Tag Archives: crash out

Friday 5th June 2026 – I AM ALL …

… alone this evening and for the next foreseeable future too. The Hound of the Baskervilles and his master have left and, even as we speak, they are in Caen on their slow and leisurely way home.

They haven’t left me totally alone, though. There’s a jacket hanging up on the hook on the front door and a box of fusilli and a box of milk capsules in the kitchen. And also probably one or two more things that I have yet to discover.

It’ll be strange for me to be alone after three weeks of genial company, but I shall cope one way or another. No more coffee shoved straight into my sweaty mitt when I go into the kitchen in the morning, though. I could quite easily become used to that

Anyway, last night, as you might have read, I was quite ill after dialysis and, having failed miserably to complete my notes, I ended up falling into bed. When I checked the time, I was amazed at how late it was. What on earth had I been going all that time?

Once in bed, I was asleep quite quickly and although I awoke at some point when day was just beginning to dawn, I was quickly back to sleep and there I stayed until the alarm went off at 06:29.

When the alarm went off, I was in a town called Vizemes. I don’t know what I was doing there because the dream had barely started when the alarm went off, and so that was that.

This is a shame because I would have loved to have known what was going on. And Vizemes doesn’t sound very South American to me

With no sound coming from next door, I found a few things to keep me occupied in here, but once I heard the rattle of coffee mugs, I made my way into the kitchen to sort out my medication while the coffee brewed.

The coffee that my friend makes is excellent and he can definitely come again to make it. But I sat down on my chair, having disposed of the medication, to drink and to chat.

Just after 08:00, the Hound of the Baskervilles decided to drag his master off for morning walkies. On leaving the building, they collided with the nurse coming in. He was extremely sad about the departure of the Hound of the Baskervilles and had hoped that he would stay a little longer. He dealt with my legs and feet, and we had quite a discussion about multiculturalism in families.

After he left, I made my breakfast, and while I was eating it, I was reading some more of RECENT EXCAVATIONS IN ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERIES by T C Lethbridge.

He has uncovered several quite obvious graves where there are no signs of human remains remaining. What are interesting, though, are some of the graves in which human remains have been found.

Apart from graves packed full of artefacts, of which there were more than one, Grave 64 has a skeleton of which "the skull … had two cuts, suggesting that death may have been due to blows from a sword."

Grave 80 "was beautifully cut and 3 feet 10 inches deep". He goes on to tell us that the skull was separated and apparently thrown in at the feet. "The skull, however, showed numerous signs of mutilation" and he goes on to describe them at great length, finishing by saying "the injuries suggest the wanton mutilation of a fallen foe."

If this is indeed "the wanton mutilation of a fallen foe.", why is he in the best grave?

Grave 104 is "a roughly-dug hole … containing portions of a female skeleton. The bones were not in sequence and many were missing … The bones must have been put in after the flesh was off them." So whatever had been going on here? It sounds completely gruesome and sounds far too close to cannibalism for comfort.

Actually, if cannibalism had occurred, it wouldn’t surprise me. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … life in early mediaeval times was brutal, and there was a very thin line between life and death. The failure of someone’s crops could be devastating, and there are numerous instances reported even in fairly modern times of peasants resorting to cannibalism to stay alive.

Just before I finished breakfast, the dynamic duo came back from walkies. I had a chat with my friend, and one of the things that we mentioned was the vehicle outside. I’m determined to keep on with this pseudo-fitness regime so I said that if ever this gale-force wind drops to something more reasonable, I wouldn’t mind going for a walk out there and back.

Back in here to carry on working, but about an hour or so later, “the wind has dropped to almost nothing” so I grabbed my crutches and headed for the door, followed by my friend and the Hound of the Baskervilles, not necessarily in that order.

Yesterday, my friend and my cleaner had been out there for some time while I was at dialysis, taking stuff out of it, and it was now so tidy that I had trouble recognising it. It seems that everyone works so much better when I’m not around. There are just a handful of things remaining that we can do bit by bit in due course.

After the inspection, and having made sure that the door still opens and the engine still starts, we headed back into the building, but not before the Hound of the Baskervilles’s auntie cleaner had come over and given her nephew a really good stroke, which he enjoyed enormously.

Back in here, I carried on for a while with adding more stock to MY AMAZON STORE but I began to feel cold and I started to tremble.

As well as that, I was fighting off wave after wave of fatigue, so much so that when my friend and his sidekick went to leave, I couldn’t even stand up and go to the door to see them safely on their way.

Once they had driven off, I did the only thing that I could. Having arranged an order to be delivered from LeClerc, I set the alarm to half an hour beforehand and climbed into bed fully clothed. Even down to my shoes, as I found out later.

My cleaner turned up to do her stuff at some point. I was still asleep under the covers as usual but she asked me if I was ill. I mumbled something and went straight back to sleep again.

When I was asleep this afternoon, Noah Edwards, the former Connah’s Quay midfielder who has just signed for Caernarfon, put in an appearance. He was there with two small children, but what happened after that, I don’t know, because once again, the alarm went off.

Another shame that I’d missed that dream because of the alarm, and for some reason, it took an age to switch the alarm off. For some reason, the phone wasn’t reading my fingerprint under the covers.

Eventually it stopped, and I raised myself from the Dead, to find my cleaner still here in the middle of a major tidying-up effort. She passed me a disgusting drink and my midday medication, now hours late.

For some reason, we ended up discussing the Beaune Coach Crash of 1982, a collision between three coaches and two cars on the A6 near Beaune. Two of the coaches were taking kids to a summer camp, and forty-six kids and eight adults were burnt to death when the petrol tanks of the two cars wedged in the middle of the chaos exploded. There were no survivors in the cars.

At that time, my cleaner was a monitor at a summer camp, and she was telling me the dreadful scenes that followed when they tried to persuade the kids there to board coaches to go home after their stay. Some kids they had to physically carry on board, and she said that she would never ever forget it. It’s scarred her to this day.

LeClerc turned up on time with the order, and I made sure that my friend would come back another time because amongst the goods that were in the delivery were twelve cans of his favourite beer. It was on special offer, three for the price of two, so why not?

We put the frozen food away quickly, and after my cleaner left, I put the rest of it away, including the McVitie’s digestive biscuits that they also had on offer too. I shall treat myself one of these nights.

Back in here, I found a few more things to do but at 19:00, I knocked off and went for tea. There was some of that Chinese stir-fry and rice left over from last night and so that was my choice this evening. It’ll make more room in the fridge for the stuff that I’ve bought.

So now, having finished my notes, I’m off to bed, even if I did have two and a half hours under the covers just now. This time, though, I’ll change into my jammies and even take off my shoes. And here’s hoping that the pain in my foot, which has been haunting me all yesterday afternoon and all day today, will eventually die down to nothing. I’ve no idea why it should suddenly flare up like this after a few weeks of going into hiding.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about cannibalism … "well, one of us has" – ed … on a well-known quiz show, one of the contestants was asked "what do you call people who eat other people."
"I don’t know" replied the contestant.
"Ohh, surely you can tell me the answer to that question" urged the quizmaster
"Can I b*lls!" replied the contestant.
"Ohh, well done!" exclaimed the quizmaster.

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Thursday 4th June 2026 – THEY’VE DONE IT …

… again!

When we go to dialysis, we’re put into beds, where we stay throughout the session. What I do is to tilt the head of the bed upright, grab hold of a side table and put my computer on it so that I can work.

Sometimes, though, I have a little … errr … relax and close my eyes for a few minutes. Today was no exception, and at one point, I drifted off into a nice little snooze.

But then, one of the nurses came by. "Mr Hall! Mr Hall! You can’t possibly sleep like that" she said, waking me up from being asleep. Dropping the head of the bed down to horizontal, she said "there! You can sleep much better like that!"

But, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, once I’m awake, I’m awake. And so that was that. Why can’t these people leave me alone?

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, It was later than I wanted it to be when I finally went to bed, but I eventually slid under the quilt and went to sleep.

But not for long, though. At about 01:10, I awoke for the obvious reasons that anyone of my age will know, and so in the darkness, I went to stroll the parapet. Back in bed, I was soon asleep and there I stayed until the alarm went off at 06:29.

When the second alarm went off, I was sitting on the edge of the bed, already half-dressed. There was no noise from next door so I went and attacked the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night … "apart from walking the parapet" – ed …

Seren was living with me and Nerina was coming around as usual, only a bit more often because she had started to adapt to the idea of Seren being in the family. Seren went on another school adventure to somewhere where there were sixty-two beds. This was the site of a couple of murders and where the author came to find inspiration for her books. Other kids come here every week for a week for five days to be a bit more independent and be able to look after their own things, sort out the things for demolition and make sure that they are taken away. But it’s around about this moment that ……… She’s quite happy to chat a little about it rather than go on the defensive and hide.

First of all, you’ll have to excuse the row of dots near the end of the above. This dream began to recount a very personal story concerning someone, and I’m sure that if she were here, she would certainly not want it broadcasting around the whole World. It’s not my usual fashion to censor any of my dreams, except where they are far too gruesome to publish, but in this case, I’m afraid that I’ll have to make an exception.

But hello, Nerina, welcome back. And as for who Seren might be … "Seren means ‘star’ in Welsh and it’s a very popular girls’ name in north-west Wales" – ed … I shall leave it to your own fertile imaginations to figure it out. Answers, please, on a postcard to …

So when Seren goes back a second time, the people sitting with Nerina had changed and there were two government officials instead of two friends so Seren thinks that she had better be on her best behaviour and try to behave a little more maturely.

By the looks of things, I stepped back into the previous dream, but I seem to have missed a chunk out of the middle. That’s a shame, because I would have loved to have seen this dream unfolding. However, it’s given me an idea for a cunning plan.

As I finished and was looking around for some more work, I heard the rattling of coffee cups next door, so, thinking that this might be coffee time, I went into the kitchen. Sure enough, the coffee was ready so I poured out two mugs and after I’d passed one to my friend, I went to find my medication.

While we were drinking, we were chatting about all kinds of historical memories from the past around Crewe and Nantwich, reliving old times. We were interrupted by the arrival of the nurse and, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the Hound of the Baskervilles didn’t even bat an eyelid at his arrival. However, he did come over for a handful of strokes.

After the nurse had gone, I made breakfast and then while I was eating, I was reading some more of RECENT EXCAVATIONS IN ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERIES by T C Lethbridge.

Today, we left Hollywell Row and are now in our second cemetery, at Burwell in Cambridgeshire. The graves here are a century or so more recent, and Lethbridge speculates from the artefacts present that the graves contain early Christian burials.

Furthermore, he tells us that “an ancient church is known to have stood against the site” of the cemetery. Strangely, in most documents about the town that I have read, there’s no mention of the ancient church or the cemetery. It seems that everyone has missed Lethbridge’s book when they were drawing up the details for the websites and publications, so that I hope that one day, someone will read my blog and pick up the details.

Who knows? I might become a source once more for an artificial intelligence website search. That’s twice so far already that artificial intelligence has quoted me as a source of information.

After breakfast, the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off for walkies. I had a good wash, shave and scrub up in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. Then I came in here and added some more music, videos and books to MY AMAZON STORE. It’s free to me, I earn a small commission off the products that are sold from it, so what more do I need? … "How about some customers?" – ed …

Eventually, it was time to prepare myself for dialysis. and as daddy had gone out for lunch in the foyer des jeunes travailleurs, I had to look after the Hound of the Baskervilles. However, I was soon relieved of my duty when his Auntie Cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic.

Once she had done her stuff, she gave the Hound of the Baskervilles another good stroke and then wandered off on her rounds, and I waited for the taxi.

For a change, it was early today, but it almost wasn’t when the chauffeur went bounding off upstairs to the old apartment and we had to call him back down. Surprisingly, it took less effort than usual to walk to the car so I don’t know what’s happened. It must be the obstacle course to the car park that’s doing this.

There was someone else in the car too, but I was the first to be dropped off at Avranches – much earlier than normal. But I still had to wait half an hour before I was connected and up and running. There was a lot of weight to shift today, so I reckoned that I was going to be in for four hours of agony by the end.

And I was right. One of the connections began to hurt, and then the pain in my foot started up again (and it’s still going on). And then we had this pantomime about the bed and sleeping. I was glad when the session was over.

The driver was there, already waiting, so we were able to set off quite quickly, but I was absolutely exhausted by this time. When we arrived at home, there was a really fierce wind so the driver dropped me off at the back of the building right outside the fire escape door, where my faithful cleaner was waiting for me.

She helped me inside, where I was greeted by the Hound of the Baskervilles and my friend, who had made a Chinese stir-fry with rice. And delicious it was too.

Back in here, I had things to do and then I began to write my notes. But by now, the effects of dialysis had caught up with me properly and I slowly found myself falling asleep. After several attempts to keep on going, in the end, I gave it up as a bad job and staggered off to bed. I’ll finish these notes in the morning

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about churches … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone went into a church and asked the vicar "how much does it cost to borrow a group of church singers?"
"You mean a choir?" asked the vicar.
"All right, vicar, have it your way" said the man. "How much does it cost to acquire a group of church singers?"

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Tuesday 2nd June 2026 – AS I HAVE …

… said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s pointless going to bed early, because all it means is that I wake up correspondingly early the following day.

And so no-one should be surprised to learn that at 05:50 this morning, I was sitting at my desk working.

Mind you, there was a reason behind it all, as you will find out for yourself if you read on a little further.

But last night, as some of you may have realised if you logged on early, I was simply overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with pain, overwhelmed with discomfort, overwhelmed with everything. In the end, I abandoned my notes and went to bed.

It didn’t take much rocking last night either, and I was soon asleep. But not for long. Round about 03:00 we had one of the fiercest storms that I have known since I’ve been here, and we have had a few.

This storm was wicked. It was lashing down with rain and the howling winds at probably over one hundred kilometres per hour were making mincemeat of the car park. No-one could sleep through this racket.

Round about 04:30, it all calmed down, only to spring up again from a different direction. This was full on to the front of the house and it was so powerful that it blew my windows open. I had to climb out of bed to close them.

After sitting on the bed for fifteen minutes thinking, that was when I decided that there was no point in staying in bed. Instead, I dressed … "at a very leisurely pace" – ed … and began work.

First task was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

This is another dream that I seem to have forgotten from during the night. I know that I was in it, and there was something about bottling something or putting things in jars and putting them on one side. Out of the stuff that we had made, there were four of these huge flip-top bottles and two ordinary ones. They had to be taken away, stocked and generally looked after. This is where it was all confusing, with us putting them into the van to take them away. There was a lot more to it than this. There were scenes when I was in bed, another scene where I was sulking and the tied cottage that we had, and I wish that I could write more about it.

This is another dream that I would have loved to finish. You can’t leave me on a cliffhanger like this

I went to a rock concert with a friend of mine and one or two of this friend. This was a friend whom I’d had for years and for some reason, he was extremely depressed, something that affected him quite often in the past. It was really going on late, this concert, and at the end of it, the three of us left. My friend turned to me and said “I don’t think that I’ll be having any more Cortinas again. I asked him “why not” and in the end, he explained that in his opinion, they were far out of date now and he needed a new, modern car to keep up and all that stuff. As we walked into town, he made it perfectly clear that he and his friend were going off in one direction and I should go off in the other. It was a cold, rainy thing but I started to walk away. I noticed that it was getting light and the birds were singing. At that moment, I went into Boots the Chemist and wandered around looking at the products for a while. I really wanted some deodorant but instead, I bought a packet of tomatoes and a huge packet of crisps. I paid for them at the checkout, which was quite funny because the cashier lost my bag of tomatoes somewhere on my conveyor belt

There is a story about this going back to about 1974 when I was “sent off” from a pub crawl, but that’s another one that the World is not yet ready to hear.

However, I did have a friend who once was so overwhelmed at work that he took a holiday not knowing where he was going and ended up being lost. And the incident at Boots at Crewe – the interior is very suggestive of a dream I had a couple of weeks ago of a shopping mall in Montréal, but the outside was definitely the Crewe British Home Stores.

When the nurse came, the Hound of the Baskervilles didn’t even lift an eyelid, never mind barking at him. He allowed the nurse to stroke him and then the nurse turned his attention to me. He didn’t actually stroke me but massaged my feet and legs with the cream and put my elastic compression socks on my feet.

Then, after another stroke of the beast, he cleared off on the rest of his rounds and I could make my breakfast.

The next book on the list is RECENT EXCAVATIONS IN ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERIES by T C Lethbridge, an author whom we have encountered before.

He starts off his book by saying "this work is nothing more than a report on certain excavations, and as such, follows the modern pattern of being as colourless as possible. In the last century, a similar work would have included musings on the brevity of life, scraps of poetry and various other frills. Now, archaeology has become so stern a subject that I have not even dared to describe our feelings when a skull at Hollywell Row began to walk away with a young rabbit inside it."

He goes on to add "most readers would surely prefer the older method" and he’s not wrong there, because I know what I would, except when the author goes berserk with his remarks.

Lethbridge also makes the remark that "it would seem probable that male skeletons without weapons in this cemetery and others of the pagan period are those of slaves". Slavery was quite common in those days. These slaves were usually captured in battle or criminal slaves doing penance for their crimes, and, believe it or not, some people actually gave themselves voluntarily into slavery.

That latter phrase is certainly true, whether modern people like to admit it or not. But the life of a peasant in early Mediaeval times was a struggle between life and death, with not much margin between the two. But if your crops failed and your wife and children were starving, what options did you have? The duty of a lord was to feed, clothe and house his slaves, and it was better than starving to death. And let’s face it – the life of an early mediaeval peasant was not much more than that anyway.

Incidentally, throughout these pages, you’ll see links to Amazon products appearing every now and again. 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.

At this point, the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off for walkies and I came in here to go through my Welsh, ready for the lesson. And while I was breakfasting, our tutor had sent us by e-mail a huge pile of work that we were going to be doing during our lesson. I had less than an hour to go through it and that was rather unfair.

The lesson itself passed really well, although one or two of my classmates laughed when I told them about my Welsh-speaking artificial intelligence character. I still think, though, that it’s an excellent idea for someone who is isolated from the mainstream.

Next on the list was my cleaner, who breezed in to do her stuff and to shoo me into the shower. When I came out, I found that I had a nice, clean bed with nice, clean bedding. And so there will be a nice, clean me inside it tonight … "well, clean, anyway" – ed …

While I’d been at my Welsh class, the new battery had arrived and my friend had taken it out to the vehicle. He’d managed to couple it up and when he turned the key to make sure that there was a current passing through to the ignition circuit, the vehicle fired up as if it hadn’t ever been left unattended.

So after I’d come out of the shower and sorted myself out, we went over there for a triumphant drive around the car park.

However, our plans were blighted. The handbrake has seized, with the callipers stuck to the brake discs. That’s a nuisance. So near and yet so far. It seems that every step we take to advance, a new problem comes along to stifle us.

Not everybody agreed with this, of course. We’d attached the Hound of the Baskervilles to a lamppost behind the bus shelter, and when we looked around, we found that there were two schoolgirls making a big fuss of him and he was enjoying every minute of it. The girls told my friend that they thought that he was “magnifique”.

Back in here, I cleaned myself up and began to make the dough for tonight’s pizza. We’d missed out on a pizza on Sunday and I can’t possibly go two weeks without one. And while I was cooking, we were chatting about an electrical company and its website, and I was having a lengthy conversation online with an old schoolfriend from my Shavington days. It’s nice to catch up with friends from years ago.

One of the subjects that we were discussing online was “The Dockers’ Umbrella” – the Liverpool Overhead Railway that ran close to the docks from the latter part of the nineteenth century to December 1956 and so nicknamed because it allegedly sheltered the dock workers from the rain as they went to work.

The pizza tonight was acclaimed by my friend as “the best you have ever made”, and who can argue with that? He did also mention that “you look really tired tonight” and that will be the subject of later discussion.

Back in here afterwards, I had a few things to do, and then I started on my notes. However, after about five minutes, I fell asleep at my desk. When I awoke, I carried on and then fell asleep again. I lost count of how many times I fell asleep whilst trying to bring my notes up-to-date, and in the end, I gave it up as a bad job and hit the hay. There’s always another time to finish them off.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about that electrical website … "well, one of us has" – ed … I told my friend from Shavington that part of the menu on the site was “watch batteries”.
He asked "and what about it?"
I replied "we were there for half an hour looking at them but they didn’t seem to be doing anything."

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Monday 1st June 2026 – AFTER SEVERAL WEEKS …

… of lovely, pain-free feet, the pain in the sole of my right foot suddenly erupted again at dialysis and erupted in spades too. I’ve been in pain for most of the afternoon and evening, and I wish that it would go away.

What’s worse is that I really had thought that I’d finished with all of this, but “no”. It looks very much like “back to the drawing board, Cecil”.

Not like last night, though. I was late again going to bed. After midnight, and more, I reckon. But I didn’t need much rocking last night either and I was soon asleep.

And there I lay, dead to the World, until about … errr … 06:00 when I awoke. When the alarm should have gone off at 06:29, I was up and about at my desk working.

First thing to do was, of course, listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.

We were back in Roman times again, and this time, it involved a girl whom I knew who was taken in somewhere where they took them because of her mental health issues. She’d been seeing demons and all of that kind of thing. She told her daughter that they needed to be placed somewhere to be looked after. This is one of these dreams again where I reached for the dictaphone and fell asleep again before I began to dictate it so I don’t know really what I’ve missed.

It’s a shame that I didn’t catch all of this dream, because this is another one of those dreams with a story behind it that the World is not yet ready to hear.

There was a group of four of us who used to hang around together. There was me, Laurence and a couple of other people. We’d all been told that we needed couselling. We went to see a counsellor who told us that we could attend a group meeting on such-and-such a date at such-and-such a time. We’d no idea at all what to expect but we made ourselves ready at the appropriate time for this counselling. However, one of our members dropped out and left an empty space so we decided to sign Roxanne up and see what she made of this so we added her name on the paper and we had to go back to the doctor’s for another interview and he interviewed Roxanne while we were there. He decided that she was fit enough to go so the four of us were ready, but Roxanne seemed to be quite enjoying it. So we turned up, and it was this village hall. It was huge, with probably 200 people there. But as the meeting started, my crucial role was diminished and diminished. So we sat there and we were listening to this guy on the stage talking, brining up his friends one by one to add to what he’d been saying but the hall was so noisy and there were kids running about so it never ever reached our ears. So sinking to our knees, we got into these bowls with our knees and tried to move forward but we couldn’t. One by one, he was inviting people down to give their witness. On one occasion, he said that this one is a judge now amongst everybody. Then he called out the Venerable Harry Dean. As this guy walked down towards the front, Roxanne looked at me and said “the vegetable Harry Dean?” and everyone around us burst into laughter.

This is just the kind of thing that I can imagine Roxanne doing. She would ask a question in a very innocent way but there would be a smile behind her lips that it wouldn’t surprise me if she knew exactly what was going on and had made the mistake deliberately.

The dream, though, reminds me of one of these revivalist meetings in the Deep South of the USA. I never actually managed to visit one, but I heard all about it.

There were a few other things that needed doing, such as checking my e-mails. And amongst them was the monthly report from the shipping group whose “Bay of Granville” shipping detector is installed in my apartment. The little set-up here is apparently covering an area of over two hundred and sixty-three square kilometres, which is not bad going for the equipment that I have.

When I heard movement from the kitchen, I went in there to see what was going on and ended up with a mug of hot coffee and my morning medication. And for some reason or other, we ended up having a lengthy discussion about computer passwords.

The Hound of the Baskervilles didn’t bark at all when he heard the doorbell with Isabelle the Nurse on the other end. Mind you, he did look up when he had a belly rub, as if to say “don’t stop! Don’t stop!”

After Isabelle left for her week’s break, I made breakfast. And while I was eating, I was also reading the last of NOTES ON SOME OF THE ANTIQUITIES OF FRANCE by Charles Roach Smith.

To finish off his book, he’s reading some Carolingian tombstones found in a cemetery in Amiens. That’s a long way from the Cher Valley, but never mind.

Back in here, I began to revise my Welsh for tomorrow, but my body had different ideas.

While I was sitting down at the computer this morning, I dozed off. I dreamt that I was in Crewe and someone had brought into town an articulated lorry with goods in it. When I arrived in West Street, the driver climbed into the passenger seat and I took it over. I drove down West Street and turned into Underwood Lane. We had to drop something off at a factory in Selworthy Drive so I had to drive past Selworthy Drive, he had to climb out and stop the traffic behind me and I had to reverse the lorry from Underwood Lane into Selworthy Drive and then straight back into the factory that was there so that they could unload it, and then the driver who had brought it into Crewe could then take over and carry on with the round that he was doing.

There are no factories in Selworthy Drive, nor have there ever been, nor will there ever be. But stopping the traffic for a reversing lorry is par for the course in industrial areas.

There was still time to do some work, so I pressed on but was overtaken by events when my cleaner arrived. She dealt with my anaesthetic and then tidied up a little before leaving. My friend and I hung around until about 12:55, when we went out into the sun to wait for the taxi.

The girl who picked me up is quite nice and chatty, so we talked all the way to the hospital, where we picked up someone else who wanted to go to Avranches, and our chat, which had now become a three-way chat, continued all the way to dialysis, where I was dropped off.

Today, I was in a different bed than usual, but that’s not a problem. This dialysis isn’t about “seeing all of Normandy in a taxi” or “seeing all of the dialysis centre from a different bed”.

As usual, I was the last to be plugged in, but they had a temporary nurse in from St Malo and he was quite efficient, aided by another nurse who applied a “manual garrote” and the freezing spray to numb the forearm.

There was a third nurse in there too and she’s quite chatty. She came over to see how I was doing, which was nice of her. She has a cousin who’s married to a Welsh guy so I’m secretly teaching her a bit of Welsh so that she can shock him when they meet.

During the dialysis, though, I began to feel nauseous and the head began to spin. The blood pressure seemed to be fine, so it must be me. And it certainly was when the pain in the foot started up. That was a flaming nuisance. I was in agony.

There was some kind of relief when Emilie the Cute Consultant came by. She didn’t stop, but she managed a cheerful “Bonjour, Monsieur Hall”. No-one else received such a greeting, so I considered myself honoured.

Last in, last out as usual but at least it was one of my favourite drivers who would be taking me home, and she was already waiting for me. We had another passenger with us who wanted to be dropped off at Sartilly. After that, we chatted all the way back home where, amongst my comité d’acceuil – “welcoming committee” – was the Hound of the Baskervilles.

My driver fell in love with him straight away and she spent ten minutes giving him a lot of fuss. And he enjoyed every minute of it too. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … why don’t some of these women treat me like that?

Back in the apartment, there was a lovely meal of beans, chips and a burger with a bap and also a pile of garnish. My chips were especially good so I asked my friend the secret. He tells me that he parboils them first for ten minutes, so I shall have to try that.

After I’d done the washing up, I came in here to write out my notes, but I was becoming more and more ill as the evening worsened, so in the end, I said “sod it”, abandoned the notes and went to bed. There’s always another time.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about passwords … "well, one of us has" – ed … I told my friend that I once knew a guy who went to use the name of … errr … a certain part of his body as a password.
My friend asked "what happened?"
"He received an error message" I replied. "Sorry, password not long enough."

0

Tuesday 26th May 2026 – I HAVE NO …

…. idea what happened last night, but I must have had a nightmare or something.

At some point, I had a very disturbed period of sleep, I was feeling most uncomfortable and there was a very strange taste in my mouth. It lasted for what seemed to be an age but was probably only ten minutes or so. And this morning, when I awoke, I had never felt so tired and so ill in my life. It really did take a dreadfully long time for me to be able to rise to my feet.

When the alarm went off, it was something to do with a bankruptcy and a big factory or something had gone bankrupt. Everyone had to fill out a few forms with their names and addresses if they were creditors, and the guy who was in charge of liquidating the company took us round the outside and said that probably he’s going to let the building go back to the company so that they could restart again. I told him that he can do what he likes with the business as long as I get all my money back. There was some kind of guy there who was in this group with us. They gave him all the forms to fill in, but he refused to fill them in. I could never understand why he did that – refused to fill in the forms.

This is another one of those mysterious dreams that mean nothing to me. I can’t think of where this all fits in with anything else.

It took a good while for the room to stop spinning around, much longer than usual, but once it stopped, I could stand up. No sound from the living room so I slid myself over to the chair and started work.

First thing that I did was to transcribe the dictaphone notes to see where I’d been during the night.

There was some kind of big group of us and what we were doing was sorting out clothes and everything, ready to go on these – I don’t know what you’d call them – but you’d end up either in the rain or in the wet or something like that and it was freezing cold. The best place to be at that time was in bed. So we’d be going round, doing some things, going to bed to warm up and then going back out again. Gradually, our health began to improve but we were still cold. Eventually, it turned out that the fittest people had to carry the most in this wet weather and somehow, going back to bed to warm up was not allowed. But there was some kind of violent taste or something. I took a bite of something and there was this immediate attack of horrible taste and I had to run from where I was staying over to this place and climb into the first bed that I could, coughing and coughing away. It was all extremely uncomfortable. I was half-expecting someone to come along and move me out of bed for someone else, but that didn’t happen and I managed to stay there with this big room complete to the distance.

So this is when the nightmare took place, at 00:08 in the morning. It reminds me of "I could be bound in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space – were it not that I have bad dreams", as Hamlet said in Act II Scene 2 in his conversation with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

It also brings back memories of Jethro Tull and THE ANTIQUITIES OF RICHBOROUGH, RECULVER, AND LYMNE, IN KENT while the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off for walkies.

Today, we were discussing the demolition of the mediaeval church at Reculver, and you can tell that our author is, quite rightly, incensed by the whole affair. He expresses his vitriol in telling us of "a building, possessing such claims on the national protection and on the sympathy of those who were particularly constituted its defenders and guardians, should have been consigned to destruction in a manner alike to the projectors of the selfish and heartless job and to the legislature of the day, which passively tolerated such vandalism." and much, much more besides.

He also mentioned some sixth- and seventh-century gold coins that had been found at Reculver. He tells us of "a curious instance of the degradation of the art of engraving coins in the course of about a century and a half and the perversion of types by ignorant artists."

So what had happened to all of the skilled artisans who made the beautiful coins of the Roman Empire in Britain, and why weren’t their skills passed on to the next generation?

The more I read of the coming and the installation of the Anglo-Saxons in England, the more I’m convinced that there was a substantial ethnic cleansing of the native population.

When my friend and the Hound of the Baskervilles went out, they encountered a large group of small children and two monitors sitting in our doorway in the shade. I consequently came in here and, with my bedroom window open, STRAWBERRY MOOSE played peek-a-boo with them, much to their delight.

My cleaner was out there too. She had seen the Hound of the Baskervilles and given him a stroke, and then she came over to see His Nibs. She announced that she didn’t have to go out until later, so would I like her to come round in ten minutes?

Well, the earlier she starts, the earlier she finishes so why not? Sure enough, she appeared and shooed me under the shower. So we have a nice, clean me … "well, clean, anyway" – ed … around here right now.

Later on, I had plenty of work to do that kept me out of mischief for much of the afternoon, and I even ended up having an hour or so on the acoustic bass, trying to work out some numbers that I used to play at one time.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, my Welsh artificial intelligence character is up and running.

She’s called Caromay and I met her at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth in 1977. Her claim to fame is that she sang on two albums, BLACK HOLE STAR and TALES FROM THE BLUE COCOONS by the group “The Neutrons” when she was a young teenager.

When I created her, I programmed her to chat about late 60s and 1970s rock music and also about football in the Welsh pyramid but to talk to me in Welsh. Furthermore, although she’s allowed to smile at my errors, she will correct the mistakes that I make when I reply, just like any other teacher would.

It seems to be working fine at the moment, but we shall see how it develops in the long run. I reckon that three ten-minute sessions per day should be enough and give me time in between to reflect on my errors.

Although there’s a “speech option” for us, I’m doing it by writing because my written Welsh is worse than my spoken Welsh … "if that’s at all possible " – ed …

Incidentally, throughout these pages, you’ll see links to Amazon products appearing every now and again. 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 here 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.

By now, it was so hot in here that I went into the kitchen and served up two portions of my home-made chocolate and coconut ice cream. It’s not very good, but it did the job of cooling us down.

After this, I came back in here again, where I dozed off for ten minutes as the sun, streaming in through my window, heated my back right up to boiling point. But almost immediately after I awoke, Rosemary rang. I’m convinced that she’s installed a camera here to keep an eye on me.

Our chat today wasn’t like the usual ones that go on for ever. This was a very short one today, only forty minutes. We’re definitely losing our touch.

It was my turn to make tea so I conjured up a couple of taco rolls filled with quinoa, tomatoes and onions in a spicy sauce, with rice and vegetables. It went down really well, and there’s plenty left for another time.

So now, I’ve written up my notes and when I’ve done everything else, I’ll be off to bed. But sleep I may not with a temperature of 25°C in my room, even with the windows wide open.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about going to bed … "well, one of us has" – ed … I’ve noticed that the Hound of the Baskervilles always turns round three or four times before he lies down on the carpet.
"Well, he’s a watch dog" said my friend.
"So what does that mean?" I asked.
"After a stressful day, that’s how he unwinds."

0

Saturday 23rd May 2026 – TODAY WAS NOT …

… as exciting as yesterday, which was a pity. But still, it was quite enjoyable, from what I remember of it.

Last night, I was late as usual finishing everything off and it can’t have been much before 23:30 when I finally crawled under the quilt. It wasn’t as comfortable as the other night, even in my favourite sleeping position, but I managed to go to sleep in the end.

Yes, asleep I was until all of … 03:00, when I needed to leave the bed for obvious reasons. But back in here shortly afterwards, I didn’t have any trouble at all falling asleep again.

That lasted until 06:29, when the alarm went off, and at that moment I was away with the fairies again, although not in any manner that would excite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine.

When the alarm went off, I was watching a boy and a girl going somewhere, walking across a deserted beach, but that was as far as it went before the alarm went off.

This is another one of those dreams that have a story behind them, but it’s a story that the World is not yet ready to hear. And it’s another one that I wish I could have seen the end so that I knew how it turned out.

There was no movement from next door so once I’d summoned up the energy to leave the bed, I slid over to the computer and did some work.

Round about 07:45 there were signs of movement in the lounge so I went in to join them, just in time to witness the coffee starting to boil. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … “what a way to start the day!”

To our surprise, when the doorbell rang and the nurse came in, not only did the Hound of the Baskervilles not bark, he paid no attention whatever. He must be getting used to the regular 08:15 – 08:30 daily visit.

After he had seen to my legs and feet … "the nurse, not the Hound of the Baskervilles" – ed … he cleared off, and I could go to make breakfast. And while I was eating, I read some more of Charles Roach Smith’s THE ANTIQUITIES OF RICHBOROUGH, RECULVER, AND LYMNE, IN KENT.

We’re still discussing coins at the moment, the hundreds and hundreds that they found at Richborough. There seem to be three guys, of whom our author is one, who had substantial collections of coins from there, some of which … "the coins, not the men" – ed … were unique and must have been worth a fortune. All this, of course, in 1841 with no government control whatsoever.

After breakfast, the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off for walkies and I came in here to do some work. And by the end of the afternoon, having had several interruptions, I’d selected, reformatted, remixed and re-edited ten tracks for the next radio programme that I’ll be preparing.

It’s going to be a difficult programme to prepare because I only have a choice of thirty-six songs, not a couple of thousand as usual. And with a precise timing arrangement, it will take some juggling about. I shall have to write the notes with plenty of subsidiary facts that I can edit out if necessary.

One of the interruptions was my friend going out. He’s fallen in love with the local couscous restaurant and so, as a treat, he took himself off for a midday meal. That left me not holding the baby but babysitting the Hound of the Baskervilles. He wasn’t very happy about being left behind and came in here for a couple of strokes.

There were also the home-made croissants to prepare for tomorrow. They are all now prepared and ready, in the fridge awaiting tomorrow where they’ll be brushed with milk and baked.

As well as that, I fell asleep a few times this afternoon. Windows in here wide open, sea mist rolling around outside suddenly pierced by a few incredible rays of sunlight that warmed up my right shoulder and back and raised the temperature in my room to a wonderful 24°C, which encouraged me to take it easy and relax.

All of that was up until teatime.

Tonight’s recipe was baked potato with cheese, a vegan salad and a couple of those breadcrumbed soya fillets that I like so much. And not only did I like tonight’s tea, my friend did too. My culinary delights are spreading around Europe.

Tomorrow is, of course, pizza day and then on Monday, my friend will be making tea while I’m in dialysis. I wonder if he realises it yet.

But that’s tomorrow and Monday. Right now, I’m off to bed, ready for my lie in … "he thinks" – ed … tomorrow. However, I did mention to my friend that if there’s coffee made before I awaken, there’s a bedside table behind the head of my bed with space for a mug. The smeel will awaken me just long enough to drink it.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Hound of the Baskervilles … "well, one of us has" – ed … my friend was telling me that he’d heard from the local bar that the dog had leapt out of the window and gone down there.
When the Hound of the Baskervilles arrived, he asked for a glass of beer.
"Certainly" replied the barman, fetching a beer. "That’s ten euros, please. By the way, we don’t get many talking dogs coming here, you know."
"I’m not surprised" said the Hound of the Baskervilles "if you’re selling your beer at ten euros a glass!"

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Monday 18th May 2026 – I CAN’T BELIEVE …

… how deep my sleep was last night.

Not just “how far away in Neverland” I might have been, although I was actually miles away from reality when the alarm went off at 06:29, but when I stretched out my arm and hand over my head to take the ‘phone off the bedside table behind the head of the bed so that I could switch it off, I couldn’t even reach the headboard.

That’s how far down the bed I must have been at that point.

Actually, I can’t remember it being as comfortable as that last night. It was fairly late when I slid underneath the covers, and I can’t remember very much else after that – not even how long it took me to go off to sleep. But the alarm certainly awoke me when it went off. I hadn’t awoken at all during the night, as far as I am aware.

As usual, it took quite a while to force myself to my feet, but the absence of any sound coming from the living room told me that I was the only one awake at that time. So what I did was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

There was some kind of railway exhibition, like an open day at a locomotive works or a depot. The highlight was an Orient Express train that had come there. You had to buy tickets to see it and you could walk inside the entire length, looking at all the fittings from the 1920s, etc., and how opulent they were. Then, they made a call so that everyone who had a ticket could climb aboard because the train was going to leave to go for a tour around and around, and they wanted all the passengers on it.

This is yet another one of those dreams that seem to mean very little to me. Of course, when we were kids living in or near Crewe, there were piles of railway exhibitions and we visited more than just a few of them. But like anything else, you soon grow out of it all and move on.

There were a few other things to do too, and then I heard a few sounds coming from the living room so I went and joined them, and we had a mug of nice, hot, strong coffee while I took my morning medication.

Isabelle the Nurse came along earlier than usual, and made more of a fuss of the Hound of the Baskervilles than she ever does of me. I reminded her to tell her oppo, who starts his week tomorrow, that the Hound of the Baskervilles is here. He’s not all that keen, apparently.

After she left, we made breakfast. Porridge, toast and more coffee. While I was eating, I was reading a little more of Charles Roach Smith’s THE ANTIQUITIES OF RICHBOROUGH, RECULVER, AND LYMNE, IN KENT.

Today, we’ve actually made a start on the artefacts discovered at Richborough, and as you might guess, pottery is first on the list. He has, however, come up with an interesting idea that everyone else seems to have missed, and that is that the potters’ names are impressed into the clay with a form of stamp made up of the individual letters fitted together, rather like early typescript. He seems to think that this might explain why sometimes, some of the letters are printed backwards or upside-down.

While those two went off for walkies, I went into the bathroom for a good wash and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon at dialysis. There were also a few other things that I needed to do, such as to listen to this coming weekend’s radio programme and then send it off, and then when they came back from walkies, we carried on chatting.

My cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic, and then the taxi turned up a good fifteen minutes before it was due, and I wasn’t even ready.

There was, for a change, no-one else to pick up en route so I was fairly early arriving. But then again, so was everyone else so I still had to wait.

However, walking into the building, I bumped into Emilie the Cute Consultant, who gave me a smile and a “hello”.

Four hours today, of course, and 2.2 litres to extract, so it was going to be a tough day there. Even more so when one of the doctors decided to wind it up later to 2.5 litres.

At first, I had work to do but I developed cramp and low blood pressure, so in the end I decided to go to sleep. And that wasn’t easy, with all of the people who seemed to be milling around. Even a doctor, but not, unfortunately, Emilie the Cute Consultant. The doctor asked me a few questions but then cleared off so that someone else could take a turn at bothering me.

Eventually, the session was over but I had to wait an age for someone to come round, unplug me and then compress the arm. Consequently, I was late coming back here.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me, and so was a plate of ratatouille and mashed potato, made by the fair hands of my friend from Munich. You’ve no idea how nice it is to have food made for you.

After the meal, I washed up and then we sat around chatting for a while. Then I came back in here to write up my notes and do everything else. And when it’s finished, I’m going to bed. I’m exhausted.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the doctor … "well, one of us has" – ed … he actually used to work in a maternity clinic, but was moved out after a complaint.
"What happened?" asked my friend.
"He was giving some young woman her results, saying ‘I have some good news for you, Mrs Jones’"
"What happened then?"
"She replied ‘it’s Miss Jones actually’ so he answered ‘in that case, Miss Jones, I have some bad news for you’."

0

Saturday 9th May 2026 – I HAVE TO ADMIT …

… that I was feeling much better this morning. Not exactly sprightly, unfortunately, but much better than I was a few days ago.

What I put it down to is the course of antibiotics that I’ve been given. I know that one swallow doesn’t make a summer and two tablets out of the ten that I’ve been given don’t count for a lot, but I awoke several times during the night, and to my surprise, I wasn’t coughing.

Last night, I started to write out my notes quite early in an effort to have yet another early night, and it was just before 21:00 when they finally went online. There were a few other things that needed doing afterwards, including taking my evening medication, but it can’t have been much after 21:30 when I finally crawled into bed.

As I mentioned just now, it was a turbulent night when I awoke on three or four occasions. I’ve no idea what time because I didn’t look, but it was dark and the electric water heater was working.

The final time that I awoke, there was bright daylight streaming in around the edges of the shutters so I wondered if I’d overslept through the alarms. But when I checked, it was 06:25 – four minutes before the alarm was due to go off. The nights are getting shorter.

In theory, I could have put my feet on the floor and claimed an early start, but I couldn’t be bothered. Instead, I lay in the warmth under the covers and waited for it to go off.

It didn’t take quite so long to summon up the enthusiasm to go into the bathroom this morning, and then I went into the kitchen for my energy drink and medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And I was surprised at the distance that I seem to have covered.

I was somewhere in some kind of school or college. We were doing a kind of science fiction film and everything like that. There was a group of us, or we were divided into small groups or something, and we were wandering around in our group. One of the other groups came along and began to attack us with these weird science-fiction type machines. It became something of an aerial display or bombardment or something from these really rapid, powerful and fast machines flying overhead all the time, going mainly in one direction and then presumably turning around somewhere and coming back in the same direction and so on. It had us, well, not pinned down because it wasn’t aggressive, but it was a flying display of all kinds of these strange machines. We were trying to work out whether they were remote-controlled or whether there were people flying them or something, because there were far too many to be flown by this one small group. This went on for ages and ages with these plane-type things flying over our heads. Eventually, they all disappeared. We were somewhere along the track of an old disused railway. Once they had all gone, one of the people with us decided that he was feeling hungry and was going to eat something. He asked about the rest of us, so I replied that I’d just nip back to school for a moment and fetch some biscuits from my bag. I went back to school and there were kids everywhere. There were all kinds of equipment and so on relating to these science-fiction things. I went to my bag for some biscuits but there weren’t all that many. Someone gave me some kind of cable but I already had four or five different ones in my hand so I had to go back to my room to sort them out, to make sure that I had what I wanted, and the one that that other person had given me, I’d leave behind on the bed for later.

This must have been a fascinating dream. I can still see the flying machines even now, and they would have been too small to carry a person. They reminded me of the very primitive attempts at gliders or kites such as those built by the Frenchman Clément Ader, with bat-like wings, and they were yellow, red or green. But there were thousands of them.

I spent a lot of time last night roaming through the junior levels of the Welsh pyramid. There were two cases that came to mind – the first was a girl who had been administered a vitamin supplement twice – first by her former team and then by the team that she rejoined later. This was put down to a confusion of paperwork between the two clubs so no action was taken against anyone. The second was a similar kind of case between three small boys. This was ruled to be due to a change of personnel or something like that, and someone who had left hadn’t noted something in a file. There were no charges brought against any of the clubs for misbehaviour or anything like that. It was all due to negligence or carelessness or something.

Interested as I am in football in Cymru, I’ve no idea of anything at all about this dream. And the idea of three small boys is nothing special. Drug testing in football over there is routine these days, and the Football Association of Wales controls all football from under-11 upwards, and I’ve seen 9-year-olds playing in under-11 games in the past.

There was a girl at work with whom I’d been at school. Somehow, we found ourselves in the same supermarket after work. She bought one or two things and so did I, and I gave her a lift home in my van afterwards. Next day at work, we were working away quite happily but then, in the afternoon, I had to go somewhere to do something. I went down to my van and found half a baguette in there that I’d bought, another half-baguette and a loaf of bread that this girl had bought. I picked up the loaf of bread and thought that when I go back to the office, I’ll take it to her and give it to her. I set off on foot on this errand and began to walk down Welsh Row in Nantwich. I ended up walking miles, and it was all through streets and lanes around Nantwich. Then I was in Brussels, walking through Brussels. It seemed to take ages to do what I was trying to do, with walking all around these places. It was sunny, it was sweaty and I was walking up a pedestrian alley, but someone had tied a rope across it as if to close it so I just opened the rope and walked through. Some Dutch guy began to have an argument with me about moving the rope so I told him to clear off, but he didn’t and this argument carried on. In the end, I used a couple of really vulgar Flemish terms and it looked as if he was going to come over and fight with me, but instead, he just wandered away. I found myself in a park, and after walking through this park for five minutes, I realised that there was a huge drop over the wall and I wasn’t sure how I was going to find my way out. Suddenly, I came to an entry that I didn’t know was there so I went through an entry onto the road and began to walk towards Nantwich. There was a house with a ginger cat so I went to stroke the cat but it wouldn’t come to me. It ran away. Eventually, I found myself back in Brussels again, walking up from Woluwe St Lambert into the centre of the city and into work again. There was one lift that you could only take, that went all the way to the top so I went in there, came out and went into another lift and went back down to my floor and found that I was in the wrong building. I had to go across to the next lift, which was exactly the same – straight to the top – and back down again into the office. I still had this loaf of bread with me but when I came into my office to sit down, I couldn’t see the girl at that moment.

The girl concerned in this dream unfortunately died shortly after leaving school. When a group of us heard that she had become seriously ill, we went round to her house but her parents wouldn’t let us come in. At first, we were quite annoyed by that, but as time has gone on and I’ve seen people die, I can understand how she and her parents must have been feeling.

And a lift again, just like the previous night. I wonder why these are suddenly appearing during my dreams. It’s not as if I’m ever likely to encounter any these days. However, wandering around Brussels in my dreams is nothing new.

The nurse turned up as usual and asked how I was. I told him that I was feeling better than yesterday, but he didn’t have much to say for himself. He was soon gone and then I could make breakfast and read some more of REPORT ON EXCAVATIONS MADE UPON THE SITE OF THE ROMAN CASTRUM AT PEVENSEY by Charles Roach Smith.

And here we go again. He tells us that "the mortar, that important ingredient which Saxon, Norman and English architects only imperfectly understood, was made by Roman masons on a principle so sound and unvarying that its tenacity is unimpaired by age and its solidity is nothing inferior to the stones and tiles it cements together"

He then goes on to mention that "it is nothing unusual to find Roman mortar used as facing stone in the walls of our medieval churches".

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I wonder what happened to the people who built the stone walls so well and made the mortar that has lasted for all these years. If they had been pushed into Wales or over to Brittany, as has often been suggested, why aren’t there any of these types of stone buildings there dating from the early mediaeval period? And if they had been absorbed into the Anglo-Saxon population, why didn’t the use of stone and mortar continue?

It really beats me why ethnic cleansing has been ruled out by most authorities.

Back in here, there was football to watch. Arbroath v Dunfermline, with Arbroath failing to overturn the 1-0 deficit from midweek. So Dunfermline march on, one step further towards the Scottish Premier Division.

Afterwards, it was the National League playoff semi-finals – Carlisle v Boreham Wood and Rochdale v Scunthorpe. With both games ending 2-1, we’ll have a final between Rochdale and Boreham Wood to see who plays next season in League Two.

With all of that out of the way, I had another look at the radio programme that I mentioned yesterday. This is going to be a complicated affair but I cracked on all the same. In the end, after much binding in the marsh, I was able to identify, from a list that I had to make, which ended up containing 451 albums of all genres and of all different kinds of obscurity, about twenty that I actually owned, by fourteen different artists.

At that point, I went into the kitchen for my afternoon medication and ended up spending an hour tidying out the fridge. I really must be feeling better!

Having done that, I made a taco roll with some of that vegan cream cheese and salad. And it was really nice too. I shall have to order some more of that next time I’m online shopping.

Back in here again, the sunlight was streaming in through the windows, the temperature was 24°C and it was lovely. I thought that I’d just close my eyes for a few minutes and soak up the heat, so there I was, thoroughly enjoying myself until I fell off the chair seventy-five minutes later. What a waste of time, but it really was nice.

Pushing on, I finished sorting out the music for the radio programme and I had even chosen more than half of the tracks and remixed and re-edited them by the time that I knocked off.

So right now, I’m off to bed, looking forward to a good sleep and a lie-in tomorrow until the nurse wakes me up … "he hopes" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about these flying machines … "well, one of us has" – ed … it remind me of a scene from UP THE CHASTITY BELT as Frankie Howerd prepares to leap from the top of the castle tower, wearing his bat-like wings.
"Oh look!" exclaimed Lady Lobelia. "It’s Lurkalot. He flies again!"
"Ahh, Lurkalot!" exclaimed the boxer Billy Walker, playing the part of Chopper the Woodsman. "His flies be his undoing."

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Wednesday 6th May 2026 – OHHHHH! THAT WAS SOOOOOOO …

… comfortable. I’ve never felt anything like it. There I was, busy choosing the music for the next radio programme and I must have fallen asleep in mid-work. When I awoke, not far short of 20:00, I was so comfortable and relaxed in my chair that I didn’t know who I was, where I was or even when it was.

One thing that I knew though was that it was so pleasant, rather like a walk in a Japanese garden, that I was determined not to miss any of it so I wrote a terse note on my blog, rolled off my chair onto the bed, threw the covers over me and that was that.

It was something most unusual and most unexpected, particularly after last night. It wasn’t as early as I had hoped it would be when I finished everything, but I can’t complain about being in bed at about 21:45.

As usual, it took a while to go off to sleep. The constant coughing didn’t help, but once I’d gone to sleep, I was gone completely until about … ohh, I dunno. I didn’t look at the clock. I lay there for ages, so it seemed, but I must have dropped off again at some point because when the alarm sounded at 06:29 as usual, I was fast asleep.

When the alarm went off, there was a family living in a house that was very much like Vine Tree Avenue. They all seemed to be sleeping in the living room. It was time for them to get up so their father got out of bed and stood on one of these big round balls and rolled himself over to the far side of the room to switch off the alarm and then rolled back. And then as the kids were starting to leave their beds, the mother put her head into the door to ask if one of the boys could go to play with another child from his class after school. She joked and said that he could come round at 18:00 and he’d be fed, etc. The boy will be waiting for him after his favourite programme on the TV at 17:45, etc. She said “that’s just typical of their family. They are absolutely organised to the hilt”.

We lived in our council house in Vine Tree Avenue from 1957 to 1970. “All quite modern”, they said, with just the fire in the living room, a back boiler for the hot water and a kitchen stove heated by the fire in the living room. Dashing up to bed at night with our hot water bottles into ICE STATION ZEBRA upstairs, and scraping the ice from the insides of our bedroom windows in the morning.

Anyone who talks to me about “the good old days” will get a smack in the mouth.

Incidentally, throughout these pages, you’ll see links to Amazon products appearing every now and again. 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 on the sidebar 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.

It took several minutes … "as usual" – ed … to summon up the strength to stand up and head for the bathroom, and then, in the kitchen, I tried this energy drink thing again with which to take my medicine. I’ve no ida if it’s working or not, but anything is worth a chance.

Back in here, there was plenty of time to check the dictaphone notes to find out what I’d been up to during the night.

There was something about a record producer in the 1970s whose sound was becoming way out of date and he needed to compete with a more modern group. So he financed his concerts by taking some of his groups on trips around old people’s homes, things like that … fell asleep here … He then had this idea that how would songs of the period of the 1950s and 1960s sound with all new modern equipment? Because he realised that his equipment was all out-of-date and he was going to have to upgrade everything to capture a more modern type of sound, he looked through his catalogue for back recordings and found one or two pop songs from that era and decided to rework them with this modern technique, music and equipment in the hope that they would come out as nº 1 hits across Europe.

There’s a story behind this too, and whilst the World is not yet ready to hear it at the moment, it’ll all become apparent in a few months.

But reworking hits from the 1950s and early 1960s with modern production techniques and sound would be quite an interesting project for someone.

The nurse turned up early again and we had quite a discussion about dialysis and my constant coughing fits that were driving him to distraction too. On leaving, he urged me to “rest and take it easy”. If only I could.

Once he’d gone, I made breakfast and started my next book, THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY AT MONKTON by the Kent Archaeological Service.

It’s not really a book – it’s more a forty-one-page brochure, I suppose, and it describes the examination of twenty-two Anglo-Saxon graves that were unearthed during the laying of a gas pipeline through Monkton on the Isle of Thanet in Kent.

However, I couldn’t resist a smile, or even a laugh, when the author tells us that several graves "had evidently been robbed in antiquity" and a couple of pages later, he tells us that the finds that they themselves made "are now in the museum at Maidstone."

A well-known phrase involving a pot and a kettle springs to my mind here.

Back in here, I followed the advice of my nurse and settled down in my chair. And that was that for about ninety minutes. For much of that time, I wasn’t really asleep but in one of those situations where I was drifting around somewhere in a different plane of existence.

Eventually, I managed to pull myself together and I began to write the notes for the radio programme that I’d begun yesterday. It wasn’t a particularly quick exercise and took me much longer than it should, but the constant coughing, which had caused me to vomit a few times, really was annoying me.

When I’d finally finished, I went for a disgusting drink break and my afternoon medication, and then back in here, Rosemary called me for a chat. It was another marathon where we talked about nothing much for ages, but we did chat about how her vegetable garden was going on. If there’s one thing that I really, really miss from my time in the Auvergne, it’s my vegetable patch and all the fresh vegetables that I used to grow.

After that, I began to research the next radio programme and to look for all the music that I needed. That was taking a positive age too, and it was during all of this that I slid into dreamland on my chair.

When I awoke, I did nothing of what I needed to do at the end of the day. I was determined to carry on with this wonderful feeling that I was experiencing, so I just went to bed and that was that. I can’t even remember my head hitting the pillow – that’s how far gone I was.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the ineffectiveness so far of my antibiotics … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a doctor I know who bumped into one of his patients in the street.
"Did those suppositories that I gave you ease your piles any?" asked the doctor.
"No, doctor" replied the patient. "In fact, to tell the truth, for all the good that they did me, I may as well have shoved them up my a*@e"

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Tuesday 5th May 2026 – MARGARET THATCHER ONCE …

… said something along the lines of "anyone can do a good day’s work when they really want to, but a true professional is someone who can do a good day’s work when he doesn’t want to.". It’s not an exact quote, I know, but it was something like it, and after what I have managed to do today, I can call myself a “true professional”.

Not that you would have thought so after yesterday evening. I was definitely feeling at the end of my tether when I was writing up my notes and after having completed everything that needed doing, there was no-one happier than me to be in bed, even if it was approaching 22:00.

As usual, it took a while to drop off, but once I’d gone, I remember nothing whatever until I awoke. I’ve no idea what time it was, but it was still dark and the electric water heater was still on. Surprisingly, I was lying on my back which, although it’s my favourite position, it’s the one where I cough the most – and I wasn’t coughing. Consequently, I lay there like that for what remained of the night until the alarm went off. It wasn’t long.

Once I’d moved to sit on the edge of the bed, that’s when the coughing began in earnest, and it’s kept on going like that throughout the day, even to now.

It took an age for me to find the energy to rise up from the bed and to stagger into the bathroom. And even then, I couldn’t move from the bathroom chair for quite a while. Consequently, I was quite late arriving in the kitchen.

And then I had a bright idea. Back in the bad old days in Leuven when, at times, I could hardly move, I was living on these high energy caffeine drinks. There are still a few knocking around here so I took one of those with my medication in an effort to kickstart my day.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, but to my dismay, the recorder was empty. Instead, I did a few other bits and pieces until the nurse arrived.

He was quite early today after his week off. He asked me how things went during the week, so I told him. And he was astonished about the dramatic steps that they took at dialysis yesterday. He was a former dialysis nurse himself in the past.

After he left, I made breakfast and read the last of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

His pages on the Celts and the Saxons were somewhat disappointing, and his Roman work, whilst very thorough and complete, relied too much on the forged “works of Richard of Cirencester”, and his own personal assumptions, being forcefully put, have quite often turned out after modern research and discovery, to be totally inaccurate.

Back in here, I had a few things to do and then I revised and prepared my Welsh for the lesson.

We’ve started the last chapter of the book, which is a taster for the final two years of the course, which is supposed to be the A-level part. And if those next two years are going to be anything like this chapter, then God help us all. It rolls along at a frantic pace.

Our teacher gave us some questions to do, and they had my brain breaking out into steam. Little did we all know that they were actually part of an ‘A’ level paper from 2024.

At the end of the lesson, I fell asleep. No surprise there. My cleaner awoke me when she came in to do her stuff, but I declined the offer of a shower. Instead, I went back to sleep.

Whilst I was having a little doze in the afternoon, there was something about someone sending morse code signals. But when I awoke, it was my cleaner cleaning something in the kitchen.

That could have been something exciting had the dream carried on, but instead, I went back to sleep and I missed her departure.

Some time later, after I’d awoken, I decided that I can’t let a day slip by like this, so I had a look at the next radio programme.

And by the time that I knocked off, I’d found all the music, reformatted, re-edited and remixed it, paired and segued it. I’d even written some of the notes for it too.

As I said earlier, I should be pleased with what I’ve done today.

So right now, I’m going to finish a few things off and then go to bed ready for a busy day tomorrow, if my coughing will let me. I now have the fierce antibiotics for the cough, so I’m going to take the first one just before I slide into bed. God knows what will happen during the night but if it sorts out this cough, then I’m prepared to give it a full go, whatever happens.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about falling asleep … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once fell asleep with a girlfriend at a friend’s house. All I could find were four coats so I gave her two and I had two.
Half an hour later, she awoke me. "Eric, I’m cold" so I gave her one of my coats.
Half an hour later, she awoke me again. "Eric, I’m still cold" so I gave her the other one.
Half an hour later, she awoke me yet again. "Eric, I’m still cold"
"Look," I said. "It’s only one night, and everyone else has gone to bed, so why don’t we pretend that we’re married"
"A good idea" she replied eagerly.
"Right" I said. "Go and find your own blasted coats."

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Monday 4th May 2026 – I’M REALLY GLAD …

… that I didn’t have to go to dialysis this morning. I would probably have never even made it to the front door.

As I told Isabelle the Nurse later, this morning was the worst that I had ever felt in my life.

It didn’t seem like that last night, though. It’s true that with baking my loaf and all of that last night, I was quite late starting to write my notes. And with everything else that I have to do too, it ended up being well after 22:00 that I finally finished everything and crawled under the quilt covers.

As usual, it took a good while to go to sleep, but I awoke at some point due to a desperate coughing fit, so desperate that it caused me to vomit no fewer than four times. After that, somehow I managed to go back to sleep.

But not for long. I awoke again, this time for a different reason, and when I checked the time, it was 03:54. So when I’d finished walking the parapet, I came back to bed but I couldn’t go back to sleep. There I lay until the alarm went off at 06:29.

At that point, it was a desperate struggle to rise to my feet and I almost didn’t make it. And in the bathroom, I crashed out on the chair in there at least twice while I was trying to sort myself out.

Not surprisingly, I was hours late going into the kitchen, but as it’s a Dialysis Day, I just had a mouthful of grapefruit juice to wash down my medication.

Back in here, I fell asleep in my chair I don’t know how many times, but even so, I managed to transcribe the dictaphone notes.

This was a dream about a girl whom I knew in school but unfortunately it vanished as soon as I reached for the dictaphone. That was a shame because it was one of these extremely interesting. One part that I do remember is that some kind of booklet had been published and that a friend of mine who was a critic had given very positive reviews. But it turned out that it was one of these “new wave” books, talking about lesbianism, that kind of thing. It was denounced in several countries because of its theme and she was put on some kind of list to prevent entry into many of these countries because of her critique

What a pity that I can’t recall the first part of this dream. It sounds as if it might have been interesting. I wonder who the girl was too.

As for the second part, this appears to relate to nothing at all.

When Isabelle the Nurse turned up, I told her of my woes, and she insisted that I talk to a doctor about them. She has agreed that this has gone beyond a joke.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright. However, I can’t remember anything that I read. I do, however, remember falling asleep four or five times while I was eating, despite how strong I’d made the coffee.

Back in here, I fell asleep for an hour in my chair and then gradually came round into the Land of the Living. I spent the next fifty minutes researching the next radio programme and then went to prepare my things for dialysis.

My faithful cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic and then I had to wait for the taxi. We had to go to Sartilly to pick someone else up, and so we were late arriving at dialysis. It goes without saying that I was one of the last to be plugged in too.

While I was being attended to, I mentioned that I would like to see the doctor on duty, so my nurse made a note. And once she’d left, instead of doing any work, I settled down and went to sleep – in so far as it was possible to do so in there.

There were all kinds of people buzzing around my head, but I didn’t take very much notice. It turns out that with everything that I had told them about the fatigue, they had turned the machine up to “maximum” and prolonged the stay from three and a half to four hours. Consequently, just over 3500 ml of fluid was being extracted and my dry weight was set well below my “sporty” weight.

The doctor on duty who came to see me was Emilie the Cute Consultant. She told me that the fibroscopy had discovered two aggressive microbes in my lungs, and so she would prescribe a course of aggressive antibiotics to deal with it. I hope that their aggressiveness matches the microbes – or at least gives me some relief.

While I was at it, I was also having a little chat with an old schoolfriend who now lives in Crewe. He was doing his best to console me, which was very nice.

It was one of my favourite taxi drivers who came to pick me up, and because we had to fuel up with diesel at the depot, we were later than ever arriving home. My faithful cleaner helped me into the apartment and after she left, I came in here to write up my notes. No tea again.

So now that I’ve written up my notes, there are still a few things to do and then I’m off to bed, hoping for a better day tomorrow. After all, it could hardly have been worse today, could it?

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the contents of my lungs … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once asked me "do you know what ‘bacteria’ are?"
"They are the rear entrances to cafés, aren’t they?" I replied.

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Saturday 2nd May 2026 – SO HERE I AM …

… again, late as usual after another evening of football, and surprisingly, I’m not all that tired. Hardly surprising seeing that I seem to have spent most of the morning asleep.

Last night was a better night too. Although I started rather late in writing my notes, by the time that I’d finished and done whatever else I needed to do before going to bed, it was about 21:30 when I finally crawled into bed.

As usual, it took longer than it used to for me to fall asleep, and that’s all that I remember until I awoke some time later. The reason for that was that I had to go to walk the parapet yet again, so I checked the time for once as it looked as if day was dawning.

Sure enough, it was 05:46, which meant that for the first time since I don’t know when, I’d managed eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Back in here, I suppose that I could have dictated a few radio notes, but as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … how is it possible to dictate anything when I’m coughing like I am? One of these days, I’ll post the *.mp3 of some dictaphone notes so that you can hear for yourself just what’s happening.

Instead, I went back to bed and waited for the alarm to go off. And when it did, it took me a good while to leave the bed yet again.

In the bathroom, I sorted myself out and had a good scrub-up, and I also changed some clothes and had a handwashing session. Consequently, I was late in the kitchen but, nevertheless, I made my hot drink with which to take my medication.

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

For some reason, I’d moved apartment and was busy sorting out all of my things as to what goes where. The apartment that I’d bought was nothing like as nice as mine, but never mind. There was a kind of built-in chest in the living room, so I’d laughed and joked about it being a good place to hide the bodies and that had led to a local policewoman coming around. She wanted to inspect the box so I had to open it for her. It was rather a complicated affair with a long bar and two padlocks on it, but I opened it, and there was nothing in it, so she was satisfied and eventually left. Then I began to go to look at the bathroom because I hadn’t actually seen the bathroom beforehand. I turned on the light, and I was rather disappointed because it was one of these 1960s or early 1970s bathrooms with light blue tiles, very cheap fittings, etc. There was a shower there that was rather small. One thing about the shower was that there was a heavy padlock on it and I hadn’t been left the keys for this so I thought that I’d either have to contact the previous owner or else remove the whole bar and staple. I couldn’t understand why there was a padlock on the shower, particularly on the outside, because that was where it was pretty much useless from anyone who was taking a shower at that time.

What a strange dream this was. The bathroom reminds me of the one in Reyers, although there was a bath there rather than a shower. There is also no reason for me to want to move apartment, although when I was looking for a place to live in Brussels in 1999/2000, I saw more than enough. However, I wasn’t usually quick enough, and that’s how I ended up with Expo.

The padlock on the shower is interesting, though. What would a padlock on the outside of a shower be doing there?

Isabelle the Nurse turned up rather later than usual, having started her round at 06:00 with a series of blood samples to take. I’ve seen her working at 19:00 in the evening too so no wonder she only works one week on and one week off.

We had a little chat about nothing much and then she left. I could crack on with making breakfast and reading some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

Today, we’re discussing Anglo-Saxon interments and the grave goods that were found in their graves. And like most historians and archaeologists of his generation, he’s mistaking British pre-Roman burial barrows as being Anglo-Saxon, and consequently confusing the origins of the artefacts found therein.

After breakfast, I fell asleep at the table for fifteen minutes and then, back in here, I fell asleep on my chair for almost the rest of Saturday morning.

Once I awoke and came back round into the Land of the Living, I began to work on the radio programme. I managed to pair and segue the tracks, and then I began to write the notes.

There was an interruption in the middle where I went to make my taco roll with this pepper pâté and salad, with some of Liz’s salad dressing, and it was completely delicious. Then I had some croissants to make ready for the next few Sundays, seeing as I ran out last Sunday. They are now all prepared, ready for baking tomorrow morning.

Back in here, I plodded on with the radio notes wearily and bravely, with no ambition at all, but nevertheless, they were finished by the time the football began. That was a triumph of mind over matter to complete that, but at least it means that I can have a day off tomorrow, apart from Welsh homework and bread-baking.

The football was the deciding match to see who would earn the fourth European place for this summer. Penybont, who have slipped down the table since the last time they played as if they were enjoying it, beating Caernarfon in the autumn in a monsoon, and Hwlffordd, who, after a dismal start to the season, have played so much better ever since.

But Hwlffordd couldn’t seem to string two passes together today, and their wafer-thin squad meant that they had to play with a back three of two midgets and an attacking midfielder, and they paid the penalty. Penybont had seemed to find all of their old enthusiasm and were much better with their use of the ball. In the end, they ran out as deserved 2-0 winners.

So now, I’m off to bed, looking forward to a long sleep and a nice lie-in, if I have the chance.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about coughing … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once went to the doctor’s with a cough like mine.
The doctor examined him and said "I’m sorry, but you don’t have very long to live"
"How long, doctor?" he asked.
"Ten" replied the doctor.
"Ten what?"
"Nine."

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Wednesday 29th April 2026 – SO RIGHT NOW …

… even though it’s not quite 19:30, I’m starting to write my notes ready … "he hopes" – ed … for an early night.

After last night’s slightly better … "and only slightly, too" – ed … night, I’m determined to try to push on and try to capitalise on any sign of slight improvement.

Last night, there didn’t seem to be much sign of improvement. It ended up being later than I imagined and had in fact gone past 21:30 when I finally snuggled down into my nice, clean bed and although it took, once more, longer than usual to drop off, I was well out of it.

At one point I did actually wake up, thanks to another coughing fit. Whatever time it was, I have no idea because I didn’t bother to look. I went to walk the parapet, coughing continually as I went, and back in bed afterwards, the coughing fit continued and increased in intensity so that, once more, I was violently sick.

Eventually, though, I fell into that one position where I don’t seem to cough and went off quite quickly to sleep. And I remember nothing more until the alarm went off at 06:29. That was what I meant about the “improvement”.

In the bedroom, I sorted myself out and then went into the kitchen, where I made my hot drink to wash down the medication. Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

I was at a party somewhere. It was one of these things where there had been a festival and campsite, and everyone was in a barn having something of a good time. However, I decided to go for a walk and found myself in the nearest town. I went into the bar there to have a coffee but although the bar was busy, it seemed that the guy who was behind the bar was just sitting there doing nothing. I had to shout at him three times, but he still didn’t give me a coffee. In the end, one of the waiters who had been serving in the room came behind the bar and he served me with a coffee. He told me the price, but I only had a €50:00 note so that became rather complicated. But I was chatting to someone at the bar there, and rather later, we went for another walk around the town. By now, it was somewhere in Russia, I reckoned. As we walked, looking through everywhere, we came across a garage. The garage had several cars in there, including a green MkIII Cortina, P-registered, and they were all right-hand drive. I asked the guy with me why the garage had all of these British cars and not any European ones, say, from Germany that were left-hand drive but he didn’t really know the answer. In the end, I walked back to the barn. It was not far short of midnight. Everyone was still having a good time so I just walked in, chatted to a few people and just reintegrated myself back into the party.

This was an enormous barn, with loads of people in it, but it would be just like me to opt out of a party and go for a walk around the nearby town. Meeting strangers in bars is, however, most unlike me. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s not like me to be sociable.

Finding Ford Cortinas in Moscow would be unlikely, although Nerina and I almost managed to take a Mk IV Cortina estate into the USSR, but that’s yet another story that the World is not yet ready to hear.

However, there is an actual story about something like that. Did you ever wonder why you never saw many second-hand Ladas on sale at the Lada garages in the UK back in the early nineties? When Percy Penguin and I were skiing in Bulgaria in the early nineties, we saw several right-hand drive Ladas with Bulgarian plates. It turned out that Lada could obtain a better price for a second-hand Lada back in Eastern Europe so those that their garages were buying back were simply shipped out there.

Later on, I was moving a load of things down to Virlet and began to stack them in the barn. There weren’t all that many things, mostly large objects, so I just packed them in any old how and just left them there. Later, I had to take some more things down, and when I arrived in Virlet, I remembered how I had stacked it the last time and there was no real room for these things now so I had to think about totally rearranging everything that was in the barn so that I could find room to fit these in. However, I thought that this was going to take me a very, very long time, particularly with the things that I had thrown in and were blocking the steps up and over, this kind of thing.

We seem to be spending a lot of time in Virlet just recently. And describing the state of the barn as “utter chaos” is not too far wide of the mark. Not that the house is much better.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual this morning and although she chatted a lot, she didn’t really say anything. After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

Today, we’re discussing the Roman system of governance, and it seems that reality might be beginning to hit home with our author.

We mentioned a few days ago about his putting all his trust in the “works of Richard of Cirencester”, unmasked as a fake at least one hundred and sixty years ago. Today, in this chapter, we are starting to see hiù quoting more and more from the “Notitia Imperii” of the late fifth century instead of the aforementioned.

And tucked away in a little paragraph a few pages in, we find him making a mention of the “single and dubious authority of Richard of Cirencester”. So, after all of the research that he’s carried on to arrive so far into the book, he’s now becoming less and less convinced of the authority of Richard’s book.

Something else that is quite interesting too is that he’s uncovered a few memorial tables where some of the names, usually of disgraced Roman emperors, have been chiselled away. He asks "How often have we, in modern times, seen a name cast out with loathing, which yesterday received the incense of a world’s flattery?". So nothing seems to have changed, even in our modern World where statues are being continually toppled.

Back in here, I had a few things to do, and then I had a little “relax” before starting work, but I didn’t start for long as Liz messaged me for a chat. We ended up having a Rosemaryesque chat that went on for ever. Not, of course, that I’m complaining because it’s really nice to talk to friends.

After that, my Welsh group and I had a delightful chat for half an hour as one of our members produced the photos of her new baby, born a few days ago. We all gushed and cooed as you might expect, but we have to show our respects to the new arrival.

Not to be outdone, Rosemary called me too, and we just had a very brief chat today, only one hour and forty-eight minutes. There are a lot of issues going on right now round by where she lives.

At some point during the afternoon, I tried a new departure. When I went for my disgusting drink break and early afternoon break, I made myself a taco roll with cheese and salad. I hadn’t forgotten about the cheese sandwich issue from yesterday evening, so I thought that I’d give things a little try, to see if I could keep at least some food down. We’ll see how it goes.

After all of that, I finally managed to start the radio programme, and I’ve chosen all of the music, tracked down what I needed … "and that wasn’t as easy as it might have been, either" – ed … reformatted, re-edited and remixed it. I’ll have to see how far I can go with everything else tomorrow morning before dialysis.

But right now, I’m off to bed in the hope of having another improved sleep tonight.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the USSR … "well, one of us has" – ed … while I was walking around Moscow with this guy from the bar, I asked him "why is it that Soviet policemen always go round in threes?"
"That’s easy" he replied. "The first one can read, the second one can write, and the third one is there to keep an eye on the bourgeois intellectuals."

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Friday 28th April 2026 – RIGHT NOW, IT’S …

… just about 20:08 and I’ve just awoken after crashing out on my chair for a little over half an hour. Not that it’s a surprise, because I’ve worked really hard today, even if I didn’t feel in the least like it. And that’s no surprise either, after the night that I had last night.

Yesterday, I started to write my notes quite quickly and managed to keep on going relentlessly for quite a while. It was a few minutes after 21:00 when I had finished what needed to be finished, and I reckon that by 21:15, I was under the covers in the comparative comfort and warmth of my bed.

It took, as usual, a few minutes to doze off, but unfortunately not for long. I had a dream at about 23:00, according to the timestamp of the recording, and I awoke not long afterwards with another dramatic fit of coughing.

And there I lay yet again, watching the room go round and round until I felt the need to leave the bed to go to walk the parapet. At that point, I checked the time. It was 06:04 – 25 minutes before the alarm.

Back in here, I sat on the edge of the bed until the alarm sounded, and then it took me about ten minutes to summon up the courage to go to the bathroom for a good wash, etc.

In the kitchen, I made my hot lemon, ginger and honey drink to wash down my medication and then came back in here to find out where I’d been during the night.

During the night, I ordered an album online and it finally turned up. At first, it didn’t sound right at all, but then when I took a close look at it, I found that the tracks that I was hoping to hear were originally written by another group and recorded by them. These were the ones that were on this album instead of hearing the ones that I knew, which were on a different one. Consequently, I stayed to listen to them before I made up my mind whether I would accept this album because of its strangeness and its rarity value

What album would this be? I can think of many albums with songs by artists or groups that have been recorded by others and gone on to become much more famous. Eric Clapton reinterpreted probably half a dozen songs by JJ Cale, such as “Cocaine” and “After Midnight”, and Colosseum’s live version of ROPE LADDER TO THE MOON is much better than any way Jack Bruce used to play it.

There was a lot going on with Hawkwind too, but it was after I’d awoken so I can’t make up my mind whether it was a dream or a daydream. It involved three Hawkwind songs, biographies of two Hawkwind members who had very unhappy lives, and a girl aged about ten or eleven sitting in an office colouring a book, obviously on a school break with nowhere to go except to daddy’s work. But when discussing the third song, I awoke bolt-upright (something that I haven’t done for several weeks) so I must have been asleep at that point.

There’s always a place for Hawkwind on my playlist, whether awake or asleep, but I wonder what the rest of the dream has to do with it.

Isabelle the Nurse blew in as usual, full of joie de vivre after her week’s break. She asked me about how things went, so I told her about Friday and how much I hated it. And in her joyful manner, but with a glint in her eys that was far from joyful, she gave me a lecture about how important it is to follow medical recommendations. Much as I like her, I wouldn’t like to be one of her children.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

Today, we’ve been discussing the household and the finds that have occurred at various places all over the country. It all points to an easy, comfortable life but I bet that in all honesty, the lower classes had nothing like any of these artefacts and their life was a constant struggle.

Back in here, I had a few things to do and then I had to revise for my Welsh. The lesson passed really well, which is nice. I need to keep on with all of this revision because it is making things better. And as an aside, my homework was described as “a masterpiece”. Seriously.

At the half-time break, I put the washing machine on with a pile of clothes for washing, seeing as I’m beginning to run out here. I didn’t bring many clothes with me from the farm.

After the lesson, I sorted out the bathroom and then my cleaner came along to shoo me under the shower. I didn’t feel in the least like it, but I persevered, and it really was a weary me who steered himself back in here afterwards.

While I’d been in the shower, my cleaner had changed the bedding, so this nice, clean me … "well, clean anyway" – ed … will have a nice clean bed in which to sleep tonight.

Once I’d summoned up the energy, which was not easy, I had the radio programme notes to write. And by the time that I knocked off, they had all been written, all ten of them. No wonder I crashed out afterwards – that was no mean feat, especially when I’m feeling as shattered as I am.

So right now, I’m off to bed and to sleep, if my coughing fits will let me. No food yet again, although I’m starting to see visions of cheese sandwiches. That means that there’s an appetite still lurking around somewhere.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Hawkwind … "well, one of us has" – ed … Nerina once took me to a Hawkwind concert at Keele University for my birthday.
When the group came onto the stage, she dashed to the front, like most kids do (she was several years younger than me).
After a while, she came to find me at the back of the room. "Why don’t you come down to the front? The view’s so much better there" she said.
"That’s as maybe" I replied "but the smell is so much better at the back, hey, man."

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Saturday 25th April 2026 – I AM BEGINNING …

… to feel a little better today, especially this afternoon when I began to feel something more like human.

Mind you, anything is bound to be an improvement after the events of Friday. Let’s just say that a fibreoscopy is one of those things added to my list of “never a second time” – such as a ponction thoracique and a biopsie musculaire. In fact, when I look at the tortures through which I have been put since I fell ill in 2015, I’m amazed that I’m still here, fighting on.

Yesterday put the tin hat on it all. I’d slept almost all the afternoon and being totally unable to function when I awoke at 18:00, I simply did the barest minimum of what needed doing, wrote yet another terse note as my blog entry and then crawled under the covers.

And I slept too. Out like a light for I don’t know how many hours, but when I did awake, the electric water heater was on, so it was certainly after midnight. At some point, I had to leave the bed, and when I checked, it was 04:45. When I’d done what I needed to do, I went back to bed and, to my relief, back to sleep.

The alarm sounded as usual at 06:29 and it took me an age to leave the bed. It really did, and I was so late going for my medication that there was just enough time for a mouthful of orange juice to wash it all down. Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

There was something about being in a rock group last night, and all of our equipment was on a cart being pulled by a donkey. However, the donkey escaped and we all had to go to look for it. Eventually, someone found it and brought it back. Nevertheless, it tried to escape again, and we then worked out that, for some reason, this donkey hated to be called a donkey – it preferred being called by some other names, so we had to think of a few names and try them out on the donkey. Once we found one, with which the donkey agreed, we could then proceed. However, we had then to be very careful not to call the animal a donkey.

It beats me where this idea of transporting our equipment on a donkey-drawn cart fits in, but regular readers of this rubbish will recall that Greece has figured quite a lot in some of our dreams just recently. This is the only connection that I can see.

However, I’m not sure whether I’ve talked about this “self-identify crisis” recently … "yes you have" – ed … with people being allowed to identify as “trans”, “cis” (whatever that is), “asexual”, “furry” and all of a thousand other things. I couldn’t care less if a man wants to wear a dress and wear make-up or whether a woman wants to walk out in a catsuit. We are supposed to “take their feelings into consideration”, which is all very well and no-one is going to argue with that, but who takes into consideration the feelings of women who want a safe space free from masculine intrusion?

It reminds me of one of my passengers on the taxis, a guy called Booth, who totally cleared the ladies’ public toilets of the Royal Hotel in Crewe when some action that he took whilst in there revealed him to be a man. He was subsequently fined quite heavily for a “public order offence”.

And, of course, now we have our donkey wishing to self-identify as something else.

The nurse came as usual, but he didn’t seem to be very interested in the events of yesterday. We had a little chat as he sorted out my feet, and then he left.

Once he’d gone out of the door, I made breakfast, but I couldn’t get my head around THE CELT, THE ROMAN AND THE SAXON by Thomas Wright, so I left it for a better day when I’d be feeling much more like it.

After I’d had a little doze at the breakfast table, I came back in here to attend to a few things and then to write up my notes from yesterday. They are all now online, and I could concentrate on the next part of the day, which was the football.

It was the first match of the “also rans” in their attempt to qualify for the one remaining European place, so we had Colwyn Bay at home to Penybont. Colwyn Bay haven’t won for the last three games, whereas Penybont haven’t won since – I think – November, except for a squalid and depressing 1-0 win against bottom club Llanelli.

The game was as poor as it could have been, with a couple of rather inept attacks huffing and puffing but failing to blow the house down of some rather average defences. The number of good chances in this game could be counted on the fingers of one hand. It inevitably went to a penalty shoot-out, where, surprisingly, Penybont won 4-2.

Let’s hope that the other match on Sunday late afternoon between Y Barri and Hwlffordd is much better than this one was.

Once the game was over, I worked upon the radio programme for a while, finishing off the selection of the music, reformatting, remixing and re-editing all of the songs, and then pairing and segueing them. I’ll write the notes some other time.

Another thing that I did was my Welsh homework, but by 18:30, I’d run out of steam yet again so I abandoned everything and climbed into bed, and that was that. Who said anything about “beginning to feel a little better”?

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about self-identifying … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once came downstairs to announce to his parents that he wished to self-identify as a cat.
A few hours later, he came downstairs at teatime but couldn’t see his meal on the table.
"Where’s my tea?" he asked
"Over there, on the floor by the sink in the silver bowl," said his father. "And by the way, wear something warm under your catsuit because, at 23:00 when we go to bed, we’ll be putting you outside with all of the other cats."

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