Tag Archives: crash out

Thursday 21st November 2024 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since we’ve featured any photos on these pages?

And how long is it since we’ve featured a photo with snow in it?

And what I mean is “real snow”? And while these photos may not be so impressive, I wasn’t the one who was driving so I couldn’t photograph just anywhere, otherwise you would have had photos much more exciting than these to look at.

Anyway, for the coast of Western Normandy, even this amount of snow is impressive and enough to bring the whole region to a shuddering halt. For November, it’s totally unprecedented. But our taxis ploughed valiantly onwards so that I could see what was going on.

So while you admire a few photos of yet more snow that we encountered, I’ll say some more about my day today.

Starting of course with last night. Although not in bed early, it was before midnight when I finally crawled into my stinking pit after finishing off everything that needed doing.

And once in bed, there I stayed for the rest of the night, thinking that I can’t have moved a single muscle during the whole of the night, optimism that turned out to be misplaced as it happened, but I certainly can’t remember anything about it

When the alarm went off I arose from the Dead, just about, and had a very slow walk into the bathroom. But not before switching on the rest of the heating in here, because I noticed that the outside temperature was 0°C – freezing point.

While I was washing I noticed that not only had I lost the protective netting over my arm, one of the two plasters had disappeared too. I wonder where that had gone. It’s a good job that my arm hadn’t bled any during the night.

Back in here I found the missing objects. They were in the bed . I must have moved about quite a lot in order for them to to have come off my arm. I would have expected to have known about it, anyway. But I wonder what I must have been doing for that to happen.

First thing that I did afterwards was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

There was something in a dream about going to to war and colonising some particular area, how it was very important to wear your uniform exactly as it had been supplied and wear it exactly where it fitted properly and where it was supposed to be rather than where if felt more comfortable on your body because if you had it somewhere where it wasn’t supposed to be it would sweat and make life really uncomfortable for you but that’s all really that I can remember of that.

I stepped back into that dream too and when the alarm went off I was having a lengthy discussion with someone about something or other but the alarm going off totally disrupted my whole train of thought which is a shame. I would have loved to have found out where this dream would have led me.

So with nothing of any real significance, except, maybe that I managed to step back into a dream that was 76 minutes previously, which is a good memory for the subconscious, I waited for Isabelle the Nurse.

When she arrived she told me about the freezing conditions, the fact that it had begun to snow, the excitement on the streets and the general chaos in the town as everyone struggled to come to terms with the snow. If the temperature drops a few more degrees the département will be paralysed.

After she left I made breakfast and read my book. I’ve finally some to the end of Samuel Hearne’s adventures which is a shame because not only did I gain much from reading them, his glossary of fauna and flora at the back in even more interesting.

If only John Hornby had read them.

John Hornby, or “Jack Hornby” to the few friends that he had, was the son of the famous rugby player and cricketer who lived in Nantwich and is buried in Acton Churchyard near my aunt. He went out to Canada on several occasions to explore the Wilderness and the Barren Grounds. However in 1927 he and two companions starved to death on the Thelon River in the Barren Grounds.

They had gone to follow the trails of the migrating animals and to live off the animals that they captured.

Hearne makes the point that even some of the First-Nations people who have lived amongst the migrating animals for generations have starved to death. He says in his book "in some years, hundreds of deer may easily be killed within a mile of York Fort; and in others, there is not one to be seen within twenty or thirty miles. One day thousands and tens of thousands of geese are seen, but the next they all raise flight, and go to the North to breed.".

He concludes his notes with "I am persuaded that whoever relies much on the produce of the different seasons, will frequently be deceived, and occasionally expose himself and men to great want." – advice that Hornby would have done well to heed.

However, had Hornby taken a copy of Hearne’s book with him, he would also have had a great many hints on how to obtain an enormous amount of food out on the Barren Grounds. Some of it would have been unpalatable to European tastes but it’s better than starving to death.

After breakfast I came back in here where I paired off the music that I’d chosen yesterday for another radio programme, and then segued the pairs together. However I was taken by surprise by the taxi driver.

The new rules and regulations come into force today apparently and now if there are journeys to and from the same area within a 10 km radius of pick-up and drop off, the taxi proprietor is obliged to combine them as long as they do not result in a delay of more than 45 minutes. The taxi company had three trips – two others and me – that fell in this category so we all had to pile in together

Half an hour early, and not being anything like ready, I told the driver to go to pick up someone else and come back. I sent a frantic message to my cleaner who dashed here to fit my anaesthetic patches and help me dress and pack, and then we made it downstairs into the wind and snow to await the driver.

When she returned I piled in and we went off to the hospital to pick up our third passenger and then we had a drive through the tempest and blizzard to Avranches.

In case anyone is wondering, I’m not complaining about these new arrangements. I’m having for free something that is available in no other country in the World, as far as I am aware. Free and for nothing. I’m grateful that it exists and I would do anything to keep it and prevent any abuse.

However I might have thought differently when they came to plug me in. The anaesthetic hadn’t had time to work and I knew all about them plugging me in, as I suspect does everyone else in the neighbourhood now.

And then I had another one of these cataleptic fits that I have every now and again

Once I recovered I read my Welsh again and then read some of the reports of the crew of the Sieur de Roberval who was chasing after Cartier on his third voyage. However I was interrupted by a nurse who brought me an appointment with an ophthalmologist and a doctor who brought me a prescription for a pedicure.

But an eye test? Which nurse did I call “beautiful”?

And I’m admiring the precision of Roberval’s pilot who is giving his measurements clearly, even if they are in leagues. A league could be anything back in those days – there was no fixed measurement – but as I can now identify some of the points between which he works out his distances I’ll be able to work out what was Roberval’s idea of a league

When they unplugged me I headed out for the taxi and it was the same driver who brought me down. We had a little chat on the way back in the snow, and slid the car a couple of times on the ice, once into the kerb.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me and watched once more as I climbed up all of the steps unaided. I really must keep this up.

Tea tonight was something out of a tin. I wasn’t feeling too adventurous. I’ve had a hard day and I’m going to bed for a good rest (I hope).

But all of this snow in Western Normandy? What do you make of that? It’s not like the Auvergne (which has had a shed-load over this last 24 hours and is currently without power) or Canada but it’s still impressive.
But still not as impressive as what went on with radio station KHAR in Alaska in the early 1970s with the newsreader reading out details of the daily snowfall in various cities – "and Helena got six inches during the night" and then hastily explaining himself " . . . Helena, Montana, that is"

Monday 18th November 2024 – YET MORE FUN …

… at the Dialysis Clinic this afternoon.

But at least we managed a full session of three and a half hour. And even more interestingly, of the weight that I lost during Saturday’s session, I’d only put a little back on. And that’s the best news that I’ve had for quite some time too.

Not such good news was my late night last night. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’ve now given up the idea of trying to be in bed early. Rushing around like a madman and still failing dismally is just stressing me out for no good purpose.

They have told me before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … that it’s only because of my heart being so good that I’ve kept going for so long. It’s pumping the blood around at twice the normal rate and has been doing so since 2015 and many hearts would have given out long before this.

They’ve also told me that because of the general state of my health a transplant is out of the question – I would never survive it – so I have to keep going with the one that I have. And so I have to do all in my power to avoid stress. And that includes worrying about problems that I can’t resolve.

So with not worrying about going to bed early, it was late when I finally crawled into bed. And there I stayed until 07:00 when the alarm went off.

There was a moment at 04:20 when something awoke me. However, after checking the time on the watch I simply turned over and went back to sleep

It took a few minutes for me to come round into the Land of the Living this morning and I almost ended up falling asleep again. However I dragged myself out of bed quickly enough and went for clean clothes and a trip to the bathroom

This morning I had a good wash and even a shave, washed my clothes and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. And to my surprise, and also to my disappointment, there was nothing there.

That IS a big disappointment. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only excitement that I ever have is when I’m in bed asleep – although if the shenanigans at the Dialysis Clinic keep on going, all of that might change.

The nurse had his usual discussion of asking me how my pizza went and what did I do yesterday – the same conversation we have every Monday when he’s on duty. I’m glad that he came early and left quickly.

That meant that I could continue with other things, like making breakfast and reading my book

And poor Samuel Hearne is in the wars again.

His group comes across a lone First Nation woman from another tribe who had been abducted by others but she managed to escape after they beat her baby to death

However things go from bad to worse as she’s now prisoner of Hearne’s guides and they have a wrestling tournament to decide who will claim her as his own. The leader of his band decides that he will participate, one of his wives tells him that he already has more than enough wives to look after so that there isn’t room for another one, and so he beats the wife to death right in front of Hearne

Hearne writes the story in such a matter-of-fact way but I’m sure that he was deeply affected by it.

Or maybe, because he has seen such horror and hardship so far on his voyage, what’s one more? He must be totally resigned to the events that unfold, there’s nothing that he can do, and he just wants to return to the fort at any price.

Back in here I had my Welsh homework to do and to my surprise and regret, instead of taking just half an hour to do it, I was still working on finishing it when my cleaner turned up to fit my anaesthetic patches.

The taxi was late coming for me – the driver had brought someone back from Rennes – but it’s a driver whom I like and we had a good chat on our way down to Avranches.

Consequently I was the last in at the Clinic today, and the last to be seen by the nurses. We were already running way late and my anaesthetic was running out but first before they coupled me up they had some tests to perform on my legs.

Therefore when they came to couple me up the anaesthetic had worn off and everyone in the building and a few people outside too knew that I was being plugged in.

One of the plugs failed to work too and after several tries, they disconnected it and ran everything through the one plug, so I had a throbbing pain in my arm all through the session.

They carried on with several examinations of my legs and feet, and I was also seen by the doctor in charge. I asked him about the scan and he confirmed the disc issue. I asked him what was the plan for the future and he told me "we’ll wait to see how it develops."

Well, I can tell him that without waiting any longer for any more evidence.

While I was being seen to I was fighting off wave after wave of sleep thanks to being force-fed with orange juice to keep my blood sugar up. I was also revising my Welsh and then seeing how Jacques Cartier was getting on.

He and some (but not all) of his men have survived the winter, although with great difficulty. But disappointingly he doesn’t go into a great deal of detail about it. But as he’s about to return home the following Spring, he kidnaps the King, Donnacona, and some of his elite companions.

Cartier promises to bring them back but of course they all have the temerity to die in France so on his third voyage he is met with an icy reception.

His narrative comes to an abrupt end once he’s built the fort in which he and his group intend to stay – I suspect that he handed to his superior, the Sieur de Roberval, the subsequent part relating to the settlement when he arrived later – and it’s not been seen since. But returning sailors have painted a gloomy picture of confrontation with the First-Nations peoples until the French finally admitted defeat and abandoned the St Lawrence River for the moment.

But not without having sown the seeds of a brutal war that lasted until almost the dawn of the 19th Century, during which thousands of colonists and First-Nation people were killed.

When my machine finished they had further tests to perform on my legs before they unplugged me and compressed my arm to close the holes. Consequently I was very late leaving.

It was another young taxi driver who brought me home, another one of the chatty ones. He’s thinking of emigrating to Québec so he was asking me loads of questions about life out there. Québec was one of the places that I had in my mind to go to settle and I’d made enquiries once during one of my visits there. But ill-health wiped out every ambition in that respect.

Despite the driving rain and gale-force winds my faithful cleaner was at her post, and she noted how well I managed to climb the twenty-five steps up to here. She thinks that every day I’m showing an improvement. And how I wish that it were so. I’m not so optimistic.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper with pasta and veg followed by chocolate cake and strawberry soya dessert. Very delicious.

It’s bedtime now so I’ll be clearing off in a minute. It’s Welsh lesson tomorrow so I have homework to send off and the radio programme to send off too

But there was an interesting story about Cartier and one of his native guides off walking to Hochelaga when suddenly a party of angry Iroquois rise up in front of them
They turn to go back but there’s a party of Iroquois there too.
So they turn to the left – and there’s a party of Iroquois there
So they turn to the right – and there’s a party of Iroquois there too
"Well, Taignoagny" said Cartier to his guide "it looks as if we are surrounded"
His guide turned to him and replied "what do you mean ‘we’, paleface?"

Saturday 16th November 2024 – AS I HAVE …

… said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … if it’s not one thing, it’s another with this dialysis.

Today the machine wasn’t working correctly and the poor nurses were so fed up of running to it every five minutes when the alarm went off that in the end they went to see the doctor who told them that I may as well be thrown out. They can’t change the machine because each machine has to be configured specially for each patient and to reconfigure a machine that’s not in use takes far too long.

So at least I had an early return home today after all of this.

It’s about the only thing that was early today (apart from the taxi, about which we’ll talk in due course) and last night. It ended up being another late night but I’m now past caring about what time I go to bed. I’ll just go to bed when I feel like it and if necessary, sleep during the dialysis.

But when I finally did go to bed, I was asleep quickly enough and had another Sleep of the Dead all the way through. When the alarm went off, I was at a rock festival, part of the organisation. I’d just introduced Steve Marriott to the crowd. England had just played Germany in a football match in a European Cup competition and had won so there was a whole host of repartee from Marriott and from the audience like “well it’s only fair that we keep on playing them until they finally manage to win”, lots of things like that which were extremely interesting. But the microphone cord for Steve Marriot had become stuck somewhere and I had quite a job to free it off and pull enough cable through so that he could finally put it on its stand and begin to perform. There was also something else about a song – had a song ever been played, or something like that. It turned out that each time they’d go to play it on a concert, the concert would over-run so they would have to cut short their set in order to fit into the time scale and that one always seemed to be the song that would go. So there was some dispute or discussion about whether it had ever been played, and what would be the situation if some other group decided that they would like to play it. Would Steve Marriott still be obliged to consider it in his set or would he be obliged to drop it and pick another one?

What a bizarre dream. There’s a little something of just about everything in there and none of it makes any sense or has any significance.

Rising from the bed I staggered off into the kitchen to make some dough for some bread as I’m going to be running out today. It went together quite nicely too for a change just recently. I’ve not been too happy with my bread-making technique this last couple of weeks.

And then into the bathroom where I washed not only me but also some of my clothes. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I have to keep on top of the laundry here as best as I can.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I was during the night. There was something going on in a small field. There were groups of us sitting around there watching it. For some particular reason we stood up and then we all settled down again. My youngest sister was there too, and that’s twice in the last few nights that she’s made an appearance so what’s happening here?

As well as that, there was more too, but you don’t want to know about that, especially if you are eating your tea right now.

The nurse came at a time more like his usual arrival, and for a change he refrained from making any comment that would irritate me. In fact he was quite pleasant and the closest that he has been to normal for quite some considerable time. He asked if I was going to watch the rugby later.

Me? Rugby? I come from North Wales.

After he left, I gave the dough its second kneading, made breakfast and carried on reading my book.

And poor Samuel Hearne. After the massacre of the Inuit at Bloody Falls that so affected and upset him, his account of his journey to the coastline of the Arctic Ocean bears no resemblance to that reported by Franklin in 1821 and Richardson in 1848.

In fact Richardson, in his own memoirs writes "it is not very probable that he could have induced the Indians, over whom he had little influence, to accompany him on his survey, after they had completed the massacre which was the object of their long and laborious journey ; nor, had he gone actually to the mouth of the river"

It would seem that Hearne, obviously totally dismayed at his own inability to convince his guides to press on to the coast and ashamed to admit it to his superiors of the Hudson’s Bay Company, wrote a description of how he imagined it to be in the belief that no other European would ever be able to follow in his footsteps.

But there is something in the book that I’m reading that has rung a very large bell with me, and quite surprisingly and unexpectedly too.

The copy of Hearne’s book that I’m reading is a version dated 1910 and contains editorial comments made by someone who at the time was associated with the Hudson’s Bay Company.

The editor tell us "Since this Journal was written, the Northern Indians, by annually visiting their Southern friends, the Athapuscow Indians, have contracted the small-pox, which has carried off nine-tenths of them … but having been totally neglected for several years, they have now sunk into their original barbarism and extreme indigence ; and a war has ensued between the two tribes, for the sake of a few remnants of iron-work which was left among them ; and the Dog-ribbed Indians were so numerous, and so successful, as to destroy almost the whole race of the Copper Indians."

An Arctic explorer by the name of Vilhjalmar Stefansson is described by the Canadian historian Pierre Berton as"the most controversial of that singular breed of venturers who set out to unlock the secrets of the frozen World" – although how anyone can say that of Stefansson when there are people such as Cook and Peary in that group I really don’t know.

And Stefansson’s place is not due to any fraud or intrigue like the two more famous candidates for that title. He is notorious for the famous story of the “blond Eskimoes”.

In 1910 Stefansson was wandering about on the shores of the Arctic Ocean and came across a group of Inuit who had paler faces and some of whom had brownish hair. On his return to civilisation he foolishly told a newspaper reporter of what he had found, embellished with a few bells and whistles, and a few days later, blasted across the front page of the Seattle Times was "Explorer discovers lost tribe of whites"

The newspaper reporter admitted later that he had used his “ingenuity and imagination” to flesh out the story, but by then, the damage had been done.

Worse still, when Stefansson returned to the Arctic a few years later with a party of Scientists sponsored by the Canadian Government, no trace of those Inuit was ever found and he was denounced as a charlatan hungry for attention from the media.

But I reckon that the comment by the editor of Hearne’s book explains exactly why no trace of his Inuit would have been found.

The bread baked itself quite well in the air fryer while all of this was going on. And I’ve found the secret – which is to bake it for fifteen minutes, take the bread out and turn it over and the put it back in for another seven and a half. Then I have a lovely loaf that isn’t burnt.

Back in here, I had things to do and was so engrossed that I didn’t realise that my faithful cleaner had arrived to put my anaesthetic patches onto my arm.

The taxi came early too, and it was the new girl who doesn’t know her way around. I had to show her the way to the other passenger who sometimes comes with me and then we had a nice, pleasant drive down to Avranches.

We were early arriving so we had to wait, but if I’m going to be plugged into a machine for three and a half hours there’s always something that I can be doing to pass the time while I’m awaiting.

When I emerged everyone else had already gone in so I followed them into the ward where I was quickly plugged in.

No orange juice for me so, for the first time in I don’t know how many weeks, I had another one of those cataleptic fits that I used to have. I heard everything that went on but for an hour I was totally unable to do anything at all.

Once the coffee and orange juice came round to restore me to the Land of the Living, I revised my Welsh and then carried on reading Cartier’s account of his voyage as edited by Richard Hakluyt.

Cartier is intent upon visiting the First-Nation settlement of Hochelaga but the King, Donnacona, is intent on preventing him at all costs. Donnacona’s attitude and opinions have hardened quite considerably since Cartier kidnapped his sons the previous year.

Pretty soon the St Lawrence will ice up and Cartier will be obliged to stay there over the winter. It will be interesting to see the interaction between the First-Nation people and the Europeans when the latter find themselves at the mercy of the former in an inhospitable and unfamiliar land in some very unwelcome temperatures.

Remember that as yet, no European has any conception at all as to what a Montréal (because that’s where Hochelaga is) winter is really like. Montréal is situated at 45°N, roughly the same as Bordeaux and Turin and winters like in those two cities will be what Cartier and his men expect.

Meanwhile, all is not well with the dialysis machine. Every five minutes the alarm goes off and poor Julie the Cook has to run to see what’s the matter. She resets it and five minutes later it whistles again.

Eventually, she’s had enough, and who can blame her? She goes to see Emilie the Cute Consultant (who has been keeping her distance from me) who tells her to switch off the machine and send me home. We’ll try again on Monday.

The taxi arrives just as I leave the building and we have a very interesting and conversational drive home

My faithful cleaner is at her post as I arrive, and she’s astonished by my early return. And once more she watches as I stride out up the twenty-five steps to my apartment.

There’s football tonight. Rhydaman of the Second Tier, having already knocked out a Premier League club, Aberystwyth Town, in the previous round, are taking on Hwlffordd in the Welsh Cup. And they are at home too

There’s a huge gulf in class between the Second Tier and the Premier League, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … but what Rhydaman managed to do was to drag their opponents down to their level.

Hwlffordd are third in the table but on this showing, they are a long way short of any kind of serious quality that will enable them to challenge for honours. They took the lead halfway through the first half more by luck than any skill, but Rhydaman managed to equalise near the end.

Try as they might, Hwlffordd couldn’t find the killer touch

The game went down to penalties and it was a very dismal 10-9 win to Hwlffordd. And I for one am hoping that we’ll see much more quality from someone in the next round.

Tea was the last burger on a bap for now, with baked potato and salad followed by chocolate cake and strawberry soya dessert. Next week I’ll be back on the breaded quorn fillets as I’ve now run out of baps.

But my chocolate cake is really nice, especially with the bits of real chocolate whisked into it.

So I’ll dictate my radio notes and go to bed ready for the morning.

But I’m still having a smile at a story that one of the nurses told me this afternoon.
Normandy is of course a centre for apple-growing and cider production and many of the local farms combine the two. And the nurse told me the story of a local farmer who had fallen into his cider fermentation vat
"He was in there struggling for several hours before the fire brigade managed to pull him out"
"That’s terrible news" I exclaimed. "What took them so long to pull him out?"
"Apparently he wouldn’t let go of the side of the vat" she said.

Thursday 14th November 2024 – SO HERE I AM …

… back from the Dialysis Clinic, still in one piece. But not without them trying their best though. I’m really not too sure how long I can keep it up (as the Bishop once famously said to the actress).

And while we’re on the subject of things being up … "well, one of us is" – ed … I was up quite late again last night. However that was a personal choice of mine and nothing to do with any work or other obligation so I’m not complaining.

But once in bed, when I finally made it, I slept the sleep of the Dead and remember absolutely nothing at all.

When the alarm went off I was off on my travels somewhere but it evaporated immediately which was a shame. It must have been exciting, and there’s not enough excitement in my life these days. It’s a pity that every last memory of whatever it was simply disappeared.

The bathroom was first, and I managed to stagger in there before the final alarm of the morning. I had a good wash and scrub up, and even a shave. I know that Emilie the Cute Consultant doesn’t love me any more, but that’s no reason not to make an effort.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out if I’d been anywhere during the night. I was with my youngest sister. We’d gone to a walled city, something like Chester or something like that but in actual fact it was a port on the south coast. We were going to see a ferry – the one that goes from Sheerness to Vilssingen but it had been doing something else on the high seas somewhere and had changed its name. We were discussing the ship. When we arrived at the outskirts of this town I made the remark that I’d only ever been here once before but didn’t have a camera with me. You could see across the bay in the cliffs all these houses that had been carved out of the cliffs. Once I’d passed underneath the entrance gate to the city and began to climb the hilltop towards the city centre, I stopped to take a photograph of it but the camera on my ‘phone wasn’t working properly. It was having difficulty taking the photo. A couple of guys came over and began to chat. They were really getting on my nerves – one of them saying “I know a good place where you can photograph”. Anyway, right in the end I told him to clear off while I tried to take this photograph. I had to go back down towards the gate again but still this photograph wouldn’t turn out. Then I joined my youngest sister again who had been for a run. She told me that you could run in this city as long as you obeyed various rules like in which order you can run, the distance that you are running, which lane you should be in etc. It sounded really complicated to me but when she set off I joined her and we were only losing 2-1 for quite some time before we were overtaken again by events but I thought that we put up a really magnificent performance …fell asleep here … so we had a good run in this city. My sister set off and ran down the hill so I ran after her. Instead of keeping to the footpath she ran right back through the road in the city gates and underneath the walls into the town. I was surprised that that was allowed but she insisted that it was perfectly safe to run through on the road instead of on the pavement and so underneath the city gates rather than through the pedestrian exit. She began to explain all the lanes, their order and what they meant, where you should be, who you may overtake and in which lane

Not that I’m ever likely to be going anywhere with my youngest sister, and she is even less likely to want to go running. But I’ve had a couple of dreams about being in Chester or somewhere like it just recently so am I becoming all nostalgic? I lived there between 1972 and 1974 in my late teens and I do have to say that it was amongst the happiest times of my life. What wouldn’t I give to return to that joyous, carefree period surrounded by good friends and a healthy ambience? And a camera not working? That was a recurring dream at one point, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Later on I found myself another girlfriend. She’s someone whom I know and I wish that I knew who it was. We hadn’t been officially boyfriend/girlfriend but we spent a lot of time in each other’s company and I really looked forward to seeing her. She became ill, and had to have a lot of people looking after her which cut down quite considerably the time that we spent together. She slowly began to go out again. I met her once at some kind of concert where she was with some friends. I went over to say “hello” to her, and the first thing that she did was to give me £15:00 because she owed me £15:00 and I’d completely forgotten about it. I made a remark about her being a little better so would she like to come and have a chat with me. She said “no” which really disappointed me. She replied that things had changed. “I’ve been ill” she replied “and you’re no longer going to like me”. I told her that I’d always like her regardless of anything. She replied “you can’t trust me really, can you?” which was a reference to my own insecurity more than anything else. I was going to reply but at that point the dream faded away. Either that or I did.

That’s another thing, isn’t it? Me finding myself a girlfriend. In fact there’s something connecting this to real life too. I had a girlfriend at school and we drifted apart. A a couple of years later I was at the Teacher Training College in Crewe watching a rock group when I noticed, among the people in the crowd, the aforementioned. I went over for a chat and one thing led to another, and once you start you’d be surprised at how many other things there are. So our couple reignited but when she left school and went to University at Bangor it fizzled out again after a while.

The nurse was, for a change, late today. He asked about my plans for moving apartment and then proceeded to try to teach me to suck eggs, as if I’m senile or something. I wish that he would stop patronising me like this. It’s really getting on my wick.

After he left I made breakfast and carried on reading my book. Samuel Hearne is now well on his way to the Coppermine River. He’s making some very pertinent observations about the life and habits of the First-Nation people out in the Barren Grounds of Canada – that area of peri-Arctic tundra situated above the tree line. He describes the philosophy of the First-Nation people as “every man for himself” and “the survival of the fittest” and describes how a stronger man taking away even a weaker man’s wife seems to be an everyday occurrence. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the Barren Grounds is one of the most remote, isolated and cruellest places on earth. If Jacques Cartier had called Labrador "the Land God Gave To Cain", whatever would he have said if he had made it to here? I was in Yellowknife in 2018, AS REGULAR READERS OF THIS RUBBISH WILL RECALL and while that’s not exactly in the Barren Grounds, it was still dismal enough from a natural history point of view.

Back in here I had a few things to do and hadn’t even started work when my faithful cleaner came to fit my patches. After she’d done it she took away with her all of the medication that I no longer use. She’s going to sort it and make a list to see whether any of her other clients can make use of it, to save throwing it away.

The taxi came early and it was one of my regular drivers but she was quite quiet. But didn’t she drive us down to Avranches at a hell of a rate? I’ve no idea what might be the matter with her.

There were quite a few patients here today and as a result, even though I was early, I was the last to be seen, as you might expect. I’m convinced that they do it deliberately, wait until the anaesthetic effect of the patches has worn off.

The first needle though was painless. Totally painless. However, the second needle made up for that. I knew all about that one and so, I suspect, do those people walking past outside.

My glucose limit was right down in the basement but no-one brought me an orange juice. Consequently I slipped into a diabetic coma until one of the Auxiliaries brought me a juice with my coffee. And then I revised my Welsh, listened to some music and read more of Hakluyt’s translation of Jacques Cartier’s voyages.

Here, Cartier sets the scene for all further problems between the French and the First-Nation people by kidnapping the sons of the chief of the local tribe in order to take them back to Europe. And then on his return, on his second voyage, he befriends the wrong tribe, hence leading to 250 years of conflict between the French, the Dutch, the English, the Iroquois and the Huron, along with various other Europeans and First-Nation groups.

Last to be connected, I was last, and by a long way too, to be disconnected. My cleaner had sent me a frantic message wondering where I was.

In the meantime though a doctor came to see me. We had the usual banal questions but said nothing about my scan last week so I asked him. He went away to have a look and came back to say that I had a slipped disc. And then wandered away before I had chance to ask him what their plans were about it.

That rang a bell with me. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall me saying in the past that there’s one of the doctors here at this hospital who has all the air of wishing that he was driving a taxi or serving in a restaurant, anywhere but working in a hospital. It looks as if he’s been pencilled in to deal with me

It was another speedy drive back home with a driver who was listening to the news all the way back. And then my helpful cleaner watched as I managed once more to climb the twenty-five steps up to here totally unaided.

Tea was steamed veg with falafel in a vegan cheese sauce followed by chocolate cake in a soya pistachio cream. And it tasted wonderful too. I really must stop eating so well.

But now I have some more things to do before going to bed. And tomorrow, I’m not (planning on) going anywhere so I can take my time.

What I shall do is to read some more of Samuel Hearne’s adventures in search of the Coppermine River.
The next chapter, written by Samuel Hearne is "Some Observations On The Sex Life and Practices Of The Athabasca and Chipewyan First-Nation People"
And the following chapter, written by the Athabasca and Chipewyan First-Nation People is entitled "Some Observations on the Sex Life and Practices of Mr Samuel Hearne"

Monday 11th November 2024 – THIS BLASTED DIALYSIS …

… thing isn’t becoming any easier. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

Four of us arrived at the clinic together today. I was the first to be coupled up and, as you might expect, the last to be uncoupled. There I was, hoping for a quick getaway today but it didn’t quite work out like that.

Going to bed at a reasonable time is something else that isn’t working out either. Once again, it was well after 23:00 when I finally crawled into bed . At least I had a decent sleep though because I slept right through to when the alarm went off, with no pain at all.

When the alarm went off I was busy in an adventure. There was a bank robbery or something like that planned, a huge, elaborate way of doing it too and a lot of people had a lot of little parts in this. Where I joined in was where the local bus driver who had been asked to do something suddenly realised what he was being asked to do and declined to do it, right on the very day. One of the girls went onto his bus and with a fluttering of eyelids and so on asked “you will do just this one little task for us, won’t you?” which was to throw a mine through the open window of an apartment. In the end he agreed to do it, so she gave him this little mine. It was a false mine, but the purpose was for the people inside to flee their apartment and leave the door open. She gave him the mine and I went with him. He asked a lot of questions about the mine, how far is the tailback etc. My issue was how were they going to throw this through the window of an apartment on the thirteenth floor. I imagined that they’d already worked this out. There must be a balcony or something. We talked about the mine and set off in the bus. I thought to myself that when someone writes the story of this bank heist it’s going to make one of the most exciting adventure novels I could ever imagine

That was something that I wished would have carried on because it was certainly exciting enough. And as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only excitement that I seem to have is what happens during the night.

Mind you, that’s not true at all. I’ve received an e-mail to day saying that someone has taken control of my computer, has videos of me watching filthy movies and what I was doing while watching them, and will send them to all of my contacts unless I buy Bitcoins to a value of $1410 and send them to a Bitcoin wallet. So in about 45 hours we’ll see whether he can walk the walk as well as he can talk the talk. This should be very interesting. I hope that you will be waiting with bated breath.

Meantime, back at the ran … errr … apartment I staggered off into the bathroom for a good wash and shave, and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. Did I dictate the dream where a bunch of four kids was responsible for destroying a house? … "no you didn’t" – ed … They had a water leak in the washroom of where they were staying so they began to explore to try to find it and fix it. Of course, everything that they did led on to further problems then on to further problems and further problems. They ended up destroying a house. The girl and her two younger sisters took to the road and found another boarding house in which to stay by pretending that their parents would be joining them later. The same thing happened with this one – they totally destroyed it. When I arrived on the scene the girls had left but had somehow managed to go into Space where they had landed on the Space Station and were busy pulling that to pieces looking for a leak too. There was another false alarm at 07:00. It didn’t awaken me but I heard the alarm go. I knew that it was a false one so I took no notice but I was in London, part of the street crew who had been defeated by London University. I was in Fulham and I can’t really remember what was happening but I was a guest there and helped them with a few events, the Fulham University, but we didn’t make any progress at all.

Funnily enough, I can’t remember this false alarm going off this morning. As for kids destroying a house, that’s not a problem at all for modern kids. They seem to be much more destructive than we ever were.

Later on I’d been to see the doctor. I’d given him all the details of my illness and a few other problems. When I’d finished, he looked at me and said “yes I’ll have to write a prescription for you”. Then he took from the inside pocket of his jacket, not his prescription pad but a rough notebook and proceeded to write in there. I had to tell him three times about his prescription. It was only after the third time that he happened to look at what he was doing and realised that he had the wrong pad and had to start again.

That’s something that I seem to have on my mind right now – this story about prescriptions. It seems to be a big issue right now. But if people want to pay less tax, then there’s going to be less money available for Social Services. Here in France we still have something that’s far, far better than any other country in Europe.

Isabelle the nurse blitzed in and out today. She didn’t want to hang around too long. I don’t seem to be popular with too many other people right now. I wonder what I’ve done? Maybe this cyber-blackmailer has already been in contact with them, I dunno.

After she left I made breakfast and carried on with my book. Samuel Hearne has set out on his first trip into the Barren Grounds in his search for the Coppermine River, and recounts how his native guides robbed him and his companions of everything that they possessed and how they had to retreat to the fort on Hudson’s Bay. Times were tough in 1769

Back in here I had things to do, like my Welsh homework for a start, and then afterwards I still made no headway with this blasted timing for this radio programme.

In the end I’ve bit the bullet and begun to write a computer program. It’s been years since I’ve written a program and I’m surprised that I could still remember. I wrote my first program in 1975 using loads of If:Else and GoTo constraints but this needs to be more sophisticated than that.

It’ll probably take me longer to write the program than to do it by hand, but the program will be useful for another time

My cleaner surprised me in mid-calculation and I had to go to have my patches fitted. And the taxi was early – I was busy cutting up last night’s chocolate cake when the driver turned up.

For once just recently I was on my own and it was probably the quickest journey that I’d ever had. As a result I was early arriving and although I had to wait ten minutes while they cleaned up after the morning shift I was soon in the ward, with three other people coming in with me.

They coupled me up quickly enough and while it wasn’t actually painless, it was better than some times just recently.

However they noticed that my arm was starting to swell up as if they had missed their aim with the needles. They carried out a quick echograph to check and found that everything was perfect, and indeed the dialysis pump was showing a good circulation.

Consequently I spent most of the session with an alcohol compress on my arm to reduce the swelling. I still have one on now so I’ll be going to sleep with alcohol fumes all around me and I’ll have a huge bruise there in the morning

There was a couple of new people there today too so the doctor came to see them. He didn’t come to see me though to find out how things were and to tell me what was in my scan from Friday. I was rather disappointed by that.

At some point I had a little doze and while I was away with the fairies (but not doing anything about which the Editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine would comment or which would be of interest to my cyber-extortionist) I saw three bodies. One was a girl and one was a man and I don’t know the third, all wrapped in cloth, in the water. two were chained down under the water to some kind of attachment and had been there for a couple of years. The third, either the woman or man, was with them under water but a new arrival, not yet chained down

In this dream I was actually underneath them in the water and was looking up at them. It was weird.

Apart from that I read my Welsh, drunk loads of orange juice and then carried on with PRINCIPALL NAVIGATIONS

Hakluyt is now attacking the works of Jacques Cartier and his voyage of 1534. This is interesting because it refers to two comments that Cartier wrote in his journal. Firstly he says "in all my travels along this (Labrador and Newfoundland) coast, I have not seen even a bucketful of good soil"

That’s my impression too and much as I would have loved to move to Labrador, gardening would be ruled out for a start.

The second quote of Cartier is much more famous. Sailing up and down the Straight of Belle Isle between Labrador and Newfoundland, he describes it as "the Land that God must truly have given to Cain"

Despite finishing early, uncoupling me was something else completely. I had to wait until there were two nurses free because if one is compressing a patient, there must be another one ready in case of emergencies elsewhere in the Unit.

It took an age until they sorted me out, and they seemed to be more interested in my arm than anything else. The poor taxi driver had been waiting for a while and I bet that she was fed up. But once in the car we sped off to Granville.

My cleaner was waiting for me and watched along with another neighbour as I climbed all of the stairs unaided up to my little apartment

After I’d had a rest I put away the rest of the chocolate cake and then made tea – a stuffed pepper, which was really nice. There’s still some ginger cake left so I had some of that with pistachio-flavoured soya dessert.

Bedtime now, and I need to be ready for my Welsh lesson in the morning. I may well be late joining because there’s a meeting here in the morning

But seeing as we were talking about absent-minded doctors just now … "well, one of us was" – ed … it reminds me of that hospital in Belgium a while back
"Doctor" said a nurse "why are you writing your notes with an anal thermometer?"
So the doctor hands it to the nurse
"Will you go back into that patient’s room" said the doctor "and bring me back my biro?"

Saturday 9th November 2024 – IF ANYTHING CAN …

… go wrong, then it surely will. Especially if I’m involved in it

And these dialysis sessions are certainly testing this theory to the limit. I am not having much luck at all.

That’s hardly to be unexpected, because right now I don’t seem to be having much luck with anything. And it’s not as if there are any ladders under which to walk or black cats to kick

Even going to bed at a reasonable time seems to have deserted me for the moment. Finishing my notes at a reasonable time last night, but the time that I’d finished everything else that I had to do, I still ended up running late, as usual.

At least, the compensation here is that it didn’t take me long to go to sleep in my nice, comfortable bed. And once I’d gone to sleep, there I stayed until the alarm went off. There had been a little tossing and turning, but nothing about which I needed to worry

When the alarm went off I was working in a chemist’s shop prescribing medication to people. I was told that there was a control on the amount of medication being given out and when I prescribed some to a woman she told me that I was giving her too much. I told her that at the end of the treatment, when she’s finished she can stick the remainder back through our letter-box so that we could have it back

This is an ongoing issue in real life, with all of the over-prescription of medication. I look at all of the stuff that I have in here and multiply that by so many million people and it’s a fortune. Many of these doctors in hospitals seem to live in a bubble and don’t seem to understand how their prescriptions affect those living in the real world. But we’ve talked about that quite a lot just recently.

Despite what might have been a good sleep it took an age to haul myself out of bed and I only just about beat the second alarm. Burning the candle at both ends doesn’t seem to be working so well

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up and then piled all of the washing into the washing machine, bedding included. It all goes in on a “mixed materials 40°C wash” and if anything wants any different than that then I don’t buy it. It goes without saying that I have nothing that needs ironing.

Back in here I had a computer issue. For some reason it wouldn’t boot up this morning. I had to go to tweak around with the BIOS to make it work and that took some time to do. Consequently I was only half-way through the dictaphone notes when Isabelle the nurse came

She had a good moan about all of the shopping scattered everywhere. That was going to be this morning’s job after I’d finished the dictaphone notes but the best-laid plans etc. Anyway I told her that it was my mess in my apartment and she can give me some of her hours to tidy up if she’s unhappy

After she left I made breakfast and read some more of Samuel Hearne’s travels. Except that I didn’t. Two days in and we’re still reading the editor’s preamble. That’s probably going to end up longer than the author’s book if it keeps on like this.

Then there was the washing to hang up, seeing as the machine had finished. And that’s quite a battle, given my state of health and my lack of balance

Back in here I finished off transcribing the dictaphone notes. I had been doing some work on the city walls. I’d cleared away a platform in front that we were going to use to put on music acts etc so that the public sitting in what was the old moat could see whoever was on the platform. I don’t know at all about the history of this platform but it just happened to be there. While I was cleaning it out I heard a noise like a sports car. I stopped and looked up, and there was a guy there. I asked him if that was his car. He replied “yes, it’s a ‘Facer'”. I said “that’s a marque of which I’d never heard before”. He replied “it’s the only one”. He looked down and asked “what are the chances of putting this car down there?”. I replied “if you have a look on top of the walls a little further down we have cranes that run up and down on top of the walls. We use them for raising and lowering things. Bring one of the cranes up here. They’ll soon lower your car down”. The fact is that the crane didn’t quite reach to where the platform is, but if I stood on the platform and threw a rope that would be tied to the car, then as he lowered the car down I could pull it to the platform. He set off and we set off to go round and come round onto the correct side of the platform. He suddenly began to think “what about the insurance? What about the MoT and the Public Liability?”. We told him to clear off, shut up and lower the car down. He didn’t like our brusqueness but we thought that it was the best way to proceed, to bring this car down onto the platform. As it happened, we had a quick look in the encyclopaedia. He played keyboards so with me on the bass and my friend who worked with me, he was a drummer, we had the makings of a pretty sound group, the three of us

One of my friends lived in a house right on the city walls in Chester and I worked in a building on the walls too. We’d often said that it would be an ideal place for a rock group, or any other musical act for that matter, to have a concert. A few power chords just at the start of the 14:30 Novices’ Handicap down below on the Roodee should upset quite a few punters.

I was in Court last night – a hearing trying to persuade a tenant to leave a property but he was being difficult. He was finding humour in all kinds of strange places but I reckoned that this humour was a front. He was trying to embarrass me in front of the judges so I kept a very clear silence and only answered the questions that they were asked to me and ask him until he pulled up out of steam which he did rather by the nineteenth of the second. He was unable to persuade the French children’s governess that she was the kind of person to be given a more senior role in the Government of France where she could make a name for herself in history.

Does this dream ring any bells right now? I bet that it does. Although where the children’s governess fits in, I’ve not quite worked out.

Did I dictate the dream about the two of us being on a coach tour with two drivers? … "no you didn’t" – ed … We had to stop for coffee but there was nowhere convenient and we ended up at some kind of dire roadside burger bar but it was the absolute best that we could be. The other driver took over to drive and on leaving was almost pranged by a silver 4×4 as he pulled out. In the meantime I’d gone off somewhere – I had Nerina with me – and all of a sudden there was an urgent contact “can you check and look out for a silver 4×4?”. By this time I was back driving this coach again. I looked in my mirror and could see this 4×4 right behind me so I replied “it’s behind me now”. The voice asked “can you follow it to find out where it goes”. I thought “follow it in a coach? I can try”. However I lost it, but I had a rough idea where so I circled around this housing estate again and sure enough, I found it. So I built a swimming pool and filled it with water, then the voice asked me to check on the number. When I checked on the number I saw the old guy driving it, he was standing on a set of ladders up some kind of pole in his garden where there was a light bulb that he was busy taking out. I took the number and reported it. Someone then gave me a briefcase and said “this is his” so I went and knocked on the door. His wife was there so I handed her the briefcase and we began to chat. She said something about his computer so I had a look. It was old and full of viruses so I cleaned it for him, removed the viruses and tweaked a few other things, and it worked so much better. When he ‘phoned up we told him what we’d come for. The wife told him the news so he asked “can you switch it off yet?”. He told me that it needed switching off so I arranged it. She said “yes, it switches off now”. he replied “that’s the first time in 100 years that it’s switched off”. Then Nerina and this woman engaged in quite a lot of small talk about nothing else in particular really

Wouldn’t it be great if I could build a swimming pool and fill it with water at the drop of a hat like that? And I have in the past done strange things like door-stepping someone for purposes other than which are obvious, but we don’t talk about these.

There wasn’t all that long to do stuff of my own before the cleaner came round to stick my anaesthetic patches onto me. It’s freezing outside, she reckons, so I put away my warm-season fleeces and brought out one of the Arctic ones. I kept my jumper on though if I’m going to be in Ice-Station Zebra.

While I was waiting for the taxi to arrive I put away all of the food and did a little rearranging on the shelves. It goes without saying that with my cleaner being early, the taxi was late. And we had someone to pick up along the way.

At the Dialysis Centre there was a crisis. Two patients had been sent over from the hospital for emergency dialysis and one was having a panic attack. Consequently every available nurse was helping out around the bed.

It was 35 minutes before I was seen and by that time the anaesthetic on my arm had worn off. They also missed their aim with the second needle and had to re-do it. Consequently I was in agony throughout the whole three hours and thirty minutes.

"Shall I bring some ice to ease the pain in your arm?" asked a nurse helpfully

"What?" I exclaimed "In this blasted igloo? You must be joking!"

So I listened to a couple of concerts, revised my Welsh, suffered being force-fed with orange juice, had a little doze and read more of Hakluyt’s PRINCIPALL NAVIGATIONS

He’s busy right now talking about a couple of trips in the 1580s and 90s to the Gulf of St Lawrence and the constant changing of sovereignty of the islands there is playing havoc with me being able to identify them in the names by which I know them today

Not only that, we’re talking in the period when the Basque country was still independent and its own language predominated so that makes matters even more complicated, especially when the ports on the Biscay coast are mentioned in passing, under their former names.

Being so late starting meant that I was so late finishing and the guy who came down with me, who has a four-hour session in the other ward, was ready before I was, so we both came home together.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me and once more watched in awe as I climbed the twenty-five stairs up to my door. Not as quick as Thursday or Friday but it was still an achievement. We have a new tenant in one of the apartments upstairs, so I met her cat on the way up.

After my cleaner left, we had football. Cardiff Metro v Y Bala. The Met scored after two minutes – a lucky rebound but Y Bala equalised just on the stroke of half-time.

The game came to light when Y Bala scored two goals right immediately after half-time and then we had an exciting second half as the Met clawed their way back into the game with two goals. The final ten minutes was certainly exciting.

It was a good game once it opened up. Cardiff Met play some pretty football but in their desire to retain possession, they can go from all-out attack to a long back-pass to the keeper in the twinkle of an eye and it’s so frustrating to see them do it – eight men up in attack that they pass it backwards.

Y Bala’s style is rather more agricultural but they play forward much more often and with better results.

Tea was a vegan burger on a bun with salad and baked potato followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. It’s all good stuff this.

There’s some dictating to do and then I’m off to bed.

But talking of my bad luck … "well, one of us is" – ed … reminds me of the time in Sheffield when I was walking past the soup canning plant, the boiler exploded and the streets were flooded in vegan tomato soup
"That must have been lucky for you" said a friend
"Not really" I replied. "I could only find a fork"

Friday 8th November 2024 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day I’ve had today. I’ve done nothing, accomplished nothing, have loads of things that I need to do and I’m going to be here until eternity just doing the most urgent things that I have to do..

And it all started off so well too. Even though I wasn’t in bed at 23:00, it was something quite like it – not a horribly late night like some have been.

Furthermore, although I wasn’t asleep quite quickly, once I’d dropped off, there I stayed for quite some considerable while. There was the odd awakening here and there but nothing that particularly kept me awake.

However, once I was awake at about 06:00, then awake I stayed and nothing at all would induce me to go back to sleep. So when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was already up and about.

In a departure from usual tradition, I went and took my medicine straight after washing. Usually, the medication is taken at breakfast but I have a feeling that I’ll be struggling for time a little later.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We were discussing radio programmes again. There was something to do with a famous star who owned a Triumph Herald. An interviewer had been talking to me about interviewing him. Then there was a change and we found ourselves on the Orient Express heading deep into what was formerly the USSR. I was on there in an ordinary carriage with someone else. The train was packed. We were coming into a village where we were going to change locomotive, which meant that we would be not moving for a good few minutes. I knew this village, and knew that there was a really first-rate ethnic Indian restaurant right by the station. I told the guy with me about it. We agreed that we’d take a risk and go there while the train was stopped. As the train was pulling into the station we left our seats and ran the whole length of the train. When we came to the sleeping cars we were told that there was no room in there. The train was crowded, which we knew but we took no notice and pressed on right to the front. When the train stopped we nipped out of the station and found this little café but it was now a big restaurant. There were loads of people there and it was really busy. It was quite upmarket, and it wasn’t what I was expecting at all and neither was my friend, but here we were. The first thing that I did was to grab a plate of something or other to take with me to the table because I could see how busy it was. There was a decent possibility here that we would never be served and have our meal by the time that the train is ready to leave. At least I wanted to eat something while I was here. I was really disappointed by this famous little Indian café place being no longer here and all the delicious hot food had gone – “hot” in both senses of the word of course.

This dream reminds me of that little Indian café that I found out in the Côte Vertu in Montréal. It really was nice and I went back there time after time. Going back in 2022 for the first time since 2019 I found that it had been enlarged and wasn’t quite the same, and neither did it have the same level of intimacy, as the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine might have said. The food was still excellent though.

There was something really bitty next. First of all I was round at a friend’s girlfriend’s house, somewhere where a group of us went quite often. I actually bought a jar of coffee to give to the mother to thank her for all the time that she’d made coffee for us. But somewhere along the line I had a new house, a brand-new solid front door and I was busy measuring it up to fit security bolts in it. But it was winter and I didn’t really feel like opening the door and working just there then with how cold it was outside.

There was actually a girl who lived near me in my adolescence who was the girlfriend of a friend, and it was pretty much open house. Any one could come round and visit, and several people made new acquaintances there. In fact, I made a little friend there who was my companion for a couple of months. However everything fell apart when my friend discovered that his girlfriend had become much too friendly with another one of the visitors.

Isabelle the nurse was late coming around this morning – swamped with blood tests as the laboratory is closed on Monday and no-one wants them done on Tuesday, for reasons that I have either mentioned or implied.

She didn’t hang around and was soon gone, leaving me to make breakfast in peace.

That thesis on the Border Marches has gone the Way of the West now. I think that we reached rock-bottom when our author described “Rhuddlan Castle, in Cheshire, right on the border with Wales”. Although it was in part of the lands that was administered by the Earl of Chester and so can be called “in Cheshire” at a pinch, it’s well over be border, almost half-way to Anglesey and the only way of supplying it was up the River Clwyd from the sea because the overland route was in the hands of the Welsh.

Having finished that I made a start on the history of Samuel Hearne’s famous trek to Coppermine on the northern coast of Canada where had he done the trek in 2019 Castor and I would have been there to him.

However I didn’t read much because the taxi came early for me. I hadn’t even finished my breakfast which was a shame.

At the hospital, with all of the renovations going on, we had the devil’s own job to find the radiography area, and then I was abandoned.

It didn’t take too long for them to come to see me and I was in and out of the machine in five minutes. I didn’t even have to undress or take off my shoes, which was strange if they wanted to look at my foot.

They pushed me outside where I had to wait for the taxi. And wait. And wait. One hour and twenty minutes in total, and there were two other passengers in the car so I went on a sightseeing tour all round Southern Normandy. 12:35 when I made it finally back home.

Mind you, once more I excelled myself. My faithful cleaner stood and watched in awe as I climbed all 25 steps up to here yet again.

After she left I warmed up the remains of my breakfast and finally managed to eat it.

The next task was to complete my order for LeClerc and send it off. It’s a cheap order this week as I have much of the stuff in stock, but olive oil is on special offer again so that helped bulk it up

My cleaner came round to do her stuff and we sorted out the medication, disposing of a load of stuff that’s no longer in use. It’s gone into a bag in the corner, not thrown away, because what’s the betting that sooner or later another prescription will bring it out?

Then I came in here to deal with the radio programme. I’ve paired off the music and segued it, and even made a good start on the notes but Rosemary rang me for a chat. But I had to abort that because the delivery came from LeClerc and I had to put away the frozen stuff

Having done that, I called Rosemary back and we had another one of our marathon sessions that went on for quite a while, and I forgot to check the time.

It wasn’t far short of tea time though, and only just enough time to put away the chilled stuff. The rest will have to wait until tomorrow, although with a session at the Dialysis Clinic, a football match to watch and some radio notes to finish, I’m not sure exactly when tomorrow it will be.

Tea was a handful of those mini-nuggets with chips and a vegan salad, followed by spicy ginger cake and soya dessert. Really nice too.

That was followed by starting to make more bread. You can see that my day is a long way from finishing. Blimey! What a day! And it’s not going to improve any either. And I’ve not had even one sip of coffee today either.

But a strange thing happened at the hospital just now. A nun came rushing out of the doctor’s room in tears.
A few minutes later the doctor came out so I asked him "what’s the matter with her?"
"I’ve just told her that she’s pregnant" said the doctor
"Blimey!" I exclaimed. "Is she?"
"Ohh no" replied the doctor "but I think that I’ve cured her hiccoughs"

Monday 4th November 2024 – ANOTHER BAD DAY …

… in the Dialysis Clinic.

Mind you, it was much less painful than the last couple of times, to be sure. However I think that I’m sickening for something and consequently I’ve not been in the mood for anything.

Last night I actually made it into bed before (“just” before) 23:00 which made a nice change but it took a long time to go to sleep for once.

That might however have something to do with the Kefir that I drank before going to bed. It’s been fermenting for several years in its airtight bottle and I’m surprised that I awoke at all this morning. It was still functioning however when I opened it last night because when I flipped the stopper out it came out with a “pop”.

It was another night of tossing and turning, as seems to be the case these days, but when the alarm went off I was definitely deep in the arms of Morpheus. In fact I’d just been to a motor auction with a near-neighbour from Winsford. There were four lorries there. The first lorry that went through was a Foden Chinese six, one of the “space cab” models. There was a full MoT on it, it was rather old but it didn’t look too bad at all. The auctioneer asked for bids on it and my neighbour offered £500. Much to everyone’s surprise, including his, it was knocked down to him. The rest of the auction went on and they turned round to some Yugo saloons, little tiny things. They were only two years old and had belonged to a newspaper company. They were up for auction too. There was about a dozen of them. They were not very popular cars. I’d had one as a hire car once years ago. They were cheap, tinny, plasticky but they did a job. The auctioneer put them up for sale and for the first one, asked “what am I bid?”. I replied “£200”. Mine was the only bid and I had this car knocked down to me, a bright red two year-old Yugo 45 saloon for £200. I paid him a cheque, climbed into the car and drove it away. It was night, the lights were bright and everything seemed to work. It was a little rattly like most of these Yugos but it seemed to be OK. I thought that for £200 I had an absolute bargain here.

The former neighbour of mine lost his job as a driver at Tesco and was not able to find another. However he did come across someone who had a contract delivering pre-cast concrete garages and a lorry with a HIAB, but was unable to carry on working, so my neighbour leased his equipment and carried on with the contract. Having his own lorry would have been a dream for him and an old Chinese Six (with two axles at the front and one at the rear) Foden S-series would have been a superb lorry for him to go hauling

But as for the Yugos, it was actually when I worked for that Italian restaurant in Wandsworth that I encountered the Yugos. They had two for deliveries. They weren’t bad cars either. They did what was expected of them, no more, no less and if I wanted a cheap runabout, I could have done worse than buy one of those, especially two years old for £200.

So into the bathroom I staggered and sorted myself out in there, washing my undies as I went along. And then into the kitchen to put away last night’s culinary efforts. The nurse will be coming by shortly and while I could tell him and his inane comments to clear off if he makes any silly remark, there’s no point going looking for issues

The ginger cake fell apart when I took it out of the mould. The top had risen and cooked to the point of burning, but it had detached itself from the bottom, the bottom hadn’t risen at all and wasn’t cooked. I’ll try to find a circular 18cm silicon cake mould and give it one more go and if that doesn’t work I’ll abandon the idea.

Not that I’m downhearted though. Experimenting with new ovens, new recipes, new procedures and so on – there’s bound to be the odd failure along the way.

Back in here I listened to the rest of the dictaphone notes. I was in the office again last night. I’d been going through some things with someone in the basement. We’d been sorting out some screws, nuts and bolts. I had a handful of nuts, bolts including some small round washers from a previous time that I’d been working, and took them up to my office because in there we were in the old cookery room and the kitchen was at the side of our place and we had a three-burner stove. I went in – it was early in the morning and one of my colleagues was already there. I wished him good morning and put the things in the saucepan, put the water in and put it on a ring. he asked me what I was doing so I told him. He asked what I had in the saucepan. I replied “just water” so he answered “that’s OK. But what do you notice on the boss’s desk?”. I had a look on his desk and it was completely different from before. I suddenly realised that I could see across the office. I said “his computer’s gone, hasn’t it?”. He replied that it had. I asked “what’s he going to do Now?” but he walked away so I shook my head and carried on trying to clean these nuts and bolts.

Once again, I can’t keep out of the office. But it does remind me of the old sixth-form common room at school. It was the old cookery classroom and the oven was still there. So lunch for three or four of us was a large can of baked beans and a sliced loaf of bread. We had wind-powered lessons in the afternoons.

The nurse came early yet again and once more, didn’t hang around for very long. He was soon gone. He looked at my legs and told me that he thought that there was a great deal of improvement. And on looking at them, I thought so too. They are almost as they used to be.

Breakfast was next, and so was reading this thesis. Our American friend is now puzzled over why any “incursion” by the Normans into Wales would be made from the more rusticated Shropshire rather than the heavily-fortified Cheshire.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve answered that a few months ago. Any glance at any topographical map will see that the valleys of the Severn and the Dyfi make a natural avenue into Wales all the way to the coast and split the country in two. It’s been a route for invaders for a couple of thousand years and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a couple of weeks ago we visited a Roman marching camp at Caersws, halfway along the path.

Anyone going that way could cut the country in two and then deal with each half at his leisure. A series of independent Princelings isn’t likely to be able to mount a co-ordinated attack on any invader. Invading by the north coast from Chester would just push the Welsh up into the hills where they could (and did) stay for ever.

In here I had a few things to do that took much longer than I was thinking and I’d hardly started work before my cleaner turned up to apply my patches.

She was on her was to town via the Pharmacy so she took the whole bundle of prescriptions with her and she promised to have the Chemist go through them to work out which ones are valid and which ones are expired.

After she left, I put on one of my Arctic undershirts. If I’m going to spend several hours in Ice Station Zebra I shall dress for the part.

The taxi came for me on time and neither the driver nor the other passenger would say a word the whole way down to Avranches. I tried to engage them in conversation but I gave up after a while. Clearly wasting my time.

It was quite a speedy, aggressive drive down there and when I arrived, I was ushered into a side ward on my own. I must have been naughty last time.

That’s what I thought, and it was confirmed when it was the male nurse who came to attend to me. I had to wait a while for the machine to go through its cleaning cycle before they could couple me up.

As I said earlier, it was less painful than the last couple of times, but I was having some tingling sensations all up my arms, I felt like I was having the wind, and then, for the first time for several weeks, I crashed out – and crashed out definitively.

Hardly surprising really. I have been told that these are diabetic comas, and when they checked my blood sugar level it was 0.63. Consequently for the rest of the afternoon I was being force-fed orange juice.

While I was awake I passed the time trying to read some entries in the Domesday Book. I have a hard-copy here of course, but access to an on-line copy when I’m in the hospital is a useful thing to have.

In contrast to the journey to Avranches, the journey home was non-stop conversation. The driver was a young guy and he was leaving his job at the end of the year to go travelling in New Zealand for a year. He wanted to pick my brains about everything.

But as I came to leave the car he asked me a strange question – "when you were travelling about, did you ever feel lonely and depressed being on your own?"

Well, first of all, I was never alone. For a start, I had STRAWBERRY MOOSE to keep me company and laugh all you might, talking to him was good therapy, I promise you.

And then there’s the old saying “You’re never alone with schizophrenia”. There was always one of the other mes who live inside my head that would pop up for a chat.

But what would inevitably cheer me up would be to wonder how things would be if I had a member of my family with me. That made me glad that I was on my own.

The climb up here was difficult but I managed all thirteen of the first flight again, but I was glad to be back in here and to sit down.

Tea was pasta and an aubergine and kidney bean whatsit followed by a couple of lumps of failed cake with soya cream. The cake might look a mess but it sill tasted really nice.

So bedtime now, ready to fight the good fight tomorrow. It’s Welsh lesson so we’ll see how much I’ve forgotten.

But talking of travelling on my own, I’ve had some strange encounters, like the time RUPERT THE BEAR either on his way to a picnic or to use the bathroom, planted himself in the middle of my path

There have also been some interesting people too, most of whom failed to understand my sense of humour, which was a shame
Once though I remember saying to someone that while most people usually end up with someone else or in a group I always seems to end up on my own and I could never understand why.
"That’s easy" she replied. "If you had a best friend he would tell you. Now B.O."

Saturday 2nd November 2024 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER …

… painful afternoon in Ice Station Zebra this afternoon and I really don’t know where it’s going to end. I can’t keep on going on like this, spending three and a half hours in agony and trying to make a good face of it all

Many people tell me that the alternative is far worse but it won’t be long before I’m at the stage where I’ll be wondering if it actually is.

It’s hard to believe that I went to bed last night full of optimism for the day. For once I’d gone through my closing-down procedure quite quickly, even managing to relax for fifteen minutes, and haul myself off to bed within touching distance of my curfew hour.

And I reckon that I had a reasonable (for me, anyway) sleep, just awakening once or twice. I almost made it out of bed early too but I reckoned that 05:38 is far too early to force myself out of bed unless I’m completely awake – and no smart comments about that, please. I’ve heard them all before.

When the alarm went off I crawled out of bed and went into the bathroom to pretty myself up and to wash some clothes. The clothes that need washing in the sink seem to be growing. There are socks, undies, shorts and now one of my Arctic undershirts that I’ve begun to wear in bed. They are very soft and have long arms that cover the patches where the needles go in and stop me trying to rub the spots when they itch or tickle.

They have given me in the past some medication to stop the irritation on my skin, and then gave me three more to stop the side effects. And then, I imagine, several more to stop the side effects of the medication that’s stopping the side-effects of the first

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone. And to my surprise I had a little visitor too – one of my favourite people, as you will find out as you read on. But first, there was a piece of land for sale in Wistaston and we were interested in it so we went to see it, and found out that the auction was taking place. We walked by the side of the canal to where the big house was, a big detached house with a brick extension that I loved, my second-favourite house in that area, and then walked down the road towards the old farmhouse that was part of the sale. My father had a catalogue, a huge catalogue and we began to have a look through it. There was a lovely old woodstove there that was actually built into a sewing machine with treadle table. I said to my sister that she could keep warm while she’s working here. She told me to clear off. One thing that caught our eye was all the bikes. There were thousands and thousands and thousands of pushbikes in all different stages of disrepair crammed into every room and outbuilding of this place. You couldn’t move because of all the old bikes everywhere. I thought that when they put those up for auction it’s going to be total chaos. It looked really impossible that there could be so many bits of bikes, frames, lose wheels, etc. They had all been crammed so tightly into these outbuildings.

Of course, they aren’t my favourite people. But I’m intrigued by all of the pushbikes lying around. Interestingly, that’s a word that I’ve not heard since I left Crewe. I’m also intrigued as to the canal, because there’s no canal anywhere around there at all

And then there was once again … "once again?" – ed … some kind of enchanted person in a fantasy tale. I can’t remember a great deal of this dream except that I had to go to an office building to visit a range of toilets on each floor. I had to make sure that there was no-one about while I did this. On one floor there were some people talking in the corridor so I had to wait until they’d finished. The scene then shifted to some kind of tavern. I was again keeping watch on this tavern from the inside from a secret place. There were several people around there and I thought that I’d come out of my hiding place when most of them had gone. Suddenly I heard someone mention my name so I looked. It was a boy who was in my brother’s class at school, telling everyone how he’d been on a skiing holiday with a load of people from a school and was walking around wit me and another boy from the sixth form and another people from his age, making some kind of allegation that this older boy and I were stoned out of our minds on marijuana or something, and Greg Lake went past on a pushbike, so he said. Greg Lake is alleged to have shouted “hey Eric! Look at this!” and disappeared himself behind a cloud of weed smoke. I couldn’t remember any of this at all. I’d no idea at all where he’d heard this or seen this because I remember nothing about it in the dream.

During my dreams just recently I seem to be spending a lot of my time in offices, something that I tried to avoid in real life. As for being under the effects of any kind of noxious substance, that is something that has never happened. Coffee is about the closest that I have ever come to anything like that. But we have a pushbike again, with Greg Lake of all people riding it. I remember nothing at all whatever about this dream.

While we’re on the subject of coffee … "well, one of us is" – ed … later on I was in a luxury hotel somewhere. It was about 02:00. I was queueing for something to do with the personnel. There was a member of staff in front of me who was waiting to be seen. However suddenly a commotion at the bar so the guy in front of me went off to have a look to see what it was. It was two Americans, who wanted a drink but there was no-one at the bar. The guy said that he was the night shift manager and was responsible for the bar. Could he help them? They were most offensive and I was so annoyed by this so after I’d finished doing what I did I walked over to where these two people were arguing with this guy and said “for God’s sake be reasonable!”. Then I wanted a cup of coffee but I didn’t really want them to make me a whole pot or anything like that so I began to wander amongst the tables looking at people who were drinking coffee to see whether there might have been some left in one of the pots that I could finish off.

A whole pot of coffee? I could finish one of those quite happily, as I do every day, with no problems at all. When at the hospital we went through what I drank every day they were totally astonished by how much coffee I drank

Finally I was giving a concert on the stage in a big hall in front of a few thousand people. I had Castor (so “hello Castor! Long time no see”) who was playing bass guitar and I don’t know what I was doing. Last time I’d been there I’d been booed off-stage so I’d insulted the audience and told them that they ought to behave better than to object again and make such a noise concerning a young person and was nothing to do with the performance. A bouncer came to drag me off and we ended up having a fight on stage. So I was due to go back. I went down by the dressing room at the back of the theatre to find Castor to make sure that she was OK and was ready. The audio technician was there. I asked him if this time we had a drummer or not. He replied “yes you have a drummer but you won’t see him. He’s staying behind in the wings and working from there”. Then I mentioned that I’d lost a shoe – let me put this in the correct order – when I awoke I was wearing a shoe in bed and there was one missing. I found the one that was missing and that was when I went downstairs. By this time the one on my foot had gone. I was going round telling everyone that I had an ear missing. They couldn’t understand what I meant so I said that it’s probably not switched on at this moment, which bewildered them even further. When I reached the doors to leave this particular room I couldn’t work out whether you pulled or pushed them. I was there saying “how the hell do you leave this place?”. Then I had to go to find a lift to go back up to my room to see whether I’d left my shoe there. All in all I could see that this performance was going to end in total chaos before it had even started

That’s quite a typical dream isn’t it, all ending in panic and chaos. Not even the presence of Castor could lighten up my morale. Even though it was lovely to see her again I wish that it had been under better, happier circumstances. That’s despite the fact that my last memory of her was a very sad, tragic one that morning on that windswept airstrip in the High Arctic. Still, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … sometimes, some goodbyes have to be said like that.

The nurse blitzed in and blitzed out again this morning. He clearly didn’t want to hang around so he just spoke some of this inane hairdresser-type of patter and then cleared off quickly once he’d done what he had to. He’s been quick before, but even I was surprised this morning by how quickly he came and went.

After he left I made breakfast and carried on reading. The report on Beeston Castle is finished, going out like rather a damp squib, and next in line is a thesis about the Marcher Lords.

When William the Conqueror invaded England, his hold was far from secure for all kinds of reasons. One of his problems was the incursions by the Welsh, keen to recapture territory that they had lost to the Saxons and later, Mercians.

His possession of the areas along what is today the Welsh border was doubtful to say the least and so he promoted three of his favourites to hold the title of “Earl” and gave them territories in what is now Cheshire, Shropshire and Herefordshire, lands on which he had the barest control, and instructed these “Marcher Lords” to use whatever means they could to pacify their area and keep the Welsh at bay until he was in a position to conquer the Welsh.

The first thing that is puzzling me about all of this is why an MA student in, of all places, Fresno University in California would want to study the Marcher Lords of post-Conquest England for his MA. The second thing that is puzzling me is how there would be a professor in Fresno University in California competent to mark it.

However, I suppose that I shall find out as I go along.

Back in here I didn’t do much this morning as I had other fish to fry for a change.

And I was still busy frying them when my cleaner came, bringing with her the hair dryer that she promised, which was nice of her. Defrosting the freezer will be a nice job for a Sunday.

The taxi came early today and with no distractions or other passengers to pick up we arrived early and I was the first person to be seen to. No complaints about the anaesthetic wearing off today, but it still hurt like I don’t know what.

My blood sugar level is right down again so they force-fed me three large glasses of orange juice, without a great deal of effect. I suppose that that will be the next thing to give up the ghost in my body

While I was freezing to death in the Arctic temperatures of the treatment room, shivering under a blanket, the doctor came to see me for a few seconds. He wrote out a prescription for the medication that they had forgotten on the last prescription (it’s a good job that my cleaner and I had noticed) and that was that. I was left pretty much alone to carry on reading Richard Hakluyt.

After they unplugged me I weighed myself and I’m slowly coming closer to my first target weight which is good news. I’m hoping that Bibendum, the Michelin Man, is gone for good.

The taxi was waiting when I went outside and we came straight home where my faithful cleaner was waiting. Once more I made all thirteen stairs of the first flight, although the last couple was quite a struggle.

For once I was home in time for the start of tonight’s football, but the match was one of the worst that I have ever seen. Not like last week’s lethargic, pedestrian game but because of the quality (or lack thereof) of skill on display.

It was a match between the two bottom clubs, Llansawel at the bottom and Aberystwyth just above them. It was a woeful match from the point of view of misplaced passes and wayward shooting but bad as Llansawel were, Aberystwyth were even worse and played like a team of strangers, just going through the motions.

The score was 4-0, would you believe, to Llansawel and it wasn’t because they were that good, it was that Aberystwyth had given up playing long before the end On this showing, Aberystwyth are dead and buried and whoever it is who is appointed to the hot seat, if he can’t pull some rabbits out of the hat in the forthcoming transfer window, that will be that.

Tea tonight was a burger on a bap with vegan salad and baked potato followed by the last of the rice pudding. I’ll bake a cake tomorrow and see what good that will do

But that’s tomorrow. Right now I’m going to dictate my notes and then go to bed

But not before I tell you the little story that came to mind when I was typing out my dreams. It concerned being on stage and the various one-man shows in which I appeared. I told a friend about them once.
"I thought that there were three of you in your group" he said
"I know" I replied "but when I talk about a ‘one-man show’ I’m referring to the size of the audience"

Monday 28th October 2024 – I’M FED UP …

… of this blasted dialysis and the pain that it’s causing me. Everything that could go wrong at the Clinic did go wrong today and during my three and a half hours coupled up to the machine I was wracked with non-stop pain.

What made it worse was that of the three teams there, it was the team that I consider to be the best that was there on duty this afternoon.

There’s going to have to be some dramatic improvement in the way that things work in there because if it carries on like this, I shan’t consider the 18 hours per week that I waste going to the Clinic to be worth the effort.

It’s all very well saying that they are doing their best to keep me alive, which I’m sure they are, but if I have to spend the rest of my life in pain like this three times per week, then I’d rather not bother.

One consolation though was that I was in bed before 23:00 last night, which was really nice. In fact, it was a good half-hour before and that was something for which I’d been longing.

However, I failed to make the most of it. There I was, wide-awake at 06:00 and when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was already up and about.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, even applying a liberal helping of deodorant. I know that Emilie the Cute Consultant doesn’t love me any more, but that’s no reason not to make an effort. I even changed my clothes.

Back in here I had a bash at transcribing the dictaphone notes. This was another one of these chaotic houses with lots of things happening and lots of people living there, all their lives intertwined etc. People kept on changing beds and bedrooms for some reason or other. I know that a couple of girls changed their bedding and ended up in a bed where I had slept. I pretended to forget that it was a bed where I was no longer sleeping, and I ought to be ashamed of myself, but I’m not!. Next morning there were the usual things that needed doing but I was quite looking forward to the evening because I hoped that the beds would be like they were last night and I could carry on. I had a whole variety of tasks that I needed to perform. Round about mid-afternoon I decided that I’d sit down and put my feet up for five minutes because I was tired after having had very little sleep the previous night. I sat down and put up my feet, and the next thing that I remember, it was bright sunlight and there were a lot of people about. I looked at my watch and it was 07:35. It must have been the following morning and I’d slept. I went in and everyone was having breakfast. I thought “I’ve missed my chance again, haven’t I?”. While I was wandering around looking for people I ended up in some woman’s room. She was sitting there. She’d had an accident, her glasses were broken and roughly where her glasses were broken there was a huge scar in her head. She looked quite a mess. I told her what had happened but of course I left out the part about in bed, just the part about me falling asleep. She thought that it was quite funny and told one or two other people. It was really quite funny too, especially the way that it stopped me doing what I was hoping to do.

Actually, it wasn’t all that funny. For once in my life I managed to Get The Girl … "not ‘arf ‘e did!" – ed … and then miss out on the second occasion due to crashing out. It really is unbelievable although regular readers of this rubbish will recall the unbelievable part of it being that I actually had some good luck for a change. Quite usually the second part of that affair is par for the course where I snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. But chaos? It sounds just like home.

And then the vogue of child painting was starting to come into effect, people having their children painted by well-known artists. Where we were living there was the occasional quest, seeing as my wife could do painting and I could write verses etc. Then of course we began to receive real-life commissions. One of them was this small child aged about three. I sat him down and tried to make him calm etc but it was clear that mathematics was just not his thing. He yowled and yowled all through this ceremony and made a right mess of this photo because there was never ever a correct moment to take it

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … although I’m asleep when I’m dreaming and dictating, I usually have some kind of vague recollection that is triggered when I’m typing out the notes. But for this dream, I have no recollection at all. Not a single bit. I’ve no idea at all what to make of this.

Finally, another dream in the long-running saga of new houses. I finally moved into my new house and was slowly settling in. I’d had a look at the one that I’d had in Winsford and they were in a terrible state so I had a look at the windows of mine and they could do with some attention if not replacing so I took out the two at the back of the house, the dining room and the rear bedroom. I began to clean up the one in the dining room and made a pretty nice job of it. I fitted it back in ready to paint but I noticed that now the sun had gone in and there were really heavy storm clouds. It was starting to rain so I took the ladder to go to fit the window back in the bedroom but the rain beat me. We had this torrential rain but I continued, trying to make this ladder work against the rear of the house but I was having so much trouble because I can’t do with ladders very well. The rain went and the rain stopped so in the end I tried to go round to the front of the house but I couldn’t work out how to get there. I tried a couple of ways but there was no obvious way to go round to the front.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve had several dreams about new houses, in one of which I had actually bought two new houses and couldn’t make up my mind in which one to live. But it did remind me of my house in Winsford and while I was at the Dialysis Clinic I came over all nostalgic about my little house. I wonder how my life and my future would have panned out had I not moved to Gainsborough Road in Crewe and stayed in Winsford.

But that’s not all, although you wouldn’t thank me for posting anything else, especially if you are eating your meal right now. As Thomas Allen Reed once said, "It was fortunate for my reputation that it never afterwards saw the light"

Isabelle the nurse came round and she collided with my cleaner, and they both came in together to assail me. My cleaner wanted my health card for the chemist and the nurse wanted to deal with my legs. They both did what they needed to do in here and left together.

After they had gone I had breakfast and read my book. We’ve now finished the speeches and we are having a lecture on geology. And I have to say that if anyone wants to take up the study of geology, they’ll do much worse than read this lecture because it’s fascinating.

In fact it’s the first geology lecture that I have ever seen where mathematical calculations are well to the fore, but if you don’t want to carry out the calculations you’ll have just as much interest looking at the diagrams.

Back in here I spent some time going through my live concerts and dating them as best as I can, and then I made a start on my Welsh homework. Even though there’s no lesson tomorrow (half-term) I want to crack on.

My cleaner came early to fit my anaesthetic patches, and it’s just as well because the taxi was early once more.

And here hangs a tale, because it was a driver who has taken me before. She’s usually quite chatty but today she hardly said a word and was rather snappy when she did. She had one of those auras that I could sense before she even said anything, and it wasn’t a good sensation at all.

At the Dialysis Clinic the nurse connected me up painlessly, but the machine didn’t work and nothing that she tried would make it.

With the aid of the portable x-ray machine they worked out that the needles hadn’t gone into the tube in my arm so they took them out and tried again. By this time though the anaesthetic had worn off.

Eventually they had a good contact but the machine still wouldn’t fire up. They eventually managed it but only if the pipes were in a certain position so they taped them in that position to my arm. At one stage I had five nurses and three nursing assistants standing round my bed and it’s a shame that I was in no condition to enjoy it.

That’s all very well, but you try lying like that for three and a half hours without moving your arm even half an inch. Eventually, they were so fed up of coming to deal with the plaintive wails of the machine every time I winced with pain that they rigged up a cradle with some kevlar padding.

Then I had no choice but not to move my arm

When I could I read through my Welsh and then finished off my “Curious Church Customs”. I’ll have to find a new book to read, something like HORRID CRIMES OF BYGONE CHESHIRE to see if any of my relatives are in it, and not as victims either.

The trick cyclist came by. She asked me if I was OK and when I replied that I was, she cleared off elsewhere and left me alone, which suited me fine.

With all of the excitement everything was running late, and when they came to unplug me, the compression on my arm failed again and once more the place was like a slaughterhouse

It’s no surprise that I was glad to see the back of the place and climb into the taxi to bring me home. It was another new driver and I ended up having to give directions after she took a wrong turn

My faithful cleaner was at her post again to help me out of the car but I managed the first flight of all thirteen steps without using my hand to lift my leg. If I can do that for a whole week I’m going to try the second flight up to my front door

And she had some news for me. One of the medicaments that I need is on special order and the chemist has had to send away for a box. So what’s the betting that that will be changed in a few days?

In the absence of a pepper, I made an aubergine and kidney-bean whatsit for tea. I had one helping with pasta and veg, and there are three more that are destined for the freezer

The apple-cake has almost all gone now, so I might persevere with a cake in the air fryer. The chocolate cake which I cooked and which is almost all gone now, ended up being something of a success despite the misgivings that I had at the start.

So now I’m going to be brave and go to bed, even though my arm is quite painful. I’ve warned my cleaner to take her ‘phone to bed and expect a phone call because I’m not convinced at all about how this compression is going to work. I don’t suppose that I shall have a wink of sleep.

But there’s a guy who comes to the Dialysis Clinic in an ambulance because he has lost both his legs.
He was looking on with interest at this pantomime this afternoon and eventually we struck up a conversation
"have you been coming to the Dialysis Clinic for a long time?" I asked him
"Ohh no" he replied. "I lost my legs during the War."

Saturday 26th October 2024 – YOU AREN’T GOING …

… to believe this – or maybe you are, I don’t know – but do you remember that new prescription that I had just the other day?

And so here we are just 10 days later, and it’s already been changed. Furthermore, the medication that he added in? That’s been changed too. After just 10 days. I don’t know what the chemist is going to say when my poor cleaner goes there on Monday

The issue is that some of these pills and potions aren’t a regular order but have to be ordered specially. And you can’t order just one packet, you have to order – and pay for – a box full. Reimbursement isn’t made until the medication is prescribed and collected by the patient.

So if the chemist has ordered a boxful of rare stuff and only handed out one packet, she’s stuck with the rest until the expiry date at which point she has to throw it away, and she’ll be well out-of-pocket

In my opinion, she will have every reason to be upset by all of this and I’m glad that it’s not me who has to go to face her

But anyway, that’s something to worry about for another time.

Last night I struggled into bed just about at the correct time, just before 23:00. And glad I was too to be finally in bed

There wasn’t even time to start my little night-time mantra before I was asleep, but it didn’t last. Not that I was cold, because I’d gone to sleep in my tee-shirt, but it was a disturbed night nevertheless. I was awakening and going back to sleep on regular occasions too numerous to count.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I had a great deal of difficulty rising up out of my stinking pit and it was a very undignified stagger into the living room to collect some clean clothes.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, and even a shave, and then all of the dirty clothes that were hanging about went into the washing machine and I set it off on a cycle (a very clever washing machine, mine).

Back in the living room I put away all of the shopping bags from LeClerc ready to hand back next time they deliver, and then put all of the drained carrots into the freezer ready for the next few weeks.

Back in here I made a start on the dictaphone notes, but I didn’t get very far before Isabelle came. With everything that I’d done, I was running late.

She gave me my ‘flu injection, and told me that the side-effects might be a painful shoulder and ‘lu-like symptoms for a very short while, so I need to have the Doliprane standing by, so I told her to clear off. This whole country floats on Doliprane – the slightest problem that arises and “I’ll pass you the Doliprane”. If you’re hurting, there’s a reason and masking the pain can just make the problem worse.

After she left I had breakfast and read my book. We’ve finished fossils and we’re now discussing the notes that the speaker who had proposed the mushroom book had prepared and brought to the meeting to present to the assembled multitudes.

And we’ve yet to find out anything about Mr Houghton’s “photographs of a very curious and interesting character”. I’ll be sure to tell you when I find out.

Back in here I finished off transcribing the dictaphone notes. I started off going to flower shows, inspecting flowers etc. I even in my dream sent myself a message although I’ve no idea what it was about but it concerns flowers etc and that’s mainly because everything that I’ve been discussing I’ve been reading about discussions of mixed lists

It’s quite impressive that I can even in a dream remember what’s been going on at the breakfast table. But what interest do I have in flowers? My friend Lorna once said that the only time I’d ever take a photograph of a flower would be if there were a car parked on top of it.

A couple of years ago I’d had a huge, blazing row with a member of public about something or other which had turned rather ugly. Anyway I thought no more about it but suddenly a group of policemen turned up and said that they were going to take me off down to the police station. I thought that it might have been for questioning, something like that, so I went along. I met my boss who was there. I asked him what was going on and he told me that this was going to be the hearing about remand and liability. I couldn’t understand this. I expected the proceedings to be similar to how they were in the UK. He replied “oh now. You won’t have bail. You’ll be remanded and the case will be dealt with tomorrow”. “That’s rather quick”. He asked “what are you going to do afterwards? Are you going back to your old job in the UK?”. I replied “I’m hoping that I’ll stay here”. He answered “well you can’t stay here if you’re going to do this. You’ll lose your job. For a start” he said, showing me a spark plug “this won’t be able to fit under your vehicle”. I couldn’t understand any of this. There was the guy with whom I had this altercation. The police turned to him and asked “do you still wish to go ahead with this?”. He replied “Yes” so two policemen took me inside. One of them asked “you don’t mind sharing a cell on your own, do you?”. I asked if there was going to be any bail. He replied “oh, no. The case will be heard in the morning. You’re remanded overnight. They took me down into the bowels of the police station like in one of these old films. There’s a room there with about fifty people in it on a load of benches and they just sat me on a bench at the back. There were several other people around and we were watching a procession that set off – all people in brightly-coloured clothes and flags of the various nations. A whole group of people from Sweden set off followed by some people from Croatia. I was all completely bewildered by this. I hadn’t the least idea about what was going on

I stepped back into that dream later on and was driving back to the house where I’d been just now. There was a pile of mud on the floor with some traffic lights on red. I didn’t see the line where to stop so I stopped where I thought it was and found that I was in the middle of the junction. I raised my hand in apology to everyone and drove off. As I raised my hand a Rover 820 saloon, a silver one with a pattern part wing on it pulled out of a garage. I thought to myself “that’s the guy with whom I’d had this row and that’s his car. I hope that he doesn’t think that I’m waving to him”. I carried on driving and eventually turned up at the house where I was supposed to be. I was looking for a parking place because parking on the street was not allowed. They were parking two-abreast on the pavement. I could see that outside the house where I was supposed to go there was some parking and there was also some room in the drive at the back.

All of the above is quite surreal, especially the flags. It reminds me of Carnaval here in Granville. I’m not sure why the Police would want to come knocking at my door these days though. I’ve been doing my best to keep my head down, but even so, there are some people who just won’t leave you alone

I was dictating into my hand again here, which is something that I do on the odd occasion. There’s a village just off the headland here called “Pentref-Uchaf”, the “Highest Village”. It was a tiny village. It was the village Open Day at the garage. One woman there learned how to fit gas bottles which she said was going to be interesting. I learned how to make mint drinks which was also going to be interesting. On the headland by the village was a big house where we were kept as prisoners. You could see by the trees which way the winds were blowing because the trees were growing in all funny shapes, all pointing towards the east. When I arrived at this house on remand I was asked which bed I wanted. I said that I didn’t mind. Everything they offered me, I said that I’d take whatever they give me, I’m not bothered. I was helping another inmate in the kitchen. He asked me which set of cutlery I wanted, the big one or the small one. I said that I wasn’t bothered. He replied that I was the ideal companion to be incarcerated with. We were trying to make a meal for people but we couldn’t find anything. The guy giving us the instructions took far too long and we’d prepared half of it by the time we’d finished. It was all really strange, the third part of this dream.

This prison bit – I hope that it’s not a forewarning of something. It seems to be rather persistent tonight. But last night I was dreaming in French and tonight it’s Welsh. When I start dreaming in Innu then you know that the World is at an end.

The washing was now ready so I sorted it out and hung it up to dry. And then back in here I attacked the correspondence. Everyone should now have had a reply, but if I’ve missed you, let me know.

My cleaner came early to fit my anaesthetic patches, and it’s just as well because the taxi came early too. We had to pick someone else up so we went round there but she wasn’t ready to come back yet to Avranches so we had a good drive down there on our own.

Being so early I was first in and first dealt with, but even though sticking the ports in me was painless the nurse missed her target so she had to take them out and start again. They are doing their best to torture me in there.

Once it was finally up and running they pretty much left me alone. However the doctor was another story. He came round and asked how I was and then told me about the medication. Later on he sent me the prescription.

As to why they are actually changing the medication I don’t really know. It doesn’t seem to me to be logical to change it so quickly before anything has had time to act.

Once they left me alone, I read my Welsh, listened to music and read my “Curious Church Customs”.

The taxi was waiting for me and we had quite a quick return, where I could only manage nine steps before I had to use my hands to lift up my legs – a backward step … "very good" – ed …

There was football tonight – Hwlffordd v Caernarfon, and what a dreary match that was. Hwlfford played the nicer football but Caernarfon’s approach was rather agricultural. The whole spark seems to have gone out of Caernarfon’s midfield this last few weeks

The final score was 0-0 and both teams were lucky to get nil. This was a match that I’ll forget quite quickly.

Tea was baked potato, vegan salad and a burger on a bun followed by apple cake and caramel soya cream. Nice it was too.

But now I have some dictating to do and then I’m going to bed. It’s an extra hour in bed in the morning and I want to make the most of it.

But the doctor at the Clinic didn’t only see me. He saw others too and after he left, I noticed that one patient whom he’d seen was crying.
"What’s the matter with you?" I asked him
"It’s the doctor" he said. "He’s told me that I have to take one pill every day for the rest of my life"
"There’s no need to be upset" I said "Lots of people have to do that. I’ve been doing it for nine years!"
"It’s all right for you" he said "but the doctor’s only given me six"

Monday 21st October 2024 – I’M STILL ACHING …

… just about everywhere that it’s possible to ache, and probably a few places where it isn’t possible either.

Mind you, I have to admit that I’m not aching quite as much as I was when I awoke this morning. I thought that a good night’s sleep might have helped everything ease off seeing as I was lying comfortably in bed, but it wasn’t to be.

A longer sleep might have been nice but once again, I missed by some considerable distance my target of being in bed by 23:00. It’s still taking longer than I would like to finish off what needs to be done, and there’s the added problem with the aches and pains that make me reluctant to move from my comfortable chair.

But once in bed I was soon asleep and I can’t recall any awakening until about 06:15. And even then, I turned over and went straight back to sleep again. When the alarm went off I was in a pub in London watching a pub band play. There were Keith Ginnell and his wife on keyboards. His wife had been a famous model in the past, Vicky somebody I think. On drums was Keef Hartley and the singer was Magic Michael. He was too tall for the stage and had to bend his head to fit under the ceiling while he was singing. he was singing that song “Giddy up, Bobby” and I was thinking how easy that was to play when I thought about it. Then I went to the bathroom where I overheard some kind of dispute going on between Keef Hartley and Keith Ginnell. I thought that it was a shame that they were arguing like that because they were a really good group.

What I didn’t dictate was that I was staying at that pub but had to clear out my room ready to leave. And in the WC I’d bolted the door behind me but nevertheless someone still came in and walked past me, and I wondered how they had managed to do that.

Now you are of course going to ask me who Keith Ginnell is and what the song “Giddy Up Bobby” is all about. And the answer to both questions is that I don’t have any idea at all. I know who Magic Michael is of course, and who doesn’t? He was one of the hangers-on with Hawkwind back in the early 70s and later on had a few singles out of his own, most of which sunk without trace. Keef Hartley was of course one of John Mayall’s drummers and later on had a group of his own, but Keith Ginnell and “Giddy Up Bobby” escape me completely.

What’s so surprising is that I could actually remember them.

While we’re on the subject of remembering … "well, one of us is" – ed … I didn’t forget someone’s birthday yesterday. Not at all. It goes without saying that I won’t ever forget it

So I staggered to my feet in a cloud of agony and slowly inched my way into the bathroom where I had a good scrub up and even a shave to make myself look pretty, even though it will take more than a scrub-up and a shave to make me look pretty.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And there was some stuff on there too. There had been a big riot somewhere. The soldiers were all hemmed in at some kind of barracks and had been completely overwhelmed. They decided that what they would so as a desperate kind of last stand for all those who were fit enough was to make some kind of fighting arrowhead and charge out of the building on their horses hoping to break through the enemy lines. So they charged out in this arrowhead and almost broke through but were held somewhere down at the bottom of Oak Street and Mill Street in Crewe. The fight raged round there for an hour or two when suddenly the enemy surrendered and gave up the fight. I’d been watching the events unfold and after the events went peacefully some kind of big American convertible, a huge car with a woman driver pulled up and said “taxi for Hall”. I climbed in and it took me off down Wistaston Road/Victoria Avenue. I was chatting to the woman – she’d been in London earlier in the day in the fog, just socialising. I told her that I’d been to Scotland and it really was foggy there. She was telling me how she did taxiing part-time, how she enjoyed it. She was working for Orange Cabs but she didn’t have a card with her number on for me so we carried on chatting like that and eventually she brought me home

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we were AT THE SITE OF THE BATTLE OF LITTLE BIG HORN with LITTLE BIG ANTLERS a few years ago and the question that was going through my mind then was “why did Custer and his men dismount?”

On foot they would have no chance of escaping the native Americans, as events were to prove. Knowing that there was a detachment of soldiers with the baggage train in the vicinity, if they had formed a “fighting head” – a triangular-shaped formation, they stood a very good chance of piercing a surrounding line of enemy and the weight of their charge would have pushed at least some of them through the encirclement and on to safety at the far end of the ridge

But as for riots going on in Crewe, it’s extremely unlikely. The people there have long-since lost any free will and initiative.

The nurse came early and caught me off-guard this morning. He refrained from upsetting me, which was good, and now he’s gone off duty for a week which suits me fine. It gives me a chance to gather up my sang-froid ready for the next bout.

Still, the earlier he comes, the earlier he goes and I could crack on with breakfast.

Today, the Woolhope Naturalists are having a lecture on Space and Interplanetary rotation, sitting at a picnic around a waterfall. Some of their propositions have long-since been contradicted by later discoveries but it’s interesting all the same to hear the state of knowledge in 1867.

What’s also interesting is that the 48 members present had to go into the back of beyond to visit this waterfall, and not only did the railway company agree to stop the train at an isolated spot, it built a railway platform and had three gangers ready to help the party alight.

Just imagine that today! It would take them ten years to build the platform, even if they were so disposed to do so, and there would have to be all kinds of Health and Safety surveys and inspections first.

And this “Health and Safety Culture” – do you know what’s brought it on? It happened the day that Solicitors were allowed to advertise.

Back in the old days if you stumbled on a pavement and hurt your toe, you shrugged your shoulders and moved on. But once we began to see the "had an accident? It might not be your fault. Contact us for a free interview" advertisements, everything changed overnight.

The Naturalists were also visiting the famous church of Capel-y-ffin, a site that became notorious later on with the arrival of “Father Ignatius” and then the infamous Eric Gill, whose famous sculptures and type design did little to counter the later unsavoury allegations about his private life that were to occur once his biography was published after his death.

Having finished all that I came in here and finished off as far as I could (because some of it requires access to a television) and then carried on selecting music for the next radio programme.

My cleaner turned up to help me fit my anaesthetic patches and while she was here I gave her my orders for the supermarket tomorrow. And the taxi for the Dialysis Clinic was driven by a young guy and we had a very lively chat all the way down to Avranches.

At the clinic they didn’t hang about to plug me in. The first one hurt like hell but the second needle, I didn’t feel it at all.

The nurses asked if I had any pain anywhere so I mentioned the issues that I’m having. They gave me a Covid test and that was that. No doctor came anywhere near me to make further enquiries so I don’t see the point in asking.

As well as the doctor in charge, Emilie the Cute Consultant was there too and although she went to see a few other patients, she kept well away from me. Julie the Cook did likewise, so she must be a regular reader of this rubbish too.

I read my Welsh and spent some time reading, and I also had a little doze. While I was away with the fairies, being careful to avoid drawing the attention of the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine to my activities, I was on a train in Tunisia. A Tunisian woman in local dress came to sit next to me. I suddenly realised that I hadn’t validated my ticket so I stood up and went to look for a machine. There was none in my carriage and the next one was compartmentalised with the curtains drawn and what looked like discreet security guards. I turned to a guy in the vestibule of my carriage to ask him. He told me that you don’t validate it – the ticket inspector does as he or she passes – so I went to resume my seat. However it looked nothing like it did when I left and the Tunisian lady wasn’t there

There was a similar issue about TICKETS ON TRAINS when I was in Tunisia a few years ago, and I can well-believe the presence of Security Guards and curtained compartments on certain trains.

They unplugged me and threw me out into the torrential rain where my taxi was waiting, and we had to wait for the guy who lives in Sartilly. And he had already reserved the front seat

My driver was friendly enough but didn’t say too much and as we stopped outside the building, the rain stopped, the sun shone and we had a rainbow.

My cleaner watched me upstairs, and it was a retrograde number of steps today, no surprise with me feeling not too well. And I was glad to sit down and relax for an hour.

Tea was a lovely stuffed pepper with pasta followed by apple cake and soya cream and now I’m ready for bed.

But the subject of having pains everywhere reminds me of the guy who went to the doctor.
"Every time and everywhere I touch myself" he said "I’m in absolute agony."
And he proceeded to prod himself in his leg, his arm, his torso, his neck, his posterior, everywhere. And each time he winced in pain.
The doctor looked at him for a moment and then took him by surprise, prodding him in his ribs
"Did that hurt?" asked the doctor
"Well, actually doctor" said the man "no it didn’t. What does it mean? Am I dying? Do I have a serious problem?"
"Not at all" said the doctor. "All it means is that you have broken your finger."

Saturday 19th October 2024 – THEY LEFT ME …

… pretty much to myself at the Dialysis Clinic this afternoon.

Once they’d plugged me in, they only came back once to deal with an alarm, one of the nursing assistants brought me a coffee, and that was that until it was time to unplug me

That’s much more like my way of doing things and if they can keep it up like that every time I go, I shall be much happier.

Another thing that shall make me much happier is going to bed early. Last night was ridiculous. Just as I was about to switch off everything and go to bed, round on the playlist came the classic Quicksilver Messenger Service version of Elias Bates (Bo Diddley to you)’s version of WHO DO YOU LOVE, all 25 minutes and 15 seconds of it.

Of course, one thing leads to another and once you start you’ll be surprised at how many other things there are and it was after 00:30 when I finally crawled into bed

For once though I had a good sleep. Apart from a brief, very brief moment, I was asleep for the entire night but I was still feeling the worse for wear when I crawled out of bed at the sound of the alarm.

First thing was to go into the kitchen. I’ve no bread left and so I set to work to make a loaf of bread, starting by making the dough and giving it a good kneading.

Whilst it was busy festering I went into the bathroom. With it being a Dialysis Day to day I gave myself a good scrub and even applied the deodorant, not that it makes much difference

Having organised myself I sorted out the washing. There’s tons of it, but I washed the bed linen today along with some of the stuff of which supplies are running low. When I came here from the Auvergne I didn’t bring everything with me – just enough to keep me going. But there’s no chance now of going back to the Auvergne to pick up the rest.

When the nurse came round he looked at the dough and asked “are you making bread?”. His asinine, patronising comments are getting on my nerves.

Luckily he didn’t stay long and was soon down the road, and I can carry on with breakfast and my book.

Today, the Woolhope Naturalists are at Llandrindod Wells where we hear them applauding the efforts that are being made in salmon conservation and calling for some kind of control of pollution of the local rivers – a good 100 years ahead of their time.

And then I put the bread in the oven.

After I’d started the washing off I’d made a start on the dictaphone notes but the arrival of the nurse had put paid to that. So after breakfast I carried on. There was this very small girl. She was very small and very lively, and very interested in everything that seemed to be going on around her. One day I had to go to the hospital. A car came for me – it was a big Austin A110. I climbed into it and it had to go to pick up some more people. A guy was picked up and he sat in the back, a woman or a guy – it seemed to change between the two. Then there was this small girl and this woman. The woman insisted on sitting in the front, so much so that she actually climbed into the front while I was in the seat. In the end I agreed that I’d step out of the car and sit in the rear. The little girl made some kind of comment so I said “God, I’m sitting next to you, am I?” in one of those harmless fun tones which started a little bit of a play argument. This all took place at the entrance to a car park somewhere but it turned out to be at the Earl of Crewe. We were all at the Earl of Crewe outside, all fooling around, all of us. Someone came up to me and said “You’ve forgotten that it’s her birthday today, haven’t you?” meaning the little girl. I replied “I didn’t really know”. “Don’t worry. The driver has bought a little present for her on your behalf”. I thought “that’s nice of him. That’s the second time that he’s done that. I’ll have to see about paying him back or something”. But I have half an hour when I’m not doing anything. I was planning on looking at a recipe that someone had given me. Instead, I can look at the recipe in the car and go to buy her a present then. We all ended up in some kind of old house with low ceilings and wattle-and-daub walls. We were all inside there and making conversation with each other and the little girl was doing her school homework. There was someone else there doing some work at the seat behind her. I was going to read this recipe but I thought that I’d go to talk to this girl and see what she’s doing. and this dream carried on like that for ages.

This dream certainly dates me if I’m being picked up by an Austin A110. I was still a teenager when those cars were top-of-the-range. And I often used (and probably still do) tease young girls like that. The incident of the woman wanting to sit in the front reminds me of that strange guy at the Dialysis Centre who never opened his mouth all the time except when the taxi driver asked “who wants to sit in the front?”.

Having had one phantom alarm call we have a second. And one of my friends seems to be coming “extremely close” to everyone who comes to her house. Tomorrow morning there is going to be someone new going so we should all be at the house and we should catch her. Se we were there and were waiting. Sure enough, someone came, a refugee from some island somewhere. She had a close encounter with him which makes the fourteenth in fourteen days. After that we walked home. I walked away over the hills and when I was round about at an arch some woman came up, a type of girl, not even wanting to talk to me about anything other than the items of clothing in my freezer bag that I had to give her, a freezer bag with eight items of clothing in there so now there was one piece of pizza and just three or four left. She wanted to search through them and wasn’t going to let me go home until I’d submitted to a search

There is actually one of my friends who behaves like that. Mind you, it’s a good 15-20 years since I’ve seen her and even then I used to keep a respectable distance. However, I don’t understand anything about the second part of that dream.

By the way, I have absolutely no recollection of either of those phantom alarm calls.

Finally I was in a bedsit room in Manchester. It was something of a mess but I was leaving today. I had a train at 18:00 that I absolutely had to catch. I wanted to see one of the many followers of this blog before I left but he could only fit me in after 17:00. As he lived in Altrincham that was leaving it rather tight to go out there to see him then come back to Manchester in the centre for my train. I’d have to have everything ready but it was now 09:25, I was lying there, I was hearing people washing so I arose, found a bearskin to keep me warm and then went to see if there was a washbasin free where I had a really good wash ready for going out catching the Underground and going off to do the things that I needed to do

If I could go across Manchester on the Underground, that would be something of a miracle. Any plans for an underground network in the city have long-since been scuppered which was a shame and today everyone has to go by tram and even then it’s not all that convenient. The “Northern powerhouse” promised by so many politicians is a myth, a vote-catching soundbyte and as long as the politicians won’t admit that there’s anything of any importance beyond the M25, so it will remain.

Having hung up the washing to dry, I sorted out the bread. One side of it hadn’t risen at all so we can call this loaf a failure, which is a shame. But I can’t understand why that would be because the bread was in the middle of the oven with the heat, in principle, passing equally all around it.

While the bread was cooling and the washing was drying I came back in here where I was supposed to be having a morning off. However, I made an interesting discovery relating to what might in the near future be an interesting radio programme so I followed it up.

Round about 11:50 I had a message – “could you be ready for 12:15? We’re short of numbers today and there’s a person needing to go to Avranches for 13:00. Would you share?”.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I am being offered an extraordinary service that exists nowhere else in the World to my knowledge, and it’s all free to me. Who am I to argue about any of this? In any case, the earlier we start, the earlier we finish

It meant a mad panic though, for me and my faithful cleaner to prepare me for the trip and we only just made it. Just as she was leaving, the driver turned up.

It was someone who had taken me to Paris in the past and we had a good chat on the way down to Avranches.

With the taxi coming early, I was early arriving and so I was coupled up quickly, and then left to my own devices.

For the first time in a couple of weeks I crashed out (and isn’t that a change?). Only for twenty minutes or so and when I awoke I had the most appalling indigestion that plagued me for hours.

With no interruptions I reviewed my Welsh, last week’s and the forthcoming week, had a close look at the homework that I need to finish off and then tidied up the laptop. The whole desktop is far too cluttered and there are loads of tabs open in Waterfox and I’ve no idea why. They aren’t open now.

No-one bothered me or interrupted me and as far as I could see, there wasn’t even a doctor on duty. But for the compression stage of the procedure where someone has to clamp my arm for ten minutes I had Julie the Cook again
"You really ought to try to do this yourself" she said
"Clear off!" I replied. "How else am I going to have a beautiful girl sitting beside me for ten minutes holding my hand?"

When they weighed me I found that I’d lost another 2kg. My “unfit” target weight is now firmly in my sights and if I can reach it I would be delighted. But as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … getting it off is one thing. Keeping it off is something else completely.

The taxi driver was a new girl. She was an ambulancier in the Champagne-Ardennes who moved here five weeks ago. She applied to the company for a job and in the kind of logic that only they think is reasonable but neither my driver nor me could understand, they put her to driving taxis when she’s no idea of where she’s going. At least as an ambulancier she’d be with someone, which would help her pick up the hints.

And for once in our lives, having left the Dialysis Centre early, at Sartilly we find ourselves in a long queue stuck behind a tractor (it’s that time of year again) and we crawl all the way to Granville at 30kmh.

My faithful cleaner watched me up the stairs, and today I could manage nine before I need to lift up my leg with my hand. This is certainly progress and I hope that it keeps up.

Back in here even though I was early I did nothing until tea time. I was exhausted. But I made myself a lovely tea of a burger on a bun with salad and baked potato followed by apple cake and soya cream.

Now that this severe indigestion has eased somewhat I’m off to bed once I’ve dictated the radio notes. Tomorrow I’ll be busy with the radio, with pizza dough to make and there’s something else that I need to make but I’ve forgotten what it is right now. I hope that I remember.

But I forgot to mention an incident that caused panic and embarrassment at the Dialysis Clinic today.
A man walked by mistake into the ladies’ cloakroom and a couple of minutes later two women walked in behind him.
Suddenly there were all kinds of panic as a couple of nurses dashed towards the cloak room with the emergency gear.
"What’s going on?" I asked
"It’s one of those two women" replied a breathless nurse. "She’s had a stroke!"
"What about the other one?" I asked
"She wasn’t quick enough" replied the nurse.

Monday 14th October 2024 – AT THE DIALYSIS …

… Clinic this time, with one of the usual nurses on duty, things went so much better today and she managed to avoid drenching the room and everyone in it with my blood.

Mind you, there’s still a few hours before bedtime so plenty of time to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory yet. I’ve told my faithful cleaner to stand by.

So last night was another late night – although it could, and should, have been an early one by the time that I’d finished what I had to do. However, the next two radio programmes that I need to do are also going to be celebrating special occasions and will involve a lot of work, and so the quicker I start, the quicker I’ll finish.

Consequently I put on my researcher’s hat and set to work. The preparatory stuff led to quite some progress so even if I did have to burn the midnight oil, it wasn’t wasted. And I’ll have to become used to it because I reckon that that’s how it’s going to be for a week or two.

And isn’t that a change from two or three months ago?

Once I finally made it into bed I didn’t need much rocking and there I slept until about 05:30. It was another phantom alarm call but I recognised it as such and was back to sleep quite quickly though – it hardly disturbed my rhythm.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I fell out of bed and hauled myself off to the bathroom for a good scrub up and to apply the deodorant. I didn’t bother with a shave because I don’t think that Emilie the Cute Consultant loves me any more

Having washed my undies I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night and see if Zero had come back. But no Zero last night. Instead, there was a strange dream about all of the women in our family being lined up and undressed. When they were totally undressed everyone stood in some kind of queue to welcome the arrival of the Roman legions. There was more than that in the dream but going back in the return of this dream is really all that I remember and I can’t remember anything at all about the actual dream itself which is a shame

In fact, no it isn’t and I’m glad that the dream stopped there because, had it carried on, it would have quite put me off my breakfast. If I’m going to be present when women are stripping off, I’ll choose them myself, thank you, not have them imposed upon me. Knowing my luck it will be a bunch of retired Bulgarian female weightlifters rather than the female members of an Olympic beach-volleyball team.

We had my white Passat estate and we decided that we’d put it back on the road. We went over it, made a list of everything that needed doing including the bodywork, bought all the pieces and began to clean it and weld it. It wasn’t as bad as we thought it was going to be and we did the most important parts. We found that we could drive it but the brakes were binding. I’d adjusted the handbrake but my father was going to climb underneath it. I said that it was either a 17mm or 19mm spanner. He felt it and thought that it was bigger than that. I noticed that he was trying to undo the void bushes so directed him to the correct area. Later on we were having a look. We’d done the rear of the boot but the sides of the floor needed patching so we bought some body panels for that and were busy measuring, preparing to cut out the old rot and fit the panels when the alarm went off.

Ahh yes! Good old Saltofix. A company in Oswestry that made replacement body panels and tailored patches for cars. The amount of stuff I bought for the Cortinas we were running must have kept them in business. There is still a stack of body panels and patches down on the farm that must be worth a fortune, especially the two rear quarters for a Ford Cortina MkIII in the back of the Luton Transit that are worth a King’s ransom. I wonder how much any body panels for the Vanden Plas in my barn would cost me these days. I should have bought them when I dragged the car out of that scrapyard in Belgium in 1998

Isabelle the nurse came along later. We decided (or, rather, she did) that we should try with just two plasters on my legs today. Like I said yesterday, I do admire her optimism. However she thinks that there’s a dramatic improvement already but I remain unconvinced.

After she left I made breakfast and read READ MY BOOK. Thomas Wright has now left Stonehenge and gone to look at the remains of Old Sarum down the road.

However before he left he made an interesting remark. Although it seems to be assumed that no archaeological excavations took place at Stonehenge until Aubrey’s excavations in 1666, he seems to be aware of an ancient book that states "in 1620 the celebrated Duke of Buckingham , King James’s favourite , did cause the middle of Stonehenge to be digged, and this underdigging was the cause of the falling down or recumbencie of the great stone there ."

Back in here later I made a start on my Welsh homework and in a mad fit of enthusiasm I worked my way non-stop all the way through two-thirds of it, leaving just one-third for next week. It’s not like me to race ahead of myself. usually I’m always struggling, miles behind relevant deadlines.

Having done that I carried on with my research into the next programme and I’m now beginning to choose the music that I want to feature. It should actually mean slightly less work because one track is over 17 minutes long and I’ve been waiting for an appropriate moment to feature this.

The cleaner fitted my anaesthetic patches onto my arm and stayed for a chat for a while. The taxi that came for me was the luxury car that’s usually driven by the boss’s daughter. However the driver was a guy who has taken me to Paris in the past and we had a really good chat.

Just five patients in the Dialysis clinic today. In fact the staff outnumbered the patients by about four to one. The young nurse who looked after me, Julie, is a self-taught pastry cook and she showed me photos of some of her creations. And I had to say that I was well impressed.

She was also quite good at wiring me up to the machine and I hardly felt a thing.

Emilie the Cute Consultant was there today, but she kept her distance and didn’t even come within my range of vision. I merely caught a couple of glimpses of her down the corridor.

Instead, it was the senior doctor who came to see me. "I have some good news for you" he said. "We can cut out one of the medicines that you’ve been taking".
However, without hardly drawing breath, he went on to say "but that will create a couple of side-effects so I’m going to give you a prescription for three more to counter the effects."

So is that now 36 per day? Or 37? I lost count a long time ago and quite frankly, I couldn’t care less. I’m sure that there are more medicines in this apartment than in the chemist’s shop in town.

As for the famous confrontation about the plasters and the compression socks, the doctor didn’t even bother. Julie the Cook took down (not “off”) my socks, took off the plasters, cleaned the legs with antiseptic and put the new plasters on. Exactly the same that the nurse does.

So I don’t understand any of this.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the other day that I crowed about having driven the trick cyclist away. However it’s a mistake to underestimate your enemies. She’s made of far sterner stuff and was back today.

We had all of the usual pregnant pauses to try to provoke a response, so I showed her MY TRAVEL WEBSITE instead.

Because I don’t have a password to access the intranet I had to show her on a ‘phone instead of my laptop. And the result of this is that I now have a log-in and password to access the intranet. The World’s my oyster!

In recompense I suppose that I shall have to throw her a sprat and say how much I’m in love with my mother and how as a baby I had uncomfortable feelings about my nurse. She probably is a follower of Freud.

During the process I fell asleep – not a crash-out but a gentle slide into somnolence and a gradual fading out. And while I was asleep, Castor came to see me. She just stood there, at the foot of the bed without saying or doing anything, almost as if she was watching over me like a guardian angel. And I had a great wish to reach out to her but pipes and tubes in my left arm, a blood pressure brassard on my right so I couldn’t move. Can you imagine?

The unplugging was also painless and without complications and I was soon in the taxi to come home. In fact, it was the earliest that I’ve ever been out of there and after my cleaner watched me up the stairs (I managed seven before I had to use my hand to lift up my leg) I actually had some free time to myself.

My cleaner thinks that I’m much more motivated, much more enthusiastic and much more switched-on than I was before all of this started. If that’s the case, I wonder what I’ll be like in twelve months time.

Tea tonight was as usual, a stuffed pepper. Just as delicious as usual and with plenty of stuffing left over for the rest of the week. It was followed by a slice of apple cake with coconut-flavoured soya dessert for pudding. And nice it was too.

So bedtime now, ready for my Welsh lesson tomorrow.

Before I go though, seeing as we have been talking about psychiatrists … "well one of us is" – ed … I’m reminded of one particular person who went to see a psychiatrist
"And what can I do for you?" asked the psychiatrist
"I’m having terrible trouble" replied the man. "I keep on thinking that I want to kill myself. What should I do?"
"You should start" said the psychiatrist "by paying me in advance"

Saturday 12th October 2024 – WE HAD A …

… crisis in the Dialysis Centre this evening. The hole in the implant in my arm refused to close up after they pulled out the needle and we ended up with the place looking like a slaughterhouse.

“That’s the kind of thing that happens occasionally” said the nurse. And they want me to do the dialysis procedure myself at home. They must be joking. There is no chance whatever of that ever happening.

There was however a good chance of my going to bed last night at some kind of respectable hour. It wasn’t 23:00 by the time that I finished everything that I needed to do and crawled into bed but it was pretty close. There wasn’t much in it at all

Soon enough I was asleep, hoping to catch up on the sleep that I had missed the previous night, but it wasn’t to be. It was another one of these turbulent nights of which I’ve been having far too many. When the alarm went off Nerina and I were sitting in one of these plazas and were surrounded by food courts somewhere in Italy. We couldn’t make up our minds in which place to eat. We were being harassed by a couple of waiters from one establishment who wanted us to eat there. They were obviously making suggestions all the time. Nerina wanted to look at all the other menus so I had to stand up and go to the next restaurant, pick up a new menu, bring it back, read it, take it back, take the next one, all the way round the food court, all the time that these two waiters were harassing us about this and about that. In the end we decided, or rather, Nerina decided that the pizzeria in the corner would be the place where we’d order our meal so these two waiters went over with me to this restaurant to tell them that I was their best friend, all this kind of thing, but I suspected that there was something going on here that wasn’t quite right, about them receiving a commission or bumping up the bill or something like that. It all seemed to be extremely strange to me.

In the past we sat at plenty of places like that all over Europe. We’d wait for our holidays until the brats were back at school because the weather was usually nice, everywhere was still open and we’d have all the time in the World without being harassed by impatient waiters trying to clear us out ready for the next lot of tourists.

In one restaurant in Brest in Finisterre I remember that we were the only diners. They put us in a window seat to make the place look busy from the outside and then took their time serving us so that we stayed put. No-one came to clear away the table or give us the bill so we stood up. Still no-one came, so I worked out roughly how much the meal was, put the money on the table,, and walked out. And still no-one came.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment I staggered into the bathroom, had a good wash and scrub up, had a shave and applied the deodorant in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and then loaded up the washing machine, forgetting to put my gants de toilette in there.

Once the washing machine was off on its way I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone notes, of which there were more than just a few. I was working a school holiday job down in the South of England as a teacher of some description. I can’t remember too much about this unfortunately but I know that there was something to do with a small child being carried by his mother into the showers. We were talking about trees, how deciduous trees all go to sleep in the autumn and the leaves fall off. I showed him another tree, which was a kind-of wire brush screwed to the wall of the shower which people would use to clean their football boots etc before rinsing them off. It was all extremely surreal and I can’t remember very much of it but that was it.

Me? A teacher? I think not. I wouldn’t be any good. I don’t “do” preparation but work it out as I go along and that would never work with a classful of screaming brats

Later on I had a nightmare about a whole pile of glass bottles on the table that was just on the point of falling off. I had a panic-stricken awakening to try to grab hold of them but what was actually happening was that my feet were sliding out of the bed at that point and just about to fall on the floor. Luckily I stopped that quickly enough.

That’s much more like my kind of dream, falling out of bed. I’ve fallen out of a few of them in my time, sometimes with no help at all and sometimes with some help from someone else.

So the alarm went off at 07:00. I left the bed and went to wash and dress. I happened to look at the watch and I was still in bed. It was 05:00 and all of that had been a lively, exciting, vivid dream.

Judging by the timestamp of the audio file it was actually 05:15 and it goes without saying that I didn’t actually leave the bed. But by the sound of things we had another phantom alarm during the night.

And finally it was in the immediate post-war period and I was wandering around Crewe. We’d seen a few tanks go through. As I went round a corner there was a motorcycle shop there, Paul Wolf Motorcycles. Outside was a Triumph Tiger Cub 200cc, one of the very early ones with the footboards and the accelerator pedal. It said “good home needed” so I thought “I wonder if this is for sale? Does he have anything else interesting?”. I went in, and it was a labyrinth inside, steps up and down into the bowels of the earth all the way down. There must have been thirty or forty flights of stairs to the level of the river where he had his kind-of garage and workshop. There was a huge row going on between him and a few other people about someone who should have come in to see something but hadn’t but he ws going to come in now. I saw a guy come in from the side door which was actually on the level of his reception desk about eighty feet below. I thought “that must be an easier way in”. Then I looked back behind me and realised that there were just as many steps back up as there were down. It was easier to go down than it was to come up. But then what if I couldn’t find my way back up from the ground level where his office was? I was beginning to have another one of these disturbed quandaries during the night.

It’s been a while since we’ve had one of these dreams littered with indecision. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that at one stage it was a regular feature like the cars scattered all over the town, so I wonder what’s bringing it back. I wish that someone would bring back Castor, Zero and TOTGA and even The Vanilla Queen.

And there was a Paul Wolf Motorcycles, in Market Street in Crewe in the old Co-op store years ago.

Isabelle the nurse didn’t have much to say for herself today. I think that she said it all yesterday. But after she left I hung up the washing on the clothes airer and went to make my breakfast.

The WANDERINGS OF AN ANTIQUARY have taken us to Bignor Roman villa today. Thomas Wright gives us probably the best account of how it looked when it was discovered and states that it was the largest Roman villa in the UK. But that’s before the full extent of the Fishbourne Roman Palace was known

Back in here I had a chat with Alison on the internet and reviewed the work that I’d done during the week ready for dictation tonight. I need to take more care of what I type but it’s difficult with my vision these days and so wfvr wzpq. Last time I dictated some notes I found myself in a frightful muddle because a mistype presented another word that completely altered what it was that I was trying to say.

My cleaner turned up to fit the anaesthetic patches for me to and the taxi turned up a little earlier too. This was a vehicle from the other side of Avranches that had dropped someone off at the Centre de Re-education and was no on its way to pick up someone from the hospital at Rennes to take them back home. I was apparently something to make the empty journey pay. Not that I mind, of course.

There were very few of us there today, both patients and staff. It was a weekend team and while they were efficient they were far from sociable. And it goes without saying that I didn’t get to see Emilie the Cute Consultant.

Once they’d plugged me in, I was left totally alone except for the doctor who asked if I was OK – five seconds of attention. I had plenty of time to study my Welsh, now that I have uploaded the correct book, and almost reach the end of the biography of Lewis Carroll

It’s difficult to know what to make of him. With the benefit of hindsight many of his remarks could be taken in the wrong way that would be quite alarming but in the late Victorian era were probably quite innocent. They certainly aren’t on the same level as remarks made by someone like Frank Harris.

And then when they took the needles out we had quite the drama. Compresses, anti-coagulants, you name it, we had it. It quite wore me out and I was just sitting there with my eyes closed.

It took so long that my taxi went with the other passenger and I had to climb into a later one that ended up going all around the back of beyond to drop off someone else. Not that I minded because it was one of the nicer drivers who had taken me to Paris once and I quite like her.

My cleaner was there waiting and she watched as I hauled myself up the stairs. Today I managed six steps without lifting my leg up with my hand. I’d lost another 1.3 kg today so that might explain it.

Tea was a burger on a bap with salad and baked potato, and I was ready for it too. So now I’ll dictate my notes and go to bed.

But the dreams tonight and the hospital remind me about the patient with a broken leg.
A new arrival asked him "what’s the matter with you?"
"Appendicitis" he replied.
"But all the plaster?"
"Ohh, that" he replied. "I fell off the operating table".

EPIC HALL

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