Tag Archives: eric hall

Thursday 12th September 2024 – I CAN’T EVER FORGET …

… my friend’s daughter who, on being told that what she was going through for the first time at 11 years old was what she’ll be going through every four weeks for the next forty years, stormed upstairs in a fury and slammed her bedroom door in a fit of pre-teen angst .

And now I know exactly how she must have been feeling, after having gone through what I’ve gone through today and knowing that I’ll be doing it three times per week for the rest of my life.

They said that it would make me feel better, but I’m hardly running around like a spring chicken right now.

“It takes time” they tell me, but how much time do I have?

Not enough last night, apparently. I eschewed a trip out around Central Scotland with one of my groundhopping friends and was in bed relatively early. And asleep quite quickly too, which seems to be becoming a habit these days.

However I awoke not long after 06:00, and couldn’t go back to sleep. By 06:45 I had totally given up the idea and was so wide awake that I arose from the Dead a good 15 minutes before the alarm, not something that happens every day.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, changed my undies and washed the previous pair in the sink. I must keep on top of things otherwise it will all let go and I’ll have no idea where I am.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was an athletics meeting taking place, a World Championships of some description. I was working as a driver. At one stage I had three people in my car, a couple of girls and a guy taking them from one place to another venue. One of them was actually talking about staying illegally in the UK because he had no passport or his passport had expired. The story he was telling was how he was staying with his aunt and how she had left sounded so fishy that it was unbelievable, the type that you hear every day from thousands of people, exactly the same. He was asking about going to Canada and whether he’s receive asylum there. The Canadian girl was very suspicious and was giving very guarded answers. It was all extremely complicated. When I reached my destination I unloaded my three passengers and stayed to listen to the news. They were talking about them on the radio saying that they’d absolutely loused up the first leg of their athletics tournament and so they had been sent away somewhere off-campus to a private room out of the way of the media where they could rebuild their confidence etc ready for the second round of the event. The radio was saying how this was a good thing to do in the circumstances of these three people. But I was listening to these stories and was just extremely suspicious about them all. I was sure that there was far more to it than just a simple “take them out of the public eye for a couple of hours”. It was one of the most suspicious things that I’ve ever encountered

And believe me, in my life I have encountered a great many suspicious things. I have had something of a chequered life in a couple of previous existences and one of these days I might actually say something about it. However, I have to be mindful of the fact that the UK is one of these countries that has a very minimal Statute of Limitations.

And then we were discussing the situation at Celtic where the manager had left, a new manager had come in and there was a lot of turbulence around there with players openly talking about leaving the club. One of them was interviewed on TV and was discussing it. It turns out that another one was released over twelve months ago and has yet to find a new club. I said “surely he can find a job working on a building site or something like that and play part-time to keep fit. I could find him a job tomorrow”. I told him of a job that I knew was going. Whoever it was to whom I was talking was some elative of his and said “I want him much fitter than that. He’s 29”. The discussion continued and it was extremely interesting that I’d dreamed that Rodgers had left Celtic and they had a new foreign manager

So why would I be interested in Brendan Rodgers and Glasgow Celtic? It’s not the usual kind of topic that is forever on my mind. Not at all.

The nurse came in to see me later to apply my puttees (which fell down later). She gave me the copies of my prescriptions that she’d photocopied and also gave me some other paperwork that the clinic wants to see. She wanted to tell me what was going to happen but I didn’t want to know.

My faithful cleaner had been past too and dropped off the unused injections for me to take. Apparently they put a blood-thinning product in the mix when I’m being dialysed so they’ll start with my injections, so as to use them up

After everyone had left, I made breakfast and read my book on ROMANS IN BRITAIN.

We’re discussing Roman Roads at the moment but I’m thinking about the camps at Caersws and Caerhun that we’ve seen on those aerial maps.

When our author was writing his book, it was 1923, a long time before the advent of aerial photography and aerial mapping, something pioneered by Sidney Cotton (inventor of the “Sidcot” flying suit), whose steps we stood in IN NEWFOUNDLAND, when he came to the UK in the late 1930s.

So we can see these things quite clearly thanks to Cotton and those who followed in his footsteps … "or vapour trail" – ed …, but these people in 1923 when they were writing these books had no idea of aerial photography, so what they were able to discover and identify is really quite astonishing.

After breakfast I had to telephone the bank in Belgium. There have been payment issues with a card and I ned to check. But it wasn’t any use. According to the bank they don’t have any marker at all on the card and it should work fine.

We shall see.

What was left of the morning was spent backing up the big computer onto the memory stick on my keyring, and I ran out of time because the taxi came early for me.

There was someone else to pick up and then off we set, two passengers and the taxi driver from Hell, to Avranches. If they give me a blood pressure test as soon as we arrive they’ll have a shock.

When we arrived, there I was struggling along on my crutches so they took me to the cubicle the farthest away from the door.

They slapped a few anaesthetic patches on my arm and then we went through a pile of paperwork and forms. Then they gave me an injection and I closed my eyes as they did what they had to.

All I did was to lie there in bed. They had all the windows open and the air conditioning going full tilt and I was freezing. So much so that I couldn’t concentrate on any work at all – and that’s something that I’ll have to sort out.

Instead I read the report of Colonel Carrington about life at Fort Phil Kearny, which was permanently under siege by the native Americans and the site of which WE VISITED IN 2019. Now THAT’s what I call an interesting document.

There were also times when I drifted away with the fairies and on one of my little trips Roxanne came to see me and I remember distinctly kissing her cheek.

They eventually uncoupled me and I had to wait around for half an hour while they checked that the joint would close correctly. And FINALLY I could go to the bathroom – and not before time. And with my puttees around my ankles.

There were three taxi drivers waiting in the foyer so I asked "who’s drawn the short straw?" and one driver knew exactly what I meant.

We had another person and so the return trip home, much more sedately this time, went via the Centre Normandy to drop him off.

My cleaner was waiting but she stood and watched as I hauled myself up the stairs without help. It’s a struggle, but it works.

There’s no bread so I made another loaf. And in a wild fit of enthusiasm I made a jam roly-poly.

That was easy – make half a bread mix, after it’s risen, roll it out flat and rectangular, coat it with Jacqueline’s lovely home-made jam, sprinkle some desiccated coconut and raisins, and then roll it up, sprinkle with icing sugar and bake it in the other side of the oven while the loaf is a-doing.

While all that was going on I made tea – a burger from what’s left of the European Burger Mountain with pasta and veg done in tomato sauce

But now I’m off to bed and I’ll tell you tomorrow how the bread and roly poly have come out.

However, I started this entry today talking about repetitive tasks. And that reminds me of a Trades Union meeting that I attended years ago to discuss new work proposals
"We have agreed" said a negotiator "a 10% pay-rise, an extra week’s holiday, a Christmas bonus, and as from now on, we only have to work on Wednesdays"
"What?" howled a discontented voice. "Every bloody Wednesday?"

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Wednesday 11th September 2024 – I HAD ANOTHER …

… late night last night

One of my groundhoppers was out and about at Linlithgow watching Linlithgow Rose take on East Stirlingshire in the Scottish Lowland (Tier 5) League so I stayed up to watch the action.

Nicely poised after an hour at 1-1, East Stirlingshire threw everything, including the kitchen sink, at Linlithgow in the final 30 minutes in an attempt to snatch the victory.

And so you might expect, in probably their only attack in that period, Linlithgow roared off down the other end of the field and scored an unlikely goal to win the game.

Why this game is important will be revealed in due course

Anyway once it finished I did what I needed to do and crawled off, later than intended, much later in fact, to bed.

At some point during the night I awoke but I can’t remember all that much about it. I must have gone back to sleep quite quickly.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I was at another football match in Central Scotland. It was just getting under way and I don’t think that the teams had been presented yet to the public. I was there ready to watch it and that’s all that I remember. I was interrupted when the alarm went off

And you’ll find out why I said “another” in due course.

But anyway I headed off to the bathroom to sort myself out for the day, not forgetting to make use of one of the little pots that the nurse had left me

Back in here afterwards I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And here we go. We had another one … "another one?" – ed … of these corners that was taken. It was at a football ground in Stirlingshire, the home of an amateur league side, quite well-appointed for what it did. They were apparently – Arbroath were visiting. They tried their luck against Arbroath but the ball went into the cucumber display and stuck here so they went back from Inverness, they’d bought one of the worst flights that they’d had and the one to Malta wasn’t any better. They were all ready for a brand-new challenge after this and see where this would take them.

It seems that I can talk nonsense without really trying, but regular readers of this rubbish will recall that already. Although the ball going into the cucumber display reminds me of a match at St Gervais a good few years ago when a sliced clearance out of defence went straight through the open hatch of the pie hut scattering just about everyone and everything in the immediate vicinity.

I dreamed that I already had the report of a dream laid out i front of me. It went something like “it was a game of pêl-droed yn erbyn …” and I listed two clubs with their names in Welsh and carried on talking about the game. Here I am, doing it in Welsh again. I wish that I could remember what it was all about then.

Yes 05:30 and we’ve had another phantom alarm. I was in the Scottish Highlands watching two games of football. One of them was a female match. There was a goalkeeper whom I know really well but I can’t think of her name. There was a centre-half playing. The two of them had recently formed some kind of couple which had raised a few eyebrows in professional sport but that’s how things have involved in the game of pêl-droed. I can’t remember any more of the stuff like this except that a lot of this dream was actually in Welsh yet again

So there you go – games of football in Central Scotland, dreaming in Welsh – you can tell what’s on my mind these days. But why doesn’t it work when I have Zero, Castor and TOTGA on my mind for as long as this?

The nurse came around to take my blood sample, the other sample and to deal with my puttees. She is getting to be very good at blood samples, doing it these days without a hitch.

But the list of instructions that she gave me to carry out tomorrow, and the list of things that I have to tell my cleaner, it’s unbelievable.

And after making all the necessary arrangements so that I might try my best to remember it, I needn’t have bothered because the two met each other in town and the nurse told the cleaner directly.

But the upshot of this is that it’s “all systems go” for the dialysis tomorrow.

After the nurse left I made breakfast and while I was eating I carried on reading my ROMANS IN BRITAIN book.

Today we were discussing the Roman fort that guarded the crossing of the Conwy River at Caerhun. I did some reading of my own and found the map reference – 53°12’58″N 3°50’02″W

And if I were to tell you that a typical Roman fort of this type would be either square or rectangular with rounded corners, then copy the map reference into “Google Maps”, click on the aerial photography view rather than the map view, and if you’ve zoomed in enough, what do you see?

If you look slightly above and to the right, you’ll see a strip of a different vegetation type going down into the river with some corresponding traces in the water near the opposite bank. What’s the betting that that’s what’s left of the Roman cobbles that made the ford?

Back in here I had a pleasant couple of hours finishing off the paperwork and when the cleaner came I was in the process of emptying the waste paper into the bin. You’d be amazed at how much I’d collected

But once that was gone, I made a start on the next radio programme and in an uncharacteristic burst of speed, finished everything except the dictation and the final piece of music.

At some point too I rather regrettably passed off into the wilderness. While I was asleep I dreamed that my brother was accompanying me as I reflected on a dream that I’d had, and I was waiting there for him to began talking again so that he’d awaken me.

Just recently I seem to have been doing that a lot, dreaming about the dreams that I’ve had.

Tea tonight was one of the best vegan curries and naan breads that I have ever had. And it’s just as well because my appointment with destiny is tomorrow.

As I said to my faithful cleaner, I’m not going to worry about anything. I’m just going to be swept along with the flow and go wherever the currents take me.

So where will it all end? My hero the Irish politician Boyle Roche summed it up when he said "I concluded from the beginning that this would be the end; and I am right, for it is not half over yet"

But the subject of “ends” reminds me of the two guys arguing in the pub.
"Are you the front end of an ass?"
"No I am not"
"So are you the rear end of an ass?"
"No I am not"
"So then you must be no end of an ass"

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Tuesday 10th September 2024 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since we’ve featured an old car on these pages?

Or, more to the point, how long is it since we’ve featured a photo?

old cars Panhard C24 coupe sartilly Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo 10th September 2024So here you are – a photo of an old Panhard C24 Coupé

One of the very last models made by Panhard, this vehicle would have been built some time between 1963-1967, but this vehicle may well be manufactured later in the range rather than earlier judging by the restyled tail lights.

Not exactly my favourite old car, the styling of these 850cc flat twins was supposed to be aerodynamic and while well in advance of its period, I didn’t find it to be an attractive design at all

Another problem was that, unlike Fords, they required a lot of care and attention to keep them on the road, and the bodywork contained some notorious rust-traps

It’s a shame that the photo hasn’t come out too well, but it was taken on the camera on the phone in the miserable grey afternoon from a moving vehicle and through the car windscreen.

No-one can be the best in these circumstances.

And neither can I, seeing as I had a horribly late night again last night.

One of my ground-hopping friends was out and about and was somewhere near Bathgate just outside Glasgow, watching the game between Armadale Thistle Ladies and Bonnyrigg Rose Ladies.

Bonnyrigg were unbeaten this season but my friend thought that Armadale would give them a good run for their money tonight so he went along and streamed the game.

He was right too. Armadale matched Bonnyrigg all the way, and their Khya McGurk scored what surely must be a goal-of-the-season contender to win the game for Armadale.

Although the game was somewhat short on skill, THIS PIECE OF SKILL ought to be enough to win any game any time anywhere in the world. Thanks to NORRIE WORK for the video clip. You can hear him going berserk in the background of the clip!

You’ll notice the copyright logo on the video extract. I’m currently experimenting with a few videos and a couple of editing programs. Until I settle on a good version and pay the unlocking fees, I’m stuck with free versions and their copyright logos.

If anyone can suggest any programs worth trying, drop me a line. There’s a “contact me” button on the bottom right of the page.

So with a horribly late night again, I crawl off to bed and there I stay until the alarm goes off. That might sound as if it’s good but believe me, I’ve slept for much longer than that and called it a bad night.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up, a shave, a complete change of clothes and I hand-washed my trousers and undies. That was rather drastic, and dramatic too, but I’m off out this afternoon, waging war.

First task though was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I can’t believe that I’m standing in a queue at an event somewhere or other and there are four people around me. Every single one of them speaks Welsh. There’s me, there’s that girl who looks like my friend from Trefynnon, there’s a guy called Gareth Owen and he’s speaking Welsh to Nerina who’s replying. I thought that there’s something totally strange happening here. We’re just in queue for a coffee at some kind of festival

That’s what I dictated anyway. And you wouldn’t have caught Nerina speaking a different language. She was a mathematician and computer person and therein lay her talents. But it’s not every day that I’m dreaming in Welsh. It’s really getting to me, isn’t it?

Isabelle the nurse came to see me too. She gave me the injection and fixed my puttees (which fell down shorty afterwards) while she told me about her walking holiday in Brittany. It was of interest to me because one summer in the mid-70s I went hitch-hiking around Finisterre and enjoyed every single minute of it.

Our Welsh course started up again today so I did some revision, of the wrong unit as it happened (which depressed me immensely) and then I had to abandon the lesson because the taxi came early.

We then had to drive around Granville picking up two others, and then the driver made a complete hash of leaving the town and we ended up stuck for ages behind a tractor. Mind you, if we’d gone the way that I would have gone, we’d have been ages earlier but we’d have missed the Panhard

That vehicle crossed our path somewhere near Sartilly and we followed it until it turned off on the outskirts of Avranches.

The hospital where I had all of these problems is installing a pay barrier, and that tells you everything you need to know about the hospital, its financial situation and why it’s trying to do its best to hang onto my money.

Because of our problems, I was late for my appointment and the doctor was waiting. I’d hardly got into my stride before he was full of apology for what had happened and was issuing instructions to his secretary.

The appointment didn’t last long. He looked at the reports, didn’t even look at his work, and gave the all-clear for dialysis to start. Apparently I’ll be “hearing from” the dialysis clinic.

There was then a phone call – from the hospital administration. Full of apologies (and excuses) but they have prepared a cheque and it will be sent to me “in the next couple of days”. We shall see.

The driver to take me home was my favourite Rastaman driver. After we’d dropped off some other passengers around Avranches and he’d given me a sightseeing tour of the town we set off for home.

He’s the most amenable of the drivers and as there were now just the two of us we stopped at the bank in Sartilly where at long last I was able to activate my new bank card, which pleases me no end.

At Granville my faithful cleaner was waiting and she stood and watched, impressed beyond belief, as I took myself up the stairs without help.

How long this will go on I really don’t know, but make the most of it!

She had some good news to tell me too about my ground-floor apartment. We’ll see how that develops too.

After she left I had a very late lunch and came in here where, true to form these days, I crashed out.

Just before I slid off into oblivion the dialysis clinic rang. I will have my dialysis on Thursdays, Saturdays and … errr … Mondays. Putting my foot down about Tuesdays has worked.

Afternoon though, not morning, but you can’t have everything I suppose. At least I have two full days in the week free. Roll on the Physiotherapy classes!

And then they called me back. I’ll have to go earlier than planned because the nurses are refusing to apply this anaesthetic cream stuff. But don’t worry – they’ll organise the taxis.

With some time to go before tea I attacked the paperwork again and sorted out some more stuff. The desktop is positively empty at the moment. How long will that last?

Tea tonight was a delicious taco roll followed by apple crumble. What a good pudding that is. There’s still enough for a couple of days, and then maybe I’ll make a chocolate sponge for pudding next week

But not right now, because I’m off to bed. And maybe another dream in Welsh. Who knows?

Unless it’ll be a dream like the one where someone went to speak to the hotel management where he was staying.
"Last night" he said "I dreamed that I was eating a marshmallow, but it went on for ages this dream."
"It must have been a huge one" said the management. "A veritable giant"
"I suppose it was" said the guy
"But what’s that got to do with me?" asked the manager
"I just wanted to tell you" said the man "that when I awoke this morning, I couldn’t find the pillow"

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Monday 9th September 2024 – HERE WE GO AGAIN

Up to our ears in paperwork.

The paperwork has been on hold for several weeks while I’ve had other things to do but circumstances dictated that I had a look at it today

And you’ll be amazed how, in this world of digitalisation and computerisation, I can find so much paperwork that needs to be sorted and filed. And once I think that I’ve reached the end, I come across another bundle.

One of the things that I thought that retirement would bring me would have been an end to all of this. But what with hospital issues, old-age pensions, mobility issues, there seems to be more than there was when I was healthy.

That’s easily measured by just looking at the thickness of each year’s paperwork. What I have here only starts at 2016 but the early years seem to be positively bulimic compared to the mountain of paperwork for this year so far. And at this rate, I’ll be sorting paperwork in my sleep.

And last night I could have done that because it ended up being another late night. One of my groundhoppers had gone over to Dublin to watch Ireland v England so I ended up staying up to watch the carnage.

Once in bed I went to sleep quite quickly as you might expect after all that, and slept a deep, uninterrupted sleep for all of four or five hours.

Nevertheless I was flat out when the alarm went off at 07:00 and it was something of a struggle to haul myself up out of bed when the alarm went off.

However I was soon in the bathroom organising myself ready for the day. It’s Isabelle the nurse for the next 8 days so I need to look my best of course.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We also (also?) discussed the idea that someone might be mad and create all kinds of problems for the Earth by detonating nuclear missiles and so on. The guy to whom I was talking was more interested in the idea of there being huge excesses rather than there being actual catastrophes, him threatening everyone with an unexploded bomb, the rocks crushing away before his bones beneath his palace etc. I replied “don’t worry, people will just think that you’re mad”. “How would that be better?”. I said “well, throughout the whole of the Kingdom they asked, and good questions too”.

That all sounds quite gruesome. I’ve no idea at all what I was on about here

Meanwhile in football it was 3-1 or 3-2, I can’t remember. They won 3-1 and the result never really looked in doubt. The victorious team played really well and managed to contain the (…fell asleep here …)

I can’t believe that I fell asleep mid-sentence but I suppose that it might happen now and again.

Someone else was messing me around for some reason or other about a payment. I’d paid it somewhat under pressure and done some research when I returned home. I found that I wasn’t liable to make this payment so I excluded it as from … and that caused a lot of complications about this. In the end I phoned my mother and told her that I was taking two days from work. One day we were travelling on the (…fell asleep here …)

Here, I dreamed that someone took the dictaphone from me and put it on the bedside cupboard. But it was a dream because when the alarm went off I’d lost the dictaphone down the bed somewhere somehow, it was still recording and had been for almost 2.5 hours. My beautiful rhythmic breathing and so on.

When the alarm went off there was a plot to kill a German General who used to nip through the British front line in his car on his way to his own troops. Whenever he did that he was heavily armed and fought off any attempt to attack him. The British used to play a lot of music really loudly, drums and everything, to awaken everyone to the fact that he was coming that way in the hope that someone could stop him. I’d proposed mining the road and having a detonator somewhere where someone could just press a button and blow up a crater with him in it but for some reason no-one had ever thought of that. One day we were driving a couple of Army lorries along that road. All of a sudden there was just total mayhem, lorries overturning and swerving out of control. At first we thought that we’d hit a mine but we hadn’t – there was no noise of any explosion so it couldn’t have been that. While all of this chaos was going on, one of the lorries having to perform some violent manoeuvres burst a front tyre and overturned. In the middle of all this carnage a black Ford Thames van with German number-plates on it disappeared into the distance. Speculation was that this van had been driving recklessly, overtaking a couple of lorries, and had carried out some manoeuvre that had caused one of the lorries to swerve and that had caused a pile-up of vehicles behind it so everyone seemed to think that this German Ford was responsible for this chaos but no-one could ever catch it. I tried to send a message to the border so that they could hold him at the border as he tries to go through but there was no way of contacting anyone at the site of the accident.

The van was actually a Ford Thames 400E, the predecessor to the Transit and the competitor to the Bedford CA but for some reason I described it as a 117E. Anyway it was a model that was mainly built for the British and Commonwealth market although some left-hand drive versions were built by Ford of Denmark so finding a left-hand drive German-registered example would be a rare bird indeed. But during the days of the “Red Ball Express”, the shuttle service of war goods from the ports to the Front Line, the haste and indiscipline was such that there were hundreds of accidents and many a French farmer, garagiste or haulier acquired an “Army Surplus” lorry or Jeep that had some kind of accident damage and which had been simply left by the roadside.

Later on Hurricane Isabelle blew through the apartment. She’s convinced that I’m being dialysed on Tuesday and wants to know why I haven’t had this prescription – the one that I don’t have – made out

If I don’t have it I can’t do anything, but this was what started me off on this paperchase today.

But not until after breakfast. And especially until I have had a coffee.

During breakfast I read some more of my ROMANS IN BRITAIN and today he mentioned the fort on the River Tweed at Newstead.

Newstead, probably the most important and substantial Roman town north of Hadrian’s Wall, has been excavated a couple of times. The most famous time was by James Curle in 1905 and he prepared a report that ran to 235 pages and a lovely list of books that contributed to his opus. And as it happens, his report is AVAILABLE ON-LINE for downloading, to add to the huge pile of books that I need to read.

It was situated on the banks of the River Tweed and was the junction presumably of the road north from Londinium and Eboracum and where the roads branched off to each end of the Antonine Wall across the isthmus between the Forth and Clyde. When the Antonine Wall was abandoned in AD184 and the Romans retreated to Hadrian’s Wall that ran between the Solway and the Tyne, it’s likely that Newstead was abandoned too. The amount of artefacts excavated at Newstead is astonishing and seems to suggest that the abandonment and subsequent flight was so panic-stricken that they could only take away what they could carry in their arms and left the rest behind. It really must have been something, this flight, and it’s a shame that whoever it was who was responsible for it could leave no written record. I would have loved to have read it.

And believe me, I shall be sifting through his list of books that the author read to see what I can find to add to my downloaded library of books to read

As for the site itself, which was discovered when the railway bridge just down the road was built across the Tweed, it’s nothing like as clear from the air as the site at Caersws is, sue, I imagine, to the constant ploughing of the site.

There was some football on the internet next. This rage for televising your home games seems now to have percolated into Wales and Newport City in the Second Division were broadcasting their match against Llanelli.

Newport picked up a couple of good players in the transfer window and they are mounting a challenge for the title. I hadn’t seen them before so I wanted to watch the game. And I quite enjoyed it too.

But it’s sad that I can only live the life of a groundhopper these days thanks to someone else’s GoPro.

The next task was to have a play around with that site where I have to send my medical expenses claims.

After much binding in the marsh I seem to have made it see a kind of sense and managed by chocolate time to upload all the receipts that I could find.

My cleaner came by with more supplies and the day’s post. We had a chat about this and that (I’m keeping well clear of chatting about “the other”) without solving any real problems and then I came in here to attack the paperwork.

Almost straight away I found two more receipts but I suppose that it’s like that. But now anyway I have about 5 different piles of paper that need either merging together or putting in the medical folder for the next batch of medical claims.

But where’s it all going to end?

Tea was a stuffed pepper with pasta. A lovely meal, especially when followed by home-made apple crumble

So now I’m going to have another 20 minutes filing and then go to bed

But it’s a mystery where things go to in this place. I’ve lost yet another clip for these puttees and I’ve not been anywhere for it to disappear to.

And did I really have this prescription? Or is the doctor imagining it?
It could be that, I suppose. I was told that he was the doctor on duty when they were filming the remake of “The Invisible Man”
After an accident on the set he went to see the doctor and the receptionist announced him
"I’m busy right now" said the doctor. "Tell him that I can’t see him at the moment"

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Sunday 8th September 2024 – I’M FED UP …

…of trying to make this stupid site work.

This afternoon I’ve been trying to upload my claim for reimbursement of my medical expenses but every time I try to attach an attachment, such as a scanned receipt, the site locks up, and that’s that.

What should have been a half-hour job has so far taken me all afternoon and I’ve not done one batch yet, never mind the whole package

Still, as the bank robber said when he was arraigned before a midget judge, these little things are sent to try us

Everything that I touch at the moment seems to be either breaking or falling off right now. I’m at the stage where I’m afraid to go to the bathroom these days.

It wouldn’t be too bad if I were to have an early night, I suppose. But the nights are becoming later and later these days.

last night was well after midnight before I finally hit the sack, long after I wanted to of course and I was thinking that it’s a good job I don’t have to get up until 08:00.

At least I was asleep quite quickly and although I awoke once or twice during the night, I simply turned over, tucked myself back in and tried to go back to sleep.

When the alarm went off at 08:00 it was quite a shock and I had a desperate scramble around trying to find the ‘phone with the alarm so that I could switch it off.

When the bedroom stopped spinning round I could stand up and go into the bathroom to sort myself out. Even if it is a Sunday when I do nothing at all, I still have the nurses coming round.

Back in here I made a start on transcribing the dictaphone notes but was interrupted by the arrival of the nurse.

He was once more in full chat mode. He tells me that he rang up the clinic in Avranches and it is indeed Tuesday when they want me to start, as I suspected that it probably was.

he says that he told them that I didn’t want to come on Tuesday and they told him to tell me that they’d ‘phone me on Monday

They can ‘phone me as much as they like but it won’t change anything. I told them right at the start of all of this that I am not available on Tuesdays.

After he left I made breakfast and read my book on THE ROMANS IN BRITAIN

Today the author was discussing the Roman marching camp at Caersws in mid-Wales. There were two camps at Caersws, a permanent one that had a vicus attached and which has now been built over. But there was a second, earlier camp just outside the town that the Romans built as a temporary camp when they first explored the area.

The map co-ordinates for this early camp were given as 52°31’13″N 3°25’05″W so I set my on-line map to “aerial view” and copied in the co-ordinates.

Considering that this was a marching camp that was only used for a couple of years at the very most in about 60AD, almost 2,000 years ago, it leaped off the page of the map right at me when I looked for it

And that surprised me. I didn’t expect to see anything. I know that a couple of readers are interested in archaeology so see if you can see it on an aerial view of, say, Google Maps too.

Back in here later there was football and I watched as Stranraer were put to the sword by local rivals Annan Athletic.

Stranraer are a division lower than Annan so we knew that this Cup match was going to be tough, but Stranraer were matching them blow for blow until Annan were awarded a very dubious penalty.

Dubious because firstly I wasn’t convinced that it was a foul and secondly, even if it was, in my opinion whatever took place took place outside the penalty area

Still, I’m not refereeing it, someone else is, and he awarded a penalty, which Annan converted.

After that, Stranraer fell away and the 5-1 score-line was somewhat exaggerated. Stranraer were much better than the score-line suggested.

One of my groundhoppers was out and about too so I was treated to Lanark United v Bonnyton Thistle In the West of Scotland League Division Two

Lanark raced to a 3-0 lead in the first half and in the second half they simply parked the bus and played out the game until the final whistle, to the frustration of Bonnyton.

Lunch was a lovely cheese and tomato sandwich made with fresh bread, followed by some fruit. But there won’t be fresh fruit much longer because it doesn’t seem to want to keep.

Thiis afternoon I finished off the dictaphone notes from the previous night. We were writing match reports for football games in which we’d played or refereed. It became extremely complicated because we didn’t have half the vocabulary that we needed and had to invent all kinds of phrases, some of which were good and some of which were rubbish, in order to describe what we wanted to say. But in the middle of all of this they were talking about another Covid injection so I went round into the main office of my section which my old boss was running. I went in there and gave myself an injection which I thought was extremely brave of me. I found out later that it was the wrong one so after waiting for a while during which nothing happened, I took my injection, went to see my old boss and asked him if he’d inject me. He was busy arguing with a couple of his workforce, a couple of guys, and didn’t really see me at first. I was standing in his office rather self-consciously until he suddenly noticed me and I arranged for my injection. The next week I was signed to play with Singapore so not only did I order that, it was a syringe different to the one to which I was accustomed so I had to change my injection yet again. I thought to myself “this is becoming too much of a good thing, isn’t it? There’s too much going on here for me to take in at the moment, my pepper box, especially if it involves food”.

Whevever the final line came from I really don’t know. It doesn’t fit in with the rest. Neither does asking my old boss to give me a Covid injection before I’m transferred to play for Singapore so I dunno. Nothing seems to make any sense these days

We were next going on a coach tour with the office. We had several coaches lined up for the staff. We had to walk to pick up the buses, which was quite difficult for me on my crutches but I just about made it and hauled myself up, only to find that the buses then drove back to the office to pick up everyone else. Then we set off. Because the seats were so cramped I had to swing round and put my legs in the corridor, to which one girl took a great deal of exception.. We arrived at our destination. There was a woman there swimming around so I borrowed her newspaper. She came along and said something to me to complain so I put down the newspaper. Then we ended up going for a swim, then for a walk around outside then back on the bus to go back to the swimming pool. We then had this issue again about me sitting with my feet in the corridor and the one female passenger not liking it. We returned to the swimming baths and there was the woman again with the newspaper. She was actually running the baths. She was rummaging through a box or something. It was food and there was some diabetic bread in there. I told her “thank you for providing the diabetic bread”. She looked at me and said “no, yours was the sliced loaf” so being somewhat beaten I replied “this is a (name of our employer) coach …fell asleep here …

That was a confusing mess too and ended up with me rhythmically breathing deeply into the dictaphone, totally out of this World and out of my head

There’s no pizza dough, as I found when I went to take some out of the freezer. I’m sure that I made some the other day but wherever it might be, I can’t fond it. And so I had to make a batch of that. Two lumps went into the freezer in the fridge and the other one I rolled out and put on the pizza tray ready to make my pizza.

When the dough had risen again sufficiently I assembled it with all of the ingredients and put it in the oven to bake.

In between times I’d been sorting out my medical expenses into date order insofar as I could find them and then trying to prepare a claim. But as I said, the site just keeps on freezing up every time I try to load an attachment.

At a certain moment I fell asleep too. The strain is obviously far too much. However, while I was asleep I went away with the fairies. I was visiting a town with a couple of people, man and wife, who may well have been Zero’s parents. We’d been looking around a shop and were now standing outside. The guy wandered off somewhere and after a couple of minutes so did the wife. I asked the guy when he returned if he knew where his wife had gone and he said that she had gone to buy some nylons. I asked where and he told me that she was in the shop behind us. He pointed to a modern car showroom and accessory shop and told me that he knew that I couldn’t wait to go inside. Just then a group of guys turned up on motorbikes. One of them was a beautiful bright green Honda CB450. I said to the woman, who had now come back from the shops, that if I were to have another motorbike it would be one of those. Suddenly the road became really busy with cars. We noticed the time and it was shortly before the ferry sailed back to the mainland so we imagined it was all the traffic going to catch the boat. I suddenly realised that we needed to be on it too but we were nothing like ready.

I have some very happy memories about a friend who had a CB450 when we lived in Chester in the early 1970s. Back in the days when its rival was a Triumph Speed Twin it was a real beast of a machine. But today, it would be rather pedestrian compared to modern bikes of an equivalent cc. But if it were Zero’s parents in this dream, I’m disappointed that they didn’t bring Zero with them. Who wouldn’t be?

The pizza maybe needed another 10 minutes of cooking – it seems that this new cheese acts as some kind of thermal insulation. But the cheese itself is delicious, melts perfectly and tastes wonderfully good. My faithful cleaner did well to find this batch.

So now I’m going to have another little go at uploading some of these documents to see if I can do any better, and then I’m off to bed.

But talking about newspaper reports … "well, one of us us" – ed … reminds me that the real heroes of newspaper reporting are the sub-editors who think up the headlines.
Everyone admires the sub-editor who, writing a headline for an article to inform everyone that, during the Korean War, General MacArthur was on his way back to his troops after speaking to his advisers. The headline was "MacArthur Flies Back To Front"
My own personal favourite was the headline in 1953 when Sir Vivian Fuchs set out on a trip to cross the Antarctic continent. A headline that read "Fuchs Off To Pole"

0

Saturday 7th September 2024 – THE PLAN WAS …

… to sit back and do nothing whatever today.

And so of course, as you might expect, I have been quite busy and done quite a lot of stuff. But nothing really towards the huge backlog of stuff that’s been building up. That seems to be growing even bigger as I’m simply swept aside in a torrent of paperwork and the like.

What didn’t help matters very much was that I had another really late night last night. After falling asleep so completely during the afternoon I was quite wide awake during the evening and come bedtime I wasn’t tired enough to go to sleep.

Too tired though to haul myself off my comfortable chair and cross the couple of inches that separates chair from bed. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s more exhaustion that I’m feeling than actual tiredness.

Nevertheless I did end up sorting myself out and at round about 00:30, long after the time at which I would have liked to have gone to bed, I finally hit the hay.

As seems to be the case these days I didn’t need much rocking. I was soon asleep and there I stayed until all of 04:30. After that, it was a miserable night of tossing and turning and trying to go back to sleep.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 it was close to Christmas. Some of our friends were visiting. We hadn’t prepared any Christmas cards and had no idea about what we were going to do about this. It was noticeable that our friends sent their children to the door first so they were obviously paving the way to see what kind of reception they’d receive. They’d receive a warm reception of course but they wouldn’t receive a Christmas card. That might upset them. When they finally turned up at the door she (…my friend’s wife…) said something like “is it any use us doing this?”. It was something like this that she said.

Right at that moment the alarm went off. When the room finished spinning around I hauled myself out of bed and crawled off to the bathroom.

In the bathroom I had a really good wash, a shave and of course I washed my shorts ready for tonight. I must at least make an effort to be clean and tidy, even if I don’t feel like it.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. For some reason there was a pile of clothing in one of my dreams too, a pile of clothing for a small girl probably about seven or eight years old. I have no idea why but there were some high-heeled shoes there of the type that had a small high heel that didn’t have any superstructure above the sole at the back to hold the shoe onto the heel at all. It was just held on the foot at the toe by a strap there. I don’t know where all this came from.

And neither do I either. I know that I’m likely to have some strange dreams every now and again but sometimes even I’m amazed at what I dream.

The next one is even more bizarre. For some reason I was identifying as a woman last night. I was playing for the Belgian national ladies’ volleyball team against a team from the Netherlands in a cup match that was taking place against the Netherlands. While we were waiting for the game to start I saw the crowds arriving. There was a bent little old woman leaning over a stick. I thought that I recognised her – it turned out to be my aunt from Ottawa. After the game she came over to chat. She asked about the performance. She thought that it was rather lethargic. I explained that that was hardly a surprise. This morning I had to get up really early to travel all the way here. I’d missed my breakfast. I’d normally come on the train as far as here all the way from Belgium but luckily this morning one of the other competitors and her friend brought me in their car.

Unfortunately this modern way of thinking is not for me, where you can self-identify as something completely different and expect everyone to adapt to you. Let’s face it – I self-identify as an intellectual who can write some really excellent prose and I wish that everyone would respect my choice and identify me accordingly. But some of the names that I have been called are not only unkind but completely disrespectful and I am offended. So there! As far as my writing goes, I can only echo the comments of the Reverend George Gilfillan of Dundee who, when commenting upon the works of another author 150 years ago, said "Shakespeare never wrote anything like this"

This was a series of dreams about a small girl. She reminded me a little of Percy Penguin, probably in her late teens or early twenties but she wasn’t very switched on. You had to explain even the simplest of tasks to her three or four times before you thought that she might have grasped it. Everything that she was doing was always a couple of tasks behind for example I remember telling her once to do something then telling her to do something else then telling her to do something else, but she came back with a problem about the first thing “yes, I’ve emptied the bath” which she should have emptied ten or fifteen minutes ago. It was very hard for anyone to look after her because she was so willing that she’d run around trying to do things and being too eager, she’d usually do them incorrectly or there would be a mistake where she’d forget something so all her work would have to be re-done. It was terribly frustrating because she was a lovely, keen, willing girl but she just could not grasp the same ideas that we had as quickly as we did.

“I remember telling her once to do something then telling her to do something else then telling her to do something else” – hark at me, barking out the orders. Who do I think I am? However, as we very well know, some people are like that and need to have orders barked at them if ever you wish to accomplish anything. Sometimes, organisation can be something of a thankless task.

The nurse came round as usual and he seemed much more like his old self – almost friendly in fact. However he asked if I had been down to the pharmacy to pick up the anaesthetic cream.

and so I asked him how he thought that I should have gone down there but he didn’t answer me. Instead, after much beating about the bush he asked me if I’d received the prescription.
"What prescription?"
"For the anaesthetic cream"
"I’ve not had any prescription"

It turns out that I should have had a prescription for the anaesthetic cream, I should have collected (or arranged to have it collected) it from the pharmacy and everything should be ready for the nurse to apply the cream because I start dialysis on Tuesday.

"No I don’t" I replied. "Apart from anything else, I told them right at the beginning that I’m not free on Tuesdays"

Then we had the usual argument that I have with everyone in the medical profession. Their job is to keep me alive, and the longer they do so, the more of a success it is.

However that all comes with a payoff with regard to the quality of life. I’m determined to have some quality in my life and if it means that I shuffle off this mortal coil six months or a year or two years earlier, I couldn’t care less.

There’s no way that I’m going to finish my days living like a vegetable in a Home. As Neil Young said, BETTER TO BURN OUT THAN TO FADE AWAY

As you might expect, the nurse was horrified but that’s just too bad. That’s the way it is. If they come for me on Tuesday I’m not going and that’s all there is to say about the matter.

After he left I made breakfast and then sat down to read my book. I’ve finished the book on THE ICKNIELD WAY and have started on THE ROMANS IN BRITAIN

That’s a book written in 1923 as a collection of lectures that were presented at Toronto University. It doesn’t pretend to be a scholarly tome but more of a lightweight approach as an introduction to what will inevitably be an inexhaustible study

Once breakfast was over I made some more bread. I’d used up the last of the old loaf this morning.

The bread didn’t rise as well as I would have liked. Nevertheless it’s quite light and fluffy. It was really nice having a cheese and tomato sandwich for lunch made with totally fresh, soft home-made bread.

This afternoon I had a chat with Alison on the internet and also rang Rosemary back after Friday when I fell asleep.

Rosemary’s garden s doing really well, which is nice, but we didn’t have much time to chat – only a short one of one hour and seventeen minutes – because I had a caller at the door.

My transformer (thanks, Grahame, for the heads-up) to power the Genz-Benz has arrived at last. But I can’t use it yet because the power cable that I need wasn’t included with the order. That’s coming from the USA apparently and will be here in a few days time. So we still aren’t up and running.

And then we had the football. It’s sad to say it, but Llansawel are already down, in my opinion, after just a handful of games. If form is anything to go by, the remaining relegation place should be occupied by either Aberystwyth or Y Ffint, and they were playing each other this afternoon.

It’s smething of a grudge match because Aberystwyth’s manager apparently said something unkind about Y Fflint when they were relegated a couple of seasons ago, and that has rankled with Lee Fowler, Y Fflint’s manager.

So far this season I’ve already seen each club, and for a team second-bottom with no points, I’ve been impressed with Y Fflint. They’ve taken the attack to the opposition and have been robbed of some of the spoils on a couple of occasions just by the cruellest of bad luck.

On the other hand, although Aberystwyth haven’t impressed me, they always seem to find something special at the important moments.

Today’s game was actually quite entertaining. It roared from end to end and each team created quite a few chances. It was littered with mistakes though – neither team could hang onto the ball and would lose possession far too easily.

For once though, Y Fflint had the rub of the green and while the score of 2-0 in their favour might be an exaggeration, you have to ride your luck when you can. If they play with this kind of spirit and enthusiasm and their luck holds, they should be OK but sometimes this league can be cruel.

Tea tonight was as usual, a baked potato with salad and one of my breaded quorn fillets followed by home-made apple crumble. I know that my meals are quite repetitive but I happen to like them and that’s what’s important.

So right now I’m off to bed, later than usual but with a lie-in until 08:00. And won’t I be happy when I can say goodbye to all of this nonsense with the nurses?

But all of this talk about people self-identifying reminds me of the man who went to the psychiatrists
"Doctor! Doctor! I think that I’m a dog"
"Really?" asked the psychiatrist. "How long is it that you’ve had this feeling?"
"Ever since I was a puppy"
"I think that you’d better lie down on my couch"
"I can’t" replied the man. "I’m not allowed to"

0

Friday 6th September 2024 – SO THAT’S THE …

… end of this long series of Welsh-language Summer Schools for another year.

And I can’t say that I’m sorry because my head has turned to porridge or some such like. You’ve no idea just how much it takes out of you having to work like this

When you reach “a certain age” it’s not just your body that slows down. Your brain does too and if you don’t keep exercising your brain it tends to stick, just as your other muscles do if you don’t exercise them

It’s important therefore that you do what you can to keep your brain ticking over somehow or other and this series of Welsh-language courses is my way to go.

Previously I was registered with Oxford University’s series of continuing courses as well as the “OpenLearn” project and I learned some interesting things. But the study wasn’t really a formal study in any sense of the word, even if I did enjoy that course on translating Roman gravestone inscriptions

So formal study it is – and was throughout this Summer but now I’m going to sit with my feet up and relax until … errr … Tuesday, when the 5th Year of my Welsh course begins. Just this year and next year to go and I’ll be ‘O’ Level standard.

That is, in theory. Despite all of the courses on which I’ve enrolled I still feel as if I’m miles off the pace. I can understand just how Homer Simpson was feeling when he said "every time I learn something new, it pushes something old out".

But anyway, be that as it may, I had another late night last night. One of my groundhoppers, about whom I’ve spoken in the past, was out and about. He had been to Heriot-Watt University to watch them take on Arniston Rangers in the East of Scotland League.

He’s not a very good commentator and could benefit from learning a few of the rules regarding refereeing, but he goes to some interesting places and makes a good video. I had to stay up and watch the game

Eventually I managed to take myself off to bed, much later than I should have done, and was asleep quite quickly.

And there I stayed until about 06:20 with hardly moving a muscle. And then it was tossing and turning about until 07:00 when the alarm went off and I could haul myself off into the bathroom.

There wasn’t much that I needed to do or felt like doing at that time of the morning and I was soon back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was playing in a rock group. One of the songs that we were singing was THE RAIN SONG by Led Zeppelin. One day we began to dissect the song phrase by phrase, line by line to examine it to try to find out exactly what it meant. As we delved deeply into the song we found that it began to mean quite a lot that we hadn’t realised and hadn’t understood at all at the time. It was much more of an anthem than quite simply a song. There were a great many phrases in there that could be changed to give a completely different meaning so we experimented with some and swapped some round, put the emphasis on different words to see exactly what would happen to the song

You’ll be surprised just how many songs there are that talk about the rain. One of these days I ought to make a list and maybe even a radio programme. But it’s true that the Led Zeppelin song isn’t really about the rain at all if you look carefully at the lyrics. “The rain” is symbolic of bad luck and sadness.

I was attending University somewhere and had gone for a walk around the campus. There were several building with machines inviting you to play them. One particular building had a big embankment around it that effectively sealed it off from the rest of the University. Instead of going all the way around the path I decided to take a short cut by walking around the back of this building and climbing up the mound over the top and down the other side. The mound was much, much steeper than I thought and full of abandoned cigarette ends. When I reached the top I was spellbound by the view. It was like seeing the Sacré Coeur church for the very first time perched on the horizon. Behind me on the horizon was the spot on the high road where I’d stopped many times to take a photo of it but I’d never ever seen it from down here in the valley from the top of this mound. It looked so impressive that I wondered why I’d never come by this way before and why this view had never been shown to the public because it was really one of the best views that I had ever seen

And while it’s not exactly the Sacré Coeur, which is actually situated on top of a ridge on the edge of Brussels, the church that I saw during the night was L’Oratoire de St Joseph situated on its ridge in Montreal not too far from the Snowdon Metro Station. Where it is, it’s clearly visible for mines around and it so intrigued us as we kept on passing it at a distance that in 2013 WE FINALLY WENT TO VISIT IT. Those were the days when we used to get out and about at the drop of a hat at the slightest excuse. These days, even going to the bathroom has become a major expedition involving native bearers, well-versed local guides and the attendance of a registered nurse. What kind of state am I in?

At one time or another there was Pete Townshend’s son who was wearing scruffy clothes and drifting around from place to place but Pete Townshend suddenly decided to have a word with him to make him wear more respectable clothes and make him adopt a much more professional and personal attitude towards life, which didn’t go down very well at first but slowly the son began to take it all on board.

As if Pete Townshend would ever be interested in people being more respectable? Mind you I can tell you some stories …

The nurse was quite chatty this morning. He seems to have calmed down quite a lot from our eruption and explosion the other day and if he keeps up with the improvement he might become quite human. Apparently the clinic where I’m likely to be dialysed has been in contact with him. Things seem to be moving rapidly these days

After he left I went for the final day of my course. And it didn’t go as well as the other days which is a shame. I think that I’ve become saturated now.

When it was over I breathed a sigh of relief. I went into my nice clean kitchen – clean because the cleaner had been – and found that my course book for the forthcoming year has now arrived. So it’s “all systems go” starting on Tuesday.

Except that I have a hospital appointment on Tuesday afternoon, and so I had to ring up to book myself a taxi to take me there.

Rosemary had rung me and I’d promised to ‘phone her back but after my hot chocolate I came back in here and regrettably fell asleep, totally exhausted. I forgot to ‘phone her so there will be a red face tomorrow when I call her back

Tea was falafel and chips with a very tired salad. My lettuce don’t seem to keep too well, not even in the fridge which is a shame. However, when I move I shall buy a big, decent, proper fridge and start again from Square One with my food storage activities.

And so that’s it for today. I’m off to bed now if there’s nothing else going on. I’m totally exhausted after all of this.

But as Led Zeppelin said, “Upon us all a little rain must fall”. But not upon all of us equally
"The rain falls down upon the just
And also un the unjust fellow
But mostly on the just because
The unjust steals the just’s umbrella"

0

Thursday 5th September 2024 – AFTER YESTERDAY’S …

… excitement, things seem to have quietened down today. And having straightened things out with the nurse, he seems to be much more compliant this morning.

However, it remains to be seen whether this new state of calm persists, or whether it is simply the calm before the storm

But after the storm yesterday I tried to find enough calm to go to bed early but once more I was swept up in a tidal wave of things that needed to be done and it was once more quite late by the time that everything was finished and I could go to bed.

And glad I was to find my way under the covers because the effort of everything right now, from climbing up all the stairs to having brain-fade with this course, is driving me berserk and it’s completely wearing me out.

Once in the bed I fell asleep quite quickly yet again and there I stayed, flat out, until all of … errr … 01:55. Luckily, after a few minutes of tossing and turning I was able to go back to sleep again.

But the fact that I’m awakening so easily tells me that it isn’t sleepiness that’s tiring me out, it’s exhaustion. And that’s the kind of thing that’s worrying.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I was helping a young African boy to read but I’ve really no idea why. That’s all that I can remember of that which is a shame because it would be the kind of thing that’s bound to be interesting.

Having made it to the bathroom I had a really good wash and scrub up, changed all my clothes and washed my trousers and undies in the sink. That’s a habit that I picked up during the days in which I was living out of a suitcase and which I try to keep up.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And to my surprise there was something on there. This was where I had a LORD OF THE RINGS dream but you don’t really need to know any more about this dream, especially if you are eating your meal right now.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a dream like this. At one time I was having them quite regularly, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but they seem to have calmed down just recently, in a similar way in which Zero, Castor and TOTGA have slipped off the radar. But if I could have the one type of dream as long as I had the other, then I would. As STEVE MILLER ONCE SANG, "you know you gotta go through hell before you get to heaven".

When the nurse came round, he was much calmer and quieter, almost subdued. He didn’t have much to say although he reckoned that the time that it’s taking my legs to heal, I’d be better off speaking to a skin specialist and the next time I see the doctor I should mention it.

After he left I made breakfast and carried on reading my book while I ate. Today my prose-writing poet has referred us to a series of books written by a local Berkshire author called Eleanor Hayden. Apart from the fact that she’s one of the rare female authors of that epoch, he waxes lyrical over several pages about her books, concluding with "her (books) will last somehow or other as long as an old wall"

With a recommendation like that she has to be worth reading, and to my surprise, ONE OF HER BOOKS IS AVAILABLE. Considering the flowery prose that he is prone to use, then if he’s impressed by hers then it really has to be something.

And then it was class time. Day Four of Five. And once more we bashed through three more units and I’m exhausted. We had a 15-minute chat session at the end of the lesson and by then I had total brain-fade and so, it seemed, did everything else.

But at least if we’re overwhelmed by the course, the people are really nice. As I said the other day, I know a few of them from other courses but one person whom I didn’t know is actually a classically-trained flautist who plays other musical instruments.

At the moment she’s learning to play the harp, so I told her about Roxanne whose Wednesday afternoon activity back in Brussels was learning to play the harp, which was very impressive in a child of eight years old. I wonder if she kept it up.

During the pauses I didn’t do much except to unwind, and once the course had finished and I’d had my hot chocolate, I came in here and crashed out.

The cleaner came in too for a chat. They’ve a couple of additions to the vegan cheese range at LeClerc so she wanted to see if I’d identified a variety that I like. Mmmmm – Cheddar Cheese is on offer …

At some point during the day, and I can’t remember when, I’d had a ‘phone call. The clinic place in Avranches wants to know the name and address of the nurse so that they can send him a prescription.

This may be to put the anaesthetic cream on my arm, and if so it’s a sign that the start of dialysis is approaching rapidly. God help me – an God help the people who are going to have to try to connect me.

For tea tonight I tried an experiment. I put a couple of handfuls of frozen veg into the microwave and a frozen slice of pie into the air fryer with the heat turned right down.

Fifteen minutes I gave them, and when they were finished they were perfect. A knob or two of butter on the veg and I had a lovely tea tonight.

However I was more interested in the experiment of defrosting and reheating in the air fryer. Defrosting in the microwave is all very well but it makes the pastry go all soggy. Using the big oven is a waste of resources for that so it was worth a run in the air fryer to see what happens.

And apart from the fact that it ended up rather dry, which is not really a problem, it worked exactly as it should.

And so right now I’m off to bed ready for my final Summer School tomorrow. And much as I have enjoyed it all, I’m exhausted and I shall be glad of the rest.

But talking about the nurse, the course and everything else driving me berserk, I’m reminded of the story told to me by one of the doctors at the hospital.
Apparently someone had come into the Accident and Emergency with a car steering wheel, the column of which was embedded in his groin
"How on earth did that happen?" asked the doctor
"I’ve no idea" replied the patient "but I’ll tell you something. It’s driving me nuts"

0

Wednesday 4th September 2024 – THERE HAVE BEEN …

… raised voices in this apartment today. And how!

The tension between the nurse and me has been simmering away for a short while now, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, and today it finally overflowed.

And it was going to be such a good day too. I was actually in bed before 23:00, for once in my life, and as seems to be the case these days, I fell asleep quite quickly.

And there I lay, flat out until about 06:15 too – one of the best sleeps that I have had just recently too. Over 7 hours-worth of uninterrupted sleep is a luxury these days.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I was fast asleep, but I soon hauled myself out of bed and went off for a good wash and scrub up ready for my trip out.

Yesterday I’d told the nurse that I was going out at 08:15 and so after much moaning and complaining he’d agreed to be here at 08:05 at the latest. He’d told me that at 08:00 I had to be sitting in the chair in the kitchen where he does his stuff.

So there I was at 08:00, sitting in the chair, and at 08:15 with him still not having turned up, the taxi came and we set off for Avranches.

We were some way down the road near the Granville ring road when the phone rang. It was 08:30. “Where are you?” asked a voice which I recognised.

“Where am I? Halfway towards Avranches. It’s now 08:30, not 08:05”. I replied

“OK. Call me when you’re back”.

We reached Avranches and the clinic at 08:55 for my 09:00 appointment – the first one in. And so it was logical I suppose that I wasn’t seen until 09:30.

Emilie the Cute Consultant wasn’t there which was a shame and I had to see the nurse. She asked me all kinds of probing questions although with no doctor or consultant there and no news about a follow-up, I couldn’t see the point.

And it looks as if this might be escalating. Now that they’ve talked the plaster off my arm so that my port is there in view in glorious technicolour if I choose to look at it (which I haven’t done as yet) they now want me to run an antiseptic cream on it and wrap it in clingfilm before I come for dialysis.

So that tells me two things. Firstly, that I have to come for dialysis and secondly, I am going to become more and more involved in the mechanics of this procedure.

In fact, she was there pushing a few boundaries, telling me a little bit more and a little bit more of things that I really don’t want to know.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … when this process starts we shall have the panic attack to end all panic attacks. I am living my worst nightmare with all of these tubes and pipes. I’m really sure that many people, people who have never been through any of this, just can’t understand what I’m feeling.

While I was there she weighed me, and my weight is stable, although it’s 7kg too much and even 12kg more than I used to like it. She said that my blood is stable too, so I told her that I would be much happier if the Creatinine was stable at 270 where it used to be instead of this 450.

With running late, everything else was running late. The taxi had arrived at 10:00 for me but I was nowhere near ready so the driver had gone off to pick up another passenger and then come back for me, and we reached the door of the building at the same time.

Back here at the apartment, these last two days have seen a stunning development – I’ve managed to climb back up the stairs all on my own, the first time since February.

It’s not very aesthetic, I have to say. I have to Put my right hand behind my left knee, raise my left foot onto the step and then push up my right side with the aid of my crutches.

God knows what anyone else might think if they were to see me, but twice now I’ve tried it, and twice now it has worked. If I carry on like this, Friday morning shopping might be back on the agenda.

This is the first time in quite some time that I can say that there has been an underlying improvement.

Back here I put on the coffee, put the porridge in the microwave and the toast in the toaster when the phone rang

“Where are you? asked a voice which I recognised.

‘I’ve just got back” I replied

“I told you to ring me when you came back”.

“Did you not hear the word ‘just’?” I asked

“I’ll be right round” so I switched off the breakfast to wait for his imminent arrival.

25 minutes later he finally turned up. By now my porridge was cold, my coffee was cold and my toast was soggy. And so I exploded.

And apparently it was all my fault for not being up earlier in plenty of time to have my breakfast earlier. And so that was that and the atmosphere became extremely unpleasant.

After he’d cleared off I could finally rescue the ruins of my breakfast. However I was in no mood to read my book. In any case the steam was obscuring my vision and my breath would have melted the computer screen.

Our Welsh Summer School cracked on today and I’m impressed about how much I know or have remembered. I wish that it was like this all the time. We had some interesting chats too which was nice

After the lesson was over I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Unfortunately neither Zero nor Castor nor TOTGA came to visit me, which was a disappointment after the other night. I was back at Shavington, Vine Tree Avenue, and we had a couple of guys, friends of my father’s, around. I’d been asked to try to collect worms for some project or other that was going on so I was collecting what I could find and dropping them down a tube, but I wasn’t doing very well. One of my father’s friends was talking to me about it. In the meantime someone else turned up at the house and asked my father if he had any leaf mould to spare. On the back lawn were several enormous piles of rotting leaves so this guy and I were joking about my father sucking his teeth and saying to this guy that he hadn’t any, and how difficult it was to get hold of. As it happened my father turned him away anyway and went back to weeding his garden but it was a very lethargic, disinterested weeding so we were wondering what was going through his head at the time

And my father weeding? If we had a nice garden (which we didn’t) when we were kids it would have been due to my mother. She was the only one who ever voluntarily did any weeding. We as kids formed a reluctant press-gang but you wouldn’t have found my father anywhere at all near a herbaceous border. But after Zero the other night, it’s my family again and isn’t that awful?

A little later I’d gone to a football ground. There, I’d been involved in helping tidy up and was collecting things for the shower room. I thought that I’d collected quite a few but people kept on pointing out things that I’d missed that I’d have to pick up and keep until I could get into the showers. They were discussing the games taking place this weekend, thinking that maybe Celtic would win because all the players will want to go out there and impress their new manager. Someone came round with a plate of sandwiches. One or two of the players helped themselves. I thought that that was really not a good idea because they’d be starting a game in a few minutes and the last thing that they’ll want to do is to have to run around with a full stomach like that. They’ll end up with stitch or cramp or something

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that back a long time ago I used to travel with and occasionally run (or walk, in my case) the line for Pionsat’s 3rd XI and despite (or maybe because of) my coaching they were always near the bottom of the lowest division in Puy-de-Dome football. One day they arrived at the wrong time at an away ground and had a two-hour wait so they all went out for kebabs. And knowing all about running around on a full stomach and what it can produce, I feared the worst. And so they went out and won decisively 5-2 and I shut up after that.

While we’re talking about football, we had football later. TNS playing Aberystwyth in one of the catch-up games after several of their matches have been postponed due to TNS’ European involvement.

TNS fielded a weakened team that included Doris the tea lady, Stan the car-park attendant and Tiddles the stadium cat so Aberystwyth packed their defence and refused to advance over the half-way line. If they were ever going to do any good against TNS today would be the day.

It was ugly to watch but it was effective up to a point. It took TNS a good while to break them down and the score of 2-0 to TNS can be seen as a triumph for Aberystwyth.

That’s because it’s going to be packed down at the bottom as Llansawel, Y Fflint and Aberystwyth are miles off the pace. LLansawel are down already after only 5 matches but the other two will slug it out and take the odd point here and there when they can. Goal difference might be crucial so a goal difference of minus 2 for Aberystwyth is as good as 3 points when compared with Y Fflint’s goal difference against TNS of -3 (a 4-1 defeat the other week).

Tea was a delicious leftover curry with naan, and so right now I’m off to bed ready to fight the good fight with the nurse tomorrow as I don’t think that we’ve heard the last of this.

Can you not just picture the scene? You can imagine him roaring "we itinerant nurses are the cream of the crop"
"Yes" I’ll reply. "And it looks as if I have the clot"

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Tuesday 3rd September 2024 – I HAD A LOVELY …

… surprise last night. Zero came to visit me.

How long is it since one of my three favourite young ladies came to visit me during the night? I was really worried in case they have dropped out of the picture, as The Vanilla Queen seems to have done, but here we are.

It’s quite surprising really, because as you might expect these days, it was quite late when I finally went to bed last night. But once again, I didn’t need all that much rocking before I was away in the Land of Nod

As for how the night went, I’ll talk about that in a minute but it was a very weary, bleary me who made his way into the bathroom for a good wash and brush up ready to hit the streets

Yes, it’s a good idea to have a really good scrub because I’m being inspected by someone at the Centre de Re-education (or so I thought) later this morning.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been and, more importantly, who had come with me. And wasn’t it exciting? Last night I dreamed that I was dreaming that I’d met Zero. She’d figured in one of the dreams that I’d had while I was dreaming. Ironically, much later on when I “awoke” from that dream but was still asleep, deep in the major dream on the first level, Zero was actually there in the other room while I was asleep. She was talking to one or two other people and I wondered whether I’d actually manage to speak to her. I really hoped that I did of course. Eventually she came in so I told her that I had dreamed about her. She asked me to tell her all about it so I began to talk but I hedged some of the bits. She seemed to know that I was hedging so she asked me outright to tell her everything. I began to tell her about the dream and what had happened in the dream. But then I had a panic attack because I found that I couldn’t remember it. It was that that awoke me. I felt really upset and distressed by this – having Zero on my plate for the first time for ages and once again not being able to get my fork stuck in it.

“Disturbed” isn’t the word. I’ve been lying here awake for hours and I just can’t simply go back to sleep. I’ve no idea what I’m going to be like in the morning.

It was actually two hours and forty-three minutes later that I dictated that line there. I don’t think that I’ve ever been so disturbed about a dream as I was with that one. However it’s interesting that I was dreaming that I was dreaming. There are some people who can layer up a couple of dozen layers but I think that the most I’ve ever managed is three layers. It was interesting that it was about Zero too instead of some banal subject, and it was also very pleasant that she was still there when that “dream within a dream” finished.

However I wonder what bits about my dream with Zero that I was hedging on telling her. Can you imagine it? But that’s just another example of my wretched luck. Nothing seems ever to run as I would like it and the thought of what I’d missed totally disrupted my morning.

So for two hours and forty-three minutes at least, I was tossing and turning according to the timestamps of the sound files. Meanwhile, twenty-seven minutes later I went out for a wander around and came to a town centre where there was a huge queue of pedestrians going all the way down the High Street. I wanted to turn into the High Street but it was impossible. But some of the pedestrians hung about and presented a gap so I pulled out of the side street into it. Then all the pedestrians in front of me who had scrunched up then spread out to give themselves some space. Those in front recoiled backwards and collided with my car so I shouted at them to be careful. However I had my words all mixed up so they had a few things to say. It seems that I’d fallen into the middle of a big group anyway so everyone was all around shouting to each other. It was a queue for a shop, a sewing and seeds shop so I thought that I’d have a look in for my friends. They were selling some seeds for some kind of jasmine plant for £0.89 so I bought a bag. I thought that it would be OK for one of my friends but I couldn’t remember which one. When I went to pay I suddenly realised that I’d picked up a card. I had it in my inside pocket. I made a light-hearted joke about being so forgetful. The woman replied “don’t worry. We’d have frisked you down anyway before you left. So, rather impressed, I paid for the card and seeds and then cleared off

So which friend was it who was going to receive a packet of lavender seeds and a card? I don’t have that many friends I suppose so it’s not a wild, mad choice amongst a large selection of people.

The nurse and I had another row today. Tomorrow I have to leave early and he doesn’t like the idea. Well, that’s rather a shame, isn’t it? He’ll be here at 08:05 by the latest or else I’ll go without him and he can either come back later or send another nurse. But I’m not disrupting the work of the taxi company or the clinic in Avranches just because he can’t be bothered to arrive here early for once.

Isabelle, his replacement, is quite reasonable about it. She can’t/won’t come here early but if I ‘phone her when I return she’ll pop round at a convenient moment with no complaint at all.

Once he’d cleared off I could have breakfast, and read my book.

The author, Edward Thomas, refers us today to a friend of his, another poet called Ralph Hodgson

Hodgson’s claim to fame is that he wrote a poem called “To Deck A Woman” and with a title like that, I just had to hunt it down to read it

So after much searching and tracking down, here you are – “How To Deck A Woman” by Ralph Hodgson
"I know a place of summer doves,
Rapt lizards in its alleys lie,
And mostly there a linnet loves
To mend a wanting melody*

No men talk there ; no pit or gin
Trips Beauty on that sunny hill ;
Its voice is ever gracious din
Of bee and song-bird never still,

And anthem yet from other quires :
The muffled diapason gushed
From lips occult and privy lyres
And pipes of Eden never hushed —

The pipes and lyres and lips that are
In sods and bubbles, stones and trees
And flying seeds from woodlands far
And wandering airs and essences*

Within, about, above, below,
Sprites elemental, Night and Day,
And winds and climbers, frost and snow
And wild things only, know their way"

It’s certainly not what I was expecting, with a title like that, but it’s an example of how much has language evolved over the last hundred-odd years.

The taxi turned up bang on time to whisk me down the hill. It’s a girl whom I know who was the driver so we had a good chat and then she helped me sort myself out at the Centre de Re-education. I saw my favourite doctor but it wasn’t she who was looking after me today which was a shame.

The one who saw me today was also quite cute. I’d seen her before, the last time that I was here, so she wanted to know

  1. why I hadn’t organised the physiotherapy sessions that she had prescribed
  2. why I hadn’t gone for the echograph on my knee

Sometimes it’s very difficult to explain to people that even with the best will in the World, you are often overtaken by events over which you have no control

She’s re-prescribed the physiotherapy and she’ll fit me in for a day at the Centre for a complete reassessment. Unfortunately there’s a terrific backlog and she won’t be able to fit me in for quite a while.

So I enquired when that might be

"Quite a while, I’m afraid" she replied. "October, maybe even November"

It’s a good job that she doesn’t work in the UK where a “normal waiting period” would be about eighteen months, never mind “quite a while”.

Back here there was no-one to help me up the stairs but I managed on my own with some (considerable) effort. That was something to celebrate. But at least the taxi driver didn’t moan, like the last one did.

Having made a pot of coffee I came in here for my Welsh class and if you think that two units of the book was going some, we did three today and I am totally whacked.

So much so that while I didn’t actually crash out (well, maybe for 10 minutes or so) I was in no fit state to do anything.

Tea was a taco roll with rice and veg, delicious as usual, followed by yet more strawberries. I really have some wonderful neighbours.

So right now I’m off to bed. Avranches in the morning to see the nurse and find out what’s going to happen about dialysis. I shudder to think.

But I hope that Zero comes to see me again tonight. I can just picture the scene if ever I’m lucky enough tonight to be all alone with her –
"I dreamed about you last night, Zero" I shall say
"Did you?" She’ll ask
"No" I’ll reply. "You wouldn’t let me."

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Monday 2nd September 2024 – AND IF YOU THINK …

… that our last Summer School went along at a cracking pace, you ain’t seen nuffink yet!

One unit in a day is some going when a course of twenty is supposed to take a year, but today we have worked our way through two units, with at least two more to come tomorrow.

And there’s homework too. I’ve had a big pile shoved through onto my desktop which I have to complete before the course starts again tomorrow.

But right now I’m whacked. I crashed out earlier on and as a result, once more I’m running horribly late.

And that’s really a disappointment because last night I was actually, for once in my life, in bed before 23:00. Not by very much, it has to be said, but even a minute is worth recording because it makes me feel better when I’m late like this.

So I sorted myself out last night, rescued the strawberries that my neighbour gave me, did what I had to do and then crawled into bed. And once more I fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow

And I slept through until about … errr … 04:25 when something, presumably outside, awoke me. No idea what it was, and I don’t care either. I didn’t stay awake long, but couldn’t go back deeply to sleep. I kept on tossing and turning until the alarm went off.

And at 07:00 I do have to say that I haven’t felt less like raising myself from the dead for a long time. It was quite a struggle to beat the second alarm and I reckoned that this would really be a good start to the day, I don’t think.

I the bathroom I had a good wash and shave and washed my undies too. Have to keep on top of the chores. And then back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was teaching English at a Primary School and in the class that I was teaching, i was teaching them the meaning of the word “Overwhelm”. What we did was to do this visually by having a pig, or a piglet I should say, and the children having to carry it and be overwhelmed while they were doing it and so forth … fell asleep here …. So where were we? Ohh yes, we had this pig and were passing it from one child to another and discussing whether they were overwhelmed or underwhelmed by it. I decided that that was how I was going to teach English in the future – by visual means rather than by sitting there with the kids bored to tears at a desk.

Or frightened to death by a pig. Most kids these days won’t ever have seen a pig in real life and would certainly be overwhelmed if someone were to pass a pig to them. I imagine that it would develop into a game that would be even faster than a game of “Pass The Parcel” in a pub in Belfast.

And then I was on board a spaceship and we had two main electric cables that had been accidentally cut somehow so we were trying to solder them together somehow using a cigarette lighter. While we were doing that, we were watching some kind of strange guy try to leave by one of the doors. We thought “we hadn’t seen him in here before. I wonder what he’s been doing and where he’s been hiding”.

That’s certainly a novel technique but here in France what in the UK would be called “Garden Shed Engineering” is called Système D – the “D” standing for something vulgar. It’s when you do the work that needs to be done with the equipment that you have to hand, so if you need to solder some cables together and all you have is a cigarette lighter, all you can do is to do your best.

The nurse and I had an argument this morning. There he was, in full-chat mode asking me stupid questions and when he asked me the same stupid question that he’d asked me five minutes earlier, I snapped and he cleared off with a flea in his ear. Talk about getting on my wick!

After he left I made breakfast and while I was eating I was reading my book again. The guy is a beautiful writer, as I’m sure that you’d expect when you see prose written by a poet, but much of what he writes, in what is essentially a travel book (albeit a very early one), is quite superfluous and detracts from the information that he gives. He needs to make up his mind what type of book he’s writing.

However it is a bit too late for that now, seeing as he passed on “to another place” in 1917.

Back in here afterwards we started up our Summer School, the first day. We are twelve students and I’ve been on previous Summer Schools with a couple of them before. These classes are, as you would expect, very parochial.

And it’s amazing what you learn. The word for “pumpkin” is pwmpen and for “courgette” it’s corbwmpen. Apparently the prefix cor… when in front of a word means “small”

So it took us much longer than it ought to have done to work out that Corgi, the breed of Welsh dog much loved by the recently-deceased monarch, simply means “small dog”.

During the lunch break I was preparing an on-line order from a well-known on-line retailer and at the end of the lesson went to pay for it, but for reasons that only my bank in Belgium will know, payment was declined

That is of course total nonsense but it was too late to ring up and complain. Consequently that’s a job for first thing in the morning.

There were a few other things to do, like make another flapjack, but I didn’t feel at all like it. Instead I came back in here after a very late hot chocolate and rather regrettably crashed out.

When I finally awoke it was rather late and so since then everything else has been running late. Tea was a stuffed pepper and I think that I’ve missed something out of the stuffing, and the pepper wasn’t cooked enough. It just wasn’t my night I reckon.

So tomorrow I’ll be late for class because I have an appointment down at the Centre de Re-education in the morning. I wonder what they want. I really have no idea.

But it’s good news that they are still interested in me. However just imagine if they offer me a series of courses like last time. Three days per week having dialysis, two days a week down there – I’ll be whacked. And so will the poor drivers who will have to help me upstairs if my loyal cleaner isn’t about

She’s dropped in twice today already for different things. It won’t be long, at this rate, before she moves in here for good.

But the recently-departed Lizzie and her Welsh Corgis – it’s a good job that she doesn’t live in the castle at Y Fflint. Apparently the Y Fflint players offered once to take her dogs for a walk but she told them to clear off
"Why’s that?" asked manager Lee Fowler. "I thought that it was a very noble gesture"
"2-0 up against Y Barri halfway through the second half and you end up losing 3-2?" she roared. "Before your lads take my Corgis for a walk they’ll have to learn to hold on to a lead."

0

Sunday 1st September 2024 – SUNDAY NIGHT IS …

… pizza night. And tonight’s pizza was an absolute classic.

This vegan cheese that my cleaner found for me really is the business and I hope that LeClerc keeps on stocking it. I shall have to give her instructions to find some more of it just in case …

That’s the highlight of the day, it has to be said It wasn’t really a good day today unfortunately.

Last night was pretty good though. With nothing to dictate (I’m keeping off the two projects that I’ve done because I want to review them first) I was in bed before midnight.

Of course, 23:00 is my planned curfew time but as there’s no alarm until 08:00 on a Sunday morning I can stretch a point.

Once in bed even I was surprised at the speed at which I fell asleep and there I stayed until … errr … 07:15 when I awoke.

Awake I may have been but leaving my stinking pit? Not on your Nellie! Even though I couldn’t go back to sleep I didn’t give in and leave the bed. There I stayed until the alarm went off.

Staggering off to the bathroom, I had a good wash and clean-up and then back in here to wait for the nurse to come. There was time to transcribe the dictaphone notes while I was waiting. There was someone who was having some kind of control because people were being examined for what they were carrying. One guy was carrying a kilo of something or other and when they asked what it was, he gave the name in French for it, which of course the people didn’t understand. It sounded pretty banal and ordinary enough but with the name being in French and they not understanding it they were rather concerned. They decided that they would give him a thorough search. In the meantime there were all kinds of explanations and arguments about this particular name and how everyone really ought to know what it was etc

This is the thing though, isn’t it? You ask any schoolgirl of my generation what a bèchamel sauce or a bain-marie are, and they’d know without hesitation. But nowadays the emphasis on schools is to pass the exam and lift your school up the league table, and these subsidiary lessons have gone by the board. Educating kids isn’t just passing exams, except in the UK where it’s the exam that counts and nothing else matters.

The nurse came round to sort me out this morning and also to interrogate me over my pizza. He’s probably looking for cookery tips, I suppose, but I don’t have too many to give him. I just do things and adapt recipes to suit my tastes and diet.

Breakfast was next, a nice, slow leisurely stride into morning with porridge, toast, coffee and juice. And a tonne of medication of course. I took y time, reading more of my book on THE ICKNIELD WAY.

Interestingly, the author tells us of an abandoned railway that he crossed on his walk. Not surprising but this is 1906. It appears that there was a railway into Newmarket that only operated for a handful of years and upon the bankruptcy of the operators it closed down – in 1851. One of the very first railway closures.

Just to make sure, I looked at an aerial photo of the area and there are still a few vestiges of the line remaining today.

Back in here there was football. Stranraer were away at Bonnyrigg so there was no stream this morning. Instead I watched East Fife stick five past Clyde with Nathan Austin, who’s far too good for this division, stick anther two to go with the three that he scored last week

One of my groundhoppers was out and about too so we ended up with a Scottish Cup match between Bo’ness Athletic and Kilwinning Rangers. Bo’ness won with a comfortable 2-0 scoreline.

But there’s something going on with these groundhoppers. There are three patrolling the grounds in Scotland and three or four patrolling them on the Irish mainland.

It’s a major initiative, I know, from the Scottish FA to publicise the game and flood social media and the internet in general with the games, but I’m wondering about these groundhoppers. Their output is all pretty much of a same style with similar editing and the like, so I’m wondering if there’s a School of Journalism somewhere that’s pushing these guys out to practise their art.

Lunch was a taco roll with salad filling, seeing as I’ve run out of bread. And I had to rush because I had Hamilton Academicals v Airdrie United. The Accies 2-0 up with just minutes to go to the final whistle but then two moments of inattention and that, dear reader, was that.

At this point I fell asleep for a while but woke up in time to head to the kitchen.

First task was to make some dough for bread. While it was rising, I took the pizza dough that I’d taken from the freezer after lunch and now that it was defrosted, gave it a good working over and rolled it out onto its tray.

And with half an oven to fill I made another crumble like the one the other day. And it looked delicious.

The bread dough had now risen so I gave that its second kneading and put it in its mould.

While I was waiting I cleared up and washed up everything, and when the bread dough was ready I put it and the crumble in the oven

While they were baking I assembled my pizza and had a chat on-line with a neighbour who had contacted me and very kindly brought me some more strawberries

When the bread and the crumble were cooked the pizza went in. And when it came out, it was absolute perfection.

So right now I’m off to bed ready to Fight the Good Fight tomorrow.

But talking of abandoned railway lines and stations and the like, there’s a railway station in the North of England called “Dent” – which is all very well, but it’s almost five miles from the town whose name it carries, and over some steep hills too.
One day an American tourist staggered into a pub in the town and exclaimed "why did they build the goddam railway station so far from the goddam town?"
"Well" said the landlord "I suppose that they thought it a good idea to build it close to the railway line."

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Saturday 31st August 2024 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

… typical Saturday when I seem to have rather regrettably spent most of the day asleep.

It beats me why it seems to be that Saturday I grind down to a complete halt without actually making any progress whatsoever with the mountain of work that I need to do.

Mind you, admittedly I was rather late last night going to bed. Never mind midnight – it was long after that when I finally hit the sack and crawled into bed.

Once more, I was asleep quite rapidly and there I stayed until the alarm sounded at 07:00. There might have been the odd bit of tossing and turning during the night but nothing to worry about.

So at 07:00 I staggered off into the bathroom and did what I had to do, including washing my shorts. That’s a regular Saturday task and even though they had been through the machine earlier in the week they still went in through the washbasin.

Next task was to deal with the washing-up from last night which I hadn’t touched. What with the football running so late last night I’d just finished off here and gone straight to bed and left it. I know that it’s my pet peeve but if there’s a choice between washing-up and bed, it’s no contest.

Third task was to put away the frozen carrots. They’d been all prepared and had been draining on the worktop overnight. If they go into the freezer too wet they all cling together in one big clump.

The freezer is jam-packed full and it was something of a struggle to have everything fitted in – even more of a struggle than it normally is. I really need to empty some of the stuff but I’m not sure how to do it as I’m sure that the stuff in there is breeding and multiplying behind my back

Finally I could make it back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a game at Hwlffordd. The team was playing against someone else. It was under enquiry by the Secret Service who believed that the players of one team were communicating with the enemy, presumably by the fashion in which they were playing. They had observers there watching the game very closely. Because the secret escaped that there was at least one observer there that changed a few people’s thoughts about the situation but we pressed on al the same. Although we didn’t find anything when we had criticisms to answer about it we could point to the fact that we waited until all of our enquiries were completed before making a report and if we hadn’t sent the observers to watch the game the report would have been frivolous, unclear and possibly incorrect.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, we were at Hwlffordd for a match last night. But whether the Secret Service was represented there was another thing. There were probably a couple of managers of local teams though, surreptitiously sizing up the opposition for the future.

By the way, I mentioned that I’d try to find a video of Hwlffordd’s sublime third goal last night. To my surprise it’s not been edited by the broadcasting company from the video of the game so I’ve done it myself and you can WATCH IT IN ALL ITS GLORY.

Believe me, it’s well-worth it. You won’t see a finer goal like this anywhere else.

Later on I was at work and the Occupational Guidance came to see me. He was only a young guy. We had a chat about my health. He then asked me if I’d take a little walk, a few steps so that he could see how I managed. I told him that I was totally unable to walk under any circumstances without my crutches so he replied “well, I’ve just seen you walk around the office on your crutches so why don’t you walk a few paces for me so that I can observe you properly?”. I stood up, picked up my crutches and set off on a little walk around the office.

Strangely enough, when I was awake I couldn’t think of the name of the job of the person who comes to check how you are coping with everyday life after an illness or injury. Yet there I am in a dream and I can come out with words like “Occupational Guidance”. I ought to go to sleep more often. But it’s all very well these people coming round to check on me, but they ought to be proposing things to help me out. I’ve had the thing to help me ride the porcelain horse but that’s all.

The nurse came round as usual and went through the process of changing the plasters on my legs and sorting out the puttees. He was quite gossipy but didn’t really say very much and was soon off on his way. I would have thought that after all this time there would have been an improvement by now but that’s not happening and it fills me full of dismay.

After he left I made breakfast and had a very leisurely start to the weekend reading some more of my book on THE ICKNIELD WAY.

What’s interesting with these old books is to see what they have to say and surmise from the evidence that was available 100 or so years ago, and while you’re reading, read a more modern version, say, from Wikipedia, that tells us about these places but with the benefit of another 100 years of research and evolution of archaeological skills.

For example, an earthwork that was described in an ancient book as “probably a Danish camp and certainly not much older” was noted in Wikipedia (which is not always correct I hasten to add) as “archaeological investigations in 1992 revealed it to be an Ancient British camp dating from Before the Romans”

In the book I’m reading there’s talk of a “derelict but magnificent packhorse bridge” whereas the village entry in Wikipedia tells us of “an old bridge which was demolished some time in the 1970s”.

After breakfast I came in here and vegetated for a while. I seem to be taking ages to liven up and start work. Once I was up and running I prepared the video extract that I mentioned earlier so that seems to be working well enough

Then I went to wash the puttees that had been soaking in a bowl for several days. They should be nice and clean now and drying quite nicely in the bathroom.

This afternoon I went to make a start on the next radio programme but regrettably I crashed out and that, I’m afraid, was that for quite a while.

Once I awoke there was more football on the Internet.

Apart from leaving the washing-up overnight, another one of my pet peeves is this modern, totally suicidal habit of playing the ball out from the goal-kicks.

In my day we had big towering centre-forwards matched by big towering defenders. Wingers pumping high crosses into the penalty area led to some famous aerial duels with forwards like Jeff Astle, Joe Jordan and Brendan O’Callaghan battling it out with centre-halves like Ron Yeats, John Wile and Gordon McQueen.

Goalkeepers added to the mix with potent long kicks pumped upfield and it all added to the chaos, panic and confusion in the opposition’s penalty area.

But these days, it’s all of this possession football where the object is to hang on to the ball as long as possible. It’s all very well if you have the skill but if you don’t, it’s a disaster.

Y FFlint, second-bottom of the table, were rather fortuitously 2-0 up against another team down there in the basement, Y Barri, and then they concede two soft goals. So with the game drawing to a conclusion they win a goal kick so they decide to hang on to the ball so that the match would end in a draw.

Anyone care to guess what happened? You can find out HERE. What a shambles. If I were Y Fflint’s manager Lee Fowler I’d be furious.

seriously though, it’s going to be a long hard struggle for Y Fflint. Their only hope is that maybe either Aberystwyth or Y Barri are worse than they are. They can’t go throwing away points like this, especially against the other teams stuck in the basement with them.

Tea tonight was another one of my delicious breaded quorn fillets with a vegan salad and baked potato. A different brand of quorn fillet and not as good unfortunately but we have to try these new vegan products that LeClerc offer if we want to encourage them to keep expanding their range.

So that’s everything for tonight. I’ll go to bed and start again tomorrow I reckon

But that story about the Occupational Therapist reminds me of the story about the guy who hobbled into the Chemist’s and asked to be shown some talcum powder
"Walk this way" said the chemist.
"If I could walk that way" said the man "I wouldn’t be needing the talcum powder."

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Friday 30th August 2024 – I’VE GIVEN UP …

… all thoughts f being in bed at a reasonable time. In fact it’s another late night tonight and by the time that I’ll have finished these notes it will be long after midnight by the time I hit the hay

In fact it’s been a pretty rotten day all round today but as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have days like this every now and again and I just have to pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again.

As you might expect, seeing as I’m complaining about late nights, it was a late night again last night. Everyone was out celebrating after TNS’s triumph in qualifying for a Group Stage and while I wasn’t out and I wasn’t celebrating I was certainly revelling in the enthusiasm.

To be honest, in the six games to come, all against quality opposition TNS are going to be “turned over something shocking” by some teams and we might be back to the 1990s and on the wrong end of some embarrassing score-lines, but at least, as May Boyce would have said, TNS can say "I was there".

And so I was there too in solidarity until far too late when I finally crept off to bed.

And once more, it was totally painless. Asleep in seconds and there I remained, with just the odd fit of awakening here and there which I can’t really remember.

When the alarm went off I hauled myself up out of bed and staggered off to the bathroom to sort myself out and then, by way of change, into the kitchen to do the washing up.

Something that I really hate is waking up to a bowl of dirty dishes. That really is my pet peeve but it couldn’t be helped after last night.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I had another phantom awakening last night by a woman who was waving some kind of death star about. She was saying “those with an arm corps follow the star”. When I asked her what was happening she said that the passengers’ alarms had been forbidden in the airport so she was doing her best to wake everyone up who was due to travel. I asked “what if you had to travel some distance like to Luxembourg?”. Her reply was that they’d still be awoken so I dunno but it was like a proper Welsh border – scream, I suppose, for no intent or purpose whatsoever.

And that’s another pile of confused, garbled, meaningless nonsense as far as I can tell

I had my old blue Cortina estate. There was some really, really thick fog, so much so that it was practically impossible to see so I parked it up in Crewe Town Centre and began to walk home. I realised that I’d left one or two things in the car so I had to run back up the hill towards it. When I arrived back at it I had the idea that maybe I’d take out one or two of the spark plugs to make it very difficult for anyone to try to want to steal it. I took out a couple of the plugs but the screws that held the plugs in, I lost them and had to hunt around. Eventually I found them so that was that. I put the tools back in the tool box but I’d screwed the toolbox to the door outside and padlocked it but it wouldn’t stay closed – it kept on falling over so in the end I thought that I might as well take it home with me and bring it back next morning. For some reason or other I threw it into the back of the blue Cortina estate and then got in the car and went to turn the key to start it but suddenly realised that I’d taken out half of the spark plugs so I couldn’t go home in this vehicle anyway until I’d put them back.

During this dream I had a vague impression in the back of my mind of a Zephyr 6 mark III coming towards me out of the gloom and I don’t know why. Good cars they were, but they rotted away like hell. But there’s only one thing worse than being stuck in the fog, and that’s being stuck in the fog in Crewe. I did once know a woman who was stuck in the fog in Liverpool and wanted to drive home to Manchester, found a lorry from a yard near where she lived driving through the city so she followed it. After a couple of hours the lorry stopped and the driver alighted. “Are we in Manchester now then?” he asked. “Manchester?” asked the driver incredulously. “I’m bringing a load to Preston”.

The nurse came along a little later and sorted out my legs and then gave me today’s injection. He was in quite a chatty mood but didn’t have anything important to say. He was soon gone and I could press on and make breakfast and read some more of my book on THE ICKNIELD WAY

After breakfast I had a look at my order for LeClerc. It’s been three weeks since I’ve done any shopping so supplies are running low. It’s necessary to stock up.

And to my surprise, not only do they have olive oil, it’s on special offer too and so I stocked up. At a certain moment the cheap olive oil was not available on home delivery and I ended up having to buy the expensive stuff. And so with what I ordered today I have a year’s supply.

Soya milk too. At a push I can but that from in town but they have vanilla in theirs and it tastes disgusting. The “Natural” soya milk from LeClerc is much nicer so I have a stock of that now too.

So drastically over-ordering, I sent off my order and arranged for it to be delivered this afternoon.

There was plenty to do this afternoon but instead I was side-tracked. The cleaner came to do her thing and we had quite a chat

And then the hospital in Paris telephoned to see how I was and if I needed anything. There’s talk that they’ll be calling me in for a stay there at some time soon, but I’ve heard all that before

Regrettably, after that, I fell asleep, to be awoken by some frantic ringing at the doorbell. My supplies had arrived.

So having put everything away, I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning, peeling, dicing and blanching 2 kilos of carrots ready for the freezer

Tea was a rushed salad and chips with vegan nuggets because we had yet more football – Hwlffordd v y Drenewydd.

With the collapse of Connah’s Quay Nomads, second place this year is up for grabs and while Y Bala must fancy their chances, Y Drenewydd would be optimistic too and Hwlffordd would be a good outside bet as dark horses.

But this game was all one-way traffic and the score of 3-0 to Hwlffordd was in no way flattering. The central midfield pairing of Greg Walters and Corey Shepherd controlled this game from start to finish and the back three of Lee Jenkins, Kyle McCarthy and Maltese international Luke Tabone looked as solid as a rock. New Zealand international keeper Zak Jones had nothing whatever to do.

But if you want to see a visual definition of the word “sublime”, I’ll try over the next few days to find a video of Hwlffordd’s third goal. It was the most beautiful goal I have ever seen.

So that’s it. The washing-up can wait again. I’m going to bed.

But on the subject of washing up there was the old advert which I’m sure many of my readers will remember, of the kid asking "mummy mummy, why are your hands so nice and soft?"
In the old days it was "because I use Fairy Liquid" but today it would be "because we have an automatic dishwasher, you berk."
However, I always knew it as "because daddy does all the washing up, dear."

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Thursday 29th August 2024 – THEY’LL BE DANCING …

… in the streets of TNS tonight!

For the first time ever, after over 30 years of trying, a Welsh football club has finally qualified for a Group stage of a European competition.

Admittedly, it’s only the Europa Conference, the least of the three competitions, but it’s a Group stage nevertheless. So hats off to manager Craig Harrison and his team. And to Chairman Mike Harris who has supported the team, the League, and Welsh club football in general since the mid-nineties

It’s quite fair to say that his support has somewhat distorted the power dynamics of the League, not always in any way that is favourable to to the other clubs and this minimum of €3,000,000 prize money will distort it even more. But it’s still a magnificent achievement

What would also be a magnificent achievement would be if I were able to go to bed before 23:00 but again last night I fell way short – or, rather, overshot rather badly. I don’t know what I’m doing or where the time is going these days but everything seems to be taking so long.

There was no reason at all to be late last night but nevertheless it was approaching midnight when I finally hit the hay.

The good news was that I didn’t need much rocking. I was asleep quite quickly and despite waking up a couple of times for no good reason, there I stayed until the alarm went off at 07:00.

Then it was a rather undignified stagger into the bathroom to sort myself out and have a good wash. And then a lap or two around the apartment collecting up the dirty clothes and the like, and setting the washing machine off on the go. I’m running low on clothes again.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night and more importantly, to see who went with me. Nerina came the other night, which made a pleasant change from members of my family, but I’m still living in hope that Castor, Zero and TOTGA will come back at some point.

No such luck last night though. I had another one of these phantom awakenings. I awoke being sure that I’d heard the alarm for a big Welsh football team whose name I’ve forgotten up to the place opposite Arbroath where I’d come to buy some things. The two of us came back down to the ground ready to meet the players and to explain our tactic and hope that they’d enjoy it but I would of course be like a fish out of water if I confronted the players because I had the ability to find out what they would do about him and this game of games and nothing at all about the Game of Thrones

And if anyone can make any sense of that little lot, please let me know.

I was at work and I actually had a date with my Greek friend. Of course people in the Diffusion service heard about it and contacted me to chivvy me and tease me about it but I didn’t pay it any attention. It wasn’t until they started talking about what she was going to eat for breakfast that I began to think much more carefully about what was going on. Suddenly I had a mail but couldn’t find out who it was from but it was about the following day and it was headed “breakfast”. Looking down the list was like a breakfast that you could order from the place where we were staying, whether it was a Continental breakfast or Healthy breakfast or Cooked breakfast etc. She’d chosen the Energetic breakfast, or someone had chosen it, and sent it to me. This is where I began to think “is it she who is coming to see me? Am I to expect a new keen energetic Greek friend or the old lethargic one? I’m not too sure. Or is she finally going to forget that she’s a human being and participate in some of the joys of being human? I don’t know. It all sounded too good to be true to me and if they do sound too good to be true then they usually are. We shall see

That was rather a strange dream too. But as for my Greek lady-friend, she was strange too. Whenever I was “with” someone else she was attaching herself to me in a rather bewildering fashion to such an extent that even Roxanne noticed, but when I was on my own she kept a very considerable distance away from me. It was a shame really because she was a lovely girl, so much so that if I had ever had to choose between her and the Irish girl who also kept a very discreet distance from me, I would have had quite a struggle. However, both of them had far more sense than to ever become seriously entangled with me and I can’t say that I blame them. I know that if I ever were given the choice, I’d untangle myself quite rapidly, and hats off to Nerina who lasted almost nine years

That’s the first road sign that we’ve seen for Middle Earth, The Falls of Gondolin, and that’s where we turn off on our adventure and side-track ourselves in that direction to find out what Tolkien wrote when he wrote about the fall of the city, see who was involved and what the story and what the story was all about

Yes, THE FALL OF GONDOLIN is not a place but a book, one of the adventures of Middle-Earth written by Tolkien. But you could immediately imagine it being on a road sign referring to a cascade of water somewhere in the vicinity

The nurse came round and sorted me out, but he didn’t stay long. He couldn’t make his wi-fi card reader connect to the internet to read my health card so he took it with him to return later.

By now the washing was finished so I emptied the machine and hung everything up, then went for breakfast and to carry on READING MY BOOK ON THE ICKNIELD WAY for a while. These ancient books are really quite interesting and absorbing.

While I was at it, I did some research into the author. He was called Edward Thomas and is much better-known as a poet. But despite him being married and of somewhat senior years, he enlisted in the Artists Rifles in World War I and was killed at Arras in 1917

It was another slow start to the day but once I’d managed to wind myself up I attacked the second one of my outstanding projects for the radio.

That’s now finished too, although as usual, I’ll go through the text that I’ve written and there will probably be several rewrites and amendments before it’s ready for recording

Just a couple more holes to fill in in my sequence before I can carry on roaring off into the sunset.

But I still am struggling somewhat with this huge pile of concerts, trying to work out dates and running orders. And as seems to be the case, we have nothing at all for weeks and then half a dozen concerts on the same day. So which one do you choose?

That is definitely what you might call a “First-World Problem”.

There was the break for hot chocolate and home-made ginger cake (and thanks, John, for the helpful suggestion) and also, regrettably, to crash out for a while.

My cleaner brought up the post this afternoon, but no Health Card. Either the nurse forgot or else he still couldn’t make his card reader connect.

But then we had the football – TNS v the Lithuanian champions, FC Panevezys

TNS had, to everyone’s surprise, including their own, won 3-0 away from home in the first leg. But with no fit striker they simply packed the midfield and played possession football for the whole 90 minutes.

It ended up as a 0-0 draw, which also surprised no-one, but that as all that they needed to go through the final stage of the qualifying tournament to reach the Group stages, the first Welsh club to do so since Welsh clubs began to compete in European competition following the creation of the League of Wales in 1992

Strangely enough, TNS DID have a striker on the bench.

A couple of weeks ago, in an effort to avoid a fixture pile-up, they sent out what was effectively a reserve team to play Y Fflint. In the close season they had signed a winger from Caernarfon, Sion Bradley, and in the game at Y FFlint they played Bradley as a makeshift centre-forward.

And badger me if he didn’t score a hat-trick

Had it been me in charge of TNS I’d have put him on the field tonight up front to see if lightning would strike twice

However, my opinion is that why TNS signed Sion Bradley was not that they wanted him or needed him, but it was to stop him going to Connah’s Quay to replace Jordan Davies.

No tea tonight regrettably. The football came in the way of all that. So I’ll go to bed hungry and have a good breakfast in the morning.

At least I’ll be in some kind of shape. There will be some heavy heads at Park Hall in the morning

But that reminds me. Amongst the crowd celebrating at Park Hall Stadium tonight was a Polar Bear
He went up to the bar and said "a double gin and …. lemonade"
"What’s with the pause?" asked the barman
"I was born with them" replied Nanook

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