Tag Archives: no food

Saturday 25th July 2026 – THE WORST HAS …

… happened at dialysis today. And that is that I was obliged to stay for four hours instead of for the usual three. And it was my own choice too. There were a couple of good reasons for doing so, as you will find out as you read on.

As for me, I was in bed late yet again last night. Probably round about 23:30 or so when I crawled under the covers, and I was soon asleep. Once again though, I didn’t have much sleep, although I’ve no idea what time I awoke – I couldn’t be bothered to check – but it was still pitch-black and the light on the car park had been switched off so it was after 02:30.

Try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I stayed awake, tossing and turning for ages as the day slowly dawned. at one point, I must have dozed off because I remember waking up with a sudden start. It was 06:25, just a couple of minutes before the alarm. There was no real point in even trying to leave the bed for an early start in that short space of time.

However, it was the second alarm that rang at 06:33. It seems that Brain of Britain had forgotten to switch on the first alarm after switching them both off the other day.

In the bathroom, when I eventually arrived, I had a good scrub-up in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. Unfortunately, I forgot to have a shave, as I found out later. That’s one way of blotting my copybook. Emilie the Cute Consultant won’t be very pleased with me.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I needn’t have bothered, though, because there was nothing on there. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … that’s really quite a disappointment. It’s my only form of enjoyment these days.

The nurse turned up as usual to sort out my legs and feet. We talked about the Tour de France and then about his holidays, because he’s away for three weeks as of tomorrow and I’ll be in the tender hands of Isabelle the Nurse.

After he left, I went to make breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Today, as we probe deeper into the architecture of the Arab world, we come across the statement "Saracenic fancy, moreover, contrary to all just principles of aesthetics, delighted in astonishing the eye with a vast superstructure raised on a support apparently quite inadequate to sustain it. The style is rich, wonderful, calculated to enchant at first sight ; but it is one that will not bear critical investigation ; the chaste gracefulness of the Grecian, the soaring majesty of the Gothic, are absent, and are ill supplied by the exuberance of a fancy, vivid and fertile to the last degree, but uncontrolled by any law of taste or consistency."

Any normal architect, having come across a technique “contrary to all just principles of aesthetics” that is “astonishing the eye with a vast superstructure raised on a support apparently quite inadequate to sustain it” would immediately be interested in giving it a “critical investigation” to find out exactly how they did it and to see if he can reproduce it.

Yes, I’ve long since come to the conclusion that this book is not about architecture at all.

Back in here, I have things to do, and then I made a start on the radio notes. But again, I didn’t do as much as I was hoping. All in all, it wasn’t a very good morning.

When my cleaner came down to sort out my anaesthetic, I was already in the dining area sorting out my things for dialysis. She didn’t take long to sort me out and then I had to wait for the taxi.

It was early today – a good fifteen minutes early, which suited me fine. Apparently there was someone else in Granville going to dialysis, and her appointment was for 13:30, not 14:00 like mine.

It turned out that it was a girl from the dinosaur exhibition that has set up camp in a field on the edge of town. They are here for the month of August, apparently, and then they’ll be off somewhere else.

While my driver was hunting her down, I looked at the number plates of the vehicles. Half of them had “59” number plates, indicating that they came from the département of the Nord. The others had “02A” number plates, meaning that they are registered in Ajaccio, in Corsica.

We arrived at dialysis a minute or two before 13:30, and when I weighed myself, I was horrified at what I saw. This is 800 millilitres or grammes over the maximum of what the machine can do in three hours. This process of sending my home without taking everything out, which they have done for the last three or four sessions, is now reaping some horrible rewards.

The nurse, one of the experienced ones, came to see me quite quickly and by 13:55 I was up and running. However, I did discuss the situation with the nurse and, seeing as I was so early, I suggested having a three-and-a-half-hour session instead of a three-hour one.

She told me that if I did that, I’d have to wait around for half an hour, as they would be very busy at that time. “how about three and a quarter?”

After a good think, I came up with “how about four hours?”, going the whole hog. Do it all in one swell foop and then it’s all over.

So four hours it was.

There was only a relief doctor here today so I didn’t bother her with any of my problems, and after that I was left mainly alone, except for when the low blood pressure alarm rang, but that didn’t bother me. Blood pressure at 8.0 is quite usual for me.

When I was finished, I was seen to with very little delay and at 18:15 I was organising my driver. We had to wait fifteen minutes for Mrs Dinosaur nevertheless, and after dropping her off at her caravan, I was back here at 19:04.

My faithful cleaner helped me inside and gave me a disgusting drink – the second of the day – and after she left, I checked the time. It was 19:30, far too late to think about tea now. I had plenty to do still, so I grabbed a bag of taco chips and came in here to do them.

The football season has started this weekend and, to my surprise, the FAW was broadcasting live one of the evening matches in the qualifying rounds – third-tier Cardiff Airport FC at home to fifth-tier Felinfach – and I wanted to see it to see what this new broadcasting system of theirs is like.

Firstly, there was no commentary, which was disappointing, but apart from that, it was quite an entertaining game. The gulf of class between the teams was evident and Cardiff Airport strolled to a leisurely 4-0 lead at half-time, having had the bulk of possession.

Whatever the Felinfach manager had put in his team’s half-time cuppa, I could do with a drink of it myself. They put up a much better fight in the second half and although Cardiff Airport ended up winning 6-0, they didn’t have the second half all their own way, that’s for sure.

As for the broadcast itself, there was no commentary, no teamsheets, no slow-motion replays and nothing to identify the scorers. I reckon that I’ll only be using this service if SGORIO has nothing to offer at that particular time.

By now, it was 22:40, far too late to start writing my notes, so I decided to do what I had to do and then go to bed. I can write my notes tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about dinosaurs … "well, one of us has" – ed … Mrs Dinosaur was telling us about the exhibits that they have there in their exhibition.
"We have Pteradactyls, Tyrannosauruses, Stegosauruses and Brontosauruses, and we even have a rare example of a sightless dinosaur. "
"What’s he called?"
"D’yerthinkhesaurus."

Sunday 28th June 2026 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since I’ve had a real, old, good and proper nightmare?

I’ve no idea when the previous one was, but I can safely say that the most recent one was last night. And it was too. I awoke, covered in sweat and with a racing heart before I’d even finished dictating it.

Usually, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I don’t publish my nightmares because some might find them distressing, especially if they are eating a meal while reading them, but this one is so bizarre that I can’t not do it. There has never been a dream quite like this before in all the twenty-eight years that I’ve been recording them.

Actually, last night was quite an unusual night. I mentioned the other day that these days, it seems to be more and more difficult for me to make the distinction between when I’m asleep and dreaming and when I’m semi-awake and having these strange hallucinations.

Last night, though, was a classic example of this. I can usually say that “I went to sleep at such-and-such, awoke at such-and-such,” and so on, but not last night, I couldn’t. It was all a kind of weaving mix of this and that and at times, I really didn’t know where I was … "so what’s new?" – ed …

There were definitely times when I could distinguish by the light coming around the edges of the shutters that day was slowly dawning, but that could easily have been a dream, too.

When Isabelle the Nurse turned up, she awoke me when she gave her warning signal on the door and then she came in, in full-chat mode, which was all very nice, but all I wanted to do was sleep.

She took my medical card so that she could do her monthly accounts and then she left.

After that, I couldn’t go back to sleep so I gradually integrated myself back into the light of day and the real world. I was estimating that, when I finally left the bedroom, it might be as late as 09:30. No-one was more surprised than me, however, to see that it was in fact 10:45.

That was the cue to make breakfast – medication with juice, coffee, porridge and home-made croissants. And, of course, to read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

So far, I’ve reached page twenty-five of the real text after wading through all of the preface and introduction. And today’s highlights lnclude "the wonderful Druidical temples of Stonehenge, Avebury, and Carnac". However, he goes on to say "These, however, interesting as they are in an antiquarian point of view, as connected with the history and religion of the earliest inhabitants of Gaul and Britain, are altogether valueless in the regard of an architectural historian. Mere stones piled together without any attention to proportion or to any of the laws of design, and merely adhering by their own weight, can barely challenge the name of a building, and though exhibiting the mechanical construction of the entablature in perfection, have no title to be considered as works of architecture, and therefore cannot claim a distinct consideration in the present volume.".

Leaving aside the fact that architecture has to start somewhere at some time, if he considers that “posts and beams” aren’t “it”, then you would imagine that most of Greek architecture would be ruled out too.

Consequently, he goes on later to say "The three orders of Grecian architecture afford forms of perfection unsurpassed by mere human skill; it was only the yearnings of the heavenward spirit, the inspiration of the Church’s ritual, that could conceive aught more noble ; not purer, not lovelier, but vaster in conception, more majestic in execution, and holier in its end."

I can see me abandoning this book before I go much further. I don’t think that I can stomach five hundred and twenty-six pages of that.

Back in here, there had been some breaking news overnight. Christian Fuchs has resigned as Newport County manager, just a few weeks after saving the club from relegation. Only seven months in charge too. No wonder they are talking about “turmoil” down at Rodney Parade.

Then I turned my attention to the dictaphone to see what had happened during the night.

We were back in the Victorian period here and there was some kind of big stately home with a wealthy family living in it. They were quite violent and outrageous in their behaviour with the locals, provoking people into having fights. I was down there, and I began to have one of those provoking things with me so in the end, I picked up this enormous cleaver, attacked one of them and hacked him to pieces. The other one fled into his room so I went to try to find him. Eventually, I did, and he tried to defend himself with a sword, but it was no use at all. I just hacked him to pieces too. I then just went to sit down in the kitchen to relax before the next morning. There were visitors to the house, and they went into the living room and found the carnage. Everyone screamed and fainted. I gradually managed to leave. I had somewhere to go in the Auvergne and there was someone else with me. We had to go to find out exactly where so we ended up at this bungalow on the moors. A tall, thin girl called “Big Molly” pointed out on the map where we had to go. My friend thought that it might take us about six weeks to get there, so we set out. We noticed her cycling off into the distance and I thought to myself “there’s something not right about this”. I shan’t be surprised if she’s there when we arrive. On the way back up the road, we went past a starving dog and a dead body, which was really skin and bone and clothes that looked as if it had been there for years. So we set out and went to London. We had to travel all the way across London. At one point in the city centre, I was convinced that I saw this Big Molly with a group of other girls, and so did my friend. He began to panic, but I thought that panic was not going to get us anywhere. We just need to keep on going and keep our eyes open. I found him cowering underneath a car in the city centre so I helped him out. We decided that we didn’t have any real choice but to push on, so “push on” it was going to have to be.

As I said just now, I’ve never had a dream quite like this ever before. I tried to analyse how I was feeling when I awoke and I came to the conclusion that it was about twenty-five per cent horror, fifty per cent unease and the rest being a mixture of curiosity and the profoundly different. But I was convinced that this “Big Molly”, even though she was only a teenager, was up to no good and I reckoned that her “no good” was absolutely no good at all. I could understand my friend panicking when we saw her again

But I’m sorry if this dream has upset you, however it really was so extraordinary that I couldn’t let it slip by unnoticed.

I was in Crewe last night, wandering around the streets looking for fittings for a job that I had to do at home. I bumped into a friend of mine from school and he was having a lot of trouble dealing with his telephone and his ordinary ‘phone and how to make them connect to each other. I was trying to give him some advice but he wasn’t really interested in listening. In the end, I mentioned that I had to go to the big DIY place on the north edge of town and we’ll be sure to find what we need there. I set off back down Earle Street into the town centre and was going so fast that I missed my turning and ended up right in the town centre so I had to go out, down Broad Street, back along Badger Avenue, and then up Middlewich Street again. It seemed to take an age. Then I met someone else from school and we were having a look round. He was pointing out certain things in the sale and so was I. I realised then that my shoulder bag that I’d bought with me to carry a load of stuff was completelly full and I couldn’t lift it onto my shoulder, it was so heavy. In the meantime, he was pointing out these enormous hand brushes and asked what they were. I explained that they were for Canada. At the same time, they had these enormous rubber boots, which I said were also for Canada, but they were size “small” for Canada. There was a French family standing nearby bursting out in laughter, and we had a quite long chat before I had to go.

This dream was set on a cold, dark night while the shops were still open so it must have been mid-winter. First of all, though, there isn’t a big DIY place to the north of Crewe (at least, not while I was living there, there wasn’t) and if there were, they wouldn’t be selling Canadian snow-clearing products. And there definitely wouldn’t be a French family in the shop admiring them either.

The drive at whirlwind speed along Earle Street was interesting too. I wonder what was going on there.

After the dreams, there was football, Stranraer v Dundela of the Northern Irish Second Division. Stranraer finished mid-table in the fourth level of the Scottish pyramid last season and so Dundela should be embarrassed by the ease with which they were rolled over. The score finished 4-0 to Stranraer and Dundela were lucky to get nil. Stranraer hardly broke out into a sweat.

For much of the afternoon I was working on another project that has recently started up while I made myself ready to watch Wales’s match v Spain in the UEFA under-nineteen championship this afternoon. That was a waste of time, though, because broadcasting is restricted to the UK unless I pay for an exorbitant match pass from UEFA. Had I known before kick-off, I’d have configured a VPN to cloak my identity, but it’s too late now.

So with no food yet again (and I’m not bothered, in case anyone is wondering), I have a few things to do and then I’m off to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow (I don’t think). It’s been a quiet day where I’ve not moved around much, but I’ve done a lot of work. And the work is still piling up. I’m never going to be finished at this rate.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the departing manager at Newport County … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was really considering entitling today’s entry "Christian Fuchs off elsewhere", but I decided against it in the end. Journalism ain’t what it used to be.

Tuesday 23rd June 2026 – IT HAS BEEN …

… slightly cooler today than yesterday. In fact, the temperature barely struggled up to 41.5°C, according to the thermometer sender outside, and that’s impressive. Inside my room, with the windows wide open and the fan going full-tilt, it was barely 29°C at one point.

Yes, we’ve had worse than that.

Not that any of it did me much good.

As I mentioned in my last post, I was in bed just after 20:00, hoping for an early night and a good sleep, but some hopes!

It was too hot to sleep without the fan and too noisy to sleep with the fan, and so in the end, after much binding in the marsh, I decided that the coolness was the way to go. I lay awake all night, and I mean “all night”, too, listening to the fan and watching the light coming round the edges of the shutters, changing from light to dark and then slowly back to light again.

At round about 02:00, I had another mega-coughing fit which led to several bouts of vomiting, so many that in fact I lost count. It’s becoming really bad, this. Let’s see what the doctor’s prescription can do about this later.

When the alarm went off, I went in search of my clothes that had somehow become scattered around the apartment and then went to start work, such as I felt like doing.

There was no need to check the dictaphone for dreams. If you can’t go to sleep, you can’t dream. And it was probably the effect of this new family who appeared from nowhere working on my farm and driving my old Kubota B-1220 tractor that put me off everything.

Never mind, though, there were still plenty of other things to do to take me up to Isabelle the Nurse’s arrival time so I wasn’t bored.

When she turned up, she insisted on treating me in my bedroom which was the wrong thing to do. And she appeared in her short skirt and tee-shirt in concession to the weather, which was already at 30°C outside.

She talked about nothing very much, and after she left, I began to think about breakfast but instead saw this lovely, long, comfortable bed. That decided it for me – I switched the alarm on for 11:15 and hit the hay.

And dream? Didn’t I just dream. Hordes of hallucinations fleeting across my brain from right to left, far too many to notice and to record. From just trying to save one, I ended up with none at all and that was rather desperate.

For some reason, I was up at about 11:00 and at that point began to make a very desultory start on yesterday’s notes. Here and there, doing bits and pieces while I could in between bouts of falling asleep. But eventually, it was the sleep that won.

My faithful cleaner awoke me when she arrived. It’s shower day today of course, and I can’t postpone it yet again. I’ll be picked up on radar everywhere I go, so I reluctantly headed that way. And it was much less difficult than I imagined and I felt like a new man afterwards.

She helped me out and I dried myself and found some new clothes to wear. This is more like it.

After she left, I carried on with yesterday’s notes and now they are on line, at long last.

But then I had some very bad news from Canada.

My faithful sidekick Cujo the Killer Cat crossed the Rainbow Bridge last night. She was adopted as a tiny kitten twenty-odd years ago and even when I last saw her, three or so years ago, she was in the best of health, teaching the new kitten to hunt and catch mice.

However, her age finally caught up with her yesterday, and that was a real shame. She might have been quite violent and aggressive with the local wildlife, but I always found her cute and sweet.

Once I’d digested the news, I went back to bed for a couple of hours. I was that tired again. This has been a horrible day all together.

But now I’m awake again, but not for long. I’ll sort out my evening medication and then I’m going back to bed, and I don’t care. I’ve had no food either but I’d rather be asleep than eating anything. If I have a good sleep tonight, I’ll feel so much better.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about showers … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once sent Nerina to a health farm for a week, where she had one of these super-duper showers.
The next day, she rang me to tell me about it. "You, know, it was amazing. I’m feeling a new woman after that."
"Feeling a new woman?" I mused. "It’s funny you should mention that …"

Monday 22nd June 2026 – WHAT A DAY …

… yesterday was. New temperature records set all over France. When I left dialysis at … errr … 19:00 this evening, it was 42.5°C and the heat was insufferable.

Last night was quite insufferable too. When I finally went to bed, it was quite late yet again but the night was hot and clammy and I couldn’t settle down at all. Although I managed to go to sleep, it didn’t last long, and I awoke with one of those mega-coughing fits that I’ve been having just recently.

Once again, it went on for hours and I forget how many times I actually vomited. But just like last night, I managed to bring it to a halt eventually by sitting on the edge of the bed.

Once the cough had succeeded in calming down, I lay back on the bed and tried to go to sleep. However, I was drifting in and out of a rhythm of “cough-sleep-cough-sleep” and couldn’t really settle down at all.

At one stage, I looked at the clock and it read “06:19” – just ten minutes before the alarm, so I found some energy from somewhere and swung my feet out of bed. When the alarm went off, they were still there so that counts as an early start.

It took the usual long while for me to dress and find the motivation to move over to the chair at the desk and computer.

There was plenty to do, but one of the things that didn’t need transcribing was the dictaphone notes, because once again, there was nothing on the dictaphone. That’s hardly a surprise considering that my sleep was so turbulent, but it is disappointing.

Instead, there were plenty of other things to do until the nurse came round.

He was actually early today, probably in a rush to go back home, seeing as his round finishes today for a week. He didn’t stay long and soon cleared off, leaving me to make my breakfast and read some more of EBURACUM OR YORK UNDER THE ROMANS by C Wellbeloved.

We’ve finally finished the book today after spending a long time reading a lengthy chapter on Roman roads. I can’t say that I’m sorry to finish it either. For someone who has a genuine interest in the history of York, it might well be very interesting, but for someone like me, I’ve read better books. I wonder what tomorrow might bring in the way of books.

Breakfast was over by about 09:25, and so I decided to make 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 one that, if it turns out to be the wrong decision, the person who made it is executed. I decided that I would set the alarm for 11:15 and go back to sleep.

In actual fact, I was once more in this stage of tiredness where I couldn’t function properly and it seemed to be an appropriate thing to do. I have to pull myself through all of this, otherwise we’re never going to go anywhere.

When the alarm went off, I went into the bathroom for a good wash and shave and to pretty myself up in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon and then went into the kitchen to find a disgusting drink and my midday medication.

My cleaner turned up at that point to apply my anaesthetic and to sort me out ready for dialysis. That takes much more effort than you might imagine.

The taxi was bang on time to pick me up, however, we had to go to Sartilly to pick up the other passenger who comes with us, so we were late arriving in the end.

It was stifling in the dialysis centre. They’d moved all of the more fragile patients to the new air-conditioned clinic so it was only we more hardy ones who where in the usual building. We were all crammed into one room that had been filled with fan after fan after fan so it was hard to move around.

There was so much chaos there that, from an arrival of 13:50, I was finally connected at 14:50 and that was really depressing.

The doctor (not Emilie the Cute Consultant) came to see me and I told her of the continued problems with the cough. She examined me and prescribed me a temporary medication while she awaits a full report.

As usual, I was the last to be uncoupled and the last out of the building. There was a Mercedes waiting for me too, which was nice, but the heat was incredible. 42.5°C, and back here, it was 41°C. My cleaner helped me in and I collapsed onto a chair.

After she left, I went straight to bed. I couldn’t take any more, being completely tired and exhausted. I decided to start again tomorrow and see how that will go.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Romans… "well, one of us has" – ed … one of the oldest Roman jokes began with two Romans meeting in the forum.
"Tha slave that I bought from you a week ago died yesterday" said one.
"Really?" said the second. "He was with me for twenty-five years and in all that time he didn’t even do that once. "

Tuesday 16th June 2026 – THE OTHER DAY …

… Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I said that "this has been the worst day of my life so far".

It was just as well that I’d included the “so far” because after today, I really would have been eating humble pie after today’s events.

Last night, I went to bed when my cleaner left, round about 19:30. No food again, but I couldn’t care less. I just wanted my bed. And it didn’t take long to go to sleep either, which was really nice. However, it didn’t last long. Within a few hours, I was back wide-awake again and then I was drifting in and out of consciousness for the rest of the night.

When the alarm went off at 06:29, I was definitely asleep and the sound of BILLY COTTON’S RAUCOUS RATTLE shook me to the roots when it sounded.

THis was certainly one of the most difficult awakenings that I have had – not actually awakening but leaving the bed, and it took all of the willpower that I had, and probably much more besides, to raise myself from the Dead and slide myself onto my comfortable chair.

First job of course was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

I was taking someone for a walk around Avranches last night But it was the strangest Avranches that I’ve ever seen. It was like some British town of the late Victorian, early Edwardian period with semis and all that kind of thing, and a view across the marsh into the suburbs of the town. I was showing someone where the railings had been cut. They had been cut and taken away from these pretty Victorian walls. I was explaining that in World War II they went to find all the metal that they could, and many people gave up their things like metal fences, metal shutters and so on for the war effort.

Strangely enough, it had been in my mind to do one of these “virtual tours” of Crewe, showing quite clearly the cut-down metal stumps of fences and other remains tha show where ruthless metal recycling had taken place during the war

We had some kind of a commune of something, I suppose, staying in this suburban area of London round by Twickenham, places like that. So many people who had never previously been there said that it was the noisiest place on earth, with tractors going past with their warning sound buzzers, etc. I was being shown around the garden but it was quite night but the conversation carried on anyway. And it was freezing cold that night, but we were walking around and chatting. All of a sudden, it became dramatically daylight. All of the kids gasped in amazement and they began to sort out what they planned to do for the day. It seemed to be confusing the plans because no-one was offering anything to eat or anything to drink so I don’t know why this was happening. In the end, I was fed up of wandering around with these people so I went for a walk around the car park. There was this beaufiful old A60 van THE ONE THAT I USED TO HAVE. I asked someone whose van thai A60 van was and they replied “it’s theirs!”, but they didn’t say who “they” were. I went back to have another look at it but it had gone. Eventually, we all came back and some people were planning on somewhere else, but someone beckoned me over to ask if I wanted a coffee. I replied “yes”, and there was a stool in the wall by where I could sit and still be with the crowds, but all of a sudden, thow people turned up and say in there, leaving me one of these uncomfrtable types of seats on Which to sit. There was a lot more to it than this

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall me mentioning that I’d lived in a commune once. But only for a short while and never again. More capitalist than the capitaists was my opinion.

As for the A60 van, I loved mine and travelled all over the UK in it. Until I could no longer drive, I was on the lookout for another one.

The nurse came round this morning, bringing a floozy with him. She’s doing a nursing college placement with him for a few days.

He did his stuff and after he left, I began to sort out breakfast. However, I soon stopped, came back in here and went to bed. So much for my Welsh course today – the last of the year too.

Before going to sleep, I’d set the alarm for 12:30. I was awake a few minutes before that, but leaving the bed wasn’t easy. I was still in no state to go to the second half of my Welsh course.

Instead, I wrote out the notes for yesterday’s blog and then caught up with my e-mails and did the stats that I’d forgotten to do, interrupted by my faithful cleaner who turned up to do her stuff. She wanted to know if I was going to have a shower but I politely declined this afternoon. I was in no state at all.

After she left, I carried on with my notes and they are now online. There were a few other things to do an then I began to write out the notes for tonight.

Now that they are done, I’m going to take my medication, light the blue touch paper and then retire. I’ve had enough for today and I shall be glad to put it all behind me.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about sleeping … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends once asked me "if you had the choice of sleeping with anyone alive or dead, who would it be?"
"Hmmmm" I said, and after a minute’s thought, I came up with "someone alive, I reckon."

Monday 15th June 2026 – HAVING CRAWLED MISERABLY …

… into bed at 19:00 last night, it didn’t take long at all for me to fall asleep. And there I lay for quite some time, thinking that this was going to be my best sleep for quite a while.

When I awoke, I could see round the chinks of the blinds that it was barely light outside. “Mmmmm, about 4:30.” I reckoned and crawled back down the bed to sleep. The next time I awoke, I was expecting to see bright sunlight, but instead, it was pitch-black.

“What’s happened here?” I wondered, and then realisation hit me and I checked the time. 23:20 was the time, and when I’d awoken previously, it must have been about 22:30. So much for my nice, long sleep.

Trying my best to go back to sleep and miserably failing, I spent the next few hours drifting in and out of that semi-conscious feeling in between sleeping and awakening. Mind you, I had to leave the bed not once but twice during that period in order to go to ride the porcelain horse.

The alarm went off at 06:29 as usual and by that time I must have been asleep because it definitely gave me a shock. It took me an age to dress and to pull myself to my feet. I slid over to my seat, switched on the computer and transcribed the dictaphone notes to find out where I’d been during the night.

Some guy contacted me and asked “can you tell me who visited your website at 07:10?” I looked at the stats and saw that it was him. I didn’t say anything – I just asked him what he wanted. He replied that there needs to be a total revision of how these sites work, and their background is only going to be garden or soil, and that person who visited your website is going to be responsible for it. I asked “really?” surprisingly. I went to some girl’s house and found all of her clothes and dressed in them, and then I went round. I began to cut this huge tree into pieces, but I didn’t go very far before the dream ended.

This was another one of these strange, surreal dreams where nothing that happens makes any sense. And before anyone says “what’s new?” this is far more confusing than any other.

My sister was growing and putting on weight when all of a sudden it was as if she had exploded and she became three or four times bigger than she was. I was on the battlements of some mediaeval castle so I looked down into a pit and saw where her balloon had been, and there was another one of these balloons starting to appear so I thought that there was someone else destined for this. A guy with me reckoned that we ought to be making enquiries about it all, but I didn’t know how we were going to even start or where we were going to start. The first thing that we did was to take an inventory of how my sister had become.

And if you thought that the previous dream was confusing, what about this one? This one made even less sense than the previous one.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual. I told her about my problems sleeping last night and my early night, but she didn’t really take any interest, which was unusual. She passed it off as a “nothing”.

After she left, I carried on reading some more of EBURACUM OR YORK UNDER THE ROMANS by C Wellbeloved as I ate my breakfast.

He’s still on his religious theme right now, with discussion of religious rites in the Roman Empire. Human sacrifices and crucifixion figure largely in this period.

Back in here afterwards, I reviewed the next radio programme to be sent off, and as it was fine, I sent it off to be added to the broadcast list. So then I dealt with the notes of my Sunday < which needed to go on line. "Mid-morning", I'd promised, and there they were at 11:30 CET, 10:30 UK time, precisely.

There was just enough time to have a good wash and shave before my faithful cleaner arrived to apply my anaesthetic. When she’d done that, I had to wait for my taxi, which was late today. And we had to go to Sartilly to pick up our usual companion.

However, it was embarrassing walking to the car and I really didn’t think that we were going to make it. Leaving the car to go into dialysis was even more difficult and seeing as we were already late, I ended up being the last as usual.

Believe it or not, I was too tired to sleep today and I was just drifting round in a void. I saw a doctor, whose response was to reduce my calcium tablets. She didn’t seem very interested in my failure to function either.

The car picked me up as usual, the last one there, and drove me home to here. And what was even more embarrassing was that I didn’t have the strength to pull myself out of the car. It needed the combined effort of my cleaner and my driver to move me out.

Back in here, when I eventually arrived, I was too tired to do anything. Even though I’d taken the products out of the fridge to finish off the pizza, they all went back into the fridge once my cleaner had left and I came in here to go to bed and go to sleep.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about being last at dialysis … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends was praying for me, using the words of Jesus and saying "Come Forth, Come Forth!"
But instead, I came last so no-one actually won anything.

Friday 15th May 2026 – WE ARE NOT …

… alone!!

Currently asleep on my comfortable sofa in the living room is my friend from Munich, and on the rug by his side is the Hound of the Baskervilles, both of them snoring away quite happily.

Yes, at lunchtime, I received a message – “arriving at about 16:00”. I thought to myself “blimmin’ ‘eck – I’d better get a move on!”.

It made me wish that I’d got a move on last night, really. As usual, after having no tea yet again, I came in here to type up my notes, and as usual, things seemed to take much longer than they ought to have done. However, it was about 21:50 when I finally managed to slide into bed.

During the night, I awoke once or twice, one of which was about 01:00 once more, although this time there was no hailstorm or anything going on that might have woken me. The second time, and I have no idea what time it was, I had to leave the bed to go and walk the parapet. However, quite luckily, I managed to fall asleep both times fairly rapidly.

When the alarm went off at 06:29, we had the usual struggle to my feet, which seemed to take hours, and then I went off to organise myself in the bathroom and then take my medication. The LeClerc order the other day had included some liquorice and mint tea, which, I’m told, will ease my throat somewhat, so I used that to wash down the pills and tablets. We’ll see if it works.

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

I was with a couple of friends last night. They were settling down in their new house and we were discussing cars. They had bought a brand new – one of these Chinese electric cars and they were astonished at all of the restrictions on it. It said that they couldn’t sell it in the Dordogne, all kinds of things like that. We supposed that it was due to something with people buying cars on finance and then disappearing. We ended up talking about cars in the auctions, about cars that had been dropped and been banged, etc. and were going at full price. They then mentioned a Ford Escort that had been some old woman’s car. It was a bit scabby and rough around the edges but it was otherwise in very good condition but no-one seemed to be interested in it. The husband then showed me a piece of paper about the insurance on his old FIAT, about all of the declarations that he had to sign when he came to sell it. This dream went on for ages but I can’t remember any more about it, except that this incident in the Dordogne, there was a clause in their insurance that said that although they can’t sell the car in the Dordogne, they could take it to this woman’s office at 16:00 and she would buy it from them.

When I had my taxis, I had both kinds of cars – former reps’ cars with high mileage and little old ladies’ cars with almost nothing on the clock. Surprisingly, the reps’ cars were so much better and worked a lot harder than the other, having been used to a hard life and plenty of work.

But if this Escort were merely scabby around the edges, it should have tidied up quite nicely, so I’m surprised that, even in the dream, no-one seemed to be interested in it.

But back in this dream the time was about 01:15 and it seemed that I had been awake ever since I’d gone to bed. I was walking around on a cold wood floor so in the end, I went to put on my socks. However, it was extremely complicated with them being these compression socks and I had to try three or four times before I was able to put them on.

Every now and again, I have to fit my own socks when I have an early start, and with them being these compression socks, it really is awkward. However, walking around on a cold wood floor in the bedroom feels really nice to me – it’s the cold tiles everywhere else in this apartment that annoys me. That’s the only thing that I don’t like about my apartment. I would really have liked to have had a wooden floor, but you can’t have everything.

One thing about this dream that I forgot was that when they went to insure the car, the girl couldn’t see the car listed in her manual, but when my friend’s wife looked, it was there, as clear as daylight.

It’s no surprise though. If you asked me to name the top five Chinese cars on the market these days, I wouldn’t have a clue.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual, and we talked about the Hound of the Baskervilles as she sorted out my legs and feet. I told her not to fight with my cleaner over him – they can take turns to stroke him.

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

At long last, we’re getting down to the excavations at Reculver. However, not his excavations but excavations that took place earlier in the nineteenth century by other people. One day, soon I hope, we’ll start on his work and see what he found.

Back in here, I finished off the notes for the radio programme that I’d started yesterday, and then I had a huge surprise.

A few years ago … "2017 to be precise" – ed … I hired a boat and went UP LABRADOR’S NORTHERN COAST to what I consider to be the Furdustrandir or “Wonderstrand” … "or Wunderstrand" – ed … the magnificent stretch of white sand that the Norse explorers saw when they touched land after sailing from Greenland.

Also there are the scanty, rotting remains of North River, a settlement that was abandoned during the clearances of the 1950s when everyone from these isolated spots was removed to towns like Cartwright and a few others farther south. North River is famous, or infamous, because of a child’s grave in the cemetery. A Finnish anthropologist called Viano Tanner explored these settlements in 1937-39 and noted the grave of a child “killed by dogs”. Everyone disputed that this gravestone exists and claimed that no such event ever happened, so I wanted to see for myself. And it is there!

But while I was there, I photographed a few other gravestones.

Someone wrote to me in astonishment, saying that one of the graves was that of her grandfather, and what did I know about him. So I spent all morning researching all of the papers that I have on Labrador, and in the end, I sent her what I could find, which actually was quite a lot.

At that point, I decided that I’d better go and make bread, but my cleaner arrived to do her stuff, so I had to settle for a disgusting drink and my midday (hours late) medication.

Once she’d left, I began the process of making bread rolls and a loaf, but my friend and the Hound of the Baskervilles turned up while I had my hands full of dough.

It’s lovely to see him again. We first met on our first day at grammar school back in September 1965 and, like me, he’s a big music fan. When I was able to do so, I went down to Munich on many occasions to visit him, but these days, people have to come to see me here, and it’s nice when they do.

While I was making bread, we talked about old times and people whom we knew at school who are now pushing up the daisies somewhere, and once the bread was left to rise, I blanched some broccoli and made a broccoli stalk soup with pasta for tea.

To my surprise, I found myself eating some soup and bread – the first evening meal that I’ve had for months. However, my eyes were bigger than my stomach and I ended up being a miserable failure towards the end.

By the time that we’d finished and I’d washed up everything … "where did this energy come from?" – ed … it was after 23:00 so we decided that it was bedtime. And when was the last time that I was up and about at this time of night? Obviously, having people here is doing me good.

Anyway, I sorted myself out in the bathroom and then came in here to sleep. Crawling into my nice comfortable bed is really wonderful at any time. I threw the quilt over my head and that was that.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about snoring … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the time when I was driving for Shearings on a coach tour somewhere and one of the passengers, a youngish female, asked me "if I fall asleep and begin to snore, will you wake me up?"
"Certainly" I replied. "Shall I shake you, or give you a nudge?"

Tuesday 5th May 2026 – MARGARET THATCHER ONCE …

… said something along the lines of "anyone can do a good day’s work when they really want to, but a true professional is someone who can do a good day’s work when he doesn’t want to.". It’s not an exact quote, I know, but it was something like it, and after what I have managed to do today, I can call myself a “true professional”.

Not that you would have thought so after yesterday evening. I was definitely feeling at the end of my tether when I was writing up my notes and after having completed everything that needed doing, there was no-one happier than me to be in bed, even if it was approaching 22:00.

As usual, it took a while to drop off, but once I’d gone, I remember nothing whatever until I awoke. I’ve no idea what time it was, but it was still dark and the electric water heater was still on. Surprisingly, I was lying on my back which, although it’s my favourite position, it’s the one where I cough the most – and I wasn’t coughing. Consequently, I lay there like that for what remained of the night until the alarm went off. It wasn’t long.

Once I’d moved to sit on the edge of the bed, that’s when the coughing began in earnest, and it’s kept on going like that throughout the day, even to now.

It took an age for me to find the energy to rise up from the bed and to stagger into the bathroom. And even then, I couldn’t move from the bathroom chair for quite a while. Consequently, I was quite late arriving in the kitchen.

And then I had a bright idea. Back in the bad old days in Leuven when, at times, I could hardly move, I was living on these high energy caffeine drinks. There are still a few knocking around here so I took one of those with my medication in an effort to kickstart my day.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, but to my dismay, the recorder was empty. Instead, I did a few other bits and pieces until the nurse arrived.

He was quite early today after his week off. He asked me how things went during the week, so I told him. And he was astonished about the dramatic steps that they took at dialysis yesterday. He was a former dialysis nurse himself in the past.

After he left, I made breakfast and read the last of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

His pages on the Celts and the Saxons were somewhat disappointing, and his Roman work, whilst very thorough and complete, relied too much on the forged “works of Richard of Cirencester”, and his own personal assumptions, being forcefully put, have quite often turned out after modern research and discovery, to be totally inaccurate.

Back in here, I had a few things to do and then I revised and prepared my Welsh for the lesson.

We’ve started the last chapter of the book, which is a taster for the final two years of the course, which is supposed to be the A-level part. And if those next two years are going to be anything like this chapter, then God help us all. It rolls along at a frantic pace.

Our teacher gave us some questions to do, and they had my brain breaking out into steam. Little did we all know that they were actually part of an ‘A’ level paper from 2024.

At the end of the lesson, I fell asleep. No surprise there. My cleaner awoke me when she came in to do her stuff, but I declined the offer of a shower. Instead, I went back to sleep.

Whilst I was having a little doze in the afternoon, there was something about someone sending morse code signals. But when I awoke, it was my cleaner cleaning something in the kitchen.

That could have been something exciting had the dream carried on, but instead, I went back to sleep and I missed her departure.

Some time later, after I’d awoken, I decided that I can’t let a day slip by like this, so I had a look at the next radio programme.

And by the time that I knocked off, I’d found all the music, reformatted, re-edited and remixed it, paired and segued it. I’d even written some of the notes for it too.

As I said earlier, I should be pleased with what I’ve done today.

So right now, I’m going to finish a few things off and then go to bed ready for a busy day tomorrow, if my coughing will let me. I now have the fierce antibiotics for the cough, so I’m going to take the first one just before I slide into bed. God knows what will happen during the night but if it sorts out this cough, then I’m prepared to give it a full go, whatever happens.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about falling asleep … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once fell asleep with a girlfriend at a friend’s house. All I could find were four coats so I gave her two and I had two.
Half an hour later, she awoke me. "Eric, I’m cold" so I gave her one of my coats.
Half an hour later, she awoke me again. "Eric, I’m still cold" so I gave her the other one.
Half an hour later, she awoke me yet again. "Eric, I’m still cold"
"Look," I said. "It’s only one night, and everyone else has gone to bed, so why don’t we pretend that we’re married"
"A good idea" she replied eagerly.
"Right" I said. "Go and find your own blasted coats."

Friday 28th April 2026 – RIGHT NOW, IT’S …

… just about 20:08 and I’ve just awoken after crashing out on my chair for a little over half an hour. Not that it’s a surprise, because I’ve worked really hard today, even if I didn’t feel in the least like it. And that’s no surprise either, after the night that I had last night.

Yesterday, I started to write my notes quite quickly and managed to keep on going relentlessly for quite a while. It was a few minutes after 21:00 when I had finished what needed to be finished, and I reckon that by 21:15, I was under the covers in the comparative comfort and warmth of my bed.

It took, as usual, a few minutes to doze off, but unfortunately not for long. I had a dream at about 23:00, according to the timestamp of the recording, and I awoke not long afterwards with another dramatic fit of coughing.

And there I lay yet again, watching the room go round and round until I felt the need to leave the bed to go to walk the parapet. At that point, I checked the time. It was 06:04 – 25 minutes before the alarm.

Back in here, I sat on the edge of the bed until the alarm sounded, and then it took me about ten minutes to summon up the courage to go to the bathroom for a good wash, etc.

In the kitchen, I made my hot lemon, ginger and honey drink to wash down my medication and then came back in here to find out where I’d been during the night.

During the night, I ordered an album online and it finally turned up. At first, it didn’t sound right at all, but then when I took a close look at it, I found that the tracks that I was hoping to hear were originally written by another group and recorded by them. These were the ones that were on this album instead of hearing the ones that I knew, which were on a different one. Consequently, I stayed to listen to them before I made up my mind whether I would accept this album because of its strangeness and its rarity value

What album would this be? I can think of many albums with songs by artists or groups that have been recorded by others and gone on to become much more famous. Eric Clapton reinterpreted probably half a dozen songs by JJ Cale, such as “Cocaine” and “After Midnight”, and Colosseum’s live version of ROPE LADDER TO THE MOON is much better than any way Jack Bruce used to play it.

There was a lot going on with Hawkwind too, but it was after I’d awoken so I can’t make up my mind whether it was a dream or a daydream. It involved three Hawkwind songs, biographies of two Hawkwind members who had very unhappy lives, and a girl aged about ten or eleven sitting in an office colouring a book, obviously on a school break with nowhere to go except to daddy’s work. But when discussing the third song, I awoke bolt-upright (something that I haven’t done for several weeks) so I must have been asleep at that point.

There’s always a place for Hawkwind on my playlist, whether awake or asleep, but I wonder what the rest of the dream has to do with it.

Isabelle the Nurse blew in as usual, full of joie de vivre after her week’s break. She asked me about how things went, so I told her about Friday and how much I hated it. And in her joyful manner, but with a glint in her eys that was far from joyful, she gave me a lecture about how important it is to follow medical recommendations. Much as I like her, I wouldn’t like to be one of her children.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

Today, we’ve been discussing the household and the finds that have occurred at various places all over the country. It all points to an easy, comfortable life but I bet that in all honesty, the lower classes had nothing like any of these artefacts and their life was a constant struggle.

Back in here, I had a few things to do and then I had to revise for my Welsh. The lesson passed really well, which is nice. I need to keep on with all of this revision because it is making things better. And as an aside, my homework was described as “a masterpiece”. Seriously.

At the half-time break, I put the washing machine on with a pile of clothes for washing, seeing as I’m beginning to run out here. I didn’t bring many clothes with me from the farm.

After the lesson, I sorted out the bathroom and then my cleaner came along to shoo me under the shower. I didn’t feel in the least like it, but I persevered, and it really was a weary me who steered himself back in here afterwards.

While I’d been in the shower, my cleaner had changed the bedding, so this nice, clean me … "well, clean anyway" – ed … will have a nice clean bed in which to sleep tonight.

Once I’d summoned up the energy, which was not easy, I had the radio programme notes to write. And by the time that I knocked off, they had all been written, all ten of them. No wonder I crashed out afterwards – that was no mean feat, especially when I’m feeling as shattered as I am.

So right now, I’m off to bed and to sleep, if my coughing fits will let me. No food yet again, although I’m starting to see visions of cheese sandwiches. That means that there’s an appetite still lurking around somewhere.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Hawkwind … "well, one of us has" – ed … Nerina once took me to a Hawkwind concert at Keele University for my birthday.
When the group came onto the stage, she dashed to the front, like most kids do (she was several years younger than me).
After a while, she came to find me at the back of the room. "Why don’t you come down to the front? The view’s so much better there" she said.
"That’s as maybe" I replied "but the smell is so much better at the back, hey, man."

Monday 27th April 2026 – TODAY HAS NOT …

… been much better than the last couple of days, unfortunately.

As seems to be usual these days, I was later than I would have liked to have been, going to bed last night. With the football that ran on until about 20:15, by the time that I’d finished what needed to be done and sorted out myself in the bathroom, it was about 21:30 when I finally settled down in bed.

Something else that is also becoming usual these days too is the fact that it took me longer than usual to drop off to sleep, But once I’d gone, I was gone.

Whatever time it was that I awoke, I had no idea, but it can’t have been long after I’d dropped off to sleep, because the electric water heater hadn’t switched on, so it was obviously before midnight. And there I lay, tossing and turning and coughing for the rest of the night until the alarm went off at 06:29.

It took a good while for me to leave the edge of my bed and stagger off into the bathroom, where, as well as a good wash, I had a good shave too in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. By the time that I arrived in the kitchen, it was much later than usual, but no hot drink today. It’s Dialysis Day, so just a quick mouthful of orange juice to wash down my medication.

Back in here, I transcribed the dictaphone notes from the previous night and they are now online, all of them. And what an effort that was. There weren’t any notes from last night – after all, if you don’t sleep for long, you don’t really have the time to go far.

The nurse came along as usual, and it shows you just how interested he is, in that he’d forgotten why I had been to the hospital on Friday morning. I certainly hadn’t!

After he had left, I made my breakfast and read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

Today, we’re discussing interments and cremations, and so far, he’s managing to steer clear of any controversial subject. However, every time that he states that “it is, in my mind, undisputed that …” my immediate reflection is to go to check.

After breakfast, I came back in here and did a few things that needed doing (and didn’t do a lot of things that did) and then finished my Welsh homework. And that took much longer than it ought to have done too, what with having to reformat it into a *.pdf so that I could send it off for marking.

All the time that that was going on, I was having a chat, mostly about cats, would you believe, with an old school friend who now lives in Crewe, but I had to abandon in the end because it was time to gather up my things for dialysis.

My faithful cleaner came to sort out my anaesthetic. We had a really good chat and then, after she left, I had to go to … errr … walk the parapet, where I was caught in flagrante delicto by the taxi driver who came fifteen minutes early. “Still, the sooner we start, the sooner we finish” said Yours Truly, not knowing what the fates had in store for him.

There was already someone else in the car and we had a third passenger to pick up en route, the lady from the Old People’s Home at Sartilly, but even so, we were still early arriving.

It made no difference to me, though. I was still one of the last to be plugged in. And once more, after four days of no dialysis, I was still under my dry weight when I checked in. It’s amazing what no food will do for you.

There is one nurse there who is … well … a little lacking in tolerance than the rest, so guess who I had. And throughout the whole session, she did nothing but try to make me feel guilty about not being able to perform any of the procedures myself.

Let’s face it – there are people who have what I consider to be an irrational fear of spiders, or clowns, or anything else for that matter, but I don’t spend all of the time criticising them. By the end of the session, it had reached such an extent that I almost told her where to stick her plasters, instead of on my arm.

Another thing that really got my goat was that not one of the doctors on duty there came to discuss Friday morning with me. That they might not yet have received the results would be no surprise, but at least they might have come to talk about the visit and “what happens next”.

During the session, I was so wracked with coughing fits that I vomited again. This isn’t turning out very well.

The nurse had the last laugh. I’m convinced that she terminated the session early. I have an automatic blood-pressure test every thirty minutes, but I definitely counted one short of however many there should have been.

When the disconnection was complete, I had to wait twenty-five minutes for the taxi, and when he arrived, he confirmed the time for which he’d been summoned, which agreed with my suspicions. But then, we had to wait another twenty-five minutes for the lady from Sartilly to finish. It’s definitely not my day, is it?

My cleaner was waiting for me as usual, and she helped me into the apartment. And after she left, I said a phrase that has a connection, albeit distant, with a lump of turf and came in here to write out my notes.

Now that they are finished, I have no idea and neither do I care, but I’m off to bed, without a meal yet again. As I came into the building, I could smell chips being cooked, and quite frankly, it turned my stomach

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my cleaner … "well, one of us has" – ed … she and I were discussing apartments on sale around here in case my friend from Munich ever wants to come to join us up here in the “Monaco du Nord”.
There was one that I’d seen that looked quite nice, so I mentioned it.
"Do you know how much that costs?"
"No Idea" I replied
"It’s on sale at one million three!" she exclaimed.
Which, at that point, we both said in unison, completely impromptu, "between the two of us, we could probably manage the ‘three’. But where would we find the rest?"

Saturday 25th April 2026 – I AM BEGINNING …

… to feel a little better today, especially this afternoon when I began to feel something more like human.

Mind you, anything is bound to be an improvement after the events of Friday. Let’s just say that a fibreoscopy is one of those things added to my list of “never a second time” – such as a ponction thoracique and a biopsie musculaire. In fact, when I look at the tortures through which I have been put since I fell ill in 2015, I’m amazed that I’m still here, fighting on.

Yesterday put the tin hat on it all. I’d slept almost all the afternoon and being totally unable to function when I awoke at 18:00, I simply did the barest minimum of what needed doing, wrote yet another terse note as my blog entry and then crawled under the covers.

And I slept too. Out like a light for I don’t know how many hours, but when I did awake, the electric water heater was on, so it was certainly after midnight. At some point, I had to leave the bed, and when I checked, it was 04:45. When I’d done what I needed to do, I went back to bed and, to my relief, back to sleep.

The alarm sounded as usual at 06:29 and it took me an age to leave the bed. It really did, and I was so late going for my medication that there was just enough time for a mouthful of orange juice to wash it all down. Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

There was something about being in a rock group last night, and all of our equipment was on a cart being pulled by a donkey. However, the donkey escaped and we all had to go to look for it. Eventually, someone found it and brought it back. Nevertheless, it tried to escape again, and we then worked out that, for some reason, this donkey hated to be called a donkey – it preferred being called by some other names, so we had to think of a few names and try them out on the donkey. Once we found one, with which the donkey agreed, we could then proceed. However, we had then to be very careful not to call the animal a donkey.

It beats me where this idea of transporting our equipment on a donkey-drawn cart fits in, but regular readers of this rubbish will recall that Greece has figured quite a lot in some of our dreams just recently. This is the only connection that I can see.

However, I’m not sure whether I’ve talked about this “self-identify crisis” recently … "yes you have" – ed … with people being allowed to identify as “trans”, “cis” (whatever that is), “asexual”, “furry” and all of a thousand other things. I couldn’t care less if a man wants to wear a dress and wear make-up or whether a woman wants to walk out in a catsuit. We are supposed to “take their feelings into consideration”, which is all very well and no-one is going to argue with that, but who takes into consideration the feelings of women who want a safe space free from masculine intrusion?

It reminds me of one of my passengers on the taxis, a guy called Booth, who totally cleared the ladies’ public toilets of the Royal Hotel in Crewe when some action that he took whilst in there revealed him to be a man. He was subsequently fined quite heavily for a “public order offence”.

And, of course, now we have our donkey wishing to self-identify as something else.

The nurse came as usual, but he didn’t seem to be very interested in the events of yesterday. We had a little chat as he sorted out my feet, and then he left.

Once he’d gone out of the door, I made breakfast, but I couldn’t get my head around THE CELT, THE ROMAN AND THE SAXON by Thomas Wright, so I left it for a better day when I’d be feeling much more like it.

After I’d had a little doze at the breakfast table, I came back in here to attend to a few things and then to write up my notes from yesterday. They are all now online, and I could concentrate on the next part of the day, which was the football.

It was the first match of the “also rans” in their attempt to qualify for the one remaining European place, so we had Colwyn Bay at home to Penybont. Colwyn Bay haven’t won for the last three games, whereas Penybont haven’t won since – I think – November, except for a squalid and depressing 1-0 win against bottom club Llanelli.

The game was as poor as it could have been, with a couple of rather inept attacks huffing and puffing but failing to blow the house down of some rather average defences. The number of good chances in this game could be counted on the fingers of one hand. It inevitably went to a penalty shoot-out, where, surprisingly, Penybont won 4-2.

Let’s hope that the other match on Sunday late afternoon between Y Barri and Hwlffordd is much better than this one was.

Once the game was over, I worked upon the radio programme for a while, finishing off the selection of the music, reformatting, remixing and re-editing all of the songs, and then pairing and segueing them. I’ll write the notes some other time.

Another thing that I did was my Welsh homework, but by 18:30, I’d run out of steam yet again so I abandoned everything and climbed into bed, and that was that. Who said anything about “beginning to feel a little better”?

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about self-identifying … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once came downstairs to announce to his parents that he wished to self-identify as a cat.
A few hours later, he came downstairs at teatime but couldn’t see his meal on the table.
"Where’s my tea?" he asked
"Over there, on the floor by the sink in the silver bowl," said his father. "And by the way, wear something warm under your catsuit because, at 23:00 when we go to bed, we’ll be putting you outside with all of the other cats."

Tuesday 21st April 2026 – WHAT ANOTHER HORRIBLE …

… day I’ve had today. It was just like last Friday, or the Saturday before, when the girls were here.

By the time that I’d finished all of the things that I needed to do last night and had sorted myself out in the bathroom, it was just about 22:00 so I gratefully slid under the covers of the bed.

As usual these days, it took a while to go off to sleep, but it didn’t last long. Awoken by dreadful coughing fits and the stabbing pain in my foot, despite the painkillers that I’d taken before going to bed, it must have been quite early at that point. I’ve no idea what time it was, because I couldn’t be bothered to look, but it was certainly for an age that I lay there awake, my guilty conscience troubling me all the time, as it often does.

When the alarm went off, I was still awake, but it took, as usual, an age for me to rise to my feet. Feeling totally dreadful, I didn’t bother with the bathroom but dressed and went into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.

That failed to liven me up so I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And to my dismay, I found that I’d been nowhere at all. Still, if you’re only asleep for an hour or two, that’s not much time to go very far, is it?

Instead, I sorted out a few other things that kept me busy until the nurse arrived.

He was not very helpful about anything much, telling me how difficult one of these fibroscopy examinations will be, something that I really didn’t want to hear. He didn’t seem to be all that interested in discussing my lack of sleep either.

After he left, I came back in here, wrote a note to my tutor to say that I was too ill to attend class today, climbed into bed (fully-clothed) and went straight off to sleep.

When I awoke, it was 12:26 – I’d been asleep for just about four hours. I was determined to rejoin my Welsh class for what little time was left, so at 12:46 I was there, ready to participate for the last forty-five minutes. How the lesson went, I really don’t know because I was totally out of it during that time.

After the lesson, I changed my mind about the shower. Before I went back to bed, I’d decided not to have my weekly shower today because I was feeling so ill, but by now I was feeling a little better and was a little more steady on my feet, so I went to set out the bathroom and sort out some clean clothes.

Back in here, you won’t believe it but I fell asleep again, the first of probably a dozen crashes out that I would have during the afternoon.

My cleaner awoke me and shooed me under the shower, and although I felt a little better, it wasn’t all that much better. Back in the kitchen, we sorted out the medication and worked out what we needed for the next month. Then she went off down the hill to the chemists for some supplies.

Back in here, I made a … "very slow" – ed … start to the next radio programme until she came back, and then we put everything away where it should go in the medicine drawer. I’m trying my best to keep that tidy and organised – a difficult feat where I’m involved.

After she left, I made breakfast at long last – no coffee, though – and then sat down to eat it. And was it three or four times that I fell asleep whilst doing so? I really can’t remember.

Back in here, I carried on with the next radio programme, fighting off, unsuccessfully more often than not, a wave of fatigue. At one point, I was out for forty-five minutes or so and that was embarrassing.

So now, even though it’s still light outside, I’m off to bed, hoping to feel much better tomorrow. I can’t keep on going like this.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the chemists … "well, one of us has" – ed … a middle-aged lady came into the chemist’s shop and asked "do you sell giant-sized condoms?"
"Yes, we do" said the chemist. "They are over there on that shelf down near the bottom."
Fifteen minutes later, the woman was still standing beside the shelf so the chemist asked her "did you manage to find them?"
"Ohh yes" said the woman. "They are right here."
"So, is there a problem?"
"Ohh no. I’m just waiting to see who buys them."

Monday 20th April 2026 – WHAT A TERRIBLE …

… day this has been. Almost everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong, and there seems to be no let-up in the immediate future either.

Things started to go wrong last night when, for some reason which I know not what, it was gone 22:00 when I’d finished everything that needed finishing, and I doubt if I was actually in bed by 22:30. Not that I cared, though – I was just glad to be in it at any time.

One good thing to have happened was that I only awoke once, and for the usual reason. But I noticed that the day was dawning so I checked the time – 06:22, just seven minutes before the alarm was due to go off – so I simply climbed back into bed and waited.

Nevertheless, it still took quite a while for me to rise to my feet, and by the time I’d had a good wash and a shave, in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, I was late going into the kitchen for my medication.

No hot drink for me today, though. It’s Dialysis Day so I made do with a small mouthful of cold orange juice. I’ll beat this thing yet.

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

We’d started a group with some of the former members of Genesis. This later evolved into a kind of “Son of Genesis”, with several of the younger players taking over. There was something in there about wearing silicon wristguards and having to change them with each other at the end of each performance. There was some issue about someone who didn’t wear his and it led to some kind of dispute within the group.

As for a group consisting of former Genesis members, there’s a story behind this too, but it’s another one that the World is not yet ready to hear.

As for the “Son of Genesis”, after Micky Jones of Man died, his son George and Martin Ace’s son Joshua Ace started a group called Son of Man (actually, George sent me a recording of one of their concerts, the very last live appearance of guitarist Deke Leonard, to broadcast on the radio at the appropriate moment).

Where the silicon wristguards fit in, I have no idea.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual, in her usual cheerful mode, especially as she is off on her week’s rest this evening. She sorted out my legs and feet and then hopped off outside into the sun.

When she left, I was just about to start my breakfast when my faithful cleaner arrived to help me pack my bag for my appointment this morning.

After she had followed Isabelle the Nurse out of the door, I started again to make breakfast. When my porridge and coffee were cooked, I sat down to begin but I’d scarcely taken a spoonful of porridge or a mouthful of coffee when the taxi arrived.

The rendezvous was at 10:45 so I was expecting the car at about 10:00, so what the *!@@ was it doing here at 09:10?

It turned out that there was someone else to pick up, but his appointment was for 10:15 so in fact the car should have been here at about 09:30 and given me a chance to eat something.

We arrived at the hospital at 10:10, and luckily I was seen quite quickly for my thoracic scan. We were told that it would take fifteen minutes, so the taxi didn’t turn up for me until 11:00.

It dropped me off at dialysis at 11:10 for my treatment at 14:00, so I was left sitting around like Piffy on a Rock for all that time. One of the nurses came to sort out my anaesthetic, and, sweet thing, she brought me a cup of coffee.

When I was weighed, they found that there was only 200 grammes to extract, but I persuaded the nurse to wind it up to 500 grammes. And then there were all kinds of problems with the machine, all kinds of problems with one of the auxillary machines, and then all kinds of problems with the disconnection.

In between, Emilie the Cute Consultant came along, bearing even more bad news.

The examination has revealed that I have a severe infection, so severe that antibiotics are powerless, and that I probably picked it up at chemotherapy. The lung specialist wants to see me on Friday, when he wants to stick a camera down my throat.

How he’s going to do that, I don’t know. Emilie the Cute Consultant said that she’ll prescribe a relaxant. I told her to prescribe half a dozen, and a length of lead piping while she was at it. I’m beginning to wish that I’d said nothing about it now.

The taxi was waiting for me so at least I didn’t have to wait, but on weighing myself on leaving, I found that I’m exactly halfway between my ideal weight and my “sporty” weight when I was running and playing sport.

My cleaner was waiting for me when I arrived, and she helped me into the apartment. And after she left, I finally managed to eat my breakfast – at 19:30.

Now, I’m off to bed and hoping for a good sleep for my Welsh lesson tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the scanner … "well, one of us has" – ed … the nurse there told me that they’d had a great deal of difficulty with the patient before me, who couldn’t stop hiccupping.
"she apologised profusely", so she told me "but I told her that she needs to stop so that we can take the scan."
"What happened then?" I asked.
"She said she couldn’t and didn’t know why? She asked me if I had an idea."
"So what did you say?"
"I told her that she was probably pregnant."
"And was she?"
"Not at all. But it didn’t ‘arf stop her hiccups!"

Saturday 18th April 2026 – I HAVE HAD …

… a somewhat better day today. Mind you, that’s not at all difficult because yesterday was pretty awful.

But never mind. After writing my notes and doing everything that I have to do, it was about 21:00 when I finally made it into bed. As usual these days, it took a while to go off to sleep, but once I fell asleep, I remember nothing at all for quite a while.

At some point, and I’ve no idea when, I had to leave the bed, but I was soon back into bed and soon asleep again. At a later moment, I had to go down the corridor again, but I’d only been back in bed fifteen minutes or so afterwards when the alarm went off.

Despite the fact that I’d not long ago been up and about, it was another one of the usual struggles to leave the bed, and I eventually managed to stagger into the bathroom.

Afterwards, I headed into the kitchen for my medication and hot drink and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone.

Nerina and I had gone on a coach tour and we’d been put into a hotel room like everyone else, and we went to sleep. When I awoke this morning, I noticed that there was a mouse, a crab and two really strange creatures. One was blue and the other was olive green. There was also a huge spider. I managed to deal with the crab straight away and threw it out of the room. The next one was something with a hard shell, so I hit it with a fluorescent lamp tube that was lying around and it shattered the shell, so I threw it out of the bedroom window. The spider – I managed to chase it out of the room and it ran off down the corridor. The mouse was not a mouse – it was the thing that I’d hit with a fluorescent lamp tube. It resembled a mouse of a kind. The two others – they were really gruesome things. The green thing was like a starshell, like a star or something with its tentacles. I managed to catch that at the right time and with the door open, I could flick it outside. But this blue thing was really rapid. Every time I tried to catch it, it ran off down another end of the room. Eventually, Nerina came out of bed and joined in the hunt. We managed to corner it but it still slipped out. In the end, I had the bedroom door open wide and we manoeuvred it over to that side of the room so that when we came close to it, it ran outside the door and off down the corridor so we closed the bedroom door.

These are obviously my brother’s monsters from last night’s notes, following Nerina and me about. But what a hotel in which to stay when it’s infested with things like those. I wonder if any other room had such a collection.

However, reflecting on yesterday, if anyone had asked me even five years ago to go a day without coffee, I would have said that it’s impossible. I used to drink coffee by the bucketful. But ohhh! How times have changed! Needs must when the devil drives and all of that.

This was a dream where I was in Edinburgh, and I was asleep in my car. When I awoke next morning, there had been a couple of stickers stuck on it. I wasn’t sure what they were about, so I didn’t read them at first. Eventually, I managed to tear one off because these stickers were on the inside. It said something about bad parking and how my vehicle would be taken away if it weren’t removed. I then had a look at the other stickers. These were car park receipts with £0:00 in them so I don’t know what this was all about. Anyway, I was trying to make up my mind which car I was in because I couldn’t remember and it wasn’t until the day began to dawn that I realised that I was in a gold-coloured MkIII Cortina saloon and I have no idea what I was doing in there because a gold MkIII saloon is one that I have never owned.

Sleeping in my car is nothing new for me and even Nerina has shared a car with me on occasion. There’s a story about Nerina and me sleeping in the car in Cherbourg, but the World isn’t ready to hear it.

Surprisingly, MkIII Cortinas of all shades and colours have passed through my hands at one time or another, either as taxis or to be broken for spares, except a gold one. Even now, I still have a dark brown one and a bronze one, and I shan’t be letting them go at any price. They are both 2000E models so they are worth a fortune. The bronze one, one of the very few surviving 2000E estates, will fetch a mint of money.

I was planning on moving down to London, and I’d noticed this huge estate on the north-east side which was terrace after terrace after terrace of modern houses so I went along to enquire about one of them. It turned out that many of them were social housing, reserved for undergraduates or pensioners, but there was one part of it where single people could either buy or rent one of these places, so I told him that I may be interested in one of those. We went through all of the procedures and everything, and I ended up signing for one of them. Once the contracts were exchanged, they gave me the address of the property, which was in Onllwyn, which is in North Wales, so I went there to see what it was that I’d bought. It was a small cottage with a very large garden. I thought “never mind. I can do quite a lot with this”.

Leaving aside the fact that Onllwyn is actually in South Wales, in between Neath and the Brecon Beacons, I would love a small cottage with a big vegetable garden, but I need to be fit and healthy to cope with it. The housing estate seems to remind me of the flats in Bartle Road in London near Ladbroke Grove underground station, built on the site of Rillington Place where Christie, the mass murderer, lived.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual and was pleased to see me looking better, just as I was pleased to be feeling better. She sorted me out and then wandered off on her rounds. I made breakfast and read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

And here we go again. We’re revisiting Roman Roads, passing by briefly on our way to agriculture, and out author tells us "Antiquaries seem often to have been misled by their dissimilitude to the great Roman military roads, to imagine many of these to have been British. It is not very probable that the older inhabitants of the island, such as Caesar found them, divided into separate and hostile tribes, which seem often to have changed their boundaries, as they were pressed forwards by other colonies, should have been great road-makers."

How did he think that the “other colonies” managed to press forwards? And how did he think that products only found in certain places, like the blue stones of Preseli, travelled from one part of the country to the other, such as Stonehenge? It has been recognised for a great many years that there is a whole network of prehistoric trackways across Britain dating back to Neolithic days and even before.

Back in here, I had a few things to do, interrupted by a couple of bouts of falling asleep unfortunately, but then I set about editing one of the radio programmes whose notes I dictated a couple of weeks ago. That programme is now actually complete and ready to be broadcast, although editing out thirty-eight seconds of speech was quite a challenge.

After a disgusting drinks break, I was debating whether or not to start editing the next one in the queue, but my mind was made up for me when Rosemary rang for a chat. I don’t know for how long we were chatting, but it took me right up to the start of the football.

It was the last match of the season for the league, and what a dramatic day it was. Two matches were of major interest, Y Bala v Llansawel and Y Fflint v Cardiff Metropolitan.

The situation was simple – Y Fflint had to equal or better Y Bala’s result, and Llansawel had to beat Y Bala and hope that Llanelli would beat Hwlfordd so that Llansawel would qualify for the European playoffs.

We were watching the Y Fflint v Cardiff Metropolitan game, which I thought was the wrong one, and although it was rather “agricultural”, it had plenty of action. And as goal after goal was scored in both the matches, the pendulum swung from one way to the other – Y Fflint stay up and Y Bala go down, and then a couple of minutes later, Y Bala stay up and Y Fflint go down.

Our game finished in a 2-2 draw, but Y Bala were undone late in the game to go down 2-1 after leading 1-0 at one point, so Y Bala are relegated to the Cymru North next season. Llansawel, even though they won, were forestalled by Hwlffordd hitting Llanelli for six with no reply.

Y Fflint threw everything that they had at the Met and did everything they could to keep the Met out. They finished the game with only nine players, two having been sent off for “denying a goalscoring opportunity”. However, I thought that the first one was rather harsh as there were two other defenders rushing back to cover.

Other good news on the football front is that the five clubs whose Tier One licence application was refused – Colwyn Bay, Y Bala, Trefynnon, Caerau Trelai and Caerfyrddin – have all been successful on appeal. For the latter two, they’ll have to wait another season because they both missed the promotion bus this time around.

So right now, I’m going to bed, early as it may be, and hoping for a nice lie-in tomorrow. Isabelle the Nurse can treat my legs while I’m still in bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my old vehicles … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once said that the group “Queen” had written a song about me.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Well, who else would a Cortina landslide in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ refer to?"

Tuesday 7th March 2026 – AND YET ANOTHER …

… night when I’ll be going to bed without any tea other than chocolate cake and some of the new batch of home-made chocolate ice cream.

And while I’m at it, I shall be hoping for a better night than the near-catastrophe that was last night, when I was so looking forward to a good sleep.

After coming back in here after my cake and ice cream last night, I wrote out my notes, did what else I had to do and then made ready to climb into bed. And by the time that I was tucked up in bed with my head stuck under the quilt, it was just a minute or so after 22:00.

And there I stayed, as snug as a bug in a rug, until all of … errr … 00:45.

At that point, I had to leave the bed for what seems to be the usual reason these days, but back in bed afterwards, I couldn’t go back to sleep, no matter how I tried. I definitely remember seeing 03:00 come around on the clock. I’m not sure what happened after that, but one thing that I do know is that when the alarm went off at 06:29, I was definitely asleep. And I wish that I’d stayed asleep too.

As usual, it was something of a struggle to rise to my feet and to head off into the bathroom. But I managed to sort myself out eventually and head, rather later than usual, into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And it was, yet again, something of a disappointment.

There was a book publisher in Wales last night. His company was reviewing a whole pile of books in Welsh that had been written by Welsh musicians and was awarding some kind of prize for the best. He’d collected ever so many and read most of them. Some had been eliminated, but there were four left and they would find one more out of the ones they hadn’t read. But there was controversy over one of the four because apparently the author’s viewpoint was not that of everyone else. Some people felt that it was the wrong decision to include this, whereas others were in favour of free speech and the quality of the work rather than the quality of the opinions.

There are dozens and dozens of these sportsmen’s books written by ghostwriters “on behalf of” famous football players etc., but usually these days, they aren’t worth the paper on which they are written. And I’ve never heard of any written in the Welsh language except for one by that rugby referee Nigel Owens.

As for the dream itself, I’ve no idea from where it has come, because nothing about it rings a bell with me.

The nurse turned up after his week’s rest, telling me all about his week off and the home maintenance and cleaning that he did.

After he left, I made breakfast, back to banal toast again, and started my new book. It’s called THE CELT THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

It’s uncertain why “The Celt” is included in the title, because it only mentions them briefly in passing, and then almost always in relation to the Romans. It’s a disappointment on that score. And seeing as the book was written in 1874, a lot of assumptions that Wright makes and conclusions that he draws are now long-outdated, as more-modern discoveries have moved us forward.

Back in here, I had things to do and things to tidy up, and then seeing that there’s no Welsh class today with it being the Easter holidays, I had another look at the radio programme that I started yesterday.

Despite the fact that the edits aren’t so good, I decided to leave it pretty much as it is because editing it will only make it worse. I’ve done one or two little things, but that’s about all. It could be better, but I’m not quite sure how I would do it.

After I’d finished, I sat down and wrote out the notes for it. I needed about one minute and fifty-seven seconds of notes, but without even trying, I managed to make two minutes twenty-eight seconds. I don’t mind being over. I prefer that and have to edit a few things out rather than fall short and have to add things in.

After my disgusting drink break, my faithful cleaner appeared. And the first thing that she did was to shoo me in underneath the shower. So now, I’m a nice, clean boy … "well, clean, anyway" – ed … looking forward … "he hopes" – ed … to a decent sleep tonight.

And the apartment is nice and clean too. I wish that it would stay like that, because I always seem to let it go out of control, and I’m not sure why.

Once she’d gone, I had a few things to do, such as to make a few ‘phone calls, more of which anon, and then I could crack on.

The next radio programme is going to be more complicated than most. It doesn’t feature any musicians (although, of course, there will be music) but a person associated a long time ago with the music industry.

And as he’s still alive, I shall have to be very careful what I say because he was an extremely controversial character back in those days and although a lot has been written about him that is not very pleasant to read, I have yet to find any substantiated sources for much of it.

Finding the music will be complicated too. His company disappeared well over fifty years ago, and the master tapes went with it, so I can’t rely on my “usual sources” to conjure up a hatful of magic. But I have various “connections”, and we shall have to see what they can find for me.

So far, I’ve tracked down a few bits and pieces and, to my surprise, I have some stuff here too, so all is not lost. I’m sure that I can conjure up something.

All of that took me right up to teatime, so I went for chocolate cake with chocolate ice cream. And Bane of Britain forgot to put the mint syrup in with the final forking. It’s probably too late now, regrettably. But never mind – it’s still delicious. Heating up half of the chocolate milk and adding the cornflour worked really well, but what I need to do next time is to start much earlier, heat up all of the milk, add the cornflour to thicken it and then let it cool for half an hour or so.

So right now, I’m off to bed, in the hope that I really will have a good night’s sleep before too long.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about having a shower … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of two girls from Crewe sharing a flat together.
One of them, who is in the shower, shouts to the other one "quick, can you bring me the shampoo?"
The other one replies "but I put it in there an hour or so ago."
"Yes, I know" replied the first girl. "But that’s for dry hair. Mine is sopping wet right now."

EPIC HALL

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