Tag Archives: chu rennes

Wednesday 19th November 2025 – PART THREE OF …

… my offensive did not go according to plan this afternoon.

After all, you can’t fight a battle if they don’t send anyone out to fight you.

What it does prove though, are that the tactics of many generals during a war, such as the Russians against Napoleon in 1812, of quite simply withdrawing your army and letting the enemy roam around haphazardly inside your territory are quite often the best tactics because they wear down the enemy and in the end, the enemy loses its morale as its supply lines lengthen and resupply becomes impossible. That was how I was feeling at the end of the afternoon.

That was a huge disappointment, because I’d been looking forward to this for the last twenty-four hours.

Last night ended up going to bed rather later – in fact much later – than I had intended and it took an age to fall asleep, probably due to all of the sleep that I almost had yesterday at chemotherapy.

And once asleep, there I lay until all of … errr … 04:10 when I had another one of these dramatic awakenings. This time, I knew what had awoken me. There was a howling gale outside and it was blowing a huge rainstorm against my bedroom window. I’m experiencing all kinds of new sensations since I moved into this downstairs apartment at the front of the building.

It was impossible to go back to sleep with all of this going on, so at 05:30 or thereabouts, I left the bed and headed for the bathroom.

Neither medication nor breakfast this morning – what doesn’t go in won’t want to come out, that’s my theory for this morning. So instead, I came back here and listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was some famous businessman whose name I won’t mention who owns several limited companies and was outwardly a very wealthy man and he had spent £2.400.000 on a coach which he had fitted out as some kind of luxury travelling accommodation. It turned out that the coach was registered in some completely different name and the leasing payments stopped on the coach. There was an issue about it being repossessed so the reporters were on his trail. In the meantime, I was with a couple of other people and we were talking about the future. One of the things was the Ford Ranger. The Ranger’s bodywork was fairly rotten but we weren’t sure about the chassis. However, being an old American style of vehicle, the bodywork would come off the chassis. So I was thinking about taking the bodywork off, inspecting the chassis, welding it where necessary, then either buying a new body or repairing the old one. Everyone was encouraging me to go back to learn welding again, only this time, argon-arc welding, do the job properly and take it from there. We were out in the Ranger, and one of the people with us was a newspaper reporter. As we were going through the West End of London, we came across this guy threatening his wife with an axe. We pulled up at the side of the road and she came over. We asked her about this £2.300.000 coach, but instead, she climbed into the vehicle and asked us to take her away, so we did. However, he climbed into another vehicle and began to follow us. We decided that this wasn’t going to be a situation that was acceptable, so we drove into some kind of narrow entry where there was an exit at the far end, and we stopped. Our aim was to immobilise his vehicle and leave him there, and then carry on driving. He stopped behind us, but he came out and began to attack our vehicle with an axe. The newspaper reporter climbed out, and I climbed out too. Our aim was then to go ahead and neutralise this guy, and then to neutralise his vehicle.

The name of the guy has been removed from my account of the dream because there really is a businessman of this name whose business affairs have attracted the wrong kind of attention, and while there is no record of anyone having successfully won a slander or libel case against someone who has had a dream, there is always someone willing to try and there is a first time that such a case might be won. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. the whole state of Western society has gone downhill fast since solicitors have been allowed to tout for clients.

There has, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, been some discussion in the past about doing something with Strider, the Ford Ranger in Canada, and this part of the dream refers to that. And although I enjoyed my gas-welding course very much and did quite a lot of gas-welding afterwards, I really should have concentrated on argon-arc welding instead.

The nurse took me by surprise, coming at 06:25 this morning. He took my blood pressure and then sorted out my legs. Then he cleared off and I went into the living room to wait for the taxi.

It was the senior driver who picked me up and we went across town to pick up another lady who was also going to chemotherapy. The drive was interesting because I’m sure that the driver has an issue with his vision. In the dark, in the rainstorm, he was driving along at 50 kph in an 80 kph limit at times, and wouldn’t put his foot down on the autoroute. I’ve noticed previously that in the dark he seems to be disorientated.

As a result, we were twenty minutes late arriving at Rennes, twenty more minutes than we should have had listening to the non-stop chatter from the lady in the back who never seemed to know when “enough” is “enough” and talked all of the way about the most inconsequential nonsense.

At the hospital, I was plugged in pretty much straight away and, for a change, everyone avoided me, which was nice. It was a shame that I wasn’t tired. The chemotherapy finished at 10:15 and at 10:30 I was on my way out of the door.

Travelling with the taxi company and the new rules from the Sécurité Sociale about combining trips and passengers, I’m seeing parts of Normandy that I never knew existed. Today was no exception and we ended up exploring the isthmus between the Sée and Sélune rivers.

As a result, I was back home at 12:15, all alone because my faithful cleaner was out on her rounds dealing with some of her other clients. So I had a disgusting drink and then made breakfast.

After breakfast, I … errr … crashed out on my chair for an hour or so, which is no surprise to anyone after the early start today.

Back in here, I ‘phoned the Centre de Ré-education and asked to speak to Elise the Dishy Doctor. However, she refused to speak to me and I had to speak to her secretary.

The secretary was gasping with surprise by the time I’d reached today on my list of medical appointments. She was speechless by the time that I’d reached Saturday. She agreed that I was doing far too much, given my state of health. She told me that she’s speak to the doctor about what’s going on and confirmed my ‘phone number.

Whether she will or not is another story, but certainly, no-one has as yet returned my call. As I said just now, it’s impossible to fight when your opponent won’t come out to fight you.

After another pause for a rest, I was interrupted by the return of the nurse to take my blood pressure this evening, and then for the next while I began to sort into the correct order the radio notes that I’d edited and began to assemble to program.

Tea tonight was a ratatouille with chick peas and pasta, followed by the last of the chocolate cake. And for once, I finished everything. I’m not sure how, though.

So tomorrow, we’re having dialysis so I’m off to bed. But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my latest offensive against my medical appointments … "well, one of us has" – ed … I’m reminded of a case in the Courts where the then-junior counsel FE Smith was arguing with the judge.
"You are extremely offensive, young man!" said the judge
"As a matter of fact we both are" replied the future Lord Birkenhead "and the only difference between us is that I am trying to be, and you can’t help it."

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Tuesday 18th November 2025 – PART TWO OF …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

… any tea tonight.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Tuesday 21st October 2025 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since an old car featured on these pages?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is completely strange too.

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

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

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

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Tuesday 14th October 2025 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day I’ve had today. It’s another one of those days that would qualify for “the worst day ever” and I shudder to think of how I would have been had Emilie the Cute Consultant not insisted that I cancel the chemotherapy for today.

It seems very much as if I have returned to the bad old days of 2016 in my little room in Leuven.

Things were not looking very good last night. Despite having spent much of yesterday afternoon asleep at dialysis, I fell asleep again while riding the porcelain horse and that was embarrassing. I had a very quick trip into the bathroom afterwards and was really relieved when I was finally able to crawl under the covers into my nice, comfortable bed.

And there I lay until all of about 04:00 – after about four and a half hours’ sleep. Not that I was wide awake, though. There was no question of me leaving the bed at that time. At some point, I went back to sleep again but awoke at 06:20, nine minutes before the alarm was due to go off.

That was the key to forcing myself out of bed, even though I had never felt less like it than I did this morning

As might be expected, it was a very slow start to the day. Isabelle the Nurse, spurred on by the suggestion that I would be going for chemotherapy this morning, exerted herself to arrive really early and caught me in mid-transcription of my dictaphone notes.

Naturally, I apologised for making her rush but she didn’t seem to be too worried. She didn’t stay long and I could push on and make breakfast. Not that I felt much like eating anything, but you have to go through the motions. I was in no mood to read my book either.

While I was at breakfast, my faithful cleaner stuck her head in at the door to check that I was still alive. That was nice of her. I’m not so sure that she was reassured, though.

Back in here, I carried on with the dictaphone notes. We’d been giving a discussion about the ten most deadly massacres by the Japanese of Allied prisoners of war. This involved one particular incident where, with a ship, the prisoners were rounded up and marched into the interior in different groups, but one group was stopped on the way and the Japanese injected everyone with what was supposed to be some kind of antibiotic or something, but in fact was a poison and all of the ones of this particular group were killed.

Something that I have been reading recently has bee the story of the Japanese “hell ships” – cargo ships crammed full of prisoners of war in the most unhealthy and disgusting conditions – which they sailed out of war zones towards the mainland. Refusing to notify them to the Red Cross so that immunity to attack could be granted, they were torpedoed by the dozen by American submarines who treated them as ordinary merchantmen.

There was a big group of us hanging around together, and my Afro-Caribbean friend was in there. I’d heard that these people were talking about going swimming, so I went to have a chat with her to find out where, and it turned out that they were going that afternoon, which was a shame because I wouldn’t be able to make it. So we had a chat and she said something like “you know, why don’t you come another time with us?”. I said “why don’t you come with me for a week in California and we’ll go swimming in the Pacific Ocean?”. Her eyes lit up, and so did her mother’s. I wondered if this was something that might actually really happen. Anyway, we all went later on to a rock concert with Mark Knopfler. We were in the wings on stage, watching it. He walked on stage and began to sing but his voice gave out so he had to stop, collect himself, clear his throat and begin again. He was halfway through the first number when one of the radios of one of the security men bled into the PA and said “is he still going on?”. Mark Knopfler obviously stopped dead and really didn’t know how to proceed after that. He thought for a minute and then said to the audience “you may as well go outside and bring in the adverts for this concert. There’s no point in them being outside now while the rain is pouring down” and he just turned round and walked off the stage. When we were assembling after the concert, we looked around and there were one or two people missing. We wondered where they had gone. We decided that we’d go to look in the nearest bars and pubs, and we’d all meet up back here in ten minutes to see if we’d been able to find them. I was in one when someone came in carrying a railwayman’s signal light. I overheard them talking, saying “I got it from the car park at the back of the station. The guy wasn’t very happy and he actually had a gun, but I managed to take the light from him”.

Whoever my “Afro-Caribbean friend” might have been, I’ve really no idea. During my University studies I met Annette from Barbados and Tracy from Nigeria and spent some time with both of them but I’ve not thought too much about either of them for years. That is a shame because I happened to like them both. And in any case, they were both sensible enough to keep me well at arm’s-length.

Strangely enough, I have never seen Mark Knopfler live, although the scenario in this theatre would not have been an unusual one. The rest of the dream means nothing at all to me.

Back with these Japanese prisoners of war again. A Japanese aeroplane flew in with several deceased and dying prisoners on board. I asked a couple of minutes later if the ‘plane was unloaded and was told “no” – they can’t find something that they need. I told them to go on and make a start without it. They came back a few minutes later to say that they still couldn’t find something else now. I told them to drop the passengers out through the bomb bay, and if they can’t find the button to press for the bomb bay, to use the manual winding handles to open up the bomb bay.

Wherever this fits in, I really have no idea either.

Once I’d sorted out all of that, I revised my Welsh again and then went for the lesson.

It was another one that, from an educational point of view, went quite well and I was very pleased, but from every other point of view, it was a shambles. I almost fell asleep three times during the lesson and had to fight to stay awake.

What surprised me though was that one of my classmates has noticed that I have been losing weight. I hadn’t realised that it was so obvious.

In the middle of the lesson, the hospital at Rennes ‘phoned me. Apparently Emilie the Cute Consultant had been unable to contact them so they were wondering where I was. I explained the situation to them and they gave me another date – Tuesday next week, to be at Rennes for … gulp … 08:30 – which means leaving here at something like 06:45. I shall be looking forward to that, I don’t think.

While I was at it, I gave Emilie the Cute Consultant a quick ring to check that I would be OK for that date. She seemed to think so. She also seemed to think that I would be recovered by then.

After the lesson finished, I was no longer able to concentrate. I struggled to accomplish something – anything – without any success at all and by 16:00 I was on the bed, under the covers, fast asleep. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … sleep is my cure for all evils.

When I awoke, I found that not only was I still wearing my jacket, but my slippers too. What kind of state am I in just now?

Tea was the other half of the pizza that I had not eaten on Sunday. It didn’t take long, and so now, I’m going back to bed. Tomorrow is an unexpected day with nothing at all planned, so I really need to find some enthusiasm from somewhere to complete some of these outstanding tasks. I can’t go on like this, otherwise I’m just going to drift away.

But seeing as we have been talking about Isabelle the Nurse … "well, one of us has" – ed … when she came this morning, she told me that I was indeed looking extremely.
"That kind of comment is unacceptable" I replied. "I’m going to want a second opinion"
"OK" she replied. "My second opinion is that you are ugly too."

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Wednesday 17th September 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… a horrible afternoon today and I’m going to bed in a moment. Sleep is and always has been my remedy for all kinds of illnesses; aches and pains, so if this posting suddenly stops half-way through, you know what has happened.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ll pick up the threads some other time when I awaken, if I ever do, because the way things are right now, that’s not at all clear.

First of all, my apologies to Alison. Firstly, for missing her birthday yesterday, and secondly, for replying to a text message of hers at … gulp … 03:40 this morning and probably awakening her from her beauty sleep.

Yes, I was up and about at 03:40 this morning and if the truth were known, I could have been up and about a long, long time before that.

With not cooking a meal last night, eating my lunchtime sandwiches instead, I was well over an hour earlier than usual and I made good use of the time by dashing through the notes from yesterday, probably missing off a pile of important stuff that I’ll find that I need to consult in the future.

That’s one of the many purposes of this blog, by the way. I have a hopeless memory – a "brain of a duck, you know" as was once FAMOUSLY SAID ON FILM. Consequently, I have to make notes of what goes on so that I can recall them later. Nothing is more satisfying when contacting “authority” to be able to say things like "but in our conversation of 9th April 2016 you said …" and to be able to put the contemporary quote before their eyes.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … office, I sprinted through my notes and everything else, and was in bed not long after 22:00, which these days is something of a record.

However, regular readers of this rubbish will recall exactly what happens next.

That’s right. There I was at 01:30, tossing and turning in my bed trying my very best to go back to sleep after a dramatic awakening, and failing dismally.

After a couple of hours, I gave it up as a totally bad job and arose from the Dead. And contrary to the expectations of other people, I did not have a wasted morning.

Apart from disturbing Alison’s sleep, there were two radio programmes which, as I mentioned the other day, needed some amendment to their text. And so I re-wrote the text and, in the absence of the howling gale, that seems to have died down now, re-dictated them (one of them twice because yet again, the first five seconds of one of the recordings had gone walkabout).

Once I was satisfied with what I had, I edited them and rebuilt the two programmes and now they are ready to go, sometime in March next year.

At that point, the alarm went off at 05:38 so I went and had a good wash and scrub up, then came back here to listen to the dictaphone. And I needn’t have bothered, because with just three or so hours of sleep, there hadn’t been much time to go anywhere during the night.

There were several other things to do, but in the end, at 06:30, I was interrupted by the arrival of Isabelle the Nurse who came to sort out my legs. She was in a very lively mood this morning and so the news that I had later of an incident involving a patient whom she visits after me took me completely by surprise. Anyway, that’s another story – rather like the one that I told yesterday about the house of the Franklins in Spilsby.

No breakfast, and no medication this morning because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … what doesn’t go in won’t want to come out at an inconvenient moment during the morning.

It was the young, chatty driver who brought me home yesterday who came for me this morning, bang on 07:00 as promised. He’d ‘phoned me a little earlier to confirm his arrival so I was ready and waiting by the door.

And that was where the first effects of yesterday’s chemotherapy hit me. It’s a very gentle, almost imperceptible slope up to the road, but I had an awful struggle going up it and I needed help. That was devastating news for me.

There was another passenger in the car with us, with an earlier appointment than mine at Rennes as I predicted, so we fought our way through the back lanes around Avranches station and the traffic queues on the rocade around Rennes to drop off our ladyfriend, and arrived at my building bang on 09:00.

Surprisingly, I was seen immediately, and by 09:15 I was coupled up and running.

It was only a short session this morning so I didn’t bother with the internet (although I found the free connection, which is good news). Instead, I read some of THE WAR IN THE AIR – the official history of the Royal Flying Corps.

It’s a fascinating book but, as you might expect, it’s full of the gung-ho jingoism that so characterised the inflated egos of the British upper classes at that moment. Reading things like "Flying Corps, when it took the field with the little British Expeditionary Force, was enabled to bear a part in saving the British army, and perhaps the civilization of free men, from the blind onrush of the German tide." makes me cringe.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the advantage of going to Rennes is that there are thirty or forty voyages to Rennes made by my taxi company every day. So when the secretary ‘phoned them to say that I was ready to leave, there was a car here in fifteen minutes with one passenger already on board and another to be picked up after me.

But it’s like being on a production line at Rennes. You’re in, you’re dealt with, and you’re straight out. No time for recovery or to calm down or anything. They had to fetch a wheelchair for me again as I was in no state to stand up, and I had to be helped into the car.

On the way home, I was feeling awful and as sleep is my usual remedy, I dozed off for half an hour.

We had the usual guided tour of half of Normandy, during which I visited a couple of places where I’d never been before and didn’t even know existed, and was back here by about 13:00, where my faithful cleaner was waiting. She helped me into the apartment (and I needed help) where I sat down for an hour to recover.

Once I’d recovered slightly, I had a small bowl of porridge (all that I’ve eaten today – and if I’m off my food, then regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m not at all well) and then went to bed where I slept for over three hours.

While I was asleep in the afternoon, I remember making something like a model lighthouse. It was made of plastic, like an Airfix model, with bits that we had to glue together and paint. It was rather complicated to do it, and we realised when we almost finished that it looked nothing like in the plan and we were doing it the wrong way round. Someone came to check on me while I was asleep in bed, and that jogged my memory so I went to have another go at making this lighthouse. I realised that in its natural position, it was pulled square but I had to tighten up the pillars, columns and safety bars which would draw it up into a hexagram – a circle, rather – and that was something that I hadn’t done at first so I set about having a go at doing that.

This evening, I’ve had a lively chat with my niece’s youngest daughter who tells me that she and her mother "are all booked in just down the road from you" so it looks as if this visit in November is really going to happen.

Alison and I had a little chat too, which was nice, and then Jackie came for a chat too. It’s been my lucky day today.

However, I really was feeling awful, and I’m not much better now so I’m off to bed in the hope that I’ll feel better in the morning.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the gung-ho jingoism of the British Empire … "well, one of us has" – ed … it has been rivalled, if not exceeded in modern times, by the manner and behaviour of many Americans.
In a small pub in a rural area in Wales, I once heard an American going on about "the miserable size of the Welsh hill farms. Why, back in Texas, I could get into my car, drive for three days, and still not reach the boundary on the other side of my land!"
"I know exactly how you feel" replied a Welsh hill farmer
"You do???" exclaimed the American, incredulously
"Ohh yes" replied the farmer. "I used to have a car like that too."

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Tuesday 16th September 2025 – SEVERAL PEOPLE SENT …

… me best wishes last night for the Chemotherapy session today, and I am really grateful for your thoughts. It all passed reasonably well (as you will soon find out) and I am now back home, ready to Fight The Good Fight again tomorrow.

In order to be ready for the trip out this morning, I’d set the alarm for 06:00 to make sure that I was awake in time to do everything. And to make sure that I’d have enough time for a decent sleep, I positively sprinted through the evening’s work at quite an indecent pace and was in bed by 22:40.

However, regular readers of this rubbish will recall exactly what happened next. I awoke round about 01:40, again at about 03:20 and again at 04:45. This latter one was the last straw. I couldn’t go back to sleep afterwards and so by 05:05 I was up and about.

After a good wash, I came back in here. No medication today, on the basis that what doesn’t go in won’t want to come out during the journey.

So I transcribed the dictaphone notes to see what had been going on during the night. Some young lad had a market stall selling fruit and vegetables. It was his first real attempt at doing anything like this. What he would do would be to go round three or four different fruit wholesalers, buy the cheapest product, but sell it on the local market at the price indicated by the most expensive wholesaler. It was quite a challenge because he knew very little about the business but he managed to attract a few crowds who came in. One pricing wasn’t very clear on his product, and there were a few occasions where people would knock things off the shelves into the baskets of fruit and then make some comment about the price that the fruit had now become, depending on the price of whatever article had fallen into it. He took it all with something of a smile, but he was going to have to learn very quickly if he wanted to make a success of it. There was more to it than this but I can’t remember now.

Despite the realism of this dream, I really have no idea at all to what it relates. I can’t recall a subject or a discussion that refers to anything like this.

And when I awoke, I was in the middle of a really exciting and interesting dream, but every last vestige of it simply evaporated and I was so disappointed. I would have been even more disappointed had it involved TOTGA, Zero or Castor.

So I had no breakfast, no drink, no nothing this morning. I made some cheese, lettuce and tomato sandwiches to take with me, Isabelle the Nurse breezed in and blew out with a promise to be back at 06:15 ready for my 07:00 start tomorrow, and then I waited for the taxi.

It wasn’t long a-coming either, but we had to go to pick up someone else in Granville before we could leave the town and head for Rennes.

Our driver knew a back way behind the railway station and past the airport in order to beat the roadworks in Avranches town centre and on the motorway, but she could do nothing about the closures on the ring road at Rennes that meant that we had to drive through the city centre to the hospital.

We eventually found our block and the driver found me a wheelchair (it really is miles to walk on foot). She pushed me to where I needed to be, where I had a lengthy discussion with the doctor who will be handling my case.

And I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that I learned much more in half an hour with him than I have done in all of the time that I spent with all of the other doctors who have seen me.

The hospital is quite modern, but the furniture isn’t, and the chair on which I had to sit was not the most comfortable that I have ever had. The nurses were brusque and efficient rather than friendly, and one of them threw a right paddy when I refused the “doliprane” painkiller when she went to couple me up. If I were to repeat on here what I heard her say under her breath, my website would be taken down.

It was exhausting too. I was supposed to be sitting in on the start of my Welsh class today but I only managed fifteen minutes before I crashed out completely.

To my surprise, there was something to eat for me – boiled potatoes and a spinach burger. I’ve had much better vegan food than this, but the hospital has full marks for trying. You can’t expect too much with “Tricatel” catering.

When the session was over, I had to telephone for my taxi to pick me up. And the advantage of coming to Rennes rather than going to Paris is that there are 30 or 40 trips to Rennes by my taxi company every day, and to my good luck, there was already one here at this hospital picking up another patient for near Sartilly. So even though it meant a scenic journey home, there was no waiting at all.

But I was wasted, and had to send for a wheelchair to move me. They had only unplugged me five minutes before the driver arrived, and I was in no state at all.

There was a third passenger to pick up elsewhere in the city but she lived just down the road in Jullouville so it was no big deal. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m seeing parts of Normandy that I never knew existed, thanks to these new Securité Sociale regulations about sharing taxis.

My cleaner was waiting for me, and I needed her help to find my way back to my apartment. I still hadn’t fully recovered. However, sitting down for an hour or so helped somewhat and I began to feel a little better.

As I had had a cooked (of sorts) meal at lunchtime, I ate my sandwiches for tea. And as my travelling laptop is still in my day-bag, I began to read a book, LIFE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN AND THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE.

This is the biography of Sir John Franklin, “The Man Who Ate His Boots” (and a few other bizarre things too, but we won’t talk about the suspicious disappearances of some of his companions on one of his visits to the High Arctic) and who, in 1845, led a party of 129 to their doom in a vain quest for the North-West Passage.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I SET FOOT ON ONE OF THEIR WINTER CAMPS IN THE HIGH ARCTIC and visited the graves of three of the crew members who had died there.

And that reminds me – before I shuffle off this mortal coil, I must begin to upload my photos of that famous trip – all 3504 of them.

But why I’m commenting about the book is that, not half a dozen pages in, we come across one of those delightful paragraphs that has clearly escaped the attentions of the proofreaders. "In 1779 Willingham Franklin, the father of the subject of these memoirs, purchased the freehold of a small one-storied house, situated in the main street of Spilsby ….. his house, in which John Franklin was ushered into the world, is still in existence, but it is now the property of a coach-maker, who is, however, always ready and willing to show the little room upstairs in which, it is said, the distinguished Arctic Navigator was born."

We see plenty of errors like this during our travels, and there are probably more than just a few in whatever I write, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. However, the one in the paragraph above ranks amongst the best that we have seen so far.

But before we go to bed, seeing as we have been talking about comfortable chairs … "well, one of us has" – ed … Nerina once bought me a lovely office chair and encouraged me to try it out.
"It’s really comfortable" she said. "I had it made especially for you"
"Okay" I replied. "But just take your hand away from the electrical switch, will you?"

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Friday 12th September 2025 – I DON’T KNOW …

… why I bothered buying an apartment. I may as well have saved my money because it seems to me that these days, I’m being passed around from one hospital bed to another and it’s all getting completely out of hand. There has been another message today – "please present yourself at the aforementioned at 09:00 in the forenoon" – and all that kind of thing.

That’s the last thing that I need right now because I’m not doing all that well at the moment. It was another wretched evening when I couldn’t seem to find the motivation to finish rapidly what I was doing. Although I had the notes from yesterday online at some kind of reasonable hour, it still took an age to finish everything off and crawl into bed.

It was a bad night again, where I spent most of the time tossing and turning and not being able to sleep. At one point, I was thinking of leaving the bed and dictating the radio notes that I’d prepared during the week, but the howling, roaring gale and the sound of the waves crashing onto the cliffs out here rendered that idea a waste of time. No-one would hear me over the noise.

By the time that 05:50 came round, I was wide-awake so I switched on the light ready to leave the bed. However, the spirit may be willing but the flesh was quite weak this morning again and it was … errr … somewhat later when I finally had my feet on the ground.

After a good wash and the medication, I had some jars of spices to fill. And woe is me! I’ve run out of cumin. I’ve seen the price in the local supermarket too and how I wish that I could go back to Leuven where I can buy enormous bags for next to nothing.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I dreamed that I was in chemotherapy again – dialysis again last night and had to plug myself into the machine. There was some big, aggressive, domineering type of nurse who was surveying me, seeing if I had done it properly, but it took several goes before she was satisfied with what I’d done, and I’m not surprised that I awoke at that point.

This is something else that is going beyond a joke. It seems to have become a nocturnal obsession with me, dialysis and connecting myself up with tubes. It’s bad enough being confronted with it during the day but dreaming about it too when I really want to be dreaming about other things … "like TOTGA, Zero and Castor" – ed … is too much.

When I awoke just now, I was convinced that I’d been sitting down somewhere talking to a girlfriend of mine, discussing four different options of piles of clothes, one of which was supposed to be wet but I couldn’t see which one was wet when I touched them. This evolved into talking about the dictaphone. I was going somewhere so I was planning to leave the dictaphone with her. I had to show her how to work it but she said not to worry because she’ll have plenty of trials with it to make sure that it was working fine for when she actually needed it.

As it happens, I remember this. And I really did think that I had been sitting down too. I’m not sure why I would be letting anyone else use my dictaphone though. It usually accompanies me if I am away from the house.

At this point, I went and put my fleece jacket on. I forgot to say that yesterday, I put on a fleece in the apartment for the first time this year. It’s gone quite cold this last couple of days. "Winter is acumen in. Lhude sing Rudolph."

The nurse turned up again, in a very good humour yet again. I hope that he keeps it up for the rest of however long it will be that I’m here. I have a sneaky feeling that it won’t be long at this rate.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of COLONEL CARRINGTON’S TESTIMONY. In fact, I’ve read all of it now because it wasn’t that long.

Apart from the usual facts that were chiselled out about the running of the forts and the deaths of Fetterman and his party, there were the gruesome details about how Fetterman and his men were mutilated – in many cases before death. And it doesn’t make very pretty reading. In respect of Lieutenant Daniels, who was killed a few weeks before, Carrington tells us that "Lieutenant Daniels, a little in advance, was shot, scalped, and barbarously tortured with a stake inserted from below." That is nothing compared to the fate of some of Fetterman’s men.

However, to give you some idea of the constraints under which he was operating with his 375 men against a war party of at least 3,000 Sioux, he reports to his General that "One contract train with supplies for Fort C.F. Smith"; one of his outposts further down the Bozeman Trail "(thirty-one wagons) had but five arms with the party. I had to furnish an escort, especially as I had to send ammunition to Fort C.F. Smith, then reduced to ten rounds per man."

In his own case at his own fort (Fort Phil Kearny), the chief location along the Bozeman Trail, "I found Spencer ammunition at Reno and thereby am relieved from some trouble on that account, but having drawn, en route, all I could, I have not now for my Springfield rifles, fifty rounds to the man.". How on earth he was expected to hold at bay a whole Sioux Army is a total mystery.

Rather ominously, in view of the disaster that befell Fetterman and his troop, just six weeks before the dismal affair, Carrington assures his General that "In no case will any rash venture be made". Carrington did indeed give instructions to Fetterman, in the presence of witnesses, "Under no circumstances pursue over the ridge viz; Lodge Trail Ridge, as per map in your possession" i.e. out of the line of sight of the fort. However, when I walked to the battlefield from the fort in 2019, I found it to be well over the crest of the ridge and halfway down the reverse slope, a long way (as in several miles) out of the line of sight of the fort.

Back in here, I had various things to do, and then I attacked the radio programme that I’d been preparing over the last couple of days. And now, after a Herculean effort, because I really wasn’t feeling much like it, it’s now finished and ready for dictation. I’m now going to have to find a quiet early morning with no storms when I can dictate the notes that are building up.

All of this was interrupted by a text message. "Don’t forget your appointment at the University Hospital of Rennes on Wednesday 17th September at 09:00."

My appointment is actually for the Tuesday so I rang them up to see if there has been a mistake or a change of plan. But to my surprise (and dismay) I was told "the chemotherapy goes on for two days. You need to come here for both sessions."

"So do I get to stay the night in between?"

"Ohh no" replied the nurse. "You go home and come back the following morning."

My cleaner turned up as usual to do her stuff in the apartment, and she’s been busy rearranging things. That means that I probably won’t be able to find a few more things for quite some time now, and when I do find them, the next day they will all be rearranged again.

After she left, I made some more vegan mayonnaise as I have now run out. And I shovelled loads of garlic into it to give it some added bite. Not in the sense of werewolves or vampires, because the amount of garlic in that stuff will keep them away. They don’t seem to come any closer to me than Transylvania.

Tea tonight was chips with vegan salad and vegan mini-nuggets, delicious as usual.

But now, I’m off to bed, all ready for dialysis, I don’t think. But I really am fed up with this endless series of visits to hospitals. Wouldn’t it be nice if it could all stop?

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about keeping things away … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone in Shavington where we used to live as kids always planted garlic in with his strawberry plants.
"Why are you doing that?" asked his neighbour
"It keeps polar bears off my strawberries"
"But the polar bears are in the Arctic" replied the neighbour. "that’s 2,000 miles from here"
"Yes, it’s powerful stuff, isn’t it?"

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