Tag Archives: washing

Sunday 22nd June 2025 – AFTER YESTERDAY’S EXCITEMENT …

… today has been a much more normal day, highlighted by the fact that I actually managed to eat something.

And when I say “a normal day”, what I mean is one that actually began at 05:05 this morning, which is a pretty normal time for my day to begin these days.

The morning began, once I’d hauled myself out of bed of course, by making a start on the notes from yesterday. Not that it was actually 05:05 at that moment because it did take me rather longer than usual to haul myself out of bed after yesterday.

When I finished the notes, I had the dictaphone notes to transcribe. It was a surprise that there was actually something on there – I certainly wasn’t expecting it. There was a Football League playoff match between Huddersfield Town and someone else, taking place in Huddersfield. I was in a hotel and saw the outside broadcasters turn up so I was helping them install all their equipment. They were on the roof of an annexe at the back of the hotel where they had everything set up. I gave them a hand to install the equipment. We settled down on this sofa afterwards – there were five of us on this sofa with a couple of TV monitors and a screen, and began to watch the preparations. The commentator turned round to me and said “here, you can’t sit here and watch the game”. That really disappointed me and in the end I had to go to try to find another vantage point on this roof to look, but there was a fog settling down over and the view was becoming pretty hopeless. In the end I had to just shrug my shoulders and walk away. I thought that that was quite disappointing after all of the help that I’d given the group to set up

Why an outside broadcast unit was on the roof of a hotel watching a football match I really don’t know, but I bet that they had a screen and some TV monitors if they were trying to watch the game through a fog. It’s reminiscent of the GAME BETWEEN CONNAH’S QUAY AND BALA BACK IN JANUARY when they tried to play football in a fog so thick that the linesmen couldn’t see across to the other side of the pitch.

However, being disappointed in the outcome when I’ve done my best to help people is also par for the course. As Ambrose Bierce once famously said, "A year is a period of 365 disappointments".

There was time to do some more work on the outstanding radio programme before everyone else awoke, and then, having realised that I’d spent the night sleeping in my day clothes, I grabbed some clean clothes and went into the bathroom for a good wash.

The washing was piling up in the bathroom, seeing as there are more people than me living here at the moment, so I filled up the washing machine and set that going while I went in to try to drink some coffee. I found that I can’t drink strong coffee, so I had to thin it out with some boiling water. And, even worse, I can’t drink much of it before it begins to upset my stomach.

My faithful cleaner stuck her head in the door to see how I was doing, which was nice of her, followed by Isabelle the Nurse who was back to her cheery old self after yesterday’s emotion, and The Hound of the Baskervilles dragged its master off for walkies.

When the latter two came back, I tried some breakfast. A small amount of porridge, very thin, and so it overflowed the dish and flooded the microwave. I was half-expecting my slice of toast to set the kitchen on fire, the way things were going.

By now the washing was ready so we figured out a way to put the clothes airer up in the bedroom window on the windowsill. That’s the first time that the window has been opened since I lost the mobility in my legs. I can no longer go a-mountaineering over the chest of drawers in the bedroom.

Later on, we went for a drive northwards along the coast, visiting a few of the tidal islands (luckily it was low tide), finding a place to stop where my visitor could at long last have some fish and chips (they were delicious, apparently), a beach where the Hound of the Baskervilles could go for a roll in the sand, and ending up at the mouth of the River Sienne.

A turning tide prevented us from going much further so we turned and headed for home, having been out for a total of six and a half hours.

Tea tonight was, as usual, a pizza and blast me if the oven finally decided to cook something correctly in the correct time, after I’d set the oven to overcook by ten minutes as usual. A pizza with a scorched base is not as nice as it should be.

The football season has started in earnest with the first of the televised matches, and I had Stranraer FC against Larne from Northern Ireland in a friendly. Stranraer, who are probably one of the worst teams in the Scottish pyramid, only had a scratch side out with several trialists, and if the best that Larne (who are competing in European Club Football in three weeks time) could do is to beat them 1-0, then their European season is going to be a remarkably short one. They were not very convincing at all.

So right now I’m off to bed to try to recapture my usual routine – as in
1) A doctor’s appointment at 08:40
2) Dialysis between 14:00 and 18:00
3) An appointment with a dietician at 15:15 (and how they are going to fit that in when I’ll be coupled up to a dialysis machine I really don’t know)

And with the pain in my foot having subsided during the day, it’s started to come back this evening. I’m thoroughly sick of this.

But seeing as we have been talking about a dietician … "well, one of us has" – ed … the last time I saw her, she asked me how things were.
"Actually" I said "I haven’t eaten anything for three days"
"Good grief" she gushed. "You REALLY must tell me your secret of how you do it."

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Saturday 24th May 2025 – I AM ABSOLUTELY …

… and totally whacked right now and I shan’t be up for very long. It’s been another difficult day at dialysis.

It was a difficult night last night too. Despite all of my best efforts, it was after midnight when I finally made my way into bed, having let it all hang out for far too long. And whether I went straight to sleep or not afterwards, I really can’t remember.

One thing is certain though, and that is that I awoke at about 06:05 this morning. And interestingly, my cleaner said that something awoke her round about that time too so I’m wondering if there really is a disturbance in this building at that time of morning.

And for a change, I went back to sleep again straight away. That’s not something that happens very often.

It was round about 06:45 when I awoke next, and when the alarm went off I was in the bathroom having a good wash and scrub up. And a shave too, after all, you never know if I’m going to meet Emilie the Cute Consultant.

With a pile of bedding and other clothes that needed a wash, I filled the washing machine, once more running out of space and with clothes left over, and set the machine off on its way while I went to take my medicine.

Back in here afterwards I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Did I dictate that dream about handing out receipts to people who were using taxis? … "No you didn’t" – ed … How it became compulsory? It was bound to cause a few complications because there were some of these jobs that were account work so what do you do now? The story moved on and I was in South London again. There were all these buses going past which had as their route numbers things like “A-B-C-D” and “E-F-G-H”. I began to wonder how they could actually run these buses on four different routes simultaneously. It turned out that when i enquired they just had these buses running the common parts of the route and we had feeder minibuses I suppose that would run the individual pieces which were like on housing estates etc.

This compulsory issue of receipts reminds me of a situation in Belgium that existed – and maybe it still does today, I don’t know – of restaurants being compelled to give receipts and tax certificates to diners as they leave.

The idea of feeder buses onto a major route is not new. It was one of the idea that I had for the trams of Greater Manchester, where the trams would feed up and down a main-line system and minibuses would be used for driving around the housing estates feeding passengers into the tram stops. However, in the UK at that time there was a chaotic free-for-all in public transport so there would have been little point.

Isabelle the Nurse was in a good mood today and chatted for a few minutes. She’s promised that tomorrow she’ll show me her photos of Copenhagen and I can’t wait (I don’t think)! It’s years since I’ve been to Copenhagen – with a coach in 1981 if I remember correctly.

After she left I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. We’ve left Pontefract Castle and we’re now having a very interesting chat about the work that was done on building Portchester Castle by those well-known Medieval English builders, the … errr … Romans.

After breakfast I came back in here and began my laborious process of unpicking my printer’s installation files, deleting them one by one until I come across the one that is corrupted. As if I don’t already have enough to do.

My cleaner turned up bang on time right in the middle of everything and she sorted out my anaesthetic patches. The bruise has diminished and the swelling has gone down but it still hurts.

The taxi was early today, which was nice, but by the time that we’d picked up the other two passengers it really made no difference.

Coupling up was not quite as painful as Thursday – not quite – and once I was connected no-one really bothered me. However, I wasn’t in much of a mood to do a great deal, what with all of the pain. I spent most of my time mainly vegetating.

Uncoupling was quite painful too but I was glad that it was all over quickly. I can’t do with much more of this. The French are bringing in a law of Euthanasia to bring the country in line with Belgium and I shan’t be sorry. I would give all that I had … "and more besides" – ed … just to have a really good sleep.

The climb up here was pretty awful tonight. I’ve not been feeling well all day and it’s slowly becoming worse. I had a struggle to make tea and now that I’ve finished my notes, I’ll dictate what needs to be dictated and then I’m off to bed.

It was nice, though, that the taxi was early. Usually they are late and sometimes quite late too.
Not so long ago I remember berating a taxi driver about being late. "You should have been here half an hour ago" I said
"Why?" he asked. "What happened?"

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Saturday 17th May 2025 – I AM CONVINCED …

… that they tried everything that they could at the dialysis centre this afternoon to make me run as late as possible. It’s been one of those days today.

In fact, it’s been one of those days all day today and it started last night, as a matter of fact. Although I wasn’t feeling particularly tired, I still managed to complete my notes by 22:30 and by the time that I’d done everything that needed doing, it was just about 23:05 when I finally fell into bed, hoping for a really good night’s sleep.

And believe it or not, I managed to stay asleep until all of … errr … 03:40 this morning.

Once I’d awoken, I tried as usual to go back to sleep seeing as it was such an early start, and eventually I did manage to drop back off, although it took quite a considerable while. I thought that it would never happen.

Having gone back to sleep, I awoke again at 06:15, and after trying for about 20 minutes to go back to sleep, I gave up and headed for the bathroom.

After a good wash and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cure Consultant, I rounded up all of the winter coats and the like and put them in the washing machine so that the machine can do its stuff. It looked like a lovely day outside.

After I’d had my medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And once more, I was surprised that there was so much stuff on it, bearing in mind how short a night it was.

There was some kind of confusion about Lee Dorsey and music. I think that Lee Dorsey used to write songs that were sung by females and Gerry Dorsey who used to write songs that were sung by males but I’m not sure why I thought of that and I’m not sure why it came into my mind.

In actual fact, not that it’s particularly important, Lee Dorsey is the old American pop singer who actually owned a car repair business and Gerry Dorsey is better-known as Engelbert Dumper truck

Later on I was being held prisoner in a house by some kind of weird kind of obscene bully. I was friendly with his daughter and he had a handicapped wife. The relationship between his daughter and me developed into something rather more than friendship. He was extremely unhappy about this and so were the rest of his children. They remembered her being with a parson and had spent eighteen months together. It was supposed to be the next big romance but it ended dramatically just before I came along. I was extremely resented by this man and his other children. The woman and I became quite friendly. I had a suspicion that this was going to be rather more than friends and I was trying desperately not to have any kind of involvement in anything that might be misconstrued in this respect because I was simply interested in the daughter despite all of the issues with her father. This woman and her husband began to have fierce arguments and I felt the situation becoming more and more uncomfortable until in the end the woman must have told her husband that she was going to leave him and run off with me. Of course that was the final trigger to an extremely unpleasant moment where I was quite literally forced into a room with all the family. The family first of all, that is, the other children of the man began to interrogate the daughter about the time that she’d spent with this priest guy. She was saying that what turned her off him was the idea that he was going to rescue all of these animals and keep them at home. They pointed out that she had a hamster or a gerbil or something. She replied “that’s hardly the same thing as that which this priest guy was trying to bring in to any kind of home where he would be living”. I could see that this situation was not going to turn out very well at all and I began to wish that I was somewhere else indeed. I didn’t really have much choice at that particular moment.

This next one was a return to the dream of that domineering, bully father where I was mentioning that I was being interviewed in the hope of tripping me up or of persuading the daughter of the house that I was not the man for her future. Either way, as the time passed, it was becoming less and less comfortable and I began to feel more and more anxious about the situation.

It’s been a while since I’ve had some kind of menacing dream like this one, and I certainly didn’t appreciate dropping back into it a second time. However, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I can in real life easily find myself stepping into situations just like that, quite by accident and with no real effort at all

And then I was in hospital again after the biopsie musculaire having the wound checked over again. On the way I’d noticed a huge advert on a roadside advertising tablet, advertising the National Folk Dancing Championships taking place in the town. I’d checked my agenda and found that I was actually doing something on that particular day which would have been a shame because I would have loved to have gone and maybe to have competed but it’s rather late in the day now … fell asleep here … anyway so I would really have liked to have taken part but being in hospital, it was not possible.

This is another one of those dreams about which I remember absolutely nothing at all. However, I can say that these hospital issues are really getting to me these days, that’s for sure.

Finally, I was back living at home. Looking through the newspaper I saw a room to let with shower. I rang up about it and a very polite young Afro-Caribbean voice answered and gave me some information. I asked where it was and he replied that it was in Tiananmen Square in Crewe. I’d heard vaguely of that at one time and thought that it was near Bedford Street but he told me that it wasn’t so I set out to go to look at it. My car wasn’t outside the house. I suddenly realised that I’d left it in Bedford Street in a car park there. I had to walk to Bedford Street and walked into the car park where there was my old white Luton Transit that was parked in the car park. I climbed into that and to my surprise it started so I set off to go to look at this flat.

Wherever Tiananmen Square might be in Crewe, I really have no idea. It’s certainly not near Bedford Street. And there’s no car park there either

The nurse turned up, early as usual. He didn’t have anything to say for himself which was just as well because for some reason or other I was spoiling for a fight. I’ve no idea why, because nothing had happened to trigger off anything.

So after he left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. We’re still at Norham, discussing the civilian architecture of the castle and mentioning the odd tower and curtain wall here and there in terms that I find difficult to understand.

But one thing is certain, and that is that we aren’t explaining anything about the whys and wherefores of the military features of the castle.

After breakfast I hung out the washing in the living room and opened the window seeing as it was such a lovely day, in the hope that it would soon dry.

Back in here I drafted a few advertisements about the work that I need doing, having split it up into individual tasks, and then posted it on this Chamber of Commerce website. And within no time at all I was swamped … "well, sort of" – ed … with replies and before I left for dialysis I’d already spoken to a few and arranged appointments.

When my cleaner turned up, she fitted my anaesthetic patches and sorted out a few things ready for my taxi to turn up. It was one of my favourite drivers, the Belgian girl with twins in the first year of High School across the car park. We picked up our usual Saturday afternoon passenger and we had a lovely chat all the way to Avranches.

We were early arriving at the centre but so was everyone else and I was last to be seen, as usual. There was a problem with someone’s connection so for quite a while all of the nurses were congregated around his bed.

There’s one of the nurses there who is not quite so attentive as the others, so guess who I had. At first she tried to run my machine for four hours, and I had to explain to her, and not once either, that she’s not deducted the 700 grammes for my shoes. It took a while for her to grasp the issue, recalculate the figures and switch the machine to three and a half hours.

And then she had three painful goes at coupling me up to the machine. so once again, all in all, it took one hour from my arrival to the start of the process.

My machine was misbehaving all the way through the session, and then once more, right at the end I had to wait an age to be uncoupled from the machine. I was thoroughly fed up by all of this.

It was the same taxi driver who brought me home which was nice. We had another interesting chat. And then my cleaner was waiting for me to watch me up the stairs.

Tea was a breaded quorn fillet, and I notice that I’m running low of those. I shall have to think of a Plan B.

But not right now because I’m going to dictate my radio notes and then go to bed, in hope of a decent sleep.

But seeing as we have been talking about dancing … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once went to one of these Country Dances in the local village hall, and I was so impressed. Everyone was leaping up and down and around quite energetically like some kind of Jitterbug Competition from the 1920s or like something out of HELLZAPOPPIN’
Finding a local standing around idly watching the show, I expressed my amazement.
"Don’t worry" said the local – a very vocal local yokel. "It won’t last long"
"Really?" I asked. "Why’s that?"
"They’ve sent for the caretaker" he replied. "He’ll soon turn off the underfloor heating."

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Saturday 10th May 2025 – GUESS WHO …

… forgot to switch the alarms back on this morning? That’s right. Bane of Britain has triumphed again.

Consequently I had a nice, long sleep until all of 07:31 when I suddenly awoke with one of these dramatic awakenings that I have every now and again. It was nice, bright sunlight outside so I immediately guessed that there was something wrong, so I glanced at the time.

And after another late night last night a really good sleep probably did me some good too. I was exhausted after the journey back and by the time that I’d finished my meal and was back in here I wasn’t fit for very much.

Nevertheless I wrote the notes and performed some of the backing- up and then crawled off to bed at about 23:40 or something. I was asleep quite quickly and, for a change, I was dead to the World throughout the entire night. I remember nothing whatever until I awoke at 07:31.

Once I’d realised exactly what time it was I dashed … "errr … quite" – ed … into the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up, and sorted out the washing. Far too much to put in one machine so I just put the important things into the washing machine and set it off on its routine.

In the kitchen I had my medication, forgetting the vitamin D and the vitamin B12 that the hospital wants me to take and then back in here I was just about to check the dictaphone when Isabelle the Nurse turned up.

She admired the huge plaster on my leg and read the prescription attentively. She made a list of what she needed and ticked off what we had, indicated on the hospital’s prescription what she needed, and then issued instructions as to what else she needed, promising to write a prescription for tomorrow.

After that, it was breakfast. And then I read more of MY BOOK. Except that I didn’t. I was side-tracked yet again, firstly reading about the curious antics of Ranulf Flambard, the treasurer of William Rufus and imprisoned by Henry I, only to become the first-ever prisoner known to have escaped from the Tower of London, and then of the downfall and subsequent resurgence of William de Forz and the siege and subsequent capture of Castle Bytham by Henry III.

You can probably understand why I was no good at being a University Student. I was always wandering off down alleyways that led me far away from my course syllabus.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was something last night about a ferry – a small one like one of the ones that they have here in Granville that go out to the Ile de Chausey. In some kind of tempest or hurricane it had been badly damaged. The ferry company had one of their previous ferries – it was sitting on a plinth outside their office. What they did was to take the boat off the plinth and put it in the water and began to use that. The damaged one, they hauled it out of the water and put it on the plinth. The owners of the company decided that they would give it a thorough overhaul and repair it. Then they would check it every three years for any kind of deterioration and keep on repairing it if it needed it so that if something similar happened again they could take the one off the plinth and drop that in the water and it would be ready to go without any problems whatsoever

There was a similar story about the “Gate Guardians”, the Spitfires and Hurricanes that stood on plinths outside former World War II airfields. When we were kids, on our way to North Wales, we always noticed the one at Hawarden Airfield. However, when the film BATTLE OF BRITAIN was proposed, all of the Gate Guardians were rounded up and where it was possible to do so, were put back into the air.

There was also something about being in hospital and a nurse doing something to me which impressed me so I said something. She replied that she was only a student nurse, which surprised me. I wonder who she was. I’ve had several student nurses attending to me in the past

After that? I had some e-mails to write. There is a mountain of correspondence here going back weeks that I really must answer. However, I must have let the time slip away with me because my cleaner turned up to fit my anaesthetic patches when I was nowhere near ready.

She turned up, but the taxi didn’t. After waiting half an hour, I ‘phoned them up. "Ohh merde!" said the dispatcher in a voice loud enough that even my cleaner heard it. "I’ll find another vehicle for you".

We decided to go outside and wait, and we had a lovely forty minutes under the sun until an ambulance turned up. I hate them – it’s quite a fight for me to put myself inside – but if it’s the only vehicle available I can’t complain.

It was driven by the driver who took me to Paris. She told me that they had been on the autoroute not far from St-Lô when the call had come through. No wonder that it had taken so long to arrive. I told her that I didn’t understand any of this – after all, the taxi company had brought me back from Paris yesterday so they knew that I was at home.

Hours late at the dialysis centre, and what made it even worse was that it was a three-and-a-half hour session today. Had the taxi been on time, I could have had a very pleasant late afternoon back at my place.

The consolation was that I had Lexi and Océane dealing with me today. All of the nurses there are wonderful but as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … Lexi really does have the most delicate touch.

Who cares whether or not the coupling-up was painful? After Tuesday afternoon and the muscular biopsy, nothing else is painful. I had plenty of work to do, apart from sitting there watching the blood pressure slowly sink through the floor to a rather dangerous 88.

Emilie the Cute Consultant was there too, but she remained stoically in her little glass cage. If she wanted something, she sent one of the girls for it. It’s a shame that she’s no longer speaking to me after my revolt the other week.

This evening, I was the last one there so they were both dealing with me. While Lexi was compressing me, Océane was inspecting my feet. I told them that I had delayed my arrival on purpose so as to have the undivided attention of both of them.

The taxi was waiting for me to bring me home and we had a very silent drive back. My cleaner was waiting and she watched and helped a little while I struggled up the stairs. She’d been to the chemist’s to buy what was needed and had bought a lettuce and some potatoes for me.

After she left, I made tea. Baked potato, salad and breaded quorn fillet followed by chocolate cake and almond soya dessert.

Now that I’ve finished my notes, I have some dictating to do and then I’m off to bed. I have plenty of work to do tomorrow, and there’s footy too – Caernarfon v Cardiff Metro, the winner going on to meet Hwlffordd to compete for the vital third European spot, accompanying TNS and Penybont.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about student nurses … "well, one of us has" – ed … regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m not made correctly and taking a blood sample from me is not easy.
Nevertheless, I always encourage the student nurses to have a go. After all, they have to learn somewhere.
One of them was having so much difficulty that I told her "cheer up! If I leave this hospital alive, you won’t need to sit your exams. You will have earned your diploma by default."

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Saturday 12th April 2025 – WE ARE BACK …

… amongst the painful dialysis connections. After a few sessions of comparatively painless connections since Emilie the Cute Consultant did her stuff, they have been gradually worsening and today we were back in the agony stakes. So I’ve no idea what’s going to happen now.

Another thing about which I have no idea now is this story about early nights. I cracked on rapidly to finish everything last night and managed somehow to finish relatively early. However I was as usual side-tracked by a couple of really good concerts on the playlist and it ended up being long after midnight when I finally crawled into bed.

For a change it was a comparatively decent night. I slept right though until the alarm sounded with only the vaguest memory of awakening in mid-sleep.

It was a struggle to rise to my feet when the alarm went off but I staggered into the bathroom for a good wash and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

After the wash I set the washing machine off with a load of clothes. For once, I managed to fit everything into it but it probably wasn’t a good idea because it struggled with the weight. I need to wash my clothes more frequently – or wash fewer clothes more often.

After the medication I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I should have been going into work with Nerina. We were on our way to catch our bus at the top of Mill Street. I was walking on my crutches and Nerina was with me. Nerina suddenly remembered that she had a prescription to pick up at the chemist’s across the road. She said that she would go and pick it up. I told her to be quick so she dashed off while I continued as quickly as I possibly could, which wasn’t very quick at all. I saw the bus come up Mill Street to the traffic lights and turn right. I knew that I wasn’t going to catch it. I saw Nerina come out of the chemist’s and run across the road. I thought “at least she’s caught the bus”. When I reached the bus stop she was standing there. She was saying that she had seen that I wasn’t there and so had waited for me. I told her that that was a silly thing to do. She should have caught the bus and gone on into work anyway on time. I would follow as best as I could. She would have been on time but now we are both going to be late and there isn’t another bus for hours so we are probably going to end up missing half a day. That was a strange decision.

Why I should be going to work on the K43 to Nantwich (that was the bus route where I was) is a total mystery, as is why I would be coming from the general direction of the railway station. And I wouldn’t be on crutches in Crewe either. Furthermore, I reckon that Nerina would have had far more sense than to have missed the bus in order to wait for me if I were going to miss it.

There was also something about being on board a yacht. There was some boy there who seemed to be very well-educated from a good family but that was far from the case. He was very insistent on his rights etc. He was going on wanting this, wanting that and everyone was annoyed with him in the end. They decided that they would teach him a lesson. When he made some more demands, someone reminded him that he was hoping that we’d move back into more traditional ways that were all good and proper a hundred years ago. They put him on a bed face down, removed his trousers and spanked him with a slipper. Every time he protested, they reminded him that he was hoping for a return to the Good Old Days and isn’t this just the kind of thing that he would have wanted? When his parents came back they were outraged by what they saw but everyone on board said “well, he was asking for this – it was literally what he wanted, a return to the Good Old Days of a hundred years ago and he’s receiving exactly what he wanted. None of us can see what the problem is”.

There have been some very, very strange dreams in the past but I don’t think that there has ever been one quite as strange as this. It quite possibly relates to an argument that broke out on the Internet a while back when someone posted "the problem with today’s children is that they don’t seem to have the sense of fear that the sound of a leather belt being withdrawn quickly so a series of belt hoops on a pair of jeans would instil into them.".

Isabelle was in quite a chatty mood today and talked incessantly about nothing whatever as she organised my legs.

Breakfast was next, with more of MY BOOK. We have left Harlech and are now at Hastings Castle, discussing the finer points of corbels and arches, with the odd flying buttress thrown in for good measures. A flying buttress is the equivalent of half an arch, leaning against the outside of a heavy stone wall to stop the wall falling outward. But does our author tell us that? Of course he doesn’t. He describes the buttress’s more elegant points from an artistic point of view and that’s about it.

Back in here I spent a couple of hours drafting a complicated letter to my tenant downstairs, but after having had a couple of chats with a couple of people and having had second thoughts, it’s all becoming far too complicated for words and so I’ve decided that she will leave at the end of the current lease. I’m too old, too tired and fed up to start to negotiate complicated deals and arrangements.

My cleaner turned up on time and fitted my anaesthetic patches and then I tidied up the kitchen while I waited for the taxi. I didn’t have long to wait either. And I was the only passenger in the car so we arrived at the dialysis centre quite early.

For a change I was second in and second to be coupled up. Despite the patches and despite the new procedure and despite the ice pack, it still hurt, and it was hurting throughout the session.

The good news is that if they had the machine on max and ran it for three and a half hours, it would leave 200 grams behind. After a discussion with the doctor today, I decided that it would make more sense to go with three and a half hours, and have a look at how things are on Monday. Four hours would probably be better then, and bring me down to an ideal weight ready for my three-day break.

There was football on the internet as I mentioned earlier – Y Drenewydd v Aberystwyth. And for once in my life in the Welsh Premier League, I saw a team play the way that I would play my team against any team that has a rather pedestrian central defence.

Y Drenewydd were desperate to win to keep alive any possible hope of avoiding the drop, so they went on an all-out attack, However Aberystwyth, who have clearly been reading my training manual, played with the rapid winger Niall Flint at centre-forward. Every time Aberystwyth won the ball in defence they kicked it upfield over the head of the central defenders and Niall Flint ran after it.

He was causing panic in their defence all through the game. And while Y Drenewydd scored two goals, Niall Flint scored two of his own for Aberystwyth, he hit the post twice and only some desperate defending kept him out on another couple of occasions. And when Aberystwyth scored a third as the game drew to a close, that, I’m afraid, was that for Y Drenewydd.

During pre-season I’d seen Y Drenewydd play against Hednesford Town, and what I saw prompted me to enter into correspondence with the Drenewydd club secretary. On the 5th of August I finished my correspondence with "I can see it being a long, cold season ahead"

At least the Chairman of Y Drenewydd was quite frank after the game. "We lost some very good players in close season but didn’t replace like with like". That is no surprise at all. What is a surprise is that he didn’t do anything to redress the balance.

The boss was waiting for me when the dialysis was over and he brought me home through the immense traffic queue as the Parisians desert their city for the Easter break. Despite dropping off another passenger, I was at home for 18:15 and I wish that I could do that every time.

My cleaner watched as I climbed my weary way upstairs where I relaxed for an hour or so.

Tea was as usual baked potato, vegan salad and breaded quorn fillet, followed by cake and soya dessert. Now I’m having a little break before dictating my radio notes and going to bed. A lie-in until 08:00 in the morning and then I have baking to do. Bread, more bread and a chocolate cake. Let’s see how the new water measurer copes

But seeing as we have been talking about football … "well, one of us has" – ed … tomorrow there’s a live football match in the Women’s League Cup – Caerdydd V Llansawel.
In the previous round Llansawel beat a team representing the Walt Disney Fan club. It was quite an easy match for Llansawel so I asked them why
"It was as if that Disney team only played with ten players" explained the Llansawel manager. "They had a player on the pitch called ‘Cinderella’ but she spent the whole ninety minutes running away from the ball"

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Saturday 22nd March 2025 – IT WAS ANOTHER …

… freezing cold night last night when I had to leave the comfort of my stinking pit to put on my dressing gown and go back to bed. I’ve no idea what’s happening here but as I said yesterday, it’s completely the opposite of how things were even a week ago.

At least it wasn’t quite such a late night as it was the previous night. After midnight, I was still letting it all hang out, but not for long and I was glad to see the inside of my bed, where I fell asleep quite quickly.

Not for long though, because I froze again. And after awakening a couple of times I gave up and put in the dressing gown, and then went back to sleep.

When the alarm went off I sat bolt upright and was out of bed in an instant. I’m not sure why because I certainly didn’t feel like it. It was another uncomfortable stagger into the bathroom to sort myself out ready for dialysis – a wash and a shave in case Emilie the Cute Consultant is there, not that it makes any difference because she doesn’t love me any more.

There was also some washing to do, including the bedding from last week that my cleaner changed. And as you might already have guessed, there’s still some washing left to do that I couldn’t fit into the machine

In the kitchen I had some things to do. There were six oranges that were definitely looking the worse for wear so I whizzed them up in my whizzer and filtered out the juice.

There’s a load of whizzed-up pulp now so what I plan to do is to make an orange, ginger and coconut oilcake and put all of the orange pulp in it. It might not work but if it does, it will certainly be different

The nurse came round and told me a few of the details about the funeral yesterday. He also asked for my medical card, that I don’t have, so he searched through the apartment too and couldn’t find it. I did tell him….

For breakfast I had some diluted fresh orange juice and some of my home-made apple and kiwi purée with my porridge and toast made of home-made bread. And it was all beautiful too. That’s what I call a good breakfast.

I also read some more of MY NEW BOOK. Our astronomy lessons are continuing and we’re still discussing different New Years, but we’re now coming round to the more practical aspects of what we have learned so far.

He’s come up with some surprising facts, including the fact that there are many similarities of religious and cultural practices between the Ancient Egyptians and some of the contemporary races of Central America. I wonder if this book is where Thor Heyerdahl found his ideas that led him on his adventures in papyrus and balsawood rafts

Going back to the story about various New Years, of which there are more than just a few scattered around the globe, the English New Year was the 25th March until 1752, and it still is for Income Tax purposes, although with the change of calendar, also in 1752 when England lost 11 days to bring it into alignment with everywhere else, The Income Tax New Year is 6th April these days.

Back in here I had the dictaphone notes to transcribe from last night. There was something going on about one of the earliest airports and airfields in Wales, created in the early 20th Century by someone who was wandering around there looking for something special. He came across a very flat piece of land that people were using from which to fly some kind of primitive machines. He was immediately captivated by this and went back to London to create the idea of having the first airport in Wales based on this particular site in the hills.

And if someone could find a flat place in the Welsh hills big enough to build an airport they will be doing well.

There was also an article that I saw in something that I’d written about Granville being the site of one of the very first ports for armed reconnaissance in the New World. But as I looked at it I saw that it was a considerable jumble of words rather than being anything coherent. I wondered whether it had been a dream that I’d written down some time or other in the past without thinking about it and had come across it again. It certainly made no sense, but on the other hand it was a lot of truth in what I’d written.

As it happens, unlikely though it might seem, there was a famous corsair authorised by the French Government who sailed out of Granville, Georges-René Pléville Le Pelley, whose statue is just down the road from here. But “a considerable jumble of words rather than being anything coherent” – my dreams “certainly made no sense”. Perish the thought, hey?

And later still, I went out around Brussels with Zero’s father. We’d come past one of the supermarkets so I suggested that we go there and do some shopping for me while we are out. Eventually we found a car park after several wrong turnings but I didn’t have my disabled car badge and there was nowhere to park really close to the supermarket door so I had to stagger all the way over to the supermarket. We found a parking place right outside but for some reason he didn’t go to fetch the car. We went to go in but I suddenly realised that I didn’t have my crutches. I was finding it extremely difficult to move. I could see that this is going to be extremely difficult if I didn’t have my crutches with me to be able to move about in the supermarket, or anywhere for that matter.

Zero’s father? But no Zero. That’s a disappointment. And how I would like to be able to stagger somewhere without my crutches, difficult or not. However, I recognise this supermarket. It’s one that I’ve been to in Canada in the pouring rain, but I can’t remember where it is now, apart from the fact that it’s in Québec.

Back in here I had a few things to do and I was in the middle thereof when I was interrupted by my cleaner who had come to fit my patches. And while she was here I went to answer my telephone and there in the pouch inside the case was my medical card. However it managed to find its way there I really don’t know.

The taxi at lunchtime was driven by a very garrulous driver and we had an interesting chat all the way to Avranches.

At Avrenches they put an ice-pack on my arm for ten minutes and then went to connect me up. And while it did hurt, it didn’t hurt as badly as some have in the recent past.

No-one bothered me at all today so I watched the highlights of last night’s football, carried out a few tasks that have been meaning to do, and then cut up a few sound-bytes. But the travelling laptop is not the quickest machine in the World and it takes forever.

After they unplugged me it was the same taxi driver who brought me home and we had another interesting chat coming home. My cleaner was waiting for me and we went through the medication and made a list of what I need, seeing as we now have a medical card to take to the Pharmacy.

Tea tonight was a baked potato, salad and one of the breadcrumbed quorn fillets that I like, seeing as I have now run out of baps for my vegan burgers. Maybe I ought to experiment and make some myself

So now I have radio notes to dictate and then I’ll go to bed. Tomorrow there will be the notes to edit and my orange, ginger and coconut cake to make. I’ve some pizza dough left for tomorrow night and I’m using up the bread that is in the freezer right now to make some space.

But seeing as we have been talking about Georges-René Pléville Le Pelley … "well, one of us has" – ed … it’s not very well-known that he and his corsairs sailed occasionally with a group of pirates.
One day, in company with the pirates, his corsairs came across a British ship that, after a spirited fight, they managed to seize.
They rounded up all the British crew and upon doing a headcount, found that there were two missing, so the pirates and corsairs searched the ship for them and eventually dragged them out of hiding.
Later on, back in London the two men were interviewed by the Admiralty about their capture.
"How was it that you were captured?" said the First Sea Lord to the first one.
"I was dragged out of my hiding place by the pirates"
"And you?" he asked the other one
"I was dragged out of my hiding place by the … errr … other ruffians"

0

Saturday 15th March 2025 – THERE WAS NOTHING …

… whatever of any interest happening today. I can’t think when it last was that I had such an uneventful day.

There was even a decent sleep for once. It may well have been late by the time that I went to bed, quite a while after midnight in fact, but I was soon asleep, which is no surprise after the difficult night the previous day … "??" – ed ….

Once in bed and asleep, I stayed asleep right the way through the night with no recollection whatever of awakening and it’s been a while since that’s happened too.

When the alarm did go off, I was away with the fairies – but not in any manner that would incite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine. I was doing something with a pair of lady’s shoes but I’ve no idea what because immediately that the alarm sounded I awoke and the whole lot evaporated completely.

Into the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up, some deodorant and a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant later on at Avranches.

There was also some washing to do, and amazing as it might seem, having taken care to wash my clothes before another large pile builds up, there was still too much for the washing machine. This is becoming ridiculous – either my clothes are growing or the washing machine is shrinking . There certainly aren’t more clothes than before.

With nothing on the dictaphone this morning, I could crack on and do some more unzipping. There’s not all that many left to do now but I keep on finding more and more that I hadn’t found earlier.

Isabelle the Nurse was late as usual, no thanks to the roadworks in the town centre where they are rebuilding the square outside the Mairie. As well as that, they’ve suddenly and spontaneously decided to carry out more roadworks elsewhere in the town centre that’s blocking part of the one-way system and it’s a nightmare.

After she left I made breakfast and carried on reading MY NEW BOOK.

We’ve begun to discuss the influence of Christianity on folklore. He is of the opinion that "Christianity was both antagonistic to and tolerant of pagan custom and belief. In principle and purpose it was antagonistic. In practice it was tolerant where it could tolerate safely. At the centre it aimed at purity of Christian doctrine, locally it permitted pagan practices to be continued under Christian auspices. In the earliest days it set itself against all forms of idolatry and non-Christian practices"

He goes on to quote from Gibbon’s DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE saying that "in later days, after the fifth century it accepted both pagan practice and pagan ritual."

It’s interesting that he picks the fifth century. Rome was sacked by Alaric in 410AD and by the Vandals in 455AD and in 476AD the “barbarian” Odoacer seized the throne of Rome. This influx of foreigners into the city of Rome doubtless weakened the grip of the Church .

Pope Gregory wrote in 601AD to Abbott Mellitus who was on the point of going as a missionary to England "because they have been used to slaughter many oxen in the sacrifices to devils some solemnity must be exchanged for them on this account, so that on the day of the dedication, or the nativities of. the holy martyrs whose relics are there deposited, they may build themselves huts of the boughs of trees, about those churches which have been turned to that use from temples and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting and no more offer beasts to the devil [diabolo], but kill praise of God in their eating, and return thanks to all things for their sustenance"

Our author adds "This toleration took the shape either of allowing the continuation of pagan custom and belief as a matter not affecting Christian doctrine or of actual absorption into Church practice and ritual."

In fact, judging by the deterioration of the pure Christian faith in the way that it is practised these days by many so-called Christians, there’s a very strong argument that suggests that rather than the Christian faith having absorbed some facets of paganism, it’s more as if paganism has absorbed some (and only some) facets of Christianity. The more uncomfortable aspects of pure Christian belief have been abandoned a long time ago, if ever they were there at all.

Back in here I attacked the Woodstock radio project and I now have all of the music that I need – at least one track from every artist (even the ones that I didn’t believe that I could find) except one. And that’s because Sly and the Family Stone don’t really fit into my programmes and I’ll have to omit one or two groups anyway.

My cleaner turned up later to fit my patches and then the taxi, driven by the boss, turned up to run me to Avranches.

Once more, I was one of the first there and had to wait until they had cleaned up from the morning. Once I made it to my bed I was the fourth to receive attention (I don’t move as quickly as the others) and then I could settle down to watch the football.

Welsh Cup semi-final today between Connah’s Quay Nomads of the Premier League and Llanelli of the second tier. The Nomads are having a wretched season by their standards and Llanelli are leading their division so it was always going to be a tight affair.

The gulf in class and quality was evident however but even though the Nomads had most of the possession they went in at the break 1-0 down because of a penalty. Both sides had hit the bar however.

Two inspired substitutions at half-time turned the game around for the Nomads. They were 2-1 up in a couple of minutes before Llanelli had had time to re-adjust but once they had adapted to the new situation they held on to the end, having had a couple of chances of their own.

It was another one of those really exciting games however, with plenty of entertainment for the neutral fans.

After that I began to sort through the music for the Woodstock project until it was time to be unplugged.

The same driver brought me home – early once again. I could relax and unwind for an hour or so with my disgusting drink.

Tea tonight was a chiliburger on a bap with salad and baked potato followed by date bread and soya dessert. The same as last week’s, and the week before etc, but still just as delicious.

So right now I’ll dictate my radio notes and then go to bed. I have a busy day tomorrow, bread making and so on

While we’re on the subject of pagan ritual and belief … "well, one of us iss" – ed … to tell a little secret, I had my suspicions that Nerina might have been in touch with things that we know not what. Not long after we had come together, we were out driving when she touched my leg. I immediately turned into a lay-by
It made me suspicious, especially when we were in the local supermarket once and she wanted to buy a new broom to sweep the yard.
At the check-out I told the cashier "don’t bother to wrap it – she’ll fly it home"

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Saturday 1st March 2025 – DYDD GWYL DEWI HAPUS.

And a happy St David’s Day to those of you who don’t celebrate it. And my leek soup was delicious. Even better – there’s enough left for lunch tomorrow.

That is of course, always assuming that I’m here to eat it because a few more nights like last night and a few more days like today and I won’t be.

As I expected, last night was another late night. I didn’t hang around at all though so I’ve no idea why I couldn’t have been in bed at a reasonable time.

Once in bed though, I couldn’t sleep. I had a pain in the neck (and I’m not talking about a partner here) that was absolutely agonising and try as I might, I couldn’t make myself comfortable. What with all of the music drifting up from the ball in the town centre and the revellers making their way back to the millions of motorhomes parked all around here, I lay awake for hours and I’m not joking either.

When the alarm went off I was fast asleep though and once more it was a very weary, bleary-eyed me who struggled to his feet.

After a wash, I set the washing machine off. And how many times is this now that I’ve had dirty clothes left over after I’ve filled the machine? Either I need a bigger machine or else I need to use the machine more frequently.

Next, it was into the kitchen for the medication, remembering not to take the medicine that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day.

Back in here, I was surprised to find some stuff on the dictaphone from the night. I seriously thought that I hadn’t been asleep long enough. I’d been out on a night off and had gone to the pub to sit and have a quiet drink. Then I thought that it was becoming late so I’d better set out and head for home. I began to jog and when I reached my house, I carried on running but suddenly realised that I was supposed to be going home, not for a run as I used to do at night, so I turned round and went back to the house but suddenly found myself running again. I had to stop and go back another time. When I reached the house I put my hand on the door to open it and a dog began to bark. Someone said “it’s Eric”. They came to meet me and said “a girl has been to see you” and mentioned her name. I thought that I recognised the name from somewhere as if it was someone whom I knew in Stockport but I suddenly realised that it was a girl with whom I’d worked once. Whatever does she want? “Well, she’s left her business card”. I went in and saw on the table a business card so I picked it up. It wasn’t hers though, but for a guy called Tim Edmonds who works for the Government. “Who’s Tim Edmonds? What does he want?”. My youngest sister asked me “is your car OK?”. I replied “yes. Shouldn’t it have been?”. She looked at her husband and said “I’m just making sure that he has some windows in his car” so that there had obviously been something about windows in cars between the two of them.

When I was taxi-driving when I lived in Winsford I often used to go for a run when I came home at some kind of silly hour in the early morning. I really enjoyed it and it was a really good way for me to relax and unwind. I lost the habit after that when I moved to Crewe but I started running again when I moved to Belgium. After I taught Roxanne to ride a bike she used to chase me through the local park. There’s also a story about my youngest sister, her husband and a window too but that’s yet another story that the World isn’t quite ready to hear.

Isabelle breezed in, hours late because of Carnaval. Today is the defilé des enfants – the Children’s Procession when all the kids dress up as their favourite characters and walk into town accompanied by the brass bands, and they have begun to close all of the streets even at this time of the morning. That’s actually my favourite part of the long weekend and a few years ago I hit the streets with my recording gear and interviewed some of the kids to make a radio programme

After she left I made my breakfast and read MY BOOK.

Today we are talking about Burpham Camp in Sussex. And having disputed at great length (as regular readers of this rubbish will recall) the opinion that some of these hilltop camps are “Danish camps” because the Danes wouldn’t build impressive fortifications, he tells us, about Burpham Camp, that "it is safe to suppose that it is not a British work. For reasons as obvious it is not Roman. It has no known characteristics of Saxon work, and had it been such, the church would certainly have been within the vallum. It must therefore be either Danish or Norman. To Norman work it has no resemblance, and the conclusion is that it is Danish.".

So having insisted "that it is not a British work" and "has no known characteristics of Saxon work", according to archaeological excavations undertaken on behalf of the National Heritage List, "the Iron Age promontory fort at Burpham is an example of an inland fort where the natural defensive qualities of the land were utilised and the site was reoccupied as a burh in the Anglo-Saxon period. ".

After breakfast I had bread to make for tea tonight – just a couple of rolls – and then I went to sit down for half an hour for a rest with a mug of coffee.

When my cleaner came in, she found me hard at work. Not only had I prepared all of the veg for my soup, I actually had it all in the pot simmering away and the bread was in the air fryer cooking. Today we gave the anaesthetic cream a try-out and after she left, I carried on with my soup.

The taxi was driven today by my favourite taxi driver but she was late. And then we had to go to pick up someone else but because the roads were all closed because of the defilé we had to go miles and miles out of our way.

It took an age to sort out the other passenger and then we had to go almost to Bréhal before we could pick up the road to Avranches, a detour of about a dozen miles.

As you might expect, I was last to arrive and was even later because there were two emergencies admitted. My appointment is in principle at 13:30, and I wasn’t seen to until 14:45.

By that time the anaesthetic had long-since worn off so I knew all about the connection. And Julie the Cook tried to do it all on her own and failed, and I was in total and utter agony and despair throughout the entire session.

However, I did manage to watch the football. The result was predictable, with TNS, eight points clear at the top defeating Aberystwyth, eight points adrift at the foot of the bale, winning the League Cup.

What wasn’t predictable was the heavy weather that TNS made of it and while Aberystwyth never looked like threatening the TNS goal, a 1-0 win isn’t a safe win by any means. All I can say though is that if Aberystwyth had played with the same fire and spirit throughout the season that they showed today, they wouldn’t be in anything like as much trouble as they are.

What with one thing and another it was 19:45 when I returned home. While all of the police had ringed the town with roadblocks to hunt down drunken drivers, a bunch of drunken teenagers were misbehaving in the street blocking all of the traffic and needed quite a lot of persuasion to move.

When I finally returned home I finished off making the soup and have somehow ended up with two litres of it. That will keep me going for a while, I reckon.

Tomorrow I’ll be bread-making, a complete loaf this time, and flapjack-making. As for the radio programme, Grahame and I have been chatting on the internet exchanging ideas and I’ve decided to make three programmes for my “taste of Woodstock” – one of the Friday to be broadcast on the Friday, one of Saturday and the third of the Sunday, to be broadcast similarly, mutatis mutandis. So tonight and tomorrow I won’t be radioing.

But talking of Carnaval and dressing up, I told my taxi driver to be careful on the way home. "There are several elephants in the town and at Carnaval they disguise themselves by dressing up in black suits and black glasses and pretend that they are the Blues Brothers"
"That’s nonsense" she replied. "I’ve lived in this area 30 years and I’ve never seen tham"
"There you are then" I said. "It shows you just how good their disguise really is"

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Saturday 8th February 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… just about enough of this dialysis.

These four-hour sessions didn’t last long. Today, they gave me four and a half hours, and they still haven’t extracted all of the water from me that they ought to have extracted. So how long is it going to be when I go back on Monday?

One thing’s for certain though, and that is that if they keep on pumping the stuff out of me at this rate, I’ll be pushing up the daisies quicker than I think.

Ordinarily I would have complained, except that the doctor on duty was the miserable one who hates his job and loves his patients even less. I imagine that I would have been sent away with a flea in my ear had I gone to see him

In fact, it’s true to say that I am having as much luck with the senior hospital staff as I am about going to bed early because for no particular reason last night it was another late night by the time that I’d finished everything. It was a very weary me who staggered into bed at about 00:30 this morning.

And even though I was fast asleep straight away and didn’t move for the whole night, at 05:35 I sat dramatically upright, wide awake. I’ve no idea what awoke me either because I couldn’t hear any noise.

Try as I might, I could not go back to sleep and in the end gave it up as a bad job. When the alarm went off at 07:00 I was having a good scrub in the bathroom, followed by a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant.

Once I was ready, I filled the washing machine with all of the clothes that remained and se it off on its cycle (a very clever machine, mine) and then went into the kitchen for my medication, remembering not to take the anti-potassium stuff and not the sunlight pills either

Back in here I began to transcribe the dictaphone notes but there were so many that I hadn’t finished by the time that the nurse came.

There were the usual banal questions and then I wished him a very happy holiday. It’s his turn to go skiing now. Isabelle should be back tomorrow.

Breakfast was next, and then I read MY NEW BOOK.

We’re still moving on with our discussion of contour forts and he gives a few example of them. With regard to several of them he makes the pertinent observation that "the fortress seems to be too large to have been defended by any force which it could shelter."

That is of course perfectly true but it’s a moot point because if the defenders are not likely to be very numerous, neither are the attackers, so the defenders wouldn’t have to defend all of the perimeter. Instead, they would just concentrate on the point where the attackers are launching their particular offensive

No-one has any idea of the population of Britain in 500BC but it can’t have been more than half a million, so it’s not as if you could gather a large army at one place and at one time.

Back in here I finished off the dictaphone notes. I was in the living room of a semi-detached house. I’d been off with this girl and her parents weren’t very happy. We’d had a confrontation when I’d brought her home. We had managed to pass over the confrontation and we were saying goodbye to each other in the hall when the dream faded away

Apart from the fact that there I was, just about to Get The Girl and the dream dies, there’s a great deal more to this dream that anyone would imagine or realise, and I would care to admit. And parents being unhappy was just about par for the course back in those days.

There was also something about the ceremonial exchange of keys for a car that I ended up buying from a garage. The exchange was something that was reproduced in India at the same times. If you were buying something in India you would have to step back for thirty seconds so to convince everyone that it was OK. It was during that period that the recourse would take place, that the former wife of a friend of mine, would come along and do something instead of whatever her name was and me.

So who is “whatever her name was”? And why can’t I remember the first part of this dream? f there’s a girl involved, I ought not to go around forgetting or missing out..

I was out with a friend and we were wandering around a fairground. There were two of us, a guy and a girl. We walked around this fairground and ended up in a place where we could have a hot snack. One of my friends wanted a hot snack so we went round there but the hot snack place was closed. There was a tape across it. We ended up having a coffee. The coffees were tiny, a tiny expresso type of thing and they had to be drunk in the cafeteria on the first floor. ….battery flat .. So we bought a coffee and we had to go up the stairs to drink it to the café. There was a spiral staircase, very tight, very steep and I couldn’t walk up it so we were there with these coffees wondering what to do

So who were my friends? Do I have any?

Then I was with a group of gendarmes. We were going somewhere to pick up something and we had to go there very quietly but we suddenly discovered that something had gone wrong. When we looked at one of the objects that we had that we’d bought at this café we could see the maker’s name. That suddenly rang a bell with one of the gendarmes. He told the others, who suddenly realised what it was. We all piled into the car and we drove. It was driving through Crewe down a few of the side streets. We came in to the bottom end of Delamere Street. We drove down to the bottom. We were looking for a number something like 148 but there weren’t that many houses in that street, not at all, so we didn’t know or I didn’t know where this was going to be. They identified a house – at least, the guy in charge did – that was nowhere near that number and he said to the driver “park a little further down the street” so we did . Someone exited the car and there was some kind of commotion outside so I left the car to go to see. The guy who had exited the car was helping a pedestrian stand up who had been knocked down. I suddenly realised that our car was driving forward. I shouted to “put the brake on” but no-one paid any attention to it. It kept on rolling forward and forward and forward. Suddenly it stopped. I shouted “for God’s sake put the brake on!”. Someone in the car said “well, it was on, but we didn’t know what was going on”. I said “you were rolling forward and you knocked someone down!”. Anyway one of the gendarmes went up to the house. He had a key in his pocket and unlocked it. He walked in and we followed him. It was a filthy, disgusting, untidy house. I have never seen or smelled anything like this . It was full of cats. At first though there was nothing. There was no-one to be seen and he walked around shouting. In the end he walked through this curtain that was hanging over the doorway into what was the kitchen. It was filthy and disgusting, and smelly. There were these cats everywhere. Suddenly two girls appeared. One was about twelve and the other was about nine. The younger one was blonde, the elder one was dark. I suddenly realised where we were because I’d sent birthday presents to these kids. They were the family of one of these gendarmes. They were trying to make some coffee, he was asking them where such-and-such was but they didn’t know. He was looking around for papers and came across some papers about two matching pieces of furniture. He said “this might explain the mystery because they were bequeathed to the two of us and it looks as if the guy has just taken one which he thinks might be his share but we were so totally in the dark and totally bewildered about this.

The house is still clear to me even now. If anyone knows Crewe, it’s just before where the old white single-storey buildings and the belisha beacons and zebra crossing used to be. But the stench in that house was so strong I could actually smell it at the time. Apart from that, it was just like a sketch out of one of the GENDARME DE ST TROPEZ films.

And finally we had a nightmare. I’m not sure where this fitted in anywhere but at one point I dreamed that my cleaner went to take off my plasters and found that one of my puncture holes was still leaking after all this time. There was blood everywhere all over this plaster and all over my lower arm

That really is my worst nightmare of all of this and I shall hate the day when it happens

After typing out my notes, I crashed out, believe it or not. Never mind about being upset about crashing out, I can’t believe that I crashed out so early on in the day. I might at least have had the decency to have waited until I was on my bed in the dialysis centre.

Once I awoke though, I finished off the notes of the next radio programme and was busy involved in doing a few other things when the cleaner turned up. I told her about my nightmare and prepared her to be standing by just in case … .

The taxi was late again, but not as late as it might have been. Just me as a passenger with a friendly, peasant driver and we had a nice drive down to the centre.

For a change, I was first to be seen and that boded ill for the rest of the day. And it hurt just as much as it had on previous days.

There was football on the internet too – TNS v Penybont, 1st v second. At one time Penybont were pushing for the Championship but they have fallen away quite badly just recently, and were well-beaten by TNS, even with TNS playing the final 10 minutes with just 10 players.

One of the nurses came by with the bad news about the extension to the session (the doctor, I suppose, didn’t have the nerve) and so at the end I was the last out of the centre. I mentioned my nightmare to the nurse who unplugged me so she put extra plaster strips on my dressing.

And with the taxi having to drop off someone at Avranches, it was miserably late when I arrived home, tired, fed up and completely exhausted.

You have no idea how much a dialysis session takes out of me, never mind a four-and-half-hour session.

Tea was a burger on a bap with salad and baked potato followed by apple cake and soya dessert, and that’s it for tonight. I’ll dictate my notes and then I’m off to bed. Quite frankly, I don’t have the courage or the energy to do anything else.

The secret of these increased dialysis sessions was explained to me later. Apparently one of the doctors (I’ll leave you to guess) is fed up of me chatting her up all the time
She told the girls to increase the suction time to take more water out at each session
"Isn’t that dangerous?" asked one of the nurses
"Who cares?" answered the doctor."If we extract at a rate of 5 kilos per session, in 16 sessions he’ll be gone completely."

0

Saturday 1st February 2025 – I REALLY MUST SHUT …

… up and stop moaning about this dialysis. If I were to tell you that we had another four painful hours of life coupled up to the machine you would very soon become as fed up as I am about the whole affair. I really can’t believe that everyone else suffers as much as I do about all of this.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself here.

After I’d finished my notes last night I had a few things to do and once more it was quite late by the time that I finally went off to bed. Not that I’m bothered too much. Times have changed these last few months.

Once in bed thought, it was totally painless. I didn’t feel a thing for the whole six hours or so until the alarm went off the following morning.

And that was an effort to leave the bed before the second alarm. I’m having to push myself along as best as I can at the moment and hope that I can keep on going. It’s now my shoulders and my back that are giving me major problems

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, with a shave and plenty of deodorant in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant. And then I attacked the washing.

“Attacked” is the correct word too. There were piles of it. So much so that even with the washing machine loaded to the brim, there was still plenty that wouldn’t fit in which will have to wait for another time. This is becoming ridiculous.

In the kitchen I had all of my medication, not forgetting the Vitamin D supplement, and then I had to tidy up the empty shopping bags that were lying around all over the place.

It’s not been a very happy morning so far, has it?

If the nurse had turned up two minutes earlier he would have caught me in flagrante delicto. I’d just finished tidying up when he came. Of course he had to do his “cocorico” after Friday’s rugby, but that doesn’t bother me. I have no interest whatever in the game, except to say that it’s a sport played by men with odd-shaped balls.

He was in and out in a few seconds today. he didn’t stay around at all. That suits me fine and I could make breakfast and read my book.

We’re reaching the conclusion and it is as I suspected – a great deal of construction done quite rapidly around 400-380BC, periods of calm, increase in wealth and a relax in tension, followed by spells of more rapid overhauling of the forts until, in the words of the writers, "this is now an architecture of intimidation …. alongside a ‘deliberate closing down’ of the wider agricultural landscape, including animal slaughter"

Not just animal slaughter either. There’s evidence of warfare, such as heaps of slingshot pellets in readiness by the gates, and also, regrettably, piles of skeletons of men, women and children, clearly victims of a battle, cast into a pit.

This all started with some iron relics that were found in a caravan. And they have now identified them as a convex bowl on a spike that would be thrust into a tree-trunk to act as the pivot for a gate, sitting in a corresponding concave bowl set in a sill-beam in the floor.

That’s not all either. to stop the tree-trunk from splitting, a couple of iron bands were heated and strapped around the end of the tree-trunk. They would shrink and contract the wood, and the spike would be rammed home, with the bands preventing the wood from splitting

And if that’s not clever for Iron-Age engineering 2500 years ago, I don’t know what is.

Controversy has at last reared its ugly head. But it’s expressed in a much more scholarly way than T Rice Holmes ever did. The authors tell us "It seems worth stating here that there are so many problems with Avery’s (1993, App. A, 146 ff.) understanding of Varley’s work that it is in some ways safer simply not to consult Avery "

Back in here, first task was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was with Steve Knightley at a concert. He was organising one of these entertainments. It was a shame because there was only about a dozen people attending them. I’d been on the stage during one of his songs to do something so during a pause he was doing an entertainment having half a dozen people up on the stage for something like a quiz. He looked at me and said “you’ve just been up, haven’t you?”. He couldn’t find enough people to make up the team that he wanted on the stage. They were about to ask him the prize to start to answer the questions. Someone asked him “what are the prizes?”. He ummed and ahhed and didn’t say anything. Then he took all the people off the stage before the quiz had started and then led them out into the car park. We walked through the car park. Someone worked out that “ohh the first prize is marriage” to which one of the women said ” it can’t be that. I’m already married”. And then she looked at Steve Knightley and said “unless there’s a nice, gallant man who is going to arrange it for me”. We walked down to the far side of the car park and there were four or five cars parked down there. I recognised mine, and there was a Black Tulip BMC 1100-type of car. His was an Austin A40, a dirty green metallic and the whole of the bottom was rusting away. The wheels were rusting. He told me that he was a concrete examiner during the day. I thought that he’d been driving the car through the concrete. He said “yes, it needs something doing to the paintwork to stop it rusting further” he said. Why do’t you come down on Friday and do it for me?”. I thought “he lives the other side of Bristol”. He said “oh by the way my wife likes to have her one flat tyre each week so she’s probably have that while you’re down there”. I thought “well, I don’t suppose that I’m doing anything on Friday but even so ..”

Even though I remember nothing whatsoever of this dream, I can see the car park and see my car. It was a black Ford Consul MkI, a car that I have never owned, but would have given my right arm to have had at the time. Steve Knightley is much more well-known for being one third of the group “A Show Of Hands” whom I have never seen live but I have several of their concerts sent to me by a friend who works at a folk festival. He would really be quite good as a game show host I reckon. Judging by the cars though, this was set in the early 1970s when life was so much different. I’m not saying “better” because TB, rickets and waking up to ice on the bedroom window in the morning wasn’t good at any moment in history.

Next stop was to finish off the radio notes from yesterday. They are all done and dusted now ready to be dictated. It didn’t take me too long. But there are quite a few that need dictating tonight so I have better hurry up and finish my notes.

When the cleaner poked her head into the apartment I was backing up the computer, so once more that fell by the wayside. I’ll do this full back-up onto the travelling laptop yet.

She put the patches on my arm and then I had to wait for my driver so I tidied up in the kitchen.

It was my favourite driver today, so we had the whole running commentary, complete with gesticulations, all the way down to Avranches. And at Avranches we had the usual painful procedure that’s enough to drive me wild.

Once installed though, I could settle down to watch the football. Penybont v Hwlfforth is a match of second v third, with both teams keen for points – Penybont to stay clutching on to the coat-tails of TNS and for Hwlfforth to fight off Caernarfon for the coveted third place.

But I’m not sure what game I was watching because, apart from the fact that its quality can best be described as “agricultural”, I don’t think that either goalkeeper had any serious work to do. The match finished 0-0, with both sides lucky to get nil and if they are still playing now I reckon the score would still be 0-0.

The rest of the time at the hospital I spent backing up the computer, with still a long way to go. But when the buzzer goes off and the girls come to disconnect me, I just want to go home.

They guy who brought me back was the one who, I reckon, has some part in running the affair. We had a little chat on the way home and he dropped me off in the capable hands of my cleaner.

Now that the stair handrails have been fixed I strode personfully up all twenty-five steps to my door, and then collapsed inside.

Tea was a burger on a bap with vegan salad and baked potato, followed by apple cake and caramel soya dessert. Life doesn’t get much better than that And now that I’ve written my notes I’ll dictate the notes for the radio programmes and then go to bed.

But seeing as we have been talking about Steve Knightly and his small crowd … "well, one of us has" – ed … it made me smile. I once told someone that I played in several one-man shows
"I thought that there were three people in your two most famous groups" she replied
"Indeed there were" I replied. "but when I talk about a “one man show” I’m usually referring to the size of the audience"

0

Saturday 18th January 2025 – ANOTHER THREE HOURS ..

… and thirty minutes of sheer, unadulterated agony this afternoon as once more, one of the nurses managed to find the “sensitive spot” in whatever it was that they did in that hospital in the summer.

Whatever else happens in this hospital, I can’t go on like this. I’m sure that dialysis isn’t supposed to be this painful.

At least I can console myself that I’m not suffering as much as the guy who usually comes with me on a Thursday and Saturday. I asked why we hadn’t seen him for a few days and was told "he comes in an ambulance now. He’s had a bad fall"

The only fall in which I’m interested right now is to fall from my chair into bed as I’m exhausted.

It was another late night last night. Just as I was going to bed, a “Traffic” concert came round on the playlist and that’s another “must” to stay up and listen to, especially when there’s an 11-minute version of SOMETIMES I FEEL SO UNINSPIRED and almost 10 minutes of DEAR MR FANTASY.

Anyway, once we returned to normality I crawled off to bed, with the words of Steve Winwood echoing around my head –
"sometimes I feel like my head is spinning
Hunger and pain is all I see
I don’t know who’s losing
And I don’t care who’s winning
Hardships and trouble are following me".
My head is definitely spinning, I can certainly feel pain and while I’m not suffering any hardship – those days are long gone – I’m definitely being followed by a heap of trouble right now. What is worse is that it’s all of my own making too.

Those troubles kept me awake once more and it seemed like an age before I finally drifted off to sleep.

When the alarm went off this morning. I was away on my travels, with a shower that I had to repair so the first thing was to drain the tank. I profited from that by having myself a nice hot shower. I disconnected the shower hose so the pump was on the wall in the bathroom so I took off the pump from the wall and lowered it down a little. This forced the water out of the pump which then drained into the bath. I put the shower pump down, about halfway down the wall so that it was about halfway down to the level – so the water in the tank was halfway down, and put the pump there so that it was drained off the top half. I was sitting there contemplating what to do next when the alarm went off. I was really disappointed because I was enjoying that.

So don’t tell me that all of my nocturnal skills, about which I have so boasted in the past, have deserted me during this crisis through which I’m going right now. It’s the one thing on which I could rely in the past and with the right kind of support, I could have made millions from the skills that I never knew that I had

It was a desperate struggle to rise to my feet and go into the bathroom before the next alarm went off but I just about made it. And then a desperate discovery – that I’ve run out of clean sweaters. Nothing else for it but to put last week’s back on. I have just about enough of other clothes to have a good change but I really am going to have to overhaul my wardrobe. What am I going to do with all my Arctic clothing for a start?

Having washed and shaved, I put the bedding from last week into the washing machine with a selection of other dirty clothing and let the machine do its stuff. Then I wandered off for my medication, remembering to take my “sunlight” Vitamin D.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what else has been going on during the night. There was something about an extremely valuable – well, not valuable but a historic plate that was of great significance between me and some young lady and I don’t know who she was. I had to keep it safe so I hid it under my coat but as I moved, I broke it. A V-shaped piece fell out of it. I was thinking “how am I now going to repair this so that it will be the correct type of plate and that no-one will notice that it’s damaged.

In fact, I really didn’t know who she was. She didn’t resemble anyone whom I might know at all

There was also something about people who were working in Crewe Works. They had to cycle a certain way around the Queen’s Park and would reach a point where someone was waiting. When they reached that point they would have to turn round and cycle back towards the Works. They couldn’t take a short cut by turning around earlier but they all had to go to where this particular guy was standing in the middle of the road.

“Queen’s Park”, or, at least, the road around the back of it by the Golf Club, and “Crewe Works” – that is, the Railway Works – are playing something of a role in what’s going on right now in my mind so it’s inevitable, I suppose, that they should put in an appearance at some point. No sign of Moonchild though. She didn’t come dancing through the shallows of the river into my dreams last night

But what’s sad about this is that I can remember when half of the town was covered in the various branches of the Railway Works and when every boy in the town was destined to become an apprentice in either “The Works” or “Royce’s”. The town was flooded out with bicycles at chucking-out time, and how much like a ghost town it was during “Works Week” – all that was missing were the tumbleweeds. Nowadays Crewe is a ghost town all the time, but for different reasons. There is nothing whatever left of its railway heritage and even the big multi-storey “Rail House” is empty and threatened with demolition

Isabelle was in and out in a new world-record time today. She doesn’t seem to be so keen on stopping and chatting as she used to. Perhaps word about me is filtering around the town

After she went, I made my breakfast and carried on reading MY BOOK.

For a change, I’m not going to post any selected comments because firstly, I don’t know enough about the subjects that he’s discussing – it’s all conjecture unsupported by any evidence anyway, and secondly, because his invective and abuse has become tiresome to read and even more tiresome to repeat. I shan’t be sorry to finish this book and start the next one.

Back in here I carried on with the radio notes and they still aren’t finished. Once more I was caught in flagrante delicto by my cleaner who surprised me by her arrival when I wasn’t expecting her. She fitted my anaesthetic patches and we didn’t have long to wait for the taxi to come for me.

Just me in the car today with the driver. Apparently the other passenger who usually accompanies my on a Saturday has had a bad fall and goes to dialysis in an ambulance now.

Everything was running horribly late at the Centre today and it took hours to plug everyone in. That can’t be why it hurt so much because the first pin went in much less painlessly. Anyway, I didn’t enjoy it at all.

As usual, once the pump started up I crashed out and I was away for quite a while. So much so that my coffee that had been brought to me while I was asleep was stone-cold.

Before crashing out though, I was hallucinating again as I did the other day. This time there was something about me being on board a Spanish Galleon but I didn’t stroke it this time to see if it was real..

That miserable doctor was on duty today and he managed a brief “hello” as he passed by my bed. And that was my lot. I must be thankful for that, I suppose

Unplugging me was just as painful as plugging me in and how I wish that it wasn’t. The same driver who brought me was waiting to take me back and we had a guided tour of his Head Office at Marcey les Grèves on the way home. I’m convinced that he is in some way charged with the running of the place in some capacity.

Anyway, he’s confirmed that I’ll be picked up in principle at 07:45 on Wednesday for my trip to dialysis followed by my taxi to Paris at lunchtime afterwards.

It’s freezing outside tonight, literally freezing, at 0°C so I was glad to be in the warmth indoors even if climbing up these stairs doesn’t seem to have become any easier just recently.

Tea tonight was a breaded quorn fillet with baked potatoes and salad, which was nice as usual, especially when followed by chocolate cake and soya yoghurt.

So now i have to dictate what I wrote earlier in the week and then finish off the lot that’s half-way done sometime. I need to go back too and review the couple of weeks that are missing and have another think about what I’m going to do. I can’t leave it until the last moment to come up with a plan.

So I’ll do that and then go to bed – to make the most of my little lie-in

But in the radio programme notes that I was writing, I was writing something about Caravan’s album A BLIND DOG AT ST DUNSTAN’S
St Dunstan’s was a Charity in London created to care for Blind People and is famously known for its hotel in Brighton which was praised for its "magnificent views over the Downs and out to Sea" – the sense of irony being totally lost on the writers.
But the title of the album relates to a story that one day a little boy saw a male dog mount a female dog.
"What’s that big dog doing, daddy?" asked the little boy
"Well," stuttered daddy nervously, "the dog at the bottom is blind, and the one on top is helping him, pushing him along to St Dunstan’s."

0

Saturday 21st December 2024 – JUST FOR A …

… change, the two pins that go into my forearm at the Dialysis Centre went in totally painlessly today, and it’s been a long time since that that has happened. I was so relieved when they went in without making me scream “blue murder”.

All we needed now was a dialysis machine that works, but you’re greedy if you have everything, aren’t you? I felt really sorry for Alexia and Naomi who had to keep on running to my machine every five minutes to give it a kick to shut it up. The poor girls must have been exhausted.

One thing that I know however was that I wasn’t quite so exhausted this morning. I was up (but not necessarily about) this morning before the alarm went off yet again

It wasn’t as if I’d gone to bed early either. It was another late-ish night where it took an age for me to find the motivation to haul myself off out of my chair and into my bed just one step away. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.

Once in bed though I was asleep quite quickly and there I stayed without moving until I awoke quite suddenly and dramatically. I had a look at the time and it was 06:54. I’ll be moving myself out of bed in six minutes so I may as well rise up now and start the day as I intend to go on.

When the alarm went off I was sitting on the edge of the bed and it was quite an effort to go farther than that this morning but eventually I managed to haul myself into the bathroom.

After a good wash and shave I filled the washing machine with stuff and set it off on its travels. That’s all of the washing done now – until the next time, at least. I don’t know where all these dirty clothes come from

In the kitchen the task for today was to put away all of the paper bags in which LeClerc’s order arrived, put the carrots into the freezer now that they have finished draining, and then put away all of the washing-up that I did yesterday. Once I’d done that I could then take my medicine.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what was going on last night while I was asleep. There was some kind of stately home that had fallen on hard times due to the effects of Inheritance Tax etc. They were all talking on the local market about how very soon it would be the first home in the UK to admit paying visitors in order to recoup some money. They interviewed the former head gardener who was now leasing the vegetable garden there. He was saying that he was in the process of growing 2cwt of lettuce for sending to Manchester and talking about how much of a shame it was about this stately home.

That’s weird, isn’t it? I can’t think of anything that has happened recently that has any connection with any of this at all.

Isabelle the Nurse came around, late again. We had a good chat about Christmas decorations and the like in town. She things that those of us up here in the haute ville ought to make more of an effort to decorate the place. Apart from the lights in the Place Cambernon I’m the only person here with anything like any festive decorations.

My opinion is that in the little square we ought to have a Christmas market with little cabins selling craft articles and there should be a hot wine stall too. Isabelle thinks that I should run for mayor, but I don’t even have the right to vote, never mind stand for election.

After she left I made breakfast and began to read my book. This one is about Britain in the period immediately prior to the Roman invasion. At least, it’s supposed to be but we’re now at page 18, still in the preamble and the author is still taking a light-hearted sideswipe at several authors and archaeologists who preceded him.

That kind of thing is not the stuff of which serious books are made. It’s all very well writing in the vernacular for people who aren’t experts in their field, but at least you should do it with dignity (said he, having just written “that kind of thing is not the stuff of which serious books are made”)

After breakfast I hung out the washing. And there were tons of it too. I’m really working my little washing machine quite hard these days. It could do with a rest, just like me, I suppose.

And then I had things to do, and once more I was caught unawares by my faithful cleaner who came to fit my patches.

We had a laugh and a joke for a few minutes and then she cleared off leaving me to wait for the taxi to come for me.

It was the guy who seems to have an “in” on the administration of the company who came for me today. We went to pick up the other guy who comes with us and we had a chatty drive down to the Dialysis Centre.

Plugging me in was painless but once more it caused me to crash out once the machine began to pump. And then the machine misfired, whined, I awoke, a nurse came running and that’s how it went on

But on the VIRTUAL LIBRARY that I use, I struck gold. Not only have I found all seven volumes of the legendary “War In The Air” – the official account of all air operations concerning the UK in World War I – whether committed or on the receiving end – but I’ve also found the official Military History volumes, and there are dozens of those.

So while I was there I made a start on the downloading, and I’m going to be there for ever downloading them, never mind reading them.

These are the books that have been used as sources for so many other books by other authors when their memories, or the memories of the respondents have failed them. I’ve always said that being on the internet is like living in the biggest library in the World.

Emilie the Cute Consultant was there today and even though she walked several times past my bed, she studiously ignored me. Ahh well! You can’t win a coconut every time … "are you allowed to say that these days?" – ed …

My favourite taxi driver brought me home this evening, and so we had a running commentary all the way back. She’s a real chip off the old block, just like a real taxi driver

My faithful cleaner was at her post, waiting for me, but I was busy looking at my Christmas lights. They do look pretty from down here and I wish that other people would make an effort. I’m not even festive but I still have my lights and my artificial Christmas tree.

Tea tonight was baked potato with one of those breaded quorn fillets and a vegan salad, followed by ginger cake and soya dessert.

So I’ll dictate the radio notes for this programme that I wrote during the week and then go to bed. There’s a lie-in until 08:00 which is just as well because I have a lot to do. And thanks, Rosemary, for the recipe for icing.

But there’s more building work going on at the hospital. I asked one of the nurses what the new building that they were erecting was going to be for.
"It’s the Memory Unit" she said. "It’ll be where people who are suffering from loss of memory will go"
"That’s a waste of money, isn’t it?" I asked.
"Why’s that?" she asked
"You don’t need a building for them" I replied. "Just give them a random appointment and they’ll forget to turn up"

0

Saturday 14th December 2024 – SO HERE I AM …

… late again. Not even going to be in bed before midnight at this rate.

But there was so much exciting stuff on the internet this evening, and we are at the stage where there is only one club from te Welsh Premier League through to the next round of the Cup, and they had a struggle too.

There’s one more team that is playing their match tomorrow and I don’t think that they are in any danger, but you never know. There have been some crazy results this last round or two.

No danger of me being in bed before 23:00 last night either. I’ve given up rushing, stressing myself out, and all for no good purpose too. I’ve decided that I’ll take it easy, enjoy myself and if I have to sleep during the dialysis sessions, then so what? It’s not as it I do much else while I’m there.

So late again last night into bed, and asleep quite quickly too. For a change, nothing disturbed me and I slept right through until 07:00 without moving a muscle.

When the alarm went off I struggled to my feet and went into the bathroom for a good wash, a scrub up, a shave (not that Emilie the Cute Consultant will be there) and to hand-wash some clothes. I have to keep on top of how the wardrobe is doing, seeing as there isn’t very much in it.

Into the kitchen was next for my drink and medication, and remember to take the “Sunlight” medication too. Apparently the doctor thinks that I ought to get out more often, a sentiment that I’m sure is shared by every one of you.

There was time to check the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And to my surprise, there was something in it.

I’d gone to Burma and was living there for a few months. I’d met a young girl and fallen in love with her. After a while I discovered that there was a way by which people could sponsor young people in Third-World countries like Burma. It involved the filling on of a form. I applied for a form and it told me that I needed some kind of form from the Burmese. I went off to my Burmese local council and spoke to a woman there. She found a form for me and told me basically how I should fill it in. She very carefully asked me if our relationship was any more than that of sponsor/guardian to which I hedged my bets rather, although I was sure that she picked up on the fact that there was something going on. She warned me about the consequences if anything like that were to be discovered. She had to find a chair for me to sit upon while I filled in this form. She wandered off and came back with a chair. Then she found that she didn’t have a chair herself upon which to sit. This was starting to become complicated. She asked about my intentions. I told her that I was embarrassed about how we in the West were so rich and had so much going on in our favour yet we deliberately wanted to shut out the Third World from participating in our success. I carried on in that kind of vein for a few minutes. She sympathised, and blamed everything on the EU. I told her that it isn’t really the EU’s fault. It’s the individual countries that are pushing for tighter border controls and cut down on aid to poorer nations, very much forcing the EU’s hand. Anyway, we continued this discussion for quite a while and drifted away from our original purpose which was me sponsoring a Burmese girl.

This is in fact one of the most interesting dreams that I have had and there is a lot of mileage in it, and not just because of my sentiments either.

For a start, it’s not just in the Third World that this lack of resources and assistance is going on. In 2002 I passed through a Navajo Reservation and in 2019 through a Sioux Reservation in the USA and in 2018 and 2019 I was amongst the Inuit in Canada and Danish-controlled Greenland. As well as that, I have on several occasions passed through the Innu lands at Sheshatshiu and the Mikma’q Reservations at Burnt Church in Canada. How these developed nations treat their own ethnic minorities brings shame and disgrace upon them. And I’ve seen desperate poverty that you cannot imagine amongst the poorer people, both black and white, in South-Eastern USA. When I passed through these places, it filled me with shame and embarrassment too.

But falling in love with girls from Burma reminds me of the Burmese girl whom I met in Brussels. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I had a strange e-mail years ago telling me this sad story of how the writer had struggled through the jungles of Burma into Thailand where she escaped and arrived in Brussels on an aeroplane and how she desperately needed papers. If it looks like a rat, walks like a rat and smells like a rat then it’s a rat and I smelled it all right, but my curiosity, which has always been my downfall, was ignited. I wanted to know how she’d obtained my e-mall address and why she thought that I might be able to help her. So we met, and the first thing that I noticed were her clothes – beautifully tailored denim jeans and jacket. Then her hair – perfectly coiffured. This is no fleeing refugee. So once she was in my car I drove her to a little spot that I know where I can check that no-one is following us, because I’m not as stupid as I look, and then took her to a park where we walked and she talked.

And what a yarn she spun me.

But to me, she was well-worth the effort because she really was beautiful. Nevertheless, I was sure that she was trying to entice me into some kind of indiscretion just as I was trying to entice her into my bed. After all, you don’t get something for nothing, as she would find out if she carried on trying. Eventually, after much binding in the marsh, she admitted that she did after all have a passport with her in Belgium, which I had guessed all along, and so I was by now even more curious to find out what was her game. But once she realised that I wasn’t even going to begin to discuss anything without her staying the night at my place, all contact ceased.

In the end I suspected that this was something to do with work. We mixed with all kinds of different company at work and in my official car, and knew all kinds of information that would have been of interest to many people, so it wouldn’t be unnatural for the Service to want to know how easily we might impart this information to people who had no right to know it. But some of us aren’t as green as we look

This dream intrigued me so much that I had a look on the internet at a certain couple of sites and to my surprise she is there, with her full career history, although there’s a gap of four or five years between when she finished her studies – in London, would you believe – and started work in Belgium, which covered the period about which we’re talking. Seriously, I have half a mind to write to her to say “hello” and remind her of our meetings. And how I wish that I could be there to see her reaction when she receives the message.

It’s interesting that the EU figures in this dream too. A great many people blame “the EU” for many things that happen in the World but in fact “the EU” is nothing more than the Civil Service of the member countries and makes no decisions of its own that aren’t provided for in the various treaties signed by the member states or agreed by the Ministers of the member States at the various meetings. And even then, some countries have a veto or can negotiate an opt-out. I have seen with my own eyes Ministers from certain countries (one in particular, of course) vote in favour of a measure that they know is going to be unpopular back home, don’t negotiate an opt-out or a veto, and then when it’s applied and the population is restless, blame “the EU” for the issue. The hypocrisy of many of these politicians is astounding.

That wasn’t all that was on the dictaphone either, but you don’t want to know the rest, especially if you are eating your meal right now.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, the nurse didn’t stay long today. He asked the usual banal, meaningless questions and then cleared off quite quickly

With him being early, I was early making my breakfast so I had plenty of time to sit and read ISAAC WELD’S BOOK.

He’s taken to a canoe with his friends, but they’ve been upset in some rapids, so they’ve gone to seek help at a local farmhouse.."The people here were extremely civil; they assisted us in making fresh paddles in lieu of those which we had lost the night before; and for the trifle which we gave them above what they asked us for our breakfasts they were very thankful, a most unusual circumstance in the United States.".

The last few words of that quotation really made me laugh

So having equipped himself and his party with new oars, they set out again and arrive in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania where, disembarking from their canoes on the banks of the Susquehanna River, they fell in with a community of Moravian farmers. He’s astonished to find that the children of the community don’t live at home but go to a boarding school. Then on leaving, live in communal houses, one for each sex.

And the editor of Aunt Judy’s magazine would be quite at home here in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, I’ll tell you that. Weld tells us that "the young persons of different sexes have but very little intercourse with each other; they never enter each other’s houses, and at church they are obliged to sit separate". I’m just surprised that they have any at all.

Marriage amongst the Moravian young people is interesting too. When a young man in the Men’s Home catches a glimpse of a girl in the Girl’s Home and likes what he sees, "it is only in consequence of his having seen her at a distance perhaps, that a bachelor is induced to propose for a young woman in marriage, and he is not permitted to offer his proposals in person to the object of his choice, but merely through the medium of the superintendant of the female house. If from the report of the elders and wardens of the society it appears to the superintendant that he is able to maintain a wife, she then acquaints her protegee with the offer, and should she consent, they are married immediately, but if she do not, the superintendant selects another female from the house, whom she imagines would be suitable to the young man, and on his approval of her they are as quickly married. Hasty as these marriages are they are never known to be attended with unhappiness; for being taught from their earliest ¡infancy to keep those passions under control"

Judging by the number of divorces and so on in the World today, it’s as good a proposition with as much chance of permanent success as any other. But I’d love to see how I would be able to keep my own “passions under control”.

Back in here I had things of my own to do and was so engrossed in doing them that my cleaner took me by surprise yet again. She fitted my patches and then I had a long wait for the taxi while this new system of controls continues to create havoc.

At the Dialysis Centre I was last to arrive so of course I was last connected. And the two girls managed it with much less pain than usual.

That meant that I could have a sleep, so I duly profited. And why not too?

But I still found time to read my Welsh and to tidy up and re-sort some of the books that I have downloaded in the past.

When it was time to go I was uncoupled, compressed and then shown the door where I had to wait a few minutes for the taxi. We were two passengers coming, so we were two passengers going, and I arrived quite late back here.

There was only just enough time to grab a quick baked potato and salad before the football started – Connah’s Quay of the Premier League who won the Cup last year, against Yr Wyddgrug of the Second tier.

It was an exciting match, but it was clear that Connah’s Quay had much more skill than their opponents. That meant nothing because you can have all the possession you like and it makes no difference if you can’t score.

Yr Wyddgrug had a few chances too and should have done much better with one or two of them, but it was Connah’s Quay who scored the decisive goal, in a goalmouth scramble. But I do have to say that if the referee were to have seen the goal again from the camera behind the goal, as we did, it would have been an indirect free-kick to Yr Wyddgrug for offside.

So now, much later than intended, I’m going to dictate my radio notes and go to bed.

But this dream – and in particular my commentary – reminds me of an incident when a cowboy riding across the desert in the USA came across a young girl who, by way of being tortured by the Apache, had been buried up to her neck in an ant-hill
"Ohh do dig me out, please" she pleaded. "I implore you!"
"If I do" said the cowboy, licking his lips "what’s in it for me?"
"Why" said the girl. "Ants, of course."

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Saturday 7th December 2024 – IT’S NOT THE …

… bells on her toes that matter. It’s the ring on her finger that counts.

It only seems like yesterday when I was bouncing a bonny, tiny baby on my knee as her mother wrestled with the controls of a GMC “Jimmy” through masses after masses of snowdrifts in the foothills of the Appalachians in Canada

amber taylor st fx ring saint francis xavier university antigonish nova scotia canada 2024That was in late December 2003, and here’s that bonny, tiny baby now, 21 years later on, proudly displaying her ring.

"One ring to rule them all
One ring to find them
One ring to bring them all
And in the darkness bind them"
it is not but it’s just as hard to find. The wearing of this ring signifies that the wearer has completed a degree course at Canada’s most prestigious (in my opinion) University, Saint Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia

Our family isn’t all a load of tat as you may think, judging by what I have a tendency to write. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, my maternal grandmother was one of Canada’s leading singers in the period 1915-1924. Even though her father (my great grandfather) re-enlisted in the Canadian Army after retirement, one of her distant cousins was SENTENCED TO DEATH IN WORLD WAR I as a conscientious objector (I have in my possession some of the letters that he wrote in prison).

And going even farther back, that distant side of the family is related in some way to Edward Kenealy, the barrister who defended the Tichborne claimant so vigorously that he was struck off.

It’s obviously that side of the family where all the brains are, because my great little niece (or is it my little great niece?) is now the second member of our family to qualify for her St.F-X ring.

So well done, Ammie. I’m proud of you!

Not so proud though of the time that I went to bed last night – or, rather, this morning. I’d finished quite early what I had to do last night but as usual, finishing work is one thing. Going to bed is quite something else. I hung around for quite some time trying to summon up the courage to pull myself out of my chair.

Once more though, once in bed it took an age to go to sleep but once I did, I was gone for good and the howling gale outside didn’t disturb me at all, which is surprising.

When the alarm went off it took quite a while for me to stagger to my feet and head to the bathroom, rounding up a pile of clothes on the way because, having changed the bedding yesterday, it’s washing day today.

After I’d had a good wash, I had a shave and then loaded up the washing machine. And believe it or not, there’s still a pile of stuff that wouldn’t fit in. This is becoming ridiculous.

Next port of call was the kitchen for a drink, and while I was at it, to take my medicine. And I was so distracted that I took the medication that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day. Still, you can’t take it out once it’s gone in.

Back in here I listened to the dictaphone to find out what I’d been up to during the night. There was something strange going on at school. There was a group of us, boys and girls of all ages, who used to hang around together. I suspected that one of the girls was becoming rather too friendly with me – that is, rather more friendly than “just being friends”. I decided that I might encourage it a little and see where it goes but we were interrupted by the bell to go back to lessons. A little later on a few of us met again, including this particular girl. I happened to mention obliquely something along the lines of “girls who seem to find older boys at school more attractive” and “there seems to be one at least who might be tilting her cap towards me”. This girl replied “yes. I’ve noticed that, Eric” and she mentioned two girls, one of whom was a daughter of a friend of mine, and a second one. But the daughter of a friend of mine was even talking about obtaining a marriage certificate. I found that really hard to believe because I hadn’t really noticed anything. This discussion went on, more complicated, until it was time to go back to the lessons so I said to these girls and boys, and in particular to the one whom I mentioned earlier “I’ll see you all at lunch then”. She replied “don’t forget to go to talk to these two girls. One of them is in her Physics class”. I had a bottle of beer with me that I’d opened so I walked up to the Physics class. They were all crowded around a bunsen burner talking about something so I took a piece of kitchen roll, rolled it up tightly and used it as a stopper in this bottle. I smiled at this particular girl and that was when this dream ended.

Imagine that! There I was with the bird on my plate, just about to get my fork stuck in it, and “poof!”. It comes to a shuddering halt. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … there is something going on in my subconscious that is preventing me from Getting The Girl. It seems to happen every time (with just one or two exceptions). So what does my subconscious know about my relationship with girls that it doesn’t want me to proceed any further than this point?

It’s interesting too that this is always the kind of thing that occurs when I’m an adolescent in my dreams. It’s true that my adolescence was not a happy one, for a variety of reasons, and a loyal and reliable girlfriend of the type who would have helped me weather the various storms would have been a very great comfort to me. But my subconscious is not letting me go down that route at all, and in any case, teenage girls like that are very rare birds indeed.

Then there was some kind of confrontation between a Jewish school and the local community. When it came to the end of term the kids had to be taken away by buses to another centre. They had all tried to arrange times with their parents but it was impossible. For a start, the E40 was always blocked on school chucking-out days so people would arrive home quand ils s’amusent – when they could. I was driving one of the buses with someone else and we had a police escort. We reached the school and handed the ticket to the teacher who was on the door. She directed us to the school theatre where a group of pupils were singing some kind of pseudo-religious song from the stage. It really was wonderful. After they finished I turned to my colleague and said “we aren’t allowed to applaud in a church, are we?”. He asked “you thought it was that good, did you?”. I replied “yes”. He said “quite frankly I have never ever heard it done better”

This second dream relates to a concert I’d been watching before going to bed. It was a concert from 2016 commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme and was taking place in Exeter Cathedral. One of the tributes was from a well-known folk group who performed a musical tribute, a poem by my favourite poet A E Housman with music composed by George Butterworth who was killed at the Somme. And when they finished, everyone in the congregation applauded. And I remember thinking last night as I was watching that applause in a Cathedral shows some pretty bad taste

And the confrontation with the Jewish school presumably relates to something that I’d read, also yesterday evening, about a couple of obscure Jewish sects burning copies of the New Testament.

Isabelle the Nurse came early this morning and didn’t hang about. Not that I can blame her because this storm in increasing in velocity and it’s going to be much worse than this. But I’m glad that she wasn’t here for long, because it means that I can start making breakfast early.

And armed with breakfast, I can go to carry on reading ISAAC WELD’S BOOK.

Today, his book contains the longest footnote that I have ever read in a book. It spans four complete pages, and is a really good rant about the peevish relationship that the USA is trying to cultivate with Canada in an attempt to absorb it. He very presciently observes that "there is more reason to imagine that the Floridas, and the Spanish possessions to the east of the Mississippi, will be united therewith" than there is of Canada uniting with the USA, for the "people of Upper Canada are refugees, who were driven from the States by the persecution of the Republican party and though the thirteen years which have passed over have nearly extinguished every spark of resentment against the Americans in the breasts of the people of England, yet this is by no means the case in Upper Canada. It is there common to hear, even from the children of the refugees, the most gross invectives poured out against the people of the States and the people of the frontier states, in their turn, are as violent against the refugees and their posterity and, indeed, whilst Canada forms a part of the British empire, I am inclined, from what I have seen and heard in travelling through the country, to think that this spirit will not die away."

As well as that, I have had a fascinating lecture on how to build a blockhouse, if ever the need should arise.

After breakfast I sorted out the washing and hung up that which needed to hang. In my present state of health where I’m totally unsteady on my feet, that was a rather complicated issue but I managed in the end. Mind you, in this weather it will take an age to dry.

My faithful cleaner fitted my anaesthetic patches for me and then I had to wait around for the taxi. When he arrived I was hustled out into the gale-force wind and staggered as best as I could to the car. The waves on the water were magnificent in this weather, I noticed as we passed by. What wouldn’t I have given to have gone for a walk?

We picked up our second passenger and then headed for Avranches. Strangely, away from the coast, the wind was much less.

In the clinic there were very few of us today. Maybe the wind was keeping the others at home. Julie the Cook fitted my connections today. The first was absolutely painless. I felt nothing at all. But the next one was different and hurt throughout the session.

Once more, I drifted off for a few minutes at the start and once I’d recovered I revised my Welsh and then read some more of Hakluyt. He’s repeating the legend of “King Arthur” and his presumed voyages to subdue the Norsemen, basically copied from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae. That’s quite a shame, but he had no other sources to use and didn’t have the archaeological knowledge or access to papers in the Danish Royal Library that we have today.

No-one bothered me at all today and I was out quite early. I had a chatty driver bringing me home and she brought me through the town to see the Christmas lights, which was nice of her.

Coming home was one thing – coming to the building was something else. My cleaner was there waiting, and even with two women hanging on to me, I was almost blown over twice. I’ve never known a storm like this one.

To add insult to injury, the handrail fell off the wall so I had enormous difficulty coming upstairs.

Tea tonight was a baked potato with breaded quorn fillet and vegan salad followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. So now I’ll dictate my radio notes and then go to bed for a nice lie-in.

Yesterday though, we left Isaac Weld hunting on the shore of Lake Erie. This morning the wind had changed direction so the captain called him up on his mobile ‘phone
"Where are you now, Isaac?" asked the Captain. "What are you doing?"
"I’m hunting bear on the shores of Lake Erie" said Isaac
"Well, put your clothes back on and come back to the ship. The wind has changed direction and we are ready to sail"

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Saturday 30th November 2024 – ANOTHER PAINFUL SESSION …

… at the Dialysis Clinic. Another session where they had to put the branching connection into one of the pins and close the other off. There’s definitely something wrong with all of this as no-one else seems to be suffering in the same way that I do.

Or else it’s that I’m nesh and nothing more than a big baby. But that can’t be true as I have suffered quite a lot of pain quite stoically in the past..

But anyway, I digress.

Last night I finished my notes quite early (well, comparatively, anyway) and I could have gone to bed at a decent time. However I was listening to a concert on the internet and became rather engrossed, so I decided to stay up and watch the end of it. And then there was another one ….

So as the explorer Nansen once famously said, "the more extensive my studies became, the more riddles I perceived – riddle after riddle led to new riddles and this drew me on"

Consequently it was late when I went to bed, but I no longer care. If necessary I can sleep in the Dialysis Centre. It’s not as if I do very much else while I’m there.

It was another one of those nights where I slept the Sleep of the Dead and remember nothing of whatever might have gone on during the night – until all of 06:00 when I had another dramatic awakening. But when the alarm went off I was fast asleep yet again.

Once more, it was an undignified stagger into the bathroom for a good wash and a hunt for clean clothes as I don’t seem to have anything handy.

That was the cue for a major wash and even though I crammed as much as I could in the washing machine, there’s still a load left to do.

That’s the cue to change the bedding on Wednesday next week and so I can do yet another wash next Saturday morning too.

But while I was in the bathroom I had a shave to make myself look pretty, although I suspect that it will take more than a shave to do that.

There were the dictaphone notes to transcribe too. We were working at a music festival during the night, and one of the jobs that we were doing was erecting the tents and fitting the flooring. We had a huge pile of chipboard and a huge pile of tongue-and-grooving that we were using to fit out the floor. They were telling me that when they did this last year Peter Gabriel was there and when they went to fit the flooring in one tent they were using the flooring that had been used in his tent and found that underneath it was a big drawing that he’d drawn without anyone knowing. Of course they had pulled it up and all of the laths were distributed around elsewhere. There had to be some kind of mission to find these laths in order to reconstruct his drawing. There was a huge pile of chipboard downstairs at the bottom of the stairs that someone was cutting into squares with a huge circular saw. I was running the tongue and grooving around from one tent to the next that was erected. There was a huge argument going on. The festival organiser had ordered that one floor must be pulled up and taken away. I spoke to the guy who was in charge of the assembly of the tent. He told me that what he’d been doing was erecting the tents and then fitting the flooring inside the tent so that the turn-round at the foot of the wall of the tent was underneath the floor. That would stop the wind coming underneath the tent and into it. But for some reason the festival organiser wanted the turn-round to be above the floor. She had ordered all of the floors to be taken up. Of course, now they were going to be the wrong size but nevertheless she insisted. It seemed totally illogical to us that the tents should be erected that way. For a start, how do you fit the tent pegs in on the floor?

The concerts that I saw last night have clearly left their mark on me after all of that. But can I now add tent-erecting and furnishing to my list of subconscious night-time achievements?

Later on, we were on a ferry going to the mainland past a couple of islands. Someone was talking about one of these islands and talking about Iron Butterfly as if they had some kind of connection with it. I’d been on my way to see a friend. He’d had to go because he was going to see another friend of his who was thinking of joining some kind of rock group so they were going to meet the other players. This was strange because I’d been at someone’s house, another friend of mine, He was also going off to meet some players who were forming a group. I wondered if it could be the same people, it was such a coincidence. If it was, I felt rather sad and disappointed that they hadn’t invited me to go along with them to see what was happening with this group, if they needed a bassist. I felt quite disappointed about that.

It wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve been forgotten by friends in these circumstances. But being on a ferry threading my way through the islands, am I missing the ferry between Sydney, Cape Breton and Argentia, Newfoundland? 27 hours of the Gulf of St Lawrence? Or is it that I’m missing life on THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR?

But there’s a funny story about that ferry. I had “roaming” switched off on my telephone during the three months that I was in North America living in Strider, but on that ferry as we approached the coast of Newfoundland my ‘phone suddenly went berserk with piles and piles of messages, missed phone calls and the like.

It turns out that Bane of Britain had forgotten that we pass close to the islands of St Pierre and Miquelon – still French possessions in the Gulf of St Lawrence – and all of the services there are provided by French companies, including my network operator back at home. And so my ‘phone had picked up a domestic signal.

The nurse came early again today but any benefit was negated by the time that it took for his card reader to connect to his bluetooth so that he could read my health card.

After he left I made my breakfast and carried on reading ISAAC WELD’S BOOK. He’s now made it to Canada.

He tells us that "the compact and neat exterior appearance of the houfes, the calaches, the bons dieux, the large Roman Catholic churches and chapels, the convents, the priefts in their robes, the nuns, the friars ; all ferve to convince you that you are no longer in any part of the United States"

He’s also had two encounters with bands of First-Nation people – at least, two that he reports. One of the chiefs says that "if we came to fee him he would make us very happy ; that there were fome very handfome fquaws in his village, and that each of us would have a wife"

The second one tells him that "fhe head clerk or principal agent" of the Hudsons Bay Company "generally marries an Indian girl, the daughter of fome eminent chief, by which he gains in a peculiar manner the affections of the whole tribe, a matter of great importance." but that "thefe marriages, as may be fuppofed, are not confidered as very binding by the hufband"

And all of that tells me far more about the morals of the Europeans in North America in the 18th Century than it does about anything else

However, why I’m so interested in Weld’s book is because for the last few days he’s been prowling around in areas that I know very well and about which I’ve written in the past. He’s now in Montréal talking about life there in late 1790 and I’m finding it totally fascinating. There are tons of stuff in there that seem to have slipped through the hands of the modern compliers of history.

When I’d finished, I had all of the washing to hang up and there was quite a load of it. The clothes airer was totally full and so was the octopus in the bathroom.

That took so long that there wasn’t much time left to do anything important before I was ambushed by my cleaner.

We’re running low on anaesthetic patches and the prescription is expired so she packed it in my bag and told me to find the doctor who wrote it and ask for a new one.

The taxi came for me and once we’d picked up my usual Saturday voyager the three of us headed off to Avranches.

As seems to be usual, I was left almost until last to be seen. I think that it’s because I seem to be the most complicated, but it’s also the most painful as the anaesthetic has worn off by then.

And once they started we had all of the issues about making the machine work and that took longer than it should.

The doctor was there but he kept a very low profile and as a result I didn’t receive a new prescription. But the nurses – bless them – had a scout around and came up with a dozen or so patches that I could take home.

When they finally unplugged me I made ready to leave but had to wait for the taxi. And I almost cornered the doctor too but he slunk away.

When the taxi turned up I climbed in but I still had to wait fifteen minutes for another passenger. The tightening of the belt is causing a few delays here and there.

Back here the cleaner watched my climb up to my apartment. She thinks that I’m moving much better these days and so I have a cunning plan, more of which anon .

Tea tonight was a breaded quorn fillet with baked potato and vegan salad followed by chocolate cake and lemon flavoured soya dessert.

There are now some radio notes to dictate and then I’m off to bed. I have a busy day tomorrow with soup to make, pizza dough to make and a cake to bake. There’s no end to what I’m trying to do.

But talking about Peter Gabriel … "well, one of us is" – ed … I once met some young musician who told me that not only had he met Peter Gabriel, Peter Gabriel had talked to him.
"That’s wonderful" I said. "What did he say to you?"
"He said ‘what are you doing in my f***ing dressing room?"

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