Tag Archives: bad night

Wednesday 27th November 2024 – I’VE DONE IT AGAIN.

It’s strange, isn’t it? That it always seems to happen on a Wednesday. But once again I had a very late night, or more like, an early morning because it was long, long after 03:00 when I finally crawled off to bed.

And when I was in bed I can’t remember if I went to sleep or not. I have vague memories of being awake throughout the night last night.

However when the alarm went off I was asleep and what surprised me was that it wasn’t as difficult as I thought that it would be to raise myself from the bed

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up to keep me going until this afternoon and then came back in here to see if there was anything on the dictaphone from what little of the night there was.

And to my surprise there was something on there too. But I’m not going to mention it because you are probably eating your meal at the moment. It actually concerned the South-Eastern USA and slaves. I’ve been reading too much Isaac Weld, I reckon.

The nurse came early today and he didn’t hang around for long. And so it was earlier than usual when I sat down to eat my breakfast.

However, I was engrossed in ISAAC WELD’S BOOK

He’s still having issues on his travels, and he must have had some unfortunate run-in with some more American people because he writes "Intoxication is very prevalent, and it is fcarcely poffible to meet with a man who does not begin the day with taking one, two, or more drams as foon as he rifes. Brandy is the liquor which they principally ufe, and having the greater abundance of peaches, they make it at a very trifling expence."

As well as that, he’s also continuing on his favourite subject, the quality of the accommodation on offer in the USA.

He writes " The accommodation at the taverns along this road I found moft wretched ; nothing was to be had but rancid fifh, fat falt pork, and bread made of Indian corn. For this indifferent fare alfo 1 had to wait oftentimes an hour or two."

Nevertheless, Weld would have been glad of that because next day, having arrived late at his next lodgings and having to argue for an hour to be let in, "returning to the houfe, I was fhewn into a room about ten feet fquare, in which were two filthy beds fwarming with bugs ; the ceiling had mouldered away, and the walls admitted light in various places … Unable therefore to procure any food, and fatigued with a long journey during a parching day, I threw myfelf down on one of the beds in my clothes, and enjoyed a profound repofe, notwithftanding the repeated onfets of the bugs and other vermin with which I was molefted."

It sounds vey much like THAT MOTEL IN FLAGSTAFF ARIZONA, where I stayed in 2002.

His observations throughout his journey are fascinating and I’m enthralled by his book and its contents. He tells us "the people in this part of the country, bordering upon James River, are extremely fond of an entertainment which they call a barbacue. It confifts in a large party meeting together, either under fome trees, or in a houfe, to partake of a flurgeon or pig roafted in the open air, on a fort of hurdle, over a flow fire; this, however, is an entertainment chiefly confined to the lower ranks,."

However, his cynicism is wonderful and I’m appreciating his book more and more. He finishes his talk of “barbacues” with"like moft others of the fame nature, it generally ends in intoxication."

Back in here I had a slow start to the day, which is not surprising given the night that I’d had last night (or this morning) but once I’d organised myself I set about finishing off the radio programme that I’d started to edit yesterday (was it yesterday?).

There were several interruptions of course. Lunch was first and then my cleaner turned up to do her stuff.

Once she’d organised the bathroom I went to have a shower. And how much I enjoyed it too. It really was lovely and what was even nicer was that I climbed in and out without any help from my cleaner . However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s not a good idea to try it on my own with no-one about.

There was the hot chocolate break too. I didn’t forget today, which is just as well because I do like that.

While I was at it I began my order from LeClerc. My cleaner had told me of a few things that we need so I may as well begin.

Tea tonight was a leftover curry. I’d taken some naan bread dough from the freezer and it had been defrosting throughout the afternoon.

The curry was delicious as usual and the chocolate cake, with lemon-flavoured dessert tonight, was just as nice.

Bedtime right now, ready for the next lot of issues at the Dialysis Clinic. And there’s really no end to all of this and it’s something that I’ll have to suffer for the rest of my life, if I live that long.

However I did feel sorry for Isaac Weld, on his travels confronting yet more intoxicated Americans. "Whenever thefe people come to blows, they fight juft like wild beafts, biting, kicking, and endeavouring to tear each other’s eyes out with their nails. It is by no means uncommon to meet with thofe who have loft an eye in a combat, and there are men who pride themfelves upon the dexterity with which they can feoop one out. This is called gouging … But what is worfe than all, thefe wretches in their combat endeavour to their utmoft to tear out each other’s teiticles."

He met one of these intoxicated Americans in the street. "You’re drunk!" he roared
"No I’m not!" replied the American
"Ohh yes you are!"
"I’m not at all" replied the American. "I know full well when I’m drunk"
"When’s that?" asked Weld
"It’s when I start to see double" replied the American "like when the two of you become four"

Wednesday 20th November 2024 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone from the night just now.

But that’s not surprising because I didn’t go to sleep at all. It was what the French call a nuit blanche.

And if you think that going to bed at midnight or thereabouts is bad, then how about at 02:00 and I was still awake and not in bed?

This kind of thing happens occasionally, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. It’s a pretty miserable affair when I’m awake like this and can’t sleep but it’s just another one of those little things sent to try me, I suppose, and I have to make the best of it, such as it is.

So after finishing off my notes I was somewhat tired, but more physically tired than a sleep kind of tired. I couldn’t find the strength or the will to haul myself out of my chair and move the few inches or so into the bed. I just sat here and vegetated for all that time.

Eventually I managed to pull myself together and headed off to the bathroom to prepare myself for bed, thinking to myself that it wouldn’t have been so bad had I been able somehow to do some work in the time that I was still awake.

Once in bed I tossed and turned and couldn’t sleep at all, and that was probably the most depressing part of the night. I began to reminisce about things that I should have done, or ought to have done, and that’s bound to bring me out in a depression.

And that’s how it went on for most of the night. I was too far wrapped up in the past to think about the present, and that’s definitely the wrong way to be doing things.

When the alarm went off I crawled reluctantly out of bed (and you’ve no idea just how reluctantly) and headed for the bathroom and a good wash and scrub up.

Back in here I listened to the dictaphone and, as I expected, found nothing. So instead I had a look at my shopping list ready to order things from LeClerc on Friday.

However it’s difficult to make up an order this week. I have a lot of things in stock so I don’t need much. In fact, I can live without everything for the next week or two (except the soft vegetables of course) so I made an executive decision and decided that I won’t sent off an order this week. What I do need, like the mushrooms, tomato and cucumber, I’ll ask my cleaner to fetch them.

And for the benefit of new readers, of which there are more than just a few these days, an executive decision is one where if it’s the wrong decision, the person making it is executed.

Isabelle the Nurse had news for me today. Firstly, they are moving the War Memorial while they renovate the town centre and secondly, snow is forecast for tomorrow. And I’m going to Avranches and the clinic in a taxi too.

After she left I made breakfast and carried on with my book.

Hearne is now writing his summary. He writes about the people whom he meets, their lifestyles out in the peri-Arctic tundra and their habits, and it’s all extremely interesting. About his guide he says "I have met with few Christians who possessed more good moral qualities, or fewer bad ones" and "his scrupulous adherence to truth and honesty would have done honour to the most enlightened and devout Christian, while his benevolence and universal humanity to all the human race, according to his abilities and manner of life, could not exceeded by the most illustrious personage now on record"

If that’s the case, then having read about some of the antics of his guide and party on the way back from massacring the Inuit, it tells me so much about the behaviour and morals of England and the English at the end of the Eighteenth Century.

We’re also being treated to an account of the wildlife and vegetation that he encounters on his trip. And his discussion of the food that they ate on their journey has revolted my stomach. It makes my meals sound positively appetising. Hearne however claims that he quite enjoyed some of them and in that case he’s welcome to them.

And when he describes the contemporary meals that are on offer back in England in the 1770s, that’s enough to get me going too. They make my mother’s meals sound delicious.

After breakfast I came in here and assembled the radio programme. Despite the speech being longer this time for some reason or other, it all went together quite nicely and I ended up being thirteen seconds over the one hour allowed for the programme.

But that’s not a problem. I can just cut out some of the applause and move some of the sound-bytes up a little and then it will all fit. And in fact, it all fits quite nicely

After lunch I had things to do. A friend of mine was on-line so we had a chat. We have a project going on together that is becoming quite involved and so it was good to have a chat about it.

There were a few on-line orders to make too. I need to overhaul the freezer here because it’s iced up and the drawers have collapsed. I’ve found a supplier of the drawers in Rouen so I had to organise an on-line order. They’ll be here by the weekend, I hope, and with the hair dryer that I liberated with the help of my cleaner, it will be “all systems go” with the freezer.

While we’re on the subject of the cleaner … "well, one of us is" – ed … she turned up to do her stuff this afternoon, part of which was helping me into the shower.

Well, watching, actually, because I managed to climb into the bathtub and sort myself out totally unaided, and isn’t that a change? It’s not all that long ago that I couldn’t even lift my leg up, never mind climb into the bathtub.

The shower was delicious too. I stayed in there for much longer than I should, giving myself a good hosing-down in nice hot water. And I enjoyed every minute of it too

So a nice clean me climbed out of the shower and tidied the bathroom to match the rest of the apartment, and then came back in here to choose the music for the next radio programme.

After the cleaner left I took some naan dough from the freezer and left it to defrost and then made some dough for the next supply of bread.

Tea tonight was a delicious leftover curry with naan bread followed by chocolate cake and the last of the strawberry-flavoured soya dessert which is a shame because it was so nice

While I was having tea the bread was baking in the oven. And at 160°C for 15 minutes and then turn over for another 15 minutes at 160°G, we have the most perfect loaf that I have ever made.

So now I’m off to bed, to catch up on my beauty sleep. I need it too after last night. Dialysis tomorrow but I don’t know how I’m going to go there. All public transport tomorrow is cancelled due to the wave of bad weather that is expected to hit us tonight so I imagine that the taxis won’t be going either, but we shall see.

But before I go let me say something else about Hearne’s trip to the Coppermine River.
One night he and his guide, Matonabbee, were lying there looking at the stars in the sky
"Look at that shooting star, Matonabbee" said Hearne. "What does it signify?"
"It represents the spirit of one of our tribe on his way to join his ancestors in the sky"
"And the stars?" asked Hearne. "Do they represent our ancestors?"
"They do indeed" said Matonabbee. "They are happy with us so they have come out to dance with joy"
"And look at the Aurora Borealis" said Hearne. "And the moon. It’s all so wonderful. And here we are, staring up at it through the night. What does it all mean?"
"It means" said Matonabbee "that earlier this evening some thieving b@$t@rd stole our wigwam."

Wednesday 30th October 2024 – I HAVE FOUND …

… my missing sock

When I put my hand down the sleeve of my jumper this morning, there it was. Don’t ask me what it was doing there or even how it came to be there because I couldn’t answer. It’s just another one of life’s little mysteries, I suppose.

Like managing for once to be in bed before 23:00. That’s a mystery too but nevertheless, for once I managed it last night.

It took me longer than usual to go to sleep and I don’t know why because I was quite tired by the time that I hit the hay. And it was something of a depressing night because, unlike some nights just recently, I was tossing and turning all the way through the night and it seemed that I didn’t have any sleep at all.

However when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was totally dead to the World and it was a struggle to beat the second alarm five minutes later out of bed. And so I gathered up my clothes and headed for the bathroom.

It was only a cursory wash this morning because I’m having a shower later (I hope). And when I dressed, then I found my missing sock, stuck in the sleeve of my jumper.

As I said earlier, don’t ask me how it managed to find its way there. On Monday night I wasn’t even wearing a jumper but the fleece that I wear when I go out. I suppose that I could say that I did it while I was away with the fairies but doubtless the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine would find something to say about the situation that would have been quite normal 150 years ago but would be bound to be misinterpreted today.

Back in here, in my own private version of 1876, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And there was quite a lot on there, which took me by surprise.

We were going to the car racing somewhere – at Silverstone. It had been for saloon cars. One of the vehicles that was putting up a show was an old white Ford Anglia van. Of course we were all keen to urge it on. There were several unexpected vehicles there. There was someone racing a Bentley etc. The race in which we were interested was the saloon car championship where anything could go if it had four wheels on the road and was a production line vehicle. That was basically it. We were there watching this Ford Anglia that was doing quite well but there was someone in a lorry – a tipper – and he was racing up through the field. In the end he overtook some vehicle that pulled off the road with mechanical issues and he was actually in front. He was later stuck in a pack of about three or four vehicles which gave everyone else time to catch up with him so the final five minutes was really exciting. This lorry just managed to have enough going down the final straight to push his nose in front to pass. But we were there cheering on this Jeep that was in fifth place, fourth place was this aubergine thing, third was I can’t remember now what was after that. We were talking about it on the way home, that the first second and third had all been found from the air and as they slowed down after the final lap they all passed a road sign that said “slow”. We thought that it was extremely funny and typical of the USA as well as all the bandages done in squares and useless road markers. Of course I’ve just come back from the USA so I found it funnier still. When we were talking about how funny it was because of the road sign my friend from Atlanta in Georgia joined in too. She was there watching her daughter race.

Why would an aubergine suddenly appear in this dream? Is it anything to do with Monday night’s evening meal? And we seem suddenly to have gone from Silverstone in the East Midlands of the UK to the USA. Anyone coming with me during the night had better have a good passport and a love of travelling.

And then I was in Crewe. I’d finished work early so there was plenty of time for me to wait for the bus to take me home so I went for a wander around the shops. At the bus stop there was a long line of people and a bus pulled up. It was the K39 to Shavington and I wanted the K44. All these people waiting boarded the bus and it pulled away. I went into a local supermarket. I had to leave all of my things in a luggage locker and just go round with one of their trolleys. There was someone on duty searching people as they went in which I thought was a strange thing to do. After I went in I was looking around. I’d met one or two people who had a little chat with me for a couple of minutes about how I was feeling. That’s all that I remember about this dream

Actually I would sometimes take the K39 home. That would go to Shavington and then out to the Hough and Basford. The K44 would go to Shavington and then out to Nantwich via Stapeley. We’d also have the K29 which would alternate between going to Shavington and turning round or else continuing on to Wybunbury and the Whore’s Bed at Walgherton. I’m surprised that I can remember all of that – back in the 1960s we had buses that would run all the way to after 23:00, but now most of these buses have been suppressed and nothing moves at all after 19:00. Such are the benefits of privatisation

After that the contemporary Press has been very kind to me. They were saying that the remains of my noble Lord Shrewsbury could be seen for months afterwards scattered on the ground and various other things that were rarely polite about me as a Duke of the Realm, extremely unpopular with the local peasantry, even though I’d tried my best to alleviate the suffering of their time and making things easier for them

The “contemporary Press” is obviously a reference to Aunt Judy’s Magazine making spurious allegations about what I get up to when I’m away with the fairies, but if I ever an ennobled then you know that there’s something rotten in the State of Denmark right enough

There was a film starring Louis de Funès and during this film a woman invited him back to her apartment. In fact he resembled very much a friend of hers and she thought that he was this friend so she invited him back. He was rather astonished but he went back all the same and managed quite well whatever was requested of him. The next time they met, they both were present at the same time. She was talking to one and then the other, then the first one again and ended up inviting them both back to her flat thinking that it was the same person. It wasn’t until halfway through the evening that she suddenly realised that she had two men in her apartment and one of them was a stranger. She began to have all kinds of doubts and all kinds of questions. At that moment there was an accident. Louis de Funès had hurt himself and there was blood all down his shoulder. Everyone gathered round to try to clean it. In the meantime – no, it wasn’t Louis de Funès, it was the other one who had the bloody shoulder. While they were treating him they discreetly ushered him out of the apartment until in the end there was just Louis de Funès, the woman and the first-aid staff there. At that point I’d gone off with some friends including my partner. We’d parked at some kind of park. We’d been away for several days. I fell asleep and when I awoke I was there on my own with these two dogs. To pass the time I was throwing a frisbee to these two dogs and they were bringing it back again. Then they all came back from their walk through the forest. My partner saw the mess that I’d made. I’d been eating a tomato and I’d unpacked one or two things to look for something. She had a really good moan at me about it. I couldn’t understand because it only took 30 seconds to put it all back again. Then she came across some meat in the van She said “we have some meat to eat. We have to eat that before Saturday”. I suddenly realised that I’d bought that for my sandwiches but I’d never had it on my sandwiches. I didn’t really say anything because it did have to be eaten but it was still something rather difficult etc.

The first part of this dream sounds like the kind of plot that Louis de Funès would relish. He’s played many comic roles where he’s found himself in impossible situations and had to work out a way to extricate himself. As for the second part, I could easily see myself in a similar predicament without very much effort at all

Finally I was with a girl in Scotland. She was a Scottish girl. I’d been going through, doing my accounts, looking through some of the accounts that I’d kept as a child about what I did and what I spent. We were having this discussion about childhood. She asked how much pocket money I used to have so I told her a figure and said that my elder sister had the same. She asked about the younger children. I said that it might have been more because we were a little richer in those days but I didn’t know. She was telling me about her childhood. It was a very difficult one because his father used to drink. There was this alcohol culture in Scotland – people used to drink and quite often became violent if they had a drink. She was saying that her childhood was one of violence and she was quite happy when she left. I could sympathise with her for a variety of reasons. We carried on talking about our childhood as we were walking down a hill through this Scottish town. We came to the big dual carriageway by-pass and had to wait for the lights to change and we could cross. She began to tell me something about her brother who was a car paint-sprayer, in particular one of the jobs that he had done. He’d had a row with the owner of the vehicle over the price. It was something to do with a joke that he’d told about making the calculation and the owner of the vehicle completely misunderstood it and took it the wrong way and it led to this argument.

As if I’m ever likely to be talking to anyone about my childhood. I can’t even talk to myself about it.

When I was driving coaches up to Scotland I had a good chat with someone about the alcohol issue. When I first went to Glasgow in the early 70s when I had to go to the Insurance company’s head office in Perth we were told in no uncertain terms to take a taxi between the stations regardless. But when I began to go again, driving for Shearings, the situation had changed dramatically.

Her take on the issue was that with the pubs closing at 21:00 people would pour out of work straight into the pubs without eating, drink as much as they could and then pour out onto the streets with plenty of energy left, fuelled up ready for a fight. However, when licensing hours were relaxed in line with the rest of the UK, people would go home after work, have food and then have time to go out later for a drink. They would then be too tired at closing time to involve themselves in any extra-curricular activity.

Isabelle the nurse breezed in, her usual chatty self. It’s her last day now until next Tuesday so tomorrow we’ll be back amid the chaos and confusion. I shan’t be looking forward to that but there we go.

The it was time for breakfast and my book. Alfred Watkins is busy setting the scene for his theory about ley lines and there’s a lovely photo in his book that shows Hereford Cathedral with a pond and a hill, all three in direct line, and you can make out in a field in the foreground what looks like a trace of a sunken road that has been abandoned hundreds if not thousands of years ago.

Interestingly, he talks about the Four Stones of Radnor as being some kind of prehistoric marker. So I went to have a look for myself. I came across THIS PHOTO on someone else’s website and you can see an example of the point that he was trying to make – the way that hill in the distance lines up almost perfectly with a track that might go between the stones.

Back in here I had a slow start to the day and then bashed on with writing the notes for the radio programme on which I was working. By the time that I knocked off for hot chocolate I’d finished everything and it’s ready for dictation.

There had been a couple of interruptions – firstly for lunch and secondly for a shower when my cleaner turned up.

The shower was beautiful and I enjoyed every minute of it. Once a week isn’t enough of course but it’s the best that I can do right now until I’m downstairs and have a walk-in shower installed.

However it is becoming easier and easier to climb into the bath and it’s quite probable that I’d be able to do it without any help, bit it’s folly to try it when I’m alone

After the hot chocolate I made a start on the next programme. Once again, I’ve not chosen anything easy but it remains to be seen how this one works out. We’re bang in the middle of Summer next year so there’s so much going on that we need to celebrate and commemorate.

There was almost nothing in the way of leftovers tonight but I had sent half a surplus curry to the freezer a good while ago so I went and had a search around to bring it back out tonight.

It should have been so nice but we had an accident with the naan bread. Having rolled it out and left it to rise, I put my elbow into it when I bent down to tidy up the baking stuff.

The last of the apple cake has now gone so it looks as if I’ll be trying a rice pudding in the air fryer tomorrow

But that’s tomorrow. I’m off to bed now, ready to gather my wits for another afternoon of torture at the Dialysis Clinic.

And while we’re on the subject of my friend from Atlanta … "well, one of us is" – ed … she once told me an interesting story about her daughter when she was aged ten. I’ve probably told it before but if I have, please excuse me.
Anyway; they live in a complex of several apartment buildings in a suburb of Atlanta and when her daughter was aged ten, she asked if she could go to see a school friend who lived in another one of the buildings.
"Of course you can" said my friend "but what do you do if someone tries to grab you?"
"Kick him in the b*ll*cks and shout ‘fire’" replied the daughter brightly
"What a horrible word" said my friend. "The correct word that you should use is ‘testicles’"
"OK" replied the daughter. "So I kick him in the b*ll*cks and shout ‘testicles’ then"

Tuesday 29th October 2024 – I HAVE LOST …

… a sock somewhere in this apartment. And with only 40m² in which to lose it, that’s some going.

Last night I took them off and stuck them over the back of my office chair ready for the morning, and when I went to pick them up, there was one on the floor and the other was nowhere to be found.

This is the kind of thing that you would immediately blame on the cat, but that’s rather difficult to do when I don’t have a cat, and we all know that there’s a sock goblin who lives in every washing machine, goblin up the socks but again that’s not likely to be the case seeing as my socks were nowhere near the washing machine.

But it’s not anywhere to be found, this missing sock. I have turned the place upside down to try to find it but it seems to have made good its escape and that would seem to be that.

It was just before going to bed that I took them off. That was rather later than I planned after everything that I had to do, and it annoyed me that I was so late yet again

Once I was in bed, I went to sleep quite quickly but awoke shortly afterwards and then spent a couple of hours tossing and turning before going back to sleep – something of a variation on the usual post-dialysis procedure.

This morning I didn’t need the alarm to awaken. In fact, when I looked at my watch to see what time it was, it was actually 06:59 – one minute before the alarm was due to go off. It goes without saying that I didn’t beat it to my feet this morning.

Gathering up my clothes to take into the bathroom, that was when I noticed the absence of a sock. “Never mind” I mused. “There’s a clean pair hanging from the octopus in the bathroom. I’ll find the missing sock in due course”. That was famous last words, wasn’t it?

While I was washing, I realised that despite what I said last night, I wasn’t all that disturbed by the events in the Dialysis Clinic and I’d survived the night without any serious issues. Live to fight another day, I reckon.

Back in here I sat down to transcribe the dictaphone note to find out where I’d been during the night. There I was having some kind of dream about being in bed, connecting up to dialysis machines, all that kind of thing. I was really surprised to find myself on the right side of the bed when I briefly awoke instead of on the left side where I’d just been in that dream. I didn’t remember too much of this but I suddenly awoke and was freezing cold again

That sounds as if it was exciting, dreaming about the Dialysis Clinic. Maybe it did affect me more than I thought just now. And if I’m dreaming that I’m cold, that’s worrying because in order to cover up my arms and not tear the plasters off by mistake, I’d gone to bed with a jumper on.

And then I was in Crewe and had to go to the centre of Brussels to see the doctor or to give him a form or ask him for something. I set off on foot but went a strange way and ended up going down Earle Street. I thought “I don’t have all that much time if I have to be there”. I had a think and thought that it takes me 30 or 40 minutes going this way then I have to cut through all the side streets and alleys etc. All in all it takes about an hour and fifteen minutes and it’s complicated but if I just went straight into the centre of Brussels down the Boulevard and around the Ring it would only take me an hour and fifteen minutes going that way. I set off clutching my form and a few other things, still trying to work out the times. I went past Zero’s house. Usually I’d be going in there, having a coffee, staying for a chat and generally making myself unwelcome but today I was in a rush so I just went to say hello as I was passing. We ended up having a good talk about T.Rex. I’d given Zero’s father a single or two in the past but suddenly he began to search among his CDs and then went through a box, a tin that looked as if it was a tin that contained CDs. He was obviously looking for a CD but in the end couldn’t find it. I said “don’t worry. It’ll do, whatever it is, another time”. Then of course I had to go but for some reason I couldn’t tear myself away but time was drawing on. I’d miss my slot at the doctor’s to hand over this form if I didn’t get a move on very quickly.

If I’m planning on walking from Crewe to Brussels in one hour and fifteen minutes I ought to be competing in the Olympics. Strangely though, if I walked to work from where I lived with Laurence and Roxanne and went through the alleys of Schaerbeek it did take one hour and fifteen minutes. But when I lived out on the edge of the city in Expo it was more usual for me to talk down the Boulevard to the city centre then around the Inner Ring and down the Rue de la Loi. That was, until I went to work out at the sub-office when it was back to the alleys of Schaerbeek again.

It’s not unreasonable to expect me to find it difficult to tear myself away from Zero’s house. Imagine being there and she being elsewhere. It’s a few times that that has happened and it’s rather depressing to think that I’ve missed her like that.

Later on, a friend of mine contacted me to ask if I wanted to buy ten American school buses. “Not particularly” I thought but then again I thought that it depends for how much they are on sale. Something like that could be extremely interesting so I resolved to make further enquiries. The first thing that I did was to check his bank account, making sure that the numbers that he quoted me came out as being to him so I knew that at least that part of the deal was going to be OK. This all happened while I was at work. I had two enormous files on my desk full of work that I was trying to resolve for a couple of people. It was really complicated and I was having to think about this. I had a young girl assistant who kept coming and going, taking one of the files to do some of the work that I’d pointed out. All of this was going on, there was one thing and then the other. Then the ‘phone rang. It was a voice saying “hello Eric. Se we’re off to Chicago at the end of the month”. I asked “are we?” and they replied “ohh are you going too?”. I didn’t have the first clue who it was but this conversation went on for quite a long time until suddenly he said something, then I realised that he was a guy whom I’d met in a pub while we’d been watching an American Football game. We ended up talking about the Superbowl – it would have been nice as an event but not the complete Carnival the way that it was shown on TV, how there had been so much controversy about the way that it had been shown that they were no longer showing it. The guy was really sad because he had a friend who was a lottery expert. They’d all won the lottery so this was why they were going but now with no American Football there was no longer a lottery. This conversation went on for hours like this guy was my best friend and I’d only met him just that once. We talked about the USA, we talked about Scotland, how they were OK to visit but only in small doses. I had to say that I was just totally bewildered about all of this, why I’d suddenly seemed to become this guy’s very best friend.

Just recently I’ve had to verify a bank account in some kind of similar circumstances, but not in connection with buying American school buses. One of my friends actually does own a retired school bus, don’t you, Rhys, and I’ve slept in it too when I was in South Carolina. But there have been several occasions when I’ve had long and complicated and quite often personal conversations with people either on the ‘phone or in real life and I’ve ended up wondering “who the hell was that?” because I didn’t recognise them or their voice at all.

Isabelle the nurse came round and she tried her best to motivate me and lift up my spirits. That’s not an easy thing to do when I’m down in the dumps but I was grateful for her kind words.

After she left I made breakfast and finished off my book. The geology lecture was very interesting and the book concluded with a list of walks where we could see the different strata. There were eight walks in all and if I were in the UK and in better health I’d go out and do them. But they aren’t for the faint-hearted. The author tells us "much time is taken up in surveying the country and hammering the rocks, and that a twelve miles’ walk as estimated by the map is a good day’s work for the hardiest geologist"

How many people these days would be prepared to have a twelve-mile walk? Add to that the fact that these walks start and finish at local rural railway stations, most of which fell victim to the Beeching Axe in the mid-60s and so you’d have even farther to walk these days.

The next book is going to be EARLY BRITISH TRACKWAYS by our old friend Alfred Watkins who we have met before.

He was at one time President of the Woolhope Naturalists and his book is a summary and enlargement of the talk that he gave to the Society in 1921.

This book is important because it was while researching it that he developed his theory of ley lines, a theory that led to his book THE OLD STRAIGHT TRACK that we read and discussed a couple of months ago and which created such a stir when people began to realise the significance of the subject that he was discussing.

His theory was that many prehistoric and not so prehistoric man-made geographical features and many natural geographical features lay along straight lines that stretched for miles across the country and even across the sea to mainland Europe, and he was probing for a reason why this would be so. He reckoned that there were so many of them that it was hardly a coincidence.

His theories were given a new lease of life by new-age people in the 1960s and 1970s and pushed way beyond any boundary that Watkins ever imagined. However his theories have been rubbished by modern researchers who have pointed out that you could draw the same straight lines through the position of such objects as telephone boxes

However, that’s not as strange as you might imagine. Watkins comments that his “ley lines” passed through such places as road junctions, many of which are situated at the crossing of ancient prehistoric trackways that might have been incorporated into the modern road network. And they passed through many churches too, which are quite often (more often than many people will admit) situated on ancient, prehistoric sacred sites. And where would you expect to find a telephone box? At a road junction or outside a church of course, which might correspond with the position of one of Watkins’ points on a ley line.

So whether or not you believe in whatever Watkins was trying to prove, his books make a very interesting and absorbing read.

Back in here I didn’t do much at first. It’s half-term so there’s no Welsh class so I just relaxed for a couple of hours and made the most of it.

Then, before lunch, I attacked the Welsh homework that I had planned to do today. That’s half of it done and I’ll do the other half at the weekend.

After lunch I made a start on another radio programme.

This one is also a special occasion and finding the music wasn’t easy. But I managed to track down everything that, although it’s not exactly what I wanted, will still make a good, relevant programme. And I began to write the text for it.

There are eleven tracks, which run to about one hour and twenty-eight minutes. Then there’s the text to go with it. So for one hour’s worth of programme there will have to be some serious editing.

So which tracks to leave out? The answer is to write and dictate the notes for all of them, see what I have and then see where I end up. It’s a shame though to leave some of them out because there’s some good stuff in there.

There was a break for hot chocolate and the last of the chocolate cake. Tomorrow I’ll be back on the crackers and hummus while I think of my next move.

With no stuffing, my tea tonight was rather different. It was still a taco roll but there had been a tin of refried beans that must, I reckon, have been lying around here since the building was built in 1668. So it was refried beans and salad on my taco roll tonight, cooked lightly in the microwave.

Refried beans reminds me of my trip TO SANTA FE IN 2002 when I drove all around the town looking for refried beans and eventually tracked down some spicy chili beans.

There’s not much of my apple cake left. Just enough for tomorrow so I may well on Thursday have a bash at a rice pudding and see how that works out. I may as well experiment with the air fryer and see what I can do

But not now as I’m off to bed ready to fight the good fight tomorrow.

But talking of telephone boxes … "well, one of us is" – ed … reminds me of a discussion that I had a while back.
With the rise of mobile ‘phones and the loss of all of these telephone boxes all over the country, where do superheroes go when they want to put their underpants on outside their trousers?
When we all lived in the Auvergne I had to plead with the mayor of Virlet to keep the one in our village so if anyone asked for my urgent help, I could dash into the telephone box and put my underpants on outside my trousers and then dash off to their aid.
But while we were discussing telephone boxes one of my friends mentioned that she’d seen my brother with his underpants on outside his trousers once
"Is he a superhero too?" she asked
"Not at all" I replied
"So why does he do it?"
"He does it" I said "because he’s two sandwiches short of a picnic"

Saturday 26th October 2024 – YOU AREN’T GOING …

… to believe this – or maybe you are, I don’t know – but do you remember that new prescription that I had just the other day?

And so here we are just 10 days later, and it’s already been changed. Furthermore, the medication that he added in? That’s been changed too. After just 10 days. I don’t know what the chemist is going to say when my poor cleaner goes there on Monday

The issue is that some of these pills and potions aren’t a regular order but have to be ordered specially. And you can’t order just one packet, you have to order – and pay for – a box full. Reimbursement isn’t made until the medication is prescribed and collected by the patient.

So if the chemist has ordered a boxful of rare stuff and only handed out one packet, she’s stuck with the rest until the expiry date at which point she has to throw it away, and she’ll be well out-of-pocket

In my opinion, she will have every reason to be upset by all of this and I’m glad that it’s not me who has to go to face her

But anyway, that’s something to worry about for another time.

Last night I struggled into bed just about at the correct time, just before 23:00. And glad I was too to be finally in bed

There wasn’t even time to start my little night-time mantra before I was asleep, but it didn’t last. Not that I was cold, because I’d gone to sleep in my tee-shirt, but it was a disturbed night nevertheless. I was awakening and going back to sleep on regular occasions too numerous to count.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I had a great deal of difficulty rising up out of my stinking pit and it was a very undignified stagger into the living room to collect some clean clothes.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, and even a shave, and then all of the dirty clothes that were hanging about went into the washing machine and I set it off on a cycle (a very clever washing machine, mine).

Back in the living room I put away all of the shopping bags from LeClerc ready to hand back next time they deliver, and then put all of the drained carrots into the freezer ready for the next few weeks.

Back in here I made a start on the dictaphone notes, but I didn’t get very far before Isabelle came. With everything that I’d done, I was running late.

She gave me my ‘flu injection, and told me that the side-effects might be a painful shoulder and ‘lu-like symptoms for a very short while, so I need to have the Doliprane standing by, so I told her to clear off. This whole country floats on Doliprane – the slightest problem that arises and “I’ll pass you the Doliprane”. If you’re hurting, there’s a reason and masking the pain can just make the problem worse.

After she left I had breakfast and read my book. We’ve finished fossils and we’re now discussing the notes that the speaker who had proposed the mushroom book had prepared and brought to the meeting to present to the assembled multitudes.

And we’ve yet to find out anything about Mr Houghton’s “photographs of a very curious and interesting character”. I’ll be sure to tell you when I find out.

Back in here I finished off transcribing the dictaphone notes. I started off going to flower shows, inspecting flowers etc. I even in my dream sent myself a message although I’ve no idea what it was about but it concerns flowers etc and that’s mainly because everything that I’ve been discussing I’ve been reading about discussions of mixed lists

It’s quite impressive that I can even in a dream remember what’s been going on at the breakfast table. But what interest do I have in flowers? My friend Lorna once said that the only time I’d ever take a photograph of a flower would be if there were a car parked on top of it.

A couple of years ago I’d had a huge, blazing row with a member of public about something or other which had turned rather ugly. Anyway I thought no more about it but suddenly a group of policemen turned up and said that they were going to take me off down to the police station. I thought that it might have been for questioning, something like that, so I went along. I met my boss who was there. I asked him what was going on and he told me that this was going to be the hearing about remand and liability. I couldn’t understand this. I expected the proceedings to be similar to how they were in the UK. He replied “oh now. You won’t have bail. You’ll be remanded and the case will be dealt with tomorrow”. “That’s rather quick”. He asked “what are you going to do afterwards? Are you going back to your old job in the UK?”. I replied “I’m hoping that I’ll stay here”. He answered “well you can’t stay here if you’re going to do this. You’ll lose your job. For a start” he said, showing me a spark plug “this won’t be able to fit under your vehicle”. I couldn’t understand any of this. There was the guy with whom I had this altercation. The police turned to him and asked “do you still wish to go ahead with this?”. He replied “Yes” so two policemen took me inside. One of them asked “you don’t mind sharing a cell on your own, do you?”. I asked if there was going to be any bail. He replied “oh, no. The case will be heard in the morning. You’re remanded overnight. They took me down into the bowels of the police station like in one of these old films. There’s a room there with about fifty people in it on a load of benches and they just sat me on a bench at the back. There were several other people around and we were watching a procession that set off – all people in brightly-coloured clothes and flags of the various nations. A whole group of people from Sweden set off followed by some people from Croatia. I was all completely bewildered by this. I hadn’t the least idea about what was going on

I stepped back into that dream later on and was driving back to the house where I’d been just now. There was a pile of mud on the floor with some traffic lights on red. I didn’t see the line where to stop so I stopped where I thought it was and found that I was in the middle of the junction. I raised my hand in apology to everyone and drove off. As I raised my hand a Rover 820 saloon, a silver one with a pattern part wing on it pulled out of a garage. I thought to myself “that’s the guy with whom I’d had this row and that’s his car. I hope that he doesn’t think that I’m waving to him”. I carried on driving and eventually turned up at the house where I was supposed to be. I was looking for a parking place because parking on the street was not allowed. They were parking two-abreast on the pavement. I could see that outside the house where I was supposed to go there was some parking and there was also some room in the drive at the back.

All of the above is quite surreal, especially the flags. It reminds me of Carnaval here in Granville. I’m not sure why the Police would want to come knocking at my door these days though. I’ve been doing my best to keep my head down, but even so, there are some people who just won’t leave you alone

I was dictating into my hand again here, which is something that I do on the odd occasion. There’s a village just off the headland here called “Pentref-Uchaf”, the “Highest Village”. It was a tiny village. It was the village Open Day at the garage. One woman there learned how to fit gas bottles which she said was going to be interesting. I learned how to make mint drinks which was also going to be interesting. On the headland by the village was a big house where we were kept as prisoners. You could see by the trees which way the winds were blowing because the trees were growing in all funny shapes, all pointing towards the east. When I arrived at this house on remand I was asked which bed I wanted. I said that I didn’t mind. Everything they offered me, I said that I’d take whatever they give me, I’m not bothered. I was helping another inmate in the kitchen. He asked me which set of cutlery I wanted, the big one or the small one. I said that I wasn’t bothered. He replied that I was the ideal companion to be incarcerated with. We were trying to make a meal for people but we couldn’t find anything. The guy giving us the instructions took far too long and we’d prepared half of it by the time we’d finished. It was all really strange, the third part of this dream.

This prison bit – I hope that it’s not a forewarning of something. It seems to be rather persistent tonight. But last night I was dreaming in French and tonight it’s Welsh. When I start dreaming in Innu then you know that the World is at an end.

The washing was now ready so I sorted it out and hung it up to dry. And then back in here I attacked the correspondence. Everyone should now have had a reply, but if I’ve missed you, let me know.

My cleaner came early to fit my anaesthetic patches, and it’s just as well because the taxi came early too. We had to pick someone else up so we went round there but she wasn’t ready to come back yet to Avranches so we had a good drive down there on our own.

Being so early I was first in and first dealt with, but even though sticking the ports in me was painless the nurse missed her target so she had to take them out and start again. They are doing their best to torture me in there.

Once it was finally up and running they pretty much left me alone. However the doctor was another story. He came round and asked how I was and then told me about the medication. Later on he sent me the prescription.

As to why they are actually changing the medication I don’t really know. It doesn’t seem to me to be logical to change it so quickly before anything has had time to act.

Once they left me alone, I read my Welsh, listened to music and read my “Curious Church Customs”.

The taxi was waiting for me and we had quite a quick return, where I could only manage nine steps before I had to use my hands to lift up my legs – a backward step … "very good" – ed

There was football tonight – Hwlffordd v Caernarfon, and what a dreary match that was. Hwlfford played the nicer football but Caernarfon’s approach was rather agricultural. The whole spark seems to have gone out of Caernarfon’s midfield this last few weeks

The final score was 0-0 and both teams were lucky to get nil. This was a match that I’ll forget quite quickly.

Tea was baked potato, vegan salad and a burger on a bun followed by apple cake and caramel soya cream. Nice it was too.

But now I have some dictating to do and then I’m going to bed. It’s an extra hour in bed in the morning and I want to make the most of it.

But the doctor at the Clinic didn’t only see me. He saw others too and after he left, I noticed that one patient whom he’d seen was crying.
"What’s the matter with you?" I asked him
"It’s the doctor" he said. "He’s told me that I have to take one pill every day for the rest of my life"
"There’s no need to be upset" I said "Lots of people have to do that. I’ve been doing it for nine years!"
"It’s all right for you" he said "but the doctor’s only given me six"

Friday 25th October 2024 – I HAVE HAD …

… a really good day today, and accomplished everything that I set out to do, with time to spare.

Tomorrow I am going to have a morning doing some correspondence. Several people are awaiting e-mails from me so I am going to do my best to try to answer them. Post is building back up again.

What probably contributed to at least some of the good day today was that last night I made it to bed before 23:00. It was really nice to be able to do that for once. I don’t do it often enough in my opinion, but then again that could be said about a lot of things.

Once in bed I was asleep quite quickly – but not for long. It was freezing last night and I seem to have gone in one swell foop from sweating profusely during the night to shivering like a jelly as a lorry is going past

In the end I gave up the struggle and put on my dressing gown. Not an ideal thing in which to be sleeping but it was the nearest thing to hand. I have a feeling that it’s going to be a cold winter.

It was quite a restless night too, which seems to be normal after a session at the Dialysis Clinic. I was wide-awake at 02:30, 04:00 and 06:00 and although I made an attempt each time to go back to sleep, at the latter time I failed miserably.

Consequently, when the alarm went off I was already in the kitchen making the bread. Another early start.

While the dough was festering away I went to have a wash, and then came in here to listen to the dictaphone. I’d been for a dialysis and that included having a bath (and wouldn’t that be nice?). When I left the Centre I’d left my earphones behind – a beautiful little pair that I’d received free when I’d telecharged or ordered something off the internet and downloaded it a while back. I thought that I’d never ever see those again because they were so nice and I’d never ever have another pair quite like them. I was completely devastated by the loss of my earphones

telecharged? Downloaded, you mean. We’re dreaming in French again are we? And I did once leave my headphones behind at the Dialysis Centre not so long ago, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. And it will be the end if I do leave those behind and lose them because they are quite lightweight and fold up making them quite portable. I have another pair here and there’s a third pair somewhere and I wish that I could find them.

Next was a party of Arctic explorers stranded out on the ice trying to return home, having all kinds of difficulties. One of the young officers was in charge of manoeuvring the huge sledge that they had, loaded with all of their possessions. It happened to catch on something, tilt over and go in through the ice, and was lost. The dream went on to say that he did the only thing that he could. He saluted, clicked his heels, turned and walked out into the night. He was never seen again, leaving the other three members to make their way home as best as they could with what they had left, which was almost nothing.

The British had a frightfully stiff upper lip when it came to Polar exploration. While other countries sent their teams out with sleds hauled by dogs, the British insisted on man-hauling them. And consequently while casualties amongst the foreign explorers were generally caused by events such as ship-sinkings and to being iced in, the British pulled their sled by hand all the way to their doom. They were driven by the spirit of Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, whose guiding principle was "the important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle, the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well". Consequently it was the foreigners who conquered and the British who fought well, but died by the dozen. As the Canadian historian Pierre Berton put it, the British "failed to conquer because instead of adapting to the environment, they tried to bring their environment with them". The later explorers who discovered the camps of the party of Sir John Franklin, 134 strong that was wiped out to the last man, found dinner plates, silver service, dress suits, bottles of claret and all the luxuries that a British officer and gentleman would require at the dining table of his stately home while my American namesake, searching for traces of Franklin, was living in an igloo amongst the Inuit eating blubber off his sleeping bag with his bare hands.

Later on we were back living in Shavington. I was running my taxi business from there. I had a girl who worked the radio for me part-time at weekends. She was a young, rather unkempt girl. I took one of the cars off for a little spin round and came back. All the cats were loitering around the house so I stopped the car right by the front gate and climbed out. This girl came out of the house to see me. She told me that I ought to give her congratulations. I asked why and she replied that she’d won nearly £50,000 on the football pools. Of course I was really pleased for her. She replied that at last she could maybe have a flat. I asked where she was living at the moment. Was it in a hostel? She replied “no”. She was living in someone’s garage, which I thought was horrible. To make it worse, she’d lost her job during the day so she was loitering around and the owner of the garage didn’t like that. She was talking about buying a little snack bar too. I was really so pleased for her and so impressed. I asked her how many proposals of marriage she’d received already. She replied “none as yet but not many people know”. We had a little chat about the future, maybe she might start to run a snack bar or something. I told her that if she needed any help she could always ask me. But I was really genuinely impressed and genuinely pleased for her.

This was another one of these nice comfortable dreams that I have occasionally. But running my taxis from Shavington – not that that would be likely to work. I was glad really to leave Shavington. If Crewe is extremely parochial and small-minded, Shavington is ten times worse. But then, most small villages are.

Finally, Nerina and I had flown to Montreal and rented a car. We’d gone for a big drive round. We found ourselves down in the south-west corner of the USA in California. We were quite happy driving around through all these desert tracks and I happened to notice from the GPS that according to the GPS we were now in Mexico. I thought that we’d better make it back to the USA before we find ourselves in trouble here. We headed back to the border and this time we picked up the motorway that brought us back to an immigration centre. By now it was very late at night. Eventually it was our turn to be investigated. He gave my passport a cursory once-over and handed it back. But Nerina’s he examined much more closely and began to speak to her in Italian. She was rather put out by this, being caught unawares, but I replied in Italian, so the border guard and I had a little chat. We talked about beautiful women. Eventually he have Nerina back her passport and waved us through. But he was studying our entry stamps quite carefully. Of course we had Canada, and Canada to the USA but there was nothing about us going into Mexico because we’d driven through the desert. When we were back in the car I said “when we’re back home I’m going to work out that route that we took and sell it on eBay. I bet that I’d make a fortune”. Nerina replied “ohh no. I’m going to tell the American authorities so that they can block it”. We came into a small town and Nerina climbed out of the car and went to look at an American car. She hung her lantern on the bonnet and walked away. She pointed to another American car that was bashed and battered. She then tried a house door, and it was open so she went in. She settled down on the sofa and said “I’m not moving from here until I’ve had a sleep”. I replied “Nerina, you can’t sleep there! This is the USA! They’ll shoot you if they see you!”. “Well, I’m not moving”. I pleaded with her to move. I told her that I’d find a hotel somewhere. She said that she’d looked on the internet and there wasn’t a hotel with a room in the neighbourhood. I pleaded with her for anything that she’d move because she really would be shot if some American were to find her asleep in his living room but it was all to no avail

It recalled MY TRIP THROUGH THE DESERT IN 2002. What a trip that was! Driving past all of the sites that I’d seen in so many Westerns in the past. But there would be no question of leaving Nerina behind to face her doom at the hands of a paranoid American armed to the teeth. Believe it or not, I happen to like Nerina. Anyone who will put up with me for nine years has to be worth liking. What went wrong in our relationship was that I was in a bad place at a bad time fighting too many demons, and I fought quite a few more than I ought to have done. And of course, both of us were too tired and too stressed to learn to talk to each other. There were plenty of thoughts that we should have exchanged.

Isabelle came – and went. She was in quite a rush and didn’t stop around to talk. She’s promised though to film the events tomorrow morning in the town centre when they try to set up the market amongst the major roadworks in the centre.

After she left I made breakfast and read my book. We’re still at the annual dinner, the talk on trees has ended and we’re now talking about sheep, geology and fossils. And, apparently "Mr. Houghton had been kind enough to bring with him some photographs of a very curious and interesting character"

Photographs of a very curious and interesting character? Wouldn’t I have liked to have been at that meeting?

Back in here I had to sort out a few things, deal with my order to LeClerc and then I attacked the radio notes. It didn’t take me long to finish off the notes for the radio programme that I’d been preparing, and then I went to lunch – a salad sandwich on nice, soft fresh bread.

But the bread was another failure. I made a careful study of it today. I put the loaf in the oven at exactly the same spot that I put it last week, and once again, one side of it didn’t rise.

That’s the side nearest the front, and so I think that the door is fitting badly and there’s a draught of air coming in around it. If the temperature sender is at the back, that will explain why the temperatures are so messed up, because with the current of air, the temperature at the front will be much lower.

It’s a shame because I have a perfectly good oven in the van downstairs but it’s beyond me to bring it up here.

This afternoon I reviewed the notes that I’d written a while back for a couple of radio programmes. They are rather complicated and involved so I’d left them to one side until I had a lot of time to go over them. So that was this afternoon’s task.

Some of the stuff I rewrote, some other stuff I corrected and I reckon that barring accidents I have them ready to dictate. I might actually do these tomorrow night and then they’ll be out of the way. But I imagine that they’ll take some editing.

My cleaner had stuck her head in the door this morning to pick up a few things to take into town, and while I was reviewing my notes she came in and did her stuff. Now the place looks as if someone lives here.

Just after I finished my hot chocolate and chocolate cake the food delivery came, so I spent a very pleasant late afternoon dealing with 2kg of carrots making them ready to be frozen, and putting away the rest of the stuff.

It was actually a struggle to make up the €50:00 minimum order today. It seems that I have a good supply of everything that I need.

LeClerc had no peppers thought. So stuffed peppers are off the menu for the next couple of weeks. But they had aubergines on special offer and I took advantage, so it looks like we’ll be in for plenty of aubergine and kidney bean whatsits for a while.

Tea tonight was a nice salad with chips and falafel followed by apple cake in caramel sauce. So what shall I do when the apple cake is all gone. I have a fancy to see how a rice pudding would do in the air fryer

So having spent a pleasant twenty minutes looking for and finding the missing headphones, I’m off to bed

But before I go, seeing as we’re on the subject of the desert … "well, one of us is" – ed … I’ll tell you about the encounter I had with three men in the desert whose car had broken down and they were walking to try to find help.
One was carrying the radiator, the other a hub cap and the third one a door and so I asked them why
"I’m carrying the radiator" said the first "because if I become too hot, I can drink the water"
"I’m carrying a hub cap" said the second "because if I become too hot I can shelter in its shade"
"I’m carrying a door" said the third "because if I become too hot, I can wind the window down"

Tuesday 15th October 2024 – AS YOU MIGHT …

… expect, last night was something of a disaster.

In fact, it was quite a disaster, if the truth was known. Wide awake at 04:00 drenched in perspiration, up and about at 05:00. Of course, I had dialysis yesterday. It seems to be every time I have dialysis that this happens.

What I’ll have to do is to talk to a doctor next time one of them comes to see me. I’ll have to see if it’s an anticipated side-effect or whether there’s something else going on.

If it’s Emilie the Cute Consultant, I can always request that she comes here to rock me to sleep but I imagine that if I were to ask for that I’d be told to clear off in the fashion that JAH Catton, editor of “Athletic News” described when discussing an outburst from Wales international goalkeeper Leigh Roose, as "not such as might be expected from a gentleman.".

But as long as they don’t give me a sleeping pill. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only excitement that I have these days takes place in bed while I’m asleep, and I wouldn’t miss that for anything.

You would think that that would be the trigger for me to rush to finish everything and dive into bed as early as possible, but somehow it doesn’t seem to work like that. Take last night, for example. I might have finished my work at a reasonable time, but then we had the battle to lift myself out of my chair.

Eventually though I made it into bed, later than I would have liked, and once again it took rather longer than it has done of late to go off to sleep.

My memory tells me that I awoke once during the night and went back to sleep almost straight away but by 04:00 that was that. I was wide awake, perspiring profusely from my legs, and no matter what I tried, I couldn’t go back to sleep.

In the end, at 05:00 I gave it up as a bad job and went to make myself a coffee and catch up with some personal stuff.

However, I had had a disaster. The toenail on the little toe on the right foot must have stuck in the bedding somehow and on leaving the bed I’d torn it off.

At first I hadn’t realised but I soon did, especially when I noticed the blood. Wrapping some tissue round it I staggered into the living and took one of the compress pads. I couldn’t reach to plaster it so I just wrapped it around the toe and hoped that it might stop the bleeding eventually.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone too, and that surprised me. No Castor, no Zero and no TOTGA either unfortunately, but several other people whom we all know and love and who are pretty close to me. It was the birthday of someone whom we all knew. Alison, Jackie, Liz, Terry and I had been amongst the invitees to go to his birthday party. We’d all chipped in and bought some kind of present, something that had a long stalk on it. They asked me if I’d write some poems. I wrote the poems and circulated them around. Everyone liked them but Jackie asked me “what was this event that took place in January?”. I couldn’t think of what it was at that point so I mad some kind of light-hearted comment. Liz ‘phoned me up and we were having a chat on the internet about this but suddenly it went dead, the conversation, right at a crucial moment. That’s the problem with the conversations on the internet – they go dead because someone comes to the door or you lose connection and you never know. eventually we were all assembled there. I presented the present to him which he gratefully received. Then I took it back because I’d fabricated some kind of grip for the stalk, made out of elasticated material. I put it on but it was too lose so I borrowed a needle and thread and began to sew it so that it was tighter. Everyone made a few comments so I told them that if anyone thinks that they could do it better, I’m only doing this by default so I’d gladly give up the place to someone else. No-one did so I carried on and was about halfway through it when the dream ended.

I’m impressed that I can discuss the issues about internet connections in my sleep. And sewing too. I can certainly sew in real life, and knit too, but when I’m asleep? Is there no end to my nocturnal talents?

And then later on I was with some people. They wanted me to take a caravan and trailer down to the South of France and into Italy. Although I was in principle agreed the first problem was that I didn’t have a car. They said that a car would be sorted out for me somehow so I didn’t say much until the very evening they produced this car. It was in a shocking state and it was impossible for me to even consider taking this, never mind towing a caravan and trailer behind it. There was some heated discussion about this and they proposed a variety of solutions which I rejected. In the end they produced a motor bike, a 350cc Triumph. I thought that this was the most absurd thing that I’d ever seen. I wondered where they had found the motor bike. It turned out that they had stolen it. All kinds of alarm bells were ringing for me at that point. The first thing that I said was “what about the insurance?”. There they were, rummaging through the papers in the side of this motor bike and they came across an insurance document. In the end, much against my better judgement, I was persuaded. We were in somewhere on the south of Manchester . We coupled up the caravan to the motor bike then coupled up the trailer to the back of the caravan. It would just about move it but I knew that it was all going to lead to a huge disaster. I thought that the first issue would be to take it over the Pennines, all of this, and I’ve no idea how I’m going to do that. I had a think and could remember how the major road system went. I thought that if I went a little way north I could probably pass over there somewhere towards Sheffield and then on the M1. I set out, but when I came to a road junction I heard someone shout “Phil Miller”. “Did you hear that?” and one of the other people said “yes”. I said “you know who Phil Miller is, don’t you?”. They replied “no”. “He was the keyboard player in ‘Caravan’. I wish that I had the time to go to say ‘hello’ to him”. They said “why don’t you go?”. I replied “don’t be silly. I have far too much on my plate at the moment with all of this”. We set off again. They were unhappy with the way that I crossed a certain road but I didn’t care. The further I went down this street heading out of this town the more I know that I was just coming closer and closer to disaster. This is all going to go wrong before too long.

Apart from having all these people on a motorcycle, it was Steve Miller who was the keyboard player in “Caravan”. Steve’s brother Phil was a guitarist who, although he guested on Caravan’s album WATERLOO LILY is much better know for his collaborations with Robert Wyatt. Nevertheless, it’s still quite impressive that I could come out with that. And regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when WE WERE IN NEWFOUNDLAND IN 2010 we encountered a car pulling a caravan pulling a trailer.

In case you’re wondering, by the way, the way to go south-east to the M1 is via Stoke on Trent and the A500 to Derby, but if I’m heading from the south of Manchester and want to keep away from traffic I’d go via Macclesfield and Leek, past my old stamping ground in 1975 of Bosley.

Having done a pile of work I stopped for a good wash and then waited for the nurse to appear.

He didn’t have much to say for himself, but he thinks that my left leg is almost back to normal so he’s going to try it today without any plasters to see if it holds out. And he put a small plaster on my toe where I’d torn off the nail. It had actually stopped bleeding but it’s better safe than sorry.

After a quick breakfast I came back in here and revised for my Welsh. And once again the lesson passed quite well and I enjoyed it. I was surprised at how much I could figure out, even if I didn’t understand everything. The key to understanding is not to understand and translate every word, but just to understand the gist of the conversation. I reckon that when you are having a conversation in your mother-tongue, you don’t hear three-quarters of the words that are spoken but you know what’s being said all the same.

No lunch today. I started work straight away and by the time I’d finished, not only had I chosen all of the music for the next programme, I’d written half of the notes too. And that was without really trying either

Once again, there was something that happened that made me realise that I must be feeling better than I have been for several months. That cheered me up a great deal too because I need to convince myself that I’m feeling better.

As for my chocolate cake, I had a slice with my hot chocolate this afternoon. And it really was delicious. The best cake that I gave ever made. But it was more done at the top than at the bottom. If only I could turn it over somehow and cook it upside-down for some of the time.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice, followed by apple cake and coconut-flavoured soya cream. That was delicious too and there’s no doubt – I might be eating simply but I really am eating well. If I ever lose my appetite or lose the will to cook then I will know that it’s the end.

So now it’s the end of my day and I’m off to catch up with my beauty sleep. And after last night I certainly need it. But then again I always do, especially with a dial like mine.

But before I go, I have been taken to task for what at least one person considers to be humour that really belongs in the gutter and not in a family-orientated web page
"Don’t you know what good, clean fun is?" I was asked.
"No" I replied. "What good is it?"

Friday 11th October 2024 – IT’S HAPPENED AGAIN

It was 03:05 when I awoke this morning. It makes a total mockery of trying to be in bed before 23:00. There have been nights – days, in fact, when I’ve not even been in bed by 03:05 so I may as well not bother if it’s going to carry on like this.

And yes, I did make it into bed before 23:00 last night. Not by much, it has to be said, but by enough to make it worth noting. And while it might have taken me a little longer that it has done of late to go off to sleep, that wasn’t too much of a problem either.

So there I was at 03:05, wide awake and transpiring, trying desperately to go back to sleep without any success so in the end, at about 4:20 I gave it up as a bad job and went to make the dough for the bread.

For a change, I tried a mixture of plain flour and bread flour to see if there’s a problem with my bread flour, but it’s not that because although it rose, it didn’t rise up by enough to make any difference to the usual.

One mug of instant coffee later, I came back in here and decided to catch up with some personal stuff. I’ve buckets of stuff that’s been hanging around waiting for me to do something with it, and so with this unexpected couple of hours I made a start. And made quite a bit of progress too.

First of all though, I had a listen to the dictaphone and found to my surprise that there was something on there. I was playing in a rock group and we were round at Gainsborough Road preparing everything ready to go out. We had three vans, two long-wheelbase Ford Transits and my old small Ford Transit. We’d loaded everything up and were sitting around waiting, then my partner motioned towards us and said “it’s time to go”. She took one sticker for her van and another sticker for the other big van. I asked “what about a sticker for mine?”. She replied “no”. I asked “why not?” but she didn’t answer. We had something of a back-and-to for a while and I asked her about it again. I asked “so why aren’t you giving me a sticker? Are you ashamed of the van or something?”. She replied “that van’s not having a sticker and that’s an end to the argument”. We continued to argue about it and I expressed myself in a rather extreme fashion. My sister said to me “you shouldn’t speak to your partner like this”. I replied “you need to open your eyes and see what’s going on here”. My partner left the room to make herself ready. I knew that she was waiting at the door listening as an argument then started up between my sister and me. I turned round knowing that she was listening, turned to my sister and said “it’s not going to take very much more of this and I’ll be out of the door of this place”

it goes without saying that regular readers of this rubbish will recall having noticed that even though my partner has adopted a totally intransigent and unreasonable attitude, my family is blaming me for what happened. That, I’m afraid was just par for the course and after I was 18 and had finished my studies, I was “out of the door of this place”. I had a lot of sympathy for my friend’s daughter Tina who told me once "I’m fed up. Every time I do something wrong my brother tells my mom and I get yelled at. But every time he does something wrong I tell my mom and she yells at me for not watching him". Had she not been 3,000 miles away I could have hugged her because I’ve been there and done that. Oh! The angst of being 11 years old! But mine lasted for years. I don’t have one single pleasant memory of my childhood.

Having made enormous strides (which means something completely different in Australia) in what I was doing, I finished off and went to give the dough its second going-over. As I said just now, it had risen, but not as much as I would have liked it to have done

In the bathroom, I had a good scrub up and then went into the kitchen to put the oven on … "clothes would have been better" – ed … While I was waiting for it to warm up I came across one of these half-cooked vacuum-packed baguettes that I’d bought a while ago and needed using so when the oven was ready and the bread went in, I bunged that in too and went back into my office to do some more work.

Isabelle the nurse was off on her high horse today. I’m supposed to tell her not to come on Monday because the Dialysis Centre wants to inspect my legs to find out why they aren’t healing.

But I’m not standing around all morning with no socks and no plasters and going down to Avranches and the Dialysis Centre like that, oh no, according to Isabelle the nurse and she’ll tell ’em too. On Monday I’ll have my plasters and socks put on in the morning by her and like it.

And as for having the dialysis at home, certainly not under any circumstances and she doesn’t care if it is Emilie the Cute Consultant who wants me to. She’ll ring them up and tell them that too!

So if it isn’t all over between Emilie The Cute Consultant and me already, it looks as if it will be by the time that I arrive there on Monday afternoon. I shall have to chat up Elise the Dishy Doctor at the Centre Normandie instead.

While I was eating my breakfast I was reading MY BOOK. We’ve left Yorkshire and are back on the South Coast at Bramber Castle.

Having been sure that the Iron-Age hill forts on the Welsh border were actually Saxon strongholds, he’s now convinced that Bramber Castle is a prehistoric site. However subsequent archaeological excavations have found nothing earlier than Norman on the site.

Still, for an untrained amateur archaeologist, some of his opinions have sometimes been dramatically borne out by the facts.

Next stop was to prepare an order for LeClerc. There’s plenty of stuff here so I can cut back on the order, but there are still some essentials that need buying.

That took longer than it ought too for all kinds of reasons, not the least being that I need to bring the order up to €50:00 so that they will deliver it. In the end it reached €53:00 or thereabouts.

Lunch was a cheese and tomato butty on some of the baguette that I baked this morning and it was nice, followed by some of the fruit. I’ve been told to cut down on the fruit that I eat which is disappointing so bananas are regrettably off the menu from now on.

This afternoon while the cleaner was here I finished off the radio notes and I do have to say that I’m quite pleased with what I’ve written. For once, it all hangs together. It’s not as disjointed as it usually is.

Not that I’m complaining about my previous programmes though, but trying to be erudite and preparing a work of literature in a foreign language is not that easy.

It wasn’t too bad when Liz and I were running Radio Anglais down in the Auvergne because that was in English, but this here is … errr … challenging. How on earth Rhys is managing with his “Rutube” channel in Russian is mind-boggling.

After my cleaner left and LeClerc had delivered the supplies, I tried a little experiment.

My friend Ann tells me that she’s not used her big oven since she bought an air fryer. I have a few of these spring-loaded cake tins of various sizes, one of which fits in my air fryer, so seeing as I am now forbidden chocolate, I resolved to make a chocolate cake in the air fryer and “yah booh sucks” to the dietician.

First lesson is that one cup of measured for the oil cake produces too much so I need a smaller cup

Second lesson is that in its airproof and windproof drawer it goes up like a lift and is the softest cake that I have ever made.

Third lesson is that it needs the temperature turned down and cooked much longer (like 70 minutes) before it’s done

Fourth lesson is that even with a piece of baking paper over the top (thanks for the tip, John), it still burns the top, but that can be cut off and sampled so it’s not the end of the world.

And so the conclusion is that it produced the best cake that I have ever made, but the procedure is much more complicated so we’ll call it a draw. Further experiments are called for

Having stuffed myself with offcuts of chocolate cake I wasn’t in the mood for much tea. Just a small salad, a few chips and a few of these micro-mini vegan nuggets that were on special offer. No pudding though – we’ll call the chocolate cake offcuts the pudding.

So now I’m off to bed. I’ve not been the remotest bit tired today despite the lack of sleep so I’m hoping for a good sleep tonight.

But talking about Tina … "well, one of us is" – ed … reminds me of the time that her class at school in Florida went to see THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT.
Having an English father and spending all of her summer holidays in Winsford, she has a complete understanding of British slang and a British sense of humour. So when the film was shown, she was rolling around the aisles in laughter and her classmates were looking at her, totally bewildered.
Marianne and I actually went to see it in Brussels where it was shown in English. And you could tell who were the native English-speakers in the audience because we were roaring with laughter while the Belgians were looking on, completely disorientated.
But that leads us onto that famous discussion between Kenneth Williams and Alfred Hitchcock and "it’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners".

Wednesday 2nd October 2024 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER …

… shower today. And you have absolutely no idea how nice it was and how much better I feel having had a really good soak under the jet of water

And I needed it too. Because I had a wretched night.

As I was finishing off the notes last night I began to feel that mysterious stabbing pain that I sometimes have in my right foot. Within half an hour I was absolutely doubled up in agony. It was the most severe attack that I have had to date and I have never hurt so much in all my life.

It was round about 01:30 when the need for sleep was such that it finally overwhelmed the pain and agony of what was going on and I could crawl into bed.

Despite the pain I did manage to fall asleep but it was a fitful, pitiful sleep that didn’t really do anyone, least of all, me, any good at all
.
When the alarm went off I crawled out of bed, still wracked by pain, and made my way into the bathroom where I had a good wash and scrub up despite everything.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone and, to my surprise, there was something recorded on there. It can’t have been such a bad night after all. I was with Roxanne and Laurence. We were wandering somewhere around Avranches and it was lunchtime. I was having health problems with this really bad attack of pain in the foot so I decided that I would have to sit down. I couldn’t walk any further. So we were sitting down on a chair alongside a wall somewhere. Suddenly I felt a splash on my shoulder. We were right underneath a bird’s nest. The two of us moved and sat at another table and had a chat for a while. Then she announced that she was going to have to go because she had to go to look for a job etc. She wasn’t sure how long it would take, whether her gran would help her but she needed to begin to move. She stood up and I pointed to a petrol station, the one that we had visited the other day, and said that I’d be waiting there if she decides to come back this way and Roxanne can meet me there if she likes. She said that she’d make a note of it and wandered off one way and I hobbled down to this garage as best as I could

What’s surprising about this is that even in a dream, I could remember an earlier dream. And it’s hardly likely that, even in a dream, I’d forget the pain that was stabbing my foot and running through my body along the central nerve

When the nurse came I mentioned to him about the pain in my foot but he didn’t seem to be interested. I think quite honestly that his heart isn’t in his work and he’s just going through the motions. It’s no surprise that his oppo is loaded up and snowed under with little tasks because I can’t be the only person who thinks like this.

After he left, I made breakfast and MY BOOK. Our author, Thomas Wright, is visiting the Medway Megaliths, a collection, of which Kit’s Coty House is one, of prominent megaliths in the Medway valley in Kent.

There’s a delightful, whimsical account of the excavation at which he assisted, of a prehistoric barrow on the chalk uplands at Holborough. They didn’t find much in the barrow but I carried out some further research, and it turned out that, unbeknown to them, while they were looking at the barrow they were standing on top of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery.

This only came to light when the Portland Cement company, who had bought the land to quarry the chalk for cement, began to unearth human bones in the 1940s. They stopped work and called in the archaeologists who uncovered 37 graves from the early Saxon period.

However, Thomas Wright had every reason to fear for the future of historically important artefacts. I tracked down the report of the excavation of the graves and there, in back-and-white, in chilling detail, is written that the archaeologists had learned that in 1943 a grave was uncovered and in there, apart from the human remains, there were two iron spearhads “that were disposed of to a scrap-metal merchant”.

That’s the Portland Cement company in 1943.

But that aside, here’s another little conundrum

A couple of days ago we were visiting all of the Roman ironworks around the Weald in the South-East of England, and that made me think.

Interestingly, our hero observes that Roman ironworking stopped practically dead in the Fifth Century and there was nothing for several centuries until a very primitive Saxon forge was uncovered, using nothing like the comparatively sophisticated techniques of the Romans.

In the days of the Romans the ironfields down there were the third most important iron-producing area in the whole of the Roman Empire, and once they restarted they slowly set off and as techniques evolved, still nothing like what the Romans could manage, they kept on going with a massive output almost until the 19th Century when coke replaced charcoal as the preferred fuel and the big Black Country industrial centres took off.

The current way of “politically-correct” thinking is that the Saxons, when they arrived, didn’t massacre the native British population but everyone lived quite happily side by side and gradually assimilated into one coherent race.

But leaving aside the absolutely overwhelming preponderance of Saxon place names in most of England and parts of Eastern Wales, all writing suddenly came to a dead stop until the monks like Alcuin and Bede began to assert themselves, urban life in the Roman towns came to a dead stop and the major, important Roman ironworks suddenly came to a dead stop and never really restarted.

It seems to me that there was a massive loss of all of the proto-Roman skills, most of which never ever restarted restarted. Take concrete, for instance. The Romans made massive use of concrete but it wasn’t until John Smeaton developed a technique in the 18th Century that it became a reliable construction material again. And the rediscovery of seawater-proof concrete is comparative recent.

All of this seems to suggest to me that there was a complete ethnic cleansing of the type that Pol Pot and Hitler would have been really proud. Even they managed to keep alive enough intellectuals to run the very basic needs of the societies that they had taken over.

Of course, “absence of evidence” is a totally different thing than “evidence of absence” but had here been some evidence, I’m sure that it would have been unearthed by now. But there’s nothing.

Meanwhile back at the ran … errr … apartment I wrote off to the Centre de Re-education to say that I can’t come on 2nd December. They wrote back to tell me to communicate with them again when my programme is more clear, so I sent them another message to say that it won’t ever be any clearer than it is and presumably they are still thinking about their next move.

Most of the rest of the day has been spent finishing off the notes for the radio programme and doing some more stuff about my visit to Jersey two years ago, one of my very last adventures.

There was an interruption when my cleaner came in to do her stuff, and she helped me organise myself so that I could have a shower.

Putting the wooden box on the chair so that I could swivel myself into the bath easier was a master-stroke and worked perfectly, and much easier than last time when it was something of a battle to find my way into the tub.

Propping myself up with a crutch could soap myself down as far as I could reach, and I relied on the force of the rinsing water to clean the rest.

With the seat of the chair much higher because of the box I felt much more confident about sitting down from a standing position and it was much easier to swivel myself out of the bathtub.

So now here I am, a nice clean boy with nice clean hair and how nice it all feels. Nevertheless, I can’t wait to be downstairs, rip out the bath and have a walk-in shower installed. Then it will be a shower every day

Regrettably, for the first time for several days, I crashed out. But only for something like half an hour and after the wretched night that I’d had, it really wasn’t any surprise so I’m not disappointed.

Tea tonight was a beautiful leftover curry with rice, veg and a naan bread. That’s the last of the naan bread dough and I’ll have to make some more next week.

So now having finished my notes, I’m off to bed to catch up on my beauty sleep now that the pain has subsided somewhat. And don’t I need it?

But all of this talk about archaeology and graves reminds me of the archaeologist who had been on an excavation of a historic cemetery.
He wrote to his parents about his discoveries, saying "in one grave we found a skeleton wrapped in an ermine cloak with a big gold chain around his neck and a crown on his head. He was all dressed up like a Count."
His father turned to his mother and said "Look at this! All that money we spent on his education and he still can’t spell!"

25th September 2024 – YOU WON’T BELIEVE …

… this, but this afternoon, I have had a shower. In my apartment.

Had you been here, you would have laughed, watching my faithful cleaner and me struggling to help me climb over the side of the bath into the basin and, with even more difficulty, climbing back out afterwards.

Many people have a life that is full of nothing but problems, but it seems that my cleaner and I have lives that are full of solutions and we managed it in the end.

But I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that was that I was so exhausted afterwards that I almost fell asleep standing up while I was making my hot chocolate. And I did crash out later for half an hour or so on my chair in the office.

However I put that down to the miserable night that I had last night. When it came round to bedtime I was too exhausted to stand up from my chair (and I’m not sure why, as I’d done nothing strenuous all day) but not tired enough to go to sleep.

In fact I was so exhausted that I didn’t even have the strength to perform my daily back-up of the computer. Instead I just sat here with a blank expression on my face … "so what’s new?" – ed … just like Chris Isaak, WAITING FOR THE RAIN TO FALL

It was about 03:20 when I finally fell into bed. That was what I call “ridiculous”. But it’s no wonder that I fell asleep this afternoon, and it’s surprising that it was only for half an hour.

At least it didn’t take me long to drop off and there I stayed, totally out of this world when the alarm went off at 07:00

When the alarm rang I was away with the fairies. I was carrying out some kind of investigation into a General who had recently come out of hospital, I don’t know why, whether it was for an operation or a war wound. But this was coming back to Roman times, and as they began to tell me the story about the General I suddenly realised that I’d heard all this before some other time and this was a repeat of a previous incident that had taken place. So I wondered what on earth was going on about this because this sounded just far too unusual to be any kind of coincidence

And I’ll tell you exactly where this took place too. On the way to Avranches, half a dozen kilometres from the railway station, there’s a roundabout with a petrol station just past it and a wood to the eastern side of the road. It was in that wood, looking north-east where this went on. Obviously the stress and strain of hitting the road three times per week to Avranches and back is starting to take its toll.

It won’t surprise you to learn that I had a struggle to haul myself out of bed when the alarm went off. I really didn’t feel much like it at all but it’s one of those things that the longer I leave it, the more difficult it becomes

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up and then came back to listen to the dictaphone. There was nothing else on it so I carried on with tagging the videos. And that’s difficult too because for many of the videos, the metadata is locked and I can’t edit it.

When the nurse appeared she sorted me out and gave me a few instructions about this and that. She didn’t stay long either so I could carry on quite rapidly.

After she left I made breakfast and read MY BOOK. And the more I read, the more I like the author, Thomas Wright.

Today we’re wandering around the remains of Verulamium. And if you think that I’m far too cynical for my own good, you ought to read his account of the history of the Abbey of St Albans and the founding of the town
"The monks who built it wanted a saint; they found in a then popular Christian Latin poet, Fortunatus, mention of a man named Alban, who was said to have suffered martyrdom in Britain. The Saxon monks accordingly dug up some Roman bones, declared that they belonged to the martyred body of St.Alban, and built their church upon the spot"
And later on, when King Offa decided to found a monastery on the site in penance for the murder of King Aethelbert –
"More bones were dug up, and these were miraculously shown to be the same relics of the saint which had been lost since the first church was neglected"
And I thought that I was cynical. I tell you – I have nothing whatever on him

But all these little anecdotes from people who were there at the time or who interviewed people who were, they are all in danger of being lost as modern research is just centred around Wikipedia and nothing else, and the old books are abandoned.

Back in here I went to pair off the tracks ready to write the notes but I hit a problem. The audio-editing program that I use has had an upgrade, and all of my settings have been set to default. That means that when I’m editing, the program is doing things that I don’t want it to do.

This issue cropped up previously and I asked for help in the users’ forum and we managed to resolve it. And here it is again, I can’t remember what I did and I can’t find my original request in the forum.

It took me an age to find my question and once I had the answer it took just seconds to fix. And then I came across more issues but I had an idea of what might be causing them and I was able to fix them with e little persuasion and a lot of time.

It wasn’t until after (a late) lunch that I began to write the notes, and it took an age to finish them, what with all of the interruptions.

Firstly, I had to hunt for my swimming trunks. In the end after about half an hour I gave up. They aren’t in here. However I did find the missing pair of shorts which is good news. And that’s what usually happens with me. You never find what you are looking for but you always seem to find what you hunted and gave up looking for last time.

It’s like when I was rebuilding the house. I’d seen stuff on sale at a bargain price and think “I’m going to need that in six months time” so I buy it at the cheap price. And then when I come to need it, I can’t ever find it, have to buy a full-price article and then find the bargain price one two weeks later.

Anyway, now that I have two pairs of shorts, I can wear one in the shower. I don’t want to frighten the cleaner.

Helping me into the bath was one thing. I sat on a chair at the side of the bath, lifted my legs over the side and then tried to stand up. At first I almost fell over but the cleaner caught me and I struggled upright with the aid of a crutch. Imagine that – a crutch under the shower!

The shower wasn’t all that good, mainly because I couldn’t stand directly in the stream, having to lean against the wall. But it was so lovely just to be there with the warm water cascading down onto me.

There were many things that I could have done better, and I will do next time. Because there will be a next time. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I never make a mistake. I just learn a lot. I can’t remember who said it but I do remember someone saying "experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted". … "It Was Randy Pausch" – ed

Helping me out of the bath was even more fun. As the bath is higher than the floor, the chair on the floor at the side of the bath was too low for me to sit on. My cleaner had the bright idea of fetching a wooden box and putting that on the seat. I could manage that and I gradually managed to lift my legs out of the bath, dripping water everywhere.

But at least I managed it

We did have quite a laugh though. "Imagine if someone came to the door now" said my cleaner
"Yes" I replied. " ‘Just give me a minute to put on my trousers’. They’ll wonder what on earth we’ve been doing"

After she left I carried on with the notes and then had a pause for my hot chocolate and coconut cake. And it’s quite nice, my cake. It really is. The coconut oil works really well. I’ll make this cake again, that’s for sure.

As I mentioned earlier, I almost fell asleep standing up while waiting for the chocolate to heat up, and back here, I didn’t hold out long before I was gone.

While I was asleep I dreamed that I’d gone to look at someone’s ‘H’ registered Volvo 7-series estate that was for sale. There was some kind of comparison run by the local newspaper. They had a total of 5 adverts for similar cars and compared the prices. They thought that one at €1895 by a private seller sounded like a good deal. And then We ended up somehow in the tundra and someone was driving a green industrial machine down along the railway track through a pine forest.

And I almost had a Volvo 7-series estate too once. Not long after I’d started chauffeuring in Brussels the garage where we bought our petrol had one on the forecourt at a reasonable price, a diesel, so I took it for a drive. It was a lovely car but it was at the wrong time. I couldn’t really afford it. But it’s true to say that I am yearning for the tundra. A trip to Upper Labrador, every night, “sleeping out” like I did in Strider, listening to the timber wolves howling. I’ve told my niece and her husband to make sure that there’s a cross planted for me at my favourite spot in the Mealy Mountains.

After I’d finally finished the notes I went for tea. Tonight it’s a leftover curry with rice and a naan bread, and there was enough leftover to make two helpings. And I’ll be looking forward to the second helping because it really was good. Right now though, it’s freezing to be put aside for another time.

The spotted dick with coconut soya cream for pudding was lovely too and I’ll make that again as well. My cooking is improving and I reckon that I’ll go berserk when I finally have a decent oven, whenever that might be. It’s a shame about the one in Caliburn.

So right now I’m off to bed, to catch up on my beauty sleep. And I need it too.

But talking about miracles … "well, one of us is" – ed … reminds me of the Priest who came back from a trip to Lourdes. At the airport coming home he was stopped by Customs who searched his belongings.
"What’s that in that flask there?" asked the inspector
"Holy water from Lourdes" replied the Priest.
So the Customs inspector opened it and sniffed it. "No it isn’t!" exclaimed the Inspector. "It’s brandy!"
"The Saints be praised!" shouted the Priest. "Another miracle!"

Saturday 21st September 2024 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about the pain in my foot keeping me awake all night. That was definitely a horrible night last night

Not that there would have been much sleep last night anyway by the time that I crawled into bed. Never mind 23:00 – it was long after midnight when I finally crawled into bed. At least it’s a little quicker with these socks rather than the puttees. I don’t have to wind them up before going to bed.

Once in bed I actually fell asleep – for all of about a minute. And then the first of the stabbing pains arrived. And that was it. In my nice, clean bedding too of which I was so hoping to make the most. Still, I suppose that I did in a way.

It took me a few minutes to gather my wits (not that there are too many wits to gather these days) after the alarm went off, and then I headed off into the bathroom to sort myself out.

And believe it or not, I began to wash my shorts. Which is what I do most Saturdays (when I remember) but today there’s a big heap of washing in the corner. And so I piled as much as I could (including the shorts) into the machine and set it all off on a 60°C cotton wash. That should shift some stains.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And to my surprise there was some stuff on there. I must have gone to sleep at some point. There I was, back with some members of my family. There was a new girl there so of course I was doing my best to impress her. It seemed that for once everyone was co-operating in a way by asking intelligent questions to which I knew the answer. This went on for quite some time but it made no impression on her at all. I was very surprised. She hardly said a thing. Anyway one of my friends or family or someone had to go to visit some neighbours so I said that I’d go too in order to have some fresh air. We went to see the neighbours but on the way up the road we bumped into an elderly, disreputable alcoholic man from the neighbourhood so we pretended to walk straight past the house where we were going to visit and doubled back once he’d gone out of sight, otherwise he might have come along and joined in the party and it wasn’t much fun with him anywhere. We passed through the gate and saw a lovely new sign on the door. My fried asked me what the sign said so I looked much more closely and saw that it was a rather offensive, vulgar message. I thought “well this is how this family is, I suppose”. We passed through the gate to the back garden. They were all there sitting on chairs sunbathing. I thought of all the other work that other people had been doing this afternoon and there they are, sitting here and I immediately thought of the expression about “if you want to work then you should but otherwise you can always let other people work for you and you can sit and put your feet up”. My friend said “yes, it’s a shame that there are people like this on the planet.

These people must have been my friends. It’s not like my family, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, to aid me in enticing some innocent young maiden into my lair. Mind you, even my closest friends (do I have any?) would do their best to prevent my evil clutches grasping around some helpless maiden. But as for neighbours as described in the dream, when we lived in Shavington we had those a-plenty.

Later on I heard a voice say something like “don’t be so sarcastic”. It concerned an enquiry that people were making about my health. With this terrible pain in my foot I thought that it was best that if someone else were to write it down they could record all of the “aarrgghs” and the horrible reactions as the pain kept on coming back. Anyway I was told not to be sarcastic. Then I thought about Oldham and the Roman remains around there but I was told to pick somewhere nicer. In the end I picked the Roman Empire in general and discussed the religious excesses and (…fell asleep here …) anyway I could hear all of these people commenting on me when I was there trying to talk about these illnesses that I had.

Me being sarcastic? Perish the thought, hey? But I bet that there were plenty of arrgghhs and reactions last night as the stabbing pain kept reoccurring. And Roman remains? I must stop reading all of these exciting books.

When the nurse came I told him about the pain in the sole of my foot. He examined it for foreign bodies but found nothing. There’s a slight swelling but that’s about it. But he knew all about the stabbing pain when I had another attack while he was holding my foot.

After he cleared off I went to have breakfast. And I’ve now finished my book on the Romans in Britain. The final chapter, on Administration, was not very interesting. I had been hoping on a final chapter containing details of the collapse of Roman civilisation in the aftermath of the depart of the legions but I imagine that whatever written records there might have been, the barbarian hordes who arrived did for all of those.

The washing was finished by now so I emptied the machine and hung up the washing. It’s not as clean as I would like it but it will have to do. I suppose that once I have my new shower and so on downstairs I ought to think about buying new bedding.

Back in here I had to hunt down the work that I did yesterday. I’d saved it without thinking and didn’t have a clue in which directory I’d saved it.

Eventually I could find everything and could sit down and finish off all the notes. I now have 13 lines of text which at 17 seconds per line is not far short of 4 minutes, and I have 2 minutes 51 seconds to fill. Consequently there will be a lot of stuff edited out, but that’s no problem. I’d rather be over and edit out than be short and have to rewrite.

My faithful cleaner stuck her head in the door to see how I was and to fit the anaesthetic patches on my arm. She wasn’t sure about where to put them so she put them in the place where their sticking plasters had been. That will have to do.

While she was here she put the quilt cover straight on the clothes airer. You’ve no idea how difficult it is for me with just one hand.

The taxi driver was another cheerful soul (sarcastic? Who? Me?) who didn’t want the car window open, and didn’t say a word all the way down to Avranches

And they were ready and waiting for me today, the fools. They told me that the doctor has said that I have to lose 2.8 kgs in weight. Was I happy with that?

"Not at all" I replied. "I’m looking to lose three times that" so they went away for a further consult.

Nevertheless, the patches worked and the pain was only momentary and much less than on Monday when I quite literally hit the roof.

Emilie the Cute Consultant wasn’t there today so a side-kick came to see me. He gave me a new prescription to keep my cleaner busy.

As for the pain in the sole of the foot, which was still going on, he didn’t even look at it. Leave it a couple of days, he sad (presumably by which time he’ll be off duty and someone else will have to examine it), and see how it goes.

And then despite the pain, I fell asleep

They woke me up to disconnect me and send me home, but the taxi was late arriving. It was a very friendly driver and we had a really good chat on the way back.

My faithful cleaner was there to help me back upstairs and I just fell into a chair and that was that for a while. I’d done enough

Tea was a baked potato with one of my breaded quorn fillets and a vegan salad, followed by jam roly-poly and chocolate soya cream.

So that’s it. I’ll dictate what I’ve written this week for the radio and then go to bed. Early, I hope.

But even as I write, I’m listening to the concert that I assembled. And it really is good. Technically one of the best that I’ve ever done and the music is excellent too. I think that I picked the correct tracks to feature.

Going back to the clinic this afternoon though, they weighed me on arrival and again on departure. And I’d lost 1.2 kgs during the process. So I made a quick calculation.
"Cheer up, girls" I told the nurses "If it keeps on going at this rate, after 70 more visits I’ll be gone completely"
But as Kenneth Williams once said to Alfred Hitchcock, "it’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners"

Friday 20th September 2024 – MY SPOTTED DICK …

… rose up really well this morning.

But that’s enough about me. Let’s talk about my baking instead.

And so as I had a loaf of bread to bake and there would be half an oven going begging and the supplies of jam roly-poly are diminishing, I thought that I’d experiment.

The other day I mentioned a spotted dick when I was talking about vegan oil-cakes and so I decided that quite literally the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and I’d bash one out

Thinking about it though, I could have bashed it out much earlier than I did because I was wide awake this morning at about 03:15.

Last night I was in bed early once again planning on making the most of having finished everything early, but it never worked out like that.

One thing that I’ve noticed is that a couple of nights following the dialysis have been difficult, and the night sweats that I used to have when my cancer was raging have also come back.

But last night I had everything in spades – wide awake early and the sweat pouring off me in buckets. They measured me with an echograph at the hospital and said that I had six litres of water in me. I bet that I don’t have that much now.

And so it was really difficult to go off to sleep and although I was drifting in and out of some kind of sleep, I saw 06:45 come round on the clock and then 07:00

When the alarm went off the first thing that I did was to go and make some dough for bread. I gave it a good working-over too because I wasn’t very happy with the last lot of bread that I made.

Then into the bathroom to organise myself and have a really good wash. And to wash a pair of the elasticated socks because the nurse wants to try those on me instead of the puttees.

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’d travelled quite some distance too. A new junior manager started. He was quite a nice friendly young guy. We used to have some quite interesting chats. He was in charge of the motor pool so I’d made arrangements to borrow the modelling clay that we used for repairing dents for the cars so that someone could try a piece and I could order it because where they were living the prices were so extortionate that they were looking for ways of economising. This manager also had a list of clients whose files he was working. several of those people were quite interesting so I told him that I was going to photocopy it for taking home with me during the summer because there were a couple of names on there of people with whom I’d like to keep in contact. He was rather dubious about this but in the end agreed for me to do so. We were the last people out of the office on that Friday night. Getting everything together took much longer than I thought it would. By the time that I’d finished it was rather late. Then he told me that when he came back from holiday he didn’t have all that much longer to remain in our office and was going off to somewhere else. I thought that that was really sad because he was the first person in that place with whom I’d managed to create some kind of rapport

Once upon a time I did work with a really nice trainee junior manager. He was a keen snooker fanatic and there was a snooker club just down the road so at lunchtimes we’d go and bash off a couple of frames. He was writing a book in his spare time. I wonder if he ever finished it.

And then I had to go to Bangor University. There were some files that I wanted and someone had to sort them out for me. They were rather reluctant to do so but in the end they gave me the files. Then I heard a voice in the distance whisper “and keep an eye on him”. There was a mirror on the wall. I had a look in it and could see a man who looked like a policeman gesturing to two other men who were probably also policemen. I felt that they were on the point of following me to see what I would be doing with these files. Then we were at a railway station. There was a film being filmed although I didn’t realise that it was a film at first, about a Chinese girl and her boyfriend who were supposedly heading off from the interior to the city to spend a different life there. They were having the usual regrets about parting etc. Suddenly the girl announced that she had tickets not for the city but to actually go to the USA. They were off to the USA instead. The film then cut to the girl standing outside the window of the lottery office with some kind of wistful air on her face. I thought that if ever there was a moment to end a film it should have been there with that shot with that look on that girl’s face but for some reason the cameras kept turning and filming some further pointless action that totally spoiled the entire dramatic effect. I thought that they’d really missed an opportunity with letting the film roll on after that particular shot.

So it seems that I’m adding film-directing to my nocturnal curriculum vitae. I wish that I’d been able to do all of this when I was awake and could earn a living by doing it.

But the University story is familiar. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I once went to Cambridge University to raid their library to look at some papers that had been bequeathed to them. But no such luck. “We give priority to our own students” said the registrar “and it’s only when one of those has had the opportunity to look at them that they will be released into the public domain for other researchers to examine”. And they’ve had the letters and papers there under lock and key waiting for one of their students to examine them since they were bequeathed in … errr … 1869. It’s positively indecent, this incestuous academia. God alone knows what other papers there are lurking in their archives and what tales they could tell us?

And Bangor University? I had a girlfriend who went to Bangor University and if the group in which I was playing didn’t have any bookings I’d spend my weekends in Bangor. My old J4 van didn’t ‘arf clock up the miles.

So finally I’d been out with my girlfriend. We were on our way home and were looking in the newsagent’s window at different things, looking at some of these head-dummies that they use for displaying wigs etc. There were a few with very elongated necks for displaying polo-necked jumpers. We thought that they looked horrible and thought of a few people who resembled them. On the way back past a newsagent’s we saw a bust of a clown and of course made the usual politician remarks then carried on walking home. At one point I was sure that I’d taken two steps without using my crutches but I didn’t say anything. We arrived home, I undressed and went to bed. There was a cup of lukewarm tea so I began to drink it but my partner told me to wait. She was in the kitchen fetching me some medicine. Afterwards when I was drinking the tea she said “come over here. You have to be looking at this (…fell asleep here …) so she went over to check the computer before coming to bed. She said “God! Come here! You have to see this!” so I left the bed and walked over towards the computer but suddenly stopped and said “do you notice something?”. She replied “yes. You’ve just taken two steps without your crutches” so that was twice on that evening that I’ve managed to walk without my crutches.

That was only a dream though. I tried in real life to walk without my crutches but no such luck. I can’t even move, never mind walk. But who was the girlfriend? I can’t believe that I was in a situation like that and I didn’t pick up the girl’s name. How depressing is that?

When the nurse came round he sorted out my legs and fitted the clean socks that I’d found. We’ll see how that goes for the next few days. Last night I’d put the puttees in to soak and they’ll have a good clean over the next few days.

The nurse didn’t stay long. He’d soon cleared off and I went to check the bread. It had risen really well and I was quite pleased with that. I gave it a second kneading and put it in the mould, and while it was doing its stuff I made a basic oil cake with a couple of handfuls of raisins.

It’s not exactly a sponge cake, but it’s the nearest thing that I can make for a spotted dick with the facilities that I have

Our book this morning was talking about religion in Roman times and he makes a few very interesting points.

One of which was that Christians owed their loyalty to their faith above that of their Emperor and if they had to choose one if the two ever came into conflict, they would choose their faith.

There was an parallel with that, which I noticed immediately. Catholics were until comparatively modern times not allowed to hold a Government position or work in the Civil Service.

The reason was that they owed their authority to the Pope. And the Pope could excommunicate a King or even summon up an army to depose him. And in a case of confrontation, a Catholic would have been obliged to support the Pope rather than his monarch. They were not prepared to “abjure the temporal and spiritual authority of the pope” as required by Law.

When breakfast was over I put the bread and cake in the oven to bake and went to undertake part two of my tasks for the day.

The bedding has needed changing for a few days but I’ve been hoping somehow, somewhere, to be able to take a shower. That’s not going to happen but after last night the bedding needs to be changed and the quilt aired. After all, it was a glorious sunny day with a nice stiff breeze

That took longer than expected but at least I could clamber easier over the bed. Something is working somewhere. And while I was at it, I gave what little hair I have left a good wash.

When the oven stopped I checked the stuff in i. The bread was cooked nicely but the spotted dick, although it had risen nicely with the baking powder in it, was only half-done. I gave it another 20 minutes. I only have a table-top oven which is rather “hit and miss”. In view of its shortcomings I’d bought a fitted oven from a friend who was remodelling his kitchen and I wish that I’d brought it up here from the van while I still could.

After lunch, cheese and tomato sandwiches on nice, fresh bread, I did some work.

One of the concerts that I have “in stock” I identified and found that it fell on a day in which I’ll be broadcasting a programme in the near future. So why not have a concert “anniversary edition”?

The concert itself is almost an hour and a half long so I’d been listening to it all morning on repeat play to try to identify which tracks I could edit out. And that wasn’t easy because I liked them all.

Eventually though I’d edited it down to about 57 minutes, which means three minutes of speech which is 11 lines of text.

So now the concert runs together seamlessly and you can’t hear the joins where bits have been cut out, and I’m halfway through writing the text

The cleaner came round and we went through the medicine shelf, made a list of what is running low and she went off to the pharmacy. Another good job done. She also fitted the new quilt cover on the quilt – in a fashion that took seconds and I was so impressed.

Tea tonight was a rushed chips with nuggets and salad. Delicious as usual

And rushed because we had football, Penybont v TNS

And history was made tonight because for the first time EVER, in front of a four-figure crowd, Penybont managed to defeat TNS. And that’s TNS’s first league defeat for almost 18 months

Of course, one swallow doesn’t make a summer but Penybont were surprisingly good and well worth their win

Now I’m off to bed, late as usual because of the football.

And I won’t have much sleep tonight because that strange, stabbing pain that I used to have in my right foot? It’s now reappeared in my right ankle and this will keep me awake all night. You can be sure of that.

But that dream about walking home with a girl reminds me of one night in Nantwich late on a Friday evening (and anyone who has been around Nantwich late on a Friday evening will know what I mean) in the days of my youth I stumbled upon the young sister of a friend of mine hurrying home
"Would you like me to walk you home?" I asked. "Keep you safe from all the drunks and layabouts?"
She looked at me. "Frankly Eric" she said "I’d feel safer with the drunks and layabouts"

Tuesday 17th September 2024 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

…night I had last night.

For a start, it was after midnight when, after I’d let it all hang out, I went off to bed. And if that’s not bad enough, I awoke again at about 03:30, and there I stayed, tossing and turning with one trip down the corridor, until long after 05:00. I have never been so fed up in all my life.

There was one moment round about 04:30 when I was actually thinking of leaving the bed and working, in an attempt to make up some of the lost hours, but it needs to be more sustainable than that if ever I do.

At some point I must have gone back to sleep, not that I remember doing so, because when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was fast asleep. So at least I’ve had some slumber somewhere.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up to try to make myself presentable, and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. It was about 02:00 somewhere and I was wandering around the town. I suddenly bumped into one person after another out of my Welsh class. There were just three of us at first and there was something of a dispute between two of them about something rather trivial. One of them mentioned that he’d seen the others somewhere else in town and went off to fetch them. I went off to see if the little room in the café was free and we all met up there except the one who had been offended. He had disappeared and we couldn’t find him so we just ended up chatting amongst ourselves. This group slowly evolved into another group of my friends. We were upstairs on the top of a bus. I was sorting through some papers and had my personal, handwritten diary there. One of my friends grabbed it and began to read it. I asked for it back but she wouldn’t hand it back. I thought “well, never mind” and in something of a sulk went and sat somewhere else. I ended up having to go for a walk around the perimeter of the upstairs of this bus. I had STRAWBERRY MOOSE with me. It was quite crowded and we had to wrestle and fight our way through. By the time that I returned to where my friend was, she had almost finished my diary. I tried to take it from her and in the end she relinquished her hold. By this time I was in such a bad mood that when I noticed that she ws disappointed having to give it up I told her “well if it means that much to you, you carry on reading it!’ and I stormed off and went to sit somewhere else again. I found the place where I had sat before but just then a group of children in this real heavyweight pram pushed by these two women came past and crushed all the seats in under the tables etc. One of the little girls was sitting on my seat so I gave her Strawberry Moose, surprised that she hadn’t noticed him already. She began to feel all round him and I realised that she was blind. One of the other kids suddenly noticed the moose, began to cry and said something in Russian. I didn’t understand what it was that it had said but the woman replied in an American accent in English. I didn’t say anything but she made some kind of comment about the disturbance that she was causing and the mess that was going on. She said to me “and you should have grabbed me while the going was good”. I thought “well, yes, there’s not much chance of that, is there?” but I was still in such a bad mood about my friend hanging onto my diary and reading it

That is one of those dreams that the trick cyclist would have hours of endless fun examining. Freud would probably give you a completely different meaning and a third, say Nietzsche, would find another meaning. His involvement would be due to his famous phrase "out of chaos comes order" but he’d never looked inside my head at that point. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I feel really sorry for the person who draws the short straw and has to look inside my head

But that dream reminds me of one of Ambrose Bierce’s quotes – "A year is a period of 365 disappointments", and that dream seemed to be full of them

The chief nurse is back on duty today, complete with his sciatica, and maybe that’s the reason why he’s grumpy right now.

He told me that he used to work in a dialysis unit and began to tell me some in-depth information that I don’t need to know and I had to tell him three times to shut up.

Another thing he said was that if my legs continue to shrink widthways we will be able to dispense with the puttees and go back to these elasticated socks. We shall see.

Breakfast was next. And while I was at it, I was reading my book and we have reached a chapter about a Roman brickworks and Tile factory in my old neck of the woods just outside Holt in Wrexham.

It had been excavated at the turn of the 20th Century and my author, writing in 1923, was eagerly awaiting the published report. However he will have a long wait even today because after the archaeologist died in 1925 there was no trace of his notes.

The site is extremely difficult to spot from the air, unfortunately, but I checked it by overlaying a modern field map over the rough drawing, and to my surprise, if you go to an aerial map viewer like Google Maps and type or copy in the map reference 53.08382914907756, -2.8868042627705814, can you make out the trace of the Roman Road that went through the site?

Back in here I began to revise my Welsh – the correct unit this time – and then went for the lesson. There weren’t very many of us today and it was hard work. After my wretched night I felt awful too, so it was not my best lesson by any means.

But it was nice to see one of my classmates back after a long illness.

After the lesson I had work to do. Once more the fridge had iced up and before breakfast I’d switched it off. After breakfast I had emptied it and put some old towels (thanks, Liz) in the bottom.

Now I had the job of cleaning the fridge and mopping up everywhere, and that wasn’t the work of five minutes either.

Strangely, I always seem to be struggling for space in the fridge but just simply emptying it and refilling it seems to make plenty of room. I wonder if that would work for the freezer, but I’m not brave enough to try it. Every time I open the door, something inside closes it again.

There I was though, up to my ears in soggy towels and waterlogged floor and who should stick her head in with some supplies but my loyal cleaner. She shoved me aside and in five minutes flat had made the place habitable again.

But sticking that lino down on the wood floor in the kitchen area was a master-stroke

The rest of the day was spent choosing music for the next radio programme. That’s all done and the pairs of music are chosen and segued together. Tomorrow I’ll be writing the notes as much as I can, but I need to sort out a physiotherapist.

One of my UK bank cards and the new card reader finally turned up today so I had to configure them, make sure they work, and then set about transferring some money round and about here and there. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that there’s something on the go in the UK and we are about to start in earnest

All in all, despite being totally exhausted, I’ve accomplished a lot today.

The bad news is that the cleaner has talked to the pharmacist, and she doesn’t think that the anaesthetic cream is any better than the patches and that we should persevere. My answer to that is that it’s my arm that they’ll be persevering with, not hers.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg followed by jam roly-poly and coconut-flavoured soya cream, and it was delicious.

While we’re on the subject of coconut … "well, one of us is" – ed … I sampled my coconut cake today – the first slice. And it’s simply delicious.

It’s a standard oil-cake but with some of the oil replaced by melted coconut oil, and a big heap of desiccated coconut mixed in it.

So what else would work in this? I can make chocolate and ginger, and now coconut. Anyone any more suggestions? I haven’t overlooked a spotted dick – just haven’t reached there yet.

So that’s it, I’m off to bed. I’ve done enough, I’m absolutely worn out with my rotten night

But before I go, there are a couple of mails that I’ve received from some regular readers of this rubbish. I haven’t overlooked to reply – I’m simply overwhelmed with things right now

If anyone else feels the urge to write and say hello, don’t hesitate. There’s a contact form at the bottom right. And if you have a google or gmail address, it will be Strawberry Moose who will reply to you.

All hits, requests, comments and suggestions are welcomed, even those suggestions that are physically impossible. At least it shows that you are awake.

Once not too long ago there was someone who sent their son to study at the Sorbonne in Paris with the aim of giving him a formal and profound immersion in foreign culture and languages
"And did it work?" asked a neighbour
"Ohh yes" replied the mother. "In no time at all he could write home to ask for money in six different languages"

Saturday 7th September 2024 – THE PLAN WAS …

… to sit back and do nothing whatever today.

And so of course, as you might expect, I have been quite busy and done quite a lot of stuff. But nothing really towards the huge backlog of stuff that’s been building up. That seems to be growing even bigger as I’m simply swept aside in a torrent of paperwork and the like.

What didn’t help matters very much was that I had another really late night last night. After falling asleep so completely during the afternoon I was quite wide awake during the evening and come bedtime I wasn’t tired enough to go to sleep.

Too tired though to haul myself off my comfortable chair and cross the couple of inches that separates chair from bed. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s more exhaustion that I’m feeling than actual tiredness.

Nevertheless I did end up sorting myself out and at round about 00:30, long after the time at which I would have liked to have gone to bed, I finally hit the hay.

As seems to be the case these days I didn’t need much rocking. I was soon asleep and there I stayed until all of 04:30. After that, it was a miserable night of tossing and turning and trying to go back to sleep.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 it was close to Christmas. Some of our friends were visiting. We hadn’t prepared any Christmas cards and had no idea about what we were going to do about this. It was noticeable that our friends sent their children to the door first so they were obviously paving the way to see what kind of reception they’d receive. They’d receive a warm reception of course but they wouldn’t receive a Christmas card. That might upset them. When they finally turned up at the door she (…my friend’s wife…) said something like “is it any use us doing this?”. It was something like this that she said.

Right at that moment the alarm went off. When the room finished spinning around I hauled myself out of bed and crawled off to the bathroom.

In the bathroom I had a really good wash, a shave and of course I washed my shorts ready for tonight. I must at least make an effort to be clean and tidy, even if I don’t feel like it.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. For some reason there was a pile of clothing in one of my dreams too, a pile of clothing for a small girl probably about seven or eight years old. I have no idea why but there were some high-heeled shoes there of the type that had a small high heel that didn’t have any superstructure above the sole at the back to hold the shoe onto the heel at all. It was just held on the foot at the toe by a strap there. I don’t know where all this came from.

And neither do I either. I know that I’m likely to have some strange dreams every now and again but sometimes even I’m amazed at what I dream.

The next one is even more bizarre. For some reason I was identifying as a woman last night. I was playing for the Belgian national ladies’ volleyball team against a team from the Netherlands in a cup match that was taking place against the Netherlands. While we were waiting for the game to start I saw the crowds arriving. There was a bent little old woman leaning over a stick. I thought that I recognised her – it turned out to be my aunt from Ottawa. After the game she came over to chat. She asked about the performance. She thought that it was rather lethargic. I explained that that was hardly a surprise. This morning I had to get up really early to travel all the way here. I’d missed my breakfast. I’d normally come on the train as far as here all the way from Belgium but luckily this morning one of the other competitors and her friend brought me in their car.

Unfortunately this modern way of thinking is not for me, where you can self-identify as something completely different and expect everyone to adapt to you. Let’s face it – I self-identify as an intellectual who can write some really excellent prose and I wish that everyone would respect my choice and identify me accordingly. But some of the names that I have been called are not only unkind but completely disrespectful and I am offended. So there! As far as my writing goes, I can only echo the comments of the Reverend George Gilfillan of Dundee who, when commenting upon the works of another author 150 years ago, said "Shakespeare never wrote anything like this"

This was a series of dreams about a small girl. She reminded me a little of Percy Penguin, probably in her late teens or early twenties but she wasn’t very switched on. You had to explain even the simplest of tasks to her three or four times before you thought that she might have grasped it. Everything that she was doing was always a couple of tasks behind for example I remember telling her once to do something then telling her to do something else then telling her to do something else, but she came back with a problem about the first thing “yes, I’ve emptied the bath” which she should have emptied ten or fifteen minutes ago. It was very hard for anyone to look after her because she was so willing that she’d run around trying to do things and being too eager, she’d usually do them incorrectly or there would be a mistake where she’d forget something so all her work would have to be re-done. It was terribly frustrating because she was a lovely, keen, willing girl but she just could not grasp the same ideas that we had as quickly as we did.

“I remember telling her once to do something then telling her to do something else then telling her to do something else” – hark at me, barking out the orders. Who do I think I am? However, as we very well know, some people are like that and need to have orders barked at them if ever you wish to accomplish anything. Sometimes, organisation can be something of a thankless task.

The nurse came round as usual and he seemed much more like his old self – almost friendly in fact. However he asked if I had been down to the pharmacy to pick up the anaesthetic cream.

and so I asked him how he thought that I should have gone down there but he didn’t answer me. Instead, after much beating about the bush he asked me if I’d received the prescription.
"What prescription?"
"For the anaesthetic cream"
"I’ve not had any prescription"

It turns out that I should have had a prescription for the anaesthetic cream, I should have collected (or arranged to have it collected) it from the pharmacy and everything should be ready for the nurse to apply the cream because I start dialysis on Tuesday.

"No I don’t" I replied. "Apart from anything else, I told them right at the beginning that I’m not free on Tuesdays"

Then we had the usual argument that I have with everyone in the medical profession. Their job is to keep me alive, and the longer they do so, the more of a success it is.

However that all comes with a payoff with regard to the quality of life. I’m determined to have some quality in my life and if it means that I shuffle off this mortal coil six months or a year or two years earlier, I couldn’t care less.

There’s no way that I’m going to finish my days living like a vegetable in a Home. As Neil Young said, BETTER TO BURN OUT THAN TO FADE AWAY

As you might expect, the nurse was horrified but that’s just too bad. That’s the way it is. If they come for me on Tuesday I’m not going and that’s all there is to say about the matter.

After he left I made breakfast and then sat down to read my book. I’ve finished the book on THE ICKNIELD WAY and have started on THE ROMANS IN BRITAIN

That’s a book written in 1923 as a collection of lectures that were presented at Toronto University. It doesn’t pretend to be a scholarly tome but more of a lightweight approach as an introduction to what will inevitably be an inexhaustible study

Once breakfast was over I made some more bread. I’d used up the last of the old loaf this morning.

The bread didn’t rise as well as I would have liked. Nevertheless it’s quite light and fluffy. It was really nice having a cheese and tomato sandwich for lunch made with totally fresh, soft home-made bread.

This afternoon I had a chat with Alison on the internet and also rang Rosemary back after Friday when I fell asleep.

Rosemary’s garden s doing really well, which is nice, but we didn’t have much time to chat – only a short one of one hour and seventeen minutes – because I had a caller at the door.

My transformer (thanks, Grahame, for the heads-up) to power the Genz-Benz has arrived at last. But I can’t use it yet because the power cable that I need wasn’t included with the order. That’s coming from the USA apparently and will be here in a few days time. So we still aren’t up and running.

And then we had the football. It’s sad to say it, but Llansawel are already down, in my opinion, after just a handful of games. If form is anything to go by, the remaining relegation place should be occupied by either Aberystwyth or Y Ffint, and they were playing each other this afternoon.

It’s smething of a grudge match because Aberystwyth’s manager apparently said something unkind about Y Fflint when they were relegated a couple of seasons ago, and that has rankled with Lee Fowler, Y Fflint’s manager.

So far this season I’ve already seen each club, and for a team second-bottom with no points, I’ve been impressed with Y Fflint. They’ve taken the attack to the opposition and have been robbed of some of the spoils on a couple of occasions just by the cruellest of bad luck.

On the other hand, although Aberystwyth haven’t impressed me, they always seem to find something special at the important moments.

Today’s game was actually quite entertaining. It roared from end to end and each team created quite a few chances. It was littered with mistakes though – neither team could hang onto the ball and would lose possession far too easily.

For once though, Y Fflint had the rub of the green and while the score of 2-0 in their favour might be an exaggeration, you have to ride your luck when you can. If they play with this kind of spirit and enthusiasm and their luck holds, they should be OK but sometimes this league can be cruel.

Tea tonight was as usual, a baked potato with salad and one of my breaded quorn fillets followed by home-made apple crumble. I know that my meals are quite repetitive but I happen to like them and that’s what’s important.

So right now I’m off to bed, later than usual but with a lie-in until 08:00. And won’t I be happy when I can say goodbye to all of this nonsense with the nurses?

But all of this talk about people self-identifying reminds me of the man who went to the psychiatrists
"Doctor! Doctor! I think that I’m a dog"
"Really?" asked the psychiatrist. "How long is it that you’ve had this feeling?"
"Ever since I was a puppy"
"I think that you’d better lie down on my couch"
"I can’t" replied the man. "I’m not allowed to"

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 – I HAD A LOVELY …

… surprise last night. Zero came to visit me.

How long is it since one of my three favourite young ladies came to visit me during the night? I was really worried in case they have dropped out of the picture, as The Vanilla Queen seems to have done, but here we are.

It’s quite surprising really, because as you might expect these days, it was quite late when I finally went to bed last night. But once again, I didn’t need all that much rocking before I was away in the Land of Nod

As for how the night went, I’ll talk about that in a minute but it was a very weary, bleary me who made his way into the bathroom for a good wash and brush up ready to hit the streets

Yes, it’s a good idea to have a really good scrub because I’m being inspected by someone at the Centre de Re-education (or so I thought) later this morning.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been and, more importantly, who had come with me. And wasn’t it exciting? Last night I dreamed that I was dreaming that I’d met Zero. She’d figured in one of the dreams that I’d had while I was dreaming. Ironically, much later on when I “awoke” from that dream but was still asleep, deep in the major dream on the first level, Zero was actually there in the other room while I was asleep. She was talking to one or two other people and I wondered whether I’d actually manage to speak to her. I really hoped that I did of course. Eventually she came in so I told her that I had dreamed about her. She asked me to tell her all about it so I began to talk but I hedged some of the bits. She seemed to know that I was hedging so she asked me outright to tell her everything. I began to tell her about the dream and what had happened in the dream. But then I had a panic attack because I found that I couldn’t remember it. It was that that awoke me. I felt really upset and distressed by this – having Zero on my plate for the first time for ages and once again not being able to get my fork stuck in it.

“Disturbed” isn’t the word. I’ve been lying here awake for hours and I just can’t simply go back to sleep. I’ve no idea what I’m going to be like in the morning.

It was actually two hours and forty-three minutes later that I dictated that line there. I don’t think that I’ve ever been so disturbed about a dream as I was with that one. However it’s interesting that I was dreaming that I was dreaming. There are some people who can layer up a couple of dozen layers but I think that the most I’ve ever managed is three layers. It was interesting that it was about Zero too instead of some banal subject, and it was also very pleasant that she was still there when that “dream within a dream” finished.

However I wonder what bits about my dream with Zero that I was hedging on telling her. Can you imagine it? But that’s just another example of my wretched luck. Nothing seems ever to run as I would like it and the thought of what I’d missed totally disrupted my morning.

So for two hours and forty-three minutes at least, I was tossing and turning according to the timestamps of the sound files. Meanwhile, twenty-seven minutes later I went out for a wander around and came to a town centre where there was a huge queue of pedestrians going all the way down the High Street. I wanted to turn into the High Street but it was impossible. But some of the pedestrians hung about and presented a gap so I pulled out of the side street into it. Then all the pedestrians in front of me who had scrunched up then spread out to give themselves some space. Those in front recoiled backwards and collided with my car so I shouted at them to be careful. However I had my words all mixed up so they had a few things to say. It seems that I’d fallen into the middle of a big group anyway so everyone was all around shouting to each other. It was a queue for a shop, a sewing and seeds shop so I thought that I’d have a look in for my friends. They were selling some seeds for some kind of jasmine plant for £0.89 so I bought a bag. I thought that it would be OK for one of my friends but I couldn’t remember which one. When I went to pay I suddenly realised that I’d picked up a card. I had it in my inside pocket. I made a light-hearted joke about being so forgetful. The woman replied “don’t worry. We’d have frisked you down anyway before you left. So, rather impressed, I paid for the card and seeds and then cleared off

So which friend was it who was going to receive a packet of lavender seeds and a card? I don’t have that many friends I suppose so it’s not a wild, mad choice amongst a large selection of people.

The nurse and I had another row today. Tomorrow I have to leave early and he doesn’t like the idea. Well, that’s rather a shame, isn’t it? He’ll be here at 08:05 by the latest or else I’ll go without him and he can either come back later or send another nurse. But I’m not disrupting the work of the taxi company or the clinic in Avranches just because he can’t be bothered to arrive here early for once.

Isabelle, his replacement, is quite reasonable about it. She can’t/won’t come here early but if I ‘phone her when I return she’ll pop round at a convenient moment with no complaint at all.

Once he’d cleared off I could have breakfast, and read my book.

The author, Edward Thomas, refers us today to a friend of his, another poet called Ralph Hodgson

Hodgson’s claim to fame is that he wrote a poem called “To Deck A Woman” and with a title like that, I just had to hunt it down to read it

So after much searching and tracking down, here you are – “How To Deck A Woman” by Ralph Hodgson
"I know a place of summer doves,
Rapt lizards in its alleys lie,
And mostly there a linnet loves
To mend a wanting melody*

No men talk there ; no pit or gin
Trips Beauty on that sunny hill ;
Its voice is ever gracious din
Of bee and song-bird never still,

And anthem yet from other quires :
The muffled diapason gushed
From lips occult and privy lyres
And pipes of Eden never hushed —

The pipes and lyres and lips that are
In sods and bubbles, stones and trees
And flying seeds from woodlands far
And wandering airs and essences*

Within, about, above, below,
Sprites elemental, Night and Day,
And winds and climbers, frost and snow
And wild things only, know their way"

It’s certainly not what I was expecting, with a title like that, but it’s an example of how much has language evolved over the last hundred-odd years.

The taxi turned up bang on time to whisk me down the hill. It’s a girl whom I know who was the driver so we had a good chat and then she helped me sort myself out at the Centre de Re-education. I saw my favourite doctor but it wasn’t she who was looking after me today which was a shame.

The one who saw me today was also quite cute. I’d seen her before, the last time that I was here, so she wanted to know

  1. why I hadn’t organised the physiotherapy sessions that she had prescribed
  2. why I hadn’t gone for the echograph on my knee

Sometimes it’s very difficult to explain to people that even with the best will in the World, you are often overtaken by events over which you have no control

She’s re-prescribed the physiotherapy and she’ll fit me in for a day at the Centre for a complete reassessment. Unfortunately there’s a terrific backlog and she won’t be able to fit me in for quite a while.

So I enquired when that might be

"Quite a while, I’m afraid" she replied. "October, maybe even November"

It’s a good job that she doesn’t work in the UK where a “normal waiting period” would be about eighteen months, never mind “quite a while”.

Back here there was no-one to help me up the stairs but I managed on my own with some (considerable) effort. That was something to celebrate. But at least the taxi driver didn’t moan, like the last one did.

Having made a pot of coffee I came in here for my Welsh class and if you think that two units of the book was going some, we did three today and I am totally whacked.

So much so that while I didn’t actually crash out (well, maybe for 10 minutes or so) I was in no fit state to do anything.

Tea was a taco roll with rice and veg, delicious as usual, followed by yet more strawberries. I really have some wonderful neighbours.

So right now I’m off to bed. Avranches in the morning to see the nurse and find out what’s going to happen about dialysis. I shudder to think.

But I hope that Zero comes to see me again tonight. I can just picture the scene if ever I’m lucky enough tonight to be all alone with her –
"I dreamed about you last night, Zero" I shall say
"Did you?" She’ll ask
"No" I’ll reply. "You wouldn’t let me."