Tag Archives: home made bread

Sunday 31st August 2025 – AFTER YESTERDAY EVENING’S …

… drama, I suppose that I had better take a calmer look at things. We can’t do with having that kind of emotion day after day.

So last night, in the middle of what can be best described as “a bilious attack”, I left the desk and fell into bed. It was all of 22:10 as well, and you don’t have a finish much earlier than that every day of the week.

Once in bed, I was out like a light. I really was exhausted, and it’s been a very long time since I’ve felt like that too.

When I awoke, it was still dark, but I couldn’t go back to sleep so I really thought about going back to sleep. However, one glance at the time persuaded me to stay in bed. It was 01:24 and, much as I like to be an early riser, that kind of thing is ridiculous.

At some point I must have gone back to sleep again because I remember awakening a couple of times during the night. However, at 06:26 exactly (my body clock is working really well these days) I awoke again, and at that point I decided to leave the bed, even though it’s Sunday and I’m entitled to stay in bed until 07:59 or thereabouts.

Saying that I would be leaving the bed is one thing. Actually leaving it for real is something completely different and it was a real struggle into the bathroom. I decided against having a wash as I really wasn’t in the mood, but everything else that I needed to do took quite some considerable time.

So did the medication this morning, and then I had the disagreeable task of doing last night’s washing up. One thing that I really detest is waking in the morning to find a heap of dirty crockery awaiting me but I really was in no kind of state last night.

After all of that, I was hardly back in here when the nurse arrived. He sorted out my legs, did his accounts and then cleared off, and I could make breakfast and read some more of MIDDLESEX IN BRITISH, ROMAN AND SAXON TIMES.

Our author is laying the ground … "groan" – ed … for a chapter on the Roman surveying of Middlesex. I’m really looking forward to that because, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, we discussed Roman surveying or urban areas during one of my University modules, and I even built some Roman surveying equipment such as a GROMA.

Back in here later, there were the dictaphone notes to review. Back in the 18th Century there was a Native American raid on a village somewhere in North America. The residents succeeded in fighting off the invasion and killed several of the Native Americans. There was bound to be some kind of enquiry about it, and the settlers were concerned about what would actually come out in this, so the organised a collection of all of the arms that were in the possession of people. The aim was to try to find somewhere to hide them until the investigation was over. My plan was to put them in a coffin and bury it in the churchyard with the victims of the incident, then it could be dug up when the enquiry is over. However, for some reason, people seem to be reluctant about that idea.

Attacks by the Native Americans on settler communities on the frontier were commonplace in the 18th Century and there were terrible stories of atrocities – on both sides, it has to be said. But the burial of firearms in a coffin in the graveyard relates to an actual event in a village in north-east France just before the arrival of the Germans during their rapid advance of summer 1914.

Did I dictate the dream about me being with the old Ford Escort estate … "no you didn’t" – ed … My friend from Munich was there and he had borrowed it for a couple of days. He had taken my collection of small solar panels and installed them on the vehicle while he was borrowing it. When I went back to pick it up, he’d taken the panels off. I asked him how it went, and he replied that it was extremely good because he’s had a figure of 35 Kilowatts of electricity generated while he’d been borrowing the vehicle. I asked him where he’d installed them, and he pointed to the kind-of ladder rack on the back. He said that he had put them on there and they seemed to work fine. I had the panels and I had another attempt at installing them on there. It was complicated because the mounting blocks that I’d designed for it were fouling the nuts that held the ladder rack on. We had to be very careful about how we fitted everything. I thought in the end that rather than use a rubber sheet underneath the panels, I’d mount them on a sheet of wood or something that would be covered in the rubber sheet. That way, it would be much more solid and the mounting blocks would work better. We were there for quite a while, trying to fit these solar panels back on. He said that in the meantime, I’d lost two more of my volunteer drivers for this scheme. He said that Old man Sinclair was one. I said that I’d never really expected him to take part in it anyway. I said that I suspected that the other one would have been that little Jackie. he agreed that it was she who was the second, so I wasn’t really all that disappointed by those two because I didn’t think that it was likely that they’d take part.

It was the old Escort van that had the ladder rack, bot the estate that I had when I was with Laurence and Roxanne. And of course, the solar panels are on the roof of the Transit. But why Jimmy Clitheroe’s grandfather would be involved in this dream, and also “Little Jackie”, a girl whom I knew in Crewe in 1982/3, I really don’t know.

After that, I began the task of writing up last night’s notes and eventually, after quite a long while, I managed to post them on line, so you can all find out about my horrible day yesterday.

And so it was time for a footfest. There were the highlights of the rest of the games in the JD Cymru League, and afterwards there were the highlights of Stirling Albion v Stranraer. Stranraer had about 90% of the play and had a hatful of shots at the Stirling goal, but failed to make any of them count. Stirling only had one meaningful shot on goal, so I shall leave you to decide what the final score might have been.

There were bread and pizza to make later on too. The bread is cooked magnificently, and the pizza was one of the best that I have ever made. My new oven is marvellous and I am almost as impressed as I was with my stainless steel dustbin.

But right now, I’m going to bed ready for dialysis tomorrow, I don’t think. I really could do with a week off. But right now, all I want to do is to sleep. I might be feeling better but I’m still dog-tired.

But seeing as we have been talking about how ill I was last night … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of that church in Neston where we went once for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.
At the entrance to the church was a box marked "For The Sick" and next to it was a note – "This Box Is Restricted To Monetary Donations Only."

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Sunday 24th August 2025 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… evening that was last night. I can’t think of a time when I have been as tired as I was last night. In fact, I can’t remember whether it was three or four times that I fell asleep while I was writing my notes. One thing was sure though, and that was that I fell into bed almost immediately afterwards and that was that.

It wasn’t as if I had done anything special to warrant it last night either. And I’d had a nice, relaxing if painful session at dialysis too. It must be the after-effects of the chemotherapy that I had on Tuesday and Wednesday, I suppose. That does quite a few strange things, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Anyway, once in bed, there I stayed. I knew nothing about anything at all until all of … errr … 06:50. And it took twenty minutes for me to raise myself from the Dead. This might sound late to some people, seeing as the alarm is usually set for 06:29, but in fact Sunday is my Day of Rest and the alarm doesn’t go off until 07:59, so it’s still an early start.

First thing was to go to sort myself out in my nice new bathroom, and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was one dream about the hospital and the taxis, and dialysis, all of that, but I had rather a rude awakening and the moment that I basically went to grab hold of the dictaphone, the dream evaporated and I could remember nothing whatsoever except a very little of how it began and what was involved in it. It was a huge disappointment when it happens like this.

It’s obviously preying on my mind, all of this, and it’s no surprise. Over the past twelve months or so, I’ve become a slave to the medical service and I can’t see any way out of it, except to go out horizontally. There is no cure in sight, nor is there ever likely to be, and I shall have to just keep on trudging wearily on until I meet the inevitable.

Although I didn’t dictate it, I have a vague memory of being upstairs, looking at the old apartment and how clean and tidy it was, even down to the polished glass in the old oven. And there was someone there saying “you aren’t really dreaming, you know” or “this isn’t a dream, you know” – something like that. There was also a vague recollection of having to go downstairs, and that I’d taken half a dozen steps to the top of the stairs before I realised that I didn’t have my crutches, and I had to send someone to fetch them.

As it happens, I have been specifically banned from entering the apartment upstairs, on pain of suffering the wrath of my faithful cleaner who has done her best to tidy up after me And I am not alone in that interdiction, because a similar ban has been also placed upon the Hound of the Baskervilles.

Interestingly, how many times is that now that I have been dreaming of going somewhere without my crutches? I hope that this is a positive premonition once I start to have my treatment in Rennes. We can but hope.

Eventually, the sleeping beauties on the sofa crawled back to life and I was looking forward to a coffee but the Hound of the Baskervilles had urgent business to which he needed to attend so he dragged his master off outside.

But not before the nurse had taken us unawares yet again. Not quite as early as yesterday, but still early enough. And once more he didn’t hang around.

While I was waiting for everyone to come back, I attended to the erection of the antenna for the maritime data recorder. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I maintain and operate the maritime data recorder for the Port of Granville, a radio transceiver that tracks the movements of the boats and ships in and out of the port and sends them to a Worldwide central control database receiver in Denmark.

When we had all collected in the kitchen, we had a coffee and a chat, and when they went out again, I attended to the assembly of the hi-fi unit. That involved drilling a couple more holes in the rear and the side of the shelf unit so that I could pass the cables through. It didn’t take too long, and we celebrated our success by eating breakfast accompanied by music.

After breakfast, my friend went to empty out the van while I tidied away the tools that I had been using, but we didn’t get very far because the girls turned up. They checked the books to make sure that I hadn’t rearranged them, and then we sat around for a while and had a really good chat as they are going home this afternoon.

Everyone went off later for a late lunch so I came in here to sit down and relax for an hour or so. I needed it.

When my friend came back, having stuck the girls onto the train, I began the baking exercise – a loaf of bread, and a pizza for tea.

Firstly, my new adjustable stool really is the business. Adjusted to the maximum height, sitting down to knead the dough is totally painless. The stool was an excellent purchase.

Secondly, the oven is wicked. Even with the baking time reduced from 55 minutes to 30 minutes, it still burned the top of the bread. It’s now a glorious dark brown instead of the insipid white of the old table-top oven.

As for the pizza, I cooked it for 15 minutes instead of 25 minutes, and even so, it still burned the edge. Nevertheless, it was delicious.

There was a mountain of washing-up to do and that took an age, but now I’m finished. I’ve written my notes and I’m off to bed in a minute. Tomorrow, the Hound of the Baskervilles and his master are leaving, so I’ll be on my own. There are still plenty of things to do, but they will have to be done some other time, and I don’t think that we’ll be able to take the solar panel off the roof of the van, which is a shame.

You can’t win a coconut every time.

But seeing as we have been talking about the new oven and its cooking capabilities … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was thinking that my mother would really be at home with my new oven.
Back many years ago, I remember telling a friend "my mother treats me like a God"
"Why’s that?" he asked.
"Well, every time we came home from school, my mother served me up a burnt offering."

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Sunday 10th August 2025 – HA HA HA HA!

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the Welsh football club TNS. Created out of what used in the good old days to be Oswestry Town FC, and bankrolled to an enormous degree by its extremely wealthy chairman, in the last ten or so years the club has won just about every trophy or prize the Welsh domestic league can offer.

Some say that it’s a bad thing, that they monopolise the Welsh football system, but as it happens, I’m in two minds. I’ve seen the dramatic improvement in playing standards and in facilities in the Welsh pyramid over that period as other clubs struggle desperately to try to keep pace.

It’s also quite good for the morale when some lesser football team manages to scrape a win against them and their supporters collapse in a delirium of delight.

Last season, TNS became the first ever Welsh domestic club to qualify for the group stages of a European club competition and against all the odds, they managed even to win one of the group games to ensure that they didn’t finish bottom.

However, the success has gone to their heads. With the 5,000,000€ prize money, they have gone out and bought a raft of top-class professionals who really have no place in this league, and they kicked a pile of their journeymen professionals into touch.

Victims of their own hype, they had a dismal pre-season as their new stars struggle to adapt to the physical nature of lower league competition, and having predicted another successful European campaign, they failed embarrassingly to progress beyond the first round of the competitions in which they played.

Today, the JD Cymru League season began, and they were at home to Llansawel, a team that struggled near the bottom all last season and one of the clubs heavily tipped for relegation this season.

And if you want to see how the game progressed, HERE ARE THE HIGHLIGHTS. You don’t need to be a football fan to enjoy them. TNS are in the green and white.

Just two weeks ago, I wrote an article for a football magazine in which I said "having seen TNS’s performances to date, it’s a certainty that several optimistic managers will be searching desperately for some rapid wingers to exploit the cracks over the top and round the sides of the TNS defence". In this game, you have a perfect example of a manager doing just that – and doing it in spades too. THE KEYSTONE COPS have nothing on the TNS defence.

Anyway, retournons à nos moutons as they say around here.

Last night was another … well … not exactly “early” night, but I was in bed by 23:00, having once more dashed through everything at another uncomfortable rate of knots.

It goes without saying that I awoke quite early – at about 04:10 this morning. But this tile I was determined to go back to sleep and to my surprise, I actually succeeded, only to awaken at 06:29 precisely.

That’s the time that the alarm is set to sound on six days of the week. Sunday is a Day of Rest and the alarm is set for 07:59 so in theory I could have tried to go back to sleep yet again, but instead, I decided to raise myself from the Dead.

In the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up, and then into the kitchen for the medication, followed by coming back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

And who had come with me too, because TOTGA appeared in a dream last night. I was in Crewe, sorting out some food, jars of all kinds of things, tomato sauce etc that we’d collected. I was going to put them into Gainsborough Road. However, one of the jars had leaked so I’d had to clean it. My friend told me to knock before I went in, made sure that the tenants knew that I was there etc. I decided in the end that I didn’t really want to go because being inside that house again would dismay me. By this time, TOTGA had appeared and we were due to go back to Normandy, the three of us. First of all, I wanted to telephone an old school friend. TOTGA knew who he was and she said that he hed been ill, he had depression and all of that kind of thing. As I picked up the ‘phone, I suddenly forgot his number, so I just dialled a number at random and then hung up, saying that there was no answer. Then we decided that we’d ring up Rosemary to see if she fancied a quick visit before we went back. I couldn’t think of Rosemary’s ‘phone number then. Eventually, I managed it so I ‘phoned up and we had a chat. I asked her if she fancied a quick visit and she was really surprised. She wondered where we were and what we were doing, so we agreed to go down there. By this time, some people from the street had come past. They recognised me and came for a chat. TOTGA knew who they were because her aunt had a shop in the street and she had served in there on several occasions. They wanted to be introduced to her of course but she was teasing them with little suggestive hints from back from when she was a kid and worked in the shop. They were scratching their heads trying to think who she was. She thought that it was rather amusing so we left it at that. By this time, we were standing on the edge of a river that ran through a little gorge with a stone arch bridge over it in the background. We were all chatting, and then we decided that we’d better shoot off and visit Rosemary quickly otherwise we’ll be going home without seeing her.

It’s been ages since TOTGA has been around during the night. I thought that she had gone for good, just as Castor seems to have done and The Vanilla Queen did quite a while ago. But it really does make a change to see a dream full of nice people and no member of my family coming along to throw a spanner into the works.

Curiously though, when we were moving jars and bottles and so on downstairs, there was one jar where the top had worked loose and the contents had leaked

Later on, I was somewhere in Africa with a group of people in one of our old Fordson E83W vans. I was trying to find some paper on which to write some notes about a job that I had just completed but the only paper in the van was wet, soggy and mainly had other people’s calculations on it. I couldn’t find a big piece at all. By now I was running behind the van that was driving so I made a signal to the driver to stop. I opened the back door and my notebook was in the back. I rescued my notebook and waved on the van to start off again. Once it was going, I closed the door and carried on running behind it.

We did have a couple of E83W vans when we were kids. The first one was one of the early ones, KLG93, which my motor traders’ handbook tells me was registered in October 1937, and one of the last ones, XVT772, registered in January 1957. And you might think that walking behind one would be ridiculous, with an 1172cc side-value engine, a three-speed crash box and a downrated gearing on the rear axle, these vans would struggle to see 35 mph flat out. In fact, I have very vague memories of all of us having to get out and walk behind one once because it didn’t have enough power, fully loaded, to climb Shooter’s Hill in Blackheath, and when I mentioned it to my parents as I grew older, I was told that my memories were correct.

Isabelle the Nurse was back to her usual routine and back on time. We had a brief chat about one of my neighbours who is now in an Old Folks’ Home and she dealt with my legs, and then she cleared off as quickly as she came in.

Once she’d left, I made breakfast and read some more of THE OLD ROAD.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday, we left our author arguing with the police, having been detained to “help them with their enquiries” and he, in a show of innocence, "of I know not what crime"

Today, however, things become a whole lot clearer. In order to cross a river, "my companion and I clambered down the hill, stole a boat which lay moored to the bank, and with a walking-stick for an oar painfully traversed the river Wey. When we had landed, we heard, from the further bank, a woman, the owner of the boat, protesting with great violence."

Later on, "with Margery Wood it reaches the 700-feet line, runs by what I fear was a private path through a newly-enclosed piece of property. We remembered to spare the garden, but we permitted ourselves a trespass upon this outer hollow trench in the wood which marked our way."

All that I can say is that if those events are samples of his habitual attitude and behaviour, I’m surprised that he hasn’t been arrested a long time before the previous day.

After I had finished breakfast, I came back in here to watch Stranraer lose at home to Edinburgh City, and then I had things to do.

It seems that no-one is interested in the furniture that I have for sale or that I’m trying to give away, so I rekindled my long-dormant on-line auction account. That took much longer than it did in the past, and putting your articles on-line is much more complicated than I remember it.

So after a great deal of huffing and puffing, I managed eventually to list everything that needs selling on. But probably there won’t be anyone from there interested either. It seems that selling on-line isn’t the thing that it was twenty years ago. But then, the internet is nothing like the community that it used to be back in those days either.

After lunch, I had a relax for a while before the TNS v Llansawel game, and then at the final whistle I went to make the bread for next week and the pizza for tonight.

Rosemary rang me for a chat while I was baking, but I couldn’t stay long because there was yet more football. Colwyn Bay, newly promoted to the JD Cymru Premier League, were at home to Connah’s Quay Nomads in front of a massive crown of over 1500 people.

Last time Colwyn Bay were in the JD Cymru Premier League, they didn’t last long. This time though, they have signed a whole raft of experienced players and they looked a much more formidable outfit. They went toe-to-toe with the Nomads for the entire 90 minutes and the 1-1 scoreline was quite a fair reflection of the game.

Almost immediately after the final whistle, the telephone rang. It was one of my former girlfriends from school years ago, with whom I’m still in touch. She’ll be in France in late September, so would I like a visit?

Now that’s a silly question. I don’t have enough visits, and so anyone can visit me at any time they like. If she would like to come, she’d be more than welcome, and so would anyone else (except of course, my immediate family)

Tonight’s pizza was excellent and I shall have to make more like that. There’s already been an order from my fiend from Munich when he arrives here next weekend.

That’s right, next weekend. That’s when my house move begins. Just four more climbs back up the stairs. I can’t wait for the torment to be over.

But right now, it’s over for tonight because I’m off to bed.

But seeing as we have been talking about TNS’s laughable performance against Llansawel this afternoon … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a boxing match that I saw years ago where one of the contestants had been very quickly and very badly beaten.
The commentator was doing his best to console him, saying "Never mind. If you hadn’t been there, it wouldn’t have been much of a fight."

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Sunday 3rd August 2025 – I HAVE DONE …

… something this morning that I have not done for several months, and it took me completely by surprise.

This morning, I awoke early as usual after a dialysis session – 03:10 in fact. But that’s far too early to be showing a leg, even if I am accustomed to some very early mornings these days, and so I decided that I would curl up underneath the quilt and see if I couldn’t go back to sleep for a short while.

And sleep I did. When I awoke, the sun was streaming in through the bedroom window, the birds were singing, and a glance at the time showed that it was actually 07:37. How long is it since I’ve been in bed at that time of the morning (illness excepted, of course)?

It wasn’t as if I’d had a late night either. I’d finished all of my notes by 22:15, so the timestamp tells me, and after taking the stats and carrying out the back-up of the computer, it was 22:30 when I crawled into bed. And it didn’t take long for me to go to sleep.

On a Sunday, I plan to have a lie-in and so the alarm is set for 08:00 but since dialysis began seriously, I don’t think that I’ve ever actually stayed in bed until then, a far cry from when I had no visiting nurse in the morning, no alarm call and sometimes I’d stay in bed until after midday.

Had it been a normal day with an alarm at 06:29, lying in bed like this would have been classed as an abject failure, but on a Sunday it would be classed as an early start. However, I’m not going to note it as such because it’s disappointing.

Despite it being late, it still took me a few minutes to rise to my feet, and then I wandered off into the bathroom and then into the kitchen for the medication.

There wasn’t a lot of time for me to do anything much before Isabelle the Nurse arrived. She’d told me that she would be late because of the annual book sale in the walled town but she had the wrong date and it’s not until the 16th of August so in fact there was nothing to interrupt her passage and she was early.

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

Our author is still in Westminster and has gone to the Great hall, where he describes in great detail the origins of the King’s Bench, the system of Courts and Judges that lasted until about 1875. Initially, it followed the King around on his Royal Circuits, trying cases that had arisen since its last visit and which later settled in the Great Hall, with only a part of the Court followed the King.

He tells us that "King Edward IV, in the year 1462, in Michaelmas term" because the Court had four terms, Hillary, Easter, Trinity and Michaelmas "sat in the King’s Bench three days together, in the open court, to understand how his laws were ministered and executed."

Another thing that he mentions is "a cloister of curious workmanship" built by Doctor John Chambers, the King’s physician. How I would have liked to see that!

He’s being continually surprised by the meals and banquets that are being served up, as am I, I have to admit. He tells us of John Mansell, the King’s Councillor, who organised a banquet for "The Kings and Queens of England and Scotland, Edward, the King’s son, earls, barons, knights, the Bishop of London and divers citizens." His house turned out to be far too small and he had to erect "tents and pavillions" and "there was such a multitude that seven hundred messes of meat did not serve for the first dinner."

There’s also mention of another huge banquet with an enormous quantity of food and "sundry wines and plenteous wise" that went on through the night and ended with "the king and queen being conveyed with great lights into the palace."

Back in here, there were the dictaphone notes to transcribe. I was in Canada last night, round at my niece’s. Everyone had gone out and left me on my own for a while. By now, it was almost teatime and I was feeling hungry but it was very difficult to know what to eat. In the end I had a scavenge around and found some noodles and some powdered soy sauce which I thought would probably do for now. Then I found that I couldn’t open any of the tins or bottles. By now my niece and her husband were back and they were watching me as I tried to saw off with a sharp knife the bands that hold things like knives in their sheaths etc to try to have some kitchen utensils. My niece asked me if I wanted something else so I replied that I’d made a start on this so it would do. My niece’s husband asked me if I wanted to listen to any music. I asked him what he had and he read out a whole list of CDs so I mentioned one or two, so he gave them to me. However, he didn’t tell me where to switch them on, where the CD player was. So I was standing there with these useless utensils in one hand and a useless couple of CDs in the other hand and this strange concoction of food on the plaque de cuisson.

So here we go again. I’m feeling nostalgic for Canada again. That’s something that I shall have to chase out of my mind and accept that it’s never going to happen again. However, I did actually find a packet of noodles when I was tidying the kitchen the other day. Apart from the indecision, which seems to happen a lot in my dreams, I can’t fit the rest in with anything else.

Nerina and I had moved house, and we were thinking of adopting a cat. We went to the local animal shelter and the person there listened to our story and offered us a female cat and her five new-born kittens. Much as I liked cats, I thought that that was far too much and so did Nerina but the guy was doing his best to persuade us, saying that all food will be provided etc, but we were still not keen at all on this idea of having this kind of cat family in the house.

Anyone who has ever looked after a cat will know that you don’t actually choose a cat – a cat chooses you. You’ll have an idea about the kind of cat that you would like and go to a refuge to find one but you’ll always come back with completely the opposite of what you would have liked. Your ideal cat would be there, but it would take one look at you and slink off into a dark corner but another cat will cling to your legs and won’t let go.

There was also something about being in Virlet but I can’t remember anything about it now.

After that, I had a very slow start to the day and didn’t do very much at all for quite a while. I had hoped to see the Forfar v Stranraer football match but for some reason, the stream didn’t come online this morning and it’s still not appeared. I’ve no idea why not either because usually, the camera team is quite reliable.

Once I’d decided to start work, I carried on with the radio programme that I’d started the other day. All of the music is now remixed and apart from in one or two places where we had issues setting tone and amending the speed of a couple of tracks, it’s come out quite well and I’m quite happy.

The notes have also been written ready for dictation but I shan’t dictate them immediately because I’m not convinced that they are long enough and they will need reworking.

There’s also a photograph of STRAWBERRY MOOSE doing the rounds of the internet in Granville right now.

The estate agent who came round a couple of weeks ago took a couple of photos of the place and these are being used to advertise my apartment here as available to let, and His Nibs is prominently featured, sitting in the middle of the bed.

In case you are wondering why I’m not posting the link, well, let’s just say that it does not show my apartment in the best of lights. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that tidiness is not my particular forte.

There were the usual breaks in the afternoon for disgusting drinks and also for baking. I needed more bread and a base for my pizza so I dealt with that this afternoon.

The loaf is slightly heavier today, but the pizza base was perfect and it tasted delicious. However, I’m not sure why, but I’ve suddenly developed a craving for Cheshire Cheese. It’s a shame that I can no longer eat it. Since I went onto this vegan diet in 1992 when my pancreas ceased to function, cheese is the one thing that I miss.

So right now, I’m off to bed ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed …
. Do you realise that there are at most only seven more trips up the stairs after dialysis and then I shall be installed downstairs and shan’t have to worry any more?

And if the plumber, who is coming tomorrow, extricates his digit, there might be even fewer than that. As long as my bed, my desk and my kitchen stuff are down there and the water is connected, I shall cope as best as I can. I really have to move downstairs as quickly as I can because the stairs are finishing me off.

But before we go, seeing as we have been talking about banquets … "well, one of us has" – ed … some friends of mine once went to a big banquet in Spain where the dish of honour was the … errr … cojones of the bull that was killed in the corrida that morning.
However, at this particular banquet, the main dish was … errr … rather small
"what’s happened here?" asked one of my friends
"Well you see, señor" replied the waiter "the bull, he doesn’t always lose."

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Sunday 20th July 2025 – I HAVE BEEN …

… a very busy boy today, and have accomplished quite a lot. It’s not often that I have days as productive as this, so it’s worthy of note.

Not that last night was any indication of how things might have been. It was another one of those nights where things dragged and dragged, and I seemed to be struggling to do the simplest of things.

Even though I’d started my notes at some kind of reasonable time and looking forward to a reasonably early finish, instead it was almost 23:30 when I finally crawled into bed.

Mind you, I was soon asleep, and I can’t remember anything at all until I had another dramatic awakening at 06:05 this morning. So much for my lie-in until 08:00, and does anyone else apart from me remember my legendary lie-ins until midday and later on Sundays prior to dialysis?

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … being awake is one thing. Being up and about is something else completely. It was actually 06:20 when I finally staggered into the bathroom to sort myself out for the day.

After the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I ended up buying an old lorry and was looking for work for it. In the end, a place down near Audlem was a tar centre and they were disposing of some of their tar so I bought ten tons of it and put it in a tanker. Then, I was wondering what to do with it because I couldn’t think of how I was going to dispose of it. My father told me that they put it mostly on the roads. I asked him how far he thought that ten tons would go, but he didn’t think that ten tons would go very far. After much thinking about it, he suggested that I head north out of Audlem and look for some of the salt mines that rare around there and see whether their roads need upgrading etc because there were other places in the vicinity where I could have my tank washed and prepared for whatever, a different kind of load. But I was totally bewildered by what I was going to do with this ten tons of tar and couldn’t think why I had bought it. It was just a weird decision to do that but I didn’t know what else I could do

One thing that I could easily have imagined myself doing in the past was owning a lorry. It wouldn’t have been a tanker though – too many safety certificates and the like to obtain, and I certainly wouldn’t have gone out to buy ten tons of tar on spec without having a ready market for it. Mind you, I have done wilder things …

Later on, I’d met a couple of Americans who were in the UK doing business. I wondered whether there might be some kind of opportunity for me with them so I had a little chat and talked about my business, puffing up my affairs a little. They told me that they had two representatives in the UK at that particular time, one of whom was in the area and the other one was in Lincoln, so I was chatting to them. I had to set off in a car and ended up stopping at a motorway service station where I was talking to a lorry driver about all of the changes in the service areas over the years and how he was saying that he would continue having trouble finding the right kind of place. He and I tried to leave the building but even with his pass key it was still a struggle to leave. I told him about the times that I’d been down on a motorway service station driving lorries. I climbed into my car but I drove off the service station without looking. I thought “that was a lucky escape”. I then had to decide where to go. I was heading somewhere down the M1 but I wondered if I should go to Lincoln instead but I thought “what am I going to do when I’m in Lincoln?”. I carried on driving to my destination and when I was there, I created a website and set it up in a foreign country, then sent a link to these American people with the idea that with my business being registered in a foreign domain, it would confuse them. But they were in the middle of the street in Nantwich Road – the middle of the pavement – having a huge discussion. I dropped my coat but even with a big shovel, I still couldn’t pick it up. I was just pushing it farther and farther into the road.

“Commercial puffs” are well-known in business and I think that just about every businessman has engaged in them. Some were so convincing and overwhelming, in the cases of companies like Enron and WorldCom, and individuals such as Bernie Madoff, that when they were finally exposed, they collapsed whole economies. Not, however, that any puffing up that any sole trader on my scale of business could do would ever damage an economy. Chance would be a fine thing.

Isabelle the Nurse was late today, having overslept this morning. consequently she was in and out in a flash and I could carry on and make breakfast.

There was also MY BOOK to read.

Our author is still on the prowl around the churches of London and it looks as if he’s going to be there for quite a while. He does, however, make some interesting remarks about various bequests that were made by the rich in order to aid the deserving poor, finishing by saying "how this … was performed I have not heard, for executors of our time having no conscience (I speak of my own knowledge) prove more testaments than they perform.".

Back in here, I watched Stranraer away to Edinburgh City, and almost fell asleep in the middle, such was the game. I have been to funerals with a more lively atmosphere than the atmosphere at the Meadowbank Stadium during the game.

Next task was to tackle the “Sunday Woodstock” radio programme. I had ten minutes and seventeen seconds to lose so that meant “goodbye” to two groups, whose style doesn’t really fit into our programmes, and a rewriting and editing of certain vocal parts. I’d anticipated some exclusions and had dictated some notes to cover them. There was plenty of applause amongst the tracks too and so I had some room to manoeuvre … "PERSONoeuvre" – ed … in there.

It took an age to do all of that and line up the various sections of the programme afterwards, but it’s now all done and it sounds quite good Even the bad mistake that I had made and which I identified yesterday was patched over.

So that’s a huge weight off my mind, because it has been the most difficult radio task that I have ever performed. The research alone took a couple of months all told.

There was an interruption – I had to pause for a while to sell some furniture. I’m slowly having a clear-out and have advertised some stuff on one of these websites. Today, it was the turn of the four cheap kitchen units, those that I bought a few years ago just before I fell ill and so never installed here, to go out of the door.

Well, they were out of the door already – on the landing outside where they have lived for three or four years – but anyway, they aren’t there now, the ground’s all flat.

After a disgusting drink break, I had another task to perform.

There has been a huge accumulation of paperwork around here that I haven’t filed away for eighteen months and it was completely out of hand, so I sorted it all out into date order and it’s now all neatly filed away in various folders.

At one point I had several piles of papers on the floor and it reminded me of the good old days when Nerina and I were sorting out the paperwork for the taxis. We’d have several piles of paperwork on the floor, and then the cats would come in. They would make a very intelligent and correct guess about which pile of paperwork we were actually working, and then go to sit on it.

And that reminds me – I shall have to think about trying to find a cat for when I move downstairs. I am determined to have one.

Something else that I’ve done is to pack a couple more boxes with things to be taken downstairs. I shall let my faithful cleaner take charge of that.

There was bread to make this afternoon, as well as a pizza base for tea. And that all worked well, except that the bread needed much longer than usual this afternoon to bake. I’ve no idea what was the matter with the oven today.

So now that I’ve had my delicious pizza and tidied up a little, I’m off to bed. Tomorrow, I’m going to be busy. There are my bags to pack, food to make, and then I’m off to dialysis in the afternoon. When dialysis is finished, I’m going straight to Paris for chemotherapy so it will be unlikely that there will be a blog entry for tomorrow night. You may have to wait for Tuesday to read it.

But seeing as we have been talking about wills and testaments … "well, one of us has" – ed … a very true story is that someone was left a sum of money in someone else’s will "on condition that he could prove that he was not dead."
The heritee had to present himself before a Commissioner for Oaths who asked him "Are you Mr …..?"
"Yes I am" replied the heritee.
"Are you dead?" asked the Commissioner
"No I am not"
"Are you prepared to swear an oath to that effect?"

0

Sunday 6th July 2025 – WHEN THE ALARM …

… went off this morning at 07:59, I was sitting at my desk.

In fact I had been sitting at my desk for quite some considerable time. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s quite pointless going to bed early because all that it means is that I awaken correspondingly early next morning.

“Early” is one thing sure enough, but I’m not sure exactly where 04:10 fits into the scheme of things with regard to “early”. It certainly seems to be quite an extravagance to me.

Mind you, having said that, being awake at 04:10 is one thing. Leaving the bed is quite something else, and 05:01 makes it sound almost respectable by my standards. There was a reason for my lingering in bed for as long as I did, which you will discover anon.

So last night, feeling like death, looking like death and probably smelling like death too, I staggered into bed as soon as I had finished my notes, and that was the last thing that I remembered of the night.

There I lay, flat out until 04:10 when I checked the watch, but it was 05:01 when I finally fell out of bed.

The first thing that I did was to take advantage of the deathly silence and dictate the radio notes for the Friday of Woodstock. And what a marathon that was. The time ran to over 22 minutes, the longest recording by far for a rock music programme, and that is going to take some serious editing.

Once that was all finished (and that took its time, of course) I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And, more importantly, who had been with me. And I had a special visitor during the night. It was Zero who came to see me. We were on a train somewhere going into London. When we arrived, we had to come out of our station and catch a bus across London to Waterloo. I had my baggage and she had hers. She was right behind me and I stepped on the bus but it immediately pulled away and she was left standing at the station. I hoped that she had had the good sense to board the next one and follow me along. There were four British guys sitting on a seat, blocking the passage and making the conductor perform some hard work. He took my ticket when he came to me. I thought “what am I going to do now if I have to change buses?”. I asked someone and he replied “don’t be so worried. Just go with it”. So I just went with it. The bus pulled into Victoria Station … "not Waterloo" – ed … and I climbed out; and I had to look for the entrance. As I was looking for the entrance, Zero walked up. We went to sit down to wait for our train, but she said that she had handed in her luggage at the left luggage office, having put the wrong name on it. I told her to wait there for five minutes while I walked back around the corner. I walked into the first office and asked if they had a luggage reception centre. They replied “yes” so I explained what Zero had done. She replied “ohh, you want tithe railway office. This is the pub here”. I had then to go back out and begin to look for the railway office. Then I began to realise that time was marching on and I was going to miss this train if I were not careful so in the end I had to go back to her to tell her “well, everything is going to be OK” even though I knew that it wasn’t and we’d sort out the matter when we arrived at wherever it was where we were going.
I forgot to mention that in the dream where I was roaming around the station looking for the luggage office, there was a group of British people coming up to people to ask if they would like these people to give them a speech. I just ploughed on and when one stood in my way I just pushed him out of the way with my body. They were upset but I wasn’t in the kind of mood to be polite at that moment.

There is something of everything in that dream. First of all, we’re on a train again. And there I am again with Zero, some of the fates are pushing us together and others of the fates, such as my subconscious, are tearing us apart. Finally, I’m full of indecision yet again.

There are also connections to real-life events in this too. When Liz (“this” Liz, not “that” Liz) and I were in London in 2006, we actually had such an experience when she stepped onto a tube (the lady going first is always the most logical order) and the tube just set off. I followed on behind to our intended destination and luckily, she had continued on to there to await me.

The final part of the dream also has its parallel to a time IN LONDON IN 2007 when I was obliged to remind someone that he wouldn’t receive a performers’ licence if he were to have two broken legs.

Anyway, now you know why I lay a-bed until 05:10. I was hoping to go back to sleep and continue the dream with Zero but, alas, it was not to be.

Isabelle the nurse was late this morning and she hadn’t had time to read the hospital in Paris’s version of “War and Peace”. She had better return it to me tomorrow regardless, because she will be off-duty for a week and I need some information therefrom.

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

We covered a lot of ground today, starting by discussing the schools of London. And all of you teachers who are complaining about being understaffed, underpaid and overworked should spare a thought for the staff of St Paul’s School in 1512 where, "for one hundred and fifty-three poor men’s children, for which there were ordained a master, a surmaster or usher, and a chaplain".

We’ve also been discussing the position of men keen to learn the law who congregated in certain houses where they could lodge and share their experiences. He describes their customs and routines, and names their houses, and we can see straight away the origins of the Inns of Court and the modern-day legal traditions that are followed.

However, I had a very wry smile when I read his account of the houses, "built all of timber and covered with a thatch of straw or reed" and his accounts of the fires that took place in the city. He finishes his account by saying that the mayor then ordered "that all men in this city should build their houses of stone up to a certain height and to cover them with slate and baked tile, since which time, thanks be given to God, there hath not happened the like often consuming fires in this City as afore."

It goes without saying that Stow’s book, this edition being published in 1603, was 63 years prior to “The Great Fire of London” that destroyed an enormous area of the old City.

After breakfast I came in here to begin my Welsh class. And it went on until 16:30.

It was not a particular success but it was free and I need to take advantage of the few opportunities that come my way during the Summer. I forget so many things quite so easily that it’s the only way to keep it going in my head.

For a change, we were quite a small class, and I was the only male there. But everyone seemed to be friendly and keen and we had such a good time altogether.

Once the lesson was over I had things to do. Like bake some bread and make some dough for a pizza. There’s plenty of dough in the freezer but it’s in large man-sized … "PERSON-sized" – ed … lumps in the freezer and as I’m not eating so much these days, I just wanted a smaller size.

The bread is wonderful as usual and the pizza was really the best that I have ever made. The base was magnificent. I shall make a few more like this one, that’s for sure, if only I remember what I did so differently.

Right now though, I’m off to bed. I had an early start, I’m tired and I have dialysis tomorrow afternoon.

And as we have been talking about Zero … "well, one of us has" – ed … to dream of Zero returning during the night.
And if she does, I shall tell her "I dreamed about you last night, Zero".
"Did you really?" she will ask
"No" I will reply. "You fought me off."

0

Friday 20th June 2025 – WE NOW HAVE …

… a plumber to do the shower. He charges much more than I was expecting but he’s available and willing to do the work. The only thing that I have to watch is that he wants to do his project in my bathroom rather than my project in my bathroom. That’s the kind of thing that irritates me intensely, so I shall have to keep a close eye on him.

And on Wednesday next week we shall have a kitchen – well, at least, a delivery of all of the flat packs that will need to be assembled and fitted. It’s all ordered and paid for, and paying for it was an adventure in itself, more of which anon.

So, retournons à nos moutons as they say around here, last night I was totally and utterly wasted. I don’t think that I’ve ever been so tired. I staggered through the notes, the back-up and the statistics etc, feeling less and less like it as time went on.

In the bathroom I fell asleep while I was … errr … riding the porcelain horse and it took some effort to make my way beck here where I fell straight asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. It was only 22:45 too, which makes a change.

And there I lay, fast asleep and didn’t move a muscle until all of … errr … 05:20.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … being awake is one thing. Leaving the bed is quite another thing completely. It was about 05:50 when I finally dragged myself out from under the bedclothes and saw the light of day.

First task was to transcribe the dictaphone notes. There was some drink that I was supposed to be drinking and its chemical composition was really precise. I’d stir it every day with a metal spoon. One day, I’d left the metal spoon in there. When I went to pull the spoon out, I noticed that half of the spoon had dissolved into the liquid and wasn’t there any more. I was wondering “what on earth is this caustic substance that I’ve been prescribed that I’ve been drinking two of these each day?”.

This sounds like the disgusting drink of which I’m supposed to take two every day. I shudder to think what it might be doing to my insides if its chemical reactions are as bad as its tastes.

Everyone seemed to wake up early this morning so I didn’t have long to spend in here. I went and had a good wash and then to drink some coffee and have a chat.

However, we were all interrupted. A taxi turned up to take me for a medical appointment.

Don’t ask me why, because I was convinced that the appointment is on Monday, but apparently not. So I quickly put on my shoes and went downstairs with the driver.

It was nice to be outside in an early summer’s morning so I wasn’t complaining, although I did wish that there had been someone there to greet me at the doctor’s when I arrived. And after waiting half an hour and having tried the doors and found them all locked, I telephoned the dialysis centre. They confirmed that it is indeed today.

When the driver turned up to take me home, one hour later, the doctor still hadn’t arrived. We went back downstairs anyway to speak to the receptionist of the medical centre. She told me that the doctor wasn’t in today. She checked my appointments on the central medical website and there it was – for Monday, as I had thought. And so we went home.

It goes without saying that I’d missed the nurse. I did ring her up but it was the answerphone that answered the ‘phone.

At least, I could now eat breakfast and drink some more coffee. I certainly needed it.

The next task was to contact the kitchen fitter to remind him that we were waiting. I gave him a gentle nudge with an e-mail and he rang me back as I hoped that he would.

We had another lengthy discussion about everything that we needed and he promised to send me a final schedule later in the afternoon.

The postie turned up in the middle of all of that and dropped off a couple of parcels. All that I seem to be awaiting now are the microwave oven and the kitchen stool. The kitchen stool will be a boon because I really am now struggling to stay standing up for any length of time.

After lunch, the cleaner turned up, closely followed by the plumber. We showed the latter round the bathroom and he seems to think that it’s straightforward, although somewhat complicated.

He doesn’t like my idea of a wall and thinks that I should have a glass panel, “so that there’s more light” – not that light has ever bothered me, and that I should run the pipework behind a false wall rather than embedded in the new wall. He also wants me to change the toilet for a new one.

However, unless there’s a very good reason (which we won’t know until we remove the bath) my plans are staying put.

It took him a while to sort out everything that he needed to know, and then we agreed a price. Or, rather, he told me his. It’s useless giving me an estimate because we don’t know what’s involved until we remove the bath but I know his daily rate. Had I had any more time left to find someone else I would maybe have thought twice, but if he can do the job by the middle of July, which he thinks is eminently feasible, then I shall have to bite the bullet. Each month longer that I stay here, I’m having to pay an extra month’s rent.

With it being such a nice day, my friend and I went for a walk outside afterwards. I went over to the clifftop and watched the sea and the boats for a while until the heat drove me back inside again.

By this time, the kitchen fitter had sent me the list. He’s going to order the stuff from the DIY shop, but I need to order the stuff from IKEA.

That took a while and I blanched at the price that came out of it all, but it has to be paid. I’m probably over-engineering the kitchen But I’m only ever going to do this once and it has to have an island, if, for the only reason, to stop me falling over.

When it came to pay it, the struggle for position of The Worst Bank In The World took a new turn as the Crédit Agricole refused to make the payment.
Consequently, I telephoned them, and they told me "it’s over your transaction limit".
My reply was "I don’t care about the transaction limit. I want to make the payment. What are you going to do about it?"
"We’ll send you a form. Sign it and send it back and we’ll raise your limit temporarily"
"So I have to wait for the post to bring it, and the post to return it?"
"I’m afraid so" she replied.
"How much money do you have of mine in your bank?"
So she told me exactly
"Good. I’ll take it all out and find another bank who wants it and who will do what I want"
"I’ll have the manager call you back"
It goes without saying that the manager has yet to ‘phone.

However, I have been in this position before and it’s not for nothing that I also have bank accounts in Belgium, the UK and Canada. Consequently, the kitchen is all paid for and the things will be here on Wednesday.

In between everything else, I was editing the radio notes that I dictated the other day. They aren’t quite half done but I’ll keep on going with half an hour here, an hour there until they are finished. But it’s difficult to work when you have visitors.

There was also some time somewhere for me to make a loaf of bread, seeing as we had run out. I don’t know where all of this energy came from – or all of this time either, but I’ve certainly been busy today.

Tea tonight was sausage, beans and chips. And very nice it was too. I certainly enjoyed it and so did my friend.

And now I’m off to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow I don’t think.

But seeing as we have been talking about the Crédit Agricole … "well, one of us has" – ed … an old farmer went into the bank to speak to the manager
"I need to take out a loan" said the farmer. "I need a new tractor and trailer and a few other bits and pieces"
"And how long will you need it?"
"I can pay you back over fifteen years"
"We can’t do that" said the banker. "To be honest, I doubt that you’ll live that long to repay it."
"Well, if I die" said the farmer "God in his Heaven will reward you when I arrive there."
"And what if you don’t go to heaven but go to hell?"
"In that case," said the farmer "I can give you the money myself when I see you."

0

Friday 13th June 2025 – IT HAS BEEN …

… a quiet day today.

It was quiet last night too. I didn’t stay up for all that long after finishing my notes. However, it was rather later than I anticipated when I went to bed. Everyone in the apartment had been asleep for quite a while by the time that I finally crawled in underneath the covers.

Once more, it took me a while to go off to sleep but once I was asleep, there I stayed until about 05:30. Not that I was up and about straight away though. It must have taken me another twenty minutes before I finally plucked up the courage to leave the bed.

With everyone still fast asleep, I began the morning by listening to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I’d been to hospital last night and I’d had some brain surgery carried out on my head. It had involved penetrating the skull. As a result I was lying there in bed with the extension cable wrapped around me and the plug on the end of that was resting on my stomach. At first I thought that it might have been the Hound of the Barnevilles … "he means ‘Baskervilles’" – ed … but that was still asleep on the floor by the fire so it can’t have been him so I wondered what animal of that nature was trying to crawl all over me while I was asleep.

The Hound of the Baskervilles was actually sleeping on the floor when I stuck my head in earlier. But dreaming about hospital again is pretty depressing. I want to forget all about that and relax during the night instead of ending up worrying just as much as I do during the day about my hospital visits.

Later on, I was with two people. We’d been on a very long trek from across some kind of territory. There was also a boy involved in this somehow. The woman was the mother of this child. I was with these two men, hiking away, walking through this rough land. We were having to climb up and down all kinds of obstacles and it seemed as if we were twenty years walking through this way. Eventually we came to a spot where we had to climb down a really, really long descent like off a clifftop. It was all muddy. We finally made it down to the bottom where we could say goodbye. Meanwhile, this woman and her son were somewhere about and I ended up doing something with this child, having a collection of possessions or something. This woman, I had this big silver or chrome ball, really heavy. I went up to her and said “I know what it is tomorrow” because I’d been told that it was her birthday. I was about to present her with this ball when she said “yes, it’s Grand Prix day tomorrow” which surprised me. But there was something in this dream about a tube of ointment but I can’t remember where it fitted in.

This dream reminded me very much of East Africa, not that I have ever been there of course, but how I would imagine it to be. However, it seems to have its basis in our Welsh lesson on Tuesday, when we were reading a book about a woman and her son who were the sole survivors of a cataclysm and they had to learn self-sufficiency and autonomy quite rapidly if they were going to survive.

Everyone seemed to come alive round about 07:00 so I went back into the living room to see how they were doing. My friend rustled up some coffee, I rustled up the orange juice and we had a very slow start to the day while I sorted out my medication.

The nurse burst into the apartment at about 08:30 and the reaction of the Hound of the Baskervilles will make sure that he won’t ever enter like that anywhere else ever again.

It had evidently put the wind up him because he was in and out of here in what must be a new World Record time, and we could set about making breakfast.

Later on, we came in here and spent quite a while talking about recording issues, fixing a few faults on a few recording machines and working out how to use an old digital mixing desk that has been lying around here for several years.

That was something that I’m glad we did, because we managed to make it work reasonably well, although the audio output is very low, even when the gain is set to maximum. One thing that we did find out though is that one of my microphones doesn’t work. No wonder that I’ve been having recording issues with it on one of the other machines that I have. All that it must have been picking up must have come from the external microphone.

While the Hound of the Baskervilles went for a walk, I sorted out my LeClerc order and sent it off ready for delivery later this afternoon.

We’re low on bread again so this afternoon I prepared some dough for a loaf and also for four bread rolls. We’re planning to have two tonight with burgers that I have ordered, and the other two will be for the broccoli stalk soup that I’m going to make on Sunday afternoon, seeing as I’ve ordered a broccoli head this afternoon.

When the order showed up I had one kilo of carrots and a broccoli head to wash, dice and blanch ready for freezing and that took longer than I would have liked. And while it was all preparing itself, I put away some of the things.

Not all of them, because I was feeling the strain this afternoon. I could only work in ten-minute spells and then I had to go to sit down for half an hour to recover. I was really feeling the strain and frustration this afternoon.

Tea was one of these nice burgers in a bread roll with baked potato and a vegan salad, followed by strawberries and cream (yes, we had a Leclerc order this afternoon). And it really was delicious too.

Tomorrow for tea we have aubergines so I might make an aubergine and kidney bean whatsit with pasta, followed by yet more strawberries.

However, that’s tomorrow. Tonight, I’m off to bed ready for dialysis tomorrow, I don’t think

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about brain surgery and the like … "well, one of us has" – ed … It reminds me of the time after one of my car accidents when I was sent to the hospital for a brain scan.
At first, I was rather worried but half an hour later the doctor did his best to reassure me.
"Don’t worry" he replied. "We’ve examined the x-rays and we’ve found nothing."

0

Sunday 8th June 2025 – THIS LITTLE PROJECT …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sunday 1st June 2025 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… this morning, I had a later start than usual.

When I stuck my head out from under the quilt, it was all of 06:56, and bright sunlight too. That’s the latest sleep that I have had for quite some considerable time, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Mind you, not only is it earlier than the habitual 07:00 alarm call, with it being a Sunday we have the alarm call at 08:00 and so it was definitely what we would call an “early start”.

Not that it was looking much like it last night though. Despite having made a good start on finalising everything that I needed to do, in the words of the old song
" I dillied and dallied, dallied and I dillied
Lost me way and don’t know where to roam.
And you can’t trust a Special like the old time Coppers.
When you can’t find your way ‘ome"
Consequently, by the time that I’d finished everything it was long after 23:00, and then I had the radio notes to dictate.

Whatever went wrong there, I really don’t know. It was almost as if I’d lost the ability to read because I was making mistake after mistake after mistake. And while the finished article didn’t end up being the longest that I’ve ever dictated, it wasn’t all that far off.

There will be a lot of editing to do with that tomorrow.

Once I was finally in bed, I was soon asleep, and there I lay without moving until 06:56 when I fell out of bed in surprise.

In the bathroom I sorted myself out and then went for the medication. Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone but;, to my disappointment, there was another night when there was nothing on it. It must have been one of the longest, deepest sleeps that I’ve had for quite some considerable time.

Anyway, that was what I wrote at the time. The following day, no-one was more surprised than me to see that there actually was something on there from this particular night. I had absolutely no recollection of this at all. It was back in the Middle Ages and I was something to do with whatever went on in the Courts. However, one afternoon during some kind of challenge a group of people and I began to sing “Carry On” by Steven Stills. It went down so well that we decided that we’d stay together and keep going. We had to teach the audience quite a lot about the stage behaviour – they mustn’t climb on the stage, they mustn’t handle the artists etc, but generally speaking, they were quite benign with their attention and applause, and I don’t think that anyone was in any danger of hurting or being hurt while the festival was proceeding.

No-one was more impressed than me by the fact that in a dream, of which I had no recollection at all, I could remember that it was Steven Stills who wrote “Carry On”. Incidentally, it was a casual occasion of three people spontaneously singing in harmony at a birthday party that led to the creation of Crosby, Stills and Nash.

But as for the dream itself, this must be relating to all of the stuff about Woodstock that I’ve been doing recently where, amongst the 500,000 attendees, there was not one single case of interpersonal violence recorded by the medical team and the only incident of any note in that respect was when Pete Townshend of The Who threw protester Abbie Hoffman off the stage.

When the nurse came round, we had the usual banal chat about pizzas that we have every Sunday – I could write down the script in my sleep these days and I wish that he’d find another subject to discuss, or, at least, say something different about it.

After he left, I made my breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. We’ve left Skenfrith and, having passed by Southampton Castle, we’ve arrived at Tamworth.

In the early medieval period Tamworth was the de facto capital of King Offa’s Mercia until it was ravaged twice in quick succession by the Norse. There was a mint at Tamworth in those days and many silver coins minted there can now be found in museums in the Nordic countries, presumably loot from the sacking of Tamworth.

When breakfast was over, I made some dough for the bread roll for my lunchtime toasted cheese. I’m still allowing myself one or two little luxuries despite everything else. I’m not going to deprive myself completely, that’s for sure.

Back in here I had several things that I needed to do, and then I set about editing the radio notes that I had dictated last night before going to bed.

It was in quite a mess too and I was right too about it all needing a lot of editing. What with all of the various side-tracking, I was ages working on it but by the time that I’d knocked off, I’d assembled the two halves of the programme and chosen the eleventh track that links it all together and written the notes. Here’s hoping that I’ve calculated the times correctly this week.

As for all of the interruptions, there was a lunch break with my delicious cheese and tomato on a toasted fresh roll.

Then there was a disgusting drink break, after which I made a loaf of bread with sunflower seeds for next week. I’d also taken some frozen pizza dough out of the freezer and it had been defrosting throughout the afternoon, so I kneaded it and rolled it out and left it to fester on a pizza tray.

Later on I baked my bread and assembled my pizza. When the bread was ready I put the pizza in the oven to bake. I ended up with a really magnificent loaf and another candidate for one of the best pizzas ever. At least something that I’m doing these days seems to be working out very well.

So right now, I’m off to bed after another good day’s work. It’s dialysis tomorrow of course, and I shall be expressing my displeasure to whichever of the dialysis team has drawn the short straw and has to come to see me. I bet though that they’ll all run away when they see me coming.

But seeing as we have been talking about the Norse raids on Tamworth … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was picturing the scene as King Offa sat in his hill fort at Sutton Walls when a serf comes bursting in
"Sire! Sire! Terrible news!" cries the serf. "The Norse have sacked Tamworth"
"That is indeed terrible news" says King Offa. "Who will they have in the dug-out for the next game?"

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Friday 23rd May 2025 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER …

… one of those days when I just couldn’t seem to get going. It was a day of interruption after interruption as I lurched from one important task to another, and I don’t think that any of them are really completed either.

But last night was another one of those nights where, even though I finished work fairly early, couldn’t summon up the energy to go to bed, and just sat in the chair vegetating for a while. It’s really doing me no good at all, this. I know exactly what the problem is, though, and it’s that it takes so much effort to stand up from wherever I might be sitting. To rise to my feet is a major operation involving quite a few logistical issues.

Eventually though I forced myself and headed off into the bathroom to tidy myself up, and then I headed for my comfortable repos underneath the quilt, much later than I anticipated.

Once in bed, it took quite a while yet again to go off to sleep but once I’d gone, then I was gone, and gone for good too, all the way to … errr … 06:10. I remember nothing whatsoever of the night.

When I heard the electric water-heater switch off, I decided that I may as well leave the bed and go to sort myself out in the bathroom. And when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was in the kitchen sorting out the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. It was in the clinic of the hospital, something like just before dialysis. The nurses had to fit the antiseptic patches for all of the people who were in there, mostly elderly with delicate skin. Very few of them were people with this tough kind of skin that you would expect to be resilient so it became something of a painful session and there were a lot of recriminations being traded around while people were waiting for their chairs to dry and for them to be called into their anaesthetic machines.

And that’s something else that’s getting o my nerves. As if I don’t already spend more than enough time in the hospital as it is? That’s the last place that I would want to be in my spare time when I should be out there on my travels in search of pulchritude.

That reminds me of course – that I’m going for another dialysis session tomorrow with my arm just as painful as it was on Thursday. I am not looking forward to this at all.

Isabelle the nurse came along as usual. Today she changed the plasters on my leg before sorting out my legs and feet and fitting my compression socks. She’s here for ten days, so she tells me, and that’s good news.

After she left I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. We’re still at Pontefract Castle but I’ve been wandering around the Wars of the Roses in cyberspace for much of the time, following one lead after another, being side-tracked as usual.

After breakfast, the first job was to measure the bathroom, and that involved moving stuff around in the bedroom so that I could make my way into the wardrobe here to find the toolbox.

Having measured the bathroom, I waited around until 10:00 for this bathroom company to ‘phone me. Bang on time, they were there and a very helpful and polite woman told me that their company wouldn’t be able to do the bathroom as I required.

She did however say that she “knew a couple of people” who might help and if I were to forward to her some photos and a brief description of what I needed, she would pass the message on.

So the next task was to take some photos of the bathroom, and that involved moving stuff around, cleaning up and washing the tiles etc Then I had to edit the photos and send them off with a report. Now we have to wait for things to happen.

In the middle of all of that, my cleaner reminded me about my LeClerc order so I had to review that and send it off. And I bet that there is plenty of stuff that I’ve forgotten.

After a disgusting drink break I went to print out the invoice from the electrician to sign it and send it off with a deposit, but the print program crashed. After several hours of trying to repair the program I decided to uninstall it and start again. But with a document stuck in the corrupted print queue, the program won’t uninstall. So that’s another job for tomorrow.

If all else fails, I’ll set up a print program on the travelling laptop and print from there.

There was an interruption in the middle of all of that too when my faithful cleaner arrived to do her stuff. We went through all of the medication and sorted that lot out, and then she changed the bedding for me so that I have nice clean bedding for tonight. A shame that there’s not a nice, clean me to go in it but I can’t shower until this leg is healed.

After she left, LeClerc turned up so I had a pile of shopping to put away and 2 kg of carrots to clean, dice and blanch. While what was going on, I made a bread roll for tea because I fancied a burger in a bap.

As it happened, I used the wrong “burger” and ended up with a batch of frozen soya mince instead, which didn’t taste as nice as I was expecting, to say the least

So at some point today I managed to do a small amount of my Woodstock concert, but nothing like as much as I was hoping. I really need a couple of days when I can sit down and crack on with it, but I’ve no idea when that might be. There’s far too much going on right now and it’s not going to become any easier.

Anyway, before I go to bed, seeing as we have been talking about the lack of progress today … "well, one of us has" – ed … I happened to mention it to a friend with whom I was chatting on the internet a little earlier
"Whatever happened to all of the famous ‘get up and go’ that you used to have?" he asked
"Ohhh that!" I sighed. "That has all got up and gone a long time ago"

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Sunday 18th May 2025 – REGULAR READERS OF …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sunday 11th May 2025 – WHAT A GAME …

… that was. Another fine illustration of the quality and excitement that exists in some of the matches in the JD Cymru League. And for a town of just 9800 people, the 1,568 people who flocked into the stadium to see the game were treated to a pulsating, entertaining match.

But that’s something to savour later. Let’s talk about last night first.

By the time that I finished my notes and whatever else I had to do, I was running miles behind as usual. And, completely exhausted, I made a total cod of the dictating that I had to do and it ended up as being one of the longest that I’ve done. There is going to be a huge pile of editing to do there.

Anyway, it was at about 00:30 that I ended up crawling into bed, and I fell asleep before I’d hardly begun my usual nighttime mantra

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall what happens next. It’s the Sunday after a Saturday dialysis session and so round about 06:50 I was wide-awake. So much for my lie-in until 08:00. I lay there for a while tossing and turning but at about 07:05 I gave it up as a bad job and fell out of bed.

Off I staggered into the bathroom and cleaned myself up. Then I wandered into the kitchen for my medication, remembering to take the Vitamin D and Vitamin B12 that I should have taken yesterday.

Back in here I checked the dictaphone but there was nothing on it. That’s a disappointment because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only fun and excitement that I have these days is what does on during the night. And if it involves my family, it’s not much fun and not what I would call “exciting” either.

Instead, I made a start on the back-up that I should have done yesterday but I didn’t go very far because Isabelle the Nurse arrived.

She changed the plaster and cleaned the wound where I’d had this biopsy, lanced the blister where I’d had my compression sock that I couldn’t pull over the wound on Thursday, dealt with my legs and fitted my compression socks for me. She was grateful for everything that my faithful cleaner had fetched on Saturday but she had forgotten the prescription that she promised.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. We’ve finally left the Tower of London, not before doing some lengthy research into the Earls of Gloucester, and have now moved on to Ludlow Castle where, doubtless, the finer points of civilian architecture will be pointed out, at the expense of anything military.

Back in here, I had work to do.

The free trial period of an expensive antivirus that came when I installed Windows on my new System drive has now expired and so I disabled it. I have a favourite free antivirus – or, that is to say, I did – but just recently, it’s been picking and choosing what sites I can or cannot access.

It keeps telling me that even my own sites, that I wrote with my bare hands, are “unsafe”, not to mention many of the more famous sites on the web, many of which I access on a regular basis.

After a play around with it this morning, it still wouldn’t respond so I reluctantly uninstalled it. I used another one previous to this one, that I had rejected several years ago in favour of the new one, so I went back to install that one again, and it works just fine.

When I’d finished breakfast I had made some dough for a lunchtime bread roll. I baked it and then made some lovely cheese on toast for lunch. You’ve no idea how nice it tasted. And as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m really impressed with my air fryer, almost as much as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin.

This afternoon I made a start on the radio programme notes that I’d begun to edit just before going into hospital. And in a mad fit of energy I’d finished them, assembled the programme as far as I could, chosen the final track and written the notes ready for dictation next Saturday night.

There were of course the notes that I’d dictated last night but I ran out of time, which is probably just as well. I’ll try to catch up with those during the week some time.

There was more baking to do this afternoon. I’ve almost run out of bread so now seemed like a good time to make a loaf. I assembled enough ingredients for an 800-gramme loaf and with the correct amount of water thanks to my new scientific measuring gauge, with which I am also impressed etc etc, the dough rose up like a lift.

Not that I was watching it. I was in here watching Caernarfon play Cardiff Metropolitan for the right to play Hwlffordd next weekend for the coveted final spot in European competition in the summer.

The Caernarfon fans packed the ground and they had the privilege of being entertained to one of the fastest, most competitive games that I’ve seen all season.

The Cofis had the bulk of the attacking play but the Met’s defence stood firm and if their defence were to play like that in every game, they would be a force to be reckoned with. They had recognised long before the game that flying winger Louis Lloyd was the Cofis’ main attacking strength and had three men marking him throughout the game, giving him no room at all to move.

It wasn’t until near the end that the Met began to attack in numbers, and they created a few moments of panic in the Cofis’ defence.

And, would you believe, the match was decided by the very last kick of the game. You can see the game HERE or wait until the TV company has edited the highlights. But the highlights will miss the flavour of the game, that’s for sure.

While all of this was going on, I’d had some pizza dough, the last lot, defrosting in the kitchen. So while the bread was baking after the final whistle, I assembled my pizza.

The bread looks superb, the pizza tasted really good and everything now looks fine for the week to come. So I’ll finish my notes, back up the computer, take the statistics and then go to bed. Later than usual of course, but that’s just how things are these days.

But seeing as we have been talking about Isabelle the Nurse lancing my blister … "well, one of us has" – ed … they had a specialist unit once at Leighton Hospital near Crewe where a man was employed specifically to do just that.
However, I had head that it had closed down so I asked my friend who still lives there.
"It’s quite true" he said. "The unit has closed down"
"Why was that?" I asked, bitterly regretting ten seconds later that I had done so
"It was the man who lanced the boils and blisters" he replied. "He kept on falling off the horse."

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Sunday 4th May 2025 – HAPPY STAR WARS DAY

May the fourth be with you.

And regular readers of this rubbish will recall exactly how today began. Probably many of the occasional readers will have some kind of idea too because it seems to happen almost every Sunday following a Saturday dialysis.

However, having said that, 02:55 is carrying it rather to extremes.

It can’t be because I went to bed early either. I know that 22:25 is a rather extreme time for hitting the sack these days, but I was so exhausted after yesterday’s dialysis session, light though it might have been, that I simply dashed through everything that I needed to do and just fell into bed.

At 02:55 I was wide-awake and actually thinking about leaving my bed and making a start but even then I realised that doing that was probably going to unnecessary extremes. I made myself comfortable the best that I could and prepared for a very long morning.

At some point though, I did go back to sleep. But not for long because when the alarm went off at 08:00 (it’s lie-in day today) I was back in here having already washed and had my medication.

Although I’d started to transcribe the dictaphone notes, the nurse beat me to it and I had to go to have my legs seen to. He’s definitely not coming tomorrow morning and wants me to go to bed in my socks. My cleaner is outraged but as it happens, I’ll be going to bed fully-clothed tonight. I have a 05:30 start.

After he left, I made breakfast and began to read MY BOOK.

On page 233 he tells us that someone was employed in 1223 to make balistas corneas. A ballista is an ancient type of heavy-duty crossbow used for launching stones and heavy iron objects at buildings and obstructions and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in one of the ancient hill forts that we visited, a skeleton was found with a ballista bolt, or heavy-duty arrow, embedded in its back.

Consequently, I expected to see the odd page or two about ballistae and their construction, especially in a book about Medieval Military Architecture, but there is not a word. Nevertheless I carried out my own research and I’m now confident that I can build a reasonable ballista, to go with the rest of the Medieval and Roman equipment that I built during my University course in Historical Technology

Back in here, I transcribed the dictaphone notes from last night. I’d been out and about on quite a long walk etc. I’d been out all day and had travelled miles. When I had come back to the hotel in the evening I suddenly remembered or suddenly realised that I only had one of my crutches. I wondered where on Earth I’d left that – the other one – and how far I’d actually walked around my enormous circuit with just one crutch holding me. I asked them at reception and I held up my béquille – my crutch. Someone said “ahhh yes, we have the other one of those”. I thought to myself “have I really gone all day without one of my crutches and done it all with the one in all that distance that I’ve walked?” One guy came back he had a belt with him, a leather belt he handed it to my brother who put it on and was admiring himself I took hold of another waiter and asked him what was happening there The waiter said “that was found at breakfast and we thought that it might have been your brother’s” I said “I didn’t know about that, but what about my béquille that he went to fetch?” The guy replied “I don’t think that there was one. I think that what he was thinking about was that belt”. I had to accept the fact that somewhere I had lost a crutch and I would have to try to organise another one and pretty quickly too because I really couldn’t go anywhere without two crutches. I was surprised that I’d even attempted to go the kind of distance that I did today and only used one of the crutches for at least part of the way

That’s not the first (by any means) dream that I’ve had where I’ve picked up my bed and walked, in a manner of speaking. Wishful thinking, I’m afraid. And once more, someone from my family has put his sooty foot into my dreams.

Back in here there was the football and for the final game of the season, it was another insipid performance from Stranraer as they went down 0-1 against basement club Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic, and it was on their own ground too, not the New Dundas Swamp.

They had only five players on the bench too, mostly youth players, as the injury crisis has ravaged their tiny squad. But that’s a self-inflicted problem.

They need to be thinking about a much improved squad and performance next season, that’s for sure.

There was a ‘phone call after this. A builder whom I had been trying to contact ‘phoned me back. We had a lengthy chat but the big issue with him is that he isn’t an electrician and I can’t find an electrician anywhere right now. There’s no point starting the work if there’s no electrician to do the electrical bits.

After lunch, of leftover pasta and salad, I made a start on editing the radio notes but I knocked off to watch my niece’s youngest daughter graduate from University.

St Francis-Xavier University had begun to stream the Graduation ceremonies during the pandemic and they had kept on going. So I had the pleasant sight of seeing her mount the stage to receive her Degree. I had to wait for ages though, with her name being down at the bottom of the alphabetical list.

Rosemary rang me too and we had a chat – only forty minutes today because it was the Welsh Cup Final between TNS and Connah’s Quay Nomads. There’s no need to ask the score because it’s pretty self-evident, especially when the winners were handed the winning goal on a platter as the opposition defence stood around and watched.

But in an event that can only ever happen in Welsh football, the Nomads took the field with only ten men. They had named the wrong player, an injured defender, in the starting line-up and so were obliged to start the game with (or without) him on the field, and make a substitute for the missing player once the ball had gone out of play.

While all of this was going on, I was making bread and defrosting pizzas. The pizza was excellent as usual and the bread looks wonderful too. I’ll know for sure when I make my sandwiches tomorrow morning.

Right now, though, I’m off to bed ready for my early start tomorrow.

But seeing as we have been talking about Connah’s Quay Nomads just now … "well, one of us has" – ed … regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have spoken before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … about various Welsh football clubs who have been playing with Martin Bormann and Lord Lucan, or a couple of Easter Island Statues in the centre of their defence
Next time that I need to talk about Connah’s Quay Nomads’ defence, instead of talking about our usual defenders, I shall mention that they are playing with the Invisible Man in central defence, and know that this time I shall be perfectly correct.
Rather like the time that the Invisible Man tried to make an appointment at the dentist’s
"I’m sorry" said the dentist. "I’m rather busy. I can’t see you right now."

0

Friday 2nd May 2025 – AS I HAVE SAID …

… before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … there’s not much point in going to bed early because all it means is that I awaken correspondingly early.

So when the alarm went off this morning at 07:00, I was already in the kitchen sorting out the medication, having already done the necessary in the bathroom.

But retournons à nos moutons as they say around here.

Last night I really was feeling quite queasy and uneasy and after I finished my notes at 22:20 and it wasn’t very much later than that when I hit the sack.

Once I was in bed it took a few minutes to settle myself down and once I did, then that was that. I remember absolutely nothing else.

That was until 05:50 when I had another one of those dramatic awakenings that I have sometimes. I lay in bed tossing and turning and trying to go back to sleep, but when I heard the electric water heater switch off at 06:20 I gave up the ghost and arose from the Dead.

After the good scrub and the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. Unfortunately, there was no Zero last night. However, there was a rock festival taking place. I was asked if I would deal with the sanitation issues so I tried several aspects of the toilets, several different designs, and in the end I simply went for the large pit with a big wooden board with holes over it. I had to supply all of the paper and everything like that, arrange to have the pits pumped out and it began to become extremely complicated. I began to wonder whether or not I’d bitten off more than I could chew with this. First of all, of course, I didn’t know how many people were going to attend – if it would be something like Woodstock with a 50,000 crowd limit but half a million people who appeared.

It’s a little-known fact that as part of my Degree in Environmental Technology, I have a Diploma in Environmental and Pollution Control so not only can I design a fantastic waste disposal site for you, I would be quite happy to design a sanitation system for a major festival. It’s clear though that I have my Woodstock Festival on the brain right now. I really ought to crack on and finish it instead of messing about so much.

And then I stepped back into that dream later. After we’d installed what we needed to do, a couple of other people and I, we went for a walk into town. We could see the crowds coming away from the festival behind us. They had obviously just installed their things. We thought that seeing as we were ahead of the queue coming up the hill, maybe we should go to the shops and buy some food because we had a suspicion that the food was not going to last anything like as long as the festival. We saw all kinds of things. We even saw them digging holes as if they were ready for graves. We entered a supermarket and began to look around and select things to put in a small basket. They had some of these iced buns with white icing crosses on them. They looked really nice so I said that I would have one. The girl with us put her hand inside and grabbed hold of one. She began to eat it. I thought “this is probably not the best advertisement for us that there could have been”. She was telling us that in the local paper that day there was a letter from a guy who had tried to come to the festival but couldn’t make it. He had written a huge, enormous letter of complaint to the shop that the shop had published in the newspaper.

One thing that you will find, if you listen to my radio programmes on Woodstock this coming August, is that food was a major issue at the festival. Many people gave no thought whatsoever to food, and the organisers had counted on 50,000 people, not 500,000 turning up.

The nurse didn’t have too much to say for himself this morning or, if he did, I paid no attention. And after he left, I made breakfast and carried on reading MY BOOK. We are, as I expected, still in the Tower of London and so far, there has been nothing controversial in what he has said. That is rather disappointing.

Back in here, there was plenty to do today. The first task was to finish off choosing the music for programme 260403. That took longer than it ought because I didn’t have half of what I needed and some of it took some finding.

While I was at it, I also took the opportunity to research for the programme for the following week, 260410. That should be an interesting programme and no mistake.

Once I’d assembled all of the music I went for a disgusting drink break and then my cleaner appeared to do her stuff. After I’d prepared for my shower and washed my clothes, she helped me into the bath to have the shower, and it was delicious.(the shower, I mean).

While I was under the shower the ‘phone rang. So after I was out and my cleaner had gone, I rang the number back.

It was the taxi company who had ‘phoned. Apparently my authorisation from the Social Security only lasts for one year and it had now expired. I needed some more paperwork from the hospital.

Not exactly sure of what I needed, I rang the hospital. It sounded so complicated to me that in the end I gave the hospital the taxi company’s ‘phone number and left them to fight it out between them.

Liz rang me after that and we had a Rosemaryesque chat of over an hour, split in two because the hospital ‘phoned me back midstream to tell me that they had sorted it out between them, the paperwork had been e-mailed and everything was to go ahead as normal. And so I could continue my discussion with Liz.

It’s been ages since we chatted but she’s been up to her eyes in grandchildren for the last while, what with one thing and another. We had a really good chat about lots of different things, which was nice.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the other day I was having “another think” about my apartment renovation. Liz and Terry have an “in” on a certain Social Network group so between us we worked out an advertisement that we could publish on there about the work that needs doing. And not only is it now published, it’s also had some response.

It’s just a shame though that they don’t live in this area otherwise I would have had them come and do it in a heartbeat. We all worked so well together as a team and in that really hard winter of 2010-2011 when it was too cold to work in the Auvergne, we went up to Brussels to my centrally-heated apartment and blitzed it from top to toe in just six weeks.

Liz has really good taste too and that helped a lot, to add some nice little touches to the place. And between the two of them, they managed to keep my feet firmly anchored to the floor instead of soaring off on some flight of fancy. It would be worth any price whatever to have them here doing the work, even if I had to hire a holiday let for them for a month on top of whatever they would want to do the job. However, you can’t turn the clock back and once people have retired, they want to enjoy themselves.

Having sorted out everything else I went one better than David Crosby, probably because last night I wasn’t feeling up to par. It increases my paranoia like looking at my mirror and seeing a police car. But I’m not giving in an inch to fear because I promised myself this year. I feel like I owe it to someone.

Finally I could sit down and edit, remix, pair off and segue the music for programme 260403, miles behind time as usual, but ask me if I care..

Tea tonight was air-fried chips, vegan salad (with more of my delicious home-made vegan mayonnaise) and some of the vegan nuggets that I’d bought from Noz the other day, followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert.

In between preparing and eating the food I made myself a very small 200-gramme loaf. I’m out of bread at the moment so until I have the time to make something on Sunday afternoon, that will keep me going. With the new water gauge, the loaf turned out to be spot-on. That was a good purchase.

So now I’m off to bed ready for dialysis tomorrow afternoon (I don’t think). However, it’s the Welsh Cup Final between TNS and Connah’s Quay Nomads.

The Nomads are desperate to win as it’s their only avenue into Europe but they are currently managerless after a very poor season by their standards so we shall see. There were three clubs in the Welsh Premier League, The Nomads, Y Drenewydd and Aberystwyth, who lost several of their bigger names in the last close season and their recruitment was simply just not good enough. They have all paid the price for that.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about me being able to build a decent waste disposal site … "well, one of us has" – ed … I mentioned that to Liz
"You’ll need to go out on the street and collect some rubbish then" she said.
"I refuse" I replied.

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