Tag Archives: crash out

Saturday 19th November 2022 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about it being a quiet day today because almost nothing has happened today.

It was quiet through the night as well. I hardly remember anything at all. There was a moment when I went for a walk down the corridor for the usual reasons that any man of my age will know, and that’s about that.

I awoke at about 02:30 and had the impression that I’d been somewhere or doing something in a dream but unfortunately there was no recollection of where or what it was at all. There was nothing in my mind about what I was doing.

And later I can’t remember too much about this but there were 3 of us in a car. We’d been talking to someone and when we were about to set off the girl who was driving dropped her gloves. She leaned out of the car to try to pick them but she couldn’t manage it. She went back and forward in the car trying very hard to rescue them without leaving the car. In the end we set off and found ourselves in a part of Glasgow that was in very poor condition. Several houses had their slates ripped off and you could see daylight through the windows. The pub was the same. Roaming around the streets were tatty kids. We drove somewhere and someone pointed out a chapel that someone had visited. It was famous for some reason in the 18th century for Methodist missionaries etc. There was a garage that was also famous for a similar kind of reason presumably in the days before it became a garage

Another thing of note was that it was a very slow morning. I didn’t stir at all after that until the alarm went off. And even so, it still didn’t galvanise me into action.

What did get me going was the arrival of all of the nurses with the medication and all of the measuring devices:

The doctor put in an appearance too before breakfast and asked me how I was. I told her that it was too early to say and I haven’t even had a coffee. Strangely though, she didn’t sit on the edge of the bed next to me like she normally does That’s rather sad.

There were three meals today and I had to be shaken awake to eat them; The soya yoghurt for breakfast was there as was the soya dessert for the evening meal. There was a kiwi as well with my evening meal but in accordance with our agreement I eschewed it

The nurses had to awaken me for a few other tasks I’m definitely having my money’s worth of sleep right now.

There was football on the internet this evening too Penybont v TNS.

There’s no doubt that TNS are a mile better than anyone else in this league and play the ball around amongst themselves far better than the rest of the league and that was evident today.

However the team from Bridgend defended resolutely and while they never ever looked like scoring they kept TNS away from the goal and it ended 0-0.

In the middle of the second half the student nurse came to give me my medication so I let her listen to the language of my grandmother.

So that’s it really. A peaceful day and I’m likely to have the same tomorrow. So that calls for an early night. I have to build up my strength.

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Tuesday 15th November 2022 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about them planning to heave me out in the near future.

The doctor came to see me this morning and gave me an examination and I went through my usual spiel about the hospital going round and round in circles and I was pretty sure that she understood.

However she came back a short while later with her professor who had a chat with me. She explained that there were at least two viruses in my body and there are still traces of pneumonia in my body.

However she did yell me that despite everything, they were still planning on letting me go. Apparently they were worried that I’d catch Covid if I remained in the hospital;

And so I asked whether she was worried about me catching Covid during the 1400km round trip to the hospital and back to the various appointments that (I hoped) was sure to follow.

Now that took her completely by surprise and totally deflated her. Apparently she was totally unaware that I lived in France. Making the most of her bewilderment I mentioned that when patients were temporarily discharged from the hospital a room was made available at St Pieter’s Hospital. However they have demolished that, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

There’s always Pellemberg, where I’ve stayed before, out in the wilds of the back of beyond, so I made sure that she was aware that I knew all about it.

However I have a feeling that I’m going to be out on my ear in a few days time regardless of anything else, a golden opportunity will be missed, and I’ll spend the rest of what’s left of my life travelling to and from Granville to Leuven and going round and round in circles when I get here

And isn’t that a depressing thought?

There was something quite important that happened on Monday that I forgot to mention last night

During the night of Sunday and Monday I must have had a dream at some point early on about a doctor wanting a urine sample for me the next time that I went from the bathroom. Consequently when I awoke at some point to go to the bathroom I rang for help

When the nurse came I babbled something incoherently about giving a sample, even though my body was desperately trying to process when it might have been that the doctor had come to see me.

Anyway, the story ended with the nurse helping me totally unnecessarily to the bathroom and no sample being taken.

It was really, really confusing.

Last night was much more quiet. No-one came to see me and apart from the odd trip or two to the bathroom nothing happened at all. Mind you there was some stuff on the dictaphone.

I was travelling on a train and it had an accident. I ended up falling across my youngest sister. When we picked ourselves up there were3 of us in the compartment, me, my brother and my youngest sister. I had some dresses that needed to be tried on by someone but seeing as she was there I had her try them on. They fitted her beautifully, these exotic party dresses that looked as if they might have been made for an adult but fitted a child. There were 1 or 2 gasps of astonishment from another woman who was there too. I gave her one, I gave her the second and I gave her the third. It all went really well. I asked my sister if she wanted some coffee. She’d never tried coffee before so I made her something weak. she drank it and thought that it was nice. The second dress, I gave her a second coffee and I’d made it the same. She thought that was nice too. But the third dress I made the coffee just how Nerina liked it. Of course she wasn’t there so I offered it to my sister. She tasted it and pulled a face. She asked about it so I said that it’s coffee that I’d made for Nerina. I could see that she was putting it on one side as if she was going to deliberately forget to drink it at some point or other.

I was moving house and I had a few people who were going to help me. They’d come round to see me to talk about the job, some young people and have a look through. The vehicle we were going to use was an elderly Ford Transit heavyweight van, a kind of van built on the long wheelbase rather than the panel van integral design method. An ancient, elderly thing but it would do the job. As we were talking a friend of mine rang up. He started to talk to me about the move. He asked me what my plans were. I felt terrible trying to discuss it with him without actually having discussed it with these people. That’s why they were here. The plan was that Day 1 we’d pack up the apartment into this van, Day 2 we’d drive to Shrewsbury, Day 3 we’d have a day off to recover and Day 4 we’d unload the van at the new house. My friend was astonished about this. He thought that it would cost the earth. I couldn’t talk about that because I wanted to talk to these people about it first. It was a very awkward, stilted telephone conversation. One or two things did actually come out which resulted in one of the people with me sending me an e-mail. I thought that this conversation with my friend was going to go completely out of hand if I wasn’t careful. How I wish that he hadn’t called up at that moment so as to give me some time to agree terms with these people who had just come round.

There was more to it than this but you don’t want to know about it, especially if you are eating a meal.

When the alarm went off at 06:30 I was already awake. There’s that much racket here in the early morning that after about 05:30 it’s almost impossible to sleep if you’re as light a sleeper as I am.

We had all of the usual routine but a physiotherapist came to see me and ran me through a few exercises. My legs are much weaker than you’d expect and it’s going to be ludicrous if they let me out into the wild blue yonder.

As well as the doctor and her professor I had a Welsh lesson too. Surprisingly that passed OK and in fact I was quite pleased about how it went.

And that makes a big change, doesn’t it?

The rest of the day has been spent dealing with nurses, falling asleep, all kinds of stuff like that. And eating my rather boring meals. They are good, well-prepared and filling but they are all the same and after nearly 3 weeks I would die for something different.

Anyway it’s early now and I’m told that a nurse will come by later on at some point but even so I’m going to settle down under the bedclothes and listen to the old-time radio.

Tomorrow there are no appointments so it should be a quiet day. There’s something happening on Thursday and then several appointments a week later. So if they throw me out after my Thursday appointment I’ll have to kick my heels around Leuven for a week.

This is all turning into something of a farce, except that it really is no laughing matter.

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Monday 14th November 2022 – I’VE HAD A …

… very busy day today. So much so that I’ve spent much of the day asleep.

Last night was quite busy too. Although I’d had a reasonably early night for a change, I stayed with the headphones on and listened to all 3.5 hours of a Paul Temple adventure, tucked up under the bedclothes with my headphones on. Consequently it was a very sleepy me at some time after 00:00 when I finally switched off everything.

During the night I awoke two or three times and there’s plenty of stuff on the dictaphone too. We were on board a cruise ship, working. The captain was a James Robertson Justice-type of figure. He rounded up some of us and asked if we’d taken a certain medication that he showed us. The idea was that it was a kind of pep pill or something like that. I replied “no” and pointed out the list of exceptions to people who could take the medication even though I’d taken a couple of shots of it and decided that it wasn’t a road down which I wanted to go. He said to the other people “I want to talk to you about something else” and ushered them into his cabin leaving the door open. at that moment Tuppence came up the stairs, a very old and mangy Tuppence. I picked her up and she began to yowl and complain about her tail. I picked her up and went into the room. He was showing them a selection of amplifiers. I can’t remember what the first one was called but the second was a deluxe edition called “The Black Sabbath” which was where the amplifier actually sensed everything, even the current to turn it on. He didn’t need any kind of controls on it at all – you just plugged in your guitar and plugged it into a speaker column and away you went.

We were at Shearings having a meeting on a motorway service area north of Carlisle. There were 4 part-time drivers including me, 4 full-time drivers and several members of the officials. At a certain moment 4 brand-new Volvo cross-country estates pulled up painted white. The drivers got out to leave them. It seemed that Shearings had actually bought them for some purpose or other. Then 4 brand-new coaches appeared. The drivers pulled up and got out. On the coaches there needed some work doing, like some of the equipment was held up in brackets and the brackets need to be undone. It was necessary to find several long bolts that could be used as drifts to hit with a hammer in order to do this. I was lucky that I had some of the correct bolts so I distributed them around. Then it turned out that one of the pieces of equipment had been taken off and a washer was missing. I had a washer but it had to be taken back to Carlisle to the depot from where these coaches had come. Seeing as it was going to be on my way home I said that I’d take it. Then the 4 of us were told to go so I asked “does that mean that we have to take these Volvos?”. There was some silence. No-one could understand what I was meaning. The chairman of the company then piped up “do you want these part-time drivers to take the Volvos or the brand-new coaches? Which do you think is best?”. It was agreed that we’d take the Volvos back down to Wigan. I mentioned that I had to go to drop off this washer. The chairman didn’t think that this was very important but I remarked that this guy had an annual test on his vehicles on Tuesday. He’d be really sad if he had a failure or advisory on a washer that was something to do with us not having handed it back. In the end he agreed that on my way back down to Wigan I’d go via the centre of Carlisle and drop off this washer. There was all talk about these brand-new vehicles, the coaches and the Volvo estates about how much looting and pillaging there was of these brand-new vehicles. When they actually came to be put on the road to do a job there were that many complications because of all the stuff that had been removed unlawfully from them by all kinds of various people when the vehicles were in the garage.

And then there was something about a big group of hippies who had taken over an old abandoned town from the Victorian era. They were busy trying to rebuild some form of houses, doing it in all sorts of ways by sometimes demolishing some stuff, sometimes adding on new stuff depending on the circumstances of each individual family unit how well they were doing it. There was one situation where dragging a timber beam down a roof had caused the whole lot to collapse and buried several people alive in there. They were unable to dig them out. In the end they turned the site of this building that had fallen down into a memorial garden where these people would be recognised and honoured. I found a small room that didn’t need very much work doing to it that would be ideal for me. It seemed that it was a problem because it was marked down in a building for public performances. I contacted the insurance people whoever and asked them if played the guitar and let people come in to listen to me, whether that would count in the terms of the restrictive covenant. They replied “yes, it would be OK” so I decided to go ahead to continue to bring this room up to my standards.

Very regrettably I didn’t end up back in school or in Wrenbury as far as I remember and that’s depressing. That was a very peaceful and pleasant experience the other night.

No breakfast for me this morning. I’m having a special kind of CT scan and so I need to be à jeun this scan was timed to be at 09:15 so at 08:45 they came to fetch me.

Somewhat later than planned, they made a start on me.

Firstly they gave me a very, very slow injection of some kind of radioactive sugar solution. They couldn’t use my catheter port because it’s been in for several days so that had to inject into a vein. Good luck with that!

Once they had finally managed to place an external catheter into the bloodstream, I then had to drink three extremely large beakers of water, and that necessitated the odd trip or two to the bathroom.

It took a while for everything to work, and eventually they wheeled me off into where this scan was taking place. It’s just like any other one of these “Stargate” time-travelling machines except that today I was strapped in and the scan took about 15 minutes before it was completed.

There was a long wait before they came to take me back to my room. it was 11:25 when I returned and long past my breakfast time. I wrote that off as a lost cause.

The doctor turned up almost immediately. She told me that the results of the scan won’t be known for a couple of days. She gave me a good going-over and while she was at it I took the opportunity to bend her ear about the feeling that I have that they are going to turf me out once the virus has disappeared and miss out on a golden opportunity to deal with my other health issues.

Judging by her stammered response I could see that I’d caught her on a touchy spot and my suspicions may well be correct. And if that’s the case I shall go berserk. I’ve had it up to here with them passing the parcel over this breathing issue and the latest developments with my right leg that nearly saw me underneath a train on the Berri-UQAM metro station in Montreal the other week.

These things really need to be sorted out and the quicker the better. Nearly 3 weeks of inaction in a hospital bed is the perfect opportunity and they are going to miss it. And then we’ll waste more of what is left of my precious couple of years left going round and round and, presumably, disappearing up my own exhaust pipe like the famous Oozelum Bird.

Of course, my lunch wasn’t ready so they had to scramble around to find it and as a result that was quite late too. And I’d barely finished before someone else came along to whisk me off for another test.

This one was to check on the amount of water still in my lungs and around the heart. This pneumonia still hasn’t gone despite the antibiotics.

It took a while to complete the scan but at least they found that I had a heart. That’s good news, because it shows that I’m not a Conservative. What was not so good was that the technician had to call a doctor in to see the scans that he’d taken.

By the time that I returned here it was 15:35 and I’d not had a coffee for almost 22 hours. Luckily a little student nurse came in to give me some medication and so I prevailed upon her to hunt down a mug of coffee for me. These student nurses really are sweet and I want to take them all home with me.

The rest of the day has been spent half-asleep being shaken awake by a variety of nurses waking me up for this and that. But not “the other” though. That kind of thing is a distant memory.

So having done everything that I was supposed to do and having finished my notes somewhat early, I’m going to close everything down except the Old-Time Radio on the laptop and curl up under the covers for a quiet evening.

But I’m sure that something will come along and disturb the peace.

It usually does.

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Saturday 12th November 2022 – WITH IT BEING …

… Saturday today it’s been very quiet.

No examinations or specialists or technicians around in the hospital over the weekend so I’ve spent most of my time in my bed here in my room.

One person who did put in an appearance was the young female doctor who has been following my case to a certain degree. She’d seen the letter that I had written the other day.

She asked what had happened so I explained and she was full of profuse apologies. I reassured her that she had no reason to apologise as what had happened was nothing whatever to do with her and she had played no role in the events that took place on that shameful afternoon.

But anyway, last night I had another deep comfortable sleep right through until the alarm went off at 06:30.

There’s some stuff on the dictaphone too from the night. There was a woman in Stoke on Trent, a young woman who worked on the buses and was known for being something of a flighty piece. She was a single mother and had a new partner which weemed to be a weekly thing. One morning she just didn’t turn up for work at all. There was all kinds of speculation about whether she’d had a row with this new lover and had thrown him out or, more to the point, had he done away with her. There was talk about sending someone round to her address to see whether her house was riddled with flies or similar as an indication of a dead body being present. Why they hadn’t sent anyone before this I really don’t know.

Someone in a railway carriage on a train who basically had a rerun of the Foxcote railway accident about which I’d been reading in the evening prior to going to sleep

After breakfast much of the morning was spent falling asleep and being shaken awake by various nurses, the odd doctor and so on. But there was no washing supplies, towels and clean clothes delivered. Trust it to be at the moment that I’m wearing a bedgown that’s falling apart and that I’ll have to try to wear for yet another day.

After lunch, there was football on the inernet. Despite the news blackout imposed by the Rugby-supporting and sponsoring Welsh media on the domestic football scene, it’s Welsh Cup day today.

The live match was Connah’s Quay Nomads, second in the Welsh Premier League, against Colwyn Bay, currently leading a pack of clubs at the head of the second tier.

The scoreline of 4-0 to the Nomads suggests a very one-sided game but that’s far from the case. Colwyn Bay played some nice, attractive football but couldn’t break through a skilled and experienced Nomads defence. On the other hand the Nomads attacking pair of Mike Hayes and Michael Wilde were just too much of a handful for the Colwyn Bay defence.

Nothing much else has happened today. On the afternoon shift today is a first-year student nurse but despite her inexperience, she has exactly the right kind of touch. She put in all of the eye drops perfectly and the injection that she gave me was painless.

The nurse who was mentoring her asked me how I was feeling after her apprentice had given me the injection so I told them both that I think that I’ll survive. That made them both laugh.

Now it’s bedtime. Tomorrow will be a quiet day again, I hope. I won’t be doing much and I don’t think that they will either.

But of course, anything unexpected can happen. And wouldn’t that be nice?

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Thursday 10th November 2022 – I’VE WRITTEN A …

… letter to the hospital staff that I will hand to a doctor at the next available opportunity.

Basically, it says that I withdraw any and all permissions for tubes, pipes, cameras and the like to be inserted into my body.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have a total horror of pipes and tubes going into my body and always have done and I’ve mentioned this to everyone with whom I’ve come into contact at the hospital. They know that they can render me unconscious by whatever means they like and when they have done that they can do what they like.

But only if I’m unconscious.

10 or so days ago they took me down to the bowels of the hospital to shove a camera down my throat. First though they gave me a pill and I was unconscious for three hours.

Today I had to go back down there so a handy porter took me and my bed on our travels.

The doctor down there remembered me, remembered my pill but just to remind her, I gave her my little speech.

So she put me on the bed in there, sprayed something in my throat, slammed something between my teeth and then simply pushed the camera down my throat with no anaesthetic at all

It goes without saying that we had the usual panic attack and everything that went with it. And hence my letter.

Last night I was in bed quite early and slept the sleep of the dead until the alarm went off at 06:30 There was one occasion when I awoke to find someone poking and prodding me round about 04:00.

Nothing on the dictaphone from last night so it must have been a deep sleep.

Much of the morning was spent either sleeping or being shaken awake but nurses and doctors. One doctor was particularly interested in my legs and that’s always a good sign.

What I didn’t like was being told round about 09:30 that I could no longer eat anything until my camera examination. I wouldn’t normally have minded except that they didn’t come for me until 14:30.

That wasn’t quite so bad but then they kept me waiting for an age before they saw me. And this is where the problem lies, I reckon, They were running late and didn’t have the time or the space to keep me on one side for a few hours while I recovered..

So I missed my lunch but I was back just in time for tea. And if that really was hummus that I had, it was the strangest hummus that I have ever eaten.

Anyway, that was basically that today. The desperate disappointment of this bronchoscopy has ruined everything here and things won’t ever be the same again.

It was an appalling thing to do to me because they all know how I feel about things like this. They’ve all had fair warning over the past few years and it’s extremely regrettable that the doctor, who took so much care to deal with me the first time, totally ignored my wishes the second time.

And I’ll tell you something for nothing. It won’t ever happen again.

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Wednesday 9th November 2022 – WE HAVE HAD …

… all kinds of people wandering around the hospital today.

As well as the usual run of nurses, doctors and all kinds of ancillary staff, we had one of the professors putting his sooty foot inside my little room.

“There will be some student doctors on the wards later this morning” he said. “Is it OK if they come and check up on you?”

Here I am in a teaching hospital with all kinds of nice young students, whether nurses or doctors, so why would I not want to be examined by them?

Consequently I agreed and so much of the morning was spent with me being poked and prodded around. In fact it was all very reminiscent of something out of DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE, especially when two of them had to come back because they had forgotten to ask me for some basic information..

Last night I was in bed quite early the way things have been going just recently, and I slept right the way through to the alarm. No-one seems to be disturbing me during the night these days.

Although I was awake, I wasn’t that much awake and here and there, now and then, a nurse had to shake me awake.

Plenty of stuff on the dictaphone too from during the night and the odd sleepy moment later. I was doing something that involved supervising a couple of companies (as in groups of people) moving across the desert towards a new life somewhere in a new fort or whatever. One party was particularly difficult because we kept running out of everything, including the ginger beer that we were supposed to drink, and that was difficult. We had a really savage guard dog that patrolled the limits of the camp. Each time one of our members of staff appeared or one of the people who was travelling, we had to go to rein in this guard dog so that the people could come through. It was all quite savage in a way. One of the guys had actually baked some fairy cakes so one breakfast we had fairy cakes. There was the usual ribbing about either he hadn’t baked them himself or whatever. In the end we decided that the only way to prove that he’d baked them himself was next Saturday to have an open house baking session where he’d bake in front of anyone who cared to watch.

There was something about being in a group last night, a group of us. I can’t recall what we were doing but there was a lot of drawing etc in it. Right at the end I asked my brother what were the objects that he was picking. He replied that it was some fruit or vegetable of some description so we wanted to know what was the fur on the face of it, whether it was some kind of rottenness or whether it was actually supposed to be there. He said that he’s on his way to the car now so he’ll pick a few and have a closer look. But I couldn’t see where he was going to fit them because he had his arms full and he couldn’t be carrying anything more than he already had

One of the nurses changed the needle in my catheter port on the grounds that it’s been in there nearly two weeks. I made sure that my little student nurse watched closely because I told her that she’s going to change the next one.

Later on this afternoon they took me down deep into the bowels of the hospital where I’ve never been before. There were two people sticking pins in my leg and sending electric shocks up and down it. They haven’t told me any results but coupled with the tests that they have been carrying out, they are of the conclusion that there’s a definite problem with the right leg and information so far suggests that it’s a lower back problem although I fail to see the connection.

After tea Alison put in an appearance. She brought me some of that banana-flavoured soya drink that I like and some vegan crisps.

We had a good chat for well over an hour while the nurses were trying to pump some plasma substance into me.

So now that I’m on my own, everyone has gone home and the place is in darkness, I’m going to put myself in darkness too. But I’m relieved that they are at last taking some of my complaints seriously. It’s been a long time since I’ve been waiting for them to do something – since March 2021 in fact – and as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’ve been quite fed up with the lack of action.

So here’s hoping that they’ll be able to do something about my problems. It won’t be before time either.

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Tuesday 8th November 2022 – I REALLY DON’T …

… know what happened to me today.

When the alarm went off at 06:30 today I was sound asleep. One of the deepest sleeps that I’ve had for a while. And when it went off at 06:35 it awoke me again

When breakfast came round at 08:00 the nurse awoke me to eat it, and a relentless chain of nurses, doctors, specialists and the like continually awoke me throughout the day.

On the way in my bed down to an ECG scan I fell asleep twice as well.

In fact I’ve been in a deep sleep for most of the day today. Right now I just want to go to sleep again and I really don’t know why.

But at least after the panic last night when I had a relapse they are taking things seriously. They have examined my chest thoroughly, carried out a few examinations on my right leg and checked over a few other things

There was the dictaphone to check over too I was in hospital last night being seen to because of this problem that I have with the chest. They were busy arranging me and I was trying to make myself comfortable. There were some temporary blankets that somehow ended up on fire and some of the blankets fell off. I realised that I wasn’t as cold as I had been so I must be improving. I went out past the office where people like my friend from Munich would sit but it was empty. I was gradually being brought downstairs, I thought, presumably for another examination but I didn’t really know

We all also went to Vire last night, to the cathedral, but it was nothing at all like the real Vire. We drove there, drove through the town to see the sights. We had to follow the road round. We thought that this would be where all the signs were for various things and sure enough there was a sign for the cathedral. We went that way and parked, got out and then walked al the way down these steps to where the cathedral was and began to have a good look round

There have been so many people in here today interrupting me that it’s only now that I’m on my own.

My Welsh class today was a fiasco. There were far too many interruptions for me to concentrate on what was happening in the lesson.

Apart from that it’s been a busy day and I’m hopeful that they will eventually find out what’s going on with my body.

However I’m not to hopeful. It seems to me that with my underlying illness, my body is slowly breaking down and it may shortly be beyond repair. That’s really disappointing but it’s inevitable that this would happen.

With Waldenstrohn’s Disease, no-one has survived more than 11 years. I was diagnosed 7 years ago and I probably had it a year or 18 months before that.

My only regret is, as you know, the fact that they have taken so long to deal with this breathing issue – 18 months, in fact, but even that has been overtaken by events with my mobility issues.

There’s really no end to it.

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MONDAY 7th November 2022 – I’VE HAS A …

… relapse today.

And I was doing so well too.

This afternoon I started to shiver and it seemed as if someone was standing on my chest and I can hardly breathe. It’s no use trying to cough either because I can’t without hurting myself.

The nurse checked my temperature and blood pressure and she decided that I have a fever with a temperature of over 38°C, a far cry from a few hours ago when it was 36.2°C

Last night I slept all the way through from about 00:20 until the alarm went off at 06:30.. And there’s stuff on the dictaphone from last night too. I can’t remember much about it except that there was something about being in hospital and a kitten, and I can’t remember whether I had to get better first before I could stroke the kitten or whether I had to stroke the kitten before I could get better. I know that when the alarm went off at 06:30 this morning I was looking for a kitten rather than the telephone to switch it off so I dunno

After I’d washed and changed I sat in the chair where I fell asleep several times, usually to be awoken by a doctor who wanted to examine me. And they seem to have taken seriously the problem of my knee. No fewer than two doctors plan to give it a full examination.

There were other doctors too who examined other bits and pieces of me too. It looks as if things are moving rapidly, but this was before the relapse.

Alison came in the middle of everything and was unlucky to catch me in a right state. She’s bought me some vegan chocolate which was really nice,

After she went they took a blood sample and later on in the evening another cute female houseman came to see me and examined me.

So now I’m off to bed, unless the houseman comes back again. And I’ll see how I feel tomorrow. I can’t feel much worse than I do right now.

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Saturday 5th November 2022 – IT’S BEEN A …

… really strange kind of day today.

In fact it was the morning that was the strangest part of it because for some reason or other that I can’t explain, I seem to have slept through most of it and for the rest of the morning I certainly wasn’t anywhere on this planet.

When a nurse came by at one point to take my temperature, not only was I deep in the arms of Morpheus, I was off on a really exciting nocturnal voyage but, regrettably, as soon as she finally managed to awaken me, then “strong>PFAFF” – it just disappeared like a balloon that had been popped and I remember not a thing at all about it.

It’s not as if I’d had a bad night either. Even though I didn’t have my sleeping pill yet again last night, I was still away with the fairies at some point before midnight and if there wee any of the usual nocturnal stampedes around the rooms by the nursing staff taking temperatures and blood pressure and so on, I don’t recall anything at all about them coming in here.

By about 03:30 I was awake again and stayed awake for a while, long enough even to eat my early-morning orange, but I ended up going back to sleep again until about 06:00.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that this amount of sleep doesn’t sound like a lot compared to how things usually are back at home but it’s not as if I’m actually rushed around off my feet here. I seem to spend almost all of my day either in bed or propped up in a chair.

The duty doctor came to see me this morning too. He wasn’t particularly expansive and didn’t say very much at all. It was difficult to extract any information from him so I gave up after a while. I’m none-the-wiser and I’m certainly not better-informed either.

Apart from everything else, I’ve had a good wash and shave, a nice lengthy chat with Liz and eaten some nice food. I do have to say that for industrial food, this stuff is pretty good.

While I was talking to Liz my “hospital app” on my ‘phone pinged with a message. Apparently I have been given an appointment with the Neurology department here on Thursday late afternoon. So I’m still going to be in Leuven, if not in the hospital itself, until then at least.

And while we’re on the subject, there’s a story going round that among the latest stages of development of the hospital site is a hotel-style accommodation for people who need to stay in the vicinity of the hospital without actually being hospitalised.

It goes without saying that I shall make further enquiries in this respect for the future.

Later on this evening, I saw some football on a very spluttering and cache-y slow internet connection. TNS swept aside a poor Cardiff Metro side 4-0 and Cardiff Metro can count themselves lucky to get “nil”. TNS must have had at least 80% of the play and I can’t recall the Met having a single shot on goal, on target or not.

So tonight I’m going to have another go at going to sleep without a sleeping pill and see how I get on. Tomorrow there will be the usual routine of temperature and blood pressure and eye drops and all of that, and a visit from the housemen, but no tests or examinations until Monday as the lab and scientific staff aren’t at work on the weekend.

But I won’t have my Sunday lie-in though. And I’ll certainly miss that.

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Friday 4th November 2022 – RUMOUR HAS IT …

… that there’s a new sound engineer twiddling the knobs in our new recording studio at the Centre Pierre et Marie Curie in Granville.

No description has been published so far other than the fact that he has a pair of rather large antlers

Another rumour that is circulating right now is that it’s raining in Caliburn through the gap in the windscreen thanks to that mess of an installation last year that I had to patch up on my way home from Germany.

A third rumour that is circulating is that they are about to throw me out into the big, wild world.

That’s rather worrying because while it’s certainly true that this virus has improved considerably (but not by any means 100%) nothing has happened about my right knee, the pain in which is getting worse and worse.

As well as that, I now have pain in the right side of my groin whenever I move my right leg.

And as I have told the medical staff here on numerous occasions, I would trade absolutely everything to have my right knee fixed.

This morning I mentioned it yet again to the doctor who came to see me and do you know what he told me?
“Mr Hall” he said, “you are lucky to be alive. When you came in here on Thursday last week we didn’t think that you would survive.”.

That’s as maybe but what I really need to be done is this knee issue that has brought my activities to a dead stop.

And then there’s the breathing issue, more of which anon.

Last night, once again, I fell asleep without any artificial aids whatsoever. And whether anyone came and checked me for anything during the night as usual, I really don’t know. I felt nothing whatsoever.

At about 04:00 I awoke but despite taking advantage of a stray orange that was loitering about I was nothing like as lively as I was yesterday. It took until the arrival of breakfast before I was in possession of all my faculties.

During the day I fell asleep a couple of times and on one occasion I had some notes to add to the dictaphone notes that were already there from the night.

There was something about me travelling to somewhere in Canada last night to meet a girl who was the daughter of someone. Someone else had gone before me. I was on a specific train. The arrangement was that somehow I’d sit in a special waiting room for these strange people and somehow she’d be able to identify me. I can’t remember very much about this at all except that once she had done, virtually the same thing happened again but this time I was leaving rather than arriving and the trains were on a very tight schedule. I was afraid that if I missed this one due to me running late it would throw my entire plans right out of the window

I fell asleep in mid-afternoon and found myself playing bass with the Gibson in a group with a young Peter Telford there playing a guitar with the machine heads in the body and several other older guys. They’d made all kinds of notes in pencil of the chords on pieces of music for me to make a start to follow. They were talking about some old guy who had been their mentor and had mentored some of the group and was possibly responsible for bringing everyone including me together for this first-night practice.

In fact many years ago I did play bass in a group with Peter Telford, but that’s another story.

On another occasion I was shaken awake by a hospital porter who wanted to take me for an examination.

This one was a cardiac examination where they gave me the same set of tests that they gave me last time, with, rather predictably, the same results.

This interview took place in Flemish, which was good. But when I asked him what he examination showed, he replied “there’s nothing wrong. Everything is normal”.

So her I am, back to where I was 6 months ago, and 18 months ago with no identification of my illness in sight. I’m beginning to think that this breathing issue is imaginary and I’m going to ask for counselling about my imaginary illness.

It’s Ingrid’s birthday today and although it took me a while I finally made contact with her and we had a good chat for 45 minutes.

My e-mail account was busy too. As well as helping one of my colleagues with a project, the Post Office had contacted me again with rather more urgency so as another of my colleagues works in a building nearby, I arranged with him to go and rescue the perishing.

In between everything I’ve also had plenty to read.

At first I stumbled upon a report by a Board of Trade examiner about A TRAIN FIRE AT BEATTOCK in 1950 that has many interesting facts about the outbreak and spread of fire.

As well as that, I’ve finally managed to track down a downloadable copy of THE OLD STRAIGHT TRACK for later perusal. This book is really the meanderings of the mind of a rather eccentric elderly gentleman in the 1920s and which were picked up by the “New Age” movement and popularised as “Ley Lines”. That’s my reading for my return journey, if ever there is such a thing.

On that point I’m packing up and going to try to sleep, without a sleeping pill if I can. And see what tomorrow will bring. There won’t be any examinations this weekend as all of the specialists have the weekend off. I’ll have to gather my strength for the onslaught on Monday.

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Tuesday 1st November 2022 – AND IT REALLY IS

… a bad news day today.

A doctor has been to visit me to say that I’m seriously ill

This is the problem with this lack of immunity. People have been catching this and feeling much better three days later. I’ve been seriously ill for 13 days and in intensive care for 6 days and any improvement is “slight”

Basically they are astonished that I travelled so far and in such strange conditions with this illness that is engulfing me, and frankly, so am I.

For a change, last night was much better They gave me a different sleeping pill that I took at 20:00 and the next thig that I remember was that i was 00:30. That was definitely one of Bill Oddie’s “powders that would paralyse a bear” and I’ll take a few more of those.

Later on I was back to sleep for a few hours and there’s even something on the dictaphone too. I was with Maria and Nicole last night. We were on our way somewhere and met a group of young boys. Eventually we arrived at her place of work. It was a job involving slicing carrots. They were working quite hard but every hour or so someone would bring them an ice-cream. I thought that this was a really good place to work by the looks of things because we were new in Canada and any job would be good so we decided that we’d ask. In the meantime Nicole was lying down on a bench and the supervisor went over to her to find out why. She said that she hadn’t been given any carrots for a few minutes. The supervisor didn’t say anything. We went over to see the guy. I told him of my qualifications. He said that with an HGV you need to be certified in Canada. In the meantime as a part-time thing I’d be driving the coach for them taking people home after their shift. I’d done it a few times but he obviously didn’t know. He came back once in the coach, and old Plaxton Elite. They were all hanging around out of the back of the building where I wanted to put the bus so we began to talk about some rally that was taking place – “did I know so-and-so from Evans Radio who was coming in a steam roller?”. That rang a bell with me because I knew someone else who was going to come in a steam roller so we chatted about that for a while

Later on I was with TOTGA. She was dating someone else whom I knew. The three of us were walking somewhere. She was smoking a lot that annoyed me a little. We wandered off on this walk and came to this fertiliser, salt and other chemical distribution place with piles and piles of sacks. I’d visited this place in the past. She went first and the lights came on so she ran back. I told her “come on, there’s no problem” and we walked through here down towards the canal where she stopped to have a cigarette. I’d walked this path dozens of times all the way down to the next bridge and back. On occasion I’d continued over the hills to the end and round over there for ages on some of the hills I’d roamed upon in the past during a dream

There was far more to it than this but you don’t really want to know about it.

When the alarm went off at 06:30 I was already working and I kept that going for a few hours. Not for long though and by 14:00 I was back in bed.

A couple of doctors have seen me (it’s Bank Holiday here)and they have finally taken out the perfusions and the ports that they put in. And with all of the intravenous stuff I’ve been having, I’ve gained 5kg in 5 days and that’s really depressing

There’s a downside to having finished my perfusions. They were placed on a portable stand which was good for clinging on to. Now it’s gone along with the perfusions so it’s a desperate stagger across the room and I’m sure that it will end in tears.

But anyway it might only be 19:30 but seeing that I’m in bed already, I’m going to try to sleep.

Tomorrow is another day

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Wednesday 26th October 2022 – STRAWBERRY MOOSE …

…. is missing!

He and the rest of my luggage failed to meet up with me in the baggage claim area of the airport this morning.

The fact is that he’s probably aware of the fact that this was our last great adventure together and seeing that Canada has always been a happy hunting ground for him, he’s stolen all of my equipment, made good his escape and gone off adventuring on his own account.

Anyway, even as we speak, enquiries are being made.

Mind you, strange as it might seem, in the peculiar circumstances of the moment my luggage not arriving at the airport is something positive. It means that I don’t have to maul that huge suitcase around with me for the final stages of my journey.

To be honest, I’m totally done in. This was one journey too many and one journey too far in my state of health right now.

It was another night when I had had no sleep whatsoever. How many is this now over the last week? I coughed and spluttered through every minute of the long flight, and it was long too because despite leaving only a handful of minutes late, we were 1:20 late landing in Paris.

And shame on Air Canada who wouldn’t pay for a proper terminal but wanted to decant us in the middle of the runway. And on a greasy, slippery set of metal stairs too.

There was no chance whatever of my making that with my backpack full of heavy electrical equipment. I sat inside with the other disabled people (this is how I’m seeing myself now) waiting for the wheelchair lift.

That promptly broke down so in the end I was helped down by one assistant while another carried my bag.

My helper passed me through the express route into France, where presenting my carte de séjour at the same time as presenting my passport means that I don’t need my passport to be stamped. And then the eternal waiting in vain for STRAWBERRY MOOSE

Eventually I filed a lost luggage complaint and then crawled wearily the entire length of the airport (and you’ve no idea how long the airport is) to the railway station.

TGV Réseau 38000 tri-volt 4520 pba gare tgv paris charles de gaulle france Eric Hall photo 26th October 2022Here was just about my only bit of luck for today. The TGV from Rennes to Brussels was running over an hour late which meant that it would be here in 7 minutes. Just time enough for me to buy a ticket and get to the platform.

Sure enough, just as I made it down to the platform, it pulled in. One of the Tri-volt PBA (Paris – Brussels – Amsterdam) trainsets that leaves Rennes at the crack of dawn to to go to Brussels direct without passing by Paris.

Once or twice I’d thought about catching this train from Rennes. It would certainly be more convenient for me except that it departs too early for a connection with trains from Granville. But I never thought that I’d be catching it from here.

Once on board the train, I had a beautiful, blissful sleep of all of about 5 minutes.

hotel de france boulevard jamar brussels belgium Eric Hall photo 26th October 2022At Brussels-Midi I bought some banana-fjavoured soya milk, a couple of bricks, and then walked to my hotel. It’s 400 metres from the railway station yet it took me 20 minutes and I almost fell over twice.

It’s a different hotel than usual. Slightly more expensive but much more luxurious and better finished. I stayed here one a good few years ago. And I’m not disappointed either. Luckily even though I was early, my room was ready for me, and it’s a nice room.

First thing was to have a shower and wash my clothes. The only clothes that I have with me are the ones in which I’ve been travelling and I’m very mindful of something Rosemary once said to me. After I’d been on the road for a couple of days once she told me that I looked like a tramp. And to be honest, today I knew that I did. With my hospital visits tomorrow I have at least to make a pretence of civilisation.

Having done that I came in here, crashed out on the bed and went away with the fairies for three hours.

When I awoke, I had a packet of crisps and then got into bed ready to wait until tomorrow morning.

Talking of eating, do you want to know what I’ve eaten since Thursday lunchtime last week? well, 2 bananas, half a baguette, 2 slices of pizza, one airline meal and a packet of crisps

My appetite has gone completely, and so will I if this carries on much longer.

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Tuesday 18th October 2022 – A FUNNY THING …

… happened this morning. But anyone who knows anything about cats will know that there is nothing whatever strange about it.

The alarm went off as planned at 05:45 ready for my Welsh lesson but immediately (and I DO mean “immediately”) Cujo the Killer Cat jumped on me and trapped me in bed.

She refused to move until she’s had a good 20 minutes of strokes and consequently I was late for my lesson.

Once the lesson began she came and sat on my knee for an hour or so, hogging the camera while the lesson continued.

At last I think that I’ve sorted out the best way to deal with the Zoom meetings on this computer.

A year or so ago I upgraded it by swapping the hard drive for a solid-state drive but the processor is still quite slow. Zoom uses up all of the resources which means that when I open the course book *.pdf the Zoom window stutters. However if I minimise the Zoom window so that it shows “active speaker only” then it doesn’t work too badly.

As for the lesson itself it passed quite quickly and it wasn’t too bad. In fact I did rather well in what I was asked to do. But I really need to work on my vocabulary. Well, more than that actually. I’m feeling that I’m falling way behind.

After the lesson finished I … errr … relaxed for a while and then had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. We were at an archaeological dig last night having to clean some of the artefacts. There were quite a few of us there. I found some kind of switch made from bakelite from the 1950s. It was extremely delicate and took me ages to get into all the nooks and crevices etc to scrape away years years of dust. Then I had to go to work on some kind of miniature man, wrap him in ivy seeds and ivy runners. It was called a “gorseinon” whatever that might be. I didn’t have a clue how to do this but there was some young girl there who was making one who gave me some instruction as to how to do it, hanging part of it around his neck and twisting it round so that the whole length of whatever it is that you had was covering his whole length to varying degrees.

Then I was out with Rachel. We were shopping somewhere. She was telling us about all the chaos there had been over the Christmas shopping. She had a list of shops that she wanted to visit but there was so much chaos on the roundabout and traffic junctions that she never actually managed to make it to one particular shop which was a pretty important one on the list. She was describing to me how people just take so much time doing their shopping because they would want to talk to the counter clerk, inane, banal things. She was imitating some of their conversation in this perfect Canadian accent while everyone in the queue with us was listening and smiling. We’d already had some kind of chaos on the roundabout with telling some stories to my brother who was in the car behind and was so intent on listening that he ended up being in the wrong lane coming into this roundabout and caused an almighty snarl-up of his own while he tried to sort himself out and get him on the right track

There was also something that I vaguely remember about a gold BMC1800 “ADO17” being parked up at a house in Canada. And that’s a surprise because the car was never available in North America as far as I can tell.

After lunch I headed off down to the mill again. It was quite busy there these days especially as they are loading up the feed truck to go on a delivery round. But these days I’m in no condition to help out as I used to.

But at least I think that I’ve worked out why the transmission in Strider might be slipping occasionally. There wasn’t a drop of oil in the gearbox so I topped it up – with about a litre of hypoid.

Strider has been stood for three years, I know, but I didn’t think that the oil would leak out over time. I shall have to put him up on a ramp and see of there’s a leak. Gone are the days when I could crawl underneath.

We were there until quite late this evening and when we came home, we were in no mood to cook. Consequently we ended up with leftovers. I had what I had yesterday except with a baked potato instead of the spaghetti squash.

Rachel and I chatted for a couple of hours and made plans for the future, and now I’m off to bed. Tomorrow I’m going to start to pack as I ought to be thinking about going home.

Not that I want to, but I can’t stay here for ever. Apart from anything else, I have no fewer than 6 hospital appointments in Leuven a week on Thursday. Things are hotting up.

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Tuesday 11th October 2022 – THE CAT SAT …

… on the mat, as the old saying goes.

But this morning, she didn’t. As I found out when I went to sit on the chair to take part in my Welsh lesson.

Of course, at 05:55 it’s quite dark and you can’t see all that much. And as I’m half asleep anyway and my eyes aren’t focusing properly after another miserable night, seeing a black cat on a dark blue chair is not easy.

However, she soon let me know that she was there. Poor Cujo, the Killer Cat.

The Welsh lesson itself was quite awful. I wasn’t in the mood, I was tired, I was having to juggle computer screens around and at one point my microphone stopped working. I was really glad when the lesson ground to a halt.

cujo the killer cat centreville new brunswick Canada Eric Hall photo 11th October 2022Cujo the Killer Cat had forgiven me for my faux pas earlier because during the first part of the lesson she was on my knee.

She cleared off at some point but as soon as the lesson ended she came back again. For an hour or so while I was dozing after the lesson I didn’t mind but when I wanted to work she just sat on the laptop on my knees and that was that.

No chance whatever of actually doing any work this morning so I relaxed instead.

Later on, I went for a shower and a clothes-washing session, and having rounded up all of the felines, I hung up my clothes in the wind. Then Strider, STRAWBERRY MOOSE and I headed for Woodstock.

And by the time we got … errr … etc. etc.

This sunroof is enormous. It only just fits into the back of Strider. It’s heavy too and sending it back to Europe is going to be astronomical. Buying it hit the limit on my bank card so that’s grounded out right now and I had to use my European card for the balance.

It was a good job that I had some cash on me for my purchases at Sobey’s afterwards.

From there I drove to Florenceville to go to the bank to sort out my card, but I wonder is any of the regular readers of this rubbish would recall which day of the week is the one when the Scotia Bank closes early?

Round to the mill in Centreville to see what was happening there but, falling asleep, I ended up going back home for a coffee and a doze.

There was time before tea to transcribe the dictaphone notes from last night. I had joined some kind of internet chat room but the nickname that I had chosen, I didn’t really want to advertise so I only published it as a form of coded URL so that only a certain few people would be able to know the URL and know that it was me but that’s really all that I remember of this at the moment

I should mention somewhere that Hannah and Jake were involved in this but I can’t remember how or why.

But I remember a bit more about that dream now. We were having a party somewhere in North America. I’d had a friend on the internet, a girl whom I knew. They wee talking about travelling so I said that if ever they were to find themselves in the UK they can come to Crewe and I’d be quite happy to put them up, cook a meal, that sort of thing. She said that that wouldn’t be possible because she and her partner were lesbians. The authorities would look very dimly on the idea of a pair of lesbians travelling with a very young girl and sharing accommodation with her, that kind of thing. They needed to be very careful about it which I thought was ridiculous.

Tea was a burger with baked potatoes and the left-over beans from yesterday’s brunch. I had a long chat with Darren and when Rachel came home we had a good chat too.

But right now I’m off to bed. It’s early but I’m exhausted and I have a long day tomorrow. I need to be on form, and I also need to avoid sitting on any cats. If they want to sit on me, that’s fine. But not the other way round.

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Sunday 9th October 2022 – AFTER ALL OF THE …

… non-events of yesterday I have had quite a bad day today.

In actual fact, what I mean to say is that I had a very bad night. And quite honestly, I hardly had any sleep at all.

Had I not actually seen anything on the dictaphone I would actually have said that I didn’t sleep at all. But there is a small file on there (that I have yet to transcribe) quite late on.

And despite it being Sunday I’d set an alarm for 09:00 as we were going out. However I forgot that the alarm programme isn’t set for a Sunday so it didn’t actually ring. Nevertheless I was actually up and about when it should have gone off.

After we had done all of the household chores like feeding the cats (there are three of them here) we set out for Woodstock. We were going to a café for a breakfast.

We were actually in the Volkswagen estate (about which you might hear so much more in due course) but we really should have gone in a fleet of buses because by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong.

My meal was home fries with onion and mushroom followed by toast whilst Darren and Rachel had a fried breakfast. It was totally delicious.

On the way back home we had to make a little detour. There’s a taxi job that I have to undertake on Wednesday from Woodstock to Fredericton and return so I needed to find out where the pick-up will be, and then we came home.

Later on, while we were preparing the Thanksgiving meal, I had quite a wobble. So much so that I went to lie down. And while I didn’t actually go to sleep, I was well away with the fairies for a couple of hours. Anyway, once back on my feet we finished the meal.

Zoe came round with her partner for the meal. I’ve not me him before and he seems quite a nice guy. I’m glad about that. Zoe deserves someone nice to share her life.

And the meal was excellent. I had vegan sausages with all of the usual trappings and there wasn’t anything at all that disappointed.

The washing up and tidying up probably took longer than the preparation of the meal but at least we left the place looking tidy. And now I’m in my room writing up my notes. And that’s not easy because Cujo the Killer Cat is crawling all over me and the computer seeking attention. It seems to be my lucky night.

It’s the best offer that I have had for a considerable period of time and I intend to make to most of it.

Tomorrow it’s a Bank Holiday here but there will be an alarm all the same because I need to organise myself so much better. I have plenty of work to do, such as to transcribe all of these dictaphone notes. There are quite a few of those and I’m hoping that there will be even more in the morning.

But in the meantime, here are the ones from last night. I was driving around Crewe. I might even have had a very young TOTGA with me, so “hello” to her. I’d seen in the distance a huge overhead water tower that might have related to the railways so I wanted to go and have a look at it. However I was side-tracked by a house that was for sale, a 3-bedroomed Victorian terrace with an outbuilding at the back that could be converted into apartments on sale at £55,000. We went to have a look at it but lost our way. Then we took a wrong turning and ended up outside a cemetery where there were loads of funerals taking place. We had to turn round. Something came up about sports matches in which the 2 or us had played in 2 or 3 consecutive games where people had committed a foul by using their hands to score a goal. I was saying that maybe we ought to do the same tactic. She said that we hadn’t really been in a position to score a goal as yet.

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