Tag Archives: medieval military architecture

Saturday 10th May 2025 – GUESS WHO …

… forgot to switch the alarms back on this morning? That’s right. Bane of Britain has triumphed again.

Consequently I had a nice, long sleep until all of 07:31 when I suddenly awoke with one of these dramatic awakenings that I have every now and again. It was nice, bright sunlight outside so I immediately guessed that there was something wrong, so I glanced at the time.

And after another late night last night a really good sleep probably did me some good too. I was exhausted after the journey back and by the time that I’d finished my meal and was back in here I wasn’t fit for very much.

Nevertheless I wrote the notes and performed some of the backing- up and then crawled off to bed at about 23:40 or something. I was asleep quite quickly and, for a change, I was dead to the World throughout the entire night. I remember nothing whatever until I awoke at 07:31.

Once I’d realised exactly what time it was I dashed … "errr … quite" – ed … into the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up, and sorted out the washing. Far too much to put in one machine so I just put the important things into the washing machine and set it off on its routine.

In the kitchen I had my medication, forgetting the vitamin D and the vitamin B12 that the hospital wants me to take and then back in here I was just about to check the dictaphone when Isabelle the Nurse turned up.

She admired the huge plaster on my leg and read the prescription attentively. She made a list of what she needed and ticked off what we had, indicated on the hospital’s prescription what she needed, and then issued instructions as to what else she needed, promising to write a prescription for tomorrow.

After that, it was breakfast. And then I read more of MY BOOK. Except that I didn’t. I was side-tracked yet again, firstly reading about the curious antics of Ranulf Flambard, the treasurer of William Rufus and imprisoned by Henry I, only to become the first-ever prisoner known to have escaped from the Tower of London, and then of the downfall and subsequent resurgence of William de Forz and the siege and subsequent capture of Castle Bytham by Henry III.

You can probably understand why I was no good at being a University Student. I was always wandering off down alleyways that led me far away from my course syllabus.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was something last night about a ferry – a small one like one of the ones that they have here in Granville that go out to the Ile de Chausey. In some kind of tempest or hurricane it had been badly damaged. The ferry company had one of their previous ferries – it was sitting on a plinth outside their office. What they did was to take the boat off the plinth and put it in the water and began to use that. The damaged one, they hauled it out of the water and put it on the plinth. The owners of the company decided that they would give it a thorough overhaul and repair it. Then they would check it every three years for any kind of deterioration and keep on repairing it if it needed it so that if something similar happened again they could take the one off the plinth and drop that in the water and it would be ready to go without any problems whatsoever

There was a similar story about the “Gate Guardians”, the Spitfires and Hurricanes that stood on plinths outside former World War II airfields. When we were kids, on our way to North Wales, we always noticed the one at Hawarden Airfield. However, when the film BATTLE OF BRITAIN was proposed, all of the Gate Guardians were rounded up and where it was possible to do so, were put back into the air.

There was also something about being in hospital and a nurse doing something to me which impressed me so I said something. She replied that she was only a student nurse, which surprised me. I wonder who she was. I’ve had several student nurses attending to me in the past

After that? I had some e-mails to write. There is a mountain of correspondence here going back weeks that I really must answer. However, I must have let the time slip away with me because my cleaner turned up to fit my anaesthetic patches when I was nowhere near ready.

She turned up, but the taxi didn’t. After waiting half an hour, I ‘phoned them up. "Ohh merde!" said the dispatcher in a voice loud enough that even my cleaner heard it. "I’ll find another vehicle for you".

We decided to go outside and wait, and we had a lovely forty minutes under the sun until an ambulance turned up. I hate them – it’s quite a fight for me to put myself inside – but if it’s the only vehicle available I can’t complain.

It was driven by the driver who took me to Paris. She told me that they had been on the autoroute not far from St-Lô when the call had come through. No wonder that it had taken so long to arrive. I told her that I didn’t understand any of this – after all, the taxi company had brought me back from Paris yesterday so they knew that I was at home.

Hours late at the dialysis centre, and what made it even worse was that it was a three-and-a-half hour session today. Had the taxi been on time, I could have had a very pleasant late afternoon back at my place.

The consolation was that I had Lexi and Océane dealing with me today. All of the nurses there are wonderful but as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … Lexi really does have the most delicate touch.

Who cares whether or not the coupling-up was painful? After Tuesday afternoon and the muscular biopsy, nothing else is painful. I had plenty of work to do, apart from sitting there watching the blood pressure slowly sink through the floor to a rather dangerous 88.

Emilie the Cute Consultant was there too, but she remained stoically in her little glass cage. If she wanted something, she sent one of the girls for it. It’s a shame that she’s no longer speaking to me after my revolt the other week.

This evening, I was the last one there so they were both dealing with me. While Lexi was compressing me, Océane was inspecting my feet. I told them that I had delayed my arrival on purpose so as to have the undivided attention of both of them.

The taxi was waiting for me to bring me home and we had a very silent drive back. My cleaner was waiting and she watched and helped a little while I struggled up the stairs. She’d been to the chemist’s to buy what was needed and had bought a lettuce and some potatoes for me.

After she left, I made tea. Baked potato, salad and breaded quorn fillet followed by chocolate cake and almond soya dessert.

Now that I’ve finished my notes, I have some dictating to do and then I’m off to bed. I have plenty of work to do tomorrow, and there’s footy too – Caernarfon v Cardiff Metro, the winner going on to meet Hwlffordd to compete for the vital third European spot, accompanying TNS and Penybont.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about student nurses … "well, one of us has" – ed … regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m not made correctly and taking a blood sample from me is not easy.
Nevertheless, I always encourage the student nurses to have a go. After all, they have to learn somewhere.
One of them was having so much difficulty that I told her "cheer up! If I leave this hospital alive, you won’t need to sit your exams. You will have earned your diploma by default."

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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

Saturday 3rd May 2025 – THAT WAS SUPPOSED …

… to be one of the easiest sessions of dialysis that I have ever had, with only 1.6 kg of fluid to be removed. However, it’s totally exhausted me and in a few minutes I shall be off to bed.

It probably wasn’t the early start that did it – after all, being up and about at 06:20 is pretty much par for the course these days. And as well as that, it was a comparatively early night last night – in be by 23:30.

What with one thing and another, I had had a good session at the work that I needed to do after tea last night and I didn’t hang around at all. I suppose I could even have been in bed before than had I applied myself.

Once in bed though, I remember very little of the night until, once more, I had rather a dramatic awakening for no good reason at about 05:55.

Try as I might, I could not go back to sleep and, checking the time once more, I nipped out of bed just before the electric water heater switched off.

After a wash and shave (in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon) I went for my medication, sitting at the table when the first alarm sounded at 07:00.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a group of us, including my father, in a car driven by some young lad whom we knew. We’d come by Leighton Hospital and on the old road cut-off there was a Sherpa minibus. It had a taxi radio aerial on the roof and another one bolted onto the back door. I had a quick look but couldn’t see a taxi plate on it so I suspected that this one was operating illegally. We carried on down the hill towards Pym’s Lane, and this Sherpa caught us up. It was probably half an inch from our back door but we were probably doing about fifty mph. As we reached the bottom and began to come back up the hill the Sherpa became even more aggressive. We told the driver “take your foot off the throttle”. The driver took his foot off the throttle and the Sherpa drove straight into the back of it. Of course, we stopped and he stopped and we all alighted. We could see the driver of the Sherpa beginning to panic. He tried to escape but my father reached in through his window and took the keys out to stop him driving off. We made him alight from the vehicle to talk to us about the accident. In the meantime the young lad who owned the car had set up some kind of workshop at the side of the road with all his tools. He was busy preparing stuff to make a running repair of the damage. I was impressed by all of this. He said “well, I have nowhere else to keep it except in my car”. I replied “it won’t be long before you have your own place, and then you’ll find somewhere”. I’d been to the new place that he had bought. It was a tiny two-bedroom flat much smaller than mine. He would have a great deal of difficulty putting stuff into it. He took the top off a tube of something or other but dropped the top and someone nearly walked on it. We were all there, becoming busy while my father and one or two of his friends were stopping this guy from driving away.

This was an extremely realistic dream. The road layout was just as I remember it from when I lived in Crewe and Winsford and travelled that way regularly back in the 1970s and 80s. But once again, someone from my family seems to be involved in one of my dreams, even though there was nothing at all from which I might have needed saving.

Then later on, there had been a group of us. We had been for a walk in the hills over by Macclesfield. We were walking around there looking at all the mountains on the horizon, trying to identify them, which was which, which were the fields beyond it. We were trying to identify where the Salt Way, the ancient road over the hills between Cheshire and Derbyshire went. We were all pointing out amongst this group of people what we’d seen and where we’d seen it. I’d had a really good view five minutes earlier and I told everyone about it. They all came back but we couldn’t see it, or I couldn’t find it again. We ended up on a pub car park, looking. Just then, a group of five motorcyclists and their pillion passengers pulled up. The riders alighted and we noticed that one of the riders had the most enormous feet you have ever seen. They parked their motorcycles anywhere, one of them in the middle of the road. We thought that it wasn’t the best place to leave it. They went in but we were all sitting around a table outside. The manageress came out with the notepad and wanted to take our orders. She ran through the menu. One of the girls with us said that she would have a “Vegan Delight” but she would be horrified if she knew how much it was going to cost. The woman said that the devilled kidneys alone were £31:00. nevertheless the girl ordered it. I ordered the “Vegan Delight” but without the kidneys.

A few of those people I recognised – members of my Welsh class. What we were all doing walking over the moors at the back of Macclesfield I really don’t know either. But the biggest puzzle about this, something about which I am still shaking my head, is whatever would devilled kidneys be doing anywhere near a “Vegan Delight”. It’s no surprise that I eschewed them.

The nurse didn’t have too much to say for himself this morning, although he was not at all happy when I told him that he needed to be here at 06:45 on Monday morning at the latest. He told me to go to bed in my compression socks, which was what I suspected that he would say.

After he left I made breakfast. And my new mini-loaf is really, really nice, just as it should be. As far as MY BOOK goes, we are still in the Tower of London having the guided tour. I’ve long-since abandoned any hope of having any military architecture explained to me.

Back in here, I had a few bills to pay. There’s still no earthly reason why this monthly standing order won’t go through. Whenever I go to pay it manually, it automatically inserts my bank details so it must have them on file somewhere.

There was also a sum of money to transfer from my Canadian bank account for my great little niece (or little great niece)’s graduation from University, which is tomorrow.

There was time to start writing the notes for radio programme 260403 but I didn’t go very far before my cleaner came round to fit my patches.

After she left, I waited (and waited, and waited) for the taxi to turn up. Eventually it arrived and we set off, picking up someone else along the way. I was the last to arrive and so was the last to be connected. But there was only 1.6 kg of fluid to lose today so it was a session of three and a half hours. Imagine how early I could have been out had I been first to be connected up.

For a change, it wasn’t me who had a crisis in there. It was someone else. The nurse explained to me afterwards that she had been coming for several years and was now on the final downhill slope.

No-one bothered me and the machine behaved itself. I revised my Welsh while I was waiting.

Julie the Cook uncoupled me and while she was compressing me, she showed me some photos of a cake that she had baked. It looked lovely, a kind-of flan with fresh summer fruit on a cream base.

The boss came to pick me up this evening, and the poor woman who had come down with me had had to wait half an hour for me to finish. I felt awful, even though it’s not my fault.

After the taxi driver drove away, I realised that he had taken my jacket with him in the boot of his car. He brought it back later on, full of excuses. I told him that my cleaner was most upset about it and wanted a word with him so he made a quick getaway.

Tea was a baked potato with vegan salad, delicious vegan mayonnaise and breaded quorn fillet followed by vegan chocolate cake and soya dessert.

That was followed by a lovely chat with my niece and her three daughters who are in Antigonish ready for the Graduation Ceremony tomorrow. How I wish that I could be there. Antigonish is a lovely little town – I went there on several occasions when her elder sister was studying here – and it would be a lovely day. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I remember bouncing Amber up and down on my knee as a tiny baby (Amber, not me) when she was just a couple of months old in 2003 that winter that I spent in Canada. It’s hard to believe that she’s graduating from University.

Right now though, I’m feeling pretty miserable so I’m off to bed. It’s a good job that there’s nothing to dictate because I would not have felt much like doing it.

But seeing as we have been talking about Julie the Cook … "well, one of us has" – ed … regular readers of this rubbish will recall that she appeared a couple of weeks ago in one of my nocturnal rambles.
So this afternoon I told her "I dreamed about you the other night"
"Did you?" She asked
"No" I replied. "You wouldn’t let me"

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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.

-1

Thursday 1st May 2025 – WHEN I WAS SMALL …

… and Christmas trees were tall
We used to love while others used to play
Don’t ask me why, but time has passed us by
Someone else moved in from far away

Now we are tall and Christmas trees are small
And you don’t ask the time of day
But you and I, our love will never die
But guess we’ll cry come FIRST OF MAY

Happy Journée International de Travail – the “International Day of Work”, a day in which, with absolutely no sense of irony whatever, everyone celebrates work by taking a day off.

That is, of course, except the nurses and staff at the dialysis centre who were hard at it today. And hard it was too, because I have a head spinning round at I don’t know what speed, I’m feeling nauseous and I’m rather groggy on my feet. I shall be going to bed as soon as I finish these notes.

It’s probably something to do with another late night. It was after 00:30 when I finally crawled into bed after I’d finished everything. And I was asleep quite quickly too.

During the night I awoke several times but I was fast asleep when the alarm went off this morning.

No-one ever felt less like leaving the bed than me this morning but I struggled to my feet and staggered off to sort myself out.

After a wash and shave (after all, I may meet Emilie the Cute Consultant) I went off to take my medication. And then back in here for the dictaphone notes.

And a special visitor came to see me during the night. Welcome back, Zero. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you! In the dream I can’t remember too much about this but there was certainly something about her being there. I’d had another dream during this particular dream, about Emilie the Cute Consultant who was there. She’d been treating me for something or other that meant that I had to stay over. There were all kinds of things that needed doing and I had to stay over in hospital. One of them was to do some kind of cleaning process. I was going to be heavily involved in that for some reason but I can’t remember where the border lay between the “dream within the dream” and the “dream”. At some point the idea was Zero was there so I was hoping that it would work out that Zero would be staying on too so that while I was doing the cleaning she would be there. I was desperately trying to negotiate myself onto some kind of work rota that would involve me actually doing the work when I knew that Zero was going to be present so that I could talk to her. But this was proving to be extremely complicated because every time I tried to approach Zero to talk to her, something happened and she kept on moving two steps away. I was trying all through this dream to end up next to her to speak to her, to end up on the same shift that would work when she was going to be present but it never seemed to happen. There always seemed to be something that was coming along to stand in my way again

More and more than ever before I’m convinced that it’s my subconscious that is keeping me apart from making a fool of myself over all of these young ladies during the night. It obviously knows something that I don’t know, but I’m not going to let that worry me. I shall live for the moment and cling on to whatever crumbs of comfort I can catch.

And next time anyone hears me bewail the fact that I never seem to step back into a dream involving any of my special young ladies, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, make sure to remind me that last night, Zero appeared again later on. It was her birthday and she was quite a young woman round about this time. I was wondering what had become of her, whether she was married, whether she had had children, everything like that. I was musing over this when the dream ended.

It often makes me wonder in reality where she is, what she’s doing, whether she’s married, whether she has kids. I mean, another one of my favourite young ladies is a grandmother these days. But whatever Zero is doing now, I hope that her life is happier than it was when I knew her. I felt really sorry for her back then, but there was nothing that I could do to help.

Later on, a friend of mine was managing a project for some young people and was finding it very difficult to go ahead. He said that the trouble with the younger people today was that they are so naïve. They are open to believe almost anything that someone tells them. “It’s making my life really difficult to bring them into the real World for any particular kind of project that they are trying to deal with”.

That’s something that I have noticed quite frequently these days.

The nurse came earlier than usual and we had a good chat. I told him that I’d missed his friend at that builders’ place yesterday. He didn’t know why but he imagines that she’ll be in contact with me. However, I have had another thought in this respect.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. Having passed by a few smaller piles, we’re now at the Tower of London and discussing William the Conqueror’s arrival on the scene and the beginning of the construction.

It’s likely that he will have a lot to say on the subject as it’s one of the most important places in the Capital. But seeing as its history is well-known, I would be surprised if we were to learn anything new.

Back in here I made a start on programme 260403. I’ve not gone very far but even making a start is some kind of progress, I suppose. I doubt if anything will be finished for dictating on Saturday night but I do have some unedited notes that need attention on Sunday.

My cleaner turned up as usual, but my taxi didn’t. After she had fitted my patches we waited and waited. In the end I telephoned. "We thought that you were still in hospital" said the despatcher.

Whoops! I knew that there was something that I had forgotten to do on Tuesday morning. That was what they call an omelette sur le visage moment.

The young garrulous driver turned up and the three of us (there was another passenger in the car) had a lively, chatty voyage all the way down to Avranches.

Today’s nurses were Océane, Amandine and Alexi. I really like Alexi – she has a very soft touch and it’s like being stroked rather than being handled. Mind you, they all have their little speciality and I like them all. I really do think that the nurses who work in dialysis here have been hand-picked for their charm. Even the Nursing Auxis are lovely.

The coupling-up was comparatively painless which was nice, and then I had plenty to do. I’m making a list of tasks to do downstairs and it’s growing longer by the minute.

Liz contacted me too, asking if it was convenient to chat – we’d had a brief on-line discussion this morning. It’s difficult to talk in dialysis so she’s going to contact me tomorrow.

Starting late, I was finished late, even though it was only three and a half hours today. I managed it without a crisis but as I mentioned earlier, the low blood pressure is knocking me out right now

The garrulous driver who took me brought me back, and we chatted all the way home. My cleaner was waiting and watched as I staggered up the stairs., rather worse for wear.

Tea was a delicious leftover curry, but no naan. And there was so much left over that there’s enough for two more meals in the future. Having emptied some stuff from the freezer, it’s filling up.

So now, much earlier than usual, I’m off to bed, hoping that Zero will come to see me again and that I wake up feeling much better than I do now.

One thing that I learned today is that my dialysis session is arranged for 08:00 on Monday, so I’ll be leaving here at 07:00. Which means leaving my bed at about 05:30 if I’m going to eat anything before I go.

But seeing as we have been talking about the Journée International de Travail … "well, one of us has" – ed … Nerina once told me "I’m totally fed up with all of the sexual harassment that I have while I’m doing my work"
"Well," I told her, "if you don’t like it, the answer is to give up this working from home and go back to the office."

0

Friday 25th April 2025 – I WAS WIDE-…

… awake this morning at, would you believe, 03:05. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s a total waste of time really, going to bed early, because all it seems to mean is that I wake up correspondingly early.

And early it was that I went to bed last night – 22:20 in fact.

The dialysis on Thursday afternoon had left me thoroughly exhausted. So much so that I couldn’t keep on going at all. I skimmed through everything that needed to be done, despite going off into a trance at least twice, and then threw in the towel.

Once in bed, I fell asleep rather dramatically and there I stayed, dead to the World, until, as I said, 03:05. I lay around in bed, wondering whether or not I ought to raise myself from the Dead, until at least 03:20 when I happened to glance at the time, and quite a while after that too, but I must have gone back to sleep at some point.

There I stayed until all of 06:20 when I awoke again. That time, I couldn’t go back to sleep at all and when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was … errr … riding the porcelain horse.

After a good wash and my medication I came back in here to check on where I’d been during the night. I was talking to Julie the Cook during my dream. The discussion came round to checking over my apartment to have a look around and see what was going on for my ill-health. But as she said that she would come so I found the calendar and wrote in there that she was expected for the 29th of the month. Then I went back into the main room just to remind her and confirm that that was what it was going to be.

Julie the Cook has said before now that she will come to inspect my kitchen one of these days – in fact, she said it again on Thursday – but I will believe it when I see it. I don’t think that it’s ever likely to happen. However, the fact that I’m dreaming about dialysis and the people there tells me that I seem to have let it become embedded in my thoughts and that’s a depressing idea.

Later on I was round at my niece’s and her husband last night. They were sorting out transport and cars etc. I noticed that my niece was driving around in the old mini that she never usually drove. He husband asked her what had happened to the Riley. We went into the garage and there was a Riley 1.5 sitting there without the front radiator grille. She said that she’s hit a squirrel with the grill and had taken the grille off to try to remove the squirrel. The grille was currently in the back room. I had a look at the engine – it was an overhead cam engine with a chain pulley on the camshaft. I wondered “what on earth engine was this out of?”. Later on we went shopping and we were wandering around a big department store where there were loads of people. I suddenly saw a range of tissue … "he means ‘cloth’ " – ed … so I shouted to her “ahh … tissue” and she laughed. We went over and started to look through the tissue for my apartment. There was a really nice heavyweight deep red velvet type of embossed tissue there that looked really nice and was really heavy. She wandered off to the curtain range and came back with one of these Victorian-style curtains with frills and built-in lace nets and began to compare the two to see whether they matched

Whenever I think of overhead cam engines, the Ford Pinto immediately springs to my mind. I’ve dismantled and reassembled so many of them that I could at one time do it in my sleep – and I did too. However the camshafts in those are belt-driven and the pulley on the camshaft in the engine in this dream was definitely a chain-driven pulley, so I really don’t know.

Leaving aside the question of dreaming in French again, one of the things that I will be doing soon is to see the seamstress who has the little shop down the road whom I interviewed once for the radio. In her little shop she makes all of the dresses for the carnival queens and what I want her to do is to make the curtains for my new apartment, seeing as I don’t know who else to ask. I want to have everything just like I want it to be, right from the very beginning, because I’m never going to move again … "and we’ve heard that before, haven’t we?" – ed … and I don’t want to go through the bother of having to redo anything later.

Isabelle the Nurse came round and we talked about her trip to Avallon in Burgundy. Everyone knows about the story of King Arthur, allegedly mortally wounded at the Battle of Camlann in 537 and taken to the Isle of Avalon in Somerset to die. Just outside Avallon in Burgundy in the dim and distant past there was a battle in which the King of the local troops, Riothamus, was deposed and killed by the invaders. There have been several suggestions that this is the origin of the tale of King Arthur and that the Battle of Camlann is fictional. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall our reading of the book FOLKLORE AS A HISTORICAL SCIENCE in which the transplantation of folk tales by migrating peoples would facilitate such a confusion of memory.

After she left I made breakfast and carried on reading MY BOOK. And here we go again.

In all of the books and papers that I have ever read, I don’t think that I have ever seen a sentence with so many sub-clauses in it as "The general area, which at Windsor, Arundel, and Berkhampstead is oblong, to suit the contour of the ground, is here, as at Tonbridge, Tickhill, and Clare, where the ground is not strongly marked, nearer to a more solid figure, of which, in this case, two sides and the contained angle are governed by the line of the old Roman wall."

It took me several attempts to absorb this sentence and put it in a straight line. There is surely a more straightforward and direct route that the author could have used to express his thoughts and make them much clearer.

He’s also tying himself up in knots again. He tells us on the top of page 193 that "Two mounds, though not unknown, are uncommon.". Half a dozen lines later, he tells us that "Such subordinate mounds are not uncommon in earthworks of all ages,". I wish that he’d make up his mind.

Back in here, I began to work on my Woodstock programmes and pushed on with the Saturday events. There are just four more groups and the outro to write for that, and I’ll also have to think of a way of including Louis de Funès in my programme too. I can’t have a programme without a special guest.

There were plenty of interruptions. There were a couple of disgusting drink breaks, my cleaner put her sooty foot in here to do her business, and one of my neighbours, the President of the residents’ committee, popped in for a chat to find out about how things were and to tell me about her recent trip to New York.

Tea was a delicious leftover curry but the naan was not so good. It kept on falling apart as I was trying to flatten it for frying. The chocolate cake and chocolate soya dessert more than made up for that.

So it’s bedtime now, ready for dialysis tomorrow, I don’t think. And there’s a footfest too, Caernarfon v Barry Town to see who will push on for European competition, and later, the Second Division Cup Final between Airbus UK Broughton and Trefelin. That will be an interesting match because Lee Trundle, at 48, still turns out every week for Trefelin. In the pre-match summary he’s raring to go. He also says that he has no plans to retire and will carry on next season. How I wish that other International footballers would turn out for their local football clubs to give something back to the community, rather than retiring to their island paradise to count their fortunes.

But that’s tomorrow of course. Tonight, it’s bedtime

And seeing as we have been talking about the Battle of Camlann … "well, one of us has" – ed … I am reminded of the American tourist who turned up in Castlesteads early one morning and buttonholed a local.
"Can you tell me when was the Battle of Camlann?"
"537" replied the local
"Damn" said the American, looking at his watch. "I’ve just missed it"

0

Thursday 24th April 2025 – ONCE MORE, JUST …

… like yesterday I was op and about before the alarm went off. Not quite as early though. It was about 06:20 when I hauled myself out from underneath the bedclothes.

Considering that it was almost midnight when I went to bed last night, that’s some good going too. After my Herculean effort in the morning, staying awake and up and about until then was pretty good too.

So after I finished my notes, the stats and the backing up, I loitered around for a few minutes … "more than a few minutes" – ed … before crawling off to the comfort and safety of my own bed.

Once in there I was soon away with the fairies (although not in any fashion that would incite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine) and only have the briefest of recollections of anything going on during the night.

It was a different matter round about 06:05 when I awoke. I couldn’t go back to sleep and I was actually crawling out from under the covers when I heard the water heater switch off.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub and a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. And then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Nerina had a Ford Cortina MkIII, a gold one. She wanted to keep it or she wanted to sell it – she couldn’t make up her mind so I advertised it for her to have some people come round to look at it to see what they thought, to make an offer and she could decide and take it from there. But everyone seemed to think that there were some pieces missing from it. I explained that we did actually have everything – it probably just wasn’t to have at the moment. I’d be able to sort it out in a short space of time

That’s something about which I know a great deal. I have four Cortinas down in the Auvergne, three of which are basically quite good. There are plenty of bits to fix those that need fixing but ask me where they are. I know that they are all there somewhere.

Later on, when I awoke I was back at home, Shavington or Davenport Avenue, with a huge bunch of screaming kids, some of whom were ours and some of them weren’t. One of them seemed to take quite a fancy to me and hung around with me for a while. However I awoke in the middle of all of that and so never found out what was going on.

With plenty of time left before Isabelle turned up, I did some housekeeping on the computer to bring that more up-to-date. But like most things around here, I seem to be taking one step forward and two straight backwards.

Isabelle breezed in and didn’t stop long, just enough time to deal with my legs and admire my new compression socks.

When she left, I made my breakfast and read MY BOOK. We’ve finished Leicester Castle, breezed through several minor piles and now we are at Lincoln. I’ve no idea what we are going to find there but we probably won’t be there long trying to find it.

Back in here I attacked the notes for the radio programme and in a mad fit of effort I almost finished them too. That was some effort, I can tell you.

My cleaner was late today and so it will come as no surprise to learn that my taxi was early. I was nothing like ready when he arrived and we had to keep the two other passengers in the car waiting for a while.

We arrived early at the hospital but then again so did everyone else so I was still last to be coupled up. Luckily it was Julie the Cook who saw to me.

They set the blood pressure alarm higher than usual so every half-hour or so, one of the nurses came over to check me. It was just as well because I hadn’t been feeling well at all all day, aching in every bone and muscle, out of breath and so on.

One of the doctors (not Emilie the Cute Consultant) came to see me today. I managed to obtain from her a prescription for an occupational therapist to come to my new apartment to give advice about installations for the handicapped and disabled.

This evening I was one of the last to be unplugged, and then I had to wait around for fifteen minutes for the last person to finish so that we could leave the dialysis centre and drop her off on the way home.

My faithful cleaner was there and watched as I staggered up the stairs into my room. First thing that I did was to have a disgusting drink break seeing as the taxi came early and prevented me from having one before leaving.

Something else that the taxi prevented me from doing was taking a naan dough out of the freezer. And so I’ll have that and my leftover curry for tea tomorrow. Tonight I had sausage and mash with vegetables and it was delicious.

It’s really early but I’m still not feeling very well so I’m off to bed where I intend to sleep for a week if I have the chance

But seeing as we have been talking about Ford Cortinas … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember when I was welding up the floor in someone’s Cortina when she was off to her mother’s.
She saw the legs sticking out from underneath the car so in passing, she reached under and … well … you can imagine.
When I came out of the garage with a G-clamp she had gone and my friend John from Stockport was nursing a lump the size of an egg on his forehead.

0

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 – WHAT A PERFORMANCE …

… that has been today!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

0

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone again this morning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

0

Monday 21st April 2025 – YOU ARE PROBABLY …

… that is – the night-owls who only come out after the Hours of Darkness (of which there are more than just a few these days) – wondering what happened to the usual “just before I go to bed ….” update earlier this evening.

The answer to that is that I was probably unconscious again. That’s right – “again”. It wouldn’t be the first time today (or, rather, yesterday).

All in all, it’s been something of a chaotic, catastrophic day, just as I thought that things were getting better. And it started off so well too.

It wasn’t a particularly late night either. By the time that I’d finished everything that I wanted to, sorted myself out and climbed into bed, it was midnight. So I was looking forward to having a good seven hours sleep.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I was already in the bathroom on my way to the kitchen for the medication. I’d been tossing and turning throughout the night trying to make myself comfortable without all that much success and in the end I gave up the struggle when I heard the immersion heater click off at 06:20.

After the medication I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. And to my surprise I had travelled miles. I started off by taking Roxanne around Crewe showing her a few of the places that were in the town. One of the things though was that there was some kind of measurement about the ribs of the town and that the ribs had only two types of measurement. Whatever they were, it was difficult to interpret what it was supposed to represent as far as the town was concerned. Certainly it was something to do with the fact that it was just an ordinary person and not actually a built-up area or anything like that so I’m not sure how Roxanne and I managed to see things all on our way around it, especially when we’d been told to just stay near the chest and not wander very far away.

It must have been an exciting trip, going round trying to show someone the sights of Crewe. And sights there are a-plenty too, but not the kind that would usually attract visitors. You can’t even have the guided tour of the public convenience on Crewe Bus Station (2/6d, or 2/7d if you want to see all of it) because that was flattened a year or so ago. As for the rest of the dream, it simply degenerated into the usual nonsense.

Then we went back into that dream again … "which dream?" – ed … and were building a new prison so all the female warders were interviewing the men about what the men thought about the new arrangements in the prison and whether there should be any improvement. There was an Artificial Intelligence chatbot standing there. He would give his opinion on the comments of the other patients.

It seems that Artificial Intelligence is becoming the theme of the moment. As we have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … AI can’t do anything that a human can’t do. However, it does it much quicker and much more thoroughly than a human. As we have seen though, it’s not infallible. Not by any means.

Later on I’d been driving taxis around Brussels. We’d gone into the office to cash up. It was my first day so I didn’t really know what to expect or how to do it so I was watching everyone else. They had already done all their calculations before they’d gone into the office. I hadn’t even handed my prices in over the radio. I thought that I’m going to have to learn to do this quickly. I was chatting to the other drivers while I was waiting. Then I suddenly realised that I hadn’t brought my clipboard up with me with all my jobs and prices on it so I had to go back downstairs to fetch it. One of the other drivers said “don’t worry. It’ll still be there. They’ll know who it is”. Someone else said “yes but if you leave stiff in a car with some drivers around here you wouldn’t ever see it again”. I’d taken off my shoes and socks . It takes me a while to put them back on again. I thought “should I nip down in my bare feet but the garage is dusty and filthy”. This was where I was back at some indecision again.

So I’m back to driving taxis again. I’ve had a couple of nights off just recently, which is more than I ever had when I really was driving taxis. One of the options after I retired from work in Belgium in 2004 was to go to drive for the limousine hire company. Another one was to go to drive for the local bus service, but I was overtaken by events when I went into the Employment Agency to see if they needed assistants for the 2004 Travel Fair in the Exposition Centre.

Did I dictate the dream where I was invited all of a sudden to play bass in a group that had a booking at my old school? … "no you didn’t" – ed … The person who invited me was Alan Dean. He was a bassist so I wondered what was going on here but I agreed and began to talk about rehearsals. Their response was “it’s all stuff that everyone knows and you should know it”. They didn’t even tell me the set list so I was going to be completely in the dark about this. I tried to find out more information but nothing was ever forthcoming. I turned up at school and everyone was there. Apart from him I didn’t recognise anyone else. We began to wait for the organisers to have the stage ready for us to put out our gear but no-one seemed to be doing very much at all. The school dance was going on and it was becoming late, towards 22:30. I thought “we’ll never go on at this rate”. In the end we all went for a lie down because this was going absolutely nowhere. One by one we awoke. This confusion and this school dance was still going on, people still dancing, the stage still cluttered and no-one had been to see us or to talk to us at all, when we would be expected to go on, what we would be expected to do. I didn’t know the set list even. We were just waiting around and no-one seemed to be doing anything whatever. I thought “this is the weirdest situation in which I have ever been”.

Why Alan Dean should come onto the scene when I haven’t given him a moment’s thought since 1975 I really don’t know at all. But the last two dreams are a repeat of the chaos and confusion that seem to happen quite often during the night. There is definitely an undercurrent of something going on in my subconscious about something and it’s not doing me much good. My survival depends on a stress-free environment because at the speed at which my heart is pumping, it can’t go on forever.

The nurse didn’t have too much to say today. He was in and out in a couple of minutes. It’s his last day today so I imagine that he wants to finish work as quickly as possible.

After he left, I made breakfast – porridge and the last of my delicious hot cross buns toasted and smothered in vegan butter – and settled down to read MY BOOK.

We’ve left Cydweli Castle and are now at Kilpeck in Herefordshire. This is another site that is not well-known and there is not much architecture left to examine. We aren’t going to be here long.

After breakfast I set out to make all these ‘phone calls that I promised but soon came to a shuddering halt. It’s a jour ferié – a Bank Holiday – isn’t it? You won’t find anyone answering their ‘phones today, that’s for sure.

Instead, I had a cunning plan about my radio programmes and began to do some research.

My cleaner turned up on time to fit my patches, and then I waited for the 12:30 taxi. And waited. And waited.

Round about 13:00 I rang them up … "what did you say just now about people answering their ‘phones?" – ed … I asked them if they had forgotten me.
"Oh merde!" came a voice. "I’ll send a car!"
To be on the safe side, I ‘phoned the dialysis centre … "what did you say just now about people answering their ‘phones?" – ed …and warned them that I would be late.

While I was climbing into the car I looked at the time. 13:55. It’s a good job that I had telephoned the centre to say that I would be late.

With all of the holidaymakers in the area the centre was full. They had had to rearrange the wards and the bed that they found for me could not have been farther away from the entrance if they had tried.

It’s a good job that it would only be a three-and-a-half hour session today because it was 15:00 when they’d finished plugging me in. I had had visions of being here all night.

What with one thing and another, I couldn’t concentrate on anything and was drifting in and out of sleep. With about five minutes to go, my head began to spin and I blinked my eyes. When I opened them I was surrounded by all of the medical personnel, the bed was flat rather than upright and my legs were raised.

"Thank God you’re back!" exclaimed one of the nurses. Apparently I’d been unconscious for several minutes. My blood pressure had been hovering around the 87-88 mark instead of the more usual 120-130.

It took quite an age to recover and they had to take me to the taxi in a wheelchair. It was a very quiet, sombre drive home.

The 25 stairs were too much for me tonight. I staggered up to the half-landing and then had to take the lift to the half-landing above and then walk down to my door. Once inside, I sat down and couldn’t move.

After my cleaner left I went straight to bed, fully-clothed, and there I stayed, totally dead to the World, until 00:05. And I didn’t leave the bed then either

Starving and tired, I managed some pasta and tinned mushrooms, and now having written my notes, I’m going back to bed. The nurses though are worried. They have a feeling that one day I’ll have one of these unconscious fits and not wake up.

But seeing as we have been talking about guided trips around Crewe … "well, one of us has" – ed … there was once a tour that took American visitors around some of the selected bungalows in the town.
One of the Americans said "bungalows, bungalows, bungalows! Why can’t we see any houses?"
"We can’t" replied the guide
"Why not?"
"Ahhh – that’s another storey"

0

Sunday 20th April 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone this morning when I awoke. And that was a big disappointment. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I depend upon what happens during the night for any excitement that there might be to brighten up my boring, miserable days.

Things might have been different had I had a decent night’s sleep.

After I’d finished my notes, which wasn’t all that late, I dictated the notes that I had written for the radio programmes that I’d prepared during the week, organised myself properly (and you’ve no idea just how long that takes) and then went off to bed, just before midnight. So with my lie-in until 08:00 it would be a good night’s sleep.

As I said yesterday, I was good and ready for it too. After the dialysis session I was totally exhausted. So once I was in bed I was asleep straight away and didn’t move a muscle for a good while after that.

However, it’s a Sunday after a dialysis Saturday and regular readers of this rubbish will recall what happens on a Sunday after a dialysis Saturday. And so at 08:00 when the alarm went off, I was sitting at my desk working.

What was so bad about that was that it had been another one of these “sitting bolt-upright” dramatic awakenings and at that point I was away on my travels, but the shock of awakening wiped absolutely everything out of my mind and I could remember nothing.

With over an hour to spare, I had a dive into that site that seems to know where all of the best Artificial Intelligence programs are, and after some practice I have now succeeded in being able to swap one face onto another person’s body with a reasonable amount of accuracy.

Add that to the voice generator with which I played the other week, my next trick is to go with a background remover. Then, with my PaintShop Pro (25 years old and still going strong) I can use the image that I created, transform the missing background into “transparent” with the aid of a green screen.

Once I’ve done that, I can superimpose it onto any screenshot from Street View (so I’ll need an Artificial Intelligence image enhancer for the screenshot) that I like, so I can have people doing strange things and saying strange things in any location in the World that takes my fancy…

There’s no doubt about it – amusing as it might be, it has some very dangerous undertones. I reckon that we will be hearing quite a lot more about Artificial Intelligence, and it won’t all be good.

The nurse turned up as usual and had a lot to say for himself. He was soon gone and I could make breakfast and read MY BOOK.

We’ve finally left Kenilworth and we’re now at Cydweli which, for the benefit of our geographically-challenged author, is in South-West Wales. And on page 154, without the slightest hint of irony, he tells us that "The new town, parts of which are of high antiquity … "

Back in here, we have football to entertain us. Stranraer were entertaining Edinburgh City.

Once more, today, I saw some more sad attempts at defending, with defenders standing around waiting for each other to clear the ball and watching as an opposition forward pushes it into the net, another shot fully covered by the goalkeeper until a defender sticks out a leg and diverts it into his own net, open goals by the dozen blasted wide or well over the bar.

For a change though, it wasn’t Stranraer doing all of this but Edinburgh City. How Stranraer managed to win this game 2-0 is one of those big mysteries that will forever remain unresolved.

We also had the highlights of the weekend’s games in the JD Cymru League. While highlights can be very, very deceptive, I do have to say that I have never seen a team look so disinterested as Y Drenewydd.

Relegated last week, I did nevertheless expect that their final game would be one in which they would go out with a bang but Y Fflint, deep in the mire themselves at one stage just recently, strolled through the game and the Drenewydd defence with ease. A 4-0 victory was nothing like representative of the hundreds of chances that they were gifted throughout the game.

Rosemary’s computer is now fixed and working. She reset all of the parameters for the internet connection and on one particular combination of settings, it made a Wi-Fi connection and we now have one very happy Easter Bunny, just as I was today at breakfast when I had two more of my delicious toasted hot cross buns smothered in vegan butter.

The bread roll that I made for lunch was perfection and made some wonderful toasted cheese and tomato bread roll halves washed down with disgusting drink, and then I came back in here.

Most of the rest of the day has been spent editing the radio notes. Programme 260220 is now finished (I just had to lose eight seconds) and 260227 is almost completely edited and assembled, the final track has been chosen and remixed and the notes written ready for dictation next Saturday.

There was a break to make some dough for the pizza. Two lots are in the freezer now and the third made probably the best pizza base that I have ever made. The pizza was delicious too, melted exactly as it should be.

So tomorrow, I have dialysis again. I also have to ring up Paris to find out what’s going on about this visit and also to ring around to find some workmen who want to earn some money. There’s a lot to do and time is getting short.

But seeing as we have been talking about Cydweli Castle … "well, one of us has" – ed … when our author Geo. T Clark went to visit it, he was totally taken aback by the most rude and offensive manner in which the castle welcomed him.
In the village pub afterwards he met the local doctor and talked to him about it.
"It was most offensive" he said. "All the time that I was there, it kept on shouting abuse, insults and rude word at me."
"It’s nothing to worry about" said the doctor
"Really?" asked our author.
"Ohh quite" said the doctor. "A psychiatrist came to see it a couple of years ago. Apparently it has Turrets Syndrome"

0

Saturday 19th April 2025 – THAT WAS EXHAUSTING.

Four hours in dialysis with the machine going full-tilt. It’s enough to finish anyone off. But at least I’m down to my target weight so with a little luck I might only have to stay for three and a half hours on Monday. We shall see.

Things might have been different and I might have been less exhausted had I gone to bed earlier instead of hanging about until some stupid kind of time, but there we are … "or were" – ed ….

To make things worse, it was a miserable night and I don’t think that I had much sleep, waking up here and there every half hour or so. At one stage I was even planning on leaving the bed but I gave up that idea quite quickly.

When the alarm went off I was however fast asleep and it was, as you might expect, a desperate stagger to my feet to beat the second alarm. And in the bathroom I had a good wash ready for Emilie the Cute Consultant at dialysis, and I hand-washed my socks, undies and night attire.

After the medication I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone and to my surprise, I had actually been out and about on my travels during the night. A girl was being examined for some kind of issue with her legs. She’s on a kind-of operating table on her back with her legs in the air and they are examining them. The doctor tells her to put them into the neutral position which she tries. After a little manipulation … "PERSONipulation" – ed … the surgeon or doctor manages to put her legs into some kind of neutral position. He tells her “well, that’s much easier, isn’t it? Perhaps you should have done that at some kind of earlier point in the examination or even beforehand, but I’ll make a mark now to let them know where it’s all correct”.

It’s much easier for me – I simply press “CNTRL-Z” and that puts any selected 3-D object or character into a neutral pose. That dream did remind me somewhat of some of my 3D work when I was living down on the farm.

And then I was back in that dream … "which dream?" – ed … later on. Some thieves had stolen a train with the ammunition on it. They were heading off for wherever it was. They were taking their time, not in any rush, and had stopped to have a meal somewhere. In the meantime, a group of Indians had been removed from a town and were not happy. They found these men and explained to them what was happening and that there was a train on its way towards them. What they did was that they started up the train and set it to going back down the line with all aboard at the maximum permitted speed of seven mph. When they were just a few hundred yards away from a collision they leapt off the footplate and the trains ploughed into each other. Carriages were destroyed, carriages went everywhere. They were saying that over 200 people were killed, including 131 in one carriage. All the wagons ran loose and even sheltering behind the rocks was not saving them from the wagons rolling up on them. There was even a railway wagon that had come from Russia on board this train and it rolled to a stop right at the feet of one of these robbers.

That plot sounds just like a cross between the plot of THE WILD BUNCH and that of A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE, two films that spend a lot of time on my playlist. As for the wagon though, whilst Russian wagons ring no bells with me, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we once encountered a railway box-car with “Alaskan Agriculture” on it.

Now there’s an oxymoron if ever I saw one.

The nurse was chatting to me this morning, telling me what I should do about the situation in the apartment downstairs. When he finished, I told him that I had a letting agent who was doing all of that. "But still …" he said, and started again.

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

We’re still in Kenilworth Castle where, on page 147, this rather peculiar paragraph caught my eye. What do you make of this? "The character of the ground makes it probable that the Norman fortress had but one entrance. This could not have been on the east, west, or south fronts, as the ground was low and marshy ; nor on the north, where the ditch is wide and deep."

The next thing that caught my eye was on page 150 where he tells us "the succession of great events which led to the death of the earl, and the celebrated siege of Kenilworth, belong to the history of England rather than to that of Kenilworth, and form one of its most interesting and most valuable chapters. The subject has fallen under the pen of Mr. Green, and has found a place in the pages of the Archaeological Journal (vol. xxi. p. 277), where the course of the events is disentangled, and very clearly narrated, and their political significance and bearing upon the constitutional history of our country treated in a manner both brilliant and profound"

He then devotes several pages to telling us about the Siege of Kenilworth.

Back in here, I carried on with the remote repairing of Rosemary’s computer. She is now connected to the internet with the aid of an Ethernet cable (but not the Wi-Fi) and has an antivirus installed. She ran a scan of the computer which came up with nothing (which was a pity because I had hopes for that) and when my cleaner arrived to fit my patches and I had to go, she was performing a deep scan.

After the cleaner had fitted my patches I had to wait for my taxi and was packing my bags for my next Paris hospitalisation when it pulled up. It was the boss again and we had a chatty drive down to Avranches.

Late in meant late coupled up and with a four-hour session I could see that it was going to be late. The blood pressure is set to be tested every half-hour and every half hour the nurses had to come running because of the wailing machine, complaining about my unbelievably low blood pressure today

In the end they set the machine to every fifteen minutes, so they had to come twice as often.

While all of this was going on, I was trying to watch the football. Caernarfon were playing Cardiff Metro for the privilege of finishing fourth. There wasn’t as much skill as I would have expected but it was an exciting game that roared from one end to the other.

And if ever there was a game of two halves, this was it. The Met had most of the play in the first half and were leading 1-0, quite deservedly, at half-time. But whatever Richard Davies put in his team’s half-time cuppa, I could do with a swig of that myself. The Cofis came out of the blocks at an incredible rate, had most of the play in the second half and eventually won 2-1.

And I’ll have to be careful what I say at dialysis in the future. A nurse and I were talking about my diet and Emilie the Cute Consultant heard it from across the room and came to join in. I hope that she can’t hear me call her “Emilie the Cute Consultant” when I’m here and she’s there.

It was a very, very weary me who staggered to the car to come home and I was glad to be back. Coming up the stairs was a very long, hard trudge tonight.

So having had my tea of baked potato, salad and breaded quorn fillet followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert, I’ll dictate my radio notes and go to bed. I don’t think that I’ll be awake long tonight and I’ll be surprised if I awaken early, but dialysis is a funny thing.

But seeing as we have been talking about acute hearing … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the snail, the tortoise and the sloth having a party when they run out of beer.
They draw lots and the tortoise loses, so they send him to buy more beer.
Three weeks later they begin to complain. "We should never have sent that tortoise" said the snail. "He’s so lazy and bone-idle"
"I know" said the sloth. "For all the good that he does, he may as well not be here"
Just then a voice from outside the door shouts "if you lot continue to bad-mouth me like this, I shan’t go for the beer at all!"

0

Friday 18th April 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… a visitor today

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

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

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

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

Now she can walk the 25 stairs back down again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It really was that easy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Thursday 17th April 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone this morning when I went for a listen.

Mind you, I’m not surprised. If you don’t go to bed until 01:30 and wake up at 06:00 you don’t have much time for travelling about

If I had put my mind to it, I could have been in bed much earlier but as usual I hung about for a while and when a Judy Collins concert came round on the playlist, I decided to stay up and listen to it. These days she’s not the same as she was 5o years ago but what she’s lost in her vocal power she’s more than made up for with her ad-libbing in her concert.

She has a very pleasant stage act these days and I have to make the most of it.

In bed, I took a while to go off to sleep and had something of a mobile night where I was tossing and turning, not being able to settle, and as it became light I gave up the struggle. I didn’t leave the bed until the alarm went off because I turned the heating off on Wednesday and hadn’t switched it back on again.

When the alarm went off I put my sooty foot out of bed and braved the cold as I dashed into the bathroom for a wash, and then into the kitchen for the medication.

And then back into the bathroom because I’d forgotten to have a shave and I was looking like the Wild Man of Borneo – not a good image if Emilie the Cute Consultant is going to be there this afternoon.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone, which didn’t take very long at all, and then carried on with some personal stuff for a while.

The nurse was late today and didn’t have too much to say for himself. He was soon gone and I could make breakfast and read MY BOOK.

Our whistle-stop tour is continuing and we have arrived at Kenilworth Castle. Pages and pages of tour-guide information but nothing whatever about the military aspect of the place, and nothing at all that would excite comment. Oh! For the controversy that someone like T RICE HOLMES could bring to this kind of discussion.

Back in here I sorted out a plan for a couple of radio programmes in March next year (I really am that far ahead).

To my surprise, I found that for one of the dates I have a concert in my little … "not so little" – ed … stock that we recorded on a weekend in Den Haag years and years ago – and it’s NOT Golden Earring or Alquin either

It’s almost one hour and twenty minutes long so I reformatted and remixed it for the radio and then had a listen to it. It didn’t take long to make a list of the tracks that I want to use and it will make a nice concert of just the right length.

My cleaner turned up to fit my patches and after she left I went to have my disgusting drink but the taxi arrived before I’d even had time to wet my mouth.

We were the usual two passengers for dialysis with the driver and although we arrived early, there was quite a crowd already waiting so I was one of the last to be connected. And as I suspected, I had to stay here for four hours.

Although Julie the Cook wasn’t dealing with me, she came for a chat, and although Emilie the Cute Consultant was there, she sent an oppo to see me. There’s a problem about my calcium medication and I needed a substitute so he wrote out a different prescription.

Apart from that I was left pretty much to my own devices all afternoon and spent it making out my LeClerc order for tomorrow. When my nurse came to unplug me she fitted these new braces on my shoes to support my feet. Apparently Emilie the Cute Consultant is worried that I no longer have any force in my ankles

The driver who brought me home was quite chatty. He’s taken me to Paris a couple of times and he’s also a big football fan so we had a lot in common.

My cleaner was waiting for me and watched as I climbed the stairs. She thinks that these braces are helping me up the stairs, which is a good thing.

Tea tonight was a stir-fry with a pile of the mushrooms that I have left that I forgot to put in the lasagna last night. I really don’t know where my brain has gone. But my chocolate cake is delicious.

So tonight I won’t be as late as last night. There’s a concert currently playing, involving John Cipollina, whom I met when he played with “Man”, and Nick Gravenites, Mike Bloomfield’s favourite singer who fronted “The Electric Flag” for a while. So when it finished I’ll think about going to bed. It won’t be as late as last night, but I bet that it won’t be early.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Judy Collins… "well, one of us has" – ed … she told several interesting stories during her act.
She told of Mae West who met a friend who was wearing a fur coat.
"My dear" said Mae West "Wherever did you get that fur coat?"
"I spent the night with a man who gave me ten thousand dollars" replied the friend
A few weeks later the two met again, but this time it was Mae West wearing the fur coat
"My dear" said the friend. "Did you spend the night with a man who gave you ten thousand dollars?"
"Well, no dear" replied Mae West. "I spent the night with ten thousand men and they each gave me a dollar!"

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Wednesday 16th April 2025 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about my hot cross buns. They have risen up like the proverbial lift and look absolutely magnificent. It just shows the difference that having an accurate water gauge makes. All these years that I’ve had some very hit-and-miss baking …

Something else that was magnificent last night was the fact that I was in bed by 23:00, for the first time for ages. I really appreciated it too, having blitzed through everything after tea – the notes, the statistics and the back-up et cetera.

As well as that, it didn’t take long to drop off either, and there I stayed, fast asleep, until 06:55. Probably the best night’s sleep that I have had for ages.

When the alarm went off I was awake thinking about leaving the bed early but BILLY COTTON beat me to it. Surprisingly it took me a few minutes to summon up the energy to leave the bed.

In the bathroom I had a cursory wash (after all, it is shower day today) and then went into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I had to meet Rosemary and we arranged to meet in London at one of the big railway station termini. She had a rough idea of when she’d be there. I was already in London so I said that I would be there or thereabouts. As the station is so big, I’ll just arrive there and we’ll contact each other by ‘phone or something. When it came time to go I set out on foot on my usual way. I suddenly realised that I was nowhere near where I was supposed to be. Just at that moment I was walking past a house when a taxi pulled up. I asked the driver which was the best way to the railway station. He pointed out the way from which I had just come. Down at that end of the road was a dirt track that led through some kinds of fields or common. I asked “surely you don’t mean that I am to go past there?”. He replied “no, it’s a great big main four-lane road”. I realised then where I’d gone wrong – I’d gone wrong a long way before the junction back down the road. I asked “could you run me there?”. He replied “I can’t. I’m finishing work. I live here”. I tried to persuade him but it didn’t work. Another taxi pulled up so I asked him but the first driver told him not to bother – that I was going to walk. I was rather disappointed by the two of them. I set out to walk back and walked probably the quickest that I have ever walked in my life. Eventually I could see the railway station in the distance. There was a big road junction just before it. There were millions of cars milling around there trying to go through, totally ignoring the traffic lights and the pedestrian crossing but people just surged across. Some girl in a car tried to drive through the crowd and the crowd was quite irate. They made something of a demonstration about it. In the end I extricated myself from this mess but still had ten minutes of walking to go and I thought that I was going to be late yet again.

This all rings a bell with me. I’ve walked down that dirt road and across those fields and common before during one of my previous nocturnal rambles, quite a while ago now. As well as that, I can see the railway station now. I was up on the top of a hill, something like Highgate in London. The railway station was on a slight rise across a valley, with its huge arched train shed clearly visible. However, we are once again overwhelmed in confusion and anxiety in a dream. Someone has commented on my anxiety and confusion dreams in the past and suggests that it might be due to stress. All I can say is that if my life now is stressful, what must my dreams have been like 40 years or so ago when I was running my taxis?

Later on I went back into that dream … "which dream is this?" – ed … I was wandering around Crewe near the Square, talking to a friend of mine while I was typing out some notes for the radio. One of the things that I was typing out was the notes of something about the Blues Brothers. At that moment friend climbed into his car and shot off just like the Blues Brothers did. of course, at that moment, a police car appeared. The police car went to block him off on the Square. I could see it all perfectly from my vantage point but my friend’s vantage point was obscured by the old Marks and Spencers building. When he came round the corner there he found himself face-to-face with the policeman. Of course he had to stop, he couldn’t really do anything. The policeman stepped out of his vehicle and the first thing that he did was to close the bonnet of my friend’s car – it was one of these bonnets that hinges from the front, not from the rear. He would often leave it open as he drove around, held only by the security catch

That reminds me of a time 40 or 50 years ago when we were all out late one night (or early in the morning, more like) in Crewe when there was a heavy snowfall. My friend took his car onto the public car park, that was totally empty, and was spinning round doing doughnuts on the slippery surface. What he had failed to take into account that it was right next to the police station. Two constables came out and gave him a ticket for “using a car park other than for the purpose of parking”.

The nurse was in a better humour today and was rather more cheerful than yesterday. However he didn’t stop for long and I could get on and make breakfast and read more of MY BOOK.

Our trip around the castles of England (and Wales) is turning into a real whistle-stop tour. On some of these sites we aren’t discussing architecture of any type (never mind military architecture) because there are no extant remains, so I’m not convinced of the reason why we’ve even come here.

However, he does make an interesting observation when it comes to Huntingdon Castle. He tells us that "William the Conqueror was at Huntingdon 1068, when he ordered a castle to be built, evidently on the site of the old fortress restored by Edward the Elder in 918. The names in Domesday show how complete had been the removal of the larger English landowners."

We’ve talked rather a lot just recently … "well, one of us has" – ed … about the ethnic cleansing that must have taken place as several waves of invaders overwhelmed the native population during the various invasions back in the early days of history and prehistory. So these “larger English landowners” – what happened to them? I can’t see them being allowed to remain, even as serfs and slaves, in the local area where they might command the respect and loyalty of their previous tenants and possibly incite a rebellion.

Back in here I had things to do that needed my attention, and then I cracked on with the radio programme. All of the notes for programme 260227 are completed and ready for dictation on Saturday night.

There was time for a disgusting drink break and to sort out my faithful cleaner when she arrived. And then I had a wonderful shower and found some nice, clean clothes so that I shall look fine for Emily the Cute Consultant tomorrow.

After my cleaner left, I had my second disgusting drink and then I had things to do.

After breakfast I had put some lentils and split peas into the slow cooker and after an hour and the water had boiled, I rinsed them and then put them back in the slow cooker on the lowest heat with some clean water. So after the afternoon’s disgusting drink break I began to plan my lentil lasagna.

First though, I had hot cross buns to make. And here I almost had a disaster. I didn’t have enough vegan butter.

However, any oil is good, as we have proved with our oil cakes, so why not use coconut oil? I made a really good mix of flour, coconut oil, salt, yeast and mixed spices with warm soya milk and melted coconut oil – the correct amounts of liquid – and left it to fester.

While it was festering, I fried a large onion and some garlic in my wok, tipped the lentils and split peas in after I’d rinsed them again, along with a pack of this soya mince in tomato sauce that I wanted to try. In went some tomato sauce and herbs and so on and I left it to simmer away.

The dough for the hot cross buns had risen nicely so I added some sultanas, raisins and some orange essence, and kneaded it all again.

After it had stood for a while and risen again, I moulded the dough into six balls, flattened them and put them on the biscuit tray. I made some thick flour mix and with my icing piper, piped the crosses on the buns and left them to rise again.

While they were festering, I assembled my lasagna and made a vegan cheese sauce that I poured over the top, and stuck it all into the oven.

When it was cooked I put the hot cross buns in and then had a quarter of my lasagne with some vegetables. And it was delicious. Even better, there are three more slices to go into the freezer for another time. It was the lst of the orange, ginger and coconut cake today too. Tomorrow I’ll start on my chocolate cake.

Rosemary had rung up while I was baking so after I’d finished tea and washed up, we had a little chat. Not very long – only fifty-four minutes.

Consequently I’m running really late but never mind – I’m off to bed right now. Tomorrow is dialysis day and shopping order too.

But while we’re on the subject of buns … "well, one of us is" – ed … one of my friends once told me that he had served in the Army in a regiment where the chief cook was Doctor Spooner’s brother.
"How interesting" I replied
"Very interesting" he said "especially when the Germans launched an attack on the kitchen"
"Why was that?" I asked
"Because Doctor Spooner’s brother personally led the counter-attack" he replied. "He went into action with all buns glazing"

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