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LIVE: Wednesday 2nd September 2026 – WE ARE NOT …

Saturday 29th August 2026 – THIS WAS A

…rather uneventful day today, except that I had some good fortune at dialysis without even having to ask for it.

Well, I thought that it was good fortune, which it was at the time, but I changed my mind somewhat a little later.

Anyway, retournons à nos moutons, as they say around here. Last night, it was about 00:30 when I finally settled down under the bedclothes, and I know that I must have been asleep quite quickly because when I was dictating something in my sleep, I could tell that I was still sucking on the bedtime menthol and eucalyptus sweet.

And by the looks of things, we were back to how things were a week or two ago — waking up at some uncomfortably early hour and not being able to go back to sleep again. For the last week or so, I’ve been having a much better kind of sleep, but it’s not lasted all that long, has it?

When the alarm went off at 06:29, I dragged myself to the edge of the bed, but it still took a superhuman effort to haul myself upright, go to unlock the front door, and then head into the bathroom to sort myself out. Today, as well as a good scrub-up, there was a shave too, just in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant, but I’ve not seen her for ages.

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

And while there was something on it, for sure, it’s something that the World is not yet ready to hear, and you in particular don’t want to hear it, especially if you’re eating your breakfast right now. Let’s just say that I was in the World War I trenches in Northern France and Belgium as a lieutenant with a Scottish company, and we were under heavy shelling. However, at some point, Zero put in an appearance.

So how long is it since one of my three favourite young ladies has put in an appearance? I thought that they had all dropped off the end of my dreaming sequence just as The Vanilla Queen did a few years ago, but at least we’ve managed to have Zero back.

The nurse turned up again and we continued our discussion about football from yesterday. I told him about the Trefelin – Rhydaman match last night, but he didn’t seem interested. Anyway, THE HIGHLIGHTS ARE NOW ON LINE although they show nothing like all of the tension ane emotion that there was in this game.

After he left, I could make my breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Well, not so much of it, because he started to talk about Peterborough Cathedral so I went off to do some research. I knew that the abbey had been founded on a false and fraudulent charter that was only ever noted in the “Peterborough” version of the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE and none of the others, so I was interested in what else I could find.

And, of course, as Nansen once famously said, "the more extensive my studies became, the more riddles I perceived – riddle after riddle led to new riddles and this drew me on" and I ended up at Edith Cavell. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I used to live just around the corner from where she was executed, and a few years ago, I POSTED SOME PHOTOS ON LINE of the place.

Incidentally, throughout these pages, you’ll see links to Amazon products appearing every now and again, just like the above. Being a Sales Associate of Amazon, I receive a small commission on goods sold via my links. It costs you nothing at all extra, but helps defray … "part of the" – ed … cost of my not-insubstantial web-hosting fees.

There are also links for AMAZON UK, AMAZON USA and, since the recent “troubles”, AMAZON CANADA for the use of my numerous Canadian visitors. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I am extremely grateful when someone uses them to make a purchase.

Back in my office here in the bedroom, I had a few things to do, and then I began to work a little on the radio programme that I’ll be preparing next week. Not that I managed to go very far because midday came around quicker than I was expecting and I went off to prepare myself for dialysis. But not before having identified several pieces of music that I need to track down.

My cleaner came along as usual to apply the anaesthetic to my arm, and after she left, I waited for my taxi to take me to Avranches. But the waiting was not without incident.

Last night in the match between Trefelin and Rhydaman, Trefelin, with a one-man advantage, pushed big burly veteran centre-half Louis Gerrard up front to make a nuisance of himself in the Rhydaman defence, and it was indeed he who scored Trefelin’s goal. So while I was curled up leaning on the table and dozing off, I dreamt that he was up there again, and at a corner, he rose up above everyone to head home. And just as his header hit the back of the net, instead of the referee’s whistle for a goal, the taxi driver rang the front door bell to say that he was here.

It was in fact a carbon copy of the goal by Euros Griffiths for Rhydaman, which was interesting, but it was definitely Louis Gerrard in his black and red Rhydaman strip who scored it.

Mrs Dinosaur and her exhibition have now departed so I was the only one in the car today. So even though we set off from here ten minutes later than we usually did, we still arrived at dialysis relatively early, and I was up and running by 14:00, having had two nurses around me to plug me in, which was nice.

They set the machine to the correct amount to eliminate the excess fluid, but after a while, they noticed that the extraction limit was stable and not going down (which, I suspect, was due to the coffee and orange juice that I’d just had for my snack, but I was saying nothing), so my nurse simply wound up the extraction by another 300 grams without me actually having to ask for it, and that seemed to work fine, although I was hit by cramps near the end. Not that I’m bothered – 300 grams extra is 300 grams less to extract on Monday.

Once everyone had gone and I’d settled down, I began to watch another football match. Today it was newly promoted Llandudno v Hwlffordd. Llandudno are doing really well this season up in the Premier League, although they have only played one team of any real quality, but Hwlffordd, usually one of the stronger teams in the division, have had a wretched start and have no points and no goals to their name as yet.

The game went as the league table suggested it would, with Llandudno winning 2-0. However, we had the usual VAR excitement, players sent off and brought back on, players sent off and staying off, and some exciting, fluid and skilful play on the wings degenerating into a midfield slog. Still, it was worth watching. And as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … some of the newly promoted teams are simply in the league for cannon fodder, but that’s not the case with Llandudno.

The doctor was there too today – the new one who prescribed the useless antibiotics ten days ago. She went to chat to a couple of patients but she walked past me, apparently not interested in a follow-up of her diagnosis and treatment. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I often have the impression that, for the terminally ill patients like me, they do the minimum to keep us alive and don’t bother with the rest of any treatment.

You can tell that from the chemotherapy. The chemotherapy last year failed and the professor who is supposed to be dealing with my case hasn’t bothered to contact me since. I’ve had one appointment with the neurologist there after the chemotherapy, back at the start of the year, and there’s been no further contact from him either since then.

By now, it was time to set me free, and I only had to wait for ten minutes before my nurse came to unplug me. And riddled by cramp, I weighed myself to find out that it had all gone according to plan and Monday might be a little easier.

The taxi was waiting for me and I was once more the only passenger, so dodging the occasional showers, I was home fairly quickly.

My cleaner helped me into the apartment and stuck a disgusting drink in my hand once I was sitting at the table. I was still hungry afterwards, so I decided to make myself a meal – a burger on a bap with baked potato and salad. But the salad was off so I had vegetables instead.

The problem was, though, that hungry I might have been, but I was also exhausted. So although I managed the burger, I’d fallen asleep at the table long before I’d finished the baked potato.

In the end, what was left of the baked potato ended up in the bin and I ended up in bed. I’ll write my notes tomorrow

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about cathedrals … "well, one of us has" – ed … a new priest was appointed as curate to Brussels cathedral, and so he went for a walk around the city to see what his diocese had to offer.
As he was walking past a dark alley near the Gare du Nord, a figure slid out of a dark alley and whispered "twenty-five Euros for a quickie, father"
This happened several times as he walked around the Gare du Nord, so back at the cathedral, he asked the bishop "what’s a quickie, Monseigneur?"
"Twenty-five Euros from the girls at the Gare du Nord, my son."

Thursday 6th August 2028 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day this has been. I really and honestly feel that my health has taken one or two steps back today. I hope that it isn’t permanent because I can do without this kind of worry at the moment.

It all began to go pear-shaped last night when I was in bed by something like 22:00. It’s rather unusual for me to be this early, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but at least it shows that I know that I have a problem and want to deal with it.

As usual, I was asleep quite quickly, but once more, at about 02:30, something awoke me. I reckon that it must have been something outside, because I’d left the bedroom window open all night, it was so warm.

From then on, I was drifting into and out of sleep for the rest of the night until the alarm went off, and I was definitely asleep at that moment.

When it came to standing up, I was shocked, surprised and dismayed to find that I couldn’t do it. I don’t know where all my strength had gone, but I couldn’t haul myself upsright with my hands and arms. It took me three or four goes before I found enough strength.

Walking was extremely difficult too. I was totally unsteady on my feet, and I felt as if at some point, I was going to topple over like I did BACK IN JANUARY, but slowly and surely, I made it into the bathroom for my wash and scrub up, and a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to find out what had gone on during the night.

There was a football match on somewhere, and a group of us, including Nerina, decided that we’d go. We walked down towards the ground, and across the road was one of these sweetshops. One of our company wanted to go in so we all went in. She was looking for some of these menthol or eucalyptus sweets, and they had almost everything in this shop except that. Then we carried on down to the football ground, and at some point, I was asked if I would run the line for the game. I’d done it before so it wasn’t going to be of any problem, but in a fairly large crowd, how am I going to get people out of the way while I run up and down? We arrived at the ground and I noticed that that problem had been solved because between the spectator barrier and the pitch, they had put up another kind of barrier, which wasn’t very wide, but I imagined that that was where I was supposed to be. We began to talk, this group of ours, but suddenly I noticed that the match was under way so I had to hurry and get myself in the correct position

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I ran the line … "actually, like Johnny Cash, he walked the line" – ed … on several occasions when I travelled with FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s third team back in the good old days. I wish that I could do it today, but see the above. In any case, I don’t know why they would recruit an amateur linesman for a match with a big crowd. The only time I’ve run the line in front of a four-figure crowd was when it consisted of one man and three sheep.

Apart from that, though, I couldn’t ever imagine Nerina being interested in a football match under any circumstances, but like any of us, the menthol/eucalyptus sweets would be nice. In fact, I wouldn’t mind a packet right now.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual. I mentioned how I was feeling, and her response was “oh dear. Make sure you take it easy”, which was not the kind of casual response for which I was searching. In fact, I had advice from my AI chatbot later that was more useful.

By the way, did anyone actually make their AI chatbot after I posted the instructions on here? How did it go?

After Isabelle left, I made my breakfast, and while I was eating, I read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Today, his complaint is about segmented arches, which he considers to be "aesthetical errors just as great, and no greater, than similar uses of the segmental arch at Romsey and Salisbury." and that "they throw a lateral instead of a vertical thrust on the piers ; hence as pierarches they should be avoided".

The segmented arch, a favourite principle of Roman and Islamic design, was used slightly later than Freeman’s book as the principle method of building a great many railway bridges, most of which are still extant today, long after it was anticipated that they would be replaced and carrying loads vastly in excess of what was thought to be their limit at the time.

Back in here, I had yesterday’s notes to finish and then a few other things to do, and all of that took me up to midday when it was time to go and make myself ready for dialysis. That started with a disgusting drink and my midday medication, followed by sorting out the laptop and putting on my shoes.

My faithful cleaner turned up as usual to apply the anaesthetic on my arm. She didn’t have all that much news to bring me, except that the local supermarkets are rapidly selling out their stock. It seems that we are being hit by a record number of tourists right now.

The taxi turned up ten minutes early because we had to go to pick up someone else. And not Mrs Dinosaur either, but someone in the Avenue du Maréchal Leclerc who was also going to Avranches.

Incidentally, it seems that the taxi drivers are now referring to “Madame Dinosaur” these days. It seems that I’ve started a fashion here.

We arrived early and I was dealt with almost straight away. By 14:05 I was up and running. However, the bad news was that there was an excess of fluid. "I’m afraid that we’re going to have to send you home 400 grams over your limit." said the nurse.

“On no you aren’t” I said to myself. Not if I can avoid it. "Seeing as I’ve started early, why not prolong the session?"

In the end, we agreed on three and a half hours, which meant that the machine was operating just under full capacity and I could watch the rest of the Barry Town v Cambrian United game from last weekend.

It wasn’t as easy as that, though. I saw Emilie the Cute Consultant in the distance but she sent the holiday relief doctor to see me. However, there wasn’t much that she could do for me.

And then there wasn’t much that anyone could do about the loss of arterial pressure in one of the needles in my arm, and every two minutes or so, the alarm would sound, bringing the nurses running. Consequently, although I saw the Barry – Cambrian game right through to the end, I didn’t see as much of the Colwyn Bay v Trefelin BGC match as I would have wanted.

When it came to unplugging me, the nurses were there straight away, which was nice. They dealt with me quite rapidly, and, even better, the driver was already waiting for me. And more good news was that I left dialysis 100 grams UNDER my usual dry weight.

However, I was totally finished. It was a really hard drag to walk to the car and I was feeling awful. It was also the young, chatty driver whom I like and who, usually, I would have been very pleased to see. However, all I wanted to do was sleep, and I doubted that that was possible.

When I arrived home, my faithful cleaner was there to help me into the apartment, and she bunged a disgusting drink into my hands. I was glad about that too because I certainly needed something to keep me going.

After she left, I came back in here to write my notes, but it was useless. I was really tired, falling asleep, and couldn’t even think coherently … "nothing new there then" – ed … so I posted a terse note on my blog and went to bed with no tea. Maybe I’ll feel better in the morning.

Tomorrow, though – Friday, that is – there probably won’t be a blog entry. I’ll have to do it on Saturday morning. With the football being in full swing now and kick-off now at 20:45, the game won’t be over much before 23:00, and all that I shall want to be doing at that time is to be going to bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about me as a linesman … "well, one of us has" – ed … a football fan was in court charged with assaulting the linesman.
The judge asked him "Are you sure you only threw tomatoes at the linesman?"
"Yes, M’Lord" he replied.
"So how do you explain the cuts and bruises on his face?"
"Well, M’Lord, the tomatoes were still in their tins at the time."

Monday 3rd August 2026 – ANOTHER TOUGH DAY …

… at dialysis, but this time, it’s of my own making. There wasn’t as much fluid to extract today, so I told the nurse to wind it up and she ended up taking 300 grams extra. That way I can be ahead for Thursday.

But Sunday night was one of these nights where I reckon that I managed to get ahead for a change. Although it wasn’t early when I ended up in bed … "he fell asleep on the porcelain horse again" – ed …, I did manage once more to go to sleep quite quickly.

However, I did manage to wake myself up with a big coughing fit that lasted for an age. I don’t know at what time that was because I didn’t look, but there was no street light on outside in the car park so it must have been after 02:30.

The coughing fit took hours to subside, which is really bad news, but I was soon asleep, and there I stayed until the alarm went off at 06:29.

It took me a good while to drag myself out of bed and head off to the bathroom, where I had a good wash and a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

Back in here, the first task was to find out where I’d been during the night.

I was living on the farm again in Auvergne, except that it wasn’t the Auvergne but somewhere along the Austrian side of the border with the Czech Republic. I had to catch the bus into the city and the bus stop was on the main road a long way away from where I was living so I had to walk, and it was raining and misty. When I reached the main road, I had to walk a little way along the road to the bus stop, but coming up the hill towards me were two white Volvo 145 estates with Czech number plates. They each had a big, round and white adhesive disc on the windscreen, high up on the driver’s side with a number on it, and a couple of yellow adhesive signs on the window with different numbers on them. And as I looked up on the old road higher up the hill where the village was, there was a third Volvo 145 estate. When I reached the city, I had a few things to do and then I went for a drink in my favourite bar before buying a loaf of bread and catching the bus back home. In the bar, I met a few friends of mine and we were chatting, mainly about these three Volvo estates. There was currently a football tournament going on between Austria, the Czech Republic and a few other countries in Central Europe, and I wondered if it was anything to do with that, but my friends were much more interested in the long walk that I’d had from my place to the bus stop. Suddenly, I noticed the time – it was 18:00, so I had to hurry, and I doubted that I would find any bread in the shops at this time. One of my friends came with me, but we had no luck in the bread shops that we had tried so far. But as we passed a shop window, we noticed a huge hand-made poster in the window with a photograph of a fleet of these white Volvo 145 estates and some writing in Czech that I didn’t understand. At the bottom, in big handwritten red crayon, written in English, was “and we also have an ex-British Postal Services minibus”. This all looked really interesting, but I wish that I knew what the Czech writing said.

It’s been quite a subject of discussion between my friends and me that I regrettably didn’t take full advantage of the opportunities offered by my early retirement and the Treaty of Maastricht. Regular readers will recall that I visited the Czech Republic ON MANY OCCASIONS, sometimes under the Communist regime and as recently as 2020. I would have quite happily settled down in a country as beautiful as this, but I was far too preoccupied with other matters to think clearly at the time.

The story about the Volvo estates is interesting too. I can’t imagine why these would be much of a subject of interest to me, but doing the kind of work that they do – running between Austria and the Czech Republic – I would have loved to find out more about it, even if it meant having to drive an ex-British Postal Services minibus.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up rather earlier than usual, and she had some news for me. It seems that there has been some discussion by the authorities about what to do if the drought and heatwave continue, and someone has mentioned the possibility of cutting off the water for a couple of hours each day. And it’s not “pie in the sky” either because I’ve seen reference to it in the press. Whether it will ever happen is, of course, another matter completely.

After she had dealt with my feet and legs, she cleared off on the rest of her round, and I could make my breakfast. And while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Today he brings into the conversation the cathedral at Limburg in Germany. "Nowhere is the character of the German Transition better exemplified than in the magnificent Cathedral of Limburg. One could hardly have supposed that a church so visibly belonging to an imperfect style could have been capable of such a sublime effect. But the reason is manifestly to be found in its very slight deviation from the old Romanesque model, upon the type of which it is conceived throughout."

In actual fact, it was a Romanesque cathedral when it was built but seven or eight hundred years ago, much of it was rebuilt in the Gothic style, and the bits that are still Romanesque are the surviving bits of the church when it was originally built.

Back in here, I had a listen to the next radio programme to be broadcast, and, as I was satisfied that it was as it should be, I sent it off to be included in the stream for this weekend.

There were a few other things to do, and then I made a start on writing the notes for the next radio programme. Not that I managed to go very far. I really shall have to become much more motivated than I am.

At midday, I went into the dining area, sorted out a disgusting drink and my midday medication, and then I began to prepare myself to go to dialysis. My cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic but she didn’t stay long, as she had other fish to fry. And it’s just as well that she didn’t because the taxi was twenty minutes early today.

The driver had had to pick up someone at the Centre Normandy who wanted to go to a village near Avranches so the despatching had combined me and the old lady in Sartilly into the same trip. We made good time to Sartilly but the old lady wasn’t ready, so that was that.

We dropped off the other woman at Bacilly and then drove to the dialysis centre. We arrived bang on time, so those twenty minutes in advance were effectively wasted. And when I weighed myself, it was 600 grammes short of the weight for the last couple of sessions so, as I said, I told the nurse to wind it up to put me in advance.

Once I was up and running, I watched another football match from the weekend – Hwlffordd v Airbus UK Broughton. The last time that Airbus were in the Cymru Premier League, they managed two draws and no wins in an entire season. However, they have already improved on that after one match by winning the game 1-0. Hwlffordd had a pretty good season last season and they’ve signed some good players, but Airbus’s squad, mainly the players from their Second Division campaign last season, slugged it out with them toe-to-toe, scoring the goal that won the game with just five minutes to go.

From what I’ve seen, I reckon that Airbus and Llandudno are going to be a handful for some of the other clubs in the Premier Division.

Eventually, I was unfastened from the machine and when I weighed myself, I found that I was below my dry weight, which is good news. I had to wait ten minutes for my taxi, which turned up with another passenger inside, going to La Rochelle-Normande. There’s no doubt that since I’ve been travelling by taxi to my medical appointments, I’m seeing parts of Normandy that I never knew existed.

Back here, my cleaner was waiting for me, and she helped me into the apartment, where she stuck a disgusting drink into my sweaty little mitt.

After she left, I made my tea – a vegan burger with pasta and ratatouille. However, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I might have done, and I don’t know why.

Now that I’ve finished my notes and done a few other things that need doing, I’m off to bed, much later than I intended.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Czech Repubilc … "well, one of us has" – ed … and to be serious for just a moment, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I was in the Czech Republic in 2015, I drove past a primary school and in the playground, a lot of the kids were jumping up and down on trampolines.
"Hmmm" I thought to myself. "Bouncing Czechs."

Saturday 1st August 2026 – YET ANOTHER DAY …

… where I’ve imitated my namesake the mathematician and done three-fifths of five-eighths of … errr … nothing whatsoever. And it wasn’t for the want of trying either. It was just that the opportunity wasn’t there.

After the football last night, it ended up being a very late night by the time that I was in bed. And although I managed to go to sleep quite quickly, I did manage to sleep until all of about … errr … 01:20. After that, I stayed awake for almost all the rest of the night.

When I looked at the time at one point, it was 05:50, and I was toying with the idea of leaving the bed. However, wiser councils prevailed. I turned over onto my face and went back to sleep. And there I lay until the alarm went off at 06:29.

From that point of waking up to the moment of being dressed and in the kitchen is but a moment, but in real life as it is today, it’s a whole eternity away and I wasn’t prepared for it at all. It was a desperate battle to fight my way into the bathroom to organise myself and to have a good shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant today.

Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night

There was something going on with the clubs in the Cymru Premier League. There had been a few additions, and everyone wanted to know their names, their nicknames, how they played, all that kind of thing, so I decided that if I were to do some research on the matter, what I would do would be to do it properly and completely, and whatever I, or the other person writing it from the other end, didn’t want in the statistics, I’d pass them on to anyone else who wanted them so that they would have the same kind of start that we did last season

Yes, the Welsh Premier League is up and running already, with this new TELEVISION COMPANY that I mentioned yesterday. And there has indeed been a pile of new players coming into the league, from England, Scotland, and even places like Zambia and New Zealand. Finding out about them has been interesting to say the least.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual, except that she was rather later than usual. As she was sorting out my feet and legs, she explained that when visiting one of her patients in town earlier, her car was hemmed in by a selfish driver, and judging by this number plate, he was a tourist. To get back behind the driving seat, she had to climb in through the back door and then over the back of the front seats.

She was quite indignant about that.

After she left, I could make my breakfast, and while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Today, he’s been steering clear of controversy as far as the “Mohammedans” go. But while he’s been talking about the overwhelming superiority of Gothic architecture, he notes here that "The finest of our Romanesque naves, those of Ely and Peterborough, are actually later in date than the advanced Transition of Canterbury choir, and but very little earlier than the pure Lancet architecture of the eastern chapels at Winchester. It is manifest then that, in some cases at least, the decaying style was retained in deliberate preference to the new."

After breakfast and having sorted myself out, I came back to the office and began to complete the notes from yesterday. With the usual waves of fatigue coming along to swamp me as I wrote, it took much longer than it should have done. It wasn’t until about 11:30 that it finally made its way on line. So if you missed Friday’s blog, you can FIND IT HERE.

Once I’d done that, there were a few other things that needed doing, and then, for about fifteen minutes, I had a little sleep. And you’ve no idea how much I enjoyed that. In fact, had I not decided to set the alarm for midday on a dialysis day, I probably would still be asleep right now.

However, I went into the dining area once the alarm had sounded and began to sort out what I need for this afternoon and for a disgusting drink and the midday medication. My faithful cleaner also turned up to apply the anaesthetic to my arm.

After she left, I went for a stroll … errrr … down the corridor, and it’s a good job that I did too because my taxi was hours early today … "about fifteen minutes actually" – ed … It was one of my favourite drivers too, so we had a good chat on the way to pick up Madame Dinosaur.

When we arrived at the site of the exposition and she had to go onto the site for her passenger, she asked me, rather nervously, "there aren’t any dinosaurs loose and wandering around in there, are there?". I put her mind at rest but I don’t think that she was convinced.

Having had an early start like that, we arrived at dialysis quite early – 13:35, in fact. And in charge of our room today was one of the young and efficient nurses who has been there for quite a while – one of my favourites in fact. And by 14:10, I was up and running. I wasn’t very impressed, though. It seemed that, because I’d left on Thursday with so much water still in me, we were going to have another gruelling session with the machine going flat-out on “max”.

Today, I settled down to watch a couple of football matches on the internet. The first one was Llandudno v Fflint from last night, followed by the live match of Cardiff Metropolitan v Trefynnon. I wasn’t able to see either match to the end because the live match started before the Llandudno game had finished and due to the early start, the Cardiff Metropolitan game hadn’t finished when it was time to be unplugged. And, of course, there were the usual blood pressure alarms that brought the nurses running every time.

Emilie the Cute Consultant was there today too. I caught a glimpse of her in the distance down the corridor. She didn’t come to see me, though, which was a crying shame. She doesn’t love me any more by the looks of things.

It was the “boss” who brought me home tonight. He was ready and waiting for me when I came out of my room and that was nice. We had a good chat all the way home, where my faithful cleaner was awaiting, and she helped me inside the apartment. When I was settled in a chair, she passed me another disgusting drink and then, in the best characteristics of the long-gone and much-missed “News of the Screws”, she “made her excuses and left”.

Once she’d gone, I could turn my attention to tea. Tonight, it was a burger on a bap with vegan salad and baked potato. For some reason, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I usually would do. I hope that my taste buds aren’t changing yet again. That would be a disaster.

When I finished tea, I came back in here to carry out a few tasks and then I attacked the notes. However, as usual after a dialysis day, when the machine has been operating at the “max”, I had the typical “wave of fatigue” flooding over me. I was reviewing what I was writing, and there was so much that appeared to be total nonsense, with spelling mistakes, typing faults and heaven knows what else besides … "nothing new here, then" – ed … I decided to call it a day and go to bed. I can finish the notes in the morning.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about doctors … "well, one of us has" – ed … apparently, the reason why Emilie the Cute Consultant had a visitor with her.
"Hello doctor" said the man. "I’ve been stung by a bee"
"No problem" said Emilie the Cute Consultant. "I’ll put some special cream on it"
"Don’t be silly, doctor" replied the man. "That bee will be miles away from here by now."

Thursday 30th July 2026 – WHAT TOTAL, ABSOLUTE …

… and utter chaos it was at dialysis. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … what is it that goes through the mind of some of these “organisers” and “managers” that when they have about eight nurses on duty, they put two of the newest and … errr … less-confident nurses on the same ward on their own, with eight people who need attention?

It’s about as logical as me expecting that I’d have a good night’s sleep last night. Yes, I was in bed early enough (about 22:30) and I did fall asleep rapidly, but that was as good as it got. I don’t know what time it was when I awoke but the street light was still on in the car park, which meant that it was before 02:30.

From then on, there I lay, watching the World go round and watching it slowly go lighter and lighter. At some point, I did go back to sleep because I had another one of those awakenings when I sat bolt upright. This time, I did check the time and it was 05:50.

Ordinarily, I might have thought about getting up at that time and claiming an early start, or even doing more dictating of radio notes, but instead, I turned over onto my stomach and went back to sleep. And no one was more surprised than me to be awoken by the alarm at 06:29.

It was a very weary me who staggered into the bathroom to organise myself today. a good wash and even a good shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

There were a few urgent things to do back in here, and then I checked the alarm to find out where I’d been during the night.

And there was something on there too, but it was about five minutes long. There wasn’t time to transcribe it before Isabelle the Nurse turned up. She took my medical card to swipe into her machine so that the Social Security would pay her, and we talked about the fire at La Havaudière on Monday afternoon. The story that she told me is quite plausible, but I’m not going to repeat it, as it might be considered libellous.

After she left, I made my breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

He’s still rampaging on about the “heathen Mohammedans” and their “false prophet” and how their architecture was nothing new but an “anticipation” of “our wonderful Gothic architecture”.

Back in here, I managed at some point to find five minutes to transcribe last night’s dream.

I was doing a coach trip down to central France round by Auxerre, and the purpose of that was to look at my new apartment. When I looked, it was really nice, but the kitchen had overflowed its alcove, which I was planning on using, and that was going to make things rather complicated in the apartment. I wondered how I was going to manage to do this. Later, anyway, I went back to the bus depot and I was in my red Cortina estate. I began to load people into it, putting their luggage in and then we set off. We stopped somewhere near an abbey for coffee and somewhere else for an evening meal, and we were in this town the next morning. We were talking about the cars and my brother was saying that when he bought it, there hadn’t been an MOT on it. I replied that actually, there’s no MOT on mine at the moment, even though I’m taking all these passengers. Anyway, we talked about all kinds of things for the moment. Then we heard that someone in the area wanted to go back to Shearings and I had to go to pick them up, so I did that. They had some food and things with them so we were being even more overloaded. We set out, and then we heard that a girl from the Auvergne wanted bringing back en route so we stopped at someone’s house and telephoned her. We agreed to meet her and wake her up. So we set off again, and my brother began to talk about this car with no MOT again, and I wished that he wouldn’t, with all of these passengers in it. We pulled onto a main road and then we pulled into a house to organise a few things and do a few things. But it was a house where someone lived, whom I knew from years ago in Crewe. He made a meal for us and these passengers, and I went outside to sort out a couple of things for packing. Then everyone climbed in, and then we heard that there was another person to pick up along the road, so my brother and I began to saw my car in two, with my passengers sitting in it. This was going to work out to be extremely complicated for them because although we were well on our way with cutting it up, they hadn’t noticed yet.

Auxerre is quite a familiar town to me. Situated astride the River Yonne, I passed through it every time I travelled between Brussels and the Auvergne when I lived down on the farm. It’s a beautiful town, and the lest time that I travelled that road was in 2014 back from my LITTLE HOLIDAY IN OOSTENDE, I went to visit all of the places that I used to drive through on that road and had a GOOD EXPLORATION OF AUXERRE.

The reason why it’s figuring in this dream is, I imagine, that yesterday, Isabelle the Nurse was talking about her family who live there.

The red Cortina estate XCL465X has featured on these pages quite often. I had it for a long while in the UK and brought it with me when I came to Belgium. For the first few years I drove it regularly, but then when I had the Opel, it was relegated to secondary use. Its last trip was in 1998 down to the Auvergne towing the 2000E saloon and it lives now in the warehouse in Montaigut. There can’t be many cars forty-five years old that have never ever been welded at least once in their lives.

The stop at the abbey was an interesting piece of this dream. I did in fact once stop at an abbey with my coach and passengers for a coffee break when we were out on a coach tour with Shearings.

The rest of the dream is a confused bundle of not very much relevance. It’s certainly an interesting dream, though, and must mean something to someone

Transcribing the dream wasn’t as easy as it might have been either. After a few minutes, I was experiencing wave after wave of fatigue that was trying to force me into going to sleep, and I was fighting as hard as I could to stay awake. However, that wasn’t easy either and at one point, I fell asleep from a sitting position at my desk and crashed out, falling headfirst onto the desk and keyboard with an enormous CRASH.

It’s difficult to understand how I managed to go to sleep, though. The elephants had come to the apartment directly over mine and brought something heavy with them that they dragged along the ground and then upstairs, making a hell of a noise as they did it.

Once whatever it was was installed upstairs, the elephants began to work with something and that was making quite a racket too. In the end, I despaired and went for a few moments of … errr … quiet contemplation in the gentleman’s restroom.

By the time that I’d finished everything, it was 11:50. So much for my plan today of dealing with the music for this radio programme. This will have to wait until tomorrow.

At 12:00 the alarm awoke me from a little slumber and I went into the kitchen for a disgusting drink, the midday medication and to sort myself out for dialysis. My faithful cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic and I repeated what Isabelle the Nurse had told me. She was, however, firmly committed to the cause of the farmer.

After she left, I didn’t have long to wait for the taxi. It was early again today. There was already another passenger in the car, who yielded up the passenger seat to me, which was kind of her, and we had to go to pick up Madame Dinosaur from her exhibition. Once she was in, the three of us headed down to Avranches.

On the way, we saw the field that had been the centre of the fire on Monday. All of the stubble had been burnt, the hedge was a charred mess and the verge by the roadside had been swallowed up. Closing the road on Monday was clearly the correct decision.

We arrived at Avranches at about 13:35, and I installed myself in my little room. And this is where the troubles began. As I said before, with eight nurses on duty, six of them experienced and two novices who are rather … errr … “hesitant”, which manager in his or her right mind would have put those two nurses together and on their own in a ward of eight people?

Consequently, the connection process was very slow, and it wasn’t until 14:35 that I was connected.

All of the excitement had, however, happened before that. Once more, I was way over the maximum limit for the water, so I asked if I could stay for longer. My hesitant nurse said that she would “have to go and ask somebody”.

She was away for quite a while and when she came back, she said that I could stop for an extra half-hour and changed the timer accordingly – but not the weight!
"Aren’t you going to change the weight?" I asked
"Ohh" she replied. "I didn’t ask about that."

After a few minutes she came back. "I phoned the doctor’s number but he wasn’t there" she said "so I left a message."

And that was how it stayed for the entire session. I’d ended up staying an extra half-hour for no good purpose.

The nurse did come to see me with about half an hour to go. "Has the doctor been to see you yet?" she asked

Well, I’d vaguely seen the doctor (not Emilie the Cute Consultant) in the distance so he was certainly on duty, but he hadn’t passed by me, so I answered in the negative.

"Oh" she replied, and that was that.

The blood pressure alarm was doing its thing throughout the day. Every half hour it began to wail, which brought a nurse running, but for no good purpose because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … low blood pressure is a habitual situation with me and isn’t a problem.

It was 18:40 when I finally staggered out of there. My driver was already there waiting, which was some good news, I suppose. However, it was the driver who doesn’t talk at all so we had a very quiet drive home.

Back here, far later than I had hoped, my faithful cleaner was waiting. She helped me into the apartment and refuelled me with a disgusting drink.

After a little bit of reorganisation, she went off back to her place and I could think about tea. But at 19:40, when I have plenty of things to do, a cooked tea is out of the question. I grabbed a handful of these little toastie things and a box of that delicious vegan boursin cheese and came in here to carry on with work.

Not that I managed to go too far, because as usual with a really heavy spell of dialysis, the fatigue and tiredness began to attack me. I posted on line what I had written so far and crawled into bed. That wasn’t as early as it might have been either because Yours Truly fell asleep while riding the porcelain horse.

But one thing about tomorrow – the football season has restarted, as I told you last weekend. The league matches commence tomorrow evening and Barry Town are at home in a televised game against Cambrian United. The team from the Rhondda Valley won the Second Division South championship and were promoted to the Premier League for this season, their first time in this division. But kick-off is late, so don’t be surprised to find only half an entry – or even none at all when you come for a butcher’s during the night.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the doctor and his unavailability just now … "well, one of us has" – ed … later on, I discovered the reason why. He had gone to witness an autopsy performed by one of the great pathologists.
The pathologist was busy wielding his scalpel in all the appropriate places, chatting away as he was doing so.
"This man used to be a very well-known actor" he said.
"Blimey!" said our doctor. "If he’s acting now, he must be really good!"

Thursday 23rd July 2026 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone this morning.

Not that that was too surprising considering that I awoke at 01:30 this morning. Or maybe it was, seeing as I was in bed round about 21:30 last night. Four hours’ sleep is more than I’ve had on some nights.

And I needed it too. After tea, I came back in here to start work again but I’d not been at it for long when a huge wave of tiredness washed over me. I couldn’t keep on going after that so I gave it up and went to bed. But seeing as I’d already written quite a lot of my notes, I posted the “so far” version and I’ll finish it off in the morning.

Once in bed, I fell asleep quite quickly, and there I stayed until 01:30, as I mentioned. And after that, I stayed awake … "not for the want of trying" – ed … watching the dawn slowly come around. When I finally checked the time, it was 06:22, so I quickly slipped my feet on the floor to claim an early start.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … having my feet on the floor is one thing. Being able to stand up and head to the bathroom is something else completely.

Eventually, I made it into there and had a good wash and scrub-up in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. It was only later that I realised that I’d forgotten to have a shave.

Back in here, even though there were no dictaphone notes to transcribe, I had plenty of other things to do, and I was still doing them when the nurse arrived. And today, it was quite a serious discussion. It seems that there is a threat to close down the railway line between Granville and Paris. Years and years of financial cutbacks and lack of maintenance have, according to some people, left the infrastructure beyond repair and there is no hope for it.

As for me, I think that it’s just a ploy by the SNCF to wring more money out of the département in subsidies, but you can never be sure with some people.

After he left, I could make breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Today, he’s summarising what we have learnt so far about Romanesque, Norman and Byzantine architecture, as, presumably, we’re going to be moving on to another main subject shortly.

Even here, though, he cannot let go of his old ideas. "it will appear nothing wonderful that the destroyers of the Roman power might be the improvers of Roman art ….. the pier and arch stood ready for the German or Norman architect to adorn alike with the creations of his own genius, and with such of the spoils of heathendom as might be fitly pressed into the Church’s service."

He goes on (and on, and on) to say "It is only the lifeless skeleton of Romanesque which is of Pagan origin, and the lifeless skeleton of Gothic is equally so ; in both the life, the spirit, the animating genius of the style, is essentially Christian, bringing whatever of heathenism lurks about it into bondage to the faith."

Back in here, I finished off what I had been doing before breakfast and then made a start on writing the notes for the next radio programme. I didn’t get very far, though. Apart from going for a ride on the porcelain horse, I needed a shave as well.

At midday, I went into the kitchen area to sort out my things ready for dialysis, for a disgusting drink and my midday medication, and then my faithful cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic.

After she left, I had to wait for the taxi, which was fifteen minutes late today. As well as that, we also had to go to find a vacancier – a holidaymaker who required dialysis. That took us down a labyrinth of local lanes, but eventually, we worked out that she wasn’t a vacancier at all but a worker at the dinosaur exhibition that has set itself up at the Chateau Bonheur on the edge of town.

One thing that I can say is that since I’ve been travelling with this taxi company, I’m seeing parts of Normandy that I never knew existed.

We were a few minutes late arriving in Avranches but I was quickly ushered to my little room after weighing myself. The nurse, one of my favourites, came round quickly enough to plug me in and by 14:23, I was up and running.

During the session I was left pretty much alone. However, the blood pressure machine kept on ringing its alarm because it was finding part of the measurements too low. However, low blood pressure is quite normal to me and I wasn’t worried, even if they were.

When the session was over, I was attended to immediately by the same nurse who had coupled me up. She was quick and efficient and it didn’t take too long for me to be ready. But I haven’t lost all of the weight that should have gone. For me, the maximum is 950 millilitres per hour, but more than that was needed to reduce me to my dry weight, so the rest will have to be taken on Saturday, assuming that I don’t put on too much in the intervening time.

I was back here by 18:20, having seen my nurse with his bike in the town centre, and my faithful cleaner helped me back inside. Once I was comfortably seated, she gave me the second instalment of disgusting drinks as a “welcome home”.

At 19:00, I went to make tea. Tonight, it was a slice of vegan pie with peas, carrots, mashed potato and gravy. There’s only one slice of pie now left, so I’ll have to try to invent a filling that will go nicely in it. My artificial Intelligence chatbot has, so far, come up with –

Mushroom and vegan cheese
Hearty vegetable pot pie
chickpea and walnut
lentil mince “shepherd’s pie”
curry style
pasty-style root vegetables
spinach, leek and vegan cheese
onion and potato pasty
tomato, olive and courgette
leek, potato and vegan cheddar
mushroom and herb
stout and vegetables
lentil and root veg
curried chickpea and spinach
cannellini bean and tomato herb

If anyone wants the recipe for any of these, let me know. There’s a “contact me” button on the bottom right of your screen.

By the way, back in June, I posted the instructions to make your own chatbot on an artificial intelligence chat site. You can find the instructions HERE

After tea and washing up, I came back in here to write out my notes. And once more, when I was about halfway through, a great wave of fatigue washed over me and I couldn’t carry on. Doubtless the result of a heavy dialysis session earlier. I posted what I had written to date and I’ll finish the rest tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about pies … "well, one of us has" – ed … a woman once walked iinto the kitchen of Leighton Hospital in Crewe and handed one of the nurses a home-made pie.
She said "can you eat this up for me, luv?"
Of course, with hospital food being so disgusting, the nurse was only delighted to do so, and she even shared it with a colleague.
Fifteen minutes later, the woman came back into the kitchen and asked the nurse "is me ‘usband’s pie ‘ot yet?"

Wednesday 22nd July 2026 – WHAT A WASTE …

… of a morning that was. How many times is that now that I’ve come back from breakfast and crashed out for a while in my comfy chair? Many more than I would like to admit, that’s for sure.

However, when you don’t go to bed until 23:00 and wake up at 01:30 in the morning, what do you expect?

Yes, it was another late night last night. I tried all that I could try so that I could finish early but nothing at all seemed to work. Once I was in bed, though, I fell asleep quite quickly. But it wasn’t for long. At 01:30 I was awake again. And there I lay, drifting in and out of sleep until I awoke again at about 06:20. No point in leaving the bed at that time, so I waited a few minutes until the alarm went off.

After I’d sorted myself out in the bathroom, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone in order to find out where I’d been during the night.

A couple of us were walking around a few football grounds and we were talking about a few of the matches that we’d seen there. One person was telling us about a match in which he played. We ended up talking about the stadia and the seats, where we’d sit for important games. Then this question came around about designing our own football stadia that would actually fold up and be put away when they aren’t in use, but somehow, that didn’t seem to catch on anywhere so I went home. Just inside the house was a great big parcel addressed to my brother. I asked him if he would be going to move it, but he said that he couldn’t at the moment because it was too heavy. I opened the box and looked at the things inside it, then shouted to him to come and take a look. When he arrived, everything was there in the box. He was annoyed that everything had been opened, but he sat down for the next twenty minutes and began to assemble it. I asked him what it was, and he replied that it was a trolley jack. However, as he put it together, it became one of these space heater-type of machines that you have in garages that throw this … fell asleep here …

Those were the days. I spent several happy days walking around VARIOUS FOOTBALL GROUNDS IN THE UK, mainly by myself, I should say.

As for parcels addressed to my brother, that’s not likely, nor is the fact that I was helping him. It’s no surprise that I fell asleep before I finished.

So that was a space heater and I told him that it wasn’t a trolley jack. He insisted that it was. He then suddenly pointed to another object in there which was, in fact, a trolley jack. Then he agreed that what I was standing by and had just started to unwrap was a space heater. He said that that should keep us all warm if we are working.

So, a while later, I stepped back into the dream again. That’s something that happens every now and again, and it’s bizarre when it does happen.

So once my brother had unlabelled his space heater, everyone in the audience stepped back a fair way. I explained that it wasn’t dangerous at the moment because it hadn’t been charged with fuel. I went to have a look at his guns, including this GAZ 9/9, which is presumably an official Soviet military handgun.

So, a third time now. That’s quite unusual, but the dream is beginning to drift at the end. I’d have loved to hear the end of this.

My brother used to be very interested in guns and other firearms until the Dunblane Massacre put an end to many private gun clubs. However, as far as I’m aware, the Gorki Avto Zavod never made firearms. They just made cars, like the GAZ 21 which I would have in a heartbeat if I could, if it were a Series III model.

I was in my office. I’d been away for a few hours but I’d come back because I was getting ready to go on holiday. When I was tidying the things that had been put on my desk, I found an envelope with seven hundred euros in it and I couldn’t leave that lying around on my desk while I was away so I took it down to the cashiers’ office. I explained what had happened and asked them if they would cash it and give me a receipt for it so that I could put it in this person’s file, then at least the accounting would be correct. She took the envelope, pulled the money out and handed it back, but I noticed that there was still some money left in it. I didn’t say anything until she came back. At the cubicle next to me, a woman arrived with her daughter so another officer came to deal with her. She had her son with her. They chatted and did what they had to do, then the woman turned round to her daughter and said “right, let’s go and find Mr so-and-so.” My ears pricked up at that because I was planning to look for him myself for some reason, and there were two other people who also noticed. As this woman left the building, the three of us independently followed her. She got into her car so I got into mine and those two men got into theirs, but all she did was to reverse across the car park and park the car somewhere else. We waited until she got out of the car and set off on foot, so we followed her.

This dream doesn’t mean very much to me. My dreams about work are usually about being on the point of retirement – should I stay or should I go?

The quest for the missing man is interesting too. I wonder why everyone, including me, is so keen to find him.

The nurse turned up as usual. We had an interesting chat about home renovations while he was dealing with my feet. And after he left, I made breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

We’re still exploring the Norman Romanesque of England and Normandy, but I’ve spent most of my time looking for towns and villages that I don’t know, where there are some interesting historic remains from that period. He’s managed to keep out of controversy so far, but that’s because, once more, I spent more time researching some of the places that he mentioned than I spent reading Freeman’s book.

Back in here, there were things to do, and I duly began to do them, but within fifteen minutes, I was fast asleep in my chair. I vaguely remember waking up at one point, but it wasn’t for long. It was about 11:40 when I finally awoke, and that was definitely a waste of a good morning.

Much of the rest of the day has been all about the radio programme. I now have all of the music that I need. It’s been reformatted where necessary, re-edited, paired and segued, and I’ve even begun to write the notes for it.

One thing, though, and that is that I could have done so much more had it not been for several interruptions, the most important of which was to go to hospital.

It was time for a review of my implant and so an appointment had been made for 14:00 here in Granville. At 13:00, I knocked off work and prepared myself and everything that I needed, and that included photocopying a document to take with me. The taxi turned up at about 13:40, and I was at the hospital in good time.

Unfortunately, the “good time” didn’t last. We got lost in the labyrinth of hospital corridors and when we eventually found our destination, it was 14:02. The doctor was waiting for me and she set to work straight away.

The doctor who does these tests is definitely my favourite doctor. She’s small, thin and a “certain age”. And when she’s looking at my implant with her echograph machine, she’s continually chuntering, saying things like “why have they done this?”, “that’s not correct”, “they should have done it this way” and so on. It puts some animation into what would otherwise be a very boring examination.

The net result was that there was no change in the fistule and the debit since the last examination in January. That means that I’m going to still be stuck on 950 millilitres per hour maximum.

The driver was waiting for me when I came out, so he helped me into the car. I had a fall at one point and he had to help me by dragging me bodily onto the car seat. But once I was safely installed, he drove me home, where my faithful cleaner was waiting. She helped me into the apartment and served up a disgusting drink and the midday medicine. I hadn’t taken it before I went

Once I was on my own, I came back in here to carry on work.

Tea tonight was a vegan burger with pasta and ratatouille, and delicious it was too. Back in here afterwards, I started to write my notes but once more, sleep descended quite rapidly. As I’d written a good proportion, I posted them on line with a little “to be continued” and went to bed. I’ll finish them in the morning.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about doctors … "well, one of us has" – ed … the girls from Crewe went to the doctor’s.
The doctor asked the first one "what’s three times nine."
"three hunndred and seventy-three" she replied.
He turns to the next girl and asks her "what’s three times nine?"
"Friday" she replied
He turns to the third girl and asks her "what’s three times nine?"
"Twenty-seven" she replies.
"Well done you. How did you arrive at the answer?"
"Simple" she said. "I just divided three hundred and seventy-three by Friday."

Tuesday 21st July 2026 – THE ALARM DIDN’T

… go off this morning. Mind you, there was a good reason for that. I’d switched it off because a few minutes before it was due, I was sitting on the edge of the bed with my feet on the floor. I wasn’t doing any more than that, but it was enough to claim an “early start”.

Thinking about it, though, it’s not really all that much of an early start. When you go to bed at about 20:30, being up just before 06:29 means something not far short of ten hours in bed.

And 20:30 it was when I went to bed last night. I’d hardly begun the notes from yesterday too but this wave of fatigue that turned up simply overwhelmed me and there was no escape.

When the alarm sounded, I reluctantly threw off the covers and picked up the ‘phone in order to switch off the alarm, only to find that the time actually was only 01:30 and the phone’s alarm wasn’t sounding at all

There have been a few times just recently when I’ve been awoken by a phantom alarm call. Yet it sounds so realistic so I really don’t know what to make of it.

One thing was for certain though, and that was that I couldn’t go back to sleep. I lay there for a few hours silently wishing that I could fall into the arms of Morpheus but with no success. Eventually, though, I managed to slide into that state of flux where I’m half asleep and half awake, although not always at the same time.

When I finally awoke, it was 06:09, so I decided that I’d give myself a couple of minutes and then leave the bed. Unfortunately it was rather more than a couple of minutes, but I still managed to beat the alarm this morning.

After a trip to the bathroom to sort myself out, I came back in here to listen to whatever else was on the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

It was getting close to Christmas Eve and I’d gone somewhere to spend Christmas. There was a whole group of us, including several people whom I knew from the EU. We were having something of a good time but it was getting late so I thought that I’d better start to make tea. I selected a few things here and there and made a start. In the meantime, there was an enormous row in the living room between a couple. The husband shouted out “right, well, I’ll go and make tea then!” He came into the kitchen, saw me cooking and just threw my stuff onto the floor. We had a huge row about that, which, shall we say, was “inconclusive”. I walked out of the kitchen, and I was just so angry that I couldn’t calm down for ten minutes. In the end, I went for a walk around. In the square or centre of one of these arcades where two big roads crossed, there was some kind of entertainment. People were doing magic and such. There was a huge crowd watching them. As I walked around the edge of the crowd, I noticed that one of them was a petite girl in a dark blue raincoat. I went over to her to chat and then I asked her if she would like to come for a walk. We had a good walk around and then she had to go. I went back reluctantly to where we were staying. That guy and his wife had gone but there was still some food left, and one or two of my friends had bought pizzas so we had a little bit of a picnic. But I remembered that girl saying that she’d meet me again at 21:00 somewhere on the south side of this crowd. About 20:30 I walked off. I was hanging around for a while there and then we both spotted each other. She’d changed her clothes so it was confusing. We went for a drive in the car, my old Zephyr 6, and I apologised to her for being dressed like this, telling her that I should have been dressed more regally, which made her laugh. In the end, I drove her home and gave her a kiss. I explained that I was having to go home, which was 500 miles but I’d still like to see her. She replied “why not come to see me on Sunday?” and she mentioned a time.

So where was my family last night? In the past, just as I was always about to Get the Girl, my family would turn up and throw a spanner in the works. But not last night. In fact it all seems to have worked in my favour for once.

The idea of this big group of people is nothing new either. When I first joined the EU, we newcomers were put in a group together. and a bunch of us would go out and do things like ice skating, playing tennis and the like. Gradually, though, we all paired off and I spent a pleasant few months in the company of a Greek girl, which was nice.

The disastrous kitchen scene has no parallel in real life but I can see why it was so upsetting.

The story about “hanging around” refers to an incident involving the Co-op in Denver Avenue, Crewe, something that might become clear to you all in due course, and I did once have a Zephyr 6, one of the big MkIV models.

There’s probably a load more mileage in that dream too.

The nurse turned up today, later than usual, and chatted away about nothing in particular as he dealt with my legs and feet. After he left, I could push on and make breakfast.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

We’re still in Romanesque Norman Northern France and Britain, but today he’s avoiding controversy. That’s partly because I’ve not read much of the book today. He’s mentioned quite a list of obscure examples of this period of construction so I’ve been looking them up and finding out what I can about them.

Back in here afterwards, I started on the notes from yesterday and they are all online now. It was perfectly timed, because it was just about the correct moment for a disgusting drink break and the midday medication.

My faithful cleaner turned up as usual after lunch, and she shooed me into the shower. And today, I climbed in on my own and climbed out too. I’m getting much better at this.

After she left, I made a start on tracking down some music that I need for the next radio programme. There will be some really obscure stuff on there too so it took ages to get as far as I have done today, and there’s still plenty to go.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg. and I found to my dismay that the stuffing that I’d taken out of the freezer for the taco roll wasn’t stuffing at all, so I had to make some more. And it really was nice too, lentils, tomatoes, mushrooms, onion and garlic in a spicy tomato sauce.

It was followed by two slices of my fruit bread, which was also very nice.

So right now, I’m off to bed, much later than I wanted it to be, but nothing unusual there.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the shower … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the two girls from Crewe, one of whom had just climbed into the shower.
"I forgot to ask you – can you bring me the shampoo" she said
"I’ve already put it in there" replied the other
"I know" she replied "but that’s for dry hair. Mine’s soaking wet now."

Sunday 19th July 2026 – WHEN I AWOKE …

… this morning, there was bright sunlight outside and the birds were singing, including a dove that lives somewhere around here. So I checked the time – 06:29 exactly. So there’s nothing wrong with my body clock, is there?

Mind you, it wasn’t the first time that I’d awoken. I’d been awake on several occasions previously, usually when it was pitch-black, but I couldn’t be bothered to check the time at those moments.

Anyway, by 07:07 I was sitting at my desk working, having had time to organise myself in the bathroom first.

First job was to reply to a couple of messages that I’d received during the night, and then I could make a start on yesterday’s notes that had been abandoned before they had even begun.

For a change, I actually put my back into it and the notes were almost complete when the nurse came in. He was surprised to find me up and about … "and so were you" – ed … but I explained about the dreadful night that I’d had.

While he was dealing with my feet, he was complaining about the dreadful showing of the French team in the first half against England last night. He reckoned that the players out there, particularly in the first half, had absolutely no interest in playing and it was embarrassing to watch.

On leaving, he told me to take it easy, something that I had every intention of doing. First, though, was to make my breakfast. Porridge, coffee and the last of the two home-made croissants. I must make some more soon.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Well, actually, I wasn’t. He ended up talking about the Papal residency in Avignon, and although Nerina and I visited Avignon in 1991 and danced upon the bridge, I can’t remember much about it, and all my old 35mm photos are down on the farm. Consequently, I spent much of the morning reading about the time the Popes lived in Avignon and looking at pictures of the mediaeval magnificence.

Back in here, I finished off the blog entry for yesterday and it’s now on line. That was followed by listening to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

At something like about 04:40, someone came into the bedroom shouting “Ian Henstone! Ian Henstone!” who I couldn’t see what on earth he was looking at but the vet saw me and said “as you are here and all these … fell asleep here …

As for Ian Henstone, whoever he is when he’s at home … "if he ever is" – ed … I have no idea, but I do know of a Henstone Distillery.

And I’m not surprised that this degenerated into a load of the usual drivel … "you said it" – ed … with me falling asleep in the end.

Nerina and I were talking to some old woman about some cream that Nerina needed for something. It had to be a very special type that was not normally available. This woman said that she knew where she could obtain it so we asked her whether she would mind. She replied that it wouldn’t be a problem at all. A couple of days later, we went back to see how she was getting on but she said that she hadn’t received it yet. Just at that moment, a policeman appeared. He asked this woman for her name, which she gave him. He asked her if she had tried to obtain some cream made of some part of a duck or something from a herbalist somewhere, to which she replied that she had. The policeman replied that it’s not allowed for sale any more and formally charged her with a crime. Both Nerina and this lady pleaded their cases but the copper was adamant. At that point, I had something to do so I had to wander off, but I said to Nerina that when I come back, I’d love to see that charge that he’s given her. She asked why, and I replied that I bet it’s set down as “receiving” instead of “attempting to receive”. I went to do what I had to do, and then coming back down Victoria Street in Crewe, there was an old furniture sales place that had been empty for years but now had a big “Tesco” sticker stuck on the window, and there were people inside clearing up the inside. It looks as if we’re having another one of these local Tescos here. I went back to where Nerina and this old woman were. Nerina showed me the charge, and it was written down as “attempting”, but “attempt” had been written incorrectly. I thought “well, there’s a loophole here that I can exploit,” so I was quite looking forward to representing this woman in Court.

There’s a lot going on in this dream too. There’s more than enough to render the summons invalid. I’d love to prove that in Court.

And then the Tesco’s in the old furniture shop – that would be interesting too and help liven up the town centre, not that it would ever happen. But the need for special cream is something of more relevance to Laurence rather than to Nerina.

After that, there was football. There had been several matches in the Scottish League Cup yesterday, so I searched for the highlights of the St Johnstone v Greenock Morton game. And I rather wish that I hadn’t because, once again, Morton were awful and the 3-0 defeat rather flattered them. In my opinion, they were lucky to get 0.

When the match had finished, I did some reading before going for a disgusting drink break. And then I was working on another project for a few hours, just to keep myself busy.

By then the highlights of the match between Stranraer and Alloa Athletic had been posted on line. And Stranraer did really well, drawing 2-2 away to higher-level opposition.

Later on, it was time to go a-baking. And today, I made some bread. I wanted to try something different instead of the usual sunflower seeds, so I ground up a large handful of almonds and added them in. We’ll see how they react to the bread.

While the bread was baking, I assembled another half-dozen home-made croissants. And when the bread was baked, they went into the oven and now they are ready for starting next weekend.

And I think that I’ve fixed the problem relating to the drawers in the kitchen. I had another one collapse on me this evening, and while I was repairing it, I finally managed to understand why they kept falling apart. This time, therefore, I fixed it properly and little by little, I’ll go round and do the rest.

So having written my notes and generally done what needs doing, I’m off to bed, hoping for a good night’s sleep before dialysis … "and not before time too" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about distilleries … "well, one of us has" – ed … I had a friend once who drowned in a vat of whisky in a distillery.
"That must have been a quick end" said my friend.
"Not at all" I replied. "He got out three times for a bite to eat."

Friday 17th July 2026 – AFTER THE DISASTER …

… of yesterday, today has been a much more satisfying, and a much more productive day, and for once in a long, long time, I am happy with what I have accomplished.

Not that you might have thought so during the night. What with one thing and another … "and until you make a start, you have no idea just how many other things there are" – ed … it was 23:45 when I finally crawled into bed last night, looking forward to my long, uninterrupted sleep.

And there I stayed, too, until all of 02:03 (I checked). At that point, an enormous coughing fit awoke me (yes, the antibiotics stopped a week ago) and I couldn’t go back to sleep again.

At some point, though, I must have done, but it wasn’t for long and I was awake again, watching the darkness gradually turn into daylight as the sunlight slowly began to creep round the edges of the shutters.

The alarm shattered my reverie, and to my surprise, it didn’t take long for me to have my feet on the floor. Mind you, having my feet on the floor is one thing. Standing upright on them is something else completely.

Once I’d summoned up the enthusiasm and the energy, I went to sort myself out in the bathroom and then came back in here.

I had my CX500 out, so I thought that I’d go to see my friend on the Wirral. I went all the way there, but he wasn’t in. It turned out that he was in the local bar, so I went to look for it and there, I joined him. We were chatting about things and he mentioned that there was some kind of motorcycle rally taking place over the weekend in his area. We carried on chatting for a while and then I asked him if he wanted me to come up on the weekend to go to this rally, but he said “no”. I thought “there’s not much point carrying on this conversation” so I went to begin to go home. But I had no headlight on the motorbike. There was a sidelight but no headlight. First of all, I went down to another pub and had half of bitter. That was absolutely packed and I had trouble trying to find a seat. There was someone in there saying “God, this place is just packed with people drinking” so I shouted out “so what did you expect to find in a pub?” that brought a whole roar of laughter from most of the people in there. When I went to go, I climbed onto the motorbike and made sure that the sidelight at least was working, started up the bike and headed for home. But I was halfway down Electricity Street and Alton Street before I realised that I was going the wrong way, so I turned the motorbike round and headed for home. I stopped off on the way at a friend’s house in Winsford. He found a headlight bulb so I went to try it in the motorbike and it actually worked. I thanked my friend and my father. This other guy was here, he from the Wirral. He said to my dad and his friend “do you want to see two motor scooters?”. They had no interest in that so they said “no”, but it turned out that they were two types from Eastern Europe. One was a Korno but I don’t know what the other one was. Eventually, they went to see them but they were distracted by four kittens that came out of the garage. One of the kittens I knew, but I didn’t know the three others. When he went away to do something, my father, his friend and I just stayed there looking at these kittens.

There’s lots of mileage in this dream.

My father and his friend are here again, after making an appearance a couple of days ago. My father, I can understand, but not his friend, about whom I haven’t thought for something like thirty-five years.
As for my friend, there is a pub just around the corner from where he used to live. And there is actually a funny story about it, but the World is not yet ready to hear it.
He was also extremely moody and his rather abrupt “no” wouldn’t have been any surprise in real life.
Why I would be in Alton Street and Electricity Street (in Crewe) when I’m supposed to be on the Wirral, and coming home via Winsford is totally mystifying me.
The friend with the lock-up garages (and the kittens) is a different friend completely than the one on the Wirral.
In that particular friend’s garages, you might well be likely to find a couple of rare motor scooters from Eastern Europe, but as far as I have been able to find, there was nothing called a “Korno”. However, there is a village of that name in the Czech Republic.

And probably much more besides.

There was also a dream about me having a very tight timetable for the place where I worked. There was talk that I’d be having a few days off from the Wednesday to the following Tuesday to go to see a concert by a German composer, somewhere on the north coast of Scotland on the Saturday night. Nerina would be going with me and so would my brother and his wife. We met in a pub to discuss what I thought was the trip but it turned out that they had no intention whatever of going. They couldn’t recall mentioning it in the past, but I was certain that they did. But I’d warned everyone at work, but obviously we aren’t going now so it doesn’t matter.

Not that I’m likely to be going anywhere with my brother and his wife, a classical music concert wouldn’t be of all that much interest to me.

But the idea of organising everything and having it all fall apart at the last moment is nothing new whatsoever, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. It’s something that happened frequently in the old days. As for working to a tight schedule, I’m sure that you have seen plenty of evidence of this.

But there was one boy who was fed up with having porridge and things like that for breakfast and was agitating his parents to have sandwiches. I hoped that that didn’t happen because I enjoyed my porridge in the morning.

This is something that I dread happening. Breakfast, with my porridge and toast, is just about the only meal I really enjoy these days and it would be an absolute catastrophe if I were to lose my appetite for it.

And that reminds me – regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve been talking a lot about the loss of my appetite following the chemotherapy sessions that I had. While I was browsing through these pages looking for something in particular, I came across this quote –
"At lunchtime, I had some vegan cheese on my butty and I’m a little disturbed because the taste seems to have changed. It hasn’t – it’s that my taste buds have changed since I’ve had chemotherapy and that’s disturbing me. It’s one of the reasons that I’m off my food right now. I don’t really fancy anything to eat and the idea of eating anything greasy makes me queasy."

That’s a quote from the first time that I had chemotherapy, and in particular the ENTRY FROM 10th APRIL 2016 – over ten years ago. Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose.

The nurse was a little later than usual today, and he wittered away about nothing in particular while he dealt with my legs and feet. After he left, I could make breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

At the moment, he’s having an interesting discussion on the difficulties that people had back in his day almost two hundred years ago, telling the difference between Anglo-Sacon and Norman stonework.

If you ever see them close together these days now that we know so much more, there’s no difficulty in recognising the differences

You can see the difference here in this photograph that I took of St Mary Magdalen Church in Geddington. The Anglo-Saxon stonework is on the left and straight ahead over the arch. Then round to the right, where it all becomes so much neater, that’s the Norman stonework. The Normans had much more experience of stonework than did the Anglo-Saxons, what with everything that they built in Normandy prior to the Battle of Hastings.

Back in here, I had the usual few things to do, and then I attacked the notes for this concert on which I’d been working. They are now all written and ready for typing.

After that, there was one that I started a week or two back, and that’s now all done too and ready for broadcasting, although that won’t be for a while just yet.

There were the odd interruptions while I was doing that. First of all, there was a disgusting drink break with the lunchtime medication, and then my faithful cleaner turned up to do her stuff.

While she was here, I had her take two of the drawers out of the freezer, and I sat on the chair and went through them, sorting them out. Some stuff was binned but the rest is now organised and I know what I’ve got and where it is. And doesn’t that make a change?

Back in here and after the radio stuff was finished, I began to tidy up the mass of papers that was hanging around in here. That’s mostly now done too. As I said, it’s been a very productive day.

However, I didn’t ‘arf have a fright. While I was looking at something out of the window, a big bird, probably a seagull, flew slap-bang head-first right into it. The noise was astonishing and I thought that the window had broken, but it remained intact.

I told my cleaner about it, and she went outside to look but there was no evidence of anything.

Not like the owl that flew into the window of a place where I was staying in Leuven.

The poor bird – an owl by the looks of things – quite clearly left his mark on the glass there, and I don’t think that he could have survived a collision like that. But on my window, there’s not a trace.

Later on, it was time for tea. Chips, sausage and baked beans – the beans cooked with freshly ground black pepper and vegan cheese. Delicious as always.

And for pudding, I had some of the fruit bread that I made a few days ago. It’s a little dry, but the taste is magnificent and I’m really happy with that.

So now it’s bedtime, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about appetites … "well, one of us has" – ed … a young guy takes a young girl out for a meal. To his surprise, she orders almost everything on the menu. And then she gulps it down.
"Blimey!" said the boy. "Do you eat like this at home?"
"No" she replies. "No-one wants to sleep with me there."

Sunday 12th July 2026 – SUNDAY IS A …

… Day Of Rest, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. A day when I don’t do anything at all and spend much of my time in bed, even down to having the nurses deal with my legs and feet as I slumber on.

So consequently, last night, totally and utterly exhausted and having abandoned my blog notes for now, I went to bed at about 22:00 with an air of profound optimism, didn’t I?

And although it took a minute or two to go off to sleep, I ended up being well away with the fairies, although not in any manner that would excite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine. And there I stayed until all of … errr … 00:10.

That was when I awoke, and from then on for several hours, I was drifting in and out of sleep. And as seems to be the case these days, it was difficult to tell what period was which. Round about 06:00, I was definitely awake and there seemed to be no hope whatever of going back to sleep, so at 06:15 I was actually up and about.

After I’d sorted myself out in the bathroom, the first task was to listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.

I was back in the Auvergne last night again and was standing for election to the town council. In the borough, in the part of the area where I lived, there was no opposition so I was “walked over” into the Houses of Parliament. And it was bricking really good as well and it looked quite an impressive thing to see, and I hoped that my descendants, or whoever completes the job, will have the same kind of senses to the colours … fell asleep here …

So this is the usual kind of incoherent nonsense … "you said it" – ed … that doesn’t make any sense at all and is totally meaningless. So much so that I can’t even remember dictating it. And it’s surely no surprise to anyone that I fell asleep in the middle of it all.

When Isabelle the Nurse turned up, she was amazed to find that I was out of bed and working. My reaction was that I was rather disappointed. I had hoped to have had a really decent sleep for once.

Anyway, after she finished with me, she wandered off on the rest of her rounds, still on foot. Everywhere was total chaos today with roads being closed up here for the brocante and down in the town too for the shopping morning.

Meanwhile, I was preparing my breakfast – porridge, coffee and home-made croissants – and while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

He’s still going on with his anti-Roman tirade at first, but slowly, he’s gradually warming to some examples of Roman architecture. And the difference? "But it was not the old Rome of Pontiffs and Augurs, of Consuls and Emperors, that was to mould the arts of Teutonic Christendom. Before she could influence the race on whom the spirit of the Church was to take the firmest hold, she had herself to bend before the Cross. The greatness of Rome is indeed exclusively heathen …. its Christianity was but the precursor of its fall. It endured but to pass the torch of truth to a race springing into life with all the fervency of youthful vigour, whose greatness might be cradled in the lap of the Church, and during its historic being have known no other faith. This was the work of Christian Rome, to lay the foundation among another people of a truly Christian commonwealth; ;"

Back in here, I had a few things to do and to organise, but would you believe that I crashed out? It was 11:00 when I awoke so I reckoned that I’d been out for forty-five minutes, and I didn’t feel a thing.

Once I’d gathered up my wits, I continued with the notes for the blog, and they are now on line at long last. That meant that I could have a pause for a disgusting drink and the midday medication.

When I was back and ready, I carried on with the radio notes for the next programme, and it’s almost finished now. I just have to find a way of losing five seconds, but that shouldn’t be difficult.

There was time for a footfest afterwards. The first match was Stranraer, of the fourth tier, against Ayr United of the second. And Stranraer gave Ayr a good run for their money, twice taking the lead, but eventually going down 3-2. That was followed by Greenock Morton of the second tier v non-league Linlithgow Rose.

As for that game, I couldn’t believe what I was watching, and I ended up having to watch the streams from both clubs to make sense of it. I’ve seen Morton play some bad matches in the past, but never as bad as this. Morton lost the game 1-0 and they were lucky to get nil. Linlithgow hit the post with the keeper beaten three times during the game.

What I noticed particularly was how easily the Morton players were muscled off the ball. If a non-league side can do this to Morton, heaven help Morton when the league gets under way.

Later on, it was baking time, and as well as producing another nice home-made loaf, I made a fruit bread too, and that looks pretty good. However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so I’ll tell you in due course how they turn out.

Doing all that baking wore me out so I was glad to have a sit-down afterwards. And there was another bottle of alcohol-free beer in the fridge. That didn’t last long either.

Anyway, now that my notes are written, I’m off to bed. It’s dialysis tomorrow of course, and I don’t feel at all like going. But there’s nothing new there.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about bread … "well, one of us has" – ed … in Russia, a peasant went to the bakers to buy some bread.
"I’m sorry" said the baker "but I’ve run out."
"What a stupid country this is!" exclaimed the peasant. "And that stupid Vladimir Putin. He’s the worst of the lot. This is all his fault."
Just then a Russian soldier who had been listening came over, brandishing his rifle. "You want to watch yourself" he said to the peasant. "I would be perfectly justified in shooting you, so you clear off home and watch your mouth."
When he returned home, his wife noticed his empty hands. "Have they run out of bread again?" she asked
"They have indeed" he answered. "And I’ll tell you something else for nothing too."
"What’s that?"
"I reckon that they’ve run out of bullets too."

Tuesday 7th July 2026 – AND SO, AFTER …

… all of the problems that I had last night, I was back in bed at 21:45.

But that wasn’t without incident either. Just as I was closing the bedroom window, I came nose-to-nose with a neighbour who stuck her head in the way. She’d seen me as she was walking past and wanted to know how I was, which was nice of her. I told her that I had my good days and my not-so-good days and we had a little chat for several minutes.

It’s nice to chat to people, especially friends and neighbours, but I really was wasted by the time that I crawled into bed afterwards.

For a change, it took a while to drop off, but once I’d gone, I’d gone and that was that. There I stayed, dead to the World, until all of … errr … 03:00 when we had another dramatic awakening.

After that, I couldn’t go back to sleep, and round about 05:30, I was giving serious consideration to leaving the bed and doing some more dictating. However, just at that moment, the bin lorries came to empty the subterranean dustbins that we have here. And as well as emptying, they were cleaning them too, so we had a continual racket going on for over half an hour.

After the noise had died down and the lorries had gone, I looked at the time. It was 06:25, four minutes before the alarm. As I was thinking about maybe I should make an early start, the alarm beat me to it, and so that was that.

Eventually I managed to find the courage and energy to go to sort myself out in the bathroom and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out if I had been anywhere during the night.

There were three of us, and we were going around following carpet fitters to see what jobs they did and how much money they earned. We had a whole pile of papers that we’d made up, full of jobs and all that kind of thing, and set out to visit the people concerned who’d had the work done. I was annoyed though because it was not being done in any kind of organised way – it was a case of who we encountered first. I wanted it to be much more organised than that. We’d knocked on a few doors but no-one was in, and although we were joking amongst ourselves, it was very difficult to keep our momentum. Then we knocked on a house, and it was a woman whom we all knew from Crewe. She invited us in and showed us around the work that had been done. It cost £32,000, which I thought was a ridiculous amount but she seemed to be quite happy paying that so I didn’t really say very much. In the end, she paid us for whatever we were doing. Then, there was a whole load of more information through which we had to wade, through which we should have waded right at the beginning, I thought, one of which was to go and stand outside some kind of gents’ public lavatory somewhere. The girl who was in charge nominated me to do that. I said that I’d take the other guy with me but she replied that he was too young and I had to go to do it myself. We all made various jokes and laughed about it but I still thought that we were doing everything the wrong way round. We should stop what we are doing and start again, but do it much more organised

Can you imagine me complaining about someone being disorganised? That would remind most of my acquaintances about an old story involving a pot and a kettle.

But as for the carpet fitters, I read a newspaper article about carpet fitters yesterday at dialysis, but it wasn’t much and I can’t believe that it’s stuck in my mind like this. But where the public lavatory comes in, I’ve no idea.

Isabelle the Nurse was her usual cheerful self this morning, so we had a little chat while she sorted me out. And after she left, I could make breakfast.

While I was eating it, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Today, we’ve had the most strange encounter and exchange of viewpoints in his writing. For someone who was going on and on earlier about how much he hated “post and beam” architecture, the simple, massive architecture of the Egyptians and Persians and praising the Greeks for being much more artistic, he tells us that "The Doric column varies in height from four diameters to six and a half, the measurement being taken at the base. The older examples, as the temples of Zeus and Hercules at Agrigentum, are the most massive, having the inter columniations small, and the entablature proportionably heavy. The base is never added ; the post driven into the ground had no means of suggesting such a finish ; and besides this, the omission would seem altogether in the spirit of the style. The capital is equally simple, and is wonderfully effective. It is a simple ovolo under a plain, square, heavy abacus, a genuine tile, without moulding or ornament of any kind, which preserves most strictly the character of a distinct member"

From there, from someone who was most dismissive of Egyptian architecture, we have "The like is the case in the building called the Incantada at Thessalonica, but here the figures, which are of different sexes, and are most assuredly neither Caryatides nor Persians, but represent several mythological personages, are not the supports of the upper entablature, which rests on dwarf pilasters to which the statues are attached. This more closely resembles the mode in which such statues are employed in Egyptian architecture, and, as this building certainly belongs to no period of pure Grecian architecture, they might even have been an imitation of that style."

Mind you, he has his finger on the button elsewhere. It seems that it’s not at all just recently that there has been the controversy over the Elgin Marbles. When describing Greek temples, he tells us "The spaces between them, called metopes, are sometimes left plain, sometimes occupied by compositions of sculpture, such as the famous Elgin marbles, removed by a mistaken and barbarous antiquarianism from the only position in which they could possess value or interest"

Back in here again, I was reading an article about the Society of Saint Pius X, a schismatic breakaway order whose members left the Catholic Church in a dispute over the Church’s use of vernacular languages in its services instead of Latin.

They held a meeting the other day in Switzerland where “the ceremony was translated into six languages”. They obviously have no sense of irony whatsoever.

The morning was spent writing my notes from yesterday and putting them on line. There was a brief interruption when Rosemary rang for a chat. Just a short chat today – a mere fifty-two minutes. We’re obviously losing our touch.

My cleaner stuck her head into the apartment too. In Leclerc’s special offers this week, they had one of these car starter packs, with a built-in battery, jump leads, compressor and the like. I have a solar panel in here that I intend to fit to the window but I need a battery of some description to absorb the load. And so at just 39:95€, I sent her off on a mission and she duly returned with one of the aforementioned.

After I’d had my disgusting drink break, she came back down here to do her stuff. She also chased me under the shower so that now I’m a nice, clean boy … "well, clean, anyway" – ed …

And I surprised her too. Usually, she has to help me into and out of the shower, as I’m not very steady on my feet. These last few weeks, I’ve been managing to go into the shower on my own but today, not only did I go in alone, but I came out alone too. I was quite impressed by this, and so was she. We’re making progress, I reckon.

After she left, I made a start on choosing the music for the next radio programme. By the time that I was ready to knock off, I’d chosen all the music, reformatted and re-edited it and even begun to pair and segue some of it. I’ll finish the rest off tomorrow and write the notes if I can.

Tea tonight was a stir-fry of noodles, beansprouts, chick peas, mushrooms, garlic, onion and vegetables in butter and soy sauce. And delicious it was too.

So right now, having finished my notes, I’ll finish off for the night and go to bed. I have a hospital appointment tomorrow, which I could well do without, so we’ll see how that goes on.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Elgin Marbles … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once asked me "why are there pyramids in Egypt?"
And I replied "because they were too big to take to the British Museum."

Friday 15th May 2026 – WE ARE NOT …

… alone!!

Currently asleep on my comfortable sofa in the living room is my friend from Munich, and on the rug by his side is the Hound of the Baskervilles, both of them snoring away quite happily.

Yes, at lunchtime, I received a message – “arriving at about 16:00”. I thought to myself “blimmin’ ‘eck – I’d better get a move on!”.

It made me wish that I’d got a move on last night, really. As usual, after having no tea yet again, I came in here to type up my notes, and as usual, things seemed to take much longer than they ought to have done. However, it was about 21:50 when I finally managed to slide into bed.

During the night, I awoke once or twice, one of which was about 01:00 once more, although this time there was no hailstorm or anything going on that might have woken me. The second time, and I have no idea what time it was, I had to leave the bed to go and walk the parapet. However, quite luckily, I managed to fall asleep both times fairly rapidly.

When the alarm went off at 06:29, we had the usual struggle to my feet, which seemed to take hours, and then I went off to organise myself in the bathroom and then take my medication. The LeClerc order the other day had included some liquorice and mint tea, which, I’m told, will ease my throat somewhat, so I used that to wash down the pills and tablets. We’ll see if it works.

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

I was with a couple of friends last night. They were settling down in their new house and we were discussing cars. They had bought a brand new – one of these Chinese electric cars and they were astonished at all of the restrictions on it. It said that they couldn’t sell it in the Dordogne, all kinds of things like that. We supposed that it was due to something with people buying cars on finance and then disappearing. We ended up talking about cars in the auctions, about cars that had been dropped and been banged, etc. and were going at full price. They then mentioned a Ford Escort that had been some old woman’s car. It was a bit scabby and rough around the edges but it was otherwise in very good condition but no-one seemed to be interested in it. The husband then showed me a piece of paper about the insurance on his old FIAT, about all of the declarations that he had to sign when he came to sell it. This dream went on for ages but I can’t remember any more about it, except that this incident in the Dordogne, there was a clause in their insurance that said that although they can’t sell the car in the Dordogne, they could take it to this woman’s office at 16:00 and she would buy it from them.

When I had my taxis, I had both kinds of cars – former reps’ cars with high mileage and little old ladies’ cars with almost nothing on the clock. Surprisingly, the reps’ cars were so much better and worked a lot harder than the other, having been used to a hard life and plenty of work.

But if this Escort were merely scabby around the edges, it should have tidied up quite nicely, so I’m surprised that, even in the dream, no-one seemed to be interested in it.

But back in this dream the time was about 01:15 and it seemed that I had been awake ever since I’d gone to bed. I was walking around on a cold wood floor so in the end, I went to put on my socks. However, it was extremely complicated with them being these compression socks and I had to try three or four times before I was able to put them on.

Every now and again, I have to fit my own socks when I have an early start, and with them being these compression socks, it really is awkward. However, walking around on a cold wood floor in the bedroom feels really nice to me – it’s the cold tiles everywhere else in this apartment that annoys me. That’s the only thing that I don’t like about my apartment. I would really have liked to have had a wooden floor, but you can’t have everything.

One thing about this dream that I forgot was that when they went to insure the car, the girl couldn’t see the car listed in her manual, but when my friend’s wife looked, it was there, as clear as daylight.

It’s no surprise though. If you asked me to name the top five Chinese cars on the market these days, I wouldn’t have a clue.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual, and we talked about the Hound of the Baskervilles as she sorted out my legs and feet. I told her not to fight with my cleaner over him – they can take turns to stroke him.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of Charles Roach Smith’s THE ANTIQUITIES OF RICHBOROUGH, RECULVER, AND LYMNE, IN KENT.

At long last, we’re getting down to the excavations at Reculver. However, not his excavations but excavations that took place earlier in the nineteenth century by other people. One day, soon I hope, we’ll start on his work and see what he found.

Back in here, I finished off the notes for the radio programme that I’d started yesterday, and then I had a huge surprise.

A few years ago … "2017 to be precise" – ed … I hired a boat and went UP LABRADOR’S NORTHERN COAST to what I consider to be the Furdustrandir or “Wonderstrand” … "or Wunderstrand" – ed … the magnificent stretch of white sand that the Norse explorers saw when they touched land after sailing from Greenland.

Also there are the scanty, rotting remains of North River, a settlement that was abandoned during the clearances of the 1950s when everyone from these isolated spots was removed to towns like Cartwright and a few others farther south. North River is famous, or infamous, because of a child’s grave in the cemetery. A Finnish anthropologist called Viano Tanner explored these settlements in 1937-39 and noted the grave of a child “killed by dogs”. Everyone disputed that this gravestone exists and claimed that no such event ever happened, so I wanted to see for myself. And it is there!

But while I was there, I photographed a few other gravestones.

Someone wrote to me in astonishment, saying that one of the graves was that of her grandfather, and what did I know about him. So I spent all morning researching all of the papers that I have on Labrador, and in the end, I sent her what I could find, which actually was quite a lot.

At that point, I decided that I’d better go and make bread, but my cleaner arrived to do her stuff, so I had to settle for a disgusting drink and my midday (hours late) medication.

Once she’d left, I began the process of making bread rolls and a loaf, but my friend and the Hound of the Baskervilles turned up while I had my hands full of dough.

It’s lovely to see him again. We first met on our first day at grammar school back in September 1965 and, like me, he’s a big music fan. When I was able to do so, I went down to Munich on many occasions to visit him, but these days, people have to come to see me here, and it’s nice when they do.

While I was making bread, we talked about old times and people whom we knew at school who are now pushing up the daisies somewhere, and once the bread was left to rise, I blanched some broccoli and made a broccoli stalk soup with pasta for tea.

To my surprise, I found myself eating some soup and bread – the first evening meal that I’ve had for months. However, my eyes were bigger than my stomach and I ended up being a miserable failure towards the end.

By the time that we’d finished and I’d washed up everything … "where did this energy come from?" – ed … it was after 23:00 so we decided that it was bedtime. And when was the last time that I was up and about at this time of night? Obviously, having people here is doing me good.

Anyway, I sorted myself out in the bathroom and then came in here to sleep. Crawling into my nice comfortable bed is really wonderful at any time. I threw the quilt over my head and that was that.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about snoring … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the time when I was driving for Shearings on a coach tour somewhere and one of the passengers, a youngish female, asked me "if I fall asleep and begin to snore, will you wake me up?"
"Certainly" I replied. "Shall I shake you, or give you a nudge?"

Tuesday 30th September 2025 – IT WAS ANOTHER …

… afternoon that ended up just like so many others just recently – with me hunched over the table in some kind of catatonic fit for well over an hour.

Perhaps not exactly a catatonic fit because for a good part of that time, I really was asleep. I know that because of how far the Byrds’ concert that I was listening to had advanced.

That’s the thing, though. When I’m having one of these fits, I can hear quite clearly everything that’s going on, but I’m just not capable of reacting to anything. Perhaps one of my followers from Avranches, presumably the dialysis clinic, can supply some information in this respect to help me understand what is happening.

But all of that is for another time. Right now, I’m more interested in what happened last night.

What also seems to be the case is that no matter how quickly I finish my notes, everything else seems to take correspondingly longer and I’m still no earlier in bed, no matter how I try.

And such was the case last night. My notes went on-line at 22:41 yet it was 23:30 when I finally crawled into bed and made myself comfortable. I don’t know why it takes so long to motivate myself these days.

During the night, I remember awakening and turning over a couple of times, but when I awoke at about 05:50, that was that and I couldn’t go back to sleep.

After vegetating around for a while, I left the bed and went for a good wash, followed by the medication and something to drink, because I had a thirst that you could photograph.

Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to find out what had been going on during the night. It was in the Revolutionary War again. We were there patrolling the outposts of the British front line. We noticed that one of them had seemed to be under attack by the Native Americans because there was food scattered around, indicating that there had been some kind of fight during the lunchtime. We had to think about how to reinforce these posts with enough men to defend the front line, making sure that first of all we didn’t step on the toes of any colonist there, and secondly, that we could find some trained troops to do it, who wouldn’t panic and run if the Native Americans decided to attack.

By the looks of things, I seem to be totally immersed in BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. I wish that I could dream like this about other things in which I have an even greater interest.

And then the Social Services had intervened in the case of a girl and her baby. One of the many things that they were doing was trying to sort out her car for her, an old Ford Escort estate. They had been in contact with a female friend of mine about this car. She had asked me to come along to look at it. The guy from the Social Services had sent a long list of work that needed to be doing on this vehicle, much of which wasn’t really all that important, such as grinding off the surface rust and treating it, painting it etc. I noticed that one of the gutters had come away and was flapping around. While I was examining it closely, I saw that the sill on the nearside was rotten. It would need to be replaced. First of all, I went to attack this gutter mount but I couldn’t find any self-tapping screws the correct size so I would have to go back to my garage to look for some. But the sill, I marked it off with a big piece of chalk where it needed to be replaced. I thought that at the weekend, I’d go to the body panel shop to see what I could find. But as soon as I’d put this chalk mark on, my brother went to fetch an angle grinder to cut it out. I told him not to do that because if we can’t find a sill and the existing sill had been cut away, we are going to have an awful lot of problems. I could patch it if necessary with some of the sill remaining by welding a few plates over the missing pieces, but if it’s all cut out, it’s going to be extremely complicated to manufacture something. When I explained this to my brother, he picked up the angle grinder again. I had an enormous amount of problems trying to stop him cutting this sill out. I still wasn’t sure that he was going to take any notice, and the moment my back was turned, he’d cut it away, and that would be that as far as this car goes if I can’t find another sill.

Once upon a time I did actually have a Ford Escort estate. It was quite a nice car and I wish that I’d kept it now. But the number of cars that I must have welded up in the past when I had my big oxy-acetylene kit – it must have been phenomenal. I remember once having to weld the floor back into someone’s ancient Cortina but we couldn’t remove the seat to take out the carpet. So I was underneath welding it and every time the carpet caught alight, the guy would tip a bucket of water on the flames – and on me via some of the holes in the floor.

And as usual, my brother is up to his shenanigans – not being able to leave things alone and doing his very best to make the situation even worse than it already is.

It’s Isabelle the Nurse’s turn to be on duty now for a week, so she breezed in as usual just as I was in the middle of doing something. She didn’t hang around long, though. She took my medical card so that she could do her accounts and when she’d seen to my feet and legs, she cleared off.

That was the cue to make breakfast, and with my porridge, toast and coffee I read some more of the aforementioned book.

The British invasion of the Hudson Valley from Canada has come to a shuddering halt and an embarrassing defeat AT SARATOGA, WHERE WE VISITED ALMOST EXACTLY TWELVE YEARS AGO.

It’s a defeat that can be summarised by three factors –

the failure to adequately supply General Burgoyne with the necessary men and stores
the failure of General Howe to push General Clinton and his troops further up the Hudson Valley to take the American defenders in the rear
the overall lack of aggressiveness and haste in the British Army, who, having cornered the Americans on several occasions, was far too slow to press on and finish the task

Although Point Three is probably the most crucial. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall – at least, those of you who were with me twenty years ago at the THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN – that the Confederates had the Union Army – and Washington DC – at their mercy, but failed to press home the advantage. This lack of the killer instinct seems to be infectious.

After breakfast, I came in here to revise my Welsh, and then I went to class. And how our numbers have grown! There are quite a few new faces, as well as one or two returning former classmates.

For a change, not only did the lesson pass really well, I actually felt confident, and it’s not at all often that I can say that. I reckon that over the summer, despite having done almost no studying, I’ve been listening to a large amount of Welsh football commentary, and I suppose that it’s a case of throwing a lot of whatsit at a wherever and some of it will stick. I was disappointed when the lesson finished.

Nest task was to book my taxi for the Centre de Ré-education tomorrow, and then to send off my order to LeClerc.

It was quite a large order today, and it took an age to unpack and put away correctly. And having done that, that was when I had my little wobble, and had to go to sit down.

It’s quite worrying really, these little fits that I seem to be having. One of these days, I’m not going to awaken from one of them and that will be that. I’ve tried to speak to people about them but no-one seems to be all that interested in discussing it with me. I have the feeling – and I don’t think that I’m too far from the truth – that the treatment that I’m having is more palliative rather than curative, maybe because the overall long-term prognosis is not good at all.

After a while dealing with the radio programme that I really need to finish, I made tea – a taco roll with rice and veg. And I managed to eat it all tonight – just about.

So my physiotherapy begins tomorrow morning. I’ll probably be worn out again after that but if it’s free, why should I worry? I’m not expecting it to do much good but it’s worth giving it a try. What do I have to lose?

Right now, I’m off to sleep in the hope that I can actually recover some of my force and energy. I’m not doing too well right now.

But seeing as we have been talking about force and energy … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of the doctors once prescribed some force and energy pills for me
However, I had to ring him up – "do you remember those pills that you prescribed to give me force and energy?"
"Yes I do" he replied
"Well, I don’t have the force and energy to be able to open the bottle."

EPIC HALL

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