Tag Archives: place d’armes

Saturday 29th June 2024 – SO FAR TODAY …

… I’ve managed to avoid falling over. However, the night is young and there’s still plenty of time yet to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

And defeat? They are the things inside de slippers of course!

There has been plenty of the day to go at too. More than usual, in fact, because once more I was up and about at an ungodly hour long before the alarm went off. I’ve no idea why that would be because, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s not like me at all.

It was a late night too. The other night when I was in bed before 23:00 must have been a fluke, that’s all I can cay because much as I would like that to be my target time, it’s pretty much unattainable right now and that’s something else that I can’t understand. Where does all the time go?

So last night after my misadventures on the kitchen floor I crawled off to bed late as usual as I mentioned and for a change it took a while for me to go off to sleep. After my fall you could probably say that I was shaken and not stirred.

Round about 05:00 – 05:30 I sat up, bolt upright, wide awake, and try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep. Just like yesterday morning too.

After lying awake for a while trying to drop off, I abandoned the struggle and took to my feet, a little more steady than last night, it has to be said. I sorted out some clean clothes and then went for a good wash and scrub up

Back in here afterwards I transcribed the dictaphone notes. I was newly-retired, so I was back at home. There were all kinds of medical upheavals going on. Even I’d been interviewed for a medical and failed it completely so was going to have some kind of further treatment. A whole week had been set aside for us to receive the kind of treatment that we needed. This was to take place at home, or at least, some kind of clinic but we’d all be at home during the day, during the night. It had been arranged that I’d look after my niece’s daughter while all of this was going on. We were making plans and making appointments. Someone said something about the daughter staying with me. It turned out in the end that she was only going to stay with me for two days because Friday the had something sorted out but there were so many things arranged that this stay was gradually being whittled down until in the end it probably wouldn’t be anything. That was a big disappointment to me because I had lots of plans and lots of ideas about what I was going to do and where I was going to take her. I’d been quite looking forward to going off for a few days with her to show her around, so I was starting to be even more disappointed and fed up than I am.

Later on there was something else that cropped up which would have been a really great idea had she been staying with me. I happened to mention this idea thing that had come up but it turns out now that whatever time she had left was going to be reduced yet again as something else was found for her to do. I began to wonder whether I was completely wasting my time with all of this and trying to be nice and helpful

So here we go again. I’m planning on having a good and interesting time and various members of my family come along and spike my guns, shoving "le baton dans la rue" as they would say around here. That’s one thing on which you could count – if I were going to be having a good time they would want to spoil it. I tell you, leaving The Land That Time Forgot and coming into the 21st Century was the best thing that ever happened to me and it’s a real shame as far as I’m concerned that I couldn’t ever persuade Nerina to take a leap into the future instead of being back there in the past

The nurse told me about the fun run taking place tonight. The town is closed off this weekend and it’s a car-free “pedestrians only” to celebrate the start of the summer season. There’s a 9km trail laid out around the town and the fun run starts this evening with everyone joining in for a lap – or two, or three, or four if you want the full marathon – to celebrate the summer, the Olympics, or anything else that you like.

She’ll be taking part and she’ll give me a wave as she runs past my apartment. I said that I’d keep an eye open for her;

After she left I had breakfast and then came in here – where I promptly fell asleep again. So much for this early start, I have to say.

While I was away with the fairies I was over the hills and far away. While I was asleep during the morning I had a very clingy girlfriend, a younger girl with large thick-lensed glasses and I know who she is but I can’t think of her name now. We we were out one afternoon and evening and she was just clingy. At first I thought “how lucky I was to have someone who wanted to be so near to me so much” but after a while I began to realise that someone so clingy can also be se needy and so much closeness can be oppressive.

It’s amazing how deep your inner consciousness and realisation goes when you are asleep. I’ve come up with some profound thinking in my dreams and I quite often wish that I could think so clearly and profoundly in real life. Things would be quite different. But what the heck is the name of this girl? I can see her even now but can’t think of her name.

When I awoke I finished off all of the notes for the radio programme on which I was working and then went for a very late lunch, not that I was too bothered about the time.

This afternoon, apart from sleeping, I’ve been carrying out a few amendments to my Homepage (and there will be some more in the fullness of time too), finishing off the updates to my “Canada 2022” pages from October 2022 and once I’d finished those, making a start on updating the pages that I wrote during my recent stay in hospital. So all in all, a very busy boy today even if a tired one.

Having had my breaded quornburger last night, tonight I had air-fried chips with a vegan salad and a burger on a bap – one of those burgers that I made with this dried compound stuff from Germany;

The taste is cerainly different, but not disagreeable, especially when there’s plenty of vegan mayonnaise, dijon mustard and onion plastered all over the place.

So now, early though it is, I’m going to dictate some radio notes for editing during the week and then off to bed. An 08:00 start so if I’m lucky I might have a little lie-in.

But going back to yesterday and needing help too raise myself from the floor reminds me of a story that Bishop Bell of Chichester used to tell me, about the time that he had difficulty rising from his seat in the park
A small girl dashed over and asked if she could help him
"Are you sure you can, dear?" asked the Bishop. "It’s not going to be easy"
"It’s all right really, sir" said the girl, brightly. "I’ve often helped my daddy when he’s been much drunker than you"

Friday 28th June 2024 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about the card reader solution being too easy.

Sure enough, the girl turned up at 12:30 with the delivery and so I went to pay for it using her portable card reader. “PIN correct” but “Card Declined”

And that was how it went on for about 15 minutes until in the end I gave up and used my Belgian card. I thought that that solution was too good to be true and, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s par for the course.

Meanwhile, in other news, I’ve had another bad fall this evening. Only this time it wasn’t “sideways keeling over when the knee folds up” which, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is also par for the course, but tonight it was “backwards into the kitchen shelving unit while washing up” – a totally new experience.

Another new experience was actually being in bed before 23:00 last night.

Not by very much, I have to admit. Just by a wafer-thin margin but never mind, it was an accomplishment.

However, regular readers of this rubbish will recall what usually happens at times like this. At 05:00 I had to go to walk the parapet. Try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep and when the alarm finally went off at 07:00 I was already up, washed, dressed and sitting at the computer.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone too so I transcribed that while I was waiting for the nurse to come. A newspaper headline in one of the broadsheet dailies had made some kind of inflammatory remarks supposedly said by a member of the Government about the situation in Ireland that the Minister, if he had his way, would “exterminate the lot of them”. This apparently was the final straw and the next day in Parliament there were severe probing questions asked about “what exactly is the Government’s agenda in this respect?”. Of course they were all extremely vague. Nevertheless the Police launched a raid and took away thousands of papers. Then a senior Policeman was arrested and charged with “misconduct in public office”. It turned out that he had been leaking details of all the Police operations to fellow Party members so they were all well aware of what was happening. Now of course Society had had enough. There were all these arrests and all these charges. I remember saying to someone “it’s high time that all this inflammatory language was addressed and people were dealt with for stirring it all up”. Someone said “yes but that means that there would be an independent Ireland in five years” to which I replied “does it really matter?”. The fellow shook his head and said “not really, I suppose”

And if they ever do introduce a law to outlaw the kind of outlandish and incendiary rhetoric that comes from the mouths of some of these politicians, mainly of one particular shade of opinion, I for one what be most impressed. How I yearn for the dignity of politicians like Gaitskell and MacMillan rather than the rabble that seem to have been in power in several countries of the World

The nurse and I had a good chat this morning and on leaving gave me a list of supplies that she thinks we might need in the near future. She also gave me the Injection of the Last Resort, which I’m now to have twice per week instead of once. This is becoming serious too.

After she left, I went and had breakfast, having sent the shopping list to my faithful cleaner “for action” while she’s in town this morning.

Much of the day has been spent on radio stuff. I’ve now finished editing all of the stuff that I dictated the other night, all programmes are assembled and as for the last one, the final music has been chosen and the text written ready for dictating.

And then I’ve been writing out some notes for the next one. I’m still boldly going forwards, but to what end I haven’t really a clue.

We had the food delivery, as I mentioned. And that was a dismal failure that didn’t fulfil the purpose of activating my bank card. But at least I now know that the “tap” function of my Belgian card works, after today’s efforts.

But thinking about the different bank cards reminded me of that time at that Motel in Maine (or was it New Hampshire?) in 2017 when they wanted to check my identity, and so we had –

British passport
French driving licence
Belgian bank card
My vehicle, Strider with his New Brunswick licence plates
Québec mobile ‘phone

Yes, that would confuse the badgers.

Those were the days when I was an International Man of Mystery. Look how far the mighty have fallen now.

While my cleaner was here doing her stuff I was doing the radio stuff and going through the Post. And to add to the confusion, I have been “summoned to attend” the Centre de Re-education at 10:30 in the forenoon on 3rd September. “Do not pass ‘Go’ and do not collect £200”.

What do they want, I wonder. We shall find out, I suppose, if I remember to go. but I need to ‘phone them for a taxi voucher as I need one to take me there (and bring me back).

But whichever way you look at it, things are hotting up here and at this rate I’ll be out somewhere every day if I’m not careful. Those of you who think that I need to go out more often won’t be disappointed.

After the cleaner left I baked a loaf as I was running out of bread. And this one rose like a lift as well and looks really good. I was really impressed with how it came out.

While it was baking I baked some potatoes and so I had my Saturday Quorn fillet tonight instead. I know that it’s only a small oven and it doesn’t take much to fill it, but nevertheless I should still be filling it as often as I can.

And then washing up, next think I remember is being on the floor on my back surrounded by bottles, cans and jars. Backwards into the storage shelves, I reckon. Don’t ask me how.

Like that on the floor, I could just about make it to “on my knees” and that’s the limit of my muscular strength. I can’t raise myself any higher than that.

And so I waddled on my knees across the apartment and on the count of “three”, “three being the number of the counting and the number of the counting being three. Five is right out”, I threw my upper body onto the sofa.

One by one, I pulled my legs up behind me and then with a bit of manoeuvring I could sit on the sofa. Lifting myself up I could slide a box underneath so I was sitting higher, and then onto the arm of the sofa, and then I could stand up with a bit of effort.

20 minutes it took me. What a state to be in. A year ago I could stand upright from a kneeling position but there’s no chance of that these days.

It reminds me of the time that Neil Kinnock, Leader of the Opposition, was walking through the Public Gallery on his way out of the House of Commons.
There was obviously something important going on and the Lord Tipstaff of the House of Commons, resplendent in robe and wig, was chasing after him.
Catching sight of him down the far end of the corridor the Lord Tipstaff shouted "Neil!" at the top of his voice.
And all the American tourists present knelt.

Thursday 27th June 2024 – JUST FOR A …

… change, especially given how things have been just recently, I’ve actually had a day at home.

The word “quiet” was going to figure in there somewhere but Hurricane Cleaner has blown through here on a couple of occasions leaving a wake of desolation in her trail, and that has blown away any cobwebs that were hanging around anywhere.

But at least I now have some brazil nuts. She actually managed to find them in the loose “weigh it yourself” products in LeClerc. But what a price! Cheaper than ordering them on-line when the postage is taken into account, but nevertheless …

And nevertheless, last night was yet another in a long, long line of late nights. Robinson Crusoe may well have been the inventor of the five-day week, with all of his work being finished by Friday, but I wish that I could invent something that would finish all of my work by 22:30. Wouldn’t that be nice?

But once again, once in bed I didn’t need much rocking and ended up with another one of these really deep sleeps. One where I don’t move a muscle for the entire night, and how rare is that?

In fact, looking at the miserable collection of dreams that I’ve been having and all of these really deep sleeps, has someone slipped a sleeping pill in amongst all of this medication?

There better hadn’t be. The only fun that I have these days takes place during the hours of darkness when I’m off on a nocturnal ramble and I’d hate all of that to be suppressed.

Just imagine not ever getting into mischief, being up to no good, and not having close encounters of the third kind with Zero, TOTGA and Castor. Things are bad enough as they are without losing all of that.

When the alarm went off I staggered out of bed and wandered off to the bathroom for a wash and brush up. Then back in here I transcribed the dictaphone notes from the night, such wretched affairs that they were. There was a girl in the sick bay reading something like “Pride and Prejudice” with a portable lamp to light up what she was doing and a hair dryer working to keep her warm. She was tucked up in bed like that. The Inspecting Officer who happened to come by the hospital at one particular moment caught her at it. There was going to be absolutely a fearful row. He confiscated the hurricane lamp but it didn’t make any difference and she continued to read.

That was the best that I could do, and it doesn’t have any significance as far as I’m concerned. Living as we did in the wilds of rural Flintshire, Shropshire and Cheshire in the 1950s before the widespread introduction of electricity, we had a hurricane lamp, an old pump-action Tilley lamp that was real fun to work when you were a small child. I wouldn’t have liked to have taken it to bed though as it fizzled and popped away. However, the Tilley lamp and the “Aladdin” paraffin stove for heat on which you could boil a kettle or even some food in a saucepan if you were desperate were our friends when there was one of the frequent power cuts when we were small.

When the nurse came I asked her if she’s enjoyed her swim. She’d been to see “Coldplay” in Lyon at the weekend but the Saturday performance was devastated by a flood. However, her tickets were for Sunday so she was safe.

She told me how much she enjoyed it as she sorted out my legs. For a change we had quite a chat. She mustn’t be busy today.

After she left I made myself breakfast and by the time that I’d finished I was surprised to see that it was 10:00. That chat must have gone on longer than I thought.

Most of the day has been spent editing the radio notes that I dictated the other day. Two more radio programmes have now been completed and I would have finished the last one of the backlog that I dictated had I not wandered off a couple of times with the fairies.

You’ve no idea – or maybe you have, I dunno – how fed up I am of all of this crashing out all over the place. I would give all that I own, and much more besides, to be able to keep on going for 16 hours every day without falling asleep. It’s really going beyond a joke

However, it’s not all doom and gloom, during one of my spells of being away with the aforementioned, I actually went off on a little voyage. While I was asleep in the afternoon there was all kinds of stuff about flowers, the beautiful snapdragon types and that kind of thing. And then I was walking through someone’s garden but it was all fenced in and I couldn’t find my way out. I eventually came across a sign that said “we operate an ‘open door policy’ and by the sign I eventually find a well-disguised type of door that I could open and this took me to a little path that led to the road. The owners of this garden, two women, were in the neighbouring one doing some weeding and I was worried in case they saw me, but they seemed to take no notice of me;

Now that’s more like the kind of dream that I used to have. It was much more picturesque and I actually felt involved deeply in it rather than just having some kind of passing interest. I really need a few more dreams like this.

As I mentioned earlier, the cleaner came by a couple of times.

Firstly, she brought some stuff that the nurse wanted. Later she came past with some stuff that had been ordered earlier from the Chemist’s which had now been delivered.

Finally she came in waving a brown paper bag. “Peace In Our Time” I immediately thought, remembering a famous photograph, but it was actually a bag of brazil nuts.

They are an essential ingredient in some of my baking. Their selenium content is very important so I grind them up in my whizzer and add them to my fruit buns and flapjacks, that kind of thing. I’d run out of my stock and couldn’t find any more so I asked my cleaner to keep an eye open for some.

And now, we’re back in business, and that’s good news. I shall just have to go and lie down in a darkened room when she gives me the bill for the month.

She also came up with an idea about my bank card. One of the smaller supermarkets which she uses has a “home delivery” service where you pay for your goods when they are delivered. The guy brings his card reader to your door.

With it being the end of the month, she needs a lot of stuff delivering so she’s going to arrange to have it delivered to me, I’ll pay with my card which should then activate it and she’ll knock the total off her bill.

That seems like a very eminently suitable solution, but it’s too simple to actually work. We’re bound to encounter a pitfall somewhere along the way "The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley an’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain for promis’d joy" as Robbie Burns was apt to say at moments like this.

Tea tonight was one of the best of a long line of good meals. Steamed vegetables and falafel balls smothered in a nice vegan cheese sauce. Just one of the many meals that I could eat time and time again, with the broccoli and sprouts cooked to perfection.

But now for once I’m going to try to go to bed early.

But this story about the home delivery reminds me of one of my many visits to one of the hundreds of hospitals that I’ve visited over the past few years.
As I was wheeled past one bed I heard a patient mutter "The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley an’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain for promis’d joy"
At the next bed, that patient was muttering "O, wad some Power the giftie gie us to see oursels as others see us"
At a third bed a patient was muttering "Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie, O, what a panic’s in thy breastie! "
"What is this place?" I asked. "The lunatic asylum?"
"No" replied the attendant. "It’s the Burns Unit"

Wednesday 26th June 2024 – WE HAVEN’T FINISHED …

.. yet – not by a long way.

Two more appointments to add to the list of liaisons, two more pills to add to the mountain of medication. My poor cleaner is running her socks off to help me up the stairs here and going to the chemist’s on my behalf. As she put it so succinctly – "I spend more time here than I do in my apartment. I may as well move in here."

Nothing is guaranteed to make me recover quicker than a threat like that. I value my independence and, strangely, my solitude. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I just wasn’t cut out to live with anyone else.

Poor Nerina, Laurence (and Roxanne), Marianne and Cécile. They all tried, bless them …

It seems to be the thing that I can’t even live with myself these days either. Once again it was late when I crawled into my lovely bed, and that was that.

Totally and definitively too. I don’t think that I moved a muscle and depressingly, there was nothing on the dictaphone to break the monotony.

When the alarm rang I was confused again but managed to work it out in enough time to beat the second alarm five minutes later. In the meantime I had hauled myself off into the bathroom to sort myself out and find some clean clothes.

The nurse doesn’t come for an hour or thereabouts so I had to loiter around doing a few bits and pieces until he put his sooty foot through the door.

For a change just recently he was quite chatty and told me several stories about life in the town, including the story of the “Aryan” posters being posted by the Fascists in the area.

After he left I made myself breakfast.

Much of the rest of the day has been spent organising the paperwork. There were several bills to pay, and thank heaven that much (but not all) of French administration has gone onto “payment on line”.

But how they have set it up is crazy. They have indexed everything under the file number of the bill, which means that if you have three bills to pay, you need to log in and go through the procedure from start to finish for each bill.

What they should have done is to register the bills under a person’s identity, like his social security number. Just log in once, “how much do I owe in total?” and one payment would clear the bill.

Next step was mail and letter writing, trying to catch up with where I left off with piles of outstanding correspondence.

Halfway through I came across my Tax Return which is now several weeks late. And so I’ve been collecting information for that too. Not that I’ll owe very much at all but one has to go through the motions

The cleaner came round as usual this afternoon and whisked her way through the premises. It now looks as if someone lives here, which is probably not a good idea. I’d have to fight off callers.

The taxi turned up early for me and I was dropped off at the medical centre in plenty of time. However, the driver insisted on accompanying me upstairs to the waiting room.

That was a shame because I wanted to go to the supermarket on the corner. I don’t know if I’ve explained the issue about my new bank card – how it has to be authenticated by making a shop purchase with the PIN. That should have been my chance just then

The vehicles that we use are chartered to take you from “X” to “Y” and so if it says “third floor, Pole Santé du Port then “third floor, Pole Santé du Port” it is, direct and in a straight line, with no turning, no deviation, no passing “Go” and no collecting £200.

It’s a question of Insurance, so I’m told. And having worked for an Insurance Company straight from leaving school, I can believe it.

Emilie the cute consultant’s sidekick was not pleased with my lack of progress and neither am I. Of the weight that I lost while I was in hospital, half of it has gone back – in a week!

Consequently he’s upped the dose of the diuretic that I take. I’m not convinced that it’s doing me much good but we shall have to see.

While I was there he gave me two appointments for August. How many is this now? And August already? Would you believe it. Time is melting away.

While I was there I asked him if he had a card machine so that I could pay for this consultation with my card and unlock it that way. But “No”. All of his clients are Social Security cases like me So “bang” goes that idea too.

The third idea was a “no-no” too because the driver came up to the waiting room for me so I couldn’t nip out to the shop on the corner even now.

And then the battery in the ‘phone was flat so that I couldn’t ring my cleaner to say that I was coming back. We had to ring her doorbell to attract her.

She seemed to think that my ascent as a little easier than yesterday. All that I can say is that it must have been bad.

But in here the two of us sorted out the medication (resurrecting a long-suppressed medication! What a surprise!) and sorting out the appointments.

Then teatime – a leftover curry lengthened with potato and peanuts and accompanied by rice and naan bread. As usual, absolutely delicious yet again

But right now, I’m off to bed for what’s left of the night, and to wonder how I’m going to fit all of these appointments in.

It was so much easier when I was with Nerina. I was once called in as a result of a blood test and the doctor gave me a thorough going over.
He telephoned Nerina the following day to ask to speak to her so she went in to see him.
"How is Eric?" Asked Nerina. "Is he going to be OK?"
"Eric is suffering from severe nervous strain and overwork." said the doctor. "He’ll be fine but only if you follow these rules very carefully. Let him put his feet up at home, feed him breakfast in bed every morning and cook him light meals three times per day. Gently tuck him up in bed and pander to his every whim"
So Nerina went back home and I asked her "what did the doctor say?"
She looked at me and said "I’m terribly sorry but I’m afraid you’re going to die."

Tuesday 25th June 2024 – SO IT’S OFFICIAL.

The anaesthetist “wants to see me” and has set aside 16:45 on Wednesday 3rd July for the purpose.

And then the operation will take place on 16th July. I shall be there overnight because given my opinions of hospital, operations, blood and gore as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have elected for the “General anaesthetic” rather than the local anaesthetic.

There’s no way in this World that I’ll be lying there watching a local anaesthetic slowly wear off and catching sight of what is going on.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall my adventures in Castle Anthrax a few years ago where they turned up unannounced in my room, whisked me and my bed off to the cellar clamped a gas mask over my face, said “smell this” and the next thing that I knew, it was four hours later and I’d had a surgical operation.

Even today, I still don’t know what they did, and that suits me fine. If all operations went like that, I’d have more of them. But this modern 21st-Century society where I have to be informed of each step and each procedure in graphic detail and formally agree to them.
"But it’s your right!" they wail.
But what about MY right not to want to know? No-one cares about my rights.

As long as the operation is in the morning. TNS are playing in the Champions’ League that evening. That time in Castle Anthrax I missed Newtown v Caernarfon

Meanwhile, abandoning another good rant for the moment, last night was again horribly late by the time that I went to bed. I just don’t seem to be able to make the time go any slower

Yes, when we were kids, our six weeks of summer holiday used to last for ever. Now six weeks goes in the blinking of an eye.

And once in bed, I didn’t need much rocking yet again. It’s lovely and warm and comfortable in there, just me and STRAWBERRY MOOSE tucked up tight.

Not so comfortable that I didn’t awaken before the alarm went off. When I awoke at about 06:00 I made some kind of comment and I’m certain that I had some kind of reply from someone sleeping in the next bed about life in the RAF. Of course, then then kind of thing evaporated and I realised that it really was 06:30 and I really was awake in my own bed with my own things

And that was weird too. It really did sound as if there was someone else in the room. And it wasn’t His Nibs either. If only he could talk, he would have a few tales that he could tell that would be worth a good few bob to anyone who might be interested.

He could tell me a few tales too of when he’s been let loose on his own in the company of ladies of the opposite sex.

But returning to the dream, I’ve no idea what was happening there.

I also have a vague impression of walking through Shavington en route for somewhere else, just using one crutch and feeling quite confident about it too

If only I could walk with one crutch. I used to be able to do that up until about 9 months ago but how my mobility has reduced over that period of time. There are times when I’m hard-pushed to walk with two these days.

Just to prove that I can do it when I really try, I pushed myself out of bed before the alarm went off. Only by five minutes, it has to be said, but five minutes is five minutes and they all count.

After a good wash and scrub up I loitered around for a while transcribing the dictaphone (such as they were) until the nurse came round.

When he arrived I told him about the prescription to which he readily agreed, and then he cleared off without writing one out. I hope that he does it back at the office and drops it off in the morning.

Once he’d finally gone I made breakfast – porridge and toast with orange juice and strong coffee. And believe me, I needed it.

There wasn’t much time to revise or review my Welsh before the lesson started, and having missed a week, Bane of Britain revised the wrong module. But it makes no difference because I’m rubbish whether I revise or not.

And having given the matter serious thought, as well as studying next year as normal, I’m definitely going to retake this year in an evening class with another provider because I’ve missed so much of it with hospital and all of that, and I don’t want to embarrass Coleg Cambria by doing it with them.

The difficulty is finding a provider who offers “North Welsh”.

For the southern dialect there are more courses than you can shake a stick at. It’s not too much of a problem because my grandmother came from down south even though she lived most of her life up in the north-east so I’m used to hearing both dialects. But I’m definitely a “North-id”. Bangor University is affiliated to the “LearnWelsh” programme so they might have something.

After the end of the lesson, when we all went our separate ways for the summer holidays, I changed the habits of a lifetime and had a sandwich seeing as I won’t be having my mid-afternoon snack.

And then I made myself ready for my trip to Avranches.

The trip down there was the first time that I’d felt tired? but I soon livened up when I couldn’t get out of my chair and everyone in the building had to rally round and help. Fancy a hospital waiting room with no arms on their chairs!

Anyway, the surgeon played ball, which was nice. He understood my fears, mumbled his way through what he was supposed to say, didn’t say anything else and asked if I agreed with what he’d just said.

How could I do anything else?

Next step will be the anaesthetist. He wants to “see me” – I suppose, in the same way that the executioner looks over the condemned man. I’m already feeling rather uncomfortable and we haven’t started yet.

We had a full car going home – it seems as if we went to every medical establishment in Avranches on some sort of Cook’s Tour to pick up everyone heading to this neck of the woods.

Back here I was first out, and my faithful cleaner helped me up the steps, standing behind me lifting up my foot with hers.

This can’t go on much longer. I don’t have the force to keep on dragging myself up the handrail, and neither does she, I suspect. I can only see an unpleasant future of doom and gloom if this carries on. And if I have dialysis, I’ll be doing it three times per week at least.

Once I was home I sat down – and crashed out. I was dead to the World.

Only 20 minutes late starting tea. At least it was taco roll with rice so it didn’t need much preparation.

As for me, neither do I. I’ll be in bed before you know it and there I intend to stay until my name changes to Rip van Epic. I am totally wasted after this afternoon – and I have to do it tomorrow too. That’s when I go to see Emilie the cute consultant’s sidekick.

But as I said, I’m off to bed to reflect on the events of the day and mull over the words of the surgeon – at least, the words that I understood.
"I’ve listened to you for fifteen minutes" I told him "but I’m still none-the-wiser"
"Maybe not" he replied "but you’re certainly better-informed."

Monday 24th June 2024 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

…long, hard, miserable, depressing afternoon when I’ve been more asleep than awake, more dead than alive

And that’s exactly how I’m feeling too – more dead than alive. This afternoon has been horrible and I can safely say that there was a certain moment when I felt worse than I’ve ever felt with this illness.

What’s depressing me about it is that it’s not actually anything physical. Having bitten off my tongue and having it sewn back after a car accident in 1987 I know what pain is, believe me, and while the physical feeling is nothing like the same of course, it’s something about when I awaken from one of these coma-type things

It’s as if there’s some kind of chemical being released into my body which immediately makes me think of one of these pills, powders and potions.

When we we were at school and the teacher left the Chemistry class for a few minutes, we’d experiment by dropping different chemicals into a test-tube in order to see what happened.

Sometimes something would go “boom” so we’d make a note of what it was that we’d mixed together so that it would come in useful in our adult life and boy, did we sometimes have some impressive “booms”. I wonder if somehow somewhere a couple of these chemicals are having the same effect inside me once their protective coating wears off in my stomach.

The medical professionals have assured me that that’s not the case and, after all, they ought to know, so I could go to bed without having to worry about anything.

Except going to bed of course. It was another really late night again last night by the time that I finished everything and I wished that I’d finished everything an hour or two earlier.

But exhausted as I was after my efforts I crawled into bed, I didn’t need much rocking. I was asleep quite quickly and didn’t feel a thing until the alarm went off. IN fact, judging by the position in which I was lying, I don’t think that I’d moved at all during the night – not one inch.

It was a very groggy me that lifted a shoulder from the bed when BILLY COTTON finally called and you’ve no idea the struggle that I had to leave the bed before the second alarm five minutes later.

In the bathroom I had a really good wash and brush up, and then went for breakfast. Grape juice and strong coffee with porridge and a couple of slices of my lovely, perfect fresh loaf toasted and smothered in vegan butter. Totally forgetting that I was supposed to have nothing whatever this morning as there was a blood test.

Ahh well. They’ll just have some very peculiar results but so what? Many of my results are already quite peculiar and so a few more won’t make any difference. It’ll give them something to think about at the hospital and stop them being bored.

The nurse did in fact ask me "you haven’t eaten, have you?"
"Who? Me?" I asked innocently, brushing the toast crumbs under the table quickly.

One thing I forget though is how many times he told me to write my name and date of birth on … errr … another little sample pot. But let’s be honest – no-one could ever mix up anyone else’s … errr … “sample” with mine.

He spent quite a lot of time today worrying about nothing at all but also gave me a shopping list of the supplies that he uses that are running low. So after he left I sent a mail to my loyal cleaner in order to set her a task while she was in town.

Next thing was to put away everything that I’d used yesterday and washed up. It had been draining overnight and needed tidying up. And there was a lot of it too. I didn’t realise that I had so much stuff. No wonder that I was struggling for room on the worktop.

But it’s a shame about the oven too. When I was on my final fling around Europe two years ago I picked up a fully-fitted full-size oven from Jean-Marc, the guy with whose family in Macon I stayed on a school exchange in 1970. He was modernising his kitchen and the oven that he’d just taken out found its way into Caliburn.

Hans lives in Munich about half a mile from one of the biggest IKEAs in Europe and so about a week later when I was there, I bought a kitchen unit in which to fit the oven.

That’s in the back of Caliburn downstairs too, but I don’t have the physical ability to bring it all up here. So all of that stuff will have to stay there and I’ll soldier on with my little desktop oven.

In here I didn’t do much at first. It takes me a while to warm up, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from last night, which was a surprise. Mind you, I’ve no idea what to make of it. “There was the boys stuff and then more stuff about bombers … indistinct … and I can’t remember any of it which is a shame” and that was all that it said.

Whatever it’s supposed to mean, I haven’t a clue. When I say that I was “away with the fairies” I think that I was over the hills and far away when I dictated that.

There was a ‘phone call too – could I go earlier to see the surgeon tomorrow? I declined the invitation because quite simply firstly I mess the taxi company around often enough with some of my trips. I don’t want to exhaust their goodwill by unnecessary changes.

Secondly, I have my Welsh lesson tomorrow and I’ve already missed far too many sessions what with hospital and all of that. I can’t really afford to miss any more.

The cleaner came round a couple of times to drop off different things. Apparently the nurse’s prescription has run out but the chemist obliged. The nurse must write out a prescription tomorrow for today’s supplies and I mustn’t forget to tell him.

While she was here I gave her a list of supplies to be bought from LeClerc when she goes to do her shopping. Things like my sunflower seeds and vegan cheese aren’t available on home delivery

After lunch, back in here I began to carry on with the editing of the notes that I’d recorded on Saturday night (thanks, Grahame) but this was where my troubles began.

No matter how I tried, I just couldn’t keep going. At one point I thought that if I just let myself go, have a good sleep and awaken, I’ll feel fresh enough to accomplish more than I would be fighting it off all afternoon.

Some hopes. It made me feel worse.

Finally at about 19:15 I began to pull myself together and by 19:30 I could go to make tea. A plie of stuffing, some of which went into a stuffed pepper and the rest into a container in the fridge for the next few days.

But with pasta and veg cooked in a tomato sauce, my stuffed pepper cooked in the air fryer was delicious, as it usually is. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I eat quite simply here but I don’t ‘arf eat well.

But right now I’m off to bed. I need to be at my best tomorrow as I have my Welsh lesson, this appointment with the surgeon and who knows what?

However I am going to make a rule, and that is “no breakfast until after the nurse has been and gone”. That way we can avoid any more unfortunate lapses of memory.

After all, we don’t want him in such a bad mood that he makes a mess of my blood test. It’s painful enough as it is without asking to be hurt.

But the way that he snatched up my other … errr … little sample pot before leaving. I thought to myself "now that is REALLY taking the p*ss"

Sunday 23rd June 2024 – I’M ABSOLUTELY WHACKED!

Yes, again!

And even worse and more tired than the other day when I was so tired that I really hoped that the World would end.

Once again, it was being in the kitchen that did it and once again it involved food. I’m pleased to say that it was a worthwhile exercise as the table is now groaning with victuals and I won’t ever starve again.

In fact it’s been an extremely busy 24 hours. Before going to bed I dictated a pile of radio stuff. Not all of it because there’s more there than any one man can handle in one sitting, but it’s part of the backlog out of the way.

And as for the new ZOOM H8, I wish that I knew where the tone controls are. When I’m dictating it sounds as if I have my head in a bucket.

What I did took me up until midnight and it was about 00:30 when I crawled under the covers. It didn’t take me long to drop off, that’s for sure.

There was another phantom alarm this morning at about 06:15 and I was halfway out of bed thinking that it was the real alarm before I worked out what it was. Someone had sent me a text message and it was the “alert” on my phone that had awoken me this morning.

What a way to start the day on a Sunday! I climbed back into bed for a couple of hours extra sleep.

When the alarm finally went off I fell out of bed, washed and dressed and proceeded to await the nurse. He didn’t have much to say for himself today but he seems to be more friendly all round so I’ve no idea what’s happening.

Hr sorted me out with my puttees and so on and then cleared off. I sat around for a few minutes to catch my breath and then went to make breakfast – porridge and nice, strong coffee.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from the night. And it’s rather ominous. I was back in Bomber Command but for some reason or other I ended up in hospital. You could tell by the long faces of the nurses that it was pretty serious. One day they announced that they were having to move the hospital. Most of the patients would be evacuated but some patients would have to stay behind as being too ill to move like that. I found to my horror that I was actually one of those being left behind. We were just going to be left in the battle zone and everyone else would clear off out of the way. This was what made me realise now that this was going down the final stretch of my illness and this would be it

And then later on I slipped right back into that dream. It kept on recurring two or three times before the alarm went off

It’s the idea of it being a recurring dream that’s unsettling. I mentioned yesterday that some people seem to think that I’m more ill than I think that I am (if that’s even possible) and this dream seems to underline it. With a visit to the surgeon during the week, it’s not really the correct time to have dreams like this at all.

The rest of the morning was spent relaxing, “saving my strength for the struggle that lies ahead” as Professor Janssens at Castle Anthrax mentioned. I’m sure that she didn’t mean “the kitchen” but that’s where I’ve spent most of the afternoon.

Having been slaving away over a red-hot stove all afternoon, I now have in the kitchen …

a loaf of bread, nice, big, soft and fluffy just like bread should be
a vegan flapjack, ready in case I have to go back to the hospital
24 raisin and orange biscuits that should have been cranberry and orange but I had no cranberries
the pièce de resistance – the usual Sunday pizza

With not having much room to work, with only a small oven and being on crutches, it involved quite a juggling act in order to make it all and then fire it up in the oven. It was so exhausting that at one stage when I sat down I crashed out and it was only Liz texting me that saved a disaster in the oven, awakening me just in time.

But while I was asleep I was away with the fairies again There was something about the turret of an Avro Lancaster but instead of four guns it only had one fitted. This sounded as if it might have been an interesting dream but I’m glad that I awoke anyway.

In between all of this there were other fish to fry.

Firstly, during one pause I listened to and edited the notes that would finish off one of the radio programmes. It ended up over-running by 19 seconds but there was 18.993 seconds of music that could be over-dubbed as it happened

Later, we had football. I mentioned the other day that I was glad that I wasn’t hospitalised during the football season. That would have been a disaster.

Mind you, as the Duke of Wellington said after the Battle of Waterloo, it was "the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life". Pre-season friendlies are now slowly springing into life and this afternoon we had Stranraer v Larne, the old “Seasick Derby”.

It was a quiet game without much excitement but Larne scored a belting goal after 61 minutes, only to concede an even better one 5 minutes later.

1-1 in a game where neither side broke out into a sweat was about right. Larne are playing in the Champions League next month and they are going to have to play much, much better than this if they want to go anywhere and do anything.

When I recovered my form and strength I went back and carried on in the kitchen and then once it was clean, tidy and all washed up, I could sit down to my delicious pizza.

and now that I’ve eaten my pizza I can sit down and finish my notes before going to bed. And won’t I be pleased to finally call it a day today? I mean – I’m surprised to be retired and supposed to be dying. Yet I don’t think that I’ve ever worked so hard in my life as I have these last few days.

The kind of people I used to know (with one or two exceptions) were summed up by the guy who; told me that he really liked work
"Is that so?" I asked him with a trace of bitterness
"Ohh absolutely" he replied keenly. "I can sit and watch it for hours"

Saturday 22nd June 2024 – I WOKE UP …

… this morning pause while we play a few notes of blues standard with a surprising air of optimism and a whole new outlook on life.

Where it came from I don’t know, and I don’t know where it went either because it didn’t last all that long. But it was good while it lasted.

And most unexpected too. It certainly wasn’t there last night when I went to bed.

In fact I was rather late going to bed last night – pretty much near midnight by the time that I finished and crawled under the covers. And that was that. I was dead to the World and didn’t move an inch from my nice comfortable bed.

Once more I awoke at about 06:00 but managed to go back to sleep and wasn’t I taken by surprise when the alarm went off? Once again I had no idea where I was.

It was as usual a struggle to leave my nice, warm bed but once I was up and about, washed, fed and watered I felt, as I said, a kind-of change. It’s as if a new wave of optimism had washed over me.

The living room window had been left open overnight and it seemed to refresh everything. It felt as if a renaissance, or new beginning, was under way in here and everything seemed to be so much more positive.

The first track on the playlist when I started up the computer was totally prophetic – a definite symbol of this new dawn –

"Somewhere there is some place
That one million eyes can’t see
And somewhere there is someone
Who can see what I can see"

And that was always the problem – no-one else could ever see what I could see. And I’m not talking about the green snakes climbing up the wall either

But that’s a tremendous song. The lyrics go on to say
"Brilliant days
Wake up on brilliant days
Shadows of brilliant ways
Change me all the time"

And isn’t that just like this morning?

After I’d washed I had to wait around for the nurse to come to see me. It’s the boss for this next few days. He seems to be much more concerned and so I could talk to him for a short while. I told him that I reckoned that they ought to be taking more than just a passing interest in my visible state of health.

Whether or not it sinks in, I dunno, and whether he and his sidekick take any notice I don’t know. But at least he admitted that he was worried that he wouldn’t see me again.

Quite a lot of people have said that kind of thing to me – my GP said it 18 months ago after I came back from Castle Anthrax. I know that I’m on a tightrope but are things really worse than even I imagine? Interesting food for thought.

My beetroot panic is, for a while at least, over.

After breakfast I had a close look at the packaging. It can actually be cut into a couple of smaller packs and being vacuum packed, the expiry date on the unopened ones is November 2024.

As for the opened one, I found a nice container for it and there’s room for that in the fridge. There’s no real hurry for that either.

And then Liz sent me a link about “101 Things To Do With Your Beetroot” and I shall peruse that at my leisure. It’s not quite up there with the Karma Sutra but you’ll be surprised at what goes on down in the depths of rural Rutland.

We had a little chat on the internet too this morning, Liz and I. It’s high time that Liz and Terry came over to see me again instead of gallivanting off to Prague and places like that. They’ll only get into mischief out there and I miss them terribly.

It’s been a day for chatting to people on-line. Our little travel group has been discussing Hans’s efforts at decorating his bedroom. He’s decided to give his place a makeover and I think that it’s looking good, even if the Hound of the Baskervilles isn’t impressed.

There was also someone else who wanted an on-line chat so I was there for a while dealing with that.

After that I had a little listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I’m not sure what I was doing but I was staying in some kind of shack with some girl. We’d been out and come back. I’d been with my father. He’d had his old blue Cortina and parked it up in the street and went home. There was no tax or MoT or anything on this Cortina but he drove it like that and didn’t care. He just parked it up and went home. I went home. There was a group of little kids waiting outside who always seemed to want to come into our house. I wasn’t very happy about it but my partner was. However I didn’t say much. I walked into the house and went into the back room and immediately the owner told me that one of the cats had been ill so I had to tell everyone in the house. Someone wondered why I was saying it instead of just cleaning it up. I said “I don’t want anyone stepping in it while I’m sorting myself out

My father never had a blue Cortina. I’m confusing it with the blue Mercedes that he had. He had to clean out someone’s garage in Hewitt Street in Crewe and there at the bottom was this ancient fintail Mercedes brush-painted blue and white. A left-hand drive diesel it was. Of course, we salvaged it, did some welding on it and he ran it for years until the tin-worm finally overwhelmed us. As for the cats being ill, ours were surprisingly healthy and rarely needed any kind of attention that wasn’t a stroke or a cuddle.

My broccoli stalk soup was delicious today. Broccoli stalk of course, and potato, onion, garlic, chervil, marjoram, cumin and coriander with a vegan stock cube. The pièce de résistance – a tub of vegan yoghurt, went in when it was off the boil and on the point of being whizzed.

The water that had blanched the carrots and then the broccoli yesterday, I’d saved and used that to make the soup. It’s not as thick as usual because I used all the water and so there’s plenty of soup for two days. And yes, I’ll make this again!

By the time that I’d finished it was later than usual, and much of the afternoon was spent dealing with some personal stuff. And then I did some work on one of the radio programmes to show that I’m still working. I’ve really let things go while I’ve been ill.

And as I said, I can see all the signs that indicate that I’m going to be ill again before too long.

But not while I have tea to make. Another one of my breaded quorn fillets with baked potato and salad (including beetroot) and it was delicious. Tomorrow of course is pizza – the first for far too long – and I’ll refrain from putting beetroot on that.

Apart from the pizza there’s a flapjack to make and if I feel like it, some biscuits. We’ve not had biscuits for ages. Any other simple, quick ideas, Liz? Preferably not involving beetroot.

But Hans and his decorating, it’s really to erase a few memories of the past. I remember when he and Ulli decorated their apartment last time, and it wasn’t going very well.
"Whoever invented decorating wants f*cking!" cried Hans in deep frustration.
"That’s not what you said last night while we were in bed" said Ulli. "You said ‘whoever invented f*cking wants Decorating’."

Friday 21st June 2024 – I DON’T THINK …

… that I have worked as hard as I have today for a very long time. I shall be glad to crawl into my nice comfy bed and burrow underneath the covers

However, at least I can say that I have accomplished a lot, which makes a change. What makes no change at all is that I haven’t done all that much of my own “work” though. It’s been all “housekeeping duties”.

What didn’t help was that it was another late night and I really ought to try my best to put a stop to these late hours, said he not finishing work and beginning to wrote his notes at 22:30 instead of about 21:30.

But anyway, once in bed I was soon away with the fairies and remember nothing whatever until about 06:00 when I had another one of these dramatic awakenings.

“Awake” is one thing. “Ready to leave the bed” is something else completely, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. It was quite a struggle to haul myself out of bed when the alarm went off.

Having to be on an empty stomach for my blood test I took my time this morning – that it, until I suddenly realised that I had bread to make. I made a hurried mix of flour, water, yeast and salt but for some reason it seemed to be rather wet so I had to add more flour to stiffen it up.

But I don’t understand that. I used the same proportions that I always do and I’m totally surprised that it gave me some totally different results.

As usual, the nurse was in a rush. She didn’t want to listen to what I had to say which was a shame. I had hoped to have a little chat to her about one or two things that are going on with this illness and the treatment but I dunno. I shall just have to make the best of it.

She injected me and took a blood sample and when headed for the hills. After she left I had some cornflakes and coffee, gave the bread its second working-over and then came in here to read my mails and messages and so on.

By now the bread was ready to go in the oven. And good grief! It had gone up like a lift! Now that was what I called “bread”. This looked wonderful.

While it was baking I checked through my order for LeClerc and sent it off. With my French bank card being blocked for the moment I had to use my Belgian one. Such are the benefits of having several cards.

That’s as a result of a bitter experience in Flagstaff in Arizona in 2002 when I went to buy some wind turbines from South West Wind Power. I told the bank that I was going, paid the money onto my account before setting off, bought the items, then went to fuel up the Mustang -“credit card blocked – unusual spending patterns”

That night I spent in the World’s worst motel paying cash because it’s all that I had available until next morning when I could grab hold of the bank. So these days we have a French card, a Belgian card, a British card and a Canadian card. We won’t be caught out like that again.

But that’s what I like about Canada – there’s no official identity check. A property tax certificate will open almost every door. Buying that place on Mars Hill was the best thing that I ever did even if the natives on my southern boundary are pretty restless.

By now I was ready for lunch so I made a toasted cheese sandwich with my beautiful, perfect bread. And I’d not finished when the guy from LeClerc came with the order.

And it was a huge order too. Supplies were running quite low here and as well as that a couple of things that I use were on sale on one of these “job lot” special offers so I took the opportunity to stock up. The poor delivery guy had to make a couple of trips up the stairs with the load.

Once it was here I had to put it all away, and that was where the fun began. A lot of it was heavy and there was a lot of rearranging to do in order to fit it in. When my cleaner came round to start on her work I was sitting down taking a desperate breather with tons of stuff still to do.

While she was working, so was I. Chopping up soundtracks in order to finish off the work that I’d started yesterday. We actually finished work at the same time, which was a surprise.

The place was much tidier after she had gone, with most of the stuff put away which was lovely.

Now I had 2 kilos of carrots to scrub,, dice and blanch Followed by a broccoli (broccoli stalk soup for lunch tomorrow, folks!) and four peppers to clean and gut ready for freezing and all of that is a long, exhausting task these days.

The freezer took some sorting out too to make room for the peppers. God help me when I have to put the carrots and broccoli in when they have drained.

But that’s later. I was exhausted with all the heavy lifting and came in here where I crashed out. I was totally whacked, it was un believable. All of this lifting and staggering around has completely done me in.

When I recovered there was time to transcribe the dictaphone notes before going for tea. I was back in Bomber Command last night doing a marvellous talk-through of a ‘plane in a rain going through a mission with one or two of the ‘planes all around it all communicating with base as they come in to bomb, talking about conditions in the hospitals to a Russian so presumably I’d been shot down over the Russian Front. What I’d been doing straying that far East I really don’t know. I had a three-man crew so it was a first-generation bomber, I reckon. I’d lost my way, missed my aim and had to bale out in the end into Russian hands

Quite a few bombing missions took place far to the east of Germany and it was occasionally the case where a badly-shot-up bomber would head east to land amongst the Russians rather than try to struggle home. And then there were the shuttle raids where the USA had an airfield at Poltava in the Soviet Union for a while and ran between the UK and the USSR dropping bombs on the Germans on the way

For tea there was a special treat. In the hospital I’d acquired a taste for beetroot and it was on special offer so I ordered what I thought was one beetroot. Instead, it’s one pack and there’s 8 in the pack. What the hell am I going to do with all of this? I haven’t acquired that much of a taste.

The big issue now is storage. How do I keep it? Where do I keep it? There’s no room in the fridge for a start.

Nevertheless it was a lovely salad with beetroot, chips and some of those nuggets. One of the best teas that I’ve had for a long, long time. Probably since just before I went into hospital in fact.

There was a ton of washing up tonight, all kinds of heavy stuff included, and then I had to wrestle yet again with the freezer to fit the carrots and broccoli in. Now, I can say without fear of contradiction that everywhere is totally full and there’s no room to put anything anywhere else.

Final job was to wash my puttees. The nurse told me that they needed a good scrub so I attended to that and then rolled up the clean pair that had been drying from last time so they are ready to use tomorrow.

And then fall into my chair with a huge sigh of relief. I have never felt as tired as I am right now and I’ll be glad to climb into bed.

So any suggestions about what to do with this beetroot will be much appreciated otherwise my leftover curry on Wednesday is going to be rather strange

But it wouldn’t be the strangest meal that was ever served up. Back in the days of the BBC Home Service and Alvar Liddell, the BBC was forced to make an abject apology to its listeners.
"Due to a typing error there was a mistake in our goulash recipe that we broadcast yesterday. It should have read ‘four tins of tomatoes’ and not ‘four tons of tomatoes’"
and the announcer continued "and ‘enough chili powder to cover a tablespoon’, not ‘enough chili powder to cover a table’."

Thursday 20th June 2024 – I AM TAKING …

… on certain days a total of 33 pills, potions, powders and pricks of a hypodermic needle as this illness rages on and on and on towards its inevitable conclusion.

No-one stands in my way because I’m rattling so much that they can hear me coming.

It’s not as if it’s actually doing me all that good either because as I said yesterday, all of the signs of a recurrence of what happened a couple of weeks ago are there and the question remains “can I hang on until Tuesday?”.

In actual fact, if I can hang on past Friday afternoon and my telephone consultation with Emile the cute consultant I’ll be doing pretty well. But you can imagine just how I’m feeling right now.

It all went wrong last night as far as I was concerned where I had a little 5-minute job to perform that actually took me an hour and I still didn’t manage to do it.

It didn’t help that I was already running late and it was well after midnight by the time that I crawled into bed and that was disappointing.

Being in my nice, clean, comfortable bed, it was another Sleep of the Dead until about 06:30 when I had a rather dramatic awakening. But nevertheless I still wasn’t in the mood to raise myself from the Dead when the alarm went off

For a change I had a really good wash and scrub up this morning and then I sorted out the clothing, including all of that that I’d had with me in hospital, and washed the lot, fleeces and towels included

Then I sorted out the kitchen. I can’t find half the stuff and that’s the story of my life, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. I’m so totally disorganised that the only way that I can cope is for everything to have a place and has to be there in its place. If it isn’t, then I’m sunk.

Having tried to organise my life like this I can now fully understand the nature of military discipline. The military is so disorganised that it’s the only way that they can cope too. “Has anyone seen that nuclear missile that I had five minutes ago?”. Can you imagine it.

The Visiting Nurse came round to sort out my legs. I wanted to have a chat about my rapidly deteriorating situation but I had the impression that she was rather busy. She breezed in, did her stuff and breezed out.

Still, tomorrow she should hopefully have more time as she’s taking her weekly blood sample. That’s not included by the way in the figure earlier. I forgot about that.

But it beats me how anyone is going to find any blood left after everything that’s been taken from me. And what can they possibly find in there that’s not so contaminated by all of the chemicals that are going into my body right now.

However, that’s for tomorrow. Today after she left I made coffee and a bowl of porridge for breakfast. But really, my heart’s not in it

First job was to go through all of the post and paperwork that have accumulated in here over the past few weeks. There’s a rack of bills to pay and I’ll have to get on with that tomorrow I can’t have anyone coming round here to seize my chattels.

Next stop was the dictaphone, to find out where I’d been Last night I was with Gordon Harker who was in the Air Force and had been shot down and taken prisoner. That was where he met Alastair Sim. Harker had had some kind of knockabout comedy act and had indeed partnered Sim in a few films as we know but had developed his own style whereas Sim who was in the Air Force and later became an officer had developed some kind of patter and had put together a group of three people who went round air bases making people laugh? This was where Harker came along and teamed up with them. They progressed from there through to the two of them making some kind of go of things professionally as a straight man and his comic.

As I said the other day, I have plenty of time for Gordon Harker. Never mind the overwhelming ham acting of the 1930s, he was someone who put his heart and soul into the performance and one or two bursts of laughter to which he was prone during his films were such that they couldn’t possibly have been scripted. He struck me rather like an early version of Burt Reynolds, making it up as you go along, outrageous ad-libs and everyone on the set having a really good time.

My cleaner came by to drop off some more medication and we had a little chat. She’s full of ideas and I reckon that I ought to engage her full-time as my secretary at this rate. Honestly, I would be all at sea if she weren’t here to steer me along.

The rest of the day has been spent, when I’ve not been …. errr … resting, hunting down music. While I was in hospital I went through and planned out the bones of a series of radio programmes that goes through until June next year.

There’s plenty of interesting music that needs broadcasting for one reason or another and as you might expect, I don’t actually have it to hand.

The task to day was to track it down, download it, convert it to a usable format and where necessary, cut it into the relevant snippets.

It all took much longer than I was expecting and I haven’t quite finished but I can do that tomorrow.

What delayed me was firstly having to book two taxis for next week. The first to take me to my appointment with Emilie the cute consultant’s boss. That’s in town down the hill here so I won’t be away for long.

Wednesday’s appointment is more serious. That’s a trip to Avranches and the hospital to meet a surgeon. And before anyone asks, “I don’t know and I don’t want to know”. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I don’t handle things like this very well.

At Castle Anthrax a few years ago I was asleep in a hospital bed and they came, whisked me away, bed and all, down into the basement, clamped a gas mask over my face and said “breathe this”.

The next thing that I knew what that it was four hours later and I was in a post-op room. And I still don’t know what they did and that suits me fine. I still have all of my fingers and don’t talk in a high-pitched voice so it can’t have involved dynamite.

And then I had an interesting conversation with the Bank.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I was the target of a phishing scam the other day so I changed al of my bank details including my card.

So now armed with my new card and new PIN, I rang up the bank to activate the card because I can’t make it to the branch

The only way to do it is in a cash machine, which I am clearly unable to do so the solution proposed by the bank was "why not give your card and PIN to a neighbour?".

Now, with my neighbours here, it wouldn’t be a real issue because they are lovely and friendly but the guy at the bank doesn’t know that. They could be anyone, yet he wants me to give my card and PIN to them.

Tea tonight was out of a tin because I wasn’t in the mood to conjure up anything elaborate. A tin of chick peas, veg at pasta in a tomato sauce. That will have to do.

So I’m going to bed before the doom and gloom descends too far. I really don’t know what I’m going to do about all of this because it isn’t going to end well, I know that. I have half of the entire medical profession of France trying their best to keep me out of the grave, and the other half of the population in the Credit Agricole doing their best to put me in it.

It reminds me of the guy who went for an interview for a new job
"And why did you leave your previous employment?"
"Ill-health and fatigue"
"ill-health and fatigue?"
"Yes. I was sick and tired of them and they were sick and tired of me."

Wednesday 19th June 2024 – SO THAT WAS …

… my first day of freedom. How did it go?

The answer is regrettably not too well and I have a feeling that I shall have to make the most of the next few days because whichever way you look at things, they aren’t too good.

But last night was wonderful. Crawling into bed between clean bedclothes that actually smelled of cleanliness and the like. Being curled up in there made coming home worthwhile.

And for a change I slept the Sleep of the Dead too and don’t recall stirring at all. The alarm when it went off at 07:00 took me completely by surprise for a moment and I had to think where I was.

When I left the bed I was quite agile too and could move very easily. That made it all worthwhile too. I wandered off to do the necessary and then to sort out the medication.

That is what I have been doing for much of the day – sorting all of that out. There was the Visiting Nurse who came by to sort out my legs and my puttees.

she helped me for a short while with the medication, we planned out her programme for the next few days because that has changed with the need to give blood tests and injections and the like, and then for a while I was on my own.

Luckily I checked my e-mails because I’d received a prescription from Paris so I printed that out and passed it to my cleaner when she came by. She was on her way into town to pick up my injections so she took the prescription with her, but that’s something that she won’t find in a hurry.

Looking at all of this medication I can’t really cope with it myself. I’ve no idea how many pills, potions and powders I’m taking. I lost count a long time ago but I’m taking them five times per day.

They need to be sorted out correctly for the appropriate times and that’s when it’s going to start to become complicated. After all, it’s all very well sorting them out for the correct time, if I can manage that, but then I have to remember to take it. And that, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is something else completely.

Somewhere in the middle of this I had to stop for breakfast. And my bread sandwich – two slices of bread with a slice of bread in between – was put to good use because I had three rounds of toast smothered in vegan butter and it was nice.

As well as the two appointments that I have in the very near future, I now have a third for some time in August. That’s with a heart specialist here in Granville.

And this is about the positive nadir of just about everything, because it’s with the same heart specialist whom I saw four years ago and who started me off on this trail.

Castle anthrax took up the case, passed me from pillar to post like a parcel in a Belfast pub until in the end I lost interest. Much as I liked Leuven and Alison, I wasn’t going all that way to be told “it’s not us, it must be them”. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the frustration

Four years and we’ve gone round and round in circles and we’ve arrived right back where we started. At least I can console myself that my appointment isn’t with the Oozelum Bird or that really would create another unexpected problem.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from last night as well, which I wasn’t expecting. We were back in the middle of being all shot down again but we were civilians. It was some kind of internment camp. They’d been testing gunfight and found surprisingly that many civilians were totally exempt from the effects of gunfire from machine guns and could come out of a barrage of gunfire totally unscathed. We were regrouping in some kind of camp. There was a trip organised to Portugal, only a quick going and coming back but I put my name down to make a change. So did a few others Then they began to wonder when it would be taking place. A process of elimination of about three days made out that it would be taking place over the course of the next day or two and we wouldn’t be staying long. That was a big disappointment to many but I thought that any change would be a nice present, a difference, and people didn’t have to go on it anyway but it would be nice to break up the usual routine because searches were becoming more commonplace. They’d wanted to search me on a couple of occasions but I’d somehow managed to postpone the inevitable.

Yes, anything to break up the routine and make a change. I’d be the first to volunteer. I’m always keen for a change of surroundings when I can, but that’s not likely to happen very much in the future. It’ll be an orbit going between here and Avranches with the occasional run-out to Paris, I should think.

I was at a football match last night where a team was playing and just after having conceded a silly, controversial goal, they went up to the other end of the field and Jack Kenny scored a magnificent glancing header to restore whatever it was that was happening prior to that silly goal. Then the alarm went off immediately just as he was running off to celebrate

While I was in hospital I was thinking how glad I was that it was the close season. Imagine being incarcerated when there’s football kicking off. Jack Kenny plays as a striker for Connah’s Quay Nomads and is one of my favourite players. He’s a tireless runner who works his socks off for the team but I wish that he’d concentrate more on the game and less on the injustices that he thinks that he has received.

My cleaner dropped by on her way home. As I expected, she won’t find that latest prescription easy to fill and the pharmacy had to make a few urgent telephone calls. Nevertheless she had the rest of the medication and a month’s supply of injections that needed to go into the fridge.

How many is this now? I haven’t a clue and I’m past caring.

For tea tonight, there was no leftover curry of course. But not to be outdone, I cooked some couscous with lentils and added a jar of that strange vegan Korma sauce that I bought ages ago.

While that was doing, I made some rice and veg and cooked myself a naan too.

The curry was actually delicious, which is just as well because there’s enough left for another meal, so the rest will go into the freezer for “again”.

So that’s everything. I’ve been feeling better today than I’ve felt for quite some time which at first glance is wonderful news, but having had a scare the other week I saw the physical signs of what was going on and they are creeping back already.

Emilie the cute consultant will ring me on Friday so I’ll be having a chat with her and I’ll be seeing one of her sidekicks next week.

If I’m still at liberty as late as this time next week it will be a miracle. The storm-clouds are gathering

And then it will be back to the Tricatel food, just like mother used to make. I remember once when our tea was ready and she shouted "if you’re not here in five minutes your meal goes to the dog" so we were there in four minutes.
After all, why should the dog have to suffer?

Tuesday 18th June 2024 – ON OUR WAY …

… home, going home where lovers roam.

Yes, unfortunately I can’t welcome you to the Pleasuredome yet – that’s another year away once the tenant downstairs clears off, but I can certainly welcome you to an apartment that I have never ever seen in all my life before.

Not only is the apartment spotlessly clean, and by that I mean my office and bedroom too, everything in sight has been washed to death including all the bedding and I have a lovely clean bed in which to climb later this evening.

My cleaner has worked miracles to have this place ready for me and I’m beyond speechless at the efforts that she’s made for me.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the solidarity that I have encountered in this building has made coming to live here all worthwhile.

A shame that the hospital couldn’t have joined in the fun. Like most French public functions it’s “duty before everything else” and most of the staff had a tendency to be rather brusque but nevertheless, in unguarded moments they could all (well, mostly) be good fun and apart from the dreadful stuff that passed for food, I enjoyed my stay.

Well, most of it, anyway.

And for a change, I actually enjoyed last night. I had a good sleep for once. Although I wasn’t in bed until long after midnight, I slept right the way through until 06:00 without awakening when I had to go for a ride on the porcelain horse.

And would you believe, well, I’m sure you would because you’ve been following these pages long enough, someone chose that moment to come in to tell me that they wanted to take a blood sample.

"Come back in five minutes" I grunted.

Ten minutes later we had the 06:15 whirlwind through the ward. I gave blood and just about everything else. Surprisingly they didn’t ask for a diabetes sample – I suppose that they’ll “get that from the blood test” – but they gave me a totally unsolicited glass of orange juice all the same.

Having gulped that down, I settled down under the covers again and was totally dead to the World until the next round of awakening at 08:15. That two hours or however long it was was the deepest sleep that I have ever had, I’m sure of that.

With that procedure out of the way, breakfast came round. And once I’d polished that off I nipped into the bathroom where, sitting astride the you-know-what, I had my last hospital shower.

And remembering what happened the other week in Paris, I didn’t wash my clothes. I don’t want to be lugging soaking wet clothes halfway around Normandy.

After the shower I had a visit from the medical staff. All of my medication has changed and I noticed with a wry smile that in some cases we’re back to where we were a couple of years ago.

And a real surprise was that the chief of the dieticians came to see me today to excuse herself and her team. Nothing I can say or do will change the Byzantine nature of things in the French Public Service so I listened politely and thanked them for coming, but I must admit that it was through gritted teeth.

As well as all of that, there are several appointments in the immediate future and a couple of tasks for the nursing staff who come to the apartment every morning. I’m definitely going to be having my money’s worth.

What was sad that it wasn’t Emilie the cute consultant who came to say “goodbye”. She sent a sidekick to blast me off into Eternity today and I was really disappointed at that.

And so it went on for several hours, people preparing me and then unpreparing me for departure so in the end I gave up and went to sleep in my chair.

Eventually an ambulance arrived and the ambulanciers strapped me to a stretcher and loaded me into the back of their vehicle. And there I was, hoping for a rather discreet and unobtrusive return.

My cleaner bless her was waiting downstairs to help me up here but the guys put me in a chair and carried me up. It’s a good job that I’d lost all that weight.

Once inside the place, while I was being overwhelmed by the kindness, my cleaner was going through my prescription, restoring to the shelves medicaments that had been discarded in the past, withdrawing medicaments that had only just been prescribed and then she sallied forth into town to have the new prescription made up, and presumably to arrange a lorry to bring it all back.

While she was away I had some hummus and biscottes along with a mug of hot chocolate. New stuff fresh from the bottle – you should have seen how bloated the stuff was in the fridge that I’d left when I went in.

When my cleaner came back, she had half the stuff. The rest will be here over the next few days. But we both came to the conclusion that the amount of stuff here now is overwhelming and I am going to need help to sort myself out with this medication otherwise we’ll be having a tragedy.

What I shall probably have to do is to involve the visiting nurse in all of this.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from the night. That was when we just realised that there would be quite a lot more than just rape back at our base so we decided to hurry back from the end of this mission and take up some kind of armed guard although we expected that if our armies were defeated we’d all be disarmed anyway in which case if would be very pot luck as to what happened and what people had to suffer before the end of the war was announced.

Quite a gruesome subject, I know, and ordinarily I wouldn’t post something like this but it actually has some kind of basis in fact. A prison camp containing prisoners of all nations was overrun by the Russians in Eastern Europe and the prisoners were released. Many of the prisoners remained in some kind of orderly cohesion but the Russian prisoners went berserk and began to commit all kinds of atrocities. A delegation from a local village came to the camp and pleaded with the British officer in charge to send a platoon of British prisoners to protect the inhabitants of the village from the depredations of the Russians. The irony of the situation was not lost on the British prisoners – defending their enemies from their allies – and it was definitely a premonition of the times five years hence.

Tea tonight was my long-anticipated pasta with vegetables and melted cheese, along with a burger from the European Burger Mountain in my fridge. And you’ve no idea just how delicious it was. It made the waiting all worthwhile.

Well, perhaps not.

So now I’m going to curl up in my luxurious clean bed and if it wasn’t for the nurse in the morning, I wouldn’t be leaving it for a week.

At least there will be no bed-baths. There was a strange, foreign nurse on the ward this morning giving bed-baths. With one guy she folded down his nightgown to his waist and said "first I wash as far as possible"
Then she rolled up his nightgown, began to wash his legs and said "next I wash as far as possible"
And finally, with a flourish, she ripped off his gown and said "and now I wash possible"

Thursday 30th May 2024 – SO HERE WE GO.

Yes, by the time that some of you (but not others, of course) will be reading this I’ll have been tucked up all nice and cosy in bed by a bevy of beautiful nurses at the hospital at Avranches.

Some hopes.

Knowing my luck it will be a retired female Bulgarian weightlifter or hammer-thrower and she won’t have tucked me up at all; never mind smoothed my fevered brow. I shall have to do that by myself.

Before I leave here in the morning I’ll have done all that I can and the rest is in the hands of the Gods.

If it’s anything like last night, it’ll be extremely difficult, that’s for sure. The lethargy about which I spoke … "at great length" – ed … carried on and I couldn’t summon up the energy to leave my comfy chair until almost 01:00, well after my usual bedtime.

It’s difficult to explain what’s happening to me right now. I can’t seem to find the effort to do the simplest of things and it’s so dispiriting.

At least, getting into bed was so much easier and apart from the difficulties that I’m having with my legs right now, even turning over and over in bed was much easier too. Things seem to be pretty much back to normal … "for now" – ed … in that respect, and aren’t I grateful?

When the alarm went off I fell out of bed to switch it off and then crawled off into the bathroom.

After that it was the medication. 13 different capsules or potions if we count the anti-potassium stuff. I must be reaching a world-record of some kind at some point. I hear that the French Government is putting up taxes quite soon. It’s all my fault.

For a change, the nurse didn’t have too much to say for himself. But he couldn’t make his card reader connect to the internet to read my health card so after much binding in the marsh he said that he’ll do it next time. I hope that there will be a “next time” anyway.

After he left I had a “rest” for a while and then transcribed the dictaphone notes. Last night there was a group of young girls taking part in a singing competition. While the singing was absolutely excellent they made life extremely difficult for the judges by crowding the backstage and confusing themselves with the other groups so people lost track of who was who because there were so many of them. In the end the judges had to ask several groups to perform again which led to a lot of chaos from some of the groups of parents whose children were feeling excluded by this. All in all, what should have been a simple singing competition turned into absolute chaos coupled with the fact that some jewellery went missing at some point. Of course The Saint was in the audience so everyone suspected him. Some of the parents wanted him involved in helping to find it. It all went on throughout the night in the usual turmoil and complete mess. Nothing was ever decided.

These “Saint” DVDs are a long way from being finished too. I’m about halfway through the black-and-white episodes and then I have all of the colour ones to go at. And all these wonderful British cars of the 1950s and 60s too. Not a single mainstream British car anywhere these days. Hard to believe that at one time the UK led the World

There was another thing about being on the roads of Maine in a snowstorm on I-98 going north. There was a huge pile-up and they were announcing things on the radio “2 women injured” then the total went to “5 women injured” and gradually increased. I heard someone in the background say “what the heck is going on there? Aren’t there any males in that traffic queue?”. I thought to myself “that’s a really nice thing to say, isn’t it, seeing as I’m stranded in this queue but near the front nowhere near where these collisions are taking place?”.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’ve been on Interstate 95 in Maine on numerous occasions, but rarely in the snow. But we’re back to this theme of “token womanism” again where “x people were hurt, of which Y were women and children” Imagine the outcry if they had said “X people were hurt, of which Z were men”.

We once did a study of “minorities” listing all of the people from different classes of minority and subtracting them from the total population. We eventually reached the conclusion that a white middle-class middle-aged man was very much a minority when it came to today’s scale of things. Of course, our report was … errr … mislaid.

After my coffee and flapjack I fell asleep again but this afternoon I’ve been packing and making myself ready for the road tomorrow and the hospital at Avranches as well as doing some stuff for the radio. I’m not sure what they want of me but I know what I want of them and I’m hoping that they can do something to alleviate my suffering.

On that note, I’ve baked a loaf of bread and I shall take half of it with me. My invitees can share out the rest amongst themselves. But with my half a loaf and half a flapjack I’m hoping that at least there will be some food for me to eat somewhere.

That’s the big problem – who do I know who can bring me some food parcels?

But I’ll worry about that in due course. I’ve had a nice tea tonight of baked potato (seeing as I had the oven going) sausage and beans.

It’s been ages since I’ve had baked beans so, listening to my stomach right now, I won’t need a taxi to get me to Avranches in the morning.

Wednesday 29th May 2024 – IN THE MIDDLE …

… of a period where my work output has slowed down to the kind of speed that makes a crawl look rapid, today I had a day where I emulated my namesake the mathematician and did three fifth of five eights of … errr … nothing.

In fact, I probably didn’t even do three fifths of five eights of it. It’s not been a very good day for me in that respect.

And that’s a shame because for once I actually managed something like an early night. Even going to bed and sliding under the covers was easier and I could toss and turn all night to my heart’s content. For the first time in several weeks i actually felt content in bed.

For a change I slept through to the alarm and found that I could even sit upright in bed without pain. When I arose from my stinking pit I actually felt in a much better frame of mind too and it looked like being a good day

It didn’t take long for things to go south, that’s for sure. For a start that large file transfer that I’d tried to do yesterday had failed and I had to do it again later in the day.

First though I had to go through the usual morning routine and I’ll tell you for nothing that this anti-potassium stuff really does taste awful.

Next step was to have a good wash and change of clothes. My old clothes walked into the laundry basket on their own

The nurse came around later on and as well as the usual morning routine for him, he had to give me my injection and take a blood sample. Consequently I’m feeling like a dartboard again because he doesn’t have “the touch”.

And I wish that he’d stop moaning. I’m not responsible for the (lack of) light in the dining area or the diameter of my veins and there’s nothing that I can do about it.

After he left I transcribed the dictaphone notes. I dreamed once again that the alarm had gone off so I arose and left the bed. I had to tell my mother where the alarm was so that she could show my brother for the following morning. Just then the alarm went off again. I thought “well, not to worry. I can awaken him and show him where the alarm is now that the other ‘phone is ringing”. But there was no ‘phone ringing at all. There was no alarm. There was no awakening. It was 11:00 and the last 8 hours that we’d had … fell asleep here …

so we’re back on the phantom alarms again. And back with the family again too. I thought that I’d said “goodbye” to them a while back.

I was with The Saint last night in Midwest USA. Some guy had been killed and everyone was investigating his murder. The last time he was seen was with a couple of women. Slowly, these two women were denounced by the neighbours as being Amish and made some kind of living by entrapping single men into marrying one of them and presenting a baby, then hitting the men for alimony that would last for 18 years but in the meantime moving on to the next guy. So The Saint had to find these women and investigate it. Eventually he was picked up by these two women and taken back to their house. He was plied with drink and other kinds of things. It wasn’t too long before some kind of mock or sham marriage was arranged between him and the younger of these two women. It was quite clear what they had in mind which was to entrap him in a bedroom scene. This slowly developed throughout the night until in the end I awoke and missed all of the excitement.

Most un-Amish-like behaviour. I’ve encountered plenty of Amish people. There’s a large pocket of them up around where my place is in New Brunswick and “over across” in Maine. You’re in a hurry going south towards Interstate 95 and suddenly come screeching up behind a horse and buggy. It’s quite disconcerting. All oil lamps and stuff like that – the kind of technology that would even impress the people in Crewe.

The next dream also involved The Saint. The Austrian police had intercepted a drugs run of a large amount of high-quality drugs and needed to find out more. The operation was so secure that no-one knew who their contact was so they decided to infiltrate James Bond … "James Bond?" – ed … as the drugs runner and have him pick up all the information that he could while he was on his way round ready for the final arrest at the appropriate moment. Of course he agreed to this but under some very strict terms to make it look even more convincing such as the fact that he had been arrested and had been released with no charge because the police couldn’t find the drugs on him, therefore he must have had them hidden somewhere extremely secret that no-one else knew and to pick up the story from there, and this was where it all began.

Vienna was always the place for that. The “Crossroads of Europe” where east meets west, the amount of smuggling that went on there across the various borders, and not just in THE THIRD MAN either, was legendary, and probably still is. I was there with a 22-tonne lorry at Christmas 1997 and was told not to leave it parked unattended in the commercial vehicle car park or it would be in Bratislava in half an hour, with me a long way behind.

By the way, can you guess what I’m watching as I eat my evening meal?

My cleaner didn’t clean this afternoon. Instead we had a very lengthy chat about the arrangements for my visitors as I won’t be here to greet them. She knows my apartment and so do they so there shouldn’t be any issues. They can all work it out between them and it’ll probably be easier than if I tried to resolve anything.

As you might expect, I crashed out for a few hours again today. Yesterday of course I didn’t crash out at all which is a rare achievement these days. A shame that I can’t keep it going.

Tea was a left-over curry and this batch of naan bread dough is perfection itself. The naan that I made this evening was delicious, nice and light and fluffy as it’s supposed to be

So right now I’m going to bed. Tomorrow I’m backing up the computer, packing and baking bread.

But something that I wrote just now reminds me of the two guys who locked themselves out of their apartment. One of their windows was open so they borrowed a ladder and began to climb up.
"Doing this makes me feel like a fireman" said one
"Me too" replied his friend "but where would we find one at this time of night?"

Tuesday 28th May 2024 – “YOU ARE REQUESTED …

… to come for an appointment at the hospital at Avranches on Friday morning at 09:00. Ohhh – and bring your overnight things”.

Things are moving faster than I even expected and it’s rather important because this weekend I have friends coming over from Germany to visit me. I bet that they didn’t expect to come to visit me in a hospital bed.

But yet more visits? More visits this year than I’ve had in all the other years combined since I’ve been living here. Anyone would think that I’m dying or something.

Last night I actually felt like dying. I’d done all that I could to have an early night and then the fates conspired against me, one thing led to another, and once you begin you’ve no idea how many other things there are. As a result I was late into bed once more.

However I actually found it a little easier to crawl into bed last night and turning over through the pain barrier into the only position in which it’s possible at the moment to be comfortable was nothing like as painful as it has been

My legs were well inside the bed too which meant that I didn’t fall out once which was an improvement on the previous night. Nevertheless I was awake a long time before the alarm went off and wandering around the bathroom when it finally did ring.

No blood test today for some reason. He’s going to do it tomorrow, which probably means that I won’t have my injection of the Last Resort until Thursday, if it’s not too late by then

But I do wish that he’d stop moaning. Things may well not be pleasant for him around here right now, but imagine how they are for me. Don’t you think that I’d change things if I could?

After he left I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There wasn’t actually anything on it but that’s not to say that I didn’t go anywhere.

In fact I had the greatest memory of another one of those really long dreams that I’m sifting through my head before I dictate them, just like the other night. This was a lengthy newspaper article that I was writing about how unjust it is to blame goalkeepers for their errors on the field. A keeper who lets a shot roll in under his body has no more lost the game for his club than the centre-forward who misses a sitter. Yet you see plenty of “goalkeeper error” videos but very rarely a “centre forward error” one.

What started this. I suppose, was a game that I saw the other day between Annan Athletic Under 17s and Threave Rovers Under 17s when the Annan keeper was yellow-carded for “deliberate handball” giving away a freekick that led to a goal by Threave Rovers. The game was being played on a sports centre pitch where there were five different sets of markings and he simply carried the ball out to the wrong set of lines. So what I was doing in my sleep was going through lists of games where a keeper had made a mistake and conceded a bad goal and a striker had missed a sitter in front of goal, and comparing who was blamed for the defeat.

Of course, each time that I thought that I’d had my list ready to dictate I remembered something else and had to start my list again. But I was awake before I could do that.

Coffee and delicious flapjack were next, then back in here I didn’t do all that much for a while.

A ring on the doorbell, a real one this times, jogged me into action. It was the doctor. He took one look at me and almost collapsed with shock.

He gave me a good going-over and reckoned that I ought to have a spell in hospital – “and not just a couple of days either”. He’d “have a word with the nephrology professor” at Avranches about me

So after he left I began to bring my medical file up-to-date, weeding out all of the time-expired stuff and adding in the new stuff. You’ve no idea how much has changed over the past few weeks.

My prescription – I’d given than to the nurse this morning. I had to print off another one along with yet more paperwork.

In the middle of all of this the hospital at Avranches rang up with the convoquation. So here we go.

Firstly, I had to book the taxi to take me. Secondly, I had to tell Paris where I was going just in case I can’t make their appointment on the 10th of June.

The doctor’s office rang me back later too “there’s another medicament …” so I had to contact my poor cleaner. And having one hospital take me off the Burinex for something else, Avranches has now put me back on the Burinex. And that’s just as well because I never had these problems when I was taking that.

In the middle of all of this I’d been doing some radio stuff. I’d started by choosing some music for another programme but with the news that I had, I verified three more programmes and sent them off. I told you that it’s a good idea to have a few prepared in advance.

At long last I could go for tea – a taco roll with rice and veg. Totally delicious as usual. I really do like my boring meals. They are totally different from what I’ll be eating in a few days time. I hope that some of you will be sending me food parcels.

But that’s for another time. I’m living from day to day here – in fact, from minute to minute. Getting into bed is the next challenge

The hospital should be fun – in the sense of interaction with others. I don’t see enough people, stranded as I am in my apartment. I know that regular readers of this rubbish will recall having told me that I need to get out more.

But it’s going to be a struggle for them at Avranches. Last time I was there I heard more than one nurse say, as I was climbing into the taxi to take me home "if he comes back, I’m leaving!"

EPIC HALL

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