Tag Archives: eric hall

Tuesday 25th February 2025 – NOW THAT’S WHAT I …

… call a wasted day today. I have emulated my namesake the mathematician and done exactly three-fifths of five-eights of … errr … nothing.

Some of it has been my own fault, as you might indeed expect, but some of it hasn’t. I really need to motivate myself better if I am ever going to accomplish anything.

The most obvious excuse to use is that I was thoroughly, completely and utterly exhausted. The other day, returning from dialysis, I was in bed at 21:30 and last night it was 22:20. and I was lucky that I made it that far because I really wasn’t in the mood.

Once in bed though, going to sleep was another matter. “At least, being in a horizontal position is resting and relaxing” I kidded myself.

Eventually though I dozed off into oblivion and had yet another turbulent night. For a change though, following a dialysis session, I was actually asleep when the alarm went off at 07:00

At that moment I was with a friend of mine and we were trying to go into her office. There was a security reception desk and the girl on there was known to be rather strict so it was necessary to fill in an application form, and when you went for an eye test, the optical test, it would come up with several people similar and you had to guess which one you were. The aim was that I would find someone similar to me and say that I’d lost my card. She would give me a new card and I would go in. This however wasn’t working and there was nothing very similar to me at all so my friend had to think of another excuse. The girl at the reception desk took an absolute age to deal with all of this before she finally handed me a duplicate card. My friend said “this is just typical of this girl. She knows that this is a fraudulent application because we have thousands, and she’s just taking her time about it as she always does”. We went in a walked down a corridor, then we had to climb down into a courtyard and up the other side. Climbing down was fine but climbing up was almost impossible for me so I had to think of another way of doing it. At that moment a man came down and sat in the corner to begin to smoke a cigarette. I thought that the easiest way was to strike up a conversation. This place looked rather Asian so I talked about having a Japanese garden in here. My friend came back to look for me. He asked her “how long have you worked here?”. She replied “oh, years. I came here in August” and said which year it was. He asked “how do you find it?”. She replied “I made a mistake because I came here in a jumper and I regretted it”. She wandered off and he said to me “she’s a tough girl, isn’t she?”. I said “someone who had had the problems that she had had and survived, anyone would be tough”. He was looking at me and could see that I was disabled and said “oh please sit down”. I replied “I can’t because if I sit down I can’t stand up”. Then he began to panic saying “oh please sit down, sit down, sit down”. I wondered what was going on. This place where we were was like a volcanic crater although it was a garden with pavilion-type Japanese buildings in it, all ringed by a really jagged range of mountains in a huge circular form that looked just as if it was inside a volcano but with a garden inside instead of a crater.

That’s an interesting idea for Security, isn’t it? Being able to choose who you were. After all, NAMES ARE FOR TOMBSTONES, BABY. And I had a friend for a while in Brussels who had been a diplomat in Japan, but it wasn’t she. But if I’m going to be disabled and handicapped in my dream, then it rather defeats the point of them, doesn’t it? Not much point in escapism if you can’t escape.

Into the bathroom for a good wash and then into the kitchen for medication; Finally back in here to listen to the dictaphone because there was much more than just the above. I’d been working on a radio programme and I couldn’t ever make it right. It never seemed to go anywhere as how it was supposed to do. It was continually failing the quality control check. After several weeks of editing I finally had it something like and was ready to send it off. The recording engineer and some of the producers were however rather fed up of having this come up on their desks every week so they were determined to stop it but I sent it off anyway but they still came back and refused it. What should have been a deadline for the 28th of April was now running into May. They basically said that they wouldn’t edit it again and it was finished. I replied “well for failing it this last two or three times on tiny issues, it shows a serious lack of goodwill particularly when I have worked as hard as I have done over the past day or two to put the issue right. If there was nothing substantially wrong with the last one you should have accepted it” but they were still very unwilling to move on this particular issue and I could see this programme running on and on and on.

There have been radio programmes that have taken an age to do because the editing has been so complicated. There was the one a few weeks ago that took several weeks, and the worst part of it was that it overran so I had to edit it, and one of the bits that went was the bit where I’d had all of the difficulty

There was a girl from school directing a film last night. She was running through the scenes. I had a look at the scenes and towards the end of the film there were thousands of scenes every second, so many scenes to go through and they lasted a blinking of an eye. I was appearing as an extra in it and so was a friend of mine. We’d been to makeup and we’d been dressed up and put our costumes on. As the film was being filmed it was passed through some kind of computer animation so people became like cartoon characters as they were going through the motions for real. When I looked at my image and the vision of the girl who was with me, the images were horrible, the faces were all distorted and nothing seemed to be correct at all. We were standing on the set waiting to be directed. The girl from school came along, took one look at us, took one look at the screen effects and told us to leave the stage. We thought “that was a waste of an entire day. What a shame. Our chance for fame and fortune”.

This is another girl about whom I haven’t spent a day thinking since I left school. So why she would put in an appearance right now I really don’t know.

Later on I was with another girl. We’d stopped somewhere to look at something that we’d seen earlier. All of a sudden I had a horrible realisation that I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t have a clue as to how I’d arrived at this place, or the name of the place or what I was doing here anyway. I left the girl with the car and walked a little way up the road to see if I could see anything. On the left-hand side of the road was a funeral director’s place with gravestones in it but it was all closed, dusty, and hadn’t been open for years by the looks of it. I decided to turn round and walk back to the car and drive until we find a village and see the name. What I could also do later was to look through the dashcam videos and see if I could identify the route. As I was walking back a lorry that was coming up behind me stopped at the side of the road behind me. The driver alighted and stood by the side of his cab. A lorry that was coming towards me, he stopped too and he alighted from his cab. He was carrying a small puppy and he stood by the cab. I was effectively blocked in between these two lorries, and my car and my friend were beyond them. As these two guys stood there I had this horrible menacing feeling that something pretty awful was about to happen.

So who are all these girls who keep on appearing? I wish I knew. Some nice, charming, pleasant company would be just what the doctor ordered and to actually have them present and allow them to slip away so easily like this is something of a shame. And I know that regular readers of this rubbish will recall saying on many occasions that I never “know where I was” but in this dream it was for real. As for those two guys in the lorries, I know THE BEST WAY TO DEAL WITH THEM .

isabelle the nurse breezed in this morning, late as usual due to having to do all of the blood tests that her oppo doesn’t want to do. She had a few cheery words of greeting and then rushed back out. She’s been working on her float for Carnaval and making the costumes and she’s promised me plenty of photos after the parades this forthcoming weekend.

Then it was breakfast time and MY BOOK time.

Today we are discussing miscellaneous earthworks again and despite his dismissal of much that has been assumed or inferred on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, he seems to conclude that everything uncertain is “probably” something astronomical or astrological, or both. However, he is yet to post one single piece of evidence to suggest what it is that is supposed to be indicated or observed, and the position of the stars and planets in the sky hasn’t changed that much in the last 5,000 years. The earth rotates through something like 1° every 7000 years.

His “pottery works” on the shores of the Thames estuary in Essex was excavated in the 1930s and identified as an Iron Age or Roman salt evaporation site, and not only did I manage to find the report of the excavation, I found a treatise on the operation thereof and now I would be quite confident in running my own sea salt production facility if the need ever arises. It would have been the kind of thing that, had I found it 20 years ago, I would have gone to try it to see if it would work.

Back in here I had all of the replies to deal with, and you’ve no idea just how many there were. Do I owe you all money or something? Once again, a great big thank-you for your continued support.

No Welsh today, so I decided to deal with the “Taste of Woodstock” radio programme. First task is to see what “songs played at Woodstock” I have in my live music collection As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I can’t use material actually performed at Woodstock unfortunately.

The answer to that is “not as much as I need” so I edited what I had and then set out to hunt down more music but I was waylaid. One of my neighbours, the President of the Residents’ Committee, wanted to come to pay me a visit. She’d left me a birthday present yesterday, which was nice of her.

She came along and we had a very nice chat for a while and discussed several issues, one of which was, surprisingly, one of the topics that I’d discussed with Rosemary the other day. It seems to be something that’s on the minds of a lot of people right now.

Next was my little great niece (or is she my great little niece) who arrived back home in Canada last night from Ecuador. She showed me all of her photos and videos of her trip and I told her how impressed I was with her. And I am too. These opportunities for travel only come along once in a lifetime and you should seize the moment. Sitting there with her feet straddling the equator beats the one that I took of Alison straddling the driehoek – the three-cornered border between Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, and also beats the one of Rosemary, STRAWBERRY MOOSE and me straddling the Arctic Circle.

Had His Nibs and I been able to reach the North Pole in 2018 I might have trumped it but, regular readers of this rubbish will recall, we stopped 700 miles short. My niece has 50 years ahead of her to do that, and good luck to her.

And while we’re on the subject of Rosemary … "well, one of us is" – ed … she rang me again today for a short chat. And it was short too – only fifty-three minutes. She needs the birth certificates of her parents and didn’t know how to go about finding them. Consequently I had a very happy time delving deep into the bowels of the Public Records Office in Kew and to my delight, I came up trumps too. When I was in Wandsworth working in that Italian restaurant I spent a lot of time in the PRO

The radio programme for this coming weekend needed chaeking too. That’s now done and sent off, but there was no time left to carry on with any more work. I was late as it was. But making a taco roll with rice and veg followed by date bread and soya dessert doesn’t take long.

So now I’m off to bed ready for shower day tomorrow. And I hope that I have a more productive day than today was. I can do without too many days like that. However, I’ll never turn down an opportunity to talk to a friend when the opportunity arises. There are more things in life than working.

But while we’re on the subject of working … "well, one of us is" – ed … One of my friends had sent me a message for my birthday, saying "I hope you managed to lay your hands on something tasty for your birthday"
And so I replied saying "unfortunately not. The nurses at dialysis kept well out of my reach."

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Monday 24th February 2025 – THEY SENT THE …

… minibus for me again today to bring me home.

It is a free service, I’m well-aware of that, but it’s even more complicated and difficult for me than climbing into an ambulance. Next time I see the driver who thinks that he runs the show I’ll have to have a word with him about it and see what they can do.

My faithful cleaner said that seeing as it’s my birthday today, given the amount of money that I help put into the owner’s pocket, they should have sent a Rolls Royce for me.

That’s right people, another year older and deeper in debt. Seeing the start of another year that, back in the summer, I honestly never thought that I would see. I was in all seriousness preparing my funeral.

Thank you all once again for your unwavering support over the last twelve months. It means a great deal to me to receive your messages, those of you who write to me. Why don’t some of you others drop me a line too?

So last night it was another late night going to bed – just about midnight in fact, and I could have done with being in bed a couple of hours earlier, that’s for sure.

As it was, it was another turbulent night just like a few of the others just recently, and the tempest that began at 04:00 and started to rattle a sign on this building with a noise that awoke me and stopped me going back to sleep was all that I needed.

It goes without saying that when the alarm went off I was already up and about. And I even remembered to shave and to change my clothes too just in case Emilie the Cute Consultant is there today.

After I’d taken the medication I went to have a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. I was at dialysis last night lying in my bed watching a couple of the nurses working. One of them was Julie the Cook. She seemed to spend most of her time folding up sheets and putting them away in a cupboard which I’ve no idea why

That’s something else that I could do without. It’s bad enough having to go there during the daytime, never mind during the time when I’m supposed to be relaxing.

There was also something going on where I was discussing the rules of inheritance with someone, leaving money to the first-born which I suppose makes sense if it’s something like a farm but I can’t see what other reason it makes for anything else

This relates to a conversation that I’d had with Rosemary the other day. Inheritance Tax is a hot topic in the UK at the moment but I can’t see why it’s a worry to anyone over here. And then, when you are dead and Inheritance tax is applied to your wealth, you are in no position to worry about it.

Finally I was in Paris with a couple of people and they had been giving me the run-around so we set out to go to Lille or to Leuven or somewhere. When we arrived in the railway station I managed to give them the slip and abandon them. Walking around, I came to the shopping centre which was up 25 flights of stone stairs. There was a large flight of stairs that went up from the street but if you went round the corner into the forecourt of the railway station there was a flight of stairs there which weren’t so many which I hadn’t noticed until today so I set out to work out how easy it was to go up these because there were fewer of them. I did my trick of hauling myself up with my arms. Everyone was watching me and a few people walking up quicker than me were looking at me. I reached the top where there was a convenient handrail for me to pull myself up right outside the door of the flower shop there. I could see the flowers, I could see the shop assistants and everything selling. For some reason or other I was doing something with the coins in my pocket but I don’t know why. But when I’d made it up to the top of the stairs I was really unsteady on my feet and thought for a minute that I’d end up falling backwards all the way down again.

Twenty-five stairs is a familiar number, isn’t it? And having to haul myself up them three times per week at least is something that I won’t ever forget even when (if) I am living downstairs and no longer have to do it.

The nurse was in and out in a flash today. He’s off on his break now for a few days so I suppose that he doesn’t want to hang around. I could make breakfast and continue to read MY BOOK

Today we are discussing contemporary earthworks and he finds a great deal of amusement in some of his colleagues having mis-identified some contemporary slit trench for a Neolithic burial pit. I shall be waiting with bated breath for the omelette sur le visage moment.

Seeing as it’s my birthday today I emulated my namesake the mathematician and did three-fifths of five-eights of … errr … nothing for a couple of hours. I just stirred a few papers round with no great urgency and spoke to several friends on the internet, who had contacted me to wish me well, which was nice of them.

My cleaner, who had popped in earlier for the list of medication, came back with some of the supplies and to fit my anaesthetic patches. Then I had to await the taxi.

Late again leaving, the other passenger in the car was even later so we had to drop him off first, right across town at the Clinic. So I was very late arriving for dialysis.

Not only that but there were six other people who had arrived simultaneously and I was as usual the last. Then we had to run through a handwashing demonstration to waste even more time.

Plugging in was slightly less painful than normal, and then I reviewed my Welsh, although there’s no lesson tomorrow as it’s half-term.

The doctor in charge came to see me. There’s no real indication of anything that might be causing these sweats, so he said.

He did have two items of good news for me and as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

Firstly, this new dialysis centre in Granville is all systems go and will be open within a year. Secondly, as things stand I would be one of the patients to be transferred there. So that will save me about four hours per week.

While he was there, I tried to negotiate a reduction in hours. My weight seems to be stable right now compared to how it was, so I wondered if instead of reducing the machine’s power they could reduce the hours that I have to spend.

His reply was that it’s not as easy as that but he’ll check the analysis and see what it says.

While I was there I had a video chat with my niece, her husband and one of her daughters in Canada. That was a lovely surprise, one of the many highlights of my day.

When they finally threw me out we had the pantomime with the minibus but I managed to enter it in a slightly more dignified way than the other day. Leaving it is still the same old circus though.

It was a very exhausted me who made it into my apartment and now that I’ve had my stuffed pepper and written my notes I’m off to bed. I’m exhausted. I have all these goodwill messages to answer but that will be tomorrow. I can’t keep my eyes open.

But seeing as we have been talking about my namesake the mathematician … "well, one of us has" – ed … he once told be "I have a completely irrational fear of negative numbers"
"So what do you do?" I asked him. "Is it a serious problem?"
"It’s extremely serious" he said. "So much so that I’ll stop at nothing to avoid them."

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Sunday 23rd February 2025 – I HAVE BEEN …

… a busy boy again today. Not only have I completed everything that I intended, or, as TS McPhee would have it, I’ve DONE EVERYTHING THAT I’VE EVER SET OUT TO DO, I had half an hour to spare too, and that’s not something that happens every day. And how I wish that it did.

That was despite several interruptions too, because I can’t seem to have a day without something happening to knock me right out of my stride.

Things actually set off with a good start because I’d finished my work and all of the dictating quite early. Although it was after 23:00 when I went to bed, it was before midnight which means, with my lie-in, that I could have over eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.

In theory, at least.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m back with my turbulent sleep patterns, and last night was no exception. And following a Dialysis Day, it was a hot, sweaty night too and I really am going to have to find a solution to this

However, for a change on a Sunday morning, I was still in the bed when the alarm went off at 08:00 and although I can remember times when I have felt less like rising from the bed, there aren’t many of them that have been more difficult than today.

After my trip to the bathroom I came back in here because on a Sunday there’s not much time before the nurse arrives. I made a start on the dictaphone notes (of which there were more than just a few) instead.

In midstream I was interrupted by the arrival of the nurse who tended to my legs and then spent a few minutes trying to make his card reader read my health card so that he can invoice the Social Security for his visits. Being someone who is terminally ill, I’m 100% covered for my medical expenses so I don’t have to pay anything.

After he left, I made breakfast, took my medication and carried on reading MY BOOK.

Today we’re discussing dykes and ditches and we’re back on things about which I might know something.

He’s discussing the building of these earth ramparts and ditches that straddle the countryside and I’m not following his logic at all.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the discussion from a few days ago where he stresses that invaders wouldn’t build earthworks and complicated defences. They would be the work of the beleaguered defenders.

Now when you build a wall, the purpose of the wall is twofold – one is to hide behind it and the second is to stop your enemy crossing it. To build a wall, you need to find the earth, so you would have to dig a ditch from which to extract it. That serves two purposes too – it means that you only need to build the wall half as high, because the other half of height is the depth of the ditch, and it also makes the defence stronger.

So if you are going to dig a ditch, you would dig it in front of the earthen bank, firstly to make the defence stronger, and secondly to keep your enemy farther from the wall. If you had the ditch behind the wall, it would allow your enemy to shelter behind the wall and you wouldn’t be able to come close enough to dislodge them. So the ditch will be the direction from where you are expecting the attackers to arrive.

Having said all of that, if the Cambridge ditches are to the south-west of the dykes, why does he propose, on page 511, that "they may very well represent the work of some of the earliest of the Baltic immigrants, who, as is now believed, began to make settlements on the east coast of Britain".

Why would the “earliest of the Baltic immigrants” be building these extravagant earthworks when they are the invaders? Especially when he tells us on page 518 he tells us "none of the finer and more elaborate English dykes contradicts the fact that the civilization of the island has moved always from east to west.", which is, I imagine, what the “earliest of the Baltic immigrants” will be doing.

So although I don’t have a clue exactly what his argument is, I shall refrain from saying “neither does he” because you will all be calling me “T Rice Holmes”.

When I’d finished I began to make a small bread roll for lunch. I’ve enjoyed the ones with my soups and the flexibility of an air fryer means that I can serve up one or two without any effort or heating the big oven

Back in here the first task today was to finish the dictaphone notes. I was preparing myself ready to go to dialysis, explaining to Nerina just how painful it was. She didn’t seem to believe it particularly. She thought that I was being a baby. She told me that I ought to do better with it and think more positively. Then she began to discuss operations with me. That’s the kind of thing that makes me squirm and was causing me all kinds of agony in all different parts of my body so I asked her if she would stop talking about it. Eventually she agreed. Later on that night though I was writing out my notes. She asked if I was writing out the story of what had happened early in the day between the two of us. I replied that I was. She replied “that’s fine as long as you don’t write anything personal about me”. I replied “that’s rather difficult to avoid because the fact that you and I were together is something rather personal”.

Actually, I suspect that the nurses are secretly, under their breath, telling me “not to be a baby” but we all have our phobias. But the situation about people in my dreams, I had a discussion about this with someone just recently. I’m not obviously in control of what goes on during the night and so I don’t usually “name and shame” people who appear. It’s bad enough that they know me at all, poor people, without being outed for it. But some people’s association with me is too well-known to be hidden behind a nickname.

There was a plot of waste land opposite out house in Crewe that actually belonged to us. One day I sat down to clear it all out. I removed most of the weeds, bushes and shrubs, and there was a stream that ran through it. When I was upstairs in the bedroom I could see that it was full of big fish swimming around. I thought that it was wonderful. From a horrible, stony limestone surface it gradually began to turn green as I watched it. I thought that with another couple of hours work we’d have a nice lawn over there with a little featured brook running through. I went outside and sorted out a few things. I had an old Ford Thames van … "a Thames 400E" – ed … parked in the street with no tax and no MoT so I pushed that onto there too. In the end it was really looking quite nice and I was quite impressed with it

There actually was a patch of waste land (almost) opposite the family home in Davenport Avenue when we moved there in 1970. And the story of the fish relates presumably to the fish farming from the other day.

Later on I was working in the despatching of the ambulance company. One of the drivers came in towards the end of his shift and said that he had to go to fuel up his taxi ready for the morning. He asked if he could still keep the same car for tomorrow morning. I said that there’s no reason why he shouldn’t but he’d have to let me know what number it is so that I could mark it down on the sheets. He went outside and I heard his car start so I called him up on the radio and asked him to tell me his number but he didn’t reply and drove out. Then I was in the car with him after that. he said that he still had to go to pick up fuel and his car was number 210. I noted “210” on the sheets and he set off. He drove through Crewe down Badger Avenue and up to Bradfield Road at probably 100 mph. Someone pulled out a little further ahead and he said “look at that person there! No respect for anyone else. I whispered to the other passenger and said “said he, driving at 100mph through the town”. We turned onto Bradfield Road and he said “I hope that the petrol station down here is still open”. When we passed over the railway bridge there was a queue of taxis, the biggest queue you have ever seen. he looked at me and said “all of these will be alright for you, Eric” because of course they were Crewe taxis. He swung round and pulled up onto the station with a big line of vehicles but he weaved his way up the inside and went to an empty pump to fuel the car. There was a van next to us. Our driver had a jerry can and went to fill the car and the jerry can. The woman next to us was pumping diesel and it smelt horrible. he said “that’s a disgusting diesel, isn’t it?”. I replied “it’s the low sugar stuff so it doesn’t smoke and clog up your injectors”. he replied “I can’t think why people use it so I repeated that it doesn’t smoke and doesn’t clog up the injectors.

There is actually a petrol station where this one in the dream was situated. But the whole place being saturated in taxis is most unlikely, particularly as many as there were parked around there last night. But despite all that I have said about Crewe in the past, they do stop and fuel up their cars with diesel. There’s not one single driver left in the town today who stops at the stables to fuel up his cab with a nosebag full of oats

There was also a dream where I was with some friends of my own age. maybe we were at school, I don’t know. Someone turned up with some parcels and I wondered what this was all about because it was nearly Christmas. It turned out that it was a girl who had left. She’d sent some of us some presents and one of them was for me. It looked as if it might have been a cake. I thought “this is nice of her”. When I looked at it, it was the wrapping that resembled the cake. When I undid it, it was a board game all about growing your crops, harvesting them and making all kinds of vegetarian and vegan food, which I thought was really wonderful. One of two of the others then received some strange board games from this girl too. I thought “this is a really nice idea. I shall have to try to find where this shop is and investigate it for myself to see what else they had that I could maybe give as presents to other people”.

That game actually sounds quite interesting and I wonder how it could be made to work. There’s an on-line course doing the rounds on OpenLearn about making a game app for a smartphone and I’ve been debating about using my dialysis spells to catch up with a few more short courses. This game app one might be interesting, with this idea as its theme.

I’d been in Northampton and was heading back out towards the motorway with “that” Liz. We’d gone a different way this time to see what was alongside the motorway the other way. We ended up in this town but didn’t recognise it. It was a very modern town with a huge distribution centre for a supermarket, one of the ones in red, right at the end of the main street. We parked up and walked out to have a look round. We asked these two boys the name of the place. They wanted to know why we were here if we didn’t know where we were. We explained that we’d been to Northampton and wanted to go back a different way. He began to ask passers-by “which is the best way from here to reach the motorway?”. He told us that this place was called TW17. He then went to a travel agent’s to ask her where she could send him on a flight while we decided that we’d go for a look around and maybe have a meal. I set off to find the car to park it somewhere better so that we’d have time to eat.

So here’s “that” Liz back yet again. We had someone who sat on a University Committee on which we served who lived in Northampton and we went there a couple of times. But Liz was more of a friend with her partner and she unfortunately sought her release from her difficulties in an extremely tragic way and we never went again. One thing is certain though. None of this took place in Shepperton.

Next task was to watch the football, Stranraer at home to high-flying Stirling Albion, and against the run of play demolish them 3-0 even though a friend of mine from University days plays in goal for Stirling Albion.

And hats off to Robbie Foster. A big, burly, clumsy but quick and powerful centre-forward, out of his depth at this level of football but due to an injury crisis of epic proportions, forced into the side for the last couple of months.

He knows where to be and what to do – he has all of the strikers’ instincts, but he’s just not able to do it. No-one on any football field ever has ever tried harder than him and today he had his reward when he muscled his way into the path of a loose ball and prodded it home

But one day someone is going to give the “man of the match” award to eighteen year-old Josh Lane, forced into goal for the first team for the last few games. A nervous start a few weeks ago but the last few matches he has pulled off some wonderful saves to give his team a fighting chance.

If you are interested in the highlights, you can SEE THEM HERE

Today’s work was to edit a series of radio programme notes that I’d dictated last night, and prepare or complete the programmes.

The first one was a concert that I stumbled upon in Germany in 1981. I’d written the notes the other day and they were the first that I’d dictated.

By the time that I’d finished the editing I was almost four minutes over, but that was part of the plan because there were several short tracks that I could edit out to fit everything down. So one track then went, a pile of applause and other “irrelevances” followed and it all went together quite nicely

There were two “extra tracks” for the two programmes that I’d prepared last Sunday, and I managed to resolve one of them and complete the programme before lunch.

Lunch was a fresh bread roll cut in half and transformed into “cheese and tomato on toast” in the air fryer. And it really was delicious too. I shall do all of this again too.

This afternoon I attacked the remaining programmes and despite stopping to make a full-sized loaf of bread, I finished bang on the moment as the telephone rang. I’m convinced that Rosemary mounted a camera in this apartment when she was last here.

Our chat today was only a small one, just one hour and three minutes. And the most exciting news is that Myrtille the cat goes to sleep under the bed but when Rosemary awakens, the cat is asleep on the foot of the bed. I’ll give it two weeks before they are both curled up together.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … no-one I ever knew ever won a battle with a cat.

After a half-hour break I went to make my pizza. And it’s another one of the “best ever made” pizzas. My loaf was perfection itself too . it all seems to be working fine these days. What I think has been happening is that firstly my technique is improving and secondly, I think that my water measurer is inaccurate. If I use more water than suggested in the recipe it works so much better.

So having done all of my work, I’m having a Day of Rest tomorrow. Well-earned too, I reckon. If only I could work as hard as this all the time.

If I had worked as hard as this when I was at school I probably would have had a different path. I had this discussion with Nerina once and she asked me "what would you have done?"
"I would have been a criminal lawyer" I replied
"How far did you go in your studies?" she asked me.
"Only half-way, I’m afraid" I said. "I still have to do the ‘lawyer’ part."

0

Saturday 22nd February 2025 – I WAS BACK …

… here early this evening which made a lovely change. Mainly because I set out earlier to the dialysis centre. The taxi was well in advance. At least the driver sent me a message to say he would be here early, which is always a good idea.

Unfortunately though, I couldn’t emulate that last night going to bed. That night or two where I really cracked on and had things done early seems to be just an unexpected flash in the pan and I can’t repeat that, much as I would like to.

By the time that I’d finished my notes and done what I needed to do it was well after 23:00 and even later by the time I went to sleep in my nice clean bedding, having found the pillow case that had somehow gone missing from the wash the other week.

It was a turbulent night of the kind that I had when I was going through that cycle a few weeks ago and it was a very weary, bedraggled me that crawled out from under the covers when the alarm went off.

In the bathroom I remembered the sample that they need at the dialysis centre but forgot to shave and change my clothes for fresh ones. Emilie the Cute Consultant won’t be too impressed with me if she’s there today

The kitchen was next, and all of the medication. There’s a lot less than there used to be when I was going through that crisis six months ago, but it’s still an impressive quantity all the same. I wish that I could turn back the clock before my kidneys gave out and I was on just four per day.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been. And I’d travelled far during the night as well. I fell asleep quite quickly and found myself in the doctor’s discussing phallic symbols with him, I’m not sure exactly why but I wasn’t asleep very long and that’s hardly surprising.

Strangely enough I can’t remember dictating that – or even being awake at all at that particular moment. I thought that I would have remembered something about phallic symbols if it had been going on in my head. It’s not the kind of thing that you forget.

And then Nerina came round to my place of work last night. There was some kind of talk about a Trade Union meeting taking place in Manchester where the Trade Union Executive Committee was having its quarterly meeting. Someone was giving an account. They were talking about how they completed so much work, how it was sometimes quite emotional and how wen everyone went out into breakout rooms the observers were shared out between the rooms so that they could go to see. This person who had been on the Monday was extremely impressed. I was sitting tight up in a corner with Nerina. She turned and whispered to me in my ear “next time we ought to go to see this meeting”. I asked her if she really wanted to go because it was not something to which she had shown any particular interest before, but she was quite adamant about it so I decided that I’d make a few enquiries and see how we could go there. But I was actually with her and the two of us were so close together and so tight up in the corner.

That’s the kind of dream that brought back a few happy memories of former times. As for Trades Unions, I served on the Executive Committee of the Students’ Union at University and held a few other posts as well, such as Chair of the branch of students of Northern Europe. Those were the days after I’d taken early retirement from work and was looking for something to do. However I went back to work later, first covering for someone on maternity leave at General Electric’s training school in Brussels and then at that weird American company where I met Alison

And then it was my birthday so I had invited a lot of people round to my apartment, mostly friends from the University. They were all ages and they really were a bizarre bunch. Then at the end of the night I settled down in the armchair to go to sleep. Liz who was there as well, she settled down in the other armchair to go to sleep. Various other people settled down in all kinds of various other settees and chairs and prepared to spend the night. First thing was that I had to get up to go to the bathroom and come back down again. Liz came with me but she disappeared off somewhere. Gradually one by one other people began to disappear too. I began to wonder where they were going. There was a group of two people sitting on the sofa who suddenly began to awaken and eat chocolates again. A third person went along to sit on the sofa and join in with them. I asked them “is the party starting up again?”.

“That” Liz (not “this” Liz) has featured in several dreams just recently, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. In a fortnight’s time it will be sixteen years since she died. She came from the North-East of England and served on the same University committees as I did. As she couldn’t drive, she used to travel with me from one meeting to the next. Back in 2006 we were on our way from a meeting of the Disabled Students in Bristol to another meeting in Gosforth when we stopped for a meal in a pub near Oswestry, when into the dining room came the very same girlfriend from school with whom I was chatting yesterday. And despite it being 35 years later, you could have put her in her school uniform and she would have looked exactly the same as she did back then at school

Finally, In that dream … "which dream?" – ed … there was a moment when I was in the office. I was wandering around outside in all of the buildings that were there. I came across a woman who was walking around. I was the only person in the office at that time so I wondered who she was. She wondered who I was too so I told her which building I was in and asked her if she knew which one it was. She said that “it’s the one right down there at the entrance” so I imagined that she did. I ended up walking down a corridor where I saw someone else. Then I came into my room where everyone else was. I sat down on the sofa and then had to stand up, but suddenly realised that I couldn’t stand up sitting on the sofa. I had to go through all kinds of strange manoeuvres like leaning my back against the wall trying to push up with my ankles so that I was in an upright position in order that I might be able to stand up and move

That is actually my big fear – falling over, because I can’t pick myself back upright again if I do. When I fell over in an Underground station in Montréal in 2022 a couple of passers-by had to pick me up. It was difficult then, and I have even less control over my muscles today than I did back then. As for the “office”, the image that I have in my head is the hospital in Paris, which is in fact a collection of individual buildings on a campus.

There was more to it that all of that too, but you don’t want to know about it, especially if you are eating your tea right now.

The nurse was later than usual today and didn’t hang around at all. He didn’t even have time to ring the doorbell from downstairs to warn me that he was here. He was in and out in a matter of seconds.

Not that I’m complaining of course. I could make breakfast and carry on reading MY BOOK

Today we are discussing medieval fishponds and the delights of catching, cooking and eating a nice fresh bream “in its jacket”. In my opinion, he’s welcome to it. Even when I used to eat fish, oily, pungent fish like that was not to my taste at all.

Back in here I sorted out the bills that I needed to pay, dealt with all of that, and then finished off my Welsh homework so that I could have a day off to relax on Monday.

Some time round about then I had the ‘phone call from the driver who is going to take me to Avranches. Would it be OK to come round fifteen minutes earlier?

“No problem” I replied. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish (in theory) and I sent a brief note to my cleaner.

Just as I finished my homework she put in an appearance. Perfect timing, that. She sorted out my anaesthetic patches and then I had to wait for the taxi.

We had to pick up that woman who lives at the back of the dialysis centre and we arrived at the centre at about 13:05 which was rather early, because they don’t open the doors until 13:15.

For a change I was second to be dealt with, which suited me fine. I could settle down and watch the football.

A real bottom-of-the-table clash between Aberystwyth and Y Drenewydd, and it looked it too. Y Drenewydd were quite poor but Aberystwyth were dreadful and on this form they’ll find the second tier rather tough going. They look like a team that is already resigned to its fate.

The manager, interviewed afterwards, didn’t pull any punches about his team’s lack of fight but the problem lies with the club. Four years ago they had quite a strong team but a whole raft of players left and the ones who have come in haven’t been able to replace the quality and it’s been downhill ever since.

Unfortunately I fell asleep after that for a few minutes and then carried on tidying up and updating the travelling laptop.

Early in, early out which is good news and I was back here by 18:45, and I wish that I could do that every trip instead of some of these ridiculously late returns home that we have had.

Tea was a burger on a bap, some red-hot chili burgers that I found in the freezer. Certainly different, and quite enjoyable, especially with baked potato and vegan salad, followed by date bread and soya dessert. And it’s the first time in well over a week that I’ve felt like eating a proper meal.

So now I have things to dictate and then I’m off to bed. Loads of editing tomorrow, bread making and probably a few other things too, if I feel like it. But that’s not always obvious at this time of night.

But seeing as we have been talking about that meal in that pub near Oswestry … "well, one of us has" – ed … I told a little joke and the ex let out a sigh.
"Ohh Eric" she said. "You told me that joke when we were at school!"
"Yes that’s as may be" I replied. "I don’t change the material. I just change the audience"
"That’s why Eric likes travelling with me" said “that” Liz. "I have such a dreadful memory that he tells me a joke one day, then tells me again the next day and because I’ve already forgotten it I hear it again for the first time and laugh once more."

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Friday 21st February 2025 – WHAT A NIGHT …

… that was!

Not that I saw all that much of it because I was in bed at 21:30. I threw in the towel and hit the hay, without even finishing off the things that I usually do before going to bed. Once my notes were done, that was that.

And to be honest, I was surprised that I even finished those because I was really in no mood to do anything whatsoever.

To give you some idea of how tired I was, there was a pool of blood on the pillow where my puncture must have leaked after I’d had a shower. I simply swapped pillows, threw the soiled one on the floor and left it

Once in bed though, I couldn’t sleep. Sometimes it’s possible to be too tired to sleep and that was certainly the case last night. But once I’d gone off nothing whatever moved me until about 04:15. By the looks of things I’d had six hours of uninterrupted sleep and it’s been a very long time since I can say that.

Surprisingly, I actually managed to go back to sleep too at some point but not for long, and when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was already up and about.

We went through the usual routine of bathroom, kitchen and back here for a listen to what was on the dictaphone from the night. I was working on a radio programme last night about Lindisfarne. It was an hour long and I was collecting all the songs, all of the anecdotes etc. I didn’t actually have very much to say but I was trying to think of a way of ending it. Of course Simon Cowe has died in Canada and one or two of them have retired from regular performances. And it was Alan Hull who died too but Rod Clements is still going with Lindisfarne with (…fell asleep here …) and I was just trying to think of a way to end it.

And I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that it’s impressive that I knew – in a dream – the real fate of three of the musicians of the “original” Lindisfarne. As for guitarist Simon Cowe, I was at the Harvest jazz and Blues Festival in New Brunswick one year when I met someone who actually knew Simon Cowe in his new job as a wine importer. he was still alive then so it must have been 2014.

Later on I fell asleep again and I was working for “Private Eye”, the review magazine, writing a column about changes in police attitudes and the expenses that were incurred by the police officers, and how they were reimbursed etc but I wasn’t asleep for long.

In the past I did write a few articles for “Private Eye” but we had a falling-out when they began to support the B Liar’s war in the Middle East. I thought that as a satirical magazine mocking the Establishment, they should have taken up an “anti” viewpoint, like most of us.

The nurse was early again today, and he didn’t hang around. In and out in five minutes, which suits me fine. I could carry on by making breakfast and reading MY BOOK.

Today, we’re discussing moated houses and as I don’t know enough about the subject I shan’t pass any comment, other than to say that I now know a lot more than I did before I started to read the chapter.

Today, I’ve had another busy day with radio stuff. Firstly, I had several holes in my forthcoming schedule of programmes so for three of them, in the absence of any better proposition, I used three of the programmes that I’d stocked from a while back that had never been broadcast previously.

Secondly, there’s another live concert in the offing so I had to identify the tracks, the running order and work out the timings so that I could edit the entire concert down to a manageable size and then write the notes. So that’s all complete for tomorrow night to dictate.

Finally, we’re soon going to be upon the anniversary of Woodstock and while broadcasting anything from the concert itself is streng verboten I had to track down the artists, find their setlists and see whether I actually had anything that was played elsewhere that the relevant group or musician played at Woodstock so at least I can broadcast a “flavour of Woodstock” programme.

You’ve no idea just how complicated all of this is becoming. It seems to have developed a life all of its own.

There were plenty of interruptions too. The cleaner came by to do her stuff so we sorted out the bloodstained pillow and changed the bedding while we were at it.

Next, I had a lovely chat with one of my old girlfriends from school. We still keep in touch and she’d left a message on my ‘phone while I was in dialysis so I called her back for a chat. It was lovely to speak to her

Finally I’ve had two chats with Canada. My niece was one of them, and her eldest daughter was the other. Her youngest daughter, the one who came to see me last Summer, is currently in Ecuador. They don’t half move around.

In yet another change, I was feeling more like food tonight, so chips, salad and some of these vegan nuggets. Not particularly exciting but I haven’t eaten this much for over a week. I must be feeling better but then, we have dialysis tomorrow.

So while we’re on the subject of tomorrow … "well, one of us is" – ed … I have my Welsh homework to finish, a couple of bills to pay and then that’s me done until Tuesday. It’s not like me to be getting ahead of myself like this..

But seeing as we have been discussing Canada … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone in Canada asked an American "can you name the two important differences between a Canadian and an American?"
"No I can’t" replied the American
"Well" replied the Canadian "not only do we have a sense of humour, we know how to spell ‘humour’".

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Thursday 20th February 2025 – I WAS RIGHT …

… the other day when I prophesied how I would be feeling today after dialysis. Not only have I gone back to square one, I have fallen off the edge of the board. I can’t be doing with too many more of these dialysis sessions.

However, I have to carry on for the rest of my life and if it goes like this for much longer, that won’t be too far away.

Last night I was in bed rather later than previous, but not at an unreasonable hour. It was before midnight, at least. However we were back at the awakening shortly after midnight and staying awake for several hours.

And even if I did manage to go back to sleep, I was awake again at about 05:50 and when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was already up and about. No point in staying in bed when I have things to do.

We had the usual routine of bathroom and kitchen, and then back here, the dictaphone was next.

There was a group of us singing that Supertramp song “Schooldays” while there was a radio presenter talking about presenting the song, about what was actually behind it. A couple of people who were with us were quite young and obviously wouldn’t have remembered the song when it came out originally but this was one of those things where I was quite young too so it must have been the first time that I heard it. It was one of these anthem-type singers and there was a couple of other people there too but I can’t remember very much about what they were doing.

SCHOOLDAYS is actually a song by Gentle Giant, but let’s not be carried away by the minutiae. It’s impressive that I could even remember the song seeing as it’s one of the Gentle Giant songs that I can live without.

There were then two girls had stowed away in an aeroplane. They had been arrested and imprisoned there while the ‘plane took off to fly them home. There was a problem there with one of the engines on the ‘plane and the crew was busy doing some work on it in mid-flight. Under cover of the noise that the crew was making to hit this engine with a hammer the girls were chiselling away at the side of the aeroplane to make a hole ready for them to escape when the ‘plane landed. Suddenly the hole gave way and one of the girls was sucked out in the air pressure. She disappeared into nowhere. The other girl was left there just looking at it. She suddenly thought “well perhaps maybe this is the moment for her to escape”. She ended up next falling out of the ‘plane but her clothing was hooked onto a jagged edge and she was there suspended outside the ‘plane, thinking “this is wonderful, I’m flying! How marvellous it is!”. Suddenly her clothing gave way and she cascaded out. She was immediately in a panic about this but realising that there was nothing that she could do she just sat back and admired the view from 30,000 feet. She could see that she was about to hit the water on the edge of the coast just off the beach. The water couldn’t have been very deep. She hit the water and managed to walk away. She was rescued and taken to a local Air Force base where she broke down and had an emotional crisis. She could never concentrate on her career on the Air Force again. She resigned four or five times, her marriage had fallen to pieces with her being in such an emotional state but of course she was lucky to be alive.

Bizarrely, I can see them even now as they fell from the ‘plane. I was a few hundred feet underneath them, looking up. And I can still see the second one as she fell and hit the water. And she wouldn’t walk away from that. The water is a lot harder than you might think, especially if you were to fall from 30,000 feet. I’m not surprised that she had an emotional outburst or two subsequently.

Nerina and I had gone on holiday again, driving around the UK looking at different places. We’d ended up in New York driving around. Then I ended up walking around somewhere. I’d seen an old disused railway line that used to run down to the port so when I was back in New York a couple of years later I went to look for this railway line and began to follow it. I had to cross a street and this street was so, so wide that it took me an age to cross over. There was a lorry coming in the distance and I thought that I would never ever reach the other side in time before the lorry would arrive. It was miles. On the other side I saw a strange-looking building so I went to have a look. As I put my head inside the door a voice said “don’t stand there, come on in”. I couldn’t see anyone who had said anything so I went in. It was like a small community centre with a table tennis table, some comfortable chairs and a couple of annexes. There was a coffee bar so I ordered myself a coffee and went to sit down. Back in the car later on Nerina was feeling tired or something. I was listening to music. She said “you couldn’t put music on your headphones, could you? On the car ‘phone put a track of complete and utter silence so that I could sleep?”. I thought “why not?” so I was busy trying to programme the telephone in the car that it would play the longest possible track which would be called “Silence”.

Crossing this street resembles somewhere where I’ve been in the past, although the road was nothing like as wide as this. I’m wondering if it might have been NEW BERN where the railway does actually run down the centre of the main street. However, in this dream there was a very big green park on the far side of the road.

The nurse was late today. I recon that he was on his bike because he brought his rucksack inside with him. He didn’t have much to say for himself today and was soon gone so that I could press on.

Breakfast and MY BOOK were next. But as far as the book goes, I didn’t read it for long. I had too much to do and in any case, the events of modern times are not as interesting as what I’ve been reading to date, in my opinion.

Yesterday, I said that I’d catch up on correspondence, so that’s what I’ve been doing. I reckon that I’m as up-to-date as I have been so if you are awaiting a reply and you haven’t had it, let me know. The chances are that I’ve forgotten or overlooked it.

Having dealt with that I pushed on and attacked the Welsh homework. It would be nice if I could finish that before Monday, then I can have Monday morning off which would be a nice change.

My cleaner turned up to fit my patches and then I had to wait for the taxi. And although it was a little in advance, it made no difference because it was running late for another passenger’s appointment at the clinic on the other side of Avranches so I had the round trip

Dialysis was about as painful as normal, and I had the pleasure of the company of the unsociable doctor today. He’s wondering if I have an infection so they took a blood sample and on Saturday I have to take in …. errr … another type of sample.

The Social Security regulations are beginning to bite too. We have a new patient in dialysis today. He lives out in the sticks and used to go to St-Lô but the Sécu reckons that it’s closer for him to go to Avranches. So here he is.

Late in, I was late out too. It was my usual Saturday evening driver who brought me home, pretty much in silence too. I’m not sure why he’s suddenly gone quiet but these days he doesn’t have much at all to say.

Climbing up here was a struggle, given how I’m feeling. And tea was a handful of pasta and veg in a tomato sauce. I don’t have the morale, the courage or the energy to do much else.

So even though it’s really early, I’m off to bed, hoping that the sleep will do me good and I’ll feel better in the morning. That would really be nice, but I doubt it.

But seeing as we have been talking about archaeology … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends once asked me "why are archaeologists so popular on these dating sites?"
"I’ve no idea" I replied
"Its because they spend most of their time dating these ancient and unusual ruins"

0

Wednesday 19th February 2025 – STRANGELY ENOUGH …

… last night was almost an identical carbon-copy replica of much of the previous one.

Awakening shortly after midnight and not going to sleep for several hours afterwards. There’s something bizarre happening right now and I wish I knew exactly what it was. or maybe I don’t. Some questions are best left unanswered.

One of the questions to which I wish that I did have the answer is “how come I finished so early last night?”. It was like back in the old days back on the farm when I would finish everything by 21:30 and then watch a video or a DVD until bedtime.

In fact haven’t seen a film for many weeks, the last time being halfway through LORD OF THE RINGS. But then again, these days I am far more engrossed in my reading matter and it’s probably a more healthy pursuit anyway.

So even catching up on a couple of missed football matches (like the local derby of Llay Miners’ Welfare v Gresford Athletic in the Welsh Second Tier) I was still in bed way before 23:00. And it’s been a good while since I’ve been able to say that.

It seemed to be an age before I fell asleep but it can’t have been that long because at 00:20 I was back awake again. Wide awake too, to such an extent that at one point I was actually up and about. But I soon thought better of it and went back to bed, where I did finally manage to go back to sleep.

When the alarm went off I was dead to the World and rising up from my bed was quite the struggle. It really was touch-and-go for beating the second alarm.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up and then went into the kitchen to take my medication and notice that I’d forgotten to fill the water carafe and put it in the fridge before going to bed last night.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I alighted from the bus at Shavington, at the “Sugar Loaf” and began to thumb a lift to take me down to the family home. Eventually, a strange three-wheeled van went past, something similar to a Reliant but with a kind-of fastback rear with two aerials on the back sticking out of the roof. It shuddered to a halt just round the corner so I wandered round there and there was a woman. When I opened the door to see who it was, there was a woman sitting in the driver’s seat carrying a huge bunch of flowers which protruded onto the passenger seat side of the car. I asked her if she could take me to Vine Tree Avenue. She said yes, if I didn’t mind a bunch of flowers on my head. So we set out, and she said “when I saw you there earlier you had a Value Village bag in your hand. What was in it?”. “Probably some flour” I replied. So we arrived and I alighted from the car with my things. There were a few people standing around at the top of the garden. We had a friendly chat. I’d put my things down on the floor while I was talking so then instead of picking up my things I kicked them down the hill. There was a jumper and a bag of something or other that might have been the flour. I was also (…carrying a mug of hot…) tea. I was halfway through kicking these things down the hill when I thought “this is going to be dangerous because if I miss my kick like this I’m going to end up on my face with this hot cup of tea all over me”.

If I’m going to hitch-hike for a trip that I could walk in five minutes I’m clearly doing something wrong. But Value Village is the Canadian equivalent of a charity shop. They don’t have isolated charity shops scattered around here and there in the town like in the UK but one big one where the different-coloured price labels indicate which charity supplied the goods. If you look in my collection of books and CDs you’ll see plenty of Value Village labels. There’s stuff available in Canada that never made it over into Europe and which turns up in a Value Village.

As for me being forewarned about doing myself a mischief, I wish that it was like that in real life. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I never make mistakes. I just learn a lot of lessons and for some of them I pay a very expensive price.

The nurse was almost human today, and that makes a change. If he keeps going like this he might even become normal by the end of his spell on duty. But he did confirm a rumour that I have heard before – that they could well be opening a dialysis centre in Granville. That would save me a good hour every day at least.

After he left, I made breakfast and carried on reading MY BOOK. We’ve finished the Saxons, passed over the Norse voyagers and moved into the Norman era.

So far, there has been nothing particularly controversial, although I did have a smile when I read his remark that "the Saxons were not by habit builders of military earthworks at all. At their first coming they seem to have made few or none : theirs was not a military invasion but an immigration, and one need no more look for extensive traces of earthworks to mark it than one looks for them in the track of the Pilgrim Fathers of the New England States."

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that on our way down to South Carolina and Rhys’s wedding in 2005 we stopped off at ROANOKE ISLAND and went for a look around at the fort (or, rather, its site) of the very first English colonists of North America that the “Lost Colonists” built some forty years before the Pilgrim Fathers.

He further states that "Earthworks, except where they mark a deliberate military occupation like that of the Romans or of the Normans, are the work not of the people who attack, but of those attacked." which will certainly come as news to whoever wasted all that money building all of those stone castles in England in the thirteenth and fourteenth Century.

Back in here afterwards I started on the next radio programme and by the time I knocked off – at 17:30, would you believe, I’d chosen all of the music, tracked down that which I didn’t haven edited, remixed, paired and segued it and even written all of the notes. If that’s not a good day’s work I don’t know what is.

There were several breaks too in the middle of all of that. No lunch, but still a break for the lunchtime medication.

Next was my cleaner and a shower, and much as I need a great deal of motivation in order to make myself climb into the bathtub (roll on when I have a walk-in shower downstairs) I really do feel better for it.

Finally, there was the disgusting drink break. I seem to have quite a collection of these disgusting drinks right now. There’s the anti-potassium stuff and then this protein drink. All of this medication really is a torture.

Having finished work early I relaxed for a couple of hours as a little reward to myself, well-earned, in my opinion, and then went to make tea. A left-over curry with naan bread. Only a half-size curry but I still had to battle with it to finish it all, but the naan was delicious.

So I’ll be off to bed and home for some sleep tonight. Tomorrow I’m going to have a correspondence morning before I head off to dialysis. And see what they have to tell me about anything.

But yesterday, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we were talking … "well, one of us was" – ed … about cutting your losses and starting afresh.
A few years ago I was talking to Nerina about that.
Her response was "I suppose that that explains it"
"Explains what?" I asked
"Why your parents had more children after you" she answered

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Tuesday 18th February 2025 – I AM FEELING …

… a little better today. I can tell that because earlier this evening I began to look forward to eating something. Maybe that’s because I didn’t have any lunch today, but then again I’ve not had lunch for a few days either and I’ve still not felt all that hungry in the evening.

Even though I was late going to bed last night, I didn’t hang around after I’d finished work and was soon tucked up in my little cot where I was asleep quite quickly.

Not for long though. At 00:39 (I checked the time) I was wide awake. And awake for quite some time as well but I’d obviously gone back to sleep at some point because I awoke again, this time at 05:44 (I checked the time again).

Despite everything that I tried I couldn’t go back to sleep this time and when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was already up and about. I seem to be making a habit of this.

After a wash and good scrub up, I went into the kitchen and sorted out the medication. While I was there I checked the loaf that I’d baked in the air fryer the previous evening.

This one is yet another candidate for the best ever loaf of bread that I have ever made – even better than the previous best. So much so in the sense that it had risen so much that I had difficulty lifting it out of its mould.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There wasn’t much on there, but after the wretched night that I’d had, I was surprised that there was anything at all. I was dreaming about the Middle Ages and the knights on horseback etc with some kind of fortifications in the centre of something going back to that particular period but again, when I went to reach for the dictaphone the story evaporated and I could hardly remember a single thing about what I had been dreaming of up until that moment.

Judging by the timestamp, that was at the first awakening at 00:39. I’ve no idea to what this dream relates but my book’s author Arthur Hadrian Allcroft is nowhere near approaching anything vaguely near the Age of Chivalry.

Later on I was doing some 3D modelling during the night based on some human figures. I was trying to make something extremely lifelike and I must have spent hours at this dream just looking at this one particular figure trying to make all of the parameters exactly correct but it just didn’t seem to want to go. I stood there looking at this feeling that the more I did, the more it was all going wrong.

That’s a situation that I know only too well. quite often trying to amend something simply seems to make it worse and I’ll end up with something irrecoverable. There have been more than just a few occasions in the past where I’ve ended up scrapping some work and starting again from scratch. I went on an on-line course several years ago to perfect 3D animation but that was not really one of my more startling successes, to be honest. I don’t really have the patience for work like that.

The nurse was early today. He’s heard that it has been suggested that I go four times per week to dialysis. He’s a former dialysis nurse and he reckons in his experience that I should resist at all costs. He’s not surprised that I’ve been feeling so ill after all of the extended hours and rapid pumping just recently.

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

Our author tells us on page 382 that "neither record nor tradition speaks of any walls of Ida or fortresses of Penda, and the name of Alfred himself attaches to no earthworks such as are claimed by Caesar, by the Danes, or by the Devil. Even the arbitrary imagination which allotted all ” camps,” round, rectangular, and oval, to Briton and Roman and Dane severally made no provision for the Saxon. ^"

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a couple of months ago we read the “mushroom report” of the Woolhope Naturalists’ Club and I quoted a discussion that had been reported there during one of their field outings, where at least one person claimed that some of the Iron Age hillforts around the Clun area of Shropshire were Saxon in origin.

Regardless of the fact that his opinion was dismissed at the time and subsequent events have shown that they indeed were not Saxon, Allcroft’s dismissal of “arbitrary imagination” making “no provision for the Saxon” is clearly unjustified.

Back in here I began to prepare for my Welsh lesson. What with one thing and another, at the dialysis centre I hadn’t done as much as I would have liked to have done so I was rather running behind.

However, we didn’t go very far into our course today. We’re running slightly ahead so we ended up having several very long discussions. I’m sure that we are shunted off into breakout rooms in little groups so that the tutor can go off to have a coffee.

That was the same with afternoon sports at school. When I learned subsequently of how much sports coaching children at other schools received, we were simply turned out onto the sports pitch and left to our own devices. I bet that the sports teachers disappeared inside for a smoke and a coffee too.

On the whole, the lesson passed really well and I was impressed. One of the things to which we had to listen was a television programme about sports for disabled people, and answer twelve questions. I really struggled with this but in fact not only did I come out top, but I even picked up a nuance that the tutor missed. I might not be doing too good overall with this course, but years of listening to these football commentaries is improving my aural skills.

That’s right, people. If I have my own trumpet I’m darn well going to blow it.

After the lesson was over I didn’t feel like any food so I had a relax for a while. Several whiles actually. I wasn’t in any hurry and I ought to be able to relax every now and again.

Later on though, I made a start on the next radio programme. This one is going to be complicated, and not helped by the fact that I don’t have to hand much of the music that I need. Even so, that won’t prevent me from planning it out and writing the notes. It’ll be a nice job to attack tomorrow, I reckon.

Tea was a taco roll with rice and veg. Not much of anything, but it was all the same nice to eat something that I enjoyed. The date bread and soya dessert was quite nice too, although the bread is too well-cooked on the outside. I was hoping that it would be something like a fig roll that I used to like. Never mind – Rome wasn’t built in a day.

For a change, I’ve finished everything quite early. I suppose that I may as well go to bed and try for a good sleep, and see how I feel in the morning. We’ll probably find that my health will pick up, only to be knocked back again in the dialysis centre when I go back on Thursday.

But while we’re on the subject of medieval knights and the Age of Chivalry … "well, one of us is" – ed … a few weeks ago I mentioned the story of the stately home just outside Crewe where a major pharmaceutical company has its laboratory.
With the big square tower on the corner, it’s ideal for these jousting tournaments that take place, and one of the regional heats of the North-West Area Jousting Competition was held there recently.
A few days ago I talked to one of my friends in the town. "How did it go?" I asked him
"Overall, very well" he said. "But the competitor from Crewe was disqualified"
"Why was that?" I asked him.
"Apparently he slew the damsel in distress and rescued the fiery dragon."

0

Monday 17th February 2025 – I AM DEFINITELY …

… sickening for something, and it’s going to be tremendous, I reckon. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … when I am off my food then you know that I’m ill, and this evening I struggled even to eat a kiddies’ portion of food

This burst of energy that I had yesterday, of course it was far too good to last but at least I made the most of it while I had it.

After I finished doing my night-time chores I watched Stranraer beat Elgin City by a goal that, if it had been scored in the Premier League, YOU WOULD BE WATING FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIVES. It really was that good.

It was after midnight when I finished letting it all hang out and went to bed, ready for a good sleep. At 04:40 I gave up the struggle and raised myself from the Dead. No point lying in bed being unable to move or unable to do anything, drenched in perspiration.

Instead, I went into the bathroom, had a wash and a shave, washed my undies and then went into the kitchen to have my medication and to have a little think

Back in here, then as a matter of form I checked the dictaphone but there won’t be anything on it if I haven’t been asleep. Instead, I found a few things to occupy my time, forgetting maybe the most important, which is to check the radio programme that will be broadcast this coming weekend.

And that reminds me – I hope that you enjoyed the one that was broadcast last weekend. You won’t hear that anywhere else.

Isabelle the Nurse was early, which was a surprise. It’s her last day today before her oppo takes over so I expected her to be snowed under with blood tests and injections and so on. But apparently not.

Nevertheless, it was only a brief chat and then she cleared off, leaving me to my breakfast and MY NEW BOOK.

Our author is at it again. On page 351 he tells us "There was therefore no necessity for any high road leading to, or even very near to, the villa. A road of some sort there naturally was, but probably not often a high road. … The existence or non-existence of a Roman road hard by has little to do with the distribution of Roman villas"

On the following page he tells us "It is exceptional for the vestigia of villas to be unearthed save at long distances apart, but exceptions do occur, and naturally some parts of the island were more sought after than others. Around the shrunken remnants of Somerton, once the capital of Somersetshire, lie or lay the ruins of a dozen or more of villas … all served more or less immediately by the road from Ilchester through Street and Walton"

Back in here I began my Welsh homework and hadn’t quite completed the first half of it that I had intended to do when my cleaner stuck her head in the door ready to deal with my anaesthetic patches

After she left I waited, and waited quite a while for my taxi to arrive. Today it was the 12-seater minibus for just me and someone ese, and he left halfway through the journey at the Aqua-gym.

And the ambulance nearly left me behind too because we had another pantomime with me trying to climb into the vehicle. Eventually I managed it, only to have another one as I tried to climb back out again.

But there is something that I noticed – and that is my body instinctively rejects certain methods which, on reflection, I know will fail and instinctively tries to look for solutions which, on reflection, I know will succeed. That’s the strangest thing about all of this.

Hours late for my appointment, the system of “what doesn’t go in won’t be there to come out” seems to be working because there wasn’t as much as usual that needed to be removed. I was hoping that they could still leave the machine turned up full so that the process would be completed quicker and I could go home sooner, but apparently it needs to be apportioned equally over the allotted time.

The doctor in charge of the unit came to see me today. He didn’t mention this extra session, so neither did I. However I did tell him about my health problems right now and so he told me that if I bring in my details from Paris for him to read, he’ll contact the hospital there to compare notes.

My nurse today was Julie the Cook so we had a good chat about baking and she showed me a photo of the cake that she had baked for her birthday the other week

So after another painful four hours they let me out and my taxi, a normal one this time, was waiting to take me back home.

We did however have a complication in that my phone hadn’t fully-charged during the night. The battery was now flat so I couldn’t warn my cleaner that I was on my way home. Consequently she had a desperate scramble to come downstairs to meet me.

The climb back up here was agonising in this current state of health, and I collapsed into a chair on arrival. I couldn’t loiter around because I had bread to make and then to sort out tea.

Luckily the pepper wasn’t very big today so with a handful of pasta and another handful of frozen veg that was all that I managed. And that was a struggle too.

So now I’m off to bed in the home that I’ll be able to sleep, and maybe I’ll feel better in the morning.

Some hope though. It reminds me of how I was feeling a few years ago and just happened to bump into someone who I hadn’t seen for ages.
"Eric" he exclaimed. "What a surprise to see you. Someone told me that you had died"
"Well, you can see for yourself that I am not"
"I’m not too sure about that" he said.
"What do you mean?"
"I know the guy who told me" he said "and he’s much more reliable than you."

0

Sunday 16th February 2025 – I HAVE BEEN …

… a very busy boy again today and accomplished much more than I ever would have thought possible. Considering that it’s a Sunday and what used to be a Day of Rest, it’s pretty impressive going and I wish that I could do it more often.

What might have helped matters though was the early start. It’s a Sunday of course, and in principle a lie-in until 08:00 but as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m convinced that they do something special to the dialysis on Saturdays because the times when I’ve actually still been in bed at 08:00 are few and far between.

Last night I was in bed comparatively early, despite having managed to dictate the text for two whole radio shows and the text for the eleventh track from the preceding one, and I was hoping that I might have a good sleep for a change.

As it happens, I was asleep quite quickly but unfortunately it didn’t stay like that. A couple of hours later I was awake again and stayed like that for some time. Eventually I dozed back off to sleep and that was where I stayed until 06:56 when I had another one of those dramatic awakenings that I have every now and again

No possibility of going back to sleep this time so half an hour later I threw in the towel and went off to the bathroom.

Back in here I had to once more coax the computer into life and then make a start on transcribing the dictaphone notes but the arrival of Isabelle the Nurse interrupted me. She showed me all of her skiing photos, making me quite jealous of course, and then left me to my own devices.

Breakfast was first, of course, and then my medication and then MY NEW BOOK but I didn’t have much time to read as I had plenty of things to be doing.

First thing was to continue with the dictaphone notes. There was some guy and his wife who had a couple of people round at their house. The guy had to go to do something, whose house it was, and he left the other guy sitting there. The girl decided that she would go to play a joke on him by hiding in the rafters of the roof and pretending to be a phantom or a spirit. She was doing this when suddenly the covering that she was holding over her or positioned over her, it fell down so the other guy could see her. He was so angry that he grabbed hold of her and had the other fellow whose house it was not returned, it could have been serious. The police were called and it turned out in the end the police spoke to this guy and told him to go home. But he wouldn’t go home so the fellow whose house it was had to put him into a taxi to make sure that he left. He was saying that this is absolutely crazy that this fellow has done all of this to intimidate his daughter or whoever she was yet the police had done absolutely nothing whatever to bring him into account over it. He was absolutely furious about all of this.

This is another one of those dreams that doesn’t seem to have any meaning at all, although the police turning up and doing nothing at all is about par for the course. It keeps the crime statistics down if you don’t write the crimes down in your notebook.

Later on I flew out to Singapore and ended up in the Chinese quarter where in a room above a shop I met several British undercover agents whose job it was to wander through the city producing information and sending back what might be of interest to the British authorities. My interest lay with a fire extinguisher company. A girl who had been a British schoolgirl had gone out to Singapore, married, and had come into a lot of wealth. No-one knew why I had gone – I just turned up. During the course of the conversation I said that I was interested in seeing this girl’s paperwork. All of a sudden not only was it all on my desk but everything else about her, her company and all kinds of things with which she was associated had been put there, even her biography and a photo of her as a schoolgirl riding a horse when she was at Heathfield School. It turns out that she had been of interest to these people in Singapore for ages but they didn’t have anything concrete in which to send a report. They sent for the Chief of Police from Singapore. He too was extremely interested in this girl and her relationships and company. It seemed that she was wanted by just about everyone for some reason or other. It was a German company that she had, not a British one. So we were discussing all of this, and several other things too such as the tenants who were renting the shop downstairs who were Chinese businesspeople, extremely dangerous people and you had to tread on eggshells whenever you were near them. You never went anywhere unless you were armed with a machete to go to visit them

There’s a lot more truth in this than I would care to admit too, although the German fire extinguisher company is certainly a new twist in an old plot. And it wasn’t Singapore either but Quetta, a border post on the frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan set at the time of the Russian invasion of the latter.

There is also a school in Berkshire called Heathfield, an exclusive girls’ school, that would fit quite nicely into this story but until I looked it up, I had absolutely no idea that this school even existed. Somehow some really strange things turn up in the middle of the night.

Back in the dream later on, and back in the UK I met Zero’s father again. I said “I’m going to tell you something strange. I’d gone all that way out there to find out something. You know who it was whom I was going to see, do you?”. He said that he could imagine. I replied “everyone else was interested in seeing her too. They all knew all about her. I find that a most astonishing coincidence”. In the meantime he was planning something and I wondered what it was. I found on his desk some kind of statement that he’d bought another house, one exactly like the one he had now but in a better location nearer to where Zero used to go, so that, he said “my Princess can be so much better and I can look after her better”. He saw me reading it and was rather annoyed but made a little joke out of it. I could tell though that he wasn’t very happy that I’d seen this note.

So why is he suddenly turning up so often these days? I’d swap any two of his appearances for one of Zero herself but I can’t see that ever happening unfortunately. There’s this really big barrier that seems to have come down between the two of us and it’s called “father”. It sounds just like the old days again with a couple of my former female friends.

Next stop was to catch up on the football that was played yesterday in the Welsh Cup. And no surprises. All the fancied teams made it through to the last four, with the exception of the winner of the match that is yet to be played. That’s this afternoon’s treat.

First job of work was to edit the notes for the final track for an earlier radio programme, and then to merge the two halves, the extra track and its notes together, finally then to edit all down to sixty minutes. In fact, I only needed to lose about eleven seconds, but then we have the problem of “which eleven seconds to lose?”. Sometimes it takes longer to decide than it does to actually edit it.

Next task was to make a bread roll, which was totally excellent, by the way, and then to make my broccoli stalk soup. Once that was simmering away I had to leave it as the football was about to start.

Connah’s Quay Nomads, usually pushing for the league title and a European place, are having a woeful season so the Cup is their only hope. However, their opponents, Caerau Trelài of the Second Division, have already knocked out two Premier League sides.

Played down south at Cwrt yr Ala on a pitch that would have made Bonnyrigg Rose’s New Dundas Swamp look good, it had all of the makings of a banana skin in more ways than one.

Trelài took the game to the Nomads and had a couple of gilt-edged chances early on that had one of them gone in, it would have caused an uproar. But the Nomads weathered the storm and gradually began to impose themselves.

Once former Tranmere winger Ryan Hughes scored the result was never in any doubt and a second goal later in the game closed it down, although Trelài missed an absolute sitter in the closing stages of the game. You can see the highlights HERE

It was now time for soup, a long time after lunch so I finished off making it, added a pot of soya yoghurt and several handfuls of these small pasta elbows and with my fresh bread had a delicious meal. I decided to forego my pizza tonight as my appetite is still quite down and doing without food will probably do me good.

Instead, I cracked on with editing the radio notes and although I’m running really late, I’ve finished them both and assembled the programmes as far as I could, chosen the extra tracks, edited and remixed them and written the notes ready for dictation next weekend.

So now I’m totally exhausted so I’m going to bed. I’m proud of what I’ve been able to do today, and it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to say that.

So who is going to come to see me tonight? Will it be Zero, or her father, or one of the others, Castor, TOTGA or Moonchild? Knowing my luck it will be one of my family coming along to spike my guns just as things are beginning to warm up.

But seeing as we are talking about ghosts … "well, one of us is" – ed … it reminds me of that hotel where I stayed in Southern Germany the last time that I was down that way – an old creaky place in an ancient city centre somewhere.
"I’ve heard some stories about this building" I said. "I’ve heard that it’s haunted. Is that true?"
"I shouldn’t think so" said the receptionist. "I mean, I’ve been here four hundred years and I’ve not seen one"

0

Saturday 15th February 2025 – I REALLY AM …

… off my food. And that can only mean one thing – and that is that I am going to be ill. It’s quite simply not normal for me to be off my food.

That’s something that I can well do without because I have far too many other things going on right now to worry about that.

Sleeping is one of them. I was not unreasonably late in bed last night after I’d finished what I had to do, but now for the howevermenyeth night in succession I could count the minutes of sleep on one hand

Once more, tossing and turning in a perspiration-laden semi-comatose state waiting for something to happen. I might have been asleep at some point but I was wide awake when the alarm went off, actually planning on raising myself from the Dead..

In vast contrast to the other more recent nights, I was wide-awake too on leaving the bed and I was thinking “this can’t be correct at all. I can’t have had as little sleep as this over the last few days and still feel rather sprightly (well, comparatively sprightly)”

Not just washing myself this morning but washing my clothes too. It’s Saturday so the night attire and undies go into the sink for a good scrub around so that I can keep on top of the wash. With so few clothes in this apartment, that’s important.

In the kitchen I had the medication, including the sunlight solution, and then back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. No Zero, no Castor, regrettably. They have probably gone for a rest to prepare themselves for the next time that I’ll need them

Instead there was a young person at home on its own in the house so it decided that it would go to have a shower. As it was stripping off its clothes and putting on a dressing gown ready to go into the bathroom it noticed that the window in the dining room was slowly sliding open and could see a shadow outside. The person screamed. Whatever it was outside also screamed and ran off screaming. A couple of minutes later the parent turned up with a small child in tow, obviously scared to death. What had happened was this this was the younger sibling of this other child that had come home and because it couldn’t open the door it decided to climb in through the window. But just at that moment its elder sibling had seen it while in a state of deshabille, had screamed and the younger sibling had run off to find its parent. The mother ordered an enquiry about who hit who and who screamed at who and who did what. In the end the truth was brought out but no-one claimed to have hit anyone else although someone claimed to be hit. In the end the mother took an SD memory card and went to download the information onto the SD card but the child who had told the story wanted it left where it was rather than moved and was then having to find a way to think of either distracting its mother or trying to persuade its mother not to do it.

Putting in an SD Card in order to extract a memory – if only it were that easy. It would save me a lot of time but it doesn’t really happen like that. I’m impressed that I’m dreaming in French though, even if I don’t have a clue as to what this dream might be referring.

And then I walked into a pawn shop last night and was having a look around. I noticed on the wall there were two really long boxes with a well-known make of amplifier written on it, a bass amp. The boxes were bent, implying that their contents inside were bent, but the price was €269:00 for one of the amplifiers. I knew that that probably wasn’t a tenth of the price that it was worth because these were proper stadium amplifiers of the type that you would have on the stage in a stadium when you are playing bass to thousands of people. I went and had a look and opened one of the boxes. It was certainly bent but it was exactly what I was thinking. I thought that maybe I was onto something here. I asked if they had a bass guitar that I could use. They said that it comes with a bass guitar and produced a very bent and battered Fender clone. It was completely blank of any name so I wondered “it couldn’t possibly be … could it?”. I had a look at the pickups and they were called “Mercury” which didn’t ring any particular bell and any importance. Of course as soon as I opened all of this everyone began to crowd around wishing that they had seen it first but I wasn’t going to let this lot go out of my hands without some kind of a fight.

This of course relates to the Genz Benz combo amp that I found in a pawn shop in Ottawa when I’d gone in there with my cousin Sandra to look at something else. And the Jaguar bass came from a pawn shop in Montréal. I used to have hours of endless funs in pawn shops in Canada, but not in the USA. The hundreds of guns on open display in an American pawn shop is enough to put the willies up anyone

Finally, I awoke again, right in the middle of this next dream and lost half of it but it was something to do with increasing the size of the keyboard by having two new characters to increase the scope of names that were available but I can’t remember any more about it than this. I really did awaken too, and it was all of this that was going on when the alarm went off.

Isabelle the Nurse was in another big rush today. Plenty of blood tests to carry out today. Yes, her oppo is back in a day or two so everyone is having them done right now beforehand.

After she left I made breakfast (I did have breakfast) and read MY NEW BOOK.

And never have I been so confused as he probably was either. On page 291 he tells us that "the habit of accidentally losing things is no special peculiarity of modern days, and a Roman was as liable to lose his purse as any other man. He might lose also his hunting-gear, brooch, ring, or pocket-knife, and the chance discovery of any single article of such personal character is no more proof of a ” site” than it would be to-day."

However, when talking about a site at Masham in North Yorkshire, he tells us that "it is absurdly called a Danish Camp in the vicinity. The late Mr. Lukis had a statuette of Diana in silver, 8 inches high, which was ploughed up in the field next to the camp."

So why is the statuette of a Roman goddess, not actually at the site but “in the field next to” it, proof or disproof of anything?

Back in here I had bills to pay. It’s that time of the year again and I can’t see why one particular bill, a failed monthly standing order, comes up every month as regular as clockwork when, each time I go to pay it on-line, the payment order automatically inserts the bank account details that they say I haven’t supplied?

My cleaner appeared on time to fit my anaesthetic patches and to help me prepare my bag, and then stayed and chatted for a while until the ambulance turned up.

Yes, an ambulance. Saturday is a strange day when timing goes out of the window, and an ambulance dropping people in Granville and its next pick-up back in Avranches means that I don’t have to wait as long as otherwise I might.

My way of clambering into the rear has them all bewildered though and although it is their natural instinct to try to help me, there’s only one way that it works and only I know that particular way.

Leaving the vehicle is just as bewildering but it does work and I was eventually safe and sound in my bed.

Connection wasn’t as painful as some have been, but once the anaesthetic wore off then I knew all about it, to be sure.

They took a blood test today, the miserable doctor came round to ask what he could do for me (“nothing, thanks”) and then I was left pretty much alone. I revised my Welsh and spent the rest of the time doing some research into something that I had wanted to do for a while

When I was unplugged the taxi to take me home was already here. It was the driver who usually brings me home on a Saturday but once again, he wasn’t as talkative as he used to be. I have the impression that this is really his usual self and when he was more talkative, it was to probe me about some of the other drivers.

My cleaner was waiting again and she watched as a very weary me stumbled upstairs and collapsed into a chair.

A small tea, write my notes, then I’ll do my dictating and go to bed. I hope that I’ll feel better in the morning.

But seeing as we have been talking about tha ambulance … "well, one of us has" – ed … they were telling me that they had taken someone from last night’s football to the Accident department because of an injury that he had suffered during the game.
When he saw the sign he said "not there! not there! You’re taking me to the wrong place!"
"What do you mean?" they asked
"That basket back there who did this – he did it on purpose!"

0

Friday 14th February 2025 – HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY …

… to everyone who didn’t have anyone to send a Valentine’s Card to them.

Not that I am in that bracket, of course, … "he said, smirking" – ed … because at 00:01 precisely on Valentine’s Day morning a Valentine’s Card fell into my electronic inbox. You know who you are of course, and so do I, and a big thank-you to you because it cheered me up immensely. I imagine though that with all of your connections, you weren’t short of too many

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, Gotthold Lessing once famously said "better counsel comes overnight" and that’s not true in my case because all the night did was to harden my resolve.

And my resolve is just about the only thing that will harden overnight, Valentine’s Cards notwithstanding, these days. Times are definitely sad.

But what I have decided is that I am not going for a fourth session of dialysis. I have to draw the line somewhere otherwise I’ll be living there permanently. Not only that, my cleaner has her own life and a business to run. She can’t plan all of her affairs around the caprices of the dialysis centre.

Consequently, I foresee a major argument breaking out on Monday afternoon. We shall see.

Anyway, I had plenty of time to brood on my situation last night because this was yet another night where I had almost nothing in the way of sleep. Tossing and turning and perspiring all the way through the night with just the occasional flash of sleep, an odd five minutes here and there. How many nights is this now?

When the alarm went off I was however asleep, and once more it was a desperate struggle to fight my way out of bed before the second alarm. And having said the other day that I had never felt less like doing it, I now wish to withdraw that remark.

After a good wash I went into the kitchen to take my medication and then came back in here to find that the computer wouldn’t fire up. Well, it would fire up, but it wouldn’t launch the software operating system.

That’s twice now that it’s done that after a major update, and the last thing that I felt like this morning was to be playing about in the BIOS

When Isabelle the Nurse came round I told her of my woes. Her response was "but you have to" However, when I asked her to give me one good reason why, she was stuck for an answer. Instead, she was out of the apartment like a ferret up a trouser leg.

My appetite is still diminished but I made breakfast anyway and then went to read MY NEW BOOK

We’re discussing water supply at some of these camps that have no obvious source, and he is relying heavily on the presence of dew ponds, which is a somewhat precarious way to go about things.

He also mentions that "It is surprising how little drink is really needed even by modern man when he has perforce to stint himself; probably his Neolithic predecessor required still less, not merely for climatic reasons, but also by habit.^" Whether that’s the case or not, I’m intrigued to know what he thinks are the reasons why Neolithic Man had so many pot-boilers, clearly showing signs of heavy use, lying around if he didn’t have much water in which to drop them.

Back in here, once I’d finished playing with the computer and persuaded it to fire up, I transcribed the dictaphone notes. To my surprise there were actually some to transcribe.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when we were going though some kind of crisis similar to this one a few months ago, Castor appeared in the night and stood silently at the foot of my bed as if watching over me to keep me safe from harm. Last night, not only was Zero’s father there again, so this time was Zero. I’d been doing something with someone but I can’t remember who. It was quite late in the evening so we walked round to their house for some kind of reason. Zero was there with her parents. We talked, or, rather, I didn’t. The guy with me talked to Zero’s father but I was doing my very best not to fall asleep because I was so absolutely tired. As the evening drew on I felt even more and more tired. During this whole dream I just didn’t even say a word to anyone. I just listened to the conversation that was taking place. At the end of it we both set out to go back to from where we had come.

It was really strange that neither I nor Zero said a word during all of this. We just sat there looking at each other throughout the whole affair. If it’s this kind of thing that can summon up Castor and Zero, maybe I ought to throw teddy out of the pram more often.

A little later I heard someone read out the football results. There were just a few and one of the last ones that I heard was “Crystal Palace 1, Notts County 5” and then I awoke. I’ve no idea what would have inspired this.

There was also the Welsh rock band “Man” being included, trying to sneak along under cover and under disguise as the name of another group at one point during the night. Bizarrely, just as I am typing this, round on the playlist come George Jones (Mickey’s son)’s group “Son Of Man” with guest star Deke Leonard. So no early night for me while this plays out.

So there we are anyway. Zero came back to see me last night, and how nice it was to see her too.

Next task was to check over my shopping list and send it off, especially as my faithful cleaner sent me a message to remind me

Having done that, I sat down to think about preparing another radio programme. And by the time that I knocked off today, I had chosen the music, edited and remixed it, paired and segued it and written the notes for it too. So that’s two ready to dictate tomorrow night if I’m up to it.

There was even an hour or so afterwards to chill out.

That radio programme wasn’t all that I did either. About an hour later the delivery driver ‘phoned me. "I know that you said ‘after 17:00’ on your form but is it any problem if I were to come round in half an hour?"

Clearly someone wants to be away early today. I’m not going anywhere so it’s no problem to me. But I had to rush to put it all away before my cleaner came around to do her stuff. She doesn’t want to be tripping over it, which is why I don’t usually want it delivered until after she has gone.

Lunch was next, but only a short lunch as I wasn’t hungry. And while there was no mid-afternoon snack, there was still the disgusting drink break

So all-in-all I’ve been a very busy boy today. I ought to have a few more of these crises.

Just another small tea tonight – a handful of chips, a couple of vegan nuggets and a small salad followed by apple cake and lemon soya dessert.

So when Son of Man finish, I’m off to bed for what I hope will be a good sleep. I can’t believe that I’ve had so little sleep just recently but I’m still going on. Tomorrow I have to fight the good fight at the dialysis centre and then on Sunday there’s a Welsh Cup foot-fest as well as Stranraer hoping to stop the rot.

Four days at the dialysis centre? They must be joking.

But while we are talking of Zero appearing … "well, one of us is" – ed … a bunch of us, Zero included, went once for a day out years ago and I ended up buying lunch for her.
And quite frankly, I was amazed at what she was preparing to put away.
"Does your mum make you meals like this at home?" I asked
"Ohh no" she replied. "She doesn’t want to sleep with me."

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Thursday 13th February 2025 – I DON’T KNOW …

… about anyone else around here, but I reckon that I’ve had enough now and I wish that I would be somewhere else right now. Even shovelling coal into the fires down below can’t be any worse than this.

A few days ago I mentioned that I can’t do with too many more days like the one that I had then, but today I reckon that we’ve reached the stage where there’s no longer any pleasure left in anything any more. As I said right back at the start of all this ten years ago, I’ll keep on going as long as there is something left to enjoy.

It might have been something to celebrate, I suppose, that I had a night last night where I was in bed at something like a realistic time. Not 23:00 of course, because those days are long-gone, but something not too far unadjacent to that.

Once I was in my bed it didn’t take too long to go off to sleep and if only Id have stayed asleep it wouldn’t have been so bad, I suppose, but another mobile, perspiring night. Although I might have slept longer than the ninety minutes of the previous one, it didn’t seem much like it.

When the alarm went off this morning I was just as wasted as yesterday morning and it was yet another undignified stagger into the bathroom. A wash and a shave later, I was in the kitchen taking all of my medication and then back in here to listen to the dictaphone to see if I’d been anywhere during the night too.

And so it happened, I had. But these continual bouts of awakening had interrupted any sequence of anything important. There was something about Prehistoric man and about being in bed in comparatively modern times but as soon as I awoke, whatever it was that was going on at that particular moment just evaporated and I lost all of it. But I was certainly in bed and it was certainly something of particular interest.

No prizes for guessing where this idea about Prehistoric man comes from. I’ll really have to stop reading these books on ancient architecture. But I wish that I knew where this dream was going.

There was also a woman with whom I used to work once making an appearance last night. She was visiting this prisoner-of-war site at the west end of Crewe where people were incarcerated after the fighting had passed by. She’d gone there to check on their needs etc but the Belgian Government wanted an assurance from the British Government that any changes would not be applicable and were to be backdated but the British Government would not agree to do this so the prisoners were held and she was to check on them but there was much more to it than this and I can’t remember a thing now.

Why this woman should be there I really don’t know because I can’t have thought about her even once since I moved on to pastures new all those years ago. But I’ve no idea where the prisoners of war fitted in. However in the South Cheshire area there were two prisoner-of-war camps, which later became Displaced Persons camps

There was also a group of us in work having a good time passing the time working, chatting to each other. The question of what we were going to do that evening came up because it was a Friday. I said that if I could find someone to go dancing with me I’d be off to the nightclub. “How are you fixed?” She said one or two words and then said “yes, why not?”. So we left the office and walked hand-in-hand down the street, skipping and laughing, down to the nightclub. But there was never anything serious about it. She spent most of the time telling me about her boyfriend and how ever since they had met they had only spent three days away from each other so I knew that this was just the whim of a moment and that it would be all over in a couple of hours by the time the nightclub closed but it was one of those things that you have to seize the moment as it goes by.

This was my Irish friend again, the one who had far more sense than to hitch her cart onto my star, and who can blame her? But almost Getting The Girl is a darn sight better than what usually happens in my dreams. But even in a dream, I realised that it was just something ephemeral, and that’s interesting

Isabelle the Nurse turned up late and in a whirlwind of a rush. Apparently everyone is making their requests for blood tests before her oppo comes back at the weekend and I can’t say that I blame them. I will almost inevitably do the same.

After she left I made breakfast and read MY NEW BOOK. We’ve finished hillforts and now discussing dwelling houses. But he can’t leave off hillforts for long and we’ve had a delightful ramble through Caer Seion near Conwy

This is a fascinating place because it consists of two forts, one inside the other, but there is no internal communication between the two parts. You have to go back outside the one and come back into the other.

Digging around on the internet, I found an archaeologist’s report from the 1950s. His conclusion went something along the lines that "all dates are inconclusive and capable of several interpretations".

Back in here afterwards I had tidying up to do and I didn’t accomplish anything like what I wanted to do because a text message told me that the taxi was coming early.

Once I was in it, we drove all around the town, to areas that I didn’t know existed and then the four of us, driver and three passengers, set off for Avranches.

They weren’t ready for my at the dialysis centre so I had to wait, but once I was seen it was another painful session where I was in agony.

It wasn’t just four hours either. A nurse came along and said "we’ve seen your weight graph, and the doctor says that you have to stay for an extra half-hour". And by this time the stabbing pain in the sole of my foot had started up..

A doctor appeared shortly afterwards so I complained. "Are you going to make me sit here for four and a half hours in this agony and do nothing about all of the tests that I’ve had on this arm that show an anomaly?"
"I’ll prescribe an anaesthetic spray" she said
"An anaesthetic spray isn’t going to do me much good" I said. "I’m not going through all of this every time I come here for the rest of my life. It needs to be dealt with"
"I’ll have a look in your file" she said, beating a hasty retreat.

When they came to unplug me, they brought me more bad news. The weight graph shows no signs of stabilisation so as of next week I may well have to come in four days per week.

Having arrived early, I was hoping to be home early but with the extra half-hour and the delay at the start it was even later than usual by the time that I returned, totally and utterly exhausted, and completely fed up.

There was no energy left in the tank to make tea. A baked potato and some salad was the best that I could do, and now I’m off to bed. And if I don’t awaken in the morning I couldn’t care less. “Tomorrow is another day” they say, but it will be just like this one.

All of this reminds me of the story of the man who goes to see the doctor about his (the man’s, not the doctor’s) chronic alcohol problem
"If you keep on drinking like this" said the doctor "you are going to die"
The man turned to the doctor with a smile on his face and said "when?"

It’s better, I suppose, than the doctor who announced to his patient "I can’t find what seems to be the matter with you. It must be due to drink"
"That’s no problem" said the patient. "I’ll come back when you are sober".

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Wednesday 12th February 2025 – MY JAW HAS …

… just hit the floor.

An apartment upstairs from the one that I have bought admittedly with a slightly better view, has just gone onto the market. And I have JUST SEEN THE PRICE.

Admittedly there’s a better view and there’s a shower, but it’s in nothing like as good condition as mine is and I really can’t believe this price because I paid, well, nothing whatever even on the same page as anything like this price, so I’ve no idea what’s happening here. I was convinced that I did very well from the purchase of mine, but I didn’t expect it to be anything like as good as it seems to be.

In a few senses I’m glad that I saw this because it’s high time that I had some good news. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

It wasn’t any better during the night either. After I finished my notes and what I had to do, I had a mad dash of energy, finished my Welsh homework, sent it off and then checked over the radio programme that is going to be broadcast this weekend.

The evening finished in a flurry as I sent off the programme ready to be pushed into the feed to be broadcast. And if you have some free time round about 21:00 CET, 20:00 UK time or 15:00 Toronto time on Friday or Saturday eveing, HAVE A LISTEN TO IT. It’s something that most of you will recognise, but I promise you – you have never heard it quite like this. I put a lot of effort into it.

Having finished, I should really have gone to bed but although I was exhausted, I wasn’t tired and didn’t feel at all like dropping off. In the end it was 01:30 when I finally made it into bed.

And 01:30 when I went to bed it might have been, but at 04:00 I was still awake. The night dragged on and on and on and at one stage I was convinced that I would never go off to sleep

Sleep though I must have done because I was definitely deep in the arms of Morpheus when the alarm went off at 07:00. It was a very weary, bleary me who emerged from the depths and staggered off into the bathroom.

After the medication I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to see if I’d been anywhere during the night. And to my surprise, I had. I was going to Manchester with Zero’s father to go to the hospital. The train pulled into the station – we’d been sitting there talking etc on the platform and the train, we could see the train come in the distance as it came around the bend. It took me so long to stand up and gather my crutches that we were struggling for time. When the train pulled in actually at the station it was a good two or three feet away from the edge of the platform and I couldn’t pass over the gap. The train just pulled away and left the two of us standing on the platform. There were two women from British Rail checking the tickets of the passengers who had just alighted so we asked one of them how long the station had been remodelled like this. One of them replied “at least three years”. The other one replied “oh no, it’s nothing like that at all”. We explained that I was wanting to go on that train but I couldn’t climb on board so it had left me behind. She replied “you don’t want to go to Manchester Airport …” which was presumably the destination of the train “… and be treated in the USA. You want to be treated in Manchester”. To which I replied “well that’s where I was going” which caused a couple of people in the crowd to laugh but the woman just turned her back and continued to check the tickets of the passengers. One of them said to me “you just have to keep on at her”. We thought “well, nothing in this World is going to make her do what she doesn’t want to do”.

So Zero’s father was there again. But not Zero unfortunately. That’s rather sad. It seems that it’s not just my family but Zero’s too, stopping me having whatever slight amount of pleasure there is available to be had during the night. Do you ever have the feeling that the fates are all conspiring against you?

Scrambling on board trains too is also problematic – or, it was. In the final days of my voyaging to Leuven I had to change my itinerary so as to travel on the flat-floor commuter trains rather than clamber in and out of the big SNCB expresses as I could no longer manage the stairs. Nowadays I have solved the problem by not going anywhere.

Also, at one stage, “train” dreams were a regular occurrence, but we haven’t had one for quite a while until last night, so welcome back. If we aren’t careful, the Vanilla Queen will be back soon TO HAUNT ME, EVEN IN MY DREAMS in her mask of sterile dignity.

Isabelle the Nurse had a laugh when I told her the story about Emilie the Cute Consultant on Monday. Those two know each other, so I gather, and they can probably tease each other about it. But what kind of state am I in when I have to take my pleasure vicariously like this?

After she left I made breakfast and carried on reading MY NEW BOOK. We’e reaching the end of the discussion on forts and fortresses and moving on to another topic.

It’s good to note that he is of the same opinion as I am about these modern theories. He tells us that "It is incredible that a tribe, otherwise engaged, according to the theory, in the pursuits of peace, should l)e at pains to construct such a work as Maiden Castle, or for that matter such a work as Blacker’s Hill, simply as a precaution against a possible day of danger ; and in a state of civilization, in which the first news of danger must usually have been brought by the foe himself, it is not easy to see how the refugees could have made good their escape to their asylum, let alone driving off their flocks."

The effort and painstaking labour that has gone into their construction defies all belief that they were simply showplaces, especially when Neolithic and Iron-Age man had far more urgent, important and necessary things to do with his time

However, he is tying himself up in knots. Having told us the other day that "Incredilde as it must seem to anyone who tries to realize the labour involved in the building of any great camp, it seems none the less to be the fact that many of them were planned and constructed according to one original design.", he tells us today that "theorists have tried to establish some relation between the three classes of camps—the very irregular, the less irregular, and the approximately circular—and as many different swarms of invaders, Lloegrians, Goidels, and Brythons.^ Such speculations require no detailed refutation, and passing by any more particular objection it is enough to advance this general one, that they are all based upon the unwarrantable assumption that ancient tribes in the first place constructed each some one uniform type of earthwork, and in the second place entertained a broad and well calculated strategy, a unity of purpose, for which there is no evidence at all. There were no Vaubans in the prehistoric days,"

It saves me the trouble of asking him, If these plans were all the same, how were they transmitted? And how were they worked? There must have been written records and notes of some sort. They couldn’t have passed all of this information on orally over the centuries over the entire country.

Occasionally, though, a sense of humour bleeds through the pages. "In many cases the heaps of fallen stone have all the appearance of ruined towers, although the erection of a tower must, to builders using no mortar, have been, if not an actual impossibility, at any rate as dangerous to the occupants as to the enemy."

He’s also talking about "various points upon the coast of England, particularly in Devon and Cornwall, in south-western Wales, Scotland, and Ireland." where "though there can be no doubt of their low degree of culture, it is not certain that they belonged, as has been thought, to the very earliest Neolithic times, for some of the weapons found in the middens appear to be palimpsests fashioned out of other weapons of much higher types."

The thought appears not to occurred to him that if the more “primitive” civilisations clung on in these far-flung corners, as we have seen, until a much later date, they must have come into contact somewhere along the line with more “advanced” civilisations of invaders coming into their area and succeeded in driving them away. They aren’t likely to have gone away quietly so broken modern weapons implies a victory in battle for the more “primitive” defenders, hence them clinging on to their terrain.

Having finished my breakfast I came in here and began work. And by the time I knocked off for tea I had chosen ten tracks for the next radio programme, edited, remixed, paired and segued them, and there’s just about ten minutes left and all of the notes would be finished too. I’ve worked hard too.

There were the usual pauses – lunch, my cleaner, a delicious, wonderful shower and right at the end of the evening just as I was about to finish and call it an early day, Rosemary rang me for another chat. This time, just a short one – one hour and eight minutes only.

Why does it always happen like that? I’ll be burning the midnight oil again tonight and I wish that I didn’t have to. Remember, I’ve only had about 90 minutes sleep since yesterday morning.

Tea was magnificent. The best curry I have ever made, with the best naan that I have ever made too. Life isn’t any better than this, I promise you. That really was a successful meal

But that story of the towers at the fort reminds me of my old neighbour and former taxi passenger BLASTER BATES
On a farm out at Chorlton (near Shavington) once to blow up the Brunel Chimney that was there, he saw a farmhand walking across the yard carrying two bricks.
"Where are you going with those?" asked “Blaster” Bates
"I’m going to castrate the new bullock" replied the farmhand
"With two bricks?" asked “Blaster” Bates incredulously. "Doesn’t it hurt?"
"I’ll say it does" replied the farmhand. "Especially when you get your thumb trapped between the bricks."

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Tuesday 11th February 2025 – I DON’T KNOW …

… about anything that happened today. It was one of those days where nothing seemed to go to plan, even from the very start. In fact, this is probably going to be a week to forget, all in all.

Last night was rather later than I intended it to be, what with one thing and another. Well after midnight, in fact. And not everything that I wanted to be done was done either.

It had been my aim to finish off the Welsh homework before going to bed but with the head full of spaghetti that I had on my shoulders, I abandoned the plan and left it for another day. There was the radio programme that I’d edited at the dialysis centre that I wanted to send off, but that was left too.

Once in bed it took a while to go off to sleep and then it was a very disturbed night as is usual after a dialysis session, waking up here and there and perspiring like there is no tomorrow

When the alarm went off I hauled myself out of bed with the utmost difficulty and then staggered off into the bathroom to sort myself out, and then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I started to transcribe the dictaphone notes but was surprised by the amount of stuff on there. I’d only finished about half of it when Isabelle the Nurse turned up, and she wasn’t early either. I’m not going to have the homework done this morning either, am I?

She and I had a little chat about nothing much and after she left I made breakfast and read MY NEW BOOK

Our author has made a couple of points that are extremely curious. He notes that at Worlebury Camp, overlooking Weston-Super-Mare, where there are according to him, unmistakeable signs of Roman siege and conquest, the skulls of the deceased, complete with battle-wounds, are "the long-headed (Iberian) type, and suggest that at the date in question the dominant race in south-western Britain were the descendants of those Iberians who had preceded the round-headed Brythonic race, and who had been ousted by them from the more easterly parts of the island."

Anyone remember when we were discussing stone circles, menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … and none at all?

Secondly, "Incredible as it must seem to anyone who tries to realize the labour involved in the building of any great camp, it seems none the less to be the fact that many of them were planned and constructed according to one original design."

And if that really is the case (and after all, he’s the expert), given the number of different races and tribes, the time period and the distance to travel, it’s probably the most interesting thing that I have read on the whole subject.

Back here, I revised for my Welsh, complete with a full pot of coffee because I needed it. And I don’t know what I would have done without it because even so, the lesson, well, let’s just say that it did not go as I would have wished, and I was glad when it was over.

After lunch I came back in here and carried on with the dictaphone notes, and as I said earlier, I was surprised by how many there were. I dreamed that I was in a scrapyard looking for all bits and pieces of a car. I couldn’t see what I wanted. It was the springs that retained the headlight in. They were tiny micro-springs. I’d had three and I had put them down but when I went to look again I couldn’t see them. They were so small. I was hunting again. In the meantime two guys turned up in a red MkIII saloon with a black vinyl roof. They had parked their car on a trailer while they had gone off to the pub. Someone told them about their car on someone else’s trailer so they just took their car off the pile and just rolled it down the hill into the scrap. They said “well never mind. We only paid £50:00 for this. Immediately everyone swarmed over to it to strip it for spares as they did in the old days. I went to have a look and someone asked me if I needed anything. I told him that I was looking for an old tax disc holder, the type that suckered on to your window but which had an aerial connector in it. People remembered those from years ago but no-one had seen one. I’d looked at a couple of car tax discs of cars that were ‘S’ reg in 1977/78 but there was nothing around there at all. In the end I left and had to stop at a road junction while a big group of soldiers who were on a military parade marched past where I was standing.

Cars for £50:00. Anyone remember those days? And Nerina and I once drove all the way around Central and Eastern Europe in one that cost £25:00, and on another occasion in a different car at the same price all the way round the South of France.

‘And ‘S’ registered cars from 1977/78? I’m really impressed that I could remember that in a dream as well. But as for cars in scrapyards, I’ve done more than my share of scrapyard scavenging in the past

Later on I was with a group of people. One was a small girl. It was a girl whom I’d seen so many times before and we’d always had a laugh and a joke. Then I mentioned something about taking her out and she said “yes, fine!” she said. “When should we go?” or something like that so I hadn’t realised that she was serious but I was ready to take her then and there practically

There is more to this than meets the eye too. However, let me guess. Small as in “one whom I could throw over my shoulder and carry off to bed” I suppose. But me Getting The Girl in a dream? It’s a good job that this dream ended before my family came along to spike my guns as they usually do at the crucial moment

There was also something else about buses in Alsager, driving buses out towards Kidsgrove and the back of Stoke on Trent at Werrington, etc, but it was something to do with the arrangement of fares, keeping fares down and buses not going into anyone else’s territory but I can’t remember that

Later yet, I was living in an apartment in a modern block of flats in Brussels but I’d bought the apartment downstairs to where I’m going to move, so I’d given my notice to the landlord. He’d put the property in the newspapers and was arranging visits. The first visit came when I was really unexpecting it so the place wasn’t very tidy at all. It was a nice youngish guy, quite tall, who was shown around. He noticed the Tesla that I had in a wooden box that was a pre-war spark generator sitting in the bottom of the room on top of the piano so we had a discussion about that. Then he asked me a few more questions then he decided to leave. He talked about decorating but I told him that I moved here and didn’t do anything. It didn’t bother me, the decorations being a little tired but he said that maybe he could move into one room and decorate all round him. As he left the Estate Agents gave me all of the duplicate keys that I’d never actually had to the property. As he left he asked me a question about the television. Were the “Free” company’s services available here? I told him that I didn’t know. As he left I noticed another couple waiting in the hall. I thought that I wished that I’d known that there were going to be all these visits because I could have tidied up the property. He did ask me before he went if he could come back and have another look. He wanted to come back at 07:30 so I shuddered but said “yes, it’s not a problem” so at that point he left.

Me? An untidy apartment? Perish the thought! And I wish that I had a pre-war Tesla spark generator lying around here somewhere. But the apartment – we’ve been in that apartment before in another nocturnal ramble, a long time ago when I drove a car into the centre of Brussels round the big Basilica. It’s strange how these things crop up so far apart in time.

Did I dictate this dream where I was in a cheap hotel somewhere? … "no you didn’t" – ed … There was a crowd of people in the room with me. The bath was across the end of the room and there was a glass partition in it that only covered a part of the bath. I decided that I’d take a bath. I went in there and began to run the water but the bath didn’t fill up. Then I found that the plug wasn’t in so I had to put it in. It was still not filling up. I saw that the water was cascading out of the joint of the immersion heater. By the time that there was anything like some water in the bath it was cold. I didn’t really fancy the bath but I thought that I needed one. There were all these people there too. Next thing that I remember, I was outside. It was 18:30. I didn’t have time for the bath because we were going to a nearby café for a meal, so I thought that I’d have to hurry up

The idea of me having a bath is interesting too. Leaving aside the fact that I couldn’t climb out of a bath these days, I would prefer a shower any day of the week. And a cold bath? In my case, that’s water at 36.9°C

Later, I was with Zero’s father and a couple of small boys was asking me that he had to go to school and tell them how a carburettor worked . I asked him if he knew how a carburettor worked. He said a few words but obviously didn’t understand the basic principles. We went down to one of the cars. Zero’s father handed a set of keys to me but I couldn’t make them work. In the end I put the key in the other way round. It worked so I could open the bonnet and we began to discuss the carburettor. Zero’s father was there but he kept on confusing the matter. I was trying to make things as simple as possible for this little boy and he was just complicating them by giving long technical explanations that were not really what was needed, not for a boy in Primary School anyway.

There are always some people who will take a simple explanation and complicate it unnecessarily, who don’t seem to realise exactly who their audience is and the purpose of what you are trying to explain. It’s like our author, Arthur Hadrian Allcroft, who is writing for an audience that excludes about 75% of the population. I realise that the aim of any kind of education is to bring people up to a higher level, but how far up are some of these people sitting?

How depressing is it though that Zero’s father is there and not Zero herself?

Believe it or not, that took me up to afternoon nasty drink break and then I had bread to make as I have all-but run out. That took longer than anticipated but I do have to say that the loaf that I made is perfection itself. It couldn’t possibly be any better. I’ll go with that any time.

There was just time for me to finish the Welsh homework before going to make my tea. And why it was so difficult I have no idea. My brain, if that’s what you call it, has ceased to function, and ceased a long time ago.

Tea was as usual a taco roll with veg and rice, followed by apple cake and soya dessert. Just as nice as ever. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t make it.

So that’s the end of another depressing day. I’m glad that it’s over, Here’s hoping for a better day tomorrow. I shall have to try to be more optimistic

But seeing as we have been talking of cold water … "well, one of us has" – ed … those crazy Canadians with whom I spent a lot of time up in the Arctic used to love to leap into the cold water from the loading platform of THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR at every available opportunity
On one occasion deep in the North-West Passage Castor and Pollux were going to leap in with them – at MINUS 0.5°C in the water. It was about minus 10°C in the air
Castor came to look for me and asked "are you going to come and jump in with us, Eric?"
"I can’t, pet" I replied. "I have this catheter port in my chest and it can’t be immersed in salt water"
After she left, a guy who had overheard the conversation asked me "if you didn’t have that catheter port in your chest, what would you have done?"
"What would I have done?" I said. "Simple. I would have thought of another excuse."

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