… another wonderful day out today. And I’ve been shopping today again too. It was really pleasant to hit the streets again and I enjoyed it tremendously.

And that’s even after the lack of sleep that I had last night.

In fact, it was after 01:30 when I finally hit the sack. I was quite wound up after all of my efforts yesterday and couldn’t settle down. Instead, I found a few things t do on the computer and had a wander around in cyberspace doing a bit of this and a bit of that. As for “a bit of the other”, I managed to restrain myself.

When I finally made it into bed, I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned for quite some considerable time.

However, I must have dropped off to sleep at some point because BILLY COTTON awoke me at 07:00.

Surprisingly, I wasn’t as tired as I might have been. I made it into the bathroom and sorted myself out, as far as it is possible to do so, and then went into the kitchen for my medication.

There was a beautiful draught of air coming through the open window (I’d left it open all night). And as I sat there, the sun rose from behind the church and immediately the current of air became warm. I was only there ten minutes too.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, and the answer was a predictable “nowhere”, given the amount of sleep that I had had.

The nurse was in full chat mode and for a change it was quite interesting. He also mentioned another one of his friends who had some kind of connection with a building company. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I know all about his friends.

While we’re on the subject of friends … "well, one of us is" – ed … my friend turned up shortly afterwards and we had a good chat as we waited for the builder to show up (late, as usual, but we expected that).

When he turned up, we found that he was quite efficient, quite frank and quite easy to talk to. He made me fully aware (however, I already knew) that there would be no guarantee or promise that his company could start work within my deadline. It was that that impressed me the most.

He’s arranged for an appointment on 3rd June (when I should have possession) to measure up and talk to his contractors. And it can’t be done any quicker than that.

After he left we had breakfast and continued our discussion for a while, tearing apart all kinds of ideas and plans for downstairs.

Eventually, we decided to make the most of the lovely weather and went out to the car – or, rather, we went outside and my friend went and brought the car to me.

Our first stop was at Donville-les-Bains. The branch of my bank there is much easier to access and parking is easier so I went in and drew out some cash – the first time since I can’t remember when. Not that I need it, because I do have an emergency supply here in the apartment and I haven’t spent any in ages – but it’s always handy to have around “just in case”. And I won’t have many other opportunities.

After we left, we went down the hill to the seafront and had a very, very leisurely drive along the coast as we chatted about old times. We saw some wonderful sights, and made quite a few U-turns as our path led up into various dead ends.

We decided to go to Coutances for lunch and my Artificial Intelligence search engine made several suggestions as to where a vegan could eat.

However, I don’t know what France has come to these days.

When Marechal Foch took over overall command of the French Army in 1918 it is said that he said that he only had two conditions – "a free hand with the Army, and two hours for lunch". We arrived in Coutances well before 14:00 only to find that every single restaurant that we tried had closed its kitchen at 13:30

We ended up at the LeClerc supermarket where we grabbed some “Tricatel” food, thanks to a couple of nice serving wenches who took their time closing at 14:30 so that we could just about have time to be served.

On the way back home we stopped at Noz, my first time since October 2023 where I struck lucky with some fabric softener, some coffee, some noodles and a pile of frozen vegan food.

Leaving Noz, we drove slap bang past the place that my nurse had mentioned, so we went in anyway. His friend wasn’t there but a helpful girl gave me several pointers and arranged an appointment for someone to come to see me. There’s no harm in it, I suppose.

On our arrival home, we found that my faithful cleaner had been to LeClerc in Granville and had found my pyjamas as well as more of those curry patties that we had bought yesterday.

For tea I had lasagna out of the freezer, making space to put in everything that we had bought. It’s not ‘arf crowded in there but it all went in, right enough.

Our chat, reminiscing about old times, continued for ages. He showed me some photos of our project in the UK – the “before” and the “after”. The “after” is so impressive and looks wonderful and we will soon be ready to start Stage Two of our project but the “before” photos are horrifying and I was genuinely appalled.

Eventually he left to go back to his hotel ready for an early night as he has to set off for back home at 05:30 tomorrow morning. We had a lovely two days together, going to places, catching up on old times and discussing new times, but what kind of state is this to be in when someone has to drive all the way from Newport in Shropshire to take me to the shops?

Now that I’ve finished my notes, I’m off to bed, later than usual yet again. Dialysis tomorrow and I’m not looking forward to it at all. I wonder if there will be any more feedback from my rebellion on Monday

We shall see.

But seeing as we have been talking about going down a few dead ends … "well, one of us has" – ed … I am reminded of a report on male sterility that was published a few years ago.
A newspaper had laid its hand on the article and the headlines the next day were "Male Sterility – a dead end?"