Tag Archives: eric hall

Tuesday 31st May 2016 – IT’S NOT GETTING ANY BETTER.

Well, maybe the sleep thing did last night. I seemed to have something of a (slightly better) night and when the nurse came to take my blood pressure and temperature at 07:40 I was dead to the world. In fact the sudden shock of waking up completely dislodged every last detail of wherever it was that I was a-wandering, which is a shame.

After breakfast, I had a couple of visits. Firstly, the nurse came in to change the needle in my chemotherapy port. And I know the nurse from my other visits to the hospital – she’s quite efficient and she didn’t hurt me half as much as any of the others have done. And that’s something, I suppose.

And then I had the doctor, and she brought me some more depressing news (if that could be possible). Firstly, the biopsy on my kidneys is postponed until tomorrow and I don’t like that idea – I just wish that they would get it over and done with.

But secondly, she told me that they have now officially decided that chemotherapy isn’t working as it is supposed to. Like me, they were expecting to see something positive in the way of results by now and they are a little bewildered. As a result, they are going to take another sample of bone marrow on Thursday – and how I will detest that (I can still feel the last lot) and see whether that will give them a further clue. But this isn’t the news that I was hoping to hear – not in the least – and I’m starting to become a little concerned.

The third visit that I had, after lunch, was only guaranteed to increase my apprehension. It was the surgeon who is going to work on me tomorrow. He wanted to tell me – in great detail too, about what he is going to do to me, and I almost had to sit on his head to stop him. I’m useless in hospital and I don’t want to be hearing about things like this. It just drives me into a cold sweat and then I spend all night worrying about it and that’s horrible.

Other news is that my room-mate has been discharged. This could be good news (I might end up on my own for a while and I’m much better on my own as I’m sure that you know) and it could be bad news, because my previous companion was quite good, quiet and didn’t snore. I’m not sure that I’ll find another one so companionable. I bet that it’s unlikely.

And so apart from that, I’ve been chatting to Liz on the internet and doing some work updating my blog and not very much else. As I have said before, it’s very hard for me to summon up the enthusiasm right now.

But we’ll see what tomorrow brings. I’m not looking forward to it, or for the following day either. And the results will be even worse, I reckon. But I must stop thinking like this. Focus on the positives – I mean, I haven’t spent a single cent in over a week and that’s surely something to celebrate.

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Monday 30th May 2016 – ONE THING THAT I’VE LEARNT TODAY …

… is that I won’t be having my next chemotherapy session for quite a while.

It seems that in the opinion of the hospital, I’m far to ill right now to go through all of the stresses that chemotherapy will provide and they think that I ought to recover first.

I have to say that I don’t like the sound of that one little bit. As far as I’m concerned, being ill doesn’t make the slightest difference. I don’t see an issue about chemotherapy making me any more ill – I’ll be suffering just the same and the quicker the treatment starts, the quicker it will be over and the quicker I’ll start to recover. Waiting until I’m feeling better and then making me ill again is just in my opinion absurd. I only want to be ill once.

And if I don’t improve, then I won’t ever have the chemotherapy and then I’ll be back where I started all of these months ago and that’s really defeating the purpose of my coming here.

As you can tell, I’ve had a visit from the doctor this afternoon. She didn’t stay long and didn’t even give me a check-over – she just came to give me the news.

I had a really bad night again last night. I took ages to go off to sleep, mainly due to the fact that I had a really bad pain right across the right side of my chest. It just wouldn’t go away and I just couldn’t find a comfortable position. It was so bad that I felt like calling for some emergency help (now that’s not like me, is it?) but I managed to hang on.

And then once I did drop off, I kept on waking up time after time after time. I really can’t sleep properly at all in this place. But drop off I must have done, because I was off on my travels again.

I was in a house that I owned, in Nantwich down by Crewe Road end but it wasn’t a terraced house such as is there but a modern semi-detached property. I’d had the morning off work and was due to go in for the afternoon but all kinds of delays were holding me up. eventually, I’d sorted out my pushbike, found my heavy blue-grey overcoat, decided what cap I was going to wear (because it was teeming down outside) and eventually I set off. But it was freezing cold too and I decided that I needed my gloves so had to turn back. And this made me wonder whether it was worth setting out again as the office would be closed by the time that I arrived. But as I reached back home I noticed my red Ford Cortina estate, XCL 465X, in the drive and it had been driven in instead of reversed in, as I always do without fail when I’m parking. That took me completely by surprise.
And a little later we were at a huge Open University Students Association (OUSA) meeting and there were hundreds of us in attendance. I found my way in, nearly last (not like me) and struggled into a corner where there were several people whom I knew, including a girl called Jane who was in my class at school (what she was doing at an OUSA meeting is anyone’s guess). We were having a chat about old times when the meeting abruptly started. The first speaker, a woman we knew, started to talk but went so quick that we couldn’t make notes and everyone bellowed at her in unison to slow down and start again – which she did, but after a couple of minutes started to roar off again and we found it impossible to keep track of what we were saying.

The doctor wasn’t the only visitor that I had either. I had a hospital visitor come to chat with me for a couple of minutes and that was quite a break from my routine. She didn’t have much to say, which was no surprise, but she tried her best to cheer me up and encourage my morale and you can never criticise someone for that.

But while I was talking to her, I somehow managed to put my back out of joint and that hurt for ages. I’m definitely breaking up, aren’t I?

The rest of the day has been quite quiet. I’ve sat in the day room and, for a change, done some work (I need to keep myself properly organised and properly focused), and that’s really my lot. As you know, there’s not really a lot else that I can be doing right now. I need to exert myself a little but it’s not easy. Even if I were to find the motivation, there ust aren’t the opportunities just now.

Still, maybe I’ll cheer up tomorrow.

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Sunday 29th May 2016 – WHAT A BORING DAY!

Sometimes I think that it’s just as well that I go off on some of these nocturnal rambles because it’s the only excitement that I seem to be having these days.

Today was one of those days where not a single person came along to break the monotony. Fair enough – I had my pulse and temperature taken twice but that was it. For most of the morning I was crashed out on my bed and for the rest of the day I’ve just been sitting around mooching over the internet and reading a pile of stuff to keep me going. I can’t say any more than that.

Well, yes I can, I suppose. I’ve run out of cheese.

To be frank, I didn’t expect to be here like this. I imagined that Monday would have been a check-up (and maybe a blood transfusion) as it always is, and then I expected to be called back on Friday for a long weekend of chemotherapy. That’s what usually happens. That would have given me all of the time in the world to do all of the shopping that I wanted, but of course it didn’t work out like that, did it? Here I am, it’s Sunday night and they haven’t even started on the chemotherapy, let alone almost finished. No wonder that I’m so fed up.

I’d had a bad night too – taking ages to go to sleep and then waking up regularly through the night. It’s quite true to say that I’m a very light sleeper but the amount of clunking and clanking that goes on in this place is unbelievable.

Mind you, I did manage to get away during the night. I was on a long-distance bus travelling to the Bus Station (which one, I’ve no idea) and Laurence was a passenger too, although I wasn’t “with” her. It was just after 02:30 when we arrived and we had a couple of hours to wait for our connection that would take us to the airport. I immediately grabbed my stuff, made a kind of bed on the floor, and settled down for a short sleep. However, the woman from the cafeteria on the bus station came out to remind us all that the café closed at 02:30 – clearly incorrect because it was after 02:30 by now, so we imagined that she meant 03:30. That didn’t bother me because I reckoned that I would be back awake by then, and if not, it didn’t matter anyway. Neither did all of the people who were taking a rather unusual interest in my sleeping arrangements.

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Saturday 28th May 2016 – I WAS PLANNING …

… on having something of an early night last night but as with all of the best-laid plans of mice and men, it didn’t turn out like that.

First Liz and then, coincidentally the girl who has often in these pages been described as “The One That Got Away” put in an appearance on the internet waves and as a result it was long after 23:00 when I walked down the corridor to my room. Mind you, it didn’t half cheer me up and I felt much better than I had been feeling, especially seeing as how TOTGA offered to come over here and soothe my fevered brow.

I didn’t have a very good night though last night. Despite being exhausted, I still couldn’t drop off to sleep straight away. It took me ages to settle down comfortably, what with all of the noise in the corridor. But I did manage to have a sleep without needing to use the facilities, which is one thing for which I ought to be grateful, and I did manage to go off a-wandering too.

I was back running my taxis again last night and although it was the Modern Era, I still had my fleet of Ford Cortinas and they were all pretty-much the worse for wear. But then it did occur to me that the Cortinas still on the market must be in much better condition and much better restored than mine ever were, so why didn’t I go off to the motor auctions to see whether or not I couldn’t pick up one or two new ones to put in the bank for when the licenses of the existing taxis needed to be renewed.

So that was the plan and I would have put it into effect had my room-mate not awoken me by having an early trip to the bathroom. I had a good session in the bathroom too. With there being nothing connected to me right at the moment, I took the opportunity to have a really good scrub and a change of clothes.

This morning I had the usual visits from the nurses but, as expected, no doctor and no dietician. On the other hand, my room-mate had some family in to visit him as early as 10:00 which disturbed my morning peace. Eventually, I gave up and retreated into the common room.

And that’s where I’ve been for most of the day – in the common room not doing very much at all. And once or twice, having just a little doze as the afternoon wore on.

I had the odd visit, a nurse came to see me and a doctor too. Apparently on Tuesday I’m to have an biopsy on my kidneys to find out more about this protein loss that I’m suffering. And while I’m extremely grateful that the hospital is taking such good care of me, it’s really a peripheral treatment and isn’t going to solve the underlying issues – and that for me is the priority.

But we did have a little perturbation at midday. I wasn’t at my bedside when the food came around and when I returned, I discovered that I’d been given the wrong meal. Someone else has had my steamed vegetables and rice and I ended up with a pile of stuff that I couldn’t eat. It’s a good job that my appetite is drifting away otherwise I would have been quite upset.

And not only that, My legs have started to swell up again. The left one in particular is looking pretty miserable. How I’m fed up with all of this.

Still, I’ll go to bed in a bit, hope that I can have a good night’s sleep, and hope that tomorrow will bring me a better day.

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Friday 27th May 2016 – IF ANYTHING …

… my night last night was even worse than the previous one. I was awake for ages before going to sleep and then I awoke again at about 03:30. every time I tried to go to sleep something or someone brought me back round again and that was annoying.

None of the foregoing though stopped me going on a wander. I started off with my old rock group and we were practising in the concert room of some workingmen’s club somewhere. The club opened at 18:00 but the concert room didn’t open until 19:30 so we were able to hire it for that 90-minute period every so often. Things were a bit shambolic and anarchic and it was clear that we weren’t getting on too well together but we had to persevere.
From here we went on to the house of someone whom I know in France. There was agroup of us there and two of our number, the lady owner of the place and her friend, went out for a walk. They hadn’t been gone for more than a couple of minutes when there was the most astonishing thunderstorm and the heavens simply opened. I’d never seen so much rain in all my life. The house leaked like a sieve and the rain roared inside. The two people outside came running back and we asked them whatever possessed them to gooutside when the weather was threatening like this. I wanted to go into the next room but a stream of water cascading down the walls and down the door made me unwilling to open the door but someone else did so and we were thus able to leave the kitchen and go into the living room. But as we went inside, the daughter of the house (who was already in there) shouted “you should see the water going into the bucket”. What was happening was that there was an avalanche of rainwater falling down inside the house, bouncing off the stair rail and going straight into a sink at the back of the living room. But the whole house was inundated, soaking wet, and everything was being ruined.
A short while later, I was at another house and suddenly a couple of people arrived, one of whom was Nerina. They had been to the shops and bought tons – and I do mean tons – of stuff and they were unloading the car and dumping the stuff everywhere. Our task was to take it where it was supposed to go. I remember that there were four huge picture frames but what was in them I do not know because they were wrapped in Christmas gift wrapping. I had two of these and was taking them to another room, but trying to fight my way out with all of the rest of the items and everyone else in the way was proving to be much more difficult than it ought to have been.

The dietician came to see me this morning, and brought one of his drinks to show me. But even though it has no milk as such in it, it’s jam-pack full of milk proteins and so that’s no use to me unfortunately. Apart from that, he doesn’t really have too much of an idea as to where to go from there.

And the doctor came too. She was dismayed when I told her that just half an hour earlier, my “stomach trouble” had reappeared – and in spades too. I did think yesterday that it was too early to go crowing about it. But she tells me that they have decided against the chemotherapy that I’ve been having. They are going to give me some other sort of treatment. However, it does have all of the same side effects such as the shivering and the fever and it’s every three weeks, not every four, so I’m not sure how much further down the road we are going to be with this.

I have a horrible, nagging suspicion that my illness isn’t going to respond to anything really and that I’m going to be stuck like this for ever. seeing them bring another pochette of blood to me this afternoon did nothing to allay my fears.

The spinach that I ordered for lunch came smothered in a creamy kind of sauce which was clearly no good for me so it looks as if I’ll have to abandon my idea of a varied diet and stick with the mixed veg, rice and extra carrots for now.

In case you are wondering, it’s true that I’m feeling pretty disillusioned right now. Not with the hospital, which is doing everything that it reasonably can do to help me out, but with the way things are working. I was hoping that by now I would have shown some kind of improvement and would slowly be starting to get on top of everything, but it’s clearly not working out like I wanted. All of this is generally making me feel quite miserable and when I look back on all of the things that I was doing a year ago, or four years ago, or 10 years ago, it’s beginning to drag me down to think that I might never be doing that again.

So this afternoon I sat quietly (or as quietly as I could – only two visitors per patient are allowed at the bedside at any one time and so a huge family that has just come from Africa to see a relative is all crammed in the day room and as they rotate two-by-two they are creating something of a carnival atmosphere in here and I’m in no mood to enjoy it) and read a pile of stuff on the internet.

Still, tomorrow is another day. It’ll be quieter because there are no ancillary staff members on duty, but I don’t expect it to be any different.

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Thursday 26th May 2016 – IT’S HARD …

… to think of what I’ve done today.

I know that my night last night was nothing like as good as last night. I didn’t drop off to sleep so early and I was awake by 04:00, much to my dismay. In fact, round about 15:00, I dropped off to sleep and was awoken at 17:00 by a nurse gently shaking my leg to tell me that my tea had arrived.

Another thing that I do remember about the night was that a girl who has been described in these pages as “the one that got away” came to visit me at some point.

So what have I done today then?

The answer is, basically, nothing. The doctor came to see me again and she examined me. She says that they will make a decision today about my chemotherapy (although, if they have done, I don’t know what it is) and she offered me an endoscopy to look into my stomach – something that I turned down flat as you might expect.

The dietician came along too. He told me that he’s going to prescribe a certain high-carbohydrate drink for me that has 300 calories per serving, and he would be back shortly after 14:00 with the first instalment. He didn’t put in an appearance either so I don’t know much more about that.

And really, nothing much more.

I have to take my stomach pills twice a day now, so I have been informed, because I still have the nausea, but the problem at the other end seems to have subsided, at least for the moment. Mind you, as we all know with chemotherapy, it won’t be long before it’s back.

Anyway, that’s your lot. I hope that tomorrow will be more exciting.

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Wednesday 25th May 2016 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I had a pretty good night’s sleep last night.

I was in bed by 22:00 and I don’t remember very much after that before I went to sleep, but apart from one or two trips to ride the porcelain horse, that was effectively that until about 07:30. It’s a long time since I’ve had a sleep quite like that in a hospital.

Today, I’ve had a couple of visits. Firstly, the doctor came in for a chat with me. She’s concerned about my general health, which I might have said the other day, but she’s even more concerned about my dramatic weight loss. I’ve lost 11.6kgs since all of this started and she’s worried that if it keeps on at this rate, I’ll be starting on the muscles and proteins and that could be serious. She did however mention that my blood count has gone up after my transfusion – it’s now 8.7.

a short while later, the dietician came to call. Not the usual one (she’s away for a couple of days) but another. he told me that the doctor had sent me and that they wanted to know much more about my eating habits.

He spent a great deal of time chatting to me and seemed to be very thorough in what he was trying to do. He didn’t, unfortunately, have any instant solutions (I would have been surprised had he done so) but he’s going to try to put together some kind of plan and he’ll get back to me tomorrow.

Apart from that, that’s all really. I’ve had a quiet, relaxing day of not doing very much at all, and I’ve managed to force some food down – to such an extent that you might say that I’ve had a couple of decent meals for once. They remembered to bring me biscottesinstead of bread for breakfast – but forgot the jam!I’m hoping that I can have a pretty good sleep tonight too and maybe feel a little better for tomorrow.

But what’s worrying me is that I’m feeling like this already and I haven’t even started the next lot of chemotherapy. Remembering how bad I felt last time once the chemotherapy was over (and that was starting from a good healthy position), whatever am I going to be like in a week’s time?

I shudder to think.

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Tuesday 24th May 2016 – AND WE’RE BACK …

… and the same old hospital routine – the same one that we’ve experienced dozens of times before. Although it wasn’t an especially early night, by 03:30 I was awake again and that was how I stayed for much of the morning. I don’t remember going back to sleep at all. But luckily, my room-mate doesn’t seem to snore, which is a good thing.

We’re back on the hospital diet too and the smell of the food is putting me right off once more. I managed a banana for breakfast, some tomato soup and an apple for lunch, and for tea I had cheese butties and a soya yoghurt.

Yes, cheese butties. When my overnight drip-feed stuff ran out, I nipped down to Caliburn for my suitcase and this time I brought a few supplies with me too – biscuits and cheese and the like – so now I’m prepared for anything.

The dietician came to see me too and we managed to talk about my eating arrangements. I mentioned that I was having these kinds of dietary issues and she promised to do her best to see that I had stuff that I could actually eat.

Another visitor was the girl from the Social Services. She came to see how I was and to chat about my future accommodation, but that was rather pointless at the moment because I don’t know how long I’ll be staying here, so it’s clearly not possible for me right now to arrange appointments to see anyone.

We had the medical staff too, and the doctor gave me a good going-over. And it seems that some kind of decision about my treatment. The general consensus is that the chemotherapy that I’ve been having is too violent for my body, delicate little flower that I am, and they might have to think about giving me another form.

That will be the subject of discussion amongst the medical staff during the week, so it looks as if I’ll be staying here now until the next lot of treatment – due to start on Friday but may be postponed – is complete.

And my mobile phone has been located. Liz very kindly rang up the Premiere Classe Hotel in Soissons and asked them about it. Apparently they found it underneath the pillow in the bedroom. They’ll hang on to it until I’m released from hospital when I’ll go down and pick it up again. That’s not what I had planned to do, but it can’t be helped. Without an address, there’s no other way of receiving it any quicker.

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Monday 23rd May 2016 – MY LIBERTY …

… didn’t last all that long, did it?

Here I am, back in the hospital, in a different ward, and here I’ll be staying, I imagine, until the cows come home. I’ve no idea.

And despite all of the money that I spent on some decent accommodation last night, I had something of a bad night. Having crashed out last night by 21:30, I was awake long before 03:00 and I don’t recall going back to sleep afterwards.

I had a visitor during the night too. A local farmer came to see me back at my place in France (it wasn’t my place in France, actually, but never mind). He complained that I’d been going too fast past his fields and he would appreciate it if I didn’t go so fast and that I didn’t take the short cut through the mountains. I didn’t recognise him so I asked him to show me which were his plots of land, and eventually he whipped out a map of the area, which turned out to be the Arran Peninsula in Scotland. After a good look, I could work out that there were parts of France marked on this map too but I was having difficulty trying to identify them. And while I was doing that, he was explaining that he was part of a committee that oversaw various rules and regulations and had the power to fine transgressors as much as three Euros for any breach thereof.

This morning it was lashing down with rain and there were traffic queues everywhere. Luckily the traffic going my way was moving steadily and I wasn’t delayed by much. In fact, I was at the hospital in the day centre by 09:15, 15 minutes before my appointment.

The place was crowded too and it took a while to be seen, but it wasn’t too long before I was stuffed into a side ward and given what looked like half a gallon of antibiotics. My blood count is down too (although this is no surprise) to 7.4 and so a transfusion is on the cards.

And what with one thing and another (and once you make a start, you’ve absolutely no idea how many other things there are) they’ve decided that rather than kick me out and call me back on Friday, they’ll be keeping me in. Still, focus on the positives – it means that I’m not having to pay any accommodation fees anywhere.

I had to wait ages, though, for a free bed and it wasn’t until 20:30 that I was wheeled upstairs. A different ward, as I said, and no-one speaks English here which is just as well for I need to stretch my Flemish.

I have a room-mate and he seems to be quite cheerful enough and, to my great delight, he doesn’t seem to snore. How I’ve longed for a room-mate like this.

So I’ll settle down for the night now and see how it goes, and I’ll give you all an update tomorrow. If ever I drop off to sleep, that is, because for some reason or other (possibly because I had something of a sleep during the afternoon) I’m not feeling in the least bit tired at the moment.

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Sunday 22nd May 2016 – I’VE ARRIVED …

… back in Belgium this afternoon – but without my mobile phone which I somehow seem to have managed to leave behind at my hotel last night. I shall have to do something about that, and do it pretty quickly too.

It was grey, overcast and raining lightly when I went down to breakfast but strangely, even though I’d had no tea last night, I didn’t feel like eating. But apart from that, I felt much more “like it” than I have for a couple of days. Clearly a good night’s sleep has done me the world of good.

It rained, and quite heavily too at times, throughout the day but that was the only excitement about the journey. The trip was pretty straightforward and I was here at 13:45.

I had a bit of luck too about a hotel. I needed to find a hotel with parking within easy access of the hospital and by chance there was a special offer on at the IBIS hotel at the Heverlee motorway services – just €69:00 for a night which, although it might sound expensive at first sight, it’ll do me some good to have a little luxury before I start my chemotherapy sessions tomorrow.

I settled in quite quickly and crashed out for an hour or so this afternoon and I do have to say that I’m feeling a little better, strange as it may seem.

But last night was fairly exciting though.

When I checked in to my hotel last night I took a menu from the local fast food delivery place to order something to eat for tea. But I don’t remember a thing after about 20:15. I remember once or twice going down the corridor but apart from that, I was stark out until 08:03 exactly. It was the best night’s sleep that I have had in absolutely ages and if I’d been on a voyage during the night, I remember nothing whatever about it. I’d had an accident during the night however, but I’ll tell you more about that at a later date.

Now we’ll see how we get on through the night, and I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.

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Saturday – 21st May 2016 – I’M BACK …

… on the road again and even as I type, I’m sitting in a little room in a Première Classe Hotel on the outskirts of Soissons (I’ve managed to find it today).

I managed my lie-in this morning – until all of, would you believe, 08:10 – even though I’d been on my travels during the night. Driving a lorry as it happens somewhere around the UK and a rough, horrible thing it was to drive as well and I was determined to have it taken off the road for major repair when I returned to the depot. But what surprised me was that it had only just passed its MoT a short while ago and I thought that that couldn’t be right. So I parked it up in the yard and the next lorry to come in was driven by my brother and he parked his lorry right next to mine blocking the through-way across the yard. Anyway, we left the yard and were immediately caught up in a scenario that involved the police on the motorway blocking off a car that was coming down the road. It was carrying antiques of some kind of dubious nature and the owner as telling us sometime later in this church hall where we all assembled that he’d been taught a manoeuvre to carry out whenever the police tried to stop him but as he drew a diagram to explain it, I couldn’t see how it would possibly help in such a circumstance.

It didn’t take too long to load up Caliburn and tidy up after me back at Liz and Terry’s, even though I managed to forget to bring back the fresh fruit that I’d put on one side. Mind you, I didn’t rush with doing it because I’m not up to that kind of thing just now. It was about 11:30 when I finally hit the road.

My next stop was back at my house where I dropped off a pile of my washing and collected some more stuff that I had forgotten the last time I was there.But I can’t for the moment find the big back with all of my single bed stuff. I wonder where all of that has gone. I know that I have it because I can remember sorting it all out after I’d finished the wardrobe last year.

It was a beautiful day when I set off but the farther north I drove, the weather deteriorated and when I left the motorway we were having a grey, overcast day. The drive itself was totally uneventful at first but at Nemours we had an incident where a wedding party decided to stop and block off a roundabout in order to take some wedding photographs and this provoked quite a bit of “reaction” from the other motorists.

Not only that, I’d noticed that there were some substantial queues at various petrol stations along the route, and my usual one at Melun was closed. When I eventually found a petrol station (on the N2 just before Villers-Cotterets) where there was quite a queue, I made enquiries and they revealed that some local television has announced that there is going to be a fuel shortage – something that has taken the garage proprietor totally by surprise.

So now, here I am -it’s 19:15 and I’m installed in my little room, and that is that. I’ll see you all in the morning.

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Friday 20th May 2016 – AND I’VE BEEN OUT TODAY TOO!

After breakfast I had a few things to organise and then round about 09:30 I hit the road for my place, calling at the Intermarché at Pionsat on the way in order to buy some bread for lunch.

At home I had a little rest of an hour or so and then I started to collect up the stuff that I need for Belgium (and also for Canada, just in case I have the possibility to go there later this year). A few things I couldn’t find, and a few things I forgot, but I’ll call there tomorrow on my way out to the motorway and finish off a few things.

This afternoon, I took it easy. I’ve cut my hair and had a shower – so I’m nice and clean and tidy ready for the journey back home. I’ve done a load of washing too and even as I speak, it’s going round and round in the dryer because there won’t be enough time to dry it properly.

I’ve not planned my food resources correctly because I have some mushroom and lentil curry and also some home-made vegan ice cream left over. I’ll just have to come back another time to finish it off.

And now I’m off for a very early night. There will be no alarm clock in the morning because I intend to have a good sleep if I can. I’ve a long way to drive tomorrow and I’m not really up to it. I’ll have to do my best and see what happens. I can’t expect too much in my state of health.

But what was nice was that I had an e-mail from the Social Services department asking me how I was feeling and whether I’d been able to manage the journey back. That was a very pleasant e-mail – it’s nice to know that they have been thinking about me.

I didn’t catch up on my last night’s voyages, I was off on a different track completely. While I was waiting yesterday for Caliburn to have his contole technique, I was reading the local paper and noticed a story concerning someone whom I know in Pionsat. He’s been fighting a complicated legal battle for the last five years and judging by the news story and his post on his Social Networking site last night, he’s finally been successful.

And so last night, on my travels, I was involved with him in some way. It’s pretty-much a truism to say that there are no winners amongst the civilian population in a lengthy court case because whoever comes out on top, his card is marked and the authorities are hell-bent on revenge. And this was the case last night. This boy was harassed and harassed by the authorities and in the end was carried off and convicted of something or other. He’d left some of his possessions with me while he was away and I discovered a secret compartment in his affairs and the contents of this compartment went to show that maybe he wasn’t as innocent as he liked to appear. But, then again, who is? As you probably know, I have a theory that all humans are pretty much the same in the grand, and some are caught and others are not and that is the big difference.
Later on during the night I went for a walk and came across a huge mansion-type place across a field and lake and through a forest of cherry trees laden with blossom. I didn’t have my camera with me so I went back for it and then walked through the lake (it wasn’t very deep at first but I ended up over my knees by the time I reached the other side) to take a photo but of course my camera wouldn’t work. It turned out that this was some kind of Girls’ Schools something along the lines of Ampleforth College,with the girls wearing red and white checked dresses. This all rang a bell with me because I’d sat on some kind of committee where some novel educational programmes submitted by various schools had been judged, and while the winner was from some kind of mainstream school, one that had particularly impressed the committee was one that had been submitted by a person who had since gone on to become a senior teacher at this school. I was therefore interested to see if any of these novel ideas had been applied at the school and after having presented myself to the headmistress, I was granted research facilities at the school to examine the teaching and the recreational activities. I quickly adopted a committee of three sixth-form girls. I was impressed with the keenness and throughness of these girls, but not so impressed with the fact that when the bell went for the end of the day they immediately deserted and left me to do the tidying up and that sometimes went on for quite a while. One one occasion I went round to their room and “swept them out” with a large-bristled brush. Another thing that impressed me about the school was the fact that all of the food was vegetarian, although I was unable to find out if there were vegan options.

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Thursday 19th May 2016 -I WAS OFF …

… on my travels again today.

I started off at the Doctor’s this morning at &0:00, only to find that my doctor is on holiday and it was a locum in attendance. That means that most of what I wanted to discuss was pretty pointless but I handed over a few letters from the hospital and had a form signed, as well as a quick check-up. My heart-beat is high but apart from that, things seem to be quite normal for now.

Montlucon was the next port of call. I had to pay a bill at the laboratory that does my blood tests and then another bill at the tax office for all of the documents that the hospital gave me before I went off to Leuven. There’s nothing else outstanding that I cans ee for the moment, although I have a couple of bills to pay at Leuven when I return.

Once that was out of the way I went back home for an hour, most of which was spent chatting to Nicolette whom I encountered in the lane. She seemed to be quite concerned about my health, which is nice of her.

Caliburn had his controle technique at 15:OO and the garage had forgotten that I was coming. But they squeezed us in and of course Caliburn passed with flying colours. And then we nipped off to the other side of St Gervais d’Auvergne for his service. So he’s all done and dusted now and ready for the road.

Back here, I crashed out for an hour and then made tea. Microwaved potatoes and mushroom and lentil curry was on the menu followed by some of Liz’s home-made vegan ice-cream. And now I’m off to bed. I’m feeling even worse than yesterday and to make matters worse, my “upset stomach” has returned.

I’ll see if I can pick up where I left off last night because I was off on a few travels too. The first part involved my being somewhere on the continent – it may have been in Occupied Europe or a neutral country during the war but it was a big tower-block kind of building. I was talking to a woman there who was expressing her surprise that the top floor was occupied by the British Royal Air Force Bomber Command which was using the premises to direct the bombing attacks against Germany, whereas just a couple of floors down, the German Luftwaffe had offices used to direct fighter control against the British bombers. I replied that that wasn’t the only thing that was unusual – out in the grounds was a military hospital where half the staff was British and half was German and they were dealing with wounded soldiers of both armies.
From there, I found myself in Crewe in a huge traffic queue trying to go over Edleston Road bridge. I was in a driverless car – a while Volkswagen Karmann Ghia – and so I left the car to see how it would do. And it advanced quite nicely in the traffic, except that it was going too fast for me to walk after and with my illness I wasn’t able to run after it – and this really had be worried. I remember that on the bridge was an end-terraced house with the door round the side (which actually fronted onto Edleston Road) and it was actually my house. I was reminiscing about how many of these houses used to be built on the bridges in Crewe.
We haven’t finished yet, because there was a football match taking place between one of Pionsat’s teams and a team that consisted mainly of females and which only had 10 players. Pionsat were however struggling to get on top in this game and on one occasion they broke clean though the defence and the player had a shot but a defender stuck out a foot and diverted it out onto the post and out for a corner. From the corner the ball came in and the keeper missed it but a Pionsat player headed the ball in off the post for a goal. There were three Pionsat players in an offside position but they weren’t interfering with play so there was no reason why the goal should be disallowed but one of the defenders, a young man, argued so much with the referee that in the end he was sent off the field, which tilted the game even further into Pionsat’s favour.

I’ll see if I can pick it up from there.

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Wednesday 18th May 2016 – I WAS UP …

… and breakfasting long before the alarm went off this morning. 07:10 if my memory serves me well.

Mind you, I’d been up (and down) on several occasions during the night – I blame the drink that I had drunk while I was making my tea but who knows? And I was struggling on several occasions with the cramp again. It looks as if that has come back too.

I was off on my travels during the night. I was living in North America playing in a rock group and the other members of the group had seen a map of Europe and were intrigued by some of the literal (and not very correct) translations of European place-names and so we were keen to go and tour them. This involved registering with the European police in order to obtain a permit to travel, and in the end there were six groups registered, who could either tour individually, in pairs or all six together. So off we set and our first port of call was at an open-air music festival. We’d arrived during the night and set up camp in a big tent, all four of us sleeping in a large double bed. But next morning we awoke and went for a prowl around. Our attention was drawn to a huge “bigfoot” type of vehicle, so tall that two other vehicles were parked underneath it. It had a huge canopy over the right-hand side too, for sheltering passengers climbing up into the vehicle. We thought that it was a Duesenberg at first but closer examination revealed that it had the Chevrolet “bow tie” insignia on the front radiator grille.

But after breakfast, I’ve not done very much at all. I’ve not even been out of the house. I’ve spent some time catching up with the blog and that’s really about all. I’m still feeling the effects of the cork that I did yesterday and I’ve crashed out twice – once this morning and once this afternoon. And I’ve been cold too. I’ve not been warm since I’ve been back, but today was even worse.

And so I’m off to bed very shortly. I’m having a day out tomorrow and I need to be on form so I’ll call it a day and go to listen to the radio programmes. As I said before, I just can’t keep it up these days, can I?

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Tuesday 17th May 2016 – I’VE BEEN OUT AND ABOUT TODAY

So having gone to bed quite early last night, I ended up chatting to Alison and Liz on the internet. And then, having dozed in and out of sleep for hours, it was midnight when I switched off the radio and finally settled down for the night.

I had quite a few trips down the corridor, what with one thing and another, but was wide awake by about 06:30, having been off to Stoke on Trent during the night. I’d bought a Land Rover chassis-cab with a crane or winch on the back. It was in good condition but a little scabby but down in the scrapyard we discovered two perfect doors (although of a slightly different colour) so we bought them and fitted them. The next task, as my friend explained to me, was the rear valance and he sorted out his angle grinder and wire brush to de-rust it so that we could paint it over. Zero came over for a chat too, which was very nice because it’s been a good few weeks since she’s appeared in one of my nocturnal rambles.

After breakfast I started to organise myself. I sorted out all of the washing into piles that will either go back home or come with me to Belgium, and then I sorted out the paperwork. I made an appointment with my doctor as I have some paperwork that she needs to see and I need a form signing. That’s for Thursday morning.

Once I’d organised that, I went off out and about.

first stop was the garage. It’s time for Caliburn’s Controle Technique on Thursday afternoon, so I’ve booked him in for a service and a visual check to make sure that there’s nothing about to drop off on the road.

The bank was next. There’s an important bill to pay and if I don’t pay it soon I’ll be transported for life or something so that was urgent. And then I went to the Intermarché for a bit of shopping.

Finally, I ended up back at my house where I dropped off a pile of stuff, stripped out the back of Caliburn and gave him a good brushing out, and now I’ve installed my temporary bed in there for when I go back to Belgium. I couldn’t find the OSB that I use and ended up having to use a sheet of plywood as a bed base. It’s not very satisfactory, bending and creaking in the middle, but it will have to do for now until I can think of something better.

But I’ll tell you something – and that is that I’m clearly not well. Two hours of working on Caliburn, and it wasn’t very hard labour that I was doing, and I was done for. I’ve no idea how I’m going to cope in the future if I can’t summon up the energy for this.

Instead of hanging out there to do more work, I ended up coming back here where I crashed out for three hours – really gone, I was. I’ll have to catch up back at home some other time.

Now that I’ve been to the shops and bought some garlic, I made one of my mega-curries tonight with mushrooms and lentils. But there’s plenty left for the next few days because I couldn’t summon up the appetite.

Now I’m off to bed again and to listen to the radio programmes for a while. I’m ready for a good sleep, even though I’ve already had a good sleep just now.

I can’t keep it up like I used to.

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