Tag Archives: dinosaur exhibition

Saturday 29th August 2026 – THIS WAS A

…rather uneventful day today, except that I had some good fortune at dialysis without even having to ask for it.

Well, I thought that it was good fortune, which it was at the time, but I changed my mind somewhat a little later.

Anyway, retournons à nos moutons, as they say around here. Last night, it was about 00:30 when I finally settled down under the bedclothes, and I know that I must have been asleep quite quickly because when I was dictating something in my sleep, I could tell that I was still sucking on the bedtime menthol and eucalyptus sweet.

And by the looks of things, we were back to how things were a week or two ago — waking up at some uncomfortably early hour and not being able to go back to sleep again. For the last week or so, I’ve been having a much better kind of sleep, but it’s not lasted all that long, has it?

When the alarm went off at 06:29, I dragged myself to the edge of the bed, but it still took a superhuman effort to haul myself upright, go to unlock the front door, and then head into the bathroom to sort myself out. Today, as well as a good scrub-up, there was a shave too, just in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant, but I’ve not seen her for ages.

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

And while there was something on it, for sure, it’s something that the World is not yet ready to hear, and you in particular don’t want to hear it, especially if you’re eating your breakfast right now. Let’s just say that I was in the World War I trenches in Northern France and Belgium as a lieutenant with a Scottish company, and we were under heavy shelling. However, at some point, Zero put in an appearance.

So how long is it since one of my three favourite young ladies has put in an appearance? I thought that they had all dropped off the end of my dreaming sequence just as The Vanilla Queen did a few years ago, but at least we’ve managed to have Zero back.

The nurse turned up again and we continued our discussion about football from yesterday. I told him about the Trefelin – Rhydaman match last night, but he didn’t seem interested. Anyway, THE HIGHLIGHTS ARE NOW ON LINE although they show nothing like all of the tension ane emotion that there was in this game.

After he left, I could make my breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Well, not so much of it, because he started to talk about Peterborough Cathedral so I went off to do some research. I knew that the abbey had been founded on a false and fraudulent charter that was only ever noted in the “Peterborough” version of the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE and none of the others, so I was interested in what else I could find.

And, of course, as Nansen once famously said, "the more extensive my studies became, the more riddles I perceived – riddle after riddle led to new riddles and this drew me on" and I ended up at Edith Cavell. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I used to live just around the corner from where she was executed, and a few years ago, I POSTED SOME PHOTOS ON LINE of the place.

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

Back in my office here in the bedroom, I had a few things to do, and then I began to work a little on the radio programme that I’ll be preparing next week. Not that I managed to go very far because midday came around quicker than I was expecting and I went off to prepare myself for dialysis. But not before having identified several pieces of music that I need to track down.

My cleaner came along as usual to apply the anaesthetic to my arm, and after she left, I waited for my taxi to take me to Avranches. But the waiting was not without incident.

Last night in the match between Trefelin and Rhydaman, Trefelin, with a one-man advantage, pushed big burly veteran centre-half Louis Gerrard up front to make a nuisance of himself in the Rhydaman defence, and it was indeed he who scored Trefelin’s goal. So while I was curled up leaning on the table and dozing off, I dreamt that he was up there again, and at a corner, he rose up above everyone to head home. And just as his header hit the back of the net, instead of the referee’s whistle for a goal, the taxi driver rang the front door bell to say that he was here.

It was in fact a carbon copy of the goal by Euros Griffiths for Rhydaman, which was interesting, but it was definitely Louis Gerrard in his black and red Rhydaman strip who scored it.

Mrs Dinosaur and her exhibition have now departed so I was the only one in the car today. So even though we set off from here ten minutes later than we usually did, we still arrived at dialysis relatively early, and I was up and running by 14:00, having had two nurses around me to plug me in, which was nice.

They set the machine to the correct amount to eliminate the excess fluid, but after a while, they noticed that the extraction limit was stable and not going down (which, I suspect, was due to the coffee and orange juice that I’d just had for my snack, but I was saying nothing), so my nurse simply wound up the extraction by another 300 grams without me actually having to ask for it, and that seemed to work fine, although I was hit by cramps near the end. Not that I’m bothered – 300 grams extra is 300 grams less to extract on Monday.

Once everyone had gone and I’d settled down, I began to watch another football match. Today it was newly promoted Llandudno v Hwlffordd. Llandudno are doing really well this season up in the Premier League, although they have only played one team of any real quality, but Hwlffordd, usually one of the stronger teams in the division, have had a wretched start and have no points and no goals to their name as yet.

The game went as the league table suggested it would, with Llandudno winning 2-0. However, we had the usual VAR excitement, players sent off and brought back on, players sent off and staying off, and some exciting, fluid and skilful play on the wings degenerating into a midfield slog. Still, it was worth watching. And as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … some of the newly promoted teams are simply in the league for cannon fodder, but that’s not the case with Llandudno.

The doctor was there too today – the new one who prescribed the useless antibiotics ten days ago. She went to chat to a couple of patients but she walked past me, apparently not interested in a follow-up of her diagnosis and treatment. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I often have the impression that, for the terminally ill patients like me, they do the minimum to keep us alive and don’t bother with the rest of any treatment.

You can tell that from the chemotherapy. The chemotherapy last year failed and the professor who is supposed to be dealing with my case hasn’t bothered to contact me since. I’ve had one appointment with the neurologist there after the chemotherapy, back at the start of the year, and there’s been no further contact from him either since then.

By now, it was time to set me free, and I only had to wait for ten minutes before my nurse came to unplug me. And riddled by cramp, I weighed myself to find out that it had all gone according to plan and Monday might be a little easier.

The taxi was waiting for me and I was once more the only passenger, so dodging the occasional showers, I was home fairly quickly.

My cleaner helped me into the apartment and stuck a disgusting drink in my hand once I was sitting at the table. I was still hungry afterwards, so I decided to make myself a meal – a burger on a bap with baked potato and salad. But the salad was off so I had vegetables instead.

The problem was, though, that hungry I might have been, but I was also exhausted. So although I managed the burger, I’d fallen asleep at the table long before I’d finished the baked potato.

In the end, what was left of the baked potato ended up in the bin and I ended up in bed. I’ll write my notes tomorrow

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about cathedrals … "well, one of us has" – ed … a new priest was appointed as curate to Brussels cathedral, and so he went for a walk around the city to see what his diocese had to offer.
As he was walking past a dark alley near the Gare du Nord, a figure slid out of a dark alley and whispered "twenty-five Euros for a quickie, father"
This happened several times as he walked around the Gare du Nord, so back at the cathedral, he asked the bishop "what’s a quickie, Monseigneur?"
"Twenty-five Euros from the girls at the Gare du Nord, my son."

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Thursday 27th August 2026 – WHAT AN AFTERNOON …

… we’ve had today. We’ve been about three months without any rain to speak of, and this early evening, we had the whole outstanding lot presented to us in about half an hour. I’ve never seen rain quite like it, that’s for sure.

No hint of anything like this last night. By 23:00, I was in bed, and good and ready for it too, I was. I was asleep quite quickly too, and although I remember maybe just a couple of times that I might have been awake, it wasn’t for long at all.

When the alarm went off at 06:29, I was definitely asleep, and it took me the usual ten minutes or more to drag myself to my feet and head off to the bathroom to sort myself out. I had a good wash and even a good shave in case Emilie the Cute Consultant will be there this afternoon.

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

There had been some kind of national emergency, and we’d turned a few houses into fortified spots, and Gainsborough Road was one of them. So we had lots of people living in there, mostly civilians who came there for protection. Gradually, the place became more and more untidy. You couldn’t find anything, and there was furniture, dust and possessions all over the place. Eventually, the emergency was over and people began to drift away. That meant that we had to begin tidying up and looking for all the things that we had that had been moved. They were turning up in all kinds of strange places, like in the oven and in the fireplace. What I did was to eventually light a fire in the oven, and all the rubbish that we found, we put in there to burn. We were hunting for all kinds of strange things. I was hunting for my red and blue striped t-shirt that I couldn’t find anywhere, and one of the girls, whom I’d told not to be so military, was still pretending that she was in the army, marching up and down and either giving orders or accepting them with an extravagant “yes, sir!”. In the end, my mother told me where she’d seen my tee shirt, but I couldn’t find it there for the moment. However, I did find a vicar from one of these obscure sects giving lessons, that kind of thing, and he was actually announcing to everyone that he was homosexual, and for that reason, he was handing back his appointment to come with us in the bus to see something. In the end, he was one of the people who wanted to go to see the regional office about a different kind of ammunition, so he arranged a coach trip there. Two girls wanted to come on too out of interest … fell asleep here …

This sounds like an interesting dream. And especially the red and blue t-shirt. That was something that I had over fifty years ago and it ended its life when it fell into a drum of 25 litres of cooking oil.

And looking for things that have been moved is another bane to my life, although I can usually manage that all on my own without anyone there to help me, just like falling asleep is in the middle of a dream. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I am actually asleep while I’m dictating, but what happens in these moments is that everything on the dictaphone goes really quiet, and then there’s the sound of my sleeping.

We were somewhere up in the north-east of England and we had to come back to take a friend of ours to the airport. So I had my brother with me, and we set out and drove all the way down whatever the motorway is from Durham down to somewhere like Retford or Newark, where we came off and drove through the north Midlands to Crewe. I was convinced that there was a quicker way than the down which he took us, so I looked at the map when we stopped for fuel. We should have come off the motorway a lot farther north because there was a dead-straight line, the old A1, that went all the way down to Nottingham and saved us probably 30 miles. Anyway, we fuelled up and went to pick up our friend. For some reason, we were quite late leaving her house and driving to the airport, and I did my best to go as fast as I could. We eventually found the airport and we dropped her off, and we were just pulling away when she came out and said that her ‘plane had gone. She was talking about changing her ticket and going on some kind of expedition to various race courses. I went in and asked the receptionist if it would be possible to put her on another ‘plane. She said that there was a ‘plane leaving in half an hour, but the supplement was over three thousand pounds. I looked totally surprised, so the receptionist said “I don’t understand why you are so surprised”. Anyway, we had to abandon that idea of putting her on another flight.

This is everyone’s worst nightmare, isn’t it? Missing a ‘plane at the airport. And having my brother navigating wouldn’t be too far away from there either. Taking the wrong road whilst having a map in his hands would be no problem for him.

The nurse turned up as usual to sort me out. He was worried about me not relaxing. However, I don’t have the time for all that nonsense. I have far too much going on right now.

After he left, I could crack on and make breakfast and not read my book because I’m still following this rather strange trail that I’ve created for myself.

Having explored the delights of amphibious aeroplanes (and I’ve no idea how I managed to arrive here from Gothic Architecture) I came back in here where there was plenty of work waiting for me to do. However, I rather unfortunately fell asleep while I was doing it and didn’t wake up until about 11:15, meaning that I’d wasted most of the time that I’d had.

And it was another one of those sleeps where I didn’t remember falling asleep at all, not even feeling tired either. In fact, no-one was more surprised than me to find that I’d been asleep.

So having woken up, I spent some time finishing off what I was doing, and then I continued with the radio notes until the alarm went off to remind me that it was midday and I ought to be getting ready for dialysis.

In the kitchen, I sorted out my disgusting drink and the midday medication, and then my cleaner arrived to apply the anaesthetic to my arm and to pack away the laptop into its bag for me to take with me as usual. After she left and I was ready to go, I curled up, leaning forward onto the dining table, and began to relax.

Just as I was slipping away into a nice, deep sleep, the doorbell rang. The taxi was here to take me to dialysis, ten minutes early. We had to stop to pick up Mrs Dinosaur, whose camp, we noticed, is being slowly dismantled, and then we set off for Avranches. And the chaos that is said to begin in La Havaudière in mid-September when they start to improve the road has already started, with a couple of lorries unloading pipes and heaps of gravel, blocking the road as they do so.

Consequently, we weren’t as early as usual arriving at dialysis, and stuck in one of the eight individual rooms on the far side, I had to wait until 14:10 before I was up and running, having had no fewer than three nurses hovering around me. Bizarrely, the second puncture hurt less than the first one. It’s usually the other way round.

Accompanied by the automatic blood pressure tests every half an hour and the consequent wailing of the alarm as the machine announced to the World that my blood pressure was under the acceptable limits and the subsequent dashing of the nurses to my side to find out what was the problem, I settled down to watch Trefelin v Caernarfon from last weekend.

Trefelin are bottom of the table right now with no points and no goals scored, but the way they played, that can only be a temporary situation. They had several chances of their own, and on one occasion, hit the woodwork with the entire Cofi defence beaten.

However, the Cofis were far too good for them, technically and aggressively, and towards the end of the game, the Cofis had gone to a back three, with Chris Marriott coming on to join Jordan Piggott and Ben Nash, and full-backs Ryan Sears and Matty Jones playing up front on the wings.

Nevertheless, a 2-0 victory for Caernarfon was hardly a statement victory for them.

After that game, it was my intention to watch some of the Fflint v LLansawel game but a whole variety of interruptions prevented that. One interruption that I didn’t have, though, is a doctor. The latest course of antibiotics finishes today, so I was expecting (and quite rightly, too) the doctor who prescribed them to come along to see me and find out how things were. However, no such luck. I’ve only seen a doctor twice in the last three or four weeks.

When I was finished, I was unplugged quite quickly, and, even better, the taxi was already waiting and I was the only passenger. But Marcey-les-Grèves was totally paralysed again with traffic, so we turned round and took the long way home.

All through the morning and the early afternoon, the weather had been quite nice, but when we left the dialysis centre, it was raining slightly. It had stopped by the time we reached Marcey-les-Grèves, but on the way to Sartilly the heavens opened and I have never ever seen rain like this. It looked as if all the rain that we hadn’t had since May, we were having all at once.

By the time we were almost at Sartilly, it was raining so heavily that you couldn’t see a thing. Everyone was driving at walking pace, the roads were flooded, and the fields looked like Ieper in November 1917.

The rain eased off, started again, eased off, and by the time we reached Granville, there was blue sky. My cleaner, who was waiting for me, told me that they had had the same rainstorm here in Granville half an hour ago, so it looked as if it was a band of storm clouds moving from north to south.

She helped me into the apartment, and when I was sitting down, stuck a disgusting drink into my hand, in accordance with the prescription.

After she left, I managed to find the energy to come in here and write up my notes. However, I’m not sure how many times I fell asleep while I was doing it. Was it three? Or was it four?

After the last time, when I awoke, it was 21:30 or thereabouts, so I simply posted on line what I’d written so far, and I’ll finish it in the morning. On that note, I fell into bed and that was that.

These notes will have to be finished quickly because tomorrow, there might not be a posting until Saturday. There’s football on on Friday night, with Trefelin (no goals and no points) v Rhydaman (three goals and one point), a proper basement relegation clash. With a five-point gap to the next club opening up already, so early in the season, some clubs need to be getting some points on the board quite quickly If this gap isn’t to increase further. A draw isn’t really going to help either of these two teams.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about failures in map reading … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once went for a drive with a girl who, I found out later, didn’t know how to read a map (and it wasn’t Nerina at all. She was quite a good NAVIGATOR, NAVIGATOR, RISE UP AND BE STRONG)
At one point, I asked her where we were. She pointed to somewhere on the map. "We’re here" she announced proudly.
"That blue line?"
"Yes"
"That’s a river, dear."

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Saturday 22nd August 2026 – THERE HAS BEEN …

… a calamity at dialysis today, and it’s as if the World had come to an end. For quite a while, I wondered if I would ever survive the shock.

Yes, that’s right. They forgot to bring the coffee round to the room in which another woman and I were being dealt with. Luckily, we had a very understanding nurse, and once we mentioned the problem to her, she went off and did the necessary. But it wasn’t half worrying.

That’s not been the worst of my worries either, but more of this anon.

Last night, after the football, I spent some time writing my notes, but as it became later and later, I began to think that I’d never finish them at this rate and I’d be here all night. So I called it a day round about 23:30, finished off what needed to be finished off and I was in bed round about midnight.

At some point in the middle of the night, I think that I awoke, but once again, it was the same as has been happening just recently – I wasn’t sure if I was awake or not, if I was still asleep or dreaming or anything like that. It reminded me of that line in THE PRISONER – "by the time we’ve finished with him, he won’t know whether he’s No. 6 or the cube root of infinity".

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

However, I was definitely asleep at 06:15 when someone opened the door to my apartment. I shouted “who is it?”, but the response was that whoever it was closed the door and cleared off. I can see that I’m going to have to take “certain steps”, which might include involving a bucket full of whitewash.

And then we had the usual struggle about hauling myself out of bed and going to the bathroom to sort myself out. I managed to have my feet on the floor before the alarm went off, which counts as an “early start”, but the rest isn’t quite as easy. In the end, I managed it, including a good scrub-up and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant at dialysis this afternoon.

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

We went to see some friends who lived in a small seaside port. We noticed that there were three shipping containers sitting on the quayside here waiting to be picked up by some kind of boat. There was a guy there too, and I didn’t like him, but he definitely sounded like some kind of underworld villain, and he was pointed out by my friends as having a place somewhere in Argentina where he’d go to hide every now and again. A few weeks later, there was an article in the local paper about a British guy who lived in Argentina who had been arrested and the police were still looking for three shipping containers. I said to Nerina “I know where they are”. A couple of months later, I was at an auction sale which took place on behalf of the government that was to sell the possessions of this guy, and one of them was his interests in taxis in quite a few councils, so I went along to see what was happening. It started surprisingly cheaply, so much so that I could make an offer and I could bid on it at one time, but the bidding went slowly out of my reach, and eventually some guy had part of it knocked down to him. He wanted an option on the rest, but he needed to have the support of 50% of the people. A lot of people put up their hands but he said that he was one county short. I thought “in for a penny, in for a pound”, and I put my hand up. He said “right, yes, Cheshire! That’s all I need!” and the whole lot was knocked down to him. Then he had a meeting of all of his supporters afterwards, and I went along to see what was on offer. He started to tell us a few things that had nothing whatever to do with taxis, so I wondered what on earth his game was.

This little port, I’ve seen it before on several postcards and photos, but I just can’t put a name to it. It’s a tiny port, and it beats me how they would ever manage to sail a ship into here to take away one container, never mind three.

Argentina doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere, but the story of the crook who had interests in taxi businesses all over the UK rings a familiar bell if you were to turn the clock back thirty or forty years and is probably still continuing today, for all I know. But Arsenal FC supporters will be much more clued in to this than I am.

There had been a whole group of us staying somewhere in Spain in a hotel-kind of place, and some friends of ours in the neighbourhood came to visit too. We stayed there for a couple of days, and when we were on the point of leaving, some Spaniard turned up in a strange kind of van. It had some kind of maker’s name on the side that was in initials and we were trying to identify it. I reckoned that it was a Japanese clone of something. It had no roof and no sides where the driver sat, and he was complaining that the starter motor didn’t work and a couple of other things didn’t work and the quality was rubbish. We were there with a dog, and a policeman came. He had an Alsatian, and this dog of ours took a great deal of interest in the Alsatian, and the Alsatian, which was a female, ran and hid. We thought “our dog’s found a new girlfriend, has he?”. In the end, we all piled into my van and we set off for home and to drop off these people on the way. For the past two or three days when we’d gone down this road, there had been some girl struggling to get on her pushbike, and she was still there today, struggling. When we reached the bottom where I’d normally turn left, I did a U-turn and came back up the hill. Everyone was wondering why. One or two people were complaining, but I said “don’t worry, it’s only going to put a couple of extra seconds on your timetable” and I stopped back outside the gates of this house again. Instead of asking someone to open the gates, I had a strange kind of hook made out of an old garden rake. I put that over the top of the gates, climbed up it and went over the top, then dropped down onto the garden. What I’d come to check was to see whether a friend of mine who was supposed to be coming but never turned up had finally made it, because we could intercept him on the way home, but if we went a different way home, we’d miss him for that five minutes while we were getting back on the correct one, so I wanted to make sure that he hadn’t come before I set off again in the hope of trying to meet up with him.

Strangely enough, this is pretty much the same scenery as in the dream a few days ago when I was living up on the Czech/Austrian border

The van could be any one of a dozen French microvans that are on the road today, or maybe one of those tiny Japanese vans that were common on the roads forty years ago. The dog, of course, needs no explanation.

The rest of it, including the girl struggling on her bicycle and my weird “garden hook”, must have some explanation somewhere, and I wish I knew just what it was.

The nurse turned up as usual and sorted out my legs and feet. He didn’t stay long, and once he’d left, I could make my breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Our hero is now back discussing a few foreign edifices of a religious nature, but concludes with "Certainly when we compare these edifices with our own contemporary ones, we can have but little hesitation in esteeming England to have been, during the fifteenth century at least, the chosen abode of Christian art"

He then goes on to list several marvellous examples of European Gothic work but remarks "Our buildings never run into the same senseless extravagance, where nothing but mere excess of ornament is left to supply the place of real art"

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I was hoping to be reading a book on architecture, not a book on art.

Back in here, I had a few things to do and then I made a start on the notes from yesterday. And they took much longer than they ought to do, because from about 10:30 to 11:15, I was asleep on my chair. And I remember nothing whatever about falling asleep. No-one was more surprised than me when I awoke.

By the time I’d finished and put them online, there wasn’t much time for anything else. I had to go to prepare myself for dialysis. My faithful cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic as usual, and then I had to wait for the taxi.

And not for long either, as it was here for 12:40. We had to go to pick up Mrs Dinosaur and then we set off nice and early for Avranches, only to be stuck in a traffic queue at Marcey-les-Grèves due to the autoroute being blocked in both directions with holiday traffic coming and going.

However, at the dialysis centre, I was seen to pretty quickly, so by 14:05 I was up and running and could watch Rhydaman v Connah’s Quay Nomads.

There’s no doubt that the Nomads were in a class above Rhydaman, but the latter managed to defend heroically for much of the match and even had several good chances themselves. But even so, a 2-0 victory for the Nomads was only to be expected, and Rhydaman could be proud of their performance.

After that, I was going to watch a second game, but there were too many interruptions and disturbances, not to mention the Quest For The Coffee.

As luck would have it, when I was finished, the nurse was doing nothing much so I was unplugged straight away, although she had jammed the catch on my backpack with my laptop inside it. My taxi was waiting too, so I was home by 18:00.

My cleaner was there to stick a disgusting drink into my sweaty little mitt, and after she left, I came in here to begin my notes and watch this evening’s football match. However, after I’d fallen asleep for an hour on the chair, I booted that idea into touch, wrote a terse note on my blog and went to bed. It was 20:20.

Now, it’s 05:00, I’ve been up for an hour or so, finished my notes, and I’m now going back to bed to await the arrival of the nurse.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about traffic jams … "well, one of us has" – ed … apparently the queues on the autoroute were caused by an accident. A golfer playing on a golf course at the side of the road had sliced a ball which crashed through the window of a coach, hitting the driver, causing him to swerve and have a fatal accident.
Later that same day, the gendarmes were interviewing the golfer "due to your negligence, you caused a road traffic accident which killed the bus driver, fifteen schoolkids and one accompanying adult" they roared. "What are you going to do about it?"
After a minute’s thought, the golfer replied "Perhaps I ought to tighten my grip, take a shorter swing and incline the golf club head more to the right."

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Thursday 20th August 2026 – I DON’T KNOW …

… what kind of day it has been today. It certainly wasn’t as good as yesterday, that’s for sure.

Yesterday, I was really feeling fighting fit, that’s for sure. It was after midnight when I stopped letting it all hang out and crawled into bed, although I wasn’t feeling tired in the slightest, as I believe I said. And I didn’t go to sleep very quickly either.

But when I did finally go to sleep, it wasn’t for too long. When I realised that I was awake (we’ve talked about this just recently), there was a howling gale blowing outside, not the kind of noise you want to hear when you are trying to sleep.

There was no possibility of going back to sleep with all of that noise going on so I just lay there, gently relaxing, or, at least, doing the best that I could to relax. I remember at one point checking the time, and it was 04:42.

It was round about that point that I must have gone back to sleep, for I was definitely asleep when the alarm sounded at 06:29, and the wind was howling around like mad.

As usual, it took me a while to leave the bed and go into the bathroom to sort myself out and even to have a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon at dialysis.

Back in here I went to check the window to make sure that everything was in good order, but as soon as I opened it, the howling stopped. When I closed it again, the howling stayed stopped. So I have no idea what was going on. Was I dreaming the noise?

First thing to do was to check the dictaphone and to see where I’d been during the night. However, I needn’t have bothered as the dictaphone was devoid of entries again.

However : –

I’m not sure whether this counts as a dream or not, but I was having another one of those coughing fits that seems to go on for ever, so in the end, when it calmed down, I reached for my emergency supplies. When I was tidying up a while ago, I found a couple of packets of menthol and eucalyptus sweets, and I’ve been taking a couple to bed with me every night for the last few days. Anyway, I reached for one of my sweets, unwrapped it and went to pop it into my mouth. What happened next was that I bit my finger. There was no sweet at all in my hand and no unwrapped paper nearby. If it wasn’t a dream, it was certainly weird

This is a good example of never knowing whether I’m awake, asleep or somewhere in between when I’m lying there in bed. I would have sworn that I really was reaching for a sweet.

My nurse turned up a little later than yesterday. He was talking about not very much and soon left the building, leaving me to go and make breakfast.

While I was eating, I was reading yet more about the bombing of England in World War I. And interestingly, at Poelkapelle in Belgium not so long ago, they came across the wreckage of a Staaken, one of Germany’s giant four-engined bombers nearly as big as a B-29 Superfortress, embedded in the ground. It had been shot down on 21st April 1918.

Back in here, there were a few things to do so I set to work, and then I began to write the notes for the radio programme from yesterday. They were about half-done when I had to knock off, but not to worry, I’ll finish them tomorrow.

At midday I went to prepare my things for dialysis, and then my faithful cleaner put in her appearance to apply the anaesthetic to my arm.

She didn’t stay long today, which was just as well because the taxi came early for me. And not just early but at 12:33. Not that it bothered me because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the earlier I start, the earlier I finish.

We had to pick up Mrs Dinosaur and also another woman at the health centre in St Pair, and then we could set off for Avranches.

It was 13:30 when we arrived, and by 14:05, I was up and running. However, it wasn’t easy because, once more, there’s a huge excess of liquid. Consequently, I told them to run it for four hours instead of three, and have you any idea just how tiring it is to have the machine going at max for four hours?

Still, it gave me plenty of opportunity to watch the football from this last weekend. The match between Hwlffordd and Penybont was exciting. It was proper end-to-end football with plenty of skill, not like some of the midfield mauls that we saw earlier. Penybont won 3-0, which was expected, but it was good all the same.

And afterwards, I managed to watch some of Caernarfon v Penybont from the weekend before. There’s still a good bit to go, but even so, it looks like another good, skilful game.

There were problems with the machine, or, rather, with me, and the alarm on the machine was constantly going off. A doctor came to see me too, the new relief doctor, and she gave me a prescription for an antibiotic.

There was also a nurse who came by with a questionnaire for me to answer. Honestly, it was like Euston Station in my little room this afternoon.

When it was time for me to be unplugged, the nurse dealt with me straight away. Even better, the taxi was waiting for me too. We had to drop off Mrs Dinosaur but I was soon back home.

My cleaner was there waiting and she helped me into the apartment, and when I was sitting down, she stuffed a disgusting drink into my hands.

After she left, I grabbed a couple of biscuits and came in here. I didn’t feel like making tea so I wrote my notes instead.

Now, I’m off to bed ready for a nice relaxing day tomorrow, I don’t think. And then on Saturday, it’s dialysis again. I’m getting sick of this.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the World War I bombing of England … "well, one of us has" – ed … a Zeppelin actually flew over Stoke-on-Trent and dropped several bombs on the city.
When I was speaking to a friend, I told him about this.
"What happened?" he asked.
"The bombing was terrible" I replied. "So much so that it caused £140,000,000 worth of improvements."

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Sunday 16th August 2026 – IT HAS NOT …

… been a very auspicious day today. It’s been a day full of tiredness and weariness, and I’ve crashed out I don’t know how many times as yet.

It all started to go wrong last night, as I said yesterday. I was hit with an enormous wave of fatigue and ended up going to bed long before I’d finished what I needed to do. I was asleep quite quickly too.

During the night, I awoke at some point, and I’ve no idea when because I didn’t look. But it was due once more to another one of these mega-coughing fits. The coughing is now back, and back in spades too, unfortunately.

It was another one of these mornings where I was drifting in and out of sleep and not being able to identify which was the real bit and which one was the phantom bit or the sleep bit. That’s happened a few times now, and it’s really unsettling, especially when I’m stuck somewhere in that glorious half-world in between waking up and being asleep.

One thing is certain, though, and that is at some point (maybe the fourth or fifth attempt) I did manage to go to sleep because I awoke properly and correctly. I stayed awake and eventually looked at the time. It was 07:33.

Sunday is, of course, my Day of Rest which usually starts with no alarm and a lie-in, having my feet and legs dealt with by the nurses while I’m still in bed. However, today, I simply couldn’t stay lying in bed. By 08:00 I was up and about, sitting at the computer working.

The nurse was surprised to see me up, which was no surprise really. After his three-week holiday he would probably be expecting to find me in bed. We had a little chat about his holiday, but he wasn’t very forthcoming. He dealt with my legs and feet and then cleared off on his round.

After he left, I made my croissants. I’d used the last of the previous batch last week, so I wanted some more. And while they were a-doing in the oven, I made my porridge and coffee.

The croissants were excellent – the best that I have ever made. They looked wonderful and had puffed up correctly, which made a nice change from the flat ones that I always seemed to have.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

He’s continuing to keep himself out of mischief, although his jingoistic beating of the English drum is becoming rather tiresome. And he’s still hung up on the religious side of the fence. I don’t believe that in four hundred pages so far, there’s been one mention of an English secular building.

And “English” too. He’s not mentioned one building in Wales or Scotland either to date.

Back in here, I had a few things to do, such as to finish off transcribing the dictaphone notes. And they weren’t much use tonight.

I dreamed that I was doing something with this dinosaur exhibition. We were planning to move away from Granville at the end of their period and relocate somewhere else. They had a huge list of places to where they could relocate, and they asked me if I would check out one or two of them in Northern France. This was another one of these long, complicated dreams and it seems to have all evaporated from my mind

This relates to a discussion that we were having with Madame Dinosaur in the taxi on our way to Avranches yesterday about the potential sites that they have all over Europe for their exhibition and the difficulty at times of finding a dialysis centre, especially abroad.

There were a few other things to do, and then I continued writing the notes from yesterday. That took much longer than it ought to have done too, mainly because of the waves of fatigue that were sweeping over me again. At one point, I went to fetch an energy drink, but even drinking that didn’t make things any easier.

When I’d finished it and posted it on line, I started to enjoy my footfest. The first match was Stranraer v Spartans in the fourth tier of Scottish football. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have a soft spot for Stranraer FC ever since I caught a game of theirs in the late 1970s when I saw the floodlights on in the ground when I was on a ferry coming back from Larne in Northern Ireland and managed to watch the game.

This was an entertaining game, one that Spartans should have won. But they missed – I don’t know how many sitters they missed – and Stranraer made the most of one of the few chances that came their way, winning 1-0.

The next game was the end of the Cambian United v Y Fflint game that I’d part-watched yesterday. This was a very equal match that Y Fflint didn’t deserve to lose, but when the side from the Rhondda Valley won a penalty in the eighty-fifth minute, then that was that.

After that, it was the turn of Llandudno v Trefynnon. Llandudno, a newly-promoted team this season, were leading the league, mainly because they’d played a couple of teams that were not expected to figure highly in the League’s championship order, and Holywell were one of the newly-promoted teams that were having a wretched time of it right now.

This was one of those games where, again, not much skill was involved. But it was played at a hundred miles per hour from one end to the other, and I was totally exhausted just watching it. Llandudno opened the scoring, and Trefynnon equalised, but as it was coming up to half-time, Trefynnon had a player sent off.

They held out until almost the final whistle, conceding two goals in quick succession, but a 3-1 victory was rather flattering to Llandudno, even if one of the goals was scored by this site’s hero, veteran striker Mark Cadwallader.

There were plenty of other things to do later, but I didn’t feel much like doing them. Not even making bread. I’ll pull half a frozen loaf out of the freezer when I need it. Instead, I did some things that I enjoy doing, which is nice for once.

There was no tea tonight either. I had half a dozen biscuits and the last of those pineapple chunks with a citron sorbet. And how nice was that?

So now that I’ve written my notes, I’m off to bed, hoping for a decent sleep for once and that the decision to deprive myself of two means, tonight and last night, goes towards doing something about this weight.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about dinosaurs … "well, one of us has" – ed … we were outside the exposition when a dinosaur wearing a crown came out.
"Come and visit our prectacle" it said. "It’s wonderful, magnificent, brilliant, superb, excellent, exciting …"
As Madame Dinosaur was stading next to us, I turned to her and asked "What kind of dinosaur is that?"
"That? It’s a Thesaurus rex"

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Thursday 13th August 2026 – THIS PHANTOM ALARM …

… thing is doing its job, right enough. It awoke me again this morning, and not once, would you believe, but TWICE I’ve no idea where it’s coming from or what it’s all about, but I suppose that I’ll have to just get on with it. Or, as I dictated at some weird time of morning –

This was another occasion where I was awoken by a phantom alarm. I actually went to switch it off before I realised. I’ve no idea what time, because I didn’t look, but it was certainly early in the morning rather than later, that’s for sure.

And then, to cap it all, a second phantom alarm went off just a couple of minutes before the real alarm did.

All of that was rather a shame because I needed all the sleep I could get. I crashed out well and truly last night, as I explained, and I still hadn’t returned to the Land of the Living when I crawled into bed. And although I was asleep quite quickly, it wasn’t for all that long before the “alarm” went off.

Once I realised that it was a phantom alarm, I went back to bed, but I couldn’t manage to go back to sleep. Although I must have done so at some point because of the second “phantom” alarm that also awoke me.

When the real alarm went off, I managed, after some not-inconsiderable effort, to raise myself from the Dead and head into the bathroom to organise myself. I had a good scrub-up and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and then I came back in here.

The first thing that I noticed was the temperature. Outside, at not quite 07:00, it was twenty-six degrees Celsius. Inside my bedroom, it was a mere twenty-five degrees centigrade. I opened the window and switched on the electric fan.

The first job, as usual, was to transcribe the dictaphone notes, which you have read just now, and then there were a few other things to do while I waited for Isabelle the Nurse to arrive. She was scorching already, especially as yesterday afternoon she’d decided to do her round on her bike. Granville isn’t the ideal town to go bike-riding, even at the best of times. It’s all uphill and down dale with no respite.

After she left, I could make my breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Today, he’s steering clear of controversy, although I must admit to not having taken very much notice because, as usual, I was dragged up several side alleys by remarks that he had made and which I thought needed a good deal of research.

Back in here, there were a few things to do and then I had to finish off the notes from yesterday. And once that was done, I closed my eyes for a little while and had a relax. I awoke at 11:40 thinking to myself “I really earned that”.

At midday, I went to prepare myself for dialysis, and my cleaner came around to apply the anaesthetic to my arm.

After she left, I waited for my taxi, and I didn’t have to wait too long either. She was early today, mainly due to the fact that we had Mrs Dinosaur to pick up. There was also a woman at the aqua-gym at St Pair, so it was a full car heading to Avranches.

We arrived early, which suited me fine, and what suited me even finer was that I was in one of the rooms nearest the front door. I was plugged in quite quickly too, but once more there was an excess of liquid to extract. Not very much more, so I just told the nurse that seeing as I was early, I’d stay for an extra fifteen minutes.

That seemed to work, but once more, we ended up with yet another world-record low blood pressure – a mere 6.3 over 4. This is becoming crazy.

Once I was plugged in, I watched the rest of the Cambrian United v Llansawel game. It ended up 1-1, and that was probably a fair result.

One thing that I’ve noticed though in the games at Rhydaman, Trefelin and Cambrian United is that we have proper old-time football fans, singing, chanting and hurling abuse at the opposition players throughout the whole ninety minutes, something that you rarely see these days now that the insistence on all-seater stadia has tranquillised the fans. I mean, since when has “polite applause” ever been any part of any football match?

In 2013, Trabzonspor winger Volkan Şen burst into tears and walked off the field after being on the receiving end of some abuse. But I’ll tell you what, and that is that I would go onto a football field and let the fans hurl as much abuse as they like at me for ninety minutes for just a quarter of what these players are being paid. After all, I used to be married, so I’m used to it.

The game that I saw afterwards was twenty minutes or so of Y Fflint v Y Barri. At the moment, it’s 1-0 to Y Barri so we’ll have to see how this match unfolds.

When I was finished, they unplugged me quite quickly, and my taxi was already waiting for me. It was a very interesting driver whom I hadn’t had before, and we had a good chat on the way home.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me, and she helped me into the apartment, and I needed it. I flaked out in a chair, and she passed me a disgusting drink to cheer me up.

After she left, I vegetated for a while and then came in here. I couldn’t face any food this evening. While I was doing a few things, I was chatting to a couple of friends on the internet, and now that my notes are finished for the night, I’m off to bed. I need all the beauty sleep I can get.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about chatting to my friends … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of the conversations concerned a rather strange and weird statue that he had bought recently.
"Somehow, some strange things attract you like that" I said.
"Exactly" replied my friend
"Yes, I often wondered why Nerina married me"

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Saturday 8th August 2026 – THIS WAS ANOTHER …

… really bad day at dialysis, like all of them see to be becoming these days. More than enough things went wrong today to convince me that maybe I just ought to be doing something different. We even had a world record low blood pressure, if you think that the 68 a few months ago wasn’t low enough.

And last night, it didn’t help much either. After the football had finished, I wasn’t in the least bit tired, so despite what I had said on the previous day, I stayed up and wrote my notes, and then I put them online before finally going to bed a good few minutes after midnight.

Once in bed, I can’t remember going to sleep, and I can’t remember waking up either. It was simply a case of “why is it suddenly 03:30?”.

It wasn’t 03:30 for long because I must have gone back to sleep once more without realising it. And there I was at 06:29 when the alarm went off.

Once more, it was the usual struggle to force myself to my feet and head into the bathroom to sort myself out, but I had a good scrub-up and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant at dialysis this afternoon.

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

Round about 04:00 we had another one of these false alarm awakenings. What made me realise that it was a false alarm was waiting for the second one to go off five minutes later, but it never put in an appearance. Nevertheless, I still awoke, thinking seriously that the alarm had gone off.

This is something of which I have no recollection at all. I know that I was awake at 03:30, but I suppose that I’d gone back to sleep when this dream happened

There was some kind of tournament going on, like the Welsh Cup. The draw had been made, but a lot was being said about the fact that some teams really consisted of just one good player and ten other ordinary ones. Those clubs had named their teams after the player rather than the club, so we had to go through afterwards and find which clubs they were and change their names back, although trying to find the last one was extremely complicated, and we didn’t manage to do that until just before the kick-off.

This is something that is presumably related to the latest news coming out of the Football Association of Wales this week, something to do with the fact that in the Women’s Welsh Cup draw, no fewer than 4 clubs have been included that don’t even have a ladies’ section, never mind a ladies’ team, entered presumably by speculating fans.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual, her usual chatty, cheerful self. We talked about her garden, and that too has been devastated by the drought, including some plants that her father planted in his garden to celebrate her birth.

She did, however, say that some of her herbs were still going strong, and she’s promised me a few offcuts of rosemary and thyme for my little aquaculture project.

After she left, I made my breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Today, he has Augustus Pugin, the celebrated architect who led the “Gothic Revival” in the UK in the 1840s and 50s, firmly in his sights. "Surely then the segmental arch, which springs from the jamb at a sharp angle, is both more horizontal and less elegant than the four-centred, in which the angle is rounded off”, and the arch in the best specimens rises as gracefully and gradually as the simple pointed. Above all things it cannot be consistent in Mr. Pugin, who in his own buildings employs the segmental arch usque ad nauseam, to speak of the four-centred as a sign’of debasement. At the same time it is undeniable that the four-centred arch was in the last days of Perpendicular applied where it should not have been, just as the segmental was sometimes, though less frequently, at an earlier time."

Back in here, I had a few things to organise, but somehow, I managed to run out of time before I’d even started work. My midday reminder rang so I had to go into the other room and sort myself out with the laptop and other things that I need for dialysis, put on my shoes and sort out a disgusting drink with the midday medication.

My cleaner put in an appearance too. She applied the anaesthetic to my arm, and we had a little chat about this and that before she went back to her own apartment. I curled up in a kitchen chair, slumped over the table, and went immediately to sleep.

When the taxi arrived, ten minutes early, I was in such a deep sleep that I didn’t know where I was when I awoke … "nothing new there" – ed … and I was quite unsteady on my feet for a few minutes. My driver was a Ukrainian refugee and came to pick me up in a B-class Mercedes. The taxi company that I use has recently taken over another company in a nearby town, and this is one of their vehicles. It makes a change to travel in luxury rather than a base-model Skoda Octavia.

We had to go to pick up Mrs Dinosaur from her exhibition (even some of the taxi drivers are now referring to her as Madame Dinosaur) but even so, we were still a few minutes early. I had to wait a little while to be connected, but by 14:15 I was up and running, with the machine once more nearly on “flat-out”.

There were doctors on duty today, but while they went to talk to some of the patients, they seemed to be deliberately steering well clear of me. I wonder what it is that they don’t want to tell me. I could crack on and watch a football match that I hadn’t quite finished the other day, and then I began to watch Rhydaman v Colwyn Bay.

That was a match that I was hoping to finish today, but I crashed out long before half-time, and so that was that. But my sleep didn’t last for long. Firstly, the “low blood pressure” alarm was going off constantly and at one stage it had dropped to a new world record low of 67. And that’s with a pressure booster too. God knows what it would be like without one.

And then, we had the needle failure. It didn’t actually fail completely, but the alarm was saying that the pressure was not reaching what it was supposed to be. The nurses suspected that there was a blood clot forming in the needle and they tried everything that they could to free it, but it was back again by the time the next check was performed – and so on after that.

In the end, there was no choice but to abandon the session, and so, ten minutes before the appropriate time, with a couple of hundred millilitres of excess fluid still on board, that was that. I was hoping that at least I’d be down to my relevant dry weight, but no such luck.

My nurse unplugged me quickly, which was good, but I had to wait ten minutes for my taxi to arrive. And once it arrived, we had to go to the taxi depot to change car and driver, and so all the time that I had gained over the course of the afternoon disappeared by the time that I returned home.

My cleaner helped me into the apartment, for which I was very pleased because I wouldn’t have done it on my own. She gave me a disgusting drink and then left me to it.

Once I’d managed to find the energy, I came back in here to write my notes and maybe watch some more of the football, but it didn’t work out like that. I could feel myself becoming more and more tired and more and more ill, and soon afterwards, I gave up the struggle and posted online what I had managed to write so far.

After that, I’m not quite sure what happened. However, at something like 23:00, I awoke, curled up comfortably in my chair, and how surprised was I? I didn’t even remember falling asleep. At that point I just slid over onto the bed and fell in. I hadn’t even switched off the computer, as I discovered later.

Silly me was thinking that I was so tired that I’d fall straight asleep, but unfortunately it took me a while, and that’s something I can’t understand at all, seeing how tired I was. But in the end, I managed to go to sleep, wishing that I’d gone to bed a darn sight earlier than this.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Mercedes taxis … "well, one of us has" – ed … an old woman hopped into a Mercedes taxi. She looks at the Mercedes emblem on the bonnet and asks the driver "what’s that for"
"Well," said the driver, thinking that he can have some fun with this old lady. "that’s my sighting device. If I want to move a few pedestrians or cyclists out of my way, that’s what I use for sighting them. Watch!"
The driver swerves towards a pedestrian walking along the side of the road but at the last minute swerves away. However, he hears a loud “bang” from the back of his car.
"That sighting device of yours is rubbish" says the old lady. "We’d have missed him completely just then if I hadn’t got him with my door."

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Saturday 1st August 2026 – YET ANOTHER DAY …

… where I’ve imitated my namesake the mathematician and done three-fifths of five-eighths of … errr … nothing whatsoever. And it wasn’t for the want of trying either. It was just that the opportunity wasn’t there.

After the football last night, it ended up being a very late night by the time that I was in bed. And although I managed to go to sleep quite quickly, I did manage to sleep until all of about … errr … 01:20. After that, I stayed awake for almost all the rest of the night.

When I looked at the time at one point, it was 05:50, and I was toying with the idea of leaving the bed. However, wiser councils prevailed. I turned over onto my face and went back to sleep. And there I lay until the alarm went off at 06:29.

From that point of waking up to the moment of being dressed and in the kitchen is but a moment, but in real life as it is today, it’s a whole eternity away and I wasn’t prepared for it at all. It was a desperate battle to fight my way into the bathroom to organise myself and to have a good shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant today.

Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night

There was something going on with the clubs in the Cymru Premier League. There had been a few additions, and everyone wanted to know their names, their nicknames, how they played, all that kind of thing, so I decided that if I were to do some research on the matter, what I would do would be to do it properly and completely, and whatever I, or the other person writing it from the other end, didn’t want in the statistics, I’d pass them on to anyone else who wanted them so that they would have the same kind of start that we did last season

Yes, the Welsh Premier League is up and running already, with this new TELEVISION COMPANY that I mentioned yesterday. And there has indeed been a pile of new players coming into the league, from England, Scotland, and even places like Zambia and New Zealand. Finding out about them has been interesting to say the least.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual, except that she was rather later than usual. As she was sorting out my feet and legs, she explained that when visiting one of her patients in town earlier, her car was hemmed in by a selfish driver, and judging by this number plate, he was a tourist. To get back behind the driving seat, she had to climb in through the back door and then over the back of the front seats.

She was quite indignant about that.

After she left, I could make my breakfast, and while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Today, he’s been steering clear of controversy as far as the “Mohammedans” go. But while he’s been talking about the overwhelming superiority of Gothic architecture, he notes here that "The finest of our Romanesque naves, those of Ely and Peterborough, are actually later in date than the advanced Transition of Canterbury choir, and but very little earlier than the pure Lancet architecture of the eastern chapels at Winchester. It is manifest then that, in some cases at least, the decaying style was retained in deliberate preference to the new."

After breakfast and having sorted myself out, I came back to the office and began to complete the notes from yesterday. With the usual waves of fatigue coming along to swamp me as I wrote, it took much longer than it should have done. It wasn’t until about 11:30 that it finally made its way on line. So if you missed Friday’s blog, you can FIND IT HERE.

Once I’d done that, there were a few other things that needed doing, and then, for about fifteen minutes, I had a little sleep. And you’ve no idea how much I enjoyed that. In fact, had I not decided to set the alarm for midday on a dialysis day, I probably would still be asleep right now.

However, I went into the dining area once the alarm had sounded and began to sort out what I need for this afternoon and for a disgusting drink and the midday medication. My faithful cleaner also turned up to apply the anaesthetic to my arm.

After she left, I went for a stroll … errrr … down the corridor, and it’s a good job that I did too because my taxi was hours early today … "about fifteen minutes actually" – ed … It was one of my favourite drivers too, so we had a good chat on the way to pick up Madame Dinosaur.

When we arrived at the site of the exposition and she had to go onto the site for her passenger, she asked me, rather nervously, "there aren’t any dinosaurs loose and wandering around in there, are there?". I put her mind at rest but I don’t think that she was convinced.

Having had an early start like that, we arrived at dialysis quite early – 13:35, in fact. And in charge of our room today was one of the young and efficient nurses who has been there for quite a while – one of my favourites in fact. And by 14:10, I was up and running. I wasn’t very impressed, though. It seemed that, because I’d left on Thursday with so much water still in me, we were going to have another gruelling session with the machine going flat-out on “max”.

Today, I settled down to watch a couple of football matches on the internet. The first one was Llandudno v Fflint from last night, followed by the live match of Cardiff Metropolitan v Trefynnon. I wasn’t able to see either match to the end because the live match started before the Llandudno game had finished and due to the early start, the Cardiff Metropolitan game hadn’t finished when it was time to be unplugged. And, of course, there were the usual blood pressure alarms that brought the nurses running every time.

Emilie the Cute Consultant was there today too. I caught a glimpse of her in the distance down the corridor. She didn’t come to see me, though, which was a crying shame. She doesn’t love me any more by the looks of things.

It was the “boss” who brought me home tonight. He was ready and waiting for me when I came out of my room and that was nice. We had a good chat all the way home, where my faithful cleaner was awaiting, and she helped me inside the apartment. When I was settled in a chair, she passed me another disgusting drink and then, in the best characteristics of the long-gone and much-missed “News of the Screws”, she “made her excuses and left”.

Once she’d gone, I could turn my attention to tea. Tonight, it was a burger on a bap with vegan salad and baked potato. For some reason, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I usually would do. I hope that my taste buds aren’t changing yet again. That would be a disaster.

When I finished tea, I came back in here to carry out a few tasks and then I attacked the notes. However, as usual after a dialysis day, when the machine has been operating at the “max”, I had the typical “wave of fatigue” flooding over me. I was reviewing what I was writing, and there was so much that appeared to be total nonsense, with spelling mistakes, typing faults and heaven knows what else besides … "nothing new here, then" – ed … I decided to call it a day and go to bed. I can finish the notes in the morning.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about doctors … "well, one of us has" – ed … apparently, the reason why Emilie the Cute Consultant had a visitor with her.
"Hello doctor" said the man. "I’ve been stung by a bee"
"No problem" said Emilie the Cute Consultant. "I’ll put some special cream on it"
"Don’t be silly, doctor" replied the man. "That bee will be miles away from here by now."

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Thursday 30th July 2026 – WHAT TOTAL, ABSOLUTE …

… and utter chaos it was at dialysis. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … what is it that goes through the mind of some of these “organisers” and “managers” that when they have about eight nurses on duty, they put two of the newest and … errr … less-confident nurses on the same ward on their own, with eight people who need attention?

It’s about as logical as me expecting that I’d have a good night’s sleep last night. Yes, I was in bed early enough (about 22:30) and I did fall asleep rapidly, but that was as good as it got. I don’t know what time it was when I awoke but the street light was still on in the car park, which meant that it was before 02:30.

From then on, there I lay, watching the World go round and watching it slowly go lighter and lighter. At some point, I did go back to sleep because I had another one of those awakenings when I sat bolt upright. This time, I did check the time and it was 05:50.

Ordinarily, I might have thought about getting up at that time and claiming an early start, or even doing more dictating of radio notes, but instead, I turned over onto my stomach and went back to sleep. And no one was more surprised than me to be awoken by the alarm at 06:29.

It was a very weary me who staggered into the bathroom to organise myself today. a good wash and even a good shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

There were a few urgent things to do back in here, and then I checked the alarm to find out where I’d been during the night.

And there was something on there too, but it was about five minutes long. There wasn’t time to transcribe it before Isabelle the Nurse turned up. She took my medical card to swipe into her machine so that the Social Security would pay her, and we talked about the fire at La Havaudière on Monday afternoon. The story that she told me is quite plausible, but I’m not going to repeat it, as it might be considered libellous.

After she left, I made my breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

He’s still rampaging on about the “heathen Mohammedans” and their “false prophet” and how their architecture was nothing new but an “anticipation” of “our wonderful Gothic architecture”.

Back in here, I managed at some point to find five minutes to transcribe last night’s dream.

I was doing a coach trip down to central France round by Auxerre, and the purpose of that was to look at my new apartment. When I looked, it was really nice, but the kitchen had overflowed its alcove, which I was planning on using, and that was going to make things rather complicated in the apartment. I wondered how I was going to manage to do this. Later, anyway, I went back to the bus depot and I was in my red Cortina estate. I began to load people into it, putting their luggage in and then we set off. We stopped somewhere near an abbey for coffee and somewhere else for an evening meal, and we were in this town the next morning. We were talking about the cars and my brother was saying that when he bought it, there hadn’t been an MOT on it. I replied that actually, there’s no MOT on mine at the moment, even though I’m taking all these passengers. Anyway, we talked about all kinds of things for the moment. Then we heard that someone in the area wanted to go back to Shearings and I had to go to pick them up, so I did that. They had some food and things with them so we were being even more overloaded. We set out, and then we heard that a girl from the Auvergne wanted bringing back en route so we stopped at someone’s house and telephoned her. We agreed to meet her and wake her up. So we set off again, and my brother began to talk about this car with no MOT again, and I wished that he wouldn’t, with all of these passengers in it. We pulled onto a main road and then we pulled into a house to organise a few things and do a few things. But it was a house where someone lived, whom I knew from years ago in Crewe. He made a meal for us and these passengers, and I went outside to sort out a couple of things for packing. Then everyone climbed in, and then we heard that there was another person to pick up along the road, so my brother and I began to saw my car in two, with my passengers sitting in it. This was going to work out to be extremely complicated for them because although we were well on our way with cutting it up, they hadn’t noticed yet.

Auxerre is quite a familiar town to me. Situated astride the River Yonne, I passed through it every time I travelled between Brussels and the Auvergne when I lived down on the farm. It’s a beautiful town, and the lest time that I travelled that road was in 2014 back from my LITTLE HOLIDAY IN OOSTENDE, I went to visit all of the places that I used to drive through on that road and had a GOOD EXPLORATION OF AUXERRE.

The reason why it’s figuring in this dream is, I imagine, that yesterday, Isabelle the Nurse was talking about her family who live there.

The red Cortina estate XCL465X has featured on these pages quite often. I had it for a long while in the UK and brought it with me when I came to Belgium. For the first few years I drove it regularly, but then when I had the Opel, it was relegated to secondary use. Its last trip was in 1998 down to the Auvergne towing the 2000E saloon and it lives now in the warehouse in Montaigut. There can’t be many cars forty-five years old that have never ever been welded at least once in their lives.

The stop at the abbey was an interesting piece of this dream. I did in fact once stop at an abbey with my coach and passengers for a coffee break when we were out on a coach tour with Shearings.

The rest of the dream is a confused bundle of not very much relevance. It’s certainly an interesting dream, though, and must mean something to someone

Transcribing the dream wasn’t as easy as it might have been either. After a few minutes, I was experiencing wave after wave of fatigue that was trying to force me into going to sleep, and I was fighting as hard as I could to stay awake. However, that wasn’t easy either and at one point, I fell asleep from a sitting position at my desk and crashed out, falling headfirst onto the desk and keyboard with an enormous CRASH.

It’s difficult to understand how I managed to go to sleep, though. The elephants had come to the apartment directly over mine and brought something heavy with them that they dragged along the ground and then upstairs, making a hell of a noise as they did it.

Once whatever it was was installed upstairs, the elephants began to work with something and that was making quite a racket too. In the end, I despaired and went for a few moments of … errr … quiet contemplation in the gentleman’s restroom.

By the time that I’d finished everything, it was 11:50. So much for my plan today of dealing with the music for this radio programme. This will have to wait until tomorrow.

At 12:00 the alarm awoke me from a little slumber and I went into the kitchen for a disgusting drink, the midday medication and to sort myself out for dialysis. My faithful cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic and I repeated what Isabelle the Nurse had told me. She was, however, firmly committed to the cause of the farmer.

After she left, I didn’t have long to wait for the taxi. It was early again today. There was already another passenger in the car, who yielded up the passenger seat to me, which was kind of her, and we had to go to pick up Madame Dinosaur from her exhibition. Once she was in, the three of us headed down to Avranches.

On the way, we saw the field that had been the centre of the fire on Monday. All of the stubble had been burnt, the hedge was a charred mess and the verge by the roadside had been swallowed up. Closing the road on Monday was clearly the correct decision.

We arrived at Avranches at about 13:35, and I installed myself in my little room. And this is where the troubles began. As I said before, with eight nurses on duty, six of them experienced and two novices who are rather … errr … “hesitant”, which manager in his or her right mind would have put those two nurses together and on their own in a ward of eight people?

Consequently, the connection process was very slow, and it wasn’t until 14:35 that I was connected.

All of the excitement had, however, happened before that. Once more, I was way over the maximum limit for the water, so I asked if I could stay for longer. My hesitant nurse said that she would “have to go and ask somebody”.

She was away for quite a while and when she came back, she said that I could stop for an extra half-hour and changed the timer accordingly – but not the weight!
"Aren’t you going to change the weight?" I asked
"Ohh" she replied. "I didn’t ask about that."

After a few minutes she came back. "I phoned the doctor’s number but he wasn’t there" she said "so I left a message."

And that was how it stayed for the entire session. I’d ended up staying an extra half-hour for no good purpose.

The nurse did come to see me with about half an hour to go. "Has the doctor been to see you yet?" she asked

Well, I’d vaguely seen the doctor (not Emilie the Cute Consultant) in the distance so he was certainly on duty, but he hadn’t passed by me, so I answered in the negative.

"Oh" she replied, and that was that.

The blood pressure alarm was doing its thing throughout the day. Every half hour it began to wail, which brought a nurse running, but for no good purpose because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … low blood pressure is a habitual situation with me and isn’t a problem.

It was 18:40 when I finally staggered out of there. My driver was already there waiting, which was some good news, I suppose. However, it was the driver who doesn’t talk at all so we had a very quiet drive home.

Back here, far later than I had hoped, my faithful cleaner was waiting. She helped me into the apartment and refuelled me with a disgusting drink.

After a little bit of reorganisation, she went off back to her place and I could think about tea. But at 19:40, when I have plenty of things to do, a cooked tea is out of the question. I grabbed a handful of these little toastie things and a box of that delicious vegan boursin cheese and came in here to carry on with work.

Not that I managed to go too far, because as usual with a really heavy spell of dialysis, the fatigue and tiredness began to attack me. I posted on line what I had written so far and crawled into bed. That wasn’t as early as it might have been either because Yours Truly fell asleep while riding the porcelain horse.

But one thing about tomorrow – the football season has restarted, as I told you last weekend. The league matches commence tomorrow evening and Barry Town are at home in a televised game against Cambrian United. The team from the Rhondda Valley won the Second Division South championship and were promoted to the Premier League for this season, their first time in this division. But kick-off is late, so don’t be surprised to find only half an entry – or even none at all when you come for a butcher’s during the night.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the doctor and his unavailability just now … "well, one of us has" – ed … later on, I discovered the reason why. He had gone to witness an autopsy performed by one of the great pathologists.
The pathologist was busy wielding his scalpel in all the appropriate places, chatting away as he was doing so.
"This man used to be a very well-known actor" he said.
"Blimey!" said our doctor. "If he’s acting now, he must be really good!"

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Saturday 25th July 2026 – THE WORST HAS …

… happened at dialysis today. And that is that I was obliged to stay for four hours instead of for the usual three. And it was my own choice too. There were a couple of good reasons for doing so, as you will find out as you read on.

As for me, I was in bed late yet again last night. Probably round about 23:30 or so when I crawled under the covers, and I was soon asleep. Once again though, I didn’t have much sleep, although I’ve no idea what time I awoke – I couldn’t be bothered to check – but it was still pitch-black and the light on the car park had been switched off so it was after 02:30.

Try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I stayed awake, tossing and turning for ages as the day slowly dawned. at one point, I must have dozed off because I remember waking up with a sudden start. It was 06:25, just a couple of minutes before the alarm. There was no real point in even trying to leave the bed for an early start in that short space of time.

However, it was the second alarm that rang at 06:33. It seems that Brain of Britain had forgotten to switch on the first alarm after switching them both off the other day.

In the bathroom, when I eventually arrived, I had a good scrub-up in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. Unfortunately, I forgot to have a shave, as I found out later. That’s one way of blotting my copybook. Emilie the Cute Consultant won’t be very pleased with me.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I needn’t have bothered, though, because there was nothing on there. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … that’s really quite a disappointment. It’s my only form of enjoyment these days.

The nurse turned up as usual to sort out my legs and feet. We talked about the Tour de France and then about his holidays, because he’s away for three weeks as of tomorrow and I’ll be in the tender hands of Isabelle the Nurse.

After he left, I went to make breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Today, as we probe deeper into the architecture of the Arab world, we come across the statement "Saracenic fancy, moreover, contrary to all just principles of aesthetics, delighted in astonishing the eye with a vast superstructure raised on a support apparently quite inadequate to sustain it. The style is rich, wonderful, calculated to enchant at first sight ; but it is one that will not bear critical investigation ; the chaste gracefulness of the Grecian, the soaring majesty of the Gothic, are absent, and are ill supplied by the exuberance of a fancy, vivid and fertile to the last degree, but uncontrolled by any law of taste or consistency."

Any normal architect, having come across a technique “contrary to all just principles of aesthetics” that is “astonishing the eye with a vast superstructure raised on a support apparently quite inadequate to sustain it” would immediately be interested in giving it a “critical investigation” to find out exactly how they did it and to see if he can reproduce it.

Yes, I’ve long since come to the conclusion that this book is not about architecture at all.

Back in here, I have things to do, and then I made a start on the radio notes. But again, I didn’t do as much as I was hoping. All in all, it wasn’t a very good morning.

When my cleaner came down to sort out my anaesthetic, I was already in the dining area sorting out my things for dialysis. She didn’t take long to sort me out and then I had to wait for the taxi.

It was early today – a good fifteen minutes early, which suited me fine. Apparently there was someone else in Granville going to dialysis, and her appointment was for 13:30, not 14:00 like mine.

It turned out that it was a girl from the dinosaur exhibition that has set up camp in a field on the edge of town. They are here for the month of August, apparently, and then they’ll be off somewhere else.

While my driver was hunting her down, I looked at the number plates of the vehicles. Half of them had “59” number plates, indicating that they came from the département of the Nord. The others had “02A” number plates, meaning that they are registered in Ajaccio, in Corsica.

We arrived at dialysis a minute or two before 13:30, and when I weighed myself, I was horrified at what I saw. This is 800 millilitres or grammes over the maximum of what the machine can do in three hours. This process of sending my home without taking everything out, which they have done for the last three or four sessions, is now reaping some horrible rewards.

The nurse, one of the experienced ones, came to see me quite quickly and by 13:55 I was up and running. However, I did discuss the situation with the nurse and, seeing as I was so early, I suggested having a three-and-a-half-hour session instead of a three-hour one.

She told me that if I did that, I’d have to wait around for half an hour, as they would be very busy at that time. “how about three and a quarter?”

After a good think, I came up with “how about four hours?”, going the whole hog. Do it all in one swell foop and then it’s all over.

So four hours it was.

There was only a relief doctor here today so I didn’t bother her with any of my problems, and after that I was left mainly alone, except for when the low blood pressure alarm rang, but that didn’t bother me. Blood pressure at 8.0 is quite usual for me.

When I was finished, I was seen to with very little delay and at 18:15 I was organising my driver. We had to wait fifteen minutes for Mrs Dinosaur nevertheless, and after dropping her off at her caravan, I was back here at 19:04.

My faithful cleaner helped me inside and gave me a disgusting drink – the second of the day – and after she left, I checked the time. It was 19:30, far too late to think about tea now. I had plenty to do still, so I grabbed a bag of taco chips and came in here to do them.

The football season has started this weekend and, to my surprise, the FAW was broadcasting live one of the evening matches in the qualifying rounds – third-tier Cardiff Airport FC at home to fifth-tier Felinfach – and I wanted to see it to see what this new broadcasting system of theirs is like.

Firstly, there was no commentary, which was disappointing, but apart from that, it was quite an entertaining game. The gulf of class between the teams was evident and Cardiff Airport strolled to a leisurely 4-0 lead at half-time, having had the bulk of possession.

Whatever the Felinfach manager had put in his team’s half-time cuppa, I could do with a drink of it myself. They put up a much better fight in the second half and although Cardiff Airport ended up winning 6-0, they didn’t have the second half all their own way, that’s for sure.

As for the broadcast itself, there was no commentary, no teamsheets, no slow-motion replays and nothing to identify the scorers. I reckon that I’ll only be using this service if SGORIO has nothing to offer at that particular time.

By now, it was 22:40, far too late to start writing my notes, so I decided to do what I had to do and then go to bed. I can write my notes tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about dinosaurs … "well, one of us has" – ed … Mrs Dinosaur was telling us about the exhibits that they have there in their exhibition.
"We have Pteradactyls, Tyrannosauruses, Stegosauruses and Brontosauruses, and we even have a rare example of a sightless dinosaur. "
"What’s he called?"
"D’yerthinkhesaurus."

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