Tag Archives: n°6

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday 10th June 2025 – IT SEEMS THAT …

… our Welsh course has come to an end for this year. Our tutor sent us the details of the homework for the unit that we have just finished, but there was no link for the next lesson.

A short while later, there was another mail with a link, but for a chat reunion at the end of July. So that seems to be that until September.

It isn’t really, though, because I have a couple of summer courses coming up and then I stumbled across a whole list of short courses for special interest groups, such as football supporters, transport workers, all different kinds of things. And I’m also going to look out for a few more virtual classroom courses.

Having some kind of face-to-face structured course is important for me because I’m not able to discipline myself sufficiently, and what with austerity and all of that, I can’t afford those ladies in Soho any more so self-discipline is important.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, I failed once again to go to bed at any kind of realistic time, despite not having all that much to do. In the end it was nearer midnight than 23:00 when I finally crawled into bed.

Once under the quilt, I remember nothing whatsoever. I must have fallen asleep immediately and there I lay, totally painlessly, until 06:15. And that, I reckon, is the longest continual sleep that I’ve had for quite some considerable time.

It was also the deepest because, as I noticed with dismay, once again there was nothing on the dictaphone.

However, I have made an executive decision – and for the benefit of new readers … "of whom there are more than just a few these days" – ed … an executive decision is one when, if it’s the wrong decision, the person making it is executed.

What I’ve decided is that I’m going to advance the alarm to 06:29 in the morning. In the good old days I used to have the alarm set at 06:00, then as my condition developed it went to 07:30, and as I adapted to things, it came backwards to 07:00. What I’ll do for now is to see how 6:30 works.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and then went to sort out the medication for the morning.

Back in here I reviewed my Welsh homework and sent it off for marking. That didn’t take too long, and it was just as well because the nurse, with no blood samples to take or injections to do, was early.

He didn’t hang about long, so I could make my breakfast and read MY NEW BOOK.

Despite it being over 400 years since it was written, and thus containing a great many myths that subsequent investigations have disproved, it promises to be quite interesting. It mentions several little-known facts that have subsequently been proven to be true but are not in the generally-attributed wider knowledge.

For example, after the defeat of Allectus and his army in 296 AD, some of his Frankish mercenary troops fled north where a wandering bunch of Roman soldiers, cut off by the fog from the main battle, trapped them in the streets of London and massacred them.

It promises to be interesting for other reasons too. Our author, John Stow, says of London that "Tacitus, who first of all authors named it Londinium, saith, that, in the 62nd year after Christ, it was, albeit, no colony of the Romans, yet most famous for the great multitude of merchants, provision, and intercourse "

Maybe that was why the Editor of Aunt Judy’s magazine had her offices there.

Back in here, I revised my Welsh and then went for my lesson. Once more, the extra preparation paid dividends and I made a lot of progress. I’m disappointed though that the lessons are coming to an end for the Summer. Just as I was starting to make progress too, after all of the barren times this last couple of years. I really need to find a way to push on.

After lunch, Ingrid ‘phoned me and we had a very long chat. She has a lot of problems right now that are distracting her from whatever it is that she’s supposed to be doing. I hope that things go well for her soon.

My cleaner put her sooty foot in the door too. With the news that the company that makes my vegan cheese is going out of business, when she was at LeClerc this morning she cleaned out their stock of grated cheese and it’s all in her fridge upstairs, even as we speak.

The rest of the day has been spent drafting the lengthy reply to the kitchen fitter, with a whole list of answers to the questions that he’s asking. At least, however, he’s asking intelligent and thoughtful questions, and we’ll probably find that most of the work will be done on the desk and the computer, which will save a lot of time in the long run.

Tea tonight was the stuffed pepper that I should have had yesterday, followed by ginger cake and soya dessert.

So right now I’m off to bed ready for a day radioing tomorrow. It’s shower day too so I’ll be having a good clean, which is nice.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about school and lessons … "well, one of us has" – ed … I am reminded of the story of the little boy who went to school for his very first day.
When he returned home, his mother asked him how he did. He replied "not very well, apparently"
"Why was that?" asked his mother
"I can’t have done enough work" he replied. "They want me to go back tomorrow".

Sunday 8th June 2025 – THIS LITTLE PROJECT …

… of mine is turning out to be not so little.

But surprisingly, it all seems to be slowly coming together and we are making progress, although I shudder to think of what the cost might be by the time that we finish it all.

As I mentioned yesterday, you come across one problem, but the way to resolve it leads to the creation of two more problems. And to resolve them involves four more problems und so weiter. I’m beginning to wish that I’d found somewhere else.

However, finding somewhere else at the price that I paid for this place downstairs would have been impossible, and by the time that it’s finished (if it ever is) it will be exactly as I want it to be, so it had better be exactly what I want by the time that it’s finished, because it will be too late afterwards to do anything about it.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, I had a relatively early night last night. It was only a few minutes after 23:00 when I finally fell into bed, although it took quite a while to go off to sleep, what with all of this turmoil swirling around inside my head

Once asleep though, I remember nothing at all until I awoke at … errr … 05:50. So much for my lie-in until 08:00. Whatever happened to the Sundays where sometimes I’d lie in bed until midday and sometimes long afterwards too? I realise that I can no longer do that, with the nurse coming round at 08:30, but a lie-in until 08:00 would be nice.

Not that I crawled out of bed straight away, though. I waited until I heard the electric water heater switch off at 06:20 and, having decided that I wasn’t going back to sleep, I bit the bullet and fell out of bed.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and then in the kitchen I sorted out the morning’s medication. There are fewer and fewer to take these days, which is good news. One day, we might reduce that figure down to none at all, but I don’t ever think that I could ever be that lucky.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was in a house with Neil Young last night and he began to play LONG MAY YOU RUN. I was listening to it and I was tempted to go to find my bass guitar and have a play with it but I was too busy listening to him actually performing it. It was about 04:00 in the morning or something like that when he was playing.

These days I don’t have to go far to find a bass guitar. There are two of them at the foot of the bed and the third is in the living room. Mind you, the fourth one is in Canada right now so that would be a long way to go, but it’ll be back here soon when I organise myself downstairs.

But if only I could play my bass guitar again. With this thing that they did to my left arm for dialysis, bending my fingers round is really painful. And then there’s the fact that I can’t stand up to play, and playing while sitting down is next-to-impossible

As for what time it was, I really have no idea at all but the dream itself was probably because just before going to bed I was listening to a Neil Young acoustic concert.

There was also something about Peter and the Three Wars of the Roses but that was one that sounded confused to me and I wasn’t sure of where I was supposed to be in the middle of all of that but I was certainly being swept around in some form of thing and I don’t know any more.

The Wars of the Roses probably relates to all of this stuff that I’ve been reading just recently about medieval castles, but if I was confused during a dream, that’s really something because when I dictate them, they all seem to be quite logical, no matter how confusing they might be during the light of day.

There’s no doubt about it – since I’ve been having dialysis my sleeping patterns have changed dramatically. As for the “I wasn’t sure of where I was supposed to be” – that’s the story of my life, isn’t it?.

When Isabelle the Nurse came round, she whipped off the plaster on my right leg and saw that the oedema had swollen up into a blister, so she promptly burst it. But it really does seem that we are just going backwards. This is exactly how things were early last summer and which I thought that we had long-since left behind us. It looks as if I’m on a race against time to move into this apartment.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

We’re still in York, and after about twenty pages of glorious exhilarating prose about the city, we’ve just about made it to the arrival of the Conqueror. We’ve still not begun to talk about Medieval Military Architecture. And when we eventually do, there’s another four Centuries to go at before we leave the medieval period and reach the Age of Enlightenment.

He’s still churning out the bewildering, flowery prose, and here’s another fine example –
"Considering the magnitude, population, and wealth of Roman York, and the number of public buildings which must necessarily have accumulated during the four hundred years which elapsed from the conquest by Claudian to the end of the Roman rule, and the presence of some of which is attested by inscriptions and foundations, it is remarked how very few monuments of the period remain above ground, or rather how completely the whole, with one or two exceptions, have disappeared."

Obviously, back in those days, there was no rationing of commas. And I shudder to think about what the flowery prose in this book of 1840 that we downloaded yesterday will be like.

Back here I finished off the radio programme and now that’s all ready to go when it’s ready. But it won’t be a while, that’s for sure. I’m well ahead now, which is just as well for the next few weeks I’m going to be occupied somewhat with my new abode.

And while we’re talking about our new abode … "well, one of us is" – ed … the rest of the day has been spent drafting a reply to the twenty questions that my kitchen fitter has asked me. I mentioned earlier that it all seems to be coming together and this series of e-mails that I had on Friday night and Saturday sound quite optimistic.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s nice to find someone who wants to do my project rather than his own. I don’t mind advice – in fact, I’ll take all of the advice that I can get and use it too – but I do object to people who try to impose their own ideas for no purpose other than it’s their idea (and to rack up the bill too, of course).

While I was at it, I sent an e-mail to the electrician to say that the electric is back on, and I asked him to let me have some kind of idea as to when he might be coming by.

We’ve no pizza dough so for an hour or two this afternoon, I’ve been kneading. We now have three lumps of dough – well, two actually because I had the third for tea and it was another delicious pizza. But I’ve no idea what I’ll be doing in the future because I’ve heard on the grapevine that the company that makes this excellent vegan cheese is going out of business.

While I was in the kitchen I also made a new loaf of bread. I didn’t really need it as there is quite a stock in the freezer but it seemed like a good idea. Once more, we aren’t going to be short of food for a while, which is good news.

So having done all of that, I’m off to bed. Later than I would like, of course, but that’s how it seems to be. I have my Welsh homework to do in the morning and then dialysis in the afternoon. At some point I have to fit in another lengthy WAR AND PEACE e-mail about the work downstairs.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about decorating my new apartment … "well, one of us has" – ed .. a painter once told me that a woman wanted him to paint her in the nude.
"So did you do it?" I asked
"Not at first" he replied, "and even later, not exactly"
"How do you mean?" I asked
"I told her that I’d have to at least wear my socks, otherwise I’d have nowhere to stick my paintbrushes."

Saturday 7th June 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone again last night. That is, of course, extremely depressing from my point of view, but ss I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … if you don’t go to bed until 01:00 and you’re wide-awake again at 04:40, you haven’t really had all that much time to go anywhere.

It’s still quite disappointing though, because I enjoyed my nocturnal rambles, even if I did keep on falling over members of my family, and I wish that they would start up (the dreams, not the family) soon.

Last night I dillied and dallied through my notes and a few other things and, as I wasn’t feeling in the least bit tired, I found a few other things to do to waste some time. In the end, though, I called it a night – or a morning – and staggered off to bed.

As usual, I fell asleep quite quickly but as I said just now, it wasn’t for long. I checked the ‘phone when I awoke and it was 04:40 – far too early to raise myself from the Dead so I loitered around, trying to go back to sleep but in the end, gave it up as a bad job

The first thing that I did was, as I promised, to take advantage of the peace and quiet of the early morning and dictate the radio notes that I’d written the other day. That will save me some time on Saturday night

The bathroom was next. I had a good wash and scrub up, and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and then went into the kitchen to sort out the medication.

Back here, I sat down and in a mad fit of enthusiasm (and God alone knows where that came from) I began to edit the radio notes that I’d dictated earlier.

The sound on my recorder is back to being all over the place and it took an age to adjust the controls so that I had something passable without sounding as if I had been dictating with my head stuck inside a bucket.

Isabelle the Nurse came along as usual, and she noticed that I had another weeping oedema, and how I am fed up with all of this too. I really did think that I’d seen the back of all of these problems, but apparently not.

After she left, I made some breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. Today, we’ve arrived at York where our author has spent several pages extolling poetically the virtues of the city and the area without mentioning once anything to do with medieval Military Architecture.

But that’s the story of this book, really. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it seems to be a guide book for the benefit of the more-informed tourist rather than, as I was hoping, a serious treatise and discussion on the important aspects of Medieval Military Architecture

Back in here, I carried on with the editing of the radio notes and by the time that my cleaner put her sooty foot in the door to sort out my anaesthetic patches, I’d just about finished them. Tomorrow, I’ll assemble the programme.

After my cleaner left, I didn’t have long to wait for the taxi, and even though we had another passenger to pick up, we arrived at the dialysis centre early.

The problem was though that so did everyone else, and they weren’t ready for us. And when they let us in I found that I’d been moved to the bed the farthest away from the entrance. As I’m slow when it comes to moving about, I was the last in bed and so the last to be coupled up.

When they came to deal with me, I told them about the oedemas and although the doctor didn’t come to see me, he recommended that they reduce my dry weight and increase the fluid extraction. I’ll go along with that until they start talking about this “four hours” and “four sessions” again. I’ve had quite enough of that kind of talk.

Today I was in a little room all on my own and no-one came to bother me. I should have been revising my Welsh but instead I drifted in and out of sleep for most of the afternoon. I really was feeling quite exhausted after my very short night’s sleep.

At the end of the session I had to wait for a while for the taxi to show up so we were just as late arriving back home as we would have been had we set out late for the outward trip.

At the building I went into the new apartment to do some more measuring of distances that I needed. One thing that I really did notice was how much easier it is to go into there rather than to struggle up all of these stairs. That’s one thing to which I shall really be looking forward when I finally do make it downstairs permanently – none of these 39 Steps or whatever they are to struggle up here.

However, that’s not for right now. I still had to struggle back up here and sort myself out.

Tea tonight was a vegan salad with baked potato and falafel, followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. The vegan salad was laced with some home-made vegan garlic mayonnaise that I made yesterday but forgot to mention. And it really is excellent.

So right now, I’m off to bed. I was planning on finishing off the radio programme but I’m still quite tired so a good night’s sleep will do me good. But if I can’t sleep or if I awaken early, I can always deal with the radio programme too.

Something else that I have to do tomorrow is to sort out my apartment – plan what I need and talk to the people who are involved in all of this. I need to push on rapidly.

But seeing as we have been talking about home-made mayonnaise… "well, one of us has" – ed … I was talking to someone about making my own mayonnaise.
"That’s supposed to be a rather religious experience isn’t it?" she asked
"Not that I know about it" I replied
"Someone wrote a hymn about it though, didn’t they?"
"I’m sure that they didn’t" I answered
"Yes they did" she insisted. "It goes something like ♬ ‘mayonnaise have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord’ ♬ "

Friday 6th June 2025 – I ACTUALLY HAD …

… a lie-in this morning, believe it or not.

Yes, there I was, lying stinking in my pit this morning as late as … errr … 05;50, and isn’t that a change from the last couple of days?

And not only that, I was in bed as early as 22:00 too. It really was a difficult night last night and I couldn’t keep on going any longer, having already fallen asleep twice while writing my notes. I dashed through everything as quickly as possible and crawled into bed, and that was that.

Nothing whatever awoke me until 05:50, as I said just now. I lay festering for a while and then decided to show a leg as there’s no point in just lying there doing nothing when there’s plenty to do.

The first thing that I did was to finish off writing the notes for the radio programme that I’d started on Wednesday. That’s now all ready for dictating on Saturday night, or maybe on Saturday morning if I have another dramatically early morning tomorrow.

The next thing was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Having told that charges would be likely to follow after this interview, Mr Blake requested leave to return home and organise some of his affairs and would return in due course. This was granted and he left the police station heading for home.

As is sometimes the case, I remember nothing whatever about this dream. It’s far from complete of course, and so I wonder what was involved in the rest of it As long as none of my favourite young ladies weren’t involved in it, it’s not important.

Later on, I was coming back from dialysis. It was my favourite taxi driver who was bringing me back. We were talking about my medical situation and the news that I’d had from Paris. She was extremely sympathetic about it but there was nothing that anyone else could do. We had quite a chat until we reached wherever it was that we were going. Then they had to use some kind of plane to skim down part of my body so that it would fit into a machine. They had to take me into a special room to do that and that was when I awoke.

And here we go again. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I have enough issues with dialysis during my waking hours. When I go to sleep, I’m supposed to be relaxing. I’m going nowhere fast if I’m going to be worrying about it during the night.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual and wasn’t hanging around. But she noticed yet another oedema blowing up on my leg – the right one this time – and weeping. This is really too bad. I went through all of that a year or so ago, and for quite a while too, but I really did think that we’d seen the last of it when it all healed up last autumn.

So now, once again, I’m covered in plasters. I have two on my left forearm covering the dialysis punctures, one on my left shoulder where I had the vaccination the other day, and now one on each shin. If it carries on much more like this, I shall end up being wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

This whistle-stop tour is pushing on now at a hell of a rate. We’ve blitzed through half a dozen castles, including the magnificent pile at Whittington that I know so well, and we’ve arrived at Wigmore Castle where I don’t suppose that we’ll be spending too long.

But being sidetracked on several more occasions, I now have a copy of a book that summarises the sources from which, in the 12th-Century romancer Chrétien de Troyes wrote his legendary stories about King Arthur. The summariser tells us that the work has been translated into English before, but it needs a translation in the modern vernacular to bring it up-to-date.

However, seeing as the summariser was writing in 1840, I would love to see one of these earlier translations.

After breakfast I came in here as I had a couple of telephone calls to make and also to send to my cleaner my order from the shops for this weekend.

After that, I went downstairs to my new apartment where I had a video conference for ninety minutes with my architect friend, discussing my plans for the kitchen. It’s turning out to be much more complicated than I was hoping, but it’s one of these things that you can really only do once and I don’t want to do it again, so it needs to be correct.

It’s like most of these places. The more that you start to do, the more you start to find and the more that needs to be done. But when you buy an apartment in a building that was erected in 1668, what on earth did you expect? It’s not a Listed Historical Building, a National Treasure of France, for nothing.

My cleaner came to join me down there afterwards. We had another look around, checked the measurements and had another think.

For example, I came to the conclusion that there’s a pile of wasted space in the bathroom. For example, you could swim in the washbasin there and lounge about on the worktop at the side. I’ve decided that maybe that can be filed under CS and I’ll buy a smaller until with sink. Then I can have a larger shower instead of a cramped 70cms affair.

Back in here later, my cleaner supervised while I had a shower – the first for a couple of weeks now that the scar on my leg from the hospital has healed correctly. And I do have to say that I needed it. It’s been quite complicated this last while.

However, between about November 2023 and September 2024 I didn’t have a shower at all because I couldn’t climb into the bath, my cleaner’s insurance wouldn’t allow her to help me and I didn’t want to have a shower when there’s no-one around to supervise in case I have a fall. It was only when I was taken in charge by that Organisation that deals with autonomy that my cleaner’s insurance would authorise it.

The rest of the afternoon has been spent discussing kitchens, working out plans, thinking about designs and so on, and then discussing them with my architect and the guy who is (hopefully) going to do it all. We’re a long way off being in a position to do anything, but things should now move along quite rapidly seeing as we now all have the same plan.

Tea tonight consisted of air-fried chips, vegan salad and some of these vegan nuggets, followed by ginger cake and soya dessert – delicious as usual

So right now, I’m off to bed to see how I sleep tonight. You never know – I might one of these days manage to sleep until the alarm goes off. Wouldn’t that be nice?

But seeing as we have been talking about mummies … "well, one of us has" – ed … Nerina and I went to Egypt once, where some local offered me 50 camels in exchange for her.
After thinking for quite a few minutes, I had to decline his offer.
"That was very sweet of you" she said "but why did it take you so long to reply?"
"I had to think about how I might be able to take 50 camels back home on the aeroplane."

Wednesday 4th June 2025 – I HAVE FINALLY …

… put my sooty foot inside my apartment downstairs. I rang up the letting agents to ask them about the keys, and was told that they had them there as they weren’t sure what to do with them. As my faithful cleaner was in town, I sent her a message and a couple of hours later, she duly presented herself at my door with the aforementioned.

And I do have to say that the tenant has not been very kind to the place. I shall have to find a decorator now to give the place a coat of paint before I move in, at the very least.

But anyway, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s a total waste of time going to bed early, because all it means is that I awaken correspondingly early the following morning.

Being dog-tired and dead to the World last night, I dashed through what I needed to do and then crawled into bed at about 22:30, where I fell asleep even before my head touched the pillow.

And while I expected to be awake early, because that’s how things are when I try to have a lie-in, 03:20 is really rather ridiculous. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t go back to sleep and at 04:00 I was sitting at the computer working.

First task was to deal with the radio notes that I’d dictated a couple of days ago in another early start. They are now all edited, the programme has been assembled and it’s all ready to go – in about a year’s time. I’m that far ahead these days.

Next was to listen to the dictaphone to find out if I’d been anywhere during the night. And I was surprised to find that I had, despite how short the night had been. I had been working on a figure in 3D last night. The bottom part went really well but I was disappointed with the upper half. I tried working it with another basic figure and managed to make the top half fine but the bottom I didn’t like. In the end what I did was that I saved the bottom half of the first figure and the top half of the second figure and then merged them both together. It seemed to work very well. Then I thought that I’d better work on some texturing for it to make sure that it’s at least finished in some fashion. That was what I was doing when I awoke.

Except, of course, that I didn’t awaken. And, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I just don’t have the time these days to do as much with 3D that I did back in the farm where I seemed to have an enormous amount of free time in the evenings after I’d finished work. In fact, I don’t have the time to do very much of anything. Where does the time go?

And later on, I was working on the biography of the group “Soft Machine” of Robert Wyatt. I was having the same kind of difficulty there. I could make half of the biography go very well and the other half not. When I went to do it again I managed to do the reverse so I thought once more about splitting them into two and combining the two best halves. That was where I reached when I awoke.

This seems to be becoming an issue, this “doing things by halves”. As for Soft Machine’s biography, they haven’t featured in any of my programmes for over a year so I’m hardly likely to be working on their biography. I think that the radio stuff is getting to me too! And I didn’t awaken then either.

After I’d had a wash, a good scrub up and taken my medicine, I found plenty of other things to do until Isabelle the Nurse arrived. She didn’t have much to say for herself this morning. She was in something of a rush, I reckon, and was soon off on her travels.

Once she’d gone, I made breakfast and read some more of my book MY BOOK.

It seems that our author is as much in a rush to reach the final pages as I am. We’re dashing through castles at an incredible rate, including a whistle-stop tour of that well-known English castle, Urquhart Castle, situated in that very traditional “heart-of-England” county called … errr … Inverness shire.

We didn’t stay there long though. We’re now in Wareham Castle in Dorset, where I encountered this magnificent sentence –
"Wareham Corfe are the keys of Purbeck, or rather Corfe is the fortress and Wareham the bridge-head of that bold projection of the chalk of Dorset, the southern headland of which bears the name of the protomartyr of England, and of which the triple spurs of Durlston, Peverell, and Studland form the eastern points, each with its own bay, and the whole protecting from the prevalent west wind the great indentation of the coast between Purbeck and the Needles, in the bight of which opens the harbour of Poole, and, under Hengistbury Head, the mouth of the twin streams that once gave name to Christchurch, before either castle or priory rose upon the banks of the Avon."
That is probably the most flamboyant sentence that I have ever read

Back in here, I had to telephone the agents to ask about the keys, and then I sat down to plan the next radio programme, which will be broadcast on … errr … 19th June 2026, assuming that the World has not come to an end before then. Whoever would have thought that, in the 21st Century, we would be thinking like that?

However, retournons à nos moutons as they say around here, I didn’t have half of the music that I needed so I spent a lot of time hunting it all down. But by the time that my cleaner arrived, I’d chosen all of the music, obtained it all, remixed and edited it, paired it off and segued the pairs all ready to write the notes.

Armed with the keys, a tape measure, a notebook and a camera-phone, we went downstairs for a look around and to measure up.

The place doesn’t look as nice as it did in the photos from when it was sold in 2016. The walls have had some patching up done to them and where they have been painted, the paint colour doesn’t match. The interior of the fitted wardrobe needs painting too. I’s been done with cheap emulsion and looks quite awful.

There’s an awful smell coming out of the dishwasher drain and that’s going to have to be cleaned out and sealed off because I don’t use a dishwasher and there’s no other way of preventing the smell from rising.

All in all, it’s not as nice as it was made out to be, but seeing as it was only 67% of the price of the two others that are on sale right now in the building (and one of those is in a poor state) I’m not complaining at all.

When it’s finished, it will be something really exceptional, I hope, provided that I can afford to have it done. The days when I could do things like this (and would do too at the drop of a hat) are long-gone.

We came back upstairs and I went through all of the photos, sorted them, annotated them and send one batch off to the electrician for his attention, showing exactly what I want doing.

Afterwards, I began to go through them again to annotate them for the joiner who is doing the kitchen, but then I reckoned that I need to be finalising the plans for the kitchen. That’s not a job of five minutes, especially as IKEA’s opening statement on their kitchen planner is “which oven would you like?” and there’s no “none” option.

As usual I became quite bogged down in whatever I was doing and made very little headway before it was time to knock off for tea, having a little chat with my architect friend along the way..

A leftover curry again, with more curry left over because I wasn’t all that hungry, which was just as well, seeing that I’d forgotten to take some naan dough out of the freezer.

On that note I’m going to go to bed ready for dialysis tomorrow, I don’t think.

But seeing as we have been talking about our author and his long-winded way of expressing himself … "well, one of us has" – ed … I always remember two guys discussing various words in the English language.
One of them said "do you know what? I reckon that the word ‘marriage’ must be one of the longest words in the English language."
"Of course it isn’t." retorted his friend
"And why isn’t it?"
"Because it’s not even a word."
"What is it then?"
"Everyone knows the answer to that. ‘Marriage’ isn’t a word, it’s a sentence."

Tuesday 3rd June 2025 – WHAT A DAY …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Friday 30th May 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… another day when I seem to have accomplished a great deal, and I’m not sure why.

The biggest news of the day is that my magnum opus, the “Woodstock Weekend” is now finished to all intents and purposes.

The second news is that I now have a kitchen fitter lined up for next month. All I need now is a plumber and tiler, but heaven alone knows where I’m going to find one of those.

It’s all possibly something to do with the fact that I actually made it into bed last night at 22:45 – the first time (barring ill-health) that I’ve been in bed prior to 23:00 for quite some considerable time. And I was so tired that I needed it too. It was quite a difficult day yesterday.

Once in bed I was asleep almost immediately and that was how I remained until about 06:05 when I had another one of these dramatic awakenings, of which I seem to have been having quite a few just recently.

When I awoke I was doing some stage effects for Genesis. They were trying to make some kind of thing similar to dry ice but would actually foam up. It involved putting it into a cardboard box and leaving it to ferment for a minute or two, then watching the reaction. We made very little progress in that because they were still trying to work out what would be the best way to go about it. We were in the middle of a discussion like that when I awoke. There was one thing, and that was all the music on that particular album was credited to “Genesis, Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett” which was strange.

Dry Ice used to be quite a thing with Genesis’s live performances back in the Peter Gabriel days, and I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if he had indeed been thinking about going one step beyond with an adaptation of his dry ice formula. It’s also interesting to see that Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett were mentioned separately to the rest of Genesis. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that when Gabriel left, it ripped the heart out of the group and when Hackett left, that was really the end. Mind you, anyone who has listened carefully to TRESPASS will realise that Anthony Phillips, one of Hackett’s predecessors, could do just as well.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I was in the kitchen sorting out my medication, and then I came back in here to find out what was on the dictaphone from last night. The current incarnation of the needs of the group began. The first thing that they did was to round everyone up from their homes and bring them into little squares here and there. They then explained to everyone what they intended to do and cried out for the people to support them so that people would bow down and kneel and pray in homage for their town. This didn’t last very long though because they decided that everyone who was currently being injected would have to be pierced instead. This meant a lot of work and … fell asleep here … I was one of the people there and I was asked to kneel. I explained that I couldn’t but they didn’t accept the explanation and I was dragged off and told to prepare to go to a Gulag somewhere in the Soviet Union

That is another dream of which I have absolutely no recollection at all, which is no surprise seeing how incoherent it is … "not that it makes a difference" – ed … And as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … when I’m dictating these dreams, I actually am asleep. But when I say that I’ve fallen asleep, what happens is that the dictaphone goes quiet, and then you can begin to hear my heavy breathing. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have mentioned that on many occasions in the past but I shall mention it once again for the benefit of new readers, of whom there are more than just a few these days.

And more than just a few too. Yesterday, according to the stats, we had 256 readers and we’ve not had that many since the halcyon days of the internet 20 or so years ago. Now if everyone who had visited had bought something using the Amazon links that litter these pages, I would receive a nice little commission that would set me up for the next few months. After all, I deserve it for all of this entertainment I’m providing.

There was time for me to go surfing through the internet to my Welsh Course provider and look for a Summer School or two. And now I’m fixed up with a Sunday School at the beginning of July and a week’s course in the middle of July. While I was looking through the short courses to see what was happening, I came across a WELSH FOR FOOTBALL SUPPORTERS from which many of you lot will benefit when you watch the highlights of the JD Cymru League games that I post regularly.

It’s the “other” nurse back on duty today until next Monday and as there were no blood tests or injections today, seeing as he won’t do them, he came early. And that meant that he left early too and I could crack on and make my breakfast.

While I was eating, I read some more of MY BOOK. We’ve now moved on from Old Sarum and have arrived at Scarborough Castle. And in a book that is supposed to be concerned with “The Medieval Military Architecture of England”, we’ve spent rather a lot of time discussing the arrival of the Saxons, which, in theory, may well be considered to be medieval, but almost nothing of their architecture is extant.

He tells us that in the years to 1189, the castle cost a total of £682/15/3d, which shows that they had accountants back in those days too.

We also have another one of these classic tongue-twisting sentences that he loves to impose upon us every now and again. He tells us that "Percy, however, did not long retain this manor, for Eudo of Champagne, kinsman, and by marriage nephew to the conqueror, on the departure of Drogo le Brevere, the reputed founder of the Norman works at Skipsea Castle, received from William the land of Holderness, and with it, probably, the adjacent manor of Falsgrave."

Back in here again, I made a start on my Woodstock programme and by the time that I knocked off, it was all finished – a marathon forty-six minutes of text to be dictated at some point. It won’t be done this weekend though because I’m going to spend a couple of days reading through it a couple of times. There will bound to be some amendments here and there as we go along, and I don’t expect the programmes to be assembled for a couple of weeks yet.

There were, as usual, several interruptions. There were two disgusting drinks breaks, my cleaner came along to do her thing (and came back later with some stuff from the chemist’s) and then there was a lengthy discussion with a joiner-type person who wants to fit my kitchen.

We’d had a lengthy chat 10 or so days ago and he’d been pricing things and working everything out. I had an idea in my head of what the likely price would be, and his estimate came in at about €15:00 over what I was expecting, so I wasn’t going to argue with that. When we’d spoken earlier, he’d come up with a few good suggestions so it seems as if he knows what he’s talking about.

All I need now is a tiler and a plumber, but I’ll worry about that in due course, I suppose.

Tea tonight was a vegan salad with air-fried potato cubes and some of those vegan nuggets, followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. As I’ve now run out of my breaded quorn fillets, I wonder what I’m going to have for tea tomorrow.

But that’s tomorrow. Tonight I’m off to bed, ready to Fight the Good Fight at the dialysis centre tomorrow.

But seeing as we have been talking about visitors … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the talks that we used to give when we were up in Labrador as winter was approaching – remember that July and August are the only months of the year in Labrador in which snow is uncommon. There is never a month when there is no snow, and I’ve fought snowdrifts in September, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.
We used to warn people that Labrador in late Autumn and early Spring is when they would be likely to encounter both brown bears and polar bears.
"When people are hiking in the interior, they usually wear small bells on their clothing and carry a pepper spray." I’d say. "They are useful if you ever encounter a brown bear. The bells will frighten it away but if they approach, the pepper spray will drive them off."
"What do you use to drive off a polar bear?" they would ask.
"There is no defence against a polar bear" I would reply.
"So how do you make yourself aware of which bears are about?"
"You need to be alert and examine the ground around you as you walk. Look out for bear droppings. Brown bear droppings will usually have seeds and leaves mixed in with them" I would say
"And polar bear droppings?"
"They usually have small bells and grains of pepper in them."

Sunday 18th May 2025 – REGULAR READERS OF …

… this rubbish will recall what happens on a Sunday morning, so they won’t need any reminder.

But for the benefit of new readers, of whom there are more than just a few these days, in the Good Old Days, Sundays used to be days of rest and I would lie in until I felt like leaving the bed. Sometimes it would be long after midday before I personally would see the light of day.

Since the nurse has been coming to see me every morning, those times really are a thing of the past. As he (or she) doesn’t usually arrive until about 08:20, I’ve tried my best to have a lie-in until about 08:00, just on the principle of the thing.

But now we have dialysis of course, and ever since then, almost every Sunday has been an early start, long before the alarm has gone off. Some times are earlier than others, but I don’t think that there has ever been a start as early as 02:05

Last night, I was absolutely whacked, as seems to be the case after a dialysis session. I skimmed through my notes and skimmed through the stats and the back-up. When I had finished everything, it was a mere 22:50.

There were the radio notes to dictate for programme 260417 and there weren’t all that many of those. By 23:15 I was tucked up in bed ready for a good night’s sleep and something of a little lie-in.

And so the story went. I was well away until all of 02:05 when I awoke. And to put the icing on the cake, I was drenched in sweat again and it’s been a long time since that has happened, hasn’t it?

It must have been a good hour at least that I was awake there, tossing and turning and trying my best to go off to sleep, and to my surprise, I eventually managed it. But not for long though. I was awake again at 05:50, drenched in sweat once more.

This time I couldn’t go back to sleep and by about 06:10, with it going light outside, I bit the bullet and hauled myself out of bed.

After the usual stint in the bathroom, I went into the kitchen for the medication. They have given me a new calcium pill, an effervescent one, and it gave me a stomach ache almost straight away. I shall have to make a note of that.

Back in here, there was some stuff on the dictaphone that needed to be transcribed. I was dreaming about some mythical God and his wife and family who used the taxis to take themselves to hospital examinations and how they were on good terms with as many people as possible although there were of course the usual one or two whom they hadn’t seemed to appreciate at all. It was only just going under way when I awoke, which was a shame.

That was when I awoke at 02:05. The dream itself is the usual confused mass of something else quite meaningless. Why would a God be going for medical treatment? Especially in a taxi? Surely if you are a God, you don’t need medical treatment, being omnipotent and eternal and all of that.

Then later, there was absolute chaos taking place as the whole economy had collapsed. There were people forming companies and businesses to do different things and were trying to arrange finance but the currency was collapsing so quickly that by the time that they had arranged some finance it was absolutely worthless. People were fighting over these limited resources and it was all becoming extremely unpleasant. There was no possible way for anyone to actually save anything. The medical service was probably the worst-hit with no medical care being offered to anyone. The most obvious course was for people to start dying by their thousands. I managed to isolate some kind of company and try to keep it out of the mainstream so that it wouldn’t be sucked in anywhere but it was a pretty difficult task and I really had to be very careful about where I was and what I was doing because I couldn’t allow it to be infiltrated or pirated by anyone else. While all of this maelstrom was going on inside the house, I was upstairs at the top of the stairs tucked away behind a corner. I heard a door open and it was two girls from the Grammar School in brown skirts and cherry-red cardigans. They were talking about a couple of musicians who had de-electrified themselves and were going to spend much more time just doing acoustic numbers instead as a way of keeping going. As these two girls went past, I decided that I’d follow them so that I could see if I could find out more about what it was they were talking about and who it was who was involved

This sounds just like post-Brexit Britain, or the housing collapse in 1992, but regular readers of this rubbish will recall the dramatic collapse of Sterling in 1973,1974 and 1975 with inflation roaring up from an already-high 10% to almost 30% per annum and the UK going cap-in hand with the begging bowl to the International Monetary Fund for a bale-out.

This dream has however made me scratch my head. Which Girls’ School had brown skirts, a brown blazer and cherry-red cardigans? I can see the school uniforms now but can I Elephants put a name to it?

The nurse came round as usual and the long-expected explosion took place. He began to talk about a subject that fills me with distaste (regular readers of this rubbish will recall exactly what it is) despite having been told on a couple of occasions not to discuss it so I told him that if he mentions it one more time, I’ll put him outside the door and find another nurse who will treat me and my wishes with respect.

After that, we had the silent treatment and then he cleared off.

I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. We’ve left Norham Castle, had a brief whistle-stop of less than half a page at Nottingham Castle and have now arrived at Odiham Castle in Hampshire, where we began by discussing that unique piece of Medieval Military architecture known as … errr … “The Basingstoke Canal”, built at the height of the medieval period in … errr … 1794.

Our author tells us that "the place, no doubt, was always one of strength, and the open woodland about it was favourable to the preservation of game, and to the wilder kind of sporting in which the Plantagenet monarchs took great delight.". I don’t know about you, but that had my imagination racing.

After breakfast I came in here to deal with some e-mails. One of them was from a guy in Caen who had seen my advert for a joiner and had replied, requesting further information. I sent him what he needed and he ‘phoned me back. We had a very long chat that turned out to be quite productive.

If I engage him, he’s going to be expensive because he lives so far away but he seemed to have the correct kind of attitude – sensitive to my ideas but with good suggestions of his own.

There was another ‘phone call, this time from a plumber. He’s going to come to see me on Wednesday for a chat.

After I’d dealt with everything, I went for a disgusting drink break and then began to edit the radio notes. There were some from a couple of weeks ago so I attacked those, and now all of that is done, the two parts are assembled, the eleventh track is chosen and the notes written ready for dictation.

Then I made a start on those that I dictated last night, and I’m about a third of a way through them.

What made me stop was that it was baking time. I need a loaf of bread and a pile of pizza dough so I set about and bashed out some dough, leaving it to fester.

Back in here, there was football, Hwlffordd v Caernarfon Town. This was a “winner take all” scenario, with the winner representing the League in European club competition next season.

In front of a massive crowd for West Wales, the largest in the League this season, it was something of a damp squib. The Cofis were clearly exhausted after their marathon 50-week season and once it became obvious that their game plan of long balls over the top to feed lightning winger Louis Lloyd wasn’t working, they had no Plan B. There were some very leaden legs out there.

Hwlffordd on the other hand had a very slow start but once they slipped into gear they gave a workman-like performance without actually setting the game alight. Some rather uncharacteristic sloppy defending by the Cofis let Hwlffordd in for two simple goals that they should never have been allowed to have, and they scored a third from a breakaway right near the end when everyone from Caernarfon was up in the Hwlffordd penalty area.

Deep in stoppage time the Cofis pulled one back, New Zealand keeper Zak Jones thinking a ball was going out and not realising that Louis Lloyd was lurking behind him, but it was too little, too late by then.

In truth, it wasn’t a great spectacle. We’ve seen many much better games than this, and Hwlffordd will have to pull themselves up a few notches if they are to improve Wales’s coefficient on the European club stage.

Tonight’s pizza was another candidate for “the best ever”, and the bread looks really good too. I’ll tell you tomorrow what it’s like because right now I’m off to bed, later than usual.

But seeing as we have been talking about the Basingstoke Canal … "well, one of us has" – ed … it somehow seems to be appropriate that "it was favourable to the … wilder kind of sporting in which the Plantagenet monarchs took great delight".
When a friend of mine, who lives down that end of the country, came on-line later I mentioned it to her.
"I’m not surprised" she said. "Didn’t you know?"
"Know what?" I asked.
"The Basingstoke Canal in the time of the Plantagenet monarchs was where the sport of Serf Riding was invented."

Saturday 17th May 2025 – I AM CONVINCED …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday 15th May 2025 – I HAD THE …

… quote this afternoon from that girl who came to see me on Tuesday.

Just a mere €27,000 “or thereabouts”. I haven’t sent off my reply as yet, because had I sent it the moment that I read the e-mail, it would have been … errr … “far from polite”. I have a feeling that this work that I want doing is not going to be as easy to arrange as I have been thinking.

Something else that I had today was yet another early start. And it could have been another quite ridiculous one for I was wide-awake at just after 04:00 this morning. However, I did manage … "for once" – ed … to go back to sleep for a while and it was a much more reasonable 06:15 when I left the bed.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … It’s pointless going to bed early because all it seems to mean is that I awaken correspondingly early next morning. So breaking my neck to finish before 23:00 as I did last night is hardly worth the effort, although I really was tired last night and it did me some kind of good to go to bed early.

Once in bed, I remember nothing whatsoever – it was as if I really did go to sleep the moment my head touched the pillow. And there I stayed until I awoke, at just after 04:00. At that time, I rolled around in bed for a while trying to make myself comfortable and at some point I rolled off to sleep again.

It was another one of those dramatic awakenings that I have every now and again, and after a few minutes to collect my thoughts from where they had strayed, I climbed out of bed.

It’s dialysis day today so I had a good wash and even a shave, and then went into the kitchen for my medication. Back in here, I transcribed the dictaphone notes from the night, such as they were. I’d moved jobs to some other department. I was no longer working in the same place. I was still in touch with some of my former workmates. One day we were talking about skiing. They sent me some kind of handwritten article about someone but I couldn’t read it so I wondered what it was. I asked them and they said that it was a report of someone and “you’ll see how important it is that everyone wears helmets when they are skiing because he had his adjusted only the previous day by a friend of yours and went out on the ski slope the following day. He’d only removed his helmet for a couple of seconds to have a breather when he was involved in a collision and was killed”. I couldn’t read the name on this piece of writing to see who it might be but suddenly I saw the name. I knew exactly who it was. A friend of mine had been his secretary, and considerably more than his secretary too for a while. They were still in contact so I wondered if she knew about her friend who had died because it’s going to be a dreadful shock to her when she finds out and I would really like to be there to console her but I doubted if that was going to be possible.

This rings a rather large and noisy bell with me and I suspect that someone might recognise the scenario. If I were to mention the name of the deceased, they most certainly would. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the World is far too small for my liking,

The nurse came around to sort out my legs and to change the plaster on my wound. And he immediately began to discuss it, no matter how many times I told him that I wasn’t interested in hearing. He really is getting on my nerves these days.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. Today, we’ve arrived at Montgomery Castle which, for the geographically-challenged author of a book entitled “MEDIEVAL MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND”, is actually in Wales. We’ve spent a great deal discussing the confrontations between the Welsh Princes and the Marcher Lords, but nothing whatsoever about the military architecture.

Back in here, we had an interesting time discussing the next few radio programmes. 260424 is the birthday of Tony Visconti. As well as being a record producer, he is also a bass guitarist and played bass on several albums. People like him, Tony Stratton Smith and Giorgio Gomelsky deserve programmes on their own.

Programme 260501 will be broadcast on the fête du travail – “Labour Day”, when people celebrate work by, with a marvellous sense of irony, not doing any and 260508 is the anniversary of peace breaking out, or, as Ambrose Bierce once famously put it – "peace – a period of cheating between two wars"

So as well as dealing with Tony Visconti, I’ve been looking for songs talking about work and also songs talking about peace. I shall have some themed programmes, I reckon.

My cleaner was late at lunchtime and I’d already sorted out the anaesthetic patches etc for when she came. But she wasn’t as late as the taxi. And thereby hangs a tale.

The driver had come from Coutances and was horribly late. He already had someone in the car who was hours late for an appointment and moaned about it all the way to Avranches. The driver didn’t know the way out of here so I had to guide him. And then there was a third person to pick up and he didn’t have a clue so I had to guide him there too.

And the first woman had moaned so much about being late that he felt obliged to go right past the dialysis centre to the clinic on the far side of town to drop her off first and then come all the way back to drop us off.

It was 14:30, one hour late, when I was coupled up and the time seemed to drag. Emilie the Cute Consultant was there but she clearly doesn’t love me any more. Her oppo, on whom I walked out the other week, was there too so doubtless she had been spreading the news.

Paris finally rang me back. My appointment is now arranged for 3rd June. Still not ideal but I can’t change it too often, I suppose. It will have to do.

They were late uncoupling me this evening and it was a miserable, depressing 19:10 when I made it home. I made a stir-fry, which I didn’t really feel like eating, and now I’m off to bed for another early night and presumably, another early start tomorrow.

But seeing as we have been talking about skiing … "well, one of us has" – ed … many years ago Percy Penguin and I went skiing in Bulgaria. I left her for a while on the nursery slopes and went up the mountain.
While we were up there, the fog fell dramatically and we had to pick our way down the mountain in terrible conditions.
One of the guys asked me "what’s the first thing that you are going to do when you reach the bottom of the valley?"
"I reckon that I’m going to give Percy Penguin a really good seeing-to"
"What’s the second thing that you’ll do?" he asked
"I’ve no idea" I replied. "Take my skis off, I suppose"

Tuesday 13th May 2025 – I HAVE DONE …

… something this afternoon that I vowed never to do unless there was a dire necessity to so do, and that was to go back to bed for a while.

Mind you, there actually was a dire necessity this afternoon. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s absolutely pointless trying to go to bed early. All it means is that I wake up correspondingly early the following morning.

Not that last night was all that early either. It was quite a struggle for some reason to keep my concentration going and I kept on drifting off down little side alleys when I should have been working and finishing everything off.

Once I’d finished doing what needed to be done, it was quite another matter to find the energy to haul myself out of my seat and head off into the bathroom to prepare for the night. However, once I finally made it into bed, I remember nothing. I must have been out in an instant.

And as I implied just now, we had another early start. We’ve had some early starts in the past, that’s for sure, but awakening at 03:05 is something like extremism. It’s not as if I went back to sleep either, but I was tossing and turning for quite a while to no good purpose.

Eventually, round about 05:00, I gave up the struggle and raised myself from the Undead. In the bathroom, I sorted myself out and then went into the kitchen for the medication.

It was about 05:45 when I finally came back in here. It was deadly quiet outside – not even the goélands were cackling – so I made the most of my early start by dictating the radio notes that I had written on Sunday for the eleventh track of programme 260313.

Pressing on, I remixed and edited them and then combined them with the two halves of the programme that I had already assembled. I ended up being, would you believe, as much as twenty-eight seconds over. But as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … there’s enough superfluous stuff in what I dictate that can be edited out without changing the sense, the meaning or the rhythm, that it was no real problem to cut the programme down to exactly one hour.

So that was a job well done, making the most of the unexpected hour or two.

There was time to transcribe the dictaphone notes, and I’m still scratching my head about these. Firstly, over the fact that there were some. Less than four hours’ sleep doesn’t give you very much time to wander off, but somehow I managed it. The second surprising thing is the actual contents of the notes themselves. What on earth must I have been doing?

Starting off, I dreamed that I was in hospital, having to be compressed at the end of a session of dialysis but there was much more to it than that because I had to have some kind of other treatment too. This meant that I couldn’t really leave the bed so they had to take me home on a stretcher. From where I was in the hospital, all the windows looked out into the mountains. You could see cars in the distance simply by the reflection of the sun in their windscreens. This went on for miles. We were there, trying to guess which one was our vehicle that would be picking us up. I ended up trying to sit up, which I managed, and they gave me some kind of programme towards when I should be able to walk and when I should be able to leave the bed etc but I was convinced that I was going to complete this programme much sooner than they wanted me to and I was already making plans to rise up and leave the bed even though I shouldn’t be able to do that, I wasn’t going to let this illness get in my way of getting up.

This reminds me of when I was in North-Eastern USA in 2019. I’d been reading John Bourke’s book ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK about his spell serving with General Crook on their mission to pacify … "you mean ‘exterminate’" – ed … the Native Americans. Bourke tells of the success that they had in tracking raiding parties … "you mean ‘groups of people defending their homeland’" – ed … thanks to the use of the heliograph. The air was so clear up there that a heliograph message flashed off a mirror could be seen fifty miles away. When I was up there in Montana looking for the remains of Fort CF Smith, I saw the sunlight reflecting off the roof of a corn silo, all of forty miles away.

As for hauling myself out of bed when I’m not supposed to, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have “previous” in this respect. I’m determined not to let this illness get the better of me and I’ll fight until the end

And then I stepped back into that dream again. After they had given me an injection, they said that I could go home. I had to take my time really slowly to sit up in bed, by which time my neighbour was eating a meal and it must have been really difficult for her to concentrate. She kept on looking round and I could see the shelves and the parcels shelf behind the rear seat. She wondered how I was going to travel six hundred miles on that … fell asleep here … it came to the point that I’d had to walk and was going to do my best to do it properly on my béquille.

Whatever that dream is all about, I don’t have the faintest idea. Although I do have to say that if I’m sharing a room with a charming young woman, I wouldn’t be in any great rush to leave the hospital, that’s for sure.

It was nearly time to leave the hospital. I was dressed and all my things were packed etc. I knew that it wasn’t going to be as simple as it sounded because of the distances that these drivers have to cover every day. They couldn’t be here on demand like you might think that they would so I was prepared for a wait. There were a couple of young nurses assigned to help me climb into the van but I didn’t really encourage them because I knew that it was going to be far simpler the … fell asleep here … I had these nurses assigned to me to help me climb into the car but I didn’t know where or when or whatever that was going to arrive. There’s much more to it than this but I keep falling asleep so I can’t dictate it and I can’t remember most of it anyway but it was about me being prepared to leave the hospital in a taxi.

This is clearly related to the struggle that I had to climb into the minibus yesterday. I wish that they had allowed two nurses to come to help me into the thing. They could have come home with me too and helped me out of the vehicle, up the stairs and into the bed.

Well, there’s no harm in wishing, is there?

It’s the male nurse’s turn to work for this coming week. He duly turned up and tried to begin a discussion about my stay at the hospital. I’m not sure how many times I had to tell him that I didn’t want to discuss it and he was still going on about it when he left.

Once he’d gone I could press on and make breakfast, with my lovely fresh bread from Sunday, and read some more of MY BOOK.

We’ve now left Ludlow Castle after having had a good chat about the history, and having passed by several minor edifices, we’re now at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire where, doubtless, we’ll have another guided tour of whatever is left of the castle without any kind of discussion about the military architecture of the place.

Back in here, I revised for my Welsh class until the lesson began and then, to my surprise considering that I’d been absent for two weeks, I had a rather successful lesson and I was quite pleased with what I had accomplished. So what’s been happening here?

This afternoon, I had a visit from one of these agencies who responded to my advert about my new apartment. After only thirty seconds of discussion, I decided that they were not for me. It became evident only too quickly that it wouldn’t be my project but theirs.

We had fatuous questions like "what about the insulation of the apartment? That will need checking" and "those radiators will have to go" and "it’ll all need a good coat of paint too" etc etc.

The crowning glory was the discussion about the kitchen
"What’s your budget on the kitchen?"
"The apartment is rather a budget apartment, 40m². It’s pointless, if not ridiculous, putting a deluxe kitchen in there. But on the other hand, I don’t want a ‘bargain-basement, economy’ kitchen"
"I see" she replied. "So you’re looking at about €15,000 then. And we can sort out some nice electromenager too."

In other words, they can sling their hook.

This renovation is turning out to be much more complicated than I ever imagined, simply because I can’t persuade tradesmen to turn up. I would give all that I had … "and more besides" – ed … to have a reliable artisan who would be happy to do just what I wanted him to do.

Throughout the afternoon I’d been going colder and colder until I was feeling really uncomfortable. My head was spinning round and I could feel myself sliding into one of these spells that I have where I’m not able to function at all.

That was the cue to set the alarm for ninety minutes hence and climb into bed underneath the bedclothes, fully clothed. I blame it on less than four hours sleep last night, myself.

After I awoke, it was a struggle to leave the bed, but once I was up and about I concentrated on choosing the music for programme 260417. There are quite a few gaps in the series but I’ll start to fill those once I finish my Woodstock weekend, whenever that might be.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg, followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert, delicious as usual. And now I’m off to bed, hoping to have a decent night’s sleep.

But seeing as we have been talking about our Welsh class … "well, one of us has" – ed …one of my classmates had said earlier that she would be late as she had to go for a memory exam at the local hospital.
However, as the lesson began, there she was.
"What happened to the memory exam?" I asked her
"Ohhh damn!" she replied. "I’ve forgotten to go".

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 – WHAT A PERFORMANCE …

… that has been today!

It actually started off quite well this morning but as seems to be the usual situation, it didn’t take all that long for it to descend into chaos.

For a change, last night I was in bed fairly early – round about 23:30. And that is early too, considering how things have been in here just recently. It’s even more surprising when you consider the wretched night that I had had after dialysis on Monday.

It didn’t take long to go off to sleep either, although I didn’t stay asleep for long. I have vivid memories of awakening a couple of times during the night, although they were just something brief and of the moment.

By 05:30 though, I was awake, and wide awake too. After a while of gathering my wits (and you’ve no idea how long it takes to do that, seeing as I have so few left), I gave some serious thought to leaving the bed and just as I was about to throw off the covers I went back to sleep again.

Once more, I awoke quite soon afterwards but even so, I had had time to go off for a wander around. I was making a start on digging the Dee Navigation, the stretch of the river that runs between Chester and the Dee estuary that was built in the – was it the Sixteenth Century? … "Eighteenth Century" – ed …to avoid the parts of the River Dee that had become silted up.

That’s why the border between England and Wales up around Queensferry and Shotton is nowhere near the river. It used to be, back in the days of old, but when that baron whatever-his-name-is … "Hugh Lupus" – ed … constructed the weir in Chester to power his water mill, the speed of the water slowed down dramatically and the Dee began to silt up with the incoming tide. Digging the new channel was a desperate final gamble to revive the fortunes of the port of Chester.

So when the alarm went off at 07:00 I had already been up, washed, had my medication and was sitting at my desk working. First task was to transcribe the dictaphone notes from the night. Isabelle the Nurse came round last night. She wanted to treat me with something to do with my legs. I had to put on my shorts before I went for a shower so that she could sort out my legs. The only pair of shorts that I had were an orange pair. She made some remark about “flesh-coloured” that I didn’t understand. When I had my shorts on I then went to put on my trousers but I suddenly had a realisation that she was going to treat my legs so I took off my trousers again. Then we had a chat about the bathroom and various kinds of things. Then she wanted the living room tidied – it was rather a mess. I had a look inside and thought “where has she put the stuff that she’s just brought in?”. No-one seemed to know. I thought “never mind, I’ll pick up the vacuum cleaner and begin to vacuum”. I pressed the foot switch for the vacuum cleaner but it wouldn’t work so I began to go round and pick up things by hand. There was a kitchen roll of orange paper and a ball of wool on the floor behind the sofa. The kitchen roll had been savaged by the cat and the ball of wool had been spread everywhere and looked as if it had also been savaged by the cat. I picked that up and the cat was still in it. It was struggling so I tried to put it down on the floor and let the cat find its own way out of the mess that it had created. We began to talk about cats. There were these cats that lived on some kind of marsh. One had just died that had been born in 1993. I thought that that was an incredible age for a cat to have.

Yesterday, I forgot to mention that I’d been talking to my little great-niece (or great little niece) in Canada. She’s back home from University for a couple of weeks and when she arrived, she was mobbed by the three cats. When she went up to the mill to see her parents she was mobbed by all of the mill cats. Consequently she spent all yesterday filming them and she was sending me her little videos for me to approve and to go “aww”. I would love to have another cat but I shall have to wait until I’m downstairs before I make any plans. As for wanting the living room tidied, so do I but somehow I have a mental block when it comes to things like that.

Later on I was on board a bus or train last night with some people, some of whom I knew. We’d been discussing various things. I’d been sorting out my papers. I had a look through – it was all my Welsh homework. I saw that it was a real mess, totally untidy and scrawly and I couldn’t read some of it. I just wondered what was in my mind when I had written some. The handwriting was just a jumble of straight lines. We were sitting there talking and I was putting away my things. I suddenly looked at the clock. It was after 18:30 and our train to take us home comes at 18:45. I said “shouldn’t we better be moving?”. Everyone began to make themselves ready. I began to put away my computer. Someone asked “why are you putting away your computer? Why not leave it here until the morning?”. I thought that that was probably the strangest thing that I’ve ever heard, leaving a laptop lying around on the seat of a bus so I carried on trying to put it away, panicking about the fact that we are going to miss our train if we aren’t ready in a minute.

Are we having another panic and bout of indecision again? It seems to be happening more and more often, although this is the first “train” dream that we’ve had for a while. We were having them quite regularly at one time, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in and out again in a matter of a couple of minutes. She didn’t hang around long at all today. I could make breakfast and read MY BOOK. We have finished at Knaresborough and are now in Leicester, having made a very brief stop at Leeds Castle in Kent.

We seem to be covering quite a bit of ground on our travels and we aren’t a quarter of the way through the book yet. At some point we’ll have to be spending a long time somewhere, even if just to fill out the pages of the book, and hopefully, we might even begin to discuss military architecture.

After breakfast I came in here to begin work. First task was to look for some music that I had been trying to find yesterday. And this was when all of my troubles began.

Some friends of mine, who have been very helpful to me in some of my certain endeavours, had, well, let’s just say “a certain issue” and as a result, everything went with its mammary glands pointing towards the sky.

Between us all, we had to end up rebuilding a computer program, and it took us about seven hours to do it. And to write a computer program of 121mb in seven hours is some going.

In the meantime, I was desperately looking around for another alternative to keep me going, without a great deal of success, and I ended up falling miles behind in the work that I had to do today.

There were the usual interruptions. There were a couple of disgusting drinks breaks, my cleaner put in an appearance, and there was also the shower, nice as it was. However, I had to put the heater back on in the bathroom for half an hour.

There was also a ‘phone call that needed my attention. Another builder rang me up to talk to me about my little project downstairs. This lot sounded frightfully professional and I have a feeling that their prices will reflect their professionalism. None of this “I’ll just nip round for five minutes with my tape measure” lark.

By the time that I knocked off for tea, I had all of the music that I needed, all edited, remixed, paired and segued. No notes though – I’ll have to dictate them tomorrow, I suppose.

The computer program is up and running too, and it works. Although for how long, I really don’t know. I shall keep my fingers crossed.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert, and now that I’ve finished my notes, I’m off to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow afternoon, I don’t think. I’m really not looking forward to it at all.

But seeing as we have been talking about falling behind … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was telling one of my friends about my problems earlier.
"Just like my local butcher" she said
"How do you mean?" I asked.
"Some woman came in and sat down on his bacon slicer" she replied
"what happened then?" I asked, bitterly regretting having done so.
"The butcher didn’t notice" she replied "and he ended up getting behind in his deliveries"

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone again this morning.

But what do you expect? If you don’t go to bed until 04:15 you don’t have all that much time to go a-wandering by the time that the alarm goes off.

What is surprising is that despite the short amount of sleep, I’ve not been at all tired today, not even for one single minute. It must therefore be the dialysis and not the overall state of my health that’s causing these little “moments”. And as it happened almost every day before dialysis, we can narrow it down to something to do with my kidneys.

So last night, or, rather, this morning, after I’d finished my notes I wasn’t all that tired and found a few things to do but eventually I thought that if I don’t go to bed now, I never will and that’s no good at all.

It took an age to go off to sleep but once I did, I remember nothing further until the alarm went off. And then didn’t I have a struggle to leave the bed? Not that that was surprising because the stabbing pain in my foot had started up again.

For once in my life I couldn’t face the bathroom so I thought “tough” and went into the kitchen for my medication.

Back in here, I found nothing on the dictaphone so I spent some time making notes about the next radio programme or two to keep me occupied.

Isabelle breezed in, in something of a rush as usual on her first day back. She mentioned that she was off to visit the town of Avallon in Burgundy. Regular readers of this rubbish in one of its previous incarnation will recall that we visited it years ago as part of our quest for the legends of the Knights Templar

After she left, I made breakfast and then read more of MY BOOK. I was correct about not spending long at Kilpeck. This morning we arrived in Knaresborough.

As usual though, I was distracted. I spent more time reading about the conflicts between the Kings, usurpers and Barons in Yorkshire in Medieval times than I did about the castle. And then following up a clue, I managed to track down a copy of John Leland’s “Itinerary”.

Leland was one of the first travel writers and his book was written towards the middle of the Sixteenth Century, in which he described his ramblings around England and Wales. Its interest as far as I am concerned is that he was a big fan of castles too and described them in great detail. Our author Geo T Clark makes several comparisons between what Leland saw and what he saw 300-odd years later, indicating how much of the superstructure had disappeared in the interval.

After breakfast I began to make the series of ‘phone calls that I talked about the other day.

By the time that I’d finished, I had my summons for the hospital in Paris (and that was a job in itself). I’m expected to arrive there Monday 5th May between 14:00 and 17:00 and I’ll be there for a week. My dialysis is arranged here in Avranches for the Monday morning and I’ll be having it in Paris on the 8th. I’ll be back on Friday evening.

The taxi is booked too. Early morning on Monday from here to Avranches and then after dialysis, straight to Paris. They’ll wait to hear from the hospital for the return.

There’s someone coming to see me on Wednesday about my renovations downstairs. I had a lovely mail this morning from the letting agent "on further consideration, your tenant has decided that she will rent a storage box as of the 3rd June, put her affairs in store and move in with relatives."

She’s obviously received my letter of the other day and it has had the desired response. Consequently I’ve been advertising the work on some of these “artisan” sites run by the various professional bodies, designed so that their members can look at them and see what work is available. I’ve already had one response.

With a bit of luck, God’s help and a Bobby, this removal planned tentatively for the last week in August might even take place. Several friends have offered to come to visit and help out, and there’s always room for anyone else to lend a hand.

What I shall be doing is talking to a few workmen, having some kind of starting and finishing date, and then handing in my three-months notice to the letting agent. I don’t mind a couple of months’ overlap of accommodation. It’s far better than finding myself out in the street.

The rest of the day has been spent radioing. 260306 is a concert, as I mentioned a few days ago, 260313 is nothing special and 260327 is another concert, one that I caught in, of all places, Montréal where my cousin’s son-in-law was sound engineer.

260320 is going to be interesting though. 20th March is “International Francophone Day”. Leaving aside French rock bands like Magma and Gong, have you any idea how many rock songs by British and American groups there are that contain lyrics either wholly or partly in French?. I’m up to thirty-four and I’m still counting.

Remember the other day when we were talking about Artificial Intelligence … "well, one of us was" – ed …? I’m disappointed in my AI search engine, that only came up with three that would fit in my programme. I had plenty of ideas myself of course … "and about the music too" – ed … and a brainstorming session in an Internet forum came up with the rest.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … Artificial Intelligence is not all that it’s cracked up to be.

Tea tonight was the stuffed pepper that I should have had yesterday, with plenty of stuffing left over for my taco roll and leftover curry, which shall be on Thursday this week.

And now, hardly tired even after the turmoil of last night, I’m off to bed. Tomorrow I have my faithful cleaner coming to sort me out and apparently she’s bringing an assistant, so I’ve been told. I shall need to be on my best behaviour.

But seeing as we have been talking about house renovations … "well, one of us has" – ed … I hope that they turn out to be better than the last lot that I had.
When I moved back to Crewe from Winsford in 1981 I had some local builders in. One of them was pulling nails out of his bag to knock into the wall, but he was throwing half of them away.
"Why are you doing that?" asked his mate.
"They are defective" he replied. "Made backwards. When I pull them out, the heads are the wrong way round."
"You fool!" roared his mate. "They aren’t defective at all. They are to be used in the wall behind you!"

Friday 18th April 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… a visitor today

My tenant has finally decided to present herself to me this afternoon.
"What do you want to do about the kitchen in the apartment?" she asked.
"If you look behind you" I said "you’ll see some kitchen units in boxes. I ordered them, paid for them and had them delivered a long time ago. It’s rather late in the day to tell me about yours"

She then began a long complicated spiel about the difficulties she was having with the apartment for which she has signed.

However, I cut her rather short. "That’s not my problem" I interjected. Then I proceeded to tell her what my problem was. I explained my medical issues, in rather forthright terms and how she was contributing to them. I told her that I had proposed an exchange of apartment but she had refused.
"But I can’t walk upstairs. I have this bad back"
"Madam" I replied. "In case you haven’t noticed, you’ve just walked up 25 stairs this very minute to speak to me. Your medical problems are obviously nothing like as bad as mine and I have to do that at least three times per week on crutches"

We carried on with that kind of chat for a couple of minutes and then I interjected once more, saying "I have nothing more to add to the matter. If you have anything further to say, you must say it to the letting agent" and I escorted her to the door.

Now she can walk the 25 stairs back down again.

She’s obviously not received the letter that I sent to the letting agent this morning because I have now decided on a course of action.

Gotthold Lessing once famously said "better counsel comes overnight" and that’s certainly true, especially when you have had a lot of night in which to think.

Having dashed through everything last night, I was finally in bed by not many minutes after 23:00, which made a very pleasant change. Looking forward to a good night’s sleep, I curled up under the bedclothes and made myself comfortable

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I had been up for an hour and a half. So much for my idea of a good night’s sleep. Of course, it’s dialysis night but it’s usually Saturday night / Sunday morning when I have sleeping issues. So it must be my guilty conscience preying on me.

But when you are awake at 05:05 and don’t leave the bed until 05:28 you have plenty of time, all nice and peaceful, to think of a plan.

My plan was firstly to go into the bathroom and have a good scrub up. And then into the kitchen and have my medication.

Back in here, armed with a mug of instant coffee, I sat down and listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I came home from school and found my mother doing her usual things, talking, and then our father came in. He was talking about a couple of things that he was intending to do in the future. One of them was “we have to pack because we are moving”. This took everyone by surprise. He said “we’re moving to London – I have a job down there. I already have the house and it’s all ready for us to move”. “Oh God!”. My mother and I were completely taken by surprise because he’d never said anything to anyone. We hadn’t put our house up for sale and there were still lots of little tasks that needed doing. The first thought that went through my mother’s mind was “I bet he hasn’t bought a house. He’s probably rented a room somewhere for us and the next stop will be two rooms and a bathroom then some kind of council house”. My mother was very dispirited. So was I. I said “I don’t want to go”. She replied “that’s not like you. You’re always wanting to move on”. I replied “yes but I want to move on to my place on my terms, not go down to south-west London”. My mother replied “you aren’t obliged to go, are you?”. I replied “no, but I’ll have to find a job, all that kind of thing, leave school”. My mother was worried about all kinds of tasks that needed finishing off, like the garage floor, all of that, but it never seemed to change anything and we were just extremely unhappy and dispirited by it all.

That is in fact just like my family. They never ever planned anything for the future. It was always a question of carpe diem quam minimum credula postero as Horace would have said and “make it up as you go along”.
.
Another intriguing thought is “why did I say “South-West London” “? I actually lived in Wandsworth once for a couple of months, that’s true. I was so fed up listening to someone’s sad tale of “never finding work” and having an excuse for every suggestion that I made, that I took action.

What I did was to place an advert in one of these local papers in South-West London – mainly because it was the only area of London that I didn’t know very well – and within 48 hours I had a room lined up. I caught the train down and found my room, dumped my stuff and went for a walk.

Around the corner was a pizza restaurant advertising for casual kitchen staff and delivery drivers (evenings) and a few doors down was an Employment Agency with an advert in the window looking for bus drivers to drive schoolkids around mornings and evenings. So within 20 minutes of arriving at my digs I was effectively in full-time employment.

It really was that easy.

When my mother said that not wanting to go was not like me at all, she was perfectly correct. I was always the adventurous one. If I had had my way, our family would have immigrated to Australia under the “ten-pound Poms” scheme in the 1960s.

After I’d finished, I sat down and wrote out my letter to the letting agents, the one about which I talked earlier. I set out all of my medical issues and all the action that I had taken to date vis-à-vis my tenant.

And here’s the crunch. The lease will definitely finish on the due date. And if she wants to stay on afterwards, she can do so – but on hotel terms and conditions and at hotel rates too. I finished with “these terms are non-negotiable. It’s ‘take it or leave it’ and I want to hear no more of the matter. The discussion is finished”.

The way she came upstairs and went back down after having rejected my home exchange offer eighteen months ago “on health grounds” has only made me more determined.

The nurse came round to sort me out and I asked me if he knew anyone in the Mafia. He seems to know everyone else who might be disreputable. It might come down to asking “Luigi and a couple of the boys” to help me do a home removal, and we’re not talking about my apartment either.

Once he’d gone I could make breakfast and read more of MY BOOK. We’re still in Kenilworth Castle having a good wander around looking at the architecture. And nothing has happened that is controversial as yet.

But seeing as we have been talking about breakfast… "well, one of us has" – ed … my hot cross buns were absolutely exquisite. Just as they ought to be, in fact. This is a real success.

Back in here, there was more discussion. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I should have had a ‘phone call from the UK last week. However, due to a family emergency it never happened.

Today though, we had a very lengthy exchange of messages, discussing the finalisation of phase one of my project and the projected start of phase two. We’ve had an estimate of sorts for the work and we discussed other work that we could also include. All we need to do now is to save up some money

Next task was to finalise my LeClerc order and send it off. They had almost everything too, and acceptable substitutes for what was missing.

We haven’t finished yet either. My niece and a couple of my little great-nieces (or great little nieces) contacted me for a chat and we had a lovely time together. Amber has just finished her exams and is quite confident that she’ll graduate in May. It’s streamed live and so she’ll send me a link.

Her High School graduation was streamed live too and I enjoyed watching it. It’s really hard to believe that in December 2003 she was such a tiny baby and I was bouncing her up and down on my knee in a car in a howling snowstorm in the Appalachians of Maritime Canada.

My first disgusting drink break, late that it was, was interrupted by the arrival of my cleaner who set about her afternoon’s task

After she left I could make a start on my Saturday At Woodstock, but not for long because my LeClerc order arrived and I had stuff to put away. With the LeClerc order came the tenant, about whom I spoke earlier, so I had her to deal with too.

Finally, I had everything put away (well, almost) and so I sat down to restart my Saturday At Woodstock.

And no sooner had I started then Rosemary rang. Just a short ‘phone call today – one hour and thirty-eight minutes. I forgot to mention earlier that I’d been speaking via text messages to Rosemary throughout the day, helping her to fix her computer at a distance.

It’s hardly a mystery that she’s having so many problems. I finally managed to receive her “SysInfo”. Her OSbuild is 5371 and mine is … errr … 5737, 360 rebuilds later, and mine’s not new. And her operating system is dated Seventh August … errr … 2020.

What I suggested to Rosemary is that she comes to help me move (if I ever do) and brings her laptop with her. I’ll fit one of my spare 250GB SSD units in it and give it a clean install from new.

What with one thing and another (and once you start, you’d be surprised at how many other things there are) it was a very late tea of salad, air-fried chips and some of those vegan nuggets, followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. All really nice, that’s for sure.

So horribly late, I’m going to bed. It’s dialysis day tomorrow. But what a day that was today. I’m glad that it was a Day of Rest. What would it have been like had I been busy? Just about everything happened today and that makes a change from the usual.

But seeing as we have been talking about Italian restaurants … "well, one of us has" – ed … a new Italian restaurant opened in Crewe and I went for a job as a delivery driver.
Nerina thought that I was crazy going for that job and that I’d never have it
However I did succeed in my application and when I saw her in the street later I gave her a wave as I drove pasta.

EPIC HALL

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