boy went up to his grandma and said "granny, granny! Please make a noise like a frog!"
"Why, dear?"
"Because daddy said when you croak, we’ll get all your money!"

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Saturday 9th May 2026 – I HAVE TO ADMIT …

… that I was feeling much better this morning. Not exactly sprightly, unfortunately, but much better than I was a few days ago.

What I put it down to is the course of antibiotics that I’ve been given. I know that one swallow doesn’t make a summer and two tablets out of the ten that I’ve been given don’t count for a lot, but I awoke several times during the night, and to my surprise, I wasn’t coughing.

Last night, I started to write out my notes quite early in an effort to have yet another early night, and it was just before 21:00 when they finally went online. There were a few other things that needed doing afterwards, including taking my evening medication, but it can’t have been much after 21:30 when I finally crawled into bed.

As I mentioned just now, it was a turbulent night when I awoke on three or four occasions. I’ve no idea what time because I didn’t look, but it was dark and the electric water heater was working.

The final time that I awoke, there was bright daylight streaming in around the edges of the shutters so I wondered if I’d overslept through the alarms. But when I checked, it was 06:25 – four minutes before the alarm was due to go off. The nights are getting shorter.

In theory, I could have put my feet on the floor and claimed an early start, but I couldn’t be bothered. Instead, I lay in the warmth under the covers and waited for it to go off.

It didn’t take quite so long to summon up the enthusiasm to go into the bathroom this morning, and then I went into the kitchen for my energy drink and medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And I was surprised at the distance that I seem to have covered.

I was somewhere in some kind of school or college. We were doing a kind of science fiction film and everything like that. There was a group of us, or we were divided into small groups or something, and we were wandering around in our group. One of the other groups came along and began to attack us with these weird science-fiction type machines. It became something of an aerial display or bombardment or something from these really rapid, powerful and fast machines flying overhead all the time, going mainly in one direction and then presumably turning around somewhere and coming back in the same direction and so on. It had us, well, not pinned down because it wasn’t aggressive, but it was a flying display of all kinds of these strange machines. We were trying to work out whether they were remote-controlled or whether there were people flying them or something, because there were far too many to be flown by this one small group. This went on for ages and ages with these plane-type things flying over our heads. Eventually, they all disappeared. We were somewhere along the track of an old disused railway. Once they had all gone, one of the people with us decided that he was feeling hungry and was going to eat something. He asked about the rest of us, so I replied that I’d just nip back to school for a moment and fetch some biscuits from my bag. I went back to school and there were kids everywhere. There were all kinds of equipment and so on relating to these science-fiction things. I went to my bag for some biscuits but there weren’t all that many. Someone gave me some kind of cable but I already had four or five different ones in my hand so I had to go back to my room to sort them out, to make sure that I had what I wanted, and the one that that other person had given me, I’d leave behind on the bed for later.

This must have been a fascinating dream. I can still see the flying machines even now, and they would have been too small to carry a person. They reminded me of the very primitive attempts at gliders or kites such as those built by the Frenchman Clément Ader, with bat-like wings, and they were yellow, red or green. But there were thousands of them.

I spent a lot of time last night roaming through the junior levels of the Welsh pyramid. There were two cases that came to mind – the first was a girl who had been administered a vitamin supplement twice – first by her former team and then by the team that she rejoined later. This was put down to a confusion of paperwork between the two clubs so no action was taken against anyone. The second was a similar kind of case between three small boys. This was ruled to be due to a change of personnel or something like that, and someone who had left hadn’t noted something in a file. There were no charges brought against any of the clubs for misbehaviour or anything like that. It was all due to negligence or carelessness or something.

Interested as I am in football in Cymru, I’ve no idea of anything at all about this dream. And the idea of three small boys is nothing special. Drug testing in football over there is routine these days, and the Football Association of Wales controls all football from under-11 upwards, and I’ve seen 9-year-olds playing in under-11 games in the past.

There was a girl at work with whom I’d been at school. Somehow, we found ourselves in the same supermarket after work. She bought one or two things and so did I, and I gave her a lift home in my van afterwards. Next day at work, we were working away quite happily but then, in the afternoon, I had to go somewhere to do something. I went down to my van and found half a baguette in there that I’d bought, another half-baguette and a loaf of bread that this girl had bought. I picked up the loaf of bread and thought that when I go back to the office, I’ll take it to her and give it to her. I set off on foot on this errand and began to walk down Welsh Row in Nantwich. I ended up walking miles, and it was all through streets and lanes around Nantwich. Then I was in Brussels, walking through Brussels. It seemed to take ages to do what I was trying to do, with walking all around these places. It was sunny, it was sweaty and I was walking up a pedestrian alley, but someone had tied a rope across it as if to close it so I just opened the rope and walked through. Some Dutch guy began to have an argument with me about moving the rope so I told him to clear off, but he didn’t and this argument carried on. In the end, I used a couple of really vulgar Flemish terms and it looked as if he was going to come over and fight with me, but instead, he just wandered away. I found myself in a park, and after walking through this park for five minutes, I realised that there was a huge drop over the wall and I wasn’t sure how I was going to find my way out. Suddenly, I came to an entry that I didn’t know was there so I went through an entry onto the road and began to walk towards Nantwich. There was a house with a ginger cat so I went to stroke the cat but it wouldn’t come to me. It ran away. Eventually, I found myself back in Brussels again, walking up from Woluwe St Lambert into the centre of the city and into work again. There was one lift that you could only take, that went all the way to the top so I went in there, came out and went into another lift and went back down to my floor and found that I was in the wrong building. I had to go across to the next lift, which was exactly the same – straight to the top – and back down again into the office. I still had this loaf of bread with me but when I came into my office to sit down, I couldn’t see the girl at that moment.

The girl concerned in this dream unfortunately died shortly after leaving school. When a group of us heard that she had become seriously ill, we went round to her house but her parents wouldn’t let us come in. At first, we were quite annoyed by that, but as time has gone on and I’ve seen people die, I can understand how she and her parents must have been feeling.

And a lift again, just like the previous night. I wonder why these are suddenly appearing during my dreams. It’s not as if I’m ever likely to encounter any these days. However, wandering around Brussels in my dreams is nothing new.

The nurse turned up as usual and asked how I was. I told him that I was feeling better than yesterday, but he didn’t have much to say for himself. He was soon gone and then I could make breakfast and read some more of REPORT ON EXCAVATIONS MADE UPON THE SITE OF THE ROMAN CASTRUM AT PEVENSEY by Charles Roach Smith.

And here we go again. He tells us that "the mortar, that important ingredient which Saxon, Norman and English architects only imperfectly understood, was made by Roman masons on a principle so sound and unvarying that its tenacity is unimpaired by age and its solidity is nothing inferior to the stones and tiles it cements together"

He then goes on to mention that "it is nothing unusual to find Roman mortar used as facing stone in the walls of our medieval churches".

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I wonder what happened to the people who built the stone walls so well and made the mortar that has lasted for all these years. If they had been pushed into Wales or over to Brittany, as has often been suggested, why aren’t there any of these types of stone buildings there dating from the early mediaeval period? And if they had been absorbed into the Anglo-Saxon population, why didn’t the use of stone and mortar continue?

It really beats me why ethnic cleansing has been ruled out by most authorities.

Back in here, there was football to watch. Arbroath v Dunfermline, with Arbroath failing to overturn the 1-0 deficit from midweek. So Dunfermline march on, one step further towards the Scottish Premier Division.

Afterwards, it was the National League playoff semi-finals – Carlisle v Boreham Wood and Rochdale v Scunthorpe. With both games ending 2-1, we’ll have a final between Rochdale and Boreham Wood to see who plays next season in League Two.

With all of that out of the way, I had another look at the radio programme that I mentioned yesterday. This is going to be a complicated affair but I cracked on all the same. In the end, after much binding in the marsh, I was able to identify, from a list that I had to make, which ended up containing 451 albums of all genres and of all different kinds of obscurity, about twenty that I actually owned, by fourteen different artists.

At that point, I went into the kitchen for my afternoon medication and ended up spending an hour tidying out the fridge. I really must be feeling better!

Having done that, I made a taco roll with some of that vegan cream cheese and salad. And it was really nice too. I shall have to order some more of that next time I’m online shopping.

Back in here again, the sunlight was streaming in through the windows, the temperature was 24°C and it was lovely. I thought that I’d just close my eyes for a few minutes and soak up the heat, so there I was, thoroughly enjoying myself until I fell off the chair seventy-five minutes later. What a waste of time, but it really was nice.

Pushing on, I finished sorting out the music for the radio programme and I had even chosen more than half of the tracks and remixed and re-edited them by the time that I knocked off.

So right now, I’m off to bed, looking forward to a good sleep and a lie-in tomorrow until the nurse wakes me up … "he hopes" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about these flying machines … "well, one of us has" – ed … it remind me of a scene from UP THE CHASTITY BELT as Frankie Howerd prepares to leap from the top of the castle tower, wearing his bat-like wings.
"Oh look!" exclaimed Lady Lobelia. "It’s Lurkalot. He flies again!"
"Ahh, Lurkalot!" exclaimed the boxer Billy Walker, playing the part of Chopper the Woodsman. "His flies be his undoing."

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Friday 8th May 2026 – BANE OF BRITAIN …

… strikes again!

Yours Truly spent a nice hour this morning completing his shopping list for LeClerc and then went to send it off for delivery later today.

At first, the delivery site wouldn’t load, and when it finally did, it was service indisponible – "service unavailable". So what’s going on here? I kept on trying for a good while, using all sorts of tricks and so on to navigate what I thought was a blockage in the service’s website.

And then, after a while, the lightbulb suddenly clicked on. It’s a bank holiday here today, isn’t it? D’ohhh.

What I put it down to is too much sleep. Last night, by the time that I’d finished my notes and done everything that needed doing, it was about 21:30, and wasn’t I glad to slide under the bedcovers at that time? It took a while … "as usual these days" – ed … to fall asleep, but that was into a nice deep sleep, which I enjoyed intensely.

During the night, I awoke a couple of times. At one moment, 04:10 to be precise, I was lying on my back and not coughing, which surprised me a considerable amount, but I didn’t spend too long thinking about it because I was soon asleep again. And there I lay until the alarm went off at 06:29.

As usual, it took a while to leave the bed, and then I went off to the bathroom to sort myself out. In the kitchen, I had my high-energy drink to wash down my medication and then came back in here to find out what had gone on during the night.

I was on a mission to the moon last night and we were all strapped into these various seats inside what I suppose was the space shuttle or something. A series of tapes was running all the time and the blast-off was extraordinary. I’d never felt anything like that in the past. We soared up into the sky and within four or five minutes, we made a perfect landing wherever it was that we were supposed to be. I managed to find some insects after I’d been chosen and I’d found a few more on the moon. We were all there, looking at different things and everything like that. No-one thought for a minute about how we were going to come back. We were just not interested in that but interested in finding out what there was to see. But there won’t ever be anything like that blast-off. It was absolutely out of this World.

To whatever this relates, I have no idea. But judging by the tone of my voice when I was dictating it, that blast-off must have been really impressive. And going somewhere and finding myself too busy to bother about coming back is par for the course for me.

However, four or five minutes to go from here to the moon is impressive in anyone’s language – however, it does have to be said that, believe it or not, it takes longer to go 30 or so miles from Bangor to Porthmadog by train on British Railways than it does to go to the moon.

I was with my former friend from Stoke on Trent doing something or other. Things didn’t seem to be working out very well there so I left. I found myself in London and wanted to go to the third floor of this building, but when we arrived there, the third floor was absolutely out of order with all of the lifts. We had to force the lift open. There were some people up there directing us and we managed to find our way onto the stairwell. I remember going down one flight of steps but I ended up in a subterranean car park. I went into the street and there was a Lloyd’s Bank there. It was heaving with people, there were people fighting to enter and others fighting to leave. The staff was having to push them out of the door. eventually, I managed to find my way in but it was so crowded that I couldn’t find a cash point anywhere. In the end, I ended up wedged against the counter so I asked the girl there if I could withdraw some cash. she asked if I had an account there, so I replied that I had a bank card and a cheque book, which seemed to satisfy her, so I had to search through my pockets for the bank card. I found all kinds of cards in there – old SIM cards, old memory cards, all kinds of things like that. In the end, I found my bank card and I handed it over to her, and she filled out a form and stamped it. Then she began to stamp all the other cards, and I couldn’t understand why. She asked me if the thing was always as slow as this, to which I replied that I had no idea. This carried on like this – she was busy stamping everything in my possession that she could possibly find.

It’s a shame about my former friend. He was one of the nicest people you could ever meet, until he had his accident and they gave him these pills …

The bit about London doesn’t fit in with any of our “London” dreams unfortunately, and neither does the bank, but the relentless stamping of everything in sight reminds me of the French obsession with documents, paperwork and rubber stamps on everything.

And we’ve been in this underground car park before, during one of our “Brussels” dreams ages ago.

Did I dictate the dream about being at my friend’s house where he and his wife were in bed or doing something in the bedroom? I had to go to the bathroom so I went in, and for five minutes I did some running on the spot to try to keep fit, but they became really annoyed about this. In the end, I decided to wait for a suitable moment and then pack up and leave.

… "No you didn’t, but this looks as if it might have been near the start of the previous dream." – ed …

The nurse turned up as usual this morning. We talked about the panic at the dialysis centre but he didn’t understand the point that I was trying to make. But not to worry, I’ll make my point on Monday at the dialysis centre, no problem.

The name Charles Roach Smith has appeared countless times during our reading of these historic books on the Romans in Britain. He was one of the foundres of modern archaeology in the UK in the mid-nineteenth century. Today, having finished THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY AT MONKTON, the next on the list turns out to be REPORT ON EXCAVATIONS MADE UPON THE SITE OF THE ROMAN CASTRUM AT PEVENSEY by Roach Smith so, after having made breakfast, I began.

It’s only a very short book so we’ll only be here a day or two. So far, he’s avoiding controversy by giving a description of the site.

Back in here afterwards, I had the LeClerc order to send off, as I mentioned, and then I had a printer to coax back into life so that I could print a return label to send a package back. That took longer than intended too. I don’t know what’s the matter with me today.

After that, we had two matches in the Scottish playoffs to watch from earlier in the week. Dunfermline v Arbroath and Alloa Athletic v Airdrie United. Regular readers of this rubbish in a previous version will recall that when I used to visit my friend Lorna up in Scotland, I stood on the terraces at Alloa a few times, so I have a soft spot for the Wasps.

Later on, I attacked the radio programme that I’d begun the other day, and now, all of the notes are written, ready for dictation. That’s quite a pile that is building up on the back burner waiting for this coughing to stop and I need to make a plan about them.

There were a couple of interruptions today during the radio notes. Firstly, my cleaner put in an appearance to do her stuff as usual, and I declined a shower again today. I’m not in the right kind of health at the moment for that.

Secondly, after she left, I made a taco roll with cheese and salad. It’s not much, but I’ll try to break myself slowly into eating again, if I can.

With the time that was left, I began to think about the radio programmes for next week. We’ll see where we go with those.

But one thing about seeing where we go is that I can see where I’ll be going very shortly. My bed is right behind me, even as I type, and I won’t have far to go for that.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about going to the moon … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the early summer of 1969 when a North Vietnamese peasant told his friend "The Americans have gone to the moon."
"What?" cried his friend, incredulously. "All of them?"

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Sunday 29th September 2024 – TONIGHT’S PIZZA …

… was exceptional

Fresh dough that rose like a lift, that lovely cheese that my cleaner found for me, and the pièce de résistance, which is not a French virgin, Rhys, it was the home-made tomato sauce.

When I put the new tomatoes away on Friday I noticed two tomatoes left over that were looking distinctly the worse for wear. Ordinarily they would have been filed under CS but I decided to try an experiment.

Being now a member of “LIDL on-line” (God help me) I can now access their recipes. And they have about 300 vegan recipes, one of which I noticed was for tomato sauce.

So as I wound up everything last night by dictating the radio notes that I’d written, I resolved to make use of the two tomatoes, to see what I could do. And then I went to bed.

It was rather later than I would have liked it to be, but once more I didn’t stay awake for long. I was soon away with the fairies and there I stayed for a few hours.

At one point in the morning I awoke in a cold sweat thinking that it was Christmas Day. I’ve no idea why I did that. It was probably with having talked about Christmas previously but it was a very strange thing to happen. It really was quite a panic-stricken situation for a few seconds.

And then about half an hour later I dreamed that the cleaner had come in and shouted my name. Of course, that’s highly unlikely but even so, I’m really degenerating into a bad state. I’m not yet at the stage of locking the bedroom door but I shall have to take precautions. There are a few dreams that you would like to come true, but that’s not one of them.

When the alarm went off I was feeling terrible and it was quite a struggle to haul myself to my feet. Added to that the fact that it’s freezing. The weather has suddenly turned to winter almost overnight and it’s officially “jumper on” weather as far as I’m concerned. It won’t be long before it’s “big coat” weather, followed by “hat and gloves” weather.

Not that I felt like it but I had a good wash again this morning. With perspiring as I do in bed and a nurse that comes in the morning I can’t lounge around like I used to and go for several weeks in an unkempt fashion.

Back in here I hardly had the computer switched on when the nurse arrived. She chatted away as she fixed my legs and showed me some photos of her holiday in Brittany just now.

After she left I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. My author, Thomas Wright, has now moved on from Dover.

If you were to read the WIKIPEDIA ENTRY FOR PORTUS LEMANIS situated on a cliff overlooking a drained arm of the sea that now forms part of Romney Marsh, you’ll notice that it’s not very useful for its architecture and remains.

It nots that “The site is still relatively unknown: the only major archaeological excavations were carried out by Roach Smith in 1850 and 1852”. And here I am, reading a book that tells me about the time when Thomas Wright was there with Charles Roach Smith helping out and doing part of the excavations.

His report is probably the clearest and most useful source of information about the fort and yet none of it is included in the Wikipedia entry.

By the way, regular readers of this rubbish may recall me having made certain “disparaging” remarks about Wikipedia. Don’t misunderstand me – it’s a great source to go to when you are starting your research and want to establish the background, but look at the entry and at the bottom you’ll see “References”, “sources” and “External Links”. They are the places to go to if you want to follow it up

Many of the older books are available on-line for download free and for nothing with such sites as the Gutenberg Project, my own favourite, ARCHIVE.ORG or the Google book-scanning project, and then you can check the sources used by the author of these books to find out where he had his information, if it isn’t first-hand knowledge.

And then work backwards from there, and so on. And so, like Nansen said, "the more extensive my studies became, the more riddles I perceived – riddle after riddle led to new riddles and this drew me on"

Back in my little office here I attacked the dictaphone to hear what I was doing during the night. My friends from the Wirral were coming round to Shavington. We had some kind of thing going on. It was quite early in the morning and I was out doing something when I saw them. So I drove like a maniac, overtook them dangerously so they flashed and blew their horns because they didn’t recognise the car, and then took the short cut home so that I was actually opening the gates to the drive when they turned up There was a friend with them, another girl, so the three of them were busy unloading things like bottles of cider, gallons of oil, things like that that they’d bought from the UK for me and I was stocking them somewhere. They had all kinds of exciting stuff. When my friend pulled into the driveway I told him to park down at the far end of the driveway as father would be home and he’d want to park in here too. They’d brought a crate with them too. One of the girls, I think that it was my friend’s wife, said “we’ve brought our furbabies with us too”. There were two cats in there. I thought that I hoped that they’d get on well with my two cats. We were busy unloading this thing when there were people round there interviewing everyone because we were going to do something to do with renewable energy, that sort of thing, and this was something quite novel for back in those days for a newspaper report or two. But it all felt so unreal and uneasy. I wasn’t really comfortable or at my ease doing this but I’d no idea why.

In fact, going back all those years, my friend’s wife, when she was a student did bring a friend with her a couple of times when she and my friend came to visit. But young, naïve, stupid me had absolutely no idea that she was trying to match us together until much later. And that’s not the first time that a similar thing has happened. I wondered why a friend in Chester used to bring his sister with him all the time when he came round to my bedsit. I really was that thick

But as for renewable energy, I was way ahead of my time. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I had solar panels and wind turbines on my farm as long ago as 1998. No mains electricity at all. And when I lived down there full-time from 2006 to 2015 there was still no mains electricity. It was all solar or wind.

No running water either. The mains water didn’t arrive in the hamlet until 1977 and my house had been abandoned before then so it missed out. Putting my Degree to work, I built a rainwater harvesting system with home-made water filters using volcanic ash – puzzolane – and sand. Where we lived, there was never any shortage of volcanic ash, that’s for sure.

Later on there were several cases concerning Immigration up before the Bench at the Old Bailey. The defendants were being assisted by a young Afro-type of guy who was doing the translations for them. Whether or not they were all speaking the same language he was doing it for all four or five of them. The barrister was a young Ethiopian or someone like that, a previous refugee who’d come across. He was a pupil in Chambers somewhere. At one particular hearing the Judge was unable to attend so it was the Recorder who took over the chair. There was a submission being made by the defence for an adjournment. The Recorder was actually one of the Seniors of the same Bench as the junior Immigrant barrister. What he was saying was absolutely awful about “how this case, if he loses it, is going to set back his career etc”. The guy asked “how could I do the best to advance my career?”. The Senior guy was really sneering at him with some quite offensive comments that some might have considered to be racist, especially in today’s climate in the UK. As a spectator I was horrified by what was coming out of the Bench. There was absolutely no place for any of this . It was completely out of order, completely irrelevant and completely offensive.

There have been some horrible scenes that I have witnessed in a Court at times, but I’m more impressed about what I can remember about the judiciary when I’m fast asleep. Nothing of what I have typed is different from that which I dictated, except maybe changing the odd “that” for “which” or “who”.

At some point during the night I had a feeling (but I didn’t record it) that I was telling a joke to a publican. It took him several minutes but eventually he “got it”. And I wish that I could remember what the joke was now. But it’s not the first time that I haven’t recorded something that I was convinced had occurred. There was even something once involving Castor. I wonder what else I might have missed.

And then I watched Stranraer lose to Stirling Albion. This was by far and away the worst game that I have ever witnessed. Stranraer lost 2-0 and they were lucky to get nil, that’s for sure. Bottom of the table again, and even so early in the season, they need to find some magic from somewhere, and quickly.

After lunch I did some tidying up in the kitchen, putting stuff away and so on, and then I had some personal stuff that needed my attention.

Once that was out of the way there was the radio programme. And in a wild fit of enthusiasm I bashed through the notes and actually finished it right off. What helped was that adding in the additional track and writing the notes and adding them in led to an overrun of just one third of a second. And it can’t be any better than that.

Following that, I made some pizza dough because I have now officially run out. I thought that I’d found some in the freezer but it turned out to be the leftover hash browns.

This batch of dough didn’t rise as well as some of the previous lots but it had a good consistency. I split it into three lots and put two in the freezer. The third, I rolled out onto the tray and left it to rise.

Wile it was rising, I –

  • chopped up half a small onion and a garlic clove really finely
  • poured a little olive oil into a saucepan
  • added the onion and garlic
  • followed by the two really soft tomatoes
  • A pinch of salt,
  • a dash of ground black pepper
  • some oregano, basil and marjoram to taste
  • Bring it to the boil and let it simmer, stirring constantly, until it reaches the consistency you want

That went on the pizza base, and then I piled on everything else and baked it. And wasn’t it just exquisite? I shall have to make that tomato sauce again without doubt

So right now, late again, I’m going to bed.

But the idea of taking precautions reminded me about the guy with twelve children whose wife was being interviewed by the Social Services. "Every Sunday afternoon after lunch" she said "my husband takes me into the bedroom and … errr … well, you know …"
"Every Sunday afternoon?" asked the Social Services person
"Ohh yes, every Sunday" she affirmed
"Do you take precautions?" asked the Social Services person again
"My husband does" said the woman
"What does he use?" asked the Social Services person once more
"A screwdriver"
"A screwdriver?"
"Yes " replied the woman. "He takes the handle off the outside of the door so none of the other kids can come in."

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