Tag Archives: welsh

Monday 17th February 2025 – I AM DEFINITELY …

… sickening for something, and it’s going to be tremendous, I reckon. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … when I am off my food then you know that I’m ill, and this evening I struggled even to eat a kiddies’ portion of food

This burst of energy that I had yesterday, of course it was far too good to last but at least I made the most of it while I had it.

After I finished doing my night-time chores I watched Stranraer beat Elgin City by a goal that, if it had been scored in the Premier League, YOU WOULD BE WATING FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIVES. It really was that good.

It was after midnight when I finished letting it all hang out and went to bed, ready for a good sleep. At 04:40 I gave up the struggle and raised myself from the Dead. No point lying in bed being unable to move or unable to do anything, drenched in perspiration.

Instead, I went into the bathroom, had a wash and a shave, washed my undies and then went into the kitchen to have my medication and to have a little think

Back in here, then as a matter of form I checked the dictaphone but there won’t be anything on it if I haven’t been asleep. Instead, I found a few things to occupy my time, forgetting maybe the most important, which is to check the radio programme that will be broadcast this coming weekend.

And that reminds me – I hope that you enjoyed the one that was broadcast last weekend. You won’t hear that anywhere else.

Isabelle the Nurse was early, which was a surprise. It’s her last day today before her oppo takes over so I expected her to be snowed under with blood tests and injections and so on. But apparently not.

Nevertheless, it was only a brief chat and then she cleared off, leaving me to my breakfast and MY NEW BOOK.

Our author is at it again. On page 351 he tells us "There was therefore no necessity for any high road leading to, or even very near to, the villa. A road of some sort there naturally was, but probably not often a high road. … The existence or non-existence of a Roman road hard by has little to do with the distribution of Roman villas"

On the following page he tells us "It is exceptional for the vestigia of villas to be unearthed save at long distances apart, but exceptions do occur, and naturally some parts of the island were more sought after than others. Around the shrunken remnants of Somerton, once the capital of Somersetshire, lie or lay the ruins of a dozen or more of villas … all served more or less immediately by the road from Ilchester through Street and Walton"

Back in here I began my Welsh homework and hadn’t quite completed the first half of it that I had intended to do when my cleaner stuck her head in the door ready to deal with my anaesthetic patches

After she left I waited, and waited quite a while for my taxi to arrive. Today it was the 12-seater minibus for just me and someone ese, and he left halfway through the journey at the Aqua-gym.

And the ambulance nearly left me behind too because we had another pantomime with me trying to climb into the vehicle. Eventually I managed it, only to have another one as I tried to climb back out again.

But there is something that I noticed – and that is my body instinctively rejects certain methods which, on reflection, I know will fail and instinctively tries to look for solutions which, on reflection, I know will succeed. That’s the strangest thing about all of this.

Hours late for my appointment, the system of “what doesn’t go in won’t be there to come out” seems to be working because there wasn’t as much as usual that needed to be removed. I was hoping that they could still leave the machine turned up full so that the process would be completed quicker and I could go home sooner, but apparently it needs to be apportioned equally over the allotted time.

The doctor in charge of the unit came to see me today. He didn’t mention this extra session, so neither did I. However I did tell him about my health problems right now and so he told me that if I bring in my details from Paris for him to read, he’ll contact the hospital there to compare notes.

My nurse today was Julie the Cook so we had a good chat about baking and she showed me a photo of the cake that she had baked for her birthday the other week

So after another painful four hours they let me out and my taxi, a normal one this time, was waiting to take me back home.

We did however have a complication in that my phone hadn’t fully-charged during the night. The battery was now flat so I couldn’t warn my cleaner that I was on my way home. Consequently she had a desperate scramble to come downstairs to meet me.

The climb back up here was agonising in this current state of health, and I collapsed into a chair on arrival. I couldn’t loiter around because I had bread to make and then to sort out tea.

Luckily the pepper wasn’t very big today so with a handful of pasta and another handful of frozen veg that was all that I managed. And that was a struggle too.

So now I’m off to bed in the home that I’ll be able to sleep, and maybe I’ll feel better in the morning.

Some hope though. It reminds me of how I was feeling a few years ago and just happened to bump into someone who I hadn’t seen for ages.
"Eric" he exclaimed. "What a surprise to see you. Someone told me that you had died"
"Well, you can see for yourself that I am not"
"I’m not too sure about that" he said.
"What do you mean?"
"I know the guy who told me" he said "and he’s much more reliable than you."

Wednesday 12th February 2025 – MY JAW HAS …

… just hit the floor.

An apartment upstairs from the one that I have bought admittedly with a slightly better view, has just gone onto the market. And I have JUST SEEN THE PRICE.

Admittedly there’s a better view and there’s a shower, but it’s in nothing like as good condition as mine is and I really can’t believe this price because I paid, well, nothing whatever even on the same page as anything like this price, so I’ve no idea what’s happening here. I was convinced that I did very well from the purchase of mine, but I didn’t expect it to be anything like as good as it seems to be.

In a few senses I’m glad that I saw this because it’s high time that I had some good news. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

It wasn’t any better during the night either. After I finished my notes and what I had to do, I had a mad dash of energy, finished my Welsh homework, sent it off and then checked over the radio programme that is going to be broadcast this weekend.

The evening finished in a flurry as I sent off the programme ready to be pushed into the feed to be broadcast. And if you have some free time round about 21:00 CET, 20:00 UK time or 15:00 Toronto time on Friday or Saturday eveing, HAVE A LISTEN TO IT. It’s something that most of you will recognise, but I promise you – you have never heard it quite like this. I put a lot of effort into it.

Having finished, I should really have gone to bed but although I was exhausted, I wasn’t tired and didn’t feel at all like dropping off. In the end it was 01:30 when I finally made it into bed.

And 01:30 when I went to bed it might have been, but at 04:00 I was still awake. The night dragged on and on and on and at one stage I was convinced that I would never go off to sleep

Sleep though I must have done because I was definitely deep in the arms of Morpheus when the alarm went off at 07:00. It was a very weary, bleary me who emerged from the depths and staggered off into the bathroom.

After the medication I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to see if I’d been anywhere during the night. And to my surprise, I had. I was going to Manchester with Zero’s father to go to the hospital. The train pulled into the station – we’d been sitting there talking etc on the platform and the train, we could see the train come in the distance as it came around the bend. It took me so long to stand up and gather my crutches that we were struggling for time. When the train pulled in actually at the station it was a good two or three feet away from the edge of the platform and I couldn’t pass over the gap. The train just pulled away and left the two of us standing on the platform. There were two women from British Rail checking the tickets of the passengers who had just alighted so we asked one of them how long the station had been remodelled like this. One of them replied “at least three years”. The other one replied “oh no, it’s nothing like that at all”. We explained that I was wanting to go on that train but I couldn’t climb on board so it had left me behind. She replied “you don’t want to go to Manchester Airport …” which was presumably the destination of the train “… and be treated in the USA. You want to be treated in Manchester”. To which I replied “well that’s where I was going” which caused a couple of people in the crowd to laugh but the woman just turned her back and continued to check the tickets of the passengers. One of them said to me “you just have to keep on at her”. We thought “well, nothing in this World is going to make her do what she doesn’t want to do”.

So Zero’s father was there again. But not Zero unfortunately. That’s rather sad. It seems that it’s not just my family but Zero’s too, stopping me having whatever slight amount of pleasure there is available to be had during the night. Do you ever have the feeling that the fates are all conspiring against you?

Scrambling on board trains too is also problematic – or, it was. In the final days of my voyaging to Leuven I had to change my itinerary so as to travel on the flat-floor commuter trains rather than clamber in and out of the big SNCB expresses as I could no longer manage the stairs. Nowadays I have solved the problem by not going anywhere.

Also, at one stage, “train” dreams were a regular occurrence, but we haven’t had one for quite a while until last night, so welcome back. If we aren’t careful, the Vanilla Queen will be back soon TO HAUNT ME, EVEN IN MY DREAMS in her mask of sterile dignity.

Isabelle the Nurse had a laugh when I told her the story about Emilie the Cute Consultant on Monday. Those two know each other, so I gather, and they can probably tease each other about it. But what kind of state am I in when I have to take my pleasure vicariously like this?

After she left I made breakfast and carried on reading MY NEW BOOK. We’e reaching the end of the discussion on forts and fortresses and moving on to another topic.

It’s good to note that he is of the same opinion as I am about these modern theories. He tells us that "It is incredible that a tribe, otherwise engaged, according to the theory, in the pursuits of peace, should l)e at pains to construct such a work as Maiden Castle, or for that matter such a work as Blacker’s Hill, simply as a precaution against a possible day of danger ; and in a state of civilization, in which the first news of danger must usually have been brought by the foe himself, it is not easy to see how the refugees could have made good their escape to their asylum, let alone driving off their flocks."

The effort and painstaking labour that has gone into their construction defies all belief that they were simply showplaces, especially when Neolithic and Iron-Age man had far more urgent, important and necessary things to do with his time

However, he is tying himself up in knots. Having told us the other day that "Incredilde as it must seem to anyone who tries to realize the labour involved in the building of any great camp, it seems none the less to be the fact that many of them were planned and constructed according to one original design.", he tells us today that "theorists have tried to establish some relation between the three classes of camps—the very irregular, the less irregular, and the approximately circular—and as many different swarms of invaders, Lloegrians, Goidels, and Brythons.^ Such speculations require no detailed refutation, and passing by any more particular objection it is enough to advance this general one, that they are all based upon the unwarrantable assumption that ancient tribes in the first place constructed each some one uniform type of earthwork, and in the second place entertained a broad and well calculated strategy, a unity of purpose, for which there is no evidence at all. There were no Vaubans in the prehistoric days,"

It saves me the trouble of asking him, If these plans were all the same, how were they transmitted? And how were they worked? There must have been written records and notes of some sort. They couldn’t have passed all of this information on orally over the centuries over the entire country.

Occasionally, though, a sense of humour bleeds through the pages. "In many cases the heaps of fallen stone have all the appearance of ruined towers, although the erection of a tower must, to builders using no mortar, have been, if not an actual impossibility, at any rate as dangerous to the occupants as to the enemy."

He’s also talking about "various points upon the coast of England, particularly in Devon and Cornwall, in south-western Wales, Scotland, and Ireland." where "though there can be no doubt of their low degree of culture, it is not certain that they belonged, as has been thought, to the very earliest Neolithic times, for some of the weapons found in the middens appear to be palimpsests fashioned out of other weapons of much higher types."

The thought appears not to occurred to him that if the more “primitive” civilisations clung on in these far-flung corners, as we have seen, until a much later date, they must have come into contact somewhere along the line with more “advanced” civilisations of invaders coming into their area and succeeded in driving them away. They aren’t likely to have gone away quietly so broken modern weapons implies a victory in battle for the more “primitive” defenders, hence them clinging on to their terrain.

Having finished my breakfast I came in here and began work. And by the time I knocked off for tea I had chosen ten tracks for the next radio programme, edited, remixed, paired and segued them, and there’s just about ten minutes left and all of the notes would be finished too. I’ve worked hard too.

There were the usual pauses – lunch, my cleaner, a delicious, wonderful shower and right at the end of the evening just as I was about to finish and call it an early day, Rosemary rang me for another chat. This time, just a short one – one hour and eight minutes only.

Why does it always happen like that? I’ll be burning the midnight oil again tonight and I wish that I didn’t have to. Remember, I’ve only had about 90 minutes sleep since yesterday morning.

Tea was magnificent. The best curry I have ever made, with the best naan that I have ever made too. Life isn’t any better than this, I promise you. That really was a successful meal

But that story of the towers at the fort reminds me of my old neighbour and former taxi passenger BLASTER BATES
On a farm out at Chorlton (near Shavington) once to blow up the Brunel Chimney that was there, he saw a farmhand walking across the yard carrying two bricks.
"Where are you going with those?" asked “Blaster” Bates
"I’m going to castrate the new bullock" replied the farmhand
"With two bricks?" asked “Blaster” Bates incredulously. "Doesn’t it hurt?"
"I’ll say it does" replied the farmhand. "Especially when you get your thumb trapped between the bricks."

Tuesday 11th February 2025 – I DON’T KNOW …

… about anything that happened today. It was one of those days where nothing seemed to go to plan, even from the very start. In fact, this is probably going to be a week to forget, all in all.

Last night was rather later than I intended it to be, what with one thing and another. Well after midnight, in fact. And not everything that I wanted to be done was done either.

It had been my aim to finish off the Welsh homework before going to bed but with the head full of spaghetti that I had on my shoulders, I abandoned the plan and left it for another day. There was the radio programme that I’d edited at the dialysis centre that I wanted to send off, but that was left too.

Once in bed it took a while to go off to sleep and then it was a very disturbed night as is usual after a dialysis session, waking up here and there and perspiring like there is no tomorrow

When the alarm went off I hauled myself out of bed with the utmost difficulty and then staggered off into the bathroom to sort myself out, and then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I started to transcribe the dictaphone notes but was surprised by the amount of stuff on there. I’d only finished about half of it when Isabelle the Nurse turned up, and she wasn’t early either. I’m not going to have the homework done this morning either, am I?

She and I had a little chat about nothing much and after she left I made breakfast and read MY NEW BOOK

Our author has made a couple of points that are extremely curious. He notes that at Worlebury Camp, overlooking Weston-Super-Mare, where there are according to him, unmistakeable signs of Roman siege and conquest, the skulls of the deceased, complete with battle-wounds, are "the long-headed (Iberian) type, and suggest that at the date in question the dominant race in south-western Britain were the descendants of those Iberians who had preceded the round-headed Brythonic race, and who had been ousted by them from the more easterly parts of the island."

Anyone remember when we were discussing stone circles, menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … and none at all?

Secondly, "Incredible as it must seem to anyone who tries to realize the labour involved in the building of any great camp, it seems none the less to be the fact that many of them were planned and constructed according to one original design."

And if that really is the case (and after all, he’s the expert), given the number of different races and tribes, the time period and the distance to travel, it’s probably the most interesting thing that I have read on the whole subject.

Back here, I revised for my Welsh, complete with a full pot of coffee because I needed it. And I don’t know what I would have done without it because even so, the lesson, well, let’s just say that it did not go as I would have wished, and I was glad when it was over.

After lunch I came back in here and carried on with the dictaphone notes, and as I said earlier, I was surprised by how many there were. I dreamed that I was in a scrapyard looking for all bits and pieces of a car. I couldn’t see what I wanted. It was the springs that retained the headlight in. They were tiny micro-springs. I’d had three and I had put them down but when I went to look again I couldn’t see them. They were so small. I was hunting again. In the meantime two guys turned up in a red MkIII saloon with a black vinyl roof. They had parked their car on a trailer while they had gone off to the pub. Someone told them about their car on someone else’s trailer so they just took their car off the pile and just rolled it down the hill into the scrap. They said “well never mind. We only paid £50:00 for this. Immediately everyone swarmed over to it to strip it for spares as they did in the old days. I went to have a look and someone asked me if I needed anything. I told him that I was looking for an old tax disc holder, the type that suckered on to your window but which had an aerial connector in it. People remembered those from years ago but no-one had seen one. I’d looked at a couple of car tax discs of cars that were ‘S’ reg in 1977/78 but there was nothing around there at all. In the end I left and had to stop at a road junction while a big group of soldiers who were on a military parade marched past where I was standing.

Cars for £50:00. Anyone remember those days? And Nerina and I once drove all the way around Central and Eastern Europe in one that cost £25:00, and on another occasion in a different car at the same price all the way round the South of France.

‘And ‘S’ registered cars from 1977/78? I’m really impressed that I could remember that in a dream as well. But as for cars in scrapyards, I’ve done more than my share of scrapyard scavenging in the past

Later on I was with a group of people. One was a small girl. It was a girl whom I’d seen so many times before and we’d always had a laugh and a joke. Then I mentioned something about taking her out and she said “yes, fine!” she said. “When should we go?” or something like that so I hadn’t realised that she was serious but I was ready to take her then and there practically

There is more to this than meets the eye too. However, let me guess. Small as in “one whom I could throw over my shoulder and carry off to bed” I suppose. But me Getting The Girl in a dream? It’s a good job that this dream ended before my family came along to spike my guns as they usually do at the crucial moment

There was also something else about buses in Alsager, driving buses out towards Kidsgrove and the back of Stoke on Trent at Werrington, etc, but it was something to do with the arrangement of fares, keeping fares down and buses not going into anyone else’s territory but I can’t remember that

Later yet, I was living in an apartment in a modern block of flats in Brussels but I’d bought the apartment downstairs to where I’m going to move, so I’d given my notice to the landlord. He’d put the property in the newspapers and was arranging visits. The first visit came when I was really unexpecting it so the place wasn’t very tidy at all. It was a nice youngish guy, quite tall, who was shown around. He noticed the Tesla that I had in a wooden box that was a pre-war spark generator sitting in the bottom of the room on top of the piano so we had a discussion about that. Then he asked me a few more questions then he decided to leave. He talked about decorating but I told him that I moved here and didn’t do anything. It didn’t bother me, the decorations being a little tired but he said that maybe he could move into one room and decorate all round him. As he left the Estate Agents gave me all of the duplicate keys that I’d never actually had to the property. As he left he asked me a question about the television. Were the “Free” company’s services available here? I told him that I didn’t know. As he left I noticed another couple waiting in the hall. I thought that I wished that I’d known that there were going to be all these visits because I could have tidied up the property. He did ask me before he went if he could come back and have another look. He wanted to come back at 07:30 so I shuddered but said “yes, it’s not a problem” so at that point he left.

Me? An untidy apartment? Perish the thought! And I wish that I had a pre-war Tesla spark generator lying around here somewhere. But the apartment – we’ve been in that apartment before in another nocturnal ramble, a long time ago when I drove a car into the centre of Brussels round the big Basilica. It’s strange how these things crop up so far apart in time.

Did I dictate this dream where I was in a cheap hotel somewhere? … "no you didn’t" – ed … There was a crowd of people in the room with me. The bath was across the end of the room and there was a glass partition in it that only covered a part of the bath. I decided that I’d take a bath. I went in there and began to run the water but the bath didn’t fill up. Then I found that the plug wasn’t in so I had to put it in. It was still not filling up. I saw that the water was cascading out of the joint of the immersion heater. By the time that there was anything like some water in the bath it was cold. I didn’t really fancy the bath but I thought that I needed one. There were all these people there too. Next thing that I remember, I was outside. It was 18:30. I didn’t have time for the bath because we were going to a nearby café for a meal, so I thought that I’d have to hurry up

The idea of me having a bath is interesting too. Leaving aside the fact that I couldn’t climb out of a bath these days, I would prefer a shower any day of the week. And a cold bath? In my case, that’s water at 36.9°C

Later, I was with Zero’s father and a couple of small boys was asking me that he had to go to school and tell them how a carburettor worked . I asked him if he knew how a carburettor worked. He said a few words but obviously didn’t understand the basic principles. We went down to one of the cars. Zero’s father handed a set of keys to me but I couldn’t make them work. In the end I put the key in the other way round. It worked so I could open the bonnet and we began to discuss the carburettor. Zero’s father was there but he kept on confusing the matter. I was trying to make things as simple as possible for this little boy and he was just complicating them by giving long technical explanations that were not really what was needed, not for a boy in Primary School anyway.

There are always some people who will take a simple explanation and complicate it unnecessarily, who don’t seem to realise exactly who their audience is and the purpose of what you are trying to explain. It’s like our author, Arthur Hadrian Allcroft, who is writing for an audience that excludes about 75% of the population. I realise that the aim of any kind of education is to bring people up to a higher level, but how far up are some of these people sitting?

How depressing is it though that Zero’s father is there and not Zero herself?

Believe it or not, that took me up to afternoon nasty drink break and then I had bread to make as I have all-but run out. That took longer than anticipated but I do have to say that the loaf that I made is perfection itself. It couldn’t possibly be any better. I’ll go with that any time.

There was just time for me to finish the Welsh homework before going to make my tea. And why it was so difficult I have no idea. My brain, if that’s what you call it, has ceased to function, and ceased a long time ago.

Tea was as usual a taco roll with veg and rice, followed by apple cake and soya dessert. Just as nice as ever. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t make it.

So that’s the end of another depressing day. I’m glad that it’s over, Here’s hoping for a better day tomorrow. I shall have to try to be more optimistic

But seeing as we have been talking of cold water … "well, one of us has" – ed … those crazy Canadians with whom I spent a lot of time up in the Arctic used to love to leap into the cold water from the loading platform of THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR at every available opportunity
On one occasion deep in the North-West Passage Castor and Pollux were going to leap in with them – at MINUS 0.5°C in the water. It was about minus 10°C in the air
Castor came to look for me and asked "are you going to come and jump in with us, Eric?"
"I can’t, pet" I replied. "I have this catheter port in my chest and it can’t be immersed in salt water"
After she left, a guy who had overheard the conversation asked me "if you didn’t have that catheter port in your chest, what would you have done?"
"What would I have done?" I said. "Simple. I would have thought of another excuse."

Monday 10th February 2025 – I’M FED UP …

… of asking people questions and having a completely different response to that which would have answered the question and terminated the discussion.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall when in Québec I encountered Spruce Beer for the first time, so I asked "is this beer alcoholic?"

The response was neither “yes” nor “no” but "that’s over there"

Today at the Dialysis Centre I asked the doctor "have you prescribed me a sleeping pill?"

The response was neither “yes” nor “no” but "do you want one?"

Leaving aside the ethical question of patients self-prescribing their own medication with the connivance of doctors, what’s wrong with anyone answering a question simply and straightforwardly?

As you can tell, I’m in a foul humour this evening. And it started out so well too.

Last night, by the time that I’d finished my notes and done what I had to do, it wasn’t all that late so I headed to bed at something like a reasonable time for once. And that cheered me up.

Once in bed I was asleep fairly quickly and there I stayed until all of about 05:30 when I heard the phantom doorbell. At least, that’s what it said on the dictaphone round about that time. I have no recollection of that at all.

When the alarm went off I was away with the fairies (although not in any situation likely to bring forth comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine) and it was a very weary me who staggered off into the bathroom

It’s Dialysis Day today so I had a good clean-up, a shave and so on ready for if I encounter Emilie the Cute Consultant and then went for my medication, remembering not to take the medicine that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I had a girlfriend at school. She used to come into school later than we did so when I came in I would go to my classroom and about 08:25 she would turn up. But one day there was a load of people in our classroom who didn’t belong in there, some kind of managers or something like that. I imagined that they would have an awful lot to say about this girl coming into a different classroom in the morning. I was there waiting for her and round about 08:20-08:25-08:30 she hadn’t turned up but I had some things to do so I went into the boss’s office next door. I caught a glimpse of her and she smiled at me and went into our room. I took these things for the boss and went back into our room. There was my girlfriend on the scales weighing herself. Really disappointedly she’d reached 325lb this week and was very disappointed by that. I noticed that she’d filled out this white dress suit that she was wearing, filled it out rather too much. We basically agreed to see each other at lunchtime and then she cleared off. The teacher looked at me, looked at the people who were surveying the class, looked at me again and asked me some comment about the girl, then looked at these people again as if to say “just be careful what you say because they’ll be writing it down and noting it”.

Weighing yourself as you go into a room? What does that remind you of? It certainly does to me.

To each his own of course, but attraction is a very personal thing – as they say over here des gouts et les couleurs on ne discute pas – but my ideal kind of girl would be one whom I could throw over my shoulder and carry off to bed. Strangely enough, apart from once at school, I have never ever ended up with anyone at all like that. It just goes to show that life and fate sometimes deal out some very strange hands and you have to play them as best as you can. Whoever would have thought 30 years ago that I would have ended up in a relationship where there was a child present?

It’s true nevertheless that our school bus, which was the prolongation of a service route, always used to arrive first and a couple of girls with whom I spent some time used to travel on the last one to arrive. As for the rest of the dream, it rings a vague bell somewhere in the back of my mind that is best left there.

Having finished that I made a start on finishing off the radio programme that I’d started yesterday. However, Isabelle the Nurse interrupted me. We talked about Carnaval and her float while she sorted out my legs, and then she cleared off, leaving me to make my breakfast and read MY NEW BOOK.

We’ve moved on now to discuss the construction of an earthen fort, with helpful plans and diagrams. That will come in useful if the Romans ever attack us here, I suppose. But joking apart, it’s extremely interesting and I wonder what I’m going to discover next.

Before we leave the general pages, he mentions that "It would seem to be a legitimate inference from such a priori reasoning that, subject of course to exceptional circumstances, a camp is later in date according as it is less irregular in plan, less elaborately defended, and constructed upon a less elevated and less defensible site"

Anyone who has ever seen a Norman or Edwardian castle will know that this is far from the case. And while many of the forts that we visited in the USA were built accordingly, when Fetterman and Curser dug themselves in against the rampaging hordes of Native Americans, they both chose hilltops and promontories

Regular readers of this rubbish will also recall that in 2014 we WERE AT MONTSEGUR, the last refuge of the Cathars, and that is probably the most inaccessible, difficult-to-reach castle that I have ever visited, and I knew all about that climb for several days. None of your “constructed upon a less elevated and less defensible site” with Montségur.

Back in here I finished off the radio programme, chose the final track and wrote out the notes ready for dictation on Saturday night. Then I made a start on the remainder of the Welsh homework. That’s not yet finished, and heaven alone knows when I’m going to find time to do it.

My cleaner took me by surprise yet again as I was nowhere near ready, and she fitted my anaesthetic patches. We talked about cats, and it seems that I’m not going to find it as easy to adopt one as I might think. These days, these refuges are very picky and choosy as to who can adopt a cat and she reckons that I would fall down near the end of the queue.

If that’s not enough bad news for the moment, the taxi didn’t turn up until 12:45. It’s the school holidays of course and many drivers have taken time off. The car that came to pick me up was the wheelchair-carrier and we hadn’t gone half a mile before his ‘phone flashed a message “next job, wheelchair from the Centre Normandy – at 13:00”. So he had 15 minutes to undertake a 90-minute round trip to Avranches and back.

It wouldn’t have been quite so bad had we not encountered just about every problem possible on the road. And then when we arrived, there were seven vehicles all trying to unload at the same time – and we were sixth, so we had to wait our turn.

With everyone arriving at once and me being next-to-last I had to wait an age to be seen

The connection was as painful as it could possibly be and I suffered throughout the whole session. But the nurse did confirm to me that once the machine does start up, it’s not uncommon to have a wave of fatigue. It’s to do with the drop of blood pressure and strain on the heart.

The doctor came to see me as well, the unsociable one. We had our little discussion as I mentioned earlier and eventually he did confirm to me, as I suspected, that they had prescribed a sleeping pill. It has several other uses too which they think might be useful, which was why they prescribed it in the first place.

My response was that I was going to stop taking it as of now. He replied that I might find it difficult all at once and I should “taper off”, but if it’s a medication like that then I don’t want to be on it anyway so as of earlier this evening it’s off the list.

And so, incidentally, is the medication that they prescribed to counter some of the side-effects.

Unplugging me was just as painful as plugging me in, and then I had to wait. The driver who was to take me home had stuck her head in earlier but I told her that I would be fifteen minutes so as she had someone to pick up at the Clinic across town she decided to go there first.

She hadn’t come back by the time that I was ready so I waited. And waited.

Not that I minded because Emilie the Cute Consultant came past.

"Wiating for your taxi, Mr Hall?" she asked
“No, I’m waiting for N°11 bus to Marble Arch and Trafalgar Square” I would have said had it been anyone else but Emilie the Cute Consultant
"Yes I am" I replied "You don’t fancy taking me home, do you?"
"I don’t live in Granville any more" she said. "I live in Marcey, just around the corner"
"Well, you could always take me to Marcey with you"

She had the decency to laugh, but she wasn’t all that impressed. Ahh well …

A car suddenly screeched up outside, but it wasn’t my driver who hopped out. Nevertheless he had come for me.

He was one of the ambulance crew who was in the depot washing the vehicle when the call came through. Apparently my driver who had gone to the clinic discovered that there was a major problem there with the other passenger and she was obliged to wait. It’s a good job that I hadn’t gone with her.

We had a good chat all the way home, so much so that I forgot to warn the cleaner that I was on my way, and she had a mad scramble to meet the car. 19:45 when I finally arrived home.

Tea was a stuffed pepper with pasta followed by apple cake and soya dessert. But then I cut up the date bread that I had made, and if the rest of it tastes as good as the crumbs that I tasted, it will be absolutely excellent.

So fed up, in pain and glad that the day is almost over, I’m off to bed ready to fight the good fight tomorrow. I can understand what they meant in Leuven back in 2016 when they said "save your strength for the battle that lies ahead" because I can’t do with too many more days like this one.

But talking about going home just now … "well, one of us is" – ed … it reminds me of a guy in a pub in Nantwich.
He would sneak a photo out of his pocket, glance at it, put it back and then order a beer.
After three or four times curiosity got the better of the and he asked the customer about the photo
"What’s about the photo?" he asked
"It’s the wife" replied the man
"Do you always look at it just before you order a beer?"
"Yes I do" he replied. "When she starts to look beautiful, that’s when it’s time to go home"

Tuesday 4th February 2025 – I HAVE DECIDED …

… that the notes that I edited at the Dialysis Clinic for that radio programme are going into the bin.

As I said before (but only once) I had to dictate it in two parts. However, for a reason that I have yet to understand, the parts sound so different that no amount of editing and remixing is going to make them sound similar.

All this afternoon I’ve been working on it without success and if I spend any more time on it I’ll go spare

The stage has been reached where I’ve downloaded some Artificial Intelligence to see if that comes up with any better luck than I’m having, but I doubt it very much. What I need is a copy sampler where I can analyse automatically a sample of one batch of sound and transfer the settings to the second to equalise the tracks but that’s unlikely, so I reckon it’s either the time to learn all about AI or else re-dictate the notes.

But anyway, that’s for another time. Let’s turn our attention to last night and, for a change, I wasn’t all that late going to bed.

It was 23:20 when I hit the sack but I was totally exhausted. I wasn’t sorry at all to be in bed at that time.

Once I was in bed and settled down I wasn’t long in dropping off to sleep. And there I stayed until the alarm went off, although I do have a vague recollection of being awake for a moment at 04:00.

It was a desperate stagger to beat the second alarm this morning but I did (somehow) manage it, and I had a good scrub up in the bathroom before going into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was at work and for some reason I had the diary open. There was something going on on one particular date about some meeting or other. having seen whom it concerned, I wrote something rather indecent in the entry instead. Just then however the boss came along. He saw me writing and then rapidly closing it, and insisted on seeing it. I thought “this is going to be the end of the line now, isn’t it, for me in this place?”. In the end, the diary fell over haphazardly and there was a comment in there from another day that was that was fairly indecent but nothing quite as bad as that which I had written. He had a look at it, and I said “yes I know, and I’m ashamed of myself for doing it”. He wanted me to carry out a few tasks and gave me some things to do. Then I happened to mention a friend of mine who had been involved with one of our sister offices in the rural area. He had been telling me how they were all big supporters of a certain political party. The boss said “there’s no accounting for taste is there?”. I replied “no. It’s going to be pretty much of a shame if they ever find their way back into power”.

As to what this relates, I have no idea. I do know that one of my “contacts” has revealed himself to be an out-and-out Tory of the extreme type and is flooding with all kinds of extremist nonsense a page on the internet that he keeps, far worse than ever I have seen any left-winger or immigrant type

But as for writing anything abusive at work, then despite all kinds of provocation when I was at work I managed to restrain myself, and just thought abusive thoughts instead. I was going to say that “your thoughts never got you into trouble”, but while that may well have been true fifty years ago, it’s certainly not the case today, with the Thought Police out in force everywhere you go. and, believe me, you will even find yourself in trouble if they THINK that you are thinking, whether you are or not. And ask me how I know.

There was also something about Roxanne last night. I’d been away somewhere for a fair while and when I came back Roxanne threw her arms around me and hugged me.

And how nice to see Roxanne in a dream. 26 years it is since I’ve seen her in real life, so she’ll be 35 now, married I suppose, with a couple of kids. We had loads of fun together during that three years that I was her father. It made me realise what I was missing but as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the big issue about this would be enticing me into the delivery room. I just couldn’t do it.

And finally I was in the USA with a friend. He had some kind of waste land, a demolition site that was a former service station. We were sitting there talking and the question of guns came up. He was talking about something about obtaining new licences for his guns. Another guy who was there said something along the lines of “your guns already have licences for Alabama and Arkansas. If you want another licence you’d have to hand some of those back”. We’d been out for a walk and came back to his property. There was a young girl sitting there. This guy totally ignored her so I did too. We began to discuss about where I certain place was in Ireland so we found an atlas and had a look down on the south-east coast but couldn’t see it. Then we went to have a look to see where this place was in the USA. We looked on the map but the map was such a short scale that it was totally useless. Then he was telling me about his life back at home and how he’d somehow managed to accumulate £10,000,000 and he was hoping to buy some property in the UK because the whole of the city centre was being demolished and he thought that it was being crazy. In the end we agreed that we would go for a walk. We set out and after a while I asked who this girl was. He replied “that’s one of Lesley’s mathematics clients. She teaches maths to her but the problem is that she has so many things going on in her mind that she can’t sit and concentrate at all”. As we carried on walking I was thinking “this demolished service station here – I need to keep in contact with the owner because if ever I have to come to the USA again I could drop a static caravan onto this place. That would act as a home for me for quite a considerable time”.

There’s a lot going on in this dream that can have some kind of connection in real life. For a start, the town centre of Crewe, having been demolished ready for an HS2-funded rebuilding and regeneration HAS BEEN SCRAPPED with the cancellation of the HS2 project, so Crewe Town Centre will be a hole in the ground after all.. And that makes a change, because up until recently it’s just been a hole.

There are several other items in there that have a meaning for two or three people who follow these notes, and they know who they are, but as for a mobile home on a demolition site in case I ever visit the USA, I’m going nowhere at all except to the Dialysis Centre and to the apartment downstairs, and that latter only if I am lucky. I have to work out how this move will take place. I have a couple of people who have kindly volunteered to help, for which I am extremely grateful, but it’s still going to be a nightmare, I reckon.

That’s not all that was in the dream, but you really don’t want to know the rest, especially if you are eating your tea right now.

The nurse was early today and once more, didn’t hang around long, which is good news. So I made breakfast and read MY NEW BOOK.

So far, it’s been two days since I began to read it and we’re still in the Introduction. It seems that our author is not in a hurry to discuss the subject but is more interested in setting the scene, down to the minutest detail. Never write one word when a hundred would do the same job … "and you don’t, I suppose?" – ed …

But I have a basic disagreement with modern research into hillforts. You look at them with their three and sometimes four concentric rings of fortification, deep ditches, scarp slopes, drystone walls, strong gates made of oak and all of that. I cannot see them as anything but defensive works, and major defensive works at that.

Neolithic and Iron-Age man didn’t have any free time. Their life was a desperate hand-to-mouth struggle. If they had to abandon food production for as long as it took and all of the effort that was required in order to construct their strongholds as they did, they must have been seriously concerned, if not frightened, for their own safety. It’s doubtful that any attacking force could have overwhelmed a determined defence in what they managed to build, until the arrival on the scene of Roman siege artillery. These forts are impressive even now, never mind what they must have been like 2500 years ago.

Back in here, I revised my Welsh lesson and then went to class. It wasn’t a rousing success today but it wasn’t a dismal failure either. It’s all a question of concentration and memory and I have neither right now. In fact, it’s been quite a while since I last did have any. We had a quiz today on identifying Welsh foods. It goes without saying that I was not at the top.

When the lesson was over I went for a break for a while and then came back to play with these sound files. There are two of them because, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I had to stop the dictation in midstream and rewrite part of it.

What I don’t understand though is that the tone of each part is so different, and no amount of post-production will equalise it. Consequently, after several hours of trying, I decided to abandon it while I still had some sanity left … "??" – ed …

My cleaner stuck her head in the door this afternoon. She’d brought more cheese and a few other things from the supermarket, as well as a letter from the hospital in Paris. It’s the results of the EMG test that I had, and they tell me that there’s no improvement – just a very slight deterioration. This nervous attack that has wiped out my leg muscles is completely baffling medical science.

Before I went for tea I checked a few other sites that I visit, and discovered that, after Y Drenewydd’s signing of a Philippine International the other week, Connah’s Quay Nomads have signed a Sri Lankan International. The JD Cymru League is definitely looking up these days.

But that signing is not really a surprise. The manager of the Sri Lankan national side until Christmas was Andy Morrison, former manager of the Nomads.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg, just as delicious as always. And there’s plenty of stuffing remaining for a leftover curry tomorrow. So I must remember the naan bread.

It’s shower day tomorrow too, so I might even be clean by tomorrow night. That’s some hope, isn’t it?

But while we’re on the subject of the hospital and baffling medical science … "well, one of us is" – ed … there’s a big stately home just outside Crewe that’s used as a medical laboratory by a well-known pharmaceutical concern
There were some headlines in the local newspaper "major medical breakthrough in Crewe".
Being bewildered, I contacted my friend in Crewe to ask him what was going on.
"You won’t believe this" he said "but they have developed something that will completely transform all medical science and procedures for the future"
"What’s that?" I asked
"One of the laboratory assistants has invented a cure for which there is no known disease"

Monday 3rd February 2025 – THAT WAS NEVER …

… four hours under the thumb of the dialysis machine today.

This evening I was back home even earlier than on many occasions when I was only having three and a half hours. There was something quite strange about that today and I wish that I knew what it was.

But at least I had a visit today. Not Emilie the Cute Consultant unfortunately but the doctor with no bedside manner whatever. He asked me if I was OK so I replied that I was, and so in the best traditions of the reporters of the much-lamented and very-much missed “News of the Screws”, he “made his excuses and left”.

But last night, even though I didn’t have many excuses to make, I still had difficulty leaving my comfortable chair and once again it was a rather late night by the time that I finally managed to tear myself away

After having had a bit of a scrub up and so on, I came back in here, fell into bed and that was the last that I remembered.

When the alarm went off, I was still absolutely dead to the World and it was quite an effort to raise myself up and stagger off into the bathroom. But all cleaned up, and ready to go, I went into the kitchen to attack the stores in the European Medication Mountain, when I forgot that I wasn’t supposed to take the anti-potassium stuff. Ahhh well …

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone and, to my dismay, there was nothing on there from the night. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I depend on my nocturnal peregrinations to supply me with what bit of excitement is ever likely to be present in my life.

Having been someone who has led a very lively and exciting life, I’m finding a great deal of difficulty adjusting to being housebound and disabled. Not that I am contemplating it, not by any means, but I can see why many disabled people (and healthy people too) resort to artificial or chemical means of stimulating the senses.

The nurse was early today. He had the usual couple of minutes of banal chat and then wandered away leaving me to go to make my breakfast.

Before I began to read my new book, I read a recent leaflet about a discovery of what would seem to be the camp of Caesar when he came ashore in 54BC, right near to my old stamping ground as a child at Pegwell bay.

Whilst the leaflet is of considerable interest, it’s even more interesting to see what the writer, a researcher at Leicester University, has to say about our old friend T Rice Holmes, because this latest discovery calls into question Rice Holmes’s theories.

The author tells us that Rice Holmes was "concluding vigorously that ‘it has been demonstrated that he did land in both in 55 and in 54 B.C. in east Kent’ ", although “vigorously” is hardly the adverb that I would use

He goes on to quote Rice Holmes’s theory, complete with his gratuitous commentary that Caesar landed firstly, "between Walmer and Deal Castles, in the latter north of Deal Castle. That some will still for a time dispute these conclusions is likely enough, but not those whose judgements count. For them, the problem is solved’", commenting that "The thoroughness of Holmes analysis was matched only by the confident abrasiveness of his critique. He brooked no argument. "

Never mind “confident abrasiveness”. “Arrogance” would have been a good word to emply.

So having moved that out of the way, the next book on the list to read is EARTHWORK OF ENGLAND, written by Arthur Hadrian Allcroft and published in 1908.

The book has been said to be “a standard work of reference” of its type but it’s probably well-out-of-date now. Nevertheless, it’ll be another one of the type that we have read recently, with hopefully plenty of interesting facts and, hopefully, a bibliography.

But how times have changed. Talking about some remains that were uncovered in Northern England, he tells us that "the erection of a new factory near Allendale -Town, causing the heather upon the adjacent moors to perish, revealed the perfectly preserved outlines of a great camp"

Can you imagine that today? Allcroft’s comment was quite matter-of-fact as if that kind of thing was perfectly normal, and it probably was too.

Back in here, I had a listen to the radio programme that I would be sending off for broadcast at the weekend and found, to my horror, that I’d made something of a pig’s ear of this one. I don’t know what on earth I must have been doing.

So while the computer was backing up onto the memory stick, I was chopping and changing the radio programme. It was really complicated to reassemble and ended up being sixteen seconds over, but as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I can soon lose sixteen seconds.

When I’d finished, I made a start on the Welsh homework but didn’t go all that far before my cleaner came to fit me with my anaesthetic patches.

And we were taken by surprise by the taxi arriving. These new Social Security regulations are playing havoc with everything. There was another passenger having to go to the big clinic so I was thrown in with him and as his appointment was before mine, I had to have the round trip.

Not that I’m complaining though, because it was my favourite driver, although she was rather subdued today and I don’t think that she raised her voice to another motorist once. Someone else who seems to be losing her touch.

However, she did confirm my suspicions about one of the other drivers and told me to guard my tongue. I’d worked that out the other day when he’d asked me one or two questions about one or two of the other drivers.

In the Centre we had to wait for a while before we could be let in so it can’t have been that early that I was plugged in and wired up.

Today, the first puncture hurt just slightly and the second hardly at all, but all of that changed as the anaesthetic wore off.

Today, I tidied up the laptop’s directories, backed up most of the files and then dealt with the sound file that I’d recorded for the concert.

It’s not by any means easy to edit sound-flies on the laptop but I managed it, which is good news. I shall have to persevere because if I can use the time profitably while I’m there, then so much the better.

After they unplugged me I walked outside to find my taxi waiting, and I had a very taciturn driver who gave me a very quiet ride home. Not that I’m complaining, because I was in no mood to chat. I feel as if I’ve been sucked dry by a vacuum cleaner after all that they crammed into what was surely a shorter session.

My cleaner was surprised to see me, but she was there and watched as I strode all the way up to the top of two flights of stairs to arrive here, and promptly collapsed into my chair.

later on I made a stuffed pepper with pasta, tomato sauce and veg followed by apple cake and soya dessert, and now I’m off to bed, totally wasted, but hoping for a better night with a lot of mileage to cover during the hours of darkness.

However, seeing as we have been mentioning the unsociable doctor … "well, one of us has" – ed … he was the one who was dismissed from the fertility clinic .
The clinic itself was in Paris, and at one certain moment he was in charge of the sperm donor section, but it was a total failure, so I heard.
"Why was that?" I asked the nurse
"They only had three candidates and there were, apparently, transport difficulties." she said. "Two of the donors came on the bus but the third one missed the tube"

Tuesday 28th January 2025 – EVEN NOW I AM …

… feeling the effects of that marathon session attached to the dialysis machine, and I don’t know how I’ll survive because I have plenty more sessions like that to come. If I’m just having one day off before I go back to Fight The Good Fight, I shall be in a right mess before long.

But that’s something about which I can worry some other time.

Last night after having finished my notes I couldn’t summon up the energy to leave my seat for quite some time. Not that that’s unusual, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but last night was something different, believe me.

Eventually though I summoned up the energy to go to sort myself out in the bathroom and then I fell into the bed and that was that. I remember nothing whatsoever of what went on during the night.

When the alarm sounded I was miles away with the fairies, but not in any kind of fashion that would draw comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine. I should be so lucky.

It took me an age to haul myself out of my stinking pit and I almost failed to beat the second alarm. Nevertheless I ended up in the bathroom and had a good scrub up ready for the day.

Next stop was the kitchen, where I had my medication. And not forgetting the disgusting mud-like preparation that I have to take on non-dialysis days. It totally beats me – they spend billions and billions of Euros putting rockets into Space and all of that, yet they can’t find the will to make a horrible medication taste nice.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was on my way to pick up a parcel for delivery. At the junction between Bedford Street and Nantwich Road were all these big motorcycles and riders arranged all over the road, all over the street and the pavement. I was on a motorbike too so when I arrived there I stopped and shouted at them all and gave them a lecture about parking in the middle of the road, which they didn’t appreciate. I was lucky that I escaped with my life but I did it all the same. Then I had to go back to Frank Bott Avenue, n°138. I eventually found the house, one of the middle pair of a line of four modern council houses. The whole gardens were in terribly poor state and really needed someone to look after them and deal with everything. I eventually found the door which was around the side (but how could it have been around the side of a house in a row of terraced houses). When I knocked on the door the guy who came out was one of the bosses from work. He was handicapped in some way with the right side of his body. He handed a parcel to me and told me that it was very important to be delivered. He continued to emphasise the importance of it.

This is twice within a few days that I’ve been up at the Frank Bott Avenue end of town and I don’t know why because apart from when I was driving taxis, that part of town had absolutely no interest for me. The houses were not modern but were what passed for council houses in Crewe in the late 1960s and I didn’t recognise the boss at all. The road junction between Bedford Street and Nantwich Road is right at the other end of town, and the confrontation between Yours Truly and a group of large bikers, or a large group of bikers, whichever you prefer, that I was willing to undertake even though I recognised it in the dream as being somewhat menacing, was certainly realistic enough. I even recognised the Belisha beacon at the zebra crossing just there.

And that’s strange, isn’t it? I remember nothing whatever about the dream or about dictating it, yet once I began to type, I could see everything in the back of my mind. It’s not the first time that that has happened either.

Isabelle the Nurse drifted in on the tide this morning. It’s her turn until Saturday when she’s off skiing. I took the opportunity to have a moan at her about her oppo, because the situation with him is not, I fear, going to improve. We may as well start as we mean to go on.

After she left, I made breakfast. And my loaf of bread is exquisite. It is easily the best loaf of bread that I have ever made. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that, while we’ve not had any absolute disasters, we’ve not been far off from that with one or two, but this one is one of which I could be proud.

There was MY BOOK to read too. Our hero has calmed down. He’s still ridiculing his contemporaries and even describing the thoughts and calculations of the Emperor Napoleon III as having "rested upon a rotten foundation.". Still, only another 50 pages and then I am in amongst the addendum. That should be interesting.

Back in here I checked over my Welsh homework. Then I formatted it in *.pdf and sent it off, and began to revise for my lesson. While I was doing that I had a listen to the radio programme that I’d prepared for broadcast today and then sent it off. This programme was, by the way, prepared on 4th August last, and I’m much farther ahead of that now. Not that I’m bragging of course.

The Welsh lesson wasn’t as good as a few have been just recently. But there again, the dialysis yesterday took so much out of me that it’s hardly a surprise. I can’t really concentrate on anything right now and this is boding ill for the future. It beats the whole point of going if I’m going to be as lethargic as this in the future.

Once the lesson was over, I didn’t move for quite a while. I think that I’d given up the ghost. Things are definitely not going in my direction right now.

Eventually I began work. And what I’ve done is to review the “births and deaths” list until the end of the year and note everything on the spreadsheet that I keep. I’ve sort-of decided that at the dialysis centre I’ll choose the music for the forthcoming programmes and remix them while I’m there.

That’s what I used to do when I was in Belgium and if I could do this on the crabby computer that I had in those days, no reason why I can’t do it on the portable computer that I have now.

Another thought that’s running through my mind is “why don’t I buy a new laptop?”.1.8mHz processors were state-of-the-art a few years ago but the big desktop machine has a processor of 4.3mHz. So I had a look around to see what I could find that has a 1TB SSD, 32GB of RAM and a superfast processor.

And then I had a look at my bank account and decided “well, maybe not”..

There was a Christmas Cake break this afternoon and that will all be gone by the end of the week if not before. Then I’ll have to think about my birthday cake. I’ve no idea what I’ll do for that but it needs to be something special. Last year’s Black Forest Gateau was quite nice, even if the icing left something to be desired.

Tea tonight was something out of the European Burger Mountain. I’m still not feeling up to cooking something dramatic.

In fact I have a feeling that I’ll be rotating my meals round to different days because making a huge meal for several days on an evening when I’m exhausted from dialysis is not a very good idea. Maybe a stuffed pepper on Sunday, the taco roll when I’m exhausted on a Monday night, a leftover curry on Wednesday and the pizza on Thursday – I’m not sure how that would work if I didn’t have my mushrooms until Friday though so I don’t know.

So burger, pasta and veg followed by the chocolate cake and vegan soya dessert. The chocolate cake will be all gone tomorrow night so maybe after I’ve had my shower and my cleaner has left, I might make another cake.

But what? The last apple cake that I made a while back was quite a success and I could put raisins, coconut, cinnamon and nutmeg. I have plenty of coconut oil so I could replace some of the vegetable cooking oil with the coconut oil and that will make it quite lively.

And that’s another thing. Liz sent me a cookery book for my birthday last year and I’ve only had time to skim it. Why don’t I take it to dialysis and read it there? I bet that there will be lots of ideas in the book over which I can ponder.

But I shall ponder over them tomorrow. Right now I’m off to bed in the hope that one or maybe more of the Fearsome Foursome of Castor, TOTGA, Zero and Moonchild might come to keep me company.

But seeing as we have been talking about new powerful computers … "well, one of us has" – ed … these new computers come these days with Artificial Intelligence where you can ask them whatever you want and they have the answer.
One boy bought a brand new computer and decided to test the Artificial Intelligence so he asked it "where is my father right now?"
The AI on the computer replied "he’s fishing on the Shropshire Union Canal near Marbury"
The boy burst out laughing and said to the computer "What a load of rubbish. My father died three years ago "
"Your father is fishing on the Shropshire Union Canal near Marbury" the computer insisted. "It was your mother’s husband who died three years ago."

Wednesday 21st January 2025 – THIS TIME TOMORROW …

… I shall be having my fevered brow soothed by a bevy of nubile nurses while I’m tucked up in my comfortable bed in The Land of Grey and Pink – I mean, the Hospital Pitié-Sampetrière in Paris.

Actually, I probably won’t be, but there’s no harm in wishful thinking, is there? As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s only my imagination and my dreams that are keeping me going.

To tell the truth, I will almost certainly be in a bed in a hospital in Paris, assuming that we don’t have a calamity along the route. But as for the rest of it, who knows? And who really cares? As long as I have my imagination I can continue my desperate struggle against reality.

And the desperate struggle against fatigue too, because I have to be up and about at 06:00 in the morning. I have dialysis tomorrow before I leave for Paris, so that means a taxi at 07:45 and a session on the bed in the dialysis centre starting at 08:30.

At 07:30 this morning though I was still struggling to come to terms with being on my feet. When the alarm had gone off at 07:00 I was deep in the Arms of Morpheus and it was a real struggle to rise to my feet. However I made it into the bathroom just in time before the next alarm call went off.

There had been a lot of perspiration during the night so I needed a good wash. Emilie the Cute Consultant told me that the perspiration was usual, but if it carries on, I shall need a water bed. Then I can sail into the bathroom. Or paddle my own canoe. Or be up the creek without a paddle. I dunno.

After the medication I came in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. My brother had a MkIV Cortina. He’d had an accident in it and damaged one wing. He came to see me to see if I had another MkIV wing. At that moment I had about three MkIV Cortinas, a pale blue one that I was using as my run-around which was something of a wreck. It had no MoT or insurance. Then there were two others, one of which was a reasonably good car and the third one that I was planning to rebuild. He came round to ask if I had one so I replied that I hadn’t. Everything that I had was spoken for. Nerina said “why don’t you give him the one off the blue one? You’ll be scrapping that soon and it’ll save you the time in dismantling it if he were to take that”. I replied “that’s the car that I’m using to drive around at the moment. I can’t give him that”. We had quite a big discussion about t which became quite heated. In the meantime my brother was wandering around in the garage and came across a wing for a MkIII Cortina. he said “I’m going to break your hearts now” he said “and I’m going to take this”. I said “come here” and went into my workshop. Scrabbling around on the worktop I found the washers and bolts that had been used to hold it on. I was scrabbling around and ended up with about ten at that particular moment. He said “that’s OK, I’ll take those”. I sorted out some washers for him but he didn’t seem to want very many. I thought that a MkIII wing on a MkIV would invite lots of comment but he didn’t seem to care. But there was a question that he’d asked me about “was Ford bringing out a new car to replace the Granada?”. I replied that I’d not heard anything. There had been no executive meeting so no-one seems to know as yet.

In theory of course, a MkIII wing will fit a MkIV Cortina because they have the same chassis and A-post arrangement but as I said, it’ll look rather strange.

But I was, and still am, a big fan of the Cortina MkIII, IV and V. Practically the same car from 1970-1982 with all the mechanical parts interchangeable, they did me proud when I had my taxis. Not only did I have the cars, I’d pick up MoT failures, dismantle them for spares, sometimes repair them and until I had my health collapse after my big car accident, I was always ahead of the game.

There are still several Cortinas lying around. There’s an almost-immaculate MkV estate keeping a MkIII 2000E Cortina and a Citroen “traction avant” company in the warehouse in Montaigut, a “rare as hens-teeth and worth a fortune” MkIII 2000E estate in the barn on the farm, and an old rotten MkV saloon down the field that was going to be cut up for spares but it’s lost in the undergrowth now.

All the same though, that dream was disappointing. Nerina was there, as of course she is entitled to be, but once more we were arguing. We spent so much time arguing in real life – if only we’d stepped back, breathed, and began to talk to each other, things would have been so different. And my brother was there once again. How disappointing is that? Why can’t I summon up any one of the Fearsome Foursome to come to me during the night?

As for the Ford Granada, that relates to something that is running in a thread through my mind somewhere right now, relating to nothing in particular. But no MoT or insurance on a Cortina is a thread that’s been running through my dreams for ages, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

The nurse was early today. It’s His Nibs starting his seven days. He’s not impressed with my early start tomorrow (neither am I as it happens) and told me to keep my socks on during the night. That’s not a sound policy – not at all.

After he left, I made breakfast and read more of MY BOOK.

As I suspected, I’m right about him working up to a crescendo. With no sense of embarrassment or responsibility he’s laying in to all kinds of people. Not even the Astronomer Royal is exempt from his scorn. It really is quite shameful and how his publishers accepted it I really don’t know.

Back in here I revised for my Welsh class and then went for the lesson. Once more, it seemed to pass off quite well. However, that was then, when everything was fresh in my mind. Give me half an hour and it will all have evaporated from my teflon brain.

After lunch I had a few things to do and then I pushed on with this radio programme that I’ve been trying to finish since Sunday. Now it’s all done as far as I can, the 11th track is chosen and notes written ready to dictate on Saturday night when it’s quiet.

The next trick will be to finish the one that I started at the end of last week and have it ready for dictation on Saturday night too. I need to snap out of this depression and lethargy and push on.

And that’s the first time that I’ve said that since dialysis started.

While we’re on the subject of the radio … "well, one of us is" – ed … there was the radio programme for this weekend to review and send off, so I listened to it to make sure that it was OK.

It’s just as well that I do this because I’ve been caught out before by people dying in between the recording of the programme and its transmission. And not that I’m bragging, but this programme was recorded in May 2023.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with some of the leftover stuffing followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. Delicious as usual.

But then I had more food to make. The food in the hospital is dreadful, I’ll be arriving late, there’s never any food that I can make. So I’m in the process of making some bread and I’ve cooked a lentil and potato mix that’s in a plastic container that they can bung in the microwave when I arrive. I have to be prepared.

Right now though, I need to be prepared for bed if I’m going to be up at 06:00. I don’t fancy that in the least, but I can always sleep while dialysis is going on.

But in our Welsh class today we were discussing War poets. And one thing that most of us had in common was that we all had had to study War poets for our ‘O’ Level English Literature exam, and without exception, it destroyed any love of poetry that we might have had.

We all agreed that it was so depressing and so miserable, but it seemed to us that the examiners were working to their own very private agenda. It wasn’t until I discovered the works of AE Housman that I began to develop a love of poetry, but I never ever want to hear another War poet again as long as I live, if I live that long.

On the other hand, I can listen to this all night and next day too – one of Housman’s poems SET TO MUSIC

Another thing that we were discussing was the early television programmes. And I remember when the BBC, in an economy drive, was selling them off to independent producers.
At one meeting the Director asked the Sales Department for the accounts.
He asked them "What did we get for ‘Larry the Lamb’?"
"According to our accounts" said the accountant "we got four shillings per pound"
"And the guy in the historical records" said the Director. "What did he get for ‘Muffin the Mule’?"
"Eighteen months, I think" replied the accountant.

Monday 20th January 2025 – YET ANOTHER THREE …

… and a half hours under the dialysis machine today, and that might soon be changing. They are talking about increasing the dose to four hours. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … we seem to be moving slowly towards a climax and the overall prognosis isn’t that good.

In fact, things must be even more serious that I imagined, because they sent Emilie the Cute Consultant to break the bad news to me. And considering that she has been doing her best to steer clear of my bedside these last few weeks, that must have been some effort.

It was some effort for me to go to bed last night too. It was even later than normal when I finally hauled myself out of my chair and went into the bathroom to prepare for the night. I was definitely not feeling like sleeping and I lacked the motivation and energy to haul myself out of my comfortable chair.

Eventually I managed to make my way into bed and there I lay trying to go to sleep and trying to chase the black thoughts from my mind. And as it happened, I did neither. So there I lay, being tormented, for several hours.

When the alarm sounded I was fast asleep so I must have dropped off at some point. And what an effort it was to haul myself from my bed. It’s a good job that the nurse is coming, for I could quite easily have stayed in bed until I don’t know when.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and shave and even applied the deodorant in case Emilie the Cute Consultant should come to see me, and then went to take my medication.

Back in here I went to listen to what was on the dictaphone but to my dismay there was nothing at all, and that’s really disappointing. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only excitement that I have these days is what goes on (or comes off, but I should be so lucky) during the night.

Isabelle the nurse came around, her last day for this round. She had a few things to say, but nothing of too much importance. She’s going to spend the week packing for her ski holiday soon and also working on her Carnival float.

After she left I made my breakfast and read MY BOOK.

Our author has spent probably 100 pages attacking the idea that Wissant was the port from which Caesar sailed to Britain (not that it matters much, as the book is about Britain, not Caesar), insulting the people who believe that it might have been, and lampooning the people who have changed their opinion over time.

And here we are, on page 579; with a statement "for I myself once argued that the Portus Itius was at Wissant. But my knowledge was then imperfect.". Not a word about why his knowledge was imperfect, not a word about why he once believed that Wissant had been Caesar’s port, not a word of the factors that he had considered at that time, not a word of why he had rejected them, not a word of criticism of his own ideas and not an apology to those whom he had lampooned for changing their mind.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I shan’t be sorry to reach the end of this book. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of interesting facts in there but by God! What a struggle it has been to wade through the mass of invective, insult and abuse to find them.

It seems to me that he is working himself up into a crescendo and I wonder how it’s all going to finish.

Back in here I had things to do, like my Welsh homework for example. I like to do half of it in one week and the other half the following week so as to spread it out. But what I’m going to do at some point is to read through all of the homework that I’ve done, and make a dictionary of words that I have already forgotten. As if I don’t have enough work to do.

My cleaner took me once more by surprise. She was late but I’d lost track of time anyway. And we hadn’t even finished when the taxi came for me. There was someone with an appointment at Avranches at 13:00 so these new Securité Sociale rules means that because my trip falls within this 45-minute window, I have to grin and bear it.

Not that I am complaining, because as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s all free, and this is the only country in the World as far as I am aware where such a service is provided for the likes of me.

One advantage of being there early was that not only was I the first of the afternoon shift to arrive, I was first in bed and consequently first to be plugged in. And strangely, the first pin didn’t hurt at all and the second only marginally so, even if they had to take out the pin and reinsert it.

Having said that though, I began to know more about it as the anaesthetic wore off.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me, and we had an interesting chat. "How are you today, Mr Hall?"
"Very well now that I’ve seen you" I replied. And she had the decency to giggle and blush

So we chatted, all about work though, not one of those intimate personal chats that we had last summer, and she broke the bad news to me. But at least she confirmed that Saturday’s dialysis is no different than any other day so it’s not that which is disrupting my sleeping patterns.

"Would you like me to prescribe a sedative for you" She asked.

It seemed to me that that referred to my earlier comment so I restrained myself, with great difficulty I promise you, from saying something like “what I really need is someone to keep me warm and cosy in bed. When’s your next day off?”. You should be proud of me.

Instead I replied "no thanks". All that I have left these days are my dreams and they seem to be fading right now which is a shame. And never mind restraining myself, it will be other people restraining me if I carry on like this. But ask me if I care.

While we’re on the subject of dreams … "well, one of us is" – ed … I crashed out as usual once the pump started sucking my blood out and went away with the fairies (although I did nothing worthy of any comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine)

There I was, in some building in which I’d been before. Someone came to pick me up and when he took me outside I found that he was to take me away on a motorbike. He had left the engine running so I told him that that had been a very dangerous thing to do around here

The building reminded me of somewhere in (I think) either Cleveland or Buffalo … "IT WAS BUFFALO" – ed … in the USA where I’d passed through on my mega-voyage around North America after having dropped off Kit at her University at Windsor.

And as for motor bikes, we’re either talking about motorcycle taxis again or else it’s to do with crossing the Atlantic on a motor bike, something else that we’ve mentioned recently.

When I’ve been awake, I’ve been tidying up a long-forgotten site on the internet. That all started with a search for someone whose name cropped up there and when I followed it up, I was surprised at how out-of-date this site was. So I did some of it, and there’s plenty more to do.

Don’t you ever become fed up of finding all of these tasks that you need to do that totally distract you from what you were trying to do in the first place?

With starting early, that usually means finishing early. And I was certainly unplugged early. But all of the rest went haywire as the compression burst and we red-washed the entire wall of the Clinic by my bed.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the taxi that came for me had to wait another ten minutes to take someone else too.

So once more I ended up being late home but at least it was the nice female taxi driver, the one with twins at the school here, so we had a nice chat. I hope that she’s the one who takes me to Paris, either her or my favourite lady taxi driver who gives me a running commentary throughout the whole route.

It’s freezing outside again here so I was glad to be indoors again. With about 20 minutes to spare I edited some more of the outstanding radio programme that I should had completely dealt with on Sunday.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper with pasta and veg followed by chocolate cake and soya yoghurt. Plenty of stuffing left, but I’ve no idea when I’ll finish it, what with going to hospital in Paris later this week

So now it’s bedtime, ready for my Welsh lesson tomorrow. And hoping that I’ll have pleasant dreams involving Castor, TOTGA or Zero, or Moonchild whom I shall add to the Terrible Three and make a Fearsome Foursome.

But before I go to bed I’ll give you an exclusive scoop, one that you’ll hear nowhere else, on the handover discussion between Trump and Biden in the Whitehouse (and that’s not a spelling mistake, although that will soon change) this afternoon
"You just watch" said Trump. "I’m gonna be a goddam Emperor"
"You can’t do that" said Biden. "An Emperor is someone who rules an Empire, and the USA isn’t an Empire"
"Well in that case" said Trump "I’m gonna be a goddam King"
"You can’t do that either" replied Biden. "A King is someone who rules a Kingdom, and the USA isn’t a Kingdom"
"Actually" continued Biden "with you in the White House, Donald, the USA will be just fine as a country"

Tuesday 14th January 2025 – I AM TYPING …

… these notes during a pause in the football.

It’s hardly surprising that there’s a pause either because, as the score is proving, trying to play a game of football as banks of fog come rolling from the Dee estuary across the stadium at Cae Castell is producing some extremely unpredictable, and for Y Bala who are defending the river end, some extremely unfortunate moments.

After an hour of playing hide and seek the players have gone off the field in the hope that the fog will roll away. But even if it does, there is no guarantee that it won’t roll back.

It’s ironic that it’s happening to Y Bala. The final round of the first half of the season should have been played weeks ago but their pitch has been alternately under snow, ice and water on so many occasions that after several postponements that led to the postponement of the final round of matches, the game against Caernarfon that we watched on Saturday, was played at a neutral venue, Llandudno’s all-weather stadium

All the final round games were postponed until tonight, but now Y Bala’s vital match against Cei Connah is swathed in fog and all the players are in the dressing room waiting. There’s no guarantee that they will be back out either.

So while I’m waiting for things to happen, after finishing my notes last night I stayed up to listen to yet another concert (I’ve forgotten who it was) and then at about 00:30 I gave it up as a bad job and crawled into my bed. I can’t keep going as I used to.

Once in bed it took a while to go to sleep and there I stayed until about 06:35 when I awoke, once more drenched in sweat. There’s definitely something going on with this dialysis that I don’t understand.

It goes without saying, I suppose, that I went back to sleep again. I was certainly asleep when BILLY COTTON awoke me from the Dead.

Being awake was one thing. Leaving the bed was quite another thing completely. Mind you, I did (just about) beat the second alarm. And then I staggered off to the bedroom

After the bathroom it was the kitchen for the medication. And while I remembered the stuff that I can only take on a non-dialysis day, I forgot my blood-thinning medication. I’m definitely losing my touch, and probably my mind as well.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Last night I was stacking things inside the van. It was already quite loaded. There was me and there was another person, a girl, helping me. We had some long, thin wooden boxes probably about two metres long, to put in the back. We were carrying them one by one. Someone suggested that we’d advance much quicker if we were to take two or three at a time between the two of us. We tried it with a couple but it was much wore awkward. Positioning them in the van was a problem because the girl with me always wanted to carry them on her left-hand side which meant that she was having to fight with the back door to put them in when she arrived. That was becoming rather difficult. We stacked them inside quite high. There was already a lot of things in there so we thought that we’d better find some way of strapping these in against the side of the wall or the other things that are already in there, strapping them up against them against the side of the wall that way so that they didn’t fall over because if they were to fall they would be quite something of a problem inside and the whole inside was something of a mess.

Whoever the girl was, I have no idea. She was small and lively, but not anyone whom I recognised immediately. However, stacking stuff into vans was the occupation of a lifetime once upon a time and regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing a few photos of how I used to travel around Europe in the past.

Isabelle the Nurse is on duty for the next seven days. She is much more cheerful and was telling me about the float that she and her friends are building for Carnaval. She’s not telling me what it is though – it’s to be a surprise and won’t be unveiled until the day of the parade.

It’s now been announced that the football match has been postponed, which has now completely upset the timetable for the rest of the season. And I can press on, hours later than I was hoping.

So after Isabelle left I made my breakfast and then read some more of MY BOOK

His polemic by now is raging out of control and he condemns one of his colleagues in a manner that is quite unfitting in a published work, saying that "he blunders in a way which makes me hesitate to accept his statements about archaeological details that I have not myself studied" – a pretty outrageous remark for any academic to make, especially about a colleague.

He goes on to ask "How then would the professor and the doctor explain the fact that in the round barrows of the Yorkshire Wolds there was a reaction in favour of inhumation, seeing that Canon Greenwell 8 found in them 301 interments of unburnt and only 78 of burnt bones ?"

Christianity has been around for 2,000 years, but there are still plenty of Jews about. Protestantism has been around for almost 600 years, but there are still plenty of Catholics about. And going back to the “Dark Ages” of early Medieval times, there are many recorded instances of Christian Princesses being married to heathen Kings.

History shows us that several religions can live perfectly well side-by-side, and there’s no reason to suppose that things were different in Neolithic times. It’s quite possible to have two religions and two forms of dealing with dead bodies living in co-existence.

Back in here I revised for my Welsh lesson and hen went to class. We had, for the first time since I don’t know when, a full house of students and the class moved along smartly. I was once more quite satisfied with my progress, although my lack of memory is greatly hindering my vocabulary.

After the lesson it was lunch and a slice of flapjack with fruit, and then a very long and involved video chat with a friend in the UK who is carrying out a special project for me. We ended up discussing his holiday to Canada and, to my surprise, he liked everything that I didn’t and vice versa.

It was a Rosemaryesque conversation that lasted over an hour and it was very pleasant. It’s the only way that I get to see my friends these days and I do miss them all. Anyone else who wants a video chat some time, let me know.

Christmas cake break, very late, was next along with that disgusting protein drink, and then I started to work on the next radio programme. All of the songs are chosen, re-mixed, paired and segued and I’ve even begun to write the notes. That’s a job to be finished tomorrow I hope, in and around the shower I suppose, because it’s shower day tomorrow.

Tea tonight was a very rushed taco roll with rice followed by chocolate cake and chocolate soya dessert. Rushed because there was football on the internet. But I did remember to organise the lentils as well as some split peas that I found.

It’s the last match of the first half of the season as I mentioned earlier, the round having been postponed because of the issues with the pitch and the weather at Y Bala which has seen the Caernarfon game postponed three, or is it four times?

That match was played at Llandudno on Saturday, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, and so the final round, having been postponed while that game was still unplayed, took place tonight.

Both Cei Connah and Y Bala needed to win in order to qualify for the European playoff section of the league, and it was the Nomads who took advantage of the conditions. The first goal was an audacious lob from near the halfway line when a gust of wind lifted the fog briefly and enabled a Nomad to see the Bala keeper off his line.

They scored two more goals while Bala offered nothing whatever at all. It was all one-way traffic. But the match being called off saved Y Bala’s bacon. Some of tonight’s results mean that Cei Connah can’t possibly qualify, but Bala could if they have a good win. So if the match is replayed on Thursday, it might favour Bala.

But before I leave the story of the football match, there was a new recruit to the commentary team this evening.

Please excuse the poor quality but it’s a screenshot taken in the fog and so nothing will ever come out correctly. However it goes to show that gate-crashers can get in anywhere.

That is, except my bed (unless it’s Castor, TOTGA or Zero of course, and maybe Jenny Agutter and Kate Bush) because I’m going to climb into it in a moment, alongside STRAWBERRY MOOSE who keeps me company as much as he possibly can.

Tomorrow I’m radioing again and showering and pie-baking too. Maybe even bread-making. I’m certainly keeping myself busy.

Today, our Welsh class was discussing war. We were being asked about our family in wartime so I told them the story of my great grandfather who, after having long-since retired after his service in India and South Africa, dyed his white hair black, lied about his age and joined the Canadian Army in 1914, and also of my mother who served in the Royal Air Force in World War II.

I didn’t mention my distant great-great-cousin or whatever relation he was who was SENTENCED TO DEATH because, being a devout Quaker, he refusing to fight

One woman, the teacher from Nantwich, told the story of her father who was an Army dentist in Syria and the Western Desert in World War II.
One day he had to examine a group of volunteers to see if they were fit to join the Army and fight. One of them he was obliged to reject because his teeth were rotten.
"Blimey!" exclaimed the unlucky volunteer. "I know that we were expected to kill the enemy, but I didn’t know that we had to eat them afterwards."

Tuesday 7th January 2025. DO YOU KNOW …

… what I discovered today? And that is the carafe for my coffee machine is not big enough to take all of the water that can be put in the reservoir of the machine. So ask me how I know this.

That’s right – it’s been one of those days where things seem to be going in every direction except the direction that I want. Not that that’s unusual because, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, that’s the kind of thing that is the normal method of procedure around here.

Anyway, retournons à nos moutons as they say around here. Last night after I finished writing my notes I was going to go to bed as I said, but as usual, something came up to disrupt me. Round onto the playlist came a concert from Colosseum.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall this concert only too well. It’s a rather complicated concert with a lot of holes and involuntary fadings but it’s one of the top five live concerts that I’ve ever attended so it won’t ever disappear off the playlist.

It needs editing, rebuilding and remixing and that has been my project on both my trips to the High Arctic. The plan was that when everyone has gone to bed late at night and I’m on my own, up in the observation lounge on the top deck of THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR looking at the snow and ice, I could be editing the concert without having to worry about being distracted. It’s not as if there’s much traffic out there amongst the ice late at night.

However, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it didn’t happen like that. On both trips, in exactly the same place on the ship and exactly the same place in the ocean and at the same point in the concert, something (well, someone, actually) came along to disrupt me and I’ve been swept off my feet and carried along on a tidal wave of unstoppable events, and that was that.

Still, it’s a good concert so I stayed up to listen to it, and it was rather late when I went to bed.

During the night I awoke just once, at 05:40, But I was soon back asleep again and there I stayed until the alarm went off.

Hearing the alarm was one thing – lifting myself out of my warm, comfortable bed was something else completely. However I managed to beat the second alarm to my feet and staggered off to the bathroom for a good scrub up.

Into the kitchen next for the medication and then back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And there was something on there, but you really don’t want to hear about it, especially if you are eating your tea right now.

However, whatever it was that went on, there was something about all of this taking place at the seaside. It was this place that I used to visit with Liz (not “this Liz” but “that Liz”) on the north-eastern coast between Sunderland and Newcastle. I can’t remember the name of the town now … "it’s Seaburn" – ed ….

The nurse was early – probably because no-one wanted a blood test from him today. But he was telling me that he took part in the bain des manchots on New Year’s Day where everyone dresses up as a penguin and runs into the sea.

And if you think that I’m joking, in 2019 a couple of us interviewed the penguins for the radio, and here’s a photo of one of them from back then to prove it.

However, it just goes to prove my point that there are some people who simply don’t have both paddles in the water.

After he left, I made breakfast and carried on reading MY BOOK.

We’re having a big discussion about heads. And the author reckons that he can identify someone’s origin – whether they are Palaeolithic, Neolithic, Saxon etc, by the shape of their heads. Or, more accurately, the measurement of the diagonals on the interior of the skull.

That got me thinking. His idea is all well and good for 1907 but I wondered how it stood now that we have DNA to guide us along.

So hunched over a bowl of porridge I tracked down a site that talked about genetics in the UK.

Now, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we talked several days ago about stone circles and menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … and I was of the opinion that new waves of immigrants pushed the established population westwards and northwards, and that subsequent waves continued the process.

And there, right in front of my face in this document that I read was "British Neolithic individuals had a small amount (about 10%) of Western Hunter-Gatherer excess ancestry when compared with Iberian Early Neolithic farmers, suggesting that there was an additional gene flow from British Mesolithic hunter-gatherers into the newly arrived farmer population: while Neolithic individuals from Wales have no detectable admixture of local Western hunter-gatherer genes, those from South East England and Scotland show the highest additional admixture of local WHG genes, and those from South-West and Central England are intermediate"

So compare that with what we were discussing, the presence of stone circles, menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … and “none at all” and there you are!

Back in here I revised for my Welsh and then, armed with an overflowing coffee pot, I went for the lesson.

Once more, the lesson went quite well, especially as Brain of Britain revised the wrong module AGAIN! How many times have I done that before? And we have a new recruit joining the pack today. She used to live just up the road from where I lived as a tiny baby.

What with another member who was a teacher in the town where I went to Grammar School, someone on a summer school from there too and someone else from a summer school who lived in Wistaston, a suburb of Crewe, this World is becoming far too small for my liking.

After the lesson was over I went for lunch – another slice of this really good flapjack that I made, followed by some fruit. There’s no doubt that this flapjack is the best that I have made to date.

However, I’ve been looking at the dates that I bought to treat myself over Christmas and never got round to eating. There must be a recipe for a date loaf on the internet somewhere, and I wonder how it would work. With my oven, whatever it is, it’s bound to be difficult.

After lunch I had things to do, but I was interrupted by my cleaner bringing me some shopping, and then by my Christmas cake break. For a change, I didn’t have my hot chocolate. I had one of these disgusting protein drinks that I’ve been prescribed. That’s a different type of disgusting to the disgusting anti- potassium powder that I have to take several times a non-dialysis day

Tea tonight was a taco roll with some of the stuffing, with rice and veg followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. And it was lovely too. Tomorrow is a vegan curry with the rest of the leftover stuffing.

So ordinarily I would think about going to bed right now, but a Lindisfarne concert has come round on the playlist so it’ll be a while yet before I retire.

But seeing as we’ve been talking about DNA … "well, one of us has" – ed … I had a relative (by marriage, not by birth, I hasten to add) who sent off his DNA to be analysed.
I asked him "what did the results say?"
"Actually" he said "they came back marked ‘rejected’. "
"When was that?" I asked
"Three days ago" he said. "The day that all the newspaper headlines were something like ‘Missing Link Between Humans and Apes finally discovered’"

Tuesday 17th December – MY CHRISTMAS CAKE …

… is absolutely belting. A corner of it bubbled over the mould and broke off so I had to sample it. And if the rest of it is as good as that small part tasted, I shall be more than happy. It really does make a difference mixing the ingredients in the big mixer.

Something else that went very well was last night, going to bed not too late. It was 23:30 and I’d had something of a struggle to keep awake, so I didn’t feel like staying up and idling around. I hit the hay instead.

Not that I could go to sleep though. I spent a good age tossing and turning before I finally dropped off to sleep.

When the alarm went off at 07:00, I was already sitting at my desk working.

It was at something like 05:20 when I awoke this morning. I remember looking at my watch. It seems to be a frequent occurrence following these dialysis sessions, for some reason that I don’t know. I’m not going to tell the doctor at the Dialysis Clinic though because he would probably prescribe some Doliprane.

By 06:00 I’d given up the ghost. Tired of tossing and turning about I arose from the Dead and went into the bathroom for a good clean up.

Into the kitchen for the first instalment of the medication, remembering to take the medication that I can only take on non-dialysis days. If you’re confused about my medication, don’t worry. So am I.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a cricket match and we were playing the Australians. I was batting but down at the bowler’s end. They had a change of bowler, a slow right-arm off-spinner. After he’d bowled two or three balls the batsman took up a new guard so the bowler who was bowling around the wicket decided that he’d go over the wicket. As he ran in, he bent his arm in a really funny way and broke off his run near the wicket, went back to his mark and started again. I thought that this was the most strange and amazing arm action that I’d ever seen so I appealed, thinking that he was more like throwing the ball than bowling, with the aim that they’d examine his action and give a decision. Instead, the Australian skipper took him off and put a fast bowler off. He skittled the tail out for a mere 50 runs, leaving a very low total for his batsmen to try to make. I was questioned as to why I’d allowed this to happen because of my appeal. I replied that it was important to everyone to make sure that this guy’s action was correct and that was all that my intention was, to have his action examined.

There were many times that I felt that I was walking around with a sign “THE BUCK STOPS HERE” suspended over my head. I seemed to be blamed for just about everything that ever happened, even when I was nowhere near the event concerned. I remember my friend’s daughter in Florida chatting to me on the internet once, saying "it’s not fair! Every time I do something wrong my little brother tells my mom and I get yelled at. But if he does something wrong and I tell my mom she yells at me for not watching him!".
"I know, Tina. It was exactly the same with me, and still is even today"

Later on I was at another folk festival where some group performed a famous folk song very slowly with plenty of taste and dignity. It sounded extremely good and I enjoyed listening to it. Then another group took the stage when the other group had hardly left it when they climbed on. They started off with the same number but played it at a much different tempo and changed a few of the words. It became a rowdy, boisterous pub-rocker song but I do have to say that it was in bad taste but it was played immediately as they were still leaving and secondly, because it was made with additional musicians who didn’t belong to the group and were just friends of the leader. Their aim was just to have a good bash at this and it was so disappointing in a way

One of my pet hates is these “special guests” and “orchestras” at concerts accompanying musicians and creating a sound that the musicians themselves are not able to reproduce. I know that I’m in a very tiny minority in this respect but nevertheless I do hate in when we’re in the middle of a thumping good concert and “now we’d like to introduce you to our special guest”.

And then I was with Zero’s father last night. I can’t remember what we were doing but we were talking about different things etc. We ended up watching a film. Suddenly, the ‘phone went and he answered it. He said that we had to go back to his house because his wife and Zero were going out somewhere. We went, and although we set out in the car we ended up walking part of the way down this muddy track that descended into a complete and utter swamp. We were talking about vehicles because I’d been to the local scrapyard and had seen a diesel engine so I’d measured it and found that it would fit into my van. It was a 3.5 diesel from some company or other. I told him that when I change the engine I might even fit that engine in because it would fit. He thought that it was an excellent choice of engine. We began to discuss other engines that we thought might go in. I’d measured a few and found that they would be the correct length. He asked me how come I knew that they would fit so I told him that I’d been down to the scrapyard. I said that in my opinion scrapyards these days are really sad, nothing at all like it used to be when you could roam around for ages over acres of abandoned cars. He replied that people don’t just scrap cars like they used to. Nowadays everyone waits until there is just about one month’s tax left on their car and then sell it. I replied that they must be ending up in the scrapyard after that one month. He answered that the only thing he knew was that his friend bought a big 3.5 Rover for £3500. All he knew was that when his friend came to sell it he asked him (Zero’s father) if he wanted to buy it to which he answered “no” so that was the last that he heard of it. Of course this dream ended a long time before I reached the house to see Zero

Back in that dream later on, I know that it had been Zero’s birthday recently so when the first part of the dream ended I began to think of things that I had around the house or apartment that I could pick up and take with me to give to her but that was how strange this dream was.

In the past I used to have hours of endless fun roaming around scrapyards, bringing back all kinds of useful bits and pieces. Opel Corsa fuseboxes made good control panels for solar arrays, Renault Clio clocks made good timers, loads of different things over the years. And if you were ever short of money you’d go armed with a screwdriver and a couple of spanners, take out the back seats and you’d be surprised at how much money you could collect in a really short time that had fallen out of people’s pockets over the years.

But can you believe it? Not once, but twice I was on my way to see Zero but both times I failed to arrive. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … there is definitely something working in my subconscious that is preventing me from ending up with one of these lovely girls in my arms. We’ve seen it happen so many times now that something or other has gone wrong or someone, usually a member of my family, has come along to put the spanner in the works

As for Zero herself, it’s been years since I saw her and I wonder what she’s doing now. Of course, I have an image in my head of how I think she would be now. And so no-one was more surprised than me when a girl, the exact image of how I imagined Zero to be at the time, walked into a coffee bar in Brussels one afternoon where I was sitting. I was so taken aback that I dropped my coffee cup.

Isabelle the Nurse was late this morning. It’s no surprise, because I have heard of several people who are refusing to have their blood tests and so on done by her oppo and they are all waiting for her to come back on duty.

While she was here, I told her about my appointments in January and she told me that she’d make a note.

After she left I made my breakfast and carried on reading this archaeological report on the excavation of this Gallo-Roman farm near Chartres.

It’s really quite interesting because not only am I learning a lot about the farm, I’m learning a lot of new vocabulary too, and that’s no bad things. There’s a lot that I don’t know in the realm of architecture and building and the easiest way to learn it is to pore over a document like this.

The farm itself is but a few miles from Chartres and the current way of thinking so far is that it was abandoned after Chartres lost its role as a regional capital to the city of Orleans in about 330AD and many people moved from Chartres to Orleans, leading to a decrease in the demand for food in Chartres.

Back in here I finished off my Welsh homework and sent it off. I had it back a short while later marked “brilliant. Keep on going!” which was very nice of my tutor.

Meanwhile, I was making my Christmas cake. It was so complicated and took so long that it didn’t go into the oven until 12:30

Mixing it in the food processor was definitely an improvement on last year. It did a really good job. And lining the cake tin with baking paper seemed to work too.

Just over four hours on a low heat it took to bake and it definitely looks and tastes the part. I have been warned about opening the mould while it’s still warm so I left it in the oven to slowly cool down and the mould won’t be opened until the morning.

From then on, the cake will be cooling in the fridge ready for marzipanning and icing.

My loyal cleaner turned up with the marzipan and icing sugar, bless her, so it’s all systems go. If anyone has a good recipe for Christmas cake icing, let me know.

I’m waiting now for my next LeClerc order because there are a couple of rolls of puff pastry in there. I’m going to make some mince pies at the weekend. So if LeClerc run out of pastry before my order comes, it will be mince pies in ordinary home-made pastry.

After lunch I rang up Paris and told them about the arrangements that I’ve made for my visit.

In fact, I only made it as far as "at the Dialysis Clinic they were doing their planning for January and it seems that Doctor — hasn’t been in touch with them yet …"
And the secretary interrupted me with an "ohh mince!!"

So now I’ve briefed her on the plans, I hope that she remembers this time to contact them and to send me the summons so that I can sort out the taxis.

The rest of the afternoon has been spent dealing with the radio programme that I started on Friday. All of the text is now written but I’m going to review it because it’s like the one that will be broadcast on 3rd January – it’s so complicated that it needs to be read over and amended several times before I’ll be happy with it..

Tea tonight was a taco roll with stuffing, rice and veg followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. Lovely as usual, and there’s plenty of stuffing left over for the leftover curry tomorrow. I need to make some naan dough too. Can’t do without my naan bread.

So tomorrow it’s shower day, washing day and a good cleaning day, ready to see Emilie the Cute Consultant on Thursday if I’m lucky

But while we’re on the subject of cricket … "well, one of us is" – ed … never mind “Johnno and Aggers” and the ‘leg over’ story, my favourite surely has to be the Australian cricketer whose name I forget who came back to the pavilion halfway through the match
He was interviewed by a radio commentator who asked him "how were you out?"
"I was caught having a slash outside the off stump" he replied, not realising that British and Australian slang are two totally different beasts.

Monday 16th December 2024 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… the session at the Dialysis Centre this afternoon was almost totally painless. I don’t understand that at all

Added to that, I was lucky enough to have had a visit from Emilie the Cute Consultant. She came to see how I was and if I needed anything. Anything medical, that is.

Mind you, whatever rift we have had hasn’t healed quite yet because our chat was quickly business and she didn’t say “goodbye” as she left. It’s fair to say that she doesn’t love me any more, and that’s sad, especially after our cosy chats in the Summer with her perched on the edge of my bed, spending hours discussing nothing in particular.

What else that doesn’t happen any more is me being in bed at a reasonable time. Once more, it was long after midnight when I crawled into my stinking pit but as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … much as I would like to be in bed before 23:00, I’ve given up rushing and am now taking things easy. I’ll go to bed at whatever time I happen to finish.

Once in bed though, it didn’t take long to go to sleep and there I stayed, dead to the World, until the alarm went off at 07:00.

BILLY COTTON’S DULCET TONES aroused me from my slumbers and I staggered off into the bathroom to prepare myself for the ordeal

As well as a good wash, I had a shave and then washed my undies ready for Wednesday when I hope to have another shower and make myself all nice and clean. These showers are not very convenient only once per week. When I have the apartment downstairs and the shower is all nicely installed, I’ll be having a shower every Dialysis morning, and probably a few more besides

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. To my surprise and disappointment, there was nothing on there this morning but I have vague memories of being a singer/songwriter being at some kind of concert, or going to play at some kind of concert. We had to arrive at a certain time and camping was very sauvage in a field. When I arrived there was already a mobile home with someone and a tent from someone else. There were some restrictions on what you can play – you couldn’t play anything that anyone else was going to play etc. That’s really all that I remember of that.

Pretty much similar to what happens at the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival in Fredericton. Camping is on the National Park out by the reservoir and although the pitches are pretty well set out, it’s still quite wild camping and every now and again a deer or a raccoon scurries across your path.

But not as wild as that camping ground in Upstate Maine where I stayed one night, where everyone was told to make sure that all their food is kept well inside their vehicle as the bears that roam through the place at night will otherwise steal it. As the Park Ranger explained to me, "there’s a considerable overlap of intelligence between the smartest of bears and the dumbest of tourists, and we have them both here"

In the wild of course, you’d throw a rope over a branch, tie your sack of provisions to one end of the rope and then pull the sack up aloft, out of reach of the bear.

It’s certainly though a case of “disappointment” that there’s nothing on the dictaphone. Something else that I’ve said before … "and also on many occasions too" – ed … is that the only excitement that I have these days is what goes on during the night.

The nurse was early again and didn’t say much. He’s probably still smarting from yesterday. He was in and out in five minutes, which suits me fine, and then I could carry on with something more exciting.

Like making my breakfast and reading my book. It’s the story of the accidental discovery of a Roman … "Gallo-Roman! GRRRR!" – ed … building on a field, which led to an archaeological investigation that uncovered a farm dating from the 1st Century BC to the 4th Century AD

At the moment they are digging down and have uncovered a cellar with the steps that go down to it

The site isn’t as rich in artefacts as any site in the UK. That’s mainly because there never was the dramatic rupture of private life of the inhabitants as there was in the UK with the arrival of the Saxons, then the Danes, then the Normans.

Anyone abandoning the site in France generally had time to pack up and take his possessions with him, or if not, come back and fetch them when the emergency was over. In the UK, the arrival of the barbarians led to wholesale destruction and massacre, with nothing left worth taking and no-one left alive to take it anyway.

It’s the difference between “orderly evacuation of a site” and “panic-stricken flight”.

Back in here I carried on with my Welsh homework, but it wasn’t finished when my cleaner came to fit my anaesthetic patches. I’m leaving early today to go to the hospital.

The taxi came, driven by a very taciturn driver, and what he lacked in conversation he made up with speed and we had one of the quickest trips that I have ever had down to Avranches.

He pushed me in a wheelchair to the X-Ray Department and there he left me, although he may as well have waited because I was in and out before he’d probably had time to find his way out of the building.

Armed with some pretty impressive photos of my foot, I waited for the next taxi to arrive, and a very pleasant woman took me over the road to the Dialysis Centre.

For a change I didn’t have to wait long to be seen, and the plugging in was almost totally painless. I had the usual crash out once the machine started and then everything went OK.

As I said earlier, Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me but our conversation was on a professional level. The two of us, and Anaïs who seemed to be the nurses’ shift leader, had a chat about my forthcoming trip to Paris and they could indeed, exceptionally, fit me in on the Wednesday morning beforehand.

That’s quite inconvenient, but it can’t be helped, I suppose. And I thought that I’d better arrange it and tell Paris what I’d done rather than leave it to them and find that they have forgotten to do it.

As for reading matter, I came across a book about infamous Cheshire personalities. And to my surprise, I’m not in it. But the author is an unashamed and unrepentant fan of that politician who was called A LIAR AND A CHEAT by the Grauniad and never ever went through with his promise to them for libel, something that led many people to wonder what might come out in evidence if he actually did take the paper to Court, and why might he be afraid of it so doing.

He champions several other Cheshire people who were caught up in various allegations of sleaze and dishonesty, and one thing that all these people had in common was that they were all members of the Conservative Party when he wrote his book.

Most of them have by today though been found even too extreme for even the current batch of Tory politicians and have been pushed out to the Fascists where they belong. But I digress. These pages aren’t about politics.

When the time came I was uncoupled, and clutching the Christmas present that the Dialysis Centre gave to each one of us, I headed out to the taxi that was already waiting.

The run back home was quick and I was soon back in the warmth of my lovely apartment.

Tea tonight was a delicious stuffed pepper with pasta in tomato sauce, followed by ginger cake and soya dessert.

Tomorrow there’s no Welsh lesson, but I have homework to finish and then I’m baking my Christmas cake. I can’t believe how quickly Christmas has come. It has taken me by surprise and I’m nothing like ready. But this evening I installed my strings of lights in the windows here and they look quite nice, seen from the street.

Before I go to bed, on the subject of professional behaviour, at the hospital today I overheard two doctors conversing
"Didn’t I see you last night" said one "in the company of Madame X, the notorious local prostitute?"
"I’m afraid that you did" replied the other. "But you needn’t worry. It was for purely professional reasons"
"I don’t doubt you for a moment" answered the first. "The question simply is, were the reasons concerned with your profession or hers?"

Tuesday 10th December 2024 – I THINK THAT …

… I must have an araignée au plafond, the way that things are turning out.

There I was, early this morning, thinking that I have sufficient supplies to postpone my next LeClerc delivery until the next weekend.

Then I realised that there would only be a handful of days from then until Christmas.

And then I was thinking “Jeezus H Goddam Bleeding Chri…..estttt” – I have Christmas Cake and Mince Pies to make and I haven’t even begun to think about the Christmas Cake yet, and there’s only two weeks to go!

Yes, I’ve not had my usual reminder, have I? And you know what my memory and my awareness is like!

And it was early this morning too, because when the alarm went off at 07:00, I was already up and about, sitting at my desk working.

Just for a change last night, I was in bed before 23:00. Only just, it has to be said, but even so it’s still worth noting. and I was so tired that I fell asleep almost instantly.

Nothing whatever disturbed me and I slept right the way through until all of … errr … 05:20 when something outside awoke me. No idea what it was but I couldn’t go back to sleep so round about 06:20 I gave it up as a bad job and left the bed.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up and then went into the kitchen for a drink and to take my medicine

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was back driving taxis around Crewe again last night. It was a wet, rainy winter night and we were quite busy. I had two girls driving on the shift with me. I was running around quite well. I went to pick up a fare at one of the clubs. There was a meeting there just turning out and there were loads of people there. One couple were friends of mine and they asked me if I could sort them a taxi. I radioed into base and arranged for someone to go to pick them up. I carried on driving, and at one stage someone paid me £5:00 so I had that on top of the pile with a piece of paper over it. I carried on driving through the night and came back home again when the shift was finished. The two girls were in there cashing up. I noticed from the sheets that the passengers who had asked me to find them someone had not only been picked up by one of these girls but a return journey back home had taken place too. I thought that that was a pretty good trip. We were just sorting through a few things and it turned out that some young boy from the hospital had not been entered into the sheets. He’d started today and as a result someone was really late going for him and really late picking him up. It ended up with the police coming round to find out about what was going on. They had three particular complaints with which to deal about this. Of course I had to try to think about how this might have happened and what we were going to do about it for the future

These days I seem to be spending a lot of time driving taxis during the night. The last time I actually drove one for real was in 1989 but then in Brussels I spent until 2004 driving my boss around in a limousine. Early retirement at 50 was offered and as I couldn’t see myself driving a C15 around Brussels delivering the office mail (we were taken out of the front line at 50) I took what was on offer and headed off for pastures new. Even so, I still find it hard to understand why I seem to spend so much of my sleeping hours behind the wheel of a taxi.

Plenty of time before the nurse arrives so I spent it working on my Jersey page but I didn’t go very far because he was early today

There were the usual patronising remarks that really irritate me but he was soon gone and I could go to prepare my breakfast.

And to read ISAAC WELD’S BOOK too.

He’s continuing his stay with the First-Nation people and is pouring out his thoughtful observations, many of which have yet to come into the common consciousness of some people even today.

He tells us inter alia that "Le P. Charlevoix observes, that the Indians seem to him to possess many personal advantages over us; their senses, in particular, he thinks much finer than ours"

He also says that "the Indians have most retentive memories ; they will preserve to their deaths a recollection of any place they have once passed through; they never forget a face that they have attentively observed but for a few seconds ; at the end of many years they will repeat every sentence of the speeches that have been delivered by different individuals in a public assembly; and has any speech been made in the council house of the nation, particularly deserving of remembrance, it will be handed down with the utmost accuracy from one generation to another, though perfectly ignorant of the use of hieroglyphicks and letters"

On the subject of their memory and power of recall he tells us "A party of Indians that were passing on to some of the seaports on the Atlantic … were observed, ail on a sudden to quit the straight road by which they were proceeding, and without asking any questions to strike through the woods in a direct line to one of these graves, which lay at the distance of some miles from the road. Now very near a century must have passed over since the part of Virginia, in which this grave was situated had been inhabited by Indians; and these Indian travellers, who went to visit it by themselves, had, unquestionably, never been in that part of the country before; they must have found their way to it simply from the description of its situation that had been handed down to them by tradition."

This part of the book is probably the most interesting, not only because if talks so much about the lifestyle and behaviour of the First-Nation and Native American people, but also because he pulls no punches in his criticism of the Europeans who have corrupted the morals of the native people.

Back in here I revised my Welsh and then went to the lesson. Today, it was rather like the curate’s egg – “good and bad in parts”.

After lunch I decided that it was time for direct action.

First thing that I did was to make some dough for bread as I have now run out

Second, and most important thing, was to check the supplies for making my Christmas Cake.

Having decided that I have almost everything, I sorted out all of the dried fruit and put it in to soak. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in the Bulk Barn in Fredericton two years ago I found some brandy essence and rum essence. It’s not available here as everyone uses the real stuff, so I loaded up and brought it back in my suitcase. I made a marinade with some of it, mixed with vanilla and orange essence and water, poured it over the fruit, mixed it in and it’s now in the fridge soaking.

Next Tuesday I’ll have to bake my cake. Last year I left my dried fruit marinating for a month, so I wonder if a week is going to be good enough

As for marzipan and icing sugar, I shall have to rely on my faithful cleaner at the shops next Tuesday morning. What a state to be in, hey?

My dough rose really well today, which was good news, and it cooked well in the air fryer. What I’m doing now is baking it just halfway and then turning it over for the other half. That seems to do the trick. All I need to do is to work out how to turn a cake over in mid-bake.

After the hot chocolate I came back in here and chose the music for the next radio programme, paired it off and segued it. Tomorrow I’ll write the notes for it, but I have a lot going on so I’ll see where I fetch up.

On the subject of my moaning about this stabbing pain, I’ve been summoned next Monday to the Imagerie Department of the hospital. No idea what they are going to X-Ray but I hope that it’s for this foot. It’s not unlikely that they may find something that is the cause of these mobility issues that I have. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Another thing that I have done is to address an e-mail to the agents of this building, about the defective handrail outside my door. After all, I don’t want to go head-over-heels down the stairs and me casser à la margoulette

Tea tonight was a lovely taco roll with rice and veg, followed by vegan ginger cake and soya dessert. Yet another simple but delicious meal. I definitely eat quite well around here.

So now I’m off to bed ready for a good start tomorrow, fighting fit and full of beans – I don’t think.

But while we’re on the subject of Native American memory and recall … "well, one of us is" – ed … Isaac Weld has first-hand experience of that.
At the start of his journey, he landed in Philadelphia where he was first informed of this ability, so he decided to put it to the test. He asked the first native American he met "what did you have for breakfast on the day that the Revolutionary War broke out 18 years ago?"
"Eggs" replied the Native American
So, suitably impressed, Weld set off on his marathon journey and for three years he travelled around the Continent of North America.
Back in Philadelphia three years later, he went to find his ship to go back to Ireland, and there standing on the quayside was a group of Native Americans.
Being friendly, Weld went up to them, raised his right hand in salute and said "how?" in greeting, like you do
One of the natives replied "scrambled"

Monday 9th December 2024 – THIS TOWN IS …

… slowly waking up to face the destruction that took place during the weekend. Winds gusting up to 160 kph, with an average 24-hour speed of 102 kph, have caused devastation and in a lovely, ironic turn of phrase, the local newspaper reports that "le chantier de la place de Gaulle ressemblait à un lendemain de carnaval. " – “the construction site in the Place de Gaulle looks like the day after the Carnival”

Apart from signs blown down onto cars, flower pots, slates and aerials everywhere and 16,000 houses that at one moment or another with their electricity cut off, there was the roof of a garden shed making a bid for freedom along one of the streets up here on the Pointe du Roc and we nearly collided with it on the way to dialysis.

Trains won’t be running for a few days as there are trees down everywhere and all kinds of damage to the railway installations.

"Malgré tout, " the local newspaper continues "d’intrépides randonneurs et joggers arpentaient le bord de mer dimanche matin, au risque de se faire heurter par un objet volant pas toujours identifié" – “despite everything, some brave walkers and joggers went to the edge of the sea for a look around on Sunday morning, risking being hit by ‘an unidentified flying object'”

By the time that I went to bed last night, late again as usual, the wind had died down somewhat. There was still quite a bit of noise but it didn’t bother me one bit. Once I was curled up, head and all, underneath the quilt, I didn’t feel a thing. It was totally painless.

When the alarm went off I was still miles away from everything and it was quite a haul to drag myself out of bed before the next alarm. But once I was up, I staggered off to the bathroom to make myself ready for the day.

Leaving the bathroom I went into the kitchen for my drink and medication, remembering not to take the medication that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day.

As an aside, I can take my medication prior to the arrival of the nurse because all blood tests these days are done at the Dialysis Clinic and it doesn’t seem to matter a jot whether I have or haven’t eaten.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, and to my disappointment the dictaphone was blank. That’s really sad because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only excitement that I have these days is whatever goes on during the night.

When Isabelle the Nurse came we had a good chat about the storm and the damage. But she’s going off now for her week of rest to wrap Christmas presents. I don’t think that I have any to wrap.

After she left I made breakfast and carried on reading ISAAC WELD’S BOOK.

Weld is now firmly esconced with the First-Nation peoples and his remarks à propos the American settlers of European descent are becoming more and more warm. I should perhaps mention that “Native American” is the term preferred by those people who were happily settled in what is today the USA before the arrival of the white man. In Canada, the preferred term is “First-Nation”. And when I mention “European”, what I imply by that term is for people whose ethnic origin is predominantly European, even if some of their ancestors might have been on the shores of Massachusetts to greet the arrival of the Mayflower.

Anyway, Weld holds no punches back in his discussion of the American settlers of European descent . "A large portion of the back settlers, living upon the Indian frontiers, are, according to the best of my information, far greater savages than the Indians themselves. It is nothing uncommon, I’am told, to see hung up in their chimney corners, or nailed against the door of their habitations, similarly to the ears or brush of a fox, the scalps which they have themselves tom from the heads of the Indians whom they have shot; and in numberless publications in the United States, I have read accounts, of-their having flayed the Indians, and employed -their skins as they would have done those of a wild beast, for whatever purpose they could be applied to. An Indian is considered by them as nothing; better than a destructive ravenous wild beast, without reason, without a soul, that ought to be hunted down like a wolf wherever it makes its appearance,; and indeed, even amongst the bettermost sort of the inhabitants of the western country, the most illiberal notions are entertained respecting these unfortunate people, and arguments for their banishment, or rather extirpation, are adopted, equally contrary to justice and to humanity."

He goes on to say "O Americans ! shall we praise your justice and your love of liberty… ? Shall we commend your moderation, when we see ye eager to gain fresh possessions, whilst ye have yet millions of acres within your own territories unoccupied ? Shall we reverence your regard for the rights of human nature, when we see ye bent upon banishing the poor Indian from the land where rest the bones of his ancestors, to him more precious than your cold hearts can imagine; and when we see ye tyrannizing over the hapless African, because nature has stamped upon him a complexion different from your own?"

It’s probably just as well that he didn’t live to see such atrocities as Sand Creek and Wounded Knee, never mind the current treatment of the ethnic minorities in the USA.

Back in here I had things to do and then I did some of my Welsh homework. And I can’t believe how much I’ve forgotten from what I learned last Tuesday. I really wish that someone could do something about my teflon brain.

My cleaner came along as usual to fit my anaesthetic patches and then I had to wait an age for the taxi to arrive. Once more, we were three passengers, all going to different places in South-West Manche, and I had a nice little chat with the little old lady sitting with me in the back.

At the Dialysis Clinic I was last to arrive so I was last to be wired in, and for a change none of it hurt. That was a surprise. However, once the effect of the anaesthetic wore off, then I knew all about it.

While I was there, I read my Welsh and then started to read THE BOOK ON THIS FRENCH SERIAL KILLER.

It’s quite well-written, and draws on a lot of the evidence that was introduced at his trial. And it includes a lovely phrase that I shall remember and use at every possible opportunity – il a une araignée au plafond – “he has a spider on the ceiling”, meaning someone who doesn’t have both paddles in the water.

The doctor came to see me today too – the one who has little interest in his profession. And we went through the same performance about the pain in my foot that we have had on several previous occasions.

While he was with me I asked about the arrangement for my trip to Paris, but he’d lost interest a long time before that point. He doesn’t listen to anything anyone tells him – he just answers what he thinks that he hears and then wanders off out of earshot before you can correct him.

Of course, being stuck in a bed with a series of pipes and tubes plugged in, you can’t run after him and slosh him one. If you could, I’d be making sure that he understood what I was trying to tell him by using Morse Code by the medium of a wooden mallet on his skull.

Last in, and last plugged in, means also that I am last out. And so it was. And then I had to wait for an age until the taxi came. It was 19.05 by the time that I returned home to my faithful cleaner.

Tea tonight was a delicious stuffed pepper with pasta and veg followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. And now I’m off to bed, ready to Fight The Good Fight in my Welsh class tomorrow.

But the reason why the doctor is in such a bad mood is because he’s still smarting over being fired from the fertility clinic.
One of his patients came in and asked him "have my test results come back, doctor?"
"They have indeed" he replied "and I have some good news for you, Madame DuPont"
"It’s Mamzelle DuPont actually, doctor" she said
"In that case, Mamzelle Dupont" he replied "I have some bad news for you."

EPIC HALL

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