Tag Archives: JD Cymru premier league

Sunday 22nd February 2026 – WHAT A NICE …

… way to start the day today. By the time that I came back in here to start work after breakfast, it was 11:15. That’s about two and a half hours later than usual, and if every Sunday could be like that, it would be wonderful.

Mind you, it wasn’t an early finish last night. By the time that I’d completed everything that needed completing, it was once more just coming up to 23:30, and I would have loved to have been in bed an hour or so earlier. But simply, I don’t know where the time goes these days.

Anyway, once in bed, I was asleep quite quickly. However, it was something of a mobile night. I definitely remember waking up briefly a couple of times, although it wasn’t for long and I can’t really remember all that much about it.

One thing that I do remember, though, is that when Isabelle the Nurse turned up, I was fast asleep with my head under the covers. And while I was submerged at that end, she unsubmerged me at the other end to deal with my feet and legs.

After she left, I curled up again and went back to sleep. However, round about 09:30 I was found sitting on the edge of my bed. Much as I would like to, I can’t spend all day lying in my stinking pit. I have to make a start sometime.

After a visit to the bathroom, I went into the kitchen. First task was to bake the croissants that I’d prepared yesterday. And this new technique seems to have worked. The presentation was so much better today, and they looked like real croissants.

So a couple of those along with my porridge and hot black coffee, and I was well away. It really was a nice breakfast.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of MAIDEN CASTLE EXCAVATIONS AND FIELD SURVEY 1985-6 by Niall Sharples.

Yesterday, I mentioned that this section about pottery was going to be a very long job. And I was right, too. Today, we’ve been discussing the lugs that appeared on different kinds of Neolithic pottery – just the lugs. This book is going to be a very long read.

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

I’d heard a report that in the near future they would be bringing out a new version of the Berlingo. It was going to be a long wheelbase type of thing with more room inside. That became immediately more interesting to me because I would have liked to have had something like that at some point. I thought that if it was long-wheelbase, it would still be suitable for sleeping in if necessary when I was out on the road. I tried to find out more about it but apparently it was not being distributed for quite a while yet and that was disappointing news because I had a feeling that I was going to be needing a new vehicle fairly rapidly and this would probably have been ideal for what I wanted.

Back in the late 1990s, I needed a car in a hurry after the Mercedes went the Way of the West. With nothing better on the horizon, a friend at work sold me an old Volkswagen Passat diesel estate. Only just a few weeks later, Citroën announced the end of the run of C15 diesel vans, and they were selling them off at just €4995 plus VAT. One of those would have been perfect for what I wanted at the time.

There was also something going on about the Epstein affair. People had suddenly realised that the one important person, the former wife of Epstein, had not yet been arrested despite her name appearing in the files on numerous occasions. The official reason given was that although her name appears in the files, there’s no allegation of any wrong-doing and no-one has made a complaint against her. In that case, as far as the police go, there’s nothing to investigate until something is discovered in the files that implicates her in a crime.

With all of the revelations of the Epstein files and the aftermath, I’m just wondering when my name is going to appear in them. Everyone else’s has, for one reason or another, and I’m feeling left out.

As for the subject matter of the dreams, there was something the other day about AFKAP – the Andrew Formerly Known As Prince – and I imagine that that particular dream was in some way related to the revelations in the files.

When I’d finished the dictaphone notes, we had a footfest, with all of the highlights of the matches from the JD Cymru League over the weekend. And the unbeaten run of Connah’s Quay Nomads came to a shuddering halt as they were beaten by Y Barri 1-0.

And things are going from bad to worse for Penybont. With yet another player dismissed from the field, they crashed 3-1 away at Colwyn Bay. For a team that a few months ago was a comfortable second in the league, they’ve only won once since 21st November, and that game was against struggling Llanelli, where they scraped a narrow 1-0 win.

The next game was Stranraer v Spartans in Scotland. And at last, after a run of I don’t know how many draws, they managed to win. Mind you, it took A WONDER GOAL DEEP IN INJURY TIME by Aaron Quigg to break the deadlock.

A little later, after a little relaxation, I spent a couple of hours revising my Welsh ready for Tuesday, and then it was baking time.

No bread today, though – I took half a loaf out of the freezer ready for next week because I was going to bake a cake and didn’t have the time for everything.

For reasons that shall become apparent in early course, I really fancied a strong ginger cake. As well as that, Rosemary had found an obscure recipe that suggested that desiccated coconut and ground almonds were a suitable substitute for sugar when baking.

That sounded absolutely excellent, so I ground a couple of handfuls of almonds and added a cup of desiccated coconut instead of one cup of sugar in my oil cake and used coconut oil instead of the vegetable oil. With enough ginger to sink a ship, I mixed up all of the ingredients and poured the mixture into the baking tray.

After I’d made my pizza base, I started to make the layering cream for the cake. I’d found a good recipe with butter, icing sugar, coconut yoghurt (I mixed soya yoghurt with coconut oil), maple syrup and spices. I whipped it all up and put it in the fridge to stiffen.

But this filling and the consistency of the sauce looked excellent to me, and I was thinking that I could adapt it to almost any kind of filling, especially chocolate. I shall have to make further plans.

While I was assembling the pizza, I had the cake baking and it was done to a turn – maybe a little too much on top and not enough on the bottom – and I wish that I knew how to deal with that because it’s not the first time that it’s happened.

When it was ready, I took it out of the oven and put the pizza in. That was done to a turn fifteen minutes later, and as usual, I ate half of it, with the other half for tomorrow after dialysis.

Once I’d finished and tidied up everything, I cut my cake in half and went to put the layering mix in the middle in order to make a sandwich cake with the two halves. However, it wasn’t cooled enough and it began to melt the layering mix.

Next time that I make a sandwich cake, I shall have to stick it in the fridge for several hours to make sure that it’s properly and thoroughly cold. One thing, though, and that is that I’m certainly learning a lot as I go on, and that’s the whole point of doing it.

But right now, I’m going to finish everything off and go to bed ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about baking a cake … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of Zero and her mother when Zero was at a young and impressionable age.
They had been baking a cake together and were relaxing in the living room when the timer sounded in the kitchen.
"Be a dear and go and see if the cake is ready" said Zero’s mother.
"How do I do that?" asked Zero.
"Take one of the meat skewers from the cutlery tray, poke it into the cake a few times and see if it comes out clean."
So off trotted Zero into the kitchen.
Ten minutes later, Zero came back in. "Yes, mum, it’s cooked."
"So what took you so long?"
"Well, the skewer came out so clean that I stuck the rest of the dirty cutlery from lunchtime in the cake too."

Saturday 21st February 2026 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

… day when I seem to have accomplished quite a lot, without really realising it.

Mind you, I did have something of a head start this morning, and that can quite often make a great difference.

It wasn’t like that last night, though. Once more, everything that I needed to do seemed to take so long to do it that it was 23:30 once more when I finally crawled into bed and threw the covers over my head, as I usually do.

And there I lay, fast asleep, until all of … errr … 03:25 when I awoke. And from that moment on, try as I might, I simply could not go back to sleep.

So for about two hours or so, I lay there tossing and turning to no effect whatsoever and in the end, round about 05:30, I arose from the Dead.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that this week, I’ve prepared two radio programmes. The notes had yet to be dictated, and so I made the most of the early start by dictating both of them before we started having people strolling around outside and making a noise.

Once I’d finished, I went into the bathroom to sort myself out, change my clothes and have a clothes-washing session. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … having lived out of a suitcase for several years, I always try to keep on top of the washing of the undies so that I’m not overwhelmed or, even worse, run out of clothes. Handwashing my undies is no big deal.

In the kitchen, I made my hot lemon, honey and ginger drink with which to take my medication, and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what I’d been up to during the night.

And I was surprised that I’d been up to so much, given how little sleep I’d had during the night.

There was a big group of us sitting around on the chairs and settees and the floor of a living room somewhere. We were discussing various things that had happened, various illnesses, and someone began to talk about a mining disaster up in the Cumbria region where people had been killed. They were discussing how it happened, and someone turned round to me and said “I suppose that if you’d been in charge, Eric, you’d have pleaded ‘Not Guilty'” to which I replied “not at all”. Someone said “yes, but you don’t want to say that at the top of your voice, do you?”. I replied “no, but you review the evidence first before you decide on what you are going to say”. The chap then turned round from that same subject towards the medical and said … “that’s why” I said “I have this illness but no-one is going to say that I die of it because I might die of something else in the meantime”. People usually hedge their bets as to when I’m going to die etc and no-one will give me a date because they are all making sure that they don’t pre-empt anything.

Yesterday, I was writing the biography for a musician who came from Aspatria in Cumbria. And as well as that, it was the anniversary today of one of the SPRINGHILL MINING DISASTERS, the one that took place in 1891.

Later on, we were singing a song called “Rebecca”. It’s a song in French and concerned a girl who was walking around Maiden Castle reviewing all of the changes etc that had taken place there. The song was in homage of what she saw. Of course, it was much more complicated than this and included a dream as well, but it was the song that stuck in my mind mostly, even though I’ve forgotten it now.

This is one of those dreams that I have mentioned before, where I remember nothing at all about it.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I am actually asleep when I dictate my notes during the night but even so, I usually have a recall of something or other when I’m transcribing them. However, this is one of those where I didn’t and I’ve no idea to what it relates.

It certainly sounds interesting, though, and I wish that I could remember it.

We were back right at the end of the American Civil War and the siege of Richmond or Fredericksburg. The Union Army was of course on top, and there was one Union soldier who was quite famous for a lot of things. He was running agents behind Confederate lines, doing all kinds of things that had made him something of a hero. The Confederates learned that he was in the front line in their sector, so one of their private soldiers made a kind of search amongst the Union soldiers as best as he could from his own trench, and thought that he was able to recognise the soldier by the accolades that he was having from his friends. One evening, the soldier went and constructed a kind of tent in the front line, a shelter using a tent half and installed himself in it. The Confederate soldier took a rifle from the rack and inserted a bullet in it. He took careful aim but of course the rifle was extremely heavy and he was unable to control it properly when he was standing up. Nevertheless, when he thought that he was correct, he fired. It hit the Union soldier in the leg and rebounded into his chest and there had to be all kinds of immediate, urgent reactions to try to save him, otherwise he’d die. So in the pause that was taking place, a couple of Confederate officers and their wives decided that they would try to cross the lines into the Union Army area and go to do their shopping. When the general heard about this, he was appalled and sent the strongest instructions around. A couple of days later, the Confederate Army surrendered and it made no difference. One thing about this rifle while I think about it was that it wasn’t a muzzle-loader with a paper cartridge and a Minié ball but a breech loader with a proper bullet. In the American Civil War armies, it was extremely rare to find that.

This dream actually concerned the siege of Petersburg, and regular readers of this rubbish in a previous existence will recall that WE WENT TO VISIT PETERSBURG on one of our trips around the USA back in the past.

And I do have to say that I’m so impressed that I can remember from my reading in the past, so much that is relevant to this dream. The Spencer Repeating Rifle that this Confederate private seems to be using was a very rare issue, only issued to Union cavalry and sharpshooter infantry regiments. It had a chamber that could hold seven bullets of the type that we know today

The ordinary “footslogger” used a Springfield rifled musket. These were long-barrelled and had to be loaded at the muzzle. A paper cartridge of gunpowder would be rammed down the barrel and then a Minié bullet, a lump of lead about six tenths of an inch in diameter, would be rammed down afterwards.

The discharge of a Minié ball from a Springfield was of a very low velocity, so rather than the bullet passing through clothes, flesh and everything, the Minié ball would push clothing deep into the body and the weight of the ball would shatter the bone. Consequently, there were many, many cases where gangrene developed, because of the dirty and stained clothing that the victim would be wearing. A surgical amputation of the limb in what passed for a casualty clearing station was a very common result of being hit by a Minié ball.

The survival rate of amputation after being hit by a Minié ball was not very optimistic. I’ve seen figures to suggest that over twenty-five per cent of such amputations resulted in death.

As for the tent, every Union soldier carried as part of his kit a “shelter half” which was half a tent. And when the troops stopped for the night, they would form pairs and make one tent from their two “shelter halves”.

And as I said just now, I’m impressed that I could remember all that in a dream.

Isabelle the nurse turned up as usual and told me that somehow, she’d been locked out of her health card-reading machine. That’s going to cause a few complications if she can’t unlock herself.

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

He has now moved on to discuss pottery. And it’s going to be a very long discussion too because his team found a total of 10,432 grammes of pottery from the Neolithic Age alone, never mind the Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the proto-Roman occupation.

At the moment, he’s trying to categorise it into rim formation and shape. I have a feeling that we’ll be here for a rather long time.

After breakfast, I had things to do. Up on the top of my shelf unit were some boxes from the move back in August. I can’t reach them so while my cleaner had the ladder here yesterday, I asked her to bring them down.

And you’ll be amazed at the stuff that I found in them when I was sorting through the contents. It really is quite impressive. Loads of stuff that I’d either mislaid, couldn’t find or didn’t even realise that I’d brought with me from the farm.

The problem now is to find a place to put the things because it’s no use putting them back on the top shelf where I can’t reach them. A lot of it is stuff that I ought to need.

After a disgusting drink break at lunchtime, I came in here and began to edit the notes that I’d dictated a couple of weeks ago for another radio programme. And by the time that I’d knocked off, I’d edited them all, assembled the two halves of the programme, chosen the joining track and written the notes for it ready for dictation on the next early morning.

Then we had the football. And at last, after several weeks, we finally had a match where both the teams were interested in the game and wanted to play it.

Llansawel, fourth from bottom, were entertaining Y Bala, second from bottom. Y Bala were desperate for points to haul themselves out of the relegation places and Llansawel had hopes of catching up the teams ahead of them and pulling further out of danger.

Consequently, they were at it hammer and tongs right from the kick-off and there was no respite.

The result, 2-1 to Llansawel, was probably about fair, but if Y Bala can play like that all the time, they might give Y Fflint, third bottom, a few things to think about.

After the final whistle, I went into the kitchen and sorted out the pastry to make my croissants. I tried my new technique and it seems to work, but we’ll have to wait until I bake them tomorrow morning to see;

By then it was teatime and I made baked potato, a vegan salad and some of those vegan nuggets that I like, followed by apricot with vegan sorbet

Right now though, I’m going to bed ready for my lie-in, I hope. I have to say that I deserve it. Tomorrow, I’m going to try to find a recipe for a ginger cake so that I can make a ginger layer cake, with some vegan ginger cream filling in between the layers, if I can find a recipe for that too.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Neolithic pottery … "well, one of us has" – ed … Niall Sharples was asked about all the pottery that he had collected.
"The problem is" he said "that it’s all broken into small pieces. To all intents and purposes, it’s effectively dead."
"So why are you collecting it all?"
"We’re going to have to try to return it to its next-of-kiln."

Sunday 15th February 2026 – SUNDAY IS A …

… Day of Rest, and so it turned out to be today. Leaving the breakfast table at … errr … 11:30 underlines that fact perfectly.

Add to that a little trip away with the fairies … "although not in any fashion that would incite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine" – ed … for twenty minutes round about 18:30, and you have all of the makings of a perfect Sunday.

Last night, though, it wasn’t quite so relaxing. What with one thing and another … "and until you make a start, you have no idea just how many other things there are" – ed … including a little crash out while I was writing my notes, it was 23:30 or thereabouts when I finished and finally crawled in underneath the covers ready for my Sunday morning lie-in.

There were a couple of the vaguest memories of waking up at some point, but it was the arrival of the nurse that shook me out of my slumbers. He dealt with my legs and feet and then cleared off. I threw the covers back over me and went back to sleep.

When I staggered into the kitchen, it was 10:18 precisely, according to the time on the microwave. And so followed a leisurely breakfast of porridge, strong black coffee and the last two homemade croissants. Next weekend I’ll have to make some more, and I shall try a revised technique to see if it makes any improvement. I’m determined to crack this croissant thing one way or another.

While I was dining, I was reading some more of MAIDEN CASTLE EXCAVATIONS AND FIELD SURVEY 1985-6 by Niall Sharples

His team has come across a couple of house remains from what he calls “Phase Six” of the occupation. “Phase Six” was classed as the Late Iron Age immediately preceding the Roman Invasion of Britain in AD 43.

He tells us that the earliest house was built in phase 6F, and east of the hearth he discovered … "… a pile of slingstones"

He then says that the second house was built in phase 6G and the silt was covered by slightly more stone, "… including a patch of slingstones."

Periods G and H were amongst the very latest periods of “Phase Six”, immediately before or during the Roman assault on Maiden Castle.

As far as I would say, you wouldn’t need a pile of slingshots at your immediate disposal if you didn’t think that you were likely to need them, so while the presence of slingshots in a heap in a couple of houses doesn’t in itself imply warfare, it does imply that the households were prepared for war at the time that the Romans arrived.

It also should be said that several other houses of the same period or slightly earlier were excavated, but there was no evidence of slingshots in those.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that these adverse comments of “no evidence of warfare at Maiden Castle” are somewhat wide of the mark.

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

My brother and I were in the Auvergne and we began to cycle from the Puy de Dôme. We cycled all the way through the Cher and came to the next Département. The border between the two départements was a huge river, and it was along this bridge that you had to change over from driving on the left to driving on the right. So we cycled over the bridge and there was this town, a small French town called Lutu. We carried on cycling and we noticed in the distance a series of bridges. One was a road bridge, the other was a railway bridge and we assumed that the third was a canal bridge. As we looked, on the railway bridge, which was quite high up, a coal train ran past. My brother held that there was a coal train on this line every five minutes. He then asked why there was such an extensive canal network. I told him that the canal network was the same as the railway network in the past. It was built to move the coal to market. We then came to a part where there was a very steep hill so we had to dismount and push our bikes up this hill. We met a local guy, so we had a chat to him for a while. When we reached the bypass that had gone round the town, we could remount our bikes and pedal off. Then we came into a big city. I knew the name of this city, but I couldn’t think of it. We had to rush to pass a green light, and then my brother pointed to one of my tyres. It had gone down and the rear tyre was flat. We cycled for a while until we came to near where our hotel was, and there was a bicycle shop. We went in to ask the guy if he could change the tyres but he said that he was closed – he’d only come in to collect some things. But he gave us an address, which was 499 some street, and it was also the place where the dialysis took place. We found the street, which was only around the corner, and down at the bottom, we came to 499, but it was a big gate and the street was closed off. We opened it and went through, and it was a huge rough patch of ground like a demolition site but it seems to have all little units around it. We heard someone talking about bikes from one so we went over. He pointed us to a place in the corner. We went over to the corner and a guy in there was preparing to go home, but he agreed reluctantly to change my tyres so he began to take the wheel out of the frame.

It was really the Creuse, not the Cher, where we arrived at the large river marking the border. And the only Lutu that I could trace was a small settlement near a river in Fiji.

But once again, my brother turns up in a dream, but while I cycled for miles and miles as an adolescent, I wouldn’t have done it at all after I had my driving licence. This wasteland is familiar, though, and it reminds me of the football ground that wasn’t there that we visited a couple of months ago.

There was some kind of music school or music shop somewhere and I was making enquiries. It seemed that it was something to do with Castor and Pollux, so naturally, I went along there. It was a modern guitar and music shop so I had a wander around as best as I could on my crutches and had a play on one of the six-string guitars. When I came to put it back, first of all, I tried to stagger in the wrong direction, then I ended up staggering in the correct direction to put it back. It was all very complicated because I had my crutches, but, of course, carrying a guitar, I was in a great deal of difficulty on crutches. I heard them talking in the shop that they used to use Marshall amps and speakers but after the death of Jim Marshall they carried on for a short while, but now, they use something called Vose that are light brown in colour. We were listening to some music through the speakers that they had. Someone had ordered a pair but only one had come and he was disappointed, complaining at the shop counter. I went through into the back where there were the basses but I couldn’t play a bass because it was too heavy for me. I heard some kind of laughter coming from the front room and one of the guys running the shop came into the back. He said that there had been a competition for people to vote for the guy with the best bassist in the area. I had a look, and my name was on there once. He said that it was a guy called “Ace” who had won. He should be coming in a little later. He still had the Rickenbacker that he had in the very beginning years ago. I asked if he was still playing these days and he said that he was and that was why he couldn’t come in tonight to receive the reward. I asked about this reward, and it was one of these “write in” answers and thousands of people had written in for this “Ace”. I asked “who on Earth has done that?” and he replied “those lunatics in Italy. They are the ones who have done this”.

Castor would be the kind of person to have a music shop, bearing in mind her interest in guitars and music.

But apart from that, my guitars are too heavy for me to hold and play these days. And “Vose” speakers. I’m not by any chance thinking of “Bose”, am I?

Strangely, back in the early/mid 70s in Crewe, there was a bassist called “Ace” and I know his real name too. And he did actually own a Rickenbacker 4001 bass, to the envy of all of us back in those days. A beautiful guitar.

This voting thing seems to be rather strange but it’s true to say that there was a “Merseybeat” poll back in the early 60s for the best Liverpool group, and the magazine never ever sold out so quickly. All of the groups bought as many copies as they could and, of course, voted for themselves.

Did I dictate the dream that I was on holiday down in Kent and I walked with my crutches down to the beach? … "no, you didn’t" – ed … I could see in the distance the coast of France and down towards Dover. I could see the ferries crossing over and also the odd hovercraft or two. Then it was time for me to leave so I managed to stand up but I couldn’t reach my crutches which had blown over. I went to try to grab them but there was a young lad there watching me. He said “are you going to haul your crutches then?”. I replied “I have to try to resolve this myself”. He answered “yes, it’s good for you if you do”. Eventually, I managed to reach my crutches and I hobbled off to the hotel. There was a long queue waiting for lunch but suddenly everyone surged forward as if they had opened the doors to the dining room. I went in, and I had a lot of trouble trying to find vegan food because there were no labels on anything and I didn’t know what it was. It was mostly a salad buffet where people helped themselves. At some point, some girl, while my back was turned, dropped two pieces of meat onto my plate so I made her move them. She couldn’t understand why I’d made such a fuss. I told her that since she’s been at this school for three years, she should know by now that I’m a vegan. She said that she hadn’t realised, and actually, she was a vegan too. Trying to find some food at this buffet was really difficult. In the end, there was some blue grated vegetable that looked like grated carrots or something like that. I was still trying to debate whether there was anything else that I could eat when I awoke. But one thing was bothering me and that was “how was I going to manage to carry my plates when I need both hands to work my crutches?”.

There are several places along the East Kent coast where you have a similar view.

It’s also correct that I need to struggle on as best as I can because it will help preserve my autonomy for as long as possible. However, serving myself at a buffet when I’m on crutches is something that has come up on a couple of occasions.

After this, we had another footfest. The highlights of the remaining games in the JD Cymru League had been posted online so I sat and watched them for a while. That included the Battle of Essity Stadium where Y Fflint and Llansawel went for the best of three falls, three submissions or a knock-out after the final whistle.

No Stranraer game, though. The pitch at Dumbarton was frozen so the game was called off. And that reminds me of back in the mid 70s and my potential one-and-only appearance for Nantwich Town Reserves when they were desperately short of players, and so I turned up at the ground to find that the pitch was frozen and the game was called off.

After a disgusting drink break, I finished off editing the notes that I had started yesterday for a radio programme, and now, the two halves are all assembled. The joining track has been chosen and the notes written ready for dictating at the next early start.

By now, it was time for baking. We had a pizza base and also a loaf of bread, this week with ground Brazil nuts instead of sunflower seeds. I’m told that Brazil nuts are an excellent source of selenium which reduces the likelihood of infection and heart disease. They also help bone formation.

The pizza was delicious and the bread looks excellent too. I hope that it tastes as good as it looks. But I wish that there was something that would reduce the likelihood of this stabbing pain in my foot that seems to be worsening. But having already fallen asleep a few times this evening (once while I was making my tea!) I shall go to bed and worry about it then.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about voting … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was telling one of my friends that the High Court has thrown out a demand for there to be an intelligence test for potential voters to pass coming into force before the next election.
"Why is that?" she asked.
"Apparently the judges didn’t think that it was fair to slash the Reform Party membership like that so early in the campaign."

Saturday 14th February 2026 – I HOPE THAT …

… you all had a nice, romantic day with the one that you love, and that there were hugs, kisses, roses and chocolates galore. For me, I moved the bedroom mirror to where I could gaze into it with admiration. After all, when there’s only me in the apartment, what else could I do?

What I could have done was to have gone to bed early but unfortunately, it didn’t work out like that. As usual, I fell asleep writing my notes and what with one thing and another … "and until you make a start, you have no idea just how many other things there are" – ed … it was, once again, about 23:30 when I finally crawled into bed.

One thing’s for sure, though, and that was that I slept right the way through until the alarm went off at 06:29. And then we had what has become the usual struggle of trying to find the energy and enthusiasm to leave the bed.

Nevertheless, despite the struggle, I did in fact manage to stagger off into the bathroom to sort myself out, and then into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.

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

There had been a whole new series of elections in the European Union and hundreds of MEPs and directors had changed. They were beginning to have meetings with all of the new ones. There were also plenty of staff changes too and it turned out that I was one of those people who had lost their jobs as a result, so I had to leave my job. In doing so, I happened to make my way outside, which meant having to squeeze past dozens of meetings with people sitting everywhere, and basically had to walk along halfway up a fence in order to clear one group of people and was still walking in between them. As I was making my way out, I encountered someone whom I knew who told me that he was starting a new job in some other kind of directorate so I told him that I wasn’t starting at all, that I was on my way out of the building. When I was outside and in the street, I began to wonder what I was going to do. I could retire because I was old enough, but then I thought that there were plenty of employment agencies, so why don’t I go along to see what some employment agencies have, and if they have casual work so I don’t have to stay for too long in the same place. But walking along the street just outside our office where there were all these shops etc, traffic lines, tram lines, I couldn’t see an employment agency so I thought that I’d wait until a couple of days later and then have a day walking around Stoke-on-Trent to see what the agencies have to offer me.

So here we are again, at work long after retirement age. This time though, I’m the one who is being made to leave, rather than thinking about leaving on my own accord.

But the bit about going from employment agency to employment agency reminds me of the author Richard Gordon, who, on going from one shipping office to another in Leadenhall Street to find a berth as a ship’s doctor, also ended up making enquiries in the Leadenhall Street branch of Barclays Bank.

And we were in Stoke-on-Trent, wandering around the other night.

I was out in Shavington last night, walking past some houses where various kinds of actors lived. The first house was occupied by an actor who was starring in many leading roles which had received a really good critique. As I walked past her house, I saw that it was all run down and in need of a good going-over, with dead plants everywhere and long grass. I thought to myself that one day, that woman is going to start to have really bad reviews for acting and how on earth is she going to cope? The next house was someone from a well-known soap opera who was rubbing down his metal fence and preparing it for painting. He was as black as the ace of spades with all of the dust that had come off it. I remember one critic writing something that even if this is Britain’s most popular soap opera, it ought to be shown much less than it is now because the stories are all becoming all the same and there’s nothing ever new in any of them. But back home, I asked the parents how the football went. They just mumbled a few incoherent answers but I didn’t really understand what they were saying so I decided that I’d go to look myself.

Another place where I seem to be spending a lot of time is Shavington, even though we only lived there from 1956 to 1970. And there certainly wouldn’t have been any actors or actresses living there. However, it’s true that my parents showed no interest whatsoever in football so it would have been a waste of time asking them anything.

When the alarm went off, I was singing LIKE A HURRICANE by Neil Young. I’d gone into some kind of building that was a hospital. I’d written a scathing review of a doctor’s intervention but I’d had to go back to the hospital so I’d gone in rather quietly. I’d wanted Floor 6 so I’d gone to the goods lift, but there was someone else there with a trolley so we went in together. I pressed “6” but the lift carried on and went all the way up to the twenty-fifth floor and I had my eyes tight shut from about the fifteenth. This guy left so I pressed any button to take the lift down so that I could open my eyes again. I thought that I’d pressed about “Floor 10” or “Floor 12” but the lift roared on past. It roared on past “6” too so I pressed “6” and it shuddered to a halt and then began to climb up again. I managed to jump out onto the sixth floor as it went past. From there, I was walking across the campus of the hospital. I started off by singing Jackson Browne’s LOOKING EAST and then followed that by “Like a Hurricane”. I noticed that amongst the people on this campus was Castor, but the alarm went off before I had a chance to speak to her.

Actually, I wouldn’t have had my eyes closed if I were going up in a lift. Heights have never bothered me. I remember when Laurence and I went to look at an apartment on the eighteenth floor of a tower block in Brussels. I was out on the balcony looking to see what I could see, but she was pinned against one of the interior walls, far too scared to move. However, there is nothing on earth, not even the combined forces of TOTGA, Zero and Castor, that would entice me into a submarine.

The hospital needs no explanation, and neither does criticising the doctors, but the campus and jumping out of the lift are a mystery.

But seeing as we have been talking about Castor … "well, one of us has" – ed … imagine her appearing in a dream after all this time and I couldn’t manage to talk to her. What kind of tragedy or disaster is that?

But with her being in this dream, the lyrics of “Like a Hurricane” are extremely apposite. After all, it’s one of those rock masterpieces, especially the live version on RUST NEVER SLEEPS.

Incidentally, throughout these pages, you’ll see links to Amazon products appearing every now and again. Being a Sales Associate of Amazon, I receive a small commission on goods sold via my links. It costs you nothing at all extra, but helps defray … "part of the" – ed … cost of my not-insubstantial web-hosting fees.

There are also links on the sidebar for AMAZON UK, AMAZON USA and, since the recent “troubles”, AMAZON CANADA for the use of my numerous Canadian visitors. As I said, I am extremely grateful when someone uses them to make a purchase

The nurse was early yet again, and with there now being the pressure on the streets with Carnaval, he didn’t stay long. I could then push on with breakfast and read some more of MAIDEN CASTLE EXCAVATIONS AND FIELD SURVEY 1985-6 by Niall Sharples

He’s busy picking holes in Mortimer Wheeler’s excavation report, disagreeing with many of Wheeler’s conclusions and accusing him of making reports based on speculation and stating that "it is really a testament to Wheeler’s imagination that any clear pattern could be claimed.". However, he’s not above making a few assumptions and speculations himself.

This book, like almost all of the others that I’ve read, is a digital scan of a hard copy in someone’s library. And interestingly, though, certain entries and references in it have been redacted. I wonder if another author in the field of archaeology has been mentioned in the Epstein diaries, because it’s certainly bizarre. I’ve no idea why the owner of the original book would not want these names and entries revealed.

Back in here, we had a footfest – the highlights of last night’s matches in the JD Cymru League. Nothing much exciting happened, except that Llanelli, hopelessly adrift at the foot of the table, picked up a surprising point away at Cardiff Metropolitan.

Having done that, there were a few other things to do until it was time for a disgusting drinks break.

This afternoon, we had football. Penybont, fresh from their 6-0 mauling by leaders TNS, were at home to second-placed Connah’s Quay Nomads.

Penybont played better today but they were still clueless in attack and for all the work that he had to do on the field, Nomads’ ‘keeper Kit Margetson may well have brought a book onto the field with him and spent the ninety minutes reading it. There were several lengthy periods when he was actually playing centre-half in a back four rather than a goalkeeper behind a back three.

But the Nomads weren’t much better. They made Penybont ‘keeper Luke Armstrong work hard, for sure, but they could be still playing now and they still wouldn’t have any idea about how to score. For a team second in the table, they should be doing much better than this.

The score was a 0-0 no score bore draw, and both sides were lucky to get nil.

Later on, I’ve been in an internet discussion with my faithful cleaner. I’m in the middle of writing out a work schedule for my joiner who will be coming back soon, and my cleaner wants a change to the rubbish arrangements.

No, she’s not talking about deleting the blog, but about a new set of rubbish bins that fit under the sink. So we’ve been discussing different alternatives and when she comes down here on Monday, she’ll be measuring up.

After that, I attacked a set of radio notes that I’d dictated a week or two ago and began to edit them. I’d almost finished too when I had to knock off for tea.

Tonight it was a burger on a bap with salad and baked potato, followed by jam roly-poly from several weeks ago and vegan sorbet. And it was all delicious. And now, I’m off to bed, ready for my lie-in tomorrow … "he hopes" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about not having any particular work to do today "well, one of us has" – ed … the five day week has been around for longer than you might thing. Several centuries in fact.
Someone once asked me "who was the first person to work a five-day week?"
My answer was "Robinson Crusoe"
"Why was that?"
"Well, he had all of his work done by Friday."

Saturday 7th February 2026 – I HAVE SEEN …

… one of the worst games of football this afternoon that I have ever seen in my life.

When you have the leader of the league against the third-placed team, you expect some kind of tense, thrilling contest. But not today, unfortunately. It was one of those games that is best forgotten.

Just like last night, in fact. That is best forgotten too. Having been endlessly sidetracked when writing my notes, and having fallen asleep yet again in my chair, it was almost midnight by the time that I’d finished everything and crawled under the covers.

And there I lay, without moving, until all of … errr … 04:30 when I awoke. Mind you, I didn’t manage to go back to sleep again and I finally awoke at about 06:25, a couple of minutes before the alarm. There wasn’t even enough time to check whether it was worth making an early start.

It was quite difficult to haul myself out of bed, as you might expect, but eventually I staggered off into the bathroom for a wash, a change of clothes and a handwashing session so that my socks and undies will be ready for next time.

In the kitchen, I made my hot drink and took 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 back playing bass guitar last night in my apartment. I’d been cleaning a few things and was cleaning the case in which the bass guitar lives when something made me stop and take it out. There was a “Man” record playing on the playlist, 7171-551 so I began to play along with it. then the next one came along, and the next one came along and so on. I hadn’t realised at that point that I had an audience. My cleaner was at the door and she was watching. After a while, she came in and said a few words of encouragement but I wasn’t particularly happy, it having been so long since I’d played. I didn’t think that I was particularly good but I did carry on. And once more, I was up on the stage. There was a young country-and-western or folk singer or something like that playing acoustic guitar, and I ended up accompanying him. On one of the songs, I played this really melodic bass guitar solo in the middle of it and it sounded really, really good.

Anyone who has heard my mobile ‘phone ring will immediately recognise the opening bars of “7171-551”, played by the Welsh rock group “Man” when they had the legendary ex-Quicksilver Messenger Service guitarist John Cipollina amongst their numbers. It’s said to be (although this is disputed) the ‘phone number of Mike Nesmith of the Monkees, and it’s also my mobile ‘phone ringtone.

But it’s true – I haven’t played guitar for almost two years since I had the implant fitted in my arm. It’s really painful to bend my wrist as I should. As well as that, I can’t stand up to play, and the guitars are too heavy for me anyway.

Did I dictate that dream about the private investigator who had a lot of work on his hands and was finding it very difficult to keep up and organise? … "no you didn’t" – ed …. I was spending a lot of time with him for different reasons. He had an assistant, a young guy. Every now and again, he’d give this young guy tasks to do which had come in which were fairly simple, straightforward etc. This private investigator had to take a few days off and went to Norway in the middle of winter where he sat, sorted out all his paperwork and then came back again. One of the jobs that he had to do was to drive two different Lotus vehicles because someone was alleging that they were the same car and they needed a report to say so. His young assistant chose to do that job so I said that I’d go with him. We set out and met the woman concerned and began to walk with her. We were walking through Chester and came past this music shop where this young boy nipped off to have a play on a guitar. We carried on walking and she said that she thought that he wasn’t the brightest spark in the box. I replied “no, but he’s nice enough”. He caught up with us and we arrived at this place, and she sent him to build some kind of seating area out of metal framework and OSB. When he’d done it, I went back to have a look and I noticed that he had small pieces of wood left over so I told him to use some of the OSB to fill in the gaps so that people would sit down there comfortably to watch this particular trial, but it turned out that he didn’t have enough wood to do that.

The private detective reminded me of Robert Mitchum, who played Philip Marlowe in the film FAREWELL MY LOVELY, one of the best films that I have seen for quite a while.

The street in Chester where the music shop was – I can see it now. It’s Frodsham Street, the street that leads from Foregate Street up to the bypass and then Brook Street. Of course, the rest of it is quite meaningless.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up to sort out my feet and legs, and after she left, I could make my breakfast and read some more of Mortimer Wheeler’s MAIDEN CASTLE .

And he’s not above taking a few pot shots at his colleagues, although not in the same subtle manner as James Curle. Re-examining the work of one of his predecessors who had examined the site at the end of the nineteenth century, he says that "Cunnington … found his black and white mosaic (apparently in situ) and a ‘mass of masonry’, 9 ft. by 6 ft. If the latter existed otherwise than in his imagination, it may have supported the cult-statue or altar, but no trace of the mass survived in I934"

He also talks about the pagan temple dating from the last quarter of the fourth century AD at Maiden Castle and examples at other hillforts, and speculates that there was a revival of paganism amongst the native population towards the end of the Roman occupation. He seems not to have considered the possibility that during this period, the Romans had been recruiting auxiliaries from beyond the boundary of the Empire who still adhered to their old pagan cults and had not yet adopted Christianity. And despite what Bede told us back in the eighth century, there is clear evidence that Saxon invaders were settled in parts of England as early as 368 AD, so it may equally well have been that the “Romano-Celtic” temples were built by or for these “foreigners”.

Back in here, there were the highlights of last night’s football, and that took me up to a disgusting drink break. Then I made a start on the radio notes that I need to finish, although I didn’t go very far because there was football on the internet – a game between TNS in first place and Penybont in third place.

And as I said just now, it was an appalling game. Penybont have been out of sorts since before Christmas and have not been doing very well. But today, they were the worst that I have ever seen.

Their manager said before Christmas that they need to strengthen the squad in the winter transfer window, but instead, they sold their two best players and recruited poorly to replace them. The fire has definitely gone out in their team. No team in third position in the league should EVER lose 6-0, no matter what the circumstances. And had it not been for an inspired display by their goalkeeper Luke Armstrong, the result could have been much worse

The thing, though, is that after a few really excellent games that have been a credit to the league, I was bound to come unstuck at some point. Who would have thought that it would have been at this game, though?

The rest of the afternoon was spent finishing writing the notes for that radio programme, and then I edited the notes that I’d dictated previously for another one.

Tea tonight was a vegan burger on a bap with salad and baked potato, followed by fruitcake and soya dessert. And delicious it was too.

Right now, though, I’m off to bed, hoping for a really decent sleep and a lie-in, but we shall see how things unfold.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the imagination … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of my brother at one of his many jobs.
The boss asked him "what are you doing?"
"I’m working" he replied.
"You’re only pretending to work!" roared the boss
"Well, you’re only pretending to pay us" replied my brother
He didn’t last long in that job.

Saturday 24th January 2026 – AND ONCE MORE …

… I’m off to bed without any food.

It’s not only that I don’t feel like any, or even that my stomach is churning around so much that I’ll be ill if I eat something, I also have to shake off this miserable feeling of tiredness, wretchedness and ill health.

As you can probably guess, I had another bad night last night, followed by another really bad day today, probably one of the worst days that I’ve had since I fell ill over ten years ago.

Last night, I finished off by saying that I was going to bed early. It was round about 21:30 when I finally finished everything that needed doing, and it wasn’t much longer after then that I managed to climb into bed.

It didn’t take long to go to sleep either but I awoke with the stabbing pain in my foot and a really bad fit of coughing. I’m not sure what time it might have been, but I tried for what seemed like an age to go back to sleep. When I finally looked at the time, it was 03:43, so it must have been about 02:30 at the latest when I awoke.

At some point I must have gone back to sleep because I awoke later and lay there wondering what time it was. I had my answer about five minutes later when the alarm went off, so it must have been about 06:20 when I awoke, something like that.

Once more, it was a real effort to leave the bed. I had a spinning head, nausea and heaven alone knows what but I made an effort to crawl into the bathroom for a good wash and to sort myself out.

The hot drink and medication were next, and even though I didn’t feel like taking them, I forced myself.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night and I really was surprised at how far I’d been.

There was some kind of rock festival going on in France and it was raided by the police. I was in my bed when they came. They began to ask me questions, to which I replied quite well so they asked me if I would mind being the interpreter for many of the interviewees. I didn’t really see that I had much of a choice, but one thing was certain was that I wasn’t going to leave my bed because I was quite comfortable there and everything that I wanted, including the alarm, was at arm’s length so I didn’t really have to move at all.

Could you imagine this? Me in bed at a rock festival? But it wouldn’t be by any means the first time that I’ve been asked to act as an interpreter by the local administration

I was driving my taxi last night. I was in Sandbach. It was a hot day, no-one was moving and it had been very quiet so I thought that I’d have a wander back towards Crewe. In the end, after much deliberation, I was parked up in Edleston Road, or one of the streets near Edleston Road. I hadn’t noticed that the rear end of my vehicle was blocking the street but there was no traffic about at all. Suddenly, a young boy came up and asked “are you the office manager?”. I asked why, and he replied “the director of Cumberland School wants to speak to you”. I’d heard this once before, but I hadn’t taken it seriously, seeing as it was a Sunday, so I decided that seeing as I was doing nothing better, I’d go. For some reason, I parked the car and walked up Edleston Road towards Nantwich Road and was planning to walk along Nantwich Road to Cumberland School. But then I thought “I couldn’t remember where Cumberland School was, and how I wished that schools would just have the name of the street, like ‘Bedford Street Primary’ or something like that rather than these fancy names”. I thought that by the time I found it, I’d probably want to buy an ice cream or something to cool me down, and it would have been cheaper to have gone in the car in the first place. But I bumped into a couple of people whom I knew. One of them was my Greek friend, so we decided to walk together. And these three or four people of us set out to walk. We were having this argument about shopping in Preston, about how the shops were better in Preston than they were around here, and should we look in this new shop that was being opened to see if it’s any good? I replied that seeing as it’s just opening here now, it’s probably been open for twenty years in Preston. I described one of my visits to Preston, where I’d gone into town, parked in a multi-storey car park on the edge, walked out, gone to one of these catalogue shops, bought everything that I needed for everyone at Christmas and come straight home again. This discussion carried on for quite some time. Then, suddenly, I looked around and thought “we’re in Stoke-on-Trent here. We’ve walked from Crewe to Stoke-on-Trent. Where on earth did we go wrong on this route?”. In the end, my Greek friend and I said goodbye to everyone and went over to the bus stop. On the corner of one of the streets where we were standing was a huge collection of bus stops. Then I couldn’t remember the number of the bus that went from Stoke back to Crewe. In the old days, it used to be the 20 and then it changed to the 320, but I couldn’t think at all. I left my Greek friend standing against the wall and went over to a couple of the buses. There was a group of drivers standing around the buses, and someone from the bus company looking very official with a crash helmet, so I imagined that he was collecting the money, so he must be someone important. I asked him if he could tell me which bus went to Crewe but he said “no” and walked off. The other bus drivers weren’t particularly helpful either so I went over and had a look myself at the stops. I saw the 320 on there so I imagined that this was probably it, but there probably wasn’t going to be another bus for nearly an hour. There was also a bus 550, and that number rang a bell with me for some reason but I couldn’t think why. By then, my Greek friend was sitting on a wall so I helped her down and gave her a kiss. That surprised her, but she responded. So we were standing there and she said “I hope that this isn’t a trick to lure me out of my home and keep me out for ages”. I had to reassure her that I was as disappointed as everyone else, as I was supposed to have had this meeting and it should have taken place a long time ago but I’d ended up in Stoke-on-Trent too and I was only supposed to walk half a mile. I couldn’t explain any of this but it was certainly no plan.

First of all, there’s no Cumberland School in Crewe that I know of. And if there were, it would be at the other end of town near the Cumberland Bridge or the Cumberland Sports Arena rather than off Nantwich Road somewhere.

Secondly, my Greek friend was a strange girl. She started at the European Union at the same time that I did. There was quite a group of us who began at the same time, and we used to organise social events and that kind of thing between us. It was only natural that after a while, we began to pair off and I spent a lot of time with this girl. However, although she encouraged me to spend the time with her, there would always be a moment where she would have a mini-panic attack and withdraw into her shell, and I could never penetrate her barrier. Strangely, a few years later when I met Laurence, she made much more of an effort to be friendly, but when Laurence and I separated three years later, she immediately withdrew back into her shell

Funnily enough, she asked me once to drive her to the airport when she was flying back to Greece. I helped her carry her suitcase inside and said goodbye to her at the barrier.
"Make sure that you eat properly and look after yourself" she said.
A woman in the queue behind her said "that’s right, we’ve got to give our husbands their orders"
And I don’t think that I’ve ever seen such a big, beaming smile on anyone’s face, either before or since.

And thirdly, although catalogue-shop shopping was a thing that I did at Christmas in the past, I have never ever been shopping in Preston in my life.

We’d gone to Chester for the day, a big group of us, and it began to rain. It continued to rain in one of the most incredible torrential downpours that I have ever seen. After a while, the rain stopped and we could start to walk. I went for a walk around and met several people from our trip, and we talked about the weather. At that moment, the level of the water in the town began to rise. It looked as if the river had overflowed from outside in the country and was beginning to flood everywhere. I made a few comments that were pretty much ridiculed by everyone else, and then I decided that I’d go for a walk to see exactly how badly the place was flooded. I went and found the little shortcut alley that I used to take from work up to the town centre. That seemed to be OK, but I walked on a little further and there was a steep road down on the right. Where the railway bridge was, it was deep in water and there was a torrent of water circulating up against the support of the railway bridge, making a huge splashing noise each time. I decided that I’d walk down that way to see how bad it was. Luckily, the pavement was quite high there, so even though the road was flooded, it wasn’t actually too deep if I kept to the pavement. I carried on walking through it. Then I began to think that I hope that this current doesn’t knock me over because I can’t stand up again and there’s no-one else about. Perhaps I ought to have come down here on my crutches.

Even now, I can still see where I was during this dream. I was at first in the city centre, and later, I was along the ring road on the southwest side of the city centre. And if the River Dee had flooded all of that, then the World really did have a problem.

And once more, going for a walk without my crutches, knowing full well that I should have them with me. It’s wishful thinking, this walking.

Isabelle the Nurse came in, face mask and all, and gave me a serious lecture about these antibiotics. With still no prescription from Emilie the Cute Consultant arriving at the chemist’s, I’ve been taking the ones from last time. She warned me against it because I don’t know if it’s the same type that has been prescribed, and I don’t know if it’s the same dose.

She checked my temperature too. Thirty-seven point four degrees. Yes, she thinks that I’m ill.

After she left, I could make breakfast. I didn’t feel like anything, but I’m going to be really ill if I don’t eat something. So I ate it, albeit with a churning stomach, and read some more of A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE

James Curle is still giving us his Roman pottery lecture, and once again, as I mentioned the other day, he tells us that "when we pass from the early vessels to those of later date the most striking characteristic appears to be that the ware employed is generally rather poorer in quality."

That’s not what you would expect at all.

After I’d finished, I came back in here. It was 09:55 and by 10:00 I was back in bed, not only fully-clothed but with my slippers on too, as I discovered later. I just couldn’t keep going.

It was, would you believe, 13:00 when I awoke. And a good forty-five minutes before I was back at my desk. It took me that long to leave the bed.

And would you believe? There was yet more stuff on the dictaphone from that three hours.

I found myself in a prison. I was sharing a room with another person, and there was also the Egyptian doctor whom I knew in there. He was there more as a doctor than an inmate and the room and the situation was more like a hospital than a prison. I’d bought my computer in with me. It was a new computer and I was coming to terms with it, but I was busy trying to do some work while he was busy trying to pack up and prepare everything for his holidays, the doctor. I went to change, and ended up with my fleece under one of my big fleeces. It made me feel extremely warm and it was constraining me around the chest, and I couldn’t think why at first. Then I began to settle down. I noticed that all over the room, someone had put these little hand-made stickers of an orange background with a face and two eyes wide open. So I wondered what was happening here. Then I noticed that while I’d been away, someone had closed my laptop. I wasn’t sure if that had shut it down, whether it would reopen if I were to open it. I moved it around on the bed to give myself a little space. The doctor then said something like “it’s strange really that there are only the two of us here who have some kind of information technology tool. I replied that when I had my taxi in the 80s, we had an Apple II computer and I had my first PC in 1993, so I always had some kind of information technology with me when I’m travelling around somewhere.

This is another one of those dreams that totally beats me. It seems to relate to nothing at all, except that I’m surprised that I could actually remember, during a dream, all about my computer-owning history

Did I dictate the dream about some friends of mine and me and me down in the Auvergne? We had a house together. We’d been somewhere and come back, but there was someone parked in our drive so we had to move these people out so we could put our cars in. I had a Ford Cortina in there that I was repairing. It was up on a jack, an electric jack with a hand-held button with one of these long curly cables to operate it. I could set it en route, either up or down, but I hadn’t worked out how to stop it. It was either all the way up or all the way down. This was not what I wanted it to do and it was becoming extremely frustrating. One of my friends was then talking about putting a lock up and I wondered what he meant. I imagined two subterranean tubes that you could buy that you could pull out and lock to stop people parking in your parking space, but I didn’t think that that was what he meant. At that moment from down the road, a car was coming. It was coming really fast on this dirt track and there was dust everywhere. It roared past and we both said that if it keeps on going like that, there will be an accident. But the car in our driveway, it was a dark red MPV with a trailer and had Ukrainian plates. It came out of our drive in reverse at such a rapid rate of knots that it had disappeared around the bend before we’d even managed to do that without coming to grief.

Having a Ford Cortina up on a jack would be nothing new, but an electric jack? Certainly. Those two red vehicles would be interesting, especially the Ukrainian one and trailer disappearing at a rapid rate of knots in reverse gear.

When I was feeling like it, I did some work on the next radio programme, but it was a slow, painful work that took about ten times longer than it ought.

Eventually, I knocked off to watch the football. Colwyn Bay v Connah’s Quay Nomads. In front of the biggest crowd for a league game for many, many a year, we had a game that everyone would have enjoyed. It was another candidate for the best game that I have ever seen.

It pulsed along from end to end and the dramatic ending couldn’t ever be bettered in fiction. No-one would believe it if you were to write a story like that.

There were quite a few kids in the crowd too and despite it being January, freezing cold, wet and windy, you wouldn’t believe the queue at the ice-cream van. Nothing ever changes with kids, I suppose.

So that’s it. I’ve had enough, and I’m off to bed, cold, hungry and fed up but I don’t care.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Greeks and Greece … "well, one of us has" – ed … back in Ancient Greece, a distinguished old gentleman took his hlamis to the akestës for repair.
"Who are you?" asked the akestës, preparing to chisel out the tablet.
"Who am I?" asked the customer. "I’m one of Athens’s foremost playwrights"
"Euripides?"
"No. The wife caught them on a nail as she was taking them out to dry."

Tuesday 13th January 2026 – I DON’T KNOW …

… why they send me on these wild goose chases halfway around the country and back so that some specialist in some hospital somewhere can tell me exactly what I already know and have known for several months.

As if I don’t have enough to do with my time.

And especially if it means crawling out of bed at some ridiculous time like 05:00.

Yes! 05:00! So last night I went without any food for tea, dashed through my notes, which were on-line at 20:27 precisely, the earliest time … "and by a long way too" – ed … that they have ever so been. And by the time that I finally made it into bed, it was just coming up to 21:00.

And when was the last time that I’d been in bed that early when I’ve not been feeling unwell?

However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s an absolute waste of time going to bed early, because all it means is that I awaken correspondingly early the following morning. So there I was, tossing and turning in bed, trying desperately to go back to sleep at just before 02:00.

That was a waste of time too, and I lay there, semi-comatose, until the alarm went off at 05:00 when I hauled myself out of bed and staggered off into the bathroom to make myself look pretty.

And that was also a waste of time.

The taxi came a few minutes early and luckily, it was one of my favourite drivers, the one who “presses on” like an old-school taxi driver and always has plenty to say for herself. She helped me finish my packing and then we set off.

So far, I’d been without food for almost twenty-four hours and without drink for about fifteen hours. I work on the principle of “what doesn’t go in won’t want to come out during the journey” — after all, four hours or so in a taxi is a long time. Nevertheless, I packed a couple of slices of my “energy flapjack” and a small bottle of water in case I have a diabetic crisis along the way.

We had a good run and a good chat all the way as far as Mantes-La-Jolie, in between Rouen and Paris, and that was where we hit the traffic and the farmers’ demonstrations. A wrong turn on the prif led us out on the autoroute towards Rungis and Orly further complicated affairs, and what was looking at one stage like an easy 09:45 arrival for my 10:30 appointment turned out to be a panic-stricken 11:25.

Having to find me a wheelchair (it’s a different building so I didn’t know where the doctor was and how far I’d have to walk, and we were already hours late) and having to understand the unnecessarily complicated system of lifts didn’t help matters.

While we were stuck in traffic, I’d telephoned the doctor to say that we’d be late, so he let in several patients ahead of me, which was quite natural. Consequently, it was 12:25 when I was finally seen.

He poked and prodded me, put all these needles into my muscles and passed an electrical current through them to test my nerve reactions, and then examined the results.

Before he began to test me, he asked me how I was feeling and whether there was any sign of improvement. I told him that I was feeling lousy as usual and I was sure that there was a definite deterioration since my examination last January.

His conclusion was "I’m very sorry to say that there is no improvement, and you are right about the deterioration."

As I said just now, I could have told him that without having to go all the way to Paris. What a waste of a day!

While I was there, I asked him about the stabbing pain in my foot. He told me that as my nervous system is slowly breaking down, things like this are to be expected and there was nothing that anyone could do about it. He actually put it into a more scientific explanation, but that was the gist of it.

My chauffeur was waiting for me when I came out, and after I’d been to warm my feet, we headed to the car. Getting out of the wheelchair was exciting, but in the end I managed it and we headed for home.

On the way back, I fell asleep twice, which is no surprise considering my bad night, and we arrived home to disappointing weather. In Paris, it had been bright sunshine, beautiful clear blue skies and quite warm for the time of year. Here in Granville, it was overcast, raining, windy and cold. At least we’d had no hold-ups on the road to delay us.

My faithful cleaner was waiting to help me into the apartment and instead of a disgusting drink, I had a caffeine-packed energy drink. And I needed it too after over twenty-four hours of nothing to drink.

Having disposed of that, I came in here to listen to the dictaphone notes. I was actually surprised that there were some.

I can only remember fragments of this dream but there was something about being at home. We were in Vine Tree Avenue and there was something about the weather, but I can’t remember what. Then, my mother came into the living room to find out what we’d been doing. In this little box, I had a very, very small puppy. My mother asked about it and I replied that I’d found it somewhere. She had a look at it, and she agreed that it was really small, and because of its small size, we could keep it. There was much more to it than this, but I can’t remember anything once I awoke.

What interrupted my reverie, as I found out later on, was that in reaching for the dictaphone, I dropped the battery charger and all of the spare batteries onto the floor from off the little table behind the bedhead I shall have to pick that up in due course. But me with a puppy? Not that that’s ever likely to happen. Dogs and I just don’t get on. Give me a cat or two … "or three or four" – ed … any day.

Tea was the other half of Sunday’s pizza, which I wolfed down because there was football on the television, Y Barri v Llanelli. Y Barri scored a goal after two minutes but surprisingly, Llanelli, well-adrift at the foot of the table, managed to equalise.

It was only delaying the inevitable though, as Y Barri scored four more before the hour was up. You could see than Llanelli had effectively abandoned the game after that because their heads went down and they lost interest in chasing the ball, but Y Barri, once more, refused to turn the screw and played possession football for most of the rest of the game instead of going for the jugular.

That was disappointing.

And so, with aching foot and totally exhausted, I’m off to bed.
granville
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my trip to Paris and the Neurology department … "well, one of us has" – ed … the doctor told me "there’s some good news and some bad news#34;
"What’s the bad news?" I asked.
"The bad news is that you are going to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of your life"
"And what’s the good news?"
"I can get you a fair price for your crutches."

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"

Thursday 1st January 2026 – AND A HAPPY …

… this has been today!

There hasn’t been a moment, I reckon, when I’ve stopped to relax. It’s been non-stop all day and the irony of it all is that there was very little of it that was actually in my plans this morning when I awoke.

It all went wrong this morning at … err … 03:20, when I had another one of these dramatic awakenings that I sometimes have. Sitting bolt-upright wondering what on earth was happening, totally bewildered when I looked at the time, and then not being able to go back to sleep.

Not that it had been a long night either. By the time that I’d written my notes, done the stats, done the back-up and everything else, it was about 23:30 when I slid underneath the covers. And although I went to sleep quite quickly, it wasn’t for long.

So there I lay, for a good few hours, tossing and turning and trying to go to sleep without any success whatsoever, and in the end, round about 05:30,I gave it up as a bad job and left the bed.

The first thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And, regrettably, I’d not gone far

I went down to town in my van and wanted to park it in an area where parking was free, so I parked up at the back on the way to the Val ès Fleurs. On the way back, into the centre do do my shopping, I bumped into one of the other residents. He was surprised that I had parked so far away, so he took me and showed me where I ought to park, which was right in the town centre but was a “pay and display” park. I explained that this was where I parked in the evenings when there was no “pay and display”, otherwise I’ll look for a free place. He seemed to be surprised that I was willing to walk a little distance rather than to pay a parking fee. After we’d finished our discussion, I asked him if I could give him a lift back up to our building, but he said “no”, he had other things to do.

When I was healthy, whenever that was, walking here and there would never bother me all that much, not even in inclement weather. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall me saying, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … that i’ve walked home from my girlfriend’s in Chester, all twenty-five or thirty miles, on several occasions when I’ve missed the last bus, and it’s never bothered me.

The next thing that I remember was being in some kind of hall. I walked in and there were quite a few people around. I went to sit on a bench against the wall, a nice, comfortable, padded bench. Gradually, as more people came in, I moved along to give them space. When it came time to go, and I tried to stand up, there wasn’t enough headroom to put myself straight. In the end, I had to say to a girl who was sitting on the bench a lot further up, if she’d mind if I slid along to sit there because that was where the roof had a greater clearance. She tried to help me to stand up but I explained that it was something that only I could do. In the end, I managed to struggle to my feet with bending my head and back forward. I thanked her for her help anyway. She replied “yes, have a nice time where you’re going. It’s a shame that we are going to be one Welsh person less in this hall. I couldn’t understand how it was that she had guessed that I was Welsh.

That’s something that many people can’t understand. I can’t be helped to stand up because my legs need to lock in one position and if I don’t have that correct, nothing on earth will enable me to stay upright, no matter how much help I have. And I don’t have a Welsh accent either. “Part of Flint” spoke very much with a South Cheshire – North Shropshire accent and my mother was brought up in polite society but nevertheless within the sound of Bow Bells.

After than, I went to check on where I was with the radio programmes and although this laptop isn’t powerful enough to undertake any serious radio work, I began to prepare the next two radio programmes. Both of these will be concerts, from my inexhaustible supply of concert tapes thanks to several friends of mine in the past who worked on sound desks.

When the alarm went off, I staggered off into the bathroom for a good wash and change of clothes, and then set the washing machine off on a cycle … “it’s a clever machine, this!” – ed … Once it was under way, I went into the kitchen for the hot ginger, lemon and honey drink qnd my medication.

Back in here, I carried on with the radio programmes, going through the thousands of concert tapes and trying to identify the dates thereof, but the nurse breezed in early, so I was interrupted. He sorted out my legs, had a little chat, saying how ill he’d been during the night, and then he departed. I went to make breakfast, but no reading matter as the laptop is in the office substituting for the dead desktop machine.

By the time that I’d finished, the washing machine had stopped so I went to hang out the washing – my cleaner had put out the clothes airer yesterday when she was here. But hanging up the washing is now becoming a difficult task and I might have to ask for help before long. What kind of state am I in?

Many years ago, I had an older laptop that was running on Windows 7 but had died unceremoniously not long after the support for Windows 7 was discontinued. I went on a mission to hunt it down and when I found it, I took it into the office.

The plan was to take out the hard drive and see whether it could be resurrected. That, however, was easier said than done. There was no hatch for quick access to the hard drive (which was probably why I hadn’t upgraded it to an SSD when I upgraded everything else) so I had to dismantle the entire case.

Eventually, after much binding in the marsh, I managed to extract it. I stuck it into my 2.5 inch caddy and plugged it into the travelling laptop, but “nothing”. The Disk Management picked up a phantom drive but wouldn’t let me initialise it, so that was that.

And then I had a rather wild idea.

Rummaging about on my shelves, I came across my box of old hard drives. There was a 500GB hard drive (not a SSD) that was not marked as defective so I plugged it into the computer. And after an hour or two of careful coaxing, I managed to persuade everything to fire up.

Bu to give you some idea of how old this hard drive is, I couldn’t at first make it accept the password. It was only after much thought and many attempts that I realised that the language settings were not “French French” but “Belgian French” – and I’d left Belgium in 2006.

So once it was running, which was a surprise in itself, I changed the language settings and screwed the case back together. And if you think that this one that I’m using now is steam-driven computing, the other one must be horse-drawn computing, that’s for sure.

And then we had another problem. And you won’t believe this … “or maybe you will” – ed … but the hard drive on this laptop had now failed. That was all that I needed! After an hour or so of trying some superficial checks, I went for an in-depth examination and finally afte about five hours of working on it, it’s now restored and working, minus the last three Windows upgrades.

But every cloud has a silver lining. A lot of the process was automatic and needed no input from me, so I began to tidy out the boxes that were littlering the room after the house moveThey are now unpacked and sorted, and the place looks much tidier.

There were several unexpected finds too. The wi-fi aerials for the big desktop computer than I knew I had and couldn’t find, for example, which was why I’d been running that machine off an ethernet cable. I’d been looking for them for months and it’s a shame that I found them a week after I no longer had any use for them.

And finally, I found the power pack for the Roland bass cube, also after many months of searching. At least, I think that it’s the correct one. It’s a generic Chinese thing, so I asked my Artificial Intelligence sourse to describe the power characteristics of the correct power pack, and this one fits the bill. In the past, I used to mark things like this so that I knew where they went and what they were for, so I hunted down one of my metallic markers and wrote “Roland Cube” on the power pack.

Something else I came across was the power pack and cables for the 2TB external hard drive that I found the other day, so that’s now plugged in and running. Piles of rubbish on it, so I’m slowly going through it all to either transfer or delete it. But plugging that in led to a tidying up of the plate of spaghetti of cables that is on the shelf above my head where the back-up disks, the printer, the studio amplifier and the internet box are

But here’s a thing. Since I bought my first “Acer” laptop in 2006, I have had five of them in total and they are all here – the earliest three in bits, the one that I repaired this morning and the travelling laptop that is now up and running again after its blip this morning. But would you believe – I can only find one power cable. The idea of repairing the older one early this morning was to use it just as a library and keep it on the kitchen table, storing all of my E-nooks, but that plan is a non-starter if I can’t find a cable.

So now, with a nice, tidy office, all of that took me right up to teatime. Tonight, it was baked potato, veg and a burger in a bun followed by Christmas pudding and vegan ice-cream. I’m running low on milk so no custard tonight. That’s all of the Christmas pudding gone now so on Monday, I’ll go back and attack the jam roly-poly.

Back in here again, I crashed out, and for an hour or so too, which is hardly a surprise after everything that I’ve done today. I’m totally exhausted, and I’ve hardly done anything that I had planned to do. Not that it’s important tonight that I’m running late, because I’m planning on a lie-in tomorrow morning and the nurse can shake me awake.

But seeing as we have been talking about language confusion … “well, one of us has” – ed … it reminds me of a story concerning Oscar Wilde that took place in Paris after he had been exiled there following his conviction for improper conduct in the UK.
Hearing an Englishman in a café struggling to place an order, he went over to see if he could be of any help.
“I can manage quite well” retorted the Englishman, indignantly.
“I thought differently” said Wilde “when I heard you ask the waiter to bring you a pair of stairs.”

… this has been today!

So there I lay, for a good few hours, tossing and turning and trying to go to sleep without any success whatsoever, and in the end, round about 05:30,I gave it up as a bad job and left the bed.

The first thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And, regrettably, I’d not gone far

I was in hospital in Ancient Rome. I was a member of the military for some particular reason, although I’m not quite sure why. That was really all that I remember except that song again, THE BOY WHO WOULDN’T HOE CORN somewhere in the background, sung by a choir rather than a musical piece, that kind of thing, with no music – just the voices singing it.

As if anyone would be likely to find me in the military. As I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … if it had ever come down to a war when I was of fighting age, I’d have been in the Merchant Navy. But there is more relevance in this dream than meets the eye at first sight.

And then I had a rather wild idea.

Wednesday 31st December 2025 – HAPPY NEW YEAR …

… to all of my readers. If you are reading these notes before midnight, I wish you an excellent reveillon. For those of you reading after midnight, I hope that you had a wonderful evening.

My best New Year’s Eve was, of course, that of 1999/2000 where I was interviewed on Flemish TV – in Flemish – as I flew out from Brussels and spent a week on Long Beach Island off the coast of New Jersey. But that’s another story.

Instead, let’s turn our attention to last night.

For once just recently, I managed to go for a whole day without crashing out and even managed to complete the notes too. I must be feeling better than I did at the weekend.

By the time that I’d finished everything that I needed to do, it was about 23:15 when I crawled into my beautiful bed, and it wasn’t long until I was asleep either. It was so comfortable in there.

So comfortable that I really didn’t want to wake up, but I did nevertheless. I didn’t check the time, though. Instead, I thought “I’ll heave myself out of bed when the alarm sounds. It’ll go off in a couple of minutes, probably”.

After about half an hour of waiting, I had a look at the time. It was 03:20, meaning that I had been awake since about 02:50. Consequently, I tried my best to go back to sleep but instead, I watched the clock go round and round.

When it reached 04:55, I thought that I’d give it ten minutes and then go off an start work. The next thing that I remembered, though, was that it was 06:10. I must have gone back to sleep again.

When the alarm sounded, I hauled myself off into the bathroom and then into the kitchen for the hot drink and medication. I took my time sorting myself out. It was nice to have a slow start to the day.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was back in Davenport Avenue and someone came to the house. They said that they wanted the catalogue for the records over the road at the social club. I must have lent them my records and I presumably wanted to play them and let people search through them for their favourites. I found the book with everything in it and set out to go across the road with the book. There were a couple of young boys loitering around the entrance to the place and they asked me what I was doing. I said that I was minding my own business. What were they doing? They cycled off and I walked down to the clubhouse. It was heaving with people and you couldn’t approach the door at first. I eventually worked out where the door was, walked through and began to ask around for whoever had asked for this. The first place that I tried was in the lounge bar but there was no-one there who seemed to be interested. In the sports room, there was no-one there either. In the end, I went through to the dance room. The barman was there with a crowd of people waiting to be served so I handed him the book and he took it.

We did have a social club across the road from our house in Davenport Avenue that was indeed laid out like that. It was quite popular too and there were times when it was very difficult to fight your way in. Today though, when I looked at an aerial photo of the site, it was yet another housing estate.

Later on, I was running my taxis again from Shavington. There were probably about a dozen people in the house. They were all doing different things, ironing clothes, cleaning shoes, etc., presumably for some big meeting or something. A couple of years earlier, there had been a taxi driver around Crewe whom my mother liked but he’d disappeared. The last we’d heard was that he was in Portugal. So my mother then disappeared and these people were all still trying to sort out their shoes and clothes. I was trying to find my shoes, which had disappeared somewhere amongst the chaos. My mother came back and said that she was off to see this guy. She was going to take him this, take him that and take him something else. I said “don’t take him everything like that. You don’t know anything about this guy”. She replied “that’s where you’re wrong. As a matter of fact, he has some kind of virus and he set up a business out there and it all went wrong. He’s really poverty-stricken”. I replied “so he made a bad business decision, so he’s ill but that happens to a lot of people. I’ve made bad business decisions, and I’ve been ill, but no-one came running halfway across the continent for me”. She was totally adamant that she was going and taking all this stuff so in the end, I just turned round, walked into the other room and carried on looking for my shoes, and everyone else carried on sorting out their clothes. Then someone else came in and was talking about the current situation and asking me how I was. I said that I’d just had a huge, blazing row with my mother. They asked me if I was bothered and I replied “not in the least. I’ve won the field and she’s cleared off so I’m not bothered in the least”.

So I was back on the taxis again after a couple of nights off – a very rare event indeed when I was actually driving.

As for my mother, I often had rows with her. It never bothered me, though, because I was quite used to her unpredictable and sometimes illogical nature. I’d heard it all before and so I was immune to it all.

However, I did find this dream to be extremely embarrassing. Now that I am ill, I have in fact had people who have come halfway across Europe and even further vide Canada to see me. I’m hardly likely to go criticising others.

The nurse turned up again but he didn’t stay long. We talked about his chiropodist and how nice she seemed to be – a vast improvement on whoever I’ve had before.

After he left, I made breakfast and carried on with reading about Roman military engineering. Today, we’ve been talking about Hero engines and Heron fountains and both of those are interesting concepts. Had I been down on the farm, I would have built an example of each and had an experiment to see whether I could harness the energy and put it to use.

We were also discussing reverse overshot waterwheels. These are interesting because rather than water falling into buckets on a kind of treadmill to turn the treadmill and power machinery, there were men inside the treadmill turning it by walking, as in a mediaeval crane, and the buckets attached to the treadmill were used to lift the water up and out. That was how they drained mines and quarries in Roman days.

Back in here, I had some football to watch. Cardiff Metropolitan were at home to Hwlffordd in the JD Cymru League, and there were highlights to see. And hats off to the producers who managed to squeeze something out of the game because the fact that it was a 0-0 draw summed up just about everything there was to say about the game. I shan’t waste any more time watching a repeat. Someone ought to present Hwlffordd manager Tony Pennock with a stringed musical instrument and a ruminant animal for his team to use in the opponent’s penalty area next game.

There were computer issues later on. One of the discs in the array decided not to fire up and it was shorting out all of the others. After I’d taken it out, the others worked perfectly. I was trying for hours to fix the disc, but in the end, I had to call it a day. I “repaired” it about three weeks ago and it’s developed the same fault so I figure that it’s a hardware issue.

There should be a ruck of spare hard drives around here somewhere but God alone knows where. I found a 2 TB external drive, but the power pack for it is missing.

The rest of the day was spent on the radio programmes. All of the text is now written, and I started on another one. This one is going to be another Rock Festival and they are hard work to prepare

Tea was falafel and pasta, followed by Christmas pudding and custard. And now I’m off to bed, to celebrate the New Year by sleeping through it. I wish you all the best.

But seeing as we have been talking about that club in Crewe … "well, one of us has" – ed … when I was in there, a ‘phone on the bar suddenly began to ring. A man right by it picked it up and answered the call
"Darling" said a female voice. "There’s a beautiful leather coat here in this shop on sale at £1000. I know we can’t afford it but it’s so lovely … "
"Just this once, ike it so much" said the man. "I’m sure that we can manage somehow."
"But you said that we couldn’t afford that £3000 holiday for our wedding anniversary " said the female voice
"If it means that much to you dear, go ahead and book it too. We’ll manage somehow."
The conversation finished at that point, and the guy with the ‘phone looked around at the people standing nearby and asked "Does anyone know whose ‘phone this is?"

Friday 26th December 2025 – I SHALL BE GLAD …

… when today is over and I’m tucked up in my little cot. It’s not been a very good day today.

It all went wrong last night when it seemed to take an age to make and eat my tea. As a result, everything else was running horribly late. It took hours to finish my notes and it was long after 23:30 when I finally crawled into bed.

What hadn’t helped was the fact that I’d fallen asleep several times while at the computer. It wasn’t as if it had done me any good either because I still felt just as tired as I had been earlier

And as usual, we had the very disappointing situation of being awake at 04:35 and not being able to go back to sleep, no matter how hard I tried.

Every cloud has a silver lining, though. After about an hour or so, I hauled myself out of bed, moved over to the desk and dictated the radio notes that I’d typed earlier in the week. When it was time to go for a scrub up, I’d even begun to edit them.

In the bathroom I had a wash, a shave and a good scrub of some of the clothes, and then wandered into the kitchen for the medication and the hot drink. I wasn’t very impressed with the state of the kitchen, though. Although I’d done all of the washing-up, there was still other stuff lying around that I should have tidied up. I’m not doing very well at the moment.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And last night, TOTGA put in an appearance. So “welcome back, TOTGA”. We’d been talking about two of her children who were still at primary school at the moment. They were just finishing Year 5. I asked how they were doing and she said that they seemed to be doing fine. I mentioned something about them being twins, always being promoted, going up to the next year together etc. But if one had to double a year, what would the other one do? She said that the girl is already well in advance of all of her fellow pupils so she’s almost certainly going to have no problems, but the boy is a typical boy and we’ll have to see. “I don’t know what they’d do if that ever were to happen”.

In British schools, children don’t double a year as they do in France. They push on to the next year, regardless of their academic abilities. Or, at least, they used to. I’ve no idea what the situation is now. Just like everything else, times have evolved.

In the meantime, something else that was happening was that I was walking and I had no idea why I was doing it but I was walking miles along this path at the sid of this main road. As I came into a town, I saw a lorry ahead of me suddenly swerve onto the wrong side of the road and stop. It was foggy so I couldn’t see what had happened but I imagined that there had almost been an accident or something. When I was further on, I could see that some lorry, like the red one of my brother-in-law, had come out of a workshop doing body repair. When it was turning to join the route, it hit a parked car. I thought “that’s an expensive body job that he’s just had done, isn’t it?”. I walked on down this steep hill into the centre of the town. I remember seeing a shop, closed and boarded up that was a former “Boots” shop. And then up the steep hill and out of the town. There was someone else walking up that hill but I walked past them. The woman said “did you receive that image that I sent to you?”. I’d no idea what she was talking about so I just said “I can’t remember now for the moment”. She went on and on about this image as I was walking past her and walking further on. At the top of the hill, there was a beautiful view across the countryside. The sun was starting to go down and I suddenly realised that I had to go back to fetch the van. I’d walked miles, so how on earth was I going to go back and fetch the van in the couple of hours before it’s dark? So I crossed over the road and began to hitchhike back the way that I had come. When I came into town, there was a crowd of people gathered round some kind of office. I stopped and went to see what was happening. It was the local planning consent people so I produced a baguette and a loaf of bread that I had in my van. I interrupted the proceedings and said that I’d like to apply for planning permission to open a bakery. I explained that the reason why I hadn’t made an application in time was that I’d only just been made redundant. In the end, they turned down my application on the spot. I asked if it was because it was late. They replied “no” because I needed to check out all these other kinds of things. So I climbed back into my van but he stopped me. He asked for the keys to the van so I gave them to him. he opened the side door and he could see that it was full of total rubbish so he closed the door again and handed me the keys. He said “the inside of your van is disgusting”.

What was impressive about that was that in the dream, I could recognise the red lorry. But although I said “brother-in-law”, it actually belongs to my niece’s husband and it’s the one that I drove from New Brunswick in Canada down to New Hampshire one year to deliver for repair an engine that had thrown a con-rod out of the side of the block.

Walking aimlessly around like that is something that I probably would have done in my youth. I often wandered over the hills and moors from one youth hostel to the next. It was lovely and peaceful and gave me plenty of time to reflect. But the inside of my van being a total tip? Now there’s a surprise!

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in later, bringing with her the news that outside, it was minus two degrees and she’d had to scrape the ice off her windscreen. So winter is a-cumen in. Lhude sing Rudolph, hey? No wonder I was feeling cold.

As she left, I gave her a little present – a slice of my Christmas cake and a mince pie in a plastic box. I’m feeling generous this year.

The plan was to make my Boxing Day breakfast as yesterday, but for some reason, I couldn’t face it. I decided to postpone it until Sunday when I’d have more time and went with the more usual breakfast of porridge, toast and coffee.

However, I did allow myself the luxury of mushroom pâté on the toast. And that gave me an idea. I make my own hummus every now and again, so why not try to find a recipe to make mushroom pâté?

In A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE, our author James Curle is now beginning to describe the excavations.

This is the interesting part because although we’re only on page 68 (of 708!), I’ve already learnt a great deal about how it all works and how they were able to identify the different layers of building and demolition. He makes plenty of assumptions about what he’s seeing, but most importantly, he explains exactly why he’s made those assumptions, and I wish that more people would do that.

Not for nothing has this book been described as " … a standard reference work, ahead of its time and still the most decisive work published in Scotland covering this period of Roman occupation, expansion and retreat."

Back in here, the first thing that I did when I sat down at my chair was to crash out. I’ve no idea why because I hadn’t seen it coming. I know that I’d been feeling out-of-sorts this morning, but I had simply brushed it off as one of those things.

It wasn’t just for five minutes either. I worked out that it was about 09:45 when I came back in here, and it was 11:20 when I awoke.

That had rather snookered my plans for today. I had wanted to finish this radio programme before going to dialysis but I was now lagging way behind and I was nowhere near finished when my cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic.

The taxi driver had a struggle to find me today. He hadn’t been to pick me up for ages, this one, so having come into the building with someone else instead of ringing my doorbell, he went up to the old place and was hanging around there when my cleaner discovered him.

We had to go to pick up someone else on the way, and he kept us hanging around for hours, so we were late arriving at dialysis. And there, they were in the middle of a crisis so instead of about 14:00 as is supposed to be, it was 14:50 when I was plugged in.

There had been another crisis too. On the way in, I nipped to the bathroom. And there, I found that I couldn’t rise up after the performance was finished. I had no end of a struggle, and it exhausted me. I’ve mentioned just recently that I’ve noticed a further weakening of the muscles, and it looks like I’m not wrong. This really is the end.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’d ended up making two Christmas cakes, due to the fact that I’d made too much mix. I took the smaller one into dialysis and presented it to the staff and let them demolish it. It’s probably the last time that I’ll see Julie the Cook, who is moving on to pastures new in the New Year, and I wanted her and her colleagues to sample my delights. She came to tell me how impressed she was with the cake, and that pleased me enormously.

There was football on the internet this afternoon – Penybont v Llansawel. I’ve mentioned in the past that Penybont have gone right off the boil just recently and have fallen down the table from a commanding second position to an also-ran fourth place. Today was more of the same as they ground out a 1-1 draw at home to a team third from bottom.

What didn’t help them was having to play eighty-three minutes with ten men, having had a player sent off after seven minutes for “striking an opponent”. Ironically, it’s the same player who was also sent off after seven minutes for “serious foul play” in his previous match.

The comments that his manager made after the first sending-off have led to him being charged with “bringing the game into disrepute” and “insulting and offensive language”, or some such, so I’ll be interested to hear what he has to say this time. But having seen both incidents numerous times, I don’t think that there’s any real cause to complain about either.

Eventually, they came to unplug me, hours later than I would have liked, and I staggered out to the taxi. I clearly wasn’t well, and I don’t know why.

Back here, my faithful cleaner helped me into the apartment, and after she left, I made tea. I wasn’t really in the mood for it, and a fair proportion ended up in the bin. I did manage a small slice of Christmas pudding afterwards, and that was excellent. I’m well-impressed with my Christmas cooking and baking, that’s for sure.

One sad part about it though was the number of times that I fell asleep while I was trying to eat. I almost fell off my chair at least twice.

Back in here, I began to type out my notes, but I couldn’t. I’d done four lines and that was that. I really couldn’t keep going any longer. I simply typed out a somewhat … err … terse remark and went to bed where I don’t care if I sleep for a week.

But seeing as we have been talking about archaeology … "well, one of us has" – ed … Nerina once told me that instead of marrying me, she should have married an archaeologist.
"Why is that, dear?"
"As I grow older, the more interesting he’d find me."

Friday 5th December 2025 – I’VE DONE IT …

… again!

Crashed out on the chair in the office late this afternoon, and not just for five minutes either. I was for a whopping well over an hour. It looks as if I’m back in the bad old days of eighteen months ago when I was crashing out for hours every day with no sign of it ever improving.

This is a really huge disappointment to me, and I’m totally fed up with it. I wish that I could snap out of it and push on with work, now that I have (at long last) the opportunity.

That’s just how it was last night too. I fell asleep a couple of times again while I was typing out my notes, and by the time that I finished, I was so wiped out that I went straight to bed without even starting, never mind finishing, what else I had to do.

Once in bed, I fell asleep straight away, and there I stayed, without moving, until the alarm went off.

A couple of times just recently, I’ve said that I didn’t really feel like leaving the bed when the alarm went off. This morning was probably the worst that I have felt and I really was on the point of switching off the alarm and going back to bed.

Nevertheless, I struggled on and staggered into the bathroom for a good wash.

In the kitchen, I made my hot ginger, lemon and honey drink, took my medication and then came back here to listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. And it was no surprise to learn that there was nothing on there. It must have been a really deep sleep.

The nurse came quite early again and sorted out my legs. After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

We’ve crossed Hadrian’s Wall and we are now looking at some of the forward camps where troops were stationed as an advance guard to watch over the territory north of the wall.

He tells us that at Durisdeer, there are "the remains of a small, but well-preserved Roman fortlet are located about a mile up the Well or Wald Path to the north-east" and that a Roman road passed up the valley by the camp to connect the Nith Valley with the Clyde Valley.

Consequently, I had a play around with an online aerial map and CAME ACROSS THIS. If you look closely, you’ll see the modern track, which is where the wheel ruts are, but slightly above it, you can make out the ridge of the Roman road.

It was the defences that impressed me, though. I’ve not seen a Roman fort with a ditch and bank as pronounced as this one. They must have been really troubled times up on the frontier.

Back in here, I finished off what I should have done last night and then carried on with writing the radio notes. They are all finished now, ready to dictate.

There were several interruptions. Two disgusting drinks breaks, for a start. And my cleaner put in an appearance to do her stuff.

The first thing that she had to do was to rescue two saucepans that had fallen out of the back of one of the drawers and landed on the floor underneath the unit. The second task was to shuffle the contents of the drawers around so that if a saucepan falls out again, it will drop into the drawer underneath and not onto the floor.

While she was at it, she also sorted out my Christmas tree. So now it has all of its decorations and lights. It’s only about 30 centimetres tall, but it puts a little ambience into the living room and makes it look a little more like Christmas. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. I wish that other people around here would make some kind of effort.

Back in here, I crashed out on the chair for well over an hour, as I said just now. To my surprise, when I awoke, there was something on the dictaphone. I was at some kind of Russian spy school, looking through documents. I wasn’t very popular there and no-one liked me very much, not that that bothered me, but I was keen enough to learn. One of the documents was a report on a case that we had to study. It showed that someone had stolen some documents, had extracted information and passed them through to his superior. However, his superior was extremely unreliable and drunken. He was on the verge of giving away everything when he passed the information in some kind of strange, diagonal way across a whole range of people to someone totally unexpected on the far side of the operation. It fascinated me, so I was trying to write an extract of this. In the end, I ended up having to lie on the floor to do it, but the dog decided to jump all over me and I had to fight the dog off. In the end, I managed to drag the dog off outside and go back to the paper, but by then, the boss had come down from his booth. He told me not to bother and to move on to the next exercise. I told him that I was enjoying this particular one and I was determined to finish it. He said that the part that he enjoyed the most about it was the part when I was fighting off the dog. In the end, I put my foot down rather and made something of a fuss about it. In the end, he agreed to let me have a further five minutes to finish this particular case.

Actually, I’d been reading quite recently about a Russian spy school that sent agents to try to prise out the British and American nuclear secrets just after World War II, so it’s probably something to do with that.

But working on and enjoying a subject that my boss wants to ignore in order to concentrate on something else reminds me very much of my university course. I enjoyed the research that I was doing far more than the research that my tutor wanted me to do. It was for that reason that I was rejected for my Ph.D. The tutor didn’t think that I would stick to the task in hand.

With the little time that was left, I began to hunt down some missing photos from 2019. This is a project that I was hoping to attack with all of this free time that I now seem to have … "in theory" – ed …

For tea, I made a very quick stir fry and then came back in here to watch the football. Y Bala v Hwlffordd.

Both clubs are in difficulty right now at the wrong end of the table, and having seen this game, I’m not surprised. Hwlffordd didn’t impress me at all, but Y Bala were awful. They were clueless and offered absolutely nothing at all.

The score was 0-2 in favour of Hwlffordd, thanks to a silly, pointless penalty and another one of these marvellous wonder-goals that you see maybe once in ten years … "of which we have now seen two already this season" – ed … When the highlights come online, I’ll post the link and you can see for yourself. If someone had scored that goal in the Premier League, people would be talking about it for the next fifty years.

Right now though, I’m off to bed, and I can’t say that I’m sorry because I’m exhausted. But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Hadrian’s Wall … "well, one of us has" – ed … here is a question that was asked in a Roman school in about 200AD
Magister – "if it took five hundred men ten years to build the eighty Roman miles of Hadrian’s Wall, how long would it take three hundred men to build half of it if they took four weeks feriatum each complete year?"
Claudius – "no time at all, Magister."
Magister – "why not, Claudius?"
Claudius – "because those five hundred men have already built it."

Saturday 29th November 2025 – I HAVE DECIDED …

… that tomorrow and all subsequent Sundays until further notice, there will be no alarm call. If Isabelle the Nurse comes along and finds me still in bed, then she will have to sort out my legs while I’m lying there, and after she’s gone, I’ll go back to sleep. I can’t go on like I am at the moment.

What didn’t help was that, after the football, it was a terribly late night. By the time that I’d finished everything that I needed to do, it was long after midnight when I finally crawled into bed.

There was no difficulty falling asleep either, and there I lay, dead to the World until BILLY COTTON shattered my peace.

Ohhh! How I wish that I could have stayed in bed. I was feeling absolutely shattered. It took a good ten minutes for me to summon up the courage to leave the bed and stagger off to the bathroom.

As well as washing myself, I filled the washing machine with dirty clothes and let it loose while I wandered off for my medication.

In the kitchen, there was yesterday’s washing-up to do before I could do anything else. How I hate waking up to that in the morning, but it gives you some idea of how tired I was last night that I left it. However, once I’d done it, I could make my hot ginger, honey and lemon drink with which to take my medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone but there was nothing on it from last night. Not that that’s a surprise, seeing how tired I was. What I did instead was to … errr … crash out on my chair.

Isabelle the Nurse took me by surprise when she arrived. Pressing the doorbell as she does when she arrives awoke me with quite a shock.

After she had given me the final injection of this series, she sorted out my legs and then wandered off. It took me another good ten minutes to be able to stand up and go to make my breakfast.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN and although there was plenty of interest, there was nothing that was worthy of a note in here.

However, our author did put me on the trail of a book written by John Horsley called BRITANNIA ROMANA, written in 1734. It contains information about what was known about the Romans at that time, and also visual descriptions of the remains. Judging by what Codrington has been telling us, a great deal of infrastructure was still standing in Horsley’s day but had disappeared by the time of Codrington.

When I’d finished breakfast, I went to rescue the washing from the washing machine and hang it on the clothes airer. And that almost killed me too, so back in here, I crashed out yet again.

When I came round, at about 11:30, I began to assemble the radio programme that I had been preparing. It took a while, but it’s now finished and ready to go. And so I watched the highlights of Barry v Hwlffordd from last night.

After I’d stopped for my disgusting drink break, I began to make my Christmas cake. And I’ve ended up with two because I made far too much batter. Does anyone want a spare Christmas cake?

It took over three hours to prepare them today, and of course, the week during which the dried fruit had been soaking, and they went into the oven on a low temperature for three and a half hours.

While the cakes were cooking, I made a start on another radio programme. This is another complicated one and is going to take some assembling. Sorting out the music is quite a task and I’ve still not finished that part yet

Back in the kitchen, I switched off the oven and checked the cakes. They are cooked to perfection, and now they need to cool down for a week or so before I can marzipan them, and then another week before I can ice them

But I’m definitely ill and I’m at a loss as to why. I’m totally exhausted, I ache in every conceivable place and I’ve lost all of my energy and enthusiasm. In fact, I’m really surprised that I’ve managed to do so much today, despite how ill I’m feeling.

So ill that, in fact, I made a very small portion of mushroom curry and yet most of it ended up in the waste bin. No dessert either. I just want to go to bed.

But seeing as we have been talking about baking a Christmas cake … "well, one of us has" – ed … you have to bake it in a fan oven turned to 120° for three and a half hours
When I lived in Crewe, I mentioned it to a local girl who wanted to know the details.
A few days later, I asked her how she had got on with it.
"It was a waste of time" she replied. "I tried what you said but after ten seconds, the cake just slid down to the side."

Friday 28th November 2025 – THERE’S NO DOUBT …

… about it – I really am ill.

Today has been a pretty miserable day as far as I am concerned. And it should have started so well too.

Having raced through everything last night, my notes were online quite early and I was looking forward to a nice, early night and a really good sleep. However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. it’s really pointless going to bed early, because all it means is that I awaken correspondingly early the following morning.

Like 04:05 this morning, for example.

At about 05:20, I’d given up all hope of going back to sleep and had risen from the Dead. I took full advantage of the early start by dictating the radio notes that I had rewritten the other day, so they were ready for editing.

Next stop was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I’d been out with some friends last night, and we’d been to rescue a car that belonged to one of them. When I went to pick it up, they asked me if I would drive it back. It was a Morris marina, and I couldn’t get the hang of the gearbox. It felt ever so tight to me. However, I managed to move it in some fashion and came into the city centre. I put the indicator on to turn left, but people stopped for me as if I wanted to go up into the church precinct. In the end, I had no choice but to go up into the church. We stopped there and waited for the traffic to die down, then we climbed into the car again, with me struggling with the gearbox to leave. I ended up being stuck behind an old, dirty bus and I suddenly realised that I was in an old, dirty bus too. I had to pull out from behind this bus without hitting it and somehow make my way forward. I pulled out and had to wait for a gap in the traffic. Just as I was about to pull out, a car suddenly appeared. I saw it over my shoulder and the guy with me said to his wife “did you see that? He actually used his shoulder”. He was quite impressed by that. So we set off, but then we had to go to a DIY shop for some DIY stuff for my house. They all set off running but I knew that it was miles away so I ran a lot slower to conserve my strength. But there was an incredibly steep descent and I could have jumped into the bus and let it roll down to the bottom of the hill but I thought that it would be most unsafe so I carried on running. Eventually, I arrived at this DIY place and found that they had all purchased everything and it was all stacked. However, they looked exhausted so and they asked about when we were going to load it. I replied “you need to take a break first because you aren’t going to load anything like that in that condition”. The guy in the shop said that as it was all on a pallet already, he could take it with a fork-lift truck and drop it down at the side of our vehicle.

The part about looking over my shoulder relates to the time when I was chauffeuring in Brussels. I had a General from the Finnish Army in my car and he asked me if I had been a motor-cyclist. I asked him why, and he replied "you’re always looking over your shoulder when you drive, just like a motorcyclist does. "

The friend was, by the way, related to one of the young ladies who come to see me during the night and it’s a disaster that she never put in an appearance. And we had a Marina estate once when I had my taxis. We were going to use it for parcels but, as always, I was overtaken by events.

One thing though was that I never drove “dirty old buses”. I was quite selective about whom I drove for and restricted my activities to Shearings and to a local firm with an excellent reputation.

By now though, I was wishing that I had stayed in bed because I was beginning to feel awful, nauseous and totally exhausted. Nevertheless, I went for a good wash and to make my hot ginger, honey and lemon drink for my medication.

Back in here, I could no longer concentrate on anything, and it was a very weary, depressive me that crawled into the kitchen when Isabelle the Nurse came round. She gave me my injection and sorted out my feet, and when I told her how ill I was feeling, she suggested that I go back to bed.

Strangely enough, that was my opinion too, but first I made breakfast and read some more of ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

As usual, I was sidetracked by the Iter Britanniarum as I followed the routes of some of these roads. Interestingly, he talks about a Roman agger or embankment that carried a road that crossed over the River Hodder in Lancashire. I had a quick look on an online aerial map and noticed a LOVELY CURVED EMBANKMENT NOW OVERGROWN WITH TREES, THAT COULD EASILY BE AN AGGER leading to the river, and if you zoom in to the river really closely, you can see what looks like a paved ford under the water.

There’s also talk about a Roman fort at Caersws in mid-Wales “in a bend of the River Severn with three concentric defensive rings” and, allowing for modern erosion by the river, I FOUND THIS.

A little earlier, I’d mentioned going back to bed but I couldn’t even go that far. I staggered onto my office chair in the bedroom and promptly fell asleep again.

When I awoke, over an hour later, I was still feeling ill but I pushed on and edited the radio notes that I’d dictated earlier. So that programme is ready to be assembled now.

The taxi came early to take me to the Centre de Ré-education so I had to wait around for a while when I arrived.

My first session was with the relief physiotherapist as mine was on a training day. She exercised my arms and legs for a half-hour period that passed surprisingly quickly.

The second session was with the occupational therapist but he didn’t really offer a great deal of help and we were finished after fifteen minutes.

After waiting around for a while, I saw Elise the Dishy Doctor. I poured out my tale of woe, and we decided, after a lengthy discussion, to suspend all of the activities at the Centre de Ré-education until the doctors at dialysis decide that I’m fit enough to restart, whenever that may be.

In the meantime, she gave me a prescription for twenty-five sessions of physiotherapy at my own pace in some local cabinet. However, as my faithful cleaner said later, finding one that has a vacancy is going to be a real challenge.

The final session was this standing upright in this frame thing but I abandoned that after twenty minutes and went to look for my taxi home.

My cleaner helped me into the apartment and then I collapsed into a chair in the kitchen. After she left, I came back in here and, once installed in my comfortable chair, I crashed out again – until, would you believe, 19:45.

For tea tonight, I made a batch of hummus and ate it with some crackers while I watched the football – TNS v Caernarfon. TNS had the lion’s share of the game, of course but the Cofis kept them out for eighty-two minutes.

Two late goals, one of them with the very last kick of the game, gave TNS another win, and once again, the Cofis played the match without any great sense of urgency going forward. They really are going to have to play better than this if they want to make their mark.

So right now, I’m off to bed. Totally exhausted, but relieved to some extent that I’m only out for two afternoons next week. This is some kind of progress.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Finnish General … "well, one of us has" – ed … when I went round to his apartment once, he had a large stuffed black bear in his hallway.
He told me a story about it that I could easily believe to be true and underlines the misunderstanding when two foreigners are conversing in a third, foreign language.
He was holding a cocktail party and one of his guests, an Italian lady, asked him about the bear, and the conversation continued in English.
"I shot it myself" he replied.
"So is it the complete bear there? "
"Oh no. It’s just the fur "
"So what did you do with the bear itself? "
"We ate it"
And so she went round this cocktail party with stories of the General dragging the dead bear into a clearing in the forest and then sitting around a campfire eating it raw while it was still warm and fresh.

Saturday 8th November 2025 – MY CANADIAN VISITORS …

… finally struggled into Granville at about 21:30 this evening, bringing tale after tale of woe about their disastrous journey from Toronto.

They are here until Monday afternoon when they will be returning to Paris ready to fly out again, hoping for much better luck this time.

So all of that journey just to spend less than forty-eight hours with me. If you want an example of a real “flying visit”, you need look no further than this.

And I was ready to see them too. I’d made a determined effort to go to bed early, however, once more, I failed miserably. It was 23:20 when I finally crawled into bed. And there I stayed, fast asleep, until all of … errr … 04:20.

By about 05:20, I’d given up all hope of going back to sleep and so I raised myself from the Dead and began work.

Well, not exactly work. There were the highlights of last night’s matches in the JD Cymru League. Llansawel, third from bottom, beat Y Bala 2-0.

However, I’m still laughing about the result at Park Hall. Adam Roscrow, unwanted at TNS for over two years, scored a goal with just seconds to go on the clock, a goal for his new club, mid-table Cardiff Metropolitan that beat runaway leader TNS 3-2, their first defeat in I don’t know how many games.

Enjoy THE HIGHLIGHTS

After the football, I began to edit the radio notes that I’d dictated a couple of days ago. However, I abandoned the project for the moment when the alarm went off, and went to organise myself in the bathroom.

To accompany the medication today, I made another one of those fiery ginger, lemon and honey drinks. I’m not sure whether it’s doing any good because I can’t feel my throat for a couple of hours.

After the meds, I began to put away the shopping from yesterday. I was certainly feeling so much better than I did yesterday. That’s just as well because I had to totally reorganise the fridge to make enough room for everything.

The nurse caught me unawares, in the middle of reorganising things, so I had to stop what I was doing and let him attend to me. It didn’t take him long, and then I could push on and make breakfast.

The croissants are a little overbaked but the apple turnover things are perfection. They have really turned out well and I’m so impressed with them. Almost as impressed as I was with my stainless steel dustbin, something that regular readers of this rubbish will recall from a previous version.

After breakfast, I carried on with sorting out the shopping, and putting a pile of stuff in the freezer for another time. The place looks a lot tidier now than it did before, that’s for sure. There was some broccoli to blanch for freezing, and I saved the water because tomorrow, I shall be making a broccoli stalk soup.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was with a girl last night, but I don’t know who it was. We were going to find some kind of hotel place where to stay for the night. Something went wrong with the coffee but I’m not sure what it was. They had one of these things where you made coffee by putting the grounds in and pushing down a plunger. Something went wrong with the organisation of this, and we had a coffee that was made with one of these, but it seems to have been made by accident. If anyone had pushed the plunger down, it must have been one of the members of staff, so we had no idea how come this coffee had been made and why it had been made, but it was probably the nicest coffee that I’ve had for ages.

This is something that seems to be happening quite often these days – being with a girl but I don’t know who she is. That’s something of a disaster. Can you imagine not being able to recall who she is? These days, I don’t have enough contact with the female sex so being able to recall who they are is quite important. I ought to be extracting as much amusement and pleasure from my dreams because it’s the best that I can do.

The two navies met each other on a couple of occasions during the American Civil War when they had some kind of naval battle. On one occasion, the Confederate Navy ship was sailing when it was accosted by a Union ship. They had a battle, which the Confederate ship won. The story goes that the German gun shelled the Colwyn Bay bench with ammunition and injured almost everyone on there, although Colwyn Bay deny this. They say that what they did was in turning their weapon and employing it against the Russians in poor South Africa as a way of equalising the staff and maker and shaking the tip and changing money … fell asleep here ….

It seems that there are two threads running through here. One concerning the American Civil War, about which I have been reading so much just recently, and the second being the football, which is a constant theme these days.

Did I tell you that in the last dream, the cannon that scored the fight that smashed the deck of the Federal ship was as straight as anything used in the battle? … "No you didn’t" – ed … They had to have one man organising the gun, two men organising it and shooting it and another team of rangefinders. They had to spot where the shell landed. But the situation diverted towards Mons where they were all used in the English campaign, although only one of them became famous and was in danger of being captured by the Turks so its own sailors blew it up

What the Turks would be doing at Mons is anyone’s guess, but here I am merging two threads again – the Civil War and World War I.

After a disgusting drink break, I began to make everything ready in the kitchen and living room ready for my visitors, and to make sure that we had everything that we needed. It’s becoming quite complicated, all of this entertaining, but I’ll keep on doing it. It’s nice to have company.

Later on, I carried on with the radio programme but I stopped before I finished because we had football on the internet, Connah’s Quay Nomads (fourth in the table) versus Penybont (second).

This was another match that is best forgotten. Two teams with undoubted quality and several internationals on the field should have produced a match of real skill and entertainment but unfortunately, it was nothing like.

Penybont, who had a man sent off close to half-time, were dreadful. They played with no intent or ambition and were swept aside, 4-0, by the Nomads.

In their last three games, they have conceded a total of thirteen goals. That includes conceding three against a side that’s third from bottom. That is just totally unacceptable from a team lying second in the table. There’s something dreadfully wrong here.

Knowing that my visitors were now on their way, I made tea – more couscous and Moroccan bean tajine, but they had nibbled at things on the train and weren’t all that hungry. The chocolate cake and mango sorbet went down well, though.

It’s lovely to see them, even if it’s only for a very short while, and we spent hours chatting about the past. It was long after midnight when they went and as soon as I’ve pressed “send”, I shall be going to bed, long after 01:00.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my visitors being stranded in Paris … "well, one of us has" – ed … they told me that, in order to pass the time, they had been to an art exhibition featuring the works of a French painter who stayed for a while in French Polynesia.
"Gauguin? " I asked
"We don’t think so" they replied. "Once was enough."

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: JD Cymru premier league

Sunday 22nd February 2026 – WHAT A NICE …

Saturday 21st February 2026 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

Sunday 15th February 2026 – SUNDAY IS A …

Saturday 14th February 2026 – I HOPE THAT …

Saturday 7th February 2026 – I HAVE SEEN …

Saturday 24th January 2026 – AND ONCE MORE …

Tuesday 13th January 2026 – I DON’T KNOW …

Sunday 4th January 2026 – I HAD A …

Thursday 1st January 2026 – AND A HAPPY …

Wednesday 31st December 2025 – HAPPY NEW YEAR …

Friday 26th December 2025 – I SHALL BE GLAD …

Friday 5th December 2025 – I’VE DONE IT …

Saturday 29th November 2025 – I HAVE DECIDED …

Friday 28th November 2025 – THERE’S NO DOUBT …

Saturday 8th November 2025 – MY CANADIAN VISITORS …

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