Tag Archives: early start

Live: Sunday 6th September 2026 – CAFE AU LAIT …

… is nothing like as good as Café Au Lit, Ay? … "and I bet that that went clean over the heads of most of your readers" – ed …

So when I was awoken by my friend bringing in a mug of coffee to my bedside table, I made no complaint at all, even if I had been fast asleep up to that point.

And “fast asleep” was quite right too. I’d collapsed into bed at about 20:30 and was probably asleep before my head touched the pillow. I was only going for a crash-out of about an hour then I’d wake up and carry on with the notes. That was the plan, anyway.

However, when I awoke and checked the time, it was 03:48 – much later than I had intended. Nevertheless, by 04:00 I was attacking my notes.

They were finished and on line round about 05:10, and I went back to bed. This time, though, I changed from my day clothes into my night clothes for the sake of decorum. And once more, I was asleep before my head touched the pillow.

When my friend brought in the coffee, it was about 08:15, and I hadn’t had three mouthfuls out of the mug before my nurse came to deal with me. And the Hound of the Baskervilles too, as well as his German lessons.

After he left, I finished my coffee and eventually made it into the kitchen, having dressed myself first. My friend was just about to be dragged out on walkies duty by the Hound of the Baskervilles, so I made another supply of croissants.

Once the croissants were in the oven, I set about making my porridge and also the juice for my morning medication. And everything was ready at the same time so I grabbed two warm croissants and put them on a plate to have after my porridge.

When the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged my friend back, we chatted for a while … "with the friend, not the Hound of the Baskervilles" – ed … and then I came in here to check the dictaphone to see if there was anything on it.

There was something about my middle sister last night. She was going to go to school in Paris. She was not really the sharpest knife in the box so we were wondering how she was going to cope. My mother seemed to think that she would cope OK with very few problems at all, but I said that I could imagine her getting herself lost on the Paris underground without any problems whatsoever. I didn’t think that anything augured particularly well in this plan to send her there.

This is one of those dreams that’s so unexpected. I’ve no idea why a dream like this would be going around my head. It’s extremely unlikely that she would have gone to Paris because she was not very good on her own in strange places. Not to mention the fact that our family would never ever have had the money to send her there.

But it’s interesting nevertheless that she appears in my dreams because she is the least likely member of my family to do so.

After that, there were two football matches to see.

They were both in Scotland – the first was Forfar Athletic v Stranraer. The Loons have always been Stranraer’s Nemesis but today, the tables were well-and-truly turned as Stranraer deservedly shellacked the Loons 0-3.

The next game wasn’t so interesting. Greenock Morton and Queen’s Park are struggling at the foot of the table so these three points were vital to both clubs.

Morton have recently signed about six loan stars, so I was looking for a vast improvement, but it wasn’t to be. From what I saw, it was a team that hadn’t knitted together yet, and a 2-1 defeat was about right.

There were several other things to do too, and then I made a start on fine-tuning the captcha. And I won’t tell you the saga about that because you’ll be pulling out your hair just as I would be if I had any hair left to pull.

Round about 13:30 we decided to take advantage of the lovely weather by going for a drive and buying a bag of chips at our favourite chippy in Avranches. So all three of us, my friend, the Hound of the Baskervilles and me, piled into the car like three superheroes and set off.

We went via a couple of garages in the area that were selling motorhomes to see what was on offer, but there was nothing that would fit in my friend’s garage so we didn’t pursue our enquiries. From there we went into the centre of Avranches but to our dismay, the chippy was closed.

Instead, we went to the car park by the cathedral. There’s a big public park there that is another one of the favourite places to visit of the Hound of the Baskervilles so he dragged his master off for another walkies. However, he spent most of his time being fascinated by the fish in the fishpond.

We came back a different way today – via La Haye Pesnel and Folligny, where we went to look at the old railway station and marshalling yard there. The yard was important because it was there that loads coming from the docks at Cherbourg would be trans-shipped to a train going to Granville and was heavily bombed by Stukas on 17th June 1940.

When the Germans arrived, they put it back into commission, and it was bombed by the allies in 1944 during the D-Day landings.

Back at home, rather much later than intended and not having had our chips in Avranches, I made a pizza. It’s been quite a long time since I’ve made one of those so, do you know, I’d forgotten how long the cooking time was? Consequently, we had a “rather crisp” base that, rather than a knife, you needed an axe to cut your way through it, and it spoiled somewhat the lovely taste of the topping.

The pudding afterwards was another one of these new soya yoghurts, and they tasted just as good as the previous ones.

There were still plenty of things to do so I came in here to do them, but as usual, there was an enormous wave of fatigue that swept over me when I was only halfway through my notes, so I posted online what I’d already written, took my nighttime medication and crawled into bed. I can always finish my notes off tomorrow morning.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about pizza disasters … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once met a friend who told me that he had burned his pizza while it was in the oven.
"What type of pizza was it?" I asked.
"It was a Hawaiian pizza" he replied
"So next time, put it on aloha temperature."

Sunday 23rd August 2026 – ONE THING ABOUT …

… yesterday that I forgot to mention was that when I awoke at 20:30 from crashing out, it wasn’t just the tiredness that I’d noticed. I was freezing cold and all the hairs on my arms were standing up. It was 22°C in here too, so it wasn’t actually the cold that was making me feel like that, but something else.

As usual, the answer to something like that is to go to bed. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, bed is my medication that cures everything. And you know that I’m ill if I’m prepared to miss a live football match in favour of bed.

So I ended up in bed at about 20:30 last night and I was asleep even before my head touched the pillow. But, as usual, not for long. I was awake at 00:30 and awake again at 02:00.

As well as that, I awoke a third time. I’ve no idea what time that might have been, but I couldn’t go back to sleep at all, so at 04:05 I was at my desk working on the computer.

No point in lazing around in bed when you can be working, and I had my notes from yesterday to write, so I dashed them off, put them online, and I was back in bed by about 05:30. I reckoned then that I’d stay in bed until the nurse arrived.

When he turned up, I was fast asleep in bed, so he awoke me and did the necessary with my legs and feet. After he left, I thought that I’d get up in five minutes and go for breakfast.

When I finally awoke, sorted myself out in the bathroom and went into the kitchen, it was 10:10. So much for my early start. I made my breakfast, and while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

It now looks as if he’s summing up, and as he begins to discuss Gothic architecture on the continent, he reminds us that "England, with less of gigantic grandeur in particular buildings, and less of rapid development in styles, gives to all a harmony and purity which is peculiarly her own, and in the course of her slower progress, calls forth forms of beauty unknown to other lands."

All that I can say about this is that anyone who has viewed anything at all of the Gothic architecture on the continent will be wondering what on earth Mr (or the Reverend) Freeman was smoking when he was writing his jingoistic prose.

Back in here, the first thing that I did was to transcribe the dictaphone notes from last night. That was a very painful exercise because I can’t believe how much I was coughing during the night, all of it recorded on the dictaphone.

This is another dream about roaming around in London. I wanted to buy a guitar for a friend of mine, but I didn’t really know where to go, so I went down to London and had a good wander around in the usual streets, in Oxford Street and so on to try to see if there was anything there. All I could see is the cheap kind of rubbish and crowds of people. I kept meeting crowds of people whom I knew too. Then I began to walk down to Tin Pan Alley, but I was almost knocked over by a taxi. Who should be driving that taxi but Emilie the Cute Consultant. I asked her if she could do me a favour, but she said that she couldn’t because she was too busy working – she had to go back to Crewe shortly. I said “yes, that’s the favour. You couldn’t run me to Crewe, could you?”. She replied that she couldn’t, so I was rather disappointed. However, she said that she’d have a talk with me very soon. I suppose that that cheered me up somewhat, and I carried on towards Tin Pan Alley with these crowds of people.

It seems that “in my dreams” is the only chance I have of seeing Emilie the Cute Consultant, even if she does turn me down. And she’ll “have a talk with me very soon”. That’s the line most people use when they are giving someone the brush-off.

However, being in London yet again would seem to be significant. This is the third or fourth time just recently that I’ve been here during the night. I expect that I’ll find out what it’s all about in due course

We were going off on another adventure, but this time, it was in my old J4 van. There were quite a few of us, including some people whom I didn’t know, and the van was quite loaded. The front of it was full of rubbish so we had to take all of it out and put it in the rubbish bin. That was when we found that this pile of oil had seeped onto the passenger seat so we were there scrubbing it, and the guy who was sitting there was rather disappointed. He was hoping not to get his clothes dirty. In the end, we managed to have it looking something like so we went to wash our hands. I couldn’t find the swarfega for ages, but eventually, when that guy had begun to wash his hands with fairy liquid or something, I produced the Swarfega and gave my hands a good wash with it and showed him the difference between my hands and his.

The J4 had long-gone by the time that I moved into Gainsborough Road, but this was where all of the action was taking place last night.

The guy sitting in the oily seat reminds me of that photo that was doing the rounds a few years ago – the old American politician sitting in his seat that was photoshopped into thousands of other photos all around the World.

After all of that, there was the football to watch. We started off with Penybont against Llandudno.

Whether or not you think that Llandudno’s position, for a newly promoted club, up near the top of the league is a false position, they certainly haven’t come into this league, as some newly promoted clubs have, simply to make up the numbers. They took the game to Penybont just as much as Penybont took the game to them, and in fact, from the kick-off, it took Penybont five minutes and fifty-five seconds to get into Llandudno’s half of the field.

In fact, the first Penybont goal was a marvellous overhead bicycle kick of the kind that was unstoppable, and had I been refereeing, or anyone else for that matter, their second goal would have been disallowed for a blatant foul on a defender

And this is the first game in which I’ve seen a club penalised under this new five-second rule for throw-ins, goal kicks and the like.

The 2-1 scoreline in favour of Penybont was about fair, but they can feel relieved now, just as Llandudno can feel disappointed.

Afterwards, we had Stranraer throw away a 2-goal lead to draw 2-2 against Stirling Albion. Stranraer had the Binos all over the place in the first half, and in the second half, the situation was reversed. Never was there a “Game of Two Halves” to match this one.

The next match was Greenock Morton v Arbroath. Although Arbroath won this game 2-1, this is the best I’ve seen Morton play since Ian Murray took over. And they finally managed to score a goal after about ten games of trying, and it had to be a sixteen-year-old schoolboy playing as an emergency full-back who scored it too, not one of the established professionals.

Finally, the fourth match was Trefynnon v Barry Town. This is the fourth game that Trefynnon has lost – this time it was 3-1. However, they played much better in this game and even took the lead. And had they scored the penalty that they were awarded when the score was 1-1, it all might have been so different.

They kept on playing and going on the attack as long as they possibly could, but the desire to score an equaliser when they were 2-1 down cost them dearly. Having committed everyone to the attack, they were torn open at the attack by a breakaway, and Barry scored their third goal with practically the last kick of the game.

But I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that the field microphone was placed right by the Barry dugout, and we had someone from their bench bellowing out instructions to his players in the loudest voice I have ever heard and using the most disgraceful language that would have been out of order even in the fo’c’sle of a Greenland whaler. It really was a disgrace, and the club should be ashamed of their employee.

Apart from that, though, we had two Cymru Premier matches today that were played with a lot of skill, not like some of the midfield mauls that we saw last weekend.

So no food tonight again. I’ve written my notes and when I’ve done what else needs doing, I’m off to bed ready to Fight the Good Fight at dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Greenland whalers … "well, one of us has" – ed … a couple of years ago, a crew member was washed overboard in the Davis Strait and was lost.
A year later, his wife had a visit from the Nova Scotia lifeboat crew. "We have some bad news for you, and some better news" said the skipper.
"Oh" says the woman. "Tell me the bad news."
"A body has been discovered in the sea near Luneburg" replies the skipper. "we can’t ask you to identify him because his body was all covered in lobsters and crabs, but by the clothing, we reckon that he’s your husband."
"So what’s the better news"
"We’ll pull him up again tomorrow and see what the catch is like then."

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."

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"

Saturday 15th August 2026 – ANOTHER DESPERATE DAY …

… at dialysis. Once more, the measure was set to go off the scale with excess weight that I seem to have gained since Thursday, but apparently, wiser counsels prevailed. Someone had made an error in the counting.

An error in the counting was the last thing that I needed, to be honest. Especially after the night that I had had. I was in bed later than I hoped, and that’s all that I remember from there. I awoke at some ungodly time – I’ve no idea what time because I couldn’t be bothered to look. But it was as the direct result of yet another extreme coughing fit.

At some point, I must have gone to sleep again because when I awoke, at 04:35, I was actually sitting on the edge of the bed as I usually do when I’m about to get up. So what had happened there? Was it yet another phantom alarm call that had gone off?

Not that it mattered because I was soon back to sleep yet again. And the next time that I awoke, it was 06:20 and quite dark.

When the alarm finally went off, at 06:29, I was already sitting on the edge of the bed with my feet on the floor, claiming an early start.

In the bathroom, I had a good wash and scrub-up in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant today at dialysis, and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.

I was running the taxis again last night. I was sitting at home while the others were out working when the ‘phone rang, so I answered it. It was a guy asking me if we hired out cars by the day. I replied that we did, but only with a driver. He said that that was exactly how he wanted it, and what would be the charge? I wanted to know what kind of car and what work he’d be doing. He told me that it was maybe 350 miles, and an ordinary car like a Sierra would be fine. I told him that I’d have to ring him back, because what I’d do for a trip like that is to actually hire a car myself and go in that. There was a place in Stoke-on-Trent where you could hire second-hand cars. I went back down to the office and asked the girl at the ‘phone if she had put it through to me. She replied that she did. And she was busy trying to prepare another girl ready to go out. She said that she was having to go to some town in the Czech Republic to pick up a woman and bring her back. I said that if I had known that we had this job, I would have hired a car for that too. I went outside to help her prepare the car, and I told her how jealous she was that she was going on this, so she immediately said “do you want to go?”. (I’d missed out a bit here because she didn’t even know where this town was, so I told her that you get to Prague and then you keep on going towards Russia). I’d told her how jealous I was, so she immediately smiled and asked “would you like to do it?”. I thought “why not?”. I prepared one of the older Cortinas for it. I needed the lead for the SatNav and a few other bits and pieces, but no one could find the lead, so I went into my house, and it was on my desk in the office. I kept on having to run back and forth to find different things like the GPS, the telephone holder, all of that kind of thing. I kept on thinking to myself that one day soon, I’ll be able to set off if I’m not careful, because the delay in not finding things and people not being able to find them, and I was having to come back out to the car to look, it was taking forever.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we were in or near the Czech Republic the other day in another dream, the one involving the three white Volvo 144 estates It seems to be starting to become a regular theme with me. I wish that I knew why. It sounds really exciting to me.

But it’s been ages since we’ve had any dreams involving my indecision. They used to be regular, recurring themes at one time, but they seem to have disappeared, except for tonight.

Stoke on Trent was also a long-running theme at one time, but all of that had long gone too. But the taxis, they are always here with whatever weird kind of job they bring.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up today – her last day for three weeks, so no wonder she’s as pleased as punch. I wished her a really good break and holiday in Corsica.

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

He’s been behaving himself again today, which is just as well. But it’s really boring for me when there’s nothing about his book to criticise.

Back in here afterwards, I had my notes from yesterday to type up. That took me longer than I was anticipating because of these attacks of tiredness that I’m having. But once they were finished and on line and everything else that I needed to do this morning had been done, I closed my eyes for a while.

It was 11:40 when I awoke, and that left me with twenty minutes to start a new project, and then I went into the living room to organise myself for dialysis.

As well as that, there was my disgusting drink and my midday medication to sort out too. My cleaner turned up as usual to sort out the anaesthetic on my arm, and once she had gone, I had to wait for the ambulance.

Mind you, I didn’t have to wait for too long. As my cleaner was walking out to the street, the taxi pulled up, fifteen minutes early, so she showed him where to go. He hadn’t been to pick me up for a while, and he was still thinking that I lived upstairs.

He was early because there was Madame Dinosaur to pick up, so I showed him how to get there. It’s complicated if you don’t know, and if you follow your satnav, you’ll certainly end up miles off your route.

Once Madame Dinosaur was safely on board, we set off in the queues of traffic to Avranches. And as we passed through the village of La Havaudière, at the bottom of the steep dip, the car full of tourists in front of us was “flashed” by the secret radar. The radar there must be bringing in a fortune.

We were early arriving in Avranches, which suits me fine because the quicker I start, the quicker I finish and the quicker I come home – that is, if I arrive at 01:30 and they begin the process of connecting me up BEFORE blasted 14:20.

There was football on the internet for me to watch this afternoon thanks to the FAW negotiating with BBC Wales Sport. This week’s Saturday afternoon match was Y Barri v Cardiff Metro, so I settled down in my hospital bed and made myself comfortable while I watched it.

This was an excellent match played with plenty of skill, and I quite enjoyed it. Y Barri were clearly on top, but we had to wait until the eightieth minute for the only goal of the game. And then, it almost didn’t happen.

Y Barri were awarded a penalty which Jack Shaw took. Former Port Vale keeper Aaron Davies saved it but couldn’t hang on. Shaw picked up the loose ball and hammered it towards the net. Again, the keeper got a hand to it but couldn’t hang on, and Daniel Smith, following up, finally headed it home.

After it had finished, I watched some more of the Cambrian United v Flint game from last week’s matches until it was time to unplug me from my machine. My driver was waiting for me when I went outside, and we would have been home quite early had it not been for all of the holidaymakers on the road.

One thing about dialysis, though, is this – can anyone remember the last time a doctor came to see me? I can’t. It must be a good three weeks and more since a doctor has examined me.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me when I returned. She helped me into the apartment, sat me in a chair and bunged a disgusting drink into my hands.

After she left, there was football on the internet yet again, this time Sgorio’s broadcast of the Caernarfon v Colwyn Bay game.

Compared to the earlier game, this one was nothing but a slogging midfield brawl with very few moments of real skill. Caernarfon ended up as winners 3-0, but that was practically by default as Colwyn Bay offered nothing up front. Louid Robles had an excellent header and Matty Hill had a powerful shot at goal, but that’s all that I remember.

Yesterday, regular readers of this rubbish will recall the goal that Rhydaman almost scored when time seemed to stand still for a few moments. This evening, it happened again. The entire Colwyn Bay defence and most of Caernarfon’s attack stood frozen in time as Danny Gosset walked through them and drove a good shot into the net, putting his team 1-0 up.

After that, I made a start on my notes, but the heat, the punishing session at dialysis and the bad night yesterday had taken their toll. Round about 21:30, I called it a night and collapsed into bed, having posted on line what I’d written to date. I’ll finish the rest off tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about time standing still … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember a conversation that I overheard in the USA a few years ago.
"I don’t understand these time zones" said one man. "I’ve just come from Europe and today, it’s today there, but in Australia it’s tomorrow."
"You should worry" said the other. "Over here in the USA it’s still round about 1750"

Friday 14th August 2026 – WHAT A BIZARRE …

… night that was last night!

It was one of those strange nights where nothing seemed real at all, and I don’t have a clue about what was going on.

Although I wasn’t feeling much like it, I actually managed to finish and post on line my notes from yesterday. I don’t know where I found that strength and energy, that’s for sure. And after the notes, I had a few things to do. It can’t have been much short of midnight by the time that I crawled into bed.

Once in bed, I remember nothing at all about going to sleep. Usually, I have some kind of idea as to whether I went to sleep quickly or whether it took a long time, but not last night.

Whatever it was, it can’t have been for long. I awoke because of another mega-coughing fit, but I couldn’t be bothered to check the time, so I’ve no idea what time it was. And then after that, I had no idea what was going on. I know that I coughed a lot, but whether that was in a dream or not, I don’t know

In the past, there have been a few evenings and nights where I was never really sure of when I was awake or when I was asleep, and this one was certainly one of the best examples of that.

One thing that I do know for sure is that I had another one of these dramatic awakenings when I sit bolt upright. Although it was dark, I checked the time and found it to be 06:19. Still dark! How times have changed over the last four weeks. Anyway, I took full advantage of this and had my feet firmly on the floor of my bedroom when the alarm went off at 06:29 so that I could claim an early start.

Having my feet on the floor is one thing, being up and about is something else completely different. It took me quite a while to negotiate my way into the bathroom to sort myself out for the day. But eventually I was washed and dressed, and I came back here to listen to the dictaphone to see what had happened during the night.

I was in the middle of Crewe with a friend of mine, and we were looking around at the shops. I was saying that when you live here all the time, you don’t notice the changes. Gradually, one shop moves, another one closes down, something takes over, and it keeps on going like that. But if, like me, you’ve been away from Crewe for well over thirty years, I immediately notice the difference. We were discussing this, and there were these two men standing nearby us, tall, blond and in raincoats drinking coffee. I happened to mention something about Eastern Europe, so this guy stuck a coffee in my hand, one of these two guys, and a piece of money. I looked at it, and at first I thought that it was Croatia, but when I looked closer, it was Poland. Anyway, these two guys had cleared off. The coffee that he gave me was disgusting, and I don’t know how anyone could drink it. Anyway, we carried on walking and we bumped into these two guys again. They told us that they had heard us talking about Eastern Europe, and one guy seemed to fasten onto me and the other seemed to fasten onto my friend. The one with me said “come with me,” so I followed him and we had a chat about different things and ended up in the police station. We went up several flights of stairs and at the top under the eaves were a few bedrooms. He asked me what I thought about this and I replied “it’s a little more comfortable than a cell, isn’t it?”. He had loads of interesting books and papers, and I was having a read of some of them. Then, he dropped the coffee that he had made all over his most important papers and had to run off downstairs with this paper to try to save it. Then we went back out onto the streets where he met a few people whom he knew and said “hello” to them. We were just walking around and walking around until we were out on the edge of the town. Then he said “come and meet my mother” so we went back into town and met the people to whom we’d been talking just now. He asked one “is she in?” and this woman replied “yes”, so he went into a building and I followed him, and we went up these creaking, rickety stairs, each stair having a huge flight to it. It was more like mountaineering than climbing stairs. He just walked into this dingy room where this little old lady was sitting. I followed in, and this woman had this old black cat. I stroked the cat and picked her up, and I began to talk to the woman about my cats.

The first part of the dream is certainly true. For someone who knew the town intimately after all these years as a taxi driver, every time I see a photograph of the town, I have to look it up to see where it is. Crewe is nothing at all like I remember it.

As for the two guys, even in the dream, they are the type of people who stand out a mile in any crowd and have “Police” written all over them. I wonder what their interest in my friend and me might have been.

And even now, I can see the interior of this dingy building, with all of the notices written by disgruntled tenants talking about the dangers of living in this building, the stairs being just one. And regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I first came to Granville in 2017, I stayed for a week in a house that had stairs like that.

The British Government was planning on taking some kind of action against another country for some reason and was busy out there trying to drum up allies. I was with a friend of mine and we were having a chat about this, noticing that not a single country had rallied round to whatever cause it was that the UK was trying to fight, and the battleship that they had sent out to sea in an effort to make some kind of spectacle to attract the people was just sitting there in the open doom, I think. Then, it was announced that the Queen was going to hold a garden party at Windsor Castle on one of the days that this marine event was going to take place, so everyone was far too busy laughing at the complete failure of the British to actually go ahead and do something concrete about this

This story is somewhat along the lines of a discussion that I was having yesterday with the taxi driver who brought me home. Regardless of your feelings about Brexit (and mine are still as strong as they were in 2016), the days of the independent nation-state are long over. With aggressive globalisation and selfish power-grabs, you have to be part of a powerful economic alliance to survive these days, or the big boys will pick you off one by one.

I know that we were in our car planning to go somewhere, and we set out. My friend noticed that we had no warning lights whatsoever and wondered what else in the electrical circuit had broken down. I wanted to push on and get to where we were going, but he insisted on stopping to try to find out what this electrical problem was and to see whether we could repair it.

This story could relate to almost anything that I’ve ever done in the past involving motor vehicles. Back in the old days when things weren’t as strict as they are these days, I shaved all kinds of corners off the road traffic regulations and done other things that I wouldn’t even dream of doing these days

Isabelle the Nurse turned up to see to my legs and feet. She’d been doing her accounts last night because tomorrow is her last working day this month, and she needed my health card. However, because my 100% disability ran out at the end of July, the card was no longer valid. She asked me to have my cleaner sorted out today and she’d deal with my card tomorrow.

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

Once again, apart from banging the drum for “England”, he’s steering well-clear of controversy today. That’s a shame, because I’ll have nothing to moan about.

Back in here, I had a few things to do, and then suddenly, I awoke and saw that it was 11:05. I must have dropped off to sleep without even realising it, and I’d been gone for about an hour. With the wretched night that I’d had last night, it’s no surprise that I’d gone to sleep again. However, it looks as if we’re having a return to the bad old days of pre-dialysis when I’d go off for an impromptu and unexpected sleep at the drop of a hat at any old time of day.

Once I was awake, I carried on with what I was doing, and when I’d finished, I attacked the radio notes, and despite the usual interruptions of a disgusting drink and midday medication period and the arrival of my friendly neighbourhood cleaner to do her stuff, not only had I managed to finish and have the notes ready for preparation, but I’d also found some time to sort out the next programme too.

The next programme after the one I did today is going to be a concert. I only have an hour for my radio programmes, and for this concert, I have almost two hours’ worth of music and introduction, and I need to cut it down to about fifty-eight minutes so there will be room for my commentary on the front.

So far, after careful snipping and editing, I’ve got it down to about fifty-eight minutes and fourteen seconds, and it will end up even smaller than that once I segue the five pieces of music that I have selected.

Then it was teatime, and the usual sausage, chips and baked beans with black pepper and cheese, followed by two of my slices of home-made fruit bread

When the tea things were cleared and washed away, it was time for the football. Airbus UK Broughton v Rhydaman. These two promoted sides are having very different fortunes in the JD Cymru League. Airbus seems to be doing OK – they’ve already beaten their points tally and number of victories from when they were in the league the last time a few years ago. Rhydaman, on the other hand, are struggling near the foot of the table with just one point.

This was another game played at a frenetic place where I ended up out of breath just watching it. And Airbus had a lovely spell of ten minutes, shortly before the half-time whistle, that I really enjoyed watching.

All in all, Airbus won 2-0, but that doesn’t reflect their superiority. They had two goals disallowed for offside and hit the woodwork three times as well.

Rhydaman also had a glorious opportunity. An attacker, just outside the penalty area, was in possession of the ball when the Airbus defence just froze. It looked as if the attacker had a week to make up his mind what to do with the ball and, in the end, his shot hit the woodwork with a shot so loud that you could hear it here in the apartment without the aid of a TV camera.

Even better, there are two live football matches to be broadcast tomorrow. Y Barri v Cardiff Metro – a win for the Mets will see them back on top of the table – and Caernarfon Town v Colwyn Bay. That game last season attracted the fifth-highest league crowd ever, and I imagine (or hope) that it will be another bumper crowd with the two best-supported teams in the league, only an hour or so away from each other, facing off against each other.

When everything had finished, it was 23:15, so later than usual, I headed for the hills. Here’s hoping that I can have a decent sleep for once.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about policemen … "well, one of us has" – ed … two policemen were called to investigate a shooting.
Shortly afterwards, they radioed back to the station "some old woman here has just shot her husband. Apparently he walked on the kitchen floor while she was cleaning it"
"Have you arrested her?" asked the dispatcher.
"No" replied the policeman.
"Why not?"
"The kitchen floor’s still wet"

Friday 31st July 2026 – I HAVE HAD …

… a somewhat better day today, not that you might think so at first glance. However, anything has to be better than yesterday, I suppose.

Last night, I was in bed at something like 22:00, I suppose, not that I looked, and once more, I’m sure that I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. And I managed to stay asleep for a little longer last night. It wasn’t until about 03:00 that I awoke.

Despite everything that I tried to do, I couldn’t manage to go back to sleep and by 05:50 or thereabouts, I’d completely given up all hope. That’s why, when the alarm should have gone off … "which it didn’t because he’d switched it off" – ed … I was sitting at my desk working.

Before that, though, I had to go into the kitchen. I had a thirst that you could photograph so a couple of mouthfuls of water with lemon juice

Back in here, what I should have been doing was transcribing the dictaphone notes from the night, except that there weren’t any, which, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …is an extreme disappointment to me. But never mind. There were the notes from the previous evening, so I transcribed those instead and integrated them into yesterday’s notes.

There were still a few other things to do, and I was interrupted by the arrival of Isabelle the Nurse, who was early. We had a little chat about what’s going on in the town and then, when she’d finished, she cleared off on her rounds.

That left me free to make my breakfast, and while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

And he’s still going on … "and on, and on" – ed … about the superiority of the Northern races over the “Mohammedans”. "The Crusaders then imported, not Gothic architecture as a complete style, but certain forms thrown away on their possessions, but which northern genius at once felt itself capable of employing to some better use".

Be that as it may, a few lines later, he adds "The Arabian architecture in Spain does not present so close an approximation to Gothic forms as that of the east ; to go no farther, the round arch is retained in its most sumptuous buildings. The Spaniard then had not the same opportunities for learning Pointed forms in his own country as were possessed by the French or English pilgrim to the east".

Back in here, I had yesterday’s notes to complete and then post online. And once again, that wasn’t easy, due to me collapsing with fatigue on several occasions. It took me much longer than I thought and I was glad in the end to go for my disgusting drink and midday medication.

The next job after that was to look at the football news – I’d forgotten to do that last night. And the first thing that I noticed, apart from the last-minute transfers before the season begins, was that UEFA HAS WITHDRAWN FROM FIFA and won’t participate in any more worldwide competitions.

It’s not the only continental football authority to withdraw either. CONCACAF, the umbrella organisation for North and Central America and the Caribbean, is also making plans to join in.

The issue is over the “sale” of the World Cup competition to commercial marketing companies, one of which is a venture capital company run by Donald Trump’s son-in-law’s brother. UEFA has announced that “the World Cup is not for sale at any price” and in my opinion, quite rightly too.

It’s all about the supporters and the teams, and the disgraceful milking of supporters over the last few weeks in the USA has shown what can happen when greedy profit-mongers lay their hands on everything

The scenario that I have imagined is that Trump has, I imagine, seen how much money the World Cup has brought in and has worked out a way of bringing in even more, with his extended family being one of the main earners in this scheme.

On the other hand, it might just as easily be UEFA’s way of revenge for how the FIFA President overturned a red card decision against the American team when their star player was permitted, despite being sent off in the previous game, to play against Belgium after pressure was put on FIFA by Trump.

Then I turned my attention to the radio programme on which I’d been working.

The other day, I mentioned that I had found all the songs that I need. but that, I’m afraid, wasn’t the case. Because of my inability to count correctly, I found that I was two albums short so I had to scour the World for copies, and I eventually, after much binding in the marsh, was able to find them.

Once I’d managed to secure them, I had to reformat and re-edit them and then extract the songs that I needed. Now, at last, I had all eleven.

They have all now been paired and then segued, and all that remains are the notes to write. That’s going to take a while and it’s almost certain that I shan’t have them finished before Monday.

Things might have gone easier and quicker, but my cleaner popped in to do her stuff as usual, and that knocked me out of my stride for a while as we chatted about all kinds of things.

At teatime, I had sausage, beans and chips again – the beans cooked with cheese and black pepper, and it’s delicious. Probably my most favourite meal of all.

After washing up, I was back in here for the football – LLansawel v. newly-promoted Ammanford. The game was quite good, with Llansawel deservedly winning by 2-1, but this new TV company with whom the FAW has gone into partnership is, in my opinion, a total shambles.

There’s

no pre-match introduction
no team sheets
no match commentary
just one inexperienced camera crew who didn’t use their zoom lens until right at the very end
only one camera
no cameras behind the goals or in other positions on the fields
no action replays
no subtitles to announce the goalscorers
no subtitles to announce the substitutions

and probably a dozen other things that were wrong with it too that I’ll remember in due course

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we often go to Stranraer to watch the football. They are a small fourth-tier club in Scotland with crowds of about five hundred if they are lucky. Yet their match highlights and commentaries are among the best in the World. If Stranraer can do it, then a society such as NOVIRA should be able to out-do Stranraer quite easily.

After the match, I started to write my notes, but with the game finishing at 22:55, tiredness and fatigue beat me to the end, so I posted what I had written to date and I’ll finish it off later tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the World Cup … "well, one of us has" – ed … an English guy who was planning to go to he World Cup to watch Ingerland play was dismayed to find that the third-placed playoff was arranged on the day of his marriage.
Reluctantly, he put an announcement in the local newspaper – "due to a clash of schedules between my marriage and the England game against France, I’m not able to go. Anyone who would like to go in my place, please contact me."
Someone rang him up and asked "where’s it taking place?"
He replied "St Stephen’s church and her name is Sandra"

Wednesday 29th July 2026 – WHEN THE ALARM …

… went off this morning, I was already sitting at my desk. And I had been since 05:50.

It’s not very often that that happens, especially these days, seeing how tired I am, so it’s nice to see it once in a while

Anyway, last night I was in bed by about 23:00 and settled down for a good sleep. But not for long, though. I’ve no idea what time it was when I awoke because I couldn’t be bothered to look. But the car park light was still on so it must have been before 02:30.

So I lay there for quite a while, tossing and turning, slowly watching the day dawn through the gaps around the edges of the shutters. In the end, I decided that I was never ever going back to sleep so I left the bed. At that point, it was 05:35

Back in here afterwards, it was 05:50 when the computer fired up, and the first thing that I noticed was that there was nothing on the dictaphone. That was really sad, but if you don’t have much sleep, you don’t have much time to travel anywhere.

Never mind. There are always plenty of other things to be doing, and by the time that the alarm went off, I’d dictated the notes for another couple of radio programmes which I downloaded to my computer, ready to add to all of the others that need editing.

But one thing that I am noticing is that there seems to me to be a general lack of interest and co-operation in all of this – a far cry from when we started this radio station seven years ago.

I managed to sort myself out somehow, though, and then I waited for Isabelle the Nurse to turn up.

We had an interesting chat about not very much as she attended to my feet and legs. And then, after she had left, I could make my breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman

We’re still discussing Gothic architecture … "and I’ve a feeling that we still will be in several weeks’ time too" – ed … and he’s still running down the religions and architecture of the Muslims and a few other places besides, as if he doesn’t know of any better.

Later on, back in here, I had a few things to do, and then once they were out of the way, I spent the rest of the day tracing the music that I need for the next radio programme.

It will feature ten artists, this programme, and to my surprise, I didn’t have any music by any of them. Mind you, they are all rather obscure artists who rarely ever made it into the mainstream. Consequently, I had to spend all morning, and some of the afternoon besides, downloading all this music

And downloading it was the least of my problems. Once I’d installed it all on my hard drive, then I had to reformat it all so that it would play on the radio company’s equipment. And that wasn’t the work of five minutes either. It wasn’t until teatime that it was all finished.

Mind you, we did have a few interruptions. There was a pause for a disgusting drink at midday, and then Rosemary telephoned me again for a chat. Just like yesterday, it was a short chat today – a mere fifty-five minutes, that’s all, the same amount of time as yesterday. We are definitely losing our touch these days.

So, when everything was finished as far as I could go, I went to make my tea.

When I was tidying out the freezer the other day, I came across a portion of frozen chick pea curry that looked as if it had been in there for a hundred years. Things can’t stay in there for too long so I decided to polish it off. I was hoping to be able to eat the last slice of vegan pie, but that will have to wait for another time

The curry, with rice and veg, was as delicious as I expected it to be. When I was making these curries, I was at the zenith of my cooking powers. These days, with ill health and all of that, I’m quite out of practice. But now that supplies are running down, I’ll have to go back somehow into my previous days at home on the (kitchen) range when I used to make meals in bulk and freeze them in individual proportions. It’s been months since I last did anything like that.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … office in my bedroom, once I’d finished tea, washed up and had my two slices of delicious fruit bread, I came back in here to do a couple of things and then to write my notes. And it was wonderful, with the heat of the sun streaming straight through the open window onto my comfortable chair. Even with the fan going and the window open, I was roasting.

However, when I was about halfway through, the usual wave of fatigue washed over me and that was that. I posted what I had written to date and then cleared off to bed before I fell asleep again in the chair

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about radio stations … "well, one of us has" – ed … one day, someone phoned up the local radio station during a request show.
He said "I want to let you know that I’ve found a wallet for a guy named Peter Smith. In it, there are two thousand dollars in notes, two of his bank cards, two credit cards, his driving licence and his identity card"
"That’s very kind of you, sir" said the presenter. "We’ll put a call out to him."
"Oh, don’t do that, whatever you do!"
"Why not? What do you want me to do then?"
"All I want you to do is to play a sad song for Peter. Okay,"

Monday 27th July 2026 – THERE HAS BEEN …

… a big wildfire this afternoon near La Havaudière, between Granville and Avranches. All of the traffic is being diverted and it’s absolute chaos down there right now.

However, for a change, it wasn’t absolute chaos in here. I ended up in bed round about 23:00 and settled down for a good sleep. At some point, though, I awoke. I’ve no idea what time, as I couldn’t be bothered to look. However, there were high winds outside and it sounded as if it might be raining. Not that I cared very much. I just crawled back under the quilt and went back to sleep.

The next time that I awoke, it was light in here so, intrigued, I had a look at the time. 06:15, so I switched off the alarm and slowly staggered to my feet. Yet another early start recorded.

When I eventually made my way into the bathroom, I had the usual good scrub-up, and I remembered to have a shave too, in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

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

I was with someone in my house, a girl, and I can’t remember who she was, but she told me that she was having a visitor round later that afternoon. Anyway, before I had the chance to leave, a large Afro-Caribbean-type of man, who came in and simply started to chat. I had a chat with him for a few minutes before I left. Then, just as I was about to go, he said “there’s someone coming up the drive. I think that it’s someone called Lucy”. The girl said “oh yes, that will be the Simpsons.” The door opened and a couple with a little girl came in. It was the little girl’s birthday today so they came into the house and came into the living room. The couple sat down but the little girl went straight over to STRAWBERRY MOOSE and began to tell him about her birthday. Then, her mother gave her a present which said it was from Strawberry Moose. Then everyone, including this man, sat down and had a little game, and that man began to look at the girl’s hair and began to rearrange it a little.

What a strange dream this is. It bears no resemblence to anything that has happened to me in my waking hours. It’s a total mystery to me.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up today as usual and chatted away about nothing as she fixed my legs and feet. Then, after she had cleared off, I could make breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

And he’s off on his high horse again. When talking about the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As, he tells us that "in the minor ornaments we cannot fail to remark the constant tendency to anticipate isolated Gothic features" What he means to say here is “Gothic architecture copied many features of Arabian architecture.”

When discussing the Palace of the Alhambra, he tells us that "No amount of mere enrichment can atone for the violation of the great law which requires every weight to have, in appearance as well as reality, an adequate sustaining mass. Nowhere is this rule less regarded than in the palace of the Moorish Kings of Granada. A slender column supports a capital of far too great projection, this again supports an overlapping stilt or fragment of entablature, and as if this were not enough to destroy all notions of mechanical support, the arch itself in many cases does not spring immediately even from this entablature, but from corbels overlapping again ; i t is thus cut off from all decorative connection with the column below, and appears suspended in the air without any sustaining power at all. Nor is the effect at all improved when, as is sometimes the case, this stilt or entablature is supported by coupled columns ; as their separation, by dividing the apparent support, even adds to the idea of insecurity."
As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … a real architect, being faced with the inconsistencies that Freeman noted, would have immediately gone to investigate the style and found out just why the building hadn’t collapsed.

Freeman’s attitude took me so by surprise that I knocked over my juice glass and the grape juice within it in surprise.

There were also all of the scores from the Welsh football matches over the weekend. Remember the other day when I told you that 53-year-old legend Marc Lloyd Williams had signed for Llanberis? He scored one of their goals in the 8-0 rout of Amlwch Town in the Welsh Cup over the weekend.

Then I came back in here to carry on work. There were several things that needed doing, and then I attacked the notes for the radio programme on which I’d been working.

In a mad fit of enthusiasm that I wish that I could recapture for use every day, I finished them all off and they are now ready for dictation, along with about a hundred others. I really must buckle down somehow and clear this massive backlog. But now that my cough is back … "and in spades, too" – ed … that’s not likely to happen for a while.

At midday, I went into the living room to sort out my disgusting drink and midday medication and to prepare myself for dialysis. My cleaner turned up a couple of minutes later to apply my anaesthetic and to make sure that I was ready to go.

To my great surprise, the taxi turned up for me at 12:40, twenty minutes early. I wish that it would do that every day. There was our usual “other passenger” to pick up at the Old People’s Home in Sartilly but even so, we still pulled up at the dialysis centre at 13:25.

Just like Saturday, I was put into a room with two other people, and there was just one nurse to deal with all of us. Even so, I didn’t have to wait very long and I was up and running by 13:55. How I wish that they could do that every time too. And there was a fair amount to take out today. The machine wasn’t working flat out, for a change, but it was near enough.

Apart from the odd low blood pressure warning which, as usual, brought the nurse running, no-one else came to bother me. If there was a doctor on duty, he or she kept his or her distance. There was the occasional glance of the doctor who thinks that he’s in charge and that he runs the show. He kept his distance too. That meant that I could crack on with work, which is always good news as far as I am concerned.

Even better news was that when I was ready to be unplugged after my session, the nurse was ready and waiting to unplug me. When she had finished with me, I weighed myself and found to my delight that the four-hour session on Saturday had done its trick and even though this was just the usual three-hour session, I was finally down to my recognised dry weigh.

At 17:20, I was ready to leave and as the driver was already waiting, with someone else to drop off in Granville, it was looking as if a 18:00 return was on the cards. However, things all went downhill from there.

At the roundabout on the Avranches side of the village of La Havaudière, the road to Granville was closed, with a couple of policemen directing the traffic down a couple of the small country lanes. In the distance, we could see fire engines and police cars.

The narrow roads were total chaos, with long lines of traffic coming both ways. We had to fight our way along as best as we could, and it wasn’t easy. A lorry coming in the opposite direction would block up the lanes for ages while the drivers of oncoming cars sorted themselves out.

To get back onto the Granville road at Le Croissant, where the road was open again, that was chaos too. A huge line of vehicles was blocked by others on the roundabout coming from Granville and going round and round and round while they were trying to make up their minds which way to go.

By the time that we’d rejoined the road, dropped off this guy and dropped me off, it was 18:20, and that was disappointing.

My faithful cleaner helped me inside the premises and once she had me settled in a chair and armed me with another disgusting drink, she went about her business and I made tea.

Tonight, I had a rice salad with plenty of vegan cheese. It should have been “plenty of vegan ham” but I hadn’t checked the packet for four weeks, and when I looked this evening, I could see that it needed a shave before anything else so it went into the bin.

There were slices of my new fruit bread for pudding, and it really was nice – definitely a success, this, with dates, raisins and cranberries.

Back in here, I checked to see what had been going on down the road, and it turned out that a forty-acre field by the roadside near La Havaudière had caught fire and was busy burning away. We’ve had a few of those now, and perhaps a really good dose of rain is called for before the whole country burns up.

Next task was to write my notes for the day but the effects of dialysis proved to be too much and I was overwhelmed by a great wave of fatigue. I posted what I had written so far and then went to bed. I’ll deal with the rest tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the fire brigade … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the two girls from Crewe who had locked themselves out of their house while they were clubbing.
Luckily, they had left a bedroom window open so they borrowed a neighbour’s ladder to climb up.
As they were halfway up, one of the girls remarked "ohh, doesn’t it make you feel like a fireman!"
The other one replied "don’t be silly. Where are we going to find a fireman at this time of night?"

Sunday 26th July 2026 – TODAY, I HAVE HAD …

… another one of the laziest days that I have ever had, and about time too. I should put my feet up and relax more often, I reckon.

But it wasn’t always going to be like that. I was in bed last night by about 23:15 or so and was asleep quite quickly too. That was despite the howling gale that sprung up during the night

However, I didn’t stay asleep for long. Round about 03:30, I had another one of these dramatic awakenings. This is what I found on the dictaphone later.

Someone shouted out Mae’r papurau’n anghywir – “the papers are incorrect” – and something about me being enwog, which means “famous”. I sat bolt upright at that and I’ve no idea at all what they meant by it.

Whatever was going on there, I have no idea. But it was dramatic enough to give me another one of these strange awakenings.

After that, I couldn’t go back to sleep and round about 06:50, I got up and went to the bathroom. Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone but that dream above was all. Outside, the wind had died down but it was damp as if it had rained through the night. That will make the local farmers happy.

With nothing else to transcribe on the dictaphone, I set about doing other things until Isabelle the Nurse came. She was surprised to find me out of bed, so I explained about my sleeping issues. She didn’t say much, just told me about her two weeks off and how she’d had to go to the doctor for her sinuses, and after she’d finished my legs and feet, she cleared off on the rest of her rounds.

Once she’d gone, I could make breakfast. Porridge, strong black coffee, juice and two of the home-made croissants that I made last weekend. And while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

In discussing Amr ibn al-As, conqueror of Egypt, and the mosque that he built in celebration, he says "he did not, like Constantine at Rome, or Mahomet at Constantinople, employ an existing building for his new use, and so impress an existing type upon future structures, but erected a new one from the ground in such a manner as might be expected from a horde of invaders animated by the fanatical spirit of their new religion of lust and bloodshed, under a chief whose name is mainly remembered as the destroyer of the noblest library the world had hitherto beheld"

Leaving aside the question of the Inquisition, the Albigensian Crusade, and the Conquistadores in Central and South America for the moment, the Great Library at Alexandria was first burnt by Julius Caesar in 48 BC and secondly, in 272 AD, by the emperor Aurelian. The story of Amr burning the library in 642 AD was not recorded until over five hundred years later, and many scholars, long before Charles Freeman began writing his book, have questioned its authenticity.

Back in here afterwards, I had the notes from yesterday to type, and that took much longer than it ought, mainly due to the number of times I fell asleep while doing it.

And then we had the football. First off was Stranraer v Falkirk. Stranraer are, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, in the fourth tier and Falkirk are in the first. We weren’t expecting too much and the result, a 3-0 victory to the Bairns, was not unexpected.

However, at times Stranraer slugged it out toe-to-toe, and it was difficult to tell who was the tier-one team. Stranraer can feel quite comfortable with themselves after this.

On the other hand, Greenock Morton put up the usual sad, dismal performance against Inverness, going down 1-0 at home. They’ve lost all four games and failed to score a single goal. And on the evidence of what I’ve seen so far, they could be playing until next weekend, out on the pitch all alone, and they still wouldn’t manage to score a goal.

After a disgusting drink, I had a few more things to do, and they took an age to finish, mainly because I kept on crashing out while I was trying to do them. I must have fallen asleep at least three times, sometimes for as long as an hour. I really don’t know what’s happening to me right now.

And then it was baking time. So refuelled by one of these energy drinks, I tackled the question of home-made bread and home-made fruit bread. It took up most of the late afternoon and early evening, but even so, they turned out very well indeed and I can’t wait to get my teeth into them. They look absolutely delicious.

So right now, I’m going to check the statistics, back up the computer and so on and then go to bed. I have dialysis tomorrow and I wonder what’s going to happen there.
I have a bad feeling about it all.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Greenock Morton’s dismal performances … "well, one of us has" – ed … a reporter from BBC Scotland Sport rang up manager Ian Murray and asked him how he was going to deal with the issues.
"They’ll be coming in for training on Sunday" replied Murray. "I have a load of traffic cones and the players are going to practise dribbling around them all day"
So on Sunday afternoon, the reporter rang back to ask how things were going.
"Dreadful" replied Murray. "At the moment, the cones are leading three-nil"

Friday 24th July 2026 – THERE HAS BEEN …

… some astonishing news released today in respect of the Welsh football pyramid. One of the all-time greats is back – and he’s fifty-three!

The news is bound to upset former million-pound striker Lee Trundle, who’s still turning out for Cwmbran Town at fifty and who has been the oldest player in the pyramid for quite some considerable time.

Marc LLoyd Williams was a legendary player in the Welsh Premier League for over two decades, as well as several spells in the English football league with clubs like Stockport County, Halifax Town and York City. He played 467 games in the Welsh Premier League and scored a record 319 goals in that time. In the 2001/2002 season he scored 47 goals, a total that would have won him the European Golden Boot had it not been for Wales’s low coefficient.

He retired at the end of season 2013/2014 and since then has been a TV pundit and coach for some of Wales’s youth teams but the news today is that he has signed for Locomotive Llanberis as a player. All I can say to him is “good luck. Nice to see you back”

That’s a nicer thing that I said to myself when I awoke this morning at … errr … 02:30. It may well be that I’d gone to bed last night at 21:45 or something like that that had caused me to be awake so early, but that’s not what I was thinking at all.

So at 02:30, there I was, trying hard to go back to sleep but with no success whatsoever. I lay here and slowly watched the day begin to dawn. However, at one point I must have gone back to sleep because I suddenly awoke, bolt-upright, at 06:18.

When the alarm went off, I was already sitting on the edge of the bed claiming my early start. But, as usual, summoning up the strength and enthusiasm to go to the bathroom was something else completely.

First off, though, was that I had a thirst that you could photograph, and so I went into the kitchen for a drink of water with a good squeeze of lemon in it.

Once in the bathroom, I sorted myself out and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

Our little travel club had gone to London because one of the girls was living there. We went to see her and have a good chat to make up old times, but she was saying that she had to go to pick up her new car today, and everyone whom she’d asked to drive her there had let her down. I said that there wasn’t very much that we could do because we didn’t have a car, but she went on for quite a while about this. In the end, she said “come on, let’s go” and walked out. There was her car, a white four-door Fiesta. I noticed that one of the doors wasn’t fitting properly so I asked her about it. She said that it’s not been bolted in. It’s just wedged in. She explained that she’d had a problem with one of the doors, and some English guy who ran a car repair place in Belgium had sorted out a door for her for five pounds. So we went into London and ended up where this event was taking place but it was not really good at all. There was nothing much happening, so we decided to leave. For some reason or other, I’d been eating a whole pile of paper, and all of a sudden, I had to spit it out. I just opened the door and spat out all this paper that I’d eaten and another huge load besides. I was sure that everyone thought that I was being ill. Eventually we found a private members’ club and we were able to order drinks there. Then we had to catch a bus right across London to Victoria Station to find our way home. I felt terribly disappointed because I thought that we all might have been asked to stay but we had to leave … fell asleep here … We were lucky because we found four seats on the tram and the tram was packed to the gunwales with everyone on it, people trying to leave through the “in” door by the driver. It was a total mass of confusion. There were two girls for some reason standing in the pathway of a tram on an adjacent line to ours. It was raining and pouring down, so our tram and theirs had their windscreen wipers working. Eventually, we arrived at where we were going, and one of the girls took us all up these side streets, which I probably thought was a short cut to the station but we’d have to see about that. There was a car pulling out of the kerb so I had to walk round it. The one that was behind it pulled out of the kerb and hit me, so we made a really impressive impact on the driver of that vehicle. The guy who had sold one of us that door, he asked if I’d had my van fixed. I replied “no” so he said that he’d be available after August if I wanted him.

There are a lot of things in this dream that mean something. My three friends, for a start. We’ve travelled miles together, one way or another, all over Europe.

The car, too, currently means something, complete with the missing door. And so does moving between Brussels and London

Many other items fit into events in real life, too numerous to explain, so I reckon that this dream is all about me sorting myself out one way or another.

The nurse turned up as usual, and we had a good chat about bikes and responsibilities while he was dealing with my feet. And then he cleared off, and I could push on and make my breakfast.

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

We’ve reached the end of the summary, having to wade through page after page of nonsense such as "Much of Europe was still pagan ; during a long portion of this period the Church among many Teutonic nations retained a missionary aspect; and even in Christian countries the Church had not arrived at her full influence. Finally, towards the end of the period the civil and spiritual powers came into open collision, the dispute on investitures roused Europe to its very centre."

There was also "its glorious successor speaks of days when the Church had leavened the world, and, instead of missionaries labouring and dying among Pagan Danes and Saxons, sent forth from those very lands the warriors of the Cross to fight for the holiest spots of their religion.".

It seems that even the church and its ministers, such as Freeman have totally forgotten what is the message of Jesus, Exodus chap. 20 verse 13 and Deuteronomy chap. 5 verse 17.

Right now, we’ve passed on to Arabian architecture. I was expecting all kinds of offensive comments about Arabian architecture from him, and I wasn’t disappointed. We started with "But considered as a real work of architecture, any second-rate production of Grecian, Romanesque, or Gothic art, must rank far above their most splendid monuments. Their splendour is mere barbaric magnificence superadded to fantastic and inconsistent forms, lifeless germs which existed for ages without developing into the features which would seem to be their natural results" and it all went south from there.

Back in here, I had things to do, such as check the Leclerc order that I was about to send off, and then I could finish off the notes from yesterday. Although not without a struggle. You’ve no idea how many times I went to sleep and almost fell off my chair while I was working

Just before midday, I suddenly had this flash of memory – “the washing!” I’d promised my cleaner that I would do the washing today, ready for her to hang out when she comes this afternoon to do her stuff. I usually start it at 10:00 because it takes an age to do, so I hope that it has time to do its cycle.

Round about 13:00 I stopped for a disgusting drink break and the midday medication, and I was caught in flagrante delicto by my faithful cleaner. She set about doing her stuff, and we chatted for a while before I wandered back into here and set about doing some work.

But not for long, though. At 15:25 Leclerc turned up with my load of shopping. And although there wasn’t much, it still took a load of manoeuvre to fit all the frozen food into the freezer and the cool stuff into the fridge. And there was plenty other stuff to put in the cupboards and shelves. It’s becoming quite an art to pack it all away.

Round about 19:30, there was a calamity somewhere. All of the police cars turned up in the car park near us. There were sirens blowing, people shouting, policemen shouting and using the little new loudspeakers and microphones. I’ve still no idea what they are up to, but my cleaner thinks that it’s some kind of demonstration or rehearsal for something

Tea tonight was delicious sausage and chips with baked beans cooked with cheese and black pepper. It’s absolutely wonderful, especially when followed by two slices of my fruit bread.

So now that I’ve finished my notes and checked over everything that I need to do, I’m off to bed before I fall asleep again.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Ten Commandments … "well, one of us has" – ed … Moses came down from Mount Sinai, and all the people gathered round him. “It looked like the Crewe Carnival procession” he said later.
"Come on, Moses" they urged him. "Tell us the news."
"There’s good news and there’s bad news" he replied.
"Tell us the good news, Moses"
"The good news is that I’ve got him down to ten"
"What’s the bad news, Moses?"
"The bad news? Well, he wouldn’t budge on adultery."

Thursday 23rd July 2026 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone this morning.

Not that that was too surprising considering that I awoke at 01:30 this morning. Or maybe it was, seeing as I was in bed round about 21:30 last night. Four hours’ sleep is more than I’ve had on some nights.

And I needed it too. After tea, I came back in here to start work again but I’d not been at it for long when a huge wave of tiredness washed over me. I couldn’t keep on going after that so I gave it up and went to bed. But seeing as I’d already written quite a lot of my notes, I posted the “so far” version and I’ll finish it off in the morning.

Once in bed, I fell asleep quite quickly, and there I stayed until 01:30, as I mentioned. And after that, I stayed awake … "not for the want of trying" – ed … watching the dawn slowly come around. When I finally checked the time, it was 06:22, so I quickly slipped my feet on the floor to claim an early start.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … having my feet on the floor is one thing. Being able to stand up and head to the bathroom is something else completely.

Eventually, I made it into there and had a good wash and scrub-up in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. It was only later that I realised that I’d forgotten to have a shave.

Back in here, even though there were no dictaphone notes to transcribe, I had plenty of other things to do, and I was still doing them when the nurse arrived. And today, it was quite a serious discussion. It seems that there is a threat to close down the railway line between Granville and Paris. Years and years of financial cutbacks and lack of maintenance have, according to some people, left the infrastructure beyond repair and there is no hope for it.

As for me, I think that it’s just a ploy by the SNCF to wring more money out of the département in subsidies, but you can never be sure with some people.

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

Today, he’s summarising what we have learnt so far about Romanesque, Norman and Byzantine architecture, as, presumably, we’re going to be moving on to another main subject shortly.

Even here, though, he cannot let go of his old ideas. "it will appear nothing wonderful that the destroyers of the Roman power might be the improvers of Roman art ….. the pier and arch stood ready for the German or Norman architect to adorn alike with the creations of his own genius, and with such of the spoils of heathendom as might be fitly pressed into the Church’s service."

He goes on (and on, and on) to say "It is only the lifeless skeleton of Romanesque which is of Pagan origin, and the lifeless skeleton of Gothic is equally so ; in both the life, the spirit, the animating genius of the style, is essentially Christian, bringing whatever of heathenism lurks about it into bondage to the faith."

Back in here, I finished off what I had been doing before breakfast and then made a start on writing the notes for the next radio programme. I didn’t get very far, though. Apart from going for a ride on the porcelain horse, I needed a shave as well.

At midday, I went into the kitchen area to sort out my things ready for dialysis, for a disgusting drink and my midday medication, and then my faithful cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic.

After she left, I had to wait for the taxi, which was fifteen minutes late today. As well as that, we also had to go to find a vacancier – a holidaymaker who required dialysis. That took us down a labyrinth of local lanes, but eventually, we worked out that she wasn’t a vacancier at all but a worker at the dinosaur exhibition that has set itself up at the Chateau Bonheur on the edge of town.

One thing that I can say is that since I’ve been travelling with this taxi company, I’m seeing parts of Normandy that I never knew existed.

We were a few minutes late arriving in Avranches but I was quickly ushered to my little room after weighing myself. The nurse, one of my favourites, came round quickly enough to plug me in and by 14:23, I was up and running.

During the session I was left pretty much alone. However, the blood pressure machine kept on ringing its alarm because it was finding part of the measurements too low. However, low blood pressure is quite normal to me and I wasn’t worried, even if they were.

When the session was over, I was attended to immediately by the same nurse who had coupled me up. She was quick and efficient and it didn’t take too long for me to be ready. But I haven’t lost all of the weight that should have gone. For me, the maximum is 950 millilitres per hour, but more than that was needed to reduce me to my dry weight, so the rest will have to be taken on Saturday, assuming that I don’t put on too much in the intervening time.

I was back here by 18:20, having seen my nurse with his bike in the town centre, and my faithful cleaner helped me back inside. Once I was comfortably seated, she gave me the second instalment of disgusting drinks as a “welcome home”.

At 19:00, I went to make tea. Tonight, it was a slice of vegan pie with peas, carrots, mashed potato and gravy. There’s only one slice of pie now left, so I’ll have to try to invent a filling that will go nicely in it. My artificial Intelligence chatbot has, so far, come up with –

Mushroom and vegan cheese
Hearty vegetable pot pie
chickpea and walnut
lentil mince “shepherd’s pie”
curry style
pasty-style root vegetables
spinach, leek and vegan cheese
onion and potato pasty
tomato, olive and courgette
leek, potato and vegan cheddar
mushroom and herb
stout and vegetables
lentil and root veg
curried chickpea and spinach
cannellini bean and tomato herb

If anyone wants the recipe for any of these, let me know. There’s a “contact me” button on the bottom right of your screen.

By the way, back in June, I posted the instructions to make your own chatbot on an artificial intelligence chat site. You can find the instructions HERE

After tea and washing up, I came back in here to write out my notes. And once more, when I was about halfway through, a great wave of fatigue washed over me and I couldn’t carry on. Doubtless the result of a heavy dialysis session earlier. I posted what I had written to date and I’ll finish the rest tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about pies … "well, one of us has" – ed … a woman once walked iinto the kitchen of Leighton Hospital in Crewe and handed one of the nurses a home-made pie.
She said "can you eat this up for me, luv?"
Of course, with hospital food being so disgusting, the nurse was only delighted to do so, and she even shared it with a colleague.
Fifteen minutes later, the woman came back into the kitchen and asked the nurse "is me ‘usband’s pie ‘ot yet?"

Tuesday 21st July 2026 – THE ALARM DIDN’T

… go off this morning. Mind you, there was a good reason for that. I’d switched it off because a few minutes before it was due, I was sitting on the edge of the bed with my feet on the floor. I wasn’t doing any more than that, but it was enough to claim an “early start”.

Thinking about it, though, it’s not really all that much of an early start. When you go to bed at about 20:30, being up just before 06:29 means something not far short of ten hours in bed.

And 20:30 it was when I went to bed last night. I’d hardly begun the notes from yesterday too but this wave of fatigue that turned up simply overwhelmed me and there was no escape.

When the alarm sounded, I reluctantly threw off the covers and picked up the ‘phone in order to switch off the alarm, only to find that the time actually was only 01:30 and the phone’s alarm wasn’t sounding at all

There have been a few times just recently when I’ve been awoken by a phantom alarm call. Yet it sounds so realistic so I really don’t know what to make of it.

One thing was for certain though, and that was that I couldn’t go back to sleep. I lay there for a few hours silently wishing that I could fall into the arms of Morpheus but with no success. Eventually, though, I managed to slide into that state of flux where I’m half asleep and half awake, although not always at the same time.

When I finally awoke, it was 06:09, so I decided that I’d give myself a couple of minutes and then leave the bed. Unfortunately it was rather more than a couple of minutes, but I still managed to beat the alarm this morning.

After a trip to the bathroom to sort myself out, I came back in here to listen to whatever else was on the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

It was getting close to Christmas Eve and I’d gone somewhere to spend Christmas. There was a whole group of us, including several people whom I knew from the EU. We were having something of a good time but it was getting late so I thought that I’d better start to make tea. I selected a few things here and there and made a start. In the meantime, there was an enormous row in the living room between a couple. The husband shouted out “right, well, I’ll go and make tea then!” He came into the kitchen, saw me cooking and just threw my stuff onto the floor. We had a huge row about that, which, shall we say, was “inconclusive”. I walked out of the kitchen, and I was just so angry that I couldn’t calm down for ten minutes. In the end, I went for a walk around. In the square or centre of one of these arcades where two big roads crossed, there was some kind of entertainment. People were doing magic and such. There was a huge crowd watching them. As I walked around the edge of the crowd, I noticed that one of them was a petite girl in a dark blue raincoat. I went over to her to chat and then I asked her if she would like to come for a walk. We had a good walk around and then she had to go. I went back reluctantly to where we were staying. That guy and his wife had gone but there was still some food left, and one or two of my friends had bought pizzas so we had a little bit of a picnic. But I remembered that girl saying that she’d meet me again at 21:00 somewhere on the south side of this crowd. About 20:30 I walked off. I was hanging around for a while there and then we both spotted each other. She’d changed her clothes so it was confusing. We went for a drive in the car, my old Zephyr 6, and I apologised to her for being dressed like this, telling her that I should have been dressed more regally, which made her laugh. In the end, I drove her home and gave her a kiss. I explained that I was having to go home, which was 500 miles but I’d still like to see her. She replied “why not come to see me on Sunday?” and she mentioned a time.

So where was my family last night? In the past, just as I was always about to Get the Girl, my family would turn up and throw a spanner in the works. But not last night. In fact it all seems to have worked in my favour for once.

The idea of this big group of people is nothing new either. When I first joined the EU, we newcomers were put in a group together. and a bunch of us would go out and do things like ice skating, playing tennis and the like. Gradually, though, we all paired off and I spent a pleasant few months in the company of a Greek girl, which was nice.

The disastrous kitchen scene has no parallel in real life but I can see why it was so upsetting.

The story about “hanging around” refers to an incident involving the Co-op in Denver Avenue, Crewe, something that might become clear to you all in due course, and I did once have a Zephyr 6, one of the big MkIV models.

There’s probably a load more mileage in that dream too.

The nurse turned up today, later than usual, and chatted away about nothing in particular as he dealt with my legs and feet. After he left, I could push on and make breakfast.

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

We’re still in Romanesque Norman Northern France and Britain, but today he’s avoiding controversy. That’s partly because I’ve not read much of the book today. He’s mentioned quite a list of obscure examples of this period of construction so I’ve been looking them up and finding out what I can about them.

Back in here afterwards, I started on the notes from yesterday and they are all online now. It was perfectly timed, because it was just about the correct moment for a disgusting drink break and the midday medication.

My faithful cleaner turned up as usual after lunch, and she shooed me into the shower. And today, I climbed in on my own and climbed out too. I’m getting much better at this.

After she left, I made a start on tracking down some music that I need for the next radio programme. There will be some really obscure stuff on there too so it took ages to get as far as I have done today, and there’s still plenty to go.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg. and I found to my dismay that the stuffing that I’d taken out of the freezer for the taco roll wasn’t stuffing at all, so I had to make some more. And it really was nice too, lentils, tomatoes, mushrooms, onion and garlic in a spicy tomato sauce.

It was followed by two slices of my fruit bread, which was also very nice.

So right now, I’m off to bed, much later than I wanted it to be, but nothing unusual there.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the shower … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the two girls from Crewe, one of whom had just climbed into the shower.
"I forgot to ask you – can you bring me the shampoo" she said
"I’ve already put it in there" replied the other
"I know" she replied "but that’s for dry hair. Mine’s soaking wet now."

Sunday 19th July 2026 – WHEN I AWOKE …

… this morning, there was bright sunlight outside and the birds were singing, including a dove that lives somewhere around here. So I checked the time – 06:29 exactly. So there’s nothing wrong with my body clock, is there?

Mind you, it wasn’t the first time that I’d awoken. I’d been awake on several occasions previously, usually when it was pitch-black, but I couldn’t be bothered to check the time at those moments.

Anyway, by 07:07 I was sitting at my desk working, having had time to organise myself in the bathroom first.

First job was to reply to a couple of messages that I’d received during the night, and then I could make a start on yesterday’s notes that had been abandoned before they had even begun.

For a change, I actually put my back into it and the notes were almost complete when the nurse came in. He was surprised to find me up and about … "and so were you" – ed … but I explained about the dreadful night that I’d had.

While he was dealing with my feet, he was complaining about the dreadful showing of the French team in the first half against England last night. He reckoned that the players out there, particularly in the first half, had absolutely no interest in playing and it was embarrassing to watch.

On leaving, he told me to take it easy, something that I had every intention of doing. First, though, was to make my breakfast. Porridge, coffee and the last of the two home-made croissants. I must make some more soon.

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

Well, actually, I wasn’t. He ended up talking about the Papal residency in Avignon, and although Nerina and I visited Avignon in 1991 and danced upon the bridge, I can’t remember much about it, and all my old 35mm photos are down on the farm. Consequently, I spent much of the morning reading about the time the Popes lived in Avignon and looking at pictures of the mediaeval magnificence.

Back in here, I finished off the blog entry for yesterday and it’s now on line. That was followed by listening to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

At something like about 04:40, someone came into the bedroom shouting “Ian Henstone! Ian Henstone!” who I couldn’t see what on earth he was looking at but the vet saw me and said “as you are here and all these … fell asleep here …

As for Ian Henstone, whoever he is when he’s at home … "if he ever is" – ed … I have no idea, but I do know of a Henstone Distillery.

And I’m not surprised that this degenerated into a load of the usual drivel … "you said it" – ed … with me falling asleep in the end.

Nerina and I were talking to some old woman about some cream that Nerina needed for something. It had to be a very special type that was not normally available. This woman said that she knew where she could obtain it so we asked her whether she would mind. She replied that it wouldn’t be a problem at all. A couple of days later, we went back to see how she was getting on but she said that she hadn’t received it yet. Just at that moment, a policeman appeared. He asked this woman for her name, which she gave him. He asked her if she had tried to obtain some cream made of some part of a duck or something from a herbalist somewhere, to which she replied that she had. The policeman replied that it’s not allowed for sale any more and formally charged her with a crime. Both Nerina and this lady pleaded their cases but the copper was adamant. At that point, I had something to do so I had to wander off, but I said to Nerina that when I come back, I’d love to see that charge that he’s given her. She asked why, and I replied that I bet it’s set down as “receiving” instead of “attempting to receive”. I went to do what I had to do, and then coming back down Victoria Street in Crewe, there was an old furniture sales place that had been empty for years but now had a big “Tesco” sticker stuck on the window, and there were people inside clearing up the inside. It looks as if we’re having another one of these local Tescos here. I went back to where Nerina and this old woman were. Nerina showed me the charge, and it was written down as “attempting”, but “attempt” had been written incorrectly. I thought “well, there’s a loophole here that I can exploit,” so I was quite looking forward to representing this woman in Court.

There’s a lot going on in this dream too. There’s more than enough to render the summons invalid. I’d love to prove that in Court.

And then the Tesco’s in the old furniture shop – that would be interesting too and help liven up the town centre, not that it would ever happen. But the need for special cream is something of more relevance to Laurence rather than to Nerina.

After that, there was football. There had been several matches in the Scottish League Cup yesterday, so I searched for the highlights of the St Johnstone v Greenock Morton game. And I rather wish that I hadn’t because, once again, Morton were awful and the 3-0 defeat rather flattered them. In my opinion, they were lucky to get 0.

When the match had finished, I did some reading before going for a disgusting drink break. And then I was working on another project for a few hours, just to keep myself busy.

By then the highlights of the match between Stranraer and Alloa Athletic had been posted on line. And Stranraer did really well, drawing 2-2 away to higher-level opposition.

Later on, it was time to go a-baking. And today, I made some bread. I wanted to try something different instead of the usual sunflower seeds, so I ground up a large handful of almonds and added them in. We’ll see how they react to the bread.

While the bread was baking, I assembled another half-dozen home-made croissants. And when the bread was baked, they went into the oven and now they are ready for starting next weekend.

And I think that I’ve fixed the problem relating to the drawers in the kitchen. I had another one collapse on me this evening, and while I was repairing it, I finally managed to understand why they kept falling apart. This time, therefore, I fixed it properly and little by little, I’ll go round and do the rest.

So having written my notes and generally done what needs doing, I’m off to bed, hoping for a good night’s sleep before dialysis … "and not before time too" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about distilleries … "well, one of us has" – ed … I had a friend once who drowned in a vat of whisky in a distillery.
"That must have been a quick end" said my friend.
"Not at all" I replied. "He got out three times for a bite to eat."

Sunday 12th July 2026 – SUNDAY IS A …

… Day Of Rest, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. A day when I don’t do anything at all and spend much of my time in bed, even down to having the nurses deal with my legs and feet as I slumber on.

So consequently, last night, totally and utterly exhausted and having abandoned my blog notes for now, I went to bed at about 22:00 with an air of profound optimism, didn’t I?

And although it took a minute or two to go off to sleep, I ended up being well away with the fairies, although not in any manner that would excite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine. And there I stayed until all of … errr … 00:10.

That was when I awoke, and from then on for several hours, I was drifting in and out of sleep. And as seems to be the case these days, it was difficult to tell what period was which. Round about 06:00, I was definitely awake and there seemed to be no hope whatever of going back to sleep, so at 06:15 I was actually up and about.

After I’d sorted myself out in the bathroom, the first task was to listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.

I was back in the Auvergne last night again and was standing for election to the town council. In the borough, in the part of the area where I lived, there was no opposition so I was “walked over” into the Houses of Parliament. And it was bricking really good as well and it looked quite an impressive thing to see, and I hoped that my descendants, or whoever completes the job, will have the same kind of senses to the colours … fell asleep here …

So this is the usual kind of incoherent nonsense … "you said it" – ed … that doesn’t make any sense at all and is totally meaningless. So much so that I can’t even remember dictating it. And it’s surely no surprise to anyone that I fell asleep in the middle of it all.

When Isabelle the Nurse turned up, she was amazed to find that I was out of bed and working. My reaction was that I was rather disappointed. I had hoped to have had a really decent sleep for once.

Anyway, after she finished with me, she wandered off on the rest of her rounds, still on foot. Everywhere was total chaos today with roads being closed up here for the brocante and down in the town too for the shopping morning.

Meanwhile, I was preparing my breakfast – porridge, coffee and home-made croissants – and while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

He’s still going on with his anti-Roman tirade at first, but slowly, he’s gradually warming to some examples of Roman architecture. And the difference? "But it was not the old Rome of Pontiffs and Augurs, of Consuls and Emperors, that was to mould the arts of Teutonic Christendom. Before she could influence the race on whom the spirit of the Church was to take the firmest hold, she had herself to bend before the Cross. The greatness of Rome is indeed exclusively heathen …. its Christianity was but the precursor of its fall. It endured but to pass the torch of truth to a race springing into life with all the fervency of youthful vigour, whose greatness might be cradled in the lap of the Church, and during its historic being have known no other faith. This was the work of Christian Rome, to lay the foundation among another people of a truly Christian commonwealth; ;"

Back in here, I had a few things to do and to organise, but would you believe that I crashed out? It was 11:00 when I awoke so I reckoned that I’d been out for forty-five minutes, and I didn’t feel a thing.

Once I’d gathered up my wits, I continued with the notes for the blog, and they are now on line at long last. That meant that I could have a pause for a disgusting drink and the midday medication.

When I was back and ready, I carried on with the radio notes for the next programme, and it’s almost finished now. I just have to find a way of losing five seconds, but that shouldn’t be difficult.

There was time for a footfest afterwards. The first match was Stranraer, of the fourth tier, against Ayr United of the second. And Stranraer gave Ayr a good run for their money, twice taking the lead, but eventually going down 3-2. That was followed by Greenock Morton of the second tier v non-league Linlithgow Rose.

As for that game, I couldn’t believe what I was watching, and I ended up having to watch the streams from both clubs to make sense of it. I’ve seen Morton play some bad matches in the past, but never as bad as this. Morton lost the game 1-0 and they were lucky to get nil. Linlithgow hit the post with the keeper beaten three times during the game.

What I noticed particularly was how easily the Morton players were muscled off the ball. If a non-league side can do this to Morton, heaven help Morton when the league gets under way.

Later on, it was baking time, and as well as producing another nice home-made loaf, I made a fruit bread too, and that looks pretty good. However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so I’ll tell you in due course how they turn out.

Doing all that baking wore me out so I was glad to have a sit-down afterwards. And there was another bottle of alcohol-free beer in the fridge. That didn’t last long either.

Anyway, now that my notes are written, I’m off to bed. It’s dialysis tomorrow of course, and I don’t feel at all like going. But there’s nothing new there.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about bread … "well, one of us has" – ed … in Russia, a peasant went to the bakers to buy some bread.
"I’m sorry" said the baker "but I’ve run out."
"What a stupid country this is!" exclaimed the peasant. "And that stupid Vladimir Putin. He’s the worst of the lot. This is all his fault."
Just then a Russian soldier who had been listening came over, brandishing his rifle. "You want to watch yourself" he said to the peasant. "I would be perfectly justified in shooting you, so you clear off home and watch your mouth."
When he returned home, his wife noticed his empty hands. "Have they run out of bread again?" she asked
"They have indeed" he answered. "And I’ll tell you something else for nothing too."
"What’s that?"
"I reckon that they’ve run out of bullets too."

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

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