Tag Archives: eric hall

Monday 8th December 2025 – MY GINGER CAKE …

… or, rather, what was left of it has found its way into the bin this evening. It seems to have developed one or two suspicious stains that were worthy of further examination, and the further examination was not positive.

That’s quite a disappointment because I was enjoying eating it. But you learn from your errors, and one thing that I have learned is that I’ll cook it at a higher temperature for longer, and lower down in the oven too.

All in all, it’s not really been a very good twenty-four hours. As is usual these days, it took me an age to finish off what I needed to do last night and it was long after 23:30 when I finally crawled into bed. I was absolutely exhausted and had fallen asleep once or twice writing out my notes.

As for what happened after that, I remember very little, except that for some reason, I was freezing cold. I’ve no idea if it was really the case (it was quite a mild night, apparently) or whether I dreamed it. In any case, when the alarm went off at 06:29, I was flat out, dead to the World.

It took quite a while for me to come to my senses and force myself to my feet, but I did eventually manage to stagger into the bathroom and then into the kitchen for my medication and my hot ginger, honey and lemon drink

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I’d given up coach-driving for health reasons, but my brother was driving a coach. He asked Nerina if she would go with him on a European tour as a hostess. She refused, and he couldn’t find anyone else, so with a great deal of reluctance, I said that I’d go. We loaded the coach with people and set off. But he has getting the coach all dirty inside and no-one was cleaning it. He wasn’t very good with the passengers, and he decided that, when we came to a town in Germany while we were on our way somewhere else, instead of going around the bypass, he’d go through the town centre. Unfortunately, it was Carnaval so we were trapped in this town centre for quite some considerable time. He was arguing about all kinds of things, and in the end I decided that I’d had enough and that I was going to drive. However, he’d parked the coach somehow inside another coach, and trying to manoeuvre it out of there was extremely complicated. First of all, he had to tell me which were the panels in order to pull the driving seat out into its traditional place instead of sitting on the front bumper. When he’d done that, I had to reverse the coach out of this complicated parking space inside another coach. I found that I didn’t have the force to work the brake pedal correctly so as I was driving backwards down this very narrow area, the coach was running away with me. Luckily, I managed to control it without hitting anything, but it was a very, very close thing. All of the passengers alighted to give me a better chance of driving it out of the door of this coach. However, it was on a slope, and as I wasn’t concentrating particularly, the coach rolled forward and we had to start all over again. Eventually, I had the coach on the street, and I found that the coach was better going forward for me, so I thought that I’d go forward around the block and back to pick up these people. However, I missed the turning to turn right around the block. I ended up carrying straight on and under the flyover that carried the bypass around the town. I thought that I was really lost now, so I parked the coach. All of the water on the front stove was boiling away, about five different pots of it so I had to work out which controls controlled the gas for those particular hobs and try to turn them down. While I was doing this, I found some tools embedded in the ashes. I thought that I’d take those out later when I’d sorted out all of this. In the meantime, someone else came over and began to talk to me. He asked me about my PSV badge and pointed to one hanging on the wall, an old, rusty one. He said that he thought that it was mine, but mine was in a water-stained leather holder that was next to it. I told him that that was mine. By this time, I was completely fed up. I couldn’t drive the coach any more, I couldn’t control the brakes, so I decided that the best thing that I could do was to walk away, let my brother find the coach and let him carry on on his own.

Driving coaches certainly makes a change from driving taxis these days, but I could have done without any of my family members involved in it. But the dream seems to be one big mass of a mess with all kinds of surreal and unusual events taking place. It’s enough to make me wonder what on earth was going on in my head last night.

The nurse turned up early again and he was soon gone. He starts his week’s break today so I imagine that he’s in a rush to finish his rounds and clear off. And once he’d cleared off, I could make breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

But seeing as we have been talking about breakfast … "well, one of us has" – ed … I didn’t have any vegan butter for my toast, having used all of what was left for my vegan Christmas pudding. Luckily, I had some strawberry jam left over from when I marzipanned my cake, so that had to do.

Ohh, how I suffer.

Thomas Codrington has been leading us out of East Anglia today along the Icknield Way into the West Country. We’ve been passing a series of dykes in Cambridgeshire that were presumably built by the early Anglo-Saxons to defend their territory before they pushed west. We cab gather that these dykes are later than the Roman period because late-issue Roman coins have been found underneath a couple of the dykes but on the top of the original layer of ground.

Back in here, I had a few things to do and then I revised some of my Welsh for the lesson tomorrow. I’m trying to push ahead whenever and wherever I can.

My cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic, and then I had to wait for the taxi, which was late today. We had to go to Sartilly to pick up someone else too, so I was quite late arriving.

Today, I was put into the little room with three other patients. One of the nurses was new (to this branch) and didn’t know where anything was, so it took an age to be coupled up. Luckily though, they left me alone afterwards and I could amuse myself as I wished.

The new nurse was assigned to uncouple me too, so, as usual, we had some more lengthy delays while she sorted out everything that she needed.

It was my favourite taxi driver who brought me home tonight, so we had a really good chat. She also brought me through the town centre to see the Christmas lights. However, this year they are something of a disappointment.

Back here, my faithful cleaner helped me in. I sat on the chair in the kitchen for a while and then made my tea, although really I did nothing more than warm up the half-pizza left over from yesterday, followed by soya dessert with a couple of biscuits. I’m really disappointed about my ginger cake, so I’ll have to make another cake on Wednesday. Anyone any ideas for the ingredients?

Right now, though, I’m off to bed. I’m exhausted and I’ve already almost fallen asleep about half a dozen times since I’ve been sitting here. I’ve no idea why I’m so tired these days. There’s definitely something not right with how I’m feeling.

But seeing as we have been talking about my health issues and not baking until Wednesday … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of one occasion when Nerina was sitting in the kitchen bot doing very much when I came home from a coach-driving job.
"Is tea ready?" I asked.
"No, it isn’t" she replied.
"What’s up?" I asked.
"The kitchen is closed, due to illness and fatigue" she replied
"How do you mean? "
"Just that I’m sick and tired of cooking."

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Sunday 7th December 2025 – WHEN I WENT …

… to bed last night, I was looking forward to a really good sleep and a nice lie-in until the nurse arrives and shakes me awake at about 08:45.

And I deserved it too. What with the football running late and my own lack of effort and motivation, it was quite late – long after midnight – when I finally crawled off to bed. It seemed to take an age to finish off everything that needed finishing.

But cruel fate intervened last night, as it so often does. Firstly, it was another one of those nights where it didn’t seem as if I’d been to sleep at all. I just seemed to be lying there in a kind of semi-conscious daze throughout the night.

Secondly, round about 06:00, I was wide-awake and it was totally impossible to go back to sleep, no matter how much I tried. Round about 06:50, I gave it up as a bad job and left the bed.

Being up and about at that time on a Sunday morning, I took full advantage and dictated all of the outstanding radio notes. Unfortunately, not being able to see clearly at that time of the morning, I made something of a mess of them and they will take a good while to sort out.

After the usual visit to the bathroom, I wandered off into the kitchen to make my hot ginger, honey and lemon drink and to take my morning medication, and it was there in the kitchen that the nurse found me.

He was quite upset that I hadn’t taken advantage of the bed, and to be honest, so was I, but it can’t be helped. Anyway, he sorted out my legs and was soon gone.

Once he’d left, I could make my breakfast (including the last of my homemade croissants) and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

Today, he is talking about a road that leads to Berwick-upon-Tweed but notes that "it is between 50 and 60 miles long, and no part of it appears to be mentioned in the Itinerary of Antonine." – the Iter Britanniarum.

Most people these days date the Iter Britanniarum to the reign of Caracalla on the grounds that many of the roads that are described within did not exist in Antonine’s time. So if the Iter Britanniarum really was prepared in the time of Caracalla, this road here must be a really late addition to the road network

He also talks about Chew Green, right on the border between England and Scotland. There, he tells us that "there is a complication of camps. A camp, 330 yards square, is overlapped by another camp, 330 yards by 200 yards, and encloses three smaller camps, one of which, about 110 yards square, is more strongly entrenched than the others. ".

Of course, with a description like that, I had to go for a look. And THIS WAS WHAT I FOUND. It’s another magnificent sight. You’ll see the modern track running from north-northwest to south-southeast. If you look slightly to the west of it, north of the fort with all of the defences, you can make out the track of the Roman road.

Back in here, I had the dictaphone notes to transcribe. And once more, I was surprised at how much there was to transcribe. In this dream, I’d hired a new cleaner. I was showing her around the place and telling her what I would like to have done. I mentioned to her that I had two kittens and they spent a lot of time asleep, and if they were asleep, the best thing to do was to leave them where they are and not touch them. Just let them sleep until they awaken. That was as far as I went into this dream.

God help me if I ever have to hire a new cleaner. I am really lucky with the one whom I have, and I shall be lost without her. Yes, and I would love to have a cat, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed ….

There were three of us, and we were having to trek to this mountain that was in the distance. It was really snowy and a deep winter but we were on our journey. I was the smallest of the three so I was the one at the back while the two others were wading through the snow to make a trail. We passed into a forest and we could see the mountain, ohh, a hundred miles away in the distance, but we continued on our trek. At one point we came across a firefly that was buzzing around in our tracks. We thought that if it is going to report to its maker or whatever, then we would be in difficulty. However, it buzzed around us for a short while and we could push on. We then arrived in Crewe, but by this time, there were two of us and a girl. We climbed down into Earle Street near where Tiko’s used to be, and there was a Native American going past on his horse. We asked him if he ever went out to the Navajo country. He replied that he didn’t. We mentioned something about looking for a guide, but he gave us a very long lecture about white men pushing into his territory, how his people had had enough and how they were going to go on the warpath. This girl made a few comments to him in what was apparently his native language. He listened to her but it didn’t mollify his stance anyway. Later on, we learned that he had in fact gone onto the warpath and was busy devastating the homes and ranches of many settlers out there in what was formerly his hunting ground.

This was like a trek in LORD OF THE RINGS when everyone was going on a quest. But presumably, the Native American has to do with what I was reading the other week.

And then, I was living in Brussels and after all of the money that I’d spent on my kitchen and my nice apartment, my landlord was giving me notice to leave. That was extremely depressing. As it happened, the telephone rang so I had to go out and do some taxi work. At one point, I found myself not too far away from the free newspaper offices where they had all kinds of adverts, so I decided to go there and talk to someone to see what they had for apartments to let. Luckily, there was a parking space outside so I went in. The first thing that the guy asked me for was the number and reference, which I didn’t have. He said that if I hadn’t booked an appointment over the ‘phone, I couldn’t be seen, so I left. I picked up a couple of passengers after that. They wanted to go to various hotels around the city. The first one, I had a rough idea where it was but I almost ended up driving past it. The second one, I managed to drop the people off outside the door, and then I went back for my breakfast. While I was squeezing my lemon, a girl came in. She said something like “that’s my lemon squeezer.” I replied that I thought that it was mine, so we had a discussion about the lemon squeezer. Then, the two people from the hotel came in. I was talking about going back out after I’d had my breakfast, but they were surprised. They didn’t realise that I worked all day. They just thought that I worked an eight-hour shift or something. Then, a couple more people came in. They were musicians on their way to a performance in Germany. They had a video of themselves pulling up at some hotel in Germany and having to unload everything out of the car, including a bike, when it came to going into their room, and how the corridors were so small and winding that they damaged the walls and they damaged their equipment and they damaged their possessions as they found their room. I don’t know if I dictated … "no, you didn’t" – ed … but right at the end of that dream about the hotel and taxiing and Brussels, I was trying to write a note for a friend of mine, asking if she was coming up to see me, to bring me a copy of the “Vlan” and if she could make sure that I had a copy of the “Vlan” every week when it came out.

This ties in with a dream that I had a while ago about living in Brussels and having two apartments. However, I owned both of those. At one time though, I was thinking of fitting out the kitchen upstairs, and I’m glad that I didn’t; otherwise, I would have lost all of my investment when I moved downstairs.

It must have been an interesting discussion, arguing about a lemon squeezer. And here we are, taxiing again. What’s going on here?

Back in my comfortable office chair, there were the highlights of Stranraer v Stirling Albion to watch. And how the score ended up 3-2 to Stranraer, I really don’t know. Stranraer hit the woodwork half a dozen times, had half a dozen shots cleared off the line, and the Stirling Albion keeper was in outstanding form, saving another dozen or so point-blank efforts.

As for Stirling Albion, they had just two shots on target …

After a disgusting drinks break, I began to edit one of the sets of radio notes, but I found a problem – the left-hand track was eight seconds shorter than the right. It seems that it stopped recording for a short while in mid-stream. It took quite a bit of cutting and pasting in order to add exactly the right amount of speech back in and to synchronise it.

There wasn’t much time to do it either, because I had to knock off and make a start on my Christmas pudding. It took all afternoon to prepare it, too. Then I had to steam it for over three hours in a pan of boiling water.

While it was steaming, I made my pizza. And it was another really delicious one. And once again, I could only manage half of it. It’s worrying, actually, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. When I had my appetite, I was eating about two hundred and fifty grammes- worth of base, with all of the associated toppings. These days, I’m managing about eighty grammes of base, less than one-third.

So right now, I’m off to bed. Dialysis tomorrow, and I don’t feel at all like it, but then, that’s par for the course, isn’t it?

But seeing as we have been talking about the Roman camps at Chew Green … "well, one of us has" – ed … during the excavation of the site, they found two skeletons together in the same grave. They were totally undamaged, and there were no weapons or armour among the grave goods.
"It looks as if they didn’t die fighting" said the chief archaeologist. "Not even amongst themselves in their grave."
"Ah well" said his assistant"they haven’t got the guts, have they?"

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Saturday 6th December 2025 – MY CHRISTMAS CAKES …

… both are now marzipanned and back in the fridge, waiting for next weekend when I shall ice them. All that remains after that … "all!" – ed … will be to make the Christmas pudding and the mince pies.

And then to hope that my appetite comes back so that I can enjoy them. At the rate that I’m going, though, it’s unlikely. My appetite is still almost non-existent, but I’m doing my best.

Anyway, last night was another late night. Almost midnight, in fact, when I finally climbed into bed. It was a dreadful night too. It seemed almost as if I hadn’t gone to sleep at all, but instead I lay there tossing and turning throughout the night.

When the alarm went off, I was in that no-man’s land of not being asleep but not being awake either. However, I forced myself out of bed before the second alarm and then, at some point, staggered off into the bathroom.

After the medication and the hot ginger, honey and lemon, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And considering that I didn’t think that I’d gone to sleep at all, I was surprised by just how much there was on there.

I was back on the taxis and it had been a really quiet night. We hadn’t done very much so at the end of the night I went to book myself a room in a hotel to stay the night. I walked in, and one of my neighbours from Shavington was there. We had a chat and he asked me how things were. I told him that they weren’t so good at the moment. I dropped one of my crutches and he said “I’ll try to pick it up” but I picked it up instead. For some reason, his hand went onto my chest to try to stop me breathing. I had to tell him a couple of times to stop doing that. He asked me if I was going to look for another driver. I replied that I’d be finishing school in a couple of months so there’s not much point. Then, my girl driver came in. She wanted to cash up everything. She was very concerned about me. She laid all of her things out on the counter at this hotel reception. She asked if my phone would charge up my headphones. I replied “better than that, there’s a slot to listen where you plug in”. We began to chat but then she had a job to go out to do so she said that she’d have to go, but she didn’t really want to go. I replied “you can always stop the night with me”. She replied “well, I have this fare that I have to pick up”. I replied “well, you can always come back later”. She gave me one of these strange looks”.

It beats me why I would want to book a room in a hotel. And as for the neighbour, I’ve not thought about him since probably about 1972 so how come he worked his way into the scene, I don’t know. But we did have some quiet nights at times where we barely turned a wheel and that was what I call boring. I’d much rather be busy than lounging around doing nothing.

It had been a quiet night on the taxis. I hadn’t really done very much so I was thinking about going home to cash up everything and then maybe have an early night for once. Thomas from Peterborough was extremely offended that he would lose his evening’s work but people explained to him that he was a part-time driver and he would have to take what’s happening from the more important people who were planning the work and booking it … fell asleep here … so there I was, waiting for the final whistle and ready to drop down on my side to carry on working again.

This seems to be part of the first dream, with me going off on a tangent again, whoever Thomas from Peterborough is. But the second part of this looks like we’re back to talking football again.

There was some kind of big family group outing going on, and I was part of it on my own. I ended up talking to this married woman who had a daughter. She and her husband were there and the daughter but I was chatting to this woman. We ended up spending an awful lot of time together, so much so that I’m sure that there must have been talk. The daughter took to me too and I actually took her fishing on one occasion while we were on this outing. But then she said at the night as we were all prepared to camp down in this field that she was off fishing with another boy and she’d be back in the morning to see me so we bedded down. In the meantime, these kids were bedded down in this stream and they came across a car that was in the water. One of them opened the door and recoiled in horror, and they ran all the way back to where we were camping. The teacher was busy talking to a group of people about a missing car. These kids came dashing in, they saw this drawing and shouted “this is the car, this is the car”. They explained that they had seen the car in this stream so we all set out. I was with this woman again and we came to where we needed to go down to the bottom in a lift. There were several lifts, and everyone was queueing at one or two, so we went over to the one where no-one was queueing. We pressed the button and the doors opened, and the girl was in there, wrapped up in a sleeping bag asleep with one of her friends. We went down in this lift and as the lift approached the bottom, I shouted, woke these two kids and unzipped them out of their sleeping bag. We made ready to meet the others who were on their way down so that we could walk off to see the car in this stream and point out what was so horrific to the kids.

There’s an interesting story behind this dream too, but the World isn’t ready to hear it yet. I’ve no idea to what the car relates, though

Did I dictate this dream about a girl whom I knew who was a few years younger than me? We used to hang around a lot together … "no you didn’t" – ed …. It came to the time when she was eighteen and was planning on going to university. In the meantime, I’d been working for a few years after leaving school and was thinking of going to university so I’d applied to Aberdeen. My application had gone in and I asked this girl where she was thinking of going. She replied that she didn’t really know but Aberdeen sounded great to her. I asked if she had a prospectus but she said that she hadn’t, but she’d like to find one somewhere. I said that I had one and I asked her “why not come back to my house and we can spend a day or two going through the prospectus?”. Eventually, she agreed. When I arrived back home, this girl had transformed herself into a big spider. My mother hated spiders so she wouldn’t let this one into the house. I picked up a bike and a few camping things and went off to Canada, with the bike, these camping things and the spider. I set out, and while I was cycling around, I was talking to this spider about Aberdeen University. Eventually, I came to a great big kind of tourist attraction. It was really complicated. There was a river there down in the valley but there was also a river there had been partly canalised that was at the level at which we were. It was running over stones and was really rapid here, splashing everyone. There were people fishing, catching some enormous sizes of fish so I decided that I would spend half an hour fishing while this girl finished off making up her mind, and then we could get together and make a decision. However, I couldn’t make my bike stand up. I eventually found a bike park, which was complicated enough to reach, but no matter how I tried, there was too much weight on my bike for it to stand upright. I was having to think about a solution to prop it up somewhere so that I could go off to fish and leave this girl to finalise her decision. There were a couple of people there, married couples who were sitting around, and even they couldn’t help me make this bike stand upright. I was becoming so frustrated about that.

There is a girl to whom this story fits quite well, although at the time the events in the real World were happening, I didn’t realise it. Turning into a spider and cycling to Canada are quite surreal ideas though.

One thing about these dreams though is that it concerns fishing. I’ve only ever been fishing twice in my life, as a young kid, and found it to be one of the most boring “sports” ever. I couldn’t see the point then and it’s even less so today. I can’t understand why, all of a sudden, I’d be thinking of going fishing right now.

The nurse was late today coming round. I reminded him that it’s possible that tomorrow he’ll find me in bed in the morning, so he made a note. And after he finished my legs, he cleared off.

Once he’d gone, I could make breakfast and carry on reading some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN. Today, we’re still across Hadrian’s Wall roaming around Dere Street but as yet, I’ve not found anything of real importance.

After breakfast, I marzipanned my Christmas cakes. My marzipanning technique seems to be improving because it all went together perfectly the first time of trying the first time without any problems at all. I hope that the icing goes as well as this next weekend.

One thing that I miss though is my turntable. When I was building computers twenty-odd years ago, I had a turntable on which I would put them and it saved me hours. If I had had it here and used it for the marzipanning and the icing, I would save hours on those jobs too.

After a disgusting drink break, I had a mini foot-fest, watching the highlights of last night’s games in Wales. And that reminds me – ONE OF THE BEST GOALS YOU ARE EVER LIKELY TO SEE FOR A LONG, LONG TIME are now available. Take a bow, Corey Shephard!

Later on, I wrote the missing notes for another radio programme to be broadcast in the distant future and there was even time to make a start on yet another radio programme. I have to make the most of my freedom these days.

Things could have been so much better and I could have done so much more too except that once again, I fell asleep in the afternoon. For a good hour or so too. I’m really fed up of all of this.

There was more football tonight – the League Cup semi-final between Cambrian United and Y Barri. Cambrian, from the second division and who play their home games in the suburbs of Tonypandy, had the lion’s share of the play but the class of Y Barri showed through. Whatever chances they created, they took them, whereas Cambrian were pretty wasteful.

The score of 0-3 to Y Barri was definitely a flattering scoreline. And I do have to say that near the end, I crashed out a couple of times.

Tea was chips, salad and some of those vegan nuggets that I like. Only a small portion, but even so, I struggled to eat it all.

Right now though, I’m off to bed, hoping for a really good lie-in tomorrow. But we shall see about that.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about cycling to Canada … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of when I was AT THE POINT AMOUR LIGHTHOUSE on my mega-drive around the mountains of Labrador in 2010.
At the lighthouse, I met a woman who stared in disbelief at my small urban-motoring saloon and said, incredulously "have you driven around the Trans-labrador Highway in THAT??? "
"Ohh yes" I replied. "It’s not the car that counts, it’s the driver. And the next time that I come to Canada, I’ll be crossing the Atlantic on a motor-bike!"
The funny thing about this story is that when I told it to a Canadian girl a few years later, she asked "and did you?"
All of which goes to show that, as Kenneth Williams and Alfred Hitchcock once famously said, "it’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners."

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Friday 5th December 2025 – I’VE DONE IT …

… again!

Crashed out on the chair in the office late this afternoon, and not just for five minutes either. I was for a whopping well over an hour. It looks as if I’m back in the bad old days of eighteen months ago when I was crashing out for hours every day with no sign of it ever improving.

This is a really huge disappointment to me, and I’m totally fed up with it. I wish that I could snap out of it and push on with work, now that I have (at long last) the opportunity.

That’s just how it was last night too. I fell asleep a couple of times again while I was typing out my notes, and by the time that I finished, I was so wiped out that I went straight to bed without even starting, never mind finishing, what else I had to do.

Once in bed, I fell asleep straight away, and there I stayed, without moving, until the alarm went off.

A couple of times just recently, I’ve said that I didn’t really feel like leaving the bed when the alarm went off. This morning was probably the worst that I have felt and I really was on the point of switching off the alarm and going back to bed.

Nevertheless, I struggled on and staggered into the bathroom for a good wash.

In the kitchen, I made my hot ginger, lemon and honey drink, took my medication and then came back here to listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. And it was no surprise to learn that there was nothing on there. It must have been a really deep sleep.

The nurse came quite early again and sorted out my legs. After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

We’ve crossed Hadrian’s Wall and we are now looking at some of the forward camps where troops were stationed as an advance guard to watch over the territory north of the wall.

He tells us that at Durisdeer, there are "the remains of a small, but well-preserved Roman fortlet are located about a mile up the Well or Wald Path to the north-east" and that a Roman road passed up the valley by the camp to connect the Nith Valley with the Clyde Valley.

Consequently, I had a play around with an online aerial map and CAME ACROSS THIS. If you look closely, you’ll see the modern track, which is where the wheel ruts are, but slightly above it, you can make out the ridge of the Roman road.

It was the defences that impressed me, though. I’ve not seen a Roman fort with a ditch and bank as pronounced as this one. They must have been really troubled times up on the frontier.

Back in here, I finished off what I should have done last night and then carried on with writing the radio notes. They are all finished now, ready to dictate.

There were several interruptions. Two disgusting drinks breaks, for a start. And my cleaner put in an appearance to do her stuff.

The first thing that she had to do was to rescue two saucepans that had fallen out of the back of one of the drawers and landed on the floor underneath the unit. The second task was to shuffle the contents of the drawers around so that if a saucepan falls out again, it will drop into the drawer underneath and not onto the floor.

While she was at it, she also sorted out my Christmas tree. So now it has all of its decorations and lights. It’s only about 30 centimetres tall, but it puts a little ambience into the living room and makes it look a little more like Christmas. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. I wish that other people around here would make some kind of effort.

Back in here, I crashed out on the chair for well over an hour, as I said just now. To my surprise, when I awoke, there was something on the dictaphone. I was at some kind of Russian spy school, looking through documents. I wasn’t very popular there and no-one liked me very much, not that that bothered me, but I was keen enough to learn. One of the documents was a report on a case that we had to study. It showed that someone had stolen some documents, had extracted information and passed them through to his superior. However, his superior was extremely unreliable and drunken. He was on the verge of giving away everything when he passed the information in some kind of strange, diagonal way across a whole range of people to someone totally unexpected on the far side of the operation. It fascinated me, so I was trying to write an extract of this. In the end, I ended up having to lie on the floor to do it, but the dog decided to jump all over me and I had to fight the dog off. In the end, I managed to drag the dog off outside and go back to the paper, but by then, the boss had come down from his booth. He told me not to bother and to move on to the next exercise. I told him that I was enjoying this particular one and I was determined to finish it. He said that the part that he enjoyed the most about it was the part when I was fighting off the dog. In the end, I put my foot down rather and made something of a fuss about it. In the end, he agreed to let me have a further five minutes to finish this particular case.

Actually, I’d been reading quite recently about a Russian spy school that sent agents to try to prise out the British and American nuclear secrets just after World War II, so it’s probably something to do with that.

But working on and enjoying a subject that my boss wants to ignore in order to concentrate on something else reminds me very much of my university course. I enjoyed the research that I was doing far more than the research that my tutor wanted me to do. It was for that reason that I was rejected for my Ph.D. The tutor didn’t think that I would stick to the task in hand.

With the little time that was left, I began to hunt down some missing photos from 2019. This is a project that I was hoping to attack with all of this free time that I now seem to have … "in theory" – ed …

For tea, I made a very quick stir fry and then came back in here to watch the football. Y Bala v Hwlffordd.

Both clubs are in difficulty right now at the wrong end of the table, and having seen this game, I’m not surprised. Hwlffordd didn’t impress me at all, but Y Bala were awful. They were clueless and offered absolutely nothing at all.

The score was 0-2 in favour of Hwlffordd, thanks to a silly, pointless penalty and another one of these marvellous wonder-goals that you see maybe once in ten years … "of which we have now seen two already this season" – ed … When the highlights come online, I’ll post the link and you can see for yourself. If someone had scored that goal in the Premier League, people would be talking about it for the next fifty years.

Right now though, I’m off to bed, and I can’t say that I’m sorry because I’m exhausted. But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Hadrian’s Wall … "well, one of us has" – ed … here is a question that was asked in a Roman school in about 200AD
Magister – "if it took five hundred men ten years to build the eighty Roman miles of Hadrian’s Wall, how long would it take three hundred men to build half of it if they took four weeks feriatum each complete year?"
Claudius – "no time at all, Magister."
Magister – "why not, Claudius?"
Claudius – "because those five hundred men have already built it."

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Thursday 4th December 2025 – GUESS WHO …

… forgot to reset one of the alarms last night, after having switched them off as a result of his early start?

That’s right, Brain of Britain strikes again! When the alarm sounded this morning, I slowly rose from the Dead and sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for the second alarm to go off before staggering off into the bathroom. And waited, and waited.

Eventually, I had a look to see what had happened. Having switched the alarms off yesterday so that they wouldn’t sound while I was in the bathroom, I hadn’t switched the first one back on. It was the second that had awoken me, and that was that.

My excuse is that I was quite tired yet again last night and hadn’t had time to clear my head. I’d fallen asleep … "yet again" – ed … while preparing my notes and couldn’t wait to go to bed. I’d obviously not checked everything as I normally would.

Once in bed, though, I fell asleep quite quickly and stayed asleep until about 05:40 or so. Although I awoke at that moment, I’m afraid that I simply turned over and went back to sleep until it was time to meet my Waterloo. And how I wish that I could do that every time that I wake up.

So after my exciting start to the day, I staggered off into the bathroom and then into the kitchen to take my medication and make my ginger, lemon and honey drink.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And I was surprised that I’d been so far. There was a guy who lived up on Leighton Park estate who had a couple of Mk IV Cortinas. I used to drive past and look at them. He happened to mention a while back that he would be acquiring a third one, a car formerly used by the Church, a kind of missionaries’ or vicars’ car etc. I thought that that would be out of place with the slogans and stickers that he had on the two others. One day, the third car was there, and it was up on ramps. I didn’t notice anything special about it. But then I’d had some bodywork done on mine, and I wanted a Cortina badge, so I wondered if he happened to have one that he could spare. I went round and noticed that one of his two previous cars, the one without all of the stickers and writing on it, was quite nice. It had recently had a respray and there were no badges on it. He came to the door, so we began to chat about the cars etc, then he mentioned that he needed to fit a “doughnut” onto the new one that he had bought. He wondered whether it would be possible to do it. I didn’t know what he meant by “doughnut” because the only one that I knew was on the propshaft. However, I said that I didn’t see any reason why we shouldn’t. He replied “that’s what I thought”. He wandered off inside and came back with some strange-looking bracket and handed it to me. I went off and went to lie on my back underneath the car. His mother came along and said that I must be brave for offering to help him do this. I noticed that the engine in this vicars’ car was a transverse engine and the equipment at one end of the engine was missing. Then I saw where this bracket was supposed to go – it was to reinforce the bonnet. He came along, pointed to the bracket and asked “what do you think?”. I replied “it looks straightforward to me”. I lay down on my back underneath the car and began to unscrew the bolts and nuts. I managed to attach the first part of it without any real difficulty at all, and then I went to attach the second part to the first part and bolt them both up onto the bonnet again.

This reminds me of a time back in 1981 when a taxi proprietor in Winsford had done me a favour. When I went round to thank him, he was trying to change a differential in one of his Ford Zephyr taxis. He was struggling away with it so, instead of thanking him verbally, I changed the differential for him. I often wonder what might have happened had I continued to cultivate that friendship.

The bit about the religious Ford Cortina is interesting, though. I’ve no idea where that came from. But it’s true that when I was breaking Ford Cortinas for spares, I pulled more than one or two off the Leighton Park council estate.

I was back in the Welsh Premier League again. There was some kind of TV programme discussing the clubs. I was giving some kind of commentary. I explained that the league divides into two halfway through the season, with the six highest clubs and the highest of the seventh playing a play-off for a vacant European place. I was able to talk about the positions of some of the teams at the end of the season and to advertise games etc. They used to float balloons across the stage with their positions in, that kind of thing. The clubs at the bottom half were the ones that were competing against relegation. I mentioned one of them, which was at the eighth position in the league at that moment. Then, the sub-manager came over and complained about the new female coach that they had had, how he didn’t think that she was any good and how he wished that she would leave. I thought that in that atmosphere, she had no chance really. In the end, I noticed that there was another coach who turned up with the team and even I was asked if I would take some training sessions at the club at one time.

This dream must surely relate to something. I’ve not given a talk on the JD Cymru League (as it’s known today) for years, and the story about the female coach is something completely new to me. I wonder to whom it relates.

Going back to that other dream, the team that was eighth in the table, a woman, and the manager of the team wasn’t very happy about it. He didn’t like her at all. I thought that the situation wouldn’t last very long if they are arguing like this. In the end, I noticed that the woman had resigned. I went along to the ground to watch a few training sessions and to take part in some and even organise some, but I had no intention of becoming the club’s permanent manager or anything like that at all.

This would seem to be part of the same dream as the previous one. However, interestingly, the timestamps are forty-three minutes apart, so it’s not as if I’ve repeated the part of the previous one. There have been occasions when I’ve had the same dream a second time, and I wonder if this is another one of those.

It was the Welsh Cup, and TNS had been drawn at home to Birmingham. The manager of the Birmingham team was interviewed on the TV and said that he was really excited by this draw and was looking forward to the game. In fact, his club was bringing over seven thousand spectators to watch it. However, with talking to TNS, TNS said that their ground had only a capacity of three thousand, so what were they going to do? TNS had to think of some kind of emergency plan. Their response was that whatever they did, there were going to be a great many people disappointed by whatever decision they made.

Welsh football seems to be an obsession right now. I wonder what’s going on. Certainly, Birmingham wouldn’t be competing in the Welsh Cup, and if they were and they turned up at Park Hall with seven thousand fans, that really would cause a problem seeing as the ground does in fact only hold three thousand.

The nurse was early today. And he didn’t stop around for long. He sorted out my legs and that was that – off like a ferret up a trouser leg, and I could push on.

Once he’d gone, I made breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

Today, we’re roaming over part of Hadrian’s Wall and in particular, the Roman fort of Chesters and the Roman North Tyne bridge. The bridge is particularly interesting. The first one, built round about 120 – 140AD, crossed the North Tyne on eight stone piers.

The second one, which incorporates the remains of the first, was built about eighty years later. It seems to have had four arches built on three massive piers and must have been an astonishing feat of engineering for its day.

Back in here, I had a few things to do and then I began to write the notes for the radio programme that I started yesterday.

By the time my faithful cleaner appeared to deal with my anaesthetic, I’d written a good half of them. I can finish the rest tomorrow morning.

The taxi was early today and as I was the only passenger, we arrived at dialysis early too. However, it made no real difference because I still had to wait until they had plugged everyone else in.

No-one bothered me at all today. The doctor (not Emilie the Cute Consultant, unfortunately) kept her distance, and the blood pressure alarm didn’t sound once so neither did the nurses. I just mooched around in my bed until it was time to go home.

The guy who thinks that he runs the show brought me home, and my cleaner helped me into the apartment. To my surprise, while I’d been out, she’d dismantled my old office chair and someone whom she knew had taken it to the dechetterie. That cheered me up no end

Even better, when she dismantled it, she put all of the screws, bolts and metal brackets on one side “in case I ever need them”. She’s definitely a woman after my own heart.

Tea was a mushroom and potato curry followed by ginger cake and coconut soya dessert. And now I’m off to bed, looking forward to a day with no Centre de Ré-education. Won’t that be nice?

But seeing as we have been talking about Hadrian’s Wall … "well, one of us has" – ed … Hadrian was on the border, supervising its construction when he noticed a slave who looked exactly like him.
He stopped the slave and asked him "I don’t suppose that your mother ever visited Rome at all."
"Oh no" replied the slave, "but my father did."

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Wednesday 3rd December 2025 – ISN’T IT NICE …

… to have a day off without having to rush around to various medical appointments, physiotherapy and all of the like?

It was definitely what I would call a “relaxing day”.

Having said that, of course, it would have been nicer had I managed to have had an early night to go with it (regardless of whether I wake up early or not) but that was, unfortunately, rather too much to expect. By the time that I’d finished my notes, the statistics and the backing-up and been to the bathroom, it was as near as 23:30, which makes no difference

That’ll teach me to fall asleep when I’m writing my notes.

Once in bed, I fell asleep quite quickly, but I awoke on a couple of occasions at some crazy time of early morning. Although I managed to go back to sleep on a couple of occasions, the final time, at 05:40, I was not so fortunate.

After tossing and turning in bed for a while, at about 06:10 I called it a night and raised myself from the Dead. A stagger into the bathroom to clean myself up, and then another stagger into the kitchen to make my hot honey, ginger and lemon drink for my medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was out walking again and came over the top of a hill and was walking down this cobbled road that took me into this medieval town. It was a steep hill down, and from the top, I could see right over this city. I slowly reached down to the bottom, where, lying on its side, was this absolutely enormous motorbike scooter type of thing that was being used as an advertisement but had fallen over. They had five or six motorbikes that were attached to it by a rope. What they did was to set off on the motorbikes and begin to pull this motorbike. It went upright and it pull-started the engine. When it pull-started the engine, someone climbed up onto it and they disconnected all the motorbikes. Someone was extremely angry because what had happened had wrecked his Honda Benly. When I looked, there were three or four Honda Benlys, two of them with police fairings on. I’d never seen that many Honda Benlys in one place at any one time. As I walked off further on, this scooter had now become a huge articulated American bus which was being transformed into a hot dog stand or something like that. There was a message painted on the side of it – “why don’t you Europeans realise that we Americans love ‘great’?” It was certainly huge, this thing.

This was a surreal dream, that’s for sure, this giant scooter or motorbike. You wouldn’t be likely to see a Honda Benly being used as a police bike, though. They were the first of the high-revving 125cc twins that Honda imported into the UK, back in the early 1960s. I had one even earlier than that, a grey import that came into the UK as a personal possession of a sailor. I wonder where it is now, though. A friend of mine was looking after it while I sorted myself out during an “accommodation crisis”, but we had a dispute over some matter or other and I haven’t seen him, or the bike, since.

I was with a group of people and we were pulling some horse-drawn waggons. We went up this really incredibly steep hill, these waggons struggling to move up, but when we reached the top, we could see that there was one of these small Mexican towns below us so we went down very carefully. The contents of our waggons excited some kind of attention but we were sufficiently armed to keep everything at bay. We noticed that there were a few white women down there being mistreated. They had obviously been caught during some kind of border raid etc by these bandits. At first, we ingratiated ourselves with the bandits, but somehow at night, we managed to slip out. By this time, we had an armoured column with a jeep, a few lorries, several tanks and a couple of support vehicles and we headed off towards Granville. I remember saying to someone that all this action is going to take place in an area that I know really well. We drove north, and there was some kind of incident at a cross-roads but whether that was before we climbed that hill or not, I don’t know. We carried on travelling north, and at a fuel station at the side of the road, we pulled in and refuelled all the vehicles. One thing that I noticed was that we fuelled the vehicles from our own supplies and not from the fuel in the fuel station. I thought that that was a strange decision to make. As we were about to rejoin the road again, we saw another column in the distance, so we waited. It was the column of an American general, so we waited until his column had passed and we slipped into the rear of it. In the meantime, these bandits had recovered and were absolutely furious that we’d managed to escape and taken their prisoners with us. So that set out on our tail. Being much more mobile than we were, they were very, very likely to catch us before we’d gone very far

When I was typing this out, I had a feeling of déjà vu and I’m surprised that I mentioned it in the dream. I know where this road junction is – I can see it now. It’s the one in between the hospital roundabout and the roundabout at the start of the ring road. And what I can see in my mind is a pile of dead bodies scattered about all over the place as if they have been caught in an ambush.

The bit about the waggons and the Mexican village seems to relate to the film THE WILD BUNCH, which, despite the negative rating given by many critics, is in my opinion one of the greatest Westerns ever made. Fleeing from the Mexicans in an armoured column means nothing to me, though.

The nurse turned up early and sorted out my legs for me. He didn’t have much to say for himself today and was soon gone, leaving me to make my breakfast and to read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

At the moment, we’re stuck up on the Yorkshire Moors, trying to decipher the story behind Wade’s Causeway. This is a metalled road that leads to precisely nowhere, as fas as anyone has ascertained. Geographically, its line seems to point towards an empty bay on the coast, which is in a straight line from the end of the known road. Codrington thinks that that’s bizarre because there was a known Roman signalling station at Whitby, just along the coast, so why didn’t the road point in that direction?

In fact, every historian has a different opinion about the road, and some don’t even think that it was a road but a collapsed border wall of the kind of Hadrian’s Wall. Others are not convinced that it’s Roman, and that it might even date back as far as Neolithic times

After he left, I came back in here.

While I was going through the football news, I came across A MOST AMAZING INCIDENT IN WELSH FOOTBALL. at Mochdre along the Welsh coast.

Like everyone else who has read the article, I am gripping the edge of my seat in eager anticipation of finding out just exactly what the referee did or was alleged to have done!

To celebrate my day off, there was a pile of soundbytes of quite some length that had accumulated over the last couple of weeks so I set about cutting them into individual soundbytes. That took an age and it wasn’t until about 17:00 and two disgusting drinks breaks that I’d actually finished.

Mind you, I could have finished earlier but unfortunately, round about 15:00, I’m afraid that I crashed out for an hour or so. I thought that with dialysis and having organised a less-active life for myself this last few days, I would have been over all of this, so that was a disappointment.

The rest of the afternoon was spent sorting out the music for the new radio programme, editing, remixing, pairing and then seguing the songs. Tomorrow, I’ll start to write the text and hope that I’ll have the time to finish it so that I can dictate it for the next early morning.

Tea tonight was a vegan burger with pasta followed by ginger cake and soya dessert, and now I’m off to bed.

Dialysis in the afternoon tomorrow, so I’d better be in good shape for it. I don’t want to go back to three times per week if I can possibly avoid it.

Anyway, before I go, seeing as we have been talking about motorbikes … "well, one of us has" – ed … I’ll tell you a true (and it really is true, too) story about a friend of mine on the Wirral who is a big biker-type of person.
He had been complaining for quite a while about how his wife didn’t understand him. But one day, things began to improve and he began to feel much better.
"What’s cheered you up?" I asked him.
"Well, our marriage has been on the rocks for a while because of her lack of interest in my hobbies, but things have changed" he replied. "I had a long talk with some friends, and I ended up getting a Harley-Davidson 883cc Sportster for her."
"Blimmin’ ‘eck" I replied. "That is just one hell of a good swap, that is!"

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Tuesday 2nd December 2025 – AS I HAVE …

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

Actually, you have no idea just how tired I was last night. I fell asleep twice … "or was it three times?" – ed … while I was typing out my notes, and in the end I gave up. I left undone a lot of things that I shouldn’t have left undone, and round about 22:20 I crawled into bed.

It didn’t take long to go to sleep, and there I stayed until about … errr … 04:20 when I awoke. I was able at that point to go back to sleep, but when I awoke the next time at 05:13, that was that. By 06:00, I was in the bathroom having a wash.

After the hot ginger, honey and lemon drink and my medication, I came back in here to finish off what I should have finished off last night, like take the stats and back up the computer.

Then it was time to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was back in my office again and it was the final day so I was preparing to retire. I was slowly going through my things, slowly tidying up. But at one point, I was actually in somewhere else trying to clear the floor of all kinds of papers and everything. It was all little notes and stuff that I’d written years ago and it all went into the bin. I couldn’t believe how tidy I’d made the place. I even found an assignment from one of my University courses and when I had a look at it, I found that although it had received a good mark, the page layout and format of the document that I’d sent was awful, and I wondered how on earth I’d managed to miss this when I’d been preparing it. Then I was back in my office and going through my desk. There were tons of stuff, and I couldn’t work out what I needed to take and what I needed to leave behind. People were asking me what I intended to do. I replied that I had a deckchair, a nice garden and two nice cats. I’ll just sit out and enjoy the summer. Two of us, right at that moment, said that I’d picked the best time of the year to leave. Then the boss came round and asked me if I was nearly ready to go. I replied that I was still sorting out my stuff. She said something like “don’t take the toaster” which was the office toaster that was on my desk. I replied “it’s still on my desk, isn’t it?” because I thought that it was a really offensive thing to say. Then I suddenly realised that it was Friday so I rang up Nerina at her place and asked “shouldn’t we be going swimming tonight after work? I haven’t brought anything to wear”. She replied “I’ll get something off one of my brothers, some shorts or something” but I wasn’t too keen on the idea. Then she told me about this plastic underwear that you could buy. I turned up my nose at that. She tried to persuade me but I wasn’t in the mood to be persuaded. In the end, I thought that I’d probably just go home and make some tea for when Nerina comes home. That’s going to be the best solution but she was still trying to persuade me to wear either her brother’s shorts or some of this plastic underwear.

So having spent all those years during the night reaching the final few days at work but never actually finishing, here I am finally about to cross the threshold. That’s twice in a week or two that I’ve done that, after all of these years.

But whatever this is about plastic underwear? I really don’t know. And as if I really would pinch the office toaster … "perish the thought" – ed …

The nurse turned up, his usual cheerful self (at least, these days) and we had a little chat as he sorted out my legs. He’s all inclined not to come on Sundays to give me even more of a rest and relax, but I’m not quite at that stage yet – although if I fall asleep once more while I’m typing these notes, as I just did five minutes ago, I’ll think again.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

Not that I managed to go very far today, though. I was side-tracked … "again" – ed … looking for the one of the many towns named Manton that contains some significant Roman remains, and ended up going on a guided tour of Roman villas in England – abandoned, or burnt, or destroyed, or buried.

You’ve no idea just how many there are altogether. They even came across one when they were digging a driveway into the Council offices in Bromley.

After breakfast, I came in here to revise my Welsh and then I went to the lesson. It started off quite well, but it all went pear-shaped when we had a spontaneous test on a subject that had been covered by the class while I was at chemotherapy. That was an embarrassment.

However, I bravely stuck it out until the end of the lesson, but I was glad that it was over.

My faithful cleaner came around later, as usual, and organised the shower for me. And so now, I’m a nice, clean boy again. I can’t wait, though, to have the time to order the handrails for the shower so that I can shower on my own and have more than one per week.

After the shower and I’d dried myself off, the next task was to install the strings of Christmas lights in the windows.

Last year, I was the only person in this whole area who had some pretty coloured lights in the window. And even though I’m not a believer in Christmas or anything like that, it’s still nice to bring some joy and gaiety into a depressing period of the year and it’s a shame that other people don’t make any kind of effort at all.

Consequently, my faithful cleaner (under my supervision) put up my lights in both the windows, and now it looks as if at least one person in the area is celebrating Christmas instead of the whole area being so miserable about it. At some point, I’ll even organise my Christmas tree.

After my cleaner left, I sorted out the rest of the music that I need for my next radio programme, and I’ll organise that over the rest of the week. And won’t it be nice to have a couple of days when I’m going nowhere, so that I can press on.

Tea tonight was mashed potatoes, veg and vegan sausage, followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. Only small portions, but I managed to eat it all tonight. It’s a meal with foods that are full of carbohydrates and fats so while it’s not a particularly healthy meal, it’s full of energy and proteins so that should help to keep me going while this lack of appetite persists.

And so, on that point, I’m going to be and see how I’ll get on tonight. I could do with another good sleep but, as usual, that’s not particularly likely. We shall see.

But seeing as we have been talking about sticking it out … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a story that I heard when I was in the High Arctic about two nudists who went on a camping holiday in the north of Greenland.
Freezing and shivering to death inside their tent, they were wondering how long they could stick it out before they ended up being frost-bitten.

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Monday 1st December 2025 – THERE’S A HOWLING …

… gale blowing outside the building right now. So much so that in fact, coming home from dialysis this evening, I had to come into the building through the back door. It would have been impossible for me to have walked the twenty yards from the street down to the front door.

It’s been blowing up over the last twenty-four hours actually. The wind started to freshen yesterday late evening when I was typing up my notes before I went to bed.

Mind you, it was quite late when I finally retired, having not eaten until late and, as usual these days, being wracked with indiscipline and all of that as I tried to finish off everything that needed finishing. It was actually close to midnight, and I wouldn’t like to speculate which side of midnight it was.

Once in bed though, I remember nothing at all until the alarm went off at 06:29. It was such a deep sleep that I regretted not having gone to bed earlier.

Eventually, I managed to find the energy to leave the bed and stagger off into the bathroom for a good wash, and a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant at dialysis.

In the kitchen, I made myself a drink of hot lemon, ginger and honey to wash down my medication, and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. It was Crewe Carnival, so everyone was lining the streets to watch the parade. I went to take up a position in Mill Street. I could see the carnival on Nantwich Road but it didn’t turn in to Mill Street – it turned into Edleston Road instead. I had to run through one of the side streets onto a balcony overlooking Edleston Road where I could see things passing below. I noticed one or two people, and someone had a big coiled snake that he was carrying – a toy one. I suddenly recognised it as “Hissing Sid”, a snake that I used to keep as a mascot. I shouted down, and the fellow came up and handed it to me. I said something along the lines of “he’s grown somewhat since I last had him”. He replied “yes, we’ve let a piece of hosepipe into the middle”. So possession passed and everyone wandered away. I climbed back into my car, and they were talking on the two-way radio about a back road that I knew over the hills, saying how difficult it was for an ordinary car to pass. I said “I’ve been over those hills three times today already”. They asked me in what car, so I replied “The Ranger”. They answered “that’s a different matter. Anyway, we’ll want you in a few minutes for a job”. So I drove down to the start of these hills ready to drive over and come out on the other side on Nantwich Road near Wells Green, but the wooden gates were locked so I had to find the key for it. As I was looking for the key, a car came round the corner, an old Citroën DS estate with an old woman driving it. She turned into the entry, scraped all the way down my car, didn’t stop, drove through, broke the gates and carried on. I decided to go on foot so I walked over to pick up my crutches, and realised that I was walking without my crutches. I thought “it’s a long way over these hills in the sandy road. If my legs give out again, I won’t make it at all”. I went back to the car, wondering just when they were going to call me up to tell me about this job for which I’m needed.

Now, this is a road over which we have travelled on many, many occasions during the night but surprisingly, only the first or second time that we’ve approached it from this direction. It’s almost always been from the other end.

And I did have a “Hissing Sid” too. He was one of those snake-type draught excluders that everyone was making to keep the draughts from coming under the door, but mine was brown, not green. Apart from that, I’ve no idea if Crewe Carnival is still going, and when it did, it had never appeared at the south side of the town. The Citroën is a mystery too.

Someone came to see me to tell me that there was some work going, abroad. It meant that we had to take a ‘plane to fly there. The ‘plane was leaving at 15:15. I had a look, and that gave me two hours to pack and to go to Manchester. I thought that this was a strange timetable, so I went home and began to pack, but I couldn’t think of what to take. I needed some casual clothes, some work clothes, some entertainment etc. By the time that I’d finished, I had the size of a suitcase that everyone would take for a month, especially with a camera in it. It wasn’t the kind of thing that you’d take for a couple of days’ work at all. I went outside but the taxi had already gone with some other people so a group of us began to run. I found that running was comparatively easy and I actually ended up in the lead in this, although after a while, someone began to close the gap. There was one section with a long, steep uphill and this is where the person began to close the gap, but I began occasionally to sprint up this hill to keep the distance. Everyone was saying that I’d soon blow up at this rate, but I reckoned that if I made it to the brow of this hill, I could push on really well. It turned out that the brow of the hill was the railway bridge in Edleston Road. Just over the top by the traffic lights was a pub on the corner. As I reached the pub, a group of policemen came out with someone so we all had to stop and wait while the police sorted out this arrest or whatever it was. Then, I forgot where I was going. I sued to work in a building across the road from there as if I was going back to work there. I suddenly realised that I had a good way to go yet to the airport, so I had to turn round, go back to the road and carry on running. In the meantime, I saw some members of my family who were also running along this road. They knew that I was well ahead so they asked me what had happened. I explained about this incident at the pub. One of the people there was my niece’s second daughter. She was so pleased to see me. She said something like “Eric, wherever I am going to go to live in the near future, I want it to be somewhere near you”. I replied that there were a lot of other places in the World. She replied “yes, but not near you though”.

This is typical me, though. Always packs ten times more than he really needs. Running was another thing, and so is forgetting where I’m supposed to be going. As for my family, here we go again. Who on Earth in their right mind would want to live near me?

Finally, I had to go to a medical examination and it’s said that there were one hundred and forty pieces among the tour and some were trying to start before the others had finished. I told my daughter how dissatisfied I was and she told me that she’d alleviate these symptoms or cancel them altogether for either the awful growth and one of the holiday weekends later in the year. Back home, I was trying to pack for this trip. It was only for a couple of days but I couldn’t think of what to leave behind. Things like the computer and the camera made my briefcase weigh a ton. Then we had that race up the hill again in Dream Two and we carried on back from there.

This is another one of my dreams that means absolutely nothing at all to me. I have no recollection of any of this. As for my daughter, this is obviously a Freudian slip. Someone is trying to tell me something.

Isabelle the Nurse brought the rain in with her this morning. She was her usual cheery self, not that it’s much of a surprise seeing as she’s off on her week’s break later today. She dealt with my legs and then she bounced off outside again. I made breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

There was nothing worthy of report today, though. No interesting fortresses to track down.or anything like that.

Back in my office, I checked over this week’s radio programme to make sure that it was goos enough to broadcast and then sent it off. Next task was to check my Welsh homework, export the text into *.pdf format and then senf that off too for marking.

The rest of the time was spent revising my Welsh ready for tomorrow.

My cleaner came along to apply my anaesthetic and then I had to wait for the taxi. We had a couple of other people to fetch too. They lived at the Old People’s Home at Sartilly. It’s on the way, but we were still late arriving so I was late being plugged in. There’s a big shortage of staff right now so they had drafted a male nurse in from the AUB at St Malo. He was, well, not what I was accustomed to.

The chef de service came to see me to ask how it went at the Centre de Ré-education so I told him. He’s still going on about this chemotherapy so I told him AGAIN what they have told me before.

"We shall see" and I reckon that we will, too.

Emilie the Cute Consultant didn’t come to see me today so I was rather disappointed. It took me a good while to get over it and it was 18:40 when I finally left the hospital, with one of the passengers who had come down with me.

After we had dropped her off in Sartilly, we came back here only to be buffeted about by the wind so, as I said earlier, I had to come in via the back door.

My faithful cleaner helped me to a chair in the kitchen where I sat, completely exhausted for a while. And then I warmed up and ate the remaining half of yesterday’s pizza.

Now I’m off to bed, thoroughly exhausted once more. I need to prepare for my Welsh tomorrow so I’ll do that in the morning. I can’t keep going any more.

But before we go, seeing as we have been talking about Hissing Sid and daughters … "well, one of us has" – ed … one day, one of his daughters slithered over to him
"Are we poisonous snakes, dad?" she asked.
"No dear, actually we aren’t" he replied
"Thank heavens for that" she replied. "I’ve just bitten my tongue."

0

Sunday 30th November 2025 – WHEN I WENT …

… to bed last night, I was looking forward to a nice uninterrupted sleep all the way through to when Isabelle the Nurse would shake me awake by the shoulder when she comes in to sort out my legs.

And so waking up at 01:06 this morning was something of a disappointment.

It wasn’t as if I had gone to bed early either. It was well after 23:00 by the time that I’d finished everything that I needed to do and crawled in under the covers. Mind you, I fell asleep quite quickly with the kind of sense of relief that you have, knowing that a good sleep is just about the ideal solution for all known ills.

Anyway, as I said just now, I awoke at 01:06 and when I noticed the time, I was devastated. I was not expecting this at all. However, I was lucky in that I managed to go back to sleep quite quickly.

But only until 07:46 though. I might not have moved a muscle in the intervening period, but it was still not long enough to have really enjoyed it. What was worse was that I couldn’t go back to sleep afterwards.

In the end, round about 08:00, I gave it up as a bad job and arose from the Dead.

It would, of course, happen to be a day when Isabelle the Nurse decided to reorganise her round in order to give me more time to sleep, so she was rather put out to find me sitting at the kitchen table with my glass of hot ginger, honey and lemon drink.

She had something of a mumble about it, sorted out my feet and then went to carry on with the rest of her patients.

It took me about fifteen minutes to summon up the courage to rise from my chair in the kitchen in order to make my breakfast – coffee, porridge and home-made croissants from the batch that I had made last weekend.

While I was eating, I was reading more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN. I mentioned the other day that he had put me on the track of John Horsley’s BRITANNIA ROMANA. Codrington is not very impressed with Horsley’s interpretation of the Iter Britanniarum though, saying that "the way in which he dealt with the Itinerary distances is remarkable.".

Codrington talks about a Roman camp called Epiacum up on the northern edge of the Pennines. It’s described as "not rectangular but lozenge-shaped, with probably the most intricate system of defences of all the known Roman forts". So I had a little search around on an on-line aerial map, and what do you think ABOUT THIS? Isn’t it magnificent?

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And I was surprised to find so much on there. We were trying to smuggle someone out of mainland Europe last night into the UK. We had something of a trial run at one of the border posts but it didn’t work very well because he had a kind of wrong attitude towards the Customs officers and it rather shattered his nerve somewhat. So rather than adapting his behaviour and comportment, he just sat there like a clam and refused to co-operate. We tried everything we could to cajole him to coming along and crossing the border but each time, he refused. When we told him to prepare himself a drink, he’d prepare a drink and then pass it to one of us instead of bringing it with him. In the end, full of frustration, we decided that we’d leave him and go back on our own. There was no point trying to force someone. But there was some kind of dispute at the border between him and one of our army officers. It seemed that the guy at one time had stolen the girlfriend of one of the army officers, and that was what made one of the army officers in our group rather bitter and terse with him.

This dream probably relates to some of the issues that the Secret Intelligence Service had with trying to bring out their agents from occupied Europe in World War II. They had many different escape routes, but going over on a ferry would have been novel, especially as no ferries ran during wartime.

There had been talk of a giant whale stalking people in London. Things came to a head when it appeared before a group of Year Two children, so Holmes and Watson set out on the trail. They waited until it was a foggy night and then took a boat, and rowed to a wharf where this school was. These two young boys who were rowing were telling them stories about it. They climbed out and went for a little walk themselves, and stopped to have a bag of chips each. They put their chips on their plates and were sitting there outside, waiting. Suddenly, out of the mist, the whale appeared. The first thing that it did was to launch itself at the plate of Sherlock Holmes. He quite simply cut a piece out of it with his knife and fork and ate it. That was basically at the end of the drama.

There have been dreams involving Holmes and Watson before, but this one was one of those surreal ones that has no explanation at all.

I was somewhere in France. There was a road down which I had driven hundreds if not thousands of times, only today, I found that I was walking down it. When I reached the top of the hill, I noticed that there was an old car just at the edge of the field with a sign pièces detaches written on it. I’d not noticed it before, so I went through into the field and at the back was a kind-of wood or coppice. There were probably about thirty or forty old cars scattered around there, and there was some kind of workshop. Someone came by and asked me what I wanted. I asked if it was OK if I were to have a look around. The guy told me to please myself, so I did. Eventually, someone came over to me to chat. He pointed to an old 1930s-type car that was there. He said “I don’t know what I’m going to do about this because the cylinder block has cracked”. He couldn’t find anyone to weld it because it was such a long crack. I asked him if he had thought about re-sleeving the bores and putting smaller pistons in. I thought that when he had an idea that I knew what I was talking about, he began to chat with me. I told him that I had one or two old cars andA TRACTION. He replied “we have four around here”. I noticed that there was one that was being restored and painted. I told him that I would give my right arm to have a Traction that was running but he didn’t really hit on anything like that. We had a long chat, and then I found myself driving back into town again afterwards. I wasn’t thinking, and I was following two cars. One was a Rolls-Royce and one was something else. I suddenly realised at some point that we were going the wrong way down a one-way street. I hoped that no-one was watching and that there were no cameras. Eventually, I found the supermarket and grabbed myself a plate of chips with some weird Indian accompaniment. I had to struggle to find a seat in the café but I did in the end, and the chips were nice. But these Indian things, I wasn’t all that impressed. I decided that I wasn’t going to eat them after I’d tried a couple. Then I looked at the time and it was almost 18:00, time that I was due home, so I had to hurry up and move on.

This dream reminds me of that time ON LONG ISLAND when I stopped at this warehouse where I’d seen an aeroplane parked outside. I spoke to the manager of the place who interrogated me on my knowledge of the history of early aviation and, satisfied that I knew my stuff, allowed me in to see their prize exhibits, including a replica of Lindbergh’s Spirit of St Louis and sit at the controls inside it.

The Indian meal reminds me of tea last night.

Going back to that dream about the abandoned cars, later on, I was driving around somewhere in the USA in a hilly area. I found a nice patch of green at the side of the road where I thought that I’d pull up and I could eat my sandwiches there. I noticed that there was a group of kids in the field at the side. They were all playing about. One of them came over to say “hello”. I had a little chat with her, and it turned out that she was in Year 6 and was going to High School soon. She was talking about her new English teacher, that he was always crying and becoming angry. I explained that not everyone is always very happy and in a good equilibrium. Sometimes, people are like that and you have to push the emotions aside and push on with what you are doing. Learning English is fun. We carried on chatting and we talked about sports. It turned out that she wasn’t American at all. She was from somewhere else. She was saying that one thing she hated about the Americans was how they blew themselves up into something that they weren’t. They were always showing off etc, and how she couldn’t really cope with it. I told her a story about one of my niece’s children who played sports. They were playing against some team from a High School on a Native American reservation. There was one young lad who was winning everything, and no-one knew why he was so good until a few days later when they checked the results and discovered that he was an Olympic champion in some kind of events. That was much more like the way that people should be. She agreed. Then, one of her friends came over and the three of us began to chat. I said how well they had done, that they had gone through elementary school so quickly and were nearly ready for the High School, and I hope that they’ll enjoy it. Then, the school bell rang and they had to leave. I said goodbye to them and “maybe I’ll see you again”. I drove off and back over the hills with this beautiful view in the distance of what was going on in the valley.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have a lot of time for kids. I think that they have a really raw deal in life. They have such a lot to say, much of which is interesting, yet no-one wants to listen to them

There was football next. Stranraer v Clydebank in the Scottish Cup. The third round was full of shocks and surprises, with many clubs being knocked out by lower-league opposition, such as Dumbarton losing 4-0 at home to West of Scotland League side Auchinleck Talbot, for example.

And we almost had another one here at Stranraer, where but for several slices of good fortune, the score could have been 2-1 to Clydebank rather than the 2-1 to Stranraer, as the match finished.

This afternoon, I tackled my Welsh homework and waded through it from start to finish. I just need to review one or two questions and then I can send it off.

While I was at it, I was chatting to my friend from Munich, but I had to abandon that because Rosemary rang with a computer issue and needed help. It was another one of those long conversations where we can talk for hours about nothing at all, but it made me late for my baking.

The loaf that I made looks to be excellent, and the pizza really was delicious. However, I could only eat half of it, so the other half will do for tea tomorrow. Based on the weight, I’m eating between about a third and a quarter of a pizza that I would have comfortably eaten six months ago.

While everything was cooking, I wrapped my two Christmas cakes in baking paper and tinfoil, and they are now cooling in the fridge ready for marzipanning next weekend.

So now, horribly late, I’m off to bed. Dialysis tomorrow, unfortunately, but at least I’m only out twice next week, which is a major improvement. I can get on and do things.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Holmes and Watson … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was talking to Holmes not so long ago and I asked him how his crime investigations were going.
"Ohh, I’ve retired now" he told me. "It’s only the elderly who remember me and appreciate me. The young people don’t know me at all."
"So I suppose you’re really an Old People’s Holmes" I replied. "But do you keep up with the news from London?"
"Watson still lives there" he replied. "He keeps me up-to-date with the news."
"So he’s your ‘Watson in London’ then."

0

Saturday 29th November 2025 – I HAVE DECIDED …

… that tomorrow and all subsequent Sundays until further notice, there will be no alarm call. If Isabelle the Nurse comes along and finds me still in bed, then she will have to sort out my legs while I’m lying there, and after she’s gone, I’ll go back to sleep. I can’t go on like I am at the moment.

What didn’t help was that, after the football, it was a terribly late night. By the time that I’d finished everything that I needed to do, it was long after midnight when I finally crawled into bed.

There was no difficulty falling asleep either, and there I lay, dead to the World until BILLY COTTON shattered my peace.

Ohhh! How I wish that I could have stayed in bed. I was feeling absolutely shattered. It took a good ten minutes for me to summon up the courage to leave the bed and stagger off to the bathroom.

As well as washing myself, I filled the washing machine with dirty clothes and let it loose while I wandered off for my medication.

In the kitchen, there was yesterday’s washing-up to do before I could do anything else. How I hate waking up to that in the morning, but it gives you some idea of how tired I was last night that I left it. However, once I’d done it, I could make my hot ginger, honey and lemon drink with which to take my medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone but there was nothing on it from last night. Not that that’s a surprise, seeing how tired I was. What I did instead was to … errr … crash out on my chair.

Isabelle the Nurse took me by surprise when she arrived. Pressing the doorbell as she does when she arrives awoke me with quite a shock.

After she had given me the final injection of this series, she sorted out my legs and then wandered off. It took me another good ten minutes to be able to stand up and go to make my breakfast.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN and although there was plenty of interest, there was nothing that was worthy of a note in here.

However, our author did put me on the trail of a book written by John Horsley called BRITANNIA ROMANA, written in 1734. It contains information about what was known about the Romans at that time, and also visual descriptions of the remains. Judging by what Codrington has been telling us, a great deal of infrastructure was still standing in Horsley’s day but had disappeared by the time of Codrington.

When I’d finished breakfast, I went to rescue the washing from the washing machine and hang it on the clothes airer. And that almost killed me too, so back in here, I crashed out yet again.

When I came round, at about 11:30, I began to assemble the radio programme that I had been preparing. It took a while, but it’s now finished and ready to go. And so I watched the highlights of Barry v Hwlffordd from last night.

After I’d stopped for my disgusting drink break, I began to make my Christmas cake. And I’ve ended up with two because I made far too much batter. Does anyone want a spare Christmas cake?

It took over three hours to prepare them today, and of course, the week during which the dried fruit had been soaking, and they went into the oven on a low temperature for three and a half hours.

While the cakes were cooking, I made a start on another radio programme. This is another complicated one and is going to take some assembling. Sorting out the music is quite a task and I’ve still not finished that part yet

Back in the kitchen, I switched off the oven and checked the cakes. They are cooked to perfection, and now they need to cool down for a week or so before I can marzipan them, and then another week before I can ice them

But I’m definitely ill and I’m at a loss as to why. I’m totally exhausted, I ache in every conceivable place and I’ve lost all of my energy and enthusiasm. In fact, I’m really surprised that I’ve managed to do so much today, despite how ill I’m feeling.

So ill that, in fact, I made a very small portion of mushroom curry and yet most of it ended up in the waste bin. No dessert either. I just want to go to bed.

But seeing as we have been talking about baking a Christmas cake … "well, one of us has" – ed … you have to bake it in a fan oven turned to 120° for three and a half hours
When I lived in Crewe, I mentioned it to a local girl who wanted to know the details.
A few days later, I asked her how she had got on with it.
"It was a waste of time" she replied. "I tried what you said but after ten seconds, the cake just slid down to the side."

0

Friday 28th November 2025 – THERE’S NO DOUBT …

… about it – I really am ill.

Today has been a pretty miserable day as far as I am concerned. And it should have started so well too.

Having raced through everything last night, my notes were online quite early and I was looking forward to a nice, early night and a really good sleep. However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. it’s really pointless going to bed early, because all it means is that I awaken correspondingly early the following morning.

Like 04:05 this morning, for example.

At about 05:20, I’d given up all hope of going back to sleep and had risen from the Dead. I took full advantage of the early start by dictating the radio notes that I had rewritten the other day, so they were ready for editing.

Next stop was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I’d been out with some friends last night, and we’d been to rescue a car that belonged to one of them. When I went to pick it up, they asked me if I would drive it back. It was a Morris marina, and I couldn’t get the hang of the gearbox. It felt ever so tight to me. However, I managed to move it in some fashion and came into the city centre. I put the indicator on to turn left, but people stopped for me as if I wanted to go up into the church precinct. In the end, I had no choice but to go up into the church. We stopped there and waited for the traffic to die down, then we climbed into the car again, with me struggling with the gearbox to leave. I ended up being stuck behind an old, dirty bus and I suddenly realised that I was in an old, dirty bus too. I had to pull out from behind this bus without hitting it and somehow make my way forward. I pulled out and had to wait for a gap in the traffic. Just as I was about to pull out, a car suddenly appeared. I saw it over my shoulder and the guy with me said to his wife “did you see that? He actually used his shoulder”. He was quite impressed by that. So we set off, but then we had to go to a DIY shop for some DIY stuff for my house. They all set off running but I knew that it was miles away so I ran a lot slower to conserve my strength. But there was an incredibly steep descent and I could have jumped into the bus and let it roll down to the bottom of the hill but I thought that it would be most unsafe so I carried on running. Eventually, I arrived at this DIY place and found that they had all purchased everything and it was all stacked. However, they looked exhausted so and they asked about when we were going to load it. I replied “you need to take a break first because you aren’t going to load anything like that in that condition”. The guy in the shop said that as it was all on a pallet already, he could take it with a fork-lift truck and drop it down at the side of our vehicle.

The part about looking over my shoulder relates to the time when I was chauffeuring in Brussels. I had a General from the Finnish Army in my car and he asked me if I had been a motor-cyclist. I asked him why, and he replied "you’re always looking over your shoulder when you drive, just like a motorcyclist does. "

The friend was, by the way, related to one of the young ladies who come to see me during the night and it’s a disaster that she never put in an appearance. And we had a Marina estate once when I had my taxis. We were going to use it for parcels but, as always, I was overtaken by events.

One thing though was that I never drove “dirty old buses”. I was quite selective about whom I drove for and restricted my activities to Shearings and to a local firm with an excellent reputation.

By now though, I was wishing that I had stayed in bed because I was beginning to feel awful, nauseous and totally exhausted. Nevertheless, I went for a good wash and to make my hot ginger, honey and lemon drink for my medication.

Back in here, I could no longer concentrate on anything, and it was a very weary, depressive me that crawled into the kitchen when Isabelle the Nurse came round. She gave me my injection and sorted out my feet, and when I told her how ill I was feeling, she suggested that I go back to bed.

Strangely enough, that was my opinion too, but first I made breakfast and read some more of ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

As usual, I was sidetracked by the Iter Britanniarum as I followed the routes of some of these roads. Interestingly, he talks about a Roman agger or embankment that carried a road that crossed over the River Hodder in Lancashire. I had a quick look on an online aerial map and noticed a LOVELY CURVED EMBANKMENT NOW OVERGROWN WITH TREES, THAT COULD EASILY BE AN AGGER leading to the river, and if you zoom in to the river really closely, you can see what looks like a paved ford under the water.

There’s also talk about a Roman fort at Caersws in mid-Wales “in a bend of the River Severn with three concentric defensive rings” and, allowing for modern erosion by the river, I FOUND THIS.

A little earlier, I’d mentioned going back to bed but I couldn’t even go that far. I staggered onto my office chair in the bedroom and promptly fell asleep again.

When I awoke, over an hour later, I was still feeling ill but I pushed on and edited the radio notes that I’d dictated earlier. So that programme is ready to be assembled now.

The taxi came early to take me to the Centre de Ré-education so I had to wait around for a while when I arrived.

My first session was with the relief physiotherapist as mine was on a training day. She exercised my arms and legs for a half-hour period that passed surprisingly quickly.

The second session was with the occupational therapist but he didn’t really offer a great deal of help and we were finished after fifteen minutes.

After waiting around for a while, I saw Elise the Dishy Doctor. I poured out my tale of woe, and we decided, after a lengthy discussion, to suspend all of the activities at the Centre de Ré-education until the doctors at dialysis decide that I’m fit enough to restart, whenever that may be.

In the meantime, she gave me a prescription for twenty-five sessions of physiotherapy at my own pace in some local cabinet. However, as my faithful cleaner said later, finding one that has a vacancy is going to be a real challenge.

The final session was this standing upright in this frame thing but I abandoned that after twenty minutes and went to look for my taxi home.

My cleaner helped me into the apartment and then I collapsed into a chair in the kitchen. After she left, I came back in here and, once installed in my comfortable chair, I crashed out again – until, would you believe, 19:45.

For tea tonight, I made a batch of hummus and ate it with some crackers while I watched the football – TNS v Caernarfon. TNS had the lion’s share of the game, of course but the Cofis kept them out for eighty-two minutes.

Two late goals, one of them with the very last kick of the game, gave TNS another win, and once again, the Cofis played the match without any great sense of urgency going forward. They really are going to have to play better than this if they want to make their mark.

So right now, I’m off to bed. Totally exhausted, but relieved to some extent that I’m only out for two afternoons next week. This is some kind of progress.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Finnish General … "well, one of us has" – ed … when I went round to his apartment once, he had a large stuffed black bear in his hallway.
He told me a story about it that I could easily believe to be true and underlines the misunderstanding when two foreigners are conversing in a third, foreign language.
He was holding a cocktail party and one of his guests, an Italian lady, asked him about the bear, and the conversation continued in English.
"I shot it myself" he replied.
"So is it the complete bear there? "
"Oh no. It’s just the fur "
"So what did you do with the bear itself? "
"We ate it"
And so she went round this cocktail party with stories of the General dragging the dead bear into a clearing in the forest and then sitting around a campfire eating it raw while it was still warm and fresh.

0

Thursday 27th November 2025 – FOR TWO PINS …

… I’d have gone back to sleep after the alarm sounded this morning. It was another one of those days when I have never felt less like leaving the bed.

If the truth be known, I should have gone to bed much earlier than I did, but as usual these days, I dillied and dallied and dallied and dillied and generally managed to waste a lot of time while I was finishing off the evening’s work. As a consequence, it was another evening that was much nearer 23:30 than anything else, and probably approaching from the wrong side too.

Not that I was all that tired either. That sleep that I had at the end of the afternoon probably had an influence on everything because, apart from everything else, it took a good while for me to drop off once I’d finally made it into bed.

At some point I remember waking up, but it wasn’t for very long and I was flat out, dead to the World when the alarm went off. And what wouldn’t I have given to have been able to have gone back to sleep. However, with the nurse coming around every day, a real, proper lie-in these days is quite impossible.

It was a real struggle for me to rise up from the bed before the second alarm, and then we had a desperate stagger into the bathroom for a good wash and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant at dialysis this afternoon.

In the kitchen, I made my hot ginger, honey and lemon drink to wash down my medication, and then I came in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was going out with a group of US Cavalry to make a large armed patrol into Native American lands. I was appalled by the lack of security that was going on there. There was a General in charge, and he was insistent that the natives wouldn’t attack because we were so numerous, but I thought that that was a crazy situation to suggest because they will attack when you least expect it, in a manner that you least expect it and a place where you least expect it. You need to be at security all the time, for example, at night, he just set up a kind of camp on the plain and didn’t mount any serious attempt at pickets or guards. About a mile away, there were some rocky slopes. That’s where I would have gone to have my camp at night – amongst the rocks on the slope where you are pretty much hidden from view from what’s happening down in the valley, and you would have immediate defence if there were any problems and you came under attack.

These books that I have been reading about the US cavalry in the late Nineteenth Century are clearly preying on my mind. I must be doing too much reading, I suppose. It’s interesting that I’m happy about giving tactical advice to US generals but seeing the mess in which managed to find themselves in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan etc, it’s not too difficult.

Later on, we were on board a train heading from Italy to Germany. It was one of these super-high speed trains. It was travelling at an incredible rate of speed, and it came to a new tunnel that was twelve and a half miles long so it shot into this tunnel and out the other side. I went and stood outside the carriage for some fresh air after that, but when I looked back in, all of my seats had been taken and there was no room for me. I waited for a moment until we stopped at a station, where everyone alighted except my friend and me so I could sit down again. Then we thought about making breakfast. There was a kind-of grill in each carriage so we made some breakfast, bacon, sausage, things like that. Suddenly, my friend looked at the time and said “we’ll be in Munich in an hour and we haven’t made the beds or anything”. He asked me if I would go to fetch the suitcases, but I explained that I didn’t think that I could manage the two suitcases on my own, so he began to become agitated. “And what are we going to do about making the beds?” he asked.

Unfortunately, I’m not likely to find myself on a train these days, least of all travelling between Italy and southern Germany, much as I would like to. It’s simply a totally impractical proposition, never mind being able to sit outside the carriage.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up to give me my injection, and then she sorted out my legs. Her happy mood is still continuing, which is nice. I don’t know what it is that she takes, but I wish that she would give me some.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN. We’re up on the moors right now, north-east of Manchester, and I’m still tracking down these camps along the way, trying to identify them.

Back in here, I had things to do and then I rewrote some of the radio notes to make them longer. I can dictate them the next time that I awaken early, I suppose.

My faithful cleaner turned up to fit my anaesthetic and then I had to wait for the taxi. Once aboard, I had to go to the depot to witness a game of “musical chairs” as they swapped drivers around. Once I had my new driver, I could set off, but I was still late arriving.

It took a while for me to be seen, and once more they took a measurement of my dry weight. When they coupled me up, they didn’t want to take everything off but I managed to persuade them. If I’m not back for four days, I want to be ahead of the game as much as possible.

Emilie the Cute Consultant was there today but she ignored me again. She really doesn’t love me any more, which is a shame. I was left pretty much alone all through the session, something that suits me fine.

The taxi was waiting for me when they unplugged me, so I wasn’t back home as late as I was fearing. I had pasta, vegetables and ratatouille for tea, followed by some of my ginger cake.

While I was at dialysis though, they gave me a booklet that included a recipe for a pear cheesecake, and I reckon that I can make it into a vegan recipe with no difficulty. I shall give that a try one of these days.

But not now because, having already fallen asleep once while I was typing my notes, I’m off to bed before I fall asleep again.

But seeing as we have been talking about the Romans … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was chatting to a friend about Roman numerals
He told me "I have enormous difficulty trying to remember Roman numerals. If you asked me how you write, for example, 1, 1000, 51, 6 and 500, I wouldn’t have a clue. It makes me really angry."
"Is that so?" I asked.
"Oh yes" he replied. "I’M LIVID"

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Wednesday 26th November 2025 – AND ONCE AGAIN …

… I crashed out in the chair in my office during the late afternoon.

That’s something that I really must stop because it’s really driving me insane, all of this. I’m not managing to complete anything that I set out to do.

Part of it is probably due to the late night that I had. I can’t keep these early nights going for any consistent length of time. By the time that I’d finished everything that I needed to do at the end of the evening and crawled into my nice, clean bed, it was well after 23:30.

Add to that, the fact that for a couple of hours, I was totally unable to go to sleep might also have had something to do with it. I lay there tossing and turning and trying to make myself comfortable, but to no avail.

Eventually though, I must have gone to sleep because I remember waking up. I lay there, half-awake, for a little while and then checked the time. It was 06:28, one minute before the alarm but not before it enough to be able to be sitting upright with my feet on the floor when the alarm went off and claim an early start.

Instead, I just lay there waiting.

Eventually, I managed to force myself out of bed and went off into the bathroom.

Next stop was the kitchen, where I made my hot lemon, honey and ginger drink to wash down my medication. And then back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was with TOTGA and her daughter, her son and her slightly older daughter. We’d all gone to the seaside. TOTGA was sitting there thinking that maybe she would like an ice-cream so daughter and I went for a walk. We had a chat, and it turned out that her elder sister had had some kind of accident a few months ago and it was something that was recurring. When I asked where she was, her sister replied that she was in hospital again and her mother was off doing something else, she didn’t quite know where. We walked along together down the seafront and it began to be cold and rainy somewhat. She pointed to an ice-cream stall halfway up a set of steps so we climbed up these steps and went into the ice cream stall. There were lots of people milling around and they all recognised the girl. Anyway, we bought three cornets. I noticed that mine didn’t have a flake in it and hers had two and her mother’s had one. Then we walked as if we were heading back home. We came to a place in the street where she wanted to cross the road so we had to worry. She went in and I found that it was a health food shop. She was wondering if they had any of these products – she wanted some breakfast nuts, something like that. We had a look around, still holding these ice-creams and she found what she thought might be fine. She explained that her brother was looking for these and had not been able to find them anywhere else. But at the ice-cream stall, everyone knew the girl and they were all talking about her, whether she was coming back to work there again. However, I was certain that she was far too young to be working in a place like that, even on a Saturday.

So welcome back, TOTGA, even if it was only for a short while. It’s been a while since you’ve featured on these pages. However, instead of two daughters and a son, it’s two sons and a daughter, but let’s not go letting the facts stand in the way of a good dream… "perish the thought" – ed …

The idea of walking around the town with melting ice-creams is a bizarre one, but the conjuring trick with the flakes is the kind of thing that Zero would be more likely to do, rather than TOTGA’s daughter.

Later on, Nerina and I had been driving taxis last night and it had been a slow, slow day. We’d done about three or four jobs, that’s all, and were sitting at the side of the road in a lay-by having a chat. Someone came over with a big parcel and we thought that this might be a fare but it wasn’t. It was just someone chatting to a neighbour. In the end, Nerina decided that she’d go back to the rank. Before she did, someone in a blue uniform came over. He said that he wanted to book a taxi for 04:00, but it was only a short trip. I said to Nerina “ladies first” so she began to note the details. However, she said “we already have this job” when she looked at the paperwork. “It’s down for 03:55”. The guy apologised and then needed some help to be pushed onto the bus that turned up, because the bus was crowded and there wasn’t very much room on there for anyone else.

Strangely enough, the subject of taxis has been something that has featured quite considerably elsewhere in very recent times. But things would help if I stopped trying to remember the things that I did forty years later and how I could improve on them if I were to do it all again, something that I have absolutely no intention of doing.

Isabelle the Nurse drifted in, dressed for an Arctic winter. Apparently, it was minus 2°C when she set out on her rounds this morning and she had to scrape the ice off her windscreen. “Winter is acumen in, lhude singe Rudolph” and all of that.

She gave me my injection, sorted out my feet and then drifted out again to brave the Arctic temperatures. I made breakfast and read some more of ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

In fact, I didn’t read all that much of it. I ended up being sidetracked into the Iter Britanniarum – the guidebook said to have been prepared for the Emperor Augustus although it’s suggested that it was the Emperor Caracalla who was its sponsor, seeing that it includes much that was not in existence in the time of Augustus.

It’s like the kind of thing that we had in the distant past, a kind of “RAC Handbook” listing Roman roads, wayside stations, inns and the like. I’ve been following Codrington’s book and using the Iter Britanniarum to plot where the wayside stations might be. If one considers that a Roman mile – a mille passum – was actually one thousand double paces, and is equivalent to about 0.92 of a modern mile, the distances given in the Iter Britanniarum are surprisingly accurate.

Back in here, I had things to do and then I began to edit the rest of the radio notes that I’d dictated the other day.

Later on, I knocked off in order to prepare for the Centre de Ré-education. The taxi was late coming to pick me up and I missed the first ten minutes of my session with the occupational therapist.

Not that I missed much, because despite spending a week searching, he couldn’t find anything more practical than the system that we were using. However, he did suggest a liberal usage of anti-slip tape. On the other hand, I prefer four good stainless steel screws myself.

My second session was with my physiotherapist and she worked me quite hard today, forcing my legs into all kinds of impossible positions. I was so exhausted after this session that I couldn’t lift myself up off the bench.

And that was all today. They had cancelled my next two sessions! But let’s not be carried away by this because there are stil four, and sometimes five sessions for the next couple of visits.

One of these visits though is to see my doctor, when I shall tell her how I’m feeling.

It was another desperate struggle to the taxi to bring me home, and another desperate struggle to come into the apartment. I really don’t know how I would manage if my faithful cleaner were not there to help me.

Back in the apartment, I collapsed into a chair for half an hour, trying to summon up the energy to move, and then I moved into the office where, regrettably, I fell asleep.

Once I’d awoken, I completed the radio programme but I’m a few seconds short. I shall have to re-dictate something to include a few more notes in order to make the commentary rather longer.

Tea tonight was rice with vegetables and a vegan burger, followed by ginger cake and a mandarine … "PERSONdarine" – ed … and lemon soya dessert. It really is nice too.

So now, I’m off to bed. I’ve done enough for today and I have the delights of dialysis tomorrow. Let’s see what my water retention is like, then I hope that they won’t want me to come in on Saturday.

But seeing as we have been talking about ice-cream … "well, one of us has" – ed … Crewe was very famous for its ice-cream vans, made by SC Cummins and Co. They were exported all around the World, but even so, there were always plenty plying the streets of the town.
One day, out at Queen’s Park, a girl from Crewe went up to an ice-cream van there and asked for a chocolate ice-cream cornet
"I’m sorry" replied the salesman. "I’m out of chocolate ice-cream"
"But I want chocolate" she insisted.
"I’m sorry" replied the salesman.
"But sorry is no good! I want chocolate!"
"Look" said the salesman, exasperated. "If you took the ‘s’ out of ‘strawberry’, what would you have?"
"trawberry" replied the girl
"And if you took the ‘p’ out of ‘pistachio’? "
"Istachio " she replied.
"And if you took the ‘f’ out of chocolate?"
"But there’s no ‘f’ in chocolate!"
"And isn’t that what I’ve been trying to tell you for the last ten minutes?"

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Tuesday 25th November 2025 – AS I HAVE …

… said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. there is absolutely no point whatsoever in going to bed early, because all that it seems to mean is that I wake up correspondingly early the following morning.

And that, dear reader, is why at 05:34 this morning, I was sitting at my desk working.

Last night, having finished off my half-pizza (which did not require any preparation – just warming up) I’d finished tea quite early. And so I came in here, dashed off my notes, did everything else that I needed to do, and was in bed just a few minutes after 22:00. And wasn’t that nice for a change?

Once I was asleep, I remember nothing at all until about 03:30, but I was soon back to sleep and there I stayed until about 04:30. When I awoke at that time, I couldn’t go back to sleep, no matter how hard I tried, and so, after an hour or so, I decided that I’d leave the bed and make the most of an early start.

The first thing that I did was to dictate the radio notes that I’d written the other day. And then re-dictate some of them because for some reason, I’d missed off the first twenty seconds or so.

While I was at it, I found some notes that I’d written a while back for another programme and hadn’t recorded, so I dictated those too while I was at it.

As an aside, what I do is that if I’ve written notes and entered them into the spreadsheet that I keep but have yet to record them, I give them a light green background so that I can see them at a glance as I scroll through.

The next task was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was at Pionsat last night at the football club with the President. We were talking, and I mentioned that there was a British guy who played centre-half for several lower-league clubs and was rated quite highly. For some reason, he had disappeared off the radar in the UK. When I performed a search for his name, it turned out that he was playing for FC Rouen in France. The guy from Pionsat said that that must have been a good career move because there were plenty of British players now playing in France who were making their careers for themselves. He asked me if I knew someone called Mulliner who plays for one of the clubs down south. The name rang a little bell with me but it was all that I could think of. But we were talking about the football club and playing friendly matches. We said that they had one team that played in blue and another one that played in red, and when they were playing against other teams, they had a shirt that was a quartered blue and red that they used to wear and still did when they were playing friendlies.

Blue and red quartered shirts were our old colours for the school football teams. Not that I would really know, because I was only ever selected once. That was the problem when you had two players in front of you for your position, one who was on the books of Crewe Alexandra as a schoolboy and went on later to play professionally for Wycombe Wanderers, and the second who played semi-professionally for Northwich Victoria in the Nationwide Conference.

The only “Mulliner” I know in the footballing world was a goalkeeper who played for several clubs in Mid and North Wales in the Welsh pyramid. As for the centre-half, I can remember his name from the dream and while he’s never likely to have played for FC Rouen, he certainly had a “most interesting” career.

Later on, I was at work and one of the people came over to me with a piece of paper or a notebook or something. He asked “is your friend taking the mickey or something?”. I had absolutely no idea what he meant, so he showed me that on a page in this notebook thing, he’d drawn out the basis of a graph or a table, but he’d made it so small that there was no room to write any figures in between the lines. I looked at it and asked “why didn’t he turn it round ninety degrees or maybe go across two pages in the notebook?”. We couldn’t work out why he’d done this. It would be a puzzle to put any figures into this table. Then he was trying to work out what some kind of hieroglyphics meant at the bottom of the page of this notebook. Eventually, it dawned on me that it was a list of days, and then there was “HD” alongside it, so I asked “I wonder if that’s when he’s planning to take a holiday?”. The guy said “I’m not going to be here by then”. I asked “why not?”. He replied that he’d only come here on a temporary basis to learn the work and he was moving on somewhere else. I said that I was terribly disappointed by all of this because we happened to get on well with each other. He was about the only person with whom I did. He agreed but he was disappointed by the social life of this place. He said that there didn’t seem to be any at all. I replied that most of the parents seem to be far too egocentric and didn’t really want to mix at all at any other time outside the office. The only thing that was any kind of social in any degree was the cricket team, but that only took place in the summer and that was just one night per week, but that was just about everything.

Funnily enough, there was someone with whom I worked who would have fitted this description. He was the only person there whom I liked and we used to play snooker together. As for the cricket, though, I mentioned just now that I never really had the change to play as a goalkeeper (which was my favourite position) at school but when Nerina’s work organisation needed a wicketkeeper for their midweek cricket team, I found my niche. From there, I played a few times for a good-class local cricket team too when they couldn’t find a wicketkeeper.

When I’d finished, I went and organised myself in the bathroom and then into the kitchen for the hot ginger, honey and lemon drink to take with my medication.

Isabelle the Nurse interrupted my reverie when she breezed into the apartment. She gave me my injection and then organised my feet. We had a nice little chat while she was here, but then she moved on quickly.

Once she’d left, I made breakfast and started my new book, ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN by Thomas Codrington. It’s an interesting book because it tells us not only about the situation of the roads, but goes into details as to the construction

You can tell how old the book is, though. He notes that "the Roman paving has recently been cut through in a trench for laying a telephone tube along the Edgware Road ". A “telephone tube”. That’s some ancient history of course. It’s harking back to the compressed air systems that existed in big cities for the pneumatic powering of lifts and so on.

But he (and the workmen) pay a huge compliment to the Romans. "The workmen found that it gave them much more trouble to break up than the modern concrete floor above.". Imagine what a typical local council road will look like in two thousand years time.

Back in here, I went to revise for my Welsh and then attended the lesson. It went OK – not as good as some of them have been just recently, but much better than many in the past, But I need to sort myself out because I have notes everywhere and need to tidy them up.

After a disgusting drink break, my cleaner put in an appearance and she helped me have a lovely, warm shower. And you’ve no idea how much I appreciate it.

She also brought in the post, and one of them was a copy of a report from the dialysis centre. It lists all of my complaints and how I’m being over-taxed with medical appointments, but concludes rather ominously by saying "the patient’s morale is quite low. He’s talking about abandoning his treatment. We strongly recommend that he sees a psychiatrist."

Well, your morale would be low if you were going through all of what I’m going through. As for the psychiatrist, God help the person who draws the short straw and is obliged to probe the depths of my dark, subconscious mind.

Once I’d finished, I came back in here where, regrettably, I crashed out again. And for quite some considerable time too. The early morning doubtless had something to do with it, but I bet that the general fatigue had something to do with it and that’s rather sad.

After I awoke, I edited some of the radio notes and assembled one of the programmes. That’s now ready to go and I’ll do the other set during the week.

Tea was vegan pie with mash and vegetables followed by ginger cake and chocolate sauce, and now I’m off to bed, a nice clean boy in a nice clean bed because my cleaner changed the bedding while I was in the shower.

But before we go, seeing as we have been talking about filling in forms … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember someone from Crewe who once did a “drop-in” at a local factory to enquire about employment prospects.
"But you haven’t filled in our questionnaire" said the secretary.
So the man from Crewe went back outside and beat up the doorman.

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Monday 24th November 2025 – THESE LONG SESSIONS …

… at dialysis are quite difficult to bear, but I’m going to push ahead with them all the same for as long as I can, especially if it means that I can have an extra day at home.

By the time that I made it back home this evening, I was totally exhausted, and it was just as well that my tea tonight was already prepared without any intervention on my part.

It wasn’t a particularly late night last night either. By the time that I was finally ready for bed, it was about 23:20 and there have been nights much later than that in the past.

Once in bed, I was asleep quite quickly and there I stayed. I’d no idea what time it was that I awoke because I didn’t check the time as I usually do. But I was contemplating having a quick glance at the time when BILLY COTTON beat me to it; so it can’t have been too far short of 06:29.

As usual, it took a few minutes for me to find my feet, and then I staggered off to the bathroom. In the kitchen, I made my got lemon, ginger and honey and drink to go with my medication, and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone.

It’s surprising how much there was on there too, considering that I remember nothing at all. There were different kinds of spraying machines. I counted about three different types, and for one type, water came out of the jets with such force that it lifted the pipework up off the ground. Someone wanted to know the name of that type of thing, and I knew it but I couldn’t think of it. It was something like the Douche Marie or something. I was wracking my brains for ages and I couldn’t actually think of another name by which that kind of machine is called.

Everyone has seen these videos, I imagine, of people holding two Kärcher pressure washers, one in each hand, and being lifted off the ground by the force of the water. It was something like that.

And then I was on my way to a family wedding. I arrived at some different town and was walking through there looking for the place to go. I came across a bathroom so I thought that I’d nip in there and read the time, but it was pitch-black and I couldn’t see what time it was. But my mother was there. She stuck her head in and saw me, and was about to say something but she changed her mind and walked away. After I’d finished sorting out some water, I went into the main room. There was all my family and everyone whom I knew so I simply said “hello, people”, found an empty chair and sat down … fell asleep here … and anyway, so they were sending meals around at some point during all the speeches. My meal came on my black glass chopping board. I thought that this was unusual. There’s a special name for a meal that’s served like this but I couldn’t think of it at the time and I still can’t now.

As if I’m ever likely to go to a family wedding. But why would my black glass chopping board feature in one of my dreams like this?

There was a taxi to go to the station but the taxi was hours late arriving. We were all beginning to panic about this. We’d made enquiries about walking there but I’d have to change partner thirteen times between my house and the station. There was me, my girlfriend, my brother and his girlfriend or wife and we were waiting. Another taxi turned up for someone else so we asked about ours. The driver decided that he would go back to the depot and find out what was going on, and my brother went with him. Just then, our taxi turned up so I shouted to my brother but he didn’t really pay too much attention – he was too busy on the ‘phone. So we went somewhere into the vehicle, but there were some things like some plastic hurdle fences in there so we’d have to fight our way around them to get into the car. For some reason, I sat in the front instead of in the back with my girlfriend. The car set off and after we’d been driving for a couple of minutes, I noticed that my brother wasn’t on board. I asked what happened to him, and one of the girls said that he had decided to run. I thought that thirteen changes of partner was a lot, but it’s bound to be more now. This is making life extremely complicated to reach the railway station on time before the train that we wanted departs.

These dreams of indecision are a regular feature of my nocturnal rambles, but it’s usually to do with my activities rather than someone else’s. And who was the girlfriend? Fancy having a girlfriend in my dreams and not knowing who she is. That’s a sad state of affairs.

There was a film being shown somewhere. I had a friend of mine round and I recommended to him that he went to see it, because it was an extremely classic film. I was away – I had some taxi jobs to do – so I went to pick up a family from a poor area of Crewe and they actually had a copy of the book and one of the kids was taking it with him to read. So off they went and off we went. A short while later, I had to go to take them home. I’d picked up my friend from the cinema in the meantime and when I reached the home to drop off these people, I saw that the boy put this book in the waste paper bin. I picked it up and said that before I go, I’ll mention to the family to see if I could borrow this. We went off somewhere else and while we were driving, I noticed that the book was on my dashboard. I’d mentioned that I was going to ask to borrow it but it looks like I already have.

The film was actually THE RIDDLE OF THE SANDS, based on A BOOK OF THE SAME NAME written by Erskine Childers. The book is much, much better than the film, even if Jenny Agutter is in the film. It concerns a couple of amateur yachtsmen who stumble across a rehearsal for a German invasion of the UK just before World War I. I actually have a copy of the book.

Ironically, when Childers was serving in the Royal Naval Air Service in World War I, he carried out many patrols over the area from where the invasion was said to take place. However, he came to a sticky end after the war. An ardent Republican, he was executed by the “Treaty Irish” in the aftermath of the Irish Civil War.

With that friend, he was a guitarist – he wasn’t, he was a drummer – and we were round at my house because we were going to meet some guitarist. There was a concert or gig being played and he’d been looking for a bassist and a drummer. My friend asked what kind of music we’d be playing. I said that according to this guitarist, it would just be basic, well-known twelve-bar standards. He asked whether this person was a boy or a girl, and I said “I don’t really know. I’ve never actually met who it was”. We set off and reached this rehearsal hall and there were several people there. I gave some stuff to whoever was in charge to make a meal. He looked, and told us of four or five things that were missing. So we piled into this car, and had another girl with us and we set off for the shops. I suddenly realised that the Intermarché in Pionsat was much closer so we went to the Intermarché at Pionsat and wandered round, picking up the things that we needed. I noticed that at the till, there was a bin full of reduced stock. I looked in, and there was a huge tin of custard powder there for sale for €3:01. I thought “it’s a long time since I’ve had some real custard” so I added that onto the list too. There we were, with all this food that we’d bought and I thought that at this rate, these rehearsals are going to be over and it’s not really worth going back because it’s taken us so long to do all this shopping.

Wouldn’t it be nice to find a giant tin of vegan custard powder somewhere? I’m having to make do with a sweetened béchamel sauce with vanilla flavouring and it’s not the same.

The nurse turned up as usual, but he didn’t stay long. He goes off on his week’s break this evening so I imagine that he wanted to finish his rounds as quickly as possible. I could then push on with making breakfast.

This morning, I finished MY ARMY LIFE by Frances Carrington, or Mrs Grummond as she was at the time.

In the past, we’ve talked about how certain words in the English language have changed their meaning over the passage of time. At least, I hope that that’s the case here when she talks about the commemoration of the battles up on the Bozeman Trail, saying "It is well the programme was no longer, or I should run out of expletives"

And like the previous Mrs Carrington, she has no sense whatever of irony. She notes, when talking about the area in which the battles took place, that "it is not to be forgotten that the Sioux themselves had stolen it from the Crow Indians" and "many of the Sioux, themselves, were beginning to realise that their occupation had been one of force, and not of inherent right."

Just what, exactly, was the American army doing up on the Bozeman Trail in 1866? Pot calling the kettle “black”, methinks.

She also notes a report from one of the contemporary local newspapers in Sheridan, that "the time ought to come before many years, and will come, if the present policy is carried out, when the Indians will have the same rights and duties as other Americans"

That was written in 1909 and we are still waiting even now for this to come to pass.

Back in here, I checked over my Welsh homework and sent it off, and then I spent the rest of the morning revising for the lesson tomorrow.

My faithful cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic, and that I had to wait for the taxi. Not only was it running late, due to a weird decision by the controller to insist that the driver took her break in the middle of nowhere, we had to pick up in Donville les Bains and then miles out on the road to Villedieu.

As a result, I was quite late arriving but at least, I was connected up quite quickly without having to wait around.

Or so I thought. One of the needles failed and they had to start again later.

Apart from a brief visit from the doctor, I was left pretty much alone, and when I was finally unplugged, the driver was already waiting for me.

Back here, my cleaner helped me back to the apartment, then after she left, I warmed up the half-pizza from last night. It’s even nicer twenty-four hours later.

But right now, I’m off to bed, ready to recover from my recent efforts. And I need a decent recovery because I’m still quite exhausted and I can’t see it ending.

But seeing as we have been talking about invasions … "well, one of us has" – ed … the Duke of Wellington was told during the Napoleonic Wars that a prominent group of citizens planned to form a regiment of volunteer cavalry "but not to be sent overseas".
With one of his usual scathing remarks, he replied "except in the case of invasion, I suppose."

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