Tag Archives: hospital

Friday 11th March 2016 – JUST IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING …

… what happened last night with me not posting my blog, the answer was that by the time 20:15 came around, I was already tucked up in bed and out like a light. Crashing out was certainly the word – I had gone completely.

But then again, I’d had a hectic day – and one that had started not long after I had gone to sleep. And furthermore, it all started with yet another appearance by a girl who has been described on these pages as “the one that got away”. But for the second time in succession, she didn’t get away from my evil clutches last night.

Ohh no she didn’t!

I’d been out yet again in Nantwich, having been for a really good wander all around the Crewe Road End – Millstone Lane area of the town, having a good look at all of the houses and so on. And all of the area behind the houses on Millstone Lane, between there and The Crofts, had been cleared away, flattened and rolled out ready for a new housing estate to be built there. Even Flash Meakin’s hovel had gone. I wandered over there to make a brief inspection but the builders tried to chase me away. However, it was common land and so I had every right to be there, and I made sure that they knew it. And there I stayed. Having made my inspection, I wandered off to continue my travels and this is where I bumped into the aforementioned young lady. She was living on The Crescent apparently and so she invited me in for a coffee. We had a really good chat about old times and then she invited me to stay for dinner. So I prepared all of the vegetables and she cooked the food – a risotto it was. I was given a choice about what I wanted for dessert – beans on toast was mentioned (this is why I enjoy so much going on these nocturnal rambles – they are totally surreal) but of course I had some completely different ideas about what I wanted to have for afters. But I settled on a banana, which I suppose is rather symbolic. But then her young daughter came in and was telling us about how she had been threatened by some young boy who had somehow found his way into the house. She had been in the attic and had gone out onto the roof to see what was making a noise, and he had sneaked in behind her. When she came downstairs he surprised her. She was shocked and so the police were called and he was carted off, even though he insisted that he’d only done it for a dare. He ended up with 30 days inside and was ostracised by all of his friends. In the meantime, the two of us were carrying on chatting and the conversation came round to what was happening in the evening. I invited her to the cinema and her daughter thought that this was a really good idea. But her elder boy looked rather worried as if he was afraid of having his mum taken away from him. But there was no doubt that she was really keen to go to the cinema with me and I was of course just as keen to take her.

Yes, it’s a shame that things like this don’t happen to me in real life.

The alarm went off before I’d reached the exciting bit and it left me wondering about what would have happened had I been able to sleep in until the usual time of 07:45 instead of this wretchedly-early time of 07:00. I was feeling as if I’d been cheated out of 45 minutes of wishful thinking, but there we are, I suppose.

I was on the road by 07:40 and at the hospital at 08:35, managing to pinch the next-to-last parking space on the car park. The allergy clinic is weird, with just a half-dozen or so of comfortable seats, and with le being the first arrival, I had the pick of the chairs – right by the door by the power point. I had some kind of pattern drawn in biro on my arm, with initials and numbers, and then injected and some kind of fluid rubbed in. One or two of them flared up quite dramatically and the nurse measured them with some kind of hole gauge.

The nurse then found a sheet of something that resembled an aluminium-backed piece of bubble-wrap, peeled off the sticky front of it, stuck it to my back and then burst the bubbles so that, presumably, the product in each bubble would interact with my skin. I have to leave this on until Monday.

But if I think that I’m hard done-to, what happened to me was nothing to what happened to the young girl next to me. They drew some kind of chess-board on her arm and she had a huge number of injections, a couple of which flared up like nothing that I have ever seen before. One of them was starting to look like something out of Quatermass’s Experiment.

I felt so sorry for her that I let her have my cake that came with our mid-morning coffee. And then I invited her for a game of draughts on her arm.

One thing though that surprised me was that each one of us, on entering the room, had a drain put in our arms. Not that that was surprising, the surprising bit was that they didn’t use it for anything. Rather a waste of effort to me. But at least the nurse who did it had “the touch”. I hardly felt a thing.

But my results were such that I have to come back for a full morning on Monday, and an hour or so on Tuesday. And as for my Monday-morning blood test, the nurse will do it then and there as long as I remember to take my prescription with me.

We were thrown out at 12:00 and I went down to the Amaranthe. I bought some more vegan cheese and some mixed seeds, as well as a couple of hundred grams of muesli biscuits. I think that I deserved a little treat. But the Amaranthe is now selling Mozzarella-like vegan cheese (and this is progress, considering that even 18 months ago they didn’t stock any at all), although I didn’t buy any to try as it looked to be tainted. I’ll pick some up next time maybe.

Lunch was a plate of chips and vegetables at the Flunch, and then I went around the Carrefour and the Auchan for some shopping. There were no loose porridge oats, but the Auchan “own-brand” packaged oats were a reasonable price so I bought a few packets of those. I can’t be without my muesli now, can I?

I went home afterwards for a relax and to look for some more stuff that I forgot the other day. I still can’t find my Paint-Shop Pro disk but I did manage to find my dash-cam. I’ve also copied all of the dictaphone notes onto a rewritable DVD and onto a back-up drive, one thing that I’ve been meaning to do ever since I finished transcribing them.

I went to the pharmacie in St Gervais on the ay back here. I needed to pick up the medication that I ordered. The good news about this is that a month’s supply of the new injections only cost half of the price of the current lot, and then of course it’s only going to be once a day too. So that’s something like progress anyway. I shan’t be struggling quite as much for finances.

But the bad news about it is that the other injection that I need to take with me to the hospital next Friday – it’s more like an injection for a cow or a horse, judging by the size of the box. I don’t like the idea of that.

I also forgot to ask for some more boxes for my empty needles, and then I also realised that I hadn’t been to pick up my paperwork from the Archives at the hospital either. It clearly wasn’t my day. And on leaving the town, someone in a small silver saloon of which the registration number began CZ flashed his lights and waved at me. I wish that I know who it was.

Chips were on the menu back here, so that’s twice today. Not that I am complaining of course, because we have real malt vinegar here. And then I crawled off to bed – I didn’t even go out for my walk, but then that’s no big deal because I’d walked enough (at least, for my present state of health) today.

And with this patch-thing on my back, I’m glad that I had a shower yesterday.

And so are we” said terry.

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Thursday 10th March 2016 – I HAD A SHOWER …

… today, and I’m not talking about anyone from … "you aren’t still doing that, are you?" – ed.

First time since the end of January in fact, the morning of my operation. But then I couldn’t have a shower with my soluble stitches in place. I had the clearance from my surgeon on Monday but what with one thing and another, it wasn’t until this evening that I had one, while my pizza was cooking.

That’s right. It seems that Thursday night is pizza night in Sauret-Besserve, and so I made my own. Tomato, mushrooms and onion with tomato sauce, vegan cheese and herbs. And it was delicious too. So much so that there’s none left for lunch (which is just as well, for I’m not here for lunch).

During the night, I was having rather a fitful series of voyages halfway around the world. The first part featured me as some kind of sheriff or marshal (I’ve clearly been watching far too many westerns before I go to sleep) and I was keeping an eye on a bunch of drunken factory workers dressed as either Indians or baddies who were on the way to the seaside but there were three hours or more of the train travel before we got there and someone needed to keep an eye on these people to make sure that they weren’t up to no good. But at this point, I awoke rather dramatically so I didn’t see how this was going to develop.
But never mind – I was soon back to sleep and found myself in Canada for some reason or another. I was at Rachel’s and Darren’s and the first night that I was there the bottle of gas in the gas heater ran out. And was I cold! I had no heat, no hot water and nowhere to make any coffee in the morning. But then I remembered that there was a bottle of gas in the verandah – like I have at home – so I went to fetch that and couple it up. But before I could do that, I was interrupted by someone like Sherlock Holmes, with Doctor Watson and a third man. This was round about the time of the disappearance of Holmes, and Watson was struggling on his own to solve a couple of cases, but he wasn’t making any headway. But Holmes returned and we had the meeting between Watson and Holmes-in-disguise, with Watson fainting and having to be put to bed. Holmes then started to shave off his whiskers, which clogged my yellow-and-white razor. but this part of everything was filled with some delightful anachronisms (like the black-and-white Sherlock Holmes films of the 30s) with record players, LP records, plastic macs and so on in this scene of Sherlock Holmes. But then I started to talk to Darren about this gas again and Rachel was saying that it doesn’t matter now because look how the temperature has gone up.
After the obligatory walk down the corridor, I went off to Mid-Wales where I was driving along this road – on the right as it happens on a dual carriageway, and in the distance was this enormous rain cloud. I was in my car and had just been overtaken by this huge lorry, who clearly couldn’t care less about conditions on the road. The road was soaking wet and he was splashing spray everywhere and at times you just couldn’t see anything.We drove down this hill with the lorry sending spray everywhere and soaking the pedestrians and policemen gesticulating at the driver. We ended up in one of these big mid-Wales towns (but nothing like any Mid-Wales town that I ever knew) and by this time I was driving a Van-Hool Alizee coach of the late 1980s, the type that I used to drive when I worked for Shearings but which was white with no writing. There were a variety of ways out of this town – at the junction there were five roads out. One of them, a diagonally left-of-straight-on, went under a railway bridge and up a hill, round a right-hand bend and then higher up to a set of traffic lights. That was the way that I went. Just after the bend parked on the left in a restricted area was a purple mark I Escort van with a “four plus two” 1963 number plate (which, seeing as how they weren’t made until 1967 was something quite surprising), and next to it was an old 105E Anglia. I was wanting to stop and take photos of them but there wasn’t anywhere to stop, we were climbing up the hill and there was all kinds of traffic queues. I thought that I would never get to the top of the bank at this rate, stuck here in this enormous traffic queue for the lights to get out of town.

After breakfast, I carried on with my Canada 2015 notes. I’ve finished the dictaphone notes for September and I’m now incorporating the blog notes into the text. That might take a few days as there are quite a lot of those. So far, I’m on that place where I camped overnight about an hour and a half from Happy Valley-Goose Bay (but travelling backwards).

So in a few minutes’ time, a nice clean me will go for a walk and then I’ll be off to bed. I have to be up at 07:00 tomorrow ready for my early morning drive to the hospital at Montlucon. I am not looking forward to that.

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Monday 7th March 2016 – I WENT TO RESCUE …

… Caliburn today. And it’s a good job that I did too.

When I arrived around back at my place during mid-afternoon, it was just another grey, cold day with nothing particular to say about it. And I went inside to look for some stuff that I needed – some clothes, a small rolling suitcase, my missing Paint Shop Pro CD, my passport, the post, all kinds of stuff. And while I was up in the attic I remember thinking “blimmin’ ‘eck – it’s going dark early!”

caliburn ford transit snow les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut looking up, I could see that the skylights were completely snowed over and flakes the size of dinner plates were falling down. No wonder it was dark up there.

This wasn’t the time to be hanging about in my opinion. I grabbed what I could and headed for Caliburn and then headed for the hills before I could be snowed in.Luckily, after about 6 weeks of standing around, Caliburn started up easily so that was no problem.

And I’m glad in some respects that I didn’t have to hang around too much. It was taters in my attic – all of 5.9°C although it did warm up to 6.4°C after I had been there for an hour or so. Such are the advantages of having the place bung-full of insulation. I keep telling people – money spent on good insulation is never wasted.

But never mind that for a moment – let’s go back to this morning and the blasted nurse because he flaming well forgot me YET AGAIN! And it’s blood test day too so that has put the tin hat on it, hasn’t it?

I had made a special effort to get up early too, even though I was well away with the fairies.

It was an evening at weekend and, as was my custom, I’d gone out to a nearby town (and I can’t remember now which one it was) for a good prowl around. It was something that I did every weekend, and it was always to the same town, and I knew by heart everywhere to go here. It suddenly occurred to me that I was bored with it? Why didn’t I go to somewhere different? After all, the Potteries weren’t too far away. There, I had six towns to choose from and there was plenty to do, much of which would be totally new to me. But the downside of that was that where I was visiting, there was a kind of hotel where you could go for just a couple of hours and crash out. That was something that I did every time that I was there and I reckoned that it was quite important to me. There wasn’t anywhere to do that in Stoke on Trent, as far as I was aware. But on one of my walks around the town I was looking in the window of a motorcycle shop. There was a Honda 350cc in there – something totally modern that I had never seen before. It had no seat on it and the engine was missing, and the frame was really low-slung like a racing bike. My brother (him again???) came to stand next to me and we were looking at the bike. I told him that I couldn’t make out whether it was beautiful or totally hideous. There was also an old British 2-stroke twin in the window and that was much more like my kind of motorbike. He asked me about Hondas, and especially the Honda 250. Which was the best – the CB or the CD? I told him that the CB was more highly-tuned so it would respond better when being used under normal circumstances around town and on the road (ironically, whenever I had been asked this question in the 1970s, I had always recommended the CD).
From here, via a long convoluted trail I ended up back at my house with a crowd of people there, including my brother (yet again!) and the debut appearance on these pages of his wife. While we were talking, she suddenly produced a modern single-bore shotgun. This enraged me completely and right on the spur of the moment I started to sing a song that I made up on the spot as I was going along. Sung to the tune of “I don’t want to join the army” from “Oh! What A Lovely War!”, it started off –
“Don’t bring guns into my kitchen”
“Don’t bring guns into my hall”
And it concluded
“I may not want to kill”
“but I’m not so very ill”
“to let myself be shot inside my home”
and the astonishing thing about this is not only do I remember myself singing it, but the fact that I could come up with the lyrics, all of which scanned perfectly, as I was going along – and in a dream as well.
My technique must be improving!

Being fed up of waiting once 09:15 had arrived, I had my breakfast and then carried on with a few little things that I had to do, and seeing as how I was going to see my surgeon, I thought that I would make myself pretty.
“You’d better get a move on” said Terry. “We have to be off in four hours!”

So having done that and come back downstairs to another barrage of abuse – “well?” asked Terry. “When are you starting?” – we eventually had lunch and then off on the road to Montlucon.

Now I don’t know what they are spending the money on at the hospital but it’s not on the archives department, I’ll tell you that. It was like something out of Charles Dickens. Anyway, they can give me a complete copy of my file but not straight away as they need to photocopy it – at … gulp … €0:18 per page. This is going to run out to be very expensive. I can pick it up on Friday.

Back in the hospital, I’ve changed the appointment for the scanner. As you know, it should have been the day after my appointment in Leuven but that’s clearly not going to happen. But down at the secretariat of the X-ray department, they managed to find a little gap for me – they had a cancellation for 10:30 on Friday 18th of March and so I’m fitted in there.

I finally got round to seeing the surgeon, having bumped into my little student nurse on the way up and we had quite a chat. My surgeon didn’t say anything but the look on her face was enough when I told her that my blood count was going down quicker than the lifts in the hospital. Her response was “well, we’ll see what the scanner has to say and then we’ll see what else we can do for you”.

It was those last few words that filled me with foreboding.

But everything that I asked, and all of the problems that I discussed, everything was “we’ll see what the scanner has to say”. I really do believe that they have run out of ideas and are groping a little in the dark. But my stitches have indeed disappeared – they were indeed soluble – and now I can at last have a shower, which I shall be taking tomorrow.

I only had to wait two minutes for Terry, who had been to Brico Depot for an earthing rod – and then we were off back to my place.

And after everything back there, it was nice to be back behind the wheel of Caliburn even if there was a load of snow on the road as far as the Font Nanaud. I’ve missed driving, and I’m now toying with the idea of maybe going by road to Leuven.

That’s not as silly as it sounds, actually. I was in no difficulty at all with the driving, and I have four trips to make to Montlucon before I need to leave for Leuven so that will ease me back into it. And not only that, it will save on having to walk and drag a suitcase around with me while I change from train to train.

But even that might not be an issue because with all of the walking that I needed to do today, as well as all of the stair-climbing, I was moving quite a good deal easier than I was even yesterday, never mind last week when I first started on my exercise.

If only I could do something about this continual loss of blood – but if the nurse doesn’t come to give me the tests, what can I do about controlling it?

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Thursday 3rd March 2016 – WHAT A NIGHTMARE!

The first person to put in an appearance during my nocturnal ramble last night was, would you believe, my mother. I was so surprised, if not shocked, to see her that I sat bolt upright in bed. What on earth was she doing there? I can’t remember what role she was playing last night because the whole memory of whatever I was doing at the time was immediately wiped away.
And if that’s not enough to be going on with, the next person to put in an appearance, once I’d calmed down and gone back to sleep, was my father. I was living back in my house in Gainsborough Road, but in the front room that had been converted into a bedroom. And when my father turned up (he was apparently living somewhere else in the house) at about 6:30am, he brought none other than Percy Penguin with him. She was wearing a pair or pyjamas in a kind of flanellette material, pink with a white waistband, collar and cuffs. She hopped into bed with me for a while and then I left the bed to start to tidy up the room (as if that’s ever likely to happen anywhere where I’m living), totally ignoring her. And then I’d be back in bed again, and then back tidying up and ignoring her and so on it went.
But then I had a sudden flash of realisation about something. Out here in St Gervais there’s a proposal for one of these social cafés for the Alternative Community – not just a café but a “meeting place and social centre with board games, debates and discussions as well as food, including a vegan and vegetarian option” to quote just some of their advertising. While it’s an idea that receives my fullest support, it’s all very utopic and I’ll give it 6 months at the most. But anyway, last night, while I was in my bedroom with Percy Penguin in my house, I suddenly realised that it was the Opening Night of this café and so abandoning Percy Penguin yet again, off I went to St Gervais – a mere 850 miles or so from Crewe but since when has that ever bothered me during a nocturnal ramble? I’ve travelled much greater distances than that. When I arrived, I found that one of the people who was in charge was one of the footballers of FC Pionsat St Hilaire. He was talking about using he venue for boxing matches and training and the like, and so I asked him if he was aware that a boxing venue needed to have a doctor present at all times if there was action of any kind in the ring and who was going to pay for this. he was clearly unaware of this – he just shrugged his shoulders and wandered off into the crowd. I had a wander around, admiring the nice, shiny and polished wooden floor, and ended up at the buffet in an annex at the back. Most of the products were chocolate-based and so I asked the two girls who were serving which ones were the vegan option, but they just looked at me helplessly.
The moral of this story – particularly the latter part of it – is that leaving aside my natural cynicism (and I am the first to admit it) many of these so-called social projects are all very well and good but in 99% of these cases they lack the professionalism, the foresight, the staying power and the finance to be successful, being far too detached from reality to see what is going on. Once the initial enthusiasm wears off, they run out of ideas and can’t keep the momentum going.
Mind you, I would love to be proved wrong.

As for the moral of the first part, I cannot think for the life of me what my parents were doing during the night appearing on my travels like that. One of them is bad enough but both of them – that’s enough to put me off going to sleep for the rest of my life. I still shudder when I think about it even now, and I fled from home almost 45 years ago.

So while I was slowly coming round this morning after the alarm went off, I heard a car pull up outside. Yes, it was the nurse, so I half-ran, half-fell downstairs at something of a rather indecent turn of speed for me these days. But the news – whether this is good or bad, I dunno, is that my stitches aren’t there. I asked him to look and so he did. Either they have fallen out on their own, they have dissolved, the skin has grown over them, or there weren’t any in there to start with. Only time will tell and I’ll have to wait until Monday when I see the surgeon.

Today, I’ve had a day off and done nothing at all. I reckon that I deserve some time for myself. I have plenty to do but a day here and there won’t hurt (I wish that I didn’t). I have however made myself a pizza and in a few minutes I’ll be off for another slow walk to see how I do. I’ll try to push a little farther on.

But here’s a thing – and I forgot to mention it yesterday which is a surprise because it made such an impression upon me.

When I was in the hospital yesterday, I was in the room next to the office – and in the chair underneath the hatch which was open so that I could quite clearly hear everything that was going on in there. And one thing that did happen was that the chief nurse was ringing up people about their blood results.

One call she made to a woman was clearly answered by the woman’s partner and went something along the lines of “we have her blood test results and they show that she has a blood count of 6.8. She must be very tired so she will need to lie down right away and we’ll send an ambulance for her”

Sure enough, when she did arrive here, not only was it an emergency ambulance that brought her in but she was on a stretcher.

When my blood count dropped to 6.8, I didn’t have this treatment. Not a bit of it. I was made to come under my own locomotion over 50kms, park Caliburn up somewhere in the car park and then walk all the way across to the hospital and up into the ward.

I dunno whether it’s whether your face fits, or whether she has some other illness of which I am unaware, but there’s certainly some kind of two-speed hospitalisation procedure going on here. maybe I’m just unlucky, or maybe I’m made of more sterner stuff.

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Wednesday 2nd March 2016 – I’M BACK …

… from the hospital, thanks to Liz who brought me home after she knocked off work. And thanks again to Liz who also took me there too.

That meant a crawl out of bed at some ridiculous time like 07:30 and a rushed breakfast, and then off on the road.

And I was pretty exhausted too, for last night I was on my travels again. And things about my house are clearly preying on my mind because I was somewhere out there. I’m not quite sure where all of this started but I remember it from walking down a footpath (which isn’t there) at the back of my house (which wasn’t my house) through the woods (which aren’t there) and out into a field around the back where this path took a sharp right-hand turn due to a very high bank being in the way. I’d lived here for years but this was the first time that I’d really paid much interest in this bank and I was astonished when a passenger train rattled its way along it. Five minutes later, a swarm of people came along the path and caught me in the middle of a reverie. It turned out that there was a railway station here in Virlet – the train had stopped there and discharged these people. I’d had no idea whatever that there was a railway station here, especially one so convenient for my house. All of the time I’d been getting the train to the nearest rail junction and then catching the bus, and this was all quite inconvenient.This railway station in Virlet opened up all kinds of new opportunities.
From here I ended up in a pub somewhere in Nantwich – I had an idea that it was something like the Millfields (which has featured before on my travels). Someone was having problems with the indicators on his car – a late-model Nissan 180B I think – and so I had volunteered to fix them. I wasn’t making much progress and so I was tempted just to stick them back any old how but twisting the front flasher around, it started to work correctly and so I was quite happy. All of these manoeuvres had led me to get into a position where my head was stuck though the serving hatch and so the barman asked me what I wanted. I replied that I wanted nothing at the moment, so I could see the landlord making a face and a gesture or two to the barman to hurry up and get rid of me. I ended up though having to bend down to screw this front indicator light into the leg of this person (yes, it’s all logical, this, isn’t it?) but he told me that where I was screwing it, it wasn’t there before. I could see that – in fact I could see on his leg exactly where it used to be because there were little scabs there over the wounds that the screws had made – and I told him that it was going to be very painful if I were to screw it back exactly where it was. But he insisted and told me to go ahead – and so I did.

We arrived in Montlucon about 10 minutes late but seeing as they weren’t ready for me (the blood didn’t arrive until 10:40) it made no difference whatever.

The nurse putting my drain in was astonished. “Mr Hall” she said. “You really do have some thick skin”
“Well, what do you expect?” I asked. “I used to be married”.

And then I sat around and waited, read a book, did some work on the computer, downloaded a pile more films, all of that kind of thing, and chatted to a couple of friends on the internet. And I had lunch too – a plate of lentils and diced carrots, a vegetable pâté, a fruit purée and an orange. Much to my surprise, they even remembered to bring me a coffee.

It was all done by 14:30 and I was ready to be discharged. That meant sitting in a draughty hospital foyer but much to my surprise they allowed me to stay up there in the warmth. That was a good move because I button-holed my doctor up there and told him that I wasn’t satisfied with my progress and the follow-up that I was (or wasn’t) having. He was quite insistent that everything was normal – the fact that I was having blood tests and the transfusion showed that there was a follow-up.

But I asked him about the loss of blood – whether it was normal for me to lose so much blood so rapidly. He told me that things wouldn’t settle down for a couple of months, but he was lost for words when I replied that at the rate that I’m losing blood, I would be lucky to still be here in a couple of weeks, never mind months.

And he was also lost for words when I told him that I still had my stitches in – some 5 weeks or so after the operation. But he told me that that’s not his department – I need to see the surgeon (and so I tried to, and she was out of course).

However, I told him that I had been summoned to attend a meeting with the Conseil Général of my insurance company and made up a good story of why that should be so, and so he’s arranged for me to have a copy of my file the next time that I’m there. What I really want it for is of course to take to Leuven with me when I go.

Liz came for me after she finished work and now I’m back here, having had more pie, green beans and new potatoes for tea.

And it was just as gorgeous as yesterday. I really am so lucky staying here with Liz and Terry who are doing such an excellent job of looking after me. As I have said before, I shall be really sorry to leave.

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Tuesday 1st March 2016 – I HAD A PHONE CALL …

… this morning, but it wasn’t necessarily the one that I was expecting.

>round about 10:15, while Terry was out cutting wood, the phone went off. “Mr Hall, this is the hospital. The Doctor has seen your blood test results and thinks that you should come in for a transfusion right away”.

So at last, someone seems to have taken notice of what is going on with my blood. But as I have said before … "and at great length too" – ed … a blood transfusion isn’t the answer. I could have kept on having these without the need to have suffered all of the agony in having my spleen removed.

But I told them that there was no chance of me going in at that time of day. Terry would have to run me, and then sit around all day until it’s done and he’s got plenty of work to do. And so we agreed that I’ll be going in tomorrow. Liz has a short day so she’ll take me in and bring me back. It’ll mean that I’ll have to sit around for a couple of hours in the hospital but that’s my problem, not anyone else’s.

Last night, I had a quiet night and didn’t go anywhere. And I do mean “anywhere” too – not even down the corridor for a ride on the porcelain horse. That is – I did go at 06:30 but seeing as how I didn’t go back to sleep afterwards and that it was nearly getting-up time, that doesn’t count. But no nocturnal voyage either – I must have slept the sleep of the dead last night.

As for today though, I’ve finished all of the dictaphone notes. Every last one of them. I would be going round to my house tomorrow where I could burn a DVD with everything on it, but I cancelled that idea yesterday as you know and in any case, I’ve the blood transfusion tomorrow.

Tea was one of Liz’s home-made vegan pies with new potatoes and beans, and didn’t that taste so nice? It made me feel so much better, that I promise you. What with the left-over pasta and tomato sauce for lunch, what more could any person desire?

So I’m off for another short walk in a bit and then I’ll be having a good wash and shave ready for tomorrow. After all, I must look my best.

But I’m bitterly disappointed with you lot from yesterday. 29th of February and I didn’t even get one proposal of marriage. You miserable bunch!

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Monday 29th February 2016 – LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS AND HIDE THE SILVER!

Especially if you live in Leuven, in Belgium. Because I’ll be off on my travels in early course and Leuven is the destination.

I was on the phone for quite some time this morning, firstly to the hospital at Montlucon clarifying all of the appointments that are organised for the next couple of weeks. And once we had done that, I spent the rest of the morning on the phone to the UZ Leuven in Belgium. I told them a brief story of my medical history, how I was satisfied with neither my treatment nor my progress and, quite surprisingly, the doctor with whom I spoke totally agreed with me. I ought to be doing better than this.

The upshot of this is that he’s agreed to see me in Leuven on 22 March at 14:00. And so I’m going.

What’s even nicer is that my friend Alison who lives a short drive away from Leuven has very kindly offered to put me up for a couple of days while I’m there and let me borrow one of her three cats. I think that that’s a really nice and generous gesture on her part and makes me feel so much better. Terry however clearly reckons that she doesn’t know me all that well.

And not before time too because I had the blood test this morning and the results were ready by teatime.

And it’s grim reading. What started out at 10.4 when I was in hospital and went down to 9.8 and then to 9.0 has now dropped dramatically through the floor to a dismal figure of just 8.0 – that’s a loss of over 12% in a week. And that’s after everything that I’ve been through and all that I’ve suffered over these last couple of months. Nothing has improved, I’ve picked up a pulmonary embolism and I’ve suffered pain like I never knew existed.

And all, apparently, for nothing.

And the thing that galls me the most is that my loss of blood is dramatic to say the least, and there’s not been a peep out of the hospital. I would have thought that this is all becoming urgent, not to mention crucial, and the people at the hospital haven’t shown even the slightest hint of interest at all.

In other news, I’ve had a reply back to my e-mail the other day. They’ve asked for my phone number so they can call me for a chat. Right after I made “other arrangements” for a second opinion. But of course this phone call is probably to tell me that I’ve been sacked or some such. I wouldn’t be surprised.

So having got all of that off my chest, what else has been happening?

We had another night of being careful how we left the bed due to bits of me being all over the floor. Twice in two nights, this.
But back in the arms of Morpheus and I was back off to a lock-up garage somewhere that I didn’t know and in there was some kind of small two-door estate car, dark blue, resembling a late 1960s Toyota or a FIAT 128. I was looking at this along with another person who had some kind of mechanical aspirations. The vehicle had been bought by my brother at an auction for £400, which was a lot of money to pay for such a vehicle, never mind its poor condition, and the person I was with expressed his surprise that my brother hadn’t tried to beat down the vendor to a more realistic price. Anyway, I couldn’t hang about. I was off up to Stoke on Trent, somewhere round about the Waterloo Road (which it wasn’t, but never mind) in a big van that I had at the time. I ended up down a side street in a maze of terraced houses being shown a room that was to let in a terraced house that was being used as a lodging-house. A girl that I knew – someone from my old days in Stoke on Trent – was running the place and so I asked her about it. She said that it was formerly a vet’s office but when it came onto the market it was too good to miss and so she converted it into rooms, with she and her family living in a tiny room right at the top. We went outside, there was a lovely (if that’s the word) view of the street lights and the urban area in the dark of the North-Western Potteries, all of the lights twinkling in what was a very late and clear evening. They say that the best time to see the Potteries is during the hours of darkness during a power cut and the local newspaper once famously described the old railway line that passed through here as “10 miles of the world’s worst scenery”.
But scenery notwithstanding, I’ve now moved on to Brussels (so there really isn’t all that much difference) living in an apartment that was part of a house conversion – what they call a trois pièces en enfilade. It’s not a very pretty apartment but anyway we start off with me not being there. I’m with Nerina up on the huge concrete windswept plateau on the high-rise council estate not too far from the Heysel Stadium and we’re looking over the parapet to some mid-rise (about 10-storey, I dunno) concrete-and-glass tower blocks. There are about dour of them, with a square footprint and they have some kind of reputation of being quite comfortable and pleasant places to live. Nerina was saying that we should have gone to live in a place like that and while I didn’t disagree for a minute, I did say (and quite rightly so) that a place such as that is way outside our budget. But we ended up back at our apartment (or maybe it was mine and she was only visiting) and we started to tidy up the place. There had been a new television delivered and I was idly flicking through the channels when I suddenly found a Morecambe and Wise film – and one which wasn’t part of the Morecambe and Wise trilogy either. And so I sat down to watch it while Nerina sat down at the other end of the apartment to do some painting. At a certain moment she asked me to pass her a bottle of paint of a red colour and so I walked over there to hand it to her, but it was the wrong bottle that I gave her.
Before she had time to say anything about this, the alarm went off and that was that. And despite a reasonable night’s sleep I was thoroughly exhausted. It was all that I could do to stagger downstairs.

At least I didn’t have to wait too long for the nurse to come to take my blood test.

Once everything had been sorted out and we’d had lunch (I had the very last of the curry with some bread) I cracked on with the dictaphone notes and now, there remain just 26 soundfiles to transcribe and we’ll be done. And I can’t wait to finish them off because there’s a lot of other work that has now built up and I need to deal with that too.

For tea we had pasta and sauce and garlic bread, and I’m really going to miss all of this when I go to Leuven – if I ever get there because I went out for a walk just now with Liz and I couldn’t even make 50 metres up the hill outside.

I have therefore cancelled my little trip out on Wednesday to collect Caliburn as I’ll be in no state at all to drive him.

All of this is starting to look very ominous indeed and I am dismayed.

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Friday 26th February 2016 – AND THE ANSWERS …

… to last night’s questions are “Nowhere” and “No-one”.

I had my early night last night of course, but didn’t go straight to bed as I had a few things that needed doing. So I attended to them first while I was off on another nostalgia trip listening to my “Simple Minds” concert – the one that I engineered for Radio Anglais.

Eventually though, I was able to settle down and watch “Inspector Hornleigh on Holiday” – with the missing part recovered and the missing soundtrack restored and it was just as good as I remember it being. It’s quite possibly the best of the trilogy of films, I reckon.

And once I had settled down for the night, the next thing that I remember was the alarm clock going off at 07:45. First time for ages that I’ve managed to sleep right through the night, and also the first time for ages that I’ve not been on a nocturnal ramble (or, at east, a nocturnal ramble that I can recall). I’m not sure whether to be really pleased about the good night’s sleep that I’ve had, or sad that I didn’t go off walkabout during the night. As I’ve said before, these nocturnal rambles are the only way that I’m bringing some excitement into my life and relieving the boring existence of what is effectively an imprisonment right now.

It took me a good while to struggle out of bed and make my way downstairs, and much to my surprise, I managed to coax the boiler into life and had a lovely blaze going by the time that everyone else came downstairs. My technique must be improving.

Liz and Terry went off shopping this morning and left me to my own devices. I had a play with some of the new purchases that I made yesterday from the 3D Store that I use and generally took it easy. And I’ve also made great progress with my dictaphone notes for Canada 2014. I’m now on the outskirts of Montreal which means that I have only four days of voyage to transcribe. Who knows? I might even be able to do all of this over the weekend and that will please me greatly.

Now there’s one thing for which I should be grateful now that I am retired. And that is that I can’t possibly be sacked from my employment. Had I still been in employment and sent the mail that I sent out late this afternoon, I would have been in serious danger of being handed my hat.

But my excuse is that I was unnecessarily provoked.

I wrote to the Médecin Conseil of my Health Insurance provider to explain that the operation that I had four weeks ago (God! is it THAT long ago?) had evidently failed and that I reckoned that I ought to go somewhere for a second opinion. This will involve them in added expense and so I needed to consult them beforehand, to make them aware of what was going on and to approve the expenditure, and to see if they could recommend someone well-worth his salt, someone at the top of the profession who could give me the best possible advice.

I received the very helpful (I don’t think) reply of Nous ne pouvons, le médecin conseil, ne peut pas nommer aucun hôpital, vu que chacun a le libre choix de se déplacer à l’ hôpital de son choix _ crudely (and if you want “crudely”, then in the words of the late, great Bob Doney, “I’m your man”) translated by Yours Truly as “we on behalf of the Médecin Conseil cannot give out the name of any hospital, seeing that everyone has the free choice to go to any hospital of his choice”.

That’s all very well of course, but how on earth do you know which hospital to try and which hospital has the best reputation, and which hospital has the most efficient service etc. etc?. And which consultant is the most experienced and has the best connections? The hospital here clearly isn’t even sure about what illness I’m supposed to have so what hope do I have of knowing?

And so I sent them back a reply that would have blistered the paint in their office, and I ended up by asking if vu que chacun a le libre choix de se déplacer à l’ hôpital de son choix wasn’t merely a more-complicated way of saying “we couldn’t care less”?

As you can see, I can rule them out of any active involvement in my future well-being (such as it is) and as the hospital at Montlucon clearly has already run out of ideas (I’m really surprised that they haven’t been in contact with me this week to discuss the dramatic drop in my blood count) then I really am on my own here.

I have sore misgivings, and I don’t even have any ointment to rub on them.

And before I go, I would like to wish a happy birthday today to a girl who once played some kind of role in my life 45 or so years ago. I’m astonished that, with all of these various people making all kinds of cameo appearances in my nocturnal rambles, that she is yet to make her on-stage début. I would have placed her at odds-on to have made an appearance a long time before now.

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Thursday 18th February 2016 – AND WASN’T THAT A WASTE OF TIME?

We went off to Montlucon this afternoon and the hospital. Terry dropped me off and then went to do some shopping, and I hobbled gamely inside.

Much to my surprise, it didn’t take too long to be seen, and to be honest, I needn’t have wasted my time. Nothing was resolved here that couldn’t have been resolved by five minutes on the telephone and what is even worse, they could have held this interview while I had been in the hospital on another occasion. All that happened was that I was asked about 20 questions while the doctor made notes.

What is even worse is that I now have to come back on three more occasions in this respect, and two of those will be half-day sittings too. Saying that I’m fed up is something of an understatement.

We came back home via the pharmacie where we stopped so that I could find something to help with my nasal problems. It’s no fun having a code in de dose, Balcolm.

And so that was that. What a waste of time. And I don’t have much to spare either as you know, not at my age. And the amount of fuel we are using to travel the 100kms each way and the pain that I’m suffering during the journey is starting to get on my nerves.

I can’t say that I wasn’t prepared for the journey though. I’d fallen asleep watching an old Flash Gordon film from the early 1950s (and it was funny to hear the outer-space villains talking in extremely camp German accents) and managed something resembling a decent night’s sleep with just a couple of interruptions. I started off back working for Shearings again and I received a communication from them saying that I had to go to a certain hotel to pick up a coach from a driver who had been taken ill. I was in BKV, my old Morris 1300GT at the time, right by Jackson’s Corner in Willaston facing towards Nantwich, and after taking the phone call from the phone box there, found that I had locked myself out of the car. My jacket and all of my keys were in there. Luckily, the rear passenger door was open so I could enter the car that way. I did a “U” turn, right across the traffic, with no lights on or anything, which upset everyone else on the road. I checked everything that I had to make sure that I hadn’t forgotten everything, and then I was off. It transpired that where these people were staying was near Walsall in a hotel near the football ground car park. It was a huge, sprawling, rambling modern hotel which, from the outside, was not dissimilar to one that I had visited a few nights ago (although the interior was totally different). All of the drivers and hostesses had a huge communal bedroom with a pile of beds in it, some single and some double. Mine was a single bed right in the corner by the wall. I managed a couple of hours’ sleep and then found my way to the showers. That wasn’t easy and they were communal too. After the shower, I went to sort out my diesel receipts. With not having a fuel card for the coach, I would have to pay cash and seek reimbursement so this would be an opportunity to recycle some of my old receipts. There I was, sorting through a huge pile, and then I realised that that was a waste of time because how would anyone accept a diesel receipt for today that was dated 1999? I gave it up and went back to bed to have another sleep. I was awoken by a girl sleeping in a bed on the far side of a double bed being shared by two drivers. She was complaining about how people should be more careful about who sleeps with whom, because of all of the noise. One of the two drivers was complaining about how he had slept in a circus and how he had continually thrown his partner out of bed to wake him up as he snored like a bull. I asked him whether I had snored very much. He replied in the negative, saying that I was all right, so I made a face at this girl, wondering why she was dragging me into the conversation. We were then interrupted by a photographer who came in with a pile of primary school kids in sky-blue pullovers and grey trousers or skirts. The aim was to photograph all of us and I had brought Strawberry Moose with me so I made sure that he was quite prominent on the photo. I had then to go somewhere across the car park quite quickly and I’d taken Strawberry Moose with me. Some young boy from this photography session, aged about 7 or 8, came along and we were chatting about His Nibs, he being vexed about how his father hadn’t introduced them to each other. I therefore let him carry His Nibs back to the hotel. I was in a hurry to return as the father was going to show me around his garage where he had quite a collection of old vehicles.
A short while later I was in a van – it might have been Caliburn, I think, with someone else whom I don’t remember. We were in the centre of a big city and pulled up at some traffic lights. Here was a police control and my van was checked over by a plain-clothes police team. They insisted on seeing my papers, which were all in order anyway, but they were taking their time about it. While we were waiting, a big artic pulled up alongside in the outer lane. It was a pale yellow matt colour. The police pounced on that too and asked for the driver’s documents. His cab was quite high off the road and so he simply threw his paperwork out of the vehicle, and also a television and a fruit cake (why a fruit cake I have no idea). The police picked up his documents and walked off round the corner with them to where their vehicle was parked. Meantime, the lorry driver realised that he had forgotten a paper so I said that I would take it. I really had to climb up high to reach it, and the lorry driver started to talk to me in Spanish, only a bit of which I could understand. When I descended from the lorry I had a quick look at the number plates, expecting to see Spanish plates, but in fact they were from Tennessee. I was surprised to see a lorry from Tennessee here in Europe but at least it would explain the Spanish (I was confusing Tennessee with Texas, I reckon). I took the paper – it was a flimsy yellow paper, written on one side with punch holes in various places – round to the policeman in charge. He asked “why do I need to see this,” to which I replied that I had no idea, but the lorry driver clearly thinks that it’s important. Anyway, we waited. And waited. And waited. For hours, I reckoned. And then I went round to see what he was up to, this policeman, and there he was, having a little street party and dancing with a couple of kids. I filmed it with my mobile phone and sent the images off to the local radio station. After all, there we were, this lorry and my van, blocking the street, the lorry driver had run out of hours too so he couldn’t move his lorry now anyway. The radio station sent a car and a camera around to film it for themselves. It didn’t half cause a stir.

I made myself another pizza tonight. The pizza base was one of these big square ones that I had bought by mistake so there’s plenty left for lunch tomorrow. Now I’m going to sit quietly and watch a football match, then I’ll be off for yet another early night – and hopefully finish watching my Flash Gordon film.

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Wednesday 17th February 2016 – WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT!

This streaming head-cold that I seem to have acquired during my stay at hospital is, if anything, worsening. It’s most uncomfortable, to say, the least, and I keep on waking up every half-hour or so with the most awful congestion.

This is interrupting my sleeping patterns quite dreadfully, not that they were anything much to write home about beforehand but now they are even worse. As a result, I’m just having patchworks of nocturnal voyages and waking up just as something interesting is about to happen.

For example, during the night I was off on so many nocturnal rambles that it was hard to keep track of them. You may laugh about the old joke about being a traveller in ladies’ underwear but that’s exactly how I started out last night and what’s more, I was travelling through the “wild west”. I was almost immediately held up, in good old western fashion, by a couple of desperadoes. One of these was, would you believe, carrying a baby. As this hold-up progressed, some corrosive liquid was spilt and this went all over the arms of the guy holding the baby. He was there panicking, holding this baby, while his arms were being attacked by this liquid.
I was being some kind of manager for a tower block on some kind of housing estate in either East Ham or West Ham. One of the families living here was a black family and as the parents were ill, I was obliged to make lunch for the four children. I decided on something quick and simple – beans on toast. Each child received two rounds of buttered toast and a scoop of baked beans. But for some strange reason, I couldn’t get the cooking to synchronise. I ended up burning the beans and the toast was cold. The two elder kids came in off their own bat to have their lunch leaving me to deal with the two younger ones. I had to shout down the corridor from my flat to theirs to tell them to come. But there was a man walking past and he was clearly some kind of official who was running the place. He stuck his head into their apartment and started to lecture their mother about something or other. In the meantime, I was calling these two kids and eventually the elder one came, so I sent him back to fetch his younger brother but this disturbed the man who was trying to tell the mother something. He had a couple of words to say to me about it so I replied in kind. But one thing that was going through my mind was that I needed four bowls (why not plates?) for these kids and I only had three white ones and one yellow one. I was wondering about any possible argument about which kid should have the yellow one.
We then went on to the local church hall where some kind of kids concert was taking place. I turned up as it had almost finished and the kids were all sitting on the floor around the counter of the bar or buffet. I nipped behind the bar and found a couple of biscuits to eat, for I was hungry. While I was there, one of the women told me where to go to sit down so I grabbed my biscuits and went off to sit on the floor where indicated, right at the end of the queue. As I took my place, a girl came up to me and told me that I need to sit at the other end of the queue, so I explained that the woman in charge had told me to come and sit here. Anyway, we ended up having quite a chat about this particular event
From the East End of London I ended up in the North-East of England at a terrace of miners’ cottages somewhere on a cliff overlooking the sea. These houses, although terraced houses, were actually in pairs of a similar style, with the next pair being quite different, and so on. One of the miners here becomes bankrupt and surrenders himself to the authorities to take charge of his bankruptcy, and being rudely awakened at this point, that was all of that.
Once more back into the arms of Morpheus, I ended up now on a train heading back from London. It was a big express kind of thing, a locomotive pulling a rake of carriages, and it pulled into Crewe station, which is where I wanted to alight. The train usually had a long wait at the station so I hopped off, leaving everything behind – my coat, my luggage, my laptop. I’d been sitting in a seat, one of a block of four, and this was where most of my luggage was to be found, but I’d moved with the laptop across the aisle to a seat with a table so that I could work from there. The train arrived at quarter-to the hour and was due to leave at ten past the hour so I had plenty of time to stretch my legs before gathering up my possessions and leaving. I went into the station buffet looking out of the window and the train suddenly pulled out, at ten minutes to the hour! There was no announcement at all. I wasn’t quick enough to leave the building otherwise I would have made a sprint for an open door, as many other people were doing. Now, all my possessions were streaming off northwards and I was only in the clothes that I was standing up in, plus some money in the pouch that I wear around my neck when I’m travelling. I had to wander off and try to find the station manager or someone in the lost property office to lodge a complaint about my possessions and to see if they could be intercepted by an official on the train or at the next station, before someone else redeemed them unofficially, and permanently.

It’s hardly surprising that after all of that, I wasn’t up to too much. Terry went out to cut some wood for an hour or two during a break in the weather (because it has been cold here, that’s for sure) and left me to my own devices but I wasn’t in the mood for getting into much mischief. I just sat and vegetated instead.

That was really the story of my day too. It’s too cold to do very much, no-one goes out unless they need to and so I’ll be staying here on the sofa.

Well, not tomorrow afternoon because I’m back at the hospital for yet more tests and examinations. I’m not at all sure why they didn’t carry out all of these tests while I was there because in my condition, still with my stitches, a round-trip of 100kms on some bad minor roads is not doing me any good at all. At the moment I might be taking one pace forward, but then I’m immediately taking two paces backwards and I won’t ever improve at this rate.

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Tuesday 16th February 2016 – OHH NOO!!

As if I don’t already have enough to worry about, they seem to have discovered that it appears that I have a pulmonary embolism. No wonder that I’ve not been feeling up to all that much just recently.

That’s right – I went out to Montlucon today, thanks to Terry who drove me, and the hospital for a check-up. Rather like the young girl who came back home after a trip around Eastern Europe and told her mother that she was pregnant.
“How do you know?” asked mother. “Have you had a check-up?”
“No, mother” replied the girl “It was a Bulgarian”.

Anyway, here we are. I have to go back to hospital on Thursday for yet more tests. This is going to be a never-ending cycle and I can see it ending up like this as a rather permanent arrangement.

If that’s not enough to be going on with, they’ve decided that they ought to change my anti-coagulant for another brand. That’s right – just five days after I’ve spent €447 in buying a month’s supply. Of course, I’ll be reimbursed by my insurance but that’s hardly the point if I have to stand it out in the first place anyway. And so I told them flat that I’ll change – once this supply is exhausted (and when I’ll be exhausted too, I shouldn’t be surprised).

There’s news about the blood tests too. From now on I only need give the samples once per week. That might sound like good news but it isn’t necessarily, and for two good reasons. Firstly, I’m having the twice-daily visits of the nurse anyway, so I’m not really going to benefit by anything very much. And secondly, it says on the prescription that I’ll be needing them for the next FOUR MONTHS! That takes me up to the summer and I wouldn’t be surprised if things go beyond that too.

in case you haven’t already gathered, I’m sick up to the eyeballs of all of this. I think that we all knew that it wouldn’t be too long before I wished that I had my spleen back so that I could vent it. I shall just have to borrow someone else’s.

Still, on the positive side, it was nice to be out and about today. First time that I’ve been out for over a week – since I came back from hospital in fact. It was freezing cold, minus 1°C as it happens, and I felt every single degree of it. But at least I could get to the Amaranthe and buy a load of vegan cheese and some oats so that at least I’d have things to eat. But once more, I felt every bump in the road and I was so glad to sit down on the sofa back here.

I’d had a very leisurely morning though, which is just as well because I’d had a hectic night. Difficulties sleeping however, but now that I know the reason why, it’s no surprise. But once I’d gone to sleep, I was gone – and I do mean “gone”.

First port of call was at a football match in Scotland – a non-league game and one of the teams playing was pushing hard for the non-league championship so that it could be promoted to divisional football there. However, there was a TV programme broadcasting about how this would be unlikely to happen because several of the players at the club were friends with players at the club that risked being relegated. One of these non-league players even gave lifts to the star performer of his own team, to take him to matches. The TV programme was alleging that all of this co-operation would come to a shuddering halt in order to preserve the league club’s status, and that the non-league club would deliberately try to avoid winning the remaining matches. This then drifted on to a report about Aldershot football club. This club, as we know, went bankrupt years ago and was reformed, and fought its way back to Football League status. The new club had built a new stadium (which, of course, it hasn’t) and the TV programme was focusing on all the the problems that the club was having there – the drug abuse, vagrancy and delinquency of the area, all kinds of things going on on the car park affecting the club. It seemed that the club was bitterly regretting building this ground in the area where they did and how they were hoping that fate would be kind to them and enable them to move to a new ground in more salubrious surroundings.
Our next voyage concerned a visit to a man who had a collection of chimpanzees and monkeys. He had a cage, where he kept his chimpanzees and monkeys, fitted up as a room with all kinds of different signs, cut-outs and objects in it and he was training these monkeys to recognise all of these objects and behave accordingly. One of these signs was like a wooden notice-board that swung out from the wall rather like a door might do, but would fold back 180 degrees. It made a horrible squeaking noise when it swung open, and one of his monkeys could imitate the noise perfectly and this was quite an astonishing feat.
We haven’t finished yet either. I found myself in an office at a place where I used to work (it wasn’t the same office but the people were quite a mix of former colleagues from different places) and I was making myself a cup of tea. I’d run out of tea bags and so I “borrowed” one from someone else and while I was doing so, someone made a remark that I’d better hurry up or else a black man would be doing my work. A third person, overhearing, and being evidently surprised that I had not commented on the remark, asked me what the previous person had said. I repeated the remark, except substituting “grand-child” for black person, which took the wind out of her sales. She was clearly expecting some kind of racist observation.
From here we went on to North America and an outdoor event like a fair or some such. As we arrived, a stream of runners were returning from a race.It was about 14:30 and, apparently, the day always started at 08:30 with a marathon race and as we were arriving it would be when the main stream of runners would be returning, and this was what I was telling my companion. One of the runners was the President of the USA and as he was sitting on the floor recovering, two young boys came to interview him. However, we were all interrupted by my alarm clock going off.

Yes, I’m doing quite well again with these nocturnal rambles, aren’t I? it’s hardly surprising that I’m totally worn out with all of this travelling. I need to save my strength if I now have to cope with a pulmonary embolism on top of everything else.

It’s hardly surprising that I’m thoroughly fed up, but at least the food is second-to-none here at Liz and Terry’s, and no-one can ask for any more than that.

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Monday 15th February 2016 – WHAT A NIGHT!

Last night was definitely, to coin a well-worn football phrase, a night of two halves. I was in bed early watching one of the series of films of the “Three Mesquiteers”, a series that was heavily parodied in The Three Amigos! but afterwards, I just couldn’t doze off to sleep. I was awake for hours. By the time 01:30 came round, I was in agony too. I told you a day or so ago that I was really feeling uncomfortable in my stomach, and the feeling had developed right through the night until it was unbearable.

In the end, I staggered off down the corridor to the porcelain horse and this is where it all starts to become vulgar, because if … errr … flatulence had been a recognised sport, I would have comfortably won an Olympic Gold Medal.

Strangely (or maybe not), I felt so much better afterwards and even managed a decent sleep, of which I remember almost nothing at all. But I do recall some kind of preoccupation that the nursing staff at the hospital had with all of this. A couple of times per day they would ask me if I had … errr … made any gas recently. Clearly, in the nature of post-operative care, that kind of thing is quite important, and after last night’s effort I can now understand why.

This was like something out of “Kez”, which is quite surprising because that is a film that I have never ever seen, so how would I know? I can’t remember too much now about what was actually happening but what I do remember was that I was having an aerial view of what was going on, actually as if I had been the kestrel that was flying above the scene. It was all rather disorientating.

We had the nurse this morning, and my blood count has gone down again – to just 9.8. I’m hugely disappointed by that but then again, if it’s too early to be glad about the positive news from Thursday’s test, then it’s too early to be sad about today’s. I have to bear in mind that if someone had offered me 9.8 as a permanent figure after my operation, I would have been glad to take it, given some of the dire results beforehand. Don’t forget that I haven’t had any “extra” blood for well over a week.

We also had a heavy snowfall too. The temperature has been teetering around freezing point for most of the day so it was really only like slushy rain, I suppose, and while it looked as if it was so impressive, it melted away almost as soon as it landed. It will be interesting to see what happens overnight – I have to go back to hospital tomorrow.

The snowfall didn’t stop a visitor arriving. To save Liz the trouble of going out, one of her pupils came here and had a two-hour lesson. It was interesting for me to overhear what was being discussed as I’d never previously really sat in on a lesson.

For tea I had a beautiful bean pasta-bake with grated cheese. Gorgeous, it was. What was even nicer was the vegan ice-cream. That’s still just a little short on shop-quality as far as the smoothness goes (which is no surprise seeing that we aren’t set up here for an industrial operation) but as far as the taste goes, it was excellent and Liz can be proud of herself. It’s the third batch that she has made, all of which have been through trial-and-error, and each time there’s a major improvement.

I shall be really sorry when I have to go home.

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Monday 8th February 2016 – DECENT FOOD AT LAST!

Yes folks, I’ve been discharged – or released – or expelled. Make up your own minds. Liz came to pick me up at about 17:00 and that was that.

I felt every single bump in the road on the way back, which is not surprising seeing that I still have my stitches in and I’m sore all over. but it was well worth it for a plate of pasta and mushrooms in a spicy sauce. You’ve absolutely no idea just how disgusting hospital food is. It’s so bad that it made me feel quite nostalgic for school dinners.

I had an early night afterwards – we’ve had enough excitement for one day.

Especially with what was going on during the night. I can’t remember now who I was with but there were four of us – a couple of whom were kids – and we were in an old black Morris 6-cylinder, the type that had a bodyshell that resembled an overgrown Morris Minor. We’d seen a small brick-built outbuilding built into a brick wall and so we parked the car to go to look in the building. It was full of bicycles, old French mopeds of the 1950s and an early 1950s Lambretta scooter, the type with the twin seats. However, I hadn’t set the brake properly on the car and it started to follow us down the hill. It hit a fence post and slewed across the road to the other side, facing the other way, just missing a car that had been following it. I went off for a wander and discovered a big medieval church a little farther around so I went in. It was actually an Abbey church belonging to a monastery where all of the monks wore white habits (are these the Cistercians?). When I left the monastery, I too was wearing a white habit and I was on my way, on foot, to another place 32 kilometres away. At least, I was planning to go on foot or maybe to find a lift en route but for some reason I kept on finding myself behind the wheel of different vehicles. I was passing through Spalding (although I don’t recall it as being anything like any part of Spalding that I know). At a set of traffic lights at a T junction where five artic lorries (just the tractor units) all of which had suffered front-end damage (a red one had a huge hole right where the radiator grill would be) and were being driven off down the side street. There was a policeman there forbidding other vehicles, especially other damaged lorries, from following these five because they didn’t want a trail of broken-down lorries all over the town. I went straight on and ended up going past Spalding harbour and the docks. There was a long brick wall that was formerly part of a huge warehouse that had been demolished, so beyond the wall was a large concrete pad, formerly the floor of the warehouse, that went down to the quayside. It was all abandoned, with just half a dozen abandoned cars and old small lorries dotted about
From here I ended up at a football match between Portsmouth and Manchester City. Manchester City were playing in their usual sky-blue strip while Portsmouth were playing in blue and white stripes rather like the Argentine national side. It was an indoor game and the Portsmouth goal was a simple large square outlined in white paint on the end wall of the building – leading quite naturally to a controversy about whether a Manchester City shot was “in” or “out”.

As well as all of this we had the usual interruptions during the night. There’s always a couple of people sticking their heads in asking if I’m OK (which is a totally pointless exercise anyway – if I’m not OK, I’ll ring the bell). Then someone comes into take my carafe, then we have the blood pressure tests, breakfast, the cleaner, the person who makes the beds and anyone else whom I may well have forgotten.

But at least with leaving today, I didn’t have the cleaners and the bedmaker. They will presumably give the place a good going – over once I’m on my way out. I was left pretty-much to my own devices for most of the day, which suits me fine.

Someone came round during the course of the afternoon with a huge pile of paperwork and I suppose that I’ll need to go through that in early course. But that’s not for straight away – I’m not in the mood. I just want to leave and go home.

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Wednesday 27th January 2016 – WELL, PEOPLE, HERE I AM

All ready for the off, in more ways than one too. I’m now in my hospital bed waiting for sleep to overwhelm me so that I can have a comfortable night. I doubt if my next sleep will be anything like as comfortable.

Last night’s was, though. I actually had a night last night where I didn’t have to leave the comfort and safety of my stinking pit

Cécile’s mother came to join me last night on my nocturnal rambles – without Cécile! Cécile’s mother is well into her 80s – 86 or 87 I think, and yet there she was on the outskirts of Crewe going up Gresty Bank near Dubberley’s Farm (where we were the other night if you remember) waiting for a bus, all on her own, which considering that she has dementia issues, is a rather outstanding feat. She was having to travel to the Doctors’surgery in Shavington, which involves taking the bus to Goodall’s Corner and walking back 200 yards. Onto the bus she clambered when it stopped for her, but we ended up at a motorcycle sales office which was full of mopeds and scooters, inside as well as outside. Cécile’s mother had a little moped that was painted all yellow, even the chain, and there was rust breaking through the paintwork. I was looking at the other vehicles which were on sale but there was nothing that interested me of course – I wanted a real, proper motorbike. One of the salesmen took me through to the back and there were about 10 or 12 motorbikes from the 1960s and 70s – much more like it. What caught my eye (from a technical point of view) was a kind-of Triumph scooter. Not a Triumph Tina, but something that doesn’t exist in the real world and based on a T50 or T65. I was giving this a good look over, from a point of view of pure curiosity, and the salesman asked me if I was interested in it. It wasn’t at all the thing for me, as I explained to the salesman. I wanted a real motorbike.

At that moment, Liz’s alarm went off in the next bedroom and it woke me up too. 06:45 which, considering that my alarm was set for 07:00, it wasn’t worth going back to sleep so I went downstairs for breakfast too.

By 07:20 we were on the road and by 08:00 we were having a coffee at the café where I had a coffee yesterday lunchtime. And then we came up here. I’m all installed now for the foreseeable future in room 360. The fridge is full of chocolate, soya yoghurt and vitamin B12 drink and the cupboard is full of crisps, biscuits and so on, and I’m in the comfy chair in the corner with my feet on the footstool. I’m prepared for a long siege in here.

First thing that happened to me was that I had a shave. A nurse came along and did it for me. And I’m not talking about my face either. I have to clean my belly-button too and I’ll be given a special disinfecting soap with which I need to wash myself in the shower, tonight and tomorrow. I have to be really clean, apparently – a hopeless task as far as I’m concerned.

Second thing was to have a drain fitted in my arm. The nurse who did that was quite careful which made a very nice change. And, to my surprise, the nurse has a daughter who is vegetarian and so she’s well aware of my diet and the kitchen staff is expecting me, as my meals to date have shown. Not very exciting, but vegan nevertheless.

But all of these exertions this morning deserved a coffee, I reckoned. And much to my surprise, one was produced. I’m not used to this.

The blood transfusion took ages too. Two pochettes but there was a big delay in swapping them over. It could have been done in half the time. But then I’m not the only patient here and there are others in a worse position than me.

I’ve spent most of the day reading books on the laptop and listening to the radio programmes that I’ve downloaded from www.archive.org. But now, the special soap has appeared and I’ve already been reminded once about the shower. I suppose that I’d better go and do the business and I’ll hopefully see you all tomorrow.

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