… going to be finished today. And if that is the case, they aren’t likely to be completed until tomorrow afternoon.
The reason for that is that it’s my Welsh class tomorrow, and with there being a week off since the last class, due to half-term, On the way to Avranches this afternoon, Bane of Britain suddenly realised that he hadn’t done his Welsh homework. Consequently, after tea tonight, I’ve had to crack on and do it before I forget again, so now it’s extremely late, and I was exhausted before I started.
Not only that, but last night, it was after 00:30 when I finally went to bed, and I won’t be able to do yet another night like that.
Once I finally made it into bed, I was asleep fairly quickly, and although I vaguely remember waking up once or twice, it can’t have been for very long at all.
Later on, though, I heard my alarm sound. But it sounded miles away, and so I wondered if it was another phantom alarm. But I was wide awake, and it was still sounding, somewhere away in the distance, and because of my rather unique alarm sound, it can’t have been anyone else.
The ‘phone is always placed on the bedside table behind the head of the bed, so I reached for it to see exactly what was going on – but it wasn’t there! I suddenly realised that I’d left it in the pocket of my trousers last night and they were in the bathroom, so I had to leap out of bed and go as quickly as I could to turn off the alarm before it awoke everyone in the building. And that was the quickest that I’ve been out of bed for a long, long time.
When the alarm was finally switched off, I went to unlock the door ready for the nurse when he arrives, and then I went to sort myself out in the bathroom in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon at dialysis.
Back in here, I switched on the computer and began work. I’d actually been in a dream when the alarm went off, and although I hadn’t dictated it, I could remember quite a lot of it.
However, it was all starting to become too complicated for me to work out in a dream, so I was glad in some respects that the alarm went off to wake me up. Nevertheless, it would be a novel way of controlling house price inflation, and people spending money on new kitchens, windows or replacing a roof to keep the profits down could only benefit the economy.
There was time too to listen to the radio programme that will be broadcast this weekend, to make sure that the programme was OK. And afterwards, when I was satisfied, I sent it off to the radio station for them to add into the list of programmes to be broadcast.
The nurse turned up as usual, but a little later today, and while he was sorting out my legs and feet, we were having a good chat, but right now, I can’t remember what it was about. It can’t have been that good.
After he left, I made my breakfast, and then while I was eating, I was reading some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1867.
Everyone is in a self-congratulatory mood today because their annual report from last year has been accepted into the library of the Natural History Museum and a few other similar places too. It’s quite true that these reports really are exceptional, but I think that they are overdoing it a little.
When breakfast was over, I went back into my little office and began to sort out things for the next radio programme on which I’d be working. However, I’d noticed earlier that the radio programmes that I’ve been sending off just recently are beginning to catch up rather quickly with the programmes that are prepared and ready to go, and if I’m not careful, I shall run out of prepared programmes before long.
Consequently, I’m going to make a start on dictating some more radio notes. I stopped dictating the notes when the cough that I had reached epidemic proportions and there was more coughing on the tape than there were notes. But now, since I’ve started this immunotherapy, the cough seems to have subsided for the moment, so I really ought to be cracking on and getting myself up to date.
A little later, there was a knock on the door. The president of the residents’ committee has sold her apartment and is moving away. She’s holding a little party for everyone, but because I would be unable to go because of all the stairs, she came to see me to say goodbye.
We had a good chat about her future plans, and she brought me a little memento – an oven glove and an oven pad with interesting cartoon drawings of Normandy. That was really nice of her.
When the alarm sounded to tell me that it was time to prepare for dialysis, that gave her quite a fright, and in the best traditions of a “News of the Screws” reported, she “made her excuses and left”, and I could crack on with organising myself, which included a disgusting drink and my midday medication.
My faithful cleaner put in an appearance to apply the anaesthetic to my arm too. We had a little chat, and then after she cleared off, I slumped down over the table in my usual “resting” position.
When the doorbell rang, I thought that it was only thirty seconds since I’d collapsed over the table, but it was in fact something over half an hour. I found it hard to believe, but there it was. I must have been really comfortable.
There were two passengers in the taxi, going to the private hospital in Avranches, and one of them very kindly ceded the front seat to me, and then we set off, only for me to remember that the Welsh class starts back tomorrow and I haven’t done the Welsh homework yet. I shall have to rearrange my plans for this evening.
This driver was another one who knew where the accelerator was, so the drive down to Avranches was completed in quite a fast time and I was quite early arriving. However, it was to no avail because I wasn’t plugged in and running until 14:25.
Once everything had settled down, I began to watch the football from the weekend.
The first match was the rest of Y Flint v Trefynnon. Trefynnon are hopelessly adrift at the foot of the table, and so were Y Fflint. However, since Y Fflint have had a change of manager, they have churned out some impressive results and have caught up with the pack ahead of them. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … Y Fflint are much too good a side to be languishing at the foot of the table, and so it is proving to be.
Although Trefynnon never threw in the towel and were still battling away at the end, the match finished 5-0 to Y Fflint. Trefynnon may only have been admitted into the league to provide cannon fodder and to produce an obvious relegation candidate to spare the more established clubs from relegation, but nevertheless, it was an excellent performance by Y Fflint.
The next game was the rest of TNS v Connah’s Quay Nomads, first versus second, played in front of a miserably small crowd as usual. For all of their performances and results and successes, neither club has managed to ignite the fervour of the local inhabitants in the same way that Caernarfon and Colwyn Bay have.
Before I’d fallen asleep, I’d watched up until the seventy-eighth minute, so I picked up from there and carried on.
The game was, as you might expect, more like a game of chess with neither side displaying any will or intention to grab the game by the throat. It was basically an exercise in protecting your own goal, and in this, Connah’s Quay, and in particular Dan Cowan, were excellent. The score finished 0 – 0, and anyone who succeeds in taking points off TNS will receive my fullest support.
The final game was the second division clash between Y Drenewydd and Bwcle that I’d begun to see on Saturday night before I fell asleep on my chair. I’d planned the timing to perfection, with this game finishing just a minute or two before my dialysis session finished. However, “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men”, etc., etc.
As there wasn’t quite as much liquid to be drained today, I’d persuaded the nurse to set the machine to three hundred grammes over the limit, to give me a little more room to manoeuvre until Thursday. But when Emilie the Cute Consultant came by (and I had forgotten to shave this morning), she wasn’t very happy. However, the nurse said “Mr Hall insisted …” and, surprisingly, Emilie the Cute Consultant backed down immediately. I found that extremely interesting.
We had a long chat about why it was wrong to go over your limit, although she wasn’t going to change the setting (something else that I found interesting), and then we had a general chat about my health, but unfortunately it didn’t tell me anything that I didn’t know already.
She finished by asking me if there was anything else, so I told her of the situation of the rapid gain of weight, even though my trips to ride the porcelain horse are “productive”. I asked about the rise in blood pressure the other day, and the bleeding that restarted when I was at home. Unfortunately, she just gave me the generic answers, without going into my individual case, which I found disappointing.
After she left, it was time to unplug me, so I never managed to see the end of the game that I’d been watching. You’ll have to wait until Thursday now for a match report.
After I’d been unplugged, I had to wait a few minutes for my taxi home, and when it arrived, I was quite impressed. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in the summer, my taxi company bought a taxi company in La Haye-Pesnel. This company didn’t have the cheap Skodas that my company does – they have B-series Mercedes, and one of them came to pick me up.
Even though it had 276,000 kilometres on the clock, it was wonderful and comfortable, much better than a Skoda, and I enjoyed the ride home very much.
My faithful cleaner was waiting for me as usual, and she helped me back into my apartment. Once I was sitting down, she stuck a disgusting drink into my sweaty mitt and cleared off.
After I had recovered, I went into the kitchen for the other half of the broccoli stalk soup from last week. That went into a saucepan on one of the hobs and I put several handfuls of coquillettes, these small elbow-like pasta, to give it a little more body. While it was cooking, I put the two leftover homemade bread buns from last week into the microwave to defrost.
When the soup was cooked, I took it off the hob and added a pot of plain soya yoghurt and ate the soup with my bread. What a nice meal it made too, especially as pudding was mixed fruit and homemade chocolate and coconut ice cream.
After I’d finished eating, I washed up the dishes and tidied the kitchen and prepared myself to attack the Welsh homework. For some reason or other, the Welsh homework took much longer to do, and it wasn’t finished until 22:00. That didn’t leave much time for the notes of the day, and I was already tired out after dialysis before I’d even started.
As I suspected, I was nowhere near the end of my notes when I began to crash out, so I posted on line as far as I’d gone, and then I went to bed. I can finish off in the morning.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about moving house … "well, one of us has" – ed … my friend Rosemary was a volunteer with the Essex Social Services, and she was chosen to supervise the upbringing of a young Vietnamese girl who had lost her parents when they were fleeing Vietnam on their way to Europe.
"Why was it necessary?" I asked.
"well," replied Rosemary, "after leaving Vietnam for the west, the girl became disorientated."
