Tag Archives: bad night

Thursday 18th December 2025 – FOR THE THIRD …

… time in three days, I’ve woken up at some ungodly hour in the morning. Once more, I didn’t look to see what time it was but the good thing about this one this time was that after an hour or so, I managed to go back to sleep.

In fact, yesterday evening was a carbon copy of the previous evening. Despite a good start to writing the notes, I dillied and dallied trying to find the motivation to work, and by the time that I’d finished everything, I was exhausted and crashed out once more on my chair here in the office.

Consequently, by the time that I’d sorted myself out in the bathroom and come back in here, it was after 23:30 and I slid gratefully into bed, ready for a good sleep. So much for wishful thinking.

As I mentioned earlier, I’d woken at some point but eventually managed to go back to sleep until the alarm went off.

And here, I was a miserable failure. When the first alarm sounded, I awoke quite quickly, but I must have immediately gone back to sleep because when the second one rang, I was still under the covers in bed.

Eventually, I managed to drag myself into the bathroom for a good wash and brush-up, and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant at dialysis later. And then into the kitchen for the hot ginger, honey and lemon drink and the medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We were at work, preparing for the Christmas holidays so everything was rather relaxed and we were light-heartedly fooling around a little. Someone had found some kind of airgun that would plant some kind of object onto clothes, etc. They were using it to shoot at things, people, etc. It was one of my sisters, in fact. She and her friend went upstairs to another office. I’d been taking no real attention to this while it had been going on but later on, I happened to look at one of the feet of STRAWBERRY MOOSE and found that he had one of these embedded in his feet. I said that I’d have a word with her about it. I went to find the ‘phone sheet with people’s names on it but there was so much rubbish, with papers and newspapers all over my desk and the more that I looked, the worse it was becoming, as I couldn’t find this piece of paper anywhere. One of the women told me – she said “you’d better watch out because the deputy headmaster is in there with them now”. I carried on searching anyway and I was coming across tonnes of papers that I never knew that I had that I could do with taking home and sorting. Then someone knocked on my window and made a gesture as if they were going. I thought “well, it’s still a couple of days yet to the holidays, so they can’t be going yet, surely?”. However, a minute or two later when I looked, she was quite a way off down the road, so maybe she had had permission to finish so much earlier; I don’t know.

So I’m back at work then. I thought that I’d retired a week or two ago. But it seems that I’m becoming confused, what with the office and the deputy headmaster. Still, it’s quite easy for me to become confused at the best of times. It’s also nice to see His Nibs making an appearance, even if he has just been shot in the hoof.

The nurse turned up as usual and sorted out my feet. He didn’t stay long so I could concentrate on making breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

Our author is still struggling with his siting of several Roman camps on Iter XII of the Itinerarium Provinciarum Antoni Augusti. He states quite categorically that "no traces of Roman stations are known at Loughor, Neath, or near Cowbridge". Although he notes that the distance given from Burrium (modern-day Usk) to Gobannium corresponds with the distance to Abergavenny, "The indications of a Roman road on to Abergavenny are only a few short lengths of boundary along the present road, and no Roman remains are known at Abergavenny. "

Modern research has revealed some quite substantial Roman remains at “Loughor, Neath, or near Cowbridge” that leave no doubt that these were major Roman camps, and construction work in modern times has revealed substantial remains of a large Roman settlement underneath what is today the town centre of Abergavenny.

After breakfast, I came back in here to start work. There were some things to do, and then I carried on with the next radio programme. I don’t know where this fit of energy has come from, but I managed to choose the rest of the tracks, edit, pair and segue everything, and then write the notes for most of it.

It’s a shame that there aren’t many more days like this. I could certainly do with them.

My faithful cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic, and just after she left, the taxi turned up, twenty-five minutes early. It was a struggle to reach the car, what with the howling gale raging all around outside and I needed help to walk to the road And being early away didn’t help much because we had two other people to pick up.

We were the same time as usual arriving at dialysis and I was seen quite quickly. Once I was plugged in, I was left pretty much alone, which suits me fine. I checked on the news and then revised my Welsh, even though we don’t have a lesson for three weeks.

One of my favourite drivers, the chatty one from the other day, brought me home, but via a circuitous route to pick up and drop off someone else along the way.

The howling gale had increased in intensity while I’d been away so I was dropped off at the back door. The car can pull up right to the door there, so there’s much less distance to walk in the wind and I feel much more secure if I’m dropped there.

My cleaner helped me in and sorted me out, and then after she had left, I made tea. It was a mushroom risotto made with all fresh ingredients, and I should really have enjoyed it but about half of it ended up in the waste bin. I really was in no mood, and I don’t know why.

The fruitcake and soya dessert were delicious though.

So having fallen asleep three times already while typing out my notes, I’m off to bed to see what happens tonight.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Roman remains in Abergavenny … "well, one of us has" – ed … I read an article that claims that Abergavenny museum "has a stunning array of Roman urns"
When I mentioned it to someone today, they asked me "what’s a Roman urn?"
Without thinking, I replied "about ten denarii a week."

Wednesday 17th December 2025 – JUST LIKE YESTERDAY …

… we had another horrible night, when I was awake at some ridiculous hour.

Don’t ask me what time it was, because I didn’t dare look. I didn’t want to demoralise myself even more than I already am, but judging by how long I remained awake afterwards, it can’t have been any later than yesterday.

It’s difficult to understand why I’ve woken up so early just now. I’ve been really exhausted at the end of the last couple of previous evenings – last night, I crashed out for forty-five minutes as soon as I’d finished writing my notes – and so by rights, I ought to be flat-out until the alarm goes off, as on Sunday morning.

And so, what with my unexpected forty-five minutes away with the fairies, yesterday was another late night, much later than it should have been.

Although I was asleep quite quickly, it wasn’t for long and I was soon awake. And there I lay, just as on the previous morning, tossing and turning, trying to make myself comfortable so that I could go back to sleep again.

It must have worked to some degree because the alarm going off at 06:29 awoke me. I’ve no idea when I fell asleep, but it can’t have been very long beforehand.

As usual, it took a good few minutes to raise myself from the Dead, and then I staggered off into the bathroom for a good scrub up.

After the medication and the hot ginger, lemon and honey drink, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. I was at a football match somewhere in Scotland. When I saw the reports of the game afterwards, I saw that the number of points that each team had gained at that game was 224. I thought that it was a really unusual number so I wondered how they had managed it. I remembered bits about the game but not very much, but most of the action was on the terraces between the spectators, where there were some confrontations. I remember two opposing supporters being frogmarched up to the back of the stand by a group of the other supporters and pinned against the wall there. The thing that really caught my eye about this was, just outside the ground were some tenement flats, and a group of football supporters made a couple of kinds of these human pyramids up against the wall, as high as the fifth floor of these tenements. When someone had climbed up to the top, they could knock on the window and some other young kid living in that tenement could wrestle a window open because it was really tough and climb out, climb back down the human pyramid and go off with his friends. And it wasn’t just once that it happened – it was twice.

Football is another one of those subjects that seems to be recurring quite often in my dreams. The rest of it doesn’t seem to make much sense, but the story of the human pyramid reminded me of a real event in Crewe forty or more years ago when a new “singles disco” opened in the town. There were fifteen guys and just one girl who attended, so we all had visions of the men forming a human pyramid to dance with the girl.

I had a visit from Zero last night. There was a lot of tidying up that needed doing in the basement so I was down there moving all the books around. One box of books fell from the top shelf so I picked it up and threw it back. However, it didn’t land quite correctly – it fell down again. When I picked it up and went to throw it for the second time, I didn’t have the strength. My brother came down with another box of books. I told him to leave it here and I’d throw it onto the top. We began to talk about the work that I was doing down there, which was tidying up the clothes and tidying up the face image gallery. He wondered whether I ought to be doing something else, but I told him that this was what I had been told to do and this was what I was doing. So I was busy trying to sort out these boxes and everything else, and then I decided to spend ten minutes on the clothes. I began to sort them out and move them around and came across some of Roxanne’s dresses. I put them on hangers and hung them up in the cupboard. Just then, Zero came down in this beautiful, gorgeous peacock-blue dress, a kind of formal attire. While I was sorting out these other dresses, I handed a hanger to her to put her dress on. She told me that she wanted to keep on wearing it. I told her that it might be damaged if she’s playing about in it and it will be ruined. She’d be far better off hanging it up. She replied that she’d go to check with her mother. She left and then came back five minutes later while I was still sorting out these dresses and these faces and throwing these boxes of books onto the top and not being able to. She said that her mum had said that she can continue to wear it throughout the evening. In that case, I gave her a peck on the cheek and we carried on talking for a while.

So welcome back, Zero! It’s nice to see you again. I can still see the dress that she was wearing, and it really was lovely. Far too nice to wear as a casual dress. But we actually did find a few of Roxanne’s dresses – her confirmation dress, her bridesmaid’s dress and an evening dress with a jacket – here when we unpacked an old suitcase that had been lying around for ages since the Duysbergh days. There were a couple of her dolls too.

And as usual, someone from my family comes along to spike my guns just when things are becoming interesting.

The nurse turned up as usual this morning. I asked him if he knew of any chiropodists because I have a prescription for one to come here to sort out my feet. He said that there’s one with whom he co-operates, and he’ll put her in touch with me.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

We’re at the Wansdyke in South-West England and he’s going against the prevailing trend at that period, suggesting that the dyke was built after the road, rather than before it, as most people back then thought.

As it happens, he’s probably right, because when part of the dyke was excavated in modern times, they found a couple of late-Roman coins on top of the level of the underlying ground underneath the dyke, indicating that the dyke was built on top of the coins.

He’s still struggling with his forts on one of the Itineraries – trying to locate them somewhere along the southern shore of the Severn whereas today, they have been pretty well identified with places in South Wales.

After breakfast, I came in here where I had things to do, and then I set about writing the notes for the radio programme for which I’d chosen the music the other day.

There were numerous interruptions, such as the disgusting drink break and a telephone call from the chiropodist. She’ll be coming round on 30th December at 10:00, which is good news.

When the notes were finished, I had a letter to write and an order to send off to an online retailer for some more supplies, including the handrails for the shower. I’m hoping to have those fitted in early January so that I can be much more autonomous in the shower. In fact, there are a few things around here that need doing, so I’ll need to contact the guy who installed the kitchen.

With the time that was left, I began to choose the music for another radio programme. I want to try to do two programmes a week now that I’m settled back in here and there’s no chemotherapy or Centre de Ré-education to worry me.

In the end, I only finished about half of that because, as you might expect, I fell asleep for forty minutes on my chair.

Tea tonight was a vegan burger with pasta and veg in a spicy tomato sauce. It should have been with ratatouille, but to my surprise, I found that I’d forgotten to order any tins just now. The fruitcake and soya dessert were nice too.

Right now though, I’m off to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed …. but before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my visit from Zero … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember saying to her how much I missed her.
"I love you terribly" I said
"I know" she replied "but I’m sure that you’re doing your best."

Tuesday 16th December 2025 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… night that was!

The last thing that you expect when you go to bed at 23:30 is to be wide awake again at 02:45, with no possibility whatsoever of going back to sleep.

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t been tired on Monday evening. I was in fact in something of a state when I was typing out my notes and I fell asleep three or four times—on one occasion almost falling off my chair. I was desperate to go to bed.

When I finally did make it into bed, I was asleep quite quickly, but not for long. What was even worse was that it wasn’t a drowsy me lying there in bed but a wide-awake, fully alert me … "within certain limits, of course" – ed … I was even contemplating leaving the bed, but much as I like having these early starts, 02:45 is something of an exaggeration.

So I lay there, watching the clock go round – 03:30, 04:00, 04:30, 05:00 – resolving that at 05:30 I would leave the bed and start to do some work. However, the next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 06:29, so at some point between 05:00 and 05:30 I must have fallen asleep again.

You’ve no idea just how difficult it was to haul myself out of bed at that point. I would have given all that I own, and more besides, to have been able to crawl back in under the covers. But that’s not getting the baby bathed, so in the end I summoned up the strength …

… Or, at least I thought I had, but I couldn’t pull myself up off the bed into an upright position this morning. I mentioned the other day that I noticed yet another problem with my leg, and here we are again this morning. This is going to turn out to be something serious.

Eventually, I made it into the bathroom and had a good scrub and then into the kitchen for my medication and hot ginger, honey and lemon drink. But while I was taking the meds, I was thinking, which I know is dangerous. I’m going to keep a note of when I have these really bad nights and compare them with my dialysis sessions to see whether there is any connection.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, not that there had been much time to go anywhere. We were in the USA last night at the house of some people. There was an American football game on, so we were watching it half-heartedly, although there was one of the classic comedy films on the other channel. I would have much rather watched that, but “when in Rome” and all that. The conversation began to become rather political and began to become somewhat extreme. After a couple of people had left, I said to one of the girls who was staying behind “I hope that those people aren’t going to get into trouble for what they have been saying. I don’t really want that to happen”. She said something like “things aren’t as bad as the media make out”. Then I was looking at some stuff from the university. It turned out that there had been a scandal about the production of some of the documents, so I actually tracked my way down into the university’s intranet system using my old identity and password to find out what was happening. The first thing that I’d noticed was that the system had changed dramatically. It was no longer the free-for-all that it used to be, but it was very closely structured, and there was very little on there that was not to do with studying. The one particular chat group on there was discussing this situation but very obliquely. No-one seemed to be getting down to the serious issues that had taken place, despite how hard I looked, so I posted one or two messages on there, but no-one seemed to respond. Eventually, I found out that it seemed to have been, in the view of one or two people, more of an administrative issue than a question of personal incompetence or something. But then we were deciding that those of us who were remaining were going to paint some furniture. I had a paintbrush in my hand to paint some kind of primer on the wood. When it had all been primed, I went to wash the paintbrush to put on the top coat, but the two sinks in the kitchen were full of dirty water and full of dirty crockery. In the end, I rinsed out the brush in the dirty water. One of the other girls came in. She looked at what I was doing and said “don’t go busting a gut, Eric, will you?”.

Leaving aside my current health situation, there are other reasons too why I won’t be going to the USA any time soon, so this dream is unlikely to repeat itself in real life. However, it’s usually quite true that the media quite often exaggerate and blow up out of all proportion many of the events that take place in the World, but nevertheless, there’s an undercurrent of suppression, oppression and unpleasantness currently unfolding in the Western World and I’m glad that I shan’t be around to see it unfold. I feel sorry for those people younger than me who will have to live through it when it reaches its climax.

As for the dirty sink, that’s just how my style of living used to be before I cleaned up my act – and cleaned up my kitchen.

Another thing that I’d discovered was that in my rush to go to bed last night, I’d forgotten to note the statistics.

The nurse turned up as usual, a big smile on his face. He certainly seems to be a lot happier since he went on his holidays back in the summer. He sorted out my legs, and then I could push on, make breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

We’re poring over Devon at the moment, and he’s making a couple of assumptions about certain Roman forts that he believes to be there, namely Leucarum. and Moridunum, but modern thought is that these places are in South-West Wales, at Llwchwr and Caerfyrddin respectively.

Back in here, I revised my Welsh and then went to the lesson, once I’d remembered to plug in my webcam. We had an informal Christmas party today as we were doing some work, and the atmosphere was quite relaxed. In fact, it was another lesson in which I did very well and it goes to show the benefit of taking some time to revise. Now, if only what I had learned would succeed in staying in my head…

After the lesson, my cleaner put her sooty foot in the door and organised the shower for me. So while she was cleaning the apartment, I was stuck underneath the shower having a good hose down. But it’s certainly true that I’m not as well as I have been. I had one or two uncomfortable moments under there this afternoon.

After she left, I began to choose the music for the next radio programme. And now, that’s all chosen, remixed, edited, paired and segued. That took until about 17:30 or thereabouts, and at that point I couldn’t keep on going any longer. I decided to close my eyes and relax for five minutes.

The next thing that I recalled, it was 19:20. My new office chair is certainly comfortable, and I’m glad about that.

While I was asleep, I was on a coach trip. I’d ushered everyone on board and was looking for a friend of mine, but couldn’t see her. Instead, I found an empty seat so I asked if it would be OK if I were to sit there. It was a young blonde-haired girl and she said “yes”, so I sat down and we drove off. leter on, we came to some kind of halt where a couple of people alighted from the coach. I went round to look at a cylinder head that I was bringing with me, went in to fetch a can of oil, and then squirted some more oil onto the valve gear I then put the oil back. i was going to fetch a cup of coffee so I asked the girl, who was sitting in her seat, if she’d like a coffee. Se siad “yes”, and after much debate, she decided that she would like it with sugar but no milk, and in a large cup. I went and found the coffee, but the coffee was cold so I asked one of the guys behind the till whether there was any objection if I were to make a coffee because I’d missed the coffee from earlier. He asked me whether I could do it from an urn with a spout or would I like him to do it? I said that he could do it. In the meantime, I’d organised two large fibre cups and . One of them already had somehow some coffee in it, but it was cold. I explained that the coffee was cold because I was doing other things, so he went off to make some

Whatever this is all about, I really don’t know. It doesn’t seem to relate to anything at all.

Tea tonight was mashed potato, veg and one of these strange, spicy burgers that I bought a while ago, followed by fruitcake and soya dessert. It seems that I have no trouble eating mashed potato so I had a 5 kg sack delivered the other day. As long as I can eat that with plenty of vegan butter, I’ll be doing OK, I reckon.

But now, I’m off to bed, ready to recover after that wicked night last night. But we shall see how it works out. Things never seem to go to plan when I’m talking about sleeping.

But before we go, seeing as we have been talking about Welsh and that untidy kitchen … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a friend of mine from Chester who married a Welsh girl.
He told her "the secret of a happy marriage and a happy home life is to have a happy husband. And what makes me happy is coming home to a kiss and a cuddle, my slippers waiting by the fireside, a hot mug of coffee and a nice tidy house instead of this mess in which we seem to be living right now."
For the first two days, he didn’t see any improvement. However, on the third day, things were a little different. The swelling began to go down and he could open his right eye a little.

Wednesday 10th December 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… visitors around today.

Or, rather, visitor. One of the other inhabitants rang me up to see if I was in. When I told him that I was, he came down for a sociable chat.

That’s what I like about this building. There’s a solidarity among the inhabitants that you don’t seem to find in many other places these days.

Having said that, I wish that I could have found some solidarity during the night to rock me back to sleep when I awoke unexpectedly.

Last night, I hadn’t rushed very quickly through the things that I needed to do. It was round about 23:30 when I finally went to bed, in some kind of hope that, after the turbulent times the previous night, I might at least manage seven hours sleep before the alarm were to go off.

That was why I was so disappointed when I awoke at … errr … 00:15. I’d hardly had time to go off to sleep. What was worse was that I couldn’t go back to sleep. I lay there, vegetating, for a whole four hours until in the end I was totally fed up.

At that point, about 05:10, I decided that I may as well take advantage of the early start, so I heaved myself out of bed. I wrote the notes for the two tracks that will join the first of the two radio programmes that I had been preparing.

Having written them, I dictated them, edited them and then assembled the programme. By the time that the alarm should have gone off (I’d switched it off when I left the bed), the programme was up and running at exactly the right length after some judicious editing.

After that, I went into the bathroom and sorted myself out and then into the kitchen to make my hot ginger, honey and lemon drink and to take my medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. My mother was in some kind of a kitchen somewhere to do with cookery. We kids were waiting outside to hear the results. While I was looking out of the window, I noticed a second-hand car site at the side of the hotel where we were. One of the vehicles that they had on the forecourt was a turquoise and white Ford Corsair estate. It looked beautiful, so I said to my mother that if she wins, I’ve seen the car that we should have, and we can all go away. However, she didn’t seem to be all that interested. Later on, I was out in my van and came to a weird junction where you had to cross over an island to reach the other side to turn left. On this island was a load of tram tracks. As I was approaching this island, some young kid on a pair of roller skates came roaring down the hill. I could see that this kid was going to turn in front of me where the tram tracks were. Once I was sure that that was the way in which he was going, I put my foot on the brakes of the van, but he saw me, panicked and fell over. I leaned out of the van to ask him if he was OK, but he picked himself up – and fell over again. At that moment, an ambulance appeared, picked up the boy and disappeared. I saw the boy’s photo many years later in an ancient news report. But while I was in the hotel with my mother and was moving around, I noticed that I wasn’t using my crutches, so I happened to mention it to her. Later on still, I was out for a walk around the park. When we reached the far end, there was a wire across the entrance and you had to climb over or climb under it. I reached the entrance and threw my front leg over it, pulled my rear leg up behind me, but of course it couldn’t go very far and I became tangled in the wire. All of the local passers-by had to help me untangle myself and then I could move on. It was the most memorable Christmas that I’d had, this particular one at that time

My mother being in a cookery competition would be a surprise to anyone who had eaten a meal at our house in the past. I shan’t go into detail because it brings back far too many unhappy memories of what she used to serve up. However, I do remember that it was because of her cooking that my brother and I began to experiment with baking cakes.

We also used to have a second-hand car sales yard across the road from where we lived in Davenport Avenue. On one occasion it had a Ford Corsair 1500 GT for sale, a dark red saloon, and how I used to admire it.and wish that I had the £195 to buy it. The Corsairs were beautiful cars, but not as nice as the Ford Classic, which was probably the most beautiful British car to ever grace the roads.

As for what the boy on the roller skates was doing, I have no idea. He doesn’t seem to fit in at all. The bit about being tangled up in a fence would probably be par for the course if I were to try to climb over a fence in my present state, and once again, we’re going places without our crutches.

Isabelle the Nurse came along as usual, and we had a discussion about the ‘flu jab and the Covid booster that I’m supposed to have. She’ll do the ‘flu jab with no problems (the injection is actually in my fridge even as we speak) provided that the dialysis centre says that I’m healthy enough.

The Covid injection is a different matter. The wholesale injections only come in packs of six, so she needs five more patients to sign up before she can order a packet. However, she assures me that I’m on the waiting list.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

Today, we’re supposed to be strolling down Akeman Street but as usual, I’ve been sidetracked elsewhere. Back into the Scottish borders, in fact.

A chance remark led me to look for the Roman fort of Bremenium in Northumberland and the chance remark that "across the stream is the site of a temporary marching camp". Of course, I had to go for a look, and it was WELL WORTH THE VISIT .

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few days ago, we talked about the collection of different Roman camps at Chew Green. There’s mention of a road from Bremenium to Chew Green with a large Roman camp halfway along the road. Once more, I went for a wander around. So HERE’S ANOTHER ONE to add to your collection.

After breakfast, I had plenty of things to do, but I was interrupted by the arrival of my neighbour.

It’s very nice to see people, that’s for sure, and neighbours even more so. I made coffee for us and we had a good chat about this and that, which was nice. He stayed for about half an hour or so and as he left, I told him that he was welcome to come anytime. I know that I’m not the most sociable of people but I have to make an effort.

Back in here, I made a start on editing the recording for the next radio programme. However, I knocked off at some point to go to make a cake.

In the end, I decided on a fruit cake. I have plenty of sultanas and there were some figs left over from the Christmas pudding. I diced the figs into small pieces, mixed them with the raisins and than tipped them into a typical cake mix

As I said the other day, I baked it for longer on a lower heat lower down in the oven and it seems to have baked really well. I wish that I knew why the tops of my cakes keep on cracking, though.

Back in here, I finished off editing, assembling the programme, choosing the final track, writing and dictating the notes for that, and then assembling the programme completely. So that’s two radio programmes completed today.

The programme might have been finished earlier too, except that for about half an hour or so, I crashed out. No surprise, seeing how short my night was.

Tea was mashed potato, veggies and a slice of vegan pie, followed by a slice of my delicious fruitcake with chocolate soya sauce.

So dialysis tomorrow, and how I am not looking forward to that. I suppose that I’d better wander off to bed and make the most of what’s left of the night.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my mother’s cooking … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember as a kid watching a film about Dracula and dashing in to tell my father.
"There’s a film on the telly and a man just killed Dracula with a stake."
"That’s nothing" he replied. "Your mother can do that with a plate of egg and chips."

Sunday 7th December 2025 – WHEN I WENT …

… to bed last night, I was looking forward to a really good sleep and a nice lie-in until the nurse arrives and shakes me awake at about 08:45.

And I deserved it too. What with the football running late and my own lack of effort and motivation, it was quite late – long after midnight – when I finally crawled off to bed. It seemed to take an age to finish off everything that needed finishing.

But cruel fate intervened last night, as it so often does. Firstly, it was another one of those nights where it didn’t seem as if I’d been to sleep at all. I just seemed to be lying there in a kind of semi-conscious daze throughout the night.

Secondly, round about 06:00, I was wide-awake and it was totally impossible to go back to sleep, no matter how much I tried. Round about 06:50, I gave it up as a bad job and left the bed.

Being up and about at that time on a Sunday morning, I took full advantage and dictated all of the outstanding radio notes. Unfortunately, not being able to see clearly at that time of the morning, I made something of a mess of them and they will take a good while to sort out.

After the usual visit to the bathroom, I wandered off into the kitchen to make my hot ginger, honey and lemon drink and to take my morning medication, and it was there in the kitchen that the nurse found me.

He was quite upset that I hadn’t taken advantage of the bed, and to be honest, so was I, but it can’t be helped. Anyway, he sorted out my legs and was soon gone.

Once he’d left, I could make my breakfast (including the last of my homemade croissants) and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

Today, he is talking about a road that leads to Berwick-upon-Tweed but notes that "it is between 50 and 60 miles long, and no part of it appears to be mentioned in the Itinerary of Antonine." – the Iter Britanniarum.

Most people these days date the Iter Britanniarum to the reign of Caracalla on the grounds that many of the roads that are described within did not exist in Antonine’s time. So if the Iter Britanniarum really was prepared in the time of Caracalla, this road here must be a really late addition to the road network

He also talks about Chew Green, right on the border between England and Scotland. There, he tells us that "there is a complication of camps. A camp, 330 yards square, is overlapped by another camp, 330 yards by 200 yards, and encloses three smaller camps, one of which, about 110 yards square, is more strongly entrenched than the others. ".

Of course, with a description like that, I had to go for a look. And THIS WAS WHAT I FOUND. It’s another magnificent sight. You’ll see the modern track running from north-northwest to south-southeast. If you look slightly to the west of it, north of the fort with all of the defences, you can make out the track of the Roman road.

Back in here, I had the dictaphone notes to transcribe. And once more, I was surprised at how much there was to transcribe. In this dream, I’d hired a new cleaner. I was showing her around the place and telling her what I would like to have done. I mentioned to her that I had two kittens and they spent a lot of time asleep, and if they were asleep, the best thing to do was to leave them where they are and not touch them. Just let them sleep until they awaken. That was as far as I went into this dream.

God help me if I ever have to hire a new cleaner. I am really lucky with the one whom I have, and I shall be lost without her. Yes, and I would love to have a cat, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed ….

There were three of us, and we were having to trek to this mountain that was in the distance. It was really snowy and a deep winter but we were on our journey. I was the smallest of the three so I was the one at the back while the two others were wading through the snow to make a trail. We passed into a forest and we could see the mountain, ohh, a hundred miles away in the distance, but we continued on our trek. At one point we came across a firefly that was buzzing around in our tracks. We thought that if it is going to report to its maker or whatever, then we would be in difficulty. However, it buzzed around us for a short while and we could push on. We then arrived in Crewe, but by this time, there were two of us and a girl. We climbed down into Earle Street near where Tiko’s used to be, and there was a Native American going past on his horse. We asked him if he ever went out to the Navajo country. He replied that he didn’t. We mentioned something about looking for a guide, but he gave us a very long lecture about white men pushing into his territory, how his people had had enough and how they were going to go on the warpath. This girl made a few comments to him in what was apparently his native language. He listened to her but it didn’t mollify his stance anyway. Later on, we learned that he had in fact gone onto the warpath and was busy devastating the homes and ranches of many settlers out there in what was formerly his hunting ground.

This was like a trek in LORD OF THE RINGS when everyone was going on a quest. But presumably, the Native American has to do with what I was reading the other week.

And then, I was living in Brussels and after all of the money that I’d spent on my kitchen and my nice apartment, my landlord was giving me notice to leave. That was extremely depressing. As it happened, the telephone rang so I had to go out and do some taxi work. At one point, I found myself not too far away from the free newspaper offices where they had all kinds of adverts, so I decided to go there and talk to someone to see what they had for apartments to let. Luckily, there was a parking space outside so I went in. The first thing that the guy asked me for was the number and reference, which I didn’t have. He said that if I hadn’t booked an appointment over the ‘phone, I couldn’t be seen, so I left. I picked up a couple of passengers after that. They wanted to go to various hotels around the city. The first one, I had a rough idea where it was but I almost ended up driving past it. The second one, I managed to drop the people off outside the door, and then I went back for my breakfast. While I was squeezing my lemon, a girl came in. She said something like “that’s my lemon squeezer.” I replied that I thought that it was mine, so we had a discussion about the lemon squeezer. Then, the two people from the hotel came in. I was talking about going back out after I’d had my breakfast, but they were surprised. They didn’t realise that I worked all day. They just thought that I worked an eight-hour shift or something. Then, a couple more people came in. They were musicians on their way to a performance in Germany. They had a video of themselves pulling up at some hotel in Germany and having to unload everything out of the car, including a bike, when it came to going into their room, and how the corridors were so small and winding that they damaged the walls and they damaged their equipment and they damaged their possessions as they found their room. I don’t know if I dictated … "no, you didn’t" – ed … but right at the end of that dream about the hotel and taxiing and Brussels, I was trying to write a note for a friend of mine, asking if she was coming up to see me, to bring me a copy of the “Vlan” and if she could make sure that I had a copy of the “Vlan” every week when it came out.

This ties in with a dream that I had a while ago about living in Brussels and having two apartments. However, I owned both of those. At one time though, I was thinking of fitting out the kitchen upstairs, and I’m glad that I didn’t; otherwise, I would have lost all of my investment when I moved downstairs.

It must have been an interesting discussion, arguing about a lemon squeezer. And here we are, taxiing again. What’s going on here?

Back in my comfortable office chair, there were the highlights of Stranraer v Stirling Albion to watch. And how the score ended up 3-2 to Stranraer, I really don’t know. Stranraer hit the woodwork half a dozen times, had half a dozen shots cleared off the line, and the Stirling Albion keeper was in outstanding form, saving another dozen or so point-blank efforts.

As for Stirling Albion, they had just two shots on target …

After a disgusting drinks break, I began to edit one of the sets of radio notes, but I found a problem – the left-hand track was eight seconds shorter than the right. It seems that it stopped recording for a short while in mid-stream. It took quite a bit of cutting and pasting in order to add exactly the right amount of speech back in and to synchronise it.

There wasn’t much time to do it either, because I had to knock off and make a start on my Christmas pudding. It took all afternoon to prepare it, too. Then I had to steam it for over three hours in a pan of boiling water.

While it was steaming, I made my pizza. And it was another really delicious one. And once again, I could only manage half of it. It’s worrying, actually, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. When I had my appetite, I was eating about two hundred and fifty grammes- worth of base, with all of the associated toppings. These days, I’m managing about eighty grammes of base, less than one-third.

So right now, I’m off to bed. Dialysis tomorrow, and I don’t feel at all like it, but then, that’s par for the course, isn’t it?

But seeing as we have been talking about the Roman camps at Chew Green … "well, one of us has" – ed … during the excavation of the site, they found two skeletons together in the same grave. They were totally undamaged, and there were no weapons or armour among the grave goods.
"It looks as if they didn’t die fighting" said the chief archaeologist. "Not even amongst themselves in their grave."
"Ah well" said his assistant"they haven’t got the guts, have they?"

Saturday 6th December 2025 – MY CHRISTMAS CAKES …

… both are now marzipanned and back in the fridge, waiting for next weekend when I shall ice them. All that remains after that … "all!" – ed … will be to make the Christmas pudding and the mince pies.

And then to hope that my appetite comes back so that I can enjoy them. At the rate that I’m going, though, it’s unlikely. My appetite is still almost non-existent, but I’m doing my best.

Anyway, last night was another late night. Almost midnight, in fact, when I finally climbed into bed. It was a dreadful night too. It seemed almost as if I hadn’t gone to sleep at all, but instead I lay there tossing and turning throughout the night.

When the alarm went off, I was in that no-man’s land of not being asleep but not being awake either. However, I forced myself out of bed before the second alarm and then, at some point, staggered off into the bathroom.

After the medication and the hot ginger, honey and lemon, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And considering that I didn’t think that I’d gone to sleep at all, I was surprised by just how much there was on there.

I was back on the taxis and it had been a really quiet night. We hadn’t done very much so at the end of the night I went to book myself a room in a hotel to stay the night. I walked in, and one of my neighbours from Shavington was there. We had a chat and he asked me how things were. I told him that they weren’t so good at the moment. I dropped one of my crutches and he said “I’ll try to pick it up” but I picked it up instead. For some reason, his hand went onto my chest to try to stop me breathing. I had to tell him a couple of times to stop doing that. He asked me if I was going to look for another driver. I replied that I’d be finishing school in a couple of months so there’s not much point. Then, my girl driver came in. She wanted to cash up everything. She was very concerned about me. She laid all of her things out on the counter at this hotel reception. She asked if my phone would charge up my headphones. I replied “better than that, there’s a slot to listen where you plug in”. We began to chat but then she had a job to go out to do so she said that she’d have to go, but she didn’t really want to go. I replied “you can always stop the night with me”. She replied “well, I have this fare that I have to pick up”. I replied “well, you can always come back later”. She gave me one of these strange looks”.

It beats me why I would want to book a room in a hotel. And as for the neighbour, I’ve not thought about him since probably about 1972 so how come he worked his way into the scene, I don’t know. But we did have some quiet nights at times where we barely turned a wheel and that was what I call boring. I’d much rather be busy than lounging around doing nothing.

It had been a quiet night on the taxis. I hadn’t really done very much so I was thinking about going home to cash up everything and then maybe have an early night for once. Thomas from Peterborough was extremely offended that he would lose his evening’s work but people explained to him that he was a part-time driver and he would have to take what’s happening from the more important people who were planning the work and booking it … fell asleep here … so there I was, waiting for the final whistle and ready to drop down on my side to carry on working again.

This seems to be part of the first dream, with me going off on a tangent again, whoever Thomas from Peterborough is. But the second part of this looks like we’re back to talking football again.

There was some kind of big family group outing going on, and I was part of it on my own. I ended up talking to this married woman who had a daughter. She and her husband were there and the daughter but I was chatting to this woman. We ended up spending an awful lot of time together, so much so that I’m sure that there must have been talk. The daughter took to me too and I actually took her fishing on one occasion while we were on this outing. But then she said at the night as we were all prepared to camp down in this field that she was off fishing with another boy and she’d be back in the morning to see me so we bedded down. In the meantime, these kids were bedded down in this stream and they came across a car that was in the water. One of them opened the door and recoiled in horror, and they ran all the way back to where we were camping. The teacher was busy talking to a group of people about a missing car. These kids came dashing in, they saw this drawing and shouted “this is the car, this is the car”. They explained that they had seen the car in this stream so we all set out. I was with this woman again and we came to where we needed to go down to the bottom in a lift. There were several lifts, and everyone was queueing at one or two, so we went over to the one where no-one was queueing. We pressed the button and the doors opened, and the girl was in there, wrapped up in a sleeping bag asleep with one of her friends. We went down in this lift and as the lift approached the bottom, I shouted, woke these two kids and unzipped them out of their sleeping bag. We made ready to meet the others who were on their way down so that we could walk off to see the car in this stream and point out what was so horrific to the kids.

There’s an interesting story behind this dream too, but the World isn’t ready to hear it yet. I’ve no idea to what the car relates, though

Did I dictate this dream about a girl whom I knew who was a few years younger than me? We used to hang around a lot together … "no you didn’t" – ed …. It came to the time when she was eighteen and was planning on going to university. In the meantime, I’d been working for a few years after leaving school and was thinking of going to university so I’d applied to Aberdeen. My application had gone in and I asked this girl where she was thinking of going. She replied that she didn’t really know but Aberdeen sounded great to her. I asked if she had a prospectus but she said that she hadn’t, but she’d like to find one somewhere. I said that I had one and I asked her “why not come back to my house and we can spend a day or two going through the prospectus?”. Eventually, she agreed. When I arrived back home, this girl had transformed herself into a big spider. My mother hated spiders so she wouldn’t let this one into the house. I picked up a bike and a few camping things and went off to Canada, with the bike, these camping things and the spider. I set out, and while I was cycling around, I was talking to this spider about Aberdeen University. Eventually, I came to a great big kind of tourist attraction. It was really complicated. There was a river there down in the valley but there was also a river there had been partly canalised that was at the level at which we were. It was running over stones and was really rapid here, splashing everyone. There were people fishing, catching some enormous sizes of fish so I decided that I would spend half an hour fishing while this girl finished off making up her mind, and then we could get together and make a decision. However, I couldn’t make my bike stand up. I eventually found a bike park, which was complicated enough to reach, but no matter how I tried, there was too much weight on my bike for it to stand upright. I was having to think about a solution to prop it up somewhere so that I could go off to fish and leave this girl to finalise her decision. There were a couple of people there, married couples who were sitting around, and even they couldn’t help me make this bike stand upright. I was becoming so frustrated about that.

There is a girl to whom this story fits quite well, although at the time the events in the real World were happening, I didn’t realise it. Turning into a spider and cycling to Canada are quite surreal ideas though.

One thing about these dreams though is that it concerns fishing. I’ve only ever been fishing twice in my life, as a young kid, and found it to be one of the most boring “sports” ever. I couldn’t see the point then and it’s even less so today. I can’t understand why, all of a sudden, I’d be thinking of going fishing right now.

The nurse was late today coming round. I reminded him that it’s possible that tomorrow he’ll find me in bed in the morning, so he made a note. And after he finished my legs, he cleared off.

Once he’d gone, I could make breakfast and carry on reading some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN. Today, we’re still across Hadrian’s Wall roaming around Dere Street but as yet, I’ve not found anything of real importance.

After breakfast, I marzipanned my Christmas cakes. My marzipanning technique seems to be improving because it all went together perfectly the first time of trying the first time without any problems at all. I hope that the icing goes as well as this next weekend.

One thing that I miss though is my turntable. When I was building computers twenty-odd years ago, I had a turntable on which I would put them and it saved me hours. If I had had it here and used it for the marzipanning and the icing, I would save hours on those jobs too.

After a disgusting drink break, I had a mini foot-fest, watching the highlights of last night’s games in Wales. And that reminds me – ONE OF THE BEST GOALS YOU ARE EVER LIKELY TO SEE FOR A LONG, LONG TIME are now available. Take a bow, Corey Shephard!

Later on, I wrote the missing notes for another radio programme to be broadcast in the distant future and there was even time to make a start on yet another radio programme. I have to make the most of my freedom these days.

Things could have been so much better and I could have done so much more too except that once again, I fell asleep in the afternoon. For a good hour or so too. I’m really fed up of all of this.

There was more football tonight – the League Cup semi-final between Cambrian United and Y Barri. Cambrian, from the second division and who play their home games in the suburbs of Tonypandy, had the lion’s share of the play but the class of Y Barri showed through. Whatever chances they created, they took them, whereas Cambrian were pretty wasteful.

The score of 0-3 to Y Barri was definitely a flattering scoreline. And I do have to say that near the end, I crashed out a couple of times.

Tea was chips, salad and some of those vegan nuggets that I like. Only a small portion, but even so, I struggled to eat it all.

Right now though, I’m off to bed, hoping for a really good lie-in tomorrow. But we shall see about that.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about cycling to Canada … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of when I was AT THE POINT AMOUR LIGHTHOUSE on my mega-drive around the mountains of Labrador in 2010.
At the lighthouse, I met a woman who stared in disbelief at my small urban-motoring saloon and said, incredulously "have you driven around the Trans-labrador Highway in THAT??? "
"Ohh yes" I replied. "It’s not the car that counts, it’s the driver. And the next time that I come to Canada, I’ll be crossing the Atlantic on a motor-bike!"
The funny thing about this story is that when I told it to a Canadian girl a few years later, she asked "and did you?"
All of which goes to show that, as Kenneth Williams and Alfred Hitchcock once famously said, "it’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners."

Wednesday 26th November 2025 – AND ONCE AGAIN …

… I crashed out in the chair in my office during the late afternoon.

That’s something that I really must stop because it’s really driving me insane, all of this. I’m not managing to complete anything that I set out to do.

Part of it is probably due to the late night that I had. I can’t keep these early nights going for any consistent length of time. By the time that I’d finished everything that I needed to do at the end of the evening and crawled into my nice, clean bed, it was well after 23:30.

Add to that, the fact that for a couple of hours, I was totally unable to go to sleep might also have had something to do with it. I lay there tossing and turning and trying to make myself comfortable, but to no avail.

Eventually though, I must have gone to sleep because I remember waking up. I lay there, half-awake, for a little while and then checked the time. It was 06:28, one minute before the alarm but not before it enough to be able to be sitting upright with my feet on the floor when the alarm went off and claim an early start.

Instead, I just lay there waiting.

Eventually, I managed to force myself out of bed and went off into the bathroom.

Next stop was the kitchen, where I made my hot lemon, honey and ginger drink to wash down my medication. And then back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was with TOTGA and her daughter, her son and her slightly older daughter. We’d all gone to the seaside. TOTGA was sitting there thinking that maybe she would like an ice-cream so daughter and I went for a walk. We had a chat, and it turned out that her elder sister had had some kind of accident a few months ago and it was something that was recurring. When I asked where she was, her sister replied that she was in hospital again and her mother was off doing something else, she didn’t quite know where. We walked along together down the seafront and it began to be cold and rainy somewhat. She pointed to an ice-cream stall halfway up a set of steps so we climbed up these steps and went into the ice cream stall. There were lots of people milling around and they all recognised the girl. Anyway, we bought three cornets. I noticed that mine didn’t have a flake in it and hers had two and her mother’s had one. Then we walked as if we were heading back home. We came to a place in the street where she wanted to cross the road so we had to worry. She went in and I found that it was a health food shop. She was wondering if they had any of these products – she wanted some breakfast nuts, something like that. We had a look around, still holding these ice-creams and she found what she thought might be fine. She explained that her brother was looking for these and had not been able to find them anywhere else. But at the ice-cream stall, everyone knew the girl and they were all talking about her, whether she was coming back to work there again. However, I was certain that she was far too young to be working in a place like that, even on a Saturday.

So welcome back, TOTGA, even if it was only for a short while. It’s been a while since you’ve featured on these pages. However, instead of two daughters and a son, it’s two sons and a daughter, but let’s not go letting the facts stand in the way of a good dream… "perish the thought" – ed …

The idea of walking around the town with melting ice-creams is a bizarre one, but the conjuring trick with the flakes is the kind of thing that Zero would be more likely to do, rather than TOTGA’s daughter.

Later on, Nerina and I had been driving taxis last night and it had been a slow, slow day. We’d done about three or four jobs, that’s all, and were sitting at the side of the road in a lay-by having a chat. Someone came over with a big parcel and we thought that this might be a fare but it wasn’t. It was just someone chatting to a neighbour. In the end, Nerina decided that she’d go back to the rank. Before she did, someone in a blue uniform came over. He said that he wanted to book a taxi for 04:00, but it was only a short trip. I said to Nerina “ladies first” so she began to note the details. However, she said “we already have this job” when she looked at the paperwork. “It’s down for 03:55”. The guy apologised and then needed some help to be pushed onto the bus that turned up, because the bus was crowded and there wasn’t very much room on there for anyone else.

Strangely enough, the subject of taxis has been something that has featured quite considerably elsewhere in very recent times. But things would help if I stopped trying to remember the things that I did forty years later and how I could improve on them if I were to do it all again, something that I have absolutely no intention of doing.

Isabelle the Nurse drifted in, dressed for an Arctic winter. Apparently, it was minus 2°C when she set out on her rounds this morning and she had to scrape the ice off her windscreen. “Winter is acumen in, lhude singe Rudolph” and all of that.

She gave me my injection, sorted out my feet and then drifted out again to brave the Arctic temperatures. I made breakfast and read some more of ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

In fact, I didn’t read all that much of it. I ended up being sidetracked into the Iter Britanniarum – the guidebook said to have been prepared for the Emperor Augustus although it’s suggested that it was the Emperor Caracalla who was its sponsor, seeing that it includes much that was not in existence in the time of Augustus.

It’s like the kind of thing that we had in the distant past, a kind of “RAC Handbook” listing Roman roads, wayside stations, inns and the like. I’ve been following Codrington’s book and using the Iter Britanniarum to plot where the wayside stations might be. If one considers that a Roman mile – a mille passum – was actually one thousand double paces, and is equivalent to about 0.92 of a modern mile, the distances given in the Iter Britanniarum are surprisingly accurate.

Back in here, I had things to do and then I began to edit the rest of the radio notes that I’d dictated the other day.

Later on, I knocked off in order to prepare for the Centre de Ré-education. The taxi was late coming to pick me up and I missed the first ten minutes of my session with the occupational therapist.

Not that I missed much, because despite spending a week searching, he couldn’t find anything more practical than the system that we were using. However, he did suggest a liberal usage of anti-slip tape. On the other hand, I prefer four good stainless steel screws myself.

My second session was with my physiotherapist and she worked me quite hard today, forcing my legs into all kinds of impossible positions. I was so exhausted after this session that I couldn’t lift myself up off the bench.

And that was all today. They had cancelled my next two sessions! But let’s not be carried away by this because there are stil four, and sometimes five sessions for the next couple of visits.

One of these visits though is to see my doctor, when I shall tell her how I’m feeling.

It was another desperate struggle to the taxi to bring me home, and another desperate struggle to come into the apartment. I really don’t know how I would manage if my faithful cleaner were not there to help me.

Back in the apartment, I collapsed into a chair for half an hour, trying to summon up the energy to move, and then I moved into the office where, regrettably, I fell asleep.

Once I’d awoken, I completed the radio programme but I’m a few seconds short. I shall have to re-dictate something to include a few more notes in order to make the commentary rather longer.

Tea tonight was rice with vegetables and a vegan burger, followed by ginger cake and a mandarine … "PERSONdarine" – ed … and lemon soya dessert. It really is nice too.

So now, I’m off to bed. I’ve done enough for today and I have the delights of dialysis tomorrow. Let’s see what my water retention is like, then I hope that they won’t want me to come in on Saturday.

But seeing as we have been talking about ice-cream … "well, one of us has" – ed … Crewe was very famous for its ice-cream vans, made by SC Cummins and Co. They were exported all around the World, but even so, there were always plenty plying the streets of the town.
One day, out at Queen’s Park, a girl from Crewe went up to an ice-cream van there and asked for a chocolate ice-cream cornet
"I’m sorry" replied the salesman. "I’m out of chocolate ice-cream"
"But I want chocolate" she insisted.
"I’m sorry" replied the salesman.
"But sorry is no good! I want chocolate!"
"Look" said the salesman, exasperated. "If you took the ‘s’ out of ‘strawberry’, what would you have?"
"trawberry" replied the girl
"And if you took the ‘p’ out of ‘pistachio’? "
"Istachio " she replied.
"And if you took the ‘f’ out of chocolate?"
"But there’s no ‘f’ in chocolate!"
"And isn’t that what I’ve been trying to tell you for the last ten minutes?"

Tuesday 18th November 2025 – PART TWO OF …

… my offensive against all of these medical appointments went onto the attack this morning.

It involved a flank attack on the Chemotherapy section of the Centre Hospitalière Universitaire de Rennes. It was unfortunate that my target this morning was a young intern called Jade, but you can only fight those whom they send out to fight you.

Anyway, it’s the turn of Elise the Dishy Doctor at the Centre de Ré-education to come under attack tomorrow afternoon.

So last night, feeling definitely not like it, I dashed through my notes and everything that went with it, and ended up in bed at 22:40 hoping for a good sleep. But, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s something of a forlorn hope these days. For all kinds of reasons, I had a very difficult time dropping off.

It wasn’t as if it was a good sleep either. I awoke a few times during the night, and I was up and about by 05:50 this morning.

In order to be ready for the nurse and the ambulance, I’d gone to sleep fully-clothed last night. It was a pointless exercise though because although the nurse told me that he’d be around at 06:30, it was 06:40 when he finally turned up and I’d already given up hope by then

Last night, when the driver dropped me off after dialysis, I joked that it will probably be him who will be coming to pick me up in the morning so I may as well sleep the night in his taxi. My faithful cleaner told him, on the other hand, just as jokingly, to make sure that he would bring the croissants round in the morning.

That was all said as light-hearted banter, and no-one seriously expected it to be him who would come to pick me up. But truth is stranger than fiction.

We made good time down to the edge of Rennes when a collision on the motorway produced a tail-back of about fifteen kilometres. We were consequently twenty minutes late arriving.

The intern was waiting and she grabbed me as I walked onto the ward, before I’d even had time to register.

She examined me and asked how things were. I told her that there had been a marked deterioration in my condition, and I repeated what I had said yesterday at dialysis.

Being young and impressionable, she was shocked to learn of my series of appointments – six days with no rest. I asked her why everyone was expecting me to recover from the treatment that I’m having when the sheer fact of travelling to and from it is killing me off.

Of course, she had no reply to make to that, but it gave her food for thought and she promised to discuss it with her superior and my consultant in Paris.

One thing that was confirmed at the interview, as I had known all along but it’s difficult to impress upon the minds of those at dialysis, is that the reason why my chemotherapy can’t be done locally in Granville or Avranches is that the use of one of the components of the chemotherapy can only be authorised and under the supervision of certain hospitals.

The local hospitals are not authorised to use it, so although it would be a good solution, there’s no point in the dialysis centre trying to promote it.

Anyway, the folder that I gave to the intern was missing the blood test, so they had to ‘phone up Avranches for it. And then it showed an anomaly … "one of many" – ed … in my blood so they had to contact Paris. Eventually, Paris authorised the chemotherapy and it began at 11:10, a far cry from the 08:30 appointment.

During most of the session, I was fast asleep. I was so totally exhausted that it was untrue. But even the sleep wasn’t enjoyable. Every few minutes, someone would come along and check something, which would awaken me

They brought me lunch as well, boiled potatoes with a vegan burger. When I’d had the burger before, I’d enjoyed it, but this time I didn’t like it at all. My taste buds are awful right now.

Eventually, though, the session was finished and by 15:30 I was in the taxi, along with another passenger.

Since I’ve been ill and have had to travel in a taxi, I’ve seen parts of Normandy that I didn’t realise existed. That was certainly the case today. And dropping off a passenger in the wilds well at the back of Avranches, we passed a garage with a few old cars, one of which was a Ford Cortina mkIV.

Those cars were responsible for the successes that I had with my taxis and I haven’t seen one for years. I’ve a couple of mkIIIs and mkVs down on the farm, but no mkIVs. How I was tempted to go back afterwards and spirit it away, but I can’t even walk to the van these days, never mind drive anywhere in it.

In any case, all of my towing tackle (the “A” frame, the towing dolly and the trailer) is still down on the farm, not up here.

Back here I crashed out in the chair in the kitchen for a while, having a good chat with my cleaner, when we were interrupted by a rather angry nurse. He wans’t happy that I hadn’t ‘phoned him as soon as I arrived, because he was in the area and it would have saved him a trip across town.

Well, it’s not my fault that the batteries were flat in my crystal ball, was it?

After he left, I transcribed the dictaphone notes. There was something going on about my brother and his wife buying a new house. When I was talking to my new boss at work, he told me that he had agreed that my brother could have two days off work in order to sort out all of the necessary paperwork. I asked about his wife as well, whether she would be entitled to a couple of days off because I reckoned, knowing them, that she’d be the one actually involved in doing most of the work with regard to the purchase of this property. He smiled and said that he probably agreed. Then, he asked about my brother’s complaint to the office, how he complained. I replied that he probably complained via AI up to the Cloud. The boss asked whether there would likely be any follow-up to that. I said that I thought that AI was supposed to be much more intelligent than any other form of computer contact, so it would seem very likely. But that’s all that I remember of that dream.

Artificial Intelligence is in the news quite a lot these days but, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s not infallible. I’ve managed to trip it up on a few occasions without trying too hard and I’m sure that the experts can make mincemeat of it much more efficiently than I can.

However, I do use it on occasion, even if I will admit that I much prefer Natural Stupidity.

Team was a nice, thick mushroom and tomato soup with pasta and I managed to eat all of it. My soup-making is improving, that’s for sure.

So now, later than I would like, I’m off to bed, ready … "I don’t think" – ed … for my early start in the morning. My driver is coming round at 06:50.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about going onto the offensive … "well, one of us has" – ed … I mentioned this to my cleaner this afternoon when I arrived.
"Offensive" she replied. "That’s certainly the correct word to use with anything that you do, Eric."

Friday 7th November 2025 – WHAT AN ABSOLUTE …

… debâcle this is turning out to be.

My niece and her daughter turned up at Charles de Gaulle Airport this morning at 10:30 as arranged, on Flight AC872 from Canada. However, their luggage didn’t. It’s still in the airport at Toronto, according to the tracking system.

"No problem" said my niece philosophically. "These things happen. Here’s my uncle’s address. Send it on to us when it arrives."
"Oh, we can’t do that " was the reply. "You have to come back tomorrow and pick it up "
"I can’t do that" replied my niece. "We’re only here for four days, we have a train booked and paid for, a hotel booked and paid for … "
"There is no other solution" replied the Air Canada official, and terminated the discussion.

They are now stranded in Paris, no luggage and trying desperately to find a hotel that they can afford.

Outraged, I rang up Air Canada’s helpline. After holding on for no less than seventy-four minutes, my call was finally answered.
"There’s nothing that I can do" replied the assistant
"In that case, put me through to someone who can"
"There’s no-one else here"
"You mean to tell me that, as a worldwide airline flying millions of passengers to thousands of destinations every day, there’s just one person on the helpline? Come off it!"
And I had the telephone slammed down in my face.

Air Canada has not heard the last of this. I have friends in the Canadian press.

My day has not gone as I would have liked it to go either … "but nothing like as bad as theirs" – ed …

Last night, I tried my best to finish at something like a reasonable time, but it was still almost 23:00 when I finally crawled into bed and curled up under the covers.

It didn’t take too long to go off to sleep either but, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, whenever I have to wake up especially early, I have a very mobile night. And last night was no exception.

When I awoke for the final time, it was 05:35. And a couple of minutes later, with a great deal of effort, I left the bed and went into the bathroom.

It was a good job that I was early too, because this 06:45 of the nurse was nothing like. I hadn’t even finished dressing when he arrived.

On the basis of “what doesn’t go in won’t want to come out”, I didn’t take my medication and just had a disgusting drink to keep me going while I awaited my faithful cleaner.

She staggered in, half-asleep, at 06:50 and sorted out the anaesthetic for my arm and then staggered off back to bed, poor thing. The sacrifices she makes for me are unbelievable.

The taxi turned up at 07:05 and we went off to pick up someone else who also goes to dialysis. We arrived quite early but they were having problems with the weighing machine so everything ended up running late.

The first needle went in fine but the second was one of those that really hurt and I suffered throughout the session. So much so that I didn’t do anything like as much as I wanted to.

They still hadn’t disconnected me when the taxi turned up, so the poor driver had to wait fifteen minutes for me, much to the disappointment of two other passengers. And then we came home via a Tour of Normandy so it was really late by the time that I arrived home.

There is one thing to be said, though, and that is that with these new Securité Sociale regulations, I’m seeing parts of Normandy that I never knew existed.

My cleaner helped me into the apartment, and I discovered that they had tried to deliver another parcel (which should be arriving this coming Monday) but as there was no-one in, they have left it at a collection point. And seeing that I can’t go to pick it up, I’m not sure what will happen next.

Back in here, I sent off my order to the supermarket for delivery this afternoon, and then I made breakfast and had my medication. While I was eating, I had my … errr … frank exchange of views with Air Canada.

It was my plan to make a vegan lasagna today so I had some lentils cooking overnight in the slow cooker. This afternoon, I attacked it and after a couple of hours, it was ready. Once more, I’m over-estimating the cooking time of this oven and it’s scorched around the edges.²

However, while I was doing it, I could feel my health slipping away and I began to feel really ill. Doing the pile of washing-up finished me off and when the food delivery arrived, it was all that I could do to put the frozen food in the freezer. The rest can wait to be put away.

But seeing as we have been talking about my cooking … "well, one of us has" – ed … I have had quite a few requests. Most of them are physically impossible, of course, but I have had a request for the recipe for my bean tajine.

Of course, it’s not my recipe, but I have modified it to suit my palette.

240g dried white beans
1 large onion
garlic to your taste
honey to your taste (seriously)
4 carrots
1 tin of tomato purée
concentrate of tomato (I use Harissa, the spicy stuff)
olive oil
salt
turmeric (2 heaped tsps)
other herbs if you like (I added basil and oregano)
coriander (fresh if possible)

soak your beans on “high” in a slow cooker for an hour
drain, rinse, then soak again overnight on “low”
drain the beans and rinse again.
peel, then dice the carrots fairly fine
put some oil in the slow cooker, on “high”. Then add the chopped onion and fry until transparent
add the honey and stir
add the carrots, tomato, turmeric, garlic, other herbs, and stir well
add the beans and stir really well
add water to cover, and stir really well
bring to the boil on “high” then leave for a couple of hours on “low”
garnish with coriander
serve with couscous, peas and mint.

Back in here, I sat down and although I didn’t crash out, I definitely wasn’t in. And for a good hour or so too. My left shoulder was in total agony. At one point, I went to lie down on the bed but I couldn’t go to sleep. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, sleep is my cure for all ills.

Instead, I transcribed the dictaphone notes. I was playing in a group with two other guys and living in Crewe. There was a home match played by Crewe Alexandra so I asked a friend of mine who worked for the radio whether he could obtain a few complimentary tickets for my friends and me. My girlfriend wanted to come too, but I can’t remember who she is. The two guys from the radio turned up but they didn’t have any complimentary tickets with them, so we chatted. Then someone else turned up with two kids and the conversation continued. I noticed that my girlfriend was taking some food with her to the football match so I went and found a flapjack that I’d made, and put it in my pocket. There was a knock on the door, and I thought that it might be my two friends who were coming with us, but it turned out to be two more people. One of them was in a wheelchair and the other one was on one of these low-down foot-forward bicycles. They came in. by then there was quite a crowd of us. Someone said to me “I hope you’re going to be OK after the game, Eric, with five people staying with you”. This was the first that I’d heard of this. “And those five people include those two children” someone else said. I said to these two kids “I suppose you want to sleep on the double bed in the spare room, do you?”. They replied “no. That double bed has been there for years, hasn’t it?”. So I had a think, and I thought that the double bed was about thirty-five years old so they were probably right.

Now, who was my girlfriend? It’s not like me to miss out on remembering something like that. There are many other things in this dream too that seem to have no significance either.

There was another dream about a man who was a comedian. He’d been invited to appear before a group of evil mafia-type people to entertain them. He wasn’t happy about this because she’d heard that they were pretty vile to people whom they didn’t like. He needed a lot of talking before he agreed to take it on. What he didn’t realise was just before this concert took place, there had been a serious jewel robbery with millions of pounds-worth of jewels stolen. He went along to this concert but as soon as he walked into the room, he took fright. He pulled out his gun, shot a couple of people and then ran. Of course, everyone ran after him, but he was hiding in places inside this theatre to try to shake them off. Then he made a break for it, and ran right across the motorway. Somehow, he’d managed to pick up this case full of these jewels in the meantime so everyone was chasing after him. They weren’t so lucky going across the motorway and a couple of them were knocked down. The rest of them couldn’t pass over to the other side. In the meantime, this guy was wandering up some kind of main road miles away from the scene, still with this briefcase. Stopped at a set of traffic lights was a mobile home, so he climbed in. This upset the owner but in the end the guy convinced the owner that he meant no harm, so the owner agreed to take him somewhere. Then he found the guy shaving inside the motorhome. There was something in the clause of the purchase of this motorhome that it should belong to the first person who shaved inside the vehicle. The owner hadn’t yet had a shave inside it so he had to relinquish control to this guy. The guy decided to drive off. In the winter, he’d be down in the southern tip of Italy or Greece and in the summer, he’d be back in Western Europe again.

This one is just like the first – a confused mass of nothing of any significance either.

Did I dictate the dream about the British guy who somehow managed to take possession of Heligoland in 1914 and succeeded in keeping the Germans off the island so that they couldn’t fortify it throughout the whole of World War I? … "no, you didn’t" – ed … I can’t remember very much about this dream but I wondered whether I’d written it down.

Heligoland, off the coast of Germany, used to be a British possession but the British swapped it for Zanzibar in 1890. It was a naval base in World War II, and the installations were destroyed in 1947 in one of the World’s biggest non-nuclear explosion.

I was with a guy and his two young daughters. As civilians, we were being pushed back from where we were living or where we’d been, rather, by an invading army. We had a few nightmares and confrontations but eventually, we made it back to his house. The fighting swarmed past his house but we stayed indoors while it was all going on. When things had quietened down, these two girls gave a big sigh of relief. One of them then was speaking to someone on the ‘phone and suddenly saying, “oh, I’m stuck in this huge wall of fire at the moment”. She didn’t realise what a wall of fire was until that particular moment when the battle raged past the house. Next morning, I had to prepare to leave. I had to wear all my heaviest clothes and carry as light a load as possible, but I had a lot of difficulty trying to find my boots. Eventually I found them and I could pack. But this guy and his daughters were already up and dressed, so I went for a chat after I’d dressed. I told them that I’ll have to be in touch with them because I needed the signature of the eldest girl for a reference to join the local library. We exchanged names and telephone numbers etc. Then I made big plans to slip out of the house and do my best to head for home. But the chat with those girls was really interesting, the one that I had. And I wish that I could remember it.

Children seem to be playing quite a rôle in my nocturnal adventures right now. I’m not sure why, though. But as for the warfare issues, that’s something that relates to whatever I’ve been reading just now. For example, at dialysis these last few days I’ve been reading Sir Douglas Haig’s reports to Parliament on the activities of his forces on the Western Front in World War I.

Tonight, I haven’t made any tea. I really couldn’t face anything cooked, for some reason. Instead, I finished off that cream cheese with some crackers. Not very healthy but it will keep the lupus from the porte, as they might have said in Ancient Rome while I go to bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my altercation with Air Canada … "well, one of us has" – ed … I can recall part of the discussion that I had with that obnoxious helpline attendant earlier.
After I had explained the situation to him, he replied "I don’t have any words to say to that."
"Well, I have" I replied. "Would you like to hear them? "
It was shortly after that when he hung up, and before I’d really got going too.

Wednesday 5th November 2025 – THIS EVENING …

… despite making for myself an even smaller portion of food than normal, I left an even larger proportion of it on the plate last night.

One of the things that might have contributed to that was that I didn’t have my breakfast until 13:00 today.

This morning, I was at dialysis and so last night, I tried my best to rush through everything that needed doing. Not that I managed it particularly, though. It was just after 22:30 that I posted my notes, and what with one thing and another … "and until you make a start, you have no idea how many other things there are" – ed … it was almost 23:00 when I finally crawled into bed.

That didn’t help much either. Although I fell asleep quite quickly, whenever I have to set an alarm especially early, I always seem to have a bad night, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. Last night was no exception. I was tossing and turning all the way through.

When the alarm went off at 06:00 however, I was fast asleep, and it took quite some effort to extricate myself from my nice, warm bed.

After I’d sorted myself out in the bathroom, I went into the living room to sort myself out. My faithful cleaner (bless her!) staggered into the living room just before 07:00 to apply my anaesthetic and it’s just as well that she did, because the taxi turned up at 07:10 instead of 07:30.

Not that I’m complaining though, because the sooner we start, the sooner we finish.

There was someone else to pick up along the way but even so, we were still early. I was connected up quite quickly too, and then left to my own devices for most of the morning.

They unplugged me quite quickly once the session finished and, even better, the taxi was waiting for me. It was one of the very pleasant drivers who brought me home so we had a very interesting and enjoyable drive.

My faithful cleaner helped me in and presented me with the first of the parcels that I am expecting. This one is the heated lightbulb to replace the one that has blown in the bathroom. Many people, I know, don’t approve of these on-line retailers but unfortunately I don’t have any other choice. I can’t send my cleaner running around from shop to shop.

Once I’d recovered my strength, I made breakfast. I certainly needed it too because it’s been a long time since I’ve eaten anything.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And to my surprise I found that I must have travelled miles. There had been a football match taking place on a field somewhere. Everywhere was dry and most of the grass had died. There was plenty of dust floating around. One particular side had several new players, and as each of those players ran out to take the field, they had something significant with them. Then, once three new players had joined the team, the match began. A few minutes later, a fourth new player came to join in. he had something that was like a kind of roller but it was a pointed shape rather than an elongated, long shape. It only had one handle to it and the thing rotated in this handle. This guy ran onto the field through this dust bowl and onto the pitch with this machine. Everyone welcomed him. The game stopped for someone to take a throw-in, and it was on the team that the new people had joined. The guy was about to take the throw-in when he saw someone else come along to join in the game. He was there thinking “should I throw the ball to them or not? They don’t look as if they are ready, but if they are coming onto the field of play, then they ought to be”.

This doesn’t seem to relate to anything that I recall, but football is certainly on my mind at the moment, what with one thing and another. This half-roller thing is quite interesting though, and I wonder what it’s all about

Going back to that dream was something about me being sure that I was spotted by some people in a mini-submarine so I retreated inside the armoured safety zone with a very small bottle of beer and some liquorice sweets to await the arrival of my father. When he arrived, we had a look around but couldn’t see anything so I stayed on and drew a few more feats to keep me company.

This dream seems to be the second part of a dream to which the first part is missing. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. I wonder how many other dreams that I’ve had that have been missed. And I really would like some liquorice sweets right now. I’m a big fan of liquorice.

Later on, I pulled up on the Knutsford Services in a van. Seeing as I was still wearing my PSV badge, I thought that I’d try my look and claim for a free cup of tea. However, the woman on the till looked at how I was dressed and didn’t think at all that I qualified so she called the manageress over. The manageress took me to her office and began to interrogate me. I gave her a load of non-committal answers and in the end, she asked if I would take her out to see the vehicle that I had. I wasn’t intending to let her see the van so I stalled for time. When it reached the end of her shift, she had to go home but she was going to take me with her. I had to sit in her car while she drove home, but for some reason, there were three or four of us in this car. However, she left the car first and left me with the other two people. I drove the other two people home, which left me with the car. Then I had to think about how I was going to go back up to rescue my van. I thought that I could find a willing co-driver so I went round to a house in Shavington. It turned out that this girl also worked at the motorway services and she had heard all about what had gone on. She thought that it was funny and gave me something of a lecture. I decided in the end that what I was going to do was to go to hitchhike back up the motorway and bring the van back myself.

The house in Shavington is situated on Main Road, near to what used to be Warner’s shop, and I’ve no idea who used to live there when we lived in Shavington. However, I like this idea of ending up with someone else’s car without having to do much for it.

I was in Mexico on the border with the USA on a piece of land owned by one of the railway companies. It was rather high up in the mountains and on a steep slope, so the best that the crew could do for me was to anchor in the bay and hope that I could make my way out to the ship. They had three Ottoman destroyers from the Merchant Navy and they took their position out towards the sea that left my boat (… incoherent …) but we couldn’t move this guy, me (… fell asleep here …)

This is another dream of which I have absolutely no recollection whatever. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. even though I’m asleep when I’m dictating, usually there is something that triggers off a memory when I’m transcribing the dictaphone notes. But not in this case.

Finally, I was in Montréal last night, at the railway station, although it was nothing like any railway station in Montréal that I know. I wanted to catch a train to go across the town. I knew that the local services all departed from round about Platform Thirty-Three so I hobbled over on my crutches to the platform, which was crowded with commuters. As the train pulled in, everyone swarmed towards it. Of course, I was near the back. As soon as about fifty people had boarded, the doors closed regardless and the train moved off, leaving us standing on the platform. The next train was in ten minutes, which was a big express thing that was coming through, so I waited at the platform for ten minutes. The train pulled in, but once again, despite trying to run, I wasn’t quick enough to board it so I walked outside the station to see if there was a timetable where I could have a better idea of where and when the trains were going, and I met someone whom I knew. We had a chat about Canada, tourism and travel. He asked about a tower in the city, so I told him that it used to be occupied. He said that he knew that, but who lived there?. I replied that it was the watchman for the city, and if he saw any evil people heading towards the city, he’d blow a horn. The guy realised that he had heard stories like this before, so I explained that that was quite common, and many watchmen were killed in mid-horn blast by the enemy. We had quite an interesting chat. Then he asked me about photography. I told him that for years, I used to photograph everywhere where I went, but I’m not able to do it now, basically because I can’t go anywhere and secondly, because I can’t hold a camera. By this time, we had another girl with us. She said that she used to come with me on occasions. I said “I know”. I used to share my passenger seat with this girl Laura, or STRAWBERRY MOOSE, or anyone else who wanted to go. He asked me why I was on my own at the moment. I replied that STRAWBERRY MOOSE was back at home guarding the apartment.

Who is this Laura? I’m sure that I don’t know anyone of that name.

As for being killed in mid-horn blast, the most famous is the watchman of Kraków who was killed on the tower of St Mary’s Church in 1241 while blowing the alarm to warn of the Mongol siege of the city.

And Montréal again. I’m becoming all nostalgic for Montréal and Canada, although I doubt that I shall ever return there. I can’t even return to my apartment just upstairs in this building.

After that, I regrettably crashed out for half an hour. It was a tough start to the day with dialysis and all of that. And I have to do it again on Friday too!

The first meeting of this year’s Cymru Leagues Supporters’ Panel took place in the early evening. We discussed the interaction between the clubs and the supporters, whether it was adequate, whether it needed improving and what more can be done.

It remains to be seen whether anything will come of it, though. In the past, I had the impression that the Football Association of Wales had its own ideas and would carry them through, regardless of the input of the fans. I hope that by now, things will have changed. I shall certainly do my best to ensure that they do.

When the meeting finished, I went to make more croissants. Now I have six apple croissants and six plain ones. They will be in the freezer tonight to keep for over the weekend when my guests arrive.

And seeing as we have been talking about my guests … "well, one of us has" – ed … they tell me that they are excited to see me. I can’t think why. The only people who are usually excited to see me are bailiffs and the Crown Prosecution Service.

A little earlier, I mentioned tea. I had rice, veg and some of that lentil chili that I made yesterday. It was a small portion, but a good deal of it ended up in the waste bin. However, my plan for a high calorie, high carbohydrate dessert seems to be working and although it’s not healthy, it will keep me going.

Right now, though, I’m off to bed. And I need it too because despite crashing out, I’m exhausted.

But seeing as we have been talking about the watchman in Kraków … "well, one of us has" – ed … an American tourist in Kraków one afternoon asked a local "when did the Mongol hordes shoot the watchman in the church tower? "
"1241" replied the local
"Damn!" said the American, looking at his watch. "We just missed it!"

Sunday 26th October 2025 – HAS ANYONE ELSE …

… experienced any problems with Windows 10 today?

Updating and revisions for Windows 10 stopped being produced yesterday, and this morning, when I switched on the big computer, I had the error message “no operating system found”. After some coaxing, I managed to make it fire up but it went down again shortly afterwards and that, dear reader, was that.

Luckily, I have an old disk with a locked version of Windows 10 on it, and that fired up and seems to be running quite well at the moment, although it’s old and slow.

It could, of course, be nothing whatever to do with Microsoft’s policy of making all computers obsolete so that everyone must buy new computers, and be a simple technological fault. However, I seem to remember the exact same problem with an older laptop running Windows 7 on the day after upgrades stopped being supplied for that operating system, and so my curiosity has been aroused.

But it’s a good job that I have organised my computer as I have.

There’s a 1TB (although at the moment it’s a 256GB) solid state hard drive with the operating system and the programs

There’s a 4TB data drive, which is where I keep the data

There’s another 4TB data drive that is a mirror of the one above

There’s a 128GB memory stick in a USB port that I use for backing up every evening, or more often if I’ve been working a large number of files

There’s a 64GB memory stick in another USB port. That’s attached to my house keys. It’s another daily backup device and I use it as a travelling drive to update the travelling laptop.

Apart from that, there are several external drives and an array with several hard drives in it, all of which represent the complete history of my computing since I had my first 386SX in 1993. Wherever the stuff is for the old Apple 2 that we had before that, I really don’t know.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … err … apartment, last night should have been an early night. And it would have been too, had I not fallen asleep while riding the porcelain horse, yet again. Honestly, I was dead to the World last night.

No-one could ever have been more pleased than me to crawl into bed last night, even if it was as late as 23:30. Surprisingly, given how tired I was, it took a while to drop off to sleep, and it was a rather turbulent night too, thanks in the main to the howling gale that had sprung up outside again.

Round about 03:10 (well, 04:10 had we not put the clocks back) I awoke definitively, and try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I lay there dozing for quite a while until about 05:20 when I heaved myself out of my stinking pit.

After a good wash and scrub up, I came back in here to watch yesterday’s live football match – Cardiff Metropolitan v Y Fflint.

And what an exciting match that was! The two teams are low down in the table but they both play exciting, attacking football, and the game lived up to expectations. For about 80 or so minutes, the two teams slugged it out toe to toe with the game roaring from one end to the other.

The final ten minutes were something else entirely, and the game finished with one of the most astonishing goals that I have seen for a long, long time. EDRYCHWCH A MWYNHEUWCH – “watch and enjoy”, as the commentator said.

The nurse came at his usual time, and didn’t stay long. He was soon in and out and off on his travels again. I could then take my medication and make breakfast. With it being a Sunday, I had a very slow, relaxing morning.

Back in here again, I transcribed the dictaphone notes. To my surprise, there actually were some. There was a problem with one of the Ford Transits that I had. It had to be moved so I towed it all the way from France back to the UK. I reached about two miles from my home before I started to have a few problems. I was quite annoyed about that, being so close.

There is a story behind this kind of dream too, but the world isn’t ready to hear it.

But earlier, there had been something to do with ships etc on the Great Lakes where I’d been weighed. I had four kilos to lose but again, they had to cut short the session. That left the ship in the Lakes top-heavy and in the first storm afterwards, it turned over and sank. That was another piece of work that needs to be doing that I didn’t have the time or the energy to face.

This dream seems to include a little piece of everything, including THE WRECK OF THE EDMUND FITZGERALD

Later on, I’d been working away somewhere and my desk, as usual, was a total mess, my office was a total mess. The boss one day came in and she decided that she was going to help me organise everything. She asked me where I intended to put the spare battery for the car. I told her that I could put it in the bottom of the big black cupboard. Instead, she found a place at the side where there was a plug to plug in the charger. She was coming up with suggestions like that. Then it was time to go home. I filled up my suitcase with all kinds of rubbish that I didn’t particularly want her to see while she was tidying up, including three spare batteries for the cars. I set out, and I had my mother with me. When we came to near where we lived, she wanted to walk the rest of the way so we climbed out of the car but she couldn’t find her shoes. Eventually, when she did, the soles were wafer-thin, which hurt her to walk on the asphalt. We continued on down to my house, pulling my huge suitcase with me. When we reached the house, we could hear the taxi office working, but there was music coming from somewhere else in the house. The first thing that we did was to go in. We were met by someone working the radio. The house was, as usual, in a total tip. They were saying that they hadn’t been very busy at all while we’d been away. This was just how things were as usual while we hadn’t been there.

Everywhere I go seems to finish in total chaos and disorder. Someone once paid good money for a birth chart for me, and this was mentioned quite firmly. However, it went on to say "but that probably disturbs the people around you far more than it does you."

Having finished that, we had more football. There were the highlights of the other games in Wales over the weekend, and then there was Stranraer in the Scottish Cup against non-league Glenafton Athletic.

Stranraer ran out in what would appear to be a comfortable 4-0 victory, but a more experienced professional side would have capitalised on several of the errors made by the Stranraer back line during the match.

In the afternoon, I attacked the rest of the Welsh homework, which is now finished. And then I went a-baking.

Not only do I now have a lovely loaf of bread and a wonderful pizza (well, I don’t now, because I’ve eaten it), I have some croissants.

With visitors being here in two weeks time, I need to think about breakfasts, and so in my delivery from Leclerc I ordered a roll of vegan puff pastry and had a go at making croissants.

They were not very successful, but it was “encouraging”. At least, I know how to improve them.

While I was at it, I was looking up recipes for aquafaba – the juice out of a tin of chick peas. It’s an acceptable egg substitute so I’ve been trying to find something interesting to do with the aquafaba that came out of last week’s chick peas.

If anyone has any useful suggestions, let me know. I’ve found a recipe for meringues but I shall pass on that for now.

So having eaten my pizza, and hours later than usual, I’m off to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow (I don’t think).

But before we go, seeing as we have been talking about aquafaba … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once asked me "what’s made of egg-whites and sugar, and when you throw it away, it comes back to scare you?"
"I don’t know" I replied. "What is made of egg-whites and sugar, and when you throw it away, it comes back to scare you?"
"A booh-meringue."

Saturday 25th October 2025 – MY BROCCOLI STALK …

… soup was delicious this evening.

Actually, it wasn’t. But that’s not the fault of the soup, the ingredients or the method of cooking. It’s to do with my complete and utter lack of taste these days.

The soup tasted of nothing but salt, which is bizarre because there wasn’t even a pinch of salt in it. But that’s how my taste buds have gone since I started chemotherapy.

All in all, I’m not feeling too well today, which is no surprise given the night that I had. It was another late night, despite all of my good intentions, and although I was asleep fairly quickly, it wasn’t for long. By 04:20 I was wide-awake.

Having tried my best to go back to sleep and failing miserably, I left the bed at 05:30 or thereabouts and took advantage of the early start by recording some of the radio notes that had been building up.

After that, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been, and it was another disappointing night. That’s twice during the night that I’ve moved too rapidly in bed and pulled a muscle in my right thigh, and awoken in agony. I don’t know what I’ve done to this muscle. It must have been something that the physiotherapist did. If I move quickly, it locks up and hurts like hell.

Looking back, I can vaguely remember the muscle spasms. It seems rather strange, though, that I should dictate something about them.

During the night, there was a whole host of snippets of little moments that came and went so fast that I didn’t have time to record them. There was one that was concerned with music. I was editing songs and putting them in a special file – directory – for some reason but I can’t remember why. This went on all the way through the night.

There have been spells like this in the past where a whole raft of dreams has passed before my eyes. I remember one very dramatic occasion when I was on an intravenous drip in hospital, and it felt as if I was hallucinating. But the editing of songs and filing them in a special directory is one of the ways in which I organise my radio programmes.

Once I’d finished with the dictaphone, I edited the notes that I’d dictated earlier and now that programme is complete.

The nurse was at his usual time today. We had a good chat about the series of injections that I have to have, and also the ones that are in the pipeline, such as the ‘flu injection and the Covid injection.

After he left, I made breakfast and then came back in here to work.

There were a few things that needed doing, and then I carried on with sorting out the music for the two radio programmes that I have on the go right now. With an hour to go, I broke off and did half of my Welsh homework. I want to finish it this weekend if I can.

My faithful cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic, and then I had to wait for the taxi.

Our route out today took us to Champeau to pick up another passenger, so we were late arriving at Avranches. However, I was dealt with by Julie the Cook, the first time for ages, and she was quite rapid.

No-one bothered me at all today, but they were using some disinfectant to clean something and the smell was overpowering. I really felt like vomiting, it was so bad. It’s a good job that I only had to stay for three and a half hours. I would never have managed four.

They unplugged me quite quickly and another one of my favourite drivers was waiting for me. However, we had to wait around for the other guy to take him to Champeau again. Not that I minded too much because the driver and I had a lovely chat.

It was quite late when I returned, after all of that, and my cleaner was waiting. Back in here, we had a discussion, the result of which was that she’ll be coming on Tuesday afternoon instead of Wednesday for as long as I have to go to the Centre de Ré-education.

Tea was, as I mentioned, the broccoli stalk soup. And now I’m off to bed to try to make the most of this extra hour in bed. We put the clocks back during the night.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about disinfectant … "well, one of us has" – ed … my brother’s nickname at school was “Harpic”.
"Why do they call you ‘Harpic’?" asked one of the teachers.
"That’s easy, miss" said one of the other boys. "It’s because he’s clean round the bend!"

Thursday 23rd October 2025 – AS I HAVE …

… said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s pointless going to bed early, because all that happens is that I wake up correspondingly early next morning.

Mind you, the howling gale that sprung up at about 01:10 probably had something to do with that. I have, quite seriously, never heard winds quite like it.

It will be interesting to find out what wind speed was reached during the night, to see if it was anywhere near the record 209 kph that we had once. At the airfield, a speed of 87 kph was recorded but the airfield is quite secluded. It will be a different matter up here on the headland, exposed to the full fury of the Atlantic storms.

While I was at dialysis, my cleaner sent me A VIDEO OF THE STORM. And it’s quite sheltered around that side of the bay.

Throughout the day, it’s gone from bad to worse, and this is one of the reasons – only one – why I’ve had such a lousy day today.

Yesterday, I mentioned that I’d had no tea. When I’d finished everything else, I dashed through my evening routine and, much to my delight, I was in bed by 21:20 and that made a lovely change.

Not that it would last, though. As I mentioned just now, I was awake at 01:10 as the storm raged. And for the rest of the night, I drifted in and out of sleep.

Round about 05:20, I finally gave it up as a bad job and went to organise myself for the day, including doing the washing-up from yesterday.

After the medication, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a rock concert taking place with three groups in it. One of them was playing from 18:30 – 19:30, the second one from 19:30 onwards and the third was to come on later. At least, that was how I understood the situation to be. Someone asked me for some further information but I wasn’t able to give them any, except the proposed starting times for the first two groups because that was all the information that I had.

This reminds me of one of the rock concerts that I organised in Crewe in 1975 or thereabouts. Two local groups with the third one being a group from Chester in which a friend played. It was good fun, this one, but it wasn’t particularly successful and I didn’t organise many more after that.

We were given half an hour at school to write a story. It had to be a story about a holiday. I began to write a story about a young girl who had gone on holiday to Italy. She’d somehow ended up watching a beauty contest. She was all of the competitors and she saw the crowd cheering them. She was extremely envious and wished that she was up there with them. The situation carried on and eventually, she found herself in the arms of a young Italian boy. Just as she was starting to relax for perhaps her very first kiss, I dunno, there was this huge bellow of her name. She looked round and it was her mother. The boy ran away immediately and the mother gave this girl an enormous dressing-down and ordered her up to her room, so she ran off upstairs crying.

Now, this dream has a great deal of significance for someone whom I know. However, I’m not going to mention any further details in order to protect the anonymity of a certain young lady who will be familiar to regular readers of this rubbish.

A few of us were out there in these really high storms. Some kind of ball was being used for some purpose or other and it happened to fall to the ground in this wind just as one of the most feeble patients from dialysis was walking past. It hit her and she was rushed to hospital. A couple of days later we saw one of the taxi drivers, the guy who seems to be the senior driver. He expressed the opinion that if this ball was going to fall, it was bound to hit her more than anyone else just by simple Sod’s Law. Then he described in graphic detail the operation that had been taking place upon her. I had to leave the room again because I couldn’t stand to listen to it.

The lady concerned these days doesn’t walk to dialysis and hasn’t done for quite a while. But the part about the high winds is certainly apposite.

At some point or other I was out in the brown Cortina estate that I had for a while. I’d met some friends in the centre of Brussels. Before that, I’d been to see a psychiatrist. We had the interview in Brussels and she was asking me all kinds of questions. The answer in almost every case was “no”. She became frustrated and asked me if I was interested in pursuing this. I replied that I was, but she would have to ask me some meaningful questions if she wanted meaningful answers. In the end, I left and went to meet my friends. They told me to park up the car and come to join them. I parked up the car, but they wanted me to park in another car park next to it, which was a paying car park. I went in there, but as I was reversing into a car parking space, my foot slipped off the brake and the car rolled and hit an old Ford Escort. My friends came round to see what had happened. It had made something of a mess of the rear of my car but it was just the bumper that was bent on his. The guy came over and we agreed that I’d pay £20:00 for it, but I had a hell of a job searching through my wallet and all my papers for some money. They were becoming frustrated. In the end, I gave him this £20:00 to shut him up. We went for a walk, and we went past where I had a series of lock-up garages. We saw that two of them were open and were empty. I wondered what had happened to all my stuff and the cars that were in there. The third one had had its door broken but the stuff was still in there. I was wondering now what I was going to do about all of this because I couldn’t leave the door like this. And what about the stuff that had gone missing?

There’s a lot of relevant information in this one too, one way or another, although we can leave the trick cyclist out of the equation.

The nurse was early today, soaking wet and dripping everywhere. He told me that it was vicious out there, and I could well believe it from the noise of the howling wind. The soaking wet clothes just seemed to underline everything.

After he left, I had breakfast, not that I felt much like it, and then came back in here.

First task was to make an important ‘phone call, and that took quite some time. And for the rest of the morning, I was choosing music for another radio programme.

My cleaner blew in – quite literally – and applied my anaesthetic. She told me to summon her when the taxi came because I was going to need all the help that I could find.

She wasn’t wrong either. The howling gale was such that it needed the driver and my cleaner to hold on to me the moment that I stepped outside. It took over fifteen minutes to stagger the twenty metres to where the taxi was parked and there were times that the three of us didn’t really think that we could make it.

It was the most hair-raising fifteen minutes that I had had for quite some considerable time.

With picking up someone else along the way, I was hours late arriving at dialysis and as I was exiting the car, we had a torrential rainstorm and I was drenched.

Despite how I’d been watching my food and drink intake, I was well over the maximum limit and I’ve no idea at all why that should be. I’ve been very, very careful, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

As a result, they set up the machine leaving me with three hundred grams to take out “next time”.

The doctor came to see me, wrote a new medical prescription for me and gave me a prescription for a pedicure. Apparently I’m entitled to one every year.

After that, they left me alone – until the alarm on the machine began to go berserk.

Apparently, my blood had begun to clot so it was developing an airlock. There was nothing else to do but to cut the session short. So now I’m an enormous amount over the limit and the next few sessions are going to be gruelling.

Finishing early, I had to wait around for my driver. Luckily, it was one of my favourite taxi drivers, the one who took me to Rennes on Tuesday. We had a good chat as usual on the way home, talking about taxi operations and the like.

Back here, we managed to manoeuvre the car into the emergency space at the back of the building while my cleaner opened the fire escape. While the wind was even more ferocious at the back, there were only three metres to walk. Even so, it was still quite a struggle.

However, I’ll be in the taxi company’s bad books tomorrow. The wind tore the door out of my hand and slammed it against the front pillar with an almighty crash. I didn’t look to see if there was any damage, but I bet that they will when the car returns to the garage.

Tea was a leftover curry, and once more, I left a pile of food on my plate. I really don’t know from where this extra weight is coming, seeing as I’ve already cut down dramatically on the amount of food that I eat and I’m still throwing tons away.

But I’ll worry about that tomorrow because right now I’m off to bed. And I bet I won’t be able to sleep with all of this racket going on outside.

These winds are crazy. Since I moved here in 2017, I’m convinced that we are having more and stronger winds. There’s hardly a week that goes by without a very strong wind, and not a month without a hurricane.

But seeing as we have been talking about psychiatrists … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once went to see a psychiatrist about a problem that I had, where if anything was lying around, I would pick it up and disappear with it.
"I recognise your problem" he said. "You’re a kleptomaniac."
"Can you cure me?" I asked him.
"I’ll certainly try" he said.
"And if your cure doesn’t work?" I asked.
"In that case, could you pick up a new television for me?"

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 – I HAVEN’T HAD …

… any tea tonight.

Not that it should be a surprise to anyone. After all, if I didn’t have my breakfast until 13:30 today, it’s hardly likely that I’m going to be hungry at teatime, given the way that things have been just recently.

That’s right. We had another really early start today – the taxi due to come for me at 06:45 or thereabouts this morning to take me to chemotherapy.

Consequently, I’d rushed through the usual evening procedure after tea last night and was in bed by about 22:35, which makes quite a nice change.

However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s a waste of time going to bed early because what seems to happen is that I awaken correspondingly early the following morning. Like 03:55, for example.

Despite any amount of trying, I couldn’t go back to sleep afterwards. I lay there tossing and turning for about ninety minutes, but in the end, gave it up as a bad job and arose from the Dead.

The first thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Not that there was much on there. There was something about being in the army last night. One of the officers was complaining about one of the Generals going on leave all the time for long periods. He called the General’s aide-de-camp in to discuss it with him. The aide-de-camp reminded him that Generals don’t have leave. They are sent on leave at the discretion of the leader of the army. There’s no official entitlement to it.

This is another one of those dreams that is completely meaningless, as far as I am concerned.

After a good wash, I waited for the nurse to turn up. He arrived bang on 06:30 as promised, and sorted out my legs and feet. He was still in a very good mood, which is very pleasant. Once he’d gone, I awaited the taxi, which arrived at 06:50.

This morning’s driver was the young chatty guy, so we had a very long and interesting chat all the way to Rennes, a chat that included commentary on several other drivers, especially the one who pulled out right in front of us on the autoroute at 130 kph and the other one who drove for about 50 km with only one rear light illuminated.

We were early arriving at Rennes, but even so, I had to wait until 09:00 or thereabouts to be plugged in.

Once more, I was devilishly tired but I didn’t manage to doze off today. I read a book until it was 10:10 and time to be unplugged.

The driver was waiting for me when I came out. It was another one of the more sociable drivers. He took me on a little sightseeing tour of Rennes on our way to another hospital to pick up a young girl for Avranches. It was another chatty drive on the way back.

It was about 12:30 when I arrived here, and my faithful cleaner helped me into the apartment. I was slightly more sprightly today than yesterday.

After she left, the first thing that I did was to send off my shopping order. I have to eat, even if I don’t feel much like it.

Second thing was to make breakfast. Since tea last night, all that I’d had up to now was one very small mouthful of water and I had a thirst that you could photograph. And having eaten, I crashed out, hunched over the kitchen table, for over half an hour.

My cleaner came in to do her stuff, and I carried on with the radio programme that I’d started last week, choosing the music that I hope to be playing

When the shopping order came in, I put everything away and then washed, diced and blanched the carrots and the broccoli ready for freezing.

But now, even though it’s really early, I’m going to go to bed. Chemotherapy is exhausting and I’m really feeling it tonight. I’m glad that I’ve not had any food, otherwise that would keep me awake for hours trying to digest it. I’ll probably be awake early tomorrow, but it doesn’t matter all that much.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the car with one tail light … "well, one of us has" – ed … at one point, we flagged it down to tell the driver, and he left his car to go to have a look.
"Blast it!" he shouted. "This is all that I need. It’s going to cost me a fortune, this is!"
"There’s no need to panic" said my driver. "It’s only a rear light."
"Never mind the bleeding light!" he stormed. "Where the hell has my flaming trailer gone?"

Tuesday 21st October 2025 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since an old car featured on these pages?

Coming back from Rennes this late afternoon, I encountered a Panhard 24 CT two-door coupé coming the other way

Being driven by someone else, I couldn’t stop to photograph it, and as it was approaching us at some kind of ridiculous combined speed, it would have been an interesting challenge to say the least, so I had to let it go. But as it’s been almost a year since our last old car, I thought it worthy of note.

What else that was also worthy of note was that despite the alarm being set for 06:00 this morning, I was still early leaving the bed.

Having rushed through the usual procedure of notes, statistics, back-up and bathroom last night, I managed to be in bed early last night – round about 22:50. And although I fell asleep quite early, it wasn’t for long. I had a very turbulent night last night.

It was 05:10 when I awoke definitively, and after trying for about half an hour, I left the bed and went to the bathroom.

On the basis that “what doesn’t go in won’t want to come out”, I didn’t have anything to eat or drink this morning. Not even my medication. It’s going to be a long day.

At 07:00, my taxi arrived, driven by my favourite taxi driver. We had a lovely chat all the way down to the hospital at Rennes.

There were a couple of diversions too. Firstly, we had to go back to my driver’s house to pick up her ‘phone that she had forgotten. Then there was someone else to pick up on a housing estate outside Avranches. This passenger offered to show us the short-cut to the motorway, but ended up losing us in the maze of roadworks.

What with one thing and another … "and once you’ve made a start, you’ll be surprised at how many other things there are" – ed … we were twenty minutes late arriving.

It was a young intern doctor who saw me today, and he put me through the mill. He asked me to stand on the weighing machine, which was much more difficult than it ought to have been, and I’m convinced that he arranged it in order to see just if I managed to climb on.

He wasn’t very happy when he had to ring up Avranches to ask about my blood test results, because I’d somehow brought an out-of-date set.

In the end, he said that I was well enough to proceed with chemotherapy, finishing by saying "it’s all not so bad". I replied that as far as I was concerned, everything was an absolute disaster. "It was just a figure of speech" he said, hurriedly, but I still wasn’t impressed.

They took me straight in to chemotherapy, and then they all had some kind of discussion about what treatment I was supposed to have. I was there cringing, because there’s only one treatment of the (many) that I can tolerate with any kind of comfort, and I hoped that they weren’t going to mess it up.

Eventually, about an hour and a half later than advertised, they connected me up. I fell almost immediately asleep, and that’s how most of the day went. Me falling asleep, they waking me up with questions, blood pressure tests etc. At one stage I began to shiver so they gave me a sheet in which to wrap myself.

“This is very significant” I thought. “I wonder if it means anything”. It was certainly enough to put the dampers on everything.

The meal for me was boiled potatoes and fruit. I think that the vegan burger last time was beginner’s luck. And although fruit is banned from my menu, according to the dieticians, the orange and the banana looked so appetising that I couldn’t resist.

They unplugged me at about 15:15 and my taxi was waiting. I had to send for a wheelchair because I was in no state to walk. They don’t allow you even five minutes there to recover before you’re on your way. It’s very industrial there.

Before I left, they gave me a summons to come back tomorrow for part II of the treatment – again at 08:30! So another 07:00 start!

There was someone else to drop off at Avranches, and I finally made it home at 17:00 exactly.

To my embarrassment, I couldn’t exit the car, I was that weak. And once I did manage to raise myself to my feet, it was a real struggle to reach my front door.

After a good hour or so’s recovery, I transcribed the dictaphone notes. During World War I, several captured merchant ships were renamed and handed out to British companies who had already lost ships at sea because of the war. One of these ships became the SS Rhosllanerchrugog or a similar kind of name. When people heard of the name and saw the name written on the back of the jackets of the sailors, they were astonished because they didn’t understand how there would possibly be a name that long for a merchant ship. But she took the name and she took the crew and she sailed quite happily for the rest of the war.

This relates to what I read a couple of weeks ago about merchant raiding ships, disguised German warships capturing merchant ships, siphoning off their oil for fuel, and then either sending the ship to Germany if it had a valuable cargo, or scuttling it if it was valueless.

Interestingly, I pronounced the first syllable of the ship’s name as “ros” which, although is the “official” way of pronouncing the word, I’ve always pronounced it as “hrowse”. That is how it’s pronounced in a small area south of Wrexham and north of Rhiwabon, including in the town of Rhosllanerchrugog itself.

Why I pronounce it like that, I’ve no idea because my grandmother comes from South Wales and lived, apparently, north of Wrexham. When she married, they moved east to near the English border so I’ve no connection at all with the area of Rhosllanerchrugog.

We were camping somewhere in the Canadian Mountains. I’d not long arrived, and I decided that I would go to buy a loaf of bread so that I could buy something to eat. I walked round to the nearest shop, but all that they had left were two sandwiches, but someone immediately bought those. It wasn’t a shop, it was a petrol station. I tried to look around for a shop but the only shop that they had didn’t have any bread. We saw a mobile home thing drive off the campsite and shoot off somewhere. We’d heard that he was looking for bread too so we decided to follow him. About twenty miles into the mountains, we came across another small shop and there were several people hanging around there. So we went and asked if they had any bread. While we were doing that, I wandered around and found some loaves on the shelf. I went to pick one up but the woman told me not to pick that up because it was out of date0 I had a look, and it was about twenty years out of date. The guy in charge of the shop said that he had some bread in the back but he’s trying to find the keys for the storeroom. We waited and waited, and he searched and searched. After a couple of hours, he said that he was unable to find them. So we began to search to help him, but we couldn’t even find the lights to the storeroom, never mind the keys. We were there, searching for hours. I had to nip to the bathroom so I disappeared. I came back ten minutes later and found everyone gone. The place was shuttered. It seemed that he had not been able to find it at all. There was some rumour that the shop back in town had had sixteen hundred loaves delivered so we climbed back into our vehicles to head back. But there was someone, an old man, sitting on a bench outside the shop, and after we’d gone, the proprietor came out. It turned out that the little old man was Louis Roblès, the footballer from Bala. Those two greeted each other like long-lost brothers.

There’s a small town – a village really – on the “Forgotten Coast” of Québec called Godbout where I WENT TO STAY FOR A WEEK when they let me out of hospital in 2016. To find bread around there quite often involved a 20 km drive, and more besides at times.

However, although I met the solicitor from my neighbouring village in the Auvergne … "it’s a small world" – ed … I didn’t meet Louis Roblès, who, incidentally, plays for Colwyn Bay this season.

There was also something about me trying on hats. I found a nice, fur-lined olive green hat that I tried on. That seemed to fit quite nicely and it was warm, so I decided to take it. As I was doing that, a friend from school, who lived in Shavington from school walked past. He was surprised to see me and said “hello”. I said “hello” back. Once I had this hat on, two American soldiers walked past. One of them said “you are breaking the law wearing that hat”. I asked him if we were in the USA. He replied “no” so I told him that he could quickly go away, using a rather vulgar, vernacular term.

This dream doesn’t relate to anything at all, as far as I’m aware. And I bet that the boy was surprised to see me too! Considering that I haven’t given him a moment’s thought since we left school, I was surprised to see him in a dream!

Nerina and I had been working in a foreign country. We were sitting on a couple of chairs waiting to go home. We were on a cliff, and there was a real storm raging. The sea was really choppy and we could see trawlers and ships in the sea, struggling to make any headway. Then the currency exchange window opened. I went to the window but no-one would serve me for ten or fifteen minutes. When they finally did, after I’d made some remark, I had all of this money, and it was all in small change. I asked this woman if she would change it. She made some kind of grimace, but said that she would. I hauled out all of these pennies and ha’pennies. Nerina and I had counted them but we weren’t convinced that it was right, so she weighed them and worked out the price. I found some more, but she moaned at that and said that she didn’t think that she was going to add them into the total and give us anything for them. I told her that we could always find another currency exchange place if she wasn’t happy but she moaned even more. She said “your friend who was here last time took me out for a meal”, to which I replied “I’m not interested in going for a meal. I’m interested in changing my money”. I had noticed that on the counter, they had some really competitive prices for gold coin collections. I was wondering whether I had enough money to buy some gold and bring it home with me. But while this had started, Nerina was not in a particularly good mood so I went over and gave her a kiss. Someone sitting next to Nerina made some kind of comment but I ignored it.

There would have been no chance whatever of enticing Nerina to come to work abroad. Her feet were rooted firmly in Crewe, as close as possible to her mother. We had many a discussion about “abroad” but I realised quite quickly that nothing was going to persuade her otherwise, despite how many good arguments I might have been able to use.

And maybe if I’d kissed Nerina rather more when she had been in a bad mood, things might indeed have been different. But as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I can’t turn the clock back.

There was also something about changing my trousers into a pair of red trousers with a Welsh dragon on it, but they were about ten sizes too large for me. I had to draw the drawstrings really tight to keep them on.

This is completely strange too.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice. And I did manage to finish it all. That’s no surprise because that and the boiled potatoes are all that I’ve had to eat today. As for drinks, I’ve had 2×200ml disgusting drinks and two mouthsful of water, and that’s it.

So tomorrow, I’m off to chemotherapy again, so I’m off to bed, hoping to be in better shape than I am right now

But seeing as we have been talking about queueing for bread … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of when I was in Poland in 1979, and saw all these people queueing for hours for bread, which didn’t arrive.
One man began to make a fuss, shouting and waving his arms and denouncing the Communists. Subsequently, an armed patrol pulled up and surrounded the protestors.
"Now look what you’ve done, you old fool!" said one of the others. "We’re all going to be shot now!"
"There’s nothing to worry about" replied the old man. "If we’ve run out of bread, I bet that they’ve run out of bullets too!"

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: bad night

Thursday 18th December 2025 – FOR THE THIRD …

Wednesday 17th December 2025 – JUST LIKE YESTERDAY …

Tuesday 16th December 2025 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

Wednesday 10th December 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

Sunday 7th December 2025 – WHEN I WENT …

Saturday 6th December 2025 – MY CHRISTMAS CAKES …

Wednesday 26th November 2025 – AND ONCE AGAIN …

Tuesday 18th November 2025 – PART TWO OF …

Friday 7th November 2025 – WHAT AN ABSOLUTE …

Wednesday 5th November 2025 – THIS EVENING …

Sunday 26th October 2025 – HAS ANYONE ELSE …

Saturday 25th October 2025 – MY BROCCOLI STALK …

Thursday 23rd October 2025 – AS I HAVE …

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 – I HAVEN’T HAD …

Tuesday 21st October 2025 – HOW LONG IS IT …

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