… at dialysis today spilled a whole beaker of hot coffee all over the keyboard of his nearly-new laptop?
Yes, I’m convinced that I’m going from bad to worse these days and I don’t know why, but everything seems to be taking so long, and I seem to be creating difficulty after difficulty for myself.
Like last night, for example. It could — and should — have been another early night, but when I’d finished my tea, it was already 21:45 and that leaves me very little time to do anything that I want.
Consequently, it was closer to 23:30 when I crawled into bed last night, and this is good for neither man nor beast.
Once in bed, though, it didn’t take long to go to sleep, and apart from one or two awakenings, more of which anon, I stayed asleep until about 06:15.
Not that I felt much like leaving my bed when the alarm went off. It was quite a struggle to drag myself into the bathroom and once again, it was horribly late when I went in for my hot drink and medication.
To make matters worse, the computer in here wouldn’t boot up. In the end, I had to go into the BIOS to check and, sure enough, the bootable disk had fallen to the bottom of the pile, so I had to promote it to the top and we could start again.
Once it was up and running correctly, I uploaded the dictaphone files to see what had gone on during the night.
As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m actually asleep when I’m dictating, but what happens at times like this, I slowly drift off into silence and then you can hear me breathing deeply.
So if you want to hear what I’m like during … errr … four hours and a few minutes of deep sleep, don’t hesitate to ask.
But what this dream means, I’ve really no idea because, … "as usual" – ed … it makes no sense at all. And Ryan Jenkins is the manager of Cardiff Metropolitan – Ryan Valentine is the number two at Y Bala.
Wanting to dictate this dream led to a mad panic-stricken search of the bed for the dictaphone, which had fallen out of my hand when I fell asleep just now. And it was still running, four hours and a bit after I’d lost it. That’s a long time-gap to drop back into a previous dream.
No chance of going to Wooolies, BHS or Halfords in Crewe Town Centre these days. Those shops have long-gone and the whole town centre has been flattened by the Council to prepare it for the massive investment of cash and facilities once HS2 arrives in Crewe. It looks as if Crewe Town Centre will be a war zone for many years to come.
But much as I try to keep politics off these pages, Crewe’s decision to flatten the town centre probably came about as a result of Louise Haigh, Labour’s spokesperson on transport who “appeared” during a speech in March 2023 to promise to build phase 2 of HS2, sentiments echoed later by shadow Cabinet Office Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds, who said in September 2023 that “We will build HS2 in full”.
And a Cortina in a dream? What a surprise! Just as surprising as it would be if I ever decided to play golf.
Isabelle the Nurse breezed in and, just as quickly, breezed out again. She’s off on her week’s break this evening so I imagine that she wants to finish as quickly as possible.
After she had left, I made breakfast and read some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.
Today, we’re dealing with the miscellanea — the little remote areas of the southern Balkans that haven’t as yet figured in the main part of the story. This is proving to be interesting as it highlights how several of these areas managed to skate nimbly in between the various major warring parties and preserve some of their independence.
Back in here, I reviewed this week’s radio programme and sent it off, and then once I’d done what else needed to be done, I revised my Welsh until it was time to prepare for dialysis.
My faithful cleaner turned up to apply the anaesthetic, and then I waited for the taxi. Bang on 13:00 he turned up, and once we’d picked up another passenger in Granville, we headed for Avranches.
For a change, I was early arriving, and in even more of a change, I was seen to quite quickly. And then I could press on and do some work.
That was, until I spilled the coffee all over the laptop. Luckily, I don’t take sugar, but even so, it was a mess. I managed to throw my sheet over it to absorb what it could, and after some love and attention from one of the nurses, it still manages to work, which is just as well. How long it stays working is anyone’s guess. I’ve left it switched on overnight in the hope that the heat generated will dry it out.
Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me, and she definitely doesn’t love me any more now. I told her what my nurse and my cleaner had said about the cough and the pain in the foot. She confirmed that there is nothing that can be done about the pain. It’s due to the breaking up of my nervous system, but she’ll do her best to put together a cocktail of painkillers that have no side-effects, and we’ll see where we go.
As for the cough, she’ll try to make an appointment for me to have a thoracic scan, followed by an appointment with a lung specialist. And not before time.
The taxi driver was waiting for me when I was unplugged, but the chaos on the roads meant that we weren’t home any earlier, which was a shame.
My cleaner helped me into the apartment, and after she left, I had the other half of my pizza. And I didn’t enjoy it at all. My taste buds really are changing again and it’s not very nice.
But right now, I’m off to bed, ready for my Welsh course tomorrow.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about that old man … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once met an old man in a Greek cemetery who was there for a funeral.
"How old are you?" I asked
"A hundred and three" he replied
"Where do you know him from?" asked my Greek friend.
"I’ve no idea" I replied. "But I bet that he comes from Ikaria."
