Sunday 5th May 2024 – IM FED UP ….

… of these miserable days that I seem to be having right now,, like the one that I’ve had today when I’ve spent most of it asleep.

It totally beats me, whatever it is that’s switching me on and, more importantly, off like a lightbulb. I’m going through periods where I can’t stay awake no matter how hard I try. I can only think that it’s one of the pills that I’m taking and I wish I knew which one it was because I’d stop it without a moment’s hesitation.

It seems to be the same at night too though. What I’ve been doing for the last few nights is that once I actually get into bed, to run through a little scenario in my mind, and I’ve never reached the end of it, having fallen asleep somewhere along the way.

And last night was the same. I was in bed shortly after 23:00 and looking forward to a lie-in until all of 08:00 and running through my little scenario, didn’t reach the end before I must have fallen asleep.

There was something going on last night about a group of girls, maybe in a school or something. They had to dress themselves in the appropriate gear to fight off whatever it was that was coming to attack them. Some of them had just seen groups of humans coming their was. Others had seen supernatural figures. One had seen a dragon. The dispute roared on. If they wore clothes to defend themselves against the dragon they’ll be fine against any less powerful force but some of them just wanted to wear the clothes that were appropriate to fight the foe that they’d seen. They were in the middle of this huge argument when the alarm went off. Mt immediate feeling when the alarm went off was that it was too late now to change any decision that had been actually made because the moment had arrived.

It’s quite strange what goes on in my head just before the alarm goes off. There have been some really interesting things just recently that have been on the dictaphone from just before the alarm goes off and in some cases it’s a pity that the alarm disrupts them.

So when the alarm went off I fell out of bed and staggered off to the bathroom but the nurse was early today and gave me his three-minute warning before I’d finished dressing so I had to get a wiggle on and hurry up, which is quite difficult these days.

Anyway I just about managed to beat him this morning. Only just

When he came he told me that my neighbour had had another fall yesterday and that he’s worried about her. I think that all of us in the building are actually. She’s putting up a heroic fight against her illness but she really needs more help than we can give her.

After he left I had some breakfast and came back in here where I crashed out again. And for a couple of hours too. That’s really annoying as I said earlier.

Then I watched yesterday’s match between Stranraer and Stenhousemuir. Stranraer are bottom of the Scottish League 2 and Stenhousemuir are top so I imagine that everyone was surprised when Stranraer won the game 2-0.

Not that it did them any good because Clyde won too so Stranraer finished the season in bottom place and go into the relegation play-offs against East Kilbride of the Scottish Lowland League

After lunch I began to make my biscuits. I have some fresh – well, it’s not so fresh now after a couple of months in the kitchen – ginger and some coconut oil and desiccated coconut so for the next couple of weeks we’ll be having ginger and coconut biscuits.

While they were going through their preparation and standing phases I transcribed the dictaphone notes. Some of them you won’t wish to know about, especially if you’re eating your meal right now, but we had also gone to a Workingman’s Club in Crewe. We were only kinds and we weren’t sure whether we were going at first. It was all a very last-minute thing before my mother decided to take us. We had a wonderful time with all kinds of kids’ entertainments etc going on. At the end of the night I thanked my mother for taking us but wished that she’d spent more time with us because she was off with all of her friends but she insisted that she’d spent a lot of time with us although that’s not at all how it appeared to any of us at all. She was much more interested in her friends than she was in her children – that was the impression that we received and we were pretty much left alone for the entire night.

And there’s more truth in that dream than you can imagine too.

And weren’t Workingmen’s Clubs a strange phenomenon? Run by committees of elderly men who actively refused to consider anything at all except things that only they would enjoy, they drove away the youngsters in droves. When they died out, there was no-one to take their place and all of the clubs closed down

It doesn’t matter how well something is working at the moment, you have to move with the times and take on board modern ideas or else your pet project will die out with you too.

There’s a similar dispute going on in Welsh football right now. Ground improvement regulations have come into force at tier three clubs. They all now have to have covered seating accommodation, concrete walkways and so on.

Many people are upset by these regulations but the days of standing on a cinder bank in the open air in the rain are long-gone.

If I have the choice of a couple of football games to watch and it’s raining, and one ground has covered accommodation and the other doesn’t, which one will I choose? And if it’s not raining, but one ground has a pie hut and the other one doesn’t, where will I go?

The modern world is changing rapidly and we have to do the best we can to keep up with it.

There was also time to choose the music for another radio programme for which I’ll write the notes in the forthcoming week. When I’ll dictate them though is anyone’s guess. I need a quiet, late night for that but there’s no chance while the nurse is coming round every morning.

There was a vegan pizza to make too. I’d taken some of the dough out of the freezer and that was busy defrosting during the afternoon. At some point I rolled it out and assembled my pizza.

After the biscuits had been baked (and delicious they are too because I cooked the odds and ends of pastry in the air fryer and then sampled them) I baked the pizza and that was delicious too.

As a special treat for pudding, I finished off the strawberries with some more soya cream. They were really nice too.

So that’s everything for tonight, I reckon. I’ll do what I need to do to finish off and then go to bed where I’ll run through my little scenario and see how far I reach.

But the story of plays and scenarios reminds me of a story I heard about two rival actors, one of whom was appearing in a tragedy and the other in a comedy.
The one said to the other, who was appearing in the comedy "I saw your comedy last night and I’m afraid that I didn’t laugh once"
To which the other replied "well isn’t that funny? I saw that tragedy that you are in and I simply roared with laughter"

4th May 2024 – HAPPY STAR WARS DAY …

.. to all of my readers. May the fourth be with you!

What I hope is that you have had a good day today. As for me, I’ve had a better day, but then again that’s not saying all that much.

After I’d finished my notes last night I had a rush around and was actually in bed by 23:03. That’s quite early for recent times but still later than I would like it to be, with an alarm call at 07:00.

Once in bed I didn’t remember anything at all – I certainly can’t remember any phantom alarm calls going off that would awaken me

When the real alarm did actually go off I was a little boy in bed with a little girl. My mother came in and said that she was glad to see me awake and glad to see me and that the two of us had got on so well together and she was going to sing a song to awaken both of us. Just at that moment BILLY COTTON roared his “wakey waaaa….key” and I didn’t find it funny in the least.

It’s very strange but the number of times something in real life has synchronised with something in a dream, such as my mother about to sing to wake me up and we have the alarm going off just at that moment. It’s not every time, of course, but it’s an unusual percentage of times that’s higher than you might think.

Anyway I wandered off for a wash and for my medication.

Having set out the room as the nurse likes it to be, he came down after seeing to my neighbour upstairs, changed the dressing on my foot and put on my puttees. And the wound on my foot is certainly looking much better than it did several weeks ago. That’s good news.

After he left I came back in here where I crashed out – the first of several times today. I’m not doing too well from that point of view.

As for my breakfast, I did manage to stay awake long enough to make and eat my cheese on toast and coffee. And the bread that I made yesterday is really good too. I was quite impressed with that lot of baking – almost as impressed as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin all those years ago.

Once I’d finally awoken I went for a wash and a shave and sure enough, at 14:00 I had a visitor. One of my fellow students on my Welsh course is retired and spends months driving around Europe in his caravanette. He’s turned up in Granville this morning so he came for a coffee and a chat.

And wasn’t it lovely to see him? I don’t have enough visits, which is a shame

After he left I transcribed the dictaphone notes. I was with Nerina last night. She’d come back home and we were together, but it wasn’t at all what she was expecting. She realised that my routine had changed so what she decided was that some time during the following day we’d both sit down and thrash out some rules for some kind of co-existence. I was willing to listen but obviously I wasn’t going to agree to any of the rules that might change my life drastically from how it is. Nevertheless I was interested to see exactly what her proposals might be. Of course they might affect other people like the district nurse coming round but that was something that we’d have to see about and have to negotiate anyway so that we could have some kind of life in common rather than living as two individuals in the same house

The biggest change would be that I can’t walk anywhere these days. I’m stuck inside this building and not able to go out. I’m not sure what other changes there would be after 30-odd years but there would bound to be some. The fact that I don’t have to go to work and so can have a more regulated lifestyle would be a big change for a start

There was also something else going on too about living together. A young mother named Maggie had moved in with a guy called Bill in the suburbs of Glasgow because it seemed like the best opportunity she was going to find to escape the kind of squalor in which she’d been living. His lifestyle didn’t conform to what she was expecting either so it was necessary to get together and thrash out rules between him and her but she was far less optimistic that some kind of arrangement suiting both parties would be found and considered it a great challenge to try to persuade him to conform to certain ideals of communal life in the middle of all of this Glasgow gang warfare that was going on around these tenements

There are several people whom I know who can’t bear to be on their own and have to be with someone else regardless of how it turns out. For one or two of them, it’s turned out really well but for the most part it’s been something of a disaster and they just move on to the next, with predictable results.

The res of the day, when I’ve not been asleep, has been dealing with the blog entries from when I was in Canada in 2022. The photos and the corresponding text needs to be added in so I’ve been working on that.

There’s only a handful of photos left to do but they won’t be done tomorrow as I’ll be baking biscuits. I’m running right out of those at the moment. I’m just trying to think about what kind of biscuits I should make. The last lot were chocolate biscuits and the ones before that were honey biscuits.

Tea tonight was one of my breaded quorn fillets with a salad and a baked potato. Quite delicious as usual, especially the potato cooked for 5 minutes in the microwave and then 15 minutes in the air fryer.

Pudding was delicious too. Some of the strawberries that I bought the other day soaked in a vegan cream. And there are more strawberries and cream for tomorrow after the pizza.

But right now, that’s it. My eyesight has deteriorated rapidly since yesterday and I can’t really see what I’m doing.

And that’s a problem. Not like when I lived down on the farm. It was such a small village that even though I might not have had a clue what I was doing, all the neighbours knew

Friday 3rd May 2024 – I’VE HAD A …

… bad day today.

Actually, it was a bad afternoon, to be honest. In the morning I was extremely busy, as you’ll find out in a moment or two.

But it’s no surprise that the afternoon wasn’t very good. It was yet another night where I ended up in bed much later than I would have liked, and the night was somewhat turbulent too. There was a huge pile of stuff on the dictaphone.

When the alarm went off though I was fast asleep so I fell out of bed and switched it off before staggering off to the bathroom

After I’d had the medication I made a start and began to prepare the dough for the weekend’s bread

While the bread was busy proofing the nurse came round to see me, to change the dressing on the foot and to put on my puttees. He was actually born in Flanders and so we spent some time talking about Belgium and in particular the linguistic war between the Flemish and the French

After he left I gave the bread its second kneading and then baked it. And for once I have some perfect bread rolls, exactly as they ought to be and I’m well-impressed. They are without doubt the best bread rolls I have ever made.

While the bread was baking I was busy making some broccoli stalk soup with the aid of a couple of small potatoes, a large onion, some garlic, herbs and, when it was almost finished cooking, a tub of soya yoghurt.

The soup with some nice fresh bread was absolutely delicious. There’s nothing quite like it, except of course my carrot and ginger soup. I’ve not made one of those for ages though, and maybe perhaps I ought to have another go at that in due course

That was when my problems began because I fell asleep at the table while drinking my coffee. Yes, don’t let anyone tell you that coffee keeps you awake. There have been many times when I’ve fallen asleep with a mug of coffee in my hand, half drunk.

And that, regrettably, is how it’s been for most of the afternoon, fighting off wave after wave of sleep, sometimes not successfully. And I’m really fed up of it. I can’t do anything at all when this kind of thing happens and there’s so much to do

My cleaner came down for a whizz through the apartment and while she was doing her stuff I transcribed the dictaphone notes -all of them. There was something going on with our Welsh group. We’d formed a band of some description and were being led by someone. We ended up somewhere in the countryside and had to go somewhere so everyone set off. They were going at a much more rapid pace than I could keep up but that didn’t seem to matter. I was just falling behind all the time carrying these two huge cymbals. They went down a hill at one point and then climbed up the side of a bank. I thought that I’m never ever going to climb that bank at all but in the end I worked out that if I began to climb the bank at a much earlier point I could traverse my way across and make it to the top and even save a little time that way. I managed to get very close to them but they went off down this farm track at a really rapid rate of knots. I was staggering on behind, tangled in barbed wire and other kinds of wire etc. The we eventually arrived at a stadium-type of place. I had no idea what was happening or what we were supposed to be doing, how we were going to be doing it, but they’d come here in such a determined fashion that they obviously knew about it but I didn’t. I was having a feeling that I was being somehow squeezed out

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have in fact fallen way behind the rest of my group and that’s how it’s been for a while – since I went to Canada in 2022 in fact. One month there and then two months in hospital knocked a big hole in my learning and not being able to concentrate afterwards hasn’t helped in the slightest. I wish I knew what I was doing but at the moment I’m just stumbling along

Later on we were doing some kind of disco. We were all there and the music was playing. One or two people were dancing on the stage but not many people were there at all really. They asked me why I wasn’t dancing but I didn’t really have a reply. In the end I climbed up on the stage and began to dance about which seemed to satisfy them. There were still not very many people there. Just as another girl began to climb onto the stage the record ended and they switched to a waltz. I grabbed hold of the girl and waltzed with her. At first it was complicated as I tried to remember the steps and I tripped on her feet but eventually it all came back. I began to waltz with her and it was really quite a good dance. But then the record ended and I thought “what’s going to happen now? How are things going to pan out? Who’s going to do what, when and where?” It seemed that the evening wss just being left hanging in the air like that

That reminds me of a night on board THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR. Someone struck up a waltz so I picked one of the females (it wasn’t Castor) and waltzed off with her down the deck. I don’t know who was more surprised – she who didn’t think that I would be the type of person to waltz or me that I could actually remember how to do it without stepping on her toes.

Then it was necessary to change my clothes. I’m not sure why even though I was dressed in a convicts uniform type of thig I was still quite comfortable but gradually people were changing out of their uniforms into civilian clothes, plain clothes so I thought that I would too but there was really no possibility of escape. All I wanted to do was to sit down and have a great big relaxation somehow but it wasn’t going to happen with all of this going on. I was still going to be quite wound up going in towards breakfast

Then the alarm went off and I was about to haul myself out of bed when it suddenly cut out. We had the “ladies and …” bit it stopped before it said “… gentlemen”. Then I realised that everyone was helping the children in the nursery which was probably why they didn’t want any men about the premises so I went outside. I couldn’t see anything happening. It didn’t look to me as if the children were leaving the school but it was all about the statistics so I’ve no idea what had gone off and awoken us if it wasn’t this alarm

As you can imagine, it wasn’t my alarm at all. For a start, mine doesn’t go “Ladies and gentlemen …” but it’s the good old Billy Cotton WAKEY WAAAA…. KEY that wakes up not just me but the rest of the building and half the street.

Then a voice was crying “a third! A third!”. I’ve no idea what was going on but there were a couple of empty banana-flavoured Alpro cartons lying around. For some reason I wasn’t allowed to drink anything so I started to look for a pair of scissors to cut into them so that the patients who were in the ward that I was controlling could drink them themselves.

At 05:20 I had to work out which woman had lost her bloomers in one of the dances because the bloomers fell to the floor and you could see them in the middle of the dance floor but no-one seemed to own up and accept responsibility for it so I thought that I’d go to have a look to see if I could work out whose they were. They’d obviously want them back and of course if they could actually find them.

It beats me why I noted the time here, but it’s certainly interesting that someone should lose her bloomers and then ignore the fact. It brings insouciance to a whole new level.

The whole thing dissolved into a St Trinians-type of farce with the buses pulling up in Gresty Road and all the kids streaming out and going off down Claughton Avenue towards the school. There were several new teachers there, one of whom was clearly disorientated so he’d have to sort himself out but another one seemed to be at least vaguely interested, a big, heavy guy so in a group we all swarmed down with the children. At the corner of the street where there was a turn-off for the hall there was some person who was a kind-of teacher, a male organiser who was taking everyone’s name and finding out which alternative subjects they wanted to do, being friendly and cheerful, chatting to everyone. The big, heavy new guy turned up and the light-hearted teacher-type of person said “I can see that you have a great big frame. You’re obviously right for the rugby team”. The fellow admitted that he played rugby so he was immediately signed up. On the way down the avenue these new teachers were extremely perplexed because they couldn’t work out why we were going down there and couldn’t work out why the school would be down there. Of course they clearly had no idea what kind of school it was and why it should be situated in such a very poor area and that so they were going to be in for a dreadful shock when they finally arrived there and met the other teachers and the children.

My opinion is that if they were to have a girls’ school in Claughton Avenue in Crewe it would make St Trinians look like a kindergarten. And it wouldn’t need teachers either but wardens. It’s not exactly the calmest and most peaceful street in Crewe.

Later on, after another wave of sleep, I went for tea. Some of those delicious vegan nuggets with salad and chips thanks to my cleaner who brought me some potatoes today. It really did go down well and I was good and ready for it too. At least I have my appetite back.

So now I’m going to make a really big effort to go to bed early. I might have visitors tomorrow so I need to be on form.

But talking to the nurse about the linguistic wars reminds me of an incident that took place on the linguistic border between Waterloo and St Genesius-Rode.
As you drive into Waterloo there’s a sign that says the town name. Underneath it they fixed a plaque "You are now in Wallonie. Here we speak French"
On the other side of the sign it said “Sint Genesius-Rode” and following the posting of the Wallonie plaque the citizens of Sint Genesius Rode put up a plaque that said "You are now in Flanders. Here we work"

Thursday 2nd May 2024 – THAT BLASTED LECLERC …

… delivery driver forgot to drop off the box with all of the soya milk in it

He managed to drop off everything else that I’d ordered but somehow overlooked the milk in his van. I telephoned him as soon as I realised but he didn’t answer his ‘phone.

It’s not possible for me to live without my soya milk. I get through quite a lot of it,, especially at weekends so I need a large stock on hand. At the moment I have very little in store on the tiled floor in the bathroom, so I’ve no idea what I’m going to do if he doesn’t drop it off.

Yes, before I went to bed last night I went through the shopping list to make sure that I had everything on there that I needed and then wandered off to bed rather later than intended.

It was another good night as far as I was concerned, and I can’t remember anything at all about it which is good news from the point of view of sleep, but not from the point of view of nocturnal rambling Many people have told me that I need to get out more, but in my sleep at night is the only way that I can do that these days.

When the alarm went off I was having a medical examination for some reason or other. The doctor who was doing it usually examined female patients so it was a rather interesting examination. Right at the end they said that if I were to leave something on the corner of his desk could he pass it to one of the women whom he’ll be examining in due course? He agreed to do so so I put it on the end of his desk. Just them, the alarm rang and awoke me

What was quite amazing about that is that the ‘phone, with the alarm, was situated at the end of my desk where it was being given an overnight cage by the computer, and where I imagined that I’d left whatever it was, that was exactly where my ‘phone was.

Having switched off the alarm I wandered off into the bathroom for a wash etc end then into the dining area for my morning medication. It’s a Thursday so I get to take everything today including the weekly Vitamin D capsule. I’m sure that people can hear me rattling when I approach them with all of this stuff inside me.

The nurse came round and sorted out my foot and my puttees. He tells me that things aren’t going too well with my neighbour whom he also sees and he’s becoming quite worried. However it’s no good trying to involve me. What can I do?

After he left I came back in here, where I promptly crashed out. So much so that I was actually quite late going for my coffee and flapjack

Back in here I finalised my order for LeClerc and sent it off, only to realise that I’d not ordered any potatoes or apples. And that’s a catastrophe too. I’ve really not done very well at all with this order

Having sent the order off I spent the next few hours tracking down tracks for the radio programme that I mentioned earlier. I now have a nice collection of music for what I want to do and so I can start organising it and pairing it off ready to write out the notes

Writing the notes will be difficult because some of the music is quite obscure and I’ve no idea about who the musicians in the groups might be. I shall just have to do my best

The order for LeClerc finally turned up – late – so I went to check it but there’s no receipt. That must be in the box with the milk, which also wasn’t there. As I said earlier, that’s a catastrophe. As far as I’m aware, everything else was there, including the strawberries that were on special offer.

It’s quite funny about the strawberries. On the way to Paris last week there was a lot of discussion about food, both on the car radio and with the taxi driver. Suddenly I had an overwhelming desire for strawberries. I’ve no idea why

And then on LeClerc’s promotion this week, they had strawberries! So I added a punnet.

In the middle of all of this Ingrid rang so I said that I’d call her back. Once I’d settled everything we had a nice chat that went on for about 50 minutes. If she’s not careful she’ll be changing her name to Rosemary at this rate.

So after we’d finished discussing our various health issues I went back into the kitchen where I washed, scrubbed, diced and peeled 2 kilos of carrots which I then blanched, followed by a couple of broccoli. Yes, that was on special offer too, so it’s broccoli stalk soup for lunch tomorrow

While all of that was draining I put everything away and then came in here to transcribe the dictaphone notes from the night. I was in goal for England last night, would you believe. We were playing Italy in some kind of tournament. I’d been selected, I’m not sure why, but I wasn’t having a very good night. My throw-outs weren’t long enough so they were easily intercepted. Indeed the Italian goalkeeper intercepted one of them – he’d come forward for it and pumped it back in past me for a goal. At one stage we were 2-1 down but I caught him out because he kept on coming forward when I had the ball ready to throw out and I finally got to grips with my throws and managed to throw it. It went over his head into the goal. I scored a third goal too a little later on so England were winning 3-2 at one particular point. I wasn’t happy in goal – I was a little uncomfortable but never mind

When I was at school I actually kept goal for my house team but I never was selected for the school team. I thought that it was probably because I was probably rubbish – I had my lack of height against me.

Some time later though I learnt that the guy who was the school’s first-choice goalkeeper for my year went on to play professionally for Wycombe Wanderers and his substitute played for Northwich Victoria in the Conference, I was up against some pretty tough opposition.

Mind you, I might have been rubbish as well, but I kept goal for the office team when I worked for an Insurance Company in Chester after leaving school and also for several local teams on a one-off basis when they needed a goalkeeper urgently.

It wasn’t until later when I found my true niche, and that was when a local cricket team was short of a wicket keeper. I ended up quite happily keeping wicket for several years and enjoying every minute of it, and I wish that I could still do it.

Tea tonight was nothing important. Pasta and veg in a spicy tomato sauce with a vegan burger. One or two of the burgers in the European Burger Mountain are coming up close to their sell-by date and they need to be polished off before they walk out of the fridge themselves to complain.

So that’s it for tonight. I wonder what tomorrow might bring. My milk, I hope. I can’t go another fortnight without my soya milk. If it doesn’t come I’ll be in a few difficulties but it’s no use crying over spilt milk, is it?

It reminds me of the little boy watching the milkman put a milk crate full of empty bottles into his van
"Oh look mum!" he shouted. "A cow’s nest!"

Wednesday 1st May 2024 – IT’S HARD TO ..

… believe that it’s the First of May already.

We’ve had fog and mist all day, it’s been raining and it’s flaming cold to such an extent that I’m seriously considering switching the heating back on. I don’t think that I can ever remember a Spring quite like this one.

Winter may well have been one of the warmest on record but we’re certainly making up for it now with this weather. We’ve not had a really warm day yet.

Mind you, it makes little difference to me, this weather. It’s not as if I’m going out anywhere just now. The next time that I need to be somewhere is 26th June when I have an appointment here in Granville as a follow-up to my stay in hospital at Avranches.

There’s no news on the horizon about any visit to Paris. In a sense that’s good news because it would suggest that they aren’t really so worried about how things are developing. On the other hand, it would be nice if they were to conduct regular checks on what’s going on with me.

But right now, the important thing for me to do is to take more care of myself, like going to bed early for a start.

Last night was earlier than some just recently but still later than I would like. And even so, it makes no sense when I wake up thinking that the alarm is going off so I need to get up, only to find that it’s 04:00, it’s still dark and it’s not the alarm going off at all.

So what was it then? I wish that I knew. It certainly sounded like the alarm in my sleep.

Luckily I was able to go back to sleep and I was dead to the World when the alarm finally did go off at 07:00. It’s a Bank Holiday here today and how I wish that I could have had a decent lie-in as I would normally do, but not when I have the nurse coming round.

Falling out of bed as usual, I switched off the alarm and headed for the bathroom, and then for the dining area and my medication

The nurse came round later to sort me out. He thinks that my foot is improving, which is good news. But the prescription about my puttees seems to be going on for ever. I can’t remember how long it was for but it must be close to expiry.

After he left I vegetated for a while trying to summon up the enthusiasm to do something, but instead I seemed to have drifted off into the Land of Nod for a while. Obviously my body is still in the Bank Holiday spirit even if I’m not.

After my coffee and flapjack I transcribed the notes from the dictaphone. There was something going on about a car repair last night that was under investigation. When we went to check on it we found that the car, an Austin 1800, was suspended in mid-air. It was attached to a machine called a “Kibble”. The machine rotated the car rather like a rotisserie so that the car would be much easier to work on. I talked to the owner about the machine. He told me that it cost £10,000, it was portable and he would take it with him when he was going out to repair because it saved him a lot of time and energy. He’d even change the chassis on certain vehicles using this machine.

Actually I’ve seen a real rotisserie being used for welding cars and having spent mush of my life crawling underneath cars to weld them up, one of them was at the top of my list for the farm, along with a two-post lift and a tyre changer. They are nothing like as expensive as £10,000, not even a tenth of that, and the time and back-breaking effort that they would save is enormous.

However, like almost everything now, it’s all water under the bridge. I’ll never have any cause to want to go crawling around under any other car under any circumstance again.

Then I was dreaming about a ladies football team. One of the players on the team had committed a very serious foul which didn’t look much when you saw it live but when you saw the video later on it was horrific so some consequences were going to have to happen about this. My job first of all was to take the player aside and have a really good word with her about what had happened and why it had happened to make sure that she was ready for any kind of cross-examination from the appropriate Football Association.

And my opinion of ladies’ football matches has changed considerably. I can still remember the first few matches years ago that were very amateurish to say the least but in 2015 I was in Burlington in Vermont when I came across A GIRLS’ FOOTBALL MATCH at the local High School, and wasn’t I impressed? Ladies’ football has improved dramatically and quickly over the last 20 years

If ever you have the chance, look out for a game in the Mexican female competitions. It’s not just the skill, they go at it hammer and tongs with a level of aggression that you wouldn’t find in the men’s game.

After that I started to edit the last lot of radio notes that were recorded a while back but I was rather disillusioned with the miserable quality and after a good while I decided to scrap it and re-dictate it. So that’s added to the big pile of stuff.

And I didn’t dictate anything today. Things were simply not quiet enough. I’m really going to have to find some quiet time, even if it means missing out on a few hours of sleep somewhere.

This afternoon I changed a few plans and junked the radio programme that I’d started earlier in the week.

The reason for that is that the date of the broadcast falls on the birthday of someone who had no connection with rock music but nevertheless was the inspiration for dozens of rock songs in a sort-of roundabout way.

Consequently I thought that it would be a good idea to have a programme dedicated to him featuring some of the songs that he inspired and so I’ve been hunting down a few here and there to make up enough for a programme. It’ll certainly be different.

Tea tonight was the same though, a leftover curry with a naan bread. And I’ve finished the last of my garlic butter so I need to make some more at some point. Can’t have a garlic naan without garlic butter

But as for the curry, it was delicious as usual. Adding soya yoghurt to it right near the end is definitely the way to go.

And while we’re on the subject of the way to go … "well, one of us is" – ed … I’m going to find the way to go to bed. I’ve done enough for today, especially as it was a Bank Holiday and by rights I shouldn’t have done anything at all.

But before I go, I’ll leave you with A SONG to celebrate today, another one that’s on my acoustic guitar playlist. It brings back all kinds of nostalgic memories from my teenage years and the girlfriends to whom I probably sang this song.

And to one night on board THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR.

We sang many songs that night, and one passenger was overheard to remark to another "I don’t like that Eric Hall. He knows too many dirty songs"
"Did he sing them to you?"
"No. He whistled them."

Tuesday 30th April 2024 – I’VE MANAGED NOT …

… to break anything today, after yesterday’s fracas in the kitchen.

But what an exciting life I’m leading at the moment where breaking a plate in the kitchen is headline news? I really ought to get a life, and how i wish that I could. I certainly seem to be missing out on an awful lot.

Mind you, there’s not a lot that I can do. If I go down the stairs to go outside, there’s no guarantee that I can get back up again without a great deal of help. And in any case, with these puttees that I have to wear on my legs, I can’t fit my shoes on

In other words, my life is a total mess right now and it’s not going to improve any in the near future. The hospital sets a great deal of store in this chemotherapy treatment I’m having by tablet every day but even so, there’s been a deterioration over the last three months that I’ve been taking it

So if it’s classed as a success, how would I be feeling if I hadn’t taken in?

And did I tell you how much it cost? Because I’ve seen the receipt. A box of 30 tablets of this stuff costs no less than €7,000. No wonder that the chemists won’t let me build up a stock of it. They have to pay out for the medication that they order and then submit a claim for reimbursement to the Securité Sociale. And if they are as quick dealing with reimbursement as they are in replying to correspondence, no wonder the chemists are worried.

Another worry that I seem to have is that I’m not able to go to bed at anything like an early time. It was another late night last night by the time that I’d finished everything that needs to be done and that’s getting on my nerves too.

But I had another good night’s sleep where I don’t remember very much at all.

When the alarm went off I’d just said goodbye to a girl who was living in the same house as me who’d gone off to some kind of special school or re-education centre because of her handicap. That’s really all that I remember of this. I know that when the alarm went off I was thinking about a woman with a red hand who had something to do with this but I’m not sure where she fitted in to the dream at all. It was a very fragmented one.

There is a friend of mine who used to go to a re-education centre for her handicap until British Government cuts 20 years ago closed them all down. However it wasn’t her, that’s for certain, and I don’t know of anyone else who might have fitted the bill.

But I’ve no idea what I meant about the woman with the red hand. That’s a mystery to me too

Anyway, I staggered into the bathroom and then into the dining area to take my medicine and to set out the place ready for the nurse. The one from last week is now on her week off and it’s the boss for the next seven days.

When he came he told me all about his trip to New York and how disappointed he was with it.

However, it’s like most big cities. everyone is so stressed out that it’s unbelievable. I much prefer rural USA where I’ve met some really nice, friendly people on my travels around.

Most cities are nice to visit but not to live in, but I can’t even remember New York being nice to visit on the occasions that I’ve been there.

After he left I came in here and prepared for my Welsh lesson.

Despite the fact that I’d prepared the wrong pages, the group being farther ahead than I’d anticipated, the lesson passed off very well which was a nice surprise. In fact we had a test in which I came third, which was a huge surprise to me, especially as I’d missed the weeks that the exam covered.

It’s a good job though that I hadn’t gone fourth. I would have had to multiply and that would have been no good at all.

After the lesson finished I just let myself go and crashed out on my chair. I was gone for almost 90 minutes too, flat-out in the Land of Nod. I really can’t keep going these days

Once I’d come back into the Land of the Living I chose the music for another radio programme. My task for the rest of the week will be to write the notes for it. But at some point I’ll have to start dictating and editing the backlog of stuff. In the old days I’d do it early on Sunday morning before going to bed but I’m not doing that these days if I have to be up at 08:30 for the nurse. My days of lying in until midday are regrettably over.

The cleaner came round this afternoon too. She’d been to LeClerc this morning and so she’d picked up some more vegan cheese for me. So cheese on toast is assured at weekends for the next few weeks

There was some more stuff on the dictaphone too. I can’t remember very much about this dream either but it concerned a girl who for some reason had ended up going back home after moving away and found herself spending the night there unexpectedly, sleeping back in the room that she occupied when she lived there. There was some talk that one of the girls would come to stay with me so I was busy trying to find things to do to amuse her. I came across a board game called Mrs (…so-and-so…)’s Kitchen where people had to take pieces out of the box in turn to try to make meals and shopping lists etc. I thought that that might be a really interesting game for a young person who came to stay with me for the moment.

The game was certainly interesting You had to pick up the pieces, which wee like the pieces of a jigsaw, with chopsticks, although I’m not quite sure why.

In the past years ago I used to be able to eat with chopsticks.

Where we used to go skiing on a dry slope on the Wirral there was a Chinese restaurant down the road where this sweet young Chinese girl worked. One night I asked her to show me how to eat with chopsticks so over the next few weeks she taught me.

And then I put my cunning plan into action. We were all going for our annual dinner so I asked her whether she would like to come with me, as a “than you” for teaching me how to eat with chopsticks, which had been my plan all along.

She told me “no”.

While we’re on the subject of meals … "well, one of us is" – ed … tonight’s tea was a taco roll with rice and vegetables, using up some of the left-over stuffing.

That stuffing that I make is really nice, especially with couscous. And there’s plenty left so there will be a lovely left-over curry tomorrow night for tea. There’s some naan dough left too so a garlic naan bread will be nice to go with it too

So that’s all that I’m doing tonight. It’s a Bank Holiday here tomorrow and ordinarily I’d be having a lie-in, but not with this perishing nurse coming round every morning at 08:30.

What I need to do is to finalise my shopping list ready for order on Thursday morning as I’m now running short of frozen veg

It’s not like the time I was sharing a flat in Manchester with a bunch of students and they sent me to the shop for supplies for the weekend.

When I returned, I had two cases of beer and a sliced loaf. The students there were enraged. "You fool!" they cried. "Wasting our money! What on earth are we going to do with all that bread?"

Monday 29th April 2024 – I’VE BROKEN ONE …

… of my nice dinner plates this evening.

That’s a shame because I quite liked this set of crockery. But what’s surprising is that I’ve owned it almost 7 years and it’s the first piece of any sort of crockery and glassware that I’ve broken since I’ve been living here.

And the estate agents reminded me that yesterday it’s actually been seven years since I moved in. You’ve no idea how time flies. When we were kids our six weeks summer holiday used to last for ever, but nowadays a year passes in the blink of an eye and it’s very uncomfortable.

Eight years ago today I was living in Leuven in Belgium, going to the hospital every two weeks, going to watch OH Leuven in the Belgian second division and travelling on Belgium’s wonderful railway network to all sorts of bizarre football grounds for various matches

Going to SK Lierse was always my favourite of course. They had cheerleaders to entertain the crowd and they were much nicer-looking cheerleaders than those whom we encountered that night in that truckstop on Interstate 80 in Bangor, Maine, when we were on our way to a tractor pull in New Hampshire.

Of course, that’s all water under the bridge now. I won’t ever revisit the USA, won’t be going to see SK Lierse and won’t be going to Leuven either. In fact I’ll be lucky if I ever make it outside the front door of my apartment unless it’s in the company of a taxi driver taking me to a medical appointment.

And while we’re on the subject of medical appointments and taxis … "well, one of us is" – ed … I rang up the taxi company today to talk to them about my trips to Paris.

They need to be authorised by the Securité Sociale in advance and the hospital had obtained prior authorisation for three trips. Those three trips had expired and so they need to obtain some more authorisation.

When I was there last week I explained this to the doctor but I wasn’t convinced that she understood. Consequently my plan was to have the taxi company speak to the hospital to explain what was required and negotiate with them directly. After all, it’s all good business for them

However I needn’t have worried. The hospital has applied for, and received, prior authorisation for no fewer than FIFTEEN further trips to Paris. I’m not sure exactly what they are expecting, but it sounds extremely worrying. Are they REALLY expecting me to go that many times?

But anyway, that was today.

Yesterday I ended up going to bed quite late because of the football. Even so, it still took an age to actually go to sleep but once I did I slept the Sleep of the Dead and didn’t move an inch. In fact, it was another night when there was nothing at all on the dictaphone.

That’s a shame because as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … what usually goes on during the night is much more exciting these days than what happens during the daytime. After the exciting life that I’ve lived, being confined to spending the rest of my days sitting on a chair is a pretty miserable existence.

When the alarm went off I fell out of bed as usual, switched it off and wandered off to the bathroom, followed by wandering off into the dining area for my medication, the usual mounds of it.

Having set out the room as the nurse likes it, she dealt with my foot and puttees as this story about the prescription on the wall of the doctor’s office rumbled on.

We agreed that I’d ring up to make further enquiries and let her know what I’ve found out. And then she cleared off and left me to it.

It took half a dozen calls to the doctor’s before the secretary answered the call. I’d been trying for hours. Anyway she was convinced that the prescription had been written. Anyway, the doctor would be back at 16:00 so further enquiries could be made them.

With that news I rang back the nurse and that proved to be a complicated affair trying to connect to her. But we managed in the end and I could explain the situation to her. She’d follow it up.

Then the cleaner came round with the rest of the medical supplies so I explained the situation to her. She had to go there with a client this afternoon so she’d look herself for the prescription.

She called me back later to say that she’d been, she’d looked, but there was nothing there.

At about 16:30 the nurse phoned me back. She’d seen the doctor and he’d written nothing. So what’s this story all about them? It’s a total mystery to me. The plot sickens.

In the meantime this afternoon I’ve gone one better than Dave Crosby, presumably because I had the ‘flu for Christmas and wasn’t feeling up to par. But I’m not giving in an inch to fear because I promised myself this year. I feel like I owe it to someone

And they can come and collect it out of the waste bin in the bathroom any time they like.

The rest of the afternoon has been spent either working on the Unit of the Welsh course that I missed while I was in hospital or else I was asleep.

While I was working I was fighting off wave after wave of sleep, so much so that I couldn’t concentrate so in the end I gave up and had an hour fast asleep on the chair here inn the office. Then I could crack on and finish it.

Tea tonight was a delicious stuffed pepper but taking the pyrex cooking bowl out of the air fryer it slipped from my grasp, fell on the dinner plate and broke it. That’s a really sad state of affairs because I now have an odd number of items

However in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter all that much as I’m never likely to have visitors here for meals. In fact, I’m not really likely to have visitors at all these days.

There’s plenty of stuffing left though so I’ll have a taco roll tomorrow and then on Wednesday have one of my leftover curries with what’s left. On Thursday I’ll send off my LeClerc order and stock up with supplies for the next few weeks

Right now though I’m off to bed, and hope that I’ll go off on a few voyages to break the monotony and not break the crockery.

It reminds me of that famous advert that I once saw – "Unbreakable tea service for sale – matching teapot, cream jug, sugar bowl, six cups and five saucers."

Sunday 28th April 2024 – IT WAS THE …

… Welsh Cup Final earlier this evening and so I’m running horribly late.

Not that I’m complaining because it was one of the best matches that I’ve seen for several years, I reckon, and I’m glad that I watched it.

Other glad tidings are that I was in bed at a reasonable time so that I was able to profit by my extra hour in bed, with the alarm not being set until 08:00. And once again it was another peaceful, tranquil night where I can’t remember awakening at all.

A few more nights like this will do me the world of good, I reckon.

When the alarm went off I fell out of bed as usual and crawled across to switch it off. Then I staggered into the bathroom to have a wash and so on.

While I was taking my tablets the doorbell buzzed to say that the nurse was in the building and when she’d finished with my neighbour she’d be here, so I had to quickly arrange the room how she likes it.

When she came in she told me that she’d been back to the office to check for this prescription but it still wasn’t there. I told her that I’d rung the number and it was definitely the Health Centre in Granville that had rung so she promised to talk to the secretary on Monday to find out more.

Then she dealt with my foot, put on my puttees and left to deal with her next lot of clients elsewhere.

Once she’d gone I had come instant coffee and cornflakes for breakfast, and then came in here to watch yesterday’s game where Forfar Athletic beat a very poor Stranraer side 2-0 in a game that has stuck Stranraer at the foot of Scottish League 2 and in danger of being relegated out of the league.

Searching through the directories on the big computer I came across some radio notes that I’d dictated but hadn’t yet edited so this afternoon’s task was to do that.

Despite a variety of interruptions, including falling asleep a couple of times, that’s all edited and the programme is assembled as far as I can. The final track has been chosen but I need to write, dictate and then edit down some notes for it so that I can finish it off As I said yesterday, there’s now quite a backlog of stuff that needs dictating.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from the night too. I was dreaming about an election for Prime Minister. Everyone thought that the situation was pretty much cut and dried so I decided that I’d throw my hat into the ring. That upset everyone. They couldn’t even remember the password for the coffee machine for me so that I could have some coffee. When we went to a meeting they had to pick me up. They weren’t sure what to do with me, where to put me. We encountered Boris Johnson on the way. He was driving a double-decker bus. He was going to stand for election too. They were quoting the odds on who was going to have the job. It was evidently their preferred candidate and someone else to pretend to challenge them. The whole idea that there would be a third realistic candidate such as me completely upset their whole apparatus. They had to begin too frame questions to ask me to make it appear that they were giving me a fair crack of the whip. This involved an incredible amount of work for them that they didn’t really want to do and didn’t really see why they had to do it but millions of people were expecting it and of course that’s how it should be done anyway so I upset the whole apple cart with this standing for President or whatever but I was determined to see it through, simply to expose their lazy and corrupt practices

Any election process that can elect people like Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Donald Trump to high office needs to be confronted and challenged. Anyone who remembers MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL and laughed at the scene about STRANGE WOMEN LYING IN PONDS DISTRIBUTING SWORDS will have to admit today that it’s a far better system than the one that elects Johnson, Truss or Trump.

And then we had the football. The Welsh Cup Final between Connah’s Quay Nomads and TNS, with TNS aiming to complete the treble and be the first club to go through an entire season of competitive matches without being beaten.

Last week the two teams met in the league with TNS winning 2-0 and Connah’s Quay lucky to get nil, and we were expecting something similar today.

It’s been shown though that TNS’s defence is not as solid as it might be and teams that have been brave enough to take the game to them rather than sitting back defending the rampant attackers have had some kind of success, and that’s precisely what Connah’s Quay did.

They were 2-1 up at half-time and then during the second half weathered the inevitable storm with some desperate last-ditch tackles to deservedly lay their hands on the cup.

You can see the highlights HERE but they only show about a quarter of what I would have included. But at least you’ll get to see one of the best goals scored this season.

Tea tonight was a lovely vegan pizza. Another one of the interruptions was to make the pizza dough as I’d run out so I whipped up a batch this afternoon. Two lumps are in the freezer for another time and the third lump was rolled out and put on its tray to proof.

After the football I assembled it, baked it and ate it. And it was delicious too.

So, much later than I hoped, I’m going to bed to have some pleasant dreams, I hope, before I do battle with the nurse again. And then there’s plenty of work to do like radio stuff and all of that. And I need to catch up on the Welsh that I’ve missed these last two weeks

While I’ve been in hospital there’s been quite a lot of stuff that I’ve let slide away out of sight that I need to catch up. We know the old saying that “work expands to fill the time available” but I wish that the reverse were true and that the time would expand to fit all of the work that needs to be done.

It reminds me of one of the people with whom I used to work years ago. "He does the work of two men, him" his colleagues would say
"Is that so?" I asked
"That’s right" they would reply. "Laurel and Hardy"

Saturday 27th April 2024 – THIS STORY ABOUT …

… this failed blood test rumbled on and on (and on and on) just as I expected.

Apparently after I hung up the ‘phone call last night the nurse went straight round to the office (although no-one had asked her to do so) but she couldn’t find the prescription anywhere pinned on anyone’s noticeboard.

She believes that it doesn’t exist in Granville despite what I told her and if it’s anywhere it’s pinned on the noticeboard of this doctor at the hospital in Avranches.

That is of course highly unlikely because how would I be able to make my way there to pick it up?

But she can’t find it and that is that.

Of course, I knew nothing about that when I went to bed. It was going to be an early night last night but by the time that I’d finished everything that needed finishing I’d over-run as usual.

It was another comparatively tranquil night about which I remember practically nothing at all. I must have been really comfortable in bed. I know that I certainly didn’t want to leave the bed when the alarm went off this morning.

Anyway I hauled myself out and went for a wash and so on, and then went for today’s helping of medication.

Next step was to set out the dining area ready for the nurse so that I don’t incur her wrath. She came and did the necessary, and had a good moan about this story about the failed blood test. I was all ready to believe that she didn’t believe a single word that I said.

After she left I rang up the number. It was an automatic answerphone that replied bidding me “welcome to the Pole Santé du Port” – that’s the building in Granville where my doctor – and the nurse – are based so the ‘phone call must have come from there despite what anyone else thinks.

The plot sickens.

I was another late breakfast, due almost entirely to the fact that I was stuck to my chair and couldn’t move. But when I did, my cheese on toast and hot, strong coffee were delicious

But don’t let anyone tell you that strong coffee keeps you awake. I came back in here and promptly crashed out, and for a couple of hours too, absolutely and completely.

This afternoon I worked on another radio programme. At a nice, leisurely pace I paired off all of the music that I’d previously chosen and then wrote out all of the notes for it.

There’s quite a pile building up now that need dictating but I need a long, quiet moment for that without any traffic passing by. There’s a Bank Holiday coming ip next week and I might have a go then, hoping that no-one will e driving by to go to the High School across the car park.

Later on, I transcribed the dictaphone notes from last night. They decided to have some kind of mini-Olympic competition. It was a multi-language setting with a lot of young people like a Youth Hostel or something. They decided that they’d give equal points for good behaviour, that kind of thing, and take points away for bad behaviour, and show people cards for what they were doing as in a football match with points taken away from them, and so work out their own little Olympic Games and be able to see it every few days. Several people thought that it was a pretty stupid idea and didn’t really want to have anything to do with it but the people in charge decided that they were going to persist.

And can’t you just imagine Eddie Waring and Stuart Hall doing the commentary for whatever was going on? There would definitely have to be “three points for Wiiiiiii….. gannnnnnn” in there somewhere, but at least Waring died with his reputation still intact which is more than will be said for his colleague.

Tea was, as usual, a lovely baked potato with a lovely salad and a lovely breaded quorn fillet – totally delicious and I can eat that every night, I reckon.

So if I’m lucky I’ll have an extra hour in bed tonight as the alarm won’t be going off until 08:00. That’s a far cry from the good old days when I could lie in until lunchtime and beyond.

But tomorrow I have pizza dough to make as I’ve run out now. And then I’ll need to try to sort out the chaos about this missing prescription and blood test. I’ll probably have to talk to my faithful cleaner and set her a task to prove that she is worthy. She has far more initiative about her than the nurse, I reckon.

But after all, the nurse has her own problems. The dwarf she treats after me once rang her up to ask why she was late. She replied "I’ll get there as soon as I can You’ll just have to be a little patient."

Friday 26th April 2024 – IT’S FLAMING DIFFICULT …

… trying to explain something to someone who doesn’t want to listen but only wants to speak.

The doctor’s surgery rang me up at the end of the afternoon to tell me that the blood test this morning had failed and needs to be done again, so he’s prepared a prescription and it’s stuck on his noticeboard to be picked up.

Ordinarily what would now happen is that I would ask my faithful cleaner to pick it up tomorrow. I’d then show it to the nurse on Sunday and she’d have to go away to fetch the equipment and come back on Monday to take it

However I had an idea.

The nurse’s office is in the same building so I rang her up to see if she was going into her office before coming here. If so she could pick up the prescription, fetch what she needed from her office and the blood test would be done on Saturday morning, two days earlier.

Simple enough?

You have absolutely no idea how complicated and involved the whole procedure came once the nurse answered the ‘phone. A simple “yes I am going into the office first” or “no, I’m not going into the office first” was all that was required.

Instead it turned out to be more like “War and Peace” and I’m still not convinced that my message was understood. We’ll find out in the morning, I suppose.

Last night I was in bed early for a change, which was very nice, but once more it took an age to go off to sleep which was a shame.

Once I was asleep though I didn’t move an inch. Not even to reach for the dictaphone because there’s nothing recorded on there from during the night. No-one came to join me on any nocturnal ramble, which is a pity.

When the alarm went off I fell out of bed, switched it off and then staggered off to perform the usual morning routine.

More medication than before, of course. I swear that you can hear me rattle as I walk with all of the pills that I’m taking.

Once I’d washed down everything I laid out the dining area as she likes it and then made the dough for the batch of bread for the weekend. Very important, that.

For once, the nurse missed her aim with the blood test and had to have a second go. She’s usually quite good at finding the vein compared to her colleague who struggles. She then dressed my wound and put on my puttees.

Next stop was to prepare a shopping list for my cleaner. Mushrooms, cucumber and one or two supplies from the chemist’s. The nurse told me that we were running low of certain things

When the bread was ready and baked I made myself some cheese on toast in the air fryer and had it for a late breakfast / early lunch along with a nice, hot, strong coffee. That ought to cheer me up.

This afternoon I’ve been going through my shopping list because at some point next week I need a delivery and I’ve forgotten half of the stuff that I need. I bet that there will be a few items missing too when I finally send off the order because I’m really confusing myself these days.

Fighting off (sometimes unsuccessfully) several waves of sleep, I finally wrote the blog entries for last week when I was in hospital and didn’t have the travelling laptop with me. Thanks to what’s available at ARCHIVE.ORG and various other similar sites. I have a huge library of films and books on the computer and what with all of the music, I’m never short of things to pass the time, apart from all of the work that I need to do.

While I was doing all of that, the cleaner came round and whizzed through the apartment. Now it looks as if someone respectable lives here, and we can’t go having that.

Tea was a vegan salad with chips and some of these vegan nugget things. Really nice it was too There’s nothing like a good salad

So if I’m lucky I might have an early night tonight ready for the battle with the nurse tomorrow. She’s not going to be too happy, but I can’t help that.

But nurses are never very happy anyway. I remember once seeing a nurse walking down the corridor of a hospital with … errr … part of her upper body uncovered
"What’s going on here?" I asked
"It’s the trouble with these Junior Doctors" she said. "They never put anything away when they’ve finished with it"

Thursday 25th April 2024 – I HAVE ACHES …

… and pains in places that I didn’t even know that I had places. I’m not as young as I used to be and this travelling is really taking its toll of me. I wish it didn’t.

After I’d finished my notes last night I didn’t have what it takes to go to bed. It took an age to find the energy and morale to raise myself from my chair and stagger off on this marathon trek of several inches that seems as if it’s several hundred miles.

As I’ve said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it wouldn’t be so bad if I could find the energy to do something productive while I’m waiting but I can’t seem to do that either.

But eventually I fell into bed and that was that. It took an age to go off to sleep, being wound up as I was, but once I’d gone off I don’t recall moving again until just a few minutes before the alarm went off

It goes without saying that I took full advantage of every minute under the covers that I could because right now it’s freezing around here. You’d never believe that it’s the end of April with temperatures like we’re having. I know many people who have relit their heating and if this cold spell carries on much longer I shan’t be far behind.

So off I staggered into the dining area to sort out the medication and then to prepare everything for Isabelle the nurse so that she has everything that she needs and it’s set out how she likes.

So she came and organised me and told me that tomorrow I have a blood test to undergo. I’m not looking forward to that one bit. My arms look and feel as if I’ve been wrestling with a hedgehog as it is.

After she left, I came in here, sat down on my chair and that’s how I stayed for several hours. I couldn’t even be bothered to go to make breakfast – that’s the kind of state in which I was this morning.

The cleaner came round later and snapped me out of my reverie, bringing me all of the medication from my new prescription.

And there are piles of it too. It’s starting to become ridiculous, all of this and I really don’t know where it’s going to end. There are two more now added to the pile of nonsense after these latest visits and next time I go, there will doubtless be a couple of others to counter the side-effects that those two have caused.

Once she’d gone I managed to transcribe the dictaphone notes from yesterday at the hospital and add them into the notes, all of them and it really was “all” of them because it must have been a very mobile night that night with a lot going on.

In the middle of all of that I was out like a light for an hour or so. I really can’t keep on going these days and it’s driving me to distraction.

Rosemary rang up for a chat this afternoon, just a short one today. Only 1 hour and 10 minutes today – we’re losing our touch. She was telling me about her forthcoming trip to Italy which should make a nice trip out for her. She has all of the luck. It was Vietnam last year.

After we finished our chat I transcribed last night’s dictaphone notes. The Government was talking about some big, bold plans for railway modernisation to bring the railways right into the 21st Century. All of the particular regions were asked to submit their plans. We were working on a series of cross-country lines from east to west. Everywhere where we went where we saw the proposals from other areas, it was all about going north-south from London into the different regions. It seemed that the whole of the cross-country system would be squeezed out. Of course there was very little that we could do because we didn’t have the weight or influence. It was very frustrating to everyone concerned. All of the people were so concerned and frustrated that we couldn’t seem to make any headway at all with our plans. Naturally we were doing everything we could but we were being squeezed at every turn by everyone else. It was impossible to put forward any coherent plans because nothing that we were doing would conform to whatever it was that the Government really wanted. There was a grave danger that the whole of our east-west railway would be squeezed out. I had girls from the office coming to see me in tears about the prospects of failure that all of our lobbying and arguments were bringing but we we were doing everything we could. There was nothing more that we could do but we didn’t seem to be making any kind of progress. Everyone was just so frustrated.

Anyone who knows anything about the British railway network will know just how true that is too. Going cross-country in the UK by rail is really difficult and time-consuming. Government policies haven’t helped either. A cross-country railway line closed in the 1960s was approved for reopening as far back as 1992 and we’re still waiting. Brunel would have had it up and running in 6 months.

They run all kinds of feasibility studies and passenger surveys, file the results and then go back to re-run the exercise 5 years later by which time costs have doubled.

And after Zero a few nights ago and Castor the other night, TOTGA came round too during the night. I’d been in France with Nerina and we’d just come back. Early on Sunday morning she came round. She had an apple. I made a remark something like “that’ll be the last apple that I’ll see for several weeks” so she left it for me which I thought was really nice of her. Then I had a ‘phone call from where she was working. Could I go to see her? She was working in some kind of merchant banking office. I arrived and it was one of these self-service receptionist places where you had to root around to try to find your contact’s ‘phone n°. I couldn’t find hers at all. In the end she happened to turn up at the counter by pure chance. I asked her for her telephone n° in her office but she made some kind of cryptic remark so I asked her whether she wasn’t allowed to leave her ‘phone n° or not. She said no, she wasn’t. I said “that’s strange. Anyone can have mine any time of the day even at 04:00 and get me out of bed as long as they say the magic words”. She asked “what are those?”. I replied “do you want to earn some money, Eric?”. She asked “was that really the last apple that you’re likely to see for several weeks?” I explained that we weren’t exactly that broke but we’d just come back from the Continent and we didn’t have any in the house. Nevertheless some kind of additional income would come in handy and I was intrigued to hear what kind of proposition she was going to make to me from her work that would be of interest to me in a financial sense

So that was a very special treat for me last night to follow my vegan pesto.

Tonight, I finished off the vegan pesto with more pasta, veg and a vegan burger. I need to order some more of those as the European Burger Mountain in the fridge has shrunk dramatically just recently. But not right now as despite it being really early, I really am going to try to go to bed and sleep the Sleep of a Thousand Dreams and see who comes with me.

After all, I’ve had all three of my favourite females over the past week or so coming to see me. And wouldn’t it be nice if they came more often, or, at least, more regularly? Life is much more interesting when they are around. It’s the only interesting company that I seem to have these days.

My life at the moment is, after all, hardly interesting. It reminds me of a story I heard when one person asked another one sitting next to him at a dinner "do you ever think that life is really boring?"
To which the other one replied "Quite often. Especially when one is sitting next to you"

Wednesday 24th April 2024 – THAT WAS AN …

… adventure!

Right now I’m back home sitting in my favourite chair and you’ve no idea just how grateful I am. It was the last thing that I expected today but as Paul Peña wrote and Steve Miller sang, YOU KNOW YOU GOTTA GO THROUGH HELL BEFORE YOU GET TO HEAVEN

Last night though, after I’d finished my notes etc I went straight to bed and spent a very pleasant hour or so listening to “Alquin” on the computer. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, THE MOUNTAIN QUEEN is one of my favourite albums of all time, especially since I met the group, a band from Delft in the Netherlands, in a dingy damp cellar underneath an old hotel in Crewe in 1975.

It was something of a disturbed, turbulent night. I can’t recall too many interruptions from the staff but there’s a huge pile of stuff on the dictaphone that you will discover as you read on.

By 08:00 I was wide awake and as no-one had come past by 08:30 to awaken me, bring me breakfast, take a blood sample etc, I left the bed, did what I had to do and then washed my clothes.

Just as I was hanging up the sodden rags to dry out, the doctor came in and handed me my leaving pouch.
"Am I leaving then?" I asked
"Ohh" she replied. "Hasn’t anyone told you? Anyway, your taxi will be here at 13:00"
What a shame she hadn’t come 5 minutes earlier when my clothes were still dry

She went through the documents with me and made sure that I understood everything.

And then I went through my requirements, including the fact that she needs to apply to the Securité Sociale. for another series of authorisations, but I don’t think that she understood. That’s important of course, so I’ll ring up the taxi company and have them involved in the proceedings.

"By the way" she added "You have a consultation at ‘Imagerie’ at 10:30" so bang goes my idea of a shower. It’s a good job though that I had a good wash and changed my clothes.

At 10:00 the driver turned up to take me to “Imagerie” and off we set.

When we arrived I was told that they wanted to take a few scans of my heart so I had to strip off, clad myself in some paper overalls and then lie flat out on a bed while they clamped all kinds of strange devices to me and pumped me full of some kind of fluid.

Once I was ready they passed me through one of these Stargate time-tunnel things, back and forth for half an hour or more, taking all kinds of strange photos while the machine made all kinds of strange noises and I had to do all kinds of breathing exercises

Eventually they dragged me out and with my head spinning and body shaking (and it still is, even now) I went and dressed ready for the ride back.

And whose stupid idea was it to take my blood pressure as soon as I’d come back from all of that?

Batman and Robin weren’t on duty today – I must have scared them off – so another young nurse came in to ask me "we need to have your room ready for another arrival at 13:00. Would you mind waiting in the waiting room?"

So that’s why they want me gone. "Well, if it’s a nice young lady, I don’t mind sharing the room" I replied but she told me to clear off.

They brought me my lunch to the waiting room – bulghour with chicken followed by pork and courgettes. The peaches with almonds for dessert were nice though.

The taxi was booked for 13:00 so of course he turned up at 14:40. With the A13 being closed it’s total chaos in the outskirts of Paris right now.

Once in the car we had to go on a TRAVERSÉE DE PARIS, with no Bourvil to carry my suitcase, to another hospital to pick up another passenger. The trip across the city was a nightmare and finding the correct entrance was something else too.

And then there were “parking issues” while the driver went in search of his passenger.

Eventually we set off for home, going a very tortuous way via Rungis and Versailles to avoid the queues on a journey that seemed to take for ever and after a pitstop near Caen, we had first to go to Bréhal to drop off passenger number 2. We eventually arrived back here at 19:45.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me which was lovely. She helped me up the stairs (and I needed it too) and into my room, where she went through the papers and took what she needed for the chemist. I had an energy drink – and I needed that too.

There was one jar of vegan pesto remaining and I’d saved it for some special occasion or other. “Now” seemed like a special occasion so I made a big dish of pasta with assorted vegetables and smothered it all with half the jar.

And it was delicious too.

So this is all that I’m doing. I’m totally wasted and I’m going to bed. With luck I’ll have a really good sleep ready to face Isabelle the nurse tomorrow morning

As for the dictaphone notes, there are quite a few of these. I was with my brother (so I was right) and we were having to go to Shavington. We set out to walk but it was really late at night. Our parents had gone to Sandbach but we wondered why. They were supposed to be doing something but we reckoned that it was really an excuse for a party and a drink. As we walked it was the biggest moon that we had ever seen. There was only probably about a tenth of it that was bright but we could make out the shape of the rest of it above the horizon. It was absolutely enormous. As we walked we looked at the houses and the Christmas lights. We wondered whether one of them was actually on fire because of the way the lights were working. Then we cut off to Shavington down that track that I take frequently in my dreams, a long, narrow track, but I’ve not been down it for a while but at one time I’d go down it once per week. As we started to go down there – we’d gone maybe a quarter of a mile – we noticed someone leading some horses. My brother made some offensive remark about me being unwilling to spend any money. It seemed that his idea would be to hire a couple of these horses and go to Shavington on horseback to save having to walk. I thought that there’s nowhere to leave the horses, you can’t just tie them up in the street like in a Western. You’re going to need someone to hold them while we were at the doctor’s. It’s all going to be just far too complicated to even think about hiring a couple of horses to go there and come back.

That’s a track down which I’ve walked, or skied, or climbed on many occasions during the night and I’ve no idea why it keeps on cropping up like this. I’ve no idea if it exists in real life and I’ve certainly never encountered it for real as far as I’m aware.

Later on I was with a girl and her sister. There was some kind of event going on in the village but it was really poorly attended. There were very few people there. There were two beer tents and most of the people with me, because we were a large group, preferred one tent but I thought that the beer in the second was much better. I tended to patronise that one. In the end I managed to persuade people that that one was best and they came over. They were wondering how everything worked so I explained that I bet that he was really disappointed with the attendance. I explained that when I used to put on rock concerts I’d hire a complete bar and just buy the beer etc but I needed about 80 or 90 people to make a profit at the bar and that rarely happened. They were surprised by that. In the end we set out to walk home. I’d sold everything that I had in rural France except for one plot of land where I had four Cortinas parked. My friend’s sister was planning on moving too. I had my old J4 so she told me that when we reached her house, to back it into the drive and do something useful but I’d no idea what she meant by that and what her plans were. There was a big house for sale with lovely gardens that had been empty for years. We were admiring that on the way back. My friend said that she’d enquired about buying it but it needed more money than she had. We carried on walking and talking back to my friend’s sister’s house but I’d still no idea about what was going on and there were only a few more hours left before the end of the day. if she was planning on moving today she was leaving it extremely late because we’re never going to fit everything of hers into my J4 van.

Cortinas as usual, and my old J4 van has started to make regular appearances just recently too which is bizarre. But it’s true about the bar. We could rent the bar and staff for free if the turnover was over a certain amount but the owner needed a guaranteed minimum to cover his expenses and that had to be made up by the hirer if there was a shortfall

And then I was watching two girls, one of them a ward of mine, fighting over a boyfriend using broadswords. It was an extremely tame affair with the two of them jabbing at each other. Most of the wounds with broadswords according to modern autopsy were like overarm slashes down onto the head yet these were just poking at each other. The ward of mine asked permission to go out with this boy. I gave it because I didn’t see any reason why she shouldn’t but the other girl was extremely upset. This led to the fight.

And overarm slashes being the common cause of death in medieval fights with broadswords. I was impressed that I could remember anatomical details like that during a dream.

There had been some dispute between two men over something too. One had gone into a second-hand shop, changed his clothes and hid in the shop in the hope of escape of his pursuer but that didn’t work. They had a fight too. Somewhere in the middle of all of this I was walking through Crewe planning on going for an ice cream with my brother’s wife (as if that would ever be likely to happen) when I bumped into a guy who told me that he was going to Birmingham for the best ice cream in the UK. I knew this guy from somewhere but I couldn’t think where so I decided to go with him. We dashed to pick up my brother’s wife but she wasn’t in so we headed for the railway station. I boarded the train with this guy and went to see the conductor about buying a seat but my friend told me that there were no seats available on this train. It was completely full. I had to reluctantly disembark and go back to my original plans.

There was something else but I only remember a small part of this. I was with a guy who was going across the Channel on a ferry so I thought that I’d go with him. We went in his car, drove to the ferry terminal and joined the queue but we couldn’t understand why all these people were standing around so strangely. We suddenly realised that each person was about twelve feet apart from the one in front and behind. That was how their cars were going to be parked on the ferry. There were no cars there though, just the people standing in position. We had to go to the back of the queue then walk twelve paces behind the person who was there and then stand and wait around. God knows what was happening to the vehicles because there were none about at all. Everyone else kept on turning up, people having fun in the ferns and bracken that were all around this car park. It really was the strangest thing that I’ve ever encountered, all of us just standing there twelve feet apart in our own little family groups etc and not a car in sight.

So after transcribing all of that I’ll probably go back to sleep again.

While I’m doing that, I can reflect on my conversation with the photographer as I left the Stargate
"Did you manage to find my heart?" I asked
"Yes I did" she replied
"Thank heavens for that" I replied. "I’m not turning into a Conservative after all"

Tuesday 23rd April 2024 – OUCH! THAT HURT!

And if you read on, you’ll find out what and why. I’ve not had a very good day.

Anyway, last night after everything had finished I sat down and READ A BOOK about an American sailor and his family, including his 6 year old daughter, captured in the South Pacific in 1917 by a German sea-going raider and who spent 10 months as prisoner on board before being shipwrecked off the coast of Denmark.

After that I settled down, fully dressed because I was freezing, under the covers and that was that.

A few times during the night I was awoken by a few comings and goings but for some reason or other I was so tired that I was back asleep almost immediately and ended up not awakening until they came to take my blood sample at about 09:15.

Actually it was the little student nurse who came on her own so I told her that if I leave here alive she’ll have earned her diploma. Anyway, she managed to find some blood. I still have some left, apparently.

Once she’d gone I went for a wash and brush up as best as I could and then a driver came to collect me. It was the rock music fan who has taken me before so we had a good chat before he dropped me off at Neurology.

While I was waiting for my appointment I had a good chat with the receptionist and another patient and saw several photos of cats and dogs before being ushered into the room where the examination was due to take place.

It was the doctor who had seen me before on two occasions. He and his sidekick gave me the electric shock tests to my arms and legs and I was right – there is a further deterioration. So no surprise there. We had a good chat and now he’s gone away to think about a Plan B.

The same driver came to pick me up for my next appointment but that’s not until tomorrow so he brought me back here.

While I was eating lunch a doctor came to slap a freezing patch on my lower back and we all know what that means. She took an age to find the correct position so I asked her "can’t you see the scars from the previous attempts?"

When she told me that she could, I told her that they ought to paint an “X marks the spot” or even a target in the correct place.

A short while later, Batman and Robin, the young ward nurse and her little student who follows her around like a shadow, came to prepare me.

It was the little student who drew the short straw and had to hold me down and I bet she wished that she hadn’t when the doctor missed her aim with the lumbar puncture and found the central nerve.

Eventually, but not soon enough by any means, the torment was over and I could go to lie down. “You’ll just need to be flat out for an hour” but she was joking. After an hour or so a nurse came round to make sure that I was still alive and to take my blood pressure, with predictable results. But in fact it was several hours before I crawled out of bed, and then only for a particular reason too.

Once I’d settled down in my chair I transcribed the dictaphone notes. Yesterday’s are now on line and then I started on today’s. I was going to start at a new school but the morning that I was due to go I had a ‘phone call that began speaking in Welsh. It was a young girl saying that she was glad to go back to live in Easingwold. I couldn’t understand who it was but the conversation became more and more intimate until in the end, I had to go, I said plenty of encouraging words and finished with “I love you” but I had no idea who this person was at all. Absolutely none. I arrived at the new school but couldn’t find out how anything worked, the system of how lessons were organised etc. In the end I stumbled across a lesson from one of my class so I asked the teacher where all the other lessons for our year were being held. He gave some kind of nebulous speech abut how I should have looked at the newspaper. Of course I knew nothing about this. I found a copy of the newspaper but didn’t understand it. In the end I found some kind of paper print-out with the details on it. It was headed with the most extraordinary offensive message that had nothing whatever to do with the subject matter. I thought it totally astonishing that they’d pin this on the wall. I couldn’t find any paper then. Every piece of paper on which I tried to write, I was making no impression with a ball-point pen. The writing was just not sticking as if it had one of these shiny surfaces. I kept on coming across paper that had already been used, carbon copies of the ‘phone call that I’d had earlier in the day from that girl etc, but nothing that I could do would be able to reproduce anything on any kind of piece of paper. It was just so frustrating because I wanted to crack on and organise myself as this was just not working at all.

Then this conversation that I’d had in the morning had completely shaken me. I didn’t have a clue who on earth it was to whom I was speaking and I really wish that I knew because it had all the air of being something really interesting. The only Welsh-speaking girl I knew at school was only in passing and it certainly wasn’t her so who on earth was it?

Then we had a boisterous kind of office party where everything was going out of control. The sad part about it was that these were all middle-aged people. The boss there had picked on someone else’s wife and was making life really uncomfortable for them. They were trying to work out a moment in which to disappear such as when the boss went to the toilet but they’d brought the PA with them so putting that into the car in the space of a couple of minutes was going to be complicated. There were all kinds of things like this. Some woman was making some very plain and clear hints that she wanted to dance etc with me but of course I was having absolutely none of this and sat stoically at my seat in the dining room watching the events unfold, taking absolutely no notice of any of the extremely broad hints that she was dropping. All in all it was an extremely sad evening watching these people behaving like this

There have been more than a few parties like this where everyone makes a fool of themselves and I note that I even made a remark about it while I was asleep, which shows you just what I think about it all.

Then I was going through the videotapes looking for a blank one but came across a football match that took place years ago that I hadn’t seen. It involved one of these obscure South American republics playing in similar colours to Portugal and who had qualified unexpectedly for the World Cup after beating a selection of prize teams from other parts of the World to make it to the finals. I’d obviously taped their opening match but I couldn’t remember how it went or what the score was so instead of doing what I was supposed to be doing I put on this videotape and settled down to watch them. I got as far as watching them come out onto the pitch before I awoke. I’d no idea who their opponents were in this particular game.

And despite what I said the other night, Castor put in a very brief appearance last night. And wasn’t it nice to see her? We were on board THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR rearranging the dining arrangements. I was passing the cutlery and crockery and glassware from one table to the next. There was the final piece that I picked up to take round to the other table and who should be sitting there but Castor? She was talking to someone else about their life, I suppose. She was saying that she was born into a policeman’s family. I’ll tell you that that didn’t ‘arf ring a few alarm bells with me finding out that she was the progeny of a policeman’s couple.

But even if it were true and I had known, nothing of what happened back then would have changed for a minute. As I said at the time, I would have accepted any consequence. And as Joni Mitchell sang, YOU KNOW I’D GO BACK THERE TOMORROW BUT FOR THE WORK THAT I’VE TAKEN ON

And fancy the dream stopping there! I suppose that it was the shock that awoke me.

While I was asleep in the afternoon I was going for a walk. I had all of the four cats coming with me, following in my footsteps, climbing and jumping over each other as they used to do etc. There were a few members of my family with me. I had to take some money out to pay for something or other, housekeeping or whatever. I needed €60:00. I walked as far as the cash machine but when I went to look through my wallet I couldn’t find the bank card that I usually used. In the end, looking through everything I found a selection of other bank cards but I wasn’t sure which ones would work and which ones wouldn’t. There was one from the bank in Belgium so I put that in the cash machine. It seemed to read the card because it asked for the PIN. I typed in the usual number and that seemed to accept it but that was as far as I reached in the dream.

Tea tonight was salmon lasagne with creamed spinach so some horse trading was undertaken but I’m not doing too well for food which is a shame, but not unexpected.

So right now I’m off to bed to try to recapture Castor and to hope that they try to check my blood pressure at calmer moments.

But while the little student was preparing me for my lumbar puncture I asked her why doctors always wear masks
"Is it to do with infection?" she asked.
"Not at all" I replied. "It’s in case the procedure goes all wrong. Then they can’t identify the guilty party"

Monday 22nd April 2024 – MEANWHILE, HERE IN …

… The Land Of Grey And Pink, or Ice-Station Zebra as it ought to be called, I’m tucked up in bed in the cold awaiting my doom.

And also awaiting my evening meal, but that’s another story.

Last night after everything finished I hauled myself off to bed quite early and tried my best to settle down to sleep but as usual these days it didn’t quite work out like that. However later on I must have managed to drop off because there’s some stuff on the dictaphone. I was with a girl. She had a big box of something or other. It was a case of having to pass it through a hatch. Going up and down this hatch with this box was extremely complicated. One day I happened to find it in the way so I asked how come I found it in the way. It suddenly occurred to me afterwards that I must have pushed it in behind me then moved it round, then somehow managed to work my way round past it as I passed through the hatchway. Once I’d worked out exactly how I’d done it, it became a lot easier to go up and down past. It was less of an inconvenience. What actually happened was by leaving it at the bottom of this hatch I couldn’t actually close off the draught-proofing. I had to sit and think to try to work out exactly how I was going to do that. Then she told me that it was a packet that the Post needed to collect and send away, in which case it’ll be out of the way. I couldn’t thus understand the problem but she explained that if she left it outside it was raining and the package would be wet. I hoped that the Post Office would come quickly because this is proving to be so complicated. It doesn’t need to be this complicated at all. The quicker we can resolve this issue the better it would be for everyone.

I was at one of these Alternative Technology meetings last night too. It was a big meeting discussing the manufacture of some kind of alcohol for fuel. I had to go along to add the oats to it but of course I had no idea how to do it. There was a huge retort stand with everything being heated by a bunsen burner. It all looked quite complicated. They said “add the oats” so I had to ask the meeting how to do it. The answer was quite simply “just stuff it down one of the holes into the test tube”, no preparation, no cleaning, no nothing. I thought “if that’s how they want it doing, that’s how I’m going to do it. If they want it doing before the full meeting I’d simply do it the best that I could”.

As seems to be usual when I’m keyed up for something important like this I was awake and out of bed before the alarm went off and I took the opportunity to wash my puttees and my nightclothes so that everything will be nice and clean and ready for me when I come back home, if I ever do.

And that’s not like me either, is it?

What else isn’t like me is that I had MY BAGS ARE PACKED AND READY TO GO, as Peter, Paul and Mary would have sung, so I just had to wait around for the driver to come to collect me.

Bang on 07:00 she turned up as well, my favourite taxi driver, so we were going to be in for an exciting trip. Anything to relieve the boredom.

She had a couple of errands to perform around the town on the way and then we hit the highway.

The journey was quiet to start with but being stuck behind a dithering driver at the péage seemed to switch her on and the running commentary began for the rest of the trip.

That was just as well – I couldn’t stand the quiet.

The autoroute that we usually take into Paris is closed at the moment so we had to go another way.

That led to all kinds of confusion but luckily she was rather more restrained than last time and when we ended up in the wrong lane we simply went with the flow this time instead of performing some kind of dramatic U-turn as you might see on American “cops and robbers” TV.

We were ages late in arriving which is no surprise given the conditions, and once I was registered in I was shown up to my deep-freeze on the second floor where I dived fully-clothed under the bedclothes. And where I still am.

The nurse threw a bottle of water at me which was just as well after my marathon fast, and then we had the pantomime about fitting a catheter in my arm.

They offered to let the little student nurse do it, poor thing. I did admire their optimism. And we gradually went up and up the respective grades. At one time there were no fewer than 6 nurses of different ranks in the hierarchy standing around my bed until in the end someone let out a cry of joy.

My lunch (an omelette) that had been growing cold on a side table was then brought over to me and no sooner did I have my fork stuck into the accompanying salad when the doctor appeared. It’s all just one more distraction.

While I was trying to doze off after lunch the whole world and his wife came in to interrupt me just as I was starting on some kind of dream of something to do with wartime. No sooner had it started under way when everyone came in and it immediately disappeared which was a shame.

The nurses did a few more things before clearing off and I crashed out yet again.

The funny thing about all of this was that no sooner had I set foot in my room that they went to check my blood pressure.
"Blimey! That’s high!" said the nurse.
Well, of course it is. I’ve just come 360 kms with my favourite taxi driver
"I’ll come back in an hour to check it again"
So she came back to do it again immediately after 6 nurses had just finished poking and prodding me – with predictable results.

So now that I’ve had my meal I’m going to try to go to sleep again, this time until morning. And hope that I have some better results than of late.

They’ve offered me a sleeping pill but I’ve turned it down. It’s like the young girl who, on her wedding night, propped herself on a chair by the window
"Aren’t you … errr … coming to bed?" asked her husband
"Ohh no" she replied. "My mummy told me that this would be the most exciting night of my life and I’m not going to miss a minute of it"

Sunday 21st April 2024 – AND SO TOMORROW …

… or today, if you are reading this posting on Monday, I go for my appointment with Destiny

This is when we’ll find out of this three months of medication cocktail has done any good.

Mind you, I can tell you that without having to go all the way to Paris at great expense to find out. There has certainly been a change in the situation, but it isn’t for the better.

Not that it’s any surprise really. With a illness that’s so rare that there are no records and no approved treatment everyone is just groping blindly in the dark and the last time that I tried that I had a thick ear off Percy Penguin

What is going to be interesting though is to find out what their Plan B is. They’ve had three months to think of one so I’m sure that there will be something simmering away in the background. At least, there better had be and I’ll be disappointed if there isn’t.

There was a change last night as well from the previous night, in that I actually managed some sleep.

For a change I actually managed to be in bed early but even so I couldn’t go to sleep. There was far too much on my mind, and on other places too.

However, to my surprise, there was something on the dictaphone and that was unexpected. There was something going on about toothpaste last night. Each person was given their own little cardboard box with their own little tube in it that was for them and them only. I’ve no idea why that would be the case or what it was all about.

No explanations were forthcoming either as it doesn’t seem to relate to anything at all. Just one of those mysterious things, I suspect.

After a stroll down the corridor I came back to bed and that was that until the alarm went off. I finally managed a deep, satisfying sleep and the only thing wrong with that is that there wasn’t enough of it.

No blood pressure – as I said yesterday, there’s not really much point. Instead I went into the living room for my medication with, instead of my usual half-litre of flavoured water, just enough water to swallow my tablets.

And that’s all that I’ve had to eat or drink today. Honestly. I’m working on the principle that the less stuff that goes in, the less stuff will want to come out, and that’s an advantage on a 4-hour car drive tomorrow morning when I’m not feeling too well.

The nurse came round and saw to my foot and my puttees. He thinks that the wound on my foot is ready to face the fresh air but if I’m off to Paris in shoes and socks on Monday I’d rather leave the plaster on so that there’s no friction rubbing it away.

After he left I came back in here and vegetated for quite a while. These 08:00 starts on a Sunday are killing me when I’m used to a long lie-in and a start that’s considerably later than that.

But eventually I managed to summon up enough energy to make a start on sorting out the European Paper Mountain and looking for what I need to take with me

And having found what I can (because there’s still plenty of stuff missing) I packed my backpack. I’ll take what I’ve found and we’ll have to invent the rest as we go along.

There was football on the internet this afternoon – the last weekend of matches of the regular season.

We were treated to Aberystwyth v Pontypridd United. Pontypridd are already relegated due to certain off-the-field issues, but Aberystwyth had to do better than Colwyn Bay would do against Barry Town in order to stay up and sent the Bay back down.

To everyone’s surprise, and probably theirs too, Colwyn Bay beat Barry 1-0 with a goal scored near the end of the game, but by then it was too late. Aberystwyth had already put three past Pontypridd and never looked in any difficulty.

We had the same scenario last season with a dramatic great escape on the final day and as I said then, if Aber had played for the rest of the season with the panache that they showed today they wouldn’t have been in this trouble to start with

It’s tough on Colwyn Bay on their first season in the Premier League but they were miles off the pace even on Day One when Caernarfon put 4 past them and the Bay were lucky to get nil, but the gulf between the Premier League and the second tier is immense.

Rosemary rang me for a chat at the end of the afternoon so while I was preparing a back-up memory stick to take with me, we put the world to rights. Just a short conversation today, only 57 minutes.

So now my puttees are washed and hanging up to dry, my bag is packed and my back-up is prepared, that’s my lot. I’m off to bed.

The alarm is set for 06:00 and the car should be here at 07:00 and then we’ll see.

And I hope that the taxi is on time. He was late on one of the other times that we had to go early like this
"You should have been here at 07:00" I told him
"Why?" he asked. "What happened?"

EPIC HALL

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

Sunday 5th May 2024 – IM FED UP ….

4th May 2024 – HAPPY STAR WARS DAY …

Friday 3rd May 2024 – I’VE HAD A …

Thursday 2nd May 2024 – THAT BLASTED LECLERC …

Wednesday 1st May 2024 – IT’S HARD TO ..

Tuesday 30th April 2024 – I’VE MANAGED NOT …

Monday 29th April 2024 – I’VE BROKEN ONE …

Sunday 28th April 2024 – IT WAS THE …

Saturday 27th April 2024 – THIS STORY ABOUT …

Friday 26th April 2024 – IT’S FLAMING DIFFICULT …

Thursday 25th April 2024 – I HAVE ACHES …

Wednesday 24th April 2024 – THAT WAS AN …

Tuesday 23rd April 2024 – OUCH! THAT HURT!

Monday 22nd April 2024 – MEANWHILE, HERE IN …

Sunday 21st April 2024 – AND SO TOMORROW …

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