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Thursday 27th February 2025 – ANOTHER PAINFUL SESSION …

… in the dialysis centre today. And not just because of the needles either but because the stabbing pain in my foot started up again mid-session.

"Would you like a doliprane?" aske the nurse. Had it not been one of my favourite nurses I would have shown her where to put the doliprane, but I managed to restrain myself. I’m becoming quite good at that.

Not so good at going to bed though. Just as I was about to hit the hay a concert of 10,000 Maniacs that I’d done in the good old “Radio Anglais” days came around on the playlist. So that was me, well-gone for ninety-five minutes. Yes, there are many things more interesting than sleeping.

As it happened I didn’t go straight to sleep either. I tossed and turned for quite a while and at one stage thought that I wasn’t going to manage to drop off at all. But when the alarm went off I was definitely asleep, even though it had been a turbulent night.

At that moment I was discussing Tranmere Rovers with a friend of mine. I’d heard that Tranmere had signed a new goalkeeper and I asked him about it. He came out with a name but I couldn’t find it. I wondered whether it might have been someone with a similar name. We had a team-sheet for one of their next game and looked at the changes in the squad over the last week. There must have been about fifty new players signed. “This is surprising”. He asked about one or two. I said that it seems to be that they are going for quantity not quality and that is quite probably the wrong way round. We were chatting about that when the alarm went off.

That’s a familiar story. During the close season almost two years ago, in the run-up to the European matches Connah’s Quay Nomads had enough players to be able to put out two completely different teams each half in a warm-up game against Stranraer. However, as events subsequently proved, quantity is no substitute for quality and if they had signed five really decent players for the budget of ten run-of-the-mill ones, they would have done so much better.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, followed by a shave. And then into the kitchen for the medication, remembering not to take the medication that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. That’s twice during the night that I’ve reached for the dictaphone and the dream has evaporated right out from underneath me. But for the second one I have the image of a very small girl still engraved in my mind but I don’t know what she was doing or where she fitted in to this but she was there impressed on my mind even though the rest of the dream and the one before it have totally disappeared.

That’s becoming a rather far-too-familiar tale of woe these days and I wish that it wasn’t. I put it down to old age myself. It’s really sad how my memory is deteriorating.

Later on, a local farmer in Sandbach had written to the local Country magazine to write about the projects for his farm and what he was planning to do on increasing his investment etc in order to reap greater dividends. He explained that it was necessary to do that to keep ahead of the programme and to keep his agriculture on the move. In actual fact he’d been reading dozens of these farming magazines and decided to make a change in the way he operates his cattle and try something to be done in a different way. This was going to require a lot of investments and he was making a start on doing it right now.

It wasn’t actually Sandbach but Shavington. I can still see the place where it all happened … "your memory’s not that bad then" – ed … and it was by the Sugar Loaf in Crewe Road where I used to catch the bus to go to school. Not that I caught the bus for all that long because once I had built a decent(ish) pushbike I used to cycle to school

Finally I was going somewhere in a car. There was a long queue of traffic going through a tunnel. We were having to wait in this queue, and then a few vehicles in front began to move but the one immediately in front of me didn’t move. I had a look and there were two people beneath it. I wondered what they were doing. Someone behind me klaxoned so I explained to him. Then these two people began to push their car out of the way, apologised and said that their car won’t start. I replied “it’s not any problem” and carried on. A little further on I came across a couple of older motorcyclists. One of them, the woman, was telling me that now that they had retired they had bought a motorcycle to travel about but I watched the man try to climb on but he couldn’t lift his leg high enough to climb up onto the motorbike. He was there for about 10 minutes making an effort.

So after the previous night, there I was last night going for a ride in a car. Without Zero unfortunately. It would be too much, I suppose, to expect her to come along twice in succession but I can live in hope. However that “couldn’t get his leg over” is very reminiscent of the famous moment between “Johnners” and “Aggers” LIVE ON THE BBC.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in and breezed out again in a flurry, stopping just about long enough to read my health card as tomorrow is her last day in this month and so she’ll be very busy. And then she’s Carnavalling.

After she left I made breakfast and read more of MY BOOK. We’ve been discussing Civil War military emplacements today, not that there are so many still extant. Tomorrow we’ll be starting on the earliest traces of industry and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve discussed this before. I’m interested to see what is his opinion of the wiping out of the industrial base upon the arrival of the Saxons.

Next stop was back in the bathroom where I went one better than David Crosby, presumably because I’d had the ‘flu for Christmas and I’m paranoid when I look in the mirror and see a police car. However, I didn’t give in an inch to fear and sorted out the sheep-shearer.

Back in here I carried on with my proto-Woodstock programme and wrote a few more notes but it’s not going as quickly as I would like. I shall have to finish it tomorrow regardless otherwise I’ll be doing it for ever and I have other things to do.

My cleaner turned up to fit my anaesthetic patches and then I tidied up the kitchen while I waited for the taxi to arrive.

Today we had another new driver and I had to help her find a way out of here. It’s more complicated than usual today as all of the motor homes arrive ready for Carnaval. She was late arriving but she had her foot down for much of the way. It’s much easier now that yet another radar has gone up in flames. That’s three now in the area.

Last in at the hospital though, so last to be connected up. Despite all of the people milling around in there today, no-one came to disturb me except to bring me the coffee, and that suits me fine. I revised my Welsh and then chopped up a sound-track of a Canadian group who had appeared once at a Hawkfest

Unplugging me was about as painful as plugging me in, and the nurse reckons that I ought to try the anaesthetic cream for once and see what good that does. It has to be worth a try. I can’t go on like this.

One of my favourite drivers came to pick me up to take me home – the Belgian girl with the twins. We had a good chat on the way home but of course, late in means late out. It was a very weary me who struggled up the Twenty-Five Steps.

Tea tonight was steamed veg, vegan sausage and vegan cheese sauce. No pudding though because I’m still not hungry. My appetite has really diminished just now. All of the stuff that I didn’t eat at Christmas and said that I’d eat on my birthday will still be there next year, I reckon. I’m not sure if I will be.

So I’m off to bed now, ready for a work-in tomorrow and I shall keep at it until I’m finished. There’s a football match tomorrow night but I’m going to miss it and watch it at dialysis on Saturday – I may as well make good use of the time.

But seeing as we have been talking about old age and memory … "well, one of us has" – ed … I told my cleaner the other day "two things happen to you when you reach my age"
"What are they?" she asked
"The first one is that you forget absolutely everything"
"What’s the second thing?" she asked.
"I don’t know" I replied. "I’ve forgotten"

Thursday 30th January 2025 – ANOTHER FOUR HOURS …

… coupled up to the machine, and I’m not sure which hurt the most – the pain in my arm once the anaesthetic wore off or the stabbing pain in my heel that arrived mid-session. It was another one of those days.

And can you guess the medical staff’s reaction to both? Of course you can. "Would you like a Doliprane, Mr Hall?". Yes, this whole country seems to float on a lake of Doliprane.

But seeing as we are talking about floating … "well, one of us is" – ed … I don’t know what I was floating on the other night when I managed a fairly early night but I wish that it had come back to float me off last night.

Even though I’d finished at a not-unreasonable time it was still a good while later when I could manage to find the courage to rise up and go to bed. It was probably only the hope that in bed would be the only way that I would be able to see Moonchild again, or one of the other Fearsome Foursome, that drove me on.

Once in bed though, I didn’t hang around and was soon asleep. And there I stayed until the alarm went off in the morning at 07:00.

It goes without saying that I wasn’t in any kind of mood to raise myself from the Dead but I did manage to beat the second alarm into the bathroom where I had a good wash and scrub up. While I was there I also applied plenty of deodorant and had a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

In the kitchen I had the morning’s medication, remembering not to take the medication that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day. But the bad news is that I’ve run out of my anti-cancer portable chemotherapy stuff that’s been keeping me alive for the last couple of years. I hope that there was a bottle in the last batch of medication that my faithful cleaner brought me. If not, I’ll be pushing up the daisies much quicker than even I think.

Thinking about it though, I should have asked for a new prescription when I was in Paris just now (they can’t prescribe it in Avranches) but I was hoping that I’d manage to see my consultant when I was there. But with the results not being anything like ready (they had hardly finished all the tests) I’m having to go back some time soon.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And I’ve no idea of anything at all about anything out of this. We had another phantom alarm at 02:50. It sounded so real that I did actually rise up and begin to leave the bed. But I’d been in some kind of folk group and had been playing an instrument and it had been the case of hitting my knees with my hand in the rhythm of the music, something like that. Anyway they stood me up and took me and we just – Rick – and at that traffic lights that was that hippo that was Rod Wayne’s and at that meeting I had to drive all the way back to Crewe when I could be posting but then having to think about disposing of her. Where will I dispose of her and then I said “if you are going to take me to this troublesome bear-y and dispose of Linda at the end of the programme so that we could have a little life? We had a girls’ school at first and looked after it. It was a very shabby and run-down area (…fell asleep here …)

Apart from the fact that none of it makes any sense … "so what in your dreams actually does?" – ed … I can’t remember a single moment of it. However, the utter gibberish and falling asleep indicate that I must have been really tired while all of that was going on.

Isabelle the Nurse is counting down the moments until her ski holiday. She’s promised to show me the photos but that’s no good at all. I need to see the real snow, and feel in under my skis. It’s probably a dozen years since I’ve last been skiing and how I really used to enjoy it.

After she left I made my breakfast and then began to read my new book.

To most of you, it’s probably not very exciting. And it’s not a book either. In 1936 an archaeologist named William Jones Varley excavated an Iron-Age Hillfort at Eddisbury in Cheshire. Although he had made a couple of initial reports, he died in 1970 with his in-depth report unfinished.

In 2006 when his wife died, a box in her caravan was examined and found to contain some very rusty pieces of iron which, judging by the quality of the ironwork and welding, were believed to relate to the Iron Age.

These were passed to a group of researchers who, comparing the pieces with Jones’s written notes, believe that these pieces of ironwork are the pivot points of the gates of Eddisbury Hillfort.

They published their own report a few years later after an extensive examination of the pieces and a re-examination of the site, and I’ve managed to lay my hands on a copy. So far I’m on about page 26 and no-one has managed to insult or abuse anyone else, even if the authors do disagree with some of Jones’s conclusions, so it makes some nice, calm reading

Back in here I had things to do, such as to finish off the missing notes from the next radio programme. So that’s all done now and it’s ready to be dictated on Saturday night.

The rest of the morning was spent on this question of backing-up that’s going to be the bane of my life over the next few weeks because there isn’t enough room on the USB key that hangs on my keyring.

“So why not use a portable drive like I used to in the olden days?” The question that I need to ask before that is “can I make a portable drive work with one hand?”. Remember that when I’m in the Dialysis Centre I had pipes and tubes going into one arm and the arm is clamped into a mould to hold it still, clamped to my leg

My cleaner was rather late coming to fit my patches, so as you might have expected, the taxi was rather early. He didn’t like having to wait for me, which was no surprise seeing as he had someone else in the car with him.

It was a slinet drive down to Avranches and we were really early there so I had to wait 20 minutes. Still, the earlier we start, the earlier we finish I suppose.

My bed was down in the far corner today which is always something of a struggle, especially when there’s almost 5kg of water to remove today

In the end, they agreed that they would only remove 4.5 kg. What they are going to do with this excess water, now that they are already on the maximum (1.1kg/hour at a maximum of four hours), I really don’t know. And neither, I suspect, do they

Once I was comfortable I began the back-up but then had one of those dramatic crash-outs that I used to have in the bad old days. But there I was a little later, being shaken awake by none other than Emilie the Cute Consultant.

"Mr Hall!" she said. "I thought that you were having a crisis!". She obviously doesn’t know about these diabetic comas.

And you should be even more proud of me that you were a few days ago. It took a great, immense effort but I managed to avoid saying "next time you want to awaken me, don’t shake me. Just roll over and give me a gentle nudge."

Before I was plugged in, I reminded the nurses that I needed a prescription of all of my other medication. They’d printed it off on Monday but there was no doctor there to sign it. Anyway, while she was hovering over me, I reminded Emilie the Cute Consultant that I needed it.

Ten minutes later one of the nurses came back waving a prescription signed by one of the doctors, and five minutes later Emilie the Cute Consultant came in carrying one too.

"Ohhh" she said. "I see that you already have one" and began to turn on her heel.

"In fact, I’d rather have yours" I replied. "It has your nice handwriting and signature on it" and she blushed again.

Once more, I was the last to leave. I hadn’t lost all of the liquid, which is no surprise. But it’s not going to help. What’s the betting that within a year I’ll be permanently coupled up to a dialysis machine?

The taxi was waiting for me when I came out. There was another lady to travel with me who lived in Avranches but this time we went up the old road that is probably one of the steepest roads that I have ever travelled. And then I had a lovely view of the old city walls and castle on the way past after we’d dropped her off.

She had mobility problems so I’d sat in the back of the car … "as if you don’t!" – ed … and after she left, I didn’t have the energy to move into the front. It was a very quiet and subdued drive home.

My cleaner was waiting for me and she watched as I climbed all 25 steps to my door – the stair handrails are now fixed.

We had a little chat and she promised to have the prescription framed, with Emilie the Cute Consultant’s signature in full view

After gathering my breath and having my protein drink, I made tea. Steamed vegetables and vegan sausage in a vegan cheese sauce. It was absolutely delicious. And my apple cake and caramel soya dessert was magnificent. The cake is as good as I thought it would be.

Bedtime now, and more work to do tomorrow. It’s a never-ending cycle, isn’t it? One of these days it will stop, but only when I’m pushing up the daisies.

But going back a little, seeing as we have been talking about archaeologists … "well, one of us has" – ed … have you ever noticed how so many of the people on the site are female?
On day I was passing an archaeological site and noticed this so I asked the team leader.
"We always engage women when we can" he replied. "And usually married women"
"Why’s that?" I asked
"Because they are so good at it" he explained. "There is nothing like a married woman for digging up all the past"

Thursday 19th December 2027 – I CAME BACK …

… from Dialysis in an ambulance this evening!

But don’t worry. There’s no reason to be upset or concerned. With these new Social Security arrangements, I was having to wait half an hour for the other patient from Granville to finish his dialysis session and then we could come home together in the same taxi.

However there was an ambulance that had come to drop off someone at the hospital across the road and was going back empty, so would I like to thumb a lift?

If it means coming home half an hour earlier than I otherwise would, then it’s no problem to me and I clambered aboard.

Still a big problem though going to bed early. Once more, it was round about 23:30 by the time that I’d finished my notes and done everything that I needed to do. And that included taking the Christmas cake out of the oven, wrapping it in baking paper and tinfoil and putting it in the fridge.

Marzipanning and icing over the weekend, I reckon. And then we’ll see where we are. I need to make some mince pies too one way or another. I have several jars of mincemeat thanks to Liz who brought some over when she came here last year but I need to keep an eye out on when anyone else is coming over because at some point I’ll run out of stock and I can’t find the ingredients to make my own.

So there I was, in bed late again last night, and I fell asleep quite quickly. I remember nothing, nothing at all, until the alarm went off at 07:00.

It was even more of a struggle than usual to haul myself out of my stinking pit but I wandered off eventually to the bathroom where I did some washing and had a good clean-up and shave ready for this afternoon.

In the kitchen I prepared a drink to wash down my medication, remembering not to take the medication that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day, and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what I’d been doing during the night.

I was in hospital, but I’d been recruited for the Secret Service and was supposed to wander around and make little enquiries, find out who was doing what and what information there might be that was being leaked to a foreign power. In the end I spent a lot of time there. But my room-mate was extremely difficult and seemed to think that I needed organising, taking in charge. Everything that I did in my personal life, he was there making comments and observations. For example, when it came to my slippers, he told me not to wear my slippers any more. I asked why and he told me that they were rather large, I might slip and trip over. I ought to find some slip-on slippers my own size. That’s OK, but I have trouble putting them on and taking them off. I can manage with the ones that I have, whether I’m wearing socks or whether I’m wearing these bandages that I used to have. I had to try to explain to him without going into any great detail exactly why I was doing the kind of things that I was

And there’s more truth in that dream than I would ever care to admit.

Isabelle the nurse was in a rush once more today. It can’t be easy for her having to do all of the blood tests and injections for her little circuit of patients, bearing in mind that she has a partner who, for reasons known only to himself, fails to produce “the touch” that makes it all look so easy and makes it feel so painless for the patients.

It seems to me that she’s ready for her seven days off after just the first day of being back on duty.

After she left, I made my breakfast and had a look at my archaeology reports on this abandoned Gallo-Roman farm. They’ve now uncovered several buildings that belong to the period in France called Antiquité Tardive – “Late Antiquity”.

That’s roughly corresponding to what the British call “The Dark Ages” , the period following the collapse of the Roman Empire in England, and the absence of any written record of contemporary events, until the renaissance of English culture under Alfred the Great and the monks of Jarrow.

In France though, there was no such period. Orderly, civilised life went on for the most part and the religious institutions and the court of the Merovingian Kings as well as several writers such as Gregory of Tours kept contemporary records, although it’s fair to say that there’s nothing like as much as I would like there to be.

Anyway, they are cracking on with this excavation, discovering building after building, trench after trench and road after road, not to mention the countless post holes that they have found in the ground.

Back in here I had a few things to do and once more I was overwhelmed by the arrival of my faithful cleaner who came to fit my anaesthetic patches.

It didn’t take long to do that and then I had to loiter around for the arrival of the taxi. It was a chatty driver who picked me up and then we went round to pick up the other passenger who we take, and then rolled off to Avranches.

Once more I was last to be plugged in and once more, one of the pins went in painlessly and the other one hurt like Hades.

It was one of those days where there was a constant stream of visitors. The nurses were checking up on all kinds of things today, and even the dietician came to see me.

With being a vegan I have a low protein count and this dialysis is making things worse so she has now prescribed a food supplement for me. That’s one more medication to add to the list.

She needed to have the prescription signed and so went in search of the doctor. It was Emilie the Cute Consultant on duty today who signed the prescription.

And I remembered that she was going to come to watch the nurses connect me up and use the echograph to see what the problem might be. In fact, the nurses had done all of the preparation, however she never showed up.

"Maybe she’s forgotten you" said a nurse. And that’s put the tin hat on it, hasn’t it? How could anyone forget me? Especially Emilie the Cute Consultant?

Still, my LeClerc order is complete, ready to be sent off tomorrow morning. I did manage to find some time in my busy schedule to do something.

As I aid earlier, I came home in an ambulance tonight. There’s a kind of rumble-seat in the rear of the ambulance and I came home sitting in that. It wasn’t easy though to climb in. First I had to sit on the floor of the vehicle and than haul myself up with my arms and fall into the seat.

That can only mean one thing – my upper body strength must be quite impressive these days.

Back here, I climbed up the first flight of stairs with less difficulty than previously but had to come up in the lift from the half-landing to the next half-landing and walk halfway down again because the handrail outside here still hasn’t been fixed.

Tea tonight was more steamed vegetables with vegan sausage and vegan cheese sauce followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. Lovely as usual.

So now that I’ve finished I’ll think about going to bed ready for a day radioing tomorrow.

What I was wondering about this dietary supplement is whether or not this might be the same supplement that they have tried to give me when I was here in the Summer.
"You have a very low protein count" said the dietician. "It’s probably because you’re a vegan and your diet doesn’t allow you to eat many things high in protein. Take this supplement."
So having accepted the bottle, "excuse me" I said. "You just told me that as I’m a vegan and my diet prevents me from taking many foods, I need a food supplement"
"That’s right" said the dietician, smiling
"So if you know that I’m a vegan and don’t eat many things" I said "what are you doing giving me a food supplement that is milk-based?"

Thursday 12th December 2024 – IT SEEMS TO BE ..

… confirmed that the X-Ray that I’m going to suffer on Monday is in fact on my right foot. I was handed the summons and it definitely says pied droit so there we are.

But having said that, I’m not sure if it is in fact my foot. I know that that sounds strange but I had a colleague once who lost a leg in the war and he still had severe pains in the foot that he no longer had.

In the end, in his case, it turned out to be a trapped nerve and that what makes me suspect that I have something similar going on.

Rosemary came up with a good idea the other day too, and that is that your foot is controlled by the same nerves that control other parts of your body, and it might be something to do with the other part of the body rather than the foot.

Intrigued by this, I had a look to see what I could find, and some reflexologist has posted a map of the foot and which regions of the foot, he thinks, are related to other parts of the body

So I found about one hundred maps of the foot, and about one hundred different plans. So if the reflexologists can’t agree, what chance do I have?

But seriously, if it’s not one thing which me at the moment, it’s another and I’ve no idea when it’s going to end, if it ever will. I seem to be fighting a losing battle.

Going to bed before 23:00 is also a losing battle. I’d finished everything quite early but once more, I was side-tracked by a concert that came round on the playlist so I stopped up to listen to it. And one thing inevitably leads to another, and once you start, you’ll be surprised at how many other things there are.

Once in bed though, I slept the Sleep of the Dead all the way round to about 06:55 this morning. And just as I was wondering what time it might be, BILLY COTTON told me.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub and even a shave to make myself look pretty, and then went into the kitchen to make a drink and take my medication, remembering not to take the medicine that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a new female nurse starting to work in a castle. Her job was to look after this tribe of Europeans who were settled near her. She had to go out to inspect the health of one of the leaders of the people, some young guy who was big and powerful. He hadn’t met this girl before. Quite naturally he became attracted to her while she was busy trying to do her job. He was asking her all sorts of questions such as “how long have you worked there? Where did you come from originally?” all of this. She was aware of what he was trying to do and was also very careful not to give any sign of any particular encouragement because that could only lead to complications amongst tribal people like this but she wondered how long it would be before some kind of approach is made.

Some nurse once told me that on average she received about one proposal per patient per week. Proposals of marriage were quite frequent too. It became quite an art to side-step them. I’ve also heard that someone from some medical establishment that I’ve visited (and shall remain nameless for the purpose of this discussion) whose job it is to make home visits to the elderly and infirm has had more than just proposals, which only goes to show that these people aren’t as elderly and infirm as they pretend to be.

Later on, I was back in work again. It was a Thursday and I was finishing at 16:00 because I was driving to Munich in my old Mercedes to go to my birthday party which was on the Saturday. As I was going to be away for a couple of weeks I tidied out my drawers, made sure that there were only about half a dozen files in there that needed work, and everything was all ready with about an hour to go. So I found the “post out” pile and decided to review that. I was reviewing the “post out” and came across a letter where the typing had typed over several lines twice. I took it back to the colleague who had dictated it and explained to her that it couldn’t go out like that. Could she retype it? But the boss was there chatting to her so I had to wait until after he left. When I finished explaining to this girl I walked back to my desk. The boss came up to me and said “I hear that you’re on the move tonight”. I explained to him that I was off to Munich in the old Merc. He said “you should have a good time”. I replied “I know, because it’s not where you are or what you are doing, it’s who you are with that counts”.

It’s quite a change for me to dream that I’ve finished my work. When I was going through that series of dreams about work, it was always about retiring spontaneously leaving a huge pile of work behind. And as for my old Merc, that’s festering down the field back on the farm along with a Ford Cortina and an old diesel Transit for company. The final sentiments of that dream are sentiments with which I concur wholeheartedly. That’s why I’m happiest on my own. Not even Percy Penguin could change that, and how she tried!

The nurse came early again and having ordered twelve boxes of plasters that he wanted, he’s now decided that I don’t need any at all. Judging by the piles of unused medication around here, the Social Security would save a lot of money if they were to dispense it in smaller amounts.

After he left I made my breakfast, and carried on reading ISAAC WELD’S BOOK.

He’s now left the First-Nation and Native American encampments, and his final words on that subject are not too encouraging. "The filthiness and wretchedness of their smoky habitations, the nauseousness of their common food to a person not even of a delicate palate, and their general uncleanliness, would be sufficient, I think, to deter any one from going to live amongst them from choice, supposing even that no other reasons operated against his doing so. I had fully determined in my own mind, when I first came to America, not to leave the continent without spending a considerable time amongst them, in the interior parts of the country, in order to have an opportunity of observing their native manners and customs in their utmost purity ; but the samples I have seen of them during my stay in this part of the country, although it has given me a most favourable opinion of the Indians themselves,, has induced me to relinquish my purpose. Content therefore with what I have seen myself, and with what I have heard from others, if chance should not bring me again into their way in prosecuting my journey into the settled parts of the States, I shall take no further pains to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance with them."

Having said that, however, he’ll probably change his opinion somewhat for on his departure down the Great Lakes, his ship was driven onto the rocks by a storm and he came within an ace of being shipwrecked. Luckily the wind changed round just as the ship was about to break up, so that they could steer it down from the rocks

There’s no doubt that he’s having some serious adventures on his travels.

Back in here I had things to do and was so engrossed that I hadn’t noticed the arrival of my faithful cleaner who had come to fit my anaesthetic patches

After she’d done that, I collected my plastic bottle and waited for the taxi.

It was one of my favourite drivers today. She helped me down past the broken handrail and outside into the car, and then we shot off to pick up our other passenger who comes with us on Thursdays and Saturdays.

The drive down to Avranches was rapid but uneventful, and for a change, I wasn’t last into the ward. In actual fact, I was connected quite early but it was still just as painful as it usually is.

However I went to the bathroom on the way in and on the way out of the smallest room, struggling to open the door, someone outside opened it for me. And it was none other than Emilie the Cute Consultant. Had she known that it was me, she probably would have leaned against it to keep it closed.

According to the nurse who connected me, the doctor wants to discuss the follow-up to the examination that I had the other day in the hospital. However, no-one came to see me. If Emilie the Cute Consultant is the one on duty, she’ll probably leave off talking to me and send an oppo on Saturday.

No-one interrupted me at all today. I could sleep for half an hour (which I seem to be doing every time the machine starts up now), revise my Welsh and carry on with my LeClerc order. In fact I was so engrossed in that that I was taken unawares by the end of the cycle.

Uncoupling me was painful but straightforward, I only had to wait five minutes for the taxi, and it was a quick drive home. Once more, we had another passenger in the back whom I didn’t notice at all until she said “hello”. It’s a good job that I didn’t commit any indiscretion when I climbed in.

Back here my faithful cleaner was waiting and she watched as I climbed up to the lift. I’m going up in the lift from the first half-landing and then coming back down on foot as I can’t do the second flight of stairs with this handrail hanging off.

Tea tonight was steamed veg and vegan sausage in a cheese sauce, all of which was cooked to perfection and was delicious, especially now that I have some cauliflower, broccoli and sprouts. The ginger cake and soya dessert were delicious too. My meals may not be exciting but they really are delicious.

Right now though, I’m off to bed. Tomorrow there ‘s nothing of any importance except the cleaner and in the evening, Connah’s Quay Nomads v Mold Alexandra in the Welsh Cup

But Isaac Weld is still struggling with his ship in the storm. All the masts have been torn away so the ship is powerless.
The captain comes on deck with a pile of planks and says "I’m going to give out two planks to each passenger and you’ll have to do your best to row to the nearest port"
Isaac Weld turns to one of his friends and says "this is going to be quite an oar deal"

Friday 22nd November 2024 – AND THERE I WAS …

… dashing to make tea, wolfing it all down at a speed that’s more likely to give me indigestion than anything else, and then abandoning the washing up and dashing in here to watch the football tonight – Y Drenewydd v Connah’s Quay, only to find that the 86mm of rain that has fallen in mid-Wales in the last 24 hours has washed out the game

So after trying in vain to find another live match that was still being played, I went back to do the washing up

It’s a pity that Bonnyrigg Rose weren’t playing. After several seasons of playing their home matches at New Dundas Swamp, 86mm of rain falling on their pitch would have made quite an improvement and they would, quite literally, be at home on a pitch like that.

So it might be an early night for me once finish these notes, if I’m lucky. Not like last night where even though I finished my notes early I loitered around until it was actually quite late when I hit the sack.

And there I stayed until all of 06:00 or thereabouts when the loudest crack of thunder that I have ever heard in my life awoke me.

The storm raged for several minutes with some of the brightest flashes that lit up my bedroom despite the thick curtains. And the storm was so close overhead judging my the almost instantaneous thunder. Then it slowly moved away and we could go back to sleep

But not for long because the alarm went off at 07:00 and I had to leave my stinking pit in order to head to the bathroom for a wash and brush up

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I’d just taken delivery of a beige MkIV Cortina estate that had come from a scrapyard. The windscreen was missing and a few other bits and pieces. It was essentially acquired by me for its parts, to break it, so I’d had it in my drive. Later that night it turned out that it was not my drive at all but a public park somewhere. After I finished work I went over and began to have a look around it. First thing that I wanted to do was to find out its registration number but I thought that that would be difficult with its windscreen broken and tax disc gone. I eventually found a torn-up tax disc that gave the car as “M” reg, which is obviously incorrect. I had a play around with it and found that the radio still worked. After I’d switched off the radio I had my head all around it somewhere, and I heard a car pull up. I looked, and it was someone else. After a while he came into view, the driver, and walked towards where my couple of cars were. I didn’t say anything, I just watched him and stared – it was pitch-black. No-one could see anything, except that he had the light behind him so that I could see it. And staring at him would make him and his senses uncomfortable. Sure enough, after a minute or two he turned round and walked away. He obviously climbed back into his car because it drove off. I was there with this car, and I heard a door slam. I looked around, and sitting on a bench not too far away from me was a schoolboy from Sandbach School. He was feeling very happy, very pleased with himself. Then a few others came to join in. A boy and a girl began to disport themselves on the table. This other boy was teasing this boy and girl and so were one or two of the others. I asked them how much longer they had at school. They said “three weeks” with a big wide grin so I asked them if they were really looking forward to the end of it.

It was mainly MkIII Cortinas that I’d collect. When I had my taxi business people would offer me MoT failures if I would take them away, so I’d take them up to my yard and dismantle them. Sometimes I’d find that with a little welding I could make them better than a car that I was actually using and a couple had a new lease of life, mostly officially, but unofficially, well …

Have you ever done that, by the way? Stared at someone really hard from a distance away? And suddenly then turn round and look in your direction? We used to do that a lot back in the mid-70s when I had that flat on Nantwich Road. We were convinced that people still retained an element of the sixth sense that kept their forebears alive in the time of the sabre-toothed tiger and the other wild beasts of the distant past. It’s a sense that people should work at and develop. No worries with Nerina though. Her sixth sense was very well-developed and worked well on several occasions. I wonder if she ever made good use of it.

But schoolkids fooling around? I used to get on well with schoolkids at one time but these days I don’t see anyone at all, never mind schoolkids, and that’s a shame. I think that kids have a very raw deal from adults and I have a lot of sympathy for them.

Later on I was out with the Inuit again last night. There was a big tribe of them, probably fifty or something of people of all ages. When some white guy came by to study them for a thesis he tried to teach them to all go into a huddle. When he did, there was someone missing, a young girl of about fifteen. We couldn’t find her at all so we had to start again, the count, to verify it. It still ended up as one person short. Then a couple of the Inuit began to discuss the merits of eating human flesh. The meal that they described was quite revolting but I could see that several people were interested in the menu so I promised that if we were going to perform this again I would leave out any reference to humans, their age etc in the hope that they too don’t become dragged off down this road of cannibalism.

Revolting? Like some of Samuel Hearne’s meals when he was out on his travels?

One of my eternal gripes, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is the number of students who have gone to live amongst the Inuit, the Métisse and other groups, to study their habits and lifestyle as one would study goldfish in a bowl, write their thesis identifying various shortcomings in the dealings of the Canadian Government with those people, proudly receive their PhDs and then go to work in a bank and totally forget the factors raised in their thesis. It strikes me that they believe in all earnestness that the shortcomings are designed specifically for them to study, not to resolve. At what point are the First-Nation people and the Métisse going to be fed up of these interlopers?

Back in the past I remember reading something about the members of Military Intelligence going to the PoW cages of the elite at the end of World War II in order to interview some of the German experts. The writer said something along the lines of that it felt as if he was in a superior fish restaurant, going up to the lobsters in the tank, pointing to a lobster and saying “I’ll have that one, please”. And that’s the impression that I have of these PhD students

And then we were all in the army doing our military service and our period of engagement was drawing to a close. We’d had a whole series of boring lectures. We’d probably had enough so we were larking around making poor use of the time that we had when my friend from Germany appeared. He joined in the general fun and frivolities as we found humour in everything. We were talking about the Wild West and a border dispute between two States where here was a State claiming tolls for crossing a border into another State although the border wasn’t actually there. Some boy had been organising a campaign to refuse to pay it. It had gone one for quite a while. We were joking about the border and the situation about Dodge City came up. We were describing the place with hilarity, the place where every time that a tourist pus his sooty foot in the place, some cowboy is shot by some kind of Indian who pops up on a roof somewhere and they all give a good performance of dying etc, just to take some money off the tourist. My friend turned round to everyone and said “right, we’re going to have a lecture on the Intruder bomber. That’s your very last lecture of your period of service of engagement” so we all finished laughing and joking and gathered round.

No danger of ever catching me anywhere near the Military. Had there been a War during the period when I was eligible to serve, I would have joined the Merchant Marine. "Hello, sailor!" indeed!

By now, dawn was slowly starting to break so I went to have a look out of the window to see what the weather had been doing. And as I expected, we’ve had a sudden snowfall over the past couple of hours.

The entry to the Square here looks really nice at the best of times, with the city walls in the background and the Eglise de Notre Dame de Cap Lihou in the distance. But in this snowy weather it looks even better. The snow gives it quite a nice touch.

It’s no surprise that I want to stay here rather than go anywhere else because this really is a nice building and it’s in a lovely situation, stuck between the city walls and the clifftop with the sea just 25 metres away

On the left we have the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs – the French equivalent of the YMCA where youths can find a tiny box-room to call home – and straight ahead we have the annexe to the Municipal offices. That’s where marriages take place.

There has been quite a bit of snow there too that has fallen just now. I know that it’s nothing compared with what we had in the Auvergne when half a metre would fall in a couple of hours or to what people on Germany and Austria experience every year, but with snow being so rare here, this is enough to bring North-Western France to a standstill

The nurse came along, later than usual, to tell me about the chaos and the slipping and sliding of everyone on the roads this morning. She couldn’t hang around because she had other people to see so she was soon gone

After she left I made a breakfast and began my next book. It’s a story written by someone about his travels in North America in 1795.

Why it’s interesting to me is that he goes at some point in his journey to “Upper Canada” and “Lower Canada” and I reckon that he will almost inevitably travel on the “Chemin du Roy” – the first road to be built in Nouvelle France that linked Montréal and Québec.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I WROTE AN ARTICLE a few years ago about the Chemin du Roy and I’m ready to update it with stuff that I’ve accumulated since those days. Wouldn’t it be nice to include some eye-witness reports of what the road was like from a traveller’s point of view?

So hopefully our hero will at some point find himself in a diligence, or “stage-coach”, flying along the road of Lanouillier and Bécancourt and give me some good information

Back in here I’ve spent most of the day writing notes for the next radio programme and now that’s complete and ready to be dictated. This one wasn’t anything interesting which is a shame because I’ve been enjoying doing these last few “special interest” programmes and can’t wait to do some more.

There were the usual interruptions. Lunch was one of them of course – a cheese and lettuce butty followed by some fruit.

And then my cleaner arrived to do her stuff. We changed the table around and put all the medication in one of the drawers now that they are accessible, instead of having medication scattered about on top of the table looking untidy.

We also had a break for hot chocolate. I really like that, so it’s become something of an enjoyable habit. I could do with a few more like that to cheer me up because, let’s face it, I could do with cheering up.

Tea was sausage, chips and baked beans with cheese. And to liven them up I put some hot chili powder in there. That should get them going, I reckon.

After the chocolate cake and strawberry soya dessert (there was another pot in the fridge) I dashed in here, only to have my hopes dashed.

So what I’ll do is go to bed and hope that I have pleasant dreams and that the thunder doesn’t awaken me.

This afternoon I had a brief chat with Rosemary and I mentioned the storm.

"Did it shake you out of bed?" she asked.

"No" I replied. "I hung on to the rails in the headboard."

And that reminded me of the little girl who came running downstairs and said to her mother "mummy! Mummy! The au-pair is dying!"
"What do you mean, dear?" asked her mother
"Well, mummy" said the girl "she’s lying on the bed gripping the rails in the headboard and going ‘oh God! Oh God! I’m coming!’"
"Is she really?" asked her mother, rather alarmed
"Yes mummy" replied the girl "and she would be too, except that daddy is on top of her holding her down!"

Thursday 10th October 2024 – TODAY IT WAS …

… the turn of the dietician to come to bother me and disturb my pleasant … "well, sort-of" – ed … relaxation at the Dialysis Centre.

It’s remarkable (but no surprise really) that the trick cyclist never ever came back to see me for a second time, and I don’t know if this dietician will either after today, even though she promised to bring me a book.

Of course, here in any kind of French institution they don’t know what a vegan is and it’s cuisine à la Tricatel in these establishments so they are in no place to give me any advice about my diet. And in any case, as Kingsley Amis once said, "No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home in Weston-super-Mare".

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’ve no interest whatever in clinging on to life by my fingertips as long as possible just for six more months of agony or whatever. I intend to enjoy myself as much as I possibly can, growing older and riper and more degenerate

You should see the list of foods that she wants me to abandon. And there’s no chance whatever of that.

But last night there was every chance of my being in bed by 23:00 but, loitering around to no useful purpose, I missed it by five minutes. And once I was asleep there I stayed until the alarm went off and that’s something that hasn’t happened for a while.

So at the sound of BILLY COTTON I turned over and made a valiant attempt at leaving the warmth and comfort of my bed and only beat the second alarm by a whisker.

Having washed the clothes under the shower yesterday there was nothing to clean so I had a shave and applied the deodorant in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and then came back in here.

There wasn’t much on the dictaphone this morning, as I found when I went to transcribe the notes. Someone came to see me during the night from Ireland and wanted me to leave the bed. They said some kind of motivational phrase, I don’t know what it was now but it referred to one of their towns so I sat upright and began to leave the bed. Then I had a rough idea of the time and thought that it’s not really worth it so I turned over and went back to sleep

So who was that who came to see me? I have a couple of Irish friends of course and one of those could quite happily have come into my bedroom and been quite welcome too but I couldn’t be that lucky

The nurse came to see me, her usual smiling face, and we had a little chat about nothing much. She forgot the prescription for the tubular bandage that my cleaner wants and promised to bring it tomorrow.

After she left I made breakfast and then read MY BOOK. Today we are wandering around the Devil’s Arrows near Boroughbridge. They are some peculiar standing stones embedded in the ground at a certain angle, not perpendicular.

Once more he was lamenting, lamenting the fact that one of them had been uprooted in a futile treasure hunt and then smashed to pieces and hauled away. How much else of the Country’s heritage has disappeared like that?

Back in here, in another fit of wild enthusiasm, I attacked the radio programme that I started yesterday. Now, all of the tracks are sorted and segued and I’ve written half of the notes already. I don’t know what’s come over me right now.

My cleaner came round to fit my anaesthetic patches. We discussed next shower day and she’s going to change the bedding while I’m under the jet. That means that on Saturday morning I’d better shift this backlog of washing in the bathroom so as to make a space to dump the dirty stuff

The taxi was late coming for me – it had been to pick up that British woman about whom I talked the other week. She’s becoming far too friendly for my liking and I’ll have to do something about this

At the clinic they were waiting for me so I didn’t have to wait for too long before I was plugged in

It seems that I now have a hospital appointment for 8th November. It’s for a scan and an electrograph on my foot to find this trapped nerve that I think that I have. Things in this respect are moving fairly quickly which is good news

As I promised yesterday I went to read my course book but I don’t have the new one loaded onto the portable laptop so I contented myself with the last chapter of the previous one. And then I carried on with reading Lewis Carroll’s biography.

There was nothing in there today that would have worried the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine, but there always were plenty of hints, rumour and suspicion about his activities that would have worried the editor had they reached her ears. It’s certainly true that his family destroyed many of the photographs that he took and tore pages out of his diaries before they were passed to his biographers.

One thing that made me laugh about the book was the account by the biographer of his job as curator of the Common Room at the University and especially the Smoking Room "hard by for those who do not despise the harmless but unnecessary weed, "

How times have changed since 1898!

But having posted that on the internet now via the medium of my blog, I wonder how long it will be before someone from Q-Anon or another one of these stupid sites goes around saying that he’s read something about smoking on the internet that the scientists missed, about it being harmless and its safe for everyone to light up again.

The dietician turned up to interrupt me. She gave me many instructions about my diet and so in return I told her about the scandalous meals that I’d been served in her hospital, and that took the wind out of her sails somewhat.

But having given me her instructions she’s going to order a blood test in four weeks time to see if I’ve been a good boy but Austin Powers KNOWS WHAT THE NEXT STEP WILL BE

Apart from that, no-one bothered me at all – no doctors or anything – until my machine sounded its alarm that the process was complete. Then I was uncoupled and weighed (I’d lost 1.7 kgs today) and then I could clear off

There was another passenger in the taxi back, a crabby old woman who was busy expressing an opinion that all foreigners should clear off back to where they came from, so I said “bonjour” to her in a perfect simulated English accent and that shut her up.

My cleaner was waiting for me and watched me as I climbed the stairs. And today, I managed five stairs without having to lift my leg up with my hand. Still a long way from when I could stagger up all 25 unaided, but if it keeps on improving like this, I might start to go back to the shops on Friday morning

Tea tonight was steamed veg and vegan sausage in a vegan cheese sauce, followed by apple cake and soya dessert. There’s no doubt that although my meals are plain, they are very very tasty and I’m not going to give them up without a fight.

So right now I’m going to bed as I have bread to bake in the morning. But before I go I’ll tell you about an incident that took place at the Dialysis Clinic today.
A nurse going past looked at me, stopped, and said "don’t you have such beautiful blue eyes?"
"Thank you" I replied
"Did your father have them?" she asked "or was it your mother?"
"Knowing our family" I replied "it was probably the milkman."

Saturday 24th August 2024 – I HAVE EMULATED …

… my namesake the mathematician today and ended up doing three fifths of five eighths of … errrr … nothing.

Yes, it’s about time that I had a day off after everything that I’ve been doing just recently. And how much I enjoyed it too.

So much so that I actually sorted out a few squares of chocolate from the supply and treated myself. God alone knows what this would make my potassium count, but who cares?

After last night’s efforts and not going to bed and letting it all hang out after midnight, it’s nice to have a little treat like that. I certainly deserved it. Watching the football and writing my notes last night was exhausting work.

By the time that I’d done everything that I needed to do it was a long time after my preferred bedtime when I crawled under the sheets. And with just a handful of hours before the alarm it was just as well that I was asleep more-or-less instantly.

There was the odd bit of awakening during the night but when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was fast asleep under the covers.

So when the alarm went off I switched it off and made my way into the bathroom.

First task was to deal with this little sample that the nurse wanted. And in my befuddled state at 07:00 in the morning I was confused and wrote tomorrow’s date on the side of the container. That will confuse them down at the laboratory.

Then I had a good scrub up and washed my shorts. That’s my usual Saturday morning task, to make sure that they are clean for the forthcoming week. It’s a pain only having the one pair.

Back in here afterwards I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was some kind of show on the television about some folk musicians. They were all sitting together playing some music. One of them had his bass guitar and played a few bass runs for one song and they were really impressive so we stopped the programme at that point ad went back to begin to talk about this guys bass playing, which was something that we didn’t really know. He told us a little story, and told us about these bass runs. One of the other people there joined in so I said “I’ll go and fetch my bass and we can have three of us together playing it. Someone else there had a recorder so they joined in. One of the bassists with the recorder couldn’t get the recorder in tune as if there was something blocking one of the reeds. No matter how he blew he just had a strange noise out of his flute or recorder, whatever it was. In the end we had to stop the programme again while he had to dismantle his instrument. It was really interesting because I would have given everything to have been on that programme as a bassist instead of as a simple interviewer but it just wasn’t to be. It wasn’t to be my day to get me on there. Everyone seemed to be far more interested in the story that these people had to tell than any story that I could add into it. And quite right too. It was why they were there – to entertain and to tell their stories. I have plenty of other opportunities to tell mine.

That’s a story that has an all-too-familiar ring about it. I always seem to miss out on an opportunity as there will always be “another time” which as we all know, is something that never comes around

This was a dream in an Immigration Centre where a young guy was coming into Wales to play football for one of the teams. He’d lived in Wales before, for four years and had played as a Junior and as a full adult in various teams before being transferred out of the country playing abroad but was now coming back. At first the Immigration officials were very unsympathetic but he overheard a discussion between someone else and the Immigration about a large group of people, one of whom was an undesirable, but that person was arguing so hard to let him in that it was embarrassing. This was what galvanised the boy into thinking maybe he ought to persevere with this officer about trying to come into Wales because it seemed to be that his case was much more solid than this other person’s yet so much interest was being taken in it. That encouraged him to press on wit his application rather than give up as he might have done before.

There are more than a few stories about things like this in British football where because of the strict Immigration laws, imaginative solutions have to be applied to some footballers coming from outside the EU, such as loaning them to clubs in Belgium where the Immigration laws are much more relaxed, until they have enough “European” time.

There was a charge for misconduct brought about against one of the leading clubs in the league. They had produced something like a 20-point plan showing why another club was in breach of all kinds of various regulations. At the Court hearing the offended club stood up and made the argument that apart from the title, everything else in this document was based on pure speculation. At that point I stood up and accused their solicitor of gaslighting because I’d produced some evidence about a Court case that had taken place and will take place in the future. That was included in this document so I knew for a fact that those allegations were perfectly true so I was perfectly convinced that the solicitor for this football team was trying to gaslight the meeting so I stood up and made my objection known. This went down extremely unwell and managed to rob me of a position at the summit of the football league for three or four days

This has a ring of truth about it. I used to write for an on-line Sports magazine called, would you believe, “Shitesports”. This was almost 25 years ago when I ran a spoof news column about fictitious events in Welsh football, but the chairman of one of the biggest clubs in Wales took it seriously and made several remarks that were considered to be totally out-of-place in the factual World, based on some things that I’d written in my column.

Isabelle the nurse came round later and we had a chat as she took my blood sample and then sorted out my legs. She was impressed that I’d done what she asked and done it so quickly too. She’s not used to this.

And then all of the supplies are fully stocked up. That took her by surprise too.

After she left I made breakfast and had a very slow start to the day, reading an ancient book on ley lines and the like. The author is of the opinion that ancient roads and trackways honeycomb the country and any like drawn between two ancient monuments will pass through dozens of churches, ponds and other sighting marks.

His theories have been rubbished – someone saying that you could do the same this with telephone boxes for example, but on the other hand, aren’t telephone boxes usually sited at crossroads, at monuments and outside churches?

The author is probably wide of the mark when he suggests that every case of a straight line can be laid at the door of a Neolithic ley-man, but I bet that there’s more truth in his assumptions than his critics allow.

This afternoon I had to mooch around for a while and then make an important ‘phone call.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall me mentioning that I’m on the verge of spending a lot of money on a project in the UK. Wheels are now in motion and staff has been engaged, and I had a very long chat with my “colleague” to receive his report and set out a plan of action.

One thing that I have learned is that specialist tasks call for specialist help and trying to do tasks like this yourself end up costing you much more money than you will save.

If you have access to professionals, then make use of these opportunities and don’t worry about the cost as they will save you money in the long run.

The costs of me travelling back and forth to the UK, even if I could, would be more than whatever I would have to pay a professional consultant to act on my behalf and deal with matters by Zoom.

But more of this anon.

By now it was tea-time and I’d had no food since breakfast so I was good and ready. I’d promised myself sausage, beans and chips and that was exactly what I had, and it was delicious.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … no-one makes baked beans like the British, not even the “British Recipe” beans in Maritime Canada, and I’ll be devastated when my little stock here runs out.

So now I’m going to dictate some radio notes and then go to bed.

But the guy with whom I was talking was one of the ones with whom I spent that glorious “Summer of ’76” camped out at that old sand quarry near Congleton. Part of the bank had collapsed so there was like a beach that went down into the lagoon and that was where we all hung out.
One of the girls was swimming in the water and shouted to him "why don’t you come and swim with us?"
"I can’t come in like this" he said
"Like what?" she asked
"Like this" he replied, opening his dressing gown to reveal that he wasn’t wearing his swimming trunks underneath.
He was a big boy too and sunk her at a distance of 25 yards. But later that night, apparently she crept into his tent for a closer inspection

Thursday 30th May 2024 – SO HERE WE GO.

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

Some hopes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saturday 24th February 2024 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY …

… to me.

yes, and it’s one of these “significant milestone” birthdays, as several people have been quick to point out, thank you very much.

Not that I’m celebrating too loudly because at my age it’s not how many birthdays you have but how many you have left

However I did like the card that my friend Robert in Shetland sent me – "Seen it all, done it all, heard it all – just can’t remember it all". In my case though, I can’t remember anything these days.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … two things happen to you when you reach my age. The first is that you forget absolutely everything
… "what’s the second thing?" – ed …
I don’t know. I can’t remember.

Last night I remembered eventually to go to bed. Round about 02:00 it was because I didn’t set an alarm this morning. I decided to have a lie in. and I would have had one too apart from the barrage of text messages that started at 08;02. It’s actually quite nice to be popular for once.

Anyway it was 11:15 when I finally arose from the Dead and that’s about right for a lie-in.

This morning’s blood pressure – 17.7/10.0. Last night it was 18.3/10.8 so there was nothing exciting happening during the night to make my blood boil

After the medication I came back in here and began to transcribe the dictaphone notes from the night. We were in some kind of competition or something like that to try to reach the end of the obstacle course. We had several difficulties. The first thing was that we had two young people with us who were perhaps not as committed as maybe I would have liked them to have been. One was a famous singer and she kept on having her photograph taken. She had it once taken at a very inconsiderable point when she should have been singing something for us and a group photograph was taken of us and then, say, the two of them singing or the two of them dancing when they’d been performing a completely different task that the rest of us have been performing, usually on their own. We didn’t win, which was no surprise with those two young people but it was an extremely stressful occasion. But one thing that we learned was that we weren’t the only people who cheated by a long way. The other people cheated by much more than we did. They cheated in real terms and real figures. We of course used to fly the odd stranger in and dress him in uniform, a fire brigade uniform or school uniform or whatever and infiltrate them into the group as a whole, but only after they had died and it had all been over and there was still plenty of work to do. I’d engaged a drummer and he … fell asleep here …

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m actually asleep when I’m dictating these notes. So when I say that I fell asleep, what I mean is that everything suddenly goes quiet and after a few seconds I hear a low, sleeping breathing.

Or occasionally a deep snoring sound, and I’m sorry for not believing you, Percy Penguin

Another thing, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is that even though I’m asleep, dreaming and dictating, I usually have some recollection of a dream that comes back to me as I’m typing it.

But sometimes I have absolutely no recollection at all of them, like the one above. I could recall nothing whatever of it.

In complete contrast to the one below.

I’ve forgotten most of this dream thanks to having to look for the dictaphone that I’d lost in bed. We’d had a foreign girl staying with us. She was one of these people who knew everything and made sure that you knew that she knew everything. I can’t remember anything about it except that we all went to bed at the end of the night. She was sleeping in my room as a child. All of a sudden her alarm clock went off. I had a look at the time and it was 08:02. I suddenly realised that it wasn’t an alarm clock at all but someone sending a message and it was my phone that had given its message signal

In this dream I was in Worcester. My German friend and another guy were busy picking out a tune on a guitar. I was wondering all the time whether to go and fetch my acoustic bass to join in. They carried on picking out this tune but it was winter and we were outside and I was freezing and so was everyone else. Gradually they worked it out and gradually we walked up a hill with the two of them playing this song. We had a small child with us and it was complaining about how cold it was. I was wondering when we’d go to find some food as I was starving. But we carried on walking up the hill. We reached the top and my car was there. I opened the door to my car and a charity collector turned up. He was collecting money so I asked him what for. He replied “for taxi passengers to wish them a happy Christmas and they’d give the money back as tips for the driver”. I put my hand in my pocket and threw in what change I had- about 5.5p. he said “that’s more then 10p” and pulled some strange object out of one of the collection boxes. “I’ll give you the change for that next week”. I couldn’t see what it was. Now this situation i the town is becoming crucial. I thought that we’d drive into the town and go to the railway station to look around for a while. But I was picked up in this dispute by Worcester Council. They, or some other people wanted to change everything from “Wulfrunian” to “Worcester” o the grounds that no-one knew where Wulfrunia was. But I was opposed to that idea because it’s just another “dumbing down” exercise for the UK and they’ll sink to the level of the Americans at this rate.

It looks as if “dumbing down” has already commenced because, as any schoolboy might know, “Wulfrunian” related to Wolverhampton, not Worcester.

And as it happens, I do have an acoustic bass. In all of the various apartments in which I’ve lived in Belgium, I don’t think that I ever had the electric bass out. I probably didn’t play it for 20 years.

Instead, I had the Ibanez acoustic and I could play that anywhere, including in a van and occasionally at Folk Festivals like the one on the Scottish Borders where a few of us from University hung out and did voluntary work.

It was there that I met a few people and had a great deal of fun playing bass with a few different people here and there.

It wasn’t until I was set up in Virlet that I had out the EB3, and of course I play it here along with the 5-string fretless electric bass. Not for nothing have I found an apartment in a building with solid granite walls 1.20m thick.

But the EB3 is a genuine Gibson guitar from the early 1960s, totally original. It’s exactly the same model as played by Jack Bruce. I bought it in 1975 when the group in which I played was going on the road after a couple of months of rehearsals.

It cost me an arm and a leg back them but I’ve been offered a King’s ransom for it and turned it down. They’ll have to take it …. errr … “from my cold, dead hand”.

Later on I’d been on a University course and we were at Nottingham. It was a course that I didn’t like for some reason. There was something about it that irritated me. At the end of the course we were all assembled, given a closing speech and then dismissed. I set out to walk to the railway station. It was along a public footpath that wends its way out of town and crossed over a railway bridge of this really elaborate cast-iron railway bridge that had been a railway bridge a long time before but was now part of the footpath. There was a girl in the distance who had been on the course. She shouted at me and pointed “what’s this area here that looks all desolate?”. That’ son the other side of the bridge, a huge flat area. I replied “that would have been the marshalling yard for the old railway line on which we’re walking”. She made some kind of disparaging remark about Nottingham and said that she didn’t know why she was walking this way because she’d understood from the University that if she’d been on this course you’d have to stop in your own time and look around areas like this. I couldn’t remember any such instruction in the instructions that I’d received but if that’s what she’d received then fair enough, I couldn’t see why she was arguing about it.

This reminds me of an on-line course I was studying. It was an aeronautics course provided by Oxford University. I had immediate misgivings when they began to talk about the Messerschmitt Me109.

Although colloquially it is often referred to as an Me109 it was actually designed by the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke before it was reformed as the Messerschmitt company in 1938 and so the correct description of the model is the Bf109

Not that a thing like that would normally bother me but a University teaching a course ought to get it right.

This morning to celebrate (although I’m not quite sure what I’m actually celebrating) I made myself a cooked breakfast. Some of the hash browns from the freezer, tinned mushrooms, a vegan sausage and some beans on toast with my porridge and coffee.

For once I decided to treat myself, and why not? It’s not every day that you reach a milestone like this.

This afternoon there was football on the internet – Pontypridd United v Colwyn Bay. The bottom two clubs in the League desperate for points to overhaul the teams above them and scramble to safety.

But for a few administrative errors and subsequent penalties, Ponty would have been clear already but they had ground to make up

And they played like it too. There was no-one special who caught the eye but they played as a team, which is a strange thing to say seeing as when I saw them 18 months ago they played like a clueless, leaderless, headless rabble.

On the other hand, Colwyn Bay played like a team already dead and buried. There was no leadership out there today and in fact (for I timed it) it was just over 60 minutes into the game before I heard one of the commentators mention the name of their captain.

Colwyn Bay certainly had a couple of chances and the crossbar will long be rubbing itself where Owen Cushion’s shot hit it, but they spent most of the time trying to walk the ball into the net, without the skill to do so, when they have players like Creamer and McCready who can launch screamers towards the net.

And height! High balls into the penalty area from corners and free kicks that sow panic and confusion into the defence instead of low flat balls easily and monotonously cleared away by the first defender ….sigh

The final result was 4-0 to Pontypridd, a margin that was rather unfair to Colwyn Bay but just underlines the size of the mountain that they have to climb. If you are going to make mistakes at this level you will be punished for them.

At the end of the match I went for a slice of my chocolate cake. I lit the candles on the top but a couple of icebergs in the Arctic immediately melted so I was obliged to extinguish them

But it was nice, chocolatey and gooey. And the cream certainly worked, which was very nice to know. I was worried about that for a while in case it had given up the ghost during the night.

Tea tonight was a slice of my wellington from the freezer, with roast potatoes, steamed veg and gravy, followed by rice pudding. The air fryer did a perfect job on the wellington and roast potatoes.

A real birthday treat that, and I reckon that I deserve it.

So here I am, another year older and deeper in debt as they say. Uma Shanker said "Life teaches us two important things – we are careless when we are young and by the time we get old, it is too late to be careful!" and that’s certainly true.

It was a long time ago that I passed the stage of caring about anything. I’m going to grow old disgracefully.

What consoles me is that half the population of the UK my age or older are dirty old men and I’m going to be like them.

And why can’t I be like the other half? That’s because they are dirty old women of course.

So when I’ve dictated the two radio programmes in the queue I’ll go to bed and plot the course of my life for the next 10 years – my next 10-Year Plan – knowing full well that it will be something that will never ever be fulfilled.

I’ll be pushing up the daisies a long time before then.

Friday 1st December 2023 – THE BAD NEWS …

… is that my carcinogenic protein has now been found in my nervous system

The good news is that the doctor whom I saw in Paris at lunchtime is keen to have a go at tackling it. And who am I to object to that? What do I have to lose? My marbles – I lost them a long time ago. In fact, I doubt if I ever found them.

But it’s nice to have some good news. It’s been a long time since I’ve had any, and that’s not a cue to talk about those three days that are missing from my blog at the end of August 2019 aboard THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR either.

But while we’re on the subject of good news … "well, one of us is" – ed … I had a really good session on the acoustic guitar working my way through part of my playlist. I reckoned that if I was going to spend 4 hours sitting in a car going to Paris, that would be as good a time as any to catch up on my beauty sleep so I may as well make the most of my own personal time.

The trouble is that most of my playlist is nostalgia-based and I have a lot of stories to tell about the songs on it. For example, in REAL LIFE my heroine comes from the Outaouais with black curly hair and, quite probably, regular readers of this rubbish will recall the name by which she might be known.

Then there’s MARY JANE’S LAST DANCE. "I’m tired of screwing up, tired of going down, tired of myself, tired of this town". I remember singing this to myself driving down from Crewe to Dover Docks through the night with all of my life that remained packed into the back of an old Cortina Estate

And I could go on … "not with a pickaxe through your neck, you couldn’t" – ed …

So abandoning yet another good rant for a while, I hauled myself off to bed.

As usual, being a very light sleeper and having to make sure that I’m out of bed promptly, I had an enormous amount of trouble going to sleep.

But in between the spells of wakefulness I must have gone off to sleep because the alarm awoke me.

First things first – I had a good wash and put on some clean clothes. If I’m going to be poked and prodded about I might as well make an effort.

Second thing was to check the papers in my backpack to make sure that I had them all. My sandwiches were in there too – I’d made them up the night before. It’s always a good plan to have a few bits of bread in the freezer.

Finally, there were the dictaphone notes. Something had gone wrong and we’d had a calamity. As a result everyone in our house had to go out on some kind of visit to someone important at some ridiculous hour of night in the middle of winter. There was a big storm raging. This meeting went on apparently much longer that it was supposed to and it was gone midnight when we all finally struggled back. I was in front having to feel my way along the wall and along the clothes line etc in order to arrive at the building. I eventually ended up in the outhouse to the house. I eventually managed to put the key into the door and open it. I threw on the light switch but there was very little power in the batteries so there was barely a glimmer of light illuminating anything. I could see that this was just going from bad to worse to worse.

Later I was at the University of Duluth in Minnesota last night watching a strange kind of game, something of a cross between basketball and ice hockey. Each team consists of both males and females. The aim was as in basketball or ice hockey to work the ball down towards the goal area where you could lob the ball over the crossbar. If it hit the ground you’d have a free shot at scoring a point, similar to basketball. The net was a kind-of thick arrangement where it was quite easy for the ball to be lost inside. Then it would vibrate and shake around, then dart out in all kinds of strange directions and everyone would run after it. I was watching from behind one of the goals because I knew someone from Duluth who was taking part. Duluth was leading up until the final minute when the opposition managed to get the ball over the bar and bounce on the ground behind which meant that they could have a free shot. However their free shot was held up in the net and the whistle blew before it was ejected. I went to have a chat to my friend afterwards but he couldn’t stay around because he’d only turned up to play the game. He was busy with his harvest back on his own farm.

Strangely enough, I’ve never been to Duluth. I did actually have a passage booked on a freighter going from Ijmuijen to Chicago and Duluth once but at the outbreak of Covid all ad-hoc passengers were excluded from freight sailings and as far as I’m aware they haven’t restarted.

Finally I went into work on Monday but half the cars wouldn’t start and there was a big meeting taking place. The boss asked me to go to the Centre des Urgences to explain and arrange for some assistance. All of a sudden I had a mental blank and couldn’t remember where it was. For about 10 minutes I was wandering aimlessly about the building even ending up down in the basement again in the stores with Henri. Eventually someone explained to me where it was and I found it but it seemed to be for people who were having to travel at last-minute rather than anything else Nevertheless I went over and began to explain the problem but a girl sitting behind one of the desks shouted at me “can’t you see that I’m busy? Can’t you see that I have plenty of other things to do?”. I stormed right over to her and gave her a complete and utter mouthful of exactly what I thought of her interruption and then went over to find someone else with whom I could speak at another desk.

The car came for me bang on time and as I was struggling downstairs the visiting nurse was running up on his way to attend to my neighbour.
"Do you want a Covid injection?" he asked. "I have one left over"
Do bears have picnics in the woods?

So there I was, a taxi driver at the bottom of the stairs, the nurse and I halfway up, me with no clothes on my upper body receiving an injection. It must have made a wonderful sight, but I wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity.

The drive to Paris was uneventful apart from the traffic around the Péripherique of course. And finding the correct building in the hospital complex (because it really is a maze) was quite straightforward.

Finding the entrance however was another thing, and once we found it, finding the reception was even more complicated.

And then I had the doctor, and we had quite an interesting discussion.
"Do you know why the hospital at Montlucon took out your spleen?" he asked.
"To be honest" I replied "I don’t think that even they knew why they did it"

And then I recounted my tale of woe about the events that took place between November 2015 and March 2016 with which regular readers of this rubbish will recall being regaled at the time.

But retournons à nos moutons as they say around here, and he told me that the last lumbar puncture revealed traces of the carcinogenic protein in the liquid that flows around my nervous system

So that, dear reader, is that.

But I’ve had to fight all my life and even if I were ready to stop, I wouldn’t know how to.

Over 30 years ago I met the old blues singer TS McPhee in a snooker club in Crewe and we had a good chat. He wrote A SONG ABOUT DYING "I’m like a ship on the ocean that’s rolling from side to side".

He goes on to say "I’ve done everything that I ever set out to do". Well, he might, but I’m a long way short of that and so I’m going to keep on keeping on, as BOB DYLAN WOULD SAY

He’s keen to get in there and fight too, which is good news. It’s always nice to have allies and I don’t have many of them.

His plan is to call me in after the New Year and have me stay for a few days. He plans another one of these really agonising lumbar punctures to check the results, and then he’s going to spend some time examining my heart.

What he reckons is that following the disastrous sessions of chemotherapy that I had and which were rapidly abandoned, there might be some kind of tablet that might stimulate the nerve cells to fight back in the same way that Aranesp stimulates the red blood cells.

However it’s not for the faint-hearted – and he means that in the literal sense. He needs to know if my heart will withstand the strain. If not, he’ll have to think of a Plan B.

He told me about the side effect too, one of which is “bad attacks of cramp” however I don’t really know whether I have any vacant spaces in which to fit any more attacks of cramp.

At one time I started recording the attacks of cramp that I was having but for quite a while now, the only recording of attacks of cramp that takes place is when I go for a day without any, and I bet that you’ve not noticed too many instances of that.

After he threw me out I thought that I’d find a quiet place to eat my butties undisturbed and then phone the driver to say that I was ready but I’d hardly taken the first bite out of my bread before I was caught in flagrante delicto

Apart from the traffic leaving Paris and on the péripherique de Caen we had a straightforward drive home and I drifted away with the fairies now and again.

We were back here at 17:50 and the first thing that I did was to have an energy drink and then make a massive mug of hot chocolate. I’d had nothing whatever to drink all day.

After a rest I had another helping of sausage beans and chips. Something quick and easy.

But after my exertions today I’m off to bed. I’m not going shopping tomorrow. I really can’t haul myself off outside after today.

Instead I’ll send off my supermarket order and add onto it the things that I’d usually buy at the Carrefour.

Discretion is the better part of valour after the events of today.

Friday 24th November 2023 – AS YOU MIGHT …

… expect, having decided not to go to the shops this morning in case the garage came to pick up Caliburn, they didn’t turn up at all.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, this is par for the course. Only I can do things like DRIVE 500 MILES TO VISIT AN ISOLATED ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE and find it closed for the season, or load up Caliburn to go to the dechetterie and pick the only day in the month when it is closed.

And in 2022 where I booked 4 nights in a hotel in Montreal to find that the only day that the train to the east left was on the third night

That’s the kind of thing that crops up all the time and regular readers of this rubbish are used to this by now.

Having said that, it was really just as well that I didn’t go because I really didn’t feel like it. It was another horrible night where it took ages to go off to sleep and when I did, I had another incredibly mobile night.

When the alarm went off I staggered into the kitchen, to find that I was actually feeling rather more steady on my feet today than I have done just recently, and I even managed 4 steps without leaning on anything.

It might be Severine’s exertions that are working, or it might be my nocturnal exercises with the elastic band wrapped round my ankles, or it might just be my imagination.

After the medication and checking my mails (and I’ve had authorisation to have a taxi for Paris on Friday next week) I had a very slow start to the day and it took a while to wind myself up ready to start. We were on board a ship again last night and every time we’d go ashore I’d always sit with the same person, another guy. On this particular occasion we all lined up ready to climb into the boats to take us ashore. I sat down in a good place but the guy walked straight past me and went to sit down next to someone else. In the end I had either a girl or a woman sit next to me but I was more interested in listening to what these other 2 guys were doing. They were having a tremendous amount of fun talking about Queen Victoria as a painter, cracking jokes with each other etc. One of them was having a go at painting and everyone was crowded around having a look. All of a sudden, even in the dream, I felt really lonely and alone.

Liz once asked me a good while ago if I ever felt lonely, living as I do. But in fact I don’t actually live alone. The advantage of having a split personality is that there’s always a group of me living inside my head and there’s that much noise going on that I’m certainly not lonely.

But in actual fact, the alternatives to being lonely are probably worse. “he who travels fastest travels furthest” and “he who travels fastest travels alone”. And I’ve certainly covered much more ground alone than I otherwise would have done.

The only time that I have really regretted being on my own was at times such as strolling across the Little Big Horn battlefield or standing on the top of South Pass, or visiting the Norse Furdustrandir on the coast of Labrador and there was no-one to share the experience with me.

But of course, had I had someone in tow before I set off, I wouldn’t have ever arrived at anywhere like that. I really ought to have had a daughter. Castor enjoyed my little stories when we were alone together on THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR late at night.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … bedroom we were all discussing what we would be doing on a particular evening at home. Almost everyone had various plans but it ended up that I would be there with my 3 younger siblings at home wo we were trying to work out what we would be doing about a meal. I tried to find out whether there was any food that needed collecting because sometimes there was but the food that I could have picked up coming back from Percy Penguin’s I’d picked up the previous day. There were 1 or 2 things from other outlying farms but it was quite out of the way to go. They did ask me if I’d go out there to pick it up but for some reason I said that it would be difficult. As they were leaving my parents turned to me and said “you’ll be OK organising this meal for the other 3 won’t you? And you’ll be paying”. That was the first news that I heard about it. They had never ever discussed the payment with me for a single minute until they had some of their feet outside the door.

And then I had exactly the same dream half an hour later – word for word.

Later on I was seeing on some kind of basis a girl who had the same name as one of my regular visitors, but it wasn’t she . A third by began to hang around occasionally. I’d invited the girl back for a meal and I’d cooked something but the guy showed up. Out of courtesy I gave him some food. He asked for something but I only had a little so I said “you’re eating me out of house and home aren’t you?”. He replied “it’s not my fault. I didn’t ask to come for a meal”. I replied “you asked to asked to hang around with this girl. What did you expect?”. In the end it ended up in one of these arguments that we had. I said to the boy “there’s only one person who can decided who the girl goes out with and that’s the girl herself” and I went off to clear the table. About 30 seconds later he said “it looks as if I’m stealing your girlfriend” and walked out of the room with her. After she left she stuck her head back in the door to say “if you see (something) belonging to me you’ll remember to give it to me won’t you? You will still keep looking for it, won’t you?”. I answered with a very non-committal “yes” and carried on clearing the table.

Some of my plants are going to miss my layered kitchen but I’m going to have it remodelled as I can no longer walk up the steps. One of the plants was an adopted plant that came from a level kitchen anyway so it wouldn’t have too much trouble readapting but the others will probably find it difficult because the steps in the kitchen are completely beyond me now. It’s high time that I had the floor and everything put on the level. And what that has to do with anything I really don’t know at all.

There was another dream too. We were on holiday. I was with a girl but I can’t remember who she was. There was a variety of older couples. There was a very young girl there with a much older man. He was disabled. We formed the opinion that she wasn’t looking after him correctly. She seemed to be a nice enough girl but there was something about how the reaction between the 2 of them didn’t seem correct at all. When we travelled to this particular hotel we could see that the old guy was having a hard time but the girl didn’t seem to be particularly concerned all that much. Next day we were going somewhere and the girl appeared on her own. She tagged onto our little group of people. We didn’t really say all that much to her but when we climbed out of the coach to go on the way back to the hotel we began to chat. We asked about the guy and she gave some very non-committal answers. I had the uncomfortable feeling that she was trying to ingratiate herself with me for some reason but I wasn’t really sure why. As we climbed up and down the steps across this entry to go to the hotel I shouted out to my girlfriend “all those in favour of a coffee say ‘Aye'” and the girl shouted “Aye” too. I had no idea exactly what was happening but there were some things about this situation that just didn’t seem right to me at all.

That’s just another one of a whole series of strange encounters that I’ve had with strange people. 25 years ago I had an e-mail from a girl. “I’m a clandestine from Myanmar here in Brussels with no papers at all. I think you can help me”.
My biggest default has always been my curiosity and that has led me into a pile of difficulties and problems in the past but nevertheless, I responded.
We met up in Brussels and she got into my car. A beautiful young Oriental girl, probably early 20s at most. Perfectly manicured hands, perfectly coiffured hair, designer denim jacket with matching jeans.
If it looks like a rat and walks like a rat and smells like a rat, then it’s a rat. There’s no way she’d fought her way through the mangrove swamps on the border between Myanmar and Thailand

She played me along for a while and I played her along for a while but she eventually grasped the message that whatever she wanted from me she wasn’t going to get until I in my turn had some answers to a whole host of difficult questions, and that was something else that fizzled out.

There was another complicate dream about a girl who lived on a model housing estate that wasn’t quite finished. She had a pet that might have been a dog. As she travelled a lot she relied on one of the neighbours, a young guy, to feed the dog for her. On one occasion that she’d been away something had gone wrong about the dog food. In the end the guy had only ended up making meals for the dog for 3 days instead of 7. It led to quite a few complications, not only for her and the guy but for a few passers-by who heard their discussion. That’s all that I remember about this dream but it did go on for hours and hours and at one point I remember sitting on the kerb overlooking this housing estate eating a meal that I suspected was dog food.

There was something to do with a Prisoner-of-War camp. There were civilian internees, of which I was one, who had to go to the camp during the day but were allowed home on parole at night. On one particular occasion I was one of the last ones to leave. There were 2 women who had come there but were both ill in bed. By the looks of things they weren’t going home. The female commandant grabbed hold of me and began to give me things, festooning me like a Christmas tree. There were all kinds of stuff that apparently these women had brought that needed to go home. I couldn’t understand how I was supposed to carry all of this but she said “things like the Hoover here you can pull by the cord and it’ll follow you”. In the end, being in no position to argue, I shook my head and set off to catch the bus back to where I was staying. There were all kinds of complications about bringing these things into the lift. The Hoover snagged on its cable around a step, it was left out of the lift when we went in and the doors closed. There were all kinds of extreme difficulties through which I was going, trying to move these things while these 2 women were just lying there in bed doing nothing while I was doing all of this and upsetting everyone else who was trying to share a lift with me, waiting at the entrance to this building while the door opened. I can’t ever remember feeling as frustrated as I did about this

And that used to be a regular feature during my nocturnal voyages too.

Having dealt with all of that (which took much longer than it ought) I attacked the radio programme. And despite several occasions when I went off with the fairies I actually finished all of the notes. That leaves me tomorrow afternoon for starting my Christmas baking because I’m shopping in the morning.

With some time left over I carried on going through one of the back-up drives in the array on the shelf and made another pile of space.

Tea tonight was a delicious sausage, beans and chips. If I’m not careful I’ll be running out of sausages in due course. That batch of vegan sausages that I bought in Jersey is delicious but I won’t be able to buy any more. Beans though are no problem. Ric and Elaine bought me some last year and Liz and Terry bought me a pile this summer when they came over.

So I’m going to bed now, ready to fight the good fight in the shops at St Nicolas tomorrow. I need some mushrooms for my pizza on Sunday and a few other bits and pieces too.

And then I’ll have to think about an order from LeClerc. At the moment I’m doing Ok for supplies but I’ll never be able to find anything when I really need it.

Ordering my shopping is just like waiting for the garage to come for Caliburn, really.

Thursday 9th November 2023 – MAIS OÙ SONT …

… les neiges d’antan? wrote Francois Villon 550 years ago in his poem La Ballade Des Dames Du Temps Jadis.

And I wrote something similar last night in my tale of woe about “Ladies From Former Times” when I wrote about Castor, Zero and TOTGA and the absence thereof during my nocturnal ramblings. Where indeed are the snows of yesteryear?

So of course it goes without saying that last night Zero and TOTGA came to see me – at different times, I have to say. I don’t think that I could cope with them both together.

It was all extremely confusing because I had another bad night – one of many that I seem to be having these days. I think that it must be my guilty conscience catching up with me, or something like that.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. As I said, at some point TOTGA came by. We were talking about an expression that I’d used in a conversation – one of these superlative hyperbole expressions. At first she didn’t understand it so I explained that it came from the “Round The Horne” programme which was very good at doing that kind of thing. I went to give her an example and was about to talk about Geronimo and his Indian braves when I suddenly had the most appalling attack of cramp in my left lower leg and I awoke in absolute agony.

Can you imagine it? There I was, not only with the bird on my plate but just about to get my fork stuck in it and I had a bad attack of cramp. The first time that she’s shown up for quite a while too. Is there anything more disappointing than that?

Actually, all through the night I was having these bad attacks of cramp and it was probably all of this that was disturbing my sleep.

In fact, I was glad when the alarm went off and I could stagger to my feet.

It took rather longer than usual to come round into the Land of the Living, but once I was finally on the same planet as you lot, I transcribed the dictaphone notes.

TOTGA I mentioned just now. And later on I was in some kind of big city. One of these places with some impressive stone buildings like Bank headquarters etc. I was walking along a path that was on top of a cliff with all of these big buildings on my right. I came to a point where I couldn’t go any further. The wall of the building went right down to the edge of the cliff. I noticed that there was a gate in it. I can’t think why I hadn’t noticed this gate before. I walked through the gate and slowly went up the hill. There in the distance was a Fortis Bank cash machine. Luckily I had my new Fortis card with me. I picked up the card and tried to put it in the machine but it wouldn’t fit. I’d noticed that I’d actually left it stuck to the backing. I had to peel off the backing but it still wouldn’t fit. I noticed that there was still something else attached to it. It took me several goes to have the card completely separate from whatever it was that it was stuck to. I put it in the machine. At first I had a really difficult job to remember the code number. Eventually I recalled it and could access the account. I then had to think about drawing out some money – obviously, with not going anywhere near a bank these days, the more money I have on hand the better but there has to be a limit. I didn’t want to go too close to the limit in case the machine swallowed my card and then I really would be stuck. I had to think really hard about how much money I was going to ask for.

Actually this is a real preoccupation with me right now. I can’t actually go to the bank any more because I can’t climb back onto the bus at the bus stop. I have a little “fighting fund” of cash squirrelled away but it’s not going to last for ever.

It’s actually quite bizarre. When I was at University, as well as being Chair of Northern Europe I was also involved in Disability issues when I was on the Executive Committee and so I’m well-aware of the day-to-day problems that disability can present.

So I’ve never understood why, if the local council only has a certain budget to spend on improving the bus routes and facilities around the town, why one of the last bus stops to be raised up to a working height is the one just outside the Medical Centre where all of the ill and infirm people go.

That should have been one of the first to be raised up. But instead, the buses stop in the roadway far from the pavement and they don’t “kneel down” enough for wheelchairs and handicapped people to board very easily.

Anyway I digress.

A little earlier I also mentioned that Zero put in an appearance. But you really don’t want to know about the voyage that we had together, especially if you are eating your meal right now. It’s been a while since there has been anything really gruesome figuring in my nocturnal voyages, but when there is, there really is.

With a bit of luck she might put in an appearance tonight and we’ll have a happy ending.

Some nights, what goes on in my sleep is far more stressful than anything that happens during the day. It’s similar to the reason why I’m having serious thoughts about stopping my treatment at Leuven. It doesn’t matter how good the treatment might be and how efficient the care is in the journey to and from Vlaanderen is finishing me off.

Once I’d sorted that out I attacked the notes for the radio programme that I dictated last night. And I stuck at it and finished the programme. I’m actually now at 31st May 2024 with my totally-completed radio shows. I want to be as far ahead as I can possibly be because sooner or later the inevitable will catch up with me.

Afterwards I spent some time tidying the apartment. I’m having a visit tomorrow so the place needs to be clean and tidy. I know that cleanliness is next to Godliness but with me it’s next to impossible.

Neitzsche famously said “out of chaos comes order” but he said that a long time before I was ever thought of. Ezra Pound once said of Ford Madox Ford “Put Ford naked in an empty room and within an hour behold total chaos!”. That’s something that I understand very well

The bedroom is actually clean now and I’ve even vacuumed the floor. And you’ve no idea just how difficult a simple task like vacuuming is right now.

And then I had a good wash and brush up and the car came for me to take me to the Centre de Re-education. The ergotherapist had me opening and closing doors, laying tables, picking up pins and counters off the table, that sort of thing. She also says that next week she’ll come round here to give me practical advice about getting the most out of my apartment.

Severine the physiotherapist put me through my paces too and then, totally, exhausted, I headed back home in the car.

My cleaner was just coming into the building so she helped me up the stairs and into here, where I made myself my mug of hot chocolate.

The rest of the day, such as it was, has been spent pairing off the music for the next couple of radio programmes and beginning to write the notes for one of them.

Tea tonight was delicious. Steamed vegetables and a vegan sausage in a vegan cheese sauce. That was a meal that I enjoyed very much.

So now I’m going to bed, but not before I’ve sent someone a message. If I had to pick a favourite relative (and despite everything that I have said, I do actually have one) it’s the one who is getting married in Michigan tomorrow and I’m really disappointed that I can’t be there with her.

She actually works for one of the biggest transport firms in North America and was away on a mission for work when she was caught in the lockdown over across the border in 2020. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Tomorrow morning I’m going to fight the good fight at the shops if the wind has dropped because it was quite savage again today. And then I’ll finalise my tidying up ready to find out what is actually going on about this visit tomorrow.

The plot sickens.

Friday 27th October 2023 – THE PREVIOUS DAYS’ …

… completely entries are now all on line.

That’s because I have now found a decent internet connection – yes, I’m back home.

And getting back home was an adventure all of its own as you will find out as you read on.

Last night I’d gone to bed early ready for my early 05:30 start but as usual, I couldn’t sleep. I awoke at 12!50 with a start. I had the radio on and was still listening to it. Somehow the dictaphone that was by the side of the bed fell on the floor. I couldn’t find out where the noise that I was listening to was coming from. I searched round the bedroom for a minute or two until I suddenly regained my senses and found that it was my radio. I took off the headphones ready to go back into this dream and carry on.

And so I dictated into my little machine.

At some point I must have gone back to sleep but I awoke again at 03:00 and that was really that. By 04:30 I’d given up any attempt to sleep and ended up listening to the old-time radio programmes.

At 05:40 someone came round to take my blood pressure and then I had the breakfast that I was promised.

After everyone had gone I had a really good wash and then carried on with selecting the music for the next series of radio programmes. Nurses came and went of course but I battled on and I’m now up to 29th November 2024, with several holes in between such as my Isle of Wight Festival and my Hawkfest programmes for which I’ve yet to decide on the music.

The Hawkfest should be exciting though. There have been a whole variety of Spacerock groups from all over the world who have performed at the various Hawkfests and I managed to talk to a few of them at some point or another. I’ll probably end up with a couple of hours of music and there will still be a lot that I’d have to leave out.

At 11:50 I was whisked off to the IRM unit (in a wheelchair – how the mighty have fallen) where they injected me with a radioactive substance and left me to simmer for an hour, and then they stuck me in another Stargate where I went back and to for 20 minutes.

Back at my unit I was eventually allowed to eat my lunch – several hours later – and the doctor came to see me.

She told me much of what I already knew – about how the cancer is spreading through my kidneys, my heart and into my nervous system via a few other parts of my body.

She thinks, as I have been told elsewhere, that I wouldn’t be able to survive a heart transplant in my state of health so that’s out of the question. As a result she advised me not to buy any long-playing records.

However, she wants me to have an IRM done of my heart, and that can be done locally. It may be that some tweaking can be done to it to keep it going.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that right back at the beginning of all of this in 2015 I was told that I had a coeur de champion – the “heart of a champion” and that’s what will keep me going, but if ever my heart begins to give out, it’s the downhill slope.

And so her comments weren’t any surprise.

She did have some good news. She’s talked to the Haematology department and they may well be willing to take me on instead of my having to go all the way to Leuven. I’m entitled to transport to any hospital within 500kms of home. Paris is 334 kms and Leuven is 650 kms, so continue to go to Leuven means going by train and really, I just can’t do it any longer.

And that’s a disappointment. I had quite enjoyed my spell at Leuven because firstly it’s a beautiful city secondly, I get to see Alison, and thirdly it awoke all of the Flemish that I’d picked up when I lived in Brussels.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I first met Alison at that weird American company where I worked for almost a year after I left General Electric.

The doctor took my telephone and spent the next hour or so reading all of my reports from Leuven and translating them from Flemish to French. She’ll take them to the Haematologist and have a chat.

Presumably they’ll look into the other things that are going wrong with me.

The car pulled up for me just over an hour late and then we set off into the traffic.

Paris and its outskirts were nose-to-tail all the way, and we crawled slowly out of the city. Once we hit the countryside we could put our foot down and began to make good time, only to be pulled over in a Gendarme control.

It’ s obviously near the end of the month and the Gendarmes don’t have enough victims so they went over the car with a toothcomb until they found something for which they could write out a ticket.

It was 21:00 when we finally arrived here and my cleaner was waiting for me. She and the taxi driver helped me up the stairs into my apartment for which I was grateful. It was an agonising climb.

Once I’d recovered I made myself baked potato, baked beans and vegan sausage and that was that.

Now I’ve written my notes I’m off to bed. There’s no alarm in the morning and I’m going to have a lie-in – if I can. There’s usually always someone who comes along to interrupt me.

Friday 15th September 2023 – AS BARRY HAY …

… once famously said, "there’s just one thing – IT’S GOOD TO BE BACK HOME".

And you’ve no idea the size of the sigh of relief that escaped from my lips when I collapsed into my chair here in my office.

Hardly surprising since I’ve been on the road since 05:20 this morning. That was when my alarm went off and I was already packed and dressed. It didn’t take too long to load up the car and then hit the road.

Alison dropped me off at the Kortenberg railway station and it took me a while to work out how to reach the platform. It’s not like a conventional station and things take some hunting down.

nevertheless I was soon on the platform and in time for the 06:28 to Brussels. And it was just as well that I chose that train because these are low-line commuter units where the floor is level with the platform, not like the urban express double-deckers where there’s a climb up into the carriage that I can no longer accomplish.

The rain pulled in bang on time so I had about 75 minutes to wait.

However, what I’d learnt so far today was that the 65 minutes to traverse Paris isn’t going to be enough. I need to think of another plan.

At the booking office they wouldn’t let me change my ticket, but up on the platform, speaking to the train manager I had better luck and she let me hop aboard one of the casual seats at the back of the bar, which I thought was very nice of her.

And it was just as well too because with the renovations taking place at the Gare du Nord they have moved the taxi rank from just outside the door and now it’s a real marathon trek to the rank. I really was finished long before I reached it.

As luck would have it, the taxi marshal waved me to the front of the queue and I had a really nice and chatty lady driver who drove me to Montparnasse.

There was 33 minutes to wait for the departure of my train so it was just as well that I’d caught the earlier train. I was able to grab a cup of coffee which was also just as well – that’s all that I had to eat or drink on the journey because I’d forgotten my bottle of ginger beer in Alison’s fridge.

The train was packed and we were crammed in like sardines. I managed a brief five minutes of … errr … relaxing, but that was all.

It was on time pulling into the station and I was lucky in that I only had to wait two minutes for the bus to the town centre. And from there I had a horrible, miserable walk to the bus stop at the port for my bus up here.

There’s no kerb there and the buses don’t kneel down very much so climbing in was a real effort. And then climbing up the stairs to here, I just couldn’t do it. In the end I had to take off my backpack and drag it on the floor behind me. I am not ever going to do this journey again.

Back here when I finally arrived I made myself an ice-cold drink and came in here where I crashed out on the chair and that was really that.

Tea tonight was sausage chips and beans (I’ll end up looking like a sausage after this week) and then we had football on the internet – Colwyn Bay v Aberystwyth.

The match was a real bottom-of-the-table shocker that Colwyn Bay won 3-1, and I have to be honest and say that they won’t ever have a victory as easy as that again. After only 40 minutes the commentator said “Mae Aberystwyth yn siomedig” – Aberystwyth are disappointing – and that was aun understatement.

One bright spark for Aberystwyth was that at half-time they brought on a left-back called Akeem Hinds. I hadn’t seen him before. He certainly livened up the team with some good interceptions and some beautiful crosses into the penalty area.

What with Colwyn Bay’s Nigerian forward Udoyen Akpan who has come to the club from Cyprus, here are two players on whom I shall be keeping a very close eye.

Mind you, I said the same about Okera Simmonds who played for Y Fflint last season, and he disappeared without trace. I must be the Kiss of Death.

Surprisingly, despite the short night there were tons of stuff on the dictaphone. I don’t know what was happening here but I was pulling nails and plastic skewers out of my foot. I took one out and it didn’t ‘arf hurt. I just wondered whether that was symbolic of the pains that I’m having in my feet or something at the moment.

The next thing was that the alarm went off so I trued to turn off the dictaphone and tried to turn off a couple of other things. I suddenly realised that it was the phone. I fell out of bed and crawled across the floor to turn off the phone. For some reason my brother wouldn’t leave the bed so the girl with me was wondering what on earth was the matter with him. Suddenly I looked at my watch and saw that it was 01:27. I’d awoken and actually dreamed of the alarm going off.

I was with my mother and brother. We pulled into Paris. We left the train and walked outside the station ready to walk across Paris to the next railway station. There were kids on bikes and scooters having fun in one of the squares. My mother said something like “we need to be careful around here because of all these kids” but they looked fairly harmless to me. For some eason we became separated. My mother and brother went off down one street and I went off down the other. I was sure that I was correct. This road took me to the top of a hill where I could see right over Paris. It looked miles away but the way my mother was going was even further away. I shouted for my mother but couldn’t hear anything so I carried on walking by myself in a field. I shouted again and this time she answered. The fence was quite high and I couldn’t climb it so I had to walk back to where the fence was low and then climb up a bank to go over the top. As I climbed up the bank the top kept falling down and I kept sliding down to the bottom again. This happened several times. In the end there was a vehicle, some kind of army lorry buried in the bank. Suddenly it gave a lurch and rolled over, throwing me onto the floor near where my mother and brother were . They said “quickly, grab that guy …” and mentioned someone’s name “… and he’ll take us”. But I couldn’t see who it was that she meant because I couldn’t see anyone around

I was with my friends from the weekend. We’d just left the train and gone walking. We came across a big bush that was on fire. We tried to stop the fire by stamping it but it burnt me. The fire gradually burnt itself out. All the climbing ivy over this object died so we scraped away some of the ivy and that was a job and a half of its own. We found a woman sitting there. Apparently she was with some kind of Social Services and had come to check up on us to make sure that we were all OK and not up to mischief. Of course we caught her like this.

When we finally did leave the house we ended up at the end of the drive and across the road into the chemist’s, nearly being knocked down by a big old Humber that stopped to let us through. I handed a form to the chemist and said “four dailies”. He said “this isn’t the correct form. Where’s the rest of it? It should be twice this size”. He showed me a full example of a form. The last thing I wanted was an argument so I took the form back and said “just give us four dailies”. She rattled off four dailies. One of my friends went to pay but it was £30 and something. That horrified him but I thought that this job of getting to the station to catch his train was just so complicated that we weren’t ever going to manage this at all at this rate. All we want is four tickets and it was turning into a right pantomime

I was in a butcher’s buying food for tea for about a dozen meals that I needed. He sat down with some huge piles of meat and began to give me things like brains of DH Lawrence etc. I wondered what on earth was going on because I was a vegan and he was giving me all these cuts of meat to eat for my tea

Anyway, I’m off to bed. Shopping tomorrow and I don’t feel at all like it. As I said, I’m not going to be doing this journey again. I just can’t.

Thursday 14th September 2023 – THERE’S GOOD NEWS …

… and there’s bad news.

The bad news today is that the professor came to see me today to tell me that they have tried everything that they have in their armoury and there’s nothing left to try.

Mind you, she did say that she was impressed that I’ve kept going as long as I have. She told me quite frankly that when I turned up there seven and a half years ago for the first time, she was worried that I wouldn’t pull through at all.

Anyway, my sleeping patters are back to where they used to be. I awoke a couple of times during the night and I was fast asleep when the alarm went off.

There had been plenty of little travels during the night. An Asian woman who was the mother of a friend of mine – in fact the mother of a girl whom I knew. I thought that it was a girl whom I knew from school but it could well have been Castor had come down to the road into Tarporley from Chester. She was ever so upset because someone from the school had turned up in an awful panic and said that she hadn’t brought any of the children with her. They were all about to get into her car and be driven here but they all disappeared. None of them actually got in and she couldn’t find them. The mother was distraught. I said that that reminded me of a dream that I’d had ages ago that she had actually turned up with a group of other children at this spot and I went to fetch her but she was with her brother and they all said that they had something else important to do and couldn’t do. They just simply disappeared from the spot where I was standing. I thought that that was an amazing coincidence that I’d had that in a dream and then something almost identical had happened like that in real life.

There’s an interesting story about this girl whom I knew. When she started at school everyone agreed that she would grow up to be a real stunner. Anyway a good few years later I’d been delivering freight to Northern Ireland and was on my way back home and decided to stop off for some fish and chips and a beer.

At Galgate just outside Lancaster was a pub that brewed its own beer and a fish and chip shop next door so I went there. And who was serving behind the bar?

“What are you doing here?” I asked.
3I’m a student at the University and I work here sometimes to earn some cash”.

It goes without saying that every time there was some freight to go north, I’d be the first to volunteer

Coming up to Easter “what plans do you have?”
“I don’t know. I want to go home but I can’t afford the trip”
“Would you like me to come and pick you up?”.

So back at home we went out together for a few times until the famous night that I invited her back to my house. My old black cat was extremely antisocial and always went to hide when people came round but when she walked in, the cat went over, jumped on her lap and settled down
“Ohhh look! Even Tuppence likes her!” I thought

On the way home later I said to the girl “thank you for the lovely evening. I’d be really happy if you’d like to come round again”.
“Yes-s-s-s-s” she stuttered. “But you’ll have to get rid of that cat! I hate cats!”
And the rest, as they say, is history.

With Nerina, Tuppence never stood a chance.
“Ohhh look! A cat!” she said. And she’d bent down and picked up the cat and began to stroke her before Tuppence had even had time to react.
And the rest of that was history too.

Then we were in Nantwich, walking up Welsh Row towards the school. We met a girl whom we knew who was really quite excited, telling us that they’d had a visitor at school, someone really important. It turned out to be the King or Prime Minister, someone handicapped who needed help to move around but was one of the most important men in the Kingdom. He’d been to the field opposite the school

And finally I was having a big chat with a neighbour and a few other people, discussing globalisation and international commerce from an individual’s point of view last night.

There wasn’t long to hang around though because Alison was in a rush. We drove through the fog and mist to the hospital where I had to wait for an age to sign in.

The kidney specialist poked and prodded me as I told him my tale of woe. Not that it did me much good because although he listened quite intently, he didn’t change anything at all.

He did give me a prescription for the next batch of medication – three months of it too. I went and had the prescription made up and I’ve no idea now how I’m going to manage to take everything home with me.

The doctor had sent me off to give a blood test too and to my surprise (and yours too) the nurse had no problems whatever in finding some.

Next stop was the Social Services department. I’d received a bill for treatment which surprised me because there’s a direct billing arrangement with my health insurance provider.

No need to give a blood sample in the afternoon, having given one in the morning.

At the meeting with the doctor though she did the usual bit about asking me all kinds of questions and then doing nothing whatever to change anything that I’m taking. And then the professor came to see me for a chat.

There was some good news too, as I mentioned. The doctor considers that the state of my mobility is now non-existent so she game me a certificate to that effect.

That means that in principle (because insurance companies can be bizarre) I’m entitled to claim my travelling expenses. In other words, while claiming the train is out of the question, I can go by taxi, obtain a receipt and then submit it for review in the hope that someone somewhere will pay it.

Consequently I had a hospital porter push me to the front door in a wheelchair, and then had a nice new Mercedes taxi back to Alison’s house.

Once I was back here I had a little … errr … relax and then slowly began to pack my things.

Tea was more pasta and sausages and now I’m off to bed because I have to raise myself at … errr … 05:15. Alison wants to be on the road by 05:40 at the latest and I have a train at a wayside station at 06:28.

That’s something that I don’t want to miss because I shall be in a rush all day tomorrow.

And I’ll tell you something for nothing – I’ll be glad to be back home and I won’t be doing this again.

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: vegan sausages

Thursday 27th February 2025 – ANOTHER PAINFUL SESSION …

Thursday 30th January 2025 – ANOTHER FOUR HOURS …

Thursday 19th December 2027 – I CAME BACK …

Thursday 12th December 2024 – IT SEEMS TO BE ..

Friday 22nd November 2024 – AND THERE I WAS …

Thursday 10th October 2024 – TODAY IT WAS …

Saturday 24th August 2024 – I HAVE EMULATED …

Thursday 30th May 2024 – SO HERE WE GO.

Saturday 24th February 2024 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY …

Friday 1st December 2023 – THE BAD NEWS …

Friday 24th November 2023 – AS YOU MIGHT …

Thursday 9th November 2023 – MAIS OÙ SONT …

Friday 27th October 2023 – THE PREVIOUS DAYS’ …

Friday 15th September 2023 – AS BARRY HAY …

Thursday 14th September 2023 – THERE’S GOOD NEWS …

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