Tag Archives: doctor

Monday 1st September 2025 – I AM ABSOLUTELY SICK …

… tired and totally fed up with this dialysis nonsense, and if there’s much more of it, I’m going to write my wills (because there will be three), call a halt to it and let nature take its course.

One of the doctors told me a few weeks ago that if I were to stop the dialysis, I wouldn’t last out the week. But at least I would have a week to myself without being dragged around from one medical appointment to another and totally inconvenienced in the process.

The taxi was early today – 12:45 instead of 13:15, and we arrived at dialysis at 13:20. So there I was, looking for an early start, a quick “in and out” and back home early for once. But ohhhh! Cruel, wicked fate! How you (and I suspect some human agency too) conspired to thwart my plans. And in spades too.

The way things went last night, I might have expected some problems today. Despite my best efforts, it was 23:40 when I finally crawled into bed, much later than I had been planning. But once in bed, I had a really good sleep for a change.

When the alarm went off at 06:29, I was actually on the point of throwing off the covers. Not actually out of bed though. And leaving the bed was not as simple as it might have sounded. It was a desperate struggle to beat the second alarm.

In the bathroom, I had a good wash, shave and clean up in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant … "if anyone from the dialysis centre finds this objectionable, may we ask why you have invaded Our Hero’s private life by hunting him down on the internet, in defiance of the Patients’ Charter?" – ed… and then in the kitchen I had my medication.

Some of the medication in the drawer in the table had run out so I had to go to the supplies. And what a marvellous surprise. I’ve moaned and moaned about the medication all over my apartment, making it look like a Chemist’s shop and depressing me no end but my lovely cleaner has fitted out a cardboard box, complete with little curtains, to store everything. That’s one of the nicest things that anyone has done for me.

Once more, I’d hardly come back in here before the nurse arrived. Once more, he was in a really chatty, sociable mood and I hope that he stays like this because it makes things so much nicer.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of MIDDLESEX IN BRITISH, ROMAN AND SAXON TIMES.

Our author is now well into his stride about Roman surveying, and I’ve been having to rack my brains from my Primary School days in the early 1960s about rods, poles, perches, chains and furlongs. I suspect that tomorrow we’ll be discussing bushels and peck, and the difference between avoirdupois and troy weight.

However, it’s his comments that are the most interesting. When discussing the longevity of the Roman system of land division, he observes that "it is manifest that neither the rude Saxons nor their Norman successors were capable of designing or carrying out such a big undertaking."

It makes me wonder what the Saxons must have been doing, and did the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine know about it?

He also talks about the erection of wayside shrines at the intersections of Roman field trackways, and how Pope Gregory encouraged Christian missionaries to adopt these wayside shrines and convert them to Holy Christian places.

Anyone who has wandered around rural France as much as we have will have noticed statues of the saints at many intersections of rural trackways.

Another thing that he mentions is that on "Rogation days, when priests with the Cross went in procession round their parochia, and certain Gospels were read in the wild field among the corn and grass, so that wicked spirits which infest the air might be laid low to the extent that the corn may remain unharmed."

The ceremony of the Beating of the Bounds and of well-dressing is still carried on today in parts of the UK.

After breakfast, I came back in here to spend a brief fifteen minutes finishing off the connecting up of my office and all of the computer peripherals, and when my cleaner came to sort out my anaesthetic cream two and more hours later, I was still in here trying to sort it out.

No matter what I have tried, I can’t make one of the external back-up drives fire up. I’ve changed cables and everything, but the warning light is far paler than the warning light on another one and the computer won’t read it. I shall have to keep on trying. Everything else works fine.

Once my cleaner had dealt with my arm, she began to chat. And was still chatting when the taxi came. I really am flavour of the month around here these days.

There was only me in the car with the driver today – a nice young guy who has taken me to Paris before – and we had a good chat. But the fun came to an end when we arrived at dialysis because we arrived at the same time as seven other people.

Not only that, they weren’t ready in the wards so we had to wait. And when the doors were opened, it was a mad stampede to the beds. My bed was the farthest possible away from the door, as you might expect, and because I am the slowest, I was last to arrive.

It was not surprising that I would therefore be the last to be connected, but 14:30 – well over an hour after I had arrived – is really taking the mickey.

There was plenty of room to manoeuvre with the weight loss so I asked the nurse to wind it up so that I’d have a head start for Thursday, but for all the good it did, I may as well have saved my breath.

Once everything was under way I had a brief doze … "he means ‘half an hour of deep sleep’" – ed … and then I was in no mood to do any work. I really am over-tired these days.

Even worse, the chef de service came by, and said that one of the other doctors had made some remarks the other day about my overall health and how I seemed to be suffering under the strain of dialysis. And so, he cut right down to a minimum the amount of fluid extraction.

And the final straw – despite all my entreaties, he left me 700 grams short, which means almost inevitably that I’ll be stuck here for four hours on Thursday. People could be forgiven for believing that he’s deliberately setting me up in an act of revenge for my letter to his Head Office.

So the ridiculously low extraction came to an end at 18:00 precisely, but I wasn’t unplugged and attended to until 18:25. It was 18:50 when I finally walked out of the dialysis centre – the poor taxi driver had been awaiting me for over half an hour.

To cap it all, we had to drive right across Avranches to the private clinic to pick up someone else and run them to Granville, where they were dropped off first.

It was 19:40 when I finally came back here, as if I don’t have anything else to do, and I was totally seething. I really am fed up with all of this. I was away from home for almost seven hours for a three-and-a-half hour session and that is totally unacceptable.

If I don’t calm down soon, I’ll be the one blowing a gasket.

Tea was a quick pasta with chick peas and veg, and then I had the dictaphone notes to transcribe. I can’t remember who I was with but I was wandering around somewhere like Stoke-upon-Trent last night with someone. We came across a car that was for sale, a red Morris 1000 traveller and whoever I was with was trying to make up her mind whether to buy it or not. I couldn’t see how it would fit in with our plans but it was a nice vehicle all the same. We met a few other people wandering around there too and we had a talk with them. The next thing that I remember about this was that we were in Nantwich, having a look at the water pumps there and the system to distribute the town water. They were at the back of the Swine Market, at the back of one of the shops. We were talking about how they were installed and the controversy about digging up all of the streets, stopping the traffic from circulating for months but that’s all that I remember about this dream.

Nerina and I went to see a Morris Traveller once. It was for sale at a giveaway price because one of the spring hangers had torn out of the chassis. I would have had it and welded it up, but she decided against it, which was a shame. I’m not sure why we ended up in Nantwich though. In those days, Stoke-upon-Trent would have been much more likely.

So still fuming, still seething, I’m off to bed. I hope that I will have calmed down by the morning although I doubt it. But I’ll be interested to see how my dreams are tonight. However, knowing my luck, there won’t be any at all.

One thing that I am going to do at the dialysis clinic though next time, is to watch very carefully how the nurses operate the machines. And then, when their backs are turned, I can adjust my machine myself to how I would like it to be. Then we can watch the sparks fly!

But seeing as we have been talking about religion and Priests … "well, one of us has" – ed … a priest and a couple of parishioners were standing on a road with a sign saying "The End Is Nigh. Turn Round. Retrace Your Steps Before It’s Too Late"
However, a car drives past, with the occupants hurling abuse at the Priest and his parishioners.
Next moment the Priest and his parishioners hear a loud “splash”.
One of the parishioners turns to the Priest and says "Yes, I reckoned that a simple ‘Bridge Washed Away’ sign would have been a better idea"

Saturday 30th August 2025 (… continued …) – SO STARTING AGAIN …

… after the adventures reported in the previous entry, Saturday has not been a very good day for me, for a whole variety of reasons, and I’m glad that it’s over.

It started off with me still being at my desk working at some ridiculous time like 00:40, and long after that too. But you know how it is … "No. How is it?" – ed … Once you start something, it’s very difficult to stop it, and trying to download about 50GB of Artificial Intelligence data software is not the work of five minutes.

That was something that was going on and on and on, and I didn’t want to stop it and start again. I was working on the theory that if I’m really tired during the day, I can always have a good sleep at dialysis in the afternoon. In the end though, it was starting to become ridiculous so I simply switched off the screen, left the computer working away to itself and went to bed.

Despite the very late night, I was awake again a few minutes before the alarm went off but, as you might expect, it was something of a struggle to persuade myself to leave the bed and have a good wash, shave and clean up in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant … "if anyone from the dialysis centre finds this remark objectionable, my we ask why you have invaded Our Hero’s private life, in defiance of the Patients’ Charter, by hunting him down on the internet?" – ed…

After the medication, I ended up back in here, a good hour after having left the bed, and listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a Roman empress or the wife of a Roman emperor or the wife of a British governor who visited the office of one of the native tribes in England for some kind of interview, but things went so badly that the woman took out a dagger and slashed all of the horsehair-filled seats that were in the room, causing a lot of damage, so the tribal leaders tried to contact the Roman legions who would pay for the damage, but of course they wouldn’t and everything was left up in the air with a very bitter taste in the mouths of the British people and the tribe concerned.

Quite recently, I’ve been reading quite a lot about different Roman Emperors, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, and there was also something going on in my mind yesterday about car seats. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that several years ago in Québec we went to visit the RIVIERE DES VASES which was where the eel grass, used to stuff car seats in the early days of motoring, was harvested and the discussion had turned round to horsehair seats in the UK

The nurse came in at his usual time today and caught me working at my desk, so he took my blood pressure here at my desk. He reckoned that it would be a much more accurate reading if I remained sitting here rather than standing up and going into the other room.

He sorted out my legs too, then after he left, I could make my breakfast and read some more of MIDDLESEX IN BRITISH, ROMAN AND SAXON TIMES.

This morning, I didn’t go very far into the book because I went off on a tangent, following the trail of the Roman armies as they wandered peripatetically around what today is Scotland. There was also a little trail to follow about the collapse of the “Hen Gogledd” culture as the Romans pushed from the South and the Picts pushed down from the North, events recited in the Heroic Welsh ballad Y GODODIN.

After breakfast, I came back in here to see how the Artificial Intelligence downloads had gone. By the looks of things, everything was complete, but it’s going to take a good while to sort out. And after all of that, when everything is ready, I’ll probably find that I would have been much better off with Natural Stupidity because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … Artificial Intelligence is not all that it’s cracked up to be.

However, having said that, it’s an old principle of computer programming, drummed into us when we were messing around with Machine Code at Night School in the mid-seventies, that the only equation in computing on which you can rely is GI = GO, which stands for “Garbage In” = “Garbage Out”, and it’s probably fair to say that … errr … “confusion” in a computer program is inevitably the fault of the person who has programmed it.

Once more, my faithful cleaner caught me unawares as she came to put the anaesthetic cream onto my arm, and she stayed for quite a while chatting. I’m not sure why I seem to be the “Flavour of the Month” right now. However, our chat was interrupted by the arrival of the taxi so we went outside to meet it.

Unusually, I was the only passenger in the car today, so I asked the driver about the lovely lady who usually accompanies me. However, he had no news of her, so we travelled alone.

For once, I was early arriving, but as usual, I was one of the last to be connected, which was a shame. And as I expected, for the first half-hour I was away with the fairies, although not in any fashion that would be of interest to the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine. When I came back into the Land of the Living, I didn’t really do all that much.

The doctor came to see me and I told her the story of the injections. She thought too that I’d be much better off going back to the old series of injections rather than this new one that had so upset my body.

Eventually, they came to unplug me after, for once, having had a full session of three and a half hours without a crisis of any kind. However, the woman in the next bed was not so lucky and they had to unplug her after an hour or so. When she’d recovered, she was whipped off to hospital for observation

Earlier on, I had asked one of the nurses if she knew why the lady who usually accompanies me on Thursdays and Saturdays was not present today. She had checked up during the course of the afternoon and while she was compressing me, she told me, to my deep shock, that she had died yesterday.

When I’d seen her on Thursday, I noticed that she didn’t seem to be herself, but to hear that she had died the following day was the last thing that I expected to hear.

On the way out, they weighed me as usual, and I am now the lightest that I have been for quite some considerable time. I can see that this is not going to end well, but I can’t think of what to do about it, with the lack of appetite and everything that I eat tasting heavily of salt since the chemotherapy began.

The taxi was waiting for me when I left, but there was another passenger who needed to be dropped off in Avranches, so what with all that had gone on today, I was far later arriving back home than I otherwise might have been, which was annoying. There was a rainstorm too that was rather annoying.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me and she sorted me out quite quickly. She’d also brought two of the guitars downstairs, which was nice. The others will follow in due course.

After she had left, there was football on the internet. The game between Hwlffordd and Caernarfon had started half an hour ago but the advantage of being on the internet is that you can wind it back to the start.

Mind you, it wasn’t a very interesting match. For some reason, all of the liveliness and energy that had seen Caernarfon go to the top of the table and score a bagful of goals so far this season seemed to have disappeared and it was a very lethargic performance. Hwlffordd gave a workmanlike performance but didn’t set the game alight either.

A 1-1 draw was probably a fair result, and I have seen far, far better matches than this one. If Caernarfon wish to stay at the top of the table, they will have to play much better than this. However, perennial champions TNS dropped another two points with a tame draw down south at Barry Town and Penybont, who have shown some class and character over the last two or three seasons, were surprisingly beaten at home by Connah’s Quay Nomads.

At half-time, I paused the game and went to make some tea – pasta and veg with chick peas. And it was a big mistake because what with the nausea that I have been feeling these last few days, I ended up in some kind of severe difficulty. In the end, as soon as the football finished, I typed a terse note and went straight to bed.

Tomorrow is another day and we’ll see how we feel. My cure for everything at the moment is to go to bed and sleep it off.

But seeing as we have been talking about my poor fellow traveller … "well, one of us has" – ed … I told my faithful cleaner about her death. After all, she had met her a couple of times.
"How many of your fellow passengers have now passed away over the last year?" she asked.
"Three" I replied "and a fourth one now has to come by ambulance".
"You’ll do everything you possibly can to have a car to yourself, won’t you?" she said.

Thursday 28th August 2025 – YET ANOTHER MORNING …

… when I slept right the way through until the alarm at 06:29. And once more, I had no end of a struggle to leave the bed prior to the alarm going off.

Last night wasn’t however as late as some have been just recently. I was actually, for once, in bed prior to midnight although it does have to be said that there can’t have been much in it.

Once in bed, I was asleep quite quickly and that’s all that I remember of anything until 06:29 when the alarm went off. It’s not very often that I sleep as soundly as that.

It took me an age to make myself ready this morning too. What with having a good wash, scrub up and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, I went into the kitchen for my medication and didn’t come out again until 07:41 precisely. That was what I would call a “slow start”.

Yes, and “Emilie the Cute Consultant” … while I was waiting for my Doppler examination yesterday, with nothing better to do, I found a copy of the “Patients’ Charter” and read it. I do strange things like that every now and again.

Article 11 states that "a person who has been hospitalised has the right to express his observations on his treatment and on his reception." Consequently, if I have received an “over-generous” welcome from a member of staff, I shall say so, whether or not the doctor in charge of the service blows a gasket.

Even more importantly, Article 9 says that "every hospitalised person has the right to have his private life respected." It continues by saying that such a person "has the right to confidentiality respect of his …" communications.

Therefore, if the chef de service doesn’t like what I’m writing, I shall want to know why someone has been disrespecting my private life by hunting me down on the internet and reading my communications.

Frankly, I’m not in the least bothered about who tracks me down on the internet and who reads anything that I have written. But as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … if you have seen something that displeases you, no matter how you found it, there’s a “contact” button on the bottom right.

But if you are reading this and you aren’t supposed to, no matter what the reason, you only have yourself to blame.

Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. At some point during the night, I was at Aberystwyth watching Aberystwyth Town playing in the JD Cymru South League following their relegation from the Premier League. It was a completely new side with all their old favourites missing. It just wasn’t the same kind of team that it was before. Several of their former players who had left in the summer were there but seemed not to become involved or take any kind of side during anything that was going on. That was a disappointment again.

Amongst the players whom I recognised in the stand was Louis Bradford, Aberystwyth’s former centre-half, but also Alec Mudimu, someone who has no connection at all with Aberystwyth. He’s a Zimbabwe international defender who played in the JD Cymru League previously with Cefn Druids and after a spell playing in Eastern Europe, signed for Y Fflint the other day.

The nurse came at the usual time for a change today, and once more, he was full of jovial good humour. I really don’t know from where it’s coming, but I hope that he keeps it up. He’s a much more agreeable person when he’s in this kind of mood.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of MIDDLESEX IN BRITISH, ROMAN AND SAXON TIMES.

Our author is still setting the scene but he’s now moved on to talk about hunting. And in the middle of his discourse, he stops to paint a very illuminating but fanciful account of a fictional hunt involving Cunobelinus and his “daughter” Helena, a personage just as fictitious as Montagu Sharpe’s description.

Sharpe talks about the wild "animals turned by the long line of bank and hedge now known as Grimm’s dyke, blindly rushing towards these outstretched leafy arms," of the hunting trap. And then he loses the plot completely as he talks about the "blast from a long bronze carnyx, the sportsmen scatter to their places, and with weapons ready".

Would anyone like to guess what might happen to a herd of wild animals if someone in their vicinity were to blow a note on a solid bronze anything?

Really, this kind of writing has no place in what is supposed to be a genuine and serious historical account.

Back in here, I had a few things to do but time caught up with me quite rapidly and my cleaner arrived to sort out my anaesthetic patches. After she’d finished, we had a very long chat and then she left me to await the taxi to take me to dialysis.

It was late coming this afternoon and the other passenger in the car with me had the air of being extremely unhappy. We were late arriving at Avranches and as you might expect, I was the last to be plugged in.

To make matters worse, having had the session interrupted on Monday, I had so much liquid to lose that I had to stay for four hours. And the internet was down all day too, which really put the tin hat on it.

Océane was looking after me today, which was nice. The first needle, I felt a sensation when she pierced the skin but that was all. As for the second, the one that gives me problems, I didn’t even realise that she’d injected me, so good was the puncture. She can do it again like that and I’ll be happy. And once she had finished, I crashed out for a whole forty-five minutes

The doctor came to see me at one point. They had had the report from the hospital. The implant is definitely faulty and they are discussing whether to repair it or replace it. That was not what I wanted to hear.

During the session, the blood pressure alarm kept sounding as my blood pressure dropped. With twenty minutes to go, it was down to just about eight so at that point, Océane stopped the session. She’s already seen me in a coma once and doesn’t want to see it again.

She raised the bottom of the bed to give my blood pressure the space to recover, and when my pressure was stable at 9.5 she uncoupled me. The doctor gave me a prescription for the nurse to monitor my blood pressure for the next couple of days.

The taxi driver was waiting for me, last out of the building as I was, and she brought me home. My faithful cleaner was awaiting me and what a relief it was to come back into my apartment without those wretched 25 steps.

After a good while to recover, I made tea – a leftover curry. And now I’m off to bed, exhausted once again. I don’t know what’s the matter with me these last few days.

But seeing as we have been talking about hunting … "well, one of us has" – ed … two guys are out hunting in the forests of Maine when they are attacked by a black bear. One of them escapes but the other one is badly mauled.
Eventually, the one who escapes goes back to his friend and sees the bloody mass on the floor.
Taking up his ‘phone, he ‘phones 911."My friend has just been badly mauled by a black bear. I think that he’s dead"
"Really?" asks the dispatcher. "Can you make sure?"
On the other end of the ‘phone, the dispatcher hears a “BANG”
"I’m really sure now" says the surviving hunter. "What do I do next?"

Saturday 16th August 2025 – IT WAS ANOTHER …

… horrible day at dialysis where even more things went wrong than on the last horrible day that I had had. And add to that the fact that the nurse who dealt with me was the one who doesn’t like me all that much, it could hardly be any worse than it was.

However, it was brewing up like that last night. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I was off my food last night – a sure sign that I was sickening for something. Once more, it was quite late when I went to bed and I didn’t take long to go to sleep.

However, I awoke at 04:10 and couldn’t go back to sleep at all for quite a while. I was giving serious consideration to leaving the bed at one point, but the next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 06:29. I must have gone back to sleep again.

That’s twice just recently that I’ve been awoken by the alarm. I hope that it’s not becoming a habit because I enjoy my early mornings, even if I am dog-tired by the end of the day. I must have a think about this.

It took a while to summon up the morale and the energy to go into the bathroom to have a wash and a shave too, in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and then I went for my medication.

While I was in the kitchen, I could see the sun rise over the roof of the church. A tiny, bright-red disc, nothing like its usual morning appearance. Some say that it’s another Sahara sandstorm and the smoke from the wildfires in Spain that are causing the problem.

Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I can’t remember too much about this dream but I was living on one of these housing estates in Crewe. I’d discussed with someone the idea of going round to see them one afternoon. As the afternoon came round, I thought that I’d take a cake with me but I didn’t have a cake tin so I put a message on the internet to ask if anyone could lend some cake tins to me. There were one or two answers so I called for a taxi, and the taxi took me to one of the addresses. When I began to talk to this woman at this address about cake boxes, she shook her head in bewilderment. She had no idea about what I was discussing, and after five minutes it became quite evident that I had the wrong address and that I’d come here instead of whee I ought to be going. Eventually, after quite some time, I managed to work out that I could borrow a cake tin. The old lady who lived there was reasonably nice in the end although she had been somewhat brusque and sharp at first. I climbed back into the taxi to be rushed over to the next football ground accompanied by a beep from the driver and a hand-wave from the woman. I was thinking that well at least I had my cake for this afternoon so it’s not a bad thing.

It was part of my big plan to bake a cake or two, and a few other things for when my friends come to help me move but unfortunately, first of all, I’m feeling far from well and secondly, what with dialysis, chemotherapy and the like all happening next week, when am I going to have the time?

The nurse was very late this morning. He’s just back from his holidays so I suppose he wanted a lie-in. So I had to wait quite a while before I could make breakfast.

Having finished Daniel Gooch yesterday, I’ve started a new book today – Montagu Sharp’s MIDDLESEX IN BRITISH, ROMAN AND SAXON TIMES. It’s a comparatively modern book for me, written in 1856.

It has all the air of being quite interesting … "you’ve said that before about others" – ed … and at the moment, we are discussing the sharpened wooden stakes that were found in the River Thames, presumably to guard the British ford crossing the river at Brentford.

After breakfast, I came back in here and carried on packing a few more boxes ready to be moved downstairs. The more I can do, the better while I’m still in the mood and in the health to do it.

And then, I went a-playing with this radio soundtrack that I’ve been preparing. After much binding in the marsh etc, I’ve managed to fix one of the joins that was annoying me. It’s now much better than it was. There are still one or two more to fix, and I suspect that they might give me even more trouble.

My cleaner turned up to fit my anaesthetic patches and then we went downstairs to see how the plumber was doing. He’s made a really impressive job of the bathroom, and the shower looks beautiful, as far as it has gone. He seems to think that it will be all finished by Monday afternoon, which will be wonderful if it is.

There will still be a few other jobs to do, but I’ll contact the kitchen fitter and see what he thinks about his availability

This morning, I had awoken with a pain in my chest. I mentioned yesterday that I reckoned that I was sickening for something. But at dialysis, I made the huge mistake of telling them.

The preparations for the dialysis shuddered to a dramatic halt, I was given an electromyogramme and they took a blood sample, that needed to be analysed. "It’ll only take twenty minutes" they assured me. And when the blood pressure dropped to 7.0, then they really did go into a panic.

These twenty minutes turned out to be one hour and forty minutes and by that time, I was seething with rage. I’m afraid that I left the doctor and the nurse in absolutely no doubt about how I felt, and now the nurse likes me even less than before

Having arrived early at dialysis, it was 18:45 when the session finally ended and they unplugged me, and I was totally past caring.

If I have learned anything from today’s disaster, that is that next time they ask me how I am, I shall say that everything is perfect. I’m not being messed around like this again.

Another decision that I have made is that this trip to Paris will be my last. If they want me to continue with chemotherapy, it will have to be done in a local hospital or, the absolute limit, Rennes. I’m fed up with being a slave of the medical service.

Back here, there was a reception committee awaiting me – my cleaner, my friend from Munich and the Hound of the Baskervilles. It says something for my friends that they are prepared to make a 2400 km round trip just for a few days to help me move house. No-one could ask for better friends.

My friend had a guided visit of the new apartment and he thinks that it’s wonderful too. I really am pleased with it and I hope that it all works as well as it looks. With a little luck, I might even be in there on Monday when I return from dialysis. It would be wonderful if I could.

Tea was something of an ad-hoc scratch affair as I wasn’t up to doing much, and then I staggered in here to write my notes. I really am finished tonight and I shall be glad to climb into bed, where I shall sleep for ever, I reckon.

But seeing as we have been talking about showers … "well, one of us has" – ed … in one of these hostels of the kind where I stayed in Leuven, a girl went down to see the manager.
"It’s the man in the room next door" she said. "He’s doing rude things to himself in the shower."
So the manager went up to her room, had a look round, and said "I can’t see anything, miss."
"Well, " said the girl "if you put this chair onto the table just here and then climb ap to the top, you’ll be able to see him if you stare closely through the air brick up there in the wall."

Thursday 14th August 2025 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day at dialysis that was! Everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong and it wasn’t until 19:45 that I finally made it back here.

It had all gone wrong a long time before that, though. Once more, another night where I failed miserably to beat my curfew time of 23:00, mainly due to prevarication and lack of motivation, and I really need to do something about that. Over the last eighteen months or so I seem to have lost the will and there’s nothing that I can do that seems to recapture it.

At least, once I go to bed, I don’t stay awake for long. I’m away quite quickly, which is at least an improvement on how things used to be. But in some kind of weird compensation, I seem to awaken quite early and quite easily.

It was 02:45 when I awoke for the first time, and try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep at first. I reckoned at one stage that I may as well leave the bed and do something constructive, but as I was trying to summon up the energy, I must have gone back to sleep.

And then a strange thing happened. For the first time since I don’t know when, I was still asleep when the alarm went off at 06:29. I must have been really tired last night, because I was completely out of it all at that moment.

It took a good few minutes for me to gather up my senses, which is a surprise seeing how few I have these days, but I still managed to beat the second alarm – but only just.

After a good scrub up and the morning medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I’d gone to Paris for the weekend. On the Sunday morning I awoke and went down to the metro station to buy a metro pass. I then set out for a little walk. I walked down alongside the River Seine for a while and then decided to catch the metro. I climbed onto the metro and headed south along the river. I suddenly then had a horrible sensation that I’d left my keys in the metro station when I bought my ticket. So what was I going to do? I had to leave the metro and then run all the way back, all the way down the banks of the Seine, all the way to the metro station where I had been. I remember thinking that I don’t have my crutches here. How am I doing this? When I reached the metro station, I had to climb into my car and drive out into the suburbs or something. I drove out, and it was quite a fast drive with people not really obeying the speed limit at all. When I reached where I was supposed to be, I found that everyone from work had assembled there. One of the people gave me my suit that was in one of these plastic suit cover things on a hanger. I mentioned to him about my keys so he opened the plastic suit container thing and pulled out my keys. Of course I was extremely relieved about this and I thanked him, but then everyone began to take the mickey out of me. Although I knew that it was done in good nature, I wasn’t really in the kind of mood to be teased at that moment again. It was more a great big sigh of relief.

These days I seem to spend a lot of time wandering around without my crutches. If only it were true! But why would I be walking around Paris? That’s something that I certainly can’t do these days, not that I would want to, because Paris isn’t my favourite European city. The last time that I had a good walk around Paris was about three years ago with a certain young lady who figures every now and again in these pages. I don’t know why my colleagues from work would be there either, but that’s another story.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in as usual, and as well as dealing with my legs, she removed the plaster from my catheter, without giving me an opportunity to express my opinion on the matter. She’s probably right to do so, but it’s still going to be uncomfortable for me if I see it.

Once she’d left, I could make breakfast and read some more of THE DIARIES OF SIR DANIEL GOOCH.

Today, we’ve been treated to a very lengthy and involved discussion about fishing in 2400 fathoms (14400 feet) of sea with a couple of grappling hooks for the broken end of a transatlantic telegraph cable so that they could haul it up, splice a new length in it and lay it as a second cable from Valencia to Heart’s Content.

He also spends some time talking about the shipping that went past them as they fished for the cable. And in those days, there was so much marine traffic and so many different companies sailing the Atlantic. When we sailed the Atlantic in 2019, we met just one ship after leaving the Orkney Islands behind us until we were in the Davis Strait off the west coast of Greenland.

After breakfast, I did some more packing for a while and then came back in here to begin work on the next radio programme. And just five minutes convinced me that this is going to be a real mess. I’ll be lucky to salvage anything at all out of it.

And seeing as we have been talking about the radio, don’t forget that this weekend features my series of Woodstock programmes. I hope that you’ll all listen to it, even if you can’t understand French. After all, it took ages to prepare and involved an enormous amount of research. I was really happy about how it all turned out.

You can hear the broadcasts HERE at 21:00 Central European Time, 20:00 UK Time and 15:00 Toronto Time on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and even download them for later perusal.

My cleaner turned up a little later than usual to fit my anaesthetic patches, and then we went downstairs where I had a good chat with the plumber. Judging by what remains to be done, it looks as if he might be finished by Monday night if he works tomorrow, which is a Bank Holiday around here.

The taxi was late arriving but the driver put her foot down and we weren’t too late arriving in Avranches. But the doctor wanted to inspect the fitting in my arm, and then the nurse found that one of the patches had missed the fitting so it hurt like Hades, and the needle that goes in there missed the fitting too, so they were talking about doing it again. But wiser counsel prevailed and they fitted a “Y” branch on the one that was working.

They also found that I’d gained quite a lot of weight this last couple of days and so I had to stay for four hours. And to add insult to injury, they put me in the bed that is the most uncomfortable.

Having arrived at 13:45, it was 14:45 when the treatment actually began. And as I said earlier, s late as 19:45 when I returned home.

We had a quick look in to see where the plumber had reached this afternoon. He had made good progress while I was at dialysis. The plasterboard walling is all done and he’s applied the first layer of jointing compound. He has everything that he needs to repair the floor and to tile everywhere. It’s looking really impressive and will look even better when it’s finished

Coming back upstairs was a nightmare, and shan’t I be glad to no longer have to do it? I was exhausted and it took me a good half hour to recover enough breath to make a quick tea. Nothing exotic at all – I wasn’t in the mood.

So I’m off to bed now, wondering if I’ll have another sleep like last night or whether I’ll be back to the “four hours per night” lark.

But seeing as we have been talking about shipping … "well, one of us has" – ed … Nerina and I met a couple of people on a ferry once and had a really interesting chat with them.
"My husband is a sea-captain" said the woman. "He works for Cunard."
"My husband runs a taxi business" replied Nerina. "He puts a great deal of effort and energy into his work too."

Monday 11th August 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone again this morning.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that at this point I usually wail about the lack of excitement and interest etc, but as I have said it before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … you are probably as fed up with it as I am, so I shall desist.

Mind you, it’s not really all that much of a surprise because I was still letting it all hang out after midnight last night. For one reason or another, despite my best attempts to be early, it was nothing like. I really don’t know where the time goes these days.

And so in bed after midnight, I was asleep quite quickly, but not for long. At 04:10 I was wide awake again, which was probably why there was nothing on the dictaphone. You can’t go far in four hours.

Try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep. By about 05:15 I gave up the struggle and arose from the Dead.

In the bathroom, I had a good wash and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and then I went into the kitchen for the medication. Back in here, I discovered that there was nothing on the dictaphone, but not to worry because I have plenty to do.

In the living room, I filled all of the boxes that we had emptied on Wednesday so they are now all ready to be taken down and emptied. I also emptied one of the CD racks so that one is now ready to be moved.

Isabelle the Nurse inspected my catheter port and changed the dressing, and then dealt with my legs. She didn’t hang around for long, and I could make breakfast and read some more of THE OLD ROAD.

Our author is at it again with his flowery prose. He wants to talk about the Dissolution of Monasteries. I’m not going to reproduce what he has to say but if you were to look at page 199 you’ll see that he takes well over a page of his book to say "the monasteries were taken into possession of the Crown."

There’s another one of his … errr … rather inexact paragraphs. Talking about the Enclosure Act 1773 and its effect on the road, he says "it has been caught by the enclosures of the great landlords in four places alone : Albury, Denbies, Gatton, and Titsey. It passes, indeed, through the gardens of Merstham House,".

So is it “four places alone”, or is it actually five? Rhetorical hyperbole is one thing, but that which he is writing is something else.

The plumber finally turned up this morning, and we had a lengthy discussion about how I want the job to be done. Today, I found him much more amenable to my ideas than he was the last time that he was here, which is good news. He had also appeared with a trailer and he intended to move the bath, sink and mirror which I had been trying to give away but no-one wanted.

After he went downstairs, I had a few other things to do until my cleaner arrived. We fitted my anaesthetic patches and then took everything downstairs, where we found the plumber busily smashing old tiles off the wall.

We had a chat, and he showed me a few more defects that the builders who had converted this building into apartments in 1998 had done. The standard of workmanship in this place is appalling.

While I was waiting for the taxi, I began to unpack the boxes. But when she arrived, I was whisked down to Avranches at a rapid rate of knots by an impatient and probably very busy driver.

For a change, they had found a comfortable bed for me and I made the most of it because I crashed out completely for an hour or so.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me but didn’t have much to say. She asked me if there was anything that I needed, but I told her that whatever I needed wouldn’t be supplied by the dialysis clinic. One disappointment was that she hadn’t had an opportunity to speak to Paris about transferring my chemotherapy to Rennes.

If I were honest, I have to say that there wasn’t much work done this afternoon. I was far too tired to concentrate.

When the session was over, I had to wait around to be disconnected, so consequently I was no earlier coming home.

Back here, we inspected the work that the plumber had done. It’s quite impressive, it has to be said, but not so the work that we saw underneath that the builders had done in 1998. It really is disgraceful and one of these days, I’ll post a few photos of their efforts.

The climb back up the stairs was awful again, and so my cleaner and I have made a decision. While I am at dialysis on Monday next week, she’ll round up some willing volunteers and move my bed downstairs so that I don’t have to worry about coming back up here when I return.

If she is able to do that, it means just two more climbs up the stairs and my nightmare will be over. Mind you, that’s still two climbs too many. I really wanted to stay down there today – really.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper, but I really wasn’t all that hungry. I just wanted to go to bed, and I’m on my way there now.

But seeing as we have been talking about the awful standard of renovations in this building … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a builder’s van that I saw once in Birmingham.
Written on the side was "Gurdeep Singh, builder. You’ve had the cowboys, now here come the Indians."

Monday 4th August 2025 – BANE OF BRITAIN …

… strikes again:

Sitting here all morning fuming because the plumber hadn’t shown up, I eventually decided to re-read the message that he had sent me at the beginning of last week.

And sure enough, there in black and white, is written “a week on Monday” – i.e. the 11th August.

Here I am, having been fretting all day for nothing at all.

Even worse, in the mad rush to order what I needed and ended up with what I could buy at short notice rather than what I would like, it turns out that I had plenty of time to shop around and make an online order. Still, it’s too late to fret about it now.

And seeing as we have been talking about it being too late … "well, one of us has" – ed … it was too late last night when I finally went to bed last night. After my marathon lie-in on Sunday, I wasn’t all that tired, which is no surprise

Mind you, I was asleep quite quickly and there I stayed, flat out, until all of … errr … 04:10.

At that point I could easily have left the bed but I decided once more to loiter around for a while. The next thing that I knew, it was 05:45 and so at that point I decided to leave the bed. Not that I managed it straight away – it took me a good few minutes to summon up the courage to leave the bed.

The first thing that I did was to go back to yesterday’s entry and add in the dictaphone notes that I had forgotten to include last night.

After a good scrub up and a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, I went to sort out the medication and then I came back in here to find out what was on the dictaphone from the night. I was in an apartment in the rue de Villedieu. Looking out of the window I could see someone going past with a pile of books and records so I wondered what was happening. As I opened the door, a paper that had been on my desk blew out and I had to run after it but the faster I ran, the faster it blew in front of me. It took me quite a while, up to the hospital roundabout in fact, before I was able to catch it and stamp on it. By this time, the people with all these books and records had disappeared. I was chatting to a friend about this and we had no idea of what was going on. A few days later, I was walking down by the old cemetery and in the corner at the bottom where all of the records of the cemetery and the burials of the town had been kept, it was now an office for an auto-electrical company. I was wandering around a little more and came across a guy who used to supply sand into the cemetery. I asked him if he knew what was happening. He replied that the books and records department had been closed in May. I thought that this was the reason why the books and records had been moved, but to where have they gone? No-one at all seemed to know. They had disappeared off the face of the earth. I thought that if the company had closed down, that might be the reason why there was no football on Sunday morning, maybe because the commentators who accessed all of the records for their broadcasts, they had decided to move on too although it would be extremely unlikely.

This reminds me of an incident in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, in 1992 where the disposal of a pile of records led to an extremely unfortunate crisis that had still not resolved itself when I left for the European mainland. It was one of those events that would have the most enormous repercussions but we’ll leave it at that, for fear of incriminating certain people.

Later on, I stepped back into that dream. We were talking about the ancient martial art of Terzhik which involved a way of entering through the window of some kind of sacred or special place. This is what had started off on this series of dreams by thinking that I had seen someone coming through the window into the records office. However, I didn’t spend long dreaming of this because I awoke with a start again halfway through.

As for any martial art called Terzhik, I doubt very much that there is such a thing. But people coming in through the window is a concern that I need to address when I’m on the ground floor, knowing how suddenly and how profoundly I can crash out.

While we were tidying up, my cleaner came across a video that I hadn’t seen. It talked about the Welsh migrations during the Industrial Revolution when hundreds of thousands of people left their homes on the farms and in the mountains to go to work in the coal mines and in the big cities. I hadn’t seen this before so I sat down to watch it. It was extremely interesting, talking about the lines of emigration up the Conwy valley and places like that. It went on to talk about the migrations from the South to the North in 1913 when the Wrexham coal mines open – that would seem to be when my grandmother moved from Penrhiwceiber in South Wales up to Wrexham. It showed all kinds of interesting things like the contemporary carriages and the rock-strew routes that they used to take, how their carriages were broken down along the way and had to be repaired so a whole new breed of carriage repairers had to be set up in mid-Wales. It talked about the cemeteries being vacated, bodies being removed and being found just about everywhere because there was no possible way to bury them anywhere else. It was just reaching the interesting part when I awoke.

Rural depopulation is something that has been going on since the start of the Industrial Revolution but in Wales, with the dramatic rise of heavy industry, the process was much more intense and many villages lost a huge amount of their population. In 1871, Penrhiwceiber wasn’t even listed in the census, yet in 1909 there were over 4,000 people working in the coal mines there As for the roads in mid-Wales, they are not much better than those that I saw in my dream. The problem in a lack of investment – neither the Welsh Assembly nor Central Government believes that there’s anything north of the “Heads of the Valleys” except sheep and druids.

There was another part of a dream somewhere but I can’t remember where it fitted in, but I’d gone for a walk and had gone almost as far as Nantwich before I realised that I had set out without my crutches. I wondered how that was possible and, more importantly, once I realised, how was I going to return home?

Wherever this fits in, I have no idea. But it’s not the first time that I’ve dreamed that I’ve been walking without my crutches. But I’d love to know how I returned home once I’d realised.

Isabelle was late this morning and she didn’t stay long, just enough time to sort out my legs and then she was away. I could then make breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

Our author has pressed on today and is now discussing the chronology of the Bishops of London.

He has quite a few comments to make about some of the Bishops, but he reserves his most incendiary vitriol for Eustachius de Fauconbridge, the Chancellor of the Exchequer who was made bishop in 1221. He says that while Fauconbridge "was giving Holy orders, a great tempest of wind and rain annoyed so many who came thither whereof it was gathered how highly God was displeased with such as came to receive orders, to the end that they might live a more easy life of the stipend appointed to the churchmen, giving themselves to banqueting, and so with unclean and filthy bodies (but more unclean souls) presume to minister unto God, the author of purity and cleanness."

Back in here, still fuming over the non-arrival of the plumber (I hadn’t re-read the message at this point) I drafted an advert onto one of these Chamber of Commerce sites to see if I couldn’t find another one.

While I was at it, I put some more things online for sale and, in the case of the old bathroom fittings, to give away. There is still plenty more to be sold.

When my cleaner had finished applying my anaesthetic patches, we collected some more things together, photographed another piece of furniture, and then took downstairs the things that we had assembled.

Once I was down there, I put things away, mainly in the new bathroom unit, and then began to rearrange and reorder the food in the kitchen cabinets. There’s now much more space in there, which is good.

When it was 13:00 we went outside in the sun to await the taxi, but it was half an hour late. Not that I was complaining, because it was a gorgeous afternoon and I was enjoying the fresh air.

There was another passenger in the car and the driver spent all of the time talking to her. No-one said a word to me. I settled down in the back of the car and had a nice rest.

At dialysis I was put in a small room with three other people. It was a nice, comfortable bed with nice surroundings so I didn’t do much this afternoon. I simply relaxed and enjoyed the nice view.

And who should come to chat to me but Emilie the Cute Consultant. We discussed the issues about chemotherapy, and an in-depth discussion it was too. In the end she promised to ring Paris to explain in greater detail the issues that I’m having, and suggest that I go to Rennes for any subsequent treatment. It would be lovely if she could persuade them

With being late arriving, I was late leaving but we made good time on the way home. Back here, we measured the windows in the apartment downstairs so that I could order some curtains, and my faithful cleaner has struck lucky. Some of the shelves in the fridge here are broken and I would have to order some new ones as replacements before I go, but someone has dumped over in the rubbish bay a fridge the same size as mine and she was able to rescue a couple of shelves, which is wonderful.

It was another long, weary climb up here and I had to sit down for twenty minutes to recover before I could make tea.

We’re back in our usual routine as of today, with stuffed pepper, and enough stuffing left over for a couple of days. It’s only a small mix of stuffing too, but I’m really not in all that much of a mood to eat a great deal right now.

So tomorrow, there is plenty to do so I’m going to go to bed, late as it is. And here’s hoping for a good sleep because despite the events of Sunday morning, I really need it.

But seeing as we have been talking about the cemetery here in Granville … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone from Crewe came here years ago and was astonished by the number of graves in it for such a small town.
"Do people die here often then?" he asked the gravedigger.
"Ohh no!" replied the gravedigger. "Only the once."

Monday 28th July 2025 – YET MORE TORTURE …

… at the dialysis centre today. The mattress on my bed has collapsed and there’s a big hollow right where my left hip fits. And so, after about ninety minutes, with two hours still to go, I was in total agony. And so it dragged on throughout the entire session.

It’s bad enough being poked, prodded, stabbed with needles, awoken when I’m trying to doze, but this is the final straw. I shall telephone them tomorrow and tell them that if it’s not fixed by Thursday, I shan’t be coming again. I reckon that i’ve had quite enough.

Especially after last night. Chatting with my kitchen fitter after he’d finished seemed to take hours and all that I wanted to do was to eat my pizza. It was stone-cold by the time that he went, I was royally fed up and in the end, it was some quite ridiculous time when I finally managed to haul myself off to bed. I really can’t take much more of this.

When the alarm went off at 06:29, I was totally flat out in bed. It was quite a battle to raise myself out before the second alarm and had there not been a second alarm to encourage me to leave the bed, I probably would still be in there now. I was totally shattered.

In the bathroom, I went for a wash and a shave and then into the kitchen to sort out the medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night but there was nothing thereupon. I must have had a really deep, intense sleep. And if so, why aren’t I feeling much better than I am right now?

There were a few things that I needed to but I was interrupted by the arrival of the nurse. He was in and out in a flash, seeing that he’s off on his holidays this evening. I could push on, make breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

We’re still on our perambulations of course, but today he tells us that "on the River Thames, of late years, was placed a corn mill, upon or betwixt two barges or lighters, and there ground corn, as water mills in other places, to the wonder of those who had not seen the like, but this lasted not long without decay, such as caused the same barges and mill to be removed.". I would have loved to have seen that in operation. It must have been a fantastic machine.

We’ve also had another rent payment made in flowers. This refers to one of the towers in Baynard’s Castle, which Edward III gave "to William, Duke of Hamelake, in the county of York, and his heirs, for one rose yearly.to be paid for all service."

There’s also a movement inspired by the Bishop of Rochester and several others to provide aid for the poor, and many men "moved liberally to grant what they would impart … and what they would contribute weekly for their maintenance for a time.". Where is the church today when it should be leading the same kind of campaign amongst the wealthy and privileged?

And yesterday, we had a fight amongst a couple of priests. To day, he tells us of a rather incendiary confrontation between the Archbishop of Canterbury and his retinue and the canons of the Priory of St Bartholomew. Tomorrow, we’ll probably find the Pope in there somewhere having a helping of violent disorder.

Back in here, I had a radio programme to review ready to broadcast. But once more, I didn’t like it so I re-edited it and remixed it. The programmer is off work on holiday in August so I’ll have to review the programmes for that month tomorrow and send them off.

There wasn’t much time to do much else before my cleaner arrived to fit my patches. When she had finished, we went downstairs with a few boxes to empty out. And I did take a photo of the bedroom but I’m so whacked that I really don’t have the energy to post it. I shall do it tomorrow.

The driver who took me to dialysis was the young, chatty guy and we had a very interesting chat all the way down there. We were early arriving too, but it did no good seeing that so were several other people and as usual, I was last to be plugged in.

They gave me a prescription for an x-ray on my chest, which is arranged for tomorrow. That is just crazy. I’m not having a moment to relax, with yet another climb back up the stairs when I should be resting. Why couldn’t they arrange it for a day when I have dialysis?

The disinterested doctor was on duty today and he didn’t seem too interested in what I had to say. He did, however, inspect (at my insistence) my catheter port and pronounced it healthy. But there’s a bruise that is causing the pain that I am feeling.

Apart from the mattress, which has totally annoyed me, nothing much else happened. Being late coupled up, I was late leaving. It was the young Asiatic girl who brought me home and we talked about Italian food all the way home.

Back here, we went into downstairs and began to make a list of the work that needs doing, but it ended up being something of a building meeting with a group of us outside my door chatting.

It was a real struggle to climb back up here. I feel that I’m going backwards with this chemotherapy and losing whatever mobility that I had. There was another barrage of messages from the kitchen fitter but I’ll reply to them when I’m in a better humour.

Instead, I made tea – a burger with pasta and veg. I couldn’t be bothered to do much else.

So right now, I’m off to bed, hoping that I’ll awaken in a better frame of mind tomorrow, although with this trip to the x-ray and the climb back up here, I doubt it very much.

But seeing as we have been talking about flowers … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of one of those “Mr and Mrs” quizzes in which Nerina and I competed.
The presenter asked me which was Nerina’s favourite flower. And Yours Truly, completely misunderstanding the question, replied "Homepride self-raising, I think."

Thursday 24th July 2025 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day I’ve had today. If I’m leaving the table with food still left on my plate, then you know that I’m really ill. I can safely say that it’s been a long, long time since I’ve felt as bad as this and I’m beginning to understand when I was first at Leuven that I chose a place with breakfast provided, so that at least I’d have one meal each day.

But last night, after finishing writing my notes, I was back in bed at about 23:45 and I wasn’t long awake.

The alarm going off at 06:29 shattered my joyful sleep, and I was feeling so ill that I switched off the alarm, switched on the one for 07:59 and went back to sleep.

Not for long, though, because Brain of Britain had forgotten about the second alarm at 06:33. That put the tin hat on it and as I couldn’t go back to sleep, I arose from the Dead.

A desperate stagger into the bathroom was followed by another desperate stagger into the kitchen for the medication. All in all, it took me a whole hour to sort myself out this morning.

Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to see what there was that I’d recorded. There were a couple of little voyages that I’d had over the last couple of days that I added back into the various entries, and then turned my attention to last night’s. I’d gone to a rugby league match at somewhere. It was an important cup final. There were all kinds of confusion taking place. First of all, it was freezing cold and the ground was extremely hard. Secondly, one of the teams had changed its starting line-up and the referee had to intervene to make sure that the players who had not been in the original starting line-up were placed in positions in which they had registered themselves rather than in positions in which the team wanted them to play, which meant that there was an extremely strange field formation for one of the teams at the kick-off. The game started, and I began to wander around and came across an Indian market, one of these tiny little affairs inside a village hall where the local Indian community was having a kind-of car boot sale type of thing. I had a good wander around in there for a while but didn’t see anything that I particularly fancied but it was coming up to lunchtime so I went to find a food stall. There was a food stall there but it didn’t open until a little later. I thought that I wasn’t inclined to waste too much more time wandering around in here until the food stall opens or was I going to go to somewhere else to see what was happening there instead.

It beats me why I would go to a rugby league match. That’s a sport that has no interest for me. We did play it at school, but mainly to annoy our new games teacher who wanted us to play rugby union instead of football. We passionately refused to co-operate and in the end he gave up. He spent the games lessons in the staff room drinking coffee and we carried on playing football. However, I did find a hidden talent. I could kick quite accurately with either foot so our tactic was to pass the ball to me and I’d kick it over the bar, something that totally enraged the teacher.

It’s much more likely that I’d be at an Indian market, especially if there’s Indian food about.

The nurse came as usual today and expressed his sympathy at my plight, although I need more than sympathy right now. Anyway, he didn’t stay too long.

After he left, I could make breakfast, not that I wanted much, and I could read some more of MY BOOK.

Our author is still perambulating around the various wards of inner London and he’s come across another payment of rent by flowers. Ralph Le Feure and his heirs could hold a parcel of land from Thomas de Arderne "freely without all challenge yielding therefore yearly to the said Thomas and his heirs one clove or slip of gilliflowers at the feast of Easter."

Back in here I wrote out the notes for Tuesday that were outstanding, and they are now online, complete with some photos of my new kitchen as far as it has gone right now. It’s well-worth a look if you haven’t seen it before.

That took me up to the arrival of my faithful cleaner who sorted out my patches and left me to await the arrival of the taxi.

That was when I discovered that the electric door lock wasn’t working and I had to descend the stairs, in my state of health and carrying my bag, all alone. And that’s not something that I ever want to do again.

The bad news at the dialysis centre was that my weight was over the three and a half hour limit so they put me down to stay for four hours, something that I could well do without. And with all of the tests that they had to do, it took hours to connect me and I wasn’t let go until 18:45.

The doctor came to see me for a chat but didn’t have much to say really that was of any kind of solution. But he had the blood pressure sensor set for every fifteen minutes so I was constantly disturbed by nurses running in.

Not that I minded much because one of them was Alexi, the baby of the service and she’s quite cute. She can soothe my fevered brow any time she likes.

Eventually I could leave, and then we had to drop off someone else in Avranches so it was 19:30 when I returned home, quite fed up.

My cleaner had brought down a couple of boxes of stuff from upstairs so I sorted those out in the new apartment, and then I failed miserably once more to climb the stairs.

After my cleaner left, I tried to eat some food but that failed miserably too, and so I’m going to bed and I don’t care any more. I really am in a state right now.

But seeing as we have been talking about restaurants, food and the like … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a sign that I once saw in the window of an Italian restaurant in the Midlands somewhere.
"Don’t stand outside feeling miserable. Come inside and be fed up."

Monday 21st July 2025 – THAT WAS THE …

… quickest drive to Paris that I have ever had.

We left Avranches at 18:30 with an estimated travel time of 3.06 which is what it tells us almost every time, although with the heavy traffic around Caen and particularly around Paris, it’s much closer to four hours Today, though, we pulled up at the Haematology Department here at the Hospital Pitié-Salpetrière at 21:24 – a trip of less than three hours.

The first time that we actually had to slow down for traffic (never mind stop) was on the Prif about two miles from the Porte d’Italie, and then it was only a momentary braking and we kept on going.

And we won’t ever have a trip like that again.

Not that I was looking forward to it either. Last night was another one of those nights that went on and on and I wasn’t able to make much progress. I was hoping to be in bed early but once more, it ended up being round about 23:45 when I finally crept into bed.

Not that I stayed asleep for very long either. For the past few weeks I’ve been having one of these heavy summer colds and I awoke with a streaming head and a stuffed-up nose, feeling very uncomfortable indeed.

Despite all my trying, I couldn’t go back to sleep and in the end I abandoned the procedure, left the bed, and had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been. A friend of mine was out there walking his dog last night amongst a crowd of people but that’s all that I remember of this dream. The rest of it seems to have evaporated as soon as I went to pick up the dictaphone and I wasn’t able to dictate any more than that.

That’s all there was, which is hardly a surprise because if you don’t go to bed until 23:45 and you are up and about at 03:30 the following morning, there hasn’t been all that much time to go very far

Having dealt with that, such as it was, I had a listen to the radio programme that I’ll be sending off for broadcast this week. I didn’t like the voice at all so I re-mixed and re-edited it. It’s not much better now but I sent it off anyway.

Having done that, I wrote the notes for another radio programme that was in the middle of the queue for which I’d sorted out the music quite a while ago, and then I sorted out the music for another one and began to write the notes It was what one would call a “productive morning”.

It’s Isabelle the Nurse’s last morning today for a week, so she was extremely busy with blood samples and injections that folk don’t want her oppo to do, so she didn’t have time to hang around.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK

Our author is still on his prowl around the churches, but also mentions the situation where "the houses of London were built of stone for defence of fire, which kind of building was used for two hundred years or more " but lately, "houses of timber set up in place".

You can see the seeds of the Great Fire of London already being sown.

After breakfast, I made some sandwiches for Paris and packed my backpack, fitting in all kinds of goodies to keep the lupus from the porte as they would have said in Ancient Rome … "well, puer amat mensam!" – ed … and then I was back in here to carry on with my radio programme.

However, I did have a brief power nap of about 10 minutes. This early start is playing havoc with my body clock.

My cleaner turned up on time to fit my patches and then we had a chat about moving stuff about. While we were at it, she moved the two boxes that I had packed yesterday and took them downstairs where I’ll empty them on Wednesday or Thursday.

While she was here, I told her about the very uneasy feeling that I have about this trip to Paris. I can’t explain why, but I’ve been uncomfortable about it all day and all last night. And I’m spoiling for a fight, but for no good reason, and I’m not there yet. Things are not going my way.

The taxi driver wasn’t very helpful today. He’s clearly not used to dealing with the elderly and the infirm, but he’ll have to learn, and quickly too.

At Avranches, once more I was one of the last to be coupled up and it was as painful as I have ever had. And one of the punctures missed its aim, and that made it worse.

What with this early start, I wanted to go to sleep, but no such luck. The doctor who doesn’t like his work, he was on duty and he shook me awake. They are afraid that I’ll have another crisis, I reckon.

He stayed around so we had quite a chat. I told him about the uneasy feeling that I’ve had all day but he wasn’t much help on that score. In the end, he left me to it and I could crack on.

Unplugging me was complicated too and once more, I was one of the last to leave, not helped by confusion at the weighing machine. However, we thrashed through the autoroutes with its accidents and overturned artic lorry (and I’m sure that you are thinking that I’m making this up) and arrived nice and early.

A nurse eventually took me to my room and my driver could leave, and then they took a blood sample. I valiantly resisted the idea of a perfusion and rehydration (why take two litres of water out at dialysis and then immediately put half a litre back in?) and they even brought me some food – of sorts.

So now I’m off to bed, ready to fight the good fight in the operating theatre tomorrow morning, and then the chemotherapy begins.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the nurse here … "well, one of us has" – ed … he looked at my notes and said "you have acute anaemia".
"Thank you" I replied. "I’m so glad that you like it"

Thursday 17th July 2025 – MY KITCHEN DOWNSTAIRS …

… is looking wonderful, it really is.

It’s not finished yet – it probably needs another full day’s work – but even so, it’s quite impressive as it is. The oven and microwave are installed and the hob will be next, and then it will just be a case of the final touches. But it really is impressive.

It will be another five weeks or so before I’ll be moving in. It seems that the weekend round about 22nd, 23rd and 24th of August is when a few volunteers have offered to come along to help, although I’ll be hoping to move a pile of stuff before then, if I can. So if anyone is at a loss for a few things to do one week or one weekend in the near future…

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, it was another late night last night by the time everything was finished. Or, rather, it wasn’t finished because I had forgotten, would you believe, the backing up of the computer.

But anyway, once I was finally in bed, there I stayed until 06:27 precisely, two minutes before the alarm was due to go off, and I managed to struggle to my feet to beat the alarm. But if that’s not impeccable timing then I don’t know what is.

After a good wash and my medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was having some kind of injection because of all these foreigners who were coming to play football around here. Many people were disillusioned by the fact that they had signed a lot of the youth players from English clubs because they were thinking that the academies of these clubs were of absolutely no useful purpose at all – it was simply a paperwork exercise to show that the club has some kind of development certificate and there was no possibility of these young boys ever being included in some kind of first team round-up and some kind of Premier League involvement in due course. Most of these lads were destined to have the job when they reached the end of the age group.

This actually refers to a discussion that some of us were having on a football news forum yesterday, talking about how many under-17, under-18, under-19 etc football academy players, even youth internationals, are now playing part-time in non-league or minor league football, saying that these football academies are really nothing but window-dressing for the clubs concerned, simply to abide by certain rules and regulations with absolutely no intention at all of promoting local youth talent.

Isabelle the Nurse came in to see me and gave my knee some heat treatment, and then she attended to my legs.

After she left, the kitchen fitter put his sooty foot in the door. I organised him and he wandered off to start work. I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

Our author is still giving us the conducted tour of various churches. He tells us that in the Church of St Mary Woolnoth there is a memorial to"Thomas Roch and Andrew Michael, vintners, and Joan, their wife." And I’m definitely eager to find out more information about that cosy set-up.

Interestingly too, he tells us that "in divers countries, dairy houses or cottages wherein they make butter and cheese, are usually called ‘wicks’.". A “wich” is quite often associated with a salt town and has other meanings in Norse and in Anglo-Saxon too, but Stow’s interpretation of the ending is certainly food … "groan" – ed … for thought.

After breakfast, I came back in here to sort out the radio notes that I dictated yesterday. In total, there is about twenty-five minutes’ worth and that’s going to take an age to edit. I shall be here for the next two months doing that, I reckon, and miss the actual programme dates if I’m not careful.

My faithful cleaner came along and sorted me out with my anaesthetic patches, and I came back in here to carry on working.

The driver who came to pick me up was the Belgian girl and I like her very much so we had a lovely chat all the way down to Avranches, except for the time when she was having an argument with one of her children on the telephone. I suppose that a pair of eleven-year-old twins would be a handful for anyone.

My luck was in at the dialysis centre. I was attended to by Julie the Cook who showed me some photos of her latest culinary creations. And wonderful they are too. But she had a lot of trouble coupling me up to the machine today and for quite a while, my machine kept on sounding the alarm.

One of the doctors came to see me today to ask me how I was. I told him that it’s pointless asking me because they don’t do anything about what I’ve told them already. So he departed with a flea in his ear.

The dietician was next to come along, with a prescription for forty-eight samples each of four different varieties of a new protein drink. I wonder what all of that will be like.

And then all Hell let loose. There’s a patient who has a four-hour dialysis session who is currently in hospital at Granville. His session is due to start at 14:00 but the ambulance didn’t bring him until after 15:30, meaning that the girls have to stay until about 20:00 this evening. It goes without saying that they were not too happy about it, and they expressed their displeasure quite forcibly to the ambulance crew.

There’s another person there who is … errr … well, he <DOESN’T HAVE BOTH PADDLES IN THE WATER. He was an endless source of trouble and stress to the nurses this afternoon and in the end, one of them had to sit with him for quite a while to keep an eye on what he was up to.

For once, I was unplugged quite quickly and the taxi was waiting for me too so we were soon on our way home. We came back via the town centre so that we could have a look at the chaos with the rebuilding paused for the summer, and then the driver dropped me off at home where my faithful cleaner was waiting.

First thing that I did was to go to inspect the kitchen and to chat with the kitchen-fitter and his wife who was helping. And my kitchen does look lovely. He’s done a really good job and I’m well-impressed. It will be even better when it’s finished.

Mind you, I had a very late tea tonight because I had to wait for an age while he finished off and packed up his tools.

He also presented me with a bill to date, and after I’d paid it, I had to go to lie down in a darkened room for a while.

Tea tonight was just like The Carmichaels, as SUPPER WAITS ON THE TABLE INSIDE A TIN. It was too late to cook a proper meal.

So now I’m off to bed, later than I would like. And I need to be on form as there’s a lot to do tomorrow. There’s the Sunday Woodstock notes to continue to edit and also June and Catherine are coming round to see me before they head off back to South Germany.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the kitchen fitter … "well, one of us has" – ed … I asked him if he would like to install a mirror for me in the kitchen.
He thought for a while and then replied "ohh yes, why not? That’s just the kind of job that I could see myself doing."

Monday 14th July 2025 – I DON’T THINK …

… that Marion loves me any more.

The last time that she was on shift when I was at dialysis, she was nagging me to do my own preparation.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall exactly why I am simply unable to do it and so it doesn’t do any good at all to insist. It’s simply impossible.

And so this afternoon, she tried a new tactic. When my machine pinged to say that my session was over, she half-uncoupled me and then wandered off to do other things, leaving me hanging around like Piffy on a rock for twenty-five minutes.

If she thinks that that is going to galvanise me into action, she’s mistaken. I simply can’t bring myself to touch this pulsing, throbbing vein that they installed in my arm a year ago and that’s the end of it.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, last night, for a change, I actually finished early. After taking the stats and performing the back-up, I went and sorted myself out and ended up in bed by 22:40 which made a very welcome change, and how I enjoyed it too.

However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s really pointless going to bed early because all that it means is that I awaken correspondingly early the following morning. So quickly to sleep once I was in bed, but wide awake this morning at 05:20.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … being awake is one thing, being up and about is something else completely and you have to wait until 05:40 when I finally crawled out of bed.

The ice pack had slipped from my knee during the night and was flapping about in the breeze this morning, so that hadn’t been of very much use, but nevertheless, I was moving about a little easier, which was a surprise.

First thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was dreaming that I was going into hospital so I was checking everything that I had and that I needed to take with me. I took my ‘phone. When I was finally in bed, I strapped an ice pack onto my knee and just lay there. At a certain point a little later I heard my ‘phone making noises as if there was an alarm or something going on. After several minutes I realised that it was one of the chat programs on my telephone that had received a whole series of messages with the usual message tone but I hadn’t realised it prior to that.

Packing ready for hospital is something to which I look forward very much (I don’t think), knowing that in the immediate future I have to go back to Paris for the next session of chemotherapy, when I shall be insisting upon knowing why they are giving me the same chemotherapy that my body rejected violently nine years ago.

As for the ‘phone “making noises”, this morning, when I looked at my ‘phone, I found that I had indeed received a whole series of messages and photos from the kitchen fitter who had clearly been burning the midnight oil.

Later on, I was with my cleaner and my former friend from Stoke-on-Trent. There was a big group of people and we were connected in some way to a chevreuil which of course is a small deer. There was some issue about this deer and it had escaped, so everyone was out looking for it. We had other things to do but we couldn’t stop to look. Instead, we were going somewhere in a Mini. We were driving through a field and we had to perform a “U-turn” somewhere at the side of the road. There was this little turn-round place into a small field there but the only way out was on a blind corner so I went across the field in the Mini. It turned out that there was a really steep drop in this field so I told everyone to hang on and I went down in this Mini. We came across some traces of where these people had looking for the deer. There was some old pet’s bed there that had probably belonged to it. We continued to drive until we came to a huge set of gates where a lot of people from this search party were congregated. One woman was incensed about seeing the three of us together. She was complaining about how there were only two of her – she and someone else – in their group, how there ought to be more of them and how we ought to help. We explained how we had much more complicated and difficult things to do but she carried on and on and on. At these gates, she was struggling to open them with a key, this complaining woman, so I took a key and managed to open it straight away. It was a car scrapyard like McGuinness’s in Stoke-on-Trent. Inside was a “K” registered Škoda parked round by the door which I recognised as belonging to this woman. Once I’d opened the door, my friend from Stoke-on-Trent with his car and caravan drove inside. I went for a walk inside but it was totally empty. There was hardly anything at all in there. That disappointed me intensely because I was expecting it to be full of old vehicles as it usually was. Instead, I had a little walk, just looking at the wasteland while my friend drove around in his car and caravan. He came back, parked it up next to the Škoda and stepped out, looking as if he was walking away and leaving it. He asked me if I had my camera so that I could take a photo and asked me if I knew what kind of year the car was. I said “It’s ‘R’ registration so that puts it at about 1976”. However he thought that it was something different but he didn’t say exactly what. I went to fetch my camera to take a photograph of his car, the caravan and the Škoda, which were about the only three things in this entire scrapyard.

Now, there are loads of mileage in this dream. For a start, is this the first dream in which my cleaner has appeared?

As for my former friend, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … he was the kind of person who would do absolutely anything for you, but after his accident 25 or so years ago, he became a totally different person and I couldn’t handle the stress. I had enough trouble dealing with my own problems at that time without having to deal with someone else’s, and when he left his car to go, on his crutches, to thump the person in the car behind who had just beeped at us, the writing went on the wall. There were several other incidents too that convinced me that things had run their course by that time.

Where this “U-turn” place was situated was at the corner of Warmingham Lane and Groby Road in Crewe, across the road from the depot of the coach company where I worked in winter when there was no tour work at Shearings.

The “Škoda” was actually a gold FSO “Polonez”, but much more slimline than the car would have been in real life. They were strange cars, a nice design but the quality was appalling. When they finally sorted out the quality issues in the early 1990s, they were wonderful cars but by then the damage had been done. They were powered by a clone of a FIAT engine, and when importation into the UK stopped because of emissions issues, the aforementioned friend and I were thinking of buying one and fitting a FIAT diesel engine in it.

The highlight of the dream would have been wandering around McGuinness’s scrapyard. I’ve had many a happy weekend in there and the stuff that I’ve had from there was unbelievable – even an old Jaguar 420 that I wanted for spares for my Daimler. I once saw a Rolls-Royce in there, only the second that I have ever seen in a scrapyard after the one that I saw IN A SCRAPYARD IN BRIDGEWATER, MAINE, IN 1973

But mountaineering over mountains of scrap cars in scrapyards looking for exciting bits and pieces. Those were the days. You can’t even go into them now, thanks to “Health and Safety”.

After a wash and my morning medication, I came back in here and dealt with the last of the outstanding correspondence and paid the bills that I didn’t pay yesterday. And then I had to sort out some money for the kitchen fitter who had bought some wood and so on for the kitchen that he’s installing.

The nurse was early again? He applied some more heat treatment to my knee and then after having dealt with my legs, he cleared off quite rapidly.

He was closely followed by the kitchen fitter who came to do another day’s work. I gave him the money for the purchases he had made and he and his son went downstairs to carry on.

After they had left, I could carry on with making breakfast and to read MY BOOK.

Our author start off today by talking about the Bedlam (or Bethlem, as he calls it) Hospital for "distracted people" as he quaintly puts it, and tells us that "in this place, people who are distraight in wits are, by the suit of their friends, received and keep as afore."

All that I can say is that if that kind of situation were to persist today, I would have nothing to fear because quite simply, I don’t have any friends.

He goes on to talk about some works being undertaken at Spitalfields, and we have a gorgeous eyewitness account of the discovery and unearthing of a Roman cemetery and an account of the contents of the graves. It’s one of the most fascinating accounts that I have read.

Something else that he mentions is a land dispute between the parish clerks and a local nobleman who had been gifted some monastic property after the Reformation that had been gifted previously to the parish, and "the parish clerks having commenced suit … and being like to have prevailed, the said Sir Robert Chester pulled down the hall, sold the timber, stone and lead, and so the suit was ended.".

After that, I came back in here to attend my Welsh Summer School but it wasn’t a real success because I couldn’t stay here for long, having to go after ninety minutes to prepare for dialysis.

When my cleaner had fitted my patches, I didn’t have long to wait for the taxi, and we whizzed down to Avranches.

It took them forty minutes to couple me up today, leaving me sitting around for quite a while as they dealt with other people. I really felt quite out of it today.

However, the good news is that my friend from Ulm and her daughter will be on their travels and they plan to pass by later in the week to say “hello”. As well as that, my friend from Macon with whom I was on a student exchange in 1970 will be in the area at the beginning of September. He and his wife are planning to come to see me, and that will be nice too. I seem to be in great demand these days.

It was the je m’en foutiste doctor on duty today and he passed by to see if I needed anything, but when I spoke to him, he didn’t seem to be interested.

At one point, I dozed off for five minutes but Marion awoke me. I really think that she has it in for me at the moment, what with waiting around at the start and at the end. She also “forgot” the cold spray when she coupled me up, so all of this cannot be coincidence.

However, as I said just now, it’s not going to change a thing.

The poor taxi driver had to wait around for an age while we had the shenanigans at the end of my session, and I didn’t return home until 19:00. I stuck my head in downstairs to look at the kitchen and it really is impressive. I shall enjoy working with that when it’s ready.

Tea tonight was something cobbled up out of a handful of mushrooms and a small tin of kidney beans with pasta and tomato sauce. But now I’m off to bed, ready for my Summer School tomorrow. I have a feeling that tackling this course is not my wisest move, but we shall see.

But before I go to bed, seeing as we have been talking about Bedlam Hospital … "well, one of us has" – ed … it’s a little-known fact that I once served on the committee of the hospital.
One day we had to interview a patient who wasted to be liberated, so we had to go to see him to find out why.
"God told me that I was no longer crazy and that I could go home" he explained.
The man in the next bed shouted up "I said nothing of the kind!"

Saturday 12th July 2025 – HERE WE GO …

… again.

For once, the taxi came early and the other passenger who travels with me on Thursday and Saturday was already on board.

For once, we arrived quite early

For once, they were ready and waiting

For once, I was coupled up quite quickly and quite early

For once, it was only a three-and-a-half hour session

For once, as the session slowly drew to a close, I was looking forward to an early escape and return home

And so regular readers of this rubbish will recall exactly what happens next in circumstances like this.

In fact, it was a pretty miserable day all round, what with one thing and another, and I wonder when I might be able to step off this treadmill.

Despite my best efforts, last night was another late night when once more I failed miserably to make any impression upon the idea of having an early night.

This pain in my chest was also playing havoc with me. I couldn’t cough and I couldn’t sneeze because I was in total agony every time I tried to expand my lungs. I’ve no idea what’s happening now.

Anyway, I settled down in my lovely clean bed thanks to my faithful cleaner … "huh?" – ed … Yes, I suppose that I’d better explain. It wasn’t she who settled me down in my lovely clean bed, but in the afternoon she had changed the bedding as part of the plan to make my bedroom/office/recording studio look nice, clean and comfortable, as indeed it proved to be.

It didn’t take long to go off to sleep either, however, when I awoke, it was still dark. I tried to go back to sleep but I wasn’t able to do so, and so I gave some serious thought to raising myself from the Dead. However, a glance at the time on my ‘phone dissuaded me. 03:10 is far too early to be up and about, even if I can’t sleep.

Consequently, I decided to lie there semi-comatose until a more realistic time, but the next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 06:29. Bane of Britain has struck again, asleep when the alarm went off.

When I awoke, I was dreaming about something to do with the Welsh Premier League and Y Bala FC. As usual, it evaporated so quickly from my mind before I could take hold of the dictaphone.

It’s not difficult to guess what it might be, though. Having failed to qualify for Europe for a couple of years now, the money has run out, the budget has been slashed, and according to the FAW’s squad lists, at least twelve of their star players, more than an entire team, have voted with their feet. As far as I can tell, to date they have signed just four, and none of them would be what I would call “significant” signings.

Over the past few years we’ve seen several clubs in the same position and it’s usually always ended in tears and involving relegation. But the future of Y Bala looks more bleak than all of the others right now and I reckon that unless they pull something magical out of the free transfers elsewhere, it’s going to be a very long and hard season.

It took a while to come to my senses yet again and to unstrap the ice pack, with which I went to sleep, from my right knee. And with the pain still wreaking havoc in my chest, I went off to the bathroom for a wash and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

While I was in the bathroom, I set the washing machine off. With loads of bedding and everything else, there were probably about three machines-worth but one will suffice for now, with the bedding and the hospital stuff seeing that I might be back for chemotherapy in ten days time.

The kitchen was another really slow, leisurely affair while I took my time with the medication. I just couldn’t find the motivation today. As I said earlier, it was a pretty miserable day all round.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

Nerina and I had to go to see a sports scientist kind of person for my knee. We were sitting in the waiting room and we heard him sawing a child’s foot to even off the bone. We could hear her screaming and it was absolutely horrible. Then we had to go into the room and it was freezing cold so the first thing that I did was to light the gas fire. Nerina was busy arranging everything and tidying it up. She made some kind of remark to me about why I wasn’t helping. I replied “I can’t possibly help because I’m so slow to move around these days on my crutches and you are very much quicker than me in doing everything”. However, she wasn’t very happy with that kind of answer.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s not my usual habit to post distressing dreams like this. Some of you will be eating your tea right now, others will be turning the page, and I will be feeling extremely uncomfortable. In fact, I can’t understand why I did post it because “distressing” really is the correct word to describe it.

And why this kind of dream should occur when Nerina is there, I don’t know that either, but Nerina and I ended up just as we would end up after coming back from holiday

However, there was something in there about a group of musicians being on tour. They had a Volkswagen Microbus and there were so many of them that half of their group, the smaller ones, were sleeping on the floor with a series of camp beds above them. That was where the elder ones slept, all inside this VW caravan. The heat generated by these people must have been intense and the smell of bodies overpowering. I seem to remember it heading towards Barry Town in order to be there for the special day a week next weekend when hopefully the gates might be hung.

As for what this may be about, it’s a pretty good description of that trip I mentioned a few months ago when a group of people piled into a J4 van in Crewe in 1973 and drove all the way down to the Windsor Free Festival, blowing a tyre and almost overturning on the way, while my friend from the Wirral and I went down a different way on a Triumph 350cc motorbike.

The nurse turned up early yet again. He applied this heat treatment to my knee and dealt with my legs, after which he left. I could then push on with breakfast and read MY BOOK.

Our author has been talking about the various “Undershafts” in London, and explains how the name came about, "because that of old time, every year on May-day in the morning, it was used that an high or long shaft or May-pole was set up there … which shaft … was higher than the church steeple."

He goes on to describe how it was stored "laid along over the doors and under the pentises of one row of houses" and mentions its ignominious end when the curate of St Katherine’s Christ Church denounced it as idolatrous and "whereon it had rested two-and-thirty years, they sawed it in pieces, every man taking as his share so much that had lain over his door".

After breakfast I took the washing from the machine and hung it up in the living room window to dry. And that’s a task that’s becoming harder and harder as time goes by.

There were things to do after that and I was in the middle of doing them when my faithful cleaner turned up to fit my anaesthetic patches.

She was still here chatting when the taxi arrived and so I descended to the vehicle and we cleared off into a glorious, hot summer’s day. Far too nice to go to dialysis.

At the beginning, I spoke about some of the events at dialysis today, but one thing that I haven’t mentioned is that the connection was the most painful that I have had for a very, very long time and I was in agony throughout the entire session.

The je m’en foutiste doctor came to see me during the afternoon. I told him about my complaints so he put his stethoscope to my chest and totally ignored my knee yet again.

There was plenty of work for me to do and I was advancing quite well, looking forward to a really early finish with just ten minutes to go, when another patient had a crisis and all of the nurses went a-running. And I was simply left there, sitting like Piffy on a rock while the nurses dealt with the emergency.

Eventually, Sarah came back to deal with me and to unplug me, for which I was heartily relieved. Mind you, she dropped the pipe and there is now blood all over my shirt. The good news is that I am now below my “inactive” weight which suits me fine.

In the hallway my co-passenger and I waited for the taxi. And waited. And waited. Twenty-five minutes later, he turned up.

It’s the busiest weekend of the year this weekend, and we’d seen the enormous queues on the motorway as we came down. There had been plenty of breakdowns in the afternoon and as the taxi company holds the contract with the Highways Authority for dealing with repatriations, they had a whole pile of vehicles out of the area, so those who remained were rushed off their feet.

Consequently, we were no earlier coming home than we might otherwise have been.

My cleaner was waiting for me and watched as I struggled upstairs, and then I collapsed into a chair, totally worn out.

Tea was a breadcrumbed quorn fillet with salad and baked potato, all very nice, but I struggled to eat it tonight. My appetite still hasn’t come back and it’s only ten or so days to my next chemotherapy.

But I’ll worry about that another time. Right now, I’m going to bed and I can’t say that I’m sorry.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Nerina … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once asked me "what did you like especially about Nerina?"
"I liked the fact" I said "that she could see both sides to every argument."
"Could she really?" he asked.
"Indeed she could" I said. "Both sides – her side and the wrong one."

Thursday 10th July 2025 – I AM FED UP …

… of the dialysis centre and the je m’en foutiste of the doctor who always seems to be at the centre of any dispute that I may have.

Once more, we’ve “had words” and it wasn’t a very ideal situation. I’ve made my point but it will have made absolutely no difference at all.

In fact, it’s been a bad day all round. It started off badly by me being asleep yet again when the alarm went off. How many days is this? A far cry from the heady days when I was up and working at 04:30, things like that.

It wasn’t as if it had been an early night though. It was quite close to midnight when I finally crawled into bed, but once in bed, there I stayed without moving.

It was actually difficult to move because my right knee was covered in this heat treatment and I had an ice pack strapped to it too. “Kill or cure” is my motto for right now.

When the alarm went off, it took a while for me to gather my wits, which is a surprise seeing how few I have these days, and then I had an undignified stagger into the bathroom for a wash and scrub up in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

It was a very slow early morning in the kitchen sorting out my medication too. It seemed to take an age before I was back in here.

First task was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was with a football club that was preparing for a series of pre-season friendlies. The match that was coming up was against Manchester United and so everyone was quite nervous about how the score would unfold. However, when we took to the field we found that it was against another club and that the Manchester United game had already taken place. However, no-one could remember the result of that game. Then the whistle sounded for the kick-off but it wasn’t the whistle, it was the alarm sounding at 06:30.

There are so many pre-season friendlies going on right now that this could refer to just about anything, although it was interesting to see me having yet another bout of confusion.

The nurse turned up early again. I asked him if he could have a look at my knee so he gave it a cursory examination and reckons that it’s simply bruised rather than broken or chipped or anything. This heat treatment and ice pack is the way to go, he reckons.

After he left I made my breakfast and had to deal with a volcano in the microwave, because the surveillance of my porridge was interrupted by my faithful cleaner arriving to check on me, to see how I was.

After she left, I cleaned up the mess and sat down to eat breakfast while reading MY BOOK.

Today, we have been talking about the wealthy people whose donations to various charities enabled the poor of London to have a less mean existence. And when you see the amount of money donated by some people, you can see immediately, with the Margaret Thatcher "Who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.", that modern-day society has collapsed, with the rich squirrelling away as much as they can in their offshore accounts.

Our author gives us a lovely example of how things were in the Sixteenth Century. There "were some small cottages … for some bed-ridden people … devout people … were accustomed oftentimes, especially on Fridays, weekly to walk that way purposely to bestow their alms."

What price that now?

Back in here, I read through my notes for the “Saturday Woodstock” programme, making a few corrections and additions ready to dictate the next time that I’m up early, whenever that might be. But the way things are going, it will be a while yet.

My cleaner turned up and fitted my anaesthetic patches, and after she left I came back in here to work. However, unbelievable as it may be, I dozed off.

The taxi awoke me and I staggered out into the lovely warm afternoon to drive down to Avranches. It was the chatty young female driver who took me so we had an interesting chat along the way.

At the centre, I was met with the bad news. Having insisted that I was losing weight and they denying it and insisting that these 200 grammes here, 300 grams there was correct, they performed another scan on me to determine my dry weight.

As I suspected, I have lost about three kilos just recently and I’m now officially below my preferred “inactive weight”. This also means that I had about four kilos of water to lose that they hadn’t extracted over the period that my weight was decreasing, and that means a stay of four hours.

All of the messing around meant that the procedure didn’t start until late either.

My blood pressure was horribly low so every fifteen minutes when the machine checked it, it sounded the alarm and the girls came running.

The je m’en foutiste doctor was there on duty so I complained to him. As usual, he didn’t seem to care so I expressed myself in somewhat … errr … forthright tones, but it made no difference.

While he was there, I also told him about my dizzy spells and the fall, but he didn’t seem to be too bothered either. He didn’t even examine me. He’s definitely in the wrong job.

The dietician came to see me too. They are all concerned about my loss of weight and in particular, the loss of protein. She was trying to persuade me to adopt a carnivorous diet, even though my body can’t digest animal fats and that I had a recurrence of my pancreas issues back in April.

These people really have no idea.

In the end, she told me to take as many as four disgusting drinks per day, and gave me several recipes to make it more palatable, including a recipe for a banana and orange milk shake, which totally threw me, seeing as about six months ago, she banned me from eating bananas and oranges because of the potassium.

The nurses came back and gave me some kind of electrogram test, although I don’t know why and neither did they.

During all of this, I was fighting off wave after wave of sleep but in the end I succumbed and poor Alexi had to awaken me to disconnect me.

Horribly late again, there was another passenger in the taxi and we had to drive miles through the Normandy countryside to drop him off, meaning that it was long after 19:30 when I returned home.

On the way in, I stuck my head inside the new apartment to see the work that the kitchen fitter had done, and it was so impressive. I can’t wait for him to come back and crack on.

My faithful cleaner has been busy too. She had been through my apartment here, tidying up and cleaning and it looks wonderful. Tomorrow, she’s going to blitz my bedroom so it all looks good for this photography session.

Tea was bangers and mash with vegetables. I don’t know why, but I had had a craving for them all-day. However, as is usual, they tasted much better in my imagination than they did in real life.

So now it’s bedtime, ready for a good day’s work tomorrow. There’s a lot to do and I can’t hang around. It won’t be done on its own.

But seeing as we have been talking about the je m’en foutiste doctor … "well, one of us has" – ed … during our chat, he told me "if you are really becoming fed up with being here for four hours, you can ask to be unplugged and then go home".

"If I could go home whenever I became fed up with dialysis" I retorted "I would never arrive at all"

Monday 7th July 2025 – MISERABLE FAILURE …

… that I am yet again, I was once more asleep when the alarm went off this morning. How many times is this now?

It’s not as if I had a late night either. It wasn’t 23:00, that’s for sure, but it wasn’t as late as 23:30 either. That means that for once, during the night, I had seven hours of uninterrupted sleep, and it’s been a long time since that has happened.

And “uninterrupted” it certainly was. I remember nothing whatsoever about anything at all during the night.

When the alarm went off, I struggled to sit on the edge of the bed, and that’s where I stayed for a good few minutes while I waited for the bedroom to stop spinning around.

In the bathroom, I had a good wash and a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and then went off in search of my medication for the morning.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was at the local technical college last night and there had been some kind of meeting in the great hall. Everyone had waded through there to fetch their meal, this meeting had taken place and slowly, everyone had left. We were some of the last to go. We were having a look around the place, looking to see where would be the best place to put some kind of permanent stage for holding meetings, but we noticed on the wall some small button-like things and realised that these were micro-camera lenses. The wall had been covered in micro-cameras to film what had happened at this meeting. As we walked out of the hall we walked down the front of some kind of supermarket where there were some military people investigating things with machines. We wondered whether they were using these unidirectional receiver things to pick up what people were saying on their mobile ‘phones from a distance. As we walked out, there was a commotion at one of the cash desks. It seemed that some soldier and some civilian were having an argument, the soldier had pulled his gun but the civilian was not backing down and was haranguing this soldier. Quite a crowd had gathered around to watch.

With no recollection whatever of this dream, I have no idea about what must have been going on in my mind … "neither have we" – ed … during the night and it certainly doesn’t seem to relate to anything that is currently or has recently been ongoing.

My only forays into the Technical College at Crewe were at nights where I learned paint spraying and welding, and where I did my first computer courses back in 1974 and 1975.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in and returned my “War and Peace”, making a few comments as she did so. After she fixed my legs she disappeared off into the sunset for her week’s rest, but not before we’d talked about Alvin Tofler and SOME OF HIS MOST ASTONISHINGLY ACCURATE PREDICTIONS.

Once she’d left I could make breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

Today, we covered an extraordinary amount of ground, discussing many different subjects such as medieval games, including primitive ice-skating where "some tie bones to their feet and under their heels". I could write pages and pages about the sports that he mentioned and their descriptions, and so could he, apparently, for he mentions how the maidens would "dance for garlands hung athwart the streets, which open pastimes in my youth being suppressed, worse practices within doors are to be feared."

He talks about alms for the poor and gives several examples, including "Ethelwald, Bishop of Winchester, … about the Year of Christ 963, he in great famine sold away all the sacred vessels of his Church for to relieve the almost-starved people, saying that there was no reason that the senseless temples of God should abound in riches.". Contrast that with the Church today with their works of art, silver candlesticks and the like.

Another thing that he mentions is the rise in traffic in London at the end of the Sixteenth Century, commenting that "the World runs on wheels with many whose parents were glad to go on foot.", a quote that I have added to my little library because I have rarely heard a truer word spoken.

We’ve also had the accounts of several large households, sums that would be extravagant even by today’s standards.

In fact, I can say without fear of contradiction that this has been the most interesting day’s reading that I have had for quite some considerable time.

After breakfast, I began the arduous task of sorting out the kitchen. I’ve gone through the boxes with the plastic containers in and binned about 90% of the contents. Well, not actually “binned”, but earmarked for disposal. My faithful cleaner can then distribute them amongst the needy. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m doing my best to go over to glass and have amassed quite a collection of the big olive jars which I am now pressing into service.

Back in here, I made a start on editing the radio notes and by the time my faithful cleaner arrived, I’d edited about a quarter of them. This is going to be a very long job, I reckon.

After she had fitted my anaesthetic patches, we went through the medication and anything that is not actually in use went into an old box ready to go downstairs. We need to crack on with this emptying and tidying up ready for the estate agents to photograph the place on Friday ready for re-letting

The taxi was late arriving, we had to go to pick up another passenger (making three as there was already a passenger in there when it arrived) and what with one thing and another … "and until you’ve started, you have no idea how many other things there are" – ed … we were really late arriving.

There were also three ambulances there in front of us, one of which was a new patient. And they all were destined for my ward. Consequently it was 14:40 when I was finally connected.

Once I was finally off and running, I dozed off, to find myself being shaken awake by a panic-stricken doctor. Not, unfortunately, Emilie the Cute Consultant. Anyway, we had a good chat about chemotherapy and Paris. His idea as to why they are starting to give me the medication that my body rejected in 2016 is that they have now run out of other solutions. That makes for some grim reading.

He agrees though, and so does everyone else, that I ought to persuade them to send me to Rennes, closer to home and more relaxed

When I was finished, the taxi home was already waiting, but it was still 19:30 when I returned. And I wasn’t sure if I’d come to the correct apartment. My faithful cleaner had shifted a couple more loads downstairs.

It took me a while to recover and then I made a stuffed pepper, even though I didn’t feel like it. I have to eat.

So now, much later that I would have liked, I’m off to bed. Tomorrow I’ll crack on with the radio notes and see if I can’t complete the first run of the programme, to give me an idea of what I’ll need to edit to cut it all down to an hour.

But seeing as we have been talking about medieval games … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of the most popular medieval games was “hide and seek”.
John Stow asked me if we played “hide and seek” in modern times, so I assured him that we did.
"Is it still an enjoyable game?" he asked.
"Maybe so" I replied "but I never really enjoyed it."
"Why was that?" he asked.
"Because I would always be the one who would have to hide" I replied "but no-one ever bothered to come to look for me!"

EPIC HALL

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