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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"

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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?"

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Tuesday 30th December 2025 – AFTER LAST NIGHT’S …

… catastrophe, I’m feeling a little better again today. However, it will be interesting to see if I can keep on going until I finish everything.

Not like last night, when I ground to a halt round about 22:00 and couldn’t carry on. That was the quickest slide into fatigue that I have ever had, because half an hour earlier, I was feeling quite sprightly.

Anyway, after I’d fallen asleep in the chair yet again, once I’d awoken, I decided to go straight to bed and finish off everything the next morning. That’s why those of you who came to read my notes overnight may have found some rather terse notes instead of the entry that is there now.

Once in bed, I was asleep quite quickly. And there I stayed, flat out and dead to the World, until all of … errr … 03:20. Mind you, I was able to go to sleep quite quickly until at least … errr … 03:50.

That was, unfortunately, my lot. Despite trying everything that I could, I wasn’t able to go back to sleep so round about 05:45, I gave it up and arose from the Dead. That was when I attacked the rest of the notes.

As well as that, I was chatting online to Alison, who is also ill and can’t sleep. We really are a right pair. There’s no hope for us. What a way to spend the Christmas break – flat out ill in bed!

While I was pondering over the aforesaid, I was beginning to wonder. Falling asleep at 22:00 or thereabouts and waking up at 04:00? Has my body clock reset itself somehow? So how do I reset it to how it was before?

When the alarm went off, I staggered into the bathroom for a good wash and brush-up and then into the kitchen for the medication. Everything today, though, was done at a rather leisurely pace. I was in no mood to hurry.

Back in here, there were the dictaphone notes to transcribe. I was with one of the nurses from dialysis last night. We were in my car heading back towards Crewe when the song THE BOY WHO WOULDN’T HOE CORN came onto the radio. We were listening to that on the way home. That’s really all of this that I remember. It’s another one that evaporated the moment that I grabbed hold of the dictaphone.

She’s a girl who fascinates me. She’s small, with masses and masses of wild, dark hair, and I could easily imagine her playing a demon violin. That’s why the song is so relevant. You probably know the song – it’s based on a traditional American folk song from the Nineteenth Century and first recorded by Buster Carter and Preston Young in 1931 under the title “A Lazy Farmer Boy”

It was popularised by Alison Krauss and Union Station, but you have never ever heard it played quite like in the video clip. Along with Le Vent du Nord’s “Forillon”, which you can find AT ABOUT 49:00 ON THIS VIDEO CLIP, it’s probably one of the most extraordinary pieces of music you’ll ever hear. If you don’t know what the French word ‘déchainé’ means, just listen to, or watch, the solos in the songs, and you’ll need no further explanation.

And later on, I was up in the High Arctic, up in Goose Bay with someone else. It might even have been the aforementioned nurse from dialysis. We had to go back to Québec, so there’s a bus that leaves, and we climbed aboard the bus, an old yellow school bus, and it set off. There were about half a dozen passengers on it and there was a woman driving it. But before we climbed on board, we were sitting in another bus somewhere. As it pulled into Goose Bay, whoever was with me was asleep at the other end of the bus. We saw a VW camper with a caravan on the back pull off the road into a rest area. Instead of going in a complete arc and round, the driver tried to cut off the arc to make the entry smaller and became stuck on a rock. I nudged whoever was with me, or shouted to her, or gesticulated to her. As she turned round, the driver tried to go a little further on, but he overturned the vehicle. Our bus stopped and the driver alighted – it was a woman – and she helped them roll this camper thing back onto its four wheels. Then, we drove into the town where we picked up some more people. It was school chucking-out time and the kids were all there in British school uniforms, hanging around on this corner by this petrol station. I thought that this was weird for Labrador. On the bus back, we were talking, and some people were saying “whatever would we have done before we had the current crop of social media?”. I asked “does anyone remember ‘MySpace’?”. Apparently, no-one did, and I felt terribly old at that point. Then someone mentioned that it might have been the first, so I asked “what about First Class that we had at the university? The only thing was that all of the computers had to be physically connected by a server. If they were all working off the same server, you would have a really impressive social network, which many of us did at the time”. Then it began to go dark and I began to feel tired. I was thinking to myself “how long is it going to be before we reach Québec? Should we have brought some food with us?. I thought that I’d go down to the front to talk to the driver to find out if there’s any chance of stopping somewhere, maybe at Labrador City, to go to buy some food, but I fell asleep at that point.

It’s impressive that I could recognise in a dream that some British school uniforms would be totally out of place in Labrador. Not so impressive, though, that I thought that Goose Bay was in the High Arctic, which of course it isn’t.

Does anyone else remember social networks like MySpace? Last time I checked, a couple of years ago, my Myspace account was still active after all these years. And “First Class” – that was the university’s social network. It was quite primitive but still, thirty years ago, what did you expect? And it was designed by one man and one man only, whom I actually met. You didn’t have to be physically connected to the university’s intranet to use it, but it was only accessible by logging in to the intranet, which you could do via an internet connection.

And those were the days, weren’t they? Internet at 9.6 kbps. But then again, in the 1980s I was running a taxi business on an Apple II computer, and all that had was 2 x 5.25-inch floppy discs. Look at my setup now!

The nurse turned up, still as cheerful as ever. We had a brief chat and then he cleared off, leaving me to make breakfast.

And I’m still reading about Roman military engineering, although what the book on “Congreve’s Rockets” that I was reading had to do with Roman military engineering I really don’t know. It shows just how easily I can be sidetracked.

After breakfast, the chiropodist arrived. She took one look at my feet and sighed with despair. But in the half-hour that she was here, she did a really good job on my feet and toenails, and I was so impressed. Almost as impressed as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin.

Back in here, I began to choose the music for the next radio programme, and by the time that I’d knocked off for a disgusting drink break, all of the music had been chosen, edited, remixed, paired and segued.

After my drink, I was sitting here slowly sinking into a semi-daze when the door burst open and in came my faithful cleaner. Any chance of a rest evaporated at that moment and when she’d done her stuff, I was ushered into the bathroom ad stuck under the shower. So now, I’m a nice, clean boy again … "well, clean anyway" – ed …

While I was in the shower, my cleaner was changing my bedding, putting my new sheet, quilt cover and pillowcases on – my Christmas presents to myself. And the setup is beautiful. It’s a very dark blue with planets, stars and asteroids all over it. I saw it in an online store and had a coup de coeur. I’m glad that I did. It goes really nicely with the dark blue of my bedroom curtains.

After she had left, I began to write the notes for the music that I’d just sorted out. I also had a chat with Liz too but she disappeared before I’d had a chance to tell her that Santa had paid me another visit last night or early this morning.

Tea tonight was the last of those strange curry-filled burgers with rice and veg followed by Christmas pudding and … CUSTARD! As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. I don’t have many friends but those whom I do have are the best friends in the World. No-one could wish for better

What I wish for now, though, is my bed. I’ve managed to fight my way through to the end without falling asleep, and seeing that I’ve been awake since 03:50, that’s something of a miracle. And a nice clean me in a nice clean bed is something to anticipate, that’s for sure. Who knows where we’ll be tomorrow?

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about asteroids … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once told me that Asterix the Gaul went into the European Space Centre.
"And what did he come out with?" I asked
"He came out with some asteroids" he replied. "And then a polar bear went into the optician’s"
"And what did he come out with?" I asked
"He came out with some polaroids" he replied. "And then hurdler David Hemery went into the waste room at the local hospital’s surgical centre"
"And what did he come out with?" I asked
"I don’t know" he replied. "He didn’t say."

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Tuesday 23rd December 2025 – GUESS WHO …

… has been a very busy boy today?

It’s been non-stop from start to finish here today and I’m thoroughly exhausted after all of it. And the worst of it all is that it all started at about … errr … 04:30 this morning too.

Last night was busy too. Apart from falling asleep several times while I was trying to write out my notes, there were the usual man-made distractions and everything else. What should have been an early night ended up at 23:15. Still, it’s earlier than some have been just recently.

Once in bed, I was asleep quite quickly, but not for long. Mind you, 04:30 is later than some have been just recently too.

Round about 05:30, I gave up any further hope of going back to sleep and heaved myself out of my stinking pit. And taking advantage of the early start, I dictated the notes for the joining track for the radio programme that I’d been preparing, edited them and then assembled the programme.

This one was just about eleven seconds over the hour, but editing that out is no real problem.

Just as I was finishing, the 06:29 alarm went off so I scurried off into the bathroom to organise myself and then into the kitchen for my medication and hot ginger, honey and lemon drink.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. I was out at my niece’s and my father was there. A couple of years ago, my brother had been to visit but no-one had seen hide nor hair of him since then. My father and everyone else were talking about going off on holiday – they’d arranged a camping holiday for two weeks, leaving the following morning. I had to go down to Sartilly to pick up their tent ready for an early start. Just at that moment, the door burst open and my brother walked in and said “hello” to everyone. Of course, everyone was pleased to see him but the timing was all totally wrong. Everyone would be off on holiday that following morning. He’d come all this way and no-one was going to stay with him. He said that it didn’t matter anyway. He couldn’t stop because the alternator on his car was giving up. My niece’s husband turned to me and said “while you’re out at the shop picking up the tent, pick up a voltage regulator 1071. That’s the one for his alternator”. I walked out and left them to it and set off for Sartilly. For some reason, I was in a coach, and when I reached Sartilly I found myself going to reverse all the way through the town centre. It wasn’t the real town centre at Sartilly but somewhere else. I was trying to reverse this coach and making a real dog’s breakfast of it. A few people on board were talking about another coach driver, a woman who owned her own business so I immediately thought of Dolly Barratt. I was busy trying to sort out this coach, reversing through this town centre in all this kind of chaos, but eventually I arrived at the shop, which was something like Boots in Crewe. I went in and found the counter. There was a guy serving behind it, and he had a port wine birthmark on his face. Where it was was not in the car part or the camping part, but his post was surrounded all by seeds of flowers and vegetables

The chances of us all being together and pleased to see each other are … errr … somewhat remote, especially as spread out as we are. As for my father, someone would have to drag him up from shovelling the coals in the depths of Hades and that would be rather a complicated task for someone.

What else impressed me was how much of that dream was actually based on real events, people and situations too.

Another thing is that, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, we had another dream, only a few days ago, where I was with my brother and trying to reverse a coach through another city centre. There’s obviously some kind of significance here.

Isabelle the Nurse beamed herself into the apartment at that point. I asked her how her week’s break had been, and she told me that she’d spent the week ill in bed. Now that’s what I call sad. However, she was still smiling, so I definitely want a mug of whatever she drinks before she comes out.

After she left, I went and made breakfast and then started my new book – A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE.

This is the report, all seven hundred and more pages of it, of the archaeological excavations of the Roman fort of Trimontium near Newstead in the Scottish Borders by James Curle at the start of the twentieth century. The book has 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."

It was an outlier fort, built beyond Hadrian’s Wall and after the Antonine Wall across the Forth-Clyde gap was abandoned, it was heavily fortified, presumably because then it was deep into enemy territory. It was finally abandoned, presumably as untenable, round about 184 AD.

After breakfast, I began the hard work. The first task was to make my vegan Wellington for Christmas and New Year. It’s a roll of flaky pastry filled with a stuffing made of chestnuts, mushrooms and sweet potato. I made one a couple of years ago and it was delicious, so I hope that this one is as good. It took several hours and a lot of hard work to make.

After I’d finished and it was all nicely baked, I was about to move on to the next task, but my faithful cleaner appeared and chased me into the shower. Not that I felt much like it but there was no possibility of argument. At least I’m nice and clean now … "well, clean anyway" – ed …

She had remembered to buy the tomato passata so after she had left, I could make the sauce for the baked beans. I have a feeling that it’s not going to be much of a success, because the recipe seems to need much less soy sauce than the instructions said. But you can’t win a coconut every time. At the moment, it’s all sitting simmering in the slow cooker where it will simmer away all through the night.

Finally, there were the hash browns to make. And after a very hit-and-miss start, I finally got to grips with it and understood what I was supposed to be doing. And these seem to have turned out to be a roaring success by the looks of things, much better than any attempt that I have made in the past. They even held together when I turned them over in the oven.

On top of all of this, the postie arrived with two packages. There still seems to be one missing, but now I have my new quilt cover, veggie knives and giant-sized sieves. My previous giant sieve is destined to go to that great kitchen in the sky because the paint has come off and when I drain my carrots for freezing, it’s leaving rust stains on some of them. These new ones are stainless steel.

All of that had completely worn me out and when I finally came back in here, I sat in the chair and crashed out for an hour. I was totally exhausted.

For tea, when I eventually made it into the kitchen, I made pasta and veg in tomato sauce with a vegan burger, followed by fruitcake and vegan sorbet.

Back in here, late as usual, I ended up having a good, long chat with Liz and so I’m running horribly late yet again. But I don’t mind. I’d rather talk to friends than do anything else so I’m not complaining. It’s nice that my friends still think about me.

But right now, I’m off to bed. Tomorrow , I have a radio programme that I want to do from start to finish if I can. there are also several other tasks too but I’ll worry about those in due course.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my dreams … "well, one of us has" – ed … something in that dream reminded me of something many years ago.
Back in Crewe in the olden days, we had a man who was one sandwich short of a packed lunch (Crewe is full of those) and who thought that he was a suicide bomber. He’d creep up unawares on people and shout " BOOM" down their ears quite loudly
When I went back to Crewe once, after I’d left to live in Brussels, I didn’t see him so I asked one of my friends "whatever happened to the man who thought that he was a suicide bomber?"
"Oh, him!" she replied. "He’s gone off on holiday."

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Sunday 21st December 2025 – AND IF YOU THOUGHT …

… that starting work at 11:00 on a Sunday morning was some good going, how about starting at 12:00 today, then?

Not that it felt like it was going to be anything like that. As usual, thanks to drifting off to sleep on a couple of occasions while I was typing out my notes, it was another night where I failed miserably to beat my 22:30 deadline. In fact, it was so long ago that I was in bed before 23:30 that I can’t even remember when it was.

Anyway, when I had finally finished, it was more like 23:30 and I was really glad to be tucked up in my little cot. However, as seems to be the case these days, it wasn’t for long. It was 03:44 in fact when I opened my eyes, although a few coughing fits earlier had awoken me for a brief moment here and there.

Try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep at that point. I lay there tossing and turning and watching the time on the ‘phone advance round to about 05:00. I began to think “give it half an hour and I’ll get up and do some work, like dictate the outstanding radio notes”.

The next thing that I remember was the nurse shaking me awake. Apparently I’d gone back to sleep again at some point. He sorted out my legs but wasn’t very happy about doing it while I was in bed. Mind you, neither was I. I’d have much rather been up and about and working rather than lying in my stinking pit, but there you go.

After he left, I reckoned that I’d give it a few more minutes and raise myself from the Dead, but it was somewhat more than a few more minutes. Actually, it was about 10:15 when I next awoke, and at that point I decided that I’d better shoot into action, otherwise I’ll be in here all day.

It was a quick nip into the bathroom and then a slow stroll into the living room to check the washing and to make breakfast. More porridge and coffee with two of the strange croissants that I made last Sunday. How could I possibly have rolled them inside out?

There was no rush at all this morning, and so it was midday when I was finally back in here. The first thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was still on the taxis last night, and so was Nerina. There was something happening about a coat of hers that had had a bowl of porridge fall on it so she was thinking of throwing it away. However, her mother, even though she didn’t really know what was wrong with it, said that she’d have a close look at it and see what she could do. That’s all that I remember of this.

There’s definitely something of an obsession with taxis right now, and I’ve no idea why. Those days are long behind me and they can stay behind me for all that I care. By the way, Nerina’s mother was a tailoress and she could work miracles with a piece of cloth.

Later on, I was in Crewe doing my shopping last night. I’d been to Woolworth’s to buy a few things. I’d sorted out what I’d needed and the shop assistant came along and tipped them into my bag and I paid for everything. I was then supposed to go to Marks and Spencers, but when I looked, I didn’t have very much time and had to go to the railway station. I picked up my bag, threw it over my shoulder and set out to walk. I found myself a couple of minutes later on a motorway interchange, the one up near Northwich. I had to walk all the way down the motorway to come off at Sandbach and then walk across to Crewe and had about fifteen or twenty minutes to do it so I thought that I should have to hurry. I set off down the slip road and there was a policeman there with his dog. The dog barked, which frightened the policeman. I walked past them and was looking at the traffic on the motorway bridge a little further down the hill. They were driving along normally on this bridge when suddenly, they leapt into the air and landed again as if they had hit a large object on the road. I was wondering what was happening there, but I thought that I didn’t have the time to stop and look because I had my train very shortly.

Those were the days when Woollies was next to Marks and Sparks. Woollies has long since closed down and Marks and Sparks has moved onto the new retail park where we used to go speedwaying and banger racing all those years ago. What a sad state of affairs that was when they demolished the old railway sports ground thirty or so years ago.

However, imagine walking down the motorway from Northwich to Sandbach, especially in about ten minutes.

There were also a few things going round in my head when I awoke that I didn’t dictate. Two things that I remember, so I don’t know if they were dreams or not, were firstly, there was some famous TV presenter sitting at a table with us who suddenly started to spout off a vicious anti-Welsh rant, to such an extent that I became violently angry. The second was being in a pub with friends of mine when suddenly one of them put on the table a very large and very dangerous-looking knife in a sheath. I remember saying that I’d told him on several occasions not to bring it out with him and that he was risking seven years in prison carrying it about with him.

Next, we had a footfest. Stranraer v Dumbarton. And while the unbeaten run goes on, it was a very poor, lacklustre performance that saw them creep to a very unsatisfactory 1-1 draw against Dumbarton. But with a squad containing five strikers, every one of whom is out injured right now, it’s hardly surprising that they didn’t manage to launch any kind of attack at all.

After that, I had the misfortune of coming across the St Johnstone-Greenock Morton game. And it was embarrassing to watch Morton slither to a miserable 5-0 defeat. Their squad just isn’t up to Championship-level football and I’ve noticed in a couple of previous games that several of their players look less than interested in what’s happening out there on the field.

For some reason, it was as quiet as the grave out there right now, so I decided to dictate the radio notes before the endless streams of tourists go strolling past.

When I’d finished, I edited the notes for the joining track for one of the radio programmes. That programme is now assembled and ready to go. It was actually thirteen seconds over the hour, but a judicious piece of editing enabled it to fit the timescale exactly.

Next task was to edit the other notes, which are the major part of the following programme. I didn’t get very far into those before it was time to knock off and go a-baking. Homemade bread and homemade pizza were on the list for today, so I made a couple of piles of dough.

While it was all festering, I came in here and did a few more bits and pieces of my Welsh homework. And this is a really difficult exercise because it’s revising a lesson that we learnt when I was absent in chemotherapy a few weeks ago.

So back in the kitchen, the bread and pizza were all made, and the pizza, such as I ate, was delicious. But once more, there’s half of it left that I shall finish off for tea tomorrow. All that remains to cook for Christmas now is the vegan Wellington, for which Liz sent me a recipe a couple of years ago, and the hash browns.

As well as that, I might try a little experiment. I’ve received a recipe for homemade baked beans and, struggling to find any good ones here, I might give it a try and see how they work out.

But that’s for Tuesday. Tonight, I’m off to bed, probably to dream about more taxis and wake up at some silly time in the morning.

But seeing as we have been talking about cleaning clothes and porridge … "well, one of us has" – ed … after a late working session in the White House, Monica Lewinsky went into the local dry cleaner’s to pick up a dress she had left behind for cleaning.
As the cashier handed her the dress, she said "Thank you Miss Lewinsky. Come again!"
"No" replied Monica. "Porridge this time."

0

Saturday 20th December 2025 – I HAD A …

… lie-in this morning.

At least, by current standards, that is. I didn’t wake up until all of 04:22 today, and isn’t that a change?

It was probably because I was even more tired than usual last night. Although after tea I was feeling rather perky, it didn’t last long and I was hit with an overwhelming wave of fatigue and ended up falling asleep I don’t know how many times while trying to type my notes.

As a result, it was another one of those evenings that should have been an early night but wasn’t – not by any means. It was a good 23:30 when I finally crawled into bed, and how grateful was I? Not as grateful as I would have liked because it took a while to go off to sleep.

Anyway, as I said just now, I awoke at about 04:22 and reckoned that I would give it half an hour and then raise myself from the Dead, but the next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 06:29.

Eventually, I managed to heave myself out of bed and into the bathroom to sort myself out. While I was in there, I filled the washing machine and set it off on its rounds. And there are STILL some clothes that wouldn’t fit in.

In the kitchen, I made my hot ginger, honey and lemon drink and took my medication, and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. I was back on the taxis again last night. I was driving a hackney carriage and was taking some passengers towards the hospital. We were fairly busy at that point, but a couple of jobs had become confused, and the dispatcher was trying to sort them all out. In the meantime, when I made it to the hospital to drop off these two people, two other people came running out from under the porchway and asked me if I was free. I told them that I was, because these other jobs would sort themselves out. These people climbed in and asked to go to the “Lion and Swan”. Suddenly, I had a mental blank and couldn’t think of where the “Lion and Swan” was. Then I realised that it was along West Street somewhere so I headed off down that way and came to one of these complicated road junctions where I had to turn left and then right. Once I’d sorted myself out there, I turned right whereas I should have turned left. The guy suddenly thought “no, it’s the wrong name of the pub”. It turned out that when he told me the name, we were going in the right direction. When we arrived at where he wanted to go, he and his partner stepped out. I went inside with them and was making some cheese and tomato sandwiches for them.

This is becoming ridiculous, isn’t it? Why am I dreaming all the time about driving taxis? We have had some recurring dreams in the past, plenty of them, but none have recurred as regularly as this. As to having a mental block, that’s the kind of thing that happens all the time. There’s nothing new here. However, it’s very unlikely that I would be making sandwiches for my passengers.

The nurse turned up, his usual cheerful self. I reminded him that I’m having a lie-in and not to forget the coffee. I would write out his reply, but these are, after all, family pages.

Once he’d gone, I made breakfast and then read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

He’s still wandering aimlessly around the roads of mid-Wales, not really being able to identify where he is or where some of his camps might be. That’s actually no surprise because, for one or two of the places that he mentioned, I can’t find anything either – not even a mention of their existence. While I was researching, I came across a decent modern map of Roman roads and camps in South and Mid Wales, but it’s embedded and difficult to extract.

After I’d finished, I went to collect the washing and hang it up on the clothes airer that my faithful cleaner had put out for me yesterday when she was here. And then, I had work to do.

And by the time I’d finished, so were my mince pies. Six nice, baked and golden brown ones: two for Christmas Day, two for Boxing Day and two for New Year’s Day. They don’t look very nice, it has to be said, because I baked them in a silicone pie mould, and it’s not as reliable as a metal one, but they still smell like mince pies.

However, I actually cheated because the pastry is a roll of flaky pastry rather than homemade. I did once ask Liz how to make flaky pastry but it sounded so complicated that I decided against it.

There was plenty of pastry left over too, so for the first time in I don’t know how long, I made a jam roly-poly.

Back in here, I was exhausted. I sat down in my comfortable chair and did nothing for about ninety minutes while I gathered my wits. And seeing how few wits I have these days, I’m surprised that it took me that long.

Once I’d recovered and had a disgusting drink break, I attacked the next radio programme. I’ve chosen all of the music for it, remixed and edited it, paired and segued it. And then in another wild fit of enthusiasm, I chose all of the music for the following one too. So now I have four radio programmes on the go as I try to build up another good head of steam following all of the disturbances this summer.

Actually, I could have made much more progress than I did. At 16:00, I had another one of these overwhelming waves of fatigue and crashed out for about half an hour or so.

Tea tonight was baked potato, vegan salad and one of those quorn fillets that I like, followed by a slice of jam roly-poly with, for a change, vegan mango sorbet. One of these days, I’m going to push the boat out and try to make some vegan ice cream. I have some almond milk that needs using, so with some cream of coconut and some grated chocolate, it has the potential of being something special.

But not tonight because I’m off to bed. It might, if I’m lucky, be a lie-in in the morning but the way that things have been going just recently, it’s unlikely.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about recurring dreams … "well, one of us has" – ed … another recurring dream that I have is about football, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.
That used to bother me so much that when the trick cyclist came to see me at dialysis the other week, I told her about it.
"It’s pretty much the same dream every night" I said. "I dreamed that I was playing in the Welsh Cup. The first night, it was the First Preliminary Round, the second night, it was the Second Preliminary Round, the third night, the Third Preliminary Round, the fourth night, it was the first round proper all the way through to last night when it was the semi-finals. I’m totally exhausted after all this football."
"Not to worry" she replied. "I’ll prescribe a somnifer for you for tonight. You’ll sleep like a baby, and you’ll have no dreams at all."
"Oh, I can’t take it tonight! " I said
"Why not?"
"I might be playing in the Cup Final"

0

Friday 19th December 2025 – HERE WE GO …

… again!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

0

Tuesday 4th November 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… a lovely chat this afternoon.

It’s been ages since Liz and I have had a good natter over the internet, but this afternoon she came online and we had quite a discussion. It’s really nice to catch up with old friends.

Something else with which I shall have to catch up is my sleep, but that’s not going to be for a day or so, the way that things are panning out right now.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. it’s totally pointless going to bed early, because all it means is that I awaken correspondingly early the next morning. And so it was today.

Last night, after tea, I rushed through everything. My notes were on-line at 22:07 and it didn’t take long to finish off everything. By 22:40, I was tucked up under the quilt and already half-asleep. It didn’t take very long at all to go the rest of the way.

And there I lay, flat out and dead to the World until … errr … 03:15. I’ve no idea what awoke me, if anything actually did, but I couldn’t go back to sleep despite all of the trying.

By 05:15 I had given it up as a bad job and left the bed. Taking full advantage of the unexpected early start, I dictated the radio notes for the additional track on the radio programme that I’d been preparing.

Once I’d done that, I uploaded them to the computer, edited them and then completed the radio programme. It over-ran by nineteen seconds, which is better than under-running by nineteen seconds. I can edit out an over-run but there’s not much that you can do to an under-run except to slow the speed of the recording.

The editing took a while, but now it’s all up and running at exactly one hour in length, which is what it’s supposed to be.

The nurse turned up as usual today. His happy, cheerful self seems to be continuing, which is very pleasant. He’s much nicer than this.

To cheer him up, I told him that I’m going out at 07:30 tomorrow morning. He told me that he can’t make it by that time so I should have to sort myself out. That’s not too much of a problem, as it happens. I’m sure that I shall manage.

After he left, I made breakfast and then came back in here to find out where I’d been during the night. It was some guy’s party for a birthday, a wedding or something, so everyone had gone to town with him. When they were outside a pub, they were awarded a free kick, so one of their friends took the kick and hoisted it really high towards them. The commentator said something about “this is a typical gentleman’s wedding-type ball, this one”. Anyway, they all dispersed themselves, walking away. But before that, though, when the ball was played into the air, everyone ran forwards towards the ball except for two guys who stood waiting at the back. They were the ones who were able to get the ball and head it towards the goal, or towards the pub etc, and the commentator was saying something about it being a proper wedding ball. But these players who ran forward trying to get the ball, it was like a stampeding herd that you’d see in a couple of these other games. Anyway, later on, there was another free kick that needed to be taken, so the same player who took the previous one again kicked a high ball into the centre of the town where everyone was waiting outside the pub, trying to head it in.

Whatever that’s about, I’m sure that you can work it out for yourselves. I can understand the football part, but why they should be doing it in a town centre in the middle of a stag night is anyone’s guess.

Someone had made a cheese soup and they had brought it into the kitchen where we were all waiting. So I went into the cupboard and brought out a pile of bowls and began to hand them round to people who went up to be served with it. However, the woman in charge took a great deal of exception to the idea oof me handing out bowls. She told me quite simply that bowls were not allowed. I replied “I don’t know how else we’re going to eat this meal”. But she dispensed everything to everyone else in the bowls and just put the soup down. Then they all wandered off. As I wasn’t allowed a particular bowl, I picked up the big bowl that was already there and wandered off with that. I just sat in my car outside and ate it, or, at least, ate some of it. The next thing that I knew, I was surrounded by these two angry women who wanted to know what was happening with the soup. I explained that I couldn’t supply myself with a bowl from which to eat it, so I just ate it out of the main one. That made them even more angry. In the end, they took the soup. They wanted to know what had happened to the tickets that I must have taken from the people to whom I’d handed out the bowls. I replied “no-one gave me a ticket” so that made them even more angry. In the end, they searched through the car to see if they could find any tickets but all they found were two sets of ear-studs belonging to children, who must have been children who were at this meeting or whatever it was and had come there in the car. They were so angry, but I didn’t care at all because if I hadn’t been allowed to eat the soup out of a bowl that I’d supplied from my kitchen, then I was going to eat it out of the main bowl whether they liked it or not.

It’s not as if I have any interest whatever in cheese soup – it sounds disgusting to me – but this kind of situation where I’m excluded from something that I’ve organised on my own premises is nothing at all new to me.

One of the guys from the Welsh class was saying that he wasn’t here last week because he’d had to go to some small place on the Bristol Channel somewhere. There was a mutual Society there called something to do with the Bristol Concessions. They owned property and that kind of thing in their settlements, and everything was done on a very co-operative basis. It was very cheap to live there and one of the shares had come up for sale, so he went to see it to see if he could buy the share and move to the village. He was telling us all about this place and we all decided that we’d go with him to have another look around. He took us and showed us around the village. My eye immediately fell on someone’s workshop, which was full of motorbikes, many of which, I imagined, had never been used. He was saying that this was the guy to whom he’d been talking. There were even cars that that belonged to the Society that go back eighty years that are still active today, and there were many that they had bought that had never even had their engines fitted yet. This particular guy owns one of them. We carried on walking around the village and came to a field where there were about a dozen old cars, one of which was one of the vehicles that he mentioned. I swarmed in there and began to take photos. There was even a rare Audi van from the late fifties or early sixties. I was enthralled by this. For some reason, I couldn’t make my camera work to take photos on it. I was distracted by the city walls of this place. Having to take a photo, I found that to take a photo, I was far too faraway because I was used to having my big camera. I had to change my photography technique, and in doing so, I forgot to take half of the photos. I had to run back to where this Audi van was so that I could take the photographs of it that I wanted

This one is quite confusing too. For example, the car wasn’t an Audi (it would have been an Auto-Union or a DKW in those days anyway) but a Volvo PV544. I can still see it now, even though I can’t remember the dream. And how I wouldn’t mind finding one of those in a field.

A workshop full of old motorcycles would be my dream too. It’s been a while since I had my last proper motorbike – a Honda CX500 30-odd years ago.

However, this part about the camera not working at a crucial moment – that was a recurring dream at one time too.

After that, I … errr … crashed out for ten minutes, and then had a mad panic to revise my Welsh for the lesson.

However, I needn’t have bothered because there was a power cut in Yr Wyddgrug and the College was closed, so we had no tutor and the lesson was abandoned. Instead, I had a couple of hours of nice, personal relaxing time.

After the disgusting drink break at midday, I attacked the next radio programme and by the time that I had knocked off, I’d finished them and they are ready for typing when I next have an early start.

There were several interruptions today and all of them were very welcome.

Firstly, my cleaner came round to do her stuff and, once more, she ushered me into the shower. That was really nice. And now that the plumber is finished, I can call the joiner and have him install the handrails in the shower so that I can climb into and out of the shower without any assistance.

Secondly, as I said just now, Liz and I had a chat that went on for quite a while and was only finished because I had to go to make tea.

Tonight I had a taco roll with rice. The filling consisted of lentils, mushroom, garlic and tomato sauce, and it was delicious. Nevertheless, there was some left on my plate yet again tonight. Not to worry though, because chocolate cake and soya dessert filled the home that was left.

Now, I’m off to bed. It’s a 06:00 start tomorrow because I have dialysis in the morning. My hours are messed up so that I can have a free weekend with my niece, which is nice.

But seeing as we have been talking about my niece … "well, one of us has" – ed … a friend of mine from Crewe told me that his sister was going to have a baby.
"What’s she going to call it?" I asked.
"If it’s a girl, she’s going to call it Denise " he replied.
"And what if it’s a boy?" I asked.
"I don’t know for sure" he answered. "I think she’ll call it Denephew."

0

Sunday 7th September 2025 – WHAT A BUSY …

… afternoon I’ve had today.

It’s been one ‘phone call after another after another, all three of which lasted for hours, and for a very, very welcome change, they were all from people from whom I wanted to hear. It’s really been my lucky day.

Not so last night, though. It was another one of those nights where everything that I tried to do dragged on and on. I finished writing my notes unusually early but even so, "the best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley" as Robbie Burns once famously said, and all kinds of things came along to interrupt me before I finally fell into bed, much later than I had planned (as usual).

And as usual these days, it was a very mobile night. Although I was asleep quite quickly, I awoke soon after, round about 01:30, and then spent the rest of the night drifting in and out of some kind of weird semi-consciousness, without actually being awake but without actually being asleep either.

Round about 06:20, I have up the struggle and, even though it’s Sunday, a Day of Rest where I allow myself to have a lie-in until 07:59, I arose from the Dead.

At least, that’s one way of putting it. Hauling myself out from underneath the quilt is one thing. Standing up on my own two feet is quite another thing entirely.

Once I’d finally made it into the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, and then went into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here later, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And it sounded as if I’d gone miles. All the way to Avranches by the sound of things. I was back at dialysis last night. Again, it was a pretty bad session and I noticed that I was nothing like as autonomous as I am now. I had to have all kinds of help for this, all kinds of help for that, and that really disappointed me. However, one of the aides infirmières there was in something of a panic so I asked her what was happening. She replied that for some reason she had been the only aide infirmière who had been rostered that afternoon when there were usually five or six so she was expecting to be run around like nobody’s business and wasn’t really going to have the time to do all that she was supposed to do during her working hours.

Losing my autonomy is my major fear right now. At the moment, I can still move about, cook, wash and so on. But one of these days, I won’t be able to and that will be the end. As for the aides infirmières, they are all very nice but there are a couple of them whom I find very sweet and who seem always to be the ones doing the running around.

Later on, we were going somewhere again, a great big group of us, and we had several old cars, Cortina MkIIIs, that kind of thing. We were slowly packing them with what we needed and making a list of things that we didn’t have that we ought to buy before we went. Then, into the place where we were loading the cars came my father with a wheelbarrow. In it was all the frozen food out of the freezer. He’d obviously had it out there for so long that it had all melted. I went berserk at this and called him all the names under the sun for being so stupid as to take the stuff out of the freezer but he didn’t seem to be bothered but I was really annoyed about this. We had to take it all out of one of the cars again, take it away and put it back into an empty freezer for now for a place to keep it until we come back and sort it through. We had to load up the car with things like an old car carpet and one or two other bits and pieces. One of the women with me was again really angry by something. It turns out that because of some way that we’d packed the cars and some way that we’d organised the passengers in each vehicle, it was now up to her to take out insurance for everyone as some kind of group leader rather than the cars themselves having their own individual insurances as usual.

This is another one of these weird dreams that would appear to have no significance. Of course, I made my money with MkIII Cortinas, running a whole fleet of them and their MkIV younger sisters on the taxis for a number of years. There are still a couple of MkIIIs, and also the newer MkVs, down in the Auvergne that will be worth a fortune to whoever has to clear out my farm and warehouse when I am no longer here.

One thing though is that I couldn’t ever imagine bawling out my father in real life. He certainly wasn’t stupid, not by any means.

Isabelle the Nurse blew in again, giving me another dire warning about accepting the “dialysis at home”. She really thinks that I ought to formally inform them that I’m declining the offer before I’m railroaded into accepting it. And she’s probably right too.

Once she had left, I made breakfast and began to read a new book. I started off by reading one of Nietzsche’s books. However, after about half a dozen pages, I found that it was like trying to wade through spaghetti so reluctantly, I abandoned it.

Instead, I turned my attention to ADVENTURES ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER.

In the late Eighteenth and early 19th Century, the fur trade of British North America was being effectively shared out between the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North-West Fur Company of Canada.

The American Jacob Astor wanted to break into the trade so he had to start off from a point that none of the other two had yet reached, so he sent a party overland to the mouth of the Columbia River in what is today the North-West USA but in those days was still part of British North America, and also a party by sea to navigate through the Straits of Magellan and up the Pacific coast.

This book is the story of the seaborne party, its voyage and its arrival and establishment ashore.

It’s a fascinating book, for a variety of reasons. For instance, when sailing past the Falkland Islands, the author notes "Although the Falkland Islands occupy in the Southern Hemisphere a similar degree of latitude to that of Ireland in the northern, still they possess none of the characteristic fertility of the Emerald Isle. Of grass, properly so called, there is none in those islands. In vegetable and animal productions they are also deficient ; and the climate, generally speaking, is cold, variable, and stormy : yet for such a place the British Empire was on the point of being involved in a war, the preparations for which cost the nation some millions !"

That’s what I call a “prescient” remark.

But to show that nothing has really changed since the voyage in 1811, in the Sandwich Islands, "Several quarrels occurred among the men, which were settled à l’Anglaise by the fist.". That’s a tradition kept up by the English even today, and it goes to show that it has long, deep roots.

He also mentions "stupendous enterprise lately set on foot of forming a junction between the Pacific and Atlantic by cutting a canal through the Isthmus of Darien.". How about that for predicting the future? This book was published in 1831.

What’s interesting about this comment is that he goes on to say "It is probable they will ultimately become tributary to Great Britain, Russia, or America; and in the event of war between any of these nations the power in possession of the islands, from their commanding position, will be able during the continuation of hostilities not only to control the commerce of the Pacific, but also neutralise in a great degree the advantages likely to be derived from the Grand Junction Canal.".

That was exactly the motivation for the Americans building their great naval base at Pearl Harbour in the Sandwich Islands, and the motivation for the Japanese to attack it.

Incidentally, see if you can guess the modern names for these places that our author records in the Sandwich Islands –
Whytetee
Whoahoo
Owhyee
Honaroora

After breakfast I did some more tidying up and then I had a task to perform. The water heater timer is all over the place and so I’ve been switching it on and off manually … "PERSONually" – ed … but the last two nights, I’ve forgotten, so I had to reprogramme it correctly.

That took quite a bit of studying and then quite a bit of trial and error but now I think that it’s working correctly – at least, I hope it is.

After a disgusting drink break, I came in here to begin to work on a radio programme at long last, but I hadn’t gone far when someone called me up on the computer. An unknown number, so I answered it and it was a former girlfriend of mine from my school days. At long last, she’s downloaded an internet chat service provider.

She’s talked in the past about coming up to see me sometime, and it looks as if it might be coming to fruition. She’s talking about some time the end of September, so we had a good chat about it.

After she had hung up, I had my next ‘phone call. And it was Liz, calling me for a chat. And how nice it was to hear her voice after all this time. We had so much to say to each other that the chat went on for almost the whole afternoon and, using the video attachment, I gave her a guided tour of the apartment.

But how nice it was to chat to Liz again.

Afterwards, no sooner had I put down the ‘phone than Rosemary rang. She’s just arrived in Italy to see her God-daughter who has recently had a baby, and so she told me about her drive down. As usual in a chat between Rosemary and me, a simple chat like that can last for … gulp … one hour and twenty-one minutes.

It’s hardly surprising that after all that and my bad night, I crashed out for half an hour later.

Tea was a delicious pizza, made in my wonderful new oven, and now, later, much later than I would like, I’m going to bed.

But seeing as we have been talking about telling the future … "well, one of us has" – ed … two men met in the street.
The second man replied "yes I can"
And the first one asked him "can you foretell the future?"

0

Wednesday 30th July 2025 – AT LONG LAST …

new bedroom place d'armes granville manche normandy france… after several days of prevarication, I’ve finally come around to putting a photo of the bedroom online. The blue is rather bright, I agree, but there’s a huge difference between what I saw on a computer screen when I chose the colour and what the colour turned out to be in real life.

It’s complicated when I can’t go out myself to choose anything and have to rely on other people and the internet, but in those circumstances, we have to take what we can obtain. I’m sure that STRAWBERRY MOOSE and I, and the eventual cat of course, shall be very happy in there.

And in answer to the obvious questions that are bound to follow, yes I do have a sea view. If I go to the window and look to the right, I can see over the wall and over the clifftop to the sea. When the weather is really good, I can even see Jersey, even if it is 50 or so kilometres away.

You can also see the lovely granite walls that we have in this building, one metre twenty centimetres thick of granite – the legendary Grès de Chausey, built in 1668. Grès de Chausey was also used to build Mont St Michel down the bay from here.

With walls like this, I can play music as loud as I like and no-one can hear me.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … this building is part of the Patrimoine de France – the equivalent of a listed building in the UK. In theory, we can’t even knock a nail into the wall without asking permission.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, I’ve had a horrible day. Just like the Wednesday a week after the last chemotherapy, I’ve had a major relapse.

There were all the signs of that last night. Once more, I had a major wave of tiredness wash over me as I was writing my notes, and it was all that I could do to keep awake to finish the evening’s work.

Nevertheless, it was quite late by the time that I finally crawled into bed, relieved that I was to be there, and it didn’t take very long at all to go off to sleep.

What I didn’t anticipate though, although I should have done so, was that I would be awake at 03:20. Not just awake either, but totally unable to go back to sleep despite my best efforts.

In the end, a few minutes after 05:00, I finally gave up the struggle and crawled out of bed into the bathroom for a wash, followed by a trip into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, and in view of the short night that it was, I was surprised to find something on it. I was back in medieval times. A few of us were associated with some kind of trade or brotherhood and were busy organising things for some kind of event. At that moment, the archbishop came in and he asked the person in charge of our party what we were doing. He replied that he was preparing things ready for the start of the hunt. The minister was outraged “having a hunt on a festival day? Don’t tell me that you are hunting on a festival day”. The boss had to deny it with some kind of stammer and embarrassment. Then we could continue our own preparations for celebrating this day by having sport and some kind of athletics competition followed by of course the dialysis for the day.

It’s no surprise that we have gone back into medieval times with the amount of medieval information that I’ve been reading just recently, especially with regard to the jousting tournaments. And involving dialysis too – there’s no surprise about that either. Just wait until I begin to dream about chemotherapy.

There were a few things to do this morning, such as finishing off sending the radio programmes for the month of August. And then Isabelle the nurse turned up. She gave me the injection, sorted out my legs, and then disappeared into the blue yonder.

However, I have heard on the grapevine that there’s some kind of issue regarding this nursing practice. I shall have to keep my ears open for more news.

Once she’d gone, I could make my breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. Not that I managed to go very far as the kitchen fitter turned up. However, he had all of the keys and everything that he needed, so he simply stayed downstairs and attacked the remaining work.

There were a few things of interest in the book that are worthy of note. Our author tells us that there "was sometime a large and most sumptuous house built by Charles Brandon, late Duke of Suffolk" that went through several ownership changes and eventually a merchant "pulled it down, sold the lead, stone, iron etc and in place thereof built many small cottages of great rents, to the increasing of beggars in that borough."

That was a fate that befell many large houses in urban areas in the 1960s and 1970s, with the same consequences.

One question that has also been answered today was "why are the effigies of some medieval knights shown on their tombs with their legs crossed?". Stow tells us that of the eleven tombs that he has noticed in the Temple Church in London, "eight of them are images of armed knights, five lying cross-legged as men vowed to the Holy Land, against the infidel and the unbelieving Jews."

So in other words, a cross-legged statue or effigy lying on a tomb is of a medieval knight who has taken the Oath of the Crusade

Something else that I’ve learned are the rules of running a brothel or “stew house”, which I’m sure will come in useful one of these days. Stow tells us, inter alia that "no stew-holder is to receive a woman of religion or another man’s wife.".

Even more interestingly, "no single woman to take money to lie with any man, but that she lie with him all night until the morrow."

Running a brothel back in those days was apparently a respectable business. "William Walworth, then mayor of London" was the keeper of one such place, so Stow tells us.

Not so respectable, apparently, for the women who worked there. Stow says that "these single women were forbidden the rites of the Church so long as they continued that sinful life and were excluded from Christian burial if they were not reconciled before their death, and therefore there was a plot of ground called ‘The Single Woman’s Churchyard’ appointed for them far from the parish church."

There’s no doubt whatever that I’m learning a lot by reading this book, which is just as well because that’s why I’m reading it (and all the others like it).

After breakfast, I was going to make a start sorting out more things to take downstairs but there really wasn’t much point with the kitchen fitter being there, so instead I came back in here to prepare for my Welsh discussion group.

There were only three of us there today and it was awful. I couldn’t remember anything, not even the basics. I seem to have gone completely to pot. Mind you, I put it down to the ill-health that was starting to overwhelm me because by now, I could feel myself sliding down into the hole.

After the meeting, it was time for my disgusting drink break and, girding up my loins, I had another one of these extremely disgusting pea and mint ones. And if anything, it tasted worse today than last time. Just two more of those to take and I won’t be ordering any more of this variety.

Next to arrive was my cleaner, who came to do her stuff. And that included supervising me having a shower. By now though, I really was feeling terrible and I had never felt less like doing anything in my whole life. However, I forced myself and I suppose that I was glad that I had. But I was ruined afterwards.

Back in here, once my cleaner had changed the plasters on my arm, I crashed out. That was no surprise either.

One of these high energy drinks brought me round half an hour later which was just as well because Rosemary rang up for a chat. Just a short one today – a mere sixty-five minutes.

There was time afterwards to write the notes for the next radio programme and then I went to make tea.

There was a large curry in the freezer so I defrosted it and ate half of it with some rice and veg. The other half will do for tomorrow. My imagination has run aground.

The kitchen fitter came up to give me his final account and I paid him. His bill might sound expensive but it includes all of the stuff for the shower and also, he’s done a great deal of work that was never included in his original quote. Not only that, I’m well-pleased with what he has done.

There are one or two small jobs that he hasn’t done, and something that needs some repositioning, but I can sort that out.

The situation is that the plumber will be here on Monday to fit the shower, and we’ll see how far he intends to go with the finishing of the bathroom. Whatever he leaves unfinished, I’ll contact the kitchen fitter who says that he’ll find some time to finish everything off.

Right now though, I’m even more impressed with my little apartment than I was with my galvanised steel dustbin.

Right now though, I’m off to bed ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed … I hope that they have changed the mattress on my bed otherwise there will be a row.

But seeing as we have been talking about the Patrimoine de France … "well, one of us has" – ed … Liz once told me that she thought that it was quite appropriate that I lived in a historic building.
"why is that?" I asked, bitterly regretting ten seconds later having done so
"Well" she replied "You’re something of an ancient ruin yourself."

0

Sunday 27th July 2025 – SO THERE I WAS …

… last night, talking about having an early night and hoping to have a lie in until the later time of 07:59 when the Sunday alarm goes off.

There’s nothing like a bit of optimism, is there?

Firstly, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall and probably expect, the early night didn’t happen. I’m not sure what went on, but I found myself at 23:00 still sitting at my desk working. However, I didn’t stay there for long. An early night I was determined to have and although it was not as early as I would have liked, I downed tools and cleared off.

Just as the last couple of days, I fell asleep quite quickly, thinking of having a really good sleep of eight hours at least.

Consequently, no-one was more disappointed than me to find that when I awoke, it was all of 04:10. I could well have done without that.

Refusing to give in, I curled up and did my best to go back to sleep again. And it worked too, at least for a while. 06:05 was still far too early to be awake again, and this time I couldn’t go back to sleep. When the water heater switched off at 06:20, I was already having a ride on the porcelain horse.

After a good wash, I went into the kitchen for the medication and then came back in here to find out where I’d been during the night. I dreamed that I was parachuting last night, taking some kind of course of something or other that wasn’t parachuting but parachuting was included in it. We went up in an aeroplane to quite a height and I leaped out. Eventually, I managed to touch down onto the ground, far quicker than I was intending to land, but it was a quite accurate landing and I was impressed. Someone came over and asked me how it was. I replied “to be quite honest, I was freezing. The wind was cutting through my jeans and I ought to have worn some kind of windproof trouser underneath to stop that”. Then I was thinking about going to do it again, working out that if maybe I were to pull on this guy rope here and that guy rope there, I’d be able to direct the parachute and land much more appropriately, much closer to the target and be able to steer the parachute and land pretty much where I liked.

There is absolutely no danger whatever of me ever leaping from a ‘plane wearing a parachute. And I certainly wouldn’t do it a second time. I’ll take all of my chances on solid ground, thanks. But it would be just like me, when I’m falling headlong towards the ground, to be thinking of a way to improve the system or its accuracy.

Later on, I’d been associated with a football club somewhere and our team had been promoted from the bottom division to the third at long last. The manager of one of the other teams in the club came over. He was surprised. He asked if it were true that we had been promoted. I replied that it was. He answered “God! Because I’m short of players for Sunday”. It was for a game in St Niklaas in Vlaanderen against The Old Irish. We had a chat and it turned out that one of my friends was playing in it, so I replied “go on then. You can put me down as a substitute if you like” although I really wasn’t interested in playing all that competitively. So off we went on the Sunday to the field to have a look around. There were plenty of people swarming around, including one woman who had a dog and a cat, each on a lead and was taking them for a walk. I had a chat with the woman and the cat. Her husband usually took the cat for a walk but he was away for a few days so she was doing it. The cat usually went in a certain direction but there was something going on there and she didn’t want to take it this time. The more I looked around, the more I saw that there was going to be an auto-cross in the middle of this field after the football match so I thought that this was going to be a really nice day to have out as long as I don’t actually go onto the football field.

Back in the Auvergne, I was associated with a football team – the 3rd XI of FC Pionsat St Hilaire, who were one of the worst teams in the local pyramid in the Puy de Dôme and always finished near the bottom of the lowest division. And I do have to hold up my hand and admit that my involvement was completely by default – none of the other committee members wanted to run the team and I happened to admire the players for continuing to turn out week after week so I took on the task.

However, there is plenty of mileage in this dream apart from that. Leaving aside the fact that this seemed to take place in Vlaanderen, although I might not be interested in playing, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that there have in the past been rafts of dreams where I’ve turned out for a local football club and some of those dreams are far too real for my liking.

As it happened, I did have a friend who played for the club, and I also know a man who really does take his cat for a walk in the evening.

When the nurse turned up, the first thing that he wanted was my health card. He’s off on holiday on Monday night so he needs to bring his accounts up-to-date. Once he’d sorted out his paperwork, he attended to my legs and then cleared off to continue his rounds.

After he left, I began to make my breakfast but I didn’t get very far because the kitchen fitter came and I had to throw him the key to the front door seeing as the electric door lock on the front door doesn’t seem to work.

When he turned up here, I gave him my instructions and he wandered off downstairs to begin. I could go back to making my breakfast, only to find that my toast had burned.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of MY BOOK.

We started off in the quaintly-named Bladder Street, wherein he makes mention of several local "tippling houses." I shall have to remember that little phrase the next time that I want to make reference to the local boozer.

He also tells us about Allhallows Church in Bread Street where "two priests of this church fell at variance, that the one drew the blood of the other …. the priests were committed to prison … and being enjoined penance, went before a general procession bare-headed, bare-footed and bare-legged, before the children, with beads and books in their hands, from Paules, through Cheape, Cornehill etc."

It’s a real shame that modern-day clerical transgressors aren’t subjected to the same humiliation.

After breakfast, I sorted out more things and put them into boxes ready for my faithful cleaner to take downstairs whenever she’s next passing.

Back in here again, there was football and I watched with no little amount of amusement as Stranraer, near the bottom of the fourth tier, beat hated local rivals Queen of the South, championship contenders one division higher up.

Watching the players of the team from Dumfries totally lose their cool in the final five minutes as they panicked to the core when Stranraer unleashed their lightning-quick young centre-forward and had a player sent off, several others booked for professional fouls and for fighting was one of the funniest things that I have seen for quite a while

By now it was time to start work and the first thing was to sort out all of the music that has accumulated over the last couple of years but has not been classified. That took much longer than I would have liked.

Eventually, it was finished and I could then find the final piece of music and write the notes for it, which I can dictate when I next have an early start so that I can finish this radio programme and move on.

There was a break in all of this while I made my pizza base, and when it had arisen, I baked an excellent pizza which tasted delicious.

Just as I was getting my fork stuck in it, the kitchen fitter came up to say that he was leaving. He showed me the photos of the new, nicely-painted bedroom and it really does look wonderful. That room is now finished, except for the curtains, and I shall be organising those in very early course.

When I’m down there tomorrow, I’ll take some photos of it to show you, and I hope that you’ll all be as impressed as I am.

So now that my pizza is eaten and my notes are written, I’ll take the stats, do the back-up and then go to bead. It’s dialysis tomorrow, and how I am not looking forward to that. But then two days off and I can pack a whole pile of stuff ready to move downstairs not that things down there are drawing to a close.

But seeing as we have been talking about the painter in the bedroom … "well, one of us has" – ed … before he bought the paint, he said "the bedroom here looks the same size as the one downstairs. When you painted it, how many tins of paint did you buy?"
"Actually, I bought three" I told him
When he finished this evening, he came up to me and said "I bought three tins of paint, but when I’d finished, I had one tin left over"
"What a coincidence!" I exclaimed. "So did I!"

0

Friday 25th July 2025 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… night that was last night.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in the past, me still being up and wandering about the apartment (and anywhere else) at 02:15 would be a fairly common sight, so seeing me wandering around at 02:15 this morning would have been nothing unusual – except that I went to bed at about 22:30, had been asleep, and was now wide awake, out of bed and working.

That’s something that has happened only extremely rarely in the past.

For a change, I actually made a really great effort and dashed through my notes for the day, took the stats, backed up the computer, sorted myself out in the bathroom and then climbed into bed, all by 22:30 or thereabouts.

Once more, I was asleep quite quickly too, but not for long. Round about 01:00, I sat bolt upright again, wide awake, drenched in sweat. It was unbelievable.

Nothing that I could do would make me go back to sleep. I was hot and uncomfortable and really couldn’t settle. After just over an hour of trying, I left the bed and had a wash.

The first thing that I did when I came back in here was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I didn’t expect to find anything on the dictaphone in view of the somewhat diminished time span involved, but I was surprised. There was something going on in some American magazine about people and hospitals and ill-health etc. For some reason, I’d been asked to download some kind of article and upload something else etc. They were talking about me on a radio show doing this. I had the book in front of me but I couldn’t find the article and I couldn’t see any of the addresses or anything but they were urging me on to do this and I was hunting through this book trying to find the correct page but I was getting nowhere. I know that one of the people involved in this whom I had to download or upload had zebra-striped white and black hair and I was wondering more about that. I was trying to find this book but every time I turned a page there was either nothing on it or it was one of these intercalcary sheets etc. I just wondered how on earth I was going to find this.

So we’re back thinking about hospitals again, are we? It seems to be a major preoccupation of mine right now. Having some kind of panic attack in a dream is also becoming something of a regular occurrence, and that’s quite possibly also something of some significance.

The second thing that I did was to dictate the radio notes that I had written just before going off to Paris. That took much longer than it should have done too, because my computer screen decided to go to sleep in mid-type and it took me a few minutes to restart it.

In the meantime, I had to stop and restart the ZOOM H8 because I didn’t know how long it would take to restart the screen and I didn’t want the recording running away with itself.

Once I’d finished that, the next task was quite surprising. I actually went rather further than Dave Crosby, because, although I didn’t have the ‘flu for Christmas, I’m definitely not feeling up to par and it was increasing my paranoia, like looking in the mirror and seeing a police car.

However, I wasn’t giving in an inch to fear and I promised myself this year that I’d do something about it, so I went on the attack.

A nice, trim and tidy me came back in here and I watched a football match, with the Skunks putting eight past Annan Athletic in Tuesday’s Scottish League Cup match.

When the alarm went off, I went to have a good wash and sort myself out, and then a leisurely stroll into the kitchen to take my medication.

After that, I didn’t have long to wait. The nurse was very early this morning and, like a fool, he asked how I was so I gave him both barrels and I bet that he regretted asking. He saw to my knee and to my legs and then cleared off rather sharpish-like so that I could make breakfast.

Not that I made it very far as my faithful cleaner came to interrupt me. I’d heard her moving around in her apartment upstairs so I knew that she was awake, so I sent her a message asking about some medication that I needed. She knew where it was and pointed me in the right direction.

Once sh’d left I could carry on making breakfast, not that I wanted much but I have to eat after all, and then read some more of MY BOOK while I ate what little there was.

Our author, John Stow, is still wandering around the pre-Great Fire churches of London, and between the two of us, we have made a rather interesting discovery.

At the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the Duke of Bourbon was captured and held for ransom. Although the ransom was paid, and on a couple of occasions too, he was never released and never returned to his home.

Our author has been wandering around the old Greyfriars Church and in there is a tombstone, so he says, of "John, Duke of Bourbon and Anjou, Earl of Claremond, Montpensier and Baron Beaujeu, who was taken prisoner at Agincourt, kept prisoner eighteen years and deceased 1433."

That explains why he never returned home, but being held prisoner for eighteen years despite the payment of a couple of ransoms, that seems to be rather extreme.

Another interruption was the President of the Residents’ Committee who came to see how I was, which was very nice of her. She spent half an hour chatting, and I gave her the key to downstairs so she could go for a little inspection. She was well-impressed.

After breakfast, I sorted out some more things to go downstairs and then eventually came back in here to edit the radio notes that I’d dictated earlier.

Not that I kept going for long. I soon drifted off into sleep, sitting on my chair, and for once I wasn’t surprised or disappointed.

In fact, I fell asleep in the chair on a couple of occasions for about twenty minutes here and there. And I was having some gorgeous psychedelic dreams that faded in and out, just as I had one a long time ago when they were giving me some perfusion at one of the hospitals where I’ve been. There’s only one that I remember, and that was telling a friend of mine that I’d be down to see him at about 14:00 when I leave to go to see a girl with whom I’d been invited to stay for a while in the run-up to Christmas. He asked me her name and honestly, I couldn’t remember it, so I’ sure that he thought that I was bluffing. But after he left, I remembered that I couldn’t drive and that there was no contrôle technique on the van, so what was I going to do about this visit? And then another friend of mine came in to give me some presents that had arrived. We shook one and it rattled so we opened it, and it turned out to be a plastic box full of waffles. I can’t eat them of course so I offered them to her, and she snatched the plastic box out of my hands and made off with her booty.

But there were several like this, in such a short space of time, and they all slipped out through my fingers. It was simply impossible to try to record them.

My cleaner came round at about 14:00 to do her stuff and found me engaged in an on-line chat, with a robot from my telephone company. I need to sort out the line to the apartment downstairs for when I move. It took well over an hour to do what should have been a relatively simple task, but at least it’s going to go ahead with no complications.

And that reminds me. I have made an executive decision, and for the benefit of new readers, of whom there are more than just a few these days, an executive decision is a decision that, if it turns out to be wrong, the person who made the decision is executed.

The decision is that I am slowly moving the moveable stuff downstairs and just before my next chemotherapy, which seems to be about the 19th of August, my bed and office will be going down there too, so that when I return, I won’t have to climb the stairs. The rest of the stuff can come down to join me at a later date when there are people to help.

That’s regardless of the state of the apartment, whether the work is finished or not. I’ve been speaking to the kitchen fitter and told him that as of now, the bedroom is the priority followed by the part of the bathroom that is not the shower. The shower is going to be extremely complicated.

Eventually, I finished the radio programme and now have to look for one more track to finish it off. I can do that on Saturday and Sunday, but that’s going to be complicated too.

Tea was a baked potato, small salad and falafel. All of it very small, in fact, because I’m not hungry.

Actually, I’m fed up, I’m in pain, I’m ill and I’m not looking forward to dialysis tomorrow where I expect once more to be detained for at least four hours. I really can’t take much more of this.

But before I go to bed, seeing as we have been talking about Jean, Duke of Bourbon and the Battle of Agincourt … "well, one of us has" – ed … as he was leaving his château, he gave the keys of his wife’s chastity belt to his oldest and most faithful servant.
"Here, take these keys" he said to the servant. "While I’m away at battle, you are the only person who I can trust with them". And he set off on his shining white charger.
He hadn’t gone half a mile before the oldest and most faithful servant caught up with him, panting and out of breath.
"My Lord, my Lord" he gasped. "You’ve given me the wrong key."

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Monday 16th June 2025 – I AM WASTED …

… tonight. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt as tired as this. I certainly won’t need much rocking tonight, that’s for sure.

Much of it is probably due to dialysis – it always takes it out of me, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but some of it is probably also due to last night.

By the time that I’d finished doing what I needed to do, it was quite late. Once more, I was side-tracked considerably during the course of the evening writing my notes, and by the time that I went to bed, it was once more long after midnight.

Once in bed, I fell asleep quite quickly, but not for long. The Hound of the Baskervilles in the next room was dreaming and he spent about five minutes having a very tired and feeble barking session. Perhaps I should have lent him my dictaphone so we could have found out what it was that was going on.

After he’d finished, I did manage to go back to sleep but once more, not for long. At 05:10 I was awake again and at about 05:40 I hauled myself out of my stinking pit.

There was something that I needed to do as soon as I awoke but back in here afterwards, the first thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was doing a coach trip to Canterbury. Somewhere round about Canterbury I was giving a talk to the passengers but I hadn’t managed to have the coach totally clear of the road. It was in a kind of dog-leg up against the kerb. A road-train of coaches, a machine pulling along a couple of carriages, coming past caught my mirror up, tangled it in its mirror arm and with the mirror arms tangled together, mine snapped and the other coach disappeared, taking it away … fell asleep here … although I could see the look of regret on the driver’s face. Later on, after my party was installed in their rooms, I went down the corridor to the room where this other coach party was lodged. I opened the door and was just about to step in when I realised that I should have knocked so I knocked and stepped in. There were people sleeping everywhere on the floor of this room. One or two people moaned and said something. At the very head of the table, at the top in the dark were all of the important people, and one of them must have been the coach driver. I asked if any of them had seen what had happened to the mirror arm that had become entangled up in the arm of their coach. A voice replied that as far as he knew, according to what had happened in the past, the mirror is still on the bus wrapped up in the other one’s mirror arm. It’s still there on the bus and tomorrow they will go down to pick it up and bring it back to me. I was hoping that at least it was still going to be there because anything could happen in a couple of hours overnight in a strange country.

At one time I was spending quite a few nights driving coaches in my sleep, but the incident of losing a mirror and arm on the road actually did happen to me once when I was taking a coach party to Llangollen. It’s also true that anything can happen in a couple of hours overnight in a strange country, as I explained to a group of Austrian policemen once when I had to take the European Union’s lorry to Vienna once in 1998 and they wanted me to park it at the side of the road a mere cock-stride from the Slovakian border.

There was also something about a pair of shoes last night. Someone had bought a pair of shoes from me when I was running a shop. They were one of the last pairs that I had and they wanted a guarantee that I’d reimburse them if they were to bring them back unused, which I gave them. But they needed a lot of convincing that it would work. Sure enough, a few days later, she was back and spoke to me in pidgin French like “theeeese ….. shooooes ….. noooooo ….. gooooood”, pointing that she wanted to bring them back. I don’t know what was the matter with her but I gave her back her money. Then she saw another pair of shoes and asked if she could take those instead. Those shoes were €153 so she could take them if she paid me €153. It ended up with quite a lot of discussion and argument but eventually she gave in and took the new shoes at the appropriate price.

This also reminds me of an incident that took place years ago in real life, but the World isn’t ready yet to hear it.

When everyone was awake in the other room I went to sort myself out and then join them for a coffee and a chat, interrupted by the arrival of the nurse who once more failed to take into account the Hound of the Baskervilles. Consequently, he was in and out in a matter of a couple of seconds and we could make breakfast.

After breakfast, the Hound of the Baskervilles took his master for a walk and I listened to the radio programme that I’ll be sending off this week for broadcasting at the weekend.

When everyone came back we sat around making plans until the cleaner came to fit my anaesthetic patches. She hung around, chatting for a while, and after she left we went downstairs to wait outside in the glorious sunshine for the taxi. And wait. And wait.

13:45 was when it turned up, 45 minutes late, with another passenger in it. It was a quick drive down there, but even so, it wasn’t until 14:45 that I was coupled up, with the usual second pin being much more painful than the first.

Once more, I was left pretty much alone except for when they thought that I’d gone into another diabetic coma and they all came a-rushing over. It seems that I’m not even allowed to have a little … errr … relax these days.

However, Emilie the Cute Consultant came over to chat with me for a while which was nice, and Anaïs sitting on the foot of my bed chatting for five minutes was nice too. I think that they did it just to make sure that I stayed awake.

While I was there, I replied to the edition of WAR AND PEACE that my kitchen fitter sent me, and I hope that we can sort it all out now so that I can push on with the ordering while I have someone here to accept delivery. I’m in a rush to be started.

When i’d been uncoupled, I had to wait for the taxi to arrive. There was another passenger in there too who required dropping off at Kairon so we weren’t back here until after 19:30. I’m certainly seeing parts of Normandy that I never knew existed, thanks to these new Social Security rules.

There was quite a reception committee waiting for me, and they all helped me upstairs. And I needed it too.

Tea tonight was broccoli stalk soup with fresh bread – another delicious meal. We really are eating well here.

Right now though, I’m off to bed. I can’t keep my eyes open. I’m really exhausted tonight.

But seeing as we have been talking about buying shoes … "well, one of us has" – ed … a woman from Crewe went into the shoe shop one Saturday to buy a pair of shoes, and chose a nice pair.
As he was cashing her up, the assistant said "you’ll find these a little tight at first. You might have a pain in your foot for the next couple of days."
"Well, that’s no problem" said the woman from Crewe. "I won’t start wearing them until Wednesday."

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Wednesday 11th June 2025 – I DON’T THINK …

… that I’m going to have my shower installed for when I move downstairs, unfortunately.

Having had a good chat this afternoon with the guy who is going to fit the kitchen, he’s not convinced that he’d be able to do the work that I want. He’s happy to do some of it but not the rest. He really thinks that we ought to have a professional plumber on hand, and he’s probably quite right too.

But you try to find one. I shall ask around and see who knows one, and maybe trouble my friend Liz to put another advert on that Social Media page. Maybe there might even be someone on one of these tradesmen’s sites who has a week or two free. There is bound to be a solution somewhere.

Anyway, last night I had another fairly late night, not being able to motivate myself sufficiently to have everything done in any kind of urgency. It was about 23:45 when I finally crawled into bed.

Once in bed though, I remember nothing at all. I must have gone to sleep quite quickly, and there I lay until about 06:15 without moving at all.

When the alarm went off at 06:30 I was in the bathroom sorting myself out. Then after the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I had been during the night.

There was a police investigation taking place last night and I was in charge of the enquiry. It had taken place in a large house where a lot of people were staying. We’d had a stroke of luck in that someone had identified a coat, a blue and white checked coat. This was not general knowledge so I kept that to myself but I arranged for the rooms of all of the people to be searched. We found someone with a blue and white checked coat, so we decided to keep an eye on her. There were one or two other things too that led us to believe that she was the one who committed the offence but we wanted to make sure that we had all the evidence that we needed. That involved taking her coat and examining it so we had to wait until she was ready to go into the bath. We arranged to send some young girl around who was to tell everyone that she was looking for a blue and white checked coat so that it would divert suspicion if the girl was found carrying one, or if someone else was found carrying one. Then this woman decided that she was going to have a shower. I waited until she went and then I collected my shower things ready to go into another bathroom but she stepped out of her bathroom and saw me. She asked me if I was going for a shower too. I told her not to worry because the two showers were on different circuits. In the meantime, the young girl was coming upstairs and was asking if anyone had seen a blue and white checked coat. I suddenly realised that I had a blue and white checked coat and this could be complicated if the two became mixed up so I had to think of how to say something, but the girl was wandering around the corridors asking everyone whom she met and I thought that she was going to be up to me fairly soon so I need to be able to have some kind of story ready for her

This is a road down which I’ve travelled during the night on many occasions – the one where I’m full of doubt and indecision, just as I am with the kitchen and the rest of the apartment right now. I’ll be really happy when it’s all done (if it ever is) and I don’t have to do anything else. However, being involved in a murder case during the night without Holmes and Watson being present is quite unusual. They’ve joined me on a few trips in the past.

Good Queen Bess (that is, Queen Elizabeth I) was having to choose a new personal confidante and admirer because her previous one, with whom she got along really well, was suspected of being in the pay of the French and all the British secrets were being passed over to the French before the English could do anything about it. Anyway so it was all possible to talk about having a new set of official suites during the interval between the terms but she is believed not to be very happy about that.

Whatever this is all about I have no idea. Apart from a brief reference in passing to a couple of the books that I’ve been reading, it doesn’t appear to have any relevance at all.

The nurse was even earlier this morning. Not that it’s a surprise because he probably doesn’t have much to do. He was soon gone too and I could make breakfast and carry on reading MY NEW BOOK.

Once more, we’re stumbling on little-known facts. John Stow has been describing the rivers, stream and wells that ran through the City of London in the past. Although the existence of one or two of them is disputed today, he’s quoting charters and deeds that refer to many of them, and even gives an inventory of people who contributed money towards their upkeep, and how much they donated.

We then moved on to bridges, and there was a lot of information about those too, doing back to the time of the Saxons.

Interestingly, he talks about a siege of London in 1471 by an army led by someone called, rather eloquently, “Thomas the Bastard Fawconbridge”. With a name like that, he sounded as if he was well-worth tracking down. It turns out that it’s a reference to Thomas Neville, son of William Neville, Lord Fauconberg and a leading supporter of the House of Lancaster during the Wars of the Roses.

For much of the day, I’ve been dealing with a radio programme. There’s the anniversary of a concert coming up soon and I found the recording that we made of it so I’ve been editing it, remixing it, cutting out bits that we don’t need and merging the joins together so that it all runs smoothly and seamlessly.

Then I needed an introduction so I sat down and wrote a couple of thousand words that will make a nice lead-in to the music. And that’s all ready for recording on Saturday night, or maybe even earlier if I have any more really early starts.

My cleaner turned up this afternoon to do her stuff. We went downstairs to the new apartment and took a few more measurements that the kitchen fitter needed. Back up in here, I had a nice shower to try to make myself pretty for dialysis tomorrow, in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant, even though she doesn’t love me any more.

The kitchen fitter rang me afterwards. We had a lengthy, Rosemaryesque chat and he now seems to have all of the information that he needs. He’s going to stick his head into IKEA to find out the answers to a few questions that I can’t answer, and then we’ll move on and order the product and have it delivered ready for installation

There was time to make a start on another radio programme. Another day that is coming up in due course is “International Biodiversity Day” and with musicians such as Robert Plant, Herbie Flowers and Kate Bush, and groups such as Porcupine Tree, there is the basis of a programme already suggesting itself

If I were to play Herbie Flowers’ song DANCE OF THE LITTLE FAIRIES, I wonder if the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine would make any comment.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg followed by ginger cake and soya dessert, and very nice too, s usual.

So now, having wasted enough time this evening, I’m off to bed. I have a visitor tomorrow morning, dialysis in the afternoon and another visitor tomorrow evening. I seem to be in great demand right now, which is nice, if it weren’t for the dialysis of course. But at least I’ll smell nice for Emilie the Cute Consultant.

But seeing as we’ve been talking about Thomas the Bastard Fawconbridge, it reminds me of when Nerina went for a job interview.
They asked about her family life, and she replied, mentioning "my husband" quite a few times
"But what’s his name?" asked the interviewer. "What do you call him?"
"I call him quite a few names" replied Nerina "but if I told you what they were, I wouldn’t get the job."

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Tuesday 3rd June 2025 – WHAT A DAY …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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