Wednesday 9th April 2025 – I HAVE MADE …

… an executive decision. And for the benefit of new readers, of which there are more than just a few these days, an executive decision is on that if it turns out to be the wrong decision, the person who made it is executed.

It’s amazing the thoughts that go through your head when you are lying there in bed at … gulp … 05:20 in the morning trying rather unsuccessfully to go back to sleep after another dramatic awakening, but there we are. I put the time to good use.

It wasn’t as if I’d been to bed early either. In principle I could have been in bed at a realistic time last night but as usual, just as I’m about to make up my mind to stagger off to bed after doing everything that I needed to do, a decent concert comes round on the playlist and so I find something to do as a good excuse for staying up to listen to it.

Eventually though, I go off to bed and go straight to sleep, only to awaken bolt-upright at 05:20 wondering why I’m still in bed when I was convinced that a couple of hours ago I’d arisen from the bed and gone into the kitchen.

So while I was pondering and musing, I was thinking. And one of the things about which I was thinking was that I’m never going to go back to sleep so I may as well raise myself from the bed and do some work.

Into the bathroom for a cursory wash today, after all, it is Wednesday and shower day, and then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, and to my surprise, despite the short night, I’d been out and about on a couple of occasions. I had to board a bus to go somewhere, and I was with a friend of mine. We climbed on board but the bus was crowded and there were people sitting on the floor. We found some space on one of the side seats over the rear wheel arch but there were some people sitting right in front of it on the floor so we had to manoeuvre our feet around. One of the people on the floor objected. I told them that my feet have to go somewhere but they carried on complaining so I told them that if they didn’t like it, they should have sat on the seat when it became vacant and then they could have put their feet on the floor but they were still extremely unhappy. In the end I couldn’t care less and began to take the mickey out of them for complaining.

Back on the bus again after last night? That seems to be becoming something of a regular occasion. I could understand the situation if I were driving it but as a passenger, that’s hardly likely. When I was fit I would walk miles and miles without even thinking about it. I remember in Brussels a few years ago when I was going to the hospital at Leuven and went for a little walk around one afternoon – and covered nineteen kilometres. And how far did I walk with Hannah on that Sunday when I was showing her around Brussels?

Later on I was driving taxis again. I was parked on the rank and was ready to pull away when another vehicle came along, drove past and reversed into a space at the side of me, another taxi, a white Hillman Hunter. As he pulled into this space he hit the front of my car. I climbed out to see what the damage was but there wasn’t a great deal. The guy wasn’t really all that apologetic. He asked me if I’d seen the guitar, some package, a similar thing. I said that someone had left a package yesterday and I’d put it in the boot of his car for him. He didn’t remember seeing it when he looked so I told him that I was certain that it was there and if it’s not there I probably still have it at home and I’ll sort it out for later.

Yes, “again”. That’s becoming far too much of a regular dream too, or is it a nightmare? If I had my time back and had to go through it again, I would have changed a great deal of what happened. I made some very poor decisions back then but hindsight is wonderful, isn’t it? And as was once said in the USA "it’s hard to remember, when you are up to your neck in alligators, that all you are trying to do is to drain the swamp".

Having put that out of the way I had plenty of work to do and I cracked on. I was hard at it when Isabelle the Nurse arrived to sort me out. We talked about my compression socks and she’ll remind the secretary of my doctor.

After she left I made breakfast. The loaf that I made before going to bed is absolutely excellent and made some lovely toast. I munched away on it while I was reading MY NEW BOOK.

This book has now turned into a whistle-stop tour of castles. We’ve probably been to six or seven this morning, just a quick walk around and then teleported ourselves on to the next one, in alphabetical order. With 669 pages at which to go, we are going to be covering a lot of ground at this rate.

Back in here, I began to concentrate.

My decision – about which I talked earlier – is that no matter what evolves downstairs, I’m going to rip out the kitchen and throw it away. I’ve been planning my own kitchen thanks to that 3D app about which I spoke the other day, and I’ve made myself a lovely kitchen and so I’m going to go with it and make my new apartment look really nice and practical.

Electrical appliances are next so I spent a couple of hours looking at fridge-freezers and built-in ovens and microwaves. In the end, my brain had turned to porridge so I abandoned the process. There were thousands and thousands and I had no idea what I wanted or what I needed.

It was at that point I had a good idea, and I contacted Rosemary. Just a short chat this morning – a mere fifty-seven yea … errr … minutes. But knowing how much care and effort Rosemary puts into checking things out, I set her a task TO PROVE THAT SHE IS WORTHY.

What I did was to tell her what I thought would be my requirements and what my budget is. And if she had my budget and my requirements, what would she buy?

She immediately made a couple of suggestions that had not occurred to me, and then she had to go to sort out a taxi to take her to hospital as she’s having some surgery in a couple of weeks. But she’s on the case which is just as well because I didn’t know who else to ask and I couldn’t sort it out on my own.

My faithful cleaner made a suggestion too. She reckons that this organisation with which I’m registered – the one that bends over backwards to help handicapped and disabled people stay in their own homes – might be able to offer some sort of assistance with the move and the fitting out of the apartment to suit my needs and requirements.

Having given the matter some thought, I wrote to them to see what they would have to say.

Then I had to send off the receipt for the new telephone and return one of the products that I’d bought from Amazon because they had sent the wrong one.

When my cleaner arrived this afternoon she helped me into the shower and I had a really good scrub up that made me feel so much better and then after a disgusting drink break, I cracked on with the radio programme.

But the time that I stopped for tea, I’d chosen all of the music (which wasn’t easy, as I said yesterday), edited and remixed it, paired and segued it and written all of the notes. That was a really busy spell of work and I was exhausted.

Tea tonight was a leftover curry. But there was so much left over that I added a couple of small potatoes, a jar of that korma mix that I bought ages ago, and made enough for three meals and the one that I ate tonight was delicious.

The naan was perfection too – definitely one of my better ones.

So it’s bedtime now, if the stabbing pain that has started up in my right heel will let me. Despite the late night and early start, I only had one or two wobbles during the day but kept on going until the end. But dialysis tomorrow of course, so we shall see.

Seeing as we have been talking about buses and Crosville the other day … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember back in Crewe in the early 1970s and the Lodekkas were beginning to be phased out. The Bristol VRTs arrived and were equipped for one-man operation.
During the first week there were several accidents and on one occasion I was there when the police were interviewing the driver
"So can you tell us what happened?" the police asked
"I’ve no idea" replied the driver. "I was upstairs collecting the fares when the accident happened".

0

Tuesday 8th April 2025 – I WAS ON THE PO …

… dium again today in the quiz in the Welsh class. I really don’t know what’s happening to me these days but I seem to be getting to grips much better with my Welsh than I was a year or two ago. Let’s hope that I can keep it up for the rest of the course. We’re so far behind on this one (Unit 11 out of 25) that I reckon that we’ll have another two years to do instead of the one that was programmed for the final course.

Perhaps my improvement was due to the better night that I had last night. I finished my notes, my statistics and my backing-up fairly early and in principle I could have been in bed by 23:00 but I can always find other things to distract me when I’m supposed to be doing something important, and it was almost midnight when I finally made it into bed.

As for the night itself, I remember nothing whatsoever. I must have been dead to the World and slept all the way through until the morning.

When I awoke it was still fairly dark so I was wondering what time it might be. I was giving the idea of looking at the time some serious thought when BILLY COTTON’S RAUCOUS RATTLE rent the heavens asunder. And so it was probably about 06:55 when I opened my eyes.

It was a struggle to my feet but I staggered off into the bathroom to sort myself out and then went into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We were in a class last night working on some kind of project. It was something of a mixture between a maths class, a language class and a logic class. We were going through a text, I suppose, and then we were moved into small groups and we had to discuss certain elements of what we’d been doing. One of these pieces was so complicated with these enormous words in it that it took absolutely ages for us to read it. It was very difficult to understand. Trying to make any headway on this project with this piece of work was extremely complicated. I think that everyone was in despair by the end of it. With five minutes to go before the end of the lesson the teacher said that we would concentrate now on doing something else. The first thing that she did was to ask us the answers to a couple of questions that she’d set before we’d been moved into groups. Of course, at that moment I couldn’t find my papers where I’d written the answers. I had a feeling that this particular lesson had been a total disaster today.

We’ve all had disasters like that in the past – missing out on something really important that has completely derailed a whole series of studies and left us stranded halfway back down the course. I’ve still not really recovered from missing all those weeks of my Welsh course in the autumn of 2022 when I spent two months in hospital in Belgium I used to try to make up for everything by going on a Summer School but dialysis has rendered that almost impossible now.

Isabelle the Nurse put her sooty foot in the door this morning. She’s started her week’s activity today. We talked about having some new compression socks, and it appears that her oppo has overlooked to tell her about it so we started the discussion again and she’ll see my doctor’s secretary to ask for a prescription.

After she left I made breakfast and read more of MY NEW BOOK. Our stay at Durham was very brief indeed and after passing by the castles at Eaton Socon and Ewyas Harold, we’ve now arrived at Exeter Castle.

At the moment, he’s setting the scene and I imagine that in a few days we’ll have the guided tour. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m disappointed by the fact that although he goes to great lengths to tell us what there is or was, he does not mention why they did it. I’d love to know more about the military principles that went into the design and building of all of this.

Another thing that I find confusing is his method of dating. A couple of weeks ago we mentioned the change of calendar from the Julian to the Gregorian in 1752, the loss of 11 days, and the change of the New Year from 25th March to 1st January. Prior to that, it was the custom to date events by what they called the “regnal year” – such as “in the third year of the reign of Richard III” or “in the fifteenth year of the reign of Elizabeth”. However, after 1752 it became the practice to date events by the actual calendar year, such as 2025 or 1939 or 1900 etc.

Not our author though. He’s insisting on using the regnal year to date almost everything, even though it had been out of fashion for 150 years when he started to write his book, and I’m having to exert myself in order to carry out some rapid mental calculation as I carry on reading.

Back in here I checked over my Welsh homework and sent it off for marking, and then set down to revise and prepare for my lesson later this morning.

By the time that the lesson began I’d prepared almost the entire unit which is good news because the more I do today, the less I have to do next week. But it was just as well that I did because it was quite a short unit and we’ve almost finished it.

We had a quiz about the things that we should have learned last week and, in contrast to how my dream went, I finished on the podium. At one stage I had a run of eight questions correct, and I’ve never done that before in any Welsh class.

And my Welsh joke – it went down really well and if the tutor laughed out loud at it, then it must have been good.

After the disgusting drink break (we actually had the prescribed two today) I had a few things to do and then I began to choose the music for the next radio programme.

The very next one will be very easy because it relates to a concert. I already have all of the music and I wrote the text years ago when Liz and I were running “Radio Anglais” in the Auvergne, so I concentrated on the one after.

This one is another one that will be complicated because there are so many anniversaries that took place on that date. It will take careful selection to sort it out.

My cleaner stuck her head in the apartment too. She’d been to LeClerc and had found some slices of vegan cheese for me, so cheese on toast will be back on the menu for lunch on Sunday.

There should also have been a lengthy chat with my friend in the UK who is handling this ongoing project but he was unavoidably detained elsewhere with another matter so we agreed to continue our chat tomorrow.

Tea tonight was as usual a delicious taco roll with rice and veg followed by orange, ginger and coconut cake with soya dessert. Plenty of stuffing left too so seeing as how things are unfolding here, I might lengthen it and divide it into two so that there will be one for next week

But I’ll worry about that tomorrow because I have bread to make. I forgot that this afternoon so I’ll rustle up a 300-gram loaf in the air fryer and then go to bed.

But before I go, I bet that you are all wondering about the Welsh joke that I told in class.
It’s not easy to say it in English because with Welsh being an ancient language, it follows really ancient grammar rules that were in place long before the Romanisation of modern Western European languages. One of those rules is that where a noun is “feminine”, the first letter of the adjective used to describe it may mutate
So – "Mae dau o blant yn cerdded yn y goedwig"
Two children are walking in the wood
"Mae hogan yn dweud ‘edrych ar yr aderyn fawr yn y goeden’ "
The girl says ‘look at the big bird in the tree’
"Mae hogyn yn dweud ‘Aderyn MAWR – aderyn yn wrywaidd’ "
The boy said ‘Big bird – bird is masculine’ (so the adjective ‘big’ doesn’t mutate)
"Mae hogan yn dweud ‘mae gen ti lygaid rhagorol’ "
The girl says ‘you have really good eyes’

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Monday 7th April 2025 – WE HAD ANOTHER …

… short session of three and a half hours at the dialysis centre today. Even though I wobbled a couple of times and crashed out for five minutes, I made it to the end

But seeing as we are talking about crashing out … "well, one of us is" – ed … I was in a different bed today where I could see everyone else in the public ward. And without exception, everyone else crashed out shortly after their machines were set under way. That doesn’t make me feel quite so bad now about crashing out.

Something else that we very nearly had this morning was another early start. Despite not going to bed until late, I was awake at about 06:40 and was debating whether to raise myself from the Dead – I’d even put the light on – when BILLY COTTON’S RAUCOUS RATTLE beat me to it

It’s quite surprising that I was awake so early because I didn’t go to bed until after 01:00. I’d finished my notes, the statistics and the backing up well before that but as usual something came along to disrupt me and I can’t remember what it was right now. It was probably a very good concert and I’ll always postpone bedtime if something decent comes round on the playlist. … "Actually, you were designing kitchens" – ed …

But once in bed I fell asleep quite quickly, but only for a short while and then we were back on the turbulent, somewhat mobile nights.

Whatever it was that awoke me at 06:40 left no impression on me whatsoever. It wasn’t the bin lorry, and it wasn’t the hot food delivery to the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs either because they both turned up when I was awake and trying to summon up the courage and the energy to leave the bed.

Billy Cotton made up my mind for me and his rattle certainly is raucous coming from this new ‘phone. No-one will sleep through this, that’s for sure

In the bathroom I had a good wash, scrub up and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant and then went for my medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, and no-one was more surprised than me to see all of the stuff thereupon. When I switched on my computer there was a message “you must go to full-screen view for this” it said, so I pressed on the full screen and there was a humanoid figure, a female one. Apparently I must have been trying to manoeuvre some of the limbs during a 3D exercise or something and somehow I’d become distracted and closed the window before I’d finished what it was that I was going. Now that I was in this full-screen I could read all the notes and see which would be the best way to resolve the issue with which the error message was dealing.

It goes without saying that in the middle of the night I didn’t actually switch on the computer. But manoeuvring … "PERSONoeuvring" – ed … the limbs of 3D characters is something that I did quite often when I was working in 3D down on the farm.

Then there was that I had to put a fascia panel across underneath the fridge and the model initiative size before its transform so that I know where everything should be

This of course makes no sense at all, but then what does? As we have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … There are all kinds of rubbish that comes to the fore during my nocturnal rambles … "and not just then either" – ed … But the fascia panel reminds me of something that I saw when I was looking at kitchens. A plinth of wood to cover the feet of the units, four metres long by about ten centimetres wide, will cost me €39:00

Later on I had another visit during the night. I was actually in hospital. At one stage in my life I’d fathered a child with someone but the relationship didn’t stick and the mother and I went our separate ways. I was in hospital last night and into my room came the sister of this girl and her mother and my little daughter who was about three or four with a couple of other small kids. I chatted to them all because I liked them. My daughter climbed onto my bed, standing there having quite a long chat about her birthday, what she’d had for her birthday, what she was going to do with her birthday money and everything like that. It was a lovely dream.

It’s a question that I’ve often been asked – "do you have any kids?" and my response is always the same – "none that I know of – no-one has come knocking on the door yet". Nerina didn’t want any kids – we’d had a couple of long talks about that – and that suited me at the time. It was only when Laurence, Roxanne and I set up home together in Jette that I realised just how much fun kids could be, especially girls. I came to the conclusion a long time ago that all kids should be girls, they should be born when they are five and at age eleven they should go into hibernation until they reach eighteen.

And then we were on holiday somewhere. We started off by going in a car and it was evening. We were driving towards Chester and came to Bluestones crossroads and turned right up the A51. We were heading towards the reservoir and noticed that the traffic had stopped so we stopped too. I could see the lights in the distance – this was a huge, enormous queue of vehicles that stretched for miles. We began to think about turning round and going back across country via Worleston, that way. Just then, a lorry came down pulling a bus with it and the bus had all been smashed in. There was another breakdown vehicle behind it pulling something else. Then the police came and told everyone to go back. They had us roll backwards down the hill towards Bluestones again so I let off our handbrake to roll back and all of a sudden rolled at an incredible rate of speed almost out of control. I really had to apply the brakes to make it stop but for that little moment it was frightening.

It was frightening too, I can tell you. I can still see it now.

And finally, I stepped back into that dream again. There was a group of us and we were going on holiday again. This time we were back at the hotel where we had started and a bus pulled up, dropped off a load of people and went again. A few minutes later another bus from the same company, one in Calveley, dropped people off as well. We wondered if this was anything to do with the accident and these people were maybe passengers on one of those buses that had been in an accident and the bus had brought me here. This time we left again and boarded a bus, an old double-decker. I was with two other guys so I grabbed a pair of seats with a free one in front but they all wanted to sit at the back. I looked round but there was no place to sit at the back so they couldn’t really do that anyway. Then we set off and were out doing something and all came back. We’d been through a forest and had been told to be careful in the forest. There were these people gathering the old decayed wood and burning it. One of them was pushing some kind of load and came to a T-junction in the forest path but instead of stopping, they just went straight on and straight through the undergrowth opposite the T-junction. We thought to ourselves “that’s not being careful, is it?”. Then we heard some music, trumpets and trombones. We had a look and it was one of these West Indian marching bands in the forest playing their instruments to entertain the workers presumably. We thought “we’d seen these on the road a little earlier. I wonder what they are doing here”. We came back to the bus and we boarded it. I grabbed three seats but the other two guys complained that they wanted to sit at the back but there was only one seat free at the back so again I wasn’t quite sure how they were all going to manage to sit at the back.

Why there should be a West Indian marching band in a forest in the UK is totally beyond my comprehension. As for the bus though, I travelled on loads of Crosville “K-series” buses, the type that they had before the Lodekka with the five-eater bench seats upstairs and the aisle down the offside. Crash boxes and manual steering, they were wicked beasts and once someone worked out the principle of the cranked axles so that they could drop the floors by a foot and the Lodekkas arrived, they soon all disappeared.

The nurse tells me that I need new compression socks – the ones that I have are wearing out rapidly, he seems to think. So as I don’t go near my doctor’s these days, I set him the task of persuading my doctor to write out a prescription.

After he left, I made my breakfast and read some more of MY NEW BOOK. We’ve finished our guided tour of Dursley Castle and have gone north to Durham. At the moment we’re talking about the history of Durham Castle and at least, the history of these places is interesting, but I don’t imagine that it will be too long before we have the guided tour.

Back in here I attacked the Welsh homework and one of the things that I had to do was to write a review of a film that deals with Crime and Punishment so I chose THE ITALIAN JOB, one of my favourite films. There was a second option, which was to write about famous criminals in your area. I considered that option for a moment but I decided to let someone else write my life story.

My cleaner turned up to fit my patches and it was a good job that she was early because so was the taxi. It was my favourite taxi driver, back from her holiday and the two other passengers with me in the car with her, we were regaled with tales of her holiday adventures.

The ‘phone rang en route. It was the hospital in Paris telling me that according to the hospital register I’m expected on Monday 5th May in the afternoon so I need my dialysis in the morning. But ominously, they have arranged a session of dialysis for me there on the Thursday. That is ominous. It looks as if it’s going to be a long stay in Paris.

We arrived early at dialysis and had to wait fifteen minutes for them to open the door. I was third to be plugged in and the good news was that I need only stay for three and a half hours.

While I was being dialysed I backed up the computer and while I was sorting some things out on the laptop I came across a book about the ephemeral railway line near where I used to live in the Auvergne. It took forty years to agree to build it, ten years to build and lasted just eight years before it closed down.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came for a chat to see how I was doing, which was nice of her. I mentioned to her about Paris but I’m not going to confirm it until I have a formal summons in my sweaty little mitt.

My taxi was waiting for me when I was unplugged and we had a nice, chatty drive back home. My cleaner was waiting for me and helped me upstairs. And wasn’t it lovely to be back home at 18:35?

Tea tonight was a delicious stuffed pepper with veg and pasta followed by orange, ginger and coconut cake with soya dessert. There’s plenty of stuffing left for the next few days too.

Now I’m off to bed ready for my Welsh class tomorrow. I need to be on form.

But before I go, one of the things that Emilie the Cute Consultant mentioned was this stomach x-ray that has been prescribed for me at the end of May.
"Why are they doing that?" she asked.
"I’ve no idea" I replied."I imagined that you had prescribed it"
"It’s nothing that I have asked them to do" she answered
"And there I was" I said "thinking that you wanted to see more of me. And let’s face it, once you’ve seen the contents of my stomach there’s not an awful lot more of me left that you won’t have seen"

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Sunday 6th April 2025 – WHEN THE ALARM …

… went off this morning, I was sitting at the table in the dining area having my medication. It’s another Sunday morning after a Saturday dialysis, and how many times now has this happened.

Even though the nursing staff assure me, I still remain convinced that they are adding something into the mix every Saturday. It can’t be a coincidence.

Maybe though, it just might be because I had an early night last night. While 23:30 may not sound as if it’s particularly early, there’s a lie-in in the morning until 08:00 and so it means (in theory, that is) that I can have a much longer sleep than usual.

After tea last night, I cracked on with the notes, the statistics and the backing-up and then I had some dictating to do – the notes for the extra track for broadcast 260130 and the notes for the major part of broadcast 260206 (I really am that far ahead), all of which I had written last week.

The dictation was pretty awful. I couldn’t concentrate and kept on muffing my lines and with all of the errors and going back to re-dictate, the timestamp on broadcast 260206 showed that it was just about the longest that I’d ever dictated. There will be some serious editing to do here when I awaken.

That was the cue to wander off to bed and despite a somewhat turbulent night, there I stayed, fast asleep until about 07:10.

For the last couple of nights I’d awoken early but had gone back to sleep so I lay there for a while hoping that jamais deux sans trois as they say around here. However, after fifteen minutes of waiting I gave it up as a bad job, arose from the Dead and went about my business.

Back in here I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. A man and a woman were up to all kinds of criminal activities. They had a really good racket or two going but the relationship began to sour between the two of them and they both ended up wishing that the other one would clear off. They began to feel that the forces of law and order were beginning to press on them so the guy announced that he was thinking of leaving and going into hiding or emigrating or something like that and how he was rather nervous of being caught. That brought a little smile to the woman’s face and she made him hold that pose that he had while she took a photograph of him for his next passport. In the meantime she was talking about leaving. She’d looked at the photo of him that she had just taken and said that she could really do with a photo like that of herself so that she could have a false passport and move. The guy had noticed that the quality of the photograph was not exactly correct so instead of saying anything he encouraged his wife or partner to have a photograph taken in exactly the same fashion because if that went into a passport presented at the frontier it’s almost inevitable that a border guard would recognise it as false and arrest her, leaving him on his own with all the loot

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we had a similar criminal couple a few days ago … "Monday, in fact" – ed …. I had no idea of the significance then and I’ve even less of an idea about it now. As for false passports though, there’s an interesting story about that but the World is not yet ready to hear it.

The nurse was again in something of a rush this morning and didn’t stop around for long, so I could make my breakfast and read some more of MY NEW BOOK.

We’ve moved on from Dover Castle this morning and are now at Dursley Castle in Somerset. A quick glance at the first couple of paragraphs tells me that we are going to have another guided tour in the fashion of the National Trust, who have owned the property since the 1950s, rather than the engineering masterclass for which I was hoping

Once breakfast was over I made the dough for a bread roll for lunch and came back in here to watch the football.

Stranraer were in Edinburgh for a match against Spartans and once again, they fell apart in defence, standing around paralysed as the opposition ran rings around them. The first rule of defence always has been and always will be “if in doubt, kick it out”, not to stand around waiting for your team-mate to do something

For most of the rest of the day I’ve been editing the radio notes that I dictated, and I was right about them being a complete mess. However, by the time that I’d finished editing they came out quite well. So broadcast 260130 is now completely finished. I assembled 260206 as much as I could, chose the eleventh track and wrote the notes ready for dictation next Saturday night.

In the meantime, the bread roll was excellent and I had a lovely cheese on toast for lunch, thanks to the air fryer. And later on, there was the disgusting drink break.

My friend in the UK who is in charge of my project contacted me today and we had a chat. Apparently Phase One is now complete. He went to check on it at the end of last week and he says that he’s impressed with it. Seeing how much it cost, it should be too, but I’ll have to wait until Tuesday to see the photos that he took.

All we need to do after that is to do Phase Two, and then Phase Three.

Rosemary rang me for a chat too. Just a short one, a mere fifty-nine minutes. We’re obviously losing our touch these days.

There was a third discussion too, with my friends on the Wirral. It’s been ages since we last chatted and it was nice to have their news, even if it was only a short chat.

It was pizza for tea tonight, another candidate for the best pizza ever. At the moment my bread-making seems to be doing OK, and I hope that it can continue like that. I’ve ordered a new calibrated water-measurer for my bread-making and when it arrives, I’ll be able to check to see if it really was the previous gauge that was incorrect that was causing all of my problems.

Something else that I’ve been doing is looking at kitchens. The more I think about it, the more I don’t like the kitchen in this new apartment and I think that maybe I ought to treat myself for once to a kitchen that I like. That would actually be a unique experience for me – I’ve never had a kitchen of my own choosing. Even the kitchen in “Expo” In Brussels, new as it might have been … "actually it was the ex-display kitchen from the Belgian Ideal Homes Exhibition" – ed … was chosen by Marianne. I didn’t like its colour but there was no doubting its quality.

However I shall worry about that tomorrow. Right now I’m off to bed ready to finish my Welsh homework tomorrow and then go to dialysis where I hope that I only stay for three and a half hours.

But while we’re on the subject of passports … "well, one of us is" – ed … it reminds me of the Russian who applied for a passport to visit France.
"Why do you want to go there?" asked the passport clerk. "Aren’t you happy here?"
"Oh, I can’t complain" replied the applicant
"So why do you want to go to France then?"
"Because In France I can complain, and I can go out onto the streets and riot if I like as well."

0

5th April 2025 – WE HAD ANOTHER …

… much less painful session at the dialysis centre this afternoon. Even better news was that I only had to stay for three and a half hours. That will suit me just fine.

It was however quite tiring, mainly because it was after 01:00 when I finally crawled into bed last night, or this morning. It was another one of those nights where I couldn’t really concentrate on what I was doing.

Writing up my notes and backing up the computer seemed to take forever and I’ve no idea why, other than the fact that neither my heart nor my mind was in it

Quickly asleep again but it wasn’t for long though. It was another turbulent night with me still being away when I heard the water heater switch off at 06:20. I was thinking that I ought to raise myself from the dead and claim another early start but I must have gone back to sleep again because the combined forces of the new and the old alarm did more to awaken the dead than John Peel ever did. I had both alarms set for this morning to make sure that the new one actually worked.

When the alarm went off I was walking with someone through the streets of an industrial town. I’d planned to take her out for a long walk at some point but she wasn’t all that interested in going. Then we had to go to see a shop so we set off along this new footpath that they had created. I thought “this is the way that I was going to take her anyway”. We walked a little way, then there was an even newer bit that went down between the railway lines and up the hill on the far side so we walked down there. We came to an area where this path was not very distinct. I thought that we’d go to the left but it wasn’t so clearly marked. We thus carried straight on and found that there was a left turning. We turned left there, and one of the locals said “you could have gone the other way”. We walked on and came through some bushes where there was a beautiful view across a lake, a really stunning view, so we walked down a slope and came to some gates of a big house. There was a crowd of people outside it. We realised that this was the home of someone famous and there were always people here. We felt somewhat embarrassed about being seen joining the crowd of all these people waiting at this gate.

Wherever this area was, I have no idea. But I can see it quite clearly even now. As for whoever it was who was with me, I’ve no idea. That’s the real disappointment about things like this. All these young ladies accompanying me on my peripatetic wanderings and I can’t remember who it was, if ever I knew them in the first place.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, and then handwashed my socks, undies and nightwear. Then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. Some girl had come into our family circle for some reason or other. She was telling us all about her childhood. She had been on a school exchange visit to the same area where I had been in 1970. We were chatting about all kinds of different things and she remembered a lake and a beautiful view across it with a view down a valley past a few villages and a large parking area at the side of the road, all situated at a very sharp bend. I told her that I knew exactly where that was because it’s a road that I take regularly down to the south-west of France. I was sure that I went there too when I was on a school exchange programme, but of course she didn’t believe it and thought that I was pulling her leg. A few months later we all set out on holiday, our family, and we took this girl with us. I thought that it would be interesting to spring a little surprise on her. Instead of going down the A7 to the Mediterranean I went along some of the old roads, through Burgundy and the area where we’d been on this school exchange. I knew exactly how this was going to end. As we came down this road the signs were for a junction to the left going off in the general direction of the Rhône and Switzerland. The old road that we were on carried on round a sharp turn to the right to go round a reservoir. As we came over the brow of the hill and the reservoir was just below us, this girl suddenly let out an enormous exclamation “this is it!”. I replied “I know that it is, exactly where I thought that it was”. We turned to go round the bend and there was a big beaten-earth parking space on the left, so even though we were pushed for time, I drove onto the parking area. We all alighted and this girl went skipping off around, looking at all the things that she remembered, the changing huts, the swimmers and everything. She was absolutely delighted. She began to tell me some more stories about her childhood, one of which involved a diary. She’d written everything down in her diaries but she already had eleven diaries so the one after that, she wasn’t really all that interested in keeping and either her friends lost it or stood on it or something but she no longer had it. That was a shame because she would have loved to have compared notes today with things that she wrote about this lake back when she was a child and had come here before.

And I wish that I knew who she was too.

The site and situation of this lake or reservoir reminds me of the Barrage des Fades near to where Liz and Terry used to live in Sauret-Besserve, although the description was nothing like how the Barrage des Fades looks. But as for my trip on a school exchange, I do have to say that it was the best thing that ever happened to me. It was my first taste of foreign travel, my first taste of a different culture and it opened up, quite literally, a whole new World. I couldn’t wait to go again – and again, and again.

But seeing as we are talking about avoiding the A7 – the “Autoroute du Soleil” that goes down the east bank of the Rhône … "well, one of us is" – ed …, on many occasions I have driven down the old road on the west bank. It’s much more picturesque and less-crowded

The nurse was in a rush today. It’s weekend so he wants to be home as quickly as possible, I suspect. And that suits me fine I went and made breakfast and read some more of MY NEW BOOK

It’s not really a book on architecture – at least, not in the fashion that I was expecting. It’s the kind of book that you would expect to see written by a tour guide, listing the interesting features and describing them in terms that would baffle any layman.

What would be important for me is not the “what” as much as the “why”, why were these castles built in the way that they were and the principles that went into their construction. These designs were not haphazard but quite significant and well-planned and I for one would want to know more about the engineering that went into them

Back in here I carried on with my Woodstock notes. I’m now at not far short of nineteen minutes of notes and I’ve probably written about a third of what I need. There will be some hefty editing quite soon.

My cleaner turned up bang on midday to fit my patches. She’d only just applied them too when the doorbell rang. "He’s early!" we both said together.

However, it was the postie with the first instalment of my recent order. Some new clothes, some baking stuff and, most importantly, the protective pouch for my new ‘phone. I had just finished fitting it to my ‘phone when the taxi arrived.

We were two passengers down to Avranches but there was quite a crowd waiting when we arrived, so I was one of the last to be fitted.

The good news is that the debit at three and a half hours was just about 800ml/hour, just under the limit for a three and a half hour session and that cheered me up. The glycerine count wasn’t much good and they kept on force-feeding me with orange juice.

Apart from that, no-one bothered me at all and I could crack on with updating the travelling laptop, revising my Welsh and looking at a few cookery recipes to see if they gave me any ideas.

It was the boss who brought me home this evening and my faithful cleaner was waiting for me to watch me as I climbed the stairs up to my place. It was really nice being here at 18:30 and knowing that, with a bit of luck on arrival, I could have been back here fifteen minutes earlier.

Tea was baked potato, salad and one of those breaded quorn fillets that I like, followed by orange, ginger and coconut cake with soya dessert.

So for once, I’m early. I’ll do the notes, the stats and the backing up and then dictate my radio notes before going to bed. I really could do with a decent sleep.

But seeing as we have been talking about taxi drivers … "well, one of us has" – ed … the police were called to an accident in Avranches this afternoon after reports of multiple casualties. 59 people had died
They interviewed the driver at the scene and asked him what had happened.
"I was going down the hill in my cab and the brakes failed" he replied. "It was either hit two men or a wedding party, so I chose to hit the two men"
"But how come there are so many casualties?" asked the policeman
"Well, one of the men made a run for it but I got him in the end, just as he reached the wedding party."

0

Friday 4th April 2025 – THIS BLASTED NEW …

… phone isn’t ‘arf complicated!

My previous telephone was made in 2016, according to the serial number, and it took a while to figure out but once I’d understood how it functioned, it was all quite straightforward. But even though I’ve had a smartphone for eight years (March 2017 in fact) and know much more about them than I ever did before, setting up my very first one was child’s play compared to this.

Yes, my faithful cleaner has been at it again, queueing up outside the ‘phone supplier’s at the end of lunchtime to pick up my new ‘phone, for which I am extremely grateful, but I bet that she isn’t after all of that.

Anyway, retournons à nos moutons as they say around here. It was actually a surprisingly early night last night – 23:25 when I crawled into bed. And it would have been earlier too had I motivated myself to finish the notes and to do the backing up without being distracted.

But anyway, once in bed I fell asleep quite quickly too. But not for long. As seems to be typical after a dialysis session, I had another turbulent, perspiration-laden night, even though it was fairly cold.

Eventually, I awoke, and stayed awake too without any possibility of going back to sleep. And after lying there for about fifteen minutes and thinking to myself “why don’t I show a leg and raise myself from the Dead” the alarm suddenly went off and Billy Cotton’s RAUCOUS RATTLE beat me to it. There I was – if only I had been two minutes earlier, I could have recorded another “early start” to make my statistics look good.

So I wandered off into the bathroom for a good scrub up, and then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. I was discussing things and life on board the space shuttle or the space station with a group of like-minded young people. We had a really good time. There was a string of characters known as an “Ouf”, there were massage sections and bed sections, dietician sections and you could even pick and change the modules that you were studying so that you would have a better choice of seeing more lectures. I chose the four principal ones of mine, Welsh, History, Geography and Geography and twenty-one other days afterwards to make up a full twenty-four-hour period that I could use for consulting just about everything including the Oracles at Delphi.

What was it that we were saying … "well, one of us was" – ed … the other week about my dreams making no sense at all? But going to see the High Priestess of the Oracle at Delphi, if she could tear herself away from chatting to Apollo, would be interesting, to say the least.

I was staying in a hotel with a group of people. We were on an excursion or tour or something. The last few days had been really beautiful weather so when I awoke at 05:00 I looked out of the window and saw the clear sky with no sun and decided that I would rise up. I prepared myself, washed myself etc and went downstairs and went outside. I went to my car to pick up a book. My car was parked right outside the door of the hotel. I found my book and thought “well, I’ll sit down here and read my book in the sunshine”. A few minutes later some of the girls who were on our trip came waling back but they had obviously been up early too. As they reached the front of the hotel they shouted up a few words to one of their colleagues who shouted something down again. They then said that they were going to go for a walk. They looked up at where my room was and shouted my name, saying “Eric, do you want to come for a walk with us?”. I replied “yes” from the car right behind them and the girls must have jumped about three feet in the air when I spoke from behind them. We all had a quick chat while I found my shoes ready to go for a walk.

The local town rang me up in the middle of the night as well. They wanted to write a feature on my recording studio at home and talk about some of the people who had been there. We made an arrangement etc so they came round. A few weeks later I was waiting at the ferry for something. The ferry that came in didn’t have half of the cars on board that it usually had. I went to have a look and it was full of these books, leaflets or magazines about the recording studio that I have in my home. I thought “this is completely exaggerated”. In the meantime I was at a folk concert. Several of the musicians were playing and one particular group had this awful habit that I detest of inviting their friends up on the stage to join them. They were telling a story about how three years ago someone local to them who they knew well had picked up the guitar, and now he’e going to play his first song to the public. He played an up-tempo rapid style arrangement of “Amazing Grace” which quite frankly was the worst song that I have ever heard from the stage in the past

Both those dreams have some kind of connection with my trip home from dialysis on Thursday. My taxi driver was formerly the manageress of a spa and massage parlour and we were having a good chat about that sort of thing on the way home. I told her about MY LEGENDARY STAY IN RENNES LES BAINS when I was hot on the trail of the Cathars and the legendary, if not mythical trail of the treasure of Rennes-le-Chateau. That was of course, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, when I nipped out for a Sunday afternoon and didn’t come home for three weeks.

But going back to the story of the taxi driver, we wer so engrossed in our chat that when her data head shouted out vous êtes maintenant près du zone de dépose – “you are close to the dropping-off point”, she really did jump into the air from her seat. I saw her.

However, if that version really is the worst song that I have ever heard being played on a stage, it must have been dreadful. I will never ever forget BILLY DRE AND THE POOR BOYS across whom I had the misfortune to stumble when I was photographing the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival in Canada. Billy Dre had the letter “I” missing from his name and “poor” definitely summed up the musical talents of his boys.

The nurse didn’t hang around long this morning, but it was long enough to ask me who was going to do the renovations of the apartment downstairs because, as you might expect "I have a friend"

After he left, I could have breakfast and read MY NEW BOOK. But not for long because as usual, I was distracted.

He made reference to the works of Matthew Paris, a thirteenth-century chronicler whose “Chronica Majora” is considered to be the first authentic attempt at creating a historical record of the British Isles. All the previous ones, such as Bede’s History, are full of myth, legend and polemic.

What also makes Paris’s work more interesting is that it’s littered with all kinds of personal notes, anecdotes and recollections that make if of much more value than a terse historical catalogue of events.

Our author, George Clark, makes reference to a translation in English, undertaken by an obscure country vicar, of the “Chronica Majora”, something for which I have been looking because my Latin isn’t up to all that much these days, and now that I know that a version exists, albeit made in 1852-84, I set off on its trail. And after much searching, I’ve tracked down all three volumes and they are now in the (long, long) list of books to read.

Back in here I set about a task that I had been meaning to do for ages, and that was to clean-out the back-up drive of redundant files from the radio shows. There’s no need to keep the music or the sound files except for the programmes not yet broadcast. All I need for the ones that have gone out are the completed programmes and the project files.

Next, I transferred over the project files and programmes for the ones that I have done since I last backed up, and blow me if I haven’t ended up with less space on the drive than I had before I started. I’m going to have to buy another 4TB disk for the back-up array and split the back-up into two.

We had the telephone to sort out next. I’d printed out the paperwork last night before going to bed, and my faithful cleaner sallied forth to the mobile ‘phone shop to wait until it opened.

And then she called me on the computer, (which would have been a lot easier for me to answer had I plugged the microphone in) with a pile of technical questions, and the shop assistant wanted to chat to me too. However, in the end all was good and she could leave with my telephone.

Back here, I set about the onerous task of configuring it.

First of all, there’s no SD card. It’s all on the internal memory (of 128GB) so it’s not just a case of swapping over the SD card. It’s possible to clone a new phone with the data and settings of an old one if the operating systems are the same. Not only that, but it involves downloading an app.

First of all then I had to fit the SIM card. And that wasn’t straightforward either but now it works. I downloaded the app onto the old ‘phone and then onto the new one, configured the Bluetooth settings and let it do its business.

Most of the stuff came over so I had to plug the new phone into the computer to copy the remainder over from there. And that wasn’t easy either because not only did I have to configure the ‘phone, I had to configure the computer too. Apparently USB linking isn’t supported on new ‘phones so I had to “persuade” it

Eventually, I could make the connection (and it took hours) and copy them over. But while I could see “my files” in the file manager, the directory that I had created, the ‘phone sounds wouldn’t identify them. Apparently personalising your ‘phone to that extent isn’t officially allowed either, but as you might expect, there’s an app available in the app store which I had to download onto the computer, check it for viruses and then load it onto the ‘phone and set it up.

It’s still not all set up as I would like, but the compass works, and so I identified Spica out of my window, now that “Skymap” is fully operational

Another issue has also arisen that came out of my cleaner’s visit to the telephone supplier. ADSL connection is ending in 2027 and everyone should be on fibre-optic by then (as an aside, I had fibre-optic in Belgium in 1997). However, where I live is in a historic building, part of the Patronym de France – the “French National Treasures” – and we aren’t allowed to deface the building. Knocking holes through the walls for cables is classed as defacing it.

And so I’ve been tracking down how to apply for fibre-optic and once I had a link I mailed everyone in the building of whom I could think, and we’ve all applied. We’ll let France Telecom and the Batiments de France fight it out between them. But we have all agreed, that if Batiments de France refuse to allow the work, we shall take out a procès against them. Internet and ‘phones these days are considered to be as essential as water, electricity and sewage connections.

In between all of that, I’ve been Woodstocking. My 6.5 minutes of notes has now grown to almost 17 minutes and I’m not even a quarter of the way through it yet. I have a feeling that I shall be having a lot of sleepless nights in the near future as I wade through this

Tea tonight was air-fried chips, vegan salad and vegan nuggets followed by orange, ginger and coconut cake and soya dessert, and then it was back in here to carry on and fight the good fight with the new ‘phone, write the notes and do the backing-up.

Now I’ve done all that I intend to do today, especially as it’s no tomorrow. So I’ll do the statistics, the backing-up and go to bed ready to carry on tomorrow.

But while we’re on the subject of new telephones … "well, one of us is" – ed … I can remember when Zero had her first mobile ‘phone back in the day
The ‘phone rang and she answered it, and was chatting away for about 20 minutes before she hung up
"20 minutes?" said her mother. "That was a short ‘phone call for you. Who was it?"
"I don’t know" replied Zero. "It was a wrong number."

0

Thursday 3rd April 2025 – I HAD TO …

… stay for four hours today at dialysis. Apparently the weight to be extracted was such that it over-ran the three-and-a-half hour limit

But Héloise was very nice to me. She kept the machine wound up so that I would leave there ahead of my target weight so in principle we shall see how that unfolds on Saturday.

My evening last night unfolded just the same as any other just recently. It was late when I finished what I had to do, and later still by the time that I plucked up the courage to go to bed. And another disturbed night saw me tossing and turning in my bed without being fully asleep.

There were a couple of times when I was wide-awake and I remember thinking that I may as well rise up in a couple of minutes, but when the alarm went off I was actually fast asleep.

It took a minute or two to find the energy to leave the bed and then I staggered off into the bathroom where I had a good wash, scrub up and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

After the medication I came back in here to see if there was anything on the dictaphone, and to my great surprise, there was. In the middle of the night I was miles away but the moment that I went to reach for the dictaphone the whole lot evaporated – every single moment, every single memory, every single thought of it. I couldn’t remember a single thing about it.

As long as neither Castor nor Zero nor TOTGA nor Moonchild were appearing in it, it’s not really all that important, although it is rather sad that my favourite young ladies have been conspicuous by the absence of late.

This next time it was connected with health issues. I’d been diagnosed all kinds of various treatments, much of which I thought was superfluous so I hadn’t been very attentive to the prescription. I’d been taking medicines when I felt like it, even abandoning some. Every time I went to see the doctor they went on increasingly wildly about it. On one occasion I went into a laboratory to do something and there was actually one of my doctors there. She gave me a really long lecture and a dressing-down about everything, how it had all been done for my own good etc. All that succeeded in doing was to annoy me. I spoke to a friend about it afterwards and told him what I thought, that I was still unconvinced by these medication arguments. However the dream drifted on like that with me being stubborn and the medical service being more and more insistent. It went o for hours but I can’t remember the rest of it. However, there was quite a lot of treatment that they were giving me that didn’t seem to make any sense at all. I just didn’t see the point in going ahead and taking it.

And that’s a contentious issue around here, right enough. The medical people have different aims than me, and that’s the root of it all. Their aim is to keep a patient alive for as long as possible, and the longer they stay alive, the more of a success it is. For me, it’s the quality of life that counts. I have no intention whatever of clinging on to life by the edge of my fingertips with no dignity just to please the medical staff.

Kingsley Amis once said "No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home in Weston-super-Mare". Percy Penguin once told me a delightful story of an old woman who had received a large box of chocolates and was stuffing them down one after the other.
"You’ll be ill eating them like that" said Percy Penguin
"I’m ninety-eight" the old woman told her. "What do I care?"

And me? Stubborn? Perish the thought!

The nurse came around but he didn’t stay long. He was soon out of the door and I could crack on and make breakfast.

We started our new book today – MEDIEVAL MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. It’s a collection of articles that appeared in magazines, mainly “The Builder”, at the end of the 19th Century.

And we become embroiled in controversy at the first page when the very first example of “medieval military architecture in England” talks about Dolforwyn Castle which, as far as most people in the neighbourhood are concerned, is situated in Wales, near the town of Abermule in Powys.

However, no-one should be surprised by this. The “Wales and Berwick Act 1746” (20 Geo. 2. c. 42) made a statutory definition of England as including England, Wales and Berwick-upon-Tweed and it wasn’t until the passing of the Local Government Act of 1972 that Wales was accorded any statutory recognition.

And there I was, thinking that this book isn’t likely to be controversial.

Back in here I had my Welsh homework to do, seeing as how I was distracted on Monday. I’ve done about half of it right now and I’ll finish off the rest on Monday next week.

My cleaner came along and interrupted me to fit my anaesthetic patches and after she left I had to wait for the taxi to arrive. There were two of us in the taxi with the driver and it was a fairly quiet drive all the way there.

For a change, I was one of the first people in there today and I was looking forward to being one of the first out too, but the weighing machine told a different story. The nurses tried to run my machine for three and a half hours but Emilie the Cute Consultant insisted on four hours. She probably wanted to see me for a little longer.

Héloise however had other ideas and kept the machine going at full stretch all the time, and I did have a few wobbles here and there. But if it means that I can finish early on Saturday, then I don’t mind. However it is disappointing to see the weight going back on.

After backing up the travelling laptop with the more recent files, I read through my Welsh for next week and, surprisingly, I went right through the unit from front to back without stopping.

The rest of the time was spent browsing through the IKEA catalogue to look for kitchen ideas for when I finally move, if I ever do. Only two months to go now.

Héloise unplugged me from the machine and once she’d compressed the vein I weighed myself and found that I was indeed under the target weight. A very chatty taxi driver brought me home where my cleaner was waiting for me, and I staggered upstairs. It had taken a lot out of me.

Tea tonight was a delicious spicy stir-fry, primarily to use up some of this cabbage and a tin of bean sprouts. And it would have been even nicer had I remembered to put the bean sprouts into it. I really don’t know what’s happening to me these days.

But now I’m off to bed. I’m Woodstocking tomorrow if all goes well, and we’ll see how far I can travel with it. All the music is chosen and some of the notes are written. But it’s not going to be easy, this series of programmes.

But seeing as we have just been talking about Old People’s Homes … "well, one of us has" – ed … the Queen Mother once visited one in Crewe a few years ago.
While she was there one of the old women who was suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease let out a string of verbal curses, oaths and foul language
"Really!" exclaimed the Queen Mother. "You have no respect for me at all. Do you know who I am?"
"No, dear" replied the woman. "But ask the matron. She’ll tell you"

0

Wednesday 2nd April 2025 – WHEN THE ALARM …

… went off this morning I was already up and about. I’d had another one of these dramatic awakenings, this time round about 05:30, and despite my best efforts I couldn’t go back to sleep.

It’s not as if I’d had an early night either. It was shortly after midnight when I’d finished all of my notes, the backing up and things like that and it took a short while for me to summon up the energy to go off to bed.

It was very difficult to go off to sleep too, and I had another quite turbulent night. I don’t think that I’d had a continuous sleep that had run for more than about an hour or so.

So wide awake and trying to go back to sleep, I heard the water heater switch itself off at 06:20 and that was the point at which I gave up and raised myself from the Dead.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up in view of the fact that yesterday’s was somewhat interrupted, and then I went into the kitchen for my medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was back in that dream about clothing again. There was something to do with buttons on that bikini although it wasn’t the same bikini but a different one, a sort-of denim blue colour. This changed eventually into something like out of the Navy Lark where Heather was talking to one of her colleagues about Leslie Phillips. They were discussing him, how he might have been cuddly and lovely but Heather said that that was only as far as it suited him and then he could be off with some other girl somewhere and he would be only interested in what he could get out of it rather than anything about anyone else.

It’s been ages since I’ve listened to on-line radio. I’m far too busy these days so programmes like The Navy Park, Round The Horne and Paul Temple have gone to well at the back of the back burner.

Most of my listening these days is spent reviewing this huge heap of concerts that I have collected from various sources over the years and trying to identify the individual tracks so that I can check the setlists to find out when and where the concerts were recorded. No-one ever thought to label the tapes back in the 70s and early 80s.

Later on I was discussing Bomber Command with a couple of airmen last night. We were talking about the typical waste of life and equipment that went on during the British attempts to bomb Germany into submission. Someone came out with a statistic that of the aeroplanes used, only one spare part was allowed per 10,000 kilometres – the equivalent of four trips to Prague and back. They were bewailing the loss of all of their friends etc who were shot down and killed, and those who never became famous simply due to bad luck that brought them down. They were talking about crashing and I asked them if they all had their little siphon tube with them in case they hit the water. Someone commented that if you hit the water from 10,000 feet a siphon tube wouldn’t do any good. They couldn’t wait to be back home at their aerodrome and mentioned a couple of girls’ names who were waiting. I went on about my way and sorted out my medication. I went into the office and there stuck in the duplicating machine was the blister pack of one of my medications that I must have left in there. I wondered how come no-one else had noticed them but I went them to take my medication and suddenly realised that I’d already taken one of them this morning and I awoke in a panic

Some of the stories that were told by the survivors of Bomber Command were horrific. On one occasion a flak shell hit a flare that had just been loaded into the flare chute of an aeroplane. The subsequent explosion destroyed the centre of the aeroplane and killed everyone on board except the pilot, navigator and rear gunner. However the plane returned home.

Someone else watched in horror as two ‘planes collided in mid-air over the target and dropped out of the sky right onto an aeroplane that was below them, and all three crashed to earth.

My mother was a WAAF in the latter stages of World War II and she’d tell us (only very, very rarely though) of some of the tales that she’d heard at de-briefing the morning when an air raid came back. Where our family lived before we moved to Shavington (about which I talked a few weeks ago) was as squatters on a variety of redundant air bases, such as Marchweil near Wrexham and at Calveley.

The nurse didn’t have too much to say for himself, although he did mention that a patient who had a blood test programmed for today cancelled it when he discovered who it was who would be doing it. That doesn’t surprise me at all.

After that, it was time to make breakfast and read MY BOOK, which is now finished.

We’ve reached the conclusion at last, which is rather disappointing. He states that "these clock-star observations were introduced into these islands about 2300 B.C.", however Maeshowe, which we discussed a couple of days ago, dates from the period 2800-3000 BC and was abandoned by about 2600BC, so this undermines his conclusion right at the very start.

Interestingly, he shows a table of various stone circles and menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … in the West Country and the dates at which their alignment was directed towards the rising cluster of the Pleiades. I plotted the sites on a map and one thing that appeared quite clearly to me was that we have two contemporary groups of neolithic constructions, which start off (Stonehenge) on a very accessible plain or (The Merry Maidens) on an exposed coastal site, and then over the years retreat into more inaccessible and inhospitable areas.

In a couple of these more accessible places, the orientation is changed to reflect the setting of Antares.

Incidentally, he tells us that "The warning stars at Athens were the Pleiades for temples facing the east, and Antares for temples using the western horizon.", but there was also a gap of several Centuries between the two.

He tells us that he has "shown that some circles used in the worship of the May year were in operation 2200 B.C., and that there was the introduction of a new cult about 1600 B.C., or shortly afterwards, in southern Britain, so definite that the changes in the chief orientation lines in the stone circles can be traced."

He goes on to say that "This change of cult may be due to the intrusion of a new tribe, but I am inclined to attribute it to a new view taken by the priests themselves due to a greater knowledge,"

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that our “Invasions Cheat-Sheet” tells us that the “Beaker-people” began to arrive in England round about 2400-2500 BC, which corresponds with the start of the alignment with Pleiades. However round about 1600BC, immigrants of the Wessex Culture began to flood into England. This date is significant as it marks the abandonment of places like Stonehenge and the beginning of the flight of the Pleiades Culture to more inaccessible and inhospitable places, and the construction of the earliest hill forts.

The more I read of things like this, the more I’m convinced that these invasions were anything but peaceful, despite the modern way of thinking, and I reckon that my cultural migration timeline and maps will have quite a lot to say on the subject.

And while we’re on the subject of the subject … "well, one of us is" – ed … you’ll understand now why I was a lousy student at University. I’d go off and do my own thing, in which I was thoroughly absorbed and thoroughly enjoying myself, regardless of whether or not it had anything to do with what I was supposed to be studying.

Most of the rest of the day has been spent radioing. I’d assembled all of the music that I needed, edited, remixed, paired and segued it, and then I wrote out all of the notes for it ready to be dictated on Saturday night.

That was despite the usual interruptions, such as my cleaner arriving, the disgusting drink break, and a wonderful, refreshing shower.

As well as that, the bank rang me up. I have a savings contract with them and that expires next month. What did I want to do?

The answer is “roll it over into a new one and use the balance on the old one as the starter sum”. I don’t know what else I’m going to do with it. It was supposed to be my savings account for if I had to change my vehicle, but as I no longer drive, it seems rather pointless.

It’s not as if I could go mad and spend it either because I can’t go out to the shops. Another trip to the High Arctic, which I would love to do, is out of the question.

While we’re on the subject of shopping … "well, one of us is" – ed … I sent off an Amazon order today. A water jug to replace the broken one, a case for my new telephone and some baking equipment as well as a couple of other things that I need.

Tea tonight was one of the best leftover curries that I have ever made, with a delicious naan followed by some more of my orange, ginger and coconut cake with soya dessert. Probably the best meal of this type that I have made. What with the excellent pizza on Sunday, the food situation is looking up.

So now I’m off to bed ready for dialysis tomorrw. But seeing as we are talking about looking up and were talking about Bomber Command … "well, one of us is and was" – ed … there was that much surpus war equipment from Bomber Command lying around after the War that it went into store for years.
Eventually, someone found it and they began to distribute it amongst the various Air Cadets branches in the country.
The Crewe branch of the Air Cadets received a supply of parachutes and so they went for parachute training.
"These parachutes are old stock, been in store for years" said the instructor "so we aren’t all that sure about them. So whatever you do, don’t pull the ripcord until you are ten feet from the ground"
"What happens if it doesn’t open then?" asked a cadet
"Well, surely you can jump ten feet" replied the instructor.

0

Tuesday 1st April 2025 – I HAD AN UNEXPECTED …

… lie-in this morning.

Every now and again, except that it’s more often than not these days, the battery in my mobile ‘phone is evaporating before my eyes.

Now that has taken me quite by surprise because it’s not as if it’s all that old. I only bought it in March 2017 so it’s really quite new. Anyway, yesterday it was doing it again so I switched the battery saver to “maximum” and charged it up from the travelling laptop while I was at dialysis.

It goes without saying that I was aware that quite a few of the services would be disabled while the battery saver was at the max, but I really and honestly didn’t expect the alarm function to be one of them. I can’t believe that my own telephone would play a poisson d’avril on me!

It was therefore actually quite a good night for sleeping. In principle I could even have been in bed by 23:00 but as usual, I loitered around for a while. Nevertheless, it was still before midnight when I crawled under the covers.

As far as the night went, I can’t remember very much at all. I was well away with the fairies, although not in any kind of fashion that would incite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine.

One thing that I can definitely say is that there seems to be nothing at all wrong with my body clock. In real money, the time is one hour less than the time on the clock since the clocks were altered at the weekend, so it was really 07:02, not the indicated 08:02, when I opened my eyes this morning.

Once the actual time had registered in what remains of my brain these days, I leapt to my feet … "not exactly" – ed … and staggered off to the bathroom. Of course, it had to be the day that the second nurse starts his round, so with no injections or blood samples to take, he arrived quite early, long before I was ready.

After he left, I could finish my scrubbing, change my clothes and then wander off for breakfast. And armed with my porridge, toast and coffee (and orange juice, and medication) I could read MY BOOK.

We’re reaching the end of the book now. He’s finished his exploration of stone circles and menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … in Cornwall and Devon and we’re now off to Egypt where tomorrow we’ll be comparing the sacred sites there with those that we’ve encountered in Britain.

What I have to say though is that, enjoyable and informative the book may have been and I don’t regret reading it, I expected a book entitled “Stonehenge and other British Stone Monuments” to have much more than 60 pages out of 332 pages of content devoted to the principal subject.

And having spent so long before coming round to the important issue of cultural migration, he abandons it and moves on much too quickly. In my humble … "?!?!?" – ed … opinion, whilst all of the physical details of the monuments are important, it’s even more important to consider the progression and evolution of the monuments in general, either in a time-basis at the same location or a place-location at various different times so as to see how the various cultures have migrated, bringing their gods and so on with them as they travelled

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … there must be a lot of mileage in plotting the spread of cultures from their original place and throughout their track to their point of arrival and final settlement.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was telling one of the nurses to be careful of this guy from the Wild West who started to appear. It seemed that he had chosen a couple of my clothes to wear to make his first appearance. That was very confusing because one of the nurses undid the wrong set of clothes for me so I warned them about it and warned them that this person would be coming in to dialysis. I would be stopping two days and taking a little more out each day. The dialysis for me went OK but everyone else was bothered by the noise coming from the bathroom where this little guy had come into the World and now wanted to go out again and go away. They asked me (…… fell asleep here …) it seemed that the guy had actually come into dialysis wearing a pair of my clothes and that’s why he wasn’t noticed. It wasn’t until they’d shaken them that he fell out. By that time the dressing room was closed and locked etc – no-one could go in. They had to find someone who had the key to the place to let him out.

If I’m dreaming about my dialysis sessions, it really IS the end of the world. I want to forget all about them when I’m not there and to relax, but I can’t do that if it’s preying on my mind like this. Especially when it all deteriorates into some kind of incomprehensible mutterings. However as for the guy who had just come into the World and wanted to leave and go away again, I can’t blame anyone for wanting to go out of this World once they’ve seen what’s going on in it.

Next stop was to prepare for my Welsh lesson, and there was a lot of ground to cover. It had to be thorough too because there would only be a couple of us today, what with ill-health, holidays and the like. So for once, I had to exert myself.

It’s not very often that I’m right, but there were only three of us today (a fourth arrived half-way through). We worked hard and quickly, and to my surprise, I enjoyed it and I thought that I did quite well, which makes a change. Since I’ve been using the dialysis as a kind-of enforced revision period, I seem to be making better progress.

After I finished, I had a disgusting drink break and then there were things to do. I needed to contact the Canadian Border Security people about that strange letter that I had the other week. That was quite important.

There were also some bills to pay, including the rates on my Canadian property. They have increased to their highest level ever this year, and for my couple of acres of North American hillside, I’m having to pay the massive sum of $145.60 – just under £79:00.

That was an interesting exercise. It took me an hour all told – five minutes to connect with my Canadian bank, five minutes to make the bank transfer and the remaining fifty minutes to look for my Canadian bank card.

There was a hospital bill to pay – there’s a daily charge of €20:00 for your food etc but as I’m classed as terminally ill, I can claim it back from the Social Security later.

Finally, there’s the indexation increase for my rent here. It’s now increased by €2:70 per month. But not for long, because I’m hoping to be out of here by the end of summer.

Having put all of that out of the way, I put another plan into action. I mentioned my failing telephone just now and as it’s the anniversary of my contract, I’m entitled to a substantial discount on a new ‘phone. I had a look on my provider’s website and saw that they had the “previous model” of the latest 5G ‘phone.

It has 128Gb of internal memory and also a compass, something that would be useful if I install the “Skymap” and some other geographical features. Last year, when it was the latest model, it was selling at an “upper three-figure” price but because of my contract renewal, it was available to me for just the two final digits. That has to be the way forward, I reckon, and so it’s on its way even as we speak.

The rest of the day has been spent on starting the next radio programme. This is going to be an interesting one because there are quite a few birthdays, deaths and album releases to celebrate. Some of the stuff that I need I don’t have, so I spent the latter part of the afternoon tracking it down.

Tea tonight was of course a taco roll with rice and veg followed by orange, ginger and coconut cake with soya dessert. Delicious as usual. However, I am going to come across a problem, namely that I shan’t need a LeClerc order for another few weeks, with the amount of stuff on hand, but I shall be running out of peppers to stuff – there’s only one left in the freezer.

That means that for once in my life I shall have to use my imagination and make several meals that aren’t on the programme. That should be interesting, to say the least. But it’s high time that I varied my diet.

But that’s something to worry about later. Right now I’m off to bed.

But not before this subject about people leaving this World because of the mess that we have made of it, about which we were talking just now … "well, one of us was" – ed … has been explored.
A few years ago a couple of extra-terrestrials came down to Earth to look for intelligent life on our planet, but they soon departed.
"Did you find any?" asked the commander of the expedition, back on their spaceship
"Intelligent life on Earth?" retorted one of them. "You must be joking"
"What do you mean?" asked the commander
"They have these incredible nuclear weapons" replied the extra-terrestrial visitor " and they can defend themselves to the death with it. Anything that comes close to them, they can exterminate it and everything for thousands of miles around, simply at the push of a button"
"And who are they pointing them at?" asked the commander. "Mars? Jupiter? Alpha Centauri? Sirius?"
"You won’t believe this" replied the visitor "but they are pointing them at each other!"

0

Monday 31st March 2025 – THAT WAS MUCH …

… more like it at the dialysis centre this afternoon. Julie the Cook’s plan of putting an ice-pack on my arm for ten minutes and changing the size of the needles, and Emilie the Cute Consultant’s plan to connect me up in another part of my arm combined this afternoon to make it one of the least painful sessions that I have ever had.

Something else that was comparatively painless was going to bed last night. I might not have beaten my old 23:00 curfew but I was certainly in bed and asleep before midnight. The timestamp on one of the recordings on the dictaphone confirms that.

At one point I did awaken though – to throw off the fleece that I’ve been wearing in bed this last week or so. It’s been comparatively warm this last day or two and last night, for the first time, the warmth carried on through the night.
"Sumer is iceumen in
Lhude sing cuccu"
and all that.

When the alarm went off, I was dead to the World and it was a valiant struggle to my feet and into the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up. And a shave and change of clothes too! After all, who knows? I might meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

After giving my old clothes a good scrub in the sink I went into the kitchen for the medication and then back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.

Last night I was out driving taxis. I can’t remember all that much about it because it disappeared quite quickly when I awoke but there was something about me going off to fetch my evening meal. It was something on toast. I had to wait for my evening meal until I’d taken £30:00 so far on that particular shift but it was something of a slow night and I seem to have been waiting for ever. Eventually I took my excuse of everyone else and went home to have something on toast for tea.

Just recently I seem to have been spending a lot of my sleeping hours driving taxis. I’m not quite sure why because I won’t ever drive again so even if I were to have any ambitions in that respect, they would be thwarted immediately. Perhaps that’s why I’m dreaming – I’m pining for the open road.

That dream about taxi driving, I stepped back into it later on. The taxi driving was some kind of cover for a real criminal event that was stealing women and selling them off into slavery in the Middle East. This had been going on for several years. The police finally latched onto the trail of something so these two people discreetly hid out of the way in their town somewhere and the police chased after whoever it was who they were chasing. They had some extremely interesting chases and captures but these two people still eluded them. However a couple of policemen were watching them for some reason or other but this man and wife were doing nothing particularly illegal but the police were interested in them. One day during one of these big car chases something happened that led one or two of the police cars to return to the town. At the time, these two people were sitting in an open-air restaurant halfway up a mountain near a U-bend on a main road. They were having a meal with these two policemen watching them from another table. Suddenly, they were surprised by this police car coming back and coming up this road. The police car stopped outside this restaurant and the two guys went over to talk to it to make their report. They indicated to the policeman where these two people were sitting so of course these two people began to panic

There are quite a few stories I could tell you about that too, not concerning me, I hasten to add. However I once had an extremely uncomfortable encounter with several taxi drivers in the back of Hanley once when I was engaged in a completely different activity shortly before leaving for Europe, and shots were fired

later on I was on board the train again going to Moncton. It pulled into the station at wherever it is … "Matapedia" – ed … and they announced “terminus – all change”. I suddenly realised that the train was running on the winter timetable and the train stopped here. Everyone went on by bus. I had to find my shoes and put them on, sort out my baggage. There was another guy there who was making ready to leave so I said “we’re on the winter timetable now” to which he replied “yes”. I showed him one train trip on a strip that I had cut out. I said “my friends back in the UK can’t believe that this is the winter timetable”. he burst out laughing, shook his head and said that it was sad. “yes” I replied “and the worst of it all is that they think that this is one train per day, not one train per winter”. We had a chat about Canadian Railways. He asked where I was from so I told him “near Manchester”. We had quite a lengthy chat on board the train about nothing whatsoever while we waited for the bus to arrive to carry us on.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall OUR LEGENDARY JOURNEY ON CANADIAN RAILWAYS to Moncton and back in 2022.And shame as it is to say it, Canadian Railways are a national disgrace and an embarrassment to a developed country. I’m used to travelling on state-of-the-art high-speed trains all over Europe, but what passengers are offered in Canada is more like state-of-the-Ark equipment. Apart from a small handful of commuter lines around Montréal and the city of Québec, there is just one passenger train east of Montréal, and that runs just three days every week to Halifax. In any civilised country, the equipment used on that service would have been sent for scrap years and years ago. We crawled along at an average speed of 35mph from Montréal to Moncton and I was on that blasted train for almost 20 hours. Then I had to wait three hours for a four-hour bus trip to take me to the family pile. If you don’t have a car in North America, you have some very major problems to confront.

Isabelle the Nurse didn’t stay around for very long today. It’s her final day before her break so I imagine that she had plenty of blood tests and injections to handle with people refusing to let her oppo do the.

But once she left, I could make breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

We’ve reached a very interesting point in the book today. We’re discussing languages and he seems to think that the syntax and sentence order in Welsh is very similar to the sentence order in some North African dialects. He quotes one researcher, saying that "he finds the similarities between Old Egyptian and neo-Celtic syntax to be astonishing ; he shows that practically all the peculiarities of Welsh and Irish syntax are found in the Hamitic languages."

Why that’s important is because there have been traces of common bone structure between some North African people, some Iberian people and some Brythonic people, to such an extent that it is suggested by others in more modern times that a wave of invaders that came to Britain round about 4000BC took that particular route

He goes on to consider similarities between the Babylonian temples and the pyramids etc of Egypt and then, in discussing Maeshowe on the Orkneys, he (and many, many other people have) compared the design, contruction and finishing of the chamber at Maeshowe with some of the pyramids.

According to later research, Maeshowe was constructed in about 3000BC and was abandoned round about 2500BC in dramatic fashion, with personal possessions left behind.

It can’t have escaped your notice that if work began on Stonehenge round about 2600BC in a much less skilful fashion, it would be likely to have been built by different people from a different part of Europe, unaccustoned to the fine proto-Egyptian work. And according to my invasion cheat-sheet, the Beaker people arrived in Britain round about that time. One modern researcher who carried out a DNA analysis "calculates that Britain saw a greater than 90% shift in its genetic make-up" in other words, some pretty ruthless ethnic cleansing.

Back in here I had things to do and was still doing them when my cleaner arrived to fit my anaesthetic patches. The taxi came early too, but it was not to my advantage because we then had to go out and about to pick up two other people.

At the clinic I was one of the last to arrive so of course I was one of the last to be plugged in. But the good news was that the amount of water to be lost was just marginally under the three-and-a-half hour limit so I would be home early tonight

Apparently I have been allocated a personal nurse who will handle my dossier and it’s Julie the Cook who has drawn the short straw. She filled me in on what that implies before she went home. And apparently it does NOT include soothing my fevered brown.

She’s arranged an appointment in May for me to have a scan and x-ray on my stomach. Whatever for, I have no idea. I prefer not to know.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came for a little chat today which was nice of her. She can come to chat to me any time she likes of course.

The hospital at Paris rang me up too. This appointment that I’m supposed to be having, its not with the Haematologist but with the Neurologist so the dialysis centre will have to organise something with them.

There were a few wobbles this afternoon at a couple of moments but I kept on going until the end. But any hopes of being home early evaporated as there was another medical emergency, this time involving someone else and all the nurses dashed off.

A nice chatty driver brought me home in the sunshine and it was pleasant to be back in the warm daylight. I stood outside without a jacket for a few minutes and soaked up the air.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper with pasta followed by orange, gigner and coconut cake with soya dessert.

Welsh tomorrow of course, and I have a lot to revise so I need to put in another good effort. But right now, I’m off to bed

But seeing as we are talking about my train trip in Canada … "well, one of us is" – ed … there were three Americans and three Canadians sitting together on my train to Moncton The Americans had a ticket each but the Candians had only one between them
"How’s that going to work?" asked the Americans
"Wait and see" replied the Canadians.
When the inspector came down the aisle the Americans prepared their tickets while the Canadians dashed into the toilet.
After chacking the Americans, the inspector knocked on the toilet door and one Canadian slid the ticket out underneath. The inspector stamped it and walked on.
On the return trip back to Montréal, they were there again.
This time the Americans had only one ticket, but the Canadians had none
"How’s that going to work?" asked the Americans
"Wait and see" replied the Canadians.
When the ticket inspector came down the aisle the Americans dashed off into the toilet
The Canadians sauntered slowly along to the toilet in the next carriage but on passing the toilet where the Americans were hiding, one of them knocked on the door and said "ticket, please?"

0

Sunday 30th March 2025 – I’M NOT IN ..

… the mood for very much right now. I’ve had a wretched night and an awful day.

Things weren’t actually that bad last night. There were the radio notes to dictate once my notes were written and the back-up done, and It was late when I finished everything that I needed to do. I staggered off to bed at about 00:45 and with the loss of an hour due to the changing of the clocks, I was not looking forward very much to the alarm going off.

Unfortunately I never made it as far as that.

Round about 05:20 I had the first stabbing pain in the sole of my right foot. And then every two or three minutes, one after the other, the stabbing pain returned. And that’s how it kept on.

When the alarm went off at 08:00 I had been up and about for quite some time, in total agony all that time but there was nothing to do about it except to carry on.

Interestingly though, I did some thinking, and that’s rare. I can now predict when the pain is going to arrive because my thought patterns change just beforehand.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from the night, and blast it if my family didn’t appear again. I’d been away in Canada working for a while and then come back to the family home. I’d brought with me some gifts and souvenirs to hand out to my family and friends. It took a good while for me to have my family rounded up in front of me. When I arrived they were all off doing all kinds of other things. I went for a rummage in my bag to hand out all of the gifts and so on. For one of my sisters I had forgotten to buy something so I had to improvise some kind of character feature to transform onto her so that she could have that character in real life. For my youngest sister I couldn’t remember anything at all. I can’t recall buying her anything and can’t even recall thinking about buying her anything so I wondered whether in fact I’d completely forgotten her despite the fact that she was the baby of our family

Much as I would like to, I can’t forget any of my family. They keep on appearing in the middle of the night and interrupting my dreams when I want to be cavorting with Zero, Castor, TOTGA and Moonchild and how I wish that they wouldn’t.

Eventually, Isabelle the Nurse turned up. I told her to be careful with my right foot because of the pain in the sole. "What?" She asked. "Here?"

After she left I let go of the ceiling and came back down to the floor, then went to make my breakfast, including some nice kiwi and apple purée, and then read some more of MY BOOK.

At long last, on page 240 of a 366-page book, he’s reached the subject of migrating cultures. He’s found folk-tales and primitive customs in the British Isles that have their parallels in ancient Babylon, and is slowly trying to piece together some intervening connections.

So far, he has this wave of culture arriving in Southern England in about 1800BC so his question is “did they build these stone monuments” – according to his timeline, they did – “or were they built beforehand and his estimates are incorrect?”.

He puts the date of Stonehenge at 1800BC – 1600BC but modern thought suggests that erection began at about 2600BC – 2400BC. So presuming that his dates for the invaders is correct, it was the inhabitants that his wave of invaders found.

The fact that the building of hillforts seems to have begun round about 1600BC – the date of the cessation of construction work at Stonehenge – seems to suggest that the wave of these invaders reached South-West England round about that time and those who built Stonehenge abandoned the plains for the hills.

But there was plenty of other stuff that we encountered on the way there. We were discussing well-dressing and apparently in Nantwich in medieval times there was the “Dressing of the Brine” when one of the brine pits in the town was decorated and everyone danced around it. A tradition now long-dead.

There are also several other interesting facts that he brings to light. He tells us that "the practices connected with the ” waking of the well ” indicate this clearly, and when it is remembered that these ancient worships were carried on at a time when marriage had not been instituted, we can understand that many ‘pagan ‘ rituals savoured of sensualism as we should now think and call it"

Furthermore, "Near Carnac is a menhir, at which a singular “ceremony’ took place till comparatively recently, and may perhaps still be practised in secret. A married couple that have no family repair to this stone when the moon is full, strip themselves stark naked and course one another round it a prescribed number of times, whilst their relations keep guard against intrusion at a respectful distance."

When’s the next bus to Carnac, anyone?

After breakfast I made the dough for a bread roll and then came back in here to deal with the notes that I’d dictated.

First job though was to watch the football, Stranraer v Clyde. Stranraer had the lion’s share of the play and had numerous chances but only managed to score one goal.

Clyde on the other had, only had two shots on target the entire game. Would anyone like to guess the score?

As for the referee, twenty-two players on the pitch, the match commentators and I must have been at a completely different game to the one at which the referee was officiating.

The radio programme notes were rather complicated because I’d made a pig’s ear of them but by the time I knocked off work, I’d finished everything, even choosing the final track, editing and remixing it and writing the notes ready for dictation next week.

In the meantime though I’d been busy.

My bap was excellent and was cooked to perfection. It made for some lovely cheese on toast at lunchtime.

Then there was the disgusting drink break, followed by breadmaking and pizza dough making. Two lumps of pizza dough went into the freezer and the third made one of the best pizzas that I have ever made. I was really impressed by that.

Anyway, I hope that those of you driving out and about last night weren’t inconvenience by all of the Druids out there moving the stone circles and menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … around because of the change of hour.

They should all be home in bed by now and that’s exactly where I’m going, still in agony, ready for dialysis tomorrow afternoon

So I’m on page 242 of a 366-page book right now. Soon I shall have to think of another book to read, so I asked a friend of mine what book he was reading.
"I’m reading a book on anti-gravity right now" he replied
"How is it?" I asked
"It’s one of those books that once you pick it up, it’s impossible to put down"

0

Saturday 29th March 2025 – THAT WAS BETTER …

… art the dialysis centre this afternoon. I had a couple of small wobbles towards the end but I managed to keep on going until the session concluded, and that’s progress compared to how things were on Thursday.

Having a somewhat better sleep might have accounted for some of it. By the time that I finished my notes and had done the backing up, it was 00:45 – much later than usual thanks to the football, but much earlier than Wednesday night.

Once again, I was asleep quite quickly and there I remained, totally motionless, until about 06:00, just as it was starting to become light. “Far too early for me to rise up” I thought so I turned over and actually, this morning, managed to go back to sleep.

When the alarm went off I threw off the quilt immediately but it took me a few minutes to rise up into a sitting position and a few more to head off into the bathroom.

It’s Dialysis Day today so I had a good wash, a scrub up, a shave, a change of clothes and even hand-washed my socks, undies and nightwear so that I would look nice and pretty. Then I headed off into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was having a row with my brother … "what a surprise" – ed …. He made some kind of threatening gesture with a knife, that he was going to chase me until he caught me. Of course I dismissed that idea and carried on with what I was doing, which was preparing some things because someone was coming round to visit me. This story about fleeing through the woods with my brother behind me, I didn’t take it very seriously. A few minutes later I was working around the house performing some tasks. There was a couple of other people there, one of whom was my brother and one of them was this person who had come to see me, so I thought that I’d better finish preparing this pack of clothing that needs to be taken, then we can set off. While I was preparing it this guy came to see me. He asked “are you Eric?”. I replied “yes”. He answered “right, yes. I thought that I’d just put my foot in things. “Why is that?”. “Because I went up to your brother and asked ‘do you have those things for me’ thinking that he was you. He asked ‘what things?’ so I answered ‘that clothing that we ought to be dropping off in the woods’ and he made some kind of stupid remark about taking me into the woods and leaving me there’ “. I explained to him the situation and prepared everything so that we were ready to leave. But there was some swimming costume or something that fell out of the cupboard while I was fetching these clothes. I wasn’t really sure why that was there. It shouldn’t have been there either. I was sitting there puzzling about this and wondering if I was supposed to take it with me or whether it had found its way into that cupboard by accident.

Our disputes never reached the stage of going armed but we certainly didn’t behave like siblings, any of us. And I can still see this swimming costume even now. It’s a faded pale bluey-green bikini with a bright, dark pink trim. No-one I know has ever worn anything like this so I wonder why I’ve seen one during my sleeping hours. As for leaving things in the woods, in the past it was usually babies, especially sickly ones who were not expected to live. Sometimes they were simply abandoned and at other times they might be sacrifices to whatever gods and spirits inhabit the woods. FOLKLORE AS A HISTORICAL SCIENCE that we read the other week is full of fairy-tales relating to abandoned children.

Isabelle the Nurse had plenty to say for herself today, mostly about the chaos in the town centre. And sure enough, as predicted, the remodelling of the town centre won’t be complete for the Summer. They will stop work in July and August and then re-start. Heaven alone knows when they will finish.

After she left, I made breakfast, including some more of my apple and kiwi puree, and then read some more of MY BOOK.

Today, we are discussing pagan and prehistoric customs that have been absorbed into Church ritual, and he makes a very convincing case for many of them, although like most experts, he tend to see his favourite subject in every single one.

There were a couple of customs that stood out. In fact they leaped off the page right in front of my eyes. He tells us that "at both solstices it would appear that a special fire rite was practised. This consisted of tying straw on a wheel and rolling it when lighted down a hill. There is much evidence for the wheel at the summer, but less at the winter, solstice"

Anyone who has ever been to Gloucestershire on Spring Bank Holiday will know all about the Cooper’s Hill Cheese Rolling where a wheel of cheese is sent rolling off down a hill. People will be even more surprised to learn that not only has this event been going on for many centuries, it formerly took place on Whit Monday which, before Easter became a moveable feast, coincided with the start of what Lockyer describes as “the New May Year” and which corresponds with the alignment of many of the stone circles and menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … at which we are looking.

He also tells us that in the olden days, some rural farmers "would travel bareheaded and barefooted from ten to twenty miles for the purpose of crawling on their knees round;" certain holy " wells, upright stones, and oak trees, westward, as the sun travels, some three times, some six, some nine, and so on in uneven numbers until their voluntary penances were completely fulfilled."

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in August 2013 when we were in Montréal WE WENT FOR A LOOK AT THE ORATORY OF SAINT JOSEPH and saw all of the pilgrims climbing up the endless flights of stairs on their knees to the Oratory. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Back in here I had to hunt down a codec pack for some types of video as I had forgotten to add it in when I fitted the new drive. I found one of the more comprehensive packs and installed it, but there are still two or three videos that won’t play.

With downloading something from the internet I ran a complete virus scan on the computer and then emptied the recycle bin of all of the temporary files that the installation process had been using.

My cleaner came in, armed with a photograph, to fit my anaesthetic patches. The photo was the one that Emilie the Cute Consultant had prepared to tell my cleaner where to fit the patches these days.

The taxi was on time, driven by the young chatty guy and we had a very animated conversation all the way to the dialysis centre.

One of my predictions came true today. The dialysis session has been put back to four hours after Thursday’s fiasco. However, it’s not all doom and gloom because what we agreed is that there should be a maximum level of 850 millilitres per hour for a three-and a half hour session. So if I have 2000 millilitres to lose, at 3.5 hours that’s roughly 640 millilitres per hour so that’s good. But if there’s 3500 millilitres to lose, at 3.5 hours that’s 1000 millilitres per hour, so they will go for four hours in that case.

That sounds reasonable to me, I suppose. We need to reach some kind of agreement about something.

During the discussion I had an ice-pack on my arm, and when they came to plug me in at the news area of connection, it was one of the most painless that I have had. Still not perfect, but much better. We’ll have to see if it continues.

They set the blood pressure measurer every 20 minutes instead of every half-hour and came to check on me quite regularly. The machine rang regularly to say that blood pressure was low and they came scurrying over each time, but despite a few unpleasant moments, I kept on going.

The same driver brought me home and then I prepared tea. My bread bap wasn’t a success because I’d left the dough standing for too long and it had dried out. There’s nothing wrong with the principle though so in future I’ll have to make my bread roll early and bake it before I go to dialysis. The burger itself and baked potato and salad followed by orange, ginger and coconut cake with soya dessert was delicious.

So now I’ll dictate my radio notes and then go to bed. We lose an hour in the morning of course so I’ll be crabby all day… "so what’s new?" – ed …

But seeing as we have been talking about ancient customs, folk tales and the like … "well, one of us has" – ed … each village used to have its wise man or woman, the faith healer or the enchanter.
One day a farmer went up to the local faith healer and said "remember that cow that you had that had worms and a bad attack of disease?"
"Of course I do" said the faith healer
"So what did you give it? Mine has the same affliction"
"I gave it a mixture of burnt ashes, sacred water from the well, two feathers from a goose and a ladle-full of clay"
A few weeks later the faith healer is walking through the village when the farmer grabs him by the throat
"I gave that cow the mixture that you told me, and two days later it died"
"Now isn’t that a coincidence" said the faith healer. "So did mine!"

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Friday 28th March 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone this morning when I awoke.

And that’s not surprising either seeing as I didn’t go back to bed until 04:15 and I was awake again at 06:50 (you will note that I said “awoke” – I didn’t say that I left the bed).

Last night’s fiasco was enough to put the shakes on just about everything. After my rather dramatic exit from the dialysis centre, coming home and going straight to bed where I was probably asleep before I hit the horizontal position, there I stayed in a state of what I can only imagine was unconsciousness until after midnight.

When I awoke, I was fully-clothed still, with a thirst that you could photograph. Luckily I still have some of that banana-flavoured soya drink that I like that I bought in Belgium (is it really eighteen months ago since my last trip to Belgium?), so I helped myself to a litre of it, wrote my notes and backed up all the files.

After I’d finished what I had to do I still wasn’t tired so I found a few things to do to keep me occupied and then eventually crawled into bed, fully clothed again.

It was difficult to go back to sleep, so I don’t suppose that I slept all that much, and when I looked at the time and saw that it was 06:50 I gave up all hope.

The alarm clock made up my mind for me so I crawled out of bed and went to the bathroom to sort myself out. Then into the kitchen to take my medication and to do yesterday’s washing-up which I had forgotten. I hate going into the kitchen in the morning and finding the washing-up still there.

With nothing on the dictaphone I found some things to do and then Isabelle the Nurse arrived. I told her about yesterday and she thinks that the machine was too powerful for my heart to cope and that caused the dramatic loss of blood pressure that triggered everything off.

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

We’re still discussing these stone circles and avenues in the West Country. At Stanton Drew he makes the point that while there are circles and avenues that suggest that Arcturus was the target when they were constructed, at 1690BC and 1410BC, he finds that "With regard to this N.E. circle … " – the third one in this series of circles – its strange alignment "… would suggest that the N.E. circle was really erected to provide the alignment, from the centre of the great circle, or from the Cove, to the summer solstitial sun, about the year 870 B.C.,".

Furthermore, "There is other evidence, to which I attach importance, as it deals with a method and policy found in many temple fields in Egypt, that of blocking the alignment of an older star- or sun-cult, which the astronomer priests replaced by their own. The stones of the avenue, of the solstitial N.E. circle I expect once blocked the May sunrise line from the great circle ; judging from the Ordnance map, and remembering the number of stones that have disappeared,"

According to my “wave of invasions” cheat-sheet, a huge wave of Celtic invaders began to arrive in England round about 800BC. They brought with them the Iron-Age “Halstatt” culture and their superior tools and weapons would have overwhelmed the previous settlers. If those previous settlers were pushed west, they would push before them the people who had previously occupied those lands, so maybe they replaced the previous culture of the worship of Arcturus with their own culture of worship of the sun.

What is also interesting is the reference he made to the situation in Egypt where the worshippers of one star arrived and overwhelmed a previous culture. Archaeological evidence lends a great deal of support to this idea, so I’m now interested in plotting, as I said yesterday, a timeline of the worship of Arcturus and seeing if I can follow it through Europe and maybe arrive in England at the same time that the worship of Arcturus seemed to have begun there.

But this is all sounding like my University studies. I’d start by researching something and be so engrossed in what I’ve found that bore no relation to what I’d be studying that I’d go miles off course on a tangent into some other realm that had nothing whatever to do with the subject. I enjoyed what I was doing, enjoyed it very much, but the lecturers didn’t.

His next chapter is actually on “folklore”, but not the folklore what we know. He’s more interested in finding relics of customs that relate to the old forms of worship and how they became tied into Christianity, rather than using them as I would and as LAURENCE GOMME was doing – plotting the migration of groups of people by the relics of the customs that remain in modern society.

After the book, I came back in here and prepared my LeClerc order. And I was really struggling to complete it too. Despite the fact that I haven’t sent in an order for three weeks, I’m not eating as much (or as often) as I did and I was really struggling today to reach the €50:00 minimum order

Times are really bizarre around here. I look at my “usual products” and my “reminder list” and think “I have some of that” or “I don’t need that” or “I don’t feel like eating any of that”. I don’t think that I can ever recall a period such as this that has lasted for so long. I look in the kitchen and the shelf unit is full of stuff.

Once I’d sorted that out, I spent the rest of the day (or much of it) on my Woodstock programme. I now have every song that I need, and they are all re-edited and remixed. Some of the tracks took some hunting down, others had to be extracted from the soundtracks of concerts that I have.

Every song (except one) was actually played at Woodstock by the band or musician concerned, although I can’t use any sound that came from the loudspeakers at Woodstock. I’ve had to use versions from other places.

My cleaner put in an appearance to do her stuff as usual, and while she was here the LeClerc delivery turned up. I usually order it for “after 16:00” but he often rings me up to ask if he can come earlier if I’m the only client in the afternoon. I’d rather have it after my cleaner has left but I’m not going to stop him having an early finish on a Friday if he can.

After my cleaner left I had 2kg of carrots to wash, dice and blanch ready to freeze and then back in here Rosemary, back from her break in Italy, rang me up for a chat. I’m convinced that she has a camera hidden in here somewhere to find out when I’m free.

Tea tonight was a rushed salad and chips with some of these vegan nuggets and it was delicious. The chips were cooked to perfection in my air fryer.

Tea was rushed because we had football, Drenewydd v Y Barri. Y Barri needed the win to keep alive their push for the European playoffs and Y Drenewydd needed a win to keep alive their hopes of avoiding relegation.

Y Barri came out of the traps so much quicker and played some nice football and were looking comfortable at 2-0 up. But Y Drenewydd came alive in the last ten minutes and when they scored with three minutes to go, they threw everything that they had into the attack.

Y Barri won the ball and roared upfield with a one-on-one on the Y Drenewydd goalkeeper – only for the Y Barri forward to miss the easiest goal that he could have scored in his life. That spurred Y Drenewydd on and we witness some desperate defending in the final minute and Y Drenewydd couldn’t find the goal that they needed.

Why they hadn’t played like that with the same desperation throughout the game I really don’t know, but now, while they are not mathematically sure of being relegated, they are going to have to find something special from somewhere.

At half-time I did the washing up and then I grabbed a slice of my new orange, ginger and coconut cake to eat for the second half. And it really is as delicious as I thought that it might be. I’m proud of that.

So now that I’ve finished my notes and backed up the computer, I’m off to bed ready for an exciting (I don’t think) day at the dialysis centre.

But seeing as we have been talking about shopping … "well, one of us has" – ed … I’m glad that I don’t go shopping any more. It saves unpleasant surprises.

Once I was in a supermarket in Belgium and a woman came up to me and asked me "aren’t you the father of one of my kids?"
That stopped me dead in my tracks. I had to rack my brains and think hard. There was the girl in Morlaix and the other one at that strange house when I was hitch-hiking around Brittany but that was in France in the mid-seventies.
For a whole minute I had to rack my brains about trips that I’d made into Europe subsequently. In the end I gave up.
"I can’t really recall anything" I said, shaking your head.
"Oh, I’m sorry" she replied. "I’m sure that I’ve seen you bringing Roxanne to school. She’s in my class this year"

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Thursday 27th March 2025 – I HOPE THAT NO-ONE …

… panicked after reading my previous message.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that back in the Summer when I was in hospital at Avranches I had one of those collapses that I had quite frequently at home during that period, and awoke to find a group of panicking nurses and doctors around my bedside. They reckoned that it was a diabetic coma.

And so this afternoon, there I was in my bed at the dialysis centre, working away on the travelling laptop, when I began to shake and feel nauseous. That was exactly how I felt when my pancreatic issues began in 1991 and I thought “surely not again! As if I don’t have enough to worry about!”.

A few minutes later I had an enormous wave of fatigue, the room began to spin around and a haze descended across my vision. I blinked my eyes to clear my vision and when I opened them, my bed had been positioned flat instead of upright, the foot of the bed had been raised up and every member of the medical staff in the centre, including Emilie the Cute Consultant, was flapping around my bed.

Apparently I’d gone into another coma and had been out of my tree for about ten minutes.

It’s actually probably the best sleep that I’ve had for several days because last night it was another 02:30 finish, waiting for my algorithm to finish (and it did finish this time, too).

Being in bed is one thing. Going to sleep is quite a different thing entirely and I’m not sure that I slept for very long at all. When the alarm went off it was a very weary me who staggered to my feet and crawled off to the bathroom for a wash and a shave, in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant.

After the medication I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone but as I expected, there was nothing on it. You can’t dream if you don’t go to sleep (well, you can but that’s another story too).

Isabelle the Nurse was quite chatty this morning. She’s noticed that the oedemas on my legs have returned to a very slight degree. That’s bad news because it means that they’ll be turning the dialysis machine up to pump out more water.

After she left I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. We’re still exploring stone circles and avenues in Devon and Cornwall and checking their alignment.

He considers that many of these circles are aligned to witness the rising or setting of the star Arcturus, the fourth-brightest star in the sky after Sirius, Canopus and Alpha Centauri, all four of which also figure prominently in the alignment of prehistoric structures throughout the World.

One thing that he hasn’t done, which would be an interesting project, would be to go back to our book on folklore and plot the worship of Arcturus in different time periods and different cultures to see if there’s any relation between them and the waves of migration across Europe in prehistoric times. It wouldn’t surprise me if something interesting turned up.

Back in here I had plenty of things to do and I was right in the middle of them when I noticed that it was after 12:00 and the taxi will be here shortly so I’d better make a move. I’d sorted everything out and was almost ready when my cleaner arrived in a state of breathlessness to fit my anaesthetic patches.

It was the “boss” who came to pick me up. We had someone else in the car too and he drove us all the way to Avranches where he dropped me off and carried on with his other passenger.

At the centre I was one of the first to arrive and they treated me with an ice-pack while they waited for “the doctor” to come to look at my fitting with the x-ray machine.

“The doctor” turned out to be Emilie the Cute Consultant who examined my implant closely, recommended that in future they inject elsewhere and even marked my skin for future reference so that my cleaner will know where to put the patches. She photographed it and gave me a copy for future reference.

Plugging me in the old places wasn’t as painful as it has been, thanks to the ice pack, and I leaned the good news that the time has been reduced to three and a half hours. After that, i could crack on with work.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came back for a chat later – about my health unfortunately. She was with me for about twenty minutes talking about all kinds of things and more good news is that I can dispense with two more lots of tablets. She’s not really all that happy about reducing my time but “we’ll give it a go and we’ll see”.

She did discuss with me all kinds of options, including psychiatric care. "But you don’t need that, do you? You don’t suffer from depression or anything". All of the different characters who live inside my head roared with laughter at that and told me that I ought to be nominated for an Oscar.

And then we had the drama. All kinds of people running around in a panic. Apparently I was just sitting there, totally unresponsive, eyes wide-open in a kind-of cataleptic daze. They honestly thought that I’d died. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall however that we’ve talked previously about these cataleptic dazes that I sometimes have

Interestingly, my blood pressure was at 8.0 and it won’t go much lower than that without serious consequences so they abandoned the dialysis session. I still had to stay lying down for an hour or so before I could sit up. They were not happy at all.

So that looks as if it might be the end of the three-and-a-half hour experiment which is a shame. My heart can’t withstand the force of the machine, although the machine has run faster than that in the past.

A very groggy me staggered to the taxi and back here, I came upstairs, flung off my shoes and went straight to bed, fully clothed. And there I stayed until after midnight when I arose to type out my notes.

Now I’m going back to bed where I shall sleep until my name becomes Epic van Winkle and who cares about anything else?

But that little discussion with Emilie the Cute Consultant reminded me of one of the SAINT TRINIANS films when a riot in the school was taxing the patience of the headmistress who had taken over from Alastair Sim.
"I have a feeling that very shortly I shall be the only one around here who can actually produce a certificate to prove my sanity !"

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